#Fresh Heir Media

[yestrday]

— BLUSH BLUSH ! anemo | hydro | geo

⤷ yan! hybrid! aether, venti, kaedahara kazuha, xiao, kunikuzushi/scaramouche, shikanoin heizou

summary ! a young heir like you probably needs a breath of fresh air every now and then, and who better than your beloved hybrids to give you a taste of what the outside world is like? bringing with them the scent of the wind and their coy yet laid-back personalities, you can barely notice the possessiveness gleaming in their eyes.

content ! reader collects these boys like Pokémon, manipulation, mentions of murder, once again venti is a pervert, obsession, toxic behavior, 

AETHER is your first partner. he's been with you ever since your dad dropped you off in one of his fancy but hauntingly lonely villas and never again bothered with you. it was your first day, it was lonely, and it just so happened that it had been raining.

you still remember scooping him up from the rain and declaring that you’d keep him, despite the protests of your servants. but you were rather spoiled and also obsessed with how beautiful this catboy looked. so now aether roamed the halls of your manor proudly ever since, cat bell around his neck as proof of your ownership. 

AETHER is always eager to help you. it doesn’t make sense for such a being as yourself to be scurrying around and making a mess of yourself! he’s no pushover but he covets your praise and regards it as the highest honor. so whenever irritation at being ordered around by the others starts to build up, he remembers your soft praises and approving looks and steadies himself to work his hardest! you, oblivious fool that you are, don’t know that he’s doing this for you. all you see is your good kitty being helpful and generous as he always is. 

your house is a treasure coven, full to the brim with riches the commoners wouldn’t even dare to touch, and among these are your dear catboy’s golden locks. you pride yourself in taking good care of them. a common sight is aether leaning against you as you stroke and brush his hair, humming a tune as you braid them. sometimes the others join in and place little trinkets (flowers, golden clips, pretty rocks they found by the lake) to further accentuate his beauty. he blushes at the attention, but after all that he’s done for the household, he deserves nothing less.

AETHER is one of the milder yanderes in your household, even holding back the more violent ones when needed. he’s content with your attention and presence. if you pat him lovingly and tell him that he’s a good boy, then he wants nothing more. if others hog you too much, he’ll get pouty, but other than he’s happy that everyone knows just how amazing you are. he feels more than blessed to be living here under your protection and around his newfound family.

still, you’re a young heir. in high society, there are bound to be those who will attempt to sully you for their own benefit. as the longest-staying boy, he knows more than anyone the hardships you face. plenty of nights he’s curled up beside you as you cry yourself to sleep, the victim of many cruel sneers and underestimating remarks. you’ve been framed and scandalized repeatedly, and he knows that you’ve grown stronger because of that. that doesn’t mean he wants to see you go through that again.

if perchance there might be a competitor strong enough to leave a permanent mark on your records, aether will finally bare his claws. he’s smart enough to not make the media connect the murder to you. there is no dirtying your name as long as he’s around. he makes sure that no one, not even you or the family, knows about the deed. once the news hits television, he looks just as clueless as all of you. 

RELATIONSHIPS : aether likes everyone and everyone likes aether! everyone has some sort of kinship with the boy and while he knows all their secrets and feelings, no one can say the same about him. when you were younger he’d mumble a name in his sleep, although that doesn’t happen quite often anymore. the longing and melancholy look still stay the same.

VENTI is the poor little thing you found hanging half-dead from one of your garden’s tree branches, still in his dove form. he was a quiet thing when you rushed him to your room and mended his broken wings. for a few days, there was no response from him, just subtle breathing and occasionally soft whimpers. sympathies and goodwill came from you and aether, and each day you both wished for his quick recovery. 

peace and quiet were soon disturbed when one of your maids screamed from the kitchen. hurriedly running to the scene, you and aether found a distressed maid on the ground while a young man lay sprawled on your island with a bottle in hand. laughing sheepishly with an apologetic smile, he raised an open wine case to you and grinned.

congratulations, you now have a doveboy added to the party! VENTI’s accident has now rendered his wings useless, much to his dismay. his regret and dejection are still obvious to you even as the years go by, shown to you by the sad flicker in his eyes as he stretches his wings. most of the time his wings lay tucked at his sides, useless and paralyzed, but you wish to appease his apparent melancholy by making sure his wings are in top form. the feathers are downy and soft in your hands as you prune them, while venti hums and chirps contentedly under your touch.

his beautiful voice still remains, and there is not a day when his beautiful singing echoes through the grand halls of your manor. as expected of a dove hybrid! his nimble fingers pluck the lyre you gifted him (meticulously and tastefully adorned with gems you personally picked), singing ballads of adventures that make you wish you had a world outside your chained position in society. many of your family members, although irked at his eccentric and shameless nature, appreciate and praise his talents.

VENTI is very non-violent, although he can pull his punches when he really needs to. his yandere tendencies tend to fall under obsession, viewing you not only as his savior but also as a poor and sheltered lamb. he pities you and your position in life because as someone who used to roam freely, who would ever want a life shackled to a destiny they cannot change? the fact that he cannot tear you away from this life due to so many eyes on you aches him to the core.

but again, isn’t that exactly what makes you so beautiful? locked away in a home, half-forgotten by an apathetic father, why you’re just ripe for the taking! you can only look at him, be happy with him, and spend the rest of eternity with him! VENTI loves freedom above all things… now he has the freedom to do whatever he wants to you! 

he feeds you with purposely false information, making your reality further and further detached from the world beyond the walls of your home. you are his master, no? you saved him from death so it makes sense how much he praises you, even if you feel that they’re too extreme. he runs his fingers up your delicious thighs, fondles and caresses your skin, and pecks loving kisses all over— all in the name of love and devotion. this is normal, after all. this is how people show their gratitude. you don’t want to argue with someone who actually has experienced the real world, so you nod hesitantly and go along with his whims and wishes. venti grows drunker and drunker with every squirm and whimper that comes from you.

RELATIONSHIPS : venti hangs out with zhongli most of the time, sometimes annoying him with pranks and other times joining him in his old man laments. diluc is one of his most prominent victims, venti pestering him for drinks and food or just simply annoying him. kaeya more often than not joins him, while aether stands by to make sure that diluc doesn’t end up clawing the dove’s eyes out.

KAZUHA first makes himself known when you spot a flying squirrel hanging upside down from your tree. it’s a fluffy little thing, white fur striped with an unnatural orange-red. it detects your presence even at a far distance, but as it blearily opens its eyes and lets out the cutest yawn, it doesn’t shy away from you. instead, it stares at you with its wide eyes before finally gliding out of the tree and right in front of your face.

pop! smoke appears out of nowhere, and a handsome boy takes the place of the cute flying squirrel! “hello to you, my liege,” warmly says the stranger. “i see that your home is a place of rest for beings such as i.” his hand grasps yours and he presses a gentle kiss on it. “hopefully it wouldn’t be rude to ask if i could seek shelter under you?” his pure and sincere eyes make you bashful, and so you nod.

everyone takes a liking to him, especially those who have a special connection to the wind. KAZUHA is after all very polite and helpful, and the poetry that he writes is very beautiful. he tells stories of his homeland, a land full of maple leaves and cherry blossoms far, far away. alas, he cannot go back anymore, and his loneliness and nostalgia pushes you to renovate your garden into a splitting image of his homeland. after being banned for so long from the garden (the scent of the wind told him what you were doing, but he’ll let you have your fun), his wide eyes as he sees the towering maple and cherry blossom trees make you grin in pride. 

KAZUHA, then and there, swears his utmost loyalty to you. kneeling in front of you and gingerly taking your hand in his, he looks up at you with those upturned eyes as if you’re his entire world. it’s not because you planted a couple of trees for him, but because your warmth is everything a lonely wanderer could dream of.

KAZUHA’s touch is gentle, and his words are cotton-soft, but don’t be fooled– he’s every bit as lethal as your other hybrids. he’s overprotective and intimidating when you’re not looking. some of your rowdier housemates have been at the edge of his sword after their antics have put you in danger. on the rare occasion that you do go out of the house, he tends to shadow you (with, like, five other hybrids) and incapacitate anyone who goes after you. which is many, seeing as you are the heir of a multimillion company.

sometimes KAZUHA runs his fingers over your sleeping face and sighs wistfully. if you weren’t chained to such a life, would you be free to roam the world with him? free to explore, free to witness what life is all about. he knows he could easily run off and go back to his old life, but he can’t imagine leaving you here all alone.

then again, maybe your father did the right thing. after all, the outside world is full of dangers a being as soft as you couldn’t stomach. he tenderly rubs your wrist and presses a kiss to it. his heart would hurt seeing shackle bruises on them, but it may be a necessity. or he could shackle you to him, like a red string of fate.

RELATIONSHIPS: it’s adorable seeing the flying squirrel perch itself on gorou’s puppy head as he runs around being chased by itto. despite the chaos, kazuha seems perfectly calm as he takes a nap on the brown fur. the only time he wakes up is when heizou pops into the frame and scurries off before the self-proclaimed detective can catch him again.

XIAO came to you after finding out that zhongli’s been mooching off you for quite some time. it comes as a shock when a brilliant vermillion bird barges into your home and pleads with his father figure about why in the world would he be idling his time away with a hybrid slaver. you’re a bit offended at that, especially since most of the time it’s the hybrids who come to you, not the opposite. he insists on staying after finding out that zhongli cannot be convinced to leave.

he regards you with suspicion at first. you’re the first human he’s met who has a house full of normal and mythical hybrids alike. time passes and he realizes… you don’t exactly have the guts to be a slaver. you’re naive about how things work and you foolishly give away your money to these hybrids without asking for anything in return. ruffling his hair, he sighs in exasperation and flicks your head. you need to stop being so selfless.

XIAO is part of the security team that the hybrids just happened to make. it’s not like they assembled themselves officially, it’s just a group of overprotective guys who think you’re too weak to defend yourself. you laugh nervously as xiao scolds you for going along with the others’ whims– for the love of morax, you are not as sturdy as the others. do you not know not a bull hybrid’s mere hug can snap you?

it’s embarrassing for him to admit, but he’s grown to be somewhat reliant on you. you can’t really do anything for him– he’s more than capable of doing things for himself. but your presence soothes him like no other remedy could. the puppet strings of the guilt he’s been carrying for centuries seem to snap whenever you run your hands through his feathers. you’ve become his balm, his only chance at being saved. you’re someone he cannot part with.

his all-seeing eyes darken when you sleep. sometimes, he suddenly appears on your windowsill in a cloud of black and green. aether, who is always by your side, doesn’t mind and shares the silence with him as they both watch you. paranoia itches at him, even if he can see the rise and dip of your chest. he’s had many comrades lie the same way you do now, albeit in the bloody aftermath of war and a spear in their chest. he reaches a hand out for you but shirks when he’s just an inch away. you’re… too fragile. too fragile for your own good.

he worships you differently from how he worshiped morax. morax was a stone pillar for the foundation of a country, and XIAO was his best general. you are a plum blossom, whose buds sway precariously in the wind. he tends to you, as gently as he tries to be, but instinct tells him to snap off a branch if to preserve the most beautiful parts of you forever.

RELATIONSHIPS: xiao is only ever seen around two hybrids: zhongli and aether. he tends to perceive the dragon’s smallest actions as wisdom beyond mortal comprehension, even though everyone around him seems to think he's exaggerating. he trusts aether with his life and yours, and is especially close to him. venti also seems to sense that a certain shadow lingers whenever he plays his tunes, but he smiles to himself and lets them listen without bother.

KUNIKUZUSHI wanders into your life… literally. on a day when the night sky is in its deepest shade of purple and thunderbolts strike and shake the earth, someone knocks on your door. the man wears a wide-eyed, friendly expression as he requests shelter for the night. eager to help and meet someone new, you do, but the moment he steps through the doorway, everyone’s hairs are on end. especially your partner, aether, isn’t his usual easygoing self.

he stays for several nights, and you think him a charming young man. the others aren’t fooled though, and the moment you’re gone, he’s going head-to-head with your protective hybrids. it’s your fault that you’re such a naive idiot, anyway. so what if he’s gonna take advantage of it? a fight breaks out in the middle of the night, and you wake up and rush down to see that aether has his claws out. with one slash, your guest stumbles back, and a cloud of smoke puffs…

… and it reveals a daurian redstart, a cute little bird that aether could easily squish between his sharp claws. with a gasp, you rush in to save the poor thing. aether is stunned and tries to convince you that he spells bad news, but you’re already cuddling him into your palm. kuni is mortified– the shame of showing his weaker form makes him lash out– but he is cowed by a dangerous look from everyone else in the house. fine, he’ll relent.

KUNIKUZUSHI is snippy at first, with everyone, especially you. he doesn’t trust anyone with his hybrid form, and the mere mention of it will have him biting at their ankles. everyone thinks that being a cat suits him better, which aether takes full offense at. you’re a bit disappointed because his jōbitaki form is soooo cute! nevertheless, you continue to take good care of him, feeding him his favorite foods and brushing his hair. one day he gets too comfortable that– pop! – his bird form appears and slowly flutters into your palm. it’s the day when he’s claimed you as his.

most of the time, he mocks and jeers at you. usually, you just smile and laugh– after all, this is kuni’s way of expressing his feelings! however, when things get too much you either blubber or glare or both, and he then falters. the sadistic side of him wants to keep bullying you forever, but the weaker, more detestable side of him, is up in a panic. he doesn’t know how to deal with whining brats, dangit, so he pops into his bird form and silently plops himself into your lap so you’ll shut up.

KUNIKUZUSHI is possessive and clingy– though he’ll never admit the latter. he can’t bear the thought of you leaving him alone. you have a chokehold on him already, and archons be damned you were gonna abandon him when he’s already a mess for you. spend time with him, play with him, look at him, worship him as he worships you. your gentle touch has him gasping for more, and archons does he hate himself for being so weak for a mere human.

KUNIKUZUSHI is crazed and deranged. he loves the fact that you’re trapped in this large, yet solitary manor. how easily he can dominate and break you in, to make sure that you’ll want nothing with your father’s business and stay with him, him, and him alone. you want that, don’t you? it’s a blessing to stay with your favorite little bird? why would you want to be the center of such a corrupt business, when he can chain the both of you together, just as like mortals and their marriage rites <3

RELATIONSHIPS: kuni is not someone that can easily get along with, so he’s usually hanging out around you or by himself. he and aether do fight a lot, but that has long mellowed down to playful and cheeky banter. other than that, kuni can be seen talking down to the others, even the mythical beasts. however, he gets eerily silent whenever kazuha is around.

HEIZOU is your beloved, cheeky owlboy who just flapped in through the window and never left! he was originally curious as to why so many hybrids stayed here, but he took one good look at you and quickly solved the mystery. you’re sooo cute and naive! a little fighting spirit you’re kindling there, but nothing the real world can immediately stamp down. he has the urge to stay by your side now, captivated by your beliefs and kindness when you know nothing about the sinister feelings of your own beloved hybrids.

some days he just disappears to who knows where, but then you find him in the middle of a crime scene within your home. whenever conflict arises (or someone’s been stealing from the cookie jar), HEIZOU is almost always on the case. it used to be challenging for you to determine which party was lying, but he quickly tears down all their clever-made lies. he puffs out his chest whenever he can feel your sparkling eyes on him as he humiliates the other hybrids with his wits and smarts.

if you haven’t guessed it yet, HEIZOU really, really loves to show off. he doesn’t admit it, but his feathers preen whenever you praise and compliment him. when he’s in his owl form, he makes cute little sounds whenever you’re eating, just to make you acknowledge him. once he does, he opens his beak and blinks at you expectantly. he usually does this when you’re holding fried food. you’re not sure if it actually affects him, but you still try not to give the owl too much fried food.

he doesn’t mean it, really, but the cruel yet nonchalant words just tend to… slip! things like ‘you stupid little thing,’ or ‘you wouldn’t last one moment outside’ may seem casual, but they hurt you in your weak spots. and he’s keenly aware of this, even anticipating with sparkling eyes as your face winces and your mouth hesitates to call him out on his behavior. he just loves, loves, loves seeing someone as stupid as you be in the same room as him and make you feel as insignificant as possible.

sin is rampant in this world, and HEIZOU knows that fact well. sometimes jealousy swells within him when he sees the glittering gold and sparkling food you always have at the ready. maybe it’s why he can be sometimes cruel to you. but this is a teacher teaching their student a lesson! a cute little thing dreaming of a life beyond the walls, not knowing that reality is where hopes get crushed to pieces… it’s enough to make him cry! he tells you it is not safe, and it’s really up to you whether or not you listen.

if enough curiosity fills your head, or your father has summoned you, you’ll have to go outside and live through cruel reality. what do you think of the world now, without your boys to guide you and warn you of all the potential dangers? don’t worry, HEIZOU will always be by your side… though the sparkling tears makes him smile in glee even as he hugs you tight to his chest.

RELATIONSHIPS: heizou sometimes teams up with aether to arrest any rowdy members, but only when he finds the case interesting enough. he likes to play pranks on kazuha, by swooping into the poor rodent with outstretched claws and pretending he’ll gobble him up with his beak. your bullboy guffaws, but the pup barks and yips at the sheepish owl endlessly.

#yandere genshin impact #yandere x reader #yandere #genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #yandere aether #yandere venti #yandere kazuha #yandere xiao #yandere scaramouche #yandere wanderer #<- bruh do i have to write all his names every time lmao #yandere shikanoin heizou #yester.writes #yester.au — hybrids 🪶 #yester.au — hybrids 🐾

[imagine-darksiders]

Eden's Heir, chapter 4 - The Jump.

I can't believe it's been almost a year since I updated this. A lot has happened recently, not all of it good, but I'm still here, and will continue to be by hook or by crook! I've had to cut it into two chapters because the final fight between the Slag Demon and the Horsemen is taking way too long to write. Good news though, there'll be two chapters in [hopefully] quick succession. Hooray! Hope you like this one, guys, thank you all so much for standing by me and waiting so patiently.. I don't know where I'd be without your support. <3 <3 <3

Summary:

As you grapple with the horrifying, new reality you've found yourself in, Strife continues to torment you in the misguided hope that somehow, you'll spontaneously start to like him. His jokes are terrible. It's just a shame you have a weakness for terrible jokes. War, meanwhile, can't stop his eyes from wandering to your fresh, undeserved scar...

You suppose that when Strife said this would be ‘fun,’ he was only factoring himself into the equation. Because for you, there’s nothing very fun about having your particles ripped apart and rocketed through a portal which, according to modern science, should not and does not exist.

Well, modern science owes you a formal apology.

As it turns out, portals very much do exist, and they’re a lot less fun than the media has led you to believe.

The experience - though you hesitate to give it such a mundane moniker - isn’t… painful, per se, mostly because the whole process is over and done with so quickly that your brain and body aren’t given the time to notice that they’ve been squished through one end of a worm hole, reassembled atom by atom, and then spat out on the other side.

Perhaps more disconcertingly than the feeling itself is the fact that when you’re hanging for that split-second moment in a space outside of existence itself, you notice that the temperature around you inexplicably skyrockets.

And frankly, you’re not sure which is worse… The stale, unwelcoming chill of the Void, or the absolute blistering inferno that greets you within less than a second of leaving it.

Before you can even open your mouth to scream at the unnatural process your very human body is being subjected to, the space around you solidifies and stabilises again, and an unexpected jolt shoots straight through you when Strife’s metal boots collide with a hard, stone surface, jarring your stomach painfully against his shoulder pauldron.

At the same time, a wave of hot, dry air sweeps over you from head to toe, cloaking you in uncomfortable and immediate warmth that’s downright oppressive, thick and inescapable, as if you’ve just been tossed onto the fiery surface of the sun and left to sizzle.

Actually, now that you’ve experienced both extremes, perhaps you are sure which is worse. At least that sinister demon’s Void didn’t make you want to peel yourself out of your own skin.

Groaning miserably, you pick your hazy head up and suck in a breath that goes down about as well as spoiled meat, and then nearly retch at the unpleasant texture of heat sliding down the walls of your oesophagus like something squirming and alive.

Even the metal chain on your bag begins to grow warm against the skin of your neck, dangling down below your head near the Horseman’s holsters.

“Hot damn,” Strife announces, concisely putting a voice to your thoughts.

Your lashes are sticky from leftover tears, clumping together when you squeeze your eyes shut and attempt to pry them apart again. It takes a few arduous blinks before your blurry surroundings bleed into focus.

You rather wish you’d just kept your head down and your eyes firmly shut.

If there were any doubts left in your mind that teleportation really is possible, they swiftly fly out of the proverbial window when you catch your first, proper glimpse of the surroundings.

Wherever you are, it definitely isn’t the same place you were in barely ten seconds ago.

Bracing a palm against Strife’s solidly armoured back, you lever your torso up slightly to give yourself a better view of the world around you.

It seems that the portal – your brain starts to ache as it tries to accept the existence of those – has spat you out underneath the roof of an absolutely gargantuan cavern.

Roving your gaze back and forth, mouth ajar, you notice the walls, floor and ceiling are made entirely of dark, igneous rock, and yet all around you, you start to spot signs of… Well, perhaps not civilisation exactly, but definitely an external presence that gives you the impression that this is a keep of some kind, dug by hand rather than time or nature.

Two, immense pillars stand proudly at the far corners of the enormous chamber, large enough to prop up the roof of a veritable mountain.

Craning your neck back until it twinges, you squint through a haze of simmering air at the ceiling far above you, feeling a trickle of dread creep down into the pit of your stomach.

Bolted into the rock between the stalactites, there are numerous, gigantic chains hanging like eerie sentinel over your heads, so large and heavy that it doesn’t look as though anything short of gale-force winds could cause them to sway. You don’t dare to imagine what purpose they might serve.

Pale, unreachable light trickles lazily down from above, dappling little patches of the grey stone underneath Strife’s boots.

With your heart wedged in your throat, you swallow another curl of heat and let your gaze wander over to the side of the keep to where the ground falls away in a sheer drop several feet from the walls. It’s from the resulting pit that a vivid, orange glow rises, carrying with it the distinct sound of cracking, like glass windows slowly splintering apart, or a lake of ice breaking under a heavily placed boot. And below that sound, a deep, subterranean rumble serves as the background noise to this stifling place, constant and oozing.

Coupled with the acrid stench permeating your nostrils and the sweltering heat, you’re suddenly struck by the very disconcerting but plausible notion that you might have found yourself in the heart a volcano.

As if your day wasn’t horrendous enough.

All of a sudden, your ears are pricked by a low grunt from somewhere just a little too close to you, reminding you of your larger tormentor’s presence with a nauseating pang to the stomach. Consequentially, the unsightly welt on your forearm gives an insistent twinge.

Twisting your head to the left, you nearly jump out of your skin to find War has appeared out of thin air beside you, straightening to his full domineering height that easily clears his brother, and subsequently, you. The hooded behemoth only spares you a disinterested glance before his pale, blue eyes dart away again just as quickly and he stomps around to Strife’s front, out of view.

A breath you didn’t know you were keeping behind your teeth shakes itself loose.

You have to peel your tongue from the roof of your bone-dry mouth like a strip of velcro before you’re able to form a small, hesitant question in a voice baked hoarse and thin. “What is this place?”

No sooner has your meek question faded below the rumble of the cavern’s ambiance than an entirely new and harrowing sound punctures the otherwise quiet air.

Howling along the cavern walls comes a piercing, anguished scream, stemming from a place much deeper than you’ve already seen. It’s a raw sound, broken and terrified and primal, like a man with his humanity stripped and skewed just enough that he can’t quite be called human any longer. It prompts a sharp gasp out of you as the sound ricochets off the rocks, curdling your blood and raising the finer hairs on the back of your neck.

As if he’s entirely unconcerned with such a horrifying occurrence, Strife plants his free hand squarely on a hip and draws in a deep, obnoxious breath through his nose before he sighs it all out again, casting a casual glance around with all the air of a man surveying a pleasant sunrise.

“Ahh~ Screams of suffering, chains hanging from the ceiling, no sign of an exit…” he sighs wistfully, clapping the back of your thigh with his palm and announcing, “Yep! We’re definitely in a dungeon.”

He seems oblivious to your apprehension as you dart your eyes to every darkened corner of the cavern as if you might find the source of the tormented scream, curling your legs up under your dress until your knees bump against the Horseman’s chest. “A-a dungeon!?” you gulp, kneading your fingers between the gaps of Strife’s armoured spine, “A dungeon for what?”

Distracted for a fleeting moment by the foreign sensation of fingertips pressing against his leather under-armour, the Horseman almost forgets to respond.

It isn’t until he notices War’s expectant glare burning a hole into the side of his visor that he gives his head a shake and promptly shrugs his massive shoulders, swinging himself around to face away from his brother, and in doing do, bringing you almost nose to chest with the surly giant.

“Beats me,” he hums, utterly heedless of the fearsome stare-down currently happening just behind his head, “Probably for the poor bastard we just heard screaming... And a few others, to boot.”

Angling your head up, you have to gulp past a rather thick lump in your throat as you peer meekly up at War, who in turn, glares right back down at you, his eyes glinting ominously from within the shadow of his hood.

Reluctant to drop your gaze or even breathe for fear of provoking him by committing some unknowable slight, you shrink against Strife and duck your head, peeping up at him through your lashes as you tap your forefinger against one of the silver armour pieces interlocking across your captor’s back.

“Um,” you start, hearing Strife’s helm brush against your dress when he turns to listen, “C-can you, uh, put me down now…” Then, following a notable stretch of deafening silence, you squeakily tack on a hurried, “Please?”

There’s no guarantee that being on the ground will be any better for you than dangling over an uncomfortable, metal shoulder, but you’re at least willing to entertain the illusion that you’ll be safer on your feet without Strife dictating your every move. A modicum of control is better than none at all.

And truthfully, you’d just like to end the humiliation of being carried around like a sack of distraught potatoes.

Yet for some, inane reason, the armour-clad Horseman doesn’t seem as eager to relinquish you as you are to be relinquished.

“Aw, what’s the matter?” he drawls, bumping his shoulder up and down playfully, no doubt to pull a rise out of you which you frustratingly give him in the form of a gasp before he continues, “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

Still glaring down at you, unimpressed, War gives an exasperated huff, blasting a jet of warm air onto the crown of your head.

“Put her down,” he states firmly, lifting his gaze from you at last, “You will need both hands free if we run into trouble.”

Knocking his head back over a shoulder to address you, Strife grins beneath his helm and murmurs, “Ha. You’d be amazed what I can pull off one-handed.”

Trying your best to ignore his boast, you roll your eyes and start to squirm, wriggling around under the weight of his arm. “Ugh,” you complain, “Will you please just put me down?”

“Mmm…” Humming obnoxiously, Strife sucks his teeth and replies, “Depends. You gonna try and run away again?”

That, at least, gives you something to consider. Are you going to try and run again? They certainly haven’t given you much of a reason not to.

The scar War gave you still burns when you bend your arm a certain way and the flesh pulls and stretches beyond the limits of the tissue.

More to the point, how do you really know any of what they’ve told you is true?

How do you know you’re not on Earth right now, somewhere remote, yes, but escapable. Because they told you you’re not?

You don’t know these giants from Adam.

You can’t trust anything they say. You don’t trust anything they say. And while you’ve undeniably found yourself smack-dab in the middle of some seriously unnatural goings on, that doesn’t mean you have to accept everything at face value.

Reality might be breaking apart around you, but you don’t have to join it, tempting though it may be to curl up into a ball and sob until the problem sorts itself out.

Desperate, your brain falls into a tailspin as it tries to rationalise such irrational circumstances.

Outwardly however, you’re aware he’s waiting for a response, so, sweeping your tongue nervously over your bottom lip, you finally croak out a hesitant, “No?”

The silence that follows is damn near chilling.

Twisting your neck up and back over your shoulder, you catch the shine in one of Strife’s luminous eyes peering at you, narrow and thin with obvious scepticism.

 “Huh,” he says, clicking his tongue, “That didn’t sound very convincing. I’m not very convinced.” Casting a look over at his brother, he adds, “War, are you very convinced?”

Predictably, War’s only response is to glower down at the shorter Horseman and grumble impatiently at the back of his throat.

Nonplussed, Strife returns his attention to you. “I don’t think he’s very convinced.”

You have to press your lips into a firm, immoveable line and swallow back the vulgar words you’d just love to spew all over his shoulder…. Instead, you heave in a hot, arduous breath and slowly reiterate, “No. I won’t try to run away.” Then for added measure… “Again.”

You loathe that you can feel the scrutiny of not one, but two apocalyptic beings boring into the side of your head with suspicious, calculating glares.

Just as you’re beginning to consider whether pulling his hair will get him to drop you or kill you, Strife suddenly perks up, his sinister doubt disappearing as he raises his chin to pipe, “A’right. Good enough for me.”

Taken wildly aback, you let your mouth hang open whilst Strife simply raises his arms and lays two oversized hands on your hips, causing your jaw to snap shut before you can emit an embarrassing squeak of fright.

With far too much ease, the Horseman lifts you up and off his shoulder.

The moment you lose the stability of his armour under your stomach, you begin to tilt forwards. Choking on a gasp, you throw your hands up and brace them on each of his forearms.

“Don’t worry, I gotcha,” he chuckles brightly, to your immense dismay.

It’s a disconcerting sight. From the tips of your fingers to the heels of your palms, your hands don’t even wrap halfway around his armoured wrists.

Gawking down at your appendages, they seem so lost against the enormity of the arms that lower you gently to the ground.

As soon as the soles of your shoes touch a solid surface again, you waste no time in ripping your hands away from him and staggering backwards, trying but failing to extract yourself from his sturdy grasp.

Before you can get very far at all, fingers of solid steel bury themselves into your dress at the hip and you jerk to an immediate halt for fear of tearing the fabric by struggling. Arms held aloft to avoid touching his own again, you throw a wary look up at Strife’s visor, reluctantly meeting those sharp, alien eyes and finding they’ve narrowed to thin lines of gold, gleaming brightly against the shadows cast by his helm.

“You’re gonna have to get used to sticking close to one of us, kid,” he warns, his tone brooking no argument and devoid of any previous jocularity, “Cause as nasty as you think we are, I guarantee there’re things in here that are a thousand times worse.”

The well you typically draw your courage from ran dry long ago, long before you came here, long before you quietly agreed to marry Cain. So, you aren’t sure where you find the nerve to jut out your chin and bitterly remark, “Worse than trying to slice off my limbs?”

Sudden movement freezes you in your shoes as War emerges from behind his brother, moving to stand at his side and swallowing you up in the egregious shadow he casts across the ground.

Ignoring his approach, the gunslinger continues to hold you still.

“Yeah,” he replies simply, “A lot worse.”

Squeezing your lips into a tight, anxious pout, you swallow, unnerved by the way his gaze instantly dips to watch your throat bob around the undulating motion.

Gradually, you lower your head, losing the defiance of a jutting chin to instead tuck it timidly away against your chest, consumed by the sudden and unwarranted ideas that start to flash in your mind’s eye, showing you gruesome fates that could await you just around the corner.

If two gigantic maniacs wielding guns and a sword aren’t the worst you could face…

Just what the Hell have you walked into?

Regarding you closely for a few more moments, Strife eventually gives his head a satisfied bob, deeming that you’ve read him loud and clear.

Gingerly, he starts to peel his fingers from your dress, wincing when the gaps in his gauntlets pinch the delicate fabric as he returns his hands to his sides. Regardless, all of his muscles remain bunched, ready to spring into action at the first sign that you might go back on your word and attempt to flee after all.

He’s almost more caught off guard when you don’t move.

Instead, you murmur a soft, “Thank you,” which just about smacks the jaw clean off his face. Staring down at you, his lips parted by a fraction, he watches you fiddle with a jewelled band of gold sitting at the base of one of your fingers for several seconds before he remembers to blink.

Indifferent, and admittedly ignorant of his sudden bout of silence, you try to distract yourself by absently brushing the palms of your hands over your dress, tutting softly at the creases and rumples in the tulle.

It’s all you can think to do now that you’ve got a little freedom back.

Nearby, War shifts his immense weight to stand even closer to Strife’s flank, and together, the brothers share a sidelong glance before returning their attention to the fussy, little human in front of them.

Even with the helm obscuring most of Strife’s angular features, War only needs to take one glance at his profile to catch the distinct and unmistakable gleam of fascination bleeding through the cracks in his armour.

Typical Strife, he scoffs to himself. The minute something new and shiny comes along, it’s all he seems to be able to think about. And there are very few things newer and shinier than a lost human dressed from head to toe in sparkling, white garb.

Hauling his eyes up towards the cavernous ceiling, War lets out an exasperated sigh and brusquely elbows Strife aside, sweeping him backwards with the palm of his prosthetic gauntlet, much to his brother’s belligerence.

“Hey!” he barks, though he goes entirely ignored.

Stepping sideways into the spot Strife had once occupied, War places his back to the smaller Nephilim and clears his throat, curious at the way you quickly stiffen like a prey animal and gradually lift your head.

He stands so close that you have to tip it all the way back before you’re even able to meet his eye, reminding him of how much smaller humans are. Smaller, and weaker…

The colossal Horseman almost can’t quite believe that for a member of a species so vulnerable, you don’t seem to possess any weapons. Natural or otherwise.

His eyes drift down to the long, pink line he’d marked you with. You hadn’t tried to claw or bite or do much of anything to stop him, not that it would have made an iota of difference. You were helpless… And he…

A pair of snowy white brows twitch microscopically inwards.

“Do you know how to fight?” he utters at last, lifting his gaze to meet your otherworldly stare. He doesn’t miss how you seem to be fixated on something behind his crimson hood, and if he has to hazard a guess, you’re staring directly at Chaoseater’s hilt.

Pulling a face, you look back at him and croak, “I… I-I’m sorry?”

Briefly wondering why in the nine Hells you’re apologising, he presses, “Have you any weapons training?” When all he receives it a blank stare, he casts his mind about for something primitive you’ll have heard of and adds, “Swords? Axes…? Bows?”

“Guns?” Strife eagerly pipes up from somewhere behind him.

Heaving an irritated sigh, War half turns his head over a shoulder and snaps, “She is a human. She doesn’t know what guns are.”

“I… What?” you peep, wrenched from your stupor by the absurdity of his declaration, “Uh… Yes, I do.”

Bemused, War raises his brow at you and retorts, “No, you do not.”

For a moment, you’re so dumbstruck by his apparent ignorance that you forget how much larger and more dangerous he is, enough that you pluck up the gall to scoff at him and insist, “Uh. I’m pretty sure I do? Humans have been using guns for centuries.”

Raising your hands, you start to knock a list off your fingers, unaware of the behemoth’s eyes growing wide.

“Shotguns, rifles, pistols-“ you state, pausing to throw a hand out and gesture at the guns in Strife’s leather holsters.  “Revolvers-!”

You’re unprepared for War to suddenly move forwards, instantly cutting off your rambling list and sending your glimmer of nerve scurrying back down your throat as he leans towards you, filling your field of view with his indomitable, ferocious scowl.

On a reflex, you tilt backwards with a hand on your chest, blinking owlishly up into the depths of his hood.

“How could you possibly know about firearms?” he demands, the sigil on his forehead burning with fiery heat as his temper flares.

Shaking your head rapidly, you stammer out, “I.. I don’t, I’m not-“

“-Hey,” Strife tries to interject, “C’mon, War. You’re scarin’ her.”

Disregarding his brother, the Horseman raises his voice and growls, “Who has been supplying you?! Speak!”

Your hands wring together as you try to form an answer, struggling in the face of someone who has proven they have no qualms about hurting you. But all you can produce is another pitiable whimper. “Nobody! We just-“

Before you can utter another sound, a large, silver hand suddenly appears over War’s shoulder, grabbing the metal pauldron that’s been forged in the likeness of a snarling face and tugging him away from you.

“War!” Strife barks, trying to wrench his brother around to face him, “I said back off.”

Savagely tearing his arm out of his grasp, War rounds on him, nostrils flaring like a raging bull. Flinging his arm out towards you indicatively, he bellows, “If humans are being supplied with weapons-!”

“-Then why’re you takin’ it out on her, and not the asshole trying to arm her species?”

War’s teeth click shut, his shoulders heaving with every breath he pulls into his train carriage chest.

Letting out a sigh, Strife sends a sideways glance at you, lowering his voice to add, “Come on. Look at who you’re trying to intimidate.”

Begrudgingly, War follows his brother’s line of sight.

You’re well aware you aren’t exactly giving humanity a good name right now, shivering like a wet leaf and holding your injured arm guardedly against your chest, all the while stifling a sob and eyeing War as if he’ll draw his sword and run you through at any moment.

For several, terrible seconds, the Horseman’s sneer remains locked in place, rigid and threatening, but as he watches you cower away from him, something in War’s almighty resolve shudders…

And yields.

Slowly, at a pace that would make a glacier yawn, his hard snarl recedes.

“See,” Strife points out, “You just look like a dick.”

The furious expression is back on War’s face in the blink of an eye, but at least this time, he aims it at his brother, opening his mouth to suck down a sharp breath, ready to berate him…

Rocks skitter across the ground somewhere too close for comfort, snatching the attention of your unlikely troop.

As one unit, Strife and War spin towards the far end of the chamber where the noise had come from, reaching for their weapons and placing their broad, armoured backs to you.

It would be the perfect opportunity to make a break for it, if you weren’t frozen solid by the prospect of running into whatever made these juggernauts so jumpy.

The former Horseman draws both of his guns from their holsters so quickly, your eyes can barely keep track of the movement. War, in the meantime, takes a gigantic step backwards as he swings his accursed sword over his shoulder, crowding you into a clumsy retreat to avoid having your toes stepped on.

Frantic, you try to peer through the gap between the titans, scanning the chamber walls for any sign of life.

“What the hell was that?” you can’t help but whisper-shout, hardly daring to breathe.

Neither of them replies for a time, not even Strife, who has his revolvers aimed out at the room, his arms still as statues as if he isn’t even vaguely affected by the weight of his guns.

Seconds tick by at an agonising pace, and the three of you wait, and wait, straining your ears to try and pick up another sound. But aside from the crackle of lava cooling as it hits the air, everything remains perfectly still and silent once more.  

After another minute, War grunts, lowering his sword and casting a dark look up at the ceiling. “We’ve lingered here for too long,” he remarks, half turning to peer down at you again, his eyes skimming over you from head to toe.

“So,” he starts, “You’ve handled guns?”

Shaking your head, you hold your hands out helplessly and say, “No, I mean, I know about them, but I-I’ve never actually shot one.”

“I could teach you,” Strife pipes up, thrusting the revolvers back into their holsters with casual ease.

“Now is hardly the time, brother,” War snaps, still eyeing you pensively.

Something very strange has been hovering about you like a miasma ever since you crashed into his brother in the Void. Something unplaceable that he can’t quite put his finger on. You are human, that much is confirmed, but you’re not like any human he’s ever heard of. It’s a troubling notion, that some unseen force might be trying to arm your species. If that’s the case, they’ll need to figure out who. Then why.

But in the meantime, he and Strife have a job to do, here and now.

First thing’s first…

“… Never handled a weapon,” he murmurs aloud.

It makes sense, he concedes. Humans aren’t a war-faring species, so it’s little wonder that you don’t know how to use weapons… For War, however, a Nephilim who has been holding a blade since the day he was risen from dust, the concept seems so alien, not to mention disconcerting.

Inclining his head, he gives you another once-over before turning away, stating matter-of-factly, “You will be a liability.”

It’s such a blasé statement, accusing, as if you’re culpable of something you’ve had no control over thus far. It actually makes you recoil as you draw your head back to fix him with an incredulous frown, lips parted, and your brows furrowed heavily above your eyes.

Despite every fibre of your being telling you that there’s a terrible idea forming at the back of your mind, you take a step away, lean your weight on your heel, and start to size him up.

Now, you’ve picked some battles before, tried to stand up to people you had no business standing up to. Cain and Delilah nipped that streak in the bud back when you thought asserting your opinion on matters of marriage should make a difference. Those battles were wildly different from this one, and you lost, every time, worn down and beaten back from the woman you used to be by wills stronger and more tempered than yours. You used to think you could face the world bravely, and all it took were a few people to show you that you weren’t as strong as you liked to think you were. It humbled you, and over time, you learned an easier life was synonymous with a passive life.

But you’ve been passive a lot lately.

Maybe you’ve been running on cold feet for too long. Maybe this whole, nightmarish interruption to your routine is finally catching up to you and numbing you to sense and logic, but truth be told?

You really don’t like hearing that this is somehow your fault.

Balling your hands into fists, you swallow thickly, and steady yourself with a noisy breath, wondering if this will be the moment you get to learn if there’s a Heaven as well as a Hell.

“Hey! I didn’t ask you to bring me with you, okay?” you say in a wobbly voice, staring at a spot just past his left arm to avoid his glare lest your words fail you completely, “Maybe, if I’m such a liability, you should just leave me to find my own way home!”

His head snaps properly in your direction with such velocity, you let out a gasp, flinching backwards and shrinking in on yourself again, your eyes darting to his lips that curl just the slightest in one corner, and the little bit of gall sitting on your tongue shrivels up and dies at the back of your throat.

Oh well. It was nice to have your guts back while it lasted. Just a pity they’re probably about to get ripped out of you for raising your voice.

For a number of unpleasant seconds, War merely regards you like you’ve just completely thrown him for a loop, neither raising his sword nor his fist to send you spinning off your mortal coil into the aether.

Finally, just as you’re beginning to fidget under his inspection, he quirks his brow at you and slowly states, “If you leave… you will die.”

You were expecting him to lose his temper again, to shout you down or put you down, not remark on your chances of survival.

“Oh, as if you give a shit about that,” you huff guardedly, curling a palm over your marred forearm and eyeing the Horseman like he’ll tear you in half for daring to call attention to the injury he caused.

War’s stance and expression don’t change in the slightest. He only continues to observe you coolly from inside his hood, ignoring the frequent looks Strife keeps flicking between the pair of you.

After a further spell of silence in which you seem to grow impossibly smaller, he at last gives an appraising hum and straightens his shoulders, jerking his head towards his brother and declaring, “You will stay close to Strife.”

Wait… You will?

“I will?” you say aloud, sending the other Horseman a distrustful glance. Strife, for his part, looks conversely pleased with the verdict, his head tipping coltishly to one side as he gives you a little wave.

… Well, you suppose if you have to choose between the two, the less time you spend near War the better. You assume he feels the same about having to be close to you, at least until he adds, “If we run into trouble, his guns allow him range. He will not let anything to get close to you.”

“They’re welcome to try,” his brother says cheerfully, thumbing the stock of a revolver.

Wilting like a helpless flower plucked from its patch of earth, you weakly ask, “Do I have a choice?”

Giving a hearty chuckle, Strife takes an exaggerated step closer to your side and pivots on his heel to face the same direction, cheerfully replying, “Ah, c’mon. Don’t be like that. I thought you humans were social. Safety in numbers, and all that?”

Disconcerted by his proximity, you lean away from him, cupping your elbows. “That’s not true for all of us,” you mumble.

You hear his intake of breath and prepare yourself for yet more inane chatter, but at that moment, you jump as another howl – distant but hair-raising – comes drifting into the chamber from some unknown offshoot deeper in the keep’s depths.

“Fucking hell,” you quake, your voice shaking like glass on the verge of shattering.

At your side, Strife mutters, “My sentiments exactly.”

Raising his head to catch War’s eye, he swings his chin towards the only visible exit; the apex of a wide, stone staircase that winds down away from the chamber, disappearing into a tunnel below. “You wanna take point?”

War’s response is a rich, throaty hum, accompanied by a decisive nod. “Indeed, we have wasted more than enough time here. Let us find Vulgrim’s troubling demon and pry the artifact from its cold, dead hands.”

“Ohho-okay!” Strife grins, suddenly gleeful as he claps his hands together, “Now you’re getting me excited.”

Rolling his eyes, War turns away and makes for the stairs, swinging his arm up to clip Chaoseater into its usual place on his back. Blankly watching him leave, you give a start when something metal and solid nudges at the small of your back, prodding you to stumble forwards awkwardly until Strife’s knuckles drop and he falls into step beside you, one stride for every two and a half of yours.

 “I love it when he gets like this,” he remarks.

 Begrudgingly, you resign yourself to trail after his brother and ask, “What? Murderous?”

“Oh yeah. Even he can be fun.” Tilting his head to the side in thought, he adds, “On occasion.”

Sweat has been steadily gathering on your forehead, and as you finally begin to move, a tiny droplet breaks free of your brow and trickles slowly down the side of your face. Of all the days to get swept up in a Universe-spanning caper, it would be the day you elected to wear one of the most awkward and cumbersome dresses known to man.

“So far none of this has been fun,” you huff, reaching up to flick the sweat drop away with a finger.

Strife’s boots hit the top step and he twists his helm sideways to shoot you a mock-offended smirk, “Not even me?”

You don’t bother to respond to that, instead throwing nervous glances around the room as you lift the front of your skirts and start to descend the staircase, your heels clacking noisily against the hard stone underfoot and echoing off the high walls. Somewhere nearby, you can hear liquid lava squeaking and splintering as it hits the marginally cooler air, though the heat only seems to grow more stifling the further you venture.

Absently, you wonder if you remembered to put your setting spray in the bag.

The staircase spirals down into the depths of a tunnel, twisting out of view and giving you no concept of what might lay ahead. To your left, you note the presence of tall, metal spikes jutting from a pit that runs alongside the stairs, like a wrought-iron fence whose purpose has been retrofitted into an inefficient and hostile railing. From the corner of an eye, you spot something round and ivory impaled halfway down one of those spikes. A single glimpse is all you need before you immediately avert your gaze to the stairs ahead, heart thumping in your chest. Behind you, a pair of dark, unseeing eye sockets seem to sear into your back as you continue your descent.

As you move lower, more signs start to appear that you aren’t the only visitors to this keep. Sconces line the wall, roaring with open flames that cast the path ahead in an orange glow. Two, iron firepits stand on either side of the staircase at its base, and it’s here that War has paused. It strikes you that in spite of his size, he’s slightly more camouflaged in this place than he was in the void, his scarlet cloak and dark grey armour blending well with the rock and heat around him.

As you and Strife come to a stop behind War, you lean sideways and find yourself peering tentatively into the space beyond his bulk.

The tunnel has opened up into another spacious chamber, and the path beyond the stairs has opened up too, into a vast, circular area with no walls or boundaries, nothing but another deep pit that sweeps around it, carrying a river of flowing, basaltic lava to somewhere further into the - as Strife had called it -‘dungeon.’

Maybe you really are in some kind of volcano. The urge to find a way out of here increases dramatically, but with Strife watching your back a little too closely and War cutting off an escape from the front, your options, at the moment, are quite limited.

At last, War takes a step out onto the level ground, then another and another, stalking forwards with his head on a constant swivel, vigilant. Strife, in the meantime, walks out with a confident swagger, ensuring to walk slightly behind you to keep you moving up in front.

Tearing your eyes off the pit, you focus instead on the behemoth stomping ahead of you. He’s already on the other side by the time you and Strife make it halfway across. For a split second, you almost let yourself feel a pinch of guilt for wearing such inappropriate shoes and slowing the Horsemen down, but you’re just as quick to take the feeling and grind it up under said heels, curling your lip distastefully. You weren’t exactly given a chance to pack for this ‘excursion.’

“Y’know,” Strife says abruptly, breaking you from your thoughts, and just in time too. You glance down and see the lip of the platform’s edge rise up to meet you. It likely would have tripped you if you’d remained lost in your head. “I’ve been thinking…”

“Death will be pleased to hear it,” War remarks from up ahead.

The back of his hood receives a simmering glare, but Strife is quick to brush the dig aside and continue, “If Lucifer is as dangerous as the Council says he is, why’d they send just the two of us?”

If the uneven ground didn’t manage to trip you up, his comment definitely does. Stumbling on the heel of your foot, you hurriedly try to right yourself, swatting irritably at Strife’s hand that reaches out to steady you. There’s that name again. Lucifer. Would it be naïve of you to hope that their ‘mission’ doesn’t somehow involve the Biblical Devil? You’ve managed to survive for the better part of an hour, but you don’t like how the odds are quickly stacking up against you with every step you take.

“Death and Fury attend to other matters,” War responds simply, “It is not our place to question the will of the Council.”

Apparently unable to let his brother’s earlier tease slide after all, Strife rolls his eyes and quips, “It’s not my place to question your wardrobe, but I still think your armour could use some more creepy faces on it.”

You’re not sure how much you like trailing in between the sizeable men, especially when the more sizeable of the two slows his gait to aim a vicious snarl over his shoulder. “Must everything be a joke to you?” War snaps, “The Council-!”

“-Ugh!” Cutting his brother off with a pompous groan, Strife throws his helm back. “You really need to lighten up.” Then, lowering his voice to a deeper pitch, apparently for the sole purpose of mocking the far scarier Horseman, he taunts, “The Council this, and The Council that! You wanna hear an actual joke?”

Facing forwards again, War responds with a firm, flat, “No.”

Strife, of course, doesn’t seem to have the same reservations as you do about antagonising someone with the name ‘War.’

In fact, you carry yourself so rigidly in fear of being caught in the middle of a scrap that you almost have the wind knocked out of you quite literally when Strife chimes in with a phrase so familiar to you, you just about choke on your own spit.

“Knock knock…”

The classic setup, so universally understood that you almost wonder if humans are born with an inbuilt recognition system designed to identify two simple, unassuming words.

The three of you pass beneath an open portcullis, but you barely notice the jagged bars of iron looming above you because you’re so busy trying to pick your jaw up off the ground.

You can’t see Strife’s face, and you don’t dare turn around to gape at him in case you end up taking a painful tumble. Instead, numbly, you continue to stare ahead with unblinking eyes, vaguely taking in the narrow path ahead of you, and the apparent end of it fast approaching.

War makes a dismissive sound, an irked mutter of something too low for you to make out.

Clearing his throat when he doesn’t receive a response, Strife prompts, “You’re supposed to say, ‘who’s there?”

You can’t quite believe you’re hearing this. Perhaps the idea that you’ve been drugged isn’t so unlikely after all because this isn’t something you could ever come up with sober.

Ahead of you, the stone pathway falls away in an abrupt drop, and the ceiling of the tunnel disappears, both opening out into yet another cavern, this one more spacious than the first two.

Or, you continue to muse to yourself, maybe you really did die in that church graveyard, and the chemicals released in your brain have conjured a hallucination of this pair of giants to serve as some unconvincing reapers who will guide you into the afterlife.

War comes to a stop at the edge of the escarpment, and unseen by you or Strife, his expression scrunches up in confusion and he asks, “Why would I give away my location? I would simply smash through the door and face my assailant.”

Oh. Wow. That’s…

“Ugh, you’re hopeless,” Strife complains as he draws to a halt just behind you and his brother on the rocky ledge. For a second, he’s distracted with casting his keen eye over the chamber, so he doesn’t notice you lower your face to the floor, your lips pursed like you’re trying to keep a cough in.

He does, however, notice straight away when, instead of escaping through your mouth, the sound you’re desperately trying to hold in finds its escape through your nose instead, and out jumps a sharp, unbecoming ‘snort!’

It’s unexpected. So much so that you’re just as surprised to hear it as the Horsemen. At once, you slap a palm over the lower half of your face in horror, a cold rush of dread trickling down into your stomach.

Eyes blown wide open, you stare at the ground, only too aware of the heavy silence that settles over you like a blanket, thicker than the heat pressing in all around you. You’re not even willing to raise your head because you can feel two sets of eyes watching you from above.

For too long, all you can hear is the ringing in your ears and your own pulse throbbing just beneath the skin of your temples. The silence swells, tuning up like an orchestra, deafening you to every sound save for that accursed, high-pitched ringing caused by the crushing grit of your teeth.

“Did…?” Strife’s voice cuts through the atmosphere like a headsman’s axe, “Did you just… laugh?”

Your jaw eases apart, and the ringing fades.

The telltale ‘clunk’ of War’s boots alert you to him turning from the ledge, pointing himself in your direction instead.

Suddenly and appropriately alarmed that you just snorted at someone nearly three times your size, you instantly shift from freeze to flight and throw your head up, only to find yourself blinking apprehensively into War’s face, etched with his signature frown.

“I-I wasn’t laughing at you,” you rush out, backing away from the scowling Horseman a little too far and ending up colliding right into Strife’s torso.

With a tiny yelp, you leap forwards again, tossing glances back and forth between them whilst they continue to stare you down. “It’s just-! I haven’t heard a knock-knock joke in so long, it… It just surprised me.”

A pause ensues, and then quietly – eagerly – Strife asks, “You know what knock-knock jokes are?”

Wondering why that’s his first question, you offer him a timid nod. And then you’re immediately flinching away from him when he barks out an abrupt, disbelieving laugh and straightens up, his chest swelling proudly.

“No kidding. Y’know, not to brag,” he brags, jabbing a thumb into his sternum, “But I practically invented knock-knock jokes.”

Well, who are you to argue with the man carrying two guns? “O-oh?”

“Brother,” War complains, “We do not have time for your-“

“-Here! Here, try this one,” Strife rushes out, leaning towards you a little too fast for your liking, “Knock knock.”

You start to get the impression he’s been waiting for an opportunity like this to come along for quite some time. Sparing his brother a nervous glance, you wet your lips and tentatively indulge him, “Uh, okay, who’s there?”

Taking a breath as if he means to brace himself, Strife says, “The interrupting War.”

Oh… Oh, for God’s sake...

You try to steady the muscles in your cheeks, sending another wary look over at the juggernaut clenching his fists by the ledge.

Still, with Strife waiting for an answer, you slowly and dutifully sigh, “The interrupting War wh-“

You knew it was coming. You knew the gist of the punchline if not the punchline itself, but you’re still wholly unprepared when Strife cuts you off by crossing his arms over his chest and letting out a loud, resounding growl.

 “Grr! The Council~!”

Squeezing your eyes shut, you immediately purse your lips, your cheeks aching with the effort of keeping a straight face. You wonder if this is the start of another emotional breakdown because the joke isn’t even particularly funny, but there’s just a familiarity to the formula that almost comes as a welcome relief, like Earth isn’t so far away after all.

A brother teasing his sibling… There’s something almost human about it, abating just the tiniest modicum of terror bubbling away inside your stomach.

Clearing your throat, you keep your lips puckered and inhale deeply through your nostrils in an attempt to compose yourself. Perhaps its Strife’s enthusiasm that lends itself to the humour of the situation, or perhaps it’s simply the absurdity of such a large and formidable brute doing something as innocuous as telling you a knock-knock joke at the expense of his brother, but whatever the case may be, when you open your mouth to tell him it wasn’t that funny, your lips spring up at their corners, contradicting you immediately.

“Think it needs some work,” you say, your voice wobbling.

“Needs work?” he parrots, his own mouth quirking into a grin as he clocks your expression, “Then why are you smiling?”

It takes no small amount of effort to wrestle your face back under control. “I’m not smiling,” you insist, “That isn’t how humans smile.”

Strife, naturally, isn’t fooled at all.

“Ah ha! It is! She’s smiling!” he gloats, jabbing his thumbs at his own mask, “I’m funny! And you-!” Swivelling his head up to War, he pokes a finger at his brother’s face and declares, “You were wrong.”

You make the mistake of glimpsing underneath the stoic Horseman’s hood, wincing when you find him sporting an expression of absolute thunder. He glowers down at you as if to say, ‘Now look at what you’ve started.’

Outwardly, he flattens his brows and exhales slowly through his nose, “Yes, you must be very proud that you’ve found the one, sole creature in the Universe who finds you almost as funny as you find yourself.”

Flapping a hand dismissively at his brother’s words, Strife blows a snort through his lips and tuts, “Ah, you’re just jealous she likes me better.”

You decide not to chime in with the fact that you don’t, in fact, particularly like either of them.

Besides, if War is at all concerned with his new ranking, he certainly doesn’t bother to let you know.

“If you are quite finished cheapening our reputation…” he growls, whirling away from Strife and stepping up to the very edge of the platform.

“Oh, I haven’t even gotten started.”

Before you can protest, the masked Horseman lays a hand on your back and nudges you forwards until you’re standing next to his brother, then takes up his own lookout on the escarpment to your left.

Snugly sandwiched between them, you squash your arms into your sides, grimacing at the sharp angles of their armour that threaten to snag your dress as you try to shuffle backwards, but you don’t manage to retreat further than a few inches before you happen to cast a cursory look out at the view ahead and promptly freeze in your tracks.

Eyes bulging, your jaw falls open and you let out a soft, incredulous breath, your brain racing to take stock of what it’s seeing.

“Oh god.”

The path ends abruptly, falling away just a few paces from the toes of your shoes. And waiting beyond the precipice is a rock-walled cavern of absolutely phenomenal scale, far larger than those you’ve already come through. At its centre, rising from a chasm down below, there’s a rocky platform large enough to fit your house within its dimensions several times over. From what you can see, there isn’t any conceivable way to cross over to it, save for sprouting wings and flying. You’re not even confident you could pitch a tennis ball across the gap and have it land on the other side.

Scalding heat prickles your brow, and when you glance down to see where it stems from, you give an audible gasp as you look past the toes of your shoes and over the pathway’s crumbling edge.

Far, far below you, a stomach-churning drop lays in wait.

Thirty… forty-something feet of shimmering air is all that stands between you and a vast lake of red-hot lava.

“Hey, look down there,” Strife’s voice twitches your ear.

At your side, he raises an arm to point at the platform and says, “See that grate?”

With no small effort, you wrench your eyes off the pit of death and lift it to the level of raised stone, blinking your eyes hard to moisten them again after staring at the lava.

At once, you spot what he’s indicating.

Right at the centre of the platform, set into the stone floor itself, is a large, circular grate, vaguely reminiscent of the bars of a prison cell.

From the darkness below it, you can just make out a faint, pink glow seeping through the metal gridiron.

War answers his brother with a hum that vibrates in your chest.

“What’d you think?” Strife prods, “Reckon that’s where they’ve stashed Vulgrim’s artefact?”

Studying it for a few seconds, War eventually nods. “Something is definitely down there…” he murmurs, “No doubt that grate is heavily fortified.”

Shooting him a sly look, the smaller Horseman adds, “Shouldn’t be too much of a problem for you to pick the lock though, right?”

It’s disconcerting to see War with any expression other than a scowl, so to witness him return a smirk over the top of your head sends a veritable shiver right up your spine.

Lifting his arms, he slams his fist into the palm of his gauntlet with a resounding ‘thwack.’

Amused, Strife turns to thrust his chin at the gut-wrenching gap between the path you’re standing on and the edge of the central platform.

“What about that? Think you can make that jump?”

“J-jump!?” you blurt out, whipping your head up to stare at him like he’s lost his mind.

Hell, maybe he has.

Briefly, War’s eyes flit down to you before he returns his gaze to his fellow Horseman, scoffing, “Is that a serious question?”

And without another word, he begins taking several steps backwards, away from the ledge.

“Wait,” you sputter, shooting him an incredulous look as he continues to back up along the path, “You’re not really going to-“

You don’t even get to finish your sentence.

Before you can blink, War pushes off on his back foot and lurches forwards, his boots pounding against the stone hard enough to send powerful quakes all along the path as he charges straight for the edge.

You think you let out an alarmed yelp, but there’s not much else you can do except helplessly gawk as the Horseman, laden down by his heavy, clanking armour, plants his boot centimetres from the crumbling edge of the path and unceremoniously launches himself, his sword, and all of his bulk off solid ground, soaring out over the lava-drowned chasm below.

With a comically loud gasp, you slap your palms over your eyes, yet you can’t resist peeking through splayed fingers to watch.

Why the Hell would he do that!? There’s no way he’ll make it, you tell yourself, not with all that weight dragging him down.

You wanted to get away from him, yes but… shit. You didn’t want him to get himself killed doing it!

It’s as if you’re staring at a runaway train, waiting in morbid fascination for it to derail. Something in the nature of a disaster unfolding keeps you rooted to the spot, unable to tear your attention away from it.  

There’s power and grace in the way War sails over the gap, an impossible feat, further than any Olympic gold medallist would ever hope to achieve. And then, to your utmost astonishment, he makes it.

Metal boots hit the stone platform with an almighty ‘clang’ on the other side, and he dips his knees as he lands to absorb the impact.

You’re almost certain you can see the whole structure quiver from the force.

For several moments, you merely stand there with your mouth hanging ajar whilst War rises to his full height again and turns around, tipping his face up to see you staring back at him, your eyes wide with unconcealed awe.

“How. The fuck…?” you say emphatically, blowing out a disbelieving little whistle. You might not trust the man, but even you can appreciate a good stunt when you see one. Giving your head a shake, you briefly forget you’re supposed to be their kidnappee and gush, “That was incredible!”

Your voice carries easily across the sizeable gap and reaches the Horseman’s ears, erasing the hard line between his brows. Taken aback, War blinks, pressing his lips together bashfully in lieu of a response. ‘Perhaps it was rather impressive,’ he privately concedes, ‘from a human’s perspective…’

Back on the escarpment, Strife’s keen gaze makes out the befuddled expression warping his brother’s typically impassive face, and he sends several glances between you and War, pursing his lips at the glimmer lighting up your eyes.

“Oh yeah?” he huffs, “You think that was impressive?”

A loud clap rings out across the cavern, causing you to jump as Strife smacks his palms together. “Okay, little miss,” he announces behind you, “Your turn.”

Just like that, the colour promptly drains from your face. “My what?”

You don’t have time to spin around and face him, for not a second later, a powerful arm scoops your legs out from underneath you whilst the other snakes around the back of your shoulders, hauling you clean off the floor and pressing you to a hard, armoured chest.

“Oh for-! Stop grabbing me!” you complain, planting your hands on his clavicle and shoving yourself away as best you can, “Are you insane!? I am not jumping over that!”

Cocking his helm at you, he spares you an innocent blink. “You’re not?”

You don’t like how much levity is lacing his tone.

“NO!” you squawk, aghast, “Absolutely not! Let me go!”

One of the Horseman’s eyes narrows to squint at you before he angles his helm very pointedly towards the platform. “You sure?”

Something about his question gives you pause.

Hesitating, you snap your head in the same direction and follow his line of sight. It doesn’t take you more than a second to glean the bastard’s intent.

Now you really don’t like the way he’s looking at you, his upturned eyelids the clearest indication that he’s smiling quite broadly underneath his visor.

Your stomach gives an unpleasant lurch.

“Oh, if you dare…” you hiss.

Daringly, he raises his sizeable shoulders in a shrug and chirps, “Lesson one; Don’t ever dare a Horseman, kid. You’re always bound to lose.”

He wouldn’t…

Flashing you a golden wink, Strife turns his body sideways and swings you to the right, like a rugby player readying a forward pass.

It finally occurs to you that, oh, good god, he would.

“Wait-! WA-WAIT! STRIFE!” Issuing a high-pitched, wordless scream, you start to flail, but his ironclad grip on your legs and shoulders keeps you from launching yourself out of his arms.

Somewhere across the chasm, War’s voice drifts up to you, though you hardly hear it above your undignified shrieks. “Brother?”

The muscles around you bunch up, solidifying as hard as the stone underfoot.

“See you on the other side!” is all the cheery warning you get.

“Don’t you DA---AAAAARRRGGHHH!”

He’s moving before you can think to adhere yourself to his arm.

Sidestepping into a purposeful bound, the Horseman flings his arms to the left, with you in tow, and when they get to the zenith of his reach, they disappear out from under you, letting you go hurtling spine first out over the chasm like a screaming, thrashing blimp, dress and all.

You have several phobias that you were aware of before you fell into this godforsaken place. Phobias that, for the most part, have been quite avoidable in your day-to-day life.

Finding yourself suspended in the air over a pit without a safety net underneath you… add some lava to break your fall, and you suddenly realise as you’re flying through empty space that you’ve just discovered an entirely new phobia to add to the list.

Sailing in a none-too graceful arch, you stare in disbelief back at the silver Horseman on the ledge, your dress billows out behind you and the scorching air whips your veil over your face, tugging at your hair where the grips are heroically keeping it situated. Likewise, some subconscious part of you instructs your toes to grip like vices on the insoles of your heels, valiantly trying to stop them from plummeting off your feet.

Inevitably, as is the case with the laws of physics, you reach the height of your curve, and that’s when gravity seizes you by the heart and starts to drag you back down, sending your stomach crashing up into your diaphragm.

Time seems to slow as you descend, reaching back for Strife as if he could somehow stretch across the gap and catch you. You can’t see behind yourself, and it’s all you can do to hope that you pass out on the way down, so you don’t have to feel your body melt into a puddle in the hungry maw of the lava below.

It hurts your chest something fierce to think that the last anyone will see of you is your terror-stricken face and your raised hand closing into a fist, bar one choicely extended finger.

The hot wind screams past your ears and you screw your eyes shut tight, squeezing out the last tears you’re ever going to cry. Your father’s face flashes in your mind’s eye, and you wonder what you did to set off this chain of events.

Strife said he wouldn’t hurt you…

What a joke.

‘WHAM!’

Your mouth jerks open, wheezing out a gasp as something suddenly slams into you from behind, knocking the air violently from your lungs. Or rather, you crash into something with the force of a white, ruffled meteorite and nearly lose your heart through your open mouth.

At first, you assume you must have smacked into the hard side of the platform, but then the Something you’ve collided with grunts, and you hurriedly wrench your eyes open, coming to focus on a monstrous, metal gauntlet that’s secured itself under your knees, crushing your dress between prodigious fingers whilst something equally large presses across your shoulder blades.

With a kick in the guts, you realise you’re being held aloft in much the same way Strife had been holding you mere moments ago.

He caught you… War caught you.

Finally, you remember to gulp in a noisy breath to refill your desperate lungs.

You’re not dead.

But you are, in fact, shaking.

And as the revelation that you’re still alive sets in, your limbs start to wobble in earnest.

“STRIFE!” You visibly flinch when War’s terrible, wonderful, abrasive, beautiful voice booms like a claxon right above your head. “You fool!”

Even through layers of solid metal and leather padding, the Horseman can feel you trembling under his palms. Propping your neck in the crook of his elbow, he lifts his head to level a snarl up at where Strife still stands on the escarpment whilst you unclench your fists from your lap, heaving air in and out of your lungs in hysterical little bursts.

“What were you thinking!?” he bellows.

Leaning over the side to look down at you and your unwitting saviour, Strife throws his arms out wide and argues, “She said to let her go!”

“You knew what she meant!” A deep thrum rolls around in his chest, spreading up his throat and spilling out in another growl so deep it rattles the teeth in your skull. “You could have damaged her!”

“Oh relax, I wouldn’t have tossed her if I didn’t think you’d catch her.”

War slides his lips back to reveal his inhumanly sharp canines, but at that moment, something tugs very lightly at the fabric of his cowl.

Faltering, he angles his chin down and nearly gives a start.

Tiny hands have wandered towards him, found the scarlet material hanging from around his neck and latched onto it with possessive intent, fingers twisting themselves into his cowl and getting lost amongst the folds, as if you fully expect him to toss you over the side as well. The strange, white veneer lays draped across your face, so he can’t see your expression when you unexpectedly twist about in his arms and pull yourself a little closer to his chest.

Caught off guard, War remains stock-still, seriously contemplating whether or not he should drop you right then and there to spare himself from Strife’s potential teasing.

His bulging arms give a twitch, which in turn causes you to cringe, letting out a quiet bleat and further entangling your fingers around his cowl.

This, War decides, was not in the job description when the Charred Council made him a Horseman. Still, whatever he might think of you, he can’t bring himself to drop you in a heap on the ground.

For once, he might be out of his depth.

As soon as the notion occurs to him, he brusquely flicks it away with a toss of his head.

Taking a large step back, he slowly ambles himself about until he’s facing away from Strife and the platform’s edge, then stomps several paces towards the central grate, only stopping once he hears the loud clang of metallic boots hitting the stone behind him as his fellow Horseman leaps to the lower level.

Gingerly, almost as though he expects you to shatter if he moves too quickly, War bends down until he’s almost on a knee and starts to withdraw the arm that’s wrapped around your legs, a stoic frown tugging his brows towards the centre of his forehead when you refuse to let go of his hood.

Grumbling, he lowers you until your shoes click on the stone floor, and then he slips his hand out from under your knees, moving it up and taking both of your wrists between his gauntlet’s fingertips and thumb, mindful of the delicate limbs he’s handling.

He can still recall how you’d nearly crumpled to your knees when he got a little heavy handed trying to apply the poultice to your arm. He truly thought he had been correct in gauging the pressure he needed to apply to your flesh to draw blood. He’d only meant to take a little. Just enough to prove the validity of your claim. What an idea that had turned out to be. If War were being honest with himself, he’d been outright startled when your skin peeled open so readily to admit Chaoseater’s blade.

So, if he’s a little more careful in prying your hands off his cowl than he ought to be, well, that’s his own business.

It doesn’t take much coaxing before you seem to come back into yourself.

With a sudden jolt, you wrench your hands away from his hood and start to struggle valiantly with the veil on your face, flipping it back over your head and choking on a sob as your knees start to buckle.

Planting both of his palms on your shoulders, War hauls you upright again.

“Steady,” he murmurs as if he’s addressing a wounded soldier, not a frightened human, “On your feet.”

The sound of clanking boots drifts closer, approaching from his rear.

War bristles, but he’s not the only one who heard Strife’s footsteps.

“You okay, kid?” the gunslinger’s voice drifts over to you, and War watches your jaw cinch shut, the hands at your sides curling into fists as you attempt to stop them from shaking.

Whirling around, you tear yourself from the Horseman’s gauntlets, your dress twirling gracefully around your ankles to find Strife standing a few paces behind you, paused halfway between one step and the next.

Blurting out a delirious laugh, you shoot him a bloodshot stare, half tempted to rip your bag off and lob it at his head.

“Am I okay?!” you echo, “Have you completely lost your mind!?”

Peering down at you appraisingly, War makes a sound that might be affirming, and even his brother lifts a hand to tilt it back and forth in a ‘so-so’ motion.

Breathing hard, you resist the urge to scream and instead lower your head, massaging at your throbbing temples.

Slowly, through gritted teeth, you seethe, “I am trapped… inside a volcano… with two of the scariest people I’ve ever met…”

Strife shares a look with War, the former’s frame wilting as if he’s put out, while the latter, by contrast, almost seems proud of the achievement.

“I,” you continue, a humourless grin straining at your lips, “Just found out that demons exist! I also found out that Lucifer is apparently real…! It is my fucking wedding day!” Vitriol drips from your teeth like venom, and with each passing word, your voice grows louder and louder. “And! I just got chucked! Like a…  like a fucking pigskin over a river! Of LAVA!”

All around you, the cavern echoes with the throes of your furious shout, bouncing off the rock walls and coming back to you ten times over before it fades into an uneasy silence.

Lungs heaving with the effort of raising your voice, you stop to breathe, finding, to your dismay, that tears are spilling onto your cheeks, only to start evaporating on your skin in the smouldering heat.

Clearing your throat, you sweep a few fingertips delicately beneath your eyes and wipe away the lingering evidence of moisture cutting tracks through your blusher. “So, no,” you sniffle, “For your information, I am not o-fucking-kay… I think I’m about as far from okay as it gets.”

It’s almost satisfying that the gung-ho Horseman can in fact be made to shut up.

Fidgeting idly with the gauntlet on his left hand, Strife shoots several glances at War, but finds no source of assistance in his fellow Nephilim’s cold, critical glare.

“Uh,” he starts, clenching his hands into fists and opening them again, “I mean… it was kind of funny, right?” He lets out a chuckle that falls painfully flat. “You should’ve seen your face.”

Your jaw begins to ache from grinding your teeth together like you’re trying to crush coal into diamonds.

“Knock-knock jokes are funny,” you say stiffly, turning away from him to scowl at the ground, “People don’t get hurt.”

Draping a hand over his hip, Strife lowers his voice and asks, “Come on, you really thought I’d let you get hurt?”

“OF COURSE I DID!” you suddenly bellow so loudly your voice cracks, “You threw me over a lava pit!”

“War caught you, didn’t he?”

“What if he hadn’t!?”

Strife doesn’t even hesitate before he offers his palms to the ceiling and says, “Then I wouldn’t’ve done it.”

“Why the hell would you-!? Why even take the risk!?”

“There never was any risk,” he shrugs far too nonchalantly, sending his brother a knowing look, “Besides, this is a good thing, right? Now you know you can trust War to keep you alive.”

Pulling a face, you allow a spiteful scoff to burst out of your mouth, arms folding sternly across your chest. “Oh, so that was all so you could prove some point to me, was it? Jesus, what is wrong with you?!”

“Now there’s a door best left unopened,” War chimes in.

At last recognising that there’s some, invisible line he’s crossed, Strife holds his hands up placatingly. “Look,” he concedes, scratching at the back of his head and disturbing the thick spines of ebony hair growing behind his helm, “After what happened back in the Void, I just thought, if we proved we could keep you safe, you’d… maybe start to trust us a little more, y’know?”

You have to take a moment to stare at him, waiting for his words to sink in for you, and hopefully for him as well. “So… you thought you’d show me you can keep me safe by… launching me over a lava pit, and expecting me to know your brother would catch me?”

The Horseman doesn’t speak for several seconds. When he eventually does, he crosses his arms over his chest and huffs, “I mean, if you’re only gonna focus on the first part, sure the plan had holes.”

“Well,” you say haughtily, “No offence, but I trust you two about as far as I could throw you. Which, you’ll be shocked to hear, isn’t very far at all. And unlike you-“ Here, you jab a finger up at his silver visor. “- I’m not strong enough to go around throwing people off the edge of cliffs!”

Once again, Strife remains silent, rapping his fingertips on a metal bicep. Soon enough however, he lowers his head and peers up at you from beneath the lip of his helm’s sockets, prodding, “It was a pretty good throw though, huh?”

“It was a very good throw!” you agree sharply, blowing out a rough exhale as your heartbeat finally begins to ease off the throttle, “Neither of you even had a run up. You two are like something straight out of a comic book… Except without the charisma… and altruism...”

“Comic…?” War asks, frowning, “Then… you are amused?”

“No, not comic like-…” You inhale. You exhale. “Never mind. Weren’t you guys supposed to be looking for something?”

Just like that, the pair of titans straighten up with a start, and you wonder if their ‘mission’ really had slipped their minds for a while.

Rolling his shoulders back, War just grumbles something inaudible and begins moving purposefully towards the grate.

You stand back to let him pass, chewing thoughtfully on your bottom lip as you mull over what you’re about to say.

“Hey, big guy?”

At once, War stops and swivels his head sideways, silver hair spilling out from underneath his hood.

Shuffling awkwardly on your feet, you avoid the pale, unblinking eye that’s trained on your face and call, “Thanks…. For catching me.”

You won’t thank him for healing your arm when he was the one who cut it in the first place. But this? You can swallow your grudge for this. At least for a little while.

Several seconds tick by without a response, and the only sound you can hear is the heavy clanking of boots on stone as Strife ventures up behind you.

And then at last, War’s head falls and rises in an almost imperceptible nod.

When he turns away, you suddenly feel like you can breathe again.

How can one man be so intimidating just by standing still and saying nothing?

You’ve already deduced that the two Horsemen are like chalk and cheese, with one half of the duo serving as the strong, silent type, and the other, a smart-mouthed chatterbox.

… Speaking of whom.

Just as you start to trail after War towards the centre of the platform, an enormous shape sidles up next to you, easily keeping pace with your diminutive gait.

“Hey…” Strife tries, actually sounding hesitant for a change, “Knock-knock.”

Ah. There it is.

“Strife…” His name still sounds foreign on your tongue. “I’m… look, I’m not in the mood, okay?”

“…”

Scoffing quietly, you give your head a defeated shake and sigh, “Fine… Who’s there?”

“Eyes wear.”

… Okay?

“…Eyes wear who?” you venture, hesitant.

Swivelling his helm towards you, Strife bends his neck down, chasing after your face even as you try to ignore him by staring straight ahead.

“Eyes wear to… never throw you across any more chasms,” he offers, tipping his helm upright again, “Lava filled or otherwise. How’s that sound?”

Your lips quiver. “Wow,” you drawl, “I think that was even worse than the last one.”

“Oh yeah?” he replies coyly, “Then why’re you smiling?”

You jerk to a halt mid stride, taking stock of your expression.

Damnit. You are smiling.

You’re a little too slow to force the corners of your lips back down into a straight line, and of course, Strife sees it, tipping his chin back to peer at you triumphantly. You may not be able to see his mouth beneath the visor but judging by the upturned curve of his golden eyes, you just know the smug son of a bitch is grinning from ear to ear.

“I was not smiling,” you insist.

Quick as a whip, he retorts, “Well now you’re lying.”

Stuffing your teeth into your bottom lip, you kick yourself into gear and speed up, marching up to where War has stopped by the grate. “I am not lying, I’m leaving.”

The Horseman’s chuckle haunts you all the way across the platform.

#darksiders #darksiders genesis #strife x reader #war x reader #bride reader #fluff #angst #hurt/comfort #Strife being Strife #Fear #Bad Knock knock jokes #Reader has had enough

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

The Sticking Point 4

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon, possible violence, illness, death, bullying, ableism, and other elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You are sent in the place of your ailing sister to marry a stranger. (Regency AU)

Character: Loki

Note: It's Friday. I'll probably try to chill. Work is wild yall.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me 💞

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!)

Love you all. Take care. 💖

There's a silence, weighed between three; Thor, Jane, and yourself. You feel is crushing you, resting across your chest, constricting your throat. You put your gloved fingertips on the table and rise.

"Pawdon," you cringe at your own voice, "I must see to my mother…"

Thor rises, Jane doesn't bother as she pats her stomach. You leave without further pretense. Your skirts ruffle around your slippers as you flee without true purpose.

It's an excuse. Your mother wouldn't want to see you, to be reminded of the burden she's left with. Your betrothed and his parents can hardly think better of the circumstance. Yet you loathe to think how it should be if this contract is declared null.

You enter the corridor and turn aimless towards the center of the house. Apart from the few rooms you've been shown into, you haven't much sense for the layout of the house. Loki never troubled to guide you and your mother kept herself cloistered up in her grief.

You shuffle forward. Perhaps a breath of fresh air or if you go so far as your chambers, you might hide in there. You proceed through to the drawing room and give pause. Low timbres in mid-hush, from behind a door not quite shut.

Your name escape the space between frame and clasp. You go no further, instead tiptoeing to hide behind a broad bookshelf, just between the hidden office and the entrance. You tamp down your breaths and listen, knowing you shouldn't, knowing you can only regret to hear the unbridled truth.

"...she can hardly speak a word…"

"Perhaps it is that you don't allow her too. You've always been one to do overly much speaking," Odin retorts, "Loki, have you considered her demureness may be a blessing? That the sort you are would do better with one who listens before they talk, eh? You could learn–"

"Father, she is not what I was promised."

"She holds the same bearing and she is not hideous. She's rather becoming, I think–"

"Oh yes, then why don't you have her? Have you tired of the maid already?"

"Careful, boy," Odin growls, "do not be so petulant. If you could restrain yourself you might realise what you've been given."

"A dumb mute–"

There's a strike of flesh on flesh. A grunt and a snarl, each from a different throat.

"She is to be your wife. Do not sow bitterness in the soil. You should pity that she must put up with an ingrate such as yourself. You are getting exactly as I promised, you will have your vineyard in Kyri, you will have an estate in tears when her father is regrettably gone… what else can I give you? Shall I cut my heart out?"

"If I refuse, I have Jade Park. It is mine by right."

"You haven't any right if you do not provide an heir to it," Odin rebuffs.

"She is not the only duke's daughter–"

"Of a dozen, I'm sure, but cruel as it is to say, they aren't all in queue for a second born."

"You needn't remind me. Thor has his pick, he may do as he pleases, and I get scraps!" Loki blusters, "fine, father, if only to rid myself of your mighty hand. I will marry and you will be gone from my estate. By my right!"

You press yourself to the wall and clamp your lips shut as Loki storms out. He has his hand on his cheek for a moment before tearing his fingers away. He does not look back as he crosses the chamber, stomping through the next doorway just as he sends a standing vase crashing to the floor with an angry swipe.

You stay stuck to the wall as you hear softer steps. It's too late to flee but the Grand Duke calls you out before you can think of it. Odin says your name just as he peeks around the bookcase.

"Apologies you had to witness my son's tantrum. At his age, you'd think he'd be past all that," he slants his lips tritely.

"Pawdon, yaw gwace, I didn't mean to intwude–"

"It mightn't have been your mission but along the way you did make the choice. I don't fault you that, curiosity is dangerous," he shakes his head, "I am ashamed, lady, to think my son is so stubborn and uncouth. It isn't how I've brought him up."

"It's… it's fine, yaw gwace, I know I am not… expected."

"Eh, none of us are, are we?" He tugs on his cravat with irritation, "what say you? Shall I show you the splendors of Jade Park as my sons steeps in his childishness?"

"Yaw gwace?"

"I presume you've not been given the proper look around. I admit my son is rightly jilted by me. I was rather reluctant to hand this over. It has ever been my most treasured property but even second sons need some value… and second daughters…" he offers his arm as he turns, "besides, it's been some years since a pretty young lady adorned my arm."

You look at his sleeve then his flinty hair. He does not censor himself but his truth is not mean. It is only just that. It is what is. You tuck your hand into the crook of his elbow and thank him softly.

"I should thank you, lady," he pats your hand, "I can appreciate someone who reveres silence."

He sets off, tugging you into step. You keep pace, comforted and for the first, at ease in this strange place. This place you must call home.

"We'll save the gardens, I've a little secret for you there."

🔹

“I must return to be sure the banns are read at perish, as they will be here,” your mother points Doreen to her luggage chest with her fan, giving a silent order. “Oh, to think, I must attend my daughter’s grave in the same week I sit to hear the other engaged.”

You’re silent, patient. You know it’s better to let your mother ramble than to interrupt. If any one cared to hear it, you might admit you’re not dismayed to see her leave.

“Be sure you behave. Your father and I made an effort to keep you aware of etiquette. Do mind your manners,” she chides.

“Yes, motha.”

“Oh, and…” she gives you a tortured look, “try to choose your words carefully.”

You nod. You know her meaning clearly. Avoid those syllables that underline your detriment.

“Good, good. Your father is devastated about your sister, you see? I must away.”

“I understand.”

“It isn’t so difficult to be a wife,” she comes close and looks you in your face, “it is part of being a woman. Give him an heir, or two, and you’ll have the rest of your life to be happy. Duty first.”

She touches your arm, squeezing it before she spins to remind Doreen not to forget her chain of pearls left on the vanity. You tuck your chin down and bite your lip.

Duty. What if your husband doesn’t do his? What if he cannot? If he is so repulsed by you, you might not even have the chance to provide him an heir.

🔹

As your mother departs, the Grand Duke and Duchess remain. The first son and Lady Jane take their leave as well, insisting on having the expectant wife home in case of a sudden labour. Even with a few additional guests, the house feels empty. You have only your novels and Doreen, and she is reticent company, a hard line drawn between you by status.

You tire of the pages. You’ve read them a dozen times at least. All of your books are well worn and near memorised. It’s easier to live in your head where you do not sound like a fool.

You approach the door and ponder without. You have a yearning to explore but a fear of what lays outside. You’ve never been much for social graces; you have neither tact nor eloquence. You tend to shy away and forget your posture.

You clutch the handle, battling your fear. You pull the door open, assured by the silence of the corridor, and emerge. You look right, then left, and turn to the former. You wander down to the door you recalled from your stroll with Odin.

The dark oak with the long vertical handles that spiraled at the top. You ease one open, edging quietly into the darkness within. You should’ve brought a candlestick but the windows allow enough light to limn the shelves and upholstered chairs around a single low table. 

You wade through the dull hue and stop before a shelf nearest the window, shifting a book to read the spine. Swift. You’ve not read anything by that author. You slide it loose and flip back the cover and flutter past the front page; A Tale of a Tub imprinted into the sheet.

You squint as you turn to the first page of cramped font. You bend your neck and turn towards a light, not realising the glow moves towards you, only focus on the unraveling of letters before you. A shadow nears until you are drawn up by its umbrous presence.

“Oh!” You gasp in surprise.

Loki looks down his nose as he holds a candlestick. You peer past him to the dark rectangle of the doorway that leads to the attached sitting room. You give a sheepish look to the floor as he reaches for the book in your hand. You let him slide it free, his thumb hooked over the pages before he snaps it shut in his hand.

“Satire. A musing of theology and science. Hardly a woman’s novel,” he remands. “My mother may have something to your preference.”

You take a step back and look at the window, the sun yellow and warm through the pane. You bring one hand up your arm to pinch your sleeve nervously. He is cold and you will never be used to it. A whole life to be spent in the tempest of his distaste.

“Funny, you should be repulsed by me?” He snorts.

You face him and feel the crease between your brows. He lets his eyes drift to the ceiling and gives a scoff. He spins on his heel and sets the candlestick on a tall table between the shelves.

“Let us not pretend either of us are happy. Even if you say little, it is written across your face. I saw it the moment we met. Then I heard you speak and I knew it was all a great joke on my behalf.”

You frown and squeeze your arm, keeping your arm bent across your front, like a shield, “what did you see… when we met?”

He shoves the book back on the shelf. You watch the fabric of his vest strain between his shoulders, almost admire how he’s folded his sleeves to the elbow, though the tops remain bloused. He tilts his head and strides along the wall of books.

“You act so innocent. I don’t believe it, not like the rest. You sit and pout and mope, expecting everyone to coddle you, to feel bad for you. I do not.”

“I do not act–”

“You lie like any woman does. Let us be clear, my wife will not lie. Not to me.” He turns and crosses his arms, leaning on the bookshelf, hooking one foot over the other. He takes a breath and lets it out slowly. “You will be quiet unless given leave to speak. I needn’t be further embarrassed. My father and brother have always made certain I am derided, you will not join them.”

“Loki–”

“Lord Laufeyson, husband, nothing else. Not your companion, not some kindred spirit, not anything but a convenience. A duty,” he raises a long finger as he speaks, “once I get a child on you, then we will be very much as we were before. Separate. Can you understand me?”

You bite down as hard as you can, until your jaw hurts. He speaks to you in the same tone your father used when he was agitated. He treats you like a child and yet, as Odin said, he acts like one himself. Spoiled and mean.

“I am not stupid, yaw gwace,” you say.

He narrows his eyes and stands straight, gripping his hips as he glares at you, “we’ve said all we need to say. You may go.”

You don’t move. Not right away. You don’t know why you don’t. Your heart is drumming and your ears are tingling.

“I am dismissing you,” he sneers.

You stare. Still regardless of the sharpness to his lilt.

He pulls his hands off his hips and balls them, posturing as he takes a step forward. You wince as a spasm of anger tics in his cheek.

You let the tension out of your jaw and drop your arm straight. You surrender but you do not hang your head as you turn to leave. You walk stiffly towards the door. As you reach it, he speaks again.

“Do not come in here again,” he bids.

You do not answer. You don’t argue. You don’t look back. You just go.

#loki #dark loki #dark!loki #loki x reader #fic #dark fic #dark!fic #series #the sticking point #au #mcu #marvel #thor #jane foster #odin #frigga #avengers

[jsprnt]

Healing Hearts PT. 15 | Virgil Van Dijk

Would a fresh start bring you more than just a new job?

A/N: contains some smut! MDNI, or please skip the part after the marked red border.

C/W: smut, making out etc.

WC: 3.682

Summary: Y/N L/N is a very skilled and praised physiotherapist. A certain event pushing her for a fresh start, as a physiotherapist for Liverpool FC. One question always being in the back of her mind: Will she be able to let go of her past and allow herself to experience new things?

I try to calm down the thumping in my head, my head aching from panic as I stare at the gossip piece. I close my eyes, shutting off my phone and throwing my phone onto my bed. I stand up, pacing back and forth in front of the bed.

I was a fool for thinking our relationship wouldn't be caught this early. All of my effort, allthough looking back I probably worried more than I tried to hide our relationship- was in vain. I couldn't have obviously told Virgil I wanted to not even hold hands with him on the streets or not go on that one nice date. His own efforts to keep me out of the media and even the private dinner basically going up in flames.

I sigh out of frustration, gnawing on my lower lip as I try to think of what to do. It was a gossip site- not some relevant news site yet- they didn't have pictures yet- and no names yet. I grab my phone again, putting all of my social media on private already, preparing for the storm- or fucking tornado that could ruin either the upcoming days- if I was lucky in a couple weeks- of my life.

Thinking privatizing wasn't enough, I delete them all off of my phone. I couldn't be prepared enough. Especially not since what happened last time.

Who could've even leaked the fact that we were on a date? Could've been the employees, but from experience of seeing so many "known" people I'd doubt they'd honestly care. It could've been Theo- maybe he'd noticed me anyways- through my idiotic ways of trying to conceal my identity. I rack my brain- thinking of who it could be before giving up and throwing myself onto the King bed.

I lay there, my hands on my head as I try to reason with myself. I had a couple days or weeks to prepare, this could definitely break onto mainstream news when we'd both be back in Liverpool. I wince at the actual thought of having to face the club. I had to look them all in the face after it looked like I came there to get with one of their players?

Although, I knew most of the supporters wouldn't care or be negative about it. But the thought of my face being plastered everywhere again? What would they say about a girl who dated a billionaire heir and a footballer? Back to back. Was it my fault my destiny was designed this way? Would they say I was ‘lucky’ or that I orchestrated both of these relationships?

I had to face this eventually, but I didn’t want to do it now. There were definitely bigger problems in the world than some dating news- but why did have such an effect on me?

I decide to respond back to Priya's message shortly before closing my tabs. If I just ignored it for now- it wouldn't be there- it wouldn't even exist. If I just pretend to not see or know anything it wouldn’t happen and pass, like a breeze instead of impending doom.

A text message brings me out of my thoughts. A message from Virgil, letting me know he's leaving his own hotel. I smile to myself, remembering there was something to look out for. I couldn't wait to see him.

"Fuck- please-“ She mewls, their bodies pressed close against each other. Her nails clawing and digging into his back, the euphoric feeling of their high taking over both their senses.

Virgil had arrived at her hotel a while ago. It stared with a kiss from her, to a make out session turned intimacy.

Could you blame her? Seeing your partner doing what he's good at, winning for his team and country all while looking so fucking good.

Irresistible, was the right word to describe him.

He groans lowly at her pleas, his hand gripping onto the flesh of her hips, guiding her to his pace. His heart hammers in his chest, the feeling overwhelming, but still not getting enough of the feeling of her around him.

"So good for me baby." He murmurs, sweat glistening on his collar, dripping down his broad, muscular chest. She clenches around him at the praise, a moan leaving her swollen lips as her back arches.

"So needy for me, couldn't handle yourself when I played today, love?" He teases, gently pushing her back onto the bed as he chuckles deeply. She whines in protest, eyes closing, trying to move her hips faster, his veiny hand coming to rest on her stomach again.

"Eyes here baby." He says, his pace fastening with the move of her hips. His hand trails down her entrance, a digit circling her puffy bud.

Another moan leaves her lips, as she cries out in pleasure. Her eyebrows scrunching as sweat forms on her forehead. He's deep, deep enough for his member to be visible, the bulge on her stomach showing as he moves in and out of her in well paced thrusts.

"This what you wanted baby? Hm tell me, should I stop?" She clenches around him again, her nails clawing harder as she tries to blurt out coherent words.

"Fuck- don't stop- faster. Need more- please." She pants, feeling him twitch.

He does as she says, fastening his pace as he moans lowly at the feeling.

"Let go baby." He mumbles, his hand caressing the scar on her side tenderly.

She whines loudly, letting go as she reaches her climax. He groans, making sure she alright before letting go himself. Both of their exclaims of pleasure filling up the atmosphere. Loud panting filling the room, as their chests move up and down in sync.

He leans forward, his hand coming up to hold her tired head up. He places small kisses on the side of her face, mumbling sweet praises to her.

"Did so good baby. You're alright, breathe in for me baby." He murmurs, stroking her cheek tenderly.

He pulls out slowly, a soft sound leaving her lips at the loss of feeling. He presses a kiss on her lips, checking the clock as it read way past midnight.

He gets up, not before another whine leaving her lips, her hand grabbing his hand quickly.

"I'm here babygirl. I've got to clean you up hm?" He reassures her. Getting a warm towel to clean her up gently. Discarding the condom while at it.

"Want to take a shower love?" He asks, rubbing her naked shoulder. She nods, eyelids fluttering, his hands wrapping around her as he brings her into the walk-in shower. Keeping her steady and close as the hot water falls down their intertwined bodies. Soap foaming on their skin, forgetting all worries they had, especially a worried y/n.

"Is my mascara all over my face?" She asks, tired smile tugging on her lips as she looks at Virgil.

"It is, want me to clean it off?" He chuckles, reaching over to retrieve the facial cleanser from the shower niche.

I watch Virgil grab a change of clothes from the bag he had packed. The one he'd dropped on the floor when our kiss started getting a little too heated.

My eyes roam on his body, the white damp towel low on his hips as he walks over to the dresser. I bite on my fingernail nail as I fight back a squeal. Watching him open the drawer.

He grabs a pair of my pajamas I had organized into the dresser. He walks up to me again, seeing me snuggled in the robe he had wrapped me in earlier.

"It's cold." I say.

The temperature in Athens in October wasn’t as bad as Liverpool. Slightly warmer in the day, in contrast, the nights were definitely colder than the days. I had asked Virgil to turn on the heat earlier, hoping it would make the cold much more bearable.

"Here, let's get you in some clothes." He says, as I watch him hold up my gray ribbed pajamas.

“Where is your lotion?” He asks, running his hands on top of my robe, down my back, trying to warm me up.

“On the bathroom counter. It’s the pink tub.” I answer, watching him walk into the bathroom to retrieve it.

He walks back, unscrewing the lid and looking at me for a moment. I extend my leg out of my robe, moving my robe slightly. He grabs an amount of the hydrating cream, applying it in soft soothing circles on my knees and legs.

He unties my robe, applying the lotion on my arms elbows and chest. Softly massaging my back and shoulders.

“It’s like I’m the one who played a 90 minute match.” I chuckle, humming at the feeling of his hands on my back.

“You definitely handled way more.” He whispers, laughing as I give him a look.

“Right, now let’s get you dressed already.”

I allow him to dress me, making the minimal effort of raising my arms and legs.

“Let me put lotion on you?” I ask, grabbing the pink tub. He nods as I lather his skin up. Running my hands down his tattoos as I admire them.

I move so I can massage the cream into his back.

A gasp leaving my lips at the scratches on his back. “Did I do that?” I ask, feeling bad as I look at my nails. I had gotten them done back home, taking advantage of not having to treat any of the players, since I was on leave.

Short nails were a given with this job and I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I had long nails. That also being why I don’t remember scratching any of my bed partners- or at least this crazily.

“What? The scratches from your nails?” He asks unfazed, turning his head to the side.

“Yeah? Did it not hurt?” I ask, inspecting them closely.

“Was to busy with how pretty you looked under me to notice, love.” He whispers lowly and I slap his arm, feeling a little flustered.

I drop the tub of scented lotion, getting up to get a healing cream from the bathroom. Lathering the cream up the scratches with clean hands. Placing a kiss on his spine when done.

I snuggle against him after we both get dressed and finish our night routines. His arms wrapped around my body as I bury my head against his chest, basking into the warmth of our bodies and the silence of the room. The vanilla and coconut scented lotion creating an addicting scent on our skin.

"I'm so proud. You played really good today." I mumble, pulling away a little, tracing the tattoos on his arm gently with my finger.

"Oh yeah? I figured, maybe I should score the winning goal more often." He teases, placing a kiss on my hairline.

"Maybe you should?" I reply, nudging him, my eyes droopy as I fight the sleep that's creeping up to me.

“We’ll talk about it later, or you’ll start something you’ll have to finish hm? Sleep now, love. You look tired.”

"You better be eating properly there." My mom says, pulling me into the biggest hug she'd ever given me. Squeezing me to the point I couldn't breathe for a moment. She pulls away reluctantly, my dad also pulling me into an embrace. "You also should call more- we work but the phone is always next to us my daughter." He says, his hand on my shoulder.

I look at the both of them, a sudden feeling of sadness washing over me. I had already said my goodbyes to my friends, leaving me here in front of the airport, saying goodbye to my parents.

My grip on my suitcase tightens, as I try to hold back tears. There were many things I resented my parents for, but the look of sadness in their eyes made me want to break down and forget about all of that.

Maybe this was my karma for hiding things from them, the guilt gnawing at me piece my piece.

"Want me to come with you?" My dad asks, his hand already reaching for the handle of my suitcase.

"It's okay dad, it's not heavy. You don't have to. It’s raining, you guys should get back in the car." I usher, giving them a reassuring smile as I try to hide the shakiness in my voice.

“Call us when you land!” My dad says.

I kiss both of them one more time before turning around, dragging my suitcase behind me as I enter the airport. If I had stayed longer, they would manage to see the absolute buckets of tears threatening to spill from my eyes.

She checks in quickly and efficiently, knowing Virgil was in the private VIP lounge as she makes her way towards it. They had both spent the last few days with their own respective families, deciding they'd meet up at the airport.

She shoots him a quick message, the door to the lounge opening a few seconds later.

Her emotions were still on high after the farewell with her parents. She just, for some reason wanted to cry harder the longer they stood outside.

She could blame it on absolutely everything. From keeping secrets from her parents, to leaving them or mother natures lovely monthly cycle.

Virgil raises a brow at her instantly, the somber look on her face and the glossiness of her eyes noticeable to practically everyone from a distance.

She walks up to him, into the room. Immediately hugging him tightly, taking in his comforting and familiar scent.

"You okay?" He mumbles, running his hand up and down her back. Feeling her shake slightly, wet patches forming on his sweater from tears.

"It's alright, cry it out baby. You're okay." He mumbles, holding her tightly, giving her the pressure she needed, realizing something had to have triggered her emotions, too much for her to bottle up as he pats her back. Hoping he’d tell her eventually, when comfortable.

The Liverpool bench next to me cheers as Ryan scores the fourth goal against Toulouse. The chants in the stadium deafening as they all sing in celebration. The players were doing insanely well, especially after the Merseyside derby last week which they had also won. Creating a great new start after international break had ended.

I was on the pitch today, just like last week as Dr. Woods had decided to focus on Robbo's serious shoulder injury. We'd all been very shocked and concerned when we were notified. Deciding for Dr. Woods to focus on him for a while, since it was an injury requiring much attention and time.

Focused on the game, I sink further into my jacket, the weather had been progressively getting worse, the temperature dropping a couple degrees just in the past hour alone.

A sudden voice calls out to me from the bench behind me. I sit up, turning my head towards the voice. Already prepared for the "Could you hand me a bottle?" or the recently more common "Can I have a hot pack?" followed by the most creative methods to signal how cold the weather was. My favorite so far was the 'rubbing hands together'.

They would look like mischievous flies, making me chuckle as they looked at me confused.

Instead of some mischievous fly action, I'm completely blindsided by what it is, that I'm told.

"Take my scarf, it's cold and you don't have one." Szobo says, a charming smile on his face as he hovers the scarf around my neck.

I absentmindedly nod, as he ties the black scarf around my neck. I glance at Virgil, for a millisecond, his eyes drilling holes into Szobo's side profile. I look at the rest of the bench, some of them sneaking glances at me, I give them some confused looks back. Returning my gaze to Dom.

I thank him for the scarf, adjusting it a little and turning back around to watch the rest of the match. Still confused, but appreciative for the warm scarf. Trying to focus on the match again.

The match ends with a beautiful goal from Mo. Making the final score an amazing 5-1 for Liverpool. All of us standing up finally, clapping for everyone's efforts and hard work as I immediately make my way into the tunnel. The cheers and shouts in the stadium dwelling down slightly.

I greet the players with a high five, watching all of them pile into the dressing room before me and Dr. Davis go through the usual routine. My eyes catch Virgil looking slightly- irritated. His answers for Dr. Davis unusually short. I decide to not bother him with any of my own questions. I would ask about it later.

Thankfully, we finish quickly, no one having anything bothering them. I walk out of the dressing room. Allowing the guys to get changed, I walk into the medical room.

I unzip my jacket a bit, Dom's scarf still cozily on my neck and grab my bag before making it towards the door. Gasping a little as the door opens right as I reach over to grab the handle.

Virgil appearing and walking towards me as I take a step back.

"Hey?" I say, raising my brows in confusion. Was he injured? Something wrong? Did he want to leave together? Did he want to talk about why he looked irritated?

He grabs my arm, stopping me from moving. His hand moves to the small of my back, he leans forward, pressing his lips against mine breathlessly.

The bag in my hand dropping on the floor as I raise my hand to grip onto his shirt, pulling him impossibly closer. The warmth of his breath mixing with mine as his tongue runs down my bottom lip. My breath hitches, the surprise but delight of the situation catching up to me.

I pull away, looking up at him wide-eyed, my hands flattening on his chest.

"What was that for?"

"This." He says, his hands traveling up to my neck, fidgeting with the scarf and taking it off of my neck.

My expression turns smug, a smirk making it's way to my lips. I narrow my eyes, snatching the scarf out of his hands and cradling it close to me.

"What? You're jealous now? Over a scarf? It's your teammate's, captain.”

He rolls his eyes, avoiding eye contact as I laugh.

"Aw it's alright. Next time I'll just freeze to death. When I get offered a warm scarf by one of your teammates, I'll say 'Nope, my boyfriend is very jealous. I'll freeze instead.' That's good right?" I say, teasing him.

He doesn't make eye contact with me, as I watch become more flustered by the second. I drop the scarf, right on top of my bag.

"Hey, look at me. Come on admit it. You're jealous!" I say, grabbing the collar his shirt and making him lean forward. Deciding to finish what he started.

I move my hand towards his jaw as I press my own lips onto his, his lips parting as our tongues graze against each other. His hand moves to my zipper, zipping my jacket down. A sinful groan leaving his mouth as his hand slips up my shirt. His slightly cold hands making contact with my warm skin. I press my body closer to his, his touch and hold like a drug as I feel his hand caressing my skin.

The room is silent apart from our own presence, the cheering in the stadium had already died down. A soft whimper leaving my lips as his hands inch up my body, our lips still moving against each other.

The sudden noise of the door creaking make us jump away from each other in shock and fright.

"Doc could you give me some-" the man trails off.

Our eyes move to the door reluctantly, seeing a wide-eyed Curtis staring at us, his backpack snug on his shoulders.

An embarrassed gasp leaves my lips, I look at Virgil for a second. The both of us communicating with our eyes as we walk towards him.

"I knew it! Trent you owe me fifty pounds lad-" He shouts, very loudly.

They had a damn bet on us?

I grab the straps of his backpack, pulling him into the room. I shove my hand onto his mouth as Virgil grabs onto him by his shoulders. The door slamming behind us as we half tackle the Scouser.

He mumbles against my palm, as I try to make him shut up.

"Don't worry my hands are clean." I reassure, as I make out some of the words.

He mumbles some more, and I eye him sternly, frowning.

"Shhh! He will give you ten times that amount if you keep quiet about this." I whisper, pointing at Virgil.

Virgil looks back at me, confused expression on his face as I mouth a 'what?'

"Promise you won't start yelling?" I ask Curtis, hesitating to remove my hand when he nods.

I move my hand, his mouth immediately opening to assault us with a billion questions.

"When? How long? First time-" he whispers. I hang my head low from embarrassment, glancing at Virgil who looked like he was enjoying this for some reason. I nudge him with my elbow, making him answer the questions shortly.

I warn Virgil with my eyes when he gives too much information to Curtis. This guy could either keep it all to himself or explode like a ticking gossip bomb.

"And you won't tell anyone- right?" I ask, giving him a sickly sweet smile.

"He'll give you your money-"

"I never agreed to that." Virgil protests, looking at me.

"You'll be alright."

I mumble, focusing on Curtis.

"Promise?"

"Promise. Now can I get some of those bandages?"

This is going to be a difficult one.

#virgil van dijk fanfiction #virgilvandijkimagines #virgil van dijk #virgilvandijk #vandijk #liverpoolfc #football #liverpool fanfic #football fanfic #football imagines #liverpoolimagines #virgil van dijk x reader #virgil x reader #footballer x reader #football imagine

[redgoldsparks]

September Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Reviews below the cut.

The Princess and the Grilled Cheese by Deya Muniz 

Lady Camembert is the only child of Count Camembert, but as a daughter she cannot inherit unless she marries. She refuses, and after her father's death takes up a different life in the capital city, far from her hometown: she pretends to be the male heir to her father's title. This feels like the perfect solution, except then she meets Princess Brie, and as feelings begin to develop between them, Cam despairs that her secret identity means she can never be anything more than friends with the Princess. This is a beautifully drawn book, sweet and silly, full of cheese puns and historical anachronisms.

The Yakuza’s Bias vol 1 by Teki Yatsuda 

Yakuza member Ken Kanashiro's life is changed when the daughter of the clan leader he works for takes him along to a kpop concert. Ken is moved by the kpop idol group's commitment, hard work, passion, and loyalty to each other and their fans. His introduction to fandom, and new social media friends, bring a breath of fresh air into his violent and dangerous life... and like most fervent fans, he starts trying to convince the people around him to stan the group to greater or lesser success. This manga series is very much in the same tone as Way of the House Husband but I appreciated the slightly longer chapters and the growing ensemble cast. It's a silly concept but with moments of genuine feeling as it shows how loving something can connect you to a whole new community.

Of Thunder and Lightning by Kimberly Wang

This is a beautiful, meta deconstruction of battle-robot manga; it plays with POV, with format, and theme. Two corporate nations struggle for dominance in a ruined world. Each spreads propaganda about the other; each has developed a pop-star like AI robot avatar, which battle each other in televised combat with custom costumes and snappy catch phrases. These robots, Magni and Dimo, exist only to destroy each other, but also find in each other their only equal. They both savor their violent encounters, but both are pushed by their creators and handlers to destroy the other. The story is half devastating elegance, half tongue-in-cheek satire. This title is most easily available through the publisher's website and I highly recommend it.

Blackward by Lawrence Lindell 

Four friends, Lika, Amor, Lala, and Tony, bonded in a bookclub over being Black, queer, weird and punk. They clearly see the need for a community space for folks like themselves, but struggle with how and where to build that space. After their first attempt is ruined by trolls, they ask for guidance from a local bookstore owner and zine fest organizer. So the idea for the Blackward Zine Fest is born, an event to showcase creativity, make new connections, and maybe even find dates. This book doesn't shy away from the negative sides of existing and creating as a minority in public, but it is also a celebration of friendship and community and the power of comics!

Assassin’s Quest by Robin Hobb read by Paul Boehmer 

What an exciting, explosive end to this trilogy! Fitz starts this book as low as a man can be, having returned from near death, with nearly every person who has ever known him believing him dead. He has to learn how to be human again, and learn how to care, and figure out his plans now that he has hypothetical total freedom. But the Red Ships are still pounding the Six Duchies shores, and Regal has withdrawn the strength and wealth of the Duchies inland. Verity is still missing on his endless quest. The beginning drags a little, but after the mid point of this book it is CONSTANT action and adventure, with so many twists and turns, and such a payoff at the end. If you like high fantasy, I highly recommend this series, and I'm so glad I chose to revisit it this summer.

I Thought You Loved Me by Mari Naomi

This is a long, thoughtful look at a friendship breakup, told through prose, letters, diary excerpts, collage, and comics. Mari met Jodie in high school where they bonded as rebellious teens seeking freedom from parental and academic rules. They loved the same music, both dropped out of school, and moved in the same circle of Bay Area folks for years. They were best friends- until Jodie cut Mari out of her life suddenly and unexpectedly. Years later, Mari was still trying to piece together what had happened, from lies, misunderstandings, secrets, affairs, communications lost in transit or responded to by the wrong recipient. Friendship breakups can be equally as devastating as romantic breakups- sometimes even more, as there's no societal norms on how to mourn them, and because we often expect friends to remain in our lives forever. This memoir was honest about how memory fades, how easy it can be to remember only the good or only the bad of a person colored through a specific lens, but also hopeful about the possibility of reconnection. No memoir is over while it's characters still live, and this one took more twists and turns than I was expecting! Beautiful and thought provoking.

Enemies by Svetlana Chmakova 

This fourth installment in the Berrybrook series is just as charming and warmhearted as the previous volumes. This one focuses on Felicity, an artist who struggles with time management and deadlines, and with comparisons to her hyper-organized, science-fair winning younger sister. Wanting to prove herself, Felicity joins a competition for kid entrepreneurs. But coming up with a winning idea proves more difficult than she expected, especially when her partner keeps suggesting completely impossible ideas. Also, one of her best friends from elementary school stopped talking to her and now glares daggers at Felicity and she has no idea why. It's hard to keep your head up in middle school with all of the swirling emotions, homework, personal projects, and still maintain high scores in the most popular new online multi-player combat game. But Felicity has the love and support of her family- all she has to do is be willing to ask for help.

Skip by Molly Mendoza

The art in this book is absolutely gorgeous, and the page layouts are stunning. The story opens with a child, Bloom, and a nonbinary adult, Bee, surviving in a post apocalyptic world. But Bee goes off to help a stranger and then Bloom falls through an Alice-in-Wonderland like rabbit hole into multiple different trippy, strange settings were they are generally much tinier than all the other inhabitants. There's a nice through line about friendship and trusting yourself, but ultimately I found the story too ungrounded and loose to have a deep emotional impact.

Alexander, The Servant and The Water of Life book 1 by Reimena Yee

I am so impressed by the scope, artistic skill, and inventiveness of this work! The author weaves together multiple, at times conflicting, tales of Alexander the Great. It's drawn in rich colors and a wide variety of styles, many of which reference specific historical manuscript traditions from medieval European to Islamic to East Asian. I love the way the flashbacks are worked into the frame narrative, I love the shifting art styles, I am awed by the size of this project. And you can read most of this first volume online for free here on the author's website.

Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell read by Raphael Corkhill 

This is a creative and gripping follow up to Winter's Orbit. Set in the same larger universe but focusing on a new set of main characters in a new sector of space, this extremely slow burn romance is satisfyingly dense with military and political intrigue. Tennal is the nephew of the Legislator of Orshun; he's also a Reader, or someone who can telepathically read the emotions and surface thoughts of the people around him; he's also the black sheep of his family, a party boy and general fuck up. His aunt forces him into an army position with the intention of having him permanently mind-linked to an Architect, a soldier with the flip side of Tennal's skill- the ability to control people's minds. Tennal is horrified and begins to think of every possible way he can avoid this fate. But much larger forces are at play around him, from the mystery of a semi-destroyed scientific lab relocated in the middle of chaotic space, lies about the creation of Readers and Architects, and a coup in the making. This book is heavier on the sci-fi elements than the relationship progression, but that suited me just fine and I look forward to hopefully reading more installments in this series!

Sunshine by Jarrett J Krosoczka 

When author Jarrett Krosoczka was in high school he had the opportunity to volunteer for a week at a camp for kids with cancer, their siblings, and parents. Jarrett had no idea what to expect, but he packed his sketchbook and an open mind. The experience changed his outlook forever. He had his own problems back home: a family affected by addiction and absent parents which lead to him being raised by his grandparents. But in the company of children facing life-threatening illnesses his own concerns fell away. He built relationships with some families that lasted for decades after his time at the camp. Painted in soft gray with hints of yellow and orange, this book offers an honest look at families facing the very worst circumstances and still heading out into woods to find community, friendship, and a breath of peace at a nature camp.

The Out Side: Trans and Nonbinary Comics edited by The Kao 

A really charming collection of nonbinary and trans stories! Most focus on coming out, but a few talk about a later in the process piece of trans life, such as getting top surgery. I enjoyed seeing which pieces of the stories echoed each other, appearing universal, and which stood out as unique to an individual's experience.

Hard Reboot by Django Wexler read by Morgan Hallett 

Set far in the future, this sci-fi novella follows a researcher from an extra-terrestrial human settlement on a scientific tourist trip back to "Old Earth". A misunderstanding leads to her accepting a very large bet on the outcome of a mecha battled, and when she losses and can't pay, she has to team up with a mecha fighter to try and win the next round to get her money back. I was able to predict the majority of the twists of this story within the first quarter of the book, but it was still fairly entertaining as a short audiobook listen.

Best. Ceremony. Ever: How to Make the Serious Wedding Stuff Unique by Christopher Shelley 

I just officiated a wedding for the first time in my life, and this book (while cheesy) did actually help me get started writing the ceremony speech. It gave me the general outline of the beats I needed to hit, and some smart ideas of little touches or moments to include. The book is very inclusive of same-sex couples, which I really appreciated. Its also padded out with a completely unnecessary 50 page glossary of terms, so I only really read/skimmed the first three quarters of it, but I'd still recommend it if you are either planning or officiating a wedding.

#reading #book reviews #comics #reading reviews #maia kobabe

[skippyv20]

Majestic_Cut_2209•1 mo. ago•Edited 1 mo. ago

I liked her when she got married to Prince Harry, I believed she brought something different to the royal family which would be good since it’s an old institution.

I completely started to dislike her and Harry after they came to Africa, South Africa and turned what was a very successful visit into a platform to complain about petty family drama. I’m African so I know how much those visits mean to the charities/organisations and how much preparation goes into them, so to see that all overshadowed was sad. I also couldn’t understand how they managed to have the nerve to complain about their circumstances after meeting mothers struggling to feed and provide for their children and domestic violence victims, some situations should give you perspective and you should let those less fortunate have their moment.

I was completely done though after the Wimbledon fiasco, where she took up a whole section and instructed the public not to take her pictures. Like wtf! Royalty, celebrities and players have all been to Wimbledon as spectators and none has ever tried tell the public not to take their pictures. By the time they were complaining about this and that, I knew they were the problem and the world would soon see it.

asslukt•1 mo. ago•Edited 1 mo. ago

Well.... I used to like her. I loved her on Suits, even though I didn't watch it before they got married. I thought she was pretty, seemed charming and prepared for the role, as an actress who was at least somewhat used to media attention, even though her fame as an actress seems to have been exxagarated. I thought she'd bring some much needed freshness to the royal families, instead she just brought drama for the tabloids to exploit.

She seemed completely unprepared for what it means to be a royal. The cracks started showing, when she invited people from Hollywood she never met to the wedding (like Oprah) instead of her childhood friends. Since then, it was a steady decline where she seems to attribute to racism what is simply cultural differences. And no, I don't mean the skin colour comments, they were obviously horrible.

What really switched it for me, though, was the Oprah Interview. She displays such a lack of understanding of what it means to be a Royal Member that I'm wondering if she even knows what a royal is. She spends most of the interview whining about how she's not as loved as Diana was, or maybe Kate is. But she doesn't understand that they married the heir, and she married the spare. She was supposedly friends with Eugenie before she met Harry, and thus a quick google search would have shown her how Eugenie's mother was treated. Fergie was also cast as "the evil redheaded witch trying to break up the family", somewhat similar to how Meghan got cast as "the evil black bitch trying to break up the family". Misogyny is after all, eternal. She didn't know what she walked in to, unlike Kate, and that shows. She didn't seem to be very eager to find out either, to be honest. It's not like it's hard to google the Royal Protocol or something, and it's not like she couldn't have asked for help within the establishment on how to dress or behave.

She then goes on whining about how Archie isn't entitled to protection, and tries to make it about his (possible) skin colour. Not understanding that the royal family works so that the grandchildren of the king/queen is protected, but not the great grandchildren. William and Kate's kids are protected because they are the children of a future king. Eugene and Beatrice were protected because they were the queens grandchildren, now the kings nieces. Their children will not be protected. Had Meghan waited until now, Archie would have gotten the protection nescessary, as Archie now is the grandchild of the regent. Archie's protection up until now was dependant upon Harry's prescence in his life.

Then she mentions there is no mental help available, and that she's told to just suck it up. Which she might have been, but the lack of mental help is not true. Both Diana and Harry have been in therapy, to the public's knowledge. She then further shits on Kate, and Harry just sits there quietly accepting it, even though everyone know that Kate was very important for Harry's own mental health when he was younger. He's even said so himself before meeting her.

But alright, a confused american girl thrust in to a world her husband is giving her no help to navigate in, I'm sure it can all be forgiven if Harry just thinks to hire a Princess Coach. Or maybe if they spend more time with Fergie to learn about the pitfalls of being the evil bitch married to the spare, she'll eventually realise that there is a hope to save all of this, right?

Not so. Instead they go and do the Netflix series. Where she spends her time pointing out what a good person she is, who understands cultural differences based on her being half black and thus having been around different backgrounds, and then bashes the royal family for not understanding her.What she seems to fail to understand is that unlike in America, where blacks were forced to come and be slaves (which of course was horrible), she is willingly entering an establishment, in a country with very different social norms. So when she tries to be all "relatable" and tells people she's a "hugger", trying to make fun of Kate and William for being stiff as a board when she, a complete stranger, hugs them the first time they meet, she fails to understand that we just don't do that here in Europe. (Or maybe in Southern Europe, but despite it's location England is pretty much Northern Europe, as we are cold people, stiff as boards even among friends.) This thing about hugging our friends and telling them we love them is something the lower classes have adopted from watching american TV, not the upper classes that she married in to. She is trying to appeal to the sympathies of an american audience here, not a european one, which just comes off as even more culturally insensitive on her part. And yet, she has the nerve to accuse Brits of being the culturally insenstivie one. The impression that she's the one who is culturally insenstitive here is further helped by the way she points out that Fergie was panicking that she didn't know how to courtsey the Queen, or that it was even expected of her to do so when meeting, but saying she thought it was all for show when the cameras were around.

It all just comes off as a whiny "why don't they love me, even though I shit on their culture and trashtalk them as often as I can? Boohoo, my life in my giant mansion is so hard because I'm black, and not because I'm an entitled brat who even passes so well as white that most people were surprised to hear that my mother is black". It's like she's completely out of touch with reality.

And don't even get me started on how Harry went from a cheeky, naughty fun and relaxed member of the royal family, cracking jokes in interviews and being genuinely likeable, to a stiff, weird, boring serious and unlikeable parody of his father.

(And for the record, I'm not british nor a royalist)

[spiritofwhitefire]

Dancing on the grave of the man who murdered you

Recently I made a joke post saying that “I do not relate to Dabi but I do admire him, which is arguably much more disturbing”. Well… that may not be entirely true. Because like many other victims/ survivors of parental abuse, I find his story, particularly Dabi’s Dance to be one of the great moments of catharsis that I have witnessed in media.

::read more::

Part 1: The silent sufferer

I’ve read a lot of pre-touya reveal fics where enji was depicted as this towering monster in touya’s life, the same sort of obviously monstrous abuser as he was with shouto. But when the reveal happens, we see that in touya’s case, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Enji is subtle with touya, he grooms touya with much more serpentine grace than he does shouto because he shows a loving side as well. He showered touya with praise and promises of greatness and told him how powerful and loved he was. And then he ripped all away.

Enji stopped spending time with touya, smiling at him, no longer praising him. In fact actively telling him he wasn’t good enough for the one thing he had always praised him for in the past. His other siblings (Natsuo and fuyumi) had always been deemed useless, the failures of the family and so now what is he to think of himself as? Imagine going through that physical trauma while also knowing you can’t lean on your biggest support? And what’s worse, he sees himself replaced, like he never mattered as an individual at all? This is abuse. Just because we don’t see him being physically traumatized like shouto doesn’t mean he didn’t go through a horror of his own.

The worst part is that we know he still to this day loves his father. You can’t hate someone that deeply without loving them, even now he craves his fathers approval and acknowledgement. To make someone depend on and love you that deeply and then rip it all away takes a terrible toll on that persons mindset because then they are forever chasing that acceptance and plagued by good memories that make them question that bad ones.

Part 2: crawling out of your grave

It is very telling that even after burning alive, Touya doesn’t even blame his father. If you were looking for proof that touya cared deeply about his family, it’s in the scene where he wakes from his coma. His first thought is of his family, how worried they must be and how badly he wants to make amends for the way he left things. He makes excuses for Enji’s absence at Sekoto and I fully believe he would have returned to his family had he not seen what he did.

Now MHA is hardly a source of realistic fiction however I do want to mention that after waking up from a coma, your body is extremely weak. Most people need to be on bed rest for weeks after their coma and are often severely underweight and in a very delicate place health wise. A burn victim with fresh grafts? VERY DELICATE place, at high risk for infection. I have no idea how far that hospital was form touya’s home but I doubt it was close. He ran home from there.

And in that physically and mentally delicate place he was forced to confront what Enji had been essentially building up over the course of the years since touya became unable to be his heir - that touya’s life didn’t matter.

Enji didn’t kill touya, but he might as well have.

Part 3: make me your monster

The first thing I want to talk about is the horrific idea that looks translate to quality of character. It’s not a fictional issue, it’s a real world one and it I see it reflected all the time in people’s reactions to fictional characters. Blah blah blah yeah Dabi is a villain, but he’s not a villain because he is a burn victim. He is a burn victim who happens to be a villain. I’ve already talked about how weird people’s reactions to the entire idea of skin grafts are and I’m not going to get into it again but it’s actually horrible the way that people react to anyone with facial differences.

He’s a fictional character so speculation about his life after leaving home is a little ridiculous but I mean… a 16 year old boy fresh out of a 3 year coma with blankets of trauma and a severely burned/ grafted body trying to make it on the streets? The amount of resilience, conviction and inner strength that kid has is beautiful, truly.

Step 5: Touya’s Dance

Apart from being really fucking cool it was also incredibly emotionally charged. The adrenaline in that moment is overwhelming. When you’re in a moment of ecstatic triumph your body just can’t contain it. His motions are not graceful, they’re awkward and jerky and entirely an expression of desperate emotion. He’s confronting his monster after years of torment, a man who birthed him but couldn’t even recognize him. Truly his voice actor deserves an Emmy for that performance the way his vocals rose and fell with despair, and passion! Beautiful.

And that’s not to mention his video recording. @pikahlua and @thyandrawrites wrote a wonderful post analyzing his disposition in that recording when the manga came out and the anime did not disappoint. That was the voice of a little boy buried too soon, talking about his own murder, his death! And atop the giant, a man who has lived his life as a vengeful spirit, whose wrath has finally come to collect. It’s a dance of vindication sure, but it’s one of pain too.

Afterword: As a victim, as a survivor…

For anyone who has ever looked in the mirror and felt like someone else, for anyone who had ever felt dead before they died, forgotten while they still breathe, like a failure when they were never give a chance….

Most of us will never get justice or revenge. For me, my father hurt me and my mom and now he’s changed and I’ve been forced to forgive him. And I still love him, but I’ll never forget what he did. And no one will ever know how bad it was. But seeing that man confront his monster and dance in ecstasy at his vengeance, in that moment, I felt something close to peace. And to see how many others feel as I do, well. It’s just nice to be seen. To be looked at.

#dabi’s dance #Dabi #touya todoroki #MHA #bnha #Dabi meta #MHA meta

[haaam-guuuurl]

Little Women Famous Artists Modern AU

"The March family makes headlines once more as oldest sister Meg March takes to the red carpet for the premiere of her latest movie.

The young starlet turned heads in an understated pink lace gown, and with her handsome new husband, producer John Brooke, on her arm. Also attending was the actress' sister, Josephine March, whose most recent novel has been steadily climbing the ranks on the New York Times bestseller list. The two sisters have been seen together for a long time at premieres, award shows, and parties, and it's even rumored that the two might be working on a project together. When asked about the possibility of joining her sister on a movie set, Jo March had no comment.

But while the two sisters have talent to spare, they're certainly not alone, as the spotlight seems to run in the family. If you follow classical musical news, you'll know the name Beth March, who has been a featured pianist with the Massachusetts Symphony Orchestra for years now, and has even performed with a few other prestigious groups, including the New York Philharmonic, with talks of a permanent contract in her future.

Last but certainly not least, youngest sister Amy March has been gathering her own attention in the art world, as, fresh out of CalArts, her oil paintings have been must-gets in a few exclusive auctions around town, and the young prodigy has even teased an exhibition of her recent watercolor collection in her thriving social media accounts, though the where and with whom remain a mystery. Could the rich (and handsome) Theodore Laurence, heir to his grandfather's production company, and longtime benefactor of the arts, as well as friend of the family, be her sponsor? The two have certainly been seen together often, lately, leaving us wondering - is it an old friendship, a business partnership, or something more?

There must have been something in the water at the March household, because these sisters have been taking the world by storm, and for sure momma Margaret March is beaming with pride. We, for one, can't wait to see what these little women do next."

#little women #meg march #jo march #beth march #amy march #theodore laurence #aesthetic #moodboard #little women au #little women moodboard #little women fanfiction #inspired by #little women 2019 #also very slightly inspired by tshoeh #my writing #don't really know what this is #it's that scene in the movie where jo talks about how they should all be artists and make their own way in the world but modern au i guess #they just really stuck with me and i love them all #also this wasn't meant to be this long lol #and it was supposed to be only about the four of them but apparently i cannot help myself from making anything lw about amy x laurie dang #also i have no idea how the art world works 😂 #sorry if this makes no sense if it's not how contracts and exhibitions work #this just came from impressions i got from pop culture and some light googling #my posts #my moodboards

[rockislandadultreads]

LGBTQIA+ Pride Month: Romance Recommendations

Solomon’s Crown by Natasha Siegel

“A pair of thrones between us, and my heart clutched like a rosary within his hands ...”

Twelfth-century Europe. Newly-crowned King Philip of France is determined to restore his nation to its former empire and bring glory to his name. But when his greatest enemy, King Henry of England, threatens to end his reign before it can even begin, Philip is forced to make a precarious alliance with Henry’s volatile son—risking both his throne, and his heart.

Richard, Duke of Aquitaine, never thought he would be King. But when an unexpected tragedy makes him heir to England, he finally has an opportunity to overthrow the father he despises. At first, Philip is a useful tool in his quest for vengeance... until passion and politics collide, and Richard begins to question whether the crown is worth the cost.

When Philip and Richard find themselves staring down an impending war, they must choose between their desire for one another and their grand ambitions. Will their love prevail, if it calls to them from across the battlefield? Teeming with royal intrigue and betrayal, this epic romance reimagines two real-life kings ensnared by an impossible choice: Follow their hearts, or earn their place in history.

Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly

Recently divorced and on the verge of bankruptcy, Dahlia Woodson is ready to reinvent herself on the popular reality competition show Chef’s Special. Too bad the first memorable move she makes is falling flat on her face, sending fish tacos flying—not quite the fresh start she was hoping for. Still, she's focused on winning, until she meets someone she might want a future with more than she needs the prize money.

After announcing their pronouns on national television, London Parker has enough on their mind without worrying about the klutzy competitor stationed in front of them. They’re there to prove the trolls—including a fellow contestant and their dad—wrong, and falling in love was never part of the plan.

As London and Dahlia get closer, reality starts to fall away. Goodbye, guilt about divorce, anxiety about uncertain futures, and stress from transphobia. Hello, hilarious shenanigans on set, wedding crashing, and spontaneous dips into the Pacific. But as the finale draws near, Dahlia and London’s steamy relationship starts to feel the heat both in and outside the kitchen—and they must figure out if they have the right ingredients for a happily ever after.

I’m So (Not) Over You by Kosoko Jackson

It's been months since aspiring journalist Kian Andrews has heard from his ex-boyfriend, Hudson Rivers, but an urgent text has them meeting at a café. Maybe Hudson wants to profusely apologize for the breakup. Or confess his undying love... But no, Hudson has a favor to ask--he wants Kian to pretend to be his boyfriend while his parents are in town, and Kian reluctantly agrees.

The dinner doesn't go exactly as planned, and suddenly Kian is Hudson's plus one to Georgia's wedding of the season. Hudson comes from a wealthy family where reputation is everything, and he really can't afford another mistake. If Kian goes, he'll help Hudson preserve appearances and get the opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the biggest names in media. This could be the big career break Kian needs.

But their fake relationship is starting to feel like it might be more than a means to an end, and it's time for both men to fact-check their feelings.

Sizzle Reel by Carlyn Greenwald

For aspiring cinematographer Luna Roth, coming out as bisexual at twenty-four is proving more difficult than she anticipated. Sure, her best friend and fellow queer Romy is thrilled for her--but she has no interest in coming out to her backwards parents, she wouldn't know how to flirt with a girl if one fell at her feet, and she has no sexual history to build off. Not to mention she really needs to focus her energy on escaping her emotionally-abusive-but-that's-Hollywood talent manager boss and actually get working under a real director of photography anyway.

When she meets twenty-eight-year-old A-list actress Valeria Sullivan around the office, Luna thinks she's found her solution. She'll use Valeria's interest in her cinematography to get a PA job on the set of Valeria's directorial debut--and if Valeria is as gay as Luna suspects, and she happens to be Luna's route to losing her virginity, too . . . well, that's just an added bonus. Enlisting Romy's help, Luna starts the juggling act of her life--impress Valeria's DP to get another job after this one, get as close to Valeria as possible, and help Romy with her own career moves.

But when Valeria begins to reciprocate romantic interest in Luna, the act begins to crumble--straining her relationship with Romy and leaving her job prospects precarious. Now Luna has to figure out if she can she fulfill her dreams as a filmmaker, keep her best friend, and get the girl. . . or if she's destined to end up on the cutting room floor.

#romance #romance books #romance novels #fiction #LGBTQIA #lgbtq books #lgbtq characters #pride month #Books for Pride #Library Books #Book Recommendations #book recs #Reading Recs #reading recommendations #TBR pile #tbr #tbrpile #Want To Read #to read #Booklr #book tumblr #book blog #library blog

[cha-melodius]

For your fandom fest requests: Lokius, in the middle of the ocean.

(In which we see that a very unusual location like this is absolutely bait and will cause me to bite even when you submit on the last day. 😂 Thanks so much, I hope you enjoy!)

Enemies of the Ocean

(lokius, 3.3k, T; read it below or on AO3) read all the fandom fest fics

Day One

“What are you doing?” Loki asks, squinting across the lifeboat in the harsh light.

The storm that had come out of nowhere and laid waste to their ship had blown off in the night, leaving nothing but endless blue sky in its wake. Their lifeboat is equipped with a canvas roof to keep off most of the worst rays, but it can’t fully hold back the intensity of the tropical sun.

“Taking inventory of our supplies,” the man across from him says. He’s got a slight folksy American drawl, grey hair, and a mustache under a nose broken long ago and set improperly. “We should be prepared.”

Loki watches him for another minute as he sorts through the survival box that had been in the raft. He remembers seeing the man in passing on the ship, but never had cause to meet him. Now they might be the only two people who survived the storm.

“Prepared for what?” The man pauses in his sorting and looks up. Loki raises his eyebrows. “Surely we won’t be out here long before someone picks up our distress beacon.”

“If we’re lucky. If the beacons are actually transmitting. If I know this ship, and I do, making sure the rescue beacons were functioning wasn’t high on anyone’s priority list. These survival packs are designed for one person, for ten days. We have two. Steve Callahan was drifting for seventy-six—”

“All right, all right,” Loki interrupts. He briefly wonders what this guy’s story is—why he knows the ship and random facts about castaways—before deciding he doesn’t care. He’s interested in surviving, not making friends. “I’m getting the picture.”

“Not sure you are,” the man mutters under his breath, but he returns to focusing on his task and leaves Loki to stare out at the endless, hopeless horizon.

~~~~~

Day Two

Loki is seriously considering throwing him overboard. He doesn’t really see any downsides. He’d get the supplies all to himself, which gives him a better chance of survival. He knows how to use the solar stills to make fresh water. And he wouldn’t have to listen to this.

“Would you stop the bloody whistling?” he snaps eventually.

The sound cuts off abruptly and the man looks up from where he seems to be attempting to fashion a fish hook out of nail he dug out of the side of the lifeboat. “Oh, sorry,” he says sheepishly. “Didn’t even realize I was doing it.”

Loki shoots him a supremely unimpressed look, and the man smiles and gives a little apologetic shrug before returning to his work. It’s not endearing. Loki is not endeared. He watches the man a little longer before he speaks again.

“What’s your name?”

The man frowns at him. “It’s Mobius,” he says. “You didn’t know and you waited this long to ask?”

Loki makes a noncommittal gesture with his hand. “Didn’t seem pressing.”

Mobius scoffs and shakes his hand as he looks down again. They lapse into silence, the only sound—now that the whistling is ceased—the soft sound of water lapping against the hull.

“You’re not going to ask me my name?” Loki prompts after a little while, mostly out of curiosity.

“I know who you are,” Mobius tells him flatly. “Loki Odinson. Heir to a media empire. What I don’t know is what you were doing on that ship.”

“Huh,” Loki says. He doesn’t answer the unasked question, though. “Going fishing?”

Mobius snorts. Shakes his head again. “Something like that.”

~~~~~

Day Four

“You’re can’t seriously expect me to eat that.”

“Whatsamatter? You don’t like sushi?”

“I like sushi. That is not sushi.”

“Same difference.”

“It’s bloody. Can we at least rinse it—”

“No! If you put it in the sea water you’re going to consume too much salt, and you’re not using our fresh water for this. Eat it or don’t, but you’re not getting anything more from the supplies.”

“Did anyone ever tell you that you’d make a superb dictator?”

~~~~~

Day Seven

“I was escaping,” Loki says.

Mobius stirs, cracking one eye open as he looks over at Loki. He’s stretched out on the opposite bench, hands linked and pillowed behind his head. He doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t need to. Their conversations over the last week have mostly concerned their survival and little else; Loki told himself he wasn’t interested in knowing or being known by the other man. But truth be told, the prospect of talking about something other than fish is more appealing by the day. Despite their frequent arguments, Mobius seems… kind. Loki doesn’t have a lot of kind people in his life.

“My mother died, and in the aftermath I found out I was adopted. I didn’t take it well, to put it mildly. I just… needed to get away from it all.”

“I’d say you succeeded at that.”

Loki huffs a laugh despite himself. “Overshot a bit, I think.”

“Mm,” Mobius hums, closing his eyes again. “Where were you headed next?”

“Oh, I hadn’t decided. Brazil, maybe. Starting to think somewhere colder sounds more attractive, though.”

Mobius smiles. “Can’t imagine why.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

Loki rolls his eyes, though Mobius isn’t looking at him. “Where were you headed?”

“Oh, wherever the ship goes next,” Mobius answers, shrugging a little. “I don’t really pay much attention. Just go where they send me. You know, I think this is the most time I’ve had off in the last fifteen years.”

“You can’t be serious,” Loki says flatly, blinking at him in disbelief. “What about going home? The holidays?”

“No family to speak of. Don’t really have a permanent address to call home.”

“So, what? You’re just a nomad, living for your career?”

“S’pose you could put it like that,” Mobius says. He doesn’t seem bothered by it in the slightest.

“Isn’t that a little… depressing?” Loki asks, trying and failing not to make a face.

Mobius snorts softly. “Not really. I’m happy enough.”

Loki contemplates this—thinks about his messed up relationship with his family, but how he still can’t help but want to see his brother. How he misses home when he’s away too long, even if there’s not much there for him anymore. It’s not like he needs anyone, but being happy alone is one thing. Having nothing outside your job is another thing entirely.

He reclines back on the wooden bench, already feeling the sore spots from constantly laying on the unyielding surface. It’s saying something that he can already feel his eyelids falling shut anyway.

“Hey Loki?” Mobius ventures softly after another few minutes.

“Hm?”

“I’m sorry about your mother.”

Loki swallows against the ache in his chest, the one that’s never truly gone away and never will. “Thank you, Mobius.”

~~~~~

Day Twelve

Mobius is braiding a rope, and it’s driving Loki to distraction.

The combination of Mobius’ polo shirt being stretched out after constant wear and his already noticeable weight loss means the garment hangs off him, gapping open at the collar to reveal a wedge of chest covered by fine blond hair and entirely-too-enticing collarbones. His arms and forearms, once pale, have been tanned a deep russet-brown by the unrelenting sun, which only makes the muscles working under his skin all the more obvious. Not to mention the way he’s got his tongue pinned between his teeth in concentration, a slip of pink glimpsed between pillowy lips, somehow no less alluring for how they’re cracked and peeling.

Loki wants to tell him to cut it out, but they he’d have to admit he’d been watching and, worse, that Mobius is affecting him.

It’s just the sun getting to him, that’s all. The boredom. It’s not like he has literally anything else to do besides watch Mobius. He has been passing some of the days idly carving a design into the wood of the lifeboat, but he did that all morning. Plus, Mobius keeps nagging him about dulling their only knife, even though Loki has been careful to use only the very tip to preserve the rest of the blade. 

The point is, he’s bored, and surely no one could blame him for looking, and Mobius hasn’t even noticed—

“Feels kinda like you’re trying to set me on fire with your mind,” Mobius says, startling him out of his thoughts. 

“What?”

“You’re staring.”

Loki huffs and looks off into the endless horizon. “What else am I supposed to do?”

“You could help,” Mobius suggests.

“Do what?” Loki asks skeptically. The fact that he doesn’t refuse immediately should frankly be concerning. He is bored, though.

“Here,” Mobius says, shifting across the boat to sit next to him. “You can continue with this one.”

He shoves the half-braided rope into Loki’s hands, apparently expecting him to be able to focus on this and not how their legs are now pressed together from hip to knee. Mobius isn’t any less attractive close up, and he also doesn’t seem inclined to move back to his side of the boat. To be fair, the sun is sinking toward the horizon and there’s more shade on Loki’s side, but still. Does he have to sit right there?

“You’re staring again,” Mobius says, a teasing smile playing on his lips.

“Maybe I’m just watching you so I know what to do.”

“Are you?”

Loki huffs and looks down at the rope in his hands. “I don’t see how that’s any of your concern.”

~~~~~

Day Nineteen

“Hey! Hey, over here!” Loki shouts at the top of his lungs, standing in the boat and waving his arms frantically.

“They’re not going to see you,” Mobius says wearily.

“Hey! Mayday!”

“Loki—”

He can’t just give up. He can’t. There’s a ship right there. It’s not even that far away. He could almost swim if he wasn’t horribly underfed and weak.

“It’s a container ship. Even if they saw us—which they won’t—they wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t.”

“That can’t be true,” Loki insists.

“It is. Now get down before you turn us over and we lose everything,” Mobius says, though not unkindly.

With a heavy sigh, Loki collapses into the boat. He didn’t have the energy to stay standing up much longer anyway. “So we just have to sit here and watch our only link to the outside world sail away?”

Mobius hums. “Pretty much.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

~~~~~

Day Twenty-six

Sometimes Loki feels like he’s acclimatizing to the unending hunger, the constant dehydration, the mind-addling heat that the canvas shade barely mitigates.

Then he realizes: no. He’s just slowly going mad.

Every day is much the same. They wake up when the sun rises, eat a small portion of their rapidly dwindling stores, check the fishing lines they left in overnight. One day it rained, and they spent the entire time collecting as much fresh water as they could and washing away the salt that crusts their skin and leaves sores scattered over their bodies. It had felt euphoric in the moment, but it hadn’t lasted.

They have next to no modesty around each other anymore—difficult to, when you live within arm’s reach at all times. Loki has watched Mobius’ slightly soft form shrink, until his limbs are all sinewy muscle that’s slowly wasting away as well after almost a month of near-immobility. He knows all Mobius’ ticks and habits by now, which is why he knows immediately that something’s wrong when he wakes up to find Mobius curled up on his side.

Loki drops to his knees next to the other bench, wincing at the pain that shoots up through his aching joints, and puts a hand out to Mobius’ shoulder. He’s shivering. It’s not even a little cold. Loki swears under his breath.

“Mobius? Hey, are you all right?”

For a moment Mobius doesn’t respond, and Loki’s stomach drops. But then his eyelids are fluttering half-open. He tries to lick cracked, chapped lips with a too-dry tongue. “‘M fine,” he lies.

“I don’t know why I asked,” Loki huffs. He presses a hand to Mobius’ face and almost yelps at how hot his skin is. “You’re burning up.”

“‘M fine,” Mobius insists, making an abortive move to push himself up. Loki’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have made it even if Loki hadn’t been holding him down. He groans. “Maybe ‘m not fine.”

“What can I do?” Loki asks desperately. “Please tell me there’s something I can do.”

“There’s a small medical kit. Should have a few ibuprofen in it.”

“A few.”

“Better than nothing.”

“I’m not sure it is,” Loki mutters under his breath, but he goes to find the kit. Small is accurate—mostly bandaids and a few alcohol wipes. A roll of gauze. A few individual packets of pain relievers. Loki grabs one packet and what’s left in the solar still of their fresh water. They have a bit more in a larger jug, but they need it to rain again to replenish their supplies. “Here,” he says, dropping the pills into Mobius’ hand and holding out the water. “Drink up.”

Mobius throws the pills back and swallows them dry. “Don’t need it.”

“You do, you’re sick.”

“‘M fine,” he insists again. Loki wants to scream. “Not thirsty.”

“Bullshit,” Loki snaps. “Drink the goddamned water, Mobius.”

Mobius eyes the container uncertainly. “Did you already have your portion today?”

“Yes,” Loki lies. “Drink the rest.”

Fortunately, Mobius doesn’t fight him. The fact that he doesn’t have the strength to is something Loki is absolutely not considering.

~~~~~

Day Twenty-eight

“You need to eat,” Loki insists.

“Don’t,” Mobius mumbles. “Better to save it for you.”

“You need energy to get better.”

“And you need it to survive.”

“I’m not eating if you don’t,” Loki says stubbornly.

Mobius glares up at him from where he’s cradled against Loki’s chest, though in his current state it’s not very intimidating. To be fair, Loki doesn’t think it would be that intimidating under normal circumstances either.

“You’re an asshole, you know that?” 

“I don’t care what you think of me. The only thing I care about right now is that you live,” Loki retorts, and somewhere, deep under the fear and exhaustion, he knows he means it completely.

~~~~~

Day Twenty-nine

In his near-delirious state, Loki almost misses the ship. Fortunately, the ship doesn’t miss them.

It’s a sailboat. One mast, not that big. There’s a man standing on the bow, waving to them. “Hei der borte! Lever du?”

Loki blinks and rubs his eyes. He is one hundred percent hallucinating this. They’re speaking Norwegian.

“Anyone alive over there?” the man calls, this time in English. A woman emerges from the cabin: tall, thin, white-blonde hair, a hand shading her eyes as she speaks to the man too quietly for Loki to understand.

Well, if this is a hallucination, he might as well indulge in the fantasy. Loki pushes himself up slightly, careful not to jostle Mobius, and lifts an arm.

“We’re alive!” he yells—or tries to. It comes out as a croak, if it comes out at all, though with the hand it probably doesn’t matter if it doesn’t carry.

There’s a bit of a commotion as the Norwegians spring into action, maneuvering their boat closer. Loki is still convinced he’s hallucinating, even when their hull bumps up against the lifeboat, even when the man leaps down into the boat, even when strong, capable hands try to remove Mobius from his grip. He automatically puts up a brief resistance at that, but he lacks the strength to do much of anything.

A few minutes later, he’s being hauled up on board the sailboat in some kind of sling and watching the lifeboat—their little refuge, the only thing separating them from the deep blue sea for the past month—slowly drift away.

And then, everything goes black.

~~~~~

Five Days Post-Rescue

The sound of a squeaky wheel rouses Loki from his dozing, and his eyelids flutter open to reveal Mobius pushing himself into the hospital room on a rickety wheelchair. His eyes are bright and there’s a smile under his beard, and the sight of him makes something contract almost painfully in Loki’s chest.

“I’m quite certain you’re not supposed to be up,” Loki tells him with as much reproach he can muster, though he can’t quite keep the smile from tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“It’s fine,” Mobius says, grinning wider. “If they didn’t want me to go anywhere they wouldn’t have left the wheelchair next to the bed.”

“Hmm,” Loki hums doubtfully. “I’m beginning to suspect you’re secretly a troublemaker.”

“Who, me? Never. I always follow the rules. I’m just very good at finding loopholes.”

They’ve come a long way since the first days on the boat when they couldn’t stand each other. It’s extremely annoying how much Loki likes him, actually, but Loki supposes it was that or they’d have killed each other eventually.

“Good to see you’re doing well enough to be a nuisance,” Loki says as Mobius finishes wheeling over to the side of Loki’s bed, which is not something Loki is sure he could accomplish if their positions were reversed.

Despite his impressive show of vigor, Mobius collapses back heavily into the wheelchair once he’s arrived, and Loki can see he’s breathing heavily. “Yeah, I’m doing well,” he says, nodding. Then he narrows his eyes at Loki. “Better than you, I hear.”

Loki shrugs. “I’m well enough. Getting stronger by the day.”

“Maybe you can help me out with something,” Mobius says in a pointed tone of voice that spells trouble. “See, I was pretty out of it at the time, but now that I think back on it, it seems like you were giving me all your food and water rations those last few days. But that can’t be right, can it?”

“You’re right, you were delirious,” Loki says tightly, looking away. He swallows hard. Mobius wasn’t supposed to remember. “Why would I do something like that?”

“That’s a good question.”

“Well. I’m sure I don’t know.”

There’s a beat of silence, then Mobius reaches out and takes his hand where it’s lying on the bed. Loki turns his head to watch as he carefully weaves their fingers together, then finally looks up to meet his eyes when he squeezes gently.

“You know, I probably would have done the same thing in your place,” Mobius murmurs, a quiet confession almost overwhelmed by the street sounds drifting in on the warm breeze.

“You’d be an idiot, then.”

“Loki,” Mobius sighs. His eyes flit over Loki’s face, like he’s searching for something. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“What—” Loki starts, but then he’s being pulled in until he’s close enough for Mobius to stretch up and press their lips together.

It’s brief and chaste, both of their lips still dry and cracked, and it still makes something impossibly warm and soft kindle deep in his chest. Before he can fully process it, Mobius is pulling back, giving him the promised out, and Loki stares at him, wild-eyed.

“This is insane. I’m not— we’re not—” Loki stammers, but then he cuts himself off, chasing after Mobius’ mouth almost without meaning to.

He presses forward again, kissing the smile that’s bloomed across Mobius’ face until Mobius’ lips are moving against his, until he feels the gentle scrape of teeth and flick of a tongue, until all the doubt fades away and all that’s left is a certainty that he feels down to his bones.

They are, actually. More than strangers on a ship, more than companions in extremis, more than friends, more than potential lovers. More than can ever fully be put into words, Loki suspects.

Good thing he doesn’t have to.

#lokius #loki x mobius #loki laufeyson #mobius m. mobius #loki fanfic #loki fic #loki series #loki tv #my fic #chamel's fandom fest

[toffeelemon]

a little teaser for @prince-simon ’s adorable festive fic not if it’s you

go read it right now it’s everything you need this festive season🥹🫶🏼

(set after chapter 4)

Hot Royal Debut: Meet the Mysterious Man Spotted at Prince Erik’s Memorial Service

Here’s everything we know about Prince Jakob’s handsome new caretaker.

All eyes were on the little Prince Jakob during the annual memorial service for the late Prince Erik yesterday, undoubtedly, but a new member to the royal household has also captured hearts around the nation - Prince Jakob’s nanny who made his first public appearance at the event.

The annual event has always been a somber affair for the Royal Family, but especially after the turbulent year the family had, with Princess Alma’s tragic passing, the entirety of Sweden is anxious to finally see Prince Jakob again at what would be his first official outing since the passing of his mother.

Prince Jakob donned a smart Stefano Ricci suit (get the look here for 19,000SEK) for the event, quietly emotional throughout the service where he sat in the lap of his newest babysitter, Simon Eriksson, right next to his father Crown Prince Wilhelm. Prince Jakob seems to have already formed a trusted bond with Eriksson, who reportedly started his role merely a month ago - he held the little prince’s hand throughout the duration of the service and was able to keep the tears at bay, despite Prince Jakob’s well known tumultuous temper.

Eriksson clearly has quickly become an adored member of the royal family, as seen here sharing smiles with Crown Prince Wilhelm and Prince Jakob during a private moment visiting late Prince Erik’s grave at the Royal Cemetery, and Eriksson soothing the young prince in a heartwarming display of soft affection.

Prince Jakob’s newest nanny has been the hot topic in royal news since yesterday - admiring the young man’s dashing looks aside, many commentators on social media are also charmed by his abilities to cheer up the notoriously moody little prince.

Not much is known about Simon Eriksson so far - here is Eriksson dressed in a smart but understated Burberry coat, a down-to-earth beanie hat, and a scarf of a similar style to Crown Prince Wilhelm’s usual attire to his royal debut yesterday. Being the first male caretaker to a young heir of the Swedish Royal Family, Eriksson is certainly an unusual addition to the household, also standing out with his natural hairstyle, a fresh renewal from the usual military style grooming that royal nannies were historically subjected to.

Crown Prince Wilhelm and the late Princess Alma were hands-on parents with a modern approach, and departing from the tradition to hire expatriate nannies hailing from renowned childcare academies across Europe, Simon Eriksson is a local graduate from Stockholm University, with experience in child psychology and early education. Sources say that Eriksson graduated top of his class and always received praises from all of his work placements, at prestigious institutes or otherwise.

Whilst Eriksson does not have the same elite education as traditional royal nannies do, he is a bilingual native speaker of Spanish and would no doubt be a great asset for Prince Jakob to follow in his father’s footsteps, who speaks five languages. The four-year-old little prince apparently can already count up to 100 in Spanish.

Eriksson’s background seems unorthodox within the royal household’s track record, but impressively he has been able to keep up with the difficult task of supporting the newly widowed Crown Prince Wilhelm and keeping the young Prince Jakob on his best royal behaviour - not a small feat when Prince Jakob has reportedly cycled through multiple caretakers during his mourning period. He must be as charming as his strikingly good looks advertise if Crown Prince Wilhelm’s smiley break from the solemn day is anything to go by.

From the royal laughs we took a glimpse of yesterday, it’s not hard to deduce that we will be seeing much more of the young and attractive nanny at more functions in the future, as quickly formed fans of the new royal gentleman rejoice.

#not if it’s you #thatgayprince #prince-simon #christmas au #basically the royal nanny simon au #lol be warned this is an unreliable narrator jakob is My son okay #i don’t take any jakob slander #young royals fic

[steelbluehome]

Slate

The Trump Biopic Is Here. The Rape Scene Isn’t What Would Make Him Angriest (click for article)

The Apprentice stars Sebastian Stan as the young heir and Jeremy Strong as mentor Roy Cohn. It’s already controversial.

BY SAM ADAMS

MAY 21, 20243:34 PM

Has any human being been less in need of the biopic treatment than Donald Trump? The implicit promise of the form is that it reveals not just facts about its subject—there are many better mediums for that, including the one you are presently engaging with—but something about their character that’s not visible to the microscope of history, something that can only be made clear by passing reality through the filter of fiction. The Apprentice, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday, promises to explain how Trump came to be Trump, through an account of his mentorship by the ruthless New York power broker Roy Cohn. But the movie, which was directed by Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi and written by political reporter Gabriel Sherman, tells us nothing we don’t already know, both in terms of its plot and, more fatally, its evaluation of both men’s souls.

That’s not to say that The Apprentice isn’t critical of Trump. It would be hard, in some ways, to think of a less flattering portrait. Sebastian Stan plays him as a hairsprayed vacuum of a man, a blank-eyed megalomaniac whose only gift is his monstrous self-regard. Although it charts his rise from a son of an outer-borough landlord to the spray-tanned face of Manhattan’s 1980s excess, it never grants him the glamour he so desperately sought. The film’s images have the washed-out colors of a VHS tape retrieved from the back of a Goodwill, as if the lens was sprayed with a fresh coat of bronzer before every take. It shows Trump stiffing contractors, scarfing down amphetamines, and raping his wife, Ivana (Borat 2’s Maria Bakalova), when she dares to suggest he could stand to familiarize himself with female anatomy. But while Variety labeled the movie “brutal,” that’s also a word that the film’s Trump and its Cohn, played by Jeremy Strong, frequently apply to themselves, a term that’s been brandished by his critics and embraced by his admirers.

Although some early reviews have shied away from calling the violent intercourse between Donald and Ivana a rape scene—Deadline’s Pete Hammond called it a depiction of “intense sex” that is “likely to be controversial”—there’s no real question how Trump throwing his wife to the floor, ripping off her underwear, and forcing himself into her is meant to be read. But those who hold faith in the civil jury that found him liable for sexually abusing the journalist E. Jean Carroll won’t have their judgment bolstered by another fictional instance, and those who’ve dismissed, ignored, or simply reconciled themselves to such verdicts and reports, and even to Trump’s own admissions, won’t end up seeing The Apprentice, let alone being swayed by it. Besides, while Trump has denied his former wife’s allegations (which Ivana herself later claimed were “without merit”) and threatened to sue the filmmakers for dramatizing them, there’s a sense in which the scene depicts him exactly as he’d like to be seen: as a man who knows what he wants and takes it, without hesitation or apology.

A truly damning moment, one of far too few in The Apprentice’s two hours, is the one that follows the rape: a hard cut from Trump thrusting away on top of his wife to a chipper montage of TV news coverage proclaiming the 1980s “the age of Trump.” Sherman, who wrote the Fox News exposé The Loudest Voice in the Room, is sharpest when he’s tracing—far too infrequently—the way Trump’s rise to prominence was not just enabled but almost wholly invented by a credulous news media looking to replace the urban unrest of the 1970s with a gleaming vision of the 1980s metropolis: a shining skyscraper on a hill. When a TV reporter (giving off strong Barbara Walters vibes although not credited as such) asks him what he might do if his grandiose real estate developments don’t bear fruit, Trump says he might run for president, and though he immediately treats it as a joke, she doesn’t even try to conceal her delight at his juicy response: “Great answer.” Late in the film, he meets with Tony Schwartz, the co-author of Trump: The Art of the Deal, who’s puzzled why Trump wants a journalist who’s been critical of him to write his book. This time, Trump assures him, Schwartz will be nice, “because I’m paying you.”

Any portrayal of Cohn exists in the shadow of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, and Sherman’s script doesn’t give Strong anything like the fuel he’d need to escape its orbit. But Cohn is at least a more complicated figure than Trump, a political prime mover from the Army–McCarthy hearings to the Reagan administration who was also a profoundly closeted gay man (although, as at least Kushner’s version of Cohn argues, not a homosexual, because a homosexual is a man with no power). Even from the beginning, Strong seems to be preparing us for Cohn’s downfall, the period when, weakened by AIDS and abandoned by his allies, he lost his law license and faded from public view. But it’s an attempt at empathy that, in a movie painted in such broad strokes, comes across as merely mawkish. We’re meant to feel the cruel sting of Trump abandoning the man who taught him everything, discarding a loyal ally as soon as he’s no longer of use, but there’s no weight to his betrayal because we never expect him to do anything else.

In an interview after The Apprentice’s premiere, Abbasi offered to screen the film for Trump personally, adding “I don’t necessarily think that this is a movie he would dislike.” But rather than taking him up on that offer, Trump’s spokesperson called it a film that “doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store.” Trump has known for decades that there’s nothing more powerful than the ability to hold people’s attention, and the sickest burn is suggesting that the movie isn’t even worth a hate-watch. The mere existence of The Apprentice flatters his vanity and burnishes his legend. Its most devastating sequence doesn’t involve backstabbing or lawbreaking or even sexual assault. It’s when the film intercuts Cohn’s funeral with Trump undergoing liposuction and a scalp reduction to reduce his bald spot. He’s not a titan of industry or a power player or a future world leader, just a middle-aged man with a bulging gut and thinning hair. Trump can’t sue for that sequence, but it’s the one that would make him truly furious.

#the apprentice #sebastian stan #the apprentice movie #the apprentice review #jeremy strong #roy cohn #maria bakalova #ivana trump #ali abbasi

[leoneliterary]

THIS BUSINESS IF, HECK YES DO IT

Hypothetically, if I were to do a business if, I would probably take a different approach. Something more like:

You play as the heir to an international corporation, accused of multiple monopolies, and that brings in a disgusting amount of money every year.

The sudden passing of your father means that you have to contend with the board of directors, the media, shareholders, and even your own relatives to claim your spot at the top of the company.

Decide whether you want to innovate and change the way things are run or if you just want to run the entire thing into the ground.

Pick your upbringing. Have you been raised for this or were you never supposed to make it this far.

Romance several key characters, such as:

The Rival: His family has been in the business for years, and was one of the first investors in the company. He has the support of several influential members of the board and has his eye on your position and you.

The Journalist: Constantly reports on the private sector and the world of big business. She writes and the stock market listens. Maybe she'll have something nice to say about you.

The Politician: He's been outspoken about the role private businesses play in politics and how they use money to influence everything from policy to elections. Can he see you as more than the personification of big business.

The Lawyer: Anyone after you will have to go through her, at least legally. She won't let anything get past her and she'll live in the courtroom if it means keeping you clean. Is it just the paycheck that keeps her so loyal to you?

The White Collar Crook: He owns the business that is the main competitor to yours. Fresh out of a cushy prison for insider trading, he's looking forward to doing business with you.

The Bodyguard: She heads your security detail and always has your back. Anyone that gets too close will get checked, be it a disgruntled employee or an especially nosy reporter. Who is going to check her feelings though.

All hypothetical though!!

#interactive games #interactive novel #if wip #writing

[citrusjuice24]

SourKids Challenge

The SourKids challenge is a Sims 4 legacy challenge. It is based on citrus fruits. Similar to the Not So Berry and the Sims In Bloom challenge, you will live out at least 10 generations to their fullest, but you can make alterations to the rules to fit your comfort.

Just like the two challenges listed above, you will have specific colors for each gen, but the colors are all more closely knit with a few repetitions, and some may not make sense as I did not want to repeat color combinations. This is because citrus fruits have similar colors. Also, yes there is such a thing as a purple lime. Another thing to note is the body shape for the sims, these are to be based off of the fruit that each gen is based on. This has nothing to do with anything personal or political, as pomelos are a pretty big fruit & I as the creator of the challenge see it as including multiple body types to represent different people. 

Here are some rule & recommendations -

Play with normal life span

Rags to riches or start with a small house (bed, bath, and kitchen) and 2000 simoleons

Cheats only when truly needed. I.E. freerealestate

Complete both Career & aspiration

Body shape is optional, as the original intent is for each heir to be female. 

Colors can be for clothes, building, and anything else, if you want, but you don’t need to.

Packs for the Challenge - 

City living

Strangerville

Discover University

For rent

High School years

Eco living

Seasons

Snowy escape

Cats & dogs

Horse ranch

Cottage living 

Get together

Hashtags for the challenge -

#Sourkids

#Sourkidslegacy

#Sourkidschallenge

#Sourkidslegacychallenge

Gen 1- Pomelo - Green & Bright yellow

When you were younger you always saw your parents in the garden. Be it picking fruits and veg for meals or planting flowers for sweet scents. They were always there. As you grew older, you realize you don’t condone animal violence and just started to not eat meat, and the selection of food at the store for other items weren’t as good as they once were. So, you decide to grow your own food after leaving home to live in a new place.

Career - Gardener

Aspiration - Bodybuilder

Traits - Recycle Disciple, Self-Assured, Vegetarian

# of Children - At Least 2

Body shape - On the heavier side when making in CAS, but should be muscular when aspiration is complete and the turn of generations come.

Gen 2- Grapefruit - Yellow & Pink

Growing up outside all the time bothered you a lot. To the point you started to write about your life and about how you wished it was not the way it was. The only thing you would not change about it though was the fresh taste of the home grown crops.  

Career - Social Media

Aspiration - Best Selling Author

Traits - Creative, Foodie, Proper

# of Children - At least 3

Body shape - Thick, with like 3 c’s, and curvy

Gen 3- Blood Orange - Orange & Red

You enjoyed reading your parents books and the food they made. Those things sparked your interest, and your imagination just started to flow as you drew picture after picture for your parents fridge. 

Career - Artist

Aspiration - Master Mixologist

Traits - Outgoing, Creative, Bookworm

# of Children - At least 1

Body shape - Thick, with 1 c, and a bit less curvy than gen 2

Gen 4- Lemon - Yellow & White

Your parents always told you to do something you would enjoy in life. You always took interest in the high sale value of brewery items and interactions of live content within the safety of your home. So, you made your enjoyments of fantasy into reality.

Career - Video Game Streamer

Aspiration - Expert Nectar Maker

Traits - Maker, Ambitious, Materialistic

# of Children - At least 4

Body shape - Skinny and curvy

Gen 5 - Orange - Orange & Yellow

Your grandparent was one of your most favorite people in the whole world. Your most favorite aspect of them was their art. So, you decide to follow in their footsteps of art, but a bit differently.

Career - Digital Freelancer

Aspiration - Painter

Traits - Romantic, Music lover, Socially awkward

# of Children - At least 2

Body shape - Similar shape to gen 3

Gen 6- Lime - Green & Purple

With your parent constantly working into the night on their art, you were always stuck fixing what was broken. When you weren’t fixing things, you would enjoy watching and reading about animals. You also once heard one of your great grandparents worked hard to make their own food.

Career -Handy person

Aspiration - Country Caretaker

Traits - Dog lover, Rancher, Clumsy

# of Children - At least 3

Body shape - Bit smaller than gen 4

Gen 7 - Yuzu - Yellow & Red

Your parent always work long hours for little pay, so you decided to go to school for a career that made a decent wage so you could take care of your parents when they retired. And during your youth you read plenty of fantasy books full of romance. You could never decide between the two male/female leads.

Career - Law

Aspiration - Serial romantic

Traits - Goofball, neat, jealous

# of Children - At least 3

Body shape - Thin & fit

Gen 8 - Kumquat - Orange & Green

Not wanting to follow in the footsteps of an unserious parent, you choose to go the more strict route in life. But you also know how to have fun and conflict in your life.

Career - Military

Aspiration - Leader of the pack

Traits - Dance Machine, Socially awkward, Cheerful

# of Children - At least 2

Body shape - Slim

Gen 9 - Bergamot/mont - Green & White

The rigorous training in your youth leads you to always want to be on top. It was not as bad as you always thought, but you decide to look at things a bit more than just “take 10 laps around the house”.

Career - Athlete

Aspiration - Championship Rider

Traits - Cat lover, Overachiever, Art lover

# of Children - At least 4

Body shape - Curvy & slim

Gen 10- Clementine - Orange & Purple

You enjoyed your childhood. The outings into nature specifically. To the point you dreamed of having nature within your career when you got older. And one where you could help as many people as you could to better not just them but also the land around you.

Career - Civil Designer

Aspiration - Eco Innovator

Traits - Loves outdoors, Green fiend, Family-oriented 

# of Children - At least 3

Body shape - Curvy & fit

EA ID - Citrus_juice24 - Has been play tested.

If there are any problems please message me.

#Sourkids #Sourkidslegacy #Sourkidschallenge #Sourkidslegacychallenge #the sims 4 #sims 4 #sims 4 challenge

[xdeerxhealerx]

About the Mun

Name: Jess

Age: 33

Pronouns: She/Her

Sexuality: Asexual

Single or Taken: Not Looking

Hobbies: Sleep, Draw, Role-play, Take Photos

Favorite Color: Yellow, Blue, and Grey

Fandoms: Too many to list

Other Blogs: Too many to list but attached to this blog well I have the-first-woman, glammingrockinchica, not-just-an-heir, and xinkydesiresx

Favorite TV Show: Golden Girls, Living Single, Fresh Prince (90's), Two and Half Men, MLP, TMNT (Any version)

Do you Cosplay: Sadly no I don't look good at cosplaying outfits

Favorite Media: Anime, Cartoons, Sitcoms

Favorite Book: Mirror Mirror: T Twisted Tale

Favorite Band: Rockit Music

Favorite Movie: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Do You Have Pets?: One Cat and One Dog

Favorite Animal: Owls, Otters, Sloth, Sharks, Sheep

Do you Play Any Instruments?: Not Really

Favorite Hellaverse Character(s): Verosika and Octviva

Tagged by: @hells-ringleader

Tagging: Anyone

#{ About the Mun }

[hummingbird-of-light]

In Our Favor

Part 155

McCoy

McCoy dropped onto the bed with a long sigh. The day had been exhausting from all the fear and worry but that had gone away with the news that Leah would be alright.

Then the stress of the aftermath had hit.

McCoy was glad anew that he would not be king someday. The king had secretaries to help him of course, but they were not the same as Dr. Boyce, Sarek and Leah. But for nearly seventeen years McCoy had been brought up as the heir, and he put everything he’d learned into helping the king craft statements and make arrangements with the media outlets.

McCoy had suggested Amy Wallington for any interviews they intended to give and the king had agreed immediately. She had previously interviewed McCoy and Scotty during all the drama and rumors about their relationship and had done an excellent job. McCoy was certain if Leah had to speak that Amy would be the right person for it.

Leah herself would be home the next afternoon. Eleanor however, couldn’t wait to see that her daughter was alright in person and had hurried to the hospital as soon as the call with Leah had ended.

“Alright love?” Scotty asked. McCoy felt the bed dip as his husband sat down next to him and a moment later Scotty’s hand stroked down his back.

“Yeah,” McCoy said, muffled against a pillow. “Just done in from everything,” he said, turning his head to the side to be heard better.

“Ye did good with yer dad,” Scotty said and McCoy warmed to hear the approval in the Scotsman's voice.

“I didn’t forget everything I learned as soon as I stopped being heir,” McCoy grinned. He rolled onto his side and reached for Scotty.

As soon as Scotty was lying next to him, McCoy sobered and frowned.

“Father wants to meet with the attackers,” he said softly.

“He what?” Scotty’s eyes widened, and McCoy thought he saw fresh fear. It didn’t surprise him. He’d felt the same when Father had told him his plan.

McCoy nodded slowly as he answered. “He wants to meet them. Wants to know why, what we’ve done they’re so angry about. Wants them to see we are people who care about our families too.”

Scotty let out a slow breath.

��Here?” he asked.

“No,” McCoy shook his head. “At the security center they were taken to. All proper precautions. I don’t like it, but I think I understand.” He paused. “I did advise him—” he gave an ironic grin “—to not let Leah anywhere near there. She would be of the same mind as Father, I just know it. He agreed,” McCoy said as Scotty just stared at him.

McCoy wiggled himself down the bed enough that he could bury his face against Scotty’s chest. He let out a content sigh as Scotty’s arms tightened around him. He relaxed and his body went nearly limp.

Behind them a PADD chirped, and both boys groaned.

“I suppose we should answer our friends at some point,” Scotty said slowly.

McCoy shook his head against Scotty’s chest. “Tomorrow,” he muttered. “Amanda was going to talk with Spock this evening and he’ll tell the others the basics.”

“Ok.” McCoy felt the movement as Scotty nodded his head.

“Tonight I just want you,” McCoy said quietly.

“Whatever ye need mo ghràdh,” Scotty said, bringing his fingers up to stroke McCoy’s hair.

McCoy pulled back slightly and tilted his face up to meet Scotty’s mouth. A soft kiss before he leaned his forehead against his husband’s.

“We should probably get undressed and under these covers Len,” Scotty said gently. McCoy let go of Scotty before he was done talking.

A few buttons and his shirt was tossed off somewhere. Shoes fell with a pair of clunks as he pushed them off, and with a quick shuffle on the covers, his pants joined his shirt.

Scotty had sat up when McCoy let him go and he chuckled as McCoy pulled the covers out from beneath himself while Scotty had barely got his shirt off.

“Eager love,” Scotty grinned.

McCoy sighed. “Yes, but tired is winning. Just c’mere and keep me warm.”

“Of course,” Scotty said and in another minute he was buried under the covers, snuggled close to McCoy, with the lights out.

“Besides,” McCoy said, sleep already in his voice, “we can have fun in the morning with no fears hanging over us.”

Scotty laughed. “Aye, ye mad man.” He kissed the prince, and they settled in against each other.

Part 156

Scotty

When Scotty woke up the next morning, Leonard was still fast asleep. The previous day had taken its toll on him and he deserved every second of rest.

Scotty looked around and saw his PADD on the bedside table. He let out a sigh and reached for it. At some point he had to look at all the messages they had received.

His eyes widened when he saw how many messages there were. With every article the press had published, there had probably been more. All his friends had written to him, asking him what exactly was going on and how Leah, Robbie and Leonard were doing. Most of the messages were from Christine, who had obviously been the most worried. Her last message said that Spock had cleared up the group, but she still insisted on hearing from Leonard and Scotty as soon as possible.

A gentle smile crossed the Scotsman's face. They just had such great friends.

Even Aporal had written to him. It was just a single message, but it meant a lot to Scotty that he'd got in touch at all.

'Take good care of your prince and yourself, Scottish boy. I hope the princess gets better soon.'

They weren't many words, but Scotty knew they were honest. And that was the most important thing.

As Leonard stirred beside him, Scotty was reading some of the articles and the comments that went with them. Most of the people were shocked at the attack on the crown princess and erected at the good news, but there were also a few nasty comments. People who seemed to think the same way as the rebels. People who didn't seem to understand that the royal family were only human. It was terrible.

"What are you reading?" came Leonard's tired voice and he slowly sat up.

Scotty glanced quickly at him and gave him a weak smile.

"Just a few articles about everything," he said and Leonard sighed beside him, finally taking the PADD from his hand.

"Don't do that. It doesn't matter what people write. All that matters is that Leah comes home today and is healthy again."

Scotty nodded slowly and leaned over to give Leonard a kiss.

"Aye. Ye're right."

Leonard put the PADD aside before pulling Scotty to him and hugging him. Scotty heard his husband inhale his familiar scent deeply and then kisses pressed into his neck.

"So, I hear you and I are going to put yesterday's troubles behind us and have some fun?"

A grin crossed Scotty's face as he heard the breathy words against his ear and he shrugged.

"We can give it a try."

Just a moment later, they had both disappeared under the covers. They helped each other to forget.

At first, Leonard and Scotty had planned to call Christine during her lunch break, but they decided to wait until the end of her classes. When Leah was back home and they had seen her in person, they could tell Christine more.

The royal family car was accompanied by a huge escort as it drove through the palace gates. Rarely before had Scotty actually realized how much security there really was around the members of the royal family. He stared wide-eyed at the closing gate, which was also guarded so that none of the reporters tried to invade their privacy.

When the door of the vehicle opened and familiar people got out, Scotty felt Leonard squeeze his hand.

The queen and Alasdair were the first. They were followed by Dr. Boyce and Sarek, who had apparently also gone to the hospital after the interrogations. They had all spent the night there in protected rooms. Leah and Robbie were the last to get out.

Scotty's heart leapt for joy at the sight of his sister-in-law. She still looked a little pale around the nose, but otherwise she seemed fine.

David was the first to hug his daughter tightly before Leonard followed. Scotty had rarely seen the siblings so close together. Only once had they held each other like this and that had been after Leonard and Scotty had been abducted by the Romulans.

Scotty also pulled Leah into a hug when it was his turn and the princess hugged him back tightly.

"Oh Scotty, I'm so glad you were with Lenny. Without you..."

"Shh, it's all right. I'm so glad you're okay."

Leah nodded before releasing the hug and grabbing Robbie's hand. The youngest Scott had stepped up beside her.

"I have your brother to thank for that. His voice gave me strength."

Scotty nodded with a smile and then looked at Robbie. He had... grown up so much.

"Well then... Let's go in and give Leah a proper welcome."

#star trek #montgomery scott #leonard mccoy #scones #au #in our favor