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sparrowrye · 2 months

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Alastor x Fem! Reader {soulmates} Part 6

Synopsis: soulmate AU where you have the same mark on your body as your soulmate, and if your soulmate dies, you die too. Alastor needs to make sure that his soulmate is safe so he can continue his reign - whatever that takes.

Part 6: expanding horizons

Part Pilot | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

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Husker spent the next morning teaching me how to hold my human appearance. It took several practice tries before I could switch between Human me and Demon me. Afterwards, I spent the rest of my time outside staring off into space.

I still didn't know how to wrap my head around...well, myself. Husker had been right, holding a human appearance took effort. I couldn't hold it for long and ended up letting my demon side out most of the time. It was cool, yeah, but scary. What else did I not know about myself?

"Hey," Husker called from the door. "You busy?"

I scoffed. "Does it look like it?"

He padded to his chair and sat down facing me. "Do you...want to talk?"

"About what?" I stared at the tree line.

"About...this new side of you?"

"What's there to talk about?"

We both fell silent. I felt bad. I knew Husker was trying to help. It made me uncomfortable to talk to him, though. Would he spill to Alastor some of the things I said? Did Husker himself have motivations against me? It didn't seem likely but there was always the probability.

"Have you been to hell?" I finally asked. I didn't want to talk about myself but there was a whole other world I supposedly came from.

"Yeah, a few times," he replied, "I mostly grew up on the surface though. In the gambling district."

"So you play cards, huh?"

"A few." He slipped a card into his fingers, spun it, and made it disappear a second later. I chuckled.

"What's it like?"

"Dark. Creepy. Lawless. And a fuck ton of red."

"Is it really...hell or just..."

"It's really hell."

"I thought demons were just a form of spirits."

"I wouldn't know the specifics of things like that," he waved his hand, "but I do know that demons have their demonic look and hid among humans when they first crawled on the surface. Our history is supposedly recorded in some fancy library down in hell."

"What uh...does this mean I'm a Full mage?"

"Mmhm," he nodded.

"So I can do things like you and Alastor."

"Well, things like me sure. Alastor is a bit different."

"How?" I pushed.

"Well, in hell, demons who rise through the ranks are called Overlords. They own hundreds and thousands of souls down there. They all seem to have some kind of...super magic. Something specific to them. But Al...he's a completely different monster."

"Why does no one know that you exist?"

He shrugged. "We phased out. Everyone has magic now from the first demons so it's not really...important I guess."

"True but how come demons aren't taking over places like the Overlords?"

"Our powers are dampened a little up here. We're governed by the laws of Mother Nature. In hell, it's a different story."

I fell quiet as my mind made a map with all the information he had given me. I looked down at my black claws and rubbed my fingers together. It felt like I was still in a dream of some sort.

An idea sprung into my head. "Can you teach me how to fly?"

Husker's eyes widened as he looked at my black wings. Then he touched his chin as he thought for a moment. "Sure, why not? But not now..." he motioned for me sit back down. "It's too breezy and there's a storm coming in. Not the best air for learning."

I sat back in the chair and felt the wind. He was right. The wind was stronger and the air smelled more earthy. Speaking of smells, my nose curled when Husker opened another bottle. The alcohol ran straight for my nose and I rubbed at it furiously with the back of my hand.

That's when I noticed my heightened sense of smell. I could smell the old wood of the house, the small fire in the fireplace, and a bunch of other smells I hadn't noticed before. My ears flicked as I picked up the sound of a bird's wings flapping overhead. It flapped its way into the tree line and disappeared back to its nest.

"What is it?" Husker asked.

"I can...I can hear and smell everything." I probably looked like I was in a trance as I walked into the old home to discover the little smells and noises. Everything that was normal sounded so incredibly loud. The small fire crackling sounded like it was right next to me. And of course I could hear Alastor's footsteps as he walked around upstairs.

Husker taught me how to dampen loud noises like the faucet running or the door squeaking open. He made a comment about how I had the most sensitive hearing he’s ever heard of. His tricks helped tremendously to clean up dinner that night.

"Can you show me how you fixed the floor?" I asked him, tapping my clawed feet on the new tile. He looked between me and the floor before agreeing. He always seemed to be a little unsure when I asked him something like that. Was he worried I would use it against him? Or was he worried what Alastor might do?

He went to the study/library and ran his paw across a dusty side table. The top of it came back squeaky clean like it was freshly bought. "Try with one of the legs," he instructed, "Imagine your picking up all the dirt and dust."

The first and second time did nothing. I knew how to use Slight magic so why was Full magic so much harder?

"Use your imagination," he tried next. "And take your time. This is something new."

I clenched my hands into fists for a second before releasing the anger slowly. I took a deep breath. Wrapping my claws carefully around the wood, I dragged my hand down the leg and imagined the wood turning shiny. I opened my eyes and found a clean leg at the very least.

"Keep practicing. You have to exercise your magic muscle," Husker said.

"Sure."

"You have time tonight. Alastor told me he and Rosie had something to take care of tonight."

"Oh, okay." I tried to hide my disappointment. With every meeting I had with Rosie, the more I discovered about my past. I wanted to remember my mother's face so badly. At the very least I knew she didn't purposefully leave me in the rings. Her hand had been forced.

"Try with something simpler." He held out an old lightbulb.

****

As Husker helped me learn and relearn my physical and magic abilities, I started to notice Alastor watching. If I was outside learning to fly, he was on the porch watching. If I was learning to use Full magic in the field, he was watching from one of the many windows. If I was in the library practicing on different objects, he somehow managed to appear in the sitting room observing me quietly.

I mentioned it to Husker but he simply brushed it off as one of Alastor's weird habits. That didn't mean I had to be okay with it.

Husker was fixing the electricity in the dinning room while I was practicing lighting the fire in the sitting room. I had seen Alastor and Husker snap their fingers but when I did it, nothing happened.

"It's all about intent, dear." I jumped at Alastor's voice. He stood behind me with his hands behind his back like always. The stupid cane was like a third eye for him.

"I've got it." I turned my back to him and stared down at the dead logs. I heard him walk past me and sit in one of the chairs, his red eyes never leaving me. I let out a tense sigh. "What do you want?"

"Absolutely nothing."

I scoffed. "I find that hard to believe." I tried again with the fire but nothing happened. "Why are you always watching me?"

"What ever do you mean, dear?"

"Stop calling me that. And I mean every time I'm doing something you're hiding somewhere watching me."

"Is it a crime to watch my soulmate?"

"Don't call me that either." My tail whipped hard against the floor. I was getting frustrated with him and myself. I knelt down and grabbed one of the embers. I could ignite my own hand but how could I not ignite a simple stick?

"Sometimes it's all about imagination," he said, drumming his claws against his cane. "Surely that's not something you're lacking in."

My lip curled in a snarl. I looked down at the hot ember and put it in the corner of the fire place. I looked at one of the logs and closed my eyes. I remembered seeing Full mages lifting air when they wanted to move something. Maybe I could do something similar.

I turned my hand palm up and pictured small flames sticking out from under the wood. They slowly grew bigger until they were catching the neighboring logs on fire. I felt the heat on my face and snapped my eyes open to a working fire. My shock turned into a smile. I had done it.

"Nicely done," Husker said from the stairwell. I stood up and brushed off my pant leg.

"Yes well done," Alastor commented from his chair. "You've got a lot of potential. We just need to harness it properly."

"We?"

"Yes, we." He stood and stepped up to me. He always came ridiculously close, forcing me to take a step back. I noticed that I had grown an inch or two in my demon form, putting me exactly at his shoulder height. “You and me. And Husker of course. But even he has his limits." I heard an angry cat growl from Husker in the dinning room.

"So now that I have power you're interested all of a sudden."

"Of course," he chuckled. "Before I thought you were a meager human with no redeeming qualities. But now I see you have some sweet secrets hidden in that mind if yours."

"I expect nothing less from the Radio Demon. Everything's some kind of string you can benefit from."

"I'm sure you'll come to understand me the more you discover about your power." He put a hand on my shoulder again.

"I don't think I will." I pulled his hand off.

****

I met with Rosie again but I made zero progress. She told me to write down any dreams or memories I had and to keep practicing with my magic. Apparently, I had gotten over the biggest hill but now everything was slow and steady.

I spent the following days restoring the old house to its proper glory. As slow and tiring as it was, I felt accomplished at the end of every day. I had restored all the flooring so they didn't creak so loudly and cleaned up the walls. Thanks to Husker, working electricity reached all over the house.

The library was the next room to be restored properly. I hated spiders but having magic solved that problem for me. I started practicing with using magic from afar so I didn't have to deal with them. Husker thought it was funny.

"My, I love what you've done to the place." Alastor manifested in the middle of the room. I rolled my eyes and shook the curtains until the dust had disappeared and their true colors shone through. Using magic was getting easier but it still made me exhausted. "I knew this old house just needed a woman's touch."

"Well you sure weren't going to do it," I said as I passed him. I took off the color glass shade of a lamp and ran my hand across it.

"I must say, this type of work suits you better than running about on the streets."

I placed the clean shade back on the lamp and took a deep breath. "You ought to remember I'm not your fucking housewife." I turned to find him barely an inch from me. I tilted my head back to stare up at his angry red eyes. My horns were the only thing that were taller than his shoulders.

"You ought to remember my rule about such foul language. It doesn't suite you."

I licked my lips and swallowed hard. Everything in me tensed as I straightened, closing the distance between us. My hands were sweating. "Fuck. You."

His hand grabbed my jaw and shoved me into the bookshelf. I pulled on his wrist as spit dripped out the corners of my mouth. I couldn't swallow with his hand pressed so tightly under my jaw. Breathing felt like I was sucking air through a pillow.

"Let this be your last warning, darling," the radio static coated his words, "Next time I will silence your defiance for an extended period of time. I'm sure you wouldn't want that." I looked up at his yellow smile with half closed eyes. "Now apologize, dear."

What!?

My tail whipped against the bookshelf and I pressed my claws into his wrist. I couldn't understand how someone of his stature had the strength he had. I wanted to swallow so bad.

"I'm waiting, love."

I felt something sharp poke above my lip. He dragged his claw along my upper lip and pressed it painfully in the corner of my mouth. I whined and tried to drop my weight to no avail.

"Three..." he started counting. I wanted to cough but I didn't dare. He pressed harder into the corner of my mouth. I pushed my foot against his leg but something pulled it back down. I couldn't see what had done it.

"Two..." I could see a mark on the corner of his smile that matched the injury he was giving me.

"One-"

"S-sorry."

"What was that dear?" He turned his head and lessened his assault only slightly.

"I'm s-sorry," I sputtered.

"For what, love?"

"For...for cursing."

"Thank you for the apology, darling." He let go and I stumbled to my knees. I swallowed first before coughing a bunch. I touched the puncture wound in the corner of my mouth. "I do hope you've learned your lesson." His feet melted into the shadows and the next second he was completely gone.

My face was hot with embarrassment. I went to the kitchen and padded my lips with warm water. Husker came to check on me but I waved him off. I know he had witnessed it. Even if he wanted to interfere, I don't think he could.

As terrifying as it was, I wasn't ready to give in so easily. Alastor would learn that he still had to treat me like a normal human being. If there was one thing I had learned from the rings, it was how to never give up.

#alastor the radio demon #alastor x reader #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel #soulmate au #soulmates #hazbin husk #hazbin x reader #hazbin hotel husk

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teriri-sayes · 6 days

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Reactions to Chaos Creator's Chapter 285

Brief summary: GoC and Blue Wolf fight. Epley and mage chimera dead. DA excited to create new skill. Cale continues to bleed from his mouth.

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Lots of stuff happened today. We've got two cute moments with Raon and Lock. 🥰 Lock was ecstatic when Cale relied on him for protection. He was really happy that he had now become a reliable protector.

And Raon sort of acknowledged Cale as his dad today! 🥰🥰🥰

Maren: Your dad will be fine because the Blue Wolf is protecting him. Raon: … M-My human is not my dad! Maren: Is that so? *scratches cheek in confusion* I thought he was your dad. Raon: H-Human is a human, and I'm a d-dragon? Maren: So? Is that a problem? Raon: A problem… It's not! Maren: See? Eruhaben: *looks at the two and shakes his head in disbelief*

DA when excited became a talkative guy that Cale even told him to shut up. 😂 Fortunately, DA did not turn Cale into some eldritch horror eye monster something today. Rather, he simply studied how GoC did it in order to create a new skill for the future.

So why was Cale and DA so greatly affected by GoC's power? Because chaos contained everything, including the core of the beginning, the prime of all things. Primal fear then, was what easily defeated Cale and DA. And one of GoC's attacks even tempted Cale with sweet words, like "Come nearer. You can be anything here." This was primal fascination, and if Raon had not interfered, Cale might have fallen victim to GoC.

GoC and Blue Wolf fought with their auras, and afterwards, GoC created a gray tsunami while Blue Wolf split it with his blue flaming wind. In the process, Epley and the mage chimera got consumed by the tsunami. Those two got a taste of their own medicine as they drowned in the tsunami with faces of despair. What a fitting end.

Who won in the end though? It was Blue Wolf. GoC decided to withdraw after leaving the words, "Eventually, chaos will come. That is the law, the rule." What happened afterwards to GoC was reported by poor GoD. 😂

GoD messaged Cale about what was happening in the god realm. After GoC withdrew from the battle against Blue Wolf, they threw a fit and began destroying stuff in the god realm to the point that GoB was pissed and went mad in anger too. 🤣🤣🤣

GoD also sensed Blue Wolf by Cale's side, and talked about how Blue Wolf should just descend to Aipotu, create a new divine item, and build a new flashy temple. Hmm... a new temple for Blue Wolf? Why do I have the feeling it would have the statue of Lock too? 😂

The Ryan mini-arc ended, but our Cale was already planning on his next move (attacking 3rd Star Exion) even though he was bleeding.

Super Rock: It's good that your body is okay and you did not faint. Cale: *blood continues to drip from his mouth* Super Rock: Well, you overexerted yourself so you're bleeding. Everyone: *eyes shaking as they see Cale bleeding from the mouth nonstop* Cale: *thinking of attacking Exion next* Raon and CH: *shaking eyes* Cale: *sees the two and confidently shouts* I didn't faint or cough blood! Super Rock: For now. You will soon if you don't rest. Cale: *ignores Super Rock*

Cale, this is why slacker life continues to elude you. Tsk, tsk. 😒

Ending Remarks I did not expect to see blood from Cale today. Or Epley to die easily like that. Serves her right. For the next chapter, I think it would be the reaction of the beastmen to Lock and Cale. And Cale fainting if he continues to ignore Super Rock's advice.

#tcf spoilers #trash of the count's family

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anneapocalypse · 9 months

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Why Vivienne Needs the Inquisition

No one 'winds up' at Court, my dear. It takes a great deal of effort to arrive there.

–Enchanter Vivienne to the Inquisitor

An ask I received (referring, I think, to something I said in this post, though I've alluded to it at other points as well):

How/why is Vivienne's position at court shakier than it seems? (Please publish this anonymously.)

Thank you for asking! I’ve wanted to write something on this subject for a while, so I appreciate the push to get it all down. It’s something I find really interesting about Vivienne, because it's something she doesn't want the Inquisitor, or anyone, to know, so it's all subtext in the game. Vivienne is a character who always holds the player character at arms' length--a bit less so when she likes them, but there is always some distance there. As such, she's a difficult character to get to know.

And while I do have some issues with the way Vivienne is handled in the game, particularly with narrative and quest design, I won’t be touching on those heavily here. For this post I want to focus on what can be determined about her motivations from the character as written.

Vivienne can be recruited to the Inquisition after the Inquisitor's first trip to Val Royeaux. Notably, she seeks out the Inquisitor's attention herself, inviting them to a gala at the Duke of Ghislain's estate, and also notably, once recruited she will not leave the Inquisition and cannot be forced to leave, no matter how low her approval of the Inquisitor. This is also something I have seen people question: why can't you kick Vivienne out, and why won't she simply leave if she disapproves of your choices? I hope this post will answer that question as well.

The most critical aspect of Vivienne's character to understand, I think, is that she has no stable institutional power. She is not a noble. She has no familial connections of the sort that can help even a mage to keep their head above water. She is a woman who was taken from her family at a young age and raised in an institution, and who has used all her wit and charisma to make the very best of that situation for herself.

Vivienne's position as First Enchanter of Montsimmard is mostly an achievement within the Circle itself. Montsimmard itself, however, was also a stepping stone to influence outside the Circle. Personally, I think the fact that Vivienne declined to join any fraternity when she became a full Enchanter, a shocking move at the time, indicates that she held ambitions outside the Circle from a young age. And Montsimmard was the perfect proving ground for her, a major Orlesian city whose ruling family maintain close relations with the Circle. In The Masked Empire, the Marquise de Montsimmard boasts about dining at the Circle, and she and her husband wear masks adorned with lyrium crystals which we are told were a gift from the First Enchanter. It seems likely, though not confirmed, that this was Vivienne herself.

(Incidentally, it is a real shame that Vivienne’s character seems to have solidified so late in the game’s development, because in retrospect I really feel her absence in the novels. She gets a brief mention in The Masked Empire as Madame de Fer, and absolutely nothing in Asunder, which we'll come back to.)

It seems that the Montsimmard mages were called upon with some regularity to entertain the court, and this is how Vivienne first caught the attention of Duke Bastien in 9:16 Dragon. Within a year, she had moved into a suite in his estate. Her position came under attack for the next few years, but nonetheless, after a single meeting with Empress Celene in 9:20 Dragon, she became the newly-crowned Empress's Court Enchanter.

(Edited to add: It seems to be sometime after this that Vivienne became First Enchanter of Montsimmard, at "an age young enough to cause scandal," though the date is never confirmed that I can find. Incidentally, as @shrovetidecat brought to my attention in the notes, Fiona is also supposed to have been Grand Enchanter of Montsimmard, which given that may be a lore inconsistency, unless Vivienne is only meant to have taken the position after Fiona rose to Grand Enchanter—and I'm not sure why a 40-year-old First Enchanter would be scandalous.)

By the time she meets the Inquisitor, she is likely somewhere in her 40s, and has been the Enchanter to the Imperial Court and the Mistress to the Duke de Ghislain for twenty years. She regularly mingles with the court and has built a practically unprecedented influence for herself in Orlesian high society.

And it's all about to fall apart, for three critical reasons.

First, the obvious: the mage rebellion. One cannot be First Enchanter of a Circle that no longer exists, though Vivienne certainly tries. A majority of mages, even if by a razor-thin margin, have declared that they do not recognize the Circle's authority—and therefore Vivienne's authority as a loyal Enchanter within that system.

I think Vivienne's dialogue with the Inquisitor and her remarks if taken to Redcliffe reveal a deep frustration and resentment of Grand Enchanter Fiona, who called for the vote to leave the Circle and now leads the rebel mages. Vivienne of course handles this in the manner to which she is accustomed, the culture of the Imperial Court, in which trading in verbal jabs and barely-veiled insults is a standard matter of social one-upsmanship. Outside of that environment, she comes across as petty and rude, which is an interesting point of characterization in itself: Vivienne has thrived in the court environment, but she does seem to have a bit of trouble adapting her manner to different circumstances, where that sort of thing might not benefit her. But what she's trying to do is frame herself before the Inquisitor as the reasonable and respectable mage, and Fiona as misguided and pitiable. How well this goes for her, of course, depends on who the Inquisitor is. But the effort itself kind of reveals the shaky ground she's standing on.

In her dialogue with the Inquisitor, Vivienne claims that as the rebel mages follow Fiona, the loyal mages follow her. But where are these loyal mages? There's maybe one or two mages we meet in the game (Enchanter Ellendra comes to mind) who seem to respect Vivienne's word. But if the loyal mages look to her as a leader, why is Ellendra alone in a cave in the Hinterlands to begin with? Why doesn't Vivienne bring a group of these loyal mages with her to Skyhold?

I think it's because Vivienne doesn't truly have followers among the mages, the way Fiona does. This is the story she's telling the Inquisitor, to capitalize on the idea that the rebel position is not a consensus, and also that she still has influence among a significant number of mages. The truth is, she doesn't. She’s spent most of her life courting influence outside the Circle, not in it. She has presided over a Circle where she doesn’t even live day-to-day. I can’t imagine that has particularly endeared her to many of her fellow mages, even the ones who are loyalists or moderates.

Contrast this with Wynne, a pro-Circle Aequitarian who is deeply involved in Circle life despite undertaking sanctioned work outside the tower, and is also deeply involved in the events leading up to the vote for independence. Whatever the Doylist reasons for Vivienne's absense from Asunder, the fact remains: she's just not there. She has no presence in the events leading up to the rebellion. When speaking critically of Fiona's vote, she discusses it in the context of Anders' attack on the Kirkwall Chantry, and says nothing of the circumstances surrounding Fiona's push for a vote—not the revelations about Tranquility, not the conclave (no not that Conclave, the conclave of mages at which Fiona called for the vote for independence), not the subsequent massacre by the templars and the remaining mages' decision to stand and fight. And perhaps most notably, no one mentions Vivienne, positively or negatively, during the events of Asunder. Not once. We are left with the conclusion that Vivienne is simply not heavily involved in Circle politics, no matter what impression she may wish to give the Inquisitor. Her influence does not lie within the Circle.

And I think Vivienne knows this, and realizes that it's suddenly become a big problem for her.

The second big problem is Morrigan.

Vivienne has had the favor of the Empress herself for twenty years. She has, by others' accounts, managed to turn the position of Court Enchanter from "little more than court jester" to a position of influence and respect. And then the Grand Duke attempts a coup, and the Empress's elven lover runs away with a dangerous secret, and suddenly the Empress is enlisting the services of some unwashed swamp witch while Vivienne is standing right there!

Like I cannot overstate what a absolutely galling slap in the face it would be to Vivienne that even as she is attempting to uphold the legitimacy of the Circle and thus of her own authority within it, Celene effectively creates the "Arcane Advisor" position as "Court Mage 2: Apostate Boogaloo" just so she can get advice on non-Circle-approved magics. Advice that Vivienne could not give even if she wanted to, even if the Empress asked, because she has no knowledge of eluvians and ancient elven magic.

Both Dorian and Cole needle Vivienne about her jealousy of Morrigan, and I think quite accurately, no matter how quick Vivienne is to deny it.

Her influence over the Empress is fast eroding. She has been replaced in all but name.

And the third and most personal big problem is Bastien's illness.

Vivienne has enjoyed a romance with one of the empire's most influential nobles for twenty years. She has lived in his home and been on good terms with his wife until her passing. Her influence in the Imperial Court owes a lot to Bastien's affections. Bastien is not only a Duke but a member of the Council of Heralds, the political body responsible for overseeing matters of titles and inheritance in Orlais. They are quite literally the most powerful group in the country; even the Empress rules at their favor, without which she would never have gained the throne in the first place.

And now Bastien is dying, something Vivienne takes care not to mention to the Inquisitor at first. It's not until after the ball at the Winter Palace that Vivienne asks the Inquisitor for help with her potion in a last-ditch attempt to prolong his life—and even then she does not reveal her true purpose until after the Inquisitor has returned with the wyvern's heart. And while it's possible to interpret multiple ways, I personally believe from her response to his death that she did care for Bastien. She didn't need to bring the Inquisitor to his deathbed at all, if she wanted to continue concealing his illness, something she's taken care to do up until that point. It bespeaks a measure of trust that she allows the Inquisitor to see her so—in her grief, as well as in her loss of position.

Because Bastien's death is a terrible loss for Vivienne socially as well as personally. Bastien's son will inherit his estate, and whether Vivienne is allowed to go on living there will be entirely at his discretion. Perhaps he will permit her to stay, but she cannot count upon his grace, nor upon the protection she enjoyed with Bastien any longer; and furthermore if she is allowed to stay, it will be a favor to her, making her beholden rather than granting her greater influence. She won't have the dignity of being Bastien's widow; she is his mistress, and respected as that position may be in the Orlesian court, it gives her no true claim to his family.

Vivienne is about to lose everything she has built for herself.

Without Bastien, without Celene, she will be left with… what? The position of First Enchanter to a Circle that no longer exists? If her own best-case scenario occurs and the rebellion is halted and the Circles are reinstated, then she still loses all the freedom she has gained and is forced to return to a Circle tower herself—a sphere in which, as previously discussed, she holds less influence than she would like the Inquisitor to believe. Even if she remains First Enchanter, it's hard to see this as anything but a massive step down in the social hierarchy, the beginning of a long slide into what the Fade reveals as her greatest fear: irrelevance.

It's a humiliation that Vivienne cannot bear.

This is why she won't leave the Inquisition, no matter how much she may despise the Inquisitor. Vivienne needs the Inquisition far more than she lets on. This even puts the petty low-approval furniture-moving scene into context. Yes, she’s doing it to snub the Inquisitor, but that doesn’t actually gain her anything. I think it’s deeper than that. The Inquisition was Vivienne’s fallback plan, and it’s not going well. The Inquisitor is making her look bad, she is finding no avenue to further advancement here, but she can’t leave. So, her response is to try to reclaim some sense of control over her life, asserting a kind of power she had at Bastien’s estate and was likely denied in the Circle: control over her own space.

Even if Bastien were to live a bit longer, Vivienne really has nowhere higher she can climb in the Imperial Court. She can't become a noble herself. She can't marry Bastien, or any other noble for that matter, because she is a mage. And I'm sure she's highly aware of this fact. Bastien is several years a widower himself; it is not his former marriage that prevents him from marrying her, now. It is her status as a mage which bars her from entering a noble family, legally, socially, politically. That Bastien never seems to have raised the question at all speaks to the fact that no matter how much he may have stuck his neck out for Vivienne, there was a line even he was not interested in crossing.

So where does she have to go from here?

Along comes the nascent Inquisition. Shaking things up. If any organization could rattle the gilded walls of the Chantry, it's this one.

Why not take a stab at the Chantry, at this point? What does she have to lose?

It didn’t really sink in for me for several playthroughs because she isn't wearing cleric's garb, but Bastien's sister Marcelline, who visits Skyhold after his death with Bastien’s son? She's a grand cleric. One of the surviving grand clerics who will decide the next Divine. Vivienne involves the Inquisitor in her plan to save Bastien, a plan she likely knows will fail—but she puts in the effort. She then introduces the Inquisitor to Grand Cleric Marcelline, having told her how the Inquisitor came to her aid. Marcelline expresses gratitude: “Madame de Fer has told us what great trials you faced, trying to save my poor brother’s life.” Bastien’s son Laurent is a powerful ally in his own right, now a member of the Council of Heralds, but also likely the one who will decide whether Vivienne keeps her suite in the Ghislain estate.

And if the conversation goes well, Vivienne tells the Inquisitor that it was "quite the triumph." If the Inquisitor expresses confusion, she patiently explains the influence that both Laurent and Marcelline wield, and that they have now secured the trust of both. If Vivienne becomes Divine, Marcelline’s favor no doubt goes a long way in getting her there.

Of course Vivienne will continue to take a conservative position on the mage question. A mage looking to insinuate herself into the Chantry hierarchy would have to, just as a mage seeking the freedom to consort with the court would have to. In the same way that a Hawke with aspirations of seizing the vacant seat of Kirkwall's Viscount must side with the templars at the end to show the nobility that they represent stability and order, the Chantry's first mage cleric must be pro-Circle, pro-templar, conservative to the bone. Vivienne seems to recognize this as far more important than actually appearing devout. It's also fascinating to me how little she bothers to make any pretense of a personal faith, instead always discussing the Chantry as an important social institution and political body. And this attitude doesn't seem to impede her chances at the Sunburst Throne very much, no more so than being a mage already would.

Vivienne knows exactly what she's doing. She always has.

Vivienne comes to the Inquisition seeking power and influence in the Chantry because her position among the nobility is falling apart. Whether she comes in with the intention to reach for the Sunburst throne itself is debatable, and I personally think it might have been the intent that she does have that ambition but seeks to let the Inquisitor think it was their own idea, though I'm iffy on how successful that is if it was the intent. Nonetheless, I do believe that Vivienne comes to the Inquisition with the intent to seek influence within the Chantry, realizing that the recent upheaval may offer her a unique opportunity to do so. And depending on how closely the Inquisitor aligns with her goals, she may succeed quite dramatically.

References

Codex Entry: Madame de Fer

Talking with Vivienne at Haven and Skyhold

Vivienne's high disapproval scene

After Bastien's death

Banter with Cole

Banter with Dorian

The World of Thedas vol. 2, pp. 235-239 (hardcover edition)

Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, p. 31 (paperback edition)

#vivienne #madame de fer #dragon age meta #dragon age inquisition #the masked empire #asunder #bastien de ghislain #blunders of thedas #ask anne #thedas politics

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vaamiel · 1 month

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My commissions are open!

I drew my dragon age protagonists!

I love them all so much 🥹 I figure I might as well write a lil about them so more info below the cut!

(this is quite long so be warned!)

Athon Surana is my warden!

He's a crunchy little bookworm who would much rather be researching or reading than fighting (or sleeping. Or eating. Or brushing his hair. Pretty much anything else).

He's an arcane warrior. Not because he wanted to be a frontline fighter or wield a sword, but literally because it requires less effort and thought than casting spells in combat. That's not to say he's a bad mage - quite the opposite in fact - but he doesn't want to spend the mental energy on fighting when he could much rather use his brain for Other Things.

Zevran is the love of his life, though I think them getting together is more incidental than anything else. Athon would likely have never sought companionship from anyone at all if he was left to his own devices, but he enjoys the time he spends with zev very much!

I imagine he's currently buried under a pile of books somewhere in Weisshaupt. The events of DAD will absolutely happen around him and he won't even bother to stick his head out of the library.

Garrett Hawke is.. well, you know

I love the default name and appearance for Garrett. The more I play DA2 the more it sticks as the only option for his appearance in my mind 🥲

I think my headcanons for him stick pretty close to canon - maybe with the exception I imagine him being even more pro-mage (perhaps even slightly racial) compared to the options you're provided in-game?

Anders is his romance and Garrett is very much All In on his ideals. Tbh I DO headcanon that he put together the plan about the chantry explosion and never stepped in because he supported the action.

I imagine he and Anders are off galavanting around Weisshaupt, waiting for Athon to finish developing a cure for the taint (and annoying Carver until the end of his days, certainly).

Lennox Trevelyan is my latest inquisitor!

He's the oldest of my three inquisitors, and incidentally the oldest of his siblings as well. Getting sent to the tower at a young age was frustrating and I think he held a lot of resentment toward his family and the circle for being caged as he was.

He also lost his faith during his years in the circle, which was quite jarring for someone raised in such a devout family.

That Lennox never saw any of his siblings or his parents again really Messed Him Up for a long time, and left him with a little bit of an inferiority complex and a smidge of abandonment issues 🥲

The inquisition (and his role in it) made things both better and worse - the power never went to his head, but he was certainly a bit of a radicalist when it came to freedom for mages and equality amongst all those under his command.

His romance is Dorian, and tbh with his disbanding of the inquisition, I imagine he went chasing after him to Tevinter (darn abandonment issues strike again), acting as a liaison for Leliana as divine.

Ashiriel Lavellan is my middle child with a weird AU backstory

SO Ashiriel is my one character that breaks a lot of the established lore. She was inspired by an au I built for myself and then never posted anywhere around... 2018? Where Dorian fled Tevinter with the help of the chargers a year or so early.

Ashiriel never imagined herself a mage. She made it 25 years without any magic manifesting, then during a traumatic incident when caught by some nasty noblemen in the forest, she lit them on fire (and half of herself too).

Basically, to cut an incredibly long-winded backstory short, she was rescued by bull and Dorian after they stumbled upon her. The chargers stayed with clan Lavellan for a time, helping Ashiriel heal and defending them as they moved away from Wycome etc.

They don't meet again until the tear etc, but all this sort of informed how I built Ashiriel in the game!

Cullen is Ashiriel's husband and I imagine they live happily ever after in the woods of ferelden, mutually healing from their extensive trauma 😌

Veren was my first inquisitor!

Veren is a precious little baby, new to the world just like me lmao. We both knew nothing going in to inquisition, so I was a stupid dumb dumb idiot and romanced Solas on my first playthrough with her.

We're both not over it.

Veren is a rogue (the only non-mage out of all my protags haha), but because she loved and trusted Solas, she kind of worked heeding his advice the whole game.

The one exception would be the well of sorrows - still reeling from the breakup she decided to ignore him that one time and... Well, we'll see what happens there, I suppose.

You bet your ass she's chasing that stupid egg across Thedas and beyond. Veren is hella determined and will stop at nothing to try to redeem Solas. Or maybe she's in denial, hard to say.

Anyway, I think that's it! If you managed to sit through all this rambling, thanks! Let me know what you think!

#illustration #my art #oc art #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dragon age 2 #dragon age origins #fanart

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zer05trange · 2 months

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Roaring Sea

IV. Good Things

⋆｡°✩ (childe x fem!reader)✩°｡⋆

⋆｡°✩ wc: 3.5k

⋆｡°✩warnings: angst, graphic violence, slight gore (blood), mentions of sickness and getting sick

⋆｡°✩: series masterlist

“Ivan, you can go ahead and clock out for today,” You say, with your arms deep within the oven, “I do need you all day tomorrow, though. You’ll probably need to close, if that’s okay with you.”

“Yes ma’am,” You hear him from behind you. He should be satisfied with that, he was rightfully busy with school over the past few months, so he hasn’t got many hours in recently.

The boy proceeds to leave the store after getting half of the tips, and when he opens the door, a gust of cold wind blows in. You immediately start shivering. Even with the many years you’ve lived in Snezhnaya, her cold touch always froze you half to death.

As the sun started to set, it began to be more dangerous to be outside for any longer than necessary. Your mind begins to wonder about Tartaglia, and how he’s fairing in the biting weather. It had been around 13 hours since he left you earlier that morning, so he must have felt the frostiness of the winter at some point in the day.

You need to stop thinking about him, though difficult, because the mere thought of him makes you anxious. And at this point, you can’t tell whether the anxiousness is from worriment or excitement. So instead, you try to focus your brain on closing your bakery for the day and serving your last customers.

By the time that the least customer left your bakery, and all of your. closing tasks were finished, it was close to 11:00pm. You sigh as you turn off the lights and head upstairs, locking the door behind you.

You quickly change into some comfortable house-clothes before walking over to the kitchen to heat up the leftover soup that Tartaglia brought the night before. You heat the bowl on the stove and steeping a pot of tea, flipping through pages of a novel while you wait. Eventually, you take your filled bowl and mug over to your sofa, where you begin to eat your meal.

You stare at the wall opposite you, looking at the vast amounts of pictures and paintings that mounted it. If anyone saw you, they'd be able to tell that something was bothering you. That may have been because of Tartaglia’s absence, or the whole Tartaglia situation itself. You can't tell.

You continue to eat and stare, trying to keep your peace amongst your sea of thoughts. And you do achieve some sort of peace for a few minutes.

That is, until you hear loud noises coming from outside the window of your back room.

It makes you jump, at first. There’s yelling, and clashing of metal, and even screams. You quickly, yet quietly, make your way to the source of the sound. The back window faces the other side of Snezhnaya.

There isn’t a nice city street to gaze upon, but rather the isolating and barren landscape of the Snezhanayan mountains. You get close to the window, and even with minimal lighting outside, you can see that there are two groups of people having some sort of… battle.

One group is being cornered against a large, snow-covered rock, while the other, which is much larger in size, approaches them. You realize that the more powerful group is unmistakably a Fatui squad.

There are a few agents, cicin mages, as well as a legionnaire and a vanguard. They’re massive, as well, but they’re forming a protective u-shape around someone. It must be their leader, you think, as the group seemingly follows each meticulous move from the center. You squint your eyes to get a better look at the group causing so much noise, but the darkness outside hinders your ability to get a clear look.

The vanguard lunges for the main leader of the smaller group, which you think is a band of treasure hoarders, and grabs at him. He turns the hoarder around by the back of the neck, where he’s now facing the Fatui group, about four inches off the ground as well. The Fatui leader gets closer to him, barking something unintelligible at the man before bringing his hand up to the neck of the hoarder.

The Fatuu swipes their hand across the man’s neck causing it to slit open. As the leader does so, you could swear that you saw a flash of purple-like lightning. The man’s throat opens and blood gets everywhere. Everywhere. You put your hand over your mouth to cover a gasp as the vanguard drops the man to the ground, whose body is convulsing on its way to death.

This is the first time you’ve seen someone die. Sure, you’ve beat some people up for commissions, even a treasure hoarder or two, but killed someone? Never, and you can’t see yourself doing so. It makes you feel nauseated to see how the man’s life was ripped away so fast.

But you can't look away. You keep watching as the Fatui are signaled by their leader to ambush the rest of the hoarder group. You witness how they butcher each and every one of the smaller, weaker group. You see the hoarders being bashed by the vanguard’s hammer, slashed to pieces by the agent’s blades, and how cicins and frost are released by the mage and legionnaire. You want to look away, but your eyes remain glued to the scene.

Their leader gets in on the action and is somehow more violent and bloodthirsty than the rest, despite being less muscular than the others. You can tell from here that the leader is a man, as well.

He begins to slash and stab using some sort of water-like sword, and you know that means he’s not just some Fatui soldier. He has a vision and a delusion, he must be a harbinger.

The blood of the hoarders soaks into the snow, a deep pool of crimson surrounding the entire scene. The Fatui group starts celebrating in victory as the last hoarder goes silent, and they turn around to head the opposite way. Since they now face your general direction, you attempt to hide yourself while still watching the group. They get closer and closer to the streetlights of the strip you live on, and you stay to see what exactly was going on. Their leader gets into a visible light first, and your eyes blow wide.

The leader has a disgusting grimace on his face, with eyes blown wide and a face of pure malice donning on him. His irises are so small you can barely see them, but rather, a sea of white paints over his eyes. He has a grin akin to the cheshire cat, each corner pulled to a supernatural looking upturn. It’s a face of nightmares, one so scary that it distracts you from the fact that the face belongs to

Tartaglia.

You freeze in place.

No, absolutely no way. It cannot actually be him. There’s no way that the sweet, fun-loving Tartaglia you knew is the same man you were looking at at the moment. It couldn't be possible that the left cheek which is covered in a helpless man’s blood, was the same one that you softly brushed flour off of. The face that you woke up to this morning, the face you kissed this morning, was the same face that donned such a horrifying expression. The eyes that looked at your face with so much adoration, were unrecognizable as they were clouded over in a bloodthirsty haze.

You can’t believe it.

Out the fear of being caught, or pure weakness, you fall to the floor and out of the window's view. You can feel your dinner coming up from your stomach, but you physically cannot move. You’re shaking, you feel so numb that you can’t feel the multiple tears streaming out from your waterline and down your face.

He didn’t just lie to you about his job, but he actively kept it from you. A harbinger one of the most dangerous and well-known individuals in all of Tevyat, has now been frequenting your bakery almost every day.

There’s no way people don’t know, right? More socially knowledgeable Snezhnayans visit your shop every day and must see you happily chatting to a Fatui Harbinger.

It begins to make sense to you, even in a state of shock. His body being covered in scars, the fact that he never took you outside of the bakery, or how he always left in the early hours of the morning.

How many people has he killed? How many dark deeds has he done, and then come into your home to hold and kiss you as if nothing happened?

And his face was so, so horrifying. Distorted to the point where it was almost unrecognizable to the person he’s spent almost every night with. His lightless eyes blown so wide, and even being in the darkness for so long, his pupils were almost invisible.

His smile, not that you could call it that, was so wide and full of pure bloodlust. And there was blood all over his face, the parts that you kissed, held, and brushed over with your thumb almost daily. It was in his mouth, as if he had internal injuries, and matted itself in his hair. The hair you love to brush through, grab at, and ruffle.

Your sobs are silent. At some point, you get yourself to your bathroom, where you sit beside the toilet in case you get sick after what you’ve seen. Through your choked sobs and curled up body, you feel exhaustion setting in. And eventually, with your back against the bathtub, you fall asleep against the cold tile.

the next day

Today was a good day for Ajax. He got through with training his Fatui underlings before lunchtime, and quickly finished off his day with mandatory, though grueling, paperwork. He was working efficiently, but it was very quick-paced, even for him. He knows exactly why he was so quick in his actions today, too. He can’t deny it any longer, he’s fallen for a woman who runs a bakery.

He never thought he’d see the day. He thought his heart was too cold. He wouldn’t even say he had a heart, not after falling down and witnessing the horrors of the abyss. He cared for his family so deeply that the abyss couldn’t even take it away from him, but one other person in his heart? He couldn’t imagine a world where he could let another person into it.

But now he’s living that reality.

He's never felt the feeling of it outside of his immediate family, but he has to be sure about it. The feeling that warmed his frozen heart, is love. It has to be.

And it scares the 11th.

It scares him how much he worries for you once he leaves your presence. It scares him how for the longest time, you acted as if you denied any idea of a future with him. It scares him when he thinks of you moving on from him, and finding someone else. But that recurring thought is more than fright, it brings on anger and anxiety.

As he walks down the city, he thinks of the idea, and immediately brushes it off before his electro delusion sets off. Again.

He needs to tell you about his job, and soon.

It’s not like he intentionally meant to keep it from you from the start, it was Teucer who introduced you to Ajax through his stories, and Ajax had to keep that up around his brother. You just got caught in a protective lie.

And his name, you need to know it. He’ll give it a few more dates, Ajax thinks. He needs you in his future, without the lies and without the cover-ups.

It’s only 5:00PM, and he’s sure that he can get you to close the bakery early to go on your planned date with him. He’s wearing a more put-together and warm outfit than his usual uniform and even found himself double-checking his look in the mirror to look good for you. In his eyes, you’re so gorgeous, too beautiful for his tainted eyes to look upon. So, to try and get even get close to your level of beauty, he took some extra time in getting ready.

He tightens his scarf around the bottom of his face. Man, the weather today is intense. Ajax begins to wonder whether going outside with you is the smartest idea. But it has to be, if it's what you want.

He’s always known that he wants to add to his family, regardless of whether he could ever love again or not. But now, he has someone he loves, and someone that he could see fitting in perfectly to his future. So he has to try, Ajax has to win the battle over your affections.

And if that means he has to be out in the cold, or anywhere else other than the comfort of your little apartment, he would stand out in the weather for thousands of hours. If it meant he could be with you.

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he missed the bakery by a few steps. He quickly retraces them to the front door of the shop, and looks into the bakery from its large glass panes. You aren’t in there, or in sight at least, instead there’s a boy behind the counter.

Oh hell no.

He confidently enters the bakery and makes a bee-line to the front counter.

“Welcome, is there anything I can help you with today?” He hears the man speak.

“Where’s Y/N?” Ajax asks with a friendly tone. But the glint in his eyes is nothing but friendly, instead, he’s staring down the man with dangerous eyes.

“Ms. Y/N is sick at the moment. If you need me to take a word for you, I’ll gladly tell her when she’s bett–”

“No,” Ajax barks at the boy before making his way behind the counter and to the door leading up to your home. He sees who he hopes is just your employee getting ready to defend your privacy, but Ajax just side-eyes him and scoffs before opening the unlocked door, and locking it from behind him.

He makes his way up the steps, as he begins to worry over your health. Sick? In the months he’s known you, you’ve never felt under the weather. Specifically, on the one day he was going to take you out and ask you to be something official with him. That can’t be intentional–right? Not after yesterday morning.

He reaches the front door to your home, and hesitates to turn the knob. What if you’re too sick to see him, or you don’t want to see him? He finds how disgustingly dependent he is when it comes to you.

He turns the knob, finding that it is locked. So he tries to knock, three separate times. On the third, he hears your voice. Oh thank the archons, you’re decent enough to speak. Though your voice is hoarse.

“Ivan? Is that you?” You respond from the other side of the door. Who the fuck is Ivan?

He hears you unlock the door, and open it. He notices you before you notice it’s him, and you do look like you’ve been sick. Your hair is unkempt, and your eyes have darker circles around them, and they’re puffy. You’ve been crying.

He’ll slaughter the person that made you this upset.

But before he can say anything, you lock eyes with him, and sharply inhale through your teeth.

A gasp? Why are you

“How did you get up here?” You hiss at him. Your face is full of fear, as well. Ajax thinks of the thousands of reasons you could possibly be so alert, each possibility making him more anxious.

“Your door was unlocked! We were going out today... right?” He says with a nervous chuckle, trying to qualm whatever mood you were in.

“You can’t be in here,” You respond shakily, taking a step backward from him each second.

“Y/N, what’s wrong?” Ajax says, “Can we talk?”

He closes the door behind him, against your wishes. His face is now as worried as yours is, yet you’re trembling in his presence. Your face is no longer looking at his, now it faces the floor.

“You want to talk now?” Your face still looking at the floor, “Yet you didn’t want to tell me that you’re in the Fatui? That you are a harbinger?”

Oh.

“Y/N, I–”

“You what? Were you ever going to tell me?" You bark quietly.

He stays silent, so you continue.

"When were you going to tell me that when you weren’t with me, you were mercilessly slaughtering helpless people?” Your words are filled with venom, like you were condemning him with your statements.

“Y/N, who told you about this?” He responds, his voice getting shaky itself.

“Why? So you can go kill them too?” Your voice begins to raise before you take a deep breath, “I saw you! and you looked so- so…”

“Y/N–”

“Stop it! Stop saying my name,” You yell at him, “If you wanted to keep this from me, you should maybe be quieter when you go and kill someone right outside of my home.”

“I never meant to keep it from you,” He says, in a voice much quieter than your own.

“Last time I checked, a toy maker was a little different from being a harbinger, Childe.”

The use of his Fatui alias shocked him. Have you just been mulling and researching over this all day? It’s unlike you, almost too unlike you. He never said that name, did he? Where did you get this information?

“A Toy-maker is what I use to keep what I do from my young brother,” He snaps, then realizing the tone he just took with you. He takes a deep breath and a pause before continuing, “I am so sorry. I really am, and I was going to tell you. But I can’t tell just anyone what I do.”

He knows the second it left his mouth, he knew he fucked up.

“Just anyone,” You repeat with a small, pained smile, “you need to leave, now.”

“No– Y/N, I didn’t mean it like that,” He responds, taking a step closer to you. You back away in fear, while simultaneously summoning a sword out of pure elemental energy. You bring your sword in front of you, as a means to protect you.

He stands back, out of respect and shock. You drew your weapon on him... something he never thought you'd do outside of a playful spar. His eyes widen at your gesture, as he puts his hands at his side.

“I am scared,” You almost whisper. He can feel his stomach drop when you mutter it, too. The one person, in all of Tevyat that shouldn’t be scared of him, just declared it right in his presence, "What am I supposed to do, Tartaglia? I mean, I don't even know your name!"

“You have no reason to be scared, you are one of the most protected citizens in this nation. Even when I’m not there, you’re still protected,” He tries to comfort you. But that didn’t work, because your eyes were blown wide at his confession.

“What do you mean by that? Do you have people stalking me?” You yell at him, “Tartaglia I am scared of you. I was scared by what I witnessed. And I am scared of the face I saw on you last night," You spit out nervously. His heart cracks slightly, an unnerving and unfamiliar feeling.

"You enjoy it, don’t you? You enjoy stripping the lives away of others, I could tell. Honestly, Tartaglia, I would be okay with the whole Fatui thing, I would. But your face, and your smile, after killing someone? I don’t think I can–” You cut yourself off, “Please, just leave. I don’t want people watching me, so stop that too. You don’t need to come back either.”

He can’t find the words to explain himself any longer. He wants to scream that he loves you, and he never meant to keep anything from you.

But in a rare defeat, he begins to take steps backward toward the door. The entire time he gets closer to the door, he’s looking at you. He can see how a few tears escaped your eyes, and how the sword you��re holding is shaking along with your body at this point.

“Alright Y/N,” He mutters quietly, before turning the knob and softly closing the door behind him.

He could feel it physically, the heart he thought was no longer there, was breaking. He should’ve seen it coming, he had a few fleeting months of happiness, but all good things must come to an end for him.

⋆｡°✩a/n: this fic is actually anti—situationship propaganda >:). Thank you for reading, next chapter will be out soon!

⋆｡°✩tag list: @inlovewithlondonn @zamorazz @ay4tou @kur0melon @boomie-123 @esthelily @i-simp-for-giyuu @itsflowerdomethings @whatamidoing89 @luvrkise

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be-dazzled · 4 months

Text

All Treats, No Tricks

Gray Fullbuster, Juvia Lockser October 31, 2023 Posted: Decemebr 26, 2023

Writer’s Corner: Months too late but I think the timing worked for me. The ending sounds and feels more wintery/christmas-y, isn't it? I don't feel like this one's good enough as compared to my Juvia Day entry so your honest feedback is very much welcomed. Help me improve!

All rights reserve to Hiro Mashima, original creator.

Masterlist

...

The cold season rolled in and seeped throughout the grounds of Magnolia. Its silent breeze knocked puny, tree branches against locked windows. It howled through the night, prowling the silent grounds of sleeping citizens. For those who made the mistake of forgetting to lock their windows, the October breeze pried into their room and wreaked havoc on all that it could carry. Easily targeted all that weighed close to none. Especially ripping off the pages on the wall calendar and revealing today’s date – October 31, Halloween.

After the fiasco that was the Fairy Tail Horror House of X791, that type of event was forever banned in the town of Magnolia. In its wake a new tradition was born where families were invited to decorate their homes to win lovely prizes, even encouraging them to hand out candies to children going around house to house, mage guilds included.

Rather than eerily quiet, Halloween in Fairy Tail was fun and lively.

The troublemakers – Natsu and Happy – had a good idea of wearing costumes to scare off the children who, in the words of Natsu the Demon King, “dared to enter my house of terror,” punctuating it with a high-pitched maniacal laugh that did not, at all, scare a living soul. But he was enjoying chasing after children who somehow believed Demon Kings existed and that they were ridiculously funny. Erza, wearing the shortest (skimpiest but no one dared to say it) witch costume, took up her sword and pretended to battle the Demon King. She was acting, she claimed but Lucy, the only writer in the room argued that it was an inaccurate depiction and didn’t make any sense plot-wise. Why would a witch have a sword when she had magic powers? But who would take a Leopard Girl seriously? Donned in a tight-fitting onesie that hugged her body like a second skin and accentuated all her dips and curves, Lucy the Sexy Leopard lost all credibility.

A certain ice-make mage, on the other hand, found it all juvenile. Yet, Gray was pursuing kids around the guild, the end of his tape costume riding the wind as he did. He wasn’t a scary mummy, he deduced, since instead of screams of terrors, the guild was filled with children’s ecstatic cheers and giggles. Well, half giggles and half scandalous because the end of Gray’s mummy tape got stuck on some pillar and pulled, making him a half-naked, pervert who happened to wear pants made of strip linen.

Erza smacked him on the back of the head.

So inappropriate.

But not as inappropriate as the thing that he was about to witness.

Juvia, Fairy Tail’s resident water-mage, wasn’t too comfortable with her assigned costume so she kept herself hidden backstage. She watched in the shadows as her comrades showed off their costumes, parading around the Fairy Tail building, welcoming their guests with booze (for the adults), colorful drinks (for the kids) and some imaginative snacks. She wondered how come the only thing that connected her decorated brassiere and the underwear that covered her nether region was just strings snaked around her torso. She asked Erza about it but the only answer she got was the mesh material on her head, some sort of see-through veil, its length reaching her waist but covered nothing. Plus, the heavy and expensive accessories around her neck, arms and wrists made the look less racy than it actually was. They lent her some air of distinct. She did a once-over in front of the mirror, twirling around to inspect herself and couldn’t help but think she might be missing a piece on her costume. Maybe a skirt to cover her lower body? Because she swore her bottom was hanging out.

Erza said the long veil on top of her head covered it enough and that she should stop worrying about it.

She really should worry about it.

Even if Mira and the already drunk Cana assured her that she would be the envy of the room and would surely get Gray the Half-Naked Mummy’s attention. The latter was enough encouragement though, which emboldened Juvia to come out of her hiding. That and finding her self-declared love rival enjoying her time with Mummy Gray, her beloved. She charged towards the two, about to bring hell to the Leopard Girl, when a soft breeze touched her exposed skin and Juvia had another think coming. But it was too late. She was out in the open now and everyone was hollering and whistling at her ensemble. As she watched her comrades strut around in their own Halloween costumes though – the moon princess Mira-chan; vampire Lisanna; Elfman and Evergreen in a couple’s costume ala Adam and Eve; the Thunder Legion Tribe in what appeared to be some sort of forest creatures (were they supposed to be Pokémon and was someone supposed to collect ‘em all?); and archery goddess Wendy – Juvia felt like she pulled the short end of the stick.

Because what the hell was she wearing?

It was a fucked-up gypsy dancer costume if you asked Gray. Beautiful, he’d go as far as saying it was nose-bleed-inducing, but definitely fucked-up. He wasn’t too happy about that.

Even Cana was modestly covered in her own fucked-up priestess costume.

People – ugly men, irritating old geezers, boys that weren’t Gray-sama – started coming up to Juvia with Macao and Wakaba in the lead. She made it obvious she wasn’t comfortable with their attention but the crowd had already gathered around her. She searched for the black spiky hair in it but found her precious Gray-sama still standing beside Leopard Girl. Summoning all her magic power, Juvia immediately fell into her fighting stance, about to tsunami all those perverts out of the way when her vision turned pitch-black.

“Eh?”

She extended her arm to feel for anything, anything at all, that could explain why she was instantly blinded, only to feel strong fingers grab her wrist and whiz her away from the complaining crowd.

“Eh!”

“I guess this is safe for now.”

She didn’t need her eyes to know who it was. Juvia could recognize that voice anywhere, even when it was broken by huffs.

“Gray-sama…”

“Oh, that’s right.”

He swiftly released his grip on her hand and Juvia pouted at the loss of contact. A sudden chill replaced the warmth that encircled her wrist. She didn’t like it.

“Sorry about that.”

“No!” Juvia cleared up, in case he might take it the wrong way, “Gray-sama shouldn’t apologize.”

The water mage wasn’t sure where they went or how far they had come from the guild. But wherever Gray was, she was always safe with him.

“You saved Juvia from the commotion.”

A commotion caused by her inappropriate appearance, Gray ought to say but decided not to. Instead, he said a terse ‘It was nothing’.

Her ears might have deceived her but Juvia could place a grin on his voice. She could imagine that small curve of his lips, wanting to see it with her own eyes but something was still blocking her view. Something soft and rather silky, heavy on her crown too. It covered her from head to toe. She clutched the unidentified veil in her fist and realized it was the same fabric as the covering of the long table back at the guild. Juvia tried to pull on the cloth, trying to get rid of the covering when Gray started speaking again.

“…something like that.”

The covering muffled Gray’s words. As she was trying desperately to uncover herself, Juvia only caught the tail end of what he was saying. She stopped for a moment, tipped her head to the side, deciding whether to ask him to repeat what he said, which would give Gray the impression that she wasn’t listening to him, or just pretend as if she heard him.

Sensing her confusion despite the wall of fabric between them, Gray repeated his words, this time a bit louder and very much clearer than earlier.

“Don’t wear something like that.”

It took her a moment to realize but Juvia caught on to what the ice-make mage meant. It was her scant costume. Remembering how some cloth and some strings strategically covered those areas, Juvia internally agreed with Gray. She shouldn’t be wearing something like that again, nodding her head furiously that she might just break her own neck.

“In public.”

He added before clearing his throat and inviting Juvia to walk around the neighborhood, not giving her an opening to say anything back about his last comment. Juvia had the tendency to twist his words, or rather, which was always the case, point out what exactly he wanted to say but couldn’t.

Don’t wear something like that in public.

He meant only to wear it for him in private, right?

Gray started toward the direction of the crowd, where most people were scattered in small groups. He was saying something Juvia was not able to hear through that thick white covering hanging over her. She followed where she assumed Gray was headed, straining her ears to listen to his footsteps whilst she blindly soldiered on through the veil-made darkness. The water mage was starting to get frustrated with the covering she’d been trying to get out of since earlier. Despite her efforts, she couldn’t find the beginning or end of that long, thick fabric weighing down on her with a smooth but consistent fall, much like her magic – a curtain of water.

Ironic.

And why was Gray not helping her at all? It wasn’t like he was busy keeping quiet since he had all the time in the world to run his mouth about god knows what. His talking was like a soft buzz in Juvia’s ears – a distant noise that didn’t make sense.

Despite the cold breeze and the fact that she was practically naked inside, her body was starting to feel hot. A sheen of perspiration started to form over her skin. The heavy covering not only successfully blocked her view but also any air in and out of her fabric jail.

“G-Gray-sama…” She called out but the thick veil separating them blacked the words out, “…help Juvia~”

Gray hadn’t paid her any attention (deliberately ignoring her or unintentionally forgetting, Juvia wasn’t sure) until the poor water mage kicked on an uneven terrain and tripped. She braced herself for impact, throwing her hands in front of her as she was about to fall on the pavement, face-first. But the impact never came. Instead, Juvia’s body was pressed against something hard. Not as hard as she remembered pavement should be though. Curiosity spurred Juvia to explore this not-a-pavement surface, flattening her palms on what turned out to be Gray’s firm pecs, the slightest bump giving her the idea that she might just be… touching on Gray’s...

She rubbed them just to make sure.

“Uhn… Ju-Juvia…”

And kneaded for better measure.

“T-that’s… he-hey…”

She was definitely right.

Gods do exist!

Juvia could hear the strain in his voice. And something else. Something she wasn’t familiar with. But worry bumped curiosity off first place. Gray sounded like he might be in pain and the idea horrified Juvia that she might be the reason for it. He did break her fall and she was comfortably using her as a human cushion. So, she slid her open palms lower, eliciting more low and strange noises from the man beneath her. She ignored the noise in favor of resting her hands over what she assumed was Gray’s abdomen, intent on pushing herself off him to free her poor savior from his distress. She was a little bit sorry that she had to use his body to do so. Which, unbeknownst to Juvia, was stirring something in Gray that should not be stirred. Not when they were in public like this.

Oh, if Juvia could see the ice-make mage’s reaction now – gritting his teeth and clenching his jaw.

She successfully leaned away, readying to pull her knees so she could prop herself up and fully get off of poor Gray when a cold breeze whizzed past them, magically finding the end of the frustrating veil and blew the hem of the fabric covering her body. Gray was a hero the second time when he slapped that cloth back to its rightful place. Saving the water mage from the embarrassment of public indecent exposure.

“Eeep!”

But bumping her to another level of embarrassment.

Gray only realized where his hands were touching when Juvia’s body wiggled and twisted above him. The force of his ‘heroic act’ slammed Juvia flatly on top of him again.

“G-Gray-sama felt Ju-Ju-Juvia’s bottom!”

She muttered, fidgeting at the heat that spread over both cheeks, either because Gray’s hands were still cupping her ass or the mere force of his slap, or both.

“So, G-Gray-sama was into this kind of… s-s-stuff?” She whispered to herself.

But that wasn’t a whisper. It was more of a loud musing because that one Gray heard through the fabric barrier between them.

“No!” He strongly denied it. “That’s… I’m not… hey!”

For a good minute, they were a tangled mess – him trying to, but very much cautiously, push her off of him, slipping on the fabric when he tried to stand up with Juvia still on top of him, and her trying to pull herself away from him, which proved to be a struggle since Gray just couldn’t stay still. It didn’t help that the thick cloth separating them from each other was too silky and slippery to the touch.

Gray could only cry how that freaking veil was the devil. The devil! And he quickly regretted whisking the long mantle off the table to cover Juvia with, until they finally detached themselves from each other. Both were breathless from the endeavor.

Passersby threw them ugly looks, which made Gray realize that covering Juvia with the table mantle was not one of his brightest ideas. He tried to rearrange the cloth, so that Juvia was still fully covered (her fucked-up costume hidden), but made it so that her head was popping out of the makeshift ghost costume so at least she could see where they were going and avoid another mishap. The water mage, thank goodness, stood still and quiet, as Gray secured the long textile around her neck with a knot made of his mummy tape. He smirked at his creation, proud of his quick thinking. Then broke into cackles he tried to suppress but couldn’t, scrutinizing her attire – a Juvia floating head. Now, that’s a true Halloween costume.

“Gray-sama shouldn’t be laughing at Juvia.” She bemoaned. “Not when he’s looking like that.”

Gray followed her eyes down his lower body to realize he was stripped down to his G x J boxers, using up what remained of his mummy tape costume on Juvia.

“Whoa!”

It was Juvia’s turn to laugh at him. But Gray took no offense to it and joined in, the both of them laughing together and at each other in their poor state. They were so stuck in their own world that Gray belatedly noticed the scandalized glare thrown at both of them – mostly on him – especially by children who were often told to wear something in public.

Gray scooped Juvia off the ground (which was totally unnecessary by everyone’s account) and whisked the water mage, a second time, away from the crime scene.

Young couples are too bold nowadays.

It’s probably because of the full moon.

...

Gray hid them at some back alley. He surreptitiously peeked through the corner, with an unusually quiet water mage still carried in both arms. Only after making sure no one was following after them, not the police or an angry mob, that Gray could finally puff a relief. He settled Juvia on the ground as gently as he could. And wondered why she was running out of breath when Gray did all the running.

“Are you alright, Juvia?”

“Y-y-yes.”

She stuttered. Round blue eyes were spinning like wheels on the run.

“Erm… are you sure?”

She sure didn’t look okay.

Gray was so accustomed to Juvia that he could read her like a book. Every word and every sentence he could easily interpret. And this reaction from her was probably caused by him bolting her away. He should have thought of his actions thoroughly because who knows what Juvia’s creative imagination must have conjured of him holding her in a bridal carry.

Gray and Juvia’s wedding? Them on their honeymoon, crossing the threshold into their master bedroom? Probably, both.

He settled a hand on her shoulders. The thick eyebrows on his forehead were knitted – quite bothered by the possibility that she could still slip into her imaginary land when she had the real thing right in front of her now. Unlike before, Gray had become more receptive to her feelings. And unlike before, he made conscious actions to show that he returned those very feelings. Had he not made it clear to her?

“Juvia…”

His coaxing willed Juvia back to reality, to where she and Gray were in a back alley hiding.

“Juvia is okay, Gray-sama.”

Her blue eyes returned to normal and Gray could slip a sigh of relief. Without a need to worry now, Gray retrieved his hand and suggested they come back to the guild when Juvia’s made-shift cloak started to come undone. Her Halloween costume – the brassiere connected with some barely-there knots – peeked through the opening and threatened to reveal itself in its full glory. Which was bad for Gray for the following reasons: a) Juvia was still half-lying on the ground; b) they were in some dark, back-alley; and c) they were alone in that dark alley.

And d) he was still just wearing his boxers.

“Ju-Juvia!”

But it was Gray’s fingers that yanked the edges of the loosening drape and clasped them together against her chest. Another bad idea of Gray’s now that his fists were pressed down against her breasts. Soft and quite big. Not that it surprised him. He was very much familiar with how Juvia’s breasts felt to the touch. Not that he openly touched them either. Opportunities just happened to present themselves to him. Oh how tortured and conflicted he was. That stirring inside his stomach earlier was rapidly brewing into something that shouldn’t be brewing.

“Uhn…”

What a cute voice!

Damn, it was like the universe was trying to tell him something.

Gray yanked his evil hands and put them back to his side. Away from Juvia’s soft mounds.

“S-s-sorry.”

But that lecherous costume was taunting him again, the deep valley of her breasts peering through the slightest opening. He ordered himself to look away but his sinful eyes did not stray even just a little. So, he chose to just fight the rising heat that burned his cheeks. If she asked, he could blame that one on the weather.

Gray cleared his throat. Thinking that by doing so, Juvia might not notice him ogling. He reached out his hands and started to tighten the mummy tape again around her neck. There was a crisp silence between them, which Gray appreciated. Juvia’s focused gaze at his hands was reason enough for him to struggle to steady his fingers as he looped the tape. But in the end, he was able to fix it.

“All done.”

She thanked him with a lovely smile – the kind that always followed him in his dreams. The warm smile that kept him company when he was alone. The low howl of the October breeze made him aware that they were in a dark alley where people scarcely passed through. It had a wicked way of conjuring today’s moments that the courteous Gray would rather tuck safely into the back of his memory – when Juvia stepped out of hiding in her inappropriate costume; when he unintentionally spanked and cupped her butt-cheeks; when Juvia rubbed her palms over his breasts; and when he fastened the ends of the cloth and accidentally pressed on her soft mounds. These memories he’d rather bury in the depths of his consciousness and only unearth them when he was alone.

Right now, he wasn’t alone. He was with Juvia, the star of those evoking memories, in a place where there was little to no chance of anyone walking in on them if Gray allowed some of his dreams to come alive. Clandestine. He stopped that thought and suggested they walk back to the guild. He needed the exercise.

Juvia pointed out to him his current state and Gray miraculously found some cloak flapping with the wind, hanging outside somebody’s window. It was black, a total contrast to Juvia’s white ones. He figured no one was going to miss that drabby old cloak.

As they took the route to the guild, Gray considered walking Juvia to Fairy Hills instead. But remembered he was barred from showing even just his shadow there. His ban has yet to run its course so the guild – the very place they left earlier – was the sensible place to go, especially since he and Juvia were just wearing make-shift coverings that could unravel anytime. They had to avoid crowds.

Gray was deep in thought when a flash of blue caught his eyes. He snapped his head in its direction, eyes widening in awe at what his vision revealed.

“Look Juvia!” He pointed the all-smiling, happily distracted Juvia to a decorated house where three or four children were walking up to its stoop. “It’s you.”

Juvia followed the direction of Gray’s pointing and scanned the surroundings for anything that resembled herself or whatever it was that reminded her beloved of the water-mage. Surely, it must not have been the waving tube decoration, flapping around something that, when you squint your eyes at the right angle, resembled arms. Or the scary-looking life-sized doll made of blue hay, wearing what appeared to be a blow-up replica of Juvia’s hat. That must not be how he saw Juvia, right?

Without receiving an answer to these questions, Juvia was suddenly yanked against Gray’s side. One arm hung over her shoulder; the weight pulled them both down to a crouch like they were hiding. Their cheeks were close, sharing a border, but not touching, not yet at least. They were just close enough for Juvia to feel his breath on her now-flushed cheek when he covertly spoke to her.

“That one. She looks exactly like you.”

Juvia caught herself gawking at him, at Gray’s face which was fully and resolutely turned to the direction where he was pointing her to. She felt slightly guilty about that because one, that wasn’t even the first physical touch they’d shared just counting the ones they had tonight (not the most daring one either); and two, Gray was heartily showing her something. So, Juvia summoned her focus and followed his direction – towards the girl who was giddily jumping at receiving tons of candies into her basket, the kid version of Phantom Lord Juvia. She was donned in Juvia’s blue winter coat, a teru-teru bozu hanging by the clasp of her collar, and a cute Juvia hat merchandise sitting neatly atop her little head.

Juvia felt a pang in her heart. It was her in the rolled hairstyle the water mage got rid of to forget about that version of her. As the little girl skipped down back to the main road, Juvia felt sorry for the little girl. No child should model after her. Back then, she wasn’t her best self. She was strong yet lonely. Isolated by her own rain. Physically attractive yet gloomy that warmth and fun were foreign concepts to her. A smile, a true warm smile, had never even touched her lips. Simply, ugly. If she could only keep that image to herself and tuck it away where no one else could find it, she would have done so.

The Juvia of the present, the Juvia after joining Fairy Tail, after finally being accepted and loved for who she was and who she was not, was unquestionably the best version of herself yet.

But that twinge was pushed away by the slight curve of Gray’s lips. Warm. Affectionate. Proud. He was still looking at that little girl, at kid Phantom Lord Juvia, with eyes full of interest. Never left her figure as she turned around and hollered at the other two girls on the walkway. Her other two friends looked like shrunken versions of other Fairy Tail members, slowed down by their argument about who collected more candies between them.

“There’s Erza and Mira-chan too.” Gray chuckled. “Brings me back.”

Juvia forgot all about her own thinking, dumbfounded by the look on Gray’s face. Even when the curve on his lips was subtle it was also telling. Because Gray could picture so clearly how the actual Erza and Mira-chan, when they were at the same age as those kids, would squabble over the smallest and silliest things. Much like the kids rounding up their group of three with Juvia-chan. His mind flew to that rare moment when all the kids in the guild were huddled up together in an unusually peaceful group waiting out the night. Simply remembering pulled the corners of his mouth into a small smile – not wistful, not longing, just… content.

Before he even thought of it, Gray was already starting on his feet, with Juvia following closely behind and then, naturally, fell beside him. Stepping into the same stride, the same pace as his. Juvia had caught up to him again, naturally. It had been like that between them for years now. Words have become so moot and inadequate. It was as if they were operating on feelings alone. Like it was the only way they could clearly and completely convey their inner thoughts. And so, with no invitation required, Gray and Juvia explored the neighborhood, feasting their eyes at the sight of scattered children in all sorts, shapes and colors of costumes.

The children walked up to houses. Their eyes shone at the treats dropped inside their baskets. Some ran out screaming in terror, receiving childish and mean scares instead of sweet treats. Others gleefully skipped along the side of the road while peeking inside each other’s loots. The two Fairy Tail mages, however, glowed in pride at the insinuation that the kids put Fairy Tail in such high regard to dress up like them, as members of the strongest guild in the whole of Fiore.

Wasn’t it that imitation was the highest form of flattery?

Out of nowhere, Gray and Juvia started a contest of whoever could spot and recognize Fairy Tail look-alikes more. They discreetly point the children to each other – finding a little Lucy with a mermaid Aquarius who can walk on foot in this version, or the entire Lightning God Tribe whose version of Laxus put on some balloons in place of the original’s muscles.

They spotted another Juvia, this one much younger than the first one they saw earlier, around five or six years old maybe, donning polka-dotted leggings. She had a long-haired older boy in her tail, who she addressed as onii-san, carrying her basket for her. It was quite a picture for Gray, the little girl scolding the older kid, who both Gray and Juvia agreed resembled an Iron Dragon Slayer. At least, even in make-belief, Gray got to see Gajeel being ordered around.

They strolled deeper into the neighborhood and found out that the wizard costumes were not limited to Fairy Tail mages. Gray even flinched at a spitting image of a young but much more handsome (in Gray’s biased opinion) Lyon Vastia. But Juvia noted his mood became even livelier when they met the Lyon impersonator, despite Gray-sama’s act and words of displeasure. At that, Juvia hid a chuckle behind her hand, which Gray noticed.

They hadn't walked that far from where they met and were greeted by a polite version of the fire dragon slayer, when Juvia noticed Gray’s mood turn sullen, even if he tried to hide it with a small but dry grin. She ha dan inkling why. They must have seen ten or twenty versions of Natsu but not a single one of the ice-make mage.

Even Juvia wasn’t happy about that.

“Gray-sama…”

“You want to go back?” He jumped in, not liking the way she looked and sounded worried.

Gray already knew what she was about to say. But it seemed he’d rather not talk about it. Respecting his feelings, the water-mage simply returned his smile, hers understanding and much more genuine than his forced one.

“If Gray-sama prefers.”

“Alright then.”

They turned around, about to take the path back to where they started when something round and hard hit Gray right at the stomach.

“Sorry, Oji-san!”

A small boy bumped into him with a force enough to sway Gray but not to make him lose his balance. He first checked that his basket of candies was intact before the little boy with messy black hair beamed up at him, his smile was pulled so wide that his eyes were almost shut. Cheeks all puffed and flushed and chubby and cute.

He probably got away with anything armed with that smile.

“Greige?!”

But like the other kids his age, the boy quickly abandoned the stranger he bumped into and caught up with his friends.

“Wait for me!”

Gray quickly spun around. A seed of hope sprouted within him, urging his feet to move. He wanted to follow the kid and confirm his suspicion but his own logic stopped him, rooting him in his spot. That would have been impossible. How would Greige cross over Earthland? That boy might have been wearing a zipped-up coat with fluffy collar, the same one Gray remembered Greige of Edolas was wearing, but how could he cross over to their world? Impossible.

Hope had sprouted into longing.

“Greige?”

Juvia’s confusion and Gray’s sudden realization that Juvia was still completely unaware of their child’s existence in another world, pulled him out of his reverie.

“Um… I said ‘engage’.” He quickly lied, feeling warmth rise to his cheeks despite the cold October breeze blowing at them. “I thought he was an enemy or somethin’.” Yet even to him, he wasn’t that convincing.

But how was he supposed to tell Juvia he saw a kid who could pass as a doppelganger of the son they would have in the future but who was already existing as the child of Gray Surge and Juvia, a version of them who were already married and lived and breathed in Edolas?

If Juvia knew about their Edolas counterparts, she would sulk all week and demand that they too get married and make a baby. They weren’t at that point in their relationship yet. They haven’t even kissed! Through no fault of Juvia, of course. Even though she had given her consent to it in no limited terms, Gray just didn’t… he just wasn’t… confident enough.

“Let’s go back, Juvia.”

“Oh, okay.”

He wounded a firm arm around Juvia’s shoulder and secured her at his side to stop the water-mage from looking back at the boy who reminded Gray of his future son. He chanced a last glance at him though and decided his hair was too spiky and a shade lighter than the boy in his memory. He was too tall and too animated to be his prim and proper little Greige.

His mind was probably playing tricks on him.

“Greige.” Juvia tested the name on her tongue. She liked the sound of it, she told Gray, making the man sweat a little.

“H-h-hey Juvia, I told you that’s not what I said.”

“He looked a little bit like Gray-sama, didn’t he?”

Gray couldn’t seem to understand, or rather that he couldn’t believe how Juvia’s soft eyes, that loving gaze that seemed to be only directed at him, had always been a source of comfort. He couldn’t at all wrap his head around the phenomenon of her smile shining so bright to the point that it was blinding, yet he was incapable of looking away.

“You think so?”

She just made a sound, a cute little hmm, eyes now glistening with that gentle mix of pride and joy. Gray couldn’t even fathom how Juvia could grow even more beautiful each day.

Gray glanced back at the boy reuniting with his friends, looking for his own qualities in him. Maybe his dark, unruly hair could be attributed to the ice-mage but the little boy was wrapped in a winter coat, and Gray was known for unwrapping himself from any clothing.

No harm in imaging it though, that maybe the little stranger was copying Gray.

He wasn’t.

Gray wasn’t imagining it when the boy with unruly hair pulled his elbows back to form some sort of hand stance. He definitely did not need to humor himself when he heard the kid say “ice-make…” and pretended like magic power was coming out of his open palms and attacked his friends.

Maybe if Gray got over himself…

“Juvia… are you cold?”

“Hmm?”

And step out of that darkness that was holding him back.

“My place…”

Then maybe…

“… is nearby.”

He didn’t need to imagine anything anymore.

“Yes, Gray-sama.”

#gray x juvia #gruvia #gray fullbuster #juvia lockser #gruvia fanfiction #fairytail #fairytail fanfiction #be-dazzled #gruvia halloween

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jazzmckay · 5 months

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soft little fenders ficlet because the mood struck <3

Anders has been growing his hair out. It hangs past his shoulders now; sometimes he ties it back, other times he leaves it free, lets it fall where it may, not minding when the wind swirls it into tangles. On such occasions, Fenris finds himself running his fingers through it, gauntlet removed and touch gentle, easing the knots loose. Anders' hair is soft, and running his fingers through it feels nice.

From the smile Anders always gives him after, it feels nice to him too, so Fenris keeps doing it, even if he is unused to--and therefore unsure about--giving such simple affections.

It's warm enough on the northern border between the Free Marches and Antiva that Anders ties his hair up in a messy bun more often than not when he goes to work in the tiny garden they've started behind the cabin they're currently inhabiting. It's a nice cabin, and easily defensible, too--they may stay here longer than they've stayed anywhere else.

While Anders tends to the plants, Fenris fills a wash basin and cleans the pile of laundry that has gathered over the past week. His attention is divided, half on his soapy hands, half on Anders. Some strands of his hair fall loose from the tie. If one gets in his face, he blows and shakes it away, still intent on his work. His hands move with practised motions, firm and precise.

By the time Fenris is pinning up their clothes to dry, Anders is finished. He takes the washing basin with him when he goes inside, off to wash up himself.

Fenris follows once he's done his task, and finds Anders sitting on the end of the bed they share, his hands clean and working a brush through his untied hair.

The sight of him makes Fenris still just to take him in, even though he's been treated to the sight of Anders relaxed, in loose, plain clothes, and with the lines of his face smoothed out, many times now. Almost every day, as Kirkwall fades into the past, relinquishing its hold.

Fenris finally steps over to him, and Anders lifts his face to meet his gaze. "Beautiful mage," Fenris murmurs as he cups Anders' cheek and leans down to kiss him.

Anders' fingers clutch the back of Fenris' tunic as he returns the kiss, holding onto him. He always does something of the sort when Fenris initiates, like he needs him closer, needs him to linger as long as possible.

Fenris draws his fingers through Anders' combed hair, both enjoying the sensation and as a gesture of reassurance. When they part from the kiss, Fenris takes the brush from Anders' hand and settles on the mattress with him, picking up from where he interrupted Anders' brushing.

As he passes the brush through Anders' hair, Anders goes boneless, shoulders completely loose and head tipped forward. Fenris can't resist sweeping his hair aside to kiss his nape, which earns him a soft sound of approval.

The last of the tangles are smoothed out easily, then Fenris sets the brush aside on the patchy blanket, bringing both hands up to gather Anders' hair within them. The tie is around Anders' wrist; he would hand it over, if Fenris offered to put his hair back up, but that hadn't crossed Fenris' mind, initially. He only wants to touch, and wants to soothe.

Still, an unexpected inclination comes over him as he's running his fingers through. He parts Anders' hair into a few narrow strands, beginning to weave them in a way that starts forming a braid, even though Fenris has never learned how. At least, he has no recollection of learning how, but muscle memory takes over, and soon Anders' hair is pulled into an intricate braid that starts wide and tapers to a tiny point.

"I didn't know you could do this," Anders says as he raises a hand and brushes his fingers blindly over the braid, feeling the weave of it.

"Neither did I," Fenris admits. "Maybe... I did this for Varania, or our mother. A long time ago."

Anders turns enough to look at him, taking his hand in a comforting hold.

Thinking of his family doesn't sting as much as it did after Varania's betrayal. Fenris is almost at peace with it, almost able to accept a past he doesn't remember but was still important to him, once upon a time. Regardless, Anders is his family now, and the others too, even if they've mostly gone separate ways. Anders is the one here with him, holding his hand and looking at him with love in his eyes.

"I like it," Anders says. "Will you do it for me again?"

Fenris nods. "Whenever you like."

Anders smiles and shifts closer, leaning in to rest against Fenris' chest. Fenris wraps his arm around his shoulders, pulling him even closer, as eager as Anders always is for there to be no space left between them.

#just randomly got the headcanon that fenris can braid hair and ran with it #my fic #dragon age #fenders

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aurora-ze-aquarius · 2 months

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Unfinished Fic: "Sometimes, a bit of rain is all you need"

(Jackson Storm centered fic)

Written sometime in December 2022.

I was never able to finish this story, mainly because I couldn't come up with a proper ending.

This story takes place in an au where magic exists, also the cars are humans too. I never got to flesh it out properly. Maybe next time.

In this au, some people are born with magic, Jackson has the ability to manipulate the weather through his emotions. Basically Peppa from Encanto. I was inspired by greendreamer's fantasy cars/ttte au.

Inspired by a oneshot on ao3 where Jackson had weather magic. Unfortunately, I don't remember what it was called :(

Oh yeah, his real name is supposed to be Jackson Ian Rivera (🇺🇸🇵🇭)

⚠️TW/CW⚠️: Implied child neglect, emotional ab*se, panic attacks.

'Put your cloud away'

Is a phrase he's been told more times that he could count.

The Rivera family is not unfamiliar to weather magic. It's been said that they're a family that has practiced this sort of arcana for generations. They are said to be able to summon winds and clouds, to make it rain at will. A Stormbringer is said to be able to control an average area of about 30 meters in diameter surrounding them. The more powerful mages can control the winds up to a mile away. The more refined the user is in their magic, the stronger and more controlled it is.

They are a proud family, not to mention rich and wealthy. Proud to display their powerful and unique arcana. Majestic eyes of the storms. Something Jackson is not.

Arcana. How he despises it. The magic has brought nothing but misery and pain in his life.

Unlike most of his family members, Jackson was born with a curse. A curse in which his arcana is deeply intertwined with his emotions. Arcana in its very nature, is heavily intertwined with one's thoughts and emotions. Losing control of how one feels means losing control of one's connections with their magic. But Jackson's case is different.

Whenever he's happy, skies are clear, as the breezes are light. Whenever he's not, rain begins to pour, as the thunder claps loudly. Not to mention, how unusually powerful his arcana is compared to most of his family members.

'Put your cloud away' they'd say. They would tell the young child that whenever he would misbehave in their eyes. Whenever tears swelled up in the corners of his retinas as small raindrops began to fall, dampening his once neatened clothes and hair.

'Put your cloud away' they'd say- whenever the boy would feel frustrated, perhaps even angry, and would throw tantrums. Whenever lightning flashed, when he felt like they didn't understand him, why even felt that way in the first place.

'Put your cloud away' they'd say- when dark skies and strong winds would cover almost every square inch of their large mansion. When the boy tried… he tried so hard, yet failed and 'couldn't keep his emotions in check' according to them.

It wasn't his fault though… was it..?

There's a reason why Jackson failed to connect to other people. They were either deemed not good enough to be his friends, or they would make fun of him and his interests. His family was of no help to those issues.

Honestly? He found it hilarious how shocked that so-called family was when he decided to finally cut them out of his life once IGNTR found him.

Despite having them out of his life, he could never rid himself of their, and subsequently, his views on his arcana. It's part of him, and he hates it. No matter what he did, it was always there. Continuously taunting him, whilst being just out of reach.

Despite them being gone, he knows better than to have a cloud constantly follow him whenever he's in a bad mood.

Jackson hopped out of the car, panting as sweat beads dripped from his forehead. He turned towards the large monitor and growled, unsatisfied with his results.

" '214 mph'. You're doing good." Ray said, crossing his arms.

Jackson scoffed, wiping his sweat with an arm. "Not good enough…" Thunder crackled, as faint drips of water fell down from above him.

Ray took note of this and sighed. He patted Jackson's shoulder and said, "You did good today, Storm. Take it easy."

Jackson glared at him, but immediately tore his gaze to the small cloud that loomed above him. He gritted his teeth, wanting to curse it out but instead heaved a sigh, closing his eyes.

"Put your cloud away… Put your cloud away…" He whispered to himself, taking deep breaths. He repeated this process until the rain stopped, the thunder ceased and the cloud disappeared.

He opened his eyes. He turned away from the simulator and began to leave the room. "I can do better… I will do better…"

"Your powers are great, but far too unstable… Keep your cloud away…

You could kill someone with that lightning bolt."

Jackson stared at the large monitor that stood tall above the stadium. His breath hitched, eyes widened in shock.

"I… I…"

It wasn't his name that took first place. But instead, McQueen and his little costume girl stole the win from him. Little shit appeared out of nowhere and stole the win for herself.

His grip on the steering wheel tightened. He felt a vein almost pop.

"FUCK." He screamed. He nearly got into a tangent when the sound of thunder crackling grabbed his attention. A mass of large clouds seemed to have manifested out of nowhere and had covered the stadium, blocking out the starlight from reaching the people.

"What's this Darrel? It seems like rain clouds have appeared out of nowhere."

"It looks to me like someone's arcana is going haywire! Hopefully things will calm down before they get crazy. And it's already been a pretty crazy day!"

Jackson swallowed a gulp. 'Shit. Not now—!'

Turning his car on he quickly made his way to where his trailer was. The paparazzi wanted his attention, but thankfully security kept them out of his way, lest someone gets injured due to getting in the way of his car. He quickly drove into the trailer and shut the door, not wanting to face the public. Not wanting to face Ray, McQueen, the other racers, and especially not that costume girl.

He was panting, breaths were heavy and uneven as the reality set in. He lost. He lost to a random street racer. He lost his cool and almost killed someone, again. He lost his calm and now his storm—

He stiffens. That cloud. It shrouded the whole area. It was massive.

Jackson slowly backed into a corner, hugging himself. His back slid against the wall as he began chanting the words.

"Put your cloud away… put your cloud away… put your cloud away… put it away… just fucking put it away…"

He didn't know how long it took for the dark clouds to disappear; he fell asleep on the floor. But they did disappear just moments before he closed his eyes. Luckily before any raindrops fell and spoiled the day for the racing fans.

Jackson was pacing back and forth, still chanting about how his cloud needs to 'go away'. He just wrapped up another training session, and had stormed off to IGNTR's back gardens when he failed to break through 214 mps.

He gripped his hair, yelling out in frustration. His clothes were soaked, not only from the sweat from training. The rain cloud above him thundered, flashing a bit of lightning once in a while. Jackson tried to swat it away, despite his futile efforts.

"GO AWAY. DAMMIT."

Ray watched him from a window heaving a sigh. He was worried. Jackson's storms seemed to be getting worse each time he lost a race, whether it was against Cruz or a different racer. He knew Jackson was a perfectionist at heart, and has tried multiple times to get him to understand that it's not just about winning, but each time, his pleas would fall on deaf ears.

He knows the boy has it in him to change. But Jackson's mind is clouded in poor judgement, and it pains him to see him this way. That's not even mentioning Jackson's terrible coping mechanisms.

Ray sighed, crossing his arms. "There's no need to force your cloud away…" He mumbled. "There's nothing wrong with a bit of rain every once in a while…" He watched as Jackson seemed to have given up, and just seemed to be standing there, underneath the ever growing storm.

"I just hope you can realize that one day…"

---

Jackson didn't know how he was dragged into this situation. He was at a party. A party to celebrate the success of the latest race. He won the race (thankfully) of course, but he absolutely despised going to events like these.

Too many people here. Possibly drunkards just partying it up with A-list celebrities and fellow racers.

Ray somehow managed to convince him to go. Says he "needs to make peace with the other racers'' or that "he has to try to be nicer to them." He doesn't understand it at all. It's been this way for years. Jackson's already used to it. But nonetheless, he managed to reluctantly drag his ass here.

It took less than five minutes of just standing around in the middle of the room for Jackson to immediately say 'fuck it' and make his way onto the rooftop of the building, away from where everyone else is at.

He sighed, elbows propped up against the concrete railings. Ray would be disappointed, but he could just lie and say nobody wanted to talk to him. Well technically, it wouldn't be lying when that's exactly what happened. Nobody knew he was here, and thus nobody could talk to him.

"Hello?"

Until someone else made their way to the rooftop as well.

Jackson sharply inhaled, the winds howled, the cold breezes blowing past his face. He knew who that voice belonged to.

"Brr. Really chilly here, huh?" She joked, rubbing her arms as a means to keep warm. Jackson attempted to ignore her, staring off into the distance, a can of cranberry flavored Sprite in his hand.

"Hey um. Would you mind if I stayed here for a bit?" She asked, walking up right next to him. Well, she lingered just away from him, but just close enough where she could talk to him.

Jackson groaned, lightly crushing the half empty can in his hands. "What do you want, Ramirez?"

[Unfinished Ending]

#unfinished fanfic #pixar cars #cars fandom #pixar #cars 3 (2017)#jackson storm #humanized cars #🌌⚠️#read the trigger warnings

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angelbitezzz · 6 days

Text

SO 👏

I been thinking really hard about how I'll be writing magic for whatever undertale related stuff I write.

If viewed as straightforward, we get an example of magic that could be reasonably tied to every human soul "trait" (more on that later) in undertale proper. Listed as follows:

Cyan magic: Tied to patience, requires targets to stop in order to avoid damage. Many monsters in Snowdin use it, though notably Papyrus, Sans and Asgore have used it

Orange magic: Tied to bravery, requires targets to move in order to avoid damage. Many monsters in Hotland use it, but a notable example would be Asgore as well

Green magic: Tied to kindness, could be reasonably tied to healing magic since healing is often associated with the color green, not to mention the game requires you to touch a green attack on some occasions (such as vegetoid's healing veggies). Plus Undyne and her turning you green, forcing you to stop moving but giving you the opportunity to protect yourself in the process

Blue magic: Tied to Integrity, likely something to do with gravity. Notable example is Papyrus and Sans, though Papyrus only uses it to weigh you down, versus Sans using it to throw you around (or maybe forcibly changing your direction of gravity?)

Yellow Magic: Tied to Justice, seems to be used strictly offensively? Notably, monsters don't use it against you, but Frisk is given the opportunity to use it during the Mettaton fights. However, I believe that the Karma poison damage from Sans's fight is because he's actively using Yellow magic at the time

Purple magic: Tied to perseverance. An oddball magic type, because the only Real example we get of it is during the Muffet fight. And since she's not technically part of the main cast despite having such a unique and notable boss fight, we don't get Much information on her personally to make any real guesses or judgements. And THIS is my sticking point, the thing I think about a lot

Muffet turns your soul purple, and you find yourself only able to move along the webbing that she strings up along the battle screen. You can't stray from the lines, you can only pass from line to line and move along them, until the magic wears off and you can move freely.

I have been thinking of how these magic types can be tied to elements as well, since we see a lot of certain kinds of monsters use certain types. I'll list my thoughts below

Cyan: Ice

Orange: Fire

Blue: Water/Or just straight up. Gravity. I know it's not traditional in a sense but we don't really get much on this one either bear with me

Green: Plant-life

Yellow: Electricity

Purple: And AGAIN I come up blank. Best I could figure? Earth. Rock. Or, conversely, the wind. Air. Something adaptable.

Purple stands out. It's a different sort of "trait" compared to the others, because all the others are straightforward. Anyone can define themselves by their Bravery, or their Kindness, or their sense of Justice, but who is defining themselves by how much they Persevere? Or Persist?

Soul Traits as I write them in TSoT or even Crossbones and Starstruck arent the end all be all of a person. It's simply tied to what chiefly motivates them. If they happen to be a mage, then the magic they use corresponds to that motivation, to that Color of magic. There's no right or wrong trait here, only intent.

Intent is important, intent is what causes you to be able to clear the genocide route so easily! Because the game knows you're going out of your way to grind—in short, you do more damage because you want to do more damage. If you don't want to hurt someone, then it's reflected in your attack. That is why monsters were so vulnerable during the war, because human vitriol made it all the easier for monster populations to be decimated.

Swinging back around to Perseverance: I think this trait—this magic, is completely personal. I think it reflects the user more so than the others because the point is to persevere—to survive. To Get Through This Shit. It's adaptability at its core.

Muffet is in a position where her family is split by the cold of Snowdin, and it seems like her family is extremely important to her, all posturing and threat displays and money hungry persona is masking the fact that she is concerned with and takes care of her own. And they care for her in turn—they do everything she asks, assist in the fight with you and help run her bake sakes, and upon her death you are greeted with a solemn scene of one of them rushing up to drop a flower where she stood and then rushing off again.

Adaptability and survival is important, but the best way to adapt and survive is to lean on others. Find your people, build your village and so on. She's never doing this alone. She knows this and it strengthens her. Her fight wouldn't be nearly as tough if she didn't have her spiders helping with it.

And ideally, a user of purple magic gets that strength from their loved ones. How that magic manifests depends on the person, as I've said before.

Muffet is a spider. She traps you in a web. Subtextually, one could argue that your connections to others are like a web expanding outwards to those that you know.

Angel, my self insert, has the perseverance soul trait. In Crossbones and Starstruck, you've seen her use purple magic once—to force her health to stop depleting. In a physical sense, she stopped the bleeding entirely, if only briefly. Ensuring her continued survival until help arrived. What else she can do with her magic, if anything, remains yet to be seen. But I'll tell you what—

Connections are important. Acknowledging your love for others only strengthens you. Electing to pretend that someone isn't important to you out of misguided fear of being rejected or misunderstood only hurts you, and thus, your magic.

:-)

#undertale #headcanons #the state of things fic #tsot fic #crossbones and starstruck #angel talks #hi ive been thinking about this a lot but im tooo tired to be concise so this is what you get #enjoy

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lily-orchard · 2 months

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I think the best take Nintendo ever had on LOZ was making it so the hero of wind wasn’t a reincarnation or anything he was just some fucking menace that loved his sister, it feels like that embodies the idea of a “chosen hero” better than some sort of predetermined thing, since Windwaker is your favorite game, I was curious as to what you thought! Would you scrap the whole “born with the triforce” thing if you could?

Oh yeah. Wind Waker's setup is basically BG2. "This fucking mage took my sister! I'm gonna team up with this pirate lesbian god and wreck his shit!"

Fucking amazing.

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tgrailwar-zero · 10 months

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Avenger/TGHW Grail Terminal Alpha/A Narrating Voice, do you know if there are any sorts of programs we can run in this space, or should we try talking to the Admin?

'A NARRATING VOICE': "Considering I'm doing this behind the Admin's back? Uh, maybe don't call her. I'm backdoor-ing this shit."

"Right, right. Good to see you too and all that. I mean, I'm being flippant, but underneath my cold, dead, sarcasm is a bit of joy. Aaanyways. Before you go stir crazy, let's get practical. Just... gimmie a second." He rummaged around a bit... or at least it sounded like he was- it was endless darkness here- before raising a hand. "Found it! Item get!"

"So, some of you will remember a while ago when I stole a kiss from you and then revealed that the 'affection points' were me stealing your magical energy so that I could cheat the system and jury rig a contract? Well… that special moment we shared once the Preliminary War Ended… the one that netted you all that 'Super Affection Point'…"

"…Was one last hunk of magical energy I swiped from you guys, just in case! I know, I know. Ain't I a rascal? Anyways, hyah!"

...The Super Affection Point was thrown! The Super Affection Point has been converted into three Command Spells, and has torn an opening in the Grail War…! "This'll be a big one. Literally, this Spirit Origin will be dense as hell. After all, you'll need firepower. If I bring you back, you really will be Interlopers to the system- and by default, everyone's enemy. Which means you'll need tough Servants to survive the onslaught, so pick. Also, maybe it'll serve as idiot-proofing. Maybe? Doubt it, but no harm in trying. I'll also just… iterate, that these options are… how would you say it… randomized? As if they were put through a (theoretical) randomizer and then given as options. Anyways, go! Pick! Now!"

'A NARRATING VOICE': "Sheesh, look at these guys. I'd hate to be on their bad side. Have you ever noticed that even the most 'Heroic' of Heroic Spirits are like, super violent?"

ARCHER

The demigod son of Poseidon, and one of Greece's greatest hunters- the man who shot down the goddess of the moon. With top-ranked parameters in almost every statistic, as a warrior his talent is unmatched. However, he tends to falter a bit when it comes to vices, easily distracted by beautiful women and constantly haunted by a lunar presence (girlfriend).

Strength: A

Endurance: A

Agility: B+

Mana: C

Luck: A

NP: EX

Starting Health: 11

Starting Mana: 7

FOREIGNER

A mysterious presence from beyond the stars-- or perhaps a refreshing wind from the cosmos. Her nature is considered 'theoretical', even as a Servant in the Solar Cell, and may be linked to an item retrieved beforehand. Despite her incredible might, she is ultimately inexperienced, both as a warrior and a Servant.

Strength: C

Endurance: C

Agility: B

Mana: EX

Luck: A

NP: B++

Starting Health: 7

Starting Mana: 13

CASTER

The Mage of Flowers. Possessing incredible magical talent, and wisdom that would be renowned for ages, this Caster is one of the defining members of his class. However, his personality does make him a bit difficult to get along with at times, as he tends to be more of a 'big picture' thinker with his own vices.

Strength: B

Endurance: E

Agility: D

Mana: A

Luck: C

NP: C

Starting Health: 5

Starting Mana: 11

'A NARRATING VOICE': "You know, if it was up to me, I'd say- 'if everyone'll treat you like your evil, then go all in'. Nothing wrong with getting some help from the dark side! Anyways, I now present 'Column B'!"

BEAST II

A Primordial Deity who's greatest sin is the inability to let go. Powerful, commanding, and… smothering, she is a proud Servant that considers everyone her 'children'. If she were to be summoned, the constraints of the Solar Cell would put her in a larval form. However, with enough time and mana (or the cry of the Command Spell), she could briefly attain her full might as Primordial Mother.

Strength: C

Endurance: C

Agility: D

Mana: A

Luck: EX

NP: EX

Starting Health: 7

Starting Mana: 11 (Statistics are variable based on form.)

BEAST VI/S

A bright, burning Emperor of Roses. A violent ruler that approves of avarice and depravity, and watches the incineration of the world with a confident smile on her face. Despite her more affable nature, this Beast is almost certainly 'Evil', and should therefore be treated with care. However, in another time and another place, she has stood with- and against- a fox demon.

Strength: B

Endurance: B+

Agility: A

Mana: A

Luck: D

NP: B

Starting Health: 10

Starting Mana: 11 (Statistics are variable based on form.)

BEAST OF THE PLANET

The Mage of Flowers. Possessing incredible magical talent, and wisdom that would be renowned for ages, this prospective Beast is one of the defining members of her class-- uh, déjà vu, much? However, she is also prone to acting in accordance to whatever amuses her more, meaning that despite ultimately being an invaluable ally, there will certainly be challenges.

Strength: E

Endurance: E

Agility: C+

Mana: A++

Luck: A

NP: A

Starting Health: 3

Starting Mana: 12

#main post #thgw story #thgw: chapter 3 #liminal chat

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blackstarchanx3new · 8 months

Text

FSR Rambles 12 times Vaati got his ass kicked

Insanity, Vaati being pathetic.

What's new?

Ooop. Zelda showing off how she'll kill you within 2 seconds of being in HER castle.

Link's letter was smth addressed earlier: He warned her with a letter he was going to pull the sword.

Which implies a certain amount of impersonal-ness to the action. He didn't want her talking him out of it lmfao. He was already struggling with defying Vio's persistence so it makes sense he didn't want Zelda to try and logic his ass either.

Her outfit being the sneaky armor in botw, presumably so she could sneak attack, whoever ended up attacking her.

I thought it'd also be a fun throwback to Sheik and spoiler:

Zelda's gender identity is pretty open. Link referred to her with "They" pronouns earlier in the comic but I didn't feel it was very relevant to bring up at the time lmfao. Zelda's all sorts of gender in this comic to say the least.

The reason why Vaati knows she's around is smth I'll get into later when it's more relevant.

"Damn would you have preferred Gannon???" - Vaati probably.

Zelda isn't playing around she wants to know where her blonde twink is at.

Vaati is a bitch about it of course.

Oh she mad.

She real mad.

"PATRICK THATS NOT A HOOKER!!!"

"It's not?"

"ITS A BOMB 💣!!!!"

Vaatis stupid as hell expression before she goes boom is hilarious to me.

Smth people seem to be CONFUSED about fsr is Vaati's not so subtle Zelda simping.

Vaati is a Zelda simp, that's really all there is too it. The extent of that simping is smth I've joked about a lot.

So he got his ass handed to him.

Shadow himself noted vaati must be weak as hell earlier so. Guess he was right.

Smth of note: vaati is struggling to keep his form in the "wind mage" form. As his body keeps trying to revert to the "wind demon" design

Those titles are used interchangeably in the manga but I call his Hylian disguise his "wind mage" form and the demon form his "wind demon" form personally.

Zelda casually drops the fact she was trying to murder Vaati with that blast. She isn't playing around. Makes sense this asshole held her prisoner for who knows how long before and did something to her best friend.

Haha vaatis pathetic and also in pain.

Good.

His suffering is all the direct cause of his own actions so...hard to feel TOO bad for him rn.

Zelda certainly doesn't.

Link’s shitty state outright made her a more cold hearted person it seems.

Not that'd I'd blame her for that lmfao.

Vaati struggling to get back to being handsome lmfao.

Vaati, my bro, when are you going to do a single thing for yourself????

Okay but the implication Dark Link let Vaati get his ass kicked and only jumped in to help when Vaati called for help is very funny.

Dark links comedically large sword is just interesting. It's not a four sword replica like Shadow’s.

Zelda is in shock at the weird Link coming out of nowhere.

Darks immediate reaction of being flustered at seeing Zelda is so funny to me.

"HYLIA'S MASSIVE TITS, IT'S A WOMAN!!!"

And fun note: This is the first time Dark's actually for reals appeared in the physical world and not just in the "Headspace".

Subtly creepy he isn't just a mental problem but a physical danger as well.

His attack was very calculated, as he didn't hurt Zelda and just slammed his sword in front of her...

...Haven't we seen smth...SIMILAR TO THIS?

Huh well, look at that...

Sweaty weirdo Dark Link enters the chat.

No it was not just for the memes he's actually just like that lmfao.

So from what we know about Dark so far there's some things to note:

Our buddy boy can see the memories of others and "live" through their experiences.

Yall see what it is getting at right?

Shadow link, Vio, and Vaati's emotions and memories are influencing Darks inability to harm Zelda here.

And perhaps he formed feeling a certain kind of way about her.

He associates her with positive feelings lmfao.

Their influence aside, he still chooses not to hurt her on his own.

Vaati’s reaction is priceless.

Zelda seems to grant Dark some mercy, assumably because he outright denied Vaati here lol.

For his sparing of Zelda he gets squished like a dog toy. Poor Dark Link.

Vaati leaves with his dumbass lackey.

When you casualy blow a hole in your castle lmfao.

She's overwhelmed.

She need break.

She need hug.

She need...Link.

Pff.

Guys, he has self-awareness...fuck.

Vaati, that was just unnecessarily mean to your lackey.

Also Dark Link appearance wise:

His hair color has changed. It's purple toned now when it was grey blue toned earlier....

Okay I'll stop being coy it's because he's mimicking Vio's appearance.

Oh. Well, that's a face, alright...

Is he ANGRY? Is he HAPPY?

Did he make that face because he knows it'd freak Vaati out?

Vaati’s abusive bullshit doesn't seem to damper his mood at least as he's smiling in the 3rd panel.

Dark link and Shadow link are very different people, ESPECIALY when it comes to how they cope with Vaati's abuse.

It left a mark on Shadow where as as of right now at least, Dark acts MOSTLY unbothered by it.

Let's face it rn his idea of normal relationships are Shadow and vio lmfaoooooooo-

The dudes who both almost murdered each other.

Pff

His "I want kisses too" line will never not get a laugh out of me.

It's so indicative of how he actually feels.

He wants kisses.

He drops that Shadow is the demon king and for a second you gotta wonder if Vaati was like

"...Why is Gannon smooching Vio?????"

Dark Link also wants to dance. Both are things he saw Vio and Shadow do, mind you...

Vaati has no idea wtf is going on lmfao.

Dark has eclipsed him as the true villain of this comic-

I say in jest.

Dark casually recaps stuff we already kinda know.

While trying to dance with Vaati pff.

Funny enough, taking the lead in said dance, which reflects how he's the one doing all the work rn.

So, Dark link is interpreting peoples feelings, not 100% understanding them. 🤔

He has to actually think about Blue's emotional state hah and even seems surprised.

It's funny to think that even Green picked up on blue being jealous, and basically everyone did, but Dark had to think about it...

Kinda shows he doesn't really understand people much. Like TRUELY.

Or he's just not as interested in blue vs Vio and Shadow.

Dark stutters again like he did when he was face to face with Zelda.

Vaatis so mean mocking his stutter and continues to berate him.

Well that was an outburst.

And I finally get to talk in detail about Dark Link’s "mechanics" for a lack of a better term will expand on the next page.

Design/art wise:

Dark's teeth are all sharp here when normally, despite being a demon his teeth are flat/human looking teeth.

The background is a more red version of the head-space Vio and Green have been dragged to when Dark talks to them/at them.

Immediately he's back to being himself.

Weirdly happy, which settles in the true horror of the previous outbirst:

He didn't mean, a single word of what he just said.

He said that, PURELY to hurt Vaati because it's something that Vaati already feels about himself. He wasn't actually MAD at Vaati and snapping in response to Vaati's abuse. He was just reflecting Vaati's anger right back at him.

So smth about Dark:

He often reflects DIRECTLY how others behave.

Instances of such:

The madder Vaati got in this talk, the "angrier" Dark Link got right back at him.

He shouted at Dark to "Do something" and he responded angrily back that he didn't want to hurt Zelda.

He shouted and berated Dark Link causing Dark to shout that nobody loves Vaati.

Dark Link's nature is to be calm, quiet, pretty "Happy" and kinda hopelessly romantic lmao. He wants to have his idea of "Fun" with people.

He MIMICS people.

Dark has no identity of his own (At least he doesn't seem to realize he does) so often he just bounces off people. He only takes joy in hurting others atm.

Not even in an outright malicious way. At least not the kind of malicious that's "haha I broke the hero because I hate him". This is just what his idea of "Fun" is. What his idea of normal interactions are. This is just what he's suposed to be doing rn.

He isn't acting much outside of his direct reason for creation. What he even deems as fun is indicative of his creation as well.

Engaging with their range of emotions and characters and memories he deems interesting is FUN to him.

If his dialogue from page 121 is anything to go off of, bro really doesn't give a shit about his job. He just wants to have fun:

He finds it amusing Shadow can ALSO manipulate people's feelings, outright kind of complimenting him for it.

And then gets hopelessly distracted and starts talking about what he'd "Rather do" right now.

Which involves hugging Vio and reading oop.

He didn't get SUPER involved/invested in Shadow's memories until Vio and Shadow were doing more "interesting" things, at least in Dark's opinion of what is "interesting."

Dark wants to engage in relationships lmfao. But he's stuck engaging with memories living though them vicariously and hurting people he supposedly "Likes".

He wants to dance with someone and kiss them and in general have "happy" moments with someone. But is stuck being a curse that's only purpose is to break the hero apart and reflect negativity.

It's kinda sad.

But he clearly hasn't reflected on his own life/situation outside of Vaati's feelings towards him.

Also: Dark has no desire to kill any of the Link or Link himself...keep this in mind.

Again: He reflects Vaati's mood of annoyance with that face in the second panel. Which kills me. You just know Vaati's making the same face off screen lmfao.

Symbolism symbolism

Dark plucks the violet but leaves the silent princess alone outside of petting it. Call back to how he left Zelda alone.

He says more stuff we kinda already know, but recapping is good. Actually, we spent like 100 pages in flashbacks, hah.

It also shows what Dark learned/his takeaway from watching their interactions.

Haha oh Dark why are you ripping petals out?

There's smth to be said about him ripping the petals out as the game "She loves me, she loves me not" is a vibe that's being invoked here.

With the odd amount of petals (Being 5) it'd land on "She loves me" by the way.

A relatively innocent game turned into something sinister as he rips petals out in accordance with how many heroes there are.

Dark's behavior continues to be ODD, as he claims Shadow's predicament is "Sad". Which is true.

But...does his expression REALLY scream that he's ACTUALLY sad about it to you?

His chest eyeball just stares blankly forward, his body language implies he's just kinda pretending or acting sad.

Which makes sense, Dark hasn't been shown to clearly understand sorrow properly as even when he cried he was still smiling.

He compares Vio and Shadow's struggles with their identities directly as they're both struggling with who they're SUPOSED to be compared to who they are.

Again: he's ripping a petal out as he talks about each member of the Link squad.

Notes notes notes my favorite:

For whatever reason Vio is not in his present day look here. He's how he looked 7 years ago.

You could make a lot of different assumptions as to why:

Is this how Dark sees Vio? Vio visually represented to be stuck in the past. Vio just feeling more childishly scared in the face of what's happening.

Dark's comforting Vio here in a similar manor to how Shadow did though.

Also super weird: Dark actually in a round about way compliments Vio here.

"He's so blinded by his self hatred he can't see just how much everyone adores him because of his calm cool nature..."

Dark can feel how others feel about Vio and repeated those opinions.

This is smth to note because so far the only things he's really repeated out loud have been negative things people feel about THEMSELVES.

Outside of when he complimented Shadow.

But this shows he can actually recognize positive feelings people have towards others and repeat those too...

And outright stating: He "likes" Vio.

Because of his strong reaction to Zelda, we can assume that he likes people depending on how others feel about them. Because the team likes Vio: So does Dark Link.

Another petal falls while he dips into Green's problems. Who's the only other one we've seen him play around with so far outside of Vio and Shadow And not even really with Shadow...

Weirdly enough Green feels empty inside because he's diet link lmfao.

I told yall I'd give him a personality.

Harbors guilt for lazing around when everyone else was doing stuff. Ouch.

He felt the need to promise Link he'd keep shit okay but he doesn't even know if he CAN.

Blue and his ptsd.

Dark continues to hug people while utterly obliterating them as people lmao.

Blue can't express his emotions arounv Vio which is a theme we'll see as we go into the comic more.

Vio looking back at Blue tho is, a thing.

To be fair to Dark's assesment of Red: red hasn't done anything in the comic yet.

Him chucking the flower the second it's not pretty anymore and, eating the petal is just funny in a morbid way.

Creepy thing: He ate the petal that "Symbolized" Red. The sweet optimistic character. Kinda just shows Dark consumes everything around him in a pit of despair lmfao. Also it's hilarious that he ate smth that he shouldn't have.

Vaati's disgusted reaction to said petal eating is very funny and Dark's monologue about HIMSELF is very telling I feel.

He thinks he's a hero, because he's saving someone. Removed from context that Vaati is a villain and the fac to "Save" Vaati he needed to hurt the REAL hero of Hyrule...

His actions are preventative at the moment: he's making so Link can't reform and the pieces can't seal Vaati back into the sword.

Dark's actions all make sense to Dark Link. XD

Nobody is cheering him, so he just blatantly says "YAY DARK LINK!!!" Which is honestly the funniest lines Dark has said purely because it shows his childish outlook on this entire situation.

He's just the hero saving Vaati.

Dark's clearly annoyed to some degree nothing he does is bringing Vaati any amount of satisfaction.

He did what he was supposed to do. The sword is drawn. Vaati is free.

Dark even mocks Vaati's impatience and his need to control someone else to do his work for him. Hitting Vaati right where it hurts with Vaati's insecurity about being a pawn.

Instantly also going for the throat with "Master Elzo and Link would be disgusted with you"

Obviously: He's talking about Minish Cap Link NOT "our" Link.

This use of their names offends Vaati to no end.

The fight scene is fun, enough said. XD

Okay fine: Ramble thoughts.

Dark manages to mauver his way into not getting properly hit.

Dark's fascination with strangling people is not missed as he does it to Vaati here.

As he repeats things he knows will hurt Vaati's feelings.

Vaati is being unreasonable and stupid in Dark's eyes so him bringing up Vaati's insecurities to make a point is just his attempt to get Vaati to listen to him.

Despite his actions seeming to go against it: He IS on Vaati's side and IS trying to "save" Vaati.

He isn't even saying/acting out of spite, he's just kinda lowkey annoyed and exasperated at Vaati at best. XD

We hit the image count so I'll pick up later.

#fsr rambles #fsr au #loz au #four swords returns au #four swords returns #loz fsr au

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shepherds-of-haven · 10 months

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Feel free to skip this one if you think that it leans too hard into headcanon category, but what would be the bare necessities for each mage specialisation according to you? I loved reading about the equipments of the ROs and Halek, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts!

Hi there, thanks for the fun question! To be honest, part of what makes Mages so dangerous (and effective) is the fact that they technically don't really need anything to perform magic (same with Hunters and Ket, it's just easier with tools but they don't need them), aside from being conscious, sober, and able to concentrate! So technically no form of magic really requires equipment or tools, you can technically accomplish anything without them: it's just way easier or simpler in some cases!

Of all the schools of magic, I'd say psionic magic requires the least amount of tools, astral magic is sort of an intermediary, and arcane magic tends to be the most tool-heavy. Among psionic Mages, only Diviners require "focuses," which are generally reflective surfaces of some kind in which to view their visions (but if you're a Diviner who falls off the cliff in Chapter 4, you can still accomplish this without one). For Battle-Mages, I'd say their magic works best when paired with a weapon, but you don't need one (i.e. Briony punching through things or MC being able to cast lightning); Elementalists don't need anything, either, since you draw your power from the ambient environment around you, but Ayla's wind-staff certainly helps her conduct her magic more easily than if she didn't have it, and probably having a flask of water on-hand while in the desert or a test tube of seedlings to throw might be handy! Healers would probably do better with reference texts on-hand, like an anatomy text, and other medical miscellanea like bandages, splints, painkillers, etc., but again, they can do without!

For Binders and Conjurers, especially Summoners of spirits, having something to draw runes and diagrams with is absolutely essential (pieces of lyme, chalk, or charcoal are most common), and Alchemysts obviously need a variety of substances and compounds to manipulate! I would also say that most Binders heavily make use of lodestones and keystones, which they can charge beforehand with all sorts of spells or even just raw magical power (like batteries). Shifters don't typically need anything to perform their craft, so it's definitely a mixed bag!

Hope that's helpful!!

#Shepherds of Haven #worldbuilding #magic #types of magic #equipment

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lyrical-fanfics · 10 months

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Was I too forward? (Jamil ViperxFem!Reader)

Sorry this took so long! I struggled so much with my motivation! I hope this satiates y'all for a little bit!

This is part of a series of one-shots that will later tie into a longer series on my AO3. They're meant to be read like the vignettes in Twisted Wonderland, so if you want a sequel please let me know. Also, let me know if you think you know what the dorm the reader is based on!

The reader is not Yuu. The reader is a student at the OC sister school Fantasia College for girls

3rd person POV

Genre: Fluff, comfort,

Fem!Reader

Whispers had been accompanying the cold winter wind that blew through the combined campuses. As soon as (Name) had gotten back from her winter break at home, she heard the insistent chittering of Scarabia students as they talked about their experience.

‘Another Overblot’ hissed through their teeth. ‘He went crazy’ they whispered under their breath. ‘Kalim is the only reason he’s still where he is.’

These remarks, these hush words, they were all too familiar. She knew there was something deeper with every story. She also knew that with each overblot, there was power there.

She winced as she heard another whisper. She might not have known the full details, but she knew that there was more than just ‘going crazy’.

Overblot had been on the rise since Fantasia merged with NRC, but the Fantasia College for Girls often tried to cover up any overblots that happened, lest the old superstition about female mages and their dangerous tendencies crop up again. The Fantasia College for Girls had trouble negotiating a merge in the beginning, as Fantasia had recently gone through a scandal grand enough to where the Headmage stepped away for some time, leaving the three sister substitute Headmages that Fantasia had today. No one really knew the extent of the scandal, and most of the evidence had been scrubbed.

Despite having been practiced in the art of a cover-up, Housewarden Rebecca’s overblot spread like wildfire. (Name) could do nothing for her friend and Housewarden as Rebecca absorbed the abuse around her. She admired Rebecca, and every pointed glance or silent sneer ached (Name)’s heart as Rebecca put up with every single bit of it. Whispers sparked embers, and hisses of disapproval fed the flames like fresh tinder. (Name) had known Rebecca for years, yet she couldn’t help her in the complex situation that led up to her overblot. She carried that guilt with her every day.

NCR didn’t cover up the overblots as well as Fantasia did. The current kindle of whispers was focused on Jamil Viper. While (Name) didn’t know him well, she had been watching him for the past few days. Maybe it was the grace that was similar to Rebecca’s, or maybe it was his silent ambivalence to the words around him while he continued to work hard at school that made her focus on him. Either way, she found herself staring more often than not.

Jamil was highly aware of this staring, however, and he dealt with it along with the gossiping of the two campuses. Each whisper was like a cigarette being extinguished on his skin. He endured while rebuilding the image he so carefully had to hold in front of him, the image of a devoted attendant, but part of him was glad it shattered. Part of him wanted to crush the pieces beneath his feet and scream at the world. Kalim knew everything now, and his behavior had changed somewhat, but he knew that his image was in tatters. Any sort of trust, any sort of reputation that he carefully crafted, grain by grain, was gone. He didn’t know what was more frustrating, the fact that he had to build it back up, or the fact that he almost didn’t want to.

While he was frustrated with piecing his image back together, he was also rather perplexed by the girl who kept staring. Most people had one of two gazes, it was either one of disdain or a simple glance before scurrying off. This one, however, just stared. Her gaze was hard to read, but she never approached, despite its intensity. She looked like she wanted to, but she never did.

He would catch her gaze from time to time, but each time she would blink, turn, then scurry away. He was getting a bit annoyed by it, and eventually, he couldn’t help but feel his curiosity overtake him.

He had his chance one day when he saw her running about with a binder in her arms. She of course gave him a glance as she passed by, but paid the price dearly. She ended up tripping over an uneven part of the pavement, launching herself across the walkway. Her binder flew upward, scattering some papers that were covered in schematics and plans, along with a lengthy list of things to do. Jamil panics as he rushes over to (Name), whose face, hands, and knees were now scraped up. Blood was starting to well at her knees.

“Are you alright?” Jamil’s immediate concern caused other onlookers to hesitate with helping. (Name) was clearly flustered as she tried to scramble to her feet, but her knees betrayed her. Jamil hovers his hands over (Name) as she attempts to get up again, and he encouraged her to grab ahold of him while she did so.

“My binder…” She pointed out as she gripped Jamil’s jacket. He lifted her up while turning his head, spotting the binder on the ground, splayed open with multiple pages scattered on the pavement.

Jamil responds with a sigh “Sit up for me first and I’ll grab them.” His hand gently lead (Name) to sit up before grabbing her precious binder and papers that went flying. He took note of some of the papers, remarking that this girl must have a busy day ahead of her. He turned his head before sighing again, as the girl was clearly trying to stand back up again.

After gathering up everything, Jamil went back to check on (Name), who was still in a bit of shock after eating the pavement that hard.

“Don’t try and walk this off,” He chastised, “You’re way too wobbly for my liking. Just relax and let me take care of this.” Jamil took it upon himself to bring her to the closest infirmary and take some precious time out of his day to care for (Name).

The infirmary is primarily empty, as most students stop pretending to be sick once classes are out for the day, and most dorms take care of any minor injuries themselves. Because (Name) was running about the NRC campus, she didn’t have the option to pop back into her own dorm. After patching her up, Jamil finally had the opportunity to talk to the girl that had been incessantly staring at him. She had been quiet the entire time, and not even a hiss of pain came out of her when he applied anti-septics. He did finally get to read her expression slightly, as her eyes seemed trusting and soft.

After applying the final bandage, Jamil decided to scold her. “You should be more careful next time, you were completely distracted…” He trailed off at the end, thinking about why she was distracted. Sure, she was staring right at him when she tasted concrete, but there had to be more than that.

“I suppose I was distracted. Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.” (Name) smiled a little before looking down at the bandage job, she was right, he wasn’t like the rumors. He’s just as smart as she thought he was too. What a brilliantly complex person. She could feel her heart rate spike as Jamil watched her.

Jamil shifted his jaw with a bit of curiosity and exasperation. She seemed calm, which was good. She wasn’t fighting against his recommendations either, which was a relief for once.

“You’ve been staring quite a bit. If it’s not too much of an intrusion, may I ask why?”

“Oh, so you noticed,” (Name) nervously played with a strand of hair, and Jamil was quick to snap back.

“How could I not have noticed? We’ve made eye contact several times!” Jamil pouted and (Name) giggled.

“Right, right, I was hoping a little too hard that you didn’t notice.” (Name) admitted. She looked at her palms which had been professionally cleaned and bandaged. “I guess I admire you.”

Her genuine smile and timid tone she took while admitting her admiration gave him whiplash. His eyes bulged and his body tensed. His throat closed up as he lost his words. Sure, a sense of pride also welled up in him as well, but he didn’t expect such a compliment from the girl that had a staring problem.

“Sorry, was that a bit too forward?” (Name) blushed and looked elsewhere, but the lack of her gaze made Jamil feel a bit lonely. He cleared his throat to regain composure.

“No, I was the one who asked. I appreciate your honesty.”

It had been a little while since he heard such praise or admiration. His overblot incident caused his carefully crafted facade to be trashed, but maybe it hadn’t reached the Fantasia campus. He didn’t know if he wanted to correct her or not, as he wanted to continue to have someone admire him, for just a little bit.

(Name) smiled as Jamil allowed himself to get a bit closer. Who was she exactly? Why did his reputation not tarnish with her? His eyes couldn’t help but finally take a better look at her while she rested.

He continued to watch over her, asking if she needed food, water, or anything she desired, but she denied most inquiries. He soon became comfortable enough to sit on the edge of her bed and have a type of conversation he’d been sorely missing. She took him seriously, and her calm aura relaxed him. She held a realistic admiration for him, but she expected nothing from him at the same time. Her conversations were interesting, and he enjoyed that she could keep up with his own quips and responses.

Just as Jamil became enthralled with the idea of sparking a friendship with (Name), his phone interrupted the moment between the two with its buzzing and ringing. He grumbled as he whipped it out and looked at the name plastered on the screen before apologizing to (Name) and taking the call. (Name) only gave him a wry smile, she could tell through his face and tone that Jamil wasn’t exactly thrilled to speak with the person on the other end.

“Kalim? Is there something wrong?”

“Jam-iiiiiil!” Kalim was so loud over the phone that (Name) could hear the entire conversation. “Jamil! There’s an emergency!”

(Name) watched as Jamil’s face scrunched and fell as he went through all the stages of grief in less than 2 minutes as he listened to the totally avoidable emergency his Housewarden had gotten into.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be okay. I’ll call someone from my dorm to get me.” (Name)’s independent assurance made Jamil feel as if Cupid’s arrow had just grazed him. It was a relief, but now he didn’t want to leave her. He felt torn about leaving her in the infirmary, but he knew that chances were better than not that he’d see her again. He’d just have to bide his time and get to know her better. For now, he had to accept that this was all he was going to get.

Jamil pointed at (Name)’s phone, then opened his hand as if he was asking for it. (Name) obliged, unlocking it as he spoke to Kalim over the phone. She gently placed it in his hand with contacts open. “Just calm down, I’ll be there soon, but before I get there, I need you to listen to everything I’m about to say and do it.” as he spoke the instructions, he quickly entered his number into (Name)’s phone and did his best to memorize hers. After completing his task one-handed, he gave (Name) back her phone. (Name) watched as Jamil got up and walked toward the door, but before he was about to leave, he quickly turned around, smiled at (Name), and waved goodbye.

(Name) smiled as she watched him leave, and waited patiently for a member of her dorm to arrive. Once a dorm member did, she was surprised to see (Name) had waited there instead of just returning to the dorm herself.

“It’s unlike you Vice-Housewarden (Name), usually you would be in such a hurry to complete your list that you’d be fighting us to get out of bed!” The member flicked her mouse ear as she placed her hands on her hips. She wasn’t particularly afraid of confronting (Name), as such questioning was never seen as blasphemous.

(Name) shuffled the sheets off of her, then swung her legs over the edge of the bed before smoothing the wrinkles out of her uniform skirt. She could only smile at the curious mouse beastman girl.

“I don't know, I was shown kindness by someone I knew they had, but it felt so special I didn’t want it to end. Maybe I just waited because I was hoping for something.” (Name) bluntly admitted, and her dorm member furrowed her brow.

“You really are an open book about some of your thoughts, huh?”

(Name) laughed at the student’s comment “Ah, was I too forward again?”

#twst x reader #twst imagines #disney twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #disney twst #twst #twisted wonderland #Lyric's Vignette Series #twst reader insert #jamil viper x reader #jamil viper x y/n

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