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tourettesdog · 1 year

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Still Deeper

Based on the prompt “How deep is the Ghost Zone?” for Phic Phight!

For @aggressivelyclueless Word count: 3,055 AO3 Link

Danny often wondered how deep the Ghost Zone ran. When he let himself drift over the islands, watching the lap of ectoplasm tug at the purpled stones like the endless waves of a moonless ocean. When he drifted closer, feeling that pull that ached to tug him into the depths.

Settling down on one of the islands, Danny let his spectral tail dip where the ectoplasm grew heavy. It sent a shiver down his spine, not unlike a cold splash of water, freshly thawed in the spring.

He couldn’t help but compare it to the sea. Green and ghastly as it was, the similarities felt hauntingly close when great behemoths rose from the depths, too many eyes skirting what Danny could only call the surface, before sinking back down to the depths.

He tried to venture there once.

Shutting his eyes, Danny recalled that hapless voyage with a shudder. He’d tied a Fenton fishing line around his waist and trusted Sam and Tucker with the other end. They’d advised against it, knuckles whitening with fear for his safety as they held that thin thread with everything they had.

Danny offered a smile and a salute as he took the plunge.

Diving was easy. The ectoplasm did not fight him, rather welcoming him as he struck through the wash of green. That first layer was not too dissimilar to the surface itself, and by the time Danny glanced upwards he would not have been able to see the difference at all were it not for the sharpened bases of the islands striking downward.

He struck downward too, his tail flickering as he went.

If the surface of the Zone was air, this layer was a fog. It clung to Danny’s skin like mist, cold and hazy with the scent of petrichor heavy in his nostrils.

Blob ghosts trilled in the distance, their sounds echoing on and on in the open expanse. They darted towards Danny, a flock of bright green and brighter red eyes. He welcomed them with a pulse of his core and their trills redoubled with glee.

“Is everything okay?” Sam asked through the Fenton Phones, her tone as tense as the line around his waist.

“Everything’s fine, Sam,” Danny reassured as he held his hand out, letting one of the blob ghosts roll over his fingers. “There’s just some blob ghosts here.”

She wanted him to resurface, but Danny had more to see.

The blob ghosts stuck with him for a time, corkscrewing around his tail and settling in his hair like fat drops of rain. Danny hummed with their trills, finding a chorus of song answering his own.

The mist of the expanse began to densen, coalescing in a blanket of jade fog. It coiled around Danny as he met it, the chill it left on his skin buzzing.

The blob ghosts quieted as he swept his tail through the fog. They tentatively drifted to meet it, their own tails skirting just above the layer. Curiosity and unease mixed, pinging from their little forms with each warbling trill and chirp.

Tentatively, Danny sank his hand beneath the layer of fog, feeling that electric buzz shudder through his ectoplasm.

It wasn’t unpleasant. Strange and new, but no less unpleasant than the crackle of a distant storm.

With one last glance at the blob ghosts, sure they would not follow him down, Danny sank deeper into the abyss.

The cold sparks that danced across Danny’s face electrified his core, filling him with energy and nerve. The jade of the fog had faded into a strange sort of blue, not unlike the open atmosphere of the world the Zone paralleled.

Large, cloud-like structures rose up from the new depths, cyclical spirals that drifted slowly, as if caught in a current. Danny could spot rocks drifting along with them, some as vibrantly purple as the ones at the surface and others as jet-black as obsidian. He moved in an arc to meet one of the stones, finding it tumbled and rounded like the pebbles of a river.

A loud trill startled Danny from his thoughts. He spun around to find a large blob ghost winding towards him, a long tail flowing behind it. Its ectoplasm was as teal as Jazz’s eyes and its face pointed like the tapered snout of a sturgeon. It met Danny with beady magenta eyes, his own glow reflected in those bright orbs as it drifted around him. Its tail ghosted across his arms, curiosity brimming from its ectoplasm in one long, drawn-out trill that whistled and crackled at the end.

Danny returned it in kind with a chirp from his core, watching the ectoplasm ripple across the ghost’s back as it made one last spin around him.

Just as soon as it came, it was gone, tail flicking lazily as it threaded through the stones circling one of those cloud-like spires.

Danny wondered just how deep the spires went. He followed their spiral, finding more oddities amidst the collection of stones. There were odd items gathered in the current: old watches, faded photographs, and glistening jewelry. Trinkets lost to time— though how literally, Danny couldn’t say. He regarded a locket with an inscription so worn that he couldn’t read more than the letter ‘A’. It took everything in him not to reach out and touch it and see if something lay inside.

Something as innate as the hum of his core told him that he shouldn’t disturb their rest.

Rest… it was a funny word for a lump of old bronze and a rusted chain.

“Where are you?” came Tucker’s voice in his ear, the words oddly distant and ringed with static.

“I’m not sure,” Danny answered, still following the curve of the spire, giving distance to the items pulled towards it. “It almost looks like the sky here. It’s nice, honestly.”

Tucker hummed, his anxiety evident. “Just don’t go too far. There’s still plenty of line, but you need to turn back at the first sign of danger.”

Danny nodded, though they couldn’t see. “I know, Tuck. I’ll be careful,” he said.

The buzz hummed alongside his core as he dove still deeper.

The spires did not end, in a sense. They merely faded, drifting apart into a layer of rich white fog that mixed in swirls and rivulets with bright streaks of goldenrod. The static lingered most prominently there, as cold as the Far Frozen and as lively as a sparking wire. Danny hesitated before he met this fog, worried for a moment that the sparks would be more electrical and biting than the familiar caress of active ectoplasm. He brushed the tip of his tail through the swirls, watching as it melted outwards from the contact in jagged ripples.

His core pulsed with energy, a cold hum resonating with the fractals of ice that lingered in his own ectoplasm.

He readily dove through it, laughing as ice bloomed over his hands and in his hair, trailing off of him in powders of snow.

The channels of white fog faded altogether into that goldenrod yellow. It was denser than the green and blue had been, yet no less alive— in a way only ectoplasm could be. Danny tensed as he saw shadows in the distance, moving through the last fading reaches of the spires. It took him a moment to recognize them as ghosts, though he supposed he ought not be surprised.

They were like no ghosts that Danny had ever seen. More fish and mollusk than blob, with arching fins and tangling whiskers. They drifted in schools, watching him with too many eyes above too many teeth. Each was as different from the next, some more vapor and smoke than anything, and others as dense and sharp as horn.

They ignored Danny for the most part, continuing on their course, though some darted away as soon as their eyes met.

One approached, six eyes green and gleaming in the golden haze. Danny knew fear, his hand tensing on the line as it drew close. It was as large as he was, an awful thing that was more shark in the front and nautilus in the back, with a mouth that stretched from its snout to the horn of the shell.

It kept some distance and Danny let go of some of his fear, regarding the ghost with a tilt of his head that it copied— as much as it could with the stiffened, inorganic rigidity of something that may have never existed outside of this place.

Three of the eyes blinked and two long tendrils stretched out, brushing close to Danny’s face as the ghost let out a staccato of unearthly clicks.

The same curiosity as the blob ghost from the layer above, enough to mirror Danny’s own. He tried to return it in kind, finding a trickle of something neighboring on amusement when his core garbled the odd notes.

The creature went on its way, leaving a channel of rippling goldenrod in its wake. Sparks danced along its ectoplasm as it went and Danny watched as the green of the ghost's eyes faded into the mire around him.

More of those strange ghosts followed Danny, perhaps emboldened by the first. They ranged in size, some no larger than dimes and others enough to rival small whales. A ghost swam below Danny, all tentacles and eyes, like a jellyfish without its crown. Small fish-like ones flitted around his head, all teeth and sharp edges.

He kept his guard about him, ready to make good on his word and flee at the first sign of danger, but… found none amidst the odd assortment of ghosts. They almost danced, in a way, following currents he couldn’t feel in patterns he couldn’t see. Many of them dove downwards, fading to golden shadows in his periphery.

Danny followed one of them, tracing the trail it left in its wake, watching the flicker of its smoke-like tails as they wound and undulated with the ghost’s movement.

The goldenrod darkened into a rich sunset orange. The trail tunneled, the path wavering like sand pulled by the tide. Sparks crackled along Danny’s back, the space smelling of ozone and, strangely, of stone. The mute scent of a cavernous cave far below the soil, all rock and dripping water.

The ghost before him took a sharp dive downwards, the smoke of its tails stretching to faint wisps that tickled Danny’s nose. He scrunched up his eyelids, shaking the vapor from his face. His movement felt slow and stuttered, the air as dense as the mud-choked waters of a swamp.

When he opened his eyes again, Danny had to blink to make sure he was seeing things correctly. The rich sunset ombre of orange had gone, and in its place the sky bled red.

A red so absolute that it pressed on Danny’s eyes, warping the colors around him. It stained his gloves the same color, as rich and bloody as a weeping wound. The static had lessened from the lively buzz to something much more languid and rhythmic. The slow beats of a resting heart. The offbeat thumps of a timpani drum. The rumble of faroff thunder without so much as a spark of lightning to see.

Shadows hung in Danny’s periphery, blacker than the night. They formed strange structures not unlike tangled tree branches, only too geometric and sharp-edged to ever be something so organic. The ghost he had followed swam on, its blue ectoplasm now a rich purple in the red light. It coasted along, uncaring of the shift in pressure.

Danny tried to follow it, but paused when that energy squeezed at his core, pulsing like the heartbeat of something far too vast and far too old. It had pinpricks racing along his arms and to his chest, freezing his torso in a way that had nothing to do with the chill surrounding him and everything to do with the frantic, nervous humming of his core.

He shouldn’t be here. Wherever here was, it did not know the living. It hardly knew the dead, too uncaring of Danny’s fear in its vast wake.

Sounds echoed around him, the cracks of shattering glass and grinding stone joining the monotonous tune that squeezed at his chest. The air smelled strongly of iron, only worsening the awful likeness to fresh blood.

The ghost was nearly gone now, aiming towards one of the blackened structures with slow, languid flicks of its tails. Danny could just make out its eyes, too many luminous dots that raced along every inch of its form.

Just as it began to round the corner, the air seemed to shift. The space behind the structure rippled, a wall of red colliding with the ghost, opening into a vast, cavernous maw of blade-sharp teeth.

It swallowed the ghost whole, the rich purple ectoplasm disappearing into the void-dark belly of the beast.

Danny’s core could have shattered with how strongly it hummed, fear coursing through every inch of his being. He remained stockstill, hoping that the thing with too many teeth wouldn’t turn its attention on him.

Static crackled in his ears, the garble of voices unable to make it through the wall of interference.

A thousand eyes, each darker than shadow, turned to meet him.

The line tugged and Danny didn’t fight it. He welcomed the reminder of safety up above and turned sharply, throwing everything he had into rocketing upwards through the warped tunnels above.

The static rippled in his ears, a small nuisance compared to the heavy thunder of crashing glaciers and rumbling earth that chased behind. It brought its own static, too piercing and high for Danny to make sense of anything more than a cruel, twisted pitch that met his ears so sharply he was sure they bled.

Danny didn’t stop, his chest heaving with breaths he didn’t need as he shot through the electric buzz of goldenrod, this time finding no safety in its energetic embrace.

He could feel the creature behind him still. Its thrum of energy, the acidic bite of its breath. He didn’t dare spare a glance backwards, least of all when he felt something sharp rake along his tail, the world darkening as the thing that shadowed him drew too close.

Danny put everything he had into soaring upwards. Every last ounce of energy, every prayer. He ignored the fish-like ghosts as they peeled away, their cores sparking with a horrendous fear as Danny brought the thing that lurked in the bloody depths into their peaceful layer of gold.

Danny could have cried when he saw the goldenrod mix with white. Could have kissed the odd trinkets that danced around the spires, if disturbing their rest meant escaping the gnash of too many teeth.

Its presence lingered behind Danny far too long, his core stuttering with each rhythmic pulse of ancient, resonant ectoplasm. It knew no emotion he could recognize. Nothing he could understand past the desire to tear and bite and end.

Danny didn’t stop when the last deep thrums of the ghost’s core faded, sinking back to the depths far below. He kept going, tears pricking the corners of his eyes when he spotted the sharp stones of the islands overhead.

Danny shot out of the ectoplasmic sea and breathed like a man starved of air. His chest heaved, his arms shook. He landed on the nearest island, crumpling into a quivering heap.

He sobbed.

Danny hardly remembered when Sam and Tucker found him. They had been several islands away when he resurfaced, he was told.

They had almost gone down for him, they had said.

That memory lingered much more strongly— the fear tied to it as he looked at his friends with tear-stricken eyes and made them promise to never venture where he had gone.

Danny rolled on his side as he remembered the fear that had gripped at his core. How close he had come to finding himself in the belly of a beast, utterly lost to anything resembling home.

His hand ghosted along his hip, right over where the ghost’s teeth had scraped him, digging deep channels into his body that bled through layer upon layer of gauze.

More layers than he has dove.

The scars remained, just as much as that fear, and yet… as Danny flicked his tail through the dense waves of ectoplasm, part of him longed to delve still deeper.

~*~

A fish-like ghost, more shark and nautilus than any one thing, knew the red depths well. It often sank through the goldenrod tunnels to linger in the forests of blackened branches. It was quicker than most, able to dart away from the behemoths that stalked the open stretches and hummed discordant songs that spelled a death it didn’t know.

The black branches shot downwards into the familiar dusky stretches of its first home. Here the branches merged into colossal trunks that stretched too high and too low. It would hug the trunks, sinking deeper until the red faded into a cold silver rich with fragments of stone and drifting globules of ectoplasm.

The trunks branched out again if the ghost went deep enough. They formed massive roots, digging into shattered plains amidst glowing fronds, each clinging to the other. Small ghosts congregated on these expanses, finding shelter in the vast network of roots, and sustenance in what fell from the stretches above.

The behemoths, ancient as they were, did not always last. When they fell they would drift through the haze and into the silver, their weakened forms snagging on the roots and laying within the fronds. The last hums of their cores, if they still pulsed, rang like a dinner bell throughout the hallowed roots. The ghosts that lingered there would congregate, a symphony of cores welcoming a feast for the Ancients— perhaps even of them, if they could ever be so lucky to have one fall.

The plains were not endless, broken by great cracks that wove over the blackest black.

It didn’t know what lay below, only that it went still deeper.

#danny phantom #phanfic #fanfic #aggressivelyclueless #the ghost zone #eldritch ghosts #ghosts #the ghost zone is like the ocean #deep water tw #jic #phic phight #phic phight 2023 #dogfics

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bunny-hoodlum · 3 months

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The main Narutos of Narutoland so far:

Landlord!Naruto: Looks like Gutsy. Househusband. Sentimental. Old school romantic. (You hear 90s Romantic movie soundtracks and Vance Joy whenever you're with him.) Service Top. Never has anything bad to say. Respects your independence. Hates long periods of time apart. Tries to not be clingy. Great gardener. Better home repairman. Deep Kissing Kink. Pure passion. High Compersion, but bad at sharing. Probably likes to watch but won't admit it.

Moving Company Foreman!Naruto: Looks like The Last/19yos. Street smart. Professional. A straight-shooter. Versatile. High body count. Likes people. Likes seeing them happy. Somewhat distant but highly compassionate. Lots of piercings, but keeps his face clean on the job. Got one of the teen Narutos into punk/emo music. Moved to the mainland and never looked back. Eye Contact kink. Looooves to watch you fall apart on his dick.

Postman!Naruto: Looks 25yos. Workaholic. Punctual but airheaded. Naive and earnest. Has never stopped to think about what he wants. Big 'Born Sexy Yesterday' vibes. Can only do quickies because his entire self-worth is wrapped in his work performance. This man needs a vacation. And a hobby. Secretly talented at slow-fucking when given the chance.

Farmer!Naruto: Looks 19yos. Smells like tomato vines and petrichor. Knowledgable. Unpredictably patient and impatient. Will fuck you in the fields and make you the dirty girl that you are.

Produce Hawker!Naruto: Looks 19yos. Sells the farmer's goods. Doesn't get enough business because very few Narutos buy vegetables other than the Landlord. Has all the time to fuck on the job. Lacks the good sense to fuck somewhere sane and private, like in his home above the shop. Has convinced himself he must man the stall at all times, leaving you to 'pay' for your vegetables right then and there in front of the other Narutos in the street market.

Menma/Emo!Naruto: Looks 15yos. Black hair. Individualistic. Looks up to Foreman!Naruto like a big brother. Wishes he could go to the mainland with him, or he would visit more often. None of the other Narutos in his age range understand why he likes 'that' music. Feels lonely living in this backwater prison of an island surrounded by mostly self-involved adult versions. Pessimistic but thoughtful and protective. Needs a lot of guidance during sex, but has very talented hips. Also is the most vocal. Praise Kink. Praise him. Pet his hair. Pet, pet, good boy.

Butcher!Naruto: Looks 35yos. Gruff. Crass. Dominating. Degradation kink. Daddy kink. Taker before a Giver. Just... the Daddiest. Has the good sense to make love to you in private. Will make you wait for him first, fuck whatever your plans were for the day. Will reserve you the best cut of meat. Best BBQ grill man on the island. Bit of a provider. There's rough sex and then there's the roughest sex. Will fuck you like he's ready to start a family. Will parade you and use you in front of his poker buddies, then give them turns with you after. Only one allowed to cum inside. Can be overly aggressive. Only willing to get violent with his 'brothers'. Plays rough with you often skirting the line of good taste, but has the most precise motor control of any of them. When he's delicate, he is delicate. Secretly the most vulnerable of them all.

The Hermit/Naruto: Looks 50yos. The second-most Daddiest. Currently in self-isolation.

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nordsea-horizons · 2 months

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da for my normcore island petrichor💛🪴

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arcanagoat · 2 months

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A pile of recent-ish art of Petrichor’s connections with other characters, as well as some refs of NPCs !

#several of the characters depicted belong to @tallwife #oc #dnd #tiefling #petrichor #the broken island #dungeons and dragons #IVE DRAWN SO MUCH I WANNA POST

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captainsophiestark · 1 year

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Hades and Persephone

Wanda Maximoff x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written as an early bonus round of my Year of Olympians, inspired by @dawn-petrichor-world who wanted to see one for Hades! This is a pretty loose interpretation of my own Hades prompt tbh, but the vibes were there and I stand by it.

Fandom: Marvel

Prompt: Hades; the underworld (sort of), the Hades and Persephone myth (also sort of)

Summary: Y/N grew up with Pietro and Wanda, and has been in love with Wanda for most of their life. They never said anything, however, especially not after losing Pietro and watching Wanda fall for someone else. Now, however, five years after the Snap (and five years after the reader retreated from the world), Wong shows up to get Y/N's help because Wanda's about to move on the Sanctum as The Scarlet Witch, and Y/N might be the only one who can stop her.

Word Count: 4,242

Category: Angst, Fluff

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

I took a deep breath, the fresh air and the smell of all my flowers relaxing me like it always did. The sun shone down on me and all my lovely plants, and the soft sound of the ocean crashing on the beach just a few feet from me helped add to the air of serenity.

An air that was currently being blown apart by a certain sorcerer I hadn't seen in a few years.

"What are you doing here, Strange?" I asked, keeping my eyes closed and not turning from my spot, legs crossed as I sat peacefully amongst my plants. I was still pretty sure this was an illusion, and no matter how annoying I found the sorcerer, I didn't want the dream shattered before it had to be. "I've gotten pretty good at chasing off ghosts like you, so consider your next action carefully."

"What makes you think I'm not real?" came the familiar voice of my former friend. I scoffed, a sharp pang shooting through my chest. I knew better than to answer. Borderline-corporeal memories like him had haunted me for at least a year after the Snap, despite how hard I worked to get past them. Even once I'd mostly gotten rid of them, they still showed up every so often.

They were pretty objectively bad for me, which is why I'd worked so hard to stop imagining them as often as I did. Still, they were some of the last remnants of all the friends I'd lost in the Snap, so sometimes, I found it hard to want to make them leave.

"I know for a fact that you're dead and gone, Strange," I said, sighing heavily. I shouldn't be responding, but this was one of those times I couldn't stop myself. "Along with some other people I can't seem to stop missing."

"Like Wanda Maximoff?"

My eyes snapped open, the sharp pang in my chest turning into a massive, painful knife. I'd grown up with Wanda Maximoff, and her brother Pietro. Pietro had been my best friend, and Wanda had been the love of my life. We'd gone through hell together in the hands of Hydra, which is where I'd gotten my significant nature powers. We'd joined the Avengers, and under the urgings of Pietro, I'd been working up the courage to confess my feelings for his sister. And then Pietro had died.

Wanda and I both had our worlds rocked by the loss, and instead of coming together over it, we grew further apart. She found love with the Vision, a new superhero the Avengers had picked up around the same time they'd picked us up, and even though I wanted to be happy for her, I couldn't help feeling like I'd lost her too.

And then, I really did lose her. After Wanda disappeared in the Snap, along with most of the other people I'd gotten close to, I almost broke. I needed to get somewhere that I could heal, and to do that, I needed to leave the superhero world behind me. So, I did.

With Wong's help (since Strange was gone), I faked my death and disappeared. Maybe a little dramatic, but at that point, I was in survival mode. Ever since, I'd been here, on a remote island with a small community who knew nothing about me as a global superhero, and nothing about what I'd lost. By some miracle, it seemed to be the only village on Earth unaffected by the snap, which is why Wong recommended it to me when he agreed to help with my plan. For the past five years, I'd been healing and living peacefully in my new community, adjusting to my new world and finding things to help ground me.

The number one thing that threatened that sense of grounding continued to be memories of Wanda, my lost soulmate. And if this Strange hallucination was trying to bring her up, I knew I really needed to block him out and shut him down before he could ruin all the progress I'd made.

I didn't respond to Strange's question about Wanda. I kept my eyes shut and breathed deeply, focusing on blocking out the presence behind me.

"Y/N?"

I took another breath in, focusing on the beautiful smell of all my flowers around me and feeling my connection to them.

"Y/N. Wanda needs your help."

I breathed out through my nose, a little more harshly than I necessarily wanted to. "You are not real. And I am not letting you rule my life."

I heard not-Strange sigh from behind me, and then a second later, I was falling.

My eyes flew open but all I could see around me was darkness. Then, a circular light opened below me, and before I could brace myself I landed hard on the deck I'd been sitting on moments before, at the feet of Doctor Stephen Strange.

None of my hallucinations had ever been able to do that.

"I don't have time to beat around the bush on this one, Y/N. Wong told me where I could find you. I need your help." Slowly, I tilted my head back to look up at Strange. The real Strange. He didn't look even a little bit guilty about the bruises he'd definitely given me, which was the final clue that told me he was completely real, and not an idealized version I'd made up in my mind. "Wanda needs your help."

With those few words, I was on my feet in an instant. If Strange was back... then somehow, that probably meant...

"You better explain yourself right the hell now, Strange," I said, trying to stay calm despite all the emotions rushing through me as I looked at my friend. My plants grew and moved around me, an expression of the explosion I was trying to keep on lockdown.

"Stark and crew managed to reverse the snap," he said. "We all came back about a year ago, but everyone thought you were dead, so no one came to tell you."

The world shifted under my feet. I swayed, a few of my plants growing to my aid and helping to keep me standing. It only got worse as Strange continued, filling me in on the events of the last year.

As I already knew, Vision was truly dead, not Snap-dead, which meant he hadn't come back with everyone else. Wanda had apparently lost it since she'd come back, taking an entire town hostage in her effort to deal with her grief. And now, in an effort to get to her children who she'd conjured in a magical new reality that apparently actually existed in every universe except ours, she was going after a teen named America who had the power to travel between timelines.

"As you already know, she's one of the most powerful people in the world," finished Strange. "And right now, she's getting more than a little scary in her determination to use any means necessary to get what she wants."

"And you're sure she's going to... hurt this America kid? To kill her?" I asked, hearing the shake in my own voice. My world had been shattered in the past few minutes, but if what Strange said was true (and he had no reason to lie to me), we didn't have a moment to waste while I tried to deal with it.

"I'm sure," he said. "She can't be allowed to go into another universe. Extended crossover between them has, apparently, catastrophic effects. So America can't give her what she wants. In order for Wanda to take it, she has to kill America. And she's made it clear that's exactly what she's planning to do."

I closed my eyes and took a long, deep breath in before slowly blowing it out. I couldn't believe Wanda would really do something like that, but at the same time, I knew how close I came to almost breaking when I lost her, after losing Pietro and feeling so, so alone. She'd lost everyone.

"Alright, let's do this," I said, opening my eyes and looking at Strange again. "Use your magic and take me to her."

"I'm bringing you to Kamar-Taj," he said as he began the process of opening a sling portal. "We're fortifying the Sanctum against Wanda to protect America. You're our first option, I'm our second, and the defenders of Kamar-Taj are our third."

I frowned. "I hope you know I'm not going to help you fight Wanda, Strange."

"If everything goes according to plan, it won't come to that."

Before I could ask anything else, he stepped through the portal and straight into the heart of Kamar-Taj. I followed him, sparing one glance over my shoulder for the lovely little place I'd called home for the past five years.

Hopefully, it wouldn't be too long before I was back, ideally with Wanda in-tow.

***************

After a hello and hug with Wong and a quick introduction to America, there was nothing left for me to do but wait. Strange and everyone else kept building up their fortifications, all while I stood on one of the balconies and watched for Wanda to appear.

I started to think she wouldn't come. That Strange had blown things horribly out of proportion, and that Wanda wasn't anywhere near the scary, dangerous place he'd said she was in. And then, just when I was going to march into the courtyard and tell Strange he'd overreacted (and that I was going to find Wanda myself), a storm encircled Kamar-Taj.

"Y/L/N!" hollered Strange from the courtyard. "Get down here!"

"On my way!"

Despite my words, I stayed at the balcony for a second longer, watching as Wanda rose out of the clouds and smoke crackling around her. I'd never seen her use her powers like this, although I wasn't surprised she had the ability. She'd always been the strongest of us, and it was a little aweing to see.

Once I snapped out of my initial shock, I took off like a shot for the courtyard. I passed groups of sorcerers waiting to fight back if the worst should happen, then made it outside to where Strange waited in the middle of the courtyard, surrounded by other defenses.

"Alright, I'll magnify your voice," he said as I came to a stop beside him. "You just talk."

"What? Strange, what do you want me to say?"

"I don't care. Just whatever you think will be enough-"

Before he could finish his instructions, Wanda's voice came booming over the sanctum instead. Her eyes scanned the defenders and eventually landed on Wong on the balcony, without seeing me or Strange.

"Surrender America Chavez to me now, and I'll leave without harming any of you," she said. My heart sped up a bit at the realization that Strange was right; she was here for a fight, and clearly willing to go through Strange and all our other friends to get what we wanted. "You have two minutes, and then the Scarlet Witch will do what must be done."

"Wanda..." I breathed, staring up at the love of my life. Apparently Strange had cast his magnification spell without me noticing, because as soon as the breathy word left my mouth, her head snapped around to look at me.

We made eye contact, and the world stopped spinning. My heart hammered in my chest as the rest of the people around us, all the sorcerers readying for a fight, completely disappeared. All that mattered was the woman before me, staring at me like she couldn't quite believe I was real.

Which, I suppose, was fair, since I had faked my death.

After a few seconds, slowly, Wanda started floating towards the ground. She looked shocked and maybe even a little devastated, and as she got closer and closer to the ground (and to my reach), I started coming back to reality.

"Open the gates," I said, talking to Strange without taking my eyes off of Wanda. My voice didn't boom across the courtyard, so I assumed he must have dropped the magnification spell.

"Y/N, I can't do that-"

"I said, OPEN the GATES," I said, whirling to face him at last. He just stared back at me, clearly unmoved.

"We fortified this whole place to keep her out, I'm not just going to-"

I didn't let him finish his sentence before I took off for the gates in a dead sprint. Wanda had just dipped out of sight in her slow float towards the ground. None of the guards moved to stop me, probably because they didn't think I'd be able to get out without a little Mystic Arts magic of my own.

They had no idea who they were dealing with.

As I approached the gate, I lifted my arms like I'd done so many times before leaving the Avengers, dragging up any and all plants around the gate as I did. They grew and grew and grew, and then, with a forceful flick of my wrist, they slammed into the gate, half-knocking it off its hinges. I pulled my arms back hard, towards my body and then past and behind me even as I kept running, and the plants responded, finishing the task of ripping off the door completely.

I heard scattered gasps and cries of outrage, but I ignored them all as I kept running. Within a few more seconds, I made it outside the sanctum of Kamar-Taj, just as Wanda touched down a few feet ahead of me.

I stopped running, opting for a calmer, more cautious approach now. I could hear the sorcerers working to put the gates back behind me, but I blocked them all out. Wanda stood before me, staring at me like she wasn't quite sure what to do with herself. I gave her a small smile and started cautiously walking towards her.

Flowers broke through the ground beneath my feet, giving me a soft, beautiful path to Wanda. A few of the flowers grew up around her ankles, softly grounding her to the world and to me (at least, I hoped it would).

I came to a stop a few inches in front of Wanda, and despite the incredible, powerful rage she'd been in when I'd first seen her, she now looked completely deflated. She started at me, apparently too stunned to speak as I slowly reached out and took her hands in mine, then at last met her green eyes.

"Wanda," I breathed, a slow smile creeping onto my face despite the current situation. After five long years, she was standing in front of me again. It was real.

"Y/N..." she finally said, speaking for the first time since she'd seen me. Her grip tightened slightly on my hands, but she didn't drop them or step away, which I took as a good sign. "How is this possible? Is this... real?"

She raised an eyebrow and looked a little more critically at our joined hands before looking over her shoulder at Strange. Her awe had started to wear off, and I could tell she was rapidly starting to believe this was some kind of hallucination.

"Wan... I swear to you, it's real. I'm real."

"How can I be sure of that?" she asked, her voice taking on a new, more scary and angry quality to it. "How can I know you're real?"

"I have a visceral memory and a scar nobody else but you and Piet have ever seen from your seventeenth birthday when you thought it would be a good idea to surprise Pietro with a birthday cake so we snuck into the back of that combination bakery and butcher's shop and-"

"Okay! Okay, I... I believe you," she said, a small smile at last tugging at the edges of her lips. She held my hands more softly and tenderly now than she had before, and even tugged me a little closer to her. "But that just brings us back to... how?"

I sighed, then started explaining everything to her, bit by bit. What it felt like to lose her, and how it broke me. How I decided to leave, and how I'd done such a good job of it I hadn't known the people had come back from the Snap until a few hours ago.

"But Wanda, I swear, if I'd known a second sooner I would've come racing back to you. I'm so sorry it took me so long to find you again," I said, squeezing her hands for extra emphasis. She'd looked away from me towards the beginning of my story, staring at the flowers that continued to bloom around us, presumably trying to process all the new information. I stayed silent once my story finished, waiting for her response.

"I missed you, Y/N," she said at last, pulling me in for a tight hug. I wrapped my arms around her, feeling a weight off my shoulders as we held each other close. After a moment, however, I felt her tense, and I couldn't help thinking it had something to do with Strange and all his people gathering behind me.

"Wanda..." I whispered, pulling back to look at her and simultaneously willing a wall of flowers up behind me, to help hide Wanda from the stress of the situation. She kept her hands resting on my waist as I reached up to take her face in my hands. "Focus on me."

Slowly, she did, her eyes sliding from the people behind us and back to meet mine. She looked on the verge of breaking, but I did my best to anchor her here, instead of wherever her mind was threatening to run off to.

"Wanda. Tell me what's happening."

"I have to find my boys. They exist in every universe but this one, I... I have to find them."

I nodded slowly. Strange had told me as much, but I'd rather hear it from Wanda than anyone else.

"Are you completely sure they're not here? No version of them whatsoever?" I asked. She nodded slowly, seeming less stable with every movement. I stroked my thumb along her cheek, and it seemed to help a little. "How do you know?"

Wanda hesitated for half a second, then met my eyes with a renewed strength and confidence, in me as much as herself.

"I consulted the Dark Hold."

"The what? Wanda, tell me you're not talking about that crazy witchy book we heard legends about, that we heard Hydra scientists whispering about like it could kill them at the mere mention of its name?"

"The very same."

I closed my eyes and sighed, honestly unable to help myself. When I opened them again, Wanda didn't seem any less discouraged, but she was also clearly waiting for me to say something else. We were in this together now, one way or another.

"Wanda... do you still have the book?"

In answer, she took one hand off my hip and conjured the book in thin air. I stared at it, tempted to reach for it and huck it as far away from her as I could get it, but I resisted.

"Can I make a suggestion, then?" I asked. Wanda looked a little hesitant, but nodded all the same. "Okay, you have to promise to hear me all the way out."

"This feels like the time you convinced me to steal our asshole neighbor's truck for a joyride under the guise of our own version of justice..." she said, raising an eyebrow at me. I laughed and grinned back, slipping one of my own arms around Wanda's waist and pulling her a bit closer to me.

"Yeah, it does feel kind of like that," I said. She rolled her eyes, but I caught her with a smile on her face all the same. "Alright, here's what I'm thinking: What if you give the Dark Hold to the Mystic Arts people?"

"Y/N-!" Wanda looked outraged and started to take a step back, but I held a little tighter to her waist and held up my other hand to show I meant no harm.

"Wan, you promised! I just think, based on everything we heard about that thing... it might not be a bad idea to try looking without the influence of the Dark Hold. You and I can search the world for them, or for any trace of them or how we might bring them to be, independent of that thing's influence."

"...And if we fail?" she asked. The hesitation was enough to give me hope that she might actually be slightly open to my suggestion.

"If we fail, I'll help you do what it takes to get to them," I replied. Wanda raised an eyebrow, so I continued. "Preferably by peaceful, negotiating means. But... otherwise by any means necessary."

Now both eyebrows shot up. Wanda looked at me for a few minutes, but didn't break my stare. I held it confidently. She was the love of my life; I had faith that my strategy would prevail, but if it didn't, I was more than willing to go to the ends of the Earth for and with her.

"Why would you do that for me?" she finally asked. I couldn't help huffing a laugh as I looked away, before looking back to Wanda again.

"Do you seriously need me to explain the reason? I love you." Wanda blinked a few times, so I continued. "I've loved you our entire lives, Wanda. You're my best friend and... and you're the love of my life."

She just stared at me for a few beats, and I felt awkward enough that I spoke again.

"Of course, I don't expect you to feel the same way, and I'm sorry if I-"

I stopped short when Wanda's free hand moved from my waist to carefully caress my cheek. Her expression softened into a loving, sympathetic look I'd seen her give me a few times, but this one somehow felt a little different. She leaned in, and I didn't move an inch as she placed the softest, lightest kiss to my lips before pulling back, a warmer expression than I'd seen all day on her face.

"I love you too," she said, giving me a soft smile. One of the first I'd seen from her in a long, long time. "I'll always love you."

I smiled back at her, butterflies and fireworks exploding in my chest. I knew she was still healing, so I didn't push anything, just gave her a little squeeze with the hand still around her waist. After another second, she held the Dark Hold out to me. Carefully, I took it out of her hand, then took a step backwards. Wanda nodded to me, communicating without words that she'd wait, and I turned around.

By now, the flowers I'd started sprouting for privacy had grown into a full wall of vines. With a few gestures from my one raised free hand, I gave myself a path to the Sanctum walls. As soon as it opened, everyone within the Sanctum froze and stared at me. Strange stood in the front, Wong just to his side, everyone else waiting right behind for them to break through the vines. Every single one of them looked ready to fight.

"What's wrong with all of you?" I asked, walking forward calmly and confidently. Strange tensed, but didn't make a move to attack.

"You need to be careful with that book, Y/N," he said, tension in every word and line of his body. I rolled my eyes.

"Obviously. Which is why I'm bringing it to you. You do remember that you're the ones that brought me here, right?"

Strange looked confused as I came to a stop in front of him, then shoved the book into his chest. He took it all the same, and Wong gave me a small smile as I walked back a step.

"Wanda and I are going to leave," I announced, raising my voice to address the Sanctum at large. "We're going to go spend some time figuring things out. And absolutely no one is going to follow us."

The vines tightened a little around the Sanctum walls at my word. I held both hands down by my hips, fingers splayed out, controlling the vines and making sure everyone in that Sanctum remembered just how powerful I was. After a few moments, I felt Wanda approaching from behind me. I reached back and she took my hand, and with a little magic from her, we levitated into the air, my vines and her storm fading back to normalcy around the Sanctum as we left.

I could see the slight fear on the faces of Wong and especially Strange as we headed off together. They were worried, and maybe rightfully so, that they'd just created an even bigger threat by reuniting me and Wanda.

But I loved her, more than anyone else in the world. It would take some time, for both of us, to figure things out. But I knew in my heart that our love could and would overcome every single other hurdle that came our way, for the rest of our lives.

We'd both lost everything and everyone we'd ever cared about. Now that we'd found our way back to each other again, nothing would ever tear us apart. We'd face the world and then some, together.

****************

Taglist: @valkyriepirate

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mayorwhisper · 11 months

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Enjoying the rain!

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jacelandon · 2 months

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February DWC Day 3 - Bargain/Myth

There were many myths and rumors surrounding the Darkmoon Island forest, and the warning was given to all who entered the Faire itself: ‘People have disappeared into those woods, never to return.’ There were always a handful of ‘tough guys’ that liked to test the theory, and while some did return with no grand stories to tell, the odds were never in anyone’s favor. Just as the warning clearly states, many people had, truthfully, never returned.

By the carnie’s count, it was about a 50/50 chance of going missing at this point. They kept tally in their common area, because of course they did. People were, in general, quite stupid and took every chance to prove that fact to the workers of Darkmoon Island. Bets were eagerly placed, and someone tried to have eyes on the edge of the forest at all times to report back the results, or the newest victim to add to the board. It had become a favored pastime at this point.

No one could be for certain what happened out in that forest at any given moment, not even the carnies themselves were completely aware. It was safe to assume that some of them may have taken matters into their own hands in order to ensure a winning bet, but that wasn’t always the case. Some wanderers had disappeared without a trace, others were found along the outskirts of the trees mangled by animals or by something unknown. Some came out with stories of being hunted or haunted, others were driven insane by what they had witnessed and spoke in riddles or in foreign tongues.

Whatever the case, it was best for all to simply follow the warnings given.

Jace worked with the Darkmoon Faire prior to their acquisition of Darkmoon Island, so naturally he was one of the first to set foot on the new land. The rumors regarding the forests started early on after the disappearance of a few of the workers seeking locations to build their homes. He set up his vardo among the others; safety in numbers seemed key in a place where a lot of unexplained things tended to happen. After all, shady bargains had been made for them to obtain this island in the first place and most of them knew very little about it.

The first few nights had been uneventful and were spent drinking and partying all together as a family, but it was just short of a week when Jace had started noticing a few peculiarities.

On the sixth night, he woke up with his door wide open when he was typically very good at keeping it locked and bolted. They were all family, but that didn’t always stop sticky fingers.

On the eighth morning he discovered his feet were covered in dirt after waking up in his bed. He thought he had gotten past his sleepwalking phase when he was a young child, but perhaps the new location was stirring up some past memories. This continued for a good week or so, but no one else in the camp reported anything similar happening to them, nor had they seen him leave or return to his vardo.

On the thirteenth morning, along with the dirt-covered feet and now hands as well, he had noticed a few small scratches on his ankles.

On the fourteenth night, he had someone lock him in from the outside, yet he still seemingly managed to break free, return, and lock himself back inside.

On the fifteenth night, he had someone watch his vardo the entire night, and nothing happened. Of course he wasn’t going to make that request of someone every single night. He would just have to live with the bizarre sleepwalking and perhaps assume there were some playful spirits about. The idea wasn’t that far-fetched.

It wasn’t until the twenty-fifth morning that things suddenly took a major turn.

“Jace? Jace, are you okay?” The voice sounded far away, although the gentle shake of his arm suggested otherwise. Petrichor was a welcome scent, but the chill of the brisk air he felt against bare flesh was unpleasant. Eyes cracked open to reveal a blur of colors. “Jace!” A rougher shove was given to his side. He grunted and blinked a few times, clearing the haze to focus on the goblin kneeling next to him. “Whe-...?” His voice caught in his extremely dry throat. He sat up and looked around, attempting to gain some moisture in his mouth before realizing he was laying directly on the edge of the forest. “How did I get here?” “Heck if I know, just found ya sprawled out here.” Gelvas tilted his head, taking a few steps back. “You don’t remember? Looks like ya came from the forest.” He pointed towards the footprints walking away from the trees. “Should prolly go an’ see the doctor, kid. Y’ain’t looking too great.” He tossed a blanket to Jace, squinting suspiciously,. “Gonna be ok? Need help getting back?” Jace glanced towards where the goblin had gestured before looking down at his scratched and bloodied bare arms. He had zero recollection of how any of this happened. Had he been sleepwalking in the forest? What happened to him last night? The scratches didn’t seem bestial in nature. He took the blanket and wrapped it around himself with a shiver before wobbling up to his feet. “No…I’m…no. Thanks, Gelvas.” There was something peculiar about how Gelvas was acting, he seemed almost wary as he briskly walked away without even once glancing back. Of course, that could just be due to their proximity to the forest, it was unsettling for many of the carnies. It was then his gaze caught the glint of gold pressed into the earth where he had once been laying. Leaning down, he plucked out the gold chain from the dirt, lifting it until it revealed the evil eye charm attached to it. This belonged to him. He had never seen it nor worn it before in his life, but he somehow knew it was his. He fastened the necklace in place and pressed a palm against the charm with a smile. Despite his current predicament and his disheveled appearance, he felt the best he had in some time.

@daily-writing-challenge

#story #darkmoon faire #jace #dwc2024 #februarydwc2024

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