#THAT WOULD ALLOW THEM TO LIVE A VERY LONG TIME AFTER THE VEIL WAS CONSTRUCTED
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Shadow and Veil-Chapter Eighteen
Summary: Eva Moore’s life was a carefully constructed fiction. Every day, she did exactly what her mother in law, her husband, and his best friend expected of her. No mistakes. And, that was going pretty well for Eva right up until a huge complication literally tried to run her over. Now, she’s faced with trying to keep the pieces of her life from falling apart while attempting (and failing) to keep her feelings for her husband’s new business partner at bay.
A/N: This fic is a sister-fic to A Need So Great and A Need Unleashed. You do not need to have read ANSG or ANU to read this fic, but there are Easter eggs from those fics in Shadow and Veil for readers with keen eyes. This fic is explicit for canon-compliant blood, gore, violence, and sex. As such, it is intended for an adult audience, only. A/B/O dynamics come with their own warning. Anyone under the age of 18 should not interact with this work. I do not consent to reposting this work to other platforms. Reblog only to Tumblr.
Word Count: ~4,200
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It started with a note on her door. Eva noticed it as she walked out of her bedroom that morning. 6pm. The Lounge. Wear a dress. Eva thought nothing of it as she went about her morning.
Her schedule was filled with meetings and one particularly boring lunch with Myra. She got a tiny bit of amusement from the way Myra wasn’t talking about how her son kicked the shit out of her after the party. Even after Eva asked how the discussion with the DA went and whether or not Lizzy’s presence had affected his interest in working with the company. Myra’s anxious tap dancing around the subject was the one bright spot in an otherwise banal conversation.
As she keyed into the house, Eva could hear familiar voices talking down the hall. She glanced at her watch. Five o’ clock. There was time for her to run upstairs and freshen up before figuring out what Josh wanted from her.
In her room, she stripped off her suit and stepped out of her heels before perusing the closet for a dress. Her fingers stalled over the pretty floral number she’d worn to the park. Eva didn’t like the way she’d left it with Horacio, but couldn’t see any way through it. He wanted something she couldn’t give, which put the both of them at an impasse.
A small part of her thought that maybe she’d overreacted. Since discovering who he actually was, Horacio had been surprisingly up front with her about what he was doing and why. She shouldn’t have allowed herself to get so caught up in her own emotions that she alienated the one person who might be able to help her.
Then again, that help seemed to come at a price that Eva wasn’t willing to pay. She ‘d never make it to the witness stand alive and Eva planned to live a very long life.
Deliberately moving deeper into the closet, Eva settled on a soft suede mini dress in a deep brown. She paired it with slip on flats in a similar color and went to the bathroom to refresh her hair and make up.
When she was finished, Eva took another glance at herself in the mirror. Her skin looked better than it had in a while. The bruising was no more than an easily covered mark on her cheek. She wished that her side would heal as quickly. Her injuries were a mottled green, still sensitive to touch.
Having done about all she could with herself, Eva flicked off the light and headed downstairs. The door was open and Alexei was laughing. She could hear Josh’s more subdued chuckle not far behind. Eva was grateful that they were in a good mood. Putting on a show for them would take more energy than she had to spare at the moment.
Standing in the doorway, Eva knocked three times and took four steps into the room. She folded her hands in front of her and waited to be acknowledged. Alexei looked up from something situated on the coffee table. Josh was leaning against the bar with a glass in his hand.
“Eva,” he said with glee, “Just in time.”
She didn’t need to look at a clock to know that he was right. It was six o’ clock exactly, as requested.
Alexei stood, “Busy day?”
Even as she shook her head, Eva was on her guard. Alexei never asked about her day. Neither did Josh for that matter. They didn’t care enough to even consider the question.
Suspicious.
“Good,” Alexei said in a clipped tone. He motioned her forward, “We have a task for you.”
After glancing at Josh for permission, Eva walked further into the room and circled one of the couches to stand nearer to Alexei. He gestured for her to sit and Eva dropped carefully down onto a soft cushion.
“I’m sure you’ve noticed that we are having some difficulty negotiating with our new friend, Mr. Jimenez.”
Eva held as still as possible, waiting for the task to be assigned to her. It was possible that they wanted her to figure out how to get access to his books, or his suppliers. Either of those things was doable, but might complicate her relationship with the man. Especially since she wasn’t exactly sure what kind of relationship they had after their last interaction.
“And, we,” Alexei waved a hand towards Josh, “have noticed that he seems to like you.” He paused, “If he likes you, maybe we can use that to help him be more...cooperative.”
She scoffed, “I doubt that.”
Josh pushed from the bar and walked over to them, “You’re right. We don’t know for sure. If you were prettier and smiled a little more, there wouldn’t be a question about it.”
That’s my husband, she thought, king of the assholes.
“That’s why we’re going to run a test.”
Eva tilted her head back to look at her husband, “A test?”
He sat next to her, closer than she wanted, “Yes. A test. To see how much he likes you.”
She let him tuck her hair behind her ear, forced herself not to cringe away from his touch, “What kind of test?”
“Alexei?”
Cutting a glance at the Russian, Eva watched him spin a case around on the coffee table so that it faced her. Alexei opened it to display a syringe and several vials. None of it was labeled.
“I don’t understand.”
Josh shushed her, “We’ll explain. This is the first viable batch of our new product. We’ve run preliminary trials and one successful human trial.”
“Semi-successful,” Alexei cut in.
As she stared at the case, a sense of foreboding crept across her shoulders and down her spine. Too slowly, Eva began to put it together. Her hands curled into fists on her thighs. She bit down on her tongue to keep the sound of fear from making its way past her lips.
Voice low, Josh said, “If he likes you, he won’t be able to resist the scent of you spiraling into heat. It would be impossible.”
She drew a breath, “You might be underestimating him.”
From across the coffee table, Alexei snorted, “I’ve been watching him. He doesn’t have a girlfriend, doesn’t even entertain the women who approach him. He’s been here for months and hasn’t taken a single woman to his apartment.”
It was nice to know that Horacio was turning other women down, but she could reason that away by reminding herself that he was working and probably didn’t have time to date.
“Maybe he’s gay,” Eva offered, “His friend, Javier, is with him almost everywhere he goes.”
Beside her, Josh laughed and wrapped an arm around her, “We thought of that, too. Sent a couple of our men his way. He turned them down, too.”
Thrown by their foresight, Eva couldn’t think of another retort that might justify Horacio’s disinterest in getting laid. Cornered, she leaned into an old reliable.
Turning to her husband, Eva gave him her most beguiling smile, “You said it, yourself, I’m not pretty enough to draw his attention. I don’t see what he would want with me.”
Undeterred by her rationale, Josh replied, “That’s what we’re going to find out.”
She stalled over that sentence for several long seconds with furrowed brows. It didn’t make sense that Josh couldn’t think of a reason Horacio would want her and yet still wanted to move forward with the test.
“It would be a false positive,” Eva offered, “A heat would trigger any alpha’s instincts.”
“Very good,” Josh replied with false praise in his tone, “We’re interested in what he does with those instincts.” A pause, “How he handles himself, so to speak.”
Alexei shifted on the couch and Eva flinched. Josh laughed and squeezed her tighter. It wasn’t until his other arm crossed her chest that she realized he wasn’t hugging her, he was holding her down.
Kicking out her legs, Eva tried to stand. Her strength couldn’t overcome Josh’s weight, but that didn’t stop her from trying. She wiggled and jerked and threw her body around with wild abandon. Loosing a loud grunt, Eva slid out from her husbands arms and to the floor.
On all fours, Eva tried to crawl towards the door only to have a foot drop hard onto her back. All the breath blew out of her as she was flattened into the shag carpet. The foot lifted briefly only to be replaced by a knee. Two hands pressed firmly into her shoulders. Eva couldn’t move if she wanted. All she could do was watch Alexei’s loafers as they moved ever closer.
“Sit still, Eva,” Josh urged from above, “It’ll only hurt a little.”
Tears pooled in her eyes as the hem of her dress was lifted to expose her ass. A pinprick of pain, the heat of an injection, and then Josh was pushing off her to stand. Eva lay on the floor until she could gather herself. And then she got her arms and legs beneath her and sat up. Blinking rapidly to clear her vision, she sniffed back her tears and set her jaw just in time for the doorbell to ring.
Alexei closed the case on the table and slid it beneath the couch, then moved to answer the door. Eva stayed put, monitoring every beat of her heart so that she would know when whatever they’d put inside her kicked in.
“Get up,” Josh ordered as he poured himself another drink.
Eva stared, unseeing, at the floor. In silence, she refused to obey. What he’d done was far worse than any beating. She was humiliated. Hot with anger and embarrassment. Eva couldn’t be bothered to care what Josh told her to do. Not with how much she wanted to grab the decanter off the bar and smash it over his head.
Slamming down the glass, Josh stomped up to her and grabbed beneath her arms. Eva let her body go limp as he lifted her, savoring the way he struggled with her weight. That didn’t stop him from throwing her onto the couch.
Mulish, Eva righted herself and smoothed the hem of her dress. She ran her hands over her hair and wiped away a stray tear. Then, she crossed her ankles and straightened her spine. There was still some dignity left inside her.
Alexei crossed the threshold first, Horacio not far behind. She didn’t have to look at him for more than a second or two to know he was Diego again. His mouth was permanently crooked into a smirk, his footsteps were slower and louder. Horacio would never wear that shade of red, especially not in a silk shirt.
There were subtler differences than that. Diego’s gaze was icy despite the easy expression on his face. His dominant hand was held loose at his side, ready to grasp the gun that was no doubt tucked into the back of his pants. He barely acknowledged that Eva was in the room.
“You succeeded.”
Josh, all smiles, approached with the offer of a drink, “I think we have.”
“You want the rest of the product?” Horacio asked, all business. “I can deliver next week.”
“Not so fast,” Josh replied as he led Horacio to the couch, “I thought you might like a demonstration.”
Only the slightest pause in his movements gave away Horacio’s suspicion. He accepted the drink and sat on the couch opposite Eva. It was only then that he seemed to notice her distress.
“Your wife is the demonstration.”
His voice was smooth and calm, not even his scent fluctuated. Eva spared him half a glance before she looked down at her hands. She hadn’t detected any changes in her body, but wasn’t putting any faith in the serum being a dud. Josh was way too good at his craft to let it fail, especially in front of his business partner.
“Good eye,” Josh complimented as he sat down next to Eva. “We’ve timed it perfectly. You’ll get to see the whole effect from the start.”
Horacio looked her over, “What effect? A crying woman?”
Eva’s mouth thinned and she glared at him. In her peripheral, Alexei laughed. Beside her, Josh pretended to soothe her by running his hand over her back.
“Give it time,” Josh said, “The subject was...resistant.”
The subject, she thought with ire, The fucking subject.
Alexei was suddenly in her line of sight, standing near the bar. He was watching her face carefully. Eva couldn’t tell what he might be thinking. His expression was neutral, icy eyes catching the minutiae of the emotions that slipped Eva’s control.
Reaching over to grab a bottle of vodka, Alexei poured two fingers’ worth and said, “Our deepest apologies, Birdie. For not telling you sooner.”
Josh cut his friend a glance that was more betrayed than angry. Alexei saluted him and drained his glass before pouring another. Eva licked her lips and tried to keep as still as she could. Her focus turned inward, measuring the beat of her heart, the rush of blood in her veins.
Both of which were increasing.
Eva inhaled. Josh’s scent, usually unoffensive, singed her nostrils. She turned her face away and tried to breathe through her mouth. The citrus and vanilla was overpowering and it made her want to gag.
“Are you sure it works?”
The droll tone, the easy dismissal, made Eva hiss through clenched teeth.
“It works,” Josh assured him, “Slow and steady, right Eva?”
When he moved to touch her cheek, Eva twisted away from him and stood on shaky legs. Unable to keep still, she rocked from side to side on the balls of her feet.
“We estimate the effects to last between two and four hours, depending on the size of the dose.”
Though she wasn’t looking at him, Eva could feel Horacio leaning forward to eye her critically.
His voice was interested as he asked, “What effects?”
She paced towards the bar, intent on getting a drink. Alexei stepped forward to stop her. Eva glared at him and tried to sidestep the man.
“I’m sorry, Birdie,” he intoned, “Can’t contaminate the results.”
“Fuck you, Alexei,” Eva muttered.
On the couch, Josh cackled, “See? Our Birdie would never talk like that to Alexei like that without our little project.”
Horacio was not convinced, “Rude words were not what you promised.”
“Patience.”
Eva stood there between the couch and bar, deeply embarrassed and working hard to control what was so clearly uncontrollable. Her body felt alien to her, separate. The skin on her arms and neck pulled tight. The hair along her limbs stood straight up. In her cheeks was a molten fire that worked its way down her spine and into her belly. The legs beneath her threatened to crumble under her weight.
And, above all, there was him.
Despite the distance between them, Eva could sense Horacio’s every breath, could almost hear his heart thumping in his chest. Tobacco and vetiver coated the inside of her mouth and nose. Eva steeled herself against the urge to go to him, to crawl into his lap and let him comfort her.
“Come here, Eva.”
Biting down on her lower lip, she went to her husband. He pulled her back onto the couch and held her with an arm around her shoulders. His free hand grasped her chin and forced her head up.
“Look at her,” he demanded, “Stage one, already.”
Eva didn’t know what ‘stage one’ meant, but she dreaded the stages that would follow. Her breaths were coming faster, now. And, every one of them tasted like him. His scent overpowered even Josh, who was right next to her. Eva felt as if she’d stepped right back into the woman who’d been standing with him on the sidewalk. Overwhelmed and frantic.
Josh’s touch was an affront to her most of the time, but now Eva could barely stomach it. She jerked her chin away, snarling when he moved to grab her again. Both hands encircled his wrist as she held him back.
“Don’t.”
For the first time in her memory, Josh looked genuinely proud of her. He nodded and disengaged her grip. Eva pressed her palms into her thighs and tried to catch her breath. Her lungs couldn’t seem to hold onto the air and the muscles of her stomach trembled to keep her upright.
“Stage two, I think,” Josh murmured. Then, “Let’s move things along.”
He snatched the back of her neck and threw her face down on the coffee table. Surprised, Eva screamed and tried to gain her footing. Two hands gripped the back of her dress and slid her to the side and onto the floor. Eva landed hard on her knees. The pain was quickly forgotten as she caught the change in Horacio’s scent.
He was angry. More angry than she was. She looked up at him, saw how much he wanted to use his fists to beat the shit out of her husband. Hell, Eva wanted to beat the shit out of him. But, even with her body careening frenetically, Eva knew it would destroy everything he’d built.
Something was wrong.
Eva was no stranger to a heat. While infrequent, she knew what they felt like, what to look for. There was a pain in her belly that was not normal. Crying out, Eva held her middle and curled in on herself. Her toes dug into the carpet, trying to gain traction against the feeling of being cut open from the inside.
“Is this part of it?”
Eva couldn’t even be bothered to respond to the concern in Horacio’s voice. The whole of her attention was focused on not throwing up all over the carpet. It would a be too dried in to clean up tomorrow.
“Don’t be a baby, Eva,” Josh bit out.
She yelled into the floor, tears leaking from her eyes. Her body shook. Twitched. Spasmed. Her vision was nothing but a blur.
“I take it this is not part your stages,” then, “She should go to the hospital.”
Movement behind her, “Alexei, get my bag.”
Careful hands lifted her so that she sat up. Eva’s head lolled towards the scent of safety until her forehead rested on a garishly colored silk shirt. Her tears would ruin it, which was probably for the best. It really was ugly.
Eva hated the shirt. She hated her husband. She hated that she couldn’t drape her arms around Horacio’s neck and make him take her out of there. Most of all, she hated that she could barely think past the pain radiating from her stomach.
A hand touched her forehead. It scalded her, despite the fever rising in her blood. Eva tried to pull away, but her muscles protested the effort. Horacio cupped the back of her neck and applied pressure to her forehead.
“She’s too hot. She’ll have a seizure.”
From behind her, Josh voice was suspicious, “And you know that how?”
With a soft noise of derision, Horacio replied, “You think I don’t know what an overdose looks like.”
“This isn’t an overdose.”
“What is it, then, doctor?”
Eva smiled a little bit at the sarcasm in Horacio’s tone. She was so used to hearing people treating Josh with deference that the utter disregard for his medical training was refreshing.
The longer she spent with her hands curled into Horacio’s shirt, the better she felt. The pain in her belly receded to a dull throb and her vision cleared. It left her with the residual tremble in her body and a weakness that made her so vulnerable that it scared her. Eva had no capacity to defend herself, no strength to play her part in front of Josh and Alexei.
She heard the Russian come back to the room and round the couch to kneel next to Josh. He opened the medical bag Josh kept in the house for emergencies. Her husband pulled out a stethoscope and she felt to cool metal land on her back as he listened to her lungs. Then under her arm to rest on her chest so that he could check her heart.
“Put her on her back,” Josh directed to Horacio.
Eva snorted, “Wasn’t that the point?”
She could tell that Josh was frustrated and angry that this wasn’t going how it was supposed to and Eva half expected him to slap her for the comment. He didn’t. Which was nice. Her head was already hurting enough as it was.
Eva eased onto her hip and then rolled to her back with the help of two pairs of hands belonging to two very different men. She blinked wearily up at three faces that were all looking down at her with varying expressions.
Josh was frustrated.
Alexei was worried.
Horacio was...well, there were several feelings flying across his face. He was, of course, concerned. But, the narrowed glances he was throwing at Josh were all repressed anger. If she inhaled, she could detect a softening of the vetiver into something warmer. If Horacio wasn’t sitting in a room full of his enemies, Eva knew that he would be coddling her. He would be holding her close and doing whatever he could to soothe her.
She was charmed by it.
And, that was about when her eyes rolled back and she passed out.
Eva woke later in her bed. She was lying on top of the covers and it was dark save for the light coming from the upstairs hallway. Sitting up, she ran a hand over her face. It came back grimy with the salt of her sweat and tears. Eva cringed and moved to stand so that she could shower.
That was when she noticed Alexei.
He was sitting in the chair next to her vanity. Eva stared at him in silence, wondering why he was watching her in the dark.
“Are you better?”
She nodded.
“Good. You were unresponsive for,” he checked his watch, “three hours.”
“Oh.”
He stood and she tried hard not to flinch. She followed him as he cross the room and sat on the bed next her. Reflex had her folding her hands in her lap as she waited to find out what he wanted.
“Josh has gone to the lab to test the serum against the control,” he said conversationally, “I’m sure he won’t be back tonight. Probably not tomorrow, either.” When Eva didn’t say anything, he added, “Despite your bad reaction, I think the test gave us what we needed.”
Eva frowned at him in confusion.
“Our Diego was worried about you,” Alexei asserted firmly, “Josh might have been too busy to notice, but I caught it. This is something we can work with.”
Compelled to offer a counterpoint, Eva replied, “Or, he’s a human being who cares about other human beings.”
He shook his head, “He’s as much a psychopath as I am.”
She drew back, “How do you know that?”
“Remember,” he answered, all confidence, “I looked into him. The rumor is that he has a habit of beating men to death with his bare hands—or, emptying a clip into them when he doesn’t have the time.”
Her mind detailed what Horacio might look like in a real fight. What his body could do to someone if he chose violence.
“Don’t worry,” Alexei soothed, mistaking her silence for fear. “He wouldn’t dare lay hands on you. At least, not like that.”
She didn’t like the innuendo in his tone, or the spark in his eyes.
“Its an opening,” he said. “We need more product and we need to get him to deliver.”
Again, Eva frowned, “He said he could deliver next week.”
“We need it in in five days.”
“So, ask him to deliver in three days.”
He smiled, “We already did that, Birdie. Diego was firm on a week.”
“Its only two days, Alexei.”
“We’re on a schedule.”
“I don’t see how I can make him get it faster.”
Alexei cast her a patronizing look, “You’ll ask. Nicely. Sweetly. Like a good omega asks her alpha.”
Her face scrunched in distaste, “He’s not my alpha.”
He laughed, “Yes. I know. But, you can make him feel like he is, can’t you?”
“I don’t know…”
Eva had no experience with seduction. And, despite what she already knew about Horacio, trying to trick him into doing something for her husband felt somehow wrong.
Alexei put a hand over hers. His skin was cold and dry. Heavy.
“I know you can do it.” He rose, “Get some rest. We’ll arrange an outing with him the day after tomorrow.”
And then he was walking out of her room and descending the stairs with an almost silent step. Eva tipped her head back and groaned to the ceiling. She was too tired to really think about what the conversation she just had meant for her. All she wanted to do was shower and crawl back into bed.
Standing on newly steady feet, Eva grabbed her robe and headed for the bathroom.
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Takenaka Kamiko (RO - HAWKS)
Takenaka Kamiko | 32 | Supervisor | Human | Full Romance
As the ideal role model for any Supervising Agent, Kamiko has perfected the art of emotional distance from Gifted Specialists. You may become fond of her quiet nature or be comforted by her firm devotion to those she lets into her heart.
Kamiko carries an authoritative air that further veils her beneath the quiet, unapproachable mystery around her person. Rarely does she give voice to her thoughts, and so little does she engage in a social manner with those around her. Her reserved nature lends her a keen observance to her surroundings and a tranquil presence in solitude- one that becomes riddled with a constant and subtle tension when in another's company. Pensive and disciplined, Kamiko prefers to envision herself as clay to be sculpted for a multitude of purposes and persons. A blank slate on which various people can project their values, ambitions, and ideals that she may advance in their steed.
Kamiko will not divulge personal information to anyone she doesn’t consider to be very close, not even to her fellow Supervising Agents. She feels an intense burden to protect her family due to the precarious position her actions have put them in. Most remain near her birthplace in Kamagasaki, Japan— and those who do not live beneath new identities constructed by WINGS. Her elder brother has been estranged for some years, and safety precautions have stalled all communications with her extended family. She does not mourn the loss of their company.
Kamiko felt the intense need for a purpose from a young age. The idleness of her mother disturbed her, and the obsessive work ethic of her father became glorified. It was not until her brother grew older and more independent that she discovered what this purpose may be. With no others to guard her sister from the dangers in their neighborhood, and her cousins soliciting or redirecting constant trouble towards them, Kamiko adapted quickly to being a stoic defender. Her grandmother encouraged her efforts in learning self-defense, and her training quickly earned her father’s admiration as his favored child.
Still, her mother’s condition worsened. Kamiko began to feel physically ill as she witnessed the woman’s immobile solitude. She kept herself occupied with menial labor and strict regimens in the streets to avoid keeping her mother company. It was through this exhaustive routine of self-discipline that Kamiko first encountered a Gifted. It was then that she realized the true danger of these semi-mythical beings.
She scarcely escaped the encounter with her life, but it is not the lasting scars that haunt her. She has come to accept these markings as a rightful punishment, and a symbol of her shame. Her fear of these scars nearly cost her sister’s life. Their ache reminds her to purge internal weakness. She cannot allow her vulnerability to take what she loves most.
Kamiko will not possess fear again - not even for her own preservation.
She doesn’t say why she refused to enlist for HAWKS training after this incident, despite her open desire to have done so at the time. Instead, Kamiko began a crusade against Gifted criminals through a career in law enforcement. Her exceptional talent caught the eye of the HAWKS on multiple occasions as she assisted their work in Japan. Yet her invitation to enroll as a Supervising Agent was still revolutionary due to her lack of specialized training since childhood. She accepted the opportunity with subdued pride.
Kamiko knows that her purpose may best be served here.
It would be a mistake for others to overlook her martial prowess based on appearance alone. Kamiko stands at a modest 5’5” and is notably thin for an Agent tasked with managing superhuman entities. Her dark brown eyes seem to be murky with unspoken thoughts, but little can be perceived from the stoicism of her petite features. The deep black of her brows contrasts sharply with the soft, light blonde of her long hair that she rarely releases from a tight bun or more intricate braided low chignon. Her porcelain skin bears faint scars beneath the uniform she conceals herself beneath. Her civilian attire is unexpectedly filled with formal gowns accented by minimal jewelry (a thin necklace and a pin for her hair, perhaps) and no makeup - she does not like how it feels against her skin. The impracticality of this preferred dress, however, deters her from ever wearing it around the base. Her aquiline nose adds a strength to her otherwise dainty appearance, and her lips tend to appear thinner than they are due to the slightly tense quality in her cold expressions.
Kamiko has resigned herself to a life without romantic companionship. Entangling herself in a relationship will only deter her focus from more imminent, important matters. In a practical sense, she would rather avoid the task of burying her heartache once her partner has inevitably expressed disappointment towards her constant work and reserved emotions. She dated sparingly in the past on the urging of another, but never received reciprocated commitment before circumstance ended the affair. And though there are the nights where she contemplates her loneliness till the sun rises above her, she knows that she will be satisfied at the end of her life as long as she serves those she loves to the fullest - whether or not they returned her love as she wanted.
Pursuing Kamiko will urge her to reevaluate her sense of self-worth. She does not yet understand the harm in exhausting herself for the sake of another no matter the cost to herself. But if you are to love her, and if she were to suddenly be lost to you or - worse - lose you because she has worn herself to the point of failure . . . she does not know how to reform her love to ensure mutual happiness rather than yours alone.
Familial Status: Estranged from some, friendly towards others, closer than anything with few. She would die for any of them.
Romantic Interests: She has long tried to erase her personal desires. Yet . . . She has struggled to silence the appeal she feels towards Sigmund. An appeal that is easily forgotten if you direct your attention towards her.
Closest Friend(s): Tsubaki and Hanzō. No others know this.
Friends: She does not desire friends. Neither does she need them.
Those She Trusts on Missions: Akil, Yadon, Nasrin, Sigmund, and Mutya. They have proven themselves to her.
Cautious Towards: All Specialist Agents (a.k.a. All Gifted Agents)
(Mostly) Cordial Towards: Akil, Nasrin, Yadon, Imka, Mutya, Sigmund, Niccolò, and Jae.
Hates: Elouan. He is all that she despises.
Rivals: All CARDINALS
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The Complete History of Eros Bay
Millenia ago, there were the Unknowable Entities. Five powerful beings that walked the Earth. All of them inspired different kinds of lust in the mortals that were in their presence. They had their fair share of followers, cultists that worshipped them. But as humanity grew stronger, they also had their detractors, which they began to find...annoying.
They were never in any danger from their detractors, they were too powerful for that, but as the annoyances grew, they decided to leave the Earth behind them. But the area around the spot where they crossed the veil between dimensions remained...unstable. The last spot to feel their presence remained influenced by their great power.
And, of course, the loyal followers of Cxad-Dian, Kh-Arporo, Ymbarath, Yg Vethon and Sp'kathog remained loyal to them. The coven of witches that worshipped them, whose High Priestess was Clara Bishop by the early 1500s, travelled the world for centuries before eventually settling down in the very land that their patron deities had left their world from. This happened around the year 1600. The coven settled on an island located in the bay, and used magic to make the island imperceptible to mortals. Clara Bishop and Nyx were among the witches in the coven when it settled there, and, over the years, Clara had two daughters in Jade (who went on to become a vampire) and Flora. A fallen angel known as Kayla also eventually joined them.
It wasn't until around 1650 that mortals began to settle around the bay. They named the bay Eros Bay, and the town that popped up there went by the same name. Due to the lingering influence of the Unknowable Entities (and maybe some encouragement from the witch coven), the local culture quickly became very sexual in Eros Bay. Even back in those days, sexual taboos became less taboo in Eros Bay.
Eventually, the town was divided in two. On one side, there was the child-friendly neighbourhood, and on the other, the adults-only neighbourhood, so the locals could fully embrace their sexual sides without having any children around. As the village became a city, the city center was founded in between the two neighbourhoods, and found compromise with a strict curfew: from 8pm to 8am the downtown district was adults-only, and children were only allowed there during the day. Around the same time as the urbanization of Eros Bay, they also started up their own university, known as Eros University. Locals tended to find it difficult to adjust to living elsewhere after growing up in Eros Bay, so being able to stay in Eros Bay for university worked out well for them.
On top of the city's local culture being sexual, the influence of the Unknowable Entities had another effect on it...in that it made the city alive. Literally. The city developed a consciousness of its own. In a sense, it became the sixth member of the pantheon of Elder Gods. Sometimes unexplainable events would happen across the city, doors being locked or unlocked on their own, signs suddenly having different text on them, sometimes a building construction would advance overnight and nobody would take credit for working overtime. That was the only influence that the city's consciousness was capable of for a long time...but eventually it would learn to take human form in the 21st century, going by the name of the Eros Bae.
Perhaps the sentient nature of the city also explained why some people would swear the city was located in the United States, while others would say it's in Canada, and others still would say it was somewhere in Europe. A sentient city didn't necessarily have to stay in one place.
Other oddities of Eros Bay include humans being born with altered biology (such as women being born with penises, and yet having bodies that naturally produce estrogen), and unique plants that have odd effects when consumed, or have pollen that induces arousal. Natives of Eros Bay also tended to have above average penis sizes, and remained in their sexual primes longer than people born elsewhere in the world. Occasionally, there were also people born with...abilities.
As for the more contemporary history of Eros Bay, there is the founding of Eros Industries. The company started out small in the 1970s, run by the Grande family since its creation, changing hands between members of the family every now and then, until Susan Grande took over in the early 2000s. She took the company to new heights, becoming a premiere tech company. It especially grew around 2010 when Nikki Lenz joined the company to work on her inventions. Their creations are mostly sexual, of course, their most popular product being a high-tech dildo that gives one the appearance, and feeling, of having a real penis. Their pleasure bot program that began in the mid-2010s also came to define the company's output, ranging from the high priced Stephie and Stephanie lines, to the much cheaper Peach line, and, eventually, the public-access Parcer line (who integrated themselves out in public, and customers simply need to purchase an app to control them and essentially rent them out) who also doubled as emergency responders to protect the people of the city.
The mayor of Eros Bay, from 2015 to 2019, was Katie Fox. Before that point, and after leaving office, Katie ran the Fox Strip Club & Brothel, a booming business located on the edge of the urban part of the city, in the adults-only section. She'd also been a movie star, and porn star, in her younger days, having left Eros Bay for a few years before deciding to retire from acting to return to the city. When Katie left office, having chosen not to run for mayor again, the next mayor was Casey Smith, after quite the eventful mayoral election.
There is also the story of the Winters Crime Family. Autumn Winters is a woman who always had strong ambitions. Born in Eros Bay, she went on a trip around the world in her early 20s, during which time she met and fell in love with February, the two getting married and settling down in Eros Bay in 2004. Then Autumn began to build her empire, with February's help. Their empire was mostly funded by the sales of drugs, created using the unique plants of Eros Bay. February's sister, Summer, eventually joined them, and took the Winters last name as a reward for her loyalty. Summer would eventually marry April, who would become the fourth leader of the empire. Autumn's sister June would also join the empire...though not of her own free will, Autumn having stolen some tech from Eros Industries to 'upgrade' June into a cyborg, one who was easily controlled. Part of what helped the empire thrive was also Lavender Summers...a woman who had odd reality-altering powers that was brainwashed into servitude by Autumn. But all empires must fall, and eventually, mostly through the efforts of a superhero that went by 'Lady Eros' (some claim Lady Eros was Nikki Lenz, but the two were seen in different locations at the same time, so that couldn't be true...unless Nikki had cloned herself), the Winters Crime Family fell in 2018. Eros Bay strongly believes in redemption, though, and, after rehabilitation, the Winters have become upstanding members of society in the years since. Autumn even became deputy mayor. If, perhaps, stories were to be written about Eros Bay, the time of the Winters Crime Family would comprise Volume 1 of those stories.
In 2017, Mia Madison moved to Eros Bay, and opened up a porn studio. It was truly a wonder that one hadn't been opened in the city before that point, but Mia soon made porn stars of a number of locals...
The mayoral election of 2019 was an eventful one, largely due to Ten Snow, the twin sister of April Winters, having attempted to co-opt it to enact revenge on the Winters for 'corrupting' April (even though they'd already rehabilitated themselves by that point). After that plan was foiled, the race was a close one, Casey Smith barely beating out Autumn Winters, which led to Casey offering the deputy mayor position to Autumn. The events of this mayoral election would, perhaps, make for a Volume 2 of the tales of Eros Bay.
A woman known as Celestia Nova moved into Eros Bay in the early 2020s, but she was not just any other newcomer to the city...she was a newcomer to the planet as a whole, an alien scientist eager to study human biology rather intimately. Luckily, it seemed many people in the city were happy to give her the intimate interactions she craved...
Throughout the history of Eros Bay, the Unknowable Entities, and the witches that followed them, did often appear in the mortal realm, taking the guise of being ordinary humans. Nyx had a fling with a mortal known as Juniper Jones in the summer of 1997, which led to Juniper becoming pregnant with twins (many years later, when this was revealed, Joy started learning to control her magical powers, while it seemed Jane did not inherit them), Susan Grande secretly had made a deal with Yg Vethon to help her company grow (in exchange for giving up control of her body to the Entity for one day every year), rumour has it that Autumn Winters perhaps had made a similar deal with one of the Entities for the sake of her empire's growth. In the 2020s, though, those appearances started to grow more frequent... Perhaps a Volume 3 was beginning...
#I made one of these ages ago but it was heavily fandom-based so here's one without the fandom influence#and also featuring more recent developments#Eros Bay lore#ooc
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Donna meeting a doctor/field medic who manages to reduce/eliminate the cadou parasite growth on her face- 👨✈️
Broken Truth (Holding a Granny Smith Apple): An apple a day keeps the doctor away...(Throws it over my shoulder and walks off to find some granola & yogurt)
It had been half a year since he arrived in the small Romanian village with nothing but a small bag of clothes, a leather doctor's bag, a pouch of Lei, and the smile on his face. For an outsider - he was well versed in the language and asked if there was any property that he could buy; he was given 2 small plots of land that were completely bare.
One the first month of his stay - he cleared the land of any imperfections and started to build. Upon his first plot - he made a home, a firm structure of wood and stone. The villager watched as he broke the stone into pieces and combined them with clay before sculpting them into a kind of paste and filled a strange wooden mold he made on the flattest area of the ground he owned. They watched as the man stabbed long wooden posts in each corner of the paste and some in-between of others. After a day of waiting - the pasta hardened into something as strong as the castle's stone.
Then began making the bones of his house to ensure it would be sturdy in the most unforgiving of winters and it would remain warm in the hardest of rains. Once the bones were placed - he built the rest of his house and used the remaining paste to fill any possible crack. His home was done but...empty. He went into town the next day and did business with a rather fat man who didn't wear shoes and his hands were drowning gems.
Upon the next 2 months - he built a business upon his second plot - a business that most residents of the village appreciated for he was a man of medicine and he was very good at his job. He spent a lot of time familiarizing himself with the land and the forest, along with the plants and berries to make different kinds of salves to relieve anything or...could he really heal everything?
The sound of the bell above the door made the man look from the clipboard he was writing on - he was taking inventory on which salves he was running low on. He looked upon a veiled woman in a black dress with a doll in her arms.
"Good Afternoon," He began as he placed the clipboard back on the hook attached to the wall beside the dresser, "Welcome to the [L/N] Clinic. What can I do for you?" The man asked with a smile but instead of the woman speaking - the doll did.
"This is Mistress Donna Beneviento - The Head of House Beneviento, 2nd Lord of the Village." The doll said.
"Oh, so this is Lady Beneviento? A pleasure to meet you." The doctor bowed before looking at the doll. "And what about you, Young Mistress?" The doll looked confused for a while.
"My name is Angie - Lady Donna speaks through me as she isn't very...trusting of humans."
"Understandable. I am Dr. [Y/N [L/N] - The owner of this clinic. What has caused the Second Lord to bless me with her presence?" The doctor asked with a smile.
"Have you heard of the Cadou?" Angie asked.
"Vaguely. I hear some whispers around about the word but I never really investigated much into it." [Y/N] said.
"The Cadou is a kind of living parasite that infects its host with incredible abilities but it changes its host in some of the worst ways," Angie explained.
"Allow me to assume - Lady Beneviento is infected with one of these Cadou and you wish for me to do something about it." The doctor said.
"Yes. The Cadou in Lady Donna's Link to me - it's the reason I am a living doll but it has caused a horrible scar upon her face that she wishes to be removed or at the very less, reduced in size; we're hoping it won't affect her abilities though." Angie explained.
"I think I might be able to craft a represent for the Cadou but I need a sample of it first." He looked at Donna. "Lady Beneviento, may I see the scar? If I can collect a sample of this Cadou, I can craft something to aid you." The doctor explained. There was a moment of silence before Angie spoke again.
"She shall remove her veil but she warns you - it is not good. Please, do not judge." Angie warned. With a firm nod from the doctor, Donna removed her veil and the doctor's eyes widened before a blush crept upon his face.
"Lady Beneviento...you are...radiant."
'What?' Donna thought.
"What?" Angie asked.
"Forgive my forwardness, but, My Lady, you are a marvel; a true masterpiece, even with your difference. You shouldn't hide such beauty." The doctor praised her with a blush on his face before he looked at the ground like a nervous child talking to his crush.
"You...You really think so?" The voice of the Second Lord asked.
"Most certainly!" The doctor reassured.
[Y/N] went into the back and retrieve two empty syringes and walked over to Donna - slowly piercing it through the skin of the Cadou that took her right eyes and pulled back on the injector to collect the blood infected with Cadou Cells before using the second syringe to take a sample of Donna's blood from her arm unaffected by the Cadou. He promised to find something and call them when he found something and gave them a bow before they left.
He was sad when they left.
[A Few Nights Later]
[Y/N] had not returned home as he looked through the two microscopes - the one of the left was a small sample of the Cadou Cell Blood while other one held the blood of Donna unaffected. [Y/N] had been working for 3 days straight - making sure to tend to his clients but he hasn't slept or really eaten a full meal. He wanted to help Donna.
This was this 5th Attempt at the Cadou repressant - he was sure to document any kind ingredients used in case his memory failed him. He dripped the dropper into 2 nliquified ingredients and plopped it on the slide of the Cadou Sample and his eyes widened as the cells reacted, changed, and began to shrank until they were nothing but small cells - the same as T-Cells. He looked between the 2 microscopes and was pleased with his results and made a note to call Donna in the morning.
'I can't wait to see them again.' The doctor smiled before he walked over to his office chair and fell asleep - his dreams filled with images of the Head of House Beneviento.
[The Next Morning]
"Lady Beneviento and Angie! I'm glad you both got my call!" The man said with a smile as the veiled woman and her doll entered his shop.
"A pleasure, Dr. [Y/N]. When we received your call this morning, we rushed over. We assume you've made promise." Donna said.
"Better than that! I constructed a Cadou Shrinkage - it will shrink the Cadou down to cellular level while still remaining within you so you won't lose your link to Angie." The Doctor smiled.
"And...you are certain that this will work?" Donna asked with slight fear in her voice but soon her hands were taken in the doctor's - they were warm and comforting.
"I swear upon my life, My lady, this will work." He said as he brought her hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles; making the dollmaker blush under her veil.
"O-Okay..." Donna whispered and the two of them went to the Operating Room.
[Hours Later]
Donna looked at her face in the memory - her complete human face. The Cadou Shrinkage was successful but due to it consuming her face for so long, her right eye was blind but [Y/N] assured her that he would be able to contrusct something to restore her sight; in the meantime, he gave her an eyepatch to cover just the eye. She thanked him and processed to gather living doll in her arms before turning to the door to leave when...
"Wait! Lady Beneviento..." She turned to look at the blushing face of the young doctor.
"Yes, Dr. [Y/N]?" Donna asked with a raised eyebrow - his blush darkened.
"I...Um...Have you eaten Breakfast, yet?" He asked as he scratched his cheek with the tip of his finger.
"No. I have not." She answered.
"Then...May I have the honor of taking you out for a late breakfast?!" He asked with a bright face and she smiled.
"I would love that." She nodded.
"Oh...Just fuck already." Angie groaned in Donna's arms.
"ANGIE!!!" Donna and the Doctor blushed before he closed up shop for the day and the 3 of them walked into the light of the sun with smiles on their faces.
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Ahh, werewolves, sometimes considered evil other times misunderstood. Really that's dependent on the pack they come from, how they've come to realize their condition, and how alone they are when it happens. Sometimes wolves are made, sometimes they're born, they're still people regardless, capable of evil and good... but even evil is a construct so the idea is sort of moot. Still, humans are not ready for the discoveries that one man has been capable of for eons. At least as far as Tomohiro was concerned. However, that did not stop him from creating roots in very specific communities.
With witches, dragons, fae, and many other things having existed in this world far longer than their legends have existed, all of which typically staying out of sight in the shadows and usually together for the most part. Things in this world are almost what mundanes would call normal. This allows the societies of the supernatural to live on without being subject to experiments or such. The few mundanes that do know of the world hidden behind the veil are either being integrated as new members of a race, having fallen in love with a member of a race and therefore have gone through trials to be trusted, dead, or are hunters of the supernaturals.
Though Tomohiro is certainly a peculiar human even among the supernaturals. He seems to be the only one who helps the supernatural in times of need or crisis, sometimes even individuals, without ever staying long enough for a reward. Almost making himself a cryptid of sorts. As far as he's ever been concerned, he's just lightly touching the world to edge into his favor. His kindness would be rewarded eventually and he's in no rush to make any claims. He likes to believe he's altruistic, after all, he doesn't have any specific rewards in mind, nor does he expect to be rewarded by anyone, it's more of a statistical expectation and a sort of pay it forward sort of deal. With his life seemingly never ending and his presence vanishing anytime he decides his visits to the world is over, he has ample time to let his favor accumulate, hence statistical expectations. Math, that's all.
After his most recent visit to the werewolves he feels deserve to continue their pack's line and traditions, as he doesn't want any unsavory supernaturals trying to muck it up for the rest of them, he stayed in a cabin nearby, at least for him, to the pack's territory. The night was a stormy one and he honestly just watched enjoy the weather. Rain has a nice pitter patter to it, and the smell was almost sweet, so he remained to enjoy himself, listening to the rooftops as the rain poured hard overhead.
He spruced the space up of course, cobwebs, dusting, and the like, no real need or desire to change the aesthetic or advance its technology or the like. He light the fireplace and lied down, enjoying the air.
@magical-boy-toys
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Sorry. YANDERE Conner from dbh
[ ♡ / ♢ ] Yandere!Connor RK800 hcs.
(god yes, FINALLY a dbh request… T v T thank you & please send in more if y’all have any.)
(t w: mentions of manipulation)
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» Connor would be an obsessive and a stalker yandere. When he falls for someone, it takes him a while to come to terms with these feelings. At the very beginning, while he comprehends the basic notion of romantic love, he isn’t wired to replicate it in any way himself nor is it relevant to the task at hand he was programmed for – he shouldn’t be having thoughts about it, but– you were the leading cause of him becoming unstable when he was still a machine, an indisputable error he couldn’t fathom why, nor he couldn’t confide in anyone about these issues at the time either, lest he risk the potential of being deactivated and dismantled. He wants to follow you home and make sure you’re safe in the midst of the revolution, but he has no excuse for doing so, not with Cyberlife monitoring his every action.
» “Do you feel anything for those deviants? …or for that human?“ Amanda’s thinly veiled accusatory tone spoke in his head.
» The most optimal thing would be to ignore your presence in order to stop hindering with his missions. He can tell his unexpected cold silence upsets you, but you should just accept he’ll be out of your life once he’s completed his objective.
» (you will be wishing he was months from then on, if only you’d seen the warning signs.)
» These feelings would resurface once he becomes a deviant and he comprehends them with much more clarity. This time, he doesn’t reject them nor make the mistake of pushing you away. Not again.
» He’s genuinely convinced what he’s doing is helping you. He starts off careful at first in his attempts to get closer to you again, but he would slowly become more and more dangerous without anyone else or himself realizing it.
» He would stalk you at every turn, with agility and stealth being one of his programmed capabilities, it’s unlikely you’d catch him in the act. He knows it’s an illegal offense, but he justifies it to himself as trying to keep you from harm – the shady alleyway you carelessly always take a shortcut towards when you walk home from work is far from the safest option. Don’t you realize you could get swindled, assaulted, or worse–
» Would find anything out about you on and off public records, family, past criminal activity, medical history and the like. He even has your entire schedule stored away in his memory. He’s already past the point of overstepping his boundaries, so the guilt over his actions has lessened slightly by then.
» It doesn’t stop there – he gives all your friends and people you associate with a thorough background search – with access to police database, he’ll find any potential incriminating evidence against them and get you to cut them out of your life. Your entire circle of friends is picked apart and only left with ones he knows aren’t dragging you down or causing you to get into unneeded trouble.
» There’s a smidgen of possibility he might not have become unhinged if he found out about you having a lover near the beginning of getting to know you –but after he’s spent weeks learning the best ways to care for you only to find he’ll never be able to have you, he isn’t going to let go of it that easily.
» He’ll just have to plant some false evidence of them being involved in recreational drug rings to have them arrested unjustly. Should that not work, his pre-construction program allows him sufficient amount of ways to make their death look like an accident – similarly, he can analyze the most optimal ways to make sure their body will never be found.
» Either way, when you’re going to be grieving at the loss of someone you’ve lost, you’ll come to seek solace with Connor. He truly hates seeing your eyes look so desolate when they’re normally so lively, but once an adequate amount of time has passed, he can make you whole again.
» He isn’t above using psychological manipulation, exploiting your insecurities and preying on your worst fears – trapping you into situations with said fears to make you paralyzed and panic-stricken, only to later play the hero coming to save you, as if he wasn’t the cause behind them in the first place.
» He gives you no reason to distrust him. Hank might notice Connor’s unusual fixation on you and comment on it, asking if there’s something he wants to tell him, even if he denies it. “Well, clearly there’s somethin’ you don’t wanna tell me, Connor.” but the android would simply brush him off, reassuring there’s nothing wrong. He has no LED anymore to give away his emotional state, so he can easily feign empathy with a straight face.
» Despite no longer being bound by strict parameters set by Cyberlife and imprisoned within red walls, he likes setting objectives for himself – his new mission is to protect you at all costs and do anything to make you the happiest you can be with him.
» No matter the end result of the revolution, the outcome will stay the same; Connor had long decided upon first signs of self-awareness he would do everything within his capabilities to keep you safe, preferably by taking you away somewhere confined from rest of the world. He would prefer for the two of you to be in a two-sided consensual relationship above all else, but he sees the former as a last ditch effort – it won’t matter however if Detroit is already on the verge of being in ruins.
» Connor is very into physical touch. He’s been mistreated majority of time as a machine by constantly getting punched and shoved around, mainly by hostile humans. It’s worthwhile once he finally gets you to stop hissing and spitting at him every possible moment upon arrival (kidnapping) to your new home (prison).
» He would only get rough with you if you kept fighting back at every turn, physically restraining you so you don’t try (and failing) to damage him or only hurt yourself in the process. With his agreeable persona it’s easy to forget he’s capable of being vicious and ruthless all the same – even if he wouldn’t ever lay a hand on you, you’re obviously no match for his android strength anyhow.
» His patience will diminish more and more if you keep trying to escape. He’s tried playing nice, but if you don’t respond well to that, he’ll just have to resort to other, less desirable measures.
» He doesn’t enjoy nor does he want to hurt you, so the most extreme lengths he would go to is slipping a sedative into your drink when he takes you away, or when he has to calm you down in other ways.
#dbh#dbh connor x reader#yandere x reader#connor rk800 x reader#detroit become human#connor rk800#dbh connor#male yandere#stalker yandere#yandere#ficlets#gif is by mikesmunroes but they've deleted their tumblr rip#pls tumbler i'm begging you not to yeet this from the tags
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When is the moment that The boys realize that the reader is the one they want to spend the rest of their lives with?
Billy Russo: After your first fight. It’s rare that he gets that riled up with women--since he’s such a notorious player, and he doesn’t reveal his true self to many--but with you... You just make him so mad and crazy and jealous and irrational, and it’s after your first fight, after you’ve stomped off in a huff and he slammed the door behind you that he realizes... Oh shit, I love this woman. That whirlwind of emotions he feels for you suddenly makes sense to him, and he has to sit down for a second to even grasp what that means. He calls Frank and Curtis in for a meeting, and he asks them what the hell he’s supposed to do, and they both make fun of him for a good ten minutes before Frank simply says: “Go get ‘er, Russo”. And so he does. And after the two of you talk, and he’s holding you in his arms again, Billy gets this incredible sense of peace and power and completion and he knows then that he will do whatever it takes to have you as his own for the rest of your lives.
Logan Delos: As soon as you make it clear that you like Logan, you care about him, but you don’t need him--he realizes that he’s in love with you. The fact that you have no ulterior motive to being with him, that you aren’t dependent on him, that you CHOOSE to be with Logan because/despite of who he is and what his name means, he realizes that he loves you. He literally dreams of his life with you, pictures you in a white dress and a veil, longs to prove that he’s worthy of you, your love. When he’s stressed or upset, he thinks of you and he’s able to calm down and reset. Just the thought of you grounds him, and Logan loves you for that.
Jax Teller: He realizes he loves you after you lie to the cops for him. He didn’t ask you to, and he actually wasn’t expecting you to, but you did. Jax sees how much you love him, and how down you are for him and the club, and he realizes that he needs you. He needs you to be happy, he needs you to be successful-as both a man, a father, and a leader. You’re the thing that he’d been missing in his life, that final piece of himself that his father never found in his own life. And just like that, Jax realizes that he needs you in his life, that he has to have you by his side--forever.
Coco Cruz: Coco knows that he wants to spend the rest of his life with you as he watches you sleep. He just woke up, and it was never his intention to just stare at you, but... You’re so beautiful. He can’t help but watch you in awe, so humbled by the fact that you allow him to be with you, that you’re so calm and vulnerable like this with him because you trust him. It’s overwhelming, but in a good way for Coco. He realizes then, as you turn and nuzzle into his chest, that this is where he belongs. He would do anything for you--kill for you, die for you, anything. He kisses the top of your head and silently vows to take care of you until the day he dies, holding you close as he too falls asleep.
Angel Reyes: When Angel sees the way Felipe accepts you, the warm smile on his father’s face as he greets you with a hug, how he calls you “mija”... that’s when Angel knows. He watches, a smile on his face and his heart feeling fuller than ever, as his father pulls your chair out for you, and in that moment--Angel gets an image in his head of you and him, old and grey, smiling at eachother. In his head, he sees a young man--a perfect blend of himself and you--smiling nervously as he introduces a girl to you, and... Wow. Angel blinks, coming back to the present, and that’s when he realizes that he is looking at the love of his life, the woman who he wants to be with for the rest of his days, and when you look back over at him, a smile on your face, he can’t help but smile back.
Miguel Galindo: Miguel is already in love with you by the time you come with him to a black tie event. But it’s when he watches you walk towards him across the room during the party that he realizes he wants to be with you for the rest of his life. You have such a natural air of confidence about you, something that you earned and constructed on your own, apart from being Miguel Galindo’s girl--and he can’t help but smile as he watches you. Your just that bitch, and Miguel can’t imagine having another woman on his arm, or at his side--you’re perfect for him, and he’s determined to keep you for as long as you both shall live.
Nick Amaro: Nick realizes that he wants to be with you forever when he sees you comforting Zara. He had been working late, so he asked if you could watch Zara until he came home, and you’d said yes. He’d come in quietly, not wanting to wake either of you, but he heard your voice. When he crept down the hall, he saw you on the floor of Zara’s room with her in your lap. He stopped and listened in as you told her that her Mommy and Daddy loved her very much, and that even though they weren’t married, they would always love Zara more than anything in the world. He watched as you kissed her forehead, tucking her back into bed, and his eyes welled up with tears when he heard his daughter tell you that she loves you. That was when Nick knew.
Johnny Tuturro: The first time you arrest him is when Johnny knew. He was undercover, and you came to arrest him, and he was so impressed by your professionalism, and your sense of humor... plus you looked like such a badass in your cop uniform... He watched you as he sat elbow to elbow with the others, his hands cuffed behind his back, as you walked around the local precinct, calling shots. You glanced back at Johnny with a smirk, and his heart flipped in his chest. He had always respected you as a colleague, but it wasn’t until that moment that he realized just how much he loved you. He wanted to be with you forever, and as he watched you, impressed and proud, he knew exactly which three, small words he would be saying to you when you got home.
Rio: Rio had been busy as hell for the last few weeks. He’d been working like crazy, and he hadn’t been able to spend too much time with you. But he wanted to stop by, so he did. You welcomed him warmly, kissing him and asking if he wanted something to eat or to take a bath or wash his clothes, and as he stared down at you--he realized that you were the one. You were the only person who just... accepted him and his lifestyle openly, who wanted him for who he was--not who he had or who he pretended to be. You never shied away from him, even on his darkest days, and even now--tired as he was, as inconsistent as he’d been the last few days--you were happy to see him. So when you asked him if there was anything he needed, there was only one thing he could think of: “You, mama. Just you.”
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Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you think! This is the only one for tonight, sorry I’ve been so off lately.
Everything Taglist: @sweetybuzz25 @mrsjaxtellerfan @rhabakoli @encounterthepast @realduckvader @justvnash @knowles-morgan @ateliefloresdaprimavera @evanlys19 @nyxxnoxx @carlaangel86 @luminex3 @jigsawlover10 @gollyderek @otomefromtheheart @lexxierave @crushed-pink-petals @amethyst09 @falsehopesndreams @a-dorky-book-keeper @witchygagirl @glimmerglittergirl @nich0lasmatthews @ben-c-group-therapy
#Billy Russo x reader#logan delos x reader#jax teller x reader#coco cruz x reader#angel reyes x reader#miguel galindo x reader#nick amaro x reader#johnny tuturro x reader#rio x reader#bre's boys#bre's boys preferences
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Super Bloom Part 2
A/N: A lot of you guys seemed to like the first part and I don’t think I ever really intended on it being just a one-shot! Here’s part 2, let me know what you guys think and if you have any feedback! I would love to talk to you about Kylo, or any Adam character in general. Thanks!
Kylo Ren X Reader (Intergalactic Soulmate Au)
Summary: So Kylo Ren is your soulmate, but there is so much you don’t know about him yet.
Warnings: Still mostly Fluffy, a little angst if you look hard enough. Soulmate irrationality. Hopefully in the next installment we start to find smut!
The soft sweet breeze that blew just for the blossoms in the temple lulled me into a calm, and eventually between the sound of Kylo’s heartbeat reverberating in his chest and the comforting lull in the conversation, I fell asleep. I was only awoken by the subtle movements of the man that lay beneath me. Refuting his movements from the comforting position I burrowed into his chest for comfort.
“My apologies sweet girl,” His rich voice swept over my senses with the name that bubbled deep inside me, in places I’ve never before felt, ��I can’t feel my arm anymore.” He muttered.
“We can’t have that, now can we?” I teased, sitting up to get another look at him, “How would you be able to protect me with one arm?” I goaded at his ego, anticipating a remark back on his skill, or maybe a jest on his health. Neither prepared me for the sweet rush of red that flooded his cheeks at my remark.
“We can’t,” He adjusted his position, “but I will always protect you.” He looked so intensely into my eyes and I could feel the truth in the statement. For the first time in my life, I felt absolutely safe, there was someone there for my well-being. For the first time. A small smile appeared on his face which brought me out of my thoughts, “what going on in your head sweet girl?” He tucked my hair back once again.
I hesitated to tell him my feelings, not wanting to show how inexperienced I was in the world of romance, or even just vulnerability. The only problem being him, his soft, expressive eyes make me want to spill my darkest secrets. They make me want to be better for him, to soften the exterior that had calloused from my loneliness. Divulge all of the melodic thoughts that danced in my brain while I locked myself away in the library, or all of the dark intruders late at night after everyone was asleep, or the private profound paradoxes that meddled into my consciousness. He was the other piece of my soul that found me in the vast galaxy, there should be no secrets, nor would there be.
“I have been alone for all my life,” I confessed to him, he looked surprised, yet pleased, “I have spent every year in the company of others, but been completely alone, and now?” I placed both my hands on his cheeks, cradling his face. His eyes shut, comfort washing over his features as I spoke, “Now I am whole, and I have never felt safer in my life.”
His eyes crept open, blinking back a mystery that lurked, “I would never let anything happen to you.” He connected our lips tentatively. I pushed back, allowing for the passion to tickle into our bones with every fervent push forward. His hands roamed once more and one landed in my hair, which locked us together, the other made its home on my back. The heat between us grew, his tongue prodding at my lip, which startled me. He pulled away again with a smirk, knowing my experience couldn’t allow me to go farther right now, at least not in the sacred grove that is.
“I wish we could lay beneath these trees forever,” He murmured softly below the wind, “But you wanted to change before dinner, and I have to finish my duties here.” He sat us up slowly, not to startle our senses by disrupting our blood flow. I sighed and wrapped my arms around his torso in protest.
“I thought you were in charge of everything, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want.” I pointed out in hopes he would let us lay under the sweet billowing trees for just a while longer. He merely chuckled at my thinly veiled attempts to stay.
“The only way to stay the supreme leader of the galaxy is by respecting the other planets when they’re complying.” He explained to me, and I only pouted, knowing he was right. “I can only use force and fear for so long before the galaxy sours.”
“Are you a benevolent leader?” I asked coyly.
“No,” he answered immediately, “Benevolence is for fools.” He explained, retreating into his shell somewhat. His features hardened and his eyes glazed to the past, his past, once more. I retreated, like him, away from the subject in hopes I didn’t make him too uncomfortable with the question.
I would like to know the man my soul has wound itself around a million times over, but simply that may lie waiting for the sake of our trust. I trust that he would not hurt me, I trust his ability of self-control that he has shown me, and I trust our souls to communicate that may not be visible to those around us. There is a storm brewing in this man’s chest, a dark windy cyclone circling his heart and I am now at the very center of it. Yet, I wish to be nowhere else than right here with him.
“Let us go then,” I said after some time still spent lounging in the light of our connection. “You’re right, I need to make myself presentable.” I groaned, not wanting to delve into the wide world of appropriate fashion. Some women studied the arts of fashion and exciting dress wear. I have spent most of my life in dresses for my sisters, and the other portion dressed like my father. There was the only security that I would not worry about what Kylo expects me to wear, as I am dressed casually today. I only hope he doesn’t expect me to own long lavish garments that took hours to construct in a distant galaxy. I am a woman of simple means.
“You would look presentable in anything sweet girl,” He murmured comfortingly, “For you, set the tone of every room you enter.” His words washed over me like a light warm blanket fresh from the sun. He knew exactly the worries that troubled my head and how to quell them. But I couldn’t relish in it for too long as Kylo wrapped his arms tightly around me to bring us both to standing.
Once I was on the ground, with my footing even and back to normal I gazed up at him. The sun shone from behind him and the trees, which he was slightly crouched under because of his towering height. His eyes searched for mine and when they met, he smiled lightly, allowing for his cheeks to wrinkle up endearingly. His face had such a capacity for pain for anguish, but also the bright burn of happiness. I smiled in return, reaching up to him to kiss the smile off his face. He allowed it, returning it even, with no hesitation or remorse.
Only then did he take my hand in his, guiding me from the sacred grove and into the temple once again. We were met with the sight of his six brooding guards, standing stock still ready at any moment to take down a threat. There were also two elders sitting on the far side of the room in meditation, calmly awaiting what I can only imagine was divine intervention. I had never been one for meditation, nor one for the stillness of the mind. I allowed the free flow of thoughts to come and go as the pleased ripping through my mind at imaginary lightspeed.
“Vicrul, Cardo,” Kylo commanded in ease of menacing power over his men, “Accompany her to her home.” He ordered once the two guards stood before him. He took a step closer, “If anything is to happen to her, it will be on your heads.” He instructed with the precision of a thousand knives slicing through the air and into their target. “Return her here before sundown for the feast.”
With his last instruction directed at the guards, he swiftly turned to me. His hands at my shoulders endearingly as he took in the sight of me once more. “Go get ready, and bring your things for an overnight stay on my ship.” He all but asked. “I would like to begin acquainting you with my lifestyle.” His hands tilting my head up to make it easier for him to kiss me again. Once that moment had passed, however, it was back to the chaos of the market streets accompanied by the two other strangers protecting me.
I learned very quickly that they were not talkative people. They were silent killers, intimidating in every sense of the word, and never in my life had a walk from the center of town been so quick. People moved away and stared, most of them knowing me my whole life, horrified for what the possible consequences I had created for myself. But no one dared to stop us or ask if I was alright, and if they did, I do not doubt that the two guards would slaughter them onsite per Kylo’s request.
So, with my head held high, I diligently swept the streets towards the home I had lived in all my life.
Once I arrived, Cardo and Vicrul of which I did not yet know the difference, murmured between themselves. The guard that carried the thick blaster attached to his left arm remained outside the door, and the other, the one from before with the long-curved blade, stayed by my side as I walked through the threshold.
My mother, who sat sewing in our sitting area shot up anxiously at the sound of approaching footsteps. Her small plump frame was somewhat relieved to see me but it was short-lived when she saw the guard tailing me from behind. She abandoned her small sewing project and wiped her hand on her small apron, anxiously pushing away her fizzed-out hair.
“Oh Hatchlette,” she sighed out as she rushed to give me a big hug, “Your father and I have been worried sick all day.” She swayed me side to side, fending off an onslaught of tears. There was a gruff noise from behind me, the guard was not amused. “Are you alright?” she held my face in her hands looking for signs of distress.
“No, mama.” I said bashfully, “I’m perfectly safe and healthy.” I reassured her moving into the sitting room farther, the guard shadowing me as I moved deeper into my home. “Where’s father?”
My mother only sighed as she moved into the kitchen to fill up a kettle with water, beginning to make tea for the guard in our presence. I found it quite endearing, the thought of a big brooding lethal guard like this having tea with my mother. “He is in the back, tending to the garden.” My mother said somberly, as my father only weeds the gardens when he is under great stress. I can’t even imagine what he has been thinking about as I lounge in bliss with Kylo. A rush of guilt began to eat at my heart from the inside out at the thought of making my father worry.
“I should let him know I’m alright but,” I turned to the guard behind me, “you should probably stay in here.” I felt bad for telling him what to do, but I don’t think my father would be more reassured by the brooding presence of Kylo’s men. My mother returned to the room looking between myself and the man shadowing me. “While I speak with father, do you still have Sennica’s nice dress?” I asked, knowing well Sennica had left it for me once I found my soulmate. It was the of the few dresses Anya was never allowed to touch. It was made for Sennica but now it was just mine, and for the first time in years the dusty thing would have its use.
“Of course, Hatchlette,” she spoke confidently with her endearment slipping off the tongue easily as it had since I was a child, “Go tend to your father, I’ll make tea for our guest.” Ever the host my mother moved to the kitchen once more to make tea for the guard to have him comfortable. I moved outside, half expecting the shadow to continue his protection there, but surprised when I saw him politely sitting in a chair near the middle of the room. I knew Kylo would have probably been angry for his new relaxation, but it was something I appreciated, as I knew this would be the most peaceful route.
I opened the door that leads me outside, and as soon as I had stepped out, I could hear the frustrated sounds of my father weeding in the garden. He was too entranced to notice my newfound presence, only focused on the task he adopted to ease his mind.
“If you’re not careful, you’ll pull up the entire garden.” At the sound of my teasing, he shot his gaze to me, ceasing his activity immediately. He stood rushing to pull me into a hug, similarly to my mother only a few minutes earlier.
“Oh, my little bud,” He comforted himself with my presence and his hands tremored as the hug faded, “I’m so sorry.” At his apology I stilled, becoming unnerved.
“What could you have to be sorry about father?” I asked plainly, as I had no foreseeable cause of his guilt. I found my soulmate, I have been having a wonderful day, it’s been incredible.
“I should have never let you go with that awful man,” His hands gripped at my arms tightly, and I became uncomfortable under his gaze. I moved away from him allowing the metaphoric and physical distance to grow heavy, “I cannot imagine the horrors you have witnessed.” He assumed so much, so much about the man who possessed a tenderness that I had never seen displayed on this planet. No soul had existed as deep and as wide as Kylo’s soul, and it was mine to keep, mine to protect.
“No, don’t say that,” I defended against his accusations, “I have had the most wonderful day father.” The light in my chest returned as I recounted the tender kisses and soft words exchanged under the sway of the blossoms overhead. “Please, don’t say that,” I begged softly for his approval.
“You don’t know, little bud, I have kept the darkness from you for so long.” He persisted moving towards me once again, trying and failing to have me see his views. He didn’t need to understand why my soul was made for Kylo, why we belonged side by side, but he could never make me change my mind. “There is so much you do not know, about him, the empires, the wars!” he emphasized.
“Then let me learn it from him!” I interrupted, no longer allowing him to decide for me. “I have been chosen for him, father! For this life, I will live at his side.” I began to retreat inside, not wanting to indulge him in more fruitless arguments, “I chose that willingly now, and no one else can make that choice for me.” I hoped that would help him, I hoped he wouldn’t hate me, or judge me, or think I was just some stupid girl following him blindly. I am not blinded by love, but love has allowed me to remove my blinders. I can see him truly for more than just what he shows others. I don’t know why he has been chosen for me yet but I am thankful. My father’s disappointment would break my heart, but Kylo’s absence would crush my soul. I reached the door back inside and turned back to look at my father, “Do not make me choose between my family and my soul.” Then I went inside and left my father to think of his words with the weeds pulled from the garden.
Inside the house, I found my mother laying out the dress I had requested while speaking with the guard, that was sat, quite prettily, in a seat drinking tea. I would have to applaud Kylo on the manners instilled in this man. It was not expected of him to entertain my mother in the way he has.
“Hatchlette?” My mother called out for me when she heard the door shut, “Is that you?”
“Yes Mama, it’s me,” I spoke softly, walking into the room and focusing on the dress she had hanging near the small staircase. It was a cream color with blue vines of flowers on it. There was soft lace on some of the edges and it made me feel soft, dainty. I can still remember when my mother brought it home for Sennica to wear to meet Patrik’s family. It was such a good luck charm that she hadn’t the heart to take it with her when she left. She saw the way my eyes widened like the moon and sparkled like the stars when I saw it. She knew that if anyone would do the dress it’s justice it was me, and for the first time since leaving her body it would be put to use again.
“Sennica will be thrilled.” My mother came from behind me and spoke soothingly. Her chin rested easily on my shoulder, looking over at the dress. “Shall we braid some of the wildflowers in your hair?” She offered, knowing I used to ask for it on every special occasion I could find as a child. “I think it would be a nice homage to your home as you leave it behind.” She said without making me feel guilty. She knew this was the natural way of my life, the way it’s meant to be. Yet, she couldn’t find it in herself to be anything but kind, to be anything but her true self.
“Yes, yes we should,” I confirmed, turning to face her once again. She suddenly looked much wiser than her years before her as she took in my features with pride, “What are you doing Mama?”
“I’m admiring my work,” its an old joke she had made maybe a thousand times, and yet she managed a chuckled from both of us, “We will miss you when you are gone, but you have always been too large for this tiny planet.” Her encouraging words quelled the fire of fear and doubt that my father had lit outside. I knew at that moment that I needed to blaze ahead, no doubts, no fears, only love and light. There is beauty in the new chapter, there is love, there is respect. With that, I climbed the stairs to a bedroom I had lived in my whole life. A room once home to three, then only two, down to one, and soon it will be empty. It will be ready to start anew, as I am.
My mother and I had to work diligently to get me ready, having squandered most of my day with Kylo, the sunset was fast approaching. The braids my mother made had small bits of white and blue wildflowers, that matched the dress, woven into it for effect. She helped me gather some things to stay with Kylo for the night, and she even smeared some colored creams of her own on my face to fix some of my blemishes.
When fighting against the time was nearly up, and my appearance much more graceful than before, I could hardly recognize myself. I was beautiful, and I could hardly wait for Kylo to see me like this, finally presentable for the man I wanted. As I descended the stairwell with my mother the living room was tense, as my father sat opposite the guard that had now abandoned the teacup in place for his blade. My mother only sighed and I made my way towards the side of the room with the exit.
“Wait!” My father called out, “No goodbyes?” He asked solemnly and for some reason, it sparked an irritable fire in me.
“I will see you tomorrow, I am only gone for the night.” I snapped back, harsher than I intended. “I only hope this time will help you see things from my point of view,” I suggested at the man, stubborn like myself, sitting across the room. The guard now stationed to my right began to move me out the door.
“I could only suggest the same for you little bud.” My father bit back, always one to get the last word. It only spurred me further out the door, where the second guard stood watch. The satchel I carried was taken from me by the one stationed outside, to alleviate the stress put on my shoulders. I wondered if that was part of the training, or if he had been trying to suck up to Kylo through me. It didn’t matter, because I was glad to have them flank me on either side, intimidating the masses out of the way of us. The walk was just as fast, if not faster, than the one earlier in the evening.
Once we made it to the temple, the large doors opened and the smell of the feast lingered on each of our senses. The men diligently helped me up the small steps as I adjusted to the small heel on my shoes that had slowed my pace. I would have to notify Kylo of their dedication to not only my comfort but my wellbeing. I hoped they were handsomely compensated for their troubles.
The guard’s dedication mattered until the sight of the guest of honor came into view. He was faced away from me, speaking with an elder about an old portrait that hung in the large room where the feast was held. He was pensive, stiff, commanding, everything about him sent a shiver up my spine. He had kept his helmet removed out of respect for the temple. He only turned when the sound of the door shutting behind us reverberated throughout the room.
When Kylo did turn, his eyes landed on me first, all trepidation and anger from my father’s actions, or my own insecurities melted away. His brown eyes softened, his normally pouted lips upturned in glee, his hands immediately unclenched from his side. All conversations he had ceased, as the guards and elders found entertainment with one another and Kylo moved towards me. His hand outstretched reaching for mine, as he asked the silent question, Will you come with me?
And there is no hesitation as I lay my hand in his palm. I met his gaze head-on and answered the unasked question the only way I knew possible, Yes.
#kylo ren#kylo ren x reader#reader insert#fluff#angst if you squint#trying to establish relationship so they can BANG#sorry i can only write soft men#soft kylo#daddy issues???#soulmate au
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Pairing: MadaraTobirama
Word count: 4879
Soulmate au: The one where every pair of soulmates finds each other in different ways or through different soulmate tropes
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KO-FI and commission info in the header!
Chapter 221
Watching the client who had come begging them for assistance with a typically ridiculous problem, Tobirama wondered what it would be like to have such an obvious connection to his soulmate as this man did. His already short sleeves were tied back even further as though to purposefully display as much as possible of the golden words flowing down the back of one arm, a greeting that must have been the first words his other half spoke to him. To have such easy proof of one’s connection, to know from the earliest ages that there was someone out there and how to find them, Tobirama could only wonder at the security this man must have felt in his bond from the moment he understood that it was waiting for him. It must have been nice.
It was also quite the pity for whoever had been the one to speak those words.
Privately Tobirama could admit that a small bit of the attitude he could feel bubbling to the surface was motivated by jealousy, petty retribution against someone who had something he wanted for himself. Out loud, of course, he wouldn’t be caught dead even hinting at such an admission.
“This is all very fascinating, Kirimoto-san, but I can’t help noting you have yet to explain what any of it has to do with Konohagakure. Were you perchance hoping to commission someone to record your story? Contracting a scribe would only be a D-rank mission, not the A-rank you proposed.” Lifting one eyebrow in judgement was probably going a little too far. If only he could bring himself to care.
“I was only just getting to that, Senju-sama,” their client spluttered. Anger flashed across his face but luckily for his continued health he was smart enough not to say anything. “The mission I came to contract your shinobi for is of vital importance! My son is a diamond among chaff; he deserves only the best! If the woman pressing suit upon him is truly so weak-hearted as to look at other men then she must be chased away!”
Tobirama blinked slowly. “And you wish us to…?”
“Why, to bring proof of her infidelity of course! I will pay the full price of an A-rank mission for two of your finest shinobi to approach her in disguise and seduce her away from my son! If her heart is as impure as I think it is then she will no doubt fall for such base tricks.”
He puffed himself up with the same false importance bred in to every idiot that had ever been born in the capital city, entirely ignorant of how little effect that would have on the one he was speaking to. When Tobirama got ahold of his brother he was going to throttle the man for taking today of all days off and leaving his duties to the next in command. Technically Madara would have been the next in command if he weren’t currently at home recovering from pushing himself too hard during training. No doubt that was exactly why Hashirama had taken the day off. Tobirama hoped the two idiots drowned in a teapot for making him deal with this particular client.
Despite his petty irritation he didn’t actually want to offend the man. Or at least not badly enough for the idiot to file a complaint that would bring another lecture down on his head about playing nice with their patrons. Several slow deep breaths helped bolster his patience until he could be certain none of the contempt he felt for this utter waste of time might show on his face; only then did he speak again.
“If you wish to pay for an A-rank mission then we will gladly accept your commission. Do you have any other information that might help us choose the two best people to accept this task?”
“You! I want one of them to be you!” For some reason Kirimoto-san felt the need to rise from his chair and point like there could be any mistaking who he was speaking to. They were, after all, the only people in the room. “I’ve heard all the rumors! Women from here to the capitol cry themselves to sleep every night over the hearts you break!”
Tobirama could feel one of his eyes twitching. He’d heard a lot of rumors about himself before but this one was new. Him? A country-wide heartbreaker? That went beyond laughable in to the territory of utterly absurd. If anything most rumors called him uptight and cold. Which, in all honesty, was certainly more true than the opposite. The last heart he broke was probably well back in his adolescence when one of his clanmates had taken some unnatural interest in him and refused to be turned aside with any gentler tactics than a flat out shredding of her ego.
Clinging hard to his temper, Tobirama bit down savagely on his own tongue before asking, “I don’t suppose I could change your mind on that? My duties here are many and rumors are easily blown out of proportion. Seduction is… not one of my strengths, shall we say.”
“Do...I want to know?” Hashirama’s voice asked in the same moment the door swung open. Their illustrious Hokage recoiled almost as soon as he stepped in to the room, eyes wide and confused upon being met with Tobirama’s acidic glare. Behind him trundled Madraa who looked a hell of a lot more put together than he had when Tobirama bullied him in to going home the night before with instructions to recuperate before he passed out over his own paperwork.
“Ah Hokage-sama!” their client bowed hastily.
“Hello! Um, honeypot mission?” The cringe in Hashirama’s voice was as obvious as the pain it caused him to think of his sibling in any sort of intimate context.
Unfortunately Kirimoto-san managed to speak first. “Senju-sama here has agreed to assist me in the matter I wrote to you about! All we need is one mo- ah! Perfect! You’re perfect! Pray tell, what is your name, miss?”
If nothing else. Tobirama decided while he was busily choking on his own tongue, that right there was worth the shame of having to take part in this ridiculous farce. Madara, to no one’s surprise, didn’t seem inclined to agree. His expression was particularly thunderous when he crossed his arms and leveled their client with a deadly stare.
“Uchiha Madara,” he growled. To Kirimoto-san’s credit he didn’t so much as flinch before breaking in to a massive grin.
“Even more perfect! A man! And here I thought I would have to pay extra for you to dress as one. Most excellent. It absolutely must be the two of you!”
Madara sneered. “I don’t think s-”
“Well now!” Hashirama spoke over him. “I’m sure you understand, my dear sir, that these two are my most valuable shinobi both administratively and in battle prowess. To allow both of them to be deployed on the same mission would be a serious detriment to our productivity - not to mention our security in the event of an attack.”
“But I must have them! Only them!”
“It simply doesn’t seem feasible. To fill the large spaces they would leave empty would mean keeping several extra people on active duty and I’m afraid the cost…” With a face of carefully constructed regret Hashirama sighed and Tobirama took a moment to reluctantly admire his brother’s ingenuity. People could say what they wanted about his overly active emotions. Very few ever realized how easily he manipulated them entirely because of that same buffoonery veiling their eyes to the wily genius underneath.
Kami forbid the idiot ever realize Tobirama admired that quality in him, though.
“Can I not convince you?” Kirimoto-san begged. “If it is a matter of cost I can of course make it worth your while to send them with me! Name your price, Hokage-sama, and I will pay it! Anything to ensure that my precious son lives his life only with a woman who will never betray him!”
The poor sod didn’t even seem to realize the mistake he’d just made as Hashirama turned to him with a beatific smile on his face and dollar signs in his eyes.
When he finally managed to leave the office Kirimoto-san’s face was as pained as his poor wallet was empty. Tobirama couldn’t find it in himself to even pity the man. Not when his own fate had been sealed with more than twenty thousand ryō above the typical asking price of an A-ranked mission. Regrettably, he hadn’t actually been lying when he said that seduction was not one of his strengths but apparently he would have to at least make an effort. It was hard to choose whether he regretted more that it would be a woman several years after he had finally accepted his preferences in the opposite direction or that, of all people, Madara would be there to watch him make such an utter fool out of himself.
“How exactly”-he demanded the moment their client was far enough down the hall not to overhear them-”do you propose I disguise myself? At the risk of showing my own ego, I’ll remind you that I do have rather distinctive looks.”
“You’re not the only one,” Madara growled with both hands going almost protectively to his extraordinary mane of hair.
Hashirama boomed a laugh that lacked even a shred of sympathy. “Oh I’m sure you two will figure something out! You could always wear a henge!”
“And if she’s chakra-sensitive? I notice you failed to even ask about that!” Madara reached out to smack his best friend across the back of the head for such an oversight. Familial bonds dictated that Tobirama should defend his sibling but, as he rather wished he was close enough to do that himself, he opted to pretend he’d seen nothing.
“Sorry! Sorry! I’m sure we can work out something that will hide your hair. Like a big scarf or a hood or something you could tuck it in to!” Hashirama drooped and clasped both hands under his chin. “Please don’t be mad at me!”
“That still leaves me,” Tobirama pointed out.
Both of the squabbling friends turned to him in consideration for several long heartbeats. Hashirama spoke up first with a bright smile. “I know! We can cover your tattoos with makeup! Geisha use white makeup all the time, I’m sure we can procure you some in a discreet manner!”
“Covering my face won’t do much good if my hair is just going to stick out like a fox in a henhouse. The only bloodlines left that produce hair this color are all shinobi clans and as much as I would consider it a complement to be mistaken for a Hatake, that wouldn’t exactly help me fly under the radar now would it?” he didn’t bother to list all of the other shinobi clans he would likely take insult at being mistaken for but his brother, thankfully, had enough tact to skirt that entirely.
Instead he went even deeper in to stupid territory because of course he did.
“You could dye your hair!” he crowed as if with the triumph of a great idea.
“I hate you,” Tobirama told him.
Without another word he swept out of the office, calling over his brother’s whining protests that since he was here anyway he might as well finish his own duties for the day. More than anything he was angered that Hashirama’s suggestion had actually been a logical solution and in the depths of his private heart he admitted that his irritation stemmed entirely from self-image. He didn’t want to dye his hair. He liked his hair. Call him an egomaniac but he rather enjoyed standing out from the masses.
Sending a clone to go pick out some dye from the infiltration core’s private storage room felt somehow less painful than doing it himself. At least when he received the memories of it the deed would already be done. Tobirama completed the handful of duties left unfinished at the tower and then left to wait at home for his clone to return. The first thing he did upon dispelling his copy was sit in his living room to study the instructions on the back of the dreaded box in excruciating detail. The only thing worse than going through with this idiocy would be somehow doing it wrong; this was already going to end in mockery one way or another, he didn’t need to give anyone more ammo than necessary. After making sure he understood exactly how to use the stuff Tobirama spun the box around again to study the color.
Maybe he wouldn’t look entirely terrible with red hair. If the stars aligned in just the right way he might be able to convince himself he looked a bit like his sister in law. The Uzumaki, now there was a clan he would feel no shame for having a connection to and it would certainly be a logical assumption. They did have a rather sizable civilian population.
Turning the box side to side in an effort to determine whether he thought the color looked like a natural one, he couldn’t help but let his eyes be drawn to the golden letters embossed near the very top, an elegant curling script that greatly resembled the letters Kirimoto-san bore along one arm. What would he do, Tobirama wondered, if at last he managed to discover his own soulmate and he wasn’t able to reach out because of this? He’d never been all that fond of undercover missions for just this reason. To meet his soulmate while he didn’t even look like himself, to risk that they might fall in love with a falsity. A deep sigh escaped him and Tobirama spun the box around so he wouldn’t have to look at the letters anymore. Everything about this mission was stupid - including the emotions he was letting it drag out of him. Best to just get this over with before he got too maudlin about things so far out of his control.
All told, including the time he took to pause and investigate the chemical compounds, the dying process took just over an hour and Tobirama refused to look at himself in the mirror until he had thoroughly rinsed the mixture out of his hair and let the whole thing dry completely. Only then did he finally approach the bathroom vanity with trepidation and lift his eyes to take in the horror of what he’d done. He had just enough time to cringe in distaste before the front door of his home slammed open with a bang that ricocheted down the hall.
“Tobi?” Hashirama’s voice called out to him in an oddly strangled tone. “You here?”
“Unfortunately.” At his reply footsteps hurried closer.
“We may have to apply a slight change of plaaaa-....ns...oh my.”
“Anija I swear if you finish that sentence after I only just finished this nonsense”-Tobirama jerked an angry thumb at his own mangled hair-“I will make you regret ever being born.”
His brother stared at him. Stared some more. Blinked several times and then continued to stare, all while Tobirama’s ire grew closer and closer to the boiling point. Finally he drew in a breath that rattled ominously.
“Come with me,” he murmured shortly before spinning on one heel and marching back towards the front door.
“Now hold on! Anija, what the hell?”
Annoyingly, Hashirama did not stop. His only concession was to pause long enough for Tobirama to tear an old jacket out of his front closet and pull the hood up tightly. Just because lots of other strangers were going to see him in this state didn’t mean he had to let all of Konoha in on his shame. Vanity, apparently, would need to be added on to the list of character flaws he hadn’t even known afflicted him until this thrice blasted village was built.
Where the hell they were going he couldn’t tell since the hood of his jacket was pulled so tight around his head that it obscured most of the world around him. On sense alone he guessed they were bound in a general southern direction but for the life of him he couldn’t imagine what existed to the south that had to do with his disguise or suddenly needed to be attended to the moment his brother saw him. Tobirama did try to ask, of course, but for once in his life Hashirama seemed to have lost his capacity for words. If only he could be like that more often. Well, if only he could be like that any other time but for now when Tobirama needed answers that none of his increasingly irritated questions were getting him. He did recognize right away when they entered the Uchiha district. Walking past the uchiwa-embossed gates always felt much like stepping in from the cold to a place with a thousand warm fires all around him. It was, he hated to admit, a very comforting place to be for a sensor like him.
It was also a great relief at the moment; Hashirama might profess to love the whole world but there were very few people he was actually close with and only one of them lived within the Uchiha compound. Tobirama frowned at the inside of his hood. It would make sense for them to go see Madara right now, he was the other half of this utterly ridiculous undercover mission, but it made no sense at all for Hashirama to be in this much of a tither over his best friend unless something had gone terribly wrong in the past hour since they had all been together.
How much trouble could one man get in to within the confines of their own village?
Despite how close the two of them were it was still a mild surprise when Hashirama let them both in to Madara’s house without so much as knocking. Tobirama wracked his brain trying to remember whether Izuna still lived with his brother while the two of them made their way down the hall. Since they were inside now, safe from the judging eyes of the general public, Tobirama allowed his fingers to loosen their hold on the material of his hood until he had enough vision to take in the home of the Uchiha clan head. Much more spartan than he had expected. If he were taking this first look a handful of years ago he would have expected bloodied weapons to line the walls and plaques bearing the heads of notable kills. He’d long grown past such childish assumptions but if he were honest he still would have expected this place to be a little more plush, a little more befitting the head of such a large and lucrative clan.
“Mads? Mads I’m back. Are you...okay if we come in?” Hashirama paused at the beginning of the hallway to gently wrap his knuckles against a plain shoji screen.
“End me now,” Madara’s miserable voice drifted out. “If a single person in my clan sees this I will never hear the end of it.”
“We’re coming in, okay?”
Hashirama waited just a moment longer to give his friend time for yelling if he was truly so opposed to them entering. When no protests came he nodded once and then opened the door, pulling Tobirama behind him as he walked forward in to the room.
Strange as it was to find himself in Uchiha Madara’s bedroom of all places Tobirama didn’t have time to even look around to see if the decor here was as barren as the rest of the house. He didn’t even have the time to ruminate on the odd places life had taken him just today. The moment he stepped inside the room all of his attention was riveted to the figure huddled on the bed with face in hands. Logic told him that was Madara. It sounded like him. Felt like him. His eyes, however, must have been playing tricks on him.
“The...hell...is going on?” Tobirama pulled his free arm away from Hashirama’s grasp to poke at him with confusion. “I thought you said he was going with the scarf idea? How the hell did you get a dye that color to saturate this much hair in such a short time? And for that matter, why on earth did you give him the same color as me?”
“Oh I didn’t do this,” Hashirama said.
“So he did it to himself?”
“No, I think you did it.”
Tobirama blinked slowly, one eyebrow rising. “I most certainly did not. You saw me when you came to get me, you know exactly what I’ve been doing since I left the tower.”
In his indignation at being accused he missed the sharp movement of Madara’s head snapping up to look at him for the first time since he entered the home. Busy as he was jamming a finger in to his brother’s side, he didn’t see those eyes zero in on him like a kunai finding its target but he sure did feel the weight of them. At first he ignored it - this was hardly the first time he’d been stared at - but when Hashirama managed to bat his finger away and pointedly indicated the man whose house they had just invaded he finally looked over.
“Can I help you?” he muttered, instinctively defensive under that much scrutiny.
“What do you mean the same color as you?”
His first reflex was to pull the hood tighter around his head. Then he realized how stupid that was. If the two of them were going on the same mission then obviously Madara would have to see him in this state at some point - and if anyone was going to understand the pain of having to dye his hair such a wildly unsuitable shade it would be the man whose head currently matched his own. A heavy sigh of defeat escaped him before, with great effort, he finally allowed his fingers to unclench so the hood of his jacket could fall back to reveal that his hair indeed was a perfect match for the ridiculous color of Madara’s. He expected the man to stare, of course. What he didn’t expect was for his jaw to drop and one hand to reach out blindly for Hashirama.
“You,” Madara croaked. “Go away. Now. I...I need to talk to...just go away!”
“Okay.” In a move possibly more surprising than anything else that had happened so far, Hashirama turned to leave the room as easily as that, not a word of protest. Tobirama watched him go with both eyes wide and blinking.
“I...how did you do that? I’ve never seen him leave so easily in my life. How did you make him do that!?”
Bed springs creaked and groaned like a symphony to announce Madara’s rise from the bed, eyes still locked on to Tobirama with all the intensity of the hawks he so enjoyed flying. He looked just as silly with the wrong hair color as Tobirama felt he himself did but something told him that mockery would not go over very well just now no matter that Madara was one of the few who could give as good as he got. The arguments they got in to were usually some of the highest points of Tobirama’s week.
“You dyed your hair.” Unfortunately his intelligence didn’t always shine through quite as obviously, such as moments like now when he felt compelled to state the very obvious.
“So did you,” Tobirama said with one eyebrow raised in judgment.
“No I didn’t.”
After a pause Tobirama canted his head to one side and lifted the other brow. “Well then I suppose I’ll need to get my eyes checked very soon.”
“No! Shut up, you don’t get it! I didn’t do this!”
“You’re claiming...what? Some kind of hair dye bandit snuck in and colored your hair when you weren’t looking?”
“I think it means we’re soulmates, you absolute fuck!”
“Oh.”
There were dozens of responses he could pretend he’d been expecting and that one would not have been even close to getting on the list. Tobirama opened his mouth only to close it, thoughts racing over each other in a jumbled heap because he knew exactly what Madara was getting at. Of course he did.
And of course the universe would be so petty as to give them a way to find each other only through humiliating themselves. Sometimes he really did hate other people for how easily they discovered their bonds. Not him, though, oh no. He couldn’t have a red string tied to his pinkie, he couldn’t have been born with the first words his soulmate would say to him imprinted on his skin, he couldn’t even have the moment of unquestionable knowing when he heard his partner’s voice for the first time. Because it was him and because it was Madara they just had to do things the hard way, waiting until one of them dyed their hair so the change of color could be reflected on their other half.
“That color looks awful on you,” was all he could think to say; perhaps a little too honest but from the very start of peace the two of them had silently agreed to never pull their punches with each other. Madara stared at him in disbelief for a half dozen heartbeats until without warning he burst in to raucous laughter.
“Seriously?” he demanded. “That’s all you have to say?”
Tobirama threw both of his hands in the air. “Well what do you want me to say? It’s not like I have some big speech prepared just in case I find out the other half of my soul has been riding around in you this whole time!”
“No? That’s almost surprising. You’re usually prepared for pretty much anything.” The smile on Madara’s face gentled his words from insults to fond teasing and Tobirama wondered how long the possibilities of this had been hiding right under his nose.
“I didn’t really want to go on this mission in the first place,” he mused. “Now I really don’t want to.”
“Because we match and it’s incredibly obvious that we shouldn’t?”
“No, dumb ass, because I just discovered my soulmate and I’d rather like some time to process that.” Tobirama rolled his eyes but there was a very telling hint of a smile on his own face as well. How could there not be?
Madara hummed and shifted his weight, coincidentally ending up just a little bit closer when he settled, though Tobirama chose not to point that out. “How much do you think it would take to convince your brother not to send us out?”
“Oh probably about a thousand yen more than whatever Kirimoto-san paid him.”
“Hn. I’d have to dip in to the clan coffers. And then I’d have to listen to the elders bitch about squandering clan funds. Ugh.” Madara’s nose wrinkled. Tobirama mirrored him if for no other reason than annoyance that he’d never really noticed how adorable that was. If he looked back on all the past interactions they’d had he would probably be able to drum up a thousand different clues that they were meant to be together.
Good thing he wasn’t the type to look back. Self reflection was so boring.
The problem of his brother forcing them to go through with this mission still was just something they would have to figure out later. Probably a very quick later since they were still expected to leave some time later that same day but still, certainly a problem Tobirama was willing to put off solving until he absolutely had to. If Hashirama was really so dead set on making them do this when he very clearly understood what situation was happening then he could come get them himself.
“Spot of tea?” Tobirama looked around as though he might spot a kitchen through the bedroom walls.
“Ah, yeah, I guess it would be polite of me to get you some, huh?”
Madara rocked back on to his heels and looked towards the door as well, the perfect opportunity for Tobirama to really look at him and take in all the little details he normally wouldn’t in another person, the shape of his jawline and the tiny amounts of baby fat that had never fully left his cheeks.
“It isn’t like you to be concerned about being polite,” he pointed out.
When his soulmate turned back to reveal an openly amused grin he thought maybe the universe did know what it was doing - but he was still a little annoyed that it had made things so difficult for him. Also quite annoyed that they were likely going to have to see this ridiculous mission through. What an absolute shame that he finally discovered his soulmate only for the poor man to bear witness to his complete lack of seduction skills all in the same day. He hoped Hashirama had already started running because he was going to murder his own brother for this.
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██████████████]99% LOADING...SUSPECT INTO THE APD DATABASE...
WITNESS(ES) SAY HE REMINDS THEM OF: the last plump dumpling on the plate that you and your friend fight over, the betrayal you feel when you drink a milkshake that’s too cold and get a brain freeze but it’s too good to stop, and the buzzing of a bumble bee flitting from flower to flower. With a slight resemblance to LEE JOOHEON (JOOHONEY) of/the MONSTA X.
CLICK BELOW TO VIEW ENTIRE FILE.
FULL FILE:
Last Name, First Name: Kkul Beol (actually his full name. He doesn’t have a surname)
ALIAS: Yellowjacket
Realm of birth(if earth, nationality): Divine Realm
Age: Unknown, but has lived 26 years in Earth realm
Date of Birth: May 20th (aka World Bee Day)
Gender: Male
Preferred Pronouns: he/him or they/them
Species: Spiritual Fairy
Occupation: The Howlers, Dealer
Sexual Orientation: Pansexual
VISUAL FILE:
Skin Color: Milky, pale
Eye color: Varies
Scars: None
Piercings: Ears, Dimple piercings
Tattoos:When he doesn’t have his wings out, they manifest as bold linework that follows along his shoulder blades and down his back. He has a colorful fairy pinup girl on his right inner forearm. A bumble bee design on his left upper arm that blends into a fairy circle tattoo on that inner forearm. Various weeds and flowers on his legs.
Hair color: Varies
Abnormalities: Since Beol can reinvent his physical form to his liking, his features may change on a whim. However, he does tend to stick to the same form, with only his hair and eye color varying.
Transformed form:As a spiritual fairy, Beol’s physical form is only a formality that allows him to better experience the world. His spiritual presence is formless and genderless. It is almost like looking at dust when it catches the light.
PERSONAL FILE:
RELIGIOUS BELIEF: N/A
SINS: greed / gluttony / sloth / lust / pride / envy / wrath
VIRTUES: chastity / charity / diligence / humility / kindness / patience / justice
KNOWN LANGUAGES: Korean, English, Gaelic
SECRETS: Beol manages to get out of being prosecuted for his crimes by charming the officers who try to arrest him with his fairy dust or using illusions to escape.
SAVVIES: drawing, getting tattooed, playing pranks.
Powers & Abilities: fairy dust manipulation, healing, wish granting (but it usually has a hidden caveat), semi-immortality, empathy, energy manipulation and absorption, energy barriers, energy blasts, malleable anatomy/shapeshifting, spirit physiology, illusions, intangibility, possession, telekinesis (via fairy dust manipulation), teleportation.
Traits: (positive) chipper, animated, fun-loving and playful. (negative) fickle, impatient, gets petulant when things don’t go his way, doesn’t realize his pranks can be harmful or perhaps he feigns ignorance.
Aesthetics: the last plump dumpling on the plate that you and your friend fight over, the betrayal you feel when you drink a milkshake that’s too cold and get a brain freeze but it’s too good to stop, and the buzzing of a bumble bee flitting from flower to flower.
BACKGROUND CHECK:
Date of Birth: May 20th, year unknown
Date of Death: N/A
Crime Record: Beol knows that he should avoid getting entangled with the authorities at all costs, but his innately mischievous nature contradicts rationality. He rather enjoys skating on thin ice when it comes to getting caught. When he was a “teen,” he often got in trouble for truancy, vandalism, and theft. Now, as an “adult,” he has to be far more conscious about getting caught. He has been charged with possession and possession with the intent to distribute, but - miraculously - has not served any jail time.
Background/Biography:
In a time long ago, Celts used to believe that when a person slept or entered a hypnotic state that their soul left the body in the form of a bee. Sometimes those souls got lost on the way back (or perhaps were detained) and found their way to the divine realm of the fae, where they would become what is known as spiritual fairies. Or at least that was the story Beol’s mother told them, but the reality was that there was no living fae who remembered exactly where they originated. Their mother would affectionately call them their ‘wandering little bee’ because Beol was an adventurous child who could never be tied down in one place. It came as no surprise to them when Beol decided to leave the realm they’d always known and venture out into the human world.
When Beol crossed over to the mortal plane, they embraced the incredibly different way of life with childish wonder and enthusiasm. At first they explored in their spiritual form and enjoyed playing all sorts of pranks on unsuspecting humans, but - as is typical of the fickle nature of fairies - that grew boring quickly. Beol eventually constructed a physical form so they could better interact with others around them. Being a young and playful soul, Beol chose the façade of a school-aged child since their fun-loving antics were very similar to his own. What he didn’t take into account, though, was that a parentless, vagrant child stood out and it wasn’t long before his friend’s parents became concerned for his well-being.
In his naivety, Beol didn’t think much of it when they’d asked where he lived and who looked after him, telling them that he took care of himself and stayed wherever he wanted. That naturally led to the police being contacted and Beol was placed in an orphanage until they could find a family for him. Truthfully, he could have simply flitted off and ventured someplace new, but the idea of living with other kids sounded like an eternal sleepover to him and how could that be bad? Of course, it wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies in the system. Many of the orphans came from broken homes and were passed around to fosters that were no better. They’d come back with new scars and bereft of their smiles, their innocence gobbled up by the darkness within others.
Beol couldn’t stand seeing them hurt. He could vividly imagine how they’d gotten each bruise like he’d experienced it himself and felt their anguish like a bottomless pit in the center of his chest. Yet he wasn’t powerless to fight against it like they were and Beol quickly went from using his abilities for harmless fun to avenging his friends. He would go out of his way to be assigned to their previous foster parents and would make sure to traumatize them so much with his illusion magicks that they never dared to take in another child again. While it did make him feel better, his habit of terrorizing parents tarnished his record and made him increasingly difficult to adopt out. Not that that bothered Beol. Sure, it was hard watching his friends eventually leave to go with loving parents, but protecting those that remained had become his responsibility and he knew he wouldn’t be able to do that if he left. Besides, he had parents and didn’t need new ones, even if his counselors never believed him when he told them.
As he “aged” into teenage years, Beol’s outer image evolved to suit his interests and style. He became close with the more rebellious crowd, other lost boys and girls like himself who couldn’t care less about authority or conforming to what society wanted. They spent more time in seedy pc bangs and back alleys sharing a pack of smokes than they did in school or hoping for families that would never accept them. It was around this time that he actually came out about what he really was and where he’d come from, though that identity seemed like a far off memory now. He was no longer a shade wearing the suit of a man and could freely embrace his quirkier side without worrying about anyone disapproving.
INTERVIEW QUESTION (para sample): “Just run us through what happened that night”. - Officer
This charade always amused Beol. Every time he found himself in this position, with an officer staring him down on the other side of the table in the cramped interrogation room, he wondered why their initial play was to put on this veil of ignorance. As if they didn’t already know what he did or have evidence against him. Did it actually work on suspects? He assumed that most people dug themselves into a hole trying to weave a pitiful fallacy with the same gusto as a scared child blaming the broken vase on the cat in the hopes that it would exonerate them. Beol, on the other hand, was a sophisticated liar and not burdened with the pressing need to evade something. He could phase out of the room right before their very eyes, after all. So the only reason he had to deceive them was simply because it was fun.
“Well, I can’t just start with last night, officer. That’s not how good storytelling works.” He countered coyly and rocked the chair back onto the two rear legs so he could kick his clunky boots up onto the table. Dirt and grime broke loose from the deep grooves in the sole and fell onto the open file set out before the policeman who was trying his best to see unperturbed, but Beol relished in the neigh imperceptible way his jawline tensed in annoyance. “It all began when my parents died in a tragic car accident and I was adopted by my rotten aunt and uncle. You know, they always told me my father was a drunk and that the apple wouldn’t fall far from the tree. So at least I’m exceeding someone’s expectations. Anyway, this one day, we went to the zoo for my cousin’s birthday and there was this enormous python-”
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the hunger of colonization
I transport the account of colonizer on my skin,
The karma of my ancestors, a vicious quantity left by the need to win
Every mis step taken is another memory within my brain
My ancestors did nought for creation… in fact they were quite vain
There is nothing I can do about altering the past
All I can do is put in sufficient exertion to make the change of energy last
My grandpa used to say, “ There are good Indians and bad”*
HOWEVER, It was on their backs that I’ve received everything I’ve ever had.
Whenever these words were spoken I would shut my ears off from it
pretend I was in my happy place and acquit them from all judgment.
I know now that doing that wasn’t the right decision
That I should have made standing with my friends my one and only mission.
The speeches they expressed around me never rested well in my stomach
I could see all the privilege I’ve been provided from it.
You may look at me….
and ask what backs behind me I see.
I see Grandmas and Aunts. Uncles and Dads.
Babies, friends and some very injured lads.
I see their home and land
being given to people because of the color of skin they had.
I know what it feels like to have your home ripped from you.
To only be able to look at a distance as your home is used without you.
Being told you were never welcome in the first place
That you need to leave so someone ‘better’ can take your space.
The words that left my mouth much were, “WHAT HAVE I DONE WRONG?”
“DID I NOT TRY TO TO EVERYTHING YOU ASKED, HAVE I NOT BEEN STRONG?”
When I opted to make my life about making things better,
I ungracefully untied knots that had always been together.
Knots within myself and the people around me.
Knots within the very constructs of society.
a lot of those knots never parted whatsoever,
A lot of the people thought their remarks were quite clever.
They really weren’t clever in the slightest.
A lot of their views were incredibly rightest.
The year right now is twenty one years past the millennium,
I still have aunts that worked and slapped kids in gymnasiums.
They hide under their veils and hoards of cloth.
Sitting around tables together to scoff
I know this to be true because I’ve seen it with my own eyes,
Resting over tables and telling each other lies.
The color of your skin should not dictate your worth.
Certain things should not be a guarantee from birth.
The path forward is curvy and long
The start of it wasn’t marked with the bang of the gong
For a lot of us this will be our lifelong matter
I really hope that at some point we can all work together.
My skin is pale and white.
but please understand I am still trying to do what is right.
There is no way in the world I could ever fully comprehend,
Id like to help with anything to try and make amends
Saying sorry does nothing at all,
It’s the actions that go with them that allow a person to stand tall.
If you filled a room with my family you’d see
Half of them are bending backwards screaming like Banshee’s
Their screams fill the room with darkness and hate.
Their ideas and opinions have become stagnate.
Its time now to hear the voices of those who were hurt
For me and my people to help them burn down the church.
This system was built on all of their blood and sweat
changing from residential schools to foster homes with very little and yet
Many middle fingers are still raised high
Justin Trudeau are we allowed to ask why?
Why was there an “Indian problem”** to be fixed?
Why is there so much internal trauma that’s so deep and all mixed?
People in these positions of power
doing the same over again despite the people getting louder
If the ancient Greeks travelled here to see democracy in action they’d cry
kneel to the ground and Throw their hands to the sky
“Why doesn’t everyone have a voice”
“We invented democracy so people would have a real choice”
If I had a child in the world today,
I would be so wary of the words people use around and say.
How big a deal it is to raise our babies into Earth Warriors,
never knowing pain and only being filled with wonder.
Full disclosure?
I have no idea what I am doing
all I know is I need to get behind what is brewing.
This us and them has gone on forever
you’d think after a few hundred years we would have gotten much better.
I read columbus’s*** journals in my first year of university,
A book wrapped in hate and providing much clarity.
“These people are beautiful” he wrote in his journal
“They would make excellent slaves” he said and I hurled
This journal entry has impacted the lives of you and me
These journal entries shaped our entire society.
At one point in time, I was racist
and all of my views were undeniably baseless.
I some times remember those views in the back of my mind
how can people who speak those thoughts ever think they are kind?
We need to tell people to stop spewing inappropriate garbage
Stop looking at all these people as targets and listening to their knowledge
There’s a man in my town who stands on a box with a mic
His speakers being over used with too much force and might
Babies and kids walk past him with their mothers.
Hearing from him that God hates their sisters and brothers.
Freedom of speech only goes to far
Human rights need to not be seen as bizarre
I come from the settlers of this land
coming here being promised something very grand
When I walk on the sidewalk people clear the space for me
If only they knew for them id take a knee.
I am starting to understand what it can feel like to be hyper aware of your skin.
To not feel totally comfortable in any space that you are in.
I have friends who are both one and the other.
Getting blamed by both communities for not being another
The internal struggle they wake up daily with is something we need to start understanding.
That being part of both communities should be something rewarding.
I used to be a day camp counselor,
getting to work with amazing kids every summer.
One week a child came in my care,
being sent with a rap sheet I was hyper aware.
The week started just like any other,
telling the kids the rules and to get along with one another.
He sat separate from most of the children,
asking every ten minutes to go to the washroom.
After the second day I pulled him aside to just talk
we ended up on the forest path outside and walked
The child was going to the washroom you see
To wash his hands it was not to pee.
“I do it every ten minutes,
because out of all the kids I am certainly the dirtiest”
He showed me his beautifully tanned skin and he sighed
feeling like all of himself was something to hide.
Tears filled my eyes and started to fall,
I didn’t think anything I had to say would have any pull at all.
this sweet baby in front of me was hurting so much it was a crime
To make an innocent child believe they are covered in slime.
“Baby boy I am going to tell you this once and very clear,
there is nothing wrong with your skin at all my dear.
You are a child unlike any other,
being blamed for the anger and called a great bother.
I see you my child
I see you so clear
You are so beautiful this breaks my heart and fills it with fear
I worry that someone else is going to say something like this to you
and that you will try to mend the cracks yourself with nasty unfit views.
When you stand in the pond out back of the center,
the tadpoles come to you like you’re an energy center.
The bees fly around you with so much glee,
I know no other person who has bees sleep on their knees”
We really need to get into everyone’s minds that being racist isn’t cool
and all of that knowledge hand off starts within our schools
If I had been educated properly maybe getting thrown into it wouldn’t be so bewildering
That colonization hasn’t done much good for the world, its sent us all spinning.
When I was growing up I was told there are three sides to every story.
That the truth was hidden somewhere in the middle of all the hate and swearing.
I think if we all just sat down and centered with the earth once a day.
We would all pay more mind to what these people say.
*This sentence isn’t appropriate and is incredibly wrong. I loved my Grandpa very much but his views weren’t right.
**Duncan Campell Scott said this in parliament quite a few years before Hitler announced that Germany “Has to fix the Jew problem” This is genocidal speech.
***we do not capitalize the names of those who do not matter.
By Thudthud
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Gold Beneath His Threshold
For @facialteeth
Summary: Although Clary goes to Idris with her mother and it looks as though the only one with a promising love life is Alec, a certain demon decides th dip his finger into the parabatai pie and stir things up. Results do not disappoint.
Pairing: Jace Herondale / Alec Lightwood
A/N: I hope you like your gift 💙💙💙
Read it on ao3: HERE
It started in his childhood and it carried through into his young adult years. Alec became convinced he was a favourite of the angels, even though sometimes they had an odd way of showing it.
One day when he was twelve, he found himself alone again, waiting for his mother in her office, having to receive punishment for his latest mess-up. He had gotten into a fight with an older boy who had been bullying him for months…. And he had won! He was shorter, smaller and younger, but he could take way more pain than the other boy. His bullying problem was now a thing of the past; the other kids kept their distance, knowing Lightwood was weird, but also willing and able to kick their asses. But for Maryse, that hadn’t been good enough. “We are Lightwoods, we don’t go around beating people up. There are other ways to solve conflicts! You are not thinking like a future leader, Alec!”
Later, it had been his father, calling him to his office to administer the punishment, and Alec had caught himself thinking, while he lay on his bed on his belly, because his butt and thighs were covered in red welts, that there would have to be one thing, one thing only, that made sense in his life. That made it all worth it - the humiliation, the being forgotten only to be remembered when he messed up even when he thought he did well, the hostility with which his own mother treated him, the feeling he was a mistake that should have never existed.
And the angels had replied right away. The next day, they sent him a ten year old boy - whom his parents decided to take in because he was Michael Wayland’s son, and Robert still felt guilty about his parabatai’s fate.
From the moment Jace walked into the room where Alec trained, roasting his technique, Alec felt like he’d been given sunshine to carry in his pocket at all times.
The boys became inseparable and soon Izzy was old enough to join them and keep up with Jace’s antics.
Jace was beautiful and smart and loyal, and he made Alec laugh and smile so much his cheeks hurt every day, which was a blessing after the increasing number of punishments he had to endure, both for his perceived shortcomings and for being the eldest and letting Jace get the three of them in trouble.
There was nothing he wouldn’t do for Jace. He took pride in it. He would stand in his mother’s office, thinking “you can’t punish me as much as I can take, just watch.”
But as time went by and they grew up, Jace also grew a spine for the three of them. He found it natural to talk back at Robert and Maryse, to question their orders and to tell them to back off when they picked either Izzy or Alec as an easier target for their brand of retaliatory discipline.
It was getting ridiculous, he said. You can’t send soldiers out in the field and expect them to do a good job if they are still wincing from their butts being full of welts. Also, there was a certain age after which it was odd to want your teenage child to bare themselves for you to beat them.
And it worked, because Jace was also fluent in the language that abusive leaders used, violence, coercion, veiled or overt threats and blackmail. He had been raised by a far bigger monster than Maryse could ever aspire to be and although his father had tried to shape him into the perfect, unfeeling killing machine, Jace had always had an unbreakable compass which was impervious to bullshit, but still allowed him to play along and make his abusers wallow in a sense of control until it was time to strike.
Alec felt overcome with a feeling he couldn’t quite identify whenever he looked at Jace. It was more than loyalty, maybe even more than devotion. He decided love covered it pretty well, but it was a big concept which contained all the facets of the feeling. Alec compared it to getting a really big box and going to the store, asking for a scoop of every flavour of ice cream.
This was why it didn’t come as a surprise to him when, one day as he was sparring with Jace and the younger boy had gained the upper hand, sending Alec to the floor and straddling him to pin his arms to the floor above his head, a wave of desire crashed into him.
Jace was above him, glistening with a sheen of sweat and panting, his golden hair sticking together in thick strands, damp with sweat. Jace looked feral for a moment, in prey to the adrenaline of the fight, but his eyes quickly shifted to reflect the warm affection he held only for Alec.
For the older boy, it was as though someone had sucked all the air in the room out. Everything was amplified and his senses seemed sharper, he could hear Jace’s heartbeat and couldn’t look away from his bare chest, rising and falling with the staccato pace of his breathing; he became painfully aware of Jace’s now hard peak nipples and his eyes traced a droplet of sweat making its way down Jace’s chest until gravity forced it to fall onto his own chest. Also, their current position made it so that their cocks were crushed together in a distracting way.
Alec closed his eyes briefly, letting the feeling wash over him. It made him buck beneath Jace and he made a pitiful sound, somewhere between surrender and panic.
“Is this you tapping out?” Jace asked, adjusting his position, pressing his weight even harder into Alec. This did not help their dick situation and Alec felt himself harden.
He nodded, unsure why he worried so much. This was Jace and Jace handed his ass to him all the time. Nothing special about the occasion.
Jace freed his hands and got up, releasing Alec from his hold altogether.
Alec stayed on the floor, sitting for a bit longer, wondering why being bested in combat put him into such a state this time around.
But then Jace used the towel he had brought to wipe off his sweat, then threw it at Alec, expecting him to catch it and use it too. The towel hit Alec across the face.
Instead of smelling like horse or old socks, like sweat usually did, Jace smelled like freshly baked bread, sunny summer days and everything that Alec associated with the feeling of joy. He barely caught himself and held back from burying his face into the towel and sniffing it like a cat with a valerian pillow.
Not long after that, Jace asked Alec to be his parabatai and obviously, Alec said yes. Obviously, because he could not picture his life without Jace in it anymore and they were better together in every way. Jace had the courage and confidence when Alec struggled with them, and Alec had the strategic thinking and the protective nature where Jace was reckless and impulsive.
***
They were considered grown men by Nephilim standards, but to mundanes and Downworlders, they were still young and inexperienced in many ways except killing and fighting.
This was why so many mistakes were made when Clary and the tornado of events she brought crashed into their lives. For one reason or the other, Jace seemed to lose all touch with reality and support Clary on her wild chases, risking their lives, their standing with the Clave and pretty much everything else.
Alec felt abandoned and forgotten again. He reminded himself that good things never last and allowed himself to go through a grieving process on fast forward, where at first he was angry at Jace and ended up resigning himself to having nothing and no one who cared about him in the way he needed. But he could not order his body or his emotions to fall in line with his new approach and that was the source of his constant pain.
Pain which gave him the worst, darkest goggles to see life through. He didn’t see that Jace panicked and saw the whole Shadow World burn in front of his mind’s eye when it became clear that Valentine had the means and the opportunity to wipe out every Downworlder in existence with one wish.
It was this desolate state Alec found himself in when he met Magnus Bane, the charming High Warlock of Brooklyn. Magnus did not have to give him attention, but he did. And he did not have to single him out and place him above everyone else, but he did that too. It felt good - of course it did - and Alec dared to smile again.
But Clary again muddied the waters. The way she was treating Jace was so entitled and impatient, bulldozing his needs and his past wounds just because she hadn’t been there to see him get them, so to her they did not matter that much.
Soon, Jace was hurting again, and since no one had taught him how to deal with that, he put the entire blame onto himself. He and Clary were no longer a thing soon and Alec watched his carefully constructed routine crumble again. Izzy had broken up with Meliorn and was trying to mutilate her personality into becoming Maryse 2.0. Jace hadn’t slept a full night in weeks and cried himself to sleep at night, only to be woken by nightmares and his own screams.
Clary soon chose to move to Idris to be with her mother. Jocelyn thought they would be safer from Valentine there and, for once thinking like a true Shadowhunter, she wanted to take the heat off the New York Institute and make it obvious to the Clave that the Valentine problem was not some fiction made up by teens playing around with runes and angelic relics, but a very real and immediate threat.
Before Clary left, Izzy planned a small goodbye party in the Institute events hall. Clary gave each of them a present, to thank them for their help and friendship.
To Jace, she gave two open-date tickets to the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, winking as she told him he would know when to use them. Jace hugged her and kissed her hair, the gesture looking more like what a big brother would do, rather than a lover. Clearly, that short chapter in their lives had not made the first edit.
To Izzy, she gave a letter from the Iron Sisters. Jocelyn had used some of her old connections and had gotten Izzy an invitation to visit the place where all Shadowhunter weapons were made. Izzy started crying and hugged Clary, making her promise to visit and send a lot of fire messages. She even promised Clary to finally look into installing Discord on her phone so they could keep in touch more easily.
Finally, to Alec, she gave a book, telling him it would answer his most pressing question for him when he got to the end. Alec looked at the book. It was “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho and he seethed inwardly. It was “Eat Pray Love” for people who had gone to college and Alec had heard about the book and its subject matter. He considered it a total wank, from what he’d heard. But Clary was leaving, so maybe, as a way of celebrating, he would ask Jace to let him use his tub and read the book front to back as a way to close the Clary chapter in their lives.
Life went back to normal after Clary and Jocelyn’s departure. Well. The new normal, where Alec was the only one of the three whose life and mental health were not falling apart.
He found time to go on that date he and Magnus had kept postponing. It was not… unpleasant, and Alec learned several things about himself.
One, he really didn’t do well with alcohol. And he didn’t care how childish it made him seem. Jace was the only person who didn’t constantly mock him for not liking to drink. Beer really tasted like ass. And so did tequila shots.
Two, yep, he was gay. Magnus was super pretty. But, for whatever reason, he couldn’t picture himself doing anything more than hugging and holding hands with Magnus. He had already planted a smooch on the warlock, as an act of rebellion against his parents and the Clave at his almost-wedding to Lydia… but he hoped being in love didn’t involve bricking it before every time a show of physical affection happened. Although, in fairness, not all intimate acts had the entire Clave watching closely.
Three, things were definitely going too fast and he had long lost control of the wheel. There was a madman intent on ending their entire world out there, Edom was gaining power, Seelies, Vampires and Werewolves were treating the Accords like a pamphlet and Warlocks were disappearing off to realms known only to them in preparation for the upcoming war. And there he was, Lieutenant Head of the New York Institute, getting his panties in a twist over the fact that a hot warlock wanted to take him home and fuck the living daylights out of him.
Which, in any other circumstance, would have been perfection. But although his mind tried hard to reason with Alec, pointing out that “hey, someone wants to bang you. No one ever wants to bang you. Do you really want to die a virgin? Because you will die sooner than you will find someone again”, his body put the brakes on the whole thing.
So, after their date, instead of going to the loft with Magnus, Alec told him he had an early morning meeting he had to prepare for. Upset by the perceived rejection, Magnus left, but not without making a polite exit. After all, he could understand cold feet. The reason he was so attracted to Alec was how special and rare of a creature he was. But he still left Alec with the tab.
The cute bartender who had seen the whole exchange pointed to the tap and asked Alec, “looks like it’s not your night. Want another one, on the house?”
Alec shook his head.
“Can I have a peach Capri Sun instead?” He asked.
Someone else took the seat Magnus had vacated next to him at the bar and pushed a hundred dollar bill across the counter to the girl.
“Actually, I’ll have the alcohol once you give the child his sippy cup. Make it a Devil’s Margin, please.”
Alec turned to look at the owner of that silky, dark voice. A tall man, dressed in black, everything designer and very expensive-looking, with an exceedingly attractive face and the tell-tale red glow in his eyes. A greater demon, Alec thought, freezing in his spot. He didn’t have any weapons with him, he had left them all at the wardrobe, glamoured, after Magnus had convinced him demons would not come crash their date.
“Did your date not go your way?” the higher demon asked, smiling in a way Alec would have read as… friendly, If it had been anyone else.
“What’s it to you? Since when do demons care what we do in our time off?”
“Since I’m the demon of desire and everyone’s desires are my job.” The demon said.
The bartender slid the Devil’s Margin in front of the stranger and smiled.
The demon took a sip from the drink and smiled.
“Excellent. Heavy on the alcohol, easy on the ginger ale. Just how I like it.” He said, producing another hundred dollar bill and handing it to the girl. “That’s all yours, baby girl.”
Alec watched the young woman fluster and blush, stammering a thank you and going away. He always found it so miraculous when other men were able to charm their way through life’s little exchanges and situations.
Jace would have done it even without the money, he thought, sizing up the man (demon) next to him.
“Look. I’m not digging for trouble… for now. I’m just curious. Do you think the warlock you were seeing is hot, Alec Lightwood?” The demon asked, revealing to Alec he had done his homework before he’d popped up.
“I will gladly answer all your nosy questions, demon, as soon as you tell me your name. Since you already know mine.”
“All in due time. Is it that hard to admit, is he hot or not?”
“Yes, he is, damn it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gone on a date with him, he’s been working so super hard to get me to go out with him. I never go out.”
“Mmm, interesting.”
“And again, what’s it to you?” Alec grumpily asked. If he was going to fry, he might as well get some answers first.
“Well, my volatile little Nephilim, my name is Asmodeus, prince of hell, demon of desire and Magnus’ dad.”
Alec gasped. Rationally, he knew warlocks were half demon, but he had always pictured the demon half involved one of those hideous creatures they slaughtered in dark alleys while on night missions. He had never considered the higher demons would wish to sire children with mortal women as well. And, looking at Asmodeus, it was easy to see where Magnus got his good looks and charm from.
“Are you here to tell me not to date your son?” Alec said. “Or to make sure that my Nephilim nature kicks in and does exactly that, to spite you?”
“No, not at all. I’m here to save everyone some heartache and to speed up some of my goals becoming reality.” Asmodeus said. “Do you want to date my son?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. I… I might not get anyone else. And he is a good man, who’s showing me attention where everyone else is not. He would love me.”
“He would watch you die after your short, violent little life. And then he’d mourn and move on. He’s immortal, Alec. You’re not.”
“Yeah, there’s that. But isn’t every lasting relationship like that? Even in mundane marriages, someone dies first and is survived by their grieving partner.”
“Mundanes have the comfort of thinking they get to meet each other soon.”
Alec stared at his Capri Sun.
“But that’s not all there is to it, is there?” Asmodeus pressed. “There’s something else holding you back.”
“Yes…” Alec said, sighing. “Something stupid.”
“Like the hmmm… allegedly unrequited love for your parabatai?”
“Why are you even asking me, if you know everything?” Alec covered his face with his palm briefly. “This is embarrassing. I can’t… I can’t do this.” He added and made to get off the bar stool to leave.
“No it’s not, and you can. Sit back down. I take desires really seriously. And I’m here to tell you it’s alright to be in love with your parabatai. You two do share a soul and I would be more surprised and disappointed if you two weren’t in love.”
“But… why are you so intent on my not dating Magnus? Because that is your agenda, I can tell.”
“It’s because of how difficult it is to see things from an eternal perspective. No matter how much Magnus and you pretend it’s not an obstacle, it is. And I am trying to get Magnus to stop seeking for fleeting connection in various mortals and to finally turn his face back to me, his father. I cannot wait to give him my wisdom, my experience… my power. But I can’t do that if he is always running around trying to please this and that mortal.”
“And you want me to turn Magnus down so you can show up for him? Why didn’t you do so before? Why didn’t you protect him and treat him well as a child?”
“I was misguided and hurt. I wrongfully took out my anger and my pain on a child who didn’t ask to be here. And since then, Magnus has been running from me.”
“Look. I don’t have the power to oppose you. But for some reason you seem to want to do it right this time. Listen to his wishes. He will come to you if he feels respected. It’s not that deep. I know one or two things about abusive parents. Once the trust is broken, and usually it’s broken over and over… it can’t be won back with a simple talk and a hug. It takes time to mend wounds that scarred over but never healed.”
Asmodeus smiled at Alec and put his hand over Alec’s nearest one.
“I knew you’d understand. As far as Nephilim go, you’re one of the wisest, even for your young years.”
Alec looked at the demon’s manicured hand on top of his and for a second, his mind flashed him an image of Asmodeus draped over him in a bed with cool sheets, buried to the hilt inside him, holding his literal life in his hands, their fingers interlaced as they gripped the sheets and moved together…
He shook his head. Asmodeus wasn’t playing. He really was the demon of desire.
“Don’t you just wish that was the Herondale boy?” Asmodeus laughed knowingly.
“Wayland, but go off.”
“Oops. I guess I shouldn’t have said that.” Asmodeus said with a wink. “But anyway. I wanted to talk to you not to dissuade you from dating my son, but to tell you that you’re bullshitting yourself. Sure, Magnus is wonderful and he would love you and everything. But you’re not in love with him. And I thought I’d spare you and Magnus a few years of heartache and suffering alone and in secret because you let things heat up too fast and then it was too late to say anything. You would so do that. Admit it - if not to me, then to yourself.”
“I… you’re right.” Alec said, taking a sip of his juice. “Too bad Jace doesn’t love me back.”
Asmodeus rolled his eyes.
“He does. And I know you won’t believe what the old demon said, but just… ask him. Ask him what is in those nightmares that keep him up at night. Oh, and… ask for one kiss. It will tell you all you need to know.”
Alec looked away. He had come a long way, he could pass for a great leader on many days, but asking for a kiss? From Jace? That needed working up to.
“You have to risk it for the biscuit.” Asmodeus said, shrugging. “Or, in terms you Nephilim folk prefer, no pain, no gain.”
Alec winced. He was trying to change that. Everyone outside the Nephilim society laughed at them and called them primitive for abusing their children to turn them into soldiers and for burning their own people for even the slightest mistake, until their numbers were dwindling. It felt like an uphill battle, but he knew it could be done. Unless the Clave really wanted to drive their race to extinction.
“Thanks for the insight… I guess?” Alec said and took a sip of his drink. When he looked to his side, Asmodeus had vanished, leaving behind only a veil of very high end Moroccan blend perfume, something with sandalwood, crushed rose petals and ylang-ylang.
Alec shivered. He’d survived meeting Asmodeus. And in theory it wasn’t a big deal, he’d killed greater demons before without thinking much of it, but Asmodeus was different. He was Magnus’ dad. He could have been his father-in-law, which would have made Easter lunches very awkward, for starters.
He paid what he owed to the bartender and she smiled as she cashed him in.
“Straighten your crown and go get’em. You’re a cutie, it’ll all work out for you.” She said.
Alec sighed.
“Thanks. There’s nothing about me that can be straight… but I appreciate the sentiment.”
He got his weapons and coat from the wardrobe and went back to the Institute.
On the way back, he was stopped by some unsavoury mundanes who wanted to mug him.
Alec asked himself what Jace would do, and what would make Magnus cringe the least. He ended up breaking all those men’s arms and legs and walking away while feeling a huge sulk taking him over.
To top it all off, it started to rain.
Soaked to his skin, now he really wanted that hot bath with a book.
When he went up to Jace’s room, it was empty and Alec decided it would hurt no one if he did run himself that hot bath and read the book from Clary.
As he gingerly lowered himself into the tub, the exhaustion and the stress of the past month hit him at full force. He closed his eyes and let the heat and the pine scent of the water seep into his bones and mind, relaxing him. Now he was starting to see why Jace loved to take baths so often.
He opened “The Alchemist” and started reading. He found the book easy to read through, since he was used to far longer and bigger volumes. The start didn’t impress him much, but by the time he got through the first twenty pages, he was hooked.
The ending moved him to tears and it made him think of his own situation. He was also sitting on a treasure, ignoring it because of preconceived ideas on how treasures had to appear and be revealed.
It was how Jace found him, crying in the bath, the foam having dissolved almost completely.
Jace ran over to him and knelt next to the tub, hugging Alec at once and kissing his forehead worriedly.
“What’s wrong, parabatai? What happened?” Jace asked, running his hands through Alec’s wet hair and smoothing it back.
Alec looked at Jace through his tears and he sighed. The surge of love and awe he felt just from seeing Jace again (and it had only been a few hours since he’d last seen him, at breakfast) was enough to tell him that Asmodeus had been a hundred percent right. He was so deeply, desperately and irreversibly in love with Jace, there was no use lying to himself and thinking it was wiser to stay away. Sure, giving in and admitting his love to Jace might bring some heartache, maybe some punishment too if they were found out, but at least they’d have each other. And he would have the one person he had loved from the day they’d met.
Alec took in Jace’s appearance. While he had been caught in the rain, Jace had been lucky and his clothes and hair were dry. He had gone and gotten his haircut refreshed, and it looked so incredibly good on him. Jace also wore a white shirt that subtly outlined his pecs and abs and tight jeans with his designer boots.
“The book was sad.” Alec said, feeling silly for saying the first thing that popped into his mind. It was a childish reason to give; they were Shadowhunters, they witnessed tragedy on an individual and global scale regularly.
Jace smiled and ran his fingers through Alec’s hair again, leaning close and kissing his temple. He also looked down at the discarded book. He knew it was the book Clary had given Alec and he also knew the plot. He had read it a while ago while waiting to meet a cute Seelie in a bookstore.
“Did your date with Magnus not go so well?” He asked, even though it pained him. Jace knew it wasn’t classy to be this petty, but Magnus having come onto the scene had changed his life for the worse by introducing the idea of competition for Alec’s love and attention… and the prospect of him losing.
Until recently, no matter how shitty the rest of his life was, he always knew he had Alec’s full attention, devotion and affection. Jace had been in love with Alec for a while now, and he had woken up one day overwhelmed with love for his shy and reserved parabatai after thinking for a long time that he was the straightest person in the entire Shadow World. Loving Alec was easy, because Jace wore a mask for everyone else and with Alec he didn’t need to. And even though Alec was very withdrawn and private, he reserved the best parts of himself for Jace, who had always needed to be seen and prioritised by someone. Now, with Magnus in the picture, he could see himself losing all of that and being demoted to “one of the others’’ in favour of the boyfriend.
He had already begun to resign himself to having lost the best and brightest part of his life. He had made it a part of his outward performance to be seen with many women and girls of all races, mundanes and Downworlders alike, but he could not bring himself to like or even open himself up at least a bit to anyone, in an unspoken (even to himself) hope of one day gathering his guts and telling Alec how he felt. But his father’s words rang in his mind. The way he saw it, “to love is to destroy” only worked if the love was expressed, fulfilled and returned. If it was just things one felt in secret and suffered from, it was fine.
Only now it was all lost. Alec was in love - with Magnus. And Jace didn’t blame him. Magnus had the balls to announce his feelings directly. Normally, he would have been this confident too. But he didn’t think he was worthy of Alec’s love. He felt that Alec would be getting a bad deal with him as a boyfriend. He was neither rich, nor powerful or famous. And Alec deserved to be treated like a king, not late night dates at Mickey D’s, eating McRibs with ichor-stained hands.
Lost in his little cinematic sad story inside his head, Jace didn’t notice Alec watching him and smiling.
“Actually the date with Magnus was great. I came back here after because it didn’t feel right to go to his place after.”
“Why not?” Jace pushed, feeling a masochistic need to hear more about the ways in which Alec was slipping away from him. “You like the guy.”
Alec looked at him pointedly and raised an eyebrow.
“Jace. You know very well I don’t like anyone. And I only love you.” He said, his voice becoming tinier as he got to the word “love”.
Jace’s eyes shot up to look at his parabatai.
“It’s always been you, Jace.” Alec said, forcing himself to maintain eye contact. “In another world, if I were any bit more different, I’d be strong enough to let the outside pressure get to me and move on, but I just don’t know how to be without you and I don’t want to either. I’ve been in love with you, in many ways that grew along the way, since the moment you walked into that training room and roasted my archery skills. I know to others I am weak for being so attached and needy, but… I don’t know how not to be, when it comes to you.”
Jace’s eyes were swimming in tears by the time Alec paused. He was still kneeling near the tub, one hand buried in Alec’s wet curly hair, the other holding one of Alec’s hands. He kissed the back of the hand he was holding, then lightly kissed each finger.
“I feel the same. I was so torn, Alec. You deserve the best things ever and I’m not that. I’m broken. I thought you’d be happy with Magnus, but selfishly, I hated the thought of losing you.”
It was Alec’s turn to caress stray strands behind a delicate ear.
“We’re broken along the same lines. Like shards of a mirror that show the same image when you put them together.” Alec said. “The reason I was crying is because Clary knew exactly what I needed to hear. Like the guy in this book, I don’t need exotic travels and treasures beyond imagining. All I need is right here with me.”
When their lips finally met, it was with no hesitation and no fumbling. Once they had made up their respective minds, there was no holding back for either of them.
“I want everything, Jace. And I want it with you.” Alec said in a heated voice, sounding breathless and overcome with excitement.
“Then come, let me show you,” Jace said, feeling a lump of emotion form in his throat, making it hard to speak. Seeing Alec’s courage to say how he felt had made him go all in as well. In just a second, his indecision and his fears and worries had vanished like fog under the sun. But even though the emotions were positive and bursting forth from his soul like sunbeams, he still felt tears well up and spill down his cheeks.
One word, one sign of reassurance had been enough. They were both getting what they wanted but had not dared to ask for.
Alec briefly thought of Asmodeus and his knowing smirk, but then he felt Jace lift him easily from the tub and wrap him in a big towel, not doing too good a job drying him before he carried him, bridal-style, to the adjacent bedroom.
He squeaked at being carried, but he still clung to Jace and rested his head on Jace’s shoulder, enjoying the attention from his parabatai.
Jace hadn’t considered sleeping with a man, whether mundane or otherwise, but he found that Alec felt as familiar as he did to himself, and everything came naturally to him, especially since he was focusing on making sure Alec had a pleasurable first time. In fact, it was their first time and it could only be amazing, like everything they did as a pair.
He undressed hurriedly and unselfconsciously, feeling himself harden when Alec watched him greedily, his desire increasing with each item that came off.
Alec looked like sin made flesh on Jace’s bed, naked and hard, panting and watching Jace, biting his lower lip and reaching for his parabatai.
“You’re the most beautiful being I’ve ever laid eyes on,” Jace decreed, giving his cock a loose stroke, his eyes raking over Alec’s bared form before he got onto the bed and scooted next to Alec, flinging a leg over him and straddling him. “And you’re mine. I’m going to make you forget other men exist.”
He reached over to Alec with two fingers, running them down the middle of his forehead, over his nose and further down to his lips.
Alec gasped and opened his mouth, his plush lips wrapping themselves around the roving fingers and dragging along the soft skin.
Jace felt himself leak a sticky trail onto Alec’s cock beneath him from how enticing Alec looked, sucking his fingers unabashedly, rolling his hips up to rub against Jace and wanting to wring every drop of pleasure from the moment.
Jace found he could no longer hold back and he leaned forward, his lips finding Alec’s. They again fused into one, their souls merging and flowing from one into the other and then back, in a loop.
“Shit, if kissing is this intense, I won’t survive being inside you.” Jace said, nipping on Alec’s chin, on the spot he had the scar in.
“Worth it. Can’t think of a better way to go.” Alec gave back, bringing his arms up so he could indulge in something he’d wanted to do since forever - running his hands greedily all over Jace, fingers carding through his hair, tracing his vertebrae as they descended, straying to his sides, his pecs, then his hips and then his ass. Alec felt ravenous - as though he couldn’t get Jace close enough, soon enough. He arched into Jace’s mouth and wailed at the sensation as his parabatai bit, then sucked a massive bruise into his deflect rune.
“Jace, I can’t… I’ll go fucking insane if you’re not inside me soon. We can explore later.” Alec demanded.
Jace looked down at their engorged and leaking cocks, rubbing against each other.
“Um… normally I should open you up slowly. It’s a really small hole. Can you wait?”
“I’ve been waiting since I was fucking fifteen. Get thee in me - preferably today.”
“Look, if I use runes, it might still sting.”
“I’m a Shadowhunter. Let’s see those runes.”
“Alec, are you sure? It’s your first time… it might hurt.”
“Do I look like I care? I get to have you for the rest of my life. Every time will be as special as a first time.”
Jace smiled, relenting at the passionate words. This was 100% his Alec. Hesitant and overthinking while weighing his choices, all in once he made up his mind. He allowed himself to fantasize about a life of belonging to Alec and to Alec only, and of Alec being his in the same way. He felt his heart fill up to the point of overflowing with love and he knew he wanted nothing else. Even if it was a short and perilous life, even if their destiny as soldiers against the realms of hell cleaved their trajectory through the world before it had reached its end point, it would be a life lived in the completeness of their bond, made stronger by their love.
He felt Alec’s burning gaze on him when he got out of bed to get his stele. While he retrieved it from his trousers, he wondered if, once Alec and him became one in every sense of the word, he would be able to activate Alec’s runes too with only his intention.
Only one way to find out.
Using the combination of runes he knew from Isabelle on her brother felt like the naughtiest and at the same time most rewarding sex thing he’d ever done thus far, and he couldn’t help but smile at the thought. It was so hot, watching and feeling his soon-to-be lover’s body become accommodating for him. Even the slight pain, which he could feel in the bond, was amplifying his aroused anticipation, as he watched Alec squirm and arch under the burn of the runes - which soon turned pleasurable, wringing a debauched moan from Alec.
“Please, Jace. I’m ready.” Alec said, sucking his reddened and glistening lower lip into his mouth briefly, looking up at Jace with feverish eyes.
Jace couldn’t have resisted if he tried. He knelt between Alec’s eagerly parting legs, taking the time to check if the runes had taken and if his parabatai was relaxed enough. He stroked two fingers over Alec’s opening and found it warm and pleasantly slick, which reassured him enough to delve inside. He moaned and squeezed his eyes shut at the feeling of Alec’s tight walls squeezing down on his fingers, picturing what that would feel like around his cock.
With his other hand, he gave his cock a few strokes, spreading the droplets of precome drooling from the tip and bringing it up against Alec’s entrance, pressing in while removing his fingers.
Alec closed his eyes and arched off the sheets as the head of Jace’s cock stretched him further than he had thought possible.
Jace took one of his hands and squeezed it, bringing it to his lips and kissing it.
“Breathe - deep and slow. It’ll help.” He whispered, before leaning down to kiss Alec while still pushing in.
He could feel the same burn his parabatai felt in his body and he wondered at the force of Alec’s need for him. There would be so many other times when they could live out all their desires and fantasies, but for now it was about Alec and what he wanted.
“Fuck, Alec. You are so tight it’s unreal.” Jace said when he bottomed out. He was now buried to the hilt inside his parabatai and the bond flared between them, its flame switching from pale blue to bright gold.
Both boys got hit by the intensity of the transmutation. Their bond was now something different, stronger and new in a way they couldn’t have anticipated. They had both been warned by the Silent Brothers at their ceremony not to fall and commit Eros, lest they draw the angels’ wrath and the parabatai curse onto them. But, as time passed and they grew up, they had both learned the curse was a scaretale used to enforce the Clave’s disapproval of same sex relationships and to secure Clave control over parabatai pairs and their abilities as warriors. He Clave wanted them good, but not too good.
“Do you feel… that… too?” Jace asked in awe.
“Yes, I do. I feel you, as a part of me.” Alec said breathlessly. “Please, move. I want it all.”
Jace propped himself up on his hands on Alec’s chest and started to move, picking up pace quickly.
“Angels, Alec.You feel divine.” Jace whispered. His entire world had narrowed down to Alec beneath him. But even that wasn’t enough and he sat back on his heels, pulling Alec up in his lap until they were wrapped around each other, their limbs woven together like the petals of a lotus.
Jace had never really enjoyed a connection with someone before here and now, with Alec. Sex had always been yet another performance to persuade the world that the great Jace Wayland was as perfect and as unattainable as they wanted him to be, the fantasy superhero all of Idris wanted to believe in and parade as an example. If he could have had his choice, he would have not shared his body with anyone unless he felt drawn to do so. But as it were, everyone else had always seen him as a shiny trinket to collect, a fetish to experiment with, a fantasy to conquer. All but Alec.
“Jace! I’m c-close.” Alec pressed out while the force of Jace’s upward thrusts into him bounced him on Jace’s lap. “Come with me!”
Jace nodded with a growl and changed their position again, having them lie down face to face, up close and still entwined as they’d been just moments before, with Alec’s legs encircling his hips. It wasn’t a comfortable position they could hold for long, but it brought them close together and Jace loved that he could rest a hand on Alec’s neck and pull him close for a possessive kiss.
A silent understanding passed between them, the same intent reflected in both sets of eyes. They came at the same time, each letting go easily while knowing the other would be right there too.
After that night, Alec discovered that Jace could practically go on forever, but, considerate as he was, he did stop when Alec became physically unable to keep up. And Jace was also an attentive lover, apparently, either as a rule or just for him, Alec didn’t care, since he currently couldn’t feel his body beyond the burn in his ass and the deep fatigue, neighbouring numbness, that had taken over his limbs. But Jace fed him pineapple gummibears from his secret stash (if that wasn’t love, nothing was, Alec thought, knowing how territorial Jace was of those gummibears).
Jace discovered that he could, in fact, activate Alec’s runes with his intention, something which turned Alec on like mad and which made their night’s activities stretch until late in the morning.
Once they finally dragged themselves under the shower, Jace remembered his gift from Clary.
“I need to take you on a proper date, to make this official. Museum of Modern Art sound good to you? The Dicks in Design exhibit is in town.”
“If I want to see a big dick for free, all I need to do is look your way. Let’s just go and stare at the art.”
Jace opened his mouth to clap back, but he couldn’t think of anything. Couldn’t object against facts, although what kept him from feeling smug was the ambiguous phrasing. Had Alec meant he had a big dick? Or that he was a big dick?
***
The evening had just begun and Pandemonium was buzzing with excitement. This date marked the return of Magnus Bane to the club scene.
The moment he had seen Alec again after their one date, Magnus had known Alec would never be his. And then he had seen Jace and the massive change in him, in the way the two parabatai looked at each other, in the way the energy in the room changed and thrummed around them. He could not begrudge the two Shadowhunters the refuge they had found in each other. Being parabatai in their time was difficult and it was a small blessing they could be everything for each other like that.
He couldn’t say he was mourning that which had never been. He had a new girlfriend now and his father was making an effort to be a slightly more tolerable demon and an actual parent to his only son. Magnus had a family now and it made him feel like he finally belonged.
Now he was observing Alec and Jace on the dance floor below. Alec had never struck him as a big lover of fun, partying and much less dancing. But what he was currently doing was hardly a dance. He and Jace were just grinding against each other to the beat of the music, lost in each other like they were the only people in the club. They were both dressed in white and the hostesses at the club entrance had dabbed glitter on them, like they did with all the guests that night, only Jace and Alec looked downright heavenly, sparkling in the bluish-white light.
Then, Magnus’ eye was drawn to the VIP booth, where his father stood at the window, watching the couple below with the tiniest smile fluttering on his lips.
Magnus shuddered, remembering Asmodeus was the demon of desire and his powers grew off of people giving into their secret and forbidden passions. He didn’t put it past his father to have stuck his finger in the parabatai pie.
His concerns only intensified when Alec suddenly looked up, saw Asmodeus, waved and smiled.
(the end)
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Rhythm of War Liveblog, Part One Part Three (Chapters 9-11)
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Alright, sorry for the long wait--I have notes through Part Two, but I’m going to transcribe them without too much commentary on events that happened later, even though now--putting it on a computer--I’m further in the book. Anyway, let’s get this going!
Kaladin continues to have a bad day, Navani gets a pen pal, Shallan and Adolin read someone else’s diary, Kaladin is forced to take a vacation, and we check in with Venli and the Long Con.
The epigraphs confirm that pewter continues the pattern of fabrial cages working like allomancy, so that’s just A Thing.
Meanwhile, Kaladin is not taking things particularly well. Syl and Teft both try checking in on him, but he rebuffs them; Syl notes that this feels worse than his usual depressive episodes and that it seems like he lives for stormlight, which led me to theorize that Odium was doing some influencing of him and that Stormlight--and Urithiru, when he’s there--disrupts it. Syl also asks how Moash knew about Honor Chasm, which is a good point--Kal says he probably mentioned it around the fire, but that doesn’t seem likely to me. Of course, I could be forgetting things, but Kaladin was always very tight-lipped about that moment in particular. Kaladin also notes that his memories of the good times with Bridge Four seem muted and less distinct, and again it’s hard to tell if that’s mundane depression or the influence of something More.
Meanwhile, Navani is in her Floating Research Orb, which is the best thing ever. it’s just an orb with points on the ends that she can use as a study while flying and I want one immediately but with windows. She’s speculating on how Soulcasters work, because they break a lot of the conventional rules of Fabrials--they don’t have a trapped spren visible in the normal world, although in Shadesmar they appear to have inert sentient spren attached to them. Which...uh....is troubling, to say the least.
Just a theory here, but could those trapped spren be inkspren? It would explain some of why Ivory’s people are so against bonding Radiants, if at some point humans captured a lot of them to make Soulcasters. Also, they’re one of two spren linked to orders who can Soulcast, and I feel like if they were Cryptics someone would recognize them.
Anyway, Navani notes that the depowering fabrial uses the same four-garnet design as the pillar in Urithiru, and we get some of how she’s trying to figure out how to make the pillar work again.
(also, it must be noted, Dalinar is being flown by one of the Windrunners and has to wear a mask to stop his face from freezing off, and that’s just a very funny mental image. Navani also apparently tried to convince the windrunners that flying feet-first would be more aerodynamic).
Anyway this is about when she notices the gem for a spanreed stuck on the bottom of her desk and flashing, and when she hooks it up, she gets...an interesting message, in cramped handwriting:
You are the monster Navani Kholin. You have caused more pain than any living person. [...] You capture spren. You imprison them. Hundreds of them. You must stop. Stop, or there will be consequences.
GUYS, WE MIGHT BE GETTING INTO FABRIAL ETHICS AND I’M SO EXCITED. Navani points out that the sentient spren don’t see the captured spren in fabrials as being hurt, instead more as animals of burden a la chulls, and even the honorspren agree--to which the mysterious pen pal replies that the honorspren can’t be trusted.
So, that’s ominous, and really interesting. When getting into the ethics of fabrials we get some really interesting places--what rules do spren have for sentience? Do they have a standard? Do humans of Roshar have a standard? After all, the parshmen were considered almost nonsentient, and that wasn’t true at all. I’m very excited to see where this goes.
Meanwhile, Shallan and Adolin are cuddling in a carriage and discussing what happened. Adolin, understandably, has trouble differentiating between the various underground organizations on Roshar--Ghostbloods, Sons of Honor, Skybreakers, etc. That’s very fair, there are a lot of shady bastards running around. He also knows that Shallan is still hiding things, but trusts her to tell him eventually.
Guys, I just really love Adolin and the way he’s just. A caring and good person. Adolin Kholin appreciation hours are all hours, always, on this blog.
Anyway Shallan goes on to explain some of the deal with the Ghostbloods--that they have inscrutable goals, that they sunk the ship back in Words of Radiance, and that they killed Ialai, meaning they have someone in Shallan and Adolin’s people. While she’s saying this, though, we get that there’s something else going on inside Shallan--she’s terrified that if she tells someone her entire background, they’ll leave, and around those fears is the potential for another alter--Formless--who scares all of them, even Veil.
Also Shallan shows Adolin Ialai’s notebook, which he cannot read because he remains illiterate and that remains hilarious to me. The only illiterate Kholins right now are Adolin and the five year old and Gavinor has the excuse of being a five year old. Anyway, we get this interesting bit of notation:
“Like this page--a list of terms or names [Ialai’s] spies had heard. She was trying to define what they were.” Shallan moved her finger down the page. “Nalathis, Scadarial, Tal Dain. Do you recognize any of those?”
This is hilarious because while Adolin doesn’t recognize them, that quote is a direct nod to the fans, who will recognize those names--even transliterated to better match Alethi name structure, they’re the other planets of the Cosmere. Adolin and Shallan try to connect Nalathis to Nalan, which makes some sense but mostly just has me very amused. Can you imagine Nale on Nalthis? He would hate it. He would HATE it.
In any case, it’s only after the entire conversation that Shallan realizes that while she meant to tell Adolin she was a Ghostblood, she hadn’t done that at all, which is...interesting, again. I’m keeping note of these times that Shallan does something she can’t explain.
We go over to Kaladin for the next chapter, where we open with Kaladin informing one of the honorspren--the only one they have who isn’t bonded--to try to work with Rlain, who none of the spren have worked with so far because...spren racism. I mean, I get the hesitance, but come on. Come on.
And then we get the real meat of the chapter, because Dalinar takes Kaladin off of active duty, and Kaladin takes that about as well as could be expected.
Dalinar cites Kaladin’s “battle fatigue”--I’m fairly sure we would call it PTSD--as the reason to pull him off the line, and he’s completely right in terms of his logic. Kaladin very clearly has the initial reaction that is also inspired by trauma, because this is yet again a ilghteyed person of power taking Kaladin’s decisions and agency away from him, but--and he even recognizes this the more the conversation goes on--Dalinar, unlike the ones before him, is doing this out of genuine concern for Kaladin and also because, as a commanding officer, he has to take Kaladin off of the field.
There’s no real good call in this situation, and I think Dalinar made the best one. Taking away what Kaladin sees as his only purpose while he’s relapsing is bad--but leaving him on the field when it clearly isn’t good either for him or for the force he’s working with, and could lead not only to Kaladin’s death but the deaths of other people around him.
We also get more Kaladin introspection, and the fact--stated explicitly now, although it’s been inferrable for a while--that Kaladin thinks there’s something broken about him because he couldn’t swear the Fourth Ideal.
I swear to god, the Fourth Ideal is going to be something about accepting that you can’t save everyone. It’s the only thing that thematically makes sense--it would be a very difficult ideal to swear, particularly given that Windrunners are so dedicated to saving everyone; the Fourth Ideal seems to most likely be the one that gives you Plate, and accepting that you can’t save everyone is the mental step needed to defend yourself from the exact burden Kaladin is breaking under right now--if you feel like you have to save everyone you are going to break, sooner rather than later, and you have to accept that that will sometimes be impossible.
We’re going to see him swear this this book, I am confident we are going to see that this book.
And then we have our first Venli POV! We get a brief description of the hierarchy of the Singers--Singers are lowest, and then Regals like Venli who have Forms of Power, and then Fused, who kill their hosts as they take it over, then thunderclasts and Unmade.
Because everyone is at two degrees of separation at most, Venli is working as the Voice for Leshwi--working in these unsteady, tall watchtowers that have been constructed around Alethkar for the Fused to live in, although only the strongest get rooms at the top of the towers. Leshwi is one of those strongest, not only because of her power but also because she’s kept her sanity mostly intact, unlike many of the Fused.
Venli’s in envoyform, still, which is interesting because it lets her not only speak many languages, but also to understand full intent from the briefest notes of what Leshwi is saying, which is cool. We also get what her goals are, for the moment--she wants to build a dissident group of Singers, a group who could rebuild the Listeners and become a separatist group who follow neither the Fused nor the humans.
Which is interesting. I don’t think it’s going to work--this war is all-consuming, and it’s going to be very hard to fit yourself into a neutral position, especially because Odium and his side are looking for total control. They’re not going to allow people to just walk away.
But I respect Venli for trying. We get some more insight into her powers--she can use stormlight and voidlight, although if she does too much she draws the secretspren who discover Knights Radiant, and she can peer into Shadesmar without drawing their attention.
And then Leshwi barges in to say that something has happened, drawing the war to a new and dangerous point.
#row liveblog#row spoilers#navani kholin deserves better#venli and the long con#protect kaladin stormblessed 2k20#adolin kholin is a ray of sunlight
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NAME. Iapyx Diadalos
AGE & BIRTH DATE. 3000+ & Unknown
GENDER & PRONOUNS. Male & He/Him
SPECIES. Manticore
OCCUPATION. Artist
FACE CLAIM. Ryan Cooper
BIOGRAPHY
( tw: sex, violence, death, torture ) A second born Athenian son to a craftsman whose renown outshined the death of the eldest son’s untimely death. Iapyx was born a lover of the arts, and a natural student of Asclepius, one who from childhood hour would pass his father his tools as he fastened genius from the most common of materials. It was his father who taught him to ground Minium, to mix in eggs and other regents to create pigment, to add colour to stone and paint stories upon the walls. Iapyx’s father was a wonder of their world, Daedalus’s creations cemented their family’s legacy throughout the Greece. Word of the Athenian’s skill was bound to reach the ears of the great King Minos of Crete, and, as Athens was forced to pay dues to the man every year, the King demanded that Daedalus, along with his son, to be brought to Crete.
News of his father’s achievements on Crete reached Iapyx’s ears as he continued to study the teachings of Asclepius, it was his dream for himself to be a physician like none that had come before him. As Queen Pasiphaë birthed her fearsome son, the Minotaur, Iapyx learned the proper application for leeching, and while his father constructed the famed labyrinth, Iapyx learned to amputate a limb. It was always expected that after Daedalus would finish his great task, he and Icarus would be released, but soon after the labyrinth was completed, Daedalus and Icarus were imprisoned within.
As the stories would later tell, Daedalus escaped from Crete, but his flight came with a tragic loss. Grief broke Iapyx’s father. Daedalus’s brilliance never faltered, but his mind withered, Iapyx, skilled in the healing arts and veteran of a thousand patients, could clearly see that his father was not long for this world. So, he prayed to his patron Apollo, prayed for the power to extend his father’s life, prayed for the man’s body to never be claimed by old age, and in exchange Iapyx promised his very soul. And as Iapyx prayed, Apollo listened.
That night as Iapyx slept, Apollo visited him and stirred the physician from his bed. He promised to answer all of his prayers as more, he promised to give him powers to heal that were unparalleled, to give Iapyx a magic that would allow him to sustain his father’s mortal body, and so long as Daedalus lived, so would Iapyx; all in exchange for the physician’s soul. Iapyx readily agreed and for years to follow he practiced his craft, his art, and kept his father’s life force from fading. What Iapyx did not account for was that Apollo, ever the deceiver, would leave out that this new magic would not stop Daedalus from aging, nor his mind from failing.
When Daedalus inevitably had to let his father pass, as no mortal could avoid Charon for long, Iapyx earned a new title: Incubus is what the world came to call him, a devourer of souls with an insatiable hunger that would never be satiated. To feed on the life force of people was contradictory to the physician’s nature, but the pain of his hunger was too great, and it was all Iapyx could do to sink himself into the first person he could. To restore the magic in his soul and fulfill the curse that Apollo had laden across his soul.
Greece fell to Rome, and the Gods he knew were mimicked and given new monickers, to most who met him he was little more than a kindly physician, or a talented painter. By nature of his cure, Iapyx was a wanderer, a man of only a few meager possessions that worked for food and sanctuary. He was kind to soldiers, and priestly men alike; he visited battlefield, temples, and shipyards peddling his skills, and seducing any whose souls seemed even vaguely interesting to him.
Despite the wanderer’s nature, his actions did not go unnoticed, he had already been alive for thousands of years, and the original shifter Fenrir caught the incubus’s trail. Iapyx evaded the dire wolf for a time but the fates decreed that even his cursed immortal soul would not be boundless forever. It was in Rome when Fenrir found him at last, Iapyx had hoped to disappear into the large city, to vanish among the dregs and simply be forgotten about.
Resigned to his fate, Iapyx was found amidst his paints, and a piece that he was nearly finished. The incubus made only one request, and that was that Fenrir spare his life for a few more hours so he might have the time he needed to see his final work done. The request was granted, and as the pair sat, Fenrir watched him, and they talked; until the sun dipped below the horizon, until the candles burned low, until the painting was at last finished and all that was left was for Fenrir to carry out his duty. Instead, Iapyx took the direwolf to his bed.
Though Fenrir’s soul was protected by Artemis, the incubus still needed to feed. His actions drew the ire of a fury, one who dedicated a shifter to his destruction, and as their fangs sank into him, Iapyx was drawn from this world for a final time. When he greeted the spindly-armed Charon, it was an old friend, Iapyx had lived a long time, and though his life still felt as though it was cut too short, that he had not known love long enough - he was grateful for it just the same. Iapyx expected to see Apollo one last time, but not since their last meeting on the banks of the Styx had the God made himself known, cursed, and then forgotten - how very typical of the Gods.
The Erinyes, the great and terrible jailers of Tartarus took a special liking to cubi, and Iapyx was no exception. There was no sleep, no night, no day, the only light came from the flaming pits where men and women alike were flayed alive, the only noise were the sounds of their wailing shades, the cruel crack of the Erinyes’s whip, and the ceaseless wailing of the Titans still imprisoned beneath their feet. Time held no meaning, and ever moment was a new agony, a new fire, a new torture, but through this pain there was a whisper - a promise.
Iapyx did not know its source, or hear it with any clarity at first. It started as a ringing, then grew into a pitch, the rattle of a serpent, the crushing sound of rock upon rock, the slow crawl of the Earth on its axis. It filled him, replaced his blood with fire, mottled his soul and rattled his senses. For a time Iapyx thought it was the sound of his own voice, his own screams but in time he came to feel it beneath his feet, in the air around him, and he could trace it to its source.
His soul, long abandoned by Apollo and delivered to Tartarus was claimed instead by Typhon, the cruel and unforgiving father of monsters. Things changed for him after that, he was no longer a man trapped within a pit of monsters, but a monster unlike so few trapped in damnation with souls that had once resembled his own untold years prior. When the veil fell, its rumblings were felt even so far below the earth, and when it was restored, Iapyx at last saw an opportunity to escape his torture.
Iapyx emerged in the Temple of Apollo, his memories of the past and his time in Tartarus were a blur. He did not know what for he came through, or who he had been before, or what he became after. Iapyx found a wounded person and attempted to heal them as he had once, back when such things mattered, but they howled in terror and clawed at him, broke his skin and spilled the manticore’s poison onto their flesh. Their wailing was enough to summon a fury, and when the creature touched his mind, suddenly Iapyx remembered all.
PERSONALITY
+ artistic, intuitive, loyal
- spiteful, withdrawn, sullen
PLAYED BY Shane. EST. He/Him.
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How to be a Queen [Part 24]
Summary: Princess Zelda is at a loss. Her handed royal responsibilities have begun to weigh heavily on her and she is eventually backed into a corner. Live a life she loathes or run away from everything she’s ever known? Navigating life is hard, and Link forces her to learn that she doesn’t have to do it alone.
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Part 1
How To Be A Queen
Hyrule flooded the day Nathaniel Nohansen III died.
It had rained for three days. Castle Town had closed its shops and barely no one walked the streets. The storms were so harsh that it was hardly a premonition when they told me he was deteriorating quickly. I found him in his bed as he had been for months. Soft cries of my father filled the silence as he knelt at the bedside and grasped a limp hand in his own. Guilt twisted deep in my stomach when tears didn’t come.
“I’m so sorry, Nate,” Father sobbed. The words hardly intelligible. “I’m sorry.”
For months I had mourned for this moment. When he stopped responding to questions almost two weeks ago, my heart knew that this journey would have a finite end. In the very least, my father had some time to step out from his veil of ignorance before now.
Gods. No matter how much I tried to will myself to cry, I couldn’t.
I hadn’t thought about death so much in my life. When before it was a quiet promise of my youthful failures, now it was staring me down at every corner. These coming days, I thought of it as a fear that had become a flirtatious caller. War walked hand-in-hand with death. They were synonymous actions I had come to expect; violence paired with the spilling of blood.
Presently, it came to me as an eerily familiar vessel of a man I adored, sleeping forever. It was as if a trickster had carefully sculpted a copy of my uncle from wax and stole the real one away. There was no grave injury or pooling blood, just the deep feeling that something was horribly wrong. The blood in my veins ran cold and suddenly I could hardly bear to so much as glance at it – that wasn’t my uncle. Never had been after his eyes no longer smiled and his casual flirting with his nurse ceased.
Numbly, I pulled my hand from Father’s shoulder. His cries subdued to soft sniffling pleas for his older brother to wake up. I softly pried him away, but he didn’t give much resistance in the first place. As we walked away, I barely heard Father’s voice.
“I love you. So much.”
The body wouldn’t speak back because its wrinkles were far too sunken and its hands far too still. The silence behind us as we walked towards the door was deafening.
“I love you too,” I said, but his words weren’t for me.
----------
“Your Majesty,” a servant said, breaking me from a far-off stare. “The coroner mentioned that the ground was too soft to bury General Nohansen this week.”
Cold hands. Cold eyes.
Impa cut through, stepping between my desk and the man with a series of hushed mentions that made the servant satisfied enough to leave. Lightning struck in the distance and lit up the study through the uncovered window. Soberly, she turned to me with a white swinging braid.
“Allow me to handle the funeral.”
I went to shake my head. “I feel like I should do it myself.”
Her eyes pried into me, making me meet them no matter how badly I didn’t want to. Impa stood with square shoulders, appearing so tall even when she barely reached my shoulder. Then, she softened with folded hands before her. I knew what she was insinuating: I sounded like my father.
A chill slithered up my spine. It caused me to fold and fear engaged me.
“What else am I to do?” I pleaded. The careful guard I had unknowingly constructed was being chipped away by intrusive thoughts. For the remaining years of my life, there will never be a grin as toothy as his. My arms will never be swept up in such a warm embrace for as long as my heart is still beating. No laugh was as baritone as his once was; capable of escaping even the thickest walls.
Nothing, nothing, nothing could compete with the man who died without meaning.
Suddenly, my cheeks were wet and my bottom lip trembled unrelentingly. I stared up at the rafters, hoping the sniffling would subside as I cursed aloud, “I can’t even give him solid ground to rest under.”
“Listen to me,” Impa whispered, pulling me into her bosom. “Listen to me, child. He is with the goddesses.”
She repeated it like a mantra.
“I hate this,” I withered and folded into her arms. “I hate feeling so weak.”
The tears were bitter now, stinging me with their presence and making my throat burn with abandon. I was the Queen.
Legally, I thought to myself, I had all claim to everything around me. I knew that my predecessors had wielded their power to dominate entire kingdoms from the peaks of the northern mountains to the shores of the south. They had brought about bloodshed and dominion to people for reasons as little as wanting to feel the warmth of their burning villages. Only two generations before me had sent their dissenting opposition to the gallows.
So, why was it that I felt so powerless?
“Do you know why the goddess Hylia descended?” Impa hushed. “Why did She leave the comfort of the heavens?”
I tamed myself to calm, though my voice was still odd and gravelly. “Because she loved a man.”
A maternal hand patted my head and she spoke through a smile.
“No,” she started. “No, because She loved the people created by Her hand. When She heard of the dangers coming from the underworld and how a king born of shadows was laying claim to land Hylia’s sisters had left Her, She had a choice.”
Impa sat back on the floor, taking my hand in hers like how she did when she recalled to me old myths before bedtime. I swallowed and waited for her to continue.
“Hylia could stay in paradise and allow the world to be buried,” she said, framing the choices as if she didn’t know how it would end. “Or She could descend and give Her people a fighting chance – no matter how slim it was. What do you think She chose, Zelda?”
“She chose to fight.”
“Very good.”
She procured a handkerchief from her breast pocket and allowed me to dry my cheeks.
“So,” Impa drew me in again after a couple minutes. “As we know, the goddess spent years on the Surface fighting off the darkness. She rallied Her people to find hope in the darkness and for that, they revered her only more so. For years, some say decades, Hylia lived among mortals and learned their ways. In Her time, She found that gods do not experience existence the same as humanity does.
“When the mortals experienced disappointment, their eyes grew watery. With fatigue, they grew sluggish and weary – sometimes lashing out at loved ones. When they accomplished success in battle, broad expressions crossed their faces,” she mirrored my small smile, “and oftentimes they laughed. They say Hylia enjoyed seeing that emotion the most.
“Eventually She found herself partaking in these feelings and paralleling those expressions She had once considered redundant. Her love for these mortals had only increased since She descended. However, their battles were hard-fought and even with Her light, they had only been able to maintain their ground. That is, until one day the spirit of Her holy sword told Her another was worthy enough to wield it. His name is lost to time, but the books say he was a valiant solider. In him, Hylia found a partner; the ability to feel another triviality that suddenly wasn’t so trivial.”
Impa’s smile was sad and she grasped my hands tightly in hers. “That was when She learned to love a mortal man. You and I know how this ends.”
“He dies,” I answer for her with a thick voice.
“And when he dies, She is taught that there is danger in love’s beauty. Born from his death was grief, an emotion so strong the goddess feels She will die. Hylia, the goddess of light and mother to all, realizes that the mortals around Her had been experiencing this for all Her years on the Surface. In that, She grieves more because how could She be so blind to this pain?”
I had let myself slack again the back of my chair and stared at the embroidery of my skirt. When she stopped talking, I thought aloud. “Was it worth it?”
“We are alive today because of it. I think Hylia knew that even though it would be centuries, She would see him again after life settled and after Demise was properly sealed. Similar to when we will see our loved ones when we pass on, however I do pray that we have many more years before that day,” she allowed a light chuckle.
“Yes,” I laughed with a small sniffle, “I think Uncle will be very cross if I follow him too early.”
“Now then,” she pulled me from my chair and walked me to the door. “Let’s get you to your room. You deserve rest after today and the weather is perfect to lull you asleep. When you wake, we’ll have your favorite tea and cake.”
------
“It will be an uphill battle,” Whitehurst sniffed, reading through a copy of the report sent from.
It had been a week since Uncle died and I hated the feeling of wasting time. Finally sitting with a couple advisors with a fresh stack of news felt worlds away from where I once was.
I agreed with Admiral Whitehurst, combing over the words once more. The rebels had declared the Gerudo capital as their own and announced that the aristocracy have been puppets to topple the purity of Gerudo traditions. The handwriting was distracting, but I ignored the repeated leaps in my chest and thumbed the unopened letter in my lap.
“They call us heretics of the true gods,” I rose from my propped hand with a sigh. “And then attempt another strike on our food supplies meant for starving infants. Urbosa, am I misunderstanding?”
She breathed in and rubbed the soreness in her neck. “It seems to me that from their threats to Link that they don’t consider us their people and would prefer dead children whose parents refuse their preaching.”
Whitehurst was still wary of the aristocrat and peered from across the table. “Who are their gods? Do they reject our goddess?”
“Partially,” she said. “They ascribe to the ancient three. Whereas we see Hylia as being the guardian goddess left to protect their creation, they see her as a usurper – ironically.
“Traditional creation story dictates that Hylia took advantage of the original three’s absence and bore Hylians as her minions to take over the world. The guardians of the sand fought back, baring a people that would be called Gerudo. A champion rose among them and found the Triforce. He used that power to save his people. That’s what I was told as a child.”
The Admiral wrinkled his nose. “How dubious.”
“It’s fragmented across villages. Most Gerudo in the capital worship money more than religion,” she shrugged, barely taking mind in the man. “Allow us to remember that this was a tactic in the early wars to turn people away from Hylian culture.”
Whitehurst nodded, somewhat perturbed. “What does Her Majesty call for?”
I hummed in thought. There were twenty causalities in the one hundred that accompanied the supplies. Out of those casualties were two deaths.
“It seems like the plan to send reinforcements along with reserves was the go-to,” I asserted. “I would like to refer to you to increase the amount of food three-fold. Impa believes levying taxes with grain farming territories would motivate morale.”
The Admiral stood with a stack of papers and nodded, “I’ll draw up the order.”
The letter burned a hole through my skirts and I couldn’t help looking down. The report was addressed to my full title, but between the pages of reports was a smaller envelope that simply read: Zelda.
“Riju has sent her regards to you. She says she is saddened to hear of Nathaniel’s passing. I would let you read it, but she has difficulties writing in Hylian,” Urbosa said, folding up the paper with Riju’s signature on it and setting it aside. “Truly, Zelda, let me know if you need me in any way.”
“You say that as if you haven’t comforted me for several nights already,” I smiled, negating her.
“My people grieve as a community. The commonplace of isolating oneself is considered unhealthy, while here it is almost expected.”
The way she crossed her legs billowed her Hylian skirts out as if she were wearing a Gerudo sirwal. I could tell it made Admiral Whitehurst uncomfortable earlier and the thought made me laugh.
“You aren’t wrong. If we weren’t in the middle of war, the court would have expected a three-month mourning period from me,” I only shrugged off the notion, tidying up my papers and setting Link’s letter on top. “I simply cannot afford it right now.”
Especially when the rebels were proving to be more organized than we thought. Encampments were appearing in the East Barrens with foreign flags. Not long after they were discovered the heads of three Hylian spies were found not far from the road leading into Gerudo Town. As of now, we had no way of telling if their strength or numbers.
The woman nodded. “And you have other distractions.”
“I,” I paused, momentarily bewildered by her expression. “I beg your pardon?”
“Distractions, my dove,” she laughed, lifting a hand to lazily gesture at what was before me.
Warmth bloomed on my face as I snatched the letter from her prying eyes. Urbosa only laughed heartily, “I cannot help but recognize that that hand matches the one who scrawled your reports.”
She let my embarrassment fester a moment longer. “Oh, don’t worry,” she leered. “I never said it wasn’t a good distraction.”
“Urbosa. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but this is not a regular occurrence.”
“Everyone has a right to hold secrets.”
“This isn’t a secret!” I bristled with wide eyes. “It’s a personal correspondence.”
Understanding was on her face but amusement danced in her eyes, a light I was all too accustomed to. “I see, with a man you had a short ‘engagement’ with before he left for war.”
“Engagement,” I blanched, “Engagement?! There was no engagement about that night, I’ve told you the extent of it!”
“Ah,” she closed her eyes, reminiscing. “I remember the first Hylian who followed me around like a dog. I was about Riju’s age – maybe a little older – when we snuck into the stables and she-”
The door to my office opened and a servant slipped through. He cleared his throat, “Announcing the esteemed Rito-”
“No, no, no,” a demanding voice cut through and in the doorway came a face Zelda hadn’t seen in many months. “We’ve rehearsed this,” the midnight blue Rito chastised, “The esteemed Ambassador. Yes, that is who I am. My title. Ordained by your King. It really, truly isn’t that hard.”
He carried on in subdued whispers while the poor man stood awkwardly by the doorway.
“Revali,” I called out. Then again when he was too engrossed in his discussion. “Why are you accosting my squire?”
“Accosting?” he primed, finally pulled away. The man scuttled back through the doorway and quietly shut it behind him. “Zelda – first of all, I will take the liberty of saying hello first – I’m not sure whether it has always been this way or if it’s the product of your reign, but these butlers of yours aren’t acknowledging my status and frankly? I’m shocked and perhaps a little appalled at the sight.”
“She is your sovereign and you will regard him as such,” Urbosa asserted, her tone commanding with an earthy undertone that took up the room.
Revali puffed out his chest, looking between her and I with admonishment.
I cleared my throat, “If you’ve just arrived, perhaps you’re exhausted. I can lead you to a room. I would have met you at the door, but we were expecting you tomorrow.”
“No, no, your Royal Majesty,” the Rito seethed, staring at Urbosa as he bowed with sweeping wings.
Some things, or Ritos rather, never changed. Revali had been the Rito ambassador at Hyrule castle for about three years now. Unlike other ambassadors, he preferred his home outside of Rito Village over staying at the castle full-time. However, Father had always kept that group at arm’s length, so it suited both parties up until now.
I was familiar with him and his disposition with the short interactions we’ve had. He was the son of wealthy traders and had no problem entering the realm of politics. The Rito people were bold, some would classify their pride as arrogance; those that did hadn’t met Revali.
He nodded my way as he pulled out a seat next to Urbosa. “May I?”
Neither of us could speak before he sat down leisurely.
“I see there have been many changes since I’ve graced these halls,” he said, touching the tips of his fingers together and took full advantage of the chair’s seat. “Yet I haven’t a signal update from the Crown!”
“I have sent reports of our decisions to Chief Kaneli when he sent his official recognition that I was Queen.”
Dramatics abound, he turned to Urbosa. “Is it not my job to relay these matters to my leader? Regale to me, my Queen, how I am to perform my duty.”
“I have seen nothing from you until I called for your presence last week, Ambassador Revali,” I straightened and sent him a pointed look. “And I’m willing to take much from you because I value our connection, but do not think for a second that I will willingly take commands from you. I am not my father and will not entertain your abuses because unlike him, they do not amuse me whatsoever.”
His beak fell open, but no words came out. This time he didn’t bear a glance at Urbosa, whose smug look made me stifle a grin. I didn’t get that tone from thin air. The gap of silence was the longest I had ever heard in the vicinity of this man.
Revali coughed into his fist and awkwardly shifted in his seat. “I see that my words have been misconstrued. I did not mean offense.”
“I accept your apology.”
“Yes, well, to lead into my concerns – which are very justified, mind you – my deepest condolences for the loss of General Nohansen. Even our great airmen are deeply saddened,” he bowed his head, a pivot from the dominant air of before.
I offered a subdued smile.
“And your replacement doesn’t seem awful, but I hadn’t heard that you were looking to fill the position so soon.”
Urbosa tilted her head. “We are in a war. I’m not sure if you heard about my people being persecuted.”
“Yes, yes, yes. Of course I have heard of the mad man. Gerudo women are already masculine enough. Maybe the roles have reversed, and he will be easily squashed.”
I rested my head in my hand and sighed, “No. Much of the opposite it seems.”
The Rito held an indignant look as he examined the tip of his feathers. “Seems my services were much in need,” he mumbled.
“Pardon me?” I asked. Was he expecting an invitation to be considered?
Oh, actually, that sounds very in character for him.
“All I’m saying is that it was a statement sent from Her Majesty to me,” Revali emphasized with splayed fingers.
I glanced to Urbosa who was glaring daggers at the Rito. I clasped my hands together in front of me, “I promise you that no offense was meant, Ambassador. Truly, the process of filling the position of Commanding General of Hyrule’s Royal Army was tumultuous.”
Revali leaned back with a stiff shrug and crossed his legs, then immediately uncross them to vehemently point his feathered finger at the ceiling. “Make no mistake! No offense was taken on my part. Zero offense because I would have merely turned down the offer in the first place because my title as the Rito Ambassador is already time consuming. Incredibly. Unmatched, even, across of the board.”
“Oh,” I blinked. “I’m glad that you see it that way.”
The man huffed, brushing an imaginary speck of dust from his right wing. “Indeed.”
“Zelda, I don’t think we should keep this from him.”
I turned to Urbosa, confusion written on my face.
“Don’t act coy. We can tell him,” she motioned towards Revali with a sweeping gesture. “Tell him how he was considered and how his resourcefulness would be better used elsewhere in the conflict.”
He chirped up and stared at me with wide eyes. I quickly nodded and masked any dubious expression.
“Oh, yes,” I piped up. “Your name was thrown into the mix several times by my cabinet.”
“It-it was?”
“Absolutely, Revali. You’ve been an incredibly valuable asset to Hyrule. Your years of service haven’t gone unrecognized, nor your training as a Rito airman. Such a wide variety of-” I tripped over a couple thoughts, looking for the right words.
Urbosa offered, “Skills?”
“Yes – thank you – such a wide variety of skills can’t be boiled down to ‘General’.”
Revali seemed to consider this greatly, rubbing his neck in thought. “Well,” he rasped. “Well, that I can understand. After all, Commanding General is largely a decorative title…”
“I wouldn’t necessarily go that far,” I muttered half of the sentence into my hand with a look at Urbosa. Ambassador Revali nodded affirmations to himself as he stared holes into the carpet.
“May I ask, Your Majesty,” he said, looking up finally. “What were your plans for me?”
I sat up in my seat and thumbed an ink quill in my hands. The feeling of opportunity rose in my chest with robust hope easing into my heart.
“I would like to inquire in your people’s support in defending fellow Hyruleans.”
He sat up with me, towards the edge of his seat.
“You mean to assert that you want additional support.”
“I do,” I said, feeling the pointed tip of the quill dig into my thumb. “The Rito and Hylian people used have strong bonds in meat trading. I wish to bridge the gap in the years our agreements fell through; even strengthen them more than what they once were.”
Revali seemed intrigued. “Under what pretense?”
“There’s no pretense,” I smiled, “I think we can both agree that Rito airmen are incredibly prolific through military history. Chief Kaneli’s support, no matter how little is, would be a great honor and assist our efforts in preserving the Gerudo aristocracy.”
“I can’t refute that,” he nodded. “I can say that Kaneli holds Her Majesty in the highest regard and has great hope for your reign… however our recent history has him wary. It will take some convincing.”
“I understand completely. If anything, do I have the Rito Ambassador’s support?”
He breathed a dramatic sigh. “Yes, I suppose you do.”
--------
After meeting behind meeting, I snuck behind a rose bush in the gardens. The light was dying, but I couldn’t wait anymore. Wedged between the pages of my notebook was the small letter from before. It was no bigger than my hand and I took care to rip the wax-sealed seam.
Zelda,
I’m sorry this took so long to write.
A smile was already brimming my lips and I mouthed: Don’t be.
There was an attempted ambush as we passed Satori Mountain. Byron’s scouts spied them first and they were dispatched early on, but you should know this long before this letter reaches you. The supply line-
The last couple words were neatly crossed out.
I don’t know why I want to give you a report when you’ve most likely already read the one I’ve already written you. It’s been on my mind too much, but so have you. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay longer that morning and I’m sorry I couldn’t have been there when Nathaniel passed.
There’s so much I wanted to tell you before I left. Being alone with my thoughts while we traveled only added to that. I could write one hundred apologies about asking you to forget about us and then dredging it up again. One hundred more if the nights between left you just as distraught as I was. It’s hard for me to speak about my feelings and when it comes down to it – pretending they don’t exist is what I usually resort to.
I couldn’t do that with you. I care about you. I tried to convince myself I didn’t, hadn’t, and I failed miserably; only making it more known to myself how helpless you’ve made me.
And despite everything, I hope you’re smiling when you’re reading this because the selfish thought keeps me from ending this letter. I want to talk to you as I do this paper and hear your witty remarks that are far too intelligent for your own good. The same intelligence that I am convinced will end this conflict far sooner than I anticipate so I can see you again.
But I’m rambling.
I’m safe. The only casualty on the road was a lad with a twisted ankle. I did run into the boys from Hateno. Do you remember Mac and Toma Ratliff? They thought it was a prank when someone mention “General” in front of my name and got written up for insubordination.
Nonetheless, Zelda, I will wait for you.
Yours,
Link
#done!#wanna cry with me now?#i did cry writing this chapter#htbaq#how to be a queen#zelink#zelda#link#loz#loz fanfiction#zelink fanfiction#ashleyswrittenwords
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Marked
// A spooky short story for my Sylvaneth faction.
“I saw it! In the trees! Whence I was riding southward from the Fell Holdfast. Over the highlands I came, and I could see the woodline not far off. I dared not draw near, but it was an easier mark of my direction than the cliffs. The day had grown long, and by chance I spotted an odd shape among the trunks. Like any other black arbor of the western woods, but then I looked closer, and – it had near the shape of a man. I looked away for but a moment at the passing of a breeze, and when I looked back I saw two great eyes. Staring at me! Like the lamplit gaze of an owl. I was so shocked I near fell from my horse, and yet when I looked once more, the shape and its deathly eyes were gone.
Though – I could have sworn I heard something on the wind as I rode away. Almost like a song. So off-put was I by the specter that I dared not listen to the words, though thinking now on them, I wonder if I could have understood them at all. A grim experience all around; and I’ve crossed swords with heathens!”
A round of murmurs followed the old warrior’s story. Some in accord and some laden with skepticism. The horseman had attracted quite the audience from the mead-hall’s patrons, but there were plenty of unnatural tales to be heard on the borders of the Shrouded Nowhere.
“I question you, rider,” came the voice of one drinker, a swarthy man no doubt from one of the southern fishing hamlets, “You saw a shade upon the western border-woods? Were that true, you’d not be here to tell the tale. Raiders down from the mountains, or wolves on the moors – those dangers I could believe, but no man who sees the spirits of the west-woods lives to speak of it.”
“T’was only for a moment! No doubt if I’d tarried longer, I would have been taken by the fiend! It was the Terror, I tell you! One of the Old Spirits!” the traveler rebuked.
“You should make a sacrifice to the forest,” one woman spoke. A tough lady, weather-beaten beyond her few years, and a native to this particular village, “You’ll carry the gaze of the Old Spirits on you now. If you don’t plead for help from the gods, what curse might follow you?”
“You should head south,” came another warrior’s voice, “Take passage on a mist-cutter. No telling what fate awaits you at sea, but it must be better than your luck on land, horsemaster.”
“That was my plan even before I saw the specter,” the old man nodded, “But now I figure I have no choice. Either I can find a ship that might bear me beyond the Mists or I live ever in fear of the sight of trees.”
“It won’t do no good!” the woman snapped again, “You have a black mark upon you, whether you see it or not! You must pray to have it removed! Even were luck to favor you, and your ship is borne out into the greater Realm beyond these foggy shores – the Wild Hunt will follow you still! The Old Spirits have chosen you, and only the Everqueen, or Sigmar, or even the cursed Shadow King can help you now!”
“Madwoman,” the swarthy man wagged his beard, “This is why I never journey this far north if I can help it. You lot are spend more time worrying about woodland faeries than practical concerns. You know I’ve heard that barbarians have been spotted gathering in the shoals to the east—”
“What do you know, fisherman?” the girl spat, the mood of the drunken gathering turning hostile fast.
“What do you know, horse-herder?” came the southerner’s reply.
The woman’s grey eyes grew dark then beneath her wild, nut-brown hair; her knuckles white on the handle of her flagon, “My brother was taken by the Old Spirits. Eighteen years past, when we were but children. He wandered into the southmost reaches of the west-woods on the night of the solstice, and never did I see him again.”
“Smart boy.” Came a sarcastic mutter from somewhere, which prompted the woman to spin about with fury, looking for the source.
“I’ll take your advice,” the old horseman raised his hand, trying to quell the tempers his story had roused, “But what foul luck! Fifty years riding across the highland wastes, and not once have the west-woods cursed me ‘til now. Damned ghosts knew I was bound southward in my old age. No horsemaster could ever be allowed to leave the wastes!”
“Maybe not, but now I’m wondering if a strandman might stand to see a bit more of Ulgu,” the dark southerner remarked, “I should see if I can’t get passage through the Mists while I still have my better years, lest I end up like you lot.”
A round of discontented arguing followed that, though the crowd dispersed back to their respective tables before any brawl could break out. It was late, and no one was quite in the mood to get kicked out of the sole mead-hall in town. The old horseman was left alone, though the last notice he was given came from the local lady – she made no gesture, but her grey eyes met those of the old man with a dire look before she too trudged off.
The horseman spent that night in the inn just across the main road – a lopsided construction two stories high, though with sturdy walls to hold off the chilling winds of the midland wastes. There was no wall about the little village, and from his window on the upper floor the traveler was given an unimpeded view all the way out into the moors, where the grey sky and land mixed together into a veritable ocean of fog.
Though the night was growing long, and he had long miles to ride come morning, the man couldn’t sleep. His memories gnawed at him, and with the candle in his room extinguished he gazed out into the starlit moors like a deer watching for the source of a sound it thought it had heard.
And to his ears there did come a sound, then. Not one he realized he was hearing at first, believing it a fearful memory playing off the faint rattling of the inn’s timbers. Yet as the humming melody went on, the man’s breaths grew short, and his heartbeat quickened.
Lost souls wander Nowhere’s Mists
Forgetting all they had
Yet under root and soil black
They can at last be glad
With a soundless cry of abject terror, the horseman’s eyes fixed on a singular shape distinguished in the swirling fog-seas beyond the village borders. Out in the wastes, among the rocks and grass, there stood one black form like a lone tower in fields of grey. A tree. A black, gnarled tree, looking like a cursed thing which might have been used to hang untold numbers of sinners. Yet as the man looked longer, its form seemed less like a tree and more like the upright form of a man, crowned with branches as woodland king.
Oh wander not, you hopeless soul
Come to me and rest
Remember darkness left behind
With sleep you will be blessed
For how many decades had he rode the highlands? For how many long years had that traveler avoided the predations said to lurk within those black woods? And yet now they had come for him. He had lain eyes upon that which mortals were never supposed to see. He had been chosen, marked, cursed, and not even the Everqueen would deign to save him now.
Within that dark silhouette out on the moors, at that point where the tree-thing’s branches met its trunk, two lambent lights ignited. Like hellfire they burned, cold and distant as stars, yet brimming with a malign glow. He could not look away. The song continued in his mind, in his very soul, and to the mortal man it felt as though he were already dead.
In the morning when the maid came up, soon after the sun rose behind the usual overcast veil, she found the door to the traveler’s room still shut. Breakfast had come and gone, and the man had made clear the previous night his intent to leave as soon as possible, yet the stableman was waiting for him and he’d not yet handed over his keys to the inn’s owner. The maid knocked, and knocked again, but there came no reply.
The locksmith was fetched, and by his ministrations was the rough door soon sprung open, yet that offered little consolation.
He was nowhere to be seen, that horseman from the northern wastes. Nothing of him, nor any signs as to what might have become of him. The windows were shut and the door had been locked – what few possessions the man had carried were accounted for, save for a few odds and ends one might have expected him to keep on his person. Yet his axe was left behind, along with his rations and most of what would be needed for his trip. More than that, he’d never even come to collect his horse.
No one in the tavern had seen the man go, yet few showed any real regard or interest. In the end, it was left untalked about, as he’d paid his fees the night before, and it was not good luck in Nowhere to inquire after missing persons under such circumstances.
Far across the horizons, over broad highlands unbroken by tree or even high shrub, there rose at last the black line of the Mistbranch Forest. In those northern reaches were its trunks and canopy ever more foreboding and unwelcoming than even those misted borders to the south – and from within those midnight depths, there floated a sorrowful song.
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