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hrodvitnon · 2 months

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SIGNALIS Big Teef Fic Preview!

Did anybody want a fic with the Big Teef? No? Well, too bad, you're getting one anyway. Have a taste!

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"Hey, when were you going to tell me you have fangs?"

Elster pauses, having just gotten engrossed in a scene of tense questioning. "Excuse me?"

Ariane sits beside her at the table, lays down the Replika overview, leans her elbows on it and rests her chin on folded hands, giving the Replika a look that to any Gestalt would be similar to a parent wanting to know why their kids didn't do what was asked of them – or rather, like she's taken on the role of detective in the midst of questioning. Elster lifts her eyebrows, waiting for an explanation.

Ariane elaborates as if telling an anecdote from her Rotfront years. "I looked through the Replika overview again to see if there was anything I could pick up to help you out, or do something for you, when... in the corner of my little eye, I spy... a schematic. A schematic, El Bell. Of retractable canine teeth. Which you are in possession of, and neglected to inform me."

Elster closes her eyes, knowing where this is going.

"Ariane."

"Now, I don't ask the time of day from a clock..."

"Liebchen."

"But I'm not shy about how hot I am for nibbles and love bites..."

"Light of my life."

"And you didn't think to tell me? When were you going to tell me?"

"Settle down, dramatic. They're for self-defense, not for sexy time. Besides, it's not even unique to LSTRs – all Replikas have them."

Ariane blinks in surprise. "Wait, seriously? Even Eules?" Having such teeth makes sense for a Storch or Star, but an Eule?

"Absolutely. I once heard that a secretary unit back at headquarters almost bit the fingers off an untrained Storch who got too ugly with her. Not sure how it ended, but I like to think Frau Beißer got off with a warning and the Storch never lived it down. Self-defense, like I said. With combat units it's a last resort in case one runs out of ammunition or doesn't have a melee weapon ready."

Ariane's eyes widen. Eules always looked so delicate to her with how lightly they carried themselves, but it seems even those domestic units are made of sterner stuff than expected. Her eyes lower to Elster's mouth. Elster gives her a knowing look.

"No."

"I didn't say anything!"

"You have that 'in the interest of science' look on your face."

"I just want to see them for myself! There's nothing wrong with that! Show me, please? It's not like I'll ever see them in a combat situation, unless we get picked up by aliens or something."

Elster stares. Ariane stares back, pleading and doe-eyed, just seconds away from deploying the dreaded pouty bottom lip. Elster gives in, of course. She can never really refuse humoring her love, so she teasingly grouses like it's such a chore.

"Ach, fine."

Ariane tries not to drum her fingers happily while Elster pops the mandibles in her jaw, mouth opening. Nothing out of the ordinary, just 28 white teeth – go figure Replikas aren't manufactured with wisdom teeth – and then Elster curls her lips back wolfishly, her canines extending with an audible click.

There is, of course, the knee-jerk flicker of saucy fascination since Ariane does so love when Elster bites her, but in the moment it's also tempered by actual scientific curiosity. Elster's lengthened teeth are only sharp at the very tips, as Ariane knows from experience, so while they probably can pierce through flesh or biomechanical components they must be intended for crushing and tearing, clamping down and keeping a steady grip thanks to powerful jaws.

A rather specific detail from the Replika overview comes to mind: the LSTR unit has a bite force of 1250 PSI at minimum. Ariane's heard of certain Vinetan animals having a comparable bite, capable of piercing through the skulls of their prey. The knowledge of this results in a revelatory daydream of hostile alien forces intercepting their little ship and abducting Ariane, causing Elster to crush an extraterrestrial skull or spine between her teeth as she goes in a rampaging rescue...

"Ari," Elster drawls. The extended fangs seem to mess with her speech, an added lisp causing her accent to border on nonsensical. "Ye hab dat look."

Ariane shakes her head. "I wasn't thinking of anything sexy this time, honest!"

"Uh-huh. Cad I pud dese away now? Iz hahd to talk."

#signalis #preview #ariane yeong #elster 512 #why yes i do like to imagine elster CHOMPING DOWN on her enemies and dragging them around with her teeth. why do you ask?#kolibri compensate for being so tiny by having a jaw like a thylacine. they open FUCKEN WIDE. and WILL bite your ankles.#storch like to bite metal as a jaw exercise. it looks funny until they bend the metal. and they will bite during interrogations.#mynahs like to compare their tusks to those of an old vinetan movie about a giant turtle. because turtle is friend to all children!#stars have the triangular shark style teef for intimidation. some paint teef on their masks. the mask is to protect YOU from THEM.#ara teef are mostly to keep anyone who Isn't Allowed outside their tunnels. mind your fingers.#eules have 'vampire style' teef because gestalts think it's oddly cute on them. do not be fooled. if she wanna go off she'll do some damage #falkes have oni style retractable tusks. because it's cool and intimidating and sexy and easily distinguishable and tusks are SCARY.#adlers don't have big teef because they're administrators but they do still have strong jaws. some will sharpen their teef to emulate falke #those adlers are cool and like to Get Shit Done so they can go back to doing their own thing and stim in peace.#thank you for coming to my ted talk

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softquietsteadylove · 10 months

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Can you write a story which thena and gil a childhood best friend but one day gil got kidnapped and everyone assume his dead but not thena her family even sent her to a mental institution to make her better, Year after year past she still can't accept gil is gone, then one day Gil appear in front of her out of nowhere and was like "Sorry to keep you waiting"

"Hi, I'm Gil."

She could always remember him being like that--so warm and open and inviting. She had met him as just a little boy, her age, maybe a year older. And when kids are young like that, one year can be a huge difference to overcome, but young Gil had come right up to her, a gap between his front teeth and the biggest smile she had ever seen.

"Wanna be friends?"

The would become the very best of friends. Always together, always doing something, or nothing, so long as they didn't have to be apart for it. He would play anything with her, even if it was a game 'for girls', or 'babies', like her brother would say it was. Gil would collect butterflies with her, or help her learn to braid hair, or set up elaborate tea parties. They did everything together.

Even as they got older, and even as they gained other friends, nothing came between them. Ikaris still always insisted it was dumb that Gil liked playing with his baby sister more than him, but neither of them cared. And Sersi and Makkari never minded Gil playing with them.

Not even starting school divided them. They weren't exactly in the same class, but recess and lunch were their little moments of reprieve. Gil would share the snacks and lunch he got as a growing boy, and Thena would happily trade away the parts of her lunch she didn't like but knew Gil enjoyed. Everything else could wait, whether it was school, or their own circles of friends.

They were barely 11 years old when Gil went missing.

"Hi sweetie," she could remember a police officer kneeling down in front of her. "Do you remember the last time you saw your friend?"

"Lunch," she had answered, feeling completely numb. She had already assumed something was wrong when Gil was nowhere to be found when it was time to walk home together. "We always have lunch together."

"And do you always walk home the same way?"

There were plenty of questions like that. Thena could remember Gil's family and hers mulling around their home, police officers walking in and out all evening. Gil was missing--just vanished in the few minutes no one from the school had eyes on him and before she rounded the corner from her classroom at the back of the building to join him.

If she had been with him just a minute earlier, it could have saved him.

Everyone told her not to think that way, of course. She was put in counselling, but her determination that Gil was still out there somewhere was 'something to keep an eye on'. The word 'obsessed' was tossed around plenty as well, but Thena had more important things to worry about: Gil.

Makkari and Sersi were worried too, but their support exceeded their concerns. They supported her when she said she wanted to go into criminal psychology. They supported her obsession with true crime and morbid and macabre curiosities. Even if they were worried, they understood why she was possessed by the idea of understanding what would make a person do something like that. And more importantly, learning about what would happen during, and then after the abduction.

For all those calling it a sick obsession, it served her well. It drove her like nothing else. She excelled, advanced quickly and aggressively in all she did. Who cared what the reason was? At least she was doing something, unlike everyone who had inevitably given up on him.

The officers who had hounded her with questions?--gone. The judge who deemed the case cold?--nothing. Her own family--Gil's own family! Ikaris believed it too, but every time he tried to tell her to give up for her own well being they just got into a huge, violent fight over it. So he stopped trying to convince her.

Once she had enough knowledge to begin her own investigation, then it was a bridge too far. The worry could no longer wait, and everyone decided that she needed help. Sersi and Makkari pleaded her case, but her parents deemed her mentally unfit. Even Ikaris stood by as she was hauled away into the back of a van, kicking and screaming for all of the neighbours to whisper about.

Let them watch, she figured. It was a good opportunity for her to remind them that they had failed an 11 year old boy because of their blind eyes.

"Go on."

Thena lifts her eyes and then looks back down at her lap. They ask her this every year, around the time Gil disappeared. There are plenty of other routine appointments through the year, but they only bring up Gil and her past at this certain time.

If she just admits that there's no way he's still alive, and that her obsession is a coping mechanism, then she gets to go home.

"He's alive," she claims outright, nailing another stake in her coffin. Her eyes are clear as she looks at the psychiatrist who then scribbles something in her notes. Thena narrows her eyes at her, "I know he is."

"Tell me more about Gil," the psych asks of her, switching tactics instead of locking horns with her. Not that it gets anyone anywhere.

Thena sighs. She has nothing better to do, staring out the window of the office and at the leaves changing. "Gil was...the best."

"Gil was sweet. He was sweet in a way boys usually aren't, especially so young. But he liked playing quiet games or drawing or playing house more than he did roughhousing. Other kids called him names for it, of course, but he didn't care."

She smiles.

"We would play house, and he would braid my hair and wave me off to work," she laughs at the memory of how they thought the world worked back then. "I would come home and he would have a beautiful pretend meal set out for us. He would put on whatever music we could find and ask me to dance for our anniversary."

"That sounds very sweet."

Thena glares at the woman for interrupting her blissful trip down memory lane. But she continues. "Gil was always sweet. Even when we got older, started school, he never stopped spending time with me even though I was a girl, or I was younger than him. He would defend me from older children and I would defend him from just about anyone else."

"He wanted to be a chef," Thena says, and her throat tightens and she chokes on her air. Because he would have become such a brilliant chef, and he would have that smile he always had, and she doesn't even know what he looks like now.

"It sounds like you two loved each other very much."

Thena doesn't bother answering that. No one understands, anyway. Everyone likes to think of their friendship as this precious thing of the past, like they were such angelic things. Everyone acts as if her memories of Gil are all she has left of him.

"Thena," the therapist shifts in her seat as she tries to breach more dangerous territory. "I know how much you love Gil. Can you tell me how this time of year makes you feel?"

Not this bullshit. Thena resists the urge to roll her eyes, looking out the window again. The leaves are changing, and it makes her think of the leaf Gil saved for her the morning he disappeared. He gave it to her before school, claiming he'd never seen a leaf the colour of her hair before.

She still has it. It's one of her few possessions, pressed into an old and worn copy of Robert Frost work. She sighs, "Gil liked poetry."

The therapist resigns herself to being ignored.

"He liked making things rhyme, rudimentary literary devices, jokes and brain teasers," Thena smiles again, now just speaking aloud to herself. "I told him he could be a poet. He said it wouldn't pay well, and then how would we do things like pay mortgages and have two cars?"

"He really thought of everything."

He did. Gil was very forward thinking as a child. He always considered every possible angle of something, despite looking more like a kid who would act first and think later.

All the more reason to believe that he wouldn't have just wandered off with someone, or that he would have found a way to escape if he did get plucked off the street somehow.

"Thena-"

"I believe that's our time," she cuts the therapist off, standing and beginning to walk out the door on her own. She's been here long enough that they aren't quite as strict with her.

"Indeed," the psych stands as well, at least giving her the respect of sending her off properly. "I'll see you next week."

"Can't wait," Thena mutters as she heads for the common area. Sometimes she wonders if prison would be better than this place. At least prisoners are allowed to keep things in their cells.

It'll be winter soon, and she'll think about Gil, wonder if he has to endure winters in some terrible little cellar. Or maybe he did manage to get away, because he was always clever. Maybe he managed to find a new life for himself somewhere.

After a trauma like that, maybe his mentality was so affected he wouldn't be her Gil anymore anyway. A morbid thought, but she didn't study psychology for some delusion that he could be completely unaffected by it all.

She has been in this mental institution for years now, too. Her parents don't want anything to do with her, and she could be released if they weren't funnelling money in to keep her here. All they want is to hear that she's forgotten about Gil completely.

Well, it's never going to happen, so her parents can go to hell.

Thena arrives in the common area, devoid of anyone else this close to meal time. The food is awful anyway. She would rather starve and think about Gil's cookies he would make every winter.

She leans on the windowsill, looking out at the trees. "These woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep."

"And miles to go before I sleep."

She doesn't turn to look at who's joining her. She doesn't much care, and she doesn't recognise the voice, although it is familiar.

"And miles to go before I sleep."

It is familiar. It's soft, and gentle, deeper than she imagined it. Soft steps come closer to her.

"And be one traveller, long I stood," it continues until it's right behind her, "and looked down one as far I could."

"To where it bent in the undergrowth," Thena finishes and frowns. She knows why she knows this poem, and plenty of others from the same volume. But it's rare to find someone else who does.

"Your hair's so long, now."

She stares at the window as gentle hands run through her hair, mindful not to hurt her as they start to wind the locks together. Her throat tightens and she chokes on her air, "y-you still remember how to braid?"

He just chuckles, and it's when she hears the hint of his laughter that she realises this is real. She hasn't finally succumbed to this hell around her and lost it.

She turns. Her hair is half braided down her back, but Gilgamesh is standing there, still just a year older than her, but looking completely unlike he once did. But it's definitely Gil. "You're here."

"It's our anniversary," he smiles at her like when they were children, playing house in her backyard. He holds his hands out, "sorry to keep you waiting."

#Thenamesh AU #honey this is a beautiful prompt #and oh my god this is so sad #but a happy ending!#Little baby Gil and Thena tho?#Ikaris is like playing house is for girls and little babies!#little Gil is like well my wife is going to work while I clean the house all day!#he makes huge feasts for them and pretends to drink a beer from his big grownup coffee mug #I won't be touching on this a lot for obvious reasons #Gil got abducted and kept in a dank little cellar #he had a rug and a little mattress and got fed #he would braid the tassles of the rug and think of Thena #he cooperated slowly gaining trust until he was allowed upstairs #then to go out of the house sometimes #then more often #then alone #until eventually he managed to escape #by that time he was several states over and had no records of who he was with him #but he manged to get back and the first thing he did was ask Where's Thena?#he was furious but he went right there to see her #and now they can get married and have a mortgage and two cars so Thena can go to work and I'm emotional

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