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hunnylagoon · 2 months

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The Killing Moon

PT1: Camp Spirit

Ellie Williams x Reader

Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.

Premise: You are a camp counsellor who comes back year after year to be at peace in the one place you love the most. Though there is something different in the air, could it be love or maybe an ancient evil you’ve mistakenly awakened?

Warnings: slight mentions of violence / mentions of monsters and cryptids / raunchy humour / spooky?

The Killing Moon Playlist

PART TWO: The Colour Wars

Week One of Summer Camp

Camp Honey Hills is what you could call 'off the radar'. It sat way up past the hills and forests of Oregon, relatively untouched by the urban nightmare of the city. It stayed peaceful and undisturbed as leaves shed from trees and snow covered every inch of ground, but the camp was alive for one season of the year. Even in the quietness of preparing for the campers to arrive you could still hear counsellors laughing with one another and that's how you could tell the camp was waking up from its ten-month slumber.

"Anyone in the White Tail Deer Cabin, over here!" I held my hand up and waved to the kids piling out of the buses, carrying duffle bags bigger than themselves. The first day of camp was always the most stressful, the only thing to get you through was the idea that it would be over soon and we could get to the fun part of summer.

I already had a handful of girls crowding around me, all of them were either ten or eleven; depending on how you look at it, I either got blessed or cursed that I was assigned to a cabin of older girls. While the younger ones were wild and untamable, the older ones tended to be snarky and standoffish, these girls we’re leaning toward wild.

"Hi," I look up from my clipboard to see a scrawny girl, she has long black hair in two French braids, a summer camp staple. "My thing says that Ellie is my counsellor and I don't know who that is."

"All good," I bend down to her height, "It's that pretty girl over there," I point at Ellie, she's talking to one of the girls in her cabin, and her dark eyebrows are furrowed at what I can only assume to be an absurd question. "You're in the Grizzly Cabin, looks like I'll be seeing a lot of you."

The girl doesn't answer me with words, from the way she's looking at me you'd think I just told her that I sat on her hamster. She gives me one last side glance before she struts off and lugs her duffle bag behind her. "That weird girl said I was in your cabin," I hear ever so faintly in the distance, Ellie bites back a laugh.

I shake off the not-so-subtle cruelty of a pre-teen and go back to yelling for all of the girls in my cabin. So far I had seven of the eight campers I was supposed to have, I was in the lead and if I collected all of the girls in my cabin first, that would be more points towards the camp cup. You should know that I take the camp cup very seriously, it really isn't anything more than a trophy that Tommy and Joel give to a cabin but I haven't lost it in the past five years that I've worked here.

"Is your name Tamar?" I point at a stubby ginger girl, "You look like your name is Tamar," I was on the hunt for the eighth girl in my cabin so I could win the arrival day points.

"Uh, no," She said, looking as muddled as scrambled eggs "My name is Marcy."

"Then get out of here, Marcy," I look past her and nod at a girl with skin the colour of ebony wood "Are you Tamar?" This girl looks around to double-check that I'm talking to her before she shakes her head no.

"Who's my counsellor then?" Marcy who stands at a maximum of what looks to be a mighty 4'3 is peering into my soul with her icy blue eyes and I almost shudder, all I could think is that someone needed to get this four-foot-nothing girl some contact lenses.

"Your counsellor and cabin should be on the slip of paper that administration gave you."

"I lost my paper."

"Um," I glance around at the other counsellors, collecting their campers. My eyes settle on Abby, she's wearing a Camp Honey Hills T-shirt. She looks like she's got everything more put together and organized than any other counsellor so I decided to dump this kid on her. "It's that blonde girl with the big muscles, you better hurry because she'll crush you if you aren't there in time."

Marcy looks at Abby and then back to me with wide eyes at my words before she scurries away. As I watch her roll up to Abby's group, I quickly realize that there is no way she is in that cabin. Abby got the oldest group, consisting of fourteen and fifteen-year-olds and I was sure that Marcy, with all of her missing teeth, was no older than nine. I avert my eyes to avoid any wrath.

I spot Jesse who is trying to wrangle up his boys who are already rough housing and throwing each other in the dirt. Somehow he always ends up with the returning campers or the savage ones who would surely put my head on a stick before taking a shower.

"Is this the White Tail Deer Cabin?" A girl with pale skin and brown hair stares me down, she's tall for her age and lanky.

"Are you Tamar?"

"Yeah," She says it like she's annoyed.

"Perfect," I smile, turning to my group "Alright girls, that's everyone," I turn to look in Tommy's direction "I said that's everyone," I enunciate louder to be sure he can hear me, each of my campers gives one another a snide glance.

Tommy presses his lips together in a thin line and answers me with a thumbs-up. He already knew I would be the first to get my group together, I always was. He and Joel are the camp directors, they were talking about something before I called their attention.

Marcy points at me and Abby looks in my direction, her eyebrows knit together. Great, now I was being snitched on my nine-year-old. Abby calls out my name but I'm already ushering my girls towards the cabins "Who wants to see the cabin?"

In just moments, I'm long gone and walking the trail to the girl's cabins. Breathing one last moment of peace, the earthy bitterness in the air, droplets of last night's rain slipping off leaves. It made me want to savour every moment in the forest I had before summer ended and I had to go back to stuffy dorms and lectures along with people as boring as the city itself. I've never been able to fathom why anyone would dream of the city, of the drug users and creepy men roaming the streets. Concrete everything and headaches from blue light, every day that I was away at college I dreamed of coming back here, I counted down the days I could turn my phone off and disappear from the world for a while.

The boys may have had a shorter walk to their bunkhouse but the girls definitely got the better view. It also didn't hurt that the circle of cabins was right beside the pasture so we woke up to watch horse grazing, unless you don't like horses, then you can just ignore them I guess.

"Okay, ladies," I open the door to our cabin, a little carving of a doe above the doorframe. "This is our cabin, go ahead and claim your bunks, I don't care who goes where, just don't fight about it and no one set up on my bed."

"How do we know which one is yours?" One of the girls, Leslie, asks.

"Because it's the only one that's set up," I say, bluntly and I see the realization hit her like it was a math equation that finally clicked in her head "You guys can unpack and I'll go over the cabin constitution in a minute."

As my campers piled into the cabin, ravenously fighting over who got which bed, I saw Ellie walking up with her girls. Our cabins were right next to each other, we shared a little porch that Maria decorates with plants while Ellie and I neglect them until they're wilted and we try to save them so we don't get yelled at. Alternatively, dump the responsibility of nurturing plants on one of your campers, kids love to water stuff and feel important.

Ellie's campers begin to walk up the porch and into the cabin, one of her girls runs up to me "I wanna be in your cabin again," Lana pouts, I had her last year and I can't say that I have a least favourite camper but if I could, it would definitely be Lana. "Ellen is so mean."

"Well, maybe she would be nicer if you said her name right." I look up to see Ellie who mouths a 'Thank you' "Call her Ellie and maybe you two can be nice to each other."

Lana looks between the two of us before wordlessly walking into the cabin in trail of the other girls. "It's shaping up to be an interesting summer."

"We've survived worse," I cross my arms "Do you remember Tucker? That kid Jesse had who managed to tie a piece of dental floss around a wasp and carry it around with him all day like a balloon."

"He was a little weird but he was chill," Ellie jokes, like every other counsellor, she's wearing the Honey Hills T-Shirt and Demin shorts, her auburn hair pulled back into a half up half down style "How about that girl in Dina's cabin who wrote Reid letters pretending to be Priya?"

I laugh "I can't believe it went on so long."

"I can, Reid's a fucking idiot." She says "He pronounces chutney like chut-uh-ney."

"Oh my god, I hate that so much," I was obviously dragging on this conversation, hunting for reasons to talk to her "And the way he says Ibiza and Cuba and like everything."

"Do you remember when he joined the women supporting women club in high school?"

"Please don't remind me, that was awful," I chuckle "The worst part is that he ran that shit like the navy."

"Are you coming inside?" Chloe pokes her head out the door.

"I guess so," I answer "Uh, I'll see you at the campfire," I tell Ellie before stepping into my cabin and seeing pure chaos. The four bunkbeds that were pristinely set up just hours ago were now clad in each girl's personal bedding, ranging from Chloe's neat colour scheme of light blue and white to Kim's mismatched quilts, fuzzy pillows, and bright orange sleeping bag. They were still working on getting everything set up, specifically getting the fitted sheets onto the twin-sized waterproof mattress. Some of the girls were even beginning to tape up photos of their friends and family from back home. "Wow, looks great girls."

"Can we go to dinner yet?" Leslie asked, her twin braids hanging over her pink hoodie.

"No, it is three o'clock but we will go over the cabin constitution." A couple of the girls let out groans of disapproval "First you always listen to me, do as I say not as I do. Respect others and their belongings, please don't hurt anyone or yourself. Maintain personal hygiene and do not go anywhere without telling someone where. Also, we have shower schedules, showers are absolutely mandatory, and no one will talk their way out of it. On Friday's we have tuck shop, and everyone gets a twenty dollar allowance for that, no you do not actually touch the money it's part of the camp package, I take your orders and come back with candy. We have campfires every night, breakfast, lunch, and dinner are mandatory to attend even if you don't eat which I strongly encourage you do."

"Do we have to go if we're sick?" Tamar asked me.

"No."

"But you just said it was mandatory."

"It's mandatory if you aren't sick."

"But you said-

"Stop," I clasp my hands together "I know I'm older than you guys but I promise you can tell me and ask me anything." I smile, looking around "Any other questions?"

"Can we swear?" Valentina asks, she's kicking her feet off her bed on the top bunk. Her skin is the colour of copper and she has a little dusting of freckles over her button nose.

"I don't really care just don't do it around other adults and don't tell them that I told you that."

"What's the wifi?" Morgan was typing something on her phone which was by far more expensive than the model I owned. Dina had Morgan in previous years and I wasn't too thrilled to be in charge of the (as she claimed) disrespectful blonde monster sent from hell to ruin her life.

"We don't have wifi, we hardly have service," I tell her "And you aren't even supposed to have your phone here but you can't do anything on it anyways so it doesn't matter."

"Do you have a boyfriend?" Leah chimes in, she's sitting on the ground with Oliver and slowly but surely braiding her friend's hair.

"Not at the moment, no."

"So are you a lesbian?" Olive follows up for her friend.

"Um," I press my lips together, my mind failing me, "I think we're good on questions, who wants a camp tour?" No one says or does anything, they just kind of look around awkwardly "That's too bad, you're getting one."

Everyone gathered around the crackling fire pit on splintered wooden benches. The warm glow of the campfire flickered in the midst of a cool summer night, casting dancing shadows on the faces of worn-out campers who were ready for bed.

Tommy had given his speech to sike up the kids for the rest of the summer, he made sleeping in the woods sound like a lot of fun. "We're giving you tonight to settle in but I promise that starting tomorrow we are hitting the ground running, activities from morning until dark, this will be a summer to remember," He smiles brightly "I don't wanna babble too long so I'm gonna give the attention to Miles who is going to kick off our campfire by playing the guitar for us."

Miles sat directly across from me in the first row of benches so I could only see him through the orange flames of the fire. "This is an original song I wrote, so far it's untitled but I'm open to ideas," He made himself comfortable with the guitar, readjusting it to sit in his lap properly.

"What do you wanna bet it's about?" Ellie whispers into my ear from beside me. Since the day cooled into the night, she's thrown on a gray hoodie to keep herself warm. You would be an idiot to ignore how pretty she looks illuminated by nothing more than stray stars in the sky and a campfire.

"I'll put five bucks on sex,"

"Sex?" She raises her eyebrows "I don't think he's stupid enough to sing a song about sex in front of kids, I'm gonna say it's about being a tortured artist."

"It could easily be both," I look down and see Ellie's muddied converse "We break even if he does both." The fire roared before us like our own miniature hell.

Miles clears his throat and lets his curly blonde locks fall over his forehead. Beginning to strum, he made that weird face he makes every time he plays guitar, where he scrunched his eyebrows together "Baby, maybe, I just wanna do you, do you, do you wanna do me? do me underneath the moonlight," He's too lost in his song to see the horror on every counsellor's face "Baby, baby, maybe I will steal you, steal you, just so I can feel you, feel you, maybe that would heal you."

I cover my mouth with my hand to stop me from cackling. The older kids were on the verge of laughing themselves while the younger kids seemed utterly confused. "Holy shit," I mutter so quietly that my words got blown away with the wind.

Ellie didn't try to stop her laughter, just hide it, she buried her head into the crook of my neck so no one could see how red her face was. She was far better off than Dina who was laughing so hard that she was clutching her stomach and nearly falling over, Miles seemed to be oblivious to all of this. In Dina’s defence, it was difficult not to laugh at a song so wildly inappropriate and bad in general.

Miles had far from the best voice, he just sounded like every other white guy who sang Wonderwall at a girl, not to her but at her "Sticky thighs are you wild now or just a memory? I heard your broken cries and looked into your eyes under the moonlight, so do you wanna do me, do me, so I can heal you, heal you, from the inside-

He stops abruptly when Joel takes the guitar away from him "How about Sawyer tells us the camp legend instead."

Those who knew who Sawyer was looked towards him, Miles was trying helplessly to get his guitar back from Joel who was holding it just slightly out of reach. "It's been a while since I've told this so forgive me if-

"No one cares, just tell it," Ashlynn said. She was one of the counsellors who clearly didn't want to be there, which meant all of the campers thought her to be the coolest; in all fairness, she was cool. Ashlynn had bleach blonde shaggy hair, so light that it almost looked white. Her eyeliner was always a little smudged and she was only there to keep the kids alive, she tended to be the first to opt out of group activities and go to bed early.

"Okay well, it starts way back in the sixteen-hundreds, on these very grounds there was a small village," Sawyer put on his best storytelling voice which was just him lowering his voice an octave. "They lived in peace for decades, and throughout all of those decades there was a woman named Abigail who never seemed to age, while all of her friends and family developed wrinkles, their hair turned gray, and their bodies sagged, Abigail still looked nineteen even at her alleged age of sixty-seven."

The new campers seemed enraptured but returning kids and counsellors seemed bored out of their minds, I even spotted one boy who's been attending this camp longer than I have, mouthing the words of Sawyers tale.

"They accused her of witchcraft and she was shortly exiled far up the hill into what we now call the Honey House. They left her with nothing more than a hunting knife, a canteen of water, the clothes on her back, and a small portion of seeds. The villages burned down her home in town along with everything inside it. If you think that is the end-

"Think again!" Dina cut in, getting up from her spot and squeezing herself beside Sawyer. "With Abigail gone the villagers thought they would be safe but just days after Abigail was exiled, anomalies began to appear-

Sawyer chimed back in "At first they were harmless, pixies, gnomes, jackalopes, nyiads by the rivers and dryads in the trees. The creatures appearing slowly began to appear more and more dangerous and at last, the snatchers arrived-

"Like a muscular and tall emaciated human. The most terrifying creatures to ever be seen, they roamed just outside of the village and lured children in, they slurped the flesh right off of the children's bodies like prey and wore the clothes of their last victim. They have no lips just a bloody gash and when they don't eat, the gash begins to reseal, leaving nothing on their gray faces but large and pale sunken eyes the size of my fist!" Dina clenched her hand into a fist and held it up for everyone to see.

"Their fingers are long and rotted, long curls of claws on each of their ten spindly fingers. The males are devoid of all hair and the females hardly have hair at all, just small plugs of greasy and matted strands. Their teeth are sharper than fangs and are rotten black and yellow, a foul odour escaping each time they open their disgusting gashes of a mouth. Though the snatchers were the most feared among villagers, they were also being terrorized by other creatures, such as pine devils who slithered from the forests at night and attacked families. There was ghouls who would take on the form of the last corpse they devoured and of course, the wampus which was half-man and half-cat, would stalk villagers.”

"Like a furry?" One of the boys from Jesse's cabin peeped.

"No," Sawyer exasperated "Like a scary and intimidating cat-man."

"So does it look more like the Cat in the Hat or like Cats the Musical?"

"It doesn't look like either, it's a terrifying man that is covered in fur and looks like a cat but is also a man."

"So Cats the Musical?"

Dina ignored the comment and continued with the story "After a year the village population had been cut in half and everyone thought it to be the witch, they figured that Abigail had cursed them for exiling her so they lit up their torches at sunset and marched up the hill to the Honey House. Abigail pleaded with them and explained that she hadn't cursed them but during her residency in the village she had warded off each evil spirit and creature with her witchcraft but she no longer could protect the village after they burned her home down and all her supplies inside of it."

After muttering to Jesse to get his cabin in order, Sawyer picked up when Dina left off "The villagers begged for her forgiveness and apologised for their cruel acts in the hope that Abigail would rid them of the monsters, Abigail said she would but in return they grant her return to the village, so the townfolk agree-

"With all her supplies to ward off the creatures gone, Abigail resorts to a blood ritual. She tells the townfolk that they must complete the ritual before sundown. She creates five pentagrams made of sticks and twine. Abigail races around the village to place the pentagrams and avoid the creatures while she does so, the villagers ward the monsters away from her with their torches. At each pentagram, Abigail slices her palm open and squeezes her fist to drip blood onto each one, then she ignites the pentagram with a torch and utters an incantation. She slashes her thighs and calves to get enough blood and in a last-ditch effort, she cuts her wrists open to finalize the ritual," Only the younger kids had been paying any attention to the story, they seemed downright terrified, clinging to one another but trying to play it cool.

"I fail to see how this is any less inappropriate than Miles's song," Cat mutters with one girl huddled into her, her arm slung over the little girl and rubbing her back to soothe her.

"Once she had completed the ritual, Abigail said that no creatures should return to the village. She is bleeding out in the middle of the town square but the town doctor only watches her, and refuses to help so she begs the appointed mayor to bury her beside her mother, he answers by saying 'The graveyard is sacred and we will not let it be tainted by filthy witch blood' in her final breath she plunged for the mayor and drags her bloody palms down his face, cursing him. Once she is no longer breathing her body begins to rapidly age into the appearance of the sixty-eight-year-old woman she was supposed to be. The townsfolk cut Abigail's body into five parts, two legs, two arms, and the torso with the head still attached and buried her on the border of the village."

Everyone sat in silence "Is that the end?" someone asked, though they were in the back row of benches and I couldn't see who it was.

"Yup," I answer "Abigail gets renamed as 'the girl that time forgot' in folklore and she never gets revenge on the townsfolk for betraying her after she laid down her life for them." I had never liked the legend. Young boys thought it was cool and gory and fifteen-year-old girls thought it was poetic and tragic but I hated it to death. Other camps have fun light-hearted legends about playful forest spirits or secret villages of fairies deep in the woods but we got an edgy story about a woman who just wanted to be loved.

"I wish she let the snatchers eat them all," Ellie said the same thing that she says every year, she wasn't wrong, that's how I wished it ended too.

"Just wait until one eats you," I joke.

"Nah, I'd kick it's ass."

"I'm sure you would but right now you owe be five bucks.”

"No, we didn't pick this legend, it's true," I heard Jesse's voice cutting through the conversations of the crowd.

"Bullshit," Mordecai said, he was one of those kids who thought it was cool and edgy to be an asshole and act older than he was. He despised summer camp but every summer his parents forced him back much to our dismay.

"It's not," Bowie jumped in "The snatchers come back to visit us sometimes."

"Yeah? I thought Abigail banished them with blood magic."

"The spell is growing weaker with time, it's slowly wearing out and there hasn't been a witch to revive it," Jesse was a good storyteller, he should've been the one to deliver the camp legend. He found a way to enrapture people with his words.

That's when I decided to call it a night for my girls, the longer you stayed at the campfire, the more outlandish stories the guys would tell and I learned my lesson last year that it is very easy to give ten-year-olds nightmares. "Whitetail deer, we're heading out," I stand up.

A few of the girls had groans and complaints while others seemed happy to leave. Ellie looked up at me from where I stood and did the same "Grizzlies, we're leaving too,"

"You're just saying that because you wanna hit it, Williams," Dean said between obviously fake coughs into his fist, causing Ashlynn to bite back a smile and Miles to playfully punch him on the arm.

"Dean," Tommy gave him a stern look and said nothing else, Dean took the hint and ceased his laughter.

"Headcount," I say looking at the girls in front of me "Chloe, Leslie, Kim, Leah, Tamar, Morgan, Valentina, and Olive." Each of them stands in a close-huddled bundle "Alright, don't go off trail."

The walk back from the campfire was gorgeous during the day and borderline mortifying at night. Since the foliage was so thick you could hardly see the sky if you looked up and at night the little piece of clearing that was the trail was pitch black, we were guided by nothing more than mine and Ellie's flashlights.

The two of us had been trailing behind the girls in silence to keep an eye on everyone until Ellie felt the urge to speak up "Uh, by the way, that thing that Dean said about-

"I don't care."

"You don't?"

"Yeah he's a dick and his cabin looks like a wooden prison cell."

"It does," She furrows her eyebrows in thought "It’s like he's conditioning his campers for war."

I didn't notice when I did this, it must've been a subconscious thing but I mindlessly reached for Ellie's hand to hold. I used my free hand to keep the flashlight focused on the trail and campers ahead of us. "Sawyer has to walk back to the bunkhouses across the camp with those little monsters."

"Payback for all of the pranks he's pulled with Bowie," Ellie mutters. Sawyer took pride in initiating the prank wars every single summer the same way I strove to win the camp cup. His pranks weren't also lighthearted and fun, he and Bowie organized this prank where Sawyer put a bag over Tyson's head and dragged him to the administration office in the middle of the night and then pretended to shoot Bowie dead in front of him. Tyson quit the next morning and Sawyer got a hefty write-up.

"So are you still talking to Cat?" I ask.

"Nah, that was never gonna work out."

"Because she's too hot for you?” I joke.

"What? No," She whipped her head to look at me "Why? You wanna get with her or something, you have my blessing."

"I'm good, I'm a little preoccupied at the moment."

"Who with?" Her voice dripped with accusation. Ellie's hand clenching just the slightest bit tighter on mine.

"Work? You should know that I don't date at camp, to think that I thought you knew me," I tease her.

"What about that summer with Chandler?"

"That doesn't count," My smile drops and I fight the urge to shiver at the memories. Before I was a counsellor at Honey Hills, I was a camper and I happened to have my first kiss at age thirteen with a boy named Chandler, our braces got stuck together.

"Everyone saw, so it counts," I can't quite make out Ellie's face in the dark but I can hear the smile in her voice "Remember how Joel had to pull out the pliers."

"You need to stop before I sacrifice you to the Honey Hills Snatchers," I look ahead on the trail and I could've sworn my heart stopped "Stop!" I yell and all of the girls look back at me, I drop Ellie's hand "Where is Olive?"

All of the campers look at each other for answers, and then Leah opens her mouth "She saw a rock that was shaped like a heart and when off trail to get it."

"Well I'm not seeing a heart-shaped rock or Olive but it's super safe in these woods so no need to panic."

"No one's panicking," One of the girls in Ellie's cabin says, she was the same one who called me weird during arrival.

I run one hand down my face in exasperation, using the other to keep the flashlight trained on the girls "Everyone, stay here with Ellie, I'm going to be right back," I look at Leah "How far back did she go off trail?"

She shrugs "How am I supposed to know? I don't have a tape measure."

"Sweet," I answer before marching straight into the pitch-black woods. It was almost scarier to be in the dark with a flashlight instead of no light source, it felt like I had been in a video game or horror movie and I was about to get my throat slashed by a maniac in a mask.

Every rustle of leaves or snap of twigs made me feel uneasy. I knew the woods were safe like I had told the girls but that didn't stop irrational fear from bringing up stories of cryptids and cuts from murder podcasts. If you ever played that shitty Slenderman game, you'd know exactly what I'm looking at; not Slenderman himself, just an eery forest.

I called out for Olive, my imagination running wild with thoughts of unseen dangers lurking in the shadows. The forest seemed to come alive around me, its inhabitants whispering secrets that only the night could hear.

"Olive?" My voice echoes into the night, I did what I could to ignore whatever fear I was feeling. I had walked through these woods a million times, I knew every pathway better than I knew the city. This forest was like home to me, it didn't feel right to be so on edge.

I couldn't help but jump when something loud snapped beneath my sneaker, instinctively I brought my flashlight down to look at it, moving my foot out of the way. It had been a pentagram made out of sticks, wow really funny, it might've scared me if Ashlynn and Bowie hadn't made dozens of them and laid them around camp last summer to scare the shit out of kids. It had broken in half beneath my weight.

There was a possibility that I was going crazy in the five minutes I was alone in the woods because I thought I heard a rustle but the beam of my flashlight revealed nothing but the dense thicket of trees and the inky blackness beyond.

Something charged behind me, wrapping its skinny arms around my torse and I couldn't help but flinch. "Olive," I turned my head and brought the flashlight to shine down on her "Don't run off in the dark ever again, you scared the shit out of me."

"I'm really sorry, I won't do it again," She said. I tried to pry her off me but she was hanging on like a Koala, eventually, I got her to settle for just holding my hand. "It was stupid."

"Don't beat yourself up too much, you're ginger and that's punishment enough," I was hastily yanking her along so we could get back on the trail and shortly back into the comfort of the cabin "Did you get your rock at least?"

"Yeah," She held her palm out, the rock was an oval with the littlest indent in the middle, but I let her act like it was shaped like a heart.

"How'd you get so far out?"

"I grabbed the rock and then I saw a cat and I followed it."

Cat? "You must've seen Buckley, he's friendly," I tell her. Buckley was the resident dog at camp, he was probably older than me and wandered around before settling at Tommy and Maria's cabin for the night.

A moment after I dragged the little girl along we broke past the tree line and into the clearing of the trail. I looked around and spotted Ellie and the girls a good 40 yards or so behind. Clutching Olive's tiny hand in mine I walked towards them, flicking my flashlight on and off to catch their attention.

"Finally wrangled her," I let out an almost nervous laugh.

"You said not to go off trail," Tamar wrinkled her nose.

"Yes, Tamar, I know."

I don't know how late into the night it was when I was awoken by every girl in my cabin squabbling with one another. I got up and turned on the flashlight that I kept on my dingy bedside table "What's going on girls?"

"The snatcher is coming to get us!" Leslie cried, and I mean cried. Her face was red and puffy, her eyes were so glassy that they reflected any and all light, hot tears streaming down her round face.

That's when my annoyance turned to concern. Oh god, I was going to kick Sawyer and Dina's asses tomorrow morning and Joel for even suggesting the camp legend even though it made my campers too afraid to sleep year after year. "No, snatchers aren't real, they were made up in the sixteen hundreds to keep kids away from the forest."

"We heard it!" Morgan chimed in.

"Guys it's just the placebo effect, you've convinced yourself that it's real-

I froze when I heard a long scratch down the door and a wet guttural growl. It was low and deep, shaking me to my very core. Whoever was on the other side began to scratch harshly on the door, jiggling the locked door handle. When the handle didn't budge it began to slam itself on the door, each thump louder than the last. It was still groaning and grumbling in a harsh, awful voice.

The girls screamed, Olive and Leah, were hugging each other tightly, clenching their eyes shut. Valentina had a bottom bunk and slipped beneath the bed, covering her eyes with her hands. Leslie (like I had mentioned) was a blubbering mess, crying and hyperventilating too hard to get any words out. It looked like Morgan was trying to call someone on her phone and Tamar had her knees tucked to her chest, hugging herself. Both Kim and Chloe threw their blankets over top of them, pretending to disappear.

The voice sounded again except this time I realized it wasn't just a growl, it was a word "Girrrrllllls." Then it began to scratch the door all over again. When I tell you this voice was the most unsettling thing I've ever heard, I mean it. It was wet and phlegmy whilst being course and grumbly. From the very beginning, I had known it was a prank.

I marched towards the door flicking on the light in the cabin on and dropping my flashlight, before hammering my fists on the door "Fuck off!" I kicked the door, the sound stopped for just a moment before it slammed itself against the door.

Each thud against the sturdy wooden door reverberated through the night like a thunderclap. Whoever was sent to scare us was sure doing a good job. Their breathing was low and heavy almost as loud as the banging of the door itself. "Don't open the door," Leslie heaved out between sobs.

The girls huddled together in terror, their breaths hitching in fear as they strained to discern the source of the horrifying sounds "Girrllllllssss," It grumbled again "GIRRRLLSSSSCOMMOUT," I could see the door moving with the force of whoever was deeply committed to this role. The growling slowly morphed into a screech or maybe it was something more like a hiss.

I was almost at my breaking point, the first day of camp and I already had to deal with these bullshit pranks. I decided to slam my body against the door, matching whoever was on the other side "Go back to your cabin, you piece of shit!" I kept banging my fist and slamming my palms against the door until I heard them scuttle away.

Reaching for a baseball out of Valentina's open duffle bag, I swung the door open and saw the slender figure of what I assumed to be a teenage boy running to the pasture "Tell Sawyer to eat shit!" I yelled before throwing the ball at the figure, it hit them but it didn't do much, they just stumbled for a split second before disappearing into darkness.

"What the fuck is that noise?" Dina shouted from her cabin, I could tell I had woken her up from a nice sleep from the way her puffy eyes were squinting in my direction. A few girls poked their heads outside from the doorframe behind Dina.

"What happened?" Now Priya was walking towards my porch. Her long black hair was braided perfectly and she had her silk sleepmask pulled onto her forehead. She still looked put together in a hoodie and bunny pyjama pants.

"Can you guys shut the fuck up?" Ellie opened her door and looked me up and down.

"Be quiet!" Abby shouted from an open window in her cabin. By this point, I was sure everyone in the girl's bunk houses was wide awake and I would be getting a stern talking to by either, Tommy, Joel, or Maria, honestly, I didn't know which was worse.

Confusion quickly grew on Ellie's face, she lowered her voice "What's going on?"

All eyes were on me for answers but I didn't have any. Despite convincing myself it was a prank, that didn't stop my hands from shaking. "It was one of the boys playing a prank, don't worry about it, he's long gone by now."

"Fucking Sawyer," Dina murmured walking back into her cabin and slamming the door behind her.

"Are you girls okay in there?" Priya asked, looking at the mortified girls in my cabin, concern etched across her bronze face. "It was a dumb joke, you're all okay now."

Priya had invited herself into my cabin to offer her solace to the probably traumatized little girls, while she was doing so, I pressed myself flat against the front of the cabin, between mine and Ellie's doors, trying to process how I was going to find a way to make these girls unafraid.

"They do that prank every year and it's almost crazy how it's literally never been funny," I tell Ellie while I stare straight ahead at the pasture they faded away into.

"I wouldn't worry about it," Ellie stands next to me, leaning against the wall "We'll get them back tenfold."

"Those girls are all gonna wanna call their parents and I'm so fucked," I drag my hands down my face. I didn't want to see the look on Joel's face when I tell him about this. There's gonna be sixteen parents who will spam call the camp and verbally harass me over the phone, this wasn't my first rodeo. Sure the prank was shitty but I guarantee no one is leaving this summer with newfound trauma to tell their therapist in a decade.

"Relax, he's just gonna chew out the boys for pulling this shit again."

I looked at her for a moment, the silence hung between us like birds on a wire before I lunged in for a hug. She was a little taken aback but didn't seem to mind "I just need a hug, don't make it weird."

"Okay, wasn't planning on it," She teased. I took a deep breath in and caught the scent of firewood, petrichor, and axe body spray, an Ellie classic.

“I'm really glad I have you as a friend," I mutter into her shoulder, so quietly that I wasn't even sure she heard me. I let us stay like that for longer than I probably should've before breaking away "Okay, I gotta be a grown-up and deal with this instead of letting Priya do recon."

She nodded pressing her lips together in the same awkward way the socially inept guys from high school did "See you for breakfast?"

"For sure," I smile and walk back into my cabin to see Priya sitting next to Chloe with one soothing hand rubbing her back. "Thanks, Priya, I'll take it from here, you outta get back to your girls."

Priya had this maternal way about her, I wasn't sure what it was but she sure had the ability to nurture. She started at camp last year and I was happy to see her return. She gave her farewells to all of the girls who had only met her minutes ago and were already attached.

"Can I be in her cabin?" Kim asked, she had finally calmed down.

"No, you're in my cabin where we have fun like this every night!" I forced a smile on my face trying to get the girls back into a good mood.

"This isn't fun at all," Tamar, said, bluntly may I add.

"Yeah, this sucks," Morgan added on.

"Guys, listen," I began "I'm super sorry this happened, I need all of you to know that it's just a really bad prank, it happens every year to different cabins. Boy being boys- sorry I shouldn't say that because you guys are young and I know their gender shouldn't excuse their bad behaviour but what I'm trying to say is guys are assholes."

"Yeah, they're assholes!" Olive repeated.

"Maybe don't shout that," I pointed at her "But they are and if you want I will storm down to their cabins right now and yell at them until they cry."

The cabin began to erupt in shouts of no, little girls with wide eyes, frantically shaking their heads. "Please don't leave us alone," Leah pleaded.

"Okay, I won't, I'll yell at them in the morning. Do you guys want me to leave the lights on?" Everyone answered with a 'yes' to my question.

"Where are you going?" Valentina asked me, peeking out from beneath her thick layers of blankets.

"To my bed?”

"That's too far away from us."

I let out a deep breath "Alright, I'll just bring my sleeping bag onto the floor and I will sleep in the middle, okay?" Nothing better than sleeping on the hardwood floor in the middle of four bunkbeds and eight ten-year-old girls.

Surrounded by the shallow breathing of girls far too startled to sleep, I decided that tomorrow I would wake up dressed in adventure, straddling a star. Every day that follows I will guide these girls to the moon and back.

A/N: Hi y’all, I’ve been gone a hot minute because of medical issues and whenever I have time to write, I’m too tired to. Anyways, we’re back and better. I know I should probably finish my other series but I’ve had this one drafted for a while and since I’m super sick and basically confined to my house for the next week I’m hoping to get this series done. Thanks for reading!

@readbydayana

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melancholia-ennui · 2 months

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So the thing that I find fascinating about the ongoing debates around the "walrus vs fairy" poll is how much it reveals about the ways people reason and argue, and how those break down.

Like, on the one hand, I'm #teamwalrus, but the ways that some walrus voters argue about this poll are so hilariously disingenuous. "What if the 'fairy' is a gay man?" "What if it's Halloween?" "What if it's a medieval fae that just looks like some guy?" "What if I'm hallucinating?" - shut up shut up that's not the point and you goddamn know it. The question is only interesting at all if both the walrus and the fairy are instantly and equally recognisable as such. Otherwise you're just dodging the question. (As an aside, this is why I advocate for imagining the fairy as a kind of Tinkerbellish pixie creature, as this has all the desired instant recognisability and acts as a kind of opposite to the vastness of the walrus.)

On the other hand, a lot of fairy voters put forward the argument that "a fairy is impossible". But here's the thing: this represents a fundamental failure to adjust your beliefs under counterfactuals. If a fairy is knocking on your door, that fact in itself proves more or less definitionally that a fairy knocking on your door is not impossible in the possible world of the question, irrespective of your beliefs about the actual world, because it just happened.

And this is really where my walrus vote comes from, because the question was never "what is more probable (given your beliefs about the world", but "what would surprise you more".

If a fairy is knocking at my door, then yes, I have been fundamentally wrong in some assumption about what sort of things exist in the world - but otherwise, the fairy is behaving exactly as I would expect a fairy to behave, given what I have been told in fictional contexts about the behaviours of fairies. It would shake my world-view, force me to re-evaluate a lot of what I believe, but it wouldn't elicit surprise so much as confusion, self-doubt, and perhaps some existential dread.

By contrast, a walrus on my doorstep would be deeply surprising. There is not a single walrus in captivity in my country, so it must have come from the wild somehow. I do live by the sea, but I'm on a first floor flat with a locked door to the building, at the top of a hill, and on the other side of some flood defences relative to the water. While the walrus does not make me question any of my ontological beliefs, it does fundamentally undermine almost everything I believe about walruses, where they can be and what they do, which altogether will elicit much more surprise, emotionally, than a mere previously-thought-to-be-impossibility.

The issue with getting hung up on "but a fairy is impossible" is that to me it seems to function primarily as a kind of thought-terminating cliche. Because if there is a fairy knocking at your door, then obviously a fairy is not impossible, or else it wouldn't be knocking.

What I find interesting is how this really highlights how much people get emotionally invested once the category of "impossibility" is introduced - so much so that they extend that category across all possible worlds, even when the modal/counterfactual structure of the question clearly indicates that doing so undermines the entire premise of the question.

(Honestly, I could go on here about the ways in which the category of "impossible" circumscribing rational considerations impacts other areas of thought, especially politics, but this ramble has already gone on long enough and I don't want to derail it even more. Suffice to say that this seems to be a very general thought pattern, that once someone becomes invested in some sense in something being "impossible", this will, unless they are very careful, permanently colour every consideration they have about that something, often even over and above evidence to the contrary of this impossibility.)

#fairy vs walrus #walrus vs fairy #fairy walrus #walrus fairy #fairy vs walrus poll #walrus fairy poll #fairy walrus poll #walrus #fairy #philosophy #.txt #thoughts and musings

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acupofqueercoffee · 1 year

Text

“Offer me the deathless death”

Andromache the Scythian x Female Reader

request ( found here ) by @nightly-polaris

|･ω･) go wild, you said and go wild, i did. i included as much of the provided details as i could. hopefully, you’ll find it agreeable

cw : 18+ 18+ 18+ 18+ 18+ // dubcon-ish // ✂️ ✂️😼 // overstimulation

casually quoting hozier for all my andromache fics. that fight scene on the plane and the way she grabbed nile by the jaw tho 😩 wanted to incorporate it in a fic ever since i saw it, and fucking finally did

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Hallucinations. A fever dream.

Anything but reality is what you tell yourself, and what a job you have been doing thus far! Fantastically foolish if nothing else. Cocooned in a bubble of lies that spill forth none other than your lips, and illusions that are carved by your very mind itself, you harbour not a droplet of doubt that the reality in front of your eyes is nothing but bona fide.

People after all are the most masterful at fooling themselves.

Ensnared in a web of deceit weaved by your fingers lie no hapless preys, but you, yourself, who revel in the sweet taste of false security as you do in the richness of the creamy warm chocolate drink that coats your tongue.

Even though business in your shop today is notably satisfactory if not the most profitable, it is not the digits that matter to you the most. Your little shop is borne purely out of your profound passion and desire; obligation is out of the picture. It is where you feel the most at home, doing what you love while bathed in the aroma of freshly ground coffee and cocoa.

Amidst brewing a cup of americano as per the order of a customer with stylish sun-glasses and a striking jawline, your dress is accidentally soiled. Little do you know, the scatter of black and bitter constellations along the pristine white of your sleeve is merely the dawn of a darker, more bitter happening.

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Finding you has been relatively easy.

When the familiar dreams begin plaguing her usually dreamless nights, a telltale sign of a new immortal on the horizon, Andromache has half a mind to ignore them altogether. Had she not seen the places that stoke recognition amongst the wild tapestry of images, she certainly would have. But alas, her target, as it so happens, is no stranger to her. By no means does the Scythian know you. Nor you, the Scythian. New immortals bring together with them an assortment of risks, one of them being the exposure of their secret. It is with such knowledge in mind that Andromache feels obliged to set out for you despite her reluctance. You living in the neighbourhood of her temporary place of residence only makes the search all the more convenient.

Being a warrior for many a millennium has developed a vast array of tactical traits into personal trademarks. Those that once upon a time had had to be mindfully exercised, now occur as easily and effortlessly as breathing, involuntary more often than not. Beneath the dark shades of a spectacle perched on a well-defined slope of a nose lies a pair of sage green eyes, scanning the vicinity of wherever she goes like an eagle on a hunt. They have landed on it then, during her visit to a store, standing adjacent to it is a cafe in the name of “Trouvaille”. The Scythian is not one to be easily intrigued, but what a lie it would be to say that the charming building with its vintage air and curious name had not tickled her fancy. Or its owner whom she has noticed is all sweet smiles and dulcet eyes.

Eyes which she has only seen from afar then, now she stares directly into them. Protected by the shades, the intense greens study you with brazen openness, roaming all over your frame, from the tiny clips that decorate your cascading hair like colourful Christmas lights to the butterfly pendant that dangles from a simple silver chain, hovering directly above the dip of your throat, from the little flower prints on your dress, the skirt of which softly caresses your thighs, to occasional glimpse of seemingly soft flesh that teases the Scythian, left uncovered by a pair of white thigh-highs.

It is retrieving you that is the hard part.

Immediately upon arrival, Andromache has read your features for perhaps a trace of recognition. You paying the Scythian a visit in her dreams can only mean one thing after all: that she, too, must have appeared in yours. Yet, no widening of your eyes greet her, only a smile that does not waver.

“Hi, welcome to cafe Trouvaille. What can I get you?”

“Americano will do. Hot.”

Beside the fact that it is broad day light, a few people roam the place. As capable as Andromache is of manhandling you, it is not in her best interest to attract attention. The situation calls for patience. Rushing will spell only more trouble at best. Wait she must, and so, wait she does.

Leisurely, the Scythian sips her coffee, studying you periodically as she does so. It is after some minutes have ticked by, the cup of coffee sitting on the table, empty and cold, that she decides to fish a book, leather-bound and well-worn, out of her backpack. Thumbing through old pages, Andromache spends the better part of the wait indulging in literature, until one by one, people start trickling out of the shop.

In due time, it leaves only the Scythian and you.

The sky has taken on a deep orange hue by the time she stands to approach you. She eyes you surreptitiously, and upon confirming that she is not at the receiving end of your attention, the Scythian moves to lock the door. Ever the diligent wielder of caution, she does not forget to flip the little dangling plate. The letter “We’re closed.” that is carved into the wood will help ward off potential visitors.

Even as she walks towards the counter, you do not seem to notice her for you are kept occupied by the book in your lap, fingers busy scribbling onto paper. It is the tinkle of porcelain on marble as she drops the cup and saucer atop the counter that finally has your eyes zeroing in on her. She watches you watch her. Backdropped by the sunset with her shades finally tucked away into the pocket of her jacket, the sight of the Scythian brings about a subtle shift in your mien. Although fleeting, the furrow of your brows that must have been imperceptible to others, does not go unnoticed.

“Hello, again. I hope you’ve had a good time.”

The smile that you give her is sweet, if not the most genuine.

“Why don’t we save the pleasantries, hm?” The smile that touches her lips, in contrast, has a hint of sourness. “You’ve seen me before.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t believe I have.”

Your answer only brings about a twofold increase in the Scythian’s irritation. Judging by the slightest delay in your response, she knows that you are well aware that she has not meant it as a query, and so, she says as much.

“It wasn’t a question.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You must have mistaken me for someone else.”

The adamant denial from you has strong, slender digits tightening around the strap that is slung over one shoulder.

“Do I really have to spell it out for you? You died, and then you woke up, saw a bunch of people you had never seen before in your dream, including me.”

“But, that was- No. Surely it was-.”

“Look, kid-” Forming into a thin line are Andromache’s lips as she takes a moment to compose herself, slowly huffing out an exhale through flared nostrils. “-I know you’ve got questions but I need you to come with me first.”

“No. No, I don’t think so. This isn’t real. None of this is real. Leave, please. I need you to leave.”

Lips that slowly curl into a smirk and a chuckle that comes out dark and dangerous. “It’s cute that you think you have a choice.”

Battered boots that come to rest just shy of polished loafers.

“You know…your folly is, dare i say, commendable. Reality is not just something you can rewrite, and yet, you managed an impeccable job of tricking yourself into thinking what you believe to be the truth is the truth.”

One foreboding frame that looms like a predator and the one that cowers like a cornered prey.

“Alas, I almost feel bad for shattering your little illusion. But then again, I’ve done a great many questionable things in my life having lived as long as I have. What significance would it make to add another?”

“What I saw in my dream. They really happened.” It is a question albeit not being voiced like one. The Scythian does not find the need to answer. Why bother when the answer already lies in your hand?

At her silence, a look of horror dawns on your features. “You’re a murderer. You and your friends. I’ve seen them. I- I’m not- I can’t.”

“Oh darling, a rose without thorns is but a weed, easy to be plucked, to be trampled on. You’re one of us now. You will come with me whether you like it or not, and you will do so this instant.”

Every single step you hesitantly take back is met with an immediate footfall of boots as they fall right onto the place that your loafers have just vacated. It goes like this for a while, you actively ruining the close proximity, and Andromache rectifying it, until there is nowhere for you to flee, and your hips collide with the counter edge.

“Why me?” She parries your plea with a nonchalant shrug, face impassive. “Beats me.”

“Please, I-” Tears glisten in your eyes, murmuring beseechingly. “Let me go. I can’t kill. I know nothing about fighting.”

While her hands grip the counter on either side of your waist to cage you in strong arms, her lips lower to the shell of your ear, breath warm as she speaks. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. You can kill. In fact, anyone can. You just have to listen to me.”

“No! Let me go! I don’t want-” Yells dissolve into a yelp by way of digits seizing your jaw.

“I’ve gone out of my way to exercise great forbearance, but it is running terribly thin. It would do you well not to try it any further.” She husks threateningly, feeling the softness of your cheeks giving under the roughness of her battle-hardened fingers. Salty droplets drench her digits as tears start spilling in rivulets down your cheeks.

“Go on, bite me with those baby teeth. Scratch me with your little paws.” She taunts. “Why, would you look at that! All bark and no bite. How pathetic.”

It is as she says this that your teeth sink into the palm that is pressed tightly against your mouth. The unexpected retaliation has her stance faltering, and although you manage to break free from her bodily confines, the Scythian, being far more nimble and dexterous, hardly has to break sweat in recapturing you.

“You're a stubborn little thing, aren’t you? Two can play that game, although don’t say I didn’t warn you. Breaking men, after all, is considered one of my fortes.”

Wrists locked behind your back in her iron grip, and body bent over the marble counter, Andromache revels in the quavering of your body beneath her own as one wicked hand, like a sneaky serpent, slowly slithers up your thigh.

“Are you-” A whimper flies past your lips when your arms are pulled taunt, shoulders craning uncomfortably. And then, she yanks, hard and unforgiving, until you are forced onto your feet, back colliding with her front. “Are you going to kill me?”

Andromache cannot help but laugh at your question, a rich throaty sound that brings about the erection of soft little hair on the nape of your neck.

Your wrists are released at the cost of your cheeks bearing the brunt of her ire as rough fingers dig into your flesh. They flee from their cage between the two of your bodies to take sanctuary on her forearm, soft fingers grasping the sleeve of her jacket. “Where’s the fun in killing you when I can just have my way with you, hm?” Her hold around one of your thighs remains unrelenting while the hand on your jaw coerces you into craning your neck. Your head rests on her chest with a grunt, and you drown, held spellbound by the intense green of her eyes. “I’d rather enjoy the view of you crumbling beneath me than watch you bleed out only to come alive again.”

Although it douses you in shame, you have to admit that you are not entirely immune to the woman. How can you when she oozes charisma, frighteningly beautiful even as she looms over you with all the grandeur of a great menacing panther.

And then, too many things happen all at once; fingers that crawl into a forest of hair to grab a fistful, with a yank to the side, a throat that is bared for the predator above to conveniently sink her teeth into, the frenzied little flutter of a pulse beneath the flat of a warm tongue, chocked sobs that dissolve into a strangled gasp as a cold hand journeys into the waistband of an underwear.

Previously, your hands have found home on her thighs, fingers grappling fabric, but upon feeling wandering digits inside your underwear, one of them flies towards the offending hand, locking around a wrist.

“N-no. You can’t.”

“You would do well to remember that I am in control here.”

The Scythian’s growl is not only heard, but also felt on your skin as teeth nibble, mouth suck, and lips soothe the stings that afterwards will linger on your body in the form of dark blues and bright reds.

Horror and humiliation dance a wild tango whereas fingers waltz delicately along your folds, a condescending tsk echoing off your nape when they come away wet. Betrayed and backstabbed by your own body, mortification colours your face as not one but two of her sizeable digits sink into your heat with little to no effort. Although sudden, it does not hurt, though it stings, leaves you breathless still. Dewdrops bloom on your lashes and they drop down your cheeks when fingers in your core bury knuckles deep, abuse your tightness. You feel them in the very depths of your body, filling you so deliciously that when they wiggle so much as a little, it is more than enough to sucker-punch a breath out of your lungs.

Between her hot mouth kissing your neck all rosy and sore, her fingers cleverly caressing your insides, and her hand toying with your breasts beneath your dress, it is no surprise that your undoing greets you with a tidal wave of pleasure.

It is, however, a surprise to find yourself being shoved back-first onto the table, legs being pulled wide by fingers twining round your thighs. You are still suffering through a series of aftershocks from your first orgasm when her mouth attaches itself to your quavering folds, that wicked tongue immediately slithering into your hole. It does a cruel little nudge and your fingers wind up entwined in her hair. Instead of a reproach, it is a hum of satisfaction that you earn as the Scythian grabs a handful of your buttocks and devour you like a starved man.

By the seventh one, you are well beyond exhausted, brain foggy courtesy of being fucked into oblivion, and body agonisingly sore, littered with deep hues and teeth marks. Somewhere between third and fourth, if you recall correctly, she has stripped you bare, bar your thigh-highs, and completely rid herself off clothes, magnificent muscles coming into display. You have ogled them with barely restrained awe until your attention is swayed elsewhere by her mouth leaving traces of herself all across the expanse of your body.

Now, once again, you marvel at them, entranced by the impressiveness of her muscles that ripple with every roll of her powerful hips.

You barely recognise the face that is staring right back at you, reflected in the surface of sea green eyes, or the sounds that are oozing out of your lips. Sweat clings to the forehead of the woman towering over you as it does to yours. One of your legs is slung over her shoulder, and the other lies limp and useless between her thighs, as she rubs herself into your core with wild abandon.

“I- I can’t. Too much. It’s too muc- ah!”

“Yes, you can.”

She has taken the hand that goes to rest on one of her hipbones only to weave her fingers with yours. Now, they hover in the air, tightly intertwined, suddenly made much tighter by the white knuckled grip of your hand.

“Slow- nghh please! Be gentle.”

“You do as I say. Not the other way round. Is that understood?”

The desperate nods of your head is met with a bite to the succulent inside of your thigh just above the brim of your sock.

“Answer me.”

“Yes!”

“My word shall be your command, and you will dance to my every desire, won’t you darling?”

“Yes! Yes, I will.”

“You are mine after all, aren’t you? Mine to do with what I please. Mine to use how I see fit. Don’t you agree?”

“I’m yours- ngh- all yours.”

“Good girl.” She moans, movements escalating from lazy strokes to untamed gyrations.

“Andy.” She rasps breathlessly. “I want to hear my name dripping down those pretty little lips when you fall apart.”

And hear she does. Andy. Andy. Andy. Andy. Her name is all you can cry out as your juices mingle with one another’s, the combined essence soiling your thigh-highs as well as the couch beneath you.

Back curving, toes curling, you soar high, high into heaven, swimming amongst clouds, drowning in euphoria. And then, you plummet, down into the pit of hell, down into another one of those little deathless deaths. An intense blinding white replaced by an absolute dark.

When you awake, it is to the heart-melting sensation of lips softly caressing your forehead. You find yourself on the same couch that you have passed out, cocooned in toned arms, face tucked snugly into a warm, musky throat. Reflexively, you begin nosing the soft underside of her jaw before you are startled by fingers wandering down your very naked thigh.

“Look at me.” Obediently, you oblige, reluctantly leaving the pleasant warmth of her neck to do what she desires.

“What have I told you?” All too delicately, or as delicately as the callouses on her hand will allow, the pad of a thumb grazes the apple of your cheek.

Fighting against the urge to slip your eyes shut, you sigh dreamily instead. “That as long as I remain a good obedient girl, no harm will befall me.”

“That’s right. And are you?”

A nod as an answer prompts a pat of a forefinger on your cheek, and then, another. You know what she wants, so you give her just that.

“I’m a good girl.”

Not only do you see the smirk on her face, but you also feel it on your skin as she leans down to drag her lips across yours. “You forgot to mention whose, darling.”

“I’m a good girl, Andy. Your good girl.”

“And will my good girl obey my every command like she had promised?”

“Mmhm.”

A breath catches in your throat as her lips journey down down down, admiring the traces of none other than herself until that ravenous mouth adjourn to your hip, sucking the tender spot on your hipbone to make it all the more vibrant.

Although it has not been the main purpose of her doing what she has done, it is without doubt that Andromache gets a sick sort of pleasure out of seeing you covered in her marks. Every inch of your body and soul, all irrevocably hers.

You have said it so yourself, willingly given yourself up to her. That being said, it is purely her own greed that has her craving more and more and more of you. The scent of you that is sinfully sweet, heady and uniquely yours, makes her ache. The sight of you, like the dewy petals of an exquisite flower, pretty and pulsating, makes her mouth water.

It is with this insatiable hunger swelling inside of her that the Scythian sinks to her knees between your luxuriously smooth thighs.

“One more, darling. Give me one more before we leave.”

And you do, oh how you do even as one bleeds into two and two into three, because a good girl does what she is taught, does she not? And you are a good girl, Andy’s sweet little good girl to do with what she will.

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#andromache the scythian x reader #andromache of scythia x reader #andromache x reader #andromache x you #andy the old guard #andy andromache of scythia #andromache the scythian #andromache of scythia #character x reader #charlize theron x reader #charlize theron #the old guard #smut #gif #movie gifs

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yoga-onion · 6 months

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Buddha to his disciples, mini-series (12)

The Pheasant Firefighter- One of the tales of the Buddha’s previous lives

It’s the story of the pheasant fire extinguisher, one of the oldest jātaka tales in India, are a vast body of literature from India that collects anecdotes about the Buddha's previous lives, mainly in human and animal form. Jataka stories, were depicted on the railings and torans of the stupas.

Once upon a time, a wild fire burnt down a forest. At that time, a pheasant (the previous life of Buddha), who lived in the forest, saw the fire and tried to extinguish it with his own power. The pheasant flew into the water, dipped its feathers in the water and tried to put out the huge fire with drops of water.

However, the fire was too big and the water was too little. The pheasant became tired and feeble from the frequent trips back and forth, but it did not bother him in the slightest. At that moment, the heavenly deity Śakra (Indra: Ref) came and asked the pheasant, “What are you doing?” The pheasant replied, “I am trying to save this forest because I pity sentient beings. This forest is well shaded and suitable for nurturing living beings. Many of my kind and relatives and many more sentient beings all live here as their refuge. I have physical strength. Seeing this fire, how can I be lazy and slothful and not help the forest?”

The Śakra said, “How long do you intend to stay to extinguish the fire?” The pheasant replied, “I intend to stay until I die”. The Śakra said, “Even if thy mind is so, who knows it?” Thereupon the pheasant swore an oath and said, “My heart is supreme sincere. If this belief is not vain, the fire would surely be extinguished."

At this time, the heavenly beings of the Pure Land (the colour world of purity where all desires are renounced), the great aspiration of the pheasant (Bodhisattva = the Buddha), immediately extinguished the fire. From time immemorial to the present, only this forest has always been dense and unburnt by fire.

ブッダから弟子たちへ、ミニシリーズ (12)

雉(ｷｼﾞ)の火消し〜ブッダの前世の物語のひとつ

インドに古くから伝わるジャータカの物語のひとつ「雉の火消し」のお話。ジャータカ(本生譚)とは、インドに伝わる膨大な文献で、主に人間や動物の姿をした釈迦の前世の逸話を集めたものである。ジャータカの物語は、仏塔 (ｽﾄｩｰﾊﾟ) の欄干やドアの装飾品 (ﾄｰﾗﾝ) に描かれていた。

昔むかし、山火事で森が焼けた。その時、森に住んでいた一羽の雉 (釈迦の前世) が火を見て、自分の力で消そうとした。雉は水の中に飛び込み、羽を水につけて水滴で大火を消そうとした。

しかし、火は大きすぎ、水は少なすぎた。雉は何度も何度も往復するうちに疲れて弱くなったが、少しも気にしなかった。その時、天上の帝釈天 (ｼｬｯｸﾗ､ｲﾝﾄﾞﾗ: 参照)がやってきて雉に尋ねた、「汝は何をしているのか？」雉は答えて言った、「私がこの森を救おうとするのは、衆生 (＝いきもの) を哀れむからです。この森は木陰が多く、生き物を育むのに適しています。私の多くの種族や親族、さらに多くの衆生が皆ここをより処として生活しています。私には身体の力があります。この火事を見て、怠り、なまけて、森を助けないでおれましょうか。」

帝釈天は言った、「汝は消火のために努め励んで、どれだけの時間をつくすつもりでいるのか？」雉が答えた、「死ぬまでと決心しています。」帝釈天が言った、「汝の心はそうであるとしても、誰がそれを知っているのであろうか?」そこで雉は誓いを立てて言った、「私の心は至誠であります。この信念が、もしむなしくないならば火は必ず消えるでしょう。」

このとき、浄居天 (あらゆる欲望が断ち切られた清浄な色彩の世界) の天人たちは、雉 (菩薩＝釈迦のこと) の大願を知り、即座にその火を消した。太古の昔から今に至るまで、この森だけは常に鬱蒼としていて、火に焼かれることはない。

#zen #mindfulness #buddhism #buddha #wisdom #philosophy #Jataka tales #art #nature #previous life

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briar-ffxiv · 16 days

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— B A S I C S

Name: Briar (the) Redfeather Nicknames: 'Rose', 'Little Fox', 'Wildling' Age: Early 20s in ARR, probably nearing 30 by Dawntrail (depending on timeline) Nameday: 21st Sun of the 3rd Umbral Moon (not that he knows exactly. He just knows the month) Race: Half-Elezen/Half-Hyur (Padjal bloodline through Hyur) Gender: Non-binary, masculine leaning (born male, prefers he/they) Orientation: Demiromantic Greysexyal Profession: Healer, Shepherd, Warrior of Light(depending on the 'verse)

— P H Y S I C A L A S P E C T S

Hair: strawberry blonde, almost rose gold with lighter gold highlights due to the sun. He has 3A curls, although when kept short the curls are less noticeable. Eyes: warm moss-green flecked with gold Skin: naturally quite pale, faint golden tan from the sun and tons of freckles everywhere. Tattoos/scars: no tattoos. Leaf birthmark on his right shoulderblade. Plenty of scars, including the slice from a spear on his left cheek, burn scars on his left shoulder and back, and rather heavily scarred palms and undersides of his fingers due to a nasty injury to his hands

— F A M I L Y

Parents: His mother was named Saule (Willow) and her family was from Dravania, but sought shelter in the Black Shroud when Saule was very small. His father was known as Ciro, officially U-Ciro-Tek before he was disgraced and exiled from being a Padjal. Siblings: Briar was an only child, as was his mother. Grandparents: Briar knows nothing about Ciro's parents, other than they died some years before he was born. Saule's father died before he was born. His grandmother died when he was under two so he has no memories of her. In-laws and Other: As far as Briar knows, his only living blood relative is E-Rani-Tek, Ciro's older brother and a Padjali pariah. Pets: Briar has a terrible habit of adopting many a creature, although if they are wild-born his goal is always to return them to the wild. Currently, he has a small herd of sheep, a flock of chickens, three Chocobo (one grown, two chicks), a dog named Jack, and a unicorn friend named Whinny. (And a lot of little forest friends that take care of themselves but visit often.)

— S K I L L S

Abilities: Despite normally not eating meat, Briar is a skilled archer, hunter, and tracker. He is an avid gardener. He has a knack for animal handling. He has a decent, if untrained, singing voice. He knows a lot about herbal medicine and non-magical healing. He rides quite well. Hobbies: Briar loves a good book, particularly romance. He loves beekeeping. He is quite skilled in many kinds of fibre arts, including weaving, spinning, and sewing. He likes to draw as well.

— T R A I T S

Most Positive Trait: Briar is a very kind person. He always gives the benefit of the doubt. He does his best to settle things without violence if he can. He forgives often and tries to be empathetic to everyone he meets. Most Negative Trait: Briar can definitely be naive. He forgives when he shouldn't. He has a very hard time understanding why anyone would be cruel. Sometimes he simply doesn't get it and it puts him at a disadvantage with people more than willing to take advantage of that.

— L I K E S

Colours: Blues, greens, golds. Smells: Fresh-cut wood. The smell of rain on grass. Hay. The smell of clean, well-oiled leather. Honey. Textures: Silky fabric. Soft wool. Supple leather. Smooth wood. Drinks: Various teas, often floral varieties. Soft spot for juices. Loves the rare treat of hot chocolate.

— O T H E R D E T A I L S

Smokes: He doesn't. Drinks: He is not against a glass of something fairly light in safe company but left to his own devices, Briar doesn't really have the urge to drink. Drugs: He doesn't. Mount Insurance: He would have no idea what that is, but he does have a unicorn he rides in the Black Shroud, but normally prefers his own feet. (Once he's officially in the steppes, I might get him an actual house.) Been Arrested: Detained by Wood Wailers more than once, but not officially arrested.

(( Art is by @shadesofblades / @coffeehands! ))

Tagged by: @thefrostflower @tripl3cast @sundered-souls - thank you all! <3

Tagging: @shieke @valdiis @shadesofblades @midnightmagicks @bloodredhands @prettygayway @avaritia-ffxiv @calico-heart @thefrostflower @starrysnowdrop @ahollowgrave @naejlas-axe @cadrenebula @skyysinger & anyone else that wants to do it!

#answers #ask briar #character: briar redfeather

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undiscovered-horizon · 11 months

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The King and the Swallow

SUMMARY: Unexpected reunion with his childhood friend and the sworn protector of the royal family takes a dramatic turn when Nikolai inquires about her uncharacteristic, cold demeanour. Confessions are shared - the good ones and the bad ones alike.

WORDCOUNT: ~ 3.7k

>>Grishaverse-inspired playlist<<

"[...] Swallows are believed to bring good luck and prosperity to the household. They are often associated with protecting the family as well. Similarly, the ROYAL SWALLOWS are sworn protectors of the reigning dynasty. As tradition entails, this faction is kept within one lineage, although the actual name is not included in any official documentation, becoming the object of wild speculations. According to the acquired knowledge about Royal Swallows, the next of kin is titled a Swallow only after answering The Call - an ancient, largely unknown, ritual of swearing-in believed to be conducted during the spring equinox when most grains are sowed as a symbol of new beginnings as well as the servitude intrinsic to the role. If there is more than one child in a generation, the oldest of them is assumed the leader and the regalia in the form of a gold pin with a swallow bird are passed on to them. In some regions of Ravka, touching the pin is believed to bring seven generations of good luck to the household. [...]" - excerpt from Factions and groupings in: About courts and gutters. The complete encyclopedia of the known world by Sankt Nikita

The weather leaves a lot to wish for. Grey clouds are covering the once-blue sky, cold wind tugs at clothing and leaves the skin covered in goosebumps even under a substantial amount of layers. The dense air smells of petrichor, although a thunderstorm is yet to come. Perhaps it’s the oncoming rain or the impending battles that make it difficult to breathe. Early spring is about as charming as muddy, rainy autumn. The sounds of soldiers bussing around the base are partially drowned out by rustling leaves, allowing the more naive to lie to themselves that there is, in fact, no war; it’s the wind blowing on their skin and not the grim reaper breathing down their necks.

Nikolai and Dominik grew tired if not frustrated with the restless turmoil inside the fort. Despite both of them being seasoned soldiers, they’re still learning how to lead the war. Constant chattering, yelling, echoing footsteps and loud clattering of army inventory smoked them out of the squalid building. Outside those grey walls, the world appears deceptively calm. If they stand with their backs facing the fort, maybe they can fool themselves into pretending their situation is a lot better than it really is - just for a minute or two, to not go completely mad.

But their relative peace is cut short when a bright screech pierces the cold wind. The blood-chilling sound belongs to a large bird of prey soaring low above their heads.

Nikolai knits his eyebrows. He begins his question but the implications of its answer make him fall silent halfway through: “Is that…?”

“Falcon,” Dominik finishes for him.

Surprisingly, the predator flies straight through an open window into one of the rooms in the fort. A question remains: with the falcon on its perch, where is the falconer? Fortunately, the answer arrives rather quickly:

“It’s the Swallow!” one of the soldiers yells.

Sure enough, a menacing silhouette appears on the horizon: a dark, stocky horse galloping through acres of fields with a cloaked rider on its back. Their robes in colours black, gold and ginger dance on the wind, pulled and tugged by the momentum. Surrounded by floating textiles, the rider appears more like a phantom rather than a person.

The approaching hoofbeat carries subliminal whispers of unsaid words, the echo of days long past and people who haunt others despite still being alive. The horse is slowing down its haste when the impatient rider jumps off the mount’s back. One of the soldiers manages to catch the whipping reins and pull the frenzied horse back towards the stables.

Auburn hair glistens in the dispersed sunlight as she takes the hood off her head. A few stray strands float in the wind. She hasn’t changed much - the freckles pepper her face just as he remembered and the scar splitting her lower lip still makes her look more menacing than she really is. The only difference, as far as he can tell, is that she’s a lot more beautiful than the woman he painted in his imagination during lonely nights. Her green eyes are a shade darker than the emerald he wears on his finger but to his heartache, they are equally cold as the gem.

The first person that made young Nikolai Lantsov realize that maybe girls aren’t, after all, ‘eww’.

“Lann!” his lips call out to her before his mind realizes.

But she only bows curtly. “Another time, your grace.”

The woman marches past him and into the fort. Soldiers flock to her, shoving documents into her hands and reporting on the progress of whatever duties she has given them. Watching her back, Nikolai realizes it’s the very first time in his life he’s seeing the infamous, illusive Harbinger - a claymore sword hidden in a scabbard hanging from her lower back. For a moment he wonders whether it really has decapitated as many terrorists and conspirators as people say. But this pondering is unimportant for now as Nikolai is still coming to terms with the fact that the one person he’s been dreaming of seeing again just brushed him off.

“Did she just ‘another time’ me?” he asks Dominik. “The king?”

His friend only gives him a playful grin. “Maybe she’s still upset about all the thistle you used to put in her hair.”

“She forced my hand!” he answers with a whine hiding in his voice. “It was the only way she’d talk to me instead of Cillian. Where is he anyway?”

Dominik clenches his jaw. Nervous, he scratches his neck before answering. “To be honest, I don’t think he’s with us anymore.”

Nikolai leans in, his voice low as disbelief drips from his words. “Cillian has died?”

“Hard to say what happened but she does wear the pin. Lann showed up two days ago, shortly before you arrived, and just said he’s ‘gone’. Actually, I was going to ask you about that.”

“I haven’t seen either of them since their father was killed. I had no idea she was here.”

“Well, that only complicates things.” Dominik takes off his cap, brushes his fingers through his hair and puts the hat back on. “I know Swallows don’t die in linen bed sheets but still, something horrible must have happened. It’s like something broke inside her. Maybe she’ll talk to you.”

Dominik gives Nikolai an awkward smile before patting his shoulder and leaving the king alone in the courtyard of the fort. The cold wind tugs at his clothes and Nikolai shivers. When did spring get so cold?

Lann is interrupting Dominik and Nikolai’s conversation for the second time today. They’re crowded over maps scattered on the table when she pushes the door open. They creek before the handle hits the wall with a thud and the wooden wing bounces back to close. Her rhythmic, heavy steps resound in the small room, the acoustic turning them into booming hoofbeat.

Aside from the impolite entrance, she announces her arrival only by loudly clicking her heels together. There’s no courtesy towards either of them, just a flood of laconic information:

“Kirigan’s following is growing with each day. His Grisha are fanatics, they’ll do anything he tells them to. From what I’ve gathered, they’re going to hit the First Encampment next but I’m guessing it’s something personal rather than political. Strategically, it’s a useless move. I have also received news from the northern front. They’re holding back Fjerdans but the snow shouldn’t thaw until later next month, leaving them in the cold for approximately another six weeks.”

Her cold, matter-of-fact tone makes Nikolai shiver again. Yes, people tend to become more serious as they grow up and take over important responsibilities but they never turn soulless. It’s as though the person in front of him is but a corpse brought back to life by inexplicably odious magic - rid of humanity, personality and vigour. Still, dismissing the dull ache growing inside his chest, Nikolai does his best to focus on the problem at hand. “Is there anything we can send them?” he asks in the calmest way he can muster.

“I’ve already ordered for proper preparations to be made, your grace.” She gently bows her head while speaking the title. “The shipment will leave tonight.”

Nikolai’s stomach churns. She never called him that. In fact, he can clearly remember Lann promising him that she will never address him properly. An image flashes before his eyes - June, a field behind a barn, a frown that misplaces freckles, thistle in hair, high voice speaking with a lisp: ‘You’re just Kolya’.

“If there are no further questions, I ought to leave to tend to my duties.” Lann’s voice is low and firm, completely different from the childish sound in Nikolai’s memories. Somehow, he’d rather listen to the girl with the lisp again.

The woman nods curtly before leaving the room, loudly shutting the door behind herself. Rushed footsteps resound through the hall, steadily disappearing into the ambient noise befitting a military base. Soon, her presence belongs to memories if not ghosts, considering the imposing way in which she continues to haunt Nikolai.

“I told you, Nikolai.” Dominik must have noticed his pained expression. “Something happened to Cillian and it broke her. She’s a completely different person now.”

The king looks down at the maps but then he shakes his head slightly - there’s simply no way he will just return to planning attacks and defences while Lann is but a shell of the woman he used to know; a phantom he knows by name but not the heart. And Cillian… losing one of the Swallows is a huge blow to Ravka’s assets. More than once in the history of this country did the presence of Royal Swallows make the difference between status quo and ruin. If one of them is ‘gone’, whatever that can mean, and the other has forsaken their humanity, they might as well give up already and let Kirigan take all that he’s going to intercept anyway.

Nikolai clenches his fist and sighs. If not for his own sake, he needs to do this for Ravka - at least that’s what he keeps telling himself. Truthfully, he’s more concerned with Lann’s well-being than his curiosity or worry. “Excuse me,” he murmurs half-comprehensively to Dominik before running out of the room in search of the Swallow.

Lann lets out an exasperated sigh as she hears someone knocking on the door to her bedroom. She rubs her face, pondering whether she should just pretend to be elsewhere. Wondering who might just interrupt her short-lived and rare moment of peace, Nikolai’s face flashes before her eyes. A blade of guilt pierces her chest but she doesn’t seem surprised. Truly, the moment of truth has to come at some point and, despite her own fears, the sooner the better.

“Come in,” she calls out, silently praying that it’s not the king of Ravka that comes with a visit.

The thing about prayers is that they’re not immune to various interpretations by the gods that listen. And some of them, inspired by their own grandeur, decide that they know better than the misers walking the mortal vale. Or, maybe, there are gods that simply revel in doing the opposite of what they’re asked.

The door creaks quietly as someone walks in. Lann looks over her shoulder, for a moment distracted from washing her shirt. Her chest tightens upon recognizing his face, even more so when she sees his pained expression as though her mere presence is breaking his heart. If only he knew… She clenches her jaw and returns to feverishly brushing a dark stain from her clothes.

“Can I be of assistance?” she asks curtly.

Nikolai isn’t quite sure what he expected walking in. Maybe part of him wished that once Lann is sheltered from the awestruck gaze of First Army soldiers, she’ll magically revert to the person he remembered - the relentless girl he knew nearly a decade ago. Alas, she’s nowhere to be found.

He watches her back as she’s aggressively washing a cotton shirt. Nikolai realizes that Dominik was telling the truth - she is, in fact, wearing the symbolic gold pin in her hair. It’s holding up the low bun, a coil of auburn hair that probably looked a lot more neat a few hours ago, in the morning. Not having expected guests, she’s standing over the basin wearing only a bra, revealing countless scars littering her back. Nikolai takes a deep breath, trying to ground himself. Deep lines of red, pink and white scattered across her skin look equally painful and imposing. His mind slips into wondering how much pain she had to endure during those past ten years but his imagination is, despite everything, limited. Nikolai’s gaze slips off her back, partially flustered by the unexpected show of skin and the implications of having as many scars as she does. His eyes are drawn to the long, heavy-looking sword propped up on three wooden y-shaped sticks. Harbinger, one of the finest pieces of armoury that has left the royal forge. The sharpened and waxed iron glistens in the dim light of the small fire burning inside the crude hearth. The angle at which the light dances off the edge of the blade allows Nikolai to easily read the inscription along the fuller: Virtue guide your hand. Judging by the deep scars and the fact she’s still alive, Lann must keep true to those words.

That thought brings his attention back to her and her only. The strange cold tension that presses down on his chest is something he’d never associate with her. Nikolai begins to wonder whether he’s the one removed from reality - perhaps his longing has painted her holy and not just human.

“Can we talk, Lann?” he breaks the silence. “Not Swallow to the king, just us.”

The sound of the brush hitting the ceramic basin startles him. She grips the sides of the bowl and hangs her head. Nikolai is about to apologize for interrupting and leave, clearly having annoyed her with his unforeseen presence, when he hears the voice he’s been missing for so long:

“I killed him, Kolya.”

The whisper is barely audible, making Nikolai doubt his own senses for a moment. Maybe he wants to speak with her so desperately, his mind is conjuring the conversation so he doesn’t abandon his sanity just yet.

“I killed…” she speaks again but chokes on a sob. “I killed Cillian. I had to, he-”

Lann turns around to look at him and Nikolai feels as though he’s seeing for the first time - really seeing her, not the cold exterior she greeted him with earlier. Her eyes are bloodshot and surrounded by a greyish-purple halo as though she hasn’t slept in weeks. She takes in a ragged breath but it’s not enough to calm her down - her lips quiver and tears stream down her face. There’s no telling how long she’s been holding this in.

“He was conspiring against the crown.”

Another memory causes turmoil inside Nikolai’s mind: August, the morning after a thunderstorm, skinny boy with ginger curls, a mischievous smile, a mean-looking bullfrog: ‘I bet my dessert you won’t touch it.’

Nikolai furrows his eyebrows. Either unable or unwilling to accept this course of events, he shakes his head. “What are you talking about?”

“He was aiding General Kirigan. The idea to put the poison on Genya’s skin? The location of the Spinning Wheel?” She falls silent but leaves her mouth slightly agape as though she’s fighting herself to say something more. “Our father’s death?” she adds barely audibly.

“By the Saints…” he mutters under his breath. “How can you be sure?”

“Someone mistook Rudy,” the bird sitting on a perch in the corner of the room screeches at the mention of his name, “for Cillian’s falcon and I got his mail. I didn’t check the name on the envelope and just opened it, read through it and…” Lann hangs her voice for a moment. Nikolai doesn’t rush her. “I broke into his office when he wasn’t around, read through whatever documents he didn’t get to burn yet. It was all there: Kirigan’s empty promises, locations, dates, names, formulas. A whole coup d’etat across the hall from me and I never suspected a thing.”

Nikolai looks at her with obvious confusion. “It’s not your fault, Lann-”

“It is!” she yells. Tears are streaming down her face, performing a slight danse macabre on her shaking chin. Strangely enough, her grimace shows disgust rather than sadness. “I gave Cillian the poison that killed the king. I never once questioned why he would need Belladonna or aqua regia, only asked ‘How much?’. And the Spinning Wheel? He told me to make an inventory of the defenses and I only asked him when he’d like to have it done. All of this,” she frantically gestures around, “is because of me.”

“He was your brother,” Nikolai drones the word. Maybe he and Vasily didn’t always see eye to eye but he’d never even considered the possibility of his half-brother being a schemer. “Of course, you didn’t suspect him of treason. Saints, even I find it hard to believe.”

Lann steps towards him. An accusatory finger pointing towards herself. “But I should have. This is the only duty I have in this life. I bent the knee before the king and promised to keep him and his family safe. I failed at that. The only thing I was supposed to do, I-”

“Hey, stop this,” Nikolai interrupts her in a firm but gentle tone. His hands shot up to cradle her face out of some deeply ingrained instinct because he realizes his actions only when he feels her skin underneath his fingers. Berating himself for not asking her first, Nikolai is about to pull away but discards that silly idea when Lann leans into his palms. “Cillian’s wrongdoings have nothing to do with you. He may have betrayed the king but you remained loyal. You have kept your given word, no matter how difficult it was. I don’t know if I would have been equally brave.”

Her body shakes as she’s trying to calm down her breathing. It works maybe for a few seconds before another flood of salty tears rushes down her red, swollen cheeks. Lann would look tragically beautiful like one of the paintings hanging in the halls of Little Palace, if Nikolai could see past the haunting misery inside her eyes.

“If I did the right thing, why does it hurt so much?”

Nikolai feels his own throat clenching. This overwhelming powerlessness sets his fingertips ablaze, his own body begging him to do something, anything, to ease the devouring frustration burning his lungs and ribs.

“Because you still love him, despite everything.” A sad, humourless smile appears on his face. “You’ve always been a little too good.”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment and he doesn’t try coaxing anything out of her. Judging by her vacant stare, Lann wouldn’t notice a fly if it sat on the tip of her nose. Nikolai feels his stomach churning when his thoughts begin suggesting to him that she really does appear like a corpse brought back to life - soulless, lacking the vigour that all things animated require to remain alive.

Suddenly, Lann wraps her arms around his neck and buries her face in his chest. “What am I going to do without him, Kolya?” she cries into his shirt. Nikolai has a tight grip around her shoulders, clearly unwilling to let her go anytime soon. In all of his selfishness, he refuses to admit that this close embrace is more to curb his longing heart rather than bring her comfort. “This loneliness, it’s… If I have to bear it for a day more, I think I will die. It’s like there’s this hole, an abyss shaped like Cillian inside my chest and no one else will ever fit in there.”

“I know I can’t replace Cillian,” he begins slowly, thoughtfully, as he brushes his fingers through her hair, “I don’t even want to, but I’ll gladly be the resin that keeps you whole. If you let me, that is.”

To Nikolai’s dismay, Lann leans away from him but only enough to look at his face. His arm is still secured around her waist, keeping her body close to his. Maybe one day he’ll tell her how often he has dreamed of this very moment, imagining how her frame would fit him and how lovely her hands would feel against him.

“My grief is my problem,” she states firmly, although her trembling voice rids her of all seriousness. “You’ve got more important things to do. You’re king, you have a country to rule and a war to wage.”

Nikolai offers her a gentle smile, half-hoping to ease the tension that unchangeably makes him feel like the walls are closing in on them. “And what kind of miserable king am I going to be without my trusty Swallow?”

Lann knits her eyebrows in a sense of disbelief - did he not listen to her confession? Her repeated admission is explicit: “I killed my own brother after aiding him in a coup. I should be in the gallows.”

“Then it’s a good thing that I’m the king.” Patiently, Nikolai wipes tears off her face with his thumbs. “I need you, Lann. What words do I have to say to convince you that I truly want you by my side?”

Lann shakes her head. A breathy sigh of defeat leaves her mouth. She’ll forever remain oblivious to the heartache this little gesture of yielding is causing Nikolai. With closed eyes, she pleads: “Just tell me you forgive me.”

“I hold no grudge against you.”

“Please, Kolya.”

He studies her tired face for a moment. For the first time, Nikolai realizes that kinghood is akin to godhood - the judgment of people whose only sin is trying their best. “I forgive you. For everything that you’ve done and didn’t manage to do, I forgive you. I hope you can forgive me too.”

Before Lann can ask about his enigmatic words, Nikolai is pouring his desperation and longing into a long overdue kiss. Without hesitation, she returns the affection but this bliss doesn’t last long as guilt begins to creep up her spine again. Fighting her own desire, Lann turns her face away from Nikolai who opts for pecking her temple and cheeks, hardly capable of taming his yearning.

“This can’t be.” Lann’s whisper makes him halt his frenzied affection. She puts her hand against his chest but doesn’t push him away. “I’m a fratricide.”

“And I’m a bastard,” he answers casually as if those shameful titles carry no importance inside their microcosm. “We fit each other well, if I may say so.” Tenderly, Nikolai wraps his fingers around her wrist, keeping her hand against his chest. The longer his eyes study Lann’s face, the more his expression softens, soon becoming a painting of uninhibited adoration.

“Loving me is a disgrace to you.”

“Then I hope to never know virtue.”

She closes the distance between them, forcefully kissing him but Nikolai doesn’t seem to mind bumping noses or clashing teeth - all of that is laughable and unimportant compared to the warm softness of her lips against his. It’s everything he’s been imagining and so much more at the same time. Lann tastes like fresh berries and sour lemonade on a summer afternoon, making Nikolai wish he could relish this flavour for the rest of his life.

#nikolai lantsov #nikolai lantsov imagine #nikolai imagines #nikolai lantsov fanfiction #shadow and bone fanfic #shadow and bone fanfiction #shadow and bone imagine #shadow and bone

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trancylovecraft · 7 months

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(KNY) YANDERE PLATONIC! KOKUSHIBO x SISTER READER: You, Shibou. I, Kokoro (CHAPTER TEN)

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CHAPTER TEN: "I witness that a lot of people are dying because they consider that life is not worth living."

NOTE: Next chapter WILL be late due to me going on vacay! Juuuust wanted to get a chap out before I go lol!

Thanatophobia is the fear of death, Originating from the Greek "Thanatos" meaning death. People who suffer from this are extremely afraid of death and may have excessive thoughts about it.

This coupled with something like Suicidal Desire can create a reckless sort of behaviour. Making a person actively seek their death due to the fact they cannot do it themselves out of fear.

The smell of burnt gunpowder lingered in the cold night's air, Bursts of vivid colour exploding in the sky and fizzling out into sparks mid-flight. The entire sky was alight with hue's of reds, blues and purples lighting up the atmosphere.

The bitter liquor ran down her throat yet it barely burned as it went down, Her tongue trained to the taste and the fire tamed in due time.

[F/N] gazed out over the city of Osaka from the balcony of her inn. The festival in full swing below her, The sounds of laughing and festivities were low and echoed from the tall height their room sat at.

She gazed upon the fireworks, Enraptured within the colourful dance as she took another swig of her sake. A bottle she snaked from the bar below, Her hands trained to steal took it with relative ease and replaced it with the coins it cost.

It wasn't something meant for someone of her age. Her younger frame and the baby fat only just burned off from her face showed her mid-teenage years, Only around fifteen to be precise.

The night was chilling, Making her tug the dragon-patterned haori over her shoulders just a little more. The wind ran through her, The height she was at made it blow just a bit more intense as the mouth of the bottle pressed against her lips.

As the next round of sake pooled on her tongue, [F/N] could hear the soft patter of footsteps approach from behind her.

"Heyy~! What'cha doin up so early?" Mitsuri teased, Her bodyweight pressing up against the balcony railing to match [F/N]'s own pose. Her cheeks full of colour and a wide smile shining brighter than her eyes played on her face.

[F/N] smirked a little as she lowered the bottle.

"Can't sleep.. Not with this noise anyways." [F/N] responded as she gestured to the lively crowds below them in the streets, The stalls packed and laughing echoed from the tall buildings.

"Still, We're gonna head out soon and you haven't gotten any rest.. This isn't the first time you've done this y'know!" Mitsuri teased as she slowly swayed back and forth with a hum.

[F/N] shrugged as her eyes met Mitsuri's form. Her unbrushed hair let loose out of her usual braids and the baggy uniform she wore was lazily put on, Obviously haven just woken up from her nap during the day.

Even so she seemed as lively as she always did. Something that made [F/N]'s smile soften, Seeming much more genuine than it did before.

"Okay, Mom." [F/N] teased lightly as she turned back to take another swig "If I get a chance I'll rest for a little bit, Okay?"

Mitsuri's eyes landed on the glass bottle, Watching the bitter liquid slosh around inside the container as another rush of it entered her mouth. Mitsuri couldn't help the slight frown appear on her face.

"You know you shouldn't be drinking that stuff, Mama says it's really bad for kids like us. Even then I can't believe you like the taste, The stuff's yucky!" Mitsuri stuck her tongue out in a display of playful disgust.

[F/N] giggled a little bit as she swallowed, Covering her mouth to make sure it didn't bring up any residue.

"Tsuri', We watched your mother pick a fight barehanded with a wild racoon for rummaging in your trash." [F/N] chuckled as she shook her head. "I think I know what's good for me, Mkay?"

"If you say so!" Mitsuri huffed yet the smile tugging at her lips couldn't be extinguished.

[F/N] turned her eyes back to the display of fireworks exploding further ahead into the city, Bursts of burning sparks igniting into the most beautiful colours to reflect in their eyes. The glassy look of her sclera mimicking it greatly.

[F/N] smirked.

"..Besides, It's not the taste I like." She admitted as her eyes trailed down to the bottle held like a gun in her hands. Tightly gripped with care as she examined the clear yet pungent smelling booze mixing with the fading gunpowder.

"Then what do you like about it?" Mitsuri asked as she pursed her lips and looked at [F/N] in confusion.

"It's the affect it gives me, It makes me feel warm inside. That's what I like about it." [F/N] smiled half-heartedly as she rested her free palm on her chest. The spoken effect already starting to take affect as she felt the light blur in her mind.

"Seriously? You always wake up grumpy afterwards though, Can't make you feel that good." Mitsuri rebutted, Her lip quirked to the side in confusion.

"Not if I drink more." [F/N] shrugged as she took another drink, Eyes still trapped upon the fireworks and the city set alight in celebration. She didn't even seem to take in Mitsuri's words but instead took in more of the bitter liquor into her system.

Mitsuri looked like she wanted to say more, To open her mouth and object but she resisted in turn.

Instead she just turned her head back to the show above them, Wind brushing through her hair and leaving only the faintest of chills in it's wake.

"Anything else you been thinking about? You seem out of it, Kinda.. Distant?" Mitsuri asked. Recalling the past few days they had been travelling, Noticing the way [F/N] always seemed to be in thought when they spoke.

"Well.. A few things honestly, Nothing much really just kinda complicated thoughts" She sighed half-heartedly though her eyes narrowed in on nothing in particular, Nothing in sight but a picture vivid in her head.

"You can tell me if you want to, There's nothing I won't understand. You know that right?" Mitsuri reassured softly. A comforting tone both tended to use with one and other, All since the day they first met.

[F/N] shrugged once more yet this time she bit her lip.

"Really?" She prompted as she stared into the honest green of her best friend's eyes. The way the fireworks bursting hues reflected off them as they exploded in the air only shown truth.

"Really." Mitsuri hummed with a gentle smile with [F/N] returning it in kind. [F/N] inhaled, Taking in a deep breath before she spoke.

"…I'm just not that motivated lately. I've been thinking about my purpose to be honest with you.. Life stuff. It just kinda feels like I'm having a mid-life crisis when I'm only fifteen and that just feels really stupid to me.." [F/N] admitted as she played with the bottle.

Between the two girls it was [F/N] who had always been the mature one. Ever since they met it had been like that. She often abstained from activities other kids liked to enjoy such as playing with Temari Balls or wrestling in the mud.

Instead she often stood back and watched. Most times with either a book or a pen and paper, Mostly favouring her time being spent on wondering how much money she needed to earn for dinner that night or how long she could go without eating at all.

[F/N] never really was much of a kid. More of an adult in a kid's body, Carried herself as such too. Even back then she never cracked a smile or laughed at all, Instead speaking with a polite yet monotonous tone.

Mitsuri hummed, Tasting [F/N]'s words on her tongue.

"Well you came along with me to become a slayer for a reason, Right? We're doing this because we wanna help people and protect the ones we care about!" Mitsuri proclaimed as she lightly swayed back and forth.

"..Well.. And maaaybe help me find a husband too but.." Mitsuri added on quickly, Her blush burning bright as she fanned her cheeks.

[F/N] didn't speak, Instead choosing to look down at the bottle. She examined the light reflecting off the polished and sharply cut glass as her eyes narrowed at it.

"..You've been doing that a lot as well. You keep looking at your drinks and food like you personally despise them, It's weird. I'm maybe starting to think this is a deeper issue?" Mitsuri prodded.

As soon as she mentioned the way [F/N] was looking at her liquor her gaze instantly softened and glanced away from it, Away in the other direction as she pouted slightly.

"It's nothing. I'm fine, Really. I don't know why I told you, I shouldn't of said anything.." [F/N] trailed off, Shaking her head in dismissal.

The burn in her chest seemed like it just wasn't from the liquor anymore. It was desire, One she couldn't act on. How dearly she wanted to tell her the truth, Let it all out to her but there were no words to say.

There were, But there wasn't at the same time. How can you just say all of that to someone? How could you say it without writing it down on paper to log everything, Saying it is so difficult. There was no way she could say anything aloud.

Besides, [F/N] didn't want to worry Mitsuri. She was her best friend and bringing her own sorrow onto her was the last thing [F/N] wanted to do. Mitsuri was a happy person and [F/N] wanted to keep it that way.

She agreed with this once she turned back to meet Mitsuri's concerned face, As such she decided to act quickly.

Reaching into the small satchel hanging loose from her shoulders she fished out something covered in cloth. The navy felt wrapped around it dropped from the her grasp as she pulled it out.

"Besides.. I've got other things to worry about right now." [F/N] said as she held the Kitsune mask in both of her hands. The dark sapphire eyes staring right into the irises of it's owner with a soulless glare.

Mitsuri's eyes widened in interest as she nudged closer on the balcony towards [F/N]. Eyes locked onto the festival mask held so tightly in [F/N]'s palms.

"Woah, No way! Isn't that the spooky-cursed-thingy you got a while back?" Mitsuri gasped as she leaned over to examine the structure of it herself. Chartreuse eyes gleaming with a spark of interest as she recognised it.

"Mhm.. Took the sword with me so I felt it was only right I'd take the mask too.." [F/N] replied as she stared into the porcelain.

"Ah, Okay! You ever gonna try it out or use it? It might be a good time to use it cause of the festival and all- Oh my gosh that reminds me! Did you see all the snack vendors and festival games? I'm dying to try them all!" Mitsuri squealed as she rapidly fanned her overheating cheeks.

Her short attention span distracted her from the previous topic, Good, It was something [F/N] predicted and something that was for the best. [F/N] smiled and shook her head as she put the mask back into the satchel.

As for it, [F/N] was conflicted on whether to use it or not. The way it made her feel or the way it made her look just didn't seem like her at all, It made her different, Someone she wasn't yet even then [F/N] kind of preferred it that way.

For the short time she used it before she felt more carefree. Less people asked questions about her and less worried, It was good. [F/N] liked that.

"We can't waste time with the activities there, Mitsuri. We're here to slay a demon, Not relax or play games." [F/N] argued softly as she placed a hand on Mitsuri's shoulder, Who was currently.

"Oh come onnnnn, [F/N]. Live life a little! They have goldfish scooping and are doing one of those shinto-play thingy's that you like so much! Can't we have just a tiny little detour?" Mitsuri pouted as she quickly pulled out a brochure from her taffy-coloured haori and shoved into [F/N]'s free hand.

[F/N] chuckled but still stood adamantly as she looked down at the brochure.

"I told you! We can't waste time with meaningless activities!" [F/N] laughed as she rubbed Mitsuri's shoulder to try and calm her down, Which was useless because Mitsuri was practically shaking in excitement.

"Come onnn! Not even just a single goldfish?" Mitsuri pouted, Tilting her head towards [F/N].

"Nope." [F/N] replied.

"Please?"

"No."

"Pleaaaaseee?"

"Noooooo…"

"Please with extra cherries?"

"I hate cherries."

"Liar! You love cherries."

"I love the smell, Not the taste."

"I don't think I can be friends with you after learning that information but pleaaasee?"

"Nada."

"Plea-"

"If you two keep arguing like this I fear that we may never slay that demon in time!" The voice of Shinobu cut through the two's bickering.

[F/N]'s shoulders raised as she snapped her body round to meet the other girl, Who was to the other side of her and leaning against the balcony.

"Ah! Sorry Shinobu-chan! But you agree that you would also like to see the festival too right?" Mitsuri butted in, Leaning over the side of the balcony to meet Shinobu's constant grin and teasing façade.

Shinobu hummed, Bringing a hand up to her chin.

"Well I do think that we should slay the demon. But I suppose it wouldn't hurt if we did spend a little time enjoying ourselves. These things only come around once a year so if we slay the demon quickly we might have time to see the parade." Shinobu concluded with a smile as she turned around to meet Mitsuri.

"Oh not you too, Shinobu-san.." [F/N] dramatically groaned. Shoulders deflating as she realised she was outnumbered by her comrades.

"Yay! Come on then! Let's go slay the demon so I can catch goldfish. Let's go, Let's go, Let's go!" Mitsuri cheered as her hands lunged for both [F/N] and Shinobu's palms. Taken off guard they were both lugged along by Mitsuri's inhuman strength.

"Agh!" [F/N] exclaimed, Taken by surprise as she was swiftly dragged along out of the inn's room.

"Oh good! Let's get moving, Girls!" Shinobu however kept smiling as she complied with Mitsuri's hyperactivity, Giggling along with Mitsuri as they ran out. The cold night's air barely bothering the two.

[F/N] wiped the sweat off her brow and sighed. Keeping up with the two's more upbeat behaviour has always been a job of it's own.

Though as the saying goes that if you choose a job that you like, You'll never have to work a day in your life which [F/N] could attest to.

She only smiled a little as they ran towards their next mission. Hand being tugged along by Mitsuri as she thought on her own. Even though the two had enough energy for a hundred people, [F/N] could still feel the phantom taste of the bitter sake on her tongue wear her down.

Though she could admit she was having fun she also had to say that it was dampened by her own feelings. The feelings she had been fighting against for a while now and ones that seemed to get even more pungent everyday.

But it didn't matter. She had a job to do, Work is to be done so she shut out her feelings once more and smiled instead.

It seemed like it was better that way, Anyways.

☆♡☆

"Well.. I certainly see what you meant by hopeless"

[F/N]'s voice echoed far, Her own realising tone reflecting back at her in a yell. Her eyes were wide as she stared over the cavern, Hands on her hips as her jaw was lain slack at the sight.

It was huge, So much so that she couldn't see the bottom. Stairs and doors getting smaller and smaller as it went down, All until it was only a speck in this accursed dimensions horizon. The fact that it had a horizon like the normal world was terrifying.

There was a strong wind rushing through the cavern, It was fresh too, Not like the indoor air but organic and powerful.

[F/N] stood at the edge of a dock. The end of it was destroyed or rather fell off down into the cavern below.

It was like tectonic plates moving away from each other. One of them was the sea of nothingness with docks spread everywhere, The other was a a labyrinth of doors, walls, staircases and millions of other structures. The two only separated by a wide split, One which was further than valleys or fields she'd ever seen before.

They were like files kept in a drawer. Different files archived on top of each other, Different worlds sat side by side. Herself standing on only one of what seemed to be millions.

It was so surreal, [F/N] was basically a speck of dust compared to the Infinity castle. She had to steady herself on the dock to make sure she didn't fall off into the infinite expansion of a pit below.

"You understand that you won't be able to escape from here? If you tried to jump down it would take hours for you to fall only to be killed. And there's no way you could climb upwards because there isn't any point for you to scale on." Akaza said, His voice echoing and repeating back to her tenfold.

[F/N]'s eyes however weren't resting on the demon stood beside her, Instead they were sat on the abyss of architecture below as she contemplated her next move. Her eyes wandered along the wide wooden border keeping the ocean in at her world, Her brows furrowed.

"How was I not able to come across this earlier? You know, When I ran for the first time. It just looped back around." [F/N] commented absentmindedly as she locked down on the rimmed gate keeping the entire pocket of abyss she was in.

Akaza shrugged.

"This is the only route that hasn't been changed by the biwa demon throughout my time coming here. Figured that this must have some kind of anchoring effect or something.." Akaza replied but he sounded just as confused as she did.

[F/N] sighed as she ignored the implications of his significant memory, Already accepting it through all the other craziness.

"Alright.. So I also need to memorize the escape route. There's another thing to add to my list." She groaned in slight irritation as she took a mental note of the chore.

"You have a list?" Akaza questioned, Looking over at her with a scrutinizing gaze.

"Erm.. Yeah. Got an issue with that?" [F/N] hissed lowly as she looked back at him with an equally-as-venomous glare.

"No. You do whatever, I don't give a shit" Akaza spat back and shook his head as he turned around to look down the cavern again.

[F/N] did the same as she stared down into the new void. She could almost hear the cogs in her head clash and clank against each other as they got to work. Hopeless, Akaza said. The cogs seemed to ignite the lightbulb that hung over her head.

"Hmm.." [F/N] hummed as she surveyed the unnaturally polished wood. The wind repeatedly hit at her face, The skirt of her kimono whipping back and forth as she nudged closer to the edge.

"Hey! What are you doing, You have a death wish or something?" Akaza scolded, His hand grappling onto her shoulder with his nails digging in. Yet the pain never bothered her as she turned back to look at him.

"So.. You said earlier that there was an exit door somewhere down in that hellhole, Right?" [F/N] questioned as she started to tug at her kimono, The front of it easily coming undone as she shook Akaza's hand off.

"Yeah, There is but you won't be able to get to it." Akaza rebutted as he watched her take off the emerald sunset of fabric, The garment too big and loose for what she was about to do and leaving her in only a snow white Susuyoke and Hadajuban. "What the hell are you undressing for?! Try have some decency!"

"Lost that years ago. Now you mentioned that the biwa demon character moves the castle around to her will, Correct? If that's true then how often does she change it around here?" [F/N] asked once more, Near shouting over the power of the wind as she did.

"She only started changing the shrine section assumedly once you showed up but the docks don't change. We're near the outskirts of the castle and away from the centre, Doesn't change anything near here but why? What are you planning to do?!" Akaza argued as he watched her stretch out a hand and present it to him.

"I'm gonna see what's below, For that I need you to hold onto me while I hang from the side of the ledge." [F/N] explained, Nudging her hand further towards him as she stared him dead in the eyes.

Akaza's jaw dropped open, It was the last thing he had expected to hear from the rather weak looking girl as he gawked at the mere idea she proposed. He double-taked before taking a heavy step towards her, Making the dock below it creak rather aggressively.

"No. Are you fucking crazy?! What the hell makes you think that'll get you anywhere?!" Akaza near yelled at her as he got up in her face again. His sharpish teeth were bared and near breathing saliva at just the thought.

[F/N]'s nose scrunched up and her lip turned into a near snarl.

"I don't see why you're so angry, Akaza. I just want to see what's under here and I want you to help me do it." [F/N] argued lowly as she levelled down to meet his kanji-adorned eyes, Her own shining with the exact same fire to match his perfectly.

"Why I'm angry? Forget that, Why the hell do you trust me so much to keep you steady from the ledge? What if I drop you?!" Akaza argued back, A clawed finger pointing into [F/N]'s chest to emphasise his point.

"I don't trust you, I trust that you want to kill Kokushibo.. Well, That and your demon strength that can hold my weight, That is." [F/N] replied as she carelessly tossed her shamrock coloured kimono behind her down the dock.

Akaza moved back a few steps, Looking at her like she was insane but at this point that wasn't much of a stretch. He looked her up and down and once he realised she had no doubts about putting herself into a potentially fatal situation, He snapped his jaw shut and stared at her with wide eyes.

[F/N] on the other hand pushed it further towards Akaza, Urging him to take it.

"Come on, As I told you Akaza, I'm a Hashira. And as much as that title doesn't fit me I can say with certainty that I'll be able to scale this stupid ledge, So take my hand and lets do this." [F/N] pressed on.

Akaza looked back up at her expression, Of which was as cold as steel and as firm as such too. She looked at him with such chilling determination that it near ran a shiver down his spine, A feeling he hadn't felt in a long time.

"Fine, But we need to be quick. Upper six might figure out we've left and could alert Upper one." Akaza spat as he wrapped his taloned fingers around [F/N]'s palm and nodded. [F/N] in turn smirked slightly.

"I'll be as quick as I can be." [F/N] agreed as she lowered down onto her knees, Akaza's hand still squeezing her palm as she got down onto her backside.

[F/N]'s legs dangled off the edge of the rickety dock. She stared down towards the endless abyss of Japanese architecture below and took a deep breath in to steel her nerves, Her empty hand gripping onto the end of the dock while the other gripped tightly onto Akaza's.

"Ready?" Akaza prompted. [F/N] responded with a sharp inhale and a hum of confirmation. Closing her eyes she took in one large breath.

And then she dropped.

[F/N] fell from the ledge, Gravity pulling her body towards the ground as her weight started to accelerate. The wind rushed through her hair and her undergarments, Her eyes clasped shut in anticipation.

THUMP!

[F/N]'s body slammed against the side of the ledge, Making her yelp out in surprise. Her acceleration was cancelled out by the firm grip of Akaza who was draped over the side, Making it so she could be further down.

"Good gods-..!" [F/N] exclaimed in pain as her body hit against the ledge. Her skin firing up in pain as her body swung side to side slowly, Only kept elevated by the claws digging into her hand.

"I thought you said you were ready?" Akaza called out from above her, Though [F/N] could hear the mockery dripping from his tone like the water leaking over the ledge. It made her huff in annoyance.

"Shut it!" [F/N] yelled back as she gripped a hand onto the carved side of the edge, Trying to steady her swaying movements and her rapidly pounding heart. Her breath turned to vapour in the rushing chill of the winds.

[F/N] dared to look down from her position and saw the infinite abyss much closer than it was before, [F/N] watched her legs hang above it. It was almost like the entire castle was trying to reach out to her, Aching, Desperately trying to pull her down and make her fall.

Fall. If she did then that was it for her, If Akaza's grip slipped from her hold then she would be nothing but smashed organs and flesh. Destroyed bits of membrane smeared across some demon's flooring.

[F/N] could tell that the saying was true, Stare into the abyss and it will stare back. It felt almost alive as she glared.

"Hey? Aren't you going to get to work? I told you to hurry up!" Akaza scolded as he saw her phased out expression as she gazed into the castle interior below, But he raised a brow at her sudden disassociation.

[F/N] quirked a lip, Her free hand sweeping the hair hitting her face away from her vision. She could barely hear Akaza over the turbulence, Both of the aggressive atmosphere and the thoughts coming back to her head.

Drop. It would be so easy, So why was she hesitating? Why was her body still holding onto Akaza for dear life? It seemed like that's how it's been lately, Her body and her mind had different ideas for their future. Conflicting each other, Going to war.

Her body ached for survival, Some kind of primal instinct embedded into every single living thing on the planet and one her mind wanted to erase entirely. Her mind ached for release, Wanting an end to the tunnel.

The grip on Akaza's hand started to.. Slip. At first it was just a twitch of her palm, But then it was the lift of a single finger. Then another, Then another.. Then just one more until she'd start to fall-

"Gods! You are weak! I can't believe your a damned Hashira!" Akaza yelled out and his free hand shot out and grappled onto her wrist, Stopping her descent entirely. His teeth were bared and his forehead had a vein popping out.

[F/N] blinked once, A sudden dim light reappearing back in her eyes. She looked around once, Realising where she was and what she was doing before the tight grip on Akaza's hand returned once more.

"Shit.. My bad, I don't know what came over me there!" [F/N] called out as she bit her lip in confusion. [F/N] looked up towards Akaza and nodded once towards him. He wouldn't let her fall, Not when she was considered valuable to him.

"Lower me!" She yelled.

Akaza looked back at her, Examining the expression that seemed more reeled into the situation before nodding back. He moved a little further over the side, Legs kept firmly locked into a nook in the dock as [F/N] lowered down a little more.

She snapped her head round dead centre. The ledge she was hanging over was gigantic, Extremely, It was both taller and wider than her herself. But as Akaza lowered her further and further, Her sandals near slipping off her feet she could now see the underside of it.

Her eyes widened as she saw the vast beneath of the slice of hell she lived on. Her eyes scattered around and the dim light started to burn with idea's, The cogs in her head kicking up once more.

The way the underside was designed was like a table, It seemed larger than it was on the outside but when she looked underneath it dipped.

Below it had quite intricately designed structure beams going across the entire way, Thee way the architecture was ingrained into the beams made them tightly pact with hooks and curves carved in.

[F/N]'s eyes squinted, Trying to see further ahead. It was around the staggering length of a football field, At the end of it there was several pillars and clusters of misplaced walls and structures. They were all clumped together, Making it almost a staircase for her to use.

It was beautifully made, But also an opportunity. [F/N]'s eyes ran across the carvings and infrastructure as a sly smirk started to shape her face. The cogs finally clicked, The lightbulb brightened.

"What are you seeing?" Akaza called out from above as she surveyed the scene, Near seeing the mechanics work in her head as he watched her face light up.

"Opportunity, And I've seen enough. Pull me back up!" [F/N] yelled back, Glancing at him once with that working gaze before he nodded.

Locking his legs further onto the dock he started to haul her up with relative ease. Her body weight was nothing but a feather for his demonic strength as she ascended, Higher and higher until her upper chest was draped over the ledge.

Akaza grabbed her by the shoulders, Hoisting her full body over and up onto the dock once more. She groaned in effort as she rolled over onto her back, Staring up to the dark sky above them as she rendered the shrine section.

"Thanks.." [F/N] breathed heavily, Out of breath from both the high stress situation and the effort she had to put in to pull herself up. She lain there on the old and freezing dock, Listening to the sound of the waves as she tried to calm down.

Akaza on the other hand leaned over her, Looking at her like a rather irritating rodent who washed up on the shore. He clicked his tongue once as his annoyed visage bore into hers.

"The hell was up with that earlier? You almost died and all of this trouble I've gone through could've been for nothing!" Akaza hissed as he watched her haul herself up into a sitting position.

"I told you. Dunno what came over me, Alright?" [F/N] said absentmindedly "Anyways, Contrary to what you said earlier it is certainly not hopeless." She added on.

Akaza raised a brow. From what he had learned throughout his years of coming here there wasn't any visible way down from here. The outskirts haven't changed in decades, Could he have missed something?

[F/N] got up from the ground. Pushing herself up with a single hand and a groan as she raised to meet him eye to eye.

"Anyways I know what I need to do now, Well both me and you really. I actually need you to get some stuff for me." [F/N] said as she dusted off the dock's soot from her snowy underclothing.

Akaza groaned.

"What do you want?" He asked.

"A few things.. Maybe.. Uh.. Oh right. As much rope as you can get me, The strong kind. A surplus of nails and erm.. Could use a few tools too, A hammer might be nice.. Just anything you can get me" [F/N] explained as she counted the items on her fingers.

Akaza's jaw dropped, Realising the implications as his head shook in slight disbelief.

"You want to scale the fucking infinity castle, Don't you?"

"Yep."

Akaza raised a hand and pinched his temples, Almost sensing the oncoming headache this one human being was giving him. The sheer audacity to think that she could somehow maneuver her way down into the outskirts of the castle.

If she died then the stress he went through with this deal would be to waste. If she did die, Kaigaku might link him to her death when explaining it to Kokushibo. If that happened it meant he would go down with her.

But as his dandelion hued irises met back up with hers he could see the confidence burning in her retinas. It was a look he somehow recognised, That old connection clicking in the back of his mind, One from his human life.

He shook it off however. He had no time for that kind of useless reminiscence.

"What makes you think you'll be able to do something like that?" Akaza asked rather harshly as he signalled his hand towards the void below, Reminding her of her position.

[F/N] shrugged.

"Cause I'm a Hashira?" She said as if it was obvious, Using her title once more as a trump card of sorts to get her way.

Akaza looked back at her, Remembering her so called title. The fact that she was a Hashira still didn't register to him, Her weak frame and out-of-practice muscles telling him otherwise. He huffed.

"Last time I checked, Hashira couldn't about a hundred metres with only rope and nails to do so. I'm not letting you die until we finish this deal" Akaza repeated back to her like it was obvious.

[F/N] in turn clenched her fists. She knew Akaza wouldn't let her do this, Her only escape route. He wouldn't let her do this, Not without a good enough reason. It made the spark inside her light up again, The one from when Kokushibo gave her the hairpin.

It was that angry spark, The one she had been feeling more and more lately and the one she tried to dwindle into annoyance.

"Look.. I grew up in a place where scaling things was part of the description. Things like climbing or moving around dangerous area's is basically nothing. This is nothing." She exasperated, Gesturing to the void below and trying to keep her voice to a minimum to convince him.

Akaza gawked at her, Not understanding a thing.

"Like where. Where the hell would you need to grow up to scale an infinite void?" He argued back, The idea completely insane to him as he did.

"Nowhere good, Okay? Somewhere if you don't learn how to move quickly and efficiently you don't survive, And I did, So I think I'm more than qualified to climb my way out of here. Not unless you have any better ideas?" [F/N] said, Her voice mocking and sarcastic from both the irritation and reminder of her childhood.

Akaza lowered his brow, Thinking over her words. Though he didn't need to think for long because the spark inside her showed in her eyes, It made his agape mouth shut tight. The human part of his resonating once more, That part of him seemingly recognising the look.

How that was possible he didn't know. He didn't want to know what that implied but knew very well what it meant, Something inside him told him so. Something that trusted her skills well.

"..Fine, You better know what you're doing.." He spat lowly, A warning. [F/N] could tell as Akaza stepped away from her going a few feet down the dock.

"But the items you wanted will be difficult to smuggle in. The biwa demon knows everything that comes in and comes out. If I try bring in a bunch of nails and rope she'll certainly suspect something, So I'm going to need to do it in parts at a time." Akaza continued.

"Seriously? I suppose it's fair, It'll take time for me to construct it so while you gather the item's, I'll just work on it then I guess." [F/N] groaned.

"Good. Then afterwards I'll be out of this damned deal." Akaza commented, Obviously as annoyed as her.

[F/N] nodded.

"Same. I won't need to be here to deal with this place or the demons that inhabit it.. I'm just glad the only somewhat decent one can get me outta here." She sighed as she grabbed the side of her head, Feeling a sudden, Strange migraine coming on.

Akaza turned back to look at her, Raising a brow.

"Decent? What do you mean by that?" Akaza questioned.

[F/N] hummed slightly, Her lips pouting slightly in thought as she mulled her words over. Once she finished though she shrugged lazily.

"Well, As much as a bastard you are. You're also the only one who has some form of morals since you don't kill women, That and you did change my bandages that one time" She explained.

Akaza groaned, Obviously not happy that it was brought up again.

"I thought I said I didn't want you to talk about that." Akaza huffed, The vein in his head pulsating once more at the remembrance.

"Well I didn't want to be injured in the first place but here we are." [F/N] retorted, The hand gripping the side of her head throbbing once more. Her grip tightened and her teeth grinded slightly in futile attempt to relieve it.

"Oh, like that's my fault for injuring some pathetic human being. How about next time you d-" Akaza's rebuttal was quickly silenced by a hand over the mouth. A movement quicker than a lightning bolt made by [F/N], Her eyes wide and stretched open to their limits as she pressed a single finger against her lips.

Akaza's eyes opened in tandem with her own, Sensing the situation and a faint.. power. As he looked back towards [F/N] he could recognise the contorted expression on her face.

It was fear.

They stood in silence. The sudden sound of the running winds and the waves sloshing against each other below seemed so much louder now, Their breaths stilled and their eyes were locked together.

[F/N]'s ear twitched as the wind brushed against each of their skins. Though her eyes stared into his she wasn't focused on him, Instead she looked like she was trying to listen in on something.

Her still lungs took in a sharp intake of air. Her entire frame shot up like a terrified cat and the hand on his mouth quickly retracted, Falling to her side and stiffening like a wooden board.

"Kokushibo.. He's here"

Akaza stumbled back. [F/N]'s words echoed into the vastness and hit him like a ton of bricks, The broken glass of his eyes looked back and forth as his shoulders raised in defence.

"Upper six must of informed him I'm gone, He might've told of you- I don't know- But you need to leave. Now!" [F/N] exclaimed. She wasted no time in running over the crumpled kimono lying on the deck.

"Shit- Does he know I'm here?" Akaza exclaimed as he desperately searched around for any sign of the other demon. [F/N] started throwing the fabric over her shoulder, Too engrossed in dressing to look at him.

"I- I don't know." She responded quickly as she put her arms into the sleeves. The sudden headache, She had sensed his prescense returning to the shrine. His soul aura, A rotten and vile tasting soul, One that [F/N] could sense from miles away.

And she could sense that it was angry.

"I've got to leave, Immediately. But for what it's worth, Akaza." [F/N] said, Finishing tying her obi and looking back at him once. Their eyes connecting once more within the cold seas that surrounded them.

[F/N] smiled slowly. It wasn't genuine, But the meaning behind it spoke more than she said.

"I really do appreciate what you did for me, As much as a bastard you are you're not a bad person. It's not much but thanks for helping this pathetic human being anyways" She nodded once before turning away, Running down the rickety dock back the way they came from without another word. Left with only the shocked visage of the demon behind her.

Akaza watched her run away, His body unmoving. He saw [F/N] get smaller and smaller as she navigated the maze of docks, Jumping and leaping away until she was a speck on the shadowed horizon, Leaving him completely alone.

Akaza blinked once, Only as she entirely disappeared did he snap out of his stupor. He muttered angrily under his breath for her delusion and wasting time before bending his knee, Pushing himself forward off the dock.

He leaped into the yearning abyss, [F/N]'s words being nothing but an aftertaste as he fell.

☆♡☆

[F/N]'s feet hit against the dock like storming raindrops on a tiled roof. She watched them carefully to make sure her sandals didn't get caught in the wide gaps or splintered off pieces of timber.

Her lungs laboured. The further she ran and the more she jumped between routes the more she could sense his aura, The putrid decay of his soul writhing around in her skin.

[F/N] had always been able to sense it somewhat. Though before it was fainter than others, Now the stench was overwhelming her. The rot of it reeking of death, And most importantly anger.

Sweat dripped down her brow. [F/N] begged to Inari that he had no idea of what happened with her and Akaza. If he found out and killed him then she was basically done for. She swallowed, Begging just a little more to her patron.

The way they had gotten out of the shrine in the first place was with care. Akaza snuck her out through the front and made sure that Kaigaku wasn't there to see them and follow on, Afterwards he had quickly shown the pathway out.

She knew that this might happen, Akaza had informed her of their link on the way to the edge. [F/N] knew that once Kaigaku knew they had left he would inform Kokushibo of the situation.

Though she wished she had more time. More time to figure out what she was going to do with her business partner.

Akaza himself. [F/N] didn't like him, She didn't like the way he reminded her of the boys from her youth or the fact that he slaughtered Rengoku. But as anyone else she saw the silver lining within the rusted metal, He had principles and stood strong.

She appreciated that. There was some semblance of good in him, There was with everyone and he was no exception. The morals he did have must of carried on from his human life but how he became a demon in the first place baffled her.

But it didn't matter, They weren't suppose to get personal.

It was business only.

[F/N] saw the shrine get larger in the distance. Her pace quickened along with her breath, She saw the growing tuft of leaves sticking out the middle and the dim lanterns lining the inner docks as she ran.

Though as it grew closer and closer, The more she saw the lights of the dock the more she could see the one thing she dreaded, And it was standing tall on the porch and looking down at her.

"[F/N].." Kokushibo drawled out as she stumbled onto the main deck. His face appeared emotionless but [F/N] could tell he was angry, The stench he put off evidence of that as his eyes narrowed in on her.

[F/N] bit her tongue as she came to a standstill. She looked up into his eyes yet noticed the bulging vein appearing on the side of his forehead. [F/N] gulped.

"Took you long enough to appear.. Was wondering where you were.. I was starting to think I'd need to drag you here myself.." Kokushibo commented lowly, Tilting his head as he seemed to gauge her appearance.

"..I'm sorry, Kokushibo-sama. I was busy.." [F/N] replied quickly, Trying to make sure the shakiness in her voice wasn't as noticeable as her expression.

Kokushibo's expression didn't shift in the slightest as he stared down at her, Eyes wide yet his lips pressed together in a deep frown. They stood there like that for a moment, [F/N]'s heart feeling like it was about to implode.

It was broken however by the knowing voice of her tormentor, Speaking out a single sentence.

"You tried to run again, Didn't you..?" He interrogated. He lifted a single foot and placed it down, He took a few steps down the short porch steps towards her. Slowly, He made his way down until they were only a metre or so apart.

[F/N] looked down at her feet and away from the blinding glow of his eyes. She steadied her breath no matter how shaky it was. She tried to think of an appropriate answer but the power coming off his aura made her head want to explode.

"Yeah.. I did." [F/N] answered slowly. "I want to get out of here. I don't want to be here."

Kokushibo hummed slowly, A deep reverberation coming out as a near growl within his throat. The way he looked at her sharpened, His gaze could cut through rock and pierced her deeply.

"How many times have I told you.. Being here is for your own good.. You are safe within these walls, You cannot get out.." He emphasised it in that same infantilizing tone, The way he spoke to her made the spark reappear. The one [F/N] desperately tried to hide from him in fear of retribution.

"..I'm sorry. It won't happen again." [F/N] said bluntly, Hoping to get this entire interaction over with as quick as possible and avoid the now burning eyeline of her captor.

He in turn took one more step towards her, Making their already suffocating distance too close for her taste.

"But.. From what I've been made aware of is that you've been out for a while.. Much longer than it should take for you to run the entire way.." Kokushibo pondered as he raised a finger to emphasise his point.

"What can I say? Blocky sandals, See?" [F/N] said, Pointing down to her feet. "Takes me longer to run in these, I thought you knew.." She said as she lied through her teeth.

Kokushibo nodded.

"I suppose you are correct there.. I cannot fault that.. But let me ask you this.." He agreed slowly as his eyes narrowed. [F/N]'s breath stilled as she dared to take a peak at him, Body going rigid on sight as his hand reached out to cup her cheek.

His hand tilted her face up to meet his, [F/N] struggled slightly but it was impossible within his strong hold.

"However if you were running.. Then why didn't you come from behind the shrine? You came from the front.. If you were truly trying to escape then you would've looped around to the back.." Kokushibo whispered, Irises digging into her like the fury of a thousand spears.

Her eyes widened.

[F/N] opened her mouth as she tried to speak, To respond to him with some rational explanation but her tongue felt like it was weighed down by rocks. She felt her stomach turn and twist into knots.

He knew something was up. He knew. Think of something, Say something, [F/N]. You need to explain this somehow, He can't know about you and Akaza or how you're planning to escape. Come on, Think.. THINK!

"I.." She stammered. The voice in her mind screamed and hollered at her to say something, Anything at all to try and explain this. [F/N]'s hands felt more and more clammier each and every second that passed, Her mind came up with blanks.

Kokushibo leaned down further towards her, Eyes like headlights in the fog as he scrutinized every tiny speck of her. Down to the very last atom she was bonded to was made aware of.

"You've found the escape route.. Haven't you?" He mumbled.

"I don't know how you've been able to find it.. Maybe on chance or perhaps you were informed.." The claws that were tracing her cheeks before started to dig in a little more, It took everything [F/N] had not to make a whine or whimper of pain.

Kokushibo's eyes shone brighter.

"But of course.. I made sure to ensure you were completely alone in this place.. So that wouldn't be the case, Correct?" He asked lowly and calmly but the radiation of his soul was akin to a maggot infested corpse, [F/N] knew what he was truly feeling.

Her mouth felt like a desert, The sand of it weighing down her tongue until she couldn't speak anymore. Even if she could she didn't know what to say. How would she get out of this? Would she need to throw Akaza under the bus?

She didn't want to and hell would it impede her escape if not end it but.. If she couldn't think of anything soon then that might be the case. The way Kokushibo was looking at her made her want to shrivel away into a corner more than she already did and she was absolutely horrified.

[F/N] swallowed back her fear as she spoke, Mind blank as her voice guided her along.

"I.. I.. I was informed." [F/N] said slowly as she looked into his eyes. He blinked, Almost surprised.

"..Hm? Really now..?" Kokushibo drawled, Prompting her to go on and see how she would explain her fault.

[F/N] gulped.

"Yes. I was told.." She confirmed, Not just to him but herself as well as she spoke. [F/N] had no idea what she was going to say even now as she started to ramble off.

His eyes narrowed in on her.

"Tell me now and perhaps I might forgive you for your little attempt, Just this once.." Kokushibo promised though it sounded more like a threat as his claws dug in just a little more, Urging her on.

[F/N] tried not to wince at the painful sensation. She looked deep into the eyes of which seemed to be vast golden oceans, Cold steel looking back at her as she took in a deep breath. A bead of sweat forming on her forehead. Was she really willing to sacrifice another for her own survival?

[F/N] found out as she spoke.

"..It was upper six."

Kokushibo's narrowed eyelids went agape along with the tightening of his lips. The bead of sweat dropped from her brow and onto the deck below as the oxygen in her lungs slowly departed.

He seemed to be thinking over her words. His own Tsuguko, The one he had so generously appointed to watch over his beloved little sister tried to help her escape from his grasp? [F/N] could only wonder what was going on inside his head.

"Upper six directed me where to go. He approached me a while back and told me you sent him to watch me, He said he didn't want me here because he didn't like observing me all the time." [F/N] said slowly, Making sure it sounded right.

[F/N]'s skittish expression formed back into a normal cold faced expression, Well, It was as stable as a toothpick tower but it was something. She still wasn't out of the woods yet, Whether he would believe her or not was up to a coin toss of fate.

Whether he believed her or not meant life or death.

"Upper six.. You are saying that he has been assisting you this entire time?" Kokushibo repeated, His eyes scanning over her body with a hawk-eye that could rival the bird itself.

"Yes.. He did. I'm sorry for listening to him.. Kokushibo-sama." [F/N] said as she felt the pounding of her heart against her ribcage, Drumming and beating almost as if it would expose her words for what they really were.

Kokushibo hummed slightly as the grip on her cheek got excruciatingly painful.

"…And.. You're telling the truth, You understand what will happen if I find out you are lying.. Right? It would end rather.. Horrendously" He asked again.

The threat was a burning inferno kept behind the closed door of his stoic tone, One where she could feel the heat licking at her skin and ready to engulf her at any given moment. It was burning, Absolutely scorching.

"Yes.. I understand and that's why I would never lie to you. I don't want to deal with the consequences." [F/N] said, Bowing her head down to meet her feet, Eyes fixed on her sandals not wanting to see his reaction and hide hers.

She didn't breathe. She waited on baited breath for what felt like hours, Days even. The cold air felt like the antarctic wind against her skin and ran a bone-chilling shiver down her spine. But [F/N] kept a poker face, Despite all odds her face made no move or twitch.

Kokushibo sighed before speaking.

"I'm glad you we're able to be honest with me, Little one.. I will deal with this soon.." Kokushibo said finally, Letting go of her cheek and taking a step back from her to let her breathe. [F/N] in turn quietly let go of a breath she didn't know she was holding.

She bowed once.

"Thank you.. Kokushibo-sama." [F/N] said, Her shoulders relaxing as she did. She felt as if she dodged the bullet of the century, Out of the woods and home free. Metaphorically of course, He wasn't that gracious.

"You won't try running back to the ledge.. Will you? You understand how fruitless an endeavour would be to try and escape from there.." He asked once more, His gaze still soft yet sharpened by an inch as he asked.

It didn't go unnoticed. [F/N] knew it well and took no time in nodding right back in response.

"..Yes. I.. I saw it and I understand.. I.. Won't be getting out anytime soon, I know that now.." [F/N] said, Trying to seem as defeated as possible in her tone and body language. Lowering her shoulders and her head drooping downwards.

Kokushibo stood there in silence for a second, Taking in her words. "Good.." He finally spoke, Nodding once in approval though he didn't smile or make any positive gesture. His face was still contorted in a disappointed scowl though it wasn't as harsh as it was.

"You have interrupted me during my feeding and I wish to return to it.. Now run off back inside.. And for your own good I hope you stay in there." Kokushibo said as he turned back. His arm lightly brushing her's as he passed her by.

A light shiver came by at the cold, Slow feeling of his forearm dragging past her. [F/N] didn't dare to turn around as he stalked past her, Her face as motionless as a statue as she waited for her.

"Be good.. Don't try anything else, I will know if you do.."

It was the last thing he said. The last thing [F/N] heard before a turn in the wind and the sudden lightening in weight of the dock. She didn't need to look around to know he had left, Leaving only the lingering vile stench of his soul to lilt in the air.

[F/N]'s body instantly relaxed, Her shoulders slumped and her head drooping to the side in relief. Her heart was still pounding in her chest yet it started to stutter and slow until it was a simple rhythmic beat in her ribcage.

"Thank Inari.." [F/N] sighed lightly under her breath. She had survived that somehow, Whether he believed it or not was a completely different matter but for now he had bought it.

Despite the fact she lied pooling in the depths of her stomach, Even if it was necessary it still left her with a nasty aftertaste. But that didn't matter, Her relief outweighed her disgust right now.

Hopefully, With any form of luck that would take the Upper six out of the picture. Maybe Kokushibo would deem him as a failure and behead the guy. Though, Even if she hadn't met him [F/N] still felt a little bad.

Whatever. She thought to herself.

[F/N] knew that it didn't matter anymore, She had done the right thing. He was a demon and it didn't matter whether he was beheaded or not, It was probably for the best too.

Besides, This would help her escape immensely. She would be able to get around without the threat of being spied on or not, She wouldn't need to worry about who was watching her without permission.

From her list step one was completed. At least half of it anyways, She had a route out and a plan to make the exit. [F/N] huffed a little, She was lucky at least, The things she use to do in her childhood seemed to come in handy after all.

Next up, She needed to find the sword and mask. She wasn't sure whether they were being kept within the shrine or somewhere else, That was her main concern. Right now though her next course of action would be to rest.

Pushing open the heavy doors of the shrine they came ajar with a creak, Stepping inside she was greeted with the emptiness of the hallway once more. [F/N] almost expected the chatter of Kakushi and the sound of muffled laughter among the hallways.

But as usual it was silent. Nothing but the scuttling of spiders and the settling of the old structure to keep her company, [F/N] didn't know why she expected anything different as it had been like that for the past while.

It brought her back to what happened before she got here. The people she use to talk to and the people she adored and cared about. Mitsuri, Her face was the first to appear along with others in similar fashion.

[F/N] wondered if they missed her at all, How things could of changed since she left. Wondered if Mitsuri had gotten over her death yet. [F/N] hoped so, Mitsuri deserves happiness and it brought her back to the time they were so young, New slayers going on missions.

Memories came back to her. [F/N] remembered how Mitsuri blew her first pay check on cherry blossom mochi and pork cutlets, They had laughed about it all night. She remembered how they stayed up all night to look at the stars, To speak of made up stories ingrained in them all until they fell asleep.

[F/N] didn't know what would happen when she got out of here, How Mitsuri would react to her being alive. Would she cry? Would she be angry with [F/N]?

She did get Seijun to wrestle her out of the shrine.. The way her face looked so scared back then, It was the last expression [F/N] knew of Mitsuri before she was taken.

[F/N] shook it off however, In whatever way Mitsuri would think of her once she was back with the corps [F/N] just hoped it would be positive. That maybe she would get to say those words, The ones she had been wanting to say more than anything.

As she took a few quiet steps down the hall, Her movements were shaky and swaying with every little settlement of her foot. [F/N] felt the weight of the day or night fall down onto her shoulders once more, Making them slump.

It wasn't an oddity. She had been much tired than usual lately, Even being exhausted when she just woke up or just doing menial tasks. Her body feeling like a worn out paper doll, Just yearning for the embrace of her bedsheets.

If she wanted to search for the mask and the sword then she would need her energy to do it. That and she needed to wait for Akaza to return with the materials she would need to construct her exit.

So as she dragged her feet down the hallway and her mind half-asleep, [F/N] knew that it was for the best if she went to bed. If she wanted to go searching for her stuff then she needed to do it on a full nights rest.

Hauling open the shoji door to her room she stumbled inside like a new-born fawn. She barely bothered to take off the green lotus pattern of her kimono, Only tossing it to the side once she pulled it off herself.

[F/N] collapsed onto the bed, Her body melting into that of a puddle as soon as the mattress caressed her skin. Her laboured breathing starting to slow into a drift as her mind did the same, Floating off into the dark unconscious of her mind.

The last thing she wondered was what dream she would appear in again. Would it be the cold wasteland of the blizzard or the warm embrace of the midsummer sun? Would she be faced with that of her other life or that of her past.

She'd find out soon enough. Her eyes fluttered shut and the darkness spread over her vision into a shadowed sea.

It was peaceful, And she begged to Inari that it would stay that way.

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