#Full force ahead destroying everything in its path
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To me cake bombing is designing a system that can fill a chest past max capacity by a lot, so it’s so pressurized that even slightly tapping on the chest would cause an explosion. If it were to be used I’d take it as a landslide of cake pouring out of chest with so much speed from the pressure release it hits hard enough to knock someone almost or fully unconscious.
#qsmp#Qsmp tubbo#I also take it as a system that makes cakes within the chest so quickly and it acts similarly to elephants toothpaste by bursting out#Full force ahead destroying everything in its path
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Chapter 12: Encounters
Prologue | Chapter 11 | Chapter 13
Chapter 12: Encounters
The system’s Gateway is intact, but currently not operational. Due to its orbital position at the edge of the system and a significant distance away from Nephaas, we will be investigating it closely before attempting to leave. That being said, we currently do not have high hopes. At the moment, it is tumbling through space, little more than a large asteroid composed of shinier-than-average metals, crystals, and composites in far orbit from the primary star; it is giving off no more heat or other emissions than we would expect from a rock of its shape and composition. Finding it took significant effort, as it has shifted somewhat from its original orbit, apparently from a gravitational encounter with one of the outer planets.
We can only hope that we will find something there that might help us understand what has happened.
~o0O0o~
Raavi ava Laargan
We continued down the length of the canals, speeding along in the winter night, slowly making our way up the length of the kingdom towards the White Mountains. We were almost out of Fia’s duchy, although, ironically, we’d be reentering it later on further to the west due to the winding paths of the canals. We were starting to get into the foothills of the mountains now, and the terrain was becoming more and more rolling. Forests were becoming more common too, rather than just the tamed orchards and groves of the lower plains. That was both good and bad, as it meant that we had shelter when we stopped, but the trees also blocked the wind, so our speed dropped to ‘only’ about fifteen miles an hour. Which, as Stylio pointed out, was still faster than a horse could sustain even in full summer. And the clear and relatively straight path of the canal also helped channel what wind there was, so that helped too.
Then, up ahead as we cleared a cut through a hillside, I saw light.
Up on the top of a hill in the distance, a fire glowed.
“What’s that?” a few people chorused, and the rustling of paper came from Yufemya as she unfurled the map.
“Uh… it’s the… um…”
There was more rustling of paper and Zoy’s voice came a moment later. “It’s the ‘Starkwaldhuugel Shrine’.”
“Wait, really?” I blurted. “Prepare to pull the brakes!”
“Raavi—” Fia started to say.
“It’s famous, and given, well, everything, I figure asking for some help can’t hurt!”
There was a pause, and Fia, sighing and chuckling, said, “All right. Let’s take a break and Raavi can go give some offerings.”
I tried not to hear that as indulgent, but instead focused on the light ahead as it drew nearer and nearer. In a matter of minutes, we arrived at a small artificial lake jutting off of the canal; numerous docks, sized for the standard canal boats, stood empty and waiting in the night. Stone steps set into the side of the hill were mostly swept clean of snow—by the wind, judging by how the drifts lay in the corners on the leeward side. The steps themselves were not made of the same hardwearing stone that made the stairs down to the caverns in my town, and had visible dips and wear from feet climbing up and down them.
“I guess we’ll make camp and you’re going up the hill?” Fia asked. “Who do you want to come with you?”
“Wait, what do you mean?”
“Raavi, there are roving bands of revenants at large in this kingdom and we’re in the area where they’ve been operating. What happens if you run into a group of them up at the shrine?” Fia responded as she hauled the tent out of the back of the Lynx.
“Oh. Uh… that’s a good point.” I considered. For a moment, I almost said Zoy, but, well…
The Dormelion Empire had tried to destroy or profane my people’s shrines after they’d conquered our lands, and forced us to worship their gods. It felt… wrong to bring one of them up to one of the holiest sites in the entire kingdom.
“Oksyna? Feel like coming with me? If we run into any revenants, you’ll be able to talk with them.”
She grinned. “Sure.”
I smiled back and grabbed a pouch of sandwiches and a flask of beer from the supplies, and stuffed them into my coat pockets. With that, the two of us started up the stairs.
While I was sure that in the summer they were easy and comfortable footpaths, in winter they were more than a bit treacherous, and our progress was slow. Around us, trees rattled and whispered, mixing with the sounds of the chimes and bells hung among the branches. It was beautiful and peaceful, and as we reached the first landing on the stairs, we paused just for a moment to listen.
But the moment passed, and we started up the second flight of stairs. Part of the way up, Oksyna commented, “This place must be gorgeous in the summer, all green and alive.”
“Oh, definitely.” I looked around; the stairs were bordered by carved stone railings, and even though they were obscured by snow, I could see that they were beautiful works of art. It was a little hard to tell, because the stone itself was also a near pure-white, probably from the White Mountains. I knew that they were named for the color of the rock. In the monograph I’d read that had inspired me to build the Lynx, I’d found that there were mountains around the equator of the world that were covered in ice and snow year-round, and the first explorers who had gone there had thought that they were just more of the same geology as the White Mountains here. Finding that they were covered in glaciers was a shock to them.
Reaching the top of the stairs and feeling a bit winded from the climb, I blinked. What I had assumed would be another landing was instead a wide setback that appeared to encircle the entire hill. It was a good twenty yards wide and filled with ornamental trees, and what I guessed were planters of flowers, judging by the hummocks of snow between the trees.
“Pretty,” Oksyna said approvingly. “So what would people be doing here anyway? Or can you not say?”
“Generally? Bringing offerings, praying, giving thanks to the spirits. But I don’t know the specifics; you have to be an inducted member of the local circle to learn that.”
“Amazing. And your people managed to keep it all going, despite the Empire’s best efforts.” She dragged a hand through a pile of snow, revealing the remains of some flowers; I’d been right on that count. “It’s… nice.”
Confused, I gave her a glance as I started towards the next set of stairs. “Nice how? I don’t understand.”
She sighed. “So my homeland is right next to the Empire’s homeland. From what I’ve read, before they came and conquered us, we venerated the Sun, the Moon, and the Night-Light. But that’s all gone now, beyond what some scholars wrote down.”
I nodded. “The only reason we managed to keep our ways is because we hid our wise men and women in the caverns specifically so they could pass down what they knew.” As I put my foot on the first step, I turned and looked at her. “Does… does the situation with the Sacrem in the Empire…”
“Bring me any joy?” she asked, and shook her head. “No. But that’s a talk for another day. Come on. Let’s pay homage to your people’s ways, and not talk more about others.” She started up the stairs, and we again fell silent, trying to avoid slipping. A single handrail in the center of the wide stairs was the only security we had against falling on the omnipresent ice.
Even so, it only took a few minutes to reach the top, although we were both out of breath by the time we got there.
But we were both speechless for a different reason.
I stared.
Eight arches of shining braided metals made an open dome reaching at least a hundred feet in the air, if not more, suspended over a terraced bowl in the center, with a central raised altar at the nadir. At the very top of the dome, suspended hundreds of feet above the altar below, was the bowl of fire that we had seen in the distance.
“Wow…” Oksyna breathed.
Nodding was the only reaction I could make, even as part of my mind tried to determine the stresses and tensile strengths of the arches; I knew that this place was thousands of years old—as old as the King’s Tower, really—and had remained standing for all of that time.
Then my eyes narrowed.
“Look.”
“What?”
“There’s no ice or snow inside the dome.”
She did a double-take of her own, and her eyes widened. “How? It’s open.”
“Let’s go look.”
Together, we went across the open space—the top of the hill, aside from the shrine itself, was flat and paved with stones—and then we reached the edge of the dome. There was a distinct line between inside and out, between snow and bare… stone? Metal? What was that material? I couldn’t tell.
I shared a look with Oksyna and we both took deep breaths together and then stepped over the line.
“Well… that was anticlimactic,” she commented when nothing happened.
“Yeah. I don’t feel any difference in the wind or anything,” I said, and then crouched down. “But there’s no snow on here. You’d think a bowl like this would be full of it…” I shook my head. “The ancients sure knew what they were doing.”
“That’s for sure.”
We went down the terraced steps; looking around, it was fairly obvious that it was intended for thousands of people to be able to sit and see the central altar. At the center, the floor flattened out into a ring around the altar. It was a single piece of crystal, with a bronze bowl mounted on top of it.
Feeling grossly inadequate all of a sudden, I gently placed the bottle of beer and the sandwiches into the bowl before stepping down from the altar and onto the flat ring around it. Going to one knee, I gave thanks.
“Spirits of the land, we thank you for your blessings, your help, and your insights into our journey. While we have little to offer, know that whatever assistance you can muster will be received with gratitude.”
There was no answer, but I still felt better for having made the offering here, in this sacred place.
Oksyna came over to me a moment later. “We should get going. But thank you for sharing this with me.”
I rose and smiled at her. “Of course. Now… I don’t know about you, but I’m tempted to try to slide down the hill rather than risk those stairs.”
She grinned. “Sounds great!”
#
Zoy
The sobbing scream jolted her awake; palming a knife on reflex, Zoy leapt from the waystation’s bed. Landing in a crouch, she scanned the dark room that she was sharing with Yufemya and Oksyna, and quickly pinpointed the source of the sound.
Yufemya was moaning and babbling in her sleep as she thrashed in the blankets; despite the near pitch-blackness of the room, Zoy could see beads of sweat on the other woman’s face as she grimaced and contorted in her sleep.
Summoning up all of the sympathy she could from years of being Stylio’s ward, Zoy went over to Yufemya. “Hey,” she said softly, touching Yufemya’s shoulder with her free hand. “Hey, wake up. You’re having a nightmare!”
Yufemya didn’t rouse, even though her babbling turned more coherent. “No, no… you can’t… it won’t work… everyone’s going to die…”
Zoy grimaced, and set her knife aside before putting her other hand on Yufemya’s other shoulder, as the woman mumbled something about “hubris” and “ambition”, her tone sounding accusatory.
“Is she all right?” Oksyna’s voice came from the side; she sounded sleepy but concerned. A candle hissed to light from nearby, apparently spontaneously, which would have been intimidating if Zoy hadn’t already seen Oksyna perform the same party trick several times now.
“She’s having a nightmare but I can’t get her to wake up,” Zoy said, and secured her hands on Yufemya’s shoulders. “Hey! Hey Yu! Wake up!” she said a little louder, giving Yufemya a small shake.
Yufemya’s eyes bolted open and she gasped before grabbing Zoy in an embrace, flinging her arms around her as if she was drowning and Zoy was a piece of driftwood.
Awkwardly, Zoy patted her on the back even as Yufemya heaved for air. “You all right?”
Wordlessly, Yufemya shook her head, her hair brushing against Zoy’s face.
“Sounds like it was quite the nightmare.”
In a croaking voice, Yufemya replied, “It was.”
“Want to talk about it?”
Again, Yufemya shook her head; the motion made the crystal die hanging from her necklace bounce against Zoy’s chest.
Glancing down at it, Zoy said, “At least it wasn’t a prophetic dream, right?”
“Wha—?”
She motioned to the die. “I haven’t seen you use that in the whole time we’ve been traveling together. So you’re not getting prophetic dreams. So whatever it was that you saw, it’s not going to happen.” Zoy tried to smile reassuringly at Yufemya with this; everyone knew that overuse of forecasting ran the risk of uncontrolled prophetic dreams. Some people looked at that as a positive, and it was certainly an occupational hazard for career seers, but Zoy had seen too many people turn to drink to try to forget what they had seen to think of it that way.
Slowly, Yufemya nodded. “You’re right. Yes.” She swallowed and slowly let Zoy go. “Yes.” She swallowed, the sound harsh and painful, before leaning back onto the bed and tucking her knees up under her chin and putting her arms around them. “Yes. It won’t happen. It was just a dream.”
Giving Yufemya an encouraging smile, Zoy patted her on the knee. “Yeah. Try to go back to sleep. We’ll be getting back onto the Lynx in a few hours.”
Yufemya nodded, the tension in her face and neck starting to fade. “Yes. You’re right.” She took a deep, bracing breath and let it out slowly. “It was just… quite horrible.”
Oksyna spoke up. “If you want to talk about it, we’re willing to listen.”
“It… it was… I saw people dying. So many people dying… because I… because we weren’t fast enough. Because we made some mistake… and they all paid for it.” She swallowed harshly. “The bodies… they filled the streets, rotting… nobody buried them, because there was nobody left alive…”
Zoy grimaced. That was a bad one. Reaching out, she put a supportive hand on Yufemya’s shoulder. “And it won’t happen. You’re just tired and stressed and your brain is playing tricks on you after all of the stuff we’ve seen. I know that I’m feeling uneasy about that seeress from where we picked up Oksyna. The stakes are high, but we’ll get through it.” She put a smile on her face, and even though it felt as fake as anything, Yufemya seemed heartened by it. “Besides, between Stylio and Fia—and Raavi—do you see anything getting in our way?”
“What about me?” Oksyna asked with a chuckle.
“You’re just scary in a different way,” Zoy said honestly; while the younger woman was certainly affable enough, there was no question that if she wanted to, she could cut a swathe of destruction with ease. A lot of the stories Zoy had heard about the old tyrant Nightshade were making a lot more sense now that she’d met an actual necromancer and seen her at work. And, sure, Oksyna said that she didn’t want to kill anyone directly, but the obvious loophole of ‘make their clothes disintegrate and let the elements kill them’ stood out to Zoy. But that honestly made her trust Oksyna more, as she could have easily killed the townies back when they’d first encountered her. The fact that she’d held back from that was a major point in the ‘won’t go crazy and kill us all out of boredom’ column.
Oksyna grinned. “Thank you. Coming from someone with that many knives on them, I’m taking that as a compliment.”
“Wait, you can sense them?”
“With my eyes, yes. Also Raavi told me.”
Yufemya gave a watery snort at that. “It was quite the moment.”
“I bet.”
Zoy coughed and turned the conversation to safer waters. “So… you and Raavi?”
Oksyna gave her a sidelong look. “What about him?”
“You’ve been spending a lot of time together, that’s all,” Zoy said innocently.
With a sigh, Oksyna said, “He’s nice, and I adore how he doesn’t treat me like a walking murder threat. Also giving me some ideas on how to use my abilities with even more panache has been a treat.”
“He’s certainly a clever young man,” Yufemya said softly, and slowly released her knees from where she’d been hugging them. “I don’t think that more sleep is on the table for me, though.” Slowly and shakily, she stood, and stretched.
Zoy considered as well; she was probably past the point where she’d be able to get to sleep easily at this point. “I’m done too. I’ll nap on the Lynx, I think.”
Yufemya glanced at her with an apologetic grimace. “I’m sorry for waking you.”
“It’s all right.” Zoy stretched as well, and, aware that the other two women were watching her, deliberately overstretched, touching the back of her head with her pointed toes as she stood on one foot.
“Show-off,” Oksyna said, and rolled over in her blankets. “I’m going back to sleep. Take the candle with you when you leave.”
Zoy grinned and did so after throwing on a few more clothes. Candle-holder in hand, the two of them went out into the waystation’s common area. A few people were out and about, but the room, which was sized for the crowds of canal-barge crews that would be coming through in the summer, felt mostly empty. The comparatively small waitstaff were mostly dealing with their own local crowd and a few couriers coming through with reports of more raids.
“I’m glad we shifted from making camp to using waystations,” Zoy said, casting about for something to talk about as they sat down at a table.
“Probably saved us time, and definitely saved us resources,” Yufemya said in agreement. “Resources that we’ll need when we cross the White Mountains.”
“Have to agree there,” Zoy said, and leaned in. “So… I’ve been wondering.”
“About?”
For a moment, Zoy considered just flatly asking why Yufemya was here with them, what her motivation was. Zoy’s was easy—Stylio was here, and where her mentor and guardian went, Zoy followed. There was also the whole impending apparent cataclysm issue, and as someone living in the apparent blast radius, Zoy took exception to that happening without trying to stop it.
But why was Yufemya here?
However, rather than ask that, Zoy changed direction. “So you’re an amazing shot with the bow. Like when you nailed that one man’s hand. How long have you been training with it?”
Yufemya relaxed visibly. “Since I was a little girl. How about you and your knives? I saw you deal with the Duke’s men; two trained guardsmen and they didn’t even see you coming.”
Zoy exhaled. “Also since I was a little girl. You know how it is in the Kasmenarta underworld.”
Yufemya winced. “I do. Were you with one of the gangs?”
“I was.”
Silence, awkward, painful silence, before one of the waitstaff blessedly came over, bringing a tray of some waking foods and drinks for the two of them.
As they started to eat, Yufemya asked, “So… how did you get out?”
“Stylio. I followed her out.”
With a nod, Yufemya exhaled softly. “That makes sense. She’s… she’s quite something.”
“She is.” Her head bobbing in a slow nod as memories replayed behind her eyes, Zoy repeated, “She really is.” She spooned up some of the porridge and ate it before pointing the spoon at Yufemya. “Look. Can you promise me that you don’t mean her any harm?”
Yufemya nodded as she took a bite of her own food. “I can promise that. I’m here to help as best I can.”
The two of them sat and ate in companionable silence after that, and then Yufemya nodded towards one of the walls. “Care for a round or two while we wait on everyone else to wake up?”
Zoy turned and saw what Yufemya had gestured towards. Turning back, she nodded with a grin. “You’re on!”
Putting their empty dishes back onto the tray, the two of them headed over to the small alcove where a series of gaming tables and other equipment were waiting for players.
“What to play, what to play…” Zoy mused as she looked around; there were felt-covered tables for cue games, a pockmarked set of wooden targets over by one wall with a rack of small throwing knives, and some more esoteric equipment for other games.
Yufemya went over to the throwing knives and held them up. “Interested?” she asked with a grin.
Smirking, Zoy went over and claimed her set of four knives. “Loser buys the next round?”
“Given that we’re getting all of the food and drink for free based on those royal papers, I don’t know how that would even work,” Yufemya pointed out.
“Hmm. Point. So, Breath or no Breath allowed?” It was a standard question for these sorts of contests of skill. Someone suitably skilled with Breath—like Stylio—could enhance their abilities games of dexterity to absurd heights, but of course it came with a cost of pain. That was taken as a feature for some varieties of games, where it wasn’t just about the skill of the player, but their ability to maintain focus.
“I’d allow it,” Yufemya said. “I’d love to see what you can do.”
Zoy grinned and, stepping back behind the line that was thoughtfully set into the floor, hefted the throwing knives. She had better ones herself, but this set wasn’t bad; the leather of the grips was well-worn with long use, but the balance was decent, and the points were sharp enough to get into the wood of the targets.
Taking a deep breath, she focused her Will and started to hum. A faint and thin stream of blue-white Breath began to stream from her nose and mouth, wreathing her arms in a filmy aurora.
Then, moving quickly, she threw the first knife, quickly followed by the second, third, and fourth, knocking down all four targets in a rapid clatter.
Yufemya clapped as Zoy ended her spell; her body was aching slightly, but she’d had worse from catching that one man back in Raavi’s town.
“Well done! My turn!” Yufemya said, and set the targets back up again; Zoy smugly noted that she’d managed to get nearly dead center on each of them, with the knife blades being a good inch deep into the wood.
Yufemya threw her own knives, and while they all hit their targets, only three of them were hit hard enough to be knocked over, and none of them were as accurate as Zoy’s hits.
Making a face as she picked up the still-standing target, the knife having buried itself in the lower quarter of the wooden block at an angle, Yufemya said, “Well, later we’ll have to have a rematch with hay bales and bows.”
Zoy snickered. “Want another round?”
“Maybe later. Come on, let’s try something that you don’t have such an overwhelming advantage at.” She motioned to the felt-covered tables, with the racks of balls and sticks waiting for someone to play with them.
They set up the balls and wooden pins quickly, and with a smile, Zoy let Yufemya break first.
Yufemya exhaled, and hit the black-and-white ball into the hexagon of white and black balls, sending them scattering. One of the white balls rolled into a side pocket, barely missing the four wooden pins standing guard around it.
“Looks like I have black,” Zoy said with a grin.
Yufemya nodded, her forehead creased with focus, and moved around the table. “I… I think… can I…?” She leaned over, exhaled, and hit the black-and-white cue ball into a cluster of three other balls, two white and one black.
The two white balls rolled off from the impact, one of them going into another pocket with an odd spin that made it curve as it went—clipping a wooden pin on its way in, but not knocking it over—and the other standing in a prime spot to be sunk on a subsequent hit.
Zoy whistled. “Impressive, but you know that you’re supposed to call it!”
“Well, I wasn’t sure if I could do it, and besides, if I’d said that I’d be able to do it, you wouldn’t have believed me!”
With a snort, Zoy said, “True enough. All right, it’s still your ball.”
Yufemya nodded, and sank the ball she’d set up on the previous hit—calling it this time—but her next attempt knocked over two pins and didn’t manage to get the ball into the pocket she’d tried for.
Smiling, Zoy took her turn, and managed to sink four balls before giving Yufemya an unenviable setup with her last hit.
“You’re a sadist, you know that?” Yufemya said, scanning the table.
“Nah, just a pragmatist. I don’t enjoy hurting people; I’ll just do it if I need to.”
Yufemya glanced at her and took a deep breath. “I can understand that,” she said softly. “Black ball four, side pocket,” she announced, to Zoy’s disbelieving scoff, before sending the cue ball scurrying across the table, knocking into the number four black ball, which, to Zoy’s astonishment, bounced off of the side bumper and sailed cleanly into side pocket.
Staring for a moment, Zoy shook her head and said, “If you’re ever back in Kasmenarta, I have some taverns for you to go hustle. We could clean them out.”
“Well, I don’t know if I can keep that up,” Yufemya said with a shy smile.
Zoy motioned with her stick to the table. “Well, it’s still your turn.”
Yufemya grinned, and looked across the table with an analytical glean to her eye. “Black ball seven, corner pocket.”
An hour or so later, with Yufemya having won four out of their six games, Zoy was still struggling with her disbelief. Most of Yufemya’s calls had paid off, but some had clearly been too ambitious for her.
“What’s this?” Stylio’s voice came in from the side, her voice filled with amusement.
“Relaxing before hearing that screee noise for hours on end,” Zoy said, watching Yufemya lean over and prepare to strike.
“White ten in the corner pocket,” she called, and sure enough, despite Zoy’s disbelief, the white ball in question slid into the corner pocket, neatly avoiding the wooden pins.
Stylio whistled, impressed. “Well, finish your current game; we’re making preparations to continue on. The others are awake and eating.”
“Well, I guess I might want to just call it now,” Zoy said. “Even if I won this one,” she motioned to the table, where eight of the ten black balls stood starkly against six—then five—of the white ones, “I would still be a game behind.”
“Consider it a learning experience in humility,” Stylio said.
Before Zoy could respond, a commotion broke out at the front of the room, as a familiar accent boomed across the room. “She should be in here!”
Zoy saw Stylio’s eyes go wide at the sound of a Dormelion man shouting orders. Crouching low, she looked out of the gaming alcove to scan the rest of the room.
“We’ve got… ten… no, twelve men,” she reported in a hushed voice. “Hunter squad, I think. They’re not wearing uniforms, but they’re moving like they’re military. They’re all armed with swords and batons. Fia, Raavi, and Oksyna are at a table near the wall. Fia is watching the men carefully and speaking to Oksyna and Raavi. The waitstaff are angry, but standing back; most of the other people are upset.”
“Can’t blame them,” Yufemya muttered.
“It is rather blatant, given that this is another sovereign kingdom,” Stylio said, “and probably making the Kalltii think of some old history.”
“They’re coming this way. They’re sticking together rather than spreading out,” Zoy said, watching the men sweep the room. They clearly had training; two men were standing by the door with their weapons out as the rest went around in a show of force, checking the patrons one at a time.
She wondered who they were here for. It had been years since the last hunter squad had tried to track down Stylio, but it wasn’t out of the question. They were tenacious and took their high success rate as a point of pride; Stylio having slipped out of their fingers was undoubtedly a personal insult to them.
Well, it probably wasn’t Oksyna. Given how the Dormeli people felt about necromancers, they would have come in much larger numbers and with many more weapons if she was their target. And not Raavi, because of the specified gender.
That left…
Well, Fia, as a former pirate, Stylio, with all her history, Yufemya, who had admitted to killing someone from the upper ranks of Imperial society, or Zoy, as Stylio’s ward.
She caught Fia’s eye, and saw Fia hold up four fingers.
Zoy cocked her head. Four what?
Then Fia curled in a finger.
Ah.
“On the count of three, apparently,” she said. “One… two… three!”
To Zoy’s utter joy, she saw that her earlier guess had been dead on accurate, as the hunters’ clothing all disintegrated, unraveling, rotting, and in a few cases, bursting into sudden brief gouts of flame, even as their weapons corroded in their hands.
There was an abrupt sound of many, many chairs being pushed back as the other patrons rose, fury in their eyes.
Half an hour later, Zoy and her group were back outside by the Lynx. The Dormelion unit had been taken into custody by the city’s mayor, who had been none too happy to find a group of Imperials trying to arrest someone on his doorstep. And even if he had been inclined to accept their arrest warrant, it had crumbled to ash from Oksyna’s spell. Despite getting a beating from the assembled patrons, they had refused to identify their target, but Zoy had seen their eyes follow Yufemya and Stylio, which was good enough for her purposes.
“How did they know where we’d be?” Raavi asked as he checked the Lynx for any damage or surprises that the hunter squad might have left.
“That part is easy,” Zoy said.
He looked up over the side of the ice-boat. “Easy if you know it already. I don’t know these things, remember?”
She shrugged. “Point. Hunter squads like that have a commander-seer; he wouldn’t have followed them in, so he’s somewhere around here, but it’s his or her job to do forecasts to find out where their target will be.”
Raavi grunted as he ducked back under the Lynx. “Well, they won’t be able to catch up now.”
“They won’t need to; they’ll know where to wait for us to pass by,” Stylio said. “Not that it will matter much more. We’ll soon be up by the Gehtun, and I doubt that the hunters will be willing or able to follow us over the mountain passes.”
“And if they’re waiting on the way back, then we’ll deal with them then,” Fia said. “We good to go, Raavi?”
His hand emerged from underneath and he hauled himself up. “I think so. I don’t see any damage.”
“Good, let’s get going, then.”
Getting the Lynx in motion was second nature by this point, and Zoy found herself pondering as they pushed it up to speed.
If they had been here for Yufemya…
Who had she killed?
<<<<>>>>
Questions! So many questions! ^_^
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Prologue | Chapter 11 | Chapter 13
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Two of Air - HEART
Duality, polarity, separation, unity, dichotomy, integration, choice, big picture
There is only the whole. A magnet is a magnet because it has both halves and it ceases to exist if one or the other half didn't exist, it would no longer be a magnet. Creation and destruction goes hand in hand, when you begin to do a traditional piece of art, you're destroying the state your tools existed in prior to you beginning creation of your art piece. The paint is no longer unmixed in a tube, it is a shade on the paper that no longer is free of markings.
Duality creates two opposing forces. It creates conflict, a war-like state of existing. Good or bad, positive and negative. And it drives to decide which is better than the other.
Two of air, offers a choice between these two paths. One offers chaos, the other peace. Which will you choose?
XXI Perception RV - MIND
Perception, understanding, world view, opinion of self, clarity, objectivity
Is your perception false? Is your perception of other in fact, self-perception? Do you think someone does not like you for who you are? That they don't feel the way they say about you?
Do your best not to allow assumption to be the foundation of your perception when it comes to your interactions with others! Throw away the 'what if's' and 'maybe's', right now. Cultivate trust, tentative if you must, in the words and actions of the people around you. "Never Judge a Book by its Cover!" Don't let yourself become incapable of opening the book because you've gone and judged it by the cover.
You are the book, the blurb at the back of it. Friends and family get the synopsis, the blurb and some key points, but only you know the full story! If you want people to have a more accurate picture of you, then be willing to share your story of you, honestly, without embellishments.
In turn, understand that you can't know the full stories of the people around you, the people you meet without allowing them to share their stories with you. Sometimes it takes time, for we've all been judged by the cover in our lives by many people.
Release your perception that you know the answers to everything! That you know what motivates or drives other people in relation to you or others. Don't let your limited perception and knowledge dictate your openness to relationships in your life.
VI The Crone - SOUL
Feminine power, fearlessness, authenticity, individuality, independence, new purpose, freedom, shadow self
The Crone is everything she chooses to be. A woman who is aware of her choices. She is the wise woman who is like nature -- wild, still, passionate, volatile, calm, peaceful, adaptable and flowing, creative and powerful!
The Crone has learned to look at her own needs. She has, by necessity, become a strong and independent individual, who has found new purpose!
A life of your own design! How wonderful is that, the realization of it. That you are able, capable and you have it in you to make of your life what you will. Reminiscent of the power of the Magician, she too, has balanced her powers and is capable of willing into her life her desires and wants and needs. She is who she needs to be, when she needs to be.
The Crone symbolizes the emergence of a mature woman who sees herself as being in her prime, with many fertile and productive and creative years ahead of her! She is a woman who embraces her true power and potential.
Be less what's expected of you, true to yourself and your needs. Be your whole full self, instead of selling yourself off in bits and pieces to please others. This is your life, your time, and you've got this!
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Dreams of Gaia Tarot by Ravynne Phelan
reading Ruth
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wow, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? sorry that i kinda dropped off the map there, but you know how it is. life calls when it does. anyway, today we’re doing a reading on your next five years. for this reading in particular, if you’re drawn to more than one group then i’d suggest you read them both, because 5 years is a long time and it’s definitely possible for bits and pieces of your prediction to be scattered around this reading. devise a strategy that works for you even, for example, if i’m drawn to pile 1 first and then 4, maybe the beginning of pile 1 is more relevant to me but the end of pile 4 will resonate more. enough of my rambling, on to the reading!
*year 1 means from now till year from now, year 2 1-2 years from now, and etc.
PILE ONE: GLASS PANELS
overall, the next five years has you waiting for the right moment to begin living. currently you are stuck in a place where you’ve been hurt and betrayed— yet you cannot leave yet. you’re probably trying to plan a way out, but perhaps, surrounded by the unbreakable glass panels in your life, you’ve come to the same conclusion as me: it’s not going to be any time soon. for the next two years, you will have no way out. however, you will become much more resilient so that 3 years from now, you have the power and strength to break out of your current situation and build your dream life. it seems that there will be a lot of movement leading up to this event; perhaps you will be moving house and leaving most of the people around you now behind. whatever the case, in year 3, you will be building a new foundation for yourself. if there are responsibilities and duties you cannot fully leave behind from your past, you will learn to balance them in year 4. in year 5, you’re building up your finances, having found your footing at home and at work. finally, five years from now, you will finally feel like you are in a place where you can feel stable and secure financially and emotionally.
in other words, the main message for you is “one step at a time”. you will have the life you want, but it will take a while. for now, you will have to heal your inner wounds and learn to brave the coldest of storms on your own. then, the next step will be to gain the courage to forge ahead and create a foundation that will allow you to build your life the way you want, away from the toxic people that you have had to rely on. once you have found your own independent footing, then the next step will be to go after you want, especially in career and life purpose. don’t be afraid if things start coming down, almost no one goes through their 20s and 30s without having to destroy something fundamental. finally, once you have learned to juggle all of this alone, the final piece will fall into place, and that is the rest of the world. friends, a new family, and days that make you so excited you want to sleep early so that the sun rises faster tomorrow. this is a long journey, but i’m confident it’s worth it. you got this! :)
PILE TWO: APPLE PASTRIES
for the next five years, you will ride a wave that brings you to the top of the world, and then you’ll prepare for the next chapter in life. we start off in year 1 with you being a little unsure of what it is you want to do long-term— perhaps you’re aware that it’s about time you start settling on a path with how responsibilities are piling up, but you’re also rather reluctant to let go of all your ideas and inspiration. that’s alright, you don’t have to decide just yet. in year 2, things get a little more exciting in the personal department: you might meet your future spouse, get engaged, get married, or even have a kid, depending on where you are in personal life right now. i’m leaning towards you being pretty young and just beginning to entertain the idea of marrying your special someone. whether it’s navigating a new relationship or wedding planning, you’ll be pretty caught up in it in year 2, and your work life will naturally fall into the background. not for long, though, because someone enters your life in year 3 and they don’t have your best interests in mind. they’re not out to get you, but they also don’t care if they had to step on you to get higher. this person brings you a whole lot of clarity on your life purpose and career, though, and so you transform your life quite rapidly, especially in view of the fact that you’re getting older and it can’t be helped, you’re going to have to start making some commitments. the transition is very successful and in year 4 you reap all the benefits. you are like water, you balance the push and pull effortlessly like the waves, you bring energy wherever you go, you complete the cycle and finish what you start. you’re in a position to give advice now, and people begin to look up to you. life’s... well, it’s actually pretty good.
year 5 is whole new chapter, likely on patience. the bliss of making it through one chapter in life never lasts long enough, and it is time for your life to move on. take care of yourself and always be open to growth. take the people that will betray you as lessons on how to better watch out for and protect yourself. wield the sword of clarity with conviction. before you know it, everything else will follow.
PILE THREE: FLAT WHITE
your next five years is about breaking free. you are often harshly judged by the people around you, and it’s like you can never catch a break. you wished for a peaceful getaway, and your wish is only partially granted. let me stop for a second and explain. for example, if you’re harshly judged at work, you might be able to get out of working with the particular team that makes your life difficult, but you won’t be able to leave the company entirely. something like that. you’ll have to do more than what you’re doing right now to truly get out of this situation. thankfully, towards the end of year 2, your heart hardens. enough is enough, you decide, and with your sharpened sword, you go after what you want.
the battle in year 3 is ugly. you say things you wish you didn’t have to, you do things in ways that keep you up at night. sometimes we don’t have a choice, though, because it was the only way you would be able to take what is yours and run. just in time, too, because in year 4, you will realise the stability you thought you were being offered was as strong as a house of cards. by defying expectations and going out on your own, you have nudged this house and cause it to topple. you get to watch from somewhere a little further away, but it’s still hard to deal with the questioning, the anxiety, the wondering whether you shouldn’t have left in the first place. no, darling, of course you should have left. year 5 is a year filled with so much more stability and happiness, it’s like you can’t recognise the person you used to be, the world you used to live in. if you thought that you will never truly make it out of there, my cards are here to tell you that there is a day where you will stop wanting to cry before you go to sleep, there is a day where the demons will shut up for good. so don’t give up! you’ll make it out of there if it’s the last thing you do, because that’s you: strong, persistent, and forever optimistic in your heart. and this personality of yours is what makes you lucky. when you want something with all of your heart, the universe can’t help but want to give it to you.
PILE FOUR: NIGHT
pile four, your reading is all about finding love! things are about to slow down for you now, and it looks like it will continue to be slow for awhile. and honestly, for you i don’t think that’s a bad thing at all, seeing as you are just coming out of having had to make difficult choices and work hard for what you want. for the next year or so, you’ll simply be continuing what you’ve started and letting the payoff roll in. in year 2, however, you’ll begin to look around at your life again and find out what is it you want next. at that point, perhaps you will come to the conclusion that it is love you’re looking for. or maybe it’s just excitement, since you’re pretty collected yourself. you’re the kind to meditate and sleep on things before you decide, and the person you meet in year 3 is decisively... not that kind of person. they’re hardworking, smart, funny and honest, but they’re also rather blunt and impatient. they’ll jump from one thing to the next without thought; they’ll argue with you through the walls of your room is it means they’ll win. you may wonder if this person is going to force you become their parent. well, no. this person has entered your life to show you that the world has so much more to offer if your just take the leap and jump. this person is here to show you that sometimes, you don’t sleep on decisions. you just go for it. once you begin to see the charm of this person, they will light up your life as a friend, a listening ear, then a worthy partner, then a worthy opponent, and then finally, in year 4... a worthy soulmate. and you will realise that taking risks is actually not as scary as it seemed, because this person is right next to you, and will be there to help you pick up the pieces should you fall. this might be a new feeling for you, because you come from a background of having to watch your own back all the time. being able to take calculated risks is what pushes one up from being a prince to a king. it pushes you and your life purpose to its full potential, and even if the ride of taking risks and forging ahead is rocky with this person in year 5, you will come out hardships closer than ever, stronger than ever.
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"I have some problems with [Luke] as a character)" was mentioned in your Reylo response post. Very interested in what your thoughts are on Luke! 👀
Do you want me to get murdered?!
Well, if I didn’t get lynched for calling Sirius Black a Stephen King villain I can surely do no worse here.
Let’s do this.
Caveat that, as usual, I am wearing a heretic hat and expect no one to agree with what I’m saying.
Luke Skywalker, much like Harry Potter, is not the character the authors and vast majority of the audience seem to think he is. Luke is seen as the true coming of the Jedi, the light side of the Force incarnate, and someone so innately good he was able to redeem his father, restore peace to the galaxy, and restore the Jedi Order.
I disagree with all of this.
I think this is what Luke thinks he did but the truth is far sadder and, well, in general worse.
First, let’s start off with Luke’s hero’s journey throughout the saga.
Luke starts your ordinary guy, he’s not bad by any means, but he’s not particularly good either. He lives in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, part of a relatively well off family, and set to inherit the world’s most boring business: moisture farming. He has dreams of going out, seeing the world, and becoming a great pilot.
Important to remember but what most people gloss over: Luke starts if not pro-empire then neutral towards it. Luke wants to attend flight school, given his desire for glory and adventure, he probably wants to join the empire’s military. He might not like Storm Troopers all that much but the fire of revolution doesn’t burn in his heart the way it does Leia’s.
Now, personally, I like this about Luke. It makes sense to me. Given where and how Luke grows up, given all he’s ever known, I think this makes perfect sense for his viewpoint. He might get hassled by stormtroopers now and then but the empire really doesn’t interfere with his life except in a) propaganda b) offering an escape from his dull existence. What would someone like Luke know about the Rebel Alliance?
The movie however... sort of goes out of its way not to acknowledge this, and this is where I start having problems with Luke. Luke gets Leia’s message about Obi-Wan Kenobi, sees the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen in his life, and gets to embark on this amazing adventure. The story sort of takes it for granted that he then agrees with old hermit, Obi-Wan, that the empire is evil. This is helped because Luke does too.
In other words, Luke’s opinions are very shallow and lack any introspection. Finding himself in the company of Jedi, smugglers, and hot rebel princesses, Luke suddenly goes, “Ah, yeah, I hate the empire!” We never really see him change his mind by reflecting over what the Death Star means/the destruction of Alderaan, the death of his relatives, or his meeting with Darth Vader. Luke seems to be won over... Honestly, it feels like it’s because the Rebel Alliance let him fly a plane before the Empire did.
Then he blows up the Death Star, is a galactic hero/enemy number one of the empire, and he’s full on board resistance man and the next Jedi.
Which brings us to point number two, Luke legitimately thinks he’s a Jedi.
Obi-Wan gives him half a word of advice for maybe half of a day, watching Luke swing a sword around and get shot at by a robot. Yoda trains Luke in a swamp for, generously, maybe a week or so before Luke ditches him (against his advice even) to go save his friends. Luke has 0 training (beat out only by Rey, who wasn’t trained at all). More, he lives in a world where everything he knows of the Jedi is colored by Palpatine’s propaganda and old legends. The Jedi temples have been ransacked and presumably next to nothing of the Jedi culture remains, I can imagine Palpatine as being nothing but thorough in his elimination of the Jedi religion. The Jedi survived in Obi-Wan, Yoda, and in some sense Anakin Skywalker.
They do not survive in Luke. Luke puts on some quasi-Jedi robes, slashes his sword around a few times to save Leia from Jabba, and he says, “Now I am a Jedi!” Luke is that kid, LARPing, yelling “firebolt, firebolt, firebolt!” Only, that is, if the LARPing consisted of him representing a massacred culture thinking he’s it’s sole legitimate heir. So... Luke is playing Cowboy and Indians, and he’s the Indian.
In my opinion, Vader wasn’t so much redeemed as he always had a very high priority in finding his son and keeping him alive. The obvious way to do this would be to take Luke as an apprentice and, eventually, murder Palpatine. Well, that didn’t pan out, and eventually Anakin chooses murder-suicide to save his son’s life. It’s very touching, I’m not knocking the moment, but I do think a lot of that was Anakin vice the inherent goodness of Luke.
Anyways, Luke and pals save the day, they start a new republic and then they learn life is complicated. The new republic fails within decades, worse, it’s feeble and likely torn apart by civil war, strife, and constant infighting. It is utterly powerless, to the point where the First Order easily rises to replace the Empire and take over its vast resources (with Palpatine building a secret sith army on the side no less). That Leia rather than lead an army through the new republic in the sequels is leading her own private resistance army is very telling.
Fitting in with this, Luke starts a Jedi Academy. The prequels, and yes go ahead and slander them all you like but they’re better than many admit, taught us a few things but one of them is that it is hard to be a Jedi. To walk the path of a Jedi is to open yourself up to great temptation to use the dark side, and the dark side isn’t just some strange quirk or sense of duality, it is the equivalent of selling your soul. It is an unnatural action that leads to unnatural abilities.
You get a bunch of Force Sensitive kids in a room: you better know what you’re doing.
Luke doesn’t. He collects a handful of the remaining Jedi artifacts that Palpatine somehow didn’t destroy, opens up his Jedi School (even teaching his nephew), and within maybe five years the place is burned to the ground, his students murdered by his nephew, and his nephew runs off to join a Sith Lord who appeared out of nowhere (Luke not realizing that this was just immortal cockroach Palpatine).
Luke then becomes a grumpy old man who just can’t deal, sits on a rock drinking blue milk, and whines that for how shitty of a teach he was that Obi-Wan guy was worse for messing up with his father. Which, frankly, is very in character for Luke.
Luke has never really failed in his life, or at least, never had to recognize his own failure. So, when he does, he a) doesn’t realize what went wrong b) blames everyone but himself c) sits on a rock and waits to die.
So yeah, that’s Luke for you.
A whiney, shallow, stupid, somewhat narcissistic, hero. I... don’t dislike the concept of his character, played more straight I’d love his character, but I dislike that people talk about him like he’s the most noble creature to ever grace the planet and has this inherent understanding of a murdered people that the murdered people themselves never had.
(All the Jedi were doing it wrong! Luke made the real Jedi Order! Is something I see a lot and... well... say what you will about their philosophies, but this kid who was not a part of that culture “doing it better”... That’s real problematic folks, real problematic.)
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Total Dangan Island
Contestant No. 7.5: Mechamaru Nidai
Week Challenge:
(Funhouse Catacombs) Down to the Final 8, this week’s challenge is a “Race to Escape”. All Players are “placed” deep underground and must choose a path to escape before the time limit is up. Each path has a series of connected Escape Rooms (both physical or academic with random difficulty levels) that instantly traps Player(s) once steps inside with no way out and must be completed in order to move onto the next.
Players must quickly run through every escape room because there’s only one correct route that leads to the outside whereas the rest leads to dead ends, so choosing a wrong path will waste more time. But don’t worry, once a Player enters and goes back from a dead end, that path will be automatically closed off in order to prevent Players from becoming too lost or redoing that same Escape Room.
Every 5 Escape Rooms on certain paths leads to one massive connected Safe Room where Players can relax and recuperate. With both teams merged, players will race and have to decide on whether to cooperate, compete, betray or sabotage another in order to clear this week’s challenge. In order to keep things fair, every item or possession that each Player carries that might give them an advantage will be confiscated. The only things that are allowed are the Monopads for communication purposes and the clothes on their backs. Last one to escape will be automatically eliminated off the island.
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Episode Summary:
The next morning after resting up and ready for their next Challenge, everyone went ahead and met up at the lobby to have breakfast. But before anyone was able to sit and chow down, they were all knocked out by a mysterious gas. The next thing they saw when they opened their eyes was a rocky surface covering their entire surroundings. After a massive panic when they realized that they were trapped in a cave (mostly done by Kazuichi), everyone’s Monopad lit up and notified that Monokuma made an announcement for their newest Challenge. After explaining what this Week’s Challenge was, everyone quickly hopped in their first Escape Room and got started.
The Challenge went on as intended without a hitch until the Players arrived at their first Safe Room. Upon arriving after an agonizing day went by, everyone was understandably exhausted and wanted rest, but noticed that there was something wrong. Absolute horror and shock appeared on everyone’s faces when they noticed that there was no food or water at sight, at that moment Monokuma was in a surprised panic (mostly due to possible drop in ratings if the challenge had to be called off) and suddenly realized what happened.
After constructing the Escape Rooms, he was worried that his co-host Monomi would intervene with this week’s challenge and give out too many “hints” like she did prior. So he unintentionally used up the remaining funds for the week on heavy defenses and artillery to keep her out from meddling in the challenge until it was cleared instead of spending it on food and water for the Players.
While Monokuma pondered on what to do, Monomi suddenly showed up and immediately understood the situation. Without hesitation, she grabbed the Master Remote Control to stop everything but Monokuma tried yanking it back and told her to wait until he made a decision. This tug of war continued back and forth until they accidently destroyed it together; now with no way to pause the challenge, get in to help, or even communicate to provide instructions, the Players are forced to continue the Challenge while battling hunger and dehydration.
Days went by and the challenge has far exceeded its time limit, most of the Players are seen on the ground either passed out or barely conscious due to the pain of immense hunger and thirst. Everyone has given in to the situation and was waiting for the END, all except for two. The remaining Players that had enough will and strength to stand were Nekomaru and Gundham.
Having seen their friends in such despair, both agreed on a temporary alliance and started to plan for a suicide mission. Both planned to sneak away and use up what little strength they had to complete the challenge and find the escape route to get help for everyone. Gundham decided for both of them to use the “cremated ashes of his enemies”(aka his eyeliner) to mark arrows to notify one another, if either of them got lost, on which way was correct and avoid any more unnecessary dead end paths.
Hours passed and both Players parted ways and reunited so many times, their minds were so blurry and their bodies were in ruins. On their next meetup they decided to stick together and continued to march on, but they both knew that they couldn’t last any longer. There were moments when they wanted to give up, but Gundham would always remind the both of them that life is a gift and giving up on it is a sin. As they continued It was like an eternal agony for them who were practically empty husks with flickering lights in their eyes, that was until they felt a fresh air breeze pass their faces. Like a sudden jolt of energy they ran towards that direction and saw a light at the end of the cave.
When arriving at the end, what they saw was Monokuma and Monomi teary-eyed jumping in joy with sacks of food and water behind them as they witnessed Gundham and Nekomaru running out of the exit. Both Players looked at each other in disbelief and started cheering in victory alongside the mascots, but all that came to a halt when Monokuma stared back in the cave and saw no one else behind them. Monokuma alone started to panic once more as everyone was baffled and confused by his actions.
He explained that since a Challenge is built in large scales and takes up so much space on the island, there needs to be room for the next one to be made. So after every challenge exceeds the time limit and almost a full week has passed, the entire course is set to self destruct and demolish itself in order to make room, and also to prevent any boring repetitive challenges from occurring. After mentioning that the demolition will occur and that there was no way to stop it due to the Master Remote Control being destroyed, Gundham was about to lunge at Monokuma in anger until all four of them felt abrupt shaking below their feets.
They knew that the self-destruction was commencing, so Nekomaru immediately jumped right back into the cave and ran to retrieve the others. Gundham raised his hand and whistled with all his strength, attempting to summon an army of Demon Beasts to help carry everyone else at once. But due his dire state he was only able to conjure one “Feral High-Leveled Demonic Beast” (aka a brown bear) to his side and followed pursuit after Nekomaru. Monomi wanted to help but the heavy defenses were still active, thus making her and Monokuma sit on the sidelines once more.
Both of them dived into the cave trying to reach the others, while nearly avoiding the boulders and rocks crashing so close around them. Thanks to the markings that they made previously, they finally reached the others and got ready to leave. Shockingly, a revelation appeared when there wasn’t enough space to carry everyone on the bear and Nekomaru was only able to carry two people at a time in his state, meaning someone had to be left behind. While griping over the situation, Sonia woke up and requested them to get everyone out while she’ll stay behind and wait for their return. Before either Gundham or Nekomaru could argue with her, the cave shook violently again and more rubble started falling. With no other choice both of them left and ran as fast as they could, when they were no longer in sight, after using what little energy to stand, Sonia closed her eyes and collapsed once more.
After avoiding everything and reaching the exit, Gundham threw everyone off the bear and onto Nekomaru in order to quickly ride back to get Sonia. Before Nekomaru could get the chance to follow, his legs went numb and fell to the ground with everyone laying beside him. From the far distance, Gundham screamed at the top of his lungs at Nekomaru that he alone is enough to retrieve Sonia and that he needed him to take care of the others and rest up. Begrudgingly, he had to accept his limits and screamed right back at him for both of their safe returns.
The situation became more dire as the number of falling boulders increased and the path became more narrow, but against all odds and close encounters Gundham was able to reach the Safe Room. After securing Sonia onto the bear and was ready to leave, the largest tremor so far caused the ceiling above them to fall. Right before it landed, Gundham pushed Sonia and the bear out of the way. When the dust cleared it’s shown that Sonia and the bear were safe, but Gundham unfortunately got his leg crushed and stuck underneath the rubble. After a couple attempts to escape, Gundham was silent and realized that there was no way out for him. Then after taking a quick glance at Sonia he unraveled his scarf and put it on her, once he was done he gave a gentle smile and forcibly commanded the bear to leave and head towards the exit. With a sad look on its face, the bear turned around and ran as quickly as it could without looking back. Shortly after seeing their silhouette disappear from the distance, Gundham finally gave into the pain that he had held back for so long and passed out, and on his face was a smile of a man who had no regrets.
Back on the surface, everyone regained consciousness after eating and drinking to their fullest, but all of them were still extremely anxious when waiting for the last of their friends to return. Then suddenly they saw the bear charging towards the exit and everyone started celebrating and cheering, but that immediately stopped when they only saw Sonia on the bear. With Gundham nowhere to be seen and Sonia wearing his scarf, only the worst case scenario ran through everyone’s head. Then with some strength returning to him, Nekomaru leaped off the ground and rushed back into the cave. Everyone was about to follow in pursuit, but after Nekomaru passed through first an immense tremor suddenly shook the ground that caused the exit to cave in and block it with piles of rocks in the way.
Moments passed since the rubble first trapped Gundham, he’s still seen on the ground lying unconscious, but that was until some small debris landed on his head causing him to wake up. While both being shocked and amused that he was still alive, he felt a sharp pain not just from his leg that was just crushed but other parts of his body as well. When he looked down he saw that some rocks landed on his left arm, right shoulder, and his upper right thigh. Then he looked around and saw that the current situation was in a much worse state than it was before, all he could do was wonder if everyone else was okay.
Another violent tremor occurred and Gundham saw that a large boulder above his head was about to fall on him. Seconds away from making contact, Gundham closed his eyes and accepted his fate. But then he heard a loud shriek coming from the tunnel and saw a large fist flying above him, crushing the boulder into pieces right on time. Who he saw was Nekomaru standing there and desperately trying to get him out from underneath the large rubble. He tried pushing, crushing, punching, and pulling but nothing worked. Though as he continued on, Gundham suddenly started yelling that he shouldn’t be here and that he should be with everyone else safely, but then Nekomaru yelled back and called him a hypocrite for giving up on life and explains that a team manager would never leave one of his star players out to dry alone. The two continued arguing back and forth like this for a while, and after a long pause; the both of them stared at each other, smiled, and agreed to resume with their temporary alliance until they both made it out alive.
Gundham tried his best to pull his leg out as Nekomaru did his damndest to lift the rubble. The two Players kept at it as more and more of their surroundings started to fall apart. Then after a few more attempts, they could finally feel it being lifted and loosened up. But right when Gundham was about to be freed, everything around instantly fell into ruins and caved in, everything just went black.
As hours pass by, most of the remaining Players on the surface are seen to dig where the Challenge once stood. Kazuichi tried making tools for everyone to use from leftover parts from previous Challenges, but they would immediately break after a few uses since the materials were not the best quality. Even so, that did not stop everyone from trying, they would even use their bare hands if it meant reaching for their friends even faster.
After a while, Monokuma was finally able to receive a replacement for his Master Remote Control, along with some top tier excavation equipment from the show’s Executive Producers. Even though the gravity of the situation is dire, deep down Monomi is happy to see her co-host Monokuma, so worried about the well-being of the kids. Though in contrast the reason why he was in such a panic was because he knows that Gundham and Nekomaru are fan favorites and if they die under his watch then HIS ass would be on the line; endless amounts of lawsuits against him and the Producers, thus leading to the immediate termination of the series.
Once Monokuma quickly went cracking on excavating, along with everyone else’s help, they were finally able to make some progress in getting through all that rubble. After more time had passed, they were finally able to reach the Safe Room near the bottom of the challenge course. When they got rid of that first massive rubble in their way, they saw Gundham’s face through the cracks. When they saw him all beaten and bruised they saw him trying to say something, with a whimpering voice that was gasping for air, all he said when he saw everyone was “...Help”. Then everyone jumped in and started digging more rapidly than before.
They kept on digging where Gundham was at and when they finally reached and were about to pull him out completely, he suddenly stopped them. Everyone was confused for a second, and then Gundham, gasping for more air, explained that what he was trying to say before was that they should leave him be and focus on getting help for him. As they got closer and dug him out completely, what they saw shocked them entirely. They saw Nekomaru’s unrecognizable crushed body hovering over Gundams', knowing that he used himself as a shield in order to protect Gundham from meeting his end. After that revelation, they quickly got both of them out and sent them to the infirmary for immediate medical attention.
Later that night, almost everyone met up at the Elimination Site, with the exception of two people. Surprisingly, a casted Gundham was present whereas Nekomaru and Kazuichi were not. Monokuma explained that it's thanks to Nekomaru’s sacrifice that Gundham is still alive and able to (just barely) move around, but unfortunately the same couldn’t be said to him. He says that Nekomaru is in a critical state and that he assigned Kazuichi a special project to help him, thus giving the reasons why they're absent.
Despite his explanation, everyone was still confused as to why they were there at the Elimination Site in the first place since the Challenge was incomplete. However, Monokuma interjected and said that there’ll still be an Elimination Ceremony tonight, he explained that it's contractually obligated that after every Challenge, no matter the conditions or reasons, that there must be an Elimination of a Player. So with his hand raised up and a dramatic pause, Monokuma dropped down his hand of judgement and pointed at the Player who’s going on the chopping block. As the camera pans over and everyone’s eyes directed their attention, who Monokuma pointed at was the one going home.
It was none other than Gundham Tanaka himself.
In an immediate fit of rage, nearly everyone was against Monokuma’s decision and argued that it should’ve been impossible since he and Nekomaru were the first ones out of the cave, at one point Sonia even interjected and said that she should be the one going since she was last to escape. But despite their pleas, Monokuma shook his head in disappointment as he said sarcastically that no one ever listens to him. He reminded everyone at the beginning of the Challenge that the last one out to escape will be immediately eliminated, he never said that you would be safe if you escaped before anyone else. So both Nekomaru and Gundham were technically tied for being last to escape, and since Nekomaru isn’t in any condition to attend the Elimination Ceremony Gundham was the only viable choice.
After giving his explanation, everyone still didn’t accept the results and demanded Monokuma to take back his decision. The arguments continued on ceaselessly until someone finally shut everything down, the one that silenced everyone was Gundham himself. He had no qualms with Monokuma’s choice and explained to the others that he never regrets anything in his life and how he does so is by accepting any and all consequences that come from his actions. With such a determined look on his face, no one dared to say anymore and were forced to accept the outcome.
As Gundham packs up and was ready to leave on the Boat of Loserdom, he sees most of his friends lined up ready to say their goodbyes. One after another, Gundham parted words of endearment and acknowledgment to everyone (despite it being hard to understand and overly dramatic, ~ as usual). When he finally reached Sonia there was a brief silence and a long pause, the one to break it was her when she tried giving back his scarf. But before she could Gundham stopped her and says that she should hold onto it until their next meeting.
He explained before, from previous other Challenges, that the “Clothe of Gehenna” (aka his scarf) is made up of the Strings of Fate that’s been woven by his Guardian Angel, thus allowing the wearer to bend destiny at their will. The point he’s making is that he wants to bestow some of his “power” to Sonia in order for her to protect herself and the others when things get dire once more, but more importantly he wants her to have it as a keepsake from him and as a reminder that he’ll be watching over her from now on. Just as he finished talking and headed towards the boat, Sonia grabbed Gundham by the collar of his jacket and gave him a final kiss goodbye.
After seemingly over a minute pass by and suddenly realizing what she’s done, Sonia pulls back, says what was on her mind, and storms off all embarrassed. Gundham on the other hand dramatically turned around and said his final farewells to everyone once more in an eerie fashion, but in reality he turned around quickly in order to hide his face before anyone noticed how red he was.
After getting on and leaving the coast, he looked at the confessional camera on the boat to talk about his experience on the island. He gloats about the number of Demon Beasts that he tamed on the island and prattles on about how he could’ve demolished all the Challenges with ease if he used his true powers, but chose not to in order to make things interesting. Though most importantly, he talked mainly about the other Players and how much his opinion of them changed from the start of the competition. He continued on that the more he spent time with them, the more he was able to recognize them as something more special than mere mortals. He states that he would grant each of them high-ranked elite positions in his army of evil once he conquers the World and how each of them will be granted a country of their choosing as their rewards for serving him.
Then before he could continue his grand gestures of world domination, at the corner of his eye he sees countless shadowy figures staring at him near the coast edge of the forest. What he saw was all the wild inhabitants of Dangan Island, facing down and looking all depressed as they saw Gundham drift away from the island. But before being taken too far away, he stood up in anger and proclaimed that they should never show any weakness as they are all part of the Tanaka Empire and that this whole thing was but a stepping stone for his plans to take over the world. He shouts that this will not be the last they see of him and until they do let the whole cosmos know the power of his minions. After that, Gundham let out a loud laughter that was soon accompanied with powerful cries and roars from the animals.
As Monokuma did the show’s outro and said his farewells to the audience, all anyone could hear was the noises bellowing from deep in the forest, but the most distinctively sound that everyone could hear was Gundham’s laughter ringing and echoing all throughout the whole night.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bio/Extra info: (Read Previous Bio) With his body in ruins, Monokuma, since it was his fault, decided to allow Nekomaru to continue with the competition with aid and time to recuperate. He tasked Kazuichi and brought back Mikan (who was eliminated previously) to help bring Nekomaru back on his feet, in exchange he promised Mikan that she'll be compensated and Kazuichi will be given “Invincibility” for the next challenge if they both complete the task. While Mikan tended to his conditions, Kazuichi pondered to himself on what he could do. Then he suddenly remembered a post from long ago on an online forum that he often visits, of this perverted and weirdo inventor who just wanted to boast and brag about their latest schematics of an exo-suit that allows people to do everyday tasks while they sleep. With some modifications to the schematics and gathering materials from previous demolished Challenges, Kazuichi went to work. Now after a few tests and research with Mikan and Kazuichi, Nekomaru has now transformed into Mechamaru. Kazuichi explained to him that the suit is only made for rehabilitation purposes only, meaning that it allows him to move around with very little effort exerted while his real body is recovering. Thus he’s not able to perform at his peak or demonstrate monstrous feats like he did. He further explained the the diameter located on his mouth, measures the pain he feels and the condition of his body; any ranges of Green meant he was great or fine, Yellow or Orange meant that his body is in great pain and that he needs long periods of time to rest, but Red meant that he needed to stop whatever he’s going and seek out immediate medical treatment before he dies. Now despite the situation he’s in and explaining his limitations, that didn’t get him down. He was just so happy that he was alive and appreciated the effort that both of them showed him, he continued being his big ol’ Jolly and Passionate self (but more shiny~ XD).
Goal: (Read Previous Goal) Same as before but now wants to use the prize to help fix his entire body.
#tdi#total drama#Total Drama Island#danganronpa#danganronpa 2#danganronpa goodbye despair#dr2 goodbye despair#dr#au#Fanart#danganronpa fanart#Nekomaru#sdr2 nekomaru#nekomaru nidai#mechamaru#mechamarunidai
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Touch (Pt. 8)
Pairing: Dabi x Fem!Reader
WARNINGS: 18+ only please! Drug abuse/withdrawal, adult language/themes, heavy angst, past trauma/abuse, anxiety/panic attacks, PTSD, fluff, pining, slow burn, eventual emotional SMUT. *please pay attention to the chapter tags as these warnings will apply at different times*
Synopsis: When you first joined the LOV to lend your healing quirk, Dabi terrified you. Not interested in attachments, he wanted to keep it that way. That is, until he needs your help. (Slow burn, soft Dabi).
Chapter warning: Another long chapter, clocking in at 10k words and 27 pages. First half is a bit heavy, so... Trigger warnings: physical abuse, verbal abuse, childhood trauma flashbacks
Chapter Songs: When The Truth Hunts You Down by Sam Tinnesz/Make It Rain by Ed Sheeran
Part 1 Part 7
Artwork credit to @hellowon31 on Twitter (https://twitter.com/hellowon31)
Part 8 - Memories
Dabi stared at his desk, now positioned in front of his bedroom door. He did it as soon as he’d returned to his room and swallowed the pills you had given him. He wasn’t sure what to expect for the evening, but whatever happened, he wanted to make it through it without leaving his room.
That was a decision he had made before he even showed up at your door with dinner, as evidenced by the plastic bags currently occupying the surface of his makeshift barricade. Ramen wasn’t the only thing he’d gotten while he was out. The bags were filled with a variety of items - more snacks, a pack of cigarettes, electrolyte drinks, over the counter medicines. Anything and everything he could think of was in those bags, the collection curated from multiple experiences of past detoxes. Granted, this wasn’t a full detox, but that just made it that much harder to anticipate what exactly his experience was going to be.
Next to the lineup of bags was a bottle of high-end whiskey and a far less fancy plastic cup. That part wasn’t exactly planned… it was a last-minute decision, swiped from the bar downstairs after he’d returned from his shopping spree. He knew you wouldn’t be happy about it; no doubt you’d grill him on the risks of mixing alcohol and drugs. But it was his safety net without the risk of leaving his room in search of something stronger.
The night dragged by slowly, painfully. Every inch of Dabi was restless and aching. His scarred legs screamed a discordant song through his veins, muffled under the influence of the pills you had given him. The aches he still felt were just annoying enough to make sleep impossible, despite the exhaustion that pulled at him. There was no comfortable position, nothing to ease the physical stress.
Still, the pain was bearable. Your treatment was working.
It had its limits, though. Despite the pills you’d given him, he was still functioning on an opioid withdrawal. A jittery energy consumed him, forcing his leg to beat like a jackhammer, while his mind raced. Dabi could never stay in one spot for long, switching between his bed to his desk chair, to his bed again. Sitting. Lying down. Standing. Sitting again. It hadn’t taken him long to break into his cigarettes, dragging long puffs into his lungs to ease his tattered nerves. It helped to ease the physical distress, but his mind continued to jump from thought to thought, no longer encumbered by a drug-filled haze.
The headache relief you’d provided him was proving to be a double-edged sword, allowing his sporadic thoughts to come through clearer without the sharp, throbbing ache as a distraction. Your conversation hung over Dabi like a vengeful ghost. He tried to run from it, distracting himself with various forms of entertainment on his phone. Music videos, books, TV shows, memes…
Did you like memes? Of course, you did. Who didn’t?
Damn it, there you were again, in his brain.
He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to think about you.
But he did anyway. Obsessively.
It wasn’t long before Dabi was sitting on his bed, his phone forgotten in his hand while his mind turned over every nuance of what was said, every detail of body language. It honed in on the fear in your eyes, the way you had wrapped your arms around yourself, the way you had frozen against his harsh tone. His mind chewed on it like a dog with a bone, a dog he couldn’t fucking train.
It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t fucking matter.
So, you were scared of him. That was to be expected. It wasn’t like he needed you to like him. This was all temporary anyway.
So, he had grabbed you. Big deal. It wasn’t like he really hurt you, right? It could have been so much worse.
The thoughts the did little to comfort him, his new-found conscience finding little of value in his weak excuses. The guilt sat in him like a stone, too heavy for him to move.
It mattered. It mattered a lot.
And he hated it.
Dabi still couldn’t remember actually grabbing you, but his mind filled in the blank space regardless, taking what he could remember and embellishing it into a brightly colored oil painting. It hung front and center in the castle of his mind, joining the tapestry of memories that wrapped around Dabi like a cage. And from it, it forced him to follow the threads of his life, drawing parallels to past wrongs, to things said and things done…
…To things better left buried.
“I hate you.”
The words echoed in Dabi’s mind, an old memory with his voice attached. Young, hot-headed, angry. He closed his eyes tight, resting the bridge of his nose on his interlaced fingers as he tried not to remember. He didn’t want to remember. But his mind was freed now, healing from the poison he’d been feeding himself for years, and it didn’t give a fuck what he wanted or didn’t want.
“This is all your fault.”
So, this is where his mind wanted to start first. He knew this memory, and he knew where it would eventually lead.
The memory came into focus with such clarity that it was as if he were there again. He could see her, clear as if she were there in person, white hair framing broken eyes as wet tears trailed down her hollow, pale cheeks. He could see himself too, younger, around thirteen years old, with red, wild hair like his father, his blue eyes filled with angry tears.
He watched, a prisoner in his own mind, as the memory unfolded before him.
His head hung low as his eyes stared ahead of himself, unfocused. Why? Why was this happening to him? His father’s harsh words wrapped around him like chains, restricting him, choking him, forcing him into submission.
‘YOU’RE NOTHING BUT A FAILED EXPERIMENT.’
Why was he cast aside so easily, as if he didn’t MATTER?
His father promised. He PROMISED that he’d help him become a hero. He’d trained every day, no matter how hard his father pushed him, no matter how much his quirk burned him. His father had called it the cost of greatness. It was all meant to mold him, to beat the weakness out of him and make him stronger, to prepare him for the greatest test of his life, the UA entrance exams. It was the ONLY path to becoming a pro hero. Not just any pro hero, but the BEST. His father insisted on it.
But now, with less than a year before he would apply, his father abandoned him.
“I tried so hard, mom. I did everything he ever asked, no matter how much it hurt, no matter how much he… he…”
His mother wrapped her arms around him, holding him close. “I’m so sorry Touya.”
His voice shook with the force of suppressed sobs. “If I’d been strong enough… if I was more like him, then maybe he’d have been proud of me. Maybe… maybe he would have wanted me.”
“Touya…” his mother whispered consolingly.
He stared at his bandaged hands, watching through blurred vision as his tears broke free and fell onto the strips of cloth. They soaked in, exposing the red blood beneath. He stared at it.
His fathers voice echoed in his mind. ‘You’re WEAK! Just like your mother!’
Tainted blood.
HER blood.
His father was right.
Touya’s pain transformed into anger. “This is all your fault.” He whispered.
Her embrace vanished as his words smacked her. Her eyes began to fill with tears. “What…?”
“This is all your fault!” He repeated, pinning his angry eyes on her tear-filled ones. “I HATE YOU!”
Dabi rubbed at the bridge of his nose, unable to get his mother’s facial expression out of his head. He had been such an idiot. A young, stupid kid. He’d destroyed her with those words. Maybe… maybe that was the start. The first crack in her mental fragility.
Her face faded away, and now he was in an office. His father’s office.
“I’m going to apply to UA.” He announced.
His father looked up at him from the newspaper he was reading. “No you’re not. I forbid it.”
“You may have given up on me, but I haven’t.” Touya said stubbornly.
Enji put the newspaper down. “If I thought you were capable of getting into UA, then we would be training right now instead of having this conversation.”
“But dad-“
“I FORBID IT!” He shouted as orange flames erupted along his face and shoulders. “I’ll not have you bring shame on the Todoroki name all for a childish dream.”
“It’s NOT a childish dream!” Touya shouted.
Dabi scoffed at the memory, noting his father’s hypocrisy about “childish dreams.” He knew the rest of this story… He’d applied behind his father’s back and failed the exam. His father was furious.
As if summoned, the memory burst forth, tying together with the previous.
He lay in the hospital bed at the UA Health Center, wrapped in bandages, nursing his failure. He’d lost control of his emotions during the exam, consumed by anger and a desperate desire to prove his father wrong. In turn, he lost control of his quirk. Not only had he injured himself with his recklessness, but he’d accidentally injured two other applicants with his wild flames – an automatic disqualification.
The school nurse, Recovery Girl, was treating the other’s wounds first, and then she would treat his.
Or so he thought.
Just as she was about to use her quirk to rapidly heal some of his injuries, his father burst through the door in a cloud of barely contained rage.
“Don’t treat him.” He ordered.
“Excuse me?” She replied.
Touya stared at his father, realization starting to dawn on him. He wouldn’t...
Enji narrowed his eyes. “I said don’t treat him.”
“But Mr. Todoroki, if I don’t use my quirk to help him then he’ll be left with scars. Worse than the ones he already has.”
“I know.”
“It will take him many weeks to heal. He may feel pain for the rest of his life.”
“He must suffer the consequences of his actions.”
“But sir, if I may-“
“You may not!”
“…very well, sir.” She mumbled. She left the room, muttering her disapproval under her breath.
After she was gone, a cold fear gripped Touya as his father stared at him with fury in his eyes. He waited for his father’s barrage of insults and accusations, waited for the lecturing on family honor and being a ‘man.’
But the attacks never came. Instead, his father cooled his expression, fixing him with a cold, emotionless glare. “You brought this on yourself.” He turned on his heel to leave, but paused to glance at him over his shoulder. “Remember this day, Touya.” Then he left.
Tears streaked down Touya’s face as he sobbed alone. No one could hear him. No one came.
Dabi stood up and made his way to his desk, pulling out another cigarette before sitting down in the metal chair. He lit the cigarette with the blue flame dancing on his finger and took a long drag of it as his free hand slowly spun the whiskey bottle in circles in front of him.
He didn’t want to think about this. Any of this. There was no fucking point to it, nothing to be gained. It only brought up the same pain he’d lived with for years, the pain he’d learned to ignore in place of vengeance.
He wanted to drink the entire bottle. He wanted to move his desk aside and seek you out, have you turn off his emotions like you’d done before. He could do it… the desk wasn’t really going to stop him.
But it served as a reminder. A reminder of what he had committed himself to. Why did he decide to go through with this? What the hell was he thinking?
He thought of you. He thought of the past few days. And once again, he was back on his thread of memories, following the tapestry down to its source.
The source of what?
He wasn’t sure. But it was as if someone had strapped him down and was forcing his eyes open. It wouldn’t stop. His thoughts continued unfettered, memories organizing with a clarity he hadn’t felt in years.
Touya sat alone in his room watching the rain pour outside as he nursed a black eye. Outside his second-story window, his father trained in the courtyard with his youngest brother. His quirk had manifested earlier that day – a perfect combination of fire and ice. Enji had been ecstatic.
Touya had punched the wall in anger.
Now he sat here, alone, watching his father train his replacement.
His replacement.
No wonder his father had abandoned him when Shouto was born. He was placing all of his chips on him once he realized that Touya’s body would never be able to handle his quirk.
A knock at the door interrupted his brooding, and his mother stepped in, disappointment already on her face.
“I heard you got in another fight today.” She said, as she closed the door behind her.
“They were picking on Natsuo.” He said. “I couldn’t just let that happen.”
“They’re talking about expelling you.”
He looked away from her, his eyes looking back out the window. “So what.” He replied. If anything, he welcomed it. Anything to thwart his father’s plans of making him go to college and get a business degree, only to work under his father’s thumb at his agency for the rest of his life.
“You can’t keep doing this, Touya.” She said, concern heavy in her voice.
“Doing what?” He looked back at her.
“Destroying your life like this.”
He glared at her accusation. “I didn’t destroy my life.” He looked away, watching the courtyard again. “He did.”
His mother walked over to join him at the window. A gust of wind blasted raindrops onto the glass. Outside, Shouto’s flames died away on his skin as he collapsed to his hands and knees. Enji grabbed him by his small arm, forcing him back up to his feet. She watched it with a sadness in her eyes.
“He’s too young.” She said quietly.
Jealousy soaked into Touya’s heart. “And I wasn’t?”
His words stabbed her, and she hung her head in guilt. “I’m sorry, Touya. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
Now he was confused. “Like what?”
She didn’t respond, and he looked at her to see her eyes glazed over in silent introspection. She’d mentally retreated within herself, to a place that Touya couldn’t follow. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen her do this. If anything, it was happening more frequently lately. Normally, when this happened he wouldn’t press it, allowing her to escape within herself, to protect whatever part of her she felt needed protecting.
But now her words trapped him, and his heart began to pound at their unspoken meaning. “LIKE. WHAT? How was it supposed to happen??”
His words cut through her mental isolation, and she stared distantly at the floor as her eyes began to brim with tears.
“If only one of the others had been strong enough… of only I’d given them better quirks…” the tears broke free, landing on the hard floor. “Then maybe… maybe you wouldn’t have had to suffer so long. I’m so sorry, Touya. It’s all my fault. Everything is all my fault.” She covered her face in her hands.
Given them better quirks? Who?
His body went cold. Suddenly he was outside of himself, watching the history of his life fly by.
The birth of Fuyumi. Then came Natsuo.
Now Shouto.
Touya did the math in his head. He was 17 now. Fuyumi was 14, and Natsuo was 9. Shouto was 5. A four-year gap between each of them.
He’d always thought that his siblings came along as a natural process of a growing family, born from love despite his father’s harsh, obsessive nature. Why else would Rei have stayed with him all these years? But the age gaps were too uncanny, too similar. It was just enough time for each of their quirks to manifest.
Shouto wasn’t the only one who was intended as a replacement.
Which meant his father had given up on him long before he’d ever let on.
Touya’s chest heaved, as his world was up-ended. “It was all a lie…”
The intensity of his tone forced his mother to come back to the present, her hands falling from her face to stare at him. “What?”
“It was all a lie!” he repeated, his voice raising. “All these years…”
He stood up and began pacing his room, his hand in his red hair. “Tell me it’s not true.” He demanded. “I already knew that Shouto was meant to replace me. But Natsuo?” He paused and stared at his mother.
She looked way shamefully.
His breaths began to come out in ragged gasps as he fought the tears coming to his eyes.
“Fuyumi?”
“No, not Fuyumi. Not initially, at least.”
Right. Because his quirk had just manifested when she was born. His father didn’t know yet how weak and limited his body was; he’d still believed it was something that could be worked past, that it was something Touya could control. Which meant that Fuyumi was wanted. Lucky her. No wonder his father seemed to favor her over everyone else.
He sat on his bed, his head in his hands. “What the FUCK.”
All these years, he’d assumed his father had believed in him, and only gave up on him right before he was set to apply to UA. Even then, he’d thought that his father only abandoned him as a way to protect Touya from hurting himself, or even worse, killing himself. That was why his father hadn’t let him get healed back then, right? That was the lesson he was supposed to learn? To accept his weakness and take his mortality seriously? Sure, there was the whole thing about ruining the family’s reputation, but he’d always hoped that deep down, there was more to it than that. There had to be.
But no. None of it was true. It was all about HIM. His father and his stupid, obsessive goal to beat All Might, even if it was only through his progeny. Touya was nothing but a tool to him, a means to an end. And when he couldn’t meet his father’s needs, he became nothing more than a contingency plan. In the meantime, his father kept trying to make the perfect hero. The perfect quirk.
And he’d finally succeeded.
Touya stared at his scarred hands. “Did… did he ever even love me?” The words fell from his mouth, a forbidden, broken whisper.
His mother’s arms were around him then, cradling him to her chest. “Of course, he loves you. I swear it.”
The warmth of her embrace made him turn his attention on her, and suddenly a revelation hit him, cutting into him like a thousand knives. His body went rigid, his eyes wide.
“You knew.” He whispered. He forced her arms off of him and stood up, towering over her with his height. She took a step back, her eyes wide. “You knew and you never told me.”
He turned his back to her, unable to look at her.
“Touya, please...” she begged, her voice quivering.
He didn’t want to hear it. There was nothing she could say that could fix this. His father was one thing… he’d accepted that he was an abusive, shitty father. But his mother? His mother who he’d confided in? His mother who was supposed to protect him? His mother… who he trusted? Why didn’t she ever tell him?
The betrayal was too much. It cut too deep. His entire childhood was a lie, years wasted by those who were supposed to love and support him.
Disgust filled him. He wanted her gone. Out of his room, out of his life.
“Touya!” she said desperately. She reached out to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, an attempt at bridging the growing chasm between them.
“DON’T TOUCH ME!” He shouted.
Flames erupted across his body, uncontrolled, as his arm shoved her away from him. She stumbled back with such force that she collided into the wall before slumping down against it. She didn’t get up. Instead, she sat there with her knees drawn up like a child, her body wracked with sobs.
He stared at her, horrified, as his blue flames died away on his skin. He wanted to go to her, to reach out and help her, apologies falling frantically from his lips. He took a cautious step forward, one hand outstretched towards her. But she shied away from him, her arms wrapping protectively around her head.
“No! Enji, please!”
Her words stopped him in his tracks. Slowly, he lowered his hand and stared in stunned silence as his mother babbled incoherent apologies. Something shattered within himself, sinking away to leave a hollowness in its place.
He ran.
Dabi was drowning, as the weight of his past washed over him, choking him.
That was the longest one yet. And the most painful. It ripped at the exposed tender places in his heart, places he’d thought were long-since dead.
Dabi’s vision blurred and he wiped at his nose. This was what he did. He lashed out, hurting those close to him, those who didn’t deserve it. It was the same with you. It was who he was, it was who he was made to be. It’d only be a matter of time before it happened again.
He lifted his cigarette to take another puff but stopped when he realized that it had burned down to the filter, leaving a trail of ash in its wake on the desk.
He unpacked another cigarette and lit it. His hand began to unscrew the whiskey bottle.
She had avoided him after that, and he avoided her. It wasn’t long after that rainy day that his mother had her mental breakdown, scalding Shouto in an attempt to burn away the image of her husband. Or was she trying to burn away the image of Touya? Was there even a difference in her mind?
The news had shocked him, and he ran as fast as his legs could take him. He burst into Enji’s office, forcing himself into his father’s presence.
“Where is she?” Touya demanded, his chest heaving from exertion.
Enji frowned at the intrusion, looking up from his paperwork at his desk. He was dressed professionally, in a white button-up shirt with a blue tie.
“Who?” He demanded.
Touya clenched his jaw so tight his teeth ground together. God, did he hate him…
“My mother. You know, your wife. The one you knock up every four years and the ignore.”
Enji menacingly rose from his chair, his blue eyes carrying the threat of violence within them. He towered over Touya, his presence casting a shadow from the wall sconces behind him.
“You watch your tone with me, boy.” Enji said coldly. “I will not be disrespected in my own house.”
Touya knew if he pushed it, he’d never get what he came here for. So, he sucked up his anger and pride, bowing deep in apology. “Yes, sir.” Touya muttered with downcast eyes. “Forgive me. I just want to know where she is.”
Enji paused for a moment, staring down at his son before returning to his seat and picking up his pen. “She’s been admitted to the Musutafu Mental Institution.” He replied as he marked his paper.
A pause filled the space before Touya asked his next question. “Can I see her?”
“No.”
Touya’s breath stopped, his mind unable to wrap around the simple word that fell like a judge’s gavel. His father’s answer was cold and final, said with such heartless ease. He stared in disbelief.
He thought he had time to mend things, to finally overcome his cowardice and atone for his actions. But there was no atoning now. He’d lost her. Tears began to sting in the corners of his eyes, but he fought them back; his father always hated it when he cried.
“So that’s it…? She’s gone?”
“It was for the best.” Enji replied. “She attacked my son, almost made him useless. Now I can train him without her interfering.”
“Is that all you care about?” The words fell from Touya’s mouth before he could stop them, covered in bitterness.
Enji’s pen stopped scribbling. An agonizing ten seconds passed before he set it down and looked up at Touya, pinning him with his sharp eyes, dark eyebrows pulled down into an angry frown. “Excuse me?”
Touya steeled himself against his father’s wrath as the rage he’d been keeping to himself burst forth against its creator.
“Is that all you care about?” he repeated. “Your wife is in a mental institution and your son is scarred for life, but all you can think about is surpassing All Might?”
Enji pinned him with a look that was almost akin to pity. “How small-minded you are. This was always your problem, Touya. Your mother too. You both lacked vision, an inability to see the bigger picture. That was why you were never able to push past your limits. But Shouto… Shouto will be different.”
Enji’s accusations made Touya’s lips curl into a snarl. “Do you even hear yourself?” he spat. “No wonder she went crazy. She wasn’t attacking Shouto, she was attacking you! This is all your fault, and you don’t even care. You’re a shit father, and a worse husband.”
The pity in his father’s eyes turned to ice, and the man quietly set his pen down before standing up from his desk. “Shouto said the same thing.” He grumbled. “I excused it coming from him, because he’s young and doesn’t understand yet. But you… you should know better.” He loosened his tie and began to unbutton the cuffs of his sleeves. “I’ve been too lenient on you. It looks like there are some lessons I still have yet to teach you.”
Touya took a step back at the obvious gesture.
Enji stared down at him in disgust. “Look at you. Already scared. You’re just as pathetic as before.”
Touya went into a defensive stance, his blue flames igniting across his skin.
His father scowled. “You dare raise your flames against me, boy?” His own flames erupted along his body. “Very well. If you’re going to talk like a man and fight like a man, then you will learn to accept your consequences like a man.”
Dabi took a drag of his new cigarette, already burned halfway from neglect. He inhaled deeply, wanting the toxic fumes to fill the gaping hole in his chest. It didn’t.
He picked up the now-open whiskey bottle and poured it to the halfway point of the plastic cup. There was no ice to chill it, but it would have to do. He took a swig, letting the fiery taste coat his tongue, burning away the taste of ash.
Enji had taken him outside into the courtyard, where he received the worst beating he’d ever gotten. His father’s blows lacked the restraint he typically exercised, fueled by a dark rage. It had left Touya gagging and coughing, crumpled on the floor in a heap. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to move, it hurt to think.
The beating may have been five minutes or it may have been five hours. He couldn’t really tell. All he did know was that no one came. Just like all the times before, no one came to say something, to stop him, even though the sound of their conflict shook the Todoroki grounds, incinerating nearby bushes and damaging the exposed framework of the surrounding buildings. And after his father had left, removing his tie and his shirt to clean the blood from them, Touya had laid there alone in the dirt, staring up at the cold, lifeless, star-studded night sky as an unforgiving universe stared back. He wanted to die.
It felt like eternity had passed before two sets of hands gently grabbed him and helped him up, each of his arms going around familiar shoulders. His siblings had finally come for him, now that his father was out of sight and they knew they were safe from his wrath. They had helped Touya to his bed, where Fuyumi tended to his wounds in silence and Natsuo sat beside her, his mouth pressed into a thin, angry line.
Dabi took another couple of decent gulps of his whiskey, resisting the urge to down the entire contents and pour another cup. How much did he pour? Four shots worth? Five? He needed it to kick in. If he was going to be forced to relive every bad memory he ever had, then he’d be here all night.
His body was worn down, his spirit tired. He really didn’t want to feel anymore.
But the alcohol wasn’t working fast enough; his brain wouldn’t stop.
It was late at night, the moon high in the sky, the air cold with the hint of rain as clouds rolled in from the distance. It had been a few days since Touya’s beating, but despite his sister’s protests, he decided to leave the confines of his room and take a walk on the family compound.
That was how he ended up here, six feet away from the training room. The light was off, but he could hear the sound of fists hitting, and every now and then the room would light up with bright orange flame. But there was no lecturing, no young voice crying. Touya knew Shouto wasn’t in there this time. He was still in bed, recovering from the burn his mother had inflicted. Enji was furious, pacing the grounds like an angry bear, snapping at staff and family and locking himself away in his training room to work out his frustrations, constantly striving for a goal he’d never be able to achieve.
Touya inwardly scoffed. If anyone should be admitted to a mental institution, it should be his father. The man was literally driven insane by his inability to surpass All Might. But of course, that would never happen. His father was the number two hero. He was “untouchable.” There was no one brave enough or strong enough to make that man face his own demons. It made Touya curl his nose up at the hypocrisy.
An odd silence drew Touya out of his thoughts. The sounds of fists impacting dummies and training equipment had stopped, the flames no longer bathing the ground in light through the open door. Then he heard it – an unfamiliar sound, one he’d never heard before. He furrowed his brow in confusion and inched closer to the open door before risking a peek inside.
The moonlight spilled in just enough for him to see the hulking form of his father, sitting on the floor with his head in his hands. His great shoulders shook, and finally Touya realized the sound he was hearing.
His father was crying.
Disgust filled Touya, sour and bitter. For all of his father’s posturing, for all of his grandiose lectures about strength and commitment, here he was, sobbing like a baby. And for what? For his inability to reach his dreams, while his family fell apart around him?
Or was he crying FOR his family?
Touya pushed the possibility away, burying it deep, deep down where he refused to give the idea any chance of blooming into a belief.
No. This man didn’t feel for his family. He wasn’t ALLOWED to feel for his family. He was the reason his family was as broken as it was, every single one of them able to tie their scars back to him and his selfish actions.
Touya hated him.
And yet he loved him. How fucked up was that? He could feel it in his irrational urge to go to him and offer support, a support he’d never once received. And that just made him hate him more, because despite all that his father had done to him, Touya still fucking cared.
His father wasn’t worthy of it. He didn’t deserve Touya’s love, or his mother’s love, or anyone’s love for that matter.
And he certainly didn’t deserve to cry.
Touya fled. He fled from his feelings, he fled from his fears, taking only his righteous anger with him and riding it like a hellhound. He ran as fast as he could, ignoring the pain that sliced through him from his father’s abuse. His lungs burned. His ribs ached. As he ran, his thoughts followed, chasing him and swooping on him like a flock of crows, pecking at his sanity.
He ended up in an abandoned warehouse, a quarter mile from his house, across the railroad tracks that marked the separation of ritzy upper-class life and industrial city complexes. He fell to his knees, his palms landing hard on the dirt-strewn floor inside the old building, as sobs ripped lose from his throat, harsh and painful.
He hated him. He hated him more than anything. How could he have ever idolized him? How could he have ever loved him? His father was selfish. He was destructive. He was cruel. And now his father cried like a baby, as if he were a victim in all of this.
He wasn’t a victim. And he certainly wasn’t a hero.
What kind of hero saved civilians while simultaneously destroying his family behind closed doors? That wasn’t a hero. It was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
And it was devouring his family. His helpless, innocent family.
They deserved justice. They deserved saving. Where was hero society in all of this? Lining his father’s pockets, placing him on a pedestal to be worshipped. His father always preached about Touya accepting the consequences of his actions. So where were Enji’s consequences?
As long as his father continued to reign supreme, his family would never be safe. His family would never heal. His mother would never recover. Natsuo would never be freed of his anger. Shouto would never get to decide who he is and who he wants to be. Fuyumi would be weighed down by her obligation to her family, foregoing her own dreams to take care of them all.
His father needed to be gone. Permanently. Only then would his family be safe. Only then would they be free.
But Touya… Touya would never be free. He understood that now, even as his hatred and anger consumed him. He was just like his father, a proverbial chip-off-the-old-block. He’d managed to take all the worst parts of him and make them a part of himself. His obsessive nature, his anger, his jealousy… his violence. He could feel it in his blood.
If his family wasn’t safe with Enji, then what made Touya any different? He’d already played a hand in his mother’s mental demise. How could he be sure he wouldn’t hurt the rest as tie went on?
He was just like his father.
He hated his father.
He hated himself.
He wanted to die.
So then, who better to take on the Behemoth? Who better than his father’s son, the monster he’d made?
Touya had to kill Endeavor. He had to kill his father. His father, who he couldn’t even beat in a fight. He was stupid. A fool. But there were no other options. No other paths to justice. And Touya was tired of waiting for justice.
Touya’s sob turned into a dry laugh. Was this what it meant to be heroic? To bear the weight of this responsibility, even if it cost him his soul? Even if it killed him?
His dry laugh grew into a series of laughs, wild and hysterical, as tears ran down his face, while the reality of what he was committing to tore him asunder. As he heaved and coughed, a heat began to overtake him, building so quickly that by the time he realized what was happening, it was too late. Searing, blue flames blasted out of him in such magnitude and such intensity that the windows of the abandoned warehouse exploded, glass shards melting from the intense heat as they rained down. The flames roared outward, reaching for the night sky through the now-glassless windows, groping and writhing, their fierceness never waning.
Touya couldn’t stop it. The flames scorched through him and consumed him, the sound of it raging in his ears, his body devoured by agony as his quirk ate at him, destroying him from the inside out. Above him, the heat of the flames began to melt the structural metal beams.
But his hysterical laughter and tears couldn’t stop, even as smoke left his scorched lungs with each exhale and his mouth tasted ash. A screeching sound filled the space, the sound of metal bending and breaking. The beams gave way, the roof caving in as destruction rained down around him, silencing his laughter.
…..
Nothing but bright blue fire and broken remains filled his vision. Slowly, a dark form began to take shape amongst the flames, tall and towering. It was him. He’d come for him.
The flames parted, and he saw himself as he was now: black hair, dark scars, staples glinting in the firelight. The sound of a funeral bell tolled and his mouth opened, forming a single word. A name.
A gentle knock caused the image to begin to fade away like mist, even as the funeral bells still rang in Dabi’s ears.
“Dabi?” He knew that voice. It was you.
Groggily, Dabi opened his eyes to find himself still in his chair at his desk, his head resting on his arm. His forgotten cup of whiskey sat unmoved, inches from his fingers. It was a dream. He’d fallen asleep.
Another knock at the door, slightly louder, made him sit up.
“...Dabi?” you called again.
“Yeah.” He grumbled. He rubbed at his face. “Yeah, yeah.”
His body felt stiff and his neck had a horrible kink in it. He checked the time on his phone. 5:45am. Why in God’s name were you up so early? And why were you knocking on his door?
He stood up and stretched his back, and that was when he felt it – a sharp itching pain that ran along his spine, chased by the agony in his legs. It was worse than he remembered it being before he’d passed out. Your quirk was starting to wear off.
It looked like you were right on time.
He grabbed the end of his metal desk with one hand and pulled, dragging it slowly away from the door. The sound was grating, like nails on a chalkboard. If people weren’t awake before, they definitely were now.
As if on cue, three harsh bangs resonated from the wall next him. “What the hell, Dabi???” Spinner’s voice yelled through the wall. “People are trying to sleep!”
“Bite me.” Dabi snapped back before opening the door for you, and stared, giving you an obvious once-over. You were completely dressed, in jeans and a long-sleeve shirt, as if you’d been up for hours. Dark circles framed your tired eyes. “Hey, doll.” He greeted.
Your heart did a flip before you even knew what hit you, leaving you standing there like a deer in headlights. It’d been a cool minute since he’d called you that; you didn’t realize how much you’d grown attached to it.
It took you a moment to realize that he was holding the door open for you, inviting you in. Once you were across the threshold, Dabi closed the door behind you.
“Sorry… did I wake you?” You asked, as your eyes took in the room. His desk was haphazardly pulled away from the door, covered in plastic bags. The room stank of cigarette smoke and alcohol. A bottle of whiskey sat incriminatingly on the desk, some of its contents missing. You picked up the bottle and stared at it before pinning Dabi with a glare. You knew he knew better. For someone who was so experienced with drugs, he certainly did do some stupid shit.
“Really?” you scolded.
“Don’t start with me.” Dabi grumbled as he rubbed at his neck. He pulled out an electrolyte drink and downed its contents, wiping his mouth with his hand once it was empty. “There, you happy?” He moved on to a bag of chips, crunching loudly as he chewed in annoyance.
Normally, you would have been more diplomatic, navigated the waters a little bit more when you saw them getting choppy. But you slept like shit again last night, waking up repeatedly from bad dreams only to worry about this idiot while he decided to try to self-medicate by drinking his problems away.
“Don’t get mad at me for calling you out on your bullshit.” You replied. “If you act like an idiot, then I’m gonna treat you like one.”
“How’s it look up there on your high horse?” Dabi retorted.
“What?”
“It must be exhausting being so fucking perfect. Makes everyone else around you look like such fucking failures.” He turned his angry eyes away from you as he sat down on the end of his bed, running a hand through his messy black hair.
His words slapped you, and you stared at him for a long moment, taking in the sight of him. His eyes looked tired, his cheeks sallow. His hair looked tangled and unwashed. When was the last time he took a shower? His hand kept rubbing at his neck, no doubt nursing a sore spot. He must have fallen asleep at his desk after a rough night. You recalled the night you’d helped him through his withdrawal, and the breakdown it had culminated in. No doubt he was up all night battling his inner demons. Alone. Without your help this time. Guilt soaked through your frustration.
“I’m sorry.” You muttered. “You’re right, I shouldn’t judge. It’s just…” You sat down in his desk chair. “I’m trying so hard to help you. And… well…”
“What?” Dabi prodded. “You think I’m not trying?”
Your eyes fell on the desk, which sat askew in his room, and the bags full of various items that were obviously intended to help Dabi get through the night. “No…” you replied. “I know you are. I just wish you took better care of yourself.”
“I take care of myself just fine.”
Your brow furrowed. “I mean it, Dabi.” You rubbed at your face tiredly, letting your fatigue finally show. “I’m worrying about you, probably more than I should. I’m pushing my body to its limits, I can’t sleep, and when I do, I dream about you. Then I wake up, and I worry even more because I can never be entirely sure that you’re okay.”
You felt your body flush with heat at your sudden confession, and you looked at your hands in embarrassment. You weren’t supposed to say that. You weren’t supposed to say any of that. Stupid, no-good, tired, foggy brain.
A shit-eating grin spread across Dabi’s face, his eyes lighting up in amusement. “You dream about me, eh?”
“Shut up.” You grumbled. You grabbed a crumpled-up napkin and threw it at Dabi’s head. It fell pitifully to the floor, three feet from where he sat.
Dabi stared at the failed attack and gave a laugh. “That was pathetic.”
You tried to suppress a grin. “I said shut up. God, you’re such a brat.”
A moment of silence passed between the two of you before Dabi finally spoke. “Gotta solution to your problem… Stop worrying so much.”
You gave a small half-smirk. “Sorry, not gonna happen.” You replied. “I worry about my friends. That’s just how I am.”
Something did a flip in Dabi’s chest, and he averted his eyes. “Friends, huh? You don’t even know me.”
“I know you better today than I did a few days ago…”
He gave a dry laugh. You weren’t wrong…
“If we’re not friends when this is all over, then I will be greatly offended.” You teased. “Besides… like your company.”
Dabi stared at you like you grew a second head. You liked his company? For the life of him, he couldn’t understand why. Most of the time you’d spent together so far was him either feeling like shit or being an asshole.
But he liked your company too even though he wouldn’t admit it out loud, and for the moment he didn’t feel like fighting it. He’d argue with himself later over it for sure, but for right now… he enjoyed feeling your presence, enjoyed how your words wrapped around him like a warm blanket, safe and secure. His memories still sat upon his shoulders, lurking like crows, but they were silent for now, and he was pretty sure that it had something to do with you being here.
Your voice broke through his thoughts. “Let’s change your bandage. Are you okay waiting until I’m done treating you to get your pills?”
“Why, are you punishing me for drinking?” he replied. It took you a moment before you caught on that he was teasing.
You grinned and raised an eyebrow at him. “No, but now that you mention it, we should probably wait until after we’re done since I don’t know how long ago it was that you drank.”
Dabi narrowed his eyes at you suspiciously. Now you were just doing this on purpose…
You sat behind him on the bed and began unpacking your materials while he removed his shirt. When you removed his bandage, you stared at the healing burn for a moment.
“How’s it look?” He asked, glancing back at you over his shoulder.
“It’s healing okay, but it’s still going to take some time until you don’t need the bandages.”
Regardless of the status of his burn, he still needed to see you twice a day for your quirk treatment and pills. It was exhausting, and you were grateful that so far the others only returned with minor injuries. But that could change at any moment, and you needed to be able to handle it; otherwise, Shigaraki would start to question your value.
You could only hope that your seller could find a way to expedite Dabi’s medication. And your own too. You’d counted what you had left before you’d arrived, and you were getting low. Dangerously low. You could get through today and tomorrow morning, but if you didn’t have your refills by then…
You tried not to think about it.
You changed his bandages easily and began applying your quirk to his scarred skin just as you’d done the night before. When you adjusted your position to handle the scars on his front half, the fear crept up again. But this time, you were able to wrangle it successfully, only hesitating for a moment before you continued. You broke the silence with words, a helpful distraction from your increasing discomfort and wandering thoughts.
“I didn’t know you smoked.” You commented.
He eyed you for a moment, waiting for another lecture. But it never came and when your eyes met his in a quick glance, there was no judgment in them.
“Only once in a while.” He replied.
You read between the lines of his answer. “Does it help?”
“A little.”
Silence fell again as you became increasingly focused on your quirk. Your back was itching painfully again, and your heightened senses were making the light in the room seem far too bright. Still, your fingers traced along his neck, taking special care to make sure no space was left untouched. Dabi watched your face, inches from his own. That was when he noticed it. Something was wrong. Your smile was gone, your lips now pressed into a firm line. You took your breaths in through your nose, and your brows were pulled together as you focused. Your hands were starting to shake. Were you scared again? Or was it something else?
Just as your hands began to reach his face, he grabbed your hands in his own and pulled back slightly out of your reach. “Stop.”
Your eyes focused on him. “What? Why?”
“Your quirk. Does it hurt?” his tone was stern.
You stared at him, your expression caught like a deer in headlights before looking away abashedly.
“Yeah, sort of.” You replied.
Dabi held your hands, as he waited for a better answer than what you gave him.
Finally, you slowly pulled our hands out of his grasp, his touch leaving electricity on your skin, and sat on the bed next to him with your hands clasped together.
“So, you know how when I use my quirk, it numbs your pain?” Dabi waited silently for you to continue. “It sort of has an opposite effect on me. The more I use it, the more heightened my senses become. And if I use my quirk too much, then it becomes… uncomfortable.”
Dabi stared at his hands as you spoke, his brow pulled down into a dark frown. All this time… he knew you were pushing yourself to your limits; hell, you even said so earlier. But he had assumed it just caused fatigue. He never knew that it caused you pain. How had he never noticed? How many times had you treated him?
How much did you use your quirk on the first night of his withdrawal? How far did you really push yourself?
A car alarm went off outside of his open window, and your hands immediately flew up to cover your ears against the assault, your heart pounding. Once the pain and panic dissipated, you lowered your hands, embarrassment hot in your blood. It was the first time Dabi saw this part of you, and it made you feel weak and vulnerable.
“Sorry.” You mumbled.
Dabi hated those words. He especially hated hearing them from you. What the hell did you have to be sorry about? Anger bubbled in him, old and familiar. But he forced it down, aware of what his anger did to you as the memories flitted across his mind like a warning.
“It’s fine.” Dabi replied, keeping his voice even.
Dabi’s mind began turning over this new piece of information, fitting the missing puzzle piece into what little he did have. He became acutely aware of how little he really knew about you.
“Is that what those drugs are for?” he asked.
You paused for a moment, contemplating if you should spin your truth to fit his theory. But it didn’t feel right. Earlier you said you considered him a friend. Did you keep secrets from friends?
How much did you really trust him? How much did he trust you?
He was already trusting you more than you were, letting you help him through something very personal. You’d seen him vulnerable far more than he’d seen you vulnerable. So how would he feel if he learned you were keeping the truth from him?
You wondered how he’d react. If anyone would understand the pain you went through, it’d be him. If anything, it might make the two of you closer. You couldn’t deny that the idea of that resonated with an unspoken need within you.
“Sort of.” You replied, as you fiddled with the hem of your shirt. “I can’t use them for my sensory overload. It’d take too many to really have an impact, and I’d probably O.D. if I tried.”
“So, what are they for?”
Wow. He really wanted to know.
Your heart pounded in your chest, as your words got stuck somewhere between your mouth and your insecurity. It’d been so long since you’d talked about it, since you’d acknowledged it with another person. What if he laughed? After all, how ridiculous did you look complaining about a single scar compared to Dabi?? Or worse, what if he didn’t care at all?
But he’d asked, and now he was waiting for an answer.
The words still wouldn’t come, so you positioned yourself with your back facing him and lifted your shirt slightly, exposing the damaged flesh beneath.
Dabi’s eyes widened. He knew a burn scar when he saw one. And not just any burn scar. There was a pattern to it, a story in its twisted, marred flesh. This was done by a quirk. It spread across your lower back, the edge of it dipping beneath the hem of your pants. His hand began to reach out, fingers twitching with the urge to touch it, as if his touch could take the hateful mark off of you. But he caught himself, his fingers inches from your skin, and clenched his hand into a tight fist.
A long, heavy silence begin to fill the space between you while a thousand questions perched on the edge of his lips as he grappled with this new information and the emotions that erupted from it.
The silence dragged on, and you lowered your shirt, as heart-pounding anxiety smothered you. It filled the dark spaces in you, the weak places where confidence had abandoned you. It settled into a could dread that made you unable to turn around and face him. Why wasn’t he saying anything? You squeezed your eyes closed as tears pricked at the corners.
Did you make a mistake? You shouldn’t have shown him. You should have just brushed it off or lied when you had the chance.
Tears began to slip down your cheeks, and you struggled to stop them. But they wouldn’t stop, and you wiped away at them angrily, sniffling as you struggled to contain yourself.
The sound of your distress snapped Dabi out of his obsessive thoughts. You were crying. Why?
Was it something he said? But he didn’t say anything.
Was it something he did? But he didn’t do anything.
What the hell was he supposed to do? He had no words of comfort, and he certainly couldn’t hold you, not without crossing a boundary he’d set for himself. You had called him a friend. How did friends comfort each other? He had no fucking clue.
He scratched at his head awkwardly before standing up. He bit his cheek from the pain in his legs. Your pills had worn off, and they were in desperate need of attention. But he forced it into submission, instead making his way to his desk to retrieve a clean napkin and handing it to you.
The small gesture seemed to help, as you gave a small chuckle and accepted the gift, wiping at your eyes as you averted your tear-stained face from him.
“I’m sorry.” You said with a sheepish laugh.
There was that fucking phrase again.
“Don’t be.” He replied.
That answer seemed to help, too. You finally turned to face him, a sheepish smile on your face.
“I know guys typically freak out when they see a girl cry.” You commented. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
Your emotional reaction embarrassed you, and now you were struggling to save face.
“It’s fine.” He grabbed the bag of chips from earlier and grabbed a couple for himself before holding the bag out to you in offering. You shook your head, keeping your eyes on your lap.
“It’s just… it’s been a long time since I’ve shared this with anyone.” You tried to explain. Not entirely truthful, but not entirely a lie either.
“I shouldn’t have asked.” He replied.
“No, it’s fine.” You replied. “I understand why you wanted to know.”
Silence followed for a moment, filled only by the sound of Dabi’s crunching. It grated on your ears, but you didn’t want to say anything, glad that he was at least eating something. Instead, you tried to cover the noise of his chips with your voice.
“It doesn’t hurt all the time…” you explained. “Only when my quirk gets overused. That’s what the pills are for.”
“What about your sensory overload?” Dabi asked.
You were grateful that the conversation was progressing forward, leaving your mini breakdown in the past.
“Usually it’s a matter of reducing exposure. Turning off lights, quieting noises, that kind of thing.” You replied.
As you spoke, Dabi watched you. He watched the way you never seemed to look up from your lap for very long, your eyes avoiding the light of his lamp. Your shoulders were hunched against the cold (or was it the pain?), and he recalled how the car alarm before had made you cover your ears.
He grabbed another chip as his mind analyzed all the things that he’d missed before. As soon as it crunched under his teeth, he saw your hands squeeze tightly on the hem of your shirt before loosening again.
He stared at the bag, before holding it up to you. “This bothers you?” he asked.
You averted your eyes, embarrassed. “Just a little.”
He slowly put the bag down on the desk, careful not to have it crinkle too loudly. “Why didn’t you say something?”
You shrugged. He scowled. Then, he stood up with a wince, and closed his open window, drawing the curtains closed to block the brightening daylight. As he walked back to sit on the bed next to you, he turned off his lamp, plunging the room into darkness that faded to a comfortable dim light once your eyes had adjusted to the change, morning light seeping into the room at an acceptable level.
You could feel the relief immediately, and you stared at him, bewildered not just by his kindness, but by his awareness. Was he really paying attention to you that closely? It made your blood rush in your ears and your heart do somersaults.
“Thank you.” You said softly.
“It’s not a big deal.” He replied as he leaned back and stared at the light dancing on the ceiling. It was the least he could do, he thought. This discomfort you were feeling was because of him, after all. Besides, after all you’d done for him – were still doing for him – he figured you’d earned a little bit of kindness in return.
But only for you.
Dammit.
He really was a lost cause.
“I’m feeling better now…” you said. “I can finish treating your scars.”
“It’s fine.” Dabi lied.
You stood up and faced him. “Let me at least treat your legs. I wasn’t able to get to them last night.”
“I said it’s fine.”
“Dabi…” he looked at you and was met with a knowing look on your face. “Trust me. I know my limits. Besides, this is literally my job.”
Dabi frowned at you. “No, your job is to treat injuries, not help drug addicts.”
“My job is to make sure everyone is able to function to the best of their ability.” You countered. You crossed your arms with a smug look. “Don’t make me go tell Shigaraki that you’re being a bad patient.”
He scowled and looked away. You took that as a surrender and sent him into the bathroom to change into shorts to make your job easier. When he came back out, he was still frowning.
“You play dirty.” He complained. “And not in a fun way.”
You grinned but didn’t respond as you focused on running your hands along his scarred legs, starting at above the knee. By the time you were done, your quirk was riding the brink, your back on fire again. But you gritted your teeth and bore it, even as sweat beaded across your face.
You went to your bag and began to rummage through it, wincing as you bent over. Your back was facing Dabi, your butt in the air, and he couldn’t help but appreciate the view. A subtle smirk tugged at his lips. But the grin was short lived; it fell as soon as you stood up, holding the familiar pill bottle in your hand.
“No.” Dabi said adamantly.
“Give me a break.” You replied, as you opened the container. “What other options do we have?”
You held out the three pills towards him, but he stared at them. “I can’t take these.” He said.
You took his hand in yours and placed the pills into his palm, closing his fingers over them. “You can, and you will.” You replied. “Besides, it’s temporary, remember?”
He opened his mouth to protest, but a ding sounded within the room that made you nearly jump out of your skin with your sensitive hearing. You clumsily pulled your phone out of your bag and opened up your text messages. Your eyes lit up, and a smile spread across your face before you put the phone away in your bag.
“Good news,” you said. “Looks like the refills for my pills will be ready for pickup tomorrow.”
“What about mine?” Dabi asked.
Your expression fell slightly. “He didn’t mention them, so I’m guessing they’re not ready yet.”
“Well that fucking sucks.”
“It’s not all bad… once I get my refill, there will be enough for both of us. I asked him to double up the pills so there’d be enough. Then I can really start treating you properly until your pills arrive. See? I told you it’d be temporary…”
Dabi looked up at your happy face and couldn’t deny the relief he felt knowing you weren’t going to be hurting yourself for him for much longer. “Fine.” He replied. He swallowed the pills before he could change his mind.
You picked up your bag with another wince and made your way to the door. Dabi stood up to follow you, relishing in the painless effort of walking. He felt like he could run.
Before you opened his door, you half-turned to him. “Get some more rest.” You wrinkled your nose at him. “And maybe take a shower. And brush your teeth.”
Dabi rolled his eyes. “Yes, mom.”
After you left, he paused for a moment before sniffing his armpit. He didn’t really smell that bad… did he?
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Part 9
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Taglist (always open!): @lemonfvck @vs-redemption @inanabsentia
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#dabi#dabi x reader#dabi x you#mha#bnha#touch#dabi touch#soft dabi#angst#TW: verbal abuse#TW: physical abuse#TW: abuse#TW: childhood trauma#tw: alcohol
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More than Gold (Caster Gilgamesh x Reader)
Summary: There was something she didn’t realized over the course of time she stayed, and it was that from the moment she arrived, there was not a single woman coming out his chamber anymore.
Category: Angst, Romance
Warnings: Only forced kissing if that counts
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A/N- This was the one I so far liked the most out of the three, so thank you for reading and hope anyone likes it!🦋
(Also I wrote this in one night and by the end my brain was malfunctioning :v )
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The first time he saw her was when Enkidu was still alive. Claiming to have lost her way from a place called Chaldea, she didn’t know how to get back and fortunately saw the city of Uruk from a distance. Mind you, this was also at the time Gilgamesh had no shame in bedding any woman he wished for, married or not. Did he had the same plans for her when he saw her so lost and nowhere to reside? At that moment, yes he did, but this time he somehow wanted to take his time taking her to his chambers, not forcefully but willingly.
Plans change however. She was more defiant, although not in an overbearing, annoying way that would get someone else executed. She was full of sarcasm, and rejected any type of advances from his in a smooth way that even left him dumbfounded. Her retorts were always given with a small, cocky smile, as if she was the one laying the cards in the table, winning the game.
By that point, the king had mostly given up on his initial plan and overtime just let her stay, unconsciously getting used to her presence.
Everything was serene until after his best friend’s death. It left him numb, and afraid of dying himself, losing everything in the process. Everyone around noticed the change in demeanor. Most of the time, it looked as if he was lost, but no one dared say anything. She was the exception though.
It wasn’t the first time she had seen his chamber, he had sometimes been insistent that she wake him up, and lately it wasn’t because he had other intentions but simply because he wanted to hear her. But now the situation was different. It started with her checking up on him and ended in having the king’s wrapped around her waist and neck.
“You won’t do it” he heard her say calmly. For the position they were in, she didn’t look scared at all. “And what makes you think that? I’m not in my right mind at the moment and I can do what I please with anyone, including you” He sneered, holding her more tightly.
“Because it wouldn’t make it any better, it won’t really satisfy you” She managed to choke out as his grip on her neck was getting stronger. Gilgamesh stared at her for a couple of seconds, as if completing his next move. A moment later, she could see he had made a decision and before he took action he simply said, “Then you’re the most foolish woman” He smashed his lips against hers, rough and immediately pushing his tongue past her closed teeth aggressively, wanting to taste her more. She wasn’t reciprocating at all but wasn’t pushing him away, just letting him kiss her to his whim. His grip on her neck had loosened, and after pulling away for air not before pulling on her lower lip and started trailing kisses down her jaw and neck. It was when he placed in her shoulder blade that she felt it. Trailing down her arm slowly, she felt as tear by tear started falling and he had stopped nay ministration on her body. His hands were holding onto her wrist, head laying on her shoulder as he let the tears fall silently.
Feeling for him, she hesitantly raised a hand and placed it in his blonde locks, slightly stroking. Gilgamesh was holding tightly onto the fabric of her dress like a lifeline and didn’t let go until calming down and he was able to speak, more rationally this time. “I don’t know what to do, y/n, if to go and kill that cursed goddess or just stay until death eventually takes me as well. Tell me, what do I do”
She felt his anger, his frustration, but most of all she felt how much the king missed his friend, the one that he could ever see as equal now taken away so cruelly. Even remembering Enkidu’s soft expression and light smiles, it felt like a pierce through the heart. it had affected everyone who knew him, but everyone knew it inwardly destroyed the young king. As y/n continued stroking his hair, she stared outside at the now dark sky. Trying to find her words, she started, “I believe that answer can be found by only you. You can go and kill her, you can stay still. Scream, cry, curse. Or- you can choose to be a king, protect your people even from the gods and watch as your city grows. I don’t know what he would’ve wanted, I can’t put my words in his mouth, but he understood you as you did he. I’m sure you would want to fulfill any promise left. And I know he wouldn’t have wanted you to be alone, which is why Siduri and I are here. We cant replace him, of course, but we’re here in our own way, Gilgamesh. Whatever you decide to do, this time I won’t defy.”
Moments passed as he contemplated. What did HE wanted to do? As he though about it, he raised his head and came to his decision. Instead of letting death take him, he would find a way to win over it. He had a duty, and it was to see the life of humanity and its progressive path. He couldn’t do that if he died before it ended. Making his decision, he fully looked at y/n. “I’m not dying. Even if it takes me to the underworld, I will find a way to live until it’s the end for everyone. I’m going away for a while. I trust you and Siduri will take care of things here for me, so just hold still until then.”
“I won’t dare ask how long its going to take, so alright. This time I’ll follow orders from you, your majesty” He knew that tone, the one she used to lighten the mood whenever he was tense. It seems it never failed as it pulled a small smirk form him. “Look at you so obedient, I would’ve hoped you were like that regarding other things too.” He retorted suggestively. She knew however, it wasn’t a serious implication as it used to be before and laughed mockingly, “Ha! Right, I would’ve been out of the ziggurat by now if I gave in so easily”
He huffed indignantly, “You would’ve been the first woman I wanted to keep” She stayed quiet at that, sort of put off and not knowing how to take that comment, didn’t even noticed he had a hold of her hands, “You... still kept me here though”
“At first it was still in attempt to lure you in, but I must admit I now have other reasons I won’t tell until I come back” He stated, looking at her quiet curiously with a glint in his eyes. “Keeping me in suspense I see” she sighed and continued, “Alright, I’ll wait here then, not like there’s an alternative. But promise me this” Eyeing her curiously, he answered, “Making commands now?”
“A promise I said. I want you to not only come back, but to come back being you, being who you find yourself to be out there, and knowing that we’ll be the first ones to see you back in Uruk. Looking ahead and finally figured out what you need to do in reality, not what duty was assigned to you.” He looked at her incredulously, having expected to ask something for herself. “You aren’t greedy at all, aren’t you”
“I am, believe me for what I’m asking you, I am. But that’s also something I won’t say until you come back.” She said shaking his hands holding hers. “Fine, I’ll grant you that one wish as much as I can” Y/n smiled at his answer and held his hands tighter. “I’ll be waiting here then, how long it takes, Gilgamesh” before letting go of his hands, she leaned in quickly and placed a chaste kiss in the corner of his lips. She hurriedly walked to the door outside, and before leaving, she swore she could hear the words, “I won’t lose you to them either.”
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A long time passed until y/n saw Gilgamesh coming back from his journey, and as promised, her and Siduri were the first ones he saw. He was different, longer hair and much less clothes than he worse before. But it wasn’t only that. She could see it, something had indeed changed in him and just from that, y/n could tell he came through with his promise. The king didn’t obtain immortality, but he realized it wasn’t something he needed any longer.
After more time passed, y/n hadn’t seen the king much after he came back until the particular morning Siduri woke her up and said Gilgamesh wanted to see her at his throne. When she got there he still was not there and waited a few minuted. When she heard footsteps and looked up, greeted by a different sight she expected. He looked different with purple markings on both his shoulders and a horned garment atop his head. He still minimum clothing, that hasn’t changed. Although a bit shocked, nonetheless she knew it was him, and she let a soft smile take over as he walked up and sat on his throne. Leaning his hatching on his left hand, he offered his right one to you. “Standing a few feet away, she questioned, “Yeah, before that, you haven’t told me what you said you were gonna keep until now”
“You tell me yours first and I will” Y/n grunted, persistence in her gaze, but after seeing he wasn’t going to let up, she silently agreed. Taking a deep breathe and preparing to say what she considers the most embarrassing thing, she answers. “It was you. I said I was greedy because I wanted you to be back, and I wanted to be the first one to see you, and that’s why I wanted you to promise that. Because despite how you were before and the certain intention you had with me, you allowed me to see more than that. You allowed me to see a vulnerable side and less harsher side, the side that felt lonely and the side that could actually consider someone else a friend. I know you had more than the king who took everything for himself, and I honestly found all sides admiring in a way. But that’s why I’m greedy, because I wanted you back no matter how many years it took, and because honestly I’ve been wanting to feel you in not just one way, but I had more pride than i allowed myself to show.” After she finished, y/n noticed Gilgamesh’s still stretched hand. He was still waiting for her to take it after all that, “My answer is short, by taking my hand and standing beside me you should know it, so stop stalling woman, and I’ll make sure to make you more greedy as you spend your life with me” widening her eyes slightly, she gaped at him, a little bit of red on her cheeks. Collecting herself, she walked up and took his hand, rough and calloused.
She intertwined hers finger with his and held tightly as he as he pulled her to stand beside his throne. They both looked ahead as the sun was becoming brighter and brighter, still loosely holding hands.
“You and him. Indeed you are more than all the gold I could ever have”
#fate grand order#fate go#caster gilgamesh#gilgamesh#caster gilgamesh x reader#gilgamesh x reader#fate series#angs#romance#writing#fanfic#one shot
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“My loyalties lie with you, not the title you’ve been given” - Part 5
Word Count: 3k
Pairing Cordelia Goode x Protector!Reader
Warning: Some mentions of blood, fighting scene I guess?
A/N: So sorry for the late update on this series, these two chapter are pretty heavy and I wanted them to be perfect! I hope you enjoy! x Thank you so much @canarypoint for editing and reading over and fangirling with me x Also a huge thank you to my girl for encouraging me to continue and for helping edit both parts, I love you <3
Side note: The Entity is slightly based off Michael Langdon but it isn’t him.
Tags: @waitingfortheendtocome @natasha-danvers @veteranwerewolf95 @chewbacca0805 @creepingwolfberry @bluevelvetbitxh @saucy-sapphic @coconutlipss @fand0m-obsess3d-g33k @nyx-aira @versonstar @witchxaf @r0an0ke @pearplate @kikaykimkim @the-obscurity @mssallymckenna @minavenable @lezzzbehonesthere @goodeday2u @screechingshepherddeputygoth @softsleepypeach @grilledcheeseandguavajelly@shes-a-cancer-b @venablemayfairgoode
Part 5
“What have you done, you stupid girl.” Fiona’s voice growls, startling you from your thoughts as you glare over at the woman.
“Protecting Cordelia, something you aren’t familiar with,” You snap back, anger spiralling throughout your body as you shake slightly. Fiona scoffs shaking her head as she slowly approaches you, standing a hair breath away her dead eyes stare into your own.
“I always knew your love for her would get you killed one day,” Her voice laced with a certain emotion you would never associate with her with; fear. A humourless grin appears onto your cold lips as you take in her aged face.
“Quite poetic is it not?” You murmur, your eyes showing no emotion not willingly to give this woman any satisfaction of seeing your torn vulnerability.
Before she could answer a white light surrounds you all, making you squint and hiss at the brightness of the glow. Within a blink of an eye, you regain your senses gasping for mortal air as you reawaken above Fiona’s grave. Warm hands caress your cheeks as they continue their inspection for any harm.
“Shhh you’re okay darling, it’s me. It’s me.” She repeats over and over as your wide eyes take in your surroundings the feeling of panic and anxiety erupts through your chest. Your eyes finally land on brown eyes full of reassurance and worry, seeing the familiar gaze makes you relax almost instantly as you try to even out your erratic breaths.
“Lia,” You croak, clearing your dry throat. She smiles watery at you and nods mouthing a ‘yes’ before placing the crown of her head against your temple.
“It felt like you were gone forever and then your body started to twitch uncontrollably I thought-”
“Cordelia.” Fiona speaks from the side of you both, keeping her distance from her daughter. Cordelia tenses beside you before turning to face the woman she calls mother, she slowly stands from her crouched position keeping a steady arm around your waist as you gingerly stand with her. The two Goode’s stare at each for a moment taking in each other’s appearance,
“Power looks good on you, dear.” She croaks, as her eyes scan her daughter’s stance. No longer cowering from the past supreme.
“And death hasn’t done you any good, mother.” Cordelia retaliates, scolding herself silently for allowing herself to bite back.
“Marie, would you like some help getting up? Shit, you white bitches.” Marie grumbles, as she shrugs off the dirt that lays against her clothes. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to shower until the smell of death leaves my body,” She informs, huffing as she takes her leave, Cordelia nods in acknowledgement at the Voodoo Queen mouthing her thanks as Marie nods back in reply continuing on her way. You stare longingly wanting to also depart from this awkward reunion as the two continue to stare one another down. Fiona breaks off the staring contest first as she flicks her wrist revealing a packet of cigarettes and a lighter, sparking one up. Inhaling deeply she allows the smoke to blow out into the cold dark night and sighs.
“So, where do you want to start?” She asks, her careless persona strong as she continues to take in the nicotine. Cordelia smiles cruelly.
“I’d rather we didn’t revisit the past, you are here for one reason only and that’s to help us defeat this darkness.”
“The Entity,” You interrupt, correcting her softly, your eyes clashing with Fiona’s briefly. Cordelia turns to face you in confusion.
“While we were down there we got a lovely visit from Papa… He gave us little to nothing on the damn thing but told us his name.” You inform her, watching as she takes in the information.
“He?”
“Yes, the thing is a man. Big shocker there.” Fiona drawls out, through occasional puffs of smoke. Cordelia opts to ignore her mother, focusing her attention on you.
“Did he give you anything else?” She asks, her voice laced with slightly desperation. You shake your head much to her disappointment.
“I’m sorry, Lia.” You apologise, wishing you could have given her more She smiles reassuringly and cradles your cheek briefly shaking her head slightly.
“No don’t be sorry, you risked a lot going down there. I- Thank you,” She says, her eyes lingering onto your own for a second longer. You almost feel like you could drown into her gaze forever but before you could reply she steps away clasping her hands together as if resisting herself from touching you again.
“If you two love birds are done, I would like to run a hot bath with some nice salts, maybe a lovely glass of scotch,” Fiona rudely says, already making her way out of the graveyard and towards the car. You both blush as you avoid each others eyes, making your way back to the vehicle Fiona’s distance voice whining from a distance, “Have you got a spare pair of sunglasses, I wouldn’t want my ‘dead eyes’ scaring the children,” you scoff as you open up the front passenger door purposely moving into the seat, Fiona huffs as she settles into the backside. You open up the glove department and pass the older blonde a pair of black sunglasses.
“Bold of you to assume you didn’t already scare children before you died,” You bite, a teasing grin appearing on your face as you feel Cordelia’s scolding but amused eyes on you. Shrugging, you settle into your seat and stare out into the night, Papa’s deal heavy on your mind as guilt settles within your chest. Looking into the wing mirror you can feel Fiona’s gaze through her heavily tinted glasses, gulping you turn away from her judging gaze focusing on the road ahead.
‘What have I done?’
***
Pulling up at the Academy, you can see the older girls lingering by the window curious to see the woman that’s been brought back from the dead. Myrtle stands regal as ever by the front door, her signature cigarette holder in hand as she takes a drag, her icy gaze burning heavily into Fiona’s form as she makes her way up the steps of the Academy.
“You look awfully ghastly my dear,” She comments, her fiery hair matching her sass. Fiona scoffs holding her arms out to the woman.
“At least I have death as an excuse, you old hag.” She fires back, grinning icily at the redhead. You and Cordelia share a knowing glance used to the pair’s bickering back and forth, as you hover close behind the pair. Myrtle chuckles dryly as she steps aside to let the older woman through before placing herself in front of you and Cordelia stopping you from following.
“Are you both okay, my dears?” She asks, her voice no longer full of ice and venom as her motherly gaze scans you both. You both nod smiling softly at the woman who holds you both in such high regard and vise versa. Cordelia presses a kiss to her cheek before moving past her and into the building not wanting to leave Madison and her mother in a room alone together for too long. You hover for a moment debating your next words as you take in Myrtle’s form. The witch frowns at your fidgeting state, silently questioning your hesitation.
“I did something stupid,” You admit quietly, briefly glancing through the open front door making sure no one else could hear your confession. The redhead steps away from the door and loops her arm around your elbow guiding you away from the entrance so you could circle the grounds.
“My dear girl, you have a look of someone with a heavy heart. Please speak to me,” She comforts softly, her tender voice makes your eyes tear up as you blurt out your secret.
“I made a deal with Papa Legba. If we don’t deliver him the Entity’s soul then he shall take mine,” You confess, tearfully. The woman remains calm and quiet as she allows you to continue.
“I’m not even scared of that, I’ve never been scared of death but- He mentioned my powers and the darkness as if sensing my potential ability to destroy everything in my path. I don’t even know what I’m capable of anymore, Myrtle.” You admit, your real fear spoken out loud makes you sob as the older woman pulls you into a bone crushing hug. She whispers harshly with a touch of tenderness into your ear.
“You listen to me, my sweet girl.” She pulls back and holds onto your face with both her hands, forcing you to keep your attention on her distraught face. “You are not evil, you may have powers that you have yet to unlock but you could never be evil. That power that swirls inside you is the most powerful magic I have ever come across that’s why you are the protector. You’re of love and light my dear, that darkness that wants to pull its way through is unmatched to that of the light,” Your eyes blur as you take in her reassuring words, collapsing slightly into her arms.
“You should tell Cordelia about the deal,” She advises, making you pull back from your embrace slightly offended by her comment.
“It would kill her Myrtle, I promised her that I’d be beside her always. I can’t-”
“Would you prefer that you didn’t and then die without giving her a chance to fight for your life,” Her words penetrate through your heart like a stab wound. You gulp feeling torn by her words and guidance.
“I’m the one who’s supposed to fight for her life,” You argue weakly. Myrtle chuckles amused, before holding your gaze once again.
“Y/N haven’t you realised it yet, darling? You both continue to fight for each other, you think after all these years Cordelia didn’t once ask me about you. Or how during the attacks with the witch hunters a few years back, you didn’t step in from the shadows and take out the last remaining vermin as they tried to attack her.” She pauses for a moment allowing you to take in her painfully truthful words. “You both have had each other’s backs since you stepped foot into this academy all those years ago. This will be like any other time, so tell her and fight like hell against the bastard, together like always,” She finishes her speech, her breathing becoming erratic as her words spill from her mouth. The sound of a twig snapping startles you both from your private moment, slow clapping starts from within the shadows around the trees. Pulling Myrtle back slightly you inch away from the dark forest that surrounds the Academy.
“My, so much wisdom from such an experienced witch, bravo.” The deep voice teases, as the figure becomes more clearer as it steps out from between the trees. Stood dressed in a black suit and a devilish grin is, the entity. You tense instantly as you keep your gaze on his confident form.
“Get to the house,” You murmur to Myrtle, who goes to protest. “Now.” You force out, watching as his grin becomes more apparent.
“Yes, listen to your dear protector.” He taunts, watching as the redhead flees to the academy to alert the others. His black eyes turn to you a glint of mischief sparkling within the darkness.
“It’s more fun when they are terrified, makes for a better meal.” he teases, folding his hands in front of him. You glare at his smug expression.
“Sorry I didn’t realise we were dressing up for the event,” you comment, wanting to keep him distracted for as long as possible in hopes that Myrtle and the other older girls manage to perform the safekeeping spell allowing the younger witches and warlocks to be sent as far away as possible from here. He chuckles amused at your attempt of distraction.
“Well it is your funeral, my dear. I merely dressed for the occasion.” He follows up, his hands becoming more invisible as the black mist surrounds his fingers. You can feel your powers boiling at the surface as your body becomes aware of its current threat, tiny sparks tingle from your fingers as you keep a close eye on him. Before he can make a move you throw your hands out, throwing him further into the woods wanting to keep him as far away from the academy as possible. His confident exterior falls after you make your first move, striding deeper into the woods you follow the line of destruction already made by his flying body. The faint sound of your name being called from the house, gives you pause allowing him a chance to take advantage at your distracted state. Black mist encircles around your feet as your body begins to tense, fear spikes through you as you start to lose awareness of your own body, unable to move anything as it continues to circle around your waist.
“Y/N!” Cordelia screams as she races forward, Misty and Queenie moving to the side of the man effectively startling him from his task, both chanting in Latin as he loses his focus on you. Tears build in your eyes as you feel your senses overwhelm you again as you regain them back, Cordelia stands at your side in a flash, keeping her eyes on the entity as he continues to fight off the two older witches. Marie and Fiona join the pair as they begin to lose the upper hand in their ongoing fight.
“Cordelia- the girls,” You choke out, holding onto her arms for dear life. Her hand strokes through your hair briefly,
“They're okay, the other girls got them out. Myrtle is with them.” She informs quickly, ready to move away from you to help with the fight, noticing Queenie’s unconscious state as he manages a good strike to the witch. Before she can move you grip her arm, needing to tell her before it's too late.
“Cordelia I-”
“This can wait Y/n, we've gotta attack while we can,”
John Moore appears next to you with your brothers in tow, ready to take him on as you reluctantly let go of her arm, Marie flies backwards as he strikes her next effortlessly knocking back every effort from each of them who dare to reach him. Elijah makes his way around the fight, attacking him from behind as he launches forward, taking him to the ground before disappearing from beneath him. A deep chuckle echoes throughout the tall trees as you all look for the location of his voice, Misty kneels closely next to Queenie as she slowly regains consciousness.
“You won’t win, your powers are nothing compared to mine,” His voice sinister, as if whispering in your ear. Cordelia looks over at her dishevelled witches gulping slightly.
“Michael, Elijah get Queenie out of here now,” She demands, her voice trembling. They try to protest but your eyes silence them from speaking any further.
“Ah yes, run away. I like the chase,” He taunts further, still invisible to the eyes as we keep an eye on the clearings surrounding us. The boys move quickly towards an exhausted Queenie, throwing her arms around their shoulders as Misty trails behind them, ready to attack if anything were to happen to them as they retreat. You keep your back close to Delia’s as the other three keep close, creating a make shifting circle.
“Fucking Coward!” You shout into the air, frustrated by his cat and mouse game. He appears then leaning lazily against the tree trunk, that devilish grin on his face once again.
“Oh my dear, we both know that’s not true. Little Ms. Protector, poor thing having so many expectations to live up to,” He pouts, taunting you some more as you clench your jaw. You try to shake off his words, knowing he’s looking for a window to get into your head.
“I’ve been watching you for a while, Miss Wardwell. That darkness that swirls deep inside is boiling over and soon it will all topple over,” He continues, you feel Cordelia tense next to you as your normally bright coloured eyes darken a deep black.
“Enough of this!” Fiona exclaims, launching forward to attack using her magic, startling him slightly as her attack strikes his cheek from afar causing the smallest trickle of blood to drop from his cheekbone. He touches the trail of blood examining his red stained finger before turning to the woman, his eyes blown black. Tree branches move on their own towards Fiona, Marie and John wrapping themselves around their wrists and waists pulling them in close to their tree trunk keeping them in place, a trail of black mist surrounding them to stop any magical advantages.
“I wanted to play nice but now you can watch your only daughter die,” He says, smiling mercilessly at the woman before turning his attention onto you both. You move quickly in front of her, as you try with all your might to keep the mist at bay as it seeps through your protective barrier. Your head begins to pound as you feel your powers weakening as Cordelia helps with the barrier, as the mist encircles you once again you turn towards your Cordelia helplessly. She places her hands delicately against your cheeks, her fingers trembling against your now wet skin.
“I can’t hold this up for long,” You whimper, feeling yourself becoming less aware of your senses, the tiniest touch of Cordelia’s lips against cheek is the only reassuring embrace as you close your eyes wanting to hold onto the feeling for as long as you could. You lean your head against Cordelia's as watery eyes match her tearful ones, she smiles brightly at you, that same smile you saw the very first day you met her. Before you could tell her the one thing you’ve wanted to say since that day you walked out on her wedding day, you succumb to the darkness.
I love you.
#cordelia goode x reader#cordelia goode#sarah paulson#sarah paulson x reader#cordelia foxx x reader#cordelia foxx#ahs coven#loyalty series#fiona goode#myrtle snow#ahs apocalypse
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✶ 𝐇𝐗𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐒: 𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 & 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒, 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 & 𝐃𝐀𝐌𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍
Long story short, I have been thinking about this for wayyyyy too long now and wanted to get some ~thoughts~ & analysis written down! This post is going to be...fairly long, lol. Apologies in advance :D
Also, if you can’t see the last gif (the one for ‘holy’), click here. Tumblr keeps fucking up the image when i try to upload it :////
This post is probably going to be about 2/3 yorknew & phantom troupe/kurapika focused, 1/3 chimera ants, maybe with some references to other arcs (including manga-only arcs) mixed in. so, ofc, tons of spoilers ahead! also, i realize that my blog theme is hard to read (and i’m p sure clicking ‘keep reading’ sends you to the og post itself), so i’m linking the post w/ full text copy/pasted in on my art backup side blog (which has a more legible font) here.
✶ 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇
I’m sure absolutely nobody is surprised with me starting here - there is just. SO. MUCH. DEATH. in hxh. & right from the start, one thing I noticed that togashi really emphasized was the #4 and its connection to death. in japanese, chinese, and im p sure some other asian cultures the number 4 is pronounced like the word for death so it’s associated with death in general, and boy oh boy does the ‘deadly number 4′ thing show up E V E R Y W H E R E. we get to the hunter exam, and hisoka is applicant #44. kurapika is #404. i didn’t notice it at first, but this was so intentional holy shit. togashi is NOT SUBTLE.
So pika & hisoka are, right off the bat, associated with death. okay. and then there are even more clues to drive the point home: hisoka is member #4 in the phantom troupe, kurapika’s birthday is april 4th (aka 4/4). 100% not a coincidence (!!). with hisoka, it’s pretty obvious why togashi’s throwing all this death 444444 stuff around - dude is a psycho murder pedo clown, literally gets off on killing people (and there’s also the fact that judas sits 4th from the left in the last supper painting, and he’s sort of the judas equivalent for the phantom troupe). with kurapika, though, it’s a bit more subtle and woven deeper into his characterization, which i LOVE. togashi puts the mans in blue & gold & white (traditionally ‘pure’ or ‘heavenly’ colors), makes him so fucking kind & so good-hearted.....when he’s not relentlessly pursuing his revenge, ofc. more on this in the next section, but pika = death. togashi has made that v v v clear.
Backtracking a bit to hisoka, though, I also just wanted to point out the 4 is death symbolism in the fortunes too (GOD i love the fortunes): in one translation, he’s the false fourth moon, and in the og japanese (i think), he’s the false hare (4th in the lunar zodiac or w/e it’s called. i don’t know the japanese cultural influences here, but in the chinese legend that established the zodiac animals, they race across the heavenly river & the top 12 animals got zodiac slots. the hare finished 4th, so it’s #4 in the cycle).
And just as a final note, Tserriednich is the fourth prince of the kakin empire, and also another dude who has a hard-on for murder & other gory shit. again: togashi is not subtle with this, lmfao
✶ 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐘, 𝐔𝐍𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐘
As probably everyone who’s gotten to yorknew knows, togashi is so 0 fucks given when he wants to be. I mean there’s the whole thing where he just. took New York and decided, Yorknew. LMFAO, but also, he made the main antag of that arc be named chrollo lucilfer, sit around in a ruined church, have a reversed cross coat, pale & dark-haired/dark-eyed, generally dressed in dark colors, very terrible murder guy. liiiike......chrollo x devil symbolism game is 1000/10 at this point lmaooo
And i know absolutely nothing about christianity in general, but pt/kurapika & yorknew arc is just so full of christian imagery/symbolism! one thing that i L O O O O O O V E though is how togashi really blurs the traditional christian-coded good/evil, holy/damned boundaries.
Back to kurapika: he wears gold and blue, his coloring is very stereotypically ‘angelic’, he’s precious and good and kind. his chains are all about ~judgment~ and ~healing~ - some of the chains are also in literal cross shapes, aren’t they? And the chain dagger in his own heart...the imagery is very startlingly similar to the immaculate heart of mary, where the swords stabbing thru the heart apparently represent seven sorrows. IDK much about this stuff other than the visual similarities; literally had to google ‘daggers through heart christianity?’ to even get the name of that thing LOL. anyway, at first, it seems like togashi establishes him as the ‘angel’, the ‘good’, the ‘holy’ in the angel/devil, good/evil, holy/damned dichotomy between him and chrollo.
But that’s not the end of the story. his entire storyline is driven by a huuuuuuuge giant desire for vengeance, first of all, and then there’s the scarlet eyes, which canonically are seen as demonic/cursed/what have you (according to one of the movies or smth? where they show pika as a 10 y/o?), and then we also have red eyes in modern culture being associated w pretty much the same thing (vampires, anyone?). the fight scene with uvo has everything in b&w besides the blood on his face & his red eyes & the moon (<<< more fortune foreshadowing & symbolism, i love to see it), and there are tonssss of scenes where he has to suppress his rage. so all of that is obviously not very angelic of him i would say LOL. in fact, what i find super interesting is that the scarlet/red eyes (which are ‘demonic’) is actually the driving factor behind his super powerful nen abilities; this ties in so well with the fortunes & death associations imo! the fortunes call him the ‘death-bringer’ in one translation, or ‘half-angel, half-death’, so that’s one side of pika = red eyes = death, but there’s also the fact that emperor time is literally draining his life force. so pika = death for both himself and others namely the pt, question mark?
Now for chrollo: togashi’s devil symbolism is EXTREMELY overt with him, but i love the subtler jesus references too. the church thing, obviously, and the st. peters cross which is cuz st peter respected jesus too much & didn’t think he was worthy to die in the same way as him (or something like that, i am the most atheist person in the world & hxh is literally my entire christian education pls) but is also used as an anti-christianity symbol these days. bandit’s secret looks like a bible, lbr, and mans has a cross tattoo.
Other things beyond visuals - 12 spiders, 12 apostles; hisoka’s betrayal, where member #4 can be thought to correspond to judas sitting 4th from left at last supper. and this miiiiight be a bit of a stretch, but i think the meteor city being the place of origin may also play into the blurred line between angel/devil and holy/damned here; meteors are defined as space rocks that are in earth’s atmosphere, becoming incandescent in the process. meteorites are for the kinds that actually reach the ground. and idk, lucifer was cast out of heaven / sky too right? so i think there might be some subtle fallen angel imagery/symbolism playing into the pt as well
✶ 𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 (𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒)
Last section yay! i don’t have as much to say about this, besides when i was making chimera ant arc edits & realized that there might have been some subtle gon/meruem parallels???
So obviously, everyone knows that line killua says to gon - “you are light” - and then i was just remembering that meruem’s name means.... “light that illuminates all” (!!!!). maybe it’s a coincidence, but knowing togashi, i’m leaning towards nahhhh. there HAS TO be some kinda meaning there (!!).
Going back to the events of the chimera ant arc....ooh boy. let’s see: gon is optimistic & hopeful even in the face of kite potentially being dead, killua says he’s light, they find kite & dude is fucked up, gon is pissed. gets all angry & ~dark~, especially during the palace invasion when he’s staring pitou down as she fixes up komugi. then the actual fight against pitou: more darkness, more anger, but through it all there’s still light, namely his jajanken being very orange & fiery lookin.....and that final sequence, where he puts all his possible nen he’d ever have into his ~final form~ or wahtever & turns into a male version of true form!bisky but dressed in a crop top & short-shorts (i am SCARRED, btw. s c a r r e d !). there’s just huuuge flashes of light as that’s going on, and it reminded me of supernovas or dying stars when i was thinking about it, where the star is like, collapsing under its own weight? & burning thru its own fuel, until there’s nothing left except a dwarf or black hole or what have you. one final, extremely deadly burst of light & energy before death.
On the meruem side of things: born into a dark cave, exhibits a traditionally evil/cruel/wicked/whatever personality/traits so that has ppl associating him with darkness. then he gets to know komugi, starts to appreciate other aspects of humanity, seems like he could have actually turned into a decent person who doesn’t want to eat everyone - so that’s a ‘path to light’, maybe? - and then the extermination team yeets themselves into the palace, netero takes him out to bumfuck nowhere, they fight. netero’s fighting is just ALL light, from his giant ass golden 100-type guanyin bodhisattva to the poor man’s rose. again, there’s the sense of finality to it all, in a similar vein to dying stars: netero comes in determined to kill meruem no matter what, and we all know netero doesn’t flake. then we see netero get destroyed after the zero hand, and he triggers the rose, and everything is burning & on fire before the flames are put out and all turns dark again.
But wait!!! pouf & youpi revive meruem and all he does is play gungi with komugi, even with the poison of the rose. he eventually dies, and the gungi pieces in that final shot of them together (i am BAWLING just thinking about it holy shit) has one that’s all white, one that’s a black ring and white inside. i assume all white is for komugi, who has never done ANYTHING wrong in her LIFE, so i like to think that the 2nd one is for meruem - born “into darkness”, literally & figuratively, but he turns something like ‘good’ by the end. it’s interesting how togashi has sort of gone for a bit of a subversion here: the hero going from light to darkness, and the main antag from darkness to light.
✶ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐋𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍
AahhhhHHHHHhhh so if you read all the way down here through my LONG rambles, tysm! i would LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear what other people think about all this, and i’ve FOR SURE missed tons and tons of stuff - chimera ants is just. SO MUCH. and i don’t know it as well as yorknew eeek.
I’m not sure if i’m really ~knowledgeable~ in any other areas relating to hxh, so this might be the only one of these that i do, but i definitely think about some of this - esp all the religious symbolism & #4 stuff - a ton! so in the meantime, if it’s of any interest, i’m just going to shamelessly plug my hxh x religious beliefs/superstitions edit series :D lots of love to all!!!
#hxh#hunter x hunter#hxh edit#hxh fanart#gon#killua#hisoka#kurapika#gon freecss#killua zoldyck#chrollo#chrollo lucilfer#kurapika kurta#hisoka morow#chimera ant arc#chimera ants#yorknew#yorknew city#shaiapouf#pouf#neferpitou#pitou#meruem#komugi#youpi#hxh analysis#hxh meta#hunter x hunter fanart#hxh graphics#my art
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I have a theory about one of the reasons why Lupin left Tonks in Deathly Hallows - if you look at his past, Remus Lupin has never really learned to live without moving or running, so when the chance comes to settle in one place, he doesn’t quite know how to cope.
We start with when he’s bitten by Fenrir Greyback. Remus was just under five years old, so this is effectively the beginning of his life besides some hazy childhood memories. He’s a werewolf now, which he has to keep secret, so his life can never really be “normal” again. He and his parents move a lot, because they can’t let anyone close enough to find out. Remus’ early childhood is marked by movement and secrets, because if he’s not literally moving homes, he’s moving around the people he knows, eventually avoiding them altogether by becoming homeschooled.
When Remus goes to Hogwarts, he’s not moving as much in a literal sense, since Gryffindor Tower is kind of his home base now. However, he’s still sitting on a secret that’s a little too big for him, and as a result, he’s moving around his roommates, trying to balance being friends and keeping them in the dark. This is a constant for him - he can’t take a break from hiding his lycanthropy. It’s always in the back of his mind.
When the Marauders find out, I think it’s interesting that their acceptance is characterized by their willingness and ability to “run” with Remus in a sense. Part of their friendship is being the school pranksters, going out on secret missions with the cloak and Map to help them stay steps ahead of everyone else and run or hide if they need to. When they become Animagi, they literally change themselves to keep up with Remus as he runs. They’ve stayed by his side as a human, running around together to cause mischief, and now they can keep pace with him as the wolf as well. Their willingness to change something as intrinsic as the ways they move shows how much the Marauders care about Remus and about each other in general.
When school ends, the war hits, and Remus joins the Order of the Phoenix, the moving, running, and hiding become more literal and more pervasive in his life. He’s part of an illegal underground organization that’s fighting a supremacist terror group, and his colleagues are getting murdered around him. Post-graduation for him isn’t a time to go to college, find a job, or find a more permanent place to live. He’s fighting Death Eaters, jumping from safe house to safe house, and dropping off the grid for long periods of time to live amongst the werewolves (presumably - I don’t have much canon basis for all of this beyond what we know of the second Order and assuming it functions much like the first). As a marginalized group, the other werewolves don’t have jobs or homes either. The nature of the way their condition is treated in the wizarding world means that they always have to keep moving, or else risk injury, imprisonment, and/or death. At this point in Remus' life, the rule is keep moving and keep your secrets or die. Settling in one place is a death sentence, as the Potters find out.
After Voldemort is defeated the first time, Remus has to deal with the fallout of the war and what it did to his friends and family, and he also has to deal with trying to create a life for himself. His demons have increased in number - he’s not just running from his wolfish side now. He’s got the ghosts of James, Lily, and Peter to reckon with, as well as the specter of Sirius Black. He has to keep moving from job to job and place to place, not only because his lycanthropy means long-term employment is hard to find and requires him to find safe places to transform, but also because he doesn’t want his guilt and grief to catch up to him. We can assume that he doesn’t have a steady income or place to stay during this time, and it’s very likely that he has been homeless for periods of time. When Dumbledore finds him in that cottage in Yorkshire, the way it’s described - “tumbledown,” “semi-derelict” - makes me wonder if it’s a squat instead of a home, and Dumbledore just catches him at a short stopping point.
When Remus returns to Hogwarts, he’s again in one physical place, but he’s still moving a lot. He’s hiding his lycanthropy from the students and possibly some/most of the staff, so his personal life is still full of secrets. In addition, his job as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor doesn’t really lend itself to a calm career. He’s teaching his students about defensive spells and Dark creatures, and since a lot of his qualifications probably come from his experience of the first war, his daily routine is permanently linked to his trauma. Most importantly, he’s also hiding a lot of his history from Harry, because the central threat in Prisoner of Azkaban is tied directly to his backstory. He’s still moving around in a more figurative way, trying not to stay still long enough for someone to pick up on his patterns and expose him. When his secrets catch up to him, he becomes more erratic, forgetting his Wolfsbane Potion and expressing willingness to kill Peter Pettigrew without a second thought, a departure from his usual cool-headedness. He’s back in the mindset of the war, dropping everything at signs of danger and covering his tracks to move on to a new place, and Sirius, now an ally and friend once again, is keeping pace with him. “Together?” “I think so.”
When Snape exposes Remus’ lycanthropy to the school, he has to start moving again. We don’t know where he is between leaving Hogwarts and joining the Order again once it gets restarted, but we can infer that he probably experiences another year of itinerant living as he jumps from job to job and place to place. When he does “settle” (comparatively), he comes back to Grimmauld Place, but he’s clearly in a war mindset once again, and half the time he’s on missions and not even present in the house. Just because he’s apparently the Order member most frequently there with Sirius doesn’t mean that he’s present all that much, because Sirius can’t keep pace with him anymore. He’s being blocked by Dumbledore and is physically and emotionally stagnant while under house arrest, and we know by now that Remus must always keep moving to survive.
Order of the Phoenix is a turning point for Remus. With Sirius’ death, he finally outpaces his childhood - the last person who he was close to as a young man is now dead. Remus is effectively the last living Marauder (at this point, I would argue that Peter Pettigrew’s betrayal has removed him from Remus’ list of people he cares about and who care for him). It’s also when he meets Tonks, and their relationship grows from one of coworkers to friends to lovers in unseen scenes during and between Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince. She’s kind of a weird choice if you’re picking someone to sort of settle Remus and slow his pace, since I wouldn’t describe her as mellow exactly, but the fact of the matter is that Remus’ growing relationship with Tonks is an obstacle to his habit of movement. She keeps pace with him at first as a colleague/friend like the Marauders did, but her pace changes with her feelings, and she wants Remus to slow down with her. Tonks is stubborn and adamant about what she feels, and in her outburst after Bill Weasley is attacked by Fenrir Greyback, we see that she’s not willing to let Remus try to breeze past his feelings for her. She plants herself right in the middle of his path, and he’s forced to either stop or destroy her as he tries to push past.
Here’s the thing - Remus doesn’t want to stop moving, and we see him resist it, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing to slow down. If we parallel his habit of movement with his lycanthropy (since they’re already linked), we can infer that just as being a werewolf has left him scarred and in pain, constant movement takes a toll on him. Just because he’s lived this way his whole life doesn’t automatically make it healthy. The secrecy and isolation don’t make him happy, and they are directly tied to how much faster he’s moving compared to everyone else - trying to outpace the ghosts. Tonks, in directly blocking his path, is essentially staging an intervention to bring him back to a speed that his loved ones can keep up with. He still has her, Harry, and the Order, just as long as he stops trying to convince himself he’s better off alone and outrunning the dead.
The problem with this is that, as physics tells us, it’s not easy to stop an object that has had a set path of motion for most of its existence. Remus isn’t used to slowing or stopping, and he’s antsy to run again. The things he’s been trying to avoid catch up to him - self-doubt and self-hatred about his lycanthropy and its effects on his life, the need for adrenaline and movement that the wars have acclimated him to. When he feels like it’s all too much to handle, he falls back into his old track of movement in a hunt for something known and familiar. Even Harry notices this, comparing Remus to Sirius and accusing them both of wanting to be daredevils. Remus is trying to get back to the pace he ran at with the Marauders, but Harry argues that that’s not the pace Remus’ family needs him to be at.
The only way for Remus to be content is to copy what Tonks showed him how to do - stand his ground and face the ghosts head-on. He has to go back home and learn to live a slower life if he wants to have a family, and he does want that. When asked what he would say to Harry on Potterwatch, he makes it clear that he is thankful for Harry’s intervention, and his later joy at Teddy’s birth is infectious. He fucks it all up initially, but Remus does eventually come to the understanding that the way he was living - constantly moving to stay ahead of his secrets and regret - wasn’t sustainable. He’s willing to try, and I only wish we’d gotten to see the just-barely-a-month he got to slow down with Teddy and Tonks.
The Battle of Hogwarts, in a way, proves my point about movement. Remus is forced to drag himself out of family life and back into the mindset of the war, and in a very Marauder-like impulse, Tonks decides to join him at his pace this time. I won’t say they doomed themselves, because the battle required them to exist at the pace of war, and they didn’t have a choice if they wanted to keep their loved ones safe. However, it is undeniable that it is the running that killed them. The movement of war is deadly, and this time, it hit the people we were wishing the most to escape it.
TLDR: Remus Lupin has lived his whole life trying to outrun his personal demons, and his behavior at Grimmauld Place in Deathly Hallows was a deeply shitty reaction to feeling out of his depth when living a slower life.
Sources:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/remus-lupin
https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/werewolves
(Sorry this is so messy! I was excited to write it and put it on paper as if I was speaking it in a sort of tangled stream of consciousness. I hope I got my point across okay!)
#remus lupin#remus lupin meta#remus lupin writing#marauders#hp marauders#hp#harry potter#hp meta#harry potter meta#deathly hallows meta#remadora#arguably also wolfstar#it's just subtler#your daily reminder that jkr sucks and the wizarding world belongs to the fandom now#nymphadora tonks#fenrir greyback#james potter#sirius black#peter pettigrew#the marauders#albus dumbledore#severus snape#teddy lupin#prisoner of azkaban#order of the phoenix#half-blood prince#deathly hallows#wizarding world#grimmauld place#marauders meta
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Mandoctober - October 11: Sorgan
summary: When Din and the child visit Sorgan in the midst of their search for his home, the village isn’t the same way they’d left it.
pairing: din djarin (the mandalorian) & the child
warnings: angst, mentions of violence and death
rating: T
word count: 1.435k
mandoctober masterlist
october 11: sorgan
“Are you excited to see your friends, ad’ika?”
The words come warmer from Din’s modulator than he’d even expected them to. The baby coos happily on his father’s lap, watching as they start to make their descent onto Sorgan. It’s been too long since they last visited—and Din knows the baby’s as anxious as ever to get to see some of his friends. He’s anxious enough to see one of his own.
It’s almost strange for Din to see Sorgan in person after he’s seen it so many times in his mind. It’s not uncommon for him to dream of this planet, its lush colors of green flashing across his mind like the way it does ahead of him now. Din always wonders about the life he could’ve had here, if he’d let his helmet come off and he’d settled down with the farmers and the little one.
But the Sorgan he’s seeing now is not the one he’s dreamt of.
The fields of green are dark from up here, almost black. Din furrows his brow beneath the helmet as the Crest soars above them. Even the baby seems to notice, his ears falling low on his head as he turns to look up at his father with concern.
“I’m sure that everything’s okay,” Din says—unsure if he’s trying to reassure himself or the child. “Probably just a drought.”
Din lands the Crest in its usual place, hurrying a little more than usual as he sets the child in the bag across his body. He walks with purpose through the Sorgan woods, a heavy feeling of unease sticking to his chest as he ventures more and more towards the main village. Things seem much too tense and quiet here for Din’s liking, though he hopes it’s just his own paranoia.
When he sees the usual outline of huts flattened to the ground, Din realizes it’s not.
He approaches the rubble slowly as the small collection of large huts comes into view. They’re all coated in black, looking as if they’ve been burned. Looking much like the cantina where Din himself almost burned. Looking much like the work of the Empire.
Din freezes in his tracks as his eyes widen behind the helmet. The farm.
He turns around in place and begins to sprint back to the Crest. Walking won’t get him anywhere quickly enough and he can’t wait for the wagon to take all day. His only option is to fly low enough to get there—and hopefully, his fears aren’t true. Din’s panting so heavily in both his fear and his exertion that he can hear the baby whimper in concern, causing Din to place a gloved hand over his head as he continues towards the ship.
Once they get back to the Crest, Din doesn’t waste any time getting her in the air. He flies low as he soars above the trees, hoping he’s tracking the correct path as he looks for the farm where he once took refuge. His heart’s beating a mile a minute in his chest as his mind clouds with all kinds of fears. He refuses to believe this has happened to their one safe haven. He refuses to have been the cause of it.
Din soon spots the familiar clearing and he takes a deep breath as he lands the Crest just beside it. He isn’t able to observe much just yet, instead focusing on getting things together quickly as he leaves the ship, the baby still hanging at his side. Din pushes his way out of the barrier of trees and into the clearing of the farm.
Just to look out into a sea of dark rubble, the ponds once full of water now dried up and looking just as dead as the rest of the land does.
Din nearly sinks to his knees in despair, solely staying strong for the little one at his side. He keeps a gloved hand on his head, running his fingers along it when he hears the little whimpers of concern at the sight of the devastated farm. Din forces himself forward, waiting to see if anything survived this damage—even if he knows nothing did.
Even in the midst of its destruction, Din can recognize the places that now only live in his memory. He walks by a dried-out patch of dirt and remembers the child playing there with his friends. He looks to a corner of dead grass and remembers the line of farmers firing their best shots under his command. He stops in front of a pile of dark rubble where he’d once stayed, looking through its window and wondering what it’d be like to have a life like these farmers.
Din can’t bring himself to move from this place. For so many nights, he sat on the porch of this very hut, looking out to the farm and the reflections of Sorgan’s moon on the various ponds and wondering what he wanted. He considered having a family. He considered putting his way of life to rest. He considered letting himself fall in love.
Now, he considers what would’ve happened to this farm if he’d done just that; if he was here to protect them, maybe none of this would’ve happened.
Din looks to his left to see the other hut on his mind—her hut. Din had looked in that direction so many times before, trying to gather the strength to speak to her and be honest with his feelings. He’d spent so much time thinking about that hut, wondering what would happen if he stayed inside of it, if he joined their families of two together to make one large one. He’d never pictured it looking quite like this: destroyed, with the grime of it on his hands.
Before his mind can catch up, his feet are moving him towards it, the pile of rubble still somehow representing the home Din once would’ve liked to call his own. His steps are heavy and slow, much like the beating of his heart as it falls further and further into the pit of his stomach. He’s able to manage the pain just fine until he gets closer, until he spots the shining material of something he hasn’t seen in a long time. Din approaches it and kneels down, turning the light object over in his gloved hand.
It’s a ribbon, dark and green and exactly what she used to have threaded through her hair.
Din releases a twisted sound of heartbreaking agony, one he doesn’t even recognize as it falls from his modulator. It’s not just this loss of life. It’s not just the loss of the one dream he’d been holding on to. It’s the loss of the entire planet around him, the deaths of people that are on his hands.
Kuiil. IG-11. The covert. And now, his safe haven, too: Sorgan. All dead because of him and his choices.
Din falls to both knees as he keeps the ribbon held tight in one gloved fist, the other reaching up to tear off his helmet. He lets it fall to the ashes beside him as he shuts his eyes tight, the fist with the ribbon meeting his forehead as he leans against it. His shoulders begin to shake with cries of despair, guilt, and hopelessness. Din should’ve known this would happen. Destruction seems to follow him wherever he goes, taking away everything he’s ever cared about in its wake.
The only thing that makes him pause are the gentle hands upon his free hand, causing him to open his eyes as he sees the little one tearing up with his buir. Din knows there’s no use in hiding his emotions from the child, now. He takes a shaky breath as he wraps his arm around the baby, inviting him to come close and rest his tiny face in the cloth of his neck as they begin to weep together for everything they’ve lost.
For everything Din was given by finding the child, the galaxy seems to want to take it all back—and all Din can do is pray to the Maker that this will all be worth it someday, when he and the child can be happy wherever they’re meant to be.
Maybe one day. But that day isn’t today.
permanent tag list: @mikahid @bestintheparsec @stilllivindue2spite @givemethatgold @xbrujita @mandalorianspace @blushingwueen @sevvysaurus @myakai13 @thisis-theway @beskars @rachelloveseveryone @theindiealto @hiscyarika @wickedfrsgrl @synystersilenceinblacknwhite @bookwafflefangirl @charliepeaceout @cable-kenobi @ezraslittleblondestreak @hdlynn @your-pixels-are-showing @b0n-chann @javier-djarin @nettyklecan @mistermiraclee @ahopelessromanticwritersworld @smellssharpies @catfishingmorales @wille-zarr @kaetastic @saltywintersoldat @agentpike @mrsparknuts @readsalot73 @yespolkadotkitty @mandhoelorian @lilangeldevil006 @roxypeanut @hail-doodles @randomness501 @this-cat-is-dea @hopplessdreamer @paintballkid711 @dracos-jedi-marvel @whataenginerd @katlikeme @petertingless @propertyofdindjarin @theocatkov @bisexual-space-slut @cyaredindjarin @arkofblake @cryptkeepersoul @motleymoose @mrschiltoncat @f0rever15elf @lady-of-nightmares-and-heartache @rogueonestan @goldafterglow @milleniumvalcon @badassbaker @pancakepike @sunbeambby13 @mymindisawhirpool @antmnwasp @capbrie @freak-of-nature2002 @arabellathorne @mandilflorian @phoenixhalliwell @beiroviski @darthadeline @cheriedjarin @edencherries @mstgsmy @seasonschange-butpeopledont @aliciaxglasgow @poesflygirl @weirdowithnobeardo @dee-rosemary @ceebeetheartdork @kiwi-the-first
mandalorian tag list: @lola-wolf @hoodedbirdie @chibi-liz05 @nerd-without-a-cause @hdlynn @thepjofanqueen @bwemph @starwarsslytherin @iellarenuodolorian @littlevodika @jjemcarstairs @promiscuoussatan @fahrenheit-not @vernon-dursley
#well#i'm very sorry for this#idk what got into me slkdfjsklfj#din djarin#the mandalorian#the child#angst#tw death#mandoctober#drabbles#dindjarindiaries
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Salvation (Captain Phasma x Reader)
Request: Can I request a post Last Jedi Captain Phasma x Jedi!reader imagine where the reader finds Phasma and saves her bringing her the new resistance base to heal her. Eventually Phasma begins to trust the reader opening up as they fall for each other with the trio being very supportive. She fully joins the resistance becoming a captain once again but fighting alongside her Jedi S/O? By anon
Words: 1,672
A/N: I'm only half proud of this, the request was truly awesome and I feel like I couldn't make it justice, also sorry for the delay. Anyways, I hope you like it!
The explosion came outta nowhere, it hitted the dreadnought stronger than any blaster could have, sending you straight to the floor for Maker knows how long.
When you finally recovered consciousness you found yourself surrounded by debris and flames. This plan just had became more complicated than expected, first you got separated from Finn and Rose, now this.
You had to leave the ship as soon as possible before it turned into a giant mess of metal pieces. Before it was too late.
Looking around you saw a few broken TIE-fighters that wouldn’t help you much so you kept looking, walking towards the other side of the big now destroyed angar and finally you spotted a transborder.
A few meters away from the ship you heard someone softly groaning in pain, fearing it would be one of your friends you decided to take a look into the pile of debris. The closer you were the more clear you heard the pain in her voice while a bunch of curses left her mouth, the closer you got you realized you didn’t know whose voice was it but it was the voice of a woman slightly modulated voice.
Then you saw her shiny armor, a chromium stormtrooper armor you recognized in an instant which made you ignite your lightsaber just in case, its green light illuminating the broken visor of her face that allowed to see a small fraction of her face. Captain Phasma.
“Oh, it’s just you.” you murmured looking down at her struggling to even move. “Where are my friends?” you asked, she didn't answer. "Tell me!"
"I don't know!" She groaned. You observed her for a moment, she seemed to be telling the truth and you couldn't sense your friends so you assumed they left the ship, you hoped they did.
Turning off your lightsaber you started to walk away the big pile of ruins letting the big woman behind you.
"Wait! The whole ship's going to blow up." You heard Phasma barely screaming "You can't leave me here!"
You stopped looking over your shoulder to find her deep blue eye begging you to help her.
"Please, don’t leave me here." She pleaded, you met her gaze for a moment and even though you could barely see her face her eye expressed pure honesty and you couldn't help but feel compassion for her, it was on your nature and in your training as a Jedi to have compassion for all living beings, even for those who you called enemies. “Please” she murmured.
You sighed before turning back to Phasma. “Don’t make me regret this” you cautioned already moving some big pieces of metal that kept her trapped. Then you helped her get up, she seemed weak and heavily injured though you wasn’t sure how much, but that heavy armor saved her from the big fall.
With all your strength you walked with the Captain of the stormtroopers by your side, her tall figure leaned on you body, she was barely able to walk but had the determination of a survivor and even though she was cursing and groaning in pain she never stopped until you reached the ship, where she finally felt uncusion, exhausted and weak.
You piloted the ship, heading to the new Resistance base.
******
“You brought her here!?” Phasma heard a few voices in the distance as she slowly recovered consciousness. They seemed distant and somehow familiar but she was too asleep to recognized them.
“What you wanted me to do? Leave her there to die?” you added calmly leaning in the wall outside the infirmary.
“Yes, yes exactly that.” Finn said, he was absolutely not happy to have Phasma in the Resistance base “She deserves it. You have an idea of the cruel things she’ve done. She’s the stormtrooper.”
“And so you were, Finn.” you told him “But we let you join us because you realized you were in the wrong side, so she can. You more than anyone should know people can change for good.”
“Not her.” he shook his head “You don’t know her, Phasma is a lost cause and I’m sure she will call the First Order if you give her a chance.”
“He’s right.” intervened Poe “We can’t trust her.”
“She can be useful” Rey added disconcerting the boys.
You turned to see the only one in the small group that was still quiet, meeting her gaze you knew she had an idea.
“We need to be ahead of them, if someone knows the next move of the First Order it’s Phasma.” Rey continued. Finn seemed annoyed, not satisfied with the words of his friend. “Tell me I’m wrong.” she told him.
He sighed. “You’re right, Rey. Even though I don’t like it… she could be useful.”
"I have a bad feeling about this" Finn said.
Meanwhile they kept arguing for a little longer about what would happen to Phasma, the Captain recovered completely her consciousness and finally recognized the voices outside the unfamiliar place.
‘FN-2187… and the jedi’ she thought and it was confirmed when you walked into the room.
“I see you’re already healing” you said watching the Captain scanning the room with her blue stare. “You were lucky you had that armor on, it protected you well. Just a few injuries but you’ll be fine.”
Phasma’s eyes travel from the room to her body, defenseless without her chromium armor, weak and injured and then she met your gaze from the first time since she was here and she found serenity in your eyes.
“Why am I here and not in a cell?” were her first words.
“Because you have to heal” you told her “And because we don’t have a cell” you joked but she didn’t laugh.
“If your plan is get information from me you can forget it.” she said immediately after you figuring out the fraction of the conversation she heard. “I won’t tell you anything, Jedi.”
“Don’t call me that, I have a name” you told her. “I’m Y/N, and we’ll see. I have a feeling you’re gonna like it here”.
Phasma growled in response, shifting uncomfortably in the very small mattress.
It took some time for her to get used to being there, it took her even longer to learn how to trust in you. At the beginning she was angry, very angry, threatening you how she would destroy not only you but the whole Resistance. You tried to be patient with her, you knew she only needed time and so time you gave her.
As her wounds were slowly healing you were there every day to make sure they were healing well, nobody had ever cared for her injuries before, it the First Order everything was different, cold, lonely and Phasma learned that it was better to be on her own. The Resistance on the other hand they treated each other like a family, she observed the way you and your friends were always looking up for one another, she had never had something like that and yet there you were sitting on the floor next to her, it made her feel a strange warm sensation growing inside her, maybe she did wanted to be there.
Phasma never realized when or why she fell for you, maybe it was for the way your presence calmed her down or that she could speak freely with you, she trusted you enough to mentined her past in the hostile planet Parnassos and you told her about your early training back in Luke’s temple. And you couldn’t help but tell her how much damage the First Order had done in your life as well as in many others. It made her feel regret for the first time in a very long time.
You enjoyed being around the tall woman, loved to see her blue eyes and you thanked they weren’t hide behind a helmet anymore. The imposing Captain of the stormtroopers turned out to be a fragile woman without her armor, another hurted human that learned to push away everyone to protect herself from that cruel world… everyone but you. You sensed the force around her every day less full of anger, softer, calmer.
Though your friends weren’t sure about her at first when they saw you laughing with her they changed their mind. Everyone deserved at least a chance to try again, Poe knew sometimes you do bad things but can always find the right path again, Rey trusted in the small light inside Phasma that grew brighter when she was with you. Finn accepted she could change, just like you said she would.
And then one day Phasma decided she wanted to help others and not just herself, she wanted to fight for those who couldn’t, she wanted to fight for you.
“I’ve been thinking.” she told you once you were walking around the new base, still in construction. “what now that I’m completely healed?”
“Well, we still don’t have a cell so that’s not option” you joked owning a small chuckle from her as a delicate smile curved her lips, then she stopped giving you a more serious look.
“I want to join the rebellion” she said and it really took you by surprise.
“You what?” you asked confused but filled with a sudden happiness, staring at her hopefully.
“I want to join your stupid rebellion” she said in a careless tone “Why’re you looking me like that, Y/N? To survive you have to follow the strongest side, the side that’s going to win at the end.” she told you. “This has nothing to do with you”
It did, it was the reason she decided to fight, she didn’t need to tell you for you to know that she was fighting for you. You looked at her for a moment, appreciating the way her golden hair fell over her face, her delicate features, her lovely gaze. You would fight for her too.
“Then welcome to the Resistance” you said “Captain Phasma, Leader of the rebel army.”
#captain phasma x female reader#captain phasma x reader#phasma x reader#captain phasma#phasma#phasma imagine#captain phasma imagine#captain phasma x y/n#captain phasma x you#i-write-sometimes-blog#i started to make it#had a breakdown#bon appetit#finn#poe dameron#fn-2187#rey of jakku
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Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi
A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.
A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.
A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.
A man, whilst he is dreaming, believes in his dream; he is undeceived only when he is awakened from his slumber.
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
A thousand candles can be lighted from the flame of one candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness can be spread without diminishing that of yourself.
Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does the truth become error because nobody will see it.
An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.
An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves.
Be the change that you wish to see in the world.
Compassion is a muscle that gets stronger with use.
Distinguish between real needs and artificial wants and control the latter.
Don't talk about it. The rose doesn't have to propagate its perfume. It just gives it forth, and people are drawn to it. Live it, and people will come to see the source of your power.
Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.
Everyone holds a piece of the truth.
Fearlessness is the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral.
Friendship that insists upon agreement on all things isn't worth the name.
God has no religion.
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
Hate the sin, love the sinner.
Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.
I call him religious who understands the suffering of others.
I cannot conceive of a greater loss than the loss of one's self-respect.
I may be a despicable person, but when Truth speaks through me I am
I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.
I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.
If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.
If we are to reach real peace in the world, we shall have to begin with the children.
In a gentle way, you can shake the world.
In doing something, do it with love or never do it at all.
In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.
In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.
invincible.
It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow beings.
It is easier to build a boy than to mend a man.
It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one's acts.
It seems to me as clear as daylight that abortion would be a crime.
it's easy to stand in the crowd but it takes courage to stand alone
Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.
Love is the strongest force the world possesses and yet it is the humblest imaginable.
Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or loneliness. It consists in daring to do the right thing and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political or other. It consists in deeds not words.
Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.
My Life is My Message
No one can ride on the back of a man unless it is bent.
Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong.
Nothing has saddened me so much in life as the hardness of heart of educated people.
Nothing is so aggravating as calmness.
Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.
Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.
Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment.
Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity.
Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.
Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.
Speak only if it improves upon the silence.
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.
The future depends on what you do today.
The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.
The more efficient a force is, the more silent and the more subtle it is.
The path is the goal.
The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of truth.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
There are many causes I would die for. There is not a single cause I would kill for.
There are no good-byes, where ever you'll be, you'll be in my heart.
There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.
There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
There are two days in the year that we can not do anything, yesterday and tomorrow
There is force in the universe, which, if we permit it, will flow through us and produce miraculous results.
There is no 'way to peace,' there is only 'peace.
There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.
There is no such thing as ‘too insane’ unless others turn up dead due to your actions.
There's no God higher than truth.
To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that one that must be loved is not a friend. There is not merit in loving an enemy when you forget him for a friend.
To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
True beauty lies in purity of the heart.
True love is boundless like the ocean and, swelling within one, spreads itself out and, crossing all boundaries and frontiers, envelops the whole world.
True morality consists not in following the beaten track, but in finding the true path for ourselves, and fearlessly following it.
Truth never damages a cause that is just.
We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.
What barrier is there that love cannot break?
When asked what he thought of Western civilization): 'I think it would be a good idea.
Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.
Where love is, there God is also.
Where there is fear there is no religion.
Where there is love there is life.
You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.
You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
You yourself as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve love and affection.
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Chapter 14
of the wwx emperor au that’s now more like the terrible horrible time the Lan Sect is having ugh
Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 Part 1 | Chapter 8 Part 2 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13
It does not take long to leave the noise of the disciples and their game behind them.
The path around the mountain is wide, and appears to have been well tended throughout the warmer months. Still, the evidence of the recent autumn storms is everywhere, frequently forcing them to detour around fallen branches and uprooted brush.
The first time Nie MingJue offers him a hand in assistance, XiChen nearly trips over nothing but his own feet. Although they hardly come upon any obstacles that require such attention, XiChen accepts each time, and each time the anticipation of the next seems to grow.
XiChen’s hands are not soft by any means. His calluses are not only present on the areas so frequently affected by sword practice, but years of playing the guqin have hardened his fingers as well. They are not hands that must be treated with care, yet Nie MingJue does, his grip light and gentle. Each time, the warmth of his palm inevitably travels to XiChen’s face, and XiChen very much hopes that the color in his cheeks can be ascribed the cold mountain breeze instead.
“How do you like the Peach Blossom Pavilion?” Nie MingJue says, and XiChen finds himself surprised by the question.
For all the insinuations the Royal Companion had made about Madam Yu being attentive to their accommodations, at no point has anyone actually inquired after their comfort. XiChen is fairly certain that most of the guests are unaware of the Lan Sect’s current residence in the Immortal Mountain City.
It is logical, that the General of the Emperor’s army would keep a close track of everyone’s accommodations, and express some interest in the matter. Still, XiChen so rarely considers his own comfort, that it takes him a few moments to formulate a response.
“It is peaceful,” he says finally, “I like it very much.”
It is far removed from the palaces usually occupied by distinguished guests. It is also small, and does not require a sea of servants to maintain. These are all welcome things to the Lan Sect, who do not want to be in close proximity to the others, and place great value in peace and silence. However, XiChen does not know how to voice any of those benefits without making them sound like grievances.
“It is one of the oldest structures in the Immortal Mountain City,” Nie MingJue says, “do you know the story behind the name?”
“Only that the Empress Immortal had settled there upon first arriving to the Immortal Mountain.”
Nie MingJue nods, and helps XiChen navigate two crude stone steps, worn down by centuries of wind and rain. The path evens out again, but the incline is now noticeable. The air is so rich here, that XiChen can almost taste the coolness of it on his tongue.
“At the time, the Empress Immortal was only a rogue cultivator,” Nie MingJue says, “A capable one, but not yet renown enough to form an Empire. It is said that she could feel the inherent power of the Immortal Mountain, and had chosen to settle here precisely for this reason. I, however, am more inclined to think that she was simply searching for some peace and silence.”
The words are followed by a small smile in XiChen’s direction, and XiChen cannot help but smile back.
“The Peach Blossom Pavilion is named for the peach tree that grew in its place. The legend states that the Empress Immortal spent her first night underneath this tree, and that the tree bore fruit the next morning to provide her with nourishment.”
This part of the story is unfamiliar to XiChen, and he listens attentively, wondering where it could possibly lead.
“She built her first home next to that same peach tree, and when the autumn storms took it down, her second and her third. Although she still traveled far and wide, the Immortal Mountain became a place she considered her own, a shelter from the rest of the world.”
Ahead, a small pile of rocks obstructs their way. Larger boulders had dislodged at one point, but the majority of them had rolled past the path itself, crumbling into the fissure below. Still, when Nie MingJue offers his hand, XiChen takes it.
“Eventually, the peach tree died. Most commonly it is said that the Immortal Empress was gone too long, and found it already withered on her return. Some prefer to think that a storm had uprooted the tree, a lesson on the inconsistency of all living things when faced with the might of Heavens. Others say that enemies of the Immortal Empress destroyed it on purpose. The details vary from one region to another.”
At one point, Nie MingJue’s fingers had tightened around his own, and now, XiChen cannot seem to shake the tingling sensation that envelops his hand from fingertips to his wrist.
“The story is always clear on the aftermath, however. The Empress Immortal was still young, and already extremely advanced in cultivation. She had not yet learned that spiritual power has its limits, and that the natural progression of life cannot be altered without consequences.”
The path is steadily rising now, curving more sharply around the mountain face, the trees growing scarce.
“She was determined to have her peach tree. In order to accomplish this, she sunk all of her power into the mountain soil. She exerted herself to such an extent that her death should have been the outcome. And although she lived, nearly half a century would pass before her spiritual power recovered.”
The next curve stops XiChen in his tracks.
The mountain face is steep here, but not so steep that it cannot support growth. A field of grass and wildflowers stretches in front of his eyes, waving in the mountain wind. And in the middle of this field, dozens of peach trees stand tall, each one in full bloom.
They are beautiful. The color of their blossoms is so vivid, it seems painted on with a heavy hand, the innermost flowers so dark, that they resemble droplets of blood. The breeze easily snatches their petals, carpeting the field in an ocean of pink and white.
They are lovely, and yet, the longer XiChen watches them, the more unsettled he feels. It takes him a few moments to pinpoint the source of his unease, and then it is so obvious that he feels foolish.
It is late autumn. No peach trees bloom in autumn.
“They bloom all year long,” Nie MingJue says, “They never age, and they never bear fruit.”
“Oh,” XiChen says, more of a breath than a word, and easily lost in the wind.
They are not real.
There are so many wondrous things one can accomplish with spiritual power, but no amount of skill or strength is capable of creation. Spiritual power cannot turn back death, and it cannot give birth to new life.
XiChen remembers this lesson so clearly, that for an instant, he is back in the Library Pavilion at Cloud Recesses, hearing his uncle’s calm voice, smelling the gardenias growing by the pavilion windows.
All things are born, and all things must die. Even the greatest cultivators in the world, those who reach immortality, will one day be nothing but bones and dust in the earth, their last purpose to nourish new life. He had committed the lesson to memory then, but he does not think that he fully understood it until this very moment, faced with a dozen blooming peach trees in the late autumn.
Frozen in a moment, forever unchanging. Beautiful to see, but lacking everything that makes them truly alive.
A deep, inexplicable sorrow envelops him, and he feels his breath stutter in his chest.
“I have upset you,” Nie MingJue says, voice heavy with concern, “Forgive me. That was not my intention.”
“No, I--“
XiChen does not know how to explain himself. His happiness or melancholy are so rarely addressed in words, that he does not possess the vocabulary necessary to speak of them.
“I am not upset, I am only-- sad for them, I suppose.”
He cannot meet Nie MingJue’s eyes. He feels silly, and wonders if the man thinks him ridiculous.
“You must think me foolish.”
“I do not,” Nie MingJue says.
He sounds upset at the implication, but whatever other words he may have to say never come.
There is an unexpected noise behind them, a sound of many boots traveling the same path. XiChen turns to find a dozen men in the uniforms of the Imperial Guard.
The man leading them, a tall youth XiChen does not remember meeting before, bows to Nie MingJue and addresses him directly.
“General Nie, forgive me. I have been ordered to take Young Master Lan into custody, and escort him to the Jade Sword Palace.”
XiChen feels every part of his body turn numb at the words.
“Into custody?” Nie MingJue says, “For what reason?”
“For the attempted murder of the HeJian Fan Sect Leader.”
#the untamed#cql#mdzs#nielan#ficlet#m#wwx emperor au#um yeah so#cliffhanger#the next chapter will be split in 2 parts bc too damn long#i'm still hoping i can have it posted tomorrow but no guarantees#so you know#if you can't do a cliffhanger#i'd wait for ch 15 before reading this one#the vague idea of knowing where this is going#is now actually neatly laid out in n outline#which sounds like a good thing#except that i only write outlines when i can't focus on you know#actual writing lmaoo#i just need to sleep for like seven hours at least#and then shit will fall in place#i hope#ily guys
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Together
Rating - General
Note – My best friend gave me some huge inspiration for this one and I love her dearly. She had me listen to a particular song that makes her think of me and I adore it. I also needed to spread some Hana love 💖
Check out the reference music here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvwhnMZinDQ
Summary – Riley will always be there for Hana because she knows Hana would be there for her.
Pairing - Hana x MC
Word Count – 1,576
The rain was heavy and cold, but it didn’t bother her, not tonight. The day had been rewarding and Riley was happily making her way towards the one person she knew would be just as happy to see her as she was to see them. She adjusted her hoodie as the rain lightened to misty drops. Steadily moving down the dark street as the buildings and homes became infrequent. Her boots splashed gently in each small pool of water laid out in her path. Letting her feet do the guiding for her in a path she has walked a hundred times and a hundred more if she must. Neither rain nor sleet nor snow would stop her, not even an almighty unknown force could ever make her turn back.
She reached the grounds she had been moving towards. A large grand estate gated in front with a reasonably short stone wall that circled the magnificent home. She turned to walk along the wall away from the gated front. Following it all the way until she was staring at the side of the manor. Riley tightened the straps of her backpack around her shoulders. She placed her foot on a stone she had become familiar with, it protruded in a way that provided her just enough hold for her to hoist herself up and sit on the top. She gathered the end of her long skirt to wring some water out of it just before she pivots her body and drops herself on the inside. Landing with a squish on the soft lush grass. She looked straight ahead towards the building spread out in front of her. Her eyes caught a light coming from a door on the second floor, casting a warm glow on the balcony that attached to it.
Hastily she moved across the lawn until she was under the light source. A trellis filled with wisteria flowers made a “U” shape around the balcony. Starting from one side coming down to the ground and around to the other side, ending neatly leveled with the top of the door that led inside. Getting her footing once more she slowly made her way up, careful to not destroy any of the flowers that draped themselves in a downward fashion. Grabbing hold of the railing she pulled herself over and stood straight, then lightly dropped her bag down. Taking a silent step forward and placing her hand against the door frame to lean, she raised her other and knocked ever so gently on the glass. It was silent for a moment before she could hear the shuffling. Riley held her breath as the curtain was slowly pushed to the side. A small smile played at the corner of her mouth when the door was unlocked and opened. A tall slender woman with smooth tawny skin, like she was made from the sands of a tropical beach, reached her hand out and grasped Riley’s, pulling her inside. Once the door was secured shut and the curtains were drawn Riley was pulled delicately into an embrace.
“I’m so happy to see you.” The woman says before she pulls back, leaving her hands placed on Riley’s.
“And I’m always happy to see you, Hana.” Riley said in return. As she looked into Hana’s deep chocolate eyes, she noticed they didn’t sparkle as they usually did. Growing concerned her smile faded and she squeezed Hana’s hands.
“Is everything alright?” She asked Hana anxiously. Hana looked down at the floor, drawing her long auburn hair forward to cascade around her face. Taking the moment to carefully choose how to continue.
“My parents are becoming impatient with me.” She continued to stare at the floor but knew she didn’t want to lie to Riley.
“What do you mean? I don’t understand.” Riley’s concern only grew as her heart rate picked up.
“They have this notion that I am not taking my lessons seriously. They think I am getting distracted by something and they are trying to figure out what it is.” Hana’s hands fell from Riley’s as she held them up to cover her face, a small sob escaping. Unsure what to do with her hands Riley began picking at her fingers.
“What are they going to do?” Riley asked as calmly as she could. Hana moved her hands to hold one another in front of her. She lifted her head and revealed the glisten in her eyes and the wetness streaking her cheeks.
“They are going to send me away if I don’t focus. To another country, Riley. I may never see you again if they do.” Hana whimpered out as the tears continued to stream down her face. Riley moved towards her, placed a hand on the side of Hana’s face, and wiped the tear that slid downward.
“But if you do as they tell you, you’ll never see me anyways.” The realization hitting her like a ton of bricks. Hana could only nod her head as her chin quivered and the tears fell in greater quantity.
“Hey.” Riley pulled her other hand up to cup the other side of Hana’s face. Embracing it with both hands and wiping the tears dry.
“Listen, we’ll figure something out. They can’t control you forever.” Riley now determined, wrapped her arms around her shoulders. Letting Hana sob on her shoulder as she rubbed her back soothingly. Riley began to gently sway as her sobs lessened until she felt her breathing return to normal.
“I want to show you something.” Riley whispered. Hana pulled back just enough to look at her and nodded her head.
“I’d like that.” She smiled back, a small glitter back in her eyes.
Hana grabbed a pair of shoes and a light coat, while Riley pulled off her own damp hoodie. Leaving out the balcony door, Riley grabbed her backpack and helped Hana down the trellis. They swiftly move across the lawn and Riley boosts Hana up over the wall and climbs up after her. As quickly and quietly as ever they make their way away from the large estate. It had finished raining some time ago and now they strolled down the darkened street arm in arm, each enjoying the company of the other. Hana took a moment to peer over at her shorter friend. Riley’s chocolate hair, not far off from her own eyes, was pulled up into a high ponytail. It draped down to sweep gently across her now exposed sun-kissed golden skin. Riley’s honey eyes found hers and a smile beamed up at her.
“We’re almost there.” Riley said breaking the comfortable silence between the two. Hana was always happy with Riley. Riley had a way of brightening the darkest of corners. Hana grew up with luxuries and social standing, while Riley did not. Riley had to fight for what she wanted, and all she wanted most was freedom. Something that drew Hana to her. Even though Hana was well off, her parents kept her busy learning anything that made her look more appealing to higher-ranking men. To her parents, she didn’t need any friends. When Riley met her, she was lonely but that didn’t matter. They complimented each other in ways no one else had. It was like an invisible magnet that kept pulling them together, and they were both happy for that.
They had been walking through a public garden. Flowers tended beautifully in an array of colors, shapes, and sizes. They came up to the edge of the garden and continued through into an open grassy field. Riley led her to the top of the hill and stopped.
“We’re here.” Riley announced turning them around to face the gardens below.
“It’s a beautiful spot.” Hana said looking around. Riley opened her bag and pulled out a towel and draped it down over the slowly drying grass. She grabbed ahold of Hana’s arm and pulled her down to sit. Then pulling a small light blanket out, she drew close to Hana’s side and laid it over her shoulders.
“Now if we sit quietly and still enough there is one more addition to this whole thing.” Riley whispered.
Hana gazed around and took in the sight before her. The moon almost full, shown large and brightly in front of them. Holding its place above the luscious and brightly colored garden below. Then after a few moments, a small flash of light was seen. Then another and another, until there was a group of small dancing lights sparkling in the empty space between them and the rest of the world.
“Riley, this is beautiful.” Hana said contently. The calm, evident in her posture and voice. They looked at each other and Riley could see the sparkle in her eyes again. The sparkle that only seemed to appear when they were together.
“So, do you like it?” Riley asked with a grin overtaking her face.
“I love it.” Was Hana’s reply, smiling gently back before turning to look onto the perfect scene set out before her.
“Thank you.” Hana whispered as she leaned over and set her head down onto Riley’s shoulder once again. This time in a happy, peaceful, and calm demeanor. Riley shifted her arm to place her hand on Hana’s and leaned her head against hers.
They stayed there watching the fireflies dance and play in the night. Knowing that they can face anything when they are together, and together they plan to stay.
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