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carolperkinsexgirlfriend · 3 months

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Steddie Upside-Down AU Part 87

Part 1 Part 86

Mom’s hovering in front of the door, a knife in her hand, trying to get the rest of them to get away from the window. It’s not working. If anything, Max’s nose only presses more firmly to the glass with every request she makes.

Will’s hovering just behind her, desperate to keep Steve and Eddie in his line of sight. He can just barely see the wisp of a curl through the side window of the van, bouncing as Eddie moves around inside.

He squints, trying to keep the hair in sight as the movement becomes more erratic.

Will hears glass breaking just as he loses sight of Eddie entirely, wisps and all.

He rushes past his Mom, using the weight of his body to open the door, even as she stands in the way. It’s almost involuntary, a compulsion to follow the thread that Eddie’d pulled him by.

“Will, don’t!” she cries, but it’s too late. He’s out, and through.

Mike calls after him, too, and there’s the sound of tennis shoes stampeding out of the house behind him. Will only hopes he’s not leading them all to their impending doom.

Bodies slump into the driveway, none of them human. They’re like if the Demogorgon had followed a different evolutionary chain. Dustin would find it fascinating. Will just wants Eddie and Steve back.

Wayne’s still standing sentry, looking out across the street, waiting for more monsters to creep in from the darkness, Barbara by his side.

Shielding the entrance to the van, is El.

“El!” It’s Mike, because it always is. He sounds so genuinely elated that something curdles and dies in his throat. He swallows it down, hopes it decomposes in his stomach, so he never has to look directly at it. “You came!”

El smiles, happily at Mike, then around to all of them. “Of course.” She looks over at Max, and she’s frowning now, that way she does when she doesn’t understand something. It used to happen all the time. Now, it’s rare.

Will doesn’t care, can’t when Eddie’s too quiet in the van somewhere Will can’t see. He pushes past her, too.

There’s a misshapen, monstrous foot sticking out of the broken window. He stares at it for a second before swinging the door open. It wrenches the foot strangely, makes it crack and tear with the resistance of the door before it breaks free, black blood flowing like the thing’s still alive.

It stays still.

Will looks past it, and finds Eddie’s pale face.

There’s glass in his hair, and his palms are bleeding where they’re held in front of him, but he’s breathing. Alive. And he’s looking up at El like she’s answered all his prayers. Will and Eddie have been sharing the same prayers from the same broken pews for so long that for a second, Will thinks Steve is back.

He scrambles over the dead thing blocking his entrance. It’s cold against his palms, flesh barely giving as he crawls hand over feet atop it. But, Steve’s still just sitting there, blinking, Carol huddled into his side like he can protect her, even like this.

“Steve needs your help,” Eddie says, plaintive. Begging with both voice and unblinking eyes, gaze locked on El’s own until she breaks it to look at where Steve still sits, unbothered.

Her brow furrows, eyes squinting like she’s peeling off layers of skin and meat to get to whatever’s underneath. “He’s lost?” she asks.

Carol is squinting at El like the words aren’t clicking for her. She looks back to Steve, then back to El, brow furrowing with anger.

Eddie nods. Will clears his throat. “Not like last time,” he clarifies. “He’s here, but his mind isn’t.”

El nods, decisive. “I will help.”

“What the hell are you all talking about!” Carol demands, even as people scatter around her, setting up for El’s latest rescue mission. “He’s right there!”

She’s not looking at Will, though. She’s looking at Eddie like it’s all his fault. Still, when Steve doesn’t say anything, her lip wobbles as she turns and asks, “right Steve?”

He doesn’t answer, even as she calls again. Will looks away when she bites her lips, eyes wide.

It’s easier this time. They don’t have to break into the school, don’t have to find a pool. El just sits cross-legged in front of Steve on the carpet, careful to stay away from the broken glass and the dead thing. Mike covers her eyes with Wayne’s flannel while the man himself switches the radio dial until he finds one with enough white noise to satisfy.

He can’t quite tune out the murmured conversation between Eddie and Carol, though, no matter how hard he tries. Eddie explains, in clipped, emotionless words, that something, one of the monsters from the other place she’d just gotten a taste of, has taken over Steve.

“But we’re getting him back?” she asks, voice shrill and breaking, contrasting with Eddie’s own even tone. A veteran to the newbie in the warzone.

Will, suddenly, feels terribly old.

“Quiet now,” El demands.

Eddie looks away from Carol without answering. There is no answer to that question when they’re all subsisting off hope, and not much else.

“Tell him we’re coming, okay?” Eddie asks. He’s looking down at his own bloody palms now, like he can’t bear to look at their last bastion of hope and wait for it to flame and go out.

“Ask ‘im how to stop the thing taking ‘im over,” Wayne interjects.

Eddie’s lip wobbles. Will knows how he feels. He doesn’t want Steve to know, if he’s in there at all, that they don’t know what to do. Neither does Will. He wants to save Steve. He always wants to save Steve.

But, Eddie finally looks up, meeting Will’s eyes before nodding. The movement knocks a tear free, but his voice sounds clear when he says, “Ask him how we kill the fucker.”

El nods, shoulders settling as she reaches out to take Steve’s hand. The white noise blankets them all. Will settles down to wait.

That’s what they always do, when Steve is dying: they wait. This time is no different.

Part 88

Taglist: @deany-baby @estrellami-1 @altocumulustranslucidus @evillittleguy @carlprocastinator1000 @hallucinatedjosten @goodolefashionedloverboi @newtstabber @lunabyrd @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @manda-panda-monium @disrespectedgoatman @finntheehumaneater @ive-been-bamboozled @harringrieve @grimmfitzz @is-emily-real @dontstealmycake @angeldreamsoffanfic @a-couchpotato @5ammi90 @mac-attack19 @genderless-spoon @kas-eddie-munson @louismeds @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @pansexuality-activated @ellietheasexylibrarian @nebulainajar @mightbeasleep @neonfruitbowl @beth--b @silenzioperso @best-selling-show @v3lv3tf0x @bookworm0690 @paintsplatteredandimperfect @wonderland-girl143-blog @nerdsconquerall @sharingisntkaren @canmargesimpson @bananahoneycomb

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie upsidedown au #will byers #my fic #Jonthan and Nancy aren't here for Multiple Reasons. 1. I think it would be funny if they were just at Nancy's house hanging out with no ide #what is going on. and also. Nancy's specific drive with the upside-down has NOT been activated because Barb is alive. So she didn't do\#the whole Muarry expose the lab plot. and Jon is SLIGHTLY chiller because there are more people looking out for Will so he doesn't feel lik #every single thing has something to do with him. This would also make the season 3 plot smacking them hard and fast sooo much worse #this isn't plot relavant really. it will Not come up i don't think. I just think it's funy.#Also 2. that is just too many characters. I had to put a few back in the box. I have difficulty with any more than like 5? this scene #WITHOUT those two has what. 11??????? And it Shows I think. So no more

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talktomegooseman · 7 months

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Missed You Darlin

Ship: Jake Hangman Seresin x Fem! Reader Word Count: 1,095 Authors Note: For @roosterforme’s rocktober challenge! Features The Chair by George Strait. Jake is a George fan and y’all can pry that from me Trigger Warnings: Mention of pregnancy, minor swearing, mention of being sick/naueseous

Jake watched the patrons of the Hard Deck like a hawk, waiting to see you walk in. He was getting restless, and it was starting to bug Javy. “Jake. She’ll be here. Don’t worry.” He says, clapping his friend on the shoulder, walking towards the bar to get another beer. Jake didn’t say a word, just kept staring at the door.

You had just pulled into the parking lot of the beloved bar, rifling through your bag for a mint to suck on to keep your nausea at bay. It was still early on in your pregnancy and you found out not long after Jake got on the carrier for the mission. When he came home just hours before, you felt a little sick, but told Jake it was just anxious excitement for him to be home, and that you had something to tell him after your shift at work was over.

You felt his ring sitting at the base of your throat on the chain that he gave you before he left, promising to keep it safe for him. You felt your ring, a light weight on your finger, and you smiled down at it, touching the ring on your throat with your free hand, smiling. You took a breath, and got out of the car, making your way to the entrance of the bar. You opened the doors, and were met with the sound of a jukebox, and endless chatter.

Jake’s head whipped towards the door for the umpteenth time that night, and his eyes met yours. “Javy, change the song on the jukebox. You know the one.” He whispers to his friend, a grin on his face, heading towards you, as the rest of the squad groaned.

“Hangman. Don’t. She’s got a ring on her finger.” Fanboy and Rooster say in unison. “Dumbass.” Phoenix says, putting her face in her hands. “Hangman, I know you’re stupid, but you ain’t dumb. What the everlasting hell are you doing?” Bob asks as he walks past him. “It’s fine y’all. You’ll see.” Jake says, making his way to where you sat.

“Well excuse me, but I think you’ve got my chair.” You hear a voice say behind you. “Is it taken?” You ask, a smile tugging at the corner of your lips. “No it’s not taken, I’ll be glad to share.” Jake says, sitting on the stool next to yours. “Hey sweetheart, is he bugging you?” Penny asks, a protective look in her eyes. “Pen. You and I both know I wouldn’t quote a George Strait song to just anyone. This is my wife, Y/N.” He says, as you give Penny a smile and a small wave.

Back at the pool table, the squad watches the interaction. “The hell is he doing?” Rooster asks, watching as he places a hand on your lower back while you both talk to Penny. Javy returns to the pool table, after getting the song ready to go. “Like he said, you’ll see.” He replies, leaning up against the side of the table.

“Hey darlin. You got my ring?” “Oh yeah! Here.” You reply, taking the chain from your neck, giving it to Jake, as he removes the band from the chain, and slips it onto his finger. “Feels good to have this back on.” “Feels good to have you back home safe and sound.” You whisper, as your hand rests on his cheek. “Darlin, you have no idea how much I missed you. Let’s dance. I got Pen to get our song on vinyl and convinced Javy to put it on next.” He says, leading you to the pool table near the jukebox. “I’m glad this is our song. The Chair is what started it all.” He says, pulling you close, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “Me too. And there’s more to come.” You say, feeling the beat of his heart.

“What do you mean by that sweets?” He asks, pulling away just enough to look at you. You bring a hand to your lower abdomen, tears in your eyes. “I’m pregnant Jake. Found out two days after you left.” He stares at you for a moment, and then breaks out in a smile. “Really darlin’? Are you really?” “Yeah I am. Now as much as I love you and Mr. Strait, can we sit down and you grab me a ginger ale? Morning sickness is kicking my ass this week.” “Of course sweets. Mind if I take you over to Javy and the rest of the gang?” He asks, as you nod.

Javy can’t help but grin as you and Jake walk over, an arm slung around your shoulders. A chorus of questions starts to form, but Jake ignores them, nods to Javy and goes to get your drink. “Penny my dear. Could I get a round of beers for the squad and a ginger ale for Y/N?” “Comin right up Hangman.” Penny says, grabbing the drinks and giving them to Jake.

He heads back to the group, sitting next to you. “Ok, Ok, I know y’all have a million questions. This is my wife Y/N. We’ve been married for 2 years, and knew each other years before that. Javy was the best man at my wedding, and that little charade you saw earlier? That’s been planned since we got called back for the mission.” He says, wrapping an arm around you. You wave and smile at the group. “Hey guys. Everything Jake said is true. He’s told me a lot about you. It’s nice to meet you all finally.” You say, leaning into Jake’s embrace. “It’s nice to have some more ladies around. Being around all these men can be tiring sometimes.” Phoenix says, with a laugh and you nod.

You stay and talk with the group until late into the night, and Penny tell the group to leave. You say your goodbyes, and head to the car. “Did you ride with Javy?” “Yeah, I’ll drive home.” Jake says, his hand out silently asking for the keys. You give them to him, and he opens your door, before getting in himself. The drive home is met with a comfortable silence.

You and Jake head inside, kicking off shoes and stealing passionate kisses. “Missed you darlin. Now can we make up for that missed time?” “Missed you too baby. We can make up for that missed time, so long as nugget agrees.” You say breaking the kiss, squealing, as Jake lifts you over his shoulder and takes you to the bedroom.

#top gun maverick #jake seresin x reader #top gun rocktober #goose man writes #jake seresin #jake hangman seresin

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sleepy-gee · 1 month

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🦋 desolation - avox!coryo au - snowjanus week day 2

🦋 day 2: canon divergence 🦋 “All snow melts under heat, dear boy. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Now, hold still..”

🦋 trigger warnings/tags: gore, blood, dark fic, mutilation, starvation, dehumanization.. the whole nine. dunno what you'd call it but coryo is put into a market system and sold so warning for that too. vomiting.

🦋 a/n: this is for you, avox!coryo nation

“Tell me, Mr. Snow.” Dr. Gaul hummed, running a gloved finger along the edge of her blade. Coriolanus’ mouth went dry. Any second now, that blade would silence him for eternity. “Was it worth it? Your little plan to save your songbird?”

Coriolanus didn’t answer yet, dropping his gaze to the marble floor of her lab. Highbottom’s taunts echoed in his head on repeat like a scratched record– “You hear that, boy? It’s the sound of snow falling..” He couldn’t have failed. Snow’s don’t fall. They pull through. Always have and always will. He bit his tongue to hold back some of the tears that threatened to slip. Don’t cry. Don’t fucking cry.

“I urge you to speak now, young man.” Dr. Gaul took a step towards him. “I fear you won’t have the chance to again for a very, very long time.”

“.. What do you want me to say?” He croaked. “Do you want me to beg? To plead for your forgiveness and mercy?” Coriolanus glanced up at her, gaze as venomous as the snakes she loved to toy with.

“If you did, I fear you’d make a fool of yourself.” She grabbed his chin harshly. “You knew the consequences and yet you still cheated. All for some girl you barely knew.”

“She wouldn’t have stood a chance if I didn’t..” Coriolanus stuttered, trying to pull away from her grasp. “It’s not right.”

“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve had a change of heart now. It’s much too late for that, Mr. Snow… You say you won’t beg for mercy, but in a way, you are. A convict on trial, saying whatever he can to get himself out of the death penalty.” Dr. Gaul laughed, a horrid sound. “Predator turned prey.. Isn’t that funny? You climbed your way to the top of the food chain, only to get forced back down to the bottom of it.”

The tears in his eyes finally gave away. The taste of iron filled his mouth, no doubt from the abuse of his poor tongue. Sick as it was, he relished in it. Relished in feeling the weight of it in his mouth, every little thing he could taste in there. Death would’ve been better than this, he thought. But weren’t they the same thing? He’d be reduced to nothing. A hollow shell unable to speak or express himself. Trapped in silence forever. The fear he felt made it nearly impossible to breathe, too.

“Aw..” She wiped one of his tears away. Coriolanus pulled back like he had burned her. “All snow melts under heat, dear boy. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Now, hold still..”

...

A cruel memory, one he tried to block out. Filled with panic and broken screams. Blood pouring out of his mouth onto his lap, a waterfall of consequence settling into a pool on the ground beneath him. He tried and tried to plead for help, begging for her to stop, but she never would. Sadism used to taste so sweet, Now it was cold and bitter. Served cold just like her revenge, she said. Revenge for what, he wanted to ask. For ruining her games? For giving her the show she wanted?

Was it all a mistake?

The Dean’s confrontation was playing on repeat in his head. If he had said something different, done something else..

“President Ravenstill has left your form of punishment up to me. I talked amongst my fellow colleagues and we believed that being sent to the districts as an anonymous, peacekeeping grunt might’ve been suitable.. But then an Avox walked in.. and I had another one of my brilliant ideas. I thought, if he’s anything like his father– Which he is– Then having him go to the districts would be just as bad as having him walk free.”

“Still..” He stammered. “Don’t you think that’s too far?”

“Like I said, anyone caught cheating will simply have no future at all. You made your bed, Coriolanus. Time to lie in it.. I think a good night's rest will do you some good. It’s the last you’ll be having for a while.”

Then, he was sent home to spread the news to his family. But the second he got home and saw the hopeful looks in his family’s eyes, the words got stuck in his throat, and all he could do was sob. They sent a van to take him to Dr. Gaul’s office before the sun was even up the next morning, leaving him with little to no time to say goodbye or get things in order. Somehow, he’d managed to fit in a little nap on the way there– It’s not like he could do anything.

His last (coherent) words, officially, were “Don’t fucking touch me-!”. At least that made him sound stronger than he actually words. He’d never live it down if he spent his last moments with the ability to speak sobbing and pleading.

After the ordeal, they left him for around ten minutes– Alone, bleeding out, but God did it feel like eternity. When they did return, they loosely patched him up and left him alone again. Coriolanus spent most of his ‘recovery’ period sleeping.. Because what else was there to do? When he wasn’t sleeping, he was staring at his mangled reflection in the little mirror one of Gaul’s assistants had left.

A week later, they tossed him out into the market. Coriolanus wasn't aware the Avox market could be so bustling, but it was.. And, God, was it miserable. Chained and pulled around like a circus animal, put on display.

The things people said made him sick.

"You sure are a pretty one.. But I'm afraid I'm out of room."

"Why is he marked up so high? I know he's a Snow, but geez.. 5k for an Avox is too much."

They talked about him like he was a fucking dog. A dog. He was a Snow, for fucks sake. A Snow! Scratch that, a real person. A person with emotions, thoughts, feelings..

He was sick to his stomach. This was the government he had advocated for?

...

Coriolanus stayed on the market for about a week or so (he couldn't tell. Time was a fucking blur) until someone finally decided to "buy" him. He was loaded into the back of another van and dumped into another basement.

This.. Is my new forever, I guess.

...

He'd fallen asleep again. What else was there to do? He was told he had two weeks to recover before they'd put him to work. At least they had a little humanity. He was the only Avox in the house too, apparently, so he knew he'd be overworked.

Oh well. Nothing I can do now.

Coriolanus was attempting to fall asleep for the millionth time when the door to his room opened, and a stream of light came pouring in..

Followed by a voice he thought he'd never hear again.

"Hey, Coryo. I brought you some soup.."

Sejanus fucking Plinth.

Coriolanus sits up quickly, blinking away the tears. The Plinths are the ones that bought him?!

"Take it easy.." Sejanus sat next to him, holding a glass bowl filled with delicious smelling soup in his hands. "I know you're probably confused.. And scared. I wouldn't blame you."

What the fuck am I supposed to do? Coriolanus wanted to say. He felt his mouth move out of habit. But there was no tongue to move.

"We, uh.. Caught word of what happened. So I begged my parents to buy you.. I think it made my Pa happy, letting him spend some of his money on me." Sejanus stirred the soup with a spoon. "I couldn't risk anything happening to you."

Coriolanus gave him a small hum of acknowledgement. Great. He's going to live out the rest of his days as a servant to the Plinth family? District scum? Ugh.

"Pa put me in charge of taking care of you, so.. We'll be spending a lot of time together, eh?" Sejanus tried to cheer him up with a smile. Stupid boy. The smile faded. "I.. Got you some soup? I dunno how well you can handle food right now, but I didn't want you to go hungry.. You look like you need it."

Sejanus held up the spoon to him like he was a toddler. This is what I've been reduced to. Hesitantly, he opened his mouth and let the soup pass. The vibrant taste he was expecting- Courtesy of Ma Plinth- was let down by the taste of nothing. That's odd. Ma's creations are normally delicious–

... Oh.

Another thing. He'd never taste again.

Coriolanus swallowed the soup awkwardly, grimacing. It hurt, but it was better than nothing.

"There you go.." Sejanus hummed, continuing to feed him. "I'll get you as good as new in no time.."

He finished the bowl rather quickly, finding himself disappointed when Sejanus set it to the side. Shouldn't there be more? He's barely had anything in weeks. Refeeding syndrome is a very real thing, but he's gone off of less for longer and eaten more right after.

Sejanus placed a hand on his shoulder. "You're safe now. You're troubles are over, Coryo. I'm gonna make sure of that."

Coriolanus glared at him. You're wrong. They've just begun.

taglist: @officialelioperlman @on-plvto @runningfrom2am @theirgayyourhonour

#the ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas #tbosbas #thg #the hunger games #coriolanus snow #coryo snow #sejanus plinth #snowjanus #coriolanus x sejanus #sleepysnowjanusweek #avox au #avox!coryo #dark fic #whump #dead dove do not eat

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secret-smut-sideblog · 3 months

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Bloodcall

Astarion x F! Dark Urge

18+ masturbation (f!), voyuerism, roughness, fingering (f!), overstimulation, blood play, p-in-v, squirting, light bdsm, vulnerability, tenderness, implied trauma, a little silliness

Released from her murderous desires, she's finally free to love him. But some urges still linger...

"No... no..."

Bleary eyed, she looked over at him. His soft call, eyebrows strained together. Hands shielding from something invisible to her.

She hushed and cooed, pulling him into her. "You're alright, I'm right here." She assured his sleeping form. Whimpering, hands gripping her. "You're safe Astarion."

He mumbled something fearfully but relaxed into her. Pressing his face into her neck instinctively.

She gently pulled his jaw open and pushed him into her. Encouraging his sleeping mind.

He bit down, moaning softly. Pulling her in, little huffs and gasps as she scratched lightly at his scalp.

She sighed contentedly.

With Bhaal's influence finally gone from her, finally free, she could support him how she wanted to. How she had wanted to the whole way.

Touch him and hold him without fear of harm. Without needing to harm herself. Be the partner he needed.

She took to it like wildfire, showering him with love whenever she could. She just couldn't stop kissing him.

Though loathe to admit, she still felt something deep down. The intrusive chanting still threatened her lips. Pave my way in blood. And the dreams were still less than pleasant... but he didn't need to know that. She wanted their time to be about him now.

She wasnt naive enough to think she would be born anew, after all she was still... something else. Other. Though her form was that of a mortal she was still made from dead flesh. Still a cuckoo bird, an intruder in a nest.

Was I sweet once? Did I play? She had wondered before and now she knew the answer. Yes, for a while. Then Bhaal came to claim what was his and it was all over.

She tried not to cry, chastising herself for falling back into these thoughts. But when they came they were unrelenting.

Focusing on his mouth on her neck, his weight on her side, she centered herself. They were both free, their masters did not hold their chains anymore. Their lives were their own now.

His drinking slowing, a contented murmur from his lips as he nuzzled down into her chest. His unconscious mind forgetting to close her wound with his tongue. Stray blood dripping down into the nape of her neck. She bit her lip.

Oh. And that. A pressure blooming in her pelvis.

The arousal at violence, blood, flesh. It never left her. She was less fearful of indulging it now than before. It had been a demand, a call to action, a threat. Now it felt closer to a natural rush. Distracting, embarrassing, heated. But ultimately harmless.

However, they had been breaking through waves of bodies recently so it was near constant. Glazing her eyes over. Needing to steal away to touch herself in her tent often, sometimes multiple times.

She kept this to herself too. Things had been so hard, let him have this win. Think she was fully cured. Gods compared to before it really did feel like she was. Just some persistent after effects.

But now she was in a predicament. The blood from her throat making her pelvis ache. His body draped across hers, holding her there. His inner thigh resting torturously between her legs as he folded himself into her.

Sated, he was always in a much deeper trance. Surely, if she was careful...

Hand snaking down she tested, gingerly gripping his thigh. His arm wrapped around her middle with a sigh but no further movement.

Moving that same hand she slowly pushed into the waistline of her underclothes, his camp shirt pushing up her torso with her movements.

Her middle finger began slow small circles on her clit. Breathing through her nose. A flush rising on her cheeks.

If he was awake he'd have a front row seat to hear her heart hammering.

His body so close. Gods she wanted to pull his cool thigh into her heated core and grind.

The thought making her stifle a moan. Pointer finger joining her efforts.

Focusing on making her movements as minute as possible was backfiring, the soft slow touch making things worse. Usually she just rubbed out her need quickly and efficiently. Now she was inadvertently teasing herself.

Gods she wanted to go faster, harder. Flip onto her belly and grind herself out, rutting on the bunched blankets. Press his clothes into her face, smelling him as she came.

Fuck. She stifled a little whimper in the back of her throat. Hips starting to twitch and attempting to arch. Her circles still languid but tempting, very close to snapping into a frantic pace.

His weight on her body, his slow breathing equally calming and maddening. She didn't want to wake him, let him have much needed rest. But Gods she needed him. Needed his sharp mouth salivating all over her cunt.

A soft moan escaped her, eyes pulling shut. Very close, losing her focus. Hips squirming rhythmically.

A cool hand grabbing her wrist.

Her eyes flashed open. His staring into hers, amused.

"Well," He drawled, a wide smile pulling across his face. "How naughty of you."

"I'm sorry Astarion," She blushed, his grip on her wrist holding her in place. "You didn't close my wound and well..."

His eyes glanced at her neck, the drying blood and punctures. Confusion striking his features. "I fed on you?"

"I wanted you to, you were having a nightmare so I..." She gestured with her free hand, pantomiming pushing his head.

He blinked. Clearly caught in thought.

The ache in her pelvis unbearably paused, she wanted to finish and run into the night in embarrassment. Retreat to her tent with her tail between her legs like the animal she is.

"And the blood made you... is still making you..." He started, eyes sliding to meet hers.

She squirmed under his gaze, his hold. He positioned his body further over her in response. No retreat.

"Yes," She admitted, eyes rising to the top of his tent. "It never stopped."

"And you thought it fair to not tell me?" He mused, pushing his thigh into her needy core.

She gasped, hips rising. "I didnt want to burden you..." She moaned truthfully.

His eyes flashed to hers, a lick of anger in them.

He pulled off of her body, sitting back on his knees under her hips. Pulling her underclothes off in one motion. "Finish." He commanded.

She stared wide eyed at him. Hand frozen. Clenching around nothing.

"Asta-"

"I said." He wrenched her thighs, pulling her lower half up onto his open lap, her back still flat on the bedroll. Legs open around his hips. His camp shirt riding up to her sternum with the pull. "Finish."

Her hot core nearly touching his belly, she could feel the coolness of his skin so close.

Transfixed by his gaze her hand slowly returned to her center, his carmine eyes watching darkly.

Her fingers resuming their work she nearly sighed in relief, but his gaze held her mute.

His eyes flickered between her hand, her face, the exposed skin of her torso. Her ribcage rising as she hit her sweet spot again.

Gripping her hip for leverage he leaned forward, slowly pushing his shirt up over her breasts. Her nipples hardening in the sudden cool air. The fabric bunching up on her clavicle.

The eroticism, the degeneracy of it all overcoming her she lost her composure. Arching her hips into her hand on top of his thighs. Bracing her hand above her head, pushing her moan into the inside of her bicep.

"Ah, ah," He admonished, gripping her ass harshly. "I've been deprived of your sweet moans already, darling. You've been stealing away from me to touch yourself, haven't you?"

"You dont understand," She gasped, shocked that he was being so unfair. "The violence lately! It's too much!" She clenched and arched at the thought, fingers working faster.

"Oh I understand," He purred, lifting one of her legs to hook over his shoulder. Her tailbone brushing against his hard bulge. "I have been insatiable lately and you didn't think I could possibly take more of you. More of your fucking, hmm?"

His words sending a thrill up her spine. Her hand coming to cup her breast, lightly pinching her nipple between her two fingers.

His pupils were blown wide, mouth hanging slightly open. Eyes betraying his haughty demeanor. Hand gripping her knee over his shoulder.

"Please. Please Astarion bite me." She strangled out.

"How nice of you to ask me this time." He chided.

Despite his annoyance he quickly sank into her inner thigh, the pain goading her on. She whimpered, plunging her fingers inside herself.

When he pulled away he made to lick, to close the wound.

"Don't," She urged hotly, watching the blood come down in pulses.

When it met her hand, her cunt, coating both, she moaned like an animal in heat.

His breath coming out in gasps watching this display. His erection digging into her backside.

A crack broke the air, then a sharp sting on her ass. His hand snapping down on the soft flesh.

She moaned loudly, so close. "Harder," She urged.

Another crack, louder. The skin of her ass blooming bright red.

All of it too much, she came in a muffled shriek. A wave of liquid striking his belly. She writhed and shuddered and he gripped her hips to keep her on him. Groaning deep in his throat.

His fingers slid inside her, pumping, hitting the spot she can never reach. "I want you to do that again."

"You," She whined, looking at his strained now wet trousers.

"Oh we'll get to me, darling. But first," He picked up the pace. "I need you to soak my hand. Can you do that for me?"

She moaned a handful of cries, already close to a second undoing. Her overstimulation pushing into a new high.

"So I'm curious dear," He mused, head tilting mock inquisitive as he pulsed inside her. "How many times have you been pleasuring yourself to my kills?"

Clenching down viciously she moaned, gripping the blankets under them. The images flashing before her eyes nearly snapping her.

"I'd like an answer, my sweet."

She looked up at him, incredulous. His smile only widening. Preening insufferably.

"Yours are my favorite." She admitted through her panting breaths. "The sneak attacks..." She moaned, eyes pulling closed into her memory. The way he would leap into the dagger drive, sinking ferocious but silent into the thrust. Hand coming around to silence them as they fell.

Her second undoing came the same way, sudden and deadly. Ripping through her pelvis with great shuddering contractions. Her hips rising involuntarily, twisting to the side fruitlessly against his torso. Another pulse of fluid striking him, coating his palm, dripping down his forearm. Some dripping down his sternum.

"Very good," He purred, hands kneading into her hips as she came down. Unlacing his trousers. "Can you take me inside you?"

She nodded, head thrown back. Breath an uncontrolled gasp. Her cum dripping thickly down her backside.

He rose over her, standing on knees, one hand pumping slowly on his length. One knee pushing over her hip, straddling scissored over her.

She looked up at him through her lust blown eyes. Smiled exhausted at him. "I love looking at you from this angle." Trailed the backs of her fingers gentle against his cheek. "So beautiful." She sighed.

It was true. He always looked devine but looking up at him, all his pale chiseled lines, his red eyes staring down. It was enough to write poetry about.

His lips falling open into that pout, eyes round and sweet.

Oh the irony that he tried to seduce her with all that bravado, the charisma and honeyed words. When it was those soft eyes that melted her, it was all over when she saw them for the first time.

He leaned down to press a tender kiss into her lips. Hand cradling her cheek.

"You are entirely too good to me." He murmured against her lips. Hips aligning below. Steadying himself at her entrance.

"Only cause I love you. You're on thin ice saer." She teased. He smiled against her, pushing inside. A low groan from his chest.

"I love you too, you wretch."

She laughed loudly. He made to pull back to a sit and she looped her arms around his neck. Pulling him gentle back to her. "Come here." She hushed, kissing his face softly as he thrusted slowly.

His eyes pulled closed, bracing his forearm next to her head. Hand moving to thread through her hair. Kissing her then breaking away, little whimpers directly in her ear as his head fell next to hers. Hips moving from a roll into a hard thrust. Falling apart.

"I love you so much." She hushed and cooed into the curl of his hair. "I'm so glad I met you. I wouldn't change a thing."

Heard a shallow sob pull through his throat. Hand pulling up on her waist. Burying his face in her shoulder. Hips breaking pace. Breath a frantic gasp.

"Let go, my love. You're safe." She whispered, cradling his head.

He came in desperate quiet cries. Gripping her hips, the back of her neck, like buoys in a storm. Shuddering and gasping. His body quivered as it fell into her.

She curled her legs up around his hips, crossing behind his back. Nuzzling into the curve of his neck. Steadying him again. Fingernails trailing lightly up and down his back.

He moaned sweetly into her, nearly a purr.

"You're such a cat." She teased, scratching lightly across his scalp again.

"You're really fucking up my reputation, you know that?" He sighed breathlessly, melting into her. "Making me like this."

"Oh please, I have enough frightening credentials for the both of us." She smiled.

"Not the point."

"Oh you're so tortured," She teased. "Your big scary girlfriend is nice to you. Should I call the bard to write you a ballad?"

"I'm going to throw you in a river."

"You can try, prettyboy-" Her sentence cut into squealing laughter, his fingers digging into her ticklish sides.

"Oh you're going to get it now." He laughed as she tried to get away, her bell laughter the brightest sound he ever heard.

#its canon to me that astarion would get off most to vulnerable sex #my girl doing a reverse uno on him. get sooo loved idiot #astarion smut #astarion x dark urge #astarion x tav #lyrics from: beautiful crime - tamer

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dontlookforme00 · 7 months

Text

Morrotober, Oct 3. Dream / Sleep. "Let me close my eyes."

[TW for insomnia, and a description of a panic attack, and loss.]

Morro was exhausted.

It was no surprise, it was nothing new. Morro could no longer remember a day he hadn't been exhausted, it was simply all he knew.

But such is the nature of exhaustion to be painfully aware of it, to have its ball and chain biting at your ankle, to have it linger just behind your eyes. Constant.

There was nothing to be done. Morro avoided thinking about it, because it wouldn't do him any good. Ghosts couldn't sleep, and that was that. This was the price he paid for being a part of the Pre-eminents plan, and though he knew it was worth it, he still cried inside for a reprieve. He cried out for a chance to relax his unfeeling body.

But it wasn't possible to relax a muscle if it was never really tensed. He couldn't escape it.

On and on the days had led, the months, the years. Moments in the Cursed Realm were never boring, something was always happening. Morro wondered how much longer he could go on. Surely, forever. His body was incapable of collapse, and some part of him hated that.

Though, every time he remembered why he was doing this, every time he heard the voice of the Pre-eminent and every time he felt her presence, he was invigorated. He would grin wildly and freely.

The apprehension and responsibility of his role was nothing short of his lifeblood.

It made him forget the spinning of exhaustion, and instead gave him purpose.

Sometimes, she'd go days without talking to him, without talking to any of the generals. Morro couldn't help but wonder what was so important as he found ways to fill his time. He'd train, he'd fight, he'd give orders and he'd sit and watch from the darkness. None of these ghosts were warriors yet, not like him. They were ordinary scum, who'd done things horrible enough in their lifetimes to end up here.

They were pathetic, and useless.

It was no wonder the Pre-eminent had chosen him. She was the only destiny that mattered now, anyways. Bigger plans than him were in motion.

And yet, she still left him in silence for weeks on end. The exhaustion would creep back up, forcing its way into the cracks of his being, blurring the edges of his vision. Planting aching into his bones. And he'd find himself sitting on the edge of his prison, trying so hard to not think about the way he couldn't feel his breaths, nor the hands he dug into his scalp, nor the way closing his eyes did nothing to dim the light.

He'd find himself remembering times from his life–in flashing memories, like on the reflection of a river– times like when Wu would tuck him into bed and he'd fall asleep slowly and carefully. With the weight of the blanket keeping him safe.

If only he'd cherished those days more, if only he'd known how much harder things would get.

Morro was driving himself insane.

He kept trying to imagine he was that child again, on the bed, so sure and so confident, and so readily falling asleep. But no matter how hard he pretended, the Cursed Realm had tainted his mind.

Closing his eyes did nothing. He could still see the murky green of the floor he sat on, wisps of grey trailing past his feet. He tensed harder, curling in on himself and clenching his jaw. Morro pressed his palms against his eyes to no avail.

It wasn't fair! He wanted nothing more truly than to be able to close his fucking eyes! Why couldn't the Pre-eminent grant him this one wish? Was he so unworthy? When would this hell pay off?

When would he be free-? He shoved the thought away as soon as it spoke, but its message lingered. He reminded himself that as long as he served his Mistress, he was freer than he had ever been with Wu. That, he knew.

Although, he could admit to himself that he would sell his soul a second time just to be able to experience the unchallenged calm of slumber.

Was he shaking? Was that possible?

He couldn't panic. He wouldn't panic. He wouldn't think of the fact that he had no way of knowing how much longer he'd have to live like this. Wouldn't think about the fact that he could be stuck in here for decades more–

He was definitely shaking. He tightened his grip on the roots of his hair, now having curled in on himself completely. Nobody could see his face, and it was a damn good thing. Because he was sure that he looked as insane as he felt.

"Let me close my eyes." The growl came out high-pitched, pained, yet desolate nonetheless. He didn't know why he let it escape. He didn't know who he was begging to. It wasn't like anybody could hear him.

Morro grit his teeth and swore, trying to gather himself back. But he couldn't seem to untangle his arms, couldn't seem to untense his tremoring limbs. He was falling apart. "Please." He whined. "Let me close my eyes. Let me close my eyes. Let me close my eyes, oh my fucking-.." The tearless sobs became more erratic as he truly comprehended that there was noone there to listen. Nor care.

Morro could still hear the endless cacophony of screeching in the cages, and he couldn't help but think that despite all his power, he was just as imprisoned as the ones in chains.

"Morro?" A haunting voice, rasped by screams. It was Bansha.

Morro jumped, falling back. He sprung back and covered his face with his hands before he could even look at her. He tried to muffle his panting.

Their silence was taut in the air.

Fuck. Bansha? Of all people? The only fucking one with enough authority to snitch on him? To really make this all for nothing?

All Morro could do was pray that the jealous bitch had enough self decency to pretend she'd never seen anything. His hands were still trembling, like a child, like a fucking child. And he could still see the ghostly green of Banshas presence reflecting off the ground, even if he wasn't facing her.

He knew he was supposed to say something. He knew he was the loud one, the cocky general, the ecstatic child, the threat. He was the arrogant one. He was supposed to talk.

But his tongue failed him, for once in his life. At the very worst time.

Even though she still stood there, he could feel the panic wash over him yet again, the lack of sleep, the hopelessness, the unsettling sense of being caged. He needed to leave this conversation, before something horrible happened.

Morro shifted so that his line of vision peeked through the fallen strands of his hair, he saw Bansha.

She was, as usual, almost entirely unreadable. The mask, and hood, and all the tattered robes that she'd been Cursed with served her well here. Her spectral eyes glinted as she narrowed them, slowly looking over Morro. Morro prepared to leap up and shove past her, but then she spoke again, in that same, crackling voice. "Are you…"

He tensed as a thousand possible endings to that sentence ran through his head. Are you crying? Are you really so weak? Are you really so pathetic?

"...okay?"

Morro felt himself freeze. He sat there for a good few seconds. Then, he looked up at her, not caring to swipe the hair out of his eyes.

They looked at eachother, and he still couldn't read her. He knew she was probably tricking him, but the initial shock was still affecting him.

Something in the air began to shift, he could've sworn that he could feel as he shrunk in his clothes, became nothing but a weeping little boy on the side of a street. As some impossibly tall, unimaginably wise adult stood over him.

He didn't like it.

Morro shot to his feet, shoving his face up to hers, forcing her to take a few paces back, as he stole them off her. "What did you just say to me?" He challenged, desperate to destroy this power imbalance that he'd imagined himself.

Her eyes didn't change, simply cautiously searched his. "Morro, please."

He was still shaking. He was still tired. Snapping at her didn't take the bite off his creeping, seeping, sickly fatigue.

Bansha must've watched the exhaustion creep back into the depths of his eyes, as he fought to keep up his violent facade. Slowly, he stood down. Her face did not change once.

Morro turned away, not daring to give away any more than he needed to. "Morro.." her wailing voice was low, like the scratching of a cat at a door. There was something familiar about it. Morro didn't know why she wasn't ridiculing him.

"I know we're not friends. I know we never will be. But I can promise you that we'll both make it out of here."

Morro was still.

He didn't understand. He wiped away some imagined itch on his face, eyes darting back and forth between Bansha and the ground.

Was she… speaking badly against the Pre-eminent? More importantly, was she trying to comfort him? Bansha? He was so aware of how his breaths passed through him. He was still shaking. He was still not asleep. But maybe… maybe she was right.

If she believed they could get out of here, maybe it was true. An opinion outside of his warped, delusional perception seemed endlessly more plausible.

Morro watched the mist hiss past him, faint wailings of agony echoed through the walls.

And he nodded. He didn't look, but he knew Bansha saw.

Even if he didn't believe it, maybe he could just cling on. Cling on to the promise that he wouldn't be condemned here forever. Maybe, deep down, he needed that reason to keep going.

Morro looked up at Bansha, feeling strangely thankful that he couldn't cry anymore. He stared up at her, where she looked right back at him. And they both understood that they had to survive a little longer.

------○------

[Timeskip, to a revived morro au.]

Morro jolted awake, calming his breathing within seconds. He'd been dreaming, some sort of nightmare. Nothing he could recall.

He was sat on a sofa, the room in complete darkness apart from the stark, flashing lights of the television in front. Its rays seemed to bounce off every corner of the room, back and forth and back and forth. He could barely make out what was even going on.

Morro groaned, and lifted up a hand to block out the light from his eyes. That was when he realised that Lloyd was asleep, leaning his head on Morro.

Morro managed to suppress his instinct to throw the boy off, and instead made himself relax. He wouldn't be the one to wake Lloyd.

How the hell had anybody fallen asleep with this thing on, anyways? Morro grabbed a remote, carefully, and turned it off after mashing a few buttons. The darkness afterwards was so plain that it was relieving. Silence rang in his ears, but he didn't quite mind.

Morro leaned his head back against the sofa, trying to remember what nightmare had been so bad that it had woken him.

Lloyd's breathing was slow, and low. His warmth unsettled Morro.

That position couldn't be comfortable for Lloyd's neck. Morro found himself worrying– no, that was stupid– Morro found himself wondering. Wondering about whether or not Lloyd would appreciate a blanket.

Ah, fuck it. He grabbed one from the opposite side of the sofa, and draped it over Lloyd. Then stilled again.

…Bansha. She'd been there, in his dream. He was almost certain of it.

Morro didn't like to think of Bansha, for obvious reasons. She reminded him too much of far too many bad things, despite the fact that she might've been the only alright thing in the entire Cursed Realm. Sometimes.

He couldn't help himself. Morro found himself thinking back to any times they'd talked. He'd been forgetting things like that recently, and he wanted to preserve her memory. Because despite all that she did, she was the only one who comforted him— wasn't she? Even though he definitely didn't deserve it at the time, the little shit that he'd been, she was the only one who saw past his exterior and cared.

Morro weeped internally for every day that his younger self had spent in that hell. He wished he could've gotten those days back, he wished he could've spent them growing up instead.

He remembered something she'd said, a long, long time ago. She'd promised that they'd both make it out alright, no matter what.

Morro stared into the dark of the room, his mind slow, and wandering. Reminiscent. Melancholy.

Well, look at him now. Falling asleep watching shows with the chosen one he'd sworn to destroy. In a normal living room, with normal furniture around them, warm air in his lungs.

And he knew he was safe here.

It was a bittersweet thought. After all that, her promise had come half true. He'd never really believed it.

Morro wished he knew what had happened to Bansha. He wished he could help her the way that the ninja has eventually saved him. He wished he could repay the favour. It seemed unfair that he was alright, and she was lost.

Maybe that debt would never be repaid. He'd probably never know. But maybe he owed his life now to her, and she'd never even know. That thought made him smile.

And so, comforted by the mere thought of what had been but a scrap of kindness in the dark, Morro closed his eyes.

He slept for every night that he had spent painfully awake, and for every night that those he left behind would miss.

#whoaaaa HEY I MAY BE 5 MINUTES OVERTIME BUT IDC.#ninjago #lego ninjago #morro ninjago #ninjago morro #morro #my writing #ninjago fanfic #ninjago fanfiction #morrotober #morrotober 2023 #oct 3 #NO I. DID NOT BETA READ THIS WE DIE LIKE MORRO !!!#also did anyone catch the short chonny jash reference cough

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starlightsearches · 2 years

Note

For the kinky prompts could you do 15 with steve x reader x Eddie, with 10, 17 & 19? Pretty please. 🥺🙏

Heartless

cockwarming / degradation kink / praise kink

Thanks for the request friend!! I started this trying to get out of a bit of a writing slump, and I hope you enjoy!! comments and reblogs give me life!!

Steve Harrington x Femme! Reader x Eddie Munson

Warnings: language, characters a little ooc but only when it's hot, mean! steve and soft! eddie, no plot just vibes, spit as lube, no protection, cockwarming, degradation, praise kink, mean and nice nicknames, fingering (f), oral sex (m), it's not very long but i'm trying.

"I thought I told you to stay fucking still."

Steve's got mean hands. Big, harsh fingers and a disappointed sneer and an angry, red cock jutting out from his zipper—still covered in your spit—but his hands are the meanest part about him. He's squeezing at your jaw until the blood's flushed from your skin, hard enough you hear something pop.

"Can you do that? Can you stay fucking still?"

God, he's fucking pretty. Even through the tears in your eyes. Even when he's angry at you.

Steve drops his hand from your face with a scoff, like he can hear what you're thinking about him and he’s not impressed, standing with his hands on his hips. "Look at her, Jesus. Dumb slut can't even respond."

"Take it easy on her, Harrington."

Eddie's chest rumbles against your back, and his hands are gentle, brushing at your sweaty hair. You'd never guess he'd be the softer one of the two—not with the way he dressed, the jacket and the chains and the rings—but god damn do you feel lucky you got far enough to find out.

"She just wants to cum, don't ya, pretty girl?"

The tips of his fingers press against the bruises Steve left, and your breath catches at the sting no matter how gentle he tries to be. Eddie turns your face towards his until you're looking into his moonlit eyes, at his soft pink lips.

You nod, and maybe you'd like to say something if it wasn't for the burn between your thighs that Eddie goes out of his way to aggravate—bouncing his hips up into yours until you can practically feel every ridge and vein of his cock through his tight-ass jeans.

"You wanna cum on my cock, baby?"

Thumb on your lips, you taste his skin when you speak—he feels your words more than he hears them.

"Please, Eddie."

"Hey," Steve's interruption makes you jump, "that wasn't the deal we made, sweetheart."

He plants one hand on the couch cushion behind you, his other hand lazily stroking at his cock, the little white beads pooling at his slit making your mouth water. It's too easy for him to bully you, the solid weight of him so close and so heavy you'd give him whatever he wants. Even if it means you leave empty-handed.

"You're here to make us cum. I don't give a fuck if you get off or not."

There's a whine on your lips that Eddie tries to hush. kissing softly at your neck.

"God damn, you're heartless," he's talking to Steve now, but you're not really listening, not with the way one of his hands strokes over the damp material of your t-shirt, "we can give her a little taste."

His fingers stop just below your breast, the edge of his thumb brushing over your peaked nipple. Your lungs empty, breath catching on the way back in as he rolls the tender flesh between the tips of his fingers.

"God, you're pretty baby," he whispers, wetting his lips to a shine with his tongue, "how ‘bout you keep me warm while you take care of Stevie?"

"Mhm," you hum your assent, lifting your hips so he can pop the button on your shorts with the hand not massaging at your tits.

"Whatever, just make it quick."

Steve feigns annoyance, but even in your current haze you can see right through that with the way he strokes his cock faster, watching hungrily as you writhe against Eddie's warm body. His free hand is there at your hip, nails scraping against the skin of your thighs as Eddie pulls down the denim on the other side until the shorts hang from your legs and there's chill air at your dripping hole.

"Jesus, baby," Eddie coos, petting at the dark spot on your pastel cotton underwear, finger circling right at the place where your swollen clit sticks to the fabric.

"God damn, I knew you were a slut." Steve's on his knees, shoving your thighs further apart with his wide shoulders just so he can get a better look, "Isn't that right? Little slut with a drooling pussy."

"Yeah," you say, but there's not much you wouldn't agree to at this point, heart pounding and starved for cock.

Eddie slips his own hands down to his zipper, and Steve takes over where he left off—three mean fingers prodding at your cunt until he can see the definition of your puffy lips and weeping slit through the cotton, the fabric biting at your skin where it slips tighter between your ass cheeks.

Steve stops moving his fingers, eyes on yours. "Then say it. Say you're a slut."

"God,"—he shocks the words out of you with his thumb harsh against your clit—"I'm- I'm a slut."

And that makes him smile.

"Don't listen to him, gorgeous," Eddie pulls you tight against his chest again, letting your hips rest against his, "he's just jealous that you like me better. Now, let's see that pretty pussy."

One of Eddie's thick fingers sneaks between your leg and the fabric, sliding the sticky, wet crotch of your panties to the side, brushing past your lips with a swipe of his middle finger.

"You already feel so fucking tight, sweetheart. You think you can take me?"

His cock glides between your folds, collecting your sticky spend and getting your whole body tight when the tip nudges against your clit.

"I dunno, Eds, I think she might need a little help."

Steve leans in closer, looking at you with total fuck-me eyes as a shining glob of spit dripping from his lips, cold enough to make you jump when lands against the cleft of your pussy, oozing slowly over your skin until it spreads, thick and bubbling, on the shaft of Eddie's cock.

"That oughta do it."

And then the fucker winks at you.

Eddie’s sucking bruises onto your skin as he slides the head of his cock inside you, pressing further and further until you've forgotten what it feels like to be empty.

"Better, princess?" he asks. You can hardly answer, not with the way he fills you, and the soft pressure of his fingers on your clit.

"Fuck, you're squeezing me so good, baby. Let's see if you can't make Steve feel this nice, huh?"

Steve stands, fingers curling around the back of your neck, sending a pain through your spine when he yanks your parted lips down over the tip of his cock.

The sarcasm in his voice is only slightly tempered by the way you hollow your cheeks around him, salty pre-cum melting on your tongue.

"Alright, princess. Let's try this again."

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x reader x eddie munson #eddie munson x reader x steve harrington #eddie munson smut #steve harrington smut #my writing #requests #minors dni

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sleepyburito · 6 months

Text

My thoughts on Visions

Every time I hear a new theory about Visions, the first thing I do is apply it to the archons in question. So here’s my take on the vision theory

Anemo: Desire freedom and the ability to overcome loss in their lives. Their ambition in life usually related to breaking free of chains of some kind whether it be literal or metaphorical.

For example: Xiao was freed from the chains of his old master and now works hard to protect Liyue and grant freedom to the people.

Venti helped Mondstat overcome their chains and strives to let them continue their free lifestyles. He overcame the loss of his friend despite still mourning after all these centuries.

Hydro: Those who have high expectations on them from uncontrollable circumstances or those who have dedicated themselves to a craft

For example: Barbra has high expectations from her family name to the point she has seemingly abandoned it and she has dedicated herself to healing and the church

Furina has expectations she tries to live up to as the hydro archon and her craft of choice appears to be acting. Even Focalor had high expectations being Egeria's successor

Dendro: Those who strive to learn and grow beyond socially expectations and to do so through unconventional means.

For Example: Tighnari grew beyond what he would have if he had become a sage

Nahida had societal expectations from the sages and is now growing into new expectations she’s set for herself as an archon.

Pyro: Those who strive to be the best of something or those who have a family legacy to live up to or preserve.

For Example: Amber, strives to be a great outrider despite being the only one and is trying to ensure her grandfathers legacy lives on with her.

As we have not met the Pyro archon, I’m not sure how much of this applies so this one may change

Cyro: Overcoming isolation and a conflict of beliefs. Their ambition in life relates to their desire to find a home or relates to their conflicting belief in a unique way.

For example: Diona is a bartenter who hates alcohol and has a blessing to create amazing drinks. Her ambition is to take down the Mondstat wine industry.

The Tsaritsa, from what we can tell, isolated herself after the destruction of Khanriah and seems to have a belief she needs to take down Celestia despite being a creation of Celestia

Geo: Those who shoulder a metaphorical or literal weight to help those around them and often they take promises or ‘contracts’ seriously.

For example: Noelle seems to take on a lot of the heavy lifting literally for the knights, she carries crates and takes down larger, harder to defeat enemies.

Zhongli ruled and cared for Liyue for Millennia, seemingly putting their safety and lives before his own needs. His retirement is him ending his contract.

Electro: Those who don’t ‘belong’ in the traditional sense, the ones who are outcasted for who they are or the ones who don’t truly fall in line with society

For Example: Fischl is caught in her daydream, her ‘reality’ is different to everyone else's. Even her own parents didn’t accept her

Ei and Makoto were the only twin archons, they shared the title but not the same duties. They were immediate stand outs with the archons and yet they hid that individuality from the rest of the world

this is all just my thoughts I've gather from too much free time and ADHD nonsense

Edit: 9/12/2023 because I forgot Electro-

#genshin impact #genshin visions #genshin theory #archons

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pipsqk-art · 5 months

Text

Revived Once More

Cassie is finally freed after being under the Mimic's control for nearly a year, and has some harsh realizations to accept.

You're tired. You're so tired. You're exhausted, your whole body aches. You're covered in scrapes and bruises and your head is pounding. You didnt realize you were collapsed on the floor until someone started to pick you up, you groan in response. Every little movement sends new waves of pain through your skull and behind your eyes. Whoever is holding you settles on cradling you against their chest, and despite all the aches it caused you have to admit that it feels nice. You feel two warm fingers press against the side of your wrist, its such a stark difference compared to the chains that were there before.

Oh.

The chains are gone. Are you...out? Are you awake? Is it over? The muffled sounds you've been hearing begin to clarify into voices, it's still hard to make out all the words.

"...ulse is high but stea..."

You open your eyes enough to see three blurry figures looking down at you and a fourth holding something and talking into it. Your gaze lands on a flashlight pointed in your direction and you let out another groan, squeezing your eyes shut. That got someone's attention. "...ssie?" The voice reverberates through the torso you're being held to. You manage to slowly lift your hand and weakly press it against the chest in response. I'm here. I'm awake. I'm here. I'm here. The figure holds you tighter, her muzzle resting against the top of your head. Your breath hitches slightly.

You're tired. Your mind and your feelings are a horrible torrent of misery. You're finally free and you can't even be happy about it. No. Instead you're tired, you're scared, you're confused, you're angry, but above all you're heartbroken. You feel betrayed. Again. Why does this keep happening? If you had any energy left at all you would cry, just fall to the floor and sob until it all faded away.

You vaguely register that you've been brought to a different room, you take a deep breath and open your eyes, ignoring the throbbing in your head. You look around and a gasp escapes you, it's his room. Why are you here? Why did he...

The gasp you let out gets everyone's attention, they all look back at you but you can only look ahead. You open your mouth to speak, to ask the only question that matters right now, but nothing comes out. They all share glances before Vanessa walks over to you. "Hey, kiddo," she says gently, "welcome back." You don't look at her, you barely register what she says. You are gripped with a paralyzing terror but you can't look away, those piercing yellow eyes have your full attention. Vanessa looks back in realization and then takes a step to the side, blocking him from your view. She reaches up to wipe the tears from your cheeks and, oh, you started crying at some point. "Cassie, sweetie?" Vanessa asks gently, you finally give her your attention. "You don't have to be here for this, we didn't think you would wake up this soon."

Freddy pipes up from behind her, "We are going to lock this thing him back up and ensure it he cannot escape again. But, if you are uncomfortable..." he puts a hand behind his head awkwardly, "perhaps Roxanne could take you outside and we could meet you later."

Gregory nods in agreement, "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

"I know you haven't seen the stars in a while," Roxy smiles down at you.

No. No, you can't leave yet. You need answers. You have to know.

You squirm in Roxy's arms, motioning that you'd like to be put down but she holds you tighter, unwilling to let you go. You know she's just trying to protect you, but you have to do this. You look up at her and whisper, "Please."

If animatronics could sigh, Roxy does, and sets you down on your feet as gently as she can. Your whole body screams at the movement and you do your best to ignore it. You try to take a step forward and immediately lose your balance, seemingly unable to put weight on your right ankle. Vanessa catches you and looks weirdly guilty about it. You can ask about that later. She helps you limp forward until you're about 5 feet away from him.

You swallow hard and, for the first time in a long time, speak with your own voice. "Why did you do that to me..." It's almost a question, but comes out as a plea.

He looks up at you, well, as much as he can. Bonnie, Chica, and Monty have him firmly pinned to the ground. They've already removed his legs and Monty looks ready to yank his head off at a moments notice. Still, his eyes look up at you, and he responds, "I do not understand."

You close your eyes, take a breath, and repeat the question louder this time, "Why did you do that to me? I thought we were friends..." Your voice cracks on the last word.

He blinks at you, "I am your friend, Cassie." he says in his 'normal' voice, a weird combination of your voice and Gregory's mixed together with synthetic noise. For some reason him saying your name sends a chill up your spine, that's never happened before. He's been lying to me, just pretending. He's not actually my friend because...

You squeeze your eyes shut and shake your head, both as a response and to clear these unpleasant thoughts. "Micah, friends don't do that to each other. I don't know what you made me do but," you pause and look down at your left hand, at what you hope is rust under the claws, "whatever it was I would have helped you. You didn't have to...control me," you choke back a sob "and lock me away. Do you know how scary that was?" You take a step forward, almost yelling now, tears freely flowing.

He cocks his head to the side like a confused animal and says the opposite of what you wanted to hear, "No. You're wrong." You can't breathe, he must be joking. "I made the correct choice. I saw you at the electronics store, at the party with those teens, when you failed to kill that one," he nods towards Gregory and continues, "You did not make the correct choice. I helped you, Cassie, because I am your friend. I freed you from those who hurt you. I helped you when you could not help yourself."

"YOU HURT ME, MICAH!" you yell at him, "You hurt me. So now what?" You're shaking, staring him down, fear and sadness shifting to anger.

He blinks at you several times and simply responds, "No. I helped you. I am your friend."

Your heart sinks, "You don't..." the words come out as a whisper as the realization hits you. He doesn't understand and he never will. He's not my friend and he never was.

After a few moments you wordlessly walk closer, fully blocking out any pain that may come with it. Monty moves out of your way when he sees what you've pulled out, and before you can think you slam the faz wrench into the ports at the base of his it's head. You stare into the middle distance, holding it there until it stops twitching.

You pull the pins out and stare down at the device in your hand. This faz wrench that has been with you through everything. This tool that you fashioned into a weapon. Initially only used for defense and then...

With as much force as you can muster you reel your arm back and throw it at the wall with all of your strength. You hear it shatter on impact and see the floor quickly approaching as the inertia from the throw pulls you down. You barely catch yourself and your knees crack against the tile. Several people call out your name but you only hear your heartbeat in your ears. You grit your teeth, fill your lungs with air, and scream. And you keep screaming. You scream and cry and sob until your throat is hoarse. You don't know how much time passes but you look up to see Gregory crouched in front of you. He searches your eyes for a moment before reaching forward and pulling you into a tight hug. You grab at the back of his shirt and hold onto him like he's a lifeline. "You're okay." You can barely hear him through your sobs, but you do hear him. "You're okay, you're okay." He repeats gently, over and over. And you stay there like that, for as long as it takes.

#pipsqk writes #fanfic #cassie fnaf #the mimic #fnaf #friend betrayed au

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lemissingmask · 6 months

Text

[ID: Sketch of Jacob Stone bursting into flames, with his exposed arm and hand on fire already and sparks around him, and an expression of pain on his face. End ID]

Day 26: Curse

vampire!Stone dealing with the curse of vampirism and bursting into flame when someone accidentally opens the back door and lets in daylight.

Ficlet (to be honest it got carried away and I don’t think it’s in ficlet territory anymore) below the cut. This carries on almost directly from Dehumanization prompt fill.

There’s one more loose end I need to wrap up for this vampire!Stone series

It was a trick. It was another of the vampire’s sick games. Or his mind was messing with him. It had moved on from hopeful hallucinations to nightmares.

Jake wasn’t here.

He wasn’t in the annex, and he wasn’t looking at the empty space where he should have been in a mirror he knew so well. A mirror he knew worked and he knew he should be able to see himself in because he had so many times before.

Jake couldn’t be here.

He was still in that dark, cold cell, waiting for the vampires to come back and feed on him again. Any moment this nightmare would fade to reality and he would see his own blood on the floor beneath him, a ghost of his reflection in it.

This nightmare just needed to stop soon.

It really needed to stop, and Eve needed to stop feeling so real and solid behind him, holding him up when he knew it was only those chains holding him up. They were his only support and he needed to wake up and return to them and end this.

But he wasn’t.

Jake wasn’t waking up, and Eve was still behind him, Cassie still in front of him, Ezekiel behind her.

They were talking but he didn’t hear.

He had to wake up.

He tried to pull away from them. To escape this lie.

He fell, but he never felt his body hit the floor, and not from the chains. Eve was still there and she had caught him and the nightmare wouldn’t end.

Jake tried to get away.

If he could get back through the back door…maybe that would wake him up. Maybe that would bring him back to the familiar cell and the feedings, and vampires didn’t feed on other vampires.

But he couldn’t get free.

There was Jenkins too, holding him steady, and now he knew this had to be a trick from the vampire because there was a sudden sharp pain in his arm, like a bite. Not much pain, but it was there and it was sharp. It had to be a fang, so he knew it was a lie.

He was still in that prison.

Jake was still human.

Eve had been standing behind Stone, already supporting most of his weight, so it took almost no adjustment to catch him when his legs suddenly gave way.

She had been prepared for it.

She had not been prepared for the tears she saw rolling down his cheeks, cutting paths through the blood spattered over his skin, nor for him to weakly try and get free of her arms.

And she had definitely not been prepared for Jenkins to kneel on his other side and suddenly inject him with something that looked unsettlingly like the sedative they had used on the saw-toothed moth when it had gotten loose a few months ago.

“What the hell Jenkins?!” Ezekiel yelled, “He hasn’t had enough stabby already?!”

“It’s just a sedative,” Jenkins replied not quite with his usual calm, “It should keep him out for a few hours.”

Eve nodded shakily, “That’s good. He was panicking and making his injuries worse. This way we can keep him alive until we get him to a hospital.”

“We can’t take him to a hospital,” Flynn said solemnly.

He was the only one standing away from the group, watching them, his expression as grave as Eve had ever seen it.

“Why not?!” Cassandra had caught one of Stone’s hands with her own, “We tell them it was an animal attack or something…use a spell to…”

“We can’t take him to a hospital!” Flynn snapped back, suddenly in motion. He grabbed Judson’s mirror and set it down beside them, tilted so they could see Stone’s reflection in it.

Or, where Stone’s reflection should have been.

“We can’t take him to a hospital,” Flynn repeated more gently, “Because he’s a vampire.”

“No,” Eve breathed, shaking her head, “H-he’s not…”

“He is,” Flynn let the mirror lay flat, crouching and looking back at Stone.

“Well we gotta do something!” Ezekiel looked desperately from Flynn to Jenkins, who only shook his head.

“There’s nothing we can do.”

“You stopped me from becoming a werewolf!”

“Lycanthropy does not require the afflicted to die!” Jenkins snapped back, then managed to master himself, and added solemnly, “Mr Stone has already died in order to get this far into the transformation. It cannot be reversed now.”

Cassandra whispered a heartbreaking, trembling, “He died there?” that was drowned out my Ezekiel’s voice, desperate and angry.

“We have the entire library! We can’t just give up! There has to be something we can do!”

“There is,” Eve wiped the tears that kept brimming in her eyes, “We support him. We help him through whatever comes next and we make sure he knows this is still his home. He’s still a librarian.”

“Eve’s right,” Flynn said, “We can’t stop this but we can still help.”

“What about the sanctuary? Estelle might be able to help…”

“No! He belongs here!” Ezekiel bit his lip, “Besides he doesn’t trust easily. We’re the only ones he does trust.”

“So we get him to his room,” Eve said, “We patch him up, do what we can, and prepare for…for whatever comes next.”

“Cassandra,” Flynn moved in position to help Eve carry Stone again, “Look into spells that can be used to keep a vampire contained without harming them.”

“We’re gonna lock him up?!”

“We’re going to contain him until the initial inevitable blood lust passes and he has control of it, and speaking of which, Jones, you need to go steal some blood.”

“Steal some blood?! Seriously?! We’re just gonna let this happen and…” Ezekiel cut himself off, or maybe just couldn’t figure out the words to say.

“Yes, from a blood bank. Look for AB blood types. He’s going to need blood to recover, and to stave off the cravings. It’s like a…”

“So we have a plan,” Eve interrupted what she could see what an impending ramble, “Cassandra, spells to safely contain vampires. Jones, rob a blood bank. Flynn, Jenkins, with me.”

Direct, clear action was good. That’s what they needed. They needed things to do so they didn’t have to think. Think about the fact that Stone had died in that dark, cold, dirty cell, alone but for his tormentors. The vampires who had done this to him.

The sedative Jenkins had given him seemed to be working. Either that or he was still human enough to be completely struck down by the severe injuries and extreme blood loss.

The transformation hadn’t gone far, according to Jenkins. He had only just been turned, which meant if they had got to him just a bit sooner…

Stone didn’t move, didn’t stir at all, as they removed his clothes and cleaned the dirt and blood from his skin.

In doing so, they revealed wounds horribly deep and ragged and layered - bite upon bite and flesh torn deeply into, cloth from his shirt and jeans caught inside, in some places on his wrists bone visible…

But, there were signs of some already starting to heal, his body knitting itself back together, and the only wound that hadn’t even started that yet was on the right side of his neck. That must be where he was fed on most recently.

That had to have been the one that finally killed him, drained what was left of his life away in that dark, cold, squalid cell, while he was chained to the wall, unable to defend himself or do anything to stop it.

Eve was furious. It wasn’t right and he wasn’t fair, and they should have been able to save him in time. That was their job. To save people from threats like this, and they couldn’t save one of their own.

She had killed two vampires in that place. She wished there had been more so she could have taken them out too. Got some sort of revenge.

Not that it would help. It was too late now.

Without an outlet for her rage, Eve fell to despair, and her eyes brimmed with tears again.

Being turned into a vampire aside, what Stone had been through was horrific. Traumatic was an understatement, and he had suffered all that alone while they failed to find him day after day.

Other than Jenkins giving instructions on helping him with bandaging and cleaning, none of them spoke. Eve doubted she could have even if she tried, not without it coming out as a sob.

When finally it was done and they had him cleaned, bandaged, and dressed in his favourite flannel lounge pants with van Gogh’s sunflowers embroidered crudely on - a gift from Cassandra when she got herself a sewing machine - he might almost have looked normal.

Like he was sleeping after a rough mission, and the bandages hid normal injuries, not the bites from multiple vampires and the one bite that killed him.

“How is he?” Cassandra poked her head in through the doorway, grimacing as she glanced to the adjoining bathroom, now decorated with his blood from their haphazard medical treatment.

“Still out,” Eve replied, looking from the door and back to Stone, “But we’ve done what we can for now.”

There was a pause. Silence.

Ezekiel cleared his throat before speaking, his voice cracking on the first attempt before he managed to get it under control, “Well, I stole from a few blood banks. Ones well stocked, so they shouldn’t miss a few packs. Left it all in a cooler in the annex.”

“And I found a spell that should keep him in here, if that’s what we really think is best,” Cassandra continued, “Just need to paint a few sigils around his door and infuse them with an incantation. It’ll be like a window. He can’t pass it but it won’t hurt him.”

“Okay, good. Do that,” Eve said, “And when he wakes up, we give him…we see if he wants…”

“We give him one of the blood bags,” Flynn finished for her, “Which he will need.”

“We do it two of us at a time. One with a sedative on hand in case he becomes violent.”

“But it’s still Stone,” Cassandra argued, “He wouldn’t hurt us, and treating him like…”

“Like a monster,” Ezekiel finished when she broke off, “That’s not gonna help.��

“Do you imagine he would ever forgive himself were he to harm one of us?” Jenkins argued, “He will not be entirely himself. Not until he has mastered this. Colonel Baird is right. We need to be prepared for the possibility of his growing violent.”

Jenkins’ warning made sense, but at first Stone didn’t grow violent at all.

He wasn’t even really lucid for the first few days, but he wasn’t really their Jacob Stone either.

He drank when they brought him some blood. Always barely awake and only a few small sips at first, but then he lifted himself up a bit, grabbed to hold the bag and drink faster. Desperately.

On the sixth day, he grabbed Flynn’s wrist and tried to drag it to him, but he wasn’t strong enough to maintain his grip. They realised later that Flynn had a paper cut, a tiny slice, not too deep, but that had to be what Stone had wanted.

On the seventh day, he was sitting up in the bed when Eve arrived, leaning back against the wall and picking at the bandage on his left wrist with a right hand that looked to be bleeding.

Eve stopped outside the door, watching for a moment.

“This real?”

His voice startled her. It was rough and quiet, but it was the first coherent sound he’d made since they got him back, and she wasn’t prepared for the wave of mixed emotions when she heard it.

“It’s real,” she replied, stepping into the room with Ezekiel half a step behind her. She paused when she caught sight of the shattered mirror in the bathroom, and now his bloody right hand made sense.

She made a mental note that someone needed to clean that up later. Maybe make sure there were no mirrors in the room at all.

Stone’s head raised as she drew closer, eyes taking on that alert sharpness that she had grown used to each time he caught the scent of the blood they brought.

“How’re you feeling?” she asked, but he wasn’t listening. His eyes were fixed on the bag she held in her hand.

“Stone?”

No reply, and a tensing of muscles like he was about to move.

She quickly back stepped, shoving Ezekiel back through the door and practically falling out of it himself when he launched himself from the bed after her, stopping abruptly at the door.

He fell back against the desk behind him, gripping it tightly and looking as exhausted as before, the brief moment of energy gone.

But his voice was still almost strong as he growled, “Give it to me.”

“Calm down first,” Eve forced her voice to remain calm and unaffected by the sight of her friend so painfully not himself, “Get back into bed. You’re still too injured to be up.”

There was a low growl that sounded utterly inhuman, and Stone continued to glare coldly at her.

It hurt. It hurt unbearably, but she knew what she had to do.

She just couldn’t.

“Haven’t I suffered enough?!” Stone yelled, “I need that!”

“Not til you calm down you don’t,” Ezekiel shouted back.

“We’re trying to help you,” Eve said more gently.

“Help me?” Stone laughed bitterly, “You’re tryin’ to help me? You coulda done that by leavin’ me there! You think they’d have tortured me like this?!”

The vampires had tortured him for almost two weeks. She wouldn’t put it past them.

“We’re here to help our friend, not the vampire! And until we see our Jake Stone again, we’re not giving you anything.”

Ezekiel grabbed the blood bag from Eve and turned, storming away.

“Baird,” Stone pushed himself off the desk and fell against the blank space of his doorway, “Eve. Please.”

“Ezekiel’s right,” she replied softly, stepping closer, “All the things we found suggest it’ll be easier for you to control this early on then trying to do it later. And…”

“Go away,” Stone growled, glaring up at her, “If you ain’t gonna help then leave me the hell alone!”

The shouted words cut right through every wall she had managed to build up.

Jacob Stone didn’t shout. Almost never. Maybe in a heated debate about art or architecture, but rarely even then. He spoke softly, chose his words carefully.

And this creature in front of her wasn’t the same person.

Swallowing down the lump in her throat, Eve turned and walked away.

“He’s like an addict,” Ezekiel was saying when she reached the annex, “He’s not acting like himself now, but he’s gotta still be in there.”

“The blood lust is making him act on pure instinct,” Flynn nodded, “But we have all seen vampires who have control over that.”

“We know it can be controlled,” Cassandra nodded, “And Stone had the self-control to hide his passions and who he really was from everyone he knew for like two decades. If anyone can do it, he can.”

Jenkins hummed thoughtfully and went to retrieve a book, “And perhaps that passion is how we help get through to Mr Stone…this is the book he was reading before he was taken. He spoke of a paper he was considering based on some arguments made by its author on art as a reaction to imposition by…”

He waved a hand.

“Anyway, the point is, if we can trigger the man we know using his love for art and literature, we may be able to better help him master his condition.”

“We should give him a while to calm down first. He looked ready to kill.”

Cassandra slapped Ezekiel’s shoulder, “He wouldn’t kill us.”

The thief shook his head, “Shoulda seen the look in his eyes.”

“Ezekiel’s right. Jenkins and I will try in a few hours.”

It did work.

It took some time, but before Eve went to bring the blood, Jenkins put a chair outside the door and discussed the contents of that book with Stone, a conversation that gradually began to really sound like him again. When she brought the blood, he was enough himself to be repulsed at first by the idea, and only show that feral expression for a few minutes while he drank, and briefly after it was empty.

After that, whoever brought him his small portion of blood on a given day went armed with something that might get through to the man they knew.

A quote, a book, or maybe a photo of a newly discovered piece of art or architecture, and little by little, their Jake emerged from the feral vampire, and not once did they have to sedate him.

It took almost three months to feel like it really was their friend again, during which everyone else necessarily kept up with the library’s work. Three at a time, either Eve or Flynn taking Stone’s place, and always at least two in the library to make sure Stone continued to improve.

But he did and if it wasn’t for him being locked in one room, or for the fact he preferred drinking blood to beer, Eve might have been able to convince herself nothing had changed.

“We’re thinking of removing the sigils,” Cassandra said one morning as she and Eve sat in the room with Stone while he slowly drank through the blood they brought that day, now in a beer bottle since it was more familiar and normal to him, “So you can get out of here.”

She gestured to the room, which had become filled with books and art portfolios and printed pages, and even his laptop which he never turned off or let the screen darken on, somewhere among them.

He was writing a new paper. His third since his confinement, the isolation and torment to his mind driving him to never want to stop reading or writing or analysing.

He looked up sharply from the picture he’d been examining, “No!”

“Stone, we’re not going to leave you trapped in here. We want you back out with us, as a librarian.”

“How the hell can I still be a librarian?!” he snapped back, the sudden ferocity making Cassandra jump and Eve shift between them.

Stone didn’t miss the movement and he laughed bitterly, “You’re scared of me. An’ you should be. I ain’t human anymore. I ain’t safe to be around any of you. Specially not loose. Out there. The hell happens when I lose control an’ kill some innocent person on a job, or even you?! Assumin’ I can even leave here at all. How many jobs the clippin’ book send us on that happen only at night? Hm? How many? None! I ain’t a librarian anymore an’ you gotta stop tryin’ to pretend I am! You shoulda just left me in that damn place!”

“Stop it!” Eve yelled, louder than Stone’s desperately broken rant and louder than Cassandra’s barely contained crying, “Stop!”

“No!” Stone growled, his fangs bared.

“Yes!” Eve stood, taller than him and not backing down.

He might fight her, but Eve had to believe he wouldn’t really try to kill her, and he was still not fully healed so Eve knew she would at least be able to protect Cassandra.

If it came to that.

But it wasn’t going to because Jacob Stone was still there and he still had the same self-control he had always had. He just had more stuff to control now.

“Be quiet and listen!” Eve continued when Stone made no move, neither backing down, nor attacking.

“You are still a librarian. Nothing is going to change that. Yes, things have changed, and it’s gonna take a while to figure it all out, but things have changed before, and we worked through it. Together. And that’s what we’re gonna do this time.”

“You’re not alone,” Cassandra added quietly behind him, “We want to help you.”

He shook his head, stepping back and dropping back to sit on the bed, “Why? I could kill any of you if I just lost it for just a second. I ain’t useful enough for it to be worth…”

“It’s not about being useful. It’s about us caring about you,” Cassandra said softly, “And nothing is going to change that.”

“What she said,” Ezekiel affected to be casual as he stepped through the door, “Plus we don’t know about all those silly little poets and painty guys you like so much. I sure as hell don’t want to hafta start learning to tell the difference between Cococo and baroque.”

“Rococo,” Stone corrected automatically and in a very familiar way.

“Whatever. Point is, we need you.”

Stone looked away but Eve could still almost see every emotion he was trying to bury and hide.

“Stone,” she sat down on the desk chair opposite him, “Do you still want to be a librarian?”

“‘Course I want to,” Stone whispered with tears glistening on his eyelashes as he closed his eyes, “It’s all I wan’.”

“Then you need access to the whole library, so we’re going to remove the barrier. We trust you.”

He nodded, “Could you just…just gimme a minute?”

They did.

They gave him twenty.

Cassandra removed the barrier on their way out and they went to go and try to look in the clippings book. See what weird stuff was going on.

They all made an effort to act normal when Stone finally joined them, looking almost like his old self, save for the hints of tiredness and slightly self-conscious unease. It was a bit awkward, but it was progress.

Things were going to work out.

Things were working out.

Sort of.

At least, everyone was pretending they were.

The library seemed to be aware, and really it almost certainly was aware, about Stone’s condition. His personal clippings book gave him jobs that he could do at night, enabling him to still be part of the team, and still be a librarian. But he did it almost entirely alone.

The main clippings book still had weird stuff that came up that needed daytime investigations, or which took the librarians into places or situations where there might be too many people for Stone to handle this soon. He was on edge and jumpy and Eve was almost certain he was suffering from trauma after all he had been through, on top of everything else.

He was being distanced by his curse, growing depressed, and distancing himself more.

But they tried to pretend it was okay, and Eve wasn’t sure why but she didn’t know how to escape that loop of false positivity. They were falling apart, and not for the first time.

When this had happened before, there had been a trigger. Something or some machination of the library or someone brought them back together.

She shouldn’t have waited for it to happen, but she did.

The trigger happened when Stone was up one morning, doing research on an artifact that needed retrieving from Norway. Something to do with salmon, Eve guessed, by the printed etchings on one page of the open book. The other page was a language she didn’t recognise, but presumably was among the several dozen Stone could read.

The moment was calm, almost felt normal. Her, Jenkins and Stone working at the central table, Flynn playing chess with Excalibur on the balcony above…

Then the door opened.

The back door, bringing Cassie and Ezekiel back from their job, and with them a shaft of sunlight. The door remained open longer than it should have, the artifact they had being large, carried between them. It held the door open, let the sunlight fall in the room, and illuminate Stone.

Within a second his exposed skin where the sun hit him ignited, bursting into flame.

Eve grabbed her coat from the stool beside her and flung it over him, shoving him away from the shaft of sunlight. At the same time, Jenkins’ lab coat was thrown over him too, and a few moments later water that Flynn had managed to acquire from somewhere. All while Stone was screaming in pain and Cassandra and Ezekiel were trying to get the artifact inside and shut the doors.

Finally the sunlight vanished, the fire was out, and Stone was left trembling violently, holding his severely burned arms away from his body.

For a moment he stayed there, staring at the injuries that on a human would have be bound to scar and take months to heal. Then in a blur - a literal blur of colour and unfocused shape - he had vanished out into the corridor and probably to his room.

That was the trigger that forced them to accept things weren’t working, and spur them into actively putting everything else on hold to find a fix.

They worked all day and all night, and part way through the following day, each taking breaks for sleep when they couldn’t go any longer.

They went through every magic or scientific or historical manuscript or rumour they could find that might have some solution to the sunlight problem. There was that mineral from the sanctuary, but that wouldn’t last more than a few days, and Cassandra didn’t believe the exact duration could be predicted. It could wear off sooner, without warning.

Layers of clothing and parasols and maybe some super strong sunscreen were also proposed, but nothing seemed viable.

At one point or another, they had each gone to check on Stone, but he had told every one of them that he wanted to be alone.

Except Jenkins, who was still with him when Flynn let out a shout of victory.

“I have it!” he thrust a book into the centre of the table, “Or, part of it.”

They all leaned over to look at the photograph of an old, worn scroll spanning both pages.

Eve raised an eyebrow, “You’re going to have to explain.”

“Well, okay, it’s only part of a solution. But here, this spell can protect those afflicted by a curse from external factors causing the curse to harm them. The external factor is the sun, and so this should stop it from interacting with his whole vampire thing and so the sun won’t harm him. Like a sort of shield. Or something. In theory.”

“That’s an awful lot of doubtful qualifications…”

“So, only part of the spell is here, but maybe we can fill in the gaps based on other spells from the same culture.”

“Okay, but magic needs power, focus and effect,” Cassandra mused, “The effect is the protection, but what’s the focus? I mean, the spell but we’d have to tie it permanently to Stone.”

“And how do we get enough power to do something like that?” Ezekiel added, “I’m guessing if it was easy, loads of vampires would do it.”

“Most vampires don’t have the library so would never have found this spell. Or the part of it…anyway! We translate this, fill in the gaps and work from there.”

“The focus!” Cassandra brightened, “The markings from the monkey king’s staff! They have magic already. That’s how we found Stone in the first place. Maybe we can extend them. Use them to bind the spell to Stone.”

”Guys,” Ezekiel interrupted, “We’re talking like he’s gonna agree to this.”

“It could be a way for him to be able to go in the sun again. He could go on missions with us again…”

“You’re suggesting practically carving a spell into a guy who never trusted magic, and trusts it even less now.”

“We used magic to find him.”

“Which he said he doesn’t think we should’ve done.”

“That wasn’t him!”

“Okay, guys,” Eve cut into their argument, “Ezekiel has a point. There’s no point going further into this until we ask Stone if he’s okay with this.”

“We’re also going to need him to translate the spell…” Flynn pointed out, “I mean, I could given time and maybe a bit of leeway for the occasional noun misplaced…but Stone knows this language. He’s translated texts in it before.”

They fell silent for several minutes, Cassandra finally breaking it quietly, “If we all go ask him together, he might feel pressured.”

“So one of us does it.”

Eve knew it fell on her. She was the guardian, and this was a job for a guardian.

She stood slowly, dreading what this question alone might do. Stone had become something he hated and they were about to offer him a small respite from that curse, using something else he hated.

Knocking on the shut door, she heard Stone’s voice from inside, “You don’t need to be so formal, Baird.”

She took a deep breath and opened the door.

Stone and Jenkins were playing an old Norse game, one she didn’t remember the names or rules of, and the pieces laid out on the leather board meant nothing to her.

The worst of his burns had been bandaged, but the less severe ones were still visible on his arms and neck and one side of his face. Already they were better than when Eve last saw him, probably thanks in part to the beer bottle of blood beside Stone on the table.

It looked like a calm moment. Companionable and pleasant. And she was about to ruin it.

“We have a plan. An idea of how we might be able to protect you from the sun.”

Stone looked up, and now Eve saw what she had feared. Exhaustion and despair barely hidden, Stone’s mask worn threadbare by the months of this curse and the torture that led to it.

“Alright,” he said softly.

“You haven’t even heard what it is.”

“It doesn’t matter. Things can’t stay as they are. I’m a burden to you all and to the library, and…”

“Jake…”

He shook his head and continued over her argument, “An’ if there’s a way to change that, I don’ care what it is. I’ll do it.”

He paused, looking directly back at her, “But if it doesn’t, you gotta stop tryin’ to help me.”

Eve didn’t want to agree to that. Agree to give up, but there was an expression of sadness so deep in Stone’s eyes that she found herself nodding, silently consenting to give up on him if this failed.

Stone didn’t seem happy, merely resigned, as they worked out the spell they needed and how to carry it out. But the work of translating various texts from the same era occupied him enough that Eve saw him look at least contented. Just not happy. And he never really smiled, not properly.

And now, after days of work, and a very painful few hours of Cassandra verbally burning sigils into his skin, extending the markings all down his right arm, they were ready to try.

“You sure about this?” Stone asked, for probably the fifth time, “‘Cus you know, spontaneously burstin’ into flames ain’t that fun.”

It hadn’t been fun for them either.

Sitting out in the open in Shangri-La, two fire blankets within easy reach, Eve feared the psychological consequences if this failed, more than the physical ones.

The night sky was already lightening.

Any second now the sun would breach the horizon and cast its rays onto them.

They didn’t move, barely breathed, as the first sector of the sun was seen, orange and warm, stretching over the mountain but not yet reaching them.

It extended.

The light hit their feet first, and Stone instinctively flinched although his boots protected him there.

Eve watched him.

He didn’t close his eyes.

He watched intently as the sun rose further, tensed as the light touched his exposed forearms.

A wince. The marks now extending down the entire of his right arm glowed red, sizzled, then settled back to black.

The sun rose further, bathing them in light, and no fire.

None of them spoke until long after the sun had fully escaped the horizon. Just in case a sound in that perfect morning would break the spell.

An hour, two hours, and still the fire blankets remained untouched.

Later they would repeat the test, outside of the magic city. Even if it worked, they would still never go out without at least one fire suppression method close at hand. Just in case.

But the spell had worked, at least in this moment, and Eve had felt a warmth far deeper than the sun could ever gift at the sight of Stone smiling, really, genuinely, smiling, as he turned his face to the gentle glow of the early morning light.

#ailesswhumptober2023 #Day 26: Curse #the librarians #jacob stone #cw fire #cw flames #vampire jacob stone #cw blood #cw torture

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imdoingaokay · 2 years

Note

if you’re doing dragon age requests: dai companions reacting to an inquiz asking if they need a hug. bonus points if it’s because they (inquisitor) noticed the companion was looking sad or tired, or because they’ve just been through something difficult (say, after one of their personal quests). thank you :)

Oh my dear anon.

I been waiting for this one.

I have spent literal nights working on this bad boy and lemme tell you if you don't like it illliterallystartcryingohmygod

Anyways, here you go babe <3

Blackwall/Thom Rainer: It was strange, honestly. Being Thom Rainer again. It felt almost wrong. He was thankful for the Inquisitor, their kindness. They could’ve left him, let him pay. But they didn’t. Somehow, they even forgave him.

It made him feel, free, in a way. Not just physically, with all the chains being taken off. But there was a metaphorical weight taken off his shoulders. Just now, he felt guilty for his lies.

“Blackw- I mean, Rainer.” A familiar voice called for him, pulling him away from the wood he worked on.

“Ah, Inquisitor-”

“Please, call me by my name.”

Rainer paused, before letting the name of the Inquisitor fall from his lips.

“Thank you, I like my name, I’d like to keep it.” The Inquisitor smiled, and Rainer smiled back.

“It suits you.” Rainer chuckled.

“I could say the same to you, Rainer.” The Inquisitor responded, catching him off guard.

Before Rainer could respond, the Inquisitor spoke quietly, “I’ve forgiven you, you know.”

And soon enough, Rainer was wrapped in a tight hug. And while he still felt as though he wasn’t worthy of such care and affection, he was going to make himself worthy.

But for now, he’ll be fine with the hug, wrapping his own arms around the Inquisitor.

Cassandra: It started when Cassandra snapped at the Inquisitor. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was still upset. Upset about the betrayal of her superior, upset about the death of her comrades. And she had taken it out on the Inquisitor.

She was thankful for the quiet camp that followed, and how spaced out the tents were. She didn’t know if she could face the Inquisitor just yet.

“I hope you know I’m not upset with you.” It didn’t matter if she could or couldn’t.

“Wh-Oh. I do apolog-”

“Cassandra, it’s okay. You’ve been through a lot in the past few weeks.” The Inquisitor comforted her, placing a hand on Cassandra’s back.

“I-” She had hesitated, wondering if she should pull away or stay. In her turmoil, the Inquisitor wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Cassandra turned to look at them before enveloping them in a hug.

“Thank you.” She said, and she meant it.

Cole: Cole was quiet, his thoughts had been more mixed up as of late. Sometimes he was quiet, sometimes he was loud. But he felt more at peace. It felt better to be out of limbo, but was he on the right side?

“Cole? I was looking for you, I wanted to check in.” The Inquisitor said as they climbed the tavern stairs.

“Oh, h-hello.” Cole responded, “I think I’m okay.”

“Really? That’s good.”

“Grey, muddled, furrowing your brow… you don’t believe me.” Cole looked down, a little dejected.

“I guess it’s hard to believe you’d be doing okay after everything that had happened.” The Inquisitor frowned, “I just want you to know, I’m here. And I wanted to ask if you wanted a hug.”

Cole paused, lifting his gaze to the Inquisitor. He opened his arms and they did the same.

“Warm, protected, so small, still young? I deserved more. I must be protected.” He said, reading the mind of his Inquisitor.

“Hey… just enjoy the hug, alright?” The Inquisitor replied.

“A-Alright.”

Cullen Rutherford: Scribbling down more missives, Cullen’s head throbbed. Lyrium or no lyrium, life was not easy for the former templar. He was so entrenched in the paperwork, he didn’t notice the door slowly open.

“Cullen?” The Inquisitor asked, curious about their friend.

“Ah, Inquisitor, I apologize. I was… busy.” Cullen looked up, sighing at the heap of papers littering his desk.

“I could always get a soldier or two to help you.” The Inquisitor suggested.

“Maker, no. They never do it right, and their handwriting is awful.” Cullen sighed, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, “Regardless, is there something I can do for you?”

“I just wanted to check in on you, after everything.” The Inquisitor asked, “I know we talked but…”

“Me? I am fine, doing much better.” Cullen smiled at the Inquisitor’s concern, he stood up to meet the Inquisitor infront of his desk.

“Good, I need my commander in tip-top shape.” The Inquisitor playfully punched Cullen’s shoulder.

“I’ll try…” Cullen laughed gently, gazing at the paperwork he still had to do.

“Why don’t I help? I’ve done this before.” The Inquisitor smiled, Cullen hesitated, wanting to say no, that the Inquisitor deserved rest, but the offer of help was too tempting.

Luckily, he did say yes. And no less than an hour later, the pair was done with the remaining papers.

“Do you mind doing all my paperwork from now on?” Cullen asked, the Inquisitor standing up and stretching.

“Not really, but I think you’ll mind more.” The Inquisitor joked, “But… I wanted to tell you… you work so much, I want you to know… how much I appreciate it.” The Inquisitor spoke gently.

“Oh, you don’t need to-”

“No, I need to. You deserve that much.” The Inquisitor spoke, and wrapped their arms around Cullen.

Cullen felt strange, a good type of strange. Being a templar meant… not many hugs. The last one he had gotten… was it from his family? He hadn’t seen them in ages… perhaps…

“Cullen. Stop overthinking this.” The Inquisitor ordered, and the commander quickly wrapped his arms around them.

He liked this.

Dorian Pavus: He was reading some cheesy Orlesian drama, and he heard footsteps climbing up the stairs, he had expected it to be one of the many messengers of the Inquisition, and was surprised when he saw the Inquisitor instead.

“I… I wanted to check up on you.” They said.

“What is there to check up on? I’m alive, aren’t I? Downed a few bottles of wine, but hey, don’t we all?” Dorian retorted.

“Dorian, I know you aren’t okay. I just wanted to make sure if there was anything I could do. You’re my friend. Probably one of my closest friends.” The Inquisitor responded.

“You? Friends with some devious little boy from the Imperium? My, what would Mother Giselle say?” Dorian deflected, but he was still touched by their declaration.

“Dorian.” The Inquisitor spoke sternly, causing Dorian to look up.

“I… Thank you… I… I appreciate your friendship.” Dorian spoke, turning towards the Inquisitor.

The two looked at each other for a moment before The Inquisitor opened their arms, and wordlessly, Dorian entered the warm embrace of his friend.

Iron Bull: The tavern was full, but it still felt lonely.

He cursed himself for looking to the Inquisitor for judgment, he should’ve decided. The chargers were his men, but so was the Qunari. Had he failed them?

Iron Bull could hear approaching steps and distinctly recognized them as the Inquisitor.

“Hey, Boss.” He smiled, only to see a sad smile on the Inquisitor’s face.

“I wanted to talk with you.” They said, and Iron Bull followed them out of the tavern.

The two rested on the Battlements, luckily, there weren’t any soldiers around to disturb the two.

“I wanted to let you know I’m here.” The Inquisitor said, “You lost someone today, lost… a part of yourself.” The Inquisitor spoke.

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that, Boss. I’m fine.” Iron Bull smiled. But the Inquisitor saw right through that.

“Still, I’m sorry. I wanted to offer you…” The Inquisitor opened their arms, holding them out.

Iron Bull was confused for a moment, before hesitantly wrapping his arms around the Inquisitor. It was a gentle hug, one Iron Bull wasn’t entirely used to, but he felt some sort of relief when he relaxed into it.

The Qunari would eventually wage war on Ferelden and Orlais, and Iron Bull felt a sad pity in his heart for his oblivious Inquisitor.

But, he didn’t need to think of that. Not at the moment.

Josephine Montilyet: Another letter from Yvette, detailing how the family had been getting on without her. Josephine had been successful for the most part, with the assassins now off her back, she was happily able to begin rebuilding her family’s trading empire.

“You look pleased.” Josephine heard the door to her office be opened.

“Oh, yes! I cannot thank you enough for your help with the House of Repose, it is a relief knowing I won’t need to worry about assassins anymore. Of course, rebuilding the Montilyet name will be difficult, but not impossible.” She got up from her chair, smoothing her skirt before moving away from the desk.

“I don’t think I properly thanked you, all I did was ramble about my time as a bard.” She sighed, “It must’ve sounded, odd to you.”

“Quite the opposite, Josephine, and I wanted to apologize to you if I gave you that impression.” The Inquisitor said, their hands moving to Josephine’s shoulders, “You know I care for you right? When you talk about things, it makes me happy.”

Josephine didn’t know what to say, she found herself wrapping her arms around the Inquisitor as a response. Josephine was someone who rarely found a person who wanted to hear her talk. Who wanted to hear her ramble.

The Inquisitor was that person… she liked it.

Leliana: A quiet prayer to the altar in front of her, she almost didn’t hear the Inquisitor behind her. Luckily, she’s a spymaster for a reason, so she turned to face the Inquisitor right before they have begun to speak.

“Are you okay?” They said, leaning over to get a view of the altar.

“I’m fine, you don’t need to concern yourself with my state,” Leliana responded, standing up and walking over to the railing, watching the birds flap their wings.

“You’re my advisor, I have to worry about you.” The Inquisitor crossed their arms, looking up at the birds themselves.

Leliana paused, turned to The Inquisitor, and smiled, “I suppose I’m happy that it was you who became our inquisitor. You’ve done an excellent job.” She spoke.

“I feel like you need to hear that too.” The Inquisitor said, earning a silent Leliana. Leliana turned to The Inquisitor, hesitant to continue speaking, when was the last time she had been this vulnerable? The two stared at one another before the Inquisitor opened their arms, and the two silent began to hug. The pair said nothing, the two remaining silent while they hugged, but strangely, more was communicated than they expected. Words of praise, appreciation, sorrow, and just a little bit of platonic affection.

Sera: She was working on her arrows, angrily wrapping the twine around the sharp point. A knock at her door caught her off guard. She didn’t respond, allowing her silence to be an invitation.

“Sorry for intruding.” Sera heard the Inquisitor say, closing the door behind them.

“You don’t need to be,” Sera grumbled.

“Well, I know you’re upset, I assume it’s about the-”

“Prissy pants noble arse? Yeah, I ‘ppose you could say I’m pissed.” She snapped, turning around to face her friend. Her angry look melted, and her eyes dropped from the Inquisitor’s face to the floor.

It was silent for a while before the two spoke in unison.

“I’m sorry.” They said, only to look at each other before the two broke into a laugh.

“No, but seriously. I feel bad about how everything went…” The Inquisitor said.

“Sorry for snapping.�� Sera sighed, she was surprised she was apologizing to Inky, as she had rarely apologized to anyone.

“Can I sit?” The Inquisitor asked, getting a nod in response.

“I didn’t mean for all that shite to happen, I thought sometin’ else.” Sera said, shrugging.

“It’s not your fault, you know?” The Inquisitor responded, wrapping an arm around Sera. Sera tensed up for a second, but when her friend began to pull away, worried they upset her, she pulled them back in.

Hugging Inky was nice, she thought.

Solas: Solas mourned his friend quietly, like he did most things. He sighed as he sat in his oversized chair, watching the tea in front of him. He was angry at the world he woke up into, mad at the mages for hurting the spirits he cared for, and mad at himself for not stopping it sooner. He wondered if he should be mad at the Inquisitor too, he could’ve gotten there sooner had they hurried up-

A quick curse and he stood up, how could he blame someone else? Someone who had actively helped him? How could-

“Solas?” He heard, turning to the door that led from the great hall to his rotunda.

“Inquisitor.” Solas breathed, it was almost like the Inquisitor had read his mind.

“I apologize for intruding, I just… wanted to check on you, after everything that happened…” The Inquisitor spoke slowly, fiddling with their hands.

“Inquisitor, you don’t need to” Solas began, only to be cut off.

“Solas, I should’ve- I should’ve been faster. Maybe if we didn’t take that trail, if we didn’t get so distracted by the halla, your friend… they… they would’ve been.”

Solas sighed if he felt bad before, but he felt worse now.

Walking over to The Inquisitor, he attempted to comfort them, but he found himself stopping short.

“I know this must be hard for you, losing a friend. I want you to know, I’m here for you.” They said, smiling at him. Solas was surprised, and before he knew it, he was wrapped up in a bear hug.

“Thank you… my friend.” He responded.

Varric Tethras: Cleaning Bianca should be like therapy, but it felt like torture at the moment. He was angry, hurt, and betrayed, it felt like the world was crashing on his shoulders. He kept asking himself about Bianca, the “real” Bianca. Why did he keep going back to her? Why did she keep coming back to him? Why does Red Lyrium keep coming into his life?

“Hey, Varric, you okay? You’ve been scrubbing that spot for an hour at least.” Varric heard a familiar voice behind him.

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine.” He said, quickly moving to another spot on Bianca.

“Normally, you’re a good liar.” He heard the Inquisitor laugh. Varric chuckled a little in response, turning to his friend.

“I guess I’m off today.” He shrugged.

“You’ve been off ever since-” The Inquisitor stopped themselves, “Varric, do you need a hug?”

Varric paused, he had to think about it for a bit, but he found himself nodding.

He wished in Inquisitor knew how strange they were, how they seemed untouchable but down-to-earth. They were a rare breed.

But he stopped his thoughts, stilling the words in his mind for just a moment while he held and was held by his friend.

Vivienne: A response from Bastien’s son; “Thank you” was the most straightforward summary. There were flowery words, but Vivienne knew what Laurent had meant.

“You look upset.” Vivienne heard behind her, and her gaze lifted from the paper to the balcony in front of her. She plastered a smile and waved her hand as if she were batting away whatever negativity hung around her.

“Oh of course not. I’m perfectly fine, darling.” She had begun, turning around to face the Inquisitor. But, the second she locked eyes with them, she faltered.

“I’m sorry. I… I wish I could’ve done more for him.” The Inquisitor began.

“There’s no need to say such things,” Vivienne responded.

“Then… maybe I could just…” The Inquisitor sighed before taking a step closer to her, holding their arms out. Vivienne was taken aback, she couldn’t recall the last time she hugged or was hugged. She chalked it up to her pitying the Inquisitor for their soft heart. But as the Inquisitor wrapped their arms around her, Vivienne did the same. She melted into the embrace, having forgotten the feeling of safety.

She wouldn’t mind it happening again, but she would never ask for it again.

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hauntedandmurdered · 3 months

Text

memento mori - A Hannibal Lecter & Clarice Starling fanfiction

teaser:

When Krendler woke up again, it took him a few seconds to figure out what had happened to him in the first place. He was mutilated below the waist, that much his clouded mind could still perceive. By now, however, his physical performance had reached such a limit that he could no longer focus his blurred field of vision. As a result, he was no longer able to judge whether it was dark or bright. One could almost say that he no more lived, but merely existed. He was vegetating like a deer that had been shot and was being watched as it died an agonising death. That was precisely how he felt.

Somewhere in the distance, voices were thundering at him, but he couldn't understand what they were saying. It took too much strength to keep his eyes open. So he let the darkness swallow him up again. He was probably as neglected as a homeless person who had to be swept off the street. Hence, he bet he reeked of piss and filth for miles around.

“Ready for another sip of your broth, Paul?”, an inhumane voice whispered to his ear.

Krendler couldn’t tell if that voice was familiar or not. Broth didn’t sound all too bad, did it? Attempting to nod, he snorted like a slobbering pooch.

“Clarice? Our friend’s a tiny bit thirsty. Let’s provide him something to drink.”

Clarice. Krendler didn’t know a person called Clarice.

“I can’t remember to have invited a lady called Clarice home”, he croaked, then his body was shaken by a coughing attack.

“Don't worry, Paul. Everything is going as it should”, someone answered.

“Fine”, he hummed. “Fine.”

Then his head fell forwards because he could no longer balance its weight. When a straw was pushed between his lips, he began to suck on it. Damn, the liquid he ingested tasted disgusting. He couldn't think of anyone who would drink something like that voluntarily. His idea of broth was far from that. Be that as it may, he and this booze just didn't seem to be compatible.

“Food...may I...have some food?”

“Sorry, the remains of your liver were eaten up by some boars last night.”

“I see. I see”, Krendler softened his tone, leaning his head back with his eyes shut close. White dots were dancing like splendid stars in the black mist that surrounded him. “No food, then.”

“Exactly, Paul”, a velvety smooth voice stirred in the dark. “Memento Mori.”

Next, fatigue caught up with him and he was carried away by a dreamless sleep.

“Good morning, Paul. How are you feeling?”

“Who's Paul, man?”

“That's a really good question. Who is this man who thinks he can take whatever and however much he likes? Who is the man who assumes that the whole world is his oyster? Who is the man who dares to touch a woman against her will? And I especially wonder who this man is who expected to get away scot-free after all his sins?”

“Sounds like he's a rotten asshole, doesn't it?”

“You're absolutely right, Paul. I couldn't have said it better myself. How do you propose to deal with this man? How would you hold him accountable for all his actions?”

“I...I don't know.”

“I would fuck his mind until he literally begs me to let him die.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“Doesn't it? Thank you for your candour and advice, Paul. I'll talk to you tomorrow.”

He was woken up with a bucket of water that was emptied over him. A tremor seized his body.

“Starling? Are you still here?”

“I am, Mr Krendler”, she answered monotonously like a robot. He had not the slightest idea whether she was standing in front of or behind him. Maybe she wasn't there at all and his mind was just playing tricks on him. Maybe everything he had experienced down here was just a hallucination.

„What time is it?“, he whimpered. He sounded like a chain smoker who had lost the colour of his voice through years of nicotine addiction.

„Time to regret.“

#clannibal #clarice starling #silence of the lambs #hannibal lecter #anthony hopkins #hannibal x clarice #dr hannibal lecter #hannibal 2001 #jodie foster #sotl #clannibal fanfic #ao3 author #ao3 fic #ao3 #ao3 writer #writer #writers on tumblr #hannibal fanfiction

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exile-of-dathomir · 3 months

Text

[You open the door to the cafe, where the ambient lighting is soft and orange like the planet of a red sun. It's easy on the eyes, still illuminating the front counter plenty enough to see all the various food items for sale, and the menus where hundreds of drinks are carefully written out in chalk. The room is filled with mismatched tables and cozy booths, with a spiral staircase that leads up to a loft of couches. It smells incredibly good in here, like rich caf and baked things. A yellow, heavily tattooed zabrak stands at the counter, leaning on it while idly scrolling the holonet on a datapad. He looks up when you enter, smiling.]

“Hey come on in! I don't bite unless you ask nicely. A joke! Haha, just a joke, I swear. Don't be nervous, I'm always good to my customers. So welcome to the Twin Moons Cafe, what can I get you?”

((Welcome to the Twin Moons. This is an RP blog for the nightbrother Feral. All interactions and tagging @exile-of-dathomir assumes you've come up to the counter in person, unless you explicitly state otherwise, such as sending a comm message or holocall. Ask box is open for 'holonet' messages. If you want to RP without using reblogs, feel free to start a message chain on a post or DM. The cafe menu includes anything you want it to. The end of this post includes more helpful interaction advice.))

((Read below the cut for Feral’s backstory.))

Feral is friendly and chatty, don't be nervous, come on in! He'd love to make you a drink. ☕

((tw: nightsister temple scene, graphically depicted.))

I'm laying on the cot in Viscus’s back room, the one reserved for the injured.

Only I'm not injured anymore, just… empty inside. I'd tried so damn hard to win the Selection, but it hadn't been enough.

The thing is… I've never wanted kids, okay, but Savage? He smiles the most when the littlest brothers are underfoot, and he's never been one to smile much in the first place.

So I had thought…

Better than half of the nightbrothers that are Selected never come back, but, a year later a new kid is dropped off in the village, often more than one, with familiar angles to their faces, to the shape of their eyes.

If someone was going away and probably not coming back? I wanted it to be me. I can't handle the idea of being the one to wait a year, hoping to see if a new little brother shows up, with yellow skin and big almond eyes and-

I wanted it to be me.

Despite being the fastest climber and one of the best archers in the village, I’d failed. The melee part of the selection, the Trial of Night especially, against that nightsister with the smokey voice…

I turn over in the cot, and bury my face in the rough spun fabric.

I'd failed, and she'd Selected my brother instead. The fuck was I supposed to do now? Pick a new sparring partner? Go hunting by myself?

Just… carry on, like half my heart wasn't missing?

The chair beside the cot creeks with the weight of someone sitting in it. I assume it's Viscus, come to kick me out, or Burn, here to bother me into doing anything else besides laying here until I stop breathing.

“I'm so sorry, Feral…” comes the soft, silky voice of Rend.

I roll over, despite the fact that I probably look like shit, because this is the one person who might have answers for me.

Rend smiles when I do, but her lilac eyes don't crinkle at the corners like a real one. Good try though.

“Is he still…? Are they going to…” I have to ask.

Sometimes nightbrothers come home after the Selection. It's not… it's not unheard of.

“I don't know,” she replies, reaching out to stroke cold fingers over my forehead, passing her wrinkled knuckles under the line of my horns. “The Nightmother’s inner circle are preparing him for something, the rest of us aren't privy to what.”

I clear my throat, swallowing around a heavy thickness that clings to it. “Is that… normal? Does it mean anything?”

Rend shakes her head, the small, enchanted bells on her shawl sending out eddies in the force. A sound I've long associated with wise words and unusual kindness. “It can be… it depends on what sort of Selection it was.”

I sit up, gripping the edge of the cot. Her evasive words aren't helping.

“Is it normal for when they're going to use one of us as a stud? Or is it something else?” I ask, trying to keep my tone even.

I'm terrified. Hopeful. Terrified of being hopeful.

“No. It's not something generally done when a nightbrother is brought to the temple for procreation,” she admits.

I let go of the cot’s edge in favor of dropping my head into my hands.

Maybe… maybe.

Maybe he's coming back. Maybe I won't have to try and raise my nephews while trying not to scream inside everytime I look at them. Maybe I won't have nephews.

Would that be better… or worse?

Rend sits down on the cot beside me, the cloth arm of her deep red robes coming over my back like a blanket. “Oh Feral… you should have been born on Rattatak or Iridonia.”

“I'm not weak!” I hiss, trying not to be offended. She's not… wrong.

“No,” Rend agrees softly, “you're one of the best warriors in the village. It doesn't change the fact that your soul is… gentle. Warm.”

“Being warm didn't win me the Selection, so what's it worth?” I mutter.

The nightsister snorts. “You wanted to be Selected?”

“... I want to have been Selected instead of Savage,” I admit, rubbing at my eyes tiredly.

Rend sighs, like the very idea of it makes her even more tired than I am. “Go home. Get some rest. If I find out anything about your brother, I'll come let you know, alright?”

I manage a thin smile up at her, then take her thin fingers in mine to kiss the back of her knuckles. “Thank you nightsister. I… thank you.”

She withdrawals to stand up, giving my shoulder one last squeeze. “Walk with the fanged god’s blessing, nightbrother.”

I watch her go, until the bright splash of her robes disappears around the corner. Viscus takes her place in the door frame, watching me silently with his kind, weathered eyes.

“You heard her, Feral. Go on home… and take care of yourself. You might have a maleling on your hands, come spring. Don't forget that,” he cautions me, in his gruff way.

I drag myself to my feet, buoyed just barely enough by the thought that maybe this was an unusual Selection, and the results might be unusual too. Maybe Savage will be back tomorrow, and we can go fishing like we'd planned…

I leave, but I don't make it home.

Halfway across the village, a pair of nightsister initiates come striding up to me.

“Follow,” says one, droll and bored.

“You have been summoned,” snaps the other.

I know better than to speak when sisters come calling with sneering looks and curt demands. With my head lowered I follow, but excitement churns in my guts.

Was I being called on to help Savage take his leave from the temple? Did they already… you know, and now they want someone to get him out of their way?

Maybe, maybe.

The two sisters direct me into a side seat on a transport spreeder, and take off. I watch Viscus, Rend, and the Comand brothers all rush forward, only to stop at the gate, watching us go.

I lean out to wave.

The ride across the continent goes fast on these speeders. Rather than a three day flight on a winged creature, or a week long run on a hooved one, the nightsisters’ transport gets us to the temple in a matter of hours.

“Follow,” the shorter one orders me.

For as many herb hunting trips as I've gone on for Rend and some of the other sisters, I've… never actually been to the temple. It's huge. I mean just… it's the whole mountain range. The statues that border it's entry are bigger than any creature I've ever seen.

We enter, and Domir’s red light is quickly replaced by the softer glow of lamps. I'm led to a room with nothing in it, just a nightsister waiting with a cup.

“Drink.” She hands it off to me, and leaves.

I sit down at the back wall, ready to wait patiently, hoping I'll get to see Savage soon. The drink tastes limey. A little too sweet for my tastes, but not noxious or anything.

I turn around as she goes, just about ready to brave asking a careful question or two, but all the witches have left. They close the door behind them, and I'm alone in a plain stone room.

Well… alright then.

Sipping idly at the cup, I wait.

I feel as if… he's alive. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but it's like… I can feel him? Maybe it's not wishful thinking, sometimes I just know things.

As long as my brother is okay, I don't really care what happens next. I'll carry him back across the continent if I have to. I know he'd do the same for me.

I stop drinking the cup when I get tired of the flavor. It's too damn strong, honestly. Setting it aside is the last thing I remember before falling asleep.

Rough hands lift me upward under either arm, and I blink awake.

“Mmnh?” I ask, disoriented.

“Silence, nightbrother,” says one of the women holding me.

Ughl. I feel… unwell. What was in that drink?

The nightsisters drag me out of the room, which is a good thing, because I don't think I can stand. We don't go far, really. One long hallway and a few doors down, and they come to a stop. Then they just… stand there.

What are we waiting for exactly?

“Bring in the prisoner,” I hear, in that nightsister’s voice. “Now… for the final test.”

Prisoner? The fuck.

The two witches bearing me up start forward again, dragging me into a room scrawled with ritual circles and ichor and all manner of nightmagick tools.

I look up, confused, because… because I feel my brother, but I don't see him.

The two sisters drop me on the stone floor before those gathered, then retreat to the sides. I'm honestly a little dizzy, but I look up, waiting to see what they want from me, looking for-

It's the eyes that I recognize first. His markings are in shadow, and his frame is… different, but it's him.

“Savage!”

The hulking man that looks down on me just… stares. Wordless.

“Now,” says the woman, with words like syrupy poison, “kill him.”

My jaw drops of its own accord. She can't be serious, can she? He would never.

I look from the nightsister back to my brother, waiting to see what the plan is. If he wants to try fighting our way out… well the odds suck, but I'm willing to try.

Savage looks back at me and just… growls, softly.

I hadn't noticed it before, too caught up in feeling sick and confused and hopeful, but my brother feels…

…absent.

Oh fuck.

This is nightmagick.

“Savage? Y-you know me…”

Nothing.

“I’m your kin!”

Nothing.

Savage’s eyes narrow, and again he growls, soft and low in his chest. He makes no move to gut me, at least.

“Do not do this!” I encourage.

Gods be good, he'd never forgive himself. I'd rather jump from the top of gorgara falls than let him-

“I said kill him,” the nightsister orders, smacking my brother across the face.

It barely moves him. He's like a mountain onto himself with… whatever it is they've done to him.

He never looks away from me, and I refuse to look away from him.

‘Come on brother’, I will toward him, ‘It's me.’

With a lurch, he steps forward, reaching out. For a few beautiful seconds I think he's going to pick me up and run…

His hand slips around my throat.

“No!” I cry out, horrified.

“Mnnngg…”

“Brother,” I beg as he lifts me, “Brother please.”

“You,” he rumbles, caustic and hateful, “make. Weakling.”

I try calling his name, my nails scrabbling at his forearm as the hand that had patched my wounds a hundred times instead squeezes the life out of me.

I feel my neck break with a sickening crunch I can taste, and suddenly my world narrows down to what I can see, which grows dimmer, and what I can hear, which grows quieter.

I can feel nothing of my body besides the skin on my face, and even that is fading.

The world spins, and my cheek is pressed to the cold stone floor.

“Good,” the nightsister with the smokey voice croons. “Very good…”

“You will learn to draw your strength from your emotions...”

“Hate will feed you….”

“Never sympathize with the enemy…”

“Not even for a moment…”

“Yes. Sister.”

Hate…? Hate is difficult to feel. Maybe I'm inured to the average nightsister's casual cruelty, but what I'm feeling right now as I die… it's not hate.

It's grief.

Gods why… why did they make him…

… and then, suddenly, everything is pain.

I jerk, screaming. Howling. Incoherently and uncontrollably writhing.

My limbs are fire, my gut is lightning, every breath is sand and grit. I scream for so long and so hard that I lose sense of time and direction.

“I'm so sorry, oh winged goddess forgive me, I had to try. What did I do wrong? I was so careful…”

I scream.

And scream.

“I shouldn't have… This spell… I shouldn't have…”

That's… that's… I know that voice.

I draw in a deep breath, and force myself to shut up. It hurts even more, and I barely manage it, but what else is there?

More screaming? Forever?

“Rrrr,” I try, but speaking is ridiculously difficult. “Rrre… reennnn…”

A gasp. Hands on my shoulders. Her pale face comes into view, framed by the red-orange sky.

“Feral?” she asks, thin brows turned up with fear and hope, “Please. Please tell me you're in there?”

In where? I try to ask but it comes out like gravel poured off a cliff.

Rather than try and talk when it just isn't working, I reach up to cup her wrinkled cheek. My hand shakes, covered in dirt, with too-long claws and streaks of ichor, but I manage it.

Gently, I stroke a thumb over her cheek. “Rr-rrennnnd.”

The nightsister’s lilac eyes fall closed, and she holds my hand to her face with one of her own. “It's okay… it's okay. I'll heal more of you, just… stay calm, alright? Don't think too hard.”

I can barely think in the first place, so that's doable.

Exhausted, and still in unholy amounts of pain, I relax as best I can. I don't… remember how I got hurt this bad, but I'm glad Rend was on hand or I'd probably be dead.

Where is… um. Where is…

There's someone else I'm looking for.

My thoughts drift like clouds, uncoordinated and ever shifting. Incohesive.

I feel like I'm lifted, energy raising me up, moving me. Night falls, and we pass into a village of some sort. My legs feel like I'm being passively electrocuted.

A nightbrother comes into view above me. Older, but handsome. He has kind eyes.

“What have you done, nightsister?” he asks, raw and quiet.

“He didn't deserve… I can't help- mn. But I could help him,” Rend replies, from somewhere near my head.

“Sister…” the man starts, fearful, “If one of the Nightmother's inner circle return to the village and see him here…”

“I know,” she says, swallowing, “believe me, I know. I'll… figure something out.”

“One of the other enclaves?” he asks.

“... no,” Rend replies slowly, “I don't think that will be enough.”

“Then what?” the man asks, laying a hand on my head, fingers threaded gently between the horns.

“... I'll come up with something.”

I fade out after that, weary to my bones from fighting the endless twitching in my limbs, bearing myself as steadily as I can, despite the cold fire in my fingers.

The next time I wake up, I'm… elsewhere.

I shiver, automatically clutching at the blankets piled on me. Footsteps echo on metal, low voices talking, too distant to hear.

A hand lands on my forehead, like they're checking my temperature.

I open my eyes, looking upward at the person. It's a nightsister. She smiles at me.

I know her… don't I know her?

“Where am I?” comes out of my throat more like ‘wheremm iiii?’ but it's better than before.

“We're on a starship, Feral. In orbit. Have you ever been up here before?”

Now that she says it, I can feel… I can feel that home is down. I hate it.

“I want to ggg-go home,” I tell her, cringing at the rust in my voice. “My t-throat hurts.”

The woman makes a horrible face for just a moment, then gathers me close. I'm… being hugged. It's nice.

“I'm sorry your throat hurts,” she croaks, “The magick that… fixed it… was born of our planet. Taking you away from that is… well I would prefer not to, but it's not safe for you anymore. I have to take you somewhere else.”

I can barely understand what she's saying. That was so many words in a row. A noise escapes me, unhappy and forlorn. I don't want to go somewhere else. I want to go back to… to…

“Nightsister,” I say, then pause to cough, “wwwhat is our planet called? My h-head is…”

The woman lays me back, such strength in her arms even though she's aged. With lines like that in her skin, she must be pushing several centuries.

“I know you,” I tell her, distressed. “But I- I-”

“Shhh,” the sister tells me, “your mind will heal, but it will take time. I'm Rend. We're from Dathomir. You're… the best assistant I've ever had, honestly.” She makes a sad little hiccup, trying to smile and failing. “Our medicinal stores have never been better, but apparently that doesn't matter to those- those- …nevermind. Just rest, alright?”

I want to say no, but I'm already slipping away again.

I'm Feral. Her name is Rend. Dathomir. Home is Dathomir.

I'm Feral.

She's Rend.

Home is Dathomir.

I repeat these to myself, desperately holding on to the only three thoughts in my head.

The flight to wherever we're going takes a while. I can't really keep track of the hours, nevermind the days, but it feels like it's been ages.

I relearn how to walk. How to drink. How to hold a stylus. How to put on clothes. It's horrible. I'm either confused, embarrassed, or both ninety percent of the time.

There's only one other person on the ship, the pilot. A very old nightbrother, older than I'd ever seen before. He doesn't talk much. Apparently they're old friends, with enough favors owed that neither keeps track anymore.

He's nice to me, but distant.

I'm more awake than asleep during the day by the time we come out of hyperspace near… wherever we've been heading to. While the ship lands, Rend helps me get dressed in new clothes.

“These are uh, k-kinda ugly,” I tell her, frustrated that I still can't stop stuttering.

She laughs, patting me on the cheek and straightening the vest like I'm a youngling. “I have to make you less pretty, you know. You’ll attract too much attention with that smile of yours, hm? Try to look grumpy and dull while we go through customs for me ”

I side eye her. “What's a customs?”

“It's a… security check, to make sure people visiting a place aren't bringing things that aren't supposed to be there,” Rend explains. “Coruscant is very strict about such things.”

“We're going to… kor-sant… then?” I ask. Never heard of it, honestly.

She steps back, looking at me sadly. “There's going to be a lot of new things to get used to here, but I've a friend who's going to help you get settled.”

I shift uncomfortably. “... not you?”

The nightsister shakes her head, making the little bells of her shawl tinkle and chime. “The Nightmother will look for me eventually. Nothing slips by her. If I stayed, it would leave a trail right back to you.”

“... and that's… bad?” I ask, still not understanding.

Rend’s expression twists in anger for a split second, but she hides it by looking away. I can still feel it though.

“Nevermind all that, Feral. There's a new life waiting for you here. Focus on the future, okay?”

“... alright.”

Everything goes really fast after that. The ship lands and the airlock spills us out in a busy place that the pilot calls a ‘spaceport’. Rend holds my hand, leading me through ‘customs’ and the dense crowds, showing papers to different people, and exchanging little metal bars for passage.

We go from spaceport to tram, from tram to elevator, and from there we walk.

In a matter of hours we've gone from the quiet little cabin where I relearned how to lace my boots, through a maelstrom of places unlike anything I'd ever seen outside of holos, to a quiet little living room with a tall, strange woman.

“Feral, this is Hexa, she's a pau’an, and an old acquaintance of mine,” Rend tells me, “You're going to stay with her while you get back on your feet.”

I'm on my feet right now, but the joke seems like low hanging fruit. “Hello Hexa… thank you for your help.”

She smiles with a mouth full of needle teeth, the lines along her pale skin bending with the muscles beneath. “Oh I'm glad to have you, really. I've been thinking about hiring help to run the shop, even held a few interviews… but I haven't found the right person. Rend says you're a deft hand with herbs and spices?”

“Ahh, yes ni-” I cut off, unsure what to call a female from another species. She's not a nightsister… is she? “... Hexa. I um… I like plants.”

The pau’an raises a lined brow at Rend, who snorts. “You'll need to teach him all the names you use, and the proportions you want, but Feral was the best herbalist’s assistant I've had in ages. He has a talent for it.”

I really don't know what's going on. It sounds like the nightsister has found a place for me to live, and a job for me to do, but… anxiety turns over in my gut. She's going to leave.

I don't want her to leave.

“Well alright,” Hexa says thoughtfully. “We can surely try. If you're not suited, I know a tailor looking for a bit of help too.”

“I can sew,” I offer, “but working with plants sounds better.”

The tall woman nods, resettling her feathered jacket she gestures me forward with one long nail. “Come on then m’dear. I'll show you the shop, the undercroft, and the little studio basement I've got set up for you.”

I turn to Rend as Hexa walks away, heading down a set of stairs to the level below. The nightsister smiles at me, nodding toward the staircase. I bow my head, accepting the order. What else can I do?

As it turns out, the shop downstairs is a cafe, featuring a galactic variety of beverages and lighter fare for sale. As Rend had hoped, my half remembered talents with dathomirian herbs did translate to making the various brews, though not as much to the baking.

Rend leaves the next morning, but promises to visit, and I settle into the studio beneath the cafe as best I can. I own nothing but the contents of a duffle bag.

This is how I come to work at the Twin Moons Cafe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RP interaction guide:

Feral doesn't know anyone except Rend and Hexa. If you're a person from his past, you'll have to help him remember you. He is especially excited to see other dathomirians.

OCs, yourself, other RP blogs, and multiple-versions of the same canon characters are WELCOME. Feral will have individual friendships/rivalries/fights with each person without mentioning the other instances. He may have multiple adventures, romances, and even brothers at the same time. Every RPer gets a fresh instance of Feral, right off the ship and new to the city, unless requested otherwise or a group tag chain is started.

[ ] indicates narration, "" is dialogue. You can format your own posts anyway you like though.

//Indicates a file, images, holo, vid, or holonet link on a text communication.

Explicit or highly emotional engagements may be moved to DM.

Minors DNI. Adults RPing minors are welcome for wholesome interaction.

There are no timeline constraints. You can be from kotor era, the rebellion era, or any other time, just establish this with him and he'll follow your lead.

Don't speak for, react for, think for, or otherwise drive other characters. Only your own.

Describe what you look like when you walk in, especially your clothes, vibes, and species. Feel free to be excessive, since your first tag will be the header for the rest of the reblog chain, and will make an easy reference point for your appearance, abilities, attitude, etc. Time of day is also helpful, but the cafe is always open.

(( )) indicates out of character communication. Tags are also generally ooc.

If you're wondering 'does this guy want to even talk to me?' the answer is YES. Even if you just stop in one time for a cup of caf, Feral wants to talk to you.

12 notes · View notes

mareenavee · 11 months

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Double-speak Fic Writer's Tag Game!

This was started by the most esteemed @saltymaplesyrup and I was tagged by the corvid word sorcerer herself @paraparadigm for this! Thank you!

Here are the questions:

1) What do they say they want? (i.e., what are the desires they put out into the world and have no trouble admitting) 2) What do they think they want? (i.e., what are the desires they keep hidden and only admit to their closest loved ones) 3) What do they actually want? (i.e., what is something they subconsciously need, but either do not realize or cannot admit it)

Tagging @changelingsandothernonsense, @friend-of-giants, @saltymaplesyrup (yes in your own ask chain / tag game lol), @thequeenofthewinter, @ervona and since it's character based and I know your characters are loud about these things, if you feel up to it, @the-storytellers-seer!!

I'll be answering this for my three POV characters (Nyenna, Teldryn and Athis) in The World on Our Shoulders, below the cut! It's a long one.

Nyenna ☼

1) What do they say they want?

Nyenna says outwardly that she just wants to keep her loved ones safe, especially in the wake of her destiny sort of upending her life. She says she wants to be normal and have a comfortable, peaceful existence. She would have rather had all of this fate nonsense miss her. Ideally, she wouldn't have ever had to leave Valenwood on someone else's terms. If she chose to leave at all, it ideally wouldn't have been so permanent.

2) What do they think they want?

She wants very much to never have been chosen as this legendary being. She wants a version of her family that never existed -- an image clouded by nostalgia for times less chaotic. Her brother to be alive and by her side still. Her family to be whole. Her mother to not have scorned her every move. For things to not have gone so horribly sideways at every intersection of her journey. And of course she wishes she'd made different decisions, gone on to Solstheim first instead of settling.

She wants to be with Teldryn, but fears the implications of that. First, that she had no clear idea what love was or could be and second that she actually doesn't love Athis in the way that he deserves, even after having married him. She is so public at the point that she realizes these things. And there's stigma behind a lot of this. There's a certain nervousness about being talked about behind her back that never quite leaves her, no matter where she goes, likely stemming from years having to be as anonymous as possible for survival. There's expectations of her station. She holds a specific image no thanks to everyone else of what she's supposed to be and how she's supposed to proceed now with the weight of destiny on her shoulders. And again, it's all very public. She wishes it wasn't. She wants very much to be immune to it, and just let go of all her decisions prior to. She wants to never have rushed into anything just because it felt like safety. She didn't know who she was then. She'd never been, up until a certain point, allowed to be anybody at all. She didn't know what to want, really. And now she does.

3) What do they actually want?

What she really needs is to forgive herself. She carries a lot of blame and guilt in her. She blames herself for not being good enough, even when she was young. Even now when she's supposed to be this invincible hero. Even as a wife, there's certain situations she's blaming herself for. She's under the impression that no matter what she does, it's not right, imperfect, flawed. She needs very much to feel like she's a good person. She needs to be free of the expectations that others have placed on her at every life stage, and that she has so deeply internalized.

She needs to be supported and loved in a way that reminds her what she's capable of no matter what situation she finds herself in, because even with all the mistakes she actually is a good person. She is flawed, she is imperfect but it doesn't make her evil or worthless. I think she spent a lot of her life feeling that sort of worthlessness. The whole story we sort of see all the things destiny can take away from a person and that affects her worldview and really digs in to where she's already carrying these wounds. In the end, she really, really needs hope. Hope that what she's accomplished is enough. Hope that she can be forgiven for her wrongs. Hope that at the end of everything, she can finally, finally find some peace. Perhaps even the hope that she can consider herself worthy of peace.

Teldryn ☾✩

1) What do they say they want?

He has a bit of a boastful demeanor. It's clear he wants to be seen as this strong-willed, smooth, confident character. He's the sort that kind of goes after what he wants in a lot of ways, and as such is upon meeting Nyenna perceived to be this merciless flirt. I suppose he mostly is, but it's more of a veneer to try and convince himself he's not as broken as he knows he is after everything. A sort of persona, if you will, to try and convince himself he can be as he he once was regardless of the chaos that trailed out behind him now for a very long time. He wants to ignore it and just move forward, as he believes very much there's no point in dwelling because the past can't be changed. It's a point of contention with Nyenna, who constantly wishes the past was different than it is. It doesn't mean that the past doesn't affect him -- it does. But it does drive him to want to keep moving toward the next thing.

2) What do they think they want?

He wants very much to just exist without the nightmares his past causes him. He wants to work and travel and fight and not be dragged down by his own mistakes. He hadn't considered it before, but he wants to be with Nyenna actually, and not just for a minute before he moves on to the next thing. She gives him pause and understands him in a way nobody else even could due to the whole legendary hero situation. She somehow sees through the nonsense, as Geldis so lovingly calls it. Sees past the darkness and I suppose doesn't flinch away at the damage there considering she's got something of the same kind of fractures. It's not exactly logical, maybe. But he's never really been strictly logical.

I think he also very much wants to not feel like he's running from things anymore under the guise of being practical and goal oriented. As the story progresses, he loses more and more of his kind of paranoia about being recognized by people he doesn't personally recognize, which was a thing that was more or less keeping open the chapter he'd been through as the Nerevarine. More like because he'd done these things and felt so much guilt and shame surrounding all that had happened in the last few centuries almost as a direct result of his actions, he felt like he deserved to be a target. He deserved their anger and ire as Morrowind crumbled and he straight up didn't help, at least at first, as his title as Hortator would have suggested he should. And while he keeps it to himself, he just wants to be done with that chapter. To close the book entirely and let the world forget he even existed. He'd up until a certain point never even allowed himself to truly live. His purpose, if you could call it that, was about forgetting. He still wants to forget. He wants to focus his attention on something -- anything else other than everything trailing behind him. It's been a long road, and there's still more miles and miles to walk, but he's getting there.

3) What do they actually want?

Teldryn also needs to forgive himself. In a lot of ways his story echoes Nyenna's. Fate is a fickle thing, isn't it? In his case... well. He could not have known all that would occur as a result of his being manipulated by forces beyond his control. The Red Year was not his fault. This specific event led to his worst spiral, and even at rock bottom his friends pulled him back up, understanding that he couldn't have known things would go this way. They don't blame him. And the people who do vocally blame the Nerevarine for disappearing at such a critical moment in history were broken and hurt, and looking for anywhere to put their sorrow other than themselves. He believed them because it echoed his inner monologue of feeling purposeless and discarded after his quest.

Teldryn needs to allow himself to be loved, as well. For who he is underneath the shadows. For his strength in trying to get his life back together, even when things seemed beyond bleak. For how much he truly accomplished over his lifetime -- he was Twin Lamps back then, for one thing. He did stop the blight and save his people from Corprus and the will of Dagoth-Ur. He did, after the intervention of his friends, help with the relief efforts in Solstheim. He does protect people who need to be protected, even if he claims he's just a sellsword.

Deep down he has felt for a long, long time that he's not worthy of love or that he's not the kind of person who should be loved. That he'd done too much and gone too far off the deep end to ever come back. That if he feels love at all, the other person will surely see some kind of monster and leave him and it wouldn't be worth the heartache. That he's better off alone. Nyenna doesn't buy it -- not the mask of confidence and swagger and not this underlying deep self loathing. She understands the chaos and guilt in a very clear parallel sort of way and while it haunts her, too, she just wants to be considered good in the end. He can actually see the good in her shine through, even when she herself can't find it. He can see her best intentions even when she makes the wrong choices. And in turn he does start to believe when she convinces him what he is capable of. (Boy is it hard to skirt around spoilers in this paragraph lol)

Athis ⚔︎

1) What do they say they want?

Athis just wants to live a normal life with a normal job using skills he's already good at. In a way his arrival to Whiterun is kind of similar to Nyenna's, but he was running from different enemies and they couldn't keep chasing him over the border. He wants his wife to be home when he is. He wants to feel comfortable and happy. He wants to keep believing he's in his own version of success. That he's accomplished everything he'd set out to do, and even found a bit more than he thought he might. He wants to believe he found peace already, and wants to be able to enjoy that with his family and friends. If he's already settled down, he wants a proper family, because why not? He didn't grow up with the notion he could ever have these things and now he believes he can.

2) What do they think they want?

Peace and calm are the front of Athis's mind, always. He's not a rock-the-boat kind of person. More like if it's not broken, don't fix it. OR if it is broken, pretend that it isn't until it falls apart and one can't ignore it anymore. He wants to be able to say all kinds of things but feels like he can't or that it would directly conflict with peace and calm that he's already convinced he's found.

So when Nyenna runs away and leaves him behind, he wants to believe it's solely because she wants to keep him safe. And he knows this want. He wants her to be safe, too. He wants to believe the he is the person to keep her safe, but truth be told -- being an inch from death due to a dragon attack has sort of shaken up his self image. He wants very much to ask the Gods why he wasn't chosen as the Dragonborn and why it had to be the love of his life instead.

He wants to feel less stuck, I think, as he realizes pretty slowly that maybe he isn't living up the image he has of himself in his head. He can't keep up because he's convinced himself he's already as good as he's going to be. He's already come so far, how much further can he really go? He had been an everyday sort of hero for so long without really having to work that hard about it before and he wants that to still be enough. He wants to be Nyenna's hero again, because he believes this is the only reason why she chose him to begin with. He wants to be able to communicate this with her, but doesn't know how to approach the subject in a way that isn't accusatory or in a way that piles more responsibility onto her shoulders.

He wants to salvage their relationship and make up for all the times he didn't give up his peace, didn't run after her and didn't have her back. He wants to fill in the cracks created under the weight of her destiny. He wants things to go back to how they were, this image he has of them that portrays a dynamic that no longer exists.

He wants to believe that she loved him as much as he loves her. Because he does still love her, even after all the pain inflicted on him over the course of things. He wants to figure out how to be the kind of person worthy of her but doesn't know where to begin. He wants her to tell him where to begin. He wants her to come home and remind him he's needed and wanted and things will be just fine. He wants her not to forget about him. He wants the girl she used to be before to come back through the door to their home. He wants time to turn back so he could relive all the happiest moments he can remember, all of which she was there for. He hasn't been able to find much of that recently without her.

3) What do they actually want?

What he truly, truly needs is to believe in himself. He is capable of so much more than he gives himself credit for. He is the only thing standing in his way. It's not about Nyenna, it's not about being a hero or a failure, it's about rising to the challenge. Because at the end of the day, what would it be if not a challenge to keep up with a legendary hero? The truth is he doesn't believe in himself, and probably never has due to his background -- and he really needs a sort of mindset shift to see beyond that. He sort of convinced himself already that he's not good enough and seeks a kind of validation elsewhere. He has a codependent nature, even though he's spent a lot of effort trying to pretend he's fine on his own. In the Companions, though, he was never alone. He always had his friends around. When he met Nyenna, and showed him compassion he'd heretofore lacked, he clung to it. (and really so did she which didn't help.) He does need to realize that he's strong enough to stand on his own two feet.

He needs to listen, as well, truly listen. He hears what he wants to hear, and because communication is honestly difficult, he doesn't look beyond or read between the lines. He needs to understand that apathy is not the same as accepting things that are immutable. As the poem goes, more or less, he needs to change the things he can and let go of the rest. Apathy is the enemy to progress. He'd been on pause for so long that he didn't realize there was more he could be doing. Didn't realize he could be a solution to some problems, especially with the double blow to his confidence the dragon and Nyenna's leaving gave him. He needs to be willing to try to salvage something instead of waiting for someone else to direct him where to go.

And last, he needs to let go of the past. Of the image we mentioned above regarding things that have changed so drastically. He needs to let go of the horrors of his own past before Nyenna, before even coming to Whiterun. He needs to understand that certain things cannot be changed -- like Nyenna's destiny or the new person she's become since walking into her power. That it's not a personal failure of his if things don't remain stable and calm. That there is a way to move forward again. That he gets to decide who he is with or without her and it's not up to anyone else. That it's never been up to anyone else. That he is enough, after all.

#This literally took me all day to write Para LOL #Thank you my friend for all the writerly awesomeness this post had me thinking about :D #AskMareena #MareenaWrites #The World on Our Shoulders #Nyenna #Athis #Teldryn Sero #Nerevarine #Nerevarine Teldryn Sero #LDB/Athis #LDB/Teldryn Sero #Skyrim #Morrowind #Elder Scrolls #Fanficblr #Writeblr #tesblr

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radioactivepeasant · 2 years

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Fic Prompts: Free Day Thursday

(This is the reunion scene from my Splinter Cell au. It got away from me, so be forewarned: looong post incoming)

Of course there had to be another problem the moment they got back from the race. It wasn’t enough to just let them savor a victory for once. Or, Precursors forbid, let them actually rest. It was always something.

"Radar is picking up a craft headed for the island!" Vin's nervous voice crackled over their radios.

"What size is the aircraft?" Tess asked, shedding her weariness to take command.

"That's the thing...it's not an aircraft at all! There's a ship headed for us! I estimate it'll reach us in, er, er, 3 hours!"

"A ship?" Jak frowned. That was a little unusual.

"Could be Brutter," Daxter suggested, "His fishing boat has to come back for repairs sometime, right?"

"Maybe."

Tess sounded doubtful.

"Can we get some snipers down here? Just in case. We're gonna need em anyhow once the Baron figures out we swapped the Stone for a fake."

"I'll hang around and keep an eye out," Jak volunteered.

With a faint frown, Tess shook her head. "You can tag out, Jak. It's fine. You just came off a mission."

Jak snorted and kicked at the sand. "Mission? Tess, I was just racing! I do that for fun! You and Dax are the ones who actually did all the work."

He rolled his shoulders and shook out his arms, fully intending to patrol the beach until the craft either pulled up or passed by. Sure, he was a little tired, but they couldn't afford to get complacent just because they'd stolen back the Precursor Stone. Besides, the entrance to the Babak settlement wasn't far, and Jak had no intention of leaving it unguarded.

Tess caught up to him in two swift strides. She made sure he'd seen her before reaching out to grab his shoulder.

Unexpected touches were not welcome. She'd been around the block a few times: she knew to announce her presence.

"Hey, no. Don't do that brushing-off thing with me." She stopped in front of him, giving Daxter the opportunity to hop from her shoulder back to his.

"Jak, listen. I promise, I'm saying this because you're my friend and I care about you, not because I doubt you. But every time you have to be in the same vicinity as Errol, that's a trigger. I'm not putting you on any new assignments until you're ready, mentally and emotionally."

Jak laughed harshly. "Errol? Oh he's dead. He's super dead."

Surprise stretched Tess's face, then it slackened with relief. "Did you-?"

The boy looked away for a moment, then shook his head. "Nah. Wasn't me. He tried to run me down with his zoomer after he lost the race. Wasn't that hard to dodge. He crashed face-first into a month's supply of eco."

A dark vein pulsed in his temple, and one of his canines showed, sharper than usual, when he smirked.

"He never was much good against opponents who weren't chained down."

Daxter's comforting weight on his shoulder grounded him, steadied his erratic pulse. Jak focused on the sensation of paws on his shoulder, feet braced against his back. He was here, he'd survived, and this time Errol couldn't taunt him anymore. There was a part of him that was angry. Furious, even. It was a quick death, and Errol had deserved far worse. He'd deserved to be chained to the same injection chair that had seen Jak's worst moments, left to the tender mercies of the needle and Jak's own darkness. But now the sadist was beyond his reach.

"Wait." Daxter leaned into his face. "You're telling me that old Coloring Book Face -- the famed racer, the one Krew bet on -- in front of his adoring fans, crashed into tanks of eco like a moron?"

He hopped once and hooted with laughter.

"He blew himself sky high and took his reputation down with him? What a dumb way to go! It's perfect!"

Jak wouldn't have called it perfect. But he could appreciate the level of humiliation Errol had unwittingly dealt himself.

Tess still looked at him with that terrible knowing in her eyes. Sometimes, Jak thought the older girl could see right through him. It was unnerving.

"How are you doing?" She asked, and for once, Jak couldn’t bring himself to lie.

"I'm...here. I don't want to be around a lot of people right now. I..." He shrugged. "I need to focus on something else before I get angry again."

Satisfied, Tess nodded. "Okay. Do you want to be the one watching for the ship?"

Honestly, he did. Jak had a lot to process regarding the death of his abuser. But at the same time, the adrenaline of the race, and getting to challenge Praxis right to his face, still vibrated through his body. He really needed somewhere for all that energy to go.

Sentry duty was quiet, but required focus, and movement. Sig had been right about him needing that kind of activity.

"Yeah. Um, yeah, I got this." Jak stretched and swung his rifle off his back. "Could you just...uh, could you let Sig know I'm okay? I kind of had to blackmail him not to come to the race and snipe Errol when he passed the stands."

"Fair," Daxter observed. He stretched lazily across Jak’s shoulders feigning flippancy. "That woulda been way quicker than he deserved."

Tess shifted her weight and sighed, resigned.

"Okay. I'm gonna get this stone locked up somewhere safe. You let me know if you guys need any food or anything out here."

Jak agreed without really meaning it. The Babak settlement was right there, after all. If he really got hungry, he could just ask Brutter for some scraps. Of course, that was more an excuse to see Mar than anything else, but who was going to tell on him?

With Errol dead, finally dead, that was one less threat to his little brother.

Or at least, it should've been. It didn't feel real yet. Everything had happened so fast-

What if the explosion hadn't actually killed him?

What if some people were actually too evil to die?

Stop, stop it. That blast took out three guards that were just near the eco. Errol went right into the heart of it. If he lived, it wasn’t for long. He can't get me he can't get me he can't get me-

"Jak?"

Jak inhaled sharply and straightened his shoulders. "I'm gonna post up on the ridge over the caves. Keep me updated about the boat's progress, yeah?"

Daxter grimaced. "Uh...Jak, Tess already went inside. You zoned out there for a minute, bud."

Jak winced. "Sorry," he muttered.

His best friend shrugged it off. "Let's get to Our Spot, huh? I think we still have some candy stashed up there that Junior hasn't found yet."

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

The smog that perpetually surrounded Haven city was, just this once, a blessing in disguise. Thick and oily, it hovered over the water, hiding the boat from sight and muffling the sound of propellers. Rags wrapped around gunstaffs and rifles added to the muted quality of the infiltrators; they weren't here for invasion. It was not yet time to reveal themselves to the city.

Drake shifted the rudder and eyed the monolithic factory rising from the smoke. Ominous looking thing.

Not as ominous as the figure standing at the prow.

Every Wastelander there knew that for the king to leave the city, something had to be earth-shatteringly important. Damas hadn't spoken a word since boarding the vessel, not once during the eighteen hour voyage had he explained their mission. He just watched from the prow with hard eyes, tensed and ready to fight at a moment's notice. There was an air of anticipation about him -- not the look of a man waiting on the edge of battle, Drake reckoned, more like a man waiting for something to begin. Waiting for something important.

A glint of light caught the Wastelander's attention, up near the silhouettes of palm trees near the upper levels of the factory.

Drake tapped the bulwark twice, catching his silent companions' attention. With a hand signal, he indicated "light" and "gun scope" before pointing in the direction he'd seen it.

Damas stepped down from the prow and moved silently to the stern to crouch beside Drake.

"Where?" he mouthed.

Drake raised his arm straight, pointed to the glint that was still appearing from time to time.

Abruptly, the tension melted out of Damas’s shoulders.

"Just where Sig said he'd be," he breathed.

Damas patted Drake's arm. "Take us in. Stay out of sight of Haven. I'll handle the rest."

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

Up on the cliff, high above the rough waters, Jak watched the boat through the scope of his blaster. He counted at least six figures, though he couldn't make out any details yet.

"Well, it's not KG," he murmured into his radio.

For some reason, it felt wrong to speak above a whisper.

"Is it metalheads?" asked Tess.

"Nope."

Jak squinted. The figures vanished in a patch of smog for a second before reappearing.

"They almost look like-"

With a jolt, Jak sat up. "Sig," he realized.

"Huh? What do you mean they look like Sig?"

"No, I mean-" Jak jumped to his feet and snatched up his gun. "Get Sig! I think he might know these guys, they look like Wastelanders!"

His heart hammered painfully in his ears as he picked his way down the ridge, Daxter clinging to his shoulders for dear life. Wastelanders. In their waters. There was a chance they were on a job for Krew, but this soon after Sig contacted Mar's people?

It couldn't be coincidence. Jak had learned the hard way not to believe in coincidence.

A wrong step nearly rolled Jak’s ankle, and he cursed. Where's your head, Jak? Don't get sloppy.

The truth was, he was afraid. He was eager to find allies, and desperate to find people he could trust around Mar. But he was terrified of inevitably having to justify his existence to Mar’s family. Just the vague possibility of meeting an alternate timeline version of his own father -- a complete stranger -- made him want to throw up.

"Jak?"

Daxter's ears were pinned back against his skull. He was clearly agitated, though Jak couldn't work out whether it was because of him or the boat.

"Are you sure about this?"

Ah. Him. Daxter was definitely upset because of him.

Jak gripped the spiny trunk of a palm to steady himself halfway through their descent. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, like Sig made him practice. In...out. In...out. It wasn't a very impressive attempt at calming himself, but it was better than nothing.

"I...don't know if I want to meet them or not," Jak confessed.

His throat was dry.

"Today was...a lot. Y'know? I can only take being called a freak so much in one day."

Daxter stretched himself to his full length to wrap around Jak’s shoulders. He didn't say anything; there were times when words just weren't enough.

Cognitively, he knew Jak didn't blame him for leaving him to rot in that hell for two years. He even knew that such a thought would never even have crossed Jak’s mind. But that didn’t keep it from haunting Daxter.

For at least a little while, in the latter half of their separation, he'd had a roof over his head. A warm bed. A job, for Precursors' sakes, working for a man who treated him like a person! And that whole time, Jak had been enduring a nightmare Daxter wouldn't have even wished on Gol Acheron.

Guilt ate away at Daxter constantly. What kind of friend was he, living the mediocre life while his best and only friend was being treated like a lab rat? Jak was the only person who'd ever cared about him -- well, before Tessie and Brutter and the Kid, at least -- and he'd left him behind like a coward. Daxter owed Jak so much. The least he could do was be here, now, to watch his friend's back, physically and emotionally.

"Listen, pal," he quipped, hoping Jak couldn't hear how forced it was, "Insulting Orange Lightning's sidekick is a crime punishable by...well, not...not by death, exactly. A very stern talking to- and a wet willie!"

He nodded in satisfaction. "And I'll...I'll...I'll bite their nose! And you know I hate biting. I don't make offers like this for just anyone, y'know."

A little thread of comfort unfurled in Jak’s chest. Daxter hated fighting, and getting dirty, and anything even remotely scary. Knowing that, Jak couldn't help but acknowledge that Daxter didn't run from his darker half. The boy turned ottsel generally stared down his murderous fangs with a look that said "Is that the best you got?" Whatever else happened, at least he had Daxter.

He swung down onto the stairs to the beach and set the morph gun to Vulcan. If things got ugly, he'd need rapid fire.

Maybe, just maybe, things wouldn't get ugly.

But when had Jak ever been that lucky?

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

He was there.

Damas could see him clearly now, watching them from the beach.

His heart clenched painfully in his chest, and it was all he could do to keep from diving overboard and simply swimming to shore. For the entire voyage, he’d prayed to whatever force might be listening that Sig wouldn’t be wrong. That his – their – hopes wouldn’t be dashed. Having had the possibility of a much longed-for second child placed before him, Damas had struggled with a fear that it was too good to be true. That it was selfish to be hoping for more when it was a miracle that Mar had been found at all.

But now the boat was close enough for him to see the wiry boy, standing with his rifle ready like a second, smaller edition of his own self.

Oh look at him! He’s all me!

An untimely bubble of mirth rose in his chest. He and Phobos had always debated over which of them Mar would turn out looking like the most. She always insisted Mar would look like his father, and he’d always been sure Mar would look like his mother.

Phobos had just won a bet they’d thought would take ten years to settle.

“That’s far enough!” shouted the boy, raising his gun. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

Damas laughed.

“Friends of Sig!” he returned through cupped hands, “He called us in!”

The boy – Jak, Sig said he’d named himself Jak – spoke quietly into a small radio, probably seeking confirmation from Sig. Just waiting that long made Damas antsy, and whatever made him antsy made the Wastelanders antsy. Well, not Phobos. Phobos didn’t do “antsy”. She was simply ready.

Then, to their surprise, the orange furry thing around Jak’s shoulders raised its head to shout at them.

“Alright! Come in nice and slow, no funny business!”

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

Jak wanted to bolt, but his boots were frozen to the beach.

This wasn’t just a party of mercs Sig knew. That man with the spikes or horns on his brow-

That was the bloody deposed king of Haven!

That was Damas son of Arez!

For all intents and purposes, in another life that had been his father!

And the poor guy probably had no idea. He was here to save Mar, to take him home at last. He didn’t need to know Jak was connected…right?

But then, Jak knew in his heart that he would never be willing to let Mar out of his sight. Not after everything they’d been through together. Maybe he could convince them to take him on as a bodyguard or something. Out in the wastes, maybe there wouldn’t be as much dark eco. Maybe he could suppress the Hunter inside him, and no one would have to know.

“Whoa, hey, what’s Spike doing?” Daxter demanded.

Jak shook away the spiral of thoughts in time to see the ex-king swing himself out of the boat. He landed waist deep in water and pushed forward, leaving his fellow Wastelanders behind. In a distracted sort of way, Jak noted that the man must have been incredibly strong to march through the deep water with no more resistance than a field of tall grass.

His eyes found the man’s face, and he lost his train of thought altogether.

The man was looking at Jak as though he feared Jak would vanish the second he blinked. Like it was Jak he’d been searching for, and not little Mar.

He looked at Jak as if he already knew him.

“Um,” said Jak eloquently.

Now that Damas was out of the water, there was no mistaking him for anything but a warrior. He wore wicked looking mismatched layers of armor, scuffed and worn with much use. Much like the armor, his skin bore thin, silvery scars wherever visible, telling stories of survival. Unconsciously, Jak’s hand drifted to his left arm, where needle tracks clustered like foul constellations. Here was a man who probably had as many scars as he did!

Jak’s pulse hammered away in his ears, so loud that he almost missed it when Damas breathed, “So it’s true!”

Completely at a loss for how to greet a king – let alone a man who might’ve been his father if fate had been kind – Jak stuck out an awkward hand in a half wave.

“Uh…I’m Jak. This is Daxter. You’re…friends of Sig?”

A smile split the king’s face, so wide it threatened to touch his ears. His fingers twitched oddly, like he was trying to hold himself back from something.

“Hello, Jak,” he said. His voice cracked and bounced with each syllable in a herculean effort not to break. “I- we’ve been…waiting to meet you for quite some time now.”

The boys exchanged a bewildered look.

“Me?” Jak stammered, “Don’t you mean M-”

Then he could hold himself back no longer; Damas reached out and clapped his hands to Jak’s arms.

“Just look at you!” He laughed and blinked back a slight glimmer in his eyes. “Look at you! You have my eyes-!”

Tongue-tied, Jak stared numbly into a pair of eyes that were indeed similar to his own. The shade was more violet than blue, but their shape was as unmistakable as the bronze tone of the skin surrounding them.

Why in the name of sanity did this man sound so pleased by the resemblance? Jak was a complete stranger to him! They did not have years of shared memories – like we should have, his mind whispered – and really knew nothing about each other. He wasn’t- He wasn’t the right Mar! He didn’t even look exactly the same as Mar!

“How old are you, boy?” Damas asked him with a weirdly friendly smile, “Fifteen, or sixteen?”

“I…think I’m seventeen?” Jak managed.

But then, he was calculating his age based on Samos’s guess of Mar’s age. And Mar claimed to be four, not five. He could’ve been mistaken, but then, Samos thus far hadn’t been the most reliable of narrators.

“Uh…how old is your son?”

Damas looked taken aback for a moment, but recovered quickly. “Mar is four,” he answered.

Daxter tallied out a few fingers. “So…sixteen, huh? Welp. Turns out you’re not old enough for a driver’s license after all, pal.” Then his eyes lit up. “Hey! This means I am older than you!”

“Wh- no!” Jak pulled an arm free to smack at Daxter and missed. “If you tell Tess-!” He let the threat hang in the air, unsure how to finish it.

The other Wastelanders beached the boat and splashed ashore, good-naturedly grumbling at their king for not waiting.

Wait- they still thought of him as a king?

Jak began to wonder if some Wastelanders were exiled supporters of the House of Mar. Had Mar spent his first years surrounded by people who had chosen the life of a Wastelander over Praxis? That might explain the kid’s seeming lack of self-preservation if this is what he was used to. He hoped they had no expectations of him, because they were bound to be disappointed.

“Come! Come, my friends, come and see!” Damas waved them closer, still grinning broadly. He moved to stand beside Jak and gestured between them. “Look! Who would you say this young warrior looks like most?”

Of the four men and five women in the band, only two managed to overcome their bewilderment enough to speak. The first, a burly man with a drooping handlebar mustache, stumped forward and squinted at Jak.

“I’ll be,” he huffed. “You been hiding another ankle-biter out here, lordship? How’d you keep Praxis from findin’ him when you got exiled?”

The woman, a stern looking fighter with one eye, pursed her lips and folded her arms.

“Well aren’t you just a chip off the old block?” she snorted. “Nice to know Sig isn’t losing his touch.”

This seemed to embolden the others, and in a matter of seconds, Jak was surrounded. Nobody touched him, for which he was supremely grateful, but he was still very uneasy with all these strangers in his personal space.

“Ha! He can’t grow a real beard either, eh, Lordship?”

“Oh don’t you start with me, Kleiver.”

“Now there’s a fighter if I ever saw one. Hey kid, what’s your favorite ammo?”

“Blaster-?” Jak answered in confusion.

“Oh, good choice! Sig teach ya how to use a Peacemaker yet?”

“Of course not, dummy! Look at him! He ain’t even old enough for Arena trials yet, I reckon.”

Jak was getting overwhelmed, and that was never a good thing. When there was too much input at once, when new sounds and faces surrounded him without giving him a chance to process, his grip on the dark eco tended to weaken.

Not here, not now! He pleaded silently with himself.

Noticing his tension, Damas suddenly waved the Wastelanders off. “Give him space! Give him space, all of you!”

He took a step to the side as well, leaving Jak with a ring of emptiness around him as a buffer.

“I apologize, Jak. We’re just…very eager to meet you. Sig has told us much, but I needed to…to see for myself.”

Jak gulped in deep breaths of air, doing his best to slow his pulse before something happened he couldn’t take back. They acted happy for now, but once they saw The Hunter-

Daxter leaped off his shoulder and stood in front of him like a guard. “Alright, alright, one at a time! I know we’re amazing, thank you, thank you. But our boy here functions best with a little thing called personal space. Eesh!”

He pointed at the Wastelanders. “No crowding the heroes, got it? And no insults! Any and all job requests must wait three to five business days for consideration. And under no circumstances will there be any pinching of cheeks!”

One of the older Wastelanders pushed to the front of the crowd and squatted to examine Daxter with some amusement. “You’re a feisty little one,” she said, and poked his midriff with a bony finger. “Not familiar with your species. What are ya, kid? Some kind of talking dogat?”

Daxter shied away from the older woman with a startled yip. “No touch-a the merchandise!” he squawked, and scrambled back up Jak’s leg and torso to sit on his shoulder. “And I’m an ottsel, for your information!”

Through the whole ordeal, one of the Wastelanders had remained silent. She merely stood there, studying Jak intently as though she wasn’t quite certain what to think of him. It was the only sensible reaction of the lot, and that drew Jak’s attention. What held his attention was her hair: coils and spirals of green tinted gold, exactly like his own. Jak had never seen anyone in Haven with hair even remotely similar to his! Hers, of course, was well maintained, and not the unkempt mess his own had been before Sig finally caught him long enough to cut some of it.

Her face was round and smooth, the same deep tourmaline that Jak saw every time he looked at Mar. He saw the curve of Mar’s jaw in hers, and the same solemn quirk in her brow. Jak’s stomach flipped, then dropped with dizzying speed. In his heart, he was fairly certain he knew who the woman was. But he didn’t want to even acknowledge it in his mind. She wasn’t here for him, after all.

He watched her turn towards Damas with an expression of intent. For a moment, they seemed to be having a conversation with just their eyes, much the way Jak used to with Daxter. And then, without warning, the hard look on the woman’s face melted away. She looked back to Jak with something disturbingly bittersweet in her gaze.

“Phobos?” Damas asked softly.

She moved towards them as if in a trance, only stopping when she was mere inches from Jak. She pointed to the chain around his neck.

“Is that your amulet, or your brother’s?” Phobos demanded.

They know! Oh Precursors, what now? What do I do?

“…mine…?”

Phobos nodded, suddenly shaky. A glance to the side revealed that the ex-king was looking a little shaky as well. What the-?

“You were him, in another world. Weren’t you?” she asked, much softer.

Jak swallowed hard, and his eyes dropped. He couldn’t meet her gaze for several seconds. “…yes.”

There were tears in this woman’s eyes when he looked back up, and Jak instantly felt a surge of guilt.

“S- sorry-” he started, but it was drowned out by a somewhat wet chuckle coming from the woman.

Jak would have understood tears. He’d probably cry too if he had to have a monster like him for a son. But under the wetness of her cheeks this woman was smiling. She reached out to steady herself against Damas’s shoulder, and she laughed. A deep, full thunder, rolling up from some holy place inside her as she wiped her eyes again.

“Damas, look at him. He’s beautiful!” she exclaimed, and reached a hand out to gently touch Jak’s face. Rough, calloused fingers traced the curve of his cheekbone, then brushed an errant coil of hair from his face.

Beautiful?

In the whole of his life, Jak could safely say that no one, not one person, had ever called him beautiful.

As he stood frozen, speechless, Daxter took it upon himself to speak for him. “Well thankee kindly,” he piped up in a ridiculously exaggerated country drawl, “You’re not too bad yourself, missus!”

This had the intended effect of breaking Jak out of his shock. He slapped a hand over Daxter’s mouth in horror.

“Dax no!”

The older woman who had greeted Daxter before burst out laughing.

Jak did not share her amusement. “I- I’m sorry, Dax is just- Gah!”

He yanked his hand away from Daxter’s mouth and shook it. “Did you just lick me?!”

“That’s what you get!” Daxter snickered.

“Gross!”

Damas chuckled -- it was a warm sound, without any of the bitterness Jak had come to expect from laughter

#fic prompts #writing prompts #jak and daxter au #jak and daxter #splinter cell au #jak 2 renegade #free day thursday #king damas #dadmas #jak's mother #phobos #spargan ocs #jnd Tess #tess is exhausted trying to keep her honorary brother from running himself into the ground while running a rebel cell #Tess needs a spa day and by spa day i mean unsupervised access to the armory #Damas is having the best day of his life #mar is going to wander out of the cave like 'oh good. mom and dad are here. why is everybody crying?'#jak is the only one feeling Angst about this lol everyone else is delighted to meet him #just wait until they see him transform for the first time. the whole crew will turn into overly enthusiastic soccer parents

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