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yanderes-galore · 19 days

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Diavolo with a La Squadra darling? Like, she wants nothing to do with him since he was responsible for the murder of two of her teammates and only wants revenge, and he can't help himself but be obsessed with her. I feel like he would stalk her as Doppio first, then shortly after(because you KNOW this man is not risking it) kidnapping her himself with the help of King Crimson.

I actually think this is interesting as Diavolo knows you can be an issue with your team.... Sorry for the long wait, made pairing Gender-Neutral as I never used any pronouns.

Yandere! Diavolo with La Squadra! Darling

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Stalking, Murder, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Sadism, Emotional manipulation, Threats, Dark themes, Biting, Neck kissing, Forced relationship.

To be fair, I think your team is already monitored by Diavolo.

Ever since he realized your team was trying to reveal his identity... He just knew he couldn't risk things.

Originally before the deaths of Sorbet and Gelato, you worked just as hard as the rest of the hitman team.

Being a Stand User yourself, you were often praised for your skills.

A little blood wasn't new for you and even Diavolo knew you could get a job done once given an order.

However, like the rest you felt burned when The Boss didn't allow the team more territory.

The unfortunate downside of being expert killers is The Boss distrusted La Squadra.

Which meant no new territory... and not a lot of income.

Sorbet and Gelato had gotten close to exposing The Boss, only to be killed as a message not to fly too close to the sun.

La Squadra felt like family to you, a close group of assassins all trying to just get paid.

Unfortunately, killing Sorbet and Gelato had the opposite effect Diavolo wanted.

Now you all just wanted to find a way to get back at him, which just so happens to be kidnapping Trish.

I can definitely see Diavolo using Doppio to stalk you.

Originally, like usual, it's to find a way to keep you at bay.

Not necessarily to kill you, but to throw you off his scent.

He's having Doppio keep an eye on the rest of your team too.

Although you're the one that manages to catch his eye.

Part of him does admire your killing instinct and loyalty.

You listen to your leader, Risotto Nero, no matter the command.

Diavolo just wishes such potential wasn't wasted on a reckless mission to find him out.

The fact you have no idea Doppio is him is something he uses to his advantage.

Truthfully, Diavolo could care less about the rest of your team?

He isn't even sure why he's so fixated on you of all things.

Most of his obsession is keeping track of you.

He wants to keep an eye on you and the team so he knows when to get rid of them.

Later on he may even do just that.

Except not only would it be due to the danger they pose, but because he wants to get a message across to you.

Diavolo is aware of how attached you are to your team.

I can see him using that attachment to isolate you.

Through Doppio he'd probably drag you or your teammates into certain situations.

Diavolo is a big planner.

If he ever did try to get you alone, he has his reasons.

That being to kill you, or in your case, abduct you.

He'd lure you with a fake order, only for you to be ambushed by Diavolo.

By the time he's interested, he's already used Doppio to gain info on every one of your habits.

Diavolo is the type to use your weaknesses against you.

First he'll reveal himself, using King Crimson to render any attack useless.

He's researched your ability right up to every little weakness you have.

By the time he's ready to take you out of the equation, he counters your ideas with a grin.

"You did say you wanted to know my identity didn't you, dear?"

Diavolo purrs, voice dripping with sadistic delight once he knows he can corner you.

"Perhaps destiny decided to be kind to the both of us, Hm?"

You don't understand his words, how could you?

You're a hitman trying to avenge your fallen comrades, meanwhile he's an obsessed madman that's been following you for a long time now.

Fate plays a cruel joke on you, allowing you to meet your target but unable to kill him.

Destiny still seemed to aid him as he's been wanting to get his hands on you for a long time now.

Once Diavolo has you, he has ways of keeping you compliant.

How? Well, remember when I said you were attached to La Squadra like family?

He threatens them with similar fates to Sorbet and Gelato.

That is, unless, you decide to play along.

He wants you to play into his desires, in return your team shall be spared for now.

Really, their fate is sealed either way.

Your team will still die even if you accept the deal.

Threats and careful planning is a big part of Diavolo's obsession with you.

He uses fear to make you controlled, even if he is a coward.

He doesn't need to put a hand on you, he doesn't want to.

No, instead he'll target one of your old squad members to be taken out.

Then he'll bring back proof.

What, aren't you used to blood?

So why do you look so ill when he brings you the corpse of a fellow La Squadra member?

Death was part of your job.

Don't spare them any tears.

Diavolo seems like the type of yandere to force you into his embrace as you stare at the corpse of a former friend, nibbling on your neck as he tells you that he "told you so".

He's possessive, viewing the deaths of your comrades as a way to get rid of a nuisance.

If the experience breaks you, good, it l benefits him.

He wants to make sure you understand who you belong to.

The moment Diavolo breaks you and gets rid of your team, he's won.

He looks forward to such a victory with a grin on his face, looking like a true demon in your eyes.

"Why don't we make a deal, dear?

#yandere jojo #yandere jojo's bizarre adventure #yandere jjba #yandere diavolo

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princess-of-the-corner · 14 days

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Also, sorry last ask XD But remember that alt 3 ending I sent you?

I realized I vastly over complicated so here's the easier version:

Party Crasher: There is still the seemingly jokey subplot of Chloe wanting to 'ambush' Kagami over her being a hero. That suddenly becomes serious when the 'episode' ends on Chloe luring her into a meeting with Adrien's phone and very grimly says they need to talk.

Ensuing episodes: We don't see the conversation, but there's always 'a' scene that shows they are still having private exchanges of some sort.

Ladybug: Lila's plan is very changed up.

First she lured Marinette to an isolated stairwell and when Marinette shows up, she genuinely flings herself down and suffers a genuine injury. Her cry of pain draws a teacher & she accuses Marinette who denies it but is sent to the principle while Lila's taken to the nurse.

Damocles kind of does his job, finding it sus a student who dropped put for six months is making wild accusations & he still can't contact her mother. Sadly, this was part of the plan. A 'distraught' Lila bursts in & says she has proof Marinette has it out for her & limps out.

The students ae still in the locker rom when they all arrive & Lila reveals a video on her phone of Marinette breaking into her locker & stealing a necklace. She claims she wanted to talk to Marinette about it in private when Marinette instead attacked her!

The necklace is indeed in Marinette's locker.

Some find this deeply out of character, others start arguing in favor of Lila because 'evidence doesn't lie'. Alya is clearly torn, Nino is stressed, Chloe is oddly speculative & Adrien is looking for an AKumatized object on Lila. As Damocles starts shouting -Boom!

In bursts Kagami who changes the tone of things by accusing Lila of trying to Akumatize her in the past, and of setting Marinette up to perhaps create an Akuma that forces the truth out of people.

Even insinuating that Lila might be Chameleon and that being how she framed Marinette for theft. Also that Ladybug told her to be on the look out for her after Miracular.

This has Lila suspecting Chloe whos is recording the event.

Butterfly swarm happens & Lila fucking dips when it doesn't work out. (This could predate Kagami's arrival) & Damocles sort of handwaves the issue seeing as Lila is gone. Adrien's missing too.

Main points after this are:

Alya is fretting over Marinette & as Kagami explains her theories she begins to suspect Marinette's true identity.

Chloe noticed Adrien sneaking off to pursue Lila & realizes he ight be Chat & calls him explaining some of her & Kagami's theories are rooted in fears of what Hawk Moth is doing to 'them'. Also that Mari & Lila may be victims of it too. Nino verhears this side of the conversation.

The rest of the episode is much the same, save Ladybug & Chat conferring on Lila at the end, theorizing she's allied with Hawk Moth. Cut to Lila having a panic attack in her apartment:

"It was meant to be done, it was meant to be over, its not my fault, he can't blame me for this, its not my fault!" Cue a voice 'like' hers whispering "Oh yes, its never our fault" in her ears & Lila's face being distorted but only in the mirror.

She screams & the episode ends.

Heart Hunter:

This episode is very similar at first glance but has some notable changes.

1: We see more of Hawk Moth's side of the plan.

A disguised Lila acting as the Agreste representative at the anniversary party. She expresses doubt that Chloe will break given she suspects her involvement in Kagami.

Gabriel dismisses her, not thinking highly enough of Chloe for that & saying she can be disposed of if she continues to disrespect him as an implied threat to both girls.

He, Mayura & his Senitmonster are already active in the city. Having been using all their staged battles at the hotel to narrow down a broad area they think the Guardian will be.

Finally, Lila is the one to sabotage the Bee Signal.

2: Marinette is a bit less iffy here

Marinette initially picks the Bee Miraculous, reflecting on what Kagami told her about the girls mutual discussions. But decides against it remebering Heart unter eats love.

She picks Kagami instead but while it does interrupt the date, is more so she can have a "No baggage" confrontation with Kagami about it to decide if she should back off forever.

Kagami is fine with this pretext right up until she hears its Chloe's parents Akumatized & says it is likely a trap to get to her. They both realize there'd need to be more to it & realize Fu is in danger.

3: Climax/Cliffhanger

Marinette sends Kagami to rescue Chloe, starts racing to Fu & calls Chat who reveals Heart Hunter seemingly just De-Akumatized. & we start flashing through scenes as the plan starts coming together.

We see Alya & Nino were in the same park as Fu comparing notes interrupted by the battle and them watching the battle & trying to get word out via the Ladyblog.

We see Fu beginning to fade as his stamina gives out as Ladybug & Chat race desperately to his location while Kagami can see the Le Grand Paris Hotel.

We see Lila fiddling with the Fox Miraculous and finally end on Hawk Moth with the Miracle Box, standing before Chloe as Queen Bee as an Akuma approaches her.

End episode.

Finale - The Miraculous Monster!

We open with seeing a quick flashback covering how we got here then see Hawk Moth & Chloe's confrontation. Its like canon, though HK has to rely more on subterfuge & subtle jabs with no Ryuko seen.

Chloe, without the Ryuko scene & aware Hawk Moth is trying to fuck with her, while very stressed & a little unstable does more than keep her head, & so while it looks like she's playing into things, she's not.

Chloe either A, manages to get the Bee Miraculous & while snagging back the box fails to land a venom and instead gets hit with HK's sword. Or B, he realizes she doesn't have the supreme hatred and despair he wanted and loses his shit and attacks her, intent on ending her now.

Either way Ryuko appears and wind dragons Hawk Moth into the Sein before racing back to keep Chloe alive. Who is crouched & injured over the box, then scooped up & carried off.

We cut to Chat & Ladybug dealing with the Sentimonsters, Mayura, & Fu's body nearly giving out from the strain, its bad, especially when they realize Mayura has another Miraculous with Alya & Nino present.

Kagami's arrival with an injured Chloe sends Chat feral & Mayura into kill defensive mode

We see Lila trying to escape the situation and trying to get the Miraculous to work cutting to an enraged Hawk Moth. He has come too far, sacraficed too much to lose it all here.

With a furious roar he activates his back up plan and Lila collapsed on the street, body pulsing violently with violet Akuma light as shadows draw out from her skin and bleed into the Miraculous.

Trixx emerges and seeing how bad things are tells Lila how to transform.

A swirl of passionate orange and puerile purple suffuse the Miraculous and Lila's form is obscured in darkness as she begins to scream and roar as her body shifts and twists into a new state.

If you've seen Dungeon Meshi, Falin's Chimera is a good example.

The legs & of a vicious chameleon, the torso of a fox, with a human upper body hanging from the head. As large at least as a bus, the Kyubi-Chimera-Lila begins its rampage.

Hallucinations flood the minds of Paris's citizens, illusions spring to life from nightmares spreading havoc. The twisted creatures howls in abandon as it tears across the city in a maddened dash.

An approaching Hawk Moth thinks he's won, only for his efforts to commune with and control the creature to turn illusions of Emilie and all his victims on him. Leaving him to fight them off with blade alone as the beast comes bearing down upon him.

As this was happening, the heroes have managed to mostly Miracle Cure Chloe's wound but having been delivered by a Miraculous weapon its not perfect, still she insists she can fight.

As Mayura cries out to her master and flees on the great moth, Fu collapses, too exhausted and worn to even stand as he surrenders Wayss to Nino and Alya has to find a replacement Miraculous, while the others recharge.

Then they see the chaos spreading and Fu realizes what's happened, a Miraculous has been truly Akumatized.

At first they think it can be handled, Queen Wasp was.

But both Pollin & Chloe on a subconcious level resisted Queen Wasp, capping her powers. Lila is in a maddened, primal defensive state, Trixx only wants to kill Hawk Moth while the Akuma wishes to simply spread its power everhwere.

So as strong as Gabriel was in the movie but utterly unhinged.

What happens next is up in the air, but Nathalie's identity is revealed and with it Hawk Moth's Adrien nearly shuts down and Hawk Moth realizes it is his son. Freaking out, he flees the battle with Nathalie in denial, only to find his manor empty, Nathalie dying and himself farther from his goal.

Save that he still has some pilfered Miraculous, and the tablet.

The battle meanwhile is a nightmare, destructive, epic, terrifying. Even at the end when Miracle Cure is released, not all the mental anguish is undone, nore are necessarily all the horrors unleashed banished.

Worse still, Lila & Trixx have one of several fates:

Separate but dormant, Lila is in a coma, Trixx cannot awaken.

Stuck fused together but still primal & needing to be locked up until they can be cured.

Or, escaping but regaining their minds, or a mind that has its own agenda if the Akuma is a dominant influence.

A combination there-of.

The heroes do, after recovering investigate Gabriel but they find the basement empty and all signs of his presence gone. Meaning at least two more Miraculous are missing, the tablet is gone & Hawk Moth remains at large. Though only the heroes know his identity.

Fu sticks around, only because he's needed to finish translating & resolve the Lila situation. & if she is in a coma maybe not even then. Regardless, his fighting days are over, meaning Nino is Carapace full time.

Also all the identities are now known between the current main group as they look towards an uncertain future.

OH FANTASTIC

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soulslayer2020 · 2 years

Text

Hyrule Warriors - Inevitabilis Chapter 1: A Promise

Summary: Back in the first timeline, Dolcia tells Astor about her unique gift that is time magic as the two start to become closer. Meanwhile, in the second timeline, after being ambushed by Astor, tensions rise in the group as they learn of Dolcia’s connection to Astor. Will their distrust lead to a doomed timeline?

Previous Part

Next Part

Timeline I, A Hylian village

“How did today go?” Dolcia asked as Astor closed up his tent.

It had been a week since Dolcia had met Astor. Since then, she had been staying with the seer in his house outside the village and had been studying magic alongside him.

“Not terrible, actually.” Astor replied, “I predicted that a young lady would marry her crush today and she seemed quite pleased. It’s a good feeling when a positive prediction comes along.”

“I would imagine so!”

The two began walking through the village back towards Astor’s house.

“Have you ever had a prediction that turned out differently?” Dolcia asked.

“Very rarely, but it has happened.” Astor replied, “Time is a very strange thing. My predictions show the most likely outcome based on information I have about the target in question. Even if something is 99.9% likely, that 0.1% is still possible.”

“Strange indeed.” Dolcia agreed as they began to cross a road. Dolcia gasped as her eyes briefly flashed gold before quickly dragging Astor back from the road.

“Agh! Hey, what-?”

Before Astor could finish his exclamation, a runaway cart of cabbages went careening past them and crashed into a wall.

“I’m so sorry!” A merchant came running down the road after it, “I turned around for one second and my cart started rolling down the hill. Are you two alright?”

“Uh…yes, we’re okay.” Astor replied, a tad amazed and confused, “Do you need help?”

“No, no, it’s fine. It looks like the damage wasn’t major. I’ll be on the move in no time. Thank you for the offer though!”

The merchant quickly hurried off to his cart as Astor turned to Dolcia, “How…how did you know that was going to happen…?”

“You may or may not be the only mage who dabbles with time.” Dolcia winked before motioning down the road towards Astor’s house.

“Timewalker?”

Dolcia nodded as the two sat in Astor’s study, “Every century or so, one member of the Symphonyxian royal family is born with a rare form of magic. Queen Dolcia the Dark was born with the ability to safely cast dark magic safely, and I was born with time magic. Those who can use time magic are called Timewalkers; mages blessed by the deity of time, Tutti. We were given that name due to our ability to jump through timelines if we die before we’re meant to. I still haven’t mastered all my abilities yet but as of now, I can react to things before they happen and occasionally receive my own glimpses into the future. I tend to keep it a secret due to the council’s fear that some may want to exploit it for their own gain.”

“I see…” Astor muttered, “But…why tell me then?”

“Well…I trust you.” Dolcia smiled, “Ever since my parents died, I didn’t have many friends…okay, I didn’t have any friends. You’re my first. And I’m grateful for that.”

Astor’s eyes widened in surprise but was distracted as the strands of hair fell in front of his eye again.

Dolcia giggled, “Those bothersome strands, eh?”

“I can’t get the damned things to sit still…” Astor grumbled as he tried to push them behind his ear.

“Hang on, I have an idea.” Dolcia took a metal clasp from the study’s desk, leaned over to Astor, and began fiddling with the hair strands.

“E-er, Dolcia?” Astor stuttered, blushing slightly at the sudden closeness between him and Dolcia.

“Gimme a sec, I’m almost done.” Dolcia stuck out her tongue impishly as she braided the hair strands together, “Aaand…done! Ta-dah!”

Dolcia leaned back to admire her handiwork. She had turned the strands into two separate braids; one falling straight down, and the other looping towards the back of his head.

“There we go! No more bothersome bangs.” Dolcia smiled proudly as Astor picked up his desk mirror to view the braids.

“Huh…this isn’t half bad.” He muttered, impressed.

“Of course it’s great! I had a vision that I’d have mad hair-styling skills!” Dolcia stated dramatically. This was enough to earn a full laugh out of Astor, prompting Dolcia to join in.

“Y-you’re ridiculous!” Astor chuckled.

“Ridiculously awesome!” Dolcia countered.

Astor sighed as he recovered from the laughing fit, “Hey, Dolcia?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. Admittedly, you’re…you’re my first friend too.”

“It’s my honour.”

Timeline II, Korok Forest

“What were those clones?” Zelda asked as the group ran through the forest.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen magic like that before.” Dolcia replied.

“No match for the real thing, obviously.” Revali added.

As opposed to the first timeline where Dolcia mainly aided the group from Hyrule Castle after meeting them for the first time, Dolcia managed to convince Zelda to have her tag along. She decided it was best to not reveal her time abilities to the group and hoped that she could find Astor before he joined Calamity Ganon.

As the group arrived at the resting place of the fabled Master Sword, Link raised his hand, signalling for the group to stop.

“Link? What’s-” Dolcia began but cut herself off with a gasp as her eyes followed Link’s.

Standing at the shrine was a hooded figure in dark purple robes with a glowing orb floating in his hand. It emitted a purple light as the hollows of the four pilots reappeared. They dashed towards Link who tried to fight back, but they were too fast and would teleport away before Link could land a blow.

Dolcia turned to yell toward the figure, “Hey! What do you think you’re-?!”

Dolcia froze. She had gotten a good look at the figure’s face as they lifted it to glare at her.

“A…Astor…?” Dolcia stuttered in a mix of fear, shock, and disbelief.

“You know this mage?” Urbosa asked.

Before Dolcia could reply, Link was thrown backwards into the shrine, his broken sword lying beside him.

“Link!” Zelda exclaimed.

Astor slowly raised a finger towards Zelda with a malicious glint in his eye, “Kill her.”

“Astor, no!!” Dolcia jumped in front of Zelda alongside the other pilots to defend Zelda as the hollows charged toward them.

Suddenly, a bright light filled the area as the hollows began to fade away. Behind Link, the Master Sword began to glow brightly.

“What?!” Astor gasped as he turned to face Link, who had begun to lift the Master Sword from its pedestal. With a mighty tug, the blade came free from its stone binding as Link raised it high before pointing it towards Astor. The seer cursed under his breath as he summoned more of the hollows to fight Link. The Master Sword, however, made quick work of them, slicing through as if they were made of butter.

Astor glared at Link, “Fine. I will end you myself, you nuisance! Your power is mine for the taking.”

Astor fired a blast of the strange magic at Link, but it was shot off course by a blast of golden magic. Astor glared at its source: Dolcia, who was holding her golden baton.

“Astor, what are you doing?!” Dolcia demanded.

“What I must to ensure the Calamity ensues!” Astor shot back as he began firing blasts towards Dolcia, who parried them away by firing blasts of her own. They were by no means more powerful than Astor’s but bought enough time for Link to attack from behind, the two performing a pincer manoeuvre on Astor as the pilots took care of any hollows he summoned.

“That sword…It is too powerful…” Astor cursed. He shot one last glare towards Dolcia – his eyes cold and unfeeling – before disappearing in a flash of magic.

As Zelda and Link conversed with the Great Deku Tree, Dolcia was lost in her thoughts.

‘He was allied with Calamity Ganon this early…? This is bad…if I can only be sent back a month before my death, then that means I can’t prevent him from joining Ganon. But why would he even join Ganon in the first place? And those eyes…that thing on his forehead…he’s not acting like himself at all…Astor, what happened to you…?’

As the Great Deku Tree fell back into slumber, Dolcia turned to leave only to be greeted by Revali’s bow aimed inches from her face, “G-gyah!!”

“Revali?! What are you-?” Zelda exclaimed as Revali glared at Dolcia.

“I knew I had a reason to be suspicious of you.” Revali’s eyes narrowed as Dolcia shakingly took a step back.

“Revali, what do you think you’re doing?” Urbosa demanded.

“Does no one else here find it a little odd that your ‘new friend’ seemed very familiar with the mage who tried to kill us?”

“W-wait! I can explain-” Dolcia stuttered.

“Explain what? That you’re secretly working to bring about the Calamity? That you’re trying to take us down from the inside?”

“Waah! Bird guy is scary when he’s angry!” Hestu cried as he attempted to hide behind Daruk…the key word being attempted as he was much taller than the Goron.

“Revali, that’s enough.” Zelda placed a hand on Revali’s bow, lowering it gently, “I don’t know how or why Dolcia knows that mage, but now is not the time to be brash. For now, let’s return to the castle where it’s safer. Dolcia can explain herself there.”

“The princess is right.” Impa added, “We’re all a little on edge from… whatever those were. I’m sure once we’ve cleared our heads, things will make sense.”

Revali glared at Dolcia before fully lowering his bow and walking off.

“Are you alright, miss Dolcia?” Mipha asked.

“I…I’m okay…” Dolcia replied, “A little shaken, that’s all. I’ll feel better when we get back home.”

‘I hope…’

Hyrule Castle

Dolcia sat uncomfortably between Daruk, Hestu and Mipha as the rest of the group had an intense discussion about Dolcia’s trustworthiness. Dolcia kept opening her mouth to get a word in but would be cut off by someone else talking, mostly by Revali.

“I’m telling you, we can’t trust her!” Revali retorted.

Impa sighed, “Revali, will you please-?”

“TWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!”

Everyone covered their ears as the small white guardian let out a sharp whistle.

“Beep bewoop!” The guardian pointed at Dolcia as it beeped aggressively at Dolcia.

“I think it wants us to let Dolcia speak.” Impa said as the guardian scuttled over to Dolcia.

“Thank you, little friend.” Dolcia gave a small smile before addressing the rest of the group, “I know you have your suspicions of me, but I’m not trying to bring the Calamity. Astor was a close friend of mine I met about a year ago, back when I first arrived in Hyrule. But a few months after I met him, I received a vision and left to investigate. When I returned a few weeks later, he was gone, and nobody knew where he went. I don’t know why he would try to bring about the Calamity…he’s never acted like this before. I know it’s hard to believe, but I swear I’d never do anything to hurt you guys!”

The group was silent for a moment before Zelda spoke, “I believe her.”

Everyone turned to the princess with surprised expressions as Zelda continued, “I don’t think Dolcia’s working against us. She’s done nothing to hinder us thus far and seemed just as shocked to see Astor as the rest of us.” Zelda then turned to Dolcia, “I don’t know why your friend is trying to bring about the Calamity, but we won’t allow it to happen. And if possible, we’ll get to the bottom of this and find out why he’s acting this way.”

Dolcia breathed a sigh of relief as she smiled, “Thank you, princess.”

“How asinine…” Revali muttered, “Fine. But if you do anything remotely shifty, I won’t hesitate to end you on the spot. Understood.”

Dolcia nodded.

Zelda gave Dolcia a warm smile, giving her hope that maybe things would work out after all.

A few weeks later, Hyrule Castle

“This humiliation…cannot be my destiny. It cannot be!”

Astor glared at the heroes before him with frenzied rage in his eyes, “Hear me, Calamity Ganon!”

Dolcia’s eyes widened in horror, the situation all too familiar to her.

‘No…’

“It’s time for you to devour these…these…”

Astor stared at his extended arm in horror as it slowly became infected with Malice.

‘No, no, no, no, no!!!’

Dolcia darted for Astor and pushed him away from Harbinger Ganon in an attempt to distance him from the malice. The strange headpiece fell from his forehead as the two hit the ground, but the Malice continued to spread. Dolcia tried to use a healing spell on it in an attempt to slow it down at least, but nothing seemed to work.

“No…no, no, please no!” Dolcia cried, panic filling her voice.

“Dol…cia...” Astor choked, his body searing with pain from the Malice, “Your power…please…go back…stop me…stop me from being…being a fool…please.” Astor looked up at Dolcia pleadingly as he begged, barely managing to get the words out.

“Astor…I…I will. I promise…”

“Dolcia, watch-!”

Dolcia looked up just in time to see a beam of Malice come flying at her.

Timeline Null, The Sea of Time

Dolcia gasped as she sat up, clutching her chest as she could still feel lingering pain from the Malice.

“Take deep breaths.” Tutti lay beside Dolcia as they rubbed her back with their tail soothingly. Once Dolcia had caught her breath, Tutti’s expression saddened, “Tragedy again…”

Dolcia nodded.

“Take your time.” Tutti reassured, “There’s no need to rush into the next shard immediately. Take as long as you need to clear your head.”

“Thank you…” Dolcia replied as she tried to calm her breathing. She looked up at the shards floating around her. She noticed one shard – the shard she had entered before – was no longer a shining blue, but a dull grey.

“Shards you’ve entered and died in will turn grey,” Tutti explained, following Dolcia’s gaze, “Indicating you cannot return to that timeline.”

Dolcia nodded in understanding before looking out at the countless shards still shining before her.

‘I’ll see this though, Astor…I promise…’

To Be Continued…

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childofthecataclysm · 2 years

Text

Chapter One: Silver Eyes

I am Khemora Sentrica. And yes, like those Sentricas. It’s always the first question anyone asks. Nobody believes my answer, but they ask anyway. It’s alright, I don’t really expect them to believe me now. They will in time.

I was born shortly after the Cataclysm. When I first say that, people tend to assume that I was born in the weeks after the Cataclysm, or even months. In actuality, I was born mere minutes after. Between that, my silver eyes, and the fact that she was not pregnant, my mother believed me to be a Child of the Cataclysm from the moment I was born.

She was probably correct, in some sense, but it was far too early for what that meant to be known, and so I was raised almost normally. My mother did her best. She brought me the best teachers she could, and did everything she could to curtail my more problematic instincts.

Don’t blame her. She couldn’t have done a better job.

When the man with the insignia of the Crown came, my mother knew there was nothing to be done. By that time, the nature of the Children of the Cataclysm was known, and my mother knew me too well to believe I was an exception. I was given over to the care of the Crown.

The story would likely end there, if the Crown had been allowed to go through with its “care.” A Child is too dangerous to leave alive, they say. Each must be tested, and each must then be dealt with. Fortunately, the Crown’s agent - I never learned his name, I’m afraid - was ambushed during the return. That’s how the Cataclysm seems to work, these days. No more mass upheaval. Things are just tilted ever so slightly in the favour of its Children, in the hopes that we will survive.

The bandits who killed the agent of the Crown took me in. Silver eyes may frighten the common folk, but to them, I was an opportunity.

The flap of the tent fluttered gently in a soft breeze. I thought it was odd that they had left me in an open tent. But I knew better than to test how free I really was. I could feel it, somewhere inside me, that even if I presented an opportunity for them, if I were to try to leave, I would certainly be cut down.

So I waited. The scent of something - a stew, perhaps? - drifted through the air. It was glorious - meaty and warm in a way that momentarily made me think of home. I found myself at the tent’s entrance almost instinctively, and forced myself to step backwards. I couldn’t. They would kill me without a thought.

I was already there. I cursed myself inwardly as I looked awkwardly up at the group, awaiting the blow that would certainly end it all. What a stupid mistake. One of them - huge, lumbering, and scarred so heavily that it seemed almost as if no unmarred flesh remained, came to his feet.

His voice, just as deep as he was huge and grumbling like an earthquake, confirmed my fears. “Idiot boy couldn’t stay put.” My blood ran cold. What had he said? I looked at him, icy and furious. The flat of a sword larger than myself slammed into the side of my head as I looked up, swung by the giant far faster than I could have predicted. The world went sideways, then upside down, then sideways again, and I landed in the dirt.

I heard the assorted laughter of the rest of them from their seats at the fire. I shouldn’t have left the tent. It was too late for that. He shouldn’t have said that.

The world turned silver for a moment. I breathed it in. Beautiful. And then I was moving, my hands and feet working in concert, driving me like an animal over the ground. The silver moment was still hanging in the air when I lept, falling upon the giant like a wyldling. My teeth found his throat as the silver moment left, and I felt him shift beneath me, moving to tear me off. I dug in, and his throat came with me. He stumbled, looking oddly shocked, one bear-like hand patting at the empty space where his throat used to be. His sword fell to the ground with a thunk. The others around the fire seemed stunned.

I spat out a mess of blood and flesh, snarling, my eyes daring the others to make a move. It was a foolish dare. Even here, against one, I should have died, but for the silver moment. Almost as one, in a wave of motion, they came to their feet, prepared to end me in the fashion I had been expecting since the tent. I braced myself, ready for what was to come.

A hand fell onto my head. Shocked, I tried to leap away. Where had it come from? Whose hand was this? It anchored me in place, firmer and stronger than I could fathom. A voice like sweet music came from above and behind me, and at it the other bandits halted. “Do not punish this child yet. She came looking for food after a long day, only to be called wrongly and threatened by a base brute. Would any of you do differently from her?”

The other bandits seemed to genuinely consider the question. It was odd. It seemed the sort of question which would be rhetorical, but only once each of them responded with a no did the hand release me and that wonderful voice continued. “If you would not act differently, then we will not punish her. With Titus having fallen, it would seem we have an open position, in fact.” That same hand, gentle but strong, turned me. I gazed into the face of an angel, and my breath left me. He was shockingly, impossibly beautiful. To look directly at him seemed like staring into the sun, but how could I not stare? He was magnetic, perfect, beyond reason. And then he smiled, and I knew instantly I would cede to any request he made of me.

“How about it, girl? Would you join our merry fellowship?”

I stood in the middle of a well-worn path, shifting irritably from one foot to the other. They hadn’t given me any clysm-damned boots, and the path, for all the travel it evidently saw, was still covered in innumerable tiny pebbles that dug into my skin. Then I heard it.

The sound of a horse and cart came from down the path. The trees still obscured it from view, so I checked myself over quickly. My clothes were perfectly ragged, with all the signs of having been worn for weeks while scrambling through underbrush and climbing trees. My pitch-black hair was stuck full of twigs. Gerevor had laughed at that, knowing already how that part would annoy me, if only for how irritating it would be to clean up. I shot a glare in the direction of where he waited in the underbrush, and heard a muted chuckle.

Taking a deep breath, I clutched my one arm in the other hand and began to stumble down the road in the direction the cart was coming from, dragging one leg behind me. The horse came into view first, and seemed ready to ignore me entirely, were it not for the driver, who glimpsed me in seconds and drew the horse to a stop. I smiled instinctively, then quickly quashed the expression and began to moan loudly.

The driver called out to me. His voice was clear, but wary, in the way that a trained guard’s would be when talking to an unknown beggar. “You there, boy! Are you alright? What has happened?” My blood, as ever it does, ran cold. I heard Gerevor curse from the shrubbery behind me somewhere in the back of my mind, but at that point, it was too late. I dropped the act, leaping towards the cart with a snarl twisting my face into a beastly mask.

No silver moment gripped the world this time. I felt a sharp stone leave a cut in the sole of one of my feet as I charged the driver, but I was too deep to care. The driver startled into action within moments, and kicked the cart into a stuttering start. I was saved from ruining the whole thing when a bolt the size of my arm tore through the air beside me and through the neck of the horse, the force of the thing pulling the horse into its trajectory and dropping it onto its side. The cart teetered on two wheels, then went with it, and the startled cries of whoever was in the cart brushed at the back of my mind.

I fell on the driver, who was attempting to get to his feet from where the cart’s fall had thrown him, my hands wrapping around his throat and my teeth bared inches from his face. My body shook with adrenaline, and in my fury I managed to keep that deathgrip on his neck despite his larger arms attempting to push me off. My frenzy faded as his life did, and finally I pulled my hands away from him and stood shakily, looking back towards the cart.

The Hand was standing around the cart, apart from Gerevor, who was sat atop the fallen cart, holding the door shut beneath him. Lek shook his head at me, and I grimaced. I had nearly ruined the whole operation, and I knew it. I locked my eyes on my feet and wrapped my arms around myself, turning slightly away.

Nileas laughed. It was musical and energetic, as beautiful as everything about the man, and the rest of the Hand could not help but to join in. Even I smiled a bit. Lek was the only one to seem unfazed, but you could never tell with wyldlings, even the civilised ones. Nileas hopped up atop the cart with Gerevor, offered the reedy man his hand, and pulled him to his feet. Gerevor was several heads taller than Nileas, but the mere presence of Nileas still made the taller man look small, and Gerevor’s body, which would be whip-thin under any context, looked positively frail beside the leader of the Silver Hand.

Gerevor backed off the door and fell into a crouch on the edge of the cart. Nileas looked around at the Hand’s scattered members, nodded some affirmation to himself, and tore open the door of the cart. A man dressed in the Crown’s bizarre clothing (two layers of long-sleeved shirt and some odd, pointless neck adornment even in the summer months, the fashion was odd and almost alien) scrambled up over the door, to the laughter of some of the members of the Hand, only for Nileas to grab on to the collar of his clothing and yank him to a halt.

A blonde-haired woman (practically old by the assessment of my young eyes, but probably only in her 30s or so) in a similarly odd dress did not follow the man’s example, but simply stood to her feet, apparently stunned and confused. Gerevor waved to her, a grin which was two parts amused and one part cruel splitting his face, then hopped through the open doors, pushed her to the side, and began to fumble around the inside of the cart. The woman stumbled at his push, tears beginning to drip down her face, but she still did not attempt to leave, a glance spared for Nileas betraying her fear for our leader’s intentions. Gerevor let out a shout of triumph, and lifted a wooden chest inlaid with gilting and the symbol of the Crown above his head, to raucous cheers from the rest of the Hand.

Gerevor placed the chest atop the cart, then pushed himself up after it. Nileas, still holding the man with one hand, gestured for one of the others to hold him. The nearest man did, and Nileas turned from the man and offered his hand to the woman in the cart. In his melodic voice, kept low and soft as if to avoid frightening her further, he spoke to her. “Lady, we bear no ill will towards you. If you will, please step out of the cart.”

The woman, as everyone is, seemed struck by Nileas. Dreamily, she placed her hand in his, and she helped her out of the cart and down onto the road. Nileas nodded to her with a smile, then put his other hand to his mouth and whistled. Gerevor hopped off the cart, chest in his arms, and the rest of the Hand gathered on one side and pushed the cart back onto its wheels. Those on the side which it had fallen on seemed a bit worse for wear, but all in all the cart had held up remarkably well, apart from a branch sticking through its window. Nileas directed the man and woman both to get back into the cart. He smiled at them as they acquiesced, closed the door behind them, and pressed the hilt of his sword, still sheathed, to the door. I saw his lips move, although at the distance I still stood at, I couldn’t hear whatever it was he muttered. A flash of light made me curse a little for watching like I did, and when I turned back, the doors of the cart were sealed shut by glowing chains.

It wasn’t the first time I had seen magic, of course. The bolt which had saved this outing from my mistake had been magically enhanced, if I understood Lek’s explanation correctly, and my mother had made sure I had seen several examples of the craft. But Nileas’ magic was just… more. I couldn’t explain it. And I don’t mean that I didn’t know enough to attempt. No Child of the Cataclysm would ever be able to construct an understanding of magic, not that deeply. I could know the basics of its function, and I could know that some people were more skilled with it than others, but I could never hope to understand why. The deeper knowledge required would never stick in our minds.

While I was pondering, Gerevor was walking over to me, the chest still cradled in his arms. His voice was the kind of voice that makes you expect everything he says to be a lie, on some instinctive level, but it would be an unfair assessment to make. The reedy man was certainly impish and prone to jokes even I, at the oh-so-mature age of twelve, often found childish, but he rarely lied in the truest sense, and when he did, it was generally to protect your feelings. He spoke in the kind of half-whisper that is meant less to hide what you’re saying and more to make a joke out of a false conspiratorial nature. “You know girl, if this keeps happening we might have a problem.”

I flushed deeply as the nearer members of the Hand chuckled. I didn’t know them too well yet, but I already felt a faint kinship, and even if I didn’t, being laughed at is rarely pleasant. I kicked Gerevor in the shin and stalked off, the Hand’s chuckles turning into full-on laughter as Gerevor hopped on one leg comically, letting out a comical howl of false pain that made me struggle to keep from breaking my angry expression for a smile. Nileas clapped a firm hand onto my head again and gave me a cheery smile.

“Don’t worry about it, Khem. We handled it. We’ll keep handling it.” He said, perfect voice so purely genuine that I couldn’t fend off the smile any longer. Nileas ruffled my hair and walked off towards Gerevor, the rest of the Hand trailing after him, more like the sea trailing after a boat in motion than any intentional movement.

The chest had been filled with silver coins, pulled from the mines captured during the Silver Wars which I would later learn had spawned the Silver Hand. Nileas, whose plans were always larger than the Hand could fathom, spread only a fraction of the take among the men. The Hand, who knew that his plans were greater than what they saw, did not complain. Each member of the Hand received equal shares, and to my shock, so did I.

It was a simple gesture, and in retrospect I really shouldn’t have been surprised. I may have been the bait, but they had been treating me like one of them for days before we attacked the cart. Nevertheless, when they gave me a portion of the silver equal to any of them, I stopped feeling as if I was a girl they were tolerating and started feeling like I was truly a member of the Silver Hand.

In the months which followed, my relationship with the other members of the Hand progressed. I learned there were always six members of the Hand - one for each finger, and Nileas representing the palm. I learned of the Silver Wars and the atrocities wrought by the Crown against a small silver-mining town which three of the members of the Hand (Nileas, Gerevor, and Riota) hailed from. And, most importantly, I began to learn their ways.

As it started out, I learned their tactics and methods. It was strategy, in a way, but not in the stuffy sense that the teachers my mother had arranged imparted to me in discussions of old wars, but in an active, exciting way which enthralled me. I was brilliant at it. I don’t mean that I was pretty good, or that I was good for my age, I mean that I was - and still am, in fact - brilliant. At the end of the first month, Nileas began involving me in the planning of our work, and I couldn’t have been prouder. At the end of the third, Nileas left the planning to me.

For all my brilliance in the flow of an attack and the strategy of the highwayman, I was still twelve years old and a Child of the Cataclysm. Metka and Gerevor began to teach me the blade and spear, and while I grasped the theory rapidly, my tiny body could not hope to perform it effectively. I was given a dagger after a larger raid, so that I could attempt to fend for myself beyond what I could do with tooth and nail, but nobody expected me to be able to seriously contribute in a fight, least of all me. Riota reluctantly taught me a bit of bowcraft, but I didn’t take to it nearly as well, and she eventually deemed my performance a lost cause.

Nileas, ignoring my silver eyes, attempted to teach me magic. I grasped the idea of it, but true to my nature as a Child, could never so much as summon up a spark. I still devoured as much understanding as I could. Nileas is a brilliant teacher, and his voice always had that quality which drew you back into it over and over.

As he taught it, magic is a form of maths. Each spell is a formula which must first be constructed towards the desired outcome, then solved. A solved magical equation can then be stored - whether it be in a gemstone, a piece of paper, or some other object, and then deployed from the object. That much, I could understand.

That is where it slipped away from me. The maths of magic are impossible, twisting and unreal, the numbers dancing and shifting about before being drawn into a spell and changing inexplicably while one attempts to solve the equation. Nileas explained all this, and attempted to teach me how the mage must come at the problem. No matter what he did or said, however, it would never quite work for me. I became frustrated with magic very quickly.

Lek was a different story from the rest of the Hand, which was not really a surprise. Wyldlings were near impossible to read on the best of days, and the Hand, for all my tactical brilliance and Nileas’ outstanding leadership, the Hand had many bad days. Lek was never mean, and rarely seemed angry, but he never seemed happy, either. He did not attempt to teach me anything, and I never asked him to. Eventually I would learn how to work with him a bit better, but we never became family in the way that I felt the rest of the Hand and I did.

By the time I reached my 13th birthday, I had nearly forgotten my mother’s home. The Hand’s camp was small, but distinctly cosy, and I had a tent to myself, a bedroll I had swiped from a merchant caravan, and a small collection of weapons and other trophies from our various successful attacks.

By the time I reached my 14th birthday, my mother’s home was a distant memory. The Hand’s membership had stayed stable for a year and a half, by my reckoning, and Nileas said it was the longest the membership had gone without some change. I was proud of that, endlessly so, feeling that my contributions in strategy had certainly gone some distance to preserving our lives. I had grown a bit, too, and the constant involvement in battles and the continued training from the other members of the Hand meant that I was decent in a fight, even against adults.

The only piece of my mother’s home which still remained stirred one night after the Hand brought down a Crown airship. We sat around the bonfire at our camp, laughing over Gerevor’s antics and enjoying some of the spoils - several fine cuts of meat which had been being transported to the capital. Nileas was quiet, turning an ornate dagger over in his hands repeatedly. Eventually, the rest of us turned quiet as well, sensing that Nileas wanted to say something.

He spoke lower than he normally did. Not quiet, not soft, just low. His voice rumbled like a thunderstorm in the distance, and I felt it in my chest. He spoke of the Shattered Kingdoms, the days before, and of a dream in which the Crown was gone.

And then he spoke of the throne. His voice was near-reverent, and his ambition writ plainly across his face. It was laughable, but none of us laughed. If anyone could go from bandit to king, it would be Nileas. If anyone could bring the Crown to ruin with a band of six, it would be our leader. And, most of all, our minds strayed to that which he had kept aside from the take of our attacks. How much was it, now? The gears turned in each of our minds, and his ambition began to spread.

Apart from Lek, who remained unreadable but for a slight lean inwards, towards the magnetic pull of our leader, I was the last to really begin to buy in - not because I didn’t believe in him, but because I had an extra step to move through in the process of buying in to his ambition. I recalled that I was a Sentrica, and I saw when I locked eyes with Nileas that he knew that too.

#CotC #Child of the Cataclysm

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child-of-the-cataclysm · 1 year

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Chapter One: Silver Eyes

Don’t blame her. She couldn’t have done a better job.

The bandits who killed the agent of the Crown took me in. Silver eyes may frighten the common folk, but to them, I was an opportunity.

I heard the assorted laughter of the rest of them from their seats at the fire. I shouldn’t have left the tent. It was too late for that. He shouldn’t have said that.

“How about it, girl? Would you join our merry fellowship?”

The woman, as everyone is, seemed struck by Nileas. Dreamily, she placed her hand in his, and he helped her out of the cart and down onto the road. Nileas nodded to her with a smile, then put his other hand to his mouth and whistled. Gerevor hopped off the cart, chest in his arms, and the rest of the Hand gathered on one side and pushed the cart back onto its wheels. Those on the side which it had fallen on seemed a bit worse for wear, but all in all the cart had held up remarkably well, apart from a branch sticking through its window. Nileas directed the man and woman both to get back into the cart. He smiled at them as they acquiesced, closed the door behind them, and pressed the hilt of his sword, still sheathed, to the door. I saw his lips move, although at the distance I still stood at, I couldn’t hear whatever it was he muttered. A flash of light made me curse a little for watching like I did, and when I turned back, the doors of the cart were sealed shut by glowing chains.

“Don’t worry about it, Khem. We handled it. We’ll keep handling it,” he said, perfect voice so purely genuine that I couldn’t fend off the smile any longer. Nileas ruffled my hair and walked off towards Gerevor, the rest of the Hand trailing after him, more like the sea trailing after a boat in motion than any intentional movement.

Lek was a different story from the rest of the Hand, which was not really a surprise. Wyldlings were near impossible to read on the best of days, and the Hand, for all my tactical brilliance and Nileas’ outstanding leadership, had many bad days. Lek was never mean, and rarely seemed angry, but he never seemed happy, either. He did not attempt to teach me anything, and I never asked him to. Eventually I would learn how to work with him a bit better, but we never became family in the way that I felt the rest of the Hand and I did.

#CotC

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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I'd like to see more of the Jiang Cheng has spider venom fic. Mostly because I want to see him bite someone else. How about a Jin?

Normal For the Spider - Extra: 5 People Jiang Cheng Bit, Some of Whom Deserved It

ao3

1 – Wei Wuxian

“So I’ve been exchanging letters with shijie on account of the whole theoretically banished business,” Wei Wuxian said as they strolled down the Qiongqi Path together, Wen Ning behind them making shy stuttering friends with the handful of Jiang sect disciples Jiang Cheng had brought along with him – he’d deliberately picked the friendliest and most social of the lot, the ones that acted like overgrown puppies and wanted to adopt everyone they met, and sure enough they’d mobbed Wen Ning like a bunch of crows intent on raising the poor little sparrow they found into a proper bird. It was no more than Wen Ning deserved, in Jiang Cheng’s opinion. Someone needed to socialize him, and clearly neither his sister nor Wei Wuxian were doing crap about it.

“That’s nice,” Jiang Cheng said. “If by nice you mean extremely suspicious. What about in particular?”

“Your family inheritance.”

“Is this about the summer house we have near that mountain lake? I told you, it’s been deserted for years and may possibly be haunted by something resistant to the usual liberation techniques, but if you really want to go there, you’re of course allowed…”

“That’s not the inheritance I meant and you know it.”

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. He did know it. “What questions do you have now?” he asked. “More medical stuff from Wen Qing?”

She’d recovered from the venom very well and immediately started wanting to know everything. Recovered a little too well, in Jiang Cheng’s opinion.

“No, this one’s for me,” Wei Wuxian said. “We’re going to Lanling City in order to let Jin Ling bite me as a way to establish familial ties and let him ‘absorb’ good aspects from my personality, right?”

Jiang Cheng nodded.

“So in some cases, biting is an act of affection?”

Jiang Cheng nodded, a little more warily.

“Then how come you’ve never bitten me?”

“It’s only affectionate when you’re a baby,” Jiang Cheng said. “Once you grow into your childhood venom, it starts being dangerous, even to family; you don’t do affection-bites after that point. And when you’re an adult…well, you saw Wen Qing!”

“Eh, she’s fine now,” Wei Wuxian said cheerfully. “I feel like I missed out! It’s not fair, Jiang Cheng. I deserve a bite! I’m practically your brother! We share essential bodily organs!”

“Wei Wuxian! Don’t talk about that!”

“Bite me and I’ll stop.”

“I’m not biting you just to make you stop being annoying –”

2 – Jin Zixun

“What are you doing here?!” Jiang Cheng demanded. “This is an ambush! Is the Jin sect considering waging an act of war against the Jiang sect?”

Jin Zixun scowled at him. “Not against the Jiang sect,” he said haughtily. “Against the Yiling Patriarch.”

“He’s my head disciple!”

That got a confused sort of frown. “But you banished him…?”

“Rumor,” Jiang Cheng said, with dignity, the way they’d always planned. “Baseless rumor, that’s all.”

Rumor he’d never denied, and had instead implicitly encouraged so that people would leave his Jiang sect alone for a little while as he gathered up strength and resources to tell them to fuck off.

“But…” Jin Zixun hesitated. “You just – attacked him?”

Jiang Cheng glared at Wei Wuxian, still lying prone on the ground with his head in Wen Ning’s lap to elevate it and his neck bandaged but still a little red – surely the paralytic had worn off by now?

Wei Wuxian noticed him staring and gave a jaunty little wave, grinning and very clearly regretting nothing, which meant that the paralytic had worn off and he was just lying there to be comfortable while watching the fun.

Typical.

“A friendly exchange,” he said, trying to maintain his dignity. “Also? Not the Jin sect’s business. What about you? What did you want with him?”

“I want him to remove the curse he cast on me,” Jin Zixun said, and he strode forward before Jiang Cheng could stop him and kicked Wei Wuxian in the side. “You hear me, you bastard?! I want the damn thing gone this instant or else –”

3 – Wen Ning

“So this is going to be a little awkward to explain,” Jin Zixuan said, rubbing his face. He looked tired, but that was possibly a side-effect of having Jin Zixun as a cousin. “Tell me, why are my cousin’s flunkies – er, I mean, my cousin’s friends convinced that it was Wen Ning that poisoned him?”

Jiang Cheng scowled.

“No offense meant,” Jin Zixuan added, nodding politely to Wen Ning. “It’s just, you know, you’re very much not a Yu, or even a Jiang.”

“No offense taken,” Wen Ning mumbled, though to Jiang Cheng’s eyes he looked a little pleased, even if his stiff wooden face still didn’t do emotions all that well. “It’s nice not to be automatically feared.”

“It’s because Wen Ning punched Jin Zixun in the face at the same moment that I bit him,” Jiang Cheng interjected, because someone needed to answer the actual question. “And then Jin Zixun fell over and someone started shouting about corpse poison – even though he’s obviously turned purple! Purple venom, purple spider, purple lightning…what part of this thematic color scheme is not obvious?!”

“Technically, the livor mortis spots generated by corpse poison are also purple,” Wei Wuxian said, completely unhelpfully. “According to Wen Qing, it’s the lack of oxygen in the blood pooling under the skin or something, which is the same thing your mom’s poison does.”

“Do you think you’re helping?” Jiang Cheng demanded.

“No, not at all. Did I sound like I was helping? I didn’t mean to.”

“I’m going to bite you again, you little…”

“My father isn’t going to want to let Wen Ning through the door if he’s considered a possible threat,” Jin Zixuan said, wisely deciding to carry on with the conversation despite their bickering. “You know he’s been saying all those things about how dangerous the Yiling Patriarch is – this’ll just feed into that.”

“I’m not going to Lanling City without Wen Ning!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed. “Wen Qing made me promise! It’s his first time visiting such a big place, too!”

“I’m pretty sure Wen Qing made you promise not to leave him behind because she was worried about your well-being, not Wen Ning’s ability to be a tourist,” Jiang Cheng said.

“Doesn’t matter! I’m not leaving him, and I’m definitely not going to not attend the party, so you have to fix this!”

“I don’t know how to fix this –”

Wen Ning coughed lightly. “Uh,” he said. “Jin-gongzi…would your father let me in if I wasn’t a threat? Say, if I was unconscious?”

A moment of silence.

“…does venom work even on fierce corpses?”

“Of course it does,” Jiang Cheng said irritably. “It wouldn’t be much of a defense mechanism for a cultivator if it didn’t.”

4 – Jin Guangshan

“I didn’t mean to!” Jiang Cheng said, his hands over his mouth. “I really didn’t mean to! It’s Wei Wuxian’s fault!”

“How is this my fault?!” Wei Wuxian asked. He looked amused, which was never a good sign, and even less so given the extreme crisis of the situation. “I wasn’t even in the room.”

“You encouraged me to keep biting people as a solution to everything!” Jiang Cheng hissed. “It got me in the mood. I wasn’t thinking!”

He looked down at the unconscious (and swiftly purpling) Jin Guangshan and grimaced. There was no convenient Wen Ning to put the blame on this time: it had been just the two of them, Jin Guangshan and Jiang Cheng, alone in a room together. Jin Guangshan had wanted to have words with him, sect leader to sect leader, which mostly meant that he wanted to throw his weight and seniority around to try to brow-beat Jiang Cheng into doing what he wanted, except that wasn’t going to work because Jiang Cheng was prepared, okay, he’d worked so long and so hard to try to build up the Jiang sect until it could resist Jin sect pressure.

And he’d probably just ruined everything.

“He has legitimate grounds to declare war against us now,” Jiang Cheng said miserably. “Or maybe to demand that we hand over that stupid Tiger Seal he keeps bugging you about as reparations, or in order to keep him from declaring war…”

“We can’t let him have it,” Wei Wuxian said at once. “It’s far too dangerous. I’d destroy it, first.”

“But then he’d still have a reason to strike against us…”

There was the soft sound of someone clearing their throat, and at first Jiang Cheng thought it was Wen Ning but when he looked up it was Jin Guangyao, instead. He looked the same as always, gentle and personable and smiling, which struck Jiang Cheng as being unaccountably weird for some reason that he couldn’t figure out until he remembered that the man’s father was currently lying on the ground being poisoned and maybe Jin Guangyao shouldn’t be smiling so much.

“If you don’t mind,” Jin Guangyao said, “I might have a suggestion that would get rid of that problem…”

5 – Wen Qing

“…and long story short, Jin Guangyao is going to run Lanling Jin until Jin Zixuan is done having kids, which may be never based on the soppy looks he and my shijie keep exchanging, and we all have the Jin sect’s blessing to move back into the Lotus Pier,” Wei Wuxian concluded. “All’s well that ends well, right, Jiang Cheng?”

Jiang Cheng crossed his arms and glared, admitting nothing.

“I’ll be happy to move anywhere that has decent food,” Wen Qing remarked. “This damn place won’t even grow radishes properly, and it’s Yiling; the radishes should be practically growing themselves.”

“I’ve arranged for some farmland for your people,” Jiang Cheng said, because practicalities he could do. “There’s still lots left over from before the war, lying fallow, and some of the places are medicinal herb fields – we need people with cultivation to tend to those, so I figured that might work for you. You’d have half regular farmland, to make sure you can grow whatever food you feel you need to be comfortable, and the other half, the herbs, can be sold to the Jiang sect at profit.”

“That sounds good,” Wen Qing said.

“Especially since they’re medicinal herb plants,” Wei Wuxian chimed in. “You could stock up on medicines you need!”

“A lot of medicines have to be obtained through trade, you utter nincompoop! I can’t make medicine just using what a single medicinal herb field will generate!”

Jiang Cheng nodded approvingly, thinking to himself that at least there was someone else in the world who understood exactly how aggravating it was to have to deal with Wei Wuxian’s unbridled and illogical optimism on a regular basis.

“And as for you,” Wen Qing said, turning to Jiang Cheng, who blinked owlishly at her. “Don’t think I missed the part of that story about how biting people is a sign of affection!”

“It’s – what?! No, you don’t – that’s when we’re children– it’s –”

Wei Wuxian started cackling.

#mdzs #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #wen ning #jin zixun #jin zixuan #jin guangyao #wen qing #my fic #my fics #normal for the spider

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probably-haven · 3 years

Note

Hello!

So I’m the anon who asked for more Archon War Venti headcanons and I just loved it! I really like reading your headcanons cuz some of them are similar to mine but mostly are headcanons that I didn’t think of so it really is nice to read and see your thoughts about Venti!

I feel like as if I’m asking too much but could you keep doing these types of headcanons? Like it doesn’t have to be Archon War headcanons but like some headcanons about Venti’s relationship with the Ragnvindrs and Gunnhildrs. Because the first Gunnhildr was the first one who prayed to Barbatos and the first Ragnvindr was his friend who left but came back and I really wanna hear your thoughts on that!

And I’ve decided to get off anon cuz you just replied to my texts and I wasn’t expecting that so I’ve got a short confidence boost that I am completely taking advantage of! And thanks for the advice! or uhh comment? observation? I’m not entirely sure but thank you for that! I’ve heard that be said to me a few times and I have been trying to be more, uhh, assertive so thanks for that!

rfouierjkhfkecs i actually came across information on Gunnhildr and the "Red-haired warrior" yesterday when i was doing more research into the rebellion against Decarabian and I was like "wow this would be really fucking fun to research and theorize on, but its too specific/niche to include unprompted no matter how much i want to" but bestie you prompted, and im literally so happy right now because I didn't think I'd ever really get the chance to post about them!

also lmao yeah, i tend to try and reply to as much as I can, since it's a good feeling when someone does and all. but yeah, no problem! I’m glad you felt confident enough to reveal XD.

This may be structured a bit more like analysis/theory/just citing canon things at first before it gets into a more headcanony format.

ehe i have so much free reign on this it's lovely

More Archon War Era Venti: one two three

spoilers for Venti's backstory and Diluc's(kinda, i think, just in case)

first things first, laying down some canon background because before yesterday i hadn't heard of either of them outside of that one cutscene.

the very reason Decarabian had his storm wall up in the first place was because at the time Andrius had declared war on him- and his tower, and the city of Mondstadt by extent, were basically constantly under attack by Andrius's blizzards, which since he was still alive back then, were a lot bigger and covered basically what seems to be the whole of Mondstadt outside the barrier.

This meant that people had two options. Live in the city under Decarabian's oppression, or live outside the barrier, and brave the blizzards of a warring god... which was not a good idea

but the Gunnhildr clan(not yet called that) tried- and they almost died because of it. In the midst of a blizzard, the clan chief's daughter, named Gunnhildr(which the clan would be named after later) sent out a prayer that was heard by a wandering wind spirit. And the faith of that prayer gave the spirit enough power to create a small shelter to protect them.

When her father past, she became the new leader and also a priestess. She would later lead the clan to fight Decarabian alongside four others. And basically the Gunnhildr Clan ended up as like sworn protectors of Mondstadt

as for the red-haired warrior, who is basically assumed to be the earliest known ancestor of the Ragnvindir clan(im gonna refer to as Ragnvindir for convenience sake, even though "Ragnvindir" is technically a different character from Vanessa's era)theres not much information on him, but heres what i have from the various wiki's

- he was a wanderer

- one of the first to use the sign of windblume to find other rebels(so he's intelligent)

- actively propped up the nameless bard so he could watch as the tower was destroyed

there's this little tidbit too from the Windblume Ode bow's description that im probably gonna talk about a considerable amount too: "Atop the ruins of the ancient tower, amidst the cheers, songs, and tears of those who had newly won their freedom. A red-haired warrior turned his back on the newborn god, hidden like a single raindrop in a tidal wave of humanity. He was first among those who passed the secret sign of Windblume, the one who wove threads of dawn throughout the long night. His name has since been lost to time, but his deeds are still remembered in song." followed later by "The fate of this clan will likely never change: they shall ever live in the darkness and bring forth the flame of dawn."

Now I'm going to start with the Ragnvindir(geez, why's it spelled like that tho)

My idea of his character is basically formed by a mix of Ragnvindir stereotypes and just generally analyzing text.

So what do we know about Ragnvindir's for sure? they are shady motherfuckers- or at least they rarely operate in the spotlight. also damn, these guys are more cursed than anemo vision wielders- like the only one who didn't canonically lose someone close to them was Crepus, but considering that Diluc doesn't exactly have a mom..... he probably did

so what do we know? - he was close with the nameless bard - he was intelligent - he likely operated primarily from the shadows "ever living in the darkness" - he was a wanderer - he abandoned Venti during the celebration - but his deeds were still remembered in song, so Venti and him were likely still close

now the question of the century: how will i choose to interpret "turned his back on the newborn god"? And honestly, I'm- not sure- at first i assumed he abandoned him completely- but Venti did still make sure to carry on his memory- which could just be Venti being Venti, but for the sake of sanity, this is how I'm interpreting it.

A lot of things happened to the Ragnvindir that day. He lost a friend, saw another become a god to replace the one they had conquered, and he saw his goal, his reason for being in Mondstadt, come to fruition. "see the world through my eyes" the bard had said, and the Ragnvindir had been a wanderer even before. Sure, the people had won freedom, and that was to be celebrated, but he's intelligent to recognize that people would likely see him as one of the key figures in leading the rebellion. And for him this was a solemn time, and ending to a chapter, and not being one to operate in the spotlight, the last thing he'd want is to be swept up in festivities and attention at a time like this.

It also likely didn't help that he's probably smart enough to understand the idea of "power corrupts," and seeing the wind sprite just readily accept the mantle of Archon was likely not the most comforting thing to happen in the given situation after all. But Decarabian was gone, and Andrius had ceased his blizzards, so without a word, he slipped into the crowd and left, a wanderer once more.

now back to Gunnhildr

she was the first to receive an anemo vision from Barbatos, no I do not take criticism on this "the power bestowed on her by Barbatos" like please, they basically said it.

It also mentions that she crowned Venti with laurels(symbol of vistory) after the battle- the book Biography of Gunnhildr additionally says "the Gunnhildr Clan will continue honoring the legacy of its ancestors and its duty to the Anemo Archon: to protect Mondstadt, the land and all who inhabit it, forever."

I really like this because it conveniently ties into my past headcanon about Venti granting visions to the people of Mondstadt and having them be the ones to erect wind barriers and defend the city in his absence.

So in the Archon War I like to imagine that the Gunnhildr clan had a lot of people who were actually granted visions and were basically in charge of protecting it from those who would attempt to ambush them.

Mondstadt essentially became known for this- the fact that the mortals within it were strong enough to fend off the force of a god without support from their own.

but regardless, Gunnhildr, as she had before, served as a priestess to Barbatos, the closest thing that Mondstadt had to a ruler, and yet she only took charge of prayer and protection.... i hate to just- equate them to their descendants- but to an extent- her role was kind of like a merge between Jean and Barbara- Except with a whole lot less structure.... i really dont want their characters to just be carbon copies of the descendants but- c'mon, the comparison was right there.

anyways besties- back to Venti so i can tie them in

The Archon War was one of the worst times for Venti in his entire life thus far. And the time immediately after Decarbian's fall, while Gunnhildr and the Ragnvindir were still alive, was the key period of time in which things could have gone very differently.

Venti is the god of freedom. That's a reoccurring theme and I think I've made that abundantly clear. But during this time, Venti was anything but free.

I've mentioned before how he would stay far from the city of Mondstadt so the shockwave of his death wouldn't reach him, should he fall.... well- Venti is new to a lot of things- godhood- humanity- war- freedom- and at this point he was trying hard to figure out how to be Mondstadt's god without becoming Decarabian, and while still being able to survive, and make sure they survived, and see the world for his friend, and carry on his friends legacy.

And this is a lot of stuff for what was once a carefree elemental being, and there were certain things that had to be done for this to happen. He couldn't just stay in Mondstadt, or he would grow weak and his people would be vulnerable to attack, but he couldn't abandon it, because despite being able to fend for themselves, there's always hat just in case. He couldn't stay in any one place outside of Mondstadt for very long or he'd be found and killed. He knew in order for Mondstadt to survive he would have to take an active role in the war, strengthen himself so he could defend Mondstadt, and thats exactly what he did.

He started by going after the less powerful gods, ones he had a chance at beating with the power he got from the Gunnhildr clan and the rest of Mond, and by wiping them out, he would grow stronger, so he kept it up- working his way up the metaphorical ladder.

but he couldn't let anyone near him either, because he knew just what would happen if he was attacked then. Were it not for Gunnhildr's prayer, the early years of the Archon War would have been without contest the loneliest time of his life, and there would be nothing he could do about it, bound by survival and his attachment to the legacy of his friend, constantly fearing for his life and going against his very nature as the god of freedom. Frankly thrust into that circumstance that early on, and having to face it alone, it's likely that Venti would have caved under the pressure and dropped his attachment to either his survival, or to his friends legacy... or just something entirely worse(isolation messes with brains) so I'm attributing the fact that he didn't do that to Gunnhildr's companionship, speaking to him and guiding him through it as he had guided her through the blizzard some time ago.

I also like to think that she's responsible for founding at least a number of the different celebrations that still happen in Mondstadt even now.

Ugh supportive warrior priestess- we stan

anyway meanwhile! we got the Ragnvindir

He hears about Venti taking part in the Archon war during his wanderings and returns to Mondstadt to check in, wary of what he might find.

Venti, who hadn't seen him since the rebellion, is elated to say the least and they do a bit of catching up because they need it

and then the conversation turns more serious, and the Ragnvindir brings up a third thing that Venti needs to hold onto- his humanity.

See, in the early years, just desperate to get a foothold on the world, Venti's first number of targets were just indiscriminately going after those he knew to be weaker than him, and the Ragnvindir points this out, saying that while it's not necessarily bad, if he keeps doing it, it won't be long until he causes his and, by extent, Mondstadt's legacy to be tainted by a reputation for slaughter, no better than any of the other bloodthirsty gods that frequented the war's fields. "Think of what the bard would do, we were both close enough to do that much"

And Venti becomes yet more caged, but recognizes that he's right, and this is another turning point, that in the coming years would keep Venti from losing himself.

also- Gunnhildr, Venti having told her about the Ragnvindir's concerns that he now shared, probably organized some kind of event (not unlike the right of part, but also, yes unlike it) that was deliberately intended and designs to serve as an excuse that Venti could chose to take to visit Mondstadt, something she know he desperately wanted to do, but wouldn't allow himself for fear of putting them in danger. But if she made it an official celebration, then it would give Venti the opportunity to visit his people again, under the guise of it being a responsibility, not having to deal with the moral implications of doing so at a time when he was already dealing with enough of those already.

Also on his travels, the Ragnvindir probably started and spread a number of rumors that could end up working in Venti's favor, not that anyone ever knew it was him of course.

basically Gunnhildr protected the people of Mondstadt and did all she could to keep everyone in as high spirits as possible, Venti included.

And as for the Ragnvindir, he took a more realistic approach, traveling and getting venti followers in far places, spreading false information about him, and just overall making sure that Venti didn't do things he'd regret.

And when they died, Venti would carry their legacy with him as well, not losing his humanity to the tide of war as he very nearly had(though he still often came close), and trying to spreading high spirits where ever he could without fail.

#genshin impact #genshin venti #genshin impact headcanons #genshin theory #genshin headcanons #archon war era venti #genshin barbatos #genshin decarabian #nameless bard #genshin ragnvindir #genshin gunnhildr #genshin lore #genshin spoilers #spoilers #angst #venti angst #archon war #old mondstadt

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iam93percentstardust · 3 years

Note

Haii so i have a promot for you, it’s stuckony and it’s based around a carrie Underwood song called “ Renegade Runaway “

So basically Steve and Bucky are outlaw, who rob trains, banks, and gamble

Tony is a sharffes and teacher kid, who is also one hell of a gunslinger (like Doc holiday,bat masterson, and Wyatt earp), he’s also a blacksmith

Also happy early birthday! 💙

Thank you for the birthday wishes! This ended up being a lot sadder than I originally intended and I wasn't able to include everything, but I hope it still lives up to expectations!

As always, this fic is also on ao3

Tony has his pistol out almost before the door closes behind him. He peers into the darkness of the yard behind the smithy, silently complaining about his eyes taking too long to adjust from the bright fires to the gathering twilight. It puts him at a disadvantage for whoever is waiting out there for him.

“Aw darlin’, is that any way to greet your two favorite outlaws?” someone drawls.

Tony snorts and holsters the pistol again. “Two outlaws, you might be, but my favorites? Far from it,” he snarks.

Bucky Barnes steps into the light spilling out from the window, hand dramatically placed over his heart. “Tony, that cuts me to the quick. Really, the cruelty of your words, they break my heart.”

“Uh-huh,” Tony says, unimpressed. He turns his back on Bucky and locks the smithy door. Peter will leave through the front when he’s finished sweeping and extinguished the lights. Everything else is already stored in the backroom for the night, so there’s no reason he needs to worry about leaving the door unlocked, though he certainly could. Timely isn’t the sort of town that invites trouble, not like some of the lawless towns further west.

When he turns back around, Bucky has moved closer, nearly looming over him. Tony leans back against the door, letting Bucky press against him. Bucky will do it anyway, it’s easier to just give in to him now instead of putting up a fight they both know he doesn’t want.

“You gonna apologize for bein’ so mean?” Bucky breathes into his ear.

“No,” Tony says flatly, crossing his arms. “It’s the honest truth.”

It’s not. Nearly everyone in Timely knows Tony’s sweet on Bucky and his partner, who must be around here somewhere since Bucky mentioned both of them. But it wouldn’t do to be too easy for them. He’s not one of Natasha’s girls after all, giggly and flirtatious and willing to turn their skirts up for a little bit of coin. He likes to make his boys work to get him soft and smiling.

“Now that’s just an outright lie,” someone else says. Tony turns his head to see Steve’s bright blue eyes much closer than he’d expected given that he’d only sensed one of them in the yard earlier. “You love us.”

“Don’t,” Tony denies, turning his head in the other direction so he doesn’t have to see either of them. Steve may be right, Tony isn’t nearly as annoyed by them as he pretends, but loving the two of them makes his life so very hard that it’s easier to pretend he doesn’t have any feelings for them.

“Tony,” Steve murmurs.

Tony stubbornly refuses to look at them. These two outlaws waltz into town all too rarely, typically on the heels of some mess that’ll raise the rewards on their heads yet again, and turn Tony’s life upside down for the brief time they’re in Timely, only to break his heart when they inevitably leave. Sometimes, he wishes he’d never met them.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he whispers eventually, keeping his eyes fixed on the side of the saloon down the street. “The sheriff’s in town tonight. If he catches wind of you—you know Howard wants to be the one to bring you in.”

“Your father’s on a wild goose chase, honey,” Bucky says. “He got word we were hiding out in Howling Canyon.”

“Are you?”

“Do we look like we’re in Howling Canyon?” Steve asks amusedly.

“No. I meant when you’re not—” He stops, biting back the last few words. When they’re not in his bed, he means, but he can’t bring himself to say that. After an awkward pause, he finishes, “When you’re not in town.”

“No,” Steve assures him. “We’re staying—”

“Don’t tell me where,” Tony interrupts, finally turning back to look at them. They both look worried, and he wonders if they know how tired he is of this game they’ve been playing for five years. “You know I’ll have to tell Howard if he asks.”

Not that Howard would. The sheriff is one of the few people who doesn’t know that his son houses the two outlaws when they’re in Timely. He couldn’t even imagine that his son would dare defy him under his nose like that. But both Steve and Bucky know what happens when Tony doesn’t jump to Howard’s every order. They were the ones who took him to Dr. Banner’s after all, after Howard broke his arm for taking too long to finish the horseshoes for Jericho.

Steve’s eyes are stormy at the reminder of Howard’s wrath. Bucky’s mouth is set in a tight line. Neither of them approve of Howard. They’ve told Tony once before that they would take him away from here if only he would let them. But he won’t. There’s too much keeping him in Timely: his mother and Rhodey, even young Peter, who’s only been apprenticed to him for a few months. He can’t just go gallivanting off into the sunset, no matter how badly he wants to. And besides, he knows that the only reason they ask is so that he can get away from Howard. He doesn’t delude himself there. They’d let him go with them just out of range of Howard’s reach and then they’d cut him loose. It’s pity that makes them ask, not—not anything else.

“Just—” He sighs and ducks out from under Bucky’s arm. “Come on. Howard isn’t stupid. He’ll figure out you’re not in Howling Canyon eventually, and I’d like both your cocks at least once before he does.”

Tony once had aspirations of being one of the best gunslingers in the west. He had the best aim this side of the Mississippi and he was quick. He’d been planning on making a name for himself, same as his father had.

Bucky’s bullet through his left thigh had put an end to that dream real quick.

He’d been young—hardly even an adult—foolhardy, and unwilling to listen to Jarvis’ warnings that he wasn’t ready to take on Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, who’d been terrorizing the towns in their small territory for the last three years. He’d been so convinced that he would be the one to bring them in and collect on the bounty. He’d studied their movements, known how they thought, and when Timely had gotten word that the two outlaws had robbed a bank in Faircreek, he’d ridden off on his own toward Harshaw instead of Tombstone like all the evidence pointed to.

He’d been right; the trail to Tombstone had been a false one. But he hadn’t had long to rest on his laurels because he’d been noticed. Steve and Bucky hadn’t been as lax in their vigilance as he’d assumed and they’d lain in wait for him, ambushed him, and ultimately shot him.

To this day, he doesn’t know what drove the two outlaws to take him in instead of leaving him out there to die in the desert, but they had. They’d carefully nursed him back to health, taken care of him when his injury had led to fever, and eventually, after nearly two months together, brought him to their bed with sweet words and sweeter kisses. He’d thought he would have done anything for them after that night, but the next morning, they’d sent him back on his way to Timely with nothing more than a promise that they’d be dropping in to check on him. It had been kind, though the damage had already been done. Tony’s injury ensured he’d never be the gunslinger he’d once dreamt of and his heart had been shattered. He’d apprenticed with Happy, taken up blacksmithing as a trade, and moved out of his parents’ home and into a small house not far from the smithy as his bad leg kept him from walking any great distances.

And when Bucky and Steve had kept their promise and stopped by his house to see him, well, his resolve to send them packing had withered. He’d made sure no one had noticed them and welcomed them inside, his poor heart still beating against his ribs in the pattern of their names.

They love him, he thinks, or at least they love him as best as they can, which is to say they don’t love him as much as he loves them. They certainly don’t love him enough to take him with them. And he understands—he does, despite what Rhodey thinks. His bad leg is a hindrance to outlaws such as themselves, particularly when it isn’t like they have a home base they could leave him out while they go out to commit whatever crime has struck their fancy. No, they’ve been nomads for as long as Tony has known them, never tied down to any one place, and he’s grateful that they at least love him enough to stay in this area instead of moving on to greener pastures.

He checks that the street is clear and then hurries them into his home. It’s changed slightly since the last time Steve and Bucky were in Timely. Pepper gifted him with a rug to go in front of the fireplace six months ago and Peter’s aunt made him a series of sketches of the view from the top of Howling Canyon that he hung in the kitchen. But other than that, the house is much the same as it’s always been, and he isn’t surprised when neither Steve nor Bucky pay any attention to the changes in favor of following him to the bedroom.

They strip him in silence, hands so gentle he’d call them reverent if he didn’t know any better. But he does know better. They don’t love him enough to be reverent. Reverence is saved for each other, for how Steve looks at Bucky in the early dawn when he thinks they’re both still sleeping, for Bucky saving Steve an extra cup of coffee, for the way they know how to tack each other’s horses just as well as they know their own. Reverence isn’t saved for him.

But he treats themreverently. He’s always treated them that way, since the night they took him to their bed. He’s never known any other way to love. They had been his first, the ones to ruin him for all others, and a small part of him hates them for that even as he kisses them hungrily, savoring these few moments he gets to spend with them.

He goes to his knees for them, worships Bucky’s cock with his mouth while Steve undresses, then lays down for Steve to open him up. He lets them fuck him, moans their names while they whisper praises in his ear, and pretends that this is enough, that he doesn’t want more. He imagines it though, imagines Steve lifting him onto Nomad and following Bucky out of town, never to return.

Bucky falls asleep when they’re done—he always does—so Steve is the one who stands and finds a washcloth from somewhere in the house. He wipes the three of them off and then lays down on his side, facing Tony.

“You’re sad tonight,” he says quietly.

“No,” Tony denies. He doesn’t want them to know that he wants more, that he’d do just about anything to get it. They’ll only feel bad that they can’t give him what he wants, like it’s any fault of theirs.

“You are,” Steve insists. “You try to hide it, but you are.”

“Steve…”

“I won’t ask you.” Steve’s own eyes are sad as he reaches out to run delicate fingers over Tony’s face. “I know you wouldn’t tell me anyway. That’s okay; you’re entitled to your secrets, sweetheart.”

There’s something terribly earnest in Steve’s expression, something that Tony doesn’t think he’s seen before. And he’s so close to blurting it out, begging Steve for something he can’t have. He swallows the words back with difficulty and asks instead, “What did you two do this time?”

Steve shrugs as best as he can. “A train.”

“A—” Tony stills. “You didn’t. Steve, you couldn’t. You’ll bring the Marshals down on your heads.”

“Had to,” Steve says casually. “Was the only way to get enough.”

“Enough what?”

“Gold,” Bucky says from behind him, startling him.

It takes a moment for the word to sink in, but his breath comes faster as he realizes just what they’ve done. “You didn’t,” he repeats, sitting up. He scrambles to the end of the bed, as far away from Steve and Bucky as he can get. The outlaws sit up as well, leaning against the headboard as they watch him warily. “What were the two of you thinking? No, don’t answer that. I know exactly what you were thinking: you weren’t. Because if you were, you would have known better. Forget the Marshals, you’ll bring the whole damn army down on your heads. How could you have been so stupid?”

“We were thinking we’d like to get a house,” Steve says, cutting him off.

“A—a house?”

“Mmhmm,” Bucky agrees. “We found ourselves a little patch of land in California we’d like to settle down in. Needed one last robbery to get us enough money to buy it.”

Tony’s heart stops beating, he swears it does. “California,” he repeats faintly.

“Sure, they’ll never think to look for us in California.”

Bucky sounds so calm, as though he can’t see that Tony’s heart is breaking in front of them. How can he be so cruel? How can he just causally mention that they’re leaving him forever, as though the last five years mean nothing to them?

“When are you leaving?” he manages, and it shocks him how calm he sounds when he feels as though his grief is visible from the stars.

“Tomorrow,” Steve says. There’s something careful in the way he looks at Tony, like he at least might have some idea of what’s going through Tony’s head.

Tony repeats, “Tomorrow.” He nods, blinking furiously to try to clear his eyes of the treacherous tears he can feel welling up. He can’t let them know. They’re leaving tomorrow and he doesn’t want them to go. He knows it would have happened eventually. The lawless west is shrinking more and more each day. It’s only a matter of time before the law catches up to them. Their only option is to leave and go somewhere no one knows them. But does it have to be so soon? He’d thought they would have more time.

“So this is goodbye, then,” he says, twisting the bedcovers in his hands. He can’t look at them, too afraid they’ll know what’s racing through his head if he does.

“…Goodbye?” Steve asks. He sounds puzzled. Tony hates that. What right does he have to be confused? That’s for Tony, seeing as how he’s the one who’s been left out of the loop during all this. God above, how long have they been planning this? It must have been at least a year in the making.

“Yes, goodbye,” he says. “One last fuck to see you off, right?”

“One last… Tony,” Bucky says sharply, “do you think we’re plannin’ on leavin’ you here?”

Tony’s heart stops for the second time in as many minutes. “You’re not?” he asks, daring to peek at them. Steve looks horrified, Bucky thunderous as he leans forward to tug Tony into his arms. Tony doesn’t resist, too tired of pretending, too confused by the twists this conversation has taken to argue. Steve curls up against Bucky’s side, carding gentle fingers through Tony’s hair.

“Sweetheart, did you think we weren’t gone on you?” Steve asks, kissing his forehead. “We’ve been fallin’ for you since you figured out where we were goin’ and chased us down.”

“But you never asked me to come with you.”

“S’pose that’s my fault,” Bucky says gruffly. He gingerly touches the scar on Tony’s leg where Bucky’s bullet had ripped through him. “We saw how much pain you were in an’ we couldn’t bear to make it any worse. An’ that’s just what would have happened if you’d spent every night out there with us. We wanted to keep you safe, thought you’d be happier if you weren’t always in pain.”

“I wanted you,” Tony says, pressing a kiss to the underside of Bucky’s jaw. “I didn’t want to be left behind.”

“Yeah, we, uh, we get that now,” Steve mutters sheepishly. “Tony, say you’ll come with us this time. Don’t make us go off on our own this time. We want you to come, can’t imagine a future that doesn’t have you in it.”

He should argue. He should remind them that in the five years they’ve been riding off and leaving him at home, he’s built a life. He has a business and an apprentice and a little house that he likes. He’s not the wide-eyed child he once was, dreaming of adventure. But then, neither are Steve and Bucky, if they really do mean that they’re going to get to California and settle down.

“Darlin’?”

The next morning, Peter arrives at the smithy to find the backdoor locked and the fire cold. He frowns; it’s not like Tony to still be home at this hour. He turns on his heel and heads to Tony’s house. It’s as dark as the smithy is though it doesn’t look like anything is out of place.

Tony is nowhere to be seen. He wonders for an instant if Tony spent the night at Rhodey’s, as he sometimes does when it’s been too long between Steve and Bucky’s visits (though Peter isn’t supposed to know anything about the outlaws). He turns to leave, planning on heading over to Rhodey’s to ask if he’s seen Tony this morning, only to catch a glimpse of something on the kitchen table, glinting in the early morning sunlight pouring in from the door.

Curious, he wanders over to find a single gold coin—and a letter addressed to him. Peter immediately pockets the coin and then opens the letter. It’s written in Tony’s messy scrawl and he reads it eagerly, hoping it’ll tell him where Tony’s gone.

Peter,

I hope you’ve spotted this. The coin is for you. Under the bed, there’s a pouch full of more coins, but those are for Happy. They should be enough to drag Happy out of the quiet life to finish your apprenticeship. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay, but it was time to move on.

If anyone asks where I’ve gone, tell them I’ve run away to California.

Tony

#alle writes #alle answers #stuckony #if you like please reblog #nsfk #ish

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fvrxdrm · 3 years

Text

Through the Valley

Pairing: Jesse McCree x F!Reader

Warning(s): Mentions of violence, angst

Setting: Deadlock/Pre-Blackwatch/Pre-recall

Song: Through the Valley (Ellie’s cover)

*****

When the universe was formed, the world was sculpted with rocks, and when the world was sculpted with rocks, strange beings were brought down to earth, and when strange beings were brought down to earth, sins were born, and when sins were born, dissensions were brought to light, and when dissensions were brought to light, war had clouded the visions of many beings and humanity teared itself down, one by one, with metal blades and flying arrows, and evolving into something much more minacious and powerful…

…like a gun.

So much vigor, so much anger, so much power. With one pull of a trigger, one life could be led towards heaven or hell, with no chance of escaping a baneful bullet; piercing through the skin and tearing the flesh, embedding itself deep till the person dies losing blood or be lucky enough to survive such fatal shot.

An excellent marksman’s the only one capable of doing that.

Specifically, those who know their guns by heart.

They are precise. They are rigorous. And they make every shot count. They make sure the target receives the end of their blazing weapons, and they’ll do it again and again till they’re satisfied with the bloodshed they’ve created. Their eyes would gleam with red, and blood would boil deep within their veins.

Even with one shot, those who feel agony could be standing right in front of death’s door.

There’s this marksman though, a gunslinger who seems to have held a gun since his mother gave birth to him. His accuracy cannot be matched even by those whose experiences have passed through the roof. Even with a blindfold on he still knew where to point his revolver at. He was a shit-hot at what he was doing, as they say.

Deadeye is what they call him.

People believe that the Deadeye was a curse that was passed from his ancestors to their descendants, and he happens to be their newest successor, which means he was to hold the malediction whether he liked it or not.

Truth is, it isn’t a curse.

Born by pain and abandonment, he was forced to teach himself how to survive on his own at such a young age. He worked hard to feed himself with enough food to desist from dying from an empty stomach, he rode by rivers and looked out for cacti to give himself something to drink, and most importantly, he taught himself how to pull a trigger and defend himself from nasty foes with the use of a gun he likes to call…the Peacekeeper.

After so many years of living and surviving on his own, a gang who called themselves the Deadlock Rebels took him with them and dinned him on how to rob banks and stir up ruckus in villages and towns. He was happy to have found a family who he could rely himself on even with their twisted intentions, and for the first time in his entire life, he felt rapturous.

Every blood he spilled was a trophy to be held in his hands, every eye that widened in fear had the hunger lurking beneath consume him until he became the monster that he was, every bullet that flew with the speed of light had his teeth grinding together, and every word that spread around town had him grinning with sharpened fangs.

People see him as the devil himself, only softening what was left of his heart when a kiss was pressed against his vulgar lips.

His lover was pristine and innocent, an angel in contrast to the demon he turned himself into. She had bright eyes and a scintillating smile, a touch so gentle and feather-like, a voice so small and warm, and a forgiving heart nobody deserved to earn unless she allowed it to.

Folks have wondered how on earth had she given a killer a chance and had asked the same question over and over again, but she always replied with the same answer as well;

“He was orphaned by evil and war; always have, always will be. Someone as broken as him may not be fixed, but they deserve love just as much as those who have found their place in order to help find their purpose on earth again. There are paths in front of them to help guide them in life, and what surrounds them will give them a reason to stay in the path they’ve chosen.”

Some people agree, some people don’t. But at the end of the day, it’s her belief and children look up to her and admire the goodwill she possesses even though her trust was something to be worried about. She claims she knows what she’s doing and all the world hopes that she truly does.

The heart of his lover would burn at every bruise and every wound the young man would come home with, and every word of what his gang had done would send her heart palpitating in an almost irregular speed. She feared of what was to come, and she hoped and prayed that he wouldn’t end up like the folks who have met the end of Peacekeeper’s barrel.

Years have passed and the man grew into a more ruthless killer. He had a heart of stone but it never forgot the woman who have given him an aspiration better than what they had then. He was going to be head and shoulders above, he promised. Just not now. The devil on his shoulder was still pulling him underneath. And when the day the voices in his head have stopped screaming comes, he’ll find a better home for the two of them; one where they could raise a few children of their own and make love until the sun rises in the east.

But alas, the dreams he had hoped for came to an unfortunate close…

The Deadlocks had been ambushed by soldiers of Overwatch, slowly killing the only family he’s had and taking him and his lover in to probably rot for the rest of their lives. Blue had befogged his vision, but red had risen flames inside of him.

Bullets flew from his tongue the moment he was thrown into a room flooded in black with only a poor excuse of a light hanging above him. He sat impatient, fists clenching and unclenching in fear of what they might’ve done to his girl. She could’ve been suffering from a harrowing death and nobody gave him one last chance to say what must be said before her final moments, and that was enough to untether something wilder inside of him.

He was given two options: he would be thrown into jail and be left there to rot or be given a chance to walk in the right path and leave the wrong, change himself and the world for the better.

The commander had seen something in him: a potential. The woman was right when she said he was forced into a void full of nothing but anguish at such a young age, and pity was what he felt for the gunslinger.

The power he had with his gun was nothing Reyes had ever seen. He was one with Peacekeeper; both thriving to reach the heights with ardor and strength. It would a shame if his talent was just going to be thrown into waste. So, what better way to use it than with noble purpose?

He was right. The offer was better than to slowly sink into the fires of hell. But what’s the point of throwing his hat into the ring if the woman he loves was in the opposite side of the wall? What’s the point of it all if she wasn’t going to be the shoulder he could cry on? What made it even worse was the fact that he was just going to be stuck in a goddamn loop.

Maybe dreams were only meant to be dreams…

It seemed like the world gave him a certain fate; a fate where death was something that would haunt him like a ghost whenever he was in the firing line, a fate where shadows were to be seen in his line of sight, and possibly a fate where he becomes a weapon himself and shoot down those he cared for dearly. And it scared him. But, what choice did he have? He’d rather see the world again and again, even in its darkest times, than die pathetically in his cage.

“Good choice, kid. I think you both know why you were brought here on earth in the first place.”

'Cause I walk through the valley of the shadow of death And I fear no evil because I'm blind Oh, and I walk beside the still waters and they restore my soul But I know when I die my soul is damned

Jesse sang with shaky breath, fingers trembling against tattered wood, before his hands rested loosely against his guitar and sighed into the warm night air.

“We’ll be alright,” his lover said. Her calloused fingers gently grasped his metallic one and smiled sadly at him.

They both wore rings, a symbol of the love they’ve treasured and every trial they’ve come across along the way. The vows they’ve exchanged gave them a reason to stay, a reason to fight again. It was a bittersweet surrender, but it was worth it.

“Yeah, we’ll be alright.”

#jesse mccree x reader #jesse mccree #overwatch x reader #overwatch #mccree x reader #mccree

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cosmicjoke · 3 years

Text

Alright, onto chapter 59 and 60 of AoT!

Chapter 59 of course has the big scene between Levi, Armin and Jean, and once again, we see Levi’s immense kindness on display, underneath the blunt honesty he also lays on his squad.

I feel like this scene really ties into my last post, and what I discussed about the 104th’s judgmentalism towards Levi, and how quick they were to condemn him for the actions he took. What strikes me during this scene from chapter 59 is how polar opposite Levi is in his own behavior from what the 104th’s was through chapter’s 57 and 58. That is to say, Levi’s utter LACK of judgmentalism towards his squad. This is one of the most remarkable things about Levi, and one of the traits that most highlights the actual goodness of his heart.

We see both Armin and Jean struggling immensely here with what happened in the wagon with that MP, Armin with the terrible guilt and fear that he killed a good person, and Jean with the awful guilt that his own hesitation and lack of commitment endangered everyone’s lives, and put the responsibility of taking a life on Armin.

What I find really interesting and telling about this scene is how Armin starts to voice his fear that the only reason he was able to kill the MP first was because she hesitated to kill Armin, but he can’t bring himself to ask the question to Jean, only imply it. And Jean, for his part, isn’t able to confess that that’s EXACTLY what happened. None of them want or are able in that moment to give life to their sense of guilt by admitting the truth of what happened.

And then... Levi steps in and does it for them.

He just flat out says the truth, where no one else was in that moment willing or able. That Armin was able to get his shot off first because the MP hesitated, and by saying so, he essentially forces Armin and Jean to confront the reality of what’s happened, and what they’ve done, and to come to terms with it. Levi then just flat out tells Armin that his hands are already dirty, and that there’s no going back to who he used to be, so he might as well just accept that this is who he is now. We see Mikasa start to make a protest, again, but Levi cuts her off and keeps going, to tell Armin that, if he hadn’t acted as he did, WHEN he did, Jean would likely be dead, and he tells Armin that he saved them all by getting his hands dirty, telling him that he’s grateful to him for that. Once again, we see Levi be the first and really only person there to express his gratitude and go out of his way to say thank you to one of his comrades for doing what needed to be done. He knows that Armin’s actions came at a great cost to himself, and he acknowledges that by expressing his gratitude for Armin’s sacrifice, for helping all of them, and giving a part of himself up in the process. This is exactly what Levi was trying to explain to them during the confrontation with Historia. That even if it means taking on the burden of guilt, or self-hatred, or being made to look like villains, none of that matters in the face of the greater good . Levi does the exact same thing with Jean, then, when Jean apologizes for judging Levi and his methods, and promising to not hesitate next time. Levi, once more, is brutally honest with Jean, telling him that, yes, because he hesitated, he put all of them in danger. Jean says he’s sorry, but then Levi tells him that what happened was “then and there” and “that’s it.”, before proceeding to tell him that he himself doesn’t know what’s right or wrong, and he wouldn’t try to tell Jean what is, that Jean may very well be right. Jean shows shock at this, and Levi’s willingness to consider Jean’s side and his thinking, despite how it put them all into a precarious position.

What gets me about this scene is how sharply it contrasts with the scene from chapter 57. Levi is totally upfront with his squad, telling them what he thinks and feels to their faces, being completely honest, and forcing them to be honest too, even though the truth is painful and sometimes ugly. He is, in turn, completely uncritical and non-judgmental towards Jean and Armin. Rather then condemning them, or belittling them, he tries his very best to comfort them and encourage them, and make them understand that they have nothing to feel guilty over, nothing to beat themselves up for. How, in fact, their actions were critical in aiding in all of their escapes. All of this is in such sharp contrast to how all of them acted in chapter 57, where Jean, Connie, Mikasa and Sasha were all highly critical and judgmental toward Levi, and how they only voiced those critics among themselves, not having the guts to say any of it to Levi’s face, the way Levi tells them without hesitation exactly what he’s thinking. This whole thing, I think, serves as a harsh lesson for the members of the 104th about the foolishness of being quick to judge and condemn without having a full grasp or understanding of the circumstances, the situation, or the person. Jean expresses remorse at having so quickly dismissed Levi’s methods as wrong, and says he’s sorry. But Levi doesn’t hold Jean’s own judgment of him against him, or tell him “apology accepted”, but rather tells Jean that he isn’t wrong to feel the way he did, basically telling Jean that it’s alright for him to think of killing as wrong, even still. When he tells Jean that what happened was “then and there. That’s it.”, he’s telling Jean that not all situations are the same, and that just because he made the wrong call in that particular circumstance, it doesn’t mean that a hesitation to kill in the future will be wrong. Levi is showing such a deep level of understanding and consideration for Jean’s feelings in this scene, and it’s just truly remarkable to watch unfold, again, especially, in light of how quick his squad was to judge him not that long before. We see Levi’s compassion for Jean’s feelings, and his consideration of his feelings here have an impact later on, between Jean and Marlowe, when Jean gives Marlowe a chance to prove his sincerity by not immediately killing him, even when he had the chance. We see Jean finally having listened to Levi, having heard his words and understood what he meant. That this situation was different from the one with the female MP in the wagon, that here, he WAS right to hesitate, here, he made the right choice. Levi is always impressing onto those around him that they can only ever try and make the right choice in any, given situation, and that they can’t expect those choices to always be the same across the board. That different circumstances call for different decisions, and there’s no point in beating yourself up or regretting those decisions that are made in the moment. Levi never puts unrealistic expectations or pressure on anyone around him to be perfect. He always tells them they’ve done a good job, just for trying. And that is just so incredibly sweet, and kind, and once again, really exemplifies just who Levi really is. Just that lack of judgment, that lack of condemnation, and the respect he shows to everyone by being HONEST with them, is amazing.

It’s interesting too, going through the rest of the chapter, and then chapter 60, when we see that Levi isn’t just some needlessly violent person that kills all the time. He doesn’t kill a single MP when they ambush them at their base, nor does he kill Marlow and Hitch, or the commander they take from the Interior Squads HQ. Once again, Levi’s squad gets another lesson in who Levi really is. That he’ll kill when it’s necessary, when it’s the lives of him and his comrades on the line. But when it’s a less dire situation, he doesn’t resort to it at all. He isn’t like Kenny, for example, who kills even when he doesn’t need to.

Another scene that really stood out to me in chapter 60, that I don’t think was animated, was when the commander they took from HQ tries to manipulate Levi into giving himself and the rest of his squad up, and tries to use Levi’s compassion against him, by telling him to save the lives of Erwin and his other comrades that have been arrested by giving up their own. This reminded me heavily of when Zeke tries to escape from the forest by turning Levi’s comrades into Titans, believing Levi won’t be able to kill them and thus leading to his own death. This kind of psychological deviousness, and attempts to use Levi’s compassion against him are particularly ugly, I think, particularly cruel and cynical. Especially in contrast to Levi’s own honesty and bluntness. Again, it only throws Levi’s own idealism and hopefulness into relief, seeing it clash up against the kind of psychologically manipulative games people like this MP and Zeke play at.

The way this commander of the interior MP’s tries to play head games with Levi by guilt tripping him, by claiming some of the people in HQ that they took down were only servants, and then implying that Levi doesn’t care about his comrades because he isn’t willing to turn himself and the other squad members in to save them is such an unkind thing to imply, because we know, and I think the MP knows, exactly just HOW much Levi cares about his comrades, and that’s why he tried this particular ploy. There isn’t anything much worse than the type of person who would use another person’s kindness and compassion against them this way, and again, the same way we see Zeke use it against Levi in that forest. And the same way we saw Levi’s pain and anguish in the forest when he realized what had happened, and what he would have to do, we see it too in the following panel here. Levi has, once again , an anguished look on his face as he readily admits that some SC members lives are worth more than others, meaning of course Eren and Historia’s lives are more vital than any of their own in overthrowing the corrupt government, and he understands in that way that even if it means Erwin and the others dying, it’s a sacrifice they have to be willing to make. You can see how these choices weigh down on Levi, how much it hurts him to have to make those choices, but tying back in to his earlier conversation with Armin and Jean, he has to be willing to make them in order to help the most people, and he never deludes himself about it. Levi is about as straightforward as you can get, he doesn’t mince words or try to play games, and he doesn’t lie to himself about any of it.

We get more of that honestly when he breaks the commanders arm and tells him straight that that was for refusing to answer his question.

That kind of honestly, both about himself and others, is part of what makes Levi not only the most heroic character in SnK, but also, in many ways, the bravest.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #Levi Ackerman #meta #thoughts #chapter 59 #chapter 60

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passable-talent · 4 years

Note

part 2 for the sith reader plleeeaasee????? im loving it

part one here

I’m aware of the memability of the youngling massacre and i know i promised to not make reader/anakin redeemable but,,, im gonna do it anyway. strategically it doesnt make sense to murder the next generation and also reader is constantly trying to make anakin believe they’re doing the right thing. reader doesn’t have the luxury of saying ‘do it or padme dies’. they’ve got to be smarter than palpatine was.

Good news: you’re a Sith Lord. Palpatine is gone. Anakin’s on your side. Also, he loves you, that’s good.

Bad news: you now have so much more on your plate. You’ve got to activate the clones to kill the Jedi, give a speech before the Senate, accompany Anakin to Mustafar to get rid of the Separatists, there was just so much to do, and in so little time.

So, no matter how you wished to stay in his embrace forever, you pulled from Anakin’s arms, brushing back his hair sweetly.

“Love, we need to start moving against the Jedi,” you said softly, righting his very disheveled robes. “You have to go to the temple. I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?”

“I can’t kill any Jedi,” he said, breaking your gaze. In response you hugged him tightly, comfortingly. You’d known he would worry about that.

“I know, I know, I’m not asking you to.” His loyalty to you was strong, but you knew it was not yet unbreakable. “The Younglings- they can be saved. I’ll take care of the Jedi, but you need to make sure they’re safe.” He nodded, fixing the last few details of his tousled robes, and kissed you one last time before he left the room.

Which left you alone, with your thoughts, and some very knotted hair.

It took a moment to clean yourself up as well, but soon enough you could take a seat at Palpatine’s desk, calling up the communications you’d seen under his fingers a thousand times. The Clones’ slave chips would take over their will the moment you gave the order, and you bit your lip for a moment, wishing you could be there in person to see it all. But you had something much more important to do with your time.

You pulled your hood over your head and opened your communications to all of the Clone Squadron Leaders.

“Execute Order Sixty Six,” you said, and the words burned on your tongue.

You didn’t really have time to waste, you see. You had to meet Anakin at the temple, ‘find’ the evidence you’d plant, rush back to the Senate, then make it to Mustafar. You had a very full schedule for the afternoon, and yet- you couldn’t help it.

You leaned back in the chair, closed your eyes, and opened yourself to the Force. You reached out across the galaxy, feeling into the light, and the dark. Through it, you felt a thousand Jedi dying. And nothing, well, almost nothing, had ever felt so good.

The Jedi Killer, you’d been, in the Clone Wars. And though the generation of them did not die by your saber, it was your order, your decision, your words, that had brought them down. You weren’t just a killer. You were a crusader.

Once you’d gotten your breath back, you pulled up a different communication, one wired to a meeting hall on Mustafar, full of people you despised. Nute Gunray, Shu Mai, truly awful people. People who had come to power, and did nothing with it but collect wealth. Disgusting, truly- when one comes to power, they’re meant to wield it, just as you were. But these people only cared about their trade, their capitalism. Pitiful.

“Viceroy,” you said with a dark smile, eyes hidden beneath your cloak.

“Lord Errar,” Nute acknowledged you with a bit of surprise in his voice, “Where is Lord Sidious?”

“He has just a bit to take care of in the Senate,” you said with a wicked smile. Nothing made your soul spark like a well-crafted lie. “Once that’s taken care of, I will pay you a visit, to give you your reward for your help. When the night is over, my friends, you’ll be left in peace.” Giving them no time to ask questions, you closed the communication, delivering your last word to an empty office.

“Pieces.”

The last thing you needed to do before you left was nice and easy- the press of a button. Hidden away in the far corner of the Chancellor’s desk was a button meant only for emergencies, which is certainly why you used it now, of course. The death of the chancellor was an emergency, wasn’t it?

You called a senate meeting.

Once that was done, you knew you had only an hour before the senators would be expecting you, so you found your saber and hurried to your speeder. It didn’t take long to get to the Temple, where you had sent Anakin. He had rescued the younglings from their training, in the midst of the battlegrounds that the Temple had become, and gotten them away to their chambers, in the care of droids. He met you in the center of the temple, Jedi and Clones alike scattered around the floor. So caught up in his mission, he hadn’t noticed how long you’d been at the temple, working your way through the files.

“I told them that I’d come back when it was safe,” he said, “The droids will take care of them.”

“Good,” you breathed, giving him a quick kiss under the ear. You took his hand, and slowly tugged him toward the communications center of the temple. “I have to show you something.” You pulled up the files you’d been painstakingly preparing for months, crafting them, ensuring they looked as though they were written by Jedi fingers.

On them were plans from the other side of the Clone Wars, supporting the Separatists. They held details about the destruction of the Senate, the assassination of the Chancellor, without even knowing he was a Sith. And of course, your magnum opus, the most perfect thing you could’ve included- the passage that described how the Jedi would allow the Dark Side of the Force, the Sith, to rise in power so that the Jedi could shift the blame for the war to the Sith. This, you knew, would hurt Anakin most of all- that the Jedi had completely ignored their duty to fight the Dark.

“I just don’t understand,” you said softly, shaking your head, darkness pulsing deep in your chest with a beautiful, well-crafted lie. “I thought- I thought that Sidious was behind the war. But even he was being manipulated by the Jedi, he was going to be gotten rid of so that the Jedi could control the Senate.” Anakin couldn’t look away from the holograms.

“Anakin, I’m so sorry,” you breathed, lacing your arms around the closest of his, hoping to give him even the slightest comfort, as he accepted that the people who’d raised and trained him were so evil. Apparently.

“There’s some good news, though,” you said, motioning to one of the holograms, “We now know where the Separatist leaders are. You and I- we can go...” you paused, seeming to stumble to find the proper word. “...Remove them.” Finally breaking his eyes away from the holo, he nodded, pulling you just a bit closer.

You kissed his cheek, giving him a moment to grieve.

“I should inform the Senate,” you said, “They’ve never met me, but I was the Chancellor’s apprentice. They’ll respect me.” His flesh hand came to your face, and you leaned into it, closing your eyes for the briefest of moments to drown in his affection.

“Be careful,” he told you, and you nodded.

“Can you-” you said, shaking your head briefly, trying to be gentle with him. “Come with me, please. I don’t want you to stay here by yourself.” He nodded, and together you walked to your speeder, taking it to the Senate hall.

And this- this was to be your masterpiece.

“Senators-” you began, aligning your shoulders in a way that had you looking powerful enough to command their attention, but nervous enough they wouldn’t suspect you for foul play. “I’m afraid I have some very disturbing news for you.”

"I was an apprentice to the late Chancellor Palpatine, a gifted and respected leader who guided our republic through the first war in generations. I’m saddened to inform you, though, that this war was not what you’ve been told.” Whispers rippled through the senate’s hall.

“The Jedi, to whom this Senate entrusted the peace of the galaxy, had given power to the Separatists, in order to stir up the war. Earlier this very day, four Jedi masters ambushed myself and the Chancellor in his office...” you trailed away, bringing up emotion to stir their sympathy.

“I only escaped thanks to one young Jedi who still represents what the Jedi Order was meant to. The Chancellor was not so lucky.” You felt it as grief rolled through the room, and fought away a smile. They believed your every word- of course they did.

“On the battlefields, the horror of the Jedi and their plans were realized, and many of them were executed for crimes against the republic, following the Chancellor’s dying wishes. His other...” You shook your head, as though disbelieving what you were about to propose.

“His other wish on his deathbed was that I carry on his work. That I guide the Republic into a future of peace.” The energy in the room shifted, but not toward the negative. No, they trusted you. They were considering giving your former mentor’s power to you. They just needed a little more.

“I know you’ve never seen me before, you have no reason to trust me. I implore you, honorable senate, to believe me. I will see it that this Republic is capable of recognizing traitors, as the Jedi had become. I will see to it that the remaining traitorous Jedi are hunted down and executed. I promise to lead this Senate into the future!”

The cheer went up.

“I vote to reorganize the Republic, into something stronger, more powerful, more capable of destroying threats to the peace!”

The energy was beautiful, lifting you to levels of bliss you had never felt before. You were to be the most powerful Sith there had ever been, controlling the Senate, the Republic, the Sith, the Jedi.

The Republic. Such a name didn’t have quite the ring you wanted. You were to be, what, Chancellor? No, no, that wouldn’t do.

“Together, we will create the first Galactic Empire- a beacon of hope for the galaxy, the strongest protector of the peace that the galaxy has ever seen!”

Emperor. Now that was a title you were proud to carry.

“We have to hurry,” you told Anakin as you strode from the meeting hall, “The Separatists might hear word that we know their location. We’ve got to get to them before they move.”

They hadn’t- they waited, like the proper pawns they were, for the reward you had promised them. Such a reward came in one of two forms:

Anakin’s saber, or yours.

You had planned out everything that would happen this day, everywhere you would go, every bit of it. You knew every step, and were never caught off guard.

Until you discovered Obi-Wan Kenobi waiting outside of your ship.

You had to make a decision fast- how you were going to play this. Obi-Wan was a talented Jedi, and possibly the one person who you’d be incapable of manipulating, thanks to that strong Jedi code. He was also the only person who Anakin might be loyal to, over you.

So, you let Anakin have his reunion, as though you hadn’t even noticed Obi-Wan.

You stayed close, but you hadn’t thought to make Anakin realize he’d have to stand opposed to Obi-Wan, so you had to wait for the proper moment to interject yourself.

“Anakin, are you alright? There’s been so much happening- I was so worried.” You knew Obi-Wan had noticed you, but for all of Obi-Wan’s faults, at least he knew that you were no threat to Anakin.

“I’m fine,” Anakin told him, and you recognized what he was feeling- he was pushing away his emotions, as the Jedi Order had always told him to.

“Master Yoda has lost contact with Master Windu- we don’t know what happened. Do you?”

And there it was. The moment you’d been waiting for.

“Stop,” you groaned, crossing your arms. “You know exactly what Windu was doing. You know exactly where he was today.” You stepped forward, putting yourself almost between Obi-Wan and Anakin.

“No,” Obi-Wan said, astonished by your presence. He’d known you were there, but something about you now almost reminded him that you were barely an adult, just like Anakin. “No, sith apprentice, I don’t know what happened.”

“That’s a lie!” you shouted, not yet bringing up your saber. You put your arm in front of Anakin, as though protecting him from Obi-Wan. “You’re done lying to him!”

“Excuse me?”

“Mace Windu along with three other Jedi masters were sent to murder the Chancellor of the Republic so that the Jedi could assume control! Anakin and I found the plans in the Jedi temple ourselves!” Obi-Wan’s expression fell, and he didn’t look away from you.

“What are you talking about?”

You shared a glance with Anakin, and suddenly, you had an idea.

“They didn’t even tell you?” You whispered, turning your gaze to the floor as though you were considering. You were, though, honestly- there was no reason why this needed to end with Obi-Wan dead, not if you could reel him in just as cleanly as you did Anakin. And if you failed, then to Anakin it would feel incredibly genuine that Obi-Wan would need to die, ensuring his loyalty either way.

You brought your gaze to Anakin’s, and offered him the slightest pitiful smile.

“Maybe he can be trusted,” you said, offering him the hope that his master was redeemable. Lifting your chin as though gathering your wits, you turned to Obi-Wan, something under your ribcage sparking again with the love of a good plan seeing itself through.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, Master, but the Jedi had been plotting the death of Chancellor Palpatine, and once he was gone, they were going to assume control of the Senate. Your masters have been behind this war, all along. It’s all very-” You shook your head. “Despicable.”

“It can’t be true,” Obi-Wan said, his voice stealing air from his lungs, his chest seeming to deflate, and this couldn’t have possibly worked out better.

“We found the plans, in the Temple,” Anakin said, and Obi-Wan looked at his former Padawan.

“I assure you, Master,” you said, lowering your head, “I just want the galaxy in peace. I know you aren’t inclined to believe me, I understand...” It occurred to you that if he knew the whole of the story, he might be swayed toward you.

“Anakin and I are a Dyad,” you told him, and Anakin’s entire presence in the Force pulsed with surprise. “I always thought that it meant we were destined to be enemies, but I guess the future is harder to predict than that.” Obi-Wan studied you briefly, looking over your face, trying to find any hint of dishonesty. He underestimated you- you breathed dishonesty, it was in your bloodstream. Why would he be able to see it on you?

“You are a sith, are you not?” Obi-Wan asked, presumably weighing whether or not he could trust you.

“I was abandoned by my master, because of how I felt for Anakin,” you told him, and none of it was a flat lie. That was your specialty- you were surprisingly honest, if one listened with a close enough ear. You reached out to take Anakin’s hand, an unabashed show of affection that felt quite teenaged. “I just want him to be safe.”

“If I can trust you, (Y/N), which I’m not sure I can,” Obi-Wan said, “I’ll help restore the galaxy in every way I can.”

-🦌 Roe

part 3

#reader insert #angst #sith!reader #anakin x reader insert #star wars anakin #anakin x reader #anakin imagine #anakin skywalker imagine #anakin skywalker x reader #anakin skywalker #anakin x sith reader #anakin skywalker x sith reader #star wars #Star Wars prequels #fics

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tallstars-rewrite · 3 years

Text

Chapter 2

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Tallkit was acquainted with the clan elders Flintfoot, Fennelpelt, and Whitetooth, but the elders' time was valuable and his mother had told him they didn’t always like to be disturbed without permission.

Sandstone led him into a shallow burrow lined with soft mosses and rabbit fur, tucked into the base of the tall hillside that rose above WindClan’s camp and sheltered it from the worst winds. Sandstone dipped his head to the old cats inside respectfully, and Tallkit quickly followed his lead, very careful not to bump his nose into the ground this time. Fennelpelt’s golden-brown eyes were kind, and Flintfoot regarded him with an impassive flick of the ear. Whitetooth was looking him up and down and Tallkit felt himself shrink a bit under the old tom’s sharp gaze, but at last he gave him an approving nod.

“I hope we haven’t disturbed you, Whitetooth.” Sandstone said, “I wanted to show Tallkit the project you requested I work on for you. I thought it would be a good beginning place for him to learn some basics.”

“Your little tom is always welcome here.” Fennelpelt purred.

“Certainly, he’s much less noisy than certain other kits.” Whitetooth said pointedly. “Flintfoot indulges them far too much.”

Flintfoot pretended to not have heard him and returned to his grooming.

Whitetooth blinked his hazy blue-gray eyes at Tallkit. “I hear you hope to continue our tunneling legacy.”

“Of course, your path hasn’t been decided yet.” Fennelpelt reminded them gently. “The council won’t discuss it until a quarter moon before its time for your ceremony.”

Tallkit was a bit surprised. He knew the council was made up of the leader, elders, deputy, and medicine cat, and that Heatherstar consulted them in making big decisions, but he didn’t think there was anything to discuss in regards to him. “I thought I was already meant to be a tunneler?”

“You are of course,” Sandstone said. “The council always meets as a formality. In the meantime, all kits could benefit from a little learning beforehand.”

Tallkit nodded and Sandstone took him to the back of the den. “We’ve been meaning to carve out the elders' den to create more space.” He leaned down and whispered with an amused purr, “Whitetooth and Flintfoot would prefer to sleep farther apart.”

Tallkit watched as Sandstone put a big paw against the earth, and saw it was newly scraped out compared to the smoother packed in older walls.

“We have room to expand a little farther this way, and you’re going to help me. The soil isn’t as frozen back here as it is on the surface. Slow careful pawfuls as opposed to fast scratching, work your claws into the soil and push it down behind you. ”

Tallkit watched his father closely and tried to copy him, but his paws were just too small and weak compared to Sandstone’s tougher pads. For a moment the kit felt like he was making a little progress, then he slipped and his toe bent painfully against a rock. He screeched from the sudden pain and jumped back, shaking his paw.

“It hurts my claws!” he whimpered.

“Come now, the only way to toughen your paws is to keep practicing! Slow and steady gets it done.” Sandstone urged. Tallkit tried again, huffing with the effort but trying not to let it show.

“Don’t get discouraged, these things are never easy at first,” Sandstone said. “But these are our StarClan given gifts, and you’ll have them too in time.”

“I know about StarClan!” Tallkit said, “It’s where the cats that don’t live in camp anymore are. That’s where Finchkit lives”

His father blinked at him in confusion, “ Finchkit?”

“Mother’s other kit, my sister.” Tallkit tried not to feel frustrated. Didn’t anyone know about Finchkit?

“I see…” Sandstone murmured, “I didn’t realize she’d named it. It was too early.”

“Finchkit comes back to play with me sometimes,” Tallkit continued.

Sandstone’s confusion deepened. “That can’t be true, Tallkit.”

“But I thought StarClan talked to us?”

“StarClan watches us and we learn from their wisdom through the tales and skills they pass down. Only medicine cats like Hawkheart can talk directly to StarClan. It’s not good to make up stories like that.” Sandstone’s voice wasn’t harsh, but Tallkit couldn’t help feeling hurt anyway.

“B-but why would Finchkit only want to talk to Hawkheart?” Tallkit complained “He’s scary and grouchy!”

“Don’t speak ill of our medicine cat, young one,” Whitetooth scolded. “He’s looked out for all you kits very well! It’s uncommon to have so many born in leafbare stay healthy, and it's thanks to him that you are. This is simply the way of things. StarClan belongs to a world beyond ours that we can’t touch.”

Fennelpelt seemed more sympathetic, “When I told you about it, I meant StarClan is always with us in spirit. They are always watching over you, including your sister. They may send us signs, but it’s not as simple as talking to them as we are talking to each other now.”

“It’s best you don’t talk about Finchkit,” Sandstone said quietly, “Your mother’s kitting was difficult, and I think she took the other kit’s death pretty hard. We don’t want to make things worse by reminding her of it. You understand, right?”

Tallkit nodded solemnly, but he didn’t really understand. Sure he didn’t see anyone exactly, but talking to her had felt right, like he could almost believe he heard her voice in return. It didn’t seem fair that he wasn’t supposed to be speaking to his sister at all. Who could it hurt?

Tallkit tried to refocus on digging but the soil seemed to be fighting him. He wasn’t shaping it at all, his claws kept snagging and he fought back a whimper.

“Don’t worry,” Sandstone urged. “You’re my son after all. Tunneling is in our blood going back generations. You're continuing a path walked by all the greatest ancient tunnelers, and you’ll uphold their legacy one day. That’s the real comfort that StarClan gives us. You’ve surely been told of WindClan’s tunneler history.”

“Um...I don’t remember.” Tallkit mumbled. Was he supposed to know? All this talk about ancient paths felt like a lot of pressure.

“Those are our most important tales.” Whitetooth’s gravelly voice came from behind as Talltail finally sat back in exhaustion. “All warriors know the clan's legends by heart. If you don’t know them, it’s time you learned. It goes back countless seasons, to the clan's beginning.”

Whitetooth readjusted in his nest to sit up a bit straighter as he began. “WindClan’s tunnels are nearly as old as the clan itself. You know the story of The Wind Runner, who became Windstar, WindClan’s first leader. She was the swiftest cat that ever lived and rejected the easy comfort of the trees to face the wide open sky.

“Windstar had two children to carry on her legacy. The first born was called Moor Song. She was the image of her mother; swift-footed, lean, and faster than the strongest wind that whistled through her fur when she raced by. Then there was Windstar’s second born, who earned the name Stone Claws, the earth shaper. He was the strongest cat on the moor, and the most resilient. Moor Song was bold and relied on her speed and instincts to survive any hardship, but Stone Claws inherited his mothers wit. He was calmer, more clever, and creative. He could be trusted to help the cats he served think of a new angle when the obvious solution wouldn’t work.

“And even in those times, young WindClan had the threat of ShadowClan on their border. The Wind Runner and The Shadow Keeper have always been bitter rivals. Back then, the claim to our land was new, and it was agreed cats should live in the places they could make the most use of. But true to her nature, the Shadow Keeper had no qualms about cheating her way around this agreement. She wanted fewer enemies, and hoped the dark woodland of her territory would one day grow out and expand over the empty hills. She bet that her stealthy and wily cats could put the moors' land to better use. The Shadow Keeper resorted to making a risky deal with the foxes of the forest, promising them good hunting forever on the moor if they caught all the WindClan cats they found. Her warriors were free to lead the foxes to their targets under the cover of darkness, pick off any frightened stragglers, and slip away before they were seen. She hoped that the pious Wind Runner would take this sudden misfortune as a sign from StarClan that they weren’t meant to have this territory, and that she would give it up. However WindClan are not fools, and the Wind Runner knew that Shadow Keeper was up to something. Not even foxes would break her will.”

Tallkit shivered at the thought. He’d never seen a fox but he knew they were large, red, and had very long teeth. The image of such beasts rushing over the moor toward him set his fur prickling. “How could WindClan fight off ShadowClan and foxes?” he gasped

Sandstone eagerly took over the story. “That's the best part. It looked grim at first. WindClan put up a fight, and they could chase their enemies across the moor, but they exhausted themselves never knowing where they would come from. So Wind Runner sought her children's expertise. This inspired Stone Claws' first tunneling systems, and the idea to use them for evasive tactics when there was nowhere to run. His legendary strength allowed him to carve out a whole tunnel in a single night. Shadow Keeper was sure no cat would outwit her, but her arrogance that she had us cornered was her downfall. Using dug out rabbit tunnels as cover, they learned how to use the darkness below the ground against her and took her night ambushes by surprise. ShadowClan might know tricks and stealth in their own territory, but they did not know the moor and never thought how to use the barren ground beneath their own paws. When the foxes she’d tried to goad into chasing WindClan were unable to track down the cats that disappeared underground, they grew angry and hungry. They turned on Shadow Keeper’s own and chased them deep into the forest. That is what ensured ShadowClan would always be confined to their poorer territory, to creep far away from StarClan’s gaze. They survive by treachery, that's why they could never master the moorlands, where the eyes of StarClans are always close.” Sandstone’s nose curled with disdain. “ShadowClan’s been the most envious of WindClan ever since, even if they won’t admit it. They have more spies than any clan, eager to take our secrets to get one step ahead of us, but at every turn WindClan is there to cut them off.”

Fennelpelt nodded gravely “The only silver lining to the twolegs appearing closer to clan territories is their thunderpath has cut us off from ShadowClan, and discouraged much of their snooping.”

“It’s also made it harder for us to keep an eye on them.” Sandstone said grimly, “For now at least.”

Tallkit was glad to have anything warding off ShadowClan if they were as his father said. “I can’t believe The Shadow Keeper thought she could trick WindClan into thinking StarClan was against us!”

“Indeed. WindClan holds our ancestors closer than any cat.” Whitetooth rasped. “When the clans were lost and needed guidance, they saw a light from StarClan shining down to the north-eastern mountains. They say it was Stone Claws who carved the path through the mountains to the Moonstone. No earth was too hard to stand in his way. WindClan was the first to speak to StarClan there, and that’s why we have always been blessed by them, and why it is us that guards the path all the clans take to Mothermouth.”

Sandstone carried on, “Stone Claws became the next leader of WindClan after his mother for his bravery and wit in securing their home. His skills and lessons remain for us to learn from when WindClan is faced with new challenges from our many enemies. It's from him that we get our tough paws and resilience. We’ve honed the ability to navigate in underground darkness, and learned how to chase rabbits and moles into their hiding places; invaluable hunting techniques that kept us fed in hard times. WindClan tunneler paws will never wear or bleed long after other softer pawed cats will. ” He got a distant fervent look in his eye “The Wind Runner taught her children everything she knew, and they in turn taught their kits their own skills. It was passed down from cat to cat, and they say when you receive those skills and gifts, the Wind Runner considers you one of her kin as well. That’s why your training is so important, Tallkit. Learning from your elders and continuing their legacy is how you cement yourself as truly one of Wind Runner and Stone Claws’ own. Many cats can run like Moor Song, but it takes a truly special warrior to master one of the most difficult skills we know. And if I'm lucky, by following in Stone Claws’ pawsteps, in your lifetime you and me will see it brought to a greater potential than ever before.”

“What kind of potential?” Tallkit asked.

Sandstone purred “You’ll learn more about it when you’re older. I have big ideas in development that I've been preparing for moons. The legacy we leave behind will be one remembered and passed down for generations. Something I want you to build with me.” He leaned down and rasped a rough tongue over Tallkit’s ear. “Maybe someday there will even be nursery tales of us to tell to future tunnelers.”

His father’s earnest excitement filled Tallkit with a great sense of importance. He was really carrying on a part of something so much bigger than himself.

But deep down, there was also a hint of worry at how much seemed to be at stake. He didn’t really know how to envision what the great tunneler wanted him to do. But the eager warmth in Sandstone’s gaze was a look he never saw in his mother, and Tallkit wanted to latch onto it, drawn to it like a flower was drawn to face the sun. He couldn’t help matching his father’s purr. That unwavering confidence made Tallkit feel he could chase away all his doubts and worries solely through the power of Sandstone’s belief in him. In that moment, he was sure he’d do anything it took to help his father’s dream become real. Even if he had no idea what exactly it was. Sandstone clearly knew the path, and wanted him there, and that was enough.

“It’s an admirable thing your father is doing,” Whitetooth purred, “Wasn’t long ago I was running the tunnels myself, if only my joints could keep up with it. Some cat needs to speak up for us. Of course,” He added with a sour note in his voice, “We’d always do more if we had a tunneler like you in our leadership as well.”

“Whitetooth,” Fennelpelt warned, “This point has long since been discussed. Heatherstar sought our council and the decision was made.”

“I didn’t agree to it.” Whitetooth grumbled.

“What do you mean?” Tallkit asked, noticing Sandstone who wore a similar sour look when Whitetooth spoke.

“It’s an unspoken rule that when a moor runner becomes leader, they will choose a tunneler as their deputy, and vice versa.” Sandstone replied, “It’s why Badgerstar, a tunneler, chose a moor runner like Heatherstorm as her deputy in the first place. But when she became Heatherstar, she chose another moor runner instead.”

“‘Ain’t ever been an official rule,” came Flintfoot’s gravelly voice. The old former moor runner had been listening after all.

“Ain’t no cat asked you.” Whitetooth growled at him. “I was outvoted. I can’t help wishing some cat like Sandstone here was deputy like everyone thought he would be.”

“‘Everyone’ seems like an exaggeration. And I’m sure they would work together fantastically.” Flintfoot said under his breath.

Tallkit looked up at his father but his expression was unreadable.

“It is not our job to undermine our leaders' decisions, Whitetooth.” Fennelpelt said firmly. “Reedfeather is an honorable cat and has always put the clans' needs over his own. That is all a deputy needs to be.”

Before Whitetooth could reply, the conversation was interrupted as Tallkit noticed the moor runner, Aspenfall, slink in through the den behind them.

“Sorry to barge in!” His voice was muffled and Sandstone stiffly stepped out of his way as he squeezed past. His wiry gray-and-white pelt was flecked with stray bits of grass and he carried a mess of moss and stems in his teeth which he dropped unceremoniously in front of Whitetooth’s nest.

“Good morning Father.” The scrawny moor runner purred to Whitetooth. “Hunting patrols’ back.”

“It took you all long enough. Messing around again, were you?” Whitetooth grunted in reply.

“Certainly not. I never mess around. I brought you moss for your nest, and Lilywhisker is fetching you all fresh kill.”

“That better be new moss.”

“Of course it is. Only the absolute best for you. Every cat knows you’ll accept no less!”

He purred and grinned at him as he padded the wad. Tallkit didn’t know Aspenfall well, but even he could clearly hear the hidden notes of sarcasm that dripped from his voice.

Whitetooth glared at his son through narrowed eyes.

“Is this normally the tone you take with your elders?”

“You're always family first and an elder second, isn’t that right?”

“Of course, I could expect nothing else from my own son, who I raised and cared for. And yet, I believe you haven’t come to bring me new moss in ages. What’s the occasion?”

“Occasion? Why, I just felt like coming to visit my dear old dad!” Aspenfall purred.

Whitetooth continued glaring at him. “Cloudrunner made you?”

“Cloudrunner made me.”

The tension in the den was thick, Tallkit shuffled backwards uncomfortably. Aspenfall was smiling pleasantly, but his thin tail was twitching behind his back. He dutifully began placing the moss around his father’s nest, but Whitetooth was clearly quickly growing tired with the game.

“Well isn’t that considerate of you” the old tom said flatly.

“It’s my pleasure!” Aspenfall trilled. As he turned to walk away, he flashed a grin at Tallkit and winked at him.

“I’m sure it is.” Whitetooth grumbled, “‘Hope you at least collect enough moss bouncing about the moor all day like a mad rabbit--OW! There’s a thorn in here!”

Aspenfall looked over his shoulder innocently. “What? A thorn? Couldn’t be.”

“It’s filled with thorns you mouse-brained brat! There’s a dozen tangled in my belly fur!”

“Nonsense. I would never.”

“Pluck them out this minute, I ought to have your tail!” Whitetooth snarled. Getting to his wobbly feet, he smacked Aspenfall on the rump.

Lilywhisker strolled up behind the bristling moor runner and shoved him around her towards the entrance with her muzzle before he could turn around and smack the elder in return. “Alright Aspenfall, thank you for your contribution. I’ll take it from here.”

“If you insist, I’ll leave the pleasure to you.” He turned with his nose stuck up, sure to smack his father on the muzzle with his tail before he left.

Fennelpelt relaxed back into his nest “StarClan bless your heart, Lilywhisker” He rolled his eyes. “It’s always a joy being around when you two are within earshot of each other.”

Whitetooth sat back down with an angry huff. “It’s not my fault! StarClan knows what happened to that kit along the way, it certainly wasn’t my doing! I tell you, you give your time and energy to bringing a cat into the world, and you get no respect at all for it, sometimes I wonder why I bother--”

Whitetooth probably would have gone on longer if Sandstone had not interrupted. “Nevermind it Lilywhisker, you bring in the prey. We’ll fix your nest for you, Whitetooth.”

“Thank you.” Whitetooth huffed. “At least some cats in this clan still have a sense of decency.”

Tallkit was proud that the elders seemed to think so highly of his father. The oldest warriors' opinions were held in high esteem by the clan. Except for Aspenfall I suppose. Tallkit thought. He was among Sandstone’s least favorite Moor Runners.

“Is Aspenfall always like that?” Tallkit whispered once he had helped pull out most of the thorns from the bedding.

“Yes, if you ask me,” Sandstone scoffed. “Certainly around his family. Aspenfall should consider himself lucky he still has a parent at all, most cats in the clan don’t anymore since the long hunger of the last leafbare took so many of our elder members.”

Fennelpelt nodded, “Thank StarClan you are lucky enough to have been born after such miserable times. No young cat should have to go through so much loss so soon--”

A muffled commotion from outside interrupted the elder, and Tallkit saw his father’s ears prick. Some cats were arguing in the camp clearing.

Sandstone stood up with a sigh. “That sounds like Plumclaw. I’d better go see what’s happened. Come on, Tallkit. We’ll continue your lessons later.”

Tallkit followed him out of the den to see Plumclaw standing at the fresh-kill pile, pawing at a rabbit while glaring up at Aspenfall. Tallkit recognized the other two patrollers as Cloudrunner and Redclaw. He knew Redclaw was Shrewkit and Briarkit’s father, though he’d only ever seen the tom at a distance. His fur had a similar reddish sheen to Briarkit.

“This rabbit is from the far east side of the moor, isn’t it?” Plumclaw said accusingly.

Aspenfall blinked. “I don’t know, maybe?”

“What do you mean you don’t know? It’s fur smells of clay soil, that’s what the eastern burrows smell like. Is that where Redclaw decided to take you?”

Sandstone had already padded over “Redclaw, you know the tunnelers told the rest of you to avoid that area!”

Redclaw’s fur began to bristle “Are you kidding me? It’s leaf-bare! We’ll hunt where we smell food.”

“It’s the only small corner of the territory we asked cats not to go running through. We have a tunneling project going in that corner, Dawnstripe already collapsed a tunnel entrance three sunrises ago by jumping on it!” Sandstone said.

Redclaw scoffed “that area is too dangerous to be tunneling in! It’s the second tunnel that’s collapsed there.”

“It’s not dangerous if you know what you’re doing.” Sandstone retorted. “We’re not even asking much. This project will open new opportunities for all of us, but not if you go tromping through it before we’ve had a chance to make them stable.”

Aspenfall stuck his nose in Sandstone’s face. “Who died and made you deputy? If your projects get in the way of the clan hunting, then they clearly aren’t very helpful!”

Sandstone gave a deep growl that made Tallkit quiver. Hearing his father use such an angry tone was unfamiliar to him. “The tunnels have helped bring prey to the clans that the moor runners couldn’t catch for seasons! Try showing a little respect for once you--”

“Alright that’s enough!” came a sharp voice. A tall, sleek gray-brown molly with narrowed stormy blue eyes stood at the front of her den. WindClan’s leader, Heatherstar, strode across the clearing.

“Tempers are short in this weather, but we don’t have the energy to waste squabbling with each other.”

Redclaw stepped away from Sandstone and dipped his head, but Sandstone held her gaze with an icy one of his own.

“I know Woollycloud already explained this to you and Reedfeather. Why hasn’t Reedfeather enforced it in the hunting patrols he organizes? We’re trying to keep this together and prevent any runners from getting themselves hurt by putting their paws where they don’t belong. I thought that was what you wanted.”

Heatherstar looked steadily at him, ignoring his tone. “I apologize for this miscommunication, and I know you want what's best, but I cannot demand that cats let prey go in their own territory during the cold moons when they scent it. I want your project to be shown through to completion as much as you do, but you’ve wanted cats away from the whole eastern side for nearly a moon. We can’t afford to ignore such a wide stretch of territory in these times. Focus on stabilizing the current tunnels rather than digging further.”

“We need to reach the mid way point before newleaf! We can do it, if only-”

“That’s final, Sandstone.” Heatherstar said. “If you are worried about the tunnels destabilizing, then fixing that should be your only priority. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

She turned, signifying there was nothing more to say on the matter.

Plumclaw muttered under her breath. “Easy for her to say.”

Sandstone shook his head and gave an angry huff. “Now me and Woollycloud are going to have to rearrange our plans again. Crowfur’s not going to be pleased.”

Woollycloud, having heard the commotion, padded carefully over to his tunneling partner. “I’m sure we can come to a compromise. I’ll speak to Reedfeather.” He blinked sympathetically down at Tallkit, “Sorry you had to see all that. The moor and tunnel runners have been butting heads lately.”

Tallkit knew that Sandstone disagreed with some of his moor runner clanmates, but he didn’t realize things were so bad. And if Whitetooth was right about Heatherstar not being eager to support them, it was surely only going to get worse.

I hope this doesn’t mean Father won’t let me play with Redclaw’s kits anymore… Tallkit thought glumly. It was lonely enough knowing they wouldn’t get to train together, but he didn’t want to have to stay away from Briarkit and Shrewkit when they were in the nursery too.

The rest of the runner patrol had already gone off, Redclaw and Aspenfall’s heads leaning in together as they muttered to each other.

Sandstone bent down to Tallkit, and pointed his muzzle subtly in Aspenfall’s direction as he walked off with Redclaw. “That cat there is a prime example of why you don’t need to be messing around with moor runners. Stuck up, think they're better than the rest of us. Redclaw is no better, and I suspect he’s passed his attitude on to his son. Aspenfall could have been a great tunneler, but he shunned his father and his work. That’s why he’s more suited to being with the other runners. He doesn’t have the toughness or the guts for the work, and couldn’t care less about his kin. Between us, I'm embarrassed to say I'm in the same clan as him sometimes.”

Tallkit nodded. The harsh tension in the air he’d felt between Aspenfall and Whitetooth was startling. Whitetooth was his father after all, Tallkit couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have that sort of relationship. Aspenfall was kind of scary, and played too rough with the other kits, even though Mistmouse’s litter seemed to think he was great fun. Tallkit didn’t mind never ending up like that. Perhaps it was good after all that he wasn’t going to train with the other moor runner kits.

chapter list / previous / next

#FRU2 #chapter 2 #if you're wondering yes i am ignoring 90% of DotC lore save for maybe a handful of character concepts

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markynaz · 3 years

Text

7/28

Dawn / Birthsign Written for @tes-summer-fest 2021 Wordcount: 1462 Content Warnings: Brief Death Mentions Ao3 Mirror: here

To nobody’s great surprise, Skyrim was batshit bloody fucking cold at night. Especially in the wee hours of the morning. Just before dawn, the cold settled so thick and glacial over everything that for anyone but a Nord, it almost hurt to draw breath. No matter how many thick blankets or warm furs one had wrapped around themself, there was always a wish for more.

Time had softened Andalmo’s memory of how godsblinded amazingly pisspoor freezing it was just before dawn. And yet, here he was, sitting on one of the great stone ledges of Ustengrav in the wee hours of the morning and wondering whether cursing Kyne out would help or hurt his chances of becoming an icicle. At this rate, he’d give his left pinkie toe to see the sky lightening in the west. He probably wouldn't even feel if it snapped off now.

He took a shallow breath, cuddling up further into his thick cloak, keeping the barrow’s entrance in his peripheral vision. Two more moments and he gave in to the temptation. The tiniest of flames flickered at his gray fingertips - just enough to send hot flares of magicka pounding through his system, forcing his blood flow back to a normal level of warmth.

Amazing that he was looking forward to the dawn now, wasn't it? Dawn had always been his least favorite part of stakeouts as a Blade. It just seemed to signify a night wasted most of the time - a final confirmation that yes, far too much time had passed, and they needed to do something about that.

He remembered remarking decades ago to his partner Sotha that he could happily do without ever seeing another dawn. “Not in a death way,” he quickly had to clarify, “but it really wouldn’t be terrible to wake when the sun is already up for the rest of my life.”

She'd given him an incredulous look, golden eyes glinting in the dim streetlights of the Arboretum District. “I thought you came from a farming town. Don’t farmers get up at dawn?”

Andalmo had snorted. Morthal was not a farming town. There was nothing to farm here, really, except perhaps mushrooms and swamp water, and in any case, Andalmo had never planned on returning.

Those plans had gone to shit now, though. The Blades gone, his team of five unceremoniously murdered trying to hold Cloud Ruler Temple against the Thalmor long enough for seventeen other Blades to escape across the mountains into Skyrim. Sotha had, he hoped, escaped - he’d watched her jump from the ramparts and disappear into the woods himself. The daughter of Morrowind’s Hortator was too important to be captured as a political prisoner by the Thalmor.

He’d escaped only by playing dead, not that it was really an act with the state that twelve hour battle had left him in. And now….

Now he was freezing his fingers off, waiting for dawn, or, better yet, waiting for the door to this stupid fucking barrow to open so he could know he’d been right in this ambush.

At least, he hoped it would be an ambush.

Andalmo tried to draw his cloak tighter around himself, though there was no more fabric left to gather, and glanced to the west again. As stubbornly dark as ever.

It wasn't even that he minded the nighttime. He remembered Miralnu, another Blade of his little team of five, grumbling about it once - “What do Blades and thieves have in common? Sneaking around at night.”

“Vampires too,” Andalmo had said dryly. Sotha had smiled instead of laughing, because they were all three on a roof, being very quiet, not to give away their position. Rather as Andalmo was perched now on the barrow.

“Let us not forget to count ourselves among that august body,” she'd said, mimicking a posh Imperial voice, and Andalmo snorted at the memory. Then he regretted it. That meant inhaling again, and by the infertile cocks, balls, uteruses, and assorted other genitalia of the Divines, the cold stabbed all the way in.

No, he didn’t mind darkness one bit. Ever since Mirmulnir fell to his hand and merged with his soul two weeks ago, he’d almost preferred traveling at night. Or with his hood up. Or with an illusion covering his face and masking his voice. A bit paranoid, perhaps, but decades of being on the spymaster’s side of Blades operations had left him very ill-suited to the fame brought on by the songs of every half-penny bard with a rhyming vocabulary, and the leaflets with sketches of his face and lurid tales of accompaniment. One thing they all got right - the Dunmeri tear track tattoos of loss running curves from the corners of his eyes to his jawline. He’d got them done in the Gray Quarter, blinded by tears of grief, not yet reconciled to the loss of his life and career and friendships in the Blades. He…. hadn’t really thought through the implications of having large, identifying facial tattoos.

But then, his favored spells had always come from Illusion.

The western half of the sky was almost beginning to lighten, he thought. He checked it against the eastern horizon, turned his head back and forth several times, before deciding that it was.

And then he couldn't decide whether this was good or bad. The bad news: he may have wasted the night. The good news: he might soon be able to delve into this barrow himself and retrieve what he was after. The bad news, reprises: if his instincts were right and someone else was after it, he might not find them to confront them in the winding halls of a Nordic barrow.

Mirmulnir had barely been dead ten seconds, his soul still scorching Andalmo’s mind with rage, when the ground had shaken with the Greybeards’ call. Dov-ah-kiin. Andalmo hadn't been insensible to what that meant.

He hadn't wanted to face it, either, not really. And it seemed…. impolite to traipse up the seven thousand steps to the Tower without bringing a gift. And he was a Blade - he knew of the rites for greeting a Dragonborn in every age and area, and knew that most likely, the trial would be to fetch the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller.

Returning home to Morthal had, therefore, seemed the best out of a platter of terrible options.

It had suddenly seemed even better when he'd come into the inn and the whole town seemed to be murmuring about some stranger with an interest in the barrow. An adventurer, they said, and much was made of the strange sword they carried - a long, almost curved blade with no ridge in the middle.

And what, Andalmo wondered, was someone doing near the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller, openly carrying an Akaviri katana normally issued to Blades?

It was curiosity that made him leave immediately and set up his ambush. He regretted it a little bit, now. Not the curiosity or the ambush, no. That was going to be necessary - he wanted that horn as a gift to the Greybeards, as a way to avoid the journey for another week or three. But the leaving immediately and camping out all night on top of this barrow?

That, in hindsight, he really could have done without.

Dawn was full breaking now, the marsh starting to lighten so Andalmo could see more than silhouettes. He simultaneously blessed and cursed it. He was no longer having to pump magicka through his system every half hour to stay warm, that was good. But on the other hand…. he now had to decide what to do.

He was still debating that when the distinct scrape of the barrow door opening reached him.

Andalmo released the edges of his cloak. Footsteps crunched across the frozen sedge grass below, and Andalmo slowly reached for his sword, laid out at the ready all night. The leather wrappings of the hilt warmed quickly to his touch once he sent a little magicka down his fingers to help.

He tracked the stranger’s progress by the crunch of their boots.

Three.

Two.

One.

Andalmo swung down from his perch and landed halfway up the stairs, sword coming up to threaten someone on a lower step, just as the adventurer startled back from him. Her own hood fell away from her face, cold-reddened cheeks and chapped lips and blue eyes widened in alarm.

“Now, let's be civilized Blades and discuss this,” was what he’d planned to say. He didn't even get past marshaling his unconcerned drawl before the dawn light allowed him to recognize her face.

She'd been at Cloud Ruler Temple. She'd led the others to escape. She was standing at the stairs of Ustengrav clutching the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller to her chest.

“Delphine?”

#dragonborn andalmo #blade sotha sarethi #skyrim fic #tesfest21 #longform #upped the ao3 rating from g to t because andalmo is a true son of skyrim #not in a racist sense just in the sense that he swears often and incredibly creatively #look I think delphine gets hated on a lot for no good reason and I would very much like people to stop hating her ok she did nothing wrong #you do your war crimes girlboss #don't listen to the people who get annoyed that you're there in game to stop the main quest from being wham bam thank u ma'am in length

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mandos-lightningbeforethunder · 3 years

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Start Again - Chapter Seven (Din Djarin x Reader)

SUMMARY: After being ambushed by the pair of Devaronians, you and the Mandalorian make the decision to expedite your journey into the city of Opseg. Upon your arrival, the city and its people welcome you with open arms and you find out more about what the Empire did to you while in their custody.

CHAPTER WARNINGS: mentions of attack from the previous chapter, panic attacks, medical procedures including sedation, and VERY heavy discussion of forced sterilization.

Author’s Note: This is my longest chapter yet at 3.2k words! I hope you enjoy this latest chapter and I hope I can be back on my regular update schedule. Feel free to reblog and like!

CHAPTER SEVEN - THE DIAGNOSIS

Trekking through the canyon might’ve been easier if you didn’t have such a debilitating headache. The bacta patch had healed the wound in your hairline, but your eye was still swelling and your head ached in a way that you hadn’t felt in months. In the back of your mind, a part of you really wished you had the Puvion leaves to alleviate the headache. The leaves had always worked better than any bacta spray or patch.

Your heart still raced at the thought of what happened earlier in the morning. Waking up to two Devaronians sniffing around your camp wasn’t exactly what you had in mind of a good morning. When they noticed you were awake, there was zero hesitation to take you out. They had even managed to do so quietly enough that it didn’t wake the Mandalorian.

The swelling at your eye aches as a reminder of how quickly they had managed to take you down. Your lack of training had made it easy, before you could even swing up your knife to defend yourself, the one Devaronian, Zek, punched you hard enough for you to see stars. There wasn’t much fight left in you after that.

When they noticed the Mandalorian, however, their motives changed. It wasn’t about kidnapping you and keeping you as their prize for the day, but instead getting the armor off the Mandalorian and selling it. Had they been successful they would’ve walked away with both you and possibly thousands of credits after pawning off the armor.

But the Mandalorian had handled it, wielding his saber as he easily killed the two mercenaries. It still took your breath away thinking about how he had moved with it, fluid and precise. He may have held the weapon like it burned him, but he used it like second nature.

Your feet hit solid ground and you look up, eyeing the bustling city of Opseg around you. It was noisier than Tatooine. Children scream with joy as they run past you, disappearing into the crowd of people looking to buy the latest products. Fine jewelry and clothing were hung up on display, shopkeepers shouting prices to interested onlookers. The savory smell of vegetables cooking fills your nose and you turn to see another line of shops, these ones selling hot meals. The sights and sounds were both exciting and overwhelming all at the same time.

“This is insane…” you say, laughing slightly. You had never experienced anything like this before, a city with life. Tatooine was nothing compared to this.

“It’s not insane, my dear! This is Opseg!” A voice shouts behind you, startling you. You turn and a green humanoid alien grins at you. The friendliness waving off this stranger is almost as overwhelming as Orus itself. You wondered if everyone on Orus was like this.

The Mandalorian steps just in front of you, putting a barrier between you and the stranger. You hadn’t hired him to be a bodyguard but given the events earlier this morning and your lack of training, you let it slide this time. Besides, you were tired of being snuck upon.

“Ah, apologies, my name is Ortib-Blik! But you can call me Obie for short,” The alien extends his hand out, clearing his throat when the Mandalorian doesn’t offer his hand in return. “I’m a tour guide here in Opseg. You looked lost, so I figured I’d offer my help.” He offers a sheepish smile when the Mandalorian doesn’t say anything.

“Hello Obie,” you greet, stepping to the side of the Mandalorian in order to introduce yourself. “We’re just passing through; we need to find a medcenter.”

“I’d assume it’s for that wound on your eye?” Obie asks, pointing at where your eye swells. You nod and he grins again. “Well, you’re just in luck, the medcenter is taking walk-ins today!”

“How much is a physical?” Mando asks from behind you.

“It’s free!” Obie exclaims, “Even to non-Orus citizens.”

“Is there work I can find here?” Mando asks and Obie’s expression changes.

“Yes, plenty! You look more like a hunter, so I’m sure if you were to stop by any of Opseg’s twenty cantinas you’d find something.”

You balk at the number, looking at the Mandalorian. You forget his facial expression is hidden by the helmet, but you can assume he’s also surprised. Twenty cantinas was an incredibly high amount and you couldn’t imagine the work going into finding a job would be worth it.

“Thank you, Obie, but I think we’ll take it from here.” You offer a tight smile to the alien.

“Of course, of course! If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to shout!” He says, waving as he departs down the street.

“I think he was a lot nicer than the Devaronians that greeted us this morning,” you say, smiling when the Mandalorian sighs. “Too soon?” you chuckle.

“A little, yeah,” Mando says, turning around as he looked down the street. It seemed everywhere you look that it was teeming with life, people shouting and laughing. The shopkeepers yell over the playing children as parents stress over prices. This is way better than life on Puvo, you thought.

Puvo had its moments, the winter festival brought out a certain life in its citizens. Winter seasons were so rare that they celebrated the first indication of winter, whether it was a significant drop in temperature or animals beginning their hibernation. You had only ever experienced one festival and it was during the time your mind was still mending itself back together. But you remembered the laughing, the dancing, and the singing.

Valara had spent hours showing you how to braid her hair, repeating the motions over and over until you finally got it. She looked so happy dancing with that one boy from the neighboring village. Impressions meant everything on Puvo and she took it to heart when the boy didn’t offer another date after the festival. You had been too busy recovering to offer her any comfort, but Valara had moved on, throwing herself into work.

They hadn’t even celebrated the last winter festival. There was too much work to be done, the council had announced. A cloud of depression remained over the village for some time. Valara mentioned it reminded her of when the Empire was still in power. The depressive atmosphere took a toll on your already weakened mental health. Try as she might, Valara’s grandmother struggled to pull you out of that episode. It had been one of the many deciding factors to leave Puvo, at least for the sake of your own well-being.

“We’re in the town square at the moment,” The Mandalorian says. The memories of Puvo fade as you focus your attention. “Medcenter shouldn’t be too far from here.”

“Right,” you murmur, “and what are you going to do while I’m being seen?”

“The guide said twenty cantinas, I have to start somewhere. Most of them are downtown. Small, shouldn’t be too hard to get through all of them before you’re done.” Mando replies, looking to you for confirmation. You nod.

The walk to the medcenter isn’t much. You manage to escape the craziness that’s the town square, there’s not as much yelling, but there’s still plenty of children running around their exasperated parents. It’s clear you’ve entered one of the housing areas, women and men alike staring as you both continue your path. The Mandalorian doesn’t seem to mind the stares. He’s probably used to it by now, you think.

The medcenter is daunting when you approach it. The all-white building amidst desert brown was shocking at first, freezing you in your movement as you stared at the twin doors in front of you. What if they found out something was wrong with you? What if it couldn’t be fixed? Your mind spirals at the idea of what could go wrong, words and thoughts jumbling together. Would they take you away from the Mandalorian? Send you back to Puvo so you can really get better? Institutionalize you? You weren’t that crazy…

“I can’t do this,” you whisper to the Mandalorian. He remains silent and you wonder if you’ve finally managed to make him angry.

“You can. I’ll be there with you the whole time.” He speaks.

“But-but you said you’d—”

“I know what I said earlier.” He murmurs, “But you’re clearly in distress and it’s better for me to stay close, especially in a city as big as this one. The cantinas can wait.”

You’re not sure if his words really soothe your nerves. Your heart is still racing at your earlier thoughts and it’s quickly becoming harder to breathe. He was promising to stay but would he be there when they read off what was wrong with you? Suddenly being on Puvo didn’t sound so bad after all.

You jump when the door opens behind you.

“Hello, I am Oralia. I am a nurse here at the Opseg Medical Center.” A Mirialan woman greets you. “Is there something I can help you with?”

The kindness in the woman’s voice makes you freeze again. You’re unsure what to say, what to tell her. Do you start with the current injuries you have? Do you tell her about your purpose for visiting before you were even attacked? Could she tell you were overloaded with anxiety? You were probably shaking like a wet Loth-cat.

“Miss, are you alright?” Oralia asks you and you shake your head. With gentle hands, she lifts your face, her warm eyes examining the wound by your eye and the peeling bacta patch. “Are you with her, sir?” Oralia asks the Mandalorian.

“Yes,” he replies.

“Let’s get her taken care of.” The nurse says, grasping your elbow with a comforting hand as she walks you through the doors. You can hear the Mandalorian’s boots just behind you as Oralia walks you past the front desk into a smaller room.

“Is she going to be alright?” The Mandalorian asks, watching as Oralia lays you on the examination table. The lights are too bright in this room, it’s almost a startling reminder of that nightmare you had days ago. Strapped down to a table and subjected to torture, you never wanted to experience that again. Not again, not again, not again…

“She is having a panic attack,” Oralia replies in a calm manner, placing a wet cloth against your burning forehead. Their voices sound distant, muted even as you try and get over this attack. It’s so much worse than the ones before, your limbs feel numb and weightless all at the same time and the sterile smell of the room fills your senses. It only makes the panic worse.

A whisper of “I’m sorry” and the white ceiling blurs above you, your eyelids become too heavy to keep open. Sleep consumes you.

When you wake up, the room is the same. White walls and white ceilings stare back at you as you try to take in your new environment. The softness of a bed fills the fists of your hands. They must’ve moved you while you were still sleeping. Sitting up, careful of the needle in your arm, you look around in confusion. Where was Mando? What happened? How long were you asleep for?

“It is good to see that you are awake,” a voice greets you. Oralia. The nurse from earlier.

“Where is the Mandalorian?” You ask, not sure whether or not you can trust her.

“He is out. I told him to walk off his anger.” The nurse replies. She walks over to your bedside and examines the IV needle in the crook of your elbow. The skin is bruised but you’re not sure if it’s her work or from the Devaronians from earlier.

“Does he know I’m awake?”

“He will return, I am sure. You needed fluids in your system as well as a proper examination, but only one of those things I could do while you were asleep.” Oralia replies, examining the needle in the crook of your elbow. Adjusting the bandages, she looks at you with a kind smile.

“Did I pass out?” The last moments before falling asleep aren’t clear, only a blur of pictures and muted dialogue.

“You did not. I sedated you. Your panic consumed you and even my years of training could not walk you down from that.” she murmurs, removing the needle from your vein with calm precision. A small bead of blood pools out and she wipes it away, before wrapping the tiny wound.

Bringing your hand to your face, you feel along where your eye had been bruised. Clearly, it had been treated in your sleep as the skin is no longer tender to your touch. The patch just before your hairline is also gone, the skin smooth with no evidence of a scar.

“I am surprised you made it as far as you did. The Mandalorian told me a great deal of what happened to you both this morning. A pair of Devaronians?”

“Yes,” you say in response. She doesn’t urge you for any more of the story, but you tell her anyways. “The Mandalorian held his own. I, well, I didn’t.” Oralia chuckles at your statement.

“You are brave.” She compliments and you feel your skin growing hot at the statement. “It takes a lot for a woman like you to travel the galaxy. Much less with a Mandalorian.”

“I’m searching for answers. I was a victim of the Imperials and they took my son from me. The Mandalorian is helping me find him.” You tell her and she hums, finishing her work on the bandage just in the crook of your elbow.

“You have other wounds,” Oralia says, this time her hand placing itself right above your heart. You look down at where her hand is and you nod, looking away from her in shame. “I will grab Dr. Orn.”

The door opens with a soft whoosh sound and Oralia departs. You’re left in silence, pondering over your thoughts again. You didn’t want to have another panic attack. Taking a deep breath, you think about where the Mandalorian may be. Oralia had told him to walk off his anger. Why had he been so angry? Was it because you were asleep for so long? Thinking on it, it was some of the best sleep you had in a long time. No nightmares, no memories weaving themselves into dreams.

A click and the door opens again, this time Oralia is followed by a human woman. Dr. Orn, you deduce. Dr. Orn quietly walks over to your bedside and examines what you think is your chart on a datapad. The information displayed is not in basic and you frown.

“Hello,” Dr. Orn greets you. She’s older, possibly a few years shy of Valara’s grandmother but her eyes hold the same kindness. Dr. Orn says your name and you blink, looking back up at her. “We did some bloodwork. First, I would like to welcome you to Orus and we’re grateful that you chose our medcenter as the place to handle your healthcare needs. Second, your bloodwork came back great.”

A sigh of relief. “That’s great,” you murmur and Dr. Orn smiles.

“Oralia did some investigating on your chain code and there’s no record of you in any system, not even ex-Imperial. I’m sure you were aware, as was the Mandalorian. He was kind enough to give us what little information you had on yourself. But given the current state of your health, you are in great shape. Minimal scarring from the leaves of Puvo, which is great. I’m sure you’re aware of the ongoing mental healing you’re going through, but with time, you can work through the nightmares and panic attacks. However, there is something I want to note.”

Dr. Orn displays the datapad to you, this time the information is in basic. A rundown of what medical records they could establish for you. One healthy pregnancy was just one of the few things that caught your eye.

“It’s great to see that you’ve been able to have a healthy pregnancy. Oralia tells me you had a son, about fifteen years ago, correct?” Dr. Orn asks you, pointing at the profile they had made of your son. It was blank except for his name and estimated age. You were listed as his mother, but the name underneath FATHER remained blank.

“Yes. Castin. He was about ten when he was taken from me,” you reply, hand reaching out to skim through the notes they had established for you. Most of the information was blank, mostly because it was unknown, even to you.

“Good, good, as you can already tell we’ve logged that in the file we created for you.” Dr. Orn smiles before she brings the datapad closer to herself and removing it from your view. “However, we detected some anomalies in your blood. A woman of your age should be producing the normal hormones that regulate a menstrual cycle. We found that there was a lack of most of those hormones. Can you tell me when your last cycle was?”

You open your mouth to give a quick answer but quickly realize you don’t know. When you had arrived on Puvo, Valara had explained it was a possibility that your cycle would be irregular, considering everything your body had been through. But now that you were thinking about it, you hadn’t even noticed a lack in your cycle. You had been distracted by the ongoing therapy and work on Puvo.

“I-I don’t know…possibly after I gave birth to Castin but I don’t really remember,” you chewed at your bottom lip. What could it mean for you?

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Dr. Orn sighs, looking back down at the datapad. Her fingers tap on the screen, possibly logging what you had said. “You see, when we did your blood test, we found the lack of hormones a sign that you were not having a regular cycle. It’s not unusual, travel can bring stress on the body and I’ve been informed of what happened in your past, but for you, it means something else. When the Empire had you in their custody, what exactly do you remember them doing to you?”

You can feel Oralia’s comforting hand on your lower back, rubbing circles to soothe your nerves. You weren’t sure if you actually felt soothed, but you took a deep breath.

“It’s mostly a blur, I remember the electrocution and how painful it was, but beyond that, I don’t know.” You inform her, your hands twisting together in your lap. Why was she dragging this out? How bad could it possibly be?

“I see,” Dr. Orn hums. You watch as her hand reaches out, resting on your knee. A gentle touch. “When the Empire had you in their custody, most likely while you were in between torture sessions, they performed a surgery to sterilize you. The lack of hormones in your blood and lack of cycle leads us to believe that this is true. I am terribly sorry that you had to suffer under their hand. If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know.” Her face says it all, the sincereness in her tone and the sympathy in her eyes. The realization of the diagnosis hits you, knocking the air out of your lungs.

Even with Oralia’s hand on your back, you weep.

Read Chapter Eight - Finally, A Lead here!

#din djarin x you #din dijarin x reader #din djarin #din dijarin fanfiction #din djarin/reader #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian #start again

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Polyphonic

Chapter 3 ao3 (alt: tumblr pt 1, pt 2)

Lan Qiren wanted to speak to Wei Wuxian about everything they needed to do, but it would have to wait: the moment they arrived, they were immediately swept up into the political mess that Jin Zixun’s ill-fated ambush had caused.

Jin Guangshan was there in the blink of an eye, despite normally taking his time in seeing anyone, and Lan Qiren didn’t like the way he started making excuses for his nephew’s behavior from the very start. It was to a certain degree understandable, as everyone would first incline towards defending their family, but the haste with which Jin Guangshan sought to sweep it all under the rug was disconcerting, and Lan Qiren thought it was almost suggestive of some level of premeditation. Even more distasteful, however, was how he sought to twist the entire event into being yet another reason Wei Wuxian ought to surrender the Stygian Tiger Seal to the Jin sect: for his own good, of course, in order to avoid being made into a target on account of the disdain of the cultivation world –

“Sect Leader Jin, your words are in poor taste,” Lan Qiren said sharply.

He could hear Jiang Cheng, who ought to be defending Wei Wuxian and was trying his stuttering best to do so, starting to waver; the boy had a pleasant rippling melody by nature, forced into a fierce allegro by his parents’ endless disputes and his later tragedies, and the weak foundation meant that he was too easily buffeted by uncertainty and doubt, as Jin Guangshan undoubtedly knew.

“Let us not speak in abstraction,” he continued. “It was your sect, your nephew, who launched this particular ambush. You ought to be making a formal apology to Wei Wuxian and thinking of reparations to repair the injury to your sect’s reputation, not acting like a thief complaining to the magistrate that his victim failed to hand over his property quickly enough to prevent violence!”

Jin Guangshan’s eyes narrowed in irritation, though he fought to keep the expression off his face as if it could disguise the swell of bitter rotten music that accompanied him wherever he went. “Teacher Lan,” he said, striving for composed and charming but mostly coming off as stiff and wooden. “Come now, I must be misunderstanding you. Surely you are not accusing me of being a thief.”

Historically, as Jin Guangshan well knew, this was when Lan Qiren backed down, mindful of his position as interim sect leader – his sect granted him much of the responsibility but not the full measure of power that typically accorded with the title, and he was conscious, always, that his role was to ensure there was something preserved for his nephews to inherit.

Perhaps Jin Guangshan had forgotten that Lan Qiren was no longer interim sect leader.

“I am describing the facts as I see them,” he said icily, straightening his back and levelling his best teacher’s glare, refined by years of troublesome students. “And they are this: by the agreement of the cultivation world and through his own powers, Wei Wuxian was inviolate and unbothered as long as he remained in the Burial Mounds. Despite this, he willingly chose to emerge in response to an invitation issued by your sect, only to be attacked by your sect – and when he comes to you for justice, rather than grant it to him, you suggest that he hand over his most prized possession to prevent any similar attacks in the future. Unfamiliarity may require me to consult my sect’s texts to be sure, Sect Leader Jin, but only to determine if I should be calling it extortion, blackmail, or outright thievery!”

“Teacher Lan!” one of the smaller sect leaders gasped, even as Jin Guangshan went utterly florid with rage. “You’re not suggesting that Jin-gongzi was involved in the ambush!”

Lan Qiren had been Jin Zixuan’s teacher and knew him well – he had been a shy, introverted boy whose awkwardness came off as aloofness, and would never have done anything like this. Even less so would Lan Qiren suspect such a thing of the man who had been steadied by war and responsibility into an adult with a firm moral foundation.

“No,” he said, and met Jin Guangshan’s eyes directly. “I believe Jin-gongzi’s invitation to have been wholly sincere.”

For a moment, Lan Qiren thought Jin Guangshan was actually going to strike him, his aura lashing out violently like a clash of cymbals, discordant and biting, and he braced himself, but in the last moment etiquette prevailed and Jin Guangshan refrained, although his fists were clenched so tightly that his veins stood out from the backs of his hands.

That was when Wei Wuxian opened his mouth.

Lan Qiren silenced him with the muting spell before he could get out a single syllable.

Jiang Cheng sent him a thankful glance and cleared his throat. “This is a serious matter,” he said. “It requires a full investigation; we won’t be able to solve it all talking now. Both Wei Wuxian and Teacher Lan have traveled a long way – I have no doubt that they need some time to rest and refresh themselves.”

A convenient way to stop anyone from starting a fight, and implicitly excusing Lan Qiren’s rudeness as a mere symptom of exhaustion, resolving the whole thing without losing any more face for anyone. The Jiang sect’s boy was picking up this whole politics business quite well, the poor child.

“I concur,” Jin Guangshan said, recovering a little of his poise. “There are rooms ready for you both.”

Lan Qiren inclined his head as well. “An excellent idea,” he said, and then, because he could now, added, “We can discuss reparations for the ambush later.”

“And what about the curse?” Jin Zixun hissed, clearly done with holding his tongue the way everyone had been so obviously instructing him with their eyes. “Am I to simply suffer while that criminal walks free and unharmed?”

“When I said there would be an investigation, I meant it!” Jiang Cheng snapped. “I doubt your curse is so advanced that it can’t wait another day, and if it is, then you should have brought it up earlier!”

“Why you –“

“Sect Leader Jiang has spoken,” Jin Zixuan interrupted, his voice hard. “Zixun, don’t forget that you must also answer to me as to what you did to my guest in my name without my permission. I think it might benefit you to ‘rest and refresh’ as well. One of the servants can take you to see a doctor.”

Jin Guangshan seemed on the verge of objecting, but Jin Zixuan seemed not to get the hint, already turning his face away.

“In the meantime,” he said, saluting politely, “Sect Leader Jiang, Wei-gongzi, would you come with me? A-Li is waiting to see you both.”

Lan Qiren allowed himself to be whisked off in a different direction to settle down, which in all honesty he did need to do. He hadn’t flown such a distance in years, had been in better health when he’d done so, and he had been tired even before all this excitement; some rest would do wonders for him, even if it did make him feel a bit like he’d become a doddering old man or an invalid. Before he could settle down, though, he heard a sound approaching – a little uneven, sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow – and despite the fact that Jin Guangyao had never been anything but polite to him, he felt his back tense up at the reminder of why he was here in the first place.

“Honored teacher,” Jin Guangyao said, smiling and saluting deeply – more than he should, really, given that Lan Qiren was neither a sect leader nor had ever been his teacher. “Welcome to Jinlin Tower. I regret that your arrival was marred by such unpleasantness, and hope that the remainder of your visit is calmer.”

It’s not Jin Guangyao’s fault that Lan Xichen likes him, Lan Qiren reminded himself. Your suspicions, and your family’s terrible luck at love, are your own burdens to bear. They should not be put onto others.

He nodded to Jin Guangyao.

“It would be good to see a peaceable resolution to today’s events,” he said neutrally. “I appreciate that you have come to check on me personally. It is truly going above and beyond the call of duty.”

“Your nephew is my sworn brother, Teacher Lan. How could I fail to honor you as my elder?” Jin Guangyao said smoothly. “Let me know if there’s anything we can do to make you more comfortable.”

“A bath before dinner would be nice. Has my nephew arrived yet?” Lan Qiren privately hoped that he hadn’t, and was relieved when Jin Guangyao shook his head, confirming it. “Let me know when he does.”

“Of course,” Jin Guangyao said, and saluted again. “I’ll inform the servants; a bath will be made ready for you by afternoon.”

The moment Jin Guangyao left the room, Lan Qiren traced the pattern along the hem of his robes that shook off the dust of the road, returning them to being as clean and pristine as always – not a long-term solution to laundry, but very effective in the short-run, and one that he’d only refrained from doing earlier in order to drive home the point regarding how he had also been victimized by Jin Zixun’s ambush.

It was a profound relief to be clean again.

Once he could no longer hear Jin Guangyao’s familiar chords, he relaxed, which unfortunately these days meant coughing. He rubbed his chest when he was done, sighing, and settled down with his guqin to start playing a little, hoping to ease his nerves. Lan Xichen would be on his way already, he knew, and would probably move even faster once he got word regarding Lan Qiren’s presence. He’d made rather a lot of trouble for his nephew…

The door slammed open, and only years of experience with troublesome children, along with the warning echo of a song free and clear, full of shining righteousness, allowed Lan Qiren to remain unmoved by the cacophonous crash.

“So I have questions,” Wei Wuxian said. “Many, many questions, and I’m going to want answers to…uh, are you all right?”

Lan Qiren ignored Wei Wuxian’s rush, finishing the stanza he was playing and letting his hands still over the guqin. “Sit, and I will answer your questions to the best of my ability.”

Wei Wuxian closed the door behind him and put up a talisman for privacy, like the ones they used to use during the war, before coming to sit across the table from Lan Qiren. He was frowning. “Honored Teacher Lan, your lips are red,” he said cautiously. “Were you coughing up blood just now?”

“An old injury from the war,” Lan Qiren said, unable to resist recalling the memory of Wen Xu’s wild smirk as he’d deliberately smashed his ribs into pieces, grinding his palm against Lan Qiren’s chest to force the broken pieces to pierce his lungs. Nie Mingjue had executed Wen Xu only a few months later, a matter that had greatly eased his nightmares…truly Lan Qiren had to get to the bottom of this mystery as soon as possible; once Lan Xichen’s name was cleared, he could focus on trying to devise a solution to cleanse Nie Mingjue of the spiritual poison. “It can be aggravated by excess choler. Do not concern yourself about it.”

Wei Wuxian looked like he was concerning himself about it. “But you nearly –” Lan Qiren glared until he dropped the volume of his voice significantly. “You nearly got into a fight with dozens of cultivators back at the Qiongqi Path on my behalf! Wouldn’t that have aggravated it even worse than just getting angry?”

“Much worse,” Lan Qiren agreed peaceably. “My talents in battle are not especially notable, although better with the guqin than the sword. Regardless, the effort expended would almost certainly result in a severe backlash later.”

Wei Wuxian gaped at him. “Then why did you do it?”

“Was there an alternative?”

Wei Wuxian’s mouth opened and closed a few more times.

“How are your shijie and shizi?” Lan Qiren asked when it appeared that Wei Wuxian was not going to force any words out of his mouth any time soon. He folded his hands together in an appropriate manner – he, at least, knew his etiquette, and would continue to model it in the hope that Wei Wuxian might one day catch a hint. “Well, I trust?”

“Uh, yeah, they’re great. Jin Ling is perfect, shijie is wonderful, the peacock doesn’t deserve either of them, though he’s gotten better, I guess,” Wei Wuxian said, then shook his head as if to clear it. “And I wouldn’t have been able to see either of them if not for you.”

Personally, Lan Qiren didn’t think one Jin Zixun and any number of his friends would actually be able to stop Wei Wuxian, preplanned ambush or no, so he just hummed noncommittally. “You said you had questions?”

“Yeah, and now I have even more,” Wei Wuxian grumbled, but he seemed to settle down a little. “Let’s start with the fact that you said you needed help on a musical issue, but that it is also somehow an attempted murder. What’s that about?”

Lan Qiren grimaced. “Serve tea,” he instructed Wei Wuxian, and waited until he was midway through the process – and thus not staring straight at Lan Qiren – to start talking. “I have reason to believe that Nie Mingjue has been poisoned with spiritual poison.”

Wei Wuxian nearly spilled the tea, but managed to stop himself in time. “Chifeng-zun? Impossible!” Then he frowned. “I’d heard his temper was getting far worse, of late. Just mentions of it in passing…you think it’s because of that?”

“It may be. The Nie sect is prone to encountering qi deviations; a spiritual poison, especially one that specifically targets choleric feelings such as irritation and rage, would be particularly insidious when aimed against them. Should he die, everyone might be inclined to assume that the cause was hereditary rather than external.”

“A perfect murder. What type of poison?” Wei Wuxian’s eyebrows went up. “Wait – you think – musical poison?”

“My sect is renowned for using musical cultivation as healing techniques,” Lan Qiren pointed out, not sure why it seemed to come as such a shock to Wei Wuxian. “Antidotes grow alongside poisons, and all that can heal can also hurt – anyway, isn’t what you do a type of musical cultivation as well?”

“Good point,” Wei Wuxian said ruefully. “All right, that makes sense. That definitely seems like a real problem…but why do you need my help?”

“My health is poor, and I do not know what such an investigation will require,” Lan Qiren said. “And I cannot ask anyone in my sect to assist me.”

“Why not?”

“Because the primary suspect,” Lan Qiren said heavily, “is Xichen.”

Wei Wuxian stared.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a few long moments of blank gawping. “Please forgive me, honored teacher, but I think I misheard you. Are you saying that you think Zewu-jun is poisoning Chifeng-zun?”

“I hope dearly that he is not, of course,” Lan Qiren said. “In fact, part of the reason for my desire to investigate privately is to assist in clearing him of suspicion –”

“No, no, hold on, don’t move on just yet,” Wei Wuxian said, holding up his hands. “You think Zewu-jun – Lan Xichen! – might be capable of poisoning his sworn brother and, as far as I know, best friend? Your nephew?”

“Yes.”

“You really think he’s capable of something like that?”

“I have done my best to raise him to be the sort of man who would not be,” Lan Qiren said, and thought suddenly of his own brother – their father had treasured him, cared for him, valued him above all else. Would he have ever imagined that he would do what he had done and end up living out his life in seclusion, only to die pointlessly at the hands of the Wen sect? “And yet, who’s to say?”

“Uh, me? All the cultivation world? It’s Zewu-jun! He’s one of the most upright people I’ve ever met! You might as well suspect Lan Zhan – you don’t, do you?”

“No,” Lan Qiren said. He appreciated the righteous crescendo in Wei Wuxian’s voice, particularly when Lan Wangji was mentioned – unfortunate as it might be to find that Lan Wangji’s seemingly hopeless affection might actually be requited, since it remained a terrible idea – but it was a little inconvenient at the moment. “But equally I cannot burden him with the duty to suspect his brother. It would only hurt him.”

Wei Wuxian quieted down at that. “I can see that,” he said, grimacing. “But…why would you suspect Zewu-jun?”

“The evidence is – suggestive.” Lan Qiren shook his head. “To be clear, while I will of course value the truth above all else, I am not looking for evidence of Lan Xichen’s guilt. I am hoping to exculpate him.”

Wei Wuxian leaned forward, now frowning in earnest. “All right,” he said. “I still don’t really believe it, but other people might, and that’s bad enough. Even unfounded rumors can make for real trouble. Tell me what you know about it.”

“My nephew has been helping Nie Mingjue to ease the symptoms of his familial tendency towards qi deviations by playing him one of the strongest and most secret Lan sect healing songs,” Lan Qiren explained. “The spiritual poison I have observed in Nie Mingjue’s body is precisely a variation on that healing song – only instead of the pure version, which is designed to calm and heal disrupted qi, it is intermixed with another song that deliberately encourages spiritual turmoil.”

“All right. I suppose playing for Chifeng-zun gives Zewu-jun opportunity, but that doesn’t mean he’s the only one who could’ve applied the poison song.”

“The Song of Turmoil is a rare import, hidden away in one of sect’s forbidden books. Only very few people have access to that part of our collection.”

Wei Wuxian arched his eyebrows. “And yet you can immediately recognize it?”

“I enjoy studying obscure musical texts as an aid in composition,” Lan Qiren said, mild censure in his voice. “Would you dare claim you do not do the same?”

“…fine, fine, good point.” Wei Wuxian waved his hand. “Okay, fine…still, I’m not convinced. Even if the only source of the song is the Lan sect’s library, there was a lot of chaos these past few years. Someone else could have picked it up, couldn’t they?”

“It’s possible,” Lan Qiren admitted. “Unfortunately, the tune had the same starts and stops that are characteristic of Xichen’s playing.”

As a musical cultivator, even Wei Wuxian had to concede that the unique quirks of playing style were difficult, although not impossible, to replicate, and moreover that one would have to wonder why anyone else would bother doing so, especially in a spiritual poison they presumably hoped would go entirely undetected. He rubbed his forehead, clearly thinking it over. “So, wait, are you saying you heard this musical poison getting played? Were you affected by it? Why didn’t you interrupt in order to stop it or to find out who was responsible?”

Lan Qiren shook his head. “I did not hear the playing, only the effects.”

Wei Wuxian frowned. “I don’t understand. If you didn’t hear it get played, how do you know that the playing had Zewu-jun’s idiosyncratic characteristics?”

“I’m very familiar with how Xichen plays. How would I not notice it? Even if I only heard it intermixed with Nie Mingjue’s own base tone, the sound is distinctive enough to recognize.”

Wei Wuxian was staring at him, looking blank again. A moment later his brow furrowed as if he’d just had a thought that seemed strange to him. He said, “Honored teacher, a question. When I said I wasn’t the one who cast the curse on Jin Zixun, you said that the person who cast it played the guqin, not the flute. I’d been wondering…how did you know that?”

“The curse has the sound of a breaking guqin string, which does not accord with Jin Zixun’s own music,” Lan Qiren explained. “The person who cast it was moderately powerful and very well-trained, although this represents an overreach on their part. I think it is likely that they incurred a backlash due to the casting –”

“You just heard it?” Wei Wuxian interrupted. It was rather rude, but Lan Qiren supposed he’d signed up for that. “You just looked at him and heard the curse that had been placed on him?”

Lan Qiren nodded.

“You can hear what people’s spiritual energy sounds like?” Wei Wuxian was growing pale.

“Not spiritual energy directly,” Lan Qiren said, a little puzzled by what seemed like an outsized reaction. Not only was Wei Wuxian’s face pale, his fists clenched, but his song, normally so free and clear, had become suppressed, tense, tightly strung. “More in the nature of the sound of a person’s spirit itself. Your Ghost General, for instance; he has a very gentle melody, very soft, but the underlying base is harsh, jagged, thick with resentment, less playing than dying – he needs to learn to marry those two parts of his spirit together, or else he’ll have trouble finding peace. That’s why I offered to take him as a student.”

“What about me?” Wei Wuxian asked. He was almost vibrating with the need to know. “What about my music? Has it – changed?”

“It’s gotten a little more sober, which is not uncommon with tragedy,” Lan Qiren said, and felt as though he were on the edge of some terrible revelation. “But no, fundamentally you remain the same person you always were.”

Wei Wuxian exhaled, hard. A trill of relief.

“Something happened that made you think it would change,” Lan Qiren deduced, reaching up to stroke his beard thoughtfully. He watched as Wei Wuxian’s eyes flickered one way, then another. “Wei Wuxian.”

Wei Wuxian looked at him.

“Are you unwilling to return to orthodox cultivation – or unable?”

There was a world of difference between the two: one was arrogance, relentless and unrestrained, looking down at the truths the cultivators of the world and their ancestors had worked so hard to unearth, the other merely a depressing practicality – who wouldn’t choose to cultivate something if the alternative was nothing at all?

And yet…how could it be?

And why would Wei Wuxian be so terrified of letting others discover it?

“That’s none of your business,” Wei Wuxian said, teeth set in a bitter smile that was more of a grimace than anything else. “I agreed to help you, Honored Teacher, but my business is my own.”

“But –”

“Another question,” Wei Wuxian said. “Different subject: I know you don’t lie, and earlier you said…what you said. So tell me, what Lan sect girl has her heart so set on me that you decided to come tell me in person that I wasn’t allowed marry her?”

Lan Qiren blinked. “I only meant to advise you that it was a poor match for you both; it was not meant as an insult to you,” he objected, a little offended. “If you and Wangji insist, I will not stand in your way.”

He shook his head and sighed a little, regretful; he would not pursue the matter Wei Wuxian was hiding any further. He wanted to help, curiosity itching at him, but Wei Wuxian was right – it was none of his business.

“As long as your reliance on demonic cultivation does not impede your assistance in my investigation, I will not bring it up again,” he concluded. “How do you propose we begin?”

“…Lan Zhan?”

Lan Qiren frowned. “I already explained to you why I do not wish to involve Wangji, and that I do not suspect him. Why would we start with him?”

“Not for the investigation,” Wei Wuxian exclaimed, his face bright red. “About the – marriage!”

#mdzs #lan qiren #wei wuxian #jin guangshan #jin zixuan #jin guangyao #my fic #my fics #polyphonic

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