#also the dagger through the thorn-wrapped heart is his dagger
Text
Ends of the Earth
Azriel x Fem!Reader
Word Count: 2.1k
Warnings: mentions of blood and death. mentions death of children.
Summary: Azriel comes back from a mission bloodied and bruised but tries to push his wife away. Y/N doesn’t let up and refuses to leave his side.
A Court of Thorns and Roses Masterlist
•••
Y/N was relaxing in her and Azriel’s bedroom when the front door opened. She pulled her eyebrows together in confusion, her husband was not meant to return until the morning. Dressed in only her nightgown and slippers, Y/N padded through the house and to the living area. Azriel stood in the doorway, his hand lingering on the handle, his gaze cast to the floor.
“Az, honey?” Y/N said.
Azriel didn’t respond as he slowly closed the door, locking it firmly behind him. That was when Y/N saw it, his leathers covered in blood, some of it was not even dry as it dripped onto the wooden floor below his feet.
“Azriel,” Y/N said, stepping further into the room.
Once again Azriel did not respond though his gaze did meet his wife’s. Y/N gasped at the sight. A large bloody gash stretched across Azriel’s cheek. Y/N rushed over and gently cupped Azriel’s uninjured cheek. “Sweetheart, what happened?”
Azriel pulled away. “It doesn’t matter.” He brushed past Y/N. “I’m taking a bath.”
For a brief moment, Y/N gaped at his cold behaviour. Usually he would welcome her with open arms, even if he was bloody and bruised. This sort of behaviour was unusual for Azriel.
“Azriel, stop for a moment,” Y/N said, reaching to catch his hand.
Just as her fingers brushed his, Azriel flinched away. “Please leave me alone, Y/N. I have had a long day.”
“I just want to make sure that you are okay,” Y/N said, stepping closer to her husband. “I can clean the gash on your cheek.”
“I said I’m fine,” Azriel said, his tone making Y/N flinch.
Y/N watched him walk away and into the bathroom, the lock echoing through the house. Standing in the living room for a moment longer, Y/N returned to their bedroom. She could hear the water running into the bath before it shut off completely. Y/N wanted nothing more than to break down the door and go and wrap Azriel in her arms and pull him close to her. But she also recognised that Azriel might need some space for now.
So Y/N picked up her discarded book and cracked it open and began to read, though her mind was faraway.
***
It was not for another hour until Y/N heard Azriel exit the bathroom. As soon as he entered their bedroom, Y/N closed her book. She sat up from where she had been leaning against the pillows stacked against the headboard and focused on Azriel. The blood was washed from his face and body but the gash was still very prominent. The angry red surrounding it hadn’t faded even with his speedy healing.
“Do you want to come and lay with me?” Y/N asked. “Or I could make us some dinner? I have not eaten yet.”
Azriel pulled on his pyjama bottoms, the plaid pattern was faded and worn. “I’m going to sleep in the guest room tonight.”
“Why?” Y/N asked.
Azriel did not even lift his gaze to look at her as he answered. “I do not want to sleep in here tonight.”
His words sent a dagger to her heart. However, she pushed away her own feelings as she heard the tired and defeated tone of Azriel’s voice. “Honey, you can speak to me. You do know that, don’t you?”
“I don’t want to speak to you,” Azriel snapped. “I don’t know why you aren’t understanding about that.”
Y/N frowned. “I know that you are hurting, Azriel, I can see that haunted look in your eyes. But I am your wife, you do not speak to me like that. All I want to do is help you.”
Azriel sighed and ran a hand down his face. “I know and I’m sorry. I did not want to snap at you.”
Y/N patted the bed next to her. “Why don’t you come and lay with me? You don’t need to talk if you don’t want to, but I can tell how much you want to rest.”
Azriel met her eyes for a split second before nodding. He shuffled over to the bed and climbed on it next to Y/N. He laid on his side, but he soon began to shuffle closer to accommodate his wings and so he could get close to Y/N. Close enough to rest his head on her lap. The moment Y/N threaded her fingers through his hair, Azriel could not fight off the tears.
“Oh, my love, what happened?” Y/N asked softly.
“They were dead when I got there,” Azriel whispered.
Y/N wrapped her arms around Azriel and pulled him closer to her, not his head nestled in the crook of her neck. In the time Y/N had known Azriel and had been married to him, she had only ever seen him breakdown to quite this level only a handful of times. Of course he would always try to talk through his emotions with her to the best of his ability, but at times like these, it was difficult for him.
“They were all slaughtered,” Azriel whispered, clutching onto Y/N like a child would clutch onto a pillow, seeking as much comfort as he could. “Women, children, elderly fae, they were dead.”
Y/N lowered her head to his, pressing her lips against his skin. She didn’t need to say anything. She knew not to say anything knowing that if she did while Azriel was in this state, he would only revert back to complete silence.
“Before I left, I heard someone calling out,” Azriel explained. “At first I thought it could have been one of the people I was sent there to stop, but the closer I got I realised it was an older woman. She was calling out for her grandson. Her entire torso was slashed open and there was absolutely nothing I could have done. She was so desperate to get to her grandson, to see her grandson one last time, that when she looked at me-” Azriel cut himself off as a sob broke through his speech.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Y/N whispered, her own tears springing to her eyes. She hated seeing Azriel in this state, she knew what his job entailed, she always did and she was never put off by it. But the one thing she did hate was how it sometimes made Azriel feel. The few times he had come home, sobs wracking his body, she had been there to piece him back together, no matter how long it took. Y/N never wanted to think about what Azriel did before she met him. As far as she knew, Azriel had never opened up to anyone else about how he felt about particular jobs.
“When she looked at me,” Azriel continued once he calmed down, “she mistook me for her grandson. She asked me to hold her hand, to be with her when she passed. She was so happy to see her grandson alive and unharmed, I couldn’t tell her that he was laying just a few feet from her, his own torso slashed open. After she passed I found the men who did it and slaughtered all of them.”
Y/N stilled for a moment. She couldn’t begin to imagine how bad the scene must have been for Azriel not to leave anyone alive for questioning.
“And everything got me thinking,” Azriel continued to Y/N’s surprise. “About what I would do if you were ever in that position. If you ever get hurt or killed, and I am not there to stop it. You shouldn’t be with someone like me, my presence puts you in constant danger.”
“Don’t you dare think that, not even for one second, Azriel,” Y/N said. “Yes, it is true that there will be enemies of yours that know the best way to get to you is through me. I knew the risks when I married you, but that did not stop me because I love you. And I know that if I fail to protect myself, you will fight to the ends of the earth to keep me safe no matter what.”
“I will always put you above anyone else,” Azriel said.
“I know,” Y/N said sadly. “But for tonight, Azriel, put yourself above me. I know your self destructive behaviour, I witnessed it first hand when I first began to show interest in you. You think my need is to stay safe and to do that you believe it to be away from you. But that is where you are wrong, it is where you have always been wrong. Never feel safer than I am with you, my love. Your number one need is to feel loved and secure, and you push it away to prioritise my safety and wellbeing. You punish yourself for not being good enough, you think you don’t deserve to be loved, to be wanted. But you are.”
Y/N paused for a moment as Azriel adjusted himself in Y/N’s arms. Favouring to rest his head on her chest instead. Y/N wrapped her arms around him tightly, making him feel secure.
“For once, Azriel. Put your needs above mine, because I know exactly what they are and I know you deserve it,” Y/N finished.
“I don’t know how to do that,” Azriel muttered, his voice hoarse.
“You have already started, you haven’t pushed me away yet,” Y/N whispered, pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head.
“I don’t want to push you away,” Azriel admitted. “I only ever want to pull you closer.”
“I don’t think it's possible to get any closer at this point,” Y/N said, cracking a small joke to try and get her husband to smile.
Although it didn’t make him smile, he still huffed out a small breath of air before attempting to pull her closer. His arms wrapped more securely around her waist.
“All I want is this,” Azriel said. “I don’t want to be anywhere else.”
“You can,” Y/N said. “ We can stay here as long as you like.”
“But my duties,” Azriel said. “I can’t abandon them.”
“You are not abandoning them. Think of it like taking a short break. Because you do need a break, my love. I’ve seen the way the light has dimmed in your eyes these past few months,” Y/N replied.
“I don’t know how to do that,” Azriel said. “I don’t know how to relax.”
“Are you relaxed now?” Y/N questioned.
There was a small pause before Azriel answered, “Yes.”
“Then you have already made a start,” Y/N said, her nails scratching his scalp slightly. As she did so she felt even more tension leave Azriel’s body.
“I only feel relaxed when I’m with you,” Azriel confessed.
“Well then, I guess I’m never leaving your side,” Y/N said. “I can’t see any downside to that.”
Azriel shuffled a little so he could lift his head to finally look in Y/N’s eyes. And there it was, that small bit of light that had slowly been extinguished, was being brought back to life and it flickered within the shades of brown and green that made up his beautiful hazel.
“How did I ever get so lucky to be in your life?” Azriel asked.
Y/N caressed his face, her finger lightly brushing over the gash on it. “I think you are mistaken, sweetheart. How did I get so lucky to be in your life? You may be called the shadowsinger, but you, Azriel, are the light of my whole life.”
At that statement, Azriel’s eyes seemed to water as he pressed his head back on her chest, his lips lightly grazing her collarbone.
“I know you can hear my heart,” Y/N said as she cradled his head against her chest. “And it beats only for you.”
“I love you beyond words, Y/N,” Azriel whispered as he caressed her wrist and pressed a soft kiss to it. “I don’t believe I can ever truly express how much you mean to me.”
Y/N smiled and laced her fingers with his. The wedding ring on his finger shined in the light. “You already have, and you continue to do it every day by being my husband. You are the love of my life, Az. There is no one else I have known that has ever compared to you and no one else ever will. I adore you and will for the rest of our lives.”
This time, Azriel did not try to argue anything. Though he didn’t speak any words, the soft caress of his thumb over her knuckles conveyed so much more than just a simple loving touch. Just from his silence alone and that simple touch, Y/N smiled. Azriel finally realised how loved he is. And now, after all this time, he realised that he truly deserved it.
#acotar x reader#acotar#a court of thorns and roses#azriel x reader#azriel acotar#azriel shadowsinger#azriel#azriel fluff
594 notes
·
View notes
Text
Little something I’m working on (because I start a million little Elain stories and I never finish them).
Elain summoned truth teller, the dagger easily falling into her hands before she plunged it into her heart before anyone had the chance to stop her.
Shadows wiping around her as she cried out, and an ear shattered scream cracked across the library. Something so un- human. Something worse than a sirens screech. That was no where near close to describe the sound that caused her eardrums to burst and eyes to bleed.
The Caldron was displeased with her. And the choice she just made. The invisible thread that only she seemed to be able to see begun to flicker. But it didn’t break as if it was trying to tighten its hold on her. Wrapping itself around Elain’s neck like ivory vines.
Suffocating and unbearable. That was all she felt.
No!
She would sever the mating bond. The false bond had become a thorn in her side and one she was willing to cut out no matter how much she would bleed in the process. She pulled Azriel’s dagger out of her chest with a cry and pulled on the string that was attached between her and the collapsed fox on the floor. With a swift movement she cut the string, Truthteller glowing in her hands. It’s raw power all consuming and dark just like its master.
The cauldron screeched again and Elain dropped to her knees and cried out again, covering her blown ears.
How dare she reject her gift from the claudron!
Elain didn’t know how but she understood its rage. Untill it changed into something else.
Hurt.
Why did she just ask? The cauldron would do whatever the sweet seer asked of it.
And then another emotion.
It was proud. Content with whatever it had decided on. It still loved her.
If that’s what you could call it.
Elain didn’t know. But she supposed something like the claudron, who could grant powers and gifts could have emotions…
Or maybe she was delusional from the blood loss. Another thing Elain didn’t know, but she did know is that she felt free for the first time since she had been turned into fae. She could breath, (not literally with the blood that was filling her lungs) but a weight had been lifted.
And she also felt awfully tired. She felt her head hit something rough, it felt like sandpaper in her skin but there was a softness there as well.
Azriel. She knew it was him. Could smell cedar and jasmine on him.
She tried to lookup through her eyelashes but everything seemed to be tinted red and it felt heavy. She just wanted to sleep. She reached out a cupped the hand that cradled her head. She just wanted to touch him.
She couldn’t hear what he was saying.
But she knew it was her name as she watched his lips. As he shook and yelled something over his shoulder.
She smiled. It’s was okay. He was here with her.
She closed her eyes and welcomed whatever dreams would plague her because he would be there when she eventually woke up.
#elriel#acotar#pro elain#elain and azriel#elain archeron#azriel shadowsinger#pro elriel#azriel and elain#elain#azriel
24 notes
·
View notes
Text
More precious was the light in your eyes. ao3.
Many thanks to @welcomingdisaster and @outofangband for inspiration on how to tackle the 'dusk' prompt!
The first woman of the Edain Daeron loved was a milkmaid and cow herder late in her years, all wispy age-streaked braids and fat arms
He sought out her shadow rustling in the aldar leaves, in the laughing of a hidden brook. Running, leaping, whenever he thought he caught her scent of starlight on mossy ground - like a hound sniffing for its mistress, like a madman gathering thorn-scratches and losing the course of the years.
It was not madness, though it sounded mad, and foolish, and pitiful.
There were tales told of him. Because even the oldest forest and the darkest waters were no longer unpopulated, and mortals bred fast and grew covetous, there were made old trees thorn down; it happened at times that he would leave a meadow for a time, and find it turned into a hamlet on his return, or a town.
His heart grew hard as stone, inside him. In the worst winters, when there was much cold to be fought in Mannish homes, and fallen elms and firs and birches were too many to name, Daeron thought only bitterly of Lúthien's escape. Lúthien's Choice, a choosing of cruelty, a renouncing of the true face of the world.
He withheld his songs from her, as if she heard him in truth; and gathering himself in a cold cave or hollow stump, his sleep was thin and unhappy, with no memory of spring.
Regret came with the first thaw; but then, like always, it was too late to find any solace, any satisfaction. Lúthien was in the forests, at times; but she never did turn to look back, to see if he kept to her tracks.
The first woman of the Edain Daeron loved was a milkmaid and cow herder late in her years, all wispy age-streaked braids and fat arms, pail carried steadily on her head even as she let out her loud graceless laugh.
Before her narrow cabin she set a basin, and a handful of seeds; in this way she had small wood birds near her house often, and some of their pretty singing.
It was a kindly trade; that it had brought her an elf as skittish and fond of fennel seeds as any sparrow did not daunt her in the least. In the evenings he came, sometimes, by her door; she played a flute, a small and ugly thing, not well and not badly.
Daeron had forgotten. The songs of others were lovely still, in their way; even the ones Lúthien had never heard.
Soon enough she she set him to fixing the thatch roof and mending the crane mechanism in the water pump- also gathering new rushes for the floor.
"As thou art a wood-sprite, and stands sense that rushes are sweeter for thee," which was true enough; he brought new smells into the damp shelter of her house, a little green wildness.
He did as he was told out of bemusement, and surprised himself in accepting her bowls of gruel, her warm blankets, her warm legs wrapped around him upon a straw mattress, a grass mound, the shade under the tall chestnuts where the cows grazed.
"Look at this mad thing," she said, tripping rough fingers up his ribs to test if he would quiver, running them through his hair - picking off bits of dead grass, shreds of ivy. "I knew there were birds that turned into spirits in the woods, but most birds are much neater than this!"
She laughed at his indignation, and pressed him down, and laughed further at how he did quiver, nose against her bosom, mouth opening with kisses.
Reluctantly, in fits and starts and incidents, he came to know their ways.
The first winter he spent in a human village was an error; the second there was a plague, the sixth it was razed by the neighboring kingdom - or might have been. If not for Daeron singing terrors out of the mists; if not for the growing of briars sharp as daggers, and wild barking in the wild.
Melian's teachings were in him still, half-dormant; and if he told none whom it was that kept danger away, still his lover teased him while plucking briars from his hair, and grew even more shameless about sending him off to scare away wolves and bears and annoying tax-riders with his mighty powers.
Lúthien's choice grew less repellent to him, in time. But he would not have chosen as Lúthien might have, after all.
He could only be himself, one of the Quendi; the last of them, he thought, perhaps.
He stood by the mounds where roses grew from his lover's bones. Her laughter, gone thick with age and then silent, was a biting grief, a cutting thing; and he had to be glad for it, too, for he had not thought to grieve a thing besides Lúthien, and it was good to love, after all, even a thing that died.
O, but it was bitter! A long winter of the heart, and a winter that always came back.
That much Lúthien had taught him, and his cow-herder; and the forests, too, where saplings grew in the place of old giants, and shrubs ate away even the roots of Ents.
This relinquishing come no more easily, not more easily was he at peace with it. Still he knew then it would happen again; many times, perhaps.
He swept the house, brought in new rushes, and left the cows grazing, and filled the basin, where sparrows and jays and plain nightingales came to sate their thirst. Some winters he went onward, deeper into the forests, to scare the wolves, the bold mountain lions, the king's riders.
But the house was his now, and the roses were not as stout as niphredil, and wanted tending.
-
It was not madness. Daeron saw her in every flower that bloomed at dusk, the sweet haze that rose over the world in the first days of spring. Lúthien was there.
He saw her, now. Not at first, when he was younger, and caught in grief and regret such that no consolation could be found.
He saw her in the small pale flowers that were not niphredil. He saw her in the lined faces of old women weaving by the hearth during the long winters, and in the maids dancing round the summer bonfires. In all things mortal, in all blue twilights; and he loved Lúthien the better for it, in time, with a love that was an aching sweetness, not the last of its kind.
24 notes
·
View notes
Text
Welcome to the Nightmare Game II - CH48
**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**
[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]
-----
Chapter 48: Star Death Reality Show (XXXI)
{cw: misgendering}
"Will Qi Leren be alright?" Dr. Lu, who had already run away, looked at Du Yue behind him in a panic and murmured in a low voice, "I have a bad feeling."
"Qianbei will be fine," Du Yue said confidently.
"No, let's go down and have a look. If he’s in trouble, we can help," Dr. Lu said.
"Okay, let's go." Du Yue was fine with it.
The two people studied the route to find the safest passage. Dr. Lu's sense of direction was bad, and Du Yue wasn’t much better. Two headless flies wandered around the institute and accidentally found intermittent blood on the ground.
The two walked along the blood trail, and finally found the injured Lara in a hidden room. Her injury wasn’t serious, but her spirit was not good. After seeing Du Yue and Dr. Lu, she was silent for a long time, and her voice was hoarse as she asked: "Have you seen Jing Siyu and Jing Sixue?"
The two shook their heads, and Lara sighed: "I'm afraid they’re in danger."
Lara told them what had happened after they ran away. Jing Siyu and Jing Sixue disappeared quickly, but Janet, Alex and Lara were together. They’d had an argument because Francis had been parasitized by an octopus. Janet strongly suspected that Lara was parasitized, and Lara would naturally not admit to such false accusations. During the argument, they met Leviathan, who had been thrown off by Qi Leren once before.
Janet, who was the closest to Leviathan, was the first to be killed. Alex tried to escape, but Leviathan jumped up again. Alex, who was eager to get rid of it, tried to push Lara out, and even stabbed Lara with a dagger. However, Lara had a strong will to survive. She took the dagger regardless of her injury and stabbed Alex’s vitals with a knife. She hid in a room, locked the door, and crawled away from the vents.
After that, Lara tenaciously fled the whole way, and finally came here and met Du Yue and Dr. Lu.
"We also met the monster, and Qi Leren led it away. Here's the thing..." Dr. Lu plainly told the story again, and finally asked, "We’re going to find Qi Leren. Would you like to join us?"
Lara touched the wound on her hand and nodded firmly: "Let's go."
This time, all three people were in a heavy mood. Especially after seeing the incomplete bodies of Jing Siyu and Jing Sixue, Lara cried sadly and asked aloud, "Are we the only ones left? Is Qi still alive?"
Janet and Alex had undoubtedly died by Leviathan's mouth, as well as Jing Siyu and Jing Siyue. Francis, Annie, Mark and Xue Jiahui were all parasitized. He Yi became Leviathan’s host. Only four of them had survived, and among them, Qi Leren’s life and death were still uncertain.
"Of course he’s still alive!" Dr. Lu said firmly. "He must still be alive!"
&&&
In the vast underground ice palace.
"Prophet, are you awake?" A blindfolded woman stood up from the chair of carved ice and respectfully saluted him. The ice and snow maids who were responsible for guarding the underground ice palace also bent over in salute.
"Soothsayer? Is it your rotation today?" asked the Prophet.
"It should have been the Iillusionist’s turn, but he had something to do, so we changed it," the Soothsayer replied.
"How is that boy recently?" When it came to the Illusionist, the Prophet's tone was clearly casual.
"Not bad, I heard that he made an interesting new friend, and he played tricks on others all day long." The Soothsayer smiled and asked again, "This time, you slept for a much shorter time than expected. Is something wrong?"
"It's not an accident." The Prophet frowned and looked up at the dome of ice and snow, but his line of sight seemed to pass through the thick layer of ice and look at the vast universe.
The blindfolded Soothsayer could not see his expression at the moment, but she could feel his inner unrest.
"Someone has discovered their original force, and that force is biased towards us," said the Prophet.
The Soothsayer breathed a sigh of relief, smiled, and said, "Isn't this a good thing? Although it’s only the first step, it’s always ahead of the other sentient beings on the starting line. Maybe it will eventually condense a half-field or even a field."
It was only the first step to discover one's original force, and it would take some difficult self-testing to condense a half-field, but this already meant that this person was about to embark on a road different from ordinary players. Any master at the field level started from this first step. Although most people would fall in the long road of experience, everyone who had reached the field level had terrible strength.
The Prophet sighed faintly: "It’s too early to talk about field condensation... Although I’m optimistic about him, I didn’t expect it to be so fast. This may not be a good thing for him. There are still too many problems in his body that have not been solved."
The Soothsayer asked curiously, "Do you know that man? What is his original force?"
The Prophet sensed the new force full of vigor and hope, and gently spoke the answer:
"Rebirth."
&&&
In the deep underground glacier wrapped in eternal cold, the temperature was 60 degrees below zero. When human beings were exposed to this environment, it only took a few minutes for the blood in the nose and ears to be unable to maintain circulation because of the cold, and the cells would quickly die.
This underground world without light seemed destined to be forgotten in the cold.
Crushed skull, whole body fracture, ruptured organs, internal and external bleeding... Worse than that, when falling from that height, the speed would return to zero at the moment of contact with the ground, and the body would be deformed instantly under the huge force of the impact. Even the space alien Leviathan, whose vitality was extremely terrible, was seriously injured after falling and fell into a deep sleep.
To say nothing of a human being.
Death was the only outcome.
But suddenly, something moved in the ruinous "tomb" created from broken ice.
And then moved again.
Qi Leren felt as if he was in an icy hell. Every time he breathed, thousands of ice needles punctured his internal organs crazily, which made him feel miserable. He couldn't even think of why he felt so painful and cold, or where he was.
Under this inhuman pain, he only felt that he didn't want to live any longer, but he couldn't even die.
Breathing returned, heartbeat returned, he still couldn't open his eyes, he could only move with all his might. The stones and ice blocks on his arms also moved and collapsed violently, and his sound echoed in the lifeless darkness.
Qi Leren's consciousness gradually returned, and he remembered who he was, but he still didn't realize where he was. He complained crazily in his mind that the air conditioner in his room was too cold, and that he had even accidentally fallen from the bed, and now he couldn't move.
But how could it hurt so much? It was like all his bones were broken.
Qi Leren's confused thinking leaped illogically. He saw many things, and the broken pictures rampaged in front of his eyes, but they just passed away. All he remembered was that he saw a pair of blue eyes.
Blue eyes.
Ning Zhou.
The name suddenly appeared in Qi Leren’s, which was like a spell to unlock the seal on his memories. Countless heavy memories were bearing down, which were more painful than the rose thorn stuck in his heart.
He was going to find Ning Zhou, and he was going to bring him back.
Qi Leren finally recalled his mission, and he began to struggle, struggling to get up from the tomb built from broken ice. Just turning over exhausted his strength, and he had to lie prone on the ground and breathe for a while, only to recover his strength slowly.
He noticed the time. It has been twenty hours since he’d fallen from the ice cliff. It was ten o'clock on the fifth night. The fifth day’s Best of the Day had already been announced, but he didn't know who it was. At the same time, his privacy time has been reset with the new day day, and he had another ten hours.
If you fell from such a high place, the tracking camera should be damaged. If not, the low temperature here should make it unable to work normally. But just to be on the safe side, turn it off.
"Turn off the camera." Qi Leren squeezed his voice out of his dry throat, and coughed wildly as soon as he finished speaking. His mouth was full of the fishy sweetness of blood, which made Qi Leren feel queasy.
Suddenly there was a light sound in the dark, as if a stone had been pushed down.
Qi Leren immediately took out a flashlight from the item bar and shone it in the direction of the sound.
Not far away, there is a mound of rocks and crushed ice, and a tentacle was slowly sticking out from the inside, which was extremely slow and seems to be seriously injured.
That thing wasn't dead yet? Or did it sense the breath of the living again and wake up from hibernation?
Qi Leren struggled from the ground. Although he was mysteriously resurrected, his left hand, which was bitten off by Leviathan, still didn't grow back. If he tried this again, he would only die.
But fortunately, he had a key item that had cooled down.
When the Prophet's Heart was used again, Qi Leren felt subtly different from the last time. The phantom angel falling from the sky came to him and took him away from the terrible world to the carefree Garden of Eden. Under the cover of God's grace, he didn't need to worry, and he didn't feel fear. The world was like sand in his hand, and he could easily knead it into the shape he wanted.
Heavy rocks and ice were pushed away with a flick, exposing Leviathan lying on the ground dying. This horrible monster had a red eye, and this huge eyeball was full of ferocious madness.
There was an invisible giant clock behind him, and the pointer walked quickly. As long as it finished three laps, the power he borrowed would be like the chime of midnight, dissipating all magic.
He had to hurry.
Qi Leren held out his hand and raised his palm in the void. Leviathan floated and began to roar and struggle, but this degree of resistance had no effect before the original force. Moving the palm of his hand slowly, Qi Leren felt that he could easily knead it into pieces, just like what he did to Mark's octopus.
But this was not the only way. Qi Leren felt the mystery of time and carefully explored its secret. A mysterious feeling emerged in his heart. He rubbed his fingers and the sands of time slowly flowed down in his hands.
Leviathan floating in the air as if it had been cast in magic. Its shell was rapidly aging, coated with a layer of rust, and finally it seems to be petrified. Its body was full of cracks, and finally it turned into powder like beach sand, which sprinkled to the ground slowly, leaving a golden treasure chest and a round sphere.
Qi Leren waved his hand, and these two things fell into his hands. The treasure chest was opened, which was an item.
[Lucky Revolver: There are six slots in this gun’s chamber, one of which is loaded with a bullet. Shooting at one's own temple can give one minute of absolute defense within a radius of 500 meters around the locked target, but the absolute defense is invalid for this bullet. Even if you are lucky, God will only give you five minutes. If you are not afraid of death, you can continue for another minute. Locked target: not set.]
Qi Leren immediately decided that this was of no use to him, because he would blow his head off with the first shot, and unless it was matched with S/L, it was a waste.
Disappointed, he looked at the other object, which was an eyeball as big as a bowl. The scarlet pupil seemed familiar. It was called [Leviathan's Eyeball].
What was this thing? There wasn’t even a brief introductory description, which reminded Qi Leren of another prop without a brief introduction, namely, the "Scepter of Hell", which Maria had entrusted him to give to the Prophet.
Time was running out, and the clock representing his time limit only had half a rotation left. The translucent wings behind the Qi Leren lifted him, flying over the deep underground glacier, crossing the collapsed ice tunnel, flying all the way along the coming road, and returning to the iron door at the entrance before time ran out.
"Qi Leren? You’re still alive? That’s great!" "Qianbei! Are you alright? Qianbei! How did you grow wings!" "Qi, are you alright?" The three people wandering around the door with flashlights rushed up in surprise at the sight of Qi Leren.
Prophet's Heart’s time was up, and Qi Leren landed on the ground. After the sacred power retreated, he sat down weakly and walked out of the underground ice cave with the help of the three panicking people.
"It's okay, it's all taken care of. Just in case, we should quickly leave here, seal the exits, and wait for rescue." Although Qi Leren was still in the aftershocks of coming back from the dead, his mind was clear, and he clearly commanded the three people. He was worried about whether there were any octopuses hatching in the research institute, but he was afraid to say it now, for fear that after his mouth moved, his good luck would run out.
Du Yue had great strength, and single handedly carried Qi Leren, who had lost his arm, on his back. He listened to the three people say what had happened after they’d split up, learning that after discovering that the other people had become Leviathan's food, the three people had come to the bottom of the institute to look for Qi Leren. They went in several times, but the temperature inside was horribly low. Unlike Qi Leren who had been blessed by the holy light, they finally had to retreat, worried that Qi Leren was dead.
Qi Leren didn't say that he and Leviathan had fallen off the ice cliff together, only that Leviathan had fallen off, and that he was injured and unconscious for a long time but didn't die. Finally, God blessed him and gave him strength to return to them.
Dr. Lu and Du Yue were very embarrassed, but Lara was very moved. She took Qi Leren's remaining right hand and sincerely said, "When we go back, introduce me to your teachings. I’m willing to be baptized."
Qi Leren, who had no intention of preaching at all, was in a distressing situation. One atheist has destroyed the worldviews of another atheist through acting skills and unscientific miracles—maybe more than one. Should he be sealed as a saint or something?
They left the underground research institute, blocked the exit, left the basement, and returned to the surface. The night was bright and the whole land was covered with white snow and ice. Lara, who was the first to leave the room, pointed to the sky in surprise and shouted: "Look, what is that!"
The three people raised their heads and looked at the approaching black spots.
"Is it... Is the rescue coming?" Dr. Lu was excited.
"Great." Qi Leren also breathed a sigh of relief. The copy was coming to an end, and they could return to the Nightmare World soon.
The spacecraft was getting closer and closer, and before long, they would be able to board the spacecraft safely and leave, but the spacecraft was slow to land. The four people waited anxiously, just like waiting for a late plane.
"It seems like something’s wrong." Lara stood up and looked at more and more spacecrafts that had no intention of landing. "What are they waiting for?"
A thought flashed through Qi Leren's mind: "Are they a civilian spacecrafts?"
"No, these are..." Lara said, her voice stopping abruptly.
A beam more dazzling than sunlight converged on the muzzle of the spacecraft, and the terrible energy was aimed at this planet!
Stunned, the four people watched the devastating attack on the plane beneath their feet, and they couldn't help feeling shocked. They had never thought that, after escaping death from a horrible space alien, they would finally die at the hands of their own people. In order to prevent the octopus from spreading, the army gave up the idea of a rescue landing and blasted the whole planet to pieces at a safe distance, where there was no risk of contact.
At the last second in this copy world, Qi Leren and the others were judged to have completed the task requirement of "surviving until the army arrived", and left the world in the light of the blast.
-----
Editor’s Notes: Obviously those items can only have positive results, right?
As a bonus for the end of this arc, BMBL wrote a collection of the program audience’s reactions on her Weibo. They’re posted as images so I can’t easily throw them into an mtl, but here’s the link for anyone who wants to take a stab at it: https://weibo.com/1741082525/F4b6D7Upr
-----
[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]
28 notes
·
View notes
Text
Battle Scars [Nessian Fic]
A/N: Well, A Court of a Silver Flames is just a little over a week away, so I might as well post one final little Nessian fic before its release! So back in November, @hereforthemoment wrote the following post:
Nesta and Cassian are sparring, right? And Cassian ends up on top of her with a dagger to her throat but at the last moment Nesta aims her dagger at his heart.
He says, “you’d be dead”
But she chuckles and says, “then I guess we’d go together”
Then they both become very serious and look into each other’s eyes until Nesta pushes him off of her and leaves the ring
I asked for permission to write a fic with this scene, and voila! I finally finished it! So here goes! (Thank you @hereforthemoment!!)
TITLE: Battle Scars
FANDOM: A Court of Thorns and Roses
SETTING: Post-ACOFAS.
CHARACTERS: Nesta and Cassian
RATING: SFW
GENRE: Angst/Romance/Drama
SYNOPSIS: Nesta and Cassian finally address the war and its aftermath.
*You can also read this on AO3 or FF
________________________________________________________________
“Train with me, Nesta.”
She did not need to peel her eyes away from her dagger to discover who was talking to her. The low timbre of his voice was familiar to her—and one she heard nearly everyday.
“That sounds like an order,” she answered coolly from where she sat on a log and continued to sharpen her dagger against the stone in her hand. “You are well aware that I’m not very fond of being told what to do,” she added in a casual tone.
“My sincerest apologies,” he replied. Nesta kept her eyes down, but she could tell he must’ve been smiling to himself. These days, he always grinned whenever she spoke civilly to him...a vast difference from how they conversed with each other the first few months of her living in the Illyrian Mountains. Those conversations were more like verbal sparring matches. But now, several months later, the two of them were more like...friends.
“What I meant to say was...would you do me the honor of dueling against me?”
Letting the stone in her hand plop onto the snowy ground, she sheathed her dagger and finally looked up to see Cassian standing beside her. His hair was pulled back, allowing her to look directly into his eyes.
The way he stared at her was...unnerving, and the way he treated her in recent weeks was equally unsettling. That fool actually had the audacity to make comments that would cause her lips to curve upwards into a smile. And he’d done things for her — like make her pancakes and retrieve new books for her — that made her feel like something was fluttering around in her stomach.
She had to shift her gaze. “You haven’t asked me to train with you before, General. Why now?” she asked, while suddenly finding the lacings along her sleeve to be quite fascinating.
“Well, before, I feared you might actually end up killing me in a duel.”
“What makes you so sure I won’t try to kill you now?”
“I have reason to believe you rather enjoy this pretty face of mine.”
Nesta’s eyebrow rose in confusion as she stood up to face him. “Whatever gave you such delusions?”
“I seem to recall you looking quite concerned when Merida scraped my cheek during training last week.”
“That’s because I wanted to have the pleasure of marking you myself,” she assured him as she crossed her arms against her chest. The scratch left by the Illyrian female who accidentally struck her dagger against his face was still there.
“I can think of a few more interesting ways you could do that without weapons, sweetheart,” he remarked with a smug grin as he allowed his gaze to drop to her lips.
Nesta glared at him. “Are you sure you want to spar with me right now? The urge to murder you is definitely present.”
Cassian smirked. “Well, I’m not the type to back down from a challenge I’ve already made. Let’s go to the ring.”
________________________________________________________________
In Nesta’s mind, every duel she engaged in was a story. Many of her fights with Illyrian females told tales of wild beasts that had been tied down for far too long that had now finally been able to roam free, progressing from rigid stances to more fluid movements within the span of the duel.
Her current fight with Cassian told its own story—one that seemed to echo her and Cassian’s relationship since she moved here to the Illyrian Mountains. At first, his movements were slow and hesitant as he began circling around her, trying to gauge exactly what kind of fighter he was facing, while her own slashing motions at him were rapid. But he was quick to defend himself against her, blocking her dagger with his own. For a moment, her persistence seemed to frustrate him, causing him to finally attempt to strike back at her. Then their arms tired, and they spent less time sparring and more time analyzing the other as they circled each other.
“You’ve grown stronger,” Cassian noted as he continued staring at her.
“Are you surprised?” she asked, staring right back and noticing how the snowflakes fell on his eyelashes.
“No,” he calmly replied. “I’m proud of you.”
At the sight of her raised, quizzical brow, he continued, “You’ve overcome so much. It’s inspiring.”
She would’ve raised her brow even higher if she was capable. To hear him say such a thing was...shocking. Alarming. Unsettling. Maybe even infuriating? But maybe she even felt a sense of pride, too...
“But you still have much to learn,” Cassian said with a strained breath and in a swift motion, he suddenly tackled her to the ground.
Laying atop her body, Cassian pressed the tip of his dagger against her throat, careful not to nick her skin.
“You’d be dead right now,” he muttered.
But at that moment, he felt the tip of Nesta’s dagger pressing against his chest, right over his heart. Nesta let out a low chuckle. “Then I guess we’d go together.”
Cassian’s eyes quickly met hers, and her laughter faded. Silence fell between them—only the sounds of their ragged breathing could be heard as they looked at each other.
Suddenly, with a shove, Nesta winced as she pushed Cassian off of her. Getting up, she sprinted out of the ring, leaving behind her dagger on the ground.
“Nesta!” Cassian called out. “Nesta, wait!” In a quick movement, he stood up and charged after her as his own dagger tumbled to the ground.
Determined, Nesta trudged her way through the snow with her arms folded across her body. The gusts of cold wind blowing against her face did not deter her. In fact, the biting cold helped distract her from thinking about the last time she almost died with Cassian.
“Nesta!” Cassian called from behind her. She wasn’t walking fast enough. “Nesta, please. We need to talk.”
“About what?” she shouted back, unable to resist the urge to yell at him and release her pent-up anger. Of course, she had an idea about what he possibly would want to talk to her about, but she’d been wrong about that before. Back after the King of Hybern was dead and the war was over, she thought he’d seek her out and address what he said to her on the battlefield. But that never happened.
“Us, the war...everything!” he replied. His voice was louder now.
Inside, Nesta was seething and couldn’t help herself from bursting now. She abruptly halted and whipped around to face Cassian as he approached, catching him by surprise.
“You’ve had months—years, actually—to talk!” she exclaimed. “Why even bother at this point?”
“Because...I’ve been such an idiot–”
“No argument there,” Nesta grumpily interjected as she crossed her arms against her chest.
Cassian paused and took a few heavy breaths as he looked at her. “And we need to talk about it in order to move forward. Because I love–”
“I need to go,” she interrupted him as she shook her head in disbelief at the words he was possibly about to utter. She turned around to resume her journey back to her cabin.
“Nesta, this is coming out all wrong. Can we please just talk?” he asked as followed her and reached out to grab her hand in an attempt to make her stop.
Instead, she furiously swatted his hand away, not noticing the patch of ice on the ground as she did so. She slipped, sending her sprawling to the ground, and let out a small yelp in the process as the sharp pain surged through her ankle.
“Nesta!” Cassian was instantly beside her, crouching down to help her sit up. “Nesta, I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”
“My ankle is twisted,” Nesta answered gruffly through clenched teeth, resisting the urge to bark her head off at him. “Leave it alone,” she ordered when Cassian placed his hand against her boot as if he were going to slide it off.
“We should wrap your ankle with some snow,” he explained.
“I will do it,” Nesta insisted with a frown, as she averted her eyes from Cassian. “Just leave me be and go on your way.”
Confusion covered Cassian’s face. “Nesta, I’m not leaving you out here to suffer alone.”
“Why not? It’s what you’re good at.” Nesta spat back as she remained focused on pulling off her boot.
Cassian froze as her words punctured his heart. Silence passed between them while Nesta inspected her ankle. Cassian then reached for the small pouch belted at his waist, pulling out a gray lace cloth that was adorned with various Illyrian symbols.
“I’d like to change my ways,” Cassian spoke faintly. “And become a man worthy of you…if you will let me.”
He grabbed a handful of snow and wrapped it within the cloth, then held out his makeshift ice pack, waiting for Nesta’s permission to place it around her ankle. She peered over at it, curious as to how and why he would have a cloth like that with him.
“This cloth belonged to my mother,” Cassian said upon noticing her staring. “I like to have it with me, especially in battle.”
Nesta’s frown disappeared and switched to a look of slight concern. “Why would you want to use that to wrap my ankle?” she asked in a softened voice.
“It’s all I have with me,” he replied. “And I am willing to give you all that I have,” he said with a meaningful look. “If you will allow me,” he added.
Feeling uncomfortable under his gaze, Nesta returned to inspecting her ankle. “Be gentle,” she instructed, granting him permission and not daring to say more out of fear of what Cassian was possibly implying.
Cassian proceeded to gingerly wrap the cloth and snow around her swelling ankle, tying it so it was secure. “In the weeks when I was laying in bed, recovering from my injuries after the war…” he began hesitantly. “Every time I awoke, I always hoped you would be there when I opened my eyes.”
Nesta’s breath hitched upon hearing Cassian speak of the war, but she did not stop him from speaking.
“But you never came,” he continued calmly, as he delicately slid her boot back onto her foot and began tying the laces. “And I was left feeling angry, bitter, and sad. I thought...after the way you shielded my body with my own, after our...after our kiss, that it would’ve meant something to you. That you would want to check on me and make sure I was all right and talk to me. But when you never showed, I assumed you wanted nothing to do with a low-born bastard like me. That everything between us meant nothing to you.”
Nesta absorbed every word he said as she watched his hands. But she allowed the sounds of the whistling wind to fill the silence instead of responding.
“I can carry you back to the cabin, if you want,” he suggested as he stood up off the ground.
Even when it came to the smallest things, Nesta hated not being the one in control. But with her ankle throbbing in pain and a long trek back to the cabin before her, it appeared she was left with no choice but to accept Cassian’s help.
Yet, there was something endearing about his offer. He didn’t ask her if he could fly her back, which would be much faster than carrying her by foot. But he knew how much she detested flying and how sick it made her feel.
It wasn’t the first time he’d recognized how she’d been feeling. As of late, he definitely had taken notice of certain things about her...like never starting a fire within the cabin because he realized its crackling sounds distressed her, always fully cooking the meat in her meals so it’s red juice wouldn’t remind her of bloodshed, and preparing a cup of tea for her each evening knowing it helped her sleep well each night. He even started remembering the little details about her, like how she prefers honey in her tea over sugar.
Nesta gave a stiff nod.
Cassian instantly knelt down to lift her up in both of his arms, careful not to jostle her ankle too much.
As he began the trek to the cabin, Nesta turned her face toward his. While he had been learning more about her these past few months, there were still some things he did not yet understand. And there were things about him that she’d been wanting to understand.
Feeling her gaze, he looked back at her.
She took a deep breath. “In the weeks after the war, I was drowning,” she recalled calmly. “I was struggling to deal with all that happened in the war, from fighting the king to dealing with my father’s death to coming to terms with my powers.” Her voice fell into a whisper. “Do you think I was ready to deal with...whatever I may have felt for you at the time on top of that? Do you think I would’ve wanted to visit you and see firsthand the after-effects of a war that I was already having nightmares about each night?”
With a somber look darkening his face — an expression that Nesta wasn’t sure she’d ever seen grace his face before — Cassian stopped.
Squeezing her more tightly in his arms, he raised her a little higher so he could bring his face closer to hers. “I’m so sorry, Nesta,” he said. “I’ve...failed you so many times. I chose to be bitter. I was hurt that you appeared to despise me while I was in love with you.”
While she could sense his apology was genuine, there was still more she needed to know and comprehend. And more that he needed to realize. “You promised more time with me out on the battlefield, then abandoned me. Then, you agreed to send me away to live here in the mountains against my will. Is that love to you?” she wondered sadly. “You told me that you didn’t understand how my sisters could love me. Would you call that love, too?”
A tear shone in Cassian’s eye as he shook his head vigorously. “No, absolutely not,” he insisted. “I realize how wrong I’ve been. I’m so sorry I gave into my pain and tried to hurt you the way I felt you had hurt me. I hope, in time, you can forgive me.”
Nesta found she couldn’t reply. Not just yet. She’d been wrestling with thoughts of how he treated her in the past, compared to the way he’d made her feel as of late.
Cassian soon resumed walking, striding through the snow with determined steps and an intense, serious facial expression.
The rest of the journey to the cabin was quiet, but once Cassian stepped upon the porch outside the front door, Nesta held up the palm of her hand and rested it upon his chest, catching his attention. “Cassian, I want to forgive you,” she confessed softly. “But I… I need to see that I can trust you.”
Cassian nodded, turning his head down. “I understand,” he said. “You don’t know how much I wish we could start over. That we could go back to the end of the war, so I could be there for you afterwards,” he stated wistfully.
Nesta moved her hand up to his cheek, capturing his gaze again. “Then, let’s start over.”
“What?” he asked, puzzled.
“Begin again by making me a promise, and prove to me that you can keep it this time,” she proposed.
Cassian took a deep breath before tilting his head down and staring deep into her steel eyes. “My only regrets in this life are the ways I’ve failed you and how I’ve wasted time that could’ve been spent better with you, Nesta. We will have that time now. I promise.”
He tightened his grasp on her, and to his astonishment, she lifted her head up and planted a sweet, brief kiss upon his lips.
When she pulled back, she rested her forehead against his. “It just felt like something was missing after such a promise,” she admitted with a slight grin playing at her lips. Cassian let out a low chuckle.
“Don’t screw up this time,” she added in a whisper.
“There’s no way I’m losing you this time, sweetheart.”
________________________________________________________________
A/N: In writing this, I realized that I wished there were more synonyms for “stare” because I am ALL ABOUT intense gazes between Nesta and Cassian! So apologies for the overuse of the word.
Anyway, I hope you liked it! I was pretty determined to include a Nessian kiss in here, but obviously those two still have a lot to heal through here...more than a oneshot allows :) so thank goodness ACOSF is almost here to do that for us! I had hoped to finish this fic weeks ago so there was a good chunk of time before the release but here we are. (While I am DYING for this book, I do feel a tinge of sadness over the fact that most of my Nessian fics will no longer be canon-compliant! XD)
Thank you for reading and thanks again @hereforthemoment for the fic inspiration!
#a court of silver flames#nesta archeron#nessian#nesta#cassian#nesta x cassian#acotar#acomaf#acowar#acofas#acosf#a court of thorns and roses#a court of mist and fury#a court of wings and ruin#a court of frost and starlight#post-acofas#nessian fanfiction#fanfiction
71 notes
·
View notes
Text
Rose Red’s All Hallows Eve: Shall We Go Inside?
Summary- 5.3k Charles Blackwood x You. You were sent a ticket to the exclusive fund raiser at Rose Red on Halloween Night. You are to visit the character Charles Blackwood, played by your forever crush Sebastian Stan. He supposed to take you on a tour of the famous haunted manor, claiming it to be the home of his Aunt Ellen Rimbauer and Uncle Wilford Rimbauer. What a once in a life time opportunity! You might just never want to leave.
Warnings- its a ghost story, creepy descriptions, mentions of suicide, death.
A/N- written as my last submission to @jtargaryen18 Haunted House 2020. This will be the final piece I write for Rose Red’s All Hallows Eve, and I hope you all enjoy a glimpse and some back story of Rose Red that wasn’t given in the Curtis chapters. The story is from Stephen King’s Rose Red which was a TV mini series. Excellent Halloween movie if you can find it. Its hard to locate now. Dividers made by @firefly-graphics Happy Reading and Haunting. 😈🎃🌹
Masterlist
You couldn’t get over your good fortune when you checked your mailbox that morning. Inside was an envelope, with wispy handwriting with no return address. When you opened it, there was a ticket, an exclusive ticket to the Rose Red All Hallows Eve charity function.
Your jaw dropped, cause even though you had been trying everything to secure a ticket for months, no one would sell you one. And you tried finding scalped tickets, willing to take a chance for one, only to be turned down. It was an invite-only, only the elite were getting to tour the mansion and meet some of their favorite movie actors in their darker roles.
Your hands trembled as you brought the ticket closer, reading the fine print to see which person you were getting to meet. Not that you were picky, you would take the chance to meet anyone. Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan, Frank Grillo, Scarlett Johnson, or Chris Hemsworth. Just being able to get into the mansion was worth all the months of begging and trying just about anything for tickets.
Your eyes roved back and forth, trying to pick up a name when you saw the fine print announcing that you would be escorted around Rose Red by Charles Blackwood from We Have Always Lived In The Castle. You gave a little squee of excitement, having really wanted to meet Sebastian Stan. What a better character on Halloween night then the devious cousin Charles. Your plans for tonight went from working on a project for your boss to getting red wine drunk and watching the movie on Netflix to get reacquainted with Charles Blackwood. Research, of course, you didn’t want to be meeting the famous “Charles” without having done your research after all. Happy in a way you haven’t been in a while, you went to pour your wine and binge, wishing you had someone to call to tell your news to. But you were a bit of a loner and didn’t tend to connect with people.
But whatever, this well this was going to be the best Halloween yet for you. No getting sloppy drunk in a bar to bring home some wanna be cowboy or that one time you brought home a clown. A disgusted shudder went through you at the memory. That wasn’t a Halloween you were particularly proud of. Not this year though, this time you were going to one of the most haunted places in New York and seeing Sebastian Stan. Wonder what it would take to bring him home? Making yourself grin like an idiot, as your major fan girl crush made your heart race. You poured almost the entire bottle of red wine in the goblet.
“How did the saying go? Treat Yo Self.” Lifting the glass you took a rather large swallow.
Charles stood at the entrance, waiting for the next patron he was to bring through the mansion. They should be arriving soon, the time on the ticket said 11 pm sharp. Waiting at the gate, his back leaned against the cold stone of the wall and his gaze fell upwards to see a bit of green creeping over the wall, sprouting thorns sharper than any dagger. Charles hummed softly with a bit of a smirk to see the creeping vine, a small bud twisted as it grew in size. The bigger it got, the more it tinted from green to blood red, and it spiraled open to a single rose. Reaching up, he pinched the stem, clipping it off and bringing it down to admire it. The perfect petals are just as soft as a woman's lips when he brushed his fingertip along one, and when a thorn bit into his palm, he hissed at the sting, that too just like a woman. Don’t respect her, and she will cut you down. Blood welled up and spilled towards the ground before he brought his palm to his mouth and sucked it clean, inspecting to make sure there wasn’t any of the thorn left in his palm. Snipping off the thorns, he let them scatter into the gravel under his feet.
Charles was fixing the rose into his shirt pocket, when you started to come out from between parked cars, your hands smoothing against your thighs with a bit of nerve and you just looked so innocently sweet. The corner of his mouth quirked up while he inspected you. She’s a perfect choice, he thought maliciously as his features shifted to warm and welcoming. “Welcome Dear to Rose Red, my family's Manor. My name is Charles Blackwood.” Plucking out that flower from his shirt pocket, he gave a slight bow and held it out for you. Your giggle went right through him, making his toes curl in his shiny black Louboutin’s all the way to the base of his neck where his expensive Tom Ford collar rubbed. You looked up at him with a touch of innocence that should make him feel bad, but it didn’t.
You dug out your ticket and showed them to Charles Blackwood, which he inspected closely and pulled out his wallet to pocket it. You bubbled with excitement and lifted the rose he had just given you to your nose, letting the tip brush against the edges of the petals. “Thank you. I shall press it to dry it when I get home Sebastian. But I have no place to put it.” You started to figure out a way to hold onto it and not get it ruined when he took it back and wedged it into the stone wall behind him.
“It will be safe here Dear, and Charles, please. I don’t know this Sebastian you call me.” He gave a wink and you nod in understanding. It was supposed to be just the characters showing you around. So it made sense that you were supposed to call him Charles, not Sebastian. You bit your lip and nodded.
“Of course, Sorry Charles.” you loved how well he fell into character, offering his arm to you that you curled your hand around his forearm, falling into step together once you two went through the iron-wrought gate.
“No harm is done, Dear. I’m very excited to show you around my Uncle and Aunts family home for the evening. It’s not often I have such a lovely woman on my arm.” He leads you up the stairs and opens the massive door to the mansion. “After You. There are a few groups inside, but we won’t be running into them.”
Your head tips back to look all around, taken in by the deep wooden double staircase sweeping up to the upper floors, gleaming marble floors and a crystal chandelier that as you and Charles walked underneath it, you couldn't help but tip your head back, mesmerized by the glinting of the crystalline shards. “One of Ellen's nicer finds. She had the chandelier shipped from France, each crystal carefully wrapped.”
“This whole place, it looks completely restored. I thought it was condemned, banned from the public?” You question as he leads you into what looks like a sitting room, another room that spoke of decadence, with plush chairs around a large fireplace that seemed to take up half the wall, large vibrant persian rugs sat atop rich wooden floors, and in the glow of the lamps light up around the room showed carvings in the wall, cherubs dancing amongst vines and roses. You shuddered a bit looking at them high above you in the molding. The innocence of them felt wrong in this place, malicious.
Charles directed you towards a small staircase that went halfway up the room, climbing while answering your question. “Ahh yes. Well it is technically. But I have been told that Rose Red might be reopening soon to the public. For tours, the occasional overnight ghost investigations.”
Once you two reached the landing, you saw the ornate dollhouse. Charles was able to turn it around on a turnstyle stand, and flicked a switch, lighting up the inside. Leaning down, you peeked inside in awe. It was a perfect replica of the house, the lower levels showed a large massive kitchen, sitting rooms, library, offices. Then up the stairs a ballroom of sorts, another library, bedrooms, and other odd rooms that seemed to serve no purpose.
“This is beautiful.” You muttered and straightened, clasping your hands behind your back to keep from picking up the matching furniture to look closer.
“My Great Aunt Ellen had this made for her daughter April, who was confined to Rose Red due to her bad health. She was a lonely child, her father sending her older brother off to boarding school. Wilford wanted little to do with his daughter. She had a deformity to her arm from birth. Withered. He would have disowned April, but Ellen wouldn't allow that. Upstairs, is a whole play room dedicated to her.” He pointed to a corner of the upstairs, which you peeked in to see a soft pink rose colored room filled with toys and dolls for a little girl.
“What was wrong with April, to cause her to have a withered arm?” you asked and Charles shrugged.
“It's said that Wilford wasn't faithful during his and Ellen's honeymoon, passed on a exotic disease to Ellen. She was ravaged in the years following their return to Rose Red. Which was also a honeymoon gift. He promised her anything she wanted. So the two years they were gone Rose Red was being built by one of the largest crew of men seen at the time. They even installed a train to bring in supplies from the harbor.”
Charles directed you down the stairs to go look out a window, and far off beyond what looked like a greenhouse was a large train, like a black ghost of the past, rusting away under the vines wrapped around the engine. Squinting you could have sworn you saw a couple of women following a lantern down the path. “Rose Red experienced the first deaths with that crew. The train was derailed, killing hundreds of men on the grounds at once.”
You shuddered while pulling away your gaze from the train. “How awful.”
“How awful indeed.” Charles nodded, and tilted his head. “Some believe that such a massive tragedy stains the land, maybe what brought the house to life. Come, some of the more interesting rooms are upstairs.”
Crossing the room for the massive grand staircase. “Do you actually believe that Charles?”
“No, no I believe something else powers this house. I have my theories.” Charles gave a secretive smile, the two of you started up the many flights of stairs. He gave a bit more history of the house, including the most recent events that officially shut the doors for good to all further investigations till now. “A team of psychics led by a college professor came in. There were four men and five women with varying abilities. One woman disappeared, one died when she refused to leave, and two men died on the property during that weekend.”
You pulled up a bit hearing this, closing your arms around yourself as if to protect you, like that could protect you. “Wait, should anyone even be here?” You said fearfully, and Charles looked back at you with a reassuring smile.
“I assure you the house is dormant. The state of New York wouldn't allow us to have a charity here unless it was perfectly safe. I myself have been here many times.” His voice was smooth and confident, letting you relax a bit. Giving a nervous chuckle, you eased back into holding onto the crook of his arm, his other hand patting yours. He dropped a gentle kiss on your cheek. “I will keep you safe, this is my family's home.”
After several flights of stairs, Charles led you into a massive hallway, doors lining each side. The symmetry while looking down the hall gave the illusion of it going on forever, you could just barely see the end of the hallway, or maybe it was getting smaller the further along it went. “This place is trippy.” You muttered to yourself but Charles happened to hear you.
“Yes, it was purposely designed by Ellen this way. She had her own way of doing things that didn't necessarily make sense to anyone else.” He studied doors as you two went along, your eyes kept roving up to see what looked like the ceiling slowly getting lower when he turned you towards a door. “Ahh, the first room on our tour of interest. As I said, Aunt Ellen, well she got creative when designing rooms.”
Opening a door, you went in and quickly paused as you weren’t entirely sure what you were looking at. Before you were upside down lights, standing upright, and covered in dust and cobwebs. What bothered you looking at them was that they should be hanging above you and that's when you tilted your head up to look above. Unlike any room you've been in before, desks were hanging above you, each one set up to have someone sitting at it as a chair was tucked in. Trays for papers, cups with pencils. It was just what you would expect to see in an office above you. Out of instinct you jumped back, half expecting it all to come crashing down, just to have yourself bmp into Charles' chest, making him chuckle as he embraced you gently. “Easy Dear, it's all safe.”
You took a few steps away from him with an apology, your head tilted back to look around. “What in the world?”
Charles, strolled along next to you, hands in his slacks, as he looked up at it all, chuckling. “Aunt Ellen's idea of a joke to her husband. He didn't seem to appreciate it as much as she did. Really it was just another room to show off to guests who came to visit.” You couldn't stop gaping at the details, wandering away from Charles who remained at the door. Even the walls had bookshelves filled with books, reading chairs above your head.
“I will be right outside, take your time.” Charles slipped out, leaving the door open while you paced over to get a better look. A lamp clicked on to your surprise right above your head, and what your eyes saw made you jump back and yelp. Sitting in the chair on the ceiling looked to be a woman in a cocktail dress, her head tilted back. Decaying grey skin peeling and black hollow sockets where eyes should be was matched with a gaping smile. “Come now dear, don't be shy. You are the newest guest right?” Her head tilted and creaked, giving you what was once probably a seductive smile, but now the lips were stretched too tight and split to show decayed teeth beyond them. You stumbled back into a chandelier that was on the floor, and fell to your backside. Looking back up, the lamp above you was back off, and the chair empty. “CHARLES!” You push off the floor and run to the door, wrenching it open to stumble back into the hallway that Charles catches you as you fall into him. “What's wrong?”
“I just saw- well I think I saw- there was a person, a woman sitting up there. But not a woman, she was rotting, old clothes.” Your words stumbled out as Charles straightened you back up.
“Sounds like you ran into one of Rose Reds resident ghosts, Deanna. A famous actress who went missing while freshening up during one of Ellen’s parties.”
You looked over your shoulder at the door and moved away from it. “Why is she here?”
Charles rubbed on your arm, to calm you a bit. “She never returned to the party that night. Local police came out and searched the entire grounds for days. But she never recovered. You're pretty shaken, do you wish to continue?”
You gave a chuckle and rubbed at your hands against your thighs to dispel the nervous energy. You should go, hell your heart was hammering so bad that you might just keel over any minute. No one was ever to see any actual ghosts on these things. Then that's when it occurred to you, side eyeing ‘Charles’. Sebastian was perfectly staying in character, that all this was. Actors, all of it. You almost laughed at yourself for getting caught up in the whole Halloween spook.
“Yes… I just. I cant believe there are actual ghosts here.” you played along with a shrug, brushing yourself off where you fell in the dusty room.
“Rose Red is full of many surprises.” Charles smiled in that charming way of his and offered his arm to yours. “Aunt Ellen, well she had a taste for the macabre. Holding frequent seances without her husband's knowledge, as he was away often. It's bound to attract some… interesting energy in a place like this.”
He seemed to be counting doors, and you were right at his side, willing your hammering heart to calm down. “You're not going to leave me alone again, right?” you worried your fingers into his sleeve, as if weaving him closer, to not let him go. Sure they were just actors playing a part, really good actors. You couldn't begin to guess how they got her to sit upside down like that on the ceiling, but there was nothing to be scared of.
“No, I'm surprised that the house is actually this active tonight. Maybe it's all the people passing through for the charity. But you're perfectly safe. I assure you.” Another door opened and you hesitated while stepping in.
The floor shimmered oddly to you at first, till you looked down and went stock still. You were standing on a mirror, the whole floor stretched out in a mirror, and all you could do was picture you stepping on it, and it shattered. Charles took several strides forward, and chuckled softly. “It's perfectly safe. This glass is made to be walked on.”
You take a few precautionary steps and chuckle. “Another one of Ellen's jokes?”
“Yes, she took great pleasure trying to come up with oddities to fill the house.”
You continue being mesmerized with the mirrored floor, watching as you walk across it. “Why? Why so many odd rooms?”
Charles hummed a bit, tipping back and forth on his heels to toes, watching as you sweep across the floor, grinning to yourself in such an innocent moment. “Well, after April disappeared, Ellen is said to have lost her mind. She claimed that Rose Red must never stop growing. It's in fact true that no one really knows how many rooms Rose Red has. At this point there are rooms like these, staircases that go to nowhere, hallways that narrow to where you have to crawl through. Doors that lead to the outside on these upper floors. It is easy to get turned around here. Rooms seemingly from nowhere appear still. They are not on any official floor plans.”
You gulp and shake your head. “It all sounds… so unreal. Rooms building themselves? Impossible.”
“One would think.” Charles chuckles. “But every time it is attempted to be documented, and then when it's double checked, nothing adds up. There’s missing rooms that seemed to have disappeared, only to have reappeared elsewhere, another staircase, the halls won't match up.”
You paused, still looking down at yourself in the mirror. “You said April disappeared?”
“Oh yes, she was playing in the main kitchen under the watch of one of the staff. The woman walked from the kitchen to collect something for just a moment. When she came back, April was gone, her beloved doll abandoned on the floor. After a search, again, the staff was brought to the police barracks. She was unable to leave after the questioning.”
“So they arrested her?” You start to feel cold, chills creeping up the back of your neck like a light touch, sweeping up your back and to the base of your hairline. You reached behind to rub at your neck uneasily.
Charles seemed to not notice your discomfort, sliding his gaze from you and around the room. “Oh no, they didn't arrest her. No, she was beaten to get a confession as to what she had done with April. Ellen swore her innocence, but Uncle Wilford… oh he paid them to get it out, by whatever means necessary. Her injuries were too severe. She ended up dying here once they finished with her and brought her back, another victim of Rose Red in a way, I suppose.”
You couldn't help the sadness that seemed to overwhelm you hearing the story.
“In fact this room also has its own tragedy. Wilford’s brother who also happened to be his business partner hung himself here. From… that light fixture actually.” Charles pointed up at it, but you were looking at its reflection, and the light fixture swayed, a rope tied around it. A heavy set man all blue colored hung at the end of the creaking rope, his feet twitching and his tongue bulging from his mouth. Your eyes shoot up to see nothing above Charles.
Charles himself gives you an odd look, and you look back in the mirror, he's still there, a swollen hand reaching out as if to grasp you.
Your own hand was shaking as you pointed down at the mirrored floor. “Right there! You don't see it Charles?!” Your finger points near his feet, in which he looks down and it all seems to disappear. At the same moment, it felt like a heavy rope slid around your neck, and tightened all in a second making you gasp. Your hands fly to your neck, trying to pry at the noose that isn't actually there. When you collapse to your knees, trying to drag in a breath, you happen to see a little girl, in various stages of decay, a withered arm clutching a doll against her chest waved at you from across the room near the door, and an older woman in the same state standing next to her with an arm around her shoulders, merely watching you struggle for air. Your vision started to go in and out, the burning in your lungs now first and foremost in your mind. Charles stepped into your view, kneeling down next to you and you focused on him.
“Hey! Hey! Y/N, what's wrong.” He yanked your hands away to check your neck, and you were suddenly able to take a gasp of air with a frightened sob, curling yourself in closer to him, and your arms going around his neck.
“Get me outta here please! I don't want to be in this house anymore.”
Charles moved to a stand, his hands grasping yours and pulled you to a stand. “Okay, we will end the tour here.” Hurrying you along, you both shoot into the hallway and turn to head back to the main stairway when at the end of the hallway, when the woman you had seen in the upside down room beckoned you two to her. “Come child, the parties this way, I just need to go freshen up, get you dressed for the party.”
You pulled up sharply in fear with a panicked scream, and Charles spun you around. “This way, there's another staircase at the end of the hall.”
Now your running with Charles to get away, every door and corner you two ran into became a blur. Once in a while a door would open, some nightmare of a person beckoning you to step in and join them, child like giggles echoes around you or hisses of your name just out of sight made you try to run faster, gasping for air as your lungs burned from running through the endless hallway. Charles was getting winded as well when he came to a staircase but that too was also blocked. This time with a wailing woman, her eyes rolled back to just the whites and clutching her purse to her chest, a dress looked like it had been shredded. Her skin was wrinkled and paper thin looking, what remained of her clothing something from a decade earlier. “I was just here to tour the house, can you show me the way out?” she screamed at you two, below her on the stairs were others, begging to be shown the way out. Now you froze, your mind in shock.
Charles yanked on your wrist to pull you away as you teetered on the edge of the stairs, continuing to another hallway.
“The servant's stairs are this way. They lead through the kitchen.” Charles rattled a door knob trying to get it to open, and you looked over his shoulder when there was a flash in your peripheral vision. The carpet in the hallway rolled as if something was racing underneath it, and of course, it was coming right for the two of you.
“Oh fuck, Charles, Hurry it up” Your hand grasps the handle to, yanking on it. “CHARLES IT'S COMING.” You scream, feeling the weight of panic crushing your chest whenever you looked up, whatever was coming for you was speeding up, flapping dust up from the carpet into the air and you screamed when it was almost on you. The door yanked open for you both to fall in, and slam it behind you, leaving you and Charles in the pitch dark.
“Oh god, fuck, get us out of here Sebastian.” dropping his characters name, you were over this fun house of hell crap they had made for the charity.
“What do you think I'm doing?!” He snapped, losing his cool control as he fisted his hand through his hair, taking deep dragging breaths. “Once you hit the kitchen, the door is to your left.” You both start racing down the stairs, trying to be as quick as possible without falling and when you reached that door, you yanked it open and sprinted into the room, expecting to see a stove, cupboards, tables, anything.
But that's not what you came into, you crashed into a whole other room. Confusion blurs your mind when you take in the attic like dusty interior. Spinning around, a couple times trying to make sense of it.
“AN ATTIC? WE WERE RUNNING DOWNSTAIRS, NOT UP!” You twist to go back out the door, but Charles slams it shut, and throws a bolt.
“Oh no Dear, were just where we need to be.” Charles smoothed his hair back, the panicked demeanor completely gone as he fixed his appearance. You backed away from him, licking your lips and panting with a wheeze.
“I d-d-d-don't understand why we are up here, how we got up here. I want to leave.” Your foot comes down as if you're about to throw a tantrum. “Now. I demand you to take me out of this, keep my money. I don't care Sebastian, I'm all done with this game.”
Charles crooks a brow, and smirks, striding in close in which you panic and back up further.
“As I told you before Sweetheart, I don't know who Sebastian is. And there is no leaving. Rose Red needs you, needs you to grow.”
“To grow? Your fucking crazy.” You start to look for another way out, and your back comes up to a large stained glass window. The famous stained glass Rose that adorned the front of the Manor.
“Yes, Ellen is still building, don't you see. She needs to feed, and as her great nephew it's my duty to keep her alive.”
He’s fucking lost it. Hollywood has snapped Sebastian's mind.
“Just let me go, I swear Seb-” His eyes snapped at you. “Charles… I won't say anything.”
“Auntie, do you want to let her go?” he asked with a cold grin. “You want to keep building Rose Red right? Keep building for April?”
Your eyes darted around trying to figure out who he was talking to. But there was seemingly no one there.
“I will donate more, give you money to keep building.” You felt around your pockets and pulled out your wallet, yanking out your billfold. “See a card.” tossing it at him in the delirious hopes that would appease him. He simply stepped over it.
“That won't work darling. Auntie Ellen, she needs other materials.” That cold touch you felt before in the mirror room, made you jolt, and you spun away from Charles to see the decaying little girl with her withered arm folded up against her chest.
“Play with me and baby?” the girl asked, her withered decayed hand shaking as she reached out to touch you.
You reared back and stumbled away to keep her from touching you, momentarily forgetting about Charles till you landed smack into his chest and a forearm locked around your neck. “Why are you scared of cousin April. She just wants to play?” He sneered into your ear, and you started clawing at his arm and trying to kick at him.
How did you get here, and maybe this was some crazy dream. Your gasping the more his arms tighten, giving one hard clawing motion on his face when you reach back and kick backwards to cause you both to tumble.
“You little bitch.” Charles twists to grab at you while you're crawling away, and you kick back one more time, catching him in the shoulder hard enough for him to let go of your foot.
“Fuck off Prick.” you scream, and yank yourself up, about to run towards the door. You're so close to going back into that hellish fun house when you are stopped right in your tracks, like hitting a wall.
The lady of the manor stood before you, long off white gown clinging to a corpse. She would have been beautiful once upon a time as your eyes roved her up and down, like all those pictures you saw when you googled Rose Red before your trip, but now she was a nightmare, you stuttering before her with a whimper. “Please... please let me go.”
“But Dear, Rose Red needs you.” Her voice had a tinkling sound to it, meant to soothe.
Her brown leathery skin that clung to a skeletal frame creaked when her bony clawed hands cupped your face in a loving gesture, and your terror filled eyes lifted to see her lip less mouth showed what appeared to be fangs. Pale dead eyes softened for a moment, until her claws sunk into your face, tearing through skin and muscle, piercing your skull and her mouth widened to a fang filled gaping rotten hole.
This is it, this is how I die. Your mind screamed in terror as she descended on you, your vision going dark, and your life just draining away. The pain fades, and your eyes roll back to see nothing. The last thing you will experience in your life, the overwhelming scent of fresh roses.
Charles wiped at his face when he came to, looking around the attic and seeing nothing more than your still body. Moving to get himself up, muttering to himself. “Fucking bitch, got my suit all dirty.” He walked past your body, and looked to see his aunt picking up a hammer, April standing next to her playing with her doll.
“I know, more souls for you to feed on Auntie.” He opened the door and made to go back down the stairs, his decaying aunt giving a slight nod in agreement.
Whistling as he safely strolled through Rose Red, he made his way out the front door, and down the walkway back towards the iron wrought gate. Once he returned, he leaned back against that stone wall, feet crossing at the angle and reaching up to pluck that red rose he had placed there earlier, twirling it back and forth.
Within ten minutes a couple young women strolled up to him, and he gave them a flirtatious smile, and held out the rose to one of them. “Ladies, welcome to Rose Red Manor, my family home and one of the most haunted sites in New York. My name is Charles Blackwood. Can I have your tickets please?”
#jshauntedhouse2020#Rose Red's All Hollow Eve#charles blackwood#charles blackwood x reader#charles blackwood x you#amber writes#sweater writes#halloween#halloween 2020
136 notes
·
View notes
Text
Choice #7; Cowboy/Steampunk Fusion
Right, here we go with lucky #7; So, a Gotham that is still kind of young and a bit like the Old West like Back to the Future Part 3. The Wayne's are throwing a party with their 8-year-old daughter, Bryce in attendance.
Everything is going swimmingly until a youngish Theo Galavan and his Maniax show up, including 14-year-old Jerome and Jeremiah, as well as 'Matches' Malone intent on robbing the place.
Anyway, Jerome and Jeremiah think Bryce is cute but are a little messed up in the head so they think branding her with their mark is like a promise ring as they promise they are going to be big time Outlaws and treat her like a queen, and the brand is meant to scare other hoodlums off.
Thomas naturally goes to protect his daughter but Theo, who was looking for an excuse, shoots him, then Martha. He hits Bryce and sets fire to the home, figuring he's killed the last of the Wayne's, so now there's nothing stopping him from taking over Gotham.
Too bad he didn't see Matches go back inside to save poor little Bryce. Remember how Matches said he doesn't kill babies? Well, I expanded that to kids as well. Now, Matches feels bad for his part in Bryce becoming an orphan so he takes her and moves away from Gotham to help make her strong and train her to be a bounty hunter. Along the way, she meets and is trained by old west heroes like Bat Lash, El Diablo (Lazarus Lane), and of course Jonah Hex.
Matches also teaches her the most important thing she'll need to know to get close to Theo Galavan; how to act and sound like a man. To be a perfect duality; female vigilante and male Bounty Hunter. As she reaches her 18th year, he knows he's dying, so he kills himself after explaining everything she'll need to know, and makes it look like she killed him, so 'The Bat' will have her first Bounty, and she goes one step further; as she was branded, so too will she brand her victims with the insignia of a bat. For her male persona, she takes the name, Matthew Malone.
It takes her a year to make it back to Gotham as Matches took her to Mexico or something to keep her safe, and along the way she meets Lucius Fox who worked for her father, and Lee Thompkins, a doctor who was run out of Gotham by Galavan's partner, Sofia Falcone.
She helps Lee sneak back into Gotham, disguised as Thomas Leslie (if you have a better suggestion, I'm open to it). Gotham has changed a fair bit in the eleven years she’s been gone as there are now fairly tall skyscrapers, but people still get around by horse and buggy, though these horses are robots, hence the steampunk element. By an amazing coincidence, the saloon Matthew stops in at to get a cold beer, is patroned by the Valeska brothers, who still work for Galavan but now have their own crew; who else, but the Horribles. Everyone else clears out when the Horribles announce their impending arrival, but 'Matthew' wants to finish his beer, then he'll leave. Jerome tries to hassle him, but Matthew ignores him until Jerome goes for Matthew's gun (yes, he has a gun, I will explain later), only to find Matthew has a dummy gun that is coated with a mild form of Tetrodotoxin; not enough to kill him, but his arm and mouth go numb. Others would be offended at this; Jerome, his brother, and the others all find it hilarious; even Victor laughs at it. Matthew then pulls out $100 bill and pays for the first round of drinks for the Horribles as apology for the gun.
Matthew goes to leave but the Horribles invite him to have a drink with them; anyone who can shut Jerome up deserves a drink. They ask him if he's a Bounty Hunter with the kind of money he has, and he answers yes. They ask him about his family, and he‘reveals' he's the‘son' of Matches Malone, who Jerome and Jeremiah vaguely remember. When Matthew reveals his father was killed by The Bat, the others are intrigued and ask if he actually saw The Bat as no one is certain if she's real or just a legend. Matthew then rolls up his sleeve and reveals a 'Bat Brand', which she gave him when he tried to protect his father.
Before more can be said, Selina Kyle, protege of Tabitha Galavan and Bryce's childhood friend comes in with some news she just got from the telegraph office; The Bat was sighted not too far from Gotham, and may be on her way to their city. The Horribles are all excited to test their skills against The Bat, but Matthew warns them that she is lightning quick with her whip and daggers and is good at using the shadows to disappear, and that's without taking into account her horse; a large black stallion named Daredevil (if you think it should be Ace, tell me, but Daredevil sounded more ‘Old West’), a far cry from the steampunk horses everyone in Gotham uses. He then rises to leave, saying he's hoping to find lodgings and work in Gotham for maybe a month as his last Bounty managed to get him pretty good, and he could do with some steady work for a bit. Selina offers a room at the 'House of Instant Happiness' she owns; normally $50 a night, but she'll knock it down to $40 if he helps keep the rowdier customers under control the nights he's there. He agrees, and they shake on it; Selina notes in passing that, even for gloved, powerful hands, they seem a little small for a man, but brushes it off.
That night, someone from the Narrows is dragged out into the streets as he can't afford his ‘protection' this week, so Sophia is determined to make an example of him; as her enforcer goes to pull the trigger, however, a large piece of metal, later determined to be in the shape of a bat, comes whistling through the night and hits the guy right in the hand, taking it off; The Bat has come to Gotham. She swings down and informs Sofia that ‘she has never liked bullies'. Sofia responds that she doesn't like rodents that get in her way. The Bat responds that Sofia's face may be a little pinched, but there's no need to call herself a rodent.
A fight breaks out, and the worst injury The Bat gets is a black-eye while she takes down three of Sofia's best men and Daredevil takes out one of Galavan's men. The next day, Matthew is again at the Saloon when the Horribles arrive and they ask him if he's still looking for work. He responds yes he is, so they take him to see Mayor Galavan who is more than happy to take on the son of an ‘old friend'; it helps that Matthew can fight like nobodies business and is as good a shot as his father. While there, Matthew meets the Galavan's butler, and her heart clenches painfully in her chest; it's Alfred, and he just looks so downtrodden, not at all the man she remembers playing with her as a little girl. A week goes by with the days as Matthew and nights as The Bat, and Lee worries that Bryce will burn herself out before she gets her revenge, but Bryce is determined, more so ever since she saw Alfred. Matthew manages to move up a little when he manages to hold off the Bat long enough (maybe Lee in her costume? I haven't figured that out yet). What's surprising is how friendly Matthew gets with the Legion of Horribles as well as Deputy Mayor Oswald Cobblepot, his assistant Edward Nygma, and even his bodyguard, Victor Zsasz, all of whom are treated like dirt by Galavan and Sofia.
Bryce finally gets her chance; Galavan is holding a party at his house with his lieutenants, and Matthew is invited for protection. The setting is too perfect to pass up and she lays a bomb, ready to die herself if it means she'll take down Galavan as well. Problem is, Tabitha is there as well, which means Selina is there, along with the Horribles, Oswald, and poor Alfred is slaving away in the kitchen. She doesn't care about her own life, but she can't risk theirs; yes, Jerome and Jeremiah were there when her parents were killed and branded her, but she’s honestly come to like the two psychos. She manages to sneak a note to Selina, hoping she'll get the Horribles and Alfred out in time, signed by The Bat.
Selina manages to get the Horribles together and get them to Alfred, who was always rather nice to ‘The Freaks’ as Sofia and Galavan call them so they don’t want to see him get hurt either. When she shows Alfred the note, he just about has a heart attack; it may be more mature than when he last saw it, but he'd know that handwriting anywhere; it's *Bryce's* handwriting. He reveals a mark hidden on the paper near the signature; a heart with thorns wrapped around it;Bryce and Selina’s ‘secret symbol’ that they always signed their notes with to appear more ‘cool’. Selina can hardly believe her childhood friend is alive and well (if a little nuts to dress like some kind of Zorro/Bat hybrid and fight Outlaws) and Alfred, knowing his beloved little Mistress is alive, realizes why Matthew Malone looked so familiar. Matthew is really Bryce, which kick starts the reasoning in the twins minds; Matt, as Bryce, was the cute little girl they promised themselves to all those years ago. They manage to locate the bomb and disarm it.
Later, after the party, and Bryce mourns the lost chance of getting her revenge by warning Selina who must have found the bomb and disabled it out of loyalty to Tabitha, she meets up with Lucius at a cave just outside Gotham, unaware that the Horribles and Selina have followed her. They watch as Bryce, Lucius, and Lee all argue about just how far Bryce is willing to go in her revenge. Yeah, Lee wants to put Sofia in the ground, but she wants to be alive to enjoy it. Bryce responds that she has spent the last eleven years of her life training for this chance; learning sword and pistol, becoming ambidextrous so no one would even think to link left-handed Bat with right-handed Malone, learning to deepen her voice and more masculine habits so no one would suspect a thing. She hasn't gone through all that just to see Galavan get away with his crimes; she's going to kill him (remember, Bryce was raised by Matches, El Diablo, and Jonah Hex, not Alfred; she doesn’t quite have the same problem with killing as she normally would). Selina, Bridgit, Ivy, and Ecco all manage to get back to the city before Bryce and lay a trap in her room. When Matthew arrives, he and Selina talk for a few minutes before she deliberately calls him Bryce, and asks how she could not tell her that she was alive. Bryce goes for one of her smoke bombs to get out fast, but the others manage to ambush her, tie her up, and manage to knock her out before giving her to Jerome, Jeremiah, Jervis, Jonathan, and Victor so they can... interrogate her. ;)
They take her back to their private place where Jeremiah examines her arm and, sure enough, there's their old brand right where they left it when Thomas Wayne tried to stop them. He and the others, who are in a relationship, talk to her and find out her plan to kill Galavan, which they wouldn't mind as Galavan is a chicken-heart, no lip, slimy worm, but they also like Bryce so they don't want her to enact her suicide mission. To keep her from escaping, they tire her out with sex (cheesy, I know, but she is an escape artist and a very determined woman; they have to keep her energy low while they come up with a plan that doesn’t involve her dying). Bryce has had sex before, both as a woman and as a man (she has a strap-on, OK?), but it was always painful as her partners cared more for their pleasure than hers, which didn’t bother her as sex was just a tool to get close or a means of getting information. But the guys are all tender with her and make sure she enjoys it and she doesn’t know how to block this out like she does pain. Particularly with Jonathan as the little sweetie has never been with a woman before so the others guide him on what feels good for a woman; she’s embarrassed when he actually makes her squirt. But when she hears word that Galavan and Sofia have captured Lee and Lucius, she knocks them out with one of Jonathan's gas bombs, and goes to turn herself in. Galavan tortures her and Sofia goes to kill Lee, only for the Horribles, Oswald, Ed, Zsasz, and undercover lackey Joe Chill, who in reality is Marshal James Gordon to come charging in to save the day. During a scuffle, a lamp is knocked over, Sofia is killed by Barbara who wants Lee to be in a threesome with her and Tabitha (Lee: Hey, I’ll try anything once), and Galavan's house is set on fire. Bryce takes after Galavan, determined to see this end as it began. Victor can't follow because of all the flames and Jonathan's suit is hardly fireproof, so it's up to the other three. They see Galavan and Bryce fighting, but Galavan is about to get the upper hand and kill her when he's shot from behind; it's Alfred with a shotgun.
Alfred: Consider that my resignation from your service... Bloody Bastard.
It's not easy but they all manage to get out and Bryce will be laid up for a while, but she's done what she set out to do. Too bad she doesn't know what to do now that's gotten her revenge.
Bryce is in a room owned by the Sirens, surrounded by her friends just after the fire: Well, I should be up and around in about a week or two, then I’ll find a new city to go to and-
Ivy: Wait, you’re leaving?!
Male Horribles who have been waiting outside the room for the OK to come in but have been listening at the door: LEAVING?!
Bridgit sighs as she stands, rolls her eyes, walks to the door, opens it, and the male Horribles, excluding Victor as he naturally has more sense, all come tumbling into the room: Behold, Bryce; you’re idiots.
11 notes
·
View notes
Text
Defenseless
Lo and behold, my first Helios fic! Phew, this took a while but I finally managed to get it complete. WARNING: UPCOMING ANGST. Oh, and also a sprinkle of Helios fluff. Also, I maaay have added a reference to one of Kiro’s cancelled R&S. This takes place after Chapter 17, in-between Kiro’s Thorns Date and Light Pursuit Date.
Dedicated to @kudoriee / @church-of-helios whose amazing fics and friendship really allowed me to grow in this fandom. Thank you so much, rie!! 😭 Also dedicated to @thatfanfictionchick whose insatiable thirst for Helios provides me endless amusement as well as some of THE GREATEST FICS I HAVE EVER READ. You ma’am, are my Kelios Queen and I hope you know that. 🤣
Anyway without further ado, enjoy!
Pairing: Kiro/Helios x Reader
Genres: Angst/Fluff
Word Count: 4,102
A loud sigh escaped your lips as you walked home that evening. Work had been much stressful today than normal. The guest speaker for today’s show had been a handful, constantly demanding things at the last moment and just being a complete douchebag. You had to practically restrain Kiki and Willow before they could judo-flip the dude. But honestly, you’d be lying if you said that that guy hadn’t been getting on your nerves as well. Especially with the constant passes and winks he’d throw your way…… you had to suppress a shiver.
Why couldn’t we get someone better?
A certain blonde-haired superstar came to your mind and you felt your heart clench painfully tight, threatening to drag all the air out of your lungs. You bit your lip hard.
Kiro…
Where are you…?
It had been weeks since you had last seen him. The last thing you remembered was that agonizing farewell, his blazing gold eyes, and that dazzling smile.
“Miss Chips… wait for me!”
His clear words that day still resonated in your mind. His voice had been so tender then, full of promise and hope. It was just one sentence, but to you, it was as valuable as a lifeline; something you clung to desperately—wishing, praying, believing that Kiro would come back home someday. That’s all you had to do. As long as you believed in him, you were sure he’d come back to you. After all, he was your hero. There was nothing in the world that Kiro couldn’t do.
That being said, it didn’t make the process any easier. It had been hard enough when he’d have to go on tour, but at least then you had known where he was. But now that you didn’t, it just made this so much harder. You missed him. Terribly so. And the fact that you couldn’t see him, hurt. You missed his unreserved, joyous laughter, dyed with the colors of youthful innocence. His sincere, affectionate gazes that he’d direct at no one but you. His voice, that would whisper sweet nothings to you whenever you’d feel stressed or worried. His slender arms, that would wrap around you in the most secure embrace, driving all of the darkness away. You missed the way he’d run his fingers through your hair, or the way he’d softly press his forehead against yours to look into your eyes. He had been all the warmth and gentleness that you’d ever want in your life, and you missed him.
But that wasn’t all.
Besides all that warmth, there were other things about him you missed as well. That other side of him; the one he’d show to no one else but you. Like the way his eyes would darken with sheer want and love when the air between you two would get heated. The way your blood would boil whenever he’d touch you. The way your cheeks would light on fire every time he’d confess his feelings to you.
The passionate kisses.
Stop...
The soft caresses.
Stop.
The longing filled in every ‘I love you.’
STOP!
You had to pause your footsteps as the memories flooded your mind, rapidly blinking away the tears that blurred your vision. You choked on your sobs, the tightness making it hard to breathe. People brushed past you, occasionally throwing questioning glances your way, but you were too heartbroken to care.
That was, until you felt a tap on your shoulder and a kind voice say, “are you okay, miss?”
You looked up and found a woman looking back at you, concern evident in her kind brown eyes. You quickly wiped away the few tears that had managed to slide down your cheeks and gave her a strained smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. Thank you.”
Her eyebrows were still scrunched in worry when she began to dig around in her purse for something. “I should have a few tissues around here…” she mumbled to herself.
“Oh, no, it’s okay!” You immediately exclaimed, feeling guilty from making a total stranger worry about you. You took out a handkerchief from your own purse. “I have a handkerchief. You don’t have to trouble yourself. And besides, my place is just a few blocks away. I’ll be fine.” You gave her a reassuring smile, just in case.
The woman finally let out a soft smile. “Oh, okay. You take care then.”
You nodded gratefully, thanked the kind lady again, and continued your walk home. Unfortunately, contrary to what you had told her, your home wasn’t just a few blocks away. It was still quite far, in fact. You had to take the subway there, which happened to be jam packed at that time of day—much to your chagrin—and by the time you neared your apartment complex, the sun had already set.
Making a firm decision, you entered an alley which also happened to be a shortcut to the complex. All you wanted, was to get home as soon as possible.
The alley was dark, with hardly any light to spare. Shadows flittered across the wall in a creepy dance, causing you to break out in nervous sweat.
That’s when you heard it—the sound of heavy footsteps right behind you. They sounded quick and alarming, causing a shiver to run up your spine. Without looking back, you quickened your own pace while you slowly brought your purse to the front, attempting to dig out your phone so you could the police.
As if sensing your motives, your pursuer’s footsteps increased in speed.
Suppressing the urge to scream, you broke out into a run, your heels sounding loud in the cold, dark night, wishing nothing more than to reach your apartment complex so security could catch whoever it was that was following you. But just as you reached the end of the alley, about to turn the corner, you ended up bumping into something flat and hard.
You lost your balance, your body tilting towards the ground as you braced for impact. But instead of falling, you felt a slender hand grab your arm and pull you back on your feet, steadying you. You looked up on reflex, ready to thank whoever it was that helped you, when a pair of familiar blue eyes entered your vision. Your eyes widened in shock and the name that escaped your lips belonged to one that you never would have expected you’d run into.
“Helios?!”
Helios looked just as amazed as you did, his lips parting ever so slightly. But then a second later, his features contorted into a look of exasperation, as if he was not at all happy to have run into you (which, he probably was). “Not you again,” he grunted in that cold voice of his, letting go of your arm in the process. Only then did he notice the person behind you and motioned with his head, his silver bangs brushing over his beautiful eyebrows. The hard lines on his face grew even more fierce. “Is this a friend of yours?”
You carefully looked behind you, knowing what he was referring to. It was the creep who had been following you, an inconspicuous middle-aged man who now stood frozen in his tracks, carefully eyeing the two of you. You immediately shook your head, trembling slightly. “N-no,” you whispered. “He isn’t.”
“Is that so…?” Helios muttered, not taking his eyes off the man, who now seemed to be getting nervous under his icy glare. Not that you could blame him. Even if Helios appeared to be relaxed, casually stuffing a hand in his pocket, nothing could hide the aura of danger that seemed to be radiating off of him—strong and oppressive. You didn’t know whether to feel comforted by his presence or feel even more intimidated by your predicament.
“H-hiya, pal…” the man began, his voice sounding shaky. He took out a dagger from his pocket and held it up for him to see. “If you know what’s best for ya, you better leave the lady with me an’ leave.”
Upon hearing his words, Helios’ indifferent expression slowly morphed into a sneer and his gaze turned mocking. “Or what? You gonna stab me with me with that little toy you got there?”
“What did you-?!”
Before the man could finish, Helios held up a gun in his direction, the silver steel glinting with a deadly light as he aimed it right at the man’s heart. “I give you three seconds,” he said, voice devoid of emotion. “Leave this place and never come back. Or else…”
Helios didn’t even have to begin counting. With a terrified yelp, the man had quickly scurried away, leaving nothing to show he was there to begin with. Helios quickly slid the gun back into his holster.
“Tsk, stupid low-lives. They’ve got way too much of free time,” he grumbled, running his fingers through his platinum hair. He glanced at you from the corner of his eyes and found you staring. “What?” he asked coldly.
Until now, you had done nothing but watch what was unfolding in front of you with wide eyes, much too shocked to move. To think that Helios, a member of Black Swan, would be the one to save you… again, despite the fact that he was a part of the enemy…… you didn’t think it was possible.
And yet, here you were, in said ‘impossible’ situation…… Just what had your life come to?
Helios glared at you impatiently and you cleared your throat, finally getting the words out of your mouth, though it still sounded weak. “U-um, thank you for saving me…”
“Again.”
You were taken aback. “I-I’m—excuse me, what?”
“Again. I saved you, again. Don’t make me repeat myself,” he growled, a tremendous anger belying his tone. It made you shrink, still unable get used to his ferocity. But then again, it was understandable; you had only met the guy for a total of three times so far and they weren’t exactly in the friendliest circumstances. “You really have a knack for getting into danger, don’t you,” he sneered, eyes cold, distant and mocking.
“It’s not like I ask for this,” you frowned. You didn’t know why, but the way he spoke made you feel misunderstood and wronged somehow. The fear that you had felt just a few moments ago, suddenly came crashing back at you with full force. Overwhelmed, you turned your head to the side as you felt tears start to sting your eyes once again.
If Helios didn’t show up when he did… what would have happened to me?
Helios must’ve noticed your sudden silence and he pursed his lips, eyes darting off to the side. He didn’t say anything, probably not know what to do with the unexpected situation. After a few moments of stretched silence, slowly, you felt an awkward hand gently being placed on your head. “Relax. The bad guys are gone now,” he said, sounding uncharacteristically gentle. Well, as gentle as Helios could be, anyway.
You wanted to laugh; so hard your lungs would burst. Gee thanks, you wanted to roll your eyes. But all of that was caught in your throat. Instead, you found your cheeks unexpectedly heating up.
You were caught off guard. Helios’ sudden soft tone in that moment sounded so painfully familiar, like you should’ve known it like the back of your hand. It was right on the tip of your tongue, so close you could taste it. But there seemed to be a fog clouding your memories. A gap in your soul that desperately needed to be filled. It clenched your heart so painfully tight, it almost sucked out all the air from your lungs. Yet you couldn’t put your finger on it, and that frustrated you.
Deciding to ignore whatever it was you felt whenever this man was close by, you slowly took a step back from him. Helios’ hand fell back to his side.
“Anyway, gotta go,” he turned to leave, not bothering to give you a second glance. But before he could, your hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. He paused and turned back to look at you, clear confusion washing over his face. Honestly, you couldn’t blame him. You were just as dumbfounded by your actions as he was. But the fear you felt if he left was so tangible, so utterly terrifying that it was enough to make you forget about the logic behind your actions. “C-could you accompany me till I reach home, please?” You stammered, not daring to look at his expression. “I-I’d be much too afraid on my own.”
Helios let out a snort. “And you want me to accompany you? How is that any better?”
You shook your head. “I know you. You wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Oh?” He narrowed his eyes sharply. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“But I know you enough to know that you wouldn’t do anything bad to me.” You gave him a slight smirk. “Call it a woman’s intuition.”
He side-eyed you for a while, as if trying to figure out something, his cold cerulean eyes calculating. Finally, he let out a resigned grunt. “…Tch, whatever. Only up until your door. After that, you’re on your own.”
You nodded. “That’s all I ask.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The walk to your apartment was quiet, as expected. Helios was a rather stoic man, only speaking up when necessary, or when riled up. But rather than feeling awkward about it, you actually welcomed the silence. It was comforting, in a way. Sure, the though of relying on Helios for protection at the moment was rather weird, but you knew you could trust him. For some reason, even though he was a member of Black Swan, you couldn’t sense any malice coming from him. It felt like, rather than supporting Black Swan’s ideals, Helios seemed to be occupied with his own agenda; not once had he said anything about you being the Queen. Wait, did he even know you were the Queen? You figured it was something every member in Black Swan knew about…… unless you were wrong.
The two of you passed through the entrance of the apartment complex where the security guard had been fast asleep. You heard Helios let out a soft snort behind you.
Once you got to your door, a memory from not long ago surfaced to your mind and you widened your eyes. “Oh, right! I still have the jacket you gave me back at the greenhouse.” You turned your keys, opened the door and walked in without looking behind you. You switched on the lights and dumped your bags on the couch. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll return it back to you.”
“You don’t need—”
“You don’t have to stand out there. You can come in, if you want,” you said without thinking. You heard Helios sigh behind you as you disappeared into the bedroom to get the jacket he had left behind when the two of you had last met. Although Helios made it clear that he didn’t need it to be returned, you had still carefully washed it. Maybe you had an inkling that the two of you would meet again, by some weird twist of fate.
You walked back to the living room where Helios was waiting. But as soon as you reached the entrance, you stopped in your tracks. He was hovering close to the entrance, busy looking at a photograph that was placed on top of the wooden counter nearby.
It was a photo of you and Kiro.
The photo had been taken during your trip to Japan, when the two of you had gone flower-viewing together. You had requested a kind passer-by to click that picture while the two of you sat over a spread-out picnic blanket. You were seated in-between Kiro’s legs, your back pressed against his chest while his arms encircled your waist, the both of you flashing bright smiles at the camera, laughter dancing in your bright eyes. The happiness that the two of you radiated was infectious to anyone that laid their eyes on you.
Kiro……
You suppressed the storm of emotions that threatened to overwhelm you and shifted your gaze to Helios. You couldn’t see the expression on his face from where you were standing, but the loneliness that he exuded tugged at your heartstrings. You tightened your hold on his jacket, fingers curling into the rough fabric. The vision of loneliness that came from this man gave you a sense of déjà vu, almost like you’d seen it somewhere before. Before you could dwell on it further though, you heard a slightly teasing voice calling out to you. “Just how long are you going to stand there and look at me?” Helios asked, shooting you a look with a raised eyebrow. “Or do you just love admiring me that much?”
You grew flustered and glared at him. “I wasn’t admiring you!”
A corner of his lips tugged upwards, the motion so slight, you almost didn’t notice it. For some reason, it made butterflies flutter in your belly. “Oh really?”
You puffed your cheeks in exasperation and strutted up to him, shoving the jacket in his hands. “Anyway, here’s your jacket. I washed it for you, so you don’t need to worry about stains or anything.” You paused, then added “thank you for lending it to me.”
He looked down at his jacket, then looked back up to meet your eyes. You were taken aback by his gaze. At the unfathomable emotions swirling in its otherwise-emotionless depth. Your breath caught in your throat. You knew that look. You’d find it on your own face every time you thought about Kiro.
……Yearning.
As if catching himself, Helios looked away almost immediately. “You know, between the shabby security of this place and your attitude towards your safety, you’re gonna get yourself killed sooner or later,” he said dryly, as if the look he had just now was nothing but a lie.
Maybe it was.
You shook your head and snorted, ignoring your pounding heart and flushed skin. “Don’t underestimate me, Helios. I may be a girl, but I’m more than capable of protecting myself.”
He scoffed. “Says the person who was fleeing for her life just a few moments ago…… Admit it. You were utterly defenseless.”
“……W-was no—!”
You didn’t get to finish your sentence. Your vision blurred as you felt a sudden force grabbing you, two strong hands latching onto your wrists and pinning you against the wall, your front pressing against the cool surface. You felt Helios’ hot breath right next to your ear, sending shivers down your spine. He was so close; you could smell him. It was a chilly fragrance, one that was foreign to your senses, but still drew you in. His jacket was left forgotten on the floor.
“See?” He whispered; his soft voice dangerous yet alluring. “Defenseless.”
“I-I get it, I get it. N-now, could you please let go of me?” You pleaded, your mind a complete blank. Having him so close made you unable to think straight.
He chuckled. “Relax. Just like you said; I won’t hurt you.”
His hands left your wrists. But instead of pulling back, he wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you against his firm chest, the force almost knocking the air out of your lungs. His palm was scorching through the thin fabric of your blouse, setting your skin ablaze. It confused you to no end. Helios confused you to no end.
You registered his chest pressed against your back, the chin brushing against the top of your head. You fit so perfectly against him, as if your bodies were molded for each other, like two pieces of a puzzle.
This wasn’t the first time you felt this body pressed against your own.
Your mind raced as the blood rushed to your cheeks. You struggled to remember something, desperately seeking through your hazy memories. But no matter how much you searched, you just couldn’t get past the murky fog that blocked your hunt. You let out a shuddering breath. Why? Why did this heat feel so familiar…?
Involuntarily, you pressed yourself further against Helios, trying to feel more of this familiar warmth.
Startled by your actions, Helios visibly stiffened against your back. His fingers tensed on your waist, slightly pressing the supple flesh. “What are you doing?” he asked, voice low and guttural.
You tilted your neck backwards, eyes meeting his from under his chin. Your locked gazes seemed to have added a layer of intimacy to the surrounding air, thick and lingering. You had never gotten a closer look at him than you did right now. Immaculate features graced his face, along with deep blue eyes, fair skin and pretty silver hair. You had to admit—when he wasn’t busy sneering at you, or when his eyes weren’t so hurtfully cold, he actually looked… beautiful…
“Why are you so……” Your voice trailed, unable to finish. Unconsciously, your hand landed over his at your waist, your fingers brushing against his knuckles.
……familiar? You finished internally.
Helios’ eyebrow twitched, seeming to have been irked by your words and he let go of the embrace. He picked up his jacket from the floor and swung it over his shoulder, acting as if nothing ever happened. He nonchalantly walked up to the front door, tossing one last glance at the photograph on his way out. “See ya. Don’t get killed.”
And just like that, he was gone.
You looked at the photograph sitting atop the counter. Kiro’s smile shone through the frame, the corners of his eyes crinkling ever-so-slightly. You picked it up and pressed it against your forehead, feeling the tears starting to sting your eyes.
“Kiro…… I miss you……”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Helios walked through the night, the moonlight reflecting his lithe figure, making his silver hair shine with a beautiful but deadly glow. His combat boots let out an audible crunch as he stepped over the dead leaves that scattered the ground. The breeze that blew that night brought with an unusual chill with it. But the warmth that emanated from the jacket he was wearing seemed to block that out. It felt like the sun’s rays, wrapping warmly around him.
Just like her.
Helios hadn’t expected to run into her when he did, and especially not like that. He’d done nothing but try to avoid her as much as possible and yet… It was like there were magnets stuck to his back, drawing him to her.
He couldn’t help it. That’s what seventeen years of feelings does to you.
She had looked thinner since he last saw her at the greenhouse. And there had been dark circles under her eyes, as if she wasn’t getting enough sleep. Not that he could blame her. He knew of the burden she carried, being the Queen that Black Swan was after. The one factor that could single-handedly change the fate of this world. And knowing her, she wouldn’t just sit by and let herself be swallowed by fate. So he had decided to support her, by doing what he could on his side, as well as complete the mission his master had given him.
But still……
The memory of her in his arms from just a few minutes ago flashed through his head and he clenched his jaw. His self-control in that moment had been astounding. She had been so close, enough that he could’ve just leaned down to kiss her. He wanted to. Almost did, but he held himself back. And he was glad he did. Leaving her had been hard enough, but treating her coldly and making her forget about him had been pure torment.
He knew it was selfish, but he just couldn’t bring himself to show her this side of himself. If she knew about the things he’s done, about the sheer amount of people he has killed, how would she look at him…?
Just the possibility of her pretty smile disappearing from her face, or her pure, starry eyes being laced with disgust every time she looked at him, utterly terrified him.
So he had no choice but to make her forget. Even if it tore him up inside, if she was able to live with the happy memories of Kiro the Superstar, that was enough for him. After all, he didn’t plan on staying in this darkness for long.
Even if she was experiencing pain for now, he’d make sure to return to her side again someday and take all her pain away. And when that happened, he’d hold onto her tight and never let go.
───※ ·❆· ※─── ───※ ·❆· ※───
Thank you so much for reading! If you’re interested in checking out my other works, you’ll find them in my Masterlist.
#mlqc#mlqc kiro#mlqc helios#mlqc fanfic#love my multi-faceted angel#he's going through a lot#writing that last part hurt me#my writing
75 notes
·
View notes
Text
Scarlet Briar: The Seeds of Life chapter 6
Written by: Braxxus
Chapter 6: It’s Not Me You Should Be Afraid Of
Sometimes we must accept the hand dealt to us
“Mother…” Ceara heard a soft voice speak nearby. Slowly opening her eyes, she squinted as the leaves of the jungle canopy slowly came into focus. The air was humid, filled with the sounds of the jungle’s inhabitants filtering through the air, but there was a new sound that grabbed her attention. A slight hum in the air, mixed with a light resonating chime.
“Wonderful.” She sighed heavily. “What now?” She casually extended her arms up in front of her face. “Naked…again…” She groaned slightly as she slowly pulled herself from the ground.
“Mother…” she heard again. She whipped around quickly towards the direction of the meek voice, her attention becoming extremely focused. She realized she was in the place from her vision, but now the thorned vines making up the strange structure had a crystalline sheen to them, glistening in the sunlight, the apparent source of the resonance in the air. The small glowing object once again sat in an alcove in the middle of the vines.
“I remember last time.” She thought to herself. “What are you?” she asked out loud.
“Come closer…” a playful voice whispered through the air. Ceara paused a moment before cautiously taking a step forward.
“If I do…” she spoke. “That weapon…”
Once again, the ghostly image of the Avatar of the Pale Tree slowly appeared, again with the face of a child. Ceara stopped.
“What is the matter?” Ceara’s heart jumped, and her eyes widened as she heard a different voice on the wind, a familiar one that caused a chill to run up her spine. “Why hesitate?” it asked coyly.
“The last time…” Ceara spoke. The avatar opened its eyes slowly, smiling lightly at Ceara.
“It’s waiting for you…” the voice growled behind. Ceara slowly turned to look behind her. She saw nothing but the light breeze blowing through the jungle’s dense foliage. A hushed laughter echoed through the air.
“I’m not afraid of you. Not anymore.” Ceara said loudly as she she focused on her breathing, calming herself down.
“It’s not me you should be afraid of.” It replied. Ceara turned and looked at the ghostly image. It slowly brought it hands up and clasped them together under its chin, still smiling warmly at her, its eyes bright. Ceara cautiously stepped towards it. As she neared, the image slowly reached out to her, slowly opening its tiny hand. Ceara paused in hesitation, looking at the face of the child. Slowly she reached out for its hand when without warning, a wave of black energy knocked her away. She quickly regained her composure to see the dark sword once again stuck in the ground where the child had been, a slight glow of light fading where the blade had embedded itself. She looked at the weapon, watching its vines writhe and twist around its form.
“It’s not Caladbolg…” she spoke. Ceara pondered on the dark weapon. “An item of great power…a relic of Mordremoth…the pale tree…a black blade.” She stared at the ground as she tried to put the pieces together. “A relic of Mordremoth…a young pale tree...” Her heart raced as she made a realization. “This…this is the relic …it’s…it’s a seed. And Nafiona…Oh no.” The wind picked up and a roar filled the air.
“What’s happening!?” she cried as a billowing black cloud rushed forth from the blade, quickly emcompassing the area. Ceara felt her breath drawn from her as the ice-cold fog quickly enveloped her body.
“Waahaha!!” her gasped muffled as she woke with a start. She quickly looked around at the upside-down world before her. The jungle was buzzing with activity as the morning sunlight streamed through the leaves of the canopy. She was gagged, her arms were bound behind her, her legs tied together, and she was hanging from a tree limb by her feet by thick interwoven vines without a stitch of clothing. Looking at the ground below her was a pile of animal carcasses flayed open just a few feet away. Struggling against her bindings she quickly remembering the discussion with Nafiona.
“That idea didn’t go as planned.” She thought to herself. “I guess I’ll hang around and wait to hopefully be found. I have a lot of thinking to do anyway.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Do you think she is ok?” Liathlas asked as she packed some dried fruits into a small satchel.
“If the rumors I have heard about her are anywhere near true, I’m sure she has those courtiers wrapped around her fingers doing her bidding.” Malyck replied, as he checked the edge on his dagger.
"I hope so.” Liathlas sighed as she chewed on a piece of fruit while securing her satchel.
“Are you ready?” he asked, sheathing his blade.
“I am.” Liathlas turned to Mabli. “Thank you for your hospitality and thank you for your help.”
“The jungle provides. Safe journeys to you.” The itzel replied.
The morning sun was rising as the duo exited the hut and hurried down a nearby rope walkway to the jungle floor. Malyck pulled out the small tracking device and activated it. It projected a tiny holographic screen, showing a blip in the far distance.
“I hope I am interpreting this thing correctly.” Looking a little confused at the device. “If this is Scarlet’s location, it shows her deep in the jungle in that direction.” He looked at Liathlas who nodded back at him. They rushed off quickly.
“So, you’ve been wandering the jungle all this time?” Liathlas asked as they made their way through the brush.
“I have. Since the fall of the jungle dragon, I’ve been searching for others from my tree.”
“That’s why you never returned to the us then?”
“Correct. As long as the chance exists that others from my tree still survive, I cannot return to your Grove. I must find them and make sure they are safe. Then I will bring them to your Pale Tree.”
“Understandable.” She replied. “What are we going to do when we find Ceara?”
“Can she truly be trusted?”
“Ceara?”
“Yes, Scarlet Briar.”
“Ceara…”
“Whatever her name is now. Can we actually trust her?”
“Um…well. I know what she has done while under Mordremoth’s control. And I’ve heard some stories about her since and judging what I have seen of her these past few days, there is nothing that would make me think she would betray us now.”
“She left with the coutiers and did seem to be somewhat happy about it. And this tracker is leading us right to her…and them.”
“Afraid they’ll see you as their harbinger again?”
Malyck abruptly stopped, vexed at the term. He turned his ire towards Liathlas, glaring at her. “Don’t ever call me that.” he snapped at her, pointing at her sternly. “I am not their ‘harbinger of doom’ or whatever title they had for me. If
Liathlas was slightly taken aback by his outburst. “Well, sadly, you are correct.” She relented. “No argument there.”
Malyck glared at her a few moments before turning to continue through the jungle.
“If you don’t trust her, why are you going after her?” Liathlas asked, a slight inquisitive tone in her voice.
Malyck paused again, looking off into the jungle, sighing lightly. “In the hopes that you are telling the truth about her. Also, the group of courtiers number twenty or more. You will need as much help as you can get to stop them.” Again, they continued through the jungle.
Hours passed. “We’re getting close.” Malyck whispered as they made their way through the terrain. “Here.” They found the tree where Ceara had attached the tracker. They could see the remains of a camp nearby.
“They were definitely here.” Liathlas said as they entered the camp area.
“Hmm…if they are heading for the corpse grove, they would most likely be heading towards the west.” Malyck pointed and paused. “I think I found her.”
“Oh! Where…” Liathlas paused at the sight of Ceara hanging from the tree in the distance. Liathlas’ heart skipped a beat when they also noticed a giant creature nearby that was making its way to her. “No! We have to get to her!” The duo rushed through the vegetation.
Ceara was staring at the approaching beast trying to formulate a plan to somehow get out of her predicament. The creature was easily ten times her size with a very long barbed tail. It stopped, raising its nose in the air before letting out a low growl. It continued to lumber slowly towards her.
“Don’t move…don’t breathe…” she thought to herself. “I can’t end like this.” Her thoughts were interrupted by a pistol shot that struck the creature in the side of the head. It turned, roaring in pain. Various illusions appeared around it, attacking it fiercely.
“Liathlas!” Ceara thought as she squirmed in her bindings. More pistol rounds rang out, hitting the beast in various places along its body. The creature fought back against the illusions before letting out a roar and running off into the jungle.
Liathlas ran up to Ceara, Malyck not far behind. He pulled out a knife and started cutting through the vines that bound her. Liathlas removed her gag.
“Thank the pale tree you’re ok.” Liathlas gasped.
“I am, thank you, and don’t you dare tell anyone about this.” Ceara sneered. Malyck cut her hands free which Liathlas grabbed. Malyck wrapped an arm around her legs as they were cut free. They helped her stand. Ceara wobbled a moment as she regained her balance.
“The tracker worked.” Ceara noted. “That’s a relief.”
“Indeed. How long ago did the Court leave?” Malyck asked.
“I’m not sure. They didn’t take too lightly to me being in their presence as you can tell.”
“Hmm…The corpse grove is at least a day’s journey from here. We’ll need to hurry to catch up to them.” Malyck stated.
“Corpse grove?” Ceara’s asked.
“A bad place.” Liathlas interjected.
“It is. It is a place where the mordrem create their troops from the remains of others” Malyck added.
“Like a factory?” Ceara’s brow furrowed. She remembered a vision she had months prior while trapped in the Mists with Ventari.
“Somewhat.” Malyck nodded.
“Ceara?” Liathlas asked, noticing Ceara’s far off stare.
“I’m ok.” She replied, snapping back to the present. “I just remembered something from a long time ago.” She turned to Malyck. “So, this corpse grove. It’s a tree like the Pale Tree?”
“In theory, it is but not as grand. It serves one purpose and one purpose only. We have to get moving.” Malyck explained.
“And that purpose is to create the mordrem.” Ceara pondered.
“Correct.” answered Malyck.
Ceara thoughts drifted to the vision of the young pale tree she saw. “A seed.” She thought to herself.
“Ceara? Um…your clothing?” Liathlas interrupted her thoughts.
Ceara looked down at her naked body. “Hmm…I’m sure one of the courtiers has my armor and I’m going to make their life very miserable when I take it back.” Ceara fumed at the loss of her prized possession.
“Yes, but…right now…” Liathlas started. “We could fashion something for you.”
Ceara looked at her dumbfounded. “From what?” she asked, holding her hands out as she looked around her surroundings. “There’s nothing here.”
“Of course, there is! You just wait here!” Liathlas exclaimed gleefully as she started running around the immediate area. It wasn’t long before she returned with lengths of vine and some giant leaves.
“Oh no…” Ceara’s shoulders drooped as she whimpered to herself.
Malyck casually glanced at her momentarily before chuckling to himself. It wasn’t long before Liathlas had created some makeshift clothing for Ceara to wear out of the leaves and vines.
“This just isn’t going to work.” Ceara complained, looking down at her makeshift outfit.
“It’s the best we could do given our current circumstances.” Liathlas replied to her. “It’s better than being completely naked.”
“What does that matter? We fell out of our pods into the world naked in front of everyone. No one cared then. Why should we care now?”
“Because there are other people in the world other than sylvari.” Liathlas barked at her.
“Feh.” Ceara spat, rolling her eyes at her.
“We need to hurry if you two are done bickering.” Malyck interrupted. “I’m sure the courtiers have reached the corpse grove by now and found what they are looking for.”
“What they are looking for…” Ceara muttered, sighing lightly as they started their trek through the jungle.
“Hmm?” Liathlas looked at Ceara curiously.
Ceara returned her gaze. “I think I know what they are looking for.”
Malyck stopped and turned abruptly. “Which is?”
“A seed. A seed like that of the which the Pale Tree sprouted.”
“How do you know?” Liathlas asked, her eyes widened at the thought.
“I…I’ve been having a vision. A vision showing me a small, rounded object set in a vine covered alcove. A young version of the pale mother appears above it.”
Liathlas and Malyck stared at her in silence.
“There’s more. Anytime I get close to it, a dark sword that resembles Caladbolg appears and cuts it down, causing it to disappear. The sword remains in place of the seed.” Ceara looked at Liathlas, whose mouth was agape.
“Another seed?” Liathlas gasped.
“We need to find it before the court does.” Malyck looked at the two. “Let us hurry.”
“Why didn’t you say something earlier!?” Liathlas asked Ceara as they rushed through the jungle.
“Because I didn’t know what was happening. I just recently put it all together and that’s the best thing I could come up with.”
“If another seed exists that is amazing!” Liathlas said gleefully.
“And terrifying.” Malyck responded. “What kind of power does it hold that the Nightmare Court is searching after it?”
“I don’t know, but it must be immense.” Ceara replied to him.
“What do we do with it when we find it?” Liathlas asked.
“We secure it so that no one can take it.” Malyck answered.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“And there it is.” Nafiona spoke as her group of courtiers crested the ridge. They had travelled most of the day to reach this area of the Maguuma jungle. She smiled as she looked over the valley below. Within it stood a tall, twisted form of a tree, its branches covered in dark pods. They could see various creatures moving within the small grove within its base.
“Behold, my courtiers. The corpse grove lies before us!” Nafiona gestured grandly.
“It is within your grasp, m’lady!” one of the courtiers spoke excitedly.
“Indeed, it is.” Nafiona smiled proudly, placing her hands on her hips. “Now, let us prepare to remove the vermin from within. Ready the cannisters!” she ordered as she turned to her courtiers.
“Yes, m’lady!” her entourage shouted in unison as they saluted her. Quickly the courtiers assembled two small cannons facing towards the grove below, each with a stockpile of ammunition next to them. Nafiona picked up one of the cannisters, smiling coyly.
“Madam Scarlet…I have to admit that your toxic spores are a wonderful creation. With this newly engineered version, even more potent than before, I’ll have the power I need to take control of the Nightmare Court, and then the Grove, and from there, all of Tyria.” She turned to one of her courtiers. “Are we ready?”
“Yes, m’lady.” The courtier Ordhran responded.
“Good.” She handed the cannister to him, in turn he quickly dropped it into the weapon. It automatically fired the metal cannister into the area of the twisted tree below. They watched it explode, a cloud of gas erupting into the air.
“Fire. Cover that whole area in spores!” Nafiona ordered her troops proudly. “Leave nothing standing!” Round after round the cannons fired into the grove below, until the entire area around the tree was covered in a fog of toxic gas. Nafiona laughed to herself as the last round was fired. The barely audible sounds of the mordrem inhabitants could be heard as they seemingly fought to stay alive in the toxic cloud. It wasn’t long before sounds of the dying gave away to silence.
Nafiona turned to her courtiers. “Now, the time has come to claim our prize.” Her entourage saluted her. “Caelan, you stay here with a small group and guard the cannisters.”
“Of course, m’lady.” He saluted her as she turned away. Nafiona and her group travelled down a narrow pathway along the ridge to a group of gigantic, thorned vines that formed a crude bridge over the chasm below. It led them to the corpse grove, where Nafiona hoped to find what she was looking for. The toxic gas had mostly cleared when they reached the area, swept away by the breeze. The bodies of the mordrem laid strewn across the ground, some still writhed as the courtiers approached.
“Kill them. Kill any that are still alive.” Nafiona ordered. Her followers searched through the area, slaying any mordrem that might still cling to life.
“It seems all of been taken care of, m’lady.” One of her followers announced.
“Good. Now, tear this place apart. Do not stop until we have found the prize I seek.” She paused a moment. “Ordhran?”
“Yes, m’lady?” He watched as she walked over to a large vine protruding from the ground, running her finger along one of the sharp thorns. “How is the sword coming along?”
“Perfectly.” He stated. “It will be ready soon.”
“Hmm… if the prize is here. We will need to hurry.”
“Yes, m’lady. I will double the efforts.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I can’t believe you are wearing her armor.” Caelan said disbelievingly to Orla, as she fiddled with one of Ceara’s gauntlets.
“It almost fits! It is a little loose in the hips, but other than that it’s almost perfect!” she replied excitedly. “Besides, it’s not like she’s going to need it anymore.” Orla smiled at him.
Caelan shook his head as he looked over Ceara’s rifle. “I can’t seem to figure this thing out. All these little screens and switches, but I can’t get anything to work.” Orla paid his prattling no mind and she continued to fiddle with the buttons on one of the gauntlets.
“Or this thing.” He continued as he picked up a silver cylinder shaped object. He flipped a switch on back and forth, tapping it against his hand.
“Oh!” Orla gasped as she was enveloped in a stealth field. Caelan looked up and saw Orla gone.
“Orla!? Where are you!?”
“I’m right here!” she giggled, seemingly from nowhere. She crept around him, only he noticed her footsteps in the loose dirt.
“Stop playing. We don’t have time.”
She reappeared next to him, a disappointed look on her face. “You’re no fun, Caelan.” She returned to her place and sat on a downed tree. “Hmm…I wonder what this does.” She spoke softly pressing one of the buttons. A series of holographic screens and keypads projected from the gauntlet.
“Oh my! Caelan! Look!” he looked up from working on the rifle.
“Oh wow!” he exclaimed. “What is that!?” He leaned the rifle against the stack of cannisters and approached her.
“I’m not sure!” Orla slowly reached up and tried to touch the holograms. Some of the keys lit up as her hand passed through them. “Whoa!” She tried again, cautiously placing her fingers in the keys. They lit up as she touched them.
“Hahahaha! This is…this is so neat!” she laughed.
Caelan reached up and touched a screen, his hand passing through.
“I think they only work with the gloves.” Orla said as she playfully tapped at the various buttons. “Hmm..nothing seems to work here either.” She continued, slightly disappointed.
“I guess she has some kind of security or something.” Caelan replied to her, looking out over the corpse grove.
Orla pressed another small button in the hidden panel. A pair of holographic projections of Scarlet Briar appeared and leapt at the preoccupied Caelan.
“Caelan!” she screamed just as one ignited a holographic sword and swiped at him, hitting his arm.
“Orla! What are you doing!?” he screamed. Orla pressed the button again causing the holograms to disappear. She ran up to the injured sylvari.
“Are you ok!? I’m sorry! I’m so sorry I didn’t know that would happen!”
Caelan looked at the wound, golden sap ran down the sleeve of his armor.
Another courtier came running up “What was that!?”
“I don’t know! They just appeared and attacked! One of her weapon systems, I think.” She said as she helped Caelan remove the armor from his arm. “Do we have anything to bandage this wound?” she asked.
“Just a moment.” The courtier said as he rushed to a nearby pack. He returned with some medical supplies. Orla applied an oil to the wound before wrapping it in a bandage.
“There. Now stay off your feet and don’t do anything strenuous for at least two weeks.” She joked.
“Funny.” Caelan replied, strapping on the armored sleeve. “Orla, do you think all this will work? What Nafiona is planning?”
“Are you having doubts?” she asked him, looking at him in the eyes.
“It’s not that I’m having doubts. I would just hate to think that after all we have done here, that what she is looking for doesn’t exist here…or at all.”
“It does exist. This is the realm of the jungle dragon. There is one here. I’m sure of it.”
Caelan nodded his head and smiled at her. “It is. We’ll find it.”
“We will.” She smiled back at him.
Caelan reached for Ceara’s pistol that lay on a small pack next to him. “At least this works. Though it doesn’t seem to have much ammunition. Maybe…two shots by the looks of it.” He looked at Orla. “What about all those little gadgets?”
“Well…” Orla started as she moved to a small stack of gas cannisters. She reached up and grabbed a few of the things she had removed from the satchels of Ceara’s armor. “This is a food bar of some sort.” She said removing the wrapping, taking a bite from it. “And I don’t know what this is.” She held up a small device.
“And what about that little thing?” Caelan pointed at another device.
“Not sure. There is a switch and a little screen.” She activated the switch causing the screen to light up. “it shows a map of some sort with a bunch of little while dots.” She showed him the screen.
“What about that little button?” he asked.
She turned the screen back to her. “I don’t know.” She pressed it and disappeared in a flash of light. Caedan waited a few moments for Orla to reappear.
“Orla? Orla are you still here?” he asked. “Orla!?” He turned to one of the nearby courtiers, who shrugged dumbfoundedly back at him.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time passed as the sun moved to the west. The trio dashed as quickly through the jungle as they could. Malyck put his hand up, stopping them abruptly. “Get down.” He whispered, quickly dropping into the plants of the jungle. Ceara and Liathlas followed suit.
“What is it?” Ceara asked.
“Courtiers.” He said peering out. Three members of the Nightmare Court could be seen in the distance, standing near some equipment. “Looks like guards. We must be getting close.”
“I see them.” Ceara scanned the jungle. “What are they guarding?”
“I’m not sure. I believe the corpse grove is just beyond the ridge.” Malyck unholstered one of his pistols.
Ceara looked at him inquisitively. “Do your weapons actually have that kind of range?” she questioned.
Malyck glanced at her for a moment then back to the courtiers. “Sadly, no. We’ll have to move closer.”
“Others might be nearby. They’ll hear your shot.” Liathlas cautioned. “If we get close, I could stealth us to take them out fast.”
Malyck nodded. “That seems like the best way to take care of them.” Returning his pistol to its holster.
“Hopefully, none of our other friends are waiting for us in that brush.” Liathlas muttered as they started moving through the jungle again. Slowly they crept through the thick foliage, cautiously making their path. They paused again as they neared the courtiers.
“That’s my rifle…and my pistol…and my saber…and my other things.” Ceara hissed through her teeth, eyeing the courtier who was fidgeting with the futuristic looking weapon. Liathlas looked at her, placing her finger over her lips giving Ceara a signal to keep quiet.
“Well, it is!” Ceara whispered harshly to her. Liathlas gave Ceara a perturbed look. Ceara glared back at her a moment.
“Those weapons they have set up. They must have used them to launch those cannisters into the grove below.” Malyck stated. “Looks like three guards.”
“Charr mortars, by the looks of them.” Ceara added.
“And the one with your rifle looks somewhat worried.” Liathlas also added, noticing the courtier seemed to be fidgeting nervously.
“It doesn’t matter. He dies either way.” Ceara glared at him. “How do you want to do this?” she whispered to Malyck.
He thought for a moment. “I’ll walk towards them out of the jungle like I’ve been hurt, and try to pull them close, dropping their guard. Both of you stealth and try to position yourselves to take them down quickly when I give the signal.
“What will the signal be?” Liathlas asked.
“You will know. Now.” Malyck slowly stood, clutching his right shoulder. Hunching over, he hobbled slowly through the brush, his breathing labored. The duo watched him as he slowly entered the clearing. Liathlas waved her hand, casting her stealth field causing them to disappear.
“H-Help…” Malyck stammered as he clumsily shuffled across into the clearing. “Help me…”
The courtiers turned towards him. “Halt!” one of them ordered. “Come no further!”
“Help…” Malyck gasped as he dropped to the ground. One of the courtiers motioned to Caelan to stay put by the cannisters. They approached him; weapons drawn.
“Not one of us.” One of them sneered, shoving Malyck’s head with his foot.
“Put him out of his misery.” The coutier brought his sword up. Malyck rolled out of the way as the point of the blade came down, piercing into the dirt.
“Just as I thought!” the courtier snarled. Clones of Liathlas appeared near them and attacked. Malyck pulled his pistol and shot the courtier that attempted to stab him..
Caelan took aim at one of the clones when Ceara appeared in front of him.
“Ma…madam…” he stammered. She snatched the rifle from his hands, then proceeded to strike him in the jaw with the stock of the weapon, knocking him out. Powerup in the rifle, she turned to see her comrades finishing the other guard. She looked down at Caelan, who lay unconscious, his mouth open.
“Still catching flies with that maw of yours.” Ceara shook her head. She undid her holster from his waist, strapping it around herself. She saw some of her other gadgets sitting on top of the stack of cannisters, which bore some familiar writing. She grabbed one, staring at it.
“What is it?” Liathlas asked as she approached.
“Spores…toxic gas…from the Nightmare tower. The same used as in Lion’s Arch.”
“Are you…are you sure?” Liathlas asked very concerned. They looked out over the grove below as Ceara looked over the mortars.
“They bombarded that area to clear out the mordrem.”
“Then we can use this supply against them while they are searching for the seed.” Malyck suggested.
“I’m not sure that would work. I would imagine Nafiona and company would have some kind of antidote handy in the event of it being used against them.” She looked the cannister over, turning it upside down. “It explodes above the air, spreading the gas over an ar-“ A light lit up and the cannister beep.
“Thorns!” Ceara spat as she threw it as hard as she could over the ridge. It exploded in the air.
“Double thorns.” She gasped.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“What is going on up on the ridge?” Nafiona turned to see the remnants of the exploded spore cloud dissipating in the air near the cliff wall. “Ordhran, check to see what those fools are doing up there.” She ordered.
“Yes, m’lady.” He bowed to her and marched towards the vine bridge.
“A lone soldier?” Liathlas asked as they watched Ordhran crossing the vine bridge.
“I could take him down from here.” Ceara brought the rifle up.
“No, that would only draw more of them. Wait until he reaches us.” Malyck backed away from the ridge. The others followed.
It wasn’t long before Ordhran reached the crest of the ridge. He stopped momentarily before reaching the end of the pathway, focusing his hearing.
“Silence. Doesn’t bode well.” He thought to himself. He brandished his sword and shield, moving cautiously up the path. Cresting the ridge, he projected a force shield just in time as he was bombarded by mesmer attacks. He turned and ran as fast as he could back towards the corpse grove.
“Briars!” Liathlas shouted.
“Stop him!” Malyck yelled. The trio rushed the ridge. Ceara fired her weapon at him, as did Malyck. The rounds bouncing off his force shield as Ordhran quickly rushed across the vine bridge. Ceara fired another round, hitting the ground at his feet.
“Thorns! Thorns! Thorns!” she cursed.
“Well, now they definitely know we’re here.” Liathlas muttered.
Ordhran ran into the grove to Nafiona. “M’lady! Scarlet Briar lives. And she has help.”
“Oh, really? That’s not surprising. How many?”
“I’m not sure. There were many. I was attacked immediately.”
“Well, then I guess we prepare for an assault. Get everyone at the ready.”
“Yes m’lady!” He bowed to her and turned. “Everyone to arms! Now!” he shouted. The command spread through the courtiers as they gathered quickly, bringing their weapons to bear.
“It seems our former acquaintance, Scarlet Briar, is up on the ridge, possibly with a small army. We’ll crush her, and her motley group with ease!” Nafiona announced. A raucous cheer rang through the air as the members of the Nightmare Court stood ready.
“M’lady, should we press the attack with a little surprise?” one courtier asked.
Nafiona looked at her and smiled. “Why yes, I believe we should. Mesmers place your portals now! We’re going to pay Madam Scarlet a visit!” The courtier, along with another opened ethereal portals of swirling energy in front of the group. “Attack!” Nafiona commanded. The group of sylvari rushed through the openings.
“Well, I guess we could use the mortars against them?” Ceara suggested to her compatriots. “I still don’t think it will do any good.”
“It’s our best bet right now.” Malyck rebuttaled.
“Um…we have a problem.” Liathlas spoke up, noticing two swirls of energy starting to form near them. “Mesmer portals.”
“Run! To the jungle!” Malyck shouted. Liathlas cast another stealth field about them, and the trio bolted for the dense foliage. The Nightmare Court poured out of the portals, taking up positions around the mortars and stack of cannisters. Nafiona followed them through.
“They have retreated, m’lady.” Ordhran announced. Nafiona’s eyes narrowed, and she scanned around the area.
“Judging by these tracks, it looks like they ran off into the jungle.” A courtier suggested as she knelt looking over footprints in the dirt.
“Get a scout party together and do a quick search of the area.” Nafiona ordered. The courtier bowed to her and pointed to two other sylvari to follow.
“Check on them.” Nafiona motioned towards two courtiers standing near their fallen comrades. Another checked on Caelan.
“These two are dead, m’lady.”
“And Caelan?”
“He’s alive.”
“Wake him.” She ordered. The courtier started trying to awaken the unconscious sylvari.
“Ordhran. It’s obvious the seed is not in the corpse grove.” She pondered a moment. “I dare say it is in the south. In the area where the jungle dragon fell.”
“M’lady?” he asked.
“The sun is starting to set so we’ll set up camp here for the night.” She said, turning to the large sylvari. “The mordrem will be active and we need to be prepared. Also…” she paused, a sly smile forming. “I believe there is a pact camp to the south. Send them a courier. Tell them…tell them that Scarlet Briar lives and is here in the jungle. It is believed that she is trying to resurrect Mordremoth.”
“With pleasure, m’lady.” He bowed to her. Nafiona chuckled to herself as she watched her followers start setting up the camp.
11 notes
·
View notes
Note
What tattoos does Ford have? I need to know for science.
I had to think about this for a long time to decide what I really wanted for Ford, but I finally figured it out!! Traditional style of tattooing was really popular in the 80s, so all of his tattoos are along that line. They're also all in color!!
He has a bird on the left side of his neck that's peeking up from his left sleeve. His sleeves are both nature themed, with the main theme being flowers. Flowers and vines go up and down the entire length of his arms, with a snake mingled in on the sleeve of his right arm and the bird on his left. They end at his shoulders, but, at each 3/4 of a forearm to wrist, he has a dagger pointing out towards his hands. The daggers are wrapped in vines, and have thorns covering them. Finally, he has a giant chest piece right over his heart. It's a red rose-like flower with a dagger going through it, and it has the words "live free, die young" surrounding it (live free = above, die young = below). He jokes that it's the most ironic tattoo he could've gotten.
He planned on getting more, but at least all his current pieces were finished :)
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
Winter’s Fall (Four)
Tony battles the Hydra Monster. I’ve never actually written like... Hero vs. Mythical Beast scenes? This was daunting but also super fun. Sooo many details and there’s one ESPECIALLY that I love (who am I kidding, there is a thousand) which is a fairy tale nod to Marvel canon.
Generic TW: Tony gets hurt and literal heads roll because you know... Hydra monster? I don’t think its too terribly graphic, but here’s a TW all the same!
MASTERLIST HERE
Enjoy!
*************
The gorge separating Castle Barnes from the village was spanned by an massive stone bridge, a true feat of nearly ancient engineering, a testament to sheer determination and brilliant minds, an indestructible and forever open pathway between caring royals and loyal subjects, between the King and Queen and the people they ruled.
Peasants and merchants, clergymen and dignitaries, servants and soldiers, all were welcome across the bridge and into the castle, never barred by gates or guards or any sort of societal protocol that forbid their presence. The bridge led across the chasm and to the castle gates by way of few hours journey through a lovely forest, and at the halfway mark through the woods, the road branched to the side to wide around the seaside cliffs and into the mountains for those who wanted an adventure.
It wasn’t until after Echidna’s curse that Winnie ordered the boys to never play on the bridge, demanding they stay on the castle grounds at all times lest they stray too close to the sides and slip to the valley beneath.
It wasn’t until after Echidna’s curse that Winnie demanded the bridge be gated for the first time in the Kingdom’s history, barred from both sides and patrolled by soldiers, with only a few persons let through each day.
It wasn’t until after Echidna’s curse that brambles and bristles, briars and barbs, thorns and thistles spiraled up from the ground below, wrapping around immovable braces and splintering centuries old rock with the force of their movement, surging over walls and coating the traffic worn surface, blackening time darkened stone with their shadow.
Tony’s mount balked at the sight, shying away from the vines still curling and winding at their feet, huffing anxiously when the wind picked up and the too damp scent of rot reached their noses.
Tony patted at the beautiful animal’s neck, swallowed hard around the bolt of panic in his throat, and reached for his sword.
“It’s alright, beauty.” he said quietly. “I’ll go on foot from here.”
The villagers had been kind enough to supply Tony with a couple lanterns and enough kerosene to last him a few days, and the Prince hooked them to a small pack of supplies-- food and water, fire starting material and a rope, an extra blanket and basic first aid. Tony wore a chain mail beneath his tunic and fastened his rifle over his shoulders, tightening the belt that held both his sword and dagger at his side.
Last was a kerchief around his mouth to keep out the stench, and with one last look behind him at the village, Tony set into the wilds that had over taken the castle he knew as home.
He could barely see the ivory spires of Castle Barnes in the distance. So covered in vines, the towers were nearly indistinguishable from the mountains behind it and Tony knew what was usually a mornings ride to the castle would be a nearly impossible trek on foot through the tangled mess.
He had no idea how long it would take him to reach the castle, he had no idea what would be waiting for him if he even made the gates. The rumours of a monster made Tony’s heart pound and the stories of the creature Echidna made his skin crawl but he couldn’t stand here on the safe side of the bridge and leave the one he loved to whatever horrors lurked beyond.
“I’m coming, Winter.” Tony vowed, planting one foot firmly in a tangle of vines and brandishing his sword. “Hold on for me.”
***************
***************
T+B
The letters were scrawled into the bark of a tree long ago choked of life, it's trunk twisted and warped beneath the crushing pressure of the vines and Tony bit back a sigh of relief when he could flatten his palm to the crude carving.
T+B and a blocky arrow pointing in the direction of the castle.
He and Bucky had marked a trail from an ill attempted tree house one summer, tagging the trees back towards the castle so they wouldn’t get lost as they carried stolen borrowed supplies and tools to create a hideaway in the forest. All summer long they’d worked to construct a somewhat stable platform in the branches, raising rudimentary walls and attaching a series of handmade rope ladders to get to all the different floors Tony was sure their tree house would have.
The rope ladders had broken the moment set foot on it, the less than sturdy walls crumbling shortly thereafter. Tony had jumped from the cracking platform just before it gave way entirely and dropped him to the forest floor and miraculously both boys had escaped with nothing more bumps and bruises, a few scrapes on their arms and leaves in their hair.
Pinky promises had ensured Winnie would never find out what happened, a solemnly taken vow of secrecy ensured the location of their disastrous fort would never be shared, and the boys had moved on to their next adventure. The rough marks in the tree, the crude letters and scratched arrows had faded into memory like so many thousands of moments together, fond but forgotten, fun but fleeting and entirely unnecessary in the grand scheme of things.
Entirely unnecessary until now that is, because now Tony didn’t recognize the pathways he and Bucky had explored over and over, he couldn’t hear the sound of the ocean over the whistling wind to know which direction the cliffs lay, he couldn’t even see the sun behind the dark clouds building in the sky and laying low over the land as fog.
A storm was coming, Tony had been hiking and hacking for hours through tangle of thorns and he was hopelessly lost until this little marker in the woods saved him.
T+B.
“I’m coming, Bucky.” Tony traced the letters one more time then set off in the direction the arrow pointed, struggling through every step and working for every inch of ground until finally--
T+B.
“Thank the gods.” Another marker, another arrow and Tony leaned his forehead into the tree gratefully.
He was going to make it.
Here they had carved their initials on the tree next to a rock that was nearly a mountain in itself, one they had spent days climbing and exploring within the cracks and crevices. And here they had put a marker by what used to be a stream, the bed now dried and choked with dirt. The stream led in a nearly straight path to a pond, and there they had carved their initials for the first time with a heart around the letters.
Tony remembered that day vividly, remembered Bucky marking the tree because the pond was their favorite hideout that spring, and he remembered Bucky’s eyes going very wide and very soft when Tony had scratched the heart as well.
That was the first time they’d held hands, really held hands, losing an entire morning sitting by the water and blushing furiously over the innocent weight of the other’s fingers against their palms.
“What foolish children we were.” Tony murmured as he passed the marker, skirting the concave depression where the pond had been and continuing on his way. “Foolish and so in love.”
Here was where they had raced every year on Tony’s birthday, and though the once flowering field was overgrown with thistles, Tony still recognized the stretch of land and the forest beyond. Here was the trail to the ocean, one he and Bucky had walked more times than Tony could count. The stones were worn white, the same limestone that made up the cliff sides exposed after centuries of travelers kicking away the top soil and not even the unsettling growth of vines and thorns could hide it.
He was getting closer, and then the castle was looming into view almost suddenly.
One moment Tony was cutting through branches too thick to see through and the next he was stumbling over rocks and overturned paving stones to fall to his knees mere feet from the mighty drawbridge of Castle Barnes.
He was exhausted, eyes stinging from dripping sweat, his clothing torn from the brambles and skin itching from a million tiny cuts. With no real way to tell how much time had passed and almost nothing recognizable left of his childhood home, Tony was disoriented to the point of being dizzy, and he bent nearly double to try and catch his breath, to try and formulate a plan.
The drawbridge was raised, portcullis down and the sentry doors at either side of the main entrance had been sealed shut years ago at Winnie’s orders. The windows were dark, most likely boarded up but beyond that they were crossed with heavy thorns and menacing points, making entry without injury almost impossible.
The tangle of briars was thinner here, so Tony made his way carefully around the perimeter of the castle, skirting piles of debris and glinting, shattered glass from windows that had given way beneath the crushing pressure of vines. He checked every place he knew to be an entry point, inched close to the walls to test for foot holds that would get him closer to an already broken window, eyed the statues on various ledges wondering if they would hold his weight.
And then light, barely a glimmer, hardly more than a twinkle and Tony froze midstep, straining his eyes to see through the gloom and past the blackened stones, then backing up as far as he could to stand on his toes and see--
There.
Light.
A single lamp flickering in the tiny window clear at the top of the highest tower, one set far back in the keep, one that had always been off limits to Bucky and Tony as children.
“The highest room of the tallest tower.” Tony said in quiet disbelief, staring up at the sheer distance he’d have to travel to reach the light. “Damn it, Buck. You’re really gonna make me climb all that way to rescue….” Tony’s voice trailed off when he recognized the silhouette of a particular statue on the wall and suddenly knew exactly where he was. “Oh.”
One time and only one time, he and Bucky had tied ropes to the railings of the balcony in their bedroom and swung down and out from the walls, landing with a scream in the grass below. It had been far too high a height for children to jump from, too frightening to be exhilarating and honestly, it was only dumb luck neither boy had survived that particular adventure without any broken bones.
It had been a foolish idea then and it was a foolish idea now but Tony had promised to always always rescue Bucky, so it was a foolish idea he had to attempt.
A heavy stone wrapped into a section of blanket and tied to the end of his rope acted as weight, and it took one--two-- three tries for Tony to get the length up and over the railing of the old balcony, then back down to tie the other end several times around the base of a tree. It would be slow work scaling the outside walls, but with enough luck Tony would find a few footholds to help him along. Once he made the balcony it would be easy enough to break down the door, to make his way through the castle and towards the tower.
He could do this.
Easier said than done of course, as most plans are, and Tony’s arms were aching by the time he was nearly to the balcony, his legs tense and back already sore from the effort of balancing his own weight for each step of the vertical ascent. There were very few footholds to be found-- the Castle Barnes had been meticulously crafted with only a handful of rough stones or uneven places in the walls and Tony clung to each as a lifeline as he made his way painstakingly towards the railing.
He was no more than a hands breadth away, fingers reaching and scrabbling for purchase, when it occurred to Tony that he’d been so concerned with getting inside the castle that he’d forgotten entirely about the monster said to lurk in the water outside.
Oh no.
The noise wasn’t so much a scream as it was a screech, not so much a growl as it was a ground shaking, heart stopping rumble and the stench of rot, of decay of death made Tony gag seconds before something impossibly heavy knocked him off the wall, off the rope and sent him plummeting to the dirt below.
Tony hit the ground with a bone rattling jolt and his desperate gasp for breath turned into a disbelieving panicked cry when a head full of jagged teeth and curving fangs lunged for him.
It was a soldiers instinct to immediately lash out with his sword and the pure survival instinct of a frightened young man to tuck and roll into the thorns, and both motions saved Tony’s life.
The monster’s jaws closed in a snap just mere inches from Tony’s body, and the thing hissed in annoyance when it got a faceful of thorns, shaking it's head to get rid of the barbs in it's tender eyes. Tony took the chance to run, slashing at the beasts nose with his sword to make it scream as he ran for better cover.
There was no cover to be found though, nothing more than frustratingly smooth walls on one side, skin tearing brambles on the other and in front of him, the monster that Tony’s terrified mind couldn’t quite make sense of.
There were scales, clicking and rattling as the beast lifted itself higher from the water. There was blood, leaking from superficial wounds and burning the ground where it landed. The scent of sulfur in the saliva dripping from fangs and an unsettling hiss and wheeze as the thing breathed.
And then impossible-- another head the same as the first, yellowed skin and oozing fangs, and then a third with a snarl that made Tony’s blood run cold. A fourth on one side with scales that glinted hellscape orange and a putrid fifth springing up on the other. Horrifying-- a sixth horned head arching over the others and zeroing on the young Prince and a seventh, rising from beneath with eyes intelligent and focused as it crept along the ground towards Tony.
“You’re a Hydra monster.” Tony whispered, and the thing threw it’s seven heads back and roared in triumph.
Tony reacted with out thought, leaping forward and bringing the deadly edge of his sword right between shifting scales and through corded muscles, neatly severing one of the heads from the beast and leaping backwards as it screamed in rage, acid spilling from the wound and soaking into the already deadened ground.
“One down.” Tony tightened his grip on his sword and refused to give in to the fear trying to paralyze his steps. “One down and six to g-- six to---six--
The words stammered, stuttered, failed and fell away as the wounded monster flailed about in fury, the bloody stump of one neck twisting and writhing--
--and healing---
--and growing--
--and Tony’s knees buckly, his sword slipping from his hand into the rocks as not one but two heads stretched into being in front of his very eyes.
“...no.”
Lost in his shock, in his horror, Tony didn’t see the blow coming from the side and was knocked off his feet and into the mess of thorns by one of the heads. He lay stunned, frozen, helpless as the beast grew ever taller, ever angrier and leaned far over to stare down at him.
Poison from a bared set of fangs, dripping down onto Tony’s chest and burning through the silk of his tunic, warping the chain mail below and searing into his body. Tony arched his back and screamed as it began to eat away at his skin, tearing at his shirt and armor, ripping it off and casting it all aside before the poison melted through to his bones.
Red lines of ruined skin stretched from his heart almost to his shoulder, the wretched scent of burning flesh clogging Tony’s nose and he rolled to the side and gagged, retched, put a hand to his chest as it constricted in pain and wondered if this was the end.
It was stupid, oh it was stupid to suddenly be thinking of Bucky when he was no doubt seconds from death but Tony had a sudden flash of memory, a tiny insignificant moment where Bucky had been curled into his arms reading a book and they’d been teasing and laughing a little but mostly being sweet together and Tony had bragged--
“I could kill a Hydra monster. Just get my sword real hot and chop it off at the neck, burn the flesh so it wouldn’t grow back.”
Careless words, an adolescents bragging and the idea had been laughable but right now as Tony wheezed through every breath, as the pain spread from his chest to his arms and clear to his core--
--right now it was the only idea he had.
The Hydra monster had pulled away from the thorns again, apparently content to wait patiently for it’s prey to either die from his wounds or crawl out into the open where he could be devoured, so Tony rolled even further into the tangle to buy himself a few precious moments to work out his new plan. His hands were shaking as he pulled himself along the ground to his pack, every bit of his body racked in pain as he went.
By some miracle, his sword had only been tossed a few feet away and even though the Hydra’s eyes sharpened when Tony inched the weapon out of the clearing and back to his side, the creature didn’t strike.
No use expending energy when the tiny human was so close to--
--the Hydra beast screamed in fear when the forest of thorns abruptly ignited, the dry branches bursting into flame all around where Tony was standing. A lamp broken, the kerosene spread and a spark and suddenly the monster was cringing away from the wall of too harsh light, the heat from the flames driving it back away from the castle.
And from the inferno, yelling at the top of his lungs and swinging a flaming sword, Tony striking at one of the Hydra’s necks and chopping it’s head away.
The Hydra recoiled, hissing and spitting in rage but the assurance of regeneration was choked off when it felt the sting of white hot steel at it's wounded flesh. The monster barely had time to understand what had happened before another head fell, another searing brand across the bleeding stump and then another swift strike of mind blanking pain before a third head rolled.
Three heads down and the Hydra twisted around wildly to find the human who was hurting it so badly. But Tony stayed where the firelight was the brightest, hiding in the heat because the Hydra didn’t dare come any closer and every chance he got, Tony rushed forward to hurt the serpent again and again and again.
The entire forest was glowing now, the briars acting as kindling to set the larger trees ablaze, the air itself heating until the Hydra’s skin cracked and split as any and all moisture was sucked from the atmosphere, the castle walls reflecting the yellow and orange and shining it back into the monster’s eyes.
It hissed and spat, coiled and curled, lunged and leapt for Tony but the Hydra simply couldn’t see, it’s sense of smell compromised by the smoke, it’s sense of self compromised by missing so many limbs.
The rope to the balcony was starting to light at the very bottom when Tony climbed again, scrambling up the heated stone walls and burning his hands when he finally grasped the railing, kicking away the rope as it caught fire at his feet. The air was clearer here, the smoke not as thick and the Hydra raged when it finally caught sight of it’s prey again.
Tony sent one last look up at the far tower, whispered a quiet prayer for help and for hope and turned to face the beast, chin up, eyes blazing and as the Hydra screamed and dove for him, jaws open and fangs glinting, tongue reaching--
Tony shattered the last lamp right into the monster’s eyes, and when it reared back in pain, he leapt from the top rail of the balcony with fiery sword raised--
--and brought it down with a scream of his own into the neck of the beast.
There was a terrifying moment where the Hydra beast wavered, it’s two remaining heads frozen in disbelief and maybe even fear, and then the massive thing began to fall.
Tony chased the body with the last of his strength, bringing his super heated blade down again and again to sear the flesh beyond healing. Over and over he struck, following the monster as it retreated to the sea, dodging pools of acid and covering his mouth with what was left of his handkerchief so he didn’t breath in the poisonous odors.
The Hydra wailed softly, wavering, trembling, the shock of pain and loss of blood to great to bear and first one and then the other head drooped, dropped, thudding onto the ground and rolling glazed eyes towards Tony.
Tony was gasping for breath, dizzy and nearly stumbling but he couldn’t give up yet, not yet. He didn’t have the strength to simply slice through the beast anymore, so he sawed at one head until it separated, burned the stump and then staggered to the next to do the same.
His chest was raw from the poison, his hair singed from battling in the midst of the fire and as Tony reached to wipe his face, his fingers came away soadked with blood and tears.
But still he turned to catch sight of the tower again, still he set his sword in the scabbard and took resolute steps towards the castle, still he went on his way to rescue his love.
“I’m coming, Winter.” The words were almost a sob this time. “Hold on for me, sweetheart.”
***************
SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE CHAPTER!
**************
@ships-galore @ceealaina @izziebladez @cwar1864 @hausoffro @lookuplaughing @tonystarkisanangel @multishippinglife @girlnic @iam93percentstardust @water-colouredmemories @paranormalmoonlight5 @igotloki @moosette05 @wayward-student-philosopher @kaz-brekkers-gloves @atomicfandombomb @desitonystark @1fuckingshitup69 @agentlokii @thepunisherreigns @bibbarnes @dixiehellcat @peteryoulittleshit @here-for-your-bullshit @nanita90a @bluedreamdino @i-am-worth-it-25 @livewire28 @kimstark @simplynerdy-gal @fallen125 @slashupmylife @scorpiomindfuck @dwarrodamned @inevitablyironman @coolmusicnut @marvagon @myboyfriendsteve
127 notes
·
View notes
Text
Arzaylea Who? - Colby Brock
A/N: Requested by a beautiful anon: “If you feel comfortable would you be able to write something about this whole situation colbys going through, but he actually has a gf already but no one knows about her and maybe the whole thing is just colby curving arzaelya (i don’t know her name tbh) and not wanting to talk to her because he loves his gf (you obvs dont have to write it, but I just thought it would be cool)”
Colby usually had quite a good judge of character, but he really missed the mark on this one. This one being none other than Arzaylea. You had heard some things about Arzaylea. Things that were pretty bad- like she’d supposedly gotten the lead singer of the band 5 Seconds of Summer hooked on cocaine. That she’d cheated on every single partner she had. That she tried to profit off of Lil Peep’s death, and how truly manipulative she really was. Her beef with Bella Thorne. The evidence was there, and it was impossible to ignore.
You respected your boyfriend’s decisions normally, respected that he was his own person. After all, he was a twenty-two year old man, who didn’t need anyone to handle him with kid gloves. But this? This wasn’t good. Colby had a heart of gold. His generosity and his kindness knew no bounds, and that’s what made you the most nervous.
You knew that this Arzaylea chick, when she got too comfortable, would try to drain Colby dry. Half of his fanbase had already tried to warn him, but Colby was the type of person to give someone the benefit of the doubt. You, however, were not. Things just seemed too fishy; she seemed almost too nice. She also seemed just about ready to ride Colby’s dick for another five minutes of fame, but that could’ve just been your inner green monster talking.
However, you knew that it was something that Colby would have to experience himself. He wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, wanting to believe that people could change for the better. You had a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, that she was going to dry and suck Colby dry. You appreciated the fans trying to warn Colby, and you knew that he did as well. What neither of you appreciated, was the fans calling him stupid, or a dumb ass. He was neither of those. He was the kindest, most generous person you’d ever met. He wasn’t stupid. He saw everything, but he wanted to hope for the best, for everyone.
It infuriated you, that the fans were calling Colby names in earnest. You shook your head when you thought about it. If Colby was their “fave,” then why would the Twitter stans want to hurt him? Why would they want him to feel like less than what he actually was? Colby was one of the best people you’d ever met, and it broke your heart to see him treated like he wasn’t a human being.
The two of them were standing in one corner of the kitchen. Colby kept glancing at you, offering soft smiles and subtle winks. You grinned back at him, tossing him an overdramatic wink, making him snicker quietly. The thing was, you weren’t intimidated by the clout-chaser standing in front of your boyfriend. You knew that if Colby wanted someone else, he wouldn’t be with you. The thing that bothered you was that it was obvious that she was just going to use him, just like she did with her previous partners.
Katrina and Tara glanced over at you, rolling their eyes at Arzaylea’s theatrics, the way she seemed to be permanently glued to Colby’s side. You, Devyn, Kat, and Tara had met up for dinner the night before, and the topic of what Arzaylea did, allegedly. The four of you agreed that none of you were her biggest fan. Katrina had informed you that Sam wasn’t a fan of Arzaylea, either. He could see that she was using Colby, just like she did to her previous partners.
Unfortunately for her, you were Colby’s girlfriend. He loved you, wanted you, and no one else. The fans had no idea that you were dating Colby, but you had been with him for almost two years. Colby wanted to keep the relationship a secret, because he was terrified about what his fans would do. He knew that you would get waves and waves of hate, from some of his more, uh, self-proclaimed future girlfriends of his. You agreed to keep the relationship a secret. You were ready when he was, content to go with the flow.
The two of you weren’t into PDA. Subtle touches and sweet smiles from across the room was enough for you. You didn’t want to be one of those couples who was all over each other, even in front of your friends. Much to your amusement, some of your friends had no idea that you and Colby were dating.
You wandered over to the two of them, offering Arzaylea a frosty smile. She smiled back at you just as frostily. Well, at least you think she did. Her face contorted into a weird grimace. It looked like she was holding in a fart.
Colby’s expression brightened just at the sight of you. He stepped away from Arzaylea, holding his arms out for you. You stepped into his embrace, resting your head against his chest. His arms wrapped around your waist, and he rested his chin on the top of your head, his lips brushing against you softly. “Hey, baby,” Colby murmured, his voice soft and sweet. You nuzzled your face affectionately into the soft material of his hoodie. “Hey,” You replied, your voice muffled from where your face was nuzzled against him.
Colby gave your waist a gentle squeeze, then dropped his arms from around you. “I’m gonna go get another drink,” He told you. You nodded in response, then stood up on your tiptoes to press your lips to his jaw. Colby’s cheeks flushed, and he smiled at you happily. His eyes never left your face as he walked away, nearly running into the fridge, much to your amusement. You watched as he walked away, a soft smile on your face as you ignored the sound of the clout-gobblin clearing her throat in front of you.
“You’re a lucky girl,” Arzaylea smirked at you, her eyes twinkling with ill-intent. Your expression turned into one of smugness, and you raised an eyebrow at her. “I sure am,” You replied. Arzaylea scowled briefly at your confidence, but then rearranged her features back into the fart-smile. “It’d be a shame if someone were to change that.” It was her turn to look at you, her expression smug. She lifted her cup to her mouth, trying to hide the smug smile on her lips
You simply smacked the cup out of her hands, smirking as the red liquid sloshed all over her over-priced white shirt. Arzaylea’s eyes widened in horror as the sticky red liquid spread across the front of her shirt. You swore you heard the sound of faint laughter behind you. You leaned in closer, ignoring the daggers she was glaring at you, as she tried to dab at the red stains on her stupidly priced white shirt. Your smirk widened. “Stay in your damn lane, honey.”
#colby brock#sam and colby#colby brock fanfic#colby brock fanfiction#colby brock x reader#cole robert brock#xplr#traphouse
123 notes
·
View notes
Text
BLOODBLOSSOM ―
here’s another drabble (okay, i lie, it’s 3k) featuring julien! this time the other relevant characters are tatian, the leader of the revolution/anti-royalist faction, and jelena, an arms dealer and sadist.
CONTENT WARNINGS ― graphic depictions of whipping; tying up; panic attacks; self-destructive behaviours
TAGLIST ― @doveotions
“Jelena, I assure you, it’s unnecessary. And foolish.” Tatian sighs; controlling Jelena is like putting a steak in front of a starving dog and telling it not to bite.
No. It’s like collaring a wolf and expecting it to drop its prey at your feet; there’s nothing tame in her eyes, in her body, leaning against the windowframe. Everything from the scars on her neck to the dagger dangling mindlessly between her fingers says predator, predator, predator, an insistent thrumming in the back of Tatian’s mind.
If she’s a predator, an idle thought asks, who’s her prey?
Glancing up from toying with her dagger, she gives Tatian a sharp smile. He knows her teeth had been filed in prison, that all Nyrish convicts did it, but— he also remembers seeing those canines stained with blood. “The people would beg to differ.”
The people. The people whose houses she’s razed to the ground, whose sons and sisters and friends she’s punished, toyed with, a vengeful demon.
Tatian takes a step forward, meeting Jelena’s eyes. Keeping his voice smooth; dissent is a distraction, a threat, a loss of momentum. Affording her time he doesn’t have is out of the question.
“The people can differ all they want. Julien is my property, and I won’t allow you to play with him.” He can’t help glancing back at Julien, kneeling at Camille’s feet; the picture of devoted obedience. It’s almost pathetic, how eager he is to demean himself for a scrap of affection — almost, but he still looks more a crowned prince branded and humiliated, leash resting casually in Camille’s lap, than Tatian has ever looked in the mirror.
All Jelena does is shrug, and even that’s a calculated movement, tense with the kind of power he’s only seen in a caged panther. The kind that says, come too close and you won’t live to repent it. “ Tell me, what do you care about more?” Tossing her dagger up, she catches it by the blade. Show off. “Your property, or the loyalty of the people outside?”
“It’s which,” Tatian says, taking another step, slowly circling her. Letting his hand run over the lacquered chest, not deigning to look her in the eye. “Which do I care about more. And don’t pretend to speak for the people.”
“Oh, but they want it. You know they do.”
“They might, but the people have a nasty little habit of regretting their choices. Their desires.”
“And you know all about that, don’t you?”
“What?” It’s all Tatian can get out, but he sees it now, the corner he’s backed himself into. He’s taken this wolf in, fed her, collared her, forgotten it isn’t the collar that keeps her at his heel, it’s the meat. Forgotten that wolves don’t care what’s theirs or what’s his -- all she knows is hunger, and if he won’t feed her, he’ll become her next meal.
Jelena peels herself away from the windowsill, stepping towards him. Slow and deliberate, spinning her dagger between her fingers as she walks so it catches the light in a biting flash. This close, he has to look up to her, has to smell the sulfur and brimstone on her breath.
“Do you regret hiring me?” The words are spoken, but the dagger gives them their edge, wandering carelessly through air. A little closer to Tatian’s face than any employee of his should ever bring their weapon. “Because the way I see it, you need me. You need me to put swords in your men’s hands, bows on their backs.”
“You need me.” Even as the words leave his mouth, cracking under the effort of keeping his voice steady, Tatian knows they’re not true. He isn’t her only buyer.
Glancing over at Camille, all he gets is a pointed stare, a silent rebuke. Not here, not yet.
Jelena laughs, almost a snarl. “Do I? Because I thought I could easily take my business elsewhere. The only thing keeping me playing by your rules is what you can offer me. Your money -- and your pet.”
She looks over to Julien, hungry hungry hungry. More than that, victorious; Tatian wants to scream in frustration, wishes he had a dagger of his own to claw out her glinting eyes, but there’s nothing he can do.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he says, voice taut, “Because if you break my property, I can assure you the consequences will be severe.”
All he gets in return is a derisive snort as Jelena strides over to Julien, snatching the lead from Camille’s lap. He does nothing to stop her, only shrugs, removing his hand from where it has been tangled in Julien’s thick, brown curls.
Wrapping the lead around her hand, Jelena jerks Julien to his feet, sending him stumbling a little. “Get up, Your Grace. Your people want to see you.”
Tatian half-wishes Julien would scream, struggle, fight for his life like a deer -- but all he does is freeze like one, a single desperately apprehensive glance before his face softens into resignation and he nods.
With that, she begins to stride out, pausing as she pushes the tent flap aside to say to Tatian: “I can assure you, medvedezdha, you’ll get your pet back.”
Hearing her footsteps recede, Tatian releases a sigh, that turns into a frustrated half-scream.
“Shit,” he hisses, feeling his breath begin to hitch and race, he should’ve seen that coming, should’ve done something. Shouldn’t have seen her without a guard, now he’s lost control, and he’s spiralling, falling, slipping the maw of the past rushing up to swallow him --
He rounds on Camille, because it’s the only thing he can do, and he has to do something, or his skin might split from the itch that rages beneath it, the mounting frustration.
“Why did you let her?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because she wouldn’t hesitate to slit my throat with that dagger?” He can only be grateful that Camille’s words still have a bite to them, that he doesn’t stand -- if he did, it would mean Tatian was slipping again, drifting further from the careful reality he’s constructed.
Tatian sighs, trying to steady himself. “Saints, I should’ve stopped her. She’s out of control.”
Sighing, Camille twists a curl of hair around his finger. “She is, but she has the upper hand now. She must be anticipating a reprisal.”
“Or she thinks she can get away with it,” Tatian returns, glancing towards the tent flap. Knowing she’s taken Julien out there, when he can hardly manage the walk from the castle to the makeshift meeting room -- and he shouldn’t care for Julien, he knows that, but all the same he can feel the affection sinking its roots into his chest, winding its thorny branches around his heart.
His instinct is to run from it. Run from the wolf, then lay your traps -- it’s always been the de Carachelles way, the reason why they survived when the de Carcassonie fell. Yet something in him rebels at the idea. Something in him baulks at leaving Julien to suffer, at letting Jelena break his toy without a witness; it all culminates in a breathless realisation.
“I caused this. I should watch.”
Not waiting for Camille’s response, Tatian pushes out of the tent, surfacing like a drowned man coming up for air. Only the fetid afternoon heat does nothing to relieve him, only clogs his lungs with more doubts as he hurries past the soldiers. What if she kills him? What if the people aren’t on her side? He can’t decide which is more dangerous, only that he has to see for himself. That maybe Julien de Vere is more trouble than he’s worth.
The camp passes in a blur of canvas and familiar, grimy faces as he rushes to the edge, to the sound of a murmuring crowd. They’ve come from every nearby village, drawn in by Laetitia and the promise of food; now the stand, jostling, in a semicircle. Whispers ripple through them like the chittering of birds, all eyes directed to a single, gnarled cypress tree.
Forcing himself to turn his gaze to the tree, Tatian feels his breath catch in his throat.
Julien. She’s tied him to the tree, forcing his cheek into the rough embrace of its bark, face turned towards Tatian. Oh, please let there be anger. Bitterness, fear. Anything would be better than what he can read in Julien’s wide, doe-brown eyes: acceptance.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Jelena’s voice cuts into Tatian’s horror, broken-glass sharp. Only half as sharp as the whip that dangles from her hand as she circles the tree like some demented kind of ringmaster. “You asked, you shall receive. The Crowned Prince, for your entertainment.”
She cracks the whip at Julien’s feet, forcing him to shy away against the tree. Its bark grates against his skin, leaving raw scrapes.
“So.” The whip snaps out again across dusty ground, rearing back, a rattlesnake in its fury. Tatian flinches. “How many lashes?”
Fluttering nervously, the crowd mutters amongst itself. Two hundred or so glittering eyes, nattering beaks, all eyeing Julien with a kind of beady apprehension, the kind that makes Tatian feel sick. You brought this on yourselves, he wants to shout, you fucking decide. You asked for this, didn’t you?
He should be asking for it, too. His mother would. His sister would, she’d be the one with the whip in her hand, breaking the figurehead of the de Veres as they’ve broken her. He should be baying for Julien’s blood, but Tatian finds he can’t. Every time he tries, he chokes on the blossoming of care that’s grown in his chest, caging the hissing, scratching thing with its thorns.
At last, a man steps apart from the crowd. Swallows, then speaks, eyes still fixed on Julien.
“Twenty-five,” he murmurs, and when Jelena glares at him, he says it louder. “Twenty-five lashes.”
Again, uncomfortable whispers flit through the crowd. Jelena only nods, stepping back as if to begin -- but she pauses, lowering the whip.
Tatian hopes for a reprieve. Knows it won’t come, but hopes anyway, watching her approach Julien.
“Someone should really cut off all this hair,” is all she says, almost casual as she gathers Julien’s curls, pushing them to the side. Exposing his back, unblemished except for a scattering of moles. “It’s just impractical.”
His stomach twists at the irony, remembering running his fingers through those same curls. All Tatian can remember thinking is they’re so soft.
Jelena steps back again, more deliberate. Brings back the whip, then --
It snaps down like a thundercrack, and Julien flinches, the muscles in his back taut and straining as his shoulders stiffen. When it falls, there’s a welt, a stark red line picked out in horrible contrast to his dark, brown skin, making Tatian’s stomach twist.
Someone in the crowd calls out, one.
Before Julien can even catch his breath, the whip comes down again, again, breaking his skin. Blood wells up along the line as his chest heaves with desperate gasps; red blood, jewel-blood, petal-blood that Tatian wants to wipe away, but he can’t, he’s rooted to the spot with mute horror. As if whatever was growing in his chest has sunk its roots into the ground, not finding enough sustenance in his body.
The crowd keeps crowing: two, three. Still, Julien doesn’t scream.
Four and five pass in a sickening blur, only the crack of the whip indicating any blows have fallen. Shuddering from the impact, Julien whimpers -- still not quite a scream, but his knees are beginning to give way, the tree his only support. Even that is hardly a mercy, the rough bark rubbing his skin raw every time he flinches further into its embrace.
Grinning, Jelena recoils for another lash, toying with her helpless prey. The whip snaps back, biting into a fresh welt.
Six.
Julien screams, bloody and desperate. Tatian thinks he feels the pain too; a gasp wells up in his throat, a bud about to blossom and fill his mouth with bloodstained petals. It feels like someone has pulled the world from under him, leaving him reeling, bile rising in his throat.
Coward. Coward, he thinks, as the whip cracks again and Julien’s screams mingle with the crowd’s counting.
Seven. Eight. Nine. Julien’s knees have buckled, and he slides down the tree, leaving a smattering of blood from the scrapes on his face and chest. None of that compares, though, to the mess Jelena has made of his back, of his composure: his breath comes in choppy, strained gasps, tears trickling down his cheeks to mingle with fever-sweat.
By the time number ten comes, all he can do is sag against the tree, head dropping in defeat. Tatian wants to tell Jelena to stop, wants to collar and chain her again, but he knows he can’t. He can’t, unless he wants to offer himself as a sacrifice to her ravening jaws. All he can do is watch and choke on the agony of seeing Julien sob, knowing it’s his fault, his fault.
He finds his mind drifting to his mother’s garden, her beloved rose bushes. How beautiful they are, how much careful cultivation they require. Compared to them, the straggling thing in his chest that cries out, aching to hold Julien, is withered and shriveled, but it still aches.
Eleven, twelve, thirteen. Tatian doesn’t even want to watch anymore, doesn’t want to hear Julien scream, then cough, then gasp for breath. He hardly notices the crowd quietening, no longer crowing the numbers. Only staring, hollow and nervous.
Jelena steps back, admiring her shuddering, suffering masterpiece. Her work is enshrined on the heaving canvas of Julien’s back, blood welling up like pigment and trickling down from a multitude of welts. She’s reduced him to a pathetic, cowering thing, and it’s so wrong, so fucking jarring to see him humiliated and broken, stripped of his regal dignity.
The whip, her paintbrush, twitches lazily in her hand; for a moment, Tatian can’t understand why she’s stopped.
“Sigolène?” Only then does Tatian glance round and see Jelena’s lieutenant, watching sullenly. “My arm’s tired.”
“I--” Sigolène looks like she’s about to say something else, stepping forward like an antelope approaching a lion. Unsure whether she’s prey or partner.
“Five lashes.” Is all Jelena says, shoving the whip into Sigolène’s hand.
She looks like she’s about to object -- Tatian’s seen her scars, the luxury of a shared bathhouse, knows how many lashes the army gives for insubordination. But Sigolène simply swallows and nods.
Her lashes come thick and fast, cracks like fireworks exploding behind Tatian’s eyes; there isn’t room for Julien to scream between them, visceral noises of pain tumbling over one another on their way out. Even without the crowd, Tatian counts: fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. Blood, running in rivulets down Julien’s back, damning, damning red.
When she’s done, Julien is left gasping for breath once more. His hair, so carefully tucked away, has come loose, splashing down his back in a cascade. Matted with blood from his wounds.
For a moment, Sigolène freezes just like Tatian. Stares at what she’s done in, the whip sliding from her hand as her chest heaves, rise-fall, rise-fall.
Then she runs.
Tatian wishes he has the right to run; wishes he could be anywhere else, but his legs are still wooden, still rooted to the spot. All he can do is watch as Jelena picks up the whip again, tossing her Nyrish jacket aside. Beneath it, her scarred arms are taut with power.
As she draws back the whip again, Tatian realises his own breath is lurching in his chest. He can’t breathe, can’t even control his own body, and he feels himself teetering on the edge, feels the abyss calling to him. The itch curling through his body, unable to be chased away, even as he digs his fingers into his wrist, scratching, desperate.
He’s lost control. Of her, of everything, of Julien -- even of his future. It hinges on victory, and Jelena can tear that victory apart on a whim, if she thinks chaos would taste better.
Twenty. Julien chokes on his own scream; Tatian feels an agonising blossoming in his chest. Pity. Concern.
Twenty one. The crowd are staring, all staring, beady button eyes and sun-browned skin and they’re human but they’re allowing this. He’s allowing this.
Twenty two. Panting, Jelena draws back again. Stop stop stop stop -- he can’t stop it, he isn’t in control, he can’t breathe --
Twenty three.
Twenty four.
One last time, the whip falls, a crack that snaps through the air, cleaving the crowd’s silence into murmurs of -- relief? Pity? All Tatian feels is dizzy and sick, eyes fixed on the stained-glass destruction of Julien’s back. Some of the welts are almost concealed by a blossoming of blood, more leaking from the wounds as his shoulders heave, struggling to suck in a breath that isn’t a scream or a cough. Wherever there isn’t blood, his back is slick with sweat, the salt inevitably dribbling into the cuts to create a cocktail of agony.
But it’s over. Jelena bows for the crowd, brushing her own sweaty hair out of her eyes -- Tatian’s hit by the realisation that her sweat comes from the exertion, the clammy afternoon she picked to display her masterpiece.
His one consolation is that there’s no applause, only that frightened, fervent murmuring. Shame, that’s what it is. Shame they have no right to, because they asked for this, they fed the wolf. Yet he has no right to it either; he was the one to bring the wolf into his house, to offer it a place by the fire, to leash it.
Slinging her jacket over her shoulder, Jelena strides away, with all the satiation of triumph. Only -- she throws a glance back at Tatian, a smile filled with too-many, too-sharp teeth, sending a shiver twisting down his spine.
At least he’s no longer rooted to the spot; at least he can move, feel like he’s doing something as he rushes to Julien’s side.
“Julien?” Kneeling, Tatian’s heart is in his mouth as he fumbles for his dagger, clumsily trying to saw through the rope that binds Julien to the tree. He casts a quick glance at the crowd, but they haven’t noticed. They’re too busy fleeing, flitting away like starlings, unable to face the destruction they’ve caused. Cowards. “Julien, look at me--”
And he does. Of course he does, because it’s an order, an opportunity to make Tatian happy. He looks up with those melting eyes, even as his breath hitches desperately, even as he sags against the tree.
“Did I--” Julien can barely get the words out without coughing, pain written all over his scraped face. Voice laden with pathetic hope. “Did I do well?”
Tatian’s stomach drops, thorny vines of affection tightening around his heart. He knows, but knowing and seeing are two different things, separated by this kind of visceral pity.
No-one should be praised for what Julien just went through -- but Tatian doesn’t have the courage to withhold the words.
“Yes, you did,” he murmurs, almost reaching out to run his hand through Julien’s hair. Stopping short when he remembers Jelena. “You did, and it’s over now.”
Slumping down even more, Julien finally slides off his knees with a gasp of relief, a hoarse thank you.
There’s a soldier lurking nearby, practically squirming with discomfort; Tatian motions her over, knowing he doesn’t have the time or the luxury to comfort Julien anymore.
“Get him back to our tent and give him some water,” he says, giving his words a deliberate edge. “And don’t break him any more. He’s a valuable asset.”
The soldier nods, slinging Julien’s arm over her shoulder and pulling him to his feet. As usual, he doesn’t put up a fight, only follows like a lamb wherever he’s led.
Only once they’re gone does Tatian let himself glance down at his hands. They’re shaking, the itch raging beneath his skin, forcing him to claw at his arms. Now it hits him harder than ever, how much danger he’s in, the corner Jelena’s backed him into: if it wasn’t clear enough already, his fucking cowardice has proven how he can’t control her.
She can afford to let the wolf free now, knowing he has to keep feeding it. Probably betting on him not having the courage to punish her.
Lurching to his feet, Tatian begins walking back to the tent. Back to Camille -- but he hardly feels able to face him now, knowing Camille would’ve been able to stand it. Camille isn’t afraid of wolves, would’ve known how to properly muzzle Jelena.
The inevitable realisation stabs him all over again, a knife in the gut.
Jelena has to go.
#whipping tw#panic attacks tw#whump#whumpblr#whipping whump#willing whumpee#collared whump#les amoureux#oc: julien#oc: tatian#oc: jelena#oc: camille
12 notes
·
View notes
Note
can i get levi with a civillian crush who also likes him but both of them think the other doesn't know of their existence and thinks they are not worthy of the other's time. they meet officially when the reader's district(?) gets attacked by titans and levi saves her
D/N - District Name
S/N - Sister Name
Warning: Cursing, Minor Violence
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The ring of horse hooves against the stone grounds echoed in your ears along with the subtle chatter among people in the crowd. The Survey Corps were returning from a short-term expedition and by the looks of it, no lives were lost since they didn’t venture that far out into the open. The sun was sky high with occasional clouds blocking it as they floated above, birds chirped and flew around accompanied by the occasional Summer’s breeze. You stood watching as the Scouts rode through your district, D/N. S/N, your younger sister by your side watching with a fond smile towards the soldiers.
Your mom and dad would always ask why you and S/N are always eager and excited to see the Survey Corps whenever they ride through D/N. S/N always says she admires them for going outside the walls and you usually do say the same reason except that’s not quite it. You’re always excited to see the Scouts because of him. Dark ebony hair with piercing cobalt eyes, clear pale skin with thin lips. The soldier’s name was Levi? Was it? You were pretty sure that’s what he was named, everyone else knew him to be Humanities Strongest.
Though you never met the man in person, that didn’t stop the crush you had on him from watching from afar. He caught your gaze a couple of times, keeping it locked for a few seconds before you looked away in embarrassment, face flushed red and a miniature smile tugging on the edges of your lips. S/N noticed the way your eyes would light up every time you spotted him in the crowd of Scouts, the way the subconscious smile on your lips grew more and more. She knew about your infatuation with the short Captain but she didn’t want to torment you on it.
Once again, like any other time, your gaze shifted to find the grumpy looking man on his stallion. Blinking from surprise when you noticed he was riding to the edges of the Scouting crowd, a brunette woman with goggles on by his side looking around with bright energetic auburn orbs. The woman eventually looked to you and you could hear a distance squeal come from her lips as she slowed her horse down- going behind the raven-haired man’s to take his spot at the edge by the crowd where you were standing with your sister. The stern guy eyed her with a scowl before rolling his eyes, shifting in his saddle when he caught sight of you again.
S/N smirked and lightly nudged your side with her elbow. Giving up on keeping herself from teasing you- only a little.
‘‘There’s your lover boy F/N..~’‘ she cooed in your ear as your face set up in a fiery crimson. Shaking your head you glared at her. ‘‘S-Shut up you dork, I don’t even know the guy’‘ yo retorted as she giggled. A moment later and the brunette was in front of you and your sibling on her horse, she smiled softly to you both before quickly snatching something from a sack belonging to the shorter man’s horse. Turning back to you the woman leant down a little stretching her arm out somewhat holding a red rose, the thorns seemed to be cut off. ‘‘Courtesy of Levi, he got you this but he’s too shy to give you it~! Here you go~’‘ the woman chirped as you took the rose, S/N giggled by your side and looked to the rose before switching her gaze to the guy, Levi, who was glaring deathly daggers at the four-eyed female next to him with a beet-red face. Clicking his tongue he continued on down the path shortly followed by the woman after saying her goodbye’s.
‘‘Aweh! Isn’t that cute~ And you say you don’t even know him~’‘ S/N snickered as you pouted and frowned at her. ‘‘I swear I don’t!’‘ you tried which only made S/N laugh and shake her head.’‘Whatever you say sis, now let’s go home- you’ve seen your boyfriend now let's go’‘ she called out to you, hearing your muttered grumbles as you followed her behind.
// Time Skip - Half an Hour After Titan Attack \\
‘‘Mom where the fuck is S/N?! The titans Have broken through the gates! We have to go!’‘ You shrieked at the top of your lungs after nearly slamming down the front door to your house, your mother was peeling the potatoes and your father was reading the newspaper- both of their heads snapped in your direction. ‘‘She’s with F/N (Friend Name)- Wait titans broke through the wall?!’‘ she dropped the knife she was holding as you stepped in violently nodding your head. ‘‘Yes the fucking titans are in! We have to get out of here!’‘ you impatiently barked. ‘‘Alright, you go and find the nearest evacuation point- I’ll go and get your sister.’‘ ‘’I’ll go with you-’’ your father tried to cut in but your mother shot him a dirty look. ‘’No- you need to go with F/N! She’ll be on her own-’’ your mother tried to retort but you scoffed and slammed your hand on the table in a panic.
‘’Mom! I don’t care who goes with who! Dad you just go with her! I’ll go the evacuation point and see if S/N is already there with F/N- you go check their house anyways in case they aren’t’’ you told them both earning a nod from either of your parents. Before you knew it you were out running through the streets, screams and smoke rose to the sky as the ground thundered from underneath you from nearby titans.
‘Find the shortcut to the boats.. Hopefully there isn’t any debris in the way or else I might make it to the evacuation point on time...I’ll be left behind!’ you thought, urging yourself to run faster, you turned a sharp corner from your street where your house was on and continued up a small set of stairs, eventually reaching the alleyway that would usually be your shortcut to the market and boats. Skidding to a stop you felt the colour drain from your face, staring straight up to one of those beasts which only looked down to you.
Your breath got caught in your throat, spinning around quickly you tried to run away from the titan that towered over the houses all around you. The rumbling of its footsteps following you from behind, your legs ached and so did your chest. You knew you couldn’t easily outrun a titan. It was worth a shot, wasn’t it? You turned to run down another street only to spot another titan- this time a smaller one already ogling you like it was expecting you.
Shock took over your body making you freeze, forgetting about the 15-meter giant that had just arrived behind you. The smaller looking titan dove towards you, a strained cry left your lips as you quite literally flung your body out of the way of being dove on. Rolling along the stone ground, dirt and a tint of red clung to your skin and clothes as you opened your eyes to look at the two titans.
A flash of green came into view, the dark thin lines of wires being shot into the back of the taller lanky titan before the blob of green whizzed past the fifteen meter titan- it collapsed to the ground like a limp doll with its nape cut out soon the smaller one was just like the tall one in a matter of seconds. Swinging down to land in front of you, was that Levi? Oh lord, it was.. Fancy seeing him here.
He arrived by your side in an instant and helped you up, a worried frown on his face as he rested his hand on your lower back. ‘’Hey- Hey are you alright? You’re able to stand right?’’ he said, you nodded and gulped. Heart thundering in your chest.
‘What a cliche coincidence’
‘‘I’ll need to bring you to a high place, it’s dangerous for me to lead you to the evacuation point on the ground.’‘ he grumbled as you nodded, you didn’t even notice he had lifted you up until he shot off into the air again making you squeak from fright. Subconsciously wrapping your arms around his neck, you clung to him. Levi landed on a roof, gentle putting you down so you could stand. His hand went back to rest on your lower back as he looked around him for any signs of his squad or any Scout for that.
‘‘Fuck.. We’ll have to run along the rooftops since nobody is nearby- if any titan appears you just keep running and I’ll take care of it’‘ he says before ushering you onwards, nodding you set off again- trying your best not to trip or slip off the tiled building with Levi following closely behind.
Thankfully on the way to the boats, it wasn’t that hard, even though two or three titans did pop up Levi didn’t let them near you. Reaching the edge of the rooftop- in front of you was the second last boat that was being loaded with people, you could feel Levi scoop you into his arms before flying down to the ground, landing right by the Garrison guards and setting you down again. The fact that Levi had flown over the crowd and skipped just to make sure you got onto the boat surprised you.
Nudging you to the Garrison soldier Levi growled for them to let you on, the soldier nodded in terror before bringing you on board. Looking back to the short man who stood watching you get onto it- making sure you weren’t kicked off you cupped your hands by your mouth and called out to him.
‘‘Thank you sir!’‘
Levi nodded, letting his orbs linger on you for a second longer before he disappeared again- most presumably to regroup with his squad.
#aot#snk#attack on titan#shingeki no kyojin#levi#Levi Rivaille#aot levi#LEVI ACKERMAN#levi ackerman x reader#Captain Levi#captain levi x reader#requests#fanfic#fanfictions#anime#manga#levi headcanons#Levi Heichou#rivialle heichou#levi x reader#aot x reader#snk x reader#x reader
209 notes
·
View notes
Photo
In fair Verona, our tale begins with HARLEY BRENTON, who is TWENTY-FIVE years old. She is often called HELENA by the CAPULETS and works as their SOLDIER. She uses SHE/HER pronouns.
She was born in a place where the sun didn’t shine, but she seemed to harbor the spirit of the absent star from the moment she took her first breath. You stole all the light from the world on the day you were born, love, that must be why our summers are as bleak as they are, her mother would joke, but the words couldn’t have stood more true. Born in a suburban English town, Harley was a beam of LIGHT amidst so much shadow that ruled her family’s life – although she wasn’t aware of that until she was much older and much wiser to the way of the world. A world where her parents only led her through the safest passages and the brightest tunnels as she made her way through life. Her childhood was perceived through a rose-tinted, dream-clouded lens that they shielded against any and all darkness that could shatter it; their hands poised over her gleaming eyes in fervent protection of their light until Harley was BLIND. Blind to the scarcity of their meals and the numerous days where they didn’t exist altogether; blind to the holes littering her one pair of shoes and the clothing items that she could barely count on two hands; blind to the tears that soothed her mother through the nights and the burdens that halted her father’s steps outside their door and drove his breath in a heavy sigh every morning before he left for work. A towering mountain of hardship was merely a tiny black dot within Harley’s lily-white field of vision, its only taint being other children her age who seemed to meet her buzzing presence and borderless smile with nothing more than utter disdain. But even that tiny speck of darkness was snuffed out when her parents quickly clamped their hands over it; soothing Harley’s pain and healing it by cherishing her until LOVE was all that she expected and sought from the world.
But the older she grew, the more her vision cleared, and the two-headed beast of cruelty and despair lay in ceaseless wait right outside the cluster of fog shielding her gaze from its harrowing sight. As it grew thinner and thinner, the beast only grew bigger and bolder; its twin smiles wide and slick with blood as it hovered before the unseeing eyes of its prey – until the fated day when she finally caught a glimpse of it. It flitted across her eyes while she watched her father, gaunt and sickly, as he lay in bed in a breathless heap of bones – and her mother, her hand grasping his in a blanched grip as she pressed kiss after kiss on his knuckles. The illness had beset her father long before that point, but it wasn’t until Harley watched him teeter on the edge of eternal darkness that she truly acknowledged the grave LOSS she and her mother would have to endure. Her father was taken peacefully; with sleep-like stillness and a hand wrapped around his beloved’s shoulders as she embraced him in farewell. Harley was unsure if the sight was truly that beautiful or if she was merely coping or if she was simply an unfeeling monster – but her ache was eased as she lay in bed later that night, turning that image and over in her mind. How MAGICAL it must have been, to die at peace and in love.
Her mother was never the same afterwards, but Harley, ever the IDEALIST, was quick to cast the past behind her in favor of aspiring for the future – until she finally found it. It came in the form of a man that she ran into at college one random yet decisive day. He was everything she envisioned a free spirit would be; reckless, jovial, fickle as a bird amidst flight – and she was absolutely head-over-heels in love with him by the time she finally got to know him. And so, it should come as no surprise that she was quick to shriek a string of yes, yes, yes before he had even drawn his next breath when asked to travel to Italy, and live with her lover and his family there. Indeed, they had only been together for a handful of months, and indeed, they were far too young and carefree to bear the responsibility of living together – but such concerns were like feathers in the wind for the pair. Unfortunately, however, what was posed as a bright new beginning only turned out to be a bleak ENDING when he eventually abandoned her and the shackles she bound him to by merely expressing her wish for a family that they could build and share together.
Brokenhearted and gripped by despair, Harley continued on aimlessly, as any wanderer would, in search of whatever her lost love robbed her of – and that was when she met Hazel Accardi. They were everything her old lover wasn’t; firm, reserved, surefooted, and most important of all, intriguing beyond belief. Their love was a whirlwind and a sanctum all at the same time, to the point where she felt like she would never be whole without Hazel by her side. And thus she was doomed to never feel the taste and shape of wholeness ever again; a condemnation branded onto her fate by non other than the love of her life themself. It seemed as though girls like her, with their sunlit eyes and hearts tinged by flame, were meant for nothing but wretched, heart-wrenching LOSS. Despite having her spirit forever scarred by that lesson, Harley’s will prevailed and it drove her on a circling, looping path right towards the birthing place of bleeding hearts such as her own – the city of Verona. Something in it struck a humming chord in her soundless heart. Something that reminded her of the BEAUTY she had found in the embrace of her parents while her father gulped his final breaths. It beckoned her, trickling through the smoke of war bellowing outside her window, only to dissipate the moment she stepped forward and sought it out. Then the day came when Harley finally answered its call; when she finally realized that was deserving of much MORE than the dust she had been left to choke on. Jumping right into the fray, she joined the Capulet fold. She stands out among them; with her strange-sounding name, broken Italian and beaming smile, and it’s a predicament strangely reminiscent of the loneliness that had overtaken her childhood. But now, she’s all grown up, and rather than let herself wither and wane, she's determined to THRIVE.
HAZEL ACCARDI: Missing half. They're the one who put her heart back together, and they’re also the one who broke it beyond repair. The history she shares with Hazel is one that has seared itself into her bones, inked itself onto her heart, and painted itself across every inch of her skin. Harley will never let it go, the sense of of utter wholeness that she found with Hazel---and she knows that they haven’t let go of it, either. Their reunion in Verona has done nothing short of proving that, despite the tension that permeated it and the suffocating awareness of all that was left unsaid as it relentlessly bore down on them. She begrudges the despair Hazel caused her, but at the same time, she understands why they’ve done what they did. And seeing them now, a pillar of confidence and pride when before they didn’t even know that those sentiments were, it makes her wonder if the sorrow is worth it---if she could once again cast it aside in favor of the serenity she found, and still finds, with Hazel. She’ll chase them to the ends of the earth for it; wage a thousand wars for it; even kill for it, if she has to. She’ll do whatever it takes to to earn them back, and that is a vow that she does not intend to break.
TOMAS SABELLO: Admiration. He seems to embody the double-edged beauty she’s found in Verona with every fiber of his being---and she admires him endlessly for it. His honey-sweet smiles with just a hint of sharpness to them; his lilting voice that stretches across oceans and skylines and summits; his electric charisma and the way it both burns and soothes those who are blessed enough to fall victim to it. Everything about him is magnetizing, to the point where she finds herself wondering what sort of darkness lingers beneath his all-encompassing light---because of course there is darkness to him, such as with any star that dares to grace Verona’s sky. Harley wants to see it; touch it; taste it, if she could. She just needs to get close enough, first.
KATARINA DU PONT: Antagonist. She wouldn’t say that she’s had what could qualify as a warm welcome among the Capulets, but with Katarina in particular, it was ice-cold. Every time she comes across her, Harley is met with nothing but coiled lips and daggered eyes; venomous words and backhanded jibes. She has tried to extend an olive branch, but every time, it was severed and scorned---and so at this point, she’s accepted that Katarina is no foe that could be coaxed into becoming a friend. She longs to know what it is about her that has prompted such unwarranted hatred, and she tries to gain the answer the only way she knows how---by meeting every stabbing glance with a thorned smile; by returning every strike with a caress.
THEODORA MOREAU: Guiding hand. She’s found a kindness in Theodora that she can’t seem to find in any other gold-plated corner of the Capulet realm. In truth, they haven’t shunned her or denounced her as their own, but they certainly underestimate her. With how little time she has spent within the famiglia, and her tendency to learn through mistakes rather than commands, it seems she has been brushed off before she’s even had a chance to prove her worth. But Theodora needn’t any proof, because they could see Harley’s potential, however distinct and untapped, from the moment she had first set foot into their coveted kingdom. They haven’t acquired her as an apprentice so much as they have dedicated a great deal of their time to easing Harley into their world, and she’s eternally grateful for it. What she doesn’t know, however, is that gratitude is no payment for any favor in this city. There’s always more to give in return. Only time will tell if she’ll bear Theodora’s price.
Harley is portrayed by RAVEN LYN and was written by JEN. She is currently OPEN.
8 notes
·
View notes
Text
Which, Witch
I give you part 8.
I’m also going to go ahead and give warnings for a lot of gore, violence, and mentions of past toxic relationships. This is also a long one just to give a heads up.
I’m so sorry.
Magpie sat at the little desk in her bedroom. It was a quiet evening having just rained and the night bugs had not come out yet.
She was writing in her diary. A practice she had recently taken up again. It helped and she found it fun to pretend to write letters to others as entries.
She finished the last sentence and sat back with a small sigh, scanning over what she had written before glancing at the letter that sat in the corner of her desk. She had hardly glance at it when it came in the mail, recognizing the hand writing right away. But she just couldn’t throw this one away like she had all the others. Perhaps it was a mistake to read this one.
“I’ve been thinking quite a bit about our last meeting my dear Starshine.
Tell me, how did it feel to burn?”
Magpie shuddered at the question. She knew he was twisted, something she learned towards the end of their relationship. But the letter was unnerving.
How did he know? How did he know that’s how she felt when her anger got the best of her?
That had never happened before.
Magpie looked outside to the backyard below. The girls were out and about with Trouble. It was good to watch, this was good. The moment that is.
So why couldn’t she shake that something bad was about to happen? If so, what was she to do about it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Maggie was right.
On the very long list she had accumulated over the years of bad ideas. This was high up there in the stupid catagory.
She had snuck in like a ghost, somehow not being noticed despite all the people around her. She had settled herself into a corner, tucked away from everyone. Her plan had been to wait and watch for an opportunity. She had to take care of this now. She had planned and planned and double checked hundreds of timelines and she had come to the conclusion that she had not been fast enough in her preparations leaving Maggie with no choice but to act quickly and hope for the best.
She had one hour before all hell broke loose.
As it was, things were starting to wind down. Many humans leaving the place or becoming desperate. Within twenty minutes five were left and the doors were locked. All five brutally killed, they never stood a chance.
Maggie watched as Jack gorged himself, wrinkling her nose in disgust. He made such a mess.
Eventually the jester sat back with a content sigh as he leaned against a casino table. Evidence of the carnage all over the werehouse. So wasteful.
“So hey birdie, are you going to hide in that corner judging me all night? Come one out, I’m willing to share.”
Maggie frowned, so he knew she was there the whole time?
She stepped out from her hiding spot, quickly checking the watch on her wrist.
Half an hour.
Maggie walked carefully across the warehouse, the floor slick with blood. Initially she had been hungry. The baby was Billy’s no doubt and it demanded fresh meat. But Jack had made such a mess it killed her appetite.
Jack wipes the blood from his face and smiled, “Weeellll if it isn’t my dear Starshine’s little Ace. I’m not sure if you know a lot about cards but an ace can either be the highest or lowest number value depending on the game. So what are you tonight? High or low?
Maggie scowled, “High I should hope.”
Jack grinned, “can you predict that? Or should I more importantly ask, are you here to chase me off from my sweetheart or did the Old Woman send you?”
Maggie looked up at him in alarm, “so you know?”
Jack laughed, “I was a small speck in the world when she “adopted me” but oh I remember. Remember your momma to. Did you know Bridgette warned her about your sisters?”
Maggie charged at him, Jack braced himself for her attack-
Maggie reaches out, touching his head.
They fell together, they fell through the floor of the warehouse and left their bodies behind. They fell through the earth as Maggie desperately to redirect their course.
They fell through the Earth’s crust.
They were falling through a sea of clouds.
They were falling through darkness.
They landed in a world of colored strings.
Two Maggies wrapped their arms right around Jack, pinning his arms to his sides. Their wings grew out, flapping as hard as they could to get airborne. Maggie’s plan was simple yet stupid. Drag Jack out of his body and toss him into the void. The only way to rip Jack out of the timeline was a route she refused to take. So the next best thing in her opinion was to let his mind be obliterated by the void. He would still exist but at least he wouldn’t be able to cause harm.
Jack kicked and shouted and they edged closer to the fringes of the reality and towards a great and hungry darkness. So close.
Jack bit down on her arm. The two Maggies screamed and fumbled to keep a grip. Jack wigged one arm free and grabbed one of their wings.
They spun out of control falling down, down, down. Crashing into strings.
So many people, so many timelines and possibilities. Jack screamed in agony and panic as he was overwhelmed by the visions. The Maggies shook it off. So many decades of experience aiding in their endurance of the onslaught.
The two Maggies wrapped an arm around Jack’s neck. Ascending to the air again, Jack kicked the air and gasped for breath. He reached up to grab a fistful of long red hair.
They fell down again, landing in of all things the fixed point that was Jack.
A little boy being taken in by Bridgette.
Bridgette cutting and retying his time strings. Pulling him in and out of reality.
She was upset the experiment failed. He was happy, he felt invincible.
A woman with dark hair and Maggie’s face, arguing with Bridgette.
Meeting Magpie, seducing her.
Magpie turned mad from too much adoration and worship. The taste too addicting to her, he encouraged it. Let her be treated like a goddess and he receive the benefits.
Magpie tried to kill her father. Jack being pinned down by Peregrine who ripped his lights out.
Jack forced to keep living. Struggling for food.
Jack was a deadlight with no lights. He could not die, he could not cease to exist. It was painful and hollow.
There was a boy on the road, his family’s livestock attacked by some terrible beast. He had been sent to get help, Jack helped himself to the first easy meal in so long...
The Maggies let go.
One of them began to scream. So much rage and hurt, so much heartbreak. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
“You ruin everything!” She shrieked. Bodies contorting and shifting until a monstrosity of teeth, eyes, and feathers was coming for him.
The beast snapped him up in its jaws and thrashed about. Crushing bones and gulping blood. Jack fell to the ground, body broken. The beast roared as it neared down on him again.
It snagged his arm and flipped him up into the air, multiple jaws opened wide and waiting for him.
Jack teleported.
He landed only a few feet away, one of his few talents.
The beast shrieked in rage, charging towards him. Jack teleported again. Rolling away to the left and well out of the path of destruction the beast was creating. Strings snapping and tangling around her.
Again the beast pivoted and charged towards Jack again, he smirked and teleported a few feet to the right. More strings snapped and tangled around its many wings and legs.
The creature had been trapped by the very thing she strived to care for and observe.
Jack always had been a sucker for irony.
He stood up and brushed the dust and blood off. His body broken and torn but it didn’t matter. It’s not like he would die of it. Just an annoyance.
Jack grinned and ended the connection.
In the warehouse one single Maggie was cured up on the floor in agony. Jack stood over her with a wicked smile. He whistled as he casually leaned over and grabbed a chair-
And slammed it down onto Maggie, shattering the wood.
Maggie screamed, curling up tighter. How odd.
Jack leaned forward and sniffed. “Well, well, well what is this? Oh goodness me oh my don’t tell me you decide to drag yourself here when you have a baby on board? Goodness what a treat. You’re like one of those little candies with a surprise center. I bet you’ll both taste absolutely delicious!”
Something smacked Jack in the back of the head.
He whipped around only to smile in delight.
“Starshine!”
Magpie threw another rock, smacking him in the nose this time.
Maggie was in a haze of pain and struggling to move. Every instinct telling her to stay curled up and protect the baby. She glanced at her watch-
Time was up.
Oh.
Magpie snapped her fingers. Thorn bushes sprouting from the concrete and wrapping around Jack, forming a protective wall around Maggie.
Jack shouted in pain as his skin was pricked and bled. He looked up, daggers and needles falling from nowhere, turning him into a living pincushion.
Jack laughed, “come now pumpkin is that the best you have?”
Magpie ran towards him, heels clicking the ground as she helped out a hand. Acid fell from nowhere drenching Jack’s skin.
he screamed in pain but did not fall down.
Magpie grit her teeth, the roof ripped open and shrapnel fell down and impaled him.
Jack grinned, “look you don’t even need to snap your fingers!”
Magpie screamed, waves of bad luck spread for miles.Tornadoes, hail, burst pipes, car crashes, theft, breakups, broken bones, burst eardrums, heart attacks, kitchen fires, chipped teeth, and death. Around them the world suffered. Inside the warehouse a thousand piano strings wrapped around Jack and pulled. Slicing and dicing him to pieces.
Bad luck spread, earthquakes and lightning strikes, murder, sinkholes, broken shoelaces, and animal bites.
Jack stood up.
Magpie fell to her knees in exhaustion. How? How could he still be alive? What was she not giving enough of?
Jack chuckled as he approached her. It’s nothing personal Starshine I’m just too stubborn to leave. How about Ol’ Jack tells you a story hmm? Once upon a time there was a little clown who was taken in by a powerful elder. The elder of Time wanted to try an experiment, one that resulted in the little clown feeling invincible. He was immortal, a fixed point and the universe insisted he exist. However the elder warned someone would come along one day and take this wonderful gift away and when they did it would be more pain then the clown could ever imagine. Do you know who it was the elder was talking about?”
Magpie shook her head, exhausted.”
Jack grinned, “a bird! A magpie. So the boy decided to find this rare bird and cage her. Can’t lie I didn’t expect to like you so much angel but I guess this is just how things go.”
Magpie stood frozen, she didn’t understand, what was he saying, what was happening?”
Jack placed a kiss on her cheek, “it’s nothing personal except that’s a lie, it’s really personal. We made such a nice pair, none of this would have happened if you just kept your promise to listen to what I always said. If you just came back to me. Now look at you. Look what you’ve done and understand please my darling, you never stood a chance.”
Magpie doubled over in pain, her body feeling as if on fire. She groaned in agony as Jack smirked and stood up.
“Looks like it's time.”
“T-time?” Magpie stuttered.
Jack chucked, “yeah the old woman mentioned it once and Ol’ Jackie boy never once forgot. Blackwood didn’t like to scare his “special ones” but you lot are just so fragile.” Jack looked at her in the eye with a nasty smile. “Oh my Starshine, you got too upset, did too much at once. Not a good combination. You’re going to die now. You’re going to explode just like a real star. Become a supernova that will consume a nice chunk of this planet I’m certain. Hope you take your ass of a brother with you.”
Magpie gagged, her insides felt like liquid fire and it was becoming hard to breathe, her skin burned.
Jack shook his head with a smile and stepped away. “Would just love to watch you become something that beautiful but it does hurt to be caught up in a blaze of glory like that, and I’m still a bit sore from the piano strings.
Magpie was past being able to scream. She burned, she was burning from the inside out. She couldn’t breathe. Her skin was starting to crack emitting bright light from underneath.
Jack blew her a kiss and turned on his heel. A door appeared before him, his own preference of world hopping. He had heard Saturn was lovely this time of year, why not?
The door opened as Jack began to stroll on through while whistling a tune.
Something grabbed his ankle.
Something that burned.
Jack gasped in pain as the door off planet slammed shut.
Magpie had dragged herself across the floor and now gripped his ankle tightly. Jack steamed in pain as his skin turned red and began to blister. He couldn’t shake her off.
Maggie slowly crawled to her feet, she was too late. She had tried and it was too late.
Only one last shot
Maggie waded through the thorn bushes that scratched and tore at her clothes and skin. Magpie had stated to pull herself to her feet using Jack as support, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist so that he could not escape. Jack screamed and struggled in pain. She was a walking inferno. Magpie’s hair had caught light, her eyes were glowing pools of liquid fire.
“Magpie please!” Jack screamed. Desperately struggling to be free of her fiery grip.
Magpie looked up at him and smiled.
Jack tried one last time to get off planet. The door opening again as Maggie reached out and wrapped a hand over his forehead. Projecting into his mind where she wanted them to go.
The three of them stumbled backwards through the door-
Into the place of glowing strings again.
Maggie had no time to appreciate being her physically for the first time. They teetered on the edge of reality. Maggie tried to shove the couple of the edge. Jack elbowed her in the face.
Maggie slipped, tumbling off into the void.
Jack struggled and screamed as Magpie grew brighter and brighter. Burning hotter and hotter. They floated off the ground. Thousands of colors from thousands of strings burning around them.
Magpie looked at peace.
Boom.
The waves of fire and light were as beautiful as Jack would have imagined it. Millions of strings burned, popping out in brilliant flashes of color that only added to the effect. With each string that burned a person somewhere in existence gave a shudder. A feeling that something terrible happened.
There was a sound like a gasp of air.
The waves of fire and light began to roll back collapsing in on itself over and over endlessly I both light and it’s absence.
And so, the star that was once Magpie.
Became a black hole.
4 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
