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popatochisssp · 3 years

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can we get an update on the body insecurities with a human s/o for the new boys, if you're up for it?

This one? You bet!

Ash (Undergloom Sans): There’s nothing about his body that he’s particularly self-conscious of, actually. ...But there’s also nothing about his body that he’s particularly proud of. It’s...fine, it does all the things a body is supposed to do, more or less, but it’s just...there. Not bad, but not good either. He’s very much the type of person who’s mentally drawn a line between himself and his body, thinking of them as separate things, and the qualities of the latter have nothing to do with the former. He can say honestly that there’s nothing he hates about his body, but the fact that there’s nothing he especially likes about it either is probably not ideal. He’d almost certainly benefit from his s/o helping him learn a little self-love to nudge that pointed neutrality into something positive, and to give him at least one or two things he could actively like about the bones that carry him around from place to place.

Yrus (Undergloom Papyrus): Much as he knows it’s a silly thing to worry about, he tends to fret about falling short of human standards of masculinity, at least as they’re broadly, popularly defined. All the things that men are ‘supposed to be’--big, strong, athletic, tough, et cetera--are things that he...isn’t. He’s on the taller side so he’s got that going for him, but he’s not all that strong, physically, and his hobbies are...pretty domestic. He loves cooking and cleaning, books and scented candles, nature and knowledge! And of course, he knows all about the concept of toxic masculinity and that striving to be anything at all but what he is would only harm him, but with a human s/o, who was born in and brought up around those ideas and stereotypes, he sometimes wonders if that...matters to them??? If he’s...maybe not being all the man they want or need him to be??? A frank conversation about all of that would do wonders to put at least most of those fears to rest, but it’s definitely a topic for his s/o to be a little tactful and sensitive about it!

Brick (Horrorfell Sans): Most of the physical consequences of Everything that happened Underground don’t make him feel self-conscious at all. His size, the hole in his head, the pins in his jaw, they all make him look cool and scary as hell, and he almost looks at them all as a point of pride that he survived everything thrown his way. Even only being able to manifest one eye-light is really not that big a deal to him and doesn’t really register as anything to dwell on. But... there is one thing... He really doesn’t like the cracks in his vertebrae. He thinks they’re ugly and even after all this time, they still look fresh and raw and feeling eyes on them, or catching a glimpse of them himself in the mirror makes him feel entirely too exposed. Human docs couldn’t figure out a permanent way to fill them in without restricting his range of motion or further agitating his magic, and he quickly got to the point where he couldn’t take all the poking and prodding around his neck trying to figure something out and just wanted to get on with life. There are a lot of turtlenecks in his wardrobe and any attention paid to that particular spot by his s/o is best kept short and sweet.

King (Horrorfell Papyrus): You’d think it would be his scars still, or even his missing leg. But it’s neither. It’s not something he’d ever express in a million years, but his biggest insecurity is that he... kind of hates the way he looks in clothes. Not all clothes--he has a few expensive, tailored suits he’s very fond of, however rarely he gets the occasion to wear them these days--but most everything else... He doesn’t have a problem with his body as much as he has a problem with the way clothes that weren’t designed with his proportions in mind make his body look, and on the surface, among humans, that’s just about all of them. Half the shirts he tries on look like ill-fitting crop-tops and even the longest pants end up being capris when he tries to buy off the rack and it’s...frustrating that he can’t just buy something and look good in it right away. Because of that, he has a relatively small closet and tends to wear things that cover him up as much as possible, in dark colors (always black if possible), finding that it accentuates his height and slimness and blends his long limbs and torso into himself to look less odd. He’d probably be happier if he just bought everything he liked and then had it tailored to him, so he could branch out more into some of the types of things he used to wear, but that much tailoring would be expensive and for something he looks on as a vanity... He’s resistant, feeling like there’s just more important things to save and use the money for, like food, medical expenses, actual necessities... A little (a lot) of persuasion from a s/o to treat himself to more than just a mere handful of outfits that he likes and that fit correctly might be helpful in getting him to indulge.

Merc (Horrorswap Sans): Pretty obvious, he’s most self-conscious about the fact that sometimes he’s not altogether solid. Humans especially don’t seem to think too highly of things that are slimy, goopy, and drippy and caught at the wrong time, he’s all of the above. He doesn’t like the thought of anyone, but especially his s/o being grossed out by him, thinking he’s disgusting or creepy or downright disturbing because he couldn’t keep enough of a handle on his emotions to stay solid and normal. He doesn’t particularly love his eye-lights either, formerly just blue but now ringed with bright, burning red. The color combo can be...intense... and though he isn’t aware of it, he’s definitely been a bit conditioned lately into not making as much direct eye-contact with people as he used to, subconsciously noticing the better, more relaxed response he gets when he looks down or slightly to the side instead. But if we’re talking post-DT integration, when his form is stable and his eye-lights are pink......... he’s not insecure about a damn thing--he worked hard to get his body back and he loves and appreciates every inch of it.

Ell (Horrorswap Papyrus): He tends to expend more energy worrying and being insecure about his personality than anything physical, quite frankly, but if there were something physical...well, even more obvious than his brother, he’s missing a couple limbs and it’s just a bit too fresh for him to be totally comfortable with it yet. There’s a lot he misses and a lot he’s still getting used to doing differently and a lot of mental and emotional baggage from the circumstances that led to him not having legs and he hasn’t really dealt with any of it. As a result, he tends to be self-conscious about anything he can’t do the way he used to before, or any time being in a wheelchair turns something that would be routine for anyone else into an Ordeal... It gets better the more he heals and copes with what happened, and especially when he acknowledges that he does want to try prostheses, even if it means committing to all the time, effort, (metaphorical) blood, (not metaphorical) sweat, and tears that’ll take, but until then... yeah, it’s his lack of legs and wondering if his s/o wouldn’t be happier or at least find it easier to be with a guy who just had two legs and didn’t need to see a prosthetist to get them.

Pitch (Horrorswapfell Sans): Unapologetic about himself--his scars, his blunt(er) claws, his blindness--but with a human s/o especially, there is one thing he’s at least a little hesitant about. It’s the hole in his face, jagged and dark and unsightly...he assumes. It’s not like he’s ever seen it for himself, but he’s certainly felt a change in atmosphere in the past whenever its been exposed and he can only assume it’s disturbing to look at. When disturbing people is not his end-goal, he tries to keep the hole (mostly) covered with a pair of blind-glasses, and that will definitely be the case with his s/o, too... at least until he can suss out their unique reaction to his injury. If it doesn’t bother them, he’s happy to do away with the glasses in private, but the last thing he wants is to make his datemate uncomfortable and if the sight of his wholly uncovered face has that effect... Perhaps it’s for the best to keep them on, then...

Nemo (Horrorswapfell Papyrus): He’s really conscious of his exaggerated startled response at what feels like every little thing. It isn’t, and it’s wholly understandable and maybe even expected for what he went through Underground (especially those last few weeks), but it frustrates him a lot, especially when he gets a s/o. There’s someone he likes, someone he wants to get to know better and to be close to, and they’re right there, but all they have to do is move too fast or do something he wasn’t ready for and his automatic reaction is to flinch or reel back like they were about to...attack him or something! It’s absolutely a case of his mind knowing one thing and his body knowing another and he hasn’t yet figured out how to make the two of them share notes and realize that one of them might have some more up-to-date information than the other. There’ll be lots of nervous apologizing over it until he gets past thinking that they’re probably one disproportionate flinch from deciding he’s a little too high maintenance to make things work.

Sunny (Gastertale Sans): If he could change anything about himself, it would be his hands--or at least, just the holes in the middle of them. Looking through his palms is a very visceral, inescapable reminder that he used to be...or was part of??? somebody else, and that attachment to an identity he no longer owns nor wants makes him a little uncomfortable. He wants to forget all about that stuff and what little he does remember of That Time and just be who he is now without having to think about the past. Still, it’s... always right there, whenever he looks down at his own hands, and some days that’s harder to deal with than others. He knows the circular holes in his palms are probably really cool and interesting to his human s/o, but at the same time, he kind of hopes they don’t pay overly much attention to that part of them. He’s trying to just let his hands be... his hands, and to not attach a whole lot of weird baggage to them. And on days when that doesn’t quite pan out, he’s got all kinds of pockets and gloves and busywork to keep them out of sight, out of mind.

Aster (Gastertale Papyrus): He tends to spend more time in front of the mirror, tracing the asymmetrical cracks in his skull, than he would ever care to admit. He’s not sure why he dwells on them as much as he does, his brother has them too and doesn’t seem to care about his, but... He doesn’t know what they are, or why they’re there...or how he got them and when...or if they were always there and he...they??? had just been born with them. Maybe he frets and grumbles about them because of what they represent--how much of his...their past was lost when they, as separate beings, came to be, even in spite of sharing what they do know and remember. The life and times of W.D. Gaster are a mystery that can never be completely solved, and that loss bugs him. The cracks make him especially insecure because anyone can see them, right there on his face, and ask what they are or where they came from, and he’ll have no answer, just like he wouldn’t have one for a hundred other completely normal and reasonable questions someone could ask him about his life Before. He definitely dreads and overthinks how to answer those questions from a s/o, in a way that doesn’t either make them think he’s lying to avoid being honest with them or freak them out with too much of a very crazy and unbelievable story too soon. It’s a hard hypothetical balance to strike, and maybe if he didn’t have ‘please ask me something about my past’ essentially written on his face, he’d have more time to figure out how to do it best...

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thecassadilla · 4 years

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Positive

Word Count: 1,659/AO3

Pairing: New Dream/Rapunzel x Eugene

Summary: Rapunzel and Eugene get the best news of their lives.

Author’s Note: Hi everyone! This is my contribution for Day 6 of New Dream Appreciation Week - We’re Having a Baby! This is another Modern!AU because that’s my forte, apparently. Just like yesterday, this isn’t really my area of expertise - I have never been pregnant, and only one of my friends has had a baby recently. As a general disclaimer, this fic does focus on Rapunzel and Eugene unexpectedly finding out that they’re having a baby. There’s nothing graphic, or descriptive, or anything, but the implications are obvious. It’s rated T just to be safe.

She didn’t think anything of it, at first. She was just a little more tired than usual. A little was a bit of an understatement, though - she could hardly keep her eyes open every time she wasn’t moving. But they were in the process of moving from their apartment to their new house, and so she chalked it up to stress.

She became slightly concerned when she felt lightheaded one evening after arriving home from work. She made it to the couch, and within a few seconds the feeling subsided. Once it had passed, she tried to put it behind her and went on with the rest of her day, but the thought still lingered in the back of her head. She avoided telling Eugene about it, because she knew he would freak out and she didn’t think it was something to be really concerned about. The Internet wasn’t much of a help, unsurprisingly; seeing results like ‘congestive heart failure’ quickly made her click away and not look back.

A couple of days passed before she started to feel persistently nauseous - it wasn’t severe, but rather a constant, low level sense of discomfort. At first she blamed it on the smell of paint fumes in their new house. But the sensation never went away, and it got to the point that the sheer thought of eating was enough to make her feel sick.

And then the realization hit her like a ton of bricks. They were sitting on the couch one night after dinner, and she was leaned up against him, his arms wrapped around her shoulders. She kept dozing off and waking up, and just as she was about to close her eyes again, her attention was brought to a commercial on the television; an advertisement for a pregnancy test. She felt herself tense up as she watched the couple on the screen smile in delight at their positive result and she felt a chill go up her spine.

“Eugene?” She asked, looking up at his face.

“Hmm?” He hummed in response.

“Did you see that?”

He looked down at her. “What?”

“That commercial.”

“The insurance one with the talking lizard?”

“No, the one with the pregnancy test.”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Uh, yeah?”

“Have you ever thought about that?” She wondered aloud. “Thought about us having a baby?”

He shifted beneath her, and she sat up so she could get a better look at him. “Of course - I mean, if that’s what you want. I know we’ve talked about it in the past, and you’ve always said you wanted kids, but sometimes people change their minds.”

She nodded, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. “I haven’t changed my mind; I still want that.”

“Great, me too,” he smiled slightly, leaning back against the couch and turning his attention back to the television for a second. When he realized that she was still staring at him, he looked back at her. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

She wasn’t able to form the words, and a strangled type of noise escaped from her throat.

“Because we could start trying, if you want,” he assured her, taking her hands in his own. “I know this probably isn’t the easiest subject to talk about.”

She shook her head, squeezing her eyes closed.

“Or...we can wait?” He guessed, cocking a brow. “You’re giving me mixed signals here, Rapunzel.”

She took a deep breath before finally blurting out the thought that had been swirling in her head for the last two minutes. “I don’t think we have to try.”

He gave her an odd look before huffing out a laugh. “I mean, technically -”

“No,” she cut him off. “I think I’m pregnant.”

“Oh. Oh,” he said, his eyes widening at her revelation.

“I’ve just been so tired lately, like, I can’t even eat a meal anymore without my eyes closing, and I’ve just felt sick to my stomach, but I thought it was because we were painting the house and there was that time I almost passed out -”

“You almost passed out?”

“But Google said it was congestive heart failure and -”

“Congestive heart failure?!” He exclaimed, his face blanching. He looked like he was about to pass out, himself.

“I’m not dying!” She clarified, moving her hands to cup his jaw. “At least I don’t think I am. I didn’t even think that I could be pregnant until I saw that commercial, but it makes so much sense.”

He nodded slowly, unsure of what to think or say. “Right,” he finally answered. “But you don’t know for sure. We don’t know for sure.”

“No,” she sighed, dropping her hands.

“Well, what are we waiting for? We could go to the store and get a test, and we’d have an answer.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Let’s do that.”

So they took a trip to the 24-hour drug store and spent a bit of time in the “family planning” aisle, trying to decide which test to buy. They ended up choosing three different brands, and were both relieved when they walked up to the teenage cashier, who seemed to have more of an interest in her phone than what they were purchasing. The entire drive home was nerve wracking, and cloaked in an awkward silence.

Her heart was pounding in her chest by the time they got back into the house, and she thoroughly read through the instructions on one of the tests.

“It says it’s best to use first morning urine,” she explained, biting her lip.

“Just go for it,” he insisted. “Save the other two for tomorrow morning.”

She nodded, closing the bathroom door behind her. A few moments later, the door reopened and they found themselves sitting on the cool tile floor in front of the sink; the test out of their view and a timer set for three minutes. They sat quietly for a few moments.

“What are you thinking?” He asked, finally breaking the silence.

“I’m nervous,” she spoke up, her hand subconsciously pressed against her lower abdomen. “But I don’t know why. We’ve been married for over a year and we have a house, and everything is...stable. I guess I’m nervous because we haven’t really talked about it and it’s so unexpected.”

“Hey, I hope you're not worrying about me, sunshine,” he said, a flash of concern in his eyes. “I know this wasn’t planned, but I’ve always wanted to be a dad. I’ll be thrilled if the test comes back positive. And even if it doesn’t, and we’re on the same page, we can always try for real.”

“I don’t know what I would do without you,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder. "I'll be so happy if it's positive.”

After what felt like the longest three minutes of their lives, the timer finally beeped.

“Do you want to check? Or do you want me to?��

“We can both look,” she said, pushing herself up off the floor. He followed suit and watched from her over her shoulder, resting a hand flat on her back. Taking a deep breath, she picked the test up from where it rested on the sink and flipped it over in her hands. She glanced down at it and got her answer; two pink lines. Positive. Pregnant.

“Oh my gosh,” she said, dropping it and bringing her hands to cover her mouth. Tears pooled in her eyes and she couldn’t contain her smile.

“We’re having a baby!” Eugene exclaimed excitedly, wrapping his arms around her.

“I can’t believe this,” she cried, the tears cascading down her cheeks. “I’m just so happy.”

“We’re going to be parents,” he gushed. “This time next year there will be a tiny human here. Our tiny human.”

“Our baby,” she beamed.

“We’ll have to dedicate a room for the nursery. And buy baby stuff. We’ll have to come up with a name. There’s so much to do!”

“Not tonight, though, I’m too tired,” she giggled, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. “But I’m so excited. More than excited. I don’t even know how to put what I’m feeling into words.”

“Just a few hours ago, I didn’t even know this was possible. That this was going to happen,” he said. “I really can’t believe it. In a couple of months, there’ll be a third person living here.”

“February,” she confirmed. “I did the math in the car - the baby will be born in February.”

“Oh god, we don’t have that much time then,” he remarked, sounding slightly panicked.

She laughed. “Eugene, it’s June. We literally have eight months.”

“I better start practicing my dad jokes,” he added.

She shook her head at him, still grinning from ear to ear. “I’ll have to call the doctor tomorrow and find out what we do next.”

“This is literally the best day of my life,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, our wedding day is right up there next to it, but nothing can beat this.”

“This is the best day ever,” she corrected. “I can’t believe I was so nervous. And I can’t believe this is real.”

“I was not expecting the day to end like this at all. I think I’m in shock.”

She yawned, then, and reached up to rub her eyes. “I really hate to cut this short but I am absolutely exhausted and I’m about to fall asleep standing here.”

“I don’t know how you can sleep; I’m definitely not going to be able to sleep tonight,” he chuckled.

“You don’t have a baby draining all of your energy,” she pointed out with a laugh, her hand fluttering to her lower abdomen.

He placed his hand over hers and smiled. “Let’s get you to bed, then.”

“I love you so much,” she smiled back, suddenly throwing her arms around his neck.

"I love you, too," he promised, lifting her off the ground and squeezing her. “I can’t believe we’re going to be parents.”

#new dream appreciation week #tangled #rapunzels tangled adventure #rapunzel x eugene #new dream #day six #my writing

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packsbeforesnacks · 4 years

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Inside You There Are Two Wolves || Adam, Cece, Darwin, Nell, Ulfric, & Winn

[Part One | Part Two] [Side B]

TIMING: Sunday, July 19th, 2020, Sunset LOCATION: A clearing in the Outskirts. PARTIES: @walker-journal, @thebickedwitchoftherest, @wardinasrani, @nelllraiser, @big-bad-ulf, & @packsbeforesnacks SUMMARY: The ritual to recover Winn’s memories goes very, very wrong. WARNINGS: None.

Everything was in place, the way it was meant to be, in the small clearing Winn had chosen as the place for the ritual. At first Darwin had been a little hesitant: a memory journey was always tricky, even with just one mind to explore, but travelling through two minds? So many things could go wrong that he refused to think about it, let alone share his doubts with the participants. At least Darwin wasn't alone: granted, he'd guide the ritual, he'd keep the connection stable, but two others would fuel his magic, and the help of Nell and Otto had been invaluable, really; the procedure was fairly simple, but knowing he wouldn't have to rely only on himself made Darwin's task easier. Darwin looked at the four unconscious bodies of Noah, Arthur, Mercy and Winn, carefully arranged on the ground in a sort of cross, their heads touching. Right now they looked peaceful, sleeping a dreamless sleep thanks to the magic they casted, but Darwin knew that was going to change soon.

“Well, here we go.” Darwin addressed Nell and Cece, his lips a thin line. “I'm going to join them. I don't know what we'll find inside, but whatever happens, you two will need to keep the flow of energy going. If the magic stops we could be trapped; it doesn't have to be a lot of energy, but it has to be stable. I, of course, will do my best on my side, but... Like I said, we can't foresee what will happen there.” Darwin wasn't a fan of putting his mind in the hands of others, but Nell had proved to be reliable, and at least they had backup. Speaking of, he turned to Adam (another person he knew would take his task seriously) and Ulfric. “To make this journey possible there'll be lots of magic involved. And we're not dealing with simple humans here, so... Be ready for anything. I'd like for us to still have a body to return to, if you know what I mean.” Sharing a meaningful look with the other magic users, one that let them know he was about to begin, Darwin sat down between Mercy and Winn, and placed one hand on each of their foreheads. “Wish us luck,” he murmured before closing his eyes and focusing, ready to begin.

Certainly, Nell wasn’t Winn’s biggest fan, but she also wasn’t one to stand by and let someone have their memories locked away while wanting them back. Still— the entire memory debacle with August had left her apprehensive when it came to do any magic that might even be remotely similar, and it had only been under the reassurance that she’d be more power source than anything that she’d agreed to partake. After all, her track record with memories and magic wasn’t exactly squeaky clean, and the last thing she wanted to do was make things worse. Nevertheless, she let her magic flow through her to join Darwin’s and Cece’s. “We won’t let you guys get lost in there.” As for possible complications cropping up, that was something Nell had more confidence with. “And we’ll make sure he’s got enough fur on him to survive the winter when it’s all done,” she joked with a deadpan look. Then she was silent, letting her own eyes drop closed as she focused only on giving Darwin the power he’d need, glad that her magic had recovered decently enough after all of the recent debacles.

Adam glanced to Ulfric, feeling the ice-hot burn of the larger man's inhuman presence, a twin to the constant discomfort Winn produced in Adam’s Hunter senses. He had no idea what this guy was, but hopefully the ginger giant was strong enough to deal with whatever Total Recall craziness was about to go down without also being hungry enough to eat the sleepers.

Regardless, Adam listened to Darwin’s explanation of the proceedings carefully, having come to trust the Demonologist’s expertise during a particularly harrowing assignment to close a Hell Rift. This was a complex ritual to say the least. On one hand, it was interesting to see all the folks that’d turned up to help when Winn had… like… a forced brain transplant into Mercy because of bird bookends or something. Most of them, Adam knew, some in contexts that’d given no hint to the abilities on display here.

Nothing like some communal lobotomy to bring folks together.

The axe holstered at Ulfric’s waist hung heavily, seeming to absorb the weight of the situation. In this clearing, the familiar tool would become a tool of execution. There had been more formidable options to choose from in the buried stash of weapons the werewolf had found amongst Celeste’s parents' things, but if the worst occurred here he did not want Winn to go out by a hunter’s blade. In fact, he would’ve preferred not to bring a weapon at all, besides his natural ones. However, there were too many others assembled for this ritual, some of whom he’d never met before and more still who weren’t aware of his true nature. It wouldn’t have been wise to expose himself even if there wasn’t a high risk that shifting would result in the rest of the attendees ending up as collateral mincemeat.

He glanced at Adam, hoping that Winn was right about the boy’s ability to defend himself and the sleepers. The younger werewolf hadn’t given Ulfric any reason not to trust his judgement recently, but he couldn’t sense any shifter in Adam, which did raise questions about why he’d been chosen to take up the role of bodyguard opposite him. Returning his gaze to Darwin, he paid close attention to the spellcaster’s words, wanting to keep the chances of anything going wrong as low as possible. He’d never even considered taking a fellow wolf’s life before Winn’s request, and he was still vehemently disinclined to cross that threshold. “Lykke til,” he nodded solemnly to Darwin to indicate that he understood both the content and gravity of his instructions, wishing him luck as he joined the four in their slumber.

Winn sure had assembled a ragtag group of people together to get this job done. Cece recognized a few of them. Mostly, Cece was just happy to not be the one leading the charge for this mental magic. Cece had more experience with taking memories than piecing them back together. She was fairly confident that she could do it, if required. But having someone specialize in it was way more helpful. Plus, as far as safety went Cece would much rather be chilling outside of Winn’s body instead of roaming around in that head of his. She didn’t need to know all that information.

Luckily, this Darwin fellow was taking the lead and Cece was more than happy to be a power conduit. She sat cross-legged on the forest floor, peaking an eye open at the group surrounding Winn. Into the dreamworld they go, Cece supposed. “Just a heads up to any non magic users,” Cece glanced over at Adam, and probably Ulfric, “If you haven’t been in any spells like this before. We know you don’t use magic, but we can still borrow some of your strength to help the spell. So just keep calm and focused with us. All of us will be happy and healthy at the end with everyone participating.” If things went smoothly. Did things ever go smoothly?

Wind blew through the forest as the ritual thrummed to life. The bodies of the sleepers were illuminated in the late afternoon sun cutting through the curtain of the trees overhead. The air buzzed with the presence of the magic, and, if anyone had been watching Winn’s face closely, they would have noticed a frown on the werewolf’s face.

Then, the crackle changed, the mood of the energy shifting down into something darker. Mercy’s face, previously serene, was frowning now, too. The ritual was underway, and the sleepers were making their way through the dreamscape. But then, the unexpected happened.

Winn sat up, and opened his eyes. There were no signs of life from him, other than the steady up and down breathing of his chest, the unblinking stare into the middle distance, and the way that, if you looked closely, his fingernails were lengthening, slowly, into claws. Behind him, something like a black mist rose from the centerpoint of the spell, covering the ground like rolling fog.

The forest had gone cold.

Even though Nell wasn’t the most comfortable with memory magic, she could feel the way it was shifting between them as Darwin worked, feeling it take form and shape as she quite literally powered on, keeping her intentions in line with what they were trying to accomplish here. But her eyes opened as she felt the twist in it, a potential unwanted result coming to fruition bringing her own little frown to her lips to unknowingly mirror Winn’s and Mercy’s. “Something’s happening,” she said aloud, eyes already scanning the faces of those that had been put under for this mission for anything that might tell a story as to what was going wrong. As she watched, she locked onto the claws sprouting from Winn. “Adam,” she spoke with a warning tone in her voice, tilting her head in the direction of the werewolf’s hands. “His claws.” She wouldn’t tear herself away from Darwin and Cece just yet, not when it seemed there was still the potential to keep things under control.

Adam, sage of the arcane that he was, could generally identify a couple key indicators of when wizard shit was headed sideways. For example anything with creepy children or dramatic laser beams into the sky was like DEFCON 1 as far as Satanic tailgate parties went. Bloody writing on the wall in ancient languages was a good indicator that someone needed to be shanked back into their home dimension, as were well-endowed chicks with psychic powers making narcoleptic predictions about the ‘master’s arrival.’

Black mist? Bad Sign.

Hot Turkish girl saying his name in a way that really made Adam feel….

Oh wait, bad sign today.

Damn it Nell.

Clearly Adam’s secret wolf wrassling skills were needed and the Hunter was quick to hustle to Winn’s side before the sleepwalking…sleepslashing?...of other participants could transpire. He attempted to hold Winn’s arms in place.

Ulfric winced at little as the blonde witch, who he deduced must have Cece, called on them to ‘lend some of their strength’. He’d only just managed to win it back, and with the new moon looming he still only possessed a fraction of what he would when it was full. But if there was anything he’d be willing to lay it all on the line again for, it would be another wolf, one he was bonded to in both word and blood. Bowing his head, he concentrated on keeping his thoughts centred on the desired outcome of the spell, just as he had the last time when he’d been helping Ariana and Celeste before—Focus. That is not focus. He internally chided himself for letting his mind wander away from the present moment, just as Winn jerked upright, claws extending.

Ulfric rushed to his other side without any further thought. The balance of magic had been disturbed and knowing whether his slip in intentions had contributed to it wouldn’t save his friend. “Come on, Woods, you told me yourself you can control this,” he urged the young werewolf, grabbing one arm so Adam could focus his efforts on the other. “You know how!” With his words and thoughts, he willed it to be true, willed that the memories Winn already had access to would triumph over the ones that had been locked away.

“Son of a bitch” Cece sighed. Wolf Winn clearly didn’t want to cooperate as much as person Winn did. Whether this was some alter ego lashing out at the idea of recovering memories or just a reaction to whatever was happening inside of that fucked up head of his, things would turn dangerous real quickly if Adam and Ulfric couldn’t calm him down. “Keep the spell going,” Cece spoke to Nell, breaking off for a moment to rummage in her purse and pull out a vial of powder. She popped the lid off of the vial, pouring the powder onto the ground. She grabbed for her keys, pressing the point against the tip of her palm. She pushed deep, twisting the key until she felt the skin break. She made a fist over the powder, squeezing tightly until blood dripped from her hand and into the powder. She pressed her finger deep into the mixture, mumbling Latin to herself until the new substance began smoking, then she dragged it across the ground, forming a barrier around herself before moving towards Nell.

“This should keep things out for now, but it won’t work forever, if he breaks free and comes after us.” Cece spoke mechanically, not wanting to break Nell’s focus, simply inform her of what Cece had been doing. As far as protection spells went, this wasn’t the strongest. It was purely for emergency situations only. It wouldn’t hold up against an onslaught by wolves. “You can step out, but nothing can get in. Unless they break it.” That cheery thought out of the way, Cece jumped back into her circle and sat back down, joining back in on the spell.

Magic crackled through the air with warning, the fog of the black mist had engulfed the clearing, settling on the ground in an ever-present wash — save for the circle Cece had created. Though, perhaps, outside, the sun was still shining, the rays of ‘light’ coming into the clearing through the trees were violet, the trees themselves becoming twisted and black. The grass beneath Cece’s feet was still green and lit by the sun, unaffected, but darkness fell on the rest of the assembled friends, painting the world in grim tones. Winn, or Winn’s body, was still, for a moment.

But then, Winn let out a gasp of pain as a thicker, darker mist pulsed out of the epicenter of the spell, his form trembling. Eyes that had been glazed over lit up with panicked recognition, as he surveyed the scene before him.

“Get away,” Winn said, fast and quiet, his body shaking against the force of Adam and Ulfric’s hold, now. His breath was golden-hued, slipping out when he spoke. “No time. They’re… coming.” The golden breath, time, was rapidly running out, and the new mist began to curl in and around Winn’s form, covering his skin with a sticky, black-blue liquid. His hands, the first to get covered, curled inward, and began to change. Into… something.

“It’ll… get…. you… too,” Winn grit out, trying to keep the mist from sliding down his throat, infecting him with its magic. His unfocused eyes hinted that the werewolf hadn’t ‘woken up,’ so much as been able to communicate, somehow, through the spell. And then, as the last of his breath wisped away, he coughed and gasped, inhaling a lungful of the mist. It came more quickly now, spurred by this invitation, and Winn’s body, with a growl, began to transform more fully.

It wasn’t the wolf, not quite, there was something… off, about it. Something that seemed to cut angles into Winn’s form that shouldn’t have been there. Elements of both of the werewolf’s forms made it in. The strong, lupine claws, golden eyes, a coat of black, black fur, and big, vicious teeth. But it was lithe, coiled, like a human, and, as it ripped its arms from Ulfric and Adam’s grasps — with a firm snap, like it had broken something — it leapt across the clearing, landing to stand, the mist clearing from its body, but not dissipating, no.

The mist poured out from the creature born from Winn, and into twin pools of black ink. Here, at the confluence of the ancient magic, the sheer power of the assembled casters, hunter, and wolf, the valkyrie’s kindling, and… something deeper and darker, buried in the fabric of White Crest itself, they could come free.

Winn’s dreams gave them form, these half-shadows, and they warped into grisly manifestations. A human, with slashes down his exposed chest. A werewolf, transformed, dripping black blood from its neck. They spared a single, venomous glance at the creature that had once been Winn Woods… and then rushed Adam and Ulfric with inhuman speed.

Nell knew the magical black mist couldn’t have come from their end of the spell, which made her assume this was simply a manifestation of Mercy’s abilities, subconsciously fighting back on this breach to keep their hold on the memories that they were trying to unlock. For a moment, she thought back to Erin’s father and the wish magic they’d faced there, wondering how she’d managed to get caught up in two fury debacles in the last few months. But that didn’t matter now.

Winn’s words and the wolf’s leap didn’t bode well for their bunch, and Nell turned her back on the magic for a split second to launch a blast of magic towards the wolf’s side in an attempt to knock it off balance, hoping to give Adam and Ulfric any time they might need to prepare themselves for the apparently imminent fight to come after the wolf had wrenched itself out from under them. The rest of her magic was still focused on the spell, continuing to be the battery pack that Darwin needed in this moment as she looked over her shoulder at the action, deciding whether or not she should give Cece the reins for a few moments.

Given the tendency of magic to stick a taser up physic’s asshole without using a safe word, Adam hadn’t brought any firearms to Winn-intervention (Winntervention?) just in case bullet trajectories went all non-Euclidean.

Thus, Adam drew two silver versions of modernized Ka-Bar tactical knives, weapons of straightforward brutality and cutting edge material’s science that would’ve made good on Adam’s promise to make Winn’s death as painless as possible.

But even as the lupine nightmare made manifest charged, Adam had a flicker of hesitation in the tunnel-vision that so often overcame him in the thick of combat. Was this thing connected to Winn somehow? Could they hurt it without harming Winn too?

Adam was pretty sure shanking Winn in the soul violated Bro-Code.

Rather than the disemboweling slashes to the vulnerable underbelly that would’ve been standard procedure when face a lupine adversary, Adam met the creature’s charge by rolling to the ground beneath the creature and delivering a superhuman kick to straight to the gut to throw it off-balance and break its stride.

“Can we hurt this thing without hurting Winn too?” the Hunter shouted, flipping alacritously back up to his feet as the wolf manifestation’s claws ploughed deep grooves in the forest floor right where Adam’s had just been seconds ago.

Ulfric only had a fraction of a second to be relieved Adam had gone for the more wolf-like manifestation, before it was nearly on him. He unsheathed his axe and gripped its handle tightly, ignoring the dull throb in his right hand. Unleashing a war cry, he pulled the axe back, in anticipation of striking the shadow man’s side and slicing through his softest parts to fell him like a tree. But Adam’s yell caused him to hesitate, the battle cry withering in his throat as the surprisingly heavy vision collided with him at full force and knocked them both to the ground. Timber! “Yes… a head’s up on that front would be… appreciated!” the werewolf called out to the conscious spellcasters between grunts as he wrestled the manifested figure, pinning its wrists to the wilted grass beside him, the axe dislodged in the fall.

With an almighty thwack! Ulfric headbutted the shadow man and rolled out from underneath him. Regaining his footing and his axe he assumed a defensive stance again, this time he turned it round to the blunt side, ready to dole out non-lethal blows while he waited on the official word from the witches on how to proceed.

Fucking hell, there were dream demons now? What the hell was going on? Something else had to be feeding into this magic. If this was just some form of mental magic it would be easy enough to cut off. Cece poked an eye open, witnessing the scene unfold as her and Nell tried their best to focus on the spell. If they were cut off and the others got trapped, well, that would be hard to explain.

“Kill those things!” Cece yelled out to the men wrestling them. “Just don’t kill Winn. We don’t care about the other things.” It probably wouldn’t have any bad effects on Winn. It totally most likely wouldn’t. Maybe. “Nell, you got any fight in you?” Cece and Nell seemed to be juggling the power by this point. Keeping the spell wouldn’t be easy alone, but it was still better than being mauled by an angry wolf of his horde of fucked up nightmares. “I got this if you want to tag in.”

Winn observed the scene unfolding in front of him without worry. He snarled, rushing towards the circle that the damned witches had formed to protect themselves, and started slashing and clawing at the barrier. His ‘claws’ broke off, faded into mist, and then came right back to settle on his paws. Eventually, he would knock this barrier down, and kill both of them. He would feed his bloodlust.

The wolf felt its own claws scrape into the dark ground, blood dripping and sizzling the grass where it fell. Adam’s assault had winded it, but, given it didn’t need to breathe, this wasn’t much of an issue. The knives — silver. But… Silver couldn’t hurt it. Not anymore. Not since… It howled, a strangled, gurgling sound in the darkness, choked off and dove for the boy, dripping maw bared as it went for the hunter’s side. Tearing into his flesh would be the revenge he deserved. After all, Winn Woods had killed his brother. Why not kill Winn’s friends?

The man, for his part, was faring well against Ulfric. He had been trained to hunt werewolves since he was a child, and, before Winn had taken his life, he was good at killing the beasts. If it hadn’t been for his children, watching, the wolf would have never stood a chance. With fury and power, it reached to grab the axe, black tendrils wrapping around it as its twin appeared in the man’s other hand. Excellent. He slashed at Ulfric, going low, trying to cut into the soft skin of the werewolf’s legs. A wolf that couldn’t run was as good as dead.

Nell didn’t need to be asked twice when it came to joining the fray as Cece held her spells. “Just keep draining me, too!” she called to the blonde, knowing the spell needed power to stay aloft. She knew the men could hold their own, but there was still safety in numbers, wasn’t there? Besides, with Winn’s shadow right up against their barrier, it’d be better to head him off right now rather than wait for him to break through. Not for the first time, Nell cursed the fact that she hadn’t yet gotten her summoning tattoos redone after the skin of her arms had peeled off, knowing this would have been much more to the point if she could have brought in her hellhounds or cockatrice. But it didn’t matter, she was confident she’d be able to take him on her lonesome.

Still she’d had the same thought flitting through her mind of whether or not any bodily harm done to this version of Winn would manifest on the man once this was all said and done. If she could, it’d be prudent to take him down with minimal damage done, just as she aimed to do when she’d been bringing in beasts for the Ring. Before she could do that, she needed to get him away from the barrier before he broke it where it stood. Well— no better way to do that than giving him what he wanted, right? Casting a spell over herself that would temporarily enhance her speed, she darted out the other end of the barrier, away from Winn in hopes of getting him to play a little game of chase. “Come and get me, mutt!” Sorry, Ulf, she mentally apologized should he happen to hear.

So there they were, two sorceresses, sleeping beauty wolf, timber wolf, shadow wolf, evil wolfish wolf, man wolfish wolf, and Adam.

In other news, Adam had just gotten bitten in the side by a dream. Was he infected with imaginary lycanthropy now? Did he now have Winn’s emotional hangups in his bloodstream? Sin rabies? What would he tell his family when he turned into a were-dream?

The Hunter might’ve given the issue more thought if he wasn’t in so much pain. Admittedly part of that pain was from where the dream wolf's maw had sunk into his chest and back. The other half of pain was that these silver knives seem to be doing jackshit as Adam football tackled his adversary from the side to try and knock it off balance, trying to plunge his daggers deep into its underbelly.

Ulfric had the shadow man in a holding pattern, keeping the strangely solid figment of Winn’s subconscious at arm’s reach with the blunt side of the axe. But it was getting tiring, so he was relieved when Cece gave the go ahead to just kill the meddlesome manifestation. That was, until it manifested an axe in its hand out of whatever substance dreams were made of. “Ugh, Drit og dra,” he swore under his breath. If he hadn’t resorted to bringing a weapon along with him, would the shadow man have been able to arm himself without copying his?

He didn’t have much time to contemplate that, as the shadow-axe swung towards his legs and he jumped back narrowly missing the blow. Growling, Ulfric swung the axe at the man’s neck only to be blocked by the handle of his. The two axe-heads caught on each other and the werewolf used the stall in the shadow man’s momentum to charge into him and knock him to the ground, before following through with a savage blow that drove the wedge of his axe into his skull. He dug his boot into the man’s neck as he yanked on the handle to dislodge his weapon from the bone it was caught in, and then left it there as took stock of the battlefield. Cece and the rest of the sleepers remained safely inside the circle for now, with Nell holding Winn off while Adam wrestled with the wolf manifestation.

Ulfric’s first instinct was to assist Nell, since he knew and trusted her and had never gotten round to thanking her properly for how she’d assisted him and the Bennetts. But the boy looked to be in more immediate need of assistance, even if the werewolf was reluctant to throw himself into the fray with anyone wielding silver. “Can you handle yourself?” He called out to the young man, when he finally pulled the axe free, glancing between him and the dark haired spellcaster for any changes in the tactical situation.

Chaos had erupted around the group. While Cece had always been pretty adept at tackling insanity and violence with a more level-headed and calm approach, even she had to admit she was getting a bit nervous as Winn barreled towards the barrier. It hadn’t been made to stop a creature as strong as a werewolf. Luckily, Nell had distracted it and led it away, keeping the barrier as well as the spell safe for now. But things weren’t looking especially optimistic at the moment, with Nell facing down Winn’s werewolf, Ulfric and Adam both dealing with their own troubles and injuries. All while Cece was forced to sit in her little bubble, bored and trying to remain focused.

“Hey could you guys wrap this up? I’m trying to focus here! You’re being really loud!” Cece fucked with the trio outside of her bubble, mostly out of boredom. She wished she could drop a message to the group inside of Winn’s brain to hurry the fuck up as well. They were the ones actually lollygagging. Take any longer and their bodies were the ones that would be getting the real shit end of the deal

Winn turned his attention away from the barrier as Nell darted out, but no sooner had she done so that Ulfric’s axe was buried in the skull of the shadow man. In that moment, both of the other shadows seemed to almost glitch, and Winn cried out in pain as the shadows faded back into mist and wisped into him. He twitched, growled, stood stock-still as the mist covered him. The edges were a little sharper, now, claws longer, looking less and less like a werewolf and more like an abomination. Winn set his sights on Ulfric, chasing him down, claws first, fast and furious with wild abandon.

The wolf, meanwhile, howled in pain as Adam’s daggers sunk into its underbelly, rolling over and up again. It grasped at the daggers with its claws, using its newfound resistance to silver and tearing them out of it, and tossing them haphazardly towards the witch. The hunter had some bite to him, did he? Well… It feinted towards the hunter, before turning and barreling towards the witch, hoping it hadn’t been slowed too much by the wound.

“No good fucking wolf,” Nell cursed under her breath as Winn seemed to give up the chase from her as soon as it had started. Still, at least he’d been lured away from Cece and the magic. And perhaps this gave her more of an opening now that he was distracted by Ulfric. Cursing herself for not thinking of it or bringing them in the first place, Nell whispered a quick few words under her breath to Summon forth what would hopefully be her saving grace when it came to the werewolf— wolfsbane, grown in her own greenhouse and crushed until it could be fit into pill form. She’d dropped the capsules into many an unsuspecting wolf’s drink in a bar while she distracted them, and they’d worked wonders when it came to bringing in fighters for the Ring. Of course...none of those werewolves had been in a raging dream state. What was she supposed to do with Winn? Slather the thing in peanut butter and hope he gobbled it up?

She didn’t have a chance to think further on the matter when a sudden, searing pain erupted from her thigh. Huh. A silver dagger seemed to be sticking out of her, much to her annoyance. Looking up, she saw the last of the knives the wolf had tossed headed her way, and her hand instinctively raised, magic pulsing through the air to stop them in their tracks, and turning them back on the charging wolf.

“I’m good, man,” Adam told the lumberjack guy in the midst of wolf wrassling.

Or at least things were fine until the wolf faked him out and made a beeline (dogline?) over towards...

…where Nell giving Winn diet pills? Sleep aids? Now with 50% less chance of wolfing the bed at night?

Holy shit she just got shanked.

Adam didn’t didn’t really have to give that matter any more thought as he sprinted after the wolf-thing, attempting to football tackle the wolf from behind.

Ulfric nodded at Adam’s assurance and did pause as he hurtled himself in Winn’s direction, swinging his axe in a wide berth to keep the creature that had grown from the man at a distance. It wasn’t enough to keep his unnervingly long claws from scraping along the flesh of his arms leaving bright, burning trails. But the older werewolf kept at it, pushing Winn back in Nell’s direction so they could take him on from both sides. Noticing the vial of what looked to be pills in her hand, he realized her intent to get him to swallow them. Chances of getting that done without feeling the full sting of Winn’s fangs were slim, and even if it wasn’t the full moon, he wouldn’t have blamed the humans for being hesitant to risk that. From the way things were going, hesitancy wasn’t something they could afford. “Toss it,” he called to Nell, jerking his head back to indicate that she should go long as he dodged another swipe of Winn’s talons. “I can do what needs to be done.” Soon Woods wouldn’t be able to brag he was the only one who’d gone and got himself deliberately bit. That alone would make it worth it, even without the bonus hopefully putting an end to the nightmare the ritual had unleashed.

Things were getting pretty boring, leaning back and supplying power while all the others were battling werewolves and dream demons in shit. Not that Cece would rather be battling it out with any of them. That shit looked hella dangerous and- did Nell just get impaled with a dagger? Damn. She didn’t let it bother her though, and kept on trucking. They seemed to have a plan. Or a semblance of a plan at least. Cece had a guess what Nell had summoned, but it didn’t matter much at this point what it was as long as it worked. If the group could get that shit inside of Winn, then they may have a chance at calming the asshole down. Honestly, Winn was even more unbearable asleep. From her bubble, there wasn’t much Cece could do to help the group rangle the wolf. But she might be able to distract it, as long as she could multitask.

Sound spells weren’t difficult. Trapping noise within a certain space was easy enough. It was helpful for keeping conversations private and blocking out noise. Cece used to use it to focus, it beat the discomfort of noise cancelling headphones. She split the power between Darwin and Winn now, taking a moment to focus on the wolf that was attacking the rest of the group. She drew a circle into the dirt below her while chanting to herself, trapping the sound within a small barrier around the wolf. It wasn’t hard to tell that the other two weren’t exactly normal humans, the last thing she needed to do was blow out Adam and Ulfric’s eardrums too. Once she was confident the noise would only affect Winn, she positioned her fingers at her mouth, mumbling “Heel boy” and laughing to herself before whistling. It wouldn’t look like Cece wasn’t making any sound at all, unless they were in Winn’s bubble, where the high pitched noise must have been deafening to a creature with enhanced hearing.

The wolf went snout first into the ground with the force of Adam’s tackle, struggling against Adam’s grip. It wouldn’t die. Not here. Not like this. Not again. And certainly not to a fucking whelp of a hunter. It gnashed its bloody teeth, still fresh from the blood it had already taken from Adam. It was slowing down, it knew, a side-effect of the wounds the hunter had inflicted. Was this its last gasp? Was it to be forgotten, again?

Winn snarled, then howled loud and deep as the whistle from Cece — fuckin’ witches — pierced his monstrous ears. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t move. He needed to fight, needed to escape, needed to kill. But try as he might, he was immobilized. The shadows clung tighter to him, but he couldn’t breathe.

With the knives landed on the wolf, and Adam tackling the dream creature from behind, Nell was free to magic the wolfsbanes pills straight into the hand of Ulfric, leaving no room for error as the glass vial rocketed towards him, making a beeline for the ginger wolf. Ulfric would be alright to get in down Winn’s throat, right? There was a kernel of worry gathering in her gut, but she didn’t have the time to pay it any attention while there was still a shadow wolf gnashing away, currently connected to Adam. Looking back to the pair, she couldn’t help but wonder when the wolf had gotten hold of the Hunter, another flicker of worry flashing through her as she saw the initial wounds that had been dealt to her friend. Mental note. Healing party after all this bullshit is done.

Speaking of healing, the fucking knife was still lodged in her damn leg. Maybe she could use that, though. Sure, you weren’t really supposed to take knives out of wounds until you were ready to heal them, but the sooner they ended this— the sooner she’d be able to stitch herself and the others back together. Gritting her teeth, Nell pulled the dagger from her thigh, stifling the gasp that wanted to break free from her as pain once again made itself known. “Adam!” she called out before tossing the knife his way, figuring it might be a welcome sight in dispatching the wolf. The silver hadn’t seemed to hurt the thing, but Ulfric’s shadow man had withered away under the axe, right? First the vial, now the dagger, she really should have looked into more shot put in highschool with the way this scuffle was going.

Adam knew that there were two main methods to kill wolves. One was slow and cruelly tactical, a painful crippling that permitted an inclined hunter to track the victim back to other prey. This was typically accomplished with heavy jacketed AP ammo, though a serrated tactical knife could serve with some freakish strength behind it. The prey would typically panic in the agony of the steadily worsening wound and their instinct to run would in fact seal their demise, as circulation did the Hunter’s work for them.

The second method was the to maximize internal tissue trauma in the shortest period possible, singular swift brutality. Softer tipped bullets were usually employed for this, as they mushroomed inside the body cavity and killed very quickly. But this method was admittedly much harder to accomplish with a knife.

Earlier this year Adam would’ve likely gone for the first method, maybe even enjoyed the savage simplicity of it. Growing up, Adam had been warned in vain to not get addicted to the adrenal rush of combat. A Hunter is merely a servant fulfilling a duty, and taking pleasure in regrettable necessity was the quickest way to fall from grace. After dad died, Adam had backslid in a big way. The consequences spoke for themselves.

As he’d been taught, Adam mentally visualized a six inch deep wound through the chest into the hard knot-like heart. The Hunter locked his legs around the wolf-beast he was wrestling, pressing down on its lungs. With one hand, he lunged directly under the wolf’s jaw to grab its throat directly on the trachea, muscles knotting and straining like bruised wire as Adam tried to twist the nightmare-thing’s unnaturally large maw away from him, grimacing as its thick moist breath sent hot splittle across his face.

Ignoring the searing pain of the seeping lacerations the wolf’s thrashing claws had raked open during their wrestling match on the forest floor, Adam called upon the rote mental exercises of training while his breathing settled into a staccato tempo. Pain, the filth caked mud, the ritual, the other combatants, and Nell’s blood still sliding down this blade all faded. For a moment Adam and the wolf seemed completely alone, nothing else existed. Almond shaped amber eyes met the human’s cold jasper stare in a split-second of understanding before a dagger’s plunge snuffed out their light.

Once the frigid metal of Adam’s dagger was the only thing left of the wolf’s form, the air shifted, again, the black mist of the creature fading back into Winn. Winn howled, once more, in pain, as though this much power was too much for him. He fell to the ground, writhing, twitching as the force of the shadows overcame him, the force of the screeching from Cece’s spell blistering in his ears. Howling cut through the sky, through the clearing.

There was a hand in his mouth, shoving something down his throat, and Winn chomped down hard into the skin of Ulfric’s arm, but the deed was done.

Winn’s body convulsed as the wolfsbane took effect, not even magic able to overcome the werewolf’s weaknesses. Eventually, the shadowy form collapsed, maw first, onto the forest floor. The woods were silent, the mist was fading. Winn Woods was facedown in the dirt, bruised and bloodied, but breathing.

And the dreamers were waking up.

Blinking, Noah opened his eyes, the adrenaline of their kissing making him grin. “Winn?” Noah called out to his boyfriend next to him, rolling over to poke the other, before panic overtook him. Where was Winn? Something was wrong.

#wickedswriting #para #Adam #Cece #Darwin #Nell #Ulfric #Inside You There Are Two Wolves #Chain of Memories

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newobsessioneveryweek · 4 years

Text

Sleep

I had LOADS of fun writing this 10k masterpiece with @jinmukangwrites. She’s an amazing writer and if you haven’t heard of her I suggest you check out her blog.

Inspired by a post made on @linkeduniversetweets (asked by @toschiworlds)

Brief spoiler-free summary: The Links spend a few days at Lon Lon Ranch during which Time manages to get himself concussed.

Enjoy

The Links had endured countless battles, vicious monsters, cascades of blood, and cold, unforgiving nights in the wilderness for several months but what laid before them offered the heroes a vital reprieve.

Blue skies and a gentle breeze greeted the Hero of Time when he climbed the small hill leading to his home in the early afternoon. The sun shone brightly upon him, almost unbearably warm, but a comforting feeling nonetheless. The smell of hay perfumed the air and left a lingering sweetness. But the sight of the woman that greeted him made the experience one hundred times sweeter. Time swung Malon once before leaning in and leaving a gentle kiss on her lips, relishing the bliss the reunion brought. The pair embraced and the remaining heroes either coed over the joyous moment or turned away to give the couple their privacy.

“I’ve missed you,” Time whispered into Malon’s shoulder. Malon could only barely stop herself from tearing up at her elation at hearing her husband’s voice.

“I missed you too,” she responded, her voice cracking slightly.

Lon Lon Ranch had become a haven for the travelling band of heroes and, though their job was far from finished, the Links felt that their abundant efforts could be rewarded with the few days they were able to spend in safety behind the walls of the ranch. But that luxury didn’t come without its small price.

***

“Chores!” Malon slammed a metal pail on the kitchen table, causing the Links who were having breakfast to jump in surprise. A beaming smile adorned her bright face as she looked around the room at each individual face.

Wild nearly dropped his sausage and Wind gasped the water he was drinking down the wrong pipe at the sudden raucous noise, causing him to cough excessively. “Who’s milking the cows and who’s feeding the cuccos,” Malon asked.

The Links around the table glanced at each other before quickly responding. “I’ll milk the cows,” They volunteered in unison. Malon laughed and took the bucket back. “If you can’t decide I’ll dish out the work myself. Wild, you can stay with me and wash dishes-”

“Lucky bastard,” Legend said.

“Language young man,” Malon chided. Legend immediately shut his mouth and listened. Malon tapped her chin before she turned to Legend. “Legend, you’re on cucco duty.”

“What? Why?”

“Because of that potty mouth of yours.” Beside Legend Warrior snickered. Malon huffed. “Alright Warrior, you can help him.”

“Oh, come on,” Warrior complained, which prompted a laugh from Legend in return.

“WInd, you can feed the pigs.”

“Yes,” Wind cheered. He liked the pigs.

“Twilight, you and Sky are on shovel duty,”

“What’s shovel- oh,” Sky then realised the odd job he’d been given and cringed.

“Yeah,” Twilight said.

“Hyrule and Four, hmm, you two are on milking duty with me.”

“Aw, yeah! I love milking duty,” Hyrule exclaimed.

“I don’t. The milk always gets on me,” Four grumbled.

“Well, maybe you should get a higher stool,” Legend joked.

Four stuck his tongue out at the remark and took the offered bucket from Malon once he cleared his plate.

“What about Time?”

“What about Time- I mean Link?”

“What’s his job?”

“Oh! I sent him to fix up one of the stables in the old barn. We’re planning on breeding the horses so we need more space.”

“Cool! Epona needs more friends,” Wind said excitedly. “Can I name the babies, please?” Wind practically begged her, and Malon easily granted his wish.

“Of course,” Malon said simply, smiling widely. “There’ll be plenty of names to give next time you happen to roll around our neck of the woods.”

***

“Let’s see,” Time muttered to himself as he took inventory of the tools on the shelf in front of him. “Wrench, saw. What’s that called again?” Time snapped his fingers, trying to remember the name of the strangle apparatus. “Gimlet,” he exclaimed. Time had long since finished his repair job, but he decided to make a list of their belongings while he was busy. He liked order and he knew Malon would appreciate the extra effort. Just knowing what you had made missing items easier to identify.

After he was done counting the hand tools he moved on to the gardening section of the barn where the heavier instruments were kept. Hoes and shovels, rakes and spades, pickaxes and regular axes hung neatly on hooks right above the Hero of Time, making it easy for him to see each individual item. “Okay, what do we have here?” Time took note of all the different items hung on the wall, jotting them down on his bulleted list as he went along the row.

“Alright, that seems to be- huh?” Time whirled around just in Time to see Epona barreling towards him at top speed. Her eyes held a spark of panic, she moved frantically as if trying to escape something. It all happened in a split second.

Epona charged, ramming straight into the startled hero and carrying him into the wall, causing the tools hung on the short, narrow hooks to fall on top of him. Epona whinnied in surprise and ran away from the scene, leaving the Hero of Time crumpled on the floor.

Time was faintly aware of the serious head wound he had sustained as a result of multiple sharp, heavy objects landing on his head. It took him approximately two seconds to realise how weak he felt and that if he moved his head even slightly overwhelming nausea would wash over him. His ears were ringing, his head ached and he felt absolutely helpless.

Sleepiness slowly began to creep upon him but Time fought the feeling with his entire being. He would spend his energy trying to avoid the inevitability of sleep. He had to fight it! If he didn’t… he would not be the same when he woke up.

In his stupor, he hadn’t realised the day’s coming to an end and so the feeble hero laid helpless on the floor of the old barn, desperately trying to stay awake.

-o-o-o-o-

"This brings me back," Twilight said, shoving the shovel down in his hands for the dozenth time that evening. He dug the blade of the shovel under a particularly large pile of manure and lifted it so he can dump in an ever pulling wheelbarrow graciously provided by Malon.

Beside him, Sky grunted as he too worked a shovel into the ground. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand and then continued. "This brings you back?"

"Oh yeah. Growing up, I didn't have parents. I had to get money to fend for myself by doing odd jobs for the people of the village I lived in" Twilight explained, "one of those jobs was mucking up the fields. Didn't enjoy it at the time, but it was good and honest work for a child. Now that I'm older, I help out with herding and taking care of the animals. We have the younger kids cleaning the fields now."

"Odd jobs where I came from normally included carrying books," Sky said somewhat bitterly as he unloaded his shovel into the wheelbarrow, "or cleaning blackboards."

Twilight let out a chuckle and stuck his shovel into the ground, looking around the field to admire their work. Malon did a fantastic job with caring for the ranch herself, but she was probably overworked with her husband gone off on another adventure, and seeing her field all clean-looking filled Twilight's chest with pride.

"So, what now?" Sky asked, looking at the pile of manure with a wrinkled nose. Twilight shrugged and grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow.

"I'm sure Malon has a place for us to put this so we can let it decompose."

"Oh," Sky hummed. "How long does that take?"

Twilight shrugged. "Depends. We can see if Malon wants us to throw any unused crops in there to help the process, but, either way, it should be fine to use as fertilizer by the time fields are ready-"

"Wait, did you say fertilizer?" Sky squawked and Twilight grinned.

"Oh yeah, city boy. Every farmer does it."

"U-uses poo to-"

"There you boys are," a new voice chimed in and Twilight turned to find Malon walking towards them, a smile on her face. "All done?"

"Yes ma'am," Twilight nodded while Sky stood there gaping. "Was just wanderin' where you wanted us to put this?"

"Oh, we have a spot for it by the mill, that way it doesn't stink up the house while it bakes," Malon said with a wink.

"I think I'm going to barf," Sky said, clutching his stomach and both Twilight and Malon burst into fits of laughter. "This isn't funny! I'm never going to be able to eat a vegetable ever again!"

"Oh honey, wait until you hear what we feed the pigs," Malon joked, and Twilight would have laughed along as Sky cried out in horror, covering his ears, but a different sound met Twilight's ears that took every drop of his attention away.

As a goat herder, there are sounds that he was trained to recognize. One of those was the sound of frantic, escaping hooves.

He turned his eyes away from Malon who was punching Sky's shoulder jokingly and looked towards the sound, only to see a horse raging right towards them.

Epona.

Instinctively—ditching the wheelbarrow—he rushed away from Malon—who at this point had noticed the startled horse as well—and threw his hands up, calling out. She was barreling right towards them, ears pinned back in panic and mouth loudly panting, until she reared up and cried out right before she could run into him.

Something scared Epona, if the way she remained agitated until Malon pushed her way through and began to sing a song, something scared her badly.

"Is she okay?" Sky asked hesitantly.

"I don't know," Malon said softly, rubbing Epona's mane with gentle movements. "What scared ya, girl?"

"If Epona is anything like my horse, nothing small," Twilight mused, he too joining in to stroke Epona's neck.

"We should find the others," Sky mumbled, pulling out his sword. Twilight agreed with a nod and unsheathed his own, the joking and good mood a mere fading memory now.

"If you don't mind, ma'am," Twilight said and gave his most assuring smile towards Malon, "you should head inside. I'll take care of Epona."

Malon looked like she was about to argue but then her shoulders sagged. "Bring everyone back safe. I'm sure it's just a wild animal."

-o-o-o-o-

"That'a'gal," Twilight hummed, leading Epona closer towards the stable, one hand still with his sword. Epona seemed to have calmed down some, but he's still worried about her. What could scare a horse that has been through so much?

He sighed and took another step towards the stable, and then he was knocked painfully off his feet by something appearing out from the ground. He landed harshly on his back with a grunt, just managing to avoid biting his tongue, but the sound of Epona's loud neigh was enough to get him quickly back onto his feet. He's back on solid ground just in time to jump to the side to avoid a fleshy, slug-like body and it's sharp pincers.

A leaver. An almost true constant between worlds. Annoying, fast, and persistent. However, they are normally found in the desert.

Twilight would wonder why this leaver was here if it wasn't for the disgusting inky tone to its body.

Infected.

Twilight jumped into battle without another second to lose. He didn't even have time to regret sending Sky to the opposite side of the field to search for the others before the leaver burrowed its strong body into the ground. Epona stomped the dirt with her hooves, whinnying loudly and angrily and he understood why she was so startled now. Any horse would be startled by something popping up from below them.

A section of ground popped up a bit and Twilight was on it in a heartbeat, jumping forward and sending his sword down. He could hear an agonized gurgle come from the creature but it wasn't done yet. It shifted and pushed forward, knocking him back. He lost grip of his sword and with a startled yell he was once again on his back. He just barely had enough time to look up for the creature but didn't have any more to spend on defending himself when it raced toward him.

Then, four raging hooves stomped on it and kept stomping on it until it was a gross pile of mush.

Twilight relaxed against the ground, forcing his heart to calm down.

Well, that happened.

He shoved himself once again to his feet and grabbed his sword, glaring at the creature now turned pudding. Epona didn't look like she'd calm down again anytime soon if the way she was huffing and snarling and stomping her feet indicated anything. So, he decided he'd let her be and go inside the stable, remembering that the old man should be in there. He could calm her down better.

He walked towards the door, gave a small knock, and opened it. "Hey, Time?" He called, the smell of horse meeting his nose. There was no answer, so he went all the way in, eyebrows furrowed by the silence.

Then, a groan.

He turned his neck, and his blood froze. "Oh Hylia. Time!'

Time laid miserably on his spot on the floor, tools strewn on and around him. Twilight sprinted towards his mentor, desperate to see what had caused the strong hero to look so vulnerable. Upon closer inspection, Twilight noticed the blood coating Time’s hair and face. “Goddesses, Time what happened to you?”

Time could only reach up and touch his forehead, wincing at the pain the simple action brought on.

Twilight was quick to sling Time’s arm around his shoulder but couldn’t manage to haul him up. If only the hero had removed his armour he would have been easier to lift. “Holy Hylia, Time, you weigh a ton.” Twilight sighed. “Okay, I’m going to get help. I’ll be right back.” Twilight ran as quickly as he could from the stable as Time groaned again and slumped back against the wall. It wasn’t long before he ran into Warrior and Legend who were busy tending the cucoos.

“Always remember,” Legend said beside Warrior who was holding a bag of feed at arm’s length, a cucoo standing innocently in front of him. “They can smell fear.”

“I’ve fought cucoo wars, my friend,” Warrior said eliciting a snicker from Legend, “I am not afraid of feeding these little punks.” As if on cue the cucoo crowed and Warrior visibly startled. Legend began cackling at his side, doubling over at the hilarity. “Shut up. I just got a fright.”

“Guys,” Twilight called, catching the pair’s attention. They turned to Twilight, seeing the weary look in his eyes.

“What’s wrong,” Warrior asked, concern in his voice.

“Time’s hurt. I can’t carry him alone. I need your help to take him to the house.”

“Say no more. I’ll come with you.” Warrior stepped over the fence keeping the cucoos and joined Twilight’s side.

“Me too,” Legend said, making his way over when Twilight stopped him.

“No, Legend. I need you to tell Malon what happened. She should be in the house.”

“O-okay. I’m on it.” Legend dashed off to the house and while Warrior and Twilight made their way hastily to the barn.

“How bad is it,” Warrior huffed as they ran across the field.

“I don’t know. He was pretty out of it when I got there but I hope he’s doing okay. He might have a concussion.”

Warrior hummed in thought. “What exactly happened?“

“I don’t know, but by the looks of it, some tools fell on top of him. He was lying under a bunch of gardening equipment.”

“Shit,” Warrior cursed. “I think you might be right about that concussion. How did that even happen?”

“I don’t know. He can tell us when we get him inside.”

They came to a stop in front of the red and white wooden building and pushed open the large wide doors.

“Old man,” Warrior called, peering inside, “You okay?”

Time was still on the floor, covered in blood and moaning. His eyes were glazed over but they held a note of fear behind them.

“Time, we’re going to help you. We just need to-” Twilight began as he knelt next to the man and slung his arm over his shoulder for the second time when he was interrupted by a sudden outcry.

“Get away from me,” Time yelled as loudly as he could in the state he was in. Twilight startled at his mentor’s harsh words, but he continued to lift him with Warrior’s help. “No, NO! Leave me,” Time continued to shout, fighting to free himself from Twilight and Warrior’s firm grip.

“Time, calm down, we’re just trying to take you home-”

“No, please,” Twilight spared a glance at the old man and his heart sank. Was Time crying? “Not again. I beg of you.”

“Time,” Twilight said gently, “It’s going to be fine.”

Just then Legend burst through the door. He doubled over, breathing heavily. “Fuck,” more breathing, “Okay,” he straightened and looked at the trio, Time’s teary-eyed visage and blood-soaked hair catching his notice above everything else. “Goddesses, Time, what happened?”

“We don’t know, but we need your help getting him to the house.”

Legend needed no more instruction and jogged over to help Twilight and Warrior carry the injured man. He took hold of Time’s legs but got kicked in the face for his efforts. “Ow! What-”

“Let go of me!” Time was frantic. He began kicking and flailing his arms to try and get away, but his efforts were weak despite his dedication.

“Time, we need you to cooperate,” Warrior scolded. “Malon’s probably worried sick.” Legend tried again to take hold of Time’s legs, but Time wouldn’t relent. He kept thrashing. “Time please-”

Time began wailing out of nowhere. He stopped fighting and fell to his knees, escaping from their grips but making no move to run. “I can’t. Don’t take me back there. The sacred realm,” Time sobbed, “I don’t want to go back.” Twilight froze. The sacred realm? Time had been there? Could that mean he was imprisoned with Ganondorf? And if that was the case, could that be why Time had been fighting them so relentlessly only a moment ago? Maybe his head wound was more serious than Twilight originally thought if Time was freaking out about events from that long ago. Twilight moved to pick him up again and this time his mentor didn’t flinch, probably having spent all of his energy trying to keep them away.

Soon the three heroes managed to get Time to the house without too much trouble. But the whole scene was still on Twilight’s mind. Why did Time think that they were going to take him to the sacred realm? What had traumatised the hero so much that he showed such vulnerability; such helplessness, and fear?

Before Twilight could ponder any longer Malon rushed to help her husband. She shouldered the weight Warrior had been carrying and they both managed to nearly drag Time upstairs to bed. All the while Time muttered words of protest, though he was unable to fight back effectively.

He seemed so lifeless. Boneless even. So unlike himself that it had Twilight swallowing something stuck in his throat. Something that felt like a seed of panic. Yet he knew he couldn't panic, not yet, because if he turned around he'd see the others looking at him, looking for some sort of direction, something to do.

Twilight didn't have anything for them to do. He barely knew what to do himself.

So he swallowed that seed and turned, keeping his face as neutral as he could manage, and looked at each hero in the eye. Legend, of course, was there, but until now Twilight hadn't noticed Wild and Four were there as well. Sky must have still been looking for the others.

Well, he supposed there was something to do.

"Head out, find the others, and bring your swords," he said calmly, a stark difference from what he was actually feeling. "I ran into an infected Leaver out there. They travel in packs, there could be more."

"Alright," Wild mumbled, grabbing his sword and walking out the door even though Twilight didn't think Wild knew what a leaver was. Legend shared a look with Twilight before nodding and running out to follow the champion.

"I'll go check on the traveler," Four said, "he's cleaning up the cow pen. The pig parlor is near there too, so I'll see if Wind is still there." And then he was out the door.

Then, Twilight was alone, looking at the empty house and feeling almost… lost on what to do. He supposed he could head out and search for Sky, but his feet didn't seem to want to move from their spot.

Then, the sound of creaking floorboards made themselves known behind Twilight. He turned around to see Warrior standing there.

Warrior gave Twilight a small smile and Twilight found himself smiling a tad bit back. Worry was a knot in his chest, but he was sure with the help of the others, this would just be a bump in the road.

"While they're finding the others," Warrior offered, "you and I can check the perimeter for more monsters."

Twilight was about to respond that it sounded like a plan, but then Malon made her appearance as well. "Actually, I need one of you boys to help me a little more," she said softly. Twilight glanced at Warrior and he shrugged, fixing his scarf around his neck so it wrapped a little around his chin.

"Why don't you help the lady," Warrior said, "I want to see these leavers for myself."

Twilight nodded, making a mental note to thank Warrior later, and then turned towards Malon as the other hero took his leave. Malon gave him a kind look before she stepped forward and brushed her finger across his cheek. "Look at you," she said, "you need a hose down more than the pigs."

Twilight released a breath and stepped away, folding his arms across his chest. "How is he?"

A grimace passed over Malon's features. "Tired. Confused. Scared. Nothing I haven't tackled before."

Twilight knew nightmares were not exclusive. Anyone could have them. Someone with a perfect life. Someone who've seen more war-torn days that simple days. Nightmares crept up on the cowardly. Pounced on the brave. It shouldn't surprise him that things like this had happened to Time before.

"Thankfully, he's keeping himself awake," Malon continued, beginning to head towards the front door. Twilight quickly followed along. "I don't know if he's conscious enough to purposely keep himself awake, or if… if he's subconsciously doing it. But either way, it gives us time to find help."

She walked out of the house with Twilight at her heels, and eventually, she stopped by a small garden of berry bushes. She worked her way past them and revealed a small birdbath.

Well, a fairy bath actually.

"Drat," Malon cussed, "there's only one."

"You collect them?"

"You boys and your collecting," Malon mumbled, walking forward to where a small ball of light hovered over the water in the bowl, dropping every so often to perhaps take a sip. "We're looking for one." She reached forward and gently cupped the fairy in her hands, mumbling a soft plea for help that they both knew the fairy would oblige without a single hesitation.

"Navi," Twilight whispered in reverence. Malon slowly pulled her hands to her chest, the fairie's light glowing through her fingers.

"How… how much do you know about my husband?" She asked.

Twilight swallowed. "Um, more than the others. B-but less than you, I'm sure."

She shook her head and began to head back to the house. "There's not a single thing I don't know about him. Do you know about the true nature of his adventures? Why he had been given the title of Hero of Time?"

"I, uh," Twilight stumbled, placing his hand on the back of his neck and rubbing sheepishly. "Not really. I know he… traveled a few times. Back and forth into the future and the past."

"That doesn't just happen you know," Malon said as they walked back into the house. They stopped right in front of the master bedroom and she sighed, looking older than what he had ever seen her before. "He tells me that when he was a boy, he went to obtain a sacred sword. But his body… was too young and weak to wield a sword like that. Against his will and knowledge, he was locked away in the sacred realm… for seven years, only to wake up in a body that was older than his mind. To a world torn apart by power.

"He… he tells me he does not remember those years locked away, but sometimes he wakes up screaming to let him go. Let him leave. That he's afraid and he doesn't want to be there anymore. I think… I think the memories of that place are somewhere in his head, and when he's asleep or things like this happen, they're unlocked."

Twilight nodded somberly in sympathy for Time’s circumstances. Time had endured much more than any normal Hylian could even fathom, though Malon seemed uninterested in Time’s heroics and more in tune with the man he was inside. She would know what to say to snap him out of his state of anxiety. If anyone could bring him back to reality it was her.

The door creaked loudly as Malon opened it hesitantly. She tiptoed over to the bed on which Time was lying with his back against the headboard. His head faced the window across the bed. He kept muttering unintelligibly under his breath, his eyes would dart across the room, and he would jump at the slightest noise. The hero turned his head at their approaching footsteps.

“Dear,” Malon said, causing her husband to turn towards her completely. He looked exhausted as if he’d pass out any second, but they couldn’t risk him falling into any terrible consequences of a concussion. Time smiled at her, and, for the first time since the incident, he looked as if he felt truly safe. “I brought something that might help you.” Malon released the fairy from her hands, watching it whisk away and flutter over Time’s shaking form. Almost instantly he relaxed, though slightly. His pupils contracted, the dazed look in his eyes faded and he stopped shaking. He stopped muttering to himself and looked up at Twilight who had made his way over to the bed. Time, for the briefest moment, looked as if he recognised Twilight before he shot up and scooted back on the bed, shouting, “No!” and “Get away from me!”

“Not again, NOT AGAIN!”

“Link, sweetheart, it’s just Twilight,” Malon said, reaching out and trying to placate him. “Please, try to remember. He’s not going to take you back. I-I promise,” Malon choked out. Tears pricked at her eyes as she watched her husband agonise over the cruelty that had been done to him as a child. She didn’t think she could bear to see him crumble under the weight of all his years of torture and vulnerability.

Time saw this- her tears- and stopped. He drew closer to her and placed a rough but gentle hand on her cheek.

“Twilight, will you just-” she paused and took a calm, shaky breath, looking deeply into Time’s scared eyes. “Will you please give me a moment?”

Twilight respectfully nodded and left the room. He heard voices coming from the kitchen and made his way there to find that all of the Links had returned. They all wore worried expression, presumably having all heard the news about Time’s accident.

Twilight cleared his throat and addressed the room at their expectant glances. “He’ll be alright,” he said simply.

“Alright? That’s it? No ‘he’s responding to treatment’, or ‘we know how to heal him’?” Four asked bluntly

“What kind of treatment, dumbass? We have no potions, no fairies, and no doctor,” Legend declared, flailing his arms wildly. “And how are we supposed to know how to heal him if we don’t know what’s wrong?”

“We actually had one fairy,” Twilight answered, “and we might know what’s wrong with him.”

All heads turned to Twilight at the new information. “Well? Spill it. How do we fix him,” Legend demanded, tapping his foot impatiently. He tried to look nonchalant but the look in his eyes betrayed his concern.

“He might have sustained a serious concussion, but, with the fairy, we were able to lessen the injury, but we’ll still need to take shifts waking him up. We have to make sure he doesn’t bear any permanent damage.”

The group fell silent after that, worry casting its dark cloud over them. Twilight shifted and played with his fingers, revealing his nerves.

“There’s something you’re not telling us,” WIld pointed out suddenly, catching the group’s attention. Twilight paused. Even though he knew it was necessary to tell them and they would find out even without his help, he didn’t want to spread worry over a handleable situation. Despite these thoughts, he decided he needed to tell them the truth.

“There is… one problem. I don’t think the old man remembers any of us or trusts us. And more than that it seems like he’s trying to keep himself awake because of some past trauma.”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it,” WInd asked hopefully.

“Not exactly. Concussed patients need sleep. They just can’t be asleep for too long periods at a time.”

“That’s sure to make things difficult, but it’s just a small setback. We can still get him to sleep and help him remember us,” Sky added cheerfully.

The rest of the Links didn’t look so sure, but they didn’t argue with Sky either. His optimism was welcome in their time of panic. They were willing to give anything a shot if it meant helping their friend.

“I think it’s best if we take shifts. Too many people at once will just overwhelm him.

“If that’s the case I’ll take the first shift,” said Warrior, standing. “I mean, we were pretty close. Maybe there’s a chance he’ll remember me.”

Twilight thought about that. Of course, there was a chance, but if the old man didn’t even remember Twilight he didn’t think he’d remember Warrior, even if they were close. “Okay, go for it,” Twilight said wearily.

Warrior nodded and left for Time and Malon’s room, leaving the rest to ponder the endless possibilities that might come of this.

"Oh good, you all have a plan," Molon said, walking into the room with the other Links'. She gave them a tired yet enthusiastic smile. " That means I can trust you all to hold down the fort while I head to Castle Town."

"Alone?" Sky asked, only to hiss out in pain when Wind elbowed him in the side.

"She can handle herself," Wind warned but Malon just chuckled good-naturedly.

"I appreciate the concern, sky child, but it's just to the castle. My husband needs more medicine and the sun is still up for a little while longer. I'll be back by morning, just keep waking him up every so often to make sure he's not getting worse," she said, tugging a shawl around her shoulders.

"If you wish for one of us to accompany you," Wild offered smally, "I'd be happy to tag along."

Really, Twilight would almost like for Wild to join Malon. He looked out of his element, and he probably felt like the last one capable to help someone with memory loss and confusion. But Malon simply shook her head and walked up to him, placing a hand on his shoulder and smiling kindly at him. "Thank you for offering, but I'll be fine. My husband needs you all. You're all very important to him. Besides, I won't be alone, I'll have Epona with me."

"You're important to him too," Hyrule said quietly.

Malon just beamed at him before she walked over to the door. "I'll be back by morning. Earlier if the gates don't lock me in. Take care!"

"Good luck," seven voices all chimed in. Then, Malon was gone, and the boys were all left to their own devices.

And there weren't a whole lot of devices, so Twilight took a page from Time and Malon's book and set the boys to work. Wild returned to the kitchen, finishing up dinner while Legend and Hyrule went to clean up and prepare the guest room. To Sky, he assigned sweeping the floors and Four and Wild worked together to dust various cabinets. All the while, the door to the master bedroom remained silent, a boding forewarning of what the future had to bring.

-o-o-o-o-

His head hurt. That was the simple truth of everything. His head hurt. Enough so that he would be quite content doing nothing. He was pretty sure he was asleep, but he couldn't really recall why. If he tried to remember, then the headache would just grow and he would rather it went away.

Unfortunately for him, he had little choice in many things, one of those things was the over creeping sense of wakefulness forcing himself to become aware of his body, the sounds around him, and the gross taste lingering in his mouth. Something on his shoulder.

He would have preferred to keep his eyes shut, but they opened anyway, bringing a sharp ping of pain through his skull.

Blinking, he looked ahead of him, only to find a wooden ceiling above his head and not much else. He moaned as his headache smarted, but he quickly stilled as he realized that the pressure on his shoulder that he felt earlier was still there.

He turned his head and his eyes widened. There was a man in the room with him, leaning towards him from a wooden chair set next to the bed, arm stretched out and hand resting on him. Face screwed up with concern.

“Hey, old man, you up?”

Instantly, panic washed over him.

He jerked away from the man, slamming his hands next to his side to perhaps find a weapon. “Get away,” he snarled and the man snapped back as if stung. It was now that he realized that he didn’t know where he was. There was a small inkling at the back of his head that promised that he might have been here, but the hysteria from waking up with a stranger next to him was blurring his vision, making it even harder to concentrate when combined with his aching head.

“Time, it’s me,” the man said, his voice stern but a little rushed like he was nervous, and that certainly did nothing to make Link trust him any more than what he initially did. “Captain?”

“Where am I?” Link snarled, his voice sounding wrong in his own throat. He tried to shift up in the bed he was lying in, but his body felt wrong and the hurt in his head was traveling down his spine with the movement. A flash of familiarity ricocheted across his skull and he couldn’t help but whimper at it. He had felt like this before. Like his body was wrong and everything was different and wrong and that only made him want to panic more.

Yet everything hurt, he could hardly even think about moving without some sort of pain. He could just lie there and struggle to make sense of what’s going on, hoping his muddled mind would clear.

“You’re at your home,” the man (captain?) said slowly, making an effort to raise his hands and show he was weaponless. Not that Link believed him for a second. People can be crafty when they want to be. “What do you remember?”

“I-” Link swallowed, trying to grasp onto anything that was more clear than the rapid beating of his heart. He was so confused, and scared, and lost, and what was the last thing he remembered? He can hardly remember a single thing. Then, something calming washed over him with the soothing voice of a woman singing softly in his hair, her soft hands running through his hair.

Safe, she said, you’re safe my love.

And just like that, her face appeared in his mind’s eye, and he was overcome with comfort and safety and finally, his heart calmed just a bit. He didn’t remember these walls, but he recognizes them now.

Home, they say. Safe.

He looked at the man again, trying to see him in a different light, try to puzzle together something he’s missing most the pieces to.

A name flashed across the tip of his tongue, and he spoke it before he could question it. “You’re Link,” he said softly.

The man smiled and relaxed ever so slightly, and Link can feel the energy inside of him whither as well. He can barely keep his eyes open anymore, the adrenaline fading like a wistful song. “I’m Link too,” the man said kindly.

“Oh,” was all Link could say to that. His eyes are heavy now, almost like something unseen was wrapping itself around him, trying to drag him back into unconsciousness, and he almost fell into it if it weren’t for the hand replacing itself back onto his shoulder.

“Hey, not yet, old man,” the other Link said. “We have to keep you awake just a bit longer, just to make sure your memory loss isn’t the only damage the concussion did.”

“Concussion…?”

The man simply nodded with a gentle, reassuring smile plastered on his face. “Yeah, you wouldn’t remember that. We found you out in the barn. You were lying under a bunch of gardening equipment with blood running from a wound on your head. Malon, your wife,” Link confirmed, “patched you up with a fairy-”

“Fairy,” Time interrupted, a flash of hope sparking in his eyes. “Navi?”

The other Link’s face fell as he shook his head. “No, old man. I’m sorry.” The pair were silent for a minute. Link kept his gaze on the floor as if it was more interesting than their conversation. The man ran a hand down his face before he spoke again. “Even though your wound is healed the effects are still there. You’ll be out of commission for a couple of days so don’t even think about getting out of bed.”

Link didn’t argue. He felt positively shitty to put it lightly. His head felt like a blacksmith’s anvil… blacksmith… somehow that word felt important as if it stirred the fog enshrouding his mind, trying to reveal a secret that would rather stay hidden. He grasped at it, but it evaded him.

Then a thought occurred to him out of the blue.

Link stared blankly at the man and blinked.

“What,” the other Link asked.

“Why are you in my house?” The question came out of nowhere, unprompted by anything, and yet, this was his house? Why was this man here?

The man blanched. “I’m sorry, what?”

“This is my house, is it not? I remember… that I know who you are, but why are you here? Does my wife know? Are there others? When did you even find me?”

“We found you earlier today and, yeah, there are others Twilight was here-”

“Twilight,” Link said slowly. “Yes, he was in here.“

“He’s one of us,” the other said. He paused as if realising something. “Do you remember him?”

Link shook his head. “No, I- I thought… I didn’t trust him. I thought he was going to take me back. I sense his magic... He can’t be trusted.” Link spoke frantically, trying to get his nerves across so the other Link would listen. He couldn’t go back to that place, no, he wouldn’t!

“Time, nobody here is going to hurt you. We’re your friends.” The man said then he sighed. “Malon left to get you some medicine,” he said and Link wanted to panic, but he could tell that the other was sure of his words, that Link wouldn’t be hurt. “In the meantime, I’m just going to ask you a few questions to make sure you’re doing okay.”

“All right.” Link did not feel fine, but he guessed that the other man meant something else.

The man cleared his throat before he began. “Are you feeling particularly irritable at the moment?”

Link quirked an eyebrow. “What sort of question is that?”

“Just answer me,” the man said, eliciting a small giggle from Link.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said, coming out of his laughter. He still wasn’t sure of this man’s intentions, but a vague recollection at the back of his mind told him that he was familiar and therefore trustworthy.

“Good. Now, tell me everything you remember starting from when you met me.”

Odd question, Link thought. “Okay, I remember… I remember this-this portal of sorts.” Link tried to bring up the memories from his foggy mind and managed to recount his meeting with the man in front of him.

“We walked through another portal and,” Link gasped. He froze as the next memory came to him. “We were in the sky, on a floating island.” His eyes were wide. It was as if he was experiencing something supernatural, but, somehow, all of this felt like he was eating seconds from the same dish. “How is that possible.”

“Keep going,” the man cajoled.

“I remember we met someone, someone who always wore some sort of cape. It was mostly white- Link! His name was also Link.”

The man nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes, keep going.”

Link’s face scrunched up as he thought, but every card he drew after that was blank. “That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. Also, why are all our names Link?”

“We share the name of the hero’s spirit. You remember that much, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Link replied slowly.

“Okay, moving on,” the other Link said, waving his hand in the air. “What are your symptoms.”

***

Twilight was biting his nails. He couldn’t shake the thought of having Time distrust him so much that he perceived him as a threat.

Twilight paced back and forth across the kitchen as Wild finished up supper. “Your fingernails are down to stubs. If you go any further you’ll bleed,” Wild cautioned, sparing a glance at his mentor from his spot at the counter.

“What if he doesn’t remember any of us Wild? What if he sees us as dangerous? We can’t defeat Dark Link without him.” Twilight felt utterly defeated, but he wouldn’t let the others know that. He needed to be strong, but it was so much more difficult being a leader than Time made it out to be. The whole facade that he put up in front of the others was starting to crumble with every minute Time was struggling to remember.

“Twi, just be patient. He’ll come to his senses soon enough. In the meantime, you just need to put a little faith in him. Help him remember.”

Twilight took a deep breath. “You’re right. This isn’t going to fix itself.”

Twilight heard footsteps descending the stairs and swiftly turned around to see Warrior making his way toward them. “I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?”

“What’s the bad news,” Wild asked instead of Twilight.

“The bad news: Time doesn’t remember you,” Warrior said, addressing Twilight.

Twilight groaned. Of course, he knew as much, but he was hoping Warrior could get a different result despite his doubts. “What’s the good news then?”

“He remembers me and Sky. Meaning I was able to get him to trust that the rest of you won’t hurt him. He’s willing to speak to you. Also, there doesn't seem to be any long-lasting side effects.”

Twilight released a breath he didn’t realise he was holding. It was a start, Time was willing to see him. If there was any chance of Twilight getting Time to recover, he’d take it. “Alright. I’ll go talk to him.” Twilight rushed forward but he was stopped as Warrior put a hand out in front of him, keeping him in place.

“Ah ah ah, not yet. Time’s resting. You should wake him up in about two hours to check if he’s okay. Do. Not. Force it. If he doesn’t remember you, it’s okay. Be patient.”

Twilight nodded sadly. He didn’t want to wait, but, for Time’s safety, he supposed he had no choice. “Thanks, Warrior.”

Warrior flashed Twilight a warm, reassuring smile before he turned to Wild. “I’m absolutely famished.”

“Well and grand. Supper is just about done. Mind setting up the table?”

“Sure.” Warrior set off to find the crockery and cutlery and Twilight stood, staring out the window, into the distance. “Something on your mind?” Wild inquired.

“What isn’t on my mind?”

“Fair. Go take a seat. I’ll save Time a plate.”

Twilight grudgingly obeyed and took a seat at the dining table. He folded his arms and rested his head on them. It had been a rough day for everyone and the fact that Time remembered Warrior and not him made him feel just a tad jealous.

The others had arrived and conversations were going over their meal, but Twilight was part of them. His focus was drawn to their most pressing issue and, as a result, he felt perpetually stressed.

Twilight didn’t notice Wild come up to him when everyone had left the table. “It’s been two hours-”

Twilight didn’t even let Wild finish his sentence before he sprang out of his chair and dashed to the stairs.

“Wait,” Wild called. “Take this.” In Wild’s hands was a plate of food. Twilight took the offered food with a knife and fork. “He might be hungry when he wakes up.”

“Thanks.” Twilight gave a wan smile and headed up to the master bedroom.

Once Twilight reached the door he knocked before he could think better of it. Twilight facepalmed. “Dammit, Link. Of course, he’s not going to answer the door.” But Twilight gave a surprised yelp when his mentor swung the door open. “Y-you’re supposed to be in bed,” Twilight chided.

Time looked, in every sense of the word, like a crook caught in the lamplight. His eyes were round and surprised and he simply stood there, staring at Twilight like he didn't quite know what to do next.

"But I suppose that's a good sign, isn't it?" Twilight asked nervously, uncomfortable under the elder man's stare. "You waking up yourself? I don't really know the fine details of concussions but-"

He's cut off as the door is suddenly slammed shut and he's left of the other side gaping, the plate of food left uselessly in his hand.

It took him a moment to find his voice. He reached up and knocked again. "Old man? It's me, Twilight, I just came to check up on you and give you some dinner!"

There's no answer and a spark of annoyance ignited in Twilight's chest.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he called, knocking again, "I'm your friend. Warrior said you remembered him and Sky; I'm their friend too!"

"Go away, please!" Time suddenly called on the other side of the door.

Twilight rolled his eyes. "Sorry, buddy, can't do that. We have to make sure you're doing alright. The sun is setting and I don't think Malon will be back until morning, so you have to work with us for a little while longer." He reached forward and placed his hand on the doorknob, feeling a little like he's about to breach his mentor's privacy, but at the same time his mentor is acting very childish and Twilight can't just leave him be.

The doorknob jiggled but did not open. Twilight scowled and huffed. "Very mature," he said, "unlock the door. Look, I know you're very hard-headed, but you have to let us help you. You have to let somebody in."

"Send someone else!" Time called.

And that blow was almost physical.

It definitely had him stumbling back like it.

Deep breaths Twi. Deep breaths. "Look! I don't know why you don't like me all of a sudden, but I mean nothing but goodwill! Plus, Warrior said that you'd be willing to talk with me?"

"... I changed my mind."

"Old man," Twilight said in exasperation. "Time. Open the door." He jiggled the doorknob. "C'mon, I'm not going to bite you or whatever. Time! Please?"

Nothing.

Twilight had to step away to restrain himself from kicking the door down.

"Fine! You win! But you will let someone in!"

He turned with a huff and walked back to the kitchen where the others were helping Wild clean up the kitchen but they all stopped when he entered the area, food going cold on the plate in his hand and face probably red.

"That didn't take long," Hyrule said slowly. "Is he alright?"

Twilight huffed and strides over to the younger hero, shoving the plate in his hands and then storming towards the front door. "He won't talk to me. It's your turn."

And then he was out the door before anyone could say a single thing. He stood in the cool evening air for a few seconds, panting like a wolfos.

If Time wanted to act like a child, then that's fine by him. He took off walking, nowhere in particular, just in a random direction. He was sure though, that if anyone looked at him through the windows of the ranch, they'd see steam coming from his ears.

-o-o-o-o-

Hyrule could only stand there a little dumbfounded by what had happened. It seemed Twilight’s behavior was a shock to the rest of them too because it took a good few beats of silence bore someone cleared their throat and attempted to make some semblance of a plan.

“Hyrule… do you want to give Time his food?”

Hyrule looked at Legend, the one who had spoken, feeling like he was a trapped animal. There’s no way Time would react friendly with Hyrule. Not if he didn’t with Twilight. Hyrule barely even knew the guy. He respected him sure but it wasn’t like they had any kind of relationship or anything.

His internal panic must have shown on his face because Sky gave a kind smile. “How about,” he said, taking the plate from Hyrule’s hands and setting it down on the kitchen table. “You invite him down to eat.”

“I don’t think he can handle a large company, Sky,” Warrior said, “he’s probably very tired still.”

“I think that for whatever reason he can’t handle our rancher’s company,” Sky retorted and everyone silenced. “And while Twilight is out blowing steam we can get him down here to talk to us as a group.”

Warrior bit his lip in thought before he sighed. “I see your logic. But we mustn't crowd him.”

“Maybe we can help him remember Twilight,” Wind offered.

“So by the time Twilight comes back, everything will be fine again,” Wild put in as well.

“Fine,” Warrior muttered, throwing his hands in the air. “Fine. But if we break him more, I won't take the fall with you all when Malon decides our lives are forfeit.”

It was meant to be a joke, but if the way the entire group stilled and became somber was an indication of anything, it certainly fell flat.

“Hyrule?” Four suddenly asked and Hyrule almost jumped a foot in the air, not expecting to be addressed.

“Yeah?”

“Are you going to get the old man?”

Heat flooded his face. “Y-yeah.”

He left the room before he could make a bigger fool of himself and practically scrambled up the stairs. He wondered what made Twilight so irritable. Did Time say something rude? And why was Time so insistent about not wanting to talk to Twilight? He wished he knew, that way he’d be more prepared with Time inevitably shut him down too.

There was no way this would work, and he chanted it in his head like a mantra until he worked up the courage to knock on the door. There was silence for a few solid seconds, and then a voice called out in a more awake tone than what he had been expecting.

“Who is it?”

Hyrule swallowed. “Um, Hyrule. Um- well, not Hyrule Hyrule. I- I’m the hero of Hyrule? So that’s what everyone calls me. It gets confusing sometimes and-”

The door was suddenly opened and he shut his jaw with a click.

Time stood there on the other side of the doorway, his single eye critically narrowed, almost like he was looking into Hyrule’s very soul. Hyrule squirmed under the gaze, but whatever Time was looking for seemed to be found because he stepped slowly out of the way to invite Hyrule in. Hyrule swallowed and stepped back. “Actually, we were wondering if you felt well enough to join us downstairs for some dinner?”

Time stilled and then he sighed. “I’m… not sure that is a good idea.”

“Twilight isn’t there,” Hyrule rushed out and Time’s eyebrows rose in slight surprise. “He went out. For a run or something, I think. The other’s all want to talk to you.”

Time remained silent for a second before he released a breath. “Did I hurt his feelings?”

“Who? Twilight?”

Time nodded and Hyrule swallowed. “Oh. Um. He’ll be fine.”

“I… I don’t recognize anyone, but each of you gives me a… sense of peace and safety. But Twilight… I don’t know why but I can’t bring myself to open up to him. I know I care about him, I can feel it in my bones that I care for each of you, but I… I can’t talk to him right now. I just hope I didn’t hurt his feelings.”

“I… yeah, he’ll get over it,” Hyrule repeated because he didn’t quite know what else to say. “He’s… strong. And whatever is off about him that you don’t like I’m sure will all make sense when you’re better.”

“When I’m better.”

“Yeah… so do you want to come down and eat or should I bring food up-”

“I’ll… come down. I feel trapped in this room, and some kind faces I think will help me feel better.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Hyrule stood there awkwardly as Time practically shuffled out of the doorway, his eyebrows drawn together with a tightness that could only be described as pain. His head must still be bothering him. Hyrule swallowed and took a step forward, ducking under one of his arms and grabbing onto Time’s side. Time made a thankful hum and wrapped his arm around Hyrule’s shoulders.

“What is for dinner?” Time asked as Hyrule helped him down the first step. Hyrule grunted with his weight but was thankfully able to keep his balance for a few more steps.

“Wild made Hearty Salmon Meuniere. It’s really good,” Hyrule grunted.

They finally made it down onto the first floor and Hyrule almost bent over gasping, but he was stopped when Time squeezed his shoulder.

“I don’t remember who you are,” Time mumbled, “but I have the sense that you’ve been through much. You are incredibly brave, little one.”

Hyrule swallowed, not really prepared for a revelation like that. “Everyone here is brave. You’ll see that I’m at the bottom of the ladder. It’s you who everyone looks up to. Everyone is taking this memory loss hard. Especially Twilight. I… I appreciate it though.”

“If the me without memories can tell how courageous you are, I’m sure the me with memories thinks even higher of you.”

Hyrule almost choked on his spit as his ears began to feel like they were on fire.

“L-lets go. I’m sure the others all want to see you.”

-o-o-o-o-

The other’s all consisted of seven young men who for the life of him Link… or Time could not remember. He knew the faces. After they tell him their names he’s almost hitting his head against the wall in anger because how could he have possibly forgotten these young men?

Wind was a charming lad, and he gave Time the sense or recklessness and adventure. Curiosity. He smiled the widest when Time entered the room and talked the most like it wasn’t awkward at all. Time appreciated his energy. His kindness. It reminded him almost of himself before… before everything. Except, this young man somehow managed to keep that innocent part of him alive after his adventure.

Legend was much on the opposite side of the scale. He can see the sadness in his eyes, but he can also see a spark of flame. The need for adventure still calls him, even though Time is quite confident that Legend has been through more than what he says. There had been many obstacles in his way, and he lost many parts of himself, but he still retains a kindness and carefulness that often goes unnoticed by his prickly exterior. He says things as they are, and Time can’t help but feel a large deal of respect towards the younger man.

Sky was… well, Sky was himself. Time’s impressions of him were that he was kind and positive and perhaps the happiest of the group. But he also has a righteous aura about him that Time isn’t particularly fond of. The sword on his back is confirmation of that. Yet, Time also knows that he would trust his life in Sky’s hands.

Four was as blunt as a tree branch being used for swordplay. He didn’t dance around his words, and when Time asked for his story, he flatly said that Time had no business knowing. Time can respect that. Clearly, whatever relationship he had with Four was purely made out of trust. Neither knew that much about each other, but it didn’t matter. The boy had a quick mind and sharp tongue, and while he kept his secrets to himself, he still didn’t mind very much being around the others.

Warrior, Time can’t help but feel a special bond with him. Besides himself, Warrior was clearly the eldest of the group. Time knew that this man has suffered much, and has seen much more, and yet he still went out of his way to be honorable. To be kind.

Wild was a special soul. Time instantly felt the need to pay special attention to how he acted. Searching for little signs that he was uncomfortable or happy or content. Time didn’t think Wild has had that much time to be himself. In fact, it almost felt like Wild was constantly watching himself to live up to someone else. Yet, despite all of that, Time could tell his smiles were genuine, his enthusiasm heartfelt.

And of course, there was Hyrule. Insecure to a fault, yet his heart is bigger than that. He has a lot of heart. He might say he’s not that brave, but Time knew better. He knew that Hyrule has perhaps seen just as much hell as Time himself has.

The boys were all unique. Loud. Different. And even though the headache in his skull pulsed and his eyes felt heavier and heavier the night wore on, he wanted nothing more than to continue being in their company.

They told him stories. Tried their best to help him remember some of them. He couldn’t recall them all, like the one about how Legend apparently single-handedly fought off a hoard of moblins. He suspected that was just an attempt to butter himself up and trick Time’s memory. But the story Warrior told of the great Goron spice incident came almost immediately back to him with just a small bit of fuzz around the details. Wild looked scandalized at the mention of that story, seeing as it involved a piece of women’s clothing being found in his bad, but when Time started laughing, saying that he remembered that, all of the boys became eager to tell more silly stories about the rest of them.

Wild pulled out his strange slate and began a slide show of pictures, and quite some time passed and he hardly even felt his headache anymore.

Then, the slideshow stopped on a picture of a young man with dirty hair and markings on his forehead.

The mood instantly sunk, and Time couldn’t help but feel responsible for it.

“He looks up to you a lot,” Four mumbled, “you’re… almost like a dad to him.”

And Time knew this. He knew this the moment he saw the picture down on the slate of that young man. Twilight… feels almost like a son to him too.

Now that some time has passed with the others, he can almost see how silly he was. Sure, he was out of it, memories shattered in his head like a mirror, and Twilight simply had the misfortune of being the one to find him. The misfortune of having dark magic within him that Time didn’t recognize. How foolish of him to make that mistake. How foolish of him to judge Twilight off of that simple misunderstanding.

Almost like a sign from the goddesses, Twilight chose that time to walk in the front door. His skin around his eyes, cheeks, and ears were red from perhaps the cold, perhaps something else. He stopped in his tracks as everyone turned to look at him but his eyes instantly locked with Time.

There was something desperate in them, so instead of saying anything, Time smiled and scooted a little on the chair he was sitting on, making room for one more to join them at the kitchen table. Twilight smiled like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders and quickly grabbed a chair and made his spot next to Time like it was the most natural thing in the entire world to do.

Laughter filled the rest of the night, and as they told yet another story Time hardly even noticed his head drooping with tiredness until an arm wound itself around his middle and hefted him upward. He did his best to cooperate with his feet, but it clearly wasn’t much help. He was eventually laid down on a soft sofa, a throw placed over his body, and before the calming embrace of sleep could take him he looked at the boy above him. How foolish of himself indeed to think this boy could ever hurt a fly.

-o-o-o-o-

Malon returned in the morning, a stash of red potions in her hands and an irritating story to tell about her next-door neighbors in the castle town inn. Though, her irritation quickly faded when she saw her husband happily resting on the downstairs sofa with a smile on his face. The boys tell her that they helped him remember most everything the night before and gave him much-needed company. When she was able to give him a red potion, the most it did was un-fog some of the trickier bits of his memory and rid him of his headache.

She didn’t complain when he pulled her close, dragging her into a love-filled kiss.

Wind made a gagging sound but Malon didn’t mind a single bit. Clearly, there was no need to worry. Her boy’s always pull through, one way or another.

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jaggedwolf · 4 years

Text

TSCOSI Ficlets #2

Not being from the US

"So, Jeeter, what'd you learn this week?" Arkady plopped into the seat opposite him, stealing one of his fries. "The horrors of Fahrenheit?"

"Man, that was day one of international student orientation. We're on to way more advanced terrors now." Brian considered a token protest at the fry-theft. Eh, he'd get her back when she got dessert.

Arkady shrugged off her backpack. "Why do you even bother still going?"

"It's mandatory."

"Like you give a crap about that."

"Gotta be up to date with all these cultural differences."

"You're Canadian."

"Hey man-"

"And you told me you spent every summer in the States, anyway," Arkady said, looking suspiciously at him. Well, she tended to look suspiciously at a lot of things, so it wasn't the worst sign. "There's no reason for you to subject yourself to-"

A wide grin crossed Arkady's face. Oh no. "Wait, they're also an international student, right?"

"Maybe," said Brian defensively.

"Now, remind me what you said about their cheekbones?" Arkady's voice sounded even more delighted.

Brian pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head, and buried his head in his arms on the table. His voice muffled, he said "Drinking with you was a mistake."

"I for one, could not be happier that Tripathi took pity on a couple of freshmen and did us that favor."

Brian groaned. Three months into the school year and he still didn't understand how or when Arkady and him became friends.

"Should have guessed you'd be a poetic drunk." Arkady clapped him on the back. "Woah, speaking of-"

She tugged his sweatshirt. Brian reluctantly looked up, following her gaze to find the subject of their discussion striding towards them.

Yep, Krejjh looked about as handsome as they always did. That was fine. Their pace slowed as they approached the table. "Hey, it's Brian, right?"

"That's him," chimed in Arkady. "And I'm going to get some actual food now instead of skimming off Jeeter's"

She abruptly stood up and left. Krejjh seemed startled by her departure and asked "Is this a bad time?"

They sounded oddly hesitant, not at all like how Brian had heard them speak with their friends.

"Nope." Brian shoved back his hood. "Arkady's just like that. Do you want a fry?"

Holding your hand in mine

Arkady's always appreciated privacy. Couple of decades of sleeping in crowded rooms will do that to you. Being alone can be nice.

Being alone sucks a hell of a lot more when you're dying in one of Zone Z's dim-lit hallways.

Asshole shot her and her comms before she took care of him, and she supposes she'll only have his body for company as blood spurts out from under her collarbone. The instinctive pressured she applies slows it down. Not quick enough. He'd picked his shot well.

It's a waiting game now. She might as well distract herself. After all, hiding from the world in foolish dreams is a talent she's cultivated.

It's easy to paint a picture, as the world becomes fuzzy. No one could fault her for it. If someone wants to, she's not exactly going to be around to take their complaints. She squeezes her eyes shut. Folds herself smaller into the corner. Presses the heel of her right hand harder into the bleeding wound. Ignores how slick it feels. She's going to lose this fight, but like hell she's not clinging on all the way down, fingernails dug deep into life.

Back to the imagining.

What does she want, in these final moments?

What doesn't she want, is the better question. Her dreams had always been too stupidly big for reality. And yet. This is...this is a better death than she ever thought she'd get. Not much more to ask for. To her mind's rendering of the scene, she only adds a couple of selfish touches.

Long, soft fingers curl over the back of her right hand. They push insistently, added pressure to the wound, steadily, as if confident they can fix this. Fingers she's seen idly drum the table in the mess hall, fingers she's seen wrapped around a hypodermic syringe, fingers she felt trail through her hair just this morning. A presence that refuses to leave.

A rougher palm meets that of her left hand. The resulting grip is firm. Gentle. The calluses have a different contour from her own. Earned from building, where hers were made from breaking. They press against each other in a way that feels right anyway. Feels right, like twice-offered new beginnings. And even now, offering more.

It's good, Arkady thinks, that this is how it goes. Her alone.

Wouldn't be fair to them any other way.

Lesbian gaze

The ship turns out to be a monstrous patchwork, but Tripathi promises it'll fly, so she busies herself with staring at her new ID card. Arkady Patel. The card is new, nothing like the faded, scratched-up one in her back pocket. She'd gotten that one when she enlisted, been excited as hell about it, actually.

"Hey, Arkady?" asks Tripathi, sounding apologetic and swiveling the pilot's seat. "Could you check the local channels to see if they're tracking us?" Tripathi nods her head towards one of the panels.

She grunts in affirmative, shoves the ID card into a pocket and makes herself useful. She's mostly blocked out the pain. The channels are clear, takeoff goes without a hitch, and an hour later, they're as free as can be.

She could fish out that ID card again. There's a lot of people she's imagined being. Arkady Patel's the first one she actually will. If the IGR doesn't end up finding them first, that is. But that's not the name echoing in her head.

That would be Sana Tripathi.

Who's busy piloting, which means she can get away with looking her over. Tripathi's hair had been longer back on Cresswin, a single black braid that moved with her head through with every point made in those meetings snuck into. Now, Tripathi's hair isn't even shoulder-length. Nice and practical. Grey roots too. Tripathi seemed a little young for that. Not that she actually knew the woman's age, come to think of it.

There was a lot she didn't know about Tripathi. Maybe less if she counted Cresswin, and maybe she should, since Cresswin's what landed her here but - people changed. From time. From the war. From working a shitty job day-after-day. Easy enough to slip on an old skin if it got you a desperately needed crew member.

Not that it matters. She isn't looking for the noble, non-existent hero her teenage self had fantasized about. Now that she's on the IGR's bad side, she's pretty fucking good with settling for a place to sleep and food to eat. She can wait this out. See who Tripathi ends up being, and see if Tripathi figures out she isn't worth the trust.

Till then, she'll keep an eye on her new boss.

Low Expectations

It's ludicrous, he thinks, how exposed he feels without his eyepatch. Even more so when Violet's gloved fingers rest on his skin where the edges of the eyepatch would have. No matter. The feeling is a sign he has let himself become too comfortable. He's been far more exposed.

"Can you open the eyelid?" asks Violet.

There's that familiar half-second where he expects his range of vision to expand, and it grates on him, that his body has not yet adapted to its new reality. He opens his eyelid as wide as he can.

If Violet is perturbed by the sight of an empty eye socket, she doesn't show it. Her head comes closer to inspect it, fingers shifting slightly along his skin, and he tilts his face towards her to make it easier.

"Thanks," mutters Violet.

His hands start to tremble.

They're not in Violet's line of sight. He has the time to compensate, and the freedom to move his hands, so as carefully as he can manage, he grips his knees. He forces himself to start speaking, informing Violet of the current status of his eye socket and how the IGR had healed it.

It's no challenge to keep his face still. Whatever they do could only hurt more with unexpected head movements, they'd told him.

Eventually, Violet pulls back. Her fingers leave his face. Before he can even take a breath of relief, Violet pauses midway through turning to grab something, a concerned look on her face. "Park, you're shaking."

"I-" When Park looks down, he sees that his knees have joined his hands in trembling uncontrollably. His mind blanks. "My apologies," he acknowledges, "it shouldn't affect the checkup."

"What?"

He'd given an uninformative answer. Needed a better explanation. "My head. It shouldn't affect my head, so-"

"Park," interrupts Violet quietly, a slow frown taking over her face, "I think we're done for today."

Wooing with sharp-edged gifts

As soon as Arkady was unhorsed for the last time, and her opponent declared the victor, Sana appeared out of nowhere to act as her crutch.

"You should be escorting Rumor, not me," Arkady pointed out, her helmet weighing down her free hand. Her left foot throbbed when she put any weight on it. "Who knows what she'll get up to without your supervision?"

Sana huffed, her armor clanging against Arkady's. "I could say the same about you. Besides, Krejjh is handling her fine."

Sure enough, a glance behind revealed Krejjh eagerly chattering away to Sana's steed. They swung a leg over to ride even that short distance to the stables.

"Showoff," muttered Arkady. "Krejjh bribes your horse with too many sugar cubes."

"Be that as it may," continued Sana, "I'm afraid there'll be no escaping the medical tent today. It's tournament day! We're safe, you need to get your leg taken care of, and if something happens you'll have the simple pleasure of saying 'I told you so', won't you?"

"It's not a pleasure."

Sana ignored her, holding up a flap of the tent they'd arrived at for Arkady to hop under. She did so, making sure to look as annoyed as possibly, and Sana followed, supporting Arkady over to the nearest cot...where Violet stood expectantly.

Sana flashed a quick grin at Arkady. "You know what, Kady, you're right, I should go check on Rumor. Just remember you did your best out there." With that, Sana nodded at Violet and exited the tent so quickly it was as if she were never there.

Arkady frowned at Violet. "Liu. Wasn't your shift yesterday?"

Looking amused, Violet replied. "They're hardly going to complain about an extra hand. Let's get that armor off your leg."

They did. Arkady winced the whole time, cursing herself for her choices. Jousting, really? Arkady would have fared better in the melee, her own two feet and her weapon of choice to depend on.

They could hear cheering from the lists from even inside the tent. Another bout ended, then. Violet examined Arkady's foot, fingers pressing various spots around the swollen ankle.

As if reading her mind, Violet asked, "Why the joust?"

Embarrassed, Arkady shot back, "You mean, why'd I pick something I'm so piss-poor at?"

"You won your first two bouts," said Violet mildly.

Oh. She'd been watching.

Of course she'd been watching, how else would she have known to come to this very tent? Even Sana's encouragement didn't extend quite that far.

Violet continued, "You've never mentioned it when talking about other tournaments."

The simple, foolish answer was the smallest prize the winners received. A single rose, fresh from the royal garden, to be presented to whoever they chose.

The melee was an ugly, crowded thing. It was not the melee's rose lauded in those songs she'd loved as a child, snatches of music caught in taverns and lyrics sung in street games, and it was not the melee's rose she had wanted to give to Violet. It was not the melee she had wanted Violet to see her fight in.

It was not after the melee she had wanted to broach a topic she had thought unbroachable.

Yet it was the ugly things in life that Arkady was good for, and so she was left here with empty hands and another injury.

Arkady half-smiled at Violet. "Thought I'd try something new."

"I...don't think that's the whole answer," said Violet, but she didn't press as she normally would have. She turned to her satchel, retrieving a cloth bundle and unwrapping it to reveal a dagger, sheathed in dark leather. It was good work, deceptively simple. She wondered how much coin it had cost.

Violet took a deep breath and then spoke slowly. "You probably haven't been counting the days but, um, it's been a year since you saved me from that ambush. A little less than that since you cleared my name."

Had it been that long? Had it been that short?

Violet pulled the dagger out of the sheath. The dagger's edges gleamed in the snatches of sunlight filtering into the tent, but Arkady only had eyes for the sharpening of Violet's gaze.

"You told me, once, that I didn't know what you'd done. What you'd do." Violet sheathed the dagger. "I do now."

She offered out the dagger, pale fingers around the sheathed portion of it, her face tentative yet determined. "A gift. A thank-you. You don't"-A short laugh escaped Violet-"Refuse it if you will. I just thought I ought to say it."

"I-" For once, Arkady didn't have the words to respond.

Instead, she took the dagger, and let the slowly growing smile on Violet's face be answer enough for them both.

#ficlets #tscosi #tscosi ficlets #arkady patel #the ficlets keep happening idk #arkady and brian #arkady and sana #violet and park #arkady and violet

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draugsresurrection · 4 years

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Draug’s Resurrection Masterpost

Remember when I said I'd make a general introductory post about Draug's Resurrection and reblog that every three or four months, back in 2018? Yeah, that didn't happen. So I sort of re-wrote it. Now with loads of pictures in between! Same idea as before; neatly tying together any general information a newcomer would want to learn at a glance, without being overly wordy. Maybe I'll be more vigilant with this one. Probably not though.

What is Draug’s Resurrection?

Draug’s Resurrection is a completely free, nonlinear RPG developed by one person. As the name suggests, it is a tale of the resurrection of the warlord Draug, and its quest to obtain the nine artifacts it held in life, thus restoring Draug’s full power and memories, and ultimately stopping the necromancer who raised you, Damian, from unleashing mass destruction upon the world. Or usurp his reign and become an immortal tyrant, or anything in between. Each artifact has the scenario surrounding it continually change over time, and these scenarios love cross-referencing each other. What you don’t do is just as important as what and when you do decide to do it.

For instance, one of Draug’s artifacts resides in the Midland Woods, guarded by a small group of priestesses. If you do the artifact early, it’ll be a fairly simple affair of trying to win the priestess’ trust (or kill them if you’re a huge jerk) and then pounding through a bunch of spiders and other beasties through the forest. However, if you leave the artifact for later, the local army will reinforce the area, not wanting Draug to obtain the artifact and grow ever stronger. If you’ve helped the army out in other locales, or if you’ve assisted other priestesses elsewhere, schisms will fracture the army’s presence in the area. If you’ve given them little reason to trust you, the army and the priestesses will happily work together and become a much more intimidating force. There’s even the third option of you murdered the residing priestesses early but never got the artifact, resulting in a similar but different way for the events to play out.

So where can I download it?

From RPGMaker.net or [itch.io link here].

As of this page's initial writing, there are plans to release version 0.9.0 in a couple of weeks, so I'd recommend sitting tight until then; I figure it better to get people up to speed before its release, rather than afterwards. Despite the name, 0.9.0 is pretty much the full game, but without a thorough playtesting or twenty, I can't in good faith say it's done and stable until then. There's also a couple major issues with trying an 'Evil Draug' playthrough. Still, in ideal circumstances, 0.9.0 is a complete game that takes about 20-30 hours to complete.

At DR’s sheer scope and my extremely limited ability to playtest all possible scenarios, there’ll always be bugs that slip through, or incredibly specific scenarios I didn’t plan for, large or small, which may range from a scenario getting stuck or an NPC talking about something that didn’t actually happen. I’m fairly committed to rooting out as many bugs as I can, and a set of eyes that aren’t mine’ll find things I didn’t think of or have gone numb to. Please contact me if you find anything egregarious. Just a comment on here should be good.

What’s the Battle System like?

Draug’s Resurrection’s battles take place on a 4x2 grid, and is part classic turn-based RPG battles and part turn-based strategy. Positioning is important, but rather than maneuvering around a mostly empty field, you’re swapping in and out of places with both allies and enemies, so you’re always in someone’s line of fire. Other things like Area-of-Effect spells, fancy Ailments, and beneficial Enhancements add further nuance to the system.

It’s a very extensive system, and while most of it is finished and works quite well, there’s still a few holdout spells that aren’t finished yet, mostly those related to counterattack-style Enhancements. Even without them, the Battle System feels complete.

As the game is nonlinear, monsters have to find some way to scale with the player. But scaling always carries massive issues. DR's solution is that monsters themselves do not level, but the chance of seeing them fluctuates with game progression. In simplest terms, there are 18 monsters in each of the game's eight regions with a high probability to encounter at any given time. It results in the player feeling like they're getting stronger, but also remain challenged by encounters. It also means that the majority of monsters will never be seen in a playthrough, tying in nicely with other nonlinear aspects.

It should also be briefly noted that there are options to change the difficulty of encounters or virtually remove them from the game, if you're interested only the the story. The reverse is also an option; higher difficulties technically give you greater freedom to customize characters as you want, as they effectively start at lower levels.

Who are the characters of Draug’s Resurrection?

Including Draug, there are 25 possible party members in Draug’s Resurrection. It’s impossible to get all of them in one playthrough; some of the requirements for one will seal off the other, and if those characters meet, a fight to the death is likely. Further, some can be recruited concurrently, but will refuse to be in the party together. While the party only has room for four, I personally suggest keeping an active rotation of at least six characters; there’s several occasions when you’ll be using multiple parties at the same time.

All characters have one type of weapon, one element of spells, and one class of armour. There are overlaps, but its enough that each character should feel fairly unique. How you equip them determines how they'll level, and spells can be learned in any order you desire, by equipping the appropriate tome for an extended period of time. Both are done simply by completing battles while equipped accordingly; you don't have to do needless stupid actions to increase your skill with anything. Following up on that thought, there's a trio of pages detailing these points in a bit more detail:

Experience and Levelling Up

Personal Skills

Learned Weapon Skills

#Draug's Resurrection #RPG #gamedev #indie game dev #screenshot

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sillylittlelouie · 4 years

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Children are Short(s): (Not Exactly) Snowed In

Fun Fact: as of yesterday, 1 year has passed since I started writing this little bit! ^_^

___________________________

"Don't you want to go play in the snow with the other children, Milan?"

M-21 poked his head out of his nest of blankets, just long enough to give Taejoon hyung a bad look. Then he covered his head back up.

No, he didn't want to go out and play in the snow. He was nice and warm and dry inside, all wrapped up in blankets and sweaters and jackets and coats.

Yeah he'd have to give them back to the teachers when it was time to go home, but that was then and this was now. He was finally warm, and he wasn't giving it up for nothing.

"Milan, come on, you might actually like the snow!"

No, he wouldn't. People froze to death in the snow. He'd seen it when he was with 24. They turned blue and then bits and pieces of them started falling off.

And the ice that came with snow was dan-ger-ous too. People could fall on it and crack their heads open.

"Mi-"

" 'm gonna die if I go out there," M-21 grumbled, intrupting Taejoon hyung. His fingers started to hurt from how much he'd been thinking about the cold. In fact, it reminded him of the time one of his fingers fell off from the cold. He found his fingers and blew on them, just to make sure that they didn't get too cold.

"No you wo-- Milan, who told you that you'd die if you went out in the snow?" Taejoon hyung asked. He sounded tired, like how M-13 would sound whenever M-64 tried to frighten him.

Or like how Takeo sounded whenever Tao stayed up all night.

"Was it Hyun-bin? I swear, that boy-"

"My brother told me that," M-21 in-ter-rup-ted. Usually, talking about his brothers was always enough to make them leave him alone. But for some reason, Taejoon hyung wasn't having it.

He growled, low, like how Muzaka had done that time when Frankenstein tricked him. But he didn't sound mad. In fact, he sounded even more tired. And sad. And a little bit angry.

"That's it, I'm not doing this anymore," he said, breathing out in a huff. "It is a very fine day outside -even if it's a bit chilly -"

M-21 frowned. He didn't like how hyung was talking now. It almost sounded like...

"-and you are going to go outside to play with the other children and then you are all going to track so much snow and dirt inside, that I'm going to regret letting you guys go outside."

M-21 gasped, and his eyes started going wide.

No.

No, no, no!

"Oh yes, you are going outside, Milan. I'll get you out there, even if it kills me!"

Frankenstein had said that he wasn't allowed to growl at, or bite regular humans, so M-21 couldn't snap at hyung. But he couldn't let hyung drag him outside.

And hyung would, because he sounded just like how Frankenstein did whenever it was bathtime. And there was no getting out of bathtime. It was enevytible.

M-21 bit his lip worriedly, looking all over his blanket 'coon, trying to find a way out. But he'd made it too good and now he was trapped.

"Milan..."

One of Taejoon hyung's hands got inside, and he did the only thing that he could think of. He got a big glob of spit on his tongue and licked hyung.

"Ugh, Milan!" hyung shouted, pulling his hand out of the blankets at once. "That's disgusting!"

M-21 blinked. What...just happened? He blinked again, crunching up his nose when a bit of air blew inside.

He didn't know why hyung had chosen to leave him alone, but he knew how to make hyung stop now. He smiled and closed the coon.

Maybe it would work on Frankenstein?

Frankenstein puffed into his hands as he stepped into the preschool, breathing life back into his cold fingers. Even with several centuries and modifications under his belt, the cold still managed to worm its way into his joints and stiffen them.

Stomping his feet on the mat to rid his boots of snow, he stepped into the building proper and began making his way towards the pick-up area.

To Frankenstein's surprise, the pick-up area was void of children and caretakers. Worry began to blossom in his chest before he firmly squashed it.

M-21 had been given several distress beacons after his kidnapping by the DA-5, courtesy of Tao. All of the beacons were simple in design and were activated even more simply. The only thing that the child needed to do to turn his beacons on was to fall back onto any of his self-soothing habits.

So the chances of something happening quickly or efficiently enough to prevent the boy from alerting anyone were slim.

Reassured, Frankenstein ventured into the heart of the building. The first few rooms that he passed were all empty. But the faint sound of giggling had begun, prompting him to follow.

To his surprise, the sound of laughter didn't lead him to any of the classrooms. Instead, it took him to a playroom at the back; one that led into the backyard. Then again, it wasn't that surprising. It had snowed rather heavily earlier, resulting in a nice pileup of snow that enticed even high school students to frolic in the cold.

Smiling, Frankenstein poked his head into the doorway. Laughter bubbled up from his chest when he caught sight of the unsettled expressions on some of the teachers' faces. That seemed to be their default when it came to M-21.

Smiling wryly at them, he stepped into the room and gave it a brief once over. No grey haired child greeted him.

His heart sank.

Not again. No, no, no, where was his little one? Where was his son?

A hand snaked into his quickly tunnelling vision, drawing his attention and ire. Why were these teachers so calm when M-21 was gone!?

Frankenstein turned to Mr. Choi, barely keeping hold of his dark spear. But he could feel it bubbling close to the surface, more so than it usually did. Its voices raged, as they usually did, hissing in his ears, making sweet promises at first, then devolving into venomous threats when he didn't loosen his control over them.

They got under his skin, warming him with rage. Logical thought fled out the window, and Frankenstein just snapped. "Where is M-Milan!?" he raged, advancing on the caretaker, who stumbled backwards. "Why isn't he-"

"Here!" Mrs. Kim burst out, literally jumping in between he and the other teacher. Her eyes were widened with fear as she herself took a few steps away from Frankenstein. She tittered, holding up trembling hands."Milan is here," she continued, voice steady, even as it rose to a nervous pitch. "He is right here, safe and unharmed, in an area where we can easily monitor him. Right, Taejoon?" She glanced over her shoulder as if seeking confirmation from the man in question.

Mr. Choi, who'd moved over to a pile of blankets on the floor, nodded furiously as he practically dove into them. Almost immediately, the lanky male sprang back out, disgust etched into his features.

"Milan! Quit licking meee!" He shook off the saliva as he gazed at Frankenstein with a plea in his eyes.

"Milan has been hiding in there all afternoon," Mrs. Kim supplied, catching his attention again. "Every time we try to get him out, he-" she broke off, gesturing at Mr. Choi - "keeps licking us." She shrugged. "But it's cold out, and we figured that since he wasn't hurting anyone by staying in there, we'd let him stay until you came."

"I see."

And, as he began wrangling with the Dark Spear, Frankenstein found that he did see.

M-21 had endured a life of deprivation in the Union, despite the efforts made by the others in his series. There was a rather high possibility that the boy had already experienced the brutality of a winter spent in inadequate housing. That would have been enough to murder any fantasies that he might have had about the snow, had he been a regular child, from a financially stable household.

It was a reaction that Frankenstein could understand.

It was one that he could relate to, unfortunately.

He sighed and made his way over to the pile of blankets. Crouching down as low as he could, he peered inside, and was met with a wary glare. When he did nothing other than staring, the glare broke down.

"'s cold out there," the eyes whined.

Frankenstein nodded. "That it is." He folded his legs in front of himself as he sat on the floor. The action always seemed to give M-21 some sort of comfort that he couldn't parse, no mater how he tried. So he'd given up on trying to understand it, and simply accepted it for what it was. "Care to tell me why you're bundled up in there though?"

M-21 eyes took on an incredulous glint. "It's warm in here."

Frankenstein nodded again. "But it's even warmer at home." He pretended that that he hadn't heard the mutinous grumble coming from the blankets. "And we have hot apple cider at home." The blankets shifted a little, and Frankenstein had to bite back a smile. He had him now...

"...cookies?" M-21 called out, hopefully.

This time, Frankenstein did smile. He leaned forward and tugged the topmost blanket away, unsurprised to find another in its place. For how Mr. Choi had dived into them earlier, he'd suspected that there had to have been quite a few of them.

"There'll be a fresh batch of peach cobbler cookies if we leave soon."

M-21's head emerged, and he made eye contact. "With marshm'llows on top?"

A chuckle escaped Frankenstein as he scooped his boy up. The teachers, who up until that point, had been flanking him, parted for him to pass through. He made his way to the cubbies that the children used, trying to maneuver M-21 into his own jacket. Their combined body heat would keep the young werewolf warm, at least until they got home. "Don't push it," he joked.

When he was finished, M-21 poked his head out the neck of Frankenstein's jacket and gave him a cheeky grin. "Tao-hyung says that I wouldn't be me if I didn't push it."

"And Tao-hyung would be correct," Frankenstein agreed, picking up M-21's belongings from his cubby as they passed. "What say you. Should we give him a bit of hell for it when we get home?"

He looked up at the clear blue sky, not needing to look to tell that the boy was giving him yet another cheeky grin in reply.

#children talk #Frankestein #M-21 #Hating the cold

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glorious-blackout · 4 years

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Summary of Junior Doctor Life - Part Nine:

Got a call at 3am from the Advanced Nurse Practitioners who do rounds of the hospital at night. They basically wanted to make sure I wasn’t snowed under, which was lovely of them. So lovely in fact, that I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the reason they’d missed me during their rounds was because I was holed up in the Doctors’ Room watching ‘Derry Girls’.

Good news can feel like an anomaly on some days and miraculous recoveries are as rare as you’d expect, but they can happen. By the end of my first night-shift I had two patients who were very unwell and had shown no improvement despite being given appropriate treatment. One of them had gone to ICU in the hope that he might ultimately pull through, but my registrar received a call at 7am informing him that nothing more could be done. The other patient was a lady who was only appropriate for ward-level care (anything more would likely be futile), and we ultimately had to start her on morphine via a syringe-driver to provide comfort because she was so breathless. I left work that morning feeling rather deflated and expecting both patients to die during the day. The man sadly did pass away in ICU, however I arrived at work to find that the woman had remained relatively stable. Two nights later I was taking her off her syringe-driver because she frankly didn’t need it, and two weeks later we’re now thinking of getting her home. Not the most common outcome for someone who at one point was knocking on death’s door, but certainly a welcome one!

During a rather busy night, I got a call twenty minutes into my break asking me to come back to the ward immediately. When I tried to get some information, the nurse barely managed five words before resorting to “Just come to the ward!” Turns out one of the patients had managed to disconnect the attachment to his cannula, meaning there was nothing stopping his blood from leaving the vein and escaping into the outside world. By the time this was discovered, his bedsheets were almost completely red and his blood pressure was in his boots, to the point where we needed to pour a litre of IV fluids into him as quickly as the machines would allow.

He was ultimately fine and cracking jokes before we’d even got one bag of fluids into him (including, but not limited to, “I thought I’d had a wet dream!”). What made him more problematic, however, was that he’d been admitted in the first place with chronic anaemia, which blood loss obviously doesn’t help. It wasn’t long before we were arranging a blood transfusion on top of the IV fluids we’d already given him.

Got called to prescribe some IV fluids on my last day of nights, at the tail-end of what had been a rather hectic shift. In the hopes of grabbing a break, I asked if there was anything else needing done that I could quickly power through, only for the nurse to say she didn’t know. I must have looked about as rotten as I felt, because her friend immediately came to my rescue and said “Well go and check, the poor girl wants to sleep!”

We’ve had a couple of patients recently with horrendous kidney failure leading to fluid overload because they can’t produce urine, so now several nurses are acutely concerned with how often patients are peeing. It’s not an unfounded concern, but the patients they make you aware of tend to have perfectly normal kidney function on their blood results and very little urine in their bladder on an ultrasound scan (we might worry about urinary retention if they were holding over 600mls). The kicker is that on particularly busy shifts, those same patients are often managing to pee far more regularly than we are.

Confirming a death tends to be more of a box-ticking exercise than anything else. Often the nurse will do a quick check themselves beforehand and they may even leave it a while before contacting a doctor to give the family space to say goodbye. Ultimately, by the time we enter the patient’s room it tends to be obvious that they’re gone before you even check for a pulse, and thankfully none of us have had a Monty Python-esque “I’m not dead yet!” moment so far.

One of my colleagues came close though. After being asked to confirm an expected death of a palliative patient, he walked into the room only for said patient to turn his head when he announced himself. Apparently he managed to recover from his mini heart-attack just in time to blurt out “Just wanted to see how you were doing sir!” and perform an impromptu review, despite wondering what the hell was going on and why he’d been asked to confirm the death of a very much alive man. He got his answer upon leaving the room, when the nurse rolled her eyes and said, “The next room, you pillock!”

I spent my night-shifts with a genuinely lovely registrar who was always available if I needed to page him and managed to put me at ease even when we were dealing with really sick or dying patients. He was such a reassuring presence that the two hectic nights (out of four) didn’t necessarily feel like bad nights. In contrast, the girl who did her night-shift after me got a registrar who was sick (and therefore made her examine every patient on his behalf), complained very loudly about the fact that he was at work, looked rather pissed off at me when I dared to go home (despite the fact that my back-shift should have ended half an hour earlier), and proceeded to spend eight hours of a twelve-hour shift sleeping on the mattress in our Doctors’ room so my colleague had nowhere to go to rest. It’s luck of the draw which registrar you end up with, but if our positions were swapped I probably would have spent my night-shifts craving the sweet release of death.

My registrar’s quirk is that he has a weird love of taking blood from the femoral artery (accessed via the groin) in patients with horrendous venous access. To be fair, there is a certain logic to this - it’s far less painful than taking arterial blood from the wrist and if you can get into the femoral artery, you’re more likely to collect a large sample so you can run more tests. It’s just always amusing to witness an enthusiastic Spanish man declare, “Let’s go for the groin!” when he finds out we’re struggling to take blood from a patient.

We’ve finally found out what jobs we’re getting next year! My FY2 is going to be spent between Geriatrics, Neonates and Obstetrics/Gynaecology so there’ll be a whooole lotta babies 😊 Still not too keen on Geriatrics, but I’m delighted about the Neonates job and Obstetrics is the only surgical specialty I actually like so I’m pretty thrilled overall. Though I imagine my poor sister - who happens to be a neonatal nurse - is going to be subjected to a lot of texts which basically boil down to ‘Help!!!’

#junior doctor shenanigans #medicine #rambling #long post #my surgical block is over in a month which is pretty surreal #the shifts can be rubbish but I'm honestly going to miss it far more than I thought I would

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duckapus · 5 years

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My Danny Phantom Reboot (as was owed for the Phight)

Okay, so first off I should mention that this is going to be less “what if someone made a reboot of Danny Phantom now” and more “what if Danny Phantom was done right to start with.” This means there’ll be more emphasis on storytelling and characters, none of H*rtm*n’s usual shenanigans, but the storyline as it was is going to be more-or-less intact, depending on what I think I can salvage.

So, let’s talk powers.

Danny is going to have all the powers he did in the show, given gradually and with clear foreshadowing. His ghost sense is currently just a bit too conspicuous, so I’ll be changing it from a wisp of cold breath to a chill up his spine, though for the sake of the audience there will be a visual and audio indicator of it, much like Spider-Man’s spider sense. Starting out, he just has that and the three basic ghost powers, though they won’t work properly for a while, and I’ll make it clear that this is because his half-ghost status prevented him from gaining the instinctual knowledge to control them outright. While there are some abilities that he gains during times of stress (like ectoblasts and the ghostly wail) he’ll have to actually practice in order for them to work with any level of consistency.

Like I mentioned, there will be some foreshadowing, specifically when it comes to his ice powers. There’s going to be multiple points where someone mentions that he has cold hands, with many of those people being ghosts to imply that it isn’t a ghost thing. There’ll be more emphasis on Ghost Cores and Core Types. Danny isn’t going to be as affected by warmer or colder temperatures as other people, usually being the last one to need to put on a jacket. He’s going to be somewhat weak to fire-based attacks. And there’s going to be a multi-episode buildup to his powers freezing him.

I’m also going all-in on the space motif. His bedroom is covered in star stickers and NASA posters. He tends to look up at the stars whenever he needs time to think. He isn’t afraid of heights at all because up is good, up is safe, up is home, and flight is the only power he never has trouble with as a result.

And now, for Danny’s parents. First off, for this, they do not want to destroy ghosts. They want to study them, understand them, and keep people safe from the ones that cause trouble. They know full well how little they actually know and how small their sample size is- that’s why they’re working on equipment to actually explore the Ghost Zone in the first place! Yes they’ll screw up, and jump to conclusions, and be a bit too enthusiastic. Yes, they’re working off of some pretty big assumptions, because that’s all they’ve got. But at the end of the day, they’re the first to admit they’re not perfect. And as far as priorities are concerned, they’re parents first, scientists second, and hunters third(if even that).

Jazz and Tucker are already good as-is, as are most of the ghosts, so let’s move on to Sam and the “A-listers.”

So starting off, because I’m not Fartman, I will not be vilifying the popular kids just because they’re popular. For Qwan, we’ve already got the fanon of him being a sweet cinnamon roll who’d be a great friend to everybody if he were just able to say no, specifically to Dash. And with Star I’ll be going with a strong-willed girl who’s fully willing to call the others out when they’re bullshit goes to far, though she’s admittedly got a looser definition of “too far” than she should.

And now the big three. So my interpretation of Sam, Dash and Paulina is that a big chunk of their issues come from them not quite growing out of their jackass middle schooler phase(you all know what I mean). That’s not all of it, or even most of it, but it’s a big enough part that them acknowledging it will be a huge step in the right direction.

In Sam’s case, a lot of it also stems from her need to control as much of her life as she can, which developed in response to how little control her parents let her have. This ranges from harmless (her love of gardening and “ultra-recyclo-vegetarianism”) to really not okay (her tendency to manipulate or strong-arm people into doing what she wants) with her harsh judgement of people and trust issues landing somewhere in the upper middle. All of this to say that she’s a lot more like her parents (and Paulina, to a lesser extent) than she realizes.

With Paulina, while she does still have a lot of problems, being a crazy, obsessive fangirl isn’t one of them. She knows full well that her feelings for Phantom are just a celebrity crush and they aren’t about to get together any time soon (the boy’s dead as far as she knows, for god’s sake!). She’s also very observant, not to the point of finding out the truth about Danny but enough to realize quite a few other important details…

With Dash, all I’m really going to be changing is that his Football Star status absolutely does not give him free reign to do whatever he wants, because I respect Mr. Lancer more than that.

Admittedly I haven’t quite figured out their other classmates yet. And Valerie’s arc is already good as-is, though I won’t be including her getting shunned by the “A-listers” because this version of Star ain’t gonna let that fly. I’m also including Wes, because his antics are glorious and I think I can do some cool stuff with him.

Now, along with giving the characters better characterization in general, I’ll also be giving them their own time in the limelight to show what Danny’s situation looks like from an outsider’s perspective. Valerie in particular ends up as something of a secondary protagonist.

And now we come to Vlad. Oh, Vlad.

Okay, so in this version, Vlad inviting the Fentons to the reunion was a genuine attempt to reconnect. Unfortunately ghostly obsessions are powerful things, and he sort of relapsed into hating Jack and wanting Maddie for himself. Things more-or-less continue as normal, though with his desire to take on Danny as an apprentice coming off as him actually, genuinely wanting to teach Danny how being a halfa works, which makes it a little comically awkward when he tries to turn their battles into a teaching moment. He still becomes the mayor, though this time around it’s because he genuinely thought it was a good idea, and he got voted in legitimately.

Unfortunately it all sort of goes downhill after a while. Due to his current mentality of “tired old uncle just wants to get over his issues and help out” clashing with his obsession with Jack and Maddie, he’s sort of cracking, and the fact that Danny adds an extra layer to both isn’t really a good thing.

And then we get the clones. In this version, they all last a lot longer, and sort of act as Vlad’s minions for a while. The Frankenstein’s Monster-esque one sort of acts as a big brother to the others. He’s also very smart, even if he can’t really say much, and as time goes on he starts to realize that something is very wrong with Vlad. It all comes to a head when Dani is created, because Vlad realizes that even with a human half she still isn’t stable and something inside him just snaps. At this moment, there’s now two Vlads in there; Masters, who’s honestly just tired of all the fighting and pushing people away, and Plasmius, who’s essentially season three Vlad in all of his megalomaniacle obsession-fueled glory. Frankendanny’s destabilization is a big moment in this, as are the other clones holding back Vlad as they’re melting so Danny and Dani can escape at the end of the episode.

Dani still ends up traveling after that, though she’s not just ignored as she’ll be sending Danny postcards of places she’s been and there’ll be a few episodes dedicated to her adventures (with some hints to her instability getting worse.)

D-stabilized is where thing get really crazy. This is because while I’ve been distracting you with my Danny Phantom remake, there’s been a secret, second remake of Fairly Oddparents hidden in the background! I won’t go into too much detail, since that’s not what this is about, but It follows the same structure of apply overarching story, focus on characters, trim off what doesn’t work. Because of this, Timmy happens to be in the same city where Valerie finds Dani (I don’t think they were in Amity Park yet, but I’m not sure) and meets Dani before Valerie does. The episode plays out more-or-less the same (Val uses Dani as bait to catch Danny, gives Dani to Vlad, Danny appeals to her better nature, she finds out that Vlad is an evil half-ghost and that not all ghosts are evil thus shattering her world view) but with the addition of Timmy tracking her down to her weird holding cell/torture room place (seriously, what was up with that?) and then tagging along and somehow holding his own against Fright Knight with nothing but a blaster he managed to swipe from her (since not only does he have to deal with having human allies, but also the fact that magic doesn’t work that well on ghosts, which means no fairy help).

After that, there’s a few breather episodes to the end of the third season, mainly to do with Valerie processing everything she’s just learned.

And then Freakshow gets the reality gauntlet, because I’ve been holding that off until now. Danny gets his identity revealed on live television, the Guys in White are after him, and Freakshow is holding Amity Park hostage until Danny can find the three stones he scattered.

There’s just a few small changes I’ve made:

The stones got scattered across the planet, instead of just the country

There’s no easy way to track the stones unless one gets activated, unlike in the original where they had ecto-signatures

Wes and the “A-Listers” get dragged along for the ride

Because Freakshow isn’t a complete idiot and realizes that it will take a significant amount of time to find the stones, the team has until the end of summer.

Instead of everybody being in cages (since that won’t really work with this time frame) Amity Park is surrounded by an impenetrable dome, and both ghost portals are clogged up. Nobody gets in or out unless the ringmaster says so.

The second and third parts of Wishology and an adaptation of Nicktoons Unite are happening alongside all of this, so along with GIW and ghosts the team is going to be dealing with the Eliminators and The Syndicate.

Carl, Sheen and Libby have somehow tagged along.

We’ll be calling this arc the Road-trip from Hell, and it, along with the other two story arcs, will be taking up the entirety of the fourth season. The other two arcs will experience changes as well, such as Dani going with Timmy, Mark Chang and the Villains to find the Wind Wand due to being in Dimmsdale when it happens, Catman, Chip Skylark, Elmer and Sanjay getting captured along with the rest of Timmy’s friends, Valerie and Tootie getting recruited by Jimmy to fight the Syndicate since Timmy and Danny are busy and they’re honestly the only two options, and Anti-Cosmo being the Fairly Oddparents representative for the Syndicate since Crocker is also busy.

For the sake of storytelling, I should mention that GIW is a fanatical splinter group of MERF in this continuity, and have already been established as major antagonists. Also throughout the season Fairy World is basically going to be a warzone locked in a three-way battle between the Fairies, the Anti-Fairies and Syndicate, and the Eliminators, which all three groups see at one point or another.

The final battle is really going to be four going on simultaneously- Danny and Team Phantom(which by this point will also include the reformed agents O and K, because I like them) vs Ghost Freakshow, the robot army just outside of town, and Lydia; the Nicktoons vs the Syndicate’s doomsday device; Cosmo in his Godzilla form vs everything the Syndicate and the Eliminators can throw at him, and Timmy vs The Destructinator (which will actually be a full-on fight, with the outsmarting thing just being Timmy’s trump card). It’s going to be really cool with a bunch of well-timed jump-cuts and everything.

Then in the aftermath I’m going to basically spit in the face of the status quo. Danny still erases peoples memories of his reveal, but leaves out the new members of Team Phantom (because if he has to remember the road-trip from hell, so does everybody else), and it also doesn’t work on Valerie (or Tootie) since they were in Jimmy’s universe at the time, which is going to be Fun for Danny to deal with when she gets back. Timmy, Chester and AJ are also immune, due to AJ secretly making the three of them immune to memory wipes in general so Timmy wouldn’t have to forget his fairies or go through what happened in the first Wishology again. He would’ve done the same with Elmer and Sanjay, but he didn’t get the chance.

After all that, season five is a return to the norm, other than dealing with the new character dynamics, the Vlad situation, and all the Fairly Oddparents stuff leaking in. I haven’t really worked out all the specifics, since I sort of got caught up in the season four stuff.

Note: For obvious reasons, I cannot actually reboot Danny Phantom and/or Fairly Oddparents. Unless I come up with ideas later on down the line, or other people decide to add their own ideas, this is what you get.

(@phandomphightclub, I did it!)

#danny phantom #dpreboot #fairly oddparents #reboot #concept #phantom phight club #lost a bet #phantom planet isn't canon #this was fun #long post #sorry

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gg-astrology · 5 years

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TWICE Im Nayeon - Overview

Hello! 💕 I’m back at it again with a TWICE overview!! 💕 Today I’m trying to work on Nayeon, Jeongyeon and Dahyun!! 💕💕 By the time I’m done with Nayeon’s though-- it’s quite late ;; So I’ll probably finish Jeongyeon and Dahyun’s tomorrow!! 💕💕💕 But please-- have a Virgo cutie pie today!! 💕💕💕

Disclaimer: For unknown Birthtimes we’re going to use the standard 12.00pm --and as always, please read with your own discretion! 💕

September 22nd, 1995

Virgo Sun (3rd Decan/Taurus)

god don’t you just love a Virgo sun goddess??💕💕

Especially in the third decan -- the Virgo/Taurus Venusian beauty is such a joyful chill lovely being

Out of all the decans-- Virgo/Taurus may be the more social of the bunch, not overly social like a buzz buzz butterfly, but gracious and sociable.

People approach them because they feel comfortable to be around-- they may look after you, but they also expect you to look after yourself. With a certain Venusian quality to them-- they may be adept at taking care of others in a nurturing way as well.

Caring-- basically, but not like-- naggy about it. Atleast not necessary, there’ll be moments sometimes where it comes out because they DO care about others and can’t help but worry for them-- but generally-- they may be the chillest-- willing to let things slide, but also stubborn in some area as well.

Criticality is still there but it isn’t super prominent-- it comes out when it’s necessary, good listeners and a comforting shoulder to cry on.

The type to tuck your hair behind your ear and put an arm comfortingly around your shoulder as they sit with you while you cry. That’s the kind of Virgo/Taurus decan is for people sometimes (*depends on other things as well)

Besides this-- Virgo in the 2nd decans also tend to be quite jovial. As in-- they’re fun loving, peaceful. Exudes a certain serenity to them despite the on-going anxiety/restlessness they feel as a mutable sign.

Sometimes you can’t even tell they’re anxious about something because they give so much stability/structure to others that people are distracted away from it.

Unlike the seriousness of Virgo/Capricorn decan or the curiousity/intellect of the Virgo/Virgo decan --- Virgo/Taurus tend to focus more on the self. Self-satisfaction, self-stability. Finding happiness in the small trivial things in life (maybe a butterfly, something they’ve seen today) -- it helps with curbing some of their anxiety but also to find balance.

With the grace of Venusian decan they can often have an optimistic ‘I can do it!’ attitude. It’s a joy to be around--- because Virgos are essentially workers, they like to be productive.

This sense of positivity to their general attitude/disposition certainly helps with landing them in many roles bc others react well when they seem co-operative/enthusiastic about it!

Y know-- like it’s their disposition. Besides being a ‘solid’ person to depend on bc of how calming/straight-forward thinking they can be (looking on what to do/step-by-step for the future) the type to go ‘ok, let me see if you’re feeling ok first. Then we can work on what to do next together’

Virgo/Taurus decan combines efficiency with hard-work. They aren’t afraid to work hard or put in effort in order to get to a stable/solid ground again. They’re loyal-- first and foremost. So if you think they’re going to ditch you you thought wrong.

They’re earnestly the type to help you up a semi-difficult hike, offering you their hand so you can get on the same level and work your way up together. Trusting and dedicated-- it’s that solid/stable core beneath their positive personality that makes them so likeable to many people.

Nayeon’s Virgo Sun in the 2nd decan can also be the kind of person whom-- when confronted with a problem, takes the time to process different perspective of how to approach it.

Virgos pay attention to the details-- and in this case the details have more to do with a ‘situation’ at hand and how to tackle it. They aren’t looking at the result, or what would become after. They’re looking at the thing ‘solid’ thing they can grasps--- the problem/situation/thing that needs to be solved-- and then work on the process of resolving it in the way that they can.

Honesty and personal integrity comes with this placement--- as with many other Virgos-- those with Virgo Sun places a high expectancy to be as honest and ‘pure’ as possible. Pure-hearted in a way, they don’t want to be misunderstood or place other’s expectations too high/low unless they can take it/come through with it for them.

Disappointment-- not just from themselves but from others around them is a harsh thing to take. So they set their own margins and work on succeeding in what they can do, working on things step by step until they can achieve the ‘overall’ picture as a ‘success’.

With Mercury and Venus influencing her Sun -- there’s an expectancy and general happiness at ‘serving’ others. More so than the other decans-- this is about social/personal responsibility. Their actions influences those around them, and taking too much/too little is something they may be aware of.

It’s about the equilibrium y know? Like Taurus-- imagine the bull minding it’s own business grazing on the field. It’s not hurting anyone unless threatened, and if it sees something that threatens it it doesn’t back down.

Being considerate of others, if you want others to be considerate to yourself is also a thing they may be attuned with. Subconsciously or not-- there’s social etiquette or expectancy they agree with/work within in order to create a ‘system’ that benefits everyone.

It’s about being fair and playing fair in this case-- where they can see, how certain action/inconsideration may hurt others so they hold back from doing so. They’re socially conscious in a way that they may not notice-- often it may just be intuitive (Mercury/Venus) and how they’re naturally picking up on these things without realizing.

Trust that with the combination of Virgo/Taurus -- if something is seriously wrong/hurting/against their own values. They’re the type to politely point out why in a critical and straight-forward manner.

Most of the time, they’re mild-mannered and peaceful. But that doesn’t mean she’s a push-over. She knows when and when not to do something-- she just has strong social nuance to her as well (people smart, but more like sociable smart. Naturally popular as well)

Because she does have this Taurusean decan with her Virgo Sun--- there’s a strong inclination for Virgo/Taurus to seek pursuits that allows their creativity to shine through, or show them in a good light. Fashion, make up -- certain ‘materials’ that can enhance/showcase this creative pursuit is also something that may also interest them as well.

Nayeon’s beautiful singing voice might also be attributed to how many Mercury decans and Venusian influences she has in her placements.

In her sun-- that talks about the self, ego, purpose, esteem/confidence-- finding a ‘purpose’ for yourself also attribute to being able to be creative and non-restrictive.

Virgos typically have pretty clear voices, depending on other things as well-- they can also have different shade/ranges to them.

With Virgo/Taurus in her Sun (and in her context) -- there’s a steady-marching beat to her progress upward. Virgos-- like every other Virgo decans, may have a certain personal standards and assessment of quality (external) to them. With Taurus in the mix-- it’s finding quality of life.

The main focus/goal of Virgo/Taurus is to find a high enough quality of work/life/personal philosophy that allows them to prosper at a ‘stable’ pace. It’s not about biting off more than you can chew, or putting herself in a place where she doesn’t have any ‘stability’. That’s a no-no since her anxiety would sky-rocket with how unstable her life is (and without support/socially as well -- Venusian sign after all)

It’s about finding personal contentment--- pushing from the internal out (nocturnal signs) starting with a good ‘thinking/mind-set’ that they can carry and revisit/re-energize from whenever they feel lost/unbalanced.

This internal ‘good mindset/thinking’ also helps with keeping the person humble, trying hard, friendly and not get big-headed.

Taurus curbs some of Virgo’s over-thinking and stress/worries that can be obsessive or pointless. It’s a breath of fresh air that decisively cuts off terrible habits (that she might still have) and open your perspective.

Simple questions like ‘Am I happy?’ or ‘Am I doing what makes me happy?’ --- simplification of things, certainly helps Virgo Suns out alot. Don’t overcomplicate it.

Besides this-- Virgo/Taurus can also be very very patient/tolerant people. Not to the extent that they TAKE everything you throw at them, but if it’s working towards a purpose that is personally fulfilling to them (light at the end of the tunnel) -- they can take a lot of pressure before they break (given that they have enough stability/nurturing around them as well)

Honestly, I’d say having the girls around her is such a big part of what keeps this Virgo from not being lonely.

Loneliness is always a thing that most Virgos suffer from. Isolated obsession/thoughts and can quickly become their personal demons sometimes, and increase anxiety/darkness inside of them that can affect their entire disposition quickly (like poison in the vein, spreading quickly).

Virgo/Taurus takes a lot of things on their own, but don’t let them be alone. Don’t let them be lonely or lost in their own over-bearing thoughts by themselves. Sometimes they can sink too deep too fast, getting ‘stuck’ in their own ‘what do/to do = despair’. Mutables are sensitive--- make sure to look after them too.

Last few notes on Virgo Sun in the Taurus decans-- they are amazingly warm-hearted and generous. Protective of those they love, but also appreciative of their efforts and ‘nature’. They’re the type of people (she’s the type of person) who doesn’t like pretenses or pretentiousness.

Approaching her truthfully as you are --- with your shyness, nervousness, etc. Is endearing and shouldn’t be seen as a flaw. Because they’re so accepting and generous-- they’re selective with people who come to them. People who are willing to listen, to let down part of their shield and let themselves believe that there’s love, hope and betterment in the world (this they can teach them, but only if that person lets them.)

Most of all--- they’re simply looking for people who are open and receptive. People who are just themselves, isn’t hiding or lashing out at others unnecessarily.

Isn’t putting on airs--- god, people who put on airs or ‘pretend’ to have/be something they’re not probably piss them off the most. Most Virgos wouldn’t even engage with them-- and that’s the same with Nayeon here.

You might think certain ‘pretenses’ like ‘let’s go on this holiday’ or ‘lets do something together’ is unnecessary--- but for Virgo/Taurus sometimes this is just a way to find fulfillment and emotional bond with people.

Given they aren’t the most emotional of people (by themselves, often logical/rational people more than you realize/when it comes to serious decisions) but this is engagement.

It’s something that creates memories or experiences with people, it’s something that isn’t showy/out-there but can make a huge difference in the dynamic if you indulge them or allow them to do this with you. They literally never ask for anymore more than just--- experiences with you, good memories and getting to know you better. This is all they ask for. So let them do it with you.

Leo Moon (3rd Decan/Aries)

Lovely!!! 💕 They are so lovely I love Leo Moons!! 💕💕💕💕

Leo brings a certain stability to the Virgo Sun above-- if all else fails, this Leo Moon will shut down everything else in order to get Shit Done even if it’s themselves/their own emotions (compartmentalize/internalize emotions sometimes)

Charming, affectionate and loyal --- Leo Moons don’t give themselves enough credit even when they deserve to be loved the way they want to be.

They are rather romantic, and sometimes they can often re-enact something out or speak to inanimate things if their other placement/aspects fit into that as well (kinda like, self-expression by themselves that makes others who observe them kinda go ????)

Leo is also a fire-moon, so self-expression is a big thing for this people. Particularly, when it comes to performing/performance-- these people may naturally attract people to them because of how naturally alluring they are.

Alluring as in their vitality and liveliness-- in the third decan of Aries-- it’s about will-power and ‘standing out’ even when they’re not doing anything.

Aries as a cardinal sign ‘leads’ others naturally-- it helps Leo’s ‘stability’ in a way that-- if others are lost/lose track of what to do-- this Leo/Aries can naturally ‘show’ them where to go/what to do even without doing anything ‘out of the norm’ themselves.

It’s -- well, Leo Moons aren’t always out-going by themselves. It’s more to do with comfort and personal fulfillment. They don’t have to be the center of attention-- even when they’re loud-- it doesn’t mean they want attention to be on them.

It’s more to do with how comfortable they are with the people around them, with themselves. How empowered they feel by the situation/environment or those around them/themselves.

It has to do with self-empowerment, how receptive people are to them. Because they can be sensitive and shy if people aren’t receptive to them-- and may often hold themselves back because of that as well.

The Lion isn’t the one who demands people respect them/abide to them. They rule by just being themselves, by being selected. They have a sense of self, but also has a respect for the public opinion as well. And Leo people are the same as well.

With that said-- there’s something to be said about Leo Moons because they like to be comical when they’re comfortable. They make expressions (self-expressive) they make jokes, they co-operate with you if you ask them for help with anything.

They’re generous people-- and with the Moon ruling emotionality, being able to offer a slice of happiness/joviality to others and being able to ‘give’ certain help fulfill a sense of Leo pride as well 💕

Often times, you might find yourself with a Leo Moon friend who although they stick to themselves-- is actually rather down-to-earth and chill to hang out with. Most Leo Moons don’t hold themselves above others, it’s just the impression they give off that deters people away sometimes.

But Leo Moons are people who re-affirms you, who gives you courage and strength, who looks you in the eye and tell you they believe in you.

They’re the type to celebrate your victories with you, cheer you on and genuinely encourage you to get out of your shell/insecurities. They can be insensitive when it comes to themselves-- but they are always supportive/encouraging when it comes to small victories with your progress as well.

The ‘noble’ nature of Leos when applied to social realms/people around them has more to do with how they protect and nurture those around them. Almost like a guardian, although childish/silly by nature-- they embody both of the kiddish side and the side that understands responsibilities as well.

Leo is a social sign y know, they have a domain they look after-- the people they care about, their joys/support-- these people mean alot to them. And their appreciation/acceptance of the Leo’s natural playfulness is something Leo Moon can be sensitive about.

The ‘controlling’ side of Leos that has to do with their fixed/fire nature-- the side that may be a little possessive or protective of others-- comes when it applies to themselves.

If they themselves feel needy, feels threatened, feel unappreciated or undeserving of something. They grow frustrated and sometimes-- they retain that energy inwards into personal frustration.

They can lash out sometimes-- but most of the time you might just see them being pouty/whiny or sulky. They may try to ‘lighten’ the topic even if it hurts them more than they let on.

Being ‘too’ emotional is still a thing they are wary of (fire signs and vulnerabilities smh)-- so if they feel like their burdens are affecting others emotionally as well-- they may sometimes freak out bc they don’t know how to go about it from there ksjdnkj

It’s cute... but also like, they can be a little demanding and needy too. They seek to ‘do right’ by people-- and that can become judging/trying to nudge others into a better direction for themselves the way they see it.

Leo Moon ultimately wants the best for someone they care about-- but sometimes they can be focused on ‘getting them out of this situation’ that they can miscalculate the long-term effect/consequence of it as well.

Kinda like.... this is a problem, the person is crying because of it. Leo Moon moves in to comfort and pull/nudge them to get out and solve that problem--- but the problem isn’t resolved with just face-value sometimes.

It might need a little more introspection, a little more self-evaluation. There may be reason why it lingered as long as it did for that person without the Leo Moon realizing that y know?

Some problems aren’t for them to solve-- but for the Leo Moons themselves, their own happiness and resolving immediate issues works best for them. Long-term problem/situations can be resolved over time-- they are a fixed sign after all.

If hurt by a situation-- they can sometimes retain or get hung up on it because it hurts them emotionally. With a fire/fixed sign, sometimes it’s about how they use that fuel to empower them forward.

There’s a natural inclination to ‘do’ things in order to move away from it, but they also need to learn how to resolve things fully within themselves.

They might not realize they are constantly referring/acting back on the problem in a cycle without resolving the issue that started everything, communication sometimes-- is something that they avoid because they want to just move past/be chill with everything even when it bothers them.

Kinda like if you had a bad experience with this one person--- you move on but you don’t forget. Yet somehow, the people around you realize you’re hurt about this more than YOU realize it. Your actions/words are sometimes referring back to that situation/experience.

Self-awareness is something the Leo can learn and benefit from. Because they can sometimes retain things without realizing-- and thus, learning how to take notice and be aware of their emotional burdens regarding social/others is also crucial from them.

It’s that urge to ‘make things right’ with Leos that makes them stay ‘stuck’ in a problem sometimes. It builds up frustration as well-- whether it’s from lack of action/progression or from unresolved issue/something they have to deal with.

Ok anyways... let’s talk about Leo/Aries again ksjsknk with Leo in the Aries decan-- these people can be quite daring as well.

With the power of Mars behind them, they are mischievous sometimes and also ambitious when they put their minds to it. Competitiveness should be done in fair-sports, and they’re someone who enjoys encouragements from others who are their ‘equals’ to motivate each other to do better and better each time.

Kinda like camaraderie-- in good sportsmanship it happens where you grow to be self-confident in yourself when you have good encouragement and competition around you as well.

It’s that built of trust, respect and reliance on each other’s strength that lifts up the Leo/Aries Moon on it’s own. They believe in other people’s strength, and when people believe in their strength that’s independent from them (self-reliant) they prosper best and shine bright as well.

They believe in the good hard grind-- since working hard allows them to relax and be less stressed as well. A good day at work means that they’ve shown/given their best/what they’ve got. The reward at the end-- is just simply good feelings and enjoying each other’s company without jealousy and pretenses.

These people are more active than they realize-- with Aries as their decan, they sometimes don’t realize their sociability power is alot more than they give themselves credit for. On off days-- they can sometimes spend period of time adventuring with friends, take a chance, travel. See things.

Leo Moon also loves learning, new things, experiences. They’re enthusiastic even if it’s low-key, but genuinely curious about growing/seeing new sights and places and people that they haven’t seen/met before. They’re much more ‘daring’ than they realize this way as well skjnskjkss

One thing that should be note-- is that Leo/Aries would want to see whatever they put their effort/hard work into bear fruits and actually manifest into palpable thing. There’s no happiness in something that flunks and fails-- they like results.

Their fiery part can sometimes surface a lot more when they see something going wrong despite their efforts into it --- the controlling part of Leo comes out full-force, managing and organizing the process until they can get the ‘result’ they wanted.

With tremendous power-- it comes to say that they may often prefer those who are clever and insightful. Scorpios in particular-- tend to soothe this Leo/Aries nature better because 1) they are just as intense and 2) they understand their work-ethic, yet they are much cooler emotionally than the Leo as well.

It’s a sense of balance-- since Aries/Libra would talk about that as well. But finding someone who ‘complements’ or balance the enthusiastic Leo Moon well with their insights and temperament makes it easier for the Leo/Aries to ‘be themselves’ and move forward the way they want--

They ‘trust’ the other person will be able to match them independently as well, and they don’t have to ‘slow down’ or ‘hold back’ with them.

Libra Mercury (3rd decan/Gemini)

We’re finally at the meat of the placements, with Nayeon she gives off a lot of Venusian vibes because she has it in her Mercury and ALSO her Venus (1st decan there)

Besides this-- it also complements her Virgo/Leo combination as well. As someone who’s genuinely curious about others, and often an excellent listener --- she knows when to give advice and when to NOT.

This is important, because most people don’t know when to NOT give advice. A part of being good at communicating is knowing what others need -- and in some cases, learning how to NOT give an opinion/advice is more helpful to the overall progress than doling it out anyways.

It’s not about ‘predicting’ what others want/need to hear-- whether we think it’s the cold harsh truth or soothing helpful words-- Libra is about being truthful and honest.

It’s not about holding the self back, but rather having the space/time to process and learn from different perspective in order to make a decision in the end.

It’s organization and effective planning essentially-- before you decide to ‘tackle’ or ‘do’ something about a situation --- you might want to see it through and get a clear plan out first.

As a cardinal sign and ‘doing things’-- Libra in this sense is more about gathering information and processing them.

‘Action’ doesn’t always have to be palpable like how we see Aries/Capricorn do it-- ‘action’ can also be ‘pre-action/planning’ and internal action taking place.

With Libra Mercury -- there’s always a consideration for ‘others’, what’s it like in other people’s shoes? How would they see it, how would they feel

A lot of the Libra’s indecision has more to do with being ‘thorough’-- or rather, as ‘thorough’ as they can get (perfectionist streak)

They like to weigh perspectives, often times they can also fear retaliation/feedback to an extent --- if someone starts pointing out something that ‘attacks’ them (the consequences/repercussions)-- they feel guilty about not putting that into consideration (that’s on their work-ethic)

On the other hand, they work extremely hard to be thoughtful and considerate-- going the extra mile to make sure it comes across the way they want it to be. Crafted, mindful.

Their intention is there-- but if the consequences/repercussion happens (being attacked or not being heard, things escalating) then they’ll have to resort to different tactics--- persuasion and manipulation to get what they want (charm)

It can be minor-- or it can be dangerous. But there’s also a sense of passive-aggression sometimes in the way they direct this outwards.

Persuasiveness is only half the thing, the other half is compulsion and sometimes that requires ‘intent’ that stems from passive-aggressiveness.

Sometimes-- it can just be being Diabolical. If you think your Libra friends are nice, think again. They know what they’re doing behind the scene even if they aren’t overt about it.

@rkkive just described this to me: ‘presenting it to them as a better option; ‘why have this when you can have that?”’

That pretty much describes persuasion tactics they sometimes use. Whether it’s jokingly, serious, just for fun or whatever purpose its for. Sometimes its just a point of strategy--- nothing personal, it’s just how to come out on top after all (don’t like losing)

Whilst people talk a lot about Libra’s ability to compromise-- more prominently is in their ability to NOT compromise but rather switch tactics. Distract, divert or smarter/less-overt way to get what they want without letting people know that their feathers are ruffled. They’re immensely smart-- but it’s up to your own wit whether you ‘catch’ them or not.

For all the saying that Libra is peaceful or ‘pushovers’ -- sometimes they’re just plain bratty.

There’s no denying this-- the ‘peaceful’ aspect is more about ‘equilibrium’ and frustration with the lack of it can cause a lot more mayhem and diabolical nature to come through.

They’re only ‘pushovers’ as much as they just let people ‘think’ that about them-- whilst they know there’s inner power/control in how they work/present certain things to get what they want in the end.

They like debate, they like Winning. You think Aries are the only ones who can fight? Think again. Libras are also fighters but only when the fight is in their court. Why try to fight in someone else’s when you have a better chance winning in yours? It’s strategy (think smart)

Anyways-- Libra/Gemini decan are very chatty, sometimes they’re just easy to talk to. People might approach and think they’re close, reveal things to them without Nayeon even asking.

The effect of Venus/Mercury honestly gives you a person who essentially--- finds themselves in the middle of ‘locals’ telling them their stories without even asking for it. There’s an easy-going nature and trust-worthiness about her because of how ‘truthful’ she seems-- reliable and dependable by others.

Yet at the same time, for the Libra/Gemini themselves-- they may be taken off-guard by ‘why’ people are telling them these things because to them-- they are just being cordial y know?

When there’s Gemini involved, gestures can sometimes be used to communicate efficiently (if Leo Moon brings excitement, sometimes it’s in her motions/showing excitement as well) rapid conversations over long-period of time is common for people of these decan.

Whilst Libra of other decans can sometime tire or need rest-- Libra Mercury in the 2nd decan can talk for looong period of times if they’re genuinely interested and kept stimulated by their conversation partner.

Part of why Nayeon is so well-loved is how well she presents herself right? She’s a smart lady, tactful and funny. She knows when to be uplifting, comforting, when to be respectful. She knows boundaries bc she has them herself, and she understand/relies on others to support her as well.

Partnership is a big part in Libra’s behaviour-- no it doesn’t always mean it has to be ‘romantic’ or ‘clingy’ -- it just means you rely on others for mental rapport as well as your own. That you become ‘strength’ to others in some ways-- because Libra Mercury may often find themselves helping others more than themselves/disclosing parts of themselves sometimes.

With this said, Libra Mercury is a good placement because her head is screwed on to follow rational, logical reasoning rather than emotions/feelings the heart sometimes.

Her distance-- the gathering of perspective-- also serves to make a ‘bigger view’ plan of action to those involved/could benefit from.

Instead of behaving brashly-- she may be more of the type to argue to wait, or strategize/plan better before moving forward with something (voice of reason/patience).

This rational/logical part also means that sometimes-- she’s ‘colder’ than we see her as well. Knowledge is power, and sometimes you have to be able to make ‘cold’ decisions in order to move/progress forward.

With the combination of Virgo/Libra-- I don’t doubt she’s much more logical, critical and rational than she lets on (a smart lady!) 💕

Libra Venus (1st Decan)

Next we’re onto the lovely Libra Venus!! 💕 With Libra being domicile here, AND in it’s first degree-- Nayeon gets the full effect of Libra in her placement 💕💕💕

Kindness and charitable quality is often a hallmark of these people-- although less loud and more understated than Sagittarius/Piscean/Jupiterian usually (charitable/generousity) -- the ‘kindness’ that Libras shows to those around them and their social/environment often touches the heart of others.

They’re subtle, down to earth. Often times they garner admirers to them because of how chill and ‘next-door’ type they are. These people often comes across as someone who you can meet in your everyday life, accessible yet mentally and emotionally occupied skjksnks

As in -- YOU might think you stand a chance, but in reality these Libra Venusian are kinda pre-occupied already with their mental engagement. They’re an air-sign, air cardinal even. If you think they’re going to wait around for you to ‘catch’ them then you thought wrong.

Their air-ness gives them a mental kind of engagement. To love a Libra you also have to have their interest first, before they capture yours. A part of what Libra’s like is that they aren’t limiting themselves-- so if you think you’re good enough for them, whoops maybe you thought wrong because they haven’t seen everything you have to offer.

Certain things like your mannerism, your lack of thought, certain actions can turn them off just like that. It takes a while for relationship to build and develop-- at least to the point where they’re ‘alright’ being with someone. This is the realm of the mind-- how are you supposed to Know you like someone until you can see them clearly for who they are, how they act, or any little thing that might piss you off??

Think logically--- don’t be blinded by your rose-googled vision. Some people let traits of their lovers slide because they were pre-occupied with loving them already, but that might turn out to be more of a ‘trouble’ point when the rose-google leaves y know? The Libra Venusian makes sure that they aren’t compromising themselves, that this person really isn’t going to piss them off or annoy them in the future.

You have to have a certain stability/certainty in order to ‘trust’ someone. And a Libra ‘trusting’ you and being with you in a relationship is only the first step to them opening the door for feelings to bubble up, y know?

That’s like.... you’re doing prep-work, ‘intro to liking’ course instead of falling into a relationship right now immediately. These things takes time and effort-- co-operation and concentration. You have to be on equal grounds and understanding with the Libra.

And yeah, maybe it’s not the most romantic thing if you’re a very gung-ho romantic person who has a lot of feelings. But trust that it has it’s perks-- if a relationship doesn’t work out, then the ending will be mutual/less hurtful. And if it continues-- then it’ll be stable, strong and grounded/balanced in how you work together.

It’s not all cut and dry-- you just gotta learn how to appreciate the quality they bring to the relationship as well. They ARE kind and often fair to you, and they ARE willing to listen, learn, adjust and accommodate you with their generosity. They just aren’t ‘fooled’ by the rose-googled vision. So you have to accept that about them as well.

Their willingness in particular --- is a quality you should consider as part of their best trait. They’re willing to try things out for you, with you. They’re willing to listen and possibly work things out. As long as you have the same kind of decency, respect and gentleness they show you. Alot of the time they can appreciate what YOU bring, just as long as you appreciate what they bring (complement yours) as well.

Being dismissive of a Libra’s effort and strength-- their subtle charm and offers is something they WILL probably be offended by. The thing above about ‘decency’ is important--- because often times, the Libra WILL have visions for where the relationship is going and what to expect.

They’re planners and analyzers-- if they feel like you’re hurting them, out to hurt them or is taking advantage of them somehow/not pulling your weight-- they WILL become passive-aggressive and more resentful as well to retaliate (mirror/reflection).

I really can’t understate how much Libra Venus will share with you -- personal, objective, anything really. If they trust you, and like you-- they will be generous with you to the point where you essentially have someone who cares about you in a way you’ve never had before (partnership)

This isn’t like a motherly/fatherly or sibling ‘nurture’ -- this is a partnership nurture. Where you’re on equal grounds, there’s no ‘familial’ relationship to rely on. They’re just-- great at making sure you know where you stand with them when this is the case.

With the combination of Leo as well-- Nayeon may often be a good nurturer as well as someone who likes to be nurtured. This in essence is ‘sharing’ -- sharing of affection, sharing of thoughts/rapport and trust. This is how she self-expresses her affection for others-- being considerate, taken care of.

Being thoughtful and mindful, complementing each other in ways they ‘make up’ for each other. It’s about that partnership--- and appreciation for what SHE has (Leo Moon) that the other person DOESN’T have that makes them ‘fit’ together well.

Scorpio Mars (1st Decan)

Ooooof we’re finally here at Scorpio Mars!!

With Scorpio Mars-- there’s a high concentration power, self-will and self-drive. Sometimes they can be prone to ‘shutting down’ everything else and working on something-- tunnel-vision can sometimes be common in Scorpios

In Mars (where Scorpio is domicile) whenever they’re stressed they may also keep to themselves. Quiet-natured although not necessarily stressed, just collected. You can tell when a Scorpio Mars is concentrating because they become less talkative, more focused on action/doing and that’s usually a sign that this Mars is working here.

There’s no need to be so flashy or wordy when you just have to put your money where your mouth is. With Scorpio Mars-- it’s more about demonstration, doing, ‘proving’ that they can achieve the final product. Not to gloat in anyone’s face or anything like that-- but rather for their own personal satisfaction instead.

See-- because Scorpio is a water/fixed sign, there’s an essence of ‘deep-rooted’ ness to their nature. Work hard, be conscious. Put in effort. It’s intuitively driven in a way--- the part where they’re essentially the Terminators and doesn’t stop until their battery runs out.

Self-control is something that --- whilst they DO have (in the context that they’re self-contained) they’ll need to learn when ‘done is done’ and not get frustrated at themselves when they literally DON’T have to exert themselves so much to get the result.

In this case-- it’s more like the satisfaction of working harder but not necessarily smarter. These Scorpio Mars can be in it for the Good Grind-- and essentially, when they FEEL like they haven’t done ‘enough work’ to ‘deserve’ something, they get frustrated for this reason alone.

They WANT to grind-- that’s the thing. They’re closeted gym rats without talking about it. Whether it’s desk-work, research, essays, gym, work out etc. When it requires concentration it becomes ‘work’.

And ‘work’ in this sense isn’t the Capricorn thing where its WORK work-- this is work in the sense that they want to put their power/energy into it just for the sake of self-expression, of being able to do so and ‘work’ on something. This is a love for the PROCESS of working, not necessarily the result. They LIKE ‘working hard’ -- that expulsion of energy and getting/grabbing a result from their own power.

Y know, like instead of seeing it as something that would eventually float up to them without doing anything-- this is more about the power to DO something in order to get it. To not wait around for it to happen but rather-- be in CONTROL of the situation and get shit done about it.

With Scorpios it’s like they seek external control through bringing the internal out. Compared to Taurus-- who seeks internal control through the external. They are in essence-- oppositions in this case.

That’s why when the Scorpio Mars are the quietest-- when they’re cool and controlled on the external is when they’re keeping themselves from dealing out the final blow. And that’s when they’re essentially the scariest as well-- because Scorpio will Not mince itself up for others.

They can be quite competitive-- and possessive-- but quietly so. They don’t necessarily feel ok with airing their dirty laundries or every feelings they have. Especially ones that they’re aiming to ‘overcome/achieve or win’ over.

This plays a lot in their concentrating power as well-- as they can sometimes be ‘obsessed’ with something and put their concentration on that instead. There may be phrases where she just gets into THIS thing in particular and binge on it. Things like that can happen as well.

Since they’re intuition heavy-- sometimes they can close their eyes and just pick from gut-feelings as well. If all else fails-- if their Libras gets too much, their Virgo too buzzed and their Leo has left the building--- this Scorpio Mars makes the final decision.

As a singleton in her chart-- everything else might be measured against this Scorpio Mars as well. As in -- her Virgo, her Leo and her Libra will have to measure up to this Scorpio Mars that can be prominent in her self. Sometimes secretive, self-controlled/contained and somewhat will-full. She’s much more stubborn (Leo/Scorpio) than she realizes.

Conclusion

Not only is she so lovable-- she retains a youthful energy to her (child-like) because her Sun is opposition to Saturn (Pisces)

There’s three things to talk about here, first is that ‘no im an adult but im a YOUNG adult’ energy about her-- yes, responsibility and all that. But it emphasize the fun-loving part even more. There may be rejection of authority/regulations along the line-- making her quite the troublemaker/mischevious playful person she is as well

Second is that Virgo/Pisces opposition-- with this, her natural self-expression/showing vulnerabilities and emotionality is actually a little in conflict. As in-- she may be hyper-sensitive sometimes, but may not always like that about herself (mutable) sometimes working through this means confronting what Saturn in Pisces means.

People with Saturn in Pisces may often have had their creative self-expression stifled/told that it’s not what others wanted in the past. Thus, they stifle themselves going forward. In Nayeon’s case-- it might be to do with her singing abilities as a part of her creative expression (or the way she dress, present herself, her artistic work, whatever people nit-picked her on) --- they’re sensitive people. And thus-- sometimes it carries through into adulthood and insecurities about themselves. Feeling uncomfortable showing certain vulnerabilities/range of expression can also be common for these people as well.

Third--- is Sun/Saturn opposition which can often make someone a little more self-conscious of themselves. They may sometimes think a problem is a big spectacle that made them super embarrassed cause everyone’s laughing at them/saw it-- but is actually just them being harsh on themselves and less ‘serious’ than they think it is. They may also dwell a little on the insecure side-- a little hesitant to do things because there’s so many oppositions/consequences and they’re not an extremely confrontational/offensive person.

For the people with these placements--- allowing yourself to work through the blockage by self-affirmation and truly believing that you ‘deserve’ things is important to you. Your Saturn is holding/restricting your ego (the Sun) to a degree where it can sometimes be unnecessary. So working through that is important

There’s a fear of unblocking that and then finding out she isn’t so ‘humble’ anymore-- but these people also have to realize ‘confidence’ isn’t the same as ‘arrogance.’ They fear themselves the most-- their behaviour, of how people view them. Perhaps not realizing they were being ‘arrogant’ when they really weren’t (and should stop listening to people who tell/project their insecurities onto them)

Nayeon is also--- super smart?? like she has her Sun/Pluto (sextile) and Sun/Uranus (trine) but what’s holding her back is her own modesty/parenting herself (Sun/Saturn above) -- she can quickly resolve issues, figure out a puzzle, is quick-thinking when she wants to be (Virgo after all)

Her Moon is square to Pluto-- which can often exemplify this Leo Moon nature a lot. We see it in her persona, who she is. How playful and cute she is, affectionate and lovable. This is Leo Moon when it’s comfortable (which I’m glad she is!) at the same time-- there’s a distinctive private/public persona in which ‘controlling’ certain emotions and personal feelings is concerned.

She can be tumultuous sometimes, heightened emotions and lash out. Even when she doesn’t realize it-- because her Leo Moon/Scorpio Pluto is pretty strong-- it can create a very dynamic person who pushes/aggresses others even when her Libra keeps her back in other context/time.

Because her Mercury is square to Neptune/Uranus (Capricorn) -- she can often times take on a route that’s more ‘Capricornion’ sometimes-- that is, grounding herself in the root making things seems ‘objective’ or ‘favourable’ in the sense that it better business moves. Libra in essence can ‘adapt’ certain things to use with it’s tactic/intent-- and in this case, sometimes it’s using it’s foe as a point of attack/technique instead.

Alrighty 💕💕💕 That’s all for the lovely Nayeon!! 💕💕💕 I hope this makes you feel like you got to know her better, and kinda-- help out with understanding her a bit more!! 💕💕💕💕 Tomorrow I’ll have Jeongyeon and Dahyun out!! 💕💕

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