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sweetalnazar · 2 years

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Hey @pharry, sorry to keep you waiting but here's your gift! Looking at your faves, I had the idea for a silly crackfic thing where Valerius gets up to some investigation shenanigans with Vlastomil & Volta so here we are 😂😂

Enjoy~

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INTO THE GOAT'S DEN

2.8k. Valerius, Volta & Vlastomil, ft ghost goat!Lucio. Comedy/crackfic. Some suggestive past!Valerius/Lucio, though nothing explicit

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For the umpteenth time since they entered the Count’s wing, Volta screams yet again.

Likely it was another shadow or scurrying mouse, only this time her retreat is so swift her elbow slams right into Vlastomil’s stomach, the impact making a dull sound that echoes around the empty corridor.

Immediately, the Praetor doubles over in pain, his groans ghastly and monstrous.

Each groan is interspersed with squeaky apologies, “Oh no, oh no, Vlastomil, I am so sorry––”

“Would the two of you please shut up for one moment?!” Valerius snaps, glaring at them.

Volta satisfyingly shrinks back, but Vlastomil pays no heed, still making those awful damned sounds.

Not for the first time today, Valerius wishes he had had the good sense to grab one of his wineskins when he had left his estate this morning. Better yet, maybe he should have grabbed a bottle from Lucio’s collection, or two.

The man may have been pompous and annoying, but he knew how to splurge on good wine.

Sadly, there is nothing to dull the headache, not the one brought about by his companions nor the one from the task ahead.

Instead, Valerius sighs irritably, and forces himself to march onward, quickening his pace.

Better to get this whole ordeal over and done with.

Behind him, there is the hurried click clack of Volta’s shoes against the floor, along with the odd groan of Vlastomil, as they struggle to catch up.

“Oh, oh, Volta has a bad feeling about this. Yes, a horrible, terrible feeling indeed,” she mumbles over and over with each click.

“C-consul,” Vlastomil sputters and Valerius pauses, turning back to face them. “The Procurator has a point. This whole place is…unsettling. Dark and spacious as it may be, even my darling worms would shrivel having to stay here!”

Vlastomil motions exaggeratedly around the hallway, and he has a point.

The utter stillness of this corridor in a palace typically bustling with people, the giant gilded paintings of Lucio that loom over them, the dim lighting that has shadows darting in and out as if they are not the only ones here…

“Yes! Yes!” Volta cheers beside him, bobbing her head along as she chews the end of her scarf. “We should turn around, go back…to the kitchens, to scrumptious food by a warm fire…” She licks her lips and Valerius’s stomach rumbles ever so slightly.

The image is tempting, a bowl of chicken tagine and spiced rice, perhaps a nice caprese salad on the side. Oh, to pair that with a good wine, what a feast it would be…

Get a hold of yourself! Valerius was here for a reason, and no amount of ghost stories or the promise of food, comfort, wine, would force him away.

So he narrows his eyes, and in his iciest tone tells them both, “No.”

And sweeping his braid over his shoulder, he continues his path. They would move forward, no matter the cost.

It has been over a year since the disastrous fiery Masquerade, since Lucio’s untimely end and the beginning of the Countess’s slumber, since Valerius and the other courtiers had taken over the running of the city.

Although the situation wasn’t as ideal as he would have liked, Valerius had been somewhat content. He had more authority now, to help his city, to rebuild it to its former glory, and he no longer had to ahem get friendly with certain people to maintain his position.

Why, perhaps things could even improve further in the future, like say the other courtiers mysteriously disappearing and relinquishing all power to him.

Valerius is no fool though. Making a move against the violent wild card that was Vulgora, or worse, the ethereal, unsettling and certainly inhuman Valdemar, would not end well for him.

At least not as he is right now.

However, since Lucio’s death, the strange visions that were usually occasional visitors to Valerius’s dreams had been happening every month, every other week now.

His mother once said they had a bit of witch in their bloodline, one of the better ones, one with noble blood and disposition. So his visions were never ill omens, but rather, fortune seemed to find him, pointing him towards his field of study as a boy, then guiding him to the path of Consul as a man.

These days, the visions show no such clarity or good fortune.

Often, he is plagued by flashes of disaster and ruin, his beloved city crumbling and broken, and of a human-like ram decorated in riches, calling out to him. But no matter how hard he tries, Valerius can never reach the one calling out to him, and each time, he wakes up with the strangest sense of loss weighing on his chest, as if something precious has slipped through his fingers.

The witches in town weren’t giving him any answers. And his fellow courtiers were even less reliable. At least witches had a price.

That is until an offhanded remark from Valdemar caught his attention, some remark about amusing afterlives as they passed by the staircase to Lucio’s wing. Typical of Valdemar, the statement made no sense, but that brief twinkle of interest definitely meant Valerius should be paying more attention.

As he starts to learn of the rumors swirling around the palace, of ghost sightings and mysterious unsettling incidents, Valerius realizes maybe Lucio wasn’t as dead as they had thought.

Perhaps, Lucio might even have the answers he needs.

So Valerius has no intention of turning back today, not until he knew he had explored all his options to the best of his ability.

In order to avoid arousing suspicion––both from the servants and his fellow courtiers––Valerius had picked the two least threatening and most compliant of his colleagues to accompany him on an 'inspection', even if that meant they were both also the most spineless and bordering on most useless as well.

Unsurprisingly, both Vlastomil and Volta cower to the side as Valerius stands alone before the door, hand on the knob.

He can hear someone’s knees knocking, though it is uncertain whose knees, considering how both of them are shaking.

He turns the knob and Volta gasps.

“Oh, calm down already,” he tells her.

He pushes the door open and it swings so far inside that the wood smacks the wall with a bang. Vlastomil screams and jumps into Volta’s arms.

It goes as well as one might expect; Volta yelps, and before Valerius can so much as blink, they are already crashing to the floor in a heap.

Valerius massages his temples. “Why am I constantly surrounded by idiots?”

As the two courtiers struggle to get to their feet, Valerius enters the room. He covers the lower half of his face with his sleeve, and true to his expectations, clouds of dust rise with each step forward. His foot slams into a chair, or a stool maybe, and he hisses between gritted teeth.

It is then he notices that the area around him is silent, no footsteps or annoying whimpers or groans or anything else. He snaps his attention back to the door.

Vlastomil is peering in tentatively, while Volta clings to his shawl, peeping out from behind him.

“Hurry up and light the lamps already,” he hisses.

They both scurry in at the same time, momentarily getting stuck in the doorframe, only for Volta to shoot through and slam her head straight into the center of Valerius’s chest.

He coughs up a storm, while she frets over him, repeating incessant apologies once again.

“Just…light…the lamps,” he manages to hack.

“Oh yes, Consul, right away,” she says.

Massaging his chest, he watches as Vlastomil lifts Volta up on his shoulders. He grimaces, expecting one or both to fall over and drag the lamp down with them, but the room brightens with little fuss.

“At least you can do one thing right,” he croaks.

“Quite..macabre in here, isn’t it?” Vlastomil comments, as he lowers Volta back down.

Valerius straightens, eyes sweeping through Lucio’s chambers.

Dust and grime coat every surface, only their footsteps breaking through the layers of filth. The edges of the sheets and the canopy are still as scorched as the day the room and its owner went up in flames.

Valerius swipes a finger over the golden frame of Lucio’s grand portrait and comes up with enough dust to make a wig out of. He shakes it off, then reluctantly wipes it away on his robes.

No one has ventured here in a long time.

A few paces away, Volta sniffs the air loudly and wrinkles her nose. “Not good smell, no.”

“What do you smell?” Vlastomil asks, shifting one foot from another, as if he is waiting for something to jump out and allow him to flee as fast as he can.

“Charred meat and cloth, like a barbecue gone wrong. Oh, the poor meat!”

“That would be the Count, you dolt,” Valerius says, as he kneels by the bed to inspect the patches of soot and gray, the gray of the Count's ashes no doubt.

“That’s not all!” Volta pipes up, interrupting his thoughts. “There is spoiled food and bad magic and…” Her voice trails off.

“And?” Vlastomil prompts, his voice rising by an octave.

“Goat.”

“Goat?” Both Vlastomil and Valerius repeat in unison.

“Why, in the name of all that is holy, would there be a goat in the Count’s room, Procurator?”

She shrugs. “Volta does not know. But it was here, and it is…different. It is not an ordinary goat.”

“Oh a ghost goat! A demon goat!” Vlastomil cries out, and Valerius grabs his shoulder before he can leap into Volta’s arms again.

“Calm yourself, Praetor. Maybe a pet goat of one of the guests wandered in here before. You know how they like their exotic animals. Of course, they would smell different.”

Vlastomil relaxes, but Volta’s expression remains unconvinced, gnashing her teeth.

“We shouldn’t be here, we shouldn’t be here. Consul, let us leave soon before the goat is upon us.”

“Patience, Procurator. I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.” He reaches out to finger some of the dust, and his palm brushes the sheets.

There is the faintest breeze and for a heartbeat, he is unsure if he is listening to the wind or murmurs against his skin. Ignoring the hairs standing up on the back of his neck, he moves over to the closet, only to trip on the rug.

“Consul!” Vlastomil and Volta lunge forward, grabbing onto either side of him.

Unfortunately, their good intentions do little to help Valerius as he is shoved headfirst into the open closet, before the door slams shut behind him.

“You blubbering buffoons!” he hollers, nearly drowning in the layers of decadent silk and thick furs. “Let me out!”

Instantly, the door is opened with a click and Valerius tumbles out, along with at least half of the wardrobe.

“Oh no, the Consul, the poor Consul! Is he dead?”

“No, I think he’s still with us. Consul, can you hear me?”

“I wish I couldn’t,” he huffs, blowing a feather out of his face.

“See, Volta, he’s still alive. Here, Consul, take my hand.”

“Praetor, do you even know where I am?”

“Ummm…”

He sighs, long and defeated. “Just, please move out of the way.”

After some struggling and squirming, Valerius manages to rise up from the pile of clothing.

Volta claps her hands at the sight of him. “Ooo, Consul, you look quite lovely, yes.”

Vlastomil nods. “That outfit certainly suits you.”

Valerius glances down. He is wearing a winter coat, a pure-white that has yellowed slightly from age.

The weight of it feels oddly familiar, but at the same time, it definitely cannot be his.

It’s far too heavy, and long, and ridiculously fluffy for his tastes. Not to mention it is too long; Valerius has to grip the front of the coat in an effort to keep the hem from sweeping the floor and tripping him.

He sighs, before shaking the coat off and letting it fall to the floor. “Please tell me you brought the candles.”

“Yes, we did!” From the folds of her dress, Volta produces about a dozen candles, while Vlastomil produces another half dozen from his pockets.

“Good, let’s set up the ceremony now.”

He takes a seat on the bed and directs the other courtiers on the arrangement. Just as nearly all the candles are lit, there is a brush against his spine and he stiffens, back arching straight.

“Consul?”

“I’m fine. Continue.” Just a strange chill, nothing more.

Volta gulps, but lights the final candle anyway.

“What now, Consul?” Vlastomil asks.

“Give me a minute, I’m trying to recall the witch’s instructions.” He taps his chin. “Alright, the two of you, take my hand–– No, one of you takes the right, and the other takes the left! You can’t hold the same hand.”

“Ohhh,” the two courtiers exclaim, as if it has only just occurred to them.

Valerius isn’t sure whether to smack his own forehead or theirs. Instead, he proceeds with the next instruction, “Take each others’ hand––yes, like that. Now be quiet and let me speak.” He takes a deep breath. “Tonight––”

“It’s teatime, Consul.”

“I said quiet, Procurator. Now where was I––oh yes, tonight, we call upon the spirit of the late Count Lucio. If you are here, send us a sign.”

A wave of heat brushes them, like mist rolling through, and Valerius resists the urge to cough.

Vlastomil does not, while Volta squeaks, “Oooo, oooo, I do not like this, disturbing the Count, he is not happy––”

“I’m sure your whimpering isn’t helping his mood either,” Valerius comments, before continuing, “Please show yourself to us!”

A hollow unearthly laugh, so strange and inhuman that it could have easily been a gust of wind, a too-loud creak of the door, bounces around the room.

“Just like old times, eh, Valy?”

A shiver goes down Valerius’s spine, the hairs on his arms going up. His gaze darts to the coat, and it occurs to him why the weight felt nostalgic.

His mind flashes back to a distant memory, a game Lucio liked sometimes.

“Pick something from my closet, Valy,” Lucio purrs. “I want to see how you wear it.”

Valerius scoffs, both at the nickname and the suggestion, but he goes over and selects the first tasteful thing he spots: a ridiculously fluffy coat, pure-white and trimmed with gold.

He does a spin in the center of the room, clutching the front of the coat as if he’s covering himself from the cold, before letting the coat slip open and expose his naked form. Lucio’s eyes widen with delight.

Finally, the coat slips from his shoulders, pooling around his feet.

Lucio’s grin is wolfish, teeth bared. “Come here, Valy~”

Barring his bare body beneath the coat, he had played out the scene almost perfectly, and realization hits Valerius. “Oh no.”

The lamps swing back and forth, the light flickering and flashing. The closet rattles, its contents crashing against its walls like waves of silk and finery.

Valerius jumps off the bed, past the candles, into the center of the room. Before he can make it any further, the ground beneath his feet begins to tremble, and the whole room shudders and stirs like everything is about to crumble around them.

Clutching onto him, Volta and Vlastomil huddle together, terrified and shaking. Valerius himself isn’t sure if it’s just their trembling that is causing him to shake, or if he is shaking just as much.

“What’s going on?” Vlastomil screams over the chaos.

“The goat! The goat is here!” Volta yells, before everything fades to pitch darkness.

The first flicker of light dances in Valerius’s sight, before he realizes he’s looking at a lit candle. Then one by one, the candles are all lit. Except someone has rearranged them all, into the shape of a heart.

The array of flames illuminate the heap of clothes and accessories piled high on the bed, and perched atop the pile is…

In a seductive pose, the goat-man strokes his thigh, batting his eyelashes at Valerius.

“Come here, Valy,” he purrs.

Without a single second thought, Valerius, Volta and Vlastomil bolt out of the room, out of the wing, and out of the palace, not turning once to look back.

Now, the servants whisper of the night (or was it afternoon?) where Consul Valerius was seen fleeing from the palace while screeching at the top of his lungs.

They whisper of the haunted wing, where a bloody warrior guards the entrance, where ghost armies lay in wait for an ambush, where something had once sent the courtiers themselves running for their lives.

But for the handmaiden Portia, her favorite has to be the one about a strange goat-headed figure that roams the wing, who always kept muttering to himself. They say the goat is bemoaning the loss of a lover, the betrayal of a spouse, the grief over a life cut too short too soon.

But really, if anyone bothered to listen closely, it was very clear what Lucio was saying.

“Was I not sexy enough for him?”

#arcana gift exchange 2021 #the arcana game #the arcana fanfic #count lucio #consul valerius #lucio x valerius #shippy stuff #i feel like apologizing for that last line but i did warn earlier: this is a crackfic #😂😂😂#i thought the three of them would make a hilarious trio. esp when you throw lucio into the mix #anyway hope you like it!#mimi's originals #writing by the mims

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hanawrites404 · 4 years

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No I In Threesome

Game : The Arcana

Pairing : Nadia Satrinava/Lucinda Wei/Lucio Morgasson

Warnings : threesome sex

Characters : Lucio Morgasson, Lucinda Wei (OC of @dreamygi ) and Nadia Satrinava

Timeline : Pre-plague

This story is based on this song :

And this is story was requested by the sweetie Jiah (@dreamygi )

Third Person POV

It was a normal inky black night in Vesuvia. The moon was shining out in the sky as usual and the stars twinkled with it.

People were bustling around the city minding their own business in the crowds. It was too packed up outside but that didn't mean that the condition inside the palace was any different.

In the Count's palace, a young lady was scrambling on her legs as she rushed for the Count's aid because she was summoned by him. Her flowy black hair followed her pace and her dark brown eyes were frantically moving here and there as she changed directions.

Once she reached his room, she knocked thrice at the door. From the other side, a muffled and cheery 'Come in!' came. And so, the pretty lady opened the door and entered.

"Lucinda! How nice to see my favorite maid come to me for my assistance" the count flaunted. Lucinda smiled at the count and approached him.

"You flatter me Count Lucio" she replied.

"So tell me sir, what can I do for you?"

"You see, the dinner you made today was really great Lucinda, but unfortunately I could not get enough of your delicious cooking. So can you please make some of your scrumptious cookies to satisfy my hunger?" He requested.

"Your Highness, you should not. First, it will ruin your appetite. And second, the dinner was one big load of food. If you eat more, it would not be healthy for you" she lectured him.

"Oh come on, can't I get something small and sweet to melt my mouth?" He pouted angrily.

"Your Grace, I would love to feed you with as many cookies I can make but, now is not the time. I am really sorry" she told him.

"Ugh fine....You are dismissed then" he pouted again, crossing his arms and sitting on his bed, turning his head away from her like an angry child.

Lucinda felt a bit pity on the childish Count. Nobody knew this but, Lucinda has a small crush on the Count.

........

..............

.......................

........OK that was a lie. She had a FAT crush on Lucio.

His conceited smile, his golden hair, his porcelain skin and his shining silver eyes were enough to make her lose her mind. She fell for him when she saw him for the first time. The fact that she was the Count's favourite maid made her heart swell with joy.

But for now, Lucinda had to refuse the count for feeding him cookies because she was worried about his health and didn't want him to become ill. She cared about him a lot and was denying him for his own good, even if it pained her heart to see Lucio being dissapointed.

But it didn't last long as Lucio's face brightened up again with an awfully suspicious smirk on his lips.

Lucinda raised her eyebrow. "Is something wrong Your Highness?"

"You see, if not cookies then how about a massage? My shoulders have become a bit stiff from sitting through countless meetings" he rubbed his shoulder to soothe it.

"Oh I can do that" Lucinda cracked her knuckles to get them nicely moving.

Lucio stripped from his coat and removed his upper clothing till his chest was exposed to the air. He relaxed himself on the bed in an extremely sexy pose which flexed his abdominal muscles.

"So where should I sta- Ahh!!!"

Lucinda squeaked from surprise and backed away a bit, blushing madly on seeing the half-naked Count.

"Y-Your Highness! Why are you naked!!?" Lucinda covered her eyes.

"I need to take off my clothes for a better effect, don't I? That's why I removed them. I want to feel your soft and proficient hands on me" he rubbed his chest in a seducing manner.

Lucinda blushed harder.

"Are you sure about this, Your Highness??" She asked one more time.

"I'm very sure about this, Darling" he winked at her, the nickname making her more flustered.

Lucinda gulped, but then approached the Count slowly. Her hands were shaking the whole time. She sits beside Lucio, hesitant to touch his body. This was the first time she was seeing him naked.

"T-Turn around please" she shyly requested him.

Lucio nodded and roller over, his back on top.

They were bestrowed with battle scars. Some of them were light and had almost healed up while some of them looked very deep and odious.

Lucinda winced at seeing each of the scars, her pity on him growing more.

"Don't worry. It was all in the past. Each scar had its own story though. Maybe I will tell you about them in the future" Lucio winked at her.

Lucinda blushed and nodded. She then took hold of his shoulders and pressed them, earning a quiet moan from him.

She continued putting pressure on them, easing the knots up and careful not to scrap his skin with her nails. She then moves onto his back where she accidentally touched one of the scars which had got swollen with time, making Lucio hiss from pain.

"Sorry" she apologized.

"I-It's alright. I'm fine" he breathed.

"I-I need to put oil on your wounds. That way it will not hurt". Lucinda gets a small bottle of rose-scented oil from her pocket and pours it on her hands. After her hands were smeared with oil, she massaged his whole back gently.

Lucio moaned louder from relief. Lucinda blushed more but she concentrated on her hands to skillfully massage his back. She felt every scar of his on her palm, sending shivers down her spine.

Lucinda could literally see the battlefield in front of her when she touched his wounds. The colliding of metal swords and shields and multiple corpses lying on the mud, bloodshed and ear-piercing screams everywhere. She could imagine everything.

She felt sorry for the Count. He has fought multiple battles and each wound must have hurt him to the maximum. She was really feeling guilty that how she was not by his side when he was in deep pain. She loved him so much that if he gets hurt, Lucinda too would would be injured.

She really really loved him to the most.......

Lucinda was so drowned in her trance that she didn't notice herself getting pinned down on the bed and her dress being removed from her body. However she was broken from her daydreaming when she felt someone sucking on her neck.

Yes......you guessed it right. It was Lucio who was kissing her.

"L-Lucio?! What are you doing?!!" Lucinda was beyond astonished to witness herself fully naked under the Count who had her trapped between his body and his elegant bed.

"You have been teasing me too much. It's time for your punishment" he then bit on her neck, making her yelp loudly and hold onto his shoulder and his hair.

Lucio groaned against her neck and sucked onto where he had bitten her. Lucinda's face was flushed red and she was desperately pulling on the sheets of the bed and his blonde hair, moaning from pleasure.

Lucio pulled away, looking at his masterpiece, smirking at how beautiful it was looking on her soft skin

. A dark red mark was smothered on her neck, ruining the perfection of her skin yet the love bite looked ideal on her.

"L-Lucio....... what was all this??" She asked him, dumbfounded from the sudden affection by the Count on a maid like her.

"Lucinda.....this may seem a bit sudden as it has been only week since you came here but, I have fallen for you. You are so caring towards me.....towards all of us, for that matter. And you are so prepossessing to eyes......I cannot even describe how pretty you are"

Lucio caressed her raven black hair, kissing it softly. Lucinda blushed more and pulled him into an immediate kiss.

That was all she wanted to hear from the Count.........

Lucio was taken aback for a bit, but it did not take him long to melt into the kiss and pull her closer by her head.

Lucinda rolled over so that she is on top and sat on his lap, not breaking the kiss. Lucio held her closer, pressing their bodies together. He had his hands on her bottom, squeezing them.

Lucio then broke the kiss and started pecking her bosom, occasionally biting on it lightly. Lucinda buried her fingers in his hair again as she led out lewd noises. She really wanted to remove his pants and stop the small play already.

She wanted him.....right......now........

"I see that you two are having fun without me"

Lucinda and Lucio both gasped from surprise looked sharply at where the voice came from.

And there was Nadia. She was standing there, her face impassive and her arms crossed as she stared at both of them, especially at the naked ravenette.

But how did Nadia get into the room?

Oh......They had forgotten to lock the door....

"Oh hello Noddy! Fancy seeing you here. But unfortunately, you came at a wrong time. Me and Lucinda were doing some..........private business. So do you mind coming back later??" Lucio gave a guiltless smile.

Nadia shook her head with disapproval and rubbed her eyebrows. She was very very disappointed with the immature Count.

"Lucio, I thought we had a deal that we both would share her" Nadia replied.

"Wait, deal??" Lucinda let go of Lucio and covered herself with a blanket. She was really confused what the hell they both were talking about.

"Yes you heard it right. You see, we both have become quite...... attracted to you, and we both want you. But we didn't want to fight with each other so we both came to an agreement that we shall share you" Nadia explained.

"Oh.....is that so, Milady?" Lucinda blushed pink. Was she hearing this right? That both the Count and the Countess were attracted to her??

"Yes of course. You are so interesting after all. You made us get attracted to you in less than a week. Now that is special, isn't it?" Nadia's cheeks flushed pink.

"Unfortunately, it seems like Lucio has already made his move. But I don't really care about that. So, would you mind if I join, Lucinda?" She asked her, seduction and lust eminent in her tone.

"O-Of course Milady. I don't mind at all", Lucinda had a bright blush on her face too.

Not going to lie, but Lucinda had a huge crush on Nadia too.

The day when she first saw her truly smiling and laughing, her heart had skipped a beat, and that's when she knew that she had indeed fallen for her. Her caring and sagacious personality was what she was attracted to the most.

Lucinda felt her face being cupped by Nadia as she pressed her lips with hers. Lucinda's cheeks got heated up but she obligingly kissed the Countess, pulling her closer.

She noticed how nice the Countess was smelling. She had the scents of jasmine and many other perfumes she could not recognise. But the fact was tru that she was smelling very very divine.

Though she really wanted to concentrate on the soft lips of the Countess, she could not ignore Lucio who was taking off his pants and underwear only to reveal his erect and throbbing meat.

Lucinda gulped inwardly seeing how big he was. Was it even going to fit in her? It will not break her, will it?

"Don't worry about him Dear. Have your beautiful eyes on me" Nadia turned her head towards her and continued to kiss her passionately.

Lucinda kissed back with the same passion but she gasped when she felt the rod griding against her entrance, teasing her and making her wet.

Lucio had taken hold of her soft hips, massaging them and playing with her skin while running his cock on her rose bud, moaning from the electrifying feel.

Lucinda's hand was cupping Nadia's cheek while the other hand had taken hold of Lucio's cock, lining it up to her entrance.

She was tired of all the teasing. She was craving for the real fun now.

Lucio got the signal of hers and smirked. He then wasted no time in inserting his cock inside her hole, groaning from pleasure when he felt his whole meat fit perfectly into her.

Lucinda gasped again and led out another loud moan when she felt his tip poking her spot. Nadia broke the kiss and started pecking her neck, groping her breasts while doing so.

Lucio started moving at a moderate speed, making sure to hit her spot with every thrust.

Lucinda led out many melodious and dirty noises from her throat. The skin of her neck vibrating with the reasonances of her moans.

Nadia bit on her neck and started leaving marks all over. Lucio groaned again and spanked her bottom hard, speeding himself up and leaning onto Lucinda's back, digging his nails on her hips.

Now that was going to leave a nasty mark....

"Oh gods!!....L-Lucio!! Nadia!!" Lucinda screamed both of their names, panting from breathlessness. She was getting so much pleasure from both the sides that she was on the verge of losing herself to orgasm already.

"Yes...scream my name....just like that" Lucio whispered in her hear and bit it, tugging on it lightly with his teeth.

Nadia on the other hand had littered her skin with many purple love bites and moved onto sucking her breast buttons next, occasionally licking and grinding them between her teeth which made Lucinda get closer to orgasm.

.......Not that Lucio wasn't trying his best to make her cum........

And speaking of Lucio, he was at his fastest now. He was hitting her spot multiple times, making Lucinda tremble and scream his name shamelessly.

Lucinda turned her head to press her lips against the blonde Count's and devour his lips hungrily as she whimpered from the pleasure spreading through her whole body.

Nadia had left many love bites similar to the previous ones on her chest and her hand was rubbing Lucinda's rose bud harshly, earning a high-pitched moan from her.

The room was echoing with the moans and groans of the three. Wet and vigorous slapping noises and intense sucking sounds were highly noticable. Both Lucio and Nadia weren't having any mercy on her and Lucinda was liking all of this.

Correction......Lucinda was loving all of this...........

Part 2 :

#the arcana #the arcana game #arcana mc #fan apprentice #arcana apprentice #arcana oc #count lucio #lucio morgasson #nadia satrinava #countess nadia #nadia x oc #lucio x oc #what I wrote

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futurestaresback · 4 years

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hypmic characters as weird sentences my friends generated by pressing their middle predict repeatedly

(warning: weirdness)

ichiro: "Legend is a loli fan" (alternatively: "Honkai impact 3rd century French revolution")

jiro: "and I was like bitch ur undefeatable"

saburo: "its weird how you think of something stupid people do"

samatoki: "new York times has the fuck just realized lucio doesn't grow up in the fridge anymore" (alternatively: "dodge his ass off the internet")

jyuto: "pro police officer and then change his voice to fantasize about kissing"

rio: "Nuclear waste is just scrumptious"

ramuda: "Uwuwuwuwuwuwuwu and other nations are expected in a class action lawsuit"

gentaro: "Story of my illiterate population"

dice: "Why would you photograph potathoes"

jakurai: "Monday night football game against the patients who are afraid to receive treatment as that will expose their status as an attack skill"

hifumi: "Percy the tank engine"

doppo: "are you still looking into the abyss" (alternatively: "HE IS NOT DESERVE LOVE HIFUMI WHAT HAPPENED")

#hypnosis mic #hypmic #ichiro yamada #jiro yamada #saburo yamada #samatoki aohitsugi #jyuto iruma #rio busujima #ramuda amemura #gentaro yumeno #dice arisugawa #jakurai jinguji #hifumi izanami #doppo kannonzaka

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asrastea · 4 years

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MAIN 3 + Faust: Children HC (Arcana)

This is my first time making a headcanon so... bare with me! Also REQUESTS ARE OPEN! merci and gracias.

Asra:

Asra with kids?! Oh boy... as calm as he may seem on the outside, he can be about as chaotic as Julian on crack

For instance, once you went out to the market to get some of that scrumptious pumpkin bread for breakfast to find your whole kitchen and precious husband + spawn covered head-to-toe in flour

Let’s admit, he’s kinda embarrassed when you walk in

Lots of naps and cuddles

Those children are attached to him at the hip

They’re always cooped up with him, reading books on anything: alchemy, goldilocks, botany, it doesn’t matter. They just like the way Baba’s voice sounds

Tells lots of stories of his travels during bedtime

Forehead kisses and tuck-ins too :)

Best believe Aisha and Salim are always at Chez Al-nazar

Lots of magical incidents... good and bad, mostly bad ;)

Let’s just say the teapot situation had a reprise

Spending lots of time at the palace with Nadia and Portia

And getting into heaps of trouble with Uncle Ilya

And those times when Baba has to go on those long trips, they beg to go with him just like Mommy/Daddy used to

Julian:

Sometimes you think to yourself, who let this man have children???

He’s already a big baby

But, deep down he’s always wanted a big family

And that’s what he’s got!

Many, many, many rounds of piggyback rides

Broke a couple of vases and pictures frames. Oh well.

Julian does everything with them

Leech collecting? Hell yeah!

But don’t get too close, darling

Playing as pirates for a day? You betcha

You’ll be sick of, “ARGH, SHIVER ME TIMBERZZZ” by the end of the day

Julian is more conscientious than you’d think when it comes to his children

And is definitely more cautious about your welfare as well

Those Devorak children do enjoy seeing Auntie Pasha beat the shit out of Julian on a day of bad judgement.

“THE RED MARKET ILYA?! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND YOU-”

Don’t let Mom/Dad know though, that’s a new type of hell

Nadia:

Polite, well-behaved child

At least, when she’s not looking

With Julian being at the palace so often, being troublesome just rubs off on you

When Nadia’s not busy, she gives your child personal piano/organ lessons

She feels it’s more intimate that way

On a cool spring day, tea and your bambino’s favorite biscuits at the gazebo

Hide the alcohol! It’s not juice!

Lots of fancy outfits

Is a cool mom, but stresses that their wealth is a privilege

Will NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES have Lucio 2.0 be brought up under her roof.

Not. on. her. watch

Stories with the fam on holidays are a must

Auntie’s always keep the kiddo on their toes

There’s never a dull moment

Especially when Asra teaches the two magic

Life really couldn’t get any better, could it?

Faust da bootiful snek:

Lots of “Squeeze!”

Faust likes to play with them

Brings lots of gifts in the tots favorite color, smell, etc.

Don’t ask where it came from.

Just don’t!

Faust is generally open, except that one time your child threw her across the room with their magic, accidentally

“Ouch” was definitely said. You felt pretty bad.

Some distancing was put in place for sure

But it didn’t last long

Faust is literally with them almost all the time

Did I mention her favorite nap-place is on your kid’s neck?

It is

And whatever you do, DON’T MAKE BAMBINO AL-NAZAR ANGRY OR SAD!

Faust will show up to that person’s doorstep with a knife.

Gladiator Faust Activate!

Faust really does love them, enough to make Asra a teeny-bit jealous!

Just a bit.

#the arcana #The Arcana Game #the arcana julian #the arcana lucio #the arcana portia #arcana headcanon #arcana #arcana hc #arcana headcanons #asra alnazar #asrathearcana #asra the magician #asra headcanons #julian headcanons #nadia satrivana #julian devorak #nadia headcanons #faust headcanons #Muriel

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dreamyarcana · 6 years

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the arcana + girl scout cookies

Asra: S'mores - Crispy graham cookie double dipped in yummy creme icing and finished with a scrumptious chocolatey coating.

Nadia: Thin Mints - Crisp wafers covered in chocolaty coating. Made with natural oil of peppermint.

Julian: Caramel DElites - Crisp cookies, coated in caramel, sprinkled with toasted coconut, and striped with dark choclaty coating

Muriel: Lemonades - Savory slices of shortbread with a refreshingly tangy lemon flavored icing

Portia: Peanut Butter Patties - Crispy cookies layered with peanut butter and covered with a chocolaty coating

Lucio: Trios - Chocolate chips nestled in a gluten free peanut butter oatmeal cookie

#the arcana game #the arcana #asra #nadia satrinava #julian devorak #muriel #portia devorak #lucio #dreamy headcanon

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quietlullabies-blog1 · 6 years

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spring - the arcana

zemira cho - my apprentice, she/her

___

Spring came quicker in Verusiva.

The leaves fall soundlessly, tapping the ground gently as they lay in the now wet dirt. The sky was inked with ocean blues and tear drops, the sun brighting the sky with an even brighter coat. White clouds dance across the sky in quick movements, forming unusual characters with a chance of creating something new.

It wasn't storming through the trees. It simply landed on the thick leaves that managed to sit still on the branches. But the rain wasn't harsh, nor was it soft, and it came in little drops. The branches were bending to protect two figures on their morning stroll, causing no precipitation to fall through and soak their hair. They appreciated that.

But Zemira was feeling the happiest about the rain. It was the month of spring time, rainy but lively April, Zemira's favorite month of the year. The clouds were white and gray, mixing into a shade lighter and darker. She enjoyed this, the colors creating a new color, as it gave her new ideas and creative thinking.

Zemira instinctively reached for Asra's hand. Her smile grew wider.

With the leaves picking up pace in the wind and the sun overcoming the storm above, Zemira found it difficult to listen to Asra's conversation, but made an effort to understand it nevertheless. He was speaking about the bread in town and the baker, and how scrumptious it was when they devoured it earlier. His breath smelled of pumpkin as he leaned in closer to Zemira's side. She silently sniffed, not wanting to be caught.

"You know," Asra said, turning his head to the woman beside him. "I had a dream of this. A beautiful spring day in the woods, walking with a beautiful human."

"Oh," Zemira replied, nodding her head. "Like deja-vû?"

"Sort of." Asra collected a rock from beneath his foot and threw it out in the open. A sound rustled through the trees. The sun light illuminated the spot where the sound was produced, revealing a purple snake hanging upside down from a tree-less tree branch. She stuck her tongue out in defeat. Asra smiled.

"Didn't imagine Faust would be here, though, but it's no matter."

They were silent for a few minutes. Zemira took the time to think about things she's pushed away.

Lucio.

She suspected her mind would revolve around this situation. The weight on her shoulders were the biggest villian in this subject, and unfortunately, she was the biggest victim. Zemira knew everyone was relying on the facts others have stated, but magic was in use of Lucio's ritual. Even darker magic than the plague.

But Lucio was the one with the plague, and adding Zemira's death in the ritual was the one thing they needed.

Yet, it was the one thing they didn't needed. Zemira shuddered.

Asra must have sensed her unsatisfaction, as he squeezed her hand with care. "Don't think about Lucio, Zemira. We'll figure this one out together. Today, or rather this morning, all I want you to focus on is the things you adore."

This made Zemira smirk. "So you?"

Asra's eyes were wider than the gray cloud above them, but she wasn't exactly focused on the sky. She laughed out loud, bending over in happiness. Asra cheeks altered to bright red, an occurance that happened regularly. He then chuckled. "You got me there."

After gasping for air after her fit of laughter, Zemira shook her head. "Wow, I didn't realize how much I needed that!"

"Haha, me too!"

A quick kiss on the cheek, leaving Asra even more flustered then before, Zemira pulls him along the trail, warm hands still linked.

___

I hope I did a good job, it's my first ever public drabble. Please comment/reblog if you have questions, or if I made any mistakes! I take them because your girl needs other readers then herself lol. Thank you!

Song to play: I Found - Amber Run

#the arcana #the arcana game #mobile game #drabble #fanfic #fanfiction arcana #fanfiction #asra #asra the magician #apprentice #spring time #spring #fan apprentice

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solivar · 7 years

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WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

aka the one in which Hanzo Shimada is an expatriate student of the Fine Arts, attending college in what he assumes to be a reasonably sedate corner of the American southwest. Jesse McCree is an occasionally leather-clad NPS ranger whose duties extend somewhat further than shooing lost tourists back onto the clearly marked hiking trails. Something weird is going on in the desert south of Santa Fe and their lives unexpectedly come together in the middle of it.

Now featuring family meetings over breakfast, Genji being right about something, and Hanzo tossing the very last of his fucks out the window.

Author’s note: I’m having oral surgery tomorrow so I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe, just maaaaaybe, that the next section might not come out tomorrow. However, once I get this stinking tooth out, I will no longer be continuously fighting off an infection that saps my energy and randomly puts me in the hospital. I will attempt to get back to my regular writing schedule and your entertainment forthwith. ^_^

Sweetwater’s Cafe and Dim Sum Palace was what happened when the owner of the hip young southwestern fusion cuisine cafe closest to the UNM main campus met the owner of the hip young Chinese small plates restaurant closest to the UNM main campus and, rather than engage in an increasingly rancorous culinary battle for the spare cash of every student in walking distance, they instead fell wildly in love and shortly thereafter into scrumptious and wholesome partnership. Strategically located catty-corner to the main campus residence halls, the post-merger restaurant became the place for broke ass college students attempting to top-load on calories for the day to turn up as soon as the doors opened, eat from carts pushed around three stories of public-to-semi-private dining space by an army of cheerful abuelitas for two hours straight, and still make a 9:30 lecture with time to spare. The joint Shimada-Tekhartha-Song-Correia household dined there frequently enough that the host waved them through despite the fact that Hanzo still looked like he had just committed a phthalo green and phthalocyanine blue shaded murder even after a thorough scrubbing. Fortunately, their usual table, a booth in the back corner of the semi-private floor, was unoccupied and he rather swiftly found himself tucked firmly between Genji on one side and Zenyatta on the other, with Lucio and Hana standing guard on the outside ends of the U-shaped seat. Hana had, in fact, only parted with her adopted hockey stick with extreme reluctance.

“Is it too early to start drinking?” Hana asked brightly. “Because, between you and me, I have a feeling that today is going to be the sort of thing that demands Mimosas. Lots of Mimosas. And possibly a whole bottle of tequila before it’s all over.”

“Yes,” said Hanzo and Zenyatta, more or less simultaneously and in reasonably identical disapproving tones, to their mutual surprise.

“You two aren’t going to be a single bit of fun about any of this, are you? Okay, fine.” And when the drinks cart came around, she settled for a spiced hot chocolate and waited patiently for everyone else to adulterate their tea or coffee before demanding, “All right. Spill it. I want to know in excruciating detail why our security deposit probably just went down the toilet.”

Hanzo inhaled the steam rising off his cup of tea, took a fortifying sip, organized his thoughts, and began to speak, pausing only when the food carts stopped next to their table. He told them about the trip itself, the breakdown, the walk through the desert, the ranger and their drive back to the car the next morning, and precisely how everything had gone horribly, hideously wrong from that point forward. He even copped to talking to Zenyatta first, which earned them both a half-startled, half-hurt look from Genji. When he finished, the table was covered in half-empty plates of huevos rancheros, honey-coated sopapillas, carne adovada burritos, pork xiao long bao, sesame buns, and a crock of hot and sour soup. He helped himself to a little bit of everything while the others digested what he told them.

“So...what you’re saying is…” Hana said in the tone of one musing idly aloud, “...your smoking hot park ranger has one hot vampire dad and one terrifying smog monster dad but, nonetheless, he has two dads, which means he won’t find it completely traumatic if you call him up and ask him if he wants to go get some hot chocolate and pumpkin empanadas once all this is over?”

“Really? That was your takeaway from his story?” Lucio asked.

“It was the takeaway that doesn’t make me want to run screaming back to Korea.” Hana replied, sweetly.

“Okay, there is that.” Lucio turned and leveled a deadly serious look at him, brown eyes intensely earnest. “Han, I love you man, you know that, right? So you know this is coming from a place of love when I say you could not be more obviously thirsty for this dude if you had a holoscreen floating over your head announcing in foot-tall flashing letters I am thirsty for Ranger Jesse McCree. Seriously, ask him out. The worst he can do is say he’s not interested.”

Hanzo buried his face in his soup bowl in an effort to disguise the fact that all the blood was rushing into his head with such violence he could hear it roaring in his ears like a gale-force wind. On one side, he could feel Zenyatta heroically controlling the urge to add his encouragement to the chorus; on the other, he suspected that Genji was restraining something considerably less supportive.

“Show of hands,” Genji asked, his tone positively glacial with the self-control it was taking him not to have a screaming freakout in the middle of breakfast, “Who thinks my brother being stalked by a soul-eating monstrosity from beyond reality as we know it is completely unacceptable and something we should all be working to change right now?”

Four hands went up; Hanzo abstained, since he felt his opinion on the matter should be fairly self-evident.

“Seriously, though.” Hana reached over and snagged a sopapilla. “I joke because otherwise I’d be rocking back and forth in a corner gibbering right now because, really, that was kinda the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen and my Dad collects vintage Junji Ito manga so I know from creepy.”

“I gotta agree with Hana on that one.” Lucio continued to look intensely earnest. “I get why you tried to keep us out of it and I appreciate that, I do, because this semester is trying to murder me even without the addition of horrible tentacle monsters -- “

“I am not entirely certain those are tentacles,” Hanzo murmured into the surface of his soup.

“-- or suspiciously tentacular not-tentacles, but seriously, man. Your life is like normal repellent right now. Anti-normal.” Lucio slumped back in his seat. “And your ranger dude thought sending you back to standard reality would help?”

“The principle is a sound one.” Zenyatta interjected quietly. “The purpose of returning him to us was to encourage his soul to anchor itself in the comforting rituals of the ordinary, of the life he led before it intersected with the unnatural. I suspected the medicine sent to aid that endeavor was dosed slightly too high and therefore overperforming in an unhelpful way -- reducing it, however, may have allowed for something even more dangerous. For that I am profoundly sorry.”

“I asked for your help -- you have nothing to apologize for, Zenyatta.” Hanzo drank the last of his bowl. “Perhaps I should -- “

“Take an academic leave of absence and put a couple thousand miles of ocean between you and whatever that thing is?” Genji suggested helpfully.

“I am not entirely certain that physical distance would actually constitute an encumbrance in this case.” Zenyatta interjected.

“Why not?” His brother replied, with the sort of maddening powers of logic he could marshal when circumstances demanded it. “The ranger suggested it would help if he stayed away from where it happened in the first place -- rationally, even further away would be safest, right?”

“The ranger sent me back here because you are my family,” Hanzo replied quietly. “And because being in your presence would constitute a form of healing. Would you like to contemplate the sort of convalescence I would enjoy if I crawled home and told our parents this story? I would spend the rest of my life contemplating the world through a heavy antipsychotic-colored haze from behind the unrelentingly beige walls and discreetly reinforced windows of a psychiatric institution that I would never be allowed leave again. I’m half amazed you don’t think I’m insane.”

“Admittedly, we kind of have the advantage of knowing you as the less freaky Shimada brother.” Lucio replied soothingly, flicking a glance at Genji as he did so. “No offense, G.”

“None taken.” Then, grudgingly, “I don’t think father would let that happen, but I see your point.”

Hanzo let the breath he’d been holding out in a shaky sigh. “Thank you.”

“In any case, I would suggest that our next course of action should be determining if that...painting...at the house is more than it appears to be -- “ Zenyatta looked up at the squeaks of dismay emanating from Hana.

“Could it be? Honestly?” She asked, eyes approximately twice their normal size. “Because, as it is, I’m not entirely sure I wanna sleep there with it still up as it is and if there’s, y’know, a chance it and its I-can’t-believe-those-aren’t-tentacles might come oozing off the walls I’m completely sacking out in your car for the foreseeable future, Zen, just warning you in advance.”

“Yes.” Simple and unadorned and, not for the first time that day, Hanzo felt as though he were trying to breathe around a red-hot spiky ball of panic.

“So. We call the ranger.” Genji said, firmly. “As far as I’m concerned, a whole lot of this is his damned fault in the first place and he can be doing more to help fix it.” Hanzo opened his mouth to object and found himself collecting a ferocious iridescent green glare for his troubles. “And, no, I don’t want to hear about how it isn’t because your judgment on this topic is completely impaired by your desire to climb him like a fire tower.”

“That is the worst analogy in the entire history of time.” Hanzo replied tersely. “And I am not -- “

“And Hana has a point, too, about staying at the condo not being the best idea until this gets figured out -- which, ideally, should happen today.” Genji continued doggedly on. “And you’re not going to be sleeping across from that no matter what.”

“Agreed.” There were days when it simply didn’t pay to fight, and this was clearly one of them. Hanzo fished the card containing the ranger’s contact information out of his pocket. “I’ll -- “

Genji snagged it in a single smooth motion. “I’ll call him. You’re supposed to be seeking normal, right? Go to class. Keep your studio slot. Hang out in well-lit areas preferably surrounded by hundreds of people. We’ll meet up at the Student Union at...five? How’s five for everybody?”

A general murmur of assent ran around the table and Hanzo nodded, reluctantly, in agreement.

Genji grinned. “Don’t look so worried, aniki. I’ll only chew on him a little bit.”

Zenyatta dropped them off at the entrance to the main campus and, until Lucio and Hana peeled off in their respective morning lecture hall directions, Hanzo felt rather distinctly like he was walking surrounded by the world’s smallest, strangest Secret Service detail. Hana was clearly still itching for the security of a hockey stick and, rather than stopping to talk to the two dozen people who tried to flag her down as they crossed the quad, she waved and continued on, her gaze darting about as though she expected something unwholesomely flexible and sanity-blighting to lurch out from behind one of the pieces of exterior display sculpture scattered along their route. Given recent events, he decided he really couldn’t blame her for her excess of caution. Lucio was altogether more mellow but he was also carrying a messenger bag stuffed with enough notebooks and musical equipment components it could probably be used as an improvised melee weapon of some efficacy against even Things From Beyond With or Without Tentacles.

And Genji was, well, Genji and walked a considerable distance out of the way from his own first class to escort Hanzo directly to the doors of Kaplan Memorial Hall, in which lay the fine arts lecture halls and reservable studio spaces. Under normal circumstances, Hanzo arose at godforsaken o’clock in order to take advantage of the fact that there wasn’t an underclassman alive dedicated enough to their major to voluntarily choose a studio block available before the sun was even properly up, no matter how long they could have it. Genji could generally be counted among those ranks, as demonstrated by his reliance on sunglasses when confronted with the early morning light glinting off the glass-and-adobe exteriors of half the buildings on campus, which he normally only encountered under significantly different conditions.

“Hana’s not done asking questions, you know. She’s got that look in her eye.” Genji remarked, pseudo-casual, and Hanzo’s already well-knotted stomach abruptly contorted itself still further into a digestive fractal of perfect dread. “She let it ride just now because she’s actually got class in fifteen minutes but between you and me? She’s going to rake Zen over the coals once she’s got the time. And when your ranger gets here? I wouldn’t want to be him.”

“He’s not my ranger.” Hanzo replied, deeply regretting both the huevos rancheros and the hot and sour soup.

“Semantics.” Genji gave him a sidelong look. “Hanzo -- “

“You want to tell them.” Hanzo finished the thought for him and paused for a moment in the shadow of one of the big pieces on loan from the Museum of Native American Arts and Culture, planting his back against its base and sinking down onto his haunches.

“Zen already knows.” Evenly. “He saw her in me before we even spoke for the first time. I think that we have to tell them. Admittedly, I wish we could do it under more voluntary circumstances but...I think we owe them the truth. Both of us.”

Hanzo closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment on making certain his breakfast stayed where he’d put it. “You’re right,” He finally said, fighting to keep the misery out of his voice and, apparently, succeeding.

“Wow, I am?” Genji actually took his sunglasses off and blinked down at him in genuine surprise.

“Yes.” Hanzo tilted his head back and let the cool of the granite statue base soak into his skull. “I think the ranger might suspect something, too. And right now it’s only a matter of time before everyone else finds out and then managing how much the fallout sucks. We might as well pull the trigger ourselves.”

Genji hunkered down next to him, hesitated fractionally, then brushed the hair back from his eyes. “It doesn’t have to suck, you know. Our friends are smart, caring people who actually like us, which gives them a couple legs up on the rest of the clan on their worst day.”

Hanzo nodded wordlessly and found he didn’t have it in him to crush the hope in his brother’s eyes. “You’re right about that, too.”

“Clearly a lesser sign of the Apocalypse.” Genji pushed back to his feet and offered him a hand up, which he accepted. “Are you okay?”

No. “I’ll be fine,” Hanzo lied with great sincerity. “I probably should have picked either the Tex-Mex or the dim sum, but not both. Bad decision making on my part.”

“Well, at least you’re grown up enough to admit it.” Genji held onto his arm for the rest of the walk. “Where are you going when you’re done in the studio?”

“The library. I’ve got some research yet to do.” The depths of the Kaplan building yawned before him like the heretofore unsuspected entrance to the Underworld.

Genji made a point of obviously texting that information to the rest of the household. “...We also might wanna kinda call the police again. I let the officer in charge know that you weren’t missing-missing and she left me a voicemail saying they’d like to talk to you to confirm that fact. I just found it this morning.”

Hanzo rolled his eyes heavenward. “Number?”

Genji sent it over and offered him a crooked smile. “Be careful, aniki.”

“I promise I won’t drink my paint water.”

“Or fall asleep.”

Hanzo shuddered. “Not yet anyway. Go to class, Genji.”

The fine arts studios were located on Kaplan Hall’s upper floors, the best to take advantage of its relatively exposed position on the south-westernmost edge of campus and the significantly longer exposure to natural light thus afforded. Hanzo made his way quietly through the corridors where at least two early morning art history seminars were already in progress, avoiding the elevators that sounded like the mournful dying song of some beautifully tragic deep sea creature no matter how freshly maintenanced they might be, and took the stairs to his second floor studio slot. Fortunately for the continuing unsettled state of both his stomach and his sanity, his thesis advisor was likely hip-deep in holoslides in front of one of those seminars right now and if he locked the door and turned on the external sound suppression she would correctly interpret that as Do Not Disturb Art Is Trying To Happen and accost him at their scheduled meeting. Unfortunately, at the moment, he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do less than Try To Make Art Happen thanks very much to the present state of his bedroom and most assuredly not while locked inside a soundproofed chamber whose emergency access keys were some of the most frequently misplaced items in the entire college. He did not want to contemplate the wreckage of human folly while standing on the brink of exposing his own venality, the stupidity and arrogance that Genji had forgiven him, whose consequences he could never undo. He was not ready yet to give up the warm comfort of the others’ kind regard, could feel a part of him trying to crawl away under some internal rock and die at the thought of Zenyatta’s quiet all-encompassing compassion turning to disgust. Or the ranger. He had to plant his back against the corridor wall and clench his jaw against a stomach-churning rush of nausea as his entirely too vivid imagination painted that reaction shot against the insides of his skull. Which, admittedly, might have made for a strikingly personal and heartfelt contrast piece to the sterility of industrial-scale desolation but at the moment it primarily made him want to curl up in the crawlspace under the back stairwell and cry until he drowned in his own phlegm.

He did not, in the end, lock himself in the studio/potential supernatural deathtrap or cry his face off under the stairs. Instead, he peered over the lower edge of the nearest exterior window to make certain Genji wasn’t lurking in the courtyard, taped a note to the studio door that it was unoccupied and free to use, and fled to the library for the sanctuary to be found in research and the stringently enforced lack of interaction with other human beings.

Hanzo took possession of a carrel close to the windows in one of the second floor study rooms, slotted his tablet into the physical network interface, and connected, pulling up the local news sites he had bookmarked the night before. Cora Hernandez had not been miraculously found in the one night since he became aware of both her existence and her disappearance. In fact, all the most current news suggested that the state police and the rangers were preparing to shift from “search and rescue” to “search and recovery,” now that the temperatures were dropping consistently into the thirties by night. Even a reward for useful information offer well north of a hundred thousand dollars had yielded no new clues to her whereabouts. Her parents looked as though they had aged a decade in a few weeks, her mother pale and distraught, and he could only imagine her agony. In the back of his mind, a soft, small voice wondered idly how much effort his own parents would have assigned to the task of finding him, or his body, and how long they would have bothered. The lord and lady of the Shimada-gumi were, in the end, fairly brutal in their pragmatism and wasting more than they had to on a bad investment was never their way. Genji would never stop and he ruthlessly crushed that thought before it could go any further and closed the news tab, refusing to indulge in the thought of what would happen if his brother encountered the thing that attacked him unaware of its nature and there he was imagining it in vivid, horrifying detail and this was definitely one of those days when it didn’t pay to be a Fine Art Masters candidate. It took a long moment of heavy peace-stress breathing and thinking fixedly of nothing but a horde of kittens and puppies gamboling together in a field of wildflowers to distract himself from the increasingly Memlingesque products of his mind’s eye.

The small furry creatures and oxygen supersaturation eventually had the desired effect and his hands were at least reasonably steady as he activated the carrel’s interface surfaces and requested access to several of the library’s more specialized databases. UNM owned a cultural anthropology department unrivaled in the west, even the University of California system, and if there was anywhere he could go to cure his ignorance on a number of topics, it was definitely here, in its repository for thousands of books and even more scholarly articles and original sources. He brought up the anthropological database’s internal search engine, set his fingers on the holokeys, and hesitated.

If he stopped here, the voice of sweet reason murmured in the back of his mind, it ended here. Genji would call the ranger, and he would come to sort out what was wrong at the house. He would finish the rest of his medicine and his soul would never go wandering away from his body again and in a half a year he would graduate and move to some corner of the world where the ghosts and demons of the desert would never cross his path again. And that would be the best, for himself and everyone else, except the next unlucky soul to fall under that thing’s eye, who might not have rescue as close or as capable.

If he did not stop here, that same voice murmured with a significantly sharper edge to its tone, if he insisted upon continuing to look, then he was asking the nameless thing that saw him, that saw him and stalked him and attacked him, to continue doing so. It might even, perhaps, be an invitation to more of such things. He was, that voice hissed, risking taking a door, already cracked, and throwing it all the way open and inviting whatever waited in the dark beyond inside. And for what? He was nothing and had even less to offer and he punched in his first search queries to the sound of sweet reason’s howling despair, watched the results scroll up his screen with a certain cold satisfaction curling in his gut. There was, to put it mildly, a lot. He set is phone to give him a twenty minute warning on the five o’clock hour and dove in head first.

#Ghost Stories On Route 66

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