#if any other nb people want to take me under their wing PLEASE DO | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

The Tumblr office adopted Tommy, an 11-year-old Pomeranian.

#if any other nb people want to take me under their wing PLEASE DO

monstersandmaw · 4 years

Text

Male alien x nb human (nsfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

Here's the winner of the 'which monster to write next' poll (at least it was at the time I started writing it). It’s been on early release for Patreon folks for about a week now, and I was supposed to post it here yesterday, but I forgot. I hope you enjoy it!

Lex is non binary, and if they lived on Earth at the moment, would most likely be assigned male at birth. Tarann (alien) is male, an assassin, and didn’t have what we might view as a normal childhood by any standards. As such, there is an awful lot he does know, and a lot that he's completely unfamiliar with...

Content: fluff, the tiniest pinch of angst, plus mention of genetic modification and sterilisation, 'creation' of genetic 'super-soldiers', nsfw, tentacle cocks (plural) Wordcount: 8000

The dull, steady voice of his ship’s computer informed him that faster-than-light travel would not be viable with all systems in their current state of blaster-riddled repair.

He cursed.

It then informed him that actually, since barely sticking the landing in a crumbling red-stone canyon, Tarann would be lucky to take off again at all.

He let out a long string of curses, even switching languages a couple of times.

“That was creative. I even detected some Tch’larian in there,” Menot, the androgynous computer, commented. “Been a while since I’ve heard you use your native tongue, Tarann…”

“Go fuck yourself with a Savaranian spiked tuber,” he grumbled, to which the computer had no qualms responding that if they were not a mere collection of unfathomably complicated code - which he had had no hand whatsoever in creating, they sarcastically pointed out - they might consider the directive.

Tarann simply shook his head in frustration and used the lower of his two sets of arms to smash the bulkhead open by the button on the wall, and stalked through the smashed-up ship towards his cramped sleeping quarters. The Spark was hardly a ship built for comfort. She was utilitarian; designed for quick escapes and aerial combat, and short-range sorties. She’d been his home for over a year now, and he’d be lucky if he ever got her to limp into the upper atmosphere of this backwater planet, let alone space. An unhealthy layer of fine red dust was already clinging to her wings and the intakes would likely need some extensive work before he could get her air-worthy again.

Mounting stress made the old implant scar in the side of his neck throb and he trailed his three-fingered hand along it, his skin currently a neutral, dull grey. Barefooted, as nearly all Tch’larians preferred due to particular shape of their three-toed feet, with one additional thumb-like digit that didn’t quite meet the ground when they stood, he padded silently along the metal floors of the ship and began to check and clean his weapons back in his quarters. The familiar monotony of clicking, sliding metal, and the smell of gun lubricant always soothed him.

“Think,” he hissed at himself.

Menot’s voice sounded over the system twenty minutes later and said, “Incoming transmission from the Agency. Would you like me to play it for you?”

He closed his four yellow eyes and inhaled steadily. Reluctantly, he growled, “Yes.”

“Agent Triskelion,” the familiar voice of his handler rumbled. “We understand that your ship took heavy damage in a dogfight after completing your last contract.”

“That’s a fucking understatement,” he snarled but he didn’t interrupt the message further.

“While it was unrelated to the contract on the Red Flame, your unplanned skirmish with Invaranian Rebels did attract attention and we have intelligence to suggest that they might have attempted to trace you following your escape. You are ordered to keep a low profile and your open contracts have been reassigned to other agents until we can be certain that the Red Flame is no longer looking for you.”

The metal of his blaster creaked under his grip and he relaxed before he damaged it, taking another deep breath. He hadn’t had a contract reassigned since he’d first joined the Agency all those years ago. The humiliation of it forced his skin to change from the dusty grey to a vibrant blue, dotted with teal. Feeling like a teenager again, he forced his skin back to its neutral grey and set the blaster aside, reflexively checking the safety before it put it down.

Back at the bridge, though it was barely large enough for him to squeeze around the seat, he snarled, “Menot, record this and prepare to send it to HQ.”

“Very good.”

“Agent Triskelion, acknowledging receipt of transmission and instructions to lie low. Currently grounded in a canyon twenty clicks north west of a small mining town on a planet that’s so fucking tiny it doesn’t even have an official name.” Tarann steady himself and added, “But I’ll get Menot to send coordinates with this transmission. Ship’s pretty beaten up and I’ll probably need extraction at some point. I doubt this place has the parts I need, but I can look. I’m going to head into the town at sunrise and I’ll take Menot with me. And I’ll keep a low profile.”

“As low a profile as one of the galaxy’s finest killers possibly can,” Menot added, and Tarann cursed whoever had coded sarcasm into their system.

“Exactly,” he said. “A stranger rocking up out of nowhere in a town that tiny is hardly going to pass unremarked, but I’ll adapt.” He snorted a little at the irony of that, knowing that his rather unique genetic melange was designed for camouflage. Not for him was the messy application of paints and disguises, though he couldn’t actually change his bone structure beyond accelerated healing. “So yeah, for the love of all you hold dear, please don’t just forget about me here. End recording. Menot, send it to HQ.”

With that, he slumped into the pilot’s seat for a moment and sighed. Menot helpfully informed him that dawn was three hours away, and he told them to shut everything down save for the essentials and maintain a vigilant watch while he attempted to get some sleep.

“I’ll wake you if anything needs your attention,” Menot promised.

With the sun high in the sky, Tarann stalked across the dusty plain that formed a ring around the town. In fact, it was much larger than they’d initially thought, and Menot quietly informed him in his hidden earpiece that the town appeared to go down into the earth, perhaps following the original mine shafts.

“Puts a new meaning on going to ground for a while,” he snorted.

He was relieved as he passed through dirty, dusty, narrow streets, to note all sorts of lifeforms here - some familiar and many not. With limited biodiversity, he might have stood out like a sore thumb, but the place seemed stuffed to the brim with hopeless outcasts from all over the system. There were even some humans here, which surprised him. The temperature was hot and arid, not ideal for the creatures he’d only had brief dealings with. Earth was seen as a backwater, with the emphasis on the water. It was the kind of place people went to retire to, and that was… about it. Enterprising humans had left centuries ago and gone to the newly terraformed planets like Mars - if they still wanted to remain in their solar system - and many more had joined up with the Federation and scattered all over the known galaxies.

When he passed a bipedal, slender human male, he asked Menot to give him a run-down on the species. “Both surprisingly easy and surprisingly difficult to kill, can be self-destructively curious and reckless, capable of making leaps of logic insurmountable to many species while being unfathomably illogical at other times…”

“Baffling,” he murmured. “Sounds like Agent Luna,” he said with a fond smile.

The legendary assassin had assessed him upon arrival at the Agency for unarmed combat, and somehow despite looking so… breakable, had had him on his back in two seconds flat. She’d also been the one to give him his field name, Triskelion, given that a decent number of things in his body, except his two hearts and four eyes, seemed to come in threes - three fingers, three toes, three lungs… The only trio of anatomical parts she hadn’t seen first hand was, well… elsewhere.

The fact that Luna was a fraction of his size and weight hadn’t seemed to matter at all in combat training, and he’d been very wary (and more than a bit in awe) of her since she’d returned from a mission with an injury that even the best surgeons at the Agency had said would kill her. Six months later, she was back in the field. He shuddered. Humans were like Anthariacs, once you thought you had a lock on their size and shape, they could simply morph into something else. Or perhaps they weren’t anything like that at all.

Unsettled, he shuddered again and nearly crashed straight into a small vendor’s stall in the narrow alley.

He heard the scraping voice say something, at which the ear piece translated, “Watch it!”

Shrugging off the encounter, he moved through the streets until he came to what looked like a bar with a noticeboard outside. Most of the listings were mundane requests and adverts for various services, and the rewards were in a currency he’d never heard of.

It took him a month on the planet to earn enough cash to stop having to make the twenty click trek out to the Spark every night to sleep. He would have slept in a doorway in the town had he not witnessed on his very first evening what happened to people who were caught unprepared and exposed. The sight of the slender wings being yanked off a tiny creature with a scream powerful enough to rupture eardrums had stuck with him and he’d risked the local wildlife - largely dirty great lizards - and gritty wind-storms on a daily basis to avoid that.

His handler at The Agency kept contact to an absolute minimum, except to update him periodically on the investigation that the Red Flame was still conducting and to tell him to stay holed up there. Boxed in with nothing to do, Tarann became irritable and jumpy. It wasn’t that he was itching for the next kill - he didn’t do his job for that - but the constant vigilance and insecurity of taking short, messy, shitty jobs here and there was waring him down, so when some jackass in the bar made a comment about that ‘four-eyed hill varanus over there’, he snapped. He’d encountered a hill varanus on one of his long treks back to where the Spark was still stashed out of sight in the canyon, and the enormous lizard had been curled up beside a large boulder, minding its own business until it decided to make Tarann’s sensitive inner calf its business with a maw full of teeth coated in thick poisonous saliva.

He’d been hallucinating by the time he’d managed to get back to the Spark - miraculously without dropping off the ledge and plummeting to the bottom of the canyon - and his body had been rippling through every colour in the known universe, and maybe even a few more, before he’d finally stuck a huge needle full of universal antidote into his left heart. It had taken him a whole day to recover enough to leave the ship.

Being compared to a hill varanus then - yes, his skin had the same gnarled texture as a number of reptiles found all over the galaxy, and yes, his saliva was also poisonous to a huge number of species - had suddenly broken all his carefully constructed control and he’d lunged at the large, slug-like creature, all four hands going around the thinnest point of its neck and squeezing until its eyes bulged.

“Oi!” a relatively high-pitched shout went up from behind the bar and a moment later a short blast of sound shot through the room and everyone cringed. The high-frequency noise made his insides crawl and he let go of the offending creature and staggered back a pace, toes splaying to try and steady himself. His skin flushed a sickly green before he could stop it.

Tarann turned his head and saw that the sound had emanated from a small, hand-held speaker which had been plonked down onto the surface of the bar. Behind it, wielding control of the button on the top of the speaker was - and he could have sworn that he felt his right heart lurch a little in his chest at the sight of them - a human. They had a blaster in their left hand and looked prepared to use it, if not necessarily formally trained. Their stance was pretty shoddy, but the distance of only a few spans between them more than made up for that. If the human fired, Tarann would die for sure.

“No fighting in my bar,” they said, voice stern and steady. “You got an issue with someone, you take it waaaay outside, am I clear?”

Both Tarann and the slug-thing nodded and he decided he needed another drink.

Approaching the human while they still held the weapon was probably not a wise move, but when he leaned his lower arms on the counter, his upper pair hanging loose and relaxed at his sides, Tarann saw a smile on their lips. “You must be new,” they grinned amicably, reaching below the counter to stash the blaster and pulling out a glass in its place. They then turned behind them to fill it up. “Haven’t seen any Tch’larians in here for a long time.”

He liked the way the human almost got the click at the start of the word but not quite. Some humans were known for their incredible mimicry skills, but this one clearly wasn’t as proficient. He also had no idea how to address a human after they’d just threatened his life, so he settled for a curt nod.

“And you’re about as chatty as the last one. Whatever that bit of pond slime over there -” they gestured with a bottle of distilled alcohol at the creature who’d insulted him “- said to you, just ignore them. They’re… a regular in here, but they don’t have many friends, if you catch my drift.”

“I wonder why,” he said flatly.

“It speaks!” the human chuckled. “And you’re fluent in sarcasm as well as Federation Common. Here, on the house.” And a small glass was shunted his way, sloshing with a clear, ruby red liquid. “You’ll like it. It’s a kind of brandy made with a fruit that grows in the mines. At least, the last Tch’larian I knew liked it. I could be grossly stereotyping an entire race based on one data point. Still, free booze…?”

“You talk a lot,” he said before sipping it. It burned his neon blue tongue pleasantly and then left a sweet aroma in his mouth that went up into his nasal cavity, leaving him with the impression he might breathe fire if he opened his mouth again.

“Yeah, well, you don’t, so… one of us has to balance the equation.” After a beat they added, “I’m Lex.” They held out their hand over the bar counter and Tarann vaguely remembered something about touch not being a taboo for humans. Not that it was taboo for Tch’larians either, but with so many people mingling under the Federation’s relatively peaceful protection in the past few centuries, it was still easy to offend someone inadvertently.

He noted the strength in the human’s hand as he slid his own three fingers into the grasp, and smiled at how smooth their skin was. Their hair was cut short at one side and had been left to flop a little longer at the top of their head, and he’d always wondered what a human’s hair would feel like beneath the pads of his sensitive fingers. Agent Luna hadn’t exactly been the type to let him try. He’d known that Agent Luna was female, but he had no idea what this human went by, and he was unfamiliar with human naming conventions, so that gave him no clue either.

Eventually he realised that he hadn’t told them his name, and murmured, “Tarann.” It seemed fairly safe out here, and most of the people who might want revenge on him for his line of work knew him as Triskelion anyway.

“Where are you staying?” Lex asked as they got back to work, keeping their head turned towards him a little so that he could still talk to them while they polished glasses and took orders from the odd patron.

“Out of town,” he said.

Lex paused halfway through pouring a bottle of something frothy and blue into a glass the size of a small bucket. “There’s nothing out of town…”

“My ship’s out there. Dead in the water, as it were,” he offered, taking another sip of his brandy. “This is excellent, by the way…”

His compliment was met with a grin, but the gesture quickly faded. “You’re not seriously sleeping in your dead ship out in the hills, are you?” they asked.

“Why would that be a problem?”

“You’re lucky the scavengers haven’t found you and stripped your ship - and you - bare…”

He tilted his head and blinked his four golden eyes at them. “I haven’t seen any sign of anyone out there except me. And the odd varanus…”

Lex winced dramatically. “Nasty fuckers those…”

Tarann nodded, rolling his right ankle. “Indeed.”

After a pause, Lex looked like they were about to say something, but the crash of glass on the other side of the room stopped them. “Shit, not those two again,” they hissed, and Tarann looked around just as a fight broke out for real this time.

They grabbed the blaster he’d seen before and the little speaker that emitted the unpleasant noise, and strode off around the bar, ignoring him completely where he sat. He had eased his lean, muscular frame onto a bar stool to take the weight off his frankly rather bruised and sore feet. The unpleasant sound seemed to do nothing for these two as they scrapped - all arms and teeth and roars, and even when Lex shot a quick, low-energy blast into the stone floor beside one of their feet, they didn’t break it up.

He should stay out of it. The human had guts, for sure, but the two creatures that were fighting were large and aggressive, and he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. A stray flail of the tip of one of their tails caught Lex in the face and they staggered back, yelling and spitting curses.

Making his mind up, he slid off the stool and approached the brawling patrons. Grabbing the nearest one by the scruff of their reptilian neck, he yanked hard and backed towards the doors of the bar, clearly catching them completely by surprise. Top thugs never expected to be bested by anyone, and it gave him a good few minutes of stunned compliance. Tossing them out onto the street with a snarl of his own seemed to sober that one up a mite, and a second later the other creature was booted out of the door with another curse, leaving Lex framed in the open doorway, blaster raised, face slightly bruised and utterly thunderous.

Something happened then in Tarann’s body that he was not expecting. A sharp, unfamiliar pang of arousal shot down his spine and fanned out through his entire nervous system. He shivered, a low-frequency rumble escaping him without permission. There was something about seeing a creature that should have been vulnerable in this situation - could have been crushed - standing there with a bruised face and blazing eyes, staring down two enormous beings three times their size, that made him hot all over. It was like mating season, or at least, his vague recollection of it from a brief talk at the Facility to explain that none of them would ever experience any of that because they had essentially had it edited out of their DNA. He’d escaped the Facility and joined the Agency and had never experienced the slightest tinge of lust since a brief flare in his teens. He bit those memories down and looked back at Lex.

“Thanks,” they grinned as the two brawlers separated and headed off in opposite directions down the street, yelling curses over their shoulders in their various languages. “How’d you feel about another brandy?”

He nodded and followed them back inside, watching the way their legs moved - their legs hinged forwards at the knee, which was intoxicatingly the opposite way to his own, their hips swaying rather alluringly.

“Listen,” Lex said as Tarann closed his fingers around his second glass of fiery brandy that evening. “If you’d like somewhere to stay, I’ve got a job opening here for a bouncer. The last girl I had got into trouble with some bounty hunter and had to scarper, but it comes with the offer of a room, use of the kitchen out the back, and a steady pay. It’s not great, but if I get tips, I’ll share them with you.”

Tarann blinked. “You can’t be serious…”

“Why not?” Lex shrugged, refilling a container with a viscous, silvery sauce that crackled softly as it sank into the jar.

Barely suppressing a shudder at the offending liquid, he made a mental note to avoid that at all costs, whatever the fuck it was supposed to be or go with.

Lex caught him staring sidelong at the fluid and laughed. “One of a small number of things on the menu that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone except a hazmat droid, or an Efulgari bombardier -” they added nodding across the room to where a frankly enormous creature sat waiting patiently, presumably for the bucket of viscous gloop in Lex’s hands. “Now, do you have to get back to your ship tonight, or do you want to stay here and think it over? You can let me know what you decide in the morning.”

He scowled softly; wary and distrustful. “You’d just let me stay?”

Lex shrugged again. “You’ve already earned your keep for tonight,” they grinned, revealing hopelessly small teeth. How could they hope to defend themselves with those? His own, by comparison, were two rows of viciously pointed fangs that could rip open the jugular of most of the known species that didn’t have exoskeletons, and even some that did.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll think it over.”

Lex left him in peace after that for an hour or so, but when the patrons began to trickle out into the night, they returned to him and asked, “Want to head up to your room?”

He nodded silently, and followed Lex through a door behind the bar and upstairs.

“That’s my room,” Lex said, nodding at a door with peeling teal paint which stood ajar on his right. “And this is yours. It’s not much, but it’s comfortable and I kept it pretty clean. There might be just a little bit of dust…”

Again, Tarann just nodded his understanding and set his small pack down gently beside the bed. The room was indeed humble, but that wasn’t an issue. He didn’t have many belongings anyway; just Menot in their portable device and some clothes and local coin. “It’s fine,” he said, turning round to find Lex leaning against the door frame in a way that spoke of casual trust and again made his skin flush hot. Embarrassed, he looked away, but Lex didn’t seem to mind, or perhaps they didn’t notice.

“Kitchen is downstairs - it’s the only other door than the one that leads to the bar. You can’t miss it. Help yourself. See you tomorrow, I guess?” they smiled, running a hand through their hair and messing it all up in a way that did nothing to help the rising temperature of his skin or the syncopated lurching of his twin hearts in his chest.

With a final nod from Tarann, Lex left him for the night.

He heard them closing up about an hour later, and then caught the steady tread of their footsteps on the metal stairs, the squeak and click of their door, the sound of clothes hitting the floor, and, another few moments later, the gush of hot water. In the corner of his own room was a sink, so he splashed the dust and grime off his face and decided to ask about a shower in the morning.

The rhythm of his life for the next few weeks was considerably easier than the first had been. Menot kept him abreast of activity both regarding his ship - nothing, mercifully - and the Agency. After three weeks working for Lex, the two had become the very thing he had always shied away from. Assassins don’t form attachments; they don’t form friends. Do the job, get out cleanly, and move on. That was how he lived, and yet, the regular ebb and flow of patrons - most of them familiar by now, a few of them new - and the easy manner of the ballsy human who ran the place lulled him quietly into a new life.

He constantly tried to remind himself that it was a borrowed life; a cover, almost. This cosy existence with its easy repartee between them and the comfort of a soft bed and regular meals was not his to keep, and he would have to shrug it off the moment that he was given the all-clear.

One evening, seemingly at random, Lex closed up early.

“What’s up, boss?” he asked as Lex politely shooed the last drunken creature out of the door and locked it behind her six scuttling legs. “What’s going on?” His natural instincts set him suddenly on edge all over again, perhaps because he’d grown so complacent of late. He didn’t like changes to patterns. It had taken him a little while to relax into this one, and even then, he didn’t exactly ease up on the vigilance.

Lex grinned at him like they’d won some kind of cash-prize, hands balled into fists at their hips, and announced, “It’s my birthday.”

He frowned. “What… What does that mean? You’re… You’re giving birth?” He looked at Lex’ body and couldn’t see any indication that they were carrying some form of offspring.

Lex gave a huge snort and bent nearly double laughing.

“Apparently not,” Tarann mumbled. “Apologies.”

“No,” Lex waved, straightening up again. “I’m sorry, it’s… that just… caught me off guard. No, I’m not giving birth to anything today or ever. It’s…” and then they fell quiet, almost sad, and said, “You really don’t know what a birthday is?”

He shook his head, feeling unsettled.

“Huh,” they mused. “Well, simply put, it’s a celebration of the day I was born. Back on Earth, we celebrate them roughly every 365 days because that’s one complete orbital cycle of our planet around our Sun. Roughly. Give or take a decimal point or two…”

They stared at him and he grew even more uncomfortable. Birthdays were not something celebrated at the Facility where he’d been… raised. The old scar in his neck where their implant had been throbbed and his skin changed colour quietly from grey to a dark blue.

Lex took a step closer and placed their fingertips on his upper forearm. It wasn’t the first time Lex had touched him, but it was the first touch like that; gentle, careful, concerned. “What does that mean?” Lex asked softly.

Tarann wanted to run, but instead he forced himself to ask, “What does what mean?”

“That colour change? I’ve worked out a few already. You go a kind of bright blue when you’re super embarrassed, but I’ve not seen you turn that colour before…”

“You noticed,” he said with a half-smirk, revealing all his dangerous teeth behind his thin lips.

Lex twitched a shoulder but didn’t let go of his arm. “It’s hard not to notice you,” they said voice shifting lower in pitch. “I love watching your skin change. You know, it reminds me of these old antique lamps back on Earth… they’re called ‘lava lamps’ but they’re not actually made of lava. It’s wax or something. Anyway, when you turn them on, they get hot, and the wax inside floats to the top of the liquid in a blob, and when it cools down a bit, it sinks down again. They’re super old and rare now, but some of them change colour slowly, and it’s kind of hypnotic. I remember going to a museum and staring at one for ages. It’s like that with your skin.”

They circled their thumb over a small area of his arm and he shuddered.

“I think it’s beautiful…” And then Lex’ skin flushed and he caught the way their pulse throbbed in their neck, the veins and arteries so close to the surface as to be impractically vulnerable, but they didn’t seem to want to protect it with armour. “Anyway,” they blurted, releasing him so quickly that he actually swayed a bit at the loss of contact, “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. What was I saying?”

“It’s your birthday,” he croaked after a pause.

“Yeah, so, uh… I figured maybe we could do something? There’s an Earth recipe involving pasta that I’ve finally managed to get all the ingredients for and I wanna make it. You game?”

“Game?”

“You want to help me?”

“Oh. Sure.”

Lex deflated a little. “You can take the night off if you’d rather.”

“No,” he said firmly. It never hurt to add to his knowledge.

“Ok then,” they smiled, and he caught the way their shoulders dropped a little, the muscles relaxing again. He’d answered correctly.

In fact, the meal ended up tasting alright. Human food seemed strange to him, and perhaps a little bland, but after the protein blocks he’d been raised on, anything tasted alright compared to those. What really made his evening was Lex’ obvious enjoyment. Their eyes were sparkling and alive, like jewels, and they laughed a lot.

They also made some significant inroads into the fiery brandy afterwards, and ended up slumped against Tarann’s left shoulders, smiling softly and running their fingertips over the slight, flattened bumps in his skin along his forearms.

“I can’t believe you have four arms,” they said, their voice slurred and their eyes vague.

Tarann, who wasn’t drunk, shifted slightly and jostled them. They snuggled up again immediately in a new position which forced him to put both his arms around their shoulders as they lay against this chest this time, and giggled. “Why not?” he asked, because he wasn’t sure what else to ask. They were beautiful and strong and tough at work in the bar and during the day, but he got to see a different side before and after work. The fatigue, the loneliness, the gentle-heartedness was never on show for the patrons of their scruffy, homely bar, but for him, they showed all that and more. Now, unwinding even further as the alcohol took effect, Lex became even more talkative than usual, which was saying something.

“Because you’ve got four!” they exclaimed, as if it was blindingly obvious. “And four eyes. I like your eyes. They’re like crocodile eyes.”

Tarann had no idea what a crocodile was and wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or not.

“And you said you’ve got two hearts?”

“Mmm,” he nodded, feeling brave and bringing his lower hand to rest quietly on Lex’s stomach as it rose and fell. Their body was warmer than his and he liked the tingling that ran across his skin at the touch.

Lex fell surprisingly silent for a while, their fingertips still trailing idle lines along his skin, until they looked up into his face from their slouched position - now with their head in his lap - and asked, “What did you do before you came here?”

Faced with the utterly open honesty in those deep eyes, he found himself suddenly unwilling to lie or even bend the truth. “I was a contract killer. I am still a contract killer. I’m just… lying low for a while.”

Lex blinked. “That explains it,” they muttered, eyes turning back to his arms.

They hadn’t even flinched at the revelation, which set a different prickling running across his nerves. “Explains what?”

“The way you watch people. You don’t see people though, do you. You see soft bits and armoured bits, dangerous bits and weak bits. You see exits from a room and weapons where there shouldn’t be any…”

Inhaling softly, he nodded. “Yes. Does that bother you?”

They shook their head. “No. But it makes me sad.”

“Why?”

“Because you… you haven’t really lived… have you?”

“I don’t understand.”

Lex lurched to sit upright then, dislodging Tarann’s hands from their stomach and swivelling to face him, their eyes now blazing with intensity. “You don’t think I’ve noticed the way you react when I touch you?”

The leap from ‘not living’ to ‘reaction to being touched’ was too great a one for him to follow and he narrowed his golden eyes in confusion.

Lex’s face softened and they climbed awkwardly into his lap, swaying slightly. The sudden, warm weight of their body so close to his own stole his breath for a moment and he felt his skin change from grey to acid blue to a dull pink and finally back to grey in the space of a few heartbeats. “See?” they murmured, rolling their hips invitingly and smiling as a low-frequency mating rumble left him before he had realised what he was doing. “You come alive beneath that touch…”

“I…” he began but stopped when he realised he had no idea what he was going to say. It was perfectly true. He did feel utterly different when Lex was touching him. “I’ve never… There’s never been any need.”

“What do you mean?” they asked, placing their hands on his chest, one over each thudding heart.

Tarann became almost painfully aware of his rasping breathing, the way his body was heating up, the stuttering rhythm of his hearts, the tingling in his groin that he’d never bothered to explore, even alone… “I was created to become a weapon. I was incubated and hatched in a facility which created weapons. They sterilised us before we were even born.”

Lex did look shocked at that. “Fuck… that’s… that’s so heartless… But even so, I can’t have kids, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like to get my dick wet from time to time…”

Tarann, again, didn’t understand. Lex was speaking Federation Common, but the nuances that the human put into their words were frequently lost on him.

Seeing his confusion, Lex laughed, rolled their hips again, and this time Tarann noticed something a little different at the front of their pants, a hardness that hadn’t been there - or hadn’t been as prominent - a few minutes earlier. “I still like to have sex,” they grinned.

“Oh.”

“You don’t have to have sex though,” they went on. “I’m just saying, it’s ok to let someone close. And to enjoy that. However you want to.”

“Oh.”

Lex laughed and tipped their head back a little, looking free and relaxed again now that Tarann’s confusion had been cleared up. Being unsteady with alcohol, however, they kept tipping back until Tarann was forced to grab them with both sets of hands to stop them toppling off; one pair around the waist and another around the arms.

“Steady,” he smiled. “I think maybe you should have some water. And head up to bed.”

“You’re probably right. I had a good birthday though,” they added, gently peeling the three fingers of Tarann’s lower right hand off their waist and bringing it up to their lips. The gesture they left there Tarann knew was called a kiss. Humans weren’t unique among lifeforms in nuzzling intimate parts of their anatomy against the other’s, but the strangeness of it for his species held an instant fascination. How could their lips be so soft? How could he never have done that? How could he never have wanted to share this kind of experience with anyone before?

And before he could stop it, his skin flushed a deep maroon all over like a drop of ink on wet paper, splotched here and there with dark purple. He knew what that meant for his species, and the sight of his own skin changing to the colours of an individual receptive to mating made him freeze.

“Well,” Lex chortled amusedly. Apparently they knew what it meant as well.

“No,” he said immediately, though he wasn’t quite sure what it was he was rejecting.

With a knowing but slightly melancholic smile, Lex clambered out of his lap and stood up. “Night, Tarann,” they said as they walked away. Their hands brushed against the door frame as they left the bar, and he stared at the spot where their fingers graced the woodwork even as their footsteps vanished up the stairs.

His skin did not change back that night, no matter how much he willed it to change. Half an hour later, as he lay in his bed, the sounds of Lex pleasuring themselves reached his acutely sensitive ears. The tiny, muffled moans and grunts that left their body set his skin aflame all over again. He moved one hand cautiously, experimentally down his torso to the slit where, to his astonishment, he was slick and sensitive. He gasped at the touch, and the three delicate, tentacle-like cocks which normally never left the sheath began to unfurl almost curiously into his hand.

Ordinarily, this might have repulsed him, but the sound of Lex gasping and the slick sounds that accompanied the moans, made the tentacles of his genitalia coil demandingly around his fingers. He knew almost nothing about his own species’ reproductive habits because he knew he would never need them. ‘You will never be a breeder,’ they had said when he’d hit sexual maturity - the first time he’d even bothered to explore his body, and, until that night, the last - and that had been that.

Sparks of pleasure shot through his whole body and he began to croon, the sound deep in his throat, rumbling and vibrating like an idling engine, filling the room. He couldn’t stop it. Balling his fingers into a fist, he felt his three pale cocks coil around it instinctively, and he began to kneed exploratively at the inside of the flower-shape they made around his hand, a thin, extremely sensitive membrane stretching between them from the root to about a third of the way down. The pleasure that that elicited made his back arch of the bed and his toes scrunched up the sheets as he lifted his hips too, pressing harder at the centre of the three smooth, increasingly slick tentacles.

Forcing himself to focus back on the sounds of Lex as they apparently approached their climax, he felt a wall of heat building in him. Something was approaching, and he let it sweep over him until the three tentacles surrounding his balled-up fist pulsed, gripping his hand tight as a vice, and warm fluid spurted from their centre over his clenched fingers in a series of messy gushes. His vision went white, his body went rigid, and his mind went completely blank.

Tarann floated in a blissful haze for a long time before he could even bring himself to move, his cocks too sensitive, his hand covered in sticky, slick release, but eventually his cocks retreated back into the sheath in his lower abdomen and he felt able to sit up. His hand was a mess, his lower body too, and when he tried to stand, his muscles felt shaky and weak, as though he’d run the training simulation at the facility for an entire day without breaks.

With his skin so sensitive that it was hard to fall asleep that night. Lex must have finished during his own orgasm because he never heard another noise from their room that night. Shame curled in to replace the pleasure as he realised that he’d eavesdropped on something that was private and not meant for his hearing, and in the morning, he could barely look Lex in the eye as he entered the kitchen in search of breakfast.

Lex, however, smiled warmly. The effects of the alcohol the previous night seemed only to have made their voice drop a little and their reactions were groggy and slower. “I think I'm going to keep the bar closed today,” they announced as they poured themselves a hot drink. “You’re not hungover at all, are you?”

“No,” he replied. “It takes more than that to get me drunk, let alone hungover.” ‘Hungover’ was a term he’d only learned since working for Lex.

“So…” Lex asked a little while later as they cooked breakfast for the two of them the hob. “If you’re only here to lie low for a while, do you know how long you’ll actually be here?”

“No.” Apparently Lex hadn’t been so drunk that they didn’t remember their conversation last night. He paused and added, “But the last transmission the Agency sent me indicated that the people who were looking into the disturbance after my last contract were no longer investigating.”

“So… not long then.”

“Probably.”

Lex poked at the pan with a wooden spatula and sighed.

“Why do you ask?”

He could see the way Lex’s jaw worked from side to side for a moment and recognised it as one of their tells. They were upset. “You think you’ll miss me when you leave?”

“Of course I will,” he said. “You’ve been extremely generous to me when I did nothing to earn it.”

“Right.”

Tarann knew he’d said the wrong thing immediately, but none of his intense training had prepared him for this kind of situation. He backtracked through the conversation, searching for something he could have said differently, something he could have handled better. Lost, he asked falteringly, “Will… you miss me? Is that what this is about?”

Lex nodded without turning around. “Yeah,” they said, voice cracking slightly. They cleared their throat and poked at breakfast again. It smelled ready but they didn’t seem ready to turn around.

Tarann stepped closer, his feet silent on the stone floor, and placed his hands boldly on Lex’ hips. The human immediately eased and leaned back, resting their weight against his body, though their head barely came midway up his chest. Taking the opportunity at last and sensing it would be welcome, Tarann brought his hand up and stroked his fingers gingerly through Lex’ hair. It was every bit as soft as he’d thought it would be, and he watched his skin change colour beneath the strands as they brushed over his fingers. Lex moaned quietly.

When he lowered his hand and Lex saw the maroon fading back to grey, they smiled and turned around, switching the hob off as they did. They put their own hands on his chest and he ached suddenly to have nothing separating them; to remove his close-fitting space-suit top and Lex’ loose-fitting shirt. As Lex slid one palm tentatively up to his neck, he felt the touch in a wave of heat and closed his eyes. His fingers tightened on Lex’ hips and Lex moaned softly.

“I want you,” Lex murmured. “I thought about you last night.”

Tarann opened his eyes a crack and blinked softly. “I heard you,” he admitted.

“Yeah?” Lex laughed, looking part bashful and part turned on. “What did you do when you heard me?”

“I…” he flushed neon blue and stepped back, ashamed.

“Hey,” they breathed, chasing after him. “It’s alright. It’s… really hot that you did that while thinking about me.”

“You don’t mind?”

They shook their head. “If you wanted to try together…”

That mating call thundered through him and he lowered his forehead, bringing it to touch Lex’.

“That a yes?”

“What about breakfast?”

“I overcooked it all already,” they laughed. “It’s ruined.”

Grabbing his hand, they tugged him out of the kitchen and back upstairs to their room.

They shed their clothes in a tangle, and once again Tarann was left staggered and enchanted by the human’s body. This time it was the sheer vulnerability of it. He could also see their arousal plainly - there was no sheath to tease - and something about that made his own sheath throb so hard he let out another mating croon.

“Fuck, that sound is so hot,” Lex gasped, lying back on the bed and tugging him down atop them. “Look at you,” they added, running their fingers down his heaving chest and playing with his sheath as he collapsed atop them. “I’ve always found Tch’larians attractive, but you… the way you move, the way you shudder when I touch you, the way you fucking croon like that…” He did it again - entirely involuntarily - as Lex crooked two fingers and delved carefully into his sheath, catching the inner walls of his three cocks inside and making them unfurl even quicker than they had last night.

They wrapped around Lex’ fingers and Lex moaned. “I want those on my cock… please…” they gasped, and Tarann felt like he might die if he didn’t do as Lex asked. His body was so tight all over, his skin flushing from dusky pink to dark magenta with every deep, sonorous groan that escaped him.

With one leg on each side of Lex’ thighs, he lowered his hips down until they were touching, and his cocks immediately curled around Lex’ own hard cock, covering it in weeping, slick fluid. Lex let out a string of curses and flung their head back into the bed beneath them, rutting their hips up into Tarann’s grip. The pressure of the tip of their cock against the point where the three cocks joined inside him made him growl with pleasure, his maw full of teeth opening, his saliva starting to fill his mouth, bright blue tongue lashing behind them.

“You know…?” Lex panted, thrusting up into the wet heat of the grip that his tentacle cocks had around theirs.

“Know what?” he snarled back, shaking from the effort of holding himself upright over Lex.

Lex reached up to his face with a fingertip and trailed it around his drooling mouth before putting it in his own and sucking. The sight of it sent Tarann into a fury of lust for some reason, and only then did he recall that his saliva was poisonous to many species. Before he could warn Lex, the human grinned and their eyes went wide, pupils blown until their irises were a mere whisper of colour. Apparently he wasn't poisonous to humans. Quite the contrary if the way Lex fucked upwards into his body and filled him with sparking pleasure with each thrust was anything to go by.

“Fuck, I’m close,” Lex hissed, and Tarann felt his cocks contract around the hard length inside him.

He didn’t have the breath or the words to agree.

“I’m… I -” Lex cried out, and suddenly heat flooded the inside of Tarann’s sheath and he felt his own cocks clench and pulse rhythmically around Lex’ cock as he came too. He drew every drop from Lex that they had inside them as his own orgasm rolled through him and left him mute, panting, and thrumming all over.

“Fuck that was intense,” Lex chuckled some while later, when Tarann’s cocks had finally let go of their own softening cock. “Are you ok?”

“Mmm,” he rumbled from his new position, slumped on the bed beside Lex, his trio of cocks lying limply across his torso, splayed out and spent and utterly sensitive.

Lex sat up, heedless that their own body was covered in their combined release, and trailed their fingers down Tarann’s torso towards his still pulsing sheath. “Can I?” they asked.

Tarann didn’t reply but he responded with a shrug. He had no idea what Lex intended, but he trusted them. What Lex did was to lean forwards and take one of his cocks into his mouth and suck on it gently. Tarann’s whole body lurched and he bellowed at the sheer volume of the sensation as it thundered in his head and under his skin all over again.

“Too much?” Lex laughed.

“No?” he gasped, trying to steady his spinning head and suddenly racing hearts. “No. Definitely not too much. Just…”

“Intense?” Lex supplied.

“Do it again?”

Lex did.

—

I really hope you folks enjoyed this one! Don’t forget to let me know if you did enjoy it by leaving a like and/or reblogging it!

For all early releases, character art and bios, upcoming story info, and much, much more, join me over on Patreon!

You’ll have access to stories before anyone else, and you’ll get instant access Patreon-only content as well, including polls and an exclusive monthly story for those on the Pixies and Goblins tier or higher! Plus lots of new goodies for February!!

#alien #male alien #alien x human #exophilia #alien boyfriend #monster boyfriend #non binary character #non binary human

625 notes · View notes

winterknight1087 · 4 years

Text

Flower from the Fae (ch 18)

Chapter Title: Pre-Party Mayhem and Discoveries

Summary: Virgil likes plants, but when he goes to investigate a plant his friend, Remy, tells him about, he doesn’t exactly check out the plant. Little does he know that the handsome man he meets there is a fairy who is about to challenge the world Virgil knows.

Word Count: 1416

Chapter Warnings: Sympathetic Deceit, Sympathetic Remus, cursing, mention of killing/death, alcohol

Chapter Pairings: Minor: LAMP, Demus, Sleep/Picani

AO3 Link My Writing

A/N: this is chapter 18, so read the first chapter here!

Virgil wasn’t sure what happened when he went outside, but whatever did, he was grateful for it. The group paid and left the diner to walk over to Emile and Remy’s house, where most of the work for this party was already complete. Emile forced Remy into their room for a quick nap before the party while the rest of them finished what little was left.

“Can you guys hang these bats up? I want to walk through the haunted house and make sure that everything looks good.” He asked Logan, offering a bag of fake bats.

“Sure, no problem.” Logan peeked at one of the bats, wondering if humans actually thought these were scary.

Virgil went through the little haunted house, pleased that all the motion sensors and the mechanics that reset the props were functioning well. This was always his favorite part of the Halloween party. They put so much effort into it so that it ran seamlessly and it was always the talk of the party, in some way. While he couldn’t claim much about the mechanics (it was an old friend of Dee’s who took that challenge on), Virgil was always the one to do the artwork and that added something special to the haunted house.

With everything checked out, Virgil returned to the living room and froze. Did Patton just fly? But the sweet man was on the ground when Virgil blinked. All of the bats were hanging up now, but there wasn’t a stool in sight to help them. Logan was rambling off facts about bats as he recycled the bag.

Virgil managed to slip into the bathroom before the trio noticed him. Virgil’s breathing was running as he talked his mind away from what he saw. There’s no way Patton was flying. He just jumped! Yeah, he jumped and the wings reacted to the movement. There’s no way that Patton could… Magic isn’t real! Patton can’t fly! Those wings aren’t real. He just jumped and that was that. I’m not a witch.

He froze as that thought hit him full force. That was the issue he’s been struggling with. Gala had managed to get him to read about half that stack of papers out of curiosity and he couldn’t help but notice so many of them matched him. Magic isn’t real but he may be a witch. If Patton could actually fly…

No. He was just fooling himself. Magic is not real. Magic has never been real. Patton is not a fairy. He was not a witch. Magic was something from movies. Magic was sleight of hand tricks. Those random hot flashes followed by random actions from people were not connected. He’s just letting stress go to his head. Patton merely jumped and now Virgil is over-analyzing like he always did.

Virgil took a deep breath and left the bathroom. He went straight for the kitchen where Dee was finishing up some of the alcoholic beverages. Virgil didn’t even really think of what he was doing as he got himself a cup and filled it. Dee watched in surprise but didn’t stop him.

“Are you alright?” he asked, softly, once Virgil lowered the cup.

Biting his tongue, Virgil decided that he wasn’t going to worry Dee with meaningless fantasies. “Forgot about one of the things I set up. It popped up when I wasn’t expecting it. I’ll be fine.”

Dee gave him an unamused look, feeling every ounce of the lie for what it was. “Uh huh, sure. When you want to tell me the truth, I’ll be in the backyard, setting up the bar area.”

Virgil winced but didn’t say anything. Dee looked over the anxious man, wondering what’s gotten into him. Virgil rarely lied. He was an open book, which was probably how he got himself tangled with fairies. Yet, Dee couldn’t think of what there was to lie about right now. All the guy had been doing was working on the haunted house.

“You know we care about you. Whatever is eating at you, we won’t judge. I hope you know this, Virgil.” Dee said softly to him. “I won’t push, but you can come talk to me or Emile or Remy or even Remus about whatever. We may joke and make fun of each other, but if it matters to you, it matters to us.”

“I…I know, Dee.” He answered. “I… it’s just stupid and I know it’s stupid.”

Bar be damned, Virgil comes first, Dee thought, waving to the dining table. “If it’s worrying you, it’s not stupid, Virgil. I am willing to listen. I won’t judge or tell the others if you want.”

Virgil paused before slowly saying, “well… I… things keep… I’ve… but…”

“Just rip it off like a Band-Aid if that’ll help, Vee,” Dee suggested.

He gulped but answered. “I think I may…”

“WHICH OF YOU BITCHES CUT… REMUS, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!”

Before Virgil or Dee could react, Remus was running through the kitchen with a fair chunk of Remy’s red wig. He was snickering as he escaped into the backyard, just before Remy appeared. The wig was cut off at weird angles and looked more like a nanny-gone-wild version of Crowley rather than the chill, lounging on a park bench Crowley Remy was going for.

They paused, noticing Dee’s murderous look and the vulnerable look in Virgil’s eyes, before saying. “Sorry, also, Dee, your husband is dead when I get my hands on him.”

With that, Remy was out the back door. The trio of fairies and Emile came into the kitchen, but there was no evidence of what just took place. Dee wanted nothing but to tell everyone to get lost, but he could feel Virgil’s mind lock-off whatever he’d been about to tell Dee. He waved at the door and watched as Emile went to check outside, where they could hear Remus screeching.

“Uh, are your friends always like that?” Roman asked Virgil, uncertainly.

“Always Remus,” he answered, offering an awkward grin. “The rest of us take turns dealing with his antics. He’s usually is calm when we give him weird things like edible glue or events where being weird is encouraged, but I guess he got bored.”

“Hmm,” Logan hummed before turning to the uncertain therapist. “Emile, I have a question for you, if you don’t mind my asking. I couldn’t help but notice the extensive amount of psychology books around. Are you a psychologist?”

Emile relaxed and smiled at him. “I do have a doctorate in psychology, but I am just a therapist.”

Logan’s eyes lit up. “Fascinating, would you mind if I ask some questions about your work? Virgil mentioned one of your atypical methods for him and I’d like to hear more about your methods.”

Emile nodded. “So long as you aren’t looking for personal advice, we can talk while finishing up the game section.”

“No advice. I just think the various sciences are fascinating.” Logan agreed, following the therapist down the hall.

“Well, we just lost our nerd,” Roman commented. “Hey, fanged fiend. What else needs doing?”

Dee looked over the Fae Prince. “You any good in a fight?”

Roman blinked. “I can hold my own. Why?”

“Go split up the sandman and rat,” Dee stated, picking up one of the drink dispensers. “Be careful of teeth.”

“From…which?”

“Both. Off you go.”

Roman didn’t look too sure but he followed Dee into the backyard, leaving Patton and Virgil in the kitchen. Patton was carefully watching Vee, as the poor boy went rigid at the word ‘sandman’ and has yet to relax. Patton tried reading Virgil’s face, but couldn’t pick out what he was thinking.

“Vee? Are you alright?”

“I…What? Oh… I…” Virgil was practically a fish out of water as he tried to string a coherent sentence together.

“Do you want a hug?” Patton offered, uncertainly.

Virgil paused for a moment before weakly nodding. Patton wrapped his arms around the shaking boy, barely keeping his wings from wrapping around him as well. It took another moment, but Virgil wrapped his arms around the other, trying to breathe. The necklace he was wearing seemed to burn, awkwardly trapped from where it swung under his armpit, but Virgil pushed it aside as his own warmth. Then he felt the twitch of muscles as the wings on Patton flittered, sending every worry Virgil had been struggling with straight to the front of his mind, realizing that it was true.

Patton was a fairy.

Next Chapter:

Taglist: @that-one-nb-kid, @hufflepuffxfox

#Flower from the Fae #lamp #sympathetic deceit #sympathetic remus #deceit #remus #tw cursing #tw death mention #Sage writes

11 notes · View notes

fyrapartnersearch · 4 years

Text

Find the Light

heyo, i’m jo! i've posted before, but life and Depression™ got in the way. if we've chatted before but things fell through, my sincerest apologies and feel free to contact me again! about me: -early 20’s -she/her pronouns -GMT+3 -Tired my roleplaying: -originals! -long-term -chill and flexible af -usually 3rd person, past tense, multi-para -lover of most (all?) genres -platonic lover, romance lover, will do non-hetero (m//, f//, nb) pairings ONLY -good with including or excluding mature themes e.g. smut, alcohol, drugs, etc. -more than one main character is great but not required! -if smut is involved, i refuse to play out top/bottom dynamics. my characters are more than that and i hope yours are too -NOT a rapid-fire response type of person. i need time and patience, and i will offer the same right back to you 120%! this is a No Pressure zone

-can go from 250-2k words depending on what the situation calls for

-i adore ooc talk! please be my friend and create something beautiful with me -diverse cast of characters (just a heads up, none of them are straight) -limits: adultxminor, slaves, romanticized abuse, scat, vore, rape as fetish you, hopefully: -over 18 -lgbt+ friendly -not extremely demanding when it comes to response time -like ooc chatter & plotting/talking about our dumb characters plot ideas that can 100% be edited to our liking:

character A intentionally or unintentionally summons a demon, character B. other demons are attracted to the summoning spot and character A ends up intentionally or unintentionally making a pact with character B, forcing B to protect A from the demons and any future enemies. B is now stuck with A because of the pact, and if A is ever killed, B would face the same fate. shenanigans ensue. basically begrudged partners in crime/survival! (bonus if the demon summoned is the grim reaper because the irony would be delicious)

character A is a fallen angel who has recently been kicked out of heaven. character B is a human delinquent who’s known for causing trouble. character A decides to take B under their wing and attempt to reform them as a way to get back into heaven and regain angel status. who will influence whom in this situation? alternatively: character B is a literal demon instead of a human delinquent, for extra Angel Points

vampires have taken over society and now control everything whilst humans are treated like cattle and bloodbanks. however, there is a hidden human rebellion group that wants to dethrone the vampires and make things better for humans. one day, their leader, character A, is captured and taken to some of the top vampire 'leaders' to be interrogated on the rest of the rebellion's whereabouts. plot twist: turns out one of the vampire leaders, character B, and this captured rebel were actually best friends before the vampires took over, and they had both thought the other was dead. old feelings crop up, morality is questioned, confusion and frustration galore.

there have been more and more rumors and alleged sightings of vampires cropping up lately, so character A, a 'vampire hunter' is hired to take care of them. thing is, vampires are a relatively new thing and the humans don’t have them completely figured out yet, so the vampire hunter is given a vampire partner, character B (who probably has something on them like special handcuffs made of some material that's like kryptonite to vampires so they can't try any funny stuff) to help in tracking down vampires and generally figuring out what they’re all about. getting along immediately is probably not in the cards for these two.

a dnd-like adventure where a pair or group of people are aiming for the same goal, whether it be a sacred treasure or otherwise, and decide to work together. personalities clash, infighting ensues, and irreplaceable memories are made along the way.

the seven sins of hell are represented by seven demon princes/princesses/royalties. i don’t actually have a real idea for this but i think the concept is rad. we wouldn’t have to use all seven but yeah! maybe representatives of the seven heavenly virtues make an appearance or are a key part. idk, let’s talk!!

character A is a detective, character B is their new deadpan android assistant. that’s it, that’s all i’ve got. i just think the concept is interesting as hell and apparently already done in D:BH, but i have Not played that game so i have no idea what they do with it.

alternatively, we can just discuss characters and create plots out of them! i’ll also throw out some keywords/concepts that i have 0 plots for but would love to make something out of:

witch academy / earth pirates / space pirates / elemental spirits / rivals / superheroes / supervillains / werewolves / gangs / mafia / magical girls/boys/people / ghosts / best friends to lovers / hate to love / amnesia / opposites attract / assassins / bands / cyberpunk / royalty / runaways / alchemy / bounty hunters

i’ve got a discord i use for ooc stuff (which i will give out after initial contact), and for the actual roleplaying i usually use email or gdocs, but if you use other mediums for ooc chatter and/or roleplay, just let me know! i’m willing to try new stuff out. you can hit me up at [email protected]. hope to hear from y’all!

#oc rp #multiple paragraph #long term #email #submission

7 notes · View notes

keaalu · 6 years

Text

Take the Initiative

Title: Take the Initiative Series: Transformers, G1-based “Blue” AU Rating: PG-13 I guess? Do TF cusswords count as swearing? *ponders* Notes: Tired of watching Celerity allllways sighing at TC's office door, Skywarp takes the initiative to play matchmaker. It doesn’t go quite as planned, but it isn’t a total disaster, either.

Not sure precisely when this is set, other than "some time between Future Tense and Remember Me". And additional NB: Lara is a BIG girl – not quite as big as Hardline, but close (taller than new-model Seekers, definitely), and built rather like a brick outhouse. She's... not sure how much she likes being THAT BIG.

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

Offices weren’t precisely Skywarp’s natural habitat.

The way he worked could probably have been politely called “hands-on”, although most people recognised a euphemism when they saw one; he liked to be out there, collecting paint scrapings. If there was ever a question of “good cop, bad cop”? Skywarp was absolutely bad cop, absolutely all the time. It was a brave machine that chose to riot when he was on duty.

But, his ‘style’ (if you could call it that) tended to get results, too, and taming the unashamedly aggressive ex-’Con never seemed to be on the cards. His friends and colleagues just learned to live with the fallout. And the noise.

So being cooped up in an office with Thundercracker’s highly distracted deputy was starting to grate at his patience.

Superintendent Thundercracker had visitors – a bright, sweet-natured councillor from the next district over, and their acting chief constable. They were (ostensibly) trying to hash out a deal of some sort – Deixar Constabulary would provide officers on secondment to Tysta’s overstretched police force, and in return Tysta would provide closer support to the neighbouring New Vos.

However, if the laughter coming from behind the door was anything to go by, at least a little high-grade was involved.

And Celerity had been watching his door for a good proportion of the meeting, with an odd, wistful expression on her broad features. (Not that Skywarp had started keeping a tally, or anything, after the fifth time she’d sighed and mumbled something to herself. He felt like throwing something at her.)

“Grounders,” Skywarp snorted, deliberately baiting for a response. “Never can handle their high-octane fuels.” He knew (from somewhat embarrassing experience) that she had very big tanks to go along with the very big frame, and she usually took cool pleasure in reminding him how she could drink him under the table.

She didn’t take the bait this time, though. Must be even more distracted than she looked.

When the femme vented a little sigh of warm air and looked wistfully over at Thundercracker’s door for what must have been the ninetieth time, Skywarp finally ran out of patience. “Lara.”

Celerity jumped a tiny bit and jerked around to look at him. “S-sky-what?”

“Will you just go talk to him, already?” The ex-Con glared at her from his corner and gestured at the closed door with a dramatic sweep of one whole arm. “Instead of keep puffing and sighing and being melodramatic about it?”

Her lips moved silently for a second before she managed to get a disjointed string of words out; “He but I mean in a meeting?”

“He’s not gonna be in a meeting all orn-” Skywarp covered his optics briefly with one hand, then rocked forwards to rest his elbows on the desk. “Okay, so. Bit of advice for you.” He forced a syrupy smile. “Guys like me and TC aren’t that good at noticing subtle hints. We’ve spent most of a lifetime fighting Autobots whose idea of ‘subtle’ was ‘shoot the fraggers out of the sky’. Right?”

She gave him a small, puzzled nod. “…right?”

“So, if you wanna get us to notice something, you’ve gotta beat it into our heads with a mallet.” After a beat, he shrugged, and added; “some of us with a bigger mallet than others, granted. But all this, this…” He waved his hands aimlessly for a second. “Wistful looks behind his wings and super-subtle clues? Forget it. Either come out and say it, or fraggin’ quit it. You’re doing my helm in.”

Celerity’s brows came down in a hurt little glare and her lips parted as though to protest, but she evidently couldn’t think of a good retort because no words came out for several seconds. “I don’t think I asked you for an opinion,” she managed, at last.

The teleport spread his hands in mock despair. “No? You’re sitting there puffing and sighing, practically screaming notice me, and now you don’t want an opinion?” He leaned a little closer and gave Thundercracker’s door a meaningful glance. “Or is it just that my opinion isn’t good enough?”

Her expression darkened. Glitch, she mouthed at him.

Skywarp half-smirked and was thinking up a new extra-witty snipe when he noticed the femme straighten and fix her attention back on her workstation, apparently sensing movement towards the door some seconds before it finally clicked and hushed open. One advantage to the huge sensory bouton on the back of her head, the teleport figured, hastily trying to look equally busy.

“…and we’ll see about getting something hard-coded to that effect.” Thundercracker ushered his two visitors out into the office. “It’s good to have your support on this, gentlemechs; I know New Vos will appreciate it.”

“No no, the pleasure is ours, superintendent,” the councillor gushed, shaking hands for far longer than necessary. “We look forwards to finally getting crime in the district down to a manageable level. I really don’t know how we’ve survived this long without someone as competent as you providing us with a little support.”

Standing to one side and waiting quietly for his fellow delegate to finish talking, Tysta’s senior police officer grimaced and looked away, rattling his rotors very slightly in annoyance.

All three Deixar staff watched silently as the councillor wobbled his giggly way to the far door, clinging tighter to the chief constable’s arm than the helicopter looked particularly comfortable with. The officer shot Skywarp an odd look of mixed apology and embarrassment, before successfully navigating the pair of them out into the corridor and away.

Thundercracker waited until they were out of audio range before blowing a long sigh of exhaust through his pursed lips and casting his gaze to the heavens. He rolled his shoulders, trying to stretch his wings a little.

“Hard work, huh?”

Thundercracker turned and gave Skywarp a long, suspicious look, as if to ask why exactly he was lurking in the office.

“It’s been raining.” Skywarp answered the unspoken question. “I was waiting for Governor Giggles to finally clear out so I could drag you off for a proper drink. Figured you’d need it.” Then he shrugged. “Sounds like you might have survived okay without my help, though.”

The blue mech thought about it for a second or two. “You know what? I think it actually was a fairly productive meeting.” He hesitated, and added; “If not the most… conventional.”

“Yeah, we heard all the ‘unconventional’ through your door.”

Thundercracker put his hands up. “In my defence, it was his high grade. And he drank most of it.”

“If you ever need my help, you only have to holler, you know?”

“Unless you mean help drinking all that spare energon he brought with him, Warp, your ‘help’ almost invariably involves your fists, and this is the sort of delicate situation that really wouldn’t be aided by someone punching it.”

“You never know. Might help people keep focused?”

“Yeah, well. Guess I’ll let you know, on the off chance I some day need you and your violence in my office?”

Skywarp snickered, pleased with himself.

Thundercracker only got as far as his doorway. He stared in at the muddle of data-wafers and empty cubes for a few moments before letting his arms dangle with a sigh. “Actually, you know what? I am gonna take you up on that drink. Lemme just save what I was working on…” His words faded into indecipherable mutterings as he passed into his office.

“Sure; I ain’t going anywhere yet.” Skywarp rocked his chair comfortably back onto two legs against the wall. He gave Celerity a sly glance; she’d begun to rustle around and looked like she was gearing up to slip away while their attention was elsewhere.

Oh no you don’t.

“Celerity needed to talk to you,” he said, intentionally loudly.

“Oh?” Thundercracker peered back at her with a curious smile and arched brows. “You know my door’s always open, Lara.”

Her optics had already brightened to an alarmed cyan. She spluttered something incomprehensible and shook her head. “It’s nothing. It can wait.”

Skywarp kicked her under the table. “That’s not what you said to me a breem ago.”

“I did not-… I didn’t say anything of the sort! I-I said he was in a meeting.”

“And he was too busy to talk, right, I get that. Well, now he’s not, so what’s stopping you?” Skywarp turned on his best, most-practiced look of innocence, optics wide and guileless. “I’m only trying to help you, here.”

“Which I never asked-” Celerity’s flustered denials were just boxing her deeper into her corner. “That’s not the point! He’s busy and it’s not important.”

Thundercracker watched the exchange with an increasingly bemused smile. “Well, seeing as I’m ditching the office to go for a drink with Warp any time soon, how about we talk now? Take advantage of the fact we all now know you have something on your mind.”

The big femme just stood and stared at him with her mouth open for a second or two.

He gestured both hands at his open door, encouragingly.

“All right. I suppose-… I can… all right.” She covered her optics briefly with one hand and vented a little noise of frustration, before finally emerging from behind her desk. “All right.”

Behind Thundercracker’s wings, she gave Skywarp the blackest of glowers; he grinned back, totally unapologetic, wearing a huge innocent smile that made his nose crinkle, and wiggled the fingers of one hand in a wave.

Satisfied – for now, at least – Skywarp laced his fingers across his chassis and let his brain slip into idle, lulled into a pleasant light doze by the murmur of indistinct speech through the wall.

The sounds that re-emerged not even a full breem later didn’t quite have the light, carefree cadence he’d been sorta half-hoping half-anticipating. Not quite fully alert, but awake enough to be aware that something hadn’t quite followed his little mental plan, he onlined a single optic and watched a grim-faced Celerity appear in the doorway.

Thundercracker emerged from his office behind her, looking concerned and disappointed. “Well, um. Let me know if you need a reference?”

Skywarp sat straighter, inviting himself back into the conversation. “Hey, what?”

Celerity was already making for the door, arms stiff at her sides, not looking at him. Her lips were pursed and a frustrated frown dug deep furrows into her brow.

Thundercracker didn’t move to follow. “Celerity was just explaining to me that she was considering taking a post over on Quayside, to work closer with her twin. Obviously that wouldn’t be my preference, but.” He folded his arms and forced a disappointed smile. “Not my decision to make, I guess. I’m not going to force anyone to stay where they’re not comfortable.”

Skywarp was up on his thrusters surprisingly quickly for the lackadaisical slouch he’d adopted around the office. “Oh no you don’t.” He grabbed Celerity firmly by the arm, and ducked when she made an aggravated noise and swung a fist at his head. “Would you excuse us a moment, TC? Thanks.”

Before Thundercracker could voice a challenge, both the teleport and his unwilling passenger disappeared in a slap of collapsing air molecules.

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

Skywarp returned in less than half a breem, immediately making a reach for his wingmate’s arm.

Thundercracker backed off, just out of grabbing range. “Want to tell me exactly what’s going on?”

“You’re gonna go talk to Lara because she is seriously upping the pressure in my helm right now.” Skywarp pursued him across the office.

Thundercracker put a desk between them. “We just did-?”

“No, I mean properly talk to her. Not... accept her stupid excuses at face value. She ain’t that good at lying. Will you stand still, already?”

Thundercracker put his hands up in defeat and allowed Skywarp to take his arm.

There was the immediate chill of displacement and the weird sensation of being in two places at once, then an astro-second of freefall before they landed with a thump on a rooftop out in the old industrial zone, close to the District Rift.

“Right. So.” Skywarp stood just a little behind Thundercracker, as though to impress visually how he was going to back up his wingmate, and addressed Celerity; “If you want down, you’re gonna have to talk. So get talking.” And with one last aggressive finger-point for emphasis, he was gone.

Thundercracker quirked a brow at her. “I won’t pretend I have the first idea what this is all about. Have you two argued?”

“Not… precisely.” She shuffled her large feet against the dirty roof and vented a little sigh. “We’ve had a differing opinion on how to proceed with something.”

“And that’s involved us ending up on a roof… how, exactly?”

“I’m not sure. I imagine I can’t just claim I have something else to do and hide until you’re gone, if we’re up here.”

For several seconds, he just stared at her. “…why would you need to hide from me?”

She half-smiled, embarrassed, and shrugged, but still wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Because some situations are easier dealt with by avoiding them.”

“That’s probably not the healthiest of mindsets.”

“Maybe not? But it’d worked for me for vorns. Probably would have continued working, as well, if it hadn’t annoyed Skywarp. Who shouldn’t even have been in the slagging office, but there we go.” She folded her arms and glared at her dusty pedes. “Some mechs just have a knack for being incorrigible fragheads, I suppose.”

The rainclouds finally loosened their grip on their cargo. The drizzle was no longer as catastrophically acidic as it had once been, but it was still strong enough that both could feel it sizzling against their autorepair nanites.

“Come on.” Thundercracker held out his hands. “We can’t stay out in this. Let me fly you down. Whatever you wanted to talk to me about can’t be important enough to risk taking our lacquer off over.”

“Eh. Perhaps? Except Skywarp picked this roof, and this rainstorm, to force my hand. We don’t have the luxury of taking forever talking about it.” The big femme fidgeted her feet, awkwardly, and cast a suspicious glance into the sky, but couldn’t spot the black-winged target of her ire. “Besides. I know he’s watching, and if we don’t talk, he’s going to fly me straight back up here when your back is turned, so. I’d rather… get it out of the way, and get off the roof.”

The blue seeker smiled and spread his hands. “You have my undivided attention. Not that you should need such drastic measures to get it.”

She took a hesitant step closer. “I’m just not really sure how to explain. I've spent long enough avoiding the question that I neglected to think about what I'd do if anyone ever actually asked-..." She swallowed the rest of the statement. “Please don’t be offended.”

The space between them was less than an arm’s length. Her proximity forced him to look up to meet her gaze.

“Why would I be offended?” he asked.

She made some noises that didn’t seem to match any words Thundercracker was familiar with, then leaned down a tiny fraction closer, and brushed a kiss over his lips. Then stepped back, looking like she’d have appreciated it if the roof had opened to swallow her, staring fixedly at her feet.

For several seconds, he just stared at her. “Is-… that…” He waved his hands, but the words refused to be magicked up. “…what you wanted to… ‘talk’ about?”

“I think so.” Celerity’s lips curved up into a grimacing half-smile on just one side. She seemed to be focusing mostly on his knees, now. “Sorry to be a disappointment. I wish I had something more profound.”

For several seconds, both seemed stuck for a response. The intensifying drizzle slanted down in uncomfortable curtains, beading against their plating and creeping like cold fingers through joints in their armour.

Celerity finally looked up and shot him a bared-teeth sort of grin. “Can we get down now? I have enough trouble with paint-transfers, I don’t need acid-spots to polish out as well.”

Thundercracker gave himself a little shake out of his stupor, and opened his arms to her. “Come on, then.”

She froze, apparently only just recognising what getting back to the ground involved.

He gave her a friendly glare, gently reprimanding. “How else were you planning on getting down, Lara? We’ve flown together before, and you can hardly climb down the exterior of the building.”

“Yes, but you didn’t know, back then, either.” She stepped cautiously closer, and let him put his arms around her. “Pit. This feels so weird.” They were almost touching cheeks. Her voice had gone oddly thin. “May-maybe I should get some-someone else to give me a lift.”

“…Before you say it, you’re not that heavy. And I’m not going to drop you.” He stepped out over the edge of the building and fell for an instant, before the wind caught his wings and he soared back up into the rain-drenched sky, little vortices of drizzle curling in his wake.

She rebooted her vocaliser with a little khuff. “For the record, that’s not what I was worried about-!”

“Also for the record, I know. I think we ought to find somewhere private to talk. Agreed?”

She made a small glum noise before replying; “Good idea. I’d rather not have spectators.”

A conveniently derelict skyscraper on the Rustig side of the district rift loomed up in front of them. The decorative glass walls had long since been blown out and most of the bare concrete floors were saturated, except for a narrow access corridor close to the top, just deep enough for two machines to take shelter from the elements.

It wasn’t really big enough for either of them. Celerity settled awkwardly under the ledge, cross-legged, just out of the gusting rain. Thundercracker joined her after a second or two, slotting his wings in behind her.

For a breem or two, they just sat, watching the fine curtains of drizzle misting down over the district. The horizon had already vanished behind the soft grey clouds.

Neither seemed to really know what to say – or even if saying anything was the right thing to do.

It… probably shouldn’t have come as such a surprise.

Thundercracker knew there’d been friendly jokes about it, but he’d assumed that was all it was. The big femme would smile politely, field going prickly, clearly embarrassed, but mostly would just wave it off.

There’d been plenty of signs that should have clued him in, if he’d been paying attention. When Siphon had launched his campaign of torture, Celerity hadn’t even hesitated to volunteer her help, going all the way to a whole different planet, one she’d never visited even once before, to help look for him. He wasn’t sure if she’d ever gone up against a genuine Decepticon in her life, either, but she’d still used her own shielding as a shelter when Dirge had fired on them.

But she was always ready with the justifications to avoid discussing it – she was big, she was physically strong, she had inbuilt protective forcefields. It was logical. She was just doing her job.

And after that, he’d been distracted, he told himself. Getting his trine back to full health had been a priority, then Skywarp had vanished, then he’d just… got so habituated to having her around, quietly making sure the work was getting done, the officers were happy, keeping reports filed and off his desk, that he stopped noticing it, really.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he wondered, at last. There was a subtle hint of challenge in his voice.

She laced her fingers over her ankles, and shrugged. “I thought it’d probably go away.”

“…and how long have you been annoying Skywarp by sighing?”

She wouldn’t meet his gaze, and he could feel a little frisson of embarrassment shimmer up through her field. “Not long.”

“You sure?”

“Well he’s not been back for that long-”

“Lara.”

“All right. I suppose I’ve had slightly… mostly?... pink optics since you helped us deal with the Blue problem, that time.”

Thundercracker was silent for several seconds. “That’s nearly forty vorns, Celerity.”

“Like I said.”

“…you’re defining that as not long?”

“Pff.” She wafted a hand, with an artfully casual manner. “Barely long enough to notice.”

He jabbed her carefully with a gentle elbow. “Stop that.”

She finally smiled at him, sadly. “It made sense. I like working with you. We’re a good team; all of us. We work well together. Why would I want to force a change in all of that, just so I could be selfish?”

“I don’t think that precisely counts as selfish?”

“…mm. Maybe not? But there’s got to be a rule somewhere about not having a romantic liaison with your direct superior. Risks conflict of interest, or something. Bad practice to work in the same office. Plus it would make life awkward for both of us. One of us would have to leave.” She shook her head. “Some things just don’t need thinking about.”

He vented a little huff of amusement. “I’m pretty sure unrequited pink optics are just as distracting.”

She sighed and glared out into the drizzle. “I’d got used to ignoring it.” She lowered her voice to a mutter. “Fragging… Skywarp.”

“I’d rather you didn’t. You’ll upset Squeaky, if nothing else.”

She spluttered, straightening in alarm. “That wasn’t what I meant-!”

He laughed. “Relax, Lara. I’m teasing.” He bumped her with a wing. “It’s got to be better for you, now you’re not avoiding the subject.”

She managed to regain her composure, rebooting her vocaliser with a little khuff. “I suppose it’s a weight off my shoulders,” she admitted, at last. “There’s just a different sort of weight there, now.”

He watched her for several seconds, waiting for her to elaborate, but she didn’t seem inclined to volunteer the information.

“Joking aside, I guess this means I’m going to need that reference, after all.” She gave him a little elbow. “I’ll swap with Vecks. You’ll never notice the difference, and I can guarantee she won’t be interested in pursuing anything.”

“Hey! I… all right, I might not have noticed forty vorns of pink optics, but I’m not that unobservant.” He gave her an instant of intense scrutiny. “Your heads are different shapes, to start with.”

Celerity found a laugh. She sounded… almost relieved. “I’m glad you’re not upset.”

“I’m still not sure why you thought I would be. Am I really that feroci – actually don’t answer that.” He punctuated the sentence with a little finger-waggle. “I feel… somewhat blindsided, maybe. And confused. And… not completely sure where this is going to take us?” He drew in a long, cooling draught of damp air and stared out over their rain-slick home district. “But we’ll figure something out.” He covered her hand with his, and squeezed her fingers, lightly. “Something that doesn’t involve dismantling the office.”

#skywarp #thundercracker #celerity #transformers #fiction #blue au #g1

1 note · View note

mollymacindoephotography · 4 years

Text

“We’re Māori - we wing it!”

A story about choosing the ‘exit for opportunity’, being chucked into a ceremonial deep-end, witnessing a history-making meeting with only a napkin and eyeliner for note-taking and a few surreptitious snaps on a crappy phone camera.

(NB: worth checking out the prequel: ‘How I met Nanny Mary’ blog – just scroll down the blog list or click here)

In brief though, earlier this year, at the beginning of a two-month tiki-tour through Aotearoa (New Zealand) I’d had a very memorable Poukai experience at the Tūrangawaewae Marae, where ‘Nanny Mary’ had taken me under her wing. She’s a real wahine toa (warrior woman) with a wonderfully kind nature and infectious bubbly personality (reflected in her rainbow coloured hair), who also happens to be the Treasurer of Tamaki Makaurau – one of seven Electorates for the Maori Party that roughly covers greater Auckland).

Since first meeting we kept checking in on Facebook, hoping our paths would cross at one of the various events around the North Island that Mary was partaking in, so far to no avail. Mary’s from Auckland, so I let her know well in advance when it came time to return there. Not until a week later during the actual drive to Auckland from Hamilton, did a message pop up on my phone from Mary. An hour later, stuck at roadworks, was the time to peek:

“Hey gal if you not doing anything at 5pm and in the vicinity of Manurewa Marae... Nau mai haere mai. Nga Tumanako winners of Te Matatini 2019 are bringing The Mauri to Manurewa 6pm sharp Powhiri.

…but only managed to make sense of the words, “vicinty of” , “Manurewa”, “5pm” …and something about a ceremony. Auckland is a huge, sprawling city and I’d no clue where that area was, but being 4:30pm and en route to an appointment followed by dinner with a cousin I hadn’t seen in 20 years; I thought, never mind, hopefully I’ll catch up with Mary over the next few days. Fate intervened, however; literally a minute later, I see an exit sign for ‘Manurewa’ – instinct took the wheel and oopsy, I was off on an unknown adventure!

First stop, the nearest fuel station to send regrets to all previous engagements and for a quick google-search – to try and get the lo-down of what I was walking into. Remembering the mortifying, multi-coloured-clashing-outfit disaster at the Poukai, it seemed sensible to be on the safe side and change from pink shorts and bright blue vest to any black clothing I could dig out of my suitcases. Admittedly, it ended up a black and slightly gold outfit but was the best I could muster up and was definitely a good move!

Arrive at the marae, find and hug Mary, and soon get ushered inside the beautiful, ornately-carved and painted meeting house. Mary shepherded me into a one of the rows of a mixed gender and multigenerational crowd, which I assumed was there to watch a parade come through.....

.....Wrong. ‘We’ were there to perform the Tōia mai haka Pōwhiri Dance!!! ‘Tōia mai Te Waka’ means ‘pull up, the canoe’ and is part of an ancient canoe-hauling chant, now often performed as a 'haka pöwhiri' to symbolically pull the 'canoe' of the visitors safely onto the marae. Pōwhiri is a Māori welcoming ceremony involving speeches, dancing, singing and finally the hongi. (The traditional Māori greeting pressing noses together), followed by kai – a feast held inside the marae.

Panicking as the dancing and singing started, I grabbed Mary: “Are you sure it’s okay for me to be doing this?!” She retorted “We’re Maori, we wing it!”, giggled and left me to do exactly that – copying the moves as best I could during the few practice runs before the ceremonial entourage arrived and we performed for real – recorded on camera!!

I haven’t been able to find that recording but to get an idea of the event and excitement surrounding it, here’s a video of the same ceremony happening at Ōrākei Marae. Picture me, plopped in the middle of proficient dancers, trying to style it out!!

youtube

To put this event into context:

Te Matatini is a nation-wide Māori performing arts festival of huge significance, comparable to something like the Edinburgh Fringe Festival attracting 60,000 people to an extravaganza of Māori culture, including art, crafts, food, fashion, film and most importantly, it hosts a competition for kapa haka performers from all of Aotearoa. Kapa haka is an art form that showcases Māori and Polynesian identity through song and dance. This year, ‘Ngā Tūmanako’, a rōpū (team) from Tāmaki (Auckland) beat extremely stiff competition and took home the top prize and title of ‘Toa Whakahuwaka’. As well as a trophy, the winning team brings home the ‘Mauri of Te Matatini’. Mauri are sacred stones believed to maintain life force, and this one is in particular represents the hosting rights for the next national kapa haka competition. When the 2019 winners first arrived back home in February, the idea of sharing the mauri amongst the marae of Tāmaki (Auckland) was put forward and agreed upon…skip ahead to my incredible good fortune to witness its arrival at Manurewa!

Moreover, as luck would have it, this ceremony coincided with Manurewa Marae hosting a meeting of ‘Te Kōtahi a Tāmaki’, a collective representing 33 marae in Auckland (more on this later)....Back to the main event:

youtube

The Pōwhiri was followed by approximately two hours of speech-giving (all in Te Reo Maori) – then the hongi, then some yummy belly-filling of Māori dishes, where I also had the honour, through Mary, of meeting some of the community’s most respected members. Pictured - Sitting down over kai with Martin Cooper and Shane White.

youtube

The biggest honour of all was being invited to the post-kai meeting (once again appreciating the totally random but perfect timing of coming here). The hundreds-strong crowd had thinned to about 25 people; seeing how intimate and important it looked, I whispered goodbye to Mary, grabbing my coat, only to get pulled back: “no no, stay, I’ve already checked and you are welcome”. It took a split second to weigh up being even later to meet my cousin or missing a unique opportunity (sorry again Charley!)

To my delight, the hui was held English, allowing me insight into the inner workings of the marae collective. During both my marae experiences on this trip, the hours of speeches were all performed by men, punctuated by beautiful singing from the women. From my newcomer’s perspective, the men seemed to dominate the proceedings of the events. Now the tables were turned. The chairperson for this gathering of representatives from 33 of Auckland’s maraes to discuss the key current and future issues for the very recently-formed collective -- was Tania Kingi, a confident, intelligent woman and no-nonsense spokesperson who clearly and easily commanded attention from everyone there; all the same men who had previously captivated the crowd with powerful speeches, now hung on Tania’s every word. . It was inspiring to witness this balance and mutual respect. Half way through the meeting, a slighty scruffy-looking man came into the hui and insisted on speaking to the room to tell of his situation living on the streets, that he’d been drinking, but wanted to tell us a brief history of his whakapapa (lineage), the names of his family and ancestors, and also the main reason he’d come in: for warmth and food, “Thank you for the feed, thank you for the coffee, thank you for the company, I respect this marae even though I don’t go to church on Sunday.”

The rest of the agenda was covered – anything from wheelchair accessibility for all maraes, to arranging solar energy workshops. The overall idea was to collaborate as a collective. Share successes, failures, recommendations, and knowledge - to work together for progress and independence from government monetary ties.

Spokesperson Tania Kingi said that this mauri stone coming to the different maraes in Auckland signals that we should be working collectively. “One of the driving principles for us all is that the mauri can unify. The mauri is bringing us together and connecting us to all the other marae throughout Auckland and preparing us for Te Matatini 2021.” Tania Kingi

What did I learn from this apart from that I desperately need a better camera phone? Clearly, a lot more about Māori culture, but also reaffirming what I’d discovered since arriving in Aotearoa - found it to be a friendly country and people in general, but in particular made to feel very welcome in Māori communities and not judged despite obviously being the odd one out.

I want to specially thank Mary Karena-komene, Tania Kingi, Rangi McLean, Shane White, Martin Cooper, Mereana Hona and everyone that I met for being so welcoming and allowing me such a memorable and informative experience.

Disclaimer: I’ve done my best with Maori references, but please excuse this pākehā for any mistakes or offense. My education has only just started and I hope it will continue, as I do the new friendships in Aotearoa. Ps. Please correct me if you see something. It’s the only way to learn. Aroha nui, ka kite ano Aotearoa <3

#wanderlusting #passportready #traveldiary2019 #aotearoatour #bottomoftheworldblog #manurewamarae #Te Kōtahi a Tāmki #TeKotahiaTamaki #hakapowhiri #mauritematatini #mauristone #tematatini #travelblogger #travelblog2019 #tikitour #maoriculture

0 notes

Last Seen Blogs

check-new-account

Moved!

pi33kny-syf

elegantcatstudent

Untitled

twinklecupcake

Twinkling Cake and Starry Frosting

sleepless-flower

Just another tired lurker