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moondirti · 2 months

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𝐂𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐍 𝐅𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 [18+]

familiar! ghost × witch! reader

you are a witch trapped at home by a devastating blizzard. ghost is the demon that answers your call. ( PART 1 of 2 )

DEAD DOVE. RATED R. HORROR/SMUT. 6k. – AO3

please please please read the warnings under the cut before reading. this is leagues darker than my usual work. it is a dark fic, and you know your limits better than i do.

warnings: discussed cannibalism. graphic depictions of gore. vomiting. killing/butchering animals. violent thoughts. malnutrition. alienation/isolation. manipulation. corruption. mentions of somnophilia. dark!ghost – i.e. simon does not conform to human morality. afab reader using she/her pronouns.

inclusivity note: the reader is described as smaller than simon, but he stands at 250 cm in his true form (8"2), so i assumed everyone – if not, most – would fit that category. she's also malnourished/sick at the start and so there are some references to unhealthy weight loss

Situated between a dense network of ancient oaks, a lesser demon would have mistaken the cottage for a boulder had they spawned further than ten metres away. Save for the warm orange glow illuminating its arched windows, the home married perfectly to its surroundings – disfigured and hideous, walls warped by unevenly stacked stone and a roof bowed under a thick blanket of snow. Overgrown bushes stick out from under its gnarled fence, dead branches desperately reaching, and the ivy he assumes was once adhered to its front has since been ripped out by the storm, whipping in the howling wind.

But Ghost is no lesser demon; in fact, he’s far above this whole affair. Something of his rank answering the summons of a novice who could offer no more than sheep’s liver buried in their front yard was an occurrence practically unheard of. For good reason, too. He’s dangerous in the right hands, willing to resort to lengths that even the devil wouldn’t dream of so long as he receives proper payment. Most power-hungry neophytes would slaughter, have slaughtered, to have him as their familiar. Even then, he is above their grovelling.

So, to be lured out of respite by sheep’s liver, of all things…

He supposes he has no excuse for it, not that he has to explain himself to anyone. Perhaps he’s here only to satisfy his curiosity. The call hadn’t come from the lips of someone who’d been practising – sharp and sure, roused by a brand of audacity special to cocksure practitioners – but from someone softer. More sceptical. It’s unusual that an occultist would have both knowledge and skill to summon a familiar, yet still be suspicious as to whether they even exist at all. He’s not so much offended, then, as he is morbidly interested in what reaction his appearance would incur.

Disgust. Terror. Reverence.

Warmth pools in his belly, blood oozing in fat globs to fuel the flame that compels him to head into the small home. It’s hard to make out what’s inside merely by looking through the windows; the glass has glazed over from the contesting temperatures on either side of it, painting a bleary picture of a fire silhouetting vague shapes. The doorstep creaks under his heavy foot, but nothing – from what he can see – moves in response to the disturbance. It’s late, he knows. If it weren’t for the thick clouds shrouding the sky, he would see the moon sinking towards the west horizon. Anyone with any sense in this world knows to be asleep during witching hour.

The doorknob is round. Brass. Worn by a hand that’s gotten very good at grasping it in the same manner every time. Ghost takes a moment to digest what that tells him about his new client before turning it and ducking inside. He was right to assume it’d be unlocked. While he’d have been able to find a way in otherwise, the silly little oversight manages to elicit more excitement in him than necessary. Their mistake is added to his quickly growing character evaluation. A routineer. Garden-variety mortal, too naive for their own good. Someone isolated. Someone–

Small.

Size has always been relative for something of his stature. At two and a half metres, he’s able to tower over even his own. But it truly hits him, right there, how long it’s been since he last encountered a human. He tries to tally the decades in his head, only to fail and fail again by fault of distraction. It shouldn’t hit him as hard as it does. She fulfils every bit of what he expected, after all; plain, though younger than the typical practitioner of familiar-summoning ability. Fast asleep on a threadbare couch. Drowned in clothing, skin dewy with sweat. A book abandoned, open on her chest, stuffed with spare pieces of parchment and illegible annotations. Ink-stained fingertips.

But his hand could crush her head if he was truly compelled to do so. He could scoop the bare ankles currently peeking out of her quilt and throw her over his shoulder like wild game, skinned and simple to carry back to hell. He remembers the fallow deer he’d feasted on just last week, belly soft as he sunk his teeth into it, and considers letting his appetite get the best of him with the one that’s unwittingly made herself available tonight. Crack open her ribcage to gorge on the gooey insides that no doubt taste like honey to a monster with his appetite. Bury his snout into her sweet-scented neck and get a sense for prey that can fight back, if just barely.

But the moment passes. In her slumber, she shifts to lay on her side, spooning the grimoire closer. The minor hint of life reawakens another, more primaeval urge in him, last felt aeons ago when he was a younger fiend and the world had been a much more vulnerable place.

(The urge to take, to bend and break to fit his fancy. Chewing on cartilage until it smacks like gum between his maw, flossing the foul curl of his canines. To sink his claws into tender calves and carve an irreversible Ghost-shaped hole in her home, a haunting so stubborn she’ll turn to a fake God to try and expel him.)

And it’s violent. A rather restive longing. But placed next to the patience he’s learnt in the centuries since, he makes his choice. A natural conclusion to a creature who’s always gotten what he’s wanted.

Yes, he’ll stay. Be here when she wakes and revel when those eyes widen at the sight of him, darkening the corner of her room. He’ll stay; trail around and observe as she tries to make sense of her routine in light of the beast looming over her shoulder. He’ll stay, maybe ravage what's between her legs, devastate her sense of preservation and instead make her beg for the damage. Fall short on his duties as a familiar. Stay until he gets bored, when he’s had his fill of the crying and the quaint box she calls home. When playing with his food any more will lay the morsel to waste. Only then will he finally tear into the temptingly delicious meal in front of him.

For now, though, his neck aches from having to stoop under such a low roof. He resorts to a bygone human form instead, one he consumed ages ago – bones snapping, flesh dimpling, folding, morphing into a much smaller thing, a man – and waits.

Morning finds you doubling over the side of your couch to retch up what little food you had scavenged the previous evening.

The loss is sore. Your stomach protests as the stale bread and water emulsion punches up your throat, emptying out onto the hardwood floor. Acrid. Bitter on the back of your tongue, sharp like the cramps that erupt in your abdomen once you lay back down. Sweat plasters baby hairs to your forehead, crawling down your back and pooling underneath your bandaged breasts. You wipe it off with trembling hands, kicking the suffocating quilt until it slouches off the armrest on which your feet lay.

Last night’s fire is little more than smouldering ash. Still, the cottage maintains a pervasive heat, the air buzzing with an unnamed vigour. It’s unlikely that the blizzard has ceased long enough for the snow blanketing your home to melt – and given the walls’ remarkable ability to release warmth faster than they absorb it, the current temperature is enough to confound you.

Likely a fever, you think, pressing knuckles to your temple. The timing is unfortunate enough, though something about your conclusion falls apart when tested against the churning of your gut. You’re clearly unwell, that much is apparent by the bile spoiling your floor, but you’d be a fool to miss the supernatural root of it. Like a perpetual tremor, never waning despite the way your muscles flare. A delirium that unfurls from your nape to slowly embrace your ears. You blink, trying to make sense of the queasiness that continues to wrack you.

You’d run out of herbs two days after the blizzard snowed you in, the remaining potions lining your pantry ones best left untouched. It couldn’t have been anything you took, then. Nor was it a spell; the last one you’d cast was an ignition charm you’ve performed so often you know its effects like the planes of your cheeks. You cycle through yesterday's happenings with febrile imprecision, sipping long gulps of oxygen to tame the queasiness lapping up your chest. Like bailing water out of a quickly sinking raft. Cupping it in your palms and throwing what you can overboard. You get nowhere, and your nausea only worsens.

You’d gone to sleep with your grimoire in hand. Had you cast something while in a hypnagogic state? Possible, though rather uncharacteristic. Your fingers dig into the cushion gutters, poking for any sign of the thick book. As a migraine begins to tear at your skull, your search borders on unhinged. Pillows fly across the room, cushions following suit. The quilt billows as you air it several times over, providing some fleeting – yet much needed – airflow.

You’re so focused on finding it that you almost miss the fact that the charred voice behind you is not your panic made material. Not the voice inside your head.

“Under the couch.”

This one is hoarse. Deep. It almost instantaneously shatters the heavy atmosphere cloaked over your shoulders, breaking your pyrexia with a sharp shiver down your spine. Pure ozone injected into the bubble you’ve made for yourself, the one you thought was so secure. Where the knife you taped to the underside of your table has remained untouched in the years since you moved in, unneeded. Hunched the way you are now, you can see it. Glinting as a mocking smile does; all teeth. Too far for you to retrieve without alerting your intruder. Too far for it to be an option. Your instincts rear.

Slowly, you crouch lower, hand skimming under the couch. Your pinkie grazes the well-loved leather of your grimoire’s cover. It manages to ground you to the situation at hand, though the reality is far more horrifying than what you could’ve conjured on your own. Distorted still, rippling with the impact of your fear. Paralysis battles adrenaline – your mind freezes with the shock of drowning, your body championing for survival. It doesn’t give you time to catch up.

Wood splinters under your heel as you twist, springing in the general direction of the voice. Heavy book in both hands. Your shoulders square, steadying as hinges to your attack. The figure is just visible; you barely make out the silhouette of its head before you aim for it.

But it grabs your wrist and flings your grimoire across the room in a fraction of the time, the spine splaying open onto an adjacent wall. Your stomach capsizes. The raft tips, flips, sends you crashing into frothing waves. Migraine blinding you for a brief, horrifying moment; one where you can’t see the thing shackling your wrist, or anticipate the hard kick it gives to your ankles. You buckle with the pain, held up by one heavy paw. A low whine syphons from your chest.

“Enough of tha’, now.”

Your vision comes into focus several seconds later. Still watery, brine spooling over your eyes, readying them for pruning, but clear enough to make out the depth of this ravine you’ve shipwrecked over. And it’s–

Uncanny. Teetering the thread between jarring and inhumane. Nothing about it – you’ve a hard time believing the moniker of ‘man’ – strikes you as superficial. Nothing skin-deep. Like a mountain seen breaking the horizon line from continents away, its rocks humming a song too closely resembling a banshee’s shriek for it to be alluring. Something concealed within its caves; underground, bubbling, molten. An impetus for myths, undiluted by tired parents using it to scare their children into bed. Still crowned by its original savagery, conceptualised centuries ago by a peasant who made the mistake of getting too close.

But it isn’t a concept, you quiver. It’s here – fleshly, corporeal. And it's even made an attempt to look human. As if you wouldn’t feel it itching to burst out of this skin, suffocated by too small constraints. Over six feet and then some, shoulders doubling yours and fingers that stretch a bit too long, a bit too thick. No face: everything but its eyes covered in knitted headwear, framing the pair of pale pupils, shadowed by a heavy brow.

Some suicidal, hare-brained part of you wonders what would happen if you were to lift the bottom of its mask. (What you would see. How it would react.) But the compulsion is quickly stifled by another wave of gagging, empty stomach looking for anything to regurgitate. The thing masquerading as a man catches on fast, flipping you so your back tucks against its chest. You end up projecting water over the carpet, coughing until your head pounds like a ripe bruise. It’s then that you realise your condition has everything to do with its presence, souring now that you’re practically nestled against its abdomen.

“What…” You question between dry heaves. “What are– What do y-you want with me?”

“Better question ‘s, wha’ do you want?” It murmurs back, rumbling too close to your ear. Rot thickens its breath, potent enough that it draws the tears already dotting your lash line. No doubt a corpse remains stuck somewhere down its gullet, stored away for later. No doubt you’ll join it soon, gnawed on until your flesh falls off the bone. The perfect victim; all alone, the town pariah. A witch by the common man’s standards. Cast out to a dismal forest to die.

“I don- I don’t–”

“Summoned me, didn’ you? Dug a nice little hole and all. Well,” His hand shifts, clasping tighter around your struggling arms. “I’m ‘ere now. ‘Bout wha’ you expected?”

You use your retching as an excuse to play a game of catch up, squeezing the last of your tears out. Your memories bleed into one another, ink on wet parchment. Summoned. Dug a… hole, to call on this thing of supernatural proportions currently occupying your home. Why would you want that? What have you done? The past year has been marked by loneliness of a drastic degree, certainly, yet–

And then it comes flooding back to you.

(Washing the salt off of preserved sheep’s liver. Fastening it to a bouquet garni with twine. Folding the modest sacrifice under layers of earth. Pouring milk onto the upturned dirt.)

“Aren’t you supposed to be an– an animal… Or something.” You choke.

(You never thought it’d work: this magic amateurishly scribbled onto the back of your book by a hand long necrotized. The runes had been difficult to fathom on their own. And the way the spell had sounded on your clumsy tongue made you sure you’d done it wrong. It was purely a pursuit of curiosity. Something to keep you occupied, for lack of anything else to do.)

“Or something.” It answers.

A familiar. Yours, to be precise. In service to you since it took the offering you fashioned. Or, of greater import, one that can’t do anything to you lest you ask for it.

(Foolish to think you can clamp a collar on a feral beast and expect it to heel.)

The girl has a harder time adjusting than his original estimate.

Of course, there’s the illness. The affliction that plagues all mortals who come in contact with a demon for the first time. She’s violently sick for days, verging on the full first week of his arrival. Constantly bent over herself, holding a metal pail close for the inevitable purge of bile, that which her liver overproduces to compensate for a lack of food. Her under eyes blacken five shades darker. Her cheekbones grow more pronounced. Ghost watches it all with a macabre sort of interest, unable to take much satisfaction in the affair as his meal withers away before his very eyes. Wrists thinning into willow branches. Lips flaking like dead bark.

He's almost tempted to do something before she begins to recover herself. Gets more used to his unnatural presence, it seems. Gradually. Slow.

It starts when she wakes up one morning, having slept in later than he’s known her to, hiccupping but otherwise solid. After laying on the couch for an hour, she limps off with dwindling energy to fry a batch of velvet shank for breakfast. The meal is hardly enough for one, yet she plates two-thirds of it for Ghost and places the dish on the table he’s commandeered for his own. It’s a kind gesture; he doesn’t have it in him to be kind about it, though. Yet before he can criticise her efforts, she waddles off to pry a window open. Frigid winds encroach on her sheltered home at once, snow flurrying in, but she braves the cold until a crow lands on the windowsill.

“Hello.” She croons, smoothing a knuckle across its crown. “Sorry I’ve been away. Here,” Digging into her breast pocket, she pulls out a handful of chokecherries and feeds them to the bird. “make them last. Supply is low.”

The crow merely picks them off her palm, coos lost in the roaring storm that batters at the door. For the first time since his arrival, Ghost is tempted to bleed into the shadows. The affair he’s made voyeur to is delicate, an understated glimpse into a life entirely foreign to him. It aches when he can’t piece together why she would give up her food for nothing in return, or why she treats him the same way she does a feral bird. He thinks it must be ego, this snarling anger in his chest.

So when the crow flies off with a final farewell pet down its back, he hardens into a nastier version of himself. Ghost still hasn’t touched the paltry breakfast when she turns her attention back to him, a fact she meets with a gingerly raised eyebrow.

“’Fraid I won’t eat tha’, pet.”

She takes a moment to process his epithet of choice, eyes narrowing in an almost comical turnaround of her previous gentle expression.

“Wouldn’t it be the other way around?” She scoffs.

The indignation alone should be enough to incense him further, never mind the apathy she adopts when she shucks the contents of his plate onto her own and marches back to the couch. It doesn’t. If anything, he calms a little at her willingness to take away what she so graciously offered. The cat does have claws, then. Albeit petty, piddling little claws – like the runt of a litter who’s learnt to bite back at anything that gets too close – but a fire, nonetheless. He appreciates that, perhaps more than he assumed he would.

Her sickness, he finds, is not the only issue.

Ghost lacks context for her situation – why she lives alone when the closest towns are just bordering the forest, or why no one ever seeks her out – but it does not escape him that the girl isn’t properly socialised.

In the centuries since they first emerged, he’s absorbed a keen sense for mortal behaviour. Credit to their alarming predictability, pattern recognition has halved the effort needed for his hunts. Not that he pretends to be at one with their psychology, but it’s easy to pin just where exactly she deviates from the norm when his strategy for ravaging her depends on it. More than once, he finds himself inexplicably engrossed in her habits.

Given her home is limited to the living room, kitchen, and washroom, she struggles to find a space where she can escape his oppressive presence. Ghost does not make it easy for her, either. He could choose to blend into the darker corners of her cottage, embodying the moniker he’d been given all those years ago and disappear almost completely – or enough to give her a mental break. But the mood strikes him more often than not, and he’ll loom over her like a spectral shadow, looking to provoke the grave mood swings that seize her like Satan does his miscreants. By far the most entertaining outcome had been when overstimulation trounced her usual level of tolerance and she pulled a knife on him, zeroed in on his jugular. He’d managed to scruff her by the nape until she wore herself out – which isn’t to say she didn’t put up quite a fuss.

Since then, she has yet to lash out to such an extreme, instead locking herself in the washroom when her temper skyrockets. Ghost is almost disappointed.

That’s his pet at her worst. At her best, she opts for quiet coexistence, either whispering to the crow who visits daily and appears to be her only friend, or cradling that ugly book in both hands. The back of the couch where she lounges most often obscures his view of her, but he’ll get the occasional vision when she pokes her eyes above the top to check on him. He maintains eye-contact – the heavy, uncomfortable kind that engenders pure humiliation and pummels her back into place, eyebrows furrowed and contentment spoiled – until the boredom gets to him.

The next time she sneaks a peek, then, he effects a gruff “Still ‘ere.”

She keeps to herself after that, nose buried in her grimoire like a chastened fawn.

It takes three weeks for her to settle into normalcy. By that time, Ghost’s patience has already started to wear thin.

The girl operates under the impression that he can’t do anything unless she orders it of him. He doesn’t blame her, credulous thing that she is. The notion is generally accepted by most of her grade, propagated by some text meant for beginners, written by a man who lacked the subtlety to discern between rules and good form. It’s true that familiar’s tend to only perform feats their counterparts ask for, but only because to do otherwise is bad practice. What else motivates a symbiotic relationship if not trust? Dependency?

Of course, that’s if a demon has anything to gain that a human can provide. He’s always found it to be a little more than pathetic. Reared to hunt, formidable in his thaumaturgic ability – Ghost has lasted centuries by remaining self-sufficient, unwilling to lean on the inferior class of rational beings. Unwilling to do their dirty work in exchange for blood he could obtain very well on his own. At least, that had been the conviction when he’d answered her graceless summons, bent on killing both his curiosity and hunger with one stone.

But something about her had made him glad to abide by the niceties. Had soothed the spring of his haunches as he prepared to pounce, or otherwise convinced him to play passive until golden opportunity struck. He’d wanted her to have as much a hand in her own unravelling, like a frog brought to a boil, entirely oblivious of its impending death until much too late. Her erroneous understanding of their dynamic, then, had paired nicely with his purposes. So he led her on to believe it, wasted most of his days amenable at the dining table as if waiting for instruction. As if she was the one in control, buzzing to shatter the perception when she inevitably asks something of him.

What he’s found, unsurprisingly, is that she’s blossomed under the reassurance. The initial fear that gripped her once she realised he wouldn’t be going away has since watered down to a weak, background agitation. He tastes it in the air; the mild unease as she flits about her cottage, the first thing to go when something else captures her attention. The way she hardly takes note of him anymore, waking up or retiring to sleep with nothing but covert glances to where he monopolises space.

So that feeling of frothing irritation returns at her docility, only more powerful than it had been when she’d offered her last chokecherries to the crow. No witch or wizard of her acumen has ever been so lacking in spite – and from what little she’s allowed him to see of her outbursts, he knows she isn’t short of it either. Yet she’d given up so quickly. Forfeited her home and comfort to a monster she hasn’t attempted to make any use of. And fuck– if that isn’t what he’d wanted. He needed her secure in him, pretty and soft enough that she’d be tempted to trade him for favours, for little feats of magic or the completion of chores she no longer has to worry about now that she doesn’t live alone.

Nevermind the detail that she refuses to ask anything of him; it still claws at him the wrong way, razor-sharp and deadly as it tears up his throat. This anger on her behalf. A compensation for the response she should be having. It stirs him when he realises that, for all intents and purposes, what he feels is pity. Perilous, committed sympathy.

There’s a reason he steers clear of it, too. Quick to snowball. He already feels it growing, avalanching into the hollow recess where he’d suppressed the soul of his first meal. Something shifts, then. He can’t place it. Just knows that the outcome he’d envisioned – where her bones serve to pick his teeth of the soft flesh from her thigh – is no longer a viable option. Just knows that his intentions with her mutate into something perhaps more dangerous, a little more unhinged. To weed out the wickedness he’s only seen in flashes. To see her corrupted into a far worse version of herself.

It’s late into his twentieth night when Ghost decides to do something about it.

He wedges back into her cottage when dawn splinters over the virgin snow. If he were a passionate man – not this hellhound trailing blood behind him like breadcrumbs – he’d remark on the way the tepid sunlight stains the forest in shades of peach and lurid blue. But the crow between his teeth hangs limp, and he’s hurried for the best way to present his gift, too absorbed in the task at hand to pay much mind to scenery.

The house is as tranquil as it always is at this time. Suspended in amber, a fossilised quaintness he’s grown used to. Golden, almost sticky slow. She’s still fast asleep on the couch, soft snores whistling from underneath a patchwork quilt (which smells so much like her that, to his mutt senses, they’re one-in-the-same form.) Despite the precarity of the moment, he makes no effort to keep quiet. His natural disposition isn’t prone to making any unintentional noise though, and so the only thing he disturbs are the dust motes bobbing in suspended animation.

Ghost places the dead bird on the table. It won’t be long before the blood drains from the punctures in its neck, and he prefers his meat iron-rich and wet, so he makes quick work of morphing back into his human form and washing his muzzle clean. There’s a sick thrill that curls in his gut; something like adrenaline, ozone-rich. Ruthless. He holds a crystalline picture of her reaction to the slaughtered friend he dragged into her home; angry, doe eyes glazed with tears as she yells at him for acting against her best wishes. Bad dog. Perhaps she’ll pull the dagger she keeps taped to the bottom of the table to indulge a sense of security. Perhaps she’ll drive it into his chest. That’s for hoping.

Standing over her now, he imagines the way her serene face morphs into something foul when she’s pushed to her limits. His cock twitches at the mental picture, aching behind the confines of his pants. A heavy hand moves to adjust it, stilling once it cups his balls to consider whether it’d be overkill to tug it over her face while she remains nice and still like this. It would be – not anything he’s above, granted, but excessive nonetheless. Besides, she’ll have plenty of time to accept the attention. Learn to love it, even.

When she wakes, Ghost has already plucked the crow. The feathers pile in the centre of her round dining table – distinctive even when detached from a body, meant for her to draw parallels to the game he currently masticates. Yet she hardly notes his presence at all. Instead, the unsuspecting thing merely clears the sleep from her bleary eyes, weighed down by a heavy cloak of sloth, more focused on wiping the drool off her chin than him. If she had been, perhaps the pieces would fall that much faster; at least, that’s what the quick-tick rap of his pulse insists upon.

But he’s no over-eager brute. He can wait.

Yet he is tense when she shuffles to and from the bathroom, bare feet padding along hardwood. Like a flood, his body grapples against the tidal urge to grab her jaw and force her gaze upon his bloody teeth, sharpened and marred behind the mouth of his true form. Look at me. Have you no survival instinct? There is a threat in your home and you parade in front of it, blind as a mole. You’ll get eaten like this. You’ll be condemned to hell between the jowls of horrible men.

(More monster than ever, really. Even like this, bound by his approximation of what a mortal man looks like, his face remains stuck to its original construction. The knitted mask he wears is more for her sake than his; he’s never been able to replicate the particulars of humanity. The delicate planes of their lips or the angles their noses protrude at. Better not to try, then. Better to hide it all away.)

It’s as she scrounges for breakfast that she finally heeds the pinpricks of blood dotting the floor. Fat, dark splotches draw a clear line from the doorway to a very calm Ghost, sat with his thighs spread over her too-tiny chair. He’s yet to finish his meagre meal – each bite seasoned with a satisfaction that bloats heavy in his stomach – hence the evidence of his crime still paints the corner red. A violent picture. Distressing, if he were to interpret the way her brows knit tight.

Crimson meat marbled ivory. Wings pried off a picked apart ribcage, shanks sucked clean of slightly tougher muscle. Still intact are the heart, tongue, liver – their membranes dissolving to soak into the table. The smell of death will be hard to rid of, he’s sure, much like the inedible parts of the bird that scatter carefully in front of him. Its glossy black talons. That tell-tale beak. Feathers on which her eyes linger, like she recognises the sheen but is too upset to connect it to the crow she fed daily. Her only friend.

She steps closer. Ghost devours every minute expression that flits upon her face. For the expressiveness of her pupils – contracted, small like organic pearls – she doesn’t portray much externally. Her fingers wring her skirt, twisting and twisting until it wrinkles in the impression of her thumb. Her lips purse into a thin line. But as far as his sharp observation goes; no tears. No ugly rage rippling her cheeks.

“What is this?” She asks in a small voice.

“Breakfast.” He says. It isn’t the response she’s looking for, and a frown tugs at her mouth. Not necessarily sad. Her hands release to clench at her sides. He smiles behind the mask. He can’t help himself.

“I didn’t tell you to do this.”

The smile breaks into a low chuckle. “No?”

“No.” Shaking her head, emotion surges up her throat. It bubbles thick and forces her to adopt a higher pitch to overpower it. “You brute. I-If you could’ve done whatever… whatever you wanted t-the whole time–”

“C’mere.” His hand snakes around her wrist, using it to wrench her closer. He consciously keeps his grip light – too much force and he could easily shatter bone – but the girl does not share his concern. She pulls and fights and stubbornly protests his direction.

“No! Get the fuck off! Get out!” She heaves. Seethes. Spittle launches from her tirade, her nails digging into his palm. She looks for blood but he won’t give it to her. She’s doing well, but not well enough. Eventually, he is able to pull her onto his lap, locking thick arms around her squirming form. “You bastard. You monster! I’ll fucking kill you. I’ll murder you in your sleep and feed your rotten insides to the maggots. Let me go!”

He’s blood-filled in his trousers. The hefty bulge knocks the small of her back and of all things, that’s what gets her to suddenly slacken. Though her chin tips to rest between her collarbones, lashes deliberately cast down. Refusing to meet his eye for all she’s worth. Good, he thinks, a warmth blossoming in his chest.

“You ough’ to know your friend didn’ put up a fight.” He starts, nosing the part in her hair. Despite his knitted mask serving as a direct barrier between them, he can smell the pine and juniper berry soap she uses to wash up. Sharp. Sweet. Particularly potent behind her ear, where he considers her lobes like low-hanging fruit.

“Shut up.”

“Need to hear this, pet.” She doesn’t listen, naturally, hips bucking wildly the instant he loosens his hold. His fingers bruise when he readjusts her on his thighs. “Need to know it was your fault as much as i’ was mine. Yeah? Y’let it grow too comfortable. Fed it daily and robbed i’ of its ingrained fear of strangers. In the end, it got much too friendly. Didn’ have the sense to fly away when I approached it.” Her breath pinches into a piercing whine. Ghost likens it to the kettle she keeps over her stove, waiting for steam to burst out of her ears.

It does not come. Instead, she cries. Beads of brine break her waterline, streaking miserable paths down her cheeks. He’ll grant her this: she does not sob unreasonably. Her hiccups are limited to if and when the air hardens in her lungs. He lets her have a moment before continuing.

“S’what happens, see. You get complacent, ‘n’ next thing you know, you’re meeting your God. Tell me, pet: do you think the afterlife would be pleasant to a witch?”

When she doesn’t respond, he bounces a knee to knock some sense back into her. Her weeping starts anew, only this time accompanied by a stuttered acknowledgement.

“Hm?”

“N-No.”

“No. ‘Course I could ‘ave told you that much, but it’s importan’ you come to the moral of the story yourself. Fight, or die.” Ghost strokes the goosepocked flesh of her upper arm, voice softening to deliver the final part of speech. It’s treacherously low, ultimatum like powdered ash cushioning the roughness in his throat. “And believe me when I say, dying ain’ the better option. There are far worse fates than me in Hell.”

He does not know whether it lands like he wants it to. If it accomplishes anything at all. But she doesn’t attempt to peel herself off him in the aftermath. Instead, she mourns herself dry for the next hour, snivelling wretchedly on his lap.

When her crying stops, the air is still laden with something. Hesitation rolls off her in waves, dense with the renewal of fear. He supposes it must be hypocritical of him, to both strike her with terror and expect her to overcome it, but he hums anyway, nudging her temple off his shoulder in an appeal to state what’s on her mind.

What comes instead is a deceptively simple question.

“What’s your name?” She asks. Doesn’t demand of him to tell her. Doesn’t set up grounds for him to ask for something in return. He can either answer, or not. She leaves the choice up to him. Clever girl.

He grapples with it a moment too long. A long dead man beats at his ribcage and demands to be heard. A meal he never managed to digest. Hissing. Snarling. S-Si-Si–

“Ghost.”

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azullumi · 27 days

Text

”know it’s for the better” ; aventurine

summary — memories come in waves and tonight, he’s drowning; the grief of his past haunts him and visits him in his dreams; alternatively, you comfort and assure him after his nightmare.

pairing — aventurine (w/gender-neutral reader)

warning — 2.1 QUEST SPOILERS (about his past)

tags — established relationship, angst with comfort, soft and kind of insecure aventurine, mentions of alcohol (he just drinks a glass that’s all), there’s some fluff if you squint, lots of metaphors, mentions of death, mentions of depressing and negative thoughts, all told and narrated in aventurine’s POV, i never proofread, 2.1k words ; one-shot

tagging — @toorurs !! dedicating this to you

note — this is what reading his character analysis, character essays, scene and dialogue interpretations, and his whole ass lore and dissecting each one of it does to you. day 3 of writing for him.

“kakavasha.”

he opens his eyes to the sight of his planet: seemingly empty, barren, as nothingness continues to stretch towards the horizon. there was nothing on this land but the stench of death and cruelty that lingers in the air—it was heavy, thick, as if the clouds were binding him down to the ground and forcing him to look at what once was. he could feel the ache in his chest, the feeling of familiarity starting to seep into gaps between his fingers, and the the lump starting to form in his throat.

he knew this place, the stones that surrounded him and the mountain that leered over him. he knew of this, was all too familiar with it—the sunken ground and disturbed dirt from when his sister knelt before him with tears in her eyes as she uttered her promise of reunion before she bid him her farewell (he’ll always carry her last words as if it was part of his existence). the memory plays in his mind all over again, the voice of his sister echoing:

“this is where we go our own way, kakavasha…”

“...this is a gift from gaiathra, and you are kakavasha, whose good fortune will bless your sister with success.”

“as long as you are alive, the blood of the avgin will never run dry. so run, kakavasha, do not be afraid, and do not look back…”

he could feel the rain starting to pour down on his form but he doesn’t run, he doesn’t move, he doesn’t seek for something that will shelter him from the cold. instead, he stands under the pouring rain with heavy shoulders and thoughts that seem to claw and scratch at him. no matter how much he tries to cover up and escape from his past, to run and run until his feet hurt, until he falls and crumbles to nothing, it will still haunt him. it chases after him; it hides in the corners of his room, behind the wallpapers, and amidst the settling dust and cobwebs, and it creeps up on tuesday mornings as he tries to revere the sun that once never shined on him. he’s always painfully reminded of the things that he has to carry—the weight of his sister who carries her parents, and who carries their parents.

“...the rain will accompany you, and the rain will bless you.”

the distant cries, screams, and roars all ring inside his ears but the sound of the rain breaking into smaller pieces as it falls to the ground that he walks on masks it all.

he feels so pathetic. the hatred that he has for himself continues to gather and manifest into his likeness to sing choruses of condemnation in the guise of shattered and broken praises that are shaped like knives, stabbing his guts and making blood spill from his lips (he doesn’t know what his mother looked like anymore yet he could remember the distinct smell and taste of iron as blood stains his skin).

“why are you all doing this…” he remembers what he answers to her sister before she walks off to her death. he remembers asking her as he covers his ears with his small hands—too weak and frail to even carry stones, much less move boulders. he remembers the pain, the confusion, the guilt of it all. he was just a small child who had too much to hold.

what even is the worth of his life? it was just merely 60 tanbas. even if he dresses himself in luxurious and expensive clothing his past self could never dream of having, it doesn’t rid of the grasp the ipc has over him; his shackles. the cold and harsh metal is not there anymore but he could still feel it tugging on his neck, he could still feel the letters burn as it engraves itself—death would have been a more merciful fate for him than being held by such cruel and dirty hands.

“kakavasha.”

aventurine opens his eyes to the sight of his ceiling. there was no empty land that is of semblance of his planet before him but instead there were the patterns, the walls, and the chandelier that hangs in the middle of it. he was in his room; the silence accompanied with the ticking sound of the clock strikes a balance between quietude and noise.

1:56, he looks at the time. it was still deep into the night—the stars cast its light into his room as it poured itself on the cold floor. there was a rustle by his side and he turned his head to look at you, peacefully sleeping in the comfort of his blankets and you mumbled something underneath your breath though he couldn’t hear it. your face scrunches for a moment before it relaxes into a soft one and he watches all of it happen; he wonders what you’re dreaming of.

unable to sleep—a heavy feeling resides in his chest ever since he woke up—, he slides himself out of the bed. slowly and silently, dare he might disturb your sleep. he slips into his slippers before walking off to the direction of his kitchen. he doesn’t even know what he’s going to do there; he’s not even thirsty nor hungry, he just follows where his feet brings him (that’s how it usually was for him, often aimless and wandering with no direction in mind, he just doesn’t where to go, where he belongs).

he’s not an alcoholic but sometimes he just seeks for the bitterness of the liquid—to replace the taste of blood on his tongue and momentarily feel what it’s like to have nothing on your shoulders; his hands are empty yet it holds so much. he pours himself a small glass, honey-coloured liquid spills into it and a few drops gets into the surface counter. he picks the glass up, swirls the liquid for a few moments and watches its motion, before he brings it to his lips and drinks it all.

the scent is harsh against his nose and the liquid burns at his throat. the taste was too bitter and he felt like spitting it all out but he didn't, he continued to swallow it until there was nothing left in his fill. he tried to think of something else, to avoid those thoughts from entering his mind: the plant there needs to be watered, that reminds me of the light bulb has to be changed, do i even have a future ahead of me?, the painting there is slightly out of place, am i even supposed to survive?, are you still in his room?

he wonders if you’re still tucked in his sheets, if you’re still sleeping in his bed, he wonders what you were dreaming of that got you mumbling and knitting your eyebrows, he wonders when you’ll walk away from him after you realize how ugly and utterly worthless he actually is.

“‘rine?” a voice calls out to him along with the light sound of approaching footsteps. as soon as you enter the kitchen, you are greeted by the sight of him: an empty glass in his hand with a newly-opened bottle of alcohol in front of him. it was currently 2 in the morning, your lover was missing from your side when you woke up but you found him drinking alone in the kitchen.

“what’s wrong, my love? are you okay?” you ask, worry following your tone as you spoke. but aventurine remains silent. he can’t tell you his thoughts, of the overwhelming despair that drags him back down to his misery, and it’s not because he doesn't want to but he can’t—it would break your heart.

(and you know his silence too well. you didn’t carve yourself inside his heart just for nothing, you didn’t consume his flesh to not know the humming of his thoughts inside his chest.)

“you know you can tell me anything, right?” you didn’t care that he’ll break your heart. you wanted all of him and that includes his hatred and anger. if it makes him feel better, break it, shatter it into pieces and you’ll keep on picking yourself up for him. even if you don’t have the ability to stop the downpour, you’ll walk with him through the rain.

after what seems to be moments of hesitation coming from him, he shuffles from his seat and approaches where you stood. and he lets himself fall and crumble for you to catch him in your embrace—he feels safe, he feels okay but the grief, misery, and guilt still tugs at his heart ever so often as it beats.

(“where do i put all of this grief?” he asked you once while you admired the stars with him. “you hold them until it turns to love.”)

you caress his back softly, a small act of comfort as you cradled him in your arms. he doesn’t put all of his weight on you but he pulls you close and buries his face on the crook of your neck, heaving out a sigh as he did; you let him, let him whisper his worries and write his thoughts on your skin.

“did you have a nightmare again?”

“…not really.” the faint smell of alcohol wafts to your nose as he speaks. “i just…”

“it’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it.”

“i’m sorry.” he says and you didn’t fail to notice the crack in his voice and the feeling of something warm and wet on your skin. you hold him closer, tighter, and you brush your hand against his hair, tangling your fingers in his soft locks.

“you have nothing to apologize for. it’s not your fault, kakavasha. nothing is ever going to be your fault.”

“it feels like it does.”

“no, no, my love… you were just a child. you did all that you can to survive and fulfill your promise.”

you start to gently sway him into the melody of your hum and he follows your form like the wind would on your hair. this continues for long until he’ll let go—you’ll hold him for as long as he wants to if it would lessen his burdens.

“i wouldn’t love you any less nor will i think of you as worthless.”

he has days likes this, days where he contemplates and thinks of everything, days where he doesn’t know what to do or what to say, days where he feels like he never changed and he’s still the same weak child who walked away from his sister instead of begging and asking her to go with him (the survivor’s guilt goes hard), days where it feels like everything is falling apart and he’s left on his own again, days where all he wants to do is to just cry in your shoulder—

“are you feeling better?” you ask him as he lifts his head from your shoulder; dry tears are left like trails of stars on his features. you cup both of his cheeks and wipe away the remnants of his misery and ache.

“mhm, a little bit.” he nods and you beckon him closer to your lips just so you could kiss his forehead before peppering his whole face.

—but there are days of warmth and sunlight. days where it all feels a little bit bearable and he can breath, days where every step he takes isn’t heavy, days where he could taste the kindness of the sun on his lips, days where he wakes up with you by his side and thinks he could have this forever, days where he could hear his mother’s lullaby that would comfort him, days where he could hear his sister’s voice telling him that she’s proud of how far he have come, days where everything feels okay and worth it.

years of these little bits of happiness—in silence, in chaos, in tranquility, in destruction—he wants a lifetime of it with you. and though kakavasha was never a greedy man, the ache, the yearning, and craving for those moments with you fills the empty spaces of his thoughts; you looked like what peaceful dreams are made of.

“i love you.” he knows that you know that already, he just thought he’d say it again.

#aventurine honkai star rail #honkai star rail x reader #honkai star rail #honkai imagines #honkai x reader #honkai #hsr aventurine x reader #hsr x you #hsr aventurine #hsr x reader #aventurine imagines #aventurine x you #aventurine #star rail aventurine #aventurine x reader #aventurine angst #honkai x you #honkai star rail x you #azul.writes

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mutant-distraction · 3 months

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In the elevated Indus Valley of Pakistan, you'll find some of the world's most intricate and diverse petroglyphs. Specifically, the ancient Shatial glyphs along the Karakoram Highway in the Gilgit-Baltistan region stand out. Dating back to the Stone Age, these glyphs adorn rocks and boulders, extending for over 100 kilometers. Encompassing various languages, religions, and the symbolism of peoples spanning 10,000 years, these remarkable writings and designs face potential threats from modern hydropower projects planned in the Indus Valley.

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rheasesposts · 1 year

Text

stone

sully family x fem!daughter/sister!navi!reader

summary : Y/N felt off to her family, and her parents were going to get to the bottom of it.

——————————————————————————

“Watch out!” Lo’ak roared to his older sister, Y/N, who was inches away from hitting one of the floating mountains as the two were avoiding sky people bullets. She swerved quickly and raced to be behind Lo’ak once more, being a lookout for them.

“Y/N, Lo’ak, do you copy?” Jake breathlessly transmitted to his children as he scanned the air space for his two most reckless kids. Neytiri flew beside him shooting deathly arrows at sky people’s chests. “Y/N!”

“I am here, we are here.” Y/N logged on, but couldn’t say more as more guns were aimed at her and Lo’ak. Y/N, under her breath, groaned and yielded her bow to shoot at the opposing forces. A battle cry escaped her lips as her arrow planted itself in a soldier’s face. And another. Another. Another. Until no more pellets could be heard fired at Y/N and Lo’ak. Y/N breathed heavily and called for her Ikran to go faster. Her bones were already dully aching again.

“Head to base, our work is done here.” Jake spoke over the comms. Lo’ak and Y/N shared a glance before swooping to fly toward High Camp. Neteyam caught up to them as they landed inside the alcove. Jake and Neytiri checked their three children for any marks and found only small ones.

“My child, I saw you. You were brilliant.” Neytiri praised her daughter who flushed from the compliment. Y/N couldn’t believe it herself since she felt so numb recently.

“I mean they were shooting at us.” Y/N justified and shrugged off her mother’s words. “I am going to spend time with grandmother.”

The four warriors of the Sully family were left standing, not knowing exactly what happened. Neteyam shot Lo’ak a look, and Lo’ak only raised a brow inquisitively. Jake studied his two sons.

“Did someone touch her?” Jake asked Lo’ak. “Like lay a hand on her, got too close.”

“No, we were in the sky.” Lo’ak explained, and Jake stared at the healer tent Y/N ventured into. “Maybe she’s just off, I am sure she’ll be better by tonight.”

Neytiri nodded at her youngest son, “Yes, Ma Jake, it will all be well.” Neytiri kissed his shoulder before walking into the healer tent, too.

——

Y/N felt heavy, like a boulder stuck in between two mountains, waiting to drop and crack everywhere. Not only was there guilt building up inside of her, but her body felt immobile sometimes, like her legs were stone. She couldn’t tell her family because they wouldn’t know how to help her. So, she kept quiet and hoped it would pass.

“Why don’t you come hunt with me?” Neteyam inquired to his sister. Y/N’s body was having a particularly difficult day, and she could barely shift to look at him without wanting to grunt in pain. Neteyam noted the grimace on Y/N’s face and became concerned. “What is wrong?”

“Nothing, Nete, I am fine.” Y/N stiffly stood and walked out of the tent in search of her Ikran, so she could fly away. Neteyam, like before, was left to decipher what just happened. He saw her struggle with getting up and leaving, and Neteyam knew he had to tell someone.

Neteyam spotted his mother by Kiri in the healer’s tent and decided to go to her. Neytiri waited with open arms for her son as he walked straight into them. “I fear there is something wrong with Y/N.”

Neytiri glimpsed down at Neteyam, and a frown overcomes her face, “What do you mean, my child?” She pushed his braids behind his ears.

“She seemed in pain when she was standing up and walking away.” Neteyam told her. Neytiri sighed and looked to Kiri who merely made an awkward smile and lifted her arms in a shruggish manner. “I think you or Dad should talk to her.”

“Yes, thank you.” Neytiri’s kissed her son’s cheek before leaving to find her mate. Jake was leading a small group of hunters through a training course right outside the camp, but he stopped once he saw Neytiri’s urgent expression. He legged over to her and took her face into his hands gently.

“What is it?” Jake said, a little words about what his mate might say.

“Neteyam says Y/N is in pain.” Neytiri answered in a hushed tone. “Struggling physically.”

Jake looked bewildered at this news and shot Neytiri a confused glance. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know.” Neytiri admitted before the both of them were sprinting to their Ikran and mounting the beasts. The two investigated the whole of the floating mountains with no luck in finding their eldest daughter. The next place they looked was the Tree of Souls, and Neytiri could hear a voice from below and knew that was Y/N.

The parents creeped up, trying not to spook their daughter or any other creature nearby. Neytiri and Jake could now hear what Y/N was exactly saying, or praying actually.

“Please, Eywa, I am tired. Show me something, anything to help me. I am so, so tired.” A sob ripped from Y/N’s throat at the end of her prayer. Y/N curled into a ball at the base of the tree and tried find the comfort of Eywa in the roots. Her cries upset Jake and Neytiri deeply because they wanted to help her. “Eywa, please.”

“My daughter, tell me what is wrong.” Neytiri finally whispered and approached Y/N silently. Y/N raised her gaze to her mother, and more tears fell from her yellow eyes. “Oh, my baby.” Neytiri coddled Y/N in her arms, despite Y/N wailing from the discomfort it brought upon her bones. “Y/N, Y/N, please, tell me.”

“I am hurting.” Y/N stuttered out through her cries. Jake sat down on the root next to his mate and daughter. “I feel heavy.”

“What’s hurting?” Jake placed a hand on Y/N’s neck. Y/N fell into her Dad’s embrace with Neytiri still latched on. “Come on, baby.”

“Everything, all the time.” Her ears were flat against her head when she whimpered that to her father. “I ache.”

“My baby.” Jake breathlessly huffed, and Y/N was folded into his side completely after that. “We can help you, Norm can examine you.”

“No, no, no, no, that is only part of it. I am sick, my mind, it won’t go away.” Y/N angrily wailed, and Neytiri shushed her with a gentle rub of the arm. “The voices are just there, they won’t go away. Make them go away!” Neytiri couldn’t watch as her daughter broke down in front of her so vulnerably, yet so brave. “Dad, I want my mind gone.”

“Hey, we can help you with that, too.” Jake mumbled and softly elevated Y/N’s head out of his chest, so they could be eye to eye. “We will help you. You are not alone. Not anymore.”

“Ok.” Was Y/N’s broken response. Y/N fell asleep after awhile of her parents lulling her into a peaceful state. Jake carried to his Ikran and rode home with her nestled into his body. Once home, their other children were up and concerned for their sister. Everyone peered as Y/N and her father laid on the mat, and Neytiri sidling up beside her mate to provide extra support.

The other kids joined the three and dispersed themselves among the dog pile, making sure not to wake the sleeping Y/N. Jake stroked Y/N’s hair and knew she was different, and that he would help his daughter any way he could. Always.

#jake sully #neteyam #neytiri #avatar #avatar x reader #kiri sully #loak sully #neteyam sully #neteyam x reader #neteyam x y/n #neteyam x you #sully family #tuk sully #sully family x reader #jake sully x y/n #jake sully x daughter!reader #neytiri x reader

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lilrainbowcloud · 2 months

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Dancing With Our Hands Tied

Pairing: Jet x Earth Bender Reader

Genre: Friends to Lovers

Word count: 1.85k [masterlist]

a/n: theres not much fic for him, why? also this is based on dwoht and am currently listening to it rn.

Taking a deep breath, your foot came down on the earth, making four medium sized rocks burst from the ground.

Focusing your energy towards the wooden circular target that was mounted on a tree trunk, you let out the breath you held and along went the rocks, flying towards the target. Transforming into sharp spikes before impaling themselves into the wood.

An annoyed sigh left your lips. Two of them missed, one went into the outer ring and the other one hit the tree trunk above it instead.

"You're getting better."

Shocked, you turned around to see Jet standing a few meters away from you, in his usual armored attire and hair free from a tie. Didn't even realize he was there watching you the whole time. Didn't even hear his footsteps coming.

"No. I don't know. I guess?" Flustered by his presence and comment, you shook your head trying to clear off the thoughts and went to sit on one of the logs. He joined you right after.

"You are though. It's better than last week." He was watching you. You could feel the weight of his gaze but you just couldn't look back at him.

Were you shy? Yes you were.

To be honest, it was kind of random how you two met.

One day you were practicing your bending by the river. Setting up river stones on the big boulders and trying to hit them with your bending. But, to your luck, or unluck, one of the spikes flew straight past the head of Jet as he was walking to the city.

The day you met was the day you almost potentially killed him.

After that, you had joined his little secret club. It was awkward and it still was with him. Was it guilt and embarrassment that held you back from him? But that was months ago. It was something else here.

You just didn't want to admit it.

Your feelings for him, that is, grew over time. With every time you spent with him, with every encouragement he gave you during your practices, he made you feel safe and secure yet there was a wall separating you from him.

It was you who made that wall. He couldn't see it.

"I almost hit pipsqueak last week," a smile formed on your lips as you recalled the memory. In your defense, he was in the way.

That emitted a chuckle out of him. The sound was lovely to your ears. Your smile remained as you stared at the bonfire in the middle of the pit.

"Hey, come on," Standing up, he offered his hand to you.

Humming in confusion, you looked up at him and took his hand regardless.

"Try it on me," He gave you that smile that just tugged at your heartstrings, playing it like a harp. A melodious sound ringing in your ears.

"What? As in, fight you?" You stared at him as if it was the most ridiculous thing in the world.

"Yeah, fight me." Picking his swords up, he gave them both a swing.

Oh he was serious?

"No, I'm-I'm tired already," Rose bloomed on your cheeks as you once again looked to the ground, avoiding his eyes.

"Aw come on. You've been practicing with non-moving objects," Stepping closer to you, he lowered his voice even though you two were the only one there, "If you're worried about hurting me, don't be."

🗡️🪨🍃

With every hit he blocked, he took a step forward forcing you to take a step back.

It was a sort of dance. Your feet mirroring his. At times you moved forward, he moved back. Neither gaining or losing as it was balanced. He matched your pace well.

The intense look of his eyes made you realize that he was learning your fighting style and movements. The moment it clicked to you that you had been using the same movements too. Smart on him but careless on you.

Your spikes and dics clashed with the sharp blade of his swords. Dust filled the air between you two as the rock burst into tiny pieces.

Pushing your arms forward, your discs flew in random directions towards him at rapid speed, more quicker than you had done before. Adrenaline pumping in your veins, you could hear your heart beating in your ears.

He blocked all of them swiftly, with every hit he moved forward closer to you but this time you didn't step back.

The last one he crossed slash it about one meter away from you. Some of the little rocks landed in your hair.

You were mesmerized by him. His chest rising and falling with every breath matching yours. His hair matted on his forehead. That was the end of that session.

For a moment it felt like time stopped. With only the sound of rustling leaves in the atmosphere, you both stared into each other's eyes. Dropping his swords carelessly on the ground beside him, he stepped towards you.

You've never been left alone with him before. This was a new situation you had to adapt to. But he was Jet. You know him to an extent, he was your friend and you were his. So why is your fight or flight reaction kicking in?

Even then, you stayed glued to your spot.

Lifting his hand, Jet brushed his fingers through your hair, cleaning the debris, "That was really good," As his eyes trained on the rocks in your hair, you had a chance to look into his. A proud smile on his face, "I told you, you're getting better."

Returning his smile, you thanked him. Silence followed as you looked to the ground again. The leaf covered earth was interesting to you out of all things. I don't know, like the boy in front of you that's looking at you with furrowed brows. But you didn't notice that because you were looking to the ground! Look up please!

"Is everything okay?" Concern laced his tone, "You're being very quiet around me lately." His voice low with the last sentence.

Raising your head, you now realize he was so close to you. So close that he was stepping into your personal bubble. You didn't move away so this was a welcomed presence.

Mouth falling agape, your mind raced to find an answer that wouldn't make him feel like you're pushing him away. You... wanted him to stay.

"What do you mean?" Crossing your arm across your torso, you tilted your head with the question.

"Well," It was his turn to avoid your eyes, kicking his shoe into the ground, "I saw you laughing with them and joking around but when you're with me you're, well," Once again he looked at you, "Quiet."

"Why?" Something in the air changed. It weighed heavy on you. Your heart beating irregularly as with that one word he stepped forward closer. The gap between you almost became nonexistent until you moved back.

Dead leaves crunched under your shoes until your back met the trunk of a tree. He saw it before you did and smoothly put his hand on the back of your head, cushioning it from hitting the hard bark. The gap now? Extinct.

To allow some control, you put a hand on his chest. That was the only little space you had left. You could push him away and he knew that. He moved no further into you and you didn't move away.

The answer didn't come sooner. Your tongue wouldn't move as you tried to focus on breathing with his chest nearly meeting yours. You felt his fingers at the back of your head slightly clutching your hair. How are you still standing up, you didn't know.

"You don't like me?" There was no place you could look except his demanding eyes. Trapped in your own world, you didn't realize it was sunset. The golden light reflecting in his iris and hair made a golden halo around him.

"I do," Emphasizing the last word, you cringe internally as it sounded desperate, "I do like you," You repeated softer.

A second passed.

"Then what? Do I make you nervous?" He was teasing you, his tone. Testing your limits, he pressed himself more into you. You allowed it, hand still on his chest.

Before it was just a single rose, now you were sure a garden was blooming on your face. Body temperature rising, you had to control your breath through your mouth. The oxygen wasn't getting to your brain fast enough, you felt light headed. You would've fell if it not for his other hand which you didn't noticed held your waist in place.

You seem to have lost your bearings with him. It was dangerous, being put under a spell that was tearing away at your guard.

"I," Almost biting your tongue to utter that one word, you gulped. Can he just stop? But at the same time you didn't want him to. If only you had the brain functions to respond to him properly.

A little chuckle vibrated his chest, you felt it in the palm of your hand. Thankfully he read your mind, because you wanted this as much as he did.

"You're adorable, you know that?" The hand that was pillowing your head came around your face as he cups your cheek. Thumb swiping over it once before he pulled your face meeting his and your lips connected.

It was soft, his lips. The kiss lasted a moment. Sweet and innocent. Your senses bursting into vibrant colors. Bright ribbons swirling all around your closed eyes. You could feel his smile against your lips as he pulled away first, still keeping close to you.

His arm that was on your waist wrapped itself around you, pulled your body to him.

Sensing you were comfortable and alright with it, the shy smile on your face told him all, he pulled you back in again. Back into a shared realm, where your heart beats in synchronized sequence, bodies fitting each other perfectly.

Looping your arms around his neck, your fingers mindlessly played with the ends of his hair. A soft hum emitted from him which made your body react in a way it never did before. The grip on your waist got tighter. You decided you loved hearing that little sound and the way his hands gripped your body.

It was you who pulled away first, him chasing your lips but you stopped him with a hand on his chest yet again. You were breathless. Looking up to his eyes as he was still trained on your lips, but he respected your wishes even though he was also out of air.

"I like you," You managed in between breaths. Smiling as you did as the relief of the invincible wall crumbled down and vanished between the space of you and him in your spiritual mind.

The space was established. Whatever force that was keeping you away from him had dissolved. Only his gravity now pulled you towards him.

He smiled too, loving the way your body melted into his.

"I like you too."

a/n: a little rusty on the writing after 2 years out of practice man.. i hope this is okay

#take this while i mourn #jet #jet atla #jet x reader #sebastian amoruso #atla #avatar the last airbender

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libraryofgage · 5 months

Text

A Place Like Steve in a Boy Like This

Part of: Steve Deserves Good Parents, Actually Debbie and Fester Addams One Rick and Evelyn O'Connell One (you're here!)

The Mummy (1999) is one my comfort movies, actually, and I realized Rick and Steve are very alike actually. It's the looks, it's the hair, it's the loyalty and devotion.

Anyway, here's an AU where Rick and Evelyn O'Connell are Steve's parents lol

If there are any other people you think would make good parents for Steve, let me know! I'll take them into consideration and see if inspiration sparks :D

Anyway, if you'd like a tag on any future parts, let me know!

As always, if you see any typos, no you didn't ;P

-----

After being relegated to the open-air portion of some ruins in Crete, Steve entertains himself by slowly moving closer to the cats nearby in the hopes of petting them. His parents said he couldn't go into the ruins, but they didn't say a thing about playing with the ruins' inhabitants. Said inhabitants are gathered in a circle, some standing and some stretching out in the sun, but sticking together as though they're waiting for someone to begin a discussion.

He takes a piece of jerky from his bag, tearing it into small pieces as he peeks around the corner of a column. A few large stones are scattered around it, nearly reaching his shoulders and helping to hide him from the view of the cats on the other side. Though, in all honesty, they're probably only sticking around because they smell the jerky in his hand.

Steve grins and tosses a piece of meat over the stones, watching as it lands in the middle of what he's dubbed the Cat Council. A calico cat jolts, ears perked as she stares at the meat before taking a tentative step forward. She sniffs the meat, decides it's an acceptable offering, and eats it.

When it's gone, Steve tosses more pieces. He feeds a few more of the cats now, and he's practically buzzing with excitement. Deciding they're less likely to scatter, Steve clambers onto the huge boulder in front of him, managing to find little footholds to boost himself up. With a grunt, he makes it to the top and looks down on the Cat Council, ready to throw the last of his jerky when he hears the stone beneath him shift.

In the time it takes to blink, the ground crumbles beneath the rock, scattering the cats and dropping the stone out from under Steve. He falls with it, momentarily and terrifyingly weightless before gravity takes over and he drops. A yelp escapes him, followed by a pained cry as he lands feet-first on the rock, his ankles taking the brunt of the impact and, if not breaking, severely spraining for the effort.

Grit, dirt, and dust coat Steve's tongue and throat, and he coughs up as much as he can while taking in his new surroundings. Thankfully, sunlight filters into the underground space, allowing him to see the tiled floors and walls covered in a carefully carved and painted frieze that has, somehow, survived the centuries since its creation. Several figures wearing togas and carrying baskets line up outside a darkened arch. They don't exactly look happy to be there, but they seem resigned to their fate. Steve can even see the tears meticulously carved into several faces.

When he follows the frieze, he realizes the space he's in is really a hallway, one that seems to stretch forever on either side of him. Amazingly, there's no other sign of aging in it. No spiderwebs crowding the walls, no erosion from wind or water damage, and no sign of people having walked the passageway in centuries. It's the kind of perfectly preserved discovery Steve and his mother lose their heads over while his father waits for something to go wrong.

Steve is about to try standing (if he can stay upright, maybe he can explore a little and find something to show his mother before they realize he's gone missing) when he hears...a snort? Maybe it's more like a heavy puff of air. He tilts his head, twisting around to squint down the corridor to his right. Something glints in the darkness, close to what he assumes is the ceiling, and Steve grabs his flashlight.

He clicks it on, aiming the beam at the ground and slowly moving it down the corridor. He stops when the light shines on cloven hooves, a bad feeling beginning to build in his chest. With a now somewhat shaking hand, Steve slowly raises the beam, that bad feeling growing as it shines over furry hind legs and a furry waist that seamlessly blends into scarred skin just below the navel. Despite everything, he keeps going, only confirming his worst fears when his flashlight finally reaches the top to find the head of a bull staring straight at him, the horns cracked and nearly scraping the ceiling, the black eyes undeniably trained on Steve, and a glimmering golden ring looped through its nose, as untarnished by time as the friezes.

For ten seconds (Steve counts while trying to control his panic), he and the minotaur stare at each other. Then, it puffs out air again, the force strong enough to sway the ring in its nose. Steve grips the flashlight tighter, swallowing around the wariness threatening to choke him and briefly wondering if, maybe, centuries have somehow soothed the minotaur's anger.

And then it roars, deep and loud and powerful enough to shake the corridor and bring more dust and grit raining down on Steve from above. It lowers its head, aiming its horns straight at Steve, and charges with all the fury of a creature that's been denied centuries' worth of sacrifices.

Steve screams as the minotaur's hooves shake the ground with each step, too scared to do anything more than sit there and wonder if there will be enough of his body for his parents to identify when the minotaur is done with him.

He's just about accepted the answer (it's no; the answer is no) when something grabs the back of his shirt and yanks him up just before the minotaur crashes into the boulder. Strong arms wrap around Steve, holding him close as his father's familiar voice says, "I gotcha!"

Steve blinks, his heart still hammering as he clings to his father's neck and looks at his mother over his shoulder. She's staring at the hole, a frown on her face as the minotaur's enraged roar sounds from below. "Rick, I think we should go now," she says, grabbing the back of Rick's shirt and yanking him back just in time to avoid the minotaur's giant hand slamming into the ground next to the hole.

"Great idea, Evie," Steve's father says, his voice a little strained as he passes Steve over and pulls out a gun. "I'll cover you. Get Steve to the car, get it running, and I'll meet you there." The minotaur screams again, and Steve is still close enough to see it realize it can climb the stone to reach the surface.

"You have three minutes, or I'm coming back for you."

Rick looks over his shoulder, flashing a grin at Steve and his mother. "I'll be right behind you," he promises.

And he was. With a minotaur right on his heels and another week added to their time in Crete while they tried to get the whole situation straightened out without too many casualties or Steve's uncle Jonathan ruining more than one good pair of trousers.

-----

Steve doesn't think he'll grow used to the smell and sounds of the hospital. The antiseptic, sterile atmosphere isn't too bad, but the constant background noise has the potential to drive him up the walls. It helps that he, Eddie, and Max were finally moved to a room together, mostly muffling the beeps and PA announcements with each other's chatter, snoring, and other noises.

Right now, everything is drowned out by the kids arguing with Eddie about their next campaign. Eddie wants to do a sequel of their current one while they've been gunning for something sci-fi-themed if Steve is understanding their debate correctly. He's not sure why it's so important, but their voices are creating nice background noise, and Robin's rhythmic, habitual tapping of her fingers on his arm grounds him, so he lets his mind wander.

Honestly, Steve thinks they'd all benefit from a nice trip somewhere. Maybe Paris. They can't possibly run into anything in Paris, right?

Well. The catacombs do exist, and nobody knows what's down there. So they'd have to stay well away.

But still. Paris. The food. The Louvre. The history. And, you know, maybe they could just pop into the catacombs just so Steve can take pictures and show his mother later. Following a strictly regulated guided tour should be perfectly fine.

Steve drops his head back against the pillow, wincing slightly when the action tugs at the stitches along his throat. They hurt, but his worst injuries are on his sides where the demobats bit and feasted. The doctor said they'd scar permanently, looking somewhat apologetic about the fact until Steve waved her off. What's a few more for the collection?

Besides, at the time the doctor was giving him a rundown of his injuries, another had been doing the same for Eddie. His list was pretty similar to Steve's, and it only took him a few seconds to realize something very important: if Steve hadn't been there to share the demobat burden, Eddie would be dead.

That fact had sat with him for a while. Death is no stranger to Steve. In fact, he's intimately familiar with the concept. And all the ways it can be subverted. Steve doesn't want to think he'd be the kind to pull out the Book of the Dead after everything his parents have told him, but he also knows he'd do anything for the people he loves. Like Eddie. Like Robin. Like the kids.

Steve has risked his life for them numerous times, and he'd do it again without a moment's hesitation.

"I can't believe we're only just finding out!"

This statement comes from the hallway on the other side of the room's closed door. The voice is achingly familiar to Steve, one he's only heard over the phone for the past few months, and he sits up straight. The conversation in the room falters for a few seconds before picking up again after the kids decide it's probably not relevant to them.

And then comes hurried, angry footsteps outside the door and a doctor's voice saying, "I'm sorry, but only authorized visitors are allowed to see patients."

"I wouldn't stay in her way," a man's voice says, his tone teetering between amused and genuinely sympathetic toward the doctor.

Apparently, he doesn't heed the warning, and the room is silent enough that everyone hears the following tirade. "Authorized visitors? Authorized visitors?! Are you stopping me from seeing my son? Who on earth do you think you are? If you don't get out of the way, I will make you move, mister."

"I wonder when she'll realize she's got the wrong room," Dustin says, sounding amused.

"Ma'am, I ca--," the doctor's words are cut off by a sudden yelp and the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the floor outside.

The door is thrown up to show a woman, her shoulders heaving and her curly hair in disarray. She's covered in grime like she dragged herself out of a grave and came right away without stopping to clean up. Which, honestly, might be the case. Behind her is a similarly disheveled man, a fond smile on his face as he looks at the woman. "That's my girl," he says, the smile becoming a full-blown grin when the woman smacks his chest without turning around.

The sight is so familiar that Steve nearly tears up. He hasn't seen his parents in months, and their appearance suddenly lifts a weight that he didn't even realize was on his shoulders. Whatever else happens, they'll take care of it.

Finally, Evelyn's eyes land on Steve, and the anger on her face melts away into relief and worry. She rushes over, sliding around Robin before she can move, and cups Steve's face in her hands. "Oh, my poor boy, are you okay? What have the doctors said?" she asks.

Steve's father hovers behind her, giving Steve a once-over with his eyes before determining he's fine. "Better question," he says, placing a hand on Evelyn's shoulder and leaning closer, "Where in the hell were your guns?"

Steve is about to answer when his mother whirls on Rick. "His guns? Our son is in a hospital bed, and you're asking where his guns were?! Are you daft? Have you lost your mind?" she asks, poking her finger into his chest.

He sighs, takes her hand, and wraps his other arm around her waist. "Evie, he's fine. He's awake, and nobody in here looks like they're preparing for a funeral. Clearly, he's gonna be discharged soon. So, I think asking where his guns were is reasonable because maybe he wouldn't be in a hospital bed if he'd had them."

"Dad is right," Steve says, getting his parents' attention. He grins at them. "I'm fine. Doctors said it would just be another scar. Or, well, like three more scars. Doesn't matter. I should get discharged later this week."

Before Evelyn or Rick can say anything else, Dustin asks, "What the fuck is going on here?!"

"Language!" Steve shouts, turning his head to glare at Dustin.

"Did you seriously just call him out on language?" Rick asks. "You?"

"His mom gets upset when he swears, so I've been trying to set a good example," Steve mumbles, slumping down in his bed. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "Everybody, these are my parents. Evelyn and Rick O'Connell. Parents, this is, well, everybody."

"Oh, let me see if I can name them," Evelyn says, her eyes lighting up some at the challenge before pulling away from Rick. She points to each child as she correctly names them. "I already know Robin. So nice to see you again dear--"

"Nice to see you, too, Mrs. O'Connell."

"--Now, you must be Dustin. I've heard plenty about you, young man. And based on the haircut, you're Will. You've got to be Mike, and you two are Lucas and Erica. This must be El, and you're Max, right? I'm sure you'll get better soon, dear." When Evelyn turns and sees Eddie, she gets a softer smile. "And you're Eddie. I've heard quite a bit about you, too. All good, I promise. It's so nice to finally meet you."

"Wait," Lucas says, frowning slightly in confusion, "Eddie and Steve have only known each other for, like, a week?"

Everyone looks at Steve, and he shrugs in response. "Eddie was pretty impossible to ignore in high school," he says, brushing off the questioning looks until only Robin and Eddie are left staring, the former with a knowing glint in her eye and the latter with a confused one in his.

"Sorry, I still can't get over Steve having parents," Mike says, his nose scrunched up like this entire thing might be some hallucination.

"Did you think he was an orphan?" Robin asks, shooting him a similar scrunched-nose look.

"I don't know! He's never talked about them! I thought his parents were, like, absent assholes or something," Mike says, his shoulders raising defensively.

"That's our fault, I'm afraid," Evelyn says, smiling apologetically as she moves to stand by Steve again. She places a hand on his head, gently carding her fingers through his hair. The motion is familiar and reassuring, and Steve leans into the touch, unaware of Eddie staring at his mom's hand.

"Our work is pretty, uh, need-to-know," Rick says, shrugging as he reaches behind Evelyn and places a hand on Steve's shoulder. "As in, nobody needs to know."

Steve is nodding in agreement when more footsteps sound from the hallway and his uncle slides into the doorway, nearly tripping on his own feet. He clears his throat, adjusts his jacket, and looks up to find a whole room staring at him.

He blinks and tugs on his collar, shifting his gaze to Evelyn and Rick. "Well, after you lot ran off, I got us visitor passes," he says, holding up three stickers.

"You stole them," Steve and Rick say, their voices in synch and nearly indistinguishable.

To his credit, Jonathan doesn't question it. He just scoffs, walking into the room and slapping a sticker on Rick's chest. "I am offended. How could you possibly think I stole them?" he asks.

"Should I remind you how we met?" Rick asks, raising an eyebrow at Jonathan.

"Fair enough. Carry on," Jonathan says, looking away and moving to Steve's side. "Good to see you, old boy. Glad you aren't dead, and sorry it took so long to get your parents here. It's not easy making phone calls to the Amazon Rainforest."

Steve shrugs. "I figured," he says, watching as Evelyn pulls her hand from his hair to place the visitor sticker on her chest.

There are going to be endless questions later. The kids are definitely going to try to grill Evelyn and Rick about their work and about Steve as a child. But there's plenty of time for that later.

For now, Steve is happy to just relax and let his parents take over. He doesn't have to be the responsible one anymore, and he can finally breathe with that weight off his shoulders.

----

Tag List (let me know if you'd like to be added!)

@badgerburrows

#steddie #steddie fic #the mummy 1999 crossover #steve harrington #rick o'connell #evelyn o'connell #jonathan carnahan #eddie munson #the party #future steddie #here for a good time not a long time #that's the vibe with these crossovers btw #just enjoy the chaos lol

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yourheart-inmyhands · 5 months

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YOU HAVE A CAT?! ME TOO?!

She hates me tho :(

---------

Zhongli, Neuvillette and Dottore

With a fox!darling that is always with animals and isn't social at all due to heavy torture in her past and they discover it? 💀

Man I'm in need of some gore rn 💀💀

- Weird anon ✨

i'm so sorry but i just couldn't write neuvillette for this prompt, he's too precious DX

Warning: this post contains yandere-themes, including being held against will, delusional behaviors, torture, breaking of bones, and other potential topics. Please Read At Your Own Risk!

Yandere!Zhongli sympathizes with you, and since it’s clear that the animals bring you comfort, he allows you to keep a couple when he moves you in with him. He even goes the extra mile and builds a special enclosure so they’ll be just as content as you are, even if you aren’t receptive to his love yet.

When he finds out about your past, which is inevitable with how overbearing he can be and how good he is at finding out things from the locals, it almost hurts his heart a little. But the more sickening side of him is thrilled because now he knows exactly how to get to you, exactly how to make you his perfect little spouse.

Whether it’s be reintroducing trauma through breaking bones, locking you in a cold, damp room with no lights for hours on end, or even things that border on torture, he’ll use it against you so long as it won’t entirely ruin you. While he wants you compliant to his whims and wishes, he doesn’t want you to be a shell, it would’ve been a waste of his time to break you to that point;

Zhongli would never stop as low as hurting your animal friends, but if need be he could certainly find ways to turn them against you. It’s almost amusing to him, the way you care so much for creatures who you’ll outlive. How you care so much for creatures who don’t even really know you, funny.

The sickening crunch of bone echoes through the room as Zhongli stands over you, the heel of his shoe digging into the freshly crushed bones in your leg. The makeshift gag, a towel from the kitchen, dug into the sides of your mouth as it muffled your screams and cries. The Geo Archon almost feels bad for using his strength in such a brutal manner, but it would all be worth it, at least that was how he justified it to himself. It wasn’t about the now, but rather what now would soon be bringing him. By breaking you down bit by bit, sending you spiraling back into some of the worst moments of your life, he could slowly rebuild your shattered pieces how he saw fit. What use was a puzzle if the pieces weren’t in the correct order, right?

Yandere!Dottore is sick, sick, twisted, and absolutely disgusting. If he wasn’t the cause of your original trauma, you could surely bet he’d be the driving force behind re-traumatizing you.

Whether he chooses to reenact every step, or to simply do something far worse than what had previously done it all dependent on how he feels that day. Some days will be so similar to your past that you’ll truly feel like you were back there, all those years ago. Other days are so awful it almost makes what happened in your past seem insignificant as if that were a stone among boulders resting on the ocean floor.

Dottore does think it’s funny though, using it as both amusement and research opportunities. It wasn’t often that animals such as yourself came across his table, so of course he’d taken the prime subject as soon as he’d laid eyes on you.

In his lab, you aren’t seen as anything but a thing that exists only for Dottore’s own gain. If you’re lucky one of his more sympathetic clones might take pity on you and actually give you a day to rest when he’s out of the Palace, but they’re expected to keep up the same treatment he inflicts in his absence.

It was almost sickening to the segments as the watched the fox-human endure soul shaking torture day in and day out. Everything from injections to straight up live surgery to see how much pain the body could take whilst awake had occurred on the cold, steel table. They were often left to clean up the mess, expected to stitch you up, administer antidotes to anything too harmful that had been administered today, and even sometimes bathe you due to the mess that had occurred. You’d been fed little since you arrived, given water only when necessary for your survival, and hadn’t seen sunlight in days- or months maybe? With the sickening way time seemed to pass, you couldn’t tell how long you’d been here. Your only reprieve would be when the doctor left for something more pressing, leaving you in the care of his segments that only sometimes took pity on you. Some seemed to hold a little more humanity than others.

#genshin x reader #genshin x male reader #yandere genshin x reader #yandere genshin x male reader #zhongli x reader #zhongli x male reader #yandere zhongli x reader #yandere zhongli x male reader #dottore x reader #dottore x male reader #yandere dottore x reader #yandere dottore x male reader #yandere zhongli #yandere dottore #yandere genshin

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flowersandbigteeth · 9 days

Note

Top 3 cutest baby monsters and why

This is such a a cute ask, especially for the mood I'm in 😭

👇🏽

1. Naga- because they are little wriggly noodles! Little chonky noodles with chubby cheeks 😍 While they are a little further along than human babies when they are born, they have to learn to stand up on their tails, so until they get the core strength and coordination, they scoot around like little caterpillars. They also have to learn how to pick things up with their tails, so they love a playpen filled with balls or soft toys. They are shy babies, instinctually aware that they are helpless. They are comfortable with their close family, but don't particularly like strangers or extended family members who get in their face. It takes some time to develop their venom but they will bite you with their baby fangs if you frighten them.

2. Werebears- because they look like little cubs before their bodies fill out. They like playing in the grass or climbing small boulders from only a few months old. They are outgoing, curious, and surprisingly quick for those little legs. They are more likely to engage a stranger and want to be doing whatever their parents happen to be doing. They love their siblings and are friendly with other little ones, but they don't always know their own strength. Parents have to carefully supervise them so they don't get in over their heads.

3. Mothpeople- because they are little voids with big red eyes peeking out from their baby down. They are more shy as babies and tend to cling to their mothers. They like the dark, so before they can control their emotions, bright lights, even regular home lights, will send them into a crying fit. They also don't like being left with strangers and will fluff up their wings and hide until you earn their trust. You will most likely find them playing quiet games that they make up or sharing their baby babble with imaginary friends. There's no science on it, but imaginary friends are so common among mothbabies that the legend is they can speak with spirits. Most mothpeople don't remember their baby friend, however.

Bonus! I think Gorgons would make cute babies. Especially since most babies aren't entirely aware of what limbs go where and what they do, so a gorgon born with snakes for hair would have to be swaddled up in a very specific way so they don't fuss. While they won't turn their immediate family members to stone, gorgon babies that end up in public are generally blind folded with something soft until they have control over opening and closing their eyes. When they grow up, they can swap that out for sunglasses. Adolescent Gorgons LOVE experimenting with different colors and frames. While being blindfolded sounds a little sad, gorgon babies sharpen their other senses through this period of their life. They like music and the voices of people. If one was on your lap, they would want to press their head against you to listen to your heartbeat. They also like to be cuddled and to explore their world with their chubby little hands, so you need to stock lots of sensory toys and activities.

#sweet asks #monster lore #monster headcanon #monster headcanons

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incorrect-mtg · 2 months

Text

The Therapeutic Properties of Smashing Stuff

When Kaya arrives in Kaldheim, she expects to be swept away in Tyvar's endless enthusiasm. To be able to forget about the entire mess Oba made of Ravnica and the Phyrexian Invasion that instigated it all. But when she finally meets the elf, he's uncharacteristically somber.

It's easy to forget sometimes, with his youth and general bravado, that Tyvar Kell can be incredibly perceptive. So when he looks at Kaya and immediately announces they need to do something else before their long-awaited fishing trip, she just sighs and keeps pace with him.

They stop quite a distance away from the sea, at an unassuming rocky outcrop. Before she can ask what they are even doing there, Tyvar has already trasmuted a crude Warhammer out of the stone and shoved it into her hands.

She just stands there for a moment, holding the weapon, before asking "So… What am I doing with this?"

Tyvar gives her a grin that could rival the sun in brightness, before pointing at her "You," he shifts, pointing to the hammer "needs to smash," and to the rock in front of her "some stuff. It will help."

A moment of silence.

"… I'm not sure I follow?"

Tyvar hums, then approaches the closest boulder and says "let's see if this helps" before he touches it, his magic quickly shaping the rock into a crude but immediately recognizable bust.

She feels her fists tighten around the hammer instinctively.

It is clearly not to scale, of course, but that matters little for something as unique as Elesh Norn's headpiece. Kaya finally understands what Tyvar is going for here and gladly takes the opportunity.

The stone Norn is beautiful as it breaks down into pebbles from her swings.

Tyvar helps her along, conjuring more images of Phyrexians from the boulder: she tears apart obliterators, praetors, even the horrors that Phyrexia dared call "angels."

She doesn't know when, exactly, the figures she's destroying stop being supplied by her friend's magic.

With multiple swings, she smashes the rest of the Gatewatch. Teferi, who got HIS own happy ending; Ajani and Nissa, who let themselves be compleated in the first place — even though she knows, truly KNOWS, it was not their fault; Jace, self-sacrificial to a fault; Chandra, who left her alone to pick up the pieces of a group she wasn't even a founder of!

She strikes down the guildmasters of Ravnica, too caught up in their own self-importantance to realize everyone, everywhere is just as hurt if not more.

She tears down Oba, for daring to kill Teysa.

She swings a final time at an image of herself, for being so weak as to let it happen in the first place.

In the end, what had once been a boulder is unrecognizable, broke down into smaller parts. She's panting, barely able to raise the hammer again with how tired her arms are.

"So," Tyvar says, taking the chipped and cracked hammer from her "feeling better?"

Her response catches in her throat and she doesn't know if the sound that comes out of her mouth is closer to a laugh or a sob. She meets his gaze.

"I think… I need to smash another boulder."

#magic the gathering #kaya cassir #tyvar kell #short fanfic

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writingoddess1125 · 6 months

Text

My Shooting Star

A Request I received on Ko-Fi, Hope you enjoy Darling!

Shanks x FemReader x Mihawk

⚠️ Warnings: ⚠️ Sadness, depression, mention of injury.

Request more stories on Ko-Fi

You stepped back, a bit frightened by his sudden forwardness and general excitement he possessed. He raised a brow in confusion at this as he took a step back.

You're my Shooting Star...

Shooting Star...

Pain... it was so painful..

Black waves, Crushing Boulders, Dark skys and purple sand. That is the first things you saw when you opened your eyes.

Your body ached and your lungs burned from salt water that you forces from your lungs. Pulling yourself up slowly from the icy water you saw that you were in a foreboding place like it had been cursed to be dreary and bleak, wincing as a sharp pain shot through the back of your head as you tried to focus your gaze around you but the darkness wasnt helping.

Rolling up you see a shadow, like a castle just up the beach.. your aching head screaming that it was shelter and possibly help. Crawling through the sand you make it to the steps of the castle, climbing the dark cobblestone and opening the massive doors.

Collapsing in the hallway you felt your body burning in pain, like you had scrapped your knee but over most of your body.

You didn't even hear the sound of footsteps approaching you. That was till a sword was brought to your neck, The steel warmer then the chill from your bones as you looked up. There standing was a man, in a open white shirt, gold cross hanging from his neck and a stoic face that was chiseled just like the black facial hair and combed back darkness on his head.

"How dare you break into my home.. State your business" He hissed, not lowering his blade as you stared up at him from the ground.

"I-I need help.." You managed out, before coughing up more water from your lungs onto his floor. Him cringing at the sight.

He stared at you before lowering his blade and returning it to his back. His eyes looking over you before sighing and holding a hand to you- which you accepted and finally stood up on uneasy legs.

Supporting most of your weight with ease, He lead you to what looked to be a study and set you a bit ungratefully into a large chair. Sitting across from you with a heavy scowl on his face-

"I am Dracule Mihawk- How did you find my home?" He questioned, his eyes narrowed dangerously at you as you sat in the chair shivering from the wet clothes.

"I-I don't know? I just washed on shore" You admit, the man's yellowed eyes locking onto you as his brow raised.

"You are dressed in pirate gear- What crew did you sail with?" He questioned but you gave another 'I don't know' answer.

"What is your name?" He asked, Staring at you as he poured you a cup of tea. Your head hurt... and you winced when you tried to think... but nothing came up.

"I-I don't remember?.. Honestly I don't remember anything.. I judt remeber waking up on that sand out there" You admit, rubbing the back of your head once more and wincing. Mihawk standing up and leaning over to take a look at the back of your head, seeing a horrendous wound there which he attributed to your memory loss.

"It looks like you have a head wound...Ill return soon"

Standing up suddently he went off to grab the first aid kit quickly he began to clean the back of your head.

He asked you basic questions, ones you didn't know the answer to in any way which he seemed to forgive.

"May I see whatever else is hurting?" He questioned, You nodding and pulling away the wet cut up fabric of your coat and shirt underneath. The fresh air adding a cold sting to your body as you saw the harsh twisting wounds thay decorated your body, like your body had been sent through a grater or rubbed raw with a pumice stone. Mihawk winced at the sight, sighing as he saw many tattoos that had been on your body was clearly removed by your treatment of the sea.

"Looks like the sea was not kind to you.." He whispered softly as he set to work cleaning you up. Talking to you about nothing as he tried to distract you as he worked, picking bits of coral and stones from your flesh. Once it was all over and you were wrapped in bandages Mihawk gave you a shot of a strong alcohol to help the pain. He found some leftovers which he quickly fed you as well and gave you some more booze to help dull the pain through your body. Offering some clothes to change into as well as he helped you to your feet again.

"You can stay here to rest.." He said softly, guiding you himself to a nice bedroom were you could rest- That night dreams of a red ship filled your mind, sailing with blurred faces of people you had once knew and the warmth of someone kissing your face.. it was bittersweet and you didn't know why.

It had been a few weeks you'd spent with Mihawk and Perona. They were so nice to you, and in truth you had started to really like Mihawk. He was quiet sure but he was so kind as well, He helped your wounds and would keep a careful eye on you. You saw it and maybe because you didn't know his true identity you saw a sparkle of enjoyment everytime you came to speak to him-

In that time Mihawk and you had found a name for you, (Y/N)- You two having spent some time in the library together as Perona came in and out screaming if it was cute or not. Finally finding one that suit you and you liked hearing yourself being called by.

However it seemed the quiet bliss you were experiencing was soon to be disrupted once more, as a storm rolled in much like the one that had brought you and a massive knock on the door brought Mihawks attention from the chess match he shared with you.

Telling you to wait you watched him leave the library you two were playing in- It was almost 30 minutes of silence. Eventually standing up to go see what was happening, You didn't hear any fighting or anything but could see that the fireplace in the Study had been lit and light was pouring out. Silently walking over you took a peak inside, Hearing a small conversation spoken between two men.

There a red haired man sat, talking to Mihawk in a stressed way as he ran a single hand over his tired face. He reminded you of a weathered dog, Kindness still in those eyes but a loyalty and fierceness that said he had seen a lot. Mihawk caught you staring and nodded at you.

"Ah, (Y/N)- this is Shanks" Mihawk said calmly as he gestured for you to enter further, The red haired man standing to greet you.

He turned to stare at you with wide eyes, a wide smile breaking over his face as he rushed to you suddently. His hand reaching out to cup your cheek in affection.

"Starlight! You're alive I'm so glad my Love I was worried sick for you!"

"Starlight? It's me Shanks- You know me" He emphasized.

"I-Im sorry but... I don't remeber you" you say softly, his eyebrows raising in surprise at this

He tried... for weeks he stayed on that island, bringing foods he claimed you like, songs you used to love, and books that used to inspire you. Non of which held the value or interest you apparently once had for them-

His face washing in worry as the realization whatever marks had been on your body had long since been washed away by the new scars that decorated your body. He swallowed thickly as he took a shaky breath, Mihawk grabbing Shanks shoulder gently.

"Shanks... Let us talk about this privately. I do not think it is fair to frighten them like this" Mihawk said softly, the Red head opening his mouth ready to protest but looked at you once more. Recognizing the shine of fear in your eyes.. so he nodded softly at this. Mihawk waving you to leave and go to bee, which you did and glanced back to see the red hair man looking to Mihawk as fresh tears ran down his cheeks... your heart aching at the sight even if you didn't understand.

The next morning when you went for breakfast you saw everyone was already there, Perona seeing you up and quickly dismissing herself back to her room. Which ment this wasn't good.. Taking a seat Shanks started talking immediately, you not even able to take a sip of your tea.

"Starlight- er sorry (Y/N) I wanted to apologize for how I approached you last night.. But I wanted to explain... See you were a member of my Crew and.. my partner" He started, you feeling a wave of embarrassment and unease hitting you at his words. Mihawk taking a sip of his tea as he clearly wanted this to be as civil as possible.

"However not long ago we were in a terrible battle, a storm hitting the ship before you were swept overboard. Me and the crew trying to find you but was unsuccessful and even I was separated from my ship in the disaster.." He mumbled, clearly unset from the situation for himself as well.

"Mihawk has taken his position as your Ward of sorts.. and well" Shanks hesitated clearly unsure how to proceed so the Warlord stepped in.

"He wants to stay here, see if he can jostle your memories in a few weeks and if by the time he needs to leave if you'd join him" Mihawk said calmly, fear hitting your heart at the request... you looked at both men, Mihawk of course keeping his eyes lowered to not sway your opinion while Shanks stared at you with pleading eyes.

"Okay.. I'll give it a chance" You say softly and give a hesitant nod. The red head smiling brightly at this.

"I'm glad (Y/N)- I promise it will be fine" He said in a reassuring way, however you felt unease in your soul as you took a bite of your now cooled breakfast.

Mihawk keeping a close eye on Shanks to make sure he didn't throw you in a panic or go too far in wishing for you to remember him.

You bit your bottom lip, your stomach churning at the choices laid before you. A man who swore you loved him, vs the man you found yourself falling in love with.. a past that you had lost or a future you could see.

You however just felt guilty- It was like being told you were someone's fantasy but not living up to their ideas.. you didn't know who this 'Starlight' was, What she liked or what she did. You wanted to help Shanks and make him feel better but when something just didn't click for you, the disappointment in his eyes were unmistakable.. many nights you would go to Mihawks room and cry, letting him hold you as you admitted your guilt of hurting the stranger and seeing his broken heart.

Clearly after your tearful cries for far too many nights, Mihawk had called off the trial between you and Shanks. Deciding it was best to make a decision now.

Gathering in the Study you sat awkwardly in a chair as Shanks and Mihawk went back and forth, bickering about if they should let you continue humoring Shanks and leaving with him or stay with Mihawk and live your life as (Y/N).

"Shanks this is ignornat- You can't force her to remember and you are putting to much pressure on her" Mihawk stressed, Shanks glaring at his peer.

"She needs to remember- You are giving in too quickly and when she wakes up she's going to regret ever-"

"Enough!" You finally spoke drawing both their attentions.

"I think this is my choice" You spoke firmly, both men growing quiet as Mihawk nodded in respect of your wish and Shanks doing the same.

"I'll always cherish the memories with you" Shanks said softly, even though there was a smile on his lips you could see the heartbreak in his eyes. Like he was mouring and saying goodbye to a passed love one.

You look to Shanks, he had been kind to you despite everything... but something said it wasn't right- Not him but you... you weren't who he wanted, He wanted Starlight not (Y/N)- you lowered your gaze and sighed softly.

"I-I'm sorry Shanks.." You whisper softly, and it was almost like you could hear his heart shatter at your words. Glancing up to see his eyes blank and glossed over, shock clearly in his system as he slowly lowered himself down into the chair. His movements almost robotic in nature as he grabbed the bottle of wine Mihawk had set out and pulled it close to his chest like a child would pull a teddy bear.

"Come (Y/N).. let us retire..." Mihawk said gently as he wrapped a gentle arm around you and guided you out of the room. Shanks still seated there, still like a statue and the second the door closed behind you and Mihawk you could have swore you heard a broken sob.

Shanks stayed locked away for 3 days and nights. He didn't step out once from your knowledge and you saw plates being left at his guest room door but never touched. Once again guilt eating your soul.. however on the 4th day he emerged, speaking to Mihawk before returning to his room.

"Mihawk?... what's going on?" You question, Seeing the man grab his hat and coat.

"Shanks has agreed to leave the island. He requested a temporary ship to set sail.. he leaves this evening" He said calmly- Your heart clenching at hearing this, but you nodded non the less... you spent the day in your room, in a whirlpool of unease and pain, Yet confuses by your feelings that was set before you. Snapping out of your feelings only when Mihawk knocked on your door to tell you it was time.

Standing at the pier you wait next to Mihawk, Shanks had yet to appear.. after 30 minutes the man stepped out, his eyes had bags under them and his stubble was unruly having clearly been depressed to do much. Shanks walked to the two of you and smiled softly at you as he patted your shoulder tenderly.

He stepped back from you, Smiling still as he looked to Mihawk who was still behind you with a hand on your shoulder.

"Take care of her Hawkeye, See she's a a special one. Like a real life Shooting Star"

'Shooting Star-... My Shooting Star'

A sharp pain hit your heart, like hearing that Nickname suckerpunched your stomach... you swore you heard it before. However shook it off quickly as you watched the Red-Head turn away from you the final time and walk to the ship.

Uncertainty filling your chest as you watch Shanks turn and leave. A ache in your chest like your heart had been broken at the sight and tears filled your vision- Like a loss you could never hope to understand.

Or remember.

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