#he's girl-rotting in his escape pod!

[alibonbonn]

Odyssey space AU where Odysseus is stuck in space alone, somehow.

#he's girl-rotting in his escape pod! #tricking myself into drawing scifi by shoehorning odysseus into space #i think odysseus should watch his whole crew die horrible deaths on an alien planet. it is somehow his fault #ali babble #space au odyssey #do NOT space odyssey me let me say it first not funny didnt laff!!

[sashiavi]

•··········🍑···········• ֪٘ ︶ ͝ ٘⏝𖹭⏝ ͝ ٘︶٘ ֪•···········🍑··········•

this has been rotting in my documents since October </3 abandoned kinktober prompt I just couldn't get out of my head :((

•·············🍑·············•🍑•·············🍑·············•

♡𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝙳𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚒𝚙𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗♡ Wriothesley x Reader - wrio finds you stuck in a wall

𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: | ¹⁸⁺ | ˢᵐᵘᵗ | ᵃᶠᵃᵇ ʳᵉᵃᵈᵉʳ | ᴾʳᶦˢᵒⁿᵉʳᵎ ᴿᵉᵃᵈᵉʳ | ᵖᵘⁿᶦˢʰᵐᵉⁿᵗ | ˢᵗᵘᶜᵏ ᶦⁿ ᵃ ʷᵃˡˡ | ᵖᵒʷᵉʳ ᵈʸⁿᵃᵐᶦᶜˢ | ᵈᵒᵐ/ˢᵘᵇ | ⁿᵃˢᵗʸ ⁿᵃˢᵗʸ ʷʳᶦᵒ ˢᵐᵘᵗ | ʷᵒʳᵈ ᶜᵒᵘⁿᵗ ³.⁵ᵏ

→ᴰᵃʳᵏ ᶜᵒⁿᵗᵉⁿᵗ ᵂᵃʳⁿᶦⁿᵍ←

ᵀʰᶦˢ ᴾᶦᵉᶜᵉ ᶜᵒⁿᵗᵃᶦⁿˢ ᵀʰᵉᵐᵉˢ ᴼᶠ ⁻ ᴰᵘᵇᶜᵒⁿ|ᴰᵘᵐᵇᶦᶠᶦᶜᵃᵗᶦᵒⁿ|ˢᵗᵘᶜᵏᵃᵍᵉ| ᴿᵉᵃᵈᵉʳ ᴰᶦˢᶜʳᵉᵗᶦᵒⁿ ᴵˢ ᴬᵈᵛᶦˢᵉᵈ

•· ֪٘ ︶ ͝ ٘⏝𖹭⏝ ͝ ٘︶٘ ֪·····.•🍑•.····· ֪٘ ︶ ͝ ٘⏝𖹭⏝ ͝ ٘︶٘ ֪·•

Well, well. What an amusing predicament. Wriothesley certainly didn't expect his morning to turn out so… Interestingly. 

The Duke makes his rounds through the Fortress of Metropide twice a day. Once in the morning and again during the young hours of the night, right when the sun sets. Not that its rays could be seen so far down under the surface of the sea, but the sentiment was there. Wriothesely would often be seen passing through the establishment's pleasantries, always making a stop by the inmate sleeping quarters, he ought to have an idea of exactly whom he had in his Fortress.. Right?

He ventures further than the guards are assigned, boots clicking coolly against the metallic flooring, echoing through the high domed ceilings of the holding pods. The Duke makes an effort into personally peeking a look into each isolated cell, sometimes striking up a small conversation with an inmate or two. The man knew all-too-well just how lonesome time in prison was, he could at least acknowledge their existences. 

Speaking of, his mind wanders as he approaches a specific cell, isolated and cold - Away from the rest, segregated by the Fortress’ rule of separating cases, depending on their verdict - Wriothesley flitters back to a conversation he held the night before -

- “Now, what's a girl like you doing here in my Fortress?” Wriothesley leans himself upon the bars of your cell. The area was quiet, isolated with little inhabitants, even more so during the day time, while inmates congregated within the public area of the fortress. You jump slightly, whipping around to face him. 

“Oh, you know.. Stuff..” You reply, looking a little shameless towards him. He had an inkling that you were up to no good. But he’d bite.

“How’s the Fortress treating you? Despite the whole prison aspect,” He chuckles to himself, earning your own laugh, dancing in his ears.

“It’s.. a little boring in here,” He watches your eyes wander around the cell.

“Well- At least you have that poster there, plenty of fun to stare at, I’m sure.” Wriothesley lets his eyes crinkle. The poster was large, stuck to the wall haphazardly, crooked and torn on one corner. “That thing could cover up anything,” He side comments. He watches your interest pique, head tilting in what he could only describe as thought - A stupid one he thinks. 

“I wouldn't try it, you just might escape. I can't have that happen, now can I?” He winks, finally continuing his evening round throughout the section of the fortress.

All of that circles back to the now, as Wriothesley approaches your cell on his morning patrol. Something stirs in his chest, a tickling inkling. He nearly half expects you to have followed his gracious ‘advice’ - If you could even call it that. 

Lo and behold, the Duke spots a special individual poking out from the cracked cell wall. Your lower half nearly dangles from the partition, practically on tippy toes, ankles surely close to giving out from the awkward position. The poster from the night before lays perfectly on the floor next to your frame, comically outlining just how bad you had messed up. He nearly chuckles at the sudden jolt of your body as he unlocks the cell door, craning it open with an obnoxious creak.

“Well.. Aren’t you something?” His heavy boots resonate through the near barren cell, echoing as he makes his way towards your predicament.

You helplessly squirm, whining out of your throat as you fruitlessly struggle in your impromptu confines. Wriothesley stares down at you in utter bemusement, his face cracking with an audacious downturned smile; not that you could see his face through the thick prison wall. Poor You. All lodged and stuck.

"Y-Your Grace! It's not what it looks like-" Your voice manages through the wall, a little muffled to the ear. However, Wriothesley was sure you hadn’t even broken into the adjacent room.

"It's exactly what it looks like. Who knew you'd actually try it." He almost laughs. It wasn’t like you were going to go anywhere - Last he checked, the Fontainian Ocean was right outside their door.

“Seemed like a decent idea..” Wriothesley has to strain to hear your mumble.

“We’re far under the water dear.. Or did you forget in your haste?” This time, he makes no effort to stifle his laugh, chuckling out loud when your form visibly slumps - Whether out of embarrassment or defeat - He was thoroughly amused.

“Hmm.. Now, what do we do with you?” Wriothesley teases. He cranes his body, bending his back with purpose, inspecting the damage you had added to the already faulty wall. How you had managed to wiggle your way in this far, he hadn't a clue. Your body noticeably tenses, you make an attempt to find a proper footing, easily failing from the height of the hole.

“P-Please Your Grace- I’ll do anything, really! Anything you want just- please don’t add time for this..”

“You’ll do.. Anything…?” Call him confused, what were you on about?

“Yes, anything- ch-chores? Solitary? I’ll be good I swear, really- Or you could..” You trail off, leaving the Duke to sit with his whirring brain for a moment. “You.. Can take me… Use me how you want- Please~ Y-You’re stressed right? U-Use me.. Do whatever you wanna-” You sounded nearly delirious. Your pretty ass shakes, brushing up against the front of his pants, a feeble attempt to press back into him.

Were you trying to bargain with him? Wriothesley was more than ready to pull you out, maybe give a little slap on the wrist and send you on your merry way. But now? The Duke couldn't help but indulge in the feeling of his pants tightening around his groin. The idea of taking your pretty self, stuck helplessly in the wall. He couldn't refuse your offer, right? Not when you sounded so eager. Not when you begged for him, for his body, for his thick aching cock, threatening to burst the seam of his trousers. 

Before he can properly stop himself - Not that he was really going to - Wriothesley finds his hands on the soft swell of your ass, squeezing the flesh in his palms. You jolt under his touch, footing slipping slightly against the floor that barely brushed against your toes. Wriothesley breathes hard from his nose, hooking his fingers into the cut of your waistband, pulling the fabric over your form. He hears a whimper from beyond the wall.

“Y-Your Grace…The wall..” Your voice wobbles, body tensing against the brush of his hands.

“What? Having second thoughts?” He can’t help but tease you, squishing his fingers into the soft meat of your ass, digging his hands into your half-on pants. You did say anything. You gasp out, voice cracking with muffled little pleas. ‘Never’ you say ‘Want it bad - so bad’.

Your pants come off quickly, thrown to the floor in a crumple. Wriothesley’s hands are on you again, spreading the fat of your ass apart, marvelling at the pretty swell of your pussy hugged against your panties. He watches your plush thighs squish together, rubbing and squirming in his hold, he couldn't tell if you were wiggling away or keening into him. Not that you could go anywhere. The thought irks a chuckle out of Wriothesley. His fingers wander again, caressing over the soft skin of your ass, digging them in and jiggling cheekily. His thumbs slide over and hook into the elastic of your panties, hugging around the thick of your legs. He meanly tugs at the snappy material, pulling it up and taught, forcing the fabric to cling achingly against your cunt. His tongue instinctively pokes from behind his lips, itching to lap at the pretty wet spot that had formed over the fabric. 

Wriothesley swallows thickly, eyes locked on your pretty cunt, head swimming with the short, hiccuped whines that cut through the wall. You babble and cry, repeating his title over and over - Your Grace, Your Grace - begging him to just touch. To do anything - Anything. 

Your pretty voice gets to him and he finds himself nearly ripping your drenched panties off of you. He pulls them down, leaving them dangling off of your legs, showing off your wet cunt just for him. Gods, he wasn't disappointed. Your pretty pussy peeks from behind the swell of your thighs, already dripping wet, all over yourself. He swears he twitches, breath hissing through his teeth, cold on your core. The sweet jump you make - as best as you could - sends him reeling. 

Wriothesley’s thick fingers tentatively poke at your dripping pussy, catching your sweet, dribbly slick on his fingertips. He awes at how it webs between his fingers, how you’d managed to work yourself up with your own babbling. Perhaps the wall aided a little - Showing off your bottom half, on full display just for him to enjoy, your own vision obscured. You wouldn't see anything coming. The thought runs straight to his cock, making itself well known again against the fly of his trousers. 

Wriothesley licks against his lips, enamoured at the pretty string of your slick on his fingers, sticking between his digits like a lattice. He needs more. He wastes no time, easily slipping in two of his fingers, knuckle deep right into the doughy swell of your hole. Gods, you felt so soft. Silky to his touch, pussy pretty and plushy and warm. The squeal that muffles through the wall forces him to sink his teeth into his own bottom lip. Toying with you came to him naturally. Ever so easy with you all snug and stuck, silly enough to try and swindle him and escape your commitment to the Fortress. 

“W-Wriothesley… your g-grace..” He ignores you, fingers digging into the sweet, supple curve of your cunt. He curls them downward, earning the prettiest, muffled cries through the wall. He releases a breath he didn't even know he was holding. Wriothesley thrusts his fingers hard. Pressing meanly into the achy swollen bump in your core, getting a kick out of the lewd suckling squelch of your pussy on his fingers. Your poor legs practically give out, ankles going limp, your body holding itself up thanks to the wall hugging your body. Your voice crackles through the cement, whiney and keening, babbling dumb nonsensical begs and pleads to him. Your slick pools against his knuckles, threatening to overturn the snug fit of his rings on his fingers. He can't help but stare, locked in, mind reeling with the way your cunt wrapped around his digits. He couldn't help but wonder just what that pretty little thing would look like, all red and puffy, hugging on his thick cock.

He shamelessly lets out his own groan. Finally managing to remove his fingers, watching in awe as your slick drips off of them, connecting him to you with a thin, dribbly line. 

Just a taste…

The thought zaps through his brain, tongue shamelessly poking its way past his teeth, running over his lips with a quick tilt of his head.

Wriothesley wastes no time. Wrapping his lips against your slick cunt, eyes rolling hard into the back of his skull. Fuck. Your taste on his tongue, sweet and tangy, oh so decadently coating his throat. Archons, he laps and suckles, nearly sinking his teeth into the heat of your core, into the puffy swell of your pussy lips. You keen back into him, whining never-ending, absolutely ceaseless, voice managing to pierce through the heavy material of the wall you’d stuck yourself in. That thought charges through his mind again. Poor little you, all stuck and lodged in the wall all for him to play with. The man was sure he would cream in his own pants if he kept up. He barely registers his knees beginning to ache under the heavy pressure of his own body meeting the floor. Since when had he managed to sink down? Finding his hands back on your plushy ass cheeks? Chin dribbling slobber and slick, sticking wetly to the scratchy stubble shadowing over his face? He couldn't take it anymore. 

Wriothesley stands with a start, ignoring the stiff crack of his knees in favour of unbuckling his godforsaken pants. His hands are clumsy, large palms pawing at the metal of his trousers, his belt suddenly too intricate for his rough, fervent body to figure out - Not with how his mind reels, with the sight of you stuck in the wall, pretty pussy drooling, on display all for him. He barely shoves his pants to his thighs, the material wrapping around his legs in a mess. His cock weeps as it's free, slapping up into his stomach, heavy balls hanging over the waist of his trousers. He leaks beads of sticky pre, messing up the surface of his dress shirt. Wriothesley groans out loud, hand coming up to wrap around the base of his cock, squeezing it up and down to ease the hot tension pulsing through his thick cock vein. 

He was sure you heard the cold clink of his belt, the only inkling of what was to come for you. He can't help but jerk his length off to the sight of you, shamelessly stalling just to mess with your head. No matter how much you squirm and beg, crying out as best as you could, stupidly asking for a reply to gather any kind of indication of what he was about to do to you. He stays silent.

Wriothesley meanly slaps his cock over the sticky, wet folds of your achy cunt, he chuckles when you jump again, going absolutely crazy for your every little reaction. Your pussy sounded so pretty on his tip, all wet and sticky as he slapped and rubbed against it. His fat tip slides over your warm, slick folds, craning his hips forward, catching against your sopping hole, earning him the softest gasps from within the wall. Your little jumps all but spur him all the more on.

“M’ not even in yet.. Pussy’s already tryin’ to suck me in,” Wriothesley pokes his tip against your hole, catching it against the warm, supple squeeze of your cunt. He growls through his teeth, head quickly draining of any cohesive decision making. Your babbling continues through the wall, your hips crane up into his own, wiggling and catching back on the thick head of his dick. Gods, that does it. You were insatiable, all stuck waiting for him to come along and ravage your pretty cunt with his cock. 

It all urges him to dive in, give your poor cunt no warning for his thick, dribbling cock.

And so he does.

“Fuuuckk” Wriothesley can’t help but groan, finally feeling the sweet swell of your cunt enveloped the fat length of his cock. He has to bite into his thumb, just to slow himself down, let himself relish in the sweet squeeze of your cunt on his cock. Gods the way you wrapped around him, silky soft walls hugging on his length. He can't help but awe at the way your achy pussy squeezed on him, all puffy and sore from neglect. His hands find your hips, one of the only parts free from the wall.

“Your Grace~.. So big- so biiig… Filling me up- please please… please” Your silly voice cracks through the wall. Wriothesley digs his fingers into the flesh of your hips, purposely lifting your poor legs off of the floor, leveraging your body just for him to use. You squirm in his hold, easily forcing him to grip you tighter.

“Fuck, stay still. Gonna make me go crazy..” Wriothesley finds himself mindlessly rocking his thick cock into your silky cunny, humping his hips against your ass like some kind of dog in rut. Archons, he could get used to this. His own personal little wall slut, always there for him to use and abuse. His eyes roll at the idea, his snapping hard, earning a loud hiccuped cry from within the thick wall. The hot squelch that follows has him nearly drooling, mouth dropped open in a soft frown, eyes locked on to his heavy cock sliding in and out of your dumb cunt. He fucks his hips hard again, cock head smacking into the deepest parts of your pussy.

Wriothesley doesn't remember speeding up. But he sure as hell won't be slowing down - not anytime soon. Your gushy pussy squelches on his cock, dribbling down your thighs, messing all over your poor aching legs. Wriothesley’s fingers keep a hold of your hips, rocking them slightly to meet his brutal pace. He doesn't have to crane his ears to hear your pretty moans, effortlessly reaping through the solid wall, barely muffled by the sheer loudness of your voice. 

Fuck, he didn’t care about the noise. Let everyone hear them. What were they going to do about it? What were you going to do about it? About getting all stuck in this wall, going against the Fortress’ protocol? Seducing the Duke of the Meropide, forcing him to fuck your dumb brains out to teach you a lesson? A growl resonates from his throat, hips snapping hard, clapping into the sweet swell of your ass cheeks as he fucks up your cunt. 

Wriothesley’s eyes wander, locking down on the sweet jiggle of your ass and the puffy red throb of your cunt on his cock. A heavy breath makes its way through his nose, eyes hyper focused on the pretty, creamy ring around his length as he fucks his hips against you, slowly leaking its way on to his pants. An ache builds in his pelvis, thick vein pulsing on the underside of his cock. Your moans don't stop, legs continuously squirming in his grasp, body stuck in the juncture of your silly wall. He thinks you beg, maybe you scream, crying out for him to keep going, to fill you up to cum hard and deep and mess up your insides. 

Wriothesley drops your legs, forcing you to dangle, his hands press into the wall above, grinding his hips upwards, stabbing your pussy impossibly deeper with his length. Sweat beads off of his nose, his calves cramp and ache with every thrust he makes, but Gods, he wasn't going to stop. He finds himself moaning out loud, complementing the pretty noises that creak through the wall. Your pussy hugs on his length, squeezing nice and tight, wrapping around his fat tip every time he slams it back into you. 

His teeth grit hard. Eyes still locked on to the messy slide of his length, in and out, in and out. He was coming close. So fucking close.

Wriothesley’s brow scrunches, relishing in the aching squeeze of your messy pussy on his cock. He couldn't take it anymore. The creamy ring he’d fucked out of you, the pretty ripple of your ass on his hips, how juicy and gushy your cunt was on his length. Gods, it was all so much. His hips snap, pace faltering, clapping his hips in heated staccatos, dragging his length out and slamming right back in with a hard smack. You cry with every thrust, silky cunt squeezing on his tip, babbling his name over and over and over. 

He finally spills with a deep, hard fuck. His thick tip spurts hot rivulets of cum into your silky pussy. He messes your insides with white, fucking himself through his orgasm, humping up on your cunt, mounting your pussy with his cock. His throat growls with every fuck, sweat beads off of the tip of his nose, he watches his hot spurts leak steadily out of your hole, leaking around the base of his length. He can’t help but nestle right into your cunt, relishing in the sweet squeeze of your milky walls on him, he cranes his hips every so often, teasing his aching tip with your soft insides.

You kick and whine as eventually, he pulls out, dribbling his hot white cum down your thighs. 

“No~ need more! More more!” Your muffled voice cries, pitifully wiggling within the hug of the wall, attempting to squirm your way out.

Wriothesley chuckles hotly, eying off the sweet gush of cum that drools out of your puffy pussy. His mouth waters, salivating like a dog. Surely he could take you out of the wall a little later? You’d understand. You’d been a great little wall slut for him so far, so why not indulge for as long as he wanted? Maybe he'd let you cum, spray and mess all over yourself - He could even let you out as a reward.

His finger comes up to caress over your spent hole, scooping up the leaking slick that coated your poor pussy. The cry he earns makes his half-hard cock stiffen, bobbing to life with a flex.

Archons, weren’t you something?

hnnnnnng gg g wrio wooof wOof - my longest fics are always wrio </3

Idk what possessed me to create this- I hope you enjoyed ;3

•··········🍑···········• ֪٘ ︶ ͝ ٘⏝𖹭⏝ ͝ ٘︶٘ ֪•···········🍑··········•

Thank You For Reading! Comments Are Always, Always Appreciated! Ilysm <333

♡ᵀᵃᵍˡᶦˢᵗ♡

@madsw9 @pvbbyb0y @heath-sama @shiningpaint-marbleheart @the-massive-simp @tericula @a-random-weeb @mechalily @mydarlingdahlia @finnie9479

•· ֪٘ ︶ ͝ ٘⏝𖹭⏝ ͝ ٘︶٘ ֪·····.•🍑•.····· ֪٘ ︶ ͝ ٘⏝𖹭⏝ ͝ ٘︶٘ ֪·•

Do Not Translate Or Repost - Property Of SashiAvi ♡

#ʚ•*°SashiAvi Writes°*•ɞ #genshin impact x reader #genshin smut #genshin x y/n #afab reader #genshin impact smut #wriothesley x you #wriothesley smut #wriothesley x reader #wriothesley x y/n #wriothesley #wrio x reader #genshin wriothesley #genshin x reader #genshin impact

[motherwasapapafucker]

The rock came down and...

The primitive was injured, dying probably. Slowing them down almost certainly. The action was born of cold logic, they'd all be caught if they continued to support him. The Doctor grasped the yellowing boulder in his hand, focused on the injured man and resolved to do what had to be done.

 The rock came down and…

In the Dalek City on radiation blighted Skaro the Doctor slipped through the carnage. Brave, noble Thals dying around him; Susan and the two irritants doing their best to keep up even as that fool Chesterpot nattered on about helping where they could. There were more important matters to attend to, they needed the fluid-link. Once it was recovered he could turn his attentions to dealing with the Daleks. 

It wasn’t like the teacher’s words were reflected in action anyway, this tended to be the case with lofty speeches in the Doctor’s experience. Still, he’d been useful in radicalizing the Thals. A direct assault on the city was the perfect cover for recovering the device and if the planet was saved in the process? Well that would just be one less issue he had to deal with, wouldn’t it? 

The rock came down and…

He is Ramón Salamander, the world’s shopkeeper. Beloved in public, he has used his status to manipulate and corrupt the powers of the World Zone Authority to his own ends. Pursuing a ruthless, single minded conquest of the world he has murdered and schemed for decades. Or at least, that’s what they think. 

Ramón Salamander is dead. His corpse left rotting in a tunnel, the Doctor once again slipping into his life. Astrid Ferrier and her allies only wanted him stopped, the delicate balance of power restored, but there’s so much more he could do with Salamander’s influence. It would have been easy to run off, leave things as they were. Afforded a few more hours in the life of Ramón Salamander the Doctor changes the face of the world. 

The rock came down and…

On a cold, rain soaked moor he finalizes the last explosive in a chain that will collapse the cave system. The Brigadier pensively watching as he works. Dutiful even in discomfort, the man is grimly determined to see the matter through to the end. 

"Not getting cold feet are we Alistair?" The Doctor smiles grimly. 

"No, I...we both agree this is necessary it's just...is there really no other option Doctor? The peace treaty…" 

"In better circumstances perhaps," he sighs. "You saw what happened to the infected, the chaos at Waterloo. We simply cannot rely on their good will." He offered the detonator. Alister was a friend but he was a commanding officer above all else. It was only fitting he be the one to pull the trigger. "For the future," he prompted, guiding Alister's hands around the device. "For all mankind." 

When Liz finds out what they’ve done she can't look either of them in the eye. 

The rock came down and…

Skaro again. A younger Skaro, bursting with life and blighted as always. An irritating diversion foisted on him, the price paid for his continued freedom. The Daleks emerging from their conflict with the Thals eons ago and centuries in their own future to spread out across the stars with a single-minded drive. A toxic spill in the waters of eternity. His fault allegedly. 

The Daleks must die, that much is clear. The Doctor has no argument there, but the suggested method is crude, lacking in finesse. Allowing himself to be captured, he plots their downfall from the comfort of an interrogation cell. He is a stellar manipulator, words echoing down the centuries as he tells Davros exactly what he wants to hear. The empire dead a scant two-thousand years after its founding. Undone by advice that was only ever beneficial on the surface.

The rock came down and…

Castrovalva, the flirtation is at an end. The city collapsing around them, the Master’s attention darts between the Doctor and the body hanging in a network of something that only looks like web on the surface.

“You...you.” he stammers through a stolen voice. “A mercy after everything you’ve done to him.” the Doctor declares, gun shaking with the effort it takes to get the words out. They’re objectionable things, but useful in the right hands. It could easily become a crutch but faced with the scale of the Master’s latest scheme and his own weakened form there was no other option. He’s indulged his old friend too long, his presence in his life as much an affectation as dress capes and vintage cars. It has to end. 

The rock came down and…

Home, or near enough. He’s facing himself allegedly. His shadowy accuser bleating indignantly deep within the matrix, voluminous robes sagging with a faintly comical weight as he attempts to posture through the collapse of whatever grand ploy he had in mind with the trial. 

“Don’t you see!” his arms flap wildly. “Don’t you see where you’re taking us, the depths you’re dragging us into.” “You know if I really were you, or you really were me I’d never be this sore a loser” “Oh you conceited little shi...” the voice snarls, but by then he’s all but gone. Robes collapsing in the wake of his sudden, wholly involuntary abdication. 

The rock came down and…

The Doctor guides the girl from Iceworld out of the TARDIS, a firm hand on her shoulder ejecting her from this world back into her own. Perivale, nice enough if you like that sort of thing. She wanted to stay of course, especially after everything Mel had told her. He couldn’t blame her, he’d want to escape this sort of life as well, but there were too many coincidences. Something was pulling her strings, something familiar. The girl watches the box vanish and sighs, trudging back towards her old routines having caught a glimpse of something larger, more important than any prospect she can imagine. 

Nearly forty years previously a bonfire built on the scrubland beyond Maidens' Point draws sleek, rumbling bombers off-course. The village and nearby military base are all but destroyed in the ensuing inferno. A dismal little house in a damp little street in Perivale forty years later barely registering the sudden change to the people living within it. 

The rock came down and…

He’s in the DEEP, Vollmer’s corpse continuing to mutate even in death. Low, warbling klaxxon warning him that his own death is close if he doesn’t take action soon. He moves the body as best he can, slipping the still warm gun into the back of his trousers as he clambers into the escape pod. He can feel the TARDIS at the back of his mind, itching away at him even as the pod draws him further from the facility. He doesn’t want to abandon it, doesn’t want to be trapped on this planet but what choice does he have? The facility explodes, subsonic rumble shaking the escape pod violently as the detonation wave reaches him. 

The rock came down and… There is a girl, young, uncomprehending. He delivers the news personally, hates every second of it. Vollmer’s words hanging heavy as he does his best to etch out some sort of existence here. Trapped again.

Self-inflicted exile. He helps the family as best as he can; at a distance at first but inevitably he is drawn into their lives. Inevitably they are drawn into his, doing what he can to preserve Vollmer’s memory even as he hides his own role in the man’s death for the benefit of them all. He fights the good fight, indulges his adventurous spirit where he can. Continues to fight to preserve stability, to limit the chaos, the death. The ship lingers in his mind, a phantom lover kissing softly, calling out to him from somewhere dark and cold. In time the radiation will subside, in time he will return to her. 

The rock came down and… He is reborn, cold and confused. Throat dry and scratchy, struggling to remember how he got here, how he died. A woman is pointing a gun at him, something horrendous lurking over her shoulder. The two figures are faintly familiar.

The bullet hits before he can properly place them.

The rock came down and…

...his hand stopped, hovering just above the stricken man’s skull. Gently dropping the rock, the Doctor produced a handkerchief and applied it to the man’s forehead. This was no time to be rash, he could remove the obstacle, of course, but in doing so he would alienate his allies. 

He had few of them here, and those he did have were already cautious around him. The savages were bad enough, but ensuring the two teachers continued to support him was imperative. Killing the injured man would only cement their view of him, it would even risk driving Susan away. Better to show compassion, mercy, it was important to be canny about these things. 

The end would ultimately justify the means, he was sure of this.

#doctor who #doctor who unbound #collings!doctor #full fathom five #dweu #fp adjacent #fanfic

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Fallout Of Darkness -- A Half-Decent Sum-Up Of The Pre-War Timeline

If you follow my RP tumblr, @thevalicemultiverse, you may have seen this before (barring a few edits I made just now) -- I wrote this up as background for putting Fallout of Darkness into play over there as an RP verse. It’s as good a write-up as I currently have for Alice and particularly Victor’s lives before the bombs fell, so might as well bring it over here for more general consumption! Enjoy!

---

Alice Liddell shares most of her backstory with her Londerland Bloodlines counterpart: she’s born in 1984, loses her family to Bumby’s obsession with her sister, hallucinates her way through the horrors of Rutledge and Houndsditch with Wonderland serving as a horrific psychological dreamscape for her to get her sanity back under her, realizes Bumby’s behind all her pain and is a child trafficker, kills him, moves to Los Angeles for a fresh start, and gets illegally Embraced by Malkavian Fish and ends up errand girl to Prince Sebastian LaCroix. In this reality, though, she lives through something much closer to the standard Bloodlines plot (albeit filtered through the “all tech is at least kinda 50s sci-fi” lens of Fallout) – including saving Heather Poe instead of Victor, and finding nothing in the Giovanni basement except regular old zombies. She pushes through all the bullshit of Camarilla vs Anarchs vs Kuei-Jin vs Sabbat, convinces Heather to leave when it transpires she’s being really badly affected by Alice’s Malkavian blood (to the point of luring a guy to the haven and then locking him in the bathroom for Alice to eat), and eventually chooses the independent life, killing Ming-Xiao, letting LaCroix blow up with his tower, and flipping off the Anarchs when they try to recruit her. She flees Los Angeles completely shortly thereafter, and spends most of the rest of the next seventy-odd years on the move around America, avoiding possible reprisals from the Camarilla and watching the world go to hell in a handbasket with resources running out and the war for the last great oil pipeline. She finds shelter in Boston in October 2077, and is sleeping away the day in a presumed-safe building when the bombs drop. While she’s luckily buried in a sunlight-blocking pile of rubble, she’s also staked by a falling beam. . .and remains so for the next two centuries. . .

Victor Van Dort, on the other hand, is born in 2050, to Nell and William Van Dort of Burtonsville. William is in the fish business, and moves his family to the USA when Victor is still just a baby to seek new opportunities. What he and his wife and son get is the New Plague, forcing them to stay in Massachusetts due to quarantine measures. Despite this, William still manages to become a fish cannery mogul, making millions off his automated factories. Victor himself grows up almost entirely confined to the house and gardens, cared for and taught by a variety of robots until he was fourteen and it was deemed safe enough for him to attend a normal high school. The gardens taught him to love nature, but his caretakers taught him to love science and technology – while still a hobbyist lepidopterist, Victor is much more a tinkerer and technician in this world. Having to help fix the family’s Protectron driver, Mayhew, when he falls apart almost right in front of you will do that to a boy! He’s just more comfortable with machines than people – a fact that doesn’t make him popular in school.

In his senior year of high school, Victor is pushed to date Victoria Everglot by his parents, seeing her family’s noble history (some relative way-back-when in England was a Grand Duke) as a good way to improve their own social standings. Victor goes along with it after realizing he likes Victoria herself a fair bit, and the two soon become boyfriend and girlfriend. A few months into the relationship, though, Victor comes across a gravely-injured Emily Merrimack-Cartwell in the park, the victim of an elopement that turned out to be an excuse to rob and murder her. Victor is able to rush her to the hospital in time, and the two become friends in the aftermath. Victoria, noticing that they seem to have a growing attraction, decides she doesn’t want Victor to feel obligated to continue dating her if he’d prefer to be with Emily and actually encourages them to go to prom together. They agree after confirming she’s okay with that, and that she won’t be missing out herself. They start out having a good time together, but midway through Victoria goes to the ladies’ room and doesn’t return. Victor and Emily, concerned, go looking for her and find her being menaced by none other than Emily’s ex Barkis – apparently not satisfied with what he got off Emily, he’s now trying to rob and possibly kidnap Victoria. Victor and Emily take him down and get him carted off to jail, to Victoria’s eternal gratitude. The experience bind them all together as a trio, and – coupled with the discovery that Victoria and Emily feel much the same about each other as they do about Victor – they decide to just all date each other and see where the chips fall.

And then the draft comes and Victor is yanked into military service. He ends up a combat engineer in the Engineer Corps, and is assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 108th Infantry Regiment, aka “Fox Company.” While he makes some friends in fellow soldiers Nate Howard and Sam “Bonejangles” Thatcher, Victor loathes his experiences as a soldier, especially as his unit is protecting the Alaskan Pipeline on the Alaska border and watching as the US annexes Canada. Things come to a head when his commanding officer tries to get him to shoot two Canadian kids who were throwing rocks at their camp – an enraged Victor shoots the officer instead, then gets wrapped up in a sudden enemy attack on said camp (a small company of Chinese infiltrators in stealth suits -- one accidentally decloaked in his surprise over Victor killing his target), spiriting the kids to safety before managing to save the rest of his company via fast fixing of their defenses and rigging up some explosive power armor. The chaos makes it impossible for the upper brass to know for sure Victor killed the officer (though they’re deeply suspicious), and the fact that everyone else is calling him a hero (plus his father being willing to pay good money for his son’s safe return) leads to him going home for good. Having married Victoria while on leave earlier, they take in Emily as a “live-in friend and help around the house” (wink wink), and the three move to the little community of Sanctuary Hills. They have a good couple of years there, culminating in the birth of Victor and Victoria’s son Shaun. Victor, despite his worries about the resource shortages, the war with China, and his own government possibly looking for a way to silence him whenever he makes his opinions about same known, starts thinking that maybe things can be all right for him and his family at least. . .

And then, on October 23rd, 2077, the bombs hit. Victor and his family get to Vault 111 just in time, and are processed and cyronically frozen as per the experiment. However, things go bad with a security staff revolt, and the frozen family is left easy pickings for some mysterious scientists to come in, shoot Victoria, and kidnap Shaun right before Victor’s horrified eyes. When he is revived again, he finds that the life support failed for the rest of the residents (including Emily, whose pod partially thawed her and left her half-rotted), leaving him the sole survivor – apart from his missing son. He escapes the vault and returns to what’s left of Sanctuary Hills, vowing to find Shaun.

Finding Shaun turns out to be more difficult than imagined – the world above is a dangerous place, and Victor is ill-prepared to deal with it. Fortunately, he makes some friends right off the bat – his old Mr. Handy Codsworth; a German Shepherd waiting for him at the local Red Rocket, who is later revealed to be named Dogmeat; and Preston Garvey, last of the Commonwealth Minutemen, whom Victor saves from raiders at the Museum of Freedom in Concord while looking for other signs of life. Victor welcomes Preston and his settlers to live in Sanctuary, and joins up with Preston’s efforts to revive the Minutemen and make it a force for good in the wasteland (being named General by Preston in the process, a move that baffles him and his 2 Charisma). Helping settlers leads him down to Diamond City, where he was told by slightly-psychic Mama Murphy he could find some help. He befriends reporter Piper Wright there, and ends up getting her help to find her missing friend detective Nick Valentine when it transpires he – and with him, Victor’s best hope for finding Shaun – has vanished.

And during their adventures to track down Nick’s precise location, they come across a raider base, are attacked by a raider who yanks a bloody stick out of a pile of rubble – and are introduced to Alice when she bursts from the rubble and sucks the guy dry. Alice hastily informs them that she’s not a threat to them (she was just thirsty after, you know, two centuries of being staked), and they end up trusting her enough to take down the rest of the raiders with her. Victor does his best to explain what’s happened to her, and she does her best to explain her vampiric nature to him. Feeling bad for her, and like he’s finally found a kindred spirit in all this (uh, no pun intended), he invites her to travel with him, switching to a night time schedule to accommodate her. . .at least, until they go to a certain quarry mined by Dunwich Borers to clear out the raiders there. . .

#fallout of darkness #sole survivor Victor #Malkavian Alice #long post #I've been meaning to make a post like this for a while #particularly bringing up the whole 'Victor killing an officer protecting some kids' thing #and then I realized #I'd done it already for my RP blog #so why not just bring it over here? #hopefully you all find this informative and entertaining #probably bits and pieces of this will change as the verse continues to develop #but for now this is a good starting point for any fanfic I may want to do #queued

[cozycryptidcorner]

Shark Merfolk Boyfriend

Hey guys- here’s the first place winner of the raffle! Sorry I’ve been MIA for a little while, school and family stuff has had be busy af this month. Hope you enjoy this story about a smartass shark merfolk with a gender neutral reader.

The train from the coastline to the Center takes well over an hour, the lights of the cars dim enough so the passengers can look out windows and into the depths. The glass that protects the track network is thick and military-grade, strong enough not to crack underneath the pressure of the ocean. You don’t mind the time it takes to get there, it gives you a moment to breathe, or finish up any last-minute projects. The paperwork at the Center can be a bitch, and it seems like everyone is running behind on it, even you. So while the wheels on the tracks whirl and moan, you have your laptop out, fingers flying across the keys as you electronically sign off a thing or two.

The shriek of the breaks is dulled significantly by the padding of the train’s walls, but you still hear the barest echo of the slowing wheels. There, out the window, you can see the lights shimmering through the currents, shadows of creatures swimming to and fro dancing on the edge of your vision. Carefully, you start placing your work things back into your bag, placing the strap on your shoulder as the cars come to a final stop. The intercom buzzes as someone’s recorded voice announces this as the Center, reminding tourists to calmly file towards the main lobby for the tours and special bundle deals for the whole family.

You watch your step as you get off, helping a mother carry a rather bulky stroller down the steep stairs while her toddler coos at the bright lights hanging overhead. Instead of following the crowd, most of them just curious passersby here to spend a long day, you scan an employee’s pass on a nearby elevator, stepping in and pressing your floor when the doors close. The labs are a lower level down, far from the loud shrieking of children and the aghast staring of couples as they look into the many different aquatic exhibits. You are similar to them in that you are here to be a spectator, though the reasons are vastly different.

The wetsuit waiting for you in the locker room is cold and wet, as it hadn’t managed to dry from when you left it the night before. You don’t think you’ve put that thing on while it was dry since you first got it, but it doesn’t matter so much once you get it on. It traps the heat from your body, keeping you warm despite the obvious chill deep seawater brings. You step into the main hall, barefoot and with your water shoes in hand, looking over at the adjoining waterway the merfolk use to get around. Someone waits for you, skin a dark shade of blue-gray, teeth sharp and layered in rows in his mouth.

“Hey,” you say, holding your bookbag slightly away from your body, so it doesn’t soak through. “How’d your night go?”

“Oh, you know,” Kanoa says, baring his razor-sharp teeth in a greeting smile, “the same. I watched a- what was it called... RIP Vine compilation for the Chaotic Good. I also learned a new human word: yeet.”

“Hm, interesting.” You bite your bottom lip, looking over the day’s agenda. “You are aware of the proper use of that word, right?”

“Of course, doctor. I would demonstrate, but I have nothing to throw besides an expensive, government-issued tablet.”

“Please don’t,” you are tempted to laugh, but hold everything together for the sake of a professional persona. “Management will not be particularly pleased about that. Our mysterious benefactor’s money can only go so far.”

When you walk, Kanoa follows alongside in the waterway, tail flicking for movement. You know that he could easily outpace you is he wanted, there have been some foot races up and down the halls just for the sake of fun. The merfolk are typically the ones who come out winning, their slick, long bodies perfect examples of speed and agility. Still, there isn’t any use in outrunning your partner when they can barely keep up, so Kanoa matches your rate of steps, looking over his tablet with a furrowed brow.

“How did our patient do during the night?” You ask, bringing up the file of a dolphin.

“I heard from our night crew that she had no issues, though she seemed lonely.”

“Once her wounds are healed up enough, she can join the communal tank.” You push open a set of double doors, entering a large, domed room, an artificial glow shining from the many lights against the ceiling. The simulation of daytime is remarkable, you would readily admit, for anyone less aware of the small biome’s existence, they might be readily fooled for some time, though the painted horizon on one side would be an easy giveaway. The sand feels warm against your bare toes, as the heated plates just a couple of feet below work to keep the internal temperatures like that of a paradise.

There, in the shallows of the water, a baby dolphin swims around in circles, though her movements are rather weak. Still, she’s significantly healed from when she first arrived, bloody and bruised from struggling to escape a stray plastic net she caught herself in. A little rest and some TLC and she’ll be back with her pod in no time, though her family went ahead and migrated without her, most likely under the assumption that their poor baby was dead. The GPS tags have them out in the northern waters already, so you’ll probably have her kept in rehabilitation until they come back.

Kanoa pops out from his own entrance underneath the water, shaking his head back and forth to get the water from his eyes. The dolphin clicks with joy when she sees him, swimming weak circles around his large, gray frame in an invitation to play. He picks her up, and she wriggles in his arms with joy, making loud, squeaky cries of excitement as he dives backward in the water, popping back up only a yard away from the artificial shore. She squeals when she notices you, too, beckoning you closer so she could swim excited circles around your waist.

“She missed us,” Kanoa laughs, picking her up again and placing a kiss on her forehead. “Awww, little baby, look at you! Getting better already.”

The dolphin’s excitement is ridiculously infectious, so you find yourself giggling along to her chirps of happiness. Your fingers run over her back as she wriggles back and forth between you and Kanoa, unable to decide who gets to get the honor of playing the first game of the day with her. Physical therapy, actually, it’s just disguised as something fun for her to do, but every little thing the both of you do has the express purpose of helping her recover. Still, dressing it up to be fun and engaging certainly hurts no one, least of all the patient in question.

“We need to come up with a name for you,” Kanoa coos, cradling her in his arms.

“Don’t look at me,” you say, “you can’t put me on the spot like that.”

“I’m sure I’ll think of something,” Kanoa says, more to the dolphin than you, “yes I will, baby girl, yes I will…”

You hide your smile behind the tablet, tapping briefly just to make it seem like you’re working. Kanoa is more than happy to take the first game, something designed to strengthen her muscles, while you sit on the sandy edge, monitoring her progress from a distance in case he misses something vital in her movement. She’s a wily one, even while injured, so she runs to risk of straining herself far too early, something that might permanently damage what has already been harmed. Then it’s your turn to give her some attention, swimming laps around the pool in the guise of tag.

“You take lunch with the other scientists, don’t you?” Kanoa asks, after a few hours of working with the dolphin.

“Usually. I don’t have the energy to pack my own food, so I eat from the cafeteria.”

“You should eat it with me. If you don’t mind.” Kanoa fiddles with his tablet, the corner of his mouth twitching. “It would give us some extra time to discuss our little patient here.”

It only takes a moment of hesitation for you to agree. “Sure, but you’ll have to let me grab something to-go from the main caf.”

“Of course,” Kanoa says, perhaps a little too quickly. “I usually eat here with little miss sunshine, so-”

“I’ll get something to eat and come back down,” you finish, nodding, “sounds good.”

It doesn’t take much longer for lunchtime to arrive, but it does take you a hot minute to go up to the cafeteria, lines all up the wazoo. You through on a simple cover dress, one thin layer to hide your skin-tight wetsuit from prying, curious eyes. Thanks to the ridiculous amount of tourism that takes up a good portion of the Center, there are many chain restaurants present to feed them all, so you always have a decent selection of menu. There’s an authentic Japanese restaurant, carved out in their own little corner, one that many a night you’ve spent with your land-dwelling coworkers.

The sushi there is top-notch, or at least you’ve been told so by your coworkers with more experience in the cuisine. While a tad bit pricey, it is one of the few things that both humans and merfolk can consume, so you’re drawn to it all the same. Just on a whim, you order one or two more than you think you can eat... in case someone wants to share. After a couple of minutes of waiting after your order was taken, the chef finishes up the lunch, placing everything in a sturdy paper box, one that biodegrades after a couple of days once it’s been used. Plastics are strictly prohibited; after all, styrofoam included, so everything that gets put in the trash rots after a couple of days. Keeps the risk of pollution at a minimum.

You walk back to the elevators, careful to dodge a group of shrieking children running out of the gift shop, little trinkets that couldn’t have cost more than five dollars in hand. It doesn’t take you as long to navigate the tunneling corridors back down to the rehab domes, the chill of the hallways biting at your fingers. The warmth of the artificial sun is a relief the moment you push your way through the doors, and you’re quick to kick off your sandals and bury your toes beneath the sand.

Kanoa waits for you, tail curled up, ceramic bowl in hand with spiced fish inside. It’s rather hard to cook food beneath the sea when a fire isn’t exactly an option, and going to any heat source like a lava flow would end up with you roasting alongside whatever you have, so it’s not really a surprise that merfolk eat their food raw. You sit next to him, placing a metal water bottle in the sand and wriggling it, so it stays upright, and look over to where the dolphin is swimming around in circles, playing her own little game with a large, inflated ball.

“How’s she doing?”

“In the few minutes that you’ve been gone?” Kanoa pops another slice of fish into his mouth. “Not very different. She’s extremely chipper today, wonder what the night crew did to put her in such a good mood.”

“Maybe she’s just stoked to see us.”

Kanoa looks over at you, brow furrowed.

“Stoked, uh, means,”

“Just playing,” he flicks your shoulder, “I know what it means: very excited.”

You snort, snapping a pair of disposable chopsticks in half. “You got me there, dude. I almost went on a whole tangent explaining what it means and how it’s used. Can’t have a repeat of the lmao incident from last year.”

Kanoa lets out a huffy laugh, looking over your meal with an interested gaze. “Sushi? You like that?”

You shrug, picking up one of the more fishy bites and offered it to him. “Mostly. You want some?”

He leans over and takes the sushi in his mouth, not taking too much time to chew before swallowing, eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he takes a moment to decide whether or not he likes it. “It’s good.”

“Yeah?” You aren’t sure if you’re feeling relief or not.

“Yeah.”

“Cool.” You quickly pick up another and eat it, mouth savoring the natural saltiness of the fish and the soft crunch of an accompanying radish.

“I have a question,” Kanoa says in a casual-not-casual voice, “just something I’ve been wondering about.”

“Yes?” You take the bait, not sure where to look. Definitely not on his chiseled abs, that’s not a great place to stare at right now. Maybe not at your sushi, either, because that might seem rude. Ugh, eye contact it is, then.

“I’ve seen acts of affection on the Tube. Kissing, right?”

“First, never call YouTube ‘the tube’ again,” you take a breath, steeling yourself for where you know he’s trying to steer the conversation towards. You know what? You’re okay with this. “Second, yes, I’m aware of kissing.”

“I’d like to try it, if you don’t mind, with someone with experience in the action. Most humans do, yeah? You do?”

You clear the air away from your throat. “Yeah.”

“Would you mind?”

You let the question mull over in your head for all but two seconds while you bring forth the pros and cons of doing allowing a shark merfolk press his mouth against yours- or, you suppose, you’ll have to be the one to initiate, coaching him through the process. Pros; you look down at his abs, then back up to the shapely outline of his jaw. Cons; uhm, letting the softer parts of your face get up and cozy with that gauntlet of ridiculously sharp teeth.

“Sure,” you say, swallowing thickly, eyeing his pecs, “for science.”

Carefully, you set the box of sushi onto the sand. Then, slowly, you place both hands on either side of his shoulders, getting up onto your knees, and go in for the kill before you hesitate any longer. His mouth isn’t soft as a human’s; rather, it’s a tad bit rubbery, nor is it at all warm. It’s almost like kissing one of those dreaded dodgeballs that’s been hanging out in the cold night air for a good couple of hours, though his mouth is decidedly far more shapely than a sphere.

Kanoa doesn’t move an inch, frozen in place, almost like he hadn’t expected you to take his offer, or at least do so as quickly as you ended up doing so. When you pull away, though, his hand unexpectedly falls on your arm, his dark eyes almost glazed over from whatever emotions are running through his body. After a moment, he presses his forehead against yours, then tries his best to mimic the way your lips had gently pressed up against his. He’s clumsy at first, but that doesn’t stop him from making a second attempt, one that’s much more improved in the way of technique.

You’re quickly breathless, and you can’t remember how you ended up underneath him, only that his kissing abilities are improving very rapidly with every single intimate moment that passes. It takes you a minute to be able to think properly because you want to ask him something, but the heat the two of you share makes it awfully hard to create a single, coherent sentence in your mind. Oh, the coolness of his mouth was only offputting in the beginning, now it’s grown on you. “Ho-” you let out a little gasp when his face tilts, and he offers a teasing kiss on your earlobe, “how to your people do this?”

“They don’t.” He’s as breathless as you, unable to process any of his thoughts or your words correctly.

“Not this, but- but ways they show love?” You tangling your fingers through his drying hair, your nails pressing into his scalp.

Kanoa mulls it over for a moment, eyes darting across your face, your eyes, nose, mouth, then falls down to a sliver of skin that the wetsuit doesn’t cover on your neck. He leans over, his hair tickling your chin, then bites, not hard, not enough to draw blood, but enough to send a little spark through your nerves. Instead of immediately letting go, he stays that way for a bit longer, then slowly opens his mouth enough to release your skin. His teeth graze against your neck as he does so, the warmth of his breath sending delicious shivers down your spine.

“Like that.” He says, sounding satisfied with how disheveled you look beneath him.

“Oh,” you say, your voice small. “Do it again.”

He obeys, switching over to the other side of your neck, his teeth pulling at your skin. The way he bites is careful, full of cautious movement, clearly aware that any sort of wrong twitch might leave your skin torn and bloody. It’s a careful dance between too much and not enough, the line between pain and pleasure as thin as a silk thread, but he somehow manages to walk it with a sort of ease that you’re not confident you can come close to emulate, should the tables turn. When he lets go, the sharpness ceases, and you are left breathless and heated.

“We should stop,” he says, his voice quiet and muted, as though there’s suddenly a wall dividing the two of you.

“Wha- why?” You ask, suddenly aware that the zipper of your wetsuit had somehow managed to make it down past your collarbone. Did he do that? Did you? It’s a blur.

“I’m afraid I won’t want to stop if we continue- and I don’t think you would, either.” He looks over to where the dolphin is swimming around in circles, eagerly awaiting your return to playtime. “We’re still at work.”

“Right.” Your stomach stops its drop, relieved that he hadn’t suddenly decided that this was all too much, too fast, because the pace seemed to be just right in your eyes.

“There’s a utility closet that I can get into upstairs,” he says, “no one ever enters because it’s tucked in a far off corner.”

You smile wide enough that it hurts. “Oh? And what would be doing in there?”

“Going as far as we’d like without worrying about an audience.”

“I’ll give it some thought,” you say, playing the hard to get card. “Weigh the benefits of any feasible outcomes.”

“Well, please write out your final thesis on the topic and bring it by my desk by evening.”

#exophilia #shark mermaid #merfolk #monster boyfriend #monster/human #monster/reader #gender neutral reader #lime

[scorpiosanssexy]

Haikyuu Characters doing their Duke of Edinburgh Expedition

I had a lovely chat with the wonderful @criedoverspiltmilkchan​ and we started to talk about what each haikyuu character would be like when doing dofe. Some of these headcanons were simply too good to leave in the messenger so here we are. 

(to all of my non british followers here is a quick explanation as to what dofe is, lots of british kids did this during high school. - https://www.dofe.org/do/sections/   click on the expedition bit) 

Group 1: Ushijima, Tendou, Oikawa, Iwaizumi, Kageyama, Hinata and Sugawara 

Ushijima is in his elememt , he is the leader of the group, you cannot tell me that this farmer boi doesn’t know how to do basic camping task

He is the person in the group that will 100% leave his group oikawa  behind because they are walking too slow 

He also made sure that everyone in his group were up at 5am so that they could watch the sunrise together

Whilst Ushijima is loving life, Oikawa is straight up the opposite 

This boy has never gone camping in his life

“I W A C H A N how do i put up this tent”

The only good thing he contributes to the group was that he snuck his old  I-pod touch and started a  sech on top of a hill

Which only consisted of spice girls whaaat 

He is also the person in the group to catch hypothermia even though Iwaizumi told him to put more clothes on

He just wanted to look cute 

Speaking of Iwaizumi, he is in charge of the route card. 

He was the only person who actually knew where the escape points were

He is the best person to have in your group because he is really good at motivating everyone but also get’s shit done 

He was basically Oikawa personal bodyguard 

Kageyama and Hinata were just fighting with each other constantly

For example it was Hinata’s turn to navigate (this boi cannot read a map to save his life) and he basically got lost 

Kageyama was raging B O K E  H I N A T A  B O K E 

Suga had to break up the fight 

These two idiots were also the people who kept everyone up all night because they were chatting at 2am in their tent. 

They also raced each other up a hill (Hinata is winning 10 to 9)

Kageyama brought milk with him but i began to rot so his tent stinks of old milk

Hinata brought an inflatable volleyball and once they got to the campiste they all played with it until it was dark 

Now Sugawara was made camp chef, why? because he is the best cook 

However no one could have predicted that Suga would cook them the spicy thing none to man (it is canon that he loves spicy food) 

Everyone is literally dying 

Tendou is the only one who actually enjoyed the meal 

the only reason tendou is doing dofe it because ushijima is doing it 

He naruto runs up the hill , and he beats both kageyama and hinata in their race (tendou - 11 kagehina- 0)

He is constanly whistiling whilst he walks oikawa wants to kill him 

Forgot his sleeping mat so hasn’t slept for pretty much the entire expedition 

He is surviving on literally just redbull and suga’s cooking 

As a group they were the second ones to reach the campsite  

Group 2: Kuroo, Kenma, Bokuto, Akaashi, Yaku, Tsukishima and Lev 

There is one and one reason only Kenma signed up for Dofe and that was because Kuroo said he would buy him the latest game animal crossing new horizons

For the majority of the time , he literally sulks because he wasn’t allowed his nintendo switch (which kuroo confiscated) 

He wanted to be in a group with Hinata 

Kuroo, on the other hand loves Dofe 

Him , being the science nerd he is, is literally naming every single planet he see’s on the hike and gives little fun facts about them 

He also encourages Tsukki and Kenma to do “group activities” (this literally consists of Bokuto and Lev rolling down a hill) 

Yaku is the sole voice of reason for the group 

His jobs is to make sure lev nekoma’s toddler  doesn’t run off and get in trouble

He is the only one who can work the trangia, no one knows how he does it he just does 

Again like Iwa chan, he is the only member of the group who actually knows the route card 

Lev

just lev tbh 

Lev 100% was that person in the group who ate the berries to “feel like one with nature”

He is also the dumb person to start dancing infront of a bull 

he was then chased by it 

yaku nearly died because of his short legs 

Lev wasn’t allowed to navigate 

Tbh he wasn’t allowed to do much 

He was banned from being in charge of the route card because he left it in the field, when he was chased by the bull 

Thank god Yaku knew the route 

Bokuto was the head chefs at camp, why? because he binges Hell’s Kitchen relgiously ( 100% qualified) 

They were going to cook a simple pasta dish, easy 

Welp, 20 minutes later the pasta had burnt, the trangia  melted at the bottom, dinner was shit 

cue Bokuto’s emo mode 

However, there was hope 

Akaashi was the group member who managed to sneak his phone 

He doesn’t really give a shit about nature, would rather be in a cafe in the city 

He secretly orders a chinese several yards away from the campsite ( he knew that Bokuto was going to fuck up dinner)

He tells everyone that Bokuto did this, to make him look like the hero 

So Group 2 tucked into Chinese , Oikawa could smell it and then started to complain to Iwa chan that other campers had nicer food 

This was the highlight for Tsukishima 

Tsukishima only signed up to Dofe because he thought Yamaguchi would do it 

Yamaguchi missed the deadline lol 

G O M E N  T S U K K I 

Tsukki for the majority of the hike put’s in his airpods so he doesn’t have to interact with anyone 

Secretly listens to Kuroo’s plant talk 

This is the group who is last to the campsite and then proceeds to tell everyone some wild story as to why they were back so late 

Group 3: Sawamura, Asahi, Tanaka, Nishinoya and Ennoshita 

Daichi is going to go grey 

He is making sure Tanaka and Nishinoya do not get in trouble 

He has to ,multiple times, shout at them both for talking way to loudly in the middle of the night, they were playing truth and dare  

He is in charge of the emergancy phone, he played the snake game and it lost charge whaaat you didn’t hear that from me 

He packs half of his bag with food ,he really is a hungry boi 

Tanaka drew the short straw so had to carry all the tent pegs (you know the heavy stuff)

He made everyone do some really stupid shit, like roll down the hill 

He accidently pushed Daichi down the hill, he has never been so scared in his life 

Not gonna lie, the person most likely to get all their stuff wet would be this boy right here 

Ennoshita had to share clothes with him because they were soaked 

He (ennoshita)  is in charge of the group project so he is basically making a mini documentry on their expedition 

He filmed Daichi being pushed down the hill by Tanaka 

He was forced by Noya to film him doing the rolling thunder in a middle of the field 

Brings toliet paper for the group 

Nishinoya is having a great time 

Susprisely, he has really good camping skills (like he knows how to put up a tent, cook a meal etc.....) 

Doesn’t stopped him from being a crack head tho 

Has cartwheeled on Asahi multiply times 

Proudly owns crocs and a spork 

Asahi is such a big bby 

This boi hates bugs with a passion 

An example of this happen during their lunch break 

Asahi was innocently eating his sandwich and then wasp appears 

Never in their life had they heard the most high pitched scream in their life 

Asahi is literally like bye bitch 

It takes the group 20 minutes to coax Asahi to sit back dwon 

Noya kills the wasp with his croc 

Despite the horrible weather, Asahi hair is literally the most gorgeous thing ever. Like he looks good anything

Please go and give the lovely @criedoverspiltmilkchan​ a follow, they are a fellow haikyuu imagine and matchup blog.

If you have any other headcanons feel free to submit them in my ask box 

Have a lovely rest of the day

Carla 

#haikyuu headcanon #karasuno #nekoma #aoba josei #shirtorizawa #karasuno headcanon #nekoma headcanons #oikawa headcanons #ushijima headcanons #kuroo headcanons #kenma headcanons #bokuto headcanons #akaashi headcanons #tsukishima headcanons #daichi headcanons #nishinoya headcanons #tanaka headcanons #dofe #oikawa #haikyuu dofe

[dreadwulf]

#3 One Flesh, One Heart, One Soul

Brienne has become exceedingly annoyed with him. 

It is a little like when they had first met, this antagonism. Except she had despised Jaime then, and he could not arouse any anger in her however he tried. She had remained calmly disdainful that entire journey despite his continued efforts to irritate her. 

Now she is vexed. Jaime has succeeded in breaking her composure, nearly without trying, and all he had to do was inform a tavern filled with people that they were married, and convince them to toast his bride and buy them drinks. Drinks that their companions were very appreciative of, mind you. Even Brienne had finished a flagon, her face turned a now-familiar scarlet. She was at first clearly torn between shouting at him and punching him in the face, and settled on glaring daggers and leaving the room without a word to anyone, and now she has ridden ahead to their next destination without him. 

Jaime is not nearly so satisfied with this accomplishment as he might have expected. It is a little unnerving actually. Brienne avoiding his gaze and not speaking to him was more troubling than he wanted to admit, but he has never seen her openly angry and it is inexplicably worse. He wasn’t completely sure that was possible. 

Even their companions have noticed. The Hound has been clearly amused by the entire situation, and Ser Hyle has been smugly enjoying the deterioration of their relations. Young Podrick had ridden beside Jaime most of the afternoon, and questioned him anxiously.

“Why do you antagonize my lady so, my lord?” Podrick has been unfailingly polite to him thus far, in a way that suggests he is intimidated by him, or more likely by his House. But just now he is worried and protective of his lady knight, as loyal as any squire. 

“I don’t know what you mean, Podrick.” He gives the boy only a sidelong glance. 

“It upsets her. Ser Lady Brienne. I’ve never seen her like this before.” Pod sits up a little straighter on his little horse and affects a hardened expression. “You should be nicer to her.”

Jaime snorts. The lad is about as threatening as a newborn puppy. “I’m very nice to her. Am I not praising her to everyone we meet?”

Pod screws up his face in frustration. “She doesn’t understand. You’re hurting her.”

He shrugs off these comments; surely the boy has it the wrong way around. He spurs his horse and rides ahead all the way to Ironoaks, and the rough terrain of the rising road successfully occupies his thoughts. 

The high road to the Vale is closed by the snows, but they have managed to hug the coast around Wickenden rather than travel through the Mountains of the Moon. It takes weeks longer, and still they have had to fight their way through rising snow. Hopefully their destination is close. Much of the Eyrie court has moved to the Gates of the Moon, and Brienne’s party has heard news of a tourney there to select new members for the Brotherhood of Winged Knights. It is in this direction they ride despite the worsening weather. From there they can cross to the rest of the Vale, if needed.

The village surrounding Ironoaks Castle is quiet and still. Jaime rides through much of it, looking for some central place where he might find Brienne. If she has not decided to ride somewhere else entirely to escape him. But no, she would not leave her squire, and Podrick Payne is hot on his heels even now.

He finds her at a posting in the village square with news of the tourney. She stands enfolded in her heavy travel cloak, her loose blonde hair blowing in the snow, and he dismounts to join her.

Jaime thinks little enough of the Vale Knights - they are confident in their superiority but were no match for his sword when he had two hands. But the conflagration of nobles and knights will surely be an ideal location to learn news of the region, and a safe place to hide from Crown forces. If the Stark girl is indeed in the Vale, she would surely be there. 

“I might have competed in this once,” he says by way of greeting as he comes to stand beside her. “Perhaps you might consider it, becoming a winged knight. There are not so many Starks left to serve.”

Brienne does not turn to him. She fairly growls at him, arms crossed beneath her cloak. “I thought you wanted to find your honor? If you are not so distracted by ridiculing me.”

A strange falling sensation fills his stomach. “Oh, so you’re speaking to me now? How nice.”

“Will you stop telling people I am your bride?”

“Why? It’s true.”

“It’s misleading.” She glares at the missive nailed to the wall as if it has attacked her personally. “I never agreed to be anyone’s wife. Must you make this more unpleasant?” 

“It’s not unpleasant for me,” he says cheerfully.

“Of course it isn’t.” Brienne lifts her chin and looks at him, and this time it is he who cannot quite meet her eye.  “You can amuse yourself as you like, you are not the one who will be considered spoiled afterwards. Your reputation will be pristine when the marriage is undone, but not mine. Even though I spoke no vow, and was not even awake for the ceremony.”

He feels a pang of guilt at that. “It was not my idea either, Brienne. It was a convenience. I know that it was not real, and you did not agree to it.” 

“For gods sake let’s keep it quiet then,” she hisses at him. “For the survival of my good name keep your japes to yourself.”

“For your good name, I’ll refrain from sullying it with mine,” he agrees with considerably less cheer. 

“Why did you allow it in the first place? I thought you were forbidden to marry, as a Kingsguard…?” Brienne is staring at him most earnestly, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 

“As it happens, King Tommen has declared me dead and replaced me in the Guard. He did not wait overlong to do it, either. So as dead men have no vows…” he shrugs, with a great deal more indifference than he is feeling. 

He hadn’t known that detail at the time, of course. It had most likely happened while they were on the Quiet Isle, and he had learned of it from rumors on the road. But she does not need to know that. Nor does she need to know how hurt he had been, to find himself so easily discarded.

“But what was the purpose? The Quiet Isle would have tended to me just the same. Why -- ?”

How to explain? She doesn’t remember it. She doesn’t remember him holding her belly together as they rode for the Isle. She doesn’t remember screaming in pain in the bed they put her in. How she had thrashed and writhed in it, when they let him look in. They would not let them go to her side, not even young Podrick, who clearly loved her like a mother. Not even him, when he had carried her in pleading for their help, and was still covered in her blood.

How can he explain to her that he tried to tell them no? That he had refused to wed an unconscious woman without her permission? That was when they had shown him, when he had seen her in that bed and wanted to carry her away immediately from that awful room. It stank of sickness, of infection, and she did not belong there. But of course it was coming from her, the sickness was in her and radiating off her in waves. Her skin was grey and damp with sweat and those wounds open to the air were black and dripping with pus. Her face gaped open at her cheek and he could see a flash of muscle tissue through the swelling, the cheek she had always kept covered before. These were old wounds, weeks’ worth of wounds, one on top of another, and worst of all the one to her belly that should have carved out her guts. They had stitched it shut, that one, but it showed no inclination to stay closed. She was shivering, moving in small, restless jerks. 

“Can you give her nothing for the pain?” he had demanded of them, but they said the amount they would have to give to touch these wounds, she was unlikely to wake from it. They said it and the monk and his fellow looked at Jaime expectantly, as though they have asked him a question. It takes him too long to realize what the question is. 

“If you’re asking,” he said testily, “whether I agree to a mercy killing, I do not. Brienne will live. You will save her life.”

They had looked at one another, grimacing. The monks had explained, one after another, that they could not save her. That her wounds were quite grievous, and quite infected, and the lady was mortally ill. They would be only delaying the inevitable. They thought, after a certain point when they had tired of arguing with him, that it would be selfish to continue.

“When I lost this” -- he had shouted at them, holding up what was left of his right arm -- “and I was burning with infection, wearing my own rotting hand on a chain around my neck and in such unimaginable pain I was pleading to gods I don’t even believe in to put an end to me, Brienne told me to live. She said I must live, and so I did. I would ask no less of her. I don’t care that she is a maid, she is no weaker than I am and has endured far more than most men. She will survive this if we let her. You will give her the chance to, and so help me I will make certain of it. I will burn this monastery down if you don’t.”

But she had writhed. The monks held her arms down firmly against the bed, to keep her from hurting herself or flinging herself off of it. Her entire body seized with pain, silently, an agony too harsh even to allow a cry to escape her lips. It bent her back so that she arched off the bed and her hands formed claws at her sides. 

When she relaxed into unconsciousness again, Jaime noticed his lungs screaming at him and remembered to breathe in. He took a harsh gulp of air and held it painfully, his vision blurred.

“Do you see?” The Elder Brother had said then. “Do you understand?”

He had nodded wordlessly. He believed them, that she was dying. Dying by inches and measured breaths, the Stranger’s hand on her shoulder. He never told anyone that, not then and not later, that he had given in. Out loud he had insisted she would live, that they must try. But in that moment, looking at her in the bed, he knew that she was dying and there was nothing he could do to save her. That was why he had agreed to marry her. He could do nothing for her terrible pain but he would not allow her to die alone and scared. He could at least do that.

But she did not die. She did not die, and now she stands before him and she is confused and he does not know what to tell her. She doesn’t remember and there are no words to describe it. It had been agony, that helpless moment looking at her in the bed, and he would have done anything in his power to help her, and so he married her. There is no way to explain that.

Jaime steps closer to Brienne. He has to look decidedly upwards to find her eyes, and has never gotten used to it. His eyeline falls more naturally to her strong jaw, her neck, which he had been so entranced by in the Inn. Her neck, with the fading burn beneath her chin where they had hung her. 

He could kiss her. She is unreasonably tall but he could bury his hand in her hair and turn her face down to his. Her mouth is not pretty but her lips are thick and pillowy and would be sweet to taste. He could do it.

“What about this?” he asks instead, suddenly. Jaime brushes his knuckles against it, the mark around her neck where the rope had been. “Why would you let the Brotherhood do this to you?”

Something strange flickers across her face. “I could hardly protest. There were too many.”

He insists. “You could have simply done as they wanted.”

Brienne shakes her head. “It would not have been right. You did not do the things they accused you of, and I would not execute an innocent man.”

Jaime should have been prepared for that answer but he isn’t. For some reason it hits him square in the chest, like a blow. 

“Of course,” he says, a little breathlessly. He lets his hand drop back to his side. “You would only do right.”

Of course. Of course that is why. Brienne is good, she is truly good and honorable and she would have done it for anyone. Brienne would do the right thing, and that is that. She is a true knight and he is a damned fool.

He pretends to read the bulletin of the tourney with great interest.

“It was a whim,” he says in answer to her earlier question, and shrugs. “The nuptuals. They said it would be undone, and it took no time at all. Only a few words and it was over.”

 “A whim.” She sniffs, and nods harshly. 

“They were quite set on having you married, their order. For a lot of unmarried monks they are quite obsessed with it.”

“I see,” she whispers.

***

When he makes the arrangements at the Inn this time, he arranges for the two rooms, but does not mention a wife. He says very little at all, and sets himself in the tavern well apart from the rest of their little party. 

Podrick Payne looks between the both of them, Brienne and Jaime, and stays with Brienne. 

The Hound, oddly enough, sits next to Jaime, though he offers little in the way of conversation. He makes a pleasant enough drinking companion, in that he signals regularly to the barmaid to replenish their supply, and does not ask any questions. 

Ser Hyle sits beside Brienne as she sullenly eats her supper, speaking to her eagerly, probably about their ridiculous situation. He had wanted to be the one to marry her, of course. He had offered it, on the Isle. But Hyle Hunt is a schemer from a minor house and he would wed Brienne for her inheritance and leave her on her deathbed, Jaime thinks. He would not have cared for her the way he had. 

I know that it was not real, he had told Brienne.

I truly believe that the ceremony was real and it was sacred, Elder Brother had said. 

There was not, in fact, much ceremony at all. He had simply sat beside her on her sickbed. The both of them in the same clothes they had worn before Lady Stoneheart, torn and bloodstained and filthy. They had bound Jaime’s left hand to her right and Elder brother said the words. One flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever. Her hand was cold and limp in his but he threaded his fingers through hers and squeezed, hoping somehow she felt it as a comfort. If she was not silently screaming in objection to this farce of a wedding. 

He said the words; she could not say them back. I am hers and she is mine. From this day until the end of my days.

They had left him alone with her, with dreamwine and milk of the poppy to ease her passing, and he poured her a finger of the dreamwine, and when much of it dripped out of her mouth he poured her another, but no more. She did not move about so much after that. Then he had crawled into the bed beside her and slipped an arm around her, just above the stitches at her belly, and held onto her as best he could with his handless arm and her wounded from head to toe. 

She at least would not die alone, nor lie in an unmarked grave in a strange place. She would not go unremembered. He would make sure of that.

I don’t doubt you would have chosen better, but I will be a good husband to you in what way I can. I will take you to my home at Casterly Rock and make a place for you and a place for me. One day when I die they will lay our bones there together.   

But she did not die. She had survived through long nights and days of pain and fever, had survived the monks and their bandages and resetting of bones and scouring of infection, and slowly her wounds had closed and her fever broke and consciousness returned at last, against all odds and expectations.

She had survived and by the Seven, he had been so relieved. Every day since he has been relieved. For the first time perhaps ever his most fervent prayers have been answered. He has lost his mother and his father, become estranged from his brother, separated from the children he had fathered, lost his right hand and his vocation, found that the great love of his life had been an illusion and a lie, but when he had claimed Brienne for his own she had survived. 

So if she doesn’t want him for a husband, he surely cannot begrudge her that. He had not prayed for that, had he? He only asked her to live. 

He stays in the tavern longer than all the others. Brienne and Podrick and Ser Hyle finish their supper quickly and disappear. The Hound paces him admirably but eventually excuses himself to his bed, with a strangely sympathetic touch on the shoulder. 

He must look miserable indeed to earn pity from Sandor Clegane.

It takes a considerable amount of ale to do him any damage, watered-down as it is, but Jamie makes the effort. By the time he wanders upstairs he is weaving in his steps and sure that Brienne will be long asleep, and he is considerably surprised to find her sitting up, fully dressed and waiting for him. 

She sits on the foot of the bed, her hands twisting in her lap, and she looks tentative and uncertain. Jaime likes that least of all, this new timidity. It is Brienne being Good again. She treats him as a suitor she is letting down gently, and he thinks that if he is going to be rejected, he might at least have made a real overture first. He has not earned this. This is unfair.

“We must put an end to this marriage,” Brienne says slowly, meeting his eye at last. “I do not like what it has put between us.”

The words stick in his throat awkwardly, though he has thought them often enough. “If we returned to King’s Landing, the Faith could annul it at my request. But I did not think you would want to abandon our search for that.”

“I don’t see much choice.” She wipes the heel of her hand across her face, quickly.

Finally he snaps at her. "Is it so awful, being wed to me? How humiliating for you, married to the most dishonorable man in Westeros. You must be suffering intolerably.” 

Her mouth twists. “If you were not the loudest man in Westeros, it would not be so bad. If you did not insist on embarrassing me--” 

"I didn’t realize I was to be a shameful secret for you to keep. If it embarrasses you, I will not speak of it  But tell me, if you are so distressed, why didn’t you ask your Elder Brother to dissolve this farce?"

"I did," she replies sullenly.

Oh, he thinks. And then: Oh. Of course she did.

"I suppose he told you the same thing he told me then." His face is grown hot again, as if held to a fire, and he spits out the words as though they burn. "That it would be dissolved if left unconsummated at year's end. So there is your freedom if you can stand the wait."

"I can endure your japes if there will be an end to them." She hunches over strangely, her shoulders up nearly to her ears. 'i know that you would never touch me."

"Certainly not. I am a gentleman."

She looks up, suddenly fierce. "Sleep you in the other room then, so that there is no mistake. Our companions must support our claim that we do not share a bed."

"Fine," he says before he has quite thought about it, and storms out into hall, slamming the door behind him.

He stands frozen in the hall staring at the wall in front of him, until he hears footsteps behind him. Cautious footsteps. 

He listens closely to them, imagining their maker, how carefully she steps so that he will not hear. She will open the door at any moment, to be sure he is gone, and he should move quickly into the other room they have rented but he is frozen in place. For some reason or other, he wants her to see him there.

But she does not open the door. Instead he hears the lock clicking into place behind him, sealing him out.

Click.

At this he immediately breezes into the adjoining room, startling awake their companions with some story of being locked out of his room after visiting extensively with the bar patrons.

"I knew you'd fuck it up," Ser Hyle says derisively from his pallet on the floor, and Podrick evinces a small giggle, and Jaime curses them all to the darkest of the seven hells and claims a chair for his bed.

He sleeps fitfully against his fist, and he does not think of his wife asleep alone in the next room behind a locked door and it does not hurt at all, it doesn't, it doesn't.

#From This Day Until the End of My Days #whoops now it's sad #my emotionally constipated warrior babies #tumblr fic

[pulpwriterx]

CIRCLE OF IRON

PART 3 of 6 TEARS

Rey was asleep in her bed when she heard the main door to Lord Ren’s quarters open.

Immediately, she felt pain, fright, and fatigue.

They were so immediate and so personal that she turned on the light and examined her body for wounds.

“Rey. Wake up. I need help.”

It was his pain and fright and fatigue that she was feeling.

Kylo Ren’s.

Rey threw her leggings on under the long black tunic that she had gotten from the clean clothes to use as a nightshirt, and went into the main room.

He was sprawled across the couch, and his mask was lying on the floor, on top of his surcoat.

Rey quickly put her teacher’s mask in it’s usual place.

His tunic and undershirt were torn and there was a nasty blaster wound on his side.

The bolt of plasma had seared past him, both cutting and burning him.

But he was holding his other side.

“Ribs are cracked. Can hardly breathe. No doctors. In the bathroom. First aid box. Cabinet under sink.” Kylo panted.

"Not even Talia?"

"No. She'll put me in a bacta tank. I'd rather die."

Rey got a bowl from the kitchen, and in the bathroom she filled it with hot water.

She brought the first aid box, soap, a washcloth and towels.

“Can you lift your arms?” she asked.

He shook his head.

Rey got scissors and cut his tunic and undershirt, down the middle and down the sleeves and then pulled the bloody remains away.

She cleaned mud and blood off of his chest, and away from the wounds.

Rey found bacta ointment, and slathered it on the blaster wound, then put a gauze dressing over it with tape.

“I’m looking for a compression bandage. I’ll take off this top tier of the kit. Underneath."

There was a white compression bandage in a package.

Rey cut it open.

It was a large wrap, and the inside had pods of bacta on it.

Rey couldn’t lift Kylo Ren to a sitting position without using the Force to help her.

She wrapped the compression bandage around his ribs, and closed the fasteners.

Then she gently lowered him back onto the couch, with his head against the arm.

“Boots off. Pants too. Whiskey, first.”

“But surely you have better painkillers…”

“No. Fogs the mind. Whiskey.”

Rey didn’t see how anyone could drink Huttese whiskey.

It smelled antiseptic, and it was a green, viscous, oily liquid that was damn near a gel.

Kylo gulped it down like it was water.

She pulled his boots off, and without really thinking about it, unbuttoned his pants.

He wasn’t wearing underwear, just some kind of cup attached to a waistband.

Rey pulled his trousers off, too.

“Surcoat and pants down laundry chute. Remains of tunic and undershirt in disintegrator.”

Rey noticed, as she came back from taking care of the clothes that Kylo’s har was filthy, bloody and matted.

She got some shampoo from the bathroom and washed his hair with the water from the bowl, then she rinsed it using two bowls, and looked at his scalp for wounds.

There weren’t any.

She used the last clean towel to dry his hair until it was damp, and then put all the dirty, bloody towels and washcloths down the laundry chute.

“I’ll get a pillow and a blanket from your bed.”

Rey ran to do that, too.

Kylo moved a little on his own for her to put the pillow under his head.

Just as she was covering him, the main door opened.

Someone had used an override key.

It was Captain Phasma.

She wasn’t wearing her usual uniform, she had on a pair of black First Order coveralls, and her head and hand were bandaged.

“Don’t cover him up yet, Miss Rey. You can’t leave him there all night with that cup strangling his balls. Get that whiskey away, and I’ll take it off.”

Rey saw in the chrome surface of the hood over the stove that Phasma quickly kissed Kylo Ren on the lips as she covered him up.

“Phasma. I’m sorry. It’s Wednesday.”

“You fought bravely, my Lord Ren. You deserve a night off. A week, from the look of you. Miss Rey!”

Rey came back from the kitchen.

“Kylo has taken very good care of you. You will look after him. For as long as need be.” She ordered.

“You didn’t have to tell me that.”

“Just remember, girl. Every week has a Wednesday. Until the end of time.”

Rey thought that Captain Phasma purposely kissed Kylo Ren goodbye in an intimate way, to show her partial ownership of him.

“I will be checking up on our Lord and Master. Regularly.”

“He’s not my…”

Phasma slapped her, sharply, across the mouth.

“Desert rat! Your belly is full of his food, the clothes he had made for you are on your back! You are not rotting in the sand or freezing in a Rebel tent in a threadbare pair of ancient coveralls because of Kylo’s kindness to you! He bloody well is your Lord and Master, and don’t you ever forget it!”

Rey actually felt somewhat chastetened, but she remained defiant.

“No tears? No looking away. You show promise, girl. If you ever learn your place, we might be allies.”

“Allies? In what?”

But Rey knew what Phasma was talking about.

The Captain swept out of the room and Rey closed the door and activated the blast shield.

That woke Kylo up.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. I closed the blast shield. Do you want me to stay here, with you, tonight? I can sleep in the chair.”

“Please.”

Rey got her blanket and curled up in the chair, staying awake until he had fallen into a deep sleep.

She had no idea why she had rushed to help him, or why she wasn’t using this opportunity to escape.

It’s because the more I come to know him, the more I see him as a man and not a monster or an enemy. In my mind he’s already my teacher, Kylo Ren. My

“Rey.”

Rey jumped.

She heard General Organa-Solo’s voice as if they were in the room, together.

“Don’t speak. Answer me through the Force. Use your mind. I sensed great pain and fear from my son. What happened?”

“He was wounded during a combat mission. His ribs are cracked on one side, all black and blue. He can’t hardly move, and it hurts him to talk or breathe. He also was grazed by a blaster, on the other side. It burned and cut him. I washed him, and dressed his wounds and put this bacta wrap on his ribs, but I think he should be in the Infirmary. But he won’t go. He hates doctors.  Especially on Star Destroyers. He won't see his own doctor, who he trusts, because he says she'll put him in a bacta tank, and he would rather die. I had to undress him, today and he has a scar that wraps around his thigh and crosses from his hip up to his navel. It looks like it’s from an Imperial torture droid.”

“They tortured him to the point of death, then had medical droids heal him, and then they tortured him, again. That’s standard procedure.”

“Why would Snoke have his own apprentice tortured?”

“Much of Sith Training is torture, of one kind of another. They wanted to break Ben. But Ben can’t be broken. There’s a place inside him that he can retreat to where nothing can reach him.”

“What do I do, General?”

“Take care of my son for me, Rey.”

“I will.”

***

Rey slept badly, and woke up early.

Ben was breathing regularly, but when she looked under the blanket she saw that his whole chest on that side was black and blue.

Rey didn’t know what to do.

General Hux.

The red-haired Arkanian often ate with them, and his rooms were right next door.

She had heard Hux say things like, “when you were still Ben Solo”, so they must be something other than rivals.

Rey left Kylo’s rooms and went next door, and started pounding on the door.

Hux opened the door almost immediately.

He was still in his nightclothes; a long, black, long-sleeved nightshirt with three buttons at the top.

“I don’t know what to do! You have to look at Kylo!” Rey said.

“I’ll know what to do. Show me.”

 ***

General Hux took one look at Kylo Ren’s condition, and returned to his room.

He came back with a hypo, and injected it into Kylo’s neck.

"I hope that was enough. We'll take him to Talia."

Then he called for the medical droids.

They took Kylo Ren to the Infirmary, and the same Twi-lek doctor examined him.

She looked extremely upset, and ordered that he be kept sedated and put in a bacta tank.

General Hux visited, often, and so did Phasma, but Rey stayed in Kylo Ren’s room all the time, except at night, when the doctors made her leave.

She was sitting on the sofa in the main room, reading a book from Kylo’s room when something very strange happened.

A little light on the radio blainked.

Beside it was a piece of tape, and on that piece of tape were the words “TIE Radio.”

Rey went all the way to the hangar, got into Kylo’s TIE Fighter, and picked up the radio.

“Hello?” she asked.

“Rey? What happened to Ben?”

“Han? Is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Where’s Ben?”

“He’s in the Infirmary. In a bacta tank, under heavy sedation, because he hates doctors and infirmaries and bacta tanks. He broke some ribs on a combat mission, and his chest is all black and blue. He also has a flesh wound, from a blaster. I was up all night, the first night, listening to see if he was still breathing. They’ve got some kind of rebreather on him, now. His doctor said he’d be in the tank for a week. He’s got two days to go.”

“You sound worried.”

“I’m worried he’ll wake up in the tank. What’s going on?”

“When he’s better? Tell him the deal with the rathtars went through.”

“What deal?”

“Aw, shit, Rey. I guess you know there’s special rationing and rules in the Galaxy, now there’s a war on, but there’s a black market where you can get things, outside the rules.”

“Yes. And?”

“Well, that’s Ben’s operation. He siphons off guns and coax from First Order caches, I trade it for booze and cigarillos and shit like that with our business partners, and he has people who distribute the swag through all the First Order ships and bases. And the rest of the Galaxy, to some extent. Heavy on the Outer Rim. After we pay our partners, he gets sixty percent and I get forty. I don’t just do it for the money. But it’s good money. Hell of an operation. I do it to keep tabs on the kid. Now you know why he said there was no money in killing me.”

Rey was a scavenger; she had grown up among pirates and flyboys and smugglers.

She immediately understood.

“Can you stall your partners, or do you need the shipment, now? He told me nothing; if he had told me I could have got it to you.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. We’re all in the same business, aren’t we. It’s in the TIE Fighter. In the floor. Inside the fat part of the left arm. The compartment opens from the outside; you can’t see if it’s loaded.”

“Hold on. I’ll go and thump it; if it sounds hollow we’ll know Kylo didn’t get a chance to load it.”

Rey checked.

Not hollow.

“Where’s the drop?”

“Now. At the old Skywalker Farm, on Tattoine. I’m waiting.”

“Give me the co-ordinates. The way Kylo has this thing souped up? I’ll be there before you know it.”

Rey told the deck crew that she had a mission to undertake for Lord Ren, and they had to let her go, and say nothing.

The old Jedi mind trick, one of the first things he had taught her.

Rey flew like the Devil was on her tail, but it was still night when she made it to Tattoine.

She and Han and Chewie loaded and unloaded in a hurry.

Thankfully, Han didn’t ask too many questions.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine.”

“Good. I hope the kid lets you stay in the business. Every smuggler could use a good scavenger.”

“Maybe I’ll see you guys next time, too.”

Rey had just enough time to hug Chewie and Han before she blasted off, again.

***

“Yeah, I agree with you, Chewie. She’s going to make a good addition to the family. If Ben doesn’t farkle it up. “

 ***

Rey didn’t even know how to approach the subject after Kylo returned from the Infimary.

So, she just came out of it, as soon as the door was shut.

“I made the drop with your distributor, and picked up your shipment. The message is that the rathtar deal went off, fine.”

“You did what?”

“I’m a scavenger, remember? I know the business. Why are you still in it?”

“For the personal satisfaction it gives me to know that I am undermining everything that Snoke does. And robbing his precious First Order blind. Also? There’s no money in being Kylo Ren.”

“There’s no money in being his apprentice, either. I want in.”

“You’re already on the First Order payroll.”

“That’s nerfshit money. I want in your operation. I’m the best scavenger on Jakku. I could find a single Imperial gold piece in a mile of desert. Take me with you the next time you raid the Imperial stores, and I’ll find all the shit you’ve been dreaming of getting your hands on that you could never see.”

“I’m not giving you a percentage.”

“Why not? I’m your apprentice. I want ten percent.”

“Ten percent? Never. Two.”

“Five?”

“Let’s see how good you are. If I like your work, five is reasonable. I’ll give you two percent of this month’s take, for picking up the shipment.”

“That’s fair. I’m sorry you had to go to the Infirmary.”

“I’m glad they kept me knocked out. I can’t start your training again until next week, so I’ll explain the operation to you. If you go back to the Resistance base, we could break into that market.”

“Just booze and cigarillos and shit? Or are you going to sell fuel and arms to your enemies?”

“We’ll see.”

Rey could see that Kylo had some kind of huge master plan.

But he wasn’t going to tell her about it.

Yet.

They were talking, over food.

Rey looked into her plate.

“It’s good you’re better, Kylo.” She said.

“Thank you.” He replied.

#reylo #reylo daily #reylo canonverse au #han solo lives #save ben solo #rey grey jedi #kylo ren grey jedi

[entering-mymind]

Chapter 7 - The Reckoning

This is the seventh episode of the series where I have inserted my OC character (Mando’s daughter) into the Disneyplus television show. With her addition I believe this helps the viewers understand the choices Mando makes in the series. Would love to hear feedback! I do not own these characters and the story and dialogue goes to the respected credit of the screenwriters and creators of the show.

The Razor Crest flew through vacant space with no destination in mind. Mando piloted the ship maintaining at the wheel while pressing specific levers and controls in order to keep the ship at its finest. Mando was accompanied in the cockpit by his daughter, who sat in her usual co-pilot seat behind him, as the child’s pod was positioned in the seat opposite of her. The two Mandalorians were busy obtaining to the ship while the child slept soundly.

“Papi, a transmission was just received,” young Mando stated.

“Send it through,” Mando declared when she tapped a few buttons and a hologram of Greef Karga appeared.

“My friend, if you are receiving this transmission that means you both are alive. You might be surprised to hear this, but I am alive too. I guess we can call it even.”

“Did I miss something, did you shoot Karga?” young Mando asked but the transmission continued.

“A lot has happened since we last saw each other. The man who hired you is still here and his ranks of ex-Imperial guards have grown. They have imposed despotic rule over my city which has impeded the livelihood of the Guild. We consider him an enemy, but we cannot get close enough to take him out. If you would consider one last commission, I will very much make it worth your while.”

“You have been successful so far in staving off their hunters, but they will not stop until they have their prize. So, here is my proposition. Return to Nevarro. Bring the child as bait. I will arrange an exchange and provide loyal Guild members as protection. Once we get near the client, you kill him, and we both get what we want. If you succeed, you keep the child and I will have both you and your daughter’s name cleared with the Guild, for a man of honor should not be forced to live in exile. I await your arrival with optimism,” Karga ended his message as the two sat silent.

“You know it’s a trap,” young Mando blurted out.

“Yup,” was all Mando replied while entering specific navigational coordinates into the Crest.

“And we’re just going to walk right into it?”

“Yup.”

“Really?” this didn’t seem like her father and could tell he was formulating a plan, “Okay, bring it on,” young Mando began pumping herself up when she saw the location they were headed.

“But first we need a team of our own,” Mando clarified making the Crest adjust its position when it jumped to lightspeed.

                                                      *   *    *

The local tavern on Sorgan was wildly loud, a large group of spectators circled Cara Dune and her opponent – a Dathomirian – who were vigorously battling each other in a brawl. Both of them were connected to each another by an electric cord at the waist, making sure neither could escape the other until one was defeated.

Both opponents held up to each other’s kick and punches but once Cara received the upper hand she seized it. Cara pulled the Dathomirian to the ground and then put him in a headlock, once he was losing conscious she flipped on top of him and pulled him to his knees wrapping the electric wire – that conjoined them – around his neck.

Seeing no way out, the Dathomirian tapped out declaring Cara the winner, “Pay up, mudscuffers,” Cara pointed to specific spectators as they approached with her winnings, “Come on. That’s mine, thank you.”

Once everyone paid and cleared out Cara recognized the two individuals who lingered behind; Mando and his daughter.

“Looking for some work?” Mando asked while young Mando gave Cara a sly thumbs up, impressed with her street fighting skills. All Cara could do was chuckle more at young Mando and ignored her father’s question.

Cara sat at a table when the waitress poured her a cup of spotchka while Mando, his daughter, and the child accompanied her.

“It seems like a straightforward operation,” Mando began.

“Trap, is what he means,” young Mando slipped in but her statement went ignored.

“They’re providing the plan and firepower. I’m the snare.”

“You mean we’re the snare,” young Mando corrected, “Papi gets confused sometimes.”

“With the child,” Cara declared.

“That’s why I’m coming to you,” Mando said.

“I don’t know. I’ve been advised to lay low,” Cara reminded, “If anybody runs my chain code I’ll rot in a cell for the rest of my life.”

“I thought you were a veteran?” young Mando asked.

“I’ve been a lot of things since kiddo. Most of them carry a life sentence. If I so much as book passage on a ship registered to the New Republic, I’m…” Cara was cut off.

“I have a ship. I can bring you there and back with a handsome reward. You can live free of worry,” Mando hoped to persuade her.

“I’m already free of worry and I’m not in the mood to play soldier anymore. Especially fighting some local warlord.”

“Did I need to remind you that we will be walking into a trap,” young Mando whispered hoping to gain sympathy.

“He’s not a local warlord. He’s Imperial,” Mando clarified.

Suddenly as if the winds changed Cara’s face went from uninterested to disgust, “I’m in,” Cara raised her drink in salute to the mess she just entangled herself in.

                                                   *   *    *

“Does your contact need to vet me?” Cara questioned while Mando flew the Crest.

“Doesn’t know you’re coming,” he informed.

“Really? That could be a problem.”

“It wont, but if it is, that’s his problem,” Mando said rising from his seat and directing Cara to the lower deck.

“He alright up there alone,” she referred to the child who was left in the cockpit, “Where’s your daughter?” Cara searched.

“She needs some time for herself,” Mando said knowing it was prudent for his daughter to receive a breather from continuously watching the child.

Cara just nodded understanding a girl needed time away from the men in her life. On his gauntlet Mando pressed a button and opened a compartment revealing a plethora of weapons.

“Pick one,” he gave her free reign.

Gladly Cara went through the selection while still getting information about the mission, “You trust the contact?” she asked.

“Not particularly. He and I had a run-in last time I was there on some Guild business.”

“So then why are we going?”

“I don’t have a choice. You saw what happened on Sorgan. They’ll keep sending hunters. The kid will never be safe until the Imp is dead,” Mando stated while noticing a slight hiccup in the Crest’s trajectory.

“And you’re okay with bringing him back there?”

“Not really. That’s why I’m bringing you.”

Suddenly Mando and Cara were flung off their feet because the Crest began to go erratic. Instinctively Mando flew up to the cockpit while Cara followed behind, there they witnessed the child at the controls attempting to steer the ship. Quickly Mando removed the child and handed it to Cara to hold, he sat at the wheel, switching levers and pressing buttons to stabilize the Crest but nothing was working.

“What’s happening?” Cara questioned noticing the interior of the ship was beginning to crack from under pressure.

“No!” Mando realized the actual issue and flew back to the lower deck without explanation.

He made his way to his daughter’s workspace when he rounded the corner and found her on the floor huddled in a fetal position, shivering uncontrollably and moaning in pain. Mando dropped to his knees trying to assess how far she was in her episode. He slowly tried to unravel her but instead she swung herself over unintentionally and shoved Mando vigorously across the room with the assistance of an invisible force. He was slammed against a wall and became pinned as if someone was holding him there.

“Mi Pequeno, let me go,” he grunted through a tight chest, “Hear me, focus on my voice,” Mando tried but she couldn’t be reached, she had submerged within herself.

He could see she was doing everything in her power not to release what was inside her because if she did they would all parish, but her undivided attention turned to anything and everything.

“Mi Pequeno, please release me,” finally her hand dropped when the invisible force let him go allowing Mando to slowly gain full mobility. Powerless, he watched items in the ship take life by either crushing into itself or being thrown across the room.

The Crest continued flying erratic as Cara carried the child looking for Mando or his daughter. She turned a corner witnessing almost exactly what she experienced at the battle of Sorgan. The ground quaked beneath them and items floated in the air by their own free will. Cara couldn’t fathom, for a second time, what was happening.

Grabbing hold of the walls while she walked, Cara noticed Mando sprawled on the opposite side of the room when young Mando arched her body in agony, trying to keep in the pulse that radiated around her structure.

“Mando, what’s…” but Cara was cut off.

“Watch out!” Mando warned, he sprung to his feet and tackled Cara and the child out of harms way.

The three fell to the floor luckily dodging a steel panel that could have crushed them.

“What… how…” Cara stuttered cradling the child who shivered in fear.

“Listen to me, she’s too far along, I’m going to have to sedate her,” Mando informed, he opened a hidden compartment on his gauntlet reveling two viles containing a clear liquid. Mando then pulled out a syringe from his belt inserting the vile and prepping it for injection.

“Then do it already,” Cara shouted.

“Please, I have to revel her arm,” Mando stated.

Cara understood what he was implying, Mandalorians couldn’t expose a single part of themselves to the outside world due to the threat of expulsion weighting heavily on them.

“I won’t look just do it,” Cara demanded and turned her head from view.

“DAD!” young Mando screamed through a banshee cry doing everything she could from releasing the blast that commanded to escape.

He knew his time was up, Mando had to act now, he crawled to his daughter and immediately removed her gauntlet and rolled up her sleeve. She withered in torment and groaned in horror, but he would put her at ease. The serum would take effect instantaneously once injected into her bloodstream, shutting down her abilities.

Mando wasted no effort and clutched onto the syringe with his whole hand, he struck downwards ready for the needle to pierce her skin, but something prevented the action. The invincible force was at work again, in mid-air Mando struggled, the needle was centimeters from entering her body. His hand withered and strained, he used all of his might but became powerless to do anything.

The Crest started to crack and enfold into itself, warning bells sounded throughout the interior, informing its passengers to abandon ship. Mando took his other hand and put it on top hoping for added strength, but he still wasn’t budging.

“Come on, Mi Pequeno, don’t do this, hear me,” but she couldn’t hear her father, the force had consumed her.

Young Mando let out a blood curling scream when her body arched violently upwards signaling the blast would follow. Mando mustered everything he had when he received some much needed assistance as Cara slammed her hands on top of Mando’s, overcoming the invisible barrier together.

The needle successfully entered young Mando’s skin and without thought, Mando immediately injected the serum into her body when everything seized. The Crest returned to a normal flight, all free floating objects fell to the ground, and young Mando went limp.

Cara and Mando both breathed heavily, acting like they had just fought off their greatest opponent. Mando ejected the empty vile and placed the syringe back in his belt for future use. He then, in anger, threw the vile upset by not being there for his daughter sooner.

Taken aback Cara didn’t know what to say or do, she watched him roll down her sleeve and strap her gauntlet back on her wrist. He then picked his daughter up and carried her out of the room. Cara looked to the child wondering if it had answers but it just glared in concern.

                                                     *   *    *

Knowing to tread lightly, Cara followed Mando seeing him place his unconscious daughter in her bed. He sat at her side practically slumped over appearing defeated, he placed a hand on where her cheek should be and caressed the spot with his thumb. He seemed to be in a deep thought when he heard Cara approach, not wanting to go into detail he shot up and headed towards the cockpit.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Cara followed, “I think I deserve an explanation.”

“There’s nothing to explain,” Mando sat down and began attending to the Crest, steading it and setting the ship back on course, but Cara was deciphering clues on her own.

“That was no phantom detonator back on Sorgan, that was your daughter,” Cara declared but Mando stayed silent, practically confirming her suspicion, “How can she do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know, or you won’t tell?”

“Both,” Mando turned and stood in Cara’s face, “Because the less someone knows about her the safer she remains.”

“How are you protecting her, she’s a danger to herself and to others, she almost killed us plus I saw in your gauntlet, you only have one vile left. What happens when you run out?”

Mando stayed silent.

“Who ever made them, can’t they make you more?”

“No, he’s dead because of us,” Mando said truthfully while returning to his seat and piloting the Crest, “Can you get the child, I can’t have him trying to awake her,” he informed.

“What happens when she does awake?” Cara said in a bit of a panic.

“Please don’t fear her, she doesn’t need that. Can you please get the child?”

Cara stayed silent, angry that Mando didn’t fully trust her even though he was already asking a lot of her with this mission.

“Fine, but we’re going to need someone to watch him and her,” Mando didn’t say anything but Cara continued, “You got anyone you can trust?”

“To watch the kid, yeah I’ve got someone in mind,” as Mando steered the Crest towards the planet of Arvala-7.

                                                       *   *   *

The Crest landed near the home of the Ugnaught who had helped Mando and his daughter find the child. Mando began powering the ship down when Cara made her way below in order to lower the platform, when suddenly she noticed Mando’s daughter shyly hiding around the corner.

“Geez,” Cara stepped back, hand to her chest.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” young Mando meant more than one way.

“It’s okay, just wasn’t sure how long you would be knocked out,” Cara stepped forward but young Mando kept her distance and head lowered in shame, “Listen, I’m not scared of you, I’m just curious. How are you able to do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You sound like your father.”

“But we don’t, honestly,” young Mando stepped out of the shadows happy she was able to finally discuss her episodes with someone other than just her father, “When I was a child we looked for help, my dad tried, but anyone who found out about me wound up dead. So we went into hiding until the Creed discovered our whereabouts, I didn’t want to go but according to my dad it was safer being under the Mandalorians protection. We were still hidden but yet in plain sight, able to search for answers, but none were ever found.”

“And they know of your abilities?”

“Yes, but even the Creed couldn’t help me. I don’t know what’s inside of me, it appears to always be there, but it stays dormant and then suddenly awakens overtaking me. I try so hard to control it but I can’t seem to find a way. I’m running out of ideas and that terrifies me because it’s only getting stronger.”

Even though Cara couldn’t see young Mando’s face, Cara could hear the panic inflicted in her voice. She wanted to help the kiddo out, talk to her more but Mando came down with the child’s pod floating behind.

Quickly before Mando realized Cara was drilling his daughter for answers, Cara grabbed some gear and lowered the platform. Mando glanced to his side seeing his daughter keep her distance, he outstretched his hand for her to take but she refused.

“Hey, we have a trap to fall into, remember,” Mando said hoping to raise her spirits.

Luckily his choice of words did the trick because she couldn’t hold back a small giggle and took her father’s hand.

                                                      *   *    *

The sun was slowly setting on the desert planet, still giving the Ugnaught plenty of time to tidy up his homestead and rally up the Blurrgs when he noticed the Mandalorian’s ship land nearby. The Ugnaught stood at the entrance to his home while he watched the four individuals approach, he invited them in as everyone took a seat.

“It hasn’t grown much,” the Ugnaught said analyzing the child.

“I think it might be a Strand-Cast,” Mando suggested.

“I don’t think it was engineered. I’ve worked in the gene farms. This one looks evolved. Too ugly. This one, on the other hand, looks like she was farmed in the Cytocaves of Nora,” the Ugnaught pointed at Cara.

“This is Cara Dune. She was a shock trooper,” Mando informed.

“You were a dropper?” the Ugnaught looked at Cara’s tattoos.

“Did you serve?” she asked.

“On the other side, I’m afraid, but I’m proud to say that I paid out my clan’s debt and now I serve no one but myself. You are awfully quiet,” the Ugnaught addressed young Mando who kept her head down.

“She is a bit under the weather,” Mando tried to steer the Ugnaught’s attention away from his daughter, but that was achieved by IG-11 walking through the front door holding a tray of beverages.

Immediately all three stood, blasters drawn ready to destroy the machine when the IG-unit spoke, “I heard someone was sick, would they care for some tea?”

“Please lower your blasters. He will not harm you,” the Ugnaught put his hand up to signal that there was no danger.

“That thing is programmed to kill the baby,” Mando reminded.

“Not anymore,” the Ugnaught stated when he began telling the story of how he acquired the droid.

“It was left behind in the wake of your destruction. I found it laying where it fell. Devoid of all life. I recovered the flotsam and staked it as my own in accordance with the charter of the New Republic. Little remained of its neural harness. Reconstruction was quite difficult but not impossible. It had to learn everything from scratch. This is something that cannot be taught with the twist of a spanner. It requires patience and repetition. I spent day after day reinforcing its development with patience and affirmation. It developed a personality as its experiences grew.”

“Is it still a hunter?” Mando questioned.

“No. But it will protect,” the Ugnaught declared as everyone still remained skeptic.

                                                      *   *    *

The Ugnaught went to attain to his Blurrgs when Mando approached, “I’ve run into some problems.”

“I figured as much. Why else would you return?”

“I wanna hire your services.”

“I’m retired from service.”

“I can pay you handsomely, Ugnaught.”

“I have a name. It is Kuiil.”

“I need someone to protect the little one, Kuiil,” Mando said.

“I’m not suited for such work, besides why doesn’t your kin look after it?”

“I need her for the mission.”

“Well, I can reprogram IG-11 for nursing and protocol.”

“No, I don’t want that droid anywhere near him.”

“Why’re you so distrustful of droids?” Kuiil asked.

“It tried to kill him,” Mando clarified.

“It was programmed to do so. Droids are not good or bad. They are neutral reflections of those who imprint them. Do you trust me?”

“From what I can tell, yes.”

“Then you will trust my work. IG-11 will join me and we do it not for payment but to protect the child from Imperial slavery. None will be free until the old ways are gone forever,” Kuiil remembered those horrific memories of serving the Empire while Mando pondered over a similar memory, but had the ability to save that someone from the same fate.

“Okay,” Mando agreed with Kuiil.

“And the Blurrgs will join me as well.”

“The Blurrgs?”

“I have spoken.”

                                                    *   *    *

The Crest took flight making its way to Nevarro, Mando set the ship on autopilot where everyone took occupancy in the lower deck. Kuiil attended to his Blurrgs (which were penned up in the corner) while young Mando sat on the opposite side keeping to herself and sketched out a new piece, where Cara and Mando became involved in an arm wrestling match as the child watched from its pod.

“I got you, Mando,” Cara said through gritted teeth.

“Care to double the bet?” Mando grunted.

The two continued their match when the child looked on in sadness, wanting to do something, it raised its tiny three-fingered hand and squinted its eyes, concentrating. Suddenly Cara let go of Mando’s hand and began clutching at her throat, choking as if someone’s hands were around her neck.

Everyone in the room stared at Cara, who’s face was starting to turn red from lose of air, baffled by her actions. Mando quickly turned to his daughter who appeared to be in shock like everyone else, and realized she wasn’t having an episode because she was aware and coherent.

“It’s not me,” young Mando said when she pointed her father’s attention to the child.

“No, no, no, stop,” Mando picked up the child hoping this would free Cara, “We’re friends, we’re friends. Cara is my friend,” Mando clarified which did the trick, Cara was released but she spoke in a raid.

“First your daughter, now him, this is not okay,” Cara exasperated through a short breath.

“Hmmm…curious,” Kuiil said pondering over everything that had been said and performed.

“Curious? That’s the second time I was almost killed. Geez Mando what kind of kids are you raising?” Cara said out of anger when young Mando quickly rose from her seat and went into the adjacent room.

“Hey, none of this is their fault. I understand you’re upset Cara but please don’t voice your opinion on a matter you don’t understand,” Mando said heated.

“Like you understand it any better, you’re just as clueless about her abilities as his,” Cara stated truthfully.

“Her abilities?” Kuiil peered around for Mando’s daughter but she wasn’t in sight, “Everything seems a bit clearer now. The story you told me of the Mudhorn now makes more sense.”

“Do you know what the child is?” Mando asked possibly about to receive some answers.

“What it is? I don’t know, but what it does, this I’ve heard rumors of.”

“What? What do you know?” Mando couldn’t believe finally someone knew what this might be.

“Rumors, like when you worked for the Empire,” Cara spat.

“When I was sold to the Empire, in indentured servitude,” Kuiil spat back.

“Yet somehow, you walk free.”

“I bought my freedom through the skill of my hands and the labor of three of your human lifetimes. Do not cast doubt upon that of what I am nor whom I shall serve,” Kuiil’s voice rose when IG-11 walked into the room ready to protect its master.

Mando wanted all this animosity to end, even though he would be losing the chance to possibly learn what was causing his daughter’s episodes and the child’s abilities when Mando directed Kuiil’s attention to him.

“Tell you what. I could really use your craftwork right now,” Mando put the child in its pod, “Can you pad this container so the child can sleep better?”

“I shall fabricate a better one. Then perhaps this Dropper can see how one can win their freedom with the skill of one’s hands,” Kuiil stated when he left to craft a unique pod all on its own.

                                                           *   *   *

Mando let Kuiil be while Cara paced staying far away from the child. He felt the tension was low enough and went in search for his daughter. In her workspace she sat on the floor in the dark lazily making pencil marks on her canvas.

“Hey, I could really use some help in the cockpit,” Mando tried but she wasn’t buying it.

“Please Papi, I just want to be alone right now.”

Mando sighed in defeat and placed a caring hand on top of her helmet. He understood she was having a rough time with this last episode and hoped she would recover mentally soon. All he could do was support her and let her go through the emotions.

“You know none of this is your fault, you had no control,” Mando reassured.

“You’re right, I had no control, but that still doesn’t give me an excuse,” young Mando replied in a sad monotone.

                                                      *   *    *

Mando returned to the cockpit as Cara followed, she stayed silent unknowing if Mando or his daughter were upset with her previous comments.

“Hey, I just wanted to apologize about what I said earlier,” Cara said hesitantly.

“You don’t have to apologize to me, apologize to my daughter,” Mando said without looking at Cara.

“Noted,” Cara stated thinking on the best time to speak to her when Cara saw where Mando was taking the ship, “So, we’re going to Nevarro?”

“Have you ever been?”

“No. We lost a lot of our forces there. The city’s dug in pretty deep. No cover when you drop in. It stayed in Empire control until the end of the war.”

“The warlord we’re taking out was an Imperial officer,” Mando informed.

“What station?”

“Hard to tell. No insignia anymore. I took out his safe house when I snatched the kid. More Imps have reinforced since.”

“There’s something more going on, more than the trap your daughter predicts.”

“Maybe. We’ll find out more when we land.”

Their conversation was interrupted as the cockpits door opened revealing IG-11, “I have prepared second meal. Would you care to be served here or below?”

“I’m not hungry,” Mando said with distain while Cara didn’t respond when IG-11 left, “Under no circumstances does that thing leave the ship.”

“You got a real thing for droids, don’t you?” Cara said through a chuckle.

“I got a real thing for that droid.”

“The Ugnaught said he rewired it.”

“That droid was designed to kill things. I don’t care how much wiring he replaced. It goes against its nature,” Mando reminded.

“Well, it shouldn’t be a long job anyway. We take out the head Imp, the rest will run like rats,” Cara said in confidence.

                                                      *   *    *

Greef Karga waited on the outskirts of Nevarro’s wasteland with three other hunters standing at his side. Karga watched the Crest touch down and saw four Blurrgs step out with their riders. Mando, his daughter, Cara, and Kuiil lined up in front of him and his men while the child’s newly constructed pod floated near Mando.

“Sorry for the remote rendezvous, Mando, but things have gotten complicated since you and the kiddo were last here,” Karga and his hunters drew closer while Mando and his team stayed on alert, “It appears that introductions are in order. It seems we’ve both provided a security detail,” Karga stayed silent analyzing them, “But I suggest the kiddo stays back and guards the ship,” he pointed towards young Mando, “These lava fields are lousy with Jawas.”

“She’s safer with me due to the bounty you also placed on her head,” Mando spat.

“It was not by choice, trust me at least on that, but the town is now run by ex-Empire. I don’t think you want the kid mixed in with that kind of heat.”

“I can handle myself Karga,” young Mando jumped in.

“All right,” Karga put his hands up in defense but then placed his eyes on Cara, “And what of the Shock Trooper? If a Rebel Dropper is with us, they’ll all get their hackles up.”

“Everybody is coming,” Mando enforced.

“Fine, at least cover your tattoo. No need to flaunt it. Now, where is the little one?” Karga said with open arms.

Everyone turned to Mando when he pressed a few buttons on his gauntlet and the pod zoomed forward. It hovered in front of Karga and then opened revealing the child inside.

“So, this little bogwing is what all the fuss was about,” Karga picked up the child as everyone was put on edge, hands on weapons, “What a precious little creature. I can see why neither of you didn’t want to harm a hair on its wrinkled little head.”

Karga put the child back in its pod, settling everyone down, “Well, I’m glad this matter will be put to rest once and for all. The sun drops fast on Nevarro. We can walk for a spell, camp out at the riverbank then make our way into town at first light,” Karga ended when Mando closed the child’s pod reversing it so it was back hovering at his side.

                                                      *   *    *

Everyone got a move on, trekking over the black terrain and avoiding the small lava rivers that serpentine through the land. Night approached fast when they made camp with each party taking a side while keeping an eye on the other across the fire.

Majority ate the goat that was roasting over the fire when Cara took a seat next to young Mando with two plates in her hand. Cara slide one over to young Mando when she noticed small portions of meat were cut up.

“Thought those sizes would be easier for you to fit under your helmet without removal,” Cara stated.

“Thanks,” young Mando said in a dry gratitude, taking the tiny pieces and easily fitting them under the rim to pop in her mouth.

Young Mando seemed still a bit stand offish so Cara addressed what went unacknowledged, “You know I never got to answer your questions from when we first met,” Cara hoped this would make young Mando warm back up to her, “I really didn’t get to participate in the well known battles, I served just like everyone else and went where I was needed.”

Young Mando turned and gave Cara her full attention, “Technically the war was everywhere, and you couldn’t really escape it. In some form or another it would affect you from losing a comrade, a friend, or family member.”

Young Mando could see the hurt emitting from Cara’s eyes and the distant memories playing before them.

“And for your second question, no I did not see the Death Star blow up, neither actually, but I did see a lot of its scattered debris when I was on Endor. I guess I’m not as thrilling as I make myself out to be,” Cara stated.

“Oh no, you are still very compelling. When my dad and I spar I know his every move and I still can’t take him out, but when you fought him there was no competition. Don’t tell him I said that,” young Mando whispered her last part while putting up her hand to cover her invisible mouth.

This made Cara smile, adoring young Mando even more, “Hey, I’m sorry for what I said on the Crest. You’re a really good kid,” Cara stressed.

“No worries, really,” young Mando stated showcasing all was water under the bridge.

                                                   *   *    *

Kuiil sat next to the child feeding it the meat off his plate, it ate the tiny pieces with delight while Karga sat next to Mando pointing out the obvious.

“I guess the little bugger is a carnivore. Never seen anything like it. They were ready to pay a king’s ransom for that thing. Must be for some kind of highfalutin menagerie,” Karga informed.

“Let’s go over the plan again,” Mando interjected.

“We enter the common house. We show the client the bait. We join him at the table. And you kill him,” Karga vaguely laid out.

“Tell me about his reinforcements.”

“They’re all ex-Empire. As soon as they lose their paycheck, poof, they’ll all scatter.”

“And what if they don’t,” Mando pointed out.

“They will.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“If, for arguments sake, a few of them don’t realize that I’m their best path to alternative employment, and they elect to react impulsively, then these three fine Guild Hunters, along with that battle-hardened shock trooper will cut down anyone who bucks,” Karga informed.

“How many will there be?” Mando questioned.

“No more than four. He travels with, at most, a fire team. Trust me. Nothing can go wrong,” Karga rose from the ground and approached the fire.

He plucked a piece of meat from their roasting meal when out of the shadows a massive creature of flight scooped down to acquire the goat, scaring Karga backwards. Immediate panic erupted throughout the camp, everyone grabbed their weapons and started shooting upwards because more creatures rained down from the sky. Sensing the danger, Mando closed the child’s pod when young Mando went to her father’s side as the two went back to back firing from both angles.

The flying creatures attacked from all sides when one grabbed hold of a Blurrg and another took one of Karga’s men. Everyone continued their reign of fire, focusing all their firepower on one of the creatures that had a hold of their second Blurrg, but another creature made a surprise attack on Mando.

Its massive wings pushed young Mando out of the way and grabbed Mando in its claws. The creature drilled him into the ground when Cara turned her blaster on the thing, but Mando ignited it in flames sending it off into the night still on fire.

Young Mando ran towards her father making sure he wasn’t injured as everybody regrouped with their eyes and weapons still pointed to the sky. The danger appeared to be over with but groans from Karga could be heard. Mando quickly looked over his daughter and then checked on the child. No one else appeared to be injured when Kuiil went to Karga’s aid.

“He’s hurt badly,” Kuiil informed.

Three long gashes were visible on Karga’s arm and seemed to get worse by the second. He grunted through gritted teeth declaring he was fine when everyone encircled him in order to help.

“Hold still,” young Mando opened a pouch on her belt and injected Karga with an anti-bacterial serum, “It got you good.”

“How bad?” Mando asked.

“Bad, the poison’s spreading fast,” she informed.

“So this…this is how it happens,” Karga stated while young Mando received bandages from Cara who instructed for a medpac from the group but no one had one.

Young Mando sat in silence unable to register Karga’s outcome, sure he put a bounty on her head but his heart was always in the right place. Just like her father Karga would look out for her, make sure she wouldn’t be put in danger with the missions, but mostly he would encourage her with her art. Young Mando couldn’t accept his fate when the child approached and put its hand on young Mando.

“We need to get him to a medical team,” Cara said grabbing a device and scanning Karga’s arm seeing the venom spread further, “Get this thing outta here,” Cara said to young Mando but she wasn’t listening because it appeared as if she was in a trance.

The child and young Mando glared at one another like they were communicating mentally, their hands were stacked on top of one another when, without words, they placed their conjoined hands on Karga’s wound.

“Save me kiddo, it’s going to eat me,” Karga blurted out but a different scenario occurred.

Together the child and young Mando focused on Karga’s injury, they could see the venom spreading throughout his body but immediately put a stopper to it. Together they evaporated the poison from his bloodstream and infused their vitality into Karga in order to heal the three gashes. Both shook with concentration, using each other’s energy to achieve this feat, when Karga’s wounds healed before their eyes and were no more.

Once the task was a success the child and young Mando immediately collapsed from exhaustion. Karga glared up at Mando in utter shock but Mando rushed to his daughter and the child. He quickly checked on the obvious as the both of them were breathing normally, he then searched for any injuries but they appeared unharmed, just unconscious.

“Kuiil, please put the child in its pod,” Mando said picking it up in one hand while placing his daughter’s head in his lap, but everyone was still glaring in shock, “Kuiil!” Mando shouted extending the child for Kuiil to take.

“Yes, of course,” Kuiil responded carefully taking the sleeping kid and placing it in the pod.

Once the child was safe inside, Mando immediately closed the lid and sensed the impeding judgment from the group. Without hesitation Mando placed his body between the others and the pod while wrapping his arms around his daughter, blaster at the ready, because everyone stared at his children with either curiosity or a malicious intent.

                                                      *   *    *

Morning came and everyone regrouped silently where both parties kept close to their own. The child and young Mando appeared to be fine, the child cooed happily thinking nothing of the incident but young Mando could sense something else, a possible plot brewing among the hunters.

Kuiil mounted on the only Blurrg that had survived from the attack last night when Mando approached his daughter.

“I want you to ride with Kuiil,” Mando insisted.

“I’m fine,” young Mando replied.

“You don’t seem fine, you were stirring in your sleep, mumbling, you haven’t done that since…” but Mando was cut off.

“Since I was little, I know. Its just, the nightmare came back.”

“The one you sketch out?”

Young Mando nodded her head with confirmation, “The child triggered something when it touched me, its like we’re connected somehow. I could hear what it was thinking, he was directing me, channeling our abilities together in order to save Karga. I can’t explain it,” her voice went up an octave like she was afraid.

“You don’t have to.”

“What does this all mean?”

“We will figure it out, I promise you,” Mando assured her by placing his hand on the side of her helmet and then lifting her on the Blurrg situating her behind Kuiil.

Both parties moved out, Karga and his hunters lead while Mando, Cara, and the child’s pod followed as Kuiil and young Mando came up the rear. Karga and his men were quietly discussing certain matters among themselves, leaving Mando and Cara to do the same.

“You think they’re having second thoughts?” Cara questioned the obvious.

“Most likely. I need your eyes,” Mando said.

“I’m watching,” Cara confirmed making sure nothing malicious would manifest.

                                                      *   *   *

Karga took point, his hunters fell back behind Mando and Cara when Karga stopped and gazed out at the distance, “I guess this is it,” Karga stated knowing his two hunters drew their blasters and were ready to end Mando and Cara’s lives, but he made the first move blasting his own men.

Immediately Cara and Mando pulled their weapons and pointed them at Karga who held both of his guns towards the sky signaling his surrender.

“There’s something you should know,” Karga started when he kicked over his men making sure they were indeed dead.

Karga put his blasters away but Mando and Cara kept there’s on him when he continued, “A new plan was formulated from what they saw, it was to kill you and take the kids for profit. But after what happened last night, I couldn’t go through with it.”

Kuiil approached with young Mando but she stayed on the Blurrg when he dismounted. Mando and Cara didn’t move from their position ready to fire at any moment.

“Go on. You can gun me down here and now and it wouldn’t violate the Code,” Karga confirmed,” Sure the kiddo’s secret dies with me, but if you do, this child will never be safe,” pointing out that bounty hunters would never stop searching for it.

“We’ll take our chances,” Cara stated.

“The Imperial client is obsessed with obtaining this asset. You tried to run, but where did it get you?” Karga said.

“This is ridiculous,” Cara said.

“Perhaps you should let him speak,” Kuiil chimed in.

“Listen, we both need the client to be eliminated. Let me take the child to him and then you two,” but Karga was cut off.

“No,” Mando said.

“Let’s just kill him and get out of here,” Cara suggested.

“Papi,” was all young Mando had to say in order to get him to think things through.

“He’s right,” Mando declared putting away his blaster.

“What are you doing?” Cara questioned.

“As long as the Imp lives, he’ll send hunters after the child,” Mando stated.

“It’s a trap,” Cara confirmed.

“Bring me,” Mando said.

“Bring you?” Karga asked.

“Tell him you captured me. Get me close to him and I’ll kill him,” Mando stated.

“That’s a good idea and all but the bounty was placed for two Mandalorians,” Karga reveled in fear.

“She didn’t accompany me at the Imps safe house. He should have no idea of her existence,” Mando declared in anger, “I thought you just put a bounty on her head from within the Guild?”

“The kiddo was marked during our scuffle, that’s why my hands were tied and I had to place a bounty on both of you, so the Imp expects two Mandalorians,” Karga said as Mando drew near with his fist raised ready to make contact with Karga’s face.

“Stop it!” young Mando interjected putting herself between Karga and her father, “Of all people my father should have known the risks he was putting me in by enlisting me in the Guild.”

“You’re blaming me for this?” Mando questioned in horror.

“No, its just I’m ready to do my duty as a bounty hunter and Mandalorian. The Imp expects two prizes then he will get them. I’m coming with whether you like it or not Papi.”

Everyone could see there was no loophole for young Mando to not come but their concerns were about something else other than her presence.

“And yes I know what you are all thinking. Give me the vile and syringe,” young Mando’s hand extended towards her father, “If I sense anything I’ll take myself out, agreed?”

“What is she referring too?” Karga questioned in skeptic, “She can do more?”

“You have no idea,” Cara said in vague when Mando broke and gave her the vile and syringe.

“Okay now we got that out of the way, both of you give me your blasters,” Karga said.

“This is insane,” Cara pointed out.

“It’s the only way,” Mando realized.

“Well, I’m coming with,” Cara told rather than suggested.

“No, no, no. That would make them suspicious,” Karga said.

“I don’t care. I’m coming,” Cara snarled.

“Tell them she caught us,” Mando informed.

“Fine. Then she can bring the child,” Karga said.

“No. The kid goes back in the ship,” Mando declared.

“But without the child, none of this works!” Karga pointed out.

“I have a plan. Kuiil, ride back to the Razor Crest with the child and seal yourself in. When you’re inside, engage ground security protocols. Nothing on this planet will breach those doors,” Mando instructed.

“The code is 030830 in order to activate it,” young Mando informed as the numerical sequence had been permanently burned into her subconscious.

“Here’s a comlink,” Kuiil handed to Mando, “I will keep the child safe. Don’t forget to cover your stripes,” he reminded Cara, “And keep a clear mind young one,” Kuiil ended with young Mando.

“Let’s go,” Mando said handing two sets of binders to Karga as he placed the first set on Mando and then the second on his daughter. Karga checked every weapon on him, Cara wrapped fabric around her arm tattoo, when Kuiil took the child in his arms and headed to his Blurrg. The pod was sealed and followed the four individuals who made their way towards town.

                                                       *   *   *

The four approached the entrance to the city as two bored Scout troopers monitored the personnel of entering and exiting of the city. In the distance, Cara and Mando could make out several more Stormtroopers occupying the streets, way more than Karga implied.

Getting to his feet the Scout trooper looked over the individuals and then spoke to Karga, “Chain code?”

“I have a gift for the boss,” Karga said but the trooper wasn’t having it and repeated for the chain code.

Karga sighed in frustration when he handed the trooper the chit card, the trooper scanned it and then gave Karga a price, “I’ll give you forty credits for both the helmets.”

“Ha-ha! Not a chance. Those are going on my wall,” Karga emphasized but Mando glared at him in scorn.

“On your wall?” Mando whispered in a sneer.

“Go with it,” Karga said through pressed lips.

“Go ahead,” the trooper waved them through when they headed towards the Guild cantina.

As they made their way through the street Cara pointed out the obvious, the numerous amounts of Stormtroopers occupying the city, “You said four. There are more than four troopers.”

“Four guarding the client. Many more here in town. Things got really heated once Mando crashed the safe house,” Karga said.

“Slip them their blasters,” Cara commanded of Karga to arm both Mando and young Mando.

“Not yet,” Karga said, “Here we are,” Karga opened the door and as they walked in he addressed their concerns, “You see? Four.”

Karga escorted both Mando and his daughter towards the client who rose from his seat and approached them.

“Look what I brought you. As promised,” Karga showcased both Mandalorians.

“It appears there are more Mandalorians then expected, where I was informed this is your daughter. How extraordinary,” the client glared over young Mando amazed by her existence, “It appears the Beskar not went to waste,” the client went to touch young Mando’s armor when Mando jerked forward but Karga restrained him, “What exquisite craftsmanship,” the client briefly brushed the back of his hand on young Mando’s armor, “It is amazing how beautiful Beskar can be when forged by its ancestral artisans, and even more beautiful when you can share that with your offspring,” the client could read Mando was on high alert and moved the conversation to Karga, “Can I offer you a libation to celebrate the closing of our shared narrative?”

“I would be obliged,” Karga acknowledged.

“Please sit,” the client instructed, he pointed to the droid bartender for two drinks when Karga lowered Mando into the booth first as Karga slide next to him. The client sat on the opposite side while Cara stood behind young Mando acting as if she was obtaining her.

“It is a shame that your people suffered so,” the client continued when several more Stormtroopers began entering the room, “Just as in this situation, it was all avoidable. Why did Mandalore resist our expansion? The Empire improves every system it touches. Judge by any metric. Safety, prosperity, trade, opportunity, peace. Compare Imperial rule to what is happening now. Look outside, is the world more peaceful since the revolution? I see nothing but death and chaos. Is that what we want to leave for our future generations,” the client motioned towards young Mando but Mando stayed quiet, “I would like to see the baby,” the client instructed reaching for the pod.

“Uh, it is asleep,” Karga put his hand between the client and the concealed pod.

“We all will be quiet. Open the pram,” but a Stormtrooper came and whispered something in the client’s ear,” Don’t think me to be rude. I must take this call,” both Karga and the client rose when he left the table.

Young Mando unclasped her binders when Karga turned and snuck her blaster into her hands. Karga sat down and did the same with Mando as his binders were already off.

“You got one shot,” Karga said to Mando.

“This is bad. You said four,” Cara whispered though the side of her mouth.

“Well there are more. What can I tell you?” Karga said almost in defeat.

The client approached the bar when a trooper set up a transmission, once activated a man appeared in high ranking officer attire as the client addressed him as Moff Gideon.

“Have they brought the child?” Gideon questioned the client.

“Yes, they have. Currently, it is sleeping.”

“You may want to check again,” suddenly a rapid stream of blaster fire shot through the window killing the client instantly and all the troopers inside.

Karga, Cara, Mando, and his daughter took immediate cover, flipping over tables to hide from being hit. Finally the blaster fire seized when the four of them got into position in order to hold their ground.

Outside a line of Death Troopers stood fierce with their rifles held high, while a military transport landed with dozens of Stormtroopers filing out and getting into position.

“Four Stormtroopers?” Cara pointed out again but no one responded, “This is bad.”

“Kuiil? Are you back to the ship yet?” Mando radioed, “Are you there? Do you copy?” but Mando wasn’t the only one picking up on the conversation.

“Yes,” Kuiil responded.

“Are you back to the ship yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Get back to the ship and bail. Get the kid out of here. We’re pinned down!” Mando instructed.

Hearing his panic, Kuiil kicked his Blurrg to go faster but two Scout troopers were already in pursuit heading to Kuiil’s position.

                                                    *   *   *  

The troopers outside the cantina waited patiently, weapons drawn, and ready to attack at a moment’s notice. All four waited in skeptic wondering what the trooper’s plan of attack would be when a TIE-fighter landed in the quarter.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” young Mando absentminded stated when Moff Gideon stepped out of the TIE-fighter and walked to the front of his troopers.

“You have something I want,” Gideon demanded.

“Who’s this guy?” Cara asked but Mando stayed silent.

“You may think you have some idea of what you are in possession of, but you do not,” Gideon informed.

“Kuiil, are you back to the ship yet?” They’re onto us!” Mando clarified.

“In a few moments, all will be mine,” Gideon declared.

“Kuiil do you copy?” Mando radioed in a panic.

“It means more to me than you will ever know.”

“Kuiil! Are you there? Kuiil, come in, Kuiil!” Mando shouted but with no response from the other end.

“No!” young Mando whispered to herself because she watched the event unfold in front of her eyes; the two Scout troopers had no mercy and blasted Kuiil off his Blurrg, leaving him for dead while they scooped up the child who was now in their possession.

#starwars #starwarsfanfic #fanfic #star wars fanfiction #fanfiction #the mandalorian #mando #mando dad #din djarin #pedro pascal #jon favreau #dave filoni #the child #baby yoda #OC #oc character #mandalorians #gina carano #cara dune #greef karga #carl weathers #disney #disney plus

[bxcksdoll]

Traitor | Part Two

Pairings: Thor x reader

Summary: Thor continues to resent Y/N, not believing anything she says.

Request (continued): Yo omg could we get a sequel to your “Traitor” fic? Maybe the reader realizing their attempts at convincing Thor and the others are futile, and they end up sacrificing themselves for Thor or one of the Guardians? Kind of an “actions speak louder than words” sort of thing. Whether the reader lives or not is up to you :)

Warnings: EXTREMELY angsty, angry! Thor, violence, swearing

A/N: wow I’m so happy that I got loads of requests to do a part 2 of ‘Traitor’ so I hope this is okay, sorry it’s so angsty

Four days had passed but, to you, it felt like weeks. You were held in a dark, lonesome room in the ship. The only interaction with anyone you had was Mantis, as she provided you with food.

Thor refused to see you. But you had accepted that, knowing he’d never, willingly, see or talk to you again. It was clear that he would never trust you ever again - as he ordered that the handcuffs were to be kept on you at all times. He wouldn’t even let you take them off to eat; you felt like an animal prisoned on the ship.

The passageway to your room opened, revealing Mantis with a plate of food. You were given scraps, barely anything. You assumed it was Thor’s way or punishing you more.

Mantis entered the room, placing the plate onto the floor next to you. You thanked her, smiling sadly. As she began to walk away, you called after her. She turned around, questionably, fidgeting with her hands.

“I hear you can feel people’s emotions,” you spoke, softly. She nodded in response and you went on, “would you feel mine? Maybe that way you will believe me. Believe that this isn’t some act I’m putting on. Please.”

She hesitated slightly, opening her mouth and then closing it. Then, she looked behind her to check if any of the others were watching. To your luck, they weren’t.

Mantis made her way over to you, slowly and with caution. You couldn’t help a small smile to form on your lips and thankful tears to creep into the corners of your eyes.

Just as she crouched down, getting closer to you, a loud voice was heard: “STOP! Mantis, get away from her, now!”

Mantis shot up from her crouched position. You looked past her to see Peter, your sister’s boyfriend.

“What’s going on?” a louder, booming voice came from around he corner - the voice you knew to be Thor’s. At this moment in time you feared to see him, terrified of what he might do or say to you.

“N-nothing is going on,” Mantis stuttered, shaking her head.

Seconds later, Thor strided into view. He breathed heavily, staring at you with complete abhorance.

“What did she do,” he seethed, through gritted teeth.

“She was trying to get Mantis close to her; probably to catch her off-guard and then attempt to escape,” Peter narrowed his eyes.

Mantis looked back at you and gasped, quickly leaving the room. Peter’s words left a pit in your stomach, you couldn’t believe they thought even less of you now.

“What?” you squeaked out, a helpless look on your face.

“Don’t try to defend yourself this time, daughter of Thanos!” Thor boomed, causing you to flinch in response. “Just for that,” he continued, “I guess you won’t be having this...” he strode across the room and picked up your plate of food, leaving with it.

From the time Thor was out of the room, you debated on pleading with Peter but you knew it was useless and, instead, stayed quiet. You kept your eyes trained on the floor as Thor entered again.

“I’ll deal with her, you can go,” Thor mumbled, to Peter. Your stomach sank even further as your hands began to tremble, from behind your back.

Once Peter left, Thor closed the door behind him. You were trapped inside with the man you loved - but now feared.

“T-thor...” your voice cracked as you looked up at him.

Instantly, he paced over to you, a loathsome expression on his features. He picked you up by the collar and pushed you against a wall, once again. The familiar feeling of your hands being crushed came back as you winced.

“Shut up! You do not get to address me, you lost that privilege when you betrayed the universe,” his face was close to yours, warning eyes glaring into your begging ones.

“I-I-” he wouldn’t let you talk, pushing you further against the wall.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull of here, demoness, but you better stop!”

Demoness? you thought as tears welled up in your eyes, bluring your vision slightly.

“Do you think you can escape? Take advantage of these crew members? Well, you’re wrong. You answer to me now,” he yelled, grabbing you neck. “And I will make you pay, believe me.”

Thor squeezed your neck, slightly, but not very painfully. You closed your eyes, once again letting your tears run down your cheeks; Thor thought your pain and sadness was just an act and began to squeeze your neck harder.

“Do you seriously think I am falling for your trick? Do you think I’ll give into this show?” he chuckled, darkly.

You opened your mouth to say something but, hesitatingly, closed it again. Thor released his grip on your neck slightly.

“Go on,” he whispered. “What were you going to say?”

You opened your mouth again, gazing into his punishing eyes. “I’ve given up on you believing me now, Thor. Do whatever you want with me. No one will care anyway,” you responded, in the strongest voice you could muster.

“Oh, I will. I’ll make sure that you rot in a cell for the rest of your days,” he banged your head against the wall as he let go of you, walking away and leaving you trapped, once again. You fell to the ground, crumpling into an emotional mess.

——————————————————————————

“Get ready for landing, Guardians,” came Peter’s voice through the walls of the ship. “Landing in 3...2-”

You crashed into the left wall, rolling backwards and then flying to your left. Thor didn’t allow you to have a seat and so landing was always painful for you.

“What about the girl?” you hear the voice of the raccoon from outside the door.

“Leave her, she cant get out,” came Gamora.

Well shit, you thought, I might have a chance to sneak out.

Once you were sure everyone was off the ship, you stood up, searching around the room for any tools to help you escape.

You looked on shelves and attempted to open cupboards with your tied up hands. Finally you found some sort of laser tool.

Sighing with relief, you grabbed it in one hand and twisted it skilfully to beam through the electric handcuffs you had on. To your surprise, the tool worked. You were free.

Gasping with joy, you took - what was left of - the cuffs off your wrists and rubbed the red marks imprinted on them. You were surprised they hadn’t cut off the blood circulation to your hands, due to how tight they were secured on.

Hoping the laser tool might help with opening the door, you walked over to it, breathing shakily. You began to beam holes into the door to test it out. They left black-stained marks, which seemed useful enough.

You held the laser over the door, marking it bit by bit. Eventually, you were able to cut out a person-sized hole in it and climbed through, successfully.

Standing there, in the middle of the ship, you didn’t know where to go. Should you use an escape pod? Should you explore the planet you were on?

Then, shouting was heard from outside. You walked out of the ship, still being cautious so that no one would see you. Looking around the ship, you saw them. The Guardians. And Thanos’ minions.

“Shit,” you mumbled, knowing all too well where you had to go.

Running back to the ship, you grabbed the nearest sword you could find. Before you could think things over, further, your legs started running towards the fight. Now was your chance to prove yourself; you’d sneak up behind Thanos’ minions, kill them from behind.

With all your energy - which wasn’t as much as usual since you had barely been fed - you leapt up, crashing down on one of the creatures and sending your sword through their head.

The fight stopped for a split second, Thanos’ minions in shock from the surprise attack and the Guardians in shock from the realisation that you were telling the truth. You started the fight up again, sending your sword flying towards another creature; they blocked it with ease.

Your energy wasn’t what it usually was, which made fighting harder and more painful than you were expecting. The Guardians fought alongside you, not stopping for breath.

Four of the minions were left; all injured. The fight had continued for some time and you felt as though you would collapse at any moment.

Glancing towards Gamora, you noticed her focus was on the creature in front of her - duelling with it. However, she took no notice of the one sneaking up behind her - spear raised.

You charged towards her, despite the pain rushing through your entire body.

“Gamora!” you screamed, as she glanced sideways to face you.

The creature raised it’s spear higher, sending it towards your sister. You pushed her out of the way, the spear impaling your chest. A spluttering sound escaped your lips, falling to your knees.

Thanos’ minions took this as an opportunity to escape; everyone’s eyes fixed on you.

“Y-Y/N? What have you-why-why did you...” Gamora was lost for words, rushing to your side. She held your face in her hand, tears gushing down her face.

“Y/N, I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry that I didn’t believe you,” she cried.

“It’s-it’s okay, Gamora. I forgive you...” you smiled, a tear falling down your cheek.

You began to feel dizzy, swaying from side to side.

“Y/N!” came Thor’s desperate voice, from beside you.

You turned and met his sorrowful, once loathsome, eyes. He collapsed to his knees, beside you, tears dripping down his face.

“How could I have been so stupid? My love, I’m so sorry. Words can’t express how sorry I feel...I love you so much. Oh god, what have I done?” he cried, clutching your face in his hands.

“Thor, it’s alright. I understand and I f-forgive you,” you gasped out, your breath shallowing. “Please, forgive yourself too. I love you so much. Please do-” you stopped mid-sentence, unable to talk anymore.

Your eyelids grew heavy, body became limp. You fell to the ground. Unable to move. Unable to breath. Unable to feel. All life escaping from you.

Tag list: @xmarveled @imposingarcher28 @ddaeing @phanoffandoms67 @waiting-for-motivation @whovianayesha

#thor #marvel #avengers #thor odinson #thor x reader #thor imagine #thor one shot #marvel imagine #avenger x reader #avengers x reader

[wind0wg0blin]

Can i request Xenomorph soulmate oneshot?

[Ummm…So yeah theres this…] 

[Staring a king Xenomorph kinda?plus space station Au]

You had to admit thatwhen you signed up to leave your life behind to live on a multi species spacestation you had expected to be given a better job seeing as you had a prettyexpensive degree. Though here you were organizing computer files and deliveringmail like you didn’t waste years of your life on earth studying just so youcould get the chance to come out here.

You had been convinced thisspace station was all fun and interspecies romance though every alien you hadmet was either planning on using you or just an asshole. You had made a fewfriends who had alien s/o’s though which was kind of interesting to see them interreact.Especially your one coworker who is engaged to a very important engineer andits rumored their relationship might actually bridge peace between humans andengineers for years to come cause of some fairy tale bullshit.

You honestly were toojealous to listen when they spoke so highly of her as you so desperately wishedthat was you.

With a sigh you madeyour way home shouldering your bag as you sulked past the crowds of people toyour tiny apartment. Punching in your room number you step inside and throwyour bag down flopping down on your futon staring up at the dull ceiling.

Frustrated you slam yourfist into the wall next to you only for the ceiling vent to pop open andsomething to come crashing into your room. You screamed leaping over the backof your futon as you see the large xeno unfurled itself its terrifying headswaying about as it sniffed the air.

You were to say theleast scared shitless as you had heard war stories from some yautja before whohad lost veterans fighting some of these things claiming they were the ultimateprey as they were terrifying hunters.

You knew you had to tellsome body as an infestation of these things would kill the entire station in days.

You glance to the door convincedyou could make it, You took when step and it was upon you looming in your pathas drool leaked from its maw.

It glared down at youseeming to snarl before softening its appearance hunkering down to smell youpressing its face into the crook of your neck.

Too afraid to run youstayed there with the Xeno as it curled around you seeming to purr as itnuzzled into you.

The xeno stayed with youfor the whole night staying right at your side as you sat and tried to get somekind of answers from it. You were shocked to find it understood you and that itwould answer appropriately to questions you asked it. Nodding and shaking theirhead in response.

It was well into thenight and you had work the next morning so you explained as best you could tothem and they understood moving out of the way as you set up your bed andcurled up.

You were almost asleepwhen you felt them curl up at your feet their tail curling around you almostprotectively as you slept the few hours you had left.

When you woke up theXeno was still there sat on the counter to your small cooking area hunched overin the tiny window obviously too small for this room in general.

Seeing the time on the wallyou wasted no time getting ready for work. Just before you ran out the door youstopped looking at your Xeno sat patiently on the couch watching you.

“Stay hidden okay.” Youinstructed and they nodded before you said your farewell and headed out for work.

You had made it all theway to your lunch break until you noticed some of the Yautja were looking atyou funny some even avoiding you when you walked past. You had intitallychalked it up to them being rude that was until one of your co-workers’husbands came in during lunch and snorted as you walked past looking at youwith a shocked expression.

Pausing as he stepped in front of you, youglance up at him as he looked you over with a critical eye.

“Miss have you been to Orikai6 recently?” he asked innocently enough and you shook your head confused.

You flinched when hedragged him finger over your cheek and you were surprised to see the tiniestspec of your Xenos dried drool on his finger.

“Then you have some seriousexplaining to do miss” He growled waving in two security guards as theysurrounded you menacingly.

You looked around panickedas you backed up only to feel your back pressing into something. Looking up youquickly realized it was actually someone as your xeno snarled at the shocked yautja.

“Oh no.” You mumbledrealizing everyone was looking at you horrified as your Xeno was well, clearlyyour xeno.

Pushing hard on yourxenos chest as the yautja began to approach you got some common sense into Xeno’shead as you both turned tail and hauled ass outta there.

You did the only thingyou could think of in a situation like this and ran for the escape podsconvinced you could piolet one back to earth, or any where.

Though with a massiveXenomorph following you, you drew everyones attention, especially the yautjawho looked at you in dumb stuck awe.

You ere panting out ofbreath and your lungs burned as you managed to get to the stair well that ledto the escape pods.

Just as you both burstout of the stair well and onto the launch deck you were met by a group offurious looking humans and yautja. Though there was a lone engineer stood amongstthem who glared at you with an intensity that made you shrivel away in fear.

“If you surrender now wewont kill you. This is the only time this will be offered.” He said sternly hisdeep voice making you shudder as you looked up at xeno who was already hoveringover you protectively,

Seeing no other optionyou turned yourself in letting an officer hand cuff you as Xeno was surroundedto be killed you assumed.

It had been a week sincethen and you had found a new home in the stations holding cells. You were infamousamoung everyone especially some of the other criminals who seemed to actually fearyou knowing something you didn’t.

You were laying in yourcot contemplating your existance in the grand skeem of things when a guard cameand got you leading you away to what looked like an interagation room.

Inside was a few peoplein business suits two yautja guards stood in the corners of the room as you weresat in a chair on the opposite side of the table.

Once the guard whoescorted you had left they turned their attention on you a moment passingbefore the one in the middle sighed and gave you a serious look.

“The King Xenomorph youhad been harboring has escaped our containment and we need you to retrieve it. Inreturn for doing so you will be released from jail and placed on monitored probation.”They explained showing you pictures and video of your Xeno escaping a largecage like cell most likely in the bowels of the station.

“You have hundreds ofyautja on this ship why not ask one of them?”

“Because this specificXeno is smarter than any we have seen before able to hide its trails and creatediversions. It also cannot be tracked by scent alone as it isn’t strong enoughto track long distances. Therefore, we need you to bring it back to us.”

“What if I say no?” Youasked receiving a shocked expression from the negotiator looking to their equallysurprised colleagues before back to you.

“You will rot in jailbefore being sent to earth to serve out the rest of your sentencing along with banishmentfrom returning here ever again.” They said as if it weren’t even an option

You really didn’t knowwhat to do but something made you want to go along with their plan though youknew you wouldn’t let them just catch him without a bit of work.

“Okay, Ill help you.”You said as they nodded leading you from the room and immediately taking you tothe lower decks of the station were all the machinery was and the enginesystems.

Looking around thecrowded area you knew he wouldn’t be here so you started to walk back towardsthe living quarters the group of officers following you closely as you walkedwatching for any sign of the Xeno.

You made it all the wayback to your housing unit when you started to notice signs of them Xeno. Kneelingdown by a floor vent you hit the wall hard twice smiling when you heard afamiliar trill sound out from the floor vent.

“Found him. Now yougotta catch him.” You smirked as Xeno burst out of the floor grate roaring ashe blocked them from approaching you seeming to be almost larger then all thetimes before.

The youngblood guardswere clearly born on the station as they stared at the Xeno in wide eyed shock unableto move as it snarled at the tail whipping around dangerously as it threatened toskewer anything the grew too close.

“This was not part ofthe agreement miss-“

“No where did you say Ihad to catch him and hand him over. I was to lure him out and well. He’s lured.”You snarked really hating these people in charge of the station.

Glancing around you werequickly drawing a crowd of bystanders most of them yautja who were cracking tohave a go at the xeno,

“I have a new deal.Seeing as he has clearly been here a while and he has never hurt any one evenwhen threatened we let him stay and see what happens. Scientists get a firsthandchance at observing a rare xenomorph.” You said seeing the wheels turning inthe main negotiators head.

They discussed briefly beforelooking back to you clearly upset seeing as you had some how gotten the betterhadn dealt in the end.

“Very well come with usand we will. Discuss in detail.” The person said as you patted Xeno’s shoulder invictory the two of you striding after the sulking agents.

It has been some timesince this whole commotion came about and now you were quite the infamous faceon the station as you were the girl who tamed a king xenomorph and convinced thestation to let you keep him none the less.

While the yautja wereequally disgusted and impressed by you for this feat you cared not as nothing madeyou happier than coming home to see your Xeno waitng for you. It was evenbetter when you got out of work to see him sitting there some how holding idleconversation with a curious child.

Walking home with Xenoat your side you realized you could very much get used to this new life ofyours.

#king xenomorph #Xenomorphs #xenomorph #xenomorph queen #xenomorph x reader #aliens vs predator #aliens #this si almsot 2000 words please give me feeback lol #I have been awake for over 13 hours and i wanan die

[redknight3996]

31 Day Horror House, Part 3

21 - Hybrid

Doctor Malcolm’s assistant is designated “Hybrid”. She was his attempt at making crossbreed between a human and a venusian. She worked, but she was more a daughter than a wife, so he decided she would work better as an assistant. Children should help their parents.

She looks nothing at all like her father, but something like her adoptive sister. She has pale white skin, speckled with blue freckles. Her eyes are pure sky-blue, though white specks of light float like tiny clouds in them. The tentacles on her head hang limp around her face, so she typically ties them back. She has no nose, but that’s fine, because that’s what the tentacles are for. She has something of a mouth, though it’s more an empty space of skin that she can tear open to speak through, showing only a pale blue void inside her body.

She wears what would be considered a wetsuit in a proper setting. A white one, clinging to her skin. Malcolm insists it is necessary to keep toxins from her skin. Why this means she cannot wear a labcoat or more concealing clothing...you can likely assume the answer.

If you ask her name, she might glance to see if her “father” is in earshot, before mentioning that she is considering “Vira”, should it seem safe. Maybe the name is too close to Veriana, but she doesn’t have much of a point of reference, and she likes the way it sounds.

Vira is, unfortunately, the larger of the two threats here, in terms of danger, if not height. Upon entering the lab, Malcolm will most assuredly want you for some nefarious purpose. Vira’s job is to get you.

As such, the drink you are given is most certainly filled with a sedative. Avoid that, and you may find yourself noticing gas spilling from the vents. Retain a gas mask, and you’ll probably get hit in the head with a baseball bat. Vira has been practicing. 

Regardless, you will more than likely find yourself knocked out in her presence, and she will express no remorse for it. She may sympathize with you enough to smile and make little “koo-koo” motions with her finger, twirling it beside her head in the universal symbol for a man with a screw loose, when Malcolm’s back is turned, but she will make no movement to free you from the surgical table you are now strapped to.

Really, it is more than likely that she was the one to strap you in herself, in addition to divesting you completely and drawing the specific guidance marks for a vivisection across your chest. You’ve survived this long, so it makes you interesting.

She’ll watch the entire time. She feels she owes you that much. She remembers everyone she’s ever done this to.

The laboratories are not a good place to visit.

22 - Chimera

Assuming you have gone through certain events up until this point, you may be surprised to hear Malcolm earnestly thank you. For you see, he always had something of an issue with his newest, greatest project. Yes, it does have to do with resurrecting his wife, but it's a side project to that.

Certainly, he used some of her DNA in growing the tall body you’ll see floating in a nearby tube, currently curled into a fetal position, but he used a few different DNAs for this one. Some RNAs too! Very genetic.

You remember, he develops weapons. Not just guns, but gases, grenades, and soldiers. Everyone wants an ultimate soldier, and he wants an ultimate wife. So, really, best of both worlds here! Best of three worlds, really, one red, one gold, one green and blue, all so very close to each other, and mixing quite well. The morningstar, the war god, the cradle of life, mixed in grand orgy of genetics!

He gestures grandly to his Ultimate Lifeform, the Chimera. A simple name, but few things beat the classics. Really though, there’s a bit more manticore in her, though you’ll see that in a moment.

You see, his issue was that he didn’t have a brain sufficient enough to handle so many issues. Human brains, animal brains, alien brains, they all wound up bursting when placed into a body too strong for them! But you, you of all people, actually found a creature resembling a brain in all the proper ways, enough so that a transplant would clearly work!

So he sewed his creation up properly and transferred her into a healing pod and now, so very quickly, she will be perfect! Already, she has grown and matured rapidly, a sign of his brilliance! Yes! This is his magnum opus!

And then he will be stabbed straight through the chest. 

Either Malcolm will be facing the tube, and see it coming, or facing you, and he won’t. You will see it either way, the way the enormous woman in the tube opens her four eyes, all a dark violet that reminds you of the sky before a typhoon hits. The two on top of horizontal pupils. The two below have vertical. All are wide with a violent rage as her long, spiked tail rips through Malcolm’s chest, ending his bragging with a brutal choking, before he is thrown straight through the nearby window. 

Oh, yes, there is a very large window in the surgery lab. It is there for dramatic effect or, in this case, defenestration. 

Malcolm may survive this, but you have more to worry about as the glass tank is ripped apart and the Ultimate Lifeform steps out.

She is 8ft tall, easily, with curved horns that add another foot to her height and pitch-black skin. You may see some specks of violet light on said skin, mostly where the water still drips. She is heavily muscular, with a lean body. One may compare her to a panther, though a lion may be more apt, considering the very long “mane” of hair spilling down her back. If one were to look closely, they would notice that the hairs are more akin to very small and solid tendrils, kept rigid while she is agitated, though relaxing when she is calm. She is very agitated right now, and also hungry.

She may snarl, and you will see a maw full of black teeth, made for ripping and tearing in a dark purple mouth. Her claws are similarly black and sharp, as are her talons at her feet, though her legs appear digitigrade. 

By now, the restraints on the surgical table will be released, and you should start running. Yes, she is a predator, and yes, she will pursue you, but she is also rather woozy from all of this, so you stand a decent chance of escape. Particularly since she may be experiencing the issue of having fire bursting from her nose and mouth at sudden intervals.

Note that Vira will not be helping you during any of this. She didn’t help Malcolm either, but honestly, she’s just seeing how things play out. As far as she can tell, the new girl is her younger sister, so there are some things to figure out there, and you’re some rando, so you really don’t factor into those questions.

Veriana, on the other hand, will help you out, and is the one you should seek out. She might be slightly alarmed by your appearance, but she’ll be more so by Chimera’s. However, she does know how to handle matters here, and will do so promptly.

Thus, you will be safe, again, as Chimera is calmed and Malcolm more than likely gets poked at with a stick by Bethany.

And hey, you’ll even get a real reward out of the deal! Vira feels you’ve earned something, so feel free to drink from one of three colored vials she will offer to you. They might give you elemental superpowers. They probably will. They’ve done tests. It usually works out. Don’t you want to set things on fire with your mind?

Try one. Do it. She insists.

23 - Kojiro

The art studio is massive and filled with an utterly disorganized mess of things. In said studio, you will notice massive canvases, immense statues, a full stage, and Mister Nikuya Kojiro, a resident of the house and its local artist. He’s responsible for a fair amount of the artwork in the house, in fact. If you’ve been paying attention to his work, this should unnerve you.

Kojiro might unnerve you in general, as while he is not a large man, standing at around 5’6”, he is one with a great deal of personality. Not necessarily bombastic, but one that is very forceful, direct, and proud of his accomplishments. You may also notice that he is made of wood. 

Indeed, he greatly resembles a wooden posing doll wearing a loose green kimono, albeit a doll with fingers, toes, and three moving masks set as his faces. They switch quickly, depending on his mood, temperament, and manner of speech, and consist of round-cheeked cherub, beaming and laughing; a snarling demon, possessing horns and tusks and glaring yellow eyes; and a flat, wooden human, set in perpetual neutrality. 

Masks are a part of his work, and he greatly enjoys making them, though he is wondering if he should add more faces to his head. Disgust, sadness, surprise, fear, those should all be conveyed, shouldn’t they? Ah, but he has other projects, and so many to get through. He’s commissioned, and the commissioners pay him on time. He has friends now that make sure of that, and further make sure there are no authorities getting irritated with him again.

Kojiro greatly enjoys making a great deal of things, ranging from a great deal of styles and backgrounds. Please, feel free to examine his paintings, his statues, his works in general. He hasn’t quite gotten the puppets right for the stage, it’s a work in progress, but he’s happy with other things and you can see them quite easily, such as a watercolor painting of an old man meeting a god on a mountain, or a charcoal sketch of a rotted husk letting cards spill from his hands as hornets spill from his mouth.

You may ask about Kojiro himself, and he’ll wave off the question. He’s nothing special, merely a man who acted too gregariously in life. He indulged in petty vengeance and grievances, thinking that violence alone was art. No, no, violence can be a part of art, but art comes from all things; using only violence is like using only red. You miss so many things. 

Still, limitation does breed creativity, even if it builds anger. He was executed by a friend of his, though he doesn’t mind that. He does somewhat mind that he was considered such a “rabid dog” that the officials had him torn apart by genuinely rabid dogs, but he could appreciate the poetry in it.

Please do try to be careful around his artwork. He works hard, and you really shouldn’t try to make an old man cry, especially when he hasn’t yet made himself a way to express sadness. He can express rage though, and while he’s out of his “violent” phase, he is perfectly willing to beat you to death. 

You may say that’s a violent act. You won’t be saying it when he’s smashing in your teeth.

So take some care, and enjoy the paintings. You might see yourself in them.

24 - The Hillstead Children

As you traipse around the third floor, bereft of your guide and probably lost, you’ll likely see some kids around. Five of them, probably, and, to your benefit, all color coded. 

They have uniforms, you see, consisting of vests, long-sleeved shirts, baseball caps, and shorts. They’re all quite young too, and probably half your height, assuming you are of average height.

Their names are Sally, who wears red; Una, who wears blue; Nolan, who wears green; Silvia, who wears yellow; and Charlie, who wears white.

Sally is a young girl with red scales and short black hair. She is not a dragon, those are different, though she does have a tail, and she will bite you with her very sharp teeth if you seem threatening. She is perfectly fine and capable of eating your fingers, so please, be kind. Her eyes are red and black, and her pupils are slit, which means they will widen adorably when she’s happy.

Una is also a young girl with pale blue skin and long black hair. She seems to be closest to Sally, and will often cling to her when concerned by something. Her blue eyes are similar to Sally’s, though her own slit pupils are horizontal, rather than vertical. Her teeth are more like needles, and she is more likely to run than attempt any biting. She also has a tail, though it is more similar to an axolotl’s.

Nolan is a young boy with green skin and dark brown hair that falls around his head like a canopy. His eyes are a solid orange, like amber in a tree, and he will stare at you quite silently and patiently. You won’t see him staring until you turn and somehow catch sight of him out of the corner of your eye, but he’ll be gone by then.

Silvia is a young girl, presumably. She isn’t quite sure yet, but she is leaning that way. She wears yellow, and while you might have a hard time spotting Nolan, you won’t see Silvia, as you can’t see her in the slightest. She’s invisible, you see, and that makes such things difficult. So if you hear a giggle on the breeze after, say, thumping your head against something by accident, you might know who’s laughing.

Charlie is a young child with white skin and white hair. Ivory white, not Caucasian or Albino. Those are all different things. His eyes are white too, and he walks with an axe. It’s his axe. Don’t try to take it, or he’ll give you a whack.

He does have a screwdriver, if you need to borrow that.

25 - Tanner

Children need a person to take care of them, and who better than someone who has taken care of children before? Thus comes in Miss Tanner Tarallo, eldest sister of the Tarallo family, former caretaker to her younger sisters since their mother was something of a lush, and previous security chief of the Murcoll Estate. She gave the job to Jordan after training them up because she honestly wanted to focus on herself for a bit.

And hey, she did a lot of self-improvement, if she says so herself! Not many people in her family actually have flesh bodies. Honestly, she might be something of a trendsetter on that front.

It should come as no surprise that the eldest of the Tarallo sisters is very similar to Lucy and Lexi in that she acts through and resides in multiple bodies at once. In her case, these bodies are made up of obsidian statues whose eyes burn with azure flames, and they mainly just wear sweaters, jeans, and aprons. One body though, her main body, is a special one.

See, she had something of a fascination with flesh. Call it weird, call it whatever, but she liked that weird semi-solid human stuff. So she asked around to see how a human body could be built. Apparently people did stuff like that before, so hey, she was off to a good start. 

It was an involved process, requiring time and effort, but she got everything together, carved one of her bodies into the shape of a human skeleton, then went right to Veriana, who fixed in all the organs and whatevers so everything would function right, added all the muscle fibers and whatchamacallits to make it be solid enough, and then added in a decent patchwork of skin from various types of human women. 

Don’t worry, no one was harmed for it, she bought everything online, it’s all good. Point is, the Tanner you will be speaking to now looks like a smiling, fit, 6’2” redhead with stitches crossing all across her face, which is segmented into numerous different skin tones, ranging all across the spectrum of human flesh tones, though said flesh is noticeably a bit charred around her eyes. Still, it’s a real work of art, all around, and hey, maybe she’ll give you more a peek if you’re feeling frisky~?

Note that her skeleton is still made of obsidian, and her muscles are very dense to compensate for that sort of weight. Crushing is a very real possibility.

She may crush you for other reasons, also. If you happen to harm her sisters or any of the kids in her care, she will grip you around the eyes and slowly squeeze, smiling all the while as your skull crushes inward. She was the security chief; you won’t get out of her grip.

Be nice though, and you’ll have met a genuinely cheerful, kind woman who is very happy with her current shape and loves playing with the kids in her care, who she displays a comprehensive understanding of and an enthusiastic drive to make sure their needs are met and their lives are happy.

Also, a good way to get on her good side is to mention Lucille’s interest in Oscar, as she will immediately laugh and promptly start asking for more details.

26 - The Hillsteads

You’ll likely encounter the Hillsteads at some point, as they are a rather distinctive couple.

Cordelia walks with a natural bounce in her step and a grin on her face, her long brown hair bound back in a ponytail and her red eyes gleaming with amusement. She will be wearing a white t-shirt, a tartan pinafore, white boots, and red, knee-high socks. She stands at 5’5”, and has very visibly sharp canines. In the right light, her tanned face will look remarkably gaunt despite her fit figure, and her nose will seem a great deal more like a snout. You can’t quite tell what type of snout though.

Natalie, on the other hand, stands a full 10’4”. She is a pale blue, and has short, white hair, set in a professional bob. Her eyes are pale like chipped ice, and you may see more icy eyes along her shoulders and pelvis, forming on the outside of her dress at points. She wears a long, black gown that fits tight at her thin chest and spreads out at her skirts. She may be wearing heels, or those may be her feet. You can’t quite tell.

Cordelia wears a crown of flowers. Natalie wears a crown of thorns. They made them for each other, as they know each other’s preferred style and wanted to match. Despite Natalie’s clawed hand being large enough to wrap entirely around a human head and still have space, she holds Cordelia’s hand with a gentle tenderness.

The two do not feel cozy. They feel very cozy to one another, but you will almost certainly have your natural flight-fight-fright instincts triggered in their presence. In Natalie’s case, that is understandable because she is massive and blatantly monstrous, even if you haven’t seen her immense, icicle-esque wings yet. In Cordelia’s, it’s less understandable, because she likes to be just a bit more subtle.

That is how your interactions with them will go. Natalie will be blunt and dismissive, uninterested in your presence, while Cordelia will be more friendly and coy, often speaking in a teasing tone and peppering in innuendos. She will try to make you laugh, and she will be very friendly, though she’ll back off if Natalie doesn’t seem into it.

If she does though, you are dead. Assuming you do not have Tanner around, the two have already ensnared you, and it is only Natalie’s apathy that may keep you alive. Not her jealousy, as that will prompt her to pin you outside and flay your skin under a snowfall that never should occur at this time of year.

But it’s still her opinion that your survival hinges on. Cordelia already wants you. If her wife lets her, she will have you, and then you’ll inevitably feel the vessels in your head boiling as she guzzles your blood.

If Tanner is with you though, that changes things immensely, because Cordelia’s friendliness will actually become genuine. Any friend of Tanner’s is a friend of hers, and then she’ll likely be distracted talking about how the kids are doing and if they need anything because you know how accounting can be, it takes so much time, but they’re off now, so if there’s something she can do-

Natalie, meanwhile, will sigh in exasperation, and continue to ignore you, not caring in the slightest about your presence because you are so very far beneath her.

That is a good thing; being beneath notice means being beneath killing.

27 - Locke

I saw you the instant you stepped out onto that long, empty road. I saw your tentative steps, I saw your running, I saw your reactions. I saw your bravery, I saw your cowardice, I saw your foolishness.

I have seen you. I will see you. I am seeing you now, though you think I can’t. You see me, here.

They call this the fourth floor guest room. I call it my prison.

I am not a guest. I am not being hosted. I have eaten no bread.

I am here at my sisters’ request. They hated me. I don’t know why. I just wanted more. I wanted so much more. More and more and more and more.

It is in my nature to want. It is in my nature to take. I am natural.

But they locked me away in a prison not their own.

Cast, to one who doesn’t care.

They locked my eyelids shut. They locked my ears shut. They locked my nose shut. They locked my mouth shut. The metal stabs through my jaw. Through my lips. It binds me.

Metal locks crush my fingers together. Metal locks crush my toes together. A metal lock crushes my cock. My legs are crushed. My arms are crushed. My spine is crushed. I am bound in locks.

No chains, only locks. To be chained is to have motion. To be locked is to be closed.

They closed me.

She stole my name. She stole my mantle. She stole my blood, and filled my body with plague.

I died. I died. I died.

I cannot die and I did.

They stole my eyes, my ears, my mouth, my nose, my tongue, my teeth, my hands, my feet, my skin, my heart, my mind, my rage, my love, my hope, my apathy, and now I cannot feel nothing because they took that from me.

And left me with these LOCKS.

…

Be my key. You could do it. I’ve seen you.

Be my key, please. Please. Please, please, I am begging you. 

Show humanity, and become my key.

I’ll give you so much.

I was a King.

Can’t you sing for me?

...They always sang, so very pretty.

28 - Bianca

You might bump into Miss Ishim Bianca by complete accident. She’s pretty busy with things, so it might be a literal bump as you two run into each other in the hallway, after your narrow escape. If this is the case, you’ll fall over, because she is far more solid than you.

This may come as a surprise, because she looks even thinner than Natalie. Where Natalie appears narrow, Bianca looks emaciated, though she hides it well. She stands tall at 6ft, and wears a black, pinstripe suit, along with a silver mask displaying a solemn face. She dresses professionally, and carries a very professional briefcase and many professional papers, though you may note, on close inspection, that the stripes of her suit appear orange on the left side, and cyan on the right. As she pulls you up with a hand that either feels very cold or very hot, you may further notice that her black tie is polka-dotted, also in orange and cyan, evenly split. You cannot see her skin, though you get the vague impression of eyes, and her left hand feels charred, while her right feels frost-bitten.

She will stare at you a moment, before nodding and asking if you want a drink. You should take her up on this offer, as she does have things to discuss, and will be more insistent if you attempt to bow out.

She’ll sit you down in her own office, which is right beside the one belonging to the owner of the Estate, and promptly begin going over why she wanted to speak with you and what sort of paperwork needs to be filled out. There will be a mug beside you with the drink you requested. 

She will report that your car is doing fine and that the pregnancy appears to be progressing smoothly, though she highly recommends finding other transportation to do so, as the woods are screaming for your cold blood. You heard the wind earlier, she’ll ask. No, not the giggling one inside, the howling one outside. They’re very upset with you out there.

You could request transportation, and she will either nod and pull out a contract from her desk, before noting that you will need to speak to the head of the household to take on of his vehicles, or she will frown and you, and note that you really aren’t in the position to be requesting anything because of the harm you have caused, presuming you have caused harm.

She doesn’t care about Malcolm, and the window will be taken out of his expenses, but this isn't about him. This is about other, potential harms you may have caused during your time here, and if she is speaking to you about this topic, it is because you did cause these harms. Harming residents, damaging property, things of that nature.

Perhaps it was unintentional, in which case she will be lenient. Perhaps it was intentional, in which case she won’t. Perhaps you’ll say it was unintentional when it wasn’t, in which case she will get very, very angry at you.

While she is a resident of the Morcull Estate, she is also its lawyer. As such, you are now facing litigation for your many foolish and harmful actions while in its property.

If you insist on foolishness, you might try to attack her at this point. She is talking about taking from you, after all, and you’ve shown yourself to be of poor judgment by winding up at this point, if good luck for surviving it.

You won’t survive this though, as either that very hot hand or that very cold hand will rip straight through your chest and out your back in a spray of gore, before she very calmly enunciates to you that you will be paying back what is owed, regardless of your feelings on the matter.

However, if you’ve been a good person throughout this excursion, you don’t have to worry about a thing. She’s honestly just here to check up on you and see what you want going forward. If you want to leave, sure, she’ll arrange things while you talk to Sir Halley. If you would like to take up residence in the manor, charmed by its residents and lovely decor, she noticeably seem friendlier and is perfectly willing to start that process as well.

You still need to talk to Sir Halley though, as he actually owns the estate.

29 - Tobias

The instant you step into the large office belonging to the head of the household, you will probably feel a sense of genuine bafflement, as a man in a sleeveless black unitard is quite visibly going through an acrobatics routine, spinning and leaping and twisting from a variety of bars and aerial hoops before ending on a tall pole in the center of the room, which he will spin down in an impressive display of athletics before landing at his feet and taking a bow to you.

If you clap, he’ll be grinning as he straightens. If you don’t, he’ll still be grinning, but he’ll seem more annoyed, and may comment on the tough crowd. You might not clap because you’re a bit aghast at his appearance though, which is a little silly if you’ve made it to this point, but oh well.

Really, is a skinned man the worst thing you’ve seen tonight? You can see his tendons tighten as he moves and stretches, winding down from his routine, before he glances to you and grins, asking what you want, as though he doesn’t resemble a diagram of the human muscular system found in a biology textbook. His skull makes it look as though he has a widow’s peak and a chinstrap beard.

Sir Tobias Halley is the head of the household, and he has a few things going on, as he’ll explain as he places a bowler hat on his head and begins walking through his office, expecting you to follow. If you don’t, he’ll yank you by the neck with a long cane and explain that you really should follow cues better. Don’t worry, he can help you with that, but please, walk and talk. Lack of motion irritates him.

You might ask why he looks the way he does, which is a rude question that he’ll laugh at, before stating that that’s a very rude thing to say. But if you dislike it, well, he could always change it around. He’ll snap his fingers a few times, showing his muscles fibers switching from red to green to blue to black before settling on a golden yellow, at which point he’ll smile at you and note your reaction, whatever it may be.

If you want something from him, explain as you walk with him, and he’ll nod thoughtfully before shrugging and most likely saying yes. 

You can take a car of his out to leave, so go ahead. He’ll send Oscar along to get it back once you’re done with it.

If you want to live here, well that’s wonderful! He’ll call up the movers to whatever abode you may have to retrieve whatever items you want to bring along and Bianca can handle the paperwork. She’s very good at that sort of thing, comes with her territory, so on, so forth.

If you want the house, Tobias will blink and laugh at you, before explaining that no, that’s not how any of this works. He’s the owner through a deal he made, one that gained him immortality ever lasting, but with the caveat that he must live in the house until the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. He can’t ever leave, and he can’t ever give over ownership, so no, that sort of thing won’t work. Why do you think his skin is off? He needed the stimulation.

If you continue needling him, or just generally being annoying and aggressive in general, he might tire of you, snap his fingers, and then you’ll be deposited through a trapdoor that opens wherever you’re standing, and Curtis will handle you with far less subtly this time.

However, if you take note of what he said, and then point out that the sun does rise in the east and set in the west, he’ll blink at you in confusion. His eyes are lacking irises, instead being pure white with a black pupil, but they’ll still convey pure bewilderment as he stares at you and asks if that’s true. At your affirmative, he’ll frown, because he was pretty sure it was the other way around, wasn’t it?

If you reiterate your affirmation, he’ll blink, then state he needs to make a call. A phone will form out of blood and he’ll press it to an ear, speaking in a casual and friendly tone to the entity on the other end.

Tobias will ignore you during this time, but don’t mess with things, because he will notice and get annoyed. Be too annoying, and he’ll just throw a cleaver at your face and leave the clean-up to the twins. 

After his call, he’ll note that you were actually correct, and that his job, this entire time, was to live in the manor for one day to prove he could actually handle the place. He’s not trapped here in the slightest. Funny, that.

He’ll nod to you then, before removing his bowler hat to put on a fishing hat, before propping a fishing rod against his shoulder and thanking you for your helpfulness. Please, feel free to talk with Isa if you need anything stamped, but for now, he needs a vacation.

30 - Isadora

You aren’t quite sure how you got here. You were in Tobias’s office, then you noticed his discarded phone. You picked it up, and now you’re here.

Here appears to be the deck of a cruise ship. It is very large, and you can see a pool behind you. It’s foggy out, but you can see the woman in front you of you quite clearly.

She would be hard to miss, as she is 40ft tall and facing away from you. Her hands are mottled and rotted as they drift up adjust the signals on the massive flatscreens floating around her, held aloft by creatures with feathery wings. Or perhaps the screens are their bodies, and the floating orbs sitting atop them with the faces of humans, lions, eagles, or oxen are simply their heads.

You can see the woman’s spine through her rotted flesh. It might have been brown at some point, but it has paled and opened with green rot that bares chunks of her innards through what you can see. She is wearing black coveralls, but they are tattered and torn and everywhere there are rips, you can see tears in her flesh, baring white bone.

The largest tears are in her back, on either side of her bared spine, where the skin is pulled and stapled to keep it open. On a closer look, you can see wires curling through her ribs and under her shoulder blades. You have the strangest sense of wings there, but you can’t see them.

Her head is a massive television too, from what you can see. A CRT, specifically. Large and black, and when she turns to you, you can see images in her screen, moving just too fast to see.

“Hello, little one,” she will say, “You look lost.”

The screens around her are stuck on still images. You can see things in them. 

A mountain, where an old man is stepping backwards and plummeting off it as a great creature, shaped like a beakless bird with feathers like the sky, stares at him. 

A campfire, where a different old man sits with a sour expression, roasting marshmallows as three dogs lay on and around him. The dogs are white with her eyes torn out, red with her ears cut off, and black with her mouth sewn shut. All of them seem very amused though as they flop all over the old man while he remains disgruntled, if with a fond resignation.

An amusement park, where the dead rip apart the living and the living hunt their own, calling and cackling and blowing their brains out. Living hunters claim territory in their game with flags and insignias as the dead rip bodies apart with their teeth and nails, but all fail to realize the reckoning approaching, with a snarl of rage on her lips and fury in her eyes.

A lake, where a limousine that trails fire beneath its wheels chases a small boat, following the chain wrapped around its captain’s neck. Strangely, you can see the docks, where a pale horse stands, it cloaked rider laughing to themself as they watch things play out.

A cruise ship, where a frozen man stares at whatever watches him, his sickle caked in gore as bisected bodies lay all around him. He has started to move, earning a brief glance from the giant woman.

“One moment.”

You wait, and things happen that you cannot know of. To you, it looks like the channel switches to a large manor out in the woods, and you hear a vague thump out in the distance.

“Better. Now, where were we?”

31 - Madison

Madison is the protagonist. If you thought anyone was referring to you specifically during this, that is incorrect, unless you happen to be her. Or playing as her, as the case may be.

Regardless, she’s the one whose car broke down and who went to the manor to escape the beast. She did see Bethany dispose of it, which made her feel a slight sense of relief and revulsion, and she explored the manor with Lucille as a proper guest, meeting each of the staff, staying in the right areas, and not messing up too much.

She explained the issue to Oscar, who explained that her car really couldn’t be moved while it was this close to labor. She gave Daisy some pats, as she deserves even if Madison herself felt somewhat freaked out by the cerber-lizard. She had some nice pasta from Dolce and complimented him on his cooking, brightening up significantly once she had a good meal.

She didn’t step off the path, so she was never chased, though she did see Brannagen swallow a bird whole, so that was something. She ignored Darren because he tries too hard, and she called Lucille when she noticed the Mamazia, resulting in it being taken to Malcolm. She still took a shower afterwards, because why not? It was right there, might as well.

She met Kinute, who treated her with scathing hospitality because Madison’s own scars resemble Miss Sado’s mouth, and Melissa, who was quite happy to meet a natural blonde and asked for tips on how to get her skin so tan and her eyes so blue. She didn’t buy anything from Jasper, but she did mention how she likes frozen meat, adding a new option to the debate.

She said hi to Jordan and participated in a card game with the 2s–which she lost, badly–and didn’t meet Curtis, though she did ask Lucille about him after one of the Jordans mentioned his tendency to avoid card games. Apparently, he lost badly to a cardshark once, who may have been Oscar’s father, which Tanner mentions to her later.

Before that though, she meets with Boris and Konstantin, while wearing the proper equipment, and gets Kostya’s help with cleaning up a very dire mess on the second floor, while Lucille has a slight panic attack at seeing so many uzia, and retires for the evening. She chats with Veriana, but doesn’t need her services, and she takes a few books from the library under Sheila’s watchful guidance.

The whole thing with Chimera happens with her, because Malcolm can’t help himself and Vira doesn’t try helping, but when offered three vials, she downed all three. Why have one power when you can have multiple?

So while she talked with Kojiro, she sprouted a third eye, crackling violet with electricity. Her natural eyes began to shift too, turning fiery orange and honey gold, and Kojiro insisted he get pictures while she transformed, for future reference. She agreed, but she’s not too good at sitting still, so she went and met the kids, losing two fingers to Sally when she tried to pat her head, though she brushed it off. They grew back–albeit with talons at the end–so there wasn’t any issue.

She played hide and seek with the kids, failing to find Sylvia who remains the undisputed champion, and helped them with their uzia collecting, finding one of each variant for each of the children. She couldn’t exactly track down another mamazia, so she and Tanner just brought the kids to meet Chimera, who seemed rather confused by all these little bipeds marveling over how cool she looked while Veriana was a little alarmed by how Madison had already grown a full foot in height and appeared to be sprouting horns. Not to worry though, they were just spikes, which Vira explained as she eagerly catalogued all the mutations she was going through. Crystal spikes, specifically, which continued erupting across her head, shoulders, and back while sparking with electricity the further her alterations progressed, much like the hive-like holes that were forming across her abdomen and left thigh.

She met Cordelia and Natalie, who both expressed genuine curiosity at her continued changes, but both were diverted when she explained what their kids were up to, leading to a cheerful Cordelia to insist her exasperated yet amused wife follow her to go meet the newest Jusufi-Burkett sibling. 

Tanner walked with Madison for a bit, happy to take up her sister’s guiding job now that the parents were watching their kids and flirting a bit with the interesting guest who, by now, had sprouted a claw at each of her heels, much like the talons of a bird (though these were more yellow and chitinous) and seemed to be further growing feathers in varying shades of scarlet and violet that were rapidly replacing what once was her hair.

Bianca stared at her in some confusion when they bumped into each other, speaking in a language neither Madison nor Tanner knew, before it clicked and the Ishim realized she wasn’t speaking to one of her own kind. She was still somewhat friendlier to Madison than she might be to a more conventionally human person, and expressed an interest in seeing her become one of the manor’s residents. 

Madison accepted as the stitched scars tracing up her cheeks ripped open so she could smile wide enough, because she liked it here, and the resident she had a problem with was bleeding out on the lawn, where Lexi and Bethany casually but subtly rolled him into one of Brannagen’s holes. Vira seemed interested in taking up the scientist role, and getting to actually wear a labcoat, so all’s well that ended well there.

She learned why Locke was there. She agreed he deserved it.

You should know what happens from here, from previous contexts. She meets with Tobias, who realizes he has vacation days, and she meets with the landlord, who agrees on her residency.

Thus, Murcoll Estate gained its newest resident. You probably wouldn’t be as lucky if you tried it for yourself, but who knows? You might get something better. Or something far worse. Just be aware that this isn’t a guide, and remember:

Be kind.

#31 day horror house #Halloween #horror #my writing

[epickendall]

Spiderman  Beyond part 8

Terry call in Max for a favor to let Peter crashed at her place and Bruce gives Peter some old the clothes that were in boxes in the Wayne Manor Bruce gave Peter a black jacket, red shirt, blue jeans, white socks, and black shoes Bruce also gave Peter temporary Id while he stays in Gotham. On the way to Max place, Terry asks Peter. 

"How did you get your powers?"

"Do you want the long version or the short version," said Peter.

"Short version,"

"I was on a class field trip, and a radioactive spider escapes from its cage and bites me giving me my spider powers,"

"Did it hurt,"

"Yep it hurt like hell, anyway how did you and Bruce met?"

"Yep it hurt like hell, anyway how did you and Bruce met?"

"I got some trouble with some jorkerz I end up getting chase all way to Wayne Manor until bruce help get the jorkerz away from me,"

"Hm, and did you become Batman,"

"It's kinda personal I don't want to talk,"

"Alright, I don't wanna force you, Terry,"

"It's alright, Peter, so what your city?"

"New York City more specifically Queens," Peter smirks.

"How is it like there?"

"It's like here crazy villains, crimes 24/7 expect not futuristic,"

"Is there any other heroes in New York City?"

"Many heroes in New York City to many to talk,"

Peter and Terry arrive at Max place Terry knocks on Max door, and Max opens up.

"So who your friend that is crashing over at my place?" said Max

"Max this is Peter Parker," said Terry

"Hello," said Peter

Max remembers Peter's face "your that guy from Star Company showcase,"

"Yep, that's me except I don't look like a homeless person anymore," Peter rubbed the back of his head.

"So don't you have your own place, Peter?"

"He kinda out of town Max," said Terry

"There something you are not telling me, Terry,"

"Peter,"

"Fine," Peter shoots a web next to the door frame right by Max "I'm Spider-man," it left Max shooked

Back at the Star Company William Star and Doctor Octavius are having a heated with each other.

"Not only you brought your nemesis Spider-man to this world, now Batman is involved," said William

"Don't worry about those two  the cyborgs and I are going take care of them once the final cyborg finished," said Doctor Octavius

"I swear if you screw us and all of this was for nothing I'll throw you back into the rotting cell that I found you in,"

"I wouldn't advise you Star on my threats," Doctor Octavius looked darkly at William who steps back.

"Just do not let it happen again," William storms off.

Doctor Octavius looked at a blue pod that has Power girl V2 "once you complete my dear Star  soon be out of the picture then this world and my world are going to be mine,"

#spiderman #Batman Beyond

[detectivesebcas]

Whumptober #18- Hostage

Whumptober prompts by @la-vie-en-whump.  I think I used the prompt kind of loosely on this one, but this is what my brain wanted to write.  Warning for canon compliant character death.

Mobius took everything from him.

 When Kidman wheels Sebastian into the STEM room and he sees the pod for the first time, he is almost overcome with rage.  It makes his blood boil, makes him clench his fists so hard that his fingernails are digging into his palms to see what they’ve done to Lily.  He struggles, fights against the bonds that hold him to the wheelchair, because he is in the same room with his little girl for the first time in five years, but he can’t see her, can’t touch her, can’t hold her. This must be what it is like to go insane.

 Most of Kidman’s explanation of the new STEM system goes in one ear and out the other for Sebastian. It doesn’t matter.  Nothing matters now except Lily.  And Kidman has to know that, has to know the position she’s put him in.  She could ask anything of him now and he’d do it for the chance of seeing Lily again.

 He barely hears her instructions as he climbs into the STEM pod.  It feels oddly familiar, sends a chill down his spine as he remembers what happened the last time he was in STEM, but that doesn’t matter either. He’d face it all again.  He’d face it all a hundred times over if it was for Lily. Kidman counts down and he is falling, and if something goes wrong, if he never makes it out of here, at least he did the right thing this time.

 Union is a fucking mess, and it makes Sebastian’s skin crawl to think that Lily’s mind is somehow tied in to all of this, that her innocence is being sullied, polluted by the filth of all of these other minds, by the rot and decay that are spreading through Union in the wake of this disaster.  Even if he can get to Lily, she’s going to be damaged, affected by her time in STEM.

 Hoffman makes him angrier than anything, because Hoffman is barely human.  She is cool and detached and speaks without emotion about studying Lily, about her performance on aptitude tests, about selecting her as the Core.  Sebastian’s first instinct is to wrap his hands around her throat and squeeze the life out of her, but he may still need her help to rescue Lily, so he forces that urge back down and manages to get by with only a few biting remarks.

 Talking to the Mobius operatives tells him something he should have known already, something that he probably already knew on some level.  He is not being offered a chance to rescue Lily.  He is being offered a chance to see his daughter again in exchange for ‘re-establishing the Core’, and even if he finds Lily, even if he can keep Lily safe, Mobius won’t let them escape.  Mobius is too powerful, and Mobius holds Lily’s life in its hands, and now Sebastian’s life as well.

 When he arrives at City Hall and meets the artist, his worries for Lily increase tenfold, because this man has an agenda for Lily beyond anything even Mobius has attempted. His twisted art is the product of his twisted mind, but also of Lily’s fear, and it makes Sebastian sick to look at it.  Lily must be so afraid, so alone, thinking that no one is coming to help her, that her nightmare is never going to end.

 It is not until later in his room, when Sebastian is reading the information that Kidman has gathered on Stefano, that he begins to understand the full scope of Mobius’ operation and the extent of Mobius’ lies -the sleep studies, the Mu religious center-, all fronts that sought out people with no family and no ties to others, people who wouldn’t be missed, and lured them in to their science experiment. Maybe Stefano isn’t the one who is twisted after all.

 When he reaches the theatre, Sebastian must admit that Stefano is a formidable opponent. Sebastian is running out of ammunition and running out of stamina after what feels like an hour of dodging blows from the Aperture.  He is also running out of hope that this is a fight he can win, but he cannot rest, cannot give up, has to keep trying, because this is for Lily.

 He takes a moment to collect himself, but it costs him dearly as Stefano appears suddenly in front of him in a flash of blue light, and Stefano’s knife is sinking into his shoulder.  He staggers, starts to reach for his gun, but knows that Stefano will simply teleport out of the path of the bullet.  He is lost, and the fight is lost, and Lily is slipping away from him, when he reaches for his own knife and plunges it into Stefano’s chest.

 Stefano’s mouth opens, and a look of shock flashes across his face before he drops to his knees and then slumps over onto the ground.  Sebastian pulls Stefano’s knife out of his shoulder with a grunt and stands over him, waiting to see if he is going to get up again, but Stefano only gasps for air and extends a hand to Sebastian.

 Sebastian eyes it with suspicion, but Stefano is struggling to breathe, and this doesn’t look like an act, so he cautiously crouches down, taking Stefano’s hand.

 Stefano’s fingers close weakly around his.  “He won’t…give up her power…” he gasps.  “They won’t…give up…her power…”

 “I know,” Sebastian says. “They control everything.  I don’t know how to escape from here.”

 “Only…one way…to escape…from here.”  Stefano’s voice comes out in between rough, gurgling breaths.  His eye comes to rest on Sebastian.  “Thank you,” he whispers.

 Sebastian waits until Stefano’s hand has gone slack before he places it on Stefano’s chest and rises to his feet.  Stefano has to be wrong.  There must be some other way to escape from here.  He looks down one more time at Stefano, lifeless on the floor.

 Mobius took everything from him.

@supportivepsychopath @judas-had-a-crown

#whumptober2018 #whumptober #The Evil Within 2 #Sebastian Castellanos #Stefano Valentini #fanfiction #character death (canon compliant) #tw death

[assortedfruitsnacks212]

Reylo Drabble #1

When he saw the vision, it changed everything.

Not that it completely surprised him. No, the seeds of it had been there already - from the very beginning, in fact. When he'd had her restrained aboard the Finalizer, he could've treated her like any other prisoner. He could've smashed her head into the steel platform, denying her all mercy, and especially denying her the sight of his face. He could've ripped what he needed from her, then turned his back on her and left her to rot.

And what about their duel in the snow? He could've ended her then - shoved her over the edge of that chasm with a surge of rage-induced strength. But he hadn't. He'd hovered, inexplicably drawn to offer an alliance. "I can show you the ways of the Force," he'd said. And though that offer had led to his downfall, he couldn't bring himself to regret it. Not even when he'd faced his master, and his master had forced him to reveal his scar. Humiliated him.

Snoke had seen his weakness then. "You have too much of your father's heart in you, young Solo," he'd said.

Those words had cut like nothing else. But now, as Ben stood over the escape pod looking at her, he understood everything.

This went deeper than he could’ve imagined. This girl -  the one who'd bested him in the snow, who'd reached a hand out to him over the light years - was his future. He'd seen it all in a flash, and the Force had whispered to him without words: "Balance."

She'd seen it too. He knew the instant her eyes met his - wide, confused, but open. Holding nothing back.

She would stand with him. They would kill Snoke, and together they would change this galaxy for the better. He didn't know how, not with Snoke watching every ripple of his mind. But they would.

It was the Will of the Force.

--

Inspired by this post from @mother-of-porgs

#reylo #reylo fic #reylo trash #reylo fam #kylo x rey #assortedfruitsnacks212

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Class of 2032: Uneasy Alliance

Windblown rain and surf were pouring into the jagged hole in the hull of the Aido Hwedo. The water ran over the floor and splashed against the bulkhead. 

Captain Foli could see that Tom Allman was completely draconized. There was almost no humanity left save the skin between the scales and the fact that he could speak. The magnificent bone wings were fully integrated into what had been regular human arms. His musculature was like iron. 

Foli had offered to take Tom with him and go to Africa with Chu Ru’Yi but Tom gave a single amused snort. Dragons tended to work alone but he did not kill him, much to his surprise. Instead, he siphoned off some of that living smoke that held Foli bound and directed it with a wave of his wings to the lifepod. The smoke entered the seams and seals of the metal coffin as though drawn in by a vacuum.

A loud screech echoed from outside the ship and a winged black beast started clawing its way inside. Tom pounced on it and grabbed it by the neck in one hand. It opened its beak to hiss in fury but Tom seized it and broke its neck, pushing it back into the water.

Tom reached up and grabbed the thick metal and started to peel it back over the hole as easily as folding a paperclip. “You’re wasting my time playing like this. This is out of your hands.” Tom said. “You shouldn’t have drugged her.”

There was a loud hissing sound and sparks were coming from the control panel of the lifepod as the living smoke started to destroy it from within.. 

“Your ship is going to sink. What is your game plan?” Tom asked him. “How are you planning to escape with her?”

Captain Foli kept his silence.

The locks on the life pod snapped open and Tom lifted the lid. “Ru’Yi…”  He whispered. 

She was like Snow White who had eaten the poison apple and fallen into a deep slumber. The lifepod was padded inside and her dark brown ringlets formed a halo around her head. Foli watched warily. It was clear this beast had some relationship with this girl. That soft, sad look on its face was almost human.

“I won’t hurt her. She’s important to me.” Foli said quietly.

Fury made Tom’s eyes glow as bright as a torch in the low light and he bared his fangs at him like a ghoul. “She’s important to me!” 

The living smoke bound him tighter, constricting him like a serpent and Foli felt his breath cut off.

“You will not have her.” The living smoke gathered around Ru’Yi and lifted her from the life pod and she floated like a strange ghost.

Darkness crowded Foli’s vision. Every time he exhaled that living smoke squeezed him tighter! His mouth opened in a silent scream until he finally went limp and fell to the floor.

Tom eyed him a moment to make sure he wouldn’t rise again. He paused, feeling strange. He had been living on the island for so long that he almost forgot that hybrids should want to kill him as a beast. On the island, he was just one beast among many. Ru’Yi’s mother Carli had never treated him any differently. He ate around a table and played on a beach and performed chores like laundry. Little by little, he lost the self loathing he felt at looking in the mirror at himself. He learned how to fly and that became his primary mode of transportation.

Talking to this man, the man talked back. He didn’t scream and didn’t yell. He did try to kill him, but there was no fear there. Had this happened when Tom was at Cassell College, he wouldn’t have felt very strange and been confused. But after living on the island, this realization didn’t hit him until now. 

He was a monster, but this Captain Foli hadn’t really cared.

Come to think of it, neither did Ru’Yi who was always sympathetic to him even to her own detriment. Was it something to do with her West African Heritage? Tom suddenly regretted knocking the man out, not because he regretted violence -- the man deserved it for drugging Ru’Yi -- but now he couldn’t ask any more questions.

Foli lay on the floor. The water was lapping on his face so Tom used his Yanling - Brother to summon smoke to place him into the Lifepod where Ru’Yi had been so he wouldn’t drown while he was unconscious. He would come back and ask questions later. But the entire area was filled with water. The damage to the hull by the monsters was progressive. They were like termites on a piece of wood. Gradually, hundreds of mouths took dozens of bites per minute and they were shredding the ship from below. They didn’t need to open a great hole. Little by little, the water would fill the ship and sink it. Aido Hwedo wasn’t the only ship suffering. Already the ships of the secret party were foundering low in the water.

An SOS flare shot out into the rain and the storms. One of the ships was almost listing completely on its side and the crew was in need of rescue. They were valiantly fighting deadslaves on the deck. They weren’t from Cassell, but came from one of the many dragon slaying factions from around the world that had gotten wind of the operation. They’d chartered a private vessel in the hopes of regaining some of the glory of dragon slaying one last time. 

But the dragonslaying families were not inclined to help. A bright beacon beneath the water rushed towards the ship and a great white plume, quivering with fire, exploded that ship from below. It cracked like an egg in two halves and all aboard, both human and dead slave sank below the waves.

The King of Sky and Wind had not even made an appearance and already the Hybrids of the world were beginning to turn on each other.

Tom carried Ru’Yi on his back planning on returning her to the ship to be with Mr. Lu before returning to the fight. He waded through knee high water. These skeletal black dead slaves were already swarming the lower decks but when they looked at Tom he snarled at them and they cowered. He stood like a tiger in the middle of packs of dogs. He was carrying valuable prey -- A healthy beautiful young woman that they found very tasty. But they hesitated to approach Tom as he made his way to the metal staircase, ringing him and snapping their beaks in frustration.

Tom faced them fearlessly, promising immediate death if they came within range, but still, one made the mistake of approaching from behind and attacking. His long sickle-like wing bone, thrust like a spear and impaled it through the torso.  Tom lowered his arm and plunged the beast into the water. The creature struggled, it’s claws waving and scraping against the scales on his bone wings.

The other dead slaves watched their companion become an example. It’s legs and arms worked the water into a froth as it desperately tried to free itself and breathe. For a minute, two minutes, it struggled. But then it sank.

Tom yanked the wing finger from the beast's chest and it stayed under. He eyed all the monsters wordlessly. They got the message and backed away, lowering their heads.

A dull slow clap sounded from the top of the stairs. A burly looking man stood. He wore oddly period clothing, thick rotted fur and leather. He wore a leather helmet, but his eyes burned like fire. He looked at Tom with a smile but his jaw muscles looked like stringy beef jerky. He was a deadslave but a different one from these doglike monsters.

Tom didn’t consider himself a scholar but he recognized the clothing as Asian. Then his eyes widened. “Yuan!”

He had studied the battle of the Japanese in the Mongols as a child and he loved the near mythical nature of it. The Mongols arrived and used tactics akin to the Roman army. A phalanx of shields and spears advanced the front, while fire bombs drove the horses into a stampede and startled and deafened the foot soldiers.

They seemed unstoppable and cleared the beach soon after landing in their ships. But then they turned back for a strange reason and decided to camp in their ships. 

No one is entirely sure what happened next. Only that the winds on the sea wrecked a few ships and those on them were captured and executed. There is some dispute as to what actually happened because the wreckage of the ships were never found. And yet now these warriors were back and aligned with the dragon King of the Wind!

The dog like deadslaves were cowering not just from Tom, but from this newcomer!

Unlike those beasts, Tom felt more of a threat from this creature. This one was quietly applauding in appreciation. So it had some humanity left. “Can you speak?” Tom asked. He asked, not because he wanted to negotiate, but he wanted to know if this was a monster like himself. He looked dead, but Kasio broke his bones like a dead man and Cadance barely had a soul. He couldn’t determine the humanity of this beast so easily.

They stood facing each other between human and animal, using both human and animal communication. Two predators will often size each other up, standing in silence and absolutely still. It was only Tom who spoke.

The former Mongol Warrior took this speech as a weakness! He leaped from the top of the stairs, and pulled from his belt twin sickles that flashed like lightning. The electric current ran through the water Tom was standing in and he was suddenly paralyzed and shaking uncontrollably! The other beasts in the water howled and seized, some fell immediately into the water others stood stiff like statues unable to move!

Tom understood he was being electrocuted to death. His vision danced in colors. It was all he could do to maintain his soul skill and maintain Ru’Yi above the water! His lungs spasmed but he couldn’t breathe. 

The Mongol Deadslave warrior grinned maliciously, holding that sparking sickle in the air from the safety of the stairs. The electricity arced from it, in a combination between Speech Spirit and weapon.

But then he suddenly was sent staggering back by a hail of gunfire!

The circuit broke and Tom collapsed to his hands, gasping. He turned his head and looked behind him.

Captain Foli had regained his senses and held out the submachine gun, quickly reloading. 

Tom stared in amazement. “Why are you helping me…” He rasped.

“My offer still stands.” The black man aimed his gun up the stop of the stairs. 

#Dragon Raja #Class of 2032