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naminethewriter · 3 years

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Vacation

This is my entry for the @sandersidesbigbang! I had a lot of fun participating 🥰 Thanks to all the mods for organizing this! Also huge thanks to @just-a-pintrovert & @5-falsehoods-phonated for beta reading 💙 There is also some artwork also from @just-a-pintrovert here! They did a fantastic job and I highly recommend you check out her blog! And now, enjoy!

Here on Ao3

Characters: Patton, Virgil, Roman, Janus, Logan, Remus

Relationships: platonic Intrulogical, platonic Prinmoxiety, platonic Moceit

Rating: T

Words: 12,502

Summary: Logan doesn't show up for breakfast one morning, leaving behind a letter declaring he's going on vacation. Unsure of its authenticity, Roman, Patton and Virgil go to look for him on Remus' side of the Imagination with a certain snake as their guide.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It started out like any other day. Patton entered the kitchen around 7 in the morning to prepare breakfast. Logan should join him soon, then Roman around an hour later and Virgil after that. When exactly was hard to say, the anxious side’s sleep schedule was the most inconsistent, but most of the time he was up last. Today Patton wanted to make an extra special breakfast since their discussion the day before had gotten a bit out of hand and nobody walked away from it happy. He just hoped all his kiddos would show up. 

Half an hour later that fear proves to be warranted. Logan still hasn’t come down. Patton had even checked the coffee machine to make sure he hadn’t missed him. But it was still as clean as he had left it yesterday. Nervously his eyes flicker from the stove to the clock and over to the stairs before he focuses on making breakfast again, but his eyes would stray every few seconds. 

Five minutes later he finally hears movement upstairs. Logan probably had been exhausted yesterday and stayed in bed a bit longer than usual. Someone was coming down the stairs now and Patton turns around with a big smile, expecting Logan but coming across Virgil instead. 

“Oh,” Patton says, his smile slipping. But he immediately catches the insecure look on Virgil’s face at his reaction. “Sorry, kiddo,” he laughs, trying his best to seem cheerful. “I thought you were Logan, but I’m happy to see you, too! It’s quite early for you though. Did you not sleep well?” Now that he takes a closer look, Patton can see the tiredness on Virgil’s face, who gives him a weak smile. 

“Morning, popstar. I just woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep so I figured might as well get up, y’know?” He moves over to the coffee machine, looking at it confused for a few seconds before he seems to realize what else Patton had said. “Logan wasn’t here yet?” 

“I don’t think so,” Patton shakes his head, his eyes now fixed on the stove so that Virgil doesn’t see the concern across his face. “I’m sorry there’s no coffee, you know I’m no good at making some.” He tries to play it off as a joke with a laugh but even he knows it’s not convincing. Virgil hovers at the coffee machine, unsure of what to do, how to comfort Patton. Instead, he moves to make the coffee himself and trying to cheer the other up with words. 

“It’s fine, Pat. I can do it and I’m sure Lo’s gonna come down soon. We all had a lot to think about yesterday… Maybe he just needs some more time to think it through again this morning. But you know how he is, he’ll come down and act like it was nothing later. You’ll see.” At the end of his little ramble, the machine is in the process of brewing and Virgil gives Patton a short hug before moving to set the table. 

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Patton mumbles, more to himself than to Virgil and continues to work on breakfast. 

Around 20 minutes later, Roman arrives, a lot more energized than Virgil had been. “What a wondrous morrow! ‘Tis a day to sing and dance, I say!” Both Patton and Virgil chuckle at his boasting. 

“Good morning to you too, Roman,” Patton greets as he pulls him into a loose hug before going back to distribute their breakfast onto the plates Virgil had sat out. 

“I’m surprised to see you arrive before me, Doom-and-Gloom,” Roman says to Virgil while preparing his own mug of coffee. The other had taken seat on the counter after finishing his part of breakfast preparations and watched Patton work the rest of the time while slowly nursing his coffee (I say slowly but he is already working on his second mug). Virgil just shrugs. 

“Couldn’t get back to sleep.” Roman hums in acknowledgment and then silence falls over the kitchen, only Patton scurrying around is heard. Not long however before Patton cheerfully announces: “Breakfast is ready!” 

“Wonderful!” Roman exclaims loudly. “What a marvelous feast you prepared for us, padre!” Patton giggles. 

“Thank you for the compliment, my prince.” 

“My, of course! What kind of ruler would I be if I couldn’t appreciate my subjects!” 

“A pretty standard one,” Virgil adds with a small smile. Roman huffs. 

“Only more proof that I am exceptional.” 

“That you are, Roman,” Patton laughs, but he sobers up suddenly, now looking worried again. 

“What’s wrong, padre? Tell me your worries and I shall strike them down with my sword!” Roman proclaims loudly in hopes of banning that expression from Patton’s face. The other gives him a small smile before looking over to the stairs. 

“Logan still hasn’t come down. I’m sure it’s nothing, but I’m worried,” he explains. Roman quickly looks towards the stairs as well, this is the first he’s heard of their nerd not arriving this morning. It wasn’t unusual for Logan to go back upstairs after having his first cup of coffee, opting to get a bit more work done before the rest of them get up. But not coming down at all was rare. A glance towards Virgil shows him that the anxious side is worrying his bottom lip, eyeshadow a bit darker than normal. Roman places both his hands on Patton’s shoulders in a reaffirming grip and smiles at him. 

“I’m sure our nerd just got lost in a book or something. I shall go fetch him at once.” 

“Thank you,” Patton says with a small smile that Roman returns before he heads back up the stairs. Logan’s room was the one furthest away from the common area. He’d always reasoned that he didn’t want any of the noise to travel to his door and Roman could see his point. Logan was the only one of them that stuck to a regulated sleep schedule and was often the first one to retire back upstairs. And sometimes Patton, Virgil and himself could forget to be quiet afterwards so choosing the longer distance was reasonable. Roman finally arrives at the door to the logical side’s room and was about to knock when something catches his eye. Rather it is hard to overlook. Taped to the door is a thin, dark blue folder that stands out against the light brown wood of the door. On the front ‘To Patton, Roman and Virgil’ is written. With furrowed brows, Roman pulls the folder off the door and opens it, scanning the first page before hurrying back downstairs. 

“Guys!” he calls out, halfway down the stairs, apparently interrupting a conversation between the left-behind sides. They don’t look bothered by it however but rather concerned at his sudden re-entrance without the side he was supposed to get. 

“What’s wrong?” Patton asks, voice rising in concern. Roman just hands them the folder. Virgil takes it since Patton seems to be shaking from the nerves and flips it open. The first page was a simple, printed letter that read: 

Good morning fellow sides. 

After the conclusion of yesterday’s discussion, I have decided to finally 

follow through with something I had planned for a while now: 

I am going on vacation. 

In the last few months, following Janus’ acceptance and further involvement 

in our daily lives, the tension in our group has been rising and I must say, 

it figuratively suffocates me. Any attempts to resolve said tension has been 

disapproved of and you continue to disregard my contributions to various 

problems. I cannot work in this environment any longer. I have finished  

Thomas’ schedule for the next two weeks. I did my best to consider your 

and Janus’ previously given advice to ensure that it covers selfcare and  

productivity. If you want to make changes, go ahead but do not complain 

to me if it does not work out as you hoped. I have done my part now. I am 

not sure when I will return but I should not be gone longer than those two 

weeks. Do not summon me unless it is a life-or-death situation. I have  

prepared a place to stay and I am being provided for. I will continue to keep

an eye on Thomas regardless but I do not see any need to appear in person. 

I wish you a pleasant time, 

Logan Logic Sanders 

Silence hung over the three for a few moments. 

“You think he’s pranking us?” Patton finally askes. Roman hums in consideration but Virgil scoffs. 

“Since when is Logan a prankster?” He pulls out the other sheets of paper from the folder. “These are definitely from him; I doubt even Deceit could fake them so accurately.” Truly, the schedule was color-coded and formatted in a manner that was very familiar. Roman pulls the papers out of Virgil’s grasp. He quickly scans it and whistles appreciatively. 

“This really is his best one yet, I must say.” 

“Where do you think he went?” Patton askes, his gaze fixed on the stairs. “He wrote he’s being provided for but what does that even mean?” The other two could immediately tell how worried he was. They exchange a quick glance and Roman puts a hand on Pat’s shoulder. 

“Well, there aren’t many places he could be... Him staying here in the mindscape would defeat the purpose of going on vacation. He could have gone to the dark side but I doubt that, it felt like he’s avoiding Deceit as well and if he’s in the imagination, I should be able to tell but I can’t feel him there...”  

“Where did you find this anyway?” Virgil askes and holds up the folder. 

“It was taped to his door.” 

“So you didn’t actually check his room, right?” Roman brightens. 

“I did not! Great idea, Hot Topic. Let’s go!” He runs back upstairs. 

“How does he have so much energy in the morning?” Virgil groans but he follows after him, Patton in tow. When they arrive upstairs, Logan’s door is wide open and Roman could be heard humming inside. Virgil immediately pales. 

“Princey, what the fu-” He glances at Patton. “-frick are you doing?” he hisses, not crossing the threshold. Roman, who was currently going through the papers on Logan’s desk, shoots him a look. 

“Searching for clues, like you suggested.” 

“I never said that!” 

“You said to check his room!” 

“I meant knock to see if he’s in here, not waltz in and go through his stuff!” 

“Why are you whisper-hissing? Logan’s not here, I already checked his bathroom, closet and under the bed.” 

“Why would you-? Ugh, never mind,” Virgil groans and does cautiously enter the room, followed by Patton who looks around curiously. 

“I haven’t really been in here for ages!” he gasps. Virgil furrows his brows. 

“You go to his room all the time though?” 

“Yeah, sure, to check on him. He doesn’t really invite me in though and I don’t wanna pry...” He takes another look around, this time more apprehensively. “It feels kinda wrong to be in here. Without his permission, I mean.” 

“That’s what I’m saying!” Virgil exclaims, biting at a nail nervously. “C’mon, we verified he’s not here, let’s go.” 

“Verified? Boy, the nerd’s room’s already getting to you, huh?” Roman scoffs and lays back a few papers he doesn’t find interesting. “And we haven’t found any clues yet, leaving would be a waste.” 

“Roman, we are not here to snoop through Logan’s stuff. We just wanted to confirm that he is not here.” Patton scolds, both he and Virgil are already back by the door. Roman rolls his eyes. 

“Hold on, I’m almost done. How is it that I’m the one who’s been in here the longest but I’m the least affected by the room?” he mumbles a bit loudly to not be intentional while checking around the desk. 

“No, Sherlock Homeinvader, we’re leaving,” Virgil insists, presses the folder he was still holding on to in Patton’s hands and goes over to him to drag him back himself as Roman dramatically gasps. 

“What do we have here?” he asks even more dramatically and bends down, grabbing something out of what appears to be Logan’s trash can. Virgil nose wrinkles. 

“Disgusting, dude.” 

“Relax, it’s just a bunch of paper. Well, paper and this!” He holds up a container. A very familiar container. Pickled Poo Logs, Remus’ favored snack. Easily recognizable by his face at the top, though there are dicks doodled over the rest of the label. Virgil immediately snatches it out of his hand. 

“Remus was here?” Patton hesitantly comes over to take a look himself. “Maybe Logan was just curious about it? He gets like that sometimes, you know?” His nervous tone sabotages his attempt at lightening the mood, especially since he doesn’t sound convincing, even to himself. 

“With dicks drawn all over it? No, Nerdy Wolverine would have asked for a clean one,” Roman comments and turns the case over in his hands, inspecting it. 

“You think Remus kidnapped him?” Virgil asks, panicked. 

“Considering the folder, unlikely. Oh, there’s the room’s effect!” Roman hums, pleased. “No, it is unlikely that Logan left involuntarily but he may have been tricked. Remus is an idiot but he’s not totally stupid. And he kind of fixated on our braincell after his introductory video.”  

“What has Remus done now?” calls an exasperated voice from the door. All three of them spin around to see Janus leaning against the doorframe, inspecting his gloved fingers with a small smirk on his lips. Virgil growls at him immediately and Janus rolls his eyes in response. “Oh, yes, please do keep acting like a guard dog, Virgil, it is so becoming of you.” Before he could snap back, Patton lays a hand on Virgil’s shoulder in an attempt to calm him. He continues glaring but falls silent.

“Hello Janus, what brings you here?” Patton asks, trying to sound cheerful but even to Roman and Virgil it sounds forced. It doesn’t fool Janus for even a second.

“I went to the kitchen to make my morning cup of tea and no one else was there as usual so I decided to come up here for no reason at all.” His smirk stays however he seems to eye Patton very carefully who laughs nervously in response.

“Oh, sorry about that. We didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Oh, I wasn’t worried, merely… curious. You lot seldomly break your morning routine, especially Logan, so seeing him in particular absent from this group despite us being all gathered here in his room, I do wonder what is going on. Care to enlighten me?”

“We don’t care to. This is none of your business, leave Deceit!” Virgil practically spits. Janus tuts and shakes his head.

“On the contrary, dear Virgil, if this does indeed involve Remus, it is entirely my business. He has been acknowledged by Thomas, not accepted. It is still a part of my duty to reign him in from time to time. To make sure he does not hurt Thomas’ mental health excessively.”

“Oh yeah, you did a great job of that before the wedding,” Roman scoffs. Janus glares at him.

“In that instance I let him looser than normal precisely to protect Thomas’ mental health in the long run. He was pushing himself too much, acknowledging Remus’ presence was supposed to help him clear his head a little,” he hisses and Virgil snorts.

“That worked out so well.”

“Sssssshhut up!”

“Kiddos! Please, let’s not fight, we have more pressing things to deal with right now!” Virgil and Roman grumble but don’t interject. Janus looks defensive, still glaring at the two of them. “Logan is missing,” Patton continues. “He left us this note but it’s so unlike him, we aren’t sure if we should trust it. While we checked his room, Roman found one of Remus’ deodorants, so we suspect he might be involved somehow.” Apparently deciding to abandon his staring match with Virgil, Janus walks over to Patton and lays a hand on his shoulder.

“I understand the situation. Could I look at the note and the deodorant, please?”

“Oh, sure,” Patton says with a light blush and hands over the folder. Janus quietly thanks him before thumbing through the pages. The letter he looks at last.

“Ah, yes. I did indeed warn him about his habit to overwork himself a few times recently. If he is taking a break, then I am more inclined to let him do so.”

“We don’t want to stop him from taking a break!” Patton hastily clarifies. “We’re just worried about the how. We don’t know where he is or what he’s doing. And if Remus is involved, I don’t know how much of a break he is really getting…” He trails off at the end, staring at his feet. Janus hums and quickly walks over to Roman to pluck the deodorant out of his hands.

“Hey!” The prince protests, but Janus doesn’t pay him any mind. Instead, he looks over the case in his hand. Once he was finished, he drops it back into Roman’s hands who squawks at him offendedly.

“From recent conversations, it did seem like Remus was getting rather attached to Logan and I don’t think they have a bad relationship. It might very well be that Logan asked the Duke for his help in this matter.”

“As if,” Virgil pouts, though he doesn’t sound entirely convinced of that himself. Janus ignores him.

“But if you feel like you need to check then I do have an idea where to look.” Patton beams at him.

“Really? Could you take us? Right now??”

“No way am I going anywhere with that snake!” Roman yells. “He might just be leading us into a trap!” Janus gives him an unimpressed look.

“And why would I do that? My job is to make sure Thomas’ mental health is in good shape. Getting all of you injured, or whatever you imagine I would want to do to you, would be nothing but counterproductive.”

“Like I believe that!”

“Regardless,” Janus says to brush off Roman’s protest who in turn only seems to get angrier, “I am afraid you do not have much of a choice. If the two are where I think they are, then you have no chance of getting there without a guide.”

“I can navigate Remus’ side of the Imagination just as well as my own, I do not need your help, Jack the Fibber!”

“I do not doubt that my prince. However, that place in particular is designed to keep unwanted visitors out. I doubt you would even find it, not to mention getting inside.”

“And what place would that be?” Virgil hisses before Roman can start yelling again.

“The library.”

“Remus… has a library?” Patton asks, doubt clear in his voice.

“No, he doesn’t. The fact that you do not know about it just proves my point. It is one of the most fortified buildings Remus has ever created. The layout constantly changes, there are traps and monsters roaming the halls.”

“If the layout changes, then why do you think you could take us there?” Patton interjects.

“Because there is one path that leads to the actual library within, and I mean only one path. Make one wrong turn or otherwise go off course and you will not find your way out easily. I got lost only once and I do not recommend it.”

“And why should we believe you?” Roman challenges, head raised high. Janus seems amused by his stubborn antagonism.

“I do not care if you believe me or not. You are the ones that want to check on Logan. I am only offering to take you since I had planned to go there soon anyway. And I need to see what Remus is doing from time to time. You can come along or not, it is totally. Up. To. You.” Janus emphasizes the last words by poking Roman lightly in the chest after each syllable, all the while smirking up at him. Roman continues to glare but he couldn’t quite repress the slight flush of his cheeks at Janus’ proximity. The snakelike side laughs lightly before making his way back to the door.

“I will leave after breakfast. You do what you think is right,” he calls over his shoulder before disappearing back down the hallway, leaving the others in silence.

“He has got to be tricking us, right?” Virgil growls after a few seconds. Roman nods in agreement but Patton looks thoughtful.

“I don’t think so. He has no reason to.”

“He’s Deceit, Patton. It’s all he knows.”

“Look, I know you both had your differences with him and I’m still adjusting too, but Janus is an integral part of Thomas, we cannot deny that anymore. I am sure he does not want anything truly bad to happen to any of us, so if this is a trick then it is probably only a small prank.” Virgil and Roman share a look of disbelief but Patton doesn’t stop there. “And besides, what other options do we have? Sit around and hope that Logan is truly okay? Or comb through Remus’ side on our own? Your powers barely work over there Roman, and the place is not small, right?”

“Right,” Roman admits with a sigh after a few seconds of silence. “And I am worried about Nerdy Wolverine, if we don’t do anything about this, I will go stir crazy, so I guess I can try and trust that snake for a bit.”

“Thank you, Ro!” Patton pulls him into a hug, beaming. Roman chuckles and pats his back.

“Yeah, yeah, anything for you, padre.” He turns to Virgil. “Are you going to come along?”

“…Fine,” Virgil grumbles, still clearly unhappy about the situation. “But if it turns out that he’s up to something, I am totally going to tell you ‘I told you so’.” Roman rolls his eyes.

“Sure, whatever makes you happy, Emo Nightmare.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The track through Remus’ side of the Imagination hadn’t been pleasant. The atmosphere was tense and Patton’s attempts to lighten the mood didn’t cheer anyone up. Roman and Virgil did their best to ignore Janus and the deceitful side himself accepted their stubbornness quietly. Only Patton really talked, though even he gave up after a while. Thankfully, they didn’t come across any of Remus’ monsters but the landscape they had to track through was nightmarish enough and won’t be discussed here. Now they stood before their apparent goal.

“This… is it?” Roman asks, doubtfully. The building in front of them is a rather cliché-looking mansion from horror games. It is a wide, stone structure with two floors that seems to have high ceilings. It’s dark and intimidating looking though on closer inspection, the construction style seems to change randomly. A different kind of stone here, another window frame there. Apparently, Remus stitched together different buildings and haphazardly added details wherever it pleased him. For example, the house of Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas is sticking out of the roof, completely intact but just… there.

What stands out most though, is the glass dome further back on the building. Not because it is the most impressive but because it’s the only thing that is illuminated, emitting a soft yellow glow. All the other windows are pitch black.

“Not satisfied, Roman?” Janus smirks.

“Well, yes. I expected more from my brother’s so-called masterpiece!”

“I definitely called it his masterpiece,” Janus says as he rolls his eyes. “And the interior is the more impressive part. The exterior Remus changes every so often when he gets new inspiration. I think the last remodeling came after Thomas researched that giant lady and the game she’s in.”

“You mean the one you stole your skirt look from?” Virgil smiles, mischievously.

“Yes, because my look wasn’t almost finished by the time Thomas found out about her!” Janus hisses at him with a glare. Virgil shows him his tongue.

“Kiddos, please stop. We’re here for Logan, let’s concentrate!” Patton tries to encourage teamwork but again is not really successful.

“Ugh, fine,” Virgil scoffs and glares at Janus one last time before turning back to the building in front of them.

“Let’s just get this over with. Remus’ side always gives me chills,” Roman complains.

“Very well.” Janus adjusts his gloves before clearing his throat. “Once we enter, as I haven’t told you before, there is one path we need to follow, so I need you to listen to my instructions carefully and let me take the lead. I know it’s very hard for you to go along with other people’s plan but trust me on this one, Roman.” He grins over at the prince whose face is turning red in anger. Before he can explode, Patton steps in.

“No provocation from you either, Janus! If we have to rely on you as you say, then make an effort to be reliable in return!” He leans close to Janus and pouts, giving him his best I’m-disappointed-in-you-and-I-know-you-can-do-better look.

“Alright, alright, I’ll stop as well.” Janus waves him off. “The instructions can be stupidly specific sometimes, at one point we will have to stick to one side of a corridor, for example, but there will also be traps, distractions and monsters. Though – and make sure to remember that – nothing truly dangerous can access the path. So even if something comes charging at us, I need you to stay calm and not run around like headless chickens. I will not save you from your own stupid decisions.”

“Oh yes, so trustworthy. Thank you greatly for your generosity.” Roman rolls his eyes and Patton shots him a slight glare, making him huff but refrain from further comments. Janus ignores him completely.

“Our goal is the dome and usually it should take not over half an hour to arrive there.” Now Roman looks sceptic for a different reason.

“If we just need to get to the dome then can’t we just climb the building and get in from the roof?”

“Oh yes, what a great plan, I can’t believe I have never thought of that before!” Janus exclaims, hand on his heart but quickly drops the act. “The interior and exterior aren’t connected like that. Since Remus shifts the inside around as much, no window or door – other than the main entrance – connect to a specific room. It will just drop you randomly somewhere in the mansion. And as I’ve stated before, that is not something you want to happen. So no, we can’t do this like a heist movie.” Roman looks angry again but doesn’t comment. Patton pats him on the shoulder (which only seems to sour his mood more) before addressing Janus.

“Alright, we will follow your lead.” he says with a smile. Janus nods at him stiffly before moving towards the front door without another word, the others following behind him with tense expressions (though Patton tries, and fails, to hide his).

The door to the mansion is made of a heavy, red wood that Janus pushes open without hesitation. Behind it lies… a rather normal looking entrance hall. There is a long carpet that leads to the grand staircase in the middle of the room. A chandelier hangs from the ceiling and the decoration is tasteful. Or rather, it used to be. As impressive as the hall is, it is rotting away. There’s dust everywhere, as well as spiderwebs and the air is thick and unpleasant.

“This place has so much potential if my brother bothered to take care of it,” Roman huffs as he looks around. Janus doesn’t respond but instead gives more instructions.

“Follow behind me in a line. And please do walk next to each other, that wouldn’t be risky at all.” After saying that, he moves toward the back of the hall, left of the staircase where a door is situated. “Behind here is where the dangerous path starts. Be. Very. Careful,” Janus stresses, looking back at the others who had followed him.

“Will do!” Patton responds, with faux cheerfulness. Roman and Virgil sigh but they do line up. Their marching order is Janus, Patton, Virgil and Roman in the back. The first few hallways and rooms they pass aren’t all that bad. They have a few disgusting gimmicks – bleeding walls, gooey carpets, a mirror that insults you when you stand before it – but nothing too severe. The first truly shocking room (though it really should have been expected, in hindsight) they come across is…

“Is this the playroom from Fifty Shades of Grey?” Virgil asks after they all simply stared at the contents of the room for a few moments.

“Thomas hasn’t even seen that movie!” Roman exclaims, very red in the face. He is also holding Patton’s glasses to protect his purity while Virgil holds his hand while he is effectively blind. Janus shrugs his shoulders.

“The scene has been referenced in enough videos and interviews that we have a basic understanding of what happened in it. And that might have been where Remus got the idea from, but he definitely modified it to be more to his taste. It is a room for BDSM though.”

“How… How do you know that?” Roman asks, still very much embarrassed.

“… Just be grateful that there are no people in here today,” is all Janus is willing to admit before heading towards the door that allows them to continue. The corridor behind it is dimly lit and a few lights even flicker. Janus leads them on confidently, the others follow him back in line and with Patton’s glasses returned to their owner. However, the creepy feeling of the hallway has Patton continue to cling onto Virgil’s hand, who is the side of the group most comfortable with horror. Roman has one hand on his sheathed sword – that he had strapped to his side before they entered Remus’ side of the imagination – and the other has a tight grip on Virgil’s hoodie. The anxious side isn’t very happy about how the two clinging to him limits his movement, but he can understand their worries, so he lets it slide.

“Did you hear that?” Patton squeaks out and for a moment Virgil doesn’t know what he means before a thump echoes down the hallway. They freeze, bringing Roman to a stop behind them.

“What’s wro- “

“Shhhhhh!” The rumbling becomes louder and now Janus notices that they had stopped following. He, unlike Roman can guess as to why so he just waits ahead in slight annoyance. He had warned them before entering, he won’t tell them again. By now Roman had caught on and he grips the sword tightly, ready to draw.

Ahead of them, a monster comes around the corner. It has the body of a gorilla and walks on all fours, but its head is that of a snake and a pair of wings grow from its back. That would have been enough to scare Patton, maybe even Roman, but the most noticeable and gruesome attribute of the monster were its injuries. Maybe it was supposed to be a kind of zombie, since there are large chunks of flesh missing from its gorilla body, other patches lacked fur and again others ooze a liquid that may have been blood if it wasn’t so obviously sticky.

The snake head isn’t fairing much better. It misses some scales and there are a few black spots that might have been burn marks. One of the wings seems undamaged though its partner looks all the worse for it. There are hardly any feathers left and the bones that are now left exposed seem broken in a few places and hang limply in a way that looks very, very wrong.

The monster spots them easily, makes a noise that sounds vaguely like a mix of a hiss and a roar and charges at them. Roman curses quietly and quickly pushes Virgil and Patton behind him. Janus looks unbothered, he is leaning against the wall and waits for it to be over. The monster gains more and more speed (considering the length of the corridor, it doesn’t make sense how long the charge takes), sprinting at them, until – oh so suddenly – it collides with something and crashes to the ground. Roman, Virgil and Patton stare at it with open mouths.

“I told you: as long as we stick to the path, nothing can hurt us,” Janus explains nonchalantly before resuming his way down the corridor, towards the beast that twitches on the ground. The others stare at it a moment longer before they hurry after Janus.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next few corridors and rooms were not all that difficult. One hallway was filled with spike traps that they had to avoid, and they passed three different torture rooms, all with different equipment. Janus explained that Remus liked to separate them by era and country, so he had, for example, one room filled with torture instruments used in the witch hunts in Germany from 1550 to 1650. And while they weren’t nice to look at, the rooms were empty and so it was left to their own imaginations as to how the instruments might have been used.

The next impactful incident happens in a corridor with a ceiling that falls down and crushes everyone beneath it. To avoid it, Janus told them to stick as close to the right wall of the hallway as possible. Their pace is significantly slower this way but none of them wanted to be squished so they carefully set one foot in front of the other.

“We’re almost there,” Janus calls to the others. The passage isn’t all that long but with the literally looming threat, it sure feels like it.

“Pat, you’re not stepping right,” Virgil hisses and pulls him more to the side.

“Sorry!” the moral side squeaked. “I think my glasses are smudged a bit. It makes it hard to see.”

“Oh, sorry, padre. That might have been me when I held them for you,” Roman apologizes.

“It’s alright, kiddo. I do it myself all the time.”

“Well, better clean them before one of your feet get crushed. Everyone stop!” Virgil commands and though he seems annoyed, Janus complies. Patton gives them an apologetic smile before taking his glasses off to wipe them clean with his shirt as best as he can.

Unable to hold still, Roman shuffles a bit on the ground and that’s when he makes a mistake. One of his feet lands too far away and a click comes from the ceiling. With a whoosh and a bang, part of the ceiling comes down. Virgil startles so bad that he lunges forward a bit, upsetting Patton’s balance and sending him to the floor, taking Janus with him. Thankfully, they don’t trigger another trap, but Patton’s glasses fall to the ground and skitter down the hallway.

“Are you alright?” Virgil asks, frantically, moving to help Patton up.

“I’m fine, but my glasses…”

“Do not worry, I will get them back for you!” Roman proclaims before starting to climb over Virgil and Patton still on the floor to get to the front.

“Watch it, Prince Douche!”

“I am, Emo Bitch!”

“Language!”

Roman manages to get past both of them and Janus before the latter grips his arm to stop him.

“Don’t!” he hisses. Roman eyes him skeptically.

“And why not, oh Great Deceiver?” he mocks.

“Because we need to make a right here! The glasses are off the path!” Understanding blooms on Roman’s face and he looks back towards the glasses, a few feet away from the crossing they need to take.

“I can’t just grab them real quick and come back?”

“No. Once you’re off the path you can’t just turn around. I doubt you’ll even be able to still see us then.”

“It’s okay,” Patton calls from the back. He and Virgil are back on their feet. “I have a spare pair in my room, if you guide me, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Again, I’m so sorry, Padre.”

“Please stop apologizing, it’s really fine, promise!” Patton smiles but his eyes are obviously not focusing on Roman and it’s apparent just how little he can see like this.

“Well, if you’re sure,” Virgil mumbles and leads him forward and into the crossing where they are safe from more falling ceilings.

“It’s not fine,” Janus suddenly speaks up. All eyes turn to him (or where Patton thinks he is). “We’re almost at the library but Remus, as charming as he is, of course made the last stretch the most annoying. Most of the time it’s a ladder we will need to climb with traps all over them to try and get you to fall over and over and over again. I can warn you about the ones I spot but if Patton can’t see them himself, he won’t be able to avoid them properly. We need to get his glasses somehow…”

The three with working eyes pondered for a bit before Roman speaks up.

“I think Virgil might be able to reach if he lays on the ground…”

“Why me?!”

“You’re the tallest.”

“By a few inches at best!”

“Well, those few inches might just be what we need here,” Janus chimes in and Virgil glares at him.

“C’mon, Beetlejuice, you want to get out of here, right? And we can’t leave Patton behind.”

“Really, kiddos, it’s fine! I’ll manage… somehow.”

“Yes, keep saying that, it’s sooo helpful!”

“Don’t take it out on him!”

“Just stop it!” Roman yells over the chaos. “Virgil please. I’ll hold on to your foot, it’ll be fine!” Virgil eyes him for a moment before he sighs.

“Fine but you use that,” he taps against Roman’s sash, “to secure my foot. I don’t trust your milky hands.”

“Milky?!”

“Ugh, just do it!” Janus groans and is met with two glares for his effort but both Roman and Virgil get to work. With the red band firmly bound around Virgil’s shoe and Roman’s hand, the former carefully lies on the floor. Just as he is about to start robbing over to the glasses, a door down the hallway opens and a figure emerges. Virgil stares at it in disbelief.

“Why Pyramid Head?!” Indeed, the creature now slowly making its way toward them, knife dragging across the floor, was the iconic monster from Silent Hill 2. Janus is the first to regain his composure.

“At least he’s slow! Quickly grab the glasses before he gets over there!”

“Easy for you to say- “

“Stop arguing, please,” Patton begs from his position against the wall of the next corridor they would traverse. Virgil grumbles under his breath but makes his way forward. And so does Pyramid Head.

It’s like watching a (very slow) head-to-head race toward the finish line. Robbing forward on his stomach, Virgil is about as fast as Pyramid Head’s walking speed. Inch by inch, Virgil gets closer to the reach of the gigantic knife still dragging along the floor. The creature doesn’t even need to get to him, just close enough to swing its weapon.

Virgil’s ankle leaves the path as he gets close enough to try and reach the glasses. And if Pyramid Head used its blade right now, it might have a chance to hit but still it moves forward, into a position where it is more likely to strike true.

Virgil’s fingertips hit the frame. Just a little bit more. Half of his foot is still within the barrier. Roman has a firm grip on the sash. Virgil’s hand closes around the glasses and Pyramid Head raises his knife to swing down.

“Got them!”

“Janus! Help me pull him back!” Roman calls as he holds Virgil’s shoe with his tied-up hand and places the other on his ankle. Immediately, the other is beside him, grabs onto his arms and pulls. And not a second too late. The knife lands where Virgil’s head had been moments before, and Roman and Janus fall onto their asses while Virgil is trying to catch his breath and to not go into a full-blown anxiety attack.

“What happened?? Are you okay?” Patton calls over, worriedly.

Roman lets out a breathless, unbelieving laugh and collapses onto his back, the adrenaline rushing through him. Which turned out to be good because as soon as his head hits the ground, a click comes from the ceiling once again.

“Shit-!” Quickly Roman rolls to the side before his head is flattened by the trap. He must’ve moved within its range by an inch. Janus stares at him in disbelief.

“How are you alive?”

“I’m too fabulous to die.” The ridiculous response got Virgil to laugh and forget his panic for long enough to calm down.

“Guys?” Again, Patton tries to get their attention.

“We’re all fine, Pat. And I’ve got your glasses, hold on.” Virgil climbs to his feet, wipes the lenses on his hoodie to clean them as best he could before heading over to Patton and pushing them onto his nose. “How’s that?” Patton doesn’t answer, just pulls him into a hug.

“Thanks, kiddo.”

“Um… Sure. No problem,” Virgil mumbles nervously. Patton gives him a smile before looking over to the other two that are in the process of standing up. On the other side of the barrier, Pyramid Head has lost interest and was now moving away again. The sides pay him no mind.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad, right?” Roman comes over to Virgil and Patton with a grin, Janus on his heels.

“Speak for yourself, princey. I’m so ready to get out of here.”

“I’m having so much fun with this. Let’s go, sadly, we’re almost there.” Janus takes the lead once again and the others follow. They pass through one more room, a laboratory of sorts with lots of blood on most of the surfaces (thankfully, the floor is mostly clean), before they enter what seems to be an elevator shaft. And indeed, the only way forward is a ladder.

“How surprising,” Janus mutters under his breath before turning back toward the others. “As I’ve said before, this part is not really dangerous, but pretty annoying. There will be traps to try and get you to fall but even if you do, you will fall slowly. Remus implemented this more as a prank than anything else. I’ll tell you about what I spot but we may need several tries.”

“Okay, we’ll trust you to not let us down,” Patton says with a wink. Janus stares at him with a blank look.

“That was terrible.” Then he starts to climb, Patton after him, then Virgil and Roman is in the back again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They do indeed need more than five tries to get to the top. It was especially annoying that Patton fell for the same trap twice, requiring the rest to wait where they were until he climbed up again. Their arms are gonna be sore tomorrow for sure. But they had finally made it.

The ladder ended in another corridor but this one was clean and wonderfully decorated in greens and silver. Portraits line the walls, most of them of Remus himself, but there is one of Janus and one of both together. Most peculiar are two others however. One shows Remus grinning, arm out to the side, probably hugging someone but the other half of the painting is missing. The second is simply an empty frame.

“Self-centered much?” Roman scoffs.

“Oh yeah, like you don’t have at least a dozen different self-portraits in your castle, Prince of Narcissists,” Virgil retorts. Janus doesn’t pay any attention to the banter or the pictures for that matter. He strides ahead with purpose. Patton watches him in concern, but he feels like this isn’t a moment to pry.

At the end of the corridor is an enormous double door, also in green and silver. The handles, however, are made of gold.

“Does he have some sort of obsession with Slytherin or something?” Again, it’s Roman commenting. Janus hisses at him in disdain.

“For your information, he is a Gryffindor, same as you. And his second choice would be Ravenclaw. No, green and silver just happen to be his favorite colors.”

“Jeez, sorry.” Roman holds up his hands in surrender. “What made you so cranky?”

“Please, keep talking.” Janus rolls his eyes. “Let’s just get it over with.” He grabs the handle on one side and pushes, Patton quickly helps him with the other. Slowly the heavy material gives away and swings open. And suddenly their vision is filled with green.

In front of them is a jungle and as they take the first steps in, the humid air hits them. Birds can be heard singing somewhere but none of them are able to spot them. They stand in a clearing, although the tree line that surrounds them is only about ten feet from them. The trees themselves tower over them, their leaves lush and green, vines hanging between them. The ground is littered with bushes and plants and only one way seems to lead further inward, its stones wide and beautiful. As they look up into the sky, they can see the glass of the dome incasing them, the sun beaming down outside. Which was weird since when they had been in front of the building the weather had been quite dreary.

“Are we… really in the right place?” Patton asks, his voice hushed as if he was afraid of breaking the serenity of their surroundings by being too loud.

“Yes, we are. If you look closely, you can see a few shelves on the far side of the dome.” Janus points upward and the others follow his line of sight. Indeed, quite a ways away, they could see some brown structures following the curve of the dome.

“How are the books not falling?” Virgil questions, his eyes squinted to make out anything in the first place. Roman snorts.

“This is the imagination, Doubtful Central. Remus doesn’t want them to fall, so they don’t fall.” Virgil sticks out his tongue at the prince’s condescending tone. Patton lightly scolds them to stop fighting. Janus clears his throat.

“We need to track along the path for a bit until we reach a river. Behind it is the library.”

“And hopefully Logan,” Patton sighs. “I hope he’s okay.”

“I’m sure he is, padre. You know our nerd, he isn’t easy to beat,” Roman jokes, his hand squeezing Patton’s shoulder in support. Patton smiles at him.

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“I’m always right!”

“You wish, princey.”

“Kiddos…” Patton almost sounds defeated and Janus pats him on the shoulder in sympathy.

“He used to be like that with Remus, too. It’ll be fine.” Patton nods and gives Janus a grateful smile. He, in turn, gives a nod in acknowledgment back and turns to back to the bickering two. “I hate to interrupt you but one more warning. Watch your feet in there. There are some books that have gone… wild.” The others stare at him a moment.

“He stole the Monster Book of Monsters, didn’t he?”

“… He created something similar at least.”

With a groan from Virgil, the group sets out and follows the path. Even though it is made of stone, there are still quite a few branches and vines to dodge. The jungle isn’t quiet either, various sounds resounding in the air. Rustling in the bushes, noises that might belong to a kind of monkey, the birds’ continuous songs. A collage of different sounds that is almost overwhelming.

Roman keeps one hand on the hilt of his sword in case one of the animals decide to come their way, his eyes scanning the trees continuously. Patton clutches one of Virgil’s hands in his own, both also checking their surroundings nervously. Meanwhile, Janus’ eyes are fixated on the ground.

After they had walked for a few minutes, the tension drops a bit. Most of the jungle’s inhabitants seem to go out of their way on their own without hostility. In that moment, a bush on the right side rustles suddenly, then one to the left and unbelievably quickly, two books shoot out of the greenery and try attacking the groups feet. Patton screams and jumps into Virgil’s arms whose eyeshadow turned a very deep black.

“Just give them a good kick, that usually scares them off!” Janus calls over the ruckus Patton is making, mostly directed at Roman who had unsheathed his sword. He is trying to stab the books, but their binding is quite resistant, and he can’t really get a good hit in. As he hears the call however, he shoots a quick look over to Janus, who has taken a few steps away to protect himself, before swinging his leg with all his might, hitting one book directly into the spine and sending it flying into the canopy.

The second one snarls and turns its attention from Virgil, whose shoe it had been trying to chew through, to Roman, and (again quicker than you would expect from a thing with no legs) darts toward him, in a zig-zag pattern so it wouldn’t suffer the same fate as its companion.

“Shit,” Roman curses, earning a weak ‘Language!’ from Patton who was calming down now that the book wasn’t focused on him and Virgil anymore. Roman tries to land another hit but the book is too fast and lunges forward, most likely to bite him in the leg.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Virgil’s heel digs into the cover, throwing the book back down to the ground. It whimpers and quickly disappears back into the bushes. With heavy breaths does Virgil set his foot back down, Patton still in his arms. Roman whistles.

“Damn, Hot Topic! You’re stronger than I thought.”

“Well,” Virgil shrugs while Patton climbs down, “fight-or-flight, remember?” Roman laughs and pats him on the shoulder.

“Right, right.” They smile at each other for a moment before Patton speaks up.

“Where’s Janus?” Surprised, the three quickly take a look around. The deceitful side was nowhere in sight.

“I knew that slimy snake could not be trusted!” Roman yells angrily. Virgil has a similarly dark look. Patton doesn’t look convinced.

“Maybe he just went ahead? It’s not like there are any other paths we can follow, so he could have just gone ahead to scout for more bad books?”

“You really are too trusting, padre,” Roman scoffs. “But you are right, there is only one path to follow, might as well take it. Turning around now would be pointless anyway.” He and Virgil start walking forward. Patton nervously gnaws at his lip, not liking how this is turning out at all.

They do find Janus not all that far up ahead. He is crouching down in front of a bush, apparently muttering to himself. The path had winded at bit and with the branches in the way they hadn’t been able to spot him earlier. Still, Roman continues to be mad and stomps over to him.

“So now is the point where you try to abandon us?? Just what is your game, snake?!” Janus looks over his shoulder, as calmly as ever.

“Abandoning you was definitely my intention,” he scoffs before turning back around, reaching for something, and standing back up after. When he then turns to face them fully, he is holding a long, yellow snake in his arms that is winding itself around his torso. “This is Jake, I used to keep him in my room, but he took a liking to the jungle, so I let him live here, most of the time at least.” Jake stops his climbing and watches them for a moment, his tongue flickering out.

“Aww!” Patton coos before stepping a bit closer. “Can I pet him?”

“Sure, he doesn’t bite. Most of the time.” But the moral side has already stopped listening, instead stroking the snake’s head which he doesn’t seem to mind at all. Roman, who had been a bit stunned at the sudden animal in Janus’ hands, regains his composure.

“So why did you disappear then?” he demands. Janus shrugs.

“I figured you could handle two books with no actual teeth and Jake called out to me, so I went ahead to find him. There is only one path after all, I doubted you could manage to get lost.” Roman is practically fuming but Patton interjects before he can blow up.

“You can speak with him??”

“Yes. You really think Thomas modeled me after a snake and didn’t give me the ability to speak Parseltongue?”

“Cool!” Patton whispers, staring at Janus with wide eyes, who looks a bit uncomfortable with the sudden attention. He clears his throat.

“Anyway. Jake tells me that Remus is indeed here. And he’s not alone.” Immediately, Virgil’s gaze snaps to him.

“Logan?”

“Most likely. Jake has never met him before, but the description fits.”

“You don’t sound all that sure.” Janus shrugs.

“He’s just a snake. He doesn’t lie to me, but he could be wrong.”

“We should hurry,” Patton says with determination, pulling his hand back. Jake hisses in displeasure from losing the scritches he was receiving. Janus rolls his eyes.

“Come back with me today and I’ll scratch you wherever you like.” That seems to please the snake since he gives another, smaller hiss and continues his winding around Janus until he finds a comfortable position.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They continue along the path for another few minutes without incident. Some bushes rustled but no more books tried to attack them. Finally, they could hear the sound of rushing water. The river must be near. Unconsciously, they increase their pace until they end up before a cliff, the path just suddenly ending there. The cliff isn’t all that high, only a few feet away from the rushing stream. Some type of fish jumping out of its waters every now and again. The jungle continued to the left and right of them, no bridge in sight.

“Um… How do we get across?” Patton asks, eyeing the drop. Janus takes a second to answer, not focused on the below but the beyond.

“We don’t,” he finally answers.

“What’s that supposed to mean??” Virgil demands, yet again glaring at him. Janus shrugs while he pats Jake’s head, eyes still focused ahead of them.

“This place is one of Remus’ most treasured places and there are times when even he wants to be left alone. If he doesn’t want anyone to come here, he simply removes the bridge. There is nothing we can do.”

“So we made this entire trip for nothing?!”

“I wouldn’t say that. Look.” Janus points ahead. The others reluctantly follow his gaze. None of them have really focused on the other side yet, too preoccupied with trying to go further.

A few more trees stand along the cliff but way less dense than on their side. The path continues for a few more feet before it ends at the steps of a lightly raised wooden platform, the true start of the library. Behind a reading area, rows and rows of bookcases tower, each row bigger than the one before it until the ones merging with the wall that reach way, way higher, following the curve of the dome and still somehow letting the natural light from outside shine through.

What Janus was referring to, however, is the aforementioned seating area. Among the few tables and chairs, are some sofas, beanbags, stools, and various other seating opportunities, all in different styles and colors. Because of course Remus would never settle on one theme alone. Only one of those seats was currently occupied though.

Lying on a chaise longue, turned towards them, with a book in his hand and a steaming cup on a small table beside him, is Logan. Seemingly without a worry, their nerd is relaxed and reading. Without looking away from the pages, he reaches over, takes the cup and sips whatever drink it contains before placing it back down without a second though. It seems like their worrying had been unnecessary.

“He looks fine, right?” Virgil says, though he sounds rather nervous, and he raises his thumb to bite at the nail. Patton instinctively stops him.

“That’s good, right?” he adds, also not sounding quite convinced. Janus watches their reactions without commenting. He hadn’t been worried about the logical side, he just wanted to avoid the others working themselves up over the next few days with their wild theories.

“It is too early to say yet!” Roman proclaims. “That could just be an illusion to fool us. To let our guard down! I will not leave until I spoke with him in person.”

“Nobody said anything about leaving though?” Virgil mutters. Roman ignores him.

“But we can’t reach him,” Patton objects. “How do you wanna do that?”

“Hmm…” Roman hums and takes another look at the raging water below them. “It’s not that far across. If I jump far enough, I’m sure I could make it. And I’m an excellent climber and swimmer!”

“I would advise against that,” Janus speaks up, Roman immediately eyeing him suspiciously.

“And why is that? Huh?”

“Oh, my mistake. I assumed you would be able to recognize piranhas when you see them.” Quickly, Roman’s eyes flickered back to the river and the fish still jumping out of it occasionally. “I’m also pretty sure Remus put some sharks in there just because he could. And I mean the bloodthirsty kind.” Patton’s face is now white as chalk and Virgil had a firm grip on Roman’s sleeve.

“Fine, fine!” the prince exclaims. “No swimming, I get it!” He gestures widely and Virgil lets go of him, turning away, his ears pink in embarrassment. “Then I guess we have no other choice!”

“And what choice would that be?” Janus asks, eyebrow raised. Roman grins at him before cupping his hands over his mouth and yelling at the top of his lungs:

“LOGAN! OVER HERE! HEY! ACROSS THE RIVER!” The other three slap their hands over their ears, glaring at the prince. Roman doesn’t quiet down however, until Logan obviously takes note of them. Then he switches to waving widely. Janus rubs his temples; he has had about enough for today. Patton joins in on the waving though less enthusiastically. Virgil buries his hands in his pockets and shrinks back.

Logan does not look happy to see them. Not that they could make out much from the distance in terms of facial expressions, but he had gone stiff once he realized what was happening. He bookmarks his page before setting the book down and stands up. He turns away for a moment and Janus thinks he can hear him calling out to Remus, but the rushing of the water makes it hard to be sure. Afterwards, Logan makes his way over to them, down the steps and toward the edge of the cliff where he stops. Now they could make out the frown on his face more clearly.

“What are you doing here?” he calls over, sounding displeased. Roman hesitates to answer because of his tone, so Patton speaks up instead.

“We were worried about you, kiddo! You just up and vanished and we didn’t know where to!”

“I am aware, that was intentional. Did you not find the folder?”

“We did, but we weren’t really sure if we could trust it,” Virgil explains. Having to yell over the sound of rushing water quickly became annoying.

“What do you mean, you weren’t sure if you could trust it?” Logan frown deepens but before one of them could answer, Remus appears behind him suddenly.

“Boo!” he yells, grinning all the while. Logan rolls his eyes but doesn’t react further. Roman stiffens, Patton bites his lips and Virgil buries deeper into his hoodie in displeasure. Janus is standing to the side, petting Jake, and acting like this situation doesn’t involve him.

Remus cackles at their reactions before saying something to Logan and summoning what appears to be a soundboard. He lowers a few regulators and immediately their surroundings quiet down. The river now sounds distant, like the cliff just became a few miles deeper than before, the rustling of the leaves falls quiet, as do the birds. The surreal situation stuns all of them for a moment.

“There! That’s better, right?”

“Thank you, Remus,” Logan says before turning back to the others, not having to yell anymore. “Now please continue your explanation of why you did not heed my instructions?”

“Well, um…” Patton tries to find the right words, but before he can, Janus speaks up.

“Remus, please unmute your brother.” Everyone turns to look at Roman whose face is red and seemingly trying to yell but no sound comes out. Quickly all eyes turn back to Remus who is pouting.

“Do I have to?”

“If you don’t want them to continue assuming that you kidnapped our dear Logan over there, than you might want to consider not annoying them, yes,” Janus shrugs, apparently not really caring whether Roman gets his voice back or not. Logan raises an eyebrow and shifts his focus back toward his fellow light sides.

“You assume I was kidnapped?”

“It all happened so suddenly; we didn’t know what to think!” Patton tries to explain, eyes jumping between Logan, Roman and Remus. “Please give him his voice back,” he begs after a moment of Logan glaring at them, obviously not happy with the answer.

“But-!” Remus starts to whine before Logan puts a hand on his arm and in a low tone says: “It will only make this take even longer. Please just do it so we can get this over with?”

“Ugh, fine!” Remus groans before flicking one regulator back up but not to full volume.

“You stinking rat, I’ll run you through with my sword!” Roman yells, or at least tries to, only managing to raise his voice a little louder than his normal speaking tone. He glares at his brother when he realizes this, who flips him off in return.

“Stop fighting, kiddos, please.”

“He started it!” Roman protests but Patton just shrugs.

“And we came here without permission. Plus, we’re here to talk to Logan, not to antagonize Remus.” The prince clicks his tongue but doesn’t say any more. Remus laughs.

“Yes, listen to your Daddy, Ro-bro! Or you might get spanked later!” Logan squeezes his arm that he was still holding on to and frowns at him.

“You stop starting fights as well, Rem. I just want them to leave.”

“You know how to shut me up,” Remus grins and wiggles his eyebrows. Logan simply gives him an unimpressed stare. After a few seconds, he drops the grin and sighs. “Fine, fine. You deal with them, and I’ll go play with Bruce.” He summons his tentacles before diving into the river below. Patton gasps.

“Is he okay?!”

“He’s fine. It’s his realm so nothing he creates here will do him harm unless he wants it to,” Roman reassures, almost too quiet. Regulating his volume is going to be hard for a bit and he already looks annoyed by it. Patton nods at his reassurance before turning back to Logan.

“Where were we, kiddo?” The logical side, who had also followed Remus’ decent with his eyes, looks back up and returns to frowning.

“You were attempting to explain why you assumed I was kidnapped despite me leaving clear instructions to prove the contrary.”

“It was just very unlike you, Lo,” Virgil chimes in, still deeply buried into his hoodie. “You didn’t say anything beforehand, and we thought Deceit or the Duke might have forged the folder.”

“Exactly! And then we found my brother’s atrocious deodorant case in your trash and…” Roman trails off as he realizes what he just said.

“You… went through my trash?” Logan is now undoubtedly seething, glaring at them with cold eyes.

“Well, you see…” Roman tries to explain with a nervous laugh, scratching the back of his head. Patton looks just as likely to come up with an excuse, so Virgil speaks up again.

“I asked Princey over there to check if you were in your room or not. He took that as an invitation to go snooping.”

“Very helpful, Doom and Gloom!”

“Well, it was your fault!”

“And you didn’t have to tell him that!”

“So,” Logan interrupts, voice calm but so icy that the others shiver, “let me make sure I understood this right. You found my notes and instead of trusting me and my ability to decide for myself, your first thought was that I was some damsel in distress that needed rescuing? And in your attempt to be the heroes once again you invaded my privacy as well?!” He continually got louder and louder, clearly very much angry.

“Logan, calm down, we just-“ Patton tries to interject but Logan continues, probably not even noticing that the other had spoken.

“You trust me so little, that you cannot even consider that I make decisions for my own well-being without consulting you? After pushing me aside again and again, you concluded that I cannot take care of myself? I have listed reasons for my decision in the letter I left you. Did you even consider those? Or did you assume that I would continue to let you figuratively walk all over me?” Logan takes a few deep breaths, the others stunned into silence. Once he feels like he is back in control of himself, the logical side continues, in his normal speaking voice.

“To me it is obvious that our current co-existence is neither beneficial to Thomas nor ourselves. We continue to figuratively turn in circles and no issues are truly being resolved. We all are stressed out, which makes finding a compromise even more unlikely. I had discussions on this topic with both Janus and Remus, as well as smaller conversations with all of you, if you cared to remember. And the conclusion I reached in the end was that we needed to take a step back and reevaluate. So, in order to do that, I asked Remus to help me arrange a place to stay for a few days to give us all time to reflect. He ended up inviting me here, to his library and I decided to extend my original idea into a vacation. I assure you, this all happened through my own volition.” With his arms crossed, he stares at the others, apparently awaiting an answer. Patton was the first to find his voice.

“We’re so sorry, kiddo. To us it was just a very sudden turn of events and we panicked. We should have trusted you more.”

“I trust him!” Roman huffs. “It’s Deceit and my brother that I don’t trust!” He points a finger accusingly towards Janus, who had continued to silently watch from the side and now raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment. Roman addresses Logan directly. “You said you talked with them about your plan but how do you know that it wasn’t part of theirs all along?!”

“Their plan to do what exactly?”

“To drive us apart, obviously! Ever since that snake showed up, we keep fighting! It must be his fault; he wants us to not trust each other so that he can influence Thomas!” Roman’s rant was undermined by his inability to truly raise his voice and none of the others seem convinced. Not even Virgil. Logan sighs.

“I understand that Janus’ past action have hurt you, Roman, but you need to accept that he is not the villain you make him out to be. He is doing his best to protect Thomas, as we all do. And he is not always in the right, none of us are. As much as I hate admitting it, my plans and wishes for Thomas are not always the answer either, which is why I try to incorporate your suggestions into my planning. But since you all seem to refuse to acknowledge my contributions in the same way, Thomas ends up neglecting his responsibilities. I would not let Janus make all the decisions, but he deserves to voice his opinions as much as the rest of us.”

“But he lured you away!”

“As I’ve already said, the decision was mine alone. Janus was the one who brought the idea of a vacation up to me first, that is true, but I was the one to decide to ask Remus for help and not discuss it with you beforehand.”

“And why didn’t you?” Virgil chimes in. Logan glances at him before turning his eyes toward the sky.

“I was trying to avoid this exact conversation. I am tired of justifying myself to you all. I needed a break, somewhere you cannot easily get to. As I’m sure you have noticed on your way here, this library is exactly what I was looking for. I am frustrated, maybe even angry with you. I raised my voice against you earlier, which I did not want to do but I just cannot hold back anymore. I need this distance from you for a while. I need to sort out my” – he stops and bites his lips for a moment before continuing – “feelings and I do not have the room or time to do so properly while in the mindscape with you all. I had hoped that I would be able to explain this to you when I came back but you couldn’t wait, apparently.”

“And you expect us to trust them in the meantime?” Roman growls, again pointing towards Janus and then down towards the river where Remus disappeared to. Logan glares at him.

“No, Roman. I expect you to trust me for once. I can take care of myself, I can defend myself against your brother and I can do so better than you, as we all have seen before.” Roman goes red in the face and tries to retort, but Patton holds him back.

“Enough. Logan’s right, we’re in the wrong here.”

“But padre-!”

“No buts, mister.” A giggle is heard from down below. “We jumped to conclusions and came here without permission. Logan is allowed to make his own choices and while I’m not happy about it either, we should trust him.” He pats Roman on the shoulder before turning back to Logan. “Then I hope you have fun, and we’ll see you soon, okay?” He said it with a smile, but Logan frown deepens.

“Stop patronizing me, Patton. I am the same age as you and it’s demeaning. I do not need your permission to stay here.”

“I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry, I- “ Patton stutters, embarrassed and not able to meet Logan’s eyes. Virgil sighs.

“Let’s just get out of here. We all have a lot to think about, apparently.” Roman clicks his tongue but doesn’t argue. Patton nods and stares at the ground. “Hope you have a nice break, Lo. See ya.”

“That is the plan. Please leave now,” is all Logan says before turning away and going back to his book. Janus claps his hands together, gathering the attention of the others.

“Follow me, there is a shortcut out of here.”

“Let me guess, it only works one way?” Roman huffs, his voice still quieter than he’d like. The effect would likely only disappear once he’s out of Remus’ territory.

“Very clever, my prince,” Janus says and claps his hands again, this time in mock applause. “100 points for Gryffindor.” Roman glares at him but even he has lost the will to continue their arguments.

The group makes their way back in silence, through the jungle, down a hidden elevator off to the right of the gallery, out a side door of the building and back towards the mindscape. Patton is the only one who glances back towards Logan before he is obscured by the foliage of the jungle, but the logical side is already back on the chaise longue, drinking his still hot beverage.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Due to the sounds still being muted, Logan could clearly hear the ‘ding’ of the elevator, signaling the departure of the others. With a sigh he puts the book down that he had only pretended to read. He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes tiredly. What an ordeal this has been. After setting his glasses back in place, he takes another sip of his tea – which never cools thanks to Remus’ powers. Speaking off, wet slapping sounds reverberate through the air as the Duke makes his way over to Logan, dripping wet from his impromptu bathing session.

“So, how is Bruce?”

“Fine! He tried to bite my leg off, but he only got a few scraps of flesh!”

“Are you going to heal it or do you want me to bandage it?” Remus grins and with a snap he removes his damaged pants, at least from mid-thigh down. He knows Logan’s comfort zones and nudity wasn’t one of them. At least not yet. The logical side sighs as he summons a first aid kit. “Why am I not surprised?”

“’Cause you know I like it when you bondage me!”

“You mean ‘bandage me’, correct?”

“I know what I said.” Logan rolls his eyes and starts examining and dressing Remus’ wounds which, while bleeding, were all pretty superficial. For a few moments, he worked in silence, but as usual with Remus around, that didn’t last long.

“Felt good, right?”

“I do not know what you are referring to.”

“Pff, don’t bullshit me, Lolo. You know exactly what I mean.”

“Fine, but I do not wish to comment on whether I found it satisfactory or not.”

“You can be such a prude.”

“That may very well be, but I do not see how that relates to our topic.”

“Do you wanna talk about it or not?”

“I am… unsure.” Logan finishes dressing the last wound, cleans the kit up before vanishing it away. Then he sits next to Remus with a sigh. “I do feel a bit better, having said what needed to be said but I also feel like I was too harsh with them.” Remus hums a moment before answering.

“Nah, I think they needed to hear it, ‘specially Daddy-o. He’s been treating not only you but Virgin as well like kids and he needs to stop or you’ll never get anywhere. Breaking out of your mold is exactly what you need, and they need to accept that.” Logan nods along but doesn’t look all that convinced.

“I am aware, but it still feels” – he grimaces at the word – “weird. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“And that’s fine, Specs! You only just accepted that you have feelings, it’s gonna take a bit to figure them out. And dear Tomathy is in a weird place at the moment anyway, so it’s double confusing.”

“I am exhausted.”

“No wonder. Wanna take a nap?”

“Are you going to dry off first?”

“Ugh, fine. But only for you, Nerdy Wolverine!”

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genuineformality · 2 years

Note

E, M, & X for the ask game!

Ask Games! I love thinking about my writing and reading habits. Ask me things!

E: What character do you identify with most? Is there a certain fic of yours that captures these qualities particularly well?

I don't tend to write characters I identify with, because most of the time, they're not terribly interesting characters. Dutiful homebodies with active imaginations and pleasant work/life balance aren't the stuff of epics. (Although I realize I've just described a hobbit, so maybe they're just not the characters I want to read about.)

But let's face it, we're all here to talk about SoC, so let's turn the question around a bit; while I don't have a particular character I specifically identify with, I see at least a bit of myself in the crows:

Kaz: a smart, irascible schemer whose life is informed by trauma and arranges the world around him to get what he wants/avoid addressing his own needs. I don't love this, but of all of them, he's definitely the one I get the most.

More crows behind the cut!

Inej: a dutiful, pious daughter trying to make sense of her existence and make peace with a religion that doesn't quite fit her experience anymore.

Jesper: An impulsive boy whose brain doesn't quite work the way society thinks it ought to, and who self medicates in the best way he can.

Wylan: Privilege personified and still has been told over and over that he's not enough.

Matthias: Running head first into the discovery that the things he was taught are not accurate and struggling with his faith and world view as a result.

Nina: I love food, too. Nina is everything I am not, but I love her existence and I love seeing a fat, femme woman being unapologetically herself.

M: What’s the weirdest AU scenario you’ve ever come up with? Did it turn into a story?

I am extremely new to playing in AUs. I used to be one of those absolute assholes who would loudly proclaim the purity of my fanfiction consumption and refused to read anything that wasn't canon compliant, but I've (1) relaxed and (2) realized that some of the most astounding work I've read in any fandoms have been AUs, so I'm adjusting. (Sidebar: choosing kindness is important to me and it rankles a bit that I have not been entirely kind in this regard, so I'm trying to very conscientiously do better.)

It's still very alien for me to think about writing AUs because a lot of my interest in a property is tied to the worldbuilding. Modern Business is my first and only stab at one, which is mostly weird inasmuch as I'm attempting to write a Modern AU that goes into the economics of a modern Ketterdam while also addressing feelings. It's not something I've seen before and I'm spending a lot of time trying to meld a narrative about human trafficking and fighting against it in a modern context, in a way that makes the world still recognizably the Grishaverse, rather than vaguely European with the serial numbers filed off.

X: How would you categorize your fanfic reading? Are you a voracious reader? Do you carefully pick and choose? Something in between?

For recovering asshole reasons, I've previously been *very* choosy, but I'm trying to give fics I wouldn't have previously looked at a chance. I'm not reading a ton right now because I have limited time in my day to spend on hobbies, and I'm writing a lot more than I'm reading. I'm also trying to be very conscientious about leaving comments and have not been reading when I know I'm not going to have the bandwidth to engage meaningfully with the text, so my TBR pile is getting, uh, precarious.

#ask games #fanfic #about the author

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decalinethespacecat · 3 years

Text

The Games that We Play-Ch.1

A simple exploration.

That's all this mission was supposed to entail.

Well, in a sense, perhaps they had accomplished such. Stranded on a new, foreign world, brimming with energy, and teeming with organic life. And with that, it was the very life that they had been forced to alter themselves to, the very lifeblood that dwelt on this strange sphere in too great an excess, and thus, should they not adhere to the laws set by this new world, it could mean the loss of their functionality, or even more, their own sparks. Of course, ironically enough, it hadn't just been themselves that had to follow this code: the very ones that had caused their stranding here had also been subject to it. And even more, one amongst their former pursuers had, albeit forcibly at first, integrated amongst their numbers. Now, as the two parties faced each other atop this mountain, five against five, the playing field had been leveled.

The two heads of the opposing sides made direct eye contact with each other, the differences between them evident in far more than just their conflicting ideals and ambitions. On one side stood the stalwart, strong form of a darkly furred primate, leaning on his knuckles as the species he had scanned were inclined to do. His eyes were dark, yet soulful, and in the minds of some of his fellow explorers, dare they say, they appeared almost akin to the small creatures that had aided and catered to their ancestors. On the other was, for all intents and purposes, a complete antithesis of everything the primate was. He bore the outer flesh of a large theropod coated in a sheen of violet with a series of green ridges trailing along his back, ending at the base of his tail. Rows of sharpened, ivory teeth lined the inside of his powerful jaws, small, yet menacing red eyes full of intent glowering back at the primate opposite of him.

"Across the galaxy," the ancient reptile spoke, voice low and smooth. "It has come to this, Optimus Primal." The primate stood his ground, along with the other four organically based Cybertronians with him. "Face to face," a smile crept onto the theropod's features. "Tooth to claw...yesss." Oh yes indeed, he had been clamoring for this very moment! "Have you anything to say?"

The primate's face grew stern. True, he had not set out on this expedition with the intent to seek combat. Yet ultimately, Primus, it seemed, held other plans for them. "I'd say, that's prime." he simply stated before bearing his elongated canines. "Let's do it!"

...

"YEAHHHH!" a chorus of young voices cried out, five to be exact, as they charged in unison at a collection of five pieces of notebook paper held up by a used popsicle stick glued onto the back, each of them stuck into the ground so they would stay in place. The owners of the voices came forward and did 'battle' with the pieces of cut-out paper, lightly striking and flicking the fragile, crudely drawn depictions of their current 'adversaries'.

This was the third time they needed to be redrawn, and frankly, no one was wanting to have to do all five Predacons all over again. Especially if one of them was a young adolescent with questionable drawing skills. If anything, at least they LOOKED like how they were supposed to this time. Sort of.

One amongst the five, a boy with tannish skin and a darkly colored buzz cut, grabbed the cutout of Megatron (at least, it was supposed to be Megatron) and purposefully fell to the ground, bringing the piece of colored paper on a stick close to his face, raising one hand to keep it back, as if it weighed a good deal of weight.

...

The jaws were close. So insultingly close. Just a few centimeters more, and that slagging ape's head would be firmly in his jaws! "Admit defeat, Maximal!" Megatron bellowed, Primal not wavering, yet it was evident that he was struggling against the Tyrannosaurus' massive head. "The Energon shall be ours!"

The silverback needed to act fast. He held no intention of obeying the violet Predacon's demand, yet he needed some leeway. He needed to at least get the larger beast off of him! "Not if I can help it!"

...

"Yah!" the tan boy hollered, behaving as if he had just flung a two-ton boulder off of him, yet the paper cutout landed in the grass with little more than a soft crinkle. "Surrender, Megatron!" he proclaimed, his voice far from the authoritative, triumphant Maximal he was imitating. "You're scrapped!"

'Megatron didn't retort back, the boy realizing then what kind of corner he had just put himself in.

"Uh, guys?" he called out, the other four children ceasing their 'battle' against their respective Predacons and turning towards him. "Who's not fighting at this part?"

One boy amongst them, African and with a top of short, black curls, turned to him. "They all are!" he answered back.

"Yeah, but who's being shown fighting?"

"Uh…" the other boy paused, thinking for a moment. "I think it's just Optimus and Megatron."

"Ok." the tan boy went over to pick up the Megatron cutout, his dark eyes taking notice of a nearby tree. "You mind? I can't really chase myself."

...

The impact was immediate, and even if it had been mere seconds, the shock that came with the splintering rock formation behind them both clearly affected Primal more than his adversary.

A fact that they wasted no time in taking advantage of.

With one swift, precise bite, Megatron put the jaws of the mighty beast he had donned as his alternate form to proper use, the premaxillary teeth that once belonged to the likes of the extinct predator tore through the alpha primate's thigh, right above the joint. Primal released an involuntary wail of agony, the sharpened instruments having torn through his alt mode's synthetic flesh and down to the fragile circuitry and wiring underneath. Not feeling satisfied with just one sample of the Maximal's mech fluid lightly bathing his tongue, Megatron bit yet again, only this time, Primal seemed to have better prepared for it. He was still in a great deal of pain, yes, yet now he could better channel it, using the horrid sensations and transferring it into an unquenchable need to fight back, beginning with delivering a hardened chop with both hands to the top of Megatron's scaly dome.

This blow had put the behemoth reptile in the same position Optimus had been mere seconds prior. And due to the blow he had delivered, it took the Tyrannosaurus a moment to realize that, surprisingly enough, the foolish ape had somehow found it in him to up and began swinging him around by the tail! As soon as the world had begun spinning for him, it stopped, only to then realize he was flying right into the ceiling of the mountainous structure, crashing down with a resounding thud that shook the entire landscape.

"Gah!" Optimus cried out, hissing as he analyzed the injury done to his leg. True, he had managed to stand to deliver that rather 'creative' maneuver against his aggressor, yet it now dawned on him that there was no way he could walk with a tear like this. And internalized repairs wouldn't be able to undo damage such as this. As if to add insult to injury (literally in a sense), the reptile had somehow managed to get up. "It…" Optimus stammered, forcing himself to rise. "It's over, Megatron!"

"It is NEVER over! Nooo!" He could scarcely believe it at first, yet given how the brute's forces traveled all this way to engage them, perhaps anything was possible. After all, what other Cybertronian before them had been forced to adopt a secondary skin of organic flesh? Despite the painful surges the multiple Energon crystals sent through his true form, Megatron did not waver, aiming and sending a missile right in the direction of the wounded Primal. "For if I must die...I shall take you with me!"

There was no way he could avoid this. Its proximity was too close. The urge to flee was great, yet Primal stood firm. He would stand tall and accept this. He had begun to shut his eyes, awaiting the inevitable. 'Till all are one…'

Yet one, he was not yet to be.

The missile had never come to meet him.

...

"Wait, you want me to do what?" one amongst the group questioned with a quirked brow, this time the child, despite the role, a young girl with skin slightly darker than the boy roleplaying as Primal, her thick, black hair tied back in a low ponytail. In her hands was a wooden sword, one that she had made sure to bring each and every time she met with the others. Yet now, the African boy was asking her to do something a little...odd with it.

"Well, in the episode, Dinobot blocks it with his tail."

"So, what? You want me to put this on my butt?"

"Uh...well, it'd be accurate."

It sounded absurd, not to mention difficult to pull off. Sure, she didn't really know how to properly use the sword, yet at least she could make use of it as something of an improv baseball bat. But nooooo, when she batted the "missile" away like that, they had to stop so that they could do it 'the right way'.

"Fine." she moaned, rolling her eyes and tossing the crumpled piece of paper (Waspinator got stepped on, AGAIN) in the African boy's direction. "Throw it again."

...

The one that had once been under Megatron's command, the one that had blocked their way and saw fit to end his life on the stone bridge, allowing the Predacons to catch up with them, had just been the one to strike the incoming projectile with his striped, reptilian tail, sending it off course and away from them both.

The former Predacon and his would-be usurper had just miraculously saved him from certain death.

This revelation was given no time to truly be dwelt on at the present, for the missile had found itself a new target, the explosion sending a chain reaction that soon caused the entire mountain to shake.

"It's going to blow!" a brown rhinoceros bellowed, the once battling Predacons quickly realizing the danger they were all in and making a hasty retreat, leaving their downed leader behind.

"Time to fade, heroes!" one amongst the Maximals shouted, a green-eyed cheetah, he making himself scarce along with Primal and the rhino, a large, grey rat also atop of the horned creature's back, a velociraptor racing alongside with them off of the mountain. None dare to look back, lest they waste precious seconds before the entire formation exploded.

Thankfully, they thought as they now found themselves a good distance away, all of them had managed to make it out of that close call in one piece. All four...no, all five of them.

Optimus turned his gaze towards the newest member of their group, his pale eyes gazing back into the silverback's own. "Thanks." he simply stated, the ancient reptile somewhat taken aback by this gesture.

"My actions did not imply loyalty, Optimus." the striped theropod clarified, momentarily averting his gaze, his voice low and raspy, yet strangely enough, sincere. "I owe you my life." He admitted the act, even if he dare not openly say it, was rather humbling. "Now we are merely...even."

The silverback took no offense to this. In fact, to the raptor's befuddlement, he simply presented him with a satisfied grin. "I'll accept that."

"Yeah, well, uh.." The rat, having long gotten off the rhino's back, wasn't exactly ready to allow this saurian into their ranks, no matter what Optimus declared. Orders or not, he'd make his opinion on "Chopperface", or rather, "Choppahface", known for a long while. Still, there was a burning question on his mind. "At least Megatron's gone, and so is the Energon!" he declared, voice rising in hope. "Can we go home now?"

It was too good to be true. The shaking of his leader's head cemented this fact. "No, Rattrap." the gorilla solemnly stated. "For now, we're stranded here with the Predacons on this unknown planet." the situation sunk in for all of them now, truly. "Megatron may be back, and there is still more Energon. If they ever get enough, they could conquer the galaxy." he could see the trepidation etched into their features. Indeed, he would be a liar if he said he did not share in their collective concern. Still...there was no other way. Their opposition had to be stopped. And whether it be here, Earth, or even Cybertron, his conviction would have remained the same. "So for now," he began, looking towards the endless, blue horizon above. "Let the battle be here, on this strange, primitive world. And let it be called," he shouted, extending his fist towards the skies. "The Beast Wars!"

...

"YEAH!" The five shouted in chorus, full of nothing short of absolute triumph and exhilaration, the sight of the untamed, unconquered canyon and mountainous landscape the Maximals stood upon at the forefront of their mind's eye.

Of course, after a few moments of this, said landscape steadily began to fade, the mowed, fertile, green lawn of the African boy's yard coming to consume the place stationed in their imaginations.

"Uh, ok." a voice amongst them spoke, said voice belonging to another girl in the group, though contrary to the other young lady with them, she bore lighter skin and a head of long, red locks. "So...do we go over the toy fund now or later?"

"I think we've got a more immediate problem than that." the African boy said, picking up the crumpled-up piece of paper. "Somebody's got to redraw Waspinator. Again."

The skies had darkened, the sun just beginning to set. Yet in the small, packed enclosure of the cubical-shaped treehouse, none of the five children paid any mind, a serious and passionate debate taking place amongst them.

"No way! I did it last week! It's Tim's turn!" a blonde boy with scruffy hair protested, crossing his arms.

"Last time I checked," the African boy clarified, gesturing an accusing finger back at the blonde. "You only did it last week because you skipped out on the last time it was your turn."

"Hey, I was sick that week!" he protested.

"Yeah, that was boring." The black-haired girl admitted. "I was tired of acting out that episode where Cheetor got kidnapped by Tarantulas."

"You got tired?" another girl questioned, she of lighter skin and a head of fiery red hair, even if her voice was meek and smooth. "I had to make sure the cutout we made didn't get too messed up."

"At least Rattrap got to do stuff in that episode!' the other girl retorted, looking to her wooden sword. "Dinobot was barely in that one!"

"And we can only do so many with just five of us!" the blonde added in. "Soon, it's going to get to where we're going to have to start making up our own episodes!"

"Ok, look!" the tan boy interjected, the other four quieting down. "We're getting off track. The point is that Waspinator got messed up, again, and somebody's got to make another cutout-"

"Again." the other children finished for him, he somewhat startled by how quickly they picked up on what he was about to say.

"Right, so one of us is going to have to do it. But we've got to find out who's turn it is to make a new one-"

"Timothy Leblanc!" each and every one of the five adolescents jumped at the voice piercing through their private space up in the crudely constructed, yet still standing treehouse. And whilst the feminine, rather irritable voice called out for just one of them, each didn't need to ask what this also meant for them. "It's thirty minutes past five now, and you're STILL up there?! Your father's going to get here in less than five, and your dinner's had to be heated up twice already!"

The African boy winced, looking at his friends with a rather sheepish expression. "I've got to probably get going too." the red-haired girl confessed.

"Me too." the blonde added. "Mom's going to kill me if I don't do the dishwasher before the day's done."

"And my mom wants me to help her with the...the…" the black-haired girl paused. "I think she called it a…bistek tagalog?"

"A what?" Tim questioned.

"Your mom always makes the weirdest stuff." the blonde added.

"Whatever it is, she wants me to help mix the sauce and put the onions in."

"So, who's going to redraw…" the tan boy began, only to find that all eyes were on him.

A few hours later

"Thanks a lot!"

"Yeah, totally!"

"You're always so thoughtful!"

"Yeah, the best!"

Even now, he was STILL seething mad at all of them.

True, there really wasn't a rush, and he could probably get it done during study hall tomorrow, but still, once again, he had been sacked with the task of redrawing Predacons (correction: one particular Predacon) AGAIN, when the rest of them knew well and good that it was someone else's turn! Still, in a way, he sort of knew why he got this particular task the most, mainly because he was the only one that could actually make them LOOK sort of accurate. As accurate as a fourth grader that had a decent enough grade in Art could get.

'Yeah, well, let's see them when we act out 'Starscream's Ghost'!' the boy thought, scribbling a green crayon in the thick pencil lines that made up Waspinator's outline. 'I'll be Waspinator on that one! And...oh wait, no.' he just remembered. 'We don't have anyone that can be Tigetron or Airazor.' let alone did they have anyone that could've filled in the role of Blackarachnia or Inferno.

'And we can only do so many with just five of us!' the blonde boy's words echoed in his mind.. 'Soon, it's going to get where we're going to have to start making up our own episodes!'

"Inuksuk!" a man's voice said from the other side of the door, the young boy ceasing his doodling. "Don't tell me you're still up!" the child inwardly groaned at hearing his full name. Culture and heritage aside, he still hated it. "Have you even brushed your teeth yet, young man?"

Brushed...oh shoot!

The older, far taller adult standing outside of the boy's room was knocked back by the door, quite literally, slamming in his face, a small figure rushing out and into the bathroom. "Well, at least you know to stand out of the way next time." a woman shouted at the bottom of the stairs.

"Y-Yeah...guess so…"

Bathroom

Not so much brushing as he was grinding the bristles in and around his teeth, yet from what he could see in the mirror, his mouth was foamy enough for it to count! Speaking of which, he took a moment to eject said foam from his mouth and into the sink, washing it down and getting out the dental floss, tearing off just enough (just as mom showed him) and tying the ends around his fingers (just as mom showed him, though he struggled more with that particular step). Inuksuk looked good and hard in the mirror at his still growing teeth, a couple of empty spaces from recently pulled ones serving as areas he needed to keep extra clean, this particular tip from his father (of whom he just realized he might've just slammed in the face with a door).

He'd have to apologize when he got out. Assuming he hit him hard.

Still, as the young boy garbed in a simple, grey t-shirt and worn down, dark grey sweatpants navigated the floss through his available teeth, he found one thought running through his mind on repeat as he went on with his (very belated) nightly routine.

"Soon, it's going to get where we're going to have to start making up our own episodes!"

...

"...making up our own episodes!"

Making up their own episodes...hmm.

Perhaps the better term for it would've been 'making up our own stories, as really, how were a bunch of kids going to get ahold of anything better than a handheld camera, let alone, by some miracle, contact Mainframe with a stack of papers detailing these new exploits and adventures of the Maximals?

Still, Tim thought, as he spit out the strong tasting, even stronger stinging Listerine, it could work.

Yeah, they'd have to go through the process of deciding on a plot, a script, who'd be the 'star', all things that, frankly, he would've been more than content to leave for the fine folks who were in charge of the show to decide. But, seeing as it was evident that they'd probably be playing out these reenactments with just five, Timothy couldn't help but entertain the potential Mathis' proposal brought with it. What if, just if, they did go through with it...what could they do? Or perhaps the better question was, what COULDN'T they do?

Oh man, oh geez, oh gosh, oh man! He had just meant it as a way so that they wouldn't have to act out the same stuff over and over again! But thinking about it now...oh geez, he was near slapping himself for not suggesting it earlier!

...

"Mathis, bed!"

"Ok, mom! Just a minute!"

The blonde boy heard the door to his room open, a hand setting itself on his shoulder.

"It's been ten." a low, feminine voice told him. "And unless you want to go through the ritual of me setting the radio on at max volume for you in the morning...and also, did you even brush, let alone take your pills yet-"

"Ok, fine." Mathis groaned, getting up from the dining room table and to the foot of the stairs.

"Clean up first."

He turned back to face his mother, she bearing his blonde locks, yet not his chocolate brown eyes. "But didn't you just say-"

"It's going to take you five minutes to get all these crayons and pencils up." she answered, a small, curt grin coming to her lips. Once again, she foiled him. As the young boy went back over to the table and began putting the art supplies back in their proper boxes, correctly, as she was watching him, the woman couldn't help but notice what her child had been drawing. "Who's that?" she asked, picking up the piece of lined paper. "One of the characters from that show you and your friends watch? Um…" she tapped her finger on her chin, trying to recall whom exactly her son fawned over. "Cheetara or something?"

"That's Thundercats, mom." Mathis moaned. "It's Cheetor from Beast Wars." well, technically, that wasn't what it was called over here, yet he and his friends were in mutual agreement that 'Beasties' sounded ridiculous, not to mention stupid. Besides, Optimus outright even said that the fight they were in was called the flipping 'Beast Wars'!

"Ah, right. He's the...leopard, right?" This earned the woman another groan. "Kidding, kidding." She scanned the crude markings meant to resemble the computer-generated robot cat (at least she thought that was what he was, she only saw the show in brief intervals), and found a strange, new figure beside him. "Who's this?" she questioned her child, gesturing to the right of (what was supposed to be) Cheetor.

"Oh, that's…" Mathis began to answer, stopping before he could finish. "Well...I don't really know what his name is, but he's somebody I made up."

"Ah, like it's supposed to be you in the show?"

"No, it's not me. It's someone I made up." the boy affirmed. "He's a Saber-toothed Tiger."

(AN-I know it's more accurate to call it a Saber-toothed cat or Smilodon, but being a kid in the 90s, and in general, a kid, everyone I knew, both other kids and adults around me, just called it a Saber-toothed Tiger.)

"Oh, ok. That explains the teeth." his mother nodded.

"Yeah," Mathis confirmed. "There's only five of us, so we only have so many episodes we can act out as the Maximals. So I got to thinking we could maybe make up our own episodes."

"And in turn, make up your own characters?"

"...yeah. Yeah, I guess so."

"Yeah, well," the woman ruffled the younger boy's hair. "You have all the time in the world to do that tomorrow and on the weekend. Right now, everyone, even Saber-toothed Tigers, need to get up into bed. And they definitely need to keep their teeth clean"

"Before they have pills in some ice cream?"

She smiled, going over to the freezer. "I guess that can be arranged. Though, I'm not sure how you could eat anything with chompers like that."

...

'Making up our own episodes…' she wondered, as she climbed on into bed, her long, red locks contrasting greatly with the ivory fabric of her pillow and pale pink of her sheets, as well as a majority of her room, of which followed in a similar color scheme. 'How are we going to do that when we can't even save up enough to get some actual toys?'

Indeed, before the whole discussion involving who was going to be tasked with re-drawing Waspinator, she had collected what everyone had to offer that week to the 'toy-fund'. Inu (of which she and the rest had called Inuksuk, seeing as his name was somewhat difficult to pronounce) was the only one to have actually brought a full dollar along with herself. Everyone else ranged from fifty to no more than five cents.

'Five cents?!' she remembered losing her cool at that. 'Really, Mathis?!'

'Hey, it was hot out!' he in turn retorted to her. 'And Dr. Pepper was RIGHT there in the machine!'

She was still more than a little peeved about it, but ultimately, there was little that could be done now. 'We've gotten up to twenty-five, but if each toy costs around ten dollars, each separate toy, then…' her hand traveled to her forehead, realizing in horror what this meant. 'We're going to have to get around fifty dollars total! And that's not even with tax!' she flopped onto her bed, her red hair fanning out underneath her. 'We're going to be stuck using paper cutouts for the Predacons forever!'

This pessimistic musing, however, was cut off by the cracking of her door, her blue eyes watching as a large, furred, quadrupedal creature squeezed through the opening it had created and made its way to her bedside, sitting on the small, white floor mat stationed beside it.

"Hey, Zoe." The young girl greeted the massive Main Coon, this vocal utterance being all the greyish-brown feline needed to act, hopping on her bed and planting herself at the footboard, curling up and tucking her head under her tail. She folded her hands underneath her head, still more than a little perturbed that it'd be even longer before she and her friends would reach the desired goal of however many dollars before all the Predacons could be purchased. Assuming they would even be able to find any at a Wal-Mart or Toys R' Us. "If anything," she spoke aloud to herself, Mathis' words coming back to her. "Making up our own episodes would probably mean that we'd have to do even MORE work. Because then, we're going to start making up our own Maximals and Predacons!"

...

'Which would be so cool!' The Filipino, black-haired adolescent mentally declared, having been warned already to not be too loud, and that she had school to look forward to in the morning. 'Looking forward to school...yeah, dad, that was a REAL good one.'

'It'll be even better if you get in those eight hours. Now haul yourself up to bed.'

Frankly, she wasn't sure she'd be getting any sleep tonight. Not with this running through her head.

'Like...like there are already characters that are toys that aren't in the show yet! Like Claw Jaw, or Armordillo, Wolfang, and…' as she continued on, listing each and every Maximal and Predacon she had seen on the shelves (Dinobot WOULD be hers! Eventually.), her brown eyes surveyed her environment before she got out of bed and locked the door to her room, then went back to her bed and cut on the lamp stationed on her dresser. She then opened the single drawer on the small, wooden dresser, an even smaller, black notebook, and a single, number-two pencil residing in the compact space, the label 'Lulu' stuck on the cover via a small piece of paper and tape.

'Ok,' she mused to herself, grabbing the two objects and flipping open to a page with just enough room. Then, she began writing. 'Now...there was Claw Jaw, Armordillo, Wolfang…'

...

'...some guy that's a German Shepard...don't know how that happened.' indeed, he didn't, but lo and behold, it WAS indeed a toy. Inu rolled around on his left side. 'Maybe we could start with something a little more simple. Like...like after they left the mountain, they got the ship up and running better.' Despite his eyes being closed, scenarios and 'what ifs' began playing out in his mind. Yeah, that could work. Lulu could maybe play out how Dinobot settled in...and Mikaela could come up with some stuff to throw at her as Rattrap does in the show. Granted, that in itself might've been a little difficult. The Filipino girl could play out her role well enough without much assistance, yet the redhead kind of needed some 'coaching' on how to be snarky. Bizarrely enough, she could channel the rodent-based Maximal quite well whenever the subject of the 'toy fund' was brought up.

Inu continued to ponder and think, drowsiness steadily beginning to creep in, the faces and forms of his small circle of friends steadily transforming into the characters they portrayed in their reenactments.

'Hey.'

Yet...as he drifted off, the smallest bit of his mind that was still conscious noticed that despite the boy himself playing the role, the transformed silverback in his mind seemed to be paying attention to something or someone ahead of him. Something or someone that clearly wasn't present there before, yet he behaved as if they had been there all along.

'Thanks for the help back there.' Inu took a moment. This had to be a dream, yet...he certainly wasn't complaining. 'If it wasn't for you clearing out that path for us, we probably wouldn't have gotten off that mountain at all.'

"Oh, uh, no problem, sir." the young child answered, standing to attention like a soldier, salute and everything. He was far from a Maximal in this developing vision, let alone anything that could've ever had the potential to supposedly clear out a path, yet such details were trivial and minute to him. This was getting good, and he wasn't about to risk spoiling it.

"Despite your size, I'd be more than willing to allow you into our, heh," Primal chuckled, looking at the variety of fauna around him that were his comrades. "Ranks. Besides," he continued, extending one large, darkly colored hand. "I've always been curious about humanity and their culture."

...

Normally he'd totally be against this.

"Ah, here are some nice ones."

Here he was, some kid, in a time where people didn't exist yet, riding upon a talking rhinoceros as if it were the most mundane, normal thing in the world!

"Tim, you mind getting a few samples of these also?"

And even more...he didn't have a single problem with it.

"Sure thing. Just a second.'' The boy addressed both his transportation and 'favorite', hopping down from the Maximal's back and to the fertile, grassy plain below, said plain coincidently teeming with flowering specimens of all kinds. Some of these he had never seen before in his life, let alone in the pages of any book he could potentially check out from the school's library. Thus, he wanted to get the best one. The most fascinating and intriguing, not to mention definitely alien specimen…"Aha!" he cried out, wasting no time in plucking the desired flora from its place and bringing it to the brown rhinoceros. "Here.'' He presented his 'present', a strange, budding thing with fanned-out petals of primary colors.

"Now THAT'S one I might have to keep for myself," Rhinox admitted, the human boy in turn put the flower in a glass compartment he (somehow) had on his person. Dream logic, but he wasn't willing to spoil this. "Truly though, Timothy, sometimes I feel like you, aside from Optimus, are the only ones that can understand and appreciate the majesty of this place."

It was then that the child swore his heart had stopped. True, it probably hadn't, as he certainly didn't feel like he was dying in his sleep, yet to hear those words from the disguised robot, his 'favorite'...well, he was quite ready to go and pick every single thing that was growing in this imaginary field, should the rhino wish it.

...

His two legs carried him forward, the grassy plain and clear, summer sky nothing short of a picturesque perfect day. The slim spotted big cat with vibrant, green eyes that ran beside him was far from allowing the blonde boy to catch up. Far from it.

"Awesome!"

Impossible as it was, Mathis was actually catching up with HIM.

"You're almost as fast as I am!"

"Wait, almost?!"

"Yeah, almost!" With that, Cheetor gave himself a little bit of a boost, propelling forward and leaving the blonde a short distance behind.

Oh, it was on now.

The boy wasn't even getting tired. His legs were burning, his entire body drunk on adrenaline and whatever other chemical that flowed through his body (he'd have to remember to copy the notes off of Tim for Science class again), but by God, he was in absolute nirvana.

"Whoa, you actually caught up?!" the younger Maximal exclaimed to the human child, more than a little surprised at this.

"Y-Yeah!" Mathis shouted back. "Yeah, guess I did!" who cared about being a Sabertooth Tiger or whatever other animal, he was killing it just being an ordinary, boring….well, kid!

...

"..."

"...ok, look kid, you gonna stare all day?"

The red-haired girl giggled at the grey rat's annoyance. Even if she was the current source of such, she found she didn't particularly mind it. "I guess I just never realized how…"

Rattrap quirked a brow, taking another bite of the rotted blue apple (another indication this was no more than a dream. Not the giant, talking rat, oh no). "How what? You said it now, you can't leave me hanging."

Her teal eyes shifted. "I don't think you'll like it."

"I reiterate my prior statement."

"Fine," she said. In truth, she was somewhat anxious about how he'd react, yet all the same, a part of her hoped it'd be something he'd react to. "I never realized how fuzzy you are."

Any contents that once rested inside his mouth were promptly spat out. "Wh-WHAT?!" he exclaimed, scarcely believing what he had just heard. "What'd ya just say?!"

"I said you were fuzzy!" she repeated, a part of her somewhat fearful she offended him, yet another just as excited. "Right now! Your fur's getting all ruffled up!"

"It-it is not!" it clearly was. Robotic at spark he might've been, his outer skin was still a slave to its species' "quirks".

"Yes it is!" she chortled, fear finally gone and replaced with total amusement.

"It is not, kid!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Yes, it is!"

"No, it ain't!"

The vocal back and forth continued on and on, his growing frustration and embarrassment seemingly only channeling more and more humor for the human child, she then actually having the gall to come over and stroke him. Actually stroke him, as if he were some pet she had owned! Even worse, as he came to see as she continued to do it over and over, her hand traveling through his grey fur, Rattrap didn't entirely seem to mind. Daresay, it actually felt kind of...nice.

"Still don't know which of yous is worse. You or Choppahface."

"...you're still fuzzy."

"...it's you."

...

Block.

Thrust.

Block.

Swing.

Block.

Upward swing.

How she had managed to conjure up this particular kata in such a small amount of time, mattered not to her.

"Come now!" all that mattered was whom she was doing it for. "You're surely more capable than that!" Twisting herself around, the Filipino girl lifted her wooden sword and brought it down on the winding blade of Cybertronian origin, the wood miraculously not splintering upon impact. The azure features of her idol transformed into something of a curt grin of amusement. "You really believe you have a chance against me?"

"M-Maybe?" she answered. How she was doing this, she didn't know, yet frankly, she didn't care. And now she just up and made herself look like an idiot in front of him. Great.

Their weapons continue to strike and hit against each other, Dinobot outranking her in strength and size, yet she found that her smaller frame led to her gaining some clear advantages. Ducking under his legs, she aimed to stab upwards, he, in turn, whirling around and leaping forward, away from her strike. She got up, ready to go at it again, yet on the transformed Maximal's azure features, she beheld something that, had she not been so determined to keep her composure in front of him, she could've died happy right then and there in her sleep.

A smile.

A smile that echoed nothing short of absolute pride. Pride for her, of her, of one that had called him her favorite.

"You're far from ready to be partaking in any battle." the transformed velociraptor told her. "Yet...I will say this: there is a degree of potential in you."

...

Despite the distance between each of them, some greater than others, the same consensus was shared among all of them that night. And for many more nights to come. If their fantasies could either become their reality or better yet, have the ones they fantasized of step into the one they were unfortunately stuck in, then their young barely lived lives would be nothing short of absolutely perfect.

Primal's best soldier.

Rhinox's number one assistant.

Cheetor's best friend.

Rattrap's favorite (though he'd never say it).

Dinobot's best student.

The ideal scenario, should it ever be granted to them.

Though even in their young minds, they all knew such things, and their idols were regulated to the television and their own minds. True, it far from curbed or starved the desire to wish and hope for it, yet ultimately, it would be for naught.

For now, they had to make do with what they had at their disposal, regulated and limited to the simple, partially fulfilling games that they played.

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angelatmidnight1 · 3 years

Note

hey there, if you're taking prompts, you could write something with rampart? thnx!

Hi, I’m so sorry this story is late! I was writing this while I was teaching so I didn’t have a chance to finish it like I wanted to. Thanks so much @caatnip for helping me out of my writer’s block! I couldn’t have finished this story without you. This story is a bit longer than my other ones but I figured it was okay since I’m making up for lost time ^^;. I really hope you like it!

Quit Bustin’ My Chops!

Rampart is one of the newest Legends to join the Apex Games and finds herself on the same team as the handsomest bachelor around: Elliot ‘Mirage’ Witt. The trickster takes it upon himself to show the new recruit the ropes, seeing as he is the best Legend to participate in the games, after all. Ramya not only takes his advice right to the scrap heap, but flirts with him at every chance she gets, effectively throwing off his game. Mirage is a natural flirt himself and can knock most women off their feet, but isn’t used to getting the same treatment back so readily. Putting the trickster in a tizzy only adds fuel to the fire; Rampart is the new self-proclaimed Apex Legend in the games and rubs it in Elliot’s face. Being the Kill Leader and the Apex Champion is the icing on the cake. Elliot may have lost the limelight in that match, but there’s one arena where is an unrivaled Champion: making people laugh.

“Okay, so this is a supply bin. These have all sorts of goodies in them that’ll help keep you alive. Maybe you need some bullets, or one of those sweet, sweet Phoenix kits. Or maybe–”

“Pipe down, Suzy. I get it. We’ve only run into ten other ones just like it on our way over here! I’m sprouting grey hairs here, Witt. I’m itchin’ for a fight, not a scavenger hunt.” Rampart whined to her teammate, Mirage, who led her over to the eleventh supply bin as they scrounged through The Epicenter. Mirage tutted softly as he rapped his fist against the bin to open it.

“Not so fast, rookie. I can’t have you run into your first fight empty handed. That’d make me a terrible teacher!” The trickster chuckled, hooking his arm around the modder’s shoulders to bring her over to the supplies. Ramya pursed her lips and shrugged Elliot’s arm off her shoulders.

“It can’t be that hard, mate. I mean, you’re here, after all.” The modder snickered, her snickers turning into full blown laughter when he gaped at her.

“Hey!” Mirage pouted, which only made Rampart laugh some more. “I am a professional in the Apex Games. In fact, I’m the best Legend you could be on a team with! Cause, ya know, I’m just perfect.” The trickster retorted with a smirk, taking the time to strike a pose with his wingman in hand. “I mean this hair, this face...these guns?” Mirage flexed his muscles and chuckled. “I mean, come on, you see it. Anyways, back to business.”

Mirage turned to the open supply bin and gestured to its contents. “So you have an R-99, right? This supply bin has an extended heavy mag, an extenEEEE—”

Mirage suddenly felt two hands squeeze his sides, making him jerk forward. He lurched away from the hands and spun around to face a grinning Rampart. “What was that for?”

“I’m getting antsy, Witt. All this talk without shooting any plonkers can really cramp up the hands,” Ramya answered slyly as she reached for his sides again. “I guess I’m lucky to have such a handsome lad nearby to squeeze~.”

Mirage sputtered and choked back a laugh, batting her hands away. “Hey, hey, easy! At least take me to dinner first.” He replied jokingly with the beginnings of a blush appearing on his cheeks. The trickster turned around to try and hide it but, before he could complete the turn, Rampart slid closer to him and smirked.

“Aww, did I make you blush, Witt? Your widdle cheeks are going so wed!” Ramya cooed, reaching up to pinch his cheek. Elliot swatted her hands away for the second time before he fully turned around.

“Nope! Nuh uh. Not me. Like I said, I’m incredibly good l-looking.” Mirage answered quickly with a very obvious voice crack. He mentally cursed himself; the trickster was a natural flirt and could knock most women off their feet with ease. But, he wasn’t used to receiving the same treatment. Especially not from a new Legend! The blush on Elliot’s face reached his ears as Rampart leaned against him with an amused smirk.

“Anyways, like I was saying...” Elliot continued, “You have an extended light mag, an extended heavy mag, and a shotgun bolt. Which attachment should you grab? I’ll give you a hint, since I’m such a nice guy. You want the one that goes with a light weapon.” Elliot smiled and looked at the modder expectantly. Ramya shot the trickster a look and slowly, begrudgingly, snatched the extended light mag from the bin. The trickster cheered rather loudly and gave her a gentle, friendly punch on the arm.

“I knew you could do it. You’re gonna be the next Apex predanor–predtator…ehm, predator in no time. All thanks to me, of course.” Mirage grinned, causing the modder to roll her eyes.

“Ooo, an Apex predator, you say? Well, I guess there’s only one way for me to do that, isn’t there?” Rampart countered wryly, returning the grin when the trickster raised an eyebrow. The modder reloaded her weapon and holstered it; there was only one gun she would ever need in the Apex Games. In one smooth motion, Rampart turned on her heel and scurried towards the distant sound of gunshots and grenades. “By shooting some bloody plonkers! I’m gonna go pick a fight. When you’re done yammering on about attachments, you should join me. I won’t get mad if you watch my back, though.” She called back to him, her grin widening as she gave him a little hip wiggle before finally leaving. Mirage sputtered and hurried after her. How could she move that fast with that mini gun on her back, anyway?

“By yourself? Hold up. You don’t even know where you’re going! You just got here…” Mirage yelled back to her, mumbling the last phrase to himself as he followed her to the fight.

Gunfire roared across the battlefield as the duo approached Fragment West. There were two squads fighting in the middle of the city: Bangalore and Bloodhound, and Revenant and Pathfinder. Pathfinder managed to down the hunter with an accurate Longbow shot, and the simulacrum was rushing in to attack the soldier. Bangalore popped some smoke to provide some cover to revive her teammate, but was also trying to actively listen for the approaching enemy. It was the perfect amount of chaos for Rampart and Mirage to join the fray. The modder skipped to a location not too far from where the two robots were set up. She quickly set up her amped cover before deploying Sheila, sighing happily.

“Oh, Sheila. They’ve never seen a girl like you.” The modder purred before hopping onto the seat and revving up the gun. “Yo Witt, got a fool OT. Doesn’t look too scary, so you can come out of hiding.” Ramya snickered, looking over her shoulder to see Mirage finally bringing up the rear. The trickster panted and shook his immaculate locks out of his face so that he had a clearer view of the enemy.

“Nothing scares me, Rampart! Now, remember what your super awesome teacher showed you. You point your gun like this, you aim for the–” Mirage was cut off by Sheila coming to life as bullets rapidly fired from the minigun.

“Ya see that? Haha! Just hit an enemy. Guess I’m a fast learner, eh?" Ramya laughed as she shot at Pathfinder. The modder’s shots connected with the robot’s back and by the time he took cover, he lost the majority of his shields.

“More friends are coming to kill us. There’s another squad!” The robot called to the simulacrum, holstering his weapon so that he could use a shield battery. Revenant was just about to put his totem down so that he could attack Bangalore and Bloodhound, so he wasn’t thrilled about the sudden interruption. He growled and reluctantly rushed back over to his teammate, having to duck behind cover when Mirage also started shooting at him. Revenant placed his totem down and both he and Pathfinder activated it to advance on Mirage and Rampart.

Rampart fired more rounds at Pathfinder and Revenant once they emerged from their cover. She managed to send the angry murderbot back to the totem, but Pathfinder managed to grapple behind some more cover. This gave the happier robot the opportunity to close in on them. Mirage noticed the approaching enemy and went to meet the robot halfway. Right before the trickster poked his head out, he activated his Life of the Party ultimate. Mirage hoped to confuse Pathfinder so that he could attack from an unexpected angle. The decoys mirrored his movements and circled the robot; Pathfinder shot a few of the decoys before zoning in on the real trickster. Pathfinder nearly downed Mirage, but the trickster managed to fire one Mastiff shot to the torso to finally take him down.

“Sorry, Path! Don’t take this personally, it’s just business. Heh..personal business..” Mirage chuckled, shooting Pathfinder one more time to finish him off. He didn’t even want to think about how close the robot came to killing him. The trickster hurried over to a nearby corner and used a shield battery to heal up. While doing so, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a nearby window and noticed that his hair was a mess! He panicked and stopped healing himself to quickly fix it. Elliot teased out his curls and put some stray locks back in place, which gave a certain tall, angry murderbot plenty of time to sneak up on him. Revenant wasted no time in throwing a silence orb to keep Mirage from using his decoys to escape. The trickster dropped a high pitched scream and spun around, clumsily fishing for his Mastiff.

“Oh shi-Revenant! Uh, h-hey, this isn’t a good ti--” Mirage yelped as Revenant began firing on him. The trickster did his best to return fire, but he hadn’t healed up before the simulacrum arrived. Needless to say, Revenant barely had to do anything to down the trickster.

“This part never gets old.” Revenant purred as he loomed over Mirage, grinning as he noticed the pure fear in his eyes. Elliot inched away from the murderbot, but he kept coming. The murderbot slowly raised his left hand so that the trickster could see it turn into a razor sharp blade. “I’m not gonna make it quick. That would spoil all the fun~.” He murmured in his deep, gravelly voice as he knelt down to finish him off. Mirage screamed again and put up his hands defensively.

“NO, DON’T EAT ME!” Mirage wailed, shutting his eyes and waiting for the sharp pain to come. But nothing came. There was some more gunfire, a loud growl of “damn skinsuit”, and a mechanical sounding crash by the time the trickster found the courage to open his eyes. Mirage was shocked by what he saw: the boisterous, smirking modder, and Revenant’s death box.

“No, don’t eat me~.” Ramya mocked in a squeaky, high-pitched before laughing and kneeling down to the trickster. “I thought you said nothing scared ya, Witt! I’ve never heard anything human scream like that~.” She teased, pulling him to his feet after injecting the resuscitation serum into his body. Mirage grumbled and took out a Phoenix kit to fully heal up.

“I wasn’t scared! I was distracting him so that you come and kill him. It was all a part of the plan.” Mirage insisted as he finally healed his shields and health. Rampart skeptically arched a brow while she was fishing through Revenant’s death box.

“Uh huh. And, was crying like a baby a part of the plan too?” Rampart chuckled, grabbing plenty of ammo and improved attachments for her weapons. Mirage narrowed his eyes at her.

“No! I mean, yes! I mean...I didn’t, I wasn’t...I wasn’t crying like a baby!” Mirage did his damndest not to blush again and fished through what was left of Revenant’s supplies. Ramya stared at him and suddenly smirked, but he didn’t see it. She took a few steps away from him in the direction of Pathfinder’s deathbox; but then, out of nowhere, the modder yelled, which scared the hell out of Elliot.

“WITT! I see someone!”

Mirage jumped to his feet and immediately popped his ultimate again. He didn’t know who was coming or where they were coming from, so his decoys looked just as confused as he was. He ran over to Rampart with his weapon drawn. The modder wasn’t moving, but she did have her R-99 in hand.

“Where?” Mirage spun in all sorts of directions in search of the enemy, but he didn’t see anyone. “Who? Who’s coming?”

Ramya wasn’t moving because she was trying to keep her composure. But, when the trickster ran up to her side with that half-frightened, half-confused look on his face, she lost it. “I see a plonker who’s convinced that he is a Legend. Yet he’s been duped by a rookie! Maybe the real Mirage is that you’re a Legend, eh?~.” Ramya laughed hard enough to snort and held an arm against her abdomen. The trickster stared at her in disbelief; did she seriously just pull a prank? On the holographic trickster?

“I….you--you almost gave me a heart attack!” Mirage finally managed to say before putting his Mastiff away. He put a hand on his chest and could feel his heart doing somersaults. “Seriously. That took a lot outta me...”

Ramya’s laughter calmed down to giggles and she wiped a tear from her eye. “Sorry mate. It’s just..you should’ve seen your face.” She snickered, strolling up to him and cradling the left side of his face. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, Witt. If anyone comes, Sheila and I will protect you. We won’t tell.”

Mirage grumbled and batted away her hand. “Yeah, whatever. Laugh it up, gearhead..” He muttered, his arm brushing against her side as he walked past her. When he did, Ramya flinched and accidentally dropped her weapon. The trickster gave her a strange look. “Rampart?”

Ramya waved him off and quickly gathered up her weapon. “I’m good, mate! Just a lil’ case of butterfingers.” She chuckled as she hurried past him to gather up some more loot. Mirage blinked and eyed her closely; he swore he could see the faintest, faintest shade of red on her face when she walked past.

Rampart and Mirage came across Bangalore and Bloodhound later in the match, and the duo, mainly Rampart, took the two of them down with ease.

“You get a bullet! And you get a bullet! Everyone gets a bullet! Hahaha!” Ramya cheered as she and Sheila blasted poor Bangalore and Bloodhound out of the game. Elliot would never admit it, but the modder was racking up kills faster than he thought she would, and her high kill count won her the glorious title of Kill Leader. Ramya beamed when she heard the announcement sound throughout the arena.

“Hear that, Witt? You’re looking at the new Kill Leader! Not bad for a rookie, eh? Maybe you can learn a thing or two from a real Legend.” The modder grinned, having to revive the trickster again when he fell prey to the hunter and their Wingman.

“Yeah, well I was Kill Leader in my first..thir--uh, eighth season! It’s beginner’s luck.” Elliot countered while he, yet again, used a Phoenix kit to fully heal himself up.

“Heh...whatever helps you sleep at night.” Rampart shrugged and dug through the loot that was left behind. The duo made it to the top three and, after diving in to third party the last two squads, were named the Apex Champions.

After the match, Elliot hung up his shiny new Apex Champion medal in his room. He already had plenty of cutouts and collectible figurines of himself, but he always had space for a new medal! He looped the medal around one of his mobile figurines and gently booped it, grinning as it swayed side to side. While he was admiring himself, Rampart skipped into his room with her own medal and plopped down onto the couch, startling the trickster.

“So when are you taking me out for a drink, Witt? Think it’d be a fair trade for how much I carried you~.” Rampart smirked and swung her legs up onto the couch. Mirage turned to her and gave her a look. “Ya know just because you got three--eight--no, twelve kills last game doesn’t mean anything! It was your first game, maybe I decided to go easy on you.” Mirage argued matter-of-factly and put his hands on his hips. Ramya giggled and skipped over to him, playfully poking at his stomach. Mirage yelped and pushed her hand away, but she managed to sneak another poke to his side.

“Turn that frown upside down, mate! You’re just not as good as you think you are.” The modder teased as she kept making quick little jabs to his torso. A few giggles slipped out of the trickster while he tried and failed to grab her hands.

“Yehehes I ahaham! Stop! Stop pohohking me!” Elliot whined and retreated to his couch with Ramya hot on his tail. He fell back onto the cushions with his arms against his torso; but, somehow, she managed to find a little bit of his stomach or side to poke. After a few more pokes, Rampart switched gears and suddenly reached under Mirage’s arms, raking her short nails against his armpits. This made the trickster scream and slam his arms against his sides. The frantic laughter came next.

“STHOHOHP RAHAMYAHA!” Mirage yelled, his laughter growing in volume when she straddled his waist and went for his sides.

“I don’t know who Rahamyaha is! Oh! Wait, is that the girl who got twelve kills in her first game? Maybe the greatest Legend there ever was?” Rampart grinned and started squeezing his sides, laughing when the trickster bucked his hips.

“NOHOHOHOHOH! You-AH! YOOHOHU AREHEHAHAH NOHOHOHT!” Mirage squeaked and laughed harder when she stuck her hands under his shirt to squeeze his bare sides.

“Wrong answer, Witt!” The modder chirped, scribbling her nails against his belly before returning to his sides.

Mirage was going crazy; every time he hugged his arms to his sides or reached for her wrists, she attacked his armpits or belly instead. It wasn’t enough to be the Apex Champion or turn his face red; now, she was trying to tickle him to tears! In his haste to stop her, he grabbed her sides and squeezed them, drawing out an audible gasp.

“Oi, watch it!” Rampart hissed and stopped tickling him to reel away from him. Mirage perked up and looked at the modder; although he had to recover from the sudden tickle attack, a sly grin popped up on his face.

“What? That didn’t tickle, did it?” Mirage smirked, sitting up and advancing on the retreating modder.

“No!” Rampart answered quickly and crossed her arms against her torso. “I just didn’t think you’d grab me so hard. I’m not that kind of girl, Witt.” The modder continued, grinning triumphantly when Elliot turned crimson.

Elliot, after stumbling over his words, suddenly launched himself towards Rampart and pinned her to the other side of the couch. Rampart screamed and struggled to knock him off of her, but he held strong and immediately started poking her sides.

“Ah! Witt, geheht off of mehehe!” Ramya growled, a few stray giggles escaping her as she arched her body upwards.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Mirage chuckled and poked across her stomach, eliciting some more giggles. “I didn’t catch what you said. It’s almost like you laughed, which would be weird if you aren’t, ya know, ticklish or anything…”

“I’m nohohohoht! Geheheht oohohohff MEHEHEHE!” Ramya squeaked and kicked her feet against the couch when he returned to her sides. The trickster spidered his fingers up and down a few times before kneading at the very top of her ribcage. Rampart yelped again and whipped her body around to try and dodge his fingers. Mirage easily kept up with her squirming and, as much as she tried not to, she finally gave in to the ticklish sensations and laughed.

“EEHEHEHLIOT STAHAHAAHAH! I’M NAHAHT TIHIHIHICKLISHAHAH!” Ramya shrieked and bucked her hips when he gently scratched his fingers around her belly button. Mirage snickered and alternated between her sides, stomach, and her ribcage, which is where she seemed to be awfully ticklish. But, the trickster wasn’t ready to go for the kill just yet.

“Oho, I’m Elliot now? Funny, I don’t think you’ve called me by name all day!” Mirage snuck his hands underneath her arms and laughed when she snorted. He wiggled his fingers in circular motions and jabbed at the spot right before her ribcage began. Ramya threw her head back and laughed louder, which only encouraged him to stay on the spot. “And call me crazy, but I think only ticklish people laugh when they’re tickled. So, I guess that makes you ticklish, huh?”

“NOHOHOHOHOH!” Rampart yelled and stubbornly shook her head, the laughter flowing freely as the trickster’s fingers found her neck. The modder made a weird sound that sounded like a cross between a squeak and a honk, sending Mirage into a fit of laughter.

“Thahahaht’s nohohohohoht fuhuhuhnyhyhy!” Rampart protested, her laughter dying down to giggles as she whipped her head around. Mirage swiped his fingers along one side of her neck and gently prodded at the other. He finally noticed the blush on her face, causing him to grin widely.

“It’s totally funny! Look at how wed your widdle cheeks are~.” Mirage cooed and laughed some more when Ramya glared at him. “You can’t be the greatest Legend in the games when you’re this tickle, tickle, ticklish~.”

Rampart giggled uncontrollably and tried to trap Elliot’s hands between her neck and shoulder. She succeeded, but it didn’t stop the tickles. “Ihihih’m gohohohohohnna kihihihill yohohohuhu! I swehehehehehear!” She snickered and continued to roll her head side to side.

Mirage feigned offense and audibly gasped. “You’re gonna kill me?” He repeated, moving from her neck to the sides of her stomach. Ramya immediately dissolved back into laughter and struggled with a renewed vigor. “That’s not nice at all! In fact, that puts me on the defensive!”

With that, Elliot’s hands fell onto Rampart’s ribcage and gently squeezed at the bones. The modder screeched and cackled, kicking pillows off of the couch. “NOHAHAHAHAHAHA STAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAP IHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHT!”

Mirage gave her a mischievous grin and swiped his fingers along the length of her ribcage. It made her laughter rise in pitch, which only boosted his confidence. “Stop what?” He chuckled, gently tweaking two of her middle ribs. “I thought you said you weren’t ticklish! And that you were the best Legend around! Looks like you lied on two fronts, huh?”

Ramya cried out in protest and laughed even harder. During her struggle to free herself from Witt’s iron hold, her ponytail loosened, so much of her hair covered her eyes and face. Mirage could still see the huge grin on her face, though, which made his own grin soften a bit. It wasn’t like one of those teasing, cocky grins that she kept throwing his way when they were in the arena.

“IHIHIHIHIHI DIHIHIDN’T--AHAHAHAHAHA! DIHIHIHIHDN’T LIHIHIHEAHAHAHAH!” Ramya argued while Elliot’s fingers continued tweaking the middle of her rib cage. Elliot let out another dramatic gasp and kneaded his fingers into her uppermost ribs.

“There’s another lie! My goodness, you are just asking for it, huh?” Mirage teased, chuckling again when he made Rampart snort again. “How about this, I’ll make you a deal. Say that I’m the best Legend hands down, no questions asked, and I’ll stop. I’ll even keep how ticklish you are a secret, so no one else will try to get ya in the ring! Whaddaya say?”

The trickster went back to gently tickling the sides of Ramya’s neck to give her a bit of a break. He went at short intervals, just giving each side a quick scribble here and there. Rampart snickered and brought her shoulders up again, taking the time to breathe where she could. Mirage slowed down even more and went to playfully boop her red cheeks and nose.

“Heheheheh...I-Im thehehehe behehest Lehehehehegend, hahands dohohown…”

“See, was that so hard?” Mirage didn’t realize what she had really said, so he happily let her up. Ramya breathed heavily and rubbed away the ticklish sensations from her ribcage. “I’m glad we can finally agree on something! Because believe me, you were this close to--”

The lightbulb just went off in the trickster’s head, and Rampart could see it. So, with what little energy she had left, she leapt from the couch and made a beeline for the door. She was laughing again, but this time, for a different reason.

“Come back here!” Mirage yelled and got up to chase her. He caught up with her before she could get into the hallway and easily picked her up.

“NO! Put me down, ya plonker! I said it!” Rampart insisted as she kicked around in his arms. She held one arm against her torso and, with her free hand, squeezed at Witt’s sides and hip. Mirage flinched and laughed, but he managed to get back to the couch before the tickling could really get to him.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it! So, let’s try again. Tell me that I, meaning me, am the best Legend, hands down, no questions asked.” Elliot demanded with a grin as he pushed her back down onto the cushions. This time, he held both of her wrists in one hand and used his leg to pin hers down. It became pretty clear to Rampart that she was screwed, but damn it, she wasn’t going to say it!

Mirage narrowed his eyes at the modder when she didn’t say anything. Then, with a dramatic sigh, he used his free hand to poke up her ribcage. Ramya squealed and bit down on her lip to trap the incoming giggles. Mirage grinned at her and switched to kneading in between the bones after a few more pokes.

“Coochie coochie coo~.” The trickster cooed, working his fingers up and down her ribcage. Rampart’s face went red again and, after another second or two, she burst out laughing.

“I”M NAHAHAHAHAT SAHAHAHAHYING IHIHIHIHIHT YOHOHUH PL-AHAHAHAHAAHAHA!” Rampart shrieked and bucked when he kneaded his fingers faster between the bones. Her ribs were still sensitive from the previous tickle attack, so it didn’t take much to put the modder back into hysterics. “STAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAP!”

“Nope! Say it and I’ll stop.” Mirage was resolute and couldn’t help but to laugh along with her as he gently scratched up and down her ribcage. This made her arch her back and desperately twist around to try and dodge his tickling hands; but, this time, she wasn’t getting away so easily.

“AHAHAHAHAHA WIHIHIHIHITT STAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Rampart yelled again and howled with laughter. Since he had her legs pinned down this time, the modder couldn’t even kick to try and alleviate the intense ticklish sensations. This only benefited the lone pillow that remained on the couch. Elliot was ruthless, but he did pause a few times just to see if she would say what he wanted to hear. She didn’t. The trickster tutted softly and gently scratched at the patch of skin where the ribcage ended. Rampart screamed and went ballistic with desperate laughter pouring out of her.

“NOOOHOHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Mirage initially flinched, not expecting the sudden roar of laughter. He let go of her wrists so that he could tickle the same spot on the other side of her ribcage. When he let go of her wrists, she immediately latched onto his and tried to pry them away from the spot. It didn’t work, but it didn’t stop her from trying, either.

“Huh. Didn’t you have ribs here a second ago?” Mirage mused, still scratching away the spot. He shook off her hands and pinned them underneath his arms. “Maybe I miscounted them. Let’s see...one, two, three…

Ramya yelled one more time before her laughter went silent. She shut her eyes tight and shook her head as the trickster ‘counted’ her ribs. Mirage stopped tickling her when he didn’t hear the laughter anymore and let her go. The modder immediately turned onto her side, breathing raggedly.

“Bloohohohoody hehehehell…” Ramya gasped after several minutes of trying to catch her breath. She hugged her arms tightly against her torso, still giggling from the lingering ticklish sensations. “I give, I’ll sahahay it…”

“Nah, don’t bother. Looks like you could use all the air you can get.” Mirage chuckled, not realizing that he was staring at her. Rampart’s face was bright red, her hair was a mess, and she was still grinning. “As the best Legend in the Apex Games, I’ll be nice and let you off the hook.”

Ramya rolled her eyes and propped herself up onto her elbows. “I guess I’m the luckiest girl in the world..” She quipped sarcastically, gathering her hair back into its ponytail. With her hair out of her face, the modder could clearly see that Mirage was staring at her. She arched a brow, giving him her sly, signature grin, which immediately snapped him out of his trance.

“Uh, you wanna get that drink now? My treat, of course.” Mirage stammered and stood up, offering her his hand. Ramya nodded and took the hand, but pulled him down so that she could latch herself onto his back.

“Wha-hey! Whahat are yohuhu--?!”

“What?” Rampart hooked her arms and legs around Elliot so that she could comfortably rest on his back. She didn’t even need to see his face to know that he turned crimson again. “You didn’t think I was actually going to walk to your bar, did you? Pfft..”

The modder tweaked his sides and giggled when he lurched forward. “Get a move on, Witt! I’m not getting any younger.” She demanded, continuing to gently prod his sides as he sputtered and hurried out of the room.

#apex legends #mirage #elliot witt #mirage apex legends #rampart #rampart apex legends #ramya parekh #ticklish!rampart #ticklish!ramya #ticklish!ramyaparekh #ticklish!mirage #ticklish!elliotwitt #ticklish!parekh #ticklish!witt #ticklish!elliot

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sloppy-butcher · 4 years

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Can I get some hcs for Freddy x reader who have like very love/hate reltionship? Like they annoy eachother constantly but still seek each others company. Thanks!

This is the first time I have ever tried writing for Freddy and to be honest, I am quite nervous I did him wrong. Please forgive any ooc characterizations i may accidentally give him - i tried my hardest to make him accurate to the 80’s version (yes, this one will be based on old freddy not the new one (2010 remake), hope that it okay <3) i also hope that you don’t mind if i make the reader a killer as i am only comfortable writing for freddy when the power dynamics are equal

Thank you for the request and i hope these are good enough for you

Headcanons for The Nightmare (Freddy Krueger) with a Killer!S/O who have a Love/Hate relationship

When you are an obedient little dog, when you kill mercilessly and the Entity grows fat from your bountiful supply of food, the spider-god showers you with rewards. Most forms of these appreciations take a physical appearance (new and terrifying outfits to adorn during your daily workouts or new weapons for you to play with). But there were some gifts that were intangible, and otherworldly and oh so irresistible to you - dreams. The Entity lets you sleep if you do well in trials and sometimes even offers you sweet, beautiful dreams. They were indulging at first, so totally vivid in their detail and color that you could almost lose yourself completely in their daydreams. It was a spider web most wonderfully and intricately made. A labyrinth of the mind. But it did not take you long to notice the spider lurking in the corners of his creation.

You spotted him often hiding under the shadow of trees, just standing there in the corner of your eye - one look and he would vanish without a trace. You would have thought nothing of the strange occurrence had it had only happened once and in only dreams. During your walks in between realms, you’d spot the man through the treeline. He was unmistakable in his silhouette and in the way his eyes glowed a horrid orange. You did not fear him however, he was no worse a monster than you were. Rather you were annoyed by his presence in both reality and dreams.

You bend down and pick up a rock, turning it over in your hands testing its weight and size. “Hey!” You shout at the man who halted his retreat into the dark, night wood at the sound of your voice. “Stay out of my fucking dreams, asshole!” You throw the rock at him, narrowly missing him and instead, striking a tree.

“Such a temper.” A hoarse voice coos from somewhere behind and you spin around to meet it. It was him, moving faster and quicker than air and appearing next to you, closer than ever before. You got your first good look at him. His skin was a sore pink leather and he smelled like smoke. “Trust me, sweetheart, I would if I could. Your dreams,” He takes out a hand covered in razor-sharp knives and mockingly strokes the hair out your face, “, are so boring.” You snatch his hand away from your face, barely noticing the sting of blades in your soft palm and the trickle of warm blood down your forearm. You did not grimace, did not cower, and did not back down. He grins at your defiant expression. “And here I thought you’d thank me for giving you the chance to live in such a wonderful world. I’m hurt,” He feigns agony, his free hand placed sorrowfully on his chest, “, good work always goes unappreciated.”

You scoff and show your teeth. “I would prefer nightmares if it meant I wouldn’t get to see you.” The man laughed and flexed his knife-fingers, fresh blood oozing out your wound.

“Oh babe, you and me both. I don’t like this babysitter gig anymore than you do.” He leans closer grinning with his horrible yellow fangs, the scent of a recent kill seeping off his tongue. “I prefer nightmares anyway.”

“You look like a nightmare.” You spit into his face, finally letting go of his weapon and glaring at him. He laughs again.

“You are a feisty one. I think you and I are going to get along fabulously.”

Of course, he did not heed your warning for that very same night you saw him again in your dreams. Though now, he made it a point, not to hideaway. He approached you and actively talked to you, following you around your dream like a resistant plague. He commented on your shit reality, on all the things you could have wanted to dream of, and yet you only wanted to be in an empty field at the brink of dawn. He shakes his head and degrades your poor taste with even more snarky comments. You knew you couldn’t do anything to him while in his dream but in the physical world - well, that is a completely different story.

If he was going to bother you while you slept like a buzzing mosquito, you decided to bother him when you were awake. In the real world he was much less intimidating, that aura of cosmic power that bubbled around him while in a dream state, was not present in the night air and you smirked at his weakness. You mentioned his height, asking how anyone could be scared of such a small man. He’d lash out, swinging at you with both his blades and his harsh tongue. He was easy to toil, easy to wind up but a task to deal with. Freddy could take a punch to his pride and deal out damage times 10. 1 mean-spirited remark deserves 10 more.

Freddy thrived on this back and forth. Ordinarily, he would turn his nose up at the idea of bickering with another killer - sure, some of them were fun, simple minds with which to bend and manipulate in dreams but most were already so twisted in their own self-delusions that well, he just didn’t find them all that interesting. But your mind was sharp and quick, built in the skull of a hardened murder professional yet dainty enough to still yearn for the sunlight world of goodness. A perfect balance. It had been a very long time since last Freddy had had a conversation of equals - a real conversation where the table was not shifted in the favor of either one. If he said something that crossed a boundary or hit a nerve (a task he sought out to do almost every night) you would turn on him, shoot daggers at him with the sole intent of murdering his little ass. Sure, it never really scared him but there was no denying that in a way, to spare with an equal really turned him on. To be challenged.

There were times when he would become too much. Like the static on a dead radio station, he would drone on and on about a certain topic he knew would heat your blood. Always poking his stick deeper and deeper into the bear until you’d bite. Luckily it was quite simple to turn him off - just don’t sleep. You never really needed to rest in the Fog anyway, tiredness never made its claim over your bones even after a long day at work. Sleep was merely a reward, after all, a gift that could be refused if so desired. If time could be recorded within the Entity’s world, then the longest you had gone without sleep, and without seeing that little creep, would have been 2 months. He had really pissed you off when in a dream he produced a small songbird and made you watch as he melted its skin off - all for sport. A sight that did not necessarily make your skin crawl but one that irked you. It was always a game with him, a competition to see who would break first and try to strangle the other. And, to be dead honest, it was starting to annoy you more than anything he could say or do. So you stopped seeing him, stopped dreaming, and stopped seeking him out in the woods. You were tired of always trying to be bested and frankly, his childishness was wearing you thin.

But there was no denying that in that quiet that ate up the space where Freddy used to stand, a strange loneliness would grow incredibly heavy and dreadful. You missed his rather repulsive company, his witty and sharp tongue always keeping you on edge and on your toes. There was no way you could stop your head from turning around to look for him, seeking out his small frame among the dark wood. It was lonely without the flies, silent and decaying slowly.

For the life of him, Freddy tried to move on. He had never tied himself to one person before, never allowed himself to latch on to anyone save for his favorite little toys. But with you it was different. It was fun to annoy you, it was fun to torment you in dreams. It was even fun when you reeled at him, hackles raised threatening to kill. It was exciting, it reminded him of the joy of being powerful and alive (in a sense). And when you never took his bullshit sitting down, when you'd raise to meet his call, oh how it set fire to his heart. To be challenged. He could feel himself wither away, the interest that you had sharpened only seemed to dull and break off in your absence. He’d hate to admit it, but he missed you. Missed your noise and missed that sweet dream of yours.

Both of you are too prideful to confess to the other that you were lonely. But when, one day, you find yourself dreaming a familiar vision, that built-up residue of solitude melted and you turned to face Freddy eagerly.

“Did you really think you could not sleep forever?” He crossed his arms over his gloating chest, a snake tongue flickering victories in between teeth. “I always get my prey.” You smirk, not surprised in the slightest by his rather rude welcome back. You look around at the grassy field surrounding you both shining a brilliant emerald, the sun feeling warm on your back, and the fresh, clean air carrying with it the scent of spring flowers.

“Aw, you missed me, Frederick?” You tease him with his unused full name, casting a devilish side-eye to the dream-demon. You see a flicker of panic, alerting you that you had hit the nail on the head before he spits and loudly proclaims,

“Don’t be so far up your own ass!” His golden eyes gleamed pure hatred at you. “It's not a hat.” You laugh at the face of the fuming man, knowing that despite how his actions appeared malicious and distasteful, there was no feasible way to deny that the dream he had made for you was spectacular and expressed something deeper than just surface-level annoyance.

#dbd imagine #dbd x reader #dbd the nightmare #dbd the nightmare x reader #dbd freddy krueger #dbd freddy krueger x reader

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scotianostra · 4 years

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On October 15th 1586 the trial began of Mary Queen of Scots at Fotheringhay Castle.

Settle down, this is a wee bit longer than my normal posts, some state it started on 14th, but it concluded on the 15th, so here we are.

You might remember my post a month ago when Mary arrived at her last "prison", the place where she would ultimately spend her last days and meet her end.

If the history books are to be believed. Mary Stuart first sighted the ancient castle towers from a path called since the "days of the Domesday Book", Perryho Lane, on hearing the name Perryho, she is said to have made a melancholy little play on the name exclaiming aloud, ‘Perio! I perish.’ and indeed she did.

Mary was always a threat to the English Queen Elizabeth’s rule. Seen by Catholics as the true catholic ruler of England, there was many a plot to bump off Elizabeth and put Mary on the throne.

For almost 20 years Mary was dragged around England and locked up in its various castles. Having said that she was allowed certain freedoms including rides in the countryside and hunting trips, Fotheringhay was different.

Despite the size of the castle Mary found herself incarcerated in comparatively mean apartments: this brought back all her phobia of a secret killing, the sort of barbarous death that stained the history of English medieval castles. The most notorious being one Edward II son of Longshanks, "Hammer of the Scots" who some say was murdered at Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire by being held down and having a red-hot poker inserted inside his anus, and his screams could be heard miles away. although most historians do question whether it is true or not, the fact is he was murdered.

When Mary's servants reported that many of the state rooms had been left empty, Mary drew the correct conclusion that she was about to be tried, and the rooms were awaiting the arrival of dignitaries from London. Just after two weeks later on, October 1st she was informed by her keeper, Sir Amias Paulet that her misdeeds were now to be punished by the interrogation of certain lords, and advised her in her own interests to beg pardon and confess her faults.

Mary's reply was that Paulet was behaving like a grownup with a small child, asking her to own up to what she had done. Then she went on more seriously: ‘As a sinner, I am truly conscious of having often offended my Creator, and I beg Him to forgive me, but as Queen and Sovereign, I am aware of no fault or offence for which I have to render account to anyone here below. …’ And she concluded loftily: ‘As therefore I could not offend, I do not wish for pardon; I do not seek, nor would I accept it from anyone living.’ For those who know anything about the Stewart monarchs this relates again to the Divine Right to rule, and they would only answer to God.

The charges against Mary were to do with a conspiracy to kill Elizabeth and replace her with Mary, her fellow conspirators included among others, John Ballard, a Jesuit priest, Weshman Thomas Morgan, a close confident of Mary's, and Anthony Babington, a Catholic noble who is said was the ring leader, the plot has gone down in history bearing his name The Babington Plot.

Whilst locked away, Mary advised the plotters, both in terms of strategy and how to ensure she’d win the English throne. And naturally as the ‘rightful’ ruler of England Mary would be the one to sign off on the plot starting. he plot took shape during the summer in 1586.

Babington informed Mary that he represented a group who planned to kill Elizabeth and install Mary as the new Queen of England. Babington asked for her support of their plan. Mary responded, asking for more details.

Unfortunately for Mary, the plot had been infiltrated and Elizabeth I’s own spy master, Sir Francis Walsingham had been using the letters to entrap Mary and get her to call for Elizabeth’s murder.

Mary agreed with the plans, but did not authorized the assassination. That did not matter however, because Walsingham's spies intercepted the letter. The letter was deciphered and copied but this time a postscript was added. According to the new letter, Mary authorized the assassination. Walsingham had his proof, and so with this false evidence Mary was indicted.

Before the trial even started Ballard, the Catholic priest, was arrested and tortured. It is said that by the time he arrived at his execution site, John Ballards limbs were barely in their sockets, as a result of the torture he’d undergone, of course during his torture he gave up the names of others involved, the main man being Babington, in September the men were executed one after the other and forced to watch as they, in turn were hung drawn and quartered, the same age old punishment for treason.

After the gruesome bloodbath attention turned to Mary.

Now I'm not saying Elizabeth was faultless in all this but she wasn't keen on trying her Mary, not just because they were cousins, it would set a precedent trying and ultimately executing someone still seen as most of Europe as the rightful Queen of Scotland. Her hand was being forced by her advisors like Walsingham, indeed they had their eye on disposing of the troublesome Mary for some time forcing through an act of Parliament the year before called The Act of Association: this provided means whereby a commission of twenty-four peers and privy councillors might be appointed to investigate any conspiracy or attempt to hurt Elizabeth ‘by any person or with the privity of any person that shall or may pretend to the title to the Crown of this realm’.

The punishments for anyone found guilty under this act were to be two-fold: firstly they were to be deprived of their title to the English crown forever, and secondly they could be lawfully put to death under the provisions of the Act. It had been quite clear at the time that this Act had been especially framed in order get rid of our Queen, it was tailor made for her.

The records of Mary's trial were compiled by the notes of those present, who included two persons designated as writers. It would have been nearly impossible to write by hand every word uttered in the courtroom. Some say Mary spoke very broken English due to her time spent in France., I myself find this hard to believe, yes she had been educated in France, but the Four Mary's would have made sure the young Queen could speak the Scot's tongue, at very least.

Mary's defence was set out mainly that, she wasn’t an English subject and therefore couldn’t be held as an English traitor. She’d been denied legal counsel or the right to view evidence being bought against her. Oh and the age old she was a Queen. Anointed by God. It would literally be a sin to kill her.

Therefore, how accurately were the writers able to record her statements? Whose spoken words were left undocumented? Which statements in particular? Did the two journalists favour Mary or Elizabeth, and if so, did they allow this to influence their notes of the trial? A completely accurate record of the trial is unattainable due to the faultiness of its records, some historians just filled in the blanks to suit themselves, depending on their own leanings.

When the trial concluded, Parliament gave speeches and had open discussion about Mary's sentencing. They also held audiences with Elizabeth. During the audiences held between Parliament and Elizabeth, Elizabeth gave two speeches. In her first speech, she declared that if it were not for "the safe and welfare of my whole people, I would (I protest unfeignedly) most willingly pardon her." Elizabeth asserted that Mary was bound to the English laws but reaffirmed that the late act "was no ways prejudice to her." Rather, Elizabeth explained that the law was in place to warn her, but since Mary still acted against the Queen and the law "was in force," there was no reason not to "proceed against her according to the same.' But, if the laws almost explicitly name Mary, then why did Elizabeth feel the need to restate that they were not prejudiced against her? Now I know I deflected some of the blame away from Elizabeth earlier but It seems that this was just another way for Elizabeth to maintain her image of innocence.

Furthermore, Elizabeth explained that because of "this last Act of Parliament" she must "order for her [Mary's] death" The Councillors' plan to somehow remove Mary as a threat had worked. Elizabeth felt her hands were tied in the matter due to the Acts of Parliament, which the Councillors had drafted with specific language aimed toward Mary.

Eventually, Mary's sentence was issued and proclaimed in the English countryside and towns. Immediately following the proclamation, Walsingham drafted the warrant for Mary's execution. The speed at which these documents were drafted show that Elizabeth's Councillors were adamant about having Mary executed.

In late December of 1586, Elizabeth had the papers for the execution drawn up. On February 1st, 1587, she signed Mary's death warrant.

I wont go into the execution as I normally post all the details on the anniversary of her death, February 8th 1587, I will however add a few more lines regarding King James VI and letters between Elizabeth and him.

Around the same time Elizabeth signed the warrant, she sent a letter to James, who had earlier requested that his mother be sent into the neutral custody of a foreign prince.

In her response, Elizabeth asked if James thought her "so mad to trust my own life in another's hand and send it out of my own?

She also refers to the "absurdity of such an offer. In this letter, Elizabeth placed the focus on James's offer rather than on the circumstances surrounding Mary at the present time, basically awaiting her fate. She did not say she was unwilling to give Mary to a neutral prince because she was either considering signing the execution warrant or had already done so.

Elizabeth withheld from James any more of a response than was necessary. It seemed that she intentional1y focused this letter's content on James's request to divert attention from her intention to sign Mary's death warrant.

After Mary's execution, Elizabeth wrote another letter to James. Elizabeth referred to Mary's execution as a "miserable accident which (far contrary to my meaning) hath befallen"

Elizabeth claimed innocence in calling for Mary's execution, but what she wrote next left a sense of doubt as to her innocence in the matter. She told James that she had "now sent this kinsman of mine ... to instruct you truly of that which is too irksome for my pen to tell you.'d While one may infer that Elizabeth sent a kinsman to explain the actual happenings of Mary's execution you have to wonder if that was truly the case. Could Elizabeth have sent this "kinsman" to explain what she would not want left documented on paper? Elizabeth would have known to not leave a self-incriminating paper trail regarding her true role in Mary's execution. Thus, she sent a "kinsman" to explain the actual circumstances relating to Mary's execution.

The truth behind what this kinsman actually told to James will forever stay a mystery because these words were just spoken in a private audience and not documented in a letter, just like Elizabeth wanted. The final question remains: was it the work of the Councillors that called for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, or did Elizabeth I play more active role than she wished to admit?

I myself believe the Councillors did not need to have their arms twisted to call for Mary's execution. They perceived Mary as a threat and made it their top priority to remove her Queen Elizabeth's full part in the murky affair will always be up for debate.

As ever I have used a lot of different sources when compiling this, if you want more on the trial check the article below out, remember though every source is different so not all that is written here will relate entirely to my post, it is however a more in depth analysis of the trial.

https://erenow.net/biographies/maryqueenofscotsantoniafraser/27.php Pics are a depiction of the trial and part of the Babington letters held by the English National Archives, more on that here https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/spies/ciphers/mary/ma2.htm

#Scotland #scottish #The Stewarts #the stuarts #mary queen of scots #elizabeth i of england #history

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themangoyogurt · 4 years

Text

Clementine: Chapter 3

Kylo had to hand it to you. Despite your questionable business sense, you had a fantastic eye. The space you found was in a prime location, neighbored by a trendy womenswear boutique on the left and a hot new restaurant headed by a celebrity chef to the right. The space itself was a perfect mix of industrial and bright, with open white washed ceilings and a modern concrete flooring.

Watching you gush as you stood outside staring in through the window only steeled his resolve to help make your dream come true no matter the cost. After spending the entirety of his life stepping on the “little guys” to make his bottom line, he felt it was appropriate to atone for his sins.

The fact that you had a million-watt smile and an infectiously bubbly personality only sweetened the deal.

You continued to bounce between the left and right floor-to-ceiling windows flanking the front entrance. As you hopped back and forth, you rambled off all your ideas to transform the space into a warm and inviting neighborhood spot.

It was going to be equal parts trendy and homey. Shelves filled to the brim with new and old books alike, ready to be borrowed or bought. The scent of freshly ground coffee beans would permeate the air, causing a heady mix of warmth and relaxation. There would be nooks and crannies with the coziest chairs and sofas for patrons to gather, sip coffee, snack on freshly baked pastries, and catch up on reading.

Kylo admitted that even to an anti-social recluse such as himself, the concept sounded like a dream. If he had still been working, he would have enjoyed a little escape from the office to focus on work.

Despite his pleasant daydreams though, nothing could stop his spine from stiffening as soon as the landlord made his presence known. He was a sorry looking man, equal in width and height. The balding man had beady little eyes that narrowed into slits as soon as he caught sight of Kylo.

Kylo’s hackles rose even higher as the landlord completely ignored him and turned to give you a very lewd look.

“Hi Plutt,” you chirped, completely oblivious to the tension between the two men. “This is Kylo. He’s my friend and lawyer!” You gave Kylo an extra little eyebrow wiggle at “lawyer”, a silent tease at how different he looked today.

He had rocked up to your meeting far more dressed than he was the previous night. Gone were the fuzzy slippers. Instead, he was clad in a black suit with a matching black dress shirt that struggled to contain the man’s wide chest and thick arms.

Who would have thought that the slobbish raven haired man could clean up so well? While you weren’t really one to judge a book by its cover, even you couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow when he had proclaimed himself to be a retired, yet fearsome, corporate lawyer.

It was adorable how the more disbelieving you looked, the harder he fought to convince you that he really was a big, bad, lawyer. You giggled at the memory of how he was so focused on the argument that Kylo didn’t even notice a drop of lukewarm tea dribble down his chin and land between his pecs.

His very defined and firm looking pecs, if you had to say so yourself.

You shook your head out of the memory, scolding yourself for getting distracted. It was time for business, and you were prepped to fight for the storefront of your dreams. During your walk over to the shop, you had divulged as much info as you could to Kylo. Things like your budget, business plan (although, business “plan” would have been more accurate), and even your credit score.

You probably shared way too much info, but Kylo didn’t indicate that he was bothered or overwhelmed. The man merely nodded while typing quick notes in his cellphone. He probably had enough info to steal your identity, but something about him just made you trust the man.

Maybe it was in the way his eyes always looked soft, balancing out his perpetual scowl. Or maybe it was how he hung onto your every word, and was one of the few people who seemed genuinely supportive and interested in your dream.

Or, maybe it was in how he defensively postured himself between yourself and Plutt, chest puffing out and stance ready for a fight.

Kylo stuck his hand out and impressively didn’t flinch as Plutt squeezed back with his own moist and grimy hand. Kylo didn’t miss a beat as he harshly dived right in.

“Kylo Ren. I’ve taken a look at your offer, and we are not happy with the upfront terms and conditions. A fixed lease would only...”

Kylo completely transformed within seconds. Years of working with the worst of the worst in the corporate world made him ruthless and unshakable when it came to business dealings. Someone like Plutt didn’t phase Kylo. He was ready to threaten, growl, and glare his way into getting you the best deal possible.

Plus, the caveman portion of his brain beat its chest and flexed at the chance to impress a pretty lady. And if your look of tender awe only spurred him on more... well, that he’d keep for himself.

The entire exchange was a blur to you, the two men exchanging barbs and threats so fast, you could barely keep up. Acronyms like “CAMS” and “TI” were used, and before you knew it, two hours had passed. Kylo was triumphantly squaring away notes in his phone while Plutt sputtered, red in the face.

Apparently the entire situation had gotten away from the man.

“Send over the contract by midday tomorrow,” Kylo lazily commanded Plutt, before leading your stunned body away from the building. His hand was warm in the crook of your elbow while he steered you towards the nearest Starbucks.

He seemed tense during the short walk over, letting out a huge exhale as he slumped into the closest empty seat. You felt concerned as his pale complexion somehow became even paler. Without prompting, you darted away to find some water.

“Are you okay?” you asked upon returning. He seemed calmer, but received the cool plastic cup with gratitude.

“Yeah,” he croaked. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to do that.”

“But you were so cool,” you gushed in response. You instinctively reached out to hold his shaky hands. Giving him a light squeeze you continued, “I’ve never seen someone talk like that before! Or...or stick up for me so fiercely. Like my knight in shining armor!”

Your eyes twinkled in excitement, so filled with joy that Kylo couldn’t help but be affected. He smiled and flipped his palm upwards so he could lace his fingers with yours. He squeezed back and laughed, “Well, you don’t seem like someone who needs saving. Just someone who could use someone in their corner.”

“Then I’m glad you’re in mine. Even if we don’t know each other very well.”

His heart fluttered at your shy smile, and Kylo replied, “Why don’t we start, then? Getting to know each other that is. Let me buy you some coffee?” Now significantly calmed by your touch he added a flirtatious eyebrow waggle and added, “Maybe even dinner afterwards?”

You playfully smacked him in the chest and argued, “I thought I was the one buying coffee.”

“Alright. You buy me coffee and we’ll go over the terms and conditions of your new lease. Then, I take you out for dinner.”

It was definitely a deal too good to pass up, so you happily bounded to the counter to buy his S’mores Frappuccino (the man really was full of surprises, wasn’t he?). You decided that it would be cute to match, and ordered one for yourself as well.

A few minutes later, and you were returning to the table with two icy and teeth-rotting drinks. Kylo was all but recovered, and lawyer man was back in full swing. You happily noticed that while he was all business while going through your lease, his expression and tone was far softer than what he had used earlier in the day.

You were shocked at how Kylo had cut such a favorable deal for you. The man was kind in explaining why certain things were more beneficial for the tenant, and even helped you understand places where Plutt was trying to take advantage.

The initial offer was apparently horrible, and would have surely trapped you into some serious debt. Kylo made sure that your lease was fair, and that you would have enough money leftover to help your new business flourish.

Kylo sipped on the last of his drink, unaware of some leftover whipped cream resting on his top lip. Without thinking, you reached across the table and wiped it off with your thumb. You instinctively sucked the digit between your lips, earning a blush from Kylo.

“Ah,” he stuttered. “All that’s left is to sign. If you could send me your business license and some tax documents, I could help you file everything.”

A little furrow appeared between your brow, causing Kylo to frown. He had a bad feeling about this.

“You do...have a business license, right?” he tentatively pushed.

“Depends on what you mean by ‘business license’...”

He groaned, dropping his face into his palms. You felt sheepish, and ridiculously uneducated. Just as you were about to die from embarrassment, Kylo finally looked up.

He cast you a small smile and calmly replied, “Alright, this is what’s going to happen. I’m going to take you out to dinner as promised. Then, I’m going to take you home. You’re going to change into something comfortable, grab your laptop and personal documents, and then we’ll hammer out the final details of starting your business.”

“You...you’d seriously do that for me? At the risk of sounding totally ungrateful... why?”

Nobody had ever been this kind to you. If even your own blood could laugh away at your grand dreams of opening a business in New York City, then how could a stranger be so supportive? Not only was he gentle with you, but the man went out of his way to help you in tangible ways.

Retired or not, what kind of high-powered lawyer took an entire day to go fight a small-time landlord like Plutt on behalf of a new neighbor?

Kylo asked himself the same question. Growing up as an only child and then going into a field like law didn’t exactly foster selflessness in his personality. He was used to putting himself first and stopping at nothing to achieve his goals.

Something about your bright eyes and hopeful smile made him pause. He spent so many years of his life tearing things down - people, places, relationships. Perhaps, he saw this as a chance to redeem himself. To finally use his skills to build.

And hey, if the object of his newfound efforts happened to be a very pretty and very sweet woman, then that was just a bonus.

He gave you a smile and replied, “Honestly, I don’t know. But something about you tells me that I won’t regret it.”

That was good enough for you.

💖 Masterlist

#kylo ren x reader #kylo ren x you #kylo ren #modern au #clementine

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presumenothing · 4 years

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(AO3)

These days Ed’s journals are actual proper travelogues, no coded shit or anything.

…okay, no, there’s still some coded shit because alchemy is an inseparable part of travelling for him and that’s just too damn dangerous to leave out in plain sight. Especially since he can’t just transmute the covers shut anymore.

Besides, old habits are hard to break. Though at least he’s trained himself (with Winry’s enthusiastic “encouragement”) out of accidentally writing shopping lists and stuff in code too, just because half his mind’s still occupied with figuring out a transmutation or three dozen.

But anyway. Somehow he keeps finding that there’s so much to write about these days whenever he arrives in a new place, or even when he visits those they’ve been in before.

(Fine, yes, probably that does say something about how much of a one-track mind he’d had, before – but getting his and Al’s bodies back had been really fucking important, okay?

That was putting it mildly, even, and he’d always consider it a worthy exchange even if it did make him wonder sometimes if there were other things he’d missed back then.)

He doesn’t mail out excitedly longwinded accounts of his journeys like Al does, complete with local recipes, pressed dried flowers, and photos or meticulously-labelled illustrations in place of them. Or that’s what he hears from Winry, at least – when Al sends Ed letters it runs more along the lines of alchemical notes that are thoroughly annotated (and even more thoroughly coded), though sometimes dried flowers still find their way into the envelope because his brother is a ridiculous sensory-addicted dork and Ed loves him to pieces despite the constant risk of pollen allergy.

Luckily the flowers are usually flat enough to double as bookmarks for his journals, which is also a convenient way of marking the progress of his journey against Al’s. So there’s that.

Though letters between them don’t happen very often, what with how very very frequently they change towns (or even countries) entirely.

He’s pretty sure there’s now an urban legend about that time Al’s letter had to be redirected a whole fifteen times before it reached him, and he’s definitely certain the postal system of Amestris and beyond actively hates them both by now.

(Which is seriously uncalled for, since Al always puts more than enough postage to account for the inevitable redirections? But by this point Ed will personally vouch that people everywhere can be unreasonable about the weirdest stuff. Turns out Amestris doesn’t have a monopoly on that. Possibly not even the biggest market share.)

And of course it’s almost always Al doing the sending. Contrary to what Mustang believes Ed is actually capable of semi-tidy handwriting when he needs to be – how the hell else would he draw transmutation circles and not have them blow up in his face?

But one time Ed had just gotten so immediately carried away that he’d written his reply on whatever he’d had on hand right then, which amounted to three crumpled-then-flattened-again receipts, a map from the last town, and the back of the envelope that Al had sent his letter in.

(Al’s answering letter had come with five crisply-folded sheets of blank paper; Ed could practically hear the sigh coming from it.)

So now that they’ve acknowledged that letter-writing isn’t Ed’s strong point even when it’s about alchemy, and since Al’s all for being super-organised about everything – the resemblance the Hawkeye is really starting to get terrifying – and makes plans in advance far more than Ed does (which is to say not at all), Al now includes also-coded lists of telephone numbers in his letters, along with the dates when he expects to be contactable at each place.

This way Al can continue taking however long he likes to compose each letter (and he definitely adds to them over different days, Ed can tell by the writing) while Ed can call right back to discuss seven different theories at once, and woe betide anyone who tries to bug their phone calls without at least a university library’s worth of theoretical alchemy to back it up.

It’s a great arrangement, and Ed doesn’t have to write any letters. His brother is a genius.

The resounding success of this arrangement also reminds Ed that there are more ways to say hi, still not dead! than just letters (because, once again: impossible), since so many people have insisted on expressing completely unnecessary worry over his decision to travel alone.

(Hawkeye had only expressed an offer to teach him self-defence via firearm, and when he turned that down she’d instead produced a wallet of alarmingly convincing fake documents under a half-dozen not-Edward-Elric names. “Just in case,” she’d said, which still hadn’t explained why there’d been a pass from Xing proclaiming him to be a diplomat and thus immune to Amestrisan law.

Hawkeye is the best, hands down.)

For Winry he scribbles down the compositions of metal alloys and composites by region alongside rough sketches of interesting-looking designs, and most of the time he even remembers to record all this through an engineering lens rather than an alchemical one. He collects the scraps of notes and mails them once he’s gathered enough, which he usually does every few weeks, though he saves the actual material samples for when they meet in-person because they’re just too damned troublesome to mail. (He doesn’t really send anything separate for Granny Pinako, except for that one magazine clipping from Creta that had dedicated one full-page spread to Rockbell Automail’s advances, along with a hastily-done translation on the back.)

Mustang’s team gets the occasional joke souvenir; Ed knows that Breda and Havoc have a betting pool going (because of course they do) on who can most accurately guess where he’ll go next, so he always makes sure to get things that aren’t obviously tied to any place, and addresses the parcels to Hawkeye directly because he trusts her to thoroughly destroy the postmarked evidence.

(During their last phone call Al had pretty much admitted to dropping red herrings about Ed’s plans in his letters back to the team, and Ed had laughed so hard he’d needed to sit down.)

But that’s pretty much the most regular of it – Al, Winry, and sowing chaos in Mustang’s office from afar – and no one’s complained yet, so Ed figures this is good enough. Maybe someday when they’re all back together again they can borrow some of his journals to read if they want to; he knows that Winry does enjoy reading about Al’s travels, and if nothing else Al will certainly have fun spotting which parts are actually about alchemy and cracking them.

That’s still some time off anyway.

Right now, though, he’s got a new idea about that alkahestry fusion that Al had written about, and – how the hell do you even dial from Aerugo to Xing?

Ed has no idea, but there’d better be a way or he’s gonna make one, see if he doesn’t.

(more fics here)

#writes fmab fic as a birthday present to myself because that's just how i roll #this entire thing literally started life as just the first sentence alone #i still don't understand how the rest of it happened #hence the nowhere ending #does this count as an ed character study???? i havent the faintest clue #closest i can get to it anyway #fanfiction #mine #fmab #fma

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elfrootaddict · 4 years

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SHE IS THE KEY - Chapter 1/5

DESCRIPTION: Solas is desperate to meet the person who survived the explosion at the Conclave. Things certainly didn’t go as planned.

SERIES: Halla & Wolf

VOLUME: 2

“If you will allow me Lady Cassandra,” begins the stranger as he holds his staff out in front of him while keeping a respectable distance. “I can try help get answers from the prisoner. Better yet, I may even find a way to seal the Breach.”

With a unimpressed expression slapped across her face, Cassandra grumbles, “Considering the fact that you are the only one who has come forward to assist us with your… self-proclaimed knowledge,” and then releases a loud, audible sigh. “I would be stupid to decline your help. Even though you are a mage.”

Offering only a meek smile and a respectable nod as a response, the stranger holds his true intentions to himself. Should this Cassandra discover his secret, she would undoubtedly make him a prisoner, too. Or simply kill him. Naturally, neither result suits him.

With nothing left to discuss, Cassandra gestures at the stranger to follow her lead with a flick of her hand, “Come-” but quickly looks back cautiously. “What is your name again?”

“Solas.”

“Come then, Solas. The prisoner is this way.”

With their no-nonsense exchange lasting only a few heart-beats, Solas does appreciate the straightforwardness of Cassandra. As they make their way through Haven’s Chantry, Solas notices how she carries this poise of divine purpose in her stride and posture. Clearly she has an unrelenting drive to figure out who killed the Divine and the hundreds of others attending the Conclave. However, despite being the Right Hand of a murdered Divine, Solas can tell her determination comes not only from the expectations of her position, but that there is an undeniable sense of deep personal loss, too.

After several minutes of silence between them, they turn right at the end of the dimly lit passage. They then come across a single, wooden door with two guards situated on either side.

As soon as the guards notice their approach, they straighten themselves up and salute, “Lady Cassandra, Sister Nightingale has gone to speak to her scouts. Still nothing from the prisoner.”

“Thank you,” remarks Cassandra as she tilts her head back. “This is Solas. He will be assisting us. You may allow him access to the prisoner but nowhere else.”

A wise decision, but unnecessary.

“Understood, Lady Cassandra.” confirms the guards united as they relax their arms back to their side.

Cassandra steps closer and begins to open the door before stopping half way. With heavy eyes looking down towards the ground, she looks over her left shoulder and murmurs, “I need to know how the prisoner survived,” and with her narrow, hazel eyes she looks up at Solas fiercely. “I need to know… why they killed the Most Holy.”

With her pain and confusion palpable in her voice, Solas can feel his stomach turn in knots with guilt. He may not have been the one who killed all those people, but he knew who did. He allowed them to find the key to do it.

It was not supposed to happen this way.

Cassandra finally opens the door fully and makes her way down a few steps before stepping further into the room. Solas stops at the top of the steps and quickly takes in the space: a square, split-level room with steps that lead further down to a landing with holding cells hiding in the darkness of the faintly lit room. And in each corner of the room is a pillar, followed with a guard situated in front of each one.

“This…” murmurs Cassandra as she squares her stance on the other side of the room. “Is the prisoner.”

Looking down at the centre of the room Solas notices a small, lifeless shape lying on their right side with their back facing the door he just came through. He was expecting the prisoner to at least be awake and in a holding cell. Instead, they lay completely unconscious on the cold, stone floor.

His with staff in his right hand, Solas makes his way down the stairs. Immediately he can’t help but notice the prisoner’s elegant, female curves. The edges of her sweeping silhouette highlighted by the subtle light coming from the torches.

As Solas gets closer he notices her clothes are dirty, the edges scorched, burnt and dyed the colours of the earth. Taking his best guess, the clothes appear to be human scouting armour. Then, quite unexpectedly, Solas tries not to gasp aloud as he notices the tip of the women’s ear cutting through her silver hair, lying loose on the floor.

She’s an elf?

With her arms behind her back and holding onto a deep frown, Cassandra breaks the silence, “The prisoner has been unconscious for almost half a day now. Nothing we have done has worked.”

Solas decides he needs to get a better look at this elf in human clothes and slowly walks around the prisoner, taking in every detail. All her angles slowly being revealed.

Now standing in front of Cassandra, and facing the prisoner, Solas supports himself with his staff as he gets down on one knee. With the room being so poorly lit, Solas leans in even closer so that he may study her face more accurately. He needs to make sure that she isn’t one of his.

Managing to get a better look, Solas is startled to find so much blood covering the prisoner’s face and notices that it clearly came from two deep wounds.

The first wound is under her corner of her right eye and about an inch long, while the second one is far more ghastly. This one is almost two inches long and runs diagonally from the left side of her mouth, crossing over her top and bottom lip, and then all the way down to her chin. The wound is so deep that it has completely split parts of the skin, revealing some of her teeth underneath.

Then he notices the simple, lavender-coloured vallaslin on her left cheek underneath her silver blood-soaked hair.

Dalish. With the markings of Mythal. You are not one of mine.

Then quite unexpectedly, a bright bolt of luminous green magic flashes from the prisoner’s left hand, lighting up the entire room. Solas is startled and jumps back up onto his feet and looks at Cassandra quizzingly.

“We do not know what it is,” answers Cassandra with a mild shake of her head. “Her hand lets off this… magic every now and then. We believe it to be related to the Breach but not how it is related. This is why we need your help.”

“I see,” Solas looks back down towards the prisoner. “You are correct in your assessment, Lady Cassandra. This magic is indeed tied to the Breach. I will need a couple of hours, and then you’ll have your answers.”

“I’m glad to hear it. We do not have time to waste. So the sooner you figure this out, the better.”

Cassandra then makes her way towards the door, leaving Solas behind with the prisoner and the four guards. With the four guards looming over him however, Solas knows he won’t have the freedom he needs to figure out who this prisoner is and how powerful the magic on her hand already is. With them still in the room, he can’t access certain skills and abilities, and he will need to use them in the hours to come. With a massive hole in the Veil, there is far too much at risk and no time for him to take the extra measures of precaution.

Being self-taught and a dreamer, Solas’s magic would be considered different than what a usual mage can do from the Circle, and the last thing he needs is unnecessary attention. Also, he occasionally likes to talk to himself out loud. This particular quirk helps him gather his thoughts and focus his line of thinking. And considering what he knows, he can’t have the guards hear him discuss such matters. Even if he speaks in Ancient Elvish. His privacy is essential to his success.

“Lady Cassandra, if I may have but one request.”

Almost at the door, Cassandra turns around to face him, “And what might that be?”

“I would like to be alone with the prisoner.”

The audacity of an apostate asking to be alone with the prisoner Cassandra doesn’t know and trust, causes her to catch her breath in shock as she stares long and hard at Solas.

Solas attempts to convince her, “To figure out this magic, I am going to perform a variety of tests. If anything goes wrong, I wouldn’t want anybody else to get hurt. I don’t want to put any more lives in danger.”

After a few more intense moments of staring at Solas, Cassandra then reluctantly drops her shoulders as she releases a loud sigh. With Solas being the only mage around who claims to have the necessary skills to help stop the Breach, Cassandra realises that this is perhaps out of her hands. At the moment she knows she is desperate and pulling at straws, and perhaps Solas knows this, too. Nevertheless, this apostate came to her and said with his knowledge, he would be able to help. He also took a serious risk coming to her as all mages are now declared apostates, and she has every right to take him and lock him away for simply being a mage. No one would question it.

Taking a few steps forward, Cassandra continues to glare at Solas from afar, “I am no fool, mage. You should know that I used to be a Seeker,” and points her index finger towards Solas. “So, if you try to do anything stupid, I will kill you where you stand.”

Solas gives a slight, polite head bow to indicate that he understands.

“Good,” Cassandra drops her hand and turns back around on her heel. “Guards, we will leave this mage alone with the prisoner.”

The guards reluctantly leave their positions and promptly follow after Cassandra, but not without each one giving Solas grave looks of concern. They don’t approve of this at all.

Once the door finally closes behind them, Solas relaxes his shoulders and kneels back down towards the prisoner, placing his staff on the ground. It is now so quiet, that the faint sound of water dripping in one of the cells can be heard while the prisoner slowly breathes in and out.

Solas reaches for the shackles that are keeping the prisoner’s hands tied together, and brings them closer to him as he reminds himself that the magic came from her left hand. Taking hold of her left wrist, while leave the right hand to dangle, he begins to study her palm.

Starting from the wrist and all the way through to the base of the middle finger is a large, gaping wound. The exposed flesh is seared and burnt. Now holding her wrist using only one hand, he traces over the wound with his fingers from the other. Starting from the bottom, he slowly makes his way up her palm.

Solas closes his eyes as he can feel the magic vibrating. The wound is clearly the result of the magic that penetrated her hand, which now lies beneath her skin. As Solas reaches the tip of the wound, the prisoner’s fingers involuntarily curl down onto his. Her hand is also unusually warm as it radiates static-like energy.

How fascinating.

Solas gently places her shackled hands back onto the ground and releases a loud, audible sigh, “So, da’len. What am I to do with you?”

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5

READ ON AO3

Halla & Wolf Series

#ElfrootAddict's Halla & Wolf Series #ElfrootAddict's She Is The Key #ElfrootAddict's El'lana Aemma Lavellan #Solas #solas dragon age #fen'harel #dread wolf #Cassandra Pentaghast #lavellan #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #fanfic #solavellan

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varricmancer · 4 years

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The Golden Halla | 3

Pairing: Cullen Rutherford x OC

A/N: Obviously I’m deviating a bit from canon. It would be rather boring if it was always the same thing though, yes? Anyway, enjoy the latest chapter! PLEASE let me know what you think.

He was fighting desperately to stay asleep despite the pull to awareness he could feel clawing at him. He was at peace here in the fields with his mystery woman. She’d prepared them a picnic and he lounged on the blanket as he watched her dance around merrily, the skirts of her simple blue dress rippling about her bare feet, her snowy hair floating behind her like a waterfall. He smiled when she caught his eye and laughed, her joy contagious. She had claimed she was dancing his demons away, so there was no reason to be afraid of them or that she was one herself.

“Won’t you tell me your name?”

She skipped towards him, dropping onto the blanket gracefully.

Shrugging, she picked up a pastry and took a small nibble. Her features were somewhat hazy in this place, but her lips were still clear enough to keep him captivated. Thin, but not harsh. Soft-looking. He watched transfixed as her tongue appears to flick away some crumbs on the side of her mouth.

“You can call me Hana,” she finally answers with a teasing grin, her lovely amber eyes sparkling with mirth.

Cullen snorts, amused. “The name of the halla? Well, if I wasn’t so certain this was a dream before, it would be clear now. That creature is taking over my life,” he sighed.

Her laugh was a gentle thing, as lovely as her.

“Perhaps.”

She pauses, cocking her head thoughtfully like she was listening to something only she could hear.

“It’s time to wake up, Cullen.”

He loved the way she said his name. Everyone else began his name like they had something stuck in their throat. With her, it sounded like a song - one that she loved to sing.

“Will I see you again?”

“Sooner than you think,” she chuckled, fading right before him.

He groaned as he came to awareness, her wave of farewell still branded behind his eyes.

The distant snickering was the first clue that he wasn’t alone. Next came the realization that there was a very warm body breathing next to him. A warm furry body.

He cracked up one of his eyes and briefly wondered if he was still dreaming. There could be no other explanation for the fact that there was a halla cuddled up with him on top of his furs. Or that one of his arms was draped loosely across the back of the beast as though to pull it closer. He quickly pulled away in embarrassed horror, his face turning crimson as the low snickers from the front of the tent evolved into outright mocking laughter.

“Commander, if I’d known you had a thing for horns I would have volunteered my services,” The Iron Bull laughed heartily.

Cullen groaned and turned to face the front of his tent where Bull and The Herald were both sticking their heads into with unapologetic grins. Of all the people to find him in such an embarrassing situation, the loudmouthed Qunari mercenary and the proclaimed Herald of Andraste were not his first choice.

He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, snorting as Hana slept on unbothered by their guests.

“Is there something I can do for you?”

“We heard about Loranil making it here and bringing the Halla with him. We wanted to see her again, make sure she was doing alright. She wasn’t in her stall though and Cole told us to find you. I was confused about why the Commander of this little party would know where a lone halla was - wasn’t expecting to see you two so cozy,” Kaaras Adaar shrugged with a teasing grin. Bull stood there cackling close enough to the other that their horns were surely clanging against each other.

“Yes, she’s proven to be rather...friendly. She must have snuck in during the night. I’ll have to speak with the stable boys.”

“There’s no shame in wanting a warm body during cold winter nights,” Bull drawled, doing what Cullen interpreted as a wink with his single eye.

“Maker’s breath…” he grumbled, standing up and waving them away.

“Unless there is pressing business, I’d appreciate some privacy so I might get ready. I’ll walk her over as soon as I’m done and you may visit to your heart’s content.”

Kaaras nodded, “Alright. We’ll leave you be, Commander. We’ve all been summoned to the war room in three hours’ time for a debriefing of my experience in Redcliffe, however. Cassandra’s getting generous and actually giving me a couple of hours to recuperate from my travels before interrogating me.”

Cullen actually grunts in amusement and waves as the two Qunari take their leave. It isn’t until he could no longer hear their stomping that the halla decides to wake up, actually yawning and looking up at him drowsily as though to ask, ‘What’s with all the racket?’

“This is all your fault, you know? What are you doing bursting into my tent in the middle of the night? How did you even undo the ties?” Cullen grumbles as he quickly throws on his armor and splashes his face with water he kept in a pitcher for such purposes.

Still, as embarrassing as this whole situation was, at least he’d slept fairly well after the nightmares left him. He actually felt refreshed and starving for a full meal for the second day in a row. Perhaps the worst of his symptoms were over? He’d never heard of them leaving so quickly. Perhaps the Maker saw fit to help him in his efforts to assist with closing the breach.

Cullen snapped at Hana to get her to follow along, which it seemed like she did reluctantly. Cullen chuckled quietly as she shook her head and blinked at him blearily when she stood up to walk towards him. It seemed even halla could not be morning risers. In a moment of weakness, he reached out and scratched behind her ear, which she seemed to love since she nickered softly and rubbed her head into the touch.

“Alright, you’ve been spoiled enough from me for today. Back to your post, Miss Hana.”

He led her back to the stables swiftly, waving her into her stall. As he locked her in, he could swear she was staring up at him in the halla equivalent of puppy dog eyes.

“You’ve had free reign enough, for now. Perhaps when I take Grace out later you may come. Until then, be a good girl.”

Hana propped her snout on the top of the gate and huffed at him. He actually cracked a smile and tossed both her and Grace an apple before he left, heading towards the war room to look over reports and discuss some things with the other advisors until the meeting.

***

“As allies? Are you sure that’s wise?”

Cullen stared incredulously at The Herald as he explained the horrifying events from Redcliffe.

“Would you rather us all locked up like your mabari? Give us a sip of lyrium from time to time if we’ve been good little mages?”

The Tevene mage that the Herald had dragged here with him from Redcliffe like a heavily perfumed stray was not helping his already shot nerves. He glared right back.

“No. I know very well the horrors of the circles, but I know just as well the dangers that unchecked magic can bring. There are not nearly enough templars here to contain them all.”

“They are not here to be contained, Commander,” Kaaras answered softly. “Kindly remember that Haven is just that - a haven for all. Including those that are born with something that they often never asked for in the first place.”

As the old familiar fear receded, he felt ashamed.

“You are right, of course. Please forgive me. I let my fear cloud my reason.”

The Tevene mage looked at him strangely then, as though he’d found a puzzle to solve, but went silent. The Herald nodded, understanding shining in his eyes.

“I’ve heard some of your story, so I understand your concerns. However, let us give them the benefit of the doubt for now. Many are simply happy for a chance to find the families they were taken from, so I imagine they will be much too busy for staging a takeover.”

“Understood, Herald.”

The Qunari nodded, adding a soft smile of reassurance that Cullen felt he didn’t deserve. He fell silent and let the others run the meeting as he lost himself in memories.

He shook his head, forcing himself to stop thinking about such maudlin things. He had better things to worry about now. Accommodations and supplies for an extra hundred people, at least. He’d need to ask about for a more accurate tally. Increased lyrium supplies. Andraste’s ass, there was going to be lyrium everywhere.

Cullen gulped at the realization, practically tasting the song on his tongue. But no, he could handle it. He’d tell Cassandra to increase her vigilance...and to be on the lookout for a replacement, just in case. Perhaps Rylan.

When the meeting was over, he strode quickly from the room thinking he’d stop for a bite then take Grace out for another ride. He was halfway to the door when somewhere cleared their throat behind him.

Turning, he found the Tevene mage eyeing him sheepishly, though he maintained his proud stance.

“I wanted to...apoligize. That was unfair of me to start our acquaintance in such a way. I’m afraid I was being as judgemental of templars as others are of me.”

Cullen rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

“That’s quite alright. I can’t say there wasn’t a time I would have deserved every word and more. Pray accept my apologies as well Magi...err...Lord...Pavus, was it?”

The mage chuckled lowly, waving his hand with an affected flourish like many nobles were wont to do.

“Just call me Dorian, Commander. The scary magister is my father.”

“Alright, Dorian.”

The mage’s smile is friendly - and perhaps a bit flirtatious.

“I was wondering where I might bed down around here, Commander. I know many are in tents, so if you would be so kind as to point me in - Venhedis! What is that awful sound?”

The awful sound was a horrible screeching bray coming from the stables. But it wasn’t normal. It sounded...terrified.

“Hana!”

Cullen sprinted towards the stables, unmindful of the fact that the mage ran with him. He burst through the door and towards Hana’s stall. She was spooked horribly - her eyes wide and watching everyone fearfully as she reared back, kicking her hooves towards some unseen thing.

“Shhh, easy girl. It’s just me. It’s alright.”

Like it was he was her lighthouse in a storm, she latched her frightened gaze on him, letting him lead her back to calm. Once she stopped kicking he finally walked into her stall, taking a moment to note that it was unlatched already. He slowly reached out and stroked her neck, ignoring the ear-piercing screaming as it died down. She finally went quiet beyond a slight nicker, her body shaking under his hand.

“There we go. Good girl, Hana. I’m here.”

She stuck her head under his arm, seemingly trying to hide under his coat.

“Friend of yours?”

Cullen startled, meeting Dorian’s amused gaze. The mage nodded towards Hana, visibly softening in sympathy for the creature.

“Of a sorts, I suppose. She was a gift from the Dalish for the Inquisition, but according to another elf around here she’s chosen me or something. I’ve never seen her like this before, though. She’s normally so calm. I don’t see anything that could have spooked her.”

Dorian looks around the stables thoughtfully, humming as he holds his hand up that soon emits a slight glow. His eyes narrow as he follows some invisible thread leading towards Hana’s stall. He frowns and closes his hand before meeting Cullen’s questioning look.

“There’s a trace of magic in here. It’s not...evil, but it’s hardly something innocent. It feels ancient.”

Cullen strokes Hana, as she continues to use him as a shield from the world.

“They didn’t hurt her though?”

“No. She appears healthy, although…”

Cullen’s brow furrows as the mage stares thoughtfully at the halla.

“Dorian, what’s wrong with her?!”

Dorian shakes his head, “It’s not something wrong, it’s just something strange. She doesn’t feel like your average beast. She has immense power, for one thing. Immense magical power.”

“She’s some sort of sacred halla for the Dalish...could that be it?”

“No,” the mage shook his head, pulling on his mustache thoughtfully. “She feels like a mage. Which seems strange given the hooves and rather furry appearance, yes?”

Cullen pried Hana’s head out from under his coat, holding her snout in his hands. For the first time, he really looked into the halla’s eyes and realized they were a warm amber ringed in black...just like the Hana from his dream.

His breathing became unsteady as his mind struggled to understand what it was piecing together...or rather had been trying to piece together for a couple of days now. It was impossible, wasn’t it? But...he supposed nothing was truly impossible when it came to magic.

“Dorian, this is going to sound strange, but is there a way to find out if she’s...really a halla?”

The mage quirked an eyebrow at him, “My dear Commander, I was merely theorizing. It’s always a good idea to throw out the most impossible things to narrow down the possible ones.”

Cullen stared into Hana’s eyes, which were looking at him with such soft understanding that there was no way what he’d figured out couldn’t be true.

“Please?” he looked at the mage, plea in his eyes. Dorian straightened and nodded firmly.

“I’ll do some research.”

“Thank you. And Cassandra is nearby, next to the training yard. Please inform her of what is happening - quietly, if you please - and that I’d like two men stationed outside of the stables.”

Cullen smiled warmly at the mage as he took his leave, then turned and settled onto the bottom of Hana’s stall.

“I’m going to feel awfully stupid if you turn out to be some sort of demon or possessed halla,” Cullen sighed, settling his hand onto her head to pet her once she plopped her head into his lap. “I’m sure everyone is going to think I’m going mad and that I’m going overboard for something they’d all rather cover in spices and serve for dinner.”

“If someone’s done this to you though, I’ll do what I can to help.”

Cullen sighs and settles in to keep watch over a single halla, uncaring of the troubles that lay outside the stable doors for the moment.

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dragon age fanfic #dragon age fanfiction #cullen rutherford #cullen x oc #varricmancer

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coreshorts · 5 years

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Protector

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“E-eh? What? I-I, uh...!” stammered the portly, blond raen, midway through getting clothed that she might don her uniform armour. Having just joined the Crystarium guard not a month or two ago, not a year after their fated arrival in Lakeland in a world wholly unfamiliar to them, Asashio no Haruhi, or “Holly Morningtide”, as she’d begun calling herself in an effort not to have undue attention drawn, had been reporting for regular training exercises.

Of course, there was but a single delay of late - or, more accurately a pair of them - in that, following a peculiar series of events, Dahlia, having gone by the moniker “Odellia Morningtide” in the Crystarium, her wife for nearly two years by then, had borne not just one child, but a pair of twins: Suisei Soleil and Ryūsei Lunette - or, translated from their Hingan first and Ishgardian middle names, Comet Sun and Meteor Moon - or simply “Siana” and “Rhiannon” to those in the Crystarium.

“I said,” the dark-haired witchling sighed, looking somewhat impatient, her Ishgardian accent still somewhat strong, “I need to change Suisei. Ryuu is done, but I need you to keep an eye on her. Here, take the baby.” Once more, Dahlia offered forth the infant, the beginnings of platinum-blonde wisps starting to show in number, uneven scales and tiny nubs of horns having grown in just enough, and curious violet eyes wide open peering around as she burbled idly.

“I-, um, a-alright,” Hali said softly, looking between her tired wife and the two half-auri children, one of whom, with nearly a full head of short, dark hair and dark brown eyes, her own scales and horns starting to grow in just enough to be noticeable, as well, lying atop a pad set down for changing the two.

“It won’t kill you, stars,” Dahlia quipped with a smirk, Hali gingerly accepting Ryūsei into her arms, carefully cradling her, “Besides. I think you’ve died to worse, non? You’re not allowed to leave for good, now, if you could.”

This got a snort and a roll of the eyes out of the self-proclaimed “immortal,” the noise seeming to amuse Ryuu, who began laughing and grabbing at the raen’s long blond-and-silver locks, causing her to wince. Her retort forgotten, all she could do was let out a string of, “Ow, ow, ow...!” This, of course, only served to amuse the baby in her arms all the more, causing her to swing her arms, and, by extension, the hand yanking Hali’s hair.

“Have fun~,” Dahlia cooed tauntingly in response, clearly enjoying not being the only one to be taking care of the girls, for once.

The time spent humouring just one of the twins was an experience far too foreign for Hali, having never really dealt with a child in all her adult life. She generally harboured fears and anxieties that caused her to avoid them whenever she could, always worried that she’d do something wrong and, in so doing, face the wrath of the child’s caregiver(s). Now, however, she was one of those caregivers. Worse, Dahlia - the one woman in all of the world who she feared to cross more than any, mostly for fear of losing her love, though she wouldn’t often say so aloud to any other - was the other. Now, holding a child of her own, she found herself unable to really flee the situation, instead trying her best to embrace the situation, though as cautiously as she did the baby herself.

“W-what do I do...?” she asked the witchling as she sat on one of the nearby chairs in their apartment, the blinds drawn just enough so that the horrible, eternal light of the world outside did as little harm as possible. Ryūsei gave her hair another giggly yank. “Ow.”

“How should I know?” was Dahlia’s response. Preoccupied with changing a dirty diaper on the other girl, all she could do was roll her eyes, hair tied back into a tight ponytail to keep it from her face, especially as she gagged a little. It had been taking some getting used to, to be certain, but the reaction was not quite as bad after a few months of it. “You seem to be doing a fine enough job. If she’s happy, she’s happy.”

“Isn’t there - ow - something - ow! - I can do besides let her - ow, ow! - scalp me barehanded?”

“Ugh. Fine, fine. You picked up a couple toys from the neighbours, non? Find one of those.”

Rising with Ryūsei in her arms, Hali, “ow”-ing the whole way across the room, carefully shifted the little girl into one arm while grabbing for a small rubber rings with various nubs on it, rattling the bits and bobs inside to draw attention.

“How about this, sweetie?” she asked Ryuu with a pained smile, her tone as sweet as she could make it, sounding almost obnoxious were she not talking to a baby, “Try waving this around instead - nnnngh, ow ow - i-instead of momma’s hair, huh?”

This, thankfully, grabbed Ryuu’s attention, and violet eyes immediately diverted their gleeful gaze to stare at the little toy in her mother’s hand. No soon did she sees and hear it that she decided that it must be hers, and, releasing Hali’s hair, began making grabby hands, cooing incoherent baby-speak in what could only be a demand for the thing.

“You know,” Dahlia spoke up, sounding amused, “You’re better with them thank you think. I don’t know why you’re so nervous about it. After all, your parents were wonderful, quite unlike mine own. Ah, there. Much better.” With a small incantation, she lifted the diaper, only to have it immediately sucked through a dark tear in reality, opening by the woman’s magic, summarily sucking the dirty diaper into the void.

Strange, they had both thought, how doing so never seemed to attract voidsent. At first, it had been done as an experiment once Dahlia was capable of safely casting again. When nothing occurred, time and time again, the witchling had seen fit to start tossing their garbage into it, as if to continue their insults to the very world of nothingness itself as a replacement for killing its invasive, ravenous denizens.

Handing the toy to Ryuu, who immediately began bludgeoning her poor mother in the horn with it, Hali took on a brief dazed look before angling her head to that it was impacting her cheek instead and muttered, “Really? She’s really trying to kill me, I-I’m, uh... pretty sure.” At that, the toy impacted her glasses, knocking them clear of her face and sending Dahlia into a fit of laughter, then Suisei, seeing her mother laughing, as well. After a moment, Hali could only laugh, as well, a softening smile on her face as Ryuu began, instead, chewing on what was until moments ago her weapon of choice.

“...all the things we’ve faced,” Hali muttered, laughing dying down to a soft sniff of amusement, Dahlia walking out from the small bed loft to regard her warmly, “And this is... probably going to be the, uh... s-strangest. And most difficult. Heh.”

“You’re telling me,” was the brunette’s only reply, though it was hardly resentful, the look on her face speaking of a happiness that served to melt just a little more of Hali’s apprehension, “But we’ll make it through this, as with all else. I have faith, mes etoiles. You’ve given me everything I’ve ever wanted and more. We will face this together. No matter where or when or how.”

With a deep breath, the erstwhile shinobi could only look down at the little girl in her arms and smile, saying, “...you’re right. It’d be, ah... awful of me to shirk any of it now. And... a-and I wouldn’t dream of it. Not now. Not ever.”

Looking at the beaming woman and the two tiny children that had been brought into the strange, apocalyptic world in which they’d found themselves, Hali could only feel that apprehension further melting away, little by little, and she cast her gaze out toward the light-bathed landscape outside. She couldn’t be the hunter, the killer, she was any longer. Her honour, she was taught, was to her duty, and to those who depended on her. Now, not only did Dahlia rely on her, despite her considerable power and magicks, but they had two daughters - their daughters, of their flesh and blood and aether - that had to, beyond all else, be assured of a life that could be safe, secure, and, above all... happy.

A new duty called for a new role, and, hers was, above all, as a protector.

(( This short was done as a response to @renataturner‘s post in the Ala Mhigan Born from Blood Discord server! Thanks for the prompt and good luck to everyone else writing their own responses to enter the contest!

Also, of course, featuring @umbralhearts‘s Dahlia! ♥))

#hali #hali naras #asashio no haruhi #haruhi asashio #dahlia blake #dahlia de bellechier #holly morningtide #odellia morningtide #suisei asashio #ryuusei asashio #the first #crystarium #norvrandt #babies #twins #children #offspring #UNHOLY SPAWN OF THE TRASHFIRE WIVES

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daggerandrose · 5 years

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Merry Christmas everyone! I can’t believe that it’s less than 2 weeks until Christmas! I hope you have a lovely holiday season no matter what you celebrate. Here are some fics to read while eating all the things and watching to the Hershey’s holiday commercial for the bajillionth time. (We all know which one I'm talking about.)

As always, make sure to leave a nice comment for the authors and leave a kudos!

Holiday Greetings (And Gay Happy Meetings) by @2tiedships2

"Onwards to drop me off at Robert's before you go to Harry's!" Louis proclaimed when they were safely in the car. Or at least Louis was safely in. Niall was still brushing the snow out of his hair that Louis had accidentally dropped on him.

"We're picking up biscuits first," Niall grumbled as the snow melted into his hair. "You can wait in the car."

After three times of the car sounding like it was dying a slow and tragic death, it finally decided to start.

"This is what happens when you try to change the name of your car after five years," Louis said as a reminder of Niall's stupidity. "You'd be upset too if you were a car named Greased Lightning with a passenger trying to get it renamed to Dusty."

"To be fair," Niall explained, "the name Dusty does seem a bit more accurate."

"Make sure to leave the car running while you're getting whatever you're getting from Harry," Louis said in disgust. "This car is going to choke for good after that comment and I don't want to be stuck at Harry's place when that happens."

Or the one where Niall's dead car and and a foot of snow conspire to force Louis into spending time with an alpha he hates.... or does he?

A Story For the Ages, 7k, by @suddenclarityharry

Louis is sweating, his mother’s words still ringing in his ears.

We expect you to bring this boy home for Christmas, Louis. We want to meet him.

He should have known it was coming. After seven months of pretending to have a boyfriend in order to keep his mum from meddling in his love life again, he should have realized he’d have to actually introduce her to someone eventually.

My Only Wish, 17k, by @rainbowsandlovehl

“Do you know this Harry Styles?” “Why, is it the one you have to give a gift to?” Liam asked waggling his eyebrows playfully. It’s not like he knew the bloke so why was Liam doing that weird eyebrow lift thing. “Actually he’s the bloke who is walking towards the toilet,” Sophia added helpfully, pointing towards the bathroom door. Louis turned his head just in time to see long legs disappear behind the door. He was a little too late to glance and he hadn’t even seen his face. Unfair!

Or an Secret Santa AU where Louis doesn’t know how it works and keeps giving Harry gifts and being not so obvious about his flirting.

Tis the Season for...Love?, 27k, by @alarriefantasy

Prompt: Harry seems to have it all: A successful career as a pastry chef, a Victorian home in London, and a dedicated boyfriend who he's been with for years. One day he stops by his boyfriend's apartment to surprise him and finds out that he's not so dedicated to Harry after all. Shocked and too depressed to celebrate, he decides to skip Christmas and on a whim leaves on a plane to New York. In New York he meets Louis…

Or...Louis might just be what Harry's needed all along.

Under that Damn Mistletoe, 7k, by @hickeystyles

Louis' heart froze when he looked over and saw Liam whispering in Harry’s ear and nodding towards the mistletoe. Louis’ eyes widened comically before he dove out of sight so Harry couldn’t see him standing under the mistletoe like an idiot, or worse, like he was part of Liam’s plan to have Harry kiss him.

Or a Christmas Party AU where Louis is in love with his best friend Harry and everyone else is trying to force the two of them under the mistletoe together

Something Unpredictable, 19k, by LSFOREVER

Harry peers inside the gift bag, but all he sees is stuffing paper, the room too dark to see anything else. After turning on the lamp at the corner of his desk, Harry takes out the stuffing paper, then feels around for what's inside. What he comes back with surprises him so much that he nearly drops it, clapping his hand over his mouth after a small sound comes out.

Office AU where Harry plans a Secret Santa Christmas Party for his office floor. What he hadn't planned on, was some certain gifts that make him blush like crazy. Also featuring Mr. Tomlinson, The Boss Man; Zayn, Louis' best friend and company co-owner; Niall, Harry's cheeky mate; and Liam, the oblivious sweetheart.

Like Candy In My Veins, 31k, by @littlelouishiccups

“Um…” Harry said slowly after a moment. “Okay. That’s… this is… Let me get this straight.” He lifted up a hand and swallowed. “You told your family that you have a boyfriend… and my name was the first one you thought of?”

“Harry Potter was on TV, alright? It wasn’t that much of a stretch.” Louis pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t believe he was explaining himself to Harry fucking Styles. He couldn’t believe he was stooping this low. “Forget it. I’m sorry I even thought about bringing you into this.”

Harry snorted. “What? Did you want me to pretend to be your boyfriend or something?” (Basically the A/B/O, enemies to lovers, fake relationship, Christmas AU that nobody asked for.)

let your heart be light, 3k, by scagnetism

When they crawled into bed that night, Louis cuddled into him with hazy eyes, whispering into his neck, “I’m so happy, Hazza,” and Harry will never get tired of that.

He’ll never get tired of being a part of this family and sharing Christmas with them.

Or, Christmas with the Tomlinson family.

one glance and the avalanche drops, 27k, by @wankerville

It's strange, honestly, having someone so gorgeous in his kitchen, and not only physically gorgeous, but, like, the everything else gorgeous. The type of gorgeous that Louis wants his life to always be covered in. The type of gorgeous he wants lying in sweatpants and an old t-shirt on his couch when he gets home from class. The type of gorgeous he wants to have shoving crisps down the front of his shirt. The type of goddamn gorgeous he wants to kiss, and coddle, and like, love.

Which is ridiculous- he doesn't know him. Pfft.

(or an au wherein louis buys a christmas tree and harry is the boy in leggings who delivers it. they are a christmas classic.)

all the lights are full of color, 26k, by @infinitelymint

So, fast-forwarding eight years from the day Harry met Louis, he is now a twenty-seven year old owner of one of the most up-and-coming eating establishments on the London restaurant scene, father of two wonderful boys and… separated from his husband. Now, that last part definitely was never a part of the original plan.

Or, Harry and Louis are separated, but for the sake of their two sons, they choose to spend Christmas together. It may just lead to a Christmas miracle.

all I want for Christmas is, 17k, by crybaby

With Harry up against his side, his little four year old snuggled in his lap like it’s her favourite place, Louis could really believe they’re a real little family, off to their chalet to spend Christmas in the snow. A real little family where Louis would have the luxury of kissing Harry under mistletoe and rolling around in the fresh snow with him, taking him upstairs to his bedroom and fucking him to keep him warm.

(harry is louis' daughters' au pair. they spend christmas in austria)

#fic rec #larry fanfiction #mine

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pamphletstoinspire · 5 years

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The Kingdom of Love: 5th Sunday of Easter

The Easter Season is passing quickly. Already it is more than half over, as we progress toward the great Feasts of Ascension and Pentecost. We want the Season to slow down, so that we may savor the joy and consolation of these readings from Acts and John that dominate the Easter Cycle, but tempus fugit.

The Readings for this Fifth Sunday of Easter describe the growth of the Kingdom of God, which is manifested on earth as the Church. The first two readings and the psalm are tied together with Kingdom images, and the Gospel reminds us that this Kingdom is characterized by God’s love.

1. The First Reading is Acts 14:21-27:

After Paul and Barnabas had proclaimed the good news to that city and made a considerable number of disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch. They strengthened the spirits of the disciples and exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God. They appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, commended them to the Lord in whom they had put their faith. Then they traveled through Pisidia and reached Pamphylia. After proclaiming the word at Perga, they went down to Attalia. From there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work they had now accomplished. And when they arrived, they called the church together and reported what God had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

The key line from this reading of Acts is: “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.”

If we had read through Acts continuously to this point, we would notice that the narrative has switched from following Peter (Acts 1-12) to following Paul (Acts 13-28) by this point in the story, and the theme of suffering to enter the Kingdom actually enters the Book of Acts at this point. The word for “suffering” here is the Greek thlipsis, often translated “tribulation” by the KJV-RSV tradition, and associated with the hardship preceding the final judgment in the Gospels and Revelation. It is also a favorite term of St. Paul throughout his Epistles.

It is not accidental that “tribulation” crops up in St. Paul’s preaching precisely at this point. In the verses immediately preceding today’s Reading (i.e. Acts. 14:19-20), Paul is stoned to death by a mob incited by some Jews, yet he more-or-less miraculously “rises from the dead,” returns to the city, and continues preaching in the region.

As Paul was preaching this message of “through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God,” he was still visibly cut and bruised in a most awful way from his recent near-fatal (or truly fatal?) stoning. Standing mangled, bruised, bloody, and bandaged in front of the believers, his words must have had added power. Truly, he knew what tribulation was.

Empowered by the Spirit, the Apostles in Acts are growing in their understanding of the mystery of the Gospel. Though the element of suffering for the sake of the Good News had been present from the beginning of Jesus’ own preaching, Paul is realizing just how true this is. So many years before, Jesus Himself pronounced it on a mountaintop:

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matt 5:10-12)

So Paul’s preaching shows strong continuity with Jesus’. Through his preaching, the Kingdom continues to grow among the Gentiles. The ancient kingdom of David and Solomon included many Gentile nations within it, as vassal states in the empire (1 Kgs 4:21). Now the Kingdom of David, which is also the Kingdom of God, grows by the preaching about Jesus, Son of God and Son of David. And so it goes today: the preaching continues, conversions continue, and “tribulations” continue.

Pope Francis has spoken often of the modern world as an age of Christian martyrdom. Some years ago he said:

"There are bloody persecutions, like being torn to pieces by wild beasts to the delight of the audience in the stands or being blown up by a bomb at the end of Mass” and there are "velvet-gloved” persecutions that are "cloaked in politeness": the ones that marginalize you, take your job away if you fail to adapt to laws that "go against God the Creator. Persecution, I would say, is the daily bread of the Church. Today, on Easter Sunday, just three weeks ago… Those Christians who were celebrating Easter in Pakistan were martyred because they were celebrating the Risen Christ. Thus, the history of the Church goes ahead with its martyrs."

Though he spoke those words some years ago, they continue to ring true as the massacre of Christians at Easter in Sri Lanka this past year reminds us.

The Pope pointed out that in addition to bloody persecutions, there is a subtle form of persecution consisting of a refusal to allow conscientious objection to the pro-death laws of Western societies:

"But there is another persecution which is not much spoken about," a persecution "camouflaged by culture, by modernity, by progress in disguise: It is a persecution I would 'ironically' describe as polite. It’s when someone is persecuted for wanting to manifest the values of the Gospel: "It’s persecution against God the Creator in the person of his children!”

"It’s the kind of the persecution that deprives one of freedom, and of the possibility of conscientious objection. This is the persecution of the world."

Before we leave the First Reading, we should note a small but important feature of the Apostles’ ministry: “they appointed elders (presbuteroi) for them in each church.”

The leadership of the Church needs to be appointed, not elected, because the authority comes from Christ through his representatives, not from the people, as if the Church were a democracy.

These elders appointed by the Apostles were the first bishops (episkopoi) and priests (presbuteroi). In the very early Church, the terminology for the roles that we now distinguish as “bishops” and “priests” was not yet regularized. In certain NT passages, episkopos and presbuteros were used roughly synonymously. Later, the Church became more conscientious about reserving the title episkopos (bishop) for the presbuteros (priest) who was in charge of the whole local church. Keeping that in mind, we see here in Acts 14 how the Apostles, while they were alive, were conscious of the need to appoint leaders to continue their ministry and exercize their authority in their absence. These episkopoi and presbuteroi in turn appointed replacements for themselves, down to the present day, with Pope Francis and our local bishops and priests. So we are still “living in Acts.” The Church we see forming in this holy book is the one we still inhabit. The successors of St. Paul continue their ministry among us!

2. The Responsorial Psalm is Ps 145:8-9, 10-11, 12-13

R. (cf. 1) I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.

The LORD is gracious and merciful,slow to anger and of great kindness. The LORD is good to all and compassionate toward all his works. R. I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.

Let all your works give you thanks, O LORD,and let your faithful ones bless you. Let them discourse of the glory of your kingdomand speak of your might. R. I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.

Let them make known your might to the children of Adam,and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. Your kingdom is a kingdom for all ages,and your dominion endures through all generations. R. I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.

This Psalm is unique in that it mentions the kingdom (Heb. malkuth) of God four times. Only one or two other Psalms even mention God’s kingdom (103:19, possibly 45:6), and then only once each. So Psalm 145 is the “Psalm of the Kingdom of God.” This Kingdom is to be proclaimed to “the children of Adam,” that is, to all people, to all nations. That is precisely what Paul and Barnabas were doing in the First Reading. This kingdom is characterized by God’s grace, mercy, kindness (hesed), goodness, and compassion. This reminds us of the Gospel Reading, where Jesus gives the “new commandment” of love, which will characterize the new community he has established.

3. The Second Reading is Rev 21:1-5a:

Then I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them as their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away.” The One who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.”

Jerusalem was the capital city of the Davidic Kingdom, and several times in the nation’s history, the extent of the kingdom was reduced by invasion to the capital city alone (Isa 1:8; 36:1-2). Jerusalem is the mystical center of the Kingdom. This New Jerusalem is often identified as an image of heaven, but it is more accurate to see it as a vision of the Church. The “Church Triumphant” and “Heaven” are virtually coextensive concepts, so there is a great deal of overlap. Nonetheless, the identification with the Church can be made with the help of St. Paul, who calls the Church both the Bride of Christ (Eph. 5) and also the Temple of God, built on the foundation of the Apostles (Eph. 2). Likewise, this New Jerusalem of Revelation is Bride of Christ (Rev 21:9), a giant Holy of Holies (21:16), built on the foundation of the Apostles (21:14).

In the Church Triumphant, truly all tears, death, mourning, wailing, and pain will be removed. We may rest assured that there will be an ultimate end to the “tribulations” we suffer for the sake of the Kingdom. Nonetheless, even now, through the ministry of the Church and the Sacraments, we receive a great deal of comfort and consolation as we “strive to enter the Kingdom.”

Covenant concepts are implicit in this reading. The city is a “bride,” married to the Lamb, and marriage is one of the primary forms of covenant. Furthermore, this phrase, “they will be his people and he will be their God,” is often called by scholars the “covenant formula” or “covenant formulary,” because it is the most succinct Old Testament expression of the essential covenant relationship between God and Israel.

A covenant is the extension of family ties by an oath. Families are bound by love. This Second Reading uses an image of very tender love: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes.” This is a very intimate gesture. It is human nature to resist another person touching one’s face, especially around one’s eyes. If a stranger approached us and reached for our eyes, we would react violently and defensively. This is only something we would accept from a father, a mother, a spouse. God promises us this level of intimacy forever in the Church Triumphant, the life to come.

4. The Gospel is Jn 13:31-33a, 34-35:

When Judas had left them, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and God will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The Gospel of John is full of paradox, almost from the beginning of the Gospel, where we read:

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not.

He came to his own, and his own received him not.

We would expect, of course, that when the maker comes to what he has made, he would be received with joy — but paradoxically, such is not the case.

There is paradox in today’s periscope as well. We have reached one of the darkest hours in Jesus’ ministry: Judas has just left the upper room to carry out his mission of betrayal. Judas, one of the most capable and trustworthy of the disciples, the one entrusted with the common purse, is intent on selling Jesus to those who want him dead.

So is Jesus morose at this moment? Far from it! Instead he says:

Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him …

Why is this moment considered the “glory” of the Son of Man? We may offer many different perspectives on that question, but perhaps it is because Jesus has just consented to the will of the Father, consented to the total act of self-gift that will lead to the cross. This is the true glory of God: not simply that he is the all-powerful creator, but that his love extends to the point of giving up his divine prerogatives and giving himself into the hands of his creatures, to make them his sons and daughters (Phil. 2:5-11).

So the “glory” of the Son of Man is the glory of the total self-gift of love.

At this point, we see the logic of Jesus’ discourse, and why he moves from speaking of his glorification to the command of love:

I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.

As many commentators have pointed out, the command of love by itself is not new. The Old Testament already commanded one to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18). What is new here is to love as Jesus has loved, which is to love more than self.

The community of disciples that Jesus has formed and is forming, which can also be called “the Church” and “the Kingdom,” should be marked by this love:

This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

We see here how love is tied to evangelism: “This how all will know … if you have love.” This is a truth we tend to forget. When we take up efforts for evangelization, we tend to think of strategies for outreach, of door-to-door canvassing, rallies, crusades, passing out brochures, parish missions, etc. All of things are fine, but more fundamental is whether the local Christian community actually demonstrates love for each other.

Is our local parish a community of love, or a religious center where people greet each other in passing while heading in or out of worship? Is it any wonder, then, that the world doesn’t recognize us as the disciples of Jesus?

It is a hard saying. We have a great deal to do in order to implement our Lord’s command this day.

From: www.pamphletstoinspire.com

#the kingdom of love

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