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theminecraftbee · 2 years

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Grian feels the Entity mocking him as he groans and leans back against a cold, unforgiving spike of bedrock at the bottom of Doc’s cold, unforgiving pit. He has tried three times to contact help, but everyone who is online or looking at their communicators is either busy or would get stuck themselves, or maybe they just aren’t getting his messages, and he has a stupid sprained or possibly broken wing and the slimes are avoiding him for some reason so he can’t even get them to kill him so he respawns properly and god, he’s miserable and hurting and hates that he hadn’t thought through diving for diamonds and -

He makes a frustrated groan as his message to his friends doesn’t go through again and, in a brief moment of stupidity, throws his communicator. It bounces off the stone. Makes him feel slightly better, but not much.

Slowly, he feels something lethargic curl in the back of his mind. Well. There he is, facing the consequences of his actions.

Wonderful. The peanut gallery.

Grian curls his legs up to his chest. He just wants out of this hole before he starves to death. He’ll respawn, one way or another, but he doesn’t have a quick way to do it, and his wing’s a bit too injured to crawl out easily and move himself, and maybe he doesn’t want to just... hurt for like, several days, because his communicator isn’t working for some reason. He knows it was stupid, doing a dive like that around uneven terrain, okay, he’s not an idiot. He’d just - he hadn’t realized how badly the size of the perimeter would mess up wind currents, and he’d thought he had enough rockets to correct for them if they were rough, and - he knows it was stupid. He doesn’t need his other bad decision criticizing him. Even if it’s here to help.

Here to...?

Well, it will hurt anyway. Grian’s made a deal before. Surely he’s willing to deal again?

The thing curled in his head is vast, and it is interested, and Grian aches. Okay. Sure. He’d made a deal with the Entity once. It had been a gunpoint deal. It had hitched a ride. Grian had... objected. The two of them had hashed out a compromise. That time, Grian had been in control. The Entity hadn’t known what to do, when it turned out that Grian had the annoyance and the will to try to kick it out, and had offered Grian power. Some power it was, Grian was stuck at the bottom of a hole and was going to starve to death and he shouldn’t be panicking, he’s had worse, but his wing is definitely broken and even with a respawn that can take weeks to heal and he doesn’t have weeks he just has -

The Entity is not finished giving him power.

He turns that over in his head for a moment. The thing in the back of his head lets him, withdrawing as though to make sure it’s only Grian in there to think. He knows its not, but he appreciates the gesture.

Alright. He knows he got some knowledge from the Entity. It’s part of what he’s doing with the Rift. But what power is he missing?

They aren’t fully bonded yet.

Grian snorts. The Entity knows full well he’s not letting it eat him. They’ve had that little argument. They’ve had that little argument a multitude of times. Grian always wins. Grian will continue to win even as his lungs shudder at the bottom of a pit he is going to die in and be mocked for dying in (which is uncharitable to think of Doc, Grian knows he won’t, but it feels like). Grian's too stubborn to give up being Grian. It doesn't matter what the Entity wants, or if the Entity wants to win.

The Entity, the thing curled in his head explains, has no particular interest in winning anymore. No, the Entity is invested now. It could leave, it supposes, but it's... invested. It has come up with another solution.

Grian's interested in winning though.

Grian's interested in not dying at the bottom of a pit.

Grian's interested in having his thoughts to himself again, but has no interest in letting the Entity go - it's too interesting. And he's intrigued. And if the Entity is no longer interested in winning, in controlling Grian utterly, then if it's offering power -

Alright. What’s its solution then? What power will it give him to get out of this? And if it’s a trick, Grian’s not sure what he’ll do, but...

So it explains. And it retreats again. And Grian laughs, hoarsely. “That is going to hurt,” he says weakly, because it is. It’s going to hurt a lot, and he’s going to die horribly. But it never said it wouldn’t hurt. “That is going to hurt both of us, if you’re tying us that closely together.”

But he would get out of this hole. And he would have power. And Grian - Grian isn’t really afraid of hurting, he’s just afraid of hurting for a long time.

“Alright,” Grian says. “Alright. We seal this. You only eat a little bit,” he says. “That’s the deal. And I get a bit of you. We’re stuck together now, now aren’t we?”

Good, thinks the Entity, thinks Grian, and then there are thin stone talons on Grian’s hands where they hadn’t been before and he takes a deep breath, and he swallows, and he digs them into his heart.

He does not have very long to watch the blood and flesh drip down them before he’s screaming. He’d been right. It hurts.

He thrashes on hard stone when he wakes up in it and he knows he’s not done, he has to do it one more time, he has to - to seal it both ways, so he walks to the Entity (who may or may not be there) and he holds up his clawed hand and he laughs hoarsely and asks “is that still the part you want?” because he’s going to at least be a bit sarcastic about it, if he’s doing this.

The Entity says yes.

It hurts less to tear his heart out the second time. Still hurts a lot. When he wakes up on the ground, he’s not sure he’s respawned, given that he’s still bleeding, but his wing is healed to a degree even the respawn wouldn’t have managed, and he’d made it out of the hole in the ground, and he can feel a heartbeat beneath his feathers, and it’s strangely warm and damp and he knows he’s inside of the Entity now, not in a pit waiting to die.

The Entity has flesh now. Grian’s talons are still made of sharp stone. He feels power between his teeth, and it feels good.

“Don’t ask me to do that again,” he says, and he looks down at the place where there’s still a bloody wound and promptly passes out. When a panicking Mumbo finds him about two hours later, the only sign there’s anything wrong is the frankly absurd amount of blood staining all of his clothes, but he’ll talk his way out of it. He always does.

#hermitcraft #grian #cosmic horror #gore #hermitcraft spoilers #a bee fic #I'M SORRY THIS IDEA WON'T LEAVE MY HEAD NOW #ask to tag #this one is. uh. the cut is there because. uh. UH.#gestures at the gore tag again the entity sure is a thing.#the entity is such a trap for me specifically. making grian into one of my favorites again by sheer 'yeah that's a trap for second' energy #ITS AN ELDRITCH HORROR ROCK WITH FLESH ON THE INSIDE WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME #anyway. so what if that flesh came from grian huh.#what then.#this is super weird because i wrote it quickly and i'm not sure it fully gets across what i was going for but its about the vibes man

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sleepawaywriting · 4 years

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Deep Into That Darkness Peering

Chapter 1 (of 4): The Siren

[Piers x Reader, SFW]

Warnings: Alcohol Mention, Caves, Monsters, Existential Horror, Near-Death Experiences

What do you do when you discover that your best friend is an eldritch monstrosity that has inspired countless myths and ancient folklore, who could easily tear you limb from limb or consume your entire existence whole? You double down, obviously.

(An AU where everything is the same except Piers is the monster mash and you’re down to graveyard smash.)

[Told ya I was gonna do it. Don’t worry, we’ll soon get back to your regularly-scheduled requests and smuttery, I just had to get this ball rolling and out of my system.]

The first time you saw him, it was an accident.

You were tired. Your days seemed to become busier and busier, and recently, you slept very little, finding that with every waking morning, the bags under your eyes grew deeper and more pronounced. Your nerves were fraying, and your patience was wearing thin. Finally, at the precipice of burning out, something inside of you snapped. You decided to take a holiday, retreating to the seaside town of Spikemuth, where you would hopefully find solace among the neon-laden streets. Most people would raise their eyebrows at the prospect of spending a holiday in Spikemuth. After all, the town was somewhat run-down, notoriously underfunded and forgotten by the region’s more affluent citizens. However, beneath the massive structure overhanging the forgotten hamlet, was a treasure trove of beauty and inspiration, not only in its many historical structures, dilapidated as they were, but in the people that lived there. Spikemuth was a town that thrived on artistry, home to an impressive number of painters, sculptors, photographers, and, of course, musicians. This was the aspect of the coastal town that drew you under its spell. You fully planned to spend the majority of your time looking at art, attending concerts, drinking heavily, and crashing on your best friend’s couch. And luckily, said best friend was none other than Piers, the town’s local celebrity, and resident expert in all things Spikemuth.

One night, a few hours after passing out on Piers’ couch for the umpteenth time, you found yourself wide awake and painfully sober. After tossing and turning for another hour or two, you decided to give up on a full night’s sleep altogether, begrudgingly dragging yourself out from under your pile of blankets and retreating to the bathroom, where you proceeded to slide on a pair of well-worn sweatpants, and a hoodie with Piers’ band’s logo on the back (an outdated one, which the singer insisted on replacing for you at some point), topping it all off with a messy bun. Tip-toeing to the front door, you put on your sneakers, grabbed your phone and keys, and exited the flat, pulling on your hood when you realized just how cold it had gotten—and it would only get colder, where you were going. Walking along the main street, you breathed in the crisp seaside air, adjusting your eyes to the pulsating neon and trudging your way past a few bars and clubs where the town’s nightlife was still raging strong. You smiled as you noticed a few Sableye skitter around a corner into a nearby alley, clearly looking to cause some mischief to any overly-drunk party goers.

The town’s energy waned as you approached the east exit, the one leading to the sheer, black cliffs that descended to the rocky shoreline far below. You loved exploring them, especially at night, despite the potential dangers that lurked there. Luckily, you arrived when the tide was low, so there was no immediate risk of being swept out to sea or thrashed against the jagged rocks. You carefully made your way down one of the many damp, creaky wooden staircases to the main beach, the misty wind nipping at your skin, cold enough to bite, but not enough to cause a shiver. It invigorated your senses as you leaped down the remaining steps and onto the shore, almost stumbling in the process. The beaches of Spikemuth were not exactly the type you would want to picnic on—on top of being rather cold and windy, the floor was comprised entirely of uneven pebbles. However, it was still beautiful, in its own way, and in the past, you had spent countless hours watching the waves, collecting sea glass, and occasionally exploring the array of mysterious caves and tunnels that bore deep into the cliffside. They were only visible at low tide, and never failed to capture your imagination, particularly Mourner’s Cave, which was by far the largest of the bunch—you had yet to find its end, if it had one, in your own amateur spelunking. As with all the darkest, deepest, most unknown parts of nature, there were many folktales surrounding Mourner’s Cave. For centuries, locals regaled tourists with the harrowing tale of a siren, who would lure victims into the depths of the seaside cavern during low tide, in order to feast upon them. Of course, it was likely just a story parents would tell their children in order to keep them from straying too far beneath the cliffs, potentially getting lost, trapped, or worse.

Standing at the very edge of the water, just inches from where the waves ebbed and flowed across the craggy shore, you stuffed your hands into your pockets, relaxing your gaze, allowing yourself to fully space out. The sky was mostly clear from where you stood, a large, full moon illuminating the icy waters, its luster reflecting off the thousand tiny, shimmering pebbles beneath your feet. In the distance, you could see a heavy fog rolling in, and there were no boats, as far as you could tell, so the horizon line was completely obscured by an inky, infinite haze. You stared, allowing your mind to wander, breathing in the briny scent and relishing in the isolation, when you heard something. It was faint—so faint that you barely noticed it above the crashing waves and the wind whistling through the jagged grottoes. At first, it sounded like a low humming, which you assumed was just your loss of hearing from the eardrum-shattering concerts you’d been attending. As you wandered further down the beach, in the direction of Mourner’s Cave, the humming grew louder, and you reached up to plug your left ear, then your right, seeing if you could isolate the damage. It wasn’t until after bending over, turning either ear towards the ground, and shaking your head up and down like you were trying to empty a piggybank, that you realized it was neither hearing damage nor vertigo.

Your curiosity getting the best of you, you decided to follow the sound, fully expecting to come across some sort of wild Pokemon, or even nothing at all. The beach’s rocky structures had a tendency to “wail” in turbulent weather, creating an eerie, otherworldly effect and spooking hapless beachgoers who were unfamiliar with the area’s geology. Continuing your trek, you were led away from the tumbling waters and towards the sheer, ashen cliffside containing the entrance to Mourner’s Cave. As you drew closer, so did the sound, and you realized that it wasn’t humming at all, but singing—a strange, mournful, sort of singing, that made you stop in your tracks. It was unlike anything you had ever heard before—a swirling, ethereal sound with no discernible melody. It seemed human, uncannily so, but there was a sort of… wrongness about it, like it was almost synthetic—and there was a warbling to it, as if it was not one, but multiple voices, all stacked on top of each other, but clearly belonging to the same owner. You inched closer to the mouth of the cave, wanting to turn back, wanting to sprint back across the beach, up the wooden stairs, back to town, but your shoulders tensed, your stomach knotting in worry. What if this person, or Pokemon, or whatever it was, needed help? It almost sounded pained, or at the very least downright miserable, and something else—something that bothered you more—a sense of… familiarity. A unnerving, nostalgic sort of feeling that forced you to carry on, despite yourself.

Just as you decided to retreat, to call it a night, to run and hide under the covers and try to forget this ever happened, you passed through the mouth of Mourner’s Cave. Something in the air shifted, as if you broke an invisible barrier, and suddenly, there were no waves. There was no wind. Not even the sound of your footsteps, once shifting and trembling through the gravel, now plodding across solid, damp stone. There was only the singing. It filled your head, to the top your skull, pouring out of your ears—overshadowing any thoughts of fear, worry, or self-preservation, stripping you of any desire to leave, of returning to the world you once knew. Your eyes glazed over, shoulders relaxed, arms hanging at your sides as your legs moved of their own volition, though sluggish, as if moving against the tide. You no longer felt the cold, salty air against your flesh, instead feeling something heavy, oppressive, suffocating, weighing down on your shoulders. The air around you crackled with an unseen energy, prickling at your skin, making each hair on the back of your neck stand on end. The darkness ahead smelled like dry ice and ozone, but you didn’t care. You never cared. You could not remember caring about anything but the singing, of finding it, claiming it, lying in it, succumbing to it.

The moonlight had long since abandoned you, as you journeyed further and further into the depths, where it could not follow. The encroaching darkness only served to heighten the sound as it bounced around the cavern walls, infinitely echoing in a beautiful, dreadful cacophony. A streak of warmth slid down your cheeks, though your eyes were unblinking, as you mindlessly accepted the fact that you were going to die. You did not feel afraid, so much as indifferent, and somewhat peaceful, like the darkness was an old friend, and you were always meant to become a part of it.

The singing stopped.

Blinking rapidly, your eyes stinging, you reached up to rub them, surprised to find that that they, along with your cheeks, were wet. Were you crying? Wait, where were you, anyway? You whipped your head around, squinting against the darkness. Why was is so dark, all of a sudden? You turned on your heels far too quickly, panic welling up in your chest as you slipped on something. You yelped, falling forward, managing to catch yourself before splitting your face open on the clammy stone floor. Wait, stone? Were you in a cave? Ignoring the fresh scrapes on your palms, you fumbled with your pockets before finally retrieving your phone, turning on its flashlight. You blinked against the harsh, cold light now illuminating the yawning chamber, seeing that, in your panic, you managed to slip on a slimy, stubborn patch of algae. Standing up on shaky knees, you tried to ignore the trembling in your hands and the thumping in your chest once you realized you had no clue which way you came in. If you weren’t careful, you would end up wandering deeper into the cliffs, and wouldn’t be able to escape before the tide rolled in. You tried not to think about what would happen then, deciding to stick to the path opposite of where you were facing when you snapped out of your stupor. As you walked, you got an idea, and looked down to your phone, unlocking it and turning on the camera to record some footage. You figured that if you didn’t manage to make it out in time, you could at least leave behind some evidence of your final moments, as morbid as that was. That, and, as you walked, you thought about the stories you’d heard of people losing time, of being in one place and suddenly waking up in another, often citing alien abduction as the cause. Maybe if you were recording your predicament, there would be a chance that someone could find out what really happened here, in the deepest, darkest depths of Mourner’s Cave. Maybe they would make a late night TV special about you. The thought made you laugh, though it was more of a sad, frantic giggle, and you were thankful nobody was around to hear it—or so you thought.

Something shifted behind you, above you, dragging along the cave ceiling and knocking loose a few rogue stones, which tumbled down the rounded walls and skidded across the floor before bouncing off the back of your shoes. You spun around, bringing your flashlight with you, fully expecting to come face-to-face with a ravenous, wild Pokemon—inwardly cursing yourself for forgetting to bring any of your own. Instead, you were met with… darkness, but not the darkness you had come to expect from within a cave in the dead of night. No, that darkness was malleable, it had depth, it could be permeated. This darkness looked… solid... quite literally the definition of pitch black, like someone had cut out a section of deep space and draped it across the cavern wall like some impossible curtain. Frankly, you had no idea what you were looking at, and a confused, fearful noise bubbled up in your chest and slipped past your lips.

Suddenly, the darkness jolted towards you, surrounding you completely and snuffing out your only source of light. You yelled, dropping your phone and throwing out your arms in a feeble attempt to defend yourself. Your body made contact with nothing, however, as the air grew thick around you, caking the inside of your lungs. The oppressive static returned, jogging your memory and overwhelming every one of your senses, your nerves screaming as your fingers and toes twitched. You felt yourself seizing, a deep weight in your chest forcing you backwards, and after stumbling, swearing, and babbling incoherently, you tripped over yourself, your tailbone slamming hard against the stone floor. Before you could register the pain, you suddenly realized that you could now see your legs stretched out in front of you, as well as the rest of your body. Though faint, there was undoubtably some sort of light coming somewhere from above, and after looking up, you realized you much preferred the darkness.

Hanging above you were eyes—so many eyes—staring accusingly down at your pitiful form, each of them glowing an electric magenta that made your retinas burn and your forehead pound. Next, you noticed the teeth—an obscene amount of teeth—razor sharp and emitting the same unnatural hue, stark against the pitch backdrop. Behind the sickening aura, you saw the faint outline of something sharp and skeletal, forcing you to look away, and thanks to your new, terrifying light source, you could now discern that the solid darkness enveloping your senses was, in fact, hundreds of black, amorphous tendrils, covering every inch of the cave, floor to ceiling, effectively trapping you. You had no chance of escape, entirely helpless, completely at the mercy of whatever creature made up this hellish cage. You were going to die.

You wanted to scream, but felt as if your lungs were being squeezed inside your ribcage, so all you could do was sob—a pathetic, choked noise escaping your throat. You fell, your consciousness descending deep into an abyss from which you never expected to awake.

---

[Eldritch Piers' look in this story is HEAVILY inspired by @lulzyrobot's version of him, so go give them some love!]

#piers #piers x reader #piers pokemon x reader #piers pokemon #swsh #pkmn #pokemon #pokemon piers x reader #pokemon swsh

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avelera · 5 years

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Chubby Newt being aware of how cold Hermann gets in the Shatterdome so he's always "accidentally" getting all up in Hermann's space to warm him up some.

This doesn’t include as much pudge mention as I would have liked but that was an unfortunate casualty of Newt’s POV, since it’s hardly something he’d notice on a normal day. It’s still fluffy as all get-out though, I hope you enjoy!

–

On the Risks of Sharing a Parka

Also available on AO3

Words:1,276

Ship: Newt/Hermann

Time and Place: Hong Kong, 2023 - Shatterdome Era

–

The weird thing about the Kaiju attacks, Newt mused, was that at some point they got… kinda boring. There was still that bone-deep horror of eldritch abominations duking it out against skyscraper-sized robots which were humanity’s only defense against utter annihilation, blahblahblah, but around hour four of standing on the rooftop of the Hong Kong Shatterdome in the tenth year of “the Kaiju War”, it became sort of like commercial air travel. Sure, you’re flying through the sky, thousands of feet above the Earth, in a tin can that defied early man’s understanding of flight and would have made Leonardo Da Vinci weep, but at some point you stop looking out the window and tune in to the in-flight movie.

Honestly, he could only imagine how disappointed fifteen-year-old-Newt would be with his thirty-three year old self for checking his watch when there were monsters fighting on the horizon.

It didn’t help that it was winter in Hong Kong and spitting cold rain down the back of his leather jacket even with the circus tent sized umbrella clutched in his hand. His breath misted in front of him and he had to take off his glasses every few minutes to de-fog them from his own breath. Most of the other personnel had left the rooftop already, trudging back to their workstations to wait for an alert that it was time to dive into action once the Kaiju went down (or worse, the Jaeger). This was the slog part of the whole song-and-dance, where the two behemoths just went at it, rock-‘em-sock-‘em style until someone fell down and yeah, it could take ages, but this was kind of the front lines of Newt’s field, so it behooved him to watch it live instead of on replay later. Especially since there was, y’know, a Kaiju attacking his back yard.

There was no reason Hermann had to be here though.

Newt squinted over at the guy through the fine mist of droplets on his glasses. “Dude, you’re shaking like a leaf. Do you wanna maybe go inside and get a hot Earl Grey or something? I can page you if anything happens.”

“I’m p-perfectly f-fine, N-Newton,” Hermann retorted and proceeded to shiver so hard he dislodged the raindrops from his umbrella which, conveniently, splattered onto Newt’s jacket.

Newt raised an unimpressed eyebrow and turned back to the fight. “Suit yourself.”

Crimson Typhoon feinted and spun, slicing its twirling blades across the face of the Kaiju, which barely flinched. Interesting, Newt thought and made a mental note to check the footage again later. Hardened carapace?

The sound of chattering teeth crescendoed beside him, loud enough to be heard over the pattering rain (or was it sleet at this point?). Newt glanced back at Hermann.

Hermann had pulled the drawstring of his hood so only his red nose poked out from a ruff of sodden fur and his fingers were white on the head of his cane. Newt never thought of himself as a nurturing kind of guy, but it was enough to tug at his heartstrings to see Hermann so miserable. He was perfectly warm by contrast, honestly pretty comfortable if not for the wet. His body ran hot and sure, that was definitely thanks to the extra padding, so his leather jacket was more than enough. Poor Herms on the other hand was skin and bones. He’d seen the guy tug on a cardigan on a humid Hong Kong summer day.

“Here, let me in,” Newt said and ducked under Hermann’s umbrella. He closed his own, tossing it on the concrete so he could begin pawing at Hermann’s parka. The damn thing was zipped and buttoned, of course, and Hermann gave a muffled squawk of protest.

“W-What are you d-doing?” Hermann hissed, though maybe the hiss wasn’t on purpose and more because his teeth were chattering so hard he could barely squeak the words out.

“Warming up,” Newt lied. He got the parka open and almost laughed at the sight of the bulky sweater or three Hermann had on under it. How the heck was this guy not boiling? Newt shed his own leather jacket since it was damp anyway and tossed it onto the railing. The damn thing was indestructible anyway, it would take a Kaiju to mess it up. Then he ducked inside of Hermann’s parka then turned around and zipped them both inside.

He hadn’t missed much of the fight, and honestly it was a little distracting how sweltering it was in there with two people, but he could handle it. He was about to settle back into watching when Hermann recovered himself and sputtered in his ear, “W-We look r-ridiculous. G-Get out of my coat t-this instant, G-Geiszler!”

Newt gave Hermann a frank look over his shoulder. “Not to step on your ego there, buddy, but I don’t think we’re the main attraction right now.”

Hermann grumbled at that, but subsided as the Kaiju in the distance made Newt’s point, stumbling and narrowly missing one of the harbor-side skyscrapers to the combined gasps of all the personnel around them. It was getting closer to the city. If Crimson Typhoon didn’t take it down before it made landfall, this fight was going to get even more ugly.

“I can handle the umbrella if you want to pull your arms in and hold onto me instead,” Newt said under his breath while everyone else was distracted. Hermann startled.

“W-Why would I w-want to do t-that?” Hermann squeaked. Dude, was the guy panicking, or something?

“Simple thermodynamics, you’ll… I mean, we’ll both be warmer if everything is in the same pocket, y’know, like mittens instead of gloves?” Newt said. He snaked his hand up to the collar of the parka and Hermann was strangely quiet, making no further protest and instead handed the umbrella over and let his cane fall beside them before pulled his arms inside.

His hands immediately found their way around Newt’s pudge, the touch tentative at first as if he expected Newt to bite or something.

“Dude, just grab on,” Newt muttered, quiet enough so no one else around them could, though they were down to barely a half-dozen J-techs. “Your fingers are like icicles, I can feel it through my shirt. If you put them under my armpits they’ll warm up faster.

“Y-Your armpits?” Hermann stuttered in outrage.

Newt rolled his eyes. “I showered this morning, you’ll be fine.”

There was some more grumbling, probably for show though who the fuck knew who Hermann was trying to impress. But his hands found Newt’s armpits, burrowing into the soft flesh of his chest and Newt had to bite his lip to keep from squirming ‘cause god forbid he gave away how ticklish he was, he’d never live it down. Gradually, Hermann’s shivering subsided as the inside of the parka took on tropical temperatures.

“See, you should listen to my ideas more often,” Newt said, because he had a reputation to maintain, after all. Hermann gave a sleepy mumble. His chin fell to Newt’s shoulder. “Hey, wait, don’t conk out on me.”

Hermann grumbled something indistinct and never, ever, in a million years would Newt admit how his heart flipped over in his chest at the puff of Hermann’s breath warm against his ears, or the feeling of Hermann’s arms wrapped around him.

They fit together like they were built for it, Hermann’s thin, concave chest against Newt’s admittedly much softer body. It honestly felt kind of perfect, enough that Newt didn’t say anything when he heard a light snore and felt Hermann’s weight slump against him. If Hermann was tired enough to doze standing up, he wasn’t the kind of asshole who would stop him.

Newt turned his attention back to the horizon and watched the battle rage on.

#newmann #pacific rim #newton geiszler #hermann gottlieb #so much fluff you guys even if it's pre relationship #Anonymous #my writing #chubby newt

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poorquentyn · 7 years

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Have you entertained the possibility that Euron may not end up being a significant part of the story? No dragon binding, no wall breaking, no confirmed connection to Bloodraven, etc. Just a minor-ish (yet very interesting) character.

Everything about how GRRM has written Euron “Crow’s Eye” Greyjoy suggests that he is a very significant character indeed, someone to fear and take seriously. This is true whether you’re talking about the setup before we meet him...

“Euron Crowseye has no lack of cunning, though. I’ve heard men say terrible things of that one.”

Theon shifted his seat. “My uncle Euron has not been seen in the islands for close on two years. He may be dead.” If so, it might be for the best. Lord Balon’s eldest brother had never given up the Old Way, even for a day. His Silence, with its black sails and dark red hull, was infamous in every port from Ibben to Asshai, it was said.

“Euron Greyjoy is no man’s notion of a king, if half of what Theon said of him was true.”

Aeron was almost at the door when the maester cleared his throat, and said, “Euron Crow’s Eye sits the Seastone Chair.”

The Damphair turned. The hall had suddenly grown colder. The Crow’s Eye is half a world away. Balon sent him off two years ago, and swore that it would be his life if he returned. “Tell me,” he said hoarsely.

…the way he’s presented when we do meet him…

“We shall have no king but from the kingsmoot.” The Damphair stood. “No godless man—”

“—may sit the Seastone Chair, aye.” Euron glanced about the tent. “As it happens I have oft sat upon the Seastone Chair of late. It raises no objections.” His smiling eye was glittering. “Who knows more of gods than I? Horse gods and fire gods, gods made of gold with gemstone eyes, gods carved of cedar wood, gods chiseled into mountains, gods of empty air…I know them all. I have seen their peoples garland them with flowers, and shed the blood of goats and bulls and children in their names. And I have heard the prayers, in half a hundred tongues. Cure my withered leg, make the maiden love me, grant me a healthy son. Save me, succor me, make me wealthy…protect me! Protect me from mine enemies, protect me from the darkness, protect me from the crabs inside my belly, from the horselords, from the slavers, from the sellswords at my door. Protect me from the Silence.” He laughed. “Godless? Why, Aeron, I am the godliest man ever to raise sail! You serve one god, Damphair, but I have served ten thousand. From Ib to Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray.”

The priest raised a bony finger. “They pray to trees and golden idols and goat-headed abominations. False gods…”

“Just so,” said Euron, “and for that sin I kill them all. I spill their blood upon the sea and sow their screaming women with my seed. Their little gods cannot stop me, so plainly they are false gods. I am more devout than even you, Aeron. Perhaps it should be you who kneels to me for blessing.”

The Red Oarsman laughed loudly at that, and the others took their lead from him.

[Here’s GRRM’s pre-emptive strike against Euron skeptics] “Fools,” said the priest, “fools and thralls and blind men, that is what you are. Do you not see what stands before you?”

“A king,” said Quellon Humble.

The Damphair spat, and strode out into the night.

Sharp as a swordthrust, the sound of a horn split the air.

Bright and baneful was its voice, a shivering hot scream that made a man’s bones seem to thrum within him. The cry lingered in the damp sea air: aaaaRREEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

All eyes turned toward the sound. It was one of Euron’s mongrels winding the call, a monstrous man with a shaved head. Rings of gold and jade and jet glistened on his arms, and on his broad chest was tattooed some bird of prey, talons dripping blood.

aaaaRRREEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

The horn he blew was shiny, black, and twisted, and taller than a man as he held it with both hands. It was bound about with bands of red gold and dark steel, incised with ancient Valyrian glyphs that seemed to glow redly as the sound swelled.

aaaaaaaRRREEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

It was a terrible sound, a wail of pain and fury that seemed to burn the ears. Aeron Damphair covered his, and prayed for the Drowned God to raise a mighty wave and smash the horn to silence, yet still the shriek went on and on. It is the horn of hell, he wanted to scream, though no man would have heard him. The cheeks of the tattooed man were so puffed out they looked about to burst, and the muscles in his chest twitched in a way that it made it seem as if the bird were about to rip free of his flesh and take wing. And now the glyphs were burning brightly, every line and letter shimmering with white fire. On and on and on the sound went, echoing amongst the howling hills behind them and across the waters of Nagga’s Cradle to ring against the mountains of Great Wyk, on and on and on until it filled the whole wet world.

“Crow’s Eye, you call me. Well, who has a keener eye than the crow? After every battle the crows come in their hundreds and their thousands to feast upon the fallen. A crow can espy death from afar. And I say that all of Westeros is dying. Those who follow me will feast until the end of their days.

“We are the ironborn, and once we were conquerors. Our writ ran everywhere the sound of the waves was heard. My brother would have you be content with the cold and dismal north, my niece with even less…but I shall give you Lannisport. Highgarden. The Arbor. Oldtown. The riverlands and the Reach, the kingswood and the rainwood, Dorne and the marches, the Mountains of the Moon and the Vale of Arryn, Tarth and the Stepstones. I say we take it all! I say, we take Westeros.”

Euron seated himself and gave his cloak a twitch, so it covered his private parts. “I had forgotten what a small and noisy folk they are, my ironborn. I would bring them dragons, and they shout out for grapes.”

“Grapes are real. A man can gorge himself on grapes. Their juice is sweet, and they make wine. What do dragons make?”

“Woe.” The Crow’s Eye sipped from his silver cup.

“What do you want?”

“The world.” Firelight glimmered in Euron’s eye.

…or perhaps above all, the visions GRRM grants us of Euron’s eldritch soul he keeps hidden behind that eyepatch.

“Have you seen these others in your fires?” he asked, warily.

“Only their shadows,” Moqorro said. “One most of all. A tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood.”

Beneath her coverlets she tossed and turned, dreaming that Hizdahr was kissing her…but his lips were blue and bruised, and when he thrust himself inside her, his manhood was cold as ice.

Clad head to heel in scale as dark as onyx, he sat upon a mound of blackened skulls as dwarfs capered around his feet and a forest burned behind him.

“The bleeding star bespoke the end,” he said to Aeron. “These are the last days, when the world shall be broken and remade. A new god shall be born from the graves and charnel pits.”

Then Euron lifted a great horn to his lips and blew, and dragons and krakens and sphinxes came at his command and bowed before him. “Kneel, brother,” the Crow’s Eye commanded. “I am your king, I am your god. Worship me, and I will raise you up to be my priest.”

“Never. No godless man may sit the Seastone Chair!”

“Why would I want that hard black rock? Brother, look again and see where I am seated.”

Aeron Damphair looked. The mound of skulls was gone. Now it was metal underneath the Crow’s Eye: a great, tall, twisted seat of razor sharp iron, barbs and blades and broken swords, all dripping blood.

Impaled upon the longer spikes were the bodies of the gods. The Maiden was there and the Father and the Mother, the Warrior and Crone and Smith…even the Stranger. They hung side by side with all manner of queer foreign gods: the Great Shepherd and the Black Goat, three-headed Trios and the Pale Child Bakkalon, the Lord of Light and the butterfly god of Naath.

And there, swollen and green, half-devoured by crabs, the Drowned God festered with the rest, seawater still dripping from his hair.

The dreams were even worse the second time. He saw the longships of the Ironborn adrift and burning on a boiling blood-red sea. He saw his brother on the Iron Throne again, but Euron was no longer human. He seemed more squid than man, a monster fathered by a kraken of the deep, his face a mass of writhing tentacles. Beside him stood a shadow in woman’s form, long and tall and terrible, her hands alive with pale white fire. Dwarves capered for their amusement, male and female, naked and misshapen, locked in carnal embrace, biting and tearing at each other as Euron and his mate laughed and laughed and laughed…

Of course, I get that not everyone is gonna love this stuff like I do; creeping cosmic horror is very much my wheelhouse. But looking at all of the above, I cannot see how anyone can come to the conclusion that Euron is unimportant to the plot and themes of ASOIAF. I think part of the problem is that Euron is keeping his true intentions hidden from the Ironborn (besides Damphair, of course), and so some readers were fooled along with the captains and kings. But the truth was always out there, and it became undeniable after “The Forsaken,” in which the monster wearing the pirate suit emerges, fangs glistening, for his closeup.

Urri shook his head. “Worms… worms await you, Aeron.”

When he laughed, his face sloughed off, and the priest saw that it was not Urri but Euron, the smiling eye hidden. He showed the world his blood eye now, dark and terrible.

#euron greyjoy #is a monster wearing a pirate suit #you don't write an apocalyptic sorcerer-king with such lush vivid imagery if he's not going to matter #'the forsaken' really should've ended this argument #asoiaf meta

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