#its about legacy! its about love and trust and what relationships mean! its about battles that are doomed but fought anyway! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

probably-haven · 3 years

Note

Hello!! After seeing what you wrote about xiaoven fics I went to see what things you usually write and omg, your archon Venti headcanons????? I am absolutely in love. So if it isn't annoying, could you talk about xiaoven or Venti or Xiao or whatever ship or character you like? I don't care what you are going to say, I just want to know more about your thoughts ^^

I- is this... bestie, this is essentially a free ramble pass- kerujsgheskdfug. Trust me when I say that in no way is this, and in no way will it ever be annoying in the slightest- i literally- lets just say rambling off thoughts is kind of my specialty, especially when provided a topic to branch off of because otherwise I'm just- really indecisive about it so- iujskdh yeah- 100% definitely down to talk about Venti, Xiao, and/or Xiaoven XD. Also, yes- it may have been awhile since i last posted one(cuz again, indecisive about which direction to take part 5), but the Archon War Era Venti headcanons are still without a doubt my favorite posts I've made. It's just such an interesting topic with such endless potential that so few people actually think about or consider or even realize is there, so i always just get really psyched whenever i see someone interact with them lol.

.... this ended up being a bit of a mess: warning in advance

Anyway! onto the actual content!

- You see the thing about Xiaoven is that there's a lot of different ways that it could end up working out, and just personally my favorite way of portraying Xiaoven in my mind is as an unlabeled relationship because if anyone in genshin would give off that vibe its these two. And a number of other reasons.

- Firstly, I heavily headcanon Venti as being an aroace polyplatonic or perhaps heavily demiromantic. However, regardless of this I just don't think that Venti is really the kind of person to worry about how he should label his feelings, thinking it's silly to try to put them in one box or the other, especially with feelings and emotions being as fluid as they are in general. Plus it fits his whole God of Freedom vibe. I just- dont think he's the biggest fan of labels or social categorization in general.

- And secondly on the hand of Xiao... his defense mechanisms are very much ingrained in his personality. It's probably hard enough for him to not go into fight or flight(the answer is fight) at the slightest affection at first, at the slightest feeling of vulnerability. Even further down the line, with his fierce dedication to Liyue, I cant help but get the vibe that the moment he recognized that he was falling for Venti he would begin avoiding him, not only to avoid distraction from his duty, but to avoid corrupting him or losing him in general like he has with like basically every other person he gets close with(even believing that the cycle had repeated once more when he first heard of Morax's death)... now imagine Venti tryna slap a label on their relationship and tell me Xiao would have a positive reaction.

- The thing with Xiaoven.... honestly, i feel like theres more ways that it can go wrong than it can go right, but if they do manage to make their relationship work out, it's just simply beautiful in all terms of the word.

- Lets talk about killing. - During the Archon War, both were forced to kill a large number of people and gods alike- Venti out of a need to remain alive to protect Mondstadt, it's freedom, and the nameless bard's legacy by extent- and Xiao out of servitude to the god that was once his master

..... actually- break here- ive talked a lot about Venti on this blog but I havent actually spoken about Xiao all that much- so i should probably do that a bit first... do note though that my characterization of Xiao is pretty flexible actually- this is just- the possible characterization of him that i tend to favor as being the most- uh- "realistically complex"

Theres a line I saw this one time in a certain story: "He is a trained weapon. That's what he is, was, and always will be. You cannot change that so stop trying." And i just- think its a really interesting concept- that applies pretty well to Xiao now that i actually think about it. - the concept behind it is this: After spending more than a vast majority of his life killing or otherwise in battle, it's become a part of who he is, a normalcy that after centuries and centuries would be near impossible to get rid of or reverse, and even if it was possible, with his karmic debt constantly eating away at him its unlikely he has enough time left for that to happen. - it sounds like a cruel thing to say about him- but in context it's actually pretty layered and i think about it a lot. It's not as much a "he's a killer lol, that his whole personality" its more of a "The centuries of trauma he experienced have conditioned him into a constantly alert and battle ready mindset while also shaping his dehumanizing inferior-in-worth-but-superior-in-capability view of himself that would have likely been necessary to get through those time, and at this point he's been under that conditioning for long enough that it's essentially ingrained itself in his personality."

- the main idea is- it's a part of who he is, that needs to be accepted as who he is because its not something that he can just up and change. It's not all he is of course but his constant battle mode, as though always waiting to be ambushed or to be granted a new target to eradicate.

a couple character story quotes:

-"His past of service under the evil god had rid Xiao of his innocence and gentleness. All that remained within him was the means to kill and the weight of his sins. The only way he could be of service to mortals was in combat." -"Xiao does not feel any hatred. Having lived for over two thousand years, no single karmic debt constitutes anything more than a fleeting memory. No grudge can last a thousand years; nor is any debt so great that it cannot be paid off in this time. Xiao has spent many long years alone. But his battles have never been in vain." -"where did Xiao have to return to? He was merely leaving the battlefield." -"since Xiao wages a constant war against dark forces powerful enough to devour Liyue in its entirety, any bystanders who witness him in the heat of battle are likely to end up as collateral damage." -"The war he fights can never be won, and will never come to an end." -"Because ultimately, the one with whom Xiao wrestles is himself."

i feel like at some point this very nearly did consume his whole personality, almost turning him into nothing more than a being of slaughter under Morax's control, devoid of any "humanity" at all, consumed and corrupted by his karmic debt like his fellow yakshas before him. - until he experienced a moment of clarity- a song in the wind, the peaceful melody of a dihua flute. - and pulled back from the border of something he wouldnt have been able to return from, there a was a shift in his mind- a concept grown unfamiliar enough with time that it took him a great time to identify what it was; a curiosity. Something that there was no place for on the battlefield, something that by all means should have been completely useless to Xiao, and yet he held onto that curiosity, slowly regaining over time, a sense of who he was and who he could choose to be with each song that the wind chose to carry towards him every once in a blue moon.

and eventually that curiousity turned to longing. Longing "for a day to come when he will wear the mask and dance — not to conquer demons, but to the tune of that flute amid a sea of flowers"

...... uh- heh- if you couldn’t tell already i have a tendency to make my characterizations/analyses of characters more serious that i probably should.

to summarize: Xiao is constantly toeing the line between his ingrained nature and his humanity- almost as though still trying to decide how much of that humanity he deserves to have, how much he is allowed to have, and how much is safe to have.

^looking back after writing this, i think the best way to explain it is that this is the view that i keep in mind/the lense that i tend to most enjoy looking through and refering back to while examining and/or analyzing his character, actions, story, lines, and overall personality.

idk- i kinda got off track but i just think its a really interesting interpretation to think about because it has some really interesting implications ig- it’s not the full extent of how i view him of course, but i kinda got ahead of myself and its long enough as is so ill just elaborate as i go- Lol i actually have in progress playlists for both him and venti and just- vibes- i could ramble about the playlists alone for hours explaining everything... It’s probably a problem- uh- ill keep going now lol.

anyways! stepping off the angst path for a brief break! Brought to you by their lines in the snow: both waiting for it to get thick enough, Venti for the purpose of a snowball fight and Xiao for the purpose of a tasty and nutritious breakfast.

but its actually something of note that Xiao doesnt actually need to eat so anything he does eat is usually out of obligation or enjoyment- so like.... snow.... like i dont blame him, but of all things- an adeptus who refuses to eat basically anything but almond tofu looks at the freezing-cold-floor-water that yeeted itself from above and decided at some point- damn- that seems more edible than basically ever single actually edible thing ever.... im gonna eat it- like- im glad if eating snow makes him happy but- at the same time...

He probably convinces Venti to eat snow too though and Venti wouldnt even resist I mean he’s wind and has probably consumed worse things in his time so- 2 anemo cryptids with glowing tattoos sitting in Dragonspine monching snow in the dead of night is an amusing thought to me.

- kay, now back to more serious-toned thoughts

One of the things about the ship that i really like is the different contradicting parallels between them:

A lot of how i view Xiao’s character is someone formed largely by the things he cant control and who was forced to accept that accepted that and learned to thrive in it as much as he can. Venti on the other hand is surrounded by things he cant control and is ever adapting to control as much as he can while embracing whatever he cant as being part of the unpredictability of the world, seeing beauty in it.

both of them have lost people and do what they do to honor their memory: Xiao continues to do what the Yakshas once did And Venti chooses to do what his friend couldn’t

Xiao’s power coming from himself and Venti’s from others And both seem to appear to use their power for their own gain while truly helping others behind the scenes

both have killed a lot of people during the archon war Xiao views it as another necessary event out of his control and Venti would likely view it as a tragedy he chose to enact himself

and this is where we meet out balance

Xiao- contrary to how i think a lot of people view him as thinking of himself as a monster- seems canonically to have accepted this as part of his duty, as long as those he killed are not mortals. I dont think he enjoys it no- but someone has to do it and he’s just accepted that its a part of his duty Venti on the other hand-

See the beauty of the ship- as someone with an angst-centric mind- is this- these are two of the most traumatized mfers in the game

Xiao is by far the one who needs the most help and who can serve to benefit most from the ship- but he is nowhere near self aware enough to recognize that there’s anything wrong or unhealthy about his mindset in the slightest-

whereas you have the contrast with Venti who sorted through most of his trauma with the nameless bard alone during the archon war and while the result appears more healthy- is still really not- but he’s not self aware of that either because i mean- who’s going to tell him? nobody even knows.

however- venti is aware enough to notice flaws in Xiao’s mindset and “Venti” enough to want to help them through it-

Xiao- while not aware enough to recognize the flaws in Venti’s mindset, can recognize where it contrasts with his own, and is blunt enough to point it out- and then it’s out there to be mulled over-

they’re so similar and yet so different and a feel just conversing between the two of them, being in each others precense, just being exposed to two mindsets that are so very different could do both of them a whole lot of good.

GEEE THAT BIT OF RAMBLING HAD LITTLE TO NO DIRECTION AT ALL- LET ME-- LET ME MAKE THIS START MAKING SENSE- WITH... DYNAMICS OR SOMETHING

I don’t think Xiao needs to sleep really- and i dont think that sleeping would do anything except make him uneasy at first- he’d probably just get nightmares after all he’s been through- but with Venti he would soon learn that it doesn’t have to be that way, lulled into the first peaceful sleep he’s had in... as long as he can remember.

anywho back to not making sense cuz im fickle and i think most questions about ships are best displayed through character interactions so like- a possible exchange thats cliche but cliches exist for a reason

Xiao: Why do you try so hard to help me, it isn’t easy. I know that much Venti, with the most adoring expression: Because you’re worth it, obviously Xiao: But surely there are others more deserving of- Venti: No Xiao, everyone is just as deserving as the next person, you included Xiao: Then why me above others? Venti: ehe, cuz ur my warrior of course [O//////O oh shit, hes right] Xiao: My contract is with Morax alone [gay panic but in broody yaksha]

it’s kinda difficult cuz neither of them really address their feelings. I mean Venti does but he does it very indirectly and its rare that he ever does it with like- genuine directness- even spilling his backstory was in the form of a song- and told in the third person- so a lot of their interactions would often have some deeper meaning, especially with Venti being the bard he is.

I come up with a lot of- errant thoughts about Xiaoven- but this is making me realize that a true analysis of their ship is rather difficult because it just encompasses so many dynamics so its hard to settle on just one and not go rambling about who knows what bouncing from one end of the ship to the other- Because you truly can and thats the beauty of it

within one moment you can be having a heartfelt conversation about the archon war the impact of lost friends and times past, and the next moment Venti is trying to forcefeed Xiao an apple while Xiao screams about disrespecting the adepti and its just- so lovely

so while they have picnics with nothing but apples, dandelion wine, and almond tofu they can sit down and talk about the dreams Xiao once devoured, and the dandelion wine and apple cider that the first Ragnvindir invented from the plants that never could have grown in Old Mond. The foods that tasted of familiarity, or of the grilled ticker fish Pervases always used to eat, foods that tasted of friends and frankly family that had since passed, glaze lilies and cecilias and qingxin flowers scattered in the surroundings and woven into Xiao’s neat braids and Venti’s now messy ones, rebraided by the steady and inexperienced hands of one unused to gentle action.

and then of course Venti steals Xiao’s tofu once the mood becomes too grim and replaces it with a bottle of wine that Xiao refers to as “vile poison,” a remark that fatally wounds Venti as he collapses on the floor, proclaiming how he can only be healed by a Yaksha’s kiss. Xiao ignores this of course and simply takes back his tofu with a slight smile on his face, but as Venti persists he soundlessly places a kiss on his own palm before intertwining their fingers and pulling him back up from where he was dramatically sprawled on the floor, grumbling about how such action was “unbecoming of an archon.” A sign of affection only Xiao would ever know about. But Venti is literally wind and I hc his senses work differently anyways so he definitely knows- plus Xiao’s face is red as the blood of his enemies and the way he is pointedly not looking at Venti at all really speaks volumes anyways.

-Venti playing epic battle music whenever Xiao goes into fights in what looks like a ridiculously extra performance to anyone else but is actually doing wonders to keep Xiao’s karma at bay

-Venti preaches the practice of “kissing wounds better” and Xiao is unfamiliar with this medical treatment but views it as unnecessary regardless because adepti have accelerated healing, doesn’t mean he’s going to stop him though.

-Messages whispered on the wind

-Venti’s 1000 year sleep- an accident, not a fun time for the yaksha, and not a fun time for Venti once he woke up. Venti is actually more afraid of restful sleep than Xiao is, hence the sleeping in trees thing, but when Xiao is there, he can sleep restfully with faith that Xiao wont let another millennia slip through his fingertips.

- Xiao tends to make excuses when doing things that aren’t necessary to his duty, like in his birthday voice line “Have this, it’s a butterfly i made from leaves... Okay. Take it. It’s an adepti amulet -- it staves off evil” because at the current point in his progress it helps him to feel like he’s allowed to do these things. Not wanting to put him off from progress, Venti never comments on his excuse but never fails to whisper a quick reminder of how proud he is of how far Xiao had come.

- Xiao’s karma saddens Venti greatly- not only because of how it effects Xiao but also because its a reminder that as much as Venti tries to honor the memory of those he’s killed, there will always be those who resent him for it, and when he took the option of living away from them, he truly can’t blame them. - And when he gets too wrapped up in thoughts, whether around this topic or similar ones or otherwise, eventually, he’ll hear the sound of a flute on the wind. It’s not divine by any means, but as his own wind connects him to the source, he gets the sentiment all the same. “What impact does one individual’s remaining wrath have on the present. You have done much to help the living in the present” the unspoken idea that Xiao has included himself in that statement, because now, with Venti’s help he’s beginning to learn just how to experience living for himself.

- Venti’s form and Xiao’s mask are off limit topics though because if either mentions it the other will counter with the opposite and the mood will turn immediately bitter at the idea that both know that what they’re doing is destructive but neither are willing to change

- Venti who has different tells for negative feelings than most people because as much as he likes to pretend it is- this form isnt his, and Xiao who is able to identify those

- many fanfics and headcanons have Venti recognizing when Xiao is uncomfortable and getting him out of those situations. I see that and I love it but i raise you: - Venti taking Xiao to Mondstadt, careful that he doesn’t get to the point that he’s uncomfortable. And nothing goes wrong exactly, but Xiao notices the the way Venti’s cape is blowing in the wind, the way he’s holding his weight, barely on his feet so much as floating on the wind, connected with the ground only for the sake of appearance, all the while he looks just as happy go lucky as ever. And without a word, he grabs his hand and teleports them both out of Mondstadt. - turns out it was just a slight thing that reminded him of the archon war (cuz i will die on the hill of him having more tragic backstory than just Decarabian), and he of course gives a sincere if not flustered thanks to Xiao, because he’s really not used to people noticing.

- Venti trying to vent sneakily through fictional stories and Xiao is just like “Didn’t that basically happen to you” and Venti is just like “<_< shit”

- Venti once said affectionally that he wished he had met Xiao sooner and Xiao immediately and seriously shot it down by saying “If you had, I would have been forced to kill you” and both of them now stay up at night wondering who would have won that fight, not sure which result would have hurt more. (because honestly I have no idea who would win in that fight and that terrifies me- I like to think it would have been one of those legends that end with “and the fight persists to this day” or something along those lines)

- “How long have you been together?” “Adepti have no need for-” “1000+ years T^T how dare you deny our love” “O///O our...? ...useless”

- its disney- let me explain- i have this- i have this headcanon inspired by watching too many animatics- - so venti has a human form that isnt his- which he would have had to get used to moving in- and he’s a bard- - uh- anyway- as a third degree black belt in mixed martial arts, i can speak as an authority on this(not really an authority since i havent gone since quarantine but lets pretend). We have a thing referred to as the big three(most things do), and those things are martial arts, gymnastics, and dance. The idea is that they reflect really well off of each other and the best in any one category are good in all three. Timing, balance, form, discipline, technique, hand-eye coordination, grace, ease of motion, they all play a part- anyway-

- Venti taking Xiao’s prowess in martial arts and acrobatics and teaching him how to dance, and as someone who’s extremely skilled in the first two, the third comes easy to him, almost naturally. And it’s delicate and beautiful and lovely and it isn’t hurting anyone. And Venti points all these things out and more and despite how much Xiao insists that he feels ridiculous he truly does enjoy it and it goes a long way towards helping him form more healthy views of himself and his worth. - Verr Goldett walked in on him once and made a joke about performing at the inn. unfortunately Venti was there and agreed on Xiao’s behalf before he could protest and- and it wasn’t as bad as Xiao thought it would be... he still wouldn’t do it again though without reason, but with good enough reasoning he could probably be convinced.

- anyways point is he likes dancing to Venti’s songs and i just think that’s really cute - just picture the idea that all the animatics you see actually have the potential to be canon- ugh

- venti tries holding something out of Xiao’s reach since he’s taller and Xiao just fucking teleports

- both need their space but when they dont, all they have to do is speak the other’s name and they’ll be there.

- and because i just had to.... love languages

- lets start with Xiao- i don’t think he’d view acts of service or quailty time as a love language tbh, and he blunt but really bad with words so affirmation is out, leaving gift giving and physical touch. However, he seems to view most material things as meaningless so- - Xiao who’s love language is in his fleeting touches, something he’s only recently grown comfortable with because of Venti, and now is giving back, which he knows he doesn’t have to do, but that he want’s to, though he’ll still continue to make excuses for each one. “you were shivering” “The inn is high up, you could have fallen..... I said what I said, you’d question an adeptus?”

- and as easy as it is to say words of affirmation for Venti- he does that for everyone- i want to say his is actually acts of service - its the acts of service that let him see just how much Xiao has progressed afterall, from teaching him to dance, to playing another song on the flute, to supplying him with the almond tofu he seems to enjoy so much. Every little thing he does helps Xiao to grow and he couldn’t be happier about that.

- of course most of my headcanons for the ship do take place latter into the relationship because- y’know the less serious unhealthy vibes allow for greater range of thought, but i do still love to think about the serious implications so i kinda hopped back and forth. So sorry about how messy it is btw, i kinda- got carried away- it kinda got some kind of structure near the end tho so- maybe it’s okay. anyway- back to... lol something, we’ll see where thought forests lead.

#genshin impact #genshin xiao #genshin venti #xiao #venti #xiaoven #genshin analysis #genshin headcanons #xiaoven headcanons #xiaoven analysis #this is a mess i really shouldnt be putting all these tags but oh well #oh wow the grammar and spelling here is truly repulsive #sorry to all my english teachers i have failed you all

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talas-starlight · 4 years

Text

Lover - Percy Jackson x Fem!reader

SUMMARY: You’ve crushed on Percy for years, him on the other hand? It’s more of a recent development. That doesn’t mean he likes you any less.

(Older Percy & reader - they're like 21) ALSO idk perfectly what happens in trials of apollo so let’s just ✨ignore that ✨ & this isn’t sexual despite what the title may suggest

WORD COUNT: 2.7k

A/N: hi friends this is for @fromthewatertribe ‘s 1k follower event!! Im sure most of you have but if not definitely check out their work!! Its soooo good I promises and ugh their Leo fic?! *chefs kiss* anyway idk if this is any good oop I tried

PROMPTS USED: 9 & 11. (they’re bolded)

WARNINGS: swearing, mentions of ptsd & anxiety, kissing stuff lol ish eh idk, mentions of percabeth breakup?? Does that count?

MASTERLIST: here!

An obnoxiously red and orange light filters into the motel room, even with the old and tattered curtains closed, the motels’ sign conquers its way through the fabric. Sighing you flop yourself on the faded, probably twenty-year-old bed. Nose scrunching as some dust raises into the air, consequently letting out a sneeze.

“Bless you.”

“Did you just bless yourself?”

You winced at the reminder someone else was in the room, exhausted after the two-day travel to a motel room in the middle of whoop. “Yeah…”

“You really are something, aren’t you?” At the calm amusement evident in his tone, your heart rate began to slow down. He didn’t think you were crazy.

You let out a breathy laugh. Wow, I wonder how those stains got on the ceiling? Lava monster perhaps? Are those even a thing? Probably.

“Yeah… well, someone has to Jackson.” You glance towards him, he’s sitting at the small, poor excuse of a dining table. Heart rate picking up again as he gives you a small smile, already having his eyes on you this entire time.

“If I don’t, who will?” you continue.

“Touché. In that case, I’ll do the blessing from now on; you deserve a break.” Shooting you a wink. Instantly feeling flustered at his action, you fight the urge to cover your face with your hands.

Oh, Percy, if only you knew you’ve already been blessing me for the past six years.

“Even say…. If we’re in a battle?” you muse.

He gets up from the table and walks towards you. Once he reaches your side of the queen bed, he kneels, grabbing the hand closest to him, while putting his other on top of his heart. “Oh, y/n l/n, even with my dying breath.”

With that, you burst into a fit of laughter. This boy and his sarcasm.

You play along. “Hmmm what a great tale that will be. The one and only, Perseus Jackson, spending his final breath on sweet old y/n l/n. How dare you burden me with such a legacy to live up to! They’ll think I’m your lover, you know. Demigods all around the world will come searching for me, just to gawk at the beauty that stole your heart.”

At this point, Percy has fallen from his kneeling position, completely lying on the ground, overcome with laughter.

“This isn’t funny, Percy! How am I supposed to live with the guilt of knowing I don’t live up to their expectations?! I’m hardly a warrior either, oh the disappointment.”

Gasping for breath, he manages to find his words, “Don’t stress it y/n, you’re plenty beautiful. I just know they’ll all be stunned by your beauty. Don’t sell yourself short… trust me, once they see you, they’ll be envious that my lover was so enraptured by me that you’ll never be able to love again.”

Now it was your turn to laugh. Would that be so bad?

Gasping for breath, eventually, both of your laughs die down, leaving you both breathing heavily. “C’mon Percy, let’s get some sleep. Its going to be a long week of scouting for demigods if we’re tired.”

As Percy nods, silently getting up to go to the bathroom to change, but he can’t help but think to himself that he wouldn’t mind if he was stuck in the middle of nowhere with you. No matter how long.

It had been three days since you and Percy arrived in the town you continuously fail to remember the name of. It wasn’t the only thing you were failing at doing either, because it seemed that for some unknown reason, the school that was supposed to arrive here for their camping trip still hadn’t shown up.

“We should send an Iris message to camp. It doesn’t look like they’re showing up any time soon, and by the looks of things, we’re going to need to have them send someone for more supplies.”

Percy sighed, looking out the window. Was this the opportunity he was looking for? Maybe… he knew he’d be a stupid fool to pass it up. Swept up in his new thoughts, he never replied. “Percy?”

Without even looking at you, he nodded, turning to go to the bathroom, “Yeah sure, I’ll go into the bathroom and make the call.”

Humming in acknowledgement as he left the room, you couldn’t help but stare at the spot he was previously standing in from your position on the edge of the bed. He doesn’t look too good.

For such a great hero, you wondered if this quest was doing him any good. After the first day of scouting the campsite, it was obvious he was already antsy to get home. It seemed no matter how light you tried to keep the atmosphere; it was like something was weighing on his mind. Mostly when you were both in the motel room together, you supposed it was because he barely went on quests nowadays. Understandably so, after all, who could blame him for wanting a break and spend time with his family? This made you feel immensely guilty since you could never give him words of truly understanding what he’s gone through. You’d arrived at camp a few days before him, yet over the years you were never sent onto a major quest. It upset you greatly at first, but you grew to appreciate your time at camp.

Before your mind could delve further into its guilt and self-pity, Percy re-entered the room, sitting next to you with a huff. “It’s all good. They’re going to send Leo with some extra supplies, and he’ll help us for the rest of this quest.”

Accidentally getting swept up in how pretty his eyes were, you tensed up, realising he was staring at you expectantly. Quickly nodding and clearing your throat you looked down to your lap, “ahh, okay that sounds good. I guess we’ll have time to sightsee or something…”

Sightsee? Really y/n? There’s nothing in this stupid town!

An awkward silence filled the room. Due to your previous thoughts, you were unsure how to proceed. This was the first time you were alone with him and had nothing else better to do.

Percy on the other hand, found that the obvious swooning look in your eyes was his green light. “Uhhh actually y/n?”

Oh, please don’t ask me why I basically just drooled all over you for NO FUCKING REASON. Snapping your head back up to look at him, you desperately tried to ignore the pounding in your chest that managed to find its way into your ears, “yeah?”

“There’s something I want to ask you.”

Holy shit he knows, doesn’t he? He knows I’ve liked him this entire time, and he’s going to reject me even though I never even said anything!

“I uhm… look I know we’re kind of on a small quest and all but technically we ARE waiting for Leo and the school to arrive before we continue… and you know we kind of have like at least a day or two until then so I was just wondering…”

“Yeah, Percy? You can just say it, you know; I really don’t mind.” I do mind, but please get this over with before I cry. With your heart rate increasing at an alarming rate and face heating up so much, you wanted Zeus to blast you right then and there.

Percy felt like he was about to puke, he’d never felt this nervous before. Yeah, he had his moments growing up with Annabeth, after all, she was his first girlfriend, but this was different. He wanted this to be different. Sure, he never regretted their relationship, and yes, he knew he’d always remember everything they went through- what he went through but… he wanted a clean slate. He desperately just wanted nothing more than to know that there was at least one person in his life that wasn’t constantly fighting for their lives—someone who didn’t have to live with as much trauma as him.

“W- would you maybe... Gods, do you want to have dinner tomorrow night? Maybe at the diner further into the town?”

HOLY FUCK.

He was interested and honestly, you were over the moon. Breathing out the breath you were holding in, you fail to hide the smile on your face, “yeah, I’d like that.”

His face instantly broke out into a wide smile matching yours. “Wait really?”

Unable to hold back a small giggle, you nodded, “yeah, Percy.”

Staring at yourself in the mirror, you admire the blue dress you found in a charity shop this morning while Percy was sleeping. I can’t believe this is happening.

If you had old even more awkward 15-year-old y/n that you were about to go on a date with the boy you admired from your table during meals (when he was there), you would’ve laughed. Mainly because at that point, he didn’t even know you existed, only having your first conversation during the battle of Manhattan when you were helping Will.

Okay… lets do this.

Walking out of the bathroom, Percy is already sitting on the bed in his usual t-shirt, jeans and converse waiting for you.

“Woah… You look uh-” Never finishing his statement, worry bubbled in your chest.

“Oh, uhm… I- I can change if you’d like?

Jumping up from his place on the bed, his head shook quickly. “NO! N-no don’t do that.”

“Ah uhm… okay? Sorry, it’s just I saw it in a store earlier and uhm… it looked nice, and I just thought that maybe it’d be cool to maybe put in a bit more effort? I mean… not that you don’t look good or anything! I love what you wear, you always look nice! but I don’t know… I don’t get to look nice much and… I just wanted it to be kinda special since we don’t get to… well our lives don’t really grant us these opportunities very often. Or at least for me anyway…”

“Hey, no, it’s okay! I totally get it… you look beautiful.” After hearing your small confession and thought to prepare for your date, his heart felt like it was melting. How could someone be so thoughtful when all he was doing was taking you to a rundown diner who probably only served mediocre burgers?

A small wave of guilt washed through him. Feeling like he would never be able to truly sweep you off your feet or give you that sweet, tooth-rotting love and affection, every day, just like you deserved. After everything, he knew he could try his best but even then, he’d never be able to hide the anxiety or PTSD he had acquired over the years.

You looked up to him with a smirk. “Glad to hear it, lover.”

Cheeks heating up at your comment, he laughed trying to play it off as cool as possible. Taking a step closer to you and flattening his shirt as if it would wipe away its wrinkles, he held out his arm. “Shall we, lover?”

Matching his level of fake sophistication, you linked your arm with his, “with pleasure.”

And with that, you both walked out of the motel, with hopeful spirits. To any onlooker, you both looked like normal young adults.

“Where the fuck are you?!” Percy’s voice boomed from his end of the phone, supposedly made without any monster risks.

You winced, slowly and cautiously walking your way out of the forest. The once clean dress was now covered in dirt and had few tears. It went perfectly with your dishevelled, twig and leaf infested hair.

“Space doesn’t really exist, so I’m nowhere. Life is built on social constructs and, since there’s no way to know if we’re really alive or if it’s just an illusion, I can’t be anywhere.”

“Y/n.”

Okay, he was concerned, and you couldn’t blame him. After all, how did you expect him to react after getting separated from you as you were chased into the woods by an Empousai after dinner?

Romance at its finest.

“Yeah, sorry, I got caught up, but I’ll be there soon.”

Ending the call, you couldn’t help but feel guilty as you replayed the events that just occurred in your head. The date was amazing. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was still sweet. Which led you both to go on one of those cliché night walks. That was nice too, until two Empousai came out of the forest and decided to attack you both.

Percy being…. Well Percy, he swiftly got out riptide and didn’t hesitate to defend the two of you. You, on the other hand, were completely caught off guard only just noticing as one of them turned their focus on you while Percy was distracted.

And what did you do like the perfectly trained demigod you were?

You ran like a headless chicken into the forest.

After a few minutes of running, they tackled you into the ground. Trying and failing failed to shove them off, you suddenly remembered the dagger you strapped to your thigh under your dress and stabbed them.

Clearly not your proudest moments.

Finally making it back to the room, you unlocked the door and let out a huff of relief. “Well… that date didn’t go as expected.”

Percy, took in your current state staring at you with wide eyes… but he didn’t say anything. Is he angry at me? Fuck now he’s going to call off whatever this is, all because I’m an incompetent idiot! I knew I should have tried harder in the sparring activities at camp.

Feeling highly intimidated under his intense stare, you began to play with the hem of your dress, voice going quiet. “Look I uh- I know it probably wasn’t the date you were hoping for but I uhm-“

Before you could even finish your poor excuses, your words are soon lost entirely. Percy stalked towards you with a determined look on his face. Reaching you, he firmly placed his hands on either side of your face, smashing his lips onto yours.

You let out a small, muffled squeak of surprise as your eyebrows shot up into Olympus. Yet unlike your fighting skills, this was something you managed to adapt to at a faster pace.

Eyes fluttering closed, you fisted his shirt, pulling him closer.

Please don’t let this be a dream.

Because Gods forbid if this your one chance, you weren’t letting this moment end that easily.

Moving your lips against his, the urgency he came onto you with slowly began to dissipate, feeling his soft, but slightly chapped lips move against yours. Deepening the kiss, you let go of his shirt, gliding your hands up his tense torso and along his strong arms, eventually placing your hands on his wrists that were on either side of your face. Applying a small amount of pressure to the inside of his wrists with your thumbs, his mind began to drift into a calming haze as you softly stroked them. It was almost as if you were able to brush away the worry that bubbled in him when he got back to the room, only to find you weren’t there. Yet here you were… safe.

It was intoxicating and calming having him so close to you, his entire being overcoming your senses to a point where you fought the urge to let out a small whimper when he pulled away.

Resting his forehead against yours, chest rising and falling heavily flushed against you; he continued to hold you in his warm embrace. “I wouldn’t have had it any other way.” He whispers, breath fanning against your face.

Because as much as Percy was afraid he’d let you down, he knew no matter what you were worth every single risk.

“…but I’m going to have to teach you a few things when we get back to camp. We can’t have my lover running away in battle all the time, how will I know if you sneeze?”

Letting out a snort, you playfully hit his chest. “Anything for you, lover.”

A soft smile graces his face as he looks at you adoringly as the word takes on a whole new meaning… because you were right. He’d do anything.

A/N: whelp! i hope you all liked it :)) its not perfect but oh well?

also i dont have a percy jackson taglist but i gotta tag the holy grail of fic writers for this fandon eep @cabinofimagines 🙈 🙈

Divider credit: @biskit-rising

#percy jackson #percy jackson x you #percy jackson x reader #percy jackson x y/n #pjo #pjo fandom #percy jackson imagine #percy jackson fic #percy jackson x fem!reader #annabeth #annabeth chase #leo valdez #heros of olympus #hoo #nina's 1k event #pjo x reader #hoo x reader #percy jackson fluff #percy jackson angst

500 notes · View notes

lucky-katebishop · 3 years

Text

What I Read in September 2021

It's been a stagnant month, but I did find a couple favorites :) as usual, composed of mainly Harry Potter fics but there's a spare Modern Family fic in there and a couple crossovers. I think I read about 27-28 fics :)

Harry Potter

Family Relations by OxfordOctopus

Plot: In which Harry realizes that not even he's exempt from how interconnected magical families are.

Characters: Harry, Pavarti, Hermione, Ron

Relationships: Hermione & Harry & Ron

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse

Tags: Desi Potter Family; Desi Harry; Hogwarts third year; red-haired Harry Potter

*complete*

Talking to Thestrals by OxfordOctopus

Plot: In a world where Voldemort well and truly died in ‘81, where there are no Horcruxes, where Harry is sequestered off by a man in a flying motorcycle when he's six, and where the only legacy the most feared Dark Lord left behind was his politics and a heavily scarred child, nobody quite realizes that Harry isn’t okay. Nobody but the leathery creatures at the lake, and the girl who looks at them.

Characters: Harry, Luna

Relationships: Harry & Luna

Warnings: anxiety, dissociation, suicidal thoughts, bullying, implied/referenced child abuse, child neglect

Tags: Sirius Black Criticism; Hogwarts second year; Sirius Black Never Went to Azkaban; AU - No Voldemort;

My Notes: Now, I love Sirius just as much as the next girl, but this is such an interesting look at a man raising a kid when he wasn’t ready and the consequences of that (I relate a tad too strongly)

*complete*

Slytherin Politics by OxfordOctopus

Plot: Abused children don't respond well to power plays.

Characters: Harry, Draco, Theodore Nott, Daphne Greengrass

Warnings: graphic depictions of violence

Tags: violence, broken bones, Slytherin Harry, bullying

My Notes: Harry is so truly terrifying in this fic, it’s wonderful

*complete*

rotten on the inside by cassiopeia721

Plot: Harry's boggart isn't Voldemort, or even a dementor. It's something much worse.

Characters: Harry, Snape, Hermione, Ron

Relationships: Hermione & Harry

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse

Tags: Hogwarts third year; boggarts; angst; protective Hermione; Hermione is a Good Friend

*complete*

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell by IamShadow21

Plot: Questions asked, questions unasked, secrets told and secrets kept, trust, devotion, empathy and love. Ron and Harry's friendship, from that first day on the Hogwarts Express, right through until after the Battle. Can be read as a friendship fic, or a ship fic. It's open to interpretation.

Characters: Harry, Ron, Fred, George, Hermione, Arthur

Relationships: Harry/Ron

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse

Tags: canon compliant; canon-typical violence; friendship, hurt/comfort; protective Ron; Protective Fred; Protective George; gen or pre-slash; platonic cuddling; POV Ron

My Notes: now this could be read as pre-slash, as a relationship, or just good friends, but I am so completely head over heels in love with the idea of Harry and Ron! Best friends to lovers!

*complete*

Best Served Cold by enchantedsleeper

Plot: “C’mon, Freddie,” George says suddenly, sotto voce. “Sooner the four of us get out of here, the better.” It hadn’t been the right moment, as they were exploring the Dursleys’ comfortable house in the dead of night, to plant a well-timed trick or a trap and risk blowing the whole operation – and getting Harry into even more trouble with his sadistic relatives. Better just to get Harry out and away from that place. But two years later, Fred and George got their chance for revenge.

Characters: Harry, Fred, George, Ron, Arthur

Relationships: Harry & Ron; Harry & George & Fred

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse

Tags: Book 4; Harry is an honorary Weasley

*complete*

east, west, home’s best by taizi

Plot: You can never have too many brothers, Ron decides, for the very first time in his life. And there's always room in the Burrow for another Weasley, even if only an honorary one.

Characters: Harry, George, Ron, Fred

Relationships: Harry & Ron

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse

Tags: Chamber of Secrets; families of choice

*complete*

live for today, hope for tomorrow by Vennat

Plot: Professors are Hogwarts are a little more observant and a little less likely to allow their students to be in harms way. OR A canon rewrite starting from book two, featuring friendship, angst, and a severe lack of oblivious characters.

Characters: Hermione, Harry, Ginny, Ron, Luna, Fred, George, Snape, Draco

Relationships: Hermione & Harry & Ron; Harry & George & Fred; Harry & Ginny; Luna & The Golden Trio; Harry & Snape; Draco & Harry

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse; PTSD; panic attacks; blood; vomit; injury; food issues; depression

Tags: friendship; Harry has a saving people thing; mentor Snape; BAMF Harry; Smart Harry; canon rewrite; angst; Dumbledore bashing; Book 2; Harry is a Good Friend; Harry is Bad at Feelings

*complete* [part of a series; hasn’t been updated since 2020]

The Closest Distance Between Two People by StartledStarfish

Plot: In Harry's third year, no dementors boarded the Hogwarts Express in search of Sirius Black. Remus Lupin, the new defense professor, slept the whole way there. He did not wake to cast a patronus. Harry never passed out. Never heard his mother scream. Never saw the flash of green light. Never felt the unspeakable cold drain all the happiness out of him. So when Harry’s turn came to face the boggart, his greatest fear could not be a dementor. Harry blinked and looked up into the smiling face of Albus Dumbledore.

Characters: Harry, Ron, Remus, Dumbledore, Vernon, McGonagall

Relationships: Harry & Ron; Harry & Remus

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse; childhood trauma, child neglect

Tags: boggarts, dementors, Dursley Family Bashing; Dumbledore Bashing; healing; angst with a happy ending; Ron makes sure nobody’s sad for long; friendship; laughter

*complete*

Grey Space by noaacat *favorite*

Plot: In 1991, Harry Potter begins his time at Stonewall High, unaware that he is anything more than a boy prone to freakish accidents. When he turns fourteen, he will receive a letter that will change his life. He will learn he is Harry Potter, and be invited into a world where belonging is his birthright. Until then, he stumbles on, two steps forward and one step back, out of the cupboard and into the life he was never meant to have.

Characters: Harry, The Dursleys, Dumbledore, lots of muggle OCs

Relationships: none

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse; implied/referenced homophobia; child abuse; child neglect

Tags: AU: Hogwarts Starts Late

My Notes: This one! Is so good! The worldbuilding alone is amazing and the author really did make me immersed in the small sleepy town of Little Whinging. Please, if you read any fic on this list, read this one! It’s so good! Instant favorite!

*complete*

Iron by belleslettres

Plot: Draco also has a penchant for shirts with fiddly collars and cuffs and will not even entertain the notion of going anywhere looking like anything less than perfection. But Harry, who will do almost anything for Draco, refuses to iron them. “My aunt used to make me do all the ironing,” Harry says. “I hated it.”

Characters: Harry, Draco

Relationships: Draco/Harry

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse

Tags: fluff and angst; post-war; Epilogue what Epilogue; fluff; domestic fluff

*complete*

All That Stands in its Path by thebiwholived

Plot: "An old soul, people might say, and Molly has never quite been sure what such a person would look like, until the day her family meets the Boy Who Lived in a dingy train station on the way to school." Molly Weasley's perspective on the summer Harry Potter comes to stay.

Characters: Harry, Molly, Weasley Family

Relationships: Harry & Molly Weasley

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse

Tags: canon compliant; book 2

*complete*

To See More Clearly by JellyShark

Plot: Harry didn't make it out of Privet Drive after blowing up Aunt Marge. He is alone, locked away, forgotten. To make things worse, his magic is changing, morphing into something unknown and terrifying. Harry returns to Hogwarts a changed boy, unable to hide the effects of his time with the Dursleys. His Third Year dawns, bringing with it a man who feels like home, a Hufflepuff Prefect, and a dog who reminds Harry of a time when he was loved.

Characters: Harry, Remus, Ron, Snape, Sirius, Hermione, Luna, Cedric, Neville, McGonagall

Relationships: Sirius/Remus; pre Cedric/Harry; Remus & Harry; Hermione & Ron & Harry; Cedric & Harry; Sirius & Harry

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse

Tags: Harry Needs a Hug; Harry is an Empath; Smart Harry; Magically Powerful Harry; Mentor Remus; flawed but well-meaning Dumbledore; book 3; book 4; Snape gets worse before he gets better; angst; hurt/comfort

*incomplete* [last updated August 2021]

Holidays by diogxnes

Plot: While his housemates discuss the upcoming holidays, Harry cannot help but think of how he never experienced a real Christmas with the Dursleys. Ron notices.

Characters: Harry, Ron, Lavender Brown, Seamus Finnigan

Relationships: Harry & Ron

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse

Tags: book 1; missing scene; canon compliant; emotional hurt/comfort; hurt/comfort; Ron Weasley is a Good Friend

*complete*

Closing In by silver_fish

Plot: Harry supposes he’ll never know how they learned about the cupboard under the stairs. He also supposes he’ll never know how they managed to make him so afraid of it, all these years later.

Characters: Harry, Hermione, Ron

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse, claustrophobia, implied/referenced torture, codependency, trauma, panic attacks, PTSD, therapy

Tags: post-war; hurt/comfort; touch-starved; guilt; Harry centric; false memories

My Notes: This one made me emotionally exhausted but it’s written super well

*complete*

Adjustments by Velvet_Riptide

Plot: With the Second Wizarding War over, Sirius is more than excited to put everything behind him and raise Harry as his own. However, he and Remus begin to notice odd and troubling behaviors from Harry. Without answers from the source, Sirius turns to Harry's previous guardians--Molly and Arthur Weasley--and learns Harry is still making adjustments from his time with the Dursley's.

Characters: Harry, Sirius, Remus, Molly, Arthur, Hermione, Ron

Relationships: Sirius/Remus; Hermione/Ron; Remus & Harry; Sirius & Harry

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse; childhood trauma; PTSD

Tags: hurt/comfort; coparenting; Harry lived in the Burrow for several years with the Weasleys before moving to 12 Grimmauld Place;

*complete*

Two Things by TheDivineComedian

Plot: Harry is only four years old and the Dursleys are already mean.

Characters: Harry, Petunia, Vernon, Dudley, imaginary Lily, imaginary James

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse

*complete*

How to be happy by TheDivineComedian

Plot: The Patronus charm requires a happy memory. Harry Potter doesn't have many, and the Dementors get Sirius, after all. But the story is far from over.

Characters: Harry, Remus, Sirius, Ron, Hermione

Relationships: Harry & Sirius; Harry & Remus; Remus & Sirius

Warnings: major character death; implied/referenced child abuse

Tags: creepy; heartwarming; dementors; Hogwarts third year

My Notes: this one is a fucking doozy good lord (the tags say heartwarming but w h e r e)

*complete*

Knowledge is a Rose by Magi_Silverwolf

Plot: When Harry discovered that he had a name, he clung to that information and all that it entailed. After learning more information about his past, nothing and everything changed.

Characters: Harry

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse; physical abuse; verbal abuse; mental abuse

Tags: emotional hurt; identity issues

*complete*

No Love for the Wicked by VigilanteVampire4311

Plot: Harry Potter was the Boy-Who-Lived. The Golden Boy. The Chosen One. But it turns out when you run head first into an unknown magical artifact and end up in a void, none of that matters. Now he's in a different time with familiar strangers who just can't seem to understand the new transfer student, Harrison Miller. With a Defense teacher he can't let his guard down for a second around, the Marauders hounding the 'mysterious' new Slytherin, and his housemates who cannot fathom a muggleborn being among them, Harry has to wonder whether fate hates him or if he is really a trouble-making freak like the Dursleys always said.

Characters: Harry, James, Lily, Sirius, Remus, Regulus, Snape, Tom Riddle, Pomfrey

Relationships: Harry & James; Harry & Lily; Sirius & Harry; Remus & Harry; Regulus & Harry; Harry & Tom Riddle; Pomfrey & Harry

Warnings: graphic depictions of violence; implied/referenced child abuse; possessive behavior; depression; non-consensual touching

Tags: The Veil; Slytherin Harry; Marauders are kinda assholes; Tom Riddle is not Voldemort yet; Severus is so done; alternate universe; angst; hurt/comfort; bullying; time travel; Marauders Era

My Notes: so far with 7 chapters in, we haven’t yet gotten to Harry interacting with anyone from the past but it’s still written really well

*incomplete* [last updated September 2021]

The snake in the daffodils by SpicyReyes *favorite*

Plot: Harry follows Sirius through the Veil of Death, and stumbles out on the other side of the Mirror of Erised, under a strange spell and stranded in an unfamiliar Hogwarts.

Characters: Harry, Remus, Regulus, Harry, Ron, James, Lily, Sirius

Relationships: Regulus/James; Sirius/Remus; Draco/Harry

Warnings: graphic depictions of violence; discussions of suicide; discussions of self-harm; suicidal ideation; implied/referenced child abuse

Tags: universe jumping; Hogwarts fifth year; misunderstandings; miscommunication; basically everyone thinks harry wants to die but he is actually just hella confused

My Notes: so, so good! And if you like this one I recommend The Devil’s White Knight which is really similar in concept

*incomplete* [last updated 2020]

been waiting a lifetime (to be with you) by justprompts

Plot: The next time he woke, Potter was shaking him awake. Just, just not the right one. He had hazel eyes for one, and class. This was not Harry Potter. This was - Well, he had just woken up and who accepts the delightfully altering time-related facts of life right as they wake up?

Characters: Harry, Dumbledore; Peter Pettigrew; Prewett Twins; Marlene McKinnon; Sirius; Remus; Lily; James; Draco; Alice & Frank Longbottom; Regulus; Draco

Relationships: Draco/Harry; James/Lily; Sirius/Remus; Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadows; Alice/Frank Longbottom; Regulus & Sirius; Regulus & Draco

Tags: time travel fix-it; Marauders Era; Horcrux hunting; everyone lives/nobody dies; master of death Harry; light-hearted; POV multiple; Harry doesn’t need to be dark/evil to be master of death; irregular and slow updates; mutual pining

*incomplete* [last updated May 2021]

The Gospel Truth by twentysevensummers

Plot: When Harry arrives at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place with a black eye, he has more trouble than expected keeping the truth from Sirius.

Characters: Harry, Sirius, Remus

Relationships: Sirius & Harry

Warnings: referenced/implied child abuse; child neglect

Tags: book 5; hurt/comfort; angst; Harry needs a hug; good godparent Sirius Black; number 12 grimmauld place

*complete*

o children, lift up your voice by orphan_account

Plot: "i don't know if they could've put a flap in the door of the cupboard, now that i think about it," harry laughs nervously. "dunno if it would've fit onto it. since it's smaller than the bedroom door." hermione and ron's heads both shoot up. "what?" ron asks. "excuse me?" hermione says.

Characters: Harry, Ron, Hermione

Relationships: Hermione & Harry & Ron

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse

Tags: friendship; slight canon divergence; character study; second war with Voldemort; physical affection; lots of hugs

My Notes: this one is so good and if you can get past the fact that the author doesn’t capitalize anything, you’re good to go (although it was difficult to get past that at first for myself)

*complete*

Muggle Management by LadyWinterlight, NerdyKat

Plot: What happens if Hermione notices signs of abuse in Harry during first year? The Wizarding World may not have laws against it, but the Muggle World certainly does...

Characters: Harry, Hermione, Mrs Granger, Mr. Granger

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse

Tags: family

*complete*

Harry Potter & Other Fandoms

Masked Men and Where to Find Them by tinyrose65

Fandoms: Harry Potter & Daredevil & MCU

Plot: Harry Potter moved to Hell's Kitchen because she wanted a fresh start: time away from the spotlight, where she could focus on being the best Healer she could be. Trust the unconscious man in her dumpster to go and complicate things.

Characters: Harry, Matt Murdock

Relationships: Harry/Matt; past Harry/Draco

Warnings: past domestic abuse; implied/referenced child abuse

Tags: female!Harry

My Notes: this is the first in a series and the second one is also incomplete but they’re both very good and the second one has Jessica Jones!

*incomplete* [last updated 2016]

Magic and Masks by Akoia

Fandoms: Harry Potter & DC Comics

Plot: Harry Potter is anything but normal, thank you very much, he just didn't hold such nonsense as that. Follow him on his adventures through the Wizarding world and muggle world as he struggles to understand who he is, and fight the destiny that's been chosen for him.

Characters: Harry; Dick Grayson; Jason Todd; Bruce Wayne; Alfred Pennyworth; the Dursleys

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse; canon typical violence

Tags: fluff and angst

My Notes: this is a series with six parts!

*incomplete* [last updated 2020]

Modern Family

Breaking & Entering: (The Start Of) A Love Story by dollsome

Plot: "Oh my God," Mitchell says, "this is insane." It is, for the record. It is actually ... insane.

Characters: Mitchell, Cameron

Relationships: Mitchell Pritchett/Cameron Tucker

Warnings: none

Tags: none

*completed*

#harry potter #hogwarts #harry james potter #fanfic recs #my posts #fanfiction #fanfiction recommendations #fic recs #the marauders #modern family #the golden trio #drarry #wolfstar #dc comics #batman #daredevil #marvel #mcu #my recs

25 notes · View notes

venusmelody · 4 years

Text

personal reasons: seishirou/subaru as erotic horror soulmates

I've written in the past about why I don't like soulmates—in brief, external factors like fate pushing two people together always feel weaker than those who choose—but there are certain tropes or subversions that do work for me. All of them are, in fact, encapsulated by Seishirou/Subaru: my favourite ship that both leans into and deconstructs soulmates. And thus: a mini-manifesto why I love them. CW: dark fictional relationships.

Seishirou and Subaru are high-key Soulmates, in the way CLAMP does soul-mates. Their storylines merge, they always meet, one chases eternally after another in a way that consumes their entire lives, artwork features literal red threads, but fate doesn't dictate how they're together. In one universe (TB/X), Seishirou has ruined Subaru's life in every way you can imagine, and they're fated to be enemies on every battlefield they face: onmyoji with opposing morals, family feuds rising from this, and opposite stars across the battlefield during the X/1999 apocalypse. In another universe (TRC), Seishirou is a hunter/priest trying to hunt down vampire!Subaru for unclear reasons, trading away one eye just for the chance to follow Subaru across worlds. Subaru pretty clearly misses him in both. But they are fated enemies; the trick is that being together would be a defiance of fate, rather than being in its throes, and it is always about choice.

Despite the throes of fate, their relationship is because of who they are as people, rather than their positions or what fate dictates. Subaru is a kind, compassionate, selfless person who wants to give to the world; this is true with or without spirit powers. Seishirou is a psychopath who doesn't understand compassion, or feel love. When they meet in Tokyo Babylon, they are shaped by powers, yes. But Subaru followed the voices of ghosts in pain because he wanted to help them, and only because of that side of him—him, not the Sumeragi heir—did he meet Seishirou. And Seishirou is just stunned that anyone can be that kind and innocent, and amused, and curious about whether that kindness can touch him. He's fascinated by Subaru's kindness first, rather than abilities of powers, before anything else.

Despite being on opposite sides, despite the pain, tragedy, and violence, the draw between them is there. They fit. They complement each others' loneliness, despite the vastly different sources: Subaru loves everyone and therefore no one (except Hokuto) is special to him. Seishirou cares about no one, and therefore no one is special to him. Except the other person worms their way in, despite Subaru's distance from the world, and Seishirou's apathy. Someone new matters.

It feels perverse and wrong to say that they provided something fundamental the other needed, given how abusive the relationship is, and yet. Subaru was innocent, but he wasn't whole in TB. He was a person without self-esteem and was selfless to the point of self-destructiveness. Subaru needed someone who could actually make him selfish, before he burned himself out and died, and as sad as it was, he finally found someone he couldn't just give up even for the greater good. Seishirou needed someone to... kill him, because good god that guy, but it needed to be someone he loved. Subaru and Seishirou both needed to have one person they considered special, and they found it.

Even the ultimate tropes of soulmate marks and mysterious blood connections link Subaru and Seishirou, but nothing either was born with. Subaru has marks signalling he's Seishirou's because Seishirou put them on himself, after already becoming fascinated. And they're not meant to be marks of love, however Subaru later regards them, but the sign of prey. In TRC, there is some sort of connection between a vampire that Turns a human, and again: Subaru made the choice to give Seishirou his blood, though we never find out why. Soulmate marks, soulmate connections, but created by choice, not fate.

What external factors do to Subaru and Seishirou can be further seen by Hokuto's fate. Hokuto—who I love dearly—does her best to push them together, mimicking the idea of fate, friends, relatives, circumstance. But the ultimate legacy of her involvement becomes another reason to push the two of them apart—Hokuto's death.

They are both terrible at communication and self-realization and it shows; we're left with so many what-ifs. If Subaru realized earlier that he loved Seishirou, or recognized Seishirou's moments of composure breaking—all but outright telling Subaru he wasn't to be trusted, with his talk to seventeen-year-old Subaru about corpses buried beneath Sakura trees!—or was affectionate back. If Seishirou realized that, maybe this person he couldn't keep his hands off, found adorable, drove him to shatter mirrors with his fist, cuddled closer even when no one was watching, who he sacrificed his right eye to keep safe (for dramatic effect, I assume), might mean something, even if that something wasn't whatever he thought love was. If Subaru realized it. They don't. There were plenty of opportunities, which neither Subaru nor Seishirou took, to be honest.

It's ultimately their undoing. At the very end, they meet on Rainbow Bridge, but lets be real: it's personal. The apocalypse-battle and its deaths is a backdrop to the private tragedy that plays out. Seishirou thinks Subaru wants to kill him for revenge. Subaru doesn't know what Seishirou wants, but thinks it's definitely nothing to do with him. Seishirou's last act fulfills what he thought Subaru's wish was—his death—but he was completely misguided about what Subaru wanted, as Subaru was in turn. They already have what both of them wanted but didn't say until the end: Subaru wanted to die at Seishirou's hand so that he could matter to Seishirou, not knowing he's perhaps already the person that matters most to Seishirou (as a toy or anything else). While Seishirou wants to possess Subaru in every way possible, not realizing that he already does. I'm already trapped in cherry blossoms, as Subaru says in their last fight.

Of course, in the end, did it matter if Subaru realized it all? What better way in CLAMP-verse to mean the most to someone, to be someone they never move on from, than dying at their hands? Seishirou makes Subaru kill him and then leaves his remaining eye to Subaru. Which, for ClampKink reasons, Subaru takes, letting Seishirou erase the lasting mark that someone else left on Subaru, marking Subaru forever as hiiiiis, and doing his best to stop Subaru from ever moving on. Subaru has to live on after killing the person he loves most in the world; in the aftermath, he can no longer raise a seal's kekkai, because whatever he wanted to protect on Earth, it died with Seishirou. As much as Seishirou died, so has the last part of Subaru that existed at the beginning of Tokyo Babylon—Subaru, not the Sumeragi heir.

But there was no other way, and no other path, than this. Because what dooms them isn't being on opposite sides, but themselves—that obsession, that lack of communication.

The fault isn't in the stars. It's in themselves. Especially the murderous psychopath, but I digress.

Which is, in the end, the most intriguing and affecting version of soulmates.

#seisub #tokyo babylon #x/1999 #sumeragi subaru #sakurazuka seishirou #clamp #my meta #seishirou x subaru #i'm not back but i have feelings okay

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so-i-dont-forget-again · 3 years

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So I Don’t Forget Again: A Breath of The Wild fanfiction

Entry 151: Zora’s Domain

After training and lunch Sidon and I went searching for history again. We would have brought Bossa Nova, but he had wandered off during training.

We went searching around Ruto Mountain. It reminded me of when we were just walking around the cliffs that faced the Akkala region. Just walking around and chatting. He did give me a scare though when he accidentally slipped on some rocks and slid down a shallow cliff. Thankfully it was not a long drop and he found some more history.

It’s rarer, but Sidon got embarrassed. He’s rather cute when sheepish, he has this little habit of scratching his cheek, even if he tries to hide being flustered, that gives him away. He apologized for worrying me, saying a prince ought to have more awareness of his surroundings.

It was about Mipha, her trident. When she was born the trident was made for her. From the start she was loved by everyone, she was even skilled in spearmenship, easily mastering the Zora’s form. After she died, everyone was devastated, it was like they all lost the most lovable, precious, strong person in the world. They tried sending her trident down the river as a funeral of sorts, but it began to glow, and they heard Mipha speak. She told them her and her trident were one, and to keep going on happily, to remember the past with fondness, it happened and not grief that it was over and to not cry. Since then, on the anniversary of the Calamity striking, they honor the trident as a holiday.

So, when I was given her trident, when I was told that with it she would be protecting me like she wanted, it wasn’t hyperbole or a metaphor, or whatever, they literally meant it. Mipha is literally with me.

Sidon asked me if I was alright. I told him I was the one who should be asking him that. The gesture of being given this trident, what had become my main weapon, the one I almost always go to for battle, something that is considered to be Mipha, it just means a lot. I can understand gifting me the armor she wanted to give me, but her trident, it almost feels to be too much. I just wish I could remember more about her. I want to know what our relationship was, and if she really was as great as everyone says. She honestly almost doesn’t sound real. Just perfect in every way. But then again, Sidon is here, so a person like that isn’t too far of a stretch. Sidon said he wasn’t perfect, but he strives to be, to be like his sister.

I asked Sidon if he was pressured to be like his sister. He admitted that at times, yes. Sometimes he felt he wasn’t good enough and couldn’t live up to her legacy, how when he was younger he would be compared to her often but that just meant he had to create his own legacy and be the kind of person everyone could love, but in a way different from Mipha. He said it’s like what I’ve done. I… didn’t understand. He seemed confused and asked to read through my memories, of the ones of my current time here. He told me there was something I hadn’t noticed.

It seems so blaringly obvious now.

I’m not being compared to the Hylian Champion from a hundred years ago. We are separate people. There’s the old, or I guess younger me, the me who fought with the champions, the one who Mipha loved, and the one who died. Then there’s me, a new champion. One who is more expressive than the one from long ago, one who’s made a reputation for being a troublemaker with an exceedingly kind heart. The new champion who gleefully plays with the children and help them with their pranks. The new champion who had such a big heart he searched across Hyrule’s waters for one single person. The new champion who fought along side their Prince to save them all, a person who rose from death itself just to help people. Someone who even when injured still wants to help by becoming a teacher. They see the old champion and the new champion as separate people now.

They haven’t talked about the past much being here this time, the old me. The old me exists, and is remembered, but I’m not him.

At times, it feels the Zoras speak of nothing of the past, but they live for so long, it only makes sense, it’s not history to them, they all remember it all, yet… Mipha and Sidon are both loved, but differently, and I, though the same person, am thought of differently, and now even treated differently.

That must be why it feels different this time, not as suffocating or sad. Its… like the feeling I have for Hateno, but different, like the love for Sidon and Mipha.

It’s nice.

We kept exploring around the cliffs.

We got a clear view of Mount Lanayru. There seemed to be this bluish-purpleish glow at some places. It’s not like the Luminous stones in the Domain, it’s something else. It’s odd. I never looked around there before. Maybe there’s some shrines to be found, maybe I could get some new equipment, hopefully something to keep warm in the snow since I’ll be going to Rito Village.

We had to do a bit of rock climbing and Sidon carried me the whole way. He slipped a few times but did very well.

We also walked along very tally, grassy areas and found a forest. I insisted we search around it. No matter how small or inconspicuous, I’m going to search every forest for the Master Sword. Sidon asked if this was what traveling was like. Sometimes, it really depended on the area and if I’m following roads or not. Sidon said he’d like to travel someday. It would be fun to have him and Yunobo tag along. Maybe I should visit him soon and see how Death Mountain is doing. Maybe he’d feel safe enough to travel now.

We found more history in the forest.

It was about a princesses Zora who fought alongside the princess of Hyrule and the legendary hero against a man who wanted to rule the world. The Divine Beast was named after her and it was believed to be fate for another princesses Zora to have been chosen to pilot it.

The sun was beginning to set, we should have gone back, but we decided to go searching for a little longer.

The Domain at night is beautiful. It reminded me of Death Mountain. I tried describing the gorgeous sight of that bright, hot lava against the stark darkness. Sidon said that usually if the Gorons and Zora wish to speak, the Gorons come to them, but perhaps, I could be his escort, take him up the mountain, and he could use a lot of potions to protect himself there. The Gorons respect strength so a Zora, a being who needs a cool moist climate, to go to their land, surely they’d respect that and make the ties between them stronger! Sidon wants his people to have good relations with everyone, working together would make everyone stronger than they are alone. The Hylians used to be more so the force that tied the Zora, Goron, Gerudo and Rito together, but with our power fallen, everyone has somewhat separated and Sidon wants to get everyone back together to be able to better help one another and fight against any more disasters like the Calamity. The visit could serve two purposes! If he was going to go there anyway with me, he might as well as get to know the Gorons. He spoke of it like it was certain we were going to visit one day. He told me that if he had the power, he’d do anything for me. He said that with all my travels, I’ve seen so many places, so if I specifically am fond of one area, it must be something more beautiful and unlike any other, he trusts my judgement.

We’ve been taking the river when traveling, but this time we just walked on the trail. Traveling by river and riding on his back is much faster than walking. We found another one. It was about his father and how he had defeated a guardian single handedly and saved the domain.

On the way back we found some blue nightshade flowers. He tucked them behind my ear and just said ‘adorable’, and then I was especially so when I blush and he did it with that toothy grin and why must he make my heart race so effortlessly! He’s doing it again even now just remembering it! AGAIN!

We found one last history piece one the way back, it was right by the road like the last one. Unlike the others, it was notably worn, decayed and uncared for. It was just barley legible, unlike the others. It’s close by town too, it’s almost impossible to miss it when coming and going from town via the trail. The others, some are nowhere near trails or water and were difficult to get to or to find yet were perfectly kept up. It was about me, when I defeated the lynel and earned the Zora helm.

Sidon just stared at it for a while. I couldn’t quite read his expression.

After a while he took my arm and lead me back to the medical bay. Before leaving me in my room, he kneeled down and just hugged me. He told me I am an amazing and sweet person. That I’m strong and courageous beyond belief. He told me I am such a marvel, how hard working I am is astounding. He was grateful he could call me his friend, and I deserved only the best the world had to offer. He asked if I knew I was loved. That people truly care about me and want nothing more than for me to be able to be happy and safe.

If no one else, I at least know without a doubt he cares.

Bossa Nova was asleep on the bed when I got to my room. He looked so comfortable I didn’t want to wake and move him.

Sidon asked if I thought I’d go to sleep. I’m too wide awake, I have too many things on my mind.

Sidon asked me to follow him.

He took me to the reservoir where Vah Ruta was attacking from. We were able to climb up it with a staircase. At the top there are several docks that line the top. Before the dock we were on there is this big, I think it’s called a gazebo? It has a roof and the framing for walls, but no actual walls. Along the frames there’s this counter that connects everything except for the entrance gap. On it are some trays, chalices, a jug and some tall thin glasses full of drinks. There are also a few seats by the counters. The back doesn’t have any pillars, not far beyond it though is the large wall we had to scale to get here. It’s a little taller than the reservoir itself. On the frames are the softly glowing stones, everything else is crystals. There’s also a large bed at the back. Sidon says it’s a water bed. The bed frame is like a cradle that holds this giant bag of water that’s the mattress. Because it’s water the mattress moves and readjusts when you’re on it. It’s so comfortable, and warm, the heat readjusts too.

Sidon told me we was not sure why this was here, maybe it was for entertaining the Hylian royalty when they came to visit the reservoir. Whatever the reason for it, he found it to be a nice spot. From here there’s a gorgeous view of the town and the surrounding nature. You can even see distant mountains and cliffs. It feels like it close to town, but also detached. Just me and Sidon, no one else. The night sky here seems endless. It’s a strange feeling being here. Almost feel a little nervous being here with Sidon. Sidon is usually so calming which makes this even stranger. It’s not a bad kind of nervous though.

Its more windy here than it is in the canyon, more chilly too. Sidon and I hid in the bed, and it was so warm. Like standing in the morning sunshine in Gerudo desert.

Sidon loosely draped his arms around me and made sure he wasn’t touching my injured arm.

He wondered aloud if I could have my splint taken off for a while so I could take a bath, it might be relaxing if it wouldn’t hurt me. He wondered if we should visit Death Mountain before or after I face the Calamity. He wondered if I’d take him everywhere across Hyrule, just go anywhere I wanted. He wondered aloud about us resting under the stars. He spoke very sweetly, just about us being together. Sidon kept talking, trying to stay awake, but he soon fell asleep. He’s hugging me in his sleep. Even when he’s not awake his touch is so strong and secure.

Bossa Nova can get food, and I’m sure Sidon will be able to wake me up, so maybe I’ll try to fall asleep tonight. No one can get hurt if I rest for now. The Rito need help, but I can’t go till this infection in me is gone, the doctors won’t allow me to go till I’m healed, so since I can’t help them anyway maybe I can rest for the night. Maybe it’d be okay, but I’m not sure if I even can.

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chyuans · 3 years

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hello , hello ! first of all , i’m super excited to be here even if i’m like 10 hrs LATE ( gmt timezone things ) i’m noe , a gay they / them at the age of 19 , and this privileged lil disappointment of a jock boy is gonna be filling the position of kong_01 . despite the rumours ? yuanjun’s actually not nearly as bad as some of the people he’ll be meeting here >:) but you’ll get to know more about that below ! if you’d like to plot just light up that HEART , or add me on disc*rd which i’ll give out in im’s , where i’m infinitely faster . if i’m not gaming . no tw’s under the cut .

* backstory. > many people know of yuanjun, but few people truly know him. he's the famous kong families’ son, heir to the kong legacy, now forward position for south korea men’s national hockey team - which brought forth a ton of international fame from back home and amongst hockey lovers worldwide. while his talent is undeniable, he is long overshadowed by his families’ accomplishments, forever reminded that he’d never be the perfect son they’d hoped for, and no one ever lets him forget it.

> being the child of business tycoons who’s art business seemed to never be on the decline, tended to lend itself to an unconventional, pretty lonely childhood.

> although jun no longer wants to dabble in the stupid shit he probably did as a teen, and escape from their home in a childish fit of rage and make the lives of the various nannies that tended to him while his parents were off being great hell, he still wonders sometimes whether this profession is what he would’ve wanted if he’d just not wanted to spite his parents. he loves hockey - that fact is undeniable. he thanks the nanny who took him there once out of necessity to stop his whining, and he fell in love with it almost instantly. but he also questions whether he gravitated to it because it was something he could throw himself into wholeheartedly to fill a void.

> he's very open to different types of people, and after being scouted at 19 and having a massive shift both in culture and identity as he then begun to travel worldwide, he’s a tiny bit more wordly now than he was back then. he's much more concerned about who you are underneath than superficial appearances, which means developing relationships are few and far between, because a lot of people do approach him because of his fame/fortune. he's unjudgemental to the point where his friends worry about his naivety and how easily he trusts people, but he's absolutely not dumb, just very well versed on telling good people from the bad.

> jun may even come across as naïve, but he's very aware of that perception is nearly important as reality. he's not extroverted in a way that demands conversation, but he knows how to talk to anyone from any background even if its just to maintain pleasantries. after competing in various competitions and versing players from canada to japan, he's become much more sharp and ambitious, a guy who very rarely lets distractions take their course. perhaps it’s with this that his family loathe his choices all the more, with his appetite, he was born with the skills required to run a business - pity he never took to anything of the creative sort.

> working in a fast, stressful, highly coveted job such as pro-sports is a full time job and then some; jun doesn't spend much time not working on it. outside of his schedule, he likes bettering his stamina at the gym and eating healthy. he likes being surrounded by authentic people or nobody at all. he’s not one for trying new things and having new experiences due to time management, tending to stick to a schedule.

> he gets a lot of bad press though, which is beginning to weigh a little heavy on him. doubly now the murder has people talking. from being accused of performance-enhancing pills, various personality scandals, to being linked with ‘dating’ (see: ruining the image of) idols and chaebol’s alike. right now, he’s currently battling a lot of unwanted publicity because of a misunderstood interaction online against a wealthy sweetheart that went sour.

> while jun might be generally unsympathetic and analytical when it comes to developing relationships with people that’ll last long-term, he's a bleeding heart when it comes to kids who may have experienced the same lonely upbringing as he did, without the financial gains. right now he spends sunday’s teaching a bunch of local foster home kids how to skate, and is trying to fund a couple of sports scholarships for those who show promise under a fake name, just generally being a good ‘ole guy.

> his family do not approve of his job, ofc. in fact neither of his parents have ever attended any of his matches to this day, and are only on semi-decent terms with him because jun begrudgingly is still tied by name to the business and shows his face at events for all of 30 minutes until he physically can no longer maintain pleasantries. his celebrity image perhaps is one thing they can manipulate, and even then, jun could get into scandals galore and still be doing his job. good press, bad press, it has the kong’s family name at the forefront of peoples’ minds, which always brings forth revenue.

> pros: could be a lot worse considering his upbringing, collected, and level-headed most of the time. wicked good at sports, and keeps a cool head in a tough situation. ambitious, curious, a little reckless. eager to prove himself, rich? and very endeared to people/places he finds fascinating. which are many. knows where the good, authentic chinese cuisine is. hardworking and very interested in the idea of Progress.

> cons: the most private person alive, will not divulge any palatable information about himself or his feelings. devil's advocate always. will put himself and others at an arm’s length the second he feels (disgusted noises) e-emotions (love, namely). gets bored easily. paranoid, leads with the head more than the heart. friends > > > family. a little self-involved, never fucking sleeps - will be that neighbour you can hear padding around above your apartment at 3.05 am like it’s mid-day, aaaaand Loves Winning Above All Else

* personality & relationships.

> like many others, jun has his fair share of surface-level friends. he’s quick to be interested in people, to get to know them better, but it's difficult for him to get closer than that after a childhood of being picked up and dropped by those who looked over him - which kinda has left him with abandonment issues.

> he’s a curator of neat things that aren’t too overtly complex, and that includes friendships. so if you have something unusual about you, whether it's a talent or a way of thinking, he would be inclined to get to know you better. also, he has a lot of leverage with his job. being friends with a sports star slash million dollar trust fund baby who can get you free shit never hurts, just don’t befriend him for the perks, yanno?

> jun is very dedicated to his vision of things, and can sometimes be very obstinate in the way he a) wants them to be done b) doesn't accept other options, think steve jobs. he's very mercurial and can be nice one minute but isn't afraid to switch to hardass boss to get things done and did. > he is insanely competitive and his strive is drawn out by always wanting to be on top. truly first child material. that's the kind of guy he is, with standards that do not reflect his passive side too well, which sometimes can get him into some “personality” scandals. he is driven, motivated, always looking for ways to be winning.

> i'm sure someone is bound to hate him, he’s probably got a few accounts online dedicated to a steady stream of shit-talking, given his cutthroat status or holding many hockey cups.

> jun doesn’t think too much about his sexuality - he'd probably best be labelled as pan, but leans towards those who identify as women? because of his current placement in a workspace, and with a cultural identity, that both don’t often lend themselves to lgbtq+ rights, i doubt he’d ever make that public.

> he works amongst some of the fittest people in the world, he knows how to appreciate beautiful bodies, but he's not about to discriminate. he's tragically a committaphobe and isn't interested in anything long-term right now, although i think it'd be funny if someone tried. he's very open for flings and one-night stands and even a friends with benefits sort of set up.

* wc’s. > bring me his baby bro and sis. i command u. i have many thoughts > somebody who maybe gets in on his foster-kid situation? idk maybe they have a perception of jun being what he is in the articles they read of him, but they see him and are like <3_<3 he actually real Nice huh. i see this being romantic but it could bloom a really nice, wholesome friendship too. > enemies. not gonna lie, he doesn’t vibe with rich kids w / a stick up their ass, especially since a lot of the people he works with aren’t from exorbitant families. people who loathe him for declining to take over his families’ business? like the boy can’t even name more than 3 artists off of the top of his head? > fwb except neither of them know what “just friends” mean. > i would love if jun had a confidante. a best friend, a partner in crime, a total bromance 'cause i can never get enough of those. whatever label you ‘wanna put on it. wiping up each other’s messes. maybe a Betrayal in the works > again, gonna be a wc, but i would love a “rival” of jun's on a similar level (or bigger) that’s entirely fabricated based off of trashy articles or a misunderstood interaction online. bonus points if they’re an absolute sweetheart, well loved by most people, and generally the antithesis of jun with his multiple drug/personality rumours, which in contrast, make him seem like the bad guy.

> party buddy. this guy hasn’t touched alcohol/cigarettes/any other stimulants since he was underage and wanted to rebel. the word “relax” does not exist in his vocabulary. Help

#cheong.intro

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divinaes-bookofsecrets · 3 years

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Hello. I would love a spirit guide reading. I’m a Scorpio.Thank you! ❤️🦂

Hello ♏ 🦂 ♏ 🦂 ♏ SCORPIO

You have many Spirit Guides and a lot of them are Angels but today I'm going to tell you about is an indigenous indigo child of light who comes ✨ to share a creation medicine teaching from her tribe ♥ ✨ 💛

💖 Your Spirit Guide is a Mohawk lady named Ehkadorah ✨ ♥ & She has two other sisters; EDEÀ and ÀKASHA (but you'll notice that her sisters are not as dark as her, that's because the European blood is in their heart due to the migration of this clan village)

&She wants to share this story with you here. About her people....

The Haudenosaunee people are a confederacy of six nations native to the Northeast in the US, as well as Ontario and Quebec in Canada. This confederacy consists of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. Haudenosaunee means “people of the longhouse.”

Corn, beans, and squash are considered by the Haudenosaunee people to be special gifts from the daughter of Original Woman (Skywoman). As the story goes, when the daughter was dying in childbirth, she said that from her body would come the foods that would sustain the people. From her hands came the beans, from her breasts grew the corn, from her bellybutton grew the squash vines. From her legs grew the sunflowers, and from her head grew the sacred tobacco. From her heart sprouted the strawberry, and from her feet the original potato, known as a sunchoke. This is the cosmological story that comes to life every time Haudenosaunee people plant a Three Sisters Garden.

We are told that our creation story never ended. The well-being of each crop is believed to be protected by that of the others, and their relationship reminds us of our cultural teaching of interdependence. This collective of original foods is called Tionhnhéhkwen, or our life’s sustainers. They nourish us, so we must remember to nourish them in turn as a reflection of our gratitude. The creation story that began so long ago continues to unfurl and come alive in every moment, as our life sustainers emerge from Mother Earth and remind us of our Original Instructions. Dancing in the direction that the sun goes, First Woman put into place the cycles of continuous creation, continuous birth. As human beings we have been given the Original Instructions to follow, which maintain the cycles of continuous creation, of this continuous birth put forth by Skywoman.

In English, this interplanting is often called “The Three Sisters,” which refers to how we understand these indigenous crops to be our living relatives, who we descended from in our cosmo-geneology. This indigenous planting system refers to the planting of corn, pole beans, and squash or pumpkins together in hills.

Ehkadorah: All of the seeds shown here represent a small portion of my ancestral seed bundle. These seeds came to me at a time when I was seeking deeper connection to who I was as a young Mohawk woman. These seeds became my teachers and guides, helping me to rehydrate the ancestral memories that would encourage me to forge a more meaningful connection and relationship to the land and to my people. Through endless seasons and life cycles, they have persevered, passed down with the fragrance and memory of so many mothers’ prayers throughout the ages. Today they feed my children, along with the soil that feeds and nourishes so many here on our seed farm. May my breath, carrying seedsongs, be one of many prayers that reside at the very heart of these seeds, so that in generations to come they will protect and nourish those who courageously carry on the legacy of the ancestors.

What does your Spirit Guide look like?

Ehkadorah has medium brown hair and she has dark indigenous eyes; She wears a white deerskin dress with fringes, a buck hide belt, and a headband which is also a white deer skin garnet. She has a pair of bison hide moccasins which she wears to tribal and casual events.

Here are her two sisters, EDEA, AND AKASHA , they prefer to wear their warpaint and Hannah tattoo work to stay closer to their culture.

Whats the messages that my Spirit Guide has ?

Number 944 is a combination of the vibrations and attributes of number 9 and number 4, with number 4 appearing twice, magnifying its influences. Number 9 denotes endings and conclusions and relates to the Universal Spiritual Laws, a higher perspective and expansive viewpoint, strength of character, non-conformity, leadership and leading life as a positive example for others, altruism, humanitarianism and lightworking. Number 4 resonates with patience, practicality and application, hard work and responsibility, conscientiousness, progress, honesty and integrity, diligence and determination to achieve goals. Number 4 also relates to our passion and drive in life, and relates to the energies of the Archangels.

Angel Number 944 encourages you to re-organize your priorities and take responsibility for your own choices, actions, personal growth and all aspects of your life. Love and nurture yourself and others and focus upon your own goals, values and life path. Focus on being your highest and best self and speak and live your truths. Focus positively on your own energies and be your own powerful guide.

Angel Number 944 is a message that the angels and Archangels(and Spirit Guide) are supporting your life purpose and are encouraging you to look into spiritually-based work and/or career path or service-based project or venture. Your life purpose involves serving humanity using your lightworking abilities, so set your goals and pursue your aspirations with enthusiasm and passion and trust the workings of the Universe. You have all the skills and talents you need in order to fulfill your spiritual destiny.

Angel Number 944 may also suggest that it is time to let go of a situation that has now ran its course. As one door closes, another opens, and the angels are helping you to open those new doors of opportunity and help you heal from any pain, sorrow or feelings of loss that may accompany the transition that you are now undergoing. Use your creative mind to establish a plan of action, then move to the next level of your life.

Number 944 relates to number 8 (9+4+4=17, 1+7=8) and Angel Number 8.

Does any of these numbers relate to your life or have you noticed these in synchronicity on either the time on the clock or on the cost of your receipt?

January prediction from your Spirit Guide

Your dramatic expectations for a certain plan may clash with what is realistically possible this month, dear Scorpio. You may have wild ideas about what you can do - and you probably could if the circumstances were ideal - but someone else's plans or opinions may stand in your way. Although compromise is the last word you want to consider in this, it could actually be the best way for you to move forward. If you are open to making a few small changes in your plan, you can wind up getting almost all of what you want. You may discover in January that someone is trying to draw a wedge between you and someone else out of jealousy. But battling against the green-eyed monster takes strategy. First of all, you need to recognize that jealousy comes out of insecurity, so trying to merge one friend or associate with the one they are jealous of could actually result in a closer connection and more confidence if handled correctly. You don't want to lose either one of these individuals, so tread carefully. Your expectations for a joint effort might not parallel a partner's expectations. It is important to combine your goals until they are consistent and compatible before you begin. Make doing this a priority this month.

--Divinae

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agreatperhaps12 · 4 years

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There are a lot of misconceptions about Warren Peace. Five times Layla Williams saw through the bullshit, and one time Warren returned the favor.

happy holidays, @katiewont :)

Misconception No. 1: Warren Peace loves a good fight.

Warren Peace does not go looking for fights. Fights find him.

See: Stronghold chucking a lunch tray at him the first week of class. Dumb and Dumber challenging them to Save the Citizen. Stronghold’s date going full supervillain at homecoming and nearly dropping a school-size anvil on an unsuspecting suburb.

That’s just the highlight reel for September.

When another villain interrupts Warren’s History of Heroism midterm with another school invasion, Warren’s first thought is: Could everyone around here chill for five fucking seconds.

No. Literally, not ever. See: three weeks later, when Warren is standing in line for lunch with the entourage of freshmen he’s long since given up trying to shake off. It has not even been five minutes since Warren and Stronghold defeated their latest challenger at Save the Citizen, and Zach is already doing a clumsy live-action replay.

To Stronghold, “Did you see his face when you were like?” Zach swings his arm with the spectacular confidence of someone not standing in a very crowded cafeteria. To Warren, “And then you were like—” Zach mimes shooting fireballs from his fists, complete with sound effects. “Totally brutal. You looked scary, bro.”

“He always looks scary,” Ethan says, smiling at Warren like that’s a compliment.

Warren glares down at his tray. He and Stronghold have been defending champions of Save the Citizen for over two months, Hero Team every time. He doesn’t get how people are still managing to make him feel like the bad guy about it.

“How was play-pretend battle?”

Layla has emerged from the crowd to stand beside Warren, with a smirk that makes a stupid something flutter behind his sternum. Layla stopped coming to their Save the Citizen matches after their dozenth victory, because “violence should be the last resort in any hostage situation” and “Save the Citizen completely undermines a valuable opportunity for Sky High students to learn strategic negotiation skills.” Warren doesn’t know what she does with the free period.

Take me with you, he thinks.

“The match was epic,” Zach says. “Will got to throw a car.”

A bashful smile overtakes Stronghold’s dumb, Labrador face.

“And Warren almost barbequed Evans,” Ethan says.

Jesus, could they shut up about it already.

“Really,” Layla says, eyes on Warren while he pays for his food.

“Yeah,” Warren says, in a deadpan to rival Magenta. “It was epic.”

Layla frowns, but instead of launching into the pacifist manifesto that Warren is expecting, she holds up her bagged lunch says, “Want to eat outside?”

Before Warren can answer, Stronghold says, “Outside?” like he’s never heard of such a place. “It’s freezing out there.”

“It’s almost forty degrees,” Layla says, “and I had to come in early to finish a project, so it’s been over—” She checks the clock. “—five hours since I’ve felt roots under my feet. I’m eating outside.”

“Okay, but like.” Stronghold glances at Warren. “Do… you want me to come?”

“No, you’ll just be a baby about it,” Layla says gently. “Warren doesn’t get cold, do you?”

She looks to Warren for confirmation of a fact that Warren is one hundred percent sure he’s never told her. He shrugs to hide his wrong-footedness.

“Great.” Layla claps a hand on Stronghold’s shoulder and uses it to steer him toward the others, who are already sitting at what used to be Warren’s personal lunch table, once upon a time. She shrugs on her jacket, flips her hair out, and looks to Warren. “Shall we?”

Warren follows her outside warily. Sitting down across from her at the picnic table closest to the edge of school grounds, he says, “So, what is this, exactly?”

Layla pauses in uncurling her lunch bag. “What do you mean?”

Warren shrugs. “We don’t really hang out. Alone.”

They did, a little. Back when Layla was using Warren to make Stronghold jealous. But that pretty much ended with the homecoming debacle—after which Layla and Stronghold spent a few weeks trying to get their romantic relationship off the ground, decided they worked better as friends, and went back to normal.

“What are you talking about?” Layla says. “We hang out at the Paper Lantern all the time.”

It’s true that Layla eats at Warren’s workplace a few nights a week, when her mom is too busy with day-saving to make family dinners at home. But Layla is always doing homework, and Warren is always doing Work work, so, “I don’t think that counts.”

“It does,” Layla says confidently. It’s the kind of confidence that only Layla can pull off, because rather than coming across as arrogant, she gives the air of a mysterious woodland nymph, whose secret knowledge mere mortals wouldn’t understand.

“Okay,” Warren says, because he has precious little personal experience to back up any assertions about how friendship is supposed to work. “But this isn’t the Lantern.”

Layla raises an eyebrow. “Do you want to go back inside?”

“No,” Warren says. He doesn’t want Layla to leave, either. There’s a sureness about her that Warren finds comforting. She’s never been afraid of him—probably because she could kick his ass. Warren likes that about her. But he also likes to know where he stands with people.

By way of explanation, Layla says, “Did you know that when you get stressed out, literal steam comes out of your ears?”

“What?”

“Mm-hmm.” Layla pulls an apple out of her lunch bag. “A little. It’s easier to see when your hair is pulled back.”

Warren brings a self-conscious hand to the rubber band he used to tie his hair up during Mad Science Lab.

“It happens a lot when Zach is doing his Save the Citizen play-by-plays,” Layla observes. “Thought I might spare you an entire lunch of that.”

“Oh.” Warren’s hand drops into his lap, blind-sided by the unexpected kindness. “Thanks.”

“Any time.” Layla maintains eye contact while taking a bit of apple. Warren shifts in his seat and drops his eyes to his pizza. “You could tell Coach Boomer to assign Will a different partner,” she says after a moment. “Save the Citizen isn’t mandatory.”

Yeah, except it kind of is. No one’s ever voluntarily stepped back from a winning streak like Warren and Stronghold’s. Benching himself would never be worth all the extra side-eye in the halls. Not to mention the explanation he’d have to give Boomer. What kind of superhero-in-training refuses to fight?

Except for the one Warren is currently sitting across from, of course. Who’s looking at Warren with such doe-eyed earnestness that it almost squeezes a “Yeah, maybe” out of him. But Layla is a difficult person to lie to, so he says, “I thought we weren’t going to talk about Save the Citizen.”

Layla sits up a little straighter. “Right,” she says. “Consider it forgotten.”

“Thanks.”

Not that Warren doesn’t trust Layla, but she is the kind of person to press points she thinks are important. Before her mind can cycle back to Save the Citizen from some other angle, Warren says, “Sorry I dragged you outside in the middle of November.”

Layla tilts her head to the side. “You didn’t drag me. I dragged you.”

“Yeah, but for me,” Warren says, and there’s that stupid fluttering feeling again.

“And for me,” Layla says. “I wasn’t lying about needing to get out for a bit. Being inside all day, with the linoleum and cinderblock.” She wrinkles her nose. “It’s creepy quiet, when you’re used to feeling everything alive around you.”

He’s never actually thought about it, before. How Layla has her finger on the pulse of something so vast and intricate, even when she’s not bending it to her will.

“Even in November?” Warren says. “Isn’t everything, like… dead?”

Layla laughs. “No. Just taking a long nap.”

“Huh.” Warren looks around the grey-brown landscape of the schoolyard, with its bare branches and faded grass, with new eyes. It’s a nice idea, that all these lifeless-looking things are just waiting to wake up.

Misconception No. 2: Warren Peace doesn’t give a damn about his bad reputation.

Anyone who dyes a single streak of hair, wears fingerless gloves, and walks around like he’s got nothing to prove has something big to prove.

For Warren Peace, that is: I do not give a fuck about my family legacy.

Before starting high school, Warren figured a couple kids might recognize him, by name or by strong family resemblance. But Warren’s dad had already been locked up for a long time. It wasn’t like he made the news anymore. Worse came to worst, Warren thought he might have to field a few awkward questions about it.

Homeschooling did not prepare Warren for how big a household name Barron Battle was.

The first week of school was all open seats around Warren in class and at lunch, cold and curious looks over shoulders on the bus, “Check it out, that’s Barron Battle’s devil spawn” and “I can’t believe they even let supervillain kids in.”

It was treat or be treated like dirt, and Warren chose the former.

Fast-forward to junior year, and Sky High students know Warren Peace for the asshole he is, rather than the asshole his father was. Warren is comfortably back to pretending like his dad doesn’t exist. It mostly works.

Except during a History of Heroism unit on the most notorious villains of the twentieth century, when Warren’s class is staring at a PowerPoint slide that depicts the leveled Brooklyn neighborhood where Barron Battle and the Commander had their final showdown.

Warren ignores his classmates’ not-so-covert glances as Mr. Magnificent rattles of statistics like ‘seven dead and dozens injured’ and ‘nearly one billion dollars in damages.’ Magnificent has to pause his lecture to silence the white noise of whispers that has swelled up, and Warren wants to sink through the floor.

It’s like the first week of freshman year all over again. Warren is projecting I don’t care vibes so hard, there’s a good chance he’ll spontaneously combust.

What feels like an eon later, the classroom lights come up. Warren shoves everything into his backpack and heads for the door before anyone can try to talk to him. As usual, Layla is out of Hero Support early and waiting in the hall to meet Warren for lunch. Her patent sun-bright smile slips as Warren escapes the classroom.

“Whoa, where’s the fire?” she says.

“What?” Warren stops up short. “Nowhere. There’s no fire.”

“I was kidding,” Layla says, and winces at herself. “Poor choice of words. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Warren rakes his fingers through his hair. “I can’t come to lunch today. I have to—work on something.”

Normally, when Warren is feeling like shit, there’s nothing he’d rather do than sit with Layla in their little oasis of calm at the schoolyard picnic table. But right now, Warren needs at least thirty minutes to pace around the empty auto shop classroom, literally and figuratively cooling off, before he subjects himself to more human company.

“Okay,” Layla says, hugging her notebook to her chest and looking at him critically. “Are you—”

“Yeah. It’s—whatever. I’ll see you later.” Warren shoulders his way through the crowded hall toward the shop room, head down.

Smooth, he thinks at himself. Very smooth.

Shut up.

Warren assumes the first chance he’ll have to apologize to Layla is the next day at lunch. But when Warren shows up for his shift at the Paper Lantern at five, Layla is already sitting at her usual table. Weird, because Layla usually doesn’t come to the Lantern on Thursdays. Weirder, because when she does come, she typically arrives sometime after eight, when the dinner rush has mostly cleared out.

“What can I get you?” Warren says, drawing his pencil out from behind his ear as he approaches Layla’s table. They do try to maintain some appearances of an employee-customer relationship, to appease Mrs. Zhou.

“Hmm.” Layla examines the menu. “I’d like one kung pao tofu, one green tea, and—” She looks up at him. “—for you to explain why you fled your History of Heroism class today.”

“I didn’t flee,” Warren says. “I stormed out.”

“All right,” Layla agrees easily. “Why did you storm out of History of Heroism?”

Warren crosses his arms. “None of your business.”

“Okay.” Layla holds out her menu.

Warren blinks. “What?”

“You’re right, it’s not my business,” she says. “I just thought you might want to talk about whatever it was.”

“I don’t.”

“Okay.”

Warren squints. “Okay…”

“Okay,” Layla says again, and flaps the menu in her hand.

Warren takes it slowly, waiting for the catch. But Layla just pulls a binder and notebook out of her backpack. “Honey with the tea, please,” she says, and clicks open a pen.

“I know,” Warren says, and leaves Layla to her homework. He spends most of the next half-hour trying to untangle why he feels disappointed rather than relieved.

The thing is, Warren sometimes gets a “What was that about?” or “Dude, what the hell happened back there?” from classmates after he goes nuclear. Like after his cafeteria fight with Stronghold in September. Those questions always feel voyeuristic. Prickly and probing.

With Layla, though, the question feels less invasive and more inviting. For the first time, Warren wants to explain himself. He wants Layla to understand. He doesn’t want her to see him as some moody, unapproachable asshole. But he also doesn’t know how to approach her, or the subject, now that he’s already shut it down.

He’s been talking himself in and out of going back over to Layla’s table for ten minutes when Mrs. Zhou sidles up to the pass-through window where Warren is brooding.

“If you’re going to stand around making eyes at your girlfriend, take your fifteen and go over before the dinner crowd arrives,” she says.

Warren’s face heats, and he looks around to see whether anyone is in earshot, even though he’s pretty sure none of Mrs. Zhou’s whitebread suburban customers understand Mandarin. “She’s not my—never mind.”

Deciding he’d rather be having any other conversation besides this one with Mrs. Zhou, Warren forces himself to walk over to Layla’s table and sit down.

“We learned about the Barron in class today,” he says, abandoning any attempt at preamble, “for a lesson on notable supervillain takedowns.”

If Layla is surprised by Warren’s sudden attempt at conversation, she doesn’t show it. She hooks her pen through the spiral of her notebook, closes it, and waits for him to continue.

“Magnificent was showing pictures from the last time Dad and the Commander fought in New York,” Warren says, “and people were looking at me like I was involved somehow, even though all that shit went down when I was still in diapers, and those people have been in my classes for three years, like—I know, we all know Barron Battle is my dad, why can’t everyone fucking get over it already—”

Layla lays a hand on his forearm, cutting Warren off and drawing his attention to the fact that his clenched fist is smouldering like a hot coal. “Shit. Sorry.” Warren shakes out his hand, and Layla pulls back. He wishes she wouldn’t.

Layla waits for the red glow of Warren’s knuckles to dim and then says, “Mr. Magnificent is an idiot. It was totally inappropriate to include your dad in a presentation, especially without asking you first.”

Warren shrugs. “A lot of people’s parents end up in his presentations,” he says. “They’re just usually on the right side.”

“He still should have asked you,” Layla says. “Also, you helped save the entire school in September. If people still think you’re anything like your dad after that, they’re idiots and you shouldn’t care what they think.”

Warren wants to say “I don’t.” What comes out is, “This is high school. Everyone cares what everyone thinks.”

“I don’t,” Layla says.

Warren wants to contradict her, but from what he can tell, Layla genuinely doesn’t. “You have to care a little,” he says.

Layla raises her eyebrows like oh, yeah? and points to her characteristically Whoville-style twist of braids and glittery clips. “You think these hairdos made me a lot of friends in middle school?”

“I didn’t go to middle school.”

“Well, they didn’t,” Layla says.

“Then why do you wear your hair like that?”

“Because I like it.” Layla twirls a stray piece of hair around her forefinger. “And I don’t need to be one of the pretty girls to feel good about myself.”

“You are pretty,” Warren blurts, and immediately has to suppress the urge to set himself on fire.

Layla’s eyes go wide. The last time Warren saw her blush this deep, he’d just called her out for crushing on Stronghold. But instead of straight-up embarrassed, this time Layla’s blush is weirdly, shyly pleased. “You think so?” Her chin is tilted down so that she’s looking up at him through her eyelashes, which is not fair.

“Me?” Warren points at himself, like an idiot. “I don’t—I mean, I do, but it’s not just—you are pretty. People know that. It’s an objective fact.”

“Really.” Layla’s cheeks are still pink, but her smile has a playful slant now.

“Yeah,” Warren says, more defensively than he intends. Christ, he was so much better at this when they were fake-dating, when none of Warren’s smirks or swagger could mean anything. Now, without the protection of pretense, everything feels altogether too personal. Warren is not good at personal.

“Thank you,” Layla says, and bites her lip in hesitation before tacking on, “you’re pretty, too.”

Whatever that comment is—reflex, or politeness, or something else—it is officially too much. “I have to get back to work,” Warren says, overloud in the quiet restaurant, and bangs his knee on the underside of the table in his haste to stand up.

“Okay,” Layla says, trying to hide a smile behind her hand. Before he can turn away, she adds, “Warren,” and points to either side of her head.

Warren stares at her blankly for a second before he catches her drift, yanks his hair down from his ponytail to hide his surely steaming ears, and practically runs back to the kitchen.

Misconception No. 3: Warren Peace thinks he’s got the best power.

“I feel like I should warn you,” Layla says as she turns the key in her front lock, “my house is kind of crowded.”

Warren frowns. “I thought you were an only child.”

“No siblings,” Layla says. “A lot of roommates. You’ll see.”

What Warren sees is a menagerie that would do Ace Ventura proud.

“Watch out for the—everything,” Layla says, leading him through a flock of peacocks, a few dogs and several cats that slink by too quickly to count.

“Why… is this?” is the only semi-coherent question that Warren can formulate as he shoos a parrot from his shoulder and shakes his pant leg free of a fox’s jaws.

“You’re not the only one who has to live with your parent’s superpower,” Layla says.

Layla’s mom, apparently, is a zoolinguist. The only place in the entire house not overrun by furry or feathered residents is Layla’s room.

“Wow,” Warren says as he crosses the threshold.

Layla’s bedroom is situated on the back corner of the house, and the two external walls and ceiling are all paneled glass. Presumably to usher in maximum sunlight for the greenery that crowds almost every inch of space besides Layla’s bed and desk. Warren has to shed his winter coat immediately to avoid overheating in the humidity.

“Yeah,” Layla says. “Sometimes I forget how weird it is. Will’s the only friend I’ve ever had up here.”

Layla is the only friend Warren has ever had in his room—which she immediately declared “entirely predictable,” on account of the punk rock posters plastered across his walls. Layla’s room is way more predictable, if you ask Warren. Or at least, Warren would have predicted this, if he’d known literal greenhouse was a legitimate option.

“It’s nice,” he says. “Peaceful.”

“Isn’t it?” Layla takes Warren’s coat and hangs it on a hook behind the leaves of an elephant ear plant. “Mom had the place renovated before we moved in. I think she figured, if she was going to let every animal in the neighborhood have the run of our house, it wasn’t fair to exile my plants to the backyard.”

“Do they all live here all the time?” Warren says, pointing at the floor to indicate the veritable petting zoo downstairs.

“Some of them,” Layla says. “Mom is good at finding homes for most. I think donations from her fans are single-handedly keeping every shelter in the city afloat.”

It’s rude to ask about superheroes’ secret identities, but context clues give Warren a pretty good idea who Ms. Williams might be. Charismatic Megafauna is basically a one-woman PETA operation, liberating animals from factory farms and delivering them to free-range pastures as often as she commands her elite squadron of apex predators to take down baddies. She’s a more controversial figure than the Commander and Jetstream, but she does have an extremely dedicated cult following.

“Her power sounds amazing,” Warren says.

“Most of the time,” Layla says. She collects a watering can from beside her bed and begins to fill it with a knee-high spigot beside the door. “But there’s a lot of animal suffering in the world. It can get exhausting for her to be tapped into it all the time, you know?”

Warren pauses to consider. “Yeah, I guess that would be overwhelming.”

Layla turns off the tap and carries her watering can to the closest table laden with potted plants. “Everyone’s superpower looks spectacular on the news,” she says, with a very un-Layla-like smile. “No one’s around to see it when your power makes you so sad you can’t get out of bed.”

“Except you,” Warren guesses.

Layla drops her not-really-smile. “Except me.”

Warren shuffles along the row of plants beside Layla while she waters them. He waits until she finishes refilling the can and starts a new row before asking, “Does that ever happen to you? Your powers getting you down.”

Layla studiously waters a flower with orange starburst petals. “Plants have more…auras and vibes than thoughts and feelings,” she says, and tickles the flower under one leaf. The plant visibly perks up under her ministrations, and Layla smiles. For real, this time. “Their pain doesn’t feel as sharp to me as animals’ pain does to my mom.”

“But,” Warren prompts.

“But sometimes, yeah,” Layla says, and moves on to the next plant.

Warren casts around for something comforting to say, but comes up with nothing better than, “That sucks.”

“Yeah,” Layla says, “but it’s the exception to the rule. Most of the time, I wouldn’t give up feeling this—” She rubs her fingertips over a browning leaf to paint it green. “—for anything.”

Warren shouldn’t be jealous of Layla’s powers. Especially after she’s just admitted what a burden they can be. But Layla has also just confirmed what Warren has long suspected: Superabilities, even the ostensibly powerful ones, are not created equal. Warren’s pyrokinesis is, fundamentally, a weapon. A blunt tool to wield when the situation calls for violence. Layla’s power, on the other hand, seems more like a sixth sense. A trapdoor to another plane of reality.

How much of Layla Williams’s worldview draws on the alien insight of plants that no other human being, least of all Warren Peace, could ever possibly understand?

Layla interrupts Warren’s inferiority spiral with, “I’ve never talked about this with anyone but my mom.”

Warren watches Layla coax a stem into standing up straighter. “Not even Stronghold?”

He should not take as much pleasure as he does in Layla’s dismissive laugh. “Especially not Will.”

“Why not?”

“For a long time, he didn’t have any powers, and he was so jealous of mine, it seemed mean to complain about them to Will.”

“And now?”

“Now, he’s in the honeymoon phase with his new powers,” Layla says, “and it seems mean to bring him down.”

Not even Warren believes Stronghold can be that fragile. “I’m sure he’d get over it.”

“Maybe, but, you know. The things we do for our best friends,” Layla says, with a what can you do shrug, and returns to the faucet for another refill.

“So, why tell me?”

Layla chews the inside of her cheek. “I guess because you already have a complex about your own powers the size of Texas, thanks to your dad.”

“What?” Warren balks. “I do not.”

Layla squints. “Don’t you, though?”

“No. I—shut up.” Warren looks away, feeling hot all over.

Layla bends down to turn off the tap. A moment later, her hand on Warren’s shoulder startles him into looking back at her. Her big, brown eyes are wide with sympathy. “I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not upset,” Warren snaps.

“Okay.” Typical Layla, letting him feel whatever he’s going to feel and say whatever he’s going to say and refuse to throw hands about it.

Warren’s spark of anger sputters and dies. He huffs out an exhale. “It’s not only about my dad,” he admits, quietly, mostly to the floor.

Layla’s hand remains on his shoulder while she waits for an elaboration. Warren very carefully does not acknowledge it in any way, for fear it might stop.

“Fire is...useful,” he says. “But it can only destroy things. I can’t create. Not like…” He waves a hand around Layla’s room. “All I’m good for is fighting, and sometimes I wish—” Warren shoves a hand through his hair. “I dunno. It’s stupid.”

Layla’s hand squeezes his shoulder. “First of all, you are not your power,” she says. “No matter what Boomer or anyone else says. Second, fire is creative. It creates light and warmth.”

“If I’m ever transported back in time to an era before electricity, I’m sure that’ll be extremely handy,” Warren says, aiming for wry and not quite making it, because the tickly feeling that flitters to life in his chest whenever Layla says nice things about him is going wild.

Layla rolls her eyes. “Third of all, you do not need a superpower to create and nurture things.” Before Warren can stop her, Layla has pushed her watering can into his hand.

“What?” he says. “I don’t know anything about plants. I’d probably kill them all.” He holds the watering can out to Layla, who does not take it.

“Don’t act like you don’t have a book of Keats in your backpack right now,” she says. “If you know ‘To Autumn,’ you already know the most important things about plants. Everything else is technicalities.”

Warren gives her a doubtful look.

Layla sighs. “Trust me. Which you should, because I know literally everything about plants, and I’m a very good teacher, and I would not let you hurt any of my babies. Okay?”

Layla holds out her hand, and Warren has to channel all his concentration into keeping his cool enough that he doesn’t burn her when he takes it in his own. Layla grins, and Warren feels a little light-headed with the thrill of it.

“Come on,” she says, and pulls him toward the row of potted flowers where they left off. Warren follows, as helpless as any of the flora around them to resist the benevolent force of nature that is Layla Williams.

Misconception No. 4: Warren Peace doesn’t get scared.

This illusion is at least partly on purpose. Part of the do not fuck with me ethos Warren has been cultivating for the better part of three years.

In reality, plenty of things scare Warren. Like the idea that everyone is right about him after all, and he’ll end up on the Superheroes Guild’s Most Wanted List someday. Or that deep down, a kernel of grudge in his mother resents Warren for taking so closely after his father. But those are more midnight-existential-crisis concerns than acute fears.

Warren gets scared during battles, too. But the initial kick of adrenaline always seems to knock his consciousness clear of his body, such that he spends most of the fight controlling the firestorm of his fists from somewhere above the action. He usually doesn’t realize how freaked out he is until after the fact, when his brain plugs back into his body and he thinks, huh, my hands won’t stop shaking.

It’s rare that Warren feels, in real time, the bass-drum beat of his heart and a cold sweat breaking out on the back of his neck. But that’s exactly what happens every time he gets close to asking Layla out on a date.

He’s come close so many times. He’s had the tickets in his jacket pocket for weeks. But the prospect of actually asking Layla invites the prospect of Layla saying no, and Warren—can’t.

Sometimes, he can almost convince himself that she would say yes, despite the fact that Layla is kind, beautiful, mystical Layla, and Warren is social-pariah, problem-child Warren. Like last Tuesday, when Layla said “you’re such a disaster” with such heart-stopping fondness, while she pulled a rubber band from Warren’s hair to replace it with one of her own, more comfortable fabric hair ties. Or last Friday, while they were watching a movie at Layla’s place, and she tucked her socked toes under Warren’s thigh on the couch. Or yesterday, when she held her hands out over the picnic table for Warren to warm her pink fingertips between his palms.

And always, in the back of Warren’s mind: “You’re pretty, too.”

But whenever Warren opens his mouth to ask, his tongue goes dry and his palms go damp. It’s such a stupid thing to be afraid of, it makes Warren want to close his head in a locker. Worst case scenario, Layla turns him down. They’d still be friends. She wouldn’t be cruel. She’s Layla. But Warren isn’t used to having so much of himself caught up in another person. The idea that Layla isn’t equally caught up in him provokes a strangled, withering feeling in the pit of Warren’s stomach that he can only imagine would intensify tenfold after the actual rejection.

So, Warren’s been procrastinating.

But time is running out.

It does not help that Stronghold’s flock of freshmen is currently obsessing over Winter Formal like a bunch of… well, freshmen.

“You guys asking anyone?” Zach says at lunch, one day when freezing rain is lashing Sky High too hard for even Layla to sit outside. Zach hooks an arm over Magenta’s shoulder, as if to underline the fact that she’s already spoken for. Magenta rolls her eyes but doesn’t shrug him off.

“I would ask Larry,” Ethan says, pushing steamed vegetables around on his plate with his fork. “If I could stop going full-puddle every time he looks at me.”

Layla and Magenta make sympathetic noises.

“I think I’m gonna ask Abby,” Stronghold says, eyes cast over at a table where Warren assumes this Abby must sit. He hasn’t bothered to keep up with Stronghold’s latest romantic fixation. They’re already two—three?—full crush cycles past Layla. Warren can’t believe he ever felt threatened by a kid with the attention span of a housefly.

“She’d totally say yes,” Magenta says. “I overheard her about how hot you are during the Shapeshifting Students Association meeting.”

“Really?” Will says, at the same time Layla goes, “Magenta!”

“What?”

“Gossip.”

“Okay, Mother Williams,” Magenta says. To Will, “We’ll talk later.”

Layla looks intent on pressing the matter, but Ethan says, “Do you have a date, Layla?”

Everyone turns to Layla, except for Stronghold, whose eyes inexplicably flick over to Warren—who glares him into dropping eye contact.

“No,” Layla says, unconcerned.

“Not yet,” Zach says. “Just a question of who asks first.”

Warren’s heart stutters, and he swallows back a “What?”

Luckily, Stronghold has less restraint. “What?” he says, like he wasn’t ogling another girl 0.2 seconds ago.

Zach looks at Stronghold like, Are you kidding? “Layla’s hot,” he says slowly. Magenta nods in agreement. “Chen, Robinson, and Feinstein are all thinking about asking.”

“And those are just the ones we’ve heard about,” Magenta says.

“Where are you guys getting this intel?” Ethan says. “We’re your only friends.”

“You can hear a lot from the inside of a locker,” Zach says.

“Or from the vents,” Magenta adds.

“Who’s still shoving you in a locker?” Layla says, frowning at Zach.

“Don’t deflect,” Magenta says. “Who are you going to take?”

“I don’t know,” Layla says, very pink and very determinedly acting like she’s not. “I didn’t know I had options until right now.”

Warren didn’t know he had competition until right now. In his defense, he deliberately pays as little attention as possible to rest of the Sky High student body, except for the five freshmen who invaded his space last fall and refused to leave. But of course other guys want to ask Layla.

Fuck.

“What about you, Bucky Barnes?” Zach says, throwing Warren an upward nod. “Got your eye on any hot junior goths we don’t know about?”

Warren scowls. “No.”

“Warren’s too cool for school dances,” Magenta says.

Stronghold frowns. “He took Layla to homecoming.”

“Only to make you jealous,” Layla is quick to correct.

Warren’s eyes snap over to her, but Layla isn’t looking at him. Just stabbing at her salad with her fork and letting her hair partially obscure her still pink cheeks.

An uncomfortable, sour feeling settles in Warren’s stomach. He makes himself look back at Zach. “I don’t do school dances. I have a thing anyway.”

“What thing?” Magenta says.

“A thing,” Warren says, with enough finality that even Zach knows better than to push it.

That is, until Stronghold corners Warren at his locker after final period to ask, “What thing do you have to do instead of Winter Formal?”

Warren continues loading books into his backpack. “A thing.”

Stronghold, in a bid for Warren’s full attention, shuts his locker door. As soon as Warren turns a glare on him, the kid goes bug-eyed.

“I am so sorry!” he says, reaching out to open the locker, only to remember that, duh, it’s Warren’s and he can’t. “I don’t know why I did that.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Warren must be spending too much time with Layla, because instead of picking Stronghold up by his shirt collar, he merely swats Stronghold’s hand away and unlocks his locker.

“It was only—I know someone who was hoping you’d ask them to Winter Formal,” Stronghold says, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Warren fixes Stronghold with a flat expression. “You’re not my type.”

For an aspiring superhero, Stronghold flusters extremely easily. “Wh—not me!” he says, and then leans in and lowers his voice. “You know.”

Warren, who is not in the business of getting his hopes up—no matter how many summersaults his stomach is doing—raises his eyebrows.

“Layla,” Stronghold murmurs, so low that Warren has to read his lips.

Summersaults, cartwheels, handsprings. Warren’s stomach is performing a full-on gymnastics routine. “Did she tell you that?”

“No,” Stronghold admits, and Warren’s stomach immediately flops. “But I am something of an expert on Layla Williams.”

Warren, who has an entire September’s worth of evidence to the contrary, makes a psh noise.

Stronghold squares his shoulders and ticks off on his fingers: “She hangs out at the Lantern all the time. She eats lunch with you, alone, every other day. The way she talks about you—”

“She talks about me?”

“Dude.” Stronghold lays a hand on Warren’s shoulder, looking so delighted with the irony that it takes everything in Warren not to ignite. “You’re so stupid. She’s totally into you.”

“Don’t touch me.”

“Right.” Stronghold’s hand immediately slides off. “Seriously, though. If you don’t ask Layla to the dance, someone else will.”

“Noted,” Warren says, like he isn’t already tying himself into knots over that exact possibility.

“You’re gonna ask her, then?”

Warren heaves a sigh. He can’t believe he’s about to confide in Will Stronghold, of all people, but at this juncture it seems like the path of least resistance. “I have tickets to something that night, and I want to ask Layla to go with me.”

Stronghold has the audacity to look innocently perplexed. “So, why haven’t you?”

“I’m, you know.” Warren pushes back his hair. “Waiting for the right time.”

Stronghold looks dubious. “It’s a date, not a prom-posal.”

“I know that,” Warren snaps.

Stronghold blinks, and something seems to click in his head. His expression goes slightly amused and, even worse, sympathetic. “You’re nervous.”

“I am not,” Warren says, but it sounds like a lie even to his own ears. “I’m just waiting for the right moment.”

“Okay, well.” Stronghold blows out a breath and puts his hands on his hips. “Any chance the right moment might be, like, today? Around now-ish?”

Warren narrows his eyes. “Why?”

“Because Magenta texted me five minutes ago that Andrew Chen is standing next to our bus, waiting for Layla.”

Warren’s heart lurches. “You should have led with that, Christ.” Guess he’s doing this now. Is he really doing this now? He has to, so he is. Warren slams his locker and swings his bag over his shoulder. “Where is Layla?”

“Magenta said she stayed after class to talk to Mr. Boy about—oh, okay, then. Bye! Good luck!” Stronghold calls after Warren’s retreating figure as he strides off down the hall.

Warren is so preoccupied with figuring out what he’s going to say to Layla when he finds her that he nearly runs into her as she exits Mr. Boy’s classroom.

“Warren,” she says, blinking up at him in surprise. “Hi.”

Warren, who suddenly feels like he’s stepped on stage with no lines prepared, takes a second to remember how to breathe before he gets out a “Hi.”

Layla stares up at him expectantly. Right. He’s supposed to say more words.

“I wanted to talk to you about something.”

A pucker forms between Layla’s eyebrows. “Sure. I actually wanted to talk to you, too.”

Warren clenches the tickets between sweat-damp fingers in his pocket. “Okay. Do you want to…” He jabs a thumb over his shoulder at the mostly empty hallway.

“Okay.”

Layla follows him out into the hall, and they stand in semi-awkward silence until Warren says, “You first.”

“All right.” Layla tucks her hair behind her ears. She already looks embarrassed. Not good. “So, I might be way off base here, but I get the feeling you’ve been working yourself up to asking me to Winter Formal?” Her voice lilts up like a question, but she must find all the confirmation she needs in Warren’s expression, because she immediately continues, “and I just wanted to make it clear that you don’t have to.”

When Warren opens his mouth, “Oh” is all that comes out.

“Yeah.” Layla hooks her thumbs through the straps of her backpack. “I know school dances aren’t really your thing—and they’re not exactly mine, either. So I didn’t want you to think homecoming set some sort of precedent, that you have to ask—”

“I wanted to ask you,” Warren says, finally unsticking his throat.

It’s Layla’s turn for surprised silence. It takes a full two seconds for her to get out, “You did?”

“Yeah, but—not to the dance. Here.” Warren pulls the tickets out of his pocket. His thumb has smudged the ink of the top ticket, so he hands the bottom one to Layla. “Town hall is holding a fundraiser gala next Saturday to raise money to build a park on an empty lot in my neighborhood.”

Layla takes the ticket in both hands and stares down at it.

“There’s going to be food and music and dancing,” Warren says, heart rate accelerating. “I think they’re going to auction off dedications for benches and flower beds and stuff. There will probably be a couple boring speeches by some government officials, but.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs. “I dunno. It sounded like it could be fun.”

Layla still hasn’t said anything, and Warren’s heart is throwing a fit in his ribcage, so he adds, “It’s the night of Winter Formal, though. So if you wanted to go to the dance with someone else and hang out with your friends, I totally—”

“No,” Layla says, looking up at him with bright eyes and a wide smile. “I’d love to go.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Warren says, too overcome by the cold flood of relief pooling in his gut to say anything more substantive than, “Cool.”

Layla carefully slots her gala ticket into the front pocket of her backpack. “Took you long enough,” she says, angling a teasing smile at Warren. “I couldn’t take another week of you opening your mouth like you were going to ask me something and then not saying anything.”

“Thank Stronghold,” Warren says, wondering what his life has come to, that those words just came out of his mouth. Must be the generosity of giddy relief.

Layla’s nose scrunches up in tickled confusion. “Why?”

“He warned me that Chen was gonna ask you to the dance this afternoon,” Warren says. “Sort of lit a fire under my ass.”

“But Andrew—” Layla breaks off with a laugh and shakes her head. “Will.”

“What?”

Layla takes Warren’s hand and starts walking them down the hall. “Andrew Chen’s been sick with the flu all week,” she says. “He’s not even here today.”

Warren’s mouth hangs open for a few seconds. “Stronghold.”

Layla laughs again and swipes her thumb across the back of Warren’s hand, and a great, soft warmth blooms in Warren’s chest.

Well. If he has to be indebted to Will Stronghold for something, this is as good a favor as Warren could have asked for.

Misconception No. 5: Warren Peace is not a touchy-feely person.

Warren himself would have sworn by this one, until a month ago. He has never, in all his life, considered himself a cuddly person. By any stretch.

It turns out that in order to identify as a cuddly person, you need someone to cuddle. Or, more specifically, someone you have permission to cuddle.

Dating Layla Williams finally gives Warren that permission.

He expected it to be harder, weirder, more awkward to transition from being someone who looks at Layla and thinks I want to put my arm around you, to being a person who can actually reach behind her back and curl his fingers over her hip bone.

It’s not hard at all. The first time Layla kisses Warren, up on her toes with her hands fisted in the lapels of his suit, in the dark of her front porch after the fundraiser gala, there’s a shift. A gravitational kick that sends them into closer orbit around one another, so that now it’s routine for Warren to wrap Layla in his jacket and tuck her into his side as they walk. Steal her hand to press her knuckles to his lips. Knock his knee gently against hers under their picnic table.

“Who knew Warren Peace was such a cuddle bug,” Magenta says, tipped back in a papasan chair to peer at Warren upside-down.

Warren is sitting on the shag carpet of Stronghold’s basement with his back against the couch to let Layla play with his hair while they talk over a movie. She’s just tied off an elaborate braid, so now his cheek is resting against her knee while she twirls the fine hairs at the nape of his neck around her fingers.

“Call me ‘cuddle bug’ ever again and I’ll roast you like a marshmallow,” Warren says, too sleepy and comfortable to put any real heat behind the threat.

Magenta, true to form, doesn’t so much as blink. “Hate to break it to you, but an elegant Dutch braid kind of undermines your whole tough-guy act.”

Warren simply shrugs. It’s an occupational hazard of dating Layla, spending a lot more time around her—their?—friends outside school. Warren resisted at first, but at this point, it’s more exhausting to continue holding them all at arm’s length than to let them have the run of his life.

“Layla, in general, kind of undermines his whole tough-guy act,” Zach says. “You know he wrote her a poem for Valentine’s day.”

“Read her a poem,” Warren says. What else was he supposed to do? He couldn’t very well get Layla clipped flowers.

“That’s still sappy as hell, dude,” Ethan says.

“It was very sweet,” Layla says, leaning forward to plant a kiss on Warren’s forehead.

Warren unsuccessfully tries to bite back a smile.

“He’s preening so hard right now, oh my god,” Magenta says.

“Shut up.”

“Don’t tease him, or he won’t come back,” Layla says, but Warren hears the smile in her voice.

“Please. He’d go anywhere you go,” Magenta says, and as Layla’s fingertip traces the shell of Warren’s ear gently, always gently, Warren doesn’t even attempt to contradict her.

+1 Misconception: Layla Williams is a just happy, go-lucky hippy chick.

Outside Layla’s bedroom window, everything green is tucked under snow and the weight of waiting for spring. On the other side of the world, everything is burning.

Record-setting wildfires have raked Australia for weeks. Neither Layla nor her mom can directly feel what’s happening to the outback. But Layla knows her mom must sense it like she does, every time a singed koala or graveyard of splinterlike tree trunks appears on the news: a gnawing sensation that something on the far edges of her mind is vanishing into smoke.

The worst part is knowing there’s nothing Layla can do. Even if she had the means to get to Australia, there’s no way to salvage the aftermath of a forest fire. Layla wields incredible power over living organisms. But it’s like conducting an orchestra. Not much to be done if the entire ensemble is already dead when she takes the stage.

Actually, the real worst part is knowing that the inferno currently eating up Australia isn’t an outlier. The warming world is parching landscapes and revving up hurricanes, and every weather-related threat to her beloved biosphere is only going to get much, much worse. It makes Layla feel horribly, inescapably small.

To avoid sitting around the house and chewing her nails down, Layla takes on more volunteer shifts at the animal shelter. Helps Magenta with outreach for the Shapeshifting Students Association. Spends a couple Saturdays with the local river cleanup volunteer crew. Cooks dinner on the nights her mom is actually home. Overstudies for an exam in Hero Support.

It’s all a good distraction, but at the price of exhaustion. Layla feels emotionally sore. Like she’s been doing the psychological equivalent of running springs.

Case in point: “Layla?”

Layla blinks herself out of her middle-space-stare at the picnic table. “Hmm?”

Warren frowns. “I said, are you coming to the Lantern tonight?”

“Oh, no,” Layla says, and winces her apology. “Will’s coming over to study for Hero Support.”

“Why? You’re gonna ace that thing.”

“I promised Will I’d help him review.”

Warren’s frown deepens.

“What?”

“You should take a break,” he says.

Layla hides a yawn behind one hand and waves the other dismissively. “I’m fine.”

Warren gives her a flat look. Most of his expressions are pretty flat, but Layla has gotten good at reading the subtleties. This one says, quit your bullshit.

“What?” she says.

“You—” Warren spends a couple seconds struggling to find the right words. “Your hair is in a ponytail.”

Layla replays that in her overtired mind, wondering whether she heard correctly. “Excuse me?”

“No sparkly clip things. No scrunchies. You didn’t even do the thing where you wrap a little piece of hair around the elastic to hide it,” Warren says, as though that clarifies anything. When Layla’s expression makes clear that it does not, Warren sighs. “Babe. You’re exhausted.”

“Am not,” Layla says, and feels totally betrayed by her own body when the words are stretched out by a yawn. “Coincidence,” she says, in response to Warren’s unimpressed eyebrow-raise.

“Layla.”

“It’s fine,” she insists.

“Take a break,” Warren says, more insistently. “Stronghold can survive cramming for one exam on his own. Let baby bird learn to fly.”

“He’ll drop like a rock,” Layla says mournfully.

“Probably,” Warren says. “But you don’t have to be there for everyone all the time.”

Layla studies her bitten nails. “It makes me feel better.”

Warren’s ever-warm hands take hold of Layla’s, making her look up. But whatever he has in mind to say is interrupted by the bell. Warren gives her fingers a brief squeeze before releasing them, so that they can collect their things.

“Tell Stronghold to find himself another tutor so you can have a night off,” Warren says, hooking an arm over Layla’s shoulders as they head for the front doors. “Please.”

Layla does not. Which is why, when she says “come in” to the soft knock on her bedroom door at eight o’clock, she expects Will. Instead, she gets Warren, hovering on the threshold with his usual carefully concealed uncertainty, like he’s a vampire who has to wait to be invited in.

“What are you doing here?” Layla says, sliding off her bed. “I thought you had work.”

“Got someone to cover my shift,” Warren says. He’s holding what looks like a magazine. “This was more important.”

“What is… this?” Layla says. “You know Will’s going to be here any minute.”

“No, he’s not,” Warren says. “He’s at Magenta’s”

Layla narrows her eyes. “What did you do?”

“Told him to go find another study partner,” Warren says. “Since you’re already prepared.”

Layla crosses her arms and sinks her weight into one hip. “I told you, I want to help.”

Warren adjusts his grip on the magazine. Layla hears the paper stick to the sweat on his fingertips, but his determined expression doesn’t change. “Then help me.”

Layla blinks. “With what?”

Warren holds up what turns out to be a gardening catalog. “I want to get my mom a couple of indoor plants for her birthday,” he says. “Something pretty but doesn’t require a lot of attention, because she’s gone so much. I thought maybe you could help.”

Layla stares at him. “I love shopping for potted plants,” she says slowly.

Warren exhales a short laugh. “Uh, yeah, I know. And you are a good teacher, so.”

He rolls the catalog up between his hands and looks at Layla with guarded hope that shoots a bolt of affection like heat lightning straight through her stomach. She needs to sit down.

“Come in, then,” she says, and ushers him through the door. While Warren is taking off his shoes, “Just so we’re clear, you are not going to make a habit of rearranging my schedule behind my back.”

Warren stands up straight, dead serious. “Got it.”

Layla indulges a smile and leans up to kiss him. “I’ll forgive you this time, though.”

They sit on Layla’s bed, flipping through Warren’s catalog, as well as a stack of magazines that Layla has pulled out from under her desk. Warren loops his arms around her waist and hooks his chin over her shoulder, listening intently while she explains the care and keeping of flowers. It’s comfortable and easy and requires just enough idle attention to avoid falling into a slump. Layla could do this forever, she thinks.

Not an hour later, Layla is lying with her chin propped on her hands, which are folded over Warren’s chest, struggling to keep up conversation through yawns of increasing frequency.

“You can go to bed, you know,” Warren says, dryly amused, and tucks a strand of hair that has fallen out of Layla’s loose ponytail behind her ear.

“I might fall asleep right here on top of you, if you keep talking about it,” Layla says, closing her eyes and pillowing her cheek on her hands.

She feels, rather than hears Warren’s hitched inhale, and suddenly feels more acutely awake than she has all week.

Three seconds pass before Warren murmurs, “You can. If you want.”

Layla very carefully keeps her body relaxed and does not open her eyes to avoid breaking the fragile moment. “Mmm-kay,” she says, and adjusts to find a slightly more comfortable position. “Goodnight.”

“Night,” Warren says, one hand splayed between her shoulder blades, his other thumb smoothing the hair back at her temple.

Layla is so keenly aware of every point of contact that she thinks she might stay awake after all. But within minutes, the soft touch pulls her down into sleep.

#layla williams #warren peace #sky high #my 11-year-old self would be proud #first het fic ever #but i caught feelings writing this and guess now i ship ForestFire #i think it got angstier than your original adorable prompt intended but #what else is new #apologies for the climate change existential crisis that popped up at the end there #i might have been projecting

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despressolattes · 4 years

Text

AFTERMATH | CHARACTER FILES

book masterlist » book one masterlist

< previous chapter

I wanted to take a quick break just to reevaluate the character files, from Lilah's point of view. ——————

LILAH RAE MIKAELSON

I. BACKGROUND & BEHAVIOR OBSERVATIONS

Lilah is an ancient vampire who never got the chance to be a kid, and may be the most messed up of all of the troubled kids at the Salvatore School. From the start, she was living a life someone else chose for her: living with Dahlia because of a choice her grandmother Esther made, living the life of a vampire because of a choice Dahlia made for her.

The only choice she made for herself was to keep her family just beyond reach once she got free, and she grew into the habit of being a side character in her own life. With the aftermath of her father, her uncle, and her cousin's mom's deaths, she has started lashing out in anger, slacking on her studies. She has a history of being a ripper, but has been under control for over 500 years. Unfortunately, from the world she was thrown into, Lilah believes it is her job to make everyone else happy before herself.

II. CLINICAL DIAGNOSES

CHILD OF A MIKAELSON — Lilah learned that certain personality traits and behaviors came directly from her bloodline, ill-tempered, stubborn, and unconditionally loyal.

SAVIOR COMPLEX — She believes it is up to her to protect everyone else, even at the expense of her own happiness.

ABANDONMENT ISSUES — With the life she lived, she is scared every new person she meets will leave her one way or another: physically or by death.

DADDY ISSUES — While she refuses to acknowledge it, her everlasting love for her father has caused her to push away a lot of her relationships, including at one point, Hope, and currently, Roman Sienna.

III. LONG TERM RECOMMENDATIONS

Lilah needs to realize that her savior complex needs to be directed inward, and understand that she can't save everyone, but she can save herself.

HOPE ANDREA MIKAELSON

I. BACKGROUND & BEHAVIOR OBSERVATIONS

Hope Mikaelson may be the most unique of them all. She has grown up knowing she is the mythical tri-brid: part witch, part werewolf, and part vampire - a melage of supernatural lineasges once thought impossible.

Hope used to be unable to forge meaningful connections with the other students besides her cousin, Lilah, but has since formed close friendships with Rafael Waithe, Josie Saltzman, Milton Greasley, and Kaleb Hawkins; she has formed a frenemy relationship with Lizzie Saltzman; and she has found herself a boyfriend in Landon Kirby.

Due to her often disastrous past, she resigned herself to isolation for so long, and has slowly came out of that cave she concealed herself into. She considered it a path would would provide the least heartbreak, but has since decided she was wrong.

II. CLINICAL DIAGNOSES

PTSD — Hope suffers from bouts of what she describes as an "inner darkness." She believes this to be a side effect of her childhood possession by the villainous Hollow, but these episodes are just as likely to have been caused by the severe and repeated psychological traumas she has experienced.

DADDY ISSUES — As the child of Klaus Mikaelson, a man who many call 'evil', Hope will have to battle her fear of becoming her father, while holding fast to her love for him and the values he instilled in her: bravery, conviction, perseverance, and loyalty.

III. LONG TERM RECOMMENDATIONS

While she is getting better on the isolation side and the anger issues, Hope has a long way to go. She thinks she knows what is best for people because of her own hurt, and makes decisions that can often hurt people more than help. She has to learn to let people make their own decisions for themselves. Her fear of getting hurt is projected onto them, and she wants to protect them from the pain she feels herself.

Despite her past, she is a powerful young student with great potential. She also expressed the belief that her existence is some sort of "cosmic mistake." Surrendering to this mindset would mean buckling under the burner of her family legacy, and could lead Hope down a dark and uncharted path. As the tri-brid, Hope has the power to change the world, but she must first accept that she has not only the potential, but the willingness to become the hero she was born to be.

ROMAN SIENNA

I. BACKGROUND & BEHAVIOR OBSERVATIONS

Roman's past dates back decades. His story with the Mikaelsons started when Klaus Mikaelson pities his adopted mother, adopted sister, and himself after killing his adopted father. He lives in consent regret for his help in the death of Hayley Marshall, and loves Lilah Mikaelson fiercely. He tended to sit around quietly during Lilah's fits of isolation, believing that her distance may be a result of a mistrust he put into their relationship when he helped his mother, unknowingly, hurt her family. He is a listening ear for both Lilah and at times Hope, and wants to give back to Alaric, who took him in even after his wrongdoings.

II. CLINICAL DIAGNOSES

PTSD — After his father's death and being saved by his adopted mother, he felt indebted to her. He listened to anything she wanted, believing everything she did was good. This lead him down his path of mistakes.

CLASSIC CODEPENDENT — He relied on his adopted mother for acceptance, blindly trusting in her. He also relied on Lilah afterwards, seeking her love as a way to cope with how bad he felt with his mistakes.

III. LONG TERM RECOMMENDATIONS

He has left the Salvatore School to do independent recruiting, which may do him some good. Without being dependent on Lilah to feel less guilty, he may be able to forgive him for the mistakes he made, and also forgive the deceased Klaus Mikaelson for the harm he caused him as a young vampire.

LANDON KIRBY

I. BACKGROUND & BEHAVIOR OBSERVATIONS

He bounced between foster home to foster home. He has intelligence, loyalty, resilience, thoughtfulness, and charm. He has learned to subsist, on his own, by any means. With the best of intentions, he relies on deception as a defense mechanism to protect himself and those he cares about the most. He seems always on guard, especially since he never felt like he fit in at any of the schools he was at.

II. CLINICAL DIAGNOSES

RESILIENT RESPONSE TO TRAUMA — self explanatory

FEAR OF BEING ORDINARY — self explanatory

III. LONG TERM RECOMMENDATIONS

Landon's problems with honesty may continue to affect future relationships and connections with people. With a consistent home and counseling, he may be able to make a huge emotional recovery.

RAFAEL WAITHE

I. BACKGROUND & BEHAVIOR OBSERVATIONS

Rafael is a charminy, charismatic boy, who is extremely loyal to Landon for sticking around during the hardest moments of his life. While driving, he took a turn too fast, causing the death of his girlfriend at that time, and unlocking his werewolf gene. Rafael's time in foster care resulted in a traumatic childhood and anger issues that he is trying to keep under control. He seems to not be able to talk about his own feelings, and acts rationally.

II. CLINICAL DIAGNOSES

SAVIOR COMPLEX — Rafael thinks its his job to stick by Landon at all costs, making sure his foster brother is happy and safe, often times putting himself in danger or hindering his chances at being happy (like the time he left the Salvatore School because they wouldn't keep Landon).

III. LONG TERM RECOMMENDATIONS

His determination to live by the truth causes him to risk heartbreak when he realizes that the standards he has in people in his life cannot be lived up to in a world of supernatural. His feelings can become dangerous as he lacks the ability to act upon them, and can leave him reckless. If he doesn't work on conquering his inner demons and continues to conceal them under the mindset that he has to protect those around him, it'll end him hurting himself with the risk of him losing control of his violent tendencies.

ELIZABETH "LIZZIE" SALTZMAN

I. BACKGROUND & BEHAVIOR OBSERVATIONS

She has some psychology issues that she is aware of, and is attempting to fix. She doesn't want to hurt anyone, but has trouble controlling her inner voice from becoming her outer voice. She has a sinister lineage and a questionable biology, and posses the power to cause great harm. She has mood swings, can be self-absorbed, and over-possessive, even over things that are not in her possession. She is attached to the superficial and has trouble controlling her breakdowns.

II. CLINICAL DIAGNOSES

CHRONIC LOW SELF ESTEEM

SUPERIORITY COMPLEX — she masks her insecurity by pretending to be better than everyone else around her

BIPOLAR DISORDER — her highs are portrayed in ruthless narcissism, but her lows are violent outbursts that can hurt someone, herself or anyone else, if not contained properly

CONTROL ISSUES — she turns it into her job to create something picture perfect out of herself and those around her, always trying to manipulate the situation in her own way.

III. LONG TERM RECOMMENDATIONS

She has to address her image-control issues and accept help for her mental disorder. Otherwise, she will continue down the path she is on, pushing those that she wants to hold onto away.

JOSETTE "JOSIE" SALTZMAN

I. BACKGROUND & BEHAVIOR OBSERVATIONS

She is supposed to be the level headed of the twins, always taking care of Lizzie. She takes after her biological mother and her father more than her birth-mother, Caroline. She lives in the shadows of her sister in attempt to try to protect her sister from herself. She is quick to protect Lizzie, and always puts herself first.

II. CLINICAL DIAGNOSES

CLASSIC CODEPENDENT — She puts everyone else's needs before her own, sublimating her own problems to always be ready to help her sister's inner conflicts.

ABANDONMENT ISSUES — Loss of her biological mom, absentee birth mom, and a father who has divided attention.

FAMILY HISTORY OF PSYCHOSIS

III. LONG TERM RECOMMENDATIONS

She needs to learn to stand on her own, without internalizing her own needs and ignoring them. To live a life that doesn't drain her, she needs to step out of the shadows and not be dependent on being her sister's source of calm.

MILTON GREASLEY

I. BACKGROUND & BEHAVIOR OBSERVATIONS

Lilah doesn't know him well enough to know

II. CLINICAL DIAGNOSES

Lilah doesn't know him well enough to know

III. LONG TERM RECOMMENDATIONS

Lilah doesn't know him well enough to know

ALARIC SALTZMAN

I. BACKGROUND & BEHAVIOR OBSERVATIONS

The man who loves the kids he works to protect. He is a father figure to many, providing a safe haven for kids who aren't always safe. His divided attention causes rifts between the two girls he fathered, and the other two who look to him as a father.

II. CLINICAL DIAGNOSES

PROJECTION — the trauma of his past with the supernatural causes him to want to protect the students from it, not allowing them to learn certain things about the world.

GUILT — he is haunted by the legacy of the people he couldn't save, and the sacrifices he had to make along the way to safeguard his school and his children, fearing that the choices will either get the school exposed, or make him lose his children's trust.

III. LONG TERM RECOMMENDATIONS

If he continued to maintain the school alone, he will quickly be in over his head. In the face of increasingly dangerous situations, he must be careful not to keep the secrets from his daughters, and has to be better at dividing his attention from his daughters.

ARIANELLE VICTORIA "N/A"

I. BACKGROUND & BEHAVIOR OBSERVATIONS

she's a mystery

II. CLINICAL DIAGNOSES

still a mystery

III. LONG TERM RECOMMENDATIONS

to be updated as Lilah learns about her

——

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

#legacies #legacies cw #cw legacies #legacies imagines #legacies fanfiction #the originals fanfiction #the originals imagines #hope mikaelson #hope mikaelson fanfiction #mikaelson daughter #mikaelson children #mikaelson next generation

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theholycovenantrpg · 3 years

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In the beginning was JASPER RICHE, a RESURRECTED loyal to the cause of the MORTALS. He is said to be THIRTY TWO and uses HE/HIM pronouns. In this New Testament he serves as a MEMBER of the ROUND TABLE and is the REINCARNATION OF CAIN. Blessed be his name.

THE INDELIBLE MARK.

Some men are born to greatness, their names written out in gold, while others are only the makers of it—Jasper Riche is a peculiar combination of the two. Born to an extraordinary legacy, the Riche name at once attracts glowing awe and wrenching fear: his ancestors proudly vaunted the fact that they were responsible for the fall of the Heretics to the angelic and demonic armies, but Jasper’s father bolstered this heritage to heights grander still, attracting an impressive reputation for glory and absolute authority. Nevertheless, Jasper treads the path of politics and diplomacy: highly regarded as a member of the Round Table, he is renowned for his unorthodox overtures, offering counsel which is often greeted by wary reception. Unlike his half-brother, a fairly elected public figure, Jasper is strangely unnerving and almost otherworldly: though there are many who admire his private nature and quiet intelligence, others find his intensity slightly bizarre. Under the curtain of night, Jasper secretly examines and experiments on stolen cadavers which were once inhabited by the hungering Daemonium, ravenous and unpredictable manifestations of evil. While his investigations have certainly yielded some insight, Jasper has yet to uncover the mystery of divinity which lingers beneath. He is widely regarded as something of a visionary and he bears a strange mark on his inner forearm: the mark of Cain.

THE HISTORY.

No father deserved the admiration of his child so absolutely as Jasper Riche’s did his. With his heart fastened into the lacuna at the handle of his sword, his father was the sort of man who owned the means to have the whole world set in silver should he wish it so. He was not said to be a particularly cruel man, but a certain wealth inevitably bred a certain sort of person, and thus what his marauding eyes fell upon he would always have, plucking the stars from the cosmos and pulling them greedily to his mouth. Jasper was not quite his mirror image, but rather his finishing polish. With a conquest that felt almost Alexandrian, the father’s aspirations spotlighted the things that he could hold in his hands, the flash of iridium seizing the sun’s gaze, but the son was something of a visionary, a maverick, far more interested in the hidden powers lingering behind the thing that the actual thing itself. Even as a boy, the world was a strange divination that he sought to apprehend. Of his mother he preserved only the faint outline of her, the memory of her ghost stolen from them before Jasper had lived a year—and then, it was just the two of them. For some, being born the natural inheritor of so prosperous a birthright felt more cruelty than kindness, but Jasper never felt the bruise of its burden. Instead, he felt strangely powerful—primordial, even, though when he suggested to his nurse as much, she would only cup his cheek and remind him that such a thing was surely impossible.

While Jasper’s father prided himself on the distinction of his natural heir, the existence of another child brandishing the Riche name arranged itself faintly around the boy. To Jasper’s mind, the mark Luca left behind was indelible. The child had some success in stealing his father’s attention away, but it never stuck; the man always returned to his golden scion. Jasper’s father taught him how to wield a tongue as capably as a sword, how to win men’s trust and how to know when to break it—the boy would never be the conqueror that his father was, far more comfortable under the glow of the moon than the rays of the sun, but he never failed to achieve his admiration. And yet, for all his power and prestige, in spite of the many raids of plunder the man undertook, laying waste to territories that would soon fall beneath his thumb, Jasper’s father was not invincible. Indeed, like all mortals, he was only flesh and bone. Only twelve years old and both his parents stolen from him, Jasper was forced into the arms of a brother he had spent much of his adolescence resenting the existence of; the grand promise of his inheritance tugged behind him like a thread picked loose at the end of his sleeve. Jasper’s father had been generous enough to bestow upon Luca their ancestral name, and if that wasn’t enough to draw Jasper’s ire, he certainly never hesitated to conjure up new reasons for his dislike. His new mother was not particularly kind to him, though he conceded that was to be expected—how could he hope to receive her love, when she had only held his father’s interest for a moment, and he might have had a lifetime of it?

Though he scarcely gave his new family a kind thought in passing, Jasper felt his loneliness spout from inside him—a prodigious sickness spreading from a dark pomegranate seed. He had no desire to be coddled in the woman’s arms as she did with her real son, swaddled in a blanket of gentle commendations and compliments, but he recoiled nastily at the way her face twisted into something cold as she begrudgingly ladled soup into his bowl. She was not a terribly unpleasant woman, but she had decided not to love him, and Jasper had decided to return the favour. Luca, meanwhile, was a thorn in his side. Where his brother was always pursued by a sickly throng of smiles, Jasper was more comfortable curled up on a ledge in the dark, his thumbs leafing through pages of science and religion; secrets and lies. Though he read extensively on the topics of philosophy and theology, he committed himself to his physical training, as his father once did—and all the while, there was his brother, clinging to him as if he was his own shadow. Even as they sparred in the courtyard, a song of silver ringing out in the air, Jasper created a prison around himself. He was a natural soldier, but each time he swung his sword he learned how he preferred his books to weaponry; he chose philosophy over conquest; Jasper discovered he cared not for the glory of battle, as his father had, but for the secret of divinity that arranged itself around old bones. Tales of rebirth and new discovery sewed themselves to his lips, and he chose to unravel them.

When he finally came of age, Jasper Riche wielded his birthright like a sharpened blade, setting forth for the Holy Land with only inky scribbles and his prodigious wealth to keep him company. Leafing through ancient pages and worn texts, wandering curiously through tales of science and vespers, one question had settled itself on his shoulders as he grew older. If his father was the sort of man who should have been invincible, why wasn’t he? In the Holy Land, immortality grew from every spout: angels and demons glowed with their heredity, but humans grew old like foetid fruit—Jasper sought to test that. His new cornucopia was nothing short of a wonder: he purchased himself a seat on the Round Table, and Jasper began to indulge his curiosities in secret. When the light caught his jaw, he seemed a regular diplomat, shadows coiling themselves behind his slick grin, but at night he slipped behind invisible and impenetrable doors, embracing a crude imitation of divinity. At first, all he could get his hands on were old cadavers, once inhabited by the empty bellies of the Daemonium, but as he dug away, he began to understand the godhood that lingered beneath the flesh. Jasper began to marvel: was divinity really theology? Or merely alchemy? If only he might get his hands on something more worthwhile, perhaps then Jasper could answer his prayer. As God might have done once.

THE CONNECTIONS.

LUCA RICHE: Half Brother. One is the sun and the other is the moon—the two couldn’t be more different if they’d tried. Though Jasper had once held his father’s pride in his palm like a breakable jewel, Luca has always outshone him. Without giving off any light of his own, he must resort to feeding on it. From the first moment, Luca had opened up his arms in hope of a brotherly embrace, but Jasper had walked indifferently past them; something poisonous still rests on the tip of his tongue, just as it always has. In some ways, he suspects that his brother is the son his father had always had in mind: a soldier, a leader, effortlessly commanding followers—and yet, his father’s raw authority eluded him, his fierce violence escaped him, lacking all severity. With nothing but his brother’s love left to him, Jasper had fled to the Holy Land, abandoning Luca to his longing. Yet, though the cord was cut, Fate would stitch it back together. Fate, as cruel as she is compassionate, would sit them opposite each other at the Round Table. Jasper goes on resisting Luca’s attempts at bridging the gap, cutting the rope before it touches the other side, but there is something curiously indivisible about their relationship that he cannot ignore. It is as if the universe insists on pulling them together—in spite of his wishes.

AZAZEL: Intrigue. She is, simply put, an enchantress; a vision cut from dark dreams—and though he is not alone in such belief, he refuses to indulge her by telling her that. She is, after all, a creature who has always received exactly what she wants. He scoffs spitefully as he watches the masses fall devotedly at her feet, and yet her Hellhounds guard her so intimately that, even when her worshippers reach out to her and she takes them luxuriously in her arms, they still come away with nothing. As if a ghost, she is always out of reach. Azazel has sat on her infernal-given throne for decades now, the Temples filled with her bewitching glow, and even still nobody quite knows what she is. None have delved their hands between her ribs and survived to tell the tale—the Moon has become a riddle Jasper is not afraid of unravelling. His strategy is this: all fall at her feet without her ever having to ask for it, but what does one do when there is one who protests? When there is one who refuses to bow? He has done precisely this, and he appears to have succeeded. Azazel’s interest has been piqued, pulled toward him by something more than curiosity. His scheme looks to be working.

CADE BEKKER: Best Friend. Jasper refused to accept the brother that life had given him; but then, he thought—why not find another? In the beginning, Cade had been nothing more to him than a slice of intrigue, yet another mortal who had survived the Blood Plague. He was at once a soldier and a reckoning, a friend of the people and an undisputed king; he hoped to unpick the secret of divinity beneath. Now, though, he means far more. One might not think it, but brotherhood has always been a necessity to Jasper. Seeking understanding above all things, he has always longed to be seen, to be believed in like religion, to feel a gaze on him and know he is recognised. Luca had never understood that, but his real brother, his true brother, had never faltered. The two are an indivisible unit and, hand-in-glove, and the world only watches as they rule it. Cade has unlocked something in Jasper that he has never yielded freely: the truth. He is the only one who has seen the parts he buries deep beneath, the only person who has been permitted into his subterranean world—and, a brother tried and true, he plays his part, supplying Jasper with hair, blood; anything that might help in his research. Together, perhaps they can reveal the trick of divinity. Perhaps they can make it chemistry.

ARIANNE ALTIER: Looking Glass. They’ve been family for as long as he cares to remember, but theirs is a family that is nothing if not unconventional. Where Luca had Romilda, his North Star, his bright light, so had Jasper set his sights on Arianne—though, perhaps it was more accurate to say that she’d set her sights upon him. In her, he sees a sliver of himself; this is at once a source of infinite joy for him, and infinite irritation. Their closeness is not something either of them had ever selected for themselves; it felt oddly preordained. Jasper is one of the few people immune to Arianne’s charms and wiles—he has learned her every wink and sigh, swallowing all her tricks. He chews them up and spittles them back out at her feet. She sees no fault in him that she doesn’t already own, she can pinpoint no weakness of his that isn’t also hers, and Jasper delights in reminding her of the fact. And yet, for all their antagonism, for all their jeering and hassle and competition, they find comfort in one another. They are, after all, a constant reminder that neither one of them are alone. Nevertheless, he has his claws in her, and she in him—they are always only one itch away from pulling each other to pieces.

Jasper is portrayed by Theo James and was written by CAS. He is currently TAKEN by HAILEY.

#original rp #literate rp #fantasy rp #biblical rp #lsrpg #m #r #jasper riche #cm #c

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star-linedsoul · 4 years

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Happy Birthday, Erica Winchester!

Born June 17, 2016, my Supernatural OC Erica would be four years old today!

So, I thought I’d share a moodboard featuring the father-daughter relationship between Dean & Erica and was inspired to write a passage centered around the special day, which can be found beneath the Read More due to length.

It includes Daddy!Dean, fluff, & a cameo from the Colonel (because Sam & Dean should have kept him and you CANNOT change my mind!)!!!

This was written all in one sitting and given only a moderate proofread, so any mistakes are mine to be ashamed of later. 😅

I hope y’all enjoy!

As always, my ask box is open for questions or requests to be added to a taglist for Legacy!

Taglist: @wordspin-shares

This is perfection.

An open highway stretched between rolling pastures, the asphalt shimmering in the heat of the mid-June sun. A black Impala cruised over the blacktop, its rumbling engine accentuating the guitars wailing from the radio speakers as Dean Winchester drummed on the steering wheel in sync with the bass line. Sam Winchester was not reclined in the passenger seat, however. The car wasn’t cruising along a highway somewhere on the far side of the country, making its way toward a town in the midst of being terrorized by one of the many creatures that went bump in the night. So what gave Dean the idea that this casual drive through the farmlands of northern Kansas was the epitome of idealism?

He looked up at the rearview mirror with a grin. A baby-faced girl with curly blonde pigtails sat in the backseat, secure in a purple, high-backed booster. She kicked her feet in time with the rhythm of the music, weaving her head side to side as she babbled her own made-up lyrics from a mouth stained snow-cone blue while her hands were busy gently stroking the ears of the aged German Shepherd with its head in her lap.

“Erica Jo!” Bright green eyes immediately met their match in the rearview mirror as Dean called the girl’s attention. “What is today?”

She grinned, her teeth as stained as her lips. “My birthday!”

“And how old are you today?”

“Four!” she squealed, raising one hand as she turned her thumb in to display the appropriate number of fingers.

“That’s right!” Dean confirmed, hitting his brakes and his blinker simultaneously as the pastures on either side of the road were replaced with lines of business-fronts. “And do you know what that means?”

“We’re having a party!” Her attitude was infectious as she clapped her hands in delight.

Dean felt his own grin grow into a full smile as he turned onto a street lined with modest houses, seeking out a familiar blue two-story with a wide front porch that already had several cars parked in front. As he wheeled into the driveway, he spotted his brother standing in front of the garage, already lifting the door so that the Impala could be parked inside. Erica was unbuckling the car seat before Dean could shift into park.

“Uncle Sam!” The birthday girl threw herself from the car as he opened the door, giggling as she was swooped into long arms and lifted high in the air.

“There’s my favorite niece! Happy birthday, kiddo!” Sam brought Erica down and rested her on one hip, stepping away from the car to give Dean room to get out. “Perfect timing, man. We’ve got all of the decorations up and I’ve got the grill ready for you.”

“Hey, I’m just glad I got the easy job!” the elder Winchester returned. “Keeping the birthday girl occupied for the afternoon was cake. We had fun, didn’t we, Slugger?”

Erica grinned and nodded. “Are we gonna have cake now?”

“Soon,” Dean promised. He then looked around at the cars lining the driveway and the street. “It looks like just about everyone made it.”

“Almost,” Sam agreed. “We’re waiting on…never mind.”

The brothers watched as a yellow Gremlin turned the corner and slowed to a stop at the curb in front of the house. Sam suddenly found himself in possession of a particularly wiggly four-year-old who took off for the car as soon as he returned her to the ground.

“An’ Carlee!” Erica cried as she raced across the front yard as fast as her legs would carry her.

The redhead who had climbed from the driver’s seat of the car quickly crouched down to catch the little girl in a hug. “Hey! How’s my favorite Winchester?”

“What’s up, bi—best friends?” Charlie greeted the brothers as she walked across the lawn hand-in-hand with Erica, quickly correcting herself as she side-eyed the birthday girl.

Dean was grateful. Erica was in that stage where she was a sponge for new words or phrases, and he & her mother had already had the trouble of explaining why she couldn’t call her little brother a “son of a bitch” when he took her toys. It had not been an enjoyable experience, nor had the lecture he had received afterward about watching his mouth around the kids.

“Hi, Charlie,” Sam said, pulling the redhead in for a warm hug.

Dean crossed his arms over his chest with a mock pout. “I thought I was your favorite Winchester.”

“That was the past,” Charlie returned with a melodramatic sigh. “I’m ‘An Carlee’ now. The times have changed.” She dropped the act for a wide grin, joining Dean in a tight embrace before holding up a Star Wars-themed gift bag. “So where does this need to go?”

Dean quickly ushered everyone into the house, sending Charlie and his brother on to join the rest of their guests while he steered Erica into the kitchen. There, they found the most beautiful woman in the world arranging food trays.

“Mommy!” Erica cried, surging forward to wrap her arms around Cameron at the legs.

The blonde smiled as she stopped her work and wiped her hands on a towel before returning Erica’s embrace. “Hey! I thought that was you guys I heard…did you and Daddy have fun today?”

Dean could feel himself smiling like an idiot as he watched the exchange between two of the people most dear to him as Erica gushed about their afternoon of fishing, snow-cones, and the park while Cameron listened with rapt attention on their daughter. He still didn’t know how he had gotten so lucky.

He had thought the evening plans might be derailed when Erica protested changing into the dress Cameron had picked out for the princess-themed party, but Cameron had quickly cut off the threatened tantrum before it could begin, waiting for the strong-willed little girl to disappear up the stairs before looking at Dean and releasing a long-suffering sigh.

“Don’t look at me!” Dean said, holding his hands up in surrender as he leaned against the counter. “She gets her stubbornness from you.”

“In your dreams,” Cameron returned with a scoff as she approached him, cupping his face in her hands and looking him dead in the eye. “That is one hundred percent pure Winchester, my love. God help us when she’s sixteen.”

Dean smiled down at the woman who had so readily built the home he had always wanted but never felt he deserved. “Aren’t we lucky?”

“Every day we’re breathing,” Cameron returned easily, offering a wide smile of her own before pressing her lips against his.

Before Dean could consider taking her captive and sneaking away from their own daughter’s birthday party, Cameron had pulled away and was disappearing upstairs with the order to start the grill before their hungry guests began to mutiny.

The evening passed in a blur of laughs and smiles shared between the gathered crowd of family and friends-that-had-become-family. Erica had been quick to grab the spotlight once she joined the guest in her princess dress and crown—though Dean was quick to notice she was in sneakers rather than the glittery sandals Cameron had painstakingly picked out. They had learned there were some battles that simply weren’t worth fighting. The guest of honor danced between the throng, accepting their birthday wishes with the charismatic enthusiasm reserved for happy children. Dean was happy to fade into the background and let her shine. He retreated to a corner of the yard, sharing a beer with Sam and relishing in this moment he had rarely dared to imagine in the days when his life had been focused around the darkest corners of the world.

“Did you ever think we’d be here?” He ventured aloud, trusting his brother to know what he meant.

“I’d hoped we would,” Sam returned. “Even when we were at our worst, I hoped we’d find a way back.”

“And we did. We made it, Sammy. We’re home.”

Sam clinked the neck of his beer bottle against Dean’s. “Yeah. We are home.”

The soft rushing of little feet through the grass alerted the brothers to the fact that they were no longer alone. In the same motion, they shifted and crouched, catching the two girls recklessly charging forward and swinging them up in the air.

“Just what do you two think you’re doing?” Sam demanded, lightly shaking the girl in his grip. His daughter dissolved into a fit of giggles, so he looked to his brother. “Uh-oh. Mine seems to be broken. Can you get any information out of yours?”

“Mama says it’s time for cake!” Erica reported immediately, unafraid where she hung slack in her father’s grip just over his head.

“Cake? We don’t have any cake over here, do we Sammy?”

“Nope. Just raspberries!” Sam blew against little Mary’s cheek, making her shriek and laugh.

Erica groaned, kicking her legs as Dean still held her in the air. “No! You gotta light the candles!”

“Oh! Well, why didn’t you say so?” Dean swung her back down to the ground as Sam did the same with his daughter. Taking the pair by the hands, their moment clearly over, the brothers returned to the party.

Dean lit the four candles of the birthday cake as everyone gathered their phones and cameras. Stepping back beside Cameron as the singing began, he watched the shadows dancing across Erica’s excited face in the candlelight. She screwed her eyes shut as she made her wish. Dean relished in the knowledge that he’d been able to give her a life where she was able to make the normal wish a four-year-old made over their birthday candles: a pony, a house made of candy, or a trip to the moon.

This was perfect.

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multifacetecl-archive · 3 years

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@hereticlord has reported : 💋 — FOUR TIMES MY MUSE THOUGHT ABOUT KISSING YOURS AND THE ONE TIME THEY ACTUALLY DID . / OPEN .

001 .

“I’m mad at you,” Apple said with a small huff, eyes narrowing at him as fingers worked on wrapping the bandages around his injured arm. They were sitting in the grass, or rather, he was while she sat on a fallen tree to give her a slight height advantage to make her work easier. “That was careless, and stupid, and just because—” A deflated sigh escaped her then, knowing she was wasting her breath; he won’t change. This will be part of his life. And she didn’t want him to change. She just worried. A lot. It was simply in her nature to do so.

He teases her, as he often does, and Apple finds it is hard to stay mad at him. No, she didn’t want him to change. Never. She accepted him, every part of him, even the parts that make her twist with anxiety. “Come here,” she chides, hands catching his face and tilting his head up to face her. Her eyes scan his features, gauging the damages done; a small bruise against his cheek, something she can easily tend to. A few cuts here and there, but they’re not too bad.

Her eyes fall on the split of his lip, and she tutted her tongue. Except, her eyes linger longer than she intended to, and she felt her cheeks burn red when he catches her.

“Try to go a few days before I see you as a patient again, will you?” She said, pushing him away playfully.

002.

Apple absolutely loathes unnecessary violence, which was what made their relationship — whatever it was — rather ironic. While she lived a pacifist lifestyle, to the best of her ability anyways, he had chaos and the urge for battle coursing through his veins; she can’t figure out if it was simply because he loved the adrenaline, or if it was something deeper than that. But she kept her comments to herself, unless it was violence done in her name.

Though, admittedly, Childe had plenty of reasons to worry — how many treasure hunter camps has she walked into, throwing herself in danger, for the act of healing. Knowing that they can just as easily hurt her as easily as she trusted them.

“Childe, I can’t breathe,” Apple protests, arms held out at her side before fingers moved to his shoulders and she shoved gently at him. He was holding her so tight, it was almost as if he was afraid. The idea of anyone worrying about her well being was beyond her, which was so hard to believe, given how beloved the traveling doctor was to most. But she comes from a place where . . . People hated her for the reasons the people of Liyue adored her. And it was the opinions of home that leaves her damaged.

He finally releases her, ruffles her hair, and she pulls back and looks up at him. Heart hammering in her chest, she smiled at him, catching his hand and holding it to her chest. “Let’s get out of here, okay?”

003.

She never forgot the way Childe held her that day at the domain. The color of his aura when he found her, bound, amongst a bunch of hoarders despite her pure intentions of helping them. That was simply in her nature, it was her legacy. Her dying right. The history of her people has taught her that she was nothing but fodder to the Gods. A being meant to sacrifice themselves to the beasts that once terrorized Teyvat and bring peace to their slumbers so the people of the world can have one less catastrophe to behold.

Bone Witches were made with despair, revenge, and self-sacrifice. She was made by the woes of her fallen sisters, centuries in the past, to uphold their heavy burden once more. Sometimes she dreams of a woman from centuries ago, crying over her, pitying her poor great granddaughter whom she tried to save from her same fate.

Apple never learned the meaning of self-preservation until that day. It never, ever, ever occurred to her that she was seen as someone cherished and precious. Cared for enough that they would cling to her in such a way. Sure, anyone else would have saved her, but it was a matter of morals, not affection.

Pacifistic ideations aside, there’s a small sense of pride at the look of shock that comes from the archer. Electro sparks and hops off of her blade, the hirichurl that had charged at her sent flying into the cliffside. She will fight, rather than accept her fate. Rather than fear and wonder if she will one day meet Death like she has not been tempting him and silently hoping to be relieved from her responsibilities.

She had forgotten the rush of adrenaline when her metal sings with every strike of sword. When they’re done, the electro swordswoman practically throws herself at him. “Did you see me? Bet you never thought I can do that, huh?” She sing-songed, arms wrapped around his neck. She pulls back, and their faces are inches apart.

She’s forgotten what it looks like to have someone proud of her.

004.

“Did . . . Did you see . .. ?”

Apple’s voice wavered, and it was clear that she was fighting back the tears that threatened to pool in her coppery gaze. Her back was turned to him, shoulders stiff and raised as if she was trying to recoil into herself, like a turtle in its shell. It was a stupid question, of course he did. Why else would he be here? Have followed her? Most people here were good at minding their own business, even when something like that happens for everyone to see.

“Stay away from him, you — you monster! I thought we saw the last of you! You’ll curse us, you should have joined your sisters!” The words spoken from the woman from her home village stung more than the slap across her cheek and the soreness of her back from when she was shoved into the moat of water. She had thought the little, lost boy she was helping looked familiar. She could tell by his clothes that he was of Inazuma origins, but she didn’t think that he was the grandson of one of the elders of her village that had, almost literally, chased her out of her own home.

Not that would have stopped her. Knowing it’d end up like this, she would never leave a boy to wander by himself through Liyue harbors, with its maze like design.

Turning to face Childe, the sight before him was absolutely heart breaking. Her lips were curved in their usual smile, still filled with warmth and care and love. But she was crying. Tears flowed from her eyes, even though they were clenched shut in a desperate attempt to keep them in.

“Please tell me you didn’t see. You didn’t hear. I don’t want —” . . . I don’t want you to hate me, too.

Apple remembers sobbing then, as he pulls her in silently. She’s grateful he doesn’t comment on the show that was so graciously provided to the citizens of Liyue. Just offers her the comfort she needed to hear, and was too afraid to ask for. When she calmed down enough and he offered to treat her out to help lift her spirits, all she wanted to do was kiss him.

Even if she meant something to him, and not in the way he did to her, it was all she could think about the rest of the night. But the many sweets she indulged on was enough.

005.

To say that Apple knew no fear would be the farthest thing from the truth. She knew fear. It was not in the form of her own well-being, though that was something she was starting to work on. But it was in the form of the well-being of others. The people she cared about. Deeply. She knew fear in the form of failure. In the form of abandonment. One would think that, someone who was as pure - hearted as she was, would harbor a hatred for those who were meant for darkness—willingly or not. One would think that she would side herself with the good, and yet, here she was.

The chaos and havoc is thick in the air, it was almost nauseating to someone who was so sensitive to auras and the dark. She picks her way through the masses of bodies, hands clutched to her chest, as her eyes scan the corpses around her, steps hasty and almost timid.

Apple is no stranger to the dead. But if there was something she feared: it was this draw she seemed to have to them. Her vision glows, and her hand rises to cover it, clenching it tight in her grasp. “Don’t—” she whispers to herself, mouth dry. Dark magic churns in the pits of her stomach, calling out to the bodies around her.

Bone Witch, the souls of the dead call out for her, and she does her best not to answer. All it would take to raise an army of the dead is to raise her finger in the air and a rune for its namesake to be drawn in the air. The Foul Legacy had left her an army to her disposal, if she so wished.

“There you are . . .” Came a breath of relief when she finally catches up to Childe. Though . . . She wasn’t sure if that is who she should call him. She is unbothered and equally unfazed by the gore that stains his skin, or the inhuman glow of his hypnotic gaze.

It’s voice is almost hypnotic as It speaks at her. Speaks her name in a voice that was both Childe’s but not at the same time. Like an echo in a cave, the voices fill her brain. “Do you hate me too?” It seems to ask, mocking her with the words she was afraid to speak that night in Liyue.

She surprises It with a small laugh, hand moving to stifle the sound with the bend of her knuckle. It’s a little funny to her, and she knows she shouldn’t laugh. Her hating him . . . Would make her just as bad as her people. Who hated her for something she could not control. Apple understands now, why she has this draw to him. Felt a likeness she has never felt with anyone else before.

There’s more confidence in her steps as she approaches, though a small falter of slight annoyance that size is, as always, an obstacle. But, she makes do and stops before It. Fingers find the fabric of their scarf, and she pulls them down. The kiss is rather gentle for something filled with havoc and blood, and when she pulls way from It, copper on her tongue, her eyes locks with Its purple.

“Never,” she answers it, soft and sweet. She can never come to hate him, no matter what side of him stands before her.

#hereticlord #( apple : answered )#( bone witch : traveling doctor / genshin )#death tw #[ i tried to like. impliment your hc's and such at the end uH ]#[ this was fun to write tho !! ]

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fiercyy · 4 years

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Chapters: 11/? Fandom: Naruto Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi, Team 7 - Relationship, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto Characters: Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi, Tsunade (Naruto), Orochimaru (Naruto) Additional Tags: AU, Post-Chuunin Exams, post chuunin exams attack, Minor Character Death, Trauma, Team 7 Family bonding, Genin Era, Everybody moves in with Sasuke, he's got room, semi-au, Plot Twists, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Roommates, Friends to Enemies, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto) Feels, BAMF Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto), Team as Family, Slow Burn Series: Part 1 of Post-Chuunin Exam AU Summary:

Sakura always wished she could relate to her teammates better. She wishes she could take it back.

In which Sasuke acquires some unwanted roommates and a team becomes a family.

"You skipped training," Kakashi's one visible eye is narrowed in a foreboding expression. His large body takes up the whole doorframe when he holds himself up at full height.

Sasuke turns back to his book, earmarked not him but by Sakura, who the book belongs to. It's a historical account of the longest battle of the First Ninja War. For something so violent, it's extremely boring. "What's the point?" He asks petulantly.

"What's the point in training?" Kakashi asks incredulously. Surely Sakura's win hadn't hit him that hard.

"What's the point in the training we're doing? I'm not getting any stronger!"

"I'm teaching you restraint," begins the lecture he's heard what feels like a hundred times, "The Chidori is powerful and dangerous. You could hurt someone without meaning to."

Sasuke scoffs, "Sakura can beat me. I don't need restraint. In a fight, I'm trying to hurt someone."

"If your ego is so fragile then you're not ready for the responsibility of power."

"I am!" he argues. "But if power is such a burden then why can Sakura and Naruto keep getting stronger and now me?"

"They don't want power for power's sake!"

"Neither do I, I want power so I can use it."

Kakashi's eyes narrow, "I'm your mentor, not theirs. If you want my techniques you'll do things my way."

"Then I don't need you!" And desperate to escape the conversation, he jumps out the window.

"If you had control you wouldn't have hurt Sakura!" Kakashi shouts after him.

"I don't care!" he screams back. But that's a lie.

Sakura, for her part, has never been so thrilled to lose a fight. It doesn't feel egotistical to think that she basically won. She's just a softy who couldn't let him fall. It's a good thing, isn't it? That her instinct was to protect her teammate. (Even if, had he been thinking properly, he could have grabbed onto the wall with chakra.) That was what Kakashi was always ragging on her about, no? Not putting her team first?

She managed to surprise Sasuke and get the upper hand. She never thought she could do that. Never would have thought to… before.

Thinking about her parents brings her down. She can't do it often, it hurts too much. Since her heart to heart with Kakashi, she's being trying to focus on what she does have, not what she lost.

Her life has been in a quagmire since the attack, but at least she isn't alone. For that reason, she pities Sasuke. They both lost so much but afterward he had nobody. And she had so much. She's learning to be grateful for that, honest she is. She just gets so mad sometimes.

It's like when she was little. She was an angry kid. Her parents worked with her and taught her all the calming techniques; breaking deepy, counting, shoving it all into a box… The box worked best. All her longterm furies shut up where no one could see them. She let the bullies hit her as hard as they wanted. She wouldn't strike out. They could tease her all they liked, she wouldn't give them the satisfaction of a reaction.

She can't hold in that inner Sakura anymore. She won't be contained. Instead she's trying to come to terms with it all; work through it as best she can. It's freeing, to be a being who can feel anger again. The fight now, is to not allow it to consume her.

"Hey," Naruto starts, only for Sasuke to stalk right past him and slam the door to their room. He glances at the clock on the VCR. It's 11:00. The lock clicks. Shit. He's terrible at picking locks. "Aw man, what am I gonna do now?"

Sakura—who sits on the opposite side of the table, books open and post-its at the ready—is unsympathetic. "Sleep on the couch."

Alone in his room, the nightmares plague him worse than before. The prophecy of being swallowed by the earth came true. He finds new things to fear.

Sasuke wakes in the middle of the night.

The voices no longer reside in sleep. Orochimaru's whispers reverberate all around him; promises of power, of bargains. How will you kill your brother if you keep you as you are? He asks with condescension.

Sasuke shakes his head and for now, the pressure in his skull is dislodged. He rises and leaves the bedroom for the living room.

The apartment is dark. There is just enough moonlight to see by. He treads softly into the living room and stares at Naruto's slack body, thrown over the couch and covered in the red wool blanket. It's large enough that all three of them fit under it but in the heat of sleep he's kicked it off his feet. His soft snores, so familiar, settle Sasuke.

He didn't want Naruto to hear his nightmares. They've woken him before, but he never seems to grasp what the nightmares are about. He knew he'd be talking in his sleep tonight. It's always worse when he goes to bed angry. Orochimaru is preying on those feelings, he won't be taken in.

Except he's told no one. They might see it as a sign of weakness, or Kakashi might try and reseal him. What power reserves would be taken from him then? The temptation of more than a taste of what the curse can give him… He's stagnating here, while others flourish. He needs to be stronger. Now. And Orochimaru wants to give him strength. It's that simple.

He'll kill him before fulfilling his end of the bargain.

That thought, formulating a plan, is what makes it too real.

Sasuke's birthday is last in the calendar year and on the first morning of his 13th year, he wakes up to yelling and the sweet smells of an unhealthy breakfast.

"I made you an omelette actually," Sakura assures, plating her pancakes. It's dry and over seasoned, but he eats every bite slathered in ketchup. There's candles in it and they make him blow them out.

The day is spent in his favourite manner: outside, training. They read together in peace in the grass, for a while after that. (Sasuke and Sakura read. Naruto doodles crude caricatures in the margins of a magazine.) They go to lunch, then the baths. They henge into adult versions of themselves, laughing all the while at their absurd visions of the future. They use the illusions to sneak into a bar that's hosting a pub quiz. A jolly civilian in his 20s hosts. Naruto's only correct contribution is a question about the minutiae of the Teenage Mutant Firefighting Turtles lore.

They win second prize—a pitcher of beer. Their weak, 13-year-old tolerance ensures than they're unable to hold their henges for long after that. Once one breaks, the others do too and laughing all the while, they're kicked out of the bar.

"Technically this is your fault for giving it to us!" Sakura argues, "We didn't order any drinks!" The bouncer is unamused.

They stumble home, leaning on each other.

And when Sasuke stares at the spinning ceiling that night, he doesn't think of his childhood, his anger or the future. For the first time, he relives the same day he'll relive for years-the best birthday he ever had.

"Teach me how to unlock the Magekyou Sharingan," Sasuke demands. He doesn't know what he's asking.

Kakashi tries to tell himself this, but when he reaches inside himself, looking for compassion, he finds only rage. "No."

"It's my clan's legacy, the next logical step. I need it if I ever hope to-!"

"If you're very lucky you will never have the Magekyou," Kakashi warns, "The cost is too great."

"I'll pay it!"

"If you do," he replies, enunciating carefully, "I will strike you down myself."

They ambush him in the evening on his way home from another seemingly useless session with Kakashi. The Sound Four and all of their formidable strength and second-hand arguments (such as they are) meant to persuade him to defect on his own. Or to take him by force.

His curse seal burns, curling across his body.

The time has come to remember his purpose.

Sasuke strains against his restraints, spitting and snarling at his teacher. Kakashi's impassive eyes rove around, but his fingers are tight on the wire. The bark itches and the blood trickles down his arm where the wire has cut him.

"What's this all about?!" He demands.

"Sorry, but I knew you wouldn't want to sit still for another lecture." The second today. "Let it go, forget about revenge. Trust me, following the path of revenge never ends well. You'll only tear yourself apart. Even if you succeed, what will you have then? Nothing. Emptiness."

"Shut up!" Sasuke's blood boils, "What makes you think you know anything about it? You have no idea! Maybe if I were to kill the most important people in your life, anyone who's ever meant anything then you'd understand," he threatens cruelly, uselessly.

"Interesting theory, but everyone I've ever loved is already dead," he says it so calmly. Sasuke never knew that about him. "Besides you. And Naruto and Sakura."

Sasuke's sharp intake of breath is the only indication that his words have any effect.

"You and I are lucky. We've found new people to love, who love us."

The boy looks so small, his head drops so Kakashi can't see his face anymore. He loosens the restraints.

"That's all I wanted to say. You'll do what you want."

In the room he shares with his teammate, only feet away from his bed, Sasuke packs a bag in the dark. There's a photograph on the desk that he considers taking with him, but that wouldn't be wise. He lays it face down and leaves the room.

He hesitates at the front door and doubles back.

He doesn't know which cousin Sakura's bedroom belonged to. He never visited them before the Massacre. It's one of the reasons he feels safe here, it's untouched by death. They died at the compound with everybody else.

He opens her door a crack. The hinges are well oiled so they don't creak.

Asleep in bed, Sakura's back is to him, arm tucked under her chin and hair falling over her shoulders. He watches her for longer than he should, heart hammering in his chest. He's really going to do this.

He stays until he can't stand it anymore, it's too much.

Outside, the village is quiet. The streetlamps haven't been fixed in many neighborhoods, so he passes through the light and darkness with equal swiftness. His unhurried gait stops at the gates. They loom in front of him, a portal into his future.

"SASUKE!" Sakura shouts, breaking the stillness of the night.

He turns and can't hide his surprise at seeing her. He's a fool. He must have woken her with his goodbye. "What are you doing here?"

"This is the only way out of the village," she evades.

"Go home Sakura."

Before I say things we'll both regret.

"No," her voice breaks. She darts in front of him to block his path. "Why? I thought I understood you but I don't. I just don't. How can you throw everything away?"

"You could never understand me," he replies coldly. "I'm throwing away everything that doesn't matter. Anything that doesn't help me accomplish my goals."

"I know in the beginning you couldn't stand me. You probably hated me. But I thought-" here Sakura hesitates and the tears drip from her chin. "I thought that things were different now. You told me once that I have no idea what it means to be alone, well now I do. I do and I wish I didn't. It's horrible. But it's a little less horrible with you." She chokes on a sob and slaps a hand over her mouth to muffle it.

"You're just as annoying now as you were then." He steps up to her, so they're standing close. "Move," he commands.

"No."

"Move or I'll move you."

Her stance widens but her knees quake. "Try it then."

"Don't you understand that I'll kill you if I have to?" Move!

She laughs, so sad, "For the sake of your revenge."

"I'm travelling a path that you can't follow," in telling her so, he hopes to be kind.

Sasuke pushes past her. Like a willow branch, she moves aside then springs back to watch him walk away. All the fight has gone out of her. "You don't have to be alone. You don't think we would help you?" She cries, "Naruto and I would do anything for you. Why won't you let us?!"

"I don't need you!" He roars. "We aren't the same."

"I love you, don't you understand? Please don't walk away!"

With his back to her, neither can see the effect their words are having on the other, but they can hope. They can imagine.

"Stay," she whispers brokenly. "Or take me with you."

He turns. "Where I'm going, I have no use for you. Forget you ever knew me."

"No. You know that I can't," she says with force. He advances and her speech quickens. "If you move I'll scream, I swear I will, I-" In a flash, he's behind her. A sharp pain in her neck. Darkness descends.

Whispered words. Thank you.

12 hours earlier…

Though some ninjas choose to work under the cover of night, many realize that it's far easier to work in plain sight, in the day, hidden by the crowd. Sasuke has only been to Kakashi's apartment once before, but he remembers the way. It's not so odd that a student would visit his master in the day time.

He knocks and Kakashi's surprised to find him at the door.

"Can I come in?" He trusts that his sensei's home is secure.

"Sure, Sasuke," Kakashi replies in his usual breezy tone. "What can I do for you?"

"I need you to get me a covert meeting with the Hokage."

In under an hour they're in her office. Shizune, their only witness. Tsunade surveys the boy over her steeples fingers. "What can I do for you, Uchiha?"

"I need you to assign me an S-rank mission, to infiltrate Sound." Kakashi's eye cuts to him, "As a double agent."

#sasusaku #team 7 #sasuke x sakura #naruto #fanfiction #IYC #if you can't hold on hold on #my fic

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littlemisssquiggles · 4 years

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Hey, what if Willow Schnee (a.k.a. Ice Queen Mom) actually becomes the Winter Maiden? I mean, it's unlikely, she isn't the youngest... But still. It is worth a thought. Or hey... Wait. Even better: what if Neo disguises as Winter and gets a hold of the Winter Maiden powers like that somehow? Aaaaaaah, may I ask you to comment on these thoughts?

Hiya Mizu. Apologies for the late response. Hmm, while I like your theory, I’m not so sure about Willow Schnee ever becoming the Winter Maiden though. For me, I always figured that Willow’s key role for the Atlas Arc was assisting Weiss in reconnecting with her grandfather: Nicholas Schnee—the original founder of the Schnee Dust Company.

However, some RWBY theorists have mentioned that the RWBY Theme: Path to Isolation hinted that Nicholas Schnee passed away prior to the main story. This bummed me out a bit since I was hoping for us to at least get a glimpse of ole St. Nick. Perhaps even have Weiss learn of her grandfather’s true location and go in search of him with her mother’s help in hopes of convincing him to reclaim the Schnee Dust Company from her father.

But with Nick believed to be deceased, this leaves his daughter—-Mama Schnee a.k.a Willow as the closest thing to a true heir that Nick had. If anything, my hopes now is that Jacques is dethroned as Head of Schnee Dust Company with Willow pulling herself together to take his place as she rightfully should have long ago.

While I’m unsure of Willow’s personality, I’d like to think that Willow must’ve been Nick’s eldest or only child and it wouldn’t have surprised me if Willow was the one person who knew her father better than anyone else in her family. She probably even had a much better idea of how Nick would’ve ran the company and probably would’ve made a more fitting successor to her father than her so-called “husband”.

Back in V4, Weiss told Yang that on her tenth birthday, her father callously revealed that the only reason he married Willow was because of her family name. So it wouldn’t surprise me if the only reason that Jacques managed to convince Nicholas to sign the Schnee Dust Company over to him was with Willow’s support. Here’s what I’m thinking.

My theory is Willow Schnee was originally meant to become Nicholas’ successor with St. Nick planning to leave both his company and his legacy in the hands of his beloved daughter. However, once Jacques got his slimy hand rubbing Willow’s back, he was able to persuade Willow into convincing her father to make Jacques the new CEO in her place. Tie that all in with Jacques proposing to Willow just to further win her approval. I’d like to believe that Willow has always been the core reason that Jacques became Head of Schnee Dust Company in the first place. If she hadn’t fervently vouched on Jacques’ behalf then her father would’ve never agreed to the idea.

Perhaps toss in the notion of Willow never truly desiring to inherit her father’s company out of her own fears of never being able to measure up to her father’s legacy and expectations of her. Unlike Jacques’ relationship with his children, I’d like to believe that Willow shared a very close relationship with her father so his inevitable passing probably hit her more than anyone. All the more reason why I think it would be a fitting conclusion for Willow if she ends up taking over as CEO of Schnee Dust Company in Jacques place—finally standing up to Jacques and taking back what he stole from her and her family.

The allusion seems to be that Jacques broke Willow. So what I’m banking on is Willow piecing herself back together through the love and support of her children and taking back what probably should’ve been hers from the get-go. Starting with her father’s company.

Despite Nick signing the company over to Jacques, I’d like or at least I’d hope that there is a chance for his leadership to be relinquished back to Willow as she was always meant to be the rightful successor to the Schnee Dust Company as the daughter of its founder. That’s my main headcanon for Willow.

She will replace Jacques as CEO of Schnee Dust Company and work together with Whitley to undo the mess Jacques’ reign has done to tarnish the family business.

I say Willow and Whitley together since I’m hoping that there is at least somewhat of a bond between Willow and her children; inclusive of Whitley.

Since Whitley is the Schnee child who is often at home, it’d be interesting if Whitley does spend part of his time being the one to mostly look after his mother or at least look out for her. Since the idea is that Jacques doesn’t seem to care that much about his wife, I’m looking to Whit to be the person to cater for hismother’s well-being.

I didn’t get any impressions of animosity towards Mama Schnee from Whit back in V4. He more so kept tabs on her whereabouts and activities at home. So I’m hoping that should Willow somehow be absent or excuse herself from the Schnee Dinner Party for this new episode, Whit would be the one to inform Weiss of how she’s been coping since she was last home.

Or something to that liking. But yeah, that’s what I believe will be Willow’s destiny. Not to become the next Winter Maiden (since she has zero connection to Fria and not even Winter herself seems to think about her mother much since she disowned herself from the Schnee family name) but to become the rightful Head of the Schnee Dust Company in place of Jacques after he falls further from grace and Willow is finally able to put the Jacques-ass in his place.

As for your next point regarding Neo becoming Winter Maiden via impersonating Winter—now that’s a theory that I think you’re might be onto something with, fam.

Since the conclusion of the Battle of Haven highlighted our heroes successfully claiming their first Relic, my assumption is that the Fall of Atlas will give our heroes their second biggest loss since the Fall of Beacon while simultaneously marking the first time they lost a Relic to the enemy.

Since Ironwood revealed to Oscar that the only thing keeping Atlas airborne is the Relic of Creation then that line alone was mega foreshadowing for the kingdom falling straight out of the sky as a result of someone taking the Relic.

Last time, with Yang, it was a hero to retrieve the Relic of Knowledge from the Vault of the Spring Maiden.

So naturally, I’m expecting the reverse this time with a villain claiming the Relic of Creation from the Vault of the Winter Maiden, resulting in Atlas plummeting to decimate Mantle below. It’ll be the double homicide of both of Solitas’ signature kingdoms.

Ironically enough, perhaps… this will be what leads to the People of Mantle and Atlas finally coming together when they have to rebuild a new home for themselves from scratch. But perhaps I’m getting too ahead of myself here.

As you brought up Neo impersonating Winter, I wonder if this will be part of the ��cruel thing” that Neo has been alluded to commit since V6.

What if…by some means, Neo and Cinder learn of the identity and whereabouts of the Fria as well as her connection to Winter.

So as you said, Neo will impersonate Winter and the cruel thing Neo will do is murder Fria—probably by either smothering her to death with a pillow or via strangulation all the while using the face Fria trusted the most—Winter’s—up until the very end when she reveals her true self to Fria so that the last thing she sees before the poor old woman breathes her last breath is Neo’s face silently smirking down at her as Fria’s powers are absorbed into Neo’s body.

I mean Neo has done some shady things in the past courtesy of her time spent working alongside Roman Torchwick. However, I’d like to think not even Torchwick would’ve encouraged his young accomplice to steal magic from an innocent old lady. I mean that facetiously. Who knows what Roman would’ve condoned Neo to do if he was still alive.

Strangely enough to say, I kind of like the concept of Neo becoming the Winter Maiden because I see it as symbolic. Not just for the obvious pun of our veteran ice-cream-inspired character gaining magical powers over the element of ice.

But if Neo kills Fria then she would no longer be like Torchwick anymore. The thing with Neo was that she was supposed to represent the female equivalent of Roman as his right hand protégée, right?

But if Neo kills Fria then she would be just like Cinder. Cinder only retrieved her Fall Maiden magic by stealing it from her predecessor through murder by her own hands. If Neo ends up doing the exact same thing as Cinder then to me I will see that action as synonymous with her shedding the part that she shared with Torchwick and becoming more like Cinder Fall; her new master. At least, that’s impression she gives; even to Cinder.

I mean I don’t like the thought of yet another Maiden’s powers being stolen through them being murdered by their ‘successor’;however…somehow I can see this becoming canonical. There is no doubt in my mind that a villain is going to claim the Relic of Creation and spark the Fall of Atlas.

What I’m mostly curious about is…how soon will Cinder turn on Neo?

If Neo successfully becomes the Winter Maiden, there is no way Cinder is going to allow her to hold onto that kind of power for long. If Cinder attempted to steal the Spring Maiden magic back in V5 then Cinder will definitely do the same thing for the Winter Maiden magic.

In her megalomaniac mind, Cinder believes all the Maiden magic belongs to her. Neo, despite being her perfect little pawn for now, is no exception.

So my hunch is that Cinder will use Neo for as long as she needs her to. Use her to steal the Winter Maiden magic from Fria (since she’s best person for the job). Use her to kill Ruby and if that fails, she’ll use her to claim the Relic of Creation just for the sake of killing Ruby via Fallen Kingdom at the expense of all of Atlas and Mantle.

And once Neo has done Cinder’s bidding, she’ll kill her off. Or…at least she’d try to and possibly fail.

Do you know what would be the penultimate perfect poetic irony?

If Cinder tries to double cross Neo but Neo manages to outsmart Cinder first.

And not only does Neo manage to survive the Fall of Atlas with the Winter Maiden magic still in her possession but what if...she also makes away with Relic of Creation. Upon learning the abilities of the staff, Neo attempts to use it for the single purpose of fulfilling her greatest wish—bringing Torchwick back from the dead.

Imagine if…Neo uses the power of the staff and Torchwick is brought back but…not exactly. Like all the staff is able to do is recreate or rather replicate Torchwick’s likeness making a perfect replica of his original form but…minus the part of Torchwick that made him the man Neo knew and loved—his soul.

So what Neo basically ends up with is a soulless husk that looks like Torchwick but isn’t him since he doesn’t recognize Neo. However Neo doesn’t care. All that mattered to her was that Torchwick was back with her again. Even if he was just an animated yet empty husk of himself who needed Neo to mostly look after him all the time, Neo didn’t mind. She would’ve happily looked after this version of Torchwick for the rest of her life just as he did for her so long ago.

Basically picture part of Neo’s story mimicking Salem’s from the Lost Fable. The tragic tale of a young woman whose life was changed for the better through the companionship and love of a man who freed her from her isolation and loneliness. Only for her to lose that man.

Let’s say…even though Neo thought revenge was all she needed to rid her of the pain she felt from losing Torchwick, I definitely like the idea of Neo switching motives after somehow learning of the true power of the Relic of Creation and what it could do for her.

So gaining it’s power, no matter the cost, becomes Neo’s motive outside of working with Cinder. So it’s no longer Cinder using Neo to gain what she desires but Neo simultaneously using Cinder to get what she wants as well—only unlike Cinder, Neo is more discreet than the Fall Maiden.

And what could be interesting if that aspect of Cinder—doing whatever you can to look out for own desires—is what rubs off on Neo and what she ironically ends up using against Cinder in the end.

So basically, in the end, after using the Relic of Creation to bring him back, Neo takes Replica Torchwick and together the two go into hiding— taking refuge in the desert sands of Vacuo in the hopes that they would be able to build a new life for themselves while avoiding certain people who Neo believed might come searching for her.

Since Ironwood mentioned that the Staff of Creation can only be used for one purpose at a time, let’s say—the only way Neo could keep Replica Torchwick alive is with the Staff itself. And once she used the staff to create Replica Torchwick, she couldn’t use it for anything else again. So pretty much, as my concept says, the only thing keeping Replica Torchwick alive was the Staff.

Who knows? Maybe in order to recreate Replica Torchwick, the staff was absorbed into his cloned body resulting in the Staff of Creation somewhat becoming Replica Torchwick. Or at least its seemingly unlimited power became Replica Torchwick while the staff part of it was rendered useless.

Now I know Neo stealing both the Winter Maiden magic and the Relic of Creation to run away to Vacuo to play house with a replica of the man she loved recreated by the Relic itself sounds mighty stretchy for a headcanon.

But nonetheless, y’know what? I really, really like it. I don’t usually share Neopolitan Headcanons so this one’s going to be another rare keeper for me like my Red Queen Cinder Fall Headcanon.

After the CRWBY brought Neo back into the story, this squiggle meister had no bloody clue what they were going to do with her after she was done being used as Cinder’s pawn.

I mean I’m not that big of a Neo stan myself. As a matter of fact, the one thing I loved about Neo’s character was her relationship with Torchwick courtesy of RWBY Chibi warming me up to the Froyo pairing.

All the more reason for me to love my headcanon of Neo making away with Relic of Creation after the Fall of Atlas and using its power to bring back Torchwick in a way to that she can live the life with him she always dreamed of having.

Her own happily ever after that she forged for the two of them—no matter the costs.

I know its not likely to happen in the canon. However I think it would’ve been an interesting way to give Neo a story that was influenced by the people she worked closely with in her life but still her own, y’know what I mean?

A story that she took charge and molded for herself and wasn’t mostly just her being an accomplice to another villain...again.

I mean if I were a CRWBY Writer and was tasked with crafting a story for Neo following her return in V6, this is probably where I would’ve gone with it as my own interpretation.

Plus from this, I really dig the thought of Ruby meeting Replica Torchwick and harbouring a bit ofanimosity towards him because, of course, the only memories that the little redrose has of Torchwick were the ones of him being a cold-hearted criminal whoaided Salem in the destruction of her former huntsmen academy and tried to kill her and her friends on so many occasions.

However ReplicaTorchwick, being only a copy of the original Torchwick in face, has no memories of either Ruby orthe crimes he committed in his ‘first life’.

Asa matter of fact, thanks to Neo’s nurturing, Replica Torchwick is a much kinder,compassionate man than the person Ruby knew him once to be.

So it’s a scenario whereReplica Torchwick meets Ruby and tries to chum up to her but because she onlyknew him as a criminal, it makes it difficult for Ruby to feel nothing but anger towards the man.

And I like this ideasince it plays off of reliability with Oscar. I mean he of all charactersknows what it’s like to shoulder the responsibilities and of course, the blame forthe repercussions of actions committed by his own past selves.

So in this scenarioI can picture Oscar being more sympathetic with Replica Torchwick and helping Rubyto understand where the doppelganger is coming from. Not to mention that I can see Oscar being the one to convince Neo that Replica Torchwick isn’t the man she once knew.

After all, for my story, once the heroes find Neo and Replica Torchwick in Vacuo, Neo will be forced to give up the happily ever after she had tried desperately to build for the mere sake of stopping the end of the world from the Wrath of the Gods, the Plight of a Second Great War of Remnant and perhaps even the Rise of Cinder Fall after she becomes the Red Queen—the new leader of the Grimm in place of Salem who was defeated and purified of her darkness by the Rosegardening Rosebuds—at least that’s how it is in my version of her fate.

And who knows? If I was in charge of writing Neo’s story, I’d do this and still find a way to give a silver lining to her unhappy ending that fits into the pre-established rules of the canon.

Like let’s say—even though Neo had to give the Winter Maiden magic back to Oscar (still sticking to my headcanon of him revoking all of Ozma’s magic back from the Maidens starting with Cinder)and ‘kill’ Replica Torchwick to return the power of the Relic of Creation—in the end, she still gets to continue the life the two made together in the most unexpected way.

While Replica Torchwick might not have been a good example of creation—the life he made together with Neo inclusive of the unborn child they conceived together was creation. One built on love.

But y’know…these are all mostly just my ideas and I’m not a CRWBY Writer---probably thankfully so. Still it would’ve been cool to see some of these ideas done. Probably not all. But some. I really like the idea of Neo becoming the Winter Maiden and taking the Relic of Creation for herself. I think that would’ve been a cool twist especially on Neo’s part.

Anyways, sorry for going off on a headcanon tangent Mizu. Overall, in a nutshell, I think your theory of Neo becoming the Winter Maiden is pretty interesting Mizu and I can see it being a possibility. Those are my thoughts on that, for now.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

#mizuike #squiggles answers: rwby #willow schnee #rwby neopolitan #oscar pine #neopolitan #rwby theories #rwby volume 7 theories #rwby volume 7 spoilers

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