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kydrogendragon · 9 months

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I saw your birthday post and had an idea. It's comics canon Dream gets obsessive over his romantic partners, but... But! I wanna see that kind of obsessive devotion showered on his friend. His friend who waited and procured a new meeting place. No romance, no sex though QPR levels of skinship would be nice. I could see them both being different levels of touch starved. I would love to see 0 to 100 levels of friendship. Dream should get the chance with Hob who has already shown such loyalty.

We got our fifth post for the day!!

Ohhhh I loved this promp, thought! Honestly, this deserves it's own full length character study-type fic cause there's so much you can do with it here. I tried my best to fit bits in in a coherent manner and tried my best to show that obsession and devotion without it feeling like it dove too close to the "romance" track.

Thank you so much, anon! Hope you enjoy!

Relationship: Hob & Dream Words: 4141 Warnings: None Ao3 Link

The first time that Dream met with Hob Gadling after escaping Fawney Rig and restoring his realm, he had expected a great many things. What he hadn’t expected was for the White Horse to have been demolished and for his friend to create a new meeting place for them. The words The New Inn hung proudly against the brick building and a sense of warmth emanated from it in a way Dream had not experienced in many years.

Hob Gadling greeted him with a smile. Dream shouldn’t be surprised by this. The man was a well of optimism and joy. He has always looked upon life with a sense of wonder and excitement that Dream could hardly fathom. He should not be surprised his arrival was treated with that same level of happiness.

Still, he was surprised nonetheless.

They had talked well into the night, far past the normal operating hours of the establishment, but it did not matter when Hob owned the place. Being here with Hob, simply talking and listening to the mundane stories of his life, brought a peace to Dream. It was a comfort to simply be in a way he has not known how. When he was imprisoned, even then he had not simply existed. He was far into his mind, constantly staking out any weaknesses in their defenses or gaps in their bindings. Even when he had not moved in over a hundred years, Dream had not known rest.

But here was different. In these walls, rebuilt and lovingly fashioned with friendly intents and hopes, and with Hob’s cheerful baritone voice washing over him, Dream could finally relax. It was a strange sensation, one he fought initially, but sometime, after most patrons eased out and it was just the two of them, Dream managed to let the tension in his shoulders drop.

Then, Hob had invited him back. He had said Dream was welcome to visit anytime. Didn’t matter when, he was welcome. It was an offer he had never received before. A standing invite, one that Dream well knew Hob meant with all his heart, was a rare thing to be extended to anyone, let alone an Endless. And yet, the impossible immortal did so anyways.

Which is why Dream is currently sitting on Hob Gadling’s couch in the dark.

He had shown up to his flat the next day. Repairs in the Dreaming were progressing and, if Dream is being honest, he missed the sense of comfort he got from being near his friend (a friend. He did not have friends. And yet, he now has one.) Dream had failed to account for his work schedule, however, and upon arriving in Hob’s living room, found the place empty. It was no matter. Hob had told him he was welcome at anytime. He could wait.

Dream had explored the living room, trailing a finger across book titles and picture frames, ghosting touches over ancient artifacts with stories so embedded within, it made Dream smile. He brushed against the daydreams of sunlight and warmth from the plants upon his window ledges and, when the sun began to tilt down, heading for the horizon, Dream plucked a book from the expansive selection of Hob’s personal library and began to read.

He had lounged upon the plush fabric couch, his boots fading to sand as he tucked his legs underneath him. The book in had was an original print, well loved and well worn. The pages still carried with them the dreams of the author, though faint. It had also been many years since Dream had simply taken the time to read a book himself. Yes, the knowledge, the story told, it lay inside him, but the act of turning each page, of reading each word, there was something also calming about it.

Dream was nearly finished when Hob Gadling finally arrives.

The door creaks open into the darkness that’s settled into the room. There is a faint glow from the streetlights outside. Dream watches as his friend shuffles his bag off of his shoulder as he closes the door behind him. He tosses his keys on the counter beside him and sighs. “Ah, Christ,” his friend mutters, slinging the bag onto the counter as well. He looks up. Then he screams.

Dream blinks.

“Jesus, fuck! Dream?” Hob cries, stumbling backwards into his front door, one hand raised out, as if prepared to defend himself.

“Hello, Hob.”

His friends sighs and visibly sags. Dream frowns. Perhaps the invitation had not been made genuinely. Perhaps he should leave-

“Christ, you scared me, my friend,” Hob says, chuckling to himself. “Are those... do you have cat eyes?”

Dream blinks again. “Cat eyes?”

“Yeah, s’what scared me half to death. Two beady little eyes staring up at me in the darkness.”

“Ah,” Dream says, closing the cover of the book in his hands and setting it on the coffee table in front of him. “They are stars that you are seeing. They are not cat eyes.”

As Dream’s gaze lifts back to his friends, he sees Hob just staring at him, mouth slightly agape. “Right. Stars.” He says. Hob takes a steadying breath before nodding. “Sure. Star eyes. Why not.” Dream follows Hob’s movements as he makes his way to the kitchen and flicks on the soft under cabinet lighting. It brightens the room, but not considerably. The soft glow is comforting, almost. “Tea?”

Dream nods as he stands. He makes his way to the other side of the counter, watching Hob go through the motions of preparing two cups of tea. He pulls down a pair of novelty mugs, chuckling to himself as he reaches for the black mug peppered with small stars. He looks over to Dream with a smirk. “Star mug for Mr. Star-Eyes.”

It is after they had drank their tea on the comfort of Hob’s couch in the darkness and when Hob’s foot taps against his leg with a smile at a joke he cracks that Dream begins to realize that he cares quite deeply for this man that he calls friend.

It is a month later when Dream returns to the New Inn. It is not his third visit, but rather his tenth, though this one is special. He had brought with him a gift. It is customary, he has found, to give gifts to ones friends. And, Dream finds, he wishes to. Hob Gadling, who waited, who was loyal. Who stayed here, knowing Dream would return eventually when he had given him every reason to believe otherwise. He showed a level of faith he’d seen only in one other - Lucienne. And she had been his Raven, his first. How better to reward, to thank, such faith, such loyalty, than with a gift, spun from dreamstuff by his own hand?

The fine metal bracelet rests in his coat pocket. It it warm against him, thrumming with his own power and vibrates, perhaps a bit too excitedly, against his hand, eager to fulfill it’s function. Dream steps into the building that has become as close to a home in the Waking as Dream could ever know. Hob sits at their usual table, engrossed in his laptop. He walks forward, pulling his usual seat out, and sits as Hob looks up and greets him with that familiar smile.

“Well, hello there, my friend!” Hob says, closing the top of his laptop. He crosses his arm atop it. “How are you doing?”

“I am well. Yourself?”

Hob smiles and dives into their usual routine. He talks of work and his students, he talks of the staff and the customers. He talks of the frustrations with the Dean and the lack of support for a new course he wishes to teach. Dream makes a mental note of this. But most importantly, he talks of himself, of his latest botched cooking attempt and his struggles with keeping his newest plant alive.

As the conversation naturally ebbs, Dream speaks. “I have a gift for you.” Hob’s eyes widen comically.

“A gift? For me?”

Dream nods and reaches into his coat pocket. The thin gold metal band shines in the overhead lighting. It is simple in design, though the underside of the band contains script of a language few speak any longer, though Hob was borne into. The Middle English reads, “Min Gadling”. He holds it out on his palm in front of Hob.

His friend looks between him and the bracelet, shock and confusion on his face, but reaches forward, slowly, and plucks the metal from his hand. Dream sighs, his hand retreating, as the dreamstuff hums in Hob’s hold. He examines it, turning it in his hands, when his eyes finally spot the text. He inhales sharply as his eyes dart up to Dream.

It is in this moment that Dream realizes, perhaps, this gift is too much. When he’d broached the topic to Matthew, his raven had ensured him that gifts between friends were fine, though the examples given were often food or small tokens. This, he realizes, may not qualify as appropriate gifts.

Dream tenses, his mind already spinning tales of possible ends, most of which involve Hob revoking his offers of friendship, of visitation permission. Even in friendship, it seems, he is too much. Then Hob speaks.

“You know, my last name apparently means companion or comrade.” He smiles. Dream lets out a breath.

“It can also mean rogue,” he replies, allowing a small smile to grace his face in return.

Hob chuckles. “Yeah, pretty sure that’s what mine was meant to mean.” He looks back down at the bracelet, fondness in his eyes. “Thank you for this. It means a lot. Truly. I don’t have much with my true name on it these days. It’ll be nice to have something always on me to remind me where I came from. How far I’ve come.” His eyes lift, meeting Dream’s. “The friends I’ve made along the way.”

Hob fiddles with the metal in his hands, his brows furrowing as his eyes dart across Dream’s face. “Not that I’m not grateful. I am. Completely! And I love it and will always happily accept any gifts, but… why?”

“I-” Dream starts, letting his eyes fall to the table between them. The truth? Dream wished to bestow upon Hob all that he could offer for everything Hob has given him. He wished to thank him for his friendship, for his stories and companionship. He wished to offer him but a paltry piece of the debt he has piled himself with off of Hob Gadling's kindness. He wished to see Hob wear that which marks him as his, as his friend, his one and only. Dream only knew intensity. His lover often complained of such, but change does not come easy to Dream. And in friendship, it seems, he is no different.

“Friendship bracelets, I’ve been told, are common in this century, are they not?” It is far from the truth, though it was the inspiration for the gift’s form.

“Well, yeah,” Hob chuckles, finally sliding the bracelet over his hand. It shrinks, fitting his wrist perfectly. His friend’s mouth drops as he stares at the metal. “I- did that just shrink?”

“Yes,” Dream replies. “It will adjust to whatever size you desire.”

Hob runs a hand through his hair, his eyes glued to his wrist. “I’ll never get over just how incredible you are, you know that?” Dream smiles, preening under the praise. Hob shakes his head and manages to tear his eyes away and turn back to Dream. “Anyways, yes, friendship bracelets are a thing, but they’re usually small things made of twine or colored yarns, not decorative metals with fancy scripts and fancy magics. Besides, usually friendship bracelets have a twin. One for each of us.”

“Oh?” He has made an error, it seems. One that can be resolved quickly. He moves, readying to whirl in a matching bracelet for himself when Hob speaks again.

“But! Key part- I have to make yours. Just, you know, don’t expect anything as fancy as this, yeah?” He says, waggling his wrist just above the table with a grin.

Ah. The act of the creation is as important to the function as the bracelet itself. “I look forward to the fruits of your labor then, Hob Gadling.”

If the Dean suddenly wakes up with an overwhelming nagging feeling to greenlight Hob’s proposed class the next morning, who’s to say?

The first time Hob truly touches him, Dream stiffens. They are out visiting the newest exhibit at the Natural History museum. Hob was staring up at a wall-sized painting of a Titanosaur, the largest dinosaur, according to the various placards in the room. Dream had been talking to the inaccuracies of the painting, noting a distinct lack of fur and a poor distribution of fat when a large school group makes their way through the smaller hallway they are standing in.

The hoard of teenage youth slide through, jovial and pointing at various pieces of arts and relics as they pass. Hob reaches out, a hand resting on Dream’s back as he guides the pair of them a few steps closer, making room for those walking by. His touch is warm and melts into his core like honey-sweet syrup. The sensation is so startling, Dream simply… goes. He follows Hob’s hand and allows his friend to move him. Then, he returns his hand to his side.

Dream, on principle, does not allow touch, not unless he wishes. And he most certainly does not allow for people to move him. But, he finds, his mind allows both of these to Hob Gadling, even if he had not consciously made the choice. It is a strange realization, learning the allowances he would have for his friend. The worst is Hob seems oblivious to the inner turmoil occurring in Dream.

The strangest, he supposes, his how a part of his wishes to list into his friend, into his warmth again. It has been mere minutes, yet he is left wanting for the feeling. He looks down, his eyes drifting beside the nameplate to the right of the large work of art as Hob’s voice washes over him again, talking of archeology and his desires to “give it a shot, one of these lives.” Perhaps, Dream thinks to himself, he has been without touch for far too long.

The second time Hob touches him, Dream had initiated it. Well, more than he had the last time, at least. They are in his flat, this time, resting on the couch, watching a movie Hob had insisted upon. It is evening in London. A few boxes of Thai takeout rest on the coffee table beside a plate of biscuits Hob had made just for Dream after learning his preference of the sweet things. He has a blanket draped over his form, another insistence from Hob. He claimed movies were always better when bundled up, then accused him of always looking cold.

Dream had been unable to argue against him. He was always cold. It lingered on the edges of his form. The memory of cool, unforgiving glass pressed against his skin, chilling him to his core. Though, Dream is certain he has been cold for longer than that. But with Hob, in his flat, under a well-loved blanket that feels and smells of his friend, Dream finally feels almost warm.

Hob sits beside him, still upright, still near, as he works through the last few bites of his Pad Thai. Dream could shift his foot just slightly and rest it against Hob’s thigh if he so wished. So he did. The slight curve of his foot melds into the soft give of his warm flesh, covered as it is by corduroy. Hob tilts his head back and to the side, eyes looking at Dream with a question in his brow.

He stares at the television, refusing to meet Hob’s gaze. It was an ask, nonverbal as it was. He did not wish to see the rejection should it come. But it didn’t. Instead, he felt Hob shift, setting down the now empty takeout container on the table and shifts, letting his arm drape over the back of the couch as he presses back against Dream’s foot. When he finally glances over at Hob, he’s met with a gentle smile before those warm brown eyes turn back to the movie.

If Dream rested his head against the back of the couch, just beside Hob’s hand, and if he let his eyes fall closed as fingers carded through his hair, he would never say.

“Hey! I was hoping I might see you today,” Hob called from his usual spot in the New Inn. Dream made his way over to the seat across the table and looks at him with a confused frown.

“Is something the matter?” Was he in trouble? Or perhaps Hob was finally shifting from this current life to the next one. He had talked with Dream about running out of life left in this place after all.

“No, nothing bad, don’t worry.” Hob said with a smile. He turns, digging through the bag to his right. He exclaims in joy as he pulls forth from the depths of his bag a small paper box. Sliding it across the table, he looks up, excitement in his eyes.

Dream reaches down, plucking the small, light-weight box from the table. Already, he can feel the daydreams that waft through the box from the object inside. Tales of friendship and hope, of care and consideration flow through. Most importantly, though, is how he is the focus of all these daydreams. When he removes the lid and sees the delicate black leather cuff inside, he knows exactly what it is.

“The twin to your friendship bracelet, yes?” Dream asks, taking the leather cuff in his own hands. It is thinner than many cuffs. Perhaps two fingers wide, but the face is decorated, stamped with care, with trailing vines and images of birds - ravens, he suspects - in flight. It is not perfect. There are imperfections in the stamping, shadows of a second press just slightly misaligned from the first. The stitches are mostly even, though there are spots, Dream notices as he rubs his thumb over the edges, that are off– a little too close to the edge, a little too far from it.

It is imperfectly perfect. It is human and hand-made. Dream would not have it any other way.

Hob nods, speaking as Dream slowly buttons the leather cuff around his wrist, letting the softness of the well-worked leather cement him more firmly into this form. “Yeah, took forever trying to think of what would match your all black ensemble. Figured a dark stained leather would be a safe bet. Plus I’m shit at weaving.” He smiles, watching Dream’s deft fingers finish securing the leather around his wrist. Dream turns his wrist, watching the light cast shadows in the small indents of the hide.

He has not been gifted things often. Less so is he gifted things with the sole intent of giving him something without wanting something in return. He is also nearly certain that this is the first time he has been given something with the intent to match, so that they each hold claim over the other. Dream shivers at the thought. Hob had eagerly accepted his gift, his mark, and that alone had been a heady thing. This? Having Hob Gadling's mark upon him? Having the spoils of his work and effort, all done solely for him, so that they’d “match”?

There are tears in his eyes. Hob’s face falls into one of concern. “Hey, you okay? Is it too much?” He asks, resting his hands, palms up, on the table in front of Dream. An offer of comfort, if needed. Hob has always been considerate in this regard since that movie night in his flat. The offer of touch has become an open one, though gestures such as this make accepting it all the easier.

Dream rests his hand, the one bearing the black leather, on top of Hob’s own. Warm fingers wrap around him instantly, giving him a gentle squeeze. “No,” Dream manages, tearing his eyes away from their hands and up to his friend’s face. “It is perfect. Thank you, my dear friend.”

And Hob smiles. “Anytime.”

It has been well over a year since Dream returned to the Waking, since first returned to Hob Gadling. He has just arrived for their newest tradition: Monday Movie Nights. Matthew rests on his shoulder as he stands outside the door to Hob’s flat, a bottle of wine plucked from his own dreams along with the venison pasties he had so wished for Dream to try back at their 1589 meeting.

Hob opens the door with a wide smile and ushers them both in, taking the food and drink from Dream’s hands with a fond chuckle. “Grab these from a dream, did you?” Hob asks, setting both offerings on the coffee table next to the fish and chips and the plate of biscuits. There’s also a small bowl on the table beside the chair that Matthew has taken to resting in full of different seed. “Can’t imagine you slaving away in a kitchen.”

“Ha!” Matthew cries, flying from Dream’s shoulder over to the chair’s armrest. “Now that’s something I’d pay to see.” His raven cranes his neck up, watching as Hob uncorks the wine and pours them both a glass. “Can you even cook? Like, I know you don’t usually eat, so you probably don’t really need to cook. And you could probably just… magic up food if you really wanted it.”

Dream sits on the edge of the couch, waiting for Hob to take his usual spot before getting comfortable. He whisks away his boots and coat with a thought, letting them fall into sand, disappearing before hitting the ground. “I contain the collective subconscious, Matthew. I could cook if I desired to.” He takes the offered wine glass in hand. Hob nabs the remote from the table and falls back into the plush cushions. He wears his usual lounge wear, the cuffs of his joggers riding up his legs slightly. He leans back, his spine pressed into the soft curve of the edge of the back cushion as it flows into the armrest. Dream scooches himself closer, letting his back fall against his friend’s chest as he settles himself between his legs.

He has found, after a night spent in tears in Hob Gadling’s arm after telling him the tale of Fawney Rig, of cold glass and dried blood, that he feels calmer than ever when enveloped in his warmth. So, when the situation allows, Dream lets himself be draped in Hob’s arms and enjoys the solidity he finds in the touch and the warmth. Hob has since admitted, during one of their previous movie nights, that he is happy Dream enjoys these moments, that he’s missed being able to hold someone close like this.

Dream had been surprised at the time. Hob was always a touchy person, based on his interactions with others, though after the many many months together, he’s found that while Hob may have other friends and expresses his affections through hugs and touch and friendly slaps on the back, he misses this. He lacks the skinship they have with each other here. Human society may be getting better at allowing such gestures among friends, “cuddling with the homies” as Matthew had so gracefully put it, was still not widely accepted. But they had each other. And that was enough.

Hob’s arm wraps around his center, holding him close, his other sets his glass down on the side table next to Matthew’s seed. He hits play on the remote and retrieves his glass again, giving it a gentle tap to the edge of Dream’s own. He smiles, tilting his head against Hob’s shoulder.

The movie plays. Dream snacks on the freshly baked biscuits and even tries one of the venison pasties, much to Hob’s delight. He will admit, they were quite tasty. Hob, himself, works a steady pace through their acquired snacks and drink and sighs contentedly when he sets down his emptied glass of wine. He and Matthew chat, commenting on the film and it’s poor special effects work while Dream listens. The fireplace below the television crackles gently.

Dream smiles, closing his eyes as he lets his mind focus on the friendly chatter, the warmth of Hob’s body against his own, and the the feeling of happiness that starts to stir inside of him. He must thank his sister one day for bringing Hob Gadling into his life. Dream doesn’t know what he would have done without him.

#dreamling #hob gadling #dream of the endless #the sandman #ky writes #Kydrogen's Birthday Prompts

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shieldedreams · 2 years

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[🦋] goodnight my love (n.s. + l.a.)

summary ⇾ in which you can’t seem to sleep and they... details ⇾ 885 words / neteyam sully x na’vi!reader + lo’ak sully x na’vi!reader (both separate) / 🌸 fluff / established relationship / gn!reader / the sully’s and the reader are in the omatikaya clan (at the hometree) notes ⇾ i wanted to do something a lil’ different of writing reactions for just neteyam and lo’ak! like mini-fics of the same situation for our fave sully boys ✨ more to come in this format!

on most nights, it was fairly easy to fall asleep; to succumb to slumber after a long day but tonight didn’t feel like most nights. instead of feeling like sleep would soon consume you, your eyes were as wide as an owl's as you stared at the pattern of leaves above you with the light glow sprinkled about in the night.

[🦋] neteyam with a soft sigh, you carefully turn to your side, lightly jumping in surprise to see that neteyam was already staring at you with a small smile on his face.

though surprised, it... truly was a nice surprise to know that you weren’t awake alone. it seems like it’s been brewing in his mind, the question he wants to ask, and it shows even in the way he looks at you.

the answer, comes out in a question: “can’t sleep?”

you shake your head with a sigh, shifting closer towards his welcoming arms that curl around you tighter. it’s secure, it’s comfort; it was home. you find your face slotted along the expanse of his neck, your hands meekly slinging around his waist as he leans his head against yours gently.

“don’t know what’s wrong with me,” you murmur, “i usually sleep well with you...”

“wanna go for a walk?”

you lean back just enough to look up at him, meeting with his coy smile that already has the answer.

“that’ll be great.”

the night didn’t go the way you had expected but it felt right nonetheless. neteyam easily lured you down from the trees, an occasional creak here and there but for the most part, silently treading away from the hometree. as you leisurely walk with neteyam, stories spill out of nostalgia and the serene that the peace of the night offers. he feels at ease, his heart swelling as he watches and listens to you speak of happy memories with your hand in his. though neteyam may or may not have fallen asleep, this was much better than sleep, anyway.

tl;dr: this lovely boy would try to help you by going for a walk, or other ways to take your mind off things so it gets you to sleep. it feels like he’s a sensitive bean, and too considerate for his own good, so he’ll try to make sure you sleep first before him (if he can, if not, he’s told you to wake him up if you can’t fall asleep). expect long walks, climbing trees, going to a river, maybe even him stroking your head to lull you to sleep. (not neteyam finding other ways to hold you despite already quite literally cuddling you to sleep)

[🦋] lo’ak your eyes open for the umpteenth time, a soft huff leaving your lips as you do. that grants you the slightest shift of lo’ak’s arms around you as he groans into your neck, making you turn into a statue at the fear of waking him up but it seems–”y’know, if you couldn’t sleep, you could’ve said something.”

you remain unmoving until you see lo’ak peels his eyes open and the way he’s smiling has you lightly hitting his arms holding you captive. when the hilarity subsides, you’re conscious that lo’ak is awake with you; his eyes are merely observing your features, resting on your lips as you say: “sorry, i didn’t mean to wake you.”

“wasn’t exactly asleep,” he chuckles, moving away so he’s able to face you properly, “do you wanna... just talk?”

that gets you to turn your body so you’re facing him with a raised brow, “you wanna talk to me until we fall asleep?”

“do you actually wanna move?” he scoffs.

he sees the answer in your eyes and the way you press your lips together, making no moves to... move.

“what do we talk about?” you ask, softly, as if you’re shy and lo’ak finds this all the more amusing. instead of teasing you, he decides he might as well take this opportunity to talk to you; as cheesy as it sounds, he appreciates being able to at any time of the day. even if it’s when he’s supposed to be sleeping.

“hm... how was training today?”

it was such a simple (and initially silly-sounding) question but it’s one that usually gets the ball rolling. from a question that’s asked on the daily, it easily threads to something else, jumping from point a, to b, to c, to the rest of the alphabets that lo’ak can’t ever keep count (but he doesn’t need to).

what lo’ak does know is that it’s seemingly helping you ease the weight in your heart restricting you to sleep. funnily enough, it helps him rest easy that night as well as he curls you into his embrace and feels like he can breathe right when he watches you drift off to sleep.

lo’ak slept with a smile on his face that night (as he does with many, many nights of having you in his arms).

tl;dr: cheeky little thing would just wanna talk to you as a way to get you to be tired. he loves hearing the sound of your voice; it calms him as much as his voice calms you. he’ll ask questions to hear stories, to hear your opinions (maybe even a debate here and there) but for the most part, light-hearted conversations and occasional sentimental mentions; pouring your heart out to one another.

#avatar fanfic #avatar scenarios #avatar the way of water #neteyam x reader #neteyam sully #neteyam sully x reader #neteyam scenarios #neteyam fanfics #lo'ak #lo'ak sully #lo'ak sully x reader #lo'ak sully x you #lo'ak x reader #loak x reader #loak sully

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truthdogg · 6 months

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Did you know that the US Constitution does not give citizens the right to vote? There is no affirmative right to vote in the original document, only a requirement that the states define it. Amendments forbade discrimination based on gender and race relatively recently, but deciding who can vote has been a contentious issue since the country was founded. From the start (for the most part) only property-owning white men had the privilege, but even that varied by state and location, and few founders believed that universal suffrage was desirable or even possible in a democracy.

Teri Kanefield has written a great summary of the practice— link and except are below. This has been a contentious issue from the beginning. Just because you have the privilege today, don’t expect that people in power want you to keep it.

A government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” raises a question: Who is included? Who are the people? It is obvious that if you can’t vote, you are not one of the “people” in “We the People.”

If you zoom out and take a look at the history of voting rights from 30,000 feet, you see this:

In the colonies and early America, the right to vote was restricted to white men who owned property. (Some colonies imposed other restrictions.)

“Jacksonian Democracy,” the era of President Andrew Jackson, expanded the franchise to all white men. The Jacksonian idea was that a poor barely literate white man on the frontier should have the same voice as a well-educated easterner. (Jackson—an unrepentant enslaver, a slaughterer of Native people, and a fan of white men on the frontier—despised East Coast “elites.” As a practical matter, those elite Easterners generally didn’t approve of taking land from Native people, whereas those white guys on the frontier were fine with raiding and plundering lands belonging to Native people, so Jackson wanted their votes.)

After the Civil War, the vote was extended to Black men in theory. In practice, voter suppression tactics and terror tactics kept most Black men from the ballot box.

The 19th Amendment added all women, in theory. In practice, it added white women.

The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960s attempted to expand the right to vote to all Americans by enforcing the 14th and 15th Amendments. The 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18.

The current Supreme Court majority is not a fan of these voting rights acts and has sought to cut them back on the grounds that the Constitution does not contain an affirmative right to vote.

Until you get to that last part, you might think that “the history of voting in the United States has been characterized by “a smooth and inexorable progress toward universal political participation” until Justice Roberts and the current Supreme Court majority. Nope. This is from the Oxford Companion to American Law:

The history of voting rights has instead been much messier, littered with periods of both expansion and retraction of the franchise with respect to many groups of potential voters.”

#us politics #voting #constitutional originalism #originalism #voting rights

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starrysnowdrop · 2 months

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Dawntrail Review and Thoughts

So, it’s taken me a while to not only finish the msq but also to gather my thoughts, but here’s my review of Dawntrail, as well as what my OCs and their ships will be doing during 7.0. I’m going to be doing bullet points and trying to be as concise as I can. I’ll try not to ramble!

As expected, MAJOR spoilers for the entire 7.0 msq ahead, so please don’t click below if you don’t want to be spoiled!

CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

What I Enjoyed

The graphics update really shines in the Tural zones, because everything is so beautiful!! The weather effects, the textures, god it’s all stunning! I took my time just looking around at everything, and over and over I stopped and just stared at flowers, or water, or mountains in the distance.

Even the later zones were outstanding, but my favorite zone by far is Yak T’el, especially the lowlands where the Mamool Ja are from. It reminded me so much of Macalania Woods from FFX, and I already have some gposes planned in that area for a reason. It’s probably my favorite zone in game right now.

The world building in DT is excellent, and I also loved learning all about the different peoples and cultures found throughout Tural. I actually liked how the WoL is learning about Tural alongside Wuk Lamat participating in the Rite of Succession. Though the msq was slow at times in the first half, I didn’t mind it really because I was taking my time doing side quests and getting all the Aether currents along the way.

For the most part, I really enjoyed all the new characters that were introduced in DT, and I also loved that we learned about Krile and Erenville as well. I wish some characters had a bit more screen time and development, but overall the characters themselves were great, except for one that I’ll get to later.

The new lore that DT has established, especially with the key that allows travel between reflections, and now with a sort of merging/failed rejoining?? of a reflection with the Source via Alexandria, I am extremely excited to see where the overarching story is going from here. And you all saw that the key had the Azem symbol on it when it was activated, right? Yeah, that plus the fact that we got a LOT of new Lalafellin lore via Krile’s origins and such, I am eating all the lore up!! Azem AND lala lore??? I’m in heaven and I’m so excited to see how this will effect Hali’s story in particular moving forward (as she’s a lala and she is my Azem).

What I Didn’t Enjoy

I actually enjoyed the beginning of the MSQ with the rite of succession. The biggest complaint I had with it was that it was slow in some parts, but honestly that’s about it. The second half feels like it could be its own separate expansion really. But that’s also not really an issue.

After much thought, I realized that I was so disturbed by how the Alexandrian culture worked in the second half of the MSQ that the last zone didn’t hit me emotionally enough for me to care about the Endless.

I was vibing with the story up until Living Memory. I understand how Krile, Erenville, and even Wuk Lamat would be conflicted about shutting down the terminals and “erasing” all of the Endless as they say, but me as the player, it did not hit me emotionally like I suspect that it’s supposed to. I was like “okay, these people aren’t real, just shut it down. Why do I care?”

Another thing is Sphene as an antagonist. I just did not like her at all, and to me, she is one of the weakest antagonists we have had so far. I hated how the narrative was trying to convince us that Sphene was originally a good person who had good intentions, and that we should empathize with her, but it didn’t make me care at all for her in the end.

It goes back to my point before that the way the Alexandrians use souls as a commodity and don’t seem to care that they’re using other people’s souls to extend their own lives, and that they don’t even remember their loved ones because their memories get erased so they don’t experience the pain of death, it all disturbed me so much that I just did not have much sympathy for the Alexandrians or Sphene.

What This Means for Hali

For Hali, she has recently learned Pictomancy alongside Krile, and she will be the one who is helping Wuk Lamat with the Rite of Succession; Aymeric is going with her and remains with her all through 7.0 and potentially the patch content.

She will be with Wuk Lamat, Erenville, and the others throughout 7.0, and though she will have a really hard time dealing with the Alexandrians and how they treat souls, memories, and the like, as she will be highly disturbed by it all, but she follows Wuk Lamat’s lead nonetheless.

Hali is enjoying playing the Mentor figure and being the source of advice, comfort, and the muscle whenever she is needed, while Aymeric is a tremendous help for Wuk Lamat when it comes to learning about leadership and navigating through her first days as the new Vow of Resolve.

Overall, Hali’s story follows the MSQ nearly identically, except that Aymeric is with her and they both are advisors and mentors to Wuk Lamat. After the final battle, Hali and Aymeric stay in Tulliyollal for a bit longer to actually have their vacation time.

What This Means for Yume

(Yume’s side blog: @firelightmuse)

For Yume, her DT experience will be vastly different from Hali’s. As she will be in a committed relationship with Zenos by then after she saves his life following their duel in Ultima Thule, Yume will begin DT by wandering Tural with Zenos and hunting down Tural Vidraal as a newly trained Viper.

Yume and Zenos will not be assisting in the Rite of Succession for any candidate, nor will they be involved with any of the politics. However, they will show up to help in the defense of Tuliyollal both times that the city is attacked, and they will be involved with the final battle alongside Hali and the other WoLs (shoutout to my friends’ OCs Meeps @meepsthemiqo and Astrid and Arslan @traveler-of-light).

Following the final battle, Yume and Zenos will also remain in Tural for a while (for the patch content I suspect) before they head back to their home in Shirogane.

That’s all I have for DT reactions for now. If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for taking your time reading all of this! I’m super curious as to what all of your thoughts are, so feel free to comment or send me an ask or whatever! Once again, thank you!! 💖

#ffxiv dawntrail #dawntrail spoilers #7.0 spoilers #ffxiv headcanons #hali aloke #oc: drops of jupiter #hali x aymeric #ship: hold me closer #yume aino #oc: paint it black #yume x zenos #ship: bad romance

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linksthoughtbrambles · 3 months

Note

Thought I'd give you a one word prompt for any of the Zelinks: Ghost.

@nocturnalfandomartist, thank you, thank you, thank you for this prompt. This astonished me more the more I wrote - and I couldn't stop writing. It may be longer than you bargained for at 9K words, but I enjoyed writing every single word of it. I will write at least one follow-up. This is a canon-compliant sequel to What to Expect When Fetch-Questing and a loose sequel to The Seeds of Love, Well-Worn and What Once Rang Hollow (with a few continuity differences for that last one) but it can stand easily on its own. Rated T, post-TotK, humor, drama, and romance. Also available to read on ao3.

Eternal

Link was extremely pleased he had his own arm back.

Unfortunately, he was the only one.

Purah (“Are you fricking KIDDING me?! I wanted to study that thing!”), Robbie (“I must repair my balloon myself?!”), Impa (“Mmm—a pity. With it, we might have learned how to create our own constructs—perhaps incorruptible ones.”), Paya (“That’s too bad, Link—it looked good on you!”), Tauro (“Ahhh. I’m sure you’re feeling better, but I was hoping I could learn more of the Zonai language from it, somehow.”), Calip (“It’s gone?! What did you do with it? You should’ve given it to me as an expert in these matters!”), Sidon (“My dearest friend! Where has your adult arm gone? Are you well?”), Yunobo (“Oh NO, Link, you lost your cool arm!”), Tulin (“Oh mannn. You still have my pledge, Link, but I don’t think I should just…slap my rune on your body. We gotta get you some rings or something.”), and Riju (“I didn’t expect you to look so much smaller without it.”), not to mention every single member of the monster control crew, and essentially anyone in Hyrule who ever recognized him, all thought he’d been better off with part of Rauru grafted onto his body.

Even Zelda wasn’t (entirely) an exception.

She did appreciate Link’s hands during their personal time (“I must admit, Link, I’d have felt strange were you doing this with a Zonai’s hand rather than your own”), but the scholar and sovereign in her definitely mourned the loss of such a unique artifact.

“Link, is there any chance you still share a psychic connection with Rauru?”

“Nope,” he said.

She blinked at him.

“Sorry,” he said, blushing and sheepish.

Now that the depths, sky, and newfound caverns had created vast opportunities for exploration, research, and innovation, Zelda’s original aim of rebuilding Hyrule had essentially tripled. She and Link knew if they didn’t make depths exploration and settlement official, people would do it on their own and get themselves killed (or the Yiga would claim it, and Hyrule would be threatened again in a few centuries). So it was, indeed, official as were new initiatives to investigate Zonai technology—making the Great Abandoned Central Mine one of several hubs of Hyrulean activity in the depths. Its proximity to the healing spring directly beneath the Shrine of Resurrection had made it a frequent destination of theirs.

Link and Zelda materialized beneath the Koradat Lightroot to the weighty vertigo of silence in the dark beyond the root’s oasis. It was the same every time—some quiet dread sinking into the deepest pit of Link’s belly, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. He kept telling himself it would be better once people settled, with their warm lights and the sounds that come with them going about their daily business. Zelda kept telling him otherwise. (“We oughtn’t fill this place to the brim with light, Link. We would disturb its ecosystem severely”).

Link was usually on board with leaving nature undisturbed for the most part.

Maybe it was the time he’d spent down here in utter silence but for his own footsteps, utter darkness but pale flowerlight shot into a black so matte it may as well have been death’s void; the pressure of vast expanses of pitch-black felt nothing like a sea of undisturbed trees far above in the light.

There wasn’t even any wind.

Were both nature? Yes. Were both natural?

It didn’t feel like it.

“Shall we?” Zelda said.

It severed Link’s fledgling reverie. He tore his eyes from the lightless maw beyond Hylia Canyon and turned to join Zelda in descending the steep slope on the path toward the Great Abandoned Central Mine. He gave her a small smile, though he knew, from her face, it didn’t reach his eyes.

Her return smile did. “I hear one of our survey teams discovered another root in that direction,” she said. “We merely- ah- well-“

“Have to figure out how to light it up without my arm,” Link said.

A hint of pink dusted Zelda’s cheekbones. “Yes. Sorry, Link.”

The mine’s central structure loomed in the distance, its light cold, the highest statue of the ancient Gerudo sage always watching, an intimidating glower over the hilt of her sword aimed at any who would ascend the formidable stair toward its main entrance.

“Hello, Aratra,” Zelda whispered, as she always did, as though the woman herself could still answer her.

As they neared the bottom of the hill, blue flickered in Link’s vision. “Zelda,” he said, pointing to the small cluster of poes coming into view on the left.

The spectre of that intimate grief between them passed over her face as she nodded.

He didn’t say it wasn’t her fault.

Since he didn’t say it, she didn’t say it could be.

The words floated between them, spoken so many times they’d become an immutable understanding: that she’d been too slow, that he’d been too silent, that they’d both been too obedient to the long-dead king whose grave Zelda still brought blue gentians to in the early days of each summer.

That neither of them blamed the other for it.

That they’d both spend the rest of their lives making up for it.

And that they’d do it together.

Neither of them knew whether the spiritual flames were casualties of the Calamity.

Link only knew the vague sense of relief he felt when they entered him. It felt like they felt safe—sometimes, he even sensed joy—and they clung to him so hard.

They clung to Zelda, too, it turned out. As they approached, the spirits snapped eagerly into whichever of them was nearest, nestling somewhere unfathomable within them until released to a bargainer’s care. Link still didn’t trust the bargainers, exactly, though they intended to visit the one in the mine that day.

They didn’t talk much. They usually didn’t when sliding through the depths’ silence—sound felt like a beacon to whatever might be beyond the lightroot’s reach; yet they moved in unwavering agreement, sweeping up every poe in their path and off it within sight. It’s why they took the long route to every work site.

They veered far off the path at one point to collect a dozen wayward souls atop a half-buried ruin of a toppled archway.

“If we go much further, we’ll be at the spring rather than the mine,” Zelda said.

“Yeah,” Link answered quietly. They turned to rejoin the path further up, hugging the rounded base of a monumental column presumably carved by nature, reaching the impossibly high ceiling of what was far, far too large to consider a mere cavern. It was like a space willed into existence by the gods themselves.

Link’s mood lifted as the sounds of civilized activity reached him, more and more distinct as they neared the foot of the quadruple-flight of stone stairs beneath the statue’s feet. Link caught a glimpse of a Sheikah scientist, little but a few motes of color on the highest level of the structure, cheerful construct “Brrrp!”s reflecting toward them off any of hundreds of stone facades: every surface the same pale grey—every light cool and lifeless.

Link couldn’t imagine living in such a place. With an irritated grind of his teeth, he realized he strongly preferred the haphazard Yiga structures, with their paper and oil lights and bound wood. The real, green-leaved brightblooms were also better than the Zonai’s artificial torches.

“Rupee for your thoughts,” Zelda whispered.

Link huffed. “The place needs some color.”

She paused on the stairs, a third of the way up, her torso shaking with laughter and her hand squeezing his tight.

Link tried not to smile. He didn’t want her to think he liked being laughed at.

“Link,” she said, holding her stomach, “that is…precisely the sort of observation I ought to expect you to make.”

He really tried to keep a sour grimace on, but he knew his lips were going twitchy.

“Unfortunately,” Zelda said, eyeing his lips with suspicion, “I am no longer in a position to pass on your criticism of Zonai décor.”

Link snorted. “Neither am I. But I definitely would’ve said something to Rauru if I’d seen this before he disappeared.”

“I have no doubt! And truly, you’re right. I cannot imagine spending any great length of time down here with nothing but grey stone and white light.”

Link nodded. “At least not without experiencing crushing environmental depression.”

Zelda inclined her head, no longer laughing. “Indeed. It makes one wonder.”

“Wonder what?”

“…Whether the monsters find it as unpleasant as we do,” she said, her eyes sweeping the far-off dark.

Link let that one sink in as they made the landing. Zelda touched the dais on which her old ally stood with reverence. When her hand slid from the porous stone, they continued up the staircase on her right. The chamber below would wait until later.

They ascended among tents clustered on the flagstones before the forge, lining the walls both natural and Zonai-made right up to the great arch. They littered the circular courtyard on the other side of the building, too, the royal crest and symbols of the Sheikah, Zonai Survey Team, and Gerudo adorning many. The familiar sound of a fan whirred somewhere above them, out of sight.

It had been quite a stroke of luck, really, that Link had activated these facilities before Rauru’s arm vanished. The constructs had still recognized him as their “primary authorizer” and he’d been able to grant access to others.

He admitted, though, it was getting cumbersome; the moment he saw Ponnick, he knew he’d run out of time to think about Zelda’s monster-wonderings. He flagged Link down (as if Link wasn’t looking straight at him) with arms wild above his head. “Thank the skies you’re here, we have new recruits!”

Link then spent the obligatory hour introducing them to all the constructs in the facility.

Zelda had her own work in store for her. Between decisions regarding distribution of newly acquired zonaite and reports from the excavation, inventory, innovation, and engineering teams, she easily had a full day of deliberation and arbitration ahead. Link joined her for much of it once he’d fulfilled his authorization duties—after all, he’d become something of an amateur engineer himself. It was nice to have something scientific to contribute when talking with Zelda.

“You can totally build a wing/hot-air-balloon hybrid!” he’d said.

“Link, that sounds quite impractical-“

“No, no, you don’t put the balloon in the middle, you put it on the nose at an angle, see? Then it drags the wing upward.”

“L- Link- what of the flame needed?“

“Oh, no, it’s fine, you only get burned a little bit.”

“What?!”

“And you still put the fans on the back, you know, to help out. Oh, and the steering stick.”

“Link, forgive me, but the flame shall not be directed straight up. It is inefficient and unsafe.”

“Yeah but the LIFT!”

He’d quite liked his flaming plane. So had Robbie.

Today, the engineering talk had more to do with shoring up mining tunnels, which while important, did not require Link’s particular flair for incendiary devices. All their talk of angles, sines, and cosines seemed a bit more precise than his higgledy-piggledy constructions to hold up Addison’s signs, so he eventually left them to it, jogging instead to the rim of the courtyard, climbing up, and inviting all the poes newly showing themselves to join him—then scouting for more from his higher vantage point. He’d grown used to the quizzical looks from everyone else but Zelda.

“What?” he’d asked as Ponnick watched him jog, zig-zagging, in a roughly circular area covered in pale grey and lavender fungi.

“What are you doing?”

“Collecting the poes,” Link said.

“Poes? Where?!” Ponnick spun, wildly searching for spirits which glowed blue, plain as day, in Link’s vision.

At least Zelda could see them, too.

On balance, between the poes, soldiers’ spirits, koroks, Hestu, and the dragons of the springs, he’d have presumed himself insane if no one else ever saw what he saw. He almost had after the ghost of King Rhoam disappeared right in front of his face in the Temple of Time: an insane amnesiac with delusions of heroism.

Except they hadn’t been delusions, because he’d killed the crap out of Ganon.

Twice.

Or, of course, he imagined it. Twice.

Link shook his head. No point going down that route. If he imagined that, he imagined everything, and if that was the case he might as well relax and start attaching rockets to every exhausted korok’s backpack like that one by Outskirt Stable.

Poor little guy. At least he made it the eleventh time.

He huffed to himself. Sometimes, Zelda thought he was a little nuts. He supposed he could see why.

As a particularly large poe with a bright pink fringe zzipped its way into his body, Link caught a wink of blue between boulders at the stone circle in the distance to the north—a small zonaite deposit he’d cleared of monsters for what seemed to be the final time, the blood moons having ended.

It sparked his curiosity.

He sprinted the first hundred feet, then slowed to a reasonable pace. He didn’t want to go too far and worry Zelda, but if there were poes at that old monster nest, he didn’t want to leave them there.

Ten minutes later, he entered the mouth of the circle, three moldy, rickety old watch-posts within and another gap in the rocks across from him. Blue flickered beyond it: five poes huddled together. As he approached, flashes of his last encounter there played across his mind’s eye. The bokoblin on the platform before him had seen him first and tried to rain fire-fruit-arrows on him. Two silver moblins had slouched toward him, intent on splitting him open with their horns or the decayed royal claymores they’d somehow gotten. The other two bokoblins had fallen quickly to Tulin’s duplicate. Five monsters in all.

Link’s lip curled.

He hesitated on the brink of turning back, the thought of helping anything that may once have been a bokoblin sending a shockingly wicked taste of bile up his throat. He brought a fist to his mouth, pressing it deep to his skin, the imprint of his teeth stark against his lips.

No one memory stood out.

He’d never met a bokoblin that hadn’t aimed to kill on sight—never known one to show mercy, or even disinterest. Once they knew a person was near, they entered an unstoppable, murderous frenzy until they succeeded or someone put them down.

Link shut his eyes and took breath after deep breath.

He didn’t know anything for sure, and the bargainers never said.

Except they did say.

“Good… Evil… That’s the futile perspective of narrow-minded beings… There is no such distinction in wandering spirits.”

When he next looked, the flames flickered every bit as forlorn as they always did. He shook his head, his feet finally choosing forward for him.

When the poes joined the others in Link, he felt the usual sense of relief. Whoever or whatever they were, they seemed glad to be with him—not as happy as the ones he’d found in the deepest pit of the mine beneath Hateno, but if he was stuck for Goddess-knows how long at the absolute bottom of a pitch-black pit, he’d have been overjoyed to get out, too.

He took his time on the way back to the courtyard, half-watching a team excavate a buried section of the cracked enclosure and half-scouting for more glints of spirit-light, pensive, wrinkling his nose as he became aware of the sticky sheen on his skin. He pulled a handkerchief from his pouch and took it to his face. It came away slightly green with the powdery spores always floating in the too-still air of the depths. Zelda collected them to study, but Link preferred not to be the collection vessel.

Zelda herself appeared over the edge of the wall as he swept the cloth beneath his left eye a second time. He watched her make her way down the inclined stone the natural grace she’d always had.

When he reached her, she was busy snapping images of the newly excavated section of stone.

“It is remarkable how they accomplished this precision on such a massive scale.” The Purah Pad clicked. “These structures were erected before my time with them—long before for most. They are scattered so far and wide and yet certain markings on them are precisely identical. I suppose they may have mass-produced stones as they did construct parts and delivered them afar.”

Link grew a soft, sideways smile as he listened. He could imagine her doing exactly this in the sunshine, her hair brushing the small of her back, himself silent as always, allowing her voice to wash over him until she inevitably remembered who she was talking to.

“The compendium feature is still something of a mystery,” she’d said, snapping a carefully-timed shot of a warm darner just as it paused, searching for prey.

“It recognizes certain species, but not others. Initially, Purah and I believed its recognition to be related to useful effects. Warm darners are of use in elixirs to resist cold temperatures, for example. Yet despite being unable to identify any species of tree, the Slate recognizes certain perfectly ordinary fruits, including apples.”

Link thought apples were too delicious to be ordinary. He didn’t dare say so, but the phantom flavor of hot buttered apple flooded his mouth and his stomach betrayed him with a thoroughly embarrassing hunger-pang much-too-much like the sound of a hopeful retriever begging for an appley treat.

Zelda’s back stiffened. She glanced over her shoulder at his now-pink face, her eyes flicking to the blue pommel peeking out behind his ear. Link remained perfectly still, and that included not swallowing his imaginary-apple-induced-saliva.

Then-Zelda had returned to imaging wildlife in a rankling silence.

Now-Zelda heard him huff a laugh and turned with a smile sparkling despite the cold light of this place. She hooked the Purah Pad onto her belt. “May I ask what’s amused you so?”

Link shrugged a little. “Ways you haven’t changed.”

“Ah,” she said, threading her fingers through his. “And what of ways I have?”

His voice emerged low and soft. “I love those.” He squeezed her hand.

It made her smile at him in a way far too similar to how she had much earlier that morning, not long after waking up. He swallowed as she pulled him toward her—then she squinted at him and laughed a little through her nose, taking the handkerchief still in his other hand and beginning to wipe his forehead.

“I did that already,” he chuckled.

“You missed your hairline,” she said with the soft laugh he’d come to recognize as her equivalent of a giggle. “It’s fortunate this substance does not irritate your lungs as it does for some.”

“Especially Nappin.”

“Indeed, yes, especially Nappin. I do not believe depths research is his calling.”

“Nope.”

“You must have walked through a thick patch.”

“Ran through, more likely.”

“Oh? Where did you go?”

Link motioned toward the stone circle in the distance.

Her brow pinched. “Monsters?”

“Poes,” he said, wondering if he should tell her about the coincidence of the number. It might make her feel better, to have some hint these weren’t all souls marooned by the Calamity, but he wasn’t sure how she’d take the possibility they might be doing favors for monsters who’d been intent on murdering them in life.

She must have seen it in the motions of his mouth, nearly but not quite speaking. “Something else?” she asked.

He sighed soft through his nose. “Just something that made me think.”

The corner of her mouth quirked. Then her whole face opened up in mock-surprise. “Incredible!”

“Pfff,” he said with a poke to her ribs.

She squeaked. The three people working on the excavation behind Zelda went from studiously ignoring them to unabashed staring. Link gave them a small wave just as he registered Zelda’s eyes narrowing at him.

She began to rub the handkerchief all over the crown of his head with unnecessary vigor.

“Hey!”

The sounds coming from her as he pushed her hands away were much more like a girlish giggle than anything she usually produced. “It was in your hair, too,” she pointed out.

“There’s probably some in yours, Princess,” he warned.

Her eyebrows shot very close to the hairline her hands had risen to protect.

Link smirked. Her braid was much more difficult to fix than his ponytail. He made short work of his, shaking his now-mussed hair out and re-gathering it in the tie. Hyper-aware of the team still at rapt attention in the background, he finished up and offered his hand to Zelda. “Truce?”

She took it with a small smile. “Yes, please—but sincerely, I would like to know what gave you pause in the short time we were separated.”

His smile ebbed as he began to lead her over the shallower side of the half-buried stone walkway. It was no use, really. He’d only been good at hiding things from her when she refused to look at him, so long ago.

“There were five poes,” he said, “same as how many monsters I last cleared out.”

Their feet fell so quiet on the soft courtyard ground covered in pale, fuzzy flora he had no real names for, some soft and mossy, others more like wisps or powders. A few prickled. He liked the purple ones best for breaking up all that grey.

Their feet followed the same path without any hesitance or need for confirmation—toward the great central corridor. Zelda finally answered ten feet from its first stones.

“The statues say… good and evil… are meaningless for them.”

“…Yeah.”

“For a few moments, I was wondering whether only the spirits remaining clear in the shape of Hylian soldiers were people, but… no. For they aren’t poes at all, are they?”

Link shook his head. “No. They… find their way on their own. Once they’re done.”

Zelda nodded. “They had a purpose—to help you,” Zelda said.

“To help someone, anyway. Whoever came around to fight back.”

A series of clanging sounds echoed down the stone steps into the corridor, along with quizzical "Brrrp!"s and a Hylian's grumbling. Link's right hand flexed. No more convenient ultra-glue. He kept walking.

“Why down here?” Zelda asked.

She’d spoken so quietly he had to think to process her words over the noise.

“You mean why in the depths?” Link asked.

“Yes. Why so far beneath the place they perished? There seems little hope of aiding someone here, doesn’t there?”

“I came along.”

“Yet they can’t have known you would. They wouldn’t even have known the depths were here to travel here intentionally.”

Link shook his head. He had absolutely no idea.

They descended in thoughtful silence to the base of Aratra’s main statue, then behind her into the yawning chamber tucked deceptively beneath the center of the great structure.

It struck Link, as it often did, as the offer of an embrace. As the chamber opened before them, the long bridge leading from the entrance directly to the four-eyed face of the greatest bargainer statue, the platform running abreast its shoulders combined with its massive arms and it appeared so ready to encircle whatever came before it. When he’d first stood there, he expected it, watched those hands out of the corner of his eye, waiting for movement.

It had never come.

Instead, a distant but surprisingly level-headed voice had issued from the alien face. It had helped him—no question about that.

The poes gladly rushed into its waiting arms—no doubt about that, either.

But this entity had also played a trick on him to get him down here. He would never trust it the way he trusted the Goddess.

The Goddess statues were another matter entirely. Now that he knew more than one thing could talk out of them, he was a lot more wary than he’d been before.

They came to a halt near the great statue’s face.

“You who stand before me,” it said in tones of single drops of water echoing in a deep, black lake, “offer poes to me. They are spirits that ought to return to the afterlife.”

As always, the poes simply left them. With hundreds or thousands of spirits somehow housed within him, Link always expected there to be something like a whirlwind, or flashes of light—but there wasn’t. It was swift and gentle as a sigh: barely a murmur of any motion or sound. It took merely a moment.

Then a wave of desperate grief seized the core of Link’s body and he cried out, clutching at an anguished heart, though neither the cry nor the heart were his own.

“Link!” Zelda gripped his biceps, her face stricken.

“Z-elda-“ he said, more to answer her than anything else, at a complete loss.

“Two do not wish to leave you,” said the bargainer.

Link’s breath caught. Zelda’s eyes flew wide, and she looked him up and down as though trying to find them. “Can you- pull them from him?”

“I can do no more than guide,” the bargainer answered. “I show the way home.”

“They usually seem quite pleased to go home. So- why?” Zelda’s face seemed approaching a panic like none he’d seen in over a hundred years.

“I’m fine, Zel,” Link said, “really- NO, really, I’m fine, I’m just- I feel what they feel.”

“Yes, I do as well, but this-“

“This is them not wanting to go,” Link said, shaking. His eyes met first the lower, then the upper pair of the bargainer’s. “Can you talk to them?”

“After a fashion.”

“Can you figure out why-“

“I know why.”

Link and Zelda waited a few beats.

“We would appreciate it if you would inform us,” Zelda said, a hint of exasperation in her voice.

There was a depth of quiet, as though all sound plummeted into some unseen pit, unable to return, siphoned, whenever the bargainers spoke across fathoms to their brethren. It muted Link’s accelerated breaths. Zelda’s grip tightened, her mind visibly whirring behind the eyes flicking between his features.

“…You have made a substantial offering,” the bargainer said at length.

Link and Zelda exchanged a glance.

“You have made many offerings,” it continued, “many more than any other being in countless ages.”

Link experienced the distinct sensation of someone…curling around him, like Zelda would, holding him tight, but inside his own chest.

“If you agree, I will honor these spirits’ requests as repayment for your offerings.”

“Agree?” Zelda asked. “What requests?”

“They would speak with you,” it clarified.

The curl tightened. It felt like far, far more than a desire to speak. A creeping dread rose in him—his own—of what spirits would choose to cling with such desperation to his body.

Someone terrified of death? Of the afterlife? Maybe someone with a last request—a regret? Two someones—at the same time, when it had never happened before?

Or did the bargainer mean… “W-wait,” Link said with a swallow. “Do they want to speak to someone in general? Or is it just me? Or Zelda?”

Link resisted an inexplicable urge to whimper.

“It is you who stand before me,” the bargainer said.

“Meaning Link,” Zelda said squinting at the statue.

It stared as though its answer had been obvious.

“Do they mean him harm?” Zelda’s tone had hardened considerably. “We have seen spirits lift weapons- perform magic.“

Link lurched with a sudden fear—could he have picked up Ganondorf’s soul?

“I offer you a boon,” the bargainer said, “not a curse.”

Zelda blinked, taken aback, while Link registered the depth of the anguish invading his heart.

It didn’t feel like Ganondorf. He’d have been hatred—envy—fury.

No, that wasn’t it.

This was regret. Something undone or unfinished.

Link closed his eyes and tried to… reach—within himself, where this spirit wound around him. So tight—clinging—stubborn. Something made him breathe an incredulous laugh, and he didn’t even know why; but the more he seemed to press into the spirit’s space the more familiar it seemed, an intense vertigo hurtling toward him from an invisible horizon slamming his awareness into long ago, when the world was over a hundred years younger.

Link’s body gasped.

Link’s mind looked down at a very spiteful young girl with a thick mop of mixed sand-and-straw-and-acorn-colored hair which he’d wrestled into a braid for her earlier that day, springy strands poking out at odd angles as she narrowed her eyes at him, her gangly arms vice-gripping his ribs, her hands fisted, and her feet planted wider than shoulder-width apart, as though to brace him immovably in-place.

“This isn’t going to work out for you, cheeter,” Link said.

“You’re not going,” she answered, her voice a mix of petulant and acrid.

“I… kind of am.”

“Nope.” She sniffed, a bit of her own hair having tickled its way to the edge of one nostril.

“I mean, if you won’t let go, I can just drag you all the way to the castle.”

“Good.”

“Good?!”

“Dad takes you everywhere. My turn.”

“You clinging to my midriff isn’t the same as Father taking you somewhere.”

Her lip curled and Link felt kind of bad, but what did she expect? “You’re eleven.”

“So?”

“So you’re not even out of school yet!”

“Castle Town has a school.”

“So you want to go to school in Castle Town while I’m in training all day and pretty much not see me anyway?”

“At least I’ll get to do something.”

Link laughed so hard he went silent, the girl’s chin bopping his ribs painfully with each spasm of his diaphragm.

“What are you laughing at?!”

“Chee… for Hylia’s sake, you’ll just be at a different school!”

“With you.”

“What about Mom?” Link said.

Chee went quiet for a moment, her eyes softening a little, though they still shone like tiger’s-eye. He could tell she was trying not to grimace.

“That is totally your sheepish face trying not to come out,” Link said.

“Dad leaves her alone,” Chee said quietly. “A lot.”

Link’s smile left him. “No… he doesn’t. Because she has us.”

“You mean me.”

“Yeah, okay… so it’s been you more than me. But do you really want to leave her here while we both go?”

“She could come.”

Link shook his head. He was getting sidetracked. Mom wasn’t really what this was about, and neither was a different school, or Castle Town, or even his sister getting to do more exciting things. “Look, Chee… I know you’ll miss me.”

She grunted and pumped all the air from his lungs with her bony arms (damn she was strong).

“I’ll miss you too. A lot.” He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed, hard, but not too hard. He was way too strong for his own good, or hers. “More than anyone,” he whispered.

“Link?”

“No way.”

“Yep.”

“You’re a total mommy’s boy.”

“Yeah, well, doesn’t mean my sister can’t be my favorite person.”

“Link, please- answer me!”

“He communes,” the bargainer said, the sound of distance itself as the image of Link’s little sister faded.

The feel of her arms around him remained.

“I agree!” Link blurted.

“What?!” Zelda said, her thumb swiping at a wetness on Link’s cheek.

As the embrace of his innermost self bled from Link, he tripped forward, his arms desperate, seeking to return it. His hands found Zelda’s waist, and his eyes found hers—whatever she saw in them made her hug him tight about his shoulders.

“Link?” she said.

He held her too, unsure how to begin, but any words died on his lips at the sight of blue flame coalescing behind her. He tapped Zelda’s back, taking her by one shoulder and turning her to look.

Two spirits came into slow being before them, veiled in a pale blue glow, their features weaving into existence as patches of light, seamless once in place. Flames licked their feet, one moment there, then gone. They were old women, but as Link watched, their edges shimmered, and they took the forms he knew they would—some hidden heart within him had already known, had felt their shades only in his most dreamless of sleeps, in the darkness with them.

One woman stood almost exactly his height, about forty years old, and looked very much like him. The other had become the girl who’d insisted he stay home with her over a century ago.

How could his waking mind have forgotten them so thoroughly? He really was an insane amnesiac with delusions of heroism. He’d have to be insane to forget people he loved so much.

“Mom. Chee,” he said, and as he did, their tears fell, too. They rushed to embrace him, both at once, and he could feel them, they were real, and his deepest core spoke a wordless vow to offer a gift worthy of the bargainer’s extraordinary blessing.

Zelda balanced privacy and caution, wandering the length of the bargainer’s platform, the communion of three always at the corner of her eye, sitting cross-legged, knee-to-knee and hand-in-hand.

She’d known of his mother and sister, but they’d never met. He’d spoken of them only in bare, short spaces, quiet moments when Calamity’s imminence dulled.

How their Hateno home had not brought their memories forth long before now, she didn’t know. She’d sensed, sometimes, as Link stared at a piece of pottery or brushed his fingertips over a length of wood-grain on the banister, some glimmer of their former reality floating near to the surface—but it never emerged.

It’s why she’d delved into the mystery of the Shrine of Resurrection—into the healing spring beneath it in the depths—as though the missing parts of him had drifted into its bed, lying nascent against its darkest earth, far below.

They’d have stopped there again after this, on an ordinary day. She’d have given him her most sincere of smiles as she removed his leather—his bracers, his belts, his boots—her eyes never leaving his. She could feel the way his chest would rise and fall, quickening against the heels of her hands. They’d have entered the water together.

Zelda reached the platform’s edge. Hundreds of feet below, a small cluster of poes huddled in the great chamber’s corner, near the bargainer’s ankle; Zelda wondered that they’d come so close to the guiding statue, yet not found their way to the afterlife.

“They do not wish to cross,” the bargainer said.

Zelda gasped, one hand pressing flat to her chest. It had heard her?

“I can hear only you who stand before me.”

Zelda craned her neck toward the statue’s head, half-expecting it to have turned toward her. It hadn’t. “Not the others above us, then?” she whispered.

“Only you who stand before me.”

Zelda sighed, the bargainer keeping its secrets as always. She centered Link in her vision, speaking quietly with his lost family, so engrossed he’d not spared the statue a glance as its voice sounded.

“I spoke to you alone,” the statue said.

“Oh?” Zelda’s curiosity piqued. “I didn’t realize you could.”

She waited for a response, the spark of excitement slowly fading in the silence.

She oughtn’t have expected anything else. These beings showed interest in nothing but the welfare of the spirits they shepherded. She peered over the railing once more, at the flames flickering far below.

“If I go to collect them, will they come?”

“For you, yes. Undoubtedly.”

“And would they then move on as the others have?”

“Almost certainly.”

She wondered why her carrying them a few hundred feet would change their minds.

“Listen with he who also stands before me. You will understand.”

Zelda’s brow tightened, taken aback and hesitant to simply eavesdrop. She shuffled her feet.

The bargainer remained silent.

She approached the three with great reservation, her hands clasped before her, unwilling to simply insert herself within their conversation. She stopped partway across the platform. Should Link wish to include her, he would—yet he was rapt. He appeared as though drinking in every detail of his mother’s face over and over again. Perhaps he feared a more ordinary forgetfulness would take her from him a second time.

Zelda’s lower lip rose in understanding. Some days, she, too, struggled to see her father’s face clearly. Her mother’s had long been wiped blank.

She gasped, her hand touching the Purah Pad.

Link looked up at the sound, giving her a small smile, and as he did, the spirits looked at her as well, as though only just noticing her presence.

The spirit of Link’s mother smiled wide. “Link! Is she with you?”

Link turned deep crimson, his face twisting in a smiling grimace Zelda had never seen on him.

“Oooh!” his sister said, her face full of mock-scandalization. “Your face, Link. Wow. Is she… with you?” she asked, her eyebrows inching upward.

Link’s rested his face in his hands as the spirit-women giggled at him. Zelda couldn’t help but quirk a smile, herself, though she felt strange. She could not ignore the hesitance in her heart.

Transient.

It would be transient.

Her eyes threatened tears as she watched her lover, watched him be with them as though they yet lived.

Their departure would sink him as his forgetfulness never could have.

It took Link a minute and a few resurgences of giggling to recover enough to peer over his hands at her.

Then he held one out in invitation, turning that smile on her- the one that was for her alone. She drew a steeling breath, her fingers worrying at the pad’s cool surface. “Are you certain?” Zelda asked. “I’ve no wish to intrude.” I’ve no wish to cut your time short.

“I’m completely sure,” Link said, beckoning her toward him.

Her shoe scuffed on the first step and she swallowed, extending her hand. When he took it, his mother’s spirit slid to make room for her. Zelda sat as they did, her knee to Link’s, unable to smile and unsure what to say—though she had no intention of asking questions about the mechanics of spirithood, despite the bargainer’s nebulous words.

Link seemed to sense her uncertainty. He threaded his fingers through hers and moved closer, drawing her hand warm into his lap, his shoulder to hers. Zelda couldn’t help but find his eyes, and though she knew his smile and the squeeze of her hand were nothing but sincerity, a truth to reassure her, the smile she gave held a depth of sadness for the future this would bring.

“That is so a yes,” his sister said, snapping the moment in two. Link’s eyes rolled and fluttered shut, and a small laugh left Zelda’s nose despite her visions of Link falling apart.

“The sky’s sake, Chee,” his mother chuckled. “You lived to be ninety-two. I’d expect you to have matured eventually.”

“Are you kidding? This is my chance to be a kid again. I’ll take it!” The girl smiled at Link, but an intense sadness lay in the core of her eyes, the precise contours of her lips. Zelda recognized its longing.

It was in his mother’s, too. “Link, my little love,” the older woman said, shifting a soft smile between him and Zelda, “why don’t you introduce us?”

Link huffed a laugh and gave Zelda a look so like one he’d given her just before the Calamity struck—on Mount Lanayru—something sad yet loving and utterly immovable all at once. She wondered wildly for a moment exactly how he’d introduce her—for she wasn’t his wife, not yet, but “fiancé” seemed an entirely inadequate word.

Fated. Soulmate. Destined. Those- those began to approach the magnitude of whatever connection had laid between them even from the beginning.

“Mom- Chee,” Link said, his eyes and smile still soft, still on her. “This is the love of my life.” His thumb stroked the edge of her hand. “Zelda.”

She and her smile warmed, his words an anchor to the present. Her free hand curled around his bicep and their foreheads somehow met, though she’d not intended to approach him.

His eyes on hers.

Those calm waters she always wished to dive deep within. They seemed to go on forever, further than Link himself could know, to a place warm, safe, and eternal.

Should she ever tell him so, he would give her his lopsided smile with that deep dimple of his. He would tell her the reverse—that she was his eternal goddess, and he worshiped her—that it wasn’t about him.

But it was about him. She knew it in her deepest self. They two were as one. When it came time for her to pass into the afterlife, she knew she would not go without him.

A sudden understanding drew an aching smile on her face for all the little lights in the darkness.

Though the silence between them bore no tension, its length emerged in her awareness. No irreverent remark issued from his sister; his mother had asked no questions of her. She turned with a flutter of dread, expecting, somehow, the spell to be broken—to see empty space where the spirits had been. Instead, she found their gazes on them, awed.

“What is it?” Link asked softly.

They seemed at a loss for speech. Their eyes traveled all around and above and below them, their hands locked together. His mother’s eyes fell on Zelda’s, and his sister’s on Link’s.

“It was you,” his sister said.

Link shook his head. “What was?”

“You… shine,” his mother said, her voice like a whisper in a cathedral. “Together. Like- the light of a thousand Suns.”

Link turned as though searching for that light himself. “Zelda does- she shines with her magic.”

“No, Link. Both of you,” his sister said, shaking her head hard, her eyes shut for a moment. She opened them, squinting at Zelda. “I see you both ways right now. Before, I didn’t have eyes, not anymore. I do now, and I can see you sitting there, but I could see you before, too. You… you were the lights. You…” she gestured at them, her palm wide, “are the lights.” She swallowed. “Mom? Same for you?”

“Yes,” the older woman breathed. “Yes. I thought- Link, I’d thought the light had led us to you. I felt- so happy to finally be with you again. My little boy-“ tears slipped down her cheeks again, and she reached for Link, cupping his cheeks. “I thought- I still don’t understand- I thought I’d outlived you. I kept wishing, and wishing, and wishing in a sea of darkness to find you again.”

“We all thought you died at Fort Hateno,” Chee said quietly.

“But the light didn’t lead me to you,” said his mother with a tearful smile. “The light was you. And…” she smiled at Zelda, “you. And together…” she shook her head.

“Together you get a lot brighter,” said Chee. “Like, a lot. Way more than double.”

His mother laughed. “I don’t have the right words- to tell you- just how beautiful it is. I wish you could see it.”

Link’s sister raised her hand like a schoolchild, her eyes on Zelda, one eyebrow intensely arched.

“…Yeah, Chee?” Link asked cautiously.

“So… are you Princess Zelda?”

Zelda couldn’t help but laugh. “I am.”

Chee gawked and whacked Link’s arm.

“Ow-“

“You landed the Princess?!”

“It’s not-“

“And you didn’t even INTRODUCE her as the Princess?!!”

“Well, I didn’t want to- to-“

“To what, brag?”

“No, it’s just not what’s im-“

“It is so important-“

“Children,” their mother said.

They ceased so completely their hands froze mid-gesture.

The older woman offered her hand, palm up, to Zelda with a kind smile.

She took it, astonished to feel warm skin, no different from anyone else’s, a mere shimmer of blue at the outline setting her apart if she looked hard enough.

“My name is Junilla,” she said, placing her other hand over Zelda’s. “I am so sincerely pleased to meet you, Princess- and overjoyed that my son has found such love in his lifetime.”

Zelda returned the gesture, placing her other hand over the spirit’s. “I am grateful,” she said, “for this chance to meet you. That Link has been reunited with you after all this time…” she took a breath, “is a blessing.” Her gaze rose from Junilla to the eyes of the bargainer. The others’ gaze followed hers.

Chee traced the unfamiliar shapes of the statue’s eyes, a hand worrying in her lap. “How- how much time do we have?”

Junilla’s hand tightened for the space of a pulse around Zelda’s, searching the stone for an answer.

“The- bargainer didn’t say how long we could speak,” Link said softly, suddenly breathing strangely.

“The choice to move on is never mine,” the statue said.

Link blinked. “So- there’s no time limit?”

“I impose nothing. Yet my gift cannot extend beyond these walls.”

Link nodded, his face flat.

Ponnick and several Sheikah entered the space several times to check on them, so long they remained below.

They never appeared to notice the two strange women, though the Purah Pad had been able to take their pictures.

When she and Link finally left—at 5:17am according to the Purah Pad—the women faded without even a whisper of sound to two flickering blue flames, resting together beside the bargainer.

They would wait for Link’s father.

He and Zelda would begin their search in the depths beneath Akkala to find him—under the Citadel—though the bargainer warned that spirits may drift or become bound.

“End the final tide of gloom,” the bargainer said. “Only then may they all return home.”

Link seemed to understand.

They kept their appointments in Lookout Landing and Goron City for that morning and afternoon, having skipped their detour to the hidden spring of resurrection in favor of them. Link was unusually subdued as she’d expected, and her heart fell further and further as the day lengthened.

He’d barely smiled at Yunobo’s fist-bump.

He broke down in her arms, as she’d thought he would, at home in their bed, exhausted and shuddering with a grief which should have been foreign to him, as it should be to anyone—yet he had felt it before in lesser magnitude when the spirits of their friends, their allies, had become known to him, one by one and memory by memory, a sudden knowledge of what had been lost.

He’d even grieved over her in this way, for he’d no way to know she would emerge from the Calamity’s innards as a living being.

Zelda could not imagine it.

All she could do was hold him, kiss the crown of his head, stroke his hair, tell him it was alright.

“I am here, my love,” she said. “I am with you, and I shall stay.”

He nodded, unable, for the moment, to speak.

It was days later, the Sun a deep gold resting in a bed of lavender above the stand of trees west of their garden, when Link suddenly took her by the waist with his only-for-her smile and kissed her, gentle and questioning, then deeper as she rose to meet him, passionate, her arms wrapping about his neck, their bodies moving as a single unfettered wave. Her mouth parted from his breathless.

“L- Link,” she said.

He kissed her again, on her jaw—behind her ear.

“Are- you alright?” she breathed despite her body’s insistence that now was not the time to worry.

He breathed a very soft laugh in her ear and pulled back to look in her eyes. His hands left her hips to cup her face.

He spent a very long moment just like that. When he spoke, the sweet summer breeze danced with the sunflowers, his soft voice like its rustle through the birch leaves.

“I don’t want to remember what I’ve lost only to forget what I have.”

Her hand covered one of his, pressing it to her cheek.

“I love you so much,” he said, his smile growing, a joy nestled there despite the shadow always upon his features. A hint of mischief twitched his mouth. “So much we attract poes in the dark.”

A laugh burst from her. “Link- you are indeed the love of my life, but I’d rather thought it was our magic-“

But Link was shaking his head. “Magic, sure, for glowing when we’re alone, but… the light of a thousand Suns? That’s love. I know it.”

A memory burst to her mind’s eye, of a power as though the surface of the Sun itself, flowing from her as her knight clung to the thread of life behind her.

It had been love then. She knew that. Love of Link which had hurled her bodily before him, willing to die in his stead.

She pulled him close and tight—placed a long, gentle kiss on his cheek. He breathed a laugh and nuzzled her hair.

“You are- absolutely right, Link,” she said. “Absolutely right.”

They held each other, quiet, unhurried as the soft changes in the palette of the sky, restful as the setting sun, resting in the place sought by all the little lights far below—that place in Link’s eyes: a far deeper depth than any within this earth, for eternity had no limit.

She ought to have understood it sooner.

The lifetime of the Light Dragon had been a mere blink of an eye.

Link would love her far longer.

It wasn't transient.

Nor was his love for his sister, his mother, or his yet-unfound father. What resurrection had taken from him in life would have been found beyond the bargainer's crossing, just as she and Link would follow each other to the spirit realm, to whatever lay beyond.

Some well deep within herself whispered in the language of forgotten memories, a truth woven of silent echoes, veiled shades of her many selves passing through her as a thick-muffled feeling—and in that moment, safe and warm in Link’s arms, she felt they had done so before. Over and over again, passing in and out of death and life and realms and voids and time together, and always each other’s light.

She looked at Link, eyes and mouth wide open in a sort of shock, as though seeing him for the first time—as though just having remembered him.

“Zelda?!” He ducked, flickering from feature to feature of her face, his thumbs brushing tenderness on her cheeks and temples. “What is it? Are you okay?”

“Oh- oh yes,” she said, her voice shuddering. Her next smile glowed, for him and only him, all else in reality falling from her present. “I love you, Link.”

He grew a smile to match hers and then some. “You sound surprised,” he said with a chuckle.

She took his face in her hands and kissed his mouth, softly, full of reverence, and it felt like a first time. Link’s palm came to rest flat on the table beside her, pressing hard, bracing himself against a force Zelda felt, too, and welcomed—a compulsion to rejoin, to reunite. A shocking elation flooded her that he was wholly him, that he carried no spectre of an ancient king, no matter how benevolent, by his side, and she surged forward against him, delving, caressing: worshiping.

Her kiss released by a hair’s breadth, the heat of their lips a promise of imminence. Link’s heart raced against her elbow where it met his chest. “Z- el,” he said, utterly breathless, even more than he’d made her.

“I’ve always loved you,” she said, her voice quiet’s paramour. “And I always will.”

He stood before her, an avatar of adoration, every aspect of his being focused on her, the softness in his eyes unlike any she’d seen outside those moments he watched her at pleasure’s height. He brushed his lips to hers—not a kiss: a caress.

“You understand,” he said.

She kissed him again, her hands carding through his hair, thrilled when his eyes fluttered shut. She pulled back, a pause. “I do, now.”

“Forever,” he said.

“Through death and life again,” she answered.

In bed that night, Link slept soundly, his arms wrapped around her and his head resting on her chest. She sat partway up against the pillows, stroking his hair and thinking in a way she hadn’t in her waking life: a thinking more like feeling—more like acceptance.

This life was a gift.

A time to feel with skin, with heart and blood.

A time to be separate.

Not because they wished to be—but because it made their reunions that much more joyful.

And when it came time to fade from the physical, there would be nothing to separate them. They would be as one.

Death was not the end.

Birth was not the beginning.

And love…had neither.

She held Link a little tighter, smiling at his sleeping grumble, and closed her eyes.

#zelink #fanfiction #legend of zelda #totk #tears of the kingdom #drama #romance #humor #canon compliant #500 followers

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critter-rarepair-reccs · 3 months

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Good afternoon, my friends! This week, we have six fics featuring our favorite fun scary warlock, Laudna, and rarepairs that include her! As always, you can find them below the cut and if you check any of them out, I encourage you to leave kudoes and comments to spread the rarepair love 💕

Touch Me Like You Do by xLoveMx (1,513 words, Teen) Pairing: Dorian Storm/Laudna (MacabreMelody) Warnings: Brief implication of sexual assault

While on watch, Laudna thinks about touch and about Dorian and even gets to indulge in those thoughts a little.

Reccer Says: It’s soft and it’s sweet and “you know you’re important right?” has my heart

oh, person, person by pigflight (1,945 words, Teen) Pairing: Fearne Calloway/Laudna (WitherBloom) Warnings: Form of Dread Typical Body Horror

Fearne and Laudna go out into the woods to sing with the flowers.

Reccer Says: I honestly don’t really know how to describe this one. It’s fascinating and weird and strange in a way that suits Fearne and Laudna very well. It’s more than a little haunting. It feels like there’s so much going on when it’s quite simple, really. And I love it for that.

standing offer by spillentireuniverses (5,538 words, Mature) Pairing: Yu Suffiad/Laudna/Imogen Temult Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

30 times Yu made an offer (sort of) and 1 time they took one.

Reccer Says: It’s a delicious exploration of Yu and their relationships with Laudna and Imogen, a great depiction of an evil character growing to genuinely care for people without losing that evil edge, and also a great use and expansion of the 5+1 format!

waltzing matilda by the_jennster (4,247 words, Teen) Pairing: Ashton Greymoore/Laudna (Laudmoore) Warnings: None

During the party split, Ashton wakes up to find Laudna crying instead of sleeping.

Reccer Says: I enjoyed it!

Of Pet Rats And Chicken Nuggets by xLoveMx (1,790 words, Teen) Pairing: Dorian Storm/Laudna (MacabreMelody) Warnings: None

Admittedly, despite the talk about a pet rat, Dorian doesn’t actually expect Laudna to come back carrying one in her hands, and it takes him a moment to realize that yes, this is in a fact a living rat and not just a plushie.

Reccer Says: It’s very sweet and cute!

the branches bend / to the growing sea by pigflight (2,865 words, Teen) Pairing: Yu Suffiad/Laudna Warnings: Reference to Gore, Cannibalism, Body Horror

Yu takes Laudna on a date in the Feywild.

Reccer Says: It’s eerie, it’s atmospheric, both Yu and Laudna are sharp as barbed wire, and all of that together makes for a fascinating, captivating read. Also excellent use of 2nd person!

Thank you for joining us this week’s recc list! All the love to everyone who submitted a fic 💕 All enclosed recommendations were submitted by the community via our submissions form, which you can find here. All fic information is as it was provided by the reccer, so it may not be accurate to the author’s intent or the precise contents of the fic itself. Please assume good intent from all parties 💕

Submissions for next week’s list are already open! We’ll be featuring Grief & Mourning. If you have any you’d like to highlight, you can send them in here. The week after that, the theme is Summer and the weeks after that we’re taking recommendations for Meet Cutes and Pets & Animals! Submissions for all of these themes are currently open.

If you want more rarepair fic, check out @cr-summer-wildflowers and their event collections on ao3! If you want some friendship after all this romance, take a look at @critter-genfic-events and their recc lists! And if you’re interested in everyone’s favorite wizards, you can’t go wrong with the lists at @aeor-is-for-reccing !

Thanks all and have a lovely day/night/timezone! 💕

#critter rarepair recc lists #MacabreMelody #WitherBloom #yu x laudna x imogen #laudmoore #yu x laudna #critical role #cr fanfic

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katy-l1988 · 8 months

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Chapter 1: The Holly Trinity

Hazbin Hotel Fanfic

In the dawn of the cosmos, the firmament shimmered with the light of divine beings who dwelled in the heavens, their boredom with the monotony of their existence triggering the creation and expansion of the universe as we now know it. Among the heights stood three angels, Sera, Carmilla, and Lucifer, christened by their father as the "Holy Trinity." The three played vital roles, ensuring the proper functioning of both heaven and the universe they were forging.

Sera, with her celestial majesty, was God's first attempt at creating woman. Tall, slender, with eyes capable of reflecting the vastness of the universe, she was a work of art in herself. However, despite her impeccable appearance, she wasn't quite what God was looking for. Sera lacked the capacity to understand and share joys and sorrows, empathy, to be a companion in all aspects of existence. Sera was too distant, too perfect, to fulfill God's purpose. With great sadness, but also with much love, the Father of All decided to appoint her as his delegate, giving her a different purpose than she was originally intended for. She would make his wishes come true, also reducing the workload on her shoulders.

On the fifth day of creation, after bringing life to the creatures of the animal kingdom in the morning, God retired to his workshop with a handful of swan feathers, the eyes of a lynx, and the heart of a lioness. With infinite patience and meticulous dedication, he began assembling these elements one by one, shaping them with his divine power to form a new creation: Carmilla. This angel emerged as a unique and exceptional creation in her own essence. Although she shared certain traits with Sera, she possessed a great capacity to love, and to hate at the same time. That's why he bestowed upon her the gift of creating life.

"Where art I?" she asked fearfully.

"This is my workshop, and thou art my creation," God replied, helping her to her delicate feet. "Thou canst call me Father."

"Father?" The angel observed her wings flutter, analyzed her silver hair, and saw her fingers move in front of her eyes. "What am I exactly?"

"Thou art an angel, my dear. Thou art my vineyard, my garden, my Carmilla." He then helped her walk, fascinated by her elegance. "Come, I want to introduce thee to someone."

God, captivated by what he had created and not wanting to part from her, placed Carmilla alongside Sera to be her support. However, mere hours later, the difference between Sera's serenity and Carmilla's burning passion triggered a latent conflict between them. One, believing herself superior just for being older, wanted to impose her will, while the second was unwilling to obey without a true reason. God chose not to punish them and took another route, deciding to give birth to a new angel, one whose beauty and power would rival even the heavens themselves: Lucifer. He was a free-spirited and dreamy spirit, destined to maintain peace among his sisters, though not among the other angels. While there were those who admired him fervently, like Araziel, there were others who despised him, such as Michael.

God, calm to see that the most important work was done, delegated to Sera and the elders of heaven the task of finishing his great project. With the very dust of the earth, the Elders of Heaven created Adam and Lilith, based on the sketches provided by the King. These new beings, meticulously crafted with love, were presented as the supreme culmination of creation. Adam, molded in the image and likeness of the gods, was imbued with wisdom and strength, while Lilith, equally magnificent, possessed beauty and unparalleled skill. All felt they had fulfilled the expectations of their Lord, but it wasn't long before Lilith decided not to submit to Adam and escaped from Eden. With indomitable determination, she defied the expectations imposed upon her and sought the freedom she fervently desired. Her act of rebellion shook the foundations of paradise and unleashed a conflict that would resonate throughout heaven and earth.

"Dad's design failed," Sera said as the three siblings gathered in the great hall weeks after the event. "She was supposed to stay with Adam. I don't understand."

"Adam is an idiot, who would want to be with him?" Carmilla opined honestly. "He hath no right to rule over her, no one should."

"I agree, Sera," Lucifer intervened with a understanding smile. "After all, love and free will are the foundations of our existence here in heaven."

"But not on earth, brother. Humans are too simple to know what to do with it, and that's why we've set rules," Sera said, looking at herself in the mirror, determined to do what she considered to be God's word. "Lucifer, go for Lilith and bring her back to Eden. She must fulfill her role as the mother of humanity."

"Sera, art thou sure that's the right thing to do?" Lucifer questioned with a doubtful expression on his face as he received the order from his older sister.

"'Tis necessary, or else Dad's dream will be shattered," Sera replied firmly, her voice resonating in the celestial hall.

It was at that precise moment when Lucifer descended into the underworld, finding in Lilith an echo of the passion and rebellion that he so admired in Carmilla. Fascinated by Lilith's freedom and determination, Lucifer was carried away by his feelings, becoming irretrievably attached to that woman of indomitable spirit. Sera, perceiving this as an act of impersonal irreverence, decided to take drastic measures. She took the sketch discarded by her father and created Eve, a figure that reflected her own serenity and obedience. Eve was the embodiment of everything Sera considered right and virtuous, destined to be the perfect counterpart to Lilith. She never imagined it would backfire.

United in their desire to share this emotion, Lucifer and Lilith sought to offer the fruit of knowledge to Adam's new wife, Eve, without understanding the consequences of their actions. In their attempt to open her eyes to the world beyond blind submission, they allowed evil to spread its roots on earth. Sera watched with consternation as events unfolded, as did the other celestial beings, and sent a group of angels to assess the damage. However, the rift proved to be too extensive, and there was no way to close it.

Faced with such a threat, Sera held a trial, which reached the consensus to eradicate those who caused so much chaos. Carmilla, overcome with anguish and desperation, stood in Miguel's way, seeking to stop the bloodshed among their own.

"Move, Carmilla," ordered Miguel.

"I won't. My father wouldn't want this."

"He doesn't deserve his mercy. He destroyed your father's work, our work!"

"Miguel, please. There must be another way to solve this, he's my brother." She thought for a moment, seeing the pain in Carmilla's eyes.

"Just because thou ask, I'll propose changing the punishment to something less severe." Carmilla sighed with relief. "But I warn thee, whatever the new order is, thou'll be responsible for carrying it out."

Miguel stepped back, leaving Carmilla with a lump in her throat. Lucifer, unaware of the crime he was accused of, continued with his life as if nothing had happened, but he felt the gaze of reproach from the other angels. He knew he had made a mistake, but he didn't know how to fix it.

Lucifer walked through the bustling streets of the celestial city, ignoring the murmurs and accusing glances that surrounded him. He knew everyone was aware of what he had done, and the weight of guilt and remorse accompanied him with every step. Finally, he arrived at the home he shared with his sisters, a refuge amidst the turmoil of heaven. Without a word, he made his way to his chamber and lay down on his bed, letting the silence envelop his troubled soul. Tears threatened to surface, but Lucifer forced himself to hold them back. He knew he had made irreparable mistakes, and now he had to face the consequences of his actions. In the stillness of his chamber, he was alone with his thoughts, grappling with his internal conflicts as he plunged into a sea of regret and anguish.

"Wait, Lilith," he thought then, a spark of concern crossing his tormented mind. He knew that whatever punishment he received, she would suffer it too. He couldn't allow his beloved to be harmed, no matter the cost. Quickly, Lucifer stood up, unwilling to waste another second, and sought out his closest friends, Araziel and Zestial, knowing he needed their support. Together, they gathered in the privacy of their home, ready to assess their options and chart a course of action.

Araziel, known for his rebellious spirit and his love for chaos, proposed the idea of recruiting disgruntled angels dissatisfied with the rigid celestial order, those who yearned for change and were willing to follow Lucifer in his quest for justice and freedom. Zestial, with his unwavering loyalty and serene wisdom, vehemently nodded in agreement, backing Araziel's proposal. Together, the three began to devise a plan to recruit followers, preparing to face whatever would come their way.

Several days of hard work and dedication passed, during which they managed to gain the support of a third of heaven, angels who shared their discontent with the established order and longed for radical change. However, someone crucial was still missing, someone whose endorsement was vital for the success of their cause. Lucifer fervently desired to have Carmilla by his side in this struggle, for despite everything, she had always been there for him. He knew the power of his sister and her influence over other angels; she was a commander, second only to Michael.

One afternoon, he approached Carmilla, hoping to convince her to join them in their crusade. However, upon presenting his proposal, he realized that things wouldn't be as easy as he had hoped. Carmilla, far from showing enthusiasm or support, looked at him with a mixture of sadness and determination in her eyes.

"Lucifer, I cannot do it," Carmilla whispered, her voice trembling, feeling the overwhelming weight of responsibility upon her. "If thou risest against heaven, I shall be obliged to face thee. I do not want that, brother, please, do not force me down that path."

"I thought no one gives thee orders. Why dost thou obey now?" Lucifer inquired.

"Because thou art not giving me choices," she replied, tears welling up, on the verge of collapse. "They shall send thee to hell, Lucifer. Thee, and Lilith, and if thou startest this senseless war, also thy friends."

"Then so be it, but I shall not be subdued without a fight."

The battle erupted in heaven once the rebellion began, with the sound of wings unfurling and the clash of swords resonating in the air. Lucifer led, alongside hundreds of angels who had joined his cause, defying the tyranny of Sera and the elders of heaven. On the other hand, Michael, the mightiest of the archangels, rose as the principal defender of the celestial order, supported by legions of faithful angels who fought ferociously, including Carmilla.

The confrontation between Lucifer and Michael was epic, a clash of titans that shook the universe. Both warriors faced each other with fierce determination, each blow and parry resonating with the intensity of a thousand thunders. Despite Lucifer's courage and skill, he was finally overcome by Michael's imposing strength and ability. In the midst of the chaos, Michael lunged at the dreamer with the intention of ending him once and for all, ignoring direct orders. Carmilla, witnessing this, stepped between the two with speed, and the clash of her lance against Michael's body was terrifying. The weapon pierced Michael's chest, and a gut-wrenching scream echoed in the heavens as he fell to the ground, fatally wounded. Quickly, Lucifer seized the lance, feeling the weight of responsibility and anger burning within him.

With a quick and decisive movement, Lucifer turned to Carmilla and said:

"Now 'tis my turn to protect thee." All witnesses blamed Lucifer for that crime.

"Forgive me for not being able to do more."

With Michael's death, Carmilla assumed the role of Commander-in-Chief of the army, and as her first task, she had to finish what Michael started. Out of pity, she sent all the rebels to hell, bidding farewell to her brother with a cold look, unable to show any other emotion. She knew that this was the only way to keep him safe; as long as she was in command of the army, no one would harm him.

#hazbin hotel fanfic #hazbin hotel fandom #hazbin hotel lucifer #hazbin hotel carmilla #hazbin hotel sera #hazbin hotel zestial #zestial #hazbin spoilers #hazbin hotel #vizziepop #carmilla carmine #lucifer hazbin hotel #lucifer headcanons

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sequinsmile-x · 5 months

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The Games We Play - Chapter 3

She’d survived the very worst a person could, lived through things that still kept her up at night, the screams of other innocent people ringing in her head as sleep evaded her.

She’d survived so much, but she didn’t think she’d survive leading him to his death.

A Hunger Games AU

-x-

Hi friends,

Thanks so so much for the love on this fic so far <3 Like I've said countless times before, AU's are nerve-wracking - especially one as unhinged as this one - so I really appreciate the support.

Please let me know what you think <3

Note: tumblr is tumblring, so tags aren't necessarily working. Please interact with this if you see it <3

-x-

Words: 3k

A full list of warnings can be found on the series master list

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

“You should get some sleep.”

She scoffs as she turns to look at Dave, tearing her eyes from the screen just for a moment before she looks back at it, her lips pressed together as she shakes her head, “I can’t sleep.”

Dave sighs and sits down on the couch next to her, he sits so he’s in her line of vision, blocking the television, and he smiles at her with so much sympathy it makes her want to scream. She looks away, the opulence of the apartment they were always put in when in the Capitol makes her feel suffocated, the large expansive space with amenities people at home couldn’t even imagine putting her on edge.

It had always been something that had irritated her, the cruelty of the fact she was living like this whilst children were fighting to the death never failed to make her skin itch, but this year it felt worse. The knowledge that Aaron could die and she couldn’t do anything to help beyond hope he made it out alive made sleep almost impossible, the thought of waking up to find out he’d been killed whilst she was sleeping was too much to bear.

Especially because her sheets still smelt like him, the lingering scent tricking her into thinking he was right there with her the first few seconds she was awake, a precious moment of joyful ignorance of the reality they lived in.

“I don’t know him as well as you do, but something tells me if he comes out to find you sleep deprived and barely hanging on he won’t be happy,” Dave says, and Emily smiles wryly and nods.

“That’s true,” she says her gaze drifting back to the television, anxiety building in her chest as she once again desperately hopes to see him on screen, to have the reassurance that he was still alive. She can feel Dave’s stare burning into her and she turns to look at him, concern bleeding out of him in a way she hadn’t seen since her own games, “What?”

“Have you thought this all the way through, Bella?” He asks, his tone nothing short of loving, the kind of judgement free affection she’s sure she would have had from a father if she’d had one who hadn’t left when she was young.

“Thought what all the way through?” She asks, purposely acting like she doesn’t know what he is talking about.

Dave wasn’t stupid, she knew that, and he would know Aaron had been sleeping in her room the entire time they’d been here. He also would have known that he’d been talking about her to Gideon, not Kate like almost everyone else including her had assumed. He’d been playing this game since before she was born, aware of the ever changing and twisting rules. Rules that had been created to make sure even the winners walked away with no real victory.

He smiles softly and sighs, “If he survives and you two…do this. There will be expectations of you both,” he clears his throat, choosing his words carefully, both of them well aware that there was no such thing as a private conversation here, “You would have very little choice in what your life would look like.”

She hadn’t allowed herself to think about it in any great detail beyond the hope that Aaron would survive, that the rushed confessions on the rooftop the day before he went into the arena wouldn’t be all they’d ever have. He’d slept in her bed that night too, and for the first time, they didn’t fall asleep on opposite sides of the bed. She’d curled up in his arms and rested her head on his chest, the same position they always woke up in, and she fell asleep and dreamt of a world where he would come back to her.

She knows that Dave is right, that if Aaron did survive and their relationship was public, something that was unavoidable, there would be expectations from President Barnes. They’d have to get married, which even if they wanted to it wouldn’t be anything like what they’d choose. It would be a spectacle, the celebrity status that came with being a Victor something she hated. They’d be expected to have children. Children she didn’t want because she already knew what their fate would be, destined to follow in their parent's footsteps at some point. Children she once said she’d never have but would love with her entire heart until they were taken from her by the same people who had made her have them.

It was unbearable to think about, pre-emptive grief for something that might not even happen if Aaron died filling her lungs.

She blows out a shaky breath and she nods at him.

“I know,” she says, laughing humourlessly, “But I’ve had very little choice in what my life looks like since I threw that fucking knife,” she says, wiping the one stray tear that had escaped her lashline away, getting rid of it as quickly as it had appeared, “At least with him…”

“You wouldn’t be alone in it,” Dave finishes for her as she drifts off and she nods again, forcing another sigh from him before he stands up, his hand on her shoulder as he squeezes tightly, “Just make sure he understands it all too,” he says, his smile soft, full of hope that seemed misplaced, “When he makes it out.”

She chuckles and nods, placing her hand briefly over his before he lets go. She knows it’s his way of saying he approves, that he hopes it works out for her, and she’s sure she’s never been more grateful for him.

“I will do.”

___

By day three of the games there are only ten tributes left. They hadn’t made it beyond the initial bloodbath with both of their tributes in years, so it felt like nothing short of a miracle that both Kate and Aaron were still alive.

Dave insisted that she came with him to a viewing party, and convinced her that they had to keep up appearances and act as if this was just normal games for her, as if the man she was in love with wasn’t part of the show they were all watching whilst getting drunk.

She groans as she sees Ian Doyle walking towards her, a familiar smirk on his face that makes her skin crawl

“Well, well, Emily Prentiss. You’ve been ignoring me,” he says, and she smiles politely at him, the same smile her mother had taught her when she was young painted across her face.

“Yes,” she says, taking a sip of her drink, “And until right now it was working.”

Ian had won when he was 13, one of the youngest ever winners, a decade ago. He was vicious even then, a violence to his victory that had stood out to everyone. He’d pursued her for years, flirting with her the moment she’d turned 16 in a way that had made Dave ultraprotective of her, purposely making sure there was distance between them whenever possible.

“Now come on, that’s not very nice,” he says, smiling as he steps in closer, the smell of whiskey and smoke washing over her, “How about you let me take you out when this is all over?” He says smiling, “My tributes didn’t last long, yours probably don’t have much longer…we can drown our sorrows.”

She chuckles, fake interest dripping from her smile as she leans in, “Not even if the president herself demanded it.”

She thinks he’s going to say something else, his pride clearly hurt, but an explosion tears her attention away from the conversation and she looks at the screen, her breath catching in her chest as she watches Aaron get thrown from his feet. He’s flung through the air like he weighs nothing, like she didn’t know that simply having his arm thrown over her waist was enough to pin her in place. She swallows thickly as she walks closer, shrugging off Dave’s attempt to hold her back, and she does everything in her power to make sure she doesn’t physically react, her shoulders tight as she comes to a stop.

The relief she feels when Aaron stands up is palpable, his weight against a nearby tree as he stumbles, stunned by the explosion. It takes him a few seconds to steady himself and then he’s up again, running towards where the explosion had happened.

It’s only then that she sees Kate, and guilt washes over her as she realises she hadn’t even thought about her, all of her focus on Aaron.

He drops to his knees next to her, his hands immediately covered in blood when he touches her, her injuries clearly too extensive to survive.

“Kate,” Aaron says, shaking his head as he looks around as if searching for help they both knew wouldn’t come, “You’ve got to hold on. I…” he swallows thickly as he pushes her onto her side to see the damage, his eyes going wide when he sees the mess her back is in, exposed bone and muscle drawing gasps from the crowd around Emily.

“Is it bad?” Kate asks as he lowers her back down and sits down next to her, looking over his shoulder for more danger, trying to stay alert in case someone comes to finish what they started.

“Does it hurt?” He asks instead of answering her question and she shakes her head, “Good. It’s good it doesn’t hurt.”

Kate smiles tightly and nods, “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“When…when you said what you said during your interview, you were talking about Emily weren’t you?”

It feels like a lifetime passes as Emily watches him weigh up his options. Everything around her comes to a stop, her breath catching in her chest as she stares at him, the way he nods in response makes her close her eyes. She can feel everyone looking at her, can hear the whispers as they all start to gossip.

“Then you need to make sure you go back to her,” Kate says, her voice getting weaker, her words slurring together, “One of us should go back home.”

Aaron nods and he reaches out for her hand and squeezes it tightly, “I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head, “Don’t be,” she says, her eyes drifting shut, “It’s not…”

She drifts off, her words dying in her throat as a cannon rings out in the arena, making Emily jump ever so slightly, the sound always taking her right back to the arena herself. She looks back up at the screen and watches sadly as Aaron stands up and takes one last look at Kate before he walks away, a new determination in his step.

“Well,” Ian says, standing so close to her she can feel his breath on her neck. She turns to look at him, making a point of scrunching her nose up in disgust at him, “Now I know why you turned me down.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Ian,” she says, taking a step back from him, “I’ve never needed an excuse to turn you down.”

She walks away, making eye contact with Dave as she does so, and she desperately makes a point of ignoring how everyone is looking at her, how she feels like an animal in a zoo for the first time in years.

___

Emily jumps awake, not aware that she’d even fallen asleep in the first place as she gasps for air, her hand pressed against her chest as she takes in her surroundings.

“Emily, you’re okay,” Dave says, smiling softly at her, his hand on her shoulder as she looks around, realising that she had fallen asleep in the living room. Her eyes go wide as she looks over to the television, and Dave clears his throat, drawing her attention back to him. “He’s okay too. He’s still alive.”

She nods rubbing her eyes as she sits up, “How long was I out?”

“Only a few hours,” he says, “The girl from five and the boy from seven died.”

She frowns, “That leaves…”

“Just Aaron and that creep Foyet from four are left,” Dave says and he stands up, “It’s why I woke you up. They’re getting ready for the grand finale.”

She blows out a shaky breath and she stands up, “I’ll get ready. I assume they’ll want us all out there.”

“We can sit this one out, Bella,” he says as she starts to walk towards her room and she freezes in place. She turns to look at him, and he smiles sympathetically, as if she’d already lost Aaron, and it makes her ache, “We can make an excuse. Stay up here and give you some privacy.”

She stares at him for a moment, affection for her friend, for how he’d protected her over the years flooding to the surface. She walks over and hugs him, sinking into the embrace when he hugs her back.

“We should go,” she says, smiling tightly at him when they pull back, “The first rule of being a Victor?”

He smiles as she repeats what he’d said to her when she made it out of the arena, when she was scared and traumatised and wishing she’d died too.

“Keep up appearances,” he says squeezing her shoulder before she steps back, “You won’t have long.”

She nods and walks towards her bedroom, she pauses when she looks at the bed, the bed she hadn’t slept in for days, and she walks over her hand hovering over the pillow that had become Aaron’s. She picks it up and presses her face into it, breathing in the scent of him, letting it wash over her for a moment.

“Don’t die on me,” she says quietly, “Not now.”

She gets ready in a haze, grateful that she’d turned down her stylist team, not sure she could cope with putting on a brave face until the last possible moment. When they get out to the main square it feels like everyone is looking at her instead of at the giant screen in front of them all, Aaron’s confession about loving her still lingering in everyone's minds all these days later.

She’d always hated the jubilance that came with this, the excitement that lingered in the air as people were waiting to find out if they’d won their bets, if they had made money from the deaths of children. She had been bewildered her first time here, the year after she’d won. She’d felt out of place, like she was underwater as she watched people act like it was the party of the year whilst she wondered what people had made of her victory. If they thought it counted because she’d, according to some people, cheated by using the forcefield.

She looks up at the giant screens, watches how the game makers clearly try and draw Aaron and George Foyet together. She stands tall, uses everything her mother had taught her about politics, about how to survive in the world they lived in. She uses everything Dave had taught her about being a survivor, what Penelope had taught her about the Capitol. She was the sum of everyone she’d ever known, of everything she had survived herself.

She just hoped she’d get the chance to help Aaron do the same, to be part of what made him whole again.

“I have a good feeling about this,” Dave says as he turns to look at her and she scoffs, shaking her head.

“You’ve never lied to me before,” she replies, crossing her arms over her chest, “Don’t start now.”

“He’ll make it back to you,” he says, winking at her in a way that relaxes her and makes her furious in equal measure, “He’d be a fool not to.”

She smiles at him, his attempt at calming her down having worked, albeit briefly, but she’s drawn back to the spectacle of the games when she hears a yell, a scream she knows is Aaron. Foyet has him pinned down, a knife in his hand that glints in the artificial sun as he draws it out of him, the grunt that leaves Aaron animalistic.

“Emily-”

“Don’t,” Emily says, cutting off Dave’s platitudes, her hands clenched by her sides as she stares at the screen, “Come on Aaron,” she says under her breath, “You’ve promised me a date.”

She isn’t sure where Aaron gets his strength from, isn’t sure how he overpowers Foyet, but he does. He rolls them over, knocking the knife out of his hand at the same time, and he punches him. Hard. It’s something he repeats again and again, and she finds it oddly mesmerising. The crunch of Foyet’s bones, the sound as his teeth gave way under fists that had never been anything other than soft with her.

Foyet collapses, his head falling to the side as he passes out, and Aaron breathes heavily as he pulls back, his knuckles bleeding from where his skin had broken against the other man’s face. He tries to stand up but he stumbles, falling next to Foyet, his hands against the wounds he’d given him, blood seeping through his fingers as his eyes drift shut.

The transmission cuts out, the screen goes black and the crowd yells in disappointment. Emily turns to Dave, her eyes wide as she looks at him.

“What’s going on?”

He opens his mouth to respond, some half-hearted attempt to make her feel better, but he’s cut off by the loud booming sound of a single cannon going off in the distance.

-x-

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#aaron hotchner x emily prentiss #hotchniss fanfic #emily prentiss #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfiction #hotchniss fan fic #emily prentiss fanfiction #hotchniss fanfiction #hotchniss #aaron x emily

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larchelle-ffxiv · 3 months

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more 7.0 spoilers bc I was DRAINED after finishing msq yesterday. also a lot of headcanon stuff for my skrungly bc I have THOUGHTS AND THINGS I GOTTA WRITE

- so this expac hurt obviously, but MAN I didn't expect it to touch on grief and loss, let alone HOW it approached that. where shb and ew had similar themes going on of "regardless of the loss and sorrow we are faced with, we will learn to press on and continue", that sorta thing. dt is here like "hiya gamers are you ready to learn how to ACTUALLY LET GO OF THAT LOSS? HOW TO ACTUALLY SIT DOWN AND PROCESS THAT GRIEF? WELL YOURE GONNA LEARN TODAY"

- everything about alexandria/LM BROKE ME. a really powerful message on how impressive and impactful technology can be, but also how quickly it can be weaponized and abused. and the shit about erasing the memories of those who die just being commonplace???? the turali people who were in the dome, found themselves losing THIRTY YEARS OF THEIR LIVES, their loved ones back in tural thinking they were dead or missing and they were RIGHT THERE, some in that time REALLY DYING/BECOMING ENDLESS? good GOD that fucked me up. not to mention EVERYTHING ABOUT SPHENE. she didn't ASK to be made into an endless, she had goddamn levin sickness and WENT TO TRY TO HELP HER PEOPLE ANYWAY, preservation forced her new self to put the people's needs and desires so much in the forefront of her priorities that she became a TERRIBLY FLAWED leader, but was so blind to her faults bc she "did everything for her people's wellbeing". she's a heartbreaking character for sure, ugh

- this expac gave us SO MUCH GOD DAMN WORLD BUILDING. WOW. ive never done every single yellow quest in an expac, but I've made it a huge goal of mine to do it here esp throughout the expac, and it's been SO WORTH IT. the further extended lore, the foreshadowing/clarification and further explanation for things, it was all terrific jfc. now I wanna go back and do yellow quests for all the expansions bc bro. this shit is just SITTING HERE??? FOR FREE????

- I've finally figured out why people (aka capital g Gamers on reddit/ff forums/twitter) don't like this expac. it's absolutely feeling like what stb has become to a lot of the player base. it features a lot of POC, has female leads, and we as the WoL aren't The Main Character. at least in stb we had more of a presence as WoL, but here one title doesn't matter anywhere near as much in comparison. also, with a lot of the dialogue/plot stuff/music (esp the songs with lyrics) , this expac is kingdom hearts coded AS FUCK. it's goofier than EW/SHB, it has more corny stuff going on, wuk lamat is LITERALLY female furry sora. they're mad that we aren't the Main Character, they're mad it isn't as edgy/horrific/depressing, they """can't relate""" bc everything is so diverse and full of hispanic culture, and they're fucking FIXATED on wuk lamat's VA being a trans woman. jfc I'm so glad I'm not on Twitter and I don't look at the ffxiv reddit, bc the shit I've heard has been pathetic and obnoxious lmao. like, try to have ACTUAL CONSTRUCTIVE THINGS to complain about.

also, I hold the unpopular opinion of HW being my least favorite experience in game. the beginning of it is SO GODDAMN SLOW AND PAINFUL, and i honestly got soooo bored of seeing the same looking white elezens/hearing about the Catholic Control and Drama. i also really dont like the dungeons or trials (minus the last msq one, still great thematically), and playing 50-60 as a scholar was NOT fun lmao. hilda, the OST, and everything relating to the DRK quest line are basically all that kept me going through that expac.

But I won't go being a goddamn asshole about it to people who like it!!! let people ENJOY things jfc lmao, also recognize that every single expac takes time to hit the Big Frickin Moments (aka level x7 most of the time), and not everything needs to involve huge amounts of massacre and horror!!! even then, did yall NOT pay attention to what happened with solution 9/living memory??? where goddamn SOULS ARE A CURRENCY???? how about the mamool ja SACRIFICING INFANTS EN MASSE in hopes of a two headed son being born, and putting all their faith in that son to get them out from the deepest depths of the jungle???? or the war between them and the x'braal???? is2g the lack of media literacy/reading comprehension amongst gamers, I'm so TIRED

RANT OVER UGH ANYWAYYYYY

- chelle is absolutely gonna find her adoptive mom satsuki in the canal town section of living memory. hands fucking down. ive had this idea for y e a r s now of them having a chance meeting in the aetherial sea as she "died" after fighting zenos in UT, but it fits SO WELL to have it take place in LM of all places. satsuki spending YEARS trying to find her lil meow meow again, hearing tales of what sounded like her girl, but how in the hell did the shy, sickly child she once cared for get strong enough to become a whole ass HERO??? and just always ending up in each place she was too long after she had left, bc she was only able to work off of hearsay ;A;

me and my partner have it where satsuki's wife and her always hoped to visit tural together, and she gave her wife notes on how she needed to help satsuki find this young miqo girl she adopted after her wife went to travel again. as luck would have it, enna was in tural waiting for satsuki to join her there (satsuki and her were doing research based on chelle's appearance and accent and essentially crossed every continent off the list over time. esp Ala mhigo bc, even tho that's where satsuki found her, enna knew she couldn't be born there based on she herself being Ala mhigan). enna becomes chelle's viper mentor and says that she knows her mother, but doesn't elaborate much until they get to know each other better.

so them finding her in LM? still running a tavern and keeping people happy with booze and food and sea shanties all sung off key? oh it's gonna DESTROY THEM, but be such an important step in getting closure/learning to face grief head on/letting her go without regrets. and they're gonna be a family and UGH I CANT WAIT TO WRITE IT

- fellow wolgrahas. fellow wolgrahas how the FUCK WE DOIN BOYS, LIKE?????? they really gave us a main story quest to help an endless find an engagement ring to propose to his beloved, AND THEN IMMEDIATELY AFTER. put us on a gondola ride with g'raha so he could have a """heartfelt conversation"""with us AGAIN???? BRO!!!!!!

chelle and him are absolutely gonna finally address their relationship again, where g'raha has been struggling to figure out whether or not to propose lol. he really wants to do something to symbolize them being together for life, but knows that she isn't the kind of person who likes just staying in one place/being tied down and isn't really about traditional. well anything lol. he's gonna stumble his way through all those thoughts before she gently cuts him off, reassuring him that she understands and appreciates how thoughtful he's been about the whole thing. reflect a bit on what they've seen and been through, both in the first and since he returned to the source, and with this couple and them talking about "living without regrets/living life to the fullest"(gotta reread the dialogue for when I write this lol). and thought stuffy fancy shindigs aren't her thing, she knows damn well that he's someone she wants to see the world and share her life with.

and SHE'S the one who gets down on one knee and asks him to elope with her/be life partners. the bitch PROPOSES HERSELF, but is too stupid to realize/still too scared of vulnerability to actually call it what it is. and he's about to burst into tears and before he can say anything the gondola knocks into the pier at the end of the ride, as chelle's kissing his hand, causing her to nearly headbutt the poor boy in the crotch and both of them panicked going "OH GODS ARE YOU OKAY, DID YOU GET HURT, SORRY". and they stare at one another before chelle awkwardly laughs going "i guess this would be a bad time to make a joke about "giving you head", huh" or something else cringe like that, to which they both start laughing, holding hands as they step back onto the pier before those laughs are joined with joy filled crying as they hold each other as tight as gd possible and jfeivoeoivoeor

I'm sure I'll have more to say and reflect on but this is already super long and I just. wow. what a goddamn incredible experience dawntrail has been.

#7.0 spoilers #dawntrail spoilers #chelle dawntrailin'#lorechelle #also i share Unpopular Opinions about a popular expansion lol

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thezanyarthropleura · 5 months

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Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is... my favorite Godzilla movie?

Or: how the MonsterVerse changed my mind after 10 years.

I hate to be that person in a fandom who's constantly saying things like "the old stuff was great, but the new stuff sucks!" however, when it comes to the kaiju genre... for a time, I unfortunately got pretty close to that. I once rolled my eyes at the notion of the "Kaiju Renaissance," and how between Legendary and Toho it had "something for everyone" and thought that for me, that was only really true if you counted some of the IDW comics, the 12-minute Godzilla vs. Megalon short film, and the renewed availability/merchandising for the originals - which means I've recently seen about 20 classic films I never had before, including some of my new favorites, so in that sense, it sort of did feel like a Renaissance. It just wasn't feeling, at the time, like the newer movies had much to offer for me personally.

It isn't that I had a great many negative things to say about the MonsterVerse films, I just... didn't have a lot of positive things to say either. Due to a number of things I can now look back on as mostly minor nitpicks, there was a sense that they didn't even belong to the fandom I loved at all, and Toho's offerings as of late... had felt pretty much the same. Now, I'll have you know I do in fact love the heck out of Godzilla: Minus One, and in a way, that film feels like a great "part one" of my change in attitude toward the new kaiju boom, but in the end, I like it more because it's an excellent film overall than specifically because it's a kaiju film.

The Godzilla solo films, or films where kaiju are presented exclusively or almost exclusively as an antagonistic force, are *in theory* some of my least favorites of the bunch. I end up holding quite a few of them very highly on their own merits as movies, but what I'm mainly looking for in these films actually started with the original Mothra film in 1961 - the expansion of the genre from disaster film into urban/contemporary fantasy, and the treatment of giant monsters as spiritual, cultural, supernatural forces that can represent a whole slew of things other than a threat or crisis.

Now, if that just sounds like a fancy way of saying "giant monsters beating the crap out of each other" then you're not entirely wrong. I do love a good hero story, and it informs a lot of which films end up being my favorites. But there are other factors I find exceptionally strong in many of the classic films - personal resonance with the human element, the interaction of the human and monster elements, the overall uniqueness and earnestness of the story being told - that I just wasn't finding with the MonsterVerse.

...Until now

GXK SPOILERS AHEAD!

I went in not expecting too much from this movie. From all the hype surrounding it, I was prepared for a monster brawl I could sit back and have a good time watching, and that was about it. I thought the opening Hollow Earth scenes were cool (if a little gory), I laughed out loud in the theater at Doug's appearance, and since I was already spoiled on Scylla's death, I didn't take it too badly (she was my favorite of the MV original Titans, but since I wasn't that invested, it was easy enough to switch back into "oh, we were never supposed to care about them" mode).

Things changed as we got introduced (mainly re-introduced) to the human cast. It was specifically the car scene, with Ilene picking Jia up from school and the short conversation they have in sign, that resonated especially well and gave me the sudden hope that this film was, in fact, going to have a very strong emotional core. It sets both of them up for deeper, more personal character arcs than they had in their previous appearance in Godzilla vs. Kong, and that only continued as we got more scenes with them, and then added Bernie into the cast.

There's something I really love about the Ilene and Bernie scene - Bernie is, in a sense, a meme character, in that his laser-focused self-interest is continually played for laughs, but then we put him in a scene with an increasingly emotional and desperate Ilene. The contrast between the two of them cuts deep at the appeal to underlying humanity that we see play out with this cast, in small moments, across the rest of the movie. Jia was already the best character in the MonsterVerse, but she has an even stronger pull when we've been introduced to a deep emotional angst looming in the background of all her scenes. Ilene's worries about her strained relationship with her daughter are carried through and don't ever feel like they've been left behind for the sake of expediency. Bernie has always had a few serious notes to his character, but even though the jokes continue, his insecurity around being hounded by skeptics is eventually played seriously and he becomes much more than the memes by the end of this film. Trapper doesn't feel quite like he gets a complete arc of his own, but as the new addition, he has a great vibe and acts as a supportive presence for everyone else's arcs.

GxK is very much a "quirky people in a situation have decided to support each other" movie, reminding me very strongly of Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966), which previously held the title of my personal favorite Godzilla movie. And yet, given this specific cast of characters, both in literal dynamic parallels and how enjoyable they are to watch, I can't help but also draw favorable comparisons to the Heisei era Gamera films - which I hold in their own, higher tier that eclipses anything that's come out of the Godzilla franchise. I'd specifically mention Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (1995) as probably the closest comparison, both in character and overall tone. Both of those movies are already in my top ten, along with a few other comparable films like Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster (1964), which also has similar vibes in the human cast but far more direct parallels on the monster side.

As for the tone - great. GxK has one kaiju sex joke and one Skull Island style death, in something that feels like a "last hurrah" for the MonserVerse's previous sense of humor, but after that, it takes on a certain Showa-style earnestness for even the fantastical story being told. When there is humor, it has more to do with the characters' personalities playing off one another, and IMO, it works very well (I still think it could do with less green/yellow blood splatter and monster gore in general, but most of that is also kept to the beginning of the movie). Overall, the film doesn't feel like it's making fun of itself or the genre it's in, or if it does, it's doing so more tastefully than some previous entries.

It's probably well known by now that Godzilla himself isn't in this movie all that much, mainly relegated to Kong's backup - which is fine by me, as that's actually more or less my exact favorite use of Godzilla. He doesn't need to be the main character, or a significant narrative focus, he doesn't even need to be an outright hero, he just needs to be convenient. Godzilla showing up in all his glory, to make a situation at least slightly better for someone I care about, so I can cheer him on. That's all I ask, and this film finally delivers that. The best I can figure, the previous MV films either made him too brutal/vengeful or made his enemies too sympathetic, or some combination of the two, such that he never felt like he had that big hero moment I was looking for until now. But Scar King is just enough of a love-to-hate villain that it easily tilts the moral compass in Godzilla's favor, and this film even does make a point of having a few moments where Godzilla chooses to set his rage aside and spare a former enemy (Scylla and Tiamat notwithstanding. RIP to them, I guess).

Now, as for Kong - I've never been a Kong fan. I don't have much interest in watching previous Kong movies outside of Toho's versions and sometimes the 2005 film. The classic take on the character, with the kidnapping elements and inevitable tragedy, just doesn't appeal to me, but even when I wasn't quite sold on the MonsterVerse, one of the things I did acknowledge was that it was actually starting to make me like Kong. This film cements that, and I have zero problems that it's more of Kong's movie over Godzilla's (and for as much of the movie as the trailers spoiled, I'm really glad they managed to hide almost everything to do with Suko. His story has so much more depth than "Kong adopts a cute baby ape," it's actually wonderful).

(I could also gush at length about Mothra, but most if it would probably be incomprehensible. Just know that despite her small role and short screentime, she's at some of her very best here).

So yes, a MonsterVerse film has, as far as I can tell, somehow topped my list of favorite Godzilla films, and is now up there competing with Heisei Gamera and the third Rebirth of Mothra movie for my top pick in the genre. But the next question is, did one good movie actually change my mind about the whole MonsterVerse?

...Kind of, yeah. With as much as GxK made me love Ilene, Jia, and Bernie, I now immensely enjoy Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) and I've found myself rewatching it many, many times just to see more of them, not to mention also appreciating it a lot more as Kong's film. Mothra and especially the focus on Monarch as an organization also brings me back to Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), whose characters I've since reevaluated and found that I also quite enjoy. Kong: Skull Island (2017) remains an enjoyable popcorn movie for me, also elevated slightly for being a Kong film and having Skull Island and Iwi lore, and Godzilla (2014)... is also part of the continuity, I guess. I do enjoy a lot of what it has to offer, but it's probably my least favorite.

To get serious for a moment, these days every new release, in any fandom I'm in, makes me feel like it might be the last one I get to enjoy, if not the last one period. And if that ends up being true about this movie, then at least I'd be able to say that as far as I'm concerned, the kaiju genre, if not human media in general, has gone out on a high note.

I'm not in a place where I can concern myself at all with sequels or spinoffs, anything we might get in the future. But for now, this is a good movie, and I'm going to be enjoying the heck out of it. I've seen it in theaters three times and counting. I bought the novelization audiobook and have listened to it twice so far. I'm writing a fanfic. I keep impulse-buying the playmates toys. I started learning sign language. I'm choosing to be not at all normal about this movie and if the world ended with it being my entire personality, maybe at least in some sense I'd die happy.

So from me, a classic kaiju film snob who could talk at length about how Japanese films from as early as the 1950s and 60s have more progressive values and better storytelling than modern Hollywood, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire gets an absolutely GLOWING recommendation. Somehow.

...and in case I don't see you, so long and that's a lot of fish.

#godzilla x kong: the new empire #monsterverse #godzilla #king kong #kaiju #gamera #tokusatsu #jia andrews #ilene andrews #bernie hayes #trapper beasely

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