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peanutbutterwrites · 2 months

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My Good Looking Boy - Part One

warnings for series: angst, struggles with self worth and self esteem, issues with appearance, childhood trauma, and mentions of death and murder.

summary: taking place after the southern raiders, zuko and katara finally learn to understand each other a bit more and long held on to feelings come to the surface. the gaang go and watch the ember island play and chaos ensues with katara's feelings.

part one - part two

authors note: here is the awaited first part! nothing crazy will happen in this part just because i'm trying to build a foundation on the slight heistance of acceptance between zuko and katara and expose the flaws in katara and aang going further into a relationship. i hope there's no major errors as i've read it a million times myself, but it is not beta read. please, let me know what you think and send me your thoughts and requests! i am open to criticism but please be kind to me lol. also let me know if you wanna be on a taglist for this series. thank you guys ~

word count: 1.8 k

Summertime in the fire nation was beautiful to see, the exotic flowers were in bloom and there was plenty to gather and hunt in the forest near camp. But one thing that summer did mean, was heat. Rays from the sun began beating down as early as six and were relentless until seven in the evening. Being a night owl meant Katara could spend a lot of her time in the cool light of the moon, late into the hours of the night. But it also meant a rude awakening when she rose at ten and it was already blisteringly hot. Groaning awake, she threw an arm to cover her eyes and felt the crease of her elbow sticky with sweat already.

“Ew, come on really?” she mumbled sleepily as she peeled the patchwork blanket from her balmy skin. Unsticking some of her hair from the nape of her neck, she rose from the tent to begin a long, hot day. Opening the curtains with a loud flap, the sun blinded her briefly before resting her eyes on the makeshift camp that the group had formed. Luckily, Sokka, Toph and Suki were all still sleeping so Katara didn’t feel too guilty about her habit of sleeping in. Yawning and making sure her wraps were tight, Katara stretched and began the laundry that she would have to do. “I need to gather food for dinner tonight, fix Suki’s blanket, teach Aang his lesson…” she mumbled, thinking out loud while she worked. As soon as she had all the blankets and clothes that needed washing, laundry was a daily occurrence thanks to the heat and dirt, she made her way down to the lake nearby camp.

The journey there was beautiful and pleasantly uneventful, but the need for cool water spurred her on and hindered her ability to appreciate the scenery. Once she finally arrived at the beautiful lake, she waded knee deep into the water and allowed the full, woven basket to float towards her. The lake lay under the cool shade of a carved out mountain with lush greenery growing all throughout it. It was beautiful to see such life within the fire nation, Katara had always thought it would be barren and depressing. Using a long, flat rock as support for the clean clothes, she breathed in and out as the gentle glide of her hands wove the water in and out of the fabric. The push and pull of the arm motion became therapeutic, and not too long after she began she was lost in her own thoughts. So lost in fact, she missed the rustling of the nearby leaves and the airy laughter floating its way into the clearing.

“Yeah! It was incredible right? Oh good morning Katar-” but her attention snapped just in time for a needle-thin icicle to hover right in front of the intruder's nose. “Whoa! It's just us.” Aang said as he brushed a large plant out of his way and walked with a bounce in his step toward her.

“Oh! I'm sorry, I was in my own world.” Katara dropped the icicle immediately in favor of returning to her former activity. “What are you doing out here? Didn’t you have practice this morning?”

“Yes, he did.” A rich, gravely voice rang out. It was quieter than Aangs and still held some apprehension. Katara raised her head to meet golden eyes.

“Oh, hello Zuko.” she said in a quiet greeting. Relations with Zuko had been strained to say the least. Katara spent the better half of the summer hating his guts and only recently had the formed common ground with the firebender. And by recently, she meant a little over a week at most. Finally accepting that his kindness and sincerity were, well, sincere; Katara was still finding it difficult to adjust to being comfortable around Zuko.

“Yeah! I did so great today, it was actually Zuko’s suggestion to come down here!” Aang bounded towards the water, taking off his robes in a fluid movement as he did so. Katara’s eyes flickered from Aang’s juvenile behavior with a fond smile on her face, back to Zuko. Noticing a light flush across his cheeks,

“Zuko? Are you okay? It’s quite hot today, why don’t you get in the water?” But the color only intensified.

“Uh yes, it is rather hot isn't it? I should get in.” Katara nodded while lightly giggling at him as he stood stiff as a board. Snorting at his behavior, she went back to focusing on the back and forth of the water she used to wash their laundry. Listening to Aang's babbling she hmm’d and oh’d in all the right spots about his stories of today’s lesson, about how wonderful he was getting at firebending. In her defense, she was fully involved in her work, focussing heavily on her job. That was, until a certain jerkbender decided to join them. Zuko derobed without any flourish, but Katara had a hard time focussing after the fact. Her breath fumbled and her heartbeat worked in a stuttering pattern. Her stomach felt awkward and didn’t it suddenly feel hotter out? Sinking slowly into the water, Zuko waded his way over to where Katara was working, forcing her to end her gawking. What the hell were you thinking about, Katara? Get a grip! Aang’s laughter could be heard reverberating off the walls of the carved out side of the cliff where the lake formed at the bottom, and Zuko finally settled on a ledge of rock, not too far from Katara. “So,” he began, “what have you been up to?” Katara fought the urge to roll her eyes.

“Well, you know me I’m a late riser but somebody needed to get this laundry done.”

“You don’t have to do everything by yourself, I could help you know.” he said sheepishly. “I feel bad with you doing all the work around here.”

“Well at least someone acknowledges it. You know, the occasional “wow thanks Katara!” would suffice.” She ranted, clasping her hands in a prayer position while exaggeratingly batting her eyes in mock praise.

“I’m serious though, I want to help.”

“Please, you and all your princely training isn’t going to help here.” he blushed a bright red and hung his head at the obvious statement. He had neglected to remember that to help with laundry he needed to know how to do laundry.

“W-well, teach me Sifu Katara.” she snorted at that, but hesitantly agreed. He had stood up from his seat on the rock ledge and had a hopeful look in his eyes. As soon as her eyes deviated from his, she regretted it. One would think all the traveling and limit to food would make one malnourished, but apparently Zuko was healthy as a horse as the water dropping down his toned stomach would beg to differ. Snapping her head down to hide the fierce blush that had bloomed across her face, she slapped a wet blanket into Zuko’s chest while he waded closer. Showing the motion of pressing the fabric into a rock for non-waterbenders, Zuko began learning how to actually help. He never once complained, even when Katara snapped at him for doing it incorrectly. They stood there in comfortable silence, only the sounds of water, rubbing of fabric, and occasional bird calls with Aang’s distant laughter never ceasing. It was one of the few times Katara has actually felt peace in a while. Even alone she often found her mind wandering into undesirable thoughts. Thoughts about her mother, the war, and even the man she killed. She knew he deserved it for all the waterbenders and innocent people of her tribe he must have wounded besides her mother. But for some reason, that didn’t make killing feel any better to her. “You thinking about something?” His hoarse voice suddenly spoke.

“Um yeah, I guess I am.”

“You can always talk to me. I mean, if you want that is.” Katara paused, debating on if they were comfortable enough yet with each other. “Actually, you never have to talk to me about anything really. You know I don't want to push your boundaries and-”

“It's okay, Zuko. Thank you.” She gave him a small smile and the tension of his previous rambling physically exited his body as his shoulders relaxed down.

“Well, good. Because honestly, you’re a really good friend Katara, and I don’t want to mess this up.” She offered him a soft grip on top of his hand and that slightly uncomfortable fluttering returned to her stomach.

“You haven’t messed it up.” He smiled softly back at her, his eyes twinkling and Katara swore she could see golden light dancing in them. But suddenly, his face fell and his hand slipped out from under hers. He went back to washing the fabric and a frown found its way to Katara’s face.

“Zuko? What’s-”

“Hey, you guys are washing out our clothes! Cool!” Aaang waded out of the water and the moment was lost. Maybe she was imagining it, but she swore she heard Zuko let out a sigh of relief.

“Well yeah, you guys have been complaining about the sweat and dirt so, here we are.”

“Wow, really cool of you to help Zuko. You didn’t have to.” Aang said cheerfully, grabbing the finished clothes and hitting them with some gusts of wind to help dry them quickly. Katara’s frown only deepened,

“You know Aang, he didn’t have to but it would be nice if you guys helped me out a little more.” “Why? It's like your job, you know? I have to train, Zuko and Toph have to teach me, Suki has stuff to do for her people and helps you out sometimes, and Sokka is, well, Sokka. That stuff’s your thing.”

“But Aang, I teach you too.” Katara grumbled.

“I barely need help waterbending anymore, I think it’s fine.” He shrugged while he pulled on a robe. Katara ground her teeth and had to contain herself from snapping.

“I think she has a point, there’s nothing wrong with us all helping each other out a little more.” Zuko came to the rescue. But Aang simply shrugged, as if this conversation was no big deal at all.

“Sure, I’m heading back to camp. You guys coming?” Katara sighed and tried to keep her tone even.

“No Aang, I’m not finished with my job.” Aang looked pointedly at Zuko.

“I'll stay with her.”

#zutara #zuko x katara #atla #atla imagines #zutara imagines #angst #hurt comfort

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bikepackinguk · 1 year

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Day Seventeen

Another long slog of a day down! But with a very nerded payoff today.

Woke up very early a little south of Alnmouth to star tackling Northumberland's hillier stretch. The south of the county had been wonderful and flat along the coastline, but from here NCN 1 does a lot more meandering to take in many of the castles around the area, and coupled with some poor road surfaces and climbs made for some heavy going for much of the morning.

Eventually the route climbs high up over the other side of the A1, giving an impressive view of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, before a long descent down through Beal, where I carried on to have a quick check out of the causeway.

I'd been advised by other riders coming the other way to avoid the cycle route past there as it was pretty rough going for bioes designed more for roads like mine, but some exploring around showed that the only other option was a run down the busy A1, which sounded hellish, so with a lot of work and sweat the bike path was followed, across some very rough terrain and tracks.

Despite the effort, it turned into a pretty fun time. a sunny Saturday had brought out many other riders along the route, and there was plenty of chatting and trading tales with many other folk on the way.

At one point the path ahead was blocked by a gate behind which was a reasonably sized herd of cows, with two other riders rather concerned about how to continue. Apparently cows can be intimidating if you're not used to them!

The long push along the trail finally finishes on the clifftops overlooking Berwick-Upon-Tweed, the most northerly town in England.

Descending down from there the path runs through Tweedmouth, before over the bridge and into Berwick proper.

Unfortunately the climbs were far from over for the day! Pretty much as soon as the river is crossed the uphills begin again. I had hoped that the pathway along the A1 out of Berwick continued round and would make riding round the coast into Scotland a trivial affair, but alas it finishes a little short of the border and I really didn't feel like messing around on a dual carriageway. So, back down to Berwick again to continue the bike route which departs eastwards.

From what I can tell, the A1 follows a nice flat run around the hills. The bike trail goes directly over them.

So another long climb begins, initially tracing the border between England and Scotland almost straight north, before turning off at Mordrington and officially entering Scotland!

The climb keeps on going to about 650ft above sea level, before finally cresting the top and beginning a long ride back down the other side towards Eyemouth.

I'm honestly still a bit shocked that I've made Scotland already. No way was I ever expecting to progress this quickly, but very happy for it!

And of course being in Scotland means taking advantage of the legally protected wild camping laws, differing wildly to those in England and Wales. For the journey so far, I've had to setup late, wake very early, and ensure stealth when wild camping. Up here, I now have the tent setup next to a beautiful bubbling brook, where I can rest for a couple of nights and finally give the arching muscles sole much needed R&R. And I even got some beers in as a reward to myself.

So, probably no update tomorrow as I plan on spending most of the day having a nice lay down and reading! In the great tradition of reading lists everywhere, I have ignored it and returned to a favourite of mine for nearly 30 years, The Lord Of The Rings. Seems appropriate for an adventure.

See you all on Monday!

#bikepacking #bicycle touring #wild camping

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jem-fern · 2 years

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Miniature Project: Happy Camper Caravan (Rolife)

Okay, here's the first project where I got really silly with it! I made a LOT of changes to the og Rolife kit; I made all the outside furniture from scratch, added an awning and a shelf and a fence, and even completely revamped the interior as well.

These official pictures show a little of the original kit's features:

The exterior was cute but the weird little signs and paper-based grass and BBQ weren't terribly inspiring, while the inside was just a few random kitchen elements with a printed floor and printed carpet. The bed was just a fabric platform (with a plate of fruit on it??) and the colors were mainly brown and yellow in contrast to the cute pastel exterior.

So of course I completely remodeled the caravan:

I used math paper to paint floor tiles and also hand-painted all of the wallpaper. The kitchen bench is painted with sparkly nail-polish for that Formica look, and I made utensils, a fruit bowl (from a cool button), a shelf of containers and cups, and of course a tiny camping fridge! The little stove is also a remodel, but I kept the tiny chopping board and fruit.

The 'bedroom' features a shelf of toiletries, comfy blankets and pillows, books, plants and a little postcard taken from notepaper.

I also added a little ivy-leaf mobile to balance out the composition:

(From the second picture there you can see the repaint of the og kit chair and a little pastel-themed handbag under the bench.)

The final touch was a little pile of camp activities on the bed:

By far the most work on the exterior was finding a suitable finish for the paintwork. I eventually settled on pink printer paper, painted over with a brighter pink acrylic paint, and finished with two layers of clear nail polish.

Also time consuming was creating the base; the kit just came with a printed grass cutout and some plastic moss powder. I added gravel under the caravan (as most campsites might have), larger pebbles and plastic grass strands, dried grass and plants that resemble lilies and harakeke, often seen in the wilder areas of Aotearoa. The mat is cut from a place-mat.

I also made a cool wire-and-post fence! I only really had access to that thicker wire at the time, so its not completely to scale, but it looks amazing anyway.

Here are some details~!

On the roof-rack we have plenty of luggage and a guitar, and I added a towel (and improved the rack as it sat too high on the og kit),

Whoever lives here is prepping for a hike and a picnic! They have their retro ipod, maps (printed from real pamphlets found online), headphones and of course a picnic basket with snacks and sunnies.

Plants decorate the flat surfaces outside. I made the shelf from scratch as the kit came with a weird brown table thing that I didn't like. I also used the shelf to make an extra light for the outside, as the kit only had the one light on the inside. The lantern is a plastic straw large enough for the LED with a cardboard cuff and a button on top.

The BBQ area is a little under-decorated, mainly because I ran out of ideas for this area. I have some plans to finish it with some BBQ tools and crockery. Proud of the tiny jandals, though!

A big kitty at the back, alongside the revamped bumper. The plate comes from some travel-themed scrapbooking paper (ignore that its from colorado lol). The cat was found at the thrift store, badly worn and covered in stickers (someone had tried to turn him into a pendant!). I cleaned him up and painted in some details - now he's the campsite cat~ (of course in real life, all cats should be kept inside for their own safety and for the conservation of local wildlife)

Peeking in through the windows! And the door:

So yeah, while I do have a few more ideas to keep adding to it, I'd say the Happy Camper kit is just about finished!

The kit makes a great starting point for a more advanced project, but I didn't use much of the original furniture or even the smaller elements. Overall this was an amazing project for me because I love camping So Much (I have like five lego campervan kits lol) and I just had so many ideas as I was making it.

#happy camper #rolife #miniatures #craft #miniature kit #caravan #tiny house (literally)

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eazy-group · 10 months

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The Best Coolers for Camping, Beachgoing, BBQs, and Anything Else You Want to Do Outside

New Post has been published on https://eazycamping.net/the-best-coolers-for-camping-beachgoing-bbqs-and-anything-else-you-want-to-do-outside/

The Best Coolers for Camping, Beachgoing, BBQs, and Anything Else You Want to Do Outside

The Oyster is much smaller and easier to carry than lots of high-end rotomolded coolers. At almost 12.5 pounds we wouldn’t call it ultra-light, but it still can hold more and weighs less than a Yeti Roadie 24, while being small enough to carry with one hand. We’ll note that Yeti does have an aluminum cooler as well, the V series, but it’s much larger and costs $800.

The Oyster has some other nice touches, like the ability to switch easily between a carrying handle or a shoulder strap and a cool, retro look that make for a cooler that really stands out in a world of samey samey plastic choices.

What we didn’t like about the Oyster Tempo

It costs more than the Roadie 48, which already comes at a premium price point, and it holds less. If it didn’t bring the goods in terms of performance that would be a dealbreaker. But it does, so we’ll just observe that $500 is a lot for a cooler.

Size: 20.1” x 11.8” x 12.6” Capacity (standard soda cans): 36 cans, no ice necessary Weight: 12.4 lbs.

The best budget cooler: Coleman Xtreme 5 Cooler

There’s a reason Coleman remains one of the most recognizable names when it comes to outdoor gear. Coleman coolers are all about function at achievable prices, and this one is no exception. At 70 quarts, it’s sized to hold up to 100 cans plus ice and keeps those drinks cold even in blazing temps. Not bad for less than 80 bones.

Surprisingly streamlined and attractive (value coolers generally lack the sex appeal of their high-end counterparts), the jet-black and white box has a smooth surface for easy cleaning, a channel drain for emptying without tipping, and a lid that functions as either extra seating (supporting up to 250 pounds) or a tabletop with four integrated cupholders.

If you’re craving an exciting year of beachgoing or tailgating, this may just be the cooler for you.

What we didn’t like about the Coleman Xtreme 5

What you gain in cost savings, you lose in features and long-term durability. There aren’t any wheels, so moving the filled cooler is a definite team effort. And after our stress tests, we observed a couple of screws from the hinged lid coming loose. So consider throwing a screwdriver in with your six-pack. Also, this cooler may actually be bigger than you need in many cases. It’s best for things like backyard barbecues or car camping when you can pull right up to the site and don’t have to carry the cooler too far.

Size: 17.6” x 22.6” x 17.5” Capacity (standard soda cans): 84 cans, with no ice Weight: 12.7 lbs.

What is a rotomolded cooler?

Now that the Oyster Tempo is showing what you can do with aluminum this may change, but Rotomolded coolers are still generally held as the gold standard for portable ice chests. The term “rotomolded” is often tossed around without explanation, though. Rotomolding is short for rotational molding, and refers to a production method that involves filling a mold with hot resin. The mold is then rotated in all directions. The result is a cooler with no seams and perfectly uniform thickness. Because of that, rotomolded coolers are more durable and better insulated than other types of coolers, like injected molded ones. But they are also heavier than other types of coolers.

What we looked for

What’s the cooler’s capacity? Does it provide sufficient and efficient storage?

Besides allowing plenty of space for cans and ice, the ideal cooler should allow you to store bulky items flat (such as a supply of sandwiches) or upright (a bottle of wine) so they don’t squish or spill.

What’s the temperature retention?

This right here is why you’re spending money on a cooler in the first place and not just using some random tote bag. Even in extreme outdoor heat, a cooler has to keep items chilled for an extended period of time. And, clearly, not all models are created equal in this respect.

How easy is it to move, lift, and travel with?

Besides keeping your stuff, well, cool, the other main attribute you want is portability. It shouldn’t take an extreme amount of upper body strength to maneuver a cooler, even a full one, from point A to point B. If it doesn’t have wheels (which would be ideal), it should at least be properly balanced and reasonably lightweight with easy-to-grip handles and a way to secure it inside the trunk of a car.

How durable is it?

Especially if you’re going to shell out for a high-end model, a hard-body cooler should be able to take a licking and keep on ticking.

How easy is it to clean and drain?

From melted ice and spilled sodas to the sticky drippings from a hastily packaged rack of ribs, there’s no question that cooler interiors can get awfully funky. You want something that is easy to empty and scrub down, which means an easy-to-remove drain plug and a minimum of hard-to-scrub nooks and crannies.

Are there any special features?

From wheels and handles to various interior and exterior storage solutions, hard coolers are a surprisingly feature-rich category, considering they are essentially just insulated boxes.

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christian-perspectives · 1 year

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The Story Of Moses And The Complaining People

The story of Moses is an interesting one. The Israelite nation experienced a historical turning point under his leadership. But his story began well before God called him to lead that nation. And it continued even after his death. But when we get to this part of his story, Moses found himself dealing with some very unhappy people. Moses heard all the families standing in the doorways of their tents whining, and the Lord became extremely angry. Moses was also very aggravated. Numbers 11:10 God supplied the entire nation with food called manna. It consisted of a very pleasant-tasting substance, but it needed to be collected and prepared every day. The manna looked like small coriander seeds, and it was pale yellow like gum resin. The people would go out and gather it from the ground. Numbers 11:7-8,9 - They made flour by grinding it with hand mills or pounding it in mortars. - Then they boiled it in a pot and made it into flat cakes. - These cakes tasted like pastries baked with olive oil. - The manna came down on the camp with the dew during the night. Numbers 11:9 But some of the people in the camp weren’t satisfied with it. Verse 4 says that foreigners traveling with the Israelites began to complain. Which also stirred some Israelites to complain. We remember the fish we used to eat for free in Egypt. And we had all the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic we wanted. But now our appetites are gone. All we ever see is this manna! Numbers 11:5-6 In this part of the story, God became extremely angry and the aggravation in Moses surfaced. He asked God why he needed to put up with their whining.

Moses was Ready for His Story to End

And Moses said to the Lord, “Why are you treating me, your servant, so harshly? Have mercy on me! What did I do to deserve the burden of all these people? Numbers 11:11 He was at the end of his rope. Moses told God in so many words to just end his story right then and there. I can’t carry all these people by myself! The load is far too heavy! If this is how you intend to treat me, just go ahead and kill me. Do me a favor and spare me this misery! Numbers 11:14-15 Well the Lord wasn’t interested in killing Moses. He planned on taking care of the problem in a different way. In fact, God had a long-term solution and a short-term one.

The Short-Term Solution

Let’s look at the short-term solution first. In this part of the story, the people told Moses, they wanted more than manna. They wanted meat. So God told them they would get it, plenty of it. You will eat it for a whole month until you gag and are sick of it. For you have rejected the Lord, who is here among you, and you have whined to him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?” Numbers 11:20 Looking at it from a human standpoint, Moses had no idea how this would happen. Nor did he know what kind of meat God had in mind. But Moses responded to the Lord, “There are 600,000 foot soldiers here with me, and yet you say, ‘I will give them meat for a whole month!’ Even if we butchered all our flocks and herds, would that satisfy them? Even if we caught all the fish in the sea, would that be enough?” Numbers 11:21-22 The Lord assured His servant Moses that He could and would do everything He promised. Moses was a man of faith but in this case, seeing was believing. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Has my arm lost its power? Now you will see whether or not my word comes true!” Numbers 11:23

God’s Long-Term Solution

Because of the pressure created by all the complaints that Moses had to bear, God’s long-term solution involved other people. So He gave Moses the following instructions. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Gather before me seventy men who are recognized as elders and leaders of Israel. Bring them to the Tabernacle to stand there with you. Numbers 11:16 When God gives anyone a job to do whether it’s Moses or you, He always provides what we need. In this part of the story, God equipped 70 other men to help Moses. I will come down and talk to you there. I will take some of the Spirit that is upon you, and I will put the Spirit upon them also. They will bear the burden of the people along with you, so you will not have to carry it alone. Numbers 11:17 God still uses this long-term solution even today. He has a body of believers with one person who is the head. His name is Jesus! Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything. Colossians 1:18 But God has also given gifts to the church. They will continue until we all come to unity in our faith so the church can achieve His will. Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-12

Like Moses, We Also Have a Story

So, just like Moses, we also have a story. Just like Moses, we are called to do the work God has equipped us to do. And just like Moses, we don’t have to do it alone. I don’t know if any of the 70 men that Moses chose were among the complainers. If they were, God changed them. If you are a complainer let Him change you and fill you with His Spirit. Lord, be the author of our story just like you were for Moses and his story. Check out these related posts about Moses - The Necessity Of Powerful Intercessory Prayer - Story Of The Burning Bush In The Bible - Moses Interceded For Israel With Great Results - Instructions from God Read the full article

#BibleStudy #Devotions #Numbers

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asweetprologue · 3 years

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so hard to say (so easy to do)

This is a follow-up to this fic I did for my halftober series, but can be read as a standalone! This is a whump fic, but all torture mentioned is fairly mild and there is a happy ending. A few people wanted a sequel so I’m finally able to oblige! ao3

tw: hand trauma including broken fingers and mention of cutting near and around the forearms.

***

He can’t remember how long he’s been here.

Days? A week, maybe? It could have been months, and Jaskier’s not entirely sure he would notice the difference. Time began blending together so quickly after the first few sessions. The cell they are keeping him in is makeshift, once some kind of storage room in the dilapidated keep that the Nilfgaardians have occupied. It’s temporary, and so is his capture. One way or another. He will be disposed of the second they no longer find him useful.

It’s a bit of a cat and mouse game. If he weren’t so thoroughly bruised, deep down in his core, he might be a little proud of how he’s led them along. They come every day, a few times, he’s not sure; there are no windows in his hasty prison. They never remove him from the chair he’s strapped to, and he’s been given only water, twice. He’s beyond hunger, his empty stomach just another point of pain alongside his other injuries. There are two men who work on him, one in what he assumes is the morning and one in the evening. They come in shifts. During the first few days - hours? weeks? - they would leave after he passed out, and he would be allowed to rest for a little while. Now they usually stay for a while, teasing him in and out of consciousness with wicked little hooks and blades. He faints too often for it to bring him any lasting peace.

It’s a difficult thing to want to draw out, but draw it out he does. They ask him where the witcher has gone, and he tells them he won’t say, won’t give up his secrets (as if he has any). When they move to breaking his fingers, he tells them that he knows a few places, some towns that Geralt might be hiding out in, which he knows are safe to speak of. He tells them about witcher caches that he knows are long looted, old ruins where experiments past took place, unspoken but harmless truths.

He never tells them the biggest truth: he has no idea where Geralt is. That way lies death, he’s certain.

When he’s not entertaining Nilfgaard’s finest, he focuses on making plans of escape. None of them are particularly grand, or seem likely to work. Jaskier has gotten himself out of plenty of trouble in years past, but there’s not much one man can do against a full legion of soldiers. If he could get out of his bindings, he might be able to make it through the halls of the keep and sneak past the guards, but it’s a big if. It was a stronger contender in the early hours of his captivity, but now he doubts if he could even stand up for long. Weariness and pain have made his bones brittle, liable to crack at the slightest provocation. He fears if he tried to run he would do more damage than the Nilfgaards already have.

He’s not sure if he’s thinking clearly.

He doesn’t think about Geralt at all. He tries not to think about Geralt.

He dreams of him, though. When he faints from the pain or exhaustion or thirst, he doesn’t dream, but a few times he’s managed to fall into a fitful sleep. In the dark of the cell he dreams of calloused hands and smiling, golden eyes. The worst is when he dreams that he’s woken up by Geralt’s side in their small camp, warm and content, only to wake again to the cold, damp dungeon. The smell of it chokes him, iron and piss and mold, and he gags on bile when he has nothing in his stomach to throw up. He sits in the dark, alone, his broken fingers throbbing along with his pulse as it rushes through his ears, every cut and bruise aching in the chill air. For a long while he just breathes, wishing so desperately to be held that he feels like nothing more than a child.

They come for him again the next morning. Or night, he doesn’t know, can’t tell. The torch burns his eyes, and he closes them tightly to avoid one pain he doesn't have to endure. It’s better if he doesn’t look, anyways.

In his brief glimpse of his tormentor, Jaskier could tell that the torturer this time is the thin man. His counterpart is huge, with shockingly broad shoulders and big, meaty, uncoordinated hands. Most of the bruises are from the big one, who prefers to slam his fist into Jaskier’s ribs when he doesn’t hear what he wants to. In his brief and endless time here, Jaskier has learned that he prefers the meat man. The thin man who stands before him now is a surgeon, precise and accurate in all his movements. His fingers are long and thin, and they reach so easily inside to pluck at Jaskier’s delicate veins and nerves. In a strange way, Jaskier can almost appreciate it, one artist to another. The human body is an instrument to the thin man, and the music he makes is pain.

He can hear the sound of a cloth, rubbing across a smooth surface. It reminds him of Geralt, wiping down his blades with old silk, who he will not think of in this moment. Jaskier squeezes his eyes shut even tighter, trying to will his mind into stillness. He’s not any good at this, not really. He can talk around the issue, sure, draw it out as much as he likes, keep them guessing. Jaskier would never let a single unintentional detail slip, this he knows in the depths of his being, past the music and charm and frivolousness. Nothing could make him betray Geralt and Ciri. He could run the Nilfgaardians round in circles for years if he wanted to.

But he isn’t good with pain.

This time the first knife to pierce his skin isn’t even preceded by a question. It comes with little fanfare, slicing into the pad of one of his twisted fingers in what Jaskier knows is a painfully intentional line. Exactly as big and deep as it needs to be to hurt him how the thin man wants it to. It burns against the swollen skin, already too sensitive. Jaskier lets out a slow breath, trying to brace himself for the rest.

“I will no longer ask,” the thin man says. His voice is soft, with the almost musical lit of someone from near Toussaint. He always sounds breathy, like he’s been walking too quickly up a flight of stairs. “You know the question.”

Jaskier nods jerkily. He won’t speak for a while. He needs to draw it out, perhaps find a way to barter for some water or food. Information in exchange for things that might make his existence more bearable. Who knows how long it will be before -

No. Don’t think it.

The thin man hums and begins his work.

Jaskier fades, coming back to himself only when the pain becomes the worst. He passes out a few times, but he finds no reprieve. The thin man waits for him when he wakes, and begins again. Jaskier doesn’t even know what he’s doing anymore. All he knows is that his skin has been replaced with fire.

They haven’t even started working on his face yet, but the thin man had made some chilling comments about his eyes. Jaskier hopes they have time yet before that.

He’s gritting his teeth through a particularly deep incision on the inside of his forearm - just shallow enough not to be dangerous, but wide enough to sting - when the door to the room shatters inwards.

The chair that he’s in was bolted to the floor, which he expects is the only reason he doesn’t go flying backwards. As it is, his head rocks back from the blast and knocks into the wood, and he’s too dizzy from blood loss and dehydration and maybe a slight concussion to register what happens next. There’s some shouting, and a spray of something warm and salty across his face. A brilliant light, and then darkness.

He keeps his eyes closed until he feels hands on his cheeks. When he opens them, he is met with gold, gold, gold.

Geralt is here.

“Melitele, that took you long enough,” he says, and then he passes out.

***

When he wakes, there’s no pain.

He sits up and winces, amending that thought. There is, most definitely, some pain. It crackles along his ribs and his joints, aching, but it’s dulled. He’s lying in a small room, warm wooden logs forming the wall next to his small cot. A fire crackles merrily away on the far side of the little cottage, basic cooking implements hanging above it. A table sits underneath a window to his left, where he can just barely make out a thin line of blue sky above a dense treeline. His bed is covered in rough, simple cotton sheets; the room is warm enough that it needs no quilt. When he lifts them warily to assess the damage, his torso is wrapped in fine linens, the kind Geralt likes to keep in their packs for when jobs go south. Three of his fingers are heavily wrapped as well, bound together to keep them stiff and straight. He fumbles as he picks up the still mug of water he finds on the little shelf beside the cot, and he drinks so quickly he nearly drops it on the floor.

He’s so focused on the critical task of getting water from the mug into his mouth without spilling it all on the sheets that he almost doesn’t notice the front door opening. When he does, he jumps - can’t help it, suddenly filled with a bright spot of panic. It fades into sheer relief when he sees the slight silhouette and the faint, nearly white hair backlit by the late afternoon sun. Ciri stares at him, holding a wide, flat bowl against her hip while propping the door open with one hand. Suddenly the bowl goes clattering to the floor, dandelion greens falling in a floral carpet as she launches herself across the room at him.

“We were so fucking worried about you!” she says, throwing her arms around his shoulders. Jaskier laughs, the sound of it coming out rough but no less joyful for it. He lifts his sore arms to hug her back, ignoring the way it pulls at his healing injuries.

“Now what would your father say if he heard you using such language?” he asks. One hand lifts up to card gently through her hair. Ciri pulls back a bit, and he tucks a stray piece of it behind her ear as she glares at him. Her green eyes are covered in a film of tears, but he won’t mention it. His eyes are burning a bit as well.

“You know I only learned it from him,” she says, “and you. I’m angry with you. And him. You made us leave you behind.” She’s so young, he thinks, even with everything she’s been through. It makes something in his chest compress and expand at once. It’s a strange feeling, but not a bad one.

“I know. I’m sorry,” he says, and he means it, mostly. “I didn’t want to. But I would do it again, to protect you. Both of you.”

A stray tear slips down her cheek. “You were so hurt,” she croaks. She takes a few breaths through her nose, biting the inside of her lip. “When they brought you back, Geralt was so quiet. Not like normal quiet, but like, like people get when they don’t want to talk about how bad it is. I’m sorry. It’s my fault.” She looks bereaved, guilt twisting her young features, and Jaskier can’t stand it.

“No,” he says, firmly, as much authority in his voice as he can muster with it still raw from hours of screaming. “It was my choice, Ciri. The fact that people want to hurt you doesn’t make it your fault. I will always choose to protect you. Always.” He reaches out his free hand to take hers, squeezing it tightly. “You would do the same for me, Lioness.”

She nods shakily, and squeezes his hand back. He knows this isn’t the last time he’ll have to say it, but that’s alright. He’ll say it again.

Ciri wipes her eyes quickly and pulls away. “I need to get Geralt. He’s been… not good. He needs to know you’re awake.” She stands up, rushing over to the door and righting her upended bowl, saving what she can of the greens. Jaskier takes a moment to arrange himself on the bed a bit, shuffling around until he’s more comfortable.

“Not good how?” he asks. Ciri shoots him a look.

“Not good as in worried, of course. We all have. Even Yennefer. She stayed with you the entire first day you were back. It’s been -”

The door slams open again, this time revealing a panting Geralt. His hair is down around his face, looking slightly damp. He has on only a loose gray shirt over an old pair of trousers, the ones with a rip in the knee that Jaskier had told him to throw out but he’d insisted were good for at least one more season. Jaskier had been meaning to patch it up for a few weeks now. He’s so fucking beautiful Jaskier could cry.

“I was fishing,” Geralt says. He’s staring at Jaskier with wide eyes, one hand still on the door handle.

Ciri says, “Um. I’m going to find Yennefer,” and slips out the door under Geralt’s arm. Geralt doesn’t even seem to see her.

The door falls shut behind her, but Geralt seems rooted in place, staring at Jaskier with an expression that’s wide open and raw. It lands on Jaskier’s skin like a balm, tracing over every visible wound with desperate attention.

“Well,” Jaskier says finally, “I’m not going to bite you.”

Geralt makes a hurt noise, and suddenly he’s across the room, crowding into Jaskier’s space. He hovers beside the bed, curved over Jaskier’s propped up form with his hands inches away from bandaged shoulders. He hesitates. Jaskier can’t stand it.

“I didn’t get tortured for however long for you not to hug me once I’m rescued,” he snaps. “I’m not going to break.”

Geralt laughs, but it’s so strangled Jaskier isn’t actually sure it isn’t a sob, and then Geralt finally leans into him. His fingers come up to cradle Jaskier’s skull, holding onto the back of his neck like he really might fragment apart at too harsh a touch. His other arm circles around Jaskier’s chest until he can feel a warm palm spread along the base of his spine, anchoring him. Jaskier sighs, feeling the last of the tension leave him as he collapses against Geralt’s sturdy form. One wet strand of white hair tickles his cheek where he’s pressed against Geralt’s neck.

“Four days,” Geralt says, so soft Jaskier might not have heard it if he didn’t half feel it through the rumble of Geralt’s ribcage.

“Four days?” Jaskier repeats, turning it into a question.

“How long they had you.” A hot breath leaves him in a long sigh, tickling Jaskier’s eartip. “Didn’t know if we’d find you in time.”

“I should have let Yennefer put that tracking spell on me all those years ago,” Jaskier says, aiming for light. Geralt just squeezes him a bit tighter, enough that it stings a little, before he eases off a bit. He doesn't let go.

“She’ll do one as soon as she’s able,” Geralt says. “Used a lot of energy, healing you.”

“Exceptional job she did,” Jaskier says, soothing his nose along the line of Geralt’s throat. “My, ah. Well. Does she know if my - Any prognosis on, ah -”

“Your fingers will be fine,” Geralt says, bringing the hand on Jaskier’s neck down to cradle his bandaged fingers. “Yennefer said they’re mostly healed already, but she’s keeping them wrapped so you don’t aggravate them.”

Jaskier sighs in relief. “Well thank small mercies and powerful mages for that. How long am I bedridden for? I’m taking two days at least off of whatever orders Yennefer has given, knowing her she’s added an extra week just to keep me ��out of trouble’ as she would describe it. I’ll not sit around a moment more than -”

“Jaskier,” Geralt interrupts. He pulls back, looking serious, almost grave. But his eyes are full of something else, something that makes Jaskier’s words catch and halt in his throat.

“Yes, dear heart?” he prompts. Geralt closes his eyes.

“I love you,” he says, soft and breathless. He opens his eyes suddenly, pupils blown wide as he meets Jaskier’s gaze. An expression that Jaskier has seen so, so many times steals across his features - scared, but determined. His witcher is a very brave man. “I’m in love with you. I didn’t know if I’d get to - if you would be -”

Jaskier reaches up to catch Geralt’s cheek in his wrapped palm, and Geralt’s eyelids flutter like he wants to close them, but he doesn’t. He stays looking at Jaskier, drinking him in as Jaskier is doing in return. His eyes are two spots of honey in the warm light of the fire and the afternoon sun spilling into the room. Jaskier leans forward and presses their lips together. His are too dry, and Geralt’s are a bit chapped. He bites them when he’s nervous, or worried. It’s also the most brilliant kiss Jaskier’s ever had - it feels like the relief of coming to a familiar place after a long time on the road, where you know the people and the food is good and everyone knows your songs. It’s cheerful fires in silver blue campsites, blankets shared on cold nights on the journey north, buttercups and dandelions braided into snow white hair. It’s coming home, the only way Jaskier has ever really known how.

He pulls away, letting their foreheads fall together, just breathing in the space between them. Geralt smells like Roach, and fresh spring water, and lilac. “I know, sweetheart. I love you too.”

Geralt smiles at him, really smiles, beautiful and relieved. Ciri’s voice comes to them through the window, excited and drawing nearer, interwoven with a smoother tone that Jaskier remembers from hazy half wakeful moments. Yennefer will want to check on his wounds, will lecture them on getting distracted and ruining her hard work, but she will also smile and it will touch her eyes like it didn’t used to. But for the next few seconds, it’s just the two of them, and once again the moment feels unhurried and infinite. So he leans back in to kiss him again and steals Geralt’s quiet huff of a laugh to keep within his own mouth, and for a moment that’s everything there is.

#geraskier #jaskierxgeralt #geraltxjaskier #geralt/jaskier #the witcher #geralt of rivia #jaskier #dandelion #ciri #writing #fan fiction #whump #tw: throwing up #tw: torture #brief head trauma but it's not discussed bc yenn heals it pretty immediately #passing out #my tags make this sound worse than it is probably lmao #my work #<5

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mandalorewhore · 3 years

Text

Two Steps Ahead

PART THREE OF HUNTER (formerly hunter and prey)

gif by @princessxkenobi

Rating: Explicit Content Warnings: SMUT, Fighting as Foreplay, Rough Sex, Penetrative Sex(PIV), Unprotected Sex, Dirty talk, Praise kink, Size kink, Big Dick Mando, Top Mando, Sub/Dom elements, Very slight Pain Kink, possible CNC elements although I didn’t write that I also want to warn anyone who doesn’t want to read about rough sex with physical fighting as foreplay Words: 6.9k AO3 LINK

Summary: Reader and Mando start tracking their first bounty together

A/N: i believe things are happening...interesting

***

“I feel like you have a distinct advantage here.” A bead of sweat drips over your brow as you mop at your sweltering forehead in irritation. Your temple throbs as you press on it, pain shooting down your neck at the pressure.

It’s so fucking humid here. You’re tracking one of Mando’s bail jumpers in the middle of a boggy swamp planet that you never caught the name of and you’ve been walking through the forest for at least 24 hours, only stopping for water and ration breaks. Based on the holo-map you’re currently staring at, this entire planet is one big swamp, with no escape from the damp, sticky environment.

The thing barely makes sense, a jumble of colors and shapes that worsens your headache the longer you try to figure it out. You had borrowed a thin shirt from Mando before setting out, but it does little to protect you from the buzzing swarms of insects, while at the same time it reflects just enough heat to have you sweltering.

Mando acts unbothered under all that padding and armor, trekking through the trees without any visible sign of struggle. You don’t understand how he can stay awake for so long without caf, yourself being covered in caf-patches to keep from passing out. It’s probably somewhat dangerous to have so much of the stimulant coursing through your veins, but oh well. If my heart gives out then at least I’ll escape the bugs.

“Footprints aren’t the only way to track a quarry.” He returns mildly, moving swiftly over tangled tree-roots to avoid the pools of murky water that litter the forest floor. You move with less grace behind him, trying to climb slippery wood and juggle the holo at the same time. The twisted trees of this planet seem to reach inward to point at the forest floor, giving you the impression of being trapped within their clutches. The eerie feeling isn’t helped by the distinct lack of light, odd lichen tendrils drape between branches to create a blanket that absorbs most natural light from the sky. A faint glow emanates from the tendrils, basking the forest with ghostly illumination. You scramble to the top of the particularly tall root he’s perched on then plop down to catch your breath.

“No, it’s not the only way,” you pause to take a swig from your water skin, dabbing off the spilled drops from your chin with your sleeve, “but the footprints you track are apparently all glowy and red. I get to look with my naked eyes for shit like depressions in the ground, which is so fun considering the only paths here are solid wood.”

Mando rolls his helmet on his shoulders, the effect similar to someone rolling their eyes. When he speaks it’s short and gruff, annoyed by your attitude. Which is… appropriate. The hours you’ve spent walking in this heat together is starting to snap both of your tempers. “Stop complaining.”

He’s not wrong about the footprints. You’re mostly annoyed because of how useless you feel, more like you’re tagging along than assisting him on the hunt. Drawing your eyebrows together you try to come up with a plan. Most of those mercenary skills you talked up for Karga don’t apply here, this naturalistic setting is too messy and... wild. Unpredictable. You’re used to the structure that comes with starships and cities, places engineered and civilized.

Tracking people isn’t very hard, you’ve done it plenty of times before. The only issue is that all of your practice came from environments where they left clear signs of direction, displaced gravel indicating a shoe-print, broken branches, a trail in sand. It also helps that your targets didn’t know they were being stalked. The only path here is over hard wooden tree roots, with nothing to indicate direction, not even moss grows over the foot trail for traveling feet to mark. You take in a deep breath and hold it for several seconds before letting out all your air in one huge swoop.

“I’m sorry, “ you tell him sincerely, “I want to help you -and not just for a bigger cut. Is there anything I can do?” You truly do feel bad for snapping at him even if you know you’re right about his advantage. Just because you don’t have fancy thermal settings and footprint tracking doesn’t mean you’re useless. The Mandalorian settles his hands on his hips and surveys the area, looking for a task to assign you. His helmet tilts up and lingers on the trees, and you’re already two steps ahead before he can voice his idea.

“I can climb,” you interject, standing up swiftly and moving. “Trees can’t be more slippery than a spacecraft.”

He nods in acknowledgment. “Find something and your cut goes up by five percent.”

“Ten percent.” You grin at him cheekily, wanting to tease him even if he won’t give it to you.

“Eight, if you find somewhere to camp.”

“Deal.” You return, already halfway to the widest tree you can reach without getting your feet wet. The trunk is covered in knots and twisted vines, ugly but providing fantastic handholds for your hands and feet. Grabbing hold of a sturdy looking ledge you begin your ascent.

The climb is fairly easy even with the woods damp surface, and you reach the forest canopy with minimal effort. Carefully squirreling around the thin top-most branches you attempt to find a break-through point, the wood beneath you bowing a little from your weight.

When you finally poke your head through and see the sky you gasp, taken aback by the sight. You hadn’t hung around in the cockpit during landing, instead choosing to pack the bags while Mando skillfully piloted his ship. The forest floor is all you’ve seen of the planet and apparently you’ve missed a lot.

The sky here is beautiful, a color palette that is completely opposite from the dark, damp underbelly of the forest ground. Swirling aquamarine clouds float lazily in the sky, speckling the orange hued atmosphere above you. There are at least 6 pale moons lined up on the horizon from edge to edge, stars twinkling around each orb as if drawn to their orbit. You drink in the sight greedily, the ache in your head lessening in the natural light. This is so much better than the cold stark metal of space stations that you’re used to living on.

It’s hard to tell the time based on the sky alone, the moons must be constantly present in the sky no matter the time of day and you can’t find a single sun. Maybe this planet lives off the light and heat from each moon, reflected from a distant star? The thought is lovely but you don’t think it’s possible. You file the image away for your daydreams then divert your eyes back to the thick forest, searching for anything useful to tell Mando.

The line of trees is unbroken, a sea of dark green leaves and glowing lichen. An orange sky helps to warm up the pale glow from the lichen but it’s eeriness still sends a shiver through you. Everything on the horizon is of even height, betraying nothing within its depths. It isn’t ideal. You gnaw your lip anxiously, dreading to return to Mando without any information especially on your first hunt together. Eyes flitting around desperately, you try to analyze any possible breaks in the natural pattern of trees.

Could that be a settlement there? You think, looking at a slightly thinner section of forest that might roughly be three miles away. You aren’t sure about the planet’s curvature and how flat the terrain is so you double check the holo, looking for the information.

Something catches your eye as you’re pulling up the data, just substantial enough in your peripheral version that you stop what you’re doing. There is a mist rising from that thinned area, far enough away that you mistook it as some sort of lighting effect from the overwhelming color palette here. That has to be steam right? It’s too thick to be naturally occurring from the bog. There must be machinery over there. A settlement hopefully.

You’re about to climb down when you pause, looking at the still lit holo with renewed curiosity. Something about the map visually paired with your clear view of the forest allows the pieces to fall in place. When you compare the shape of the map to the trees you’re finally able to make sense of what you previously thought was a topographical mess. A built pathway lies here, a body of water there. And clearings. Several clearings not too far from where you are now, the perfect size to settle down in. Hopefully they’re dry.

Either the caf-patches are finally sending you into cardiac arrest or you’re manically happy to finally be of help to your hunting partner, but either way, you’re grinning so widely that your teeth clatter together.

“Hey Mando! Guess what you owe me?” You shout down at the ground, beginning to descend. You’re so excited that you practically slide down the vines, jumping to the ground when you’re several feet high in the air, sore muscles creaking at the impact. The Mandalorian is sitting now, resting with his elbow propped on his knee while he waited for you to come back. There’s a soft pang in your chest and you wonder if he’s tired. You brush it off, feeling as though you’re just projecting, and instead grin widely at him in triumph. “7 percent increase for me!”

He lifts his helmet and looks you up and down. “What did you find?”

You reply chirpily, hands grasped behind your back and shit-eating grin still plastered on your face. “There is a settlement of some kind roughly three miles that way,” you point in the direction where you saw the steam, “and several clearings nearby suitable to camp in, if we don’t want to head in right away. Oh, also we aren’t on the actual path used by locals here, the asset must be making an effort to hide.”

“That isn’t very smart of them,” Din observes, shaking his head at the concept. “Busy path hides more prints.”

“Hm…” You take that in, wondering what other techniques a quarry may use to shake its hunter.

It occurs to you that there is a lot you could learn from the Mandalorian, since so far hunting someone has been notably different from your mercenary missions. You’ll find a moment to ask questions later once you’re settled down for the night, wherever that’ll be. “Do you want to camp or find the maybe-settlement?”

“We should camp,” he responds immediately, rising from his seated position and walking closer to you, “we don’t know what we’ll face there. You can choose the area, since you climbed the tree.”

You pull up the holo-map again and zoom in on the different options, feeling far more energized now that you actually know what you’re doing. There are two spots that seem encouraging, both a short hike away from where you are now but removed enough to grant you some privacy. You’ll still need to set up a watch to prevent ambush or stray travelers from finding you but it’ll be easier if you make an effort to hide. One of the clearings seems to have a running water source, you hope it’s cleaner than the still-water you’re currently surrounded by. Maybe you can bathe there too.

“Lets go here,” you pull up the coordinates for Mando, “that looks like a stream, right?”

He leans into your body for a closer look, broad chest just brushing against you in a way that sends flutters through your tummy. You know he can zoom in with his visor, there is no reason he needs to be so close to you except for your benefit. He seems to enjoy messing with you like this, throwing you off with unexpected touches, looks, and gestures. It’s like a game he plays and you’d be far more annoyed by his teases if it wasn’t so exciting.

“Looks good,” he rumbles low in his chest. “Fresh water would be nice.”

Your heart quickens, but you tried to hide your reaction by teasing him back, tapping your fingers on his helm and stepping away. “I was hoping to clean myself up, actually…”

Mando straightens up at this, visor locked on your face.

“Lead the way.” He returns quietly, giving away nothing. Trying not to smile, you start off in the direction of the clearing, for once moving faster than your armored companion.

Your goal isn’t very far, only about 3 miles north of your previous position and a mile adjacent to the settlement you’ll pay a visit to tomorrow. Large, fuzzy fronds of an alien fern droop down the sides of the hollow clearing, providing a barrier between the forest and empty space in between. The trees still tangle above the open area, blocking out part of the beautiful sky, save a few of the large moons, and old pieces of charcoal are ground into the sandy earth here, a sight that makes you a little anxious. This spot must be used by others, you’ll have to be more careful with setting up the watch than expected.

The water source turns out to be a small spring set on the edge of a cliff at the far end of the clearing, a sizable waterfall cascading down the side and gathering in a crystalline pool. Skipping ahead of Mando to the edge of the pool you crouch and dip your fingers in the cool water, sighing in relief as it relieves some of the warmth in your overheated body.

You’re unable to hear Mando’s approach - how he is so stealthy under 50 pounds of metal escapes you, but you feel him behind you. You smirk. Arching your back as you rise, you turn around slowly and begin to make eyes in his direction however, when you actually see what he's doing, you cringe at yourself in embarrassment. He’s not looking like you assumed, instead he is surveying the clearing skeptically, body-language imbued with disapproval. Your heart simultaneously sinks to your stomach and contracts in frustration. You thought you had finally done something right.

“What? Is something wrong?” You ask him tightly, subtly shrinking in on yourself in disappointment. You try to hide this by fiddling idly with a stray thread on your tunic, stubbornly keeping your head lifted high despite wishing you could disappear. He doesn’t respond right away, instead turning and walking the length of the clearing then back, stopping just in front of you sharply. You meet his visor with your eyes, holding the look until you feel like you’re burning up in shame from the pressure of it.

“It’s too… open,” he finally says, voice halting as he tries to find the correct words. “Anyone could walk into our camp.”

“I figured we’d set up a watch. There’s only one entrance-”

He interrupts you. “One ground entrance. Anyone can climb down from the trees.”

“Maybe, but this planet isn’t supposed to be dangerous, is it? Practically abandoned,” You huff out, fists clenching at your sides as you argue with him. “Besides. It’s… pretty here.”

The Mandalorian sighs, pinching the helmet just below the visor where his nose bridge would be. “Fine. I’ll take the first watch. No fire.”

Nodding in response, you cross the clearing and set your bag down on a log, letting out a sigh in relief. That’s fine by you, you don’t need the extra warmth and the glowing lichen provides enough light to get by. You really did not want to hike again after moving for 24 hours straight. Mando mirrors your movements, leaning his rifle next to your pack before settling on the sandy earth. A loaded pause passes between you, earlier implications at the forefront of your minds.

Letting out a shuddering breath you crouch down and pull your old tunic from your bag, slinging it over your shoulder before making your way back to the small pond. The water is completely clear, an inviting sight after the marshy puddles that made up the forest ground on your way here. You’re facing the water now but you’re still well aware of the man behind you, the intensity of his gaze burning even through the impassive visor. The invitation is clear. Take it off.

But you aren’t sure if you want to give him that yet. The exhaustion from today has wrung you dry, small bickerings between you and your work partner dampening the sweet mood leftover from Nevarro. Apologizing with sex isn’t really your thing. You’d rather stoke the mutual respect between you as allies instead of start up a pattern of fighting then making up.

You crouch at the water's edge, peering into the depths for a moment before splashing your face with cold water, fresh scar throbbing as blood rushes to the surface of your face. The spare tunic you grabbed just brushes the surface of the water, sending ripples throughout your reflection. Curious, you lean over and observe the way the mirror-like pond breaks off into fragments, bits of you here and there mixing in with the moons that lay on russet sky.

Like a painting. You think in awe, having only seen a couple of the artifacts in person. The richest target you were assigned to owned two pieces of art, real paintings on real paper, encased in transparisteel viewing cases before you smashed open the backing to wonder at them. You close your eyes and try to recall the texture of the paint before the rest of your memory catches up and sours the whole thing. The man's home had to be burned in order to erase evidence, his paintings too large to smuggle out of the city.

When you open your eyes the pond has settled with your reflection only- you’re not alone.

“Maker!” You jump at the sight of the Mandalorians gleaming helmet appearing in the reflection. “What the fuck, you sneak.”

He just chuckles in response and offers you a hand, which you take firmly while rolling your eyes and standing. He leads you back to sit with him on the sandy earth, taking ration bars out of his pack- not yours, and breaking them evenly between you. The gesture is surprisingly tender and none too appreciated what with your stomach growling audibly at the bland meal. All at once, you are reminded by the spattering of caf-patches on your limbs, the jitteriness becoming more apparent now that you’re finally still. You’re shaking. Mando notices as well.

“You may explode.” He remarks, prompting you to start pulling off the stimulant, crumpling each piece and setting them neatly in a pile at your knee.

“Good, let me explode. You’re too bossy to work with.” You return with a smirk, hoping your sarcasm lands. He hums in response, pulling one of the patches off of your forearm and flicking it in your direction for you to catch.

Tutting, you roll the patch into a ball and set it at the top of your pile. “Don’t leave a mess, this forest is ugly but at least it’s untouched,” you tell him firmly. Mando just nods.

The ration bars are hardly a delicacy but you shove them in your mouth all the same, appreciating the engineering behind them. They are so calorie rich that a piece the size of your palm can keep you going for hours. However, your body can’t seem to relax despite the food lining your belly- perhaps you actually overdid the caf. You should be tired right now. Staying awake for more than a day isn’t exactly the average schedule but your knee bounces uncontrollably in a frantic pattern, stirring up puffs of sand between you and the warrior.

“You need to tire.” Mando mutters, firmly placing a glove on your thigh and holding the limb down. “Stop that.”

“Sorry,” you reply, trying to freeze yourself and sit as still as he does. Mando always exists so sagely, like a monk. Completely calm when he wants to be before exploding into action, no warm-up necessary. You wonder if he had some sort of meditation training to achieve that. Is that why he sits like that in the cockpit, his back rod straight like a statue? Weirdo.

“Hey…” The palm at your thigh presses again and you suck in a sharp breath. You didn’t even realize you were twitching again. “Do I have to hold you down?” He growls.

You gulp. “Tempting. But no.” Your words come out steadier than you feel. The caf becomes all too much in that moment so you lurch to your feet, his gleaming helmet following your body as it rises jerkily. You feel far too energetic, needing to get the energy out somehow so you can finally pass out. Your idea leaves your mouth before you can truly think it over.

“Wanna fight?”

“...What?” Mando sounds truly surprised even if his body betrays nothing.

“You heard me,” you’re bouncing on the balls of your feet, swaying back and forth like a green sailor on the oceans of Mon Cala. “Let's practice our combat, I rarely get to do that.”

He’s standing before you can blink causing you to jerk back, startled by his speed. The Mandalorian poses right in front of you, too close to not be a challenge with his weight settled on one leg breezily.

“Okay. Hit me.”

What a taunting mother fu- You swing your left hand out as if aiming for the unarmored spot on his ribs, which he blocks with ease… leaving his throat open for your right fist to sharply jab.

The bounty hunter doubles over, coughing and clutching his neck with one hand.

“O-Oh shit! I’m sorry, I- I didn’t mean, let me-” You scramble with lost movements, trying and failing to help him straighten upright. It leaves you awkwardly placing your palms on his back while the crown of his helmet presses into your belly. “I, um… Mando?”

His arms wrap around your middle in a flash, pulling you tightly against his chest and throwing both your bodies to the ground. It happens so fast that you can’t even shriek before the air is knocked out of you, hitting the sand hard enough to throw it into the air around you. Gasping, you smack full force at the Mandalorian on top of you, his arms still crushing you against him while your legs lock straight together with his knees on either side. It’s sexy, but you’d really like to breathe. He lets up just barely.

“Nice punch,” he rasps, throat clearly affected by the hit. “Don’t think I’ll hold back after that though.”

“Don’t… want… you to…” You shoot back at him, sharp as you can manage while wheezing. Mandos visor raises ever so slowly and pins you, hidden eyes holding you down more effectively than his body. After a drawn out moment of this, your head spinning as you calculate your escape strategy, he crawls up your body to prop himself above you, locking your wrists in one large hand with the other presses against your chest, shoving your back into the earth. It is just enough pressure to squeeze some air out of your lungs and it is then when you know he isn’t kidding about not holding back.

You’re so fucking happy that he isn’t letting you win.

In other instances, you’d panic at the hopeless feeling of being trapped like this, by someone twice your size and clad in the galaxy’s most powerful steel. But the way he spars with you now, full force and not playing easy... it has implied respect for your skill. He knows you can fight and doesn’t spare you the opportunity to prove it.

Only a second or two has passed since he fully immobilized you and you’re still locked in your flattened position. When he motions to stand, pulling your wrists as if to drag you, you know you must make your move now or it will be too late. The only spot he has open on his body right now is… well, right between his legs. The first thing a smaller fighter learns about combating larger foes is to fight dirty and there is no reason you should hold back if Mando isn’t. Your legs had been pinned tightly together before he moved to drag you but now there is just enough room to swing a knee up and hit him between the legs.

Mando doesn’t wear a full codpiece but luckily for you, the padding on his groin isn’t enough to block your kick. A choked sound rips out of his throat and he falls to one knee, the fingers encircling your wrists loosening slightly while he struggles to fight his body’s natural pain response. You wrench one hand free and use it to grip his cowled neckline, planting your feet against his cuirass and swinging yourself into a hanging position before his grip tightens again. He's steady but you try to dig your feet in to throw him forward, hoping to twist around and land on his back with his face down. He totters for one frozen second, both your bodies on the precipice of falling but unfortunately, he manages to wrench himself backwards and land heavily on his back with you on top.

You’re both gasping and groaning at the shock of hitting the ground so hard, and for one breathless moment all you do is stare heatedly at each other on the forest floor, eyes locking through his visor and somehow you know he is grinning.

His smile mirrors on your face when you feel his hands rip at your clothes, wrenching the thin pants off of you down to your thighs forcefully enough to knock your legs together with a dull thud.

“Did I not just kick you in the dick, Mando?” You laugh, working at his belt at the same time. He palms your ass through your underwear greedily, squeezing so hard that you know finger shaped bruises will blossom there.

“You missed.”

“Must’ve hurt either way…” You mutter, finally managing to reach under his thick layers and wrap your hand around his length, producing a low growl from the man beneath you. “Maybe, it's good I missed.”

The only response you get is his hands pulling both your hands to lay on his chest plate then traveling back down your body to tug aside your underwear and grind you down onto his hips, rubbing your now bare slit against his bulge. You vaguely remember deciding against coming onto him as a form of apology, but for some reason, since he started first that all ceases to matter. It feels like a game you’ve begun to play with each other, playing with the tension between you and the Mandalorian until you find out what breaks your resolve. Maybe it started even before you entered this forest, perhaps back on Nevarro or even on the station.

You can’t tell but you don’t want to question it either.

A moan falls from your throat, your hands moving on their own volition to try and remove his belt entirely, or at least enough to pull his cock out. Mando’s glove flashes up again to circle your wrists, immobilizing them and harshly pinning you down with his vambrace lain across your back.

“You yield?” He asks, voice dripping with a sickly triumph. A chill runs down your back and you feel as if he just dunked you into the pond.

“W-What?”

“You yield… I win?”

“Wha- No!” You cry out indignantly, struggling against his iron grip. “I didn’t realize we were still sparring!”

He laughs, fully bodied and dark with some emotion that swirls deep within your core, and you can’t put your finger on it exactly but you know you’ll have to do something before you’re swept up entirely. “Oh, but we are. What shall the winner gain?” He asks, so quietly that it is almost lost in the warped modulator, barely a question and more so a crackling of static.

Fuck, you’re so wet.

You lick your lips and shakily respond. “I am not one to give up, however-”

“Then don’t. Keep fighting.”

Oh, and you love what he implies. There is no reason to argue further and less time to act, so you immediately struggle hard with the upper half of your body, wrenching your wrists to try and distract him from the way your legs are free to swing into his ribs. But Mando doesn’t fall for your feint a second time. In fact, he seems to have expected it, his leg is more than prepared to hook around the back of your knees and hold you against his body, rolling to the side to throw you underneath him.

You’re pinned on your back with nearly his full weight, unable to do more than weakly punch at what you can reach- unfortunately for you all you can reach is armor. Your cry of anger is cut short when Mando flips onto your front, your chest pressed roughly to the floor of the forest.

The helmet appears over your shoulder, his ragged breathing right by your ear. “T-This okay? You want this?” You can’t find your words to respond with the way you're held so tightly against the earth, so you nod as best you can with one cheek pressed into the ground. Mando snarls something furiously, one hand leaving your back to fumble with his pants and pull his cock out, lining himself up at your soaking entrance and running the head through your folds.

His helmet drops back down to your shoulder, the visor turning and burying itself into the line of your neck and you know that if he weren’t bound by his creed then he would be kissing dark bruises there.

“You know this means I win,” he hisses, pressing his cock to breach your tight opening ever so slightly.

“I-I know.” You whimper weakly.

With that, he fully pushes himself into you and if you weren’t so wet you know his size would be unbearably painful. Instead, the stretch is pure bliss, a slow burning sensation that has a hint of sting to it, his dominance lending to complete submission and all you can do is lay there and take it. There is still the strain you grew to know from when he allowed you to use his body on Nevarro, but something about Mando topping you encourages you to open yourself for him with more ease.

He quickly bottoms out then holds himself till, allowing you to adjust to his size. You’re writhing as much as possible under the way he crushes you to the floor, knees carving grooves in the soft sandy earth.

“Fuck,” Mando grits, teeth clenched together so hard that you swear you can hear the grinding in his jaw. “You’re so fucking tight, fuck.”

The position is hard to maintain on the soft ground, his hands keep sliding ever so slightly on either side of you forcing him to adjust every few seconds. His patience breaks after the third time this happens, a growl crackling through the helmet as he settles his hands on your lower back and hoists his body up, knees planted on either side of your thighs, crushing them together with intense pressure on your clit. Your body is locked tight, pussy clenching harder around his cock when he rises into an upright position.

You let out a genuine scream when he draws back then thrusts sharply into you, pain mixing with pleasure in a manner far more biting than on his ship, when he had let you take control entirely, never even doing so much as to thrust into you. It is almost too much for you but even while you struggle to take his cock, you don’t dare tell him to stop, nor do you want him to stop. You’re so blinded by the stretch that you don’t realize he is speaking until you miss several, distorted words.

“Fuck, why did I wait, why did I wait? I should’ve fuck-fucked you back on the station, approached you in that hangar and made myself fucking clear-” Each gritted word is accentuated by a mean thrust, his dick is so big that he has to shove himself inside of you rather than glide, breaking you open in a way that burns so sweetly. Your legs are held together, knees locked and straight, which doesn’t help how tight you are but you can’t budge at all to open yourself to Mando, his hands pressing down at your lower back so heavily that you’re short of breath.

A garbled moan is forced out of you when Mando grinds his length into your pussy as deep as he can possibly reach, hips smashing against your ass while he pulses inside of you and for a second you think he's cumming. But no- he draws himself from your depths and starts to rut his cock between your cheeks, head resting on your upper back and hands by your head.

A powerful hand wraps under your side and settles at your sternum, pulling you back against his cuirass and lifting so that you end up seated together, fitting against him without even an inch of space between your bodies. His hand lifts your hips, other appendage snaking around to position his cock back at your entrance before allowing gravity to do the work, your legs spreading to rest on either side of his thighs as you sink down on him to the hilt.

Once settled, Mando starts to work you on his cock, lifting you like you weigh no more than a pebble then letting go. The head of his cock slams full force into your pussy with the weight of your entire body, each brutal pounding sending sparks of pleasure up your spine. Lungs free and no longer crushed to the floor, you’re unable to stay quiet, broken sobs and moans puffing from gritted teeth as he takes what he denied himself on his ship, the memory a thousand miles away as your processing center is fucked stupid.

You can’t say how long this goes on for, maybe minutes, maybe hours, but the next thing you know is that your cheek is back on the sand, burning from the way it chaffs against the floor with each rhythmic thrust that claps against your thighs. You’re don’t even know if you’ve cum yet but it doesn’t matter, not with the way he is fucking the life out of you here in the wilderness. Mando is still talking, still uttering filth and praise through the helmet and all you can think about is how badly you want to hear his real voice speaking that way to you, you’re so close to asking him to take it off but you can’t find the words, you can’t think, you can’t-

Abruptly, he grinds to a halt at the deepest point in your body then pulls himself free, pushing your shirt up lighting fast before cumming across your back with a choked exclamation. You’re both still for a second before your knees collapse, landing flat on your belly and gasping desperately. There is a shuffling noise behind you, accompanied with heavy breaths from the bounty hunter. It sounds like he’s rummaging through something then, yeah- your train of thought is confirmed when a wet cloth wipes his pleasure from your skin, gently trailing along your spine and ass.

You reach behind you and hold his wrist, feeling the fluttering pulse there. “I’ll win next time…” You whisper, drawing his hand along the soreness on your bottom, the area he bruised, you suspect. He laughs- or pants you can’t really tell, but either way his touch becomes more gentle on your body, smoothing out the tense muscles and cleaning you up. Today's travels with the man have suddenly caught up to you and you might pass out right here, half clothed and dirty.

“Come on, get up. Don’t sleep here.” Mando firmly states, helping you up and guiding you across the clearing after you pull your leggings up from where they gathered at your ankle. You’re trembling like a leaf, fragile in your spent state but glowing all the same. Mando sets you down on a log and brings you a canteen of water which you gulp down thankfully. He chuckles. “Wait up or I’ll have to drink from the spring.”

That gives you pause, reminding you of something he said while you lay beneath him. You’re slightly nervous to ask but you do it anyway, warm and satisfied on your perch while he cares for you. “You.. When you were, um- fucking me. Well, you said something about how you shouldn’t have waited. Does that mean what I think it means?”

He nods, “I noticed you for other reasons too, burc’ya.”

“Maybe you should’ve fucked me back then.” Taking another gulp then handing the canteen back, you stretch then slide down to sit on the ground with him, back against the log. “You said that word before, ber-borshaw?”

“Burc’ya.”He corrects,“It means friend in Mando’a.”

“Oh.”You cheeks heat, feeling silly and rude for not recognizing the use of his people’s tongue, also noting that he used it to refer to you twice now, endearingly. It is an honor, one that makes you nervous. You feel like you should apologize, somehow. “Y-You speak Mando’a? I’ve never heard you use it before.”

Mando settles against the log, leaning his broad shoulders to rest against the wood near your side. A few moments pass before he responds, “I chose to not use it around the others. Didn’t trust them.”

“Oh, so you trust me?” You giggle, tapping the side of his helmet with your elbow. Questions burn within you and you may as well ask now, in the quiet afterglow of sex where everything is warm and slow. “Why didn’t you trust them if you started the company with Ran? How am I any different?”

“You aren’t ruthless,” he surprises you by answering immediately, and you can’t decide whether you're insulted or not before he continues. “Ruthless and cruel is all that group ended up being, and it didn’t start out that way. We weren’t just mercenaries, we had a code. In the early days, attacking a slave ship would’ve been out of the question. Ran wasn’t always so full of greed.”

Silence falls after he speaks, letting you mull over his explanation for a while while the waterfall rumbles in the background. Really, his perspective confuses you when you think back on your actions as a mercenary. Desperate to climb the ranks, to make a name for yourself, to earn credits and reputation. You suppose you conducted yourself with empathy, avoiding selection for hits that targeted innocent people if you could help it. You never had much choice in the area but it seems your actions spoke louder than realized. So much energy spent to avoid seeming weak and you never considered that your aversion doubled as strength.

“Friend…” You whisper, not of your own accord. The word floats on your tongue, a specter within your vocabulary. In your adulthood you’ve had allies, you’ve had teammates, you’ve had acquaintances, but to have a friend… it terrifies you as much as it warms your heart. You considered yourself partnered professionally with the Mandalorian and didn’t dare to consider yourself lovers, no matter how much you privately hoped. But a friend is a luxury you didn’t hold close, mainly out of fear. You lost too many as a child. For a faceless man he manages to strike areas that are quite intimate.

You decide that you’ll enjoy being his friend, a bit surprised that you aren’t too hurt by what is essentially a romantic rejection of the crush you held for so long. Probably because this is real , solid and built within reality instead of the silly fantasies you built prior.

This is better than lovers, you tell yourself, the slight ache in your heart melting into the background of your desires, behind lock and key for another world.

“I’ll take ‘friend’, Mando.” You grin, extending a hand to him cheekily. He stares for a second before taking it and shaking, helmet tilting in a respectful nod.

His next words send an unexpected pang throughout your chest, taking all the careful walls you worked hard to set up and throwing them into a blazing inferno.

“Let’s see where it goes.”

Fuck.

----------------

Leather boots prance lightly through thick branches high in the trees, footfalls landing silently with all the grace of an athlete. Through the delicate glasses perched on the pursuers nose, a red glow blooms on the shadowy floor of the swamp, two sets of footprints lighting up to reveal a steady path made by the travelers. A musical giggle bubbles out of the darkly dressed woman as she pulls a small holo-watch from her bag and straps it onto her wrist, pale light mixing with her lavender skin, transforming it into a sickly grey.

Xi’an claps a hand over her mouth to prevent her cackle from ringing through the trees as her plan takes form.

***

TAG LIST (working on it slowly, message if you want)

@velia27 @shrekscoochiehair @tbhitisdbh @sparklingwitches @lazyonasunday @peach-child @leah-halliwell92 @riot-sounds

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oneunexpected · 3 years

Note

Gregor+friendship headcanon, and Hamnet+sad headcanon 👀😭💕

This got REEEEEALLY long.

Gregor + friendship headcanon:

-He doesn’t know what to do about Larry and Angelina when he gets back to the surface.

-the lie his family settles on is Lyme disease: they say both Gregor and his dad contracted it while camping back when the “miscommunication” between his mom and dad occurred (read: the first time Gregor and Boots fell), and it’s had chronic implications for the both of them.

-it makes it easier to explain why they decide to move in with his uncle in Virginia, too.

-he wants so badly to tell the truth. SO badly. But he’s unwilling, because if they believed him... what then? What do you do when your 12-year-old friend disappears and comes back a war veteran? And even then, what if they got too curious and sought out to find the Underland? Gregor can’t risk it.

-even though he figures it’s for the best, he always regrets it a little.

-after Gregor moves, they play video games together online. It’s a good way to stay in touch. That way, they spend some time together virtually, and any discussion outside of game strategy is relegated to the simple catch-up stuff: what projects they’re up to in school, how their families are doing, wild rumors they’ve heard. It helps everything feel a little more normal for Gregor.

-when he met Larry and Angelina, it was back when he was young enough that kids just made friends with whoever. By the time he gets to Virginia, though, friendships are made a lot more through clubs and mutual interests. There are plenty of random people who reach out to him when he first moves, though, concerned about the new kid, wanting to make sure he felt welcome. They’re all nice. Some of the friendships stick, some don’t. He fits in well enough with the band kids, though band’s inherently clique-y format makes it hard to break in at first. By high school, the scars on his legs are flat enough that he joins the cross country and track teams. Sometimes people question why he always wears long sleeve t-shirts, even in the sweltering heat, but they never push him past his generic excuses. He also joins the school robotics team. Between the three, he has lots of friends across the school.

-he’s not particularly close with many, though. His closest friends are a clarinet player, one of his track relay teammates, and a kid who was always cracking jokes in biology when they were stressed about upcoming tests.

-everyone knows there’s something a little off, but none of his friends mind that much. He’s kind, he’s clever, he’s a great sax player, he’s fast, and once again, he’s really kind—so who cares if he’s mysterious as hell.

-that changes when he loses control of raging and breaks a guy’s nose in the hallway during his 8th grade year. His fairly large circle of somewhat shallow friendships shrinks significantly—but those he’s closest to stay loyal, and they do their part to make sure he’s not ostracized. “Honestly, man, he had it coming,” says his friend from bio.

-it all makes things a little easier for Gregor. There’s still so much he’s healing from. There’s still so much that limits him. There’s still so much he misses, both in New York and the Underland. And it can be so alienating. But when he’s playing in a jazz ensemble, or when he’s at someone’s birthday party, or when he’s crammed into a car with some cross country buddies headed to get some fast food after a particularly exhausting practice—it’s all a little easier.

-sometimes, though, even the good moments hurt when he remembers just how different their lives are from his.

-he visits Larry and Angelina the summer before his senior year, and even though their video game shenanigans are few and far between by then, he’s relieved by how easy it is to be around them. They cover lost ground fast, fueled by their excitement to see one another. Angelina’s working as a stagehand on Broadway for the summer. Larry’s mom just bought him a new drawing tablet and he shows Gregor what he’s been working on. They spend hours just catching up and laughing. They’ve grown apart, sure, but the affection remains.

Hamnet + sad headcanon

Nothing I could headcanon would be sadder than actual canon, so I hope it’s alright if I take an alternate approach here:

-When he disappears, nobody asks Susannah how she’s doing that much.

-Maybe they think she’s removed from it, sequestered away in the Fount. Maybe her physical distance just puts her out of sight, out of mind.

-Maybe they think she’s too immersed in Howard and Stellovet and the twins on their way to really feel it.

-Maybe it’s because Judith and Hamnet were just so close. For Judith, it’s like losing a part of herself. “He was a part of me, too,” she sobs to York one night.

-Maybe, just maybe, it’s because she’s the eldest: she’s supposed to be the strong one, the caretaker, the first to sacrifice.

-Judith knows she has to stay strong. She is a queen. Her weakness is her people’s weakness, and losing their best commander is a vulnerability enough in itself.

-but she’s so angry, angry at her husband and her mother for organizing the attack, angry at her father and herself for not doing anything about it, angry at Hamnet for leaving her, oh, she’s furious at him.

-it doesn’t take long to strip the anger back. When you do, there is only the grief.

-when the baby is sleeping, when her husband is sleeping, she slips down into the abandoned nursery where she and Hamnet and the others her age were once cared for and wails.

-after a few weeks, she visits Susannah. They cling to each other in Susannah’s drawing room until the early hours of the morning, at first in silence, until Judith finally says, “I think I was too passive.” Susannah wants to laugh—everyone always said she was the passive one of the three.

-after that, it’s like a dam has broken. (Ooh, poor choice of words.) Susannah tells stories of when the twins were really little. There’s the time when Susannah was trying to feed baby Judith mashed sweet potatoes and Judith bit her, which had their mother in stitches of laughter even as she tried to scold Judith, the time four-year-old Hamnet refused to leave Susannah’s side during a festival because he was afraid of the people in costumes roaming about... there are many stories. Judith chimes in with her own. They laugh and cry and laugh and cry.

-the elephant in the room is the injustice of the attack itself. Neither one of them knows how to navigate it, but it fuels their confusion and it fuels their grief.

-Their father doesn’t know how to navigate it, either.

-Vikus knows he is culpable. It’s his job to make sure Regalians stay true to their word. It’s his job to balance out Solovet’s tendencies. It’s his job to look out for his children’s well-being. He’s failed. He’s complicit. And his son is gone.

-he knows, on some level, that the part of him that’s in Hamnet is what drove his son to leave. It’s what drove him insane in the first place, and it’s the reason he tried to save the drowning gnawers that day, too. Vikus doesn’t know how to sit with that knowledge. If his son was more like Solovet, maybe he would have lived.

-it wasn’t an easy birth. Solovet lost way too much blood and the twins were just so small when they were born. Even then, when her mind was clouded by hypovolemic shock, she couldn’t stand to see the doctors whisking them away. When she came to, someone had laid the twins in her arms, where they slept peacefully. Vikus beamed at her from a corner of the room. She was so, so proud.

-she never knew fear quite like she did when Mareth brought Hamnet home and he couldn’t recognize any of them. Couldn’t even speak. She never let on how scared she was, of course, but she felt it nonetheless. She was disappointed, too.

-when they received word Hamnet was missing, Solovet was immediately giving orders. “Check every route out from the city. Locate and interrogate every guard on duty last night. Send word to the Fount and Troy.” Find him.

-she knew they wouldn’t. He was too clever for that. As she goes to sleep that night, there’s a cold weight pressing in on her sternum. He could have been great, she thinks. He was so close.

Thanks for the ask! Headcanon meme found here.

#mmmmmm I really wanna develop the Vikus/Solovet clan more but it’s SOOO hard. so little characterization for Susannah or Judith #gregor the overlander #the underland chronicles #headcanon #gregor #angelina #larry #hamnet #susannah #judith #vikus #solovet #answered

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caraway-ship · 3 years

Text

// Playing recording… //

The colony of Ors was never meant to be permanent. We were never meant to last more than a few years, and then get replaced by the actual settlers. The palladium and lead deposits detected on Aurum-3 had left the higher ups promised profits, riches found once in a lifetime. [[MORE]] They scraped together a ragtag colony kit, just a few pressurized habs and barebones life support, not even an atmosphere processor to our name. They outfitted it with whomever they could get on the shortest notice, and well, starting out as an exocartographer is difficult. You take what you can get. I wasn’t set off by the three days given to prepare to ship out, at least not enough to not be allured by the handsome paycheck they offered, cash upfront in return for shipping out before their survey data was released publicly and one of their enemies saw the treasure waiting. I wasn’t expecting to do much, maybe a few survey missions, mostly just sitting around until the actual colony fleet arrived. Well. That’s what I expected at least.

When the survey team first saw the outer edge of the phenomenon, they thought it was just another weird feat of geology. With the millions of worlds out there, there were plenty to go around. This one was unlike what I’d ever seen before, huge geometric spires shooting at discordant angles from the ground. The techs with their worldshell ultrasound imagers said the deposits were centered some sixty kilometers in from the slight curve that was the edge of the phenomenon, and I was in the first survey team they sent in to investigate.

We were supposed to find a good spot for mining, and I was to map the area. What we thought at the time were ravines and canyons, hard-edged and black as basalt, seemed to close in around us as we approached the center. Our geologist, Harrison, had sampled it: A Lead-graphite alloy, seemingly, almost uniform throughout the outer edges of the phenomenon. They had surmised that this may have been a meteorite at one point, crashing down, the fires of atmospheric drag melting it until it melted and filled its crater, creating a perfectly flat, almost perfectly round disk.

And that’s the other thing that spoke to me as odd - It was nearly perfectly flat. Not flat like the surface of a planet, fitting in with the curvature of the planet, but flat as a plane. It gave the eerie feeling of a slight downwards slope towards the center, sickeningly subtle.

I did my best to track our progress, using GPS and some satellite imaging to create a map of our path. Despite each corridor feeling the same as they last, there was no discernable pattern to our movement towards the center. Connection to our main settlement was out, the company had skimped on comsats and our only one went on the fritz a week before we had left on the survey mission. Typical. Normally, we would also have been connected directly to Ors Command, but the mass of black spikes lying between us and them ensured that didn’t happen.

At around forty kilometers towards the center, our driver stopped. The walls, which had now noticeably started to creep in closer, had gotten too close to safely pilot the rover through. We conversed briefly, and decided to split up. The first group, including me, Harrison, and a marine named Clint, would go on ahead, taking one of the rover’s tent habs and light pressure suits to try and make it to the center. Our pilot, engineer, and researcher would stay back to try and find another way through for the rover. We packed our bags, taking surveying equipment, radio beacons with centuries-lasting RTG batteries to mark our path and meals enough for three weeks. It would only take a day or two to reach the center, but erring on the side of caution never hurt anyone.

The next morning, as we set out, the sheer scale and immensity of the phenomena we found ourselves surrounded by set in. Spires of dull black metal, thirty meters tall now, seemed to be set to cascade down around us. I was on edge at all times, looking out for signs of the first to start to fall.

Progress that day was relatively slow, compared to the rover. We made about 10 km that day, having to rig beacons between and to the sides of spikes in order to set them upright. They wouldn’t dig into the leaden floors. I had remarked to Harrison, them being one of the people I worked the most closely with, that I was reminded of a demonstration I was shown as a schoolchild growing up on Shisurna station, a collection of ferromagnetic nanoparticles suspended in an oil, making hard spikes as a magnet moved under it. I shuddered, imagining the spikes here flowing and crashing back into the plane beneath us, with us between them.

That night, as we set camp in the now 3 meter wide corridor, Harrison called me over to show me something. While we had been walking, they had noticed a sheen over a patch of one of the spikes, and had managed to scrape off a sample. “It’s gold,” They said. “Bet my life on it.”

The next day, we began to see more and more of that sheen, then gilded patches like discolorations in birch bark. We were fascinated, and Harrison puzzled over what may have caused it. It couldn’t have been part of the original meteorite, unless it was solely in one point. Otherwise, they said, we would have found similar patches all throughout the phenomenon. They were still unsure of what may have caused the spikes themselves, but were sure there was some explanation, if their bouncing ideas off of me was any sign.

The spikes surrounding us grew as we approached, reaching now thirty meters or more into the grey sky. We were having to pick our way through them, sometimes climbing up one then sliding back down others as the paths grew too narrow to traverse. They also grew in girth, some growing to as much as ten meters at the base. We were dwarfed in comparison, and my combined awe and horror at their sheer size peaked as our contact with the rover was lost.

The patches of gold continued to grow in size and intensity along with the spires themselves, sometimes leaving streaks 5 meters long in the cold black metal. My best efforts to find some sort of pattern in the layout of the monotonous cacophony surrounding us failed, and I struggled to plot a path as we nearly altogether stopped following the channels through the leaden ground. Then, it all stopped.

The ground before us opened up, spikes suddenly stopping before a circular clearing, about 1 kilometer in diameter. Perfectly flat ground lay ahead, streaks of gold flaring out in all directions as if they were caught fleeing something. The center was almost all coated in gold, flecks and streaks of black lead abruptly breaking through. In the very center, jaggedly curved arches about 15 meters tall stood in a circle. The sheen was impossible to ignore, and despite the ashen atmosphere, rays broke through to glare off the arches. They stood menacingly, their shadows cast fifty meters to a side. We spent some time setting up camp a bit out from the arches, then took more time investigating them.

When Harrison and I reconvened, they were almost imperceptibly shaking. After discussing with them their findings, we had come to the same conclusion: There was no denying the evidence, no natural causes could have crafted this phenomenon. The arches height, perfectly dividable by pi, and their purpose: A sundial, left no room for nature. But why? If they had crafted this, surely they would have known the barren wastes surrounding it, would have recognized the futileness of placing something important here, where it would be nigh-impossible to reach.

Our discussion was halted almost immediately by the unmistakable sound of pressure release, then vomiting. During our discussion, we had neglected to pay any mind to Clint, who had been investigating all the while. He had wandered into the center of the arches, and was peering at a circular groove I had noticed while walking through. There he now sat, helmet off, hands on knees, vomiting. The vomit was tinged red, I saw, as Harrison and I rushed towards him. As we approached, I realized what I had mistaken for a groove was, in fact, incredibly small text, engraved in the golden floor. In common script, in my native language, Uraian, a thousand times over in a thousand tongues, a singular phrase.

“THERE IS NO HONOR TO BE FOUND HERE”

Harrison knelt beside Clint, now collapsed in the center of the circle, blood dripping from his lips. I noticed a pale red discoloration on his cheek, then another, then ten more. I then involuntarily stepped back in revulsion, as his abnormally pale face became coated in a hundred welts, seeming to bubble and ripple as they grew and spread. His face contorted in pain, and he coughed, spattering crimson across the smooth gold. Then he didn’t move.

Harrison turned to look at me, and I saw the same welts begin to bubble under their skin through their faceplate. They must have seen my expression, or maybe just felt the pain, as they began to scrabble at their faceplate.

My mind, despite my horror, couldn’t help but posit a question, one that may just save my life. Why them? Why hadn’t I been infected? I staggered back again in horror, then another step, then I turned and sprinted as fast as my pressure suit would allow on the slick metal ground. I felt it first on my legs. A dull burning, slowly growing in intensity as it spread up my limbs and reached my chest. I could no longer feel anything but the burning, and I collapsed behind the arch’s pillar as I began to feel it creep onto my palms and face. Immediately, the intensity died down. It’s still there. I can feel it. Creeping, slowly, corrupting and twisting of it’s own volition, taking and turning and burning… I was lucky enough to have the time to take this down. I don’t know how long I’ll last. I was lucky enough that the survey cameras have a microphone, now that my datapad seems to not be working. There’s no promise that this will make it out, but let it serve only as a warning. The riches aren’t worth the cost. This place is cursed, it’s promises are false, a lure. Hnn. I can feel it again, the burning. I can’t feel my legs anymore. Fuck.

// End recording. //

Recovered from Aurum-3 by remotely piloted drone.

The bodies of colonists recovered from the phenomenon seemed to have been symptoms of severe ultraviolet burns, as well as last-stage cancer in multiple spots on their cadaver.

Cause of death ruled as multiple organ failure.

#horror #scifi #scififantasy #writing #space horror

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tealin · 4 years

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Basler to the Beardmore 2: Errands

As always, no matter what Tumblr does with it, this post is available in its intended presentation at twirlynoodle.com/blog along with the rest of my Antarctic travel diary.

On this flight to the heart of Antarctica, I was only a hanger-on. We had two errands to run before entertaining me and my historical interests, the most important of which was restocking a fuel depot at the base of the Transantarctic Mountains.

There are many busy science teams in Antarctica, and while some renewable energy sources are starting to be used, the fact is that everything runs on a reliable supply of fossil fuels, mostly petrol. The aircraft that keep people and their essentials moving around the continent have a network of fuel depots, both for relay stops and for emergencies. Contrary to some conspiracy theories, anyone can fly to and around Antarctica if they have the money and resources to get there, and many do. As the national science programmes have a very tight margin, and their fuel depots are expensive to maintain, they cannot afford jet-setters raiding their supplies, so the locations of these depots are kept secret. Therefore I am not going to tell you where our first stop was. The chances of a private pilot reading this blog are slim, but it may be possible to deduce from my photos where this particular cache is: if you are that outlier, I hereby ask you please to do the decent thing and leave the fuel alone – or if you absolutely must access it, then let the USAP know what you've taken and make good on it as soon as you can. Everyone in Antarctica looks out for each other, and that includes you. OK? OK.

So, we've taken off, and done our acrobatics to get the skis up, and are now facing a couple of hours' flight time before we reach our primary destination. There is, quite frankly, nothing between Williams Field and the Transantarctic Mountains, besides hundreds of miles of the Ross Ice Shelf. This was known as 'The Barrier' to the early explorers, because when James Clark Ross sailed down to explore in 1840 it was a great while wall that prevented his ships from going any further. In later years it wasn't so much a barrier as a highway – clear and flat, and not much off sea level, it provided a route deep into the high latitudes without the perils of the high windy Polar Plateau. Among people who frequently travel out there, it is sometimes referred to as 'the Flat White' – my impression is that this term came from the Kiwis, and the espresso drink of the same name is also antipodean in origin, so I wonder which came first. It is undeniably Flat, and White (though the refraction of sunlight through ice crystals makes it look anything from peachy to periwinkle, depending on the angle), but none of its various names communicate just how big it is.

I have flown over the Canadian tundra many times, and over the Greenland ice cap, but the view from 35,000 feet is like looking at satellite view in Google Maps compared to flying at cloud level, where the parallax with the horizon gives you a much keener sense of distance. The Barrier is BIG. In fact, 'big' is too small a word to communicate it. 'Massive', 'mammoth', and 'gargantuan' are more melodramatic than descriptive. Its vastness puts all of human consciousness, never mind vocabulary, in proper perspective. For my money, it outdoes the night sky as a visual approximation of infinity.

Getting a sense of its size, especially in a still photo, is difficult without an object for scale. For your education and my good fortune, we happened to fly over the RAID convoy as they made their way from the Minna Bluff site to where the Ross Ice Shelf meets the Antarctic continent. Rapid Access Ice Drilling has been supporting various scientific projects for a few years now, whether their interest is in the ice itself (its trapped air gives a record of Earth's atmosphere in millennia past) or what's underneath (marine environments far removed from the open sea; the bed of an accelerating glacier). Their units are about the size of a shipping container, and are pulled by enormous tractors, so if they are this dwarfed by the Flat White, imagine how much more puny a sledge party would be.

Before too much longer we were at the depot. Landing at an Antarctic field airstrip is even more complicated than taking off: we circled once, to do a visual check, then skimmed it with the skis to make sure no hidden crevasses had opened up since the last time someone landed here, then finally touched down for real on the third go-round. The plane crew rapidly got to work unloading the fuel drums; I offered to help but was assured I wasn't needed, so spent the time taking photographs and mucking around in the snow.

The first thing that struck me was how beautiful the mountains were in colour. The best photos I've seen of them have been black and white, so the rich variety in shades was remarkable. What you can't see in this small photo was how the lighter rock was banded with strata of blue-grey and orange-brown sandstone, giving it a luxurious marbled effect.

I've read a lot about how conditions on the Barrier are so much different than on the coast. This was far deeper into it than I was ever expecting to set foot, but I was surprised how tame it was. Now, it was an idyllically calm and sunny day – had it been any different we would not have been there – so the only time I realised that it was actually much colder than McMurdo was when a slight breeze wafted past my bare hand and broke the warm spell that the sunshine had cast.

What was different was the snow. Around McMurdo, the snowbanks which did build up had been repeatedly blown over with volcanic dust which warmed up in the sun and made the snow gritty, icy, and rotten – if you live in a snowy city, think of the texture of snowbanks alongside busy roads. Out here, there was nothing but snow, all the way down to where it became ice – powder blown off the mountains, maybe even off the Polar Plateau, deposited here to be compacted in the sun and polished by the wind. The crust made by these processes was smooth and, in many places, thick enough to support my weight, so I hardly left a footprint – a 'good pulling surface' as sledgers would have it – but without warning there would be a thin spot where my foot would break through and sink in the sugar-like snow below.

Before long, the crew had finished their restock, and playtime was over. After our exciting takeoff manoeuvres, we started climbing the mountains to the second of our tasks for the day.

The Transantarctic Mountains, according to our pilot, are still something of a mystery. They are a very high mountain range, but unlike the Rockies for example, they show little or no sign of buckling or other geological forces – they seem to have been lifted whole, keeping their layers of sandstone and coal and fossil-rich deposits mostly flat, with occasional intrusions of igneous rock. The range acts as a sort of massively oversized dyke, holding back the miles-deep polar ice cap from spilling over West Antarctica, the Ross Ice Shelf, and the Ross Sea, as the mountains cross the continent.

Ice appears to be solid, but it actually behaves more like a stiff jelly or fondant icing – if it finds a change in altitude it will flow, very slowly, downhill. This is what a glacier is: snow gets deposited over many years without melting, turns to ice, and when its volume can no longer be held at elevation, starts to creep down the valley. The ice of the Polar Plateau finds gaps in the Transantarctic Mountains and pushes through them, forming glaciers which pour out onto the Ross Sea and, merging, form the Ross Ice Shelf. The Beardmore Glacier is one of the largest of these, but there are hundreds of smaller ones, and many tributary glaciers that feed these. In flying over the lower Transantarctic Mountains, there were plenty of opportunities to see ice dynamics at work:

Our destination was up near the head of a narrow glacier, where it broadened out into a snowy plain called the Bowden Névé – névé being a term for young snow which has not yet compacted into glacial ice but is in a position to do so. This was CTAM (pronounced see-tam), a geology camp established to be a hub for teams doing work in the Central TransAntarctic Mountains. The névé afforded an open, soft, flat place to land planes carrying supplies and people, who could then move on to less accessible places overland. At least, it did, until a wind event a few years ago scoured deep furrows in the landing strip.

As we flew over, doing the visual check, I was astonished the site could be spotted at all, as it was only a small clutch of bamboo poles in the vast expanse.

Having proven that the landing strip was landable, the next task was to see what condition the building was in. What building, you ask? Why, the one completely covered in snow, under the markers. Once upon a time it was a couple of modules standing on the surface of the glacier, but Antarctica gradually swallowed them up, so now one has to dig down through the snow to reach the roof hatch, eight feet above the floor.

On the way from the Basler to the camp site, I was treated to one signature snow effect I had missed out on, at the depot. 'The Barrier Hush' is frequently mentioned in journals: it was described as a 'whoosh' or a 'hush-shh-shhhh' that sighed out from underneath the walker as he broke through the top crust into a pocket of air underneath, where the loose snow had settled after the top crust was formed. The pocket could sometimes extend quite a long way from where the crust was broken and the sound followed the exchange of air as far as it went. It would startle the ponies and excite the dogs, until they learned there was nothing to chase and catch.

I was walking some way behind the plane crew as they made for the camp with shovels, and suddenly heard what I thought was a small whirlwind – a sharp and intense, almost whistling sound that seemed to race across my path. This being the sort of place one would expect to see dust devils (or snow devils, I suppose they would be) I looked around to see where it was, but the air was as still up here as it had been down on the ice shelf. It was only after the second or third time it happened that I realised what it was – it was so completely not how I had imagined the Barrier Hush to sound. If you make a little whirlwind sound by whisper-whistling whshwshywshwhwwsh with your lips really quickly, that's what it sounded like. Having heard it, now, I can completely understand how the dogs would have thought there was a small creature scurrying around under the snow. It sounded much more animate than it had been described. I felt so lucky to be let into that secret.

The crew got the hatch open and the first of them climbed down into the pitch darkness to report everything OK. The rest followed, and invited me along, but I am not the most coordinated travelling artist, and couldn't see a way down for me that didn't end in a concussion. So I stayed above while they explored the submerged camp, and enjoyed the view. It was really spectacular – not just the stunning mountains but the thin, brittle blue of the sky and the hardness of the sunlight, as if the whole world were a taut drumskin.

And, best of all, from here the horizon was the Polar Plateau – another Flat White stretching to the South Pole and beyond.

#antarctica #travel #basler #dc3 #CTAM #air freight #mountains #transantarctic mountains #bowden neve #geology #field camp #photos

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stahlop · 4 years

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Making a Memory (9/?)

So sorry for the delay on this next chapter. I ran out of prewritten chapters, then I went on vacation, then my youngest turned 5, and just lots of things happening. I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

Thanks again to my wonderful betas @profdanglaisstuff and @thisonesatellite and thanks to @gingerchangeling for her amazing artwork.

Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Ao3

God she’d missed him. She missed the feeling of his lips on hers. The slide of his tongue pressing against her lips for entrance. His hand threading through her hair. The feel of his body pressed against hers. She missed the feel of his hook pressed into her lower back.

“Killian!” Emma pulled away from him, and took a good hard look at her husband. God dammit, her husband! His eyes were still half closed and his lips were still puckered as he tried to chase hers back.”Killian,” she said softly. Her hand came up to his cheek, felt the scruff that she hadn’t felt in so long, noticed the red had been replaced with gray. He smiled into her hand, the laugh lines around his eyes running much deeper than when they’d left town. She automatically started threading her fingers through his hair and noted the gray intertwined throughout.

“Swan.” He breathed out. “Emma.” His eyes opened completely (she’d missed those beautiful blue eyes) and he was staring at her, as if finally seeing her for the first time. She felt completely exposed before him. It had been 12 years. 12 years! All her old insecurities about them came crashing back into her, until …”My beautiful Swan.” He touched his forehead to hers and Emma practically sobbed at the feelings that overwhelmed her. They were here. Together. In Storybrooke. With their family.

Their girls!

“Killian!” Emma pushed him away from her. He looked taken aback until she pointed over to their booth where their children were sitting. Their children. He grinned at her, taking her hand and brushing a kiss to her knuckles. Damn if that still wasn’t a huge turn on.

“Come on.” She said as she pulled on the hand he’d just kissed to lead him back to their booth.

They resettled themselves down in their seats. Emma proceeded to voraciously consume her grilled cheese and onion rings as if she hadn’t eaten in days. It wasn’t until she stopped halfway through to take a sip of her water that she noticed Henry, Hope, and Alice looking at her as if she were an alien sitting in front of them.

“What?” She asked, rubbing her nose. “Do I have something on my face?”

“Mom?” Henry asked. He didn’t need to ask anymore than that. Emma knew the silent question he was asking.

“I don’t remember everything.” Emma said. “But I remember enough. I remember coming to Storybrooke. I remember magic. I remember Killian.” She smiled at him. “I vaguely remember the final battle. I definitely remember being pregnant with you two.” She pointed at the girls. Alice was grinning as wide as the Cheshire Cat from her namesakes story, while Hope just stared at her with a slightly confused look on her face. “I know we were cursed by a witch of some kind, but I’m hazy on the details of why.” She turned to look at Alice on the other side of the booth, her voice taking on a melancholy tone. “And I’m looking forward to getting to know you, my sweet Alice.” She reached out her hand to her daughter (her daughter!) and Alice placed her own hand in hers. “It kills me to know that I missed out on your life.” Emma smiled at her, tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

“Killian?” Henry asked the same question.

“It’s all still a bit muddled.” He said, scratching the back of his neck. “The more you or Emma remind me of memories, even with just a word or a phrase, I get flashes of the past. But I’m still trying to connect it all together. But I know now, that everything Henry has said is true. Without a shadow of a doubt.”

The booth was quiet after that, almost as if no one knew what to say after the revelation that they’d recovered many of their memories. It felt strange to Emma, sitting there and eating when no one in the town knew who they were. Granny was right there in the kitchen without an inkling that she had once knitted her and the twins baby blankets. That she used to flirt shamelessly with Killian. That she used to scold them for making out in the hallways after their dates and ‘other’ activities. After the waitress had collected their plates, Granny came over to their table.

“Mr. Swan,” she said, addressing Henry, for he was the only one she recognized. Will you and your family be needing accommodations?” Henry nodded.

“Yes. For at least a week. Three rooms.” Granny nodded and went off to get them keys.

“A week? Henry, we can’t stay here for a week.” Emma said, trying to take control of the situation. She had a job to get back to, they had to get the girls back to camp. She’s sure Killian had a job to get back to as well.

‘You’re mother’s right, lad. We have a lot to figure out, but we can’t stay here at the moment. There are too many logistics we need to work out.” Killian said. He took Emma’s hand in his. She sighed at the feel of his calloused hands holding hers. “Not that I don’t want to reacquaint myself with you, Swan.” He said, his voice lowering, his one eyebrow raised in that ridiculous way that drove her crazy.

“Ew!” Hope said as she closed her eyes tight and stuck out her tongue. “Some of us don’t want to hear that stuff.”

“I think it’s sweet.” Alice said, a wide grin on her face.

‘Look,” Henry began, before Emma could say anything else. “We need to go over a few things, so we have to at least stay tonight. You two can buy some clothes for yourselves and the girls for tomorrow and for sleeping tonight. Call the camp, let them know you found the girls and they won’t be returning, you can collect their things in a day or two. But, I think after you find out what I’ve discovered, you won’t want to get back to your false life right away.” Granny came by at that moment with three keys which Henry collected. Emma sighed and looked over at Killian who also seemed to be thinking over what Henry had just said. One night couldn’t hurt, could it?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Killian still couldn’t believe they were back in Storybrooke and that he remembered his Swan. He couldn’t believe that when Emma came to his door that morning that his whole life would have been revealed to be a lie and that the love of his life was actually standing in front of him. But here they were. He wished he could remember everything, he knew there were pieces of his life from before that still weren’t coming to the surface, but for right now, he knew enough. He knew he was with his family.

Tears pricked at his eyes as he realized exactly what damage Gothel’s curse had done to them. He’d had Alice with him, yes, and he wouldn’t give those years up for the world, but she was supposed to have a mother, and a sister, and a brother. It shouldn’t have just been the two of them against the world. He should have regaled his girls with the tales of his and Emma’s romance. They should have known all their grandparents and a community that loved them from before they were even born. Instead they’d been separated and cursed to forget each other. And so had the town.

They had left the diner and were walking down the main drag to the few clothing stores that were there. It was only mid-afternoon, and plenty of people were milling around town. People that Killian recognized. People like Belle who had wandered out from the library with a sullen, dark haired, teenager trailing along behind her, which Killian realized after almost a minute had to be Gideon. Belle looked the same. Her brown hair still had no traces of gray in it, but it had been cut to her shoulders, her skirt was closer to her knees than mid-thigh, and she was wearing flats instead of the sky high heels she’d been known for. Gold met them halfway from his shop, still clad in the suits that he wore, and Killian almost did a double take. Even under the curse, he still hadn’t aged a day. Gold kissed both of Belle’s cheeks and they were engaging in conversation as Killian and his family walked by them toward the clothing shop on the other side of the street.

“They won��t recognize us.” Henry said, suddenly appearing at Killian’s side. “I’ve been here once a year since we were cursed. Visited the library, visited the pawn shop. Neither one of them has ever even given one shred of evidence that they knew who I was.” Killian thought that Henry was telling him this to be reassuring, even though he and Gold had buried the hatchet (figuratively) years ago, but he could hear the sadness in Henry’s voice that even after all these years, the fact that they didn’t recognize him still hurt.

“And how is it that you have managed to retain your memories, lad?” Killian asked, realizing that Henry was no longer a lad. Gods, he was, he calculated in his head, 28 now! Practically the same age Emma had been when they’d met. He’d missed so much of Henry’s life.

“I’m the Author.” Henry explained. Killian realized they’d all stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to hear his explanation. “I’m supposed to observe and write everything down. Apparently, that makes me immune to mind-altering curses. Remember how I maintained my memories during the Black Fairy’s curse?” Both Killian and Emma nodded.

“So you’ve known this entire time?” Emma asked. Henry nodded. She stepped over to him and hugged him tight. “My poor, Henry. That must have been so hard for you.” She squeezed him even tighter.

“Where are we headed, Henry?” Asked Killian as they stowed their shopping bags back in their cars after finding clothes in one of the shops and then headed back down the street. The path they were on seemed familiar. The girls still seemed in awe of their surroundings. He could see Alice’s glee every time they passed a shop, having explained to them that Henry’s sequel to his book was the story of Emma’s life in Storybrooke up to the most recent curse. That had certainly explained why she knew what the Snow Queen’s Scroll was. Something that Killian still couldn’t remember all the details of himself. Alice seemed to know more about his past right now than he did. Hope still seemed unsure of everything, even though the truth was smacking her in the face. It made his heart ache to see how much like past Emma his daughter had become. There were walls around her 13-year-old heart and he had no idea what had made her so guarded.

“The Sorcerer's Mansion.” Henry said matter-of-factly.

Fear welled up inside him as the Dark One talked about the one special ingredient he needed to separate himself from the dagger, and Killian realized exactly what the Dark One planned on doing. “As luck would have it, dearie, you’re my oldest friend.” The hand that had once plucked the heart of his dearest love and crushed it to a fine powder had now plunged into his chest. The icy coldness of it as it wrapped around his heart was a feeling he knew he would never be able to forget. He watched as the Dark One pulled out his heart and displayed it like a prize he had one. He begged for him to just do the deed. Kill him. Get it over with. “Oh, no. I promised you we’d have some fun first.”

Killian stopped in the middle of the walk as the memory overcame him. He could feel his whole body shaking and the tang of blood in his mouth as he bit his lip. It almost felt like a panic attack (they seemed to be having them in abundance today), except he knew he was basically reliving the memory. Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome as he now knew it to be called.

“Killian!”

“Papa!”

He could hear their voices but they sounded very far away, even though he knew they were right next to him. He could feel Emma and Henry take his arms and help walk him over to a bench to sit down until it passed. He couldn’t get the image of his heart in the Dark One’s hand out of his head. It just wouldn’t go away. Even though he knew his heart was safely in his chest and had been for the past 15 years, he could still feel that squeeze as if it were happening right then and there.

Eventually he felt Alice’s hand rubbing up and down his arm and whispering to him that they were here for him and everything was going to be alright. Emma held the other arm and attempted to do the same as Alice. His breathing finally evened out and returned to normal after what felt like a lifetime. He could see his family around him and not the Dark One holding his heart anymore.

“Papa?” Alice asked. She sounded so small. He hated when she sounded like that.

“I’m ...I’m okay, Starfish. Just,” he paused to take in another breath of fresh air, “just an old memory reeling it’s ugly head and taking me by surprise.” Alice and Emma continued to comfort him, but Killian noticed that Hope looked confused and Henry started to pale as understanding crossed his face.

“Oh, crap, Killian. I’m sorry. I’ve just been so focused on getting us to the future, that I didn’t really think about the past.” Killian nodded, understanding. Henry had always been impulsive that way. What else could he expect from someone who at the age of 10 had gotten on a bus to find his birth mother to break a curse. The kid (not really a kid, but he’d always be a kid to Killian) had a real hero complex going.

“What’s happening? Why did the mention of the mansion freak him out?” Hope asked, a puzzled expression still adorning her face.

Alice gave her an exasperated look before saying a hushed tone, “That’s where the Dark One took his heart! Come on, Hope. You read the book just this morning.” Killian couldn’t help but grin at that. Of course Alice would have committed every part of Henry’s sequel to memory, while Hope probably didn’t believe a word of what she read.

“He used to have nightmares about the…” Emma circled around her heart to indicate it instead of saying the actual words, “before it happened, because of…” she trailed off, probably because she didn’t want to mention Milah in front of the girls. But Alice seemed to have no qualms about it.

“Because the Dark One crushed Milah’s heart?” Killian almost burst out laughing.

“She really has your tact, doesn’t she?” Emma said to him as she bit her lip and also tried to suppress a laugh.

“She’s definitely her father’s daughter.” He said, his body feeling back in control. He nuzzled up against Emma’s cheek where she gave him a chaste kiss. He heard a loud sigh come from the direction of Hope.

“Are we going to have to see you two make out all the time now?” She asked, clearly annoyed. Hope rolled her eyes, but Killian could see the mirth behind them.

“Yes!” Emma laughed, clearly used to this kind of behavior. He’d missed that laugh.

“Alright.” Killian said, taking a deep breath and finally getting up from the bench. “I’m good now. Let’s head over to the Sorcerer’s Mansion and see what Henry has found.”

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Memories swirled around her the more they walked through Storybrooke. Bits and pieces coming together in her head. It was so different from when Killian had given her the memory potion in New York and everything had just come rushing back. But this time it had been 12 years, instead of one, and Emma could see that despite the town looking exactly the same, the people had aged, just like she had. It made her very nervous, walking through the town. She was afraid to run into her parents and see what they looked like now. But also afraid because she knew they wouldn’t recognize her in the least.

Killian’s reaction to the memory of his heart being taken by Gold had scared her. She knew she had more memories just trying to break through. She’d already had one panic attack this morning (was it really only that morning?) when Henry had brought her to Chantey’s Lobster House, she wasn’t sure if she could handle another one. But she also knew they needed to do this. They needed to remember. They needed to make the town remember. They needed to get back the life that was stolen from them.

The Sorcerer’s Mansion was exactly how she remembered it on the outside. And she remembered everything that had happened there. From almost getting rid of her magic, to almost getting eaten by a giant spider. She was glad that it didn’t spark the same fear that had overcome Killian before.

“No one lives here still?” Emma inquired. She’d always wondered why no one had claimed this place, especially since both Merlin and the Apprentice were dead.

“I think …I think I technically own it.” Henry said a little sheepishly. The twins both looked at him confused, but both Emma and Killian seemed to understand. “As the Author, I think it belongs to me.” He explained. “Luckily, no one from the town has seen me go in here. I’m not sure if they realize it exists.” He said, now drawing a baffled look from Killian, and Emma assumed her face looked similar, because how could the people of the town not see a huge mansion, even if it was away from the main drag.

“Let’s go in and I’ll explain it better.” Henry said as he opened the door.

They all walked in and Emma drew a breath as she surveyed the inside of the mansion. Henry had definitely been busy as she saw many whiteboards set up all around the room with notes and pictures on them. It looked like a police investigation room.

“Please, sit.” Henry said, motioning for them to sit down at a large dining room table in the center of the room where there were several fairy tale books piled. Killian immediately deferred the head of the table to Emma and he sat to her left so he could continue to hold her hand. Hope sat on Emma’s right and Alice went to the other side of Killian. Henry took the other head of table.

“I feel like I’m about to give a TED talk.” Henry joked nervously. It broke the tension that had mounted in the room, and everyone gave a good chuckle. Even Hope who still seemed a bit in disbelief at the whole situation. Emma couldn’t blame her. It took her falling through a magic portal to come to terms with everything, and that had been after killing a dragon and waking Henry with True Love’s Kiss. She was glad to see that Alice had inherited her brother’s belief at least.

“So, mom, Killian, if you recall, we found out that the powerful Gothel we had been threatened by was from the future, and the present day Gothel had not acquired her power yet. We also had a prophecy to contend with, one that Gothel was determined not to let pass.” She and Killian nodded in agreement.

“Well, it was obvious to me that someone needed to be monitoring the present day Gothel in the Enchanted Forest. The Blue Fairy had been doing that before we left, but obviously, with the mind wipe, she wouldn’t be able to do that anymore.” Emma started to tense. Killian’s hand also tensed in hers. She knew they were both thinking the same thing. Don’t let Henry say it. She pleaded in her mind. Please don’t let Henry...

“So I went to the Enchanted Forest to keep an eye on her.” He said proudly.

He said it.

“How, pray tell, did you manage to do that?” Killian asked the question she was also thinking.

“With a magic bean.” Henry said as though it were an obvious conclusion. “Several magic beans, actually. You may not recall, but we brought about 20 of them with us when we left town. Plus, the bean fields are still here and growing. They are still tending to and harvesting the beans.”

But how is that possible?” Alice asked intrigued. Emma could see she was intrigued by the whole concept of magic beans. She only hoped if Alice ever did get to go through a portal, she did it willingly and not accidentally fall into one or have to take one to rescue someone like she’d had to. Although, both of those trips did leave her panting over the hot pirate sitting next to her.

“Well,” Henry began, sounding very professorial, “while the people here may not know there is magic here, magic is still here. And it’s doing it’s damndest to make sure the citizens don’t know that until the curse is broken and their memories return.” Henry's voice had gotten faster and higher with this explanation.

“So when they harvest the magic beans…” Alice began, but Henry jumped right in.

“They think it’s something else entirely. I asked Granny on one of my trips and she said they’re just soybean fields.”

“And when you said you didn’t think anyone knew the mansion was here...?” Emma asked, trailing off when she realized she already knew the answer.

“It’s because this place is already pure magic. It probably just looks like a large field or something to them. Very Harry Potter.” Henry said amused at his little joke. That brought a smile to Emma’s face, and Hope’s as well. She and Henry had made sure Harry Potter was in Hope’s life. Of course, Emma could have never imagined that Harry Potter would be a little on the nose to their real life.

“Ok, let’s go back to the beans and the Enchanted Forest.” Emma was not enjoying the nonchalant attitude Henry seemed to be taking this whole endeavor in. “I’m not too thrilled about you willingly going to the Enchanted Forest when such a potential threat is looming there. You may be the Author, but that doesn’t make you invincible. You don’t have the sword fighting skills or magic.” Emma worried. And that’s when she realized that she hadn’t felt her magic since getting to town or since her memories had returned. She immediately tried to conjure up a ball of magic, but nothing came out. She kept turning her hand and expecting the magic ball to be there when she turned it back, but there was nothing. She closed her eyes and tried to call on her emotions the way she had when she had first started learning how to control her magic, but still nothing. Killian’s hand eventually came to rest over hers looking upset. They both looked up at Henry for an explanation.

“I think the curse needs to break before your magic will return.” Henry said sadly. “The twins never showed any magical inclinations before we left, so I don’t think Gothel factored them in when creating the curse.” Emma nodded. It made sense. It still worried her, but she’d also lived more of her life without magic than with it.

“But that segues perfectly into what I found out on my trips to the Enchanted Forest.’ Henry smiled, trying to bring the mood back up. They all settled back into their chairs as Henry began his story.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“The first time I used a magic bean I almost forgot to pack another one to get myself home.I almost walked into the portal and then at the last second realized I had no way back. I managed to grab one and get back into the portal before it disappeared. I waited a little bit before going.” Henry explained. “I needed some time after that first trip to Storybrooke and saw how everything was just... normal. That Gothel had just left after the destruction she had wreaked now that we were all gone.” Henry swallowed back the small sob that threatened to leave his throat and quickly continued on.

“I quickly stole some clothes off a clothesline so that I would blend in and quickly hoofed it to the closest town and started making inquiries about Gothel. But she was still relatively unknown. It was frustrating. The people who had heard of her thought she was relatively harmless, mainly refilling lakes and rivers that had started to dry up, clearing up dead parts of the forest, and even bringing rain to help with growth. Most of the people seemed to feel she was being helpful. She’d even helped some families with her herbs when they’d fallen ill.” Killian cocked an eyebrow in confusion about this, Emma furrowed her brow contemplating what it all meant.

“I wondered for a time if there was another Gothel, a helpful Gothel, that maybe our Gothel had taken her name from. For several years, I went back to the Enchanted Forest asking about her, and every time it seemed she was not a threat.” Henry took a breath before he proceeded.

“But all that changed the year the twins turned seven. There were many rumors that circulated around the Enchanted Forest about Gothel’s sudden change. Some said she was spurned by a man, some said people were taking advantage of her goodwill. The most believed rumor was that someone had stolen some of her plants from her garden.” Henry almost rolled his eyes at this. He remembered thinking how odd it was that Gothel was going down the same path that her counterpart in the fairy tale books did. “Whatever it was, it seemed to have inspired a great hatred toward humans and Gothel was no longer the helpful witch that she had been for the past five years. She was now determined to rid the world of what she was calling ‘a pestilence on the land of her foremothers’. But I saw that she still wasn’t powerful enough to do that. This Gothel didn’t even know about the prophecy yet. She could do little more than make rivers flood and bring heavy rains, making people leave those areas due to their hovels being washed away.” Both Alice and Hope shifted nervously in their seats when Henry had brought up the prophecy, though Alice seemed a little more intrigued about Henry’s story.

“I continued to research the prophecy. It was because of this prophecy that the whole mess we were in had started. We obviously knew what the beginning of the prophecy meant. Alice and Hope had been born on either side of midnight during the Harvest Moon Lunar Eclipse. And Gothel was the ‘sinister conjuror’. And she had separated us to make herself stronger, but it was the last line that I needed help with. And reconciled on the day and night the true harvest moon meets.”

Henry knew what a Harvest Moon (or Blood Moon) was. It was the moon closest to the fall equinox. Killian had taught him that when the twins were born. But what did that mean for the girls? How did a Harvest Moon help them defeat Gothel?

“It took me almost three years to figure that out.” Henry said sheepishly, as though it should have taken him less time to figure it out. He’d researched a lot about the Harvest Moon and couldn’t figure out the connection, finally going to a planetarium show and getting some insight when they had a special about the different types of full moons. Henry’s audience stared at him waiting for the answer.

“A Harvest Moon falls closest to the fall equinox.” Henry explained, even though they all knew that because of the circumstances of their birth. “But it rarely falls on the actual fall equinox. When you were born it fell on September 27th, but the actual fall equinox was on September 23rd.”

“So, you think the date that Gothel will come back will happen on the night of the Harvest Moon this year then?” Killian surmised.

“Yes!” Henry said excitedly. “This year, the fall equinox falls on September 22nd and that’s also when the Harvest Moon will happen. The last time it happened was in 2010, and before that 1991. It’s a very rare occurrence. Just like the night the girls were born.” Emma and Killian both looked at the girls. Henry could see the terror in their eyes, knowing that because of the prophecy, the girls would have to fight this powerful witch. Alice and Hope just nodded at Henry, as if they were agreeing with whatever a teacher had said, even though they didn’t fully comprehend it.

“But, I’ve also discovered something else.” Henry said, eager to get to the crux of his revelation.

“It seemed that every time I made another trip to the Enchanted Forest, Gothel was getting stronger and stronger. The villagers were leaving in droves, fleeing to King Eric and Queen Ariel’s or King Phillip and Queen Aurora’s kingdoms.” Alice’s grin at the mention of those particular fairy tale characters almost took over her entire face. “I knew it was pointless to tell them that once Gothel had finished with the Enchanted Forest she would most likely come for those kingdoms next. The royalty that had taken over when Grandma and Grandpa had decided to stay in Storybrooke,” (a lovely couple in which the prince had apparently been cursed to be a frog at one point), “didn’t have the resources to take down such a powerful witch. Their army was no match for her, and as neither the Queen nor the King had any magic with which to match Gothel, they were losing the battle to maintain control of their kingdom quite quickly. It was their baby that Gothel stole to use in her time travel spell to visit mom the first time.” Both Hope and Alice looked horrified at this, even though it had been explained in his book during the whole Wicked Witch debacle. “According to the few villagers that had stayed around, Gothel had promised to stop attacking in exchange for borrowing the baby. This spell didn’t kill the baby but only drained a few years off it’s life for the time traveling ability. That was two years ago.” Henry desperately wished he’d brought some water with him, as he was getting parched from all the talking he was doing. He licked his lips instead.

“Right before the girls left for camp, I had a hunch and went to the Enchanted Forest earlier than I normally would have, to observe what was happening.” Henry stated.

“How did you know Alice would be going to the same camp?” Killian asked suddenly.

“Um, that scholarship application she filled out? That was actually from me. I paid for her to go there. I also mailed you brochures to put the idea into Alice’s head.” Henry felt slightly guilty for that ruse, even though he knew he had to get the girls together somehow once he’d figured out the date of the Harvest Moon.

“Wait.” Hope interrupted before Henry could continue. “Every time you said you were going to write somewhere that didn’t have cell phone service so you could concentrate, that was you going to the Enchanted Forest?” Hope piped in.

“Yep.” Henry nodded.

“Man, I always thought mom was going to have heart attacks when you were off the grid and she couldn’t get a hold of you.” Hope reminisced, smiling for the first time since Henry had taken her from camp.

“Well, I wasn’t technically lying. There is no cell phone service in the Enchanted Forest as they haven’t invented electricity yet.” Henry chuckled.

“So, what did you find out?” Alice asked, bringing the conversation back on topic.

“A few days before camp started, Gothel was still reigning terror over other areas of the Enchanted Forest. She had kept her promise to the new royal couple about leaving her remaining villagers alone. But on the day I’m assuming you met, she had what I can only describe as a power surge. She was flying through the village with her magic going in and out. I even saw her fall out of the sky a few times. It’s like she was still powerful Gothel one minute and then her magic would fail the next. It was immediately after this that she borrowed a baby again. Not the same one as he was too old and didn’t have the same innocence needed, the king and queen had had another one and she used him.” Both Hope and Alice grimaced at this. “She went back to the point when she threatened us and made us leave Storybrooke. Now, when we saw her there, she was pretty powerful, because at that point in time, the twins were young and hadn’t come into their magic yet. Had she stayed in Storybrooke and not forced us to leave, she may have defeated us. But over the next few days I noticed her magic getting weaker and weaker. I mean, she’s still pretty powerful, but she’s still having those surges. I came back and a few days later I got the phone call from you, Hope, about meeting Alice.” He paused before really getting to the good stuff. “After rereading the prophecy, I’m almost positive that you two meeting again is what is causing her magic to weaken. The prophecy states by separating will make stronger. We all assumed that meant that Gothel separating us meant she would get stronger, but”

“But it made our magic stronger instead.” Hope interrupted. “Her separating us fulfilled the prophecy, just not the way she intended it to.

Henry smiled at his sister, his heart swelled with pride. He was definitely a proud big brother at the moment. “Exactly! The fact that your magic activated outside of Storybrooke practically proves that.”

“So now what?” Emma asked, her face looking almost ashen. “We now have a date for when she’s supposed to return, and the girls have magic. What are we supposed to do with this information?” Her voice sounded desperate, as though she didn’t really want the answer that Henry had to give.

“Now,” Henry said, licking his lips in anticipation, “we prepare for a fight.”

Tag List: (Let me know if you want to be added or removed)

@profdanglaisstuff @thisonesatellite @mariakov81 @hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @jennjenn615 @kmomof4 @superchocovian @lfh1226-linda @ilovemesomekillianjones @cssns @itsfabianadocarmo @xsajx @qualitycoffeethings @snowbellewells @courtorderedcake

#cssns #cssns20 #captain swan supernatural summer #csff #Captain Swan #captain swan ff #gingerchangeling #inspired by the parent trap

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mary-taylor1 · 3 years

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Onewind Camping Hammock and Tarp

Exploring the great outdoors could also be an honest thanks to de-stress and unwind also on the study and be one with nature. Whatever your reason could even be for spending time outdoors by hiking and/or camping, it’s crucial to venture into the surface well prepared. It is, therefore, crucial to possess the right hiking and camping gear, especially if you’re going to continue a rather long hike and/or stay outdoors for a few days.

Before you allow on your outdoor adventure, it wouldn’t hurt to undertake to try to do some research. search the weather forecast for the day of your outdoor adventure. you'll also learn more about the place you’re visiting like landmarks, wildlife, and thus the likes of. If you’re fairly new at hiking and/or camping or if you'd wish to urge better gear, you'll do some research thereon too. to help you with this last part, read on to seek out out more about hammocks and tarps.

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Why Get a Tarp?

Camping tarp is another great and practical addition to your camping gear. This versatile gear is usually used alongside others sort of a tent or is usually used on its own.

Here are a variety of the benefits of getting a camping tarp.

Protection from the weather. Camping tarps are great for weather protection: shade from the sun, shelter from winds, cover from the rain.

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Back-up/Complementary Gear. aside from being the foremost shelter, a tarp can also function as backup gear or complementary gear to tents or even hammocks. as an example, you'll choose a smaller tent which may mainly be for sleeping and use the tarp for all other activities.

Versatile. At how cheaper price, a tarp is incredibly versatile. It can function as a sleeping shelter rather than a tent, a hammock tarp, living or cooking area cover, sunshade or windbreaker, tent padding or flooring, then much more.

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Onewind Hammocks

Onewind hammocks are the proper choice for hammock camping enthusiasts and beginners alike. Unlike the more common hammocks that use sole parachute material, Onewind hammocks are made with the more durable ripstop nylon fabric. Durable and lightweight nylon is woven employing a special reinforcing technique that creates its resistance to tearing and ripping. Ripstop nylon could also be a very ideal material, especially for outdoor gears.

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The Onewind Double Layer Hammock, because the name implies, has two layers of fabric that form a sort of pocket. you'll insert foam or inflatable sleeping pads between the layers if you would like more padding.

Gear Hammock

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Onewind Tarps

Onewind tarps and rainfly are made with ultralight silnylon fabric. Silnylon could also be a skinny woven nylon fabric that's infused or full of silicone from all sides. The silicone greatly increases the tear strength of the nylon while remaining lightweight and ideal for outdoor gears. Onewind tarps are perfect for hammock camping. It can also be used as a survival shelter or additional protection against the weather when you’re outdoors. Onewind tarps are often the proper compact and lightweight alternative to a camping tent.

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Tarp sleeve

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Ropes

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Adjust cords

#camping hammock #tarpshelter

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missyasf · 4 years

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The Caretaker

| 1 |

↳ Summary: You’ve lived your whole life on your own, relying on no one but yourself to keep this child safe, you’re whole world is about to come to a complete change however when a bounty hunter enters your lives with no more then stoic silence and an insistence his name is the Mandalorian- whatever that is. You don’t know where you’re going, but you know it’s going to be a long trip.

↳ Pairing: Mandalorian/Reader,

↳ Genre: Action, slowburn(?), fluff, mild angst, future smut? We’ll see as the plot advances.

Word Count: 6.7k

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It was quiet for a moment as the man assessed you and the child, and without a single word towards you he turned around and began walking, pausing for a moment by the door as if noticing you hadn’t followed behind, “Are you going to just sit there?”

Hesitantly, you uncoiled yourself out of the small cell, your legs gladly letting blood flow back in them and your body thankful to not be cramped anymore. You weren’t sure if following this man was a good idea, but quite frankly you had been with the Nikto for close to a month and anywhere at this point was better than here.

He began walking again, not even bothering to look back to make sure you were following, as if knowing you wouldn’t dare try anything. You couldn’t help but silently agree, you had noticed both the rifle and blaster along with plenty of other utilities along with armored body. He almost seemed a cut above a regular mercenary yet you couldn’t place why.

Clearing your throat as you shifted the child against your chest you spoke, “Where are you taking us?” You tried to sound demanding, but your throat was dry and the only water that had been given to you all morning went straight to the child as you didn’t want him dehydrated, rather than intimidating though you sounded more pitiful than anything. The scorching dry heat of the sun causing you to squint as you attempted to keep up with his fast pace.

You had expected a long introduction, or at least a name to refer to him as, yet none came from the man as if simply ignoring your words, was he still going to kill you? Was this a sick game? You had many questions, struggling to get up the sand hill you let out a breath in exasperation, “Do you at least have a name?”

“I’m the Mandolorian.” He rasped with a breath, not looking back at your struggling figure as you tried to keep the child close to your chest, finally making it up the hill as you inhaled deeply, how far would you have to walk? You hadn’t been able to properly walk for quite some time meaning your stamina was embarrassingly low.

“Well that’s nice, but it’s not a name.” He seemed almost expectant until you said that, causing him to turn around, as if silently judging you for a reason you weren’t sure of. You had again; expected him to say something and yet he said nothing at all before turning around, “Is that something I’m supposed to know? I don’t understand.” Your lips tugged into a small pout, properly situating the child back against you as you trailed behind the man who claimed to be the Mandolorian, whatever that was.

Rather then answer your question he glanced behind his shoulder briefly, looking between you and the child before asking, “What’s its name?”

Glancing down at the child you hummed, you’d otherwise be offended to not have been asked your own first but you could understand the allure the child often attracted, this man, no exception, “He doesn’t have one. I’m just his caretaker until I find his family. I’m Y/n, in case you were wondering.” You added dryly.

Yet again, the child was most definitely the cutest of you three, his big doe eyes innocent and on a day full of energy he was a mischievous little thing, and of course the large almost puppy like ears were all the more endearing. He was about the size of one as well, far smaller and more delicate than a human infant.

The man however, said nothing more and you had quickly found out he was a man with little to say, often quiet and you couldn’t tell if he was really listening or if he was just ignoring your blabbering. Were you being annoying? You gnawed on your lip as you trailed behind him, the canyon providing enough coverage from the dry heat that had sweat beading down your neck. Hopefully if he was kind enough he’d let the child have some water, you couldn’t help but worry about the poor little one being dehydrated.

The child however, didn’t appear distressed about the situation in the least, happily clinging to you as he peered out up ahead at his surroundings, little gaze occasionally flitting to the desert lizards that crawled beneath you.

You nearly crashed into the Mandalorian as he abruptly came to a stop and you hadn’t been paying as close attention as you should have been, his gaze snapping around as if he noticed a new presence, worry bubbling in your stomach as you huddled the child against you, a coo bubbling from it’s lips as it played with a strand of your hair, “What is it?” your words were quiet, and had you not been standing so close to him he wouldn’t have heard.

His hand kept slid to his holster, “Stay clos-” He couldn’t finish his sentence however as you both were parted from one another, an unfamiliar person yet you could guess was also a bounty hunter, jumping out causing a gasp from your lips as you landed hard against the ground.

You could barely register the sharp points of his spear flying down into the direct path of you and the child as you quickly rolled to the side, a muffled whine of discomfort escaping the child as you heard the force of the spear land into the ground beside you.

And just as quickly it was raised again, the Mandalorian however had quickly caught his attention, sparring with the bounty hunter as you quickly scrambled away, your back flat against the rock surface as you bundled the child against you. Your only thought to make sure it was safe, it wasn’t as if you could help anyways, you had raised yourself to be on the run, you hadn’t fought a day in your life.

You could help but watch in awe, however, he was swift and constantly aware of his surroundings, no wonder he wasn’t even concerned about keeping you cuffed when he immediately whirled around to the second bounty hunter that jumped out in surprise. And then a third had quickly joined yet even 3 to 1 he held his own, not once faltering for long. The child was just as in awe as you, cooing in curiosity as you both watched him take down two of the bounty hunters effortlessly and (literally) disintegrate the last which had tried to run.

Lowering his weapon he seemed to notice something that caused a sigh from his lips, walking over he carefully placed the rifle back on his back before extending a hand to you, “Are you okay?” His voice was rasped, as if just as dehydrated as you, and maybe a little out of breath but you supposed that was given.

You weren’t as cautious anymore but you still couldn’t help but feel a little apprehensive as you took a hold of his much larger and stronger gripped hand, “I feel like I should be the one asking you that question…” You murmured, noticing his shielded gaze linger on the child before he began walking once more, “But yes, I’m fine, so is the child. Maybe a little mad at me for rolling on him but he’ll live.” And with that the child cooed in agreement, no longer fussy at you.

The sun had begun setting and that’s when you noticed the slight wince when the Mandalorian moved his arm, the large thick gash making you wrinkle your nose, blood wasn’t oozing out but it was still bleeding, “You’re hurt.” You observed softly.

He looked over his shoulder, stoically answering, “I’m fine.” trudging on once more as if the pain wasn’t something to be even slightly concerned about. But even without knowing him you couldn’t help but feel a little concerned, having an open wound couldn’t have been pleasant especially unattended. Your eyes glanced between him and the wound before biting against your lip, “How far away is your ship? It’s going to be dark soon and I don’t know how well commuting at night will be.”

The Mandalorian didn’t say anything for a full minute before pausing, sighing as you both exited the large canyon’s confined space, gaze scoping out the flat sand as he finally spoke, “Let’s set up camp.”

Camp was not what you thought it would be, but somehow, seeing as all he carried was his million weapons, you weren’t surprised he had scouted for a nice, somewhat flat sand plane, a few mounds giving you coverage from whatever he thought lurked in the desert. The desert’s cold was initially welcomed before it became cold, a twinge of a shiver running through you as you set down the child in your lap, rubbing your arms.

Taking note, the Mandalorian had set down a heat lamp between you both you rubbed your hands before placing them close to the lamp, the warmth didn’t compare but you’d rather be cold then hot. It was a nice change of pace being in the cold desert air compared to the stuffy encampment.

The filtered wince and buzz took you out of your thoughts, feeling a little relieved to see the Mandolorian was atleast attempting to tend to his wound...well you wouldn’t dub cauterizing his wound tending but it was better than nothing and leaving it open to a possible infection. Glancing at him wearily you couldn’t help but feel a little pity at another groan escaping him, pausing for a second before attempting to continue.

“Do you need help?” You asked quietly, shuffled in your seat as the child looked up at you and then towards the bounty hunter. The Mandalorian however only looked at you once before back at his arm, wincing once more as he continued, “I’m fine.”

You couldn’t help but curl a brow at his curt words, you had watched this man fight off three well trained bounty hunters and he presumably took out a whole base of mercenaries on his own with the help of one android, he was clearly a dangerous person, yet you still couldn’t stop the snark from escaping you, “Is that all you can say? You’re going to burn yourself if you don’t do it properly.”

Setting the child down you crawled over, not even thinking twice as you plucked torch from his hand. You couldn’t see his face, but judging by his quiet reaction, he was most definitely done with your snarkiness.

He said nothing however, only carefully observing as you gently pressed a hand against the thick fabric of his arm, the cut wasn’t too deep but it was fairly long and he had been nicked just beneath his pauldron, a well aimed blow from his opponent. Carefully you began cauterizing it once more, you could feel him jolt and tense beneath you though his reaction wasn’t near as violent as others in his position would be, it was clear he was used too this.

You had moved down towards the left of the wound, sealing it up as that was where he had left off, you had been close to finishing when a grabby little green set of hands had reached up immediately making you both look at the tiny child with an ironic yet adorably focused look, sighing you shook your head before setting the torch down, “What do you think you’re doing Jaa?”

The child bubbled a coo making a small smile place on your lips as you sat back down, placing the little weasel in your lap, internally worried if you kept your back on him any longer he’d toddle off into a sinkhole. He really couldn’t be trusted on his own. The Mandalorian seemed satisfied enough with your work on his arm and turned his attention to his armor. Taking a breath in contentment you laid down, pulling off your cloak with a shiver before wrapping it around the child for extra warmth.

The child continued to wiggle around as if trying to get a peep at the Mandalorian who paid you both no mind and continued sorting his armor as you kept it snuggled to your chest. Hopefully this man didn’t mind all the attention and mischief this little bundle of trouble brought along for the ride.

You were still sleepy, the sand wasn’t all too comfortable, in all honesty. But it got the job done and thankfully when you woke up the child was still snuggled against you though halfway turned.

It was just the beginning of sunrise when you set off again and the walk had mainly been quiet, by the time anything eventful happened it was close to midday, the Mandalorian paused before instantly pulling the rifle off his back, “Get down.”

Your heartrate spiked as you did as told, assuming the worst. What your vision was met with when you got down next to him was a familiar crawling fortress and the infamous brown hooded little shits that plagued every desert planet: Jawa’s, and lots of them festering like little parasites on a pile of dung.

You could only assume the pile of scrap was once the Mandalorians ship. What you didn’t expect was a loud shot to ring out causing you to jump, the Jawa’s did as well too when they watched their friend vaporize into nothing more than the air they breathed. But the Mandalorian didn’t stop there as he continued reloading his rifle aiming for the ones that were attempting to carry the last of the scrap they got from his ship until everyone had managed to escape inside the ship.

What you didn’t expect was the bounty hunter to be on his feet so fast as the ship began driving away, fumbling you attempted to follow after him as you rasped loudly, “We can’t chase a whole ship!”

He ignored you as he shot into it’s engine though not doing as much damage he would have liked, he sprinted ahead before yelling behind, “Stay here!” You could only part your lips several times as you watched him chase after the ship, this man was truly an idiot. You watched as he lunged out, grabbing a hold of the moving ship. But he was a skilled idiot to say the least.

The ship was getting farther away and you couldn’t help but wince at all the debri- presumably ship parts they threw at him.

He was even nearly crushed by a rock wall in the process though narrowly dodging it. You glanced at the child who in turn looked at you as well while cooing. Sighing you began trudging towards the ship that wheeled away. You could attempt an escape right now, but you were also dully aware of how dry your throat was and how lightheaded you were beginning to feel. He wasn’t a good bet, but you needed to stay alive if you wanted to care for the child.

Therefore this Mandalorian was your only option as of now.

This could go either two ways, the first being you find him somewhere along this canon unconscious- or potentially dead, or two he’ll meet you half away from however far this ship had went with all of his ships parts (hopefully) in tact.

Wiping the sweat from your brow you ignored the few Jawa’s you came across, that was a good sign at least, hopefully he had took the ship so you wouldn’t have to walk back. You weren’t a complainer but your head was becoming too light to walk straight and your throat felt like the sand beneath you. Your hopes had begun to dull when you saw a much bigger body ahead than what could be considered a Jawa, you only sighed as you facepalmed at the body of the Mandalorian in front of you. You would’ve been jumping for joy if he was dead in any other circumstances besides these.

But you could hardly walk on your own and he was your only ticket to water. You carefully kneeled down, setting the child down as you checked his pulse before sighing in relief, he must have either been paralysed or knocked unconscious during his fall. Maybe both.

Taking a seat you took a deep breath as you harshly blinked.

Why did it feel like you were swaying?

You could hear a wince beside you as you noticed the bounty hunter must have woken from his short unconscious state, groaning he sat up as he sharply looked ahead to find the ship long gone, sighing he glanced over to you and then the child that sat between you both, “I told you to stay back.”

“And here I thought you’d be glad to know I didn’t take the opportunity to run away.” You replied dryly as he stood up, attempting to stand up yourself only to sway once more, the bounty hunter taking a step towards you as if anticipating your fell that had yet to come.

“What’s wrong?” It was his first instinct, your eyes were dilated and you looked hazy, as if you were swaying on a cloud nine that was nowhere near this hellscape of Arvala-7, indignantly you took a careful step back, ignoring your lightheadedness as you replied hotly, “I’m fine.” You bent down, pausing for a second to keep your balance before plucking the child up.

The Mandalorian was silent for a moment before trudging forward, deciding to not question your obvious state. Maybe he was just as tired and simply not in the mood, or maybe he just didn’t care.

You weren’t sure, and honestly your mind was too fogged to care at this point.

The walk seemed to last a lot longer going back to the ship then it did getting here, or maybe you had lost track of time? You weren’t sure, you were happy to finally see the ship insight and even happier to sit on the walk ramp while the bounty hunter went to assess the damage.

Rubbing your eyes you squinted once more, swallow nothing but dryness as you heard the loud steps against the metal, “Come on, there’s someone who can help.”

You were half tempted to ask if you could just lay down, but given you weren’t sure what you were to this man you decided to not risk if, standing up though this time nearly falling, your vision was spotting and you could hardly keep your feet in a straight line. For once you were thankful he had picked up the child.

Because if you had it would’ve been an unpleasant situation as you smashed against the sand vision blurred into nothing but an unconscious void.

….

Your mind was distraught with confusion and your eyes felt heavy and hard too open, where were you? What had happened? You had a hard time retracing your memory as you coiled into yourself. You were brought back to the plane of reality however at the unfortunately familiar helmet that peered over you, “You should’ve told me you were dehydrated. When was the last time you had anything to drink?”

This was the loudest you heard his voice, he wasn’t yelling but he was always so quiet and without much to say, you would’ve assumed he had been worried if this wasn’t a bounty hunter who, you couldn’t say for sure but you’d take a guess in assuming you were his prisoner.

“I think that’s the longest I’ve heard you speak.” You could hear the exasperated sigh through his helmet making a tired smile pull on your lips, a chuckle attempting to escape you as you wheezed, “Day and a half? Maybe two? Jaa needed it more than me.”

Sitting up you rubbed your eyes only before a half a second later realizing the child was not against the safety of your chest, pupils dilated you sat up straighter eyes glancing around you as quick as you could, “He’s fine.” It was all the Mandalorian said before leaning down to hand you a pouch of, presumably water or some other liquid.

Just as he said those words you took a breath in relief at the sight of the child who had been chasing around one of the desert frogs on this…? You furrowed your brows as you unscrewed the cap, glancing around at the farm you appeared to be on. You couldn’t help but briefly close your eyes as the cool liquid water slid down your throat refreshingly, “Where are we?”

“Somewhere we can get help.” Was all he answered making you furrow your brows, clacking your tongue as you looked between him and the hand he held down for you, carefully he pulled you up, your head was still fairly light but you directed to drink the rest of the water in the pouch: slowly.

This was not direction from the Mandalorian, but the man who had shortly after introduced himself as Kuiil.

“We’re going to trade with the Jawa’s, or at least try too.” The Mandalorian grunted, not sounding very sold on the idea as you were briefed on the next step to take. Jawa’s were rarely fair in how they traded but it was admittedly a better idea than being stuck on Arvala-7 and hoping for someone to let you travel on their ship.

You gave a shrug altogether, “It could be worse, I mean at least they didn’t steal the whole thing….” Your eyes peered down at the ground as you scanned for the child only for your lips to part at what you found instead. The child having successfully caught his frog only to have it halfway down his mouth, “Spit that out; now!”

The younglings mouth quivered before dropping, as if pouting as the frog slid out and slapped against the ground before hurriedly hopping for it’s life, a noise that you could only assume was a fussy whine as you tutted walking over as you picked the child up, “You are such a little troublemaker.”

You couldn’t stop the small smile tugging on your lips as it’s ears perked down, as if still not happy with you for making it drop it’s snack, “Well you said we’d be leaving now, we shouldn’t waste anymore time.”

The speeder was no longer working in terms of driving but you were thankful Kuiil had tied it to his blurrg to be pulled along, your feet were absolutely aching and yet with another nightfall you couldn’t help but notice the darkening clouds that began to form.

“You’re it’s caretaker, yes?” Your gaze shot up to Kuiil who sat ahead on top of his blurrg, the ride had been otherwise quiet for the past few hours yet you couldn’t help but notice his stare linger occasionally when you’d murmur soft words to the child who had been playing in the back of the speeder.

Shifting you sat the child down where he could continue playing with the old netting as you sat up on the edge of the speeder, “Of sorts. I’ve taken care of the child since I was one myself,” You explained softly, peering out over the canyon of endless sand and out where the darkening clouds continued to form, “It’s just been us ever since.”

Pressing your lips together you had thought of going into more detail but you decided against it, most were naturally curious, but never enough to want anymore background than what you had just divulged.

Yet, you could feel the gaze of the Mandalorian on you, making your eyes flit to his helmet that had been briefly turned. You couldn’t help but feel unnerved sometimes by his void stare, unsure of who was truly beneath that helmet as he turned to face the front of the speeder once more, rifle in his lap as if he was on lookout.

A streak of lightning flashed across the sky, catching the child’s attention as it cooed in excitement, peering over the speeder before a loud rumble of thunder met your ears causing it to cry out, falling back down to the floorboard before toddling as fast as his little legs could take him too you.

You couldn’t stop the affectionate laugh as you hummed, the child wrapping his little arms around your shin before you picked him up, sitting down on the floorboard as you bundled him up in his out clothes, “Clearly it’s bedtime for someone.” It bubbled another whine at the loud rumble of thunder, the clouds looking near black as the sun set.

It was going to be a long night and you were going to be utterly soaked in the morning.

The crawling fortress may have looked intimidating to some, but to you, it looked like a rusted pile of junk that was a miracle provided it was still moving. You hadn’t paid too much attention, choosing to open the pouch of water you had manoeuvred open to catch the rainwater, letting the child happily drink from it before sleepily tugging against the fabric of your cloak.

Bringing the pouch up to your lips for a drink as well you couldn’t stop the smile from pulling on your lips at the sight of the Jawa, at first happy to see Kuiil until they had gotten a good look at what was behind him.

The Mandalorian was still sat, unmoving from his same spot for the past ten hours, rifle still in his lap and even though you couldn’t see his face, you had the vague impression he was itching to use it. The Jawa’s were practically scattering and you could hear their frantic chatter even from here, some clinging to others while some ran back into the fortress. You had even saw one up ahead from the others draw his blaster- though you were fairly certain it was for deactivating droids.

“They really don’t like you for some reason.” Kuiil observed, almost curious as to why, though all you could think of was yesterday morning being made to duck down while the Mandalorian went to town on recollecting what few parts was left of his ship.

As if sharing the same thought as you he replied nonpulsed, “Well I did disintegrate a few of them...” You couldn’t stop the silent snort from escaping your lips, you knew it wasn’t his intention to be funny, but it was hard to not laugh at his tone, as if this was an often occurrence. You wouldn’t be surprised if it was.

You clacked your tongue as you shuffled up from your seat on the floorboard, sitting back up against the edge of the speeder as you spoke up, “That’s not counting all the bodies I walked past to find you. I doubt they were happy about that either.”

“Well this all could have been avoided if they left my ship alone.” You pinched the bridge of your nose at the Mandalorian’s reply, not at all regretting his violent actions and if anything, most likely feeling justified.

You couldn’t help but notice all the Jawa’s that peered out from the fortress, more gathering outside as if ready to blast the Mandalorian back to the space of the outer rim and you supposed on a more, condensed level, you could understand. Had he just went to Kuiil to begin with instead of killing an eighth of their fortresses population they’d be a little more inclined to give him an easier time.

“You need to drop your rifle.” You couldn’t help but silently agree with Kuiil, feeling more and more uneasy at all the Jawa’s, they were small but you had learned early on to never overestimate someone’s size.

“I’m a Mandalorian, weapons are a part of my religion.” He wasn’t having any of it though, you could even see his grip on his rifle tighten as if anticipating one of the Jawa to strike out despite their constant chatter, maybe even hoping for it.

“Then you’re not getting your parts back.” Kuiil turned around as he replied, looking between you and the child and then back to the Mandalorian who only sighed exasperated, something you could only imagine he must have did often. Setting his rifle down as he stood up, turning around to face you as he spoke, “Stay here.”

You set the child down on the empty supply case as his little hands curled around the edge of the speeder, looking excited at the sight of the Jawa’s though you weren’t sure why, “Alright.” You weren’t going to question why though you didn’t see the harm. Jawa’s were thieving snakes but they were about as defenseless as the child, unless provoked.

Watching in curiosity you sat on the edge, letting your feet hang down as you pulled the cloak off which you had let hang to dry from the desert rain early that morning, wrapping it back around yourself as they sat down, “Hopefully they can peacefully trade everything and we can leave soon.”

The child glanced at you innocently, cooing as if in agreement as you turned back to the deal only to jump at the sight of the Mandalorian attempting to turn half the Jawa’s into a burnt early breakfast as Kuiil tried to get him to stop.

So much for peacefully…

Your attention however was drawn to the two Jawa’s who had approached your speeder, both chattering as their beady little red eyes glowed. Your expression coiled a little as your eyes flickered to the blaster the Mandalorian had dropped at the front of the speeder before asking, “Can I help you?” You glanced at them ungratefully at their lack of personal space, one attempting to poke at the child as you briskly picked him up in spite of protective instinct.

As if this was what they were discussing you could see the Mandalorian do a one-eighty as he twisted around, “Get away from them!” His temper flaring making the Jawa’s near you jump as they fumbled away from you and the child, admittedly for good reason after he almost burned half their friends.

You were grateful some progress had been made regardless, what you didn’t expect was being told you were going with them in the crawling fortress to the...egg? You hadn’t said anything but your expression made the Mandalorian throw up his hands, as if not knowing what that was supposed to mean either and at this point not caring.

The space was built for Jawa’s meaning it was a tight squeeze, for him at least. It was snug for you but you weren’t nearly as tall as him and the child could probably pass for a young Jawa, fitting in perfectly. The trip was fairly short though you were grateful for it, as the Mandalorian looked like he was on his last straw with these little devils.

“Let’s get this over with.” He sighed stepping down from ramp as you frowned, shifting the child against you as you glanced at his figure which paused, turning to look at you silently as if waiting for you to follow.

Your lips twisted into a frown however as you glanced at him, “This can’t be safe for the little one.” You could understand him wanting you to come as reassurance you wouldn’t run off, though at this point you had thought it was silently established you didn’t necessarily have a choice.

“You think it’ll be safer here?” The Mandalorian said it like a question of judgement though which made your brows press together, glancing back at all the Jawa’s before sighing, rubbing your forehead as you stepped down the ramp. He wasn’t wrong, Kuiil was here yes, but he wouldn’t look after the child like you would and Jawa’s were a sneaking sort.

Clacking your tongue you stopped in line with him as you gestured your hand, “Lead the way Mandalorian,” He had begun walking again as you hummed, following along the grove path as you glanced ahead and back towards him, “That’s a long name, doesn’t even sound like one. You don’t expect me to call you that the entire time, right?” The Mandalorian, just like you expected didn’t reply, only walking towards the path ahead that lead to this, egg, that the Jawa must have really prized for them to send you off on this hunt, “Mmm what about Mando? That’s a little easier on the tongue, what do you think Jaa?”

The child gave an enthusiastic coo though directed more at the bounce you gave him then at your words, still, you couldn’t help but smile at it’s own, eyes bright while peering up at you and grabbing at your hair, softly tugging on it before laying it’s head back against you, “You said it didn’t have a name.”

You glanced over to Mando, tilting your head in confusion for a moment before glancing back down at the child letting another smile pull on your lips as you answered, “He doesn’t, it’s just a nickname in my native tongue. Jaa still means Child.”

“Where did you find it?” Maybe you were taking it the wrong way, but you couldn’t help but feel like this was his first attempt at small talk with you since you had begun travelling with him in this short trip. Or maybe, he was really just as drawn to the child as you were, you couldn’t tell.

Glancing at the child who wiggled in your arms to peer ahead you pressed your lips together, debating if you should say, was he just curious? Was this for something else?

If there was one thing you weren’t certain of, it was the Mandalorians intentions with you and the child, “Akiva, my home planet. I was eight, maybe? I had ventured off from my tribes village when I found this one. I didn’t know I’d never see them again.” You glanced towards the ground, face growing somber before you continued, “But, I think it was meant to be. Me and this one, I feel like we’re connected somehow.”

You wouldn’t have been able to explain it even if you had the chance, the child let out a small whine at the large hole of a cave. Even you dimmed a little at the gross sight, filled with mud and overall an unpleasant sight, “You have to go in there...?” You felt a little pity, you wouldn’t lie.

Taking an overall view of his weaponry he replied, “I’ll be back in a few minutes, stay out here for now and stay back.” You weren’t sure of his reasoning but you stepped a few feet back as he entered into the cave. Whatever this thing was, you could only hope the egg was worth it.

Mando pulled out his blaster, taking one last moment to look at the opening before walking inside, he had been skilled enough to stay alive this long, you didn’t have a doubt he’d be successful inside.

You had began to pace to keep the child occupied, cooing softly as his little three fingers weaved into your hair. Your hearing was the first to catch the sound of the blaster, firing a few rounds off as you sighed in relief, only to tense again at the loud roar echoing…that didn’t sound good…

Your lips parted into a large gap at the sight of Mando nearly flying out as if the cave had spat him back out, landing in the mud with a groan, struggling to get up as the mother of the egg presumably exited the cave looking thoroughly pissed off.

This wasn’t going to be as easy as you had hoped. You could almost feel the nervous sweat break against the back of your neck as you took a few more steps back from the massive Mudhorn that growled.

As if sensing the danger the child clung to you tighter with a whine, burying into the fabric of your cloak as you securely held him. The chances weren’t looking good suddenly as Mando had struggled with unjamming his rifle that was undoubtedly clogged with mud, only to be bucked and thrown back once more making you involuntarily wince, that had to hurt.

The cry that had escaped the child though had you frozen in place as the Mudhorn turned to you, oh, oh shit. Taking a step back you swallowed thickly as it fully turned to you before taking off into a sprint, running at you full speed as you hurriedly ran to the side. The mud beneath you wet and slippery causing you to fall with a yelp, narrowly missing the large ram you heard against the wall.

The child was crying beneath you, bundled as best as you could as you struggled to put him into the bowled edge of the canyon, somewhere as safe as you could hope as you noticed the mudhorn aimed back on you. The child was almost vehement in not letting you go, terrified and crying with shrilled whimpers as you fumbled away from his little figure that reached out for you.

You could hardly register when the mudhorn had rammed into you, sending you up into the air before crashing back into the ground, mud forced beneath your fingers and you were positive the taste of dirt in your mouth was due to being face first into the slop.

Your mind was fuzzy when you struggled to stand up, watching Mando being thrown off towards the caves entrance once more in an attempt to use his cable cord on it, it was worth a short you supposed.

Your legs were too weak as you collapsed onto them, hands digging into the mud in frustration as you watched Mando being sent back towards the child once more, this time he looked near out of it having been sent on his back one too many times. You didn’t think you’d die to a pissed off mudhorn because of a bounty hunter but, life certainly was strange, wasn’t it?

You had expected to watch the life crushed from the Mandalorian but even with your hazy vision your lips parted at the sight before you, the mudhorn roaring and snarling while in attempt to run at him yet it couldn’t move anywhere, as if stuck in place. And slowly, ever so slowly, it had began to raise in midair. You had thought you were just seeing things before but...your gaze fell to the child, it’s eyes closed as if heavily focused, little hand outstretched.

You really weren’t alone...

Falling back against your bottom you jumped at the sound of its feet crashing onto the ground, a loud snarl escaping it and looking as if it were about to use it’s horn to send the Mandalorian back once more. Outstretching your arms in desperation, you were so close to finishing this! You felt as if your heart was nearly lurched from your chest, the blood in your veins rushing as the mudhorn was sent flying back towards it’s cave, slamming against the wall with a loud wail, collapsing just as you did.

Your head instantly throbbing as you struggling to sit back up.

The Mandalorian had stood almost stunned, looking between you and the child. Struggling to stand up your gaze went to the child and as if on instinct you both had noticed it had fall back collapsed. Worry stringing through you as you ignored the flush of pain through your whole body and the sudden heaviness of your limbs. Was he okay? You couldn’t help but worry for the worst.

You were nearly shoulder to shoulder with him as you pulled the child into your arms, hand brushing over it’s little head to check on him as your lips quivered slightly, “What was that? That...thing you both did.”

You knew what Mando was talking about, feeling slightly self conscious you only glanced at the canyon before finally meeting his eyes, uncertainty filling you as you pressed your lips together, you had dealt with odd occurrences like this since you were a child. And you had never met anyone like you, not until this child came into your life, you didn’t know what it meant. But you knew you belong with this little one.

“I don’t know.” You couldn’t provide him an answer, as you didn’t know yourself. All you did know was this little child had the same power as you, and it made you feel a little less lonely, less like a freak. When you had first discovered it that was when you realized this was meant to be, you were meant to care for this child.

Note: Thank u all so much for the lovely feedback I honestly didn’t expect this to get as many notes as it did 🥺 I hope u guys liked this chapter bc mama reader and baby yoda make me soft :(

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averagejoesolomon · 3 years

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Good evening! As usual, I started writing another chapter too early in this section, and it took me about a week to realize it. Here’s the real, final version of Chapter Five. You can start from the beginning of Full Circle on Ao3. Enjoy!

Chapter Five

“Come in.”

It’s an office of a temporary sort, lacking any family photos or hanging degrees. Bare grey walls stand begging for plaques, and medals, and flags. There is only a desk and its chair, sitting beside a pale cream filing cabinet with a drawer drawn open. Lincoln sits hunched with a pen in his left hand, scribbling into manilla as though a life depends upon it. Matt slips in through the door, his knock still lingering on his knuckles.

Lincoln speaks fairly straight by Virginian standards, with a distinct non-accent that belongs to Michigan, or Ohio, or Illinois. He doesn’t stop his scribbling as he says, “What can I do for you?”

Matt’s not sure if he’s supposed to leave the door open or if he should shut it behind him, and Lincoln hardly seems to be in the mood to answer any questions. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

With this, finally, Lincoln looks up from his papers, peering over thick-framed glasses. “Matthew,” he says. “You’re Cooper’s boy?”

For all his life, Matt’s been Andrew’s boy to friends and strangers alike, but Nebraska is a couple thousand miles away by now, and his pops’ name doesn’t appear to reach past the Appalachian. Out here, they know Matt by the name of a different veteran. “Insofar as I can be, sir.”

Lincoln stands, allowing his glasses to fall to his chest, where they hang from a thin beaded chain. He’s the type of man who looks older up close and while he’s still quick on his feet, Matt can see the war in his joints. He passes Matt with the slightest limp, and closes the door for him, unwilling to wait for an unsettled mind. “Tell me, Matthew,” he says, crossing his arms. “What the hell are you doing here?”

There ain’t no niceties in espionage, and that’s a damn shame, if only because it would give him more time to come up with answers when folks start asking him these kinds of questions. “Excuse me, sir?”

“You heard me,” he tries again. “Why are you here? No formal spycraft training, no college education. Your only intelligence experience is your training in Russia, just shy of a full year, and then seven measly months of transcripts and translating.”

“Well I think you’ll find that in those seven months, I exceeded every expectation—”

“I’ve got your resume, Matthew,” he says, and he seems to look over top of his glasses again, even though he’s no longer wearing them. “I don’t want to know about the Yugoslavian arms deals you prevented—I want to know why you’re here, in my program, at this camp.”

“I’m here to serve my country.”

It’s an answer that tends to carry heft in his usual company, but the space between them lands flat as he says it. Lincoln merely grunts. “There’s plenty of ways to serve your country.”

He’s trained to see an attack before it hits, piecing together new information as it comes to him in words, and tone, and inflection. This is one of those phrases that, if still at his desk, Matt would mark with a thin, red sticky note. “I was told that I was needed here.”

“Were you, now?”

And maybe a sticky note here, too. “By people I trust, sir.”

“I’ll bet.”

There’s a second conversation happening, far below the surface, though Matt’s not likely to place it without a little assistance from the opposing party, so he gets right to it. If they can abandon all niceties, then so can he. “Is this about the Bug House?”

Lincoln’s smiles are more freely given than most men in his field, which makes them all the harder to read. He finally lets his arms fall as he walks back toward his desk, leaning up against its edge. “It’s not not about the Bug House.”

“Sir, if I could explain—”

Lincoln holds out his hand, palm forward. “Save it,” he says. “There’s no excuse you can give me that I haven’t already heard ten times over, year after year.”

“Oh, I ain’t looking to make excuses—”

“I said save it, Matthew,” he says again, and his full name sounds the same as it does on his mama’s lips after an unfavorable run-in with one of her many rules. “This is the point in your training where you and I have a conversation about your choice to pursue espionage, and the likelihood that you actually survive it.”

The talk of life and death sobers him up a little, and the soldier in him is reminded that Lincoln is a superior. “Yes, sir.”

“Because it’s my job to tell you that you’re not anything special.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I know that Cooper has probably done a pretty good job of building you up and making you think that you’re really something spectacular,” he says, and there’s no malice in it. Only facts. “But I see boys like you all the time—exactly your age, with the exact same training, and the exact same heart stitched into your sleeve.”

“Heart, sir?”

Lincoln gestures to the seat in front of him. It’s a hard, dark plastic chair that looks it was made more for torture than for comfort, but Matt follows through on the unofficial order. “They send me young men like you every year,” Lincoln says. “Strong, smart, patriotic—I won’t deny you any of those titles. But the Army has always valued heart, as well. They love the kind of ambitious devotion that’s easy to spot and even easier to manipulate. I can appreciate it from a distance, but in my field, heart doesn’t get you devotion. It just gets you dead.”

Matt feels his own heart beating against his lungs, keyed into an adrenaline that doesn’t feel right. This is it. He’ll have to go back to Cooper. He’ll have to return to eight hours of headphones and vending machines. He’ll have to head back to Nebraska, tail between his legs, and face his pops.

“You had a nice job with Army Intelligence,” Lincoln says. “Good income. Decent leadership. You’re good at it. You picked it up quicker than most. And there aren’t many safer places in the world than the backside of a desk.”

His heart has made its way up to his ears, now. The words come out of his mouth before he even knows what they say. “I want to be good at this. I was told I could be really good at this.”

“And I’m telling you that you won’t be.” Grey eyes cut at the flush in Matt’s skin, cool against his heat. “Because someone said so is not a good enough reason to be here. The Army can tell you whatever they want about your talent, but in the end, they’re not the ones going out in the field. You are. And make no mistake about it, Matthew—if you continue down this path, you won’t live long enough to make any kind of difference in this world.”

Matt doesn’t often give way to speechlessness, but there’s a pressure building up in his chest, his head, his mouth, and it seems like such a strain to push words through it all. “So you’re saying…?” he tries, but he falls short. Tries again. “What are you saying?”

“Here’s what I’m saying—while you’re here, you had better make damn sure that espionage is something you do, and not just something that happens to you. Because if you set off an alarm out there,” he points northwardly, toward some indeterminate outside, “you won’t have Abigail Cameron around to shove you out of a window to safety.”

He suspects that Lincoln ain’t the sort of man who makes many mistakes, but bringing Abby into this conversation is a rare exception. While not especially long-lived, their friendship is Matt’s first since Fitz and Monty, and there’s not a lot Matt won’t do when it comes to loneliness, and the people in his life who help ease it. “Due respect, sir, but you’re wrong about that.” He stands, and it feels dangerous in the moment. “Abigail Camron is always going to be around when I need her.”

It’s another one of Lincoln’s smiles, this time accompanied by laughter, light and simple. “And what makes you think that, do you suppose?” he says. “Why do you think you have so much trust in a woman you didn’t know a month ago?”

“Well I reckon I’ve got a pretty good gut for these sorts of things,” Matt says. “And I know a trustworthy person when I see one.”

Lincoln shakes his head, not out of inaccuracy, but rather, out of naiveté. “Or,” he says, “you’re being manipulated by a highly trained agent, whose primary skills include lock-picking, asset conversion, and honeypotting.”

And it’s true that just about everyone likes Abby. Only now does it occur to Matt that she’s planned it that way.

Lincoln must be able to see the realization on him, because he doesn’t push the subject any further. Instead, he puts his glasses back on, and walks around to the other side of his desk. “You want to be here?” he says, returning to his seat. “You’d better convince me that you can. Because I’ve got no problem telling you to pack your bags. It’s far easier than standing at your grave.”

These are the words that echo in Matt’s thoughts throughout the weeks that follow.

#Full Circle

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lady-of-glass-and-bone · 4 years

Text

If That Wasn't How It Was Supposed To Go, Where Would We Be?

Jason Voorhees x reader

After @slasherkisss stream of the OG Friday the 13th, I had ideas and needed to get them down. Also did some research for this one & changed the dates a bit, so this starts in the late 60's early 70's and goes from there! More parts to come hopefully!

Warnings: near drowning, mentions of bullying, angst

You had no problem swimming in pools because you could see the bottom, could see that nothing was going to reach up and pull you under.

At beaches you never went out past where you could stand, toes gripping at the shifting sand and stones beneath them.

So naturally, lakes were absolutely out of the question for you.

Unfortunately, your parents had decided to get you over this 'silly little fear of yours' whether you wanted to or not because here at Camp Crystal Lake, your temporary Summer home, the counselors seemed to be steering you in the direction of the more water related activities.

They had started out patient but now, halfway through your stay, they'd stopped being subtle about it.

You feared they might resort to simply tossing you in if they knew they wouldn't get in trouble for it. It wasn't like you couldn't swim, you just didn't want to go swimming in. . .that.

The flat, still surface of the lake was almost black, yawning up at you like the mouth of a great big beast, hiding it's teeth somewhere deep in the dark.

Even in the morning sun, with the mist slowly receding and the glare coming off the mirror like surface of the water, you felt it watching you.

Sweat start to form on your palms. You felt cold start to numb your face the longer you stood on the end of the dock, the sunrise not helping at all.

It was just a big, stupid, empty, lake! Why couldn't you just jump in?

"Oh my God, there you are!" a familiar, shrill voice gasped out and you nearly fell over at the sound. It certainly scared the nearby birds from their trees.

Kelsey was the counselor assigned to your cabin and though she was nice enough, she was very. . . serious about her position.

"You nearly gave me a heart attack, Squirt! What are you doing out here?" she jogged down the length of the dock, dressed and ready for the day, a plastic whistle bouncing against her chest.

Geez, and you thought you'd gotten up early.

"I just wanted to see the lake" you said carelessly, walking toward the slightly frantic looking Kelsey, meeting her halfway.

She looked a little in disbelief. She knew very well how much you despised the lake.

"Oh, well, that's okay Squirt, just. . .don't go off on your own next time? Okay?" she put an arm around your shoulders, turning to lead you back to dry land.

You simply nodded, not looking up at the teen who was frowning down at you in slight concern.

By the time the rest of the camp had gotten up and on it's feet, you had decided today was the day.

You were going to swim in the lake. Just jump right in and not be scared. The worst thing that could happen was a fish brushing by to figure out if your toes were food or not.

It was settled. Today. You. Swimming in the lake. Totally gonna happen.

"Good morning dear" the kind, blond woman who worked in the kitchen greeted you from behind the counter.

She had a soft voice and a nice smile that made you feel like maybe swimming in the lake was no big deal after all.

"Morning Mrs. Voorhees" you smiled back up at her, grabbing up the tray she set out in front of you and walking off to find a spot to sit.

You liked her, she never bugged you with questions about 'how your swimming was coming along' or 'how about the lake today?'

She had to know though, the counselors were all gossips and plenty of them hung around the kitchen.

But they mostly gossiped about Jason. Mrs. Voorhees' son. You'd seen him around, seen some of the other kids picking on him when they thought the coast was clear.

Sure he looked different and seemed to be a little too attached to his Mom but who wouldn't be when people called you a freak and whispered about you behind your back?

You were a year older than him and so the two of you didn't really interact much. . .but today wasn't the day for making friends. Today was going to be nerve wracking enough.

Maybe you could seek him out tomorrow once you had conquered the lake.

It was now well after lunch and you found yourself standing face to face with the mouth of the lake once again. Toes hanging off the edge of the dock, swimsuit on and trying to force your knees to bend and jump.

Just bend, jump and splash, then you'd be in the water! Scuttling around the dock and then heading toward the shore where you could safely walk up and out of the water.

Easy as pie.

What a load of-

You heard a splash then laughter, which broke you from your intense stare down with the lake. There, over to your left, was a group of your fellow campers gathered around the far edge of the dock.

The cries coming from within the intense splashing made you whip around to look at the lifeguard tower. Empty.

No friendly yellow Camp Crystal Lake Counselor shirts in sight.

Teenagers. You rolled your eyes and stomped barefooted over to the kids and caught a glimpse between skinny shoulders of the splashing kid in the water.

Jason? The sight made you angry and afraid at the same time, him flailing around in the water, trying harder than ever to speak, to yell, for help.

Oh God. He's gonna drown.

You'd like to be able to say that you jumped in without a second thought, that it was the only option that went through your mind.

Instead, you took a step back, wide eyes watching the black water start to swallow Jason up, hoping someone else would see. See that he was gonna drown.

Then the thought of Jason drowning in that black, murky, lake water that you already hated so much pushed you forward, choking down your own fear as you took a running leap headfirst into the belly of the beast.

If anyone was gonna drown in this lake it was going to be you. Not Jason.

Bubbles swam around you, trying to encourage you to float back up to the surface but you swiped a hand right through them, struggling to keep your eyes open and kicked yourself downward.

Your heart was thumping louder and harder than you ever imagined, water was trying to crawl it's way up your nose, your lungs already burning for a breath.

Your hand bumped something as you stretched out for another stroke and even though you could barely see what it was, you grabbed onto it. It felt like a wrist.

Dragging Jason and yourself up to the surface was a relief. You could hear the muffled shouts of voices from above and you kicked harder.

Breaking the surface of the water, Jason gripped tight in your arms, you took in a gasping wet breath, blew the water out of your nose, and glared up at the stunned crowd of counselors staring at you from the dock.

"And where have you assholes been?!"

You remember exactly two things after Jason and you were pulled up out of the water.

The first was seeing Mrs. Voorhees running down the dock, yelling her sons name.

The second was being so angry that you had torn into the counselors so viciously even Kelsey looked a bit terrified of you.

You can't recall even half of what you had said now that you were sitting in the nurse's cabin, wrapped in dry clothes and a blanket as the sky began to rumble outside with an incoming thunderstorm.

It had been really hot today and rain would happily drop the temperature.

Your hair was still a little damp when the nurse leaned out of the door that lead to a little office and told you she'd finally gotten hold of your parents.

You blinked at her. Why had they called your parents? You weren't the one who had been thrown into a lake by a bunch of stupid kids.

You talked to them anyway. It sounded like they were fighting over who was going to hold the telephone as questions poured out at you.

'What were you thinking?!'

'How could you scare us like that?!'

'You should have gone to find a counselor! You could have died!'

You said everything except I'm sorry. You refused to be sorry. And you silently cursed at your parents. You knew they wouldn't listen if you tried to explain that going to find someone would have meant Jason's death.

The call ended with your parents declaring that they would be on their way to pick you up and to please put the nurse back on the phone.

The nurse was a short brunette who wore a necklace with a small, silver dolphin pendant on it and a sympathetic half smile. You decided you liked her too and tried to give a smile before shuffling back to the cot you'd been bundled up on in the other room.

As you laid down, pulling the blanket tighter around you, your mind replayed the moment you had taken a step back out on the dock. You had almost ran away. Pretended you hadn't seen.

You wondered what that would have cost, in the long run. Where would that choice have taken you? Mrs. Voorhees?

It was all to easy to imagine.

Easy as pie.

#jason vorhees #jason voorhees x reader #friday the 13th #slasher x reader #slasher #slasher community #i tried to fix it #more to come #maybe #duck did it

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