You are a hero to me
(I blame this entirely on @phrenic-a and their glorious writer-baiting. It was meant to be one genre, but of course Zev can't make anything easy for me....)
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“Ex… Uhm, excuse me? Miss?” A tiny voice says, dragging Zev’sonya out of the conversation she’s currently having with Mose about whether they should bother securing more supplies or not before heading back to the ship and away from this awfully crowded marked. She looks to her left and down, towards the source of the sound, and is both baffled and displeased to find a green, little twi’lek girl standing there and staring at her with big eyes.
“What?” Zev’sonya snaps. Why isn’t anyone looking after this girl? She can’t be more than six or seven years old? She shouldn’t be hassling dangerous strangers who could snatch her up and sell her to slavers. Her guardians deserve a punch in the mouth.
“Are you…” The girl’s gaze slides over and takes in the sight of Mose towering behind Zev’sonya.
Her eyes grow even larger and Zev’sonya reluctantly braces for the inevitable shriek of horror while silently swearing she is indeed going to punch whomever is responsible for letting this little girl wander off.
“Y-you are!” The girl declares and shifts her attention back to Zev’sonya, but with absolute delight all over her face instead of fear. “You’re Zev’sonya Lee Lewna!”
Zev’sonya blinks. She can feel Mose’s confusion as strong as her own. Putting on her gruffest face, she scans the little girl and sees (and feels) nothing out of the ordinary. She’s dressed nicely, but not like a rich kid, is skinny but not malnourished, and has a large, yellow cuddle-toy hanging from her right hand instead her holding any weapon. “How do you know my name, kid?”
The girl leans to the side and outright grins. “And you’re Mose!”
Zev’sonya looks back at him, but he just meets her gaze with his equivalent of raising an eyebrow and underlines it with a faint shrug. No help to be had there. Great. Zev’sonya turns back to the girl and puts on her stern face again. “Listen, kid, I don’t know what you want from me, but you shouldn’t be wandering around on your own.”
“I’m not.” The girl says, then points with her free hand. “They’re right over there.”
‘They’ must be her family and ‘they’ are a twi’lek man and two other little twi’lek girls. The man, clearly someone in Zev’sonya’s trade of shady business, is busy negotiating with a seller and has no idea what is happening beyond that, but the two girls next to him are clutching their own cuddle toys and are staring wide-eyed at their sister talking to strangers. The girl on the left is hugging a raggedy looking human doll while the girl on the right is squeezing a falleen doll tight.
“I told them we might meet you one day! This is so awesome!” The little run-away declares with raw glee.
Zev’sonya shakes her head and scoffs. Not only does this little shrimp know her and Mose’s names, which is weird enough by itself, but she actually wanted to meet them? Is she crazy? “Why?”
“Because…” Now the girl finally lowers her gaze for a moment, suddenly a little shy, but it doesn’t last for long. She flicks her dark eyes up again and now they are beaming with awe. “I wanna grow up and be just like you one day!”
Zev’sonya feels like the kid just slapped her face. Yeah, must be crazy. She considers backing up in case it is contagious. Maybe it is brain-rot? Must be something serious, definitely. “What?”
“The Pyle heist! The Julita caper! The Aand sting! The Silver holdup!” The girl blurts out, increasingly excited. “They were all you.” A sharp gulp of breath is all she has time for before rambling on. “My dad goes away for work a lot of the time, but he always comes back with stories about you. When I was little, I didn’t think a twi’lek girl could be captain of a crew, but he said I was wrong and that’s when he told me about Zev’sonya Lee Lewna. The Pirate Queen! And Mose, her best friend and second in command!”
That’s when Zev’sonya notices that the stuffed doll the girl is holding on to is not something she’s seen for sale at any marked she’s been to. It is a home-made creation; a yellow hutt with brown stripes and big eyes. It is quite raggedy from being brought along to wherever this kid goes. For some reason, the sight of the clear replica of Mose makes Zev’sonya’s heart clench.
“All my sisters do is talk about meeting a prince and getting married and living in his castle, but they also claim that there are no nice hutts, so you know they’re stupidheads. I don’t wanna marry a prince, I wanna be a pirate, like you.” The girl declares with gusto. She swings her doll forward and holds it up for her to see. “I only have Hose right now. But one day I’ll run into a hutt who is nice, like Mose, and they will be on my crew and we’ll go on adventures all over the Galaxy..”
Zev’sonya has no idea what to say to that. Her brain is spinning at how unreal the situation is.
Lowering the toy, the girl tilts her head and studies the blaster hanging by Zev’sonya’s hip before she scans the blades strapped to her thighs. “My dad won’t let me shoot one yet, but I’m really good with my slingshot.”
“That’s… nice.” Zev’sonya awkwardly mumbles. She hears a quiet rumble of amusement from behind her and Mose is clearly handling this better than she is. But that’s because he’s nice and she isn’t! She’s no role-model. She’s a result of a cruel Galaxy. This kid shouldn’t-
“Is it true you even have a human on your crew now?” The little fiend seems far more shocked by this than Zev’sonya travelling around with a hutt by her side.
“Ye-es….” Zev’sonya replies, not sure why she is giving her answers instead of directions back to her family or spraying her with water to make her go away. How does she know about Leo too?!
“Hey, would you mind…” The girl starts, digging into her own pocket for something that she pulls up with a triumphant look on her face. “Signing this?”
The shocks keeps on coming today because Zev’sonya finds herself looking at the unrolling of a wanted poster of her and Mose. It’s an old one. Three or four years ago? That is really not a flattering picture of her. Yikes. Does she really look like that? She's never leaving the ship again.
Mose chortles from behind her.
Ok, this must be some kind of weird dream. Has to be. This can’t be real. No way.
When all Zev’sonya does is stare, the girl gives the poster a brief, suggestive shake.
“Sure.” Mose says, reaching by Zev’sonya and taking the poster to sign it.
Zev’sonya half-turns to stare at him with no small amount of disbelief that only grows when she sees the smile he’s trying in vain to fight off. He’s far too amused by this. Once he’s scribbled down his letters on the holo-surface, he hands it to her with an expectant look on his face.
Scowling, Zev’sonya hesitates for only half a second before signing it and turning to hand it back to the girl. “Here.”
“Thank you!” She says, beaming even more brightly despite how it shouldn’t be possible.
“Sure.” Zev’sonya clears her throat. “Now, go back to your father and don’t wander off again. Okay?”
“Okay.” The girl declares with zero hesitation and endless cheerfulness. “But when I get a little older, can I come work for you? Mom says I should focus on my dancing or singing, but that’s boring, so can I? Pretty please? Can I?”
Trying hard to ignore the long, rumbling chuckle she hears from Mose, Zev’sonya crosses her arms. “Give it ten to fifteen years, if you still feel the same, sure.” She doubts she’ll see this kid again, but there is still something about her that prods Zev’sonya to say the next words. “Just remember, being a twi’lek doesn’t mean you have to sing and dance. You do what you want to do with your life. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Even your mother. You can be whatever you put your mind to.”
Despite how it shouldn’t be possible, the girl’s face grow even brighter with happiness. “I’m going to be just like you!”
Wait, no t-that is not what she meant, absolutely not, but the girl takes off running towards her father and sisters before Zev’sonya can correct her. Then, after the cretin is reunited with her sisters, pointing towards her and Mose and clearly bragging, Zev’sonya spins around to leave in a hurry as their father finally catches on to something happening behind him and turns to investigate. Time to get back to the ship.
Mose is still chuckling when she stalks by him.
“Shut up.” Zev’sonya growls. Her face burns.
Mose outrights laughs.
“I will stab you in the eye!” She threatens, in vain as it has no effect whatsoever.
Back at the ship, Nohr is waiting by the open ramp. The nikto is standing guard and seems very ready for them to leave. He’s the impatient one on the crew. “We good to go?”
“We’re leaving.” Zev’sonya declares as she marches into the ship with Mose right behind her. “Now.”
The ramp starts closing behind them and Zev’sonya knows she should head up to the cockpit and have Bea’tah initiate take-off right away, but on the way she has to walk by the door to her quarters and she can’t help the way her gaze lingers on it.
“Lorda.” Mose says, now all quiet and gentle, stopping by the door. “I’ll head up. You go in.”
Zev’sonya pauses and glares at him.
Mose nods. His eyes are too mild. “You are the captain, Lorda. I know. You decide.” He’s indulging her bad temper and they both know it. “But I can handle the ship and you should check up on him.”
Hesitating, Zev’sonya is torn between her usual dislike of being told what to do and the fact that she actually wants to go inside that room. What happened earlier had left her with a knot in her belly, and now that twi’lek kid has made her head a mess too…
“Go.” Mose encourages. “I got this.”
She does not doubt that for a second. She trusts him without a shadow of a doubt and because of that, she can allow herself to be weak this one time. Zev’sonya exhales and gives in. “Fine.”
Mose nods again, relieved. “Good.” He shuffles by her. “It’s a seventeen hour journey to our next stop, remember? You might as well get some rest while you’re in there.”
“Mind my ship, not my business.” Zev’sonya snipes, uncomfortable. Mose is always looking out for her despite how she’s supposed to keep him safe. A captain watches over her crew, not the other way around. Mose never seems to get that into his head.
“Yes, Lorda.” He replies with ease, clearly not intending to heed her words at all. And people call her the stubborn one?
Stepping inside the room, Zev’sonya leans back against the door and pauses for a bit to take in the sight that greets her.
Lying on his back, arms by his sides, Leo is still fast asleep on the bed. As expected. As he should be. This morning’s attack had come out of nowhere and for several seconds that had felt like years, Zev’sonya had been convinced that the medicine had suddenly stopped working and that he would die in front of her. She had not felt so afraid and helpless since Mose was poisoned.
Taking a deep breath, Zev’sonya pushes herself away from the door and walks over to sit down next to Leo. He looks pale, but peaceful. No fear. Nothing like during the incident. He’s breathing deep and slow. She takes his hand in hers and forces herself to smile. “You’re going to be so angry when you hear you missed out on meeting someone as crazy as you.” His hand is warm and the contact feels reassuring so she places her other hand over his. “This twi’lek kid, she came right up to me and Mose and started talking to us. No sense of self-preservation.” Zev’sonya breathes a faint laugh of reluctant admiration. “No brain.” She shakes her head, weirdly… flattered? “You would have liked her. She said…”
- I wanna grow up and be just like you one day!
While Zev’sonya knows she’s anything but a role model, the idea that a twi’lek girl might break free from the booth others want to put her in, or even give a deserving hutt a chance because she heard stories about Zev’sonya and Mose, it is dangerously uplifting. And though the girl has horrible taste in heroes and the odds stacked high against her even before she starts her journey, Zev’sonya hopes she makes it. She really hopes she makes it.
Hmm, Leo is going to be a dreadful nightmare when he hears about this. (He won’t hear it from her but Mose is definitely going to tell him. Those two love to conspire against her.) His old nickname is going to be used a lot. “She said something crazy.” Zev’sonya says, easing down to lie next to the sleeping Leo. Everything in her wants to curl up close, wrap herself around him, place her head on his chest and listen to him breathe, but she only allows herself to hold on to his hand. It’s not much, but it’s more than what she’s allowed herself in the past. “You’re going to love it.”
The ship gently shudders as they take off and head towards the stars. Technically it is barely mid-day where they are right now, but the standard time teller tells Zev’sonya the ship will swap to night-mode soon and she realizes Mose must have known as he told her to get some rest. The different time zones between parsecs, even between some planets, can leave a traveller severely sleep deprived if one is not careful and that could get you killed in Zev’sonya’s line of work.
Fine. Sleep it is. For purely practical reasons.
Zev’sonya absently runs her index finger back and forth over Leo’s warm hand as she quietly starts listing up names of people she’s never met, except for one. Even if she’d been ignorant of Hauroko’s fate, Zev’sonya would have known it is souls Leo has lost from the grief she feels radiating from him every evening when he speaks their names. She suspects it is his way of keeping them alive in memory at least and as he won’t be able to tonight, Zev’sonya will keep them alive for him.
Zev’sonya Lee Lewna is not a hero. She’s not even a good person. But she is curled up next to one.
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𝑨𝑵𝑶𝑻𝑯𝑬𝑹 𝑳𝑰𝑭𝑬 [𝑫𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒇]
Pairing(s): Dainslief x Lumine(Traveller)! Reader (basically a fem! reader insert)
CW: Really angsty and sad, Dain pushes away his feelings for the sake of his mission.
Dainslief has wandered alone for the longest time. He cold-shoulders everyone and everything unless it appeals to him and his goals. If he sees no pertinent reason to partake in something, he doesn't.
However, ever since he met you at the Angel's Share that fateful day, you have become a recurring topic on his mind-- your origins, your mysteries, and your goals. He'd ponder upon them for hours when his mind could think of nothing more.
The more he saw of you and the more he had been around you, he started to see you in a different light. A bright light, one that his people normally would've looked down upon. Aside from the obvious, being that you're obviously quite literally otherworldly, you shone with the power to maybe even overthrow gods and deities of all kinds.
This "pure admiration of skill" masked what truly lied within. He saw you in all your grace, your beauty, your glory. He wanted to stay by your side and traverse the paths of this world as both a means to an end and a way to pass time with the only person he has felt for in ages.
He loved you dearly. Wonder why you end up running into him so often? He finds you curious. He wants to know more about you and keep in contact with you in whatever way he can. He vowed to himself that he would be there when you needed him like the valiant knight he was once. He would take up that role a million times more for you.
He found himself becoming distracted by this bittersweet, one-sided romance of his. He had finally realized what this admiration was and by that time, he had almost been led astray. This isn't in his best interest, to let you distract him like this. He needs you, you are inevitably a part of his story, but at what cost?
He had brushed off these feelings as he continued his journey, his search for answers, hoping to the merciless gods of Teyvat that, if not in this life, maybe another can be spent together in the way he yearns for. The one time he begs to these powers, knowing very well that they care not for him or his wishes.
For the accursed? It's a miniscule possibility, at best.
And you? You would never know, and it'd be best he made peace with that.
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So for the made up fic title game I seriously feel like you could make so many from the lyrics if Scare Me by Ludo, pEAK DP vibes, but I wanna suggest either
Suddenly Bubbling Posthumous
Or
Spooky Breeze Breathin'
oR
Blood! Ghost! AAHHH!
Suddenly Bubbling Posthumous
All of these are gold but the first one is so fucking juicy, the mouth-feel of it is so delectable and I am incapable of choosing anything else, so here we go!
Danny Phantom, No One Knows AU, Sam's POV (tw blood) --- Here's what I'm thinking...
Danny's dead.
Everyone at school knows it. No one says anything, of course—or, at least, not where he can hear it.
People go quiet when he passes (hah), watching, staring, waiting for him to turn the corner before they erupt into furious whispers.
Danny's dead. Killed in his parent's lab. It was an accident, they say, he's lucky to be alive.
No one really believes it. They all know the truth.
That is, until a month or so into the semester when actual ghosts start attacking and people realise there's no way normal, average, so-scared-of-ghosts-he-disappears-at-the-mere-mention-of-an-attack Daniel Fenton can be anything like them. So they all move on (double hah) with their lives.
It becomes one of those school yard urban legends, you know the ones - the old principal was fired for hitting a student, Lancer rides a motorbike, the quiet guy in the back of class is a ghost. A joke that no one really believes.
But as she's always said, people are idiots—and while Sam may be a lot of things, she likes to think an idiot isn’t one of them. There's just too many things off with Fenton and yeah, ghosts might be mainstream now, but a living dead boy that has skin that burns like ice and a heartbeat that's far too slow to be normal has to be the most goth thing she can think of.
She measured it once you know, gritting her teeth against the cold bite of his skin.
They were partners that day. Tetslaff had them all record their heart rates before and after exercise and she got chewed out for not taking it seriously when she... politely expressed her concern over Danny’s readings. She took it right, she knows she did. Sure, she might have been swearing about it, but she maintains the detention was unwarranted.
Danny said nothing throughout the whole thing. Just shrugged his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck in that nervous way he always does when people look too closely at him.
So she does the reasonable thing and decides to set up a trap.
Tucker tries to stop her, of course he does, but you can't stop Sam Manson when she's made up her mind. It's probably the one thing she's glad she inherited from her parents—but so help her, she will throw hands with anyone that says it.
Proving Danny Fenton is a ghost is easier said than done.
The summoning she pulls off the Internet is a dud and Tucker tries his best to convince her it's because Danny isn't dead and there's nothing to summon, but really, how could they expect the first thing they find off of a wannabe witch's ten year-old blog post to be legit? The animated crows should have given it away, really. She blames herself.
Sam just has to try harder.
The ouija board doesn't work—she realises it's Tuck moving it when the "spirit" asks her if she wants to play Doomed instead—and nor does the spirit box she buys off of a site claiming to be the number one shop for aspiring ghost hunters.
Danny just laughs when he sees it. She swears his teeth are sharper than normal, his mouth too wide. When she flips the switch anyway the box squawks pitifully once and stops working completely. Waste of money.
They hold a seance during a sleepover, Tucker complaining all the while. It's quickly put an end to when Tucker leans too close to a candle and his beret catches on fire. Sam's convinced he did it on purpose, but even Tuck's not that stupid. After that disaster of a night, he won't let her use anything with an open flame. There goes her burning herbs idea.
In the end, it's only by pure, dumb luck that she finds out the truth.
They're in science class and the chemicals are out, so everyone's wearing goggles and looking supremely bored. Sam's been partnered up with Danny and for once she'snot miserable that Tucker’s in a different class, because now she gets to use the lesson for her own observation experiment.
It pays off when she watches him yawn, his head nodding forward as if he's going to fall asleep standing up in the middle of class, and the beaker full of sulphuric acid slips straight through his hands.
That's not a figure of speech.
One moment his hand is there, holding it like normal and the next his hand has vanished and all that's left of the beaker is bits of glass and acid soaking into their shoes.
It's not the first time he's done it (she's pretty sure he holds the record for most lab equipment broken), but it's the first time in a while and it's also the first time Sam's seen it up close.
It's confirmation enough for her. She's seen enough ghost fights to know what intangibility looks like! Even the knowledge that her favourite boots are ruined isn't enough to dampen her victory high.
That is, until she sees him bleeding.
He'd tried to catch it.
The beaker slips through his fingers and he snatches out with his other hand, quick but not quick enough and the beaker shatters on the floor. A shard bounces back into his hand, the cut a perfectly straight line along his palm that immediately drips... blood?
It has to be blood, right?
She's watching it come out of his hand so it has to be blood, but it's green, it's a lurid, neon green, and like what the fuck even is that because it can't be blood, can it?
She claps a hand over her mouth to hold in a whimper when she watches it start to bubble.
Lancer calls for everyone to evacuate the classroom while they just stand there, staring at each other.
Fenton looks terrified, eyes as wide as hers, his face as white as... Well. As white as a ghost.
What the fuck is she meant to do now?
She lowers her hand from her mouth and whispers the first thing that comes into her head, low and under her breath, "Living dead ghost boy says what."
"What?"
Foolproof.
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