#shorts wars moots watch out

[oakthefrog]

'the way they looked up at me was earth-shattering. my heart chipped and gut sank. We both fell to the floor, my arms on their shoulders.'

#yk when a random line of a story comes to you? #yeaaa this buried itself into my skull just now #this would b in a 'who did this to you' enemies to lovers scene #i might actually use this in a fanfic chapter #shorts wars moots watch out #this will be in a oneshot chapter now (probs glitchpaint ngl) #because glitchpaint is actually pretty cool in most aus #i have sw and fanfic brainrot if y'all cant tell #im taking rambling in the tags to a new fucking level

[michelle4eve]

Moots <33 

              (No specific order, I love all you guys!)

@aia45

-Newer moot! Hihi :) Who's your bias btw? 

@gimmeurtummy

-I literally love you, I appreciate you comforting me when I was about to cry and you're so kind it hurts 🤭 I hope we continue to talk and be bsfs :]

@lovablewh0re

- I LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU 😚❣ MY BBY SARANGHEAYO 😡💋

@linosssss

- I dunno yet D: But here, have hearts because I haven’t got anything to say ❣️💕💓

@galaxycatdrawz

-I dunno you much yet I'm so sorry 😞 I just watch your interactions with others (sometimes I interact with you too :O) and I want to get closer with u :)

@milf-ivy

-I'm sorry, I forgot all interactions I have had with you (if i had any), you’re very sweet tho😭 But uhm here's some hearts 💕 💖 💓 ♥ 💗 ❤ 

@sashaelfel

-OMGG I LOVE YOUR ART BROO? LIKE EVERYTHING LOOKS SO GOOD AND I WANT TO EAT IT FROM HOW IT LOOKS. YOU ARE ONE TALENTED MF ❣💕💓

@bluejutdae

-Hii, I didn’t know we were moots?? I hope we can talk? <33

@livelovelaughmiko

-So sweet?? Adorable even?? Like you srsly have stolen my heart.. I smiled like a dumb fool, your lil photo bombs make my day/few days <33 Hehe :] 

@writingforstraykids

-Literally a celebrity so I'm intimidated, and I love your writing 😚 I will binge your series as promised soon 🙏

@got-me-seein-stars

- How are you doin? Thanks for checking up on me and all, I really appreciate it :] Hope you're doing alright! 

@thatonedemigodfromseoul

-You better get me some sushi so I can try it 😤And you(r)e (dog is) cute <33 Also, please stop murdering and/or committing arson 🙏

@binnies-binna-deactivated202403

- … Babes.. One moment you're there and the next you deactivated 😭

@minholing

-MWAH 😚💕💕❣❣ (I can't figure out what to say, so here's hearts ♡♡♡)

@cinnamostar

- Hihihi how are you doing, i remember smth abt this guy from a party? How's that lol, and I love your fake texts :]

@143staytiny

-Literally so fuking sweet Ily <33  your long paragraphs kinda intimidate me..but it's a-ok! Some people write long texts, some short. Alsooo WHERE IS THE PLAYLIST 😭😭 

@zee-143

-No but I actually luv u, might be stalking me though 🧐 and ur headcanons/lil oneshots  stole my heart.. Ngl I didn't know you wrote them, I should pay more attention to the authors.. We're officially besties now whether you like it or not. 😇 And we be matching 🤭

@lixxpix

-Hihihi I'm so sorry I forgot you 😔 I honestly have no idea if we've interacted before.. ilyt 😅💕💕 Mwah mwah 💋❣

@azuna-sz

-Hiii! Newest mootie here :] I hope we get to know each other more. How's your day been so far?

@viviworkshere

-Hi mon cheri, I think I've won the boop war earlier hehe. You're cute and I loved your fic, I like you, take care

@sona1800

-So sweet and very cool 😎 I have no clue what to say so bare with me D:

@crispxxxx

- I feel like you’re stalking me pt.2 🧐 But uhm, I srsly don't know what to say but you seem cool :DD

@atinyniki

-Are you ok bro, don't die. Ilyy 🤭💕 I'm a big fan

@yangbbokari

-Why are you still here lol, sending ❣❣❣💕💕💓💓

@jinnie-ret

-Hehe, hi. I love your writing :DD I like you too :DD

@cheesemonky

-First to adopt me, my momma. If it isn’t obvious enough, I rly like u! And your writing is amazing too, you’re very admirable and I’m 100% sure you’re very pretty

@theoncelerswifearoo

-My first ever moot here! I don’t think I’ve actually talked with you lol 😓 Wayyyy back when I was in my onceler phase (a year ago?), we became moots :)  I don’t even know if you use tumblr anymore tbh…

@skzoologist

-Omg when I first talked to you, I thought I was dreaming or smth.. Like, I love everything about you and you know me now?? 🤯 And now, we talk more 😌 I'm improving with my sleep schedule btw! I don't rly take baths that late anymore 🥳 

@silverstarburst

- I just watch your interactions from afar so I dunno what to say for you 😭 here’s a heart?? <33

@foivestarrsketchez

-I do not remember if we interacted before.. But you seem cool, let's be friends 💜 

@crabrangoongirl25

-I dunno you that much yet I'm so sorry 🙏💕 You seem cool and I'm kinda intimidated 

@lilistayskz

-I don't know you that much yet I'm so sorry 😞 I hope we get to talk more and become closer hehe

@homuncvlus

-I don't know you much yet I'm so sorry 😞💞 But I see you pop up a lot in my feed and activity hehe 💓 

@nyukyujs

-I dunno you much yet 😞 But uhm I like your writing and 💞❣💕

@dwaekkiforpresident

-🧍‍♀️I'm kinda intimidated by you, 😚💕

I'M SORRY IF THESE AREN'T GREAT, I WAS QUITE LITERALLY PANICKING WHILE WRITING THIS BECAUSE WHAT IF ONE OF YOU GUYS GET OFFENDED OR SMTH SO I APOLOGIZE 🙏 I LOVE YOU ALL MWAH MWAH 😚💕💋❣💓💗

IF YOU AREN'T HERE PLEASE TELL ME DD: I MUST'VE FORGETTEN ...

#cute moots #i hope you like it and don't hate me #if you aren't my moot and you're here #im sorryyyy #im half asleep #don't come for me #I'm actually scared to post #.. #4evetalks #4everambles #mon chéri

[turtle-steverogers]

I wonder how steves hearing gets intense esp how he drives his harley. From what i can recall when helping dad in parking the bike (It almost resembles steves in winter soildier a dyna model) just the click warning . Dam. THE engine Roars loudly :0 sorry just recalled these things . Also its only comftable for the driver on the seats...if one is the unfortunate passenger....sitting on thats uncomfy fr awhile

God, I'm just picturing Steve getting used to his new body and the new way his ears work, everything dialed to eleven, every little noise around him amplified. And he still doesn't quite know how to handle that, but he knows his skin is always itchy because of it.

Cue him riding his motorcycle for the first time during the war, right into some firefight, the engine roaring around him and amplifying the sound of distant gunfire. It's hell, but he powers through the pain, like he always does. Resigns himself to the way his brain is screaming at him for refuge.

Bucky notices the pinched expression on his face. The way his jaw is clenched and the brief moment Steve gives into the urge to reach up and cover his ears, just for a second. Long enough to find momentary refuge. No one else sees, or if they do, they don't pay it mind. Not the way Bucky knows to. Not the way Bucky has always been in tune with Steve-- reading his pain before Steve has even processed it's there.

Later when they're back in the tent, Steve hasn't spoken for hours. And when he had, he'd been short. Irritable.

"Will you just come here?" Bucky asks from his cot, watching Steve stare at his sketchbook page. "Your brooding is making my head hurt."

"I'm not brooding," Steve mumbles, but relents, standing and crossing to Bucky's cot. Hovering, like he still doesn't know what to do with the space he takes up.

"I'm not brooding," Bucky mocks, making his voice whiny.

Steve huffs, rolling his eyes, but lets Bucky tug him down, all but melting onto his cot. Into his space. Reaching up, Bucky presses his hands on either side of Steve's head, over his ears. Steve looks at him, eyes tight right before he seems to give in and his whole body sags.

"Thanks," he mumbles, hands pressing over Bucky's. His skin still feels the same, soft and sure. Artist's hands. It's nice to know some things haven't changed.

"You don't gotta tough it out all the time, kid," Bucky says.

Steve gives him a look. "You know I do."

Bucky thins his lips, but doesn't try to argue. It's a moot point. Steve is stubborn as a mule when it comes to survival.

"Fine, but at least let me carry some of it when I can?" He pulls Steve in, presses their foreheads together.

Steve closes his eyes, and for a moment, Bucky thinks he's going to argue that, too. But then his fingers flex over Bucky's, feeling him. Feeling the tangibility of his promise.

"Okay," he whispers. "Okay."

#ive been having so many feelings about them lately #steve rogers #stucky #bucky barnes #mikey answers #mikey screams into the void #lovely lovely people

[casp1an-sea]

HAPPY PRIDE

Hi I really like sharks!!!! MY name is Caspian Re (Re pronounced Rey) You can call me either of my first names or alternate! Calling me Caspian Sea is also fine. I also go by Cas for short or if your name is Xen, Luc, or Levi, Casserole is fine 😒

(I love silly nicknames even if they make no sense or calling me the name of a character you associate me with. I also sometimes go by Armie online)

I primarily post about Twisted Wonderland, Star Wars, Marvel, and 2000s kids shows like Octonauts

Age: 18

Birthday: 10/13 

Gender: Trans masculine/Demi Male but I may just shorten it to Trans (pls only masc terms) 

Pronouns: He/Him, Ey/Em/Eir/Eirs/Emself on most days I have no preference but if it’s a day I do I’ll let you know

Sexuality: Bisexual or maybe just straight up Gay (idk I had an existential crisis about men today)

Zodiac: Libra Star, Pieces Moon, Aquarius Rising 

Personality type: ENFJ

If you send me an ask or msg pls feel free to mention your pronouns 

WE SUPPORT PALESTINE HERE 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

Hotlines to call Incase of emergency

Master List:

I have a dating sim rp blog that is kinda popular :P

Pls check out my OCs, as well as my AUs, and my fics located in my writing post :)

commissions: Closed

requests: open!

(I’ll do short writings, picrews, and possibly art if I’m in the mood. I’ll totally do my doodle style of you or a character.)

Fandoms, Writing, Moots and Tags, OCs, Comfort Characters, Just a list of Monsters I associate with myself, Moot Trail Mix Recipe, ART, Gender Envy >:(

Side blogs: @hux-and-gay (mostly Kylux)

rp accounts: @robinbanks-accidentally (TWST), @spring-chicken (OC), @brooklynscamp (Newsies), @hollowsdill-manor (Vampire/Werewolf dating sim)

@thenewhestia (my mc to rp with @kal0psiapanesthesia)

Likes: Star Wars, Marvel, Twisted Wonderland, the Life Series SMP, RPs, Random Generators (its an addiction), 2000s Kids shows, Doll customization, folklore, cats, singing, art, musicals, being in musicals, and weird sea creatures especially sharks :)

Dislikes: Sweets, Rey (if you are a Star Wars fan and you like her respectfully pls do not talk to me about her you will get your feeling hurt), Religion (pls do not talk to me about Christianity or Catholicism it makes me uncomfortable), gruesome animal facts they are triggering please keep them to yourself, Mean people that disrespect me or my friends, Racists, Homophobes, Transphobes, Ablests, Sexists, etc. 

Fun Facts: 

I am Left Handed 

I am Hungarian and I love talking about my culture or my grandfather’s story if you want to ask

Romantically I am single but I do have a platonic partner, hi XEN 🫶🫶🫶🫶

I’m a Hufflepuff my Petronas is a field mouse and my wand is Willow wood with a Phoenix core

My favorite color is green 

My favorite food is Pineapple Teriyaki Burgers or Chinese food  

I am going to be a film major in the fall

I have two cats named Lilo and Stitch (both girls), and I also have multiple fish. My snail passed away :(

I REALLY WANT CRESTED GECKOS!

I was in my schools broadcasting class

I’ve performed in Willy Wonka, Newsies,  Little Mermaid, Bye Bye Birdie, Christmas Carol, and Shrek, and played the roles of James (James and the giant peach cameo), Arista (Ariel’s sister), Young Fiona, and the bird that sings in that one song in Shrek . I’ve also had solos in Try Everything, American Tears, Fields of Gold, an Mo Town Medley 

I Did competitive gymnastics for 13 years starting when I was 3, before I retired I was in XL level gold. 

I played Violin in elementary school and during Covid in freshman year I played chimes cause that was the choir alternative 

I watch lots of weird 1990s to early 2000s sci-fi shows typically from Australia, there’s suprisingly a lot of them 

I play Minecraft but I am bad at it lol

I play DND 

Where else to find me?

YouTube: @antosaurusrex3752

Pinterest:

My Change.Org petitions:

#intro post

[ginger-snap-talkin-nonsense]

Iron Man 3 as best Phase 2 movie? Ooh, that's an intriguing take. I remember everybody hating it when it came out for the Mandarin twist (which is moot now thanks to Shang-Chi and that one short film) and Tony telling a terrorist his address on live TV with no plan after that. I can still remember Honest Trailers ripping into it. But admittedly I haven't seen it since 2013, so is it actually a great movie and I just didn't realise?

I can’t believe people have a problem with Iron Man 3. It’s some of the best Marvel has to offer period.

“Tony doxxing himself on live tv with no plan was really dumb” yeah no shit! It’s hard to remember this in a post “everyone acts like cinemasins” world but not every characters actions are logically justifiable. You know who else tells Tony that was the dumbest shit they’ve ever seen? Literally everyone around him!

The crux of the movie is that Tony is being dangerously self destructive because he has severe PTSD from the EVERYTHING he’s been through and also feels as though the entire world rests squarely on his shoulders. Tony believes he owes the world his life as penance for being blind to the horrors Stark Industries contributed to the world while he went off and partied. The whole movie is a character piece about Tony realizing that he is metaphorically and literally letting Iron Man kill him, and that it’s not fair to the people who love him to keep doing that.

It’s also just extremely solid as a movie. The villain is fun and his plan is diabolical, the mandarin twist was fucking cool and literally circumvented the movie having mega racist undertones and instead made a point about using the War on Terror and the racism of the American people for militaristic and political gain (which is something Iron Man loves to do), and there’s some great scenes and characters!

The team of Iron Man suits all showing up to help save the president at the end? Peak cinema. Happy watching Downton Abbey in the hospital because Tony remembers it’s his favorite show while he visits him in his coma and so he asks for it to be turned on? I may cry. Pepper finally getting to have cool scenes that don’t amount to bickering with Tony because we remembered she’s a person? About damn time!

Dude I am still so fuckin bummed that Harley never showed up past being at Tony’s funeral-he’s such a reflection of Tony and also a plucky young science boy who throws snowballs at walking bombs to save people like holy shit that’s Spider-Man before Spider-Man was out get that little shitster a mini series where he and Tom Holland fight crime together.

I love Tony Stark, I think he’s the most nuanced character in The Avengers lineup and Iron Man 3 is the perfect culmination of everything Tony is, was, and will be. Having a problem with it because “Tony makes bad choices” is to have a problem with most of the movies starring Tony, which is hilarious considering Tony is the most popular character in The Avengers lineup pre Civil War and it’s not even close.

[cosmic-pheonix]

With RWBY now in indefinite hiatus, I've been thinking of a couple of shows to watch to pass the time....

A few shows I want to watch in mind:

Wakfu - I've been seeing some amazing fanart and some short clips here and there. The animation and art style caught my interest, so I thought I might give that a watch!

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End - I've mentioned before on another post about a RWBY AMV I've seen, (which you should absolutely check out btw), the moment I heard the OP song from YAOSOBI I'm immediately sold! Plus the amount of fanart I've seen is amazing too!

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury - When I first saw some clips from the early seasons of the show, my immediate thought is, this is basically a RWBY Whiterose in Space AU! And the two main characters (and the sypnosis of the plot) really sold it for me!

The Dragon Prince - The fanart and edits were enough for me to get into it. That's pretty much it!

Delicious in Dungeon - The anime is animated and produced by Studio TRIGGER! Do I need to say more?

Slayers (Anime series) - The anime is basically a 90's DnD campaign experience! (I myself have never played DnD but from what I've heard and seen it looks super fun! Maybe one day I might get myself into it with moots!) Stars a GOATED VA cast (and among of my top faves) from the likes of Lisa Ortiz, Eric Stuart and Veronica Taylor. The animation and art style is simply to die for! I've watched a video retrospective from Unicorn of War, and I immediately decided to add that to my anime watchlist!

These are the shows I'm planning to watch, so if there are any followers of mine that want to interact some shows mentioned with me, don't hesitate to comment under this post. Of course please do not post any spoilers!

EDIT - 25/03/2024 (UPDATE): Should've done this earlier but I decided to do a poll! More so, I want to interact with other moots/followers, and I'm bored.

#cosmic posts stuff #RWBY #Wakfu #frieren: beyond journey's end #mobile suite gundam: the witch from mercury #the dragon prince #delicious in dungeon #slayers

[tired-biscuit]

Random thought, but do you think in an AU Kiba would be like a wild barbarian that lives in the forest surrounded by nature? I feel like he'd be really feral and Akamaru would be his loyal companion!

yesss, i said he'd fit either a war general or a barbarian in a royalty AU; both are very suitable. thoughts below!!

i actually talked about a similar kind of thing with a moot; where he's like this completely feral man that you have to teach entirely new mannerisms in order to let him join society ahdhdhdh......... it was so funny, like he doesn't even know how to use utensils, wearing 'normal people' clothes bothers him and the collar chokes him up, he feels weird sleeping in an extremely soft bed with all the big, feathery pillows, so he sometimes prefers a simple blanket and the floor that's been warmed up right next to the fireplace. that kind of thing.

but yeah, i think he'd also be ruthless; perhaps even more so than general!kiba. rips out people's throats with his goddamn teeth kind of ruthless. roars like a beast while going in for the kill. allows rage to control him and his actions until he's blind with it.

and he scares you; with his burly stature, crude language that you have immense trouble understanding, lack of respect and the red triangle markings on his face that remind you of nothing else but big, deadly fangs and make him look like a heathen. he just always looks so mean; even the brown in his eyes has gone cold because of the hard glare that never seems to leave his face.

and he just doesn't know how to behave either. it's infuriating and frightening, especially because his temper is short; it makes him unpredictable like an animal. he keeps you as his mate, or his wife in your context, even if you barely understand each other because of the language barrier. and as if that wasn't bad enough already, coming to a mutual agreement is seen as nearly impossible, when he gets way too frustrated to even try communicating with you because of said barrier.

and as months pass, you settle on despising him; him and his crude manners and greedy hands and a tongue you can't speak and reach compromise with. but then you catch him enjoying the sunshine with his canine companion one morning, and the opinion you'd previously held for him changes.

the white dog is the only living being he seems to show any form of affection towards. even now, as he sits with it in the tall grass, he's absent-mindedly petting its thick fur with his eyes closed and his head angled towards the sun.

the increasing warmth tints the apples of his cheeks into a slight pink, subduing the otherwise angry crimson that make up the barbaric markings on his face. his tan skin is painted golden because of the special hour; the light even manages to bring out subtle reddish streaks in his otherwise chestnut hair. it's uneven and crudely cut - probably by him - as a means to keep short and fight the fast-approaching summer heat.

and watching - spying on - him like this, you can't help but think that it looks like the sun itself adores him. that mother nature accepts him as one of her own even if he's cruel. he just looks so peaceful and content in that short little moment, his facial features are soft and relaxed for a change, his mouth is missing that firm line of disapproval it constantly dons on whenever other people are around. it's like he's become one with the sun, and the grass, and the gentle breeze that sways its green blades. it's like he's home.

you fall in love with him right then and there despite not wanting to and denying it to yourself for ages. however, it takes you an even longer while to successfully lure out that specific side of him and make it come out to play again.

#biscuit mail #biscuit drabbles

[lockewrites]

Glassy Eyes and Ice

@knightdawn​​ sent: “Royal, Ice, and Glassy Eyes” for @nirnwrote​

F!Dragonborn & Balgruuf || SFW || 1615 words AO3

Rhea and Balgruuf find themselves seeking solitude after a council meeting.

All those who held the power of Skyrim were gathered around the large table in the Blue Palace; the jarls of every hold with their housecarls at the ready behind them, Tullius who was as stone-faced as ever, and Rhea, whose attendance was expected at any meeting such as this, despite lack of political experience or interest. Elisif always insisted; ‘ You saved this land from what many believed to be mere legend. Don’t you want to ensure that effort doesn’t go to waste?’ the young Jarl told Rhea often. Rhea’s housecarl, Lydia, who had been with the Dragonborn since the near-beginning, took her own place alongside the others, though her role had shifted to emotional protection, rather than physical at that point.

Rhea sat with her elbows on the table, her chin resting on the back of her clasped fingers. Her eyes watched the dancing flame of one of the large candles in front of her; absent-mindedly guiding its movements and color with her magic. The jarls were in deep discussions over the future of Skyrim, now that the civil war had come to a bloody end. She listened on and off; Rhea already had her mind made on what should happen next: drive out the Thalmor. But such a discussion was impossible with Elenwen, the dedicated Thalmor dignitary–or whatever her official title was, always in attendance.

There was talk, yet again, of summoning the Moot to give the facade of a united country, but of course, they couldn’t agree on who to support as the High Royal. The Moot itself was a facade; the decision was to be made before the summons, despite what the common folk of Skyrim believed. Some favored Elisif, she was the queen consort and had a closer seat to the position than anyone; others argued it would widen the gap between the Empire and the Stormcloaks who survived, and the goal was unity.

With a long sigh, Rhea blew out the flame she’d been toying with.

“Do you need anything, my Thane?” Lydia muttered in her ear.

Rhea shook her head. It wasn’t an offer, it was a reminder: behave. Perhaps she should’ve suggested Lydia for High Queen; it would’ve been an entertaining throwaway line.

A servant was quick to refill her glass, despite her waving her housecarl off. She silently thanked him with a forced smile and greedily drank. If nothing else, these gatherings had the best alcohol.

She caught Balgruuf’s gaze as she placed her glass back down. The bruises beneath his eyes grew darker with each meeting, aging him considerably in these few short months. It saddened her. The jarl gave her a small smile, and she dropped her eyes to the still-smoking candle, realizing she’d been staring.

The meeting continued on, and Rhea had long since stopped listening. She was no politician, no tactful being; she was just an unlucky divine-touched woman who wanted nothing more than to find her place in the world, and it certainly wasn’t at this table. But maybe it was at the bottom of her glass.

“It is getting rather late,” Elisif announced, standing at the head of the table. “We should adjourn for the night. We can continue these discussions tomorrow after we’ve all had some much-needed and deserved rest.”

The rest of the jarls and Rhea stood, bowing slightly to one another before following their appointed servants to their guestrooms.

Rhea followed her own with Lydia close behind. The walls twisted just slightly, the many drinks she’d had now settling beyond her stomach. They reached their rooms–Lydia’s was right next to Rhea’s–and bid the servant a “goodnight.”

Rhea had fallen into her bed, forgoing the option of food and opting for sleep instead. It was a comfortable bed with soft blankets and pillows, and with the fire now a mere smolder, the room was at a relaxing warmth, but she still found herself tossing and turning. Her mind unable to quiet itself, she gave up and crawled out of her bed. Wrapping herself in a thin robe, she snuck out of her room and wandered the halls until finding the balcony.

Winter had staked its claim in Solitude; her breath rose in thick clouds around her, the cold burning her lungs with each inhale. It was a nice distraction from the throbbing in her temples; the alcohol had staked its own claim in every shadow of her skull.

Even over the pounding in her head, she heard the door behind her open and careful footsteps press into the snow.

Rhea rolled her eyes. “I’m not someone you should sneak up on,” she said without turning around.

A chuckle preceded the reply. “I would never so blatantly throw my life away,” Balgruuf said.

She spun around, immediately regretting the jerked movement and pressing a palm into her temple.

“Jarl Balgruuf,” she groaned, the tone directed at her pain rather than him. “Sorry, I thought you were… well… I don’t know who I thought it was.”

“May I join you?”

With her other hand, she waved it forward and said, “Of course.” Rhea turned back toward the balcony railing, resting her palms on the ice-covered stone. “You’ll have to forgive me. I’m afraid I’ve reached my capacity for tact,” she added.

“I’m sure we can forgo the niceties,” he said, giving her a smile. “You’ve had me keep a dragon in my home–I think we’re well past formalities. And I’ve had more than enough from these damned councils.”

Rhea chuckled, sharp and dry. “Tell me about it.”

“Are you cold?” he asked

She smiled. “No, but thank you.”

Balgruuf settled beside her, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked out to the city. “Why do you always attend?” he asked. “You’re not subtle in your disdain.”

“Elisif,” she replied. “She might not seem like much of a warrior, but that woman can wield words like a weapon.”

“She’s certainly coming into her own,” he said as he nodded. “Torygg’s death and the war have hardened her. She’ll make a fine High Queen.”

Rhea quirked a brow. “You think she’ll wind up on the throne?”

“The others may bicker, and would do so endlessly if allowed,” he began, “but they’ll have to come to accept she’s the only viable choice.”

She turned, resting her lower back against the frozen rail and watching the jarl. “Why do you say that?”

“Who else would we choose?” Balgruuf asked, glancing at Rhea. “Idgrod is wise, even beyond her late years, but she’s far too eccentric to be widely accepted. Igmund is too deep in his own stone to see the needs of Skyrim as a whole. Siddgeir is… need I even bother with him? Brina does well as a jarl but would be too militaristic if given further power. Maven sees and hears only the clink of coin. Kraldar is blind to the stars in his own eyes. And Brunwulf has far too much unrest in Windhelm to consider much beyond those walls.”

Rhea listened as Balgruuf rattled on; with each complaint he released, the lines etched in his face seemed to soften. She allowed him to speak without interruption and found herself taking in his words, unlike while in the council room.

When he finished, he turned to her, his cheeks red with cold and frustration.

“Sorry,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It seems I had a looser hold of my tongue than I thought.”

With a laugh, she replied, “Seems you’ve been holding that in for a while.”

He sighed and let out an affirming hum.

“What about you?” she asked.

“What about me?”

“Why couldn’t you take the position?” It was a genuine question; Balgruuf was one of the few jarls she believed had his head on right.

He let out a laugh, holding up his hands. “I would be honored, of course, and would accept if that was the will of the Moot.”

“But…?”

“But I have a responsibility to Whiterun,” he explained. “The hold, the city, the people. I serve Skyrim best by serving Whiterun first.”

He looked over the city with glassy eyes, the light of the lantern swaying in a random gust of wind across the tired lines in his skin, his dirty blond hair flitting across shoulders that looked strong enough to carry the whole of the province. Short of a crown, he already looked the part of High King.

Rhea huffed a short laugh through her nose and shook her head.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she replied. “The gods just have funny timing.”

His brow rose but he didn’t question it. “Apologies,” he said instead. “I came out here to clear my head. I never thought to ask you what brought you out here before I rambled on.”

She shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep. Or maybe I’m procrastinating on letting tomorrow come.” Rhea curled her lip. “Another day of the same words spewed and no progress.” She crossed her arms over her chest as another gust of wind sent chills across her skin. “I didn’t give much thought about what I’d do after dealing with Alduin, but I never foresaw… whatever you want to call this whole fiasco.”

Balgruuf chuckled as he shuffled with something next to her. “Perhaps one day we’ll see peace again.”

Something heavy and warm rested across her shoulders. She looked over, seeing and feeling Balgruuf’s hands placing his coat on her. Her cheeks darkened.

“Uh, thanks,” she said. Her fingers wrapped around the fur-lined edge and pulled closed over her front.

His hands lingered a moment before sliding down off her shoulder blades. “I should go before Irileth learns I escaped my room. I hope sleep finds you, Rheanon.”

#skyrim #tes #the elder scrolls #balgruuf #balgruuf the greater #jarl balgruuf #last dragonborn #ldb #rheanon #alxxiis actually wrote something #fic: sky above chaos within

[tacticalhimbo]

OKAY MW3 TRAILER BREAKDOWN AND MY THOUGHTS(TM)

spoilers for mw2 if you haven't played the campaign yet; i'll keep everything below the cut. besides the full, unedited teaser. stay frosty~

OK SO FIRST OF… They gave us a phone number. These photos aren't mine, so credits to u/xXTASERFACEXx on Reddit for texting the number and sharing these images. The phone number, for those who want it, is 1-202-918-3022. Here are screenshots I took proving the number.

We're instructed to receive sensitive intel, which includes a map of Al-Mazrah and a proposed site for missiles. Note, I'm 90% sure the circle is over the Observatory.

Well, if you remember both campaigns, you know that Al-Mazrah is the hotbed for shit. Everything with Price, Alex, and Farah happens there. TF 141 finds American Missiles there. Makarov had guys in Al-Mazrah looking to set up a plot and make some deals…

So this is all going to be a nod back to the original trilogy. We know this already with the teaser about No Russian at the end of MW2-RE's campaign.

You know, the mission where an American informant partakes in a false flag operation in a Russian airport and then the Russians (who knew the informant was American) kills him to make it look like the Americans are starting a war with Russia? The same way that the American missiles are planted in MW2-RE to make it look like, again, the Americans are the ones starting the war?

My brother was able to explain this better, but if you know the original trilogy plot… you see where this is going.

I also think based on the way this teaser opens, the first mission of the game might show No Russian. Like. We will be thrown into the shitstorm.

Anyway, the next thing I wanna show is this piece of falling debris. Consider this my blue curtain moment… but tell me this does not look like when Shepard aims his pistol in the OG trilogy… when… you know…. Ghost and Roach are slaughtered.

Then, as the teaser continues and the skull appears (I believe it's supposed to be a snake, all things considered. And, the way it's stylized, it looks like Ghost's skull mask… just a bit.

I believe it may be, or may be a nod, as my brother pointed out that it's (most likely) Ghost saying the line "Cut the head(s) off [the] snakes".

Which if it is… is another wonderful nod to the OG trilogy and lore, as not only was Ghost still breathing when Shepard decided to serve up some human BBQ, but in his original backstory (aka: the comics that the fandom has kept canon in the reboot timeline, which I love)… Ghost is buried alive after being captured. So. He's got some grudges.

Then, we see Price. And he looks... FUCKING UPSET. Like. Sad upset. Devastated. Upset.

And it transitions to Makarov.

Then the transition cuts out, and we get a date for… something.

My best guess is the official trailer, because the time between MW2-RE's release and this would be… so short. And I would hate to know they crunched the development of the game THAT MUCH to release it. We know Activision treats its staff like shit, all major game companies do, but I really hope (as much as I would be hype to watch this new game) that this isn't a release date for this year.

Unless they've been working on both games for a hot minute and prepared this kind of schedule way ahead of time, which is unlikely (but a good moot point for anyone looking to remain hopeful).

#txt #long post #call of duty #meta analysis

[vinnievespucci]

The glow of street lights cast eerie shadows against the exquisitely carved architecture of the Church, the grandeur of the sacred place somehow magnified in the dark of the night. And as gravity draws the steady fall of rain to the earth below, Vincenzo lingers within the darkness it allows him. The cherry tip of his cigarette glows brightly as he inhales, observing the way the city before him moves. It’s a wonder that his mother hadn’t continued to chastise him for the act, though a thousand memories of seeing her through her own puff of smoke rendered her argument moot, long before she’d ever tried. Like her, he remained near statuesque, if it weren’t for the fact that his hands could never remain still for long. It’s only within the flicker of ash to the wet concrete below that Vincenzo’s shadow holds life.

There has always been something different about London. Regardless of such infrequent visits throughout childhood, he still recognizes it now. The city is careless, casting strangers to the abyss that lives between each crack in the cobbled sidewalk. With each breath taken by the innocent, the toxicity of all that the underbelly holds still permeates and takes victim those that need never know the truth behind it all. The war for territory will always prevail over that of the heart. Greed is a vice that holds no bounds, and London had seen that every beating organ within its reach understands all that the darkness holds. Crippling, the city lives on the edge of baited breath and there is so little that can be done to stop it. 

His arrival came silently. Never the what, but the when. It was only a matter of time with the Russians involved. Reaching their skeletal hands out to stake their own hold in the war between the British and the French. Only a matter of time before it would provoke the Sovrani, however silently, to remind them that they would never forget and they certainly didn’t intend to allow sleeping dogs to lie. Through the mist, Vincenzo watches the blacked-out SUV pull up to the curb. He makes little effort to move, remaining ever still in the dimly lit offering of the Chuch above. He’d made clear his intentions, their offering to the French - yet he would do no bartering away from the eyes of God. The terms of the Italians entering the ring would come with a hefty price; one seen to by none other than the Lord himself. It was on the sacred ground alone that he would make his introduction to the cause, and it was through no argument of theirs that a time had been set. 

The old pocket watch that sat heavily in the inside pocket of his jacket ticked away slowly, it’s glass and edges pocked and marked from years of use. Truly, he doesn’t remember when it came to him - by who’s offering it was gifted to him. Neither family nor friend, he knows only the initials scratched into the back hold stains that mimic rust, yet hold a much darker explanation. It serves only as a reminder that his time was limited, and that blood would stain these streets before the end ever found him and it remained a promise to all those that came before him. 

The toe of his boot snuffs out the cigarette on the step below and the breath of air that doesn’t contain nicotine feels almost too clean to him now. Calloused digits brush roughly at the line of his jaw, noting that the shadows beyond the tinted mirrors seem to be making little effort to exit the vehicle. He doesn’t trust it. He doesn’t trust anything in this forsaken city. A mobile is plucked from the depths of his pocket, redialing the most recent unsaved number. “You’re late,” the woman’s voice on the other end feels prickly at best, despite the warming edge of her tone. It feels out of place. “Change of plans.” It’s curt, without the offer of further explanation and before she can find breath enough to respond, he cuts the call short. Flipping the hood of his jacket upwards, he steps beyond the shadows with a final thump of his fist against the nearest window pane. Perhaps, little more than an eerie creek of an ancient building, but to those inside offering their confessional, Giorgio, Giordana and those alike will undoubtedly be aware that he’s on the move.

There were a great many things he could never be - his brother, Alessia and he certainly made little effort to fashion himself into all that Lucrezia had become despite finding herself in much the same position as he had. His mistakes would follow him to the grave, and no forgiveness from God himself could grant him redemption, but for all that he lacked, he had never walked away from a fight. Shadows carried him beyond the church and he mentally reminds himself that this is exactly why he insisted his contact with the French was advised of a false meeting place; sometimes it paid to be paranoid. 

As if on cue, the duo that might usually have flanked him descended the steps of the Church. Arm in arm, a bright bloom of laughter leaving the woman’s lips and the sound carries it’s way across the street in the most harrowing symphony of the night. It’s the distraction he needs as he crouches lowly, approaching the SUV from the rear, popping open the drivers passenger door and slipping inside.

Low level grunts, foolish enough to situate themselves close enough to be in the open and yet just far enough away that nothing that transpired from this moment forward would draw too much attention. The scent of overpolished leather stings the inside of his nose, and the blade that drives its way between the third and fourth rib of the drive cuts through like a hot knife in butter. “Fucking Russians,” he seethes through grit teeth, the heaviness of his accent curling around the sneer of his lips. The cool barrel of a gun that was now pointed at his own temple little more than the ghost of thought as he noted the minor tremble within the hand that held it. Near onyx hues level themselves on the man that couldn’t be anymore than twenty-five, and would certainly never see twenty-six. 

The passenger door flings open and just as expected, Giorgio’s arm slips around the youth's throat, tightening as the smooth metal of his weapon finds its place against the side of his head. And perhaps in sync, Giordana slips into the backseat beside him, the ethereal glint in her eyes an easy encouragement that lights a flame within his chest, “Don’t be hasty now..” Vinny clicks his tongue against his teeth and the skeletal beginnings of a harrowing smirk begin to creep across features barely lit by the glow of street lights. “Let’s take a ride, shall we?”

Their infiltration would be meticulous, a secret carried only on the lips of the dead, an aspect that Vincenzo would see to himself should the need arise. Unfortunately, for the current head of the French organization, he holds absolutely no qualms with allowing their petty war over territory to cost them casualties; perhaps at his own hand.

There is, after all, no war without the petulant taste of death; and the reaper has come

#* memoir #* this looks janky but hi vinnie #pls love us

[15step]

A lot of people have mentioned that The Mandalorian brought them back to the original trilogy in a good way, and in a lot of cases that’s for obvious reasons: the soundtrack is unique, the setting feels immersive and realistic without being bogged down by too much heavy worldbuilding, and the screen transitions are straight out of Episode IV. But as I’ve been rewatching it, I realized what really brings it back to the original trilogy is the way the Force is treated.

The prequels suffer from a lot of things, namely poor writing and dated effects and humor. However, they also brought the Force out of the original trilogy’s vague and mysterious definition of “energy that flows through us all” and into the scientific terms of midichlorians. Whether or not that was a good choice for the franchise is a moot point, but it without a doubt took away a lot of the mystery that surrounded the Force in the original trilogy. The sequels, on the other hand, suffered from assuming the audience knows too much. Because the producers assume that this is a Star Wars movies and viewers know all of the details already, we get very little explanation of the Force, despite the fact that we’re viewing the story through the eyes of Rey, a newcomer to the Force and the Jedi mythos.

In The Mandalorian season 1, episode 2 Mando is fighting the mudhorn. He’s about to get gored, we’re seeing that this is the end. The music slows, we can feel his acknowledgement of the inevitability of his death. Except then the music changes and the mudhorn is floating, and we pan to see the Child with an arm outstretched. The audience is seeing this through Mando’s eyes, being shown how awe-inspiring the Force must seem to someone who has never been exposed to it before in a way that is reminiscent of Luke watching Yoda lift the X-Wing out of the swamps of Dagobah.

In short, by bringing in a character that has no prior exposure to the Force and the Jedi mythos and doing it right, The Mandalorian brought back the wonder of the Force in a way that the sequels failed to do.

#basically i’m a mandalorian stan #had this convo w friends a few days ago and i’m still thinking abt it #the mandalorian #star wars #din djarin #grogu #luke skywalker #star wars meta

[tenspontaneite]

Peace Is A Journey (Chapter 23/?)

In which a Healer visits her patient, three unfortunate children have a very cold day of travel, and Corvus learns something unexpected during his convalescence.

(Chapter length: 14k. Ao3 link)

Warnings: non-graphic descriptions of respiratory illness, an amputated limb, and non-consensual administration of medical treatment. Discussions of suicide and mercy-killing. Depictions of early stages of adapting to a new physical disability. Mentions of cold-related injury in background characters.

---

A runner came for them early. Early enough that Sarli and her apprentice had barely risen. Seeing as Sarli was not yet presentable, Cairon answered the door; she listened to what little she could glean of the conversation through the walls.

She heard “Yes,” and “yes,” again, and then “I understand. I will tell my master.”

Sarli finished dressing and went out to receive the news. “Well?” she questioned, once her apprentice was within her line of sight, and he straightened.

“The castle requests our attendance to the prisoner at our earliest opportunity,” he reported. “And there is someone to show our way to the new cell waiting outside.”

She considered this, and the urgency it implied. It was fortunate that they had no appointments booked until the afternoon, apparently. “Have they any news of his condition?”

“Sick, and weakening.” Cairon was succinct.

“Unsurprising.” Sarli went to her medicine cabinet and opened it, considering the arrayed items with a careful eye. The infection was surely still persisting, so, something for the reduction of fever. The lilium, of course, for pain. It would be well to bring an anti-inflammatory, too. Perhaps several. And, if the elf persisted with his reticence, then…the needle, too.

She plucked a few vials and bottles from her shelves, then went for the other assorted basics of bandages and disinfectants, and handed some of it off to Cairon to pack while she wrapped the rest. And then there was nothing but for the two of them to leave their House of Healing and follow after their waiting escort.

The elf’s new prison was apparently in a wing of the castle proper; or so she surmised when they did not divert for the dungeons once through the castle gates. She supposed the stipulation of moonlight cut off many of the more secure below-ground options; she had been very clear in specifying that some amount of moonlight must be upon the cell for as close to the entire night as possible. She wondered how they’d managed it.

Once they were through the inner doors, one of the Crownguard took up her escort. “Healer Sarli,” she greeted, with a nod of respect. “If you’ll follow me? Your patient is waiting.”

“Of course,” she said, and so they followed a little further. The castle was well-guarded today, she noted. Very well-guarded. And increasingly so, as they progressed into a wing that did not seem designed for prisoners at all. “Is this not a residential wing?” she asked at last, a little nonplussed by the finery of the halls she crossed. Cairon, too, seemed a little narrow-eyed about the affair, though he did not speak. His eyes marked each and every Crownguard as they walked.

“Diplomatic wing,” corrected their escort; despite her professionalism, there seemed a hint of unease to her countenance. “I’m afraid your stipulations for all-night moonlight access were difficult to manage, Healer. The diplomatic quarters are empty for the moment, and they have always had high security anyway, so it was decided that one of the rooms should be converted for use as a cell. The windows are…larger, here.”

Sarli raised an eyebrow. She supposed there had been no call for the crown-castle to host Moonshadow prisoners before, but even so… “Surely that must have been rather a lot of work.”

“Less than you’d think. It was mostly a matter of replacing the door and putting a cage on the window. And stripping the room, of course.” The Crownguard hesitated for a moment. “It did take the night, though. The prisoner was only moved here two hours ago.”

She paused. “So, then, he has had no moonlight this past night.” Although her tone was neutral, she thought it plain that she was not pleased. Beside her, Cairon looked grim.

“Regretfully, no.”

Sarli pursed her lips, and said nothing more until they reached the cell.

It was apparent when they reached it. The door was thick and iron-banded, adorned with bolts and keyholes and chains. It was a sharp contrast to the finery of the rest of this area of the castle. There were two Crownguard directly outside the door, and several more posted the length of the hallway. Evidently, they were taking no chances with the elf that had slain the King. The effort they’d gone to was testament indeed to how valuable they considered this prisoner.

There was also a man who was certainly not a guard of any sort, waiting for them. He looked up as they neared, eyes sparking with recognition. Clearly, he knew her by the robes. “Healer Sarli,” he greeted, and offered a short bow. “You have been anticipated.”

Sarli stopped across from him and eyed him appraisingly. No sign of military conditioning, but a certain self-assurance to his manner regardless. He seemed sharp-eyed and shrewd, and was dressed smartly in predominantly dark colours. She recognised his like. “There has been no tribunal yet,” she observed, a little startled to see an observer from the Crow Lord’s office here.

He nodded agreeably. “There hasn’t. I believe they aren’t in any particular hurry to hold one either, since it will be a moot point if the elf doesn’t survive the new moon.” The man’s eyes slid from her to Cairon, then back again. “I am Teyron. I will be present for any and all meetings between the prisoner and his guards and visitors of any kind.”

She inspected him. “Seeing if there is anything to glean from non-exceptional measures?” Her voice was dry.

Teyron smiled. “That, too.”

Sarli shook her head. It was like that, was it? Very well, then. She supposed it mattered little to her. Cairon seemed a little confused, though, so she turned to him and said “This is a member of the Crow Lord’s office. He is here to gather information on the prisoner via the passive methods of observation and insight. He is also here to ensure no one attempts covert communication with the prisoner during visits.”

She was watching him closely to be sure he understood, and was satisfied to watch him fall briefly still. “I see,” Cairon said, in the end, eyeing the Crow Lord’s man with some mixture of caution and curiosity. “Is that standard for prisoners of war?”

“It’s standard for prisoners with a covert operations background,” Teyron said affably, and inclined his head to the door. “Shall we?”

“Yes.” Sarli approached the door as one of the Crownguard reached over to slot a thick key into the mechanism. When it was opened, she allowed Teyron and the guards to precede her, then followed without further ado.

She lingered in the doorway for a moment, taking stock of the room. If this had been ambassadors’ housing, she could only imagine it had been for lesser members of a delegation. The place was well-lit, but it was not large. Even stripped of its finery and furniture, it was emphatically not large. A servant’s posting, perhaps? Even such a lowly use was beyond it now. It was utterly bare but for the trappings of a prison. No bed, not even a pallet; but there was a chamber-pot, she was glad to see. That was certainly more than the Lord Protector had provided.

As the Crownguard had said, there had been bars affixed around the broad window of the impromptu cell; the mortar barely looked dry where they penetrated the walls. She thought humourlessly on how much work it would be to rehabilitate this room when it had expunged its use as a prison.

And then there was the prisoner himself. Her patient. The guard had not thought to mention the chains affixed to the wall, but he was well-secured by them. There were cuffs at his neck, both shins, and the surviving arm, all held fast by long chains that coiled around him like darksteel snakes. They seemed to allow him a surprising range of motion, and Sarli guessed that he would easily be able to reposition himself in front of the window, should he desire. And yet, he had made no attempt to do so. Instead he was slumped backwards against the wall, peering narrowly at them; he seemed too weak to hold himself fully upright.

Sarli inspected him in a fast, evaluative moment, then stepped forwards. “You will remember me, I trust,” she said, and approached without ceremony to lay her pack down. Cairon trailed at her heels, silent and watchful. “I am here to continue your treatment.”

The elf did not reply. His eyes slid from her to Cairon, and then to Teyron. There they lingered for a while, dark and suspicious. She supposed he must be aware of what that man represented. At all times, Teyron would be watching for any opening or weakness implied in his reactions. The elf had already been silent and taciturn, and she doubted this would help matters.

So she sighed, and beckoned Cairon over. The Crownguard followed as well, which she noted with some asperity. The territoriality was reflexive; a Healer should not be managed in her treatment of a patient, nor crowded in such an unseemly manner. “Are you a Healer’s assistant as well as Crownguard?” She questioned the woman, annoyance lending sharpness to the words.

“Begging your pardon, Healer,” said the Crownguard. “I am protection. He has sufficient leeway in his chains to attack you.”

“And perhaps that would be a legitimate concern nearer the full moon,” Sarli said. “But for the moment, my patient is so weak he trembles at supporting himself upright, even leaning on a wall. If I cannot stop him, my apprentice will. Step back, if you please.”

Two faces went disgruntled at once: the Crownguard’s, and the elf’s. The latter, she supposed, was unhappy with her entirely accurate characterisation of his weakness.

“As you say, Healer,” The Crownguard conceded, finally, and did step back. Satisfied, Sarli went to her work.

Her first order of business was to give her patient a thorough looking-over. In plain daylight, his inhuman skin-tone was more evident, but the sickly pallor held to it nonetheless. His face was a little too pale, and the shadows beneath his eyes were dark. She felt for his pulse, and found it shallow and laboured. His temperature was somewhat higher than preferable, though not yet dangerously so. She inspected the stump of his arm next, removing the bandages and gauze, and noted that it had healed very little at all. It was not bleeding, but the edges of the wound had made no visible effort at sealing, even as careful as her stitching had been. Sarli saw that it was at least not visibly infected, even if the inflammation was severe. Finally she gestured for the stethoscope and listened to his lungs again. Their condition was more advanced now, though she could have surmised that merely by listening to him breathe.

For his part, the elf bore the examination stoically, flinching only the first time she touched him and then not at all thereafter. At last she sat back and observed him. “Will you take your medicines of your own accord?” she asked, and he blinked slowly at her. There was no hostility in his eyes, only a weary resolution. Outside of the dark, they lacked their uncanny phosphorescence, and seemed a great deal more human.

“I will not,” he rasped, as he had once before. The Crow Lord’s spy watched avidly from the corner.

She inclined her head. “I respect your pride, and your force of will,” she said. “But it is my duty to heal you.”

The elf’s eyes slid briefly to Teyron again. She expected him to remain silent after reminding himself that they were observed, but he surprised her. In that terrible rattling voice, he said “Your duty, to heal one who is already dead.” It was not quite a question, but had the taste of one regardless.

Sarli considered the words, feeling in them some edge of a culture unknown to her. There was significance here that she was not privy to. “I know nothing of the ways of your kind,” she said at last. “If you think you are already dead, then perhaps you are. I cannot heal a corpse. But I am human. If you are not beyond my aid, then the alleviation of your suffering does remain my duty. I will see it done.”

He exhaled, and the sigh would have been silent if not for the crackle of his lungs. He descended into a brief, painful series of wet coughs, then he met her eyes. They were oddly steady. Again, that rasping voice: “I have heard of how human healers alleviate suffering.”

In the corner of her eye, Sarli saw Teyron shift, less with interest than with wariness. She could read the thoughts, there. The elf’s words were not quite an overt invitation of a more permanent mercy, but they skittered close enough that an information specialist might fear what she would do.

And well he should. It would be easy, after all. No one could stop her from mixing the lilium a little too potently. It would spare him his pain. Spare him the suffering of the next few days. Spare him the inevitable torture that would come, should he survive.

Sarli regarded the elf, expressionless. Beside her, Cairon was very still. “You speak of the mercy-killing that a Healer may practice as if you would invite it,” she said, at last, and he made no objection to the words. Just watched her. “You refuse to eat or drink on your own, and accept no medical aid that is not forced upon you. In this regard, you behave as one seeking to die.” Sarli watched him, and nodded to herself. “…But I think that there are limits upon that intention, for you. If you truly wished to end yourself, none could stop you. Yet you have not.” Slow and deliberate, she set the stethoscope fully aside, and reached for her medicines. “If you will not do it yourself, do not ask it of me. I will not be the instrument of your destruction.”

The elf looked away, deliberately taciturn. There was a flicker of frustration in his expression, but nothing else. She wondered if he had been wishing that someone would take the decision from him and enact his death themselves. She wondered if his strange culture, such that it was, forbade direct suicide. Either way, he had not died, and he was not yet upon the nadir of suffering and despair that would see her change that.

Not yet. But she had given the quiet death before, and might well give it again, should there be a need.

Silent, she gestured to Cairon, and received the needle and the lilium from his hands.

“Know this, my patient,” Sarli said finally, and watched the elf’s eyes turn guardedly her way. “Once Mercy becomes a knife, there can be no more Mercy thereafter. But where life persists, there is Hope of change.” The words sat holy upon her tongue, and she lingered for a moment beneath the weight of them. She exhaled, silent, and finished “This is a lesson that the centuries have taught us very well, and that you would do well to learn.” Then she kept at her work, eyes steady on her tools. She did not look for her patient’s reaction.

When she lifted her eyes to regard him, he was very carefully expressionless. If her words had provoked any response in him, he was allowing none of it to his face. Stoicism stared back at her. There was a light tremor in his living arm; she eyed it, finished her assembly of the needle and reservoir, and reached out to prick the skin. He barely twitched as the lilium joined to his blood, soon to bring him the relief from pain that she had promised; but only that. No more. Her Mercy was not yet a knife.

The elf endured the treatments in silence. She had come prepared for the notion that he might not accept medical aid, but even so, the medicines that could be administered to the blood were not many. The lilium, yes. The anti-inflammatory as well. But she had no recourse to treat his fever if he would not drink. She sighed, and set it aside, well within his reach. “If you change your mind about accepting medical treatment, this here is for your fever,” she said, and he glanced at it. “It will aid your body in fighting the infection. Consider it.”

He blinked, slowly, then looked deliberately away. Apparently he was done with speaking for the day.

She accepted it, and then finally rose. Her old bones ached from kneeling for so long, but she refused to show the duress; she handed the bags to Cairon and then turned to leave. “I will return tomorrow, in the morning,” she stated, to the Crownguard and the observer both. “If there is any change in his condition before then, send for me.”

They murmured their assent and bowed lightly as she left; she waved off her escort and left with Cairon without ceremony. He was very quiet, saying nothing, and watching the guards they passed on their way through the castle. Though his expression was well-schooled, she knew him well enough to see his unease.

Once they were upon the streets, surrounded by the hubbub and bustle of the castle-city, he finally ventured to speak. “Did you mean what you said back there, master?”

She glanced at him, and found him looking troubled. “I rarely say anything I do not mean, Cairon,” she answered, just a little wry. “But perhaps you should be more specific.”

He looked away, not meeting her eyes. “’Where life persists, there is hope of change’,” he quoted.

Sarli considered it. “Yes. I spoke it truly.”

“You believe that.” He was not one to doubt her word, but he seemed searching now. Uneasy in his skin, as though the answer mattered to him. “Even for…him.”

‘Even for the assassin that slew the king’, went unspoken. Or perhaps, ‘even for an elf’.

For a moment her heart burned with familiar anger, familiar grief. But those were the trappings of Sarli-the-person; thus Sarli-the-Healer breathed out and cast them aside. “Even for him, Cairon, yes.” she said. “Hope is a beacon to every soul.”

The comment occasioned some glances from the people around her; and well it should. It was not lightly that anyone devout spoke ‘hope’ aloud, and a Healer was always devout. “I wouldn’t think someone like him has much in the way of that,” Cairon said, after a moment, and though it wouldn’t be clear to a stranger whether he’d meant hope or soul…

She stilled a little, and cast him a warning glance. She looked deliberately around at those around them. He took the admonishment and fell silent until they were alone again, walking to the mouth of the Valley, and near to home. Then she spoke, before he could, as if no time had passed at all since his badly-placed comment. “His prospects are ill, yes,” said Sarli, “but not hopeless. Never hopeless. You should know better than that. Certainly you should know better than to express such a sentiment in public.” It was a rebuke and a warning both. He should know better. Few indeed were the people who would not.

He flinched as though struck, and did not try to defend his words. Good; if the wrong ears had marked her apprentice saying such a thing, it could cast a shame on her, to have taught him so poorly. And that was the best of the potential negative consequences.

“Perhaps you need a reminder,” Sarli allowed, opening their door and easing herself through. Cairon glanced warily at her, setting out the bags, and she went directly to the bookcase. She pulled out a leather-bound tome, bloody red, a lotus engraved on the cover in metallic silver. It was the work of moments to find the correct passage, and she presented the book to her apprentice without preamble. He took it in his hands and stared at it as though it were a live snake, for all that he had certainly heard and read its scriptures before. She commanded, “Read.”

“…The tools need cleaning, master,” he offered, hesitating. “The medicines need putting away.”

“I will do it,” Sarli said at once, and then again: “Read.”

Again, he hesitated. And then his eyes fell upon the page, and its old sacred tale. He winced at it, very slightly, then finally exhaled. Sarli knew then that he would do as she had commanded, and turned away to begin attending to the tools of her trade; behind her, out of sight, words as familiar to her as her own breath filtered into the air upon her apprentice’s voice.

“’When the Last Light came to Her, She was lingering silent among the death-shrouds, and Her hands were wet with the blood of mercy’…”

Learn, she bade him, in the privacy of her own mind, and finally felt her heart settle from the clamour his public heresy had set it to. It could have been worse. He hadn’t spoken loudly, and his phrasing had been ambiguous; the onlookers might well think he was calling the person-of-discussion soulless, rather than hopeless. Still unsettling for someone not aware of the situation, but not dangerous.

And dangerous it would be, should anyone find him – a Healer’s apprentice – to have verbally denied that the Last Light existed for everyone. Even the lords, even the royalty, secular as they were, would never say such a thing where someone might hear.

Her apprentice thought himself very subtle, and often he was. But not always. And certainly not around her.

Be more careful, Cairon, she thought to him, though she did not speak. I will not always be here to protect you.

“’…this is a dark time, and its shadows may stretch for many years. / But I have something to show you, and I wish for that you will take heed. / So come with me, and I will show you Hope / In the dark of a thousand shadows…’”

 ---

She was warm; she was comfortable; she didn’t hurt. Rayla slept, and slept very well.

The lilium kept her under for the first span of the night, blotting out the shifts and sounds that would ordinarily wake her. It ebbed after a while though, and a thin edge of pain made her blink groggily awake. The tent was not dark; Bait glowed in his sleep, and the egg glowed too. That was normal. Everything was fine. She went back to sleep.

A while later she stirred again, feeling the warmth of the tent ebbing as the night’s cold encroached. But it wasn’t so bad. She went back to sleep.

Later, again, she woke with the disorienting sensation of sudden and unexpected contact. She made a surprised noise and cracked her eyes open to look. Callum had burrowed himself into her side, all curled-up, like he was cold. The lilium must have still been in effect, because all she did was sleepily think oh, that’s nice, take a drowsy moment to appreciate his warmth, and go back to sleep again.

The final time she woke that night was to a dragging awareness, somewhere in the back of her sleeping mind, that something was amiss with someone’s breathing. Not right. Not normal, for the middle of the night. She dragged herself to consciousness, eyes opening. She checked Callum first, who was still plastered against her side, deeply asleep. This time she had enough presence of mind to feel flustered about it. There was nothing wrong with him, though, so she turned her head to inspect the rest of the tent’s occupants…

…and found Ezran sat upright, plainly awake, running a hand calmly and absent-mindedly over the shell of the dragon egg. He didn’t look like he’d only recently awoken, either. He had the look of someone who’d been sitting up for a good while, quiet and weary in the night’s stillness.

After a moment, he seemed to notice that she was watching, and his eyes slid her way. He looked so tired. “…Hi, Rayla,” he said, voice hushed and quiet, as if to avoid waking anyone else up.

She blinked, then squinted, half sitting up. “What’re’y’doing awake?” she questioned, words a little slurred and incoherent from sleep. “It’s only…” she groped at her Moon-sense, which was growing rather weaker as it waned. “…three. Three’n the morning.”

“Huh. Is it.” He seemed vaguely interested, as if he’d had no idea what time it was before she told him. And…she supposed he hadn’t. What must it be like, being human, not knowing at all times what the time was? She made an impatient noise at him, and then he seemed to realise she’d asked a question. “Oh! Um.” He glanced down at the egg in his lap, hesitant. “Zym’s awake.”

Rayla frowned. She’d been worried, in a half-asleep sort of way, that he’d maybe been kept up by nightmares, or grief, or both. But… “And that woke you up?” she surmised, and he nodded tiredly.

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Can’t get back to sleep, either. It’s…hard to be asleep, when someone’s in your head being all…awake.”

She considered that, thoughts slow and groggy. “You tried putting him down?” she asked, eventually.

“Yeah,” he said again, morosely this time. “It helped a little, but not much. He’s just…awake.” He patted wearily at the eggshell. “He used to be mostly-asleep all the time, before the storm. Now it’s more like he’s…I don’t know, a regular baby or something. Asleep a lot. But not all the time.”

She’d heard elf parents complaining about their babies keeping them up all night; she thought of that with a vague sleepy humour, finding the circumstance of the baby Dragon King keeping the child King of Katolis awake to be weirdly amusing. Unfortunate, though. “That sucks,” she said, eventually, still struggling to manage anything more coherent. She did not feel properly awake.

“Mm.” He shrugged tiredly. “Not much I can do about it, though.” His eyes slid back her way, and lingered. “Did I wake you up? I was trying to be quiet…”

“Kinda,” she supplied after a moment. “I could tell someone wasn’t asleep. Wanted to check everything was alright.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Ez watched her, eyes just a little too luminescent in the dark for it to be normal. It could have just been reflection from the egg…but it wasn’t. “You should try to go back to sleep, then,” he said eventually. “Just because I can’t get back to sleep doesn’t mean you need to be awake.”

Rayla accepted the sense of that reluctantly, aware that she was tired and really did want to sleep, and that there probably wasn’t anything she could do to help Ezran by being awake. But, even so, it felt a little wrong. “I can sit up with you, if it’d help,” she offered.

He shook his head. “Nah. Thanks, but…it wouldn’t really help anything. And you need your sleep.”

“So do you.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have a baby dragon in your head being unhappy about how squashed he feels,” Ezran pointed out.

She sighed. “Fair enough.”

Callum chose that moment to make a tiny murmuring sound and curl a little further into her side, all balled-up, one hand settling with its fingers curled over her waist. She stiffened, abruptly reminded that he was there, being cuddly, visibly so, and Ezran was awake to see it-

Even tired as he was, Ezran very plainly did see; his eyes flickered to his brother, and a trace of a smile lifted his lips. “At least one of us is getting a good night’s sleep,” he commented, with a lightness to the words, like the sight had pleased him somehow. “He looks pretty comfy there, huh.”

Her shoulders hunched defensively. She half wanted to turn away, to shield Callum from view, but it was a little late for that. Instead she held herself stiffly motionless, cheeks prickling with heat, and said “He’s just – cold. He’s cold and I’m the biggest warm thing around. That’s all it is.”

Ezran barely twitched before shaking his head. “Nah. Callum’s just like that, when he sleeps. He’s either moving about and kicking the covers off or he’s hugging. He doesn’t really have any in-between. You should see him at home – he usually just ends up hugging a big pillow or something…” He tilted his head, looking at them. “But, yeah, maybe he’s cold too. He does look kind of…balled up.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if he was cold, but then she noticed he’d picked his cloak off the floor and slung it around himself. He didn’t look too chilly. “Right.” She muttered, self-conscious, and tensed a little further when Ezran cast his brother a thoughtful look and reached over.

He touched his fingers to Callum’s neck and smiled. “He’s so sleepy,” he said, affectionately, and lingered there for a few moments longer. “And, yeah, he’s a little cold.”

“I said so,” Rayla said, vaguely soothed by this apparent corroboration, but-

“And he’s warm and comfy where he is, and it’s nice.” Ez finished, drawing his hand back, settling with the egg again. “Or that’s about what I can get from him when he’s asleep, anyway.”

She didn’t say anything, but could feel the flush rising in her ears. She was entirely, acutely aware of the weight of Callum against her side…and the way that he, too, felt pleasantly warm. In the end she made a sort of vague, disgruntled noise, too embarrassed to offer something more coherent.

Ezran looked at her, then. He seemed almost curious. “Do you not mind, though?” he asked, inquisitive. “I remember you were annoyed about him moving around in his sleep, around when we first started travelling. And now he’s cuddling you.”

Rayla looked away, face hot. “…If you try to push him off, he just comes back,” she muttered in the end, half-exasperated and half-flustered. “He doesn’t even wake up. Just…” She nodded towards him without actually looking, because she wasn’t sure she could particularly cope with the sight of Callum’s sleepy face and messy hair right now. “Easier to get a full night’s sleep if I just leave him.”

She didn’t realise her misstep until a few moments later, when she became aware of Ezran’s silence. She looked up at him, and found his watchful gaze on her. “So it hasn’t just been tonight, huh?” he asked, plainly picking up on what she’d given away. She grumbled again, but didn’t answer, averting her eyes. More thoughtfully, as if to himself, Ez said “And you don’t mind.”

“Who says?” she retorted, disagreeably. She’d certainly minded plenty near the start, after all.

But, again, Ezran was thoughtfully quiet, for long enough that she eventually glanced back at him. In the shadows, the faint luminescence of his eyes was striking; something she’d expect more of her own kind than his. With those eyes on her, he said again “You don’t mind.” It wasn’t at all a question, and strangely, her breath caught. She found she couldn’t answer.

Ezran looked at her with such a solemn weight of knowing that she felt stripped bare, felt exposed, as if she faced a priest of the Moon's Shadow instead of a ten year old boy. A priest of the Shadow, with the eyes to see the secrets hidden beneath her skin. She stilled, oddly shaken, until the moment passed and Ezran nodded, eyes falling on Callum again.

“Good,” he said, softly. “That’s…good. Callum needs more people who’ll care about him.” Before she could flush at that, he smiled. “And he always has been pretty huggy.”

Uncomfortable, Rayla glanced down at Callum’s sleeping face. Only half of it was visible at the moment, with how he’d smooshed it into her side. “I noticed,” she said, a touch dryly. Then she hesitated. “Ezran…” He looked at her inquisitively, and suddenly it was hard to force the words out. “You…are you going to tell…” she trailed off, not even entirely certain what she was asking.

He fixed her with that oddly penetrating look again, as if he knew what she was trying to say better than she did. As if he understood, even without having touched her at all. “Am I going to tell him he gets cuddly with you when he’s asleep?” he offered, now with a little spark of mirth in his eyes. She stared narrowly at him, suddenly absolutely certain that he was enjoying this. “Or that you’re okay with it?”

There was something about the way he said that last part. Teasing, like he meant something else. Something more horrifically embarrassing, like ‘that you’ve got a huge crush on him’, or possibly another equally terrible equivalent. Was she imagining it? Did he actually guess that she – or was she just overthinking…?

She looked at him again. At the tiny smile, the knowing look, the glimmer of mischief.

Yeah, he knew. Or at the very least, he knew more than she wanted him to.

Her face burned, and her shoulders hunched as she looked away. She’d hoped to keep this hidden from him, even despite his empathic abilities and uncomfortably astute people-reading skills. She’d been an idiot. It would never have worked for long.

“Any of that,” she agreed, in the end, not meeting his eyes. She was so hyper-aware of Callum’s presence now that it almost itched, that she wanted to push him away. But she didn’t want to risk him waking into this conversation, of all things. As it was, she was thanking the stars for how much of a sound sleeper he was.

Ezran smiled, tilted his head consideringly at his brother, and hummed. “I guess I won’t tell,” he decided, in the end. “Callum can be kind of slow about this kind of thing, so it’ll probably work out better if I don’t say anything. At least for a while.”

What was that supposed to mean? Slow about what? What would work out better?

Still. She could at least appreciate the decision he’d apparently made. Rayla glanced at him warily, but though he was clearly having a good time with the topic, she didn’t see any duplicity in him. Her shoulders eased a little, and she sighed. “Thanks,” she said, begrudgingly.

“Plus, it’ll be way funnier to watch you guys if I don’t tell,” Ezran added helpfully. Rayla glared at him. “What? It’s true. Last night was already great, with how you laid all over him like that, his face was hilarious-“ at her tiny strangled noise, he cut off, looking at her inquisitively. “What? Do you not remember?”

She hadn’t, until he’d mentioned it. But now…the memories were hazy, and dreamlike in that characteristic lilium-drugged way, but they were there. “I do now,” she muttered, tense with mortification, suddenly awash with the recollection of how nice it had been. Drugged-Rayla had found such an entirely uncomplicated contentment in the whole thing that it warmed her even now. “Ugh.” Then, since he already knew, and she might as well: “This is exactly why I was worried about taking the lilium.”

Ezran stared at her. “It is? I thought it was because you didn’t want to act weir-“ He stopped. “Ohh. I get it. You don’t want to act all crushy around Callum.”

Her shoulders went up, and she reflexively looked down at the human prince pressed into her side to make sure he was still soundly asleep. Thankfully, nothing had changed on that front. Still- “Shh!” She hissed at him, prickling with self-consciousness.

Undaunted, he said “You were fine, you know. Just kind of cuddly. Cuddly’s fine.” He indicated his brother’s sleeping form, as if to present it as evidence. Rayla followed his gaze and pinked. “He’s, you know, a cuddly person. So he was surprised, but…” Ezran shrugged.

She intensely wanted to escape this conversation. But it wasn’t like she could just…leave. Opening the tent would waste all the heat and leave them all properly cold for the rest of the night. So she did the only thing she could: “Enough talking,” she said, firmly, ignoring the flush in her cheeks. “You should try to go back to sleep now.” Seeing him open his mouth to object, she added sharply “Try. Even if you can’t. Laying down with your eyes closed is still better rest than being up and awake all night.”

“Aw, fine,” Ez accepted, and eyed her. “You’d better try to go to sleep too, though.”

She sighed. “I will, Ezran.”

He extended a hand over his brother’s side, littlest finger befuddlingly extended. She stared at it warily, uncertain what he meant by it, and after a moment he prompted “Pinky promise?”

“What in Xadia’s name is a pinky promise?”

“A promise you make by linking your pinky fingers and shaking them,” he explained. “Means you can’t break it. So?” He waggled the finger.

She’d always thought they were called ‘pinkos’. “I don’t have pinky fingers, Ez.”

Undeterred, he said “That’s okay. You can just use your last finger. It’ll count.” So, sighing, she relented and extended her left hand to link fingers with him. He shook it twice, very solemnly, and then the promise was – supposedly – sealed. He looked very satisfied with himself. “There,” he said, and leaned back. Then, true to his word, he gathered up the egg again, repositioned the grumpily half-asleep Bait, and planted himself down on the ground, eyes determinedly closed.

It looked kind of comical, actually. His face was a little screwed up, like he was trying to stubborn himself into unconsciousness.

Glad for the reprieve from the uncomfortable conversation, and mindful of the weird human finger-vowing custom, Rayla settled back down herself. Callum hadn’t shifted much when she sat up before, and didn’t shift much now. He just pressed his face into her shoulder instead of her arm. She glanced at him one last time, for a very long moment, and then closed her eyes. Sleep followed soon after.

 ---

 Rayla woke again a few hours later. It was a while past dawn, and though the Moon would still linger above the horizon for a few hours yet, its recession pulled at her. Habit brought her awake with unerring ease at that sensation, so she blinked her eyes open and rose. Callum mumbled incoherently as she displaced him; she glanced at him quickly, but was relieved to see he was still asleep.

She sighed, quashing the increasingly-familiar flutter in her chest, and carefully extracted herself, reaching out to pull his fingers out of the wool of her jumper. That complete, she shuffled over to the tent doors, noting that Ezran had evidently managed to get back to sleep at some point…though, he was stirring now. That was unusual. Usually he slept as deeply as his brother, and didn’t budge even when she moved about. He sat up and yawned as she started undoing the door toggles, blinking sleepily at her. “Morning, Rayla,” he greeted, after a moment, voice rough.

One look at him and she recalled the middle-of-the-night conversation they’d had, and the mortifying details therein. She offered him a wary half-smile, folding the tent-door back. Instantly, it was colder; the air between the two tent layers made goosebumps lift on her skin, even with most of it swaddled in wool. She shivered, but reached outwards for the next door anyway. “Morning,” she echoed, after a moment, fingers working carefully at the toggles. Her left hand prickled with a strange numbness as it moved, clumsy as if cold, even though it was just as warm as the other one.

The outer door opened, and the air from outside was so frigid it felt like a slap in the face. She grimaced, inhaling sharply, and that inhale half-burned her lungs with the biting chill. “Ugh,” she said, and a few seconds later, Ezran made a similar noise as the air hit him.

“Oh, wow,” he said, sounding a little impressed. “I guess the tent really does make a difference.”

“That’s kind of the point, yeah,” she agreed, then forced herself outside.

It was a very bright morning, even now. The sun had just about poked past one of the mountains, and the sky was a pale, clear colour almost devoid of clouds. What little cloud-wisps there were moved noticeably; it was still relatively windy. She squinted against the brightness, then ventured out. Frost crunched beneath the boots she’d apparently slept in.

There hadn’t been any more snow in the night, so the area she’d cleared hadn’t particularly filled in, but it was white anyway. She frowned at her footprints, stamping a few times experimentally, and confirmed that it really was just frost. Frost, at least a couple centimetres thick. She turned around and found it had settled on the exterior of the tent as well, turning the whole thing pale and icy-looking. “Ugh,” she said again, disgruntled, knowing that they’d need to clear that off before they could pack it.

She’d headed over to the burned-out campfire by the time Ez followed her out, having pulled his boots and his cloak on, shivering. “What’re you doing?” he asked her, as she piled in their remaining firewood and went for the flint. He had Bait in his arms, the toad looking half-asleep and as grumpy as ever.

“It’s a cold morning,” she said. “Better have a hot drink or something before we go. It’ll do us good. Plus, I think our meat is all frozen, so we’ll need to heat up breakfast, too.”

“Oh, right.” He paused for a moment to think. “Can I help?”

“You can take the scarves and gloves and stuff off the snow-people,” she offered, dryly, and nodded to the line of icy sentinels at the edge of camp. “Since you and Callum apparently forgot to do that last night. They’ll need warming, too.”

Ez winced. “We did forget.” He sighed, put Bait down by the fire, then trotted off to obey. He returned a short while later with some particularly frosty winterwear, which she put close-ish to the burgeoning fire. Hopefully not close enough to catch alight. “Are we going to wake up Callum soon?”

She glanced consideringly back at the tent, which she’d left entirely open. “Cold will probably wake him up on its own soon enough,” she estimated. “But sure, why not.” So she stood and went, Ezran apparently deciding to follow. She found Callum curled up and shivering on top of her cloak, chasing the last vestiges of warmth, shifting like he was on the verge of awakening. She rolled her eyes, then reached through the tent-layers to poke him in the thick wool socks over his feet.

He giggled, apparently ticklish, and squirmed when she poked him again, and then finally cracked his eyes open. He peered at Rayla, then at Ez, as if not awake enough to comprehend what he was looking at. “Cold?” he offered, in a sort of incoherent questioning complaint, and then squinted at the brightness of the light from behind them. “Mm…too bright. Shut the curtains?”

Ezran snickered. Rayla lifted an eyebrow. “No,” she answered, helpfully, and watched him blink a few times more. He frowned.

“Tent,” he realised, seconds later. “Camping. Mountains. Right.” Finally he pushed himself up, then frowned. “Why am I on your cloak?”

Beside her, Ezran’s face was suddenly beset by an enormous grin. Rayla pointed her finger at him sternly and said “No.” Turning back to Callum, she added “…Probably it was warm, or something. Give it here, though, I’m getting chilly.” She ignored Ezran’s expression and prodded Callum until he was up and pulling his boots on, then reclaimed her cloak. He seemed to wake up a little when she started struggling to get it around her shoulders alone; for all that her hand didn’t hurt at all anymore, the motions for pulling clothing on still tugged unpleasantly at the wounds on her arm and shoulder, and she was all-too-aware that the lilium had worn off.

Rayla sighed, and lingered in place while Callum sat up to help her with the cloak. She was getting used to that, but it still rankled a little. She carefully didn’t look at his face, too aware of Ezran watching them.

“Thanks,” she said, when he was done, then receded from the tent doorway. “Now get up. We’ve got a long way to go today.”

“Don’t we have a long way to go every day?” he asked, pulling his boots on, and she snorted.

“Generally, yes. But considering how many days we’ve been sat around lately, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

He seemed a little surprised to see the fire re-lit when she led him out, but settled under the explanations of breakfast and a warm drink easily enough. “It’s a good idea,” he agreed, a little ruefully, settling to hold one of his icy gloves over the fire, just far enough not to burn. “I feel all numb and cold and stiff, kinda. Would be nice to warm up a bit before having to move.”

“We’ll all feel fine when we’re walking.” Rayla shrugged, and checked on the water. “But, yeah.”

A while later, when they’d all had some pine tea and they’d boiled some meat into a bland but serviceable semblance of breakfast, he glanced at the stiff way she was holding her arm and inquired about her pain levels.

She blinked at him owlishly. “Hurts, but not any worse than usual?” she offered, shrugging. Almost on reflex, she flexed her bad hand, as though to chase some of the familiar stiff ache from it, but there was just…nothing. No pain at all in the hand itself. In the wrist, sure, but the hand?

It didn’t feel normal. But it didn’t hurt, either. She wasn’t sure what to think about that.

He noticed the motion, of course. “Is your hand bothering you?”

She sighed, and looked away. “No.” Her voice was a little short. It didn’t hurt. It was bothering her, though, just…in a way she wasn’t sure she was ready to think about yet, let alone talk about.

He accepted that easily enough, even though he plainly wanted to press further; he was so annoyingly considerate. “Alright. Well, I was just wondering…” he glanced at her arm, hesitated, then went on. “…if it’s been long enough that it’s safe for you to take willow bark again. So you can take something for the pain while we’re travelling.”

Rayla blinked, nonplussed.

“You didn’t think of that, huh?” Ezran spoke, observing her reaction, and she frowned.

“I didn’t,” she said, after a moment, and considered her injuries, invisible past the bandages and several layers of clothes. “It’s…hm.” Eyes narrowing a little, she thought about it. It wasn’t like there wasn’t still stuff going on under the surface. Willow bark probably would slow or disrupt that. But, at this point, the seal on the wounds was solid enough that it wouldn’t necessarily be dangerous.

“Rayla?” Callum prompted, when she’d been quiet a long time.

“I think it’ll make me heal slower,” she concluded, after a while. “…But, now I think about it, I’ll barely be healing at the moment anyway, so…I might as well?” She shrugged, and felt a little lighter; it was undeniably cheering to think of maybe having some painkillers to tide her through what would be a pretty physically-demanding day.

She’d already got caught up in the relief of that idea, so was a little taken-aback when Ezran squinted at her and said “Why not?” She frowned at him, confused, and he elaborated. “Why aren’t you healing at the moment?”

“Oh.” Somehow, even after spending so long with them, confirming every day that they were human…she’d forgotten they wouldn’t know. So, with a false nonchalance, she nodded towards the sky, where the pale crescent of the sinking Moon still remained, washed out in the bright blue of daylight. “It’s New Moon soon,” she explained, averting her eyes from theirs. “It’s just…like that. For Moonshadow elves.” She scowled a little. “Especially without moondust.”

“Oh, right.” Callum nodded, as if remembering. “You said you’d be weaker at new moon. I didn’t know it affected stuff like your healing too, though.” He hesitated, looking at her. “How far away is it?”

Rayla grimaced. “Three days, ish. Including today.” She hadn’t in her entire life seen an unmedicated elf at New Moon. The ones who were crazy enough to go without moondust hid themselves away for the duration. She didn’t know what it would be like, but…

“And it’s already making you heal really slow?” Ez seemed morbidly interested. “Even days away?”

She was quiet for a while, uncertain if she wanted to admit it. “My healing, and my senses, and my strength.” Her voice was curt. “I’m weaker already. It’s not so bad yet, but in a day or so…” She shrugged. “No avoiding it, I suppose, but I’m not looking forward to it.” It was nagging at her, even, in a strange insistent way that she wasn’t used to. There was an animal awareness in the back of her mind, intent on the waning Moon, itching and whispering at her as if to say that she wasn’t safe, she wasn’t secure, she needed to find somewhere to hide before it was too late…

Callum and Ezran shared a glance. “Can you tell us what to expect?” Callum asked, trying for pragmatism, though she could tell he was worried.

She snorted. “No, not really. People tell a lot of stories about natural New Moon, so it’s hard to know what’s true.” She squinted at the sky. “I’ll have a better idea the day before, though. By then I should be able to tell how hard it’ll hit me.”

He hesitated. “Is it…” he seemed to struggle for the words, and she looked at him until he managed it. “Will it be dangerous? For you?”

Her first instinct was to snort dismissively at the notion, but then she paused. “…No, probably not,” she estimated, after a little more thought. “If I was sick, maybe, it could be a problem. Or if I was more badly injured.” She glanced at her arm consideringly. “We get sick easily, at New Moon. If that’s worse off of moondust…” A pause for thought. “I suppose the worst case scenario is my arm getting infected.”

Callum looked dismayed. “Rayla, that is dangerous. Infections are bad.”

She glanced at him. “Yeah, they can be,” she acknowledged. “But worst comes to worst, we’d just have to hold out for…Half Moon, I suppose, or anything past it. That’s one bonus of not being on moondust.” She grimaced at the thought. “Moonshadow elves off moondust are pretty impossible to kill with infection, near Full Moon. So, there’s that.”

She didn’t mention, because she doubted it’d help anything, that people tended to tell tall stories about the extremity of weakness that the New Moon brought. Stories that indicated that an unhealthy elf could sicken and die so quickly that they were gone before the Moon could turn back. But she wasn’t that unhealthy. She had injuries, maybe, but she didn’t have anything that could suddenly get worse and really mess her up. She should be fine.

Her hand, though. She recalled the weird experience she’d had the first time the binding had loosened, and twitched. If the human healer was to be believed about the dangers, that could have been the sort of thing that’d go wrong at New Moon. But, thankfully, she was plenty past that now.

The words had apparently reassured Callum, at least. “Well, thank Mercy for that,” he sighed, then looked at her curiously. “So, if you have a sick Moonshadow elf, do you take them off moondust to help them recover, or…?”

Rayla rolled her eyes at him. Trust Callum to get curious about the details of it. “Not if it’s close to New Moon,” she said. “Then they’ll just get worse. Or – actually, they get better for a day or two, then they get worse fast.” It was something she’d been taught about, with regards to first aid in the field. If someone was sick or severely injured near Full Moon, you stopped their moondust, and the influx of magic would sort them out once the drug left their system. But if the Moon was waning, it wasn’t worth the risk.

“But the full moon makes you recover,” he said, thoughtfully. “Do you heal faster, too?”

She glanced at her arm, momentarily pensive. She wondered what it would look like, when the Full Moon had passed. “Yeah.” Shaking her head as though to dispel the thought, she shoved a jar of icy cooked meat into Callum’s hands, and said “Heat that up, would you? I’ve got some packing to do.” She took that opening to escape the conversation, too-aware of the throb of her wounds and the strangeness of her hand.

She left the boys by the fire as she went around the snow-banks, pulling the wrapped slabs of frozen meat she’d shoved in there for cold-storage yesterday. The venture had been successful enough that divorcing the supplies from the surrounding ice was a little challenging; the snow had turned icy, and clung to the packages in sharp-edged clusters. Finally she brought it all back to the cleared space and got to work.

It was an annoyingly long time until they were ready to leave. Heating up breakfast took time, getting frost and ice off of their stuff took time, getting the contents of their waterskins to melt into something drinkable took time, and getting their gloves into a fit state to be worn took time as well. Rayla was fully impatient when at last they could put the pot away, and even then…

Reflexively, she tried to pick it up one-handed. Left-handed. It felt heavy; her hand shook, and her wrist ached, and the pot slipped from her fingers. A pot, and it was too heavy to hold. Her jaw clenched, and she reached with the other hand instead. She lifted. That, at least, was properly effortless.

Is it always going to be like this? she wondered, dismayed, keenly aware of the unhealthy fatigue in her wrist. Then, ruthlessly, she shoved the thought away. She tucked the hand carefully against her side, and went back to the increasingly-familiar awkwardness of trying to conduct camp chores with only her right hand available.

The dull ache of her damaged wrist harried her until, eventually, she took some willow bark between her teeth and chewed for long enough that all her pains went a little further away. It wasn’t as effective as the lilium, but her mind was clear, and it was a relief not to have to travel with her wounds searing at her so terribly.

“Right,” she said, when everything was finally in order. “Let’s get moving.” She pulled on her gloves at last; the fabric itched and tingled strangely on the skin of her left hand.

The boys checked their snowshoes, hefted the straps of their bags, then tromped over to her where she waited at the edge of their former camp. She settled her own straps over her uninjured shoulder, glanced around to make certain they’d not forgotten anything, then started walking.

“Goodbye, snow-people,” Callum said to their icy constructs, both boys waving the things farewell as they left. Despite herself, Rayla shook her head at them, and smiled.

 ---

 The snow was icier today, and a little easier to walk on with the snowshoes. That was a mercy, considering literally everything else was harder.

Just a few days ago, the initial burst of mountain-hiking had set Callum’s legs to aching more fiercely than he’d ever experienced in his life. He’d acquired soreness from combat training plenty of times over the last few years, but that didn’t hold a candle to the stiffness of legs unused to walking uphill for days on end. Then the thundersnow had happened, and he’d had a chance to recover. There’d been some walking yesterday, but not enough to reduce him to the same state as before.

He suspected that would change today.

The going was almost entirely upwards, and it was steep. Even with the snowshoes, it was hard to find his footing, and in places he pretty much had to climb, bracing his hands against rock directly in front of him to pull himself up. Ez, being considerably shorter, needed to be helped up those parts, Bait riding in his sweater to free up his hands.

It made him miss the first few days of their journey, a little; back when the ground had been level enough he’d been able to draw as he walked. Now he didn’t dare look at anywhere except where he was putting his feet.

…Most of the time, anyway.

He couldn’t really help staring around with wide-eyed wonder, sometimes. Every time they crested a slope or finished climbing the steeper sections, he could look ahead or behind and see the mountain range sprawling out around them. The angle wasn’t quite right for him to see all of the way they’d come, but some of the lowlands were visible anyway. They looked impossibly green and verdant from where he was, up on the mountain with its snow and ice.

It was weird to think that, mere days ago, he’d been somewhere warm enough to not feel the chill biting at his fingers. There wasn’t even much sunlight to help warm him; the clear skies of the early morning had given way to a patchy, sullen layer of clouds. It made for some pretty scenery, what with the rays of light casting between them over the landscape, but it didn’t soften the chill at all.

The cold wasn’t all bad, though. It created some really beautiful things. Callum found himself admiring the branching twigs of a leafless shrub, eyes following the strange frigid crust they’d accumulated. Ice clung to the undersides, an inch long, in an odd rippling pattern that made his hands itch for charcoal. Ice was on everything today, but this looked different. Where most every other grass and shrub around them was white and lumpy with thick frost, this looked clear and almost glassy. He tilted his head to see the watery light glimmer through, thinking of how he’d shade it.

It was then that Rayla nudged him, breaking him from his reverie. “Something interesting?” she asked, eyebrow raised. He offered an embarrassed laugh.

“Er,” he said, and indicated the shrub. “Just…that. The ice on it. It’s pretty.” He shrugged.

She looked blankly where he’d pointed. “…It’s twigs.”

“Pretty twigs,” he insisted, lips twitching. “The ice is really interesting! Sort of…wave-y? Ripple-y?”

“Kind of like icicles, maybe?” Ezran suggested, sounding a little winded as he leaned in to look. He evidently wasn’t having any easier a time with the walking than Callum.

Callum eyed the shrub appraisingly. “Yeah, something like that. Like sort of…lengthways icicles.”

Rayla shook her head at him. “It’s ice on twigs,” she said, exasperated. She was smiling a little, though. “Nothing special.”

“Well, I think it’s nice,” Callum announced, in staunch defence of the icy twigs in question. “And I want to draw it.”

She rolled her eyes, then reached out to tug at his cloak, beckoning him onwards. “Uhuh. Sure. But later. Now’s for walking.”

He mock-saluted, hand to his chest, and walked.

It was tough going. A mere hour later, his head was fogged with exertion and his legs were burning, and he seemed constantly out of breath. It wasn’t as though he was unaccustomed to the feeling of tightness in his chest, of labouring for steady breaths for what felt like hours on end – but it was distinctly different to experience it free of the usual panic or distress. He got out of breath during training, sure, but – not like this. Not in this strange, persistent way, where even the short breaks they took didn’t seem to help.

Given the exertion, it took him a while to realise that the breathlessness was a little weird. A lot of the walking was more like climbing, and it made sense to be panting during that. But they came to a plateau around midday, and walked on nearly-flat ground for a good fifteen minutes, and he still couldn’t quite catch his breath. “…Is it just me,” he managed, between gasps for air, “or is it weirdly hard to breathe today?”

Ezran’s breath was huffing and puffing too. “Not just you.”

Rayla glanced at them, and then at the mountain range ahead of them. “It’s the altitude,” she said, plainly, and both of them turned to blink at her, still plodding numbly onwards.

Callum frowned. “What?”

“Why we’re finding it harder to catch our breath,” she clarified, waving at the mountain. “It’s altitude. When you’re up high enough, the air’s thinner. Harder to breathe.” She shrugged. “And we’ve climbed a lot today.”

“…Oh,” he realised, nonplussed. Ezran, for his part, seemed too busy staring exhaustedly at the sky to have many thoughts on the matter. “Isn’t that mountain-sickness?”

“Same thing, different names.” Rayla agreed, pausing to stretch out her legs and shake them a little, as if to dispel some stiffness. Whether it was the oncoming new moon, or just the harshness of the ascent, she seemed to actually be feeling the exercise for once. “We must be past three thousand metres now. That’s when most people usually start getting mountain-sickness.”

He considered asking what that was in feet, but didn’t quite get around to it before his brother spoke. “That’s a lot of metres.” Ez mumbled, tiredly.

Callum glanced at him, then back at Rayla. “Should we be…worried, about this? I don’t know much about mountain-sickness, but can’t it get pretty bad?”

“We’d need to go a lot higher for the breathing to be an actual problem,” Rayla said, shaking her head. “But let me know if you get weird headaches, or feel sick, or dizzy. That’s the stuff to watch out for. For now, though…” She hummed pensively, and narrowed her eyes at the scenery. “…I’m thinking we won’t have to go much higher than this. It’s not like we’re trying to summit anything. We’re just trying to get onto the next mountain.” She tilted her head to scrutinise the route. She pointed out a vaguely-sloping plateau a fair distance away, somewhat lower on the mountainside than their current position. “I reckon we can start going down again that way, and then find somewhere to camp past there. That’s got to be a couple hundred metres lower. Should be easier to breathe.”

“Sounds good,” he sighed, and lifted his face to a cold breeze. He hadn’t expected to be grateful for the freezing weather, but with how hard he was working…if it had been warmer, he might have passed out by now. He pulled in a few more unsatisfying breaths, then pushed onwards.

After about half an hour, they stopped ascending quite so viciously and instead began a meandering up-and-down path along the mountainside, heading steadily downwards. This was when Callum discovered that going down mountains was just as hard as going up them, albeit in different ways. It was so icy that they had to take it painstakingly slow, and even then he felt constantly on the edge of a nasty fall. His toes crushed together at the fronts of his boots, beginning to grow sore.

The third time Callum slipped on ice and had to be steadied from falling face-first down-slope, Rayla went away and snapped a branch off of a large pine, shearing off its needles with her blade and scraping off most of the bark. She judged it against his height for a few moments before unceremoniously chopping several inches off the end. “Here. Walking cane.” She said, presenting him with it, and went off to go find another branch, which she prepared for Ezran.

They mumbled thanks at her, exhausted, and continued their descent with somewhat greater poise than before. The descent pulled at different muscles to the ascent, so his legs weren’t complaining quite as much, but the fronts of his toes were starting to hurt in that sharp way that suggested there’d be blisters soon. He’d never had blisters on the front of his feet before, and wasn’t especially looking forward to the experience.

The pine-canes weren’t sturdy, and Callum snapped his after less than an hour. By that point though he didn’t need it as much, so he just went without until – finally – Rayla glanced at the sky and announced their lunch break. “Oh, thank Mercy,” he muttered, dropping his backpack with abject relief and collapsing to the ground.

Ezran lowered his with rather more care, but made an incoherent noise of gratitude when he finally sat down. “Shouldn’t that be Fortitude?” he mumbled, tiredly. “Since we made it this far without falling over?”

“Speak for yourself,” Callum huffed, wiping a hand over his face. Even through the gloves, he thought he could feel the livid heat of his skin, warmed by exertion. He imagined he was probably super red-looking right now. “I’ve fallen over tons of times. Or…nearly fallen, anyway.”

Rayla lowered her bag and the tent pack carefully, as though being mindful of her other shoulder, then collapsed with obvious relief beside them. “You have a god of not-falling-over?” she asked, sceptically, and he rolled his eyes at her.

“Not a god,” he said back, just a little amused, eyes closing as he panted for breath. “Paragon.”

“You have a paragon of not-falling-over?” she corrected, and when he opened his eyes to glance sideways at her, her lips were twitching.

He snorted, then closed his eyes again. He half wanted to turn over and plant his face directly into a snow bank. It’d help him cool down, at the very least. “Pretty much,” he sighed, and after a moment of consideration, did reach to his side and pick up a handful of icy snow. He smooshed it onto his face, the ice crystals a little sharp-edged on his skin. “Endurance, and willpower, and keeping going even when stuff’s hard.”

“Fortitude’s a good Paragon for us right now, I think,” Ezran said, sounding exhausted, and Callum offered a wordless hum of agreement.

“If this had been an official mission, people would’ve sent us off with him, you know,” he said, almost wistful. “They’d have said ‘Fortitude follow you’. And ‘Prudence guide your feet’. That’s traditional for big or important or tough journeys.”

Rayla offered a dubious hum. “Well, this journey’s definitely all three of those.”

For a while, they just laid there, getting their breath back, trying to cool down. Callum’s under-layers began to feel cold and clammy with the sweat, indicating they’d probably smell terrible later on. He was too tired to bring himself to care.

Eventually, Rayla pulled herself up, even though she plainly didn’t want to. “Right,” she said, determinedly, in as bull-headed a manifestation of Fortitude that anyone could have asked for. “Food. We can’t take too long with this break, so…food.”

Callum made a face. “I’m really not hungry.” In the wake of the sheer exertion of the morning, eating seemed unthinkable. The mere notion turned his stomach.

“Yes you are. You’ve just not cooled down enough to feel it,” Rayla refuted, pragmatic, and went for the reserves of cooked meat she’d put in her bag. “It’s hard to eat after exercise, but when you’re on a stupid long journey, you do it anyway.” She opened the jar and waved it aggressively at them. Both of them complained pitifully at her, but she wasn’t having any of it. In short order they’d both reluctantly withdrawn a portion and sat up to start nibbling on it.

“You’re like aunt Amaya is about breakfast,” Ezran muttered, mouth part-full, chewing around the bite he’d taken. “She’s really bossy about that too.”

Rayla looked nonplussed. Plainly, she wasn’t sure what to think about the comparison.

“Imagine if we told her that,” Callum put in, uncertain whether to be amused or alarmed at the thought. “Wonder how she’d react to being compared to an elf.”

“She’d definitely make a pretty weird face,” Ezran offered thoughtfully. “She’d probably be glad Rayla’s making sure we’re eating, though.”

She grimaced at that, looking like she’d swallowed something sour. “Don’t know about that. She’d just stab me for running off with you two in the first place.”

Callum opened his mouth to protest, remembered the depth of his aunt’s sentiments for elves, then shut it. “…Well, I mean…”

“Don’t worry, Rayla,” Ez said, reaching out to pat her on the knee. “If you ever meet aunt Amaya, we’ll make sure we’re there, and then we can convince her to be nice to you. No stabbing.”

Rayla glanced at him, expression slightly pained. “…If you say so.” It was very obvious, from her face, that she had absolutely no intention of going near their aunt if she could help it. Not for the first time, Callum wondered what kind of reputation Amaya had in Xadia.

“We can keep teaching you sign language, too!” His brother went on, determinedly cheerful. “I bet she’d be too surprised at an elf trying to talk to her properly to, um,” he searched for a word.

“Stab me, clobber me with her shield, or throw me in a dungeon?” Rayla suggested, and both of them made faces at her. Callum, for his part, had recently seen Rayla contend with what would surely have been a fatal stabbing if he hadn’t tossed her assailant off a cliff, and wasn’t particularly keen on imagining any Aunt Amaya variations on the affair.

It was uncomfortably easy to picture, though. He’d seen one of his aunt’s famous Battalion sparring sessions, and she was…very, very good at fighting. Struck suddenly wordless, he said nothing.

Ezran shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

Rayla sighed, and for a moment, looked down at her left hand. She flexed its fingers carefully, slow and methodical, and Callum remembered how she’d been looking at it earlier. For all that she hadn’t wanted to talk about it, she’d seemed…unsettled. “Well,” she said, quietly, after a moment. “I guess sign language is…probably pretty good exercise, for this hand.”

“Keeping it moving, helping circulation?” Callum supplied, after calling back to mind the Healer’s advice. “Yeah, I guess it would be. We could do a quick bit of it now, while we’re resting?”

She eyed him, then rolled her eyes. “Suppose. Might as well make it something useful, though.”

“Like what?” Ez asked, intrigued.

“Like watch signals. Check-ins, and stuff. The kind of thing my lot would use ictus for.”

“Huh,” Callum blinked, and thought about it. It wasn’t like he’d not seen military sign language terms being used before, given who his aunt was, so… “Yeah, sure. What first?”

Rayla, apparently, had been drilled thoroughly enough in proper silent report-giving enough that she had a list of important terms ready to go. She determinedly worked her hands through learning the signs to demand a status report, report all-clear, report a problem, and report possible enemies in the area. It was all pretty basic, but she clearly wasn’t used to learning this sort of thing, and…well. And her hand was obviously giving her problems.

He didn’t comment, because he could see she didn’t want him to. But it was slow to move. The fingers trembled strangely in certain positions, and didn’t quite seem to respond right. Several times, between his demonstrations of new signs, he saw her flex the fingers and shake the hand, as if trying to dispel some stiffness that wouldn’t quite deign to leave...

“That’s probably enough for today,” he decided, once she’d navigated her hands through a quick practice exchange of an all-clear status report. “Or, at least, for now. Probably won’t sink in, if we try for more.”

She blinked, then nodded. “Yeah, probably,” she agreed, and glanced briefly at the way ahead. “We should be moving again, anyway.”

“Next time, we’ll teach you something more fun,” Ezran promised.

She glanced his way, smiling a little as she hefted her bags over her one good shoulder. “Like what?”

“Like talking about your favourite foods, maybe?” he suggested, picking up the bag with the egg carefully, and kneeling to let Bait jump onto its top, riding there like a monarch in his carriage.

“That sounds like a good way to get ourselves stupid hungry with nothing good around to eat.” Despite the words, she sounded amused.

Callum thought longingly of the castle meals, and regretted not eating more at lunch. Rayla had been right; he really had been hungrier than he’d felt at first. “Still nice to think about,” he said wistfully. “Give us something to look forward to when this is all done.”

“Suppose.” When he looked at her, she looked a little wistful herself, as though she were caught in similar thoughts of home.

As they started to walk, he glanced at her sidelong, and eventually asked “So…what are your favourite foods, back home?” If, as she’d claimed, everything in Xadia was magical…did that include the food? What did magic food taste like?

She hesitated for a moment, like she wasn’t sure whether she was supposed to say, or even if she wanted to. But then she smiled, still wistful, and started describing her favourite Xadian fruits and berries to them, and which ones she’d learned to find and pick herself in the forest she apparently lived in.

He listened to it all, interjecting with questions here and there, and…though she was pretty sparing with the details, started to get a better idea of the place she’d grown up in. A forest full of magic, and wild fruit vines growing on trees tall enough they’d probably overshadow the cliff his home castle was built on. Trees tall enough and immense enough to carve houses out of. It was so fantastical to imagine. Thinking of the wonders of Xadia, waiting so far ahead, made it a little easier to keep walking.

The hour passed like that, with easy curious conversation to take their minds off of the travel, and in the end Callum felt lighter than he had in days.

Even if Rayla wouldn’t tell him what was in a moonberry surprise.

 ---

 In the wake of the storm, the Healer’s house grew busy, and from his sickbed Corvus bore witness to it all.

The first day, there was a stream of miners displaced from the mountain by an avalanche. Broken bones on two, sprains on a few more. A day later one of the same group, only recently recovered from the mountainside, was brought in hypothermic and near-dead, losing two toes and a finger to frostbite before she was stabilised. No one had died, apparently, but it had been a near thing.

Now, the whole town was effectively on standby, waiting for the weather to improve. The tail-end of the thundersnow was still lashing at Verdorn’s periphery, for all that the mine-folk apparently thought it had moved past Farel – and, accordingly, the mines – by now.

“It’ll be another day before it’s safe to go back there,” said the Healer’s wife, a woman named Serris, who oversaw the mines and was apparently rarely home. “So in the meantime, we’ll just have to do our best impressions of directionless layabouts. At least you lot have the excuse of injury, eh?” This last comment she directed at her battered fellows in their beds, a good-natured jibe, and they jeered back at her.

“I’ll be glad to see a little more of your face in the meantime, at least,” said the Healer Marla, her voice dry. “And if you’re so offended by being a layabout, you can come help me mix these salves.”

“A harsh taskmistress, my wife,” commented Serris to the house’s residence, amused, before she went as commanded to help with the work.

Corvus quite enjoyed the company, in honesty. He’d grown accustomed to travelling and serving with the Battalion, and though he was frequently detached for his tracking endeavours, he missed the camaraderie of his fellows. It was good to have people to talk to, even if most of them were as bedridden as he was. And, with little else to do, they all spent a lot of time talking. He was recipient to a lot of questions about his current mission, which he couldn’t answer, and a lot of questions about the Battalion, some of which he could. He admitted when asked that he’d been told to stand by and heal, so wouldn’t be heading anywhere soon.

“I’m to get transportation to Greatport if I can do it without risking myself,” he said, a little wistful. He liked Greatport. If he had to convalesce anywhere, it would have been a good choice. But… “Apparently, I’ll have to hold off on that for a while, though.”

“You certainly will, master Corvus,” Marla said severely, without even looking up from her mixing. “Horseback would be terrible for you as you are now. It’s waiting for a cart to take you or nothing, and we’ve a while until the next of those is due to leave.”

So that was how his days passed, in the thick of the storm. He tried not to spend too much time worrying about the General, or the princes. For better or for worse, he was off the mission now. He just…wished he could have done better. If he had, maybe the princes would be safe now. Instead, he’d undoubtedly driven them straight into that deadly storm, with their captor potentially too badly injured to see to their safety.

He tried not to fret. But it was hard to avoid, when he had frostbitten testaments to the dangers of the mountains convalescing around him. The elf wasn’t the only danger to those boys, was she? And his failure had sent them straight into that gauntlet. He’d wanted to save them, but instead…

Still, Corvus did what he could to avert his thoughts. He’d sent what information he could to Amaya. There was nothing else he could do, at this point.

Except:

“The tavern had some interesting visitors today,” said Serris, after returning from checking in with her workers at the tavern in question. She shot a piercing look at Corvus as she spoke. “A couple of kids, one of ‘em in Crownguard armour. They said they’re tracking that elf.”

Corvus straightened on his headboard. So did everyone else in the house of healing. “Kids?” he repeated, then processed the Crownguard part. There was only one Crownguard he knew of who was young enough to easily be called a kid. He was suddenly at full attention. “Siblings?” he questioned, intent. “A girl with dyed hair? Her brother the Crownguard?”

Everyone was looking his way, now. “You know them?” Serris guessed, after a moment.

Lord Viren’s children, here? “I’ve met the Crownguard,” he said, slowly, mind working furiously. They were tracking the elf? That made no sense. That wasn’t a job for Crownguard, it was a job for the Battalion, the military – for him. And the dark mage…

He thought ‘elf’. He thought ‘dark mage’. Then he thought, ah.

For a moment, it all seemed to make sense. He considered Lord Viren with unease, and everything he’d heard of the man, working so closely with the General. Perhaps he wasn’t content with what could be harvested from the five felled Xadian assassins. Maybe he wanted the sixth, too, and had sent his daughter and son out to that effect…

…except, that didn’t quite fit.

“…Is that what they said?” Corvus asked, after a long silence, aware of the sudden quietness of the room of convalescents. “That they were after the elf?”

Serris eyed him, cautious. She folded her arms. “They tried to hide it at first, but, yeah. They didn’t know you were here, either. Seemed interested in that. They might come visiting soon.”

Corvus made a noncommittal noise, and tried to pore over his thoughts, tried to identify what tasted wrong about this situation. He’d been on a low dose of lilium for days now, and it slowed his mind more than he cared to admit. He needed his wits about him now, because there was something off here. Something important.

Slowly, through the fog, he drew the discrepancies from his gut into his mind.

Viren was Lord Protector now. If he wanted a pursuit of the elf, why not make it larger-scale? Why send only his children? Why not work with General Amaya, who was expressly pursuing the elf already, and surely had the best knowledge of the resources available? Soren certainly wasn’t a trained tracker. He doubted the girl, the dark mage, had that sort of training either, at her age-

He stopped. Examined the thought.

Dark mage. Tracking. Were there spells for that sort of thing?

For the first time, he felt an inkling of anger. If they had a way to find the princes and they’d been withholding it…!

Except that wasn’t right either. They said they were tracking the elf, not the princes. And, at this point, the news that the princes were actually alive probably hadn’t spread very far. So…Lord Viren had sent his children, a talented but inexperienced Crownguard and…a dark mage…in pursuit of an assassin thought to have slain royalty. Why? Were the ingredients worth so much to him? Was there some other motive?

…He’d sent his children covertly. Hadn’t given word to General Amaya, or Corvus would certainly have been notified by now. He wanted that elf found, and either he didn’t trust the General, or…

Or, there was some other motivation at play here. Something secret. Something, perhaps, that the Lord Protector would only trust to his own family.

Corvus recalled, all at once, that the elf had her wrist bound by magic. It was what had given him the advantage in the fight with her, knowing about it ahead of time, knowing what to target, what to exploit…and the Healer had said it was dark magic, hadn’t she? Dark magic, when there were only two dark mages who the elf might have encountered. One of those mages was now here.

Something isn’t right here, he thought to himself grimly, and felt his fingers itch for a quill. Amaya needed to know about this. But…

He sighed. Kora hadn’t returned in a while, so he could only assume she’d been put to work on the other end, relaying vital information to those places and people she was bound to. If he wanted to report, he’d have to do it by the town’s rookery, and send it to the Crow Office for redistribution. That would take time, and he still didn’t have the full story. If the Lord Protector’s children were here – if he could talk to them-

He needed to report. But it would be better to wait until there was more to say.

“If they ask…” Corvus said, slowly, to a dozen keen pairs of ears. “Tell them where to find me. I think we need to talk.”

--

End chapter.

Chapter Notes: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OGBo7nKVDIfWjhxGe90fwaS3lP0IfQJ3?usp=sharing

Link to PIAJ chapter notes folder (Google Drive folder including worldbuilding, commentary, medical notes, research notes, and misc notes for all applicable chapters within this section)

This chapter's notes cover: travel details, the Crow Lord’s office, Hope, Mercy scripture, Moonshadow religion, rare Moonshadow elf abilities.

Timeline: https://docs.google.com/document/d/107eD8zmLAAFBWSOgsLyl8g4pAdQF4EgMh4rpN_m91U4/edit?usp=sharing Link to PIAJ Timeline Google doc ( to be updated as story progresses)

PIAJ Masterpage: https://tenspontaneite.tumblr.com/piaj Link to PIAJ Masterpage on tumblr (containing links to chapters, meta, art, Q&As, and resources) (Link may not work properly on mobile/app)

Author Notes: 

So. It’s been a while. You can pretty much completely blame that on a single scene, which blocked me so hard that it actually kicked me directly out of the fandom. I’ve never had that happen before. I had to slowly claw my way back via my other tdp fics. The scene in question is written now, thankfully. I deferred it to the start of next chapter out of desperation, and then managed to write it all in a mad burst of inspiration the other day.

Various things have happened in my life that you can, like, vaguely catch hints of if you read back on my tumblr, if you’re into that sort of thing. Otherwise:

Credits: more Hogarth inspiration for one Sarli line in this chapter, specifically 'Where there is life, there is hope of change'. It's not word for word in the text, but there was definite inspiration there. I can't quite remember which book it was – In Extremis, maybe? Middle of its series, in any case.

Next chapter is done, and I’m very excited about it. It has some fun content, but most of all: it has my favourite Runaan plotline scene. I wrote it a long time ago, relatively early on in piaj development, and have been in love with it ever since. I’m so excited we’re finally to the point of me being able to publish it. I’m going to write a fucking huge author’s commentary section for that chapter’s extended notes, I have so much to say about it.

For now, though…I like this chapter a lot, actually. I’ve reread it so many times while trying to block-break over the last few months, and normally that would make me sick of it, but I still love it. Really enjoying starting to get to The Good Stuff. Please leave a comment if you enjoyed! Or some sort of stat enrichment! It’s incredible fuel for the writing engine.

#tdp fic #rayllum #tdp callum #tdp rayla #piaj chapters

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S5 Ep 18: A Series of Ecological Disasters

Booting up ye old Yugioh, booting up a new aesthetic playlist to type to. (today’s playlist is webcore, which would feel like such a damn fake aesthetic, if it weren’t that every single one of these -core aesthetics are pretty damn fake and everyone knows it.)

Anyway, it’s been so long that, I’ll be honest, I thought I booted up the wrong episode:

I usually skip the anime intro, but I try to watch it once each arc, cuz the intros change, and this arc was like “screw it, here’s all the other villains, just pretend this arc isn’t happening.” They had Pegasus, they had Marik, they have Bakura (who is kind of in this shot as well, you can see him phasing in there.) And like...I guess they’re hiding the villain of this arc or something because that was it. Alexander the Great got just nixed from this villain list and that’s a shame.

Just a real weird choice, but since apparently this arc didn’t air in Japan they probably had to outsource this anime intro and whatever studio in charge of it just cobbled together stuff from every other season and then a couple of shots of capsule stuff.

Speaking of capsule stuff: get a load of how many freakin lines the animators have to deal with every time they draw Grandpa.

Bro saw this and was like “oh yeah, this is a Shonen Jump” and yeah. The hair does give those vibes. We got a good look at what Vegeta would look like if he really let himself go.

(read more under the cut)

Sorry, my playlist started playing a song where every single line of the song is “Adrien Brody” and it took me like a few minutes to realize I was listening to “Brodyquest” completely seriously.

Damn it, webcore, don’t betray me like this.

Anyway, this arc does something super surprising: Yugi actually hugs somebody and doesn’t look like he’s going to pass out standing up.

It is pretty fitting that the good Yugi hug would go to Grandpa.

And, as night falls, Joey Wheeler has gotten hungry, and there is nothing to eat but his new best friend and spirit animal, baby dragon. Unfortunately he shares life points with the dragon, and I think if you eat it that just instakills you.

And directly underneath him--since this world is like 100 feet wide and things just conveniently happen--Tea has told everyone that they needed to stop worrying about Joey. Which is a lot coming from Tea, because her worrying about Yugi/Yami getting hurt is most of what occupies her headspace in this series.

But even Tea was like, screw Joey, I guess.

Who kinda just falls directly into them upside down, and shows us what Joey’s hair looks like when it’s sticking straight up.

For reals, admire how long Joey Wheeler’s hair is. If Tea were upside down, she would have the same length of hair.

Also speaking of Vegeta, I am low key concerned that Joey has what appears to be a significant amount of male pattern balding going on for a teenager.

Apparently getting set on fire many, many times did have an effect on Joey, and this massive pompadour he wears is a combover. Poor baby.

Holy crap, if this is what card stress and getting killed multiple times did to Joey Wheeler, can you imagine what’s going on under Seto’s bangs? That’s probably why his bangs ride so low, Seto likely wears a freakin toupee.

Guys, Joey’s gonna lose his hair at 25 at this rate. Those locks just aren’t long for this world. Poor baby.

After Joey rejoins the party, he immediately eats all of their food. Not sure why they can’t just have Baby Dragon eat like...whatever Baby Dragon naturally eats...and then transform that into shared Joey Wheeler life points, but it’s not clear exactly how much of a life-connection they have with their Yugioh monsters. Not like it matters because Joey Wheeler is default starving all the time anyway.

Tristan has decided we should start laying blame, I guess because Duke Devlin isn’t here anymore to be the local kill joy. This doesn’t seem to be important at any point, and most of the characters are just ignoring Tristan because like...once you’re in the haunted game in a haunted tomb in a random part of India--it’s kind of moot to argue about who’s fault that is, youknow?

Joey reminds us that he found this quest item in a treasure chest under a secret waterfall. No one says “that was convenient that you landed there after getting chased through a ravine by man-eating birds after you got your dragon from when you got your crotch injury from getting spliced by that tree.”

Which is when Tea says “Wait! We haven’t had a plot thing happen in like 4 seconds! Wait!”

Hey what degree of “I don’t trust nature” do you have to be to assume that all the flowers are trying to eat you?

Like what level of anxiety is Tea where she not only is like “pretty sure the flowers are going to destroy us?” but also...she’s correct? Like she’s not wrong.

They set the dog flowers on fire, but unlike the Jungle Book this doesn’t solve any problems (which apparently got taken off the Disney+ kid’s menu so...yet again, I make a Disney reference in these recaps that future generations will not understand because so much of the Disney library has been banned from the vault. It’s almost like Disney should let go of that copyright they held on for like a hundred years, because what they’re holding on to is only going to get more racist with time. But nah. Gotta hold on with their greedy mickey mouse gloves.)

So instead of using fire, Tristan used his monster to electrocute the air (?) and blind the dogs. Wisely, the animators quickly jumped to this other scene so we wouldn’t have to analyze why it’s suddenly daytime or why that plan would even work.

Joey and Tristan do a lot of buddy buddy stuff this arc. Usually we see a lot of Joey and Yugi’s bottomless friendship, but we don’t get this much Tristan/Joey love. So shippers rejoice, these two seem to have several coordinated dances and songs...and I’d say that teens don’t typically do that, but I went to summer camp, there are situational places where teens will sing the entire vacation and make coordinated dances.

Weirdly, since Joey and Tristan share so much time together, this also means Tea and Yugi actually sit next to eachother for a lot of this arc, almost as if they were a couple. Mind you, they’re chaperoned closely by Grandpa, but youknow...that’s a different energy than I’m used to seeing.

That and like, they can’t have Tea dance with them because last time she did a dance, it was like a DDR fight and she elbowed some guy like it was a fisticuffs situation. Like there was some sort of dance war going on behind the scenes of Yugioh’s card war, and it came up once and I guess Tea resolved it and the dance fights haven’t come back since.

Overall, if they did a dance with Tea, they would get kneed in the face, so that’s probably why they insist on doing cancans as a duet and not a trio.

After Joey and Tristan freak out over having no food, Tea decides to just start eating in front of them.

and like...didn’t Joey eat that food yesterday? Like last night? The short term memory loss on all these fools.

Immediately after this we realize something weird in the water. That’s right, it’s a massive head.

Yugi seems to have forgotten they lit this turtle on fire and electrocuted the entire sky the night before. Not that it mattered.

There were like...nesting birds on those trees on that island. What the hell? They just killed so MANY of those man-eating dogs that are flowers.

Seriously are land turtles allowed to just...dive underwater for long periods of time? How does that ecosystem even work? It’s like...That’s wild to think about.

Inside the temple, they have to fight a genie or something.

In case you were wondering, the only reason Tea and Grandpa got iced is because they were the closest to the door. The two who were actually standing out of harms way were the closest to harm the whole time.

Bro tells me this is also what will happen to you if you are in the front or the back of the party while playing Cthulu D&D

Anyway, Pharaoh decides to disclose that his big problem of feeling guilty all the time and taking all the blame, which he did all of last season...is still a huge problem he will probably never tackle.

Straight up, don’t be fooled by my caps, everyone else has completely forgotten about Alex, who is still running around that temple up there. They haven’t even asked Grandpa “hey is this your protege? Is this your mentee you never told us about?” Nah. They already forgot. 

How wild is it that Pharaoh thinks this is all his fault when he was the only one who was like “YUGI IT’S A TRAP DON’T GO IN THE- well...OK I guess we’re doing this, fine.” Is he upset he didn’t take control from Yugi and walk back to the plane? Because that’s the only way he could even be partially responsible, He was the only guy who was like “I see the end from the beginning on this y’all, and it’s the massive pyramid in India.”

Speaking of forgetting, they came across this language Pharaoh has decided to have nothing to do with.

This was actually a riddle and it was like...it was a riddle, sure, I guess.

And so Joey Wheeler does not hallucinate his dead wife from a previous incarnation and get on the back of his Baby Dragon to sail away into the sunset. Instead they’re just gonna walk.

Too bad Tea’s orb covered in wings only seems to hover a bit. Every single wing on that weird orb is absolutely useless.

And then Pharaoh’s pokemon is just a fire--which is hard to sit on--and Celtic Guardian...who would allow it, sure, but probably doesn’t fly (I think. He might fly)

And then Tristan’s Pokemon kinda seems like if you sit on it, you will get electrocuted. It can probably fly though. It’s very round. Seems like an anime thing that the more round your mascot character is, the more likely it can at least bounce a good distance.

So, next time, I’m just going to assume that we are going to do even more camping. And youknow, if you told me exactly HOW MUCH CAMPING was in this card game show with super future tech, I would not have believed you. But like...a lot of this series is set in the woods right? Like a lot a lot? I have grown to appreciate the woods.

Anyway, as always, if you just got here, this is a link to read these in chrono order:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

See you next time!

#yugioh #yu-gi-oh #recap #photo recap #S5 #Yugi muto #yami muto #grandpa muto #tea gardner #joey wheeler #tristan taylor #baby dragon #Ep18

[kithtaehyung]

Saw this floating around and thought it’d be funny to do : Assign your moots with a fanfiction trope and a member?

so i’ll do this one a bit differently mwahaha

i am very sure i missed some people i am so sorry in advance! but these are all my wip ideas - some of them already being worked on and some still in drafts. which is which is a secret ehehe

namjin, e2l/s2l, professors au: you’re a teacher’s assistant for namjoon with an unfortunate, tiny crush on his big muscles and even bigger brain. but, it’s incredibly obvious he’s all about his work and you would have no chance against his moral compass. so when another professor - one that gave you a terrible first impression on your first day - starts to carelessly flirt with you, it’s strange how your not-so-subtle reciprocation causes a slight change in namjoon’s demeanor. @honeyj00ns @kkulmoon @papillonsgf @sunshinekims @lurejoon @yehet-me-up @randombtsprincessa @lurejoon

seokjin, arranged marriage au: the two of you were told very early on that you would marry in the future. but, after years and years apart, neither of you took that decree seriously. what happens when both of you get flown home to have a very abrupt wedding under immense pressure from your wealthy and overbearing families? you two plan to escape it, of course. escape it and go back to the comfy but admittedly mediocre lives you were living before. @yoonia @trustingofwinds @floralseokjin @flowerseokjin 

yoongi, brother’s best friend au, university au: throughout high school, you sometimes got glimpses of your brother’s friends: some of them were sweet, some of them were smart. but one of them was a total fuckboy from day one. after a foray of horrid relationships spanning years - ending with one that broke up with you right before your second university spring break - you needed advice on what the hell you were doing wrong. and this wasn’t a conversation for anyone sweet or smart. @sketchguk @xjoonchildx @yoonjinkooked @ttaechwita @softyoongiionly @marvelousbangtan

hoseok, best friends to lovers, dance au: you and hoseok have been the directors of your dance crew for years, and he’s been your best friend for even longer than that. when an injury takes you out of the upcoming competition, you have to watch as hoseok practices and eventually dances your partner choreography with someone else - and deal with him slowly falling in love with them in the process. @hobeemin @honeiibeehobi @bangtantaegi @kooseokss 

jimin, fantasy/royalty au: between your fiery personality and your headstrong attitude, you weren’t the most courteous princess in the land - but you were the heir to the most powerful galewolf throne, so everyone would just have to deal with it. when your passionate tryst with a nameless boy is cut short, you vow to find him and proclaim him your betrothed. what you don’t expect is to see him in the procession of a warring nation, sitting astride a horse right next to the most corrupt of kings. @stayjimin @writtenwhalien @missgeniality @ppersonna @pjmsdior

taehyung, fantasy/royalty/vampire au: your ancestors have always been loyal to the mysterious royal family ruling the land. never one to question, they simply guard the castle and answer to the many, many demands thrust open them in exchange for their eternal protection. but you were different: you questioned everything - especially the cold, rude, heartless prince taehyung. but would that be your triumph? or your downfall? @chateautae @taegularities @ilikemesometaetaes @monvante @taemaknae  @levantelux @kimtaehyunq @lovetrivia 

jungkook, strangers to enemies to lovers, rockband au: ever since their debut, you’ve been a huge fan of your local band’s lead guitarist, taehyung. through a scouting audition, you get invited to work with them on their upcoming summer tour, which brings you closer to your lofty, impossible dream of being with him. and while it seems like you may actually have a chance with taehyung - if his flirting was any indication - there’s just one problem: jungkook, the obnoxious, cocky drummer that won’t stay in his damn lane. @bratkook @tweedlekoo @jungkxook @hisunshiine @ditttiii @r-m @onherwings @btssmutgalore @jinings

#gdi i just know i missed people #but this was fun anon ty #anon #mailbox💌 #games #misc:games #Anonymous #don't mind me if i keep adding people i missed LOL

[internalsealpanic]

Lesson Learned

summary: Pinning exercises are a lot easier when you ask nicely.

a/n: The backstory to this piece was that I went to the church part of our discord server and told people about me being thirsty about Slade and they collectively went: DO HIM. The reader does have a backstory which boils down to rich girl from a crime family is a little shit because I thought this would have a funny dynamic with Slade.  Special thanks to @batarella and @knightfall05x for proof reading and giving me ideas. Would this count as my one entry for kinktober? 

warnings:  This is straight up smut. Please read responsibly. Brat taming, strength kink, daddy kink, orgasm denial, and hinted size kink. (Hilariously half of these were by complete accident.) There is some injury mentioned but not too graphically. Both characters are assholes.   

masterlist

Slade was on the ground, his head was swimming even as the sharp shriek of sirens rang loud in his ears. His senses were at once too sharp and too unfocused. Whatever drug he'd been hit with had to have targeted the nerves in his muscles too. He couldn't move. Not substantially anyway. Not in a way that would actually help him.  Through the haze he hears the clicking of heels against the floor, then a sharp pain shoots through him when said heel dug into one of his still closing bullet wounds. 

 You stood above him, your shark's smile hidden behind your mask.  "Well old man, I didn't think you would be caught this easy. I might need to rethink this meeting." You hummed tapping your chin as you lean down your heel digging further into his flesh. It's a tactic your sister had taught you. People were less inclined to think clearly when in excruciating pain.  If Deathstroke was this easy to capture, was he really worth your money? 

 He was watching you, blue eyes looking defiant. You whistled low. You liked a hard negotiation. It kept things more interesting. The rapid footsteps of men drew you out of your contemplation much to your annoyance. You debated on just paying them to go away. It would make your life easier but there's a chance these men were truly loyal to the man you had just paid a visit to.

 You weigh your options. His reputation may be enough to keep your siblings away. Maybe just long enough 'til their petty little war is over. "I'm going to hire you-"

 "-this assumes I'm going to say yes"

 You snorted. He noted the confident roll in your shoulders, the kind of cocky self-assured gesture of someone who knows they're going to win.  Every movement, every angling of your form deliberately used to show a difference in power and lack of respect. In short, it made you very punchable.

 "Your statement assumes you have a choice." You chuckled tilting your head to the side in challenge. He scowled at you and you try to keep the sheer delight you feel out of your body language. You weren't sadistic by any means but for one, brutality was practically bred into you, and two, you are, what your darling eldest brother had so kindly put, a  little bitch.  "I'll tell you why you'll say yes to my proposal." You said stepping off of him and pirouetting towards your duffle bag. "One, I'm offering your more than a million dollars in cash for the simple job of training me-" You observed his face as it remains carefully impassive. You expected as much. You heft your bag into your arms and unzip it rummaging through the cache of weapons you had stored just in case plan A through F failed you. "Unless we're associated, I'm the only one walking out of here with any money for their troubles." You said tossing the severed head of his target in front of him. You gave him an all too pleased grin. 

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 You find yourself pinned down again in the span of 15 minutes, face squished against the training mat, your arms pinned behind you, and most annoyingly your ass raised while your bastard of an instructor laughs in your ear, his lips dangerously close to your ear. You hiss and bristle feeling the fibers in your muscles burn from the uncomfortable angle they've been forced into.  You squirm trying to buck him off but his strength rendered your efforts moot. His enhanced strength keeps your body firmly between the sweat-covered mat and his large, toned body which just made you bite your lip to keep anything vulgar from escaping you. 

 You were 110% sure he was fucking with you at this point but any smart remark you had was either smothered by the mat or died whenever you felt acutely aware of your skin against his.  

 "Get off of me, old man," You snarl, making a futile attempt to kick him off with one of your legs. He chuckles at your weak attempts, the reverberations from his chest pressing against your back sending a thrum of excitement rolling over you concentrating into more distracting areas. You can't see it but you know he's grinning smugly above you and you can't decide whether it's your horniness or your anger that will win out. You sincerely hope it's the latter. 

 "C'mon, kid, you can get out of this," He encourages but you don't miss the playful mockery dancing in his tone. You squirm and wriggle and sigh. "Just let me out," You demand, politely. He doesn't budge. You turn your head to pout petulantly at him. That doesn't do anything either. 

 You sigh again. You hated pinning exercises with a carefully cultivated passion which you would normally direct at whatever instructor was dumb enough to force it upon you. However, that wasn't really possible as of this moment. One of the reasons for this hatred was that you were never pinned down unless you wanted to be, even then they were usually too hesitant to follow through so you never really saw any practical use for the skill. That is until last week when you found yourself being pinned down by the Red Hood which was honestly a fantastic position if you weren't trying to get away from him. Apparently, the large man didn't take too kindly to being shot at even when your very professional self explained that you were in fact a decoy. After you were entirely unable to slip his hold, you begrudgingly agreed to let Slade teach you a few maneuvers. The other reason was that you liked being pinned down. Your body is far too enthusiastic about the feeling of being pinned down. You're pretty sure you've expended more energy into suppressing your thrilled shivers than you have trying to get out of any of the holds he's demonstrated so far.  The fact that he was an attractive asshole with no shirt did not help.    

 "Maybe if you ask nicely, princess" He drawls his teeth grazing your ear, beard bristling against the sensitive skin of your shoulder. You bite back a groan and stop the cant of your hips. "Or are you even capable of that?"

 "I am, sir" You grind out but it sounds too breathy to be threatening. You feel the curve of his lips against your shoulder.

 "Dunno, brat, I've never seen you do it," He taunts pressing closer to you. You're suddenly aware of just how close you two are. You hate how the way he called you brat sent thrills up your spine. You try to even your breath but you're entirely too feverish both body and mind. You had to think of something before you were lost in a haze.

 You nudge your arm one last time before an idea strikes. A familiar shark-like grin spreads like wildfire across your features. Pressing your ass against his crotch, you roll your hips, the movement slow and deliberate and painfully tempting. Sure, it was a dirty trick but 1) he never said anything about using your assets 2) you've been wanting to do that since the first hold. You feel his muscles tense and you can't help but radiate smugness.  Your smile vanishes, however, when he rolls his hips against yours giving you a feel of his hardened length through the thin fabric of your gym shorts. The slow, tantalizing friction against your core draws out a vulgar moan from you. 

 "Do you wanna run that by me again, brat?" He whispers low and husky emphasizing the last word with another grind of his hip. You pant, hips answering back with their own desperate movement. You want to let your hips keep moving, to make him move, to feel his cock against your core but pride flared in your chest. "Make me." You bite out. "I really should teach you some manners."You feel the low rumble of his answer in response seemingly amused by your continued resistance. He rocks his hips against yours drawing out another breathy moan from you. Out of spite you bite your bottom lip and rock your hips in tandem with his. What did you hope to accomplish from this? You don't know but it certainly felt good. Your skin feels hot and oversensitive as your bodies continue to move at this rhythm. The feel of his muscles rippling against you makes you arch your back. You wanted more but you had too much pride. As if spurred on by the movement, he presses a kiss on your shoulder and sucks at your flesh, a rough hand grips your waist tight enough to bruise. "Slade!" You choke out losing your composure.  The cry sounds more like a plea than you would like. You sound so small and needy beneath his ministrations. 

 Distilling your anger into your weakening limbs you try to buck him off again. You make a small noise of triumph when he budges but whine when his grip on you just gets tighter. "Not quite, princess,"  

 He flips you onto your back. A hand pins both your arms above your head as he situates himself between your legs. His lips capture yours in a rough kiss, the type where you feel two bodies fighting each other for dominance. His teeth bite lightly against your bottom lip asking for entrance. You open your lips less in concession and more of a challenge. The wet muscles of your tongues entangle. Your nose is filled with the musk of him. It was overwhelming. You moan into the kiss and you feel him smile into it. Another small victory. 

 Slade ends the kiss having undeniably won the match. You try to move your hand to punch the grin off his face but again your hands don't budge. You curse his enhanced strength halfheartedly as the feeling of the heat coiling in the pit of your stomach takes over. Instead of diving back in for another kiss as you expected, Slade trails kisses down your jawline, your throat, and your collar bone leaving very defined very visible hickeys. There was something oddly possessive in his actions.  The look in his eye was predatory. 

 You, foolishly, let your attention wander to your hands seeing what angle you could possibly force them into so you can slip his grip and maybe turn the tables. Your attention snaps back to him when the pressure around your chest loosens and the distinct sound of a zipper fills your ears. Your eyes widen as you watch as he unzips the front of your sports bra with his teeth. Your breath catches even as your chest fills with the lack of constriction. Your too hot skin is grazed by the training room's cold air. He places a kiss in the valley between your breasts but when you whimper and move slightly urging him to proceed. He moves on to your stomach. "Asshat" You seethe through gritted teeth. You let out a groan of frustration. You were going to kill him. You honestly don't care if you've just wasted half a billion dollars on this asshole. 

 His kisses drift down to your inner thigh drawing a moan from you. Slade chuckles seeing your desire seeping through the thin fabric of your shorts. He isn't entirely surprised considering how unsubtle you are about your interest. A rare moment of embarrassment blankets you. Your legs try to close but rough hands pry them apart placing them on his broad shoulders. You bite your lip when he plants a kiss on your inner thigh. Your lips are puffy and red at this point, looking delicious as you panted. Slade wonders how your lips would feel around his cock but he decides he'll save that for another time. He hooks his fingers on the waistband of your shorts and his eye widens momentarily when he doesn't feel a second layer of fabric underneath it. He looks at you incredulously.

 You shrug trying to keep the mischief off your face looking absolutely unapologetic. "It's laundry day-" You shrug a little amused that this is the detail that caught him off guard. "-I did tell you I had stuff to do~"He also supposedly had stuff to do but, apparently, you were stuff. He chuckled and without dignifying your comment with an actual response, he rips your shorts off with ease and tosses them somewhere behind him.  A complaint or a threat, you weren't entirely sure, died on your lips when his tongue gave your core a nice long lick. A loud, needy keen escapes you. Your hands now free from his grasp dig into his scalp.  Pleased with your reaction he continues. His skilled tongue exploring your core hitting spots you didn't even know were there. Your hips meet to match his pace as he fucks you with his tongue. You whine when he withdraws his tongue but mewl loud and wanton when you feel two rough fingers stretching your insides. His mouth latches onto your sensitive bud, fingers pumping in and out.  You throw your head back not being able to contain your moans.

 "Look at me, brat," The command is deep and resonant. Your whole body buzzes with excitement. Slade can see your eyes dilate as his voice drops an octave. 

 "Yes," Your breath hitches when he doesn't move. "Sir" You add as a concession hoping it was enough. You felt your pride waning from the small piece of power being given away. Thankfully, he rewards you with another long lick before you can dwell on it. Slade watches as your face twists in pleasure trying your best not to throw your head back. You see the smugness on his face even when half of his face is buried between your legs. You don't attempt a threat simply because you don't trust whatever comes out of your mouth to be coherent. You were so close. You rock your hips trying to chase your high. Your skin is flush and glistening with sweat. You were so close. He feels your walls tightening around his fingers. Another needy keen escapes you as you were about to tip over the edge. 

 The motherfucker pulls back. You snarl at him but it comes out sounding more like a needy croon than anything else. He chuckles at you even as he captures your lips for another kiss. His tongue is thick with the taste of you. Your hand tangles itself into his hair while the other tugs at the waistband of his sweatpants.  He pulls away giving your lips one last nip before his body is off of you. It's funny how just moments ago you wanted him off of you badly enough that you'd play any dirty trick you could think of but now your skin is burning for his touch.  He takes off his sweat pants and his engorged cock slaps against his abs. It takes every brain cell at your disposal not to drool at the sight of it. He was BIG. You wonder briefly if he would even fit.  

 He spits on his cock rubbing his head against your thoroughly soaked folds. You mewl. A playful look in his eye does not go unnoticed but you were far too preoccupied with other concerns. Thankfully, so did he. Slade eases into your pussy in slow shallow thrusts. You can physically feel your walls stretching inch by inch as he works his way into your tight pussy. He can feel every bit of resistance your pussy is putting up. It's his turn to hiss when he finally bottoms out. Your walls cling to his member trying to milk it for all its worth. You drag your nails down from his shoulder to his arms. You pout when his skin heals immediately. You wanted to mark him as he did you but apparently, his healing factor was not up to being kinky today.   

 He laughs at your little protest and gives you a quick kiss. He begins to thrust shallow and languid. Your lips are locked in, sensually nibbling at each other's lips. You arch your back pressing your chest against his musculature savoring every bit of stimulation you could get.   You cant your hips against his urging him to go faster. His large hand grips your hips and pins them down. The coil in your stomach grows tighter at the ease at which he stops you. You feel him grin against your hot skin. 

 "Didn't I say I would teach you some manners?" He pulls himself out leaving you feeling hollow and wanting. You're pretty sure if you weren't drunk on your arousal the look in your eyes would be nothing short of murder, however, this was not the case, Whatever venom you had in you vanished in a swirl of neediness that racked your body. Your cant your hips uselessly trying to find friction only to be met with cool air. 

 "Slade pleeeeaaase!"

 You gasp, as a sharp stinging sensation on your pussy knocks the breath out of you. Slade gives you an expectant look. 

 "Sir, plea-"

 Another slap. Your back arches.  You’re panting heavy, mind swirling and searching. 

 "Daddy please!" The words tumble from your lips thoughtlessly. You both freeze. Slade's face is unreadable making you want to shrink away and let the earth swallow you whole. Panic rises in your chest until you feel his hips slam against yours. The force is enough to knock the breath out of you. He manhandles your body to fuck you at a better angle. His grip on your thighs tight and bruising. You whimper when he dips his head down near yours pressing kisses to your jaw and the pulsating flesh of your neck leaving your mouth free to moan his name like a mantra.   A deep resonant growl rumbles in his chest sending thrills through your skin into your spine. Your hardened nipples drag against his chest as they bounce with his pace. His cock pumps in and out of you at an animalistic pace. You were absolutely going mad over his rough pace but it wasn't enough to push you over. You were both so close.

 "Daddy, please! I- I need-" Slade's cock twitches. His pace goes from animalistic to punishing in the space of a heartbeat. He growls into your ear as he reaches down to rub your clit with skilled, calloused fingers. Your walls tighten around him as you go over the edge.  Your orgasm hits you in a flurry of heat and electricity. He fucks you through it as he chases his own. He pulls out his cock. Ropes of cum covering your chest and your stomach. 

 He lays beside you pulling you close. You moan quietly still feeling the aftershocks of your orgasm. He nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck, planting an open-mouthed kiss. You ease into his hold and close your eyes. 

 "See how easy your life is when you're a good girl, princess," He whispers mockingly into your ear. You raise a middle finger at him too fucked out to care whether it actually conveyed as much venom as you wanted it to. 

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Thanks for reading! Next week will be our regularly scheduled fluff unless I get possessed by the thirst muses. 

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[jamespotterthefirst]

Along the Seashore

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Lilac Allende) Word count: 2K Warning: Language Summary: A moment between the two of them in a Miami beach, before they kissed and everything changed forever.   Series: Open Heart from Ethan’s POV

Author’s Note: Sorry that the Miami weekend had to be split into parts. It actually gave me the freedom to write without worrying about the length. 

The glittering turquoise waters of the lagoon combined with the gentle breeze sweeping through his hair made it increasingly difficult to remain in a sullen mood after the Declan Nash debacle only minutes prior. It was even more of a challenge to sulk when Lilac strolled by his side along the white beach, looking so beautiful under the Miami sun that his heart tugged with unwelcome yearning. He stole another glance at her without her notice, watching how tendrils of her wavy hair swirled in the breeze. That and the sun kissed patches along her nose and cheekbones made it damn near impossible for Ethan to look away. By the admiration she attracted from others, Ethan was far from the only one to notice. 

They had made it several meters down the shore when she finally broke their silence. 

“You look hot, Dr. Ramsey.” 

He almost froze midstep. 

“In that sweater,” she clarified. 

Mercifully, he was spared from any type of stammered response when someone whisked him away for conversation. The relief was short-lived when that someone was yet another starstruck colleague, eager to chat his ear off. 

By the time he got away twenty minutes later, the young doctor was nowhere to be found. It wasn't until he scanned his surroundings that he found her, being pulled into an outdoor dance floor of some sort at the foot of a nearby hotel. As Ethan approached, he could see the beefy arm around her, belonging to an overly enthusiastic frat boy.  

“Baila conmigo, mami.” 

“I can't right now, I have work—” 

“Then how about later tonight, hermosa?”

“How about never.”

The gruff, murderous words had escaped Ethan before he could stop them. 

The cheerful frat boy only laughed, raising his palms in defeat. Probably best, for his sake, because Ethan itched to punch him in his squared jaw. 

Lilac, meanwhile, looked mortified as Ethan steered her away.

“Sorry,” she started breathlessly once they had made their way back to the shore. “I know you said this trip was strictly business, but he was so insistent. I wasn’t slacking off or anything—”

Ethan raised a hand to stop her, careful to keep his expression neutral. “Relax, Rookie,” he assured her. “I wasn’t worried about that. I was mostly thinking about you.”

Their eyes met, the true meaning of the words becoming more tangible by the second. Neither the roar of the crashing waves nor the thumping music of the revelry he had pulled her from were enough to mask the tense silence between them. 

“You looked uncomfortable,” he blurted out, his voice an octave higher than it should be. The tiny haze was effectively broken with the words. 

Perhaps she was uncomfortable then, with him, as he gazed at her with barely controlled longing. He clenched his jaw with the effort, certain now more than ever that she could see just how much he wanted her, and had been wanting her for weeks. 

Ethan cleared his throat. “I only meant that even though this is a work trip, you can still enjoy yourself. Particularly when the whole point of being here became moot half an hour ago.” His mind recalled Nash’s triumphant face and Ethan’s fist clenched as a response. 

Lilac offered him a sympathetic smile, placing a warm hand on his forearm and scalding him more than the blazing sun above their heads ever could. It took every ounce of strength Ethan had to avoid glancing at it.

“We will figure something out. The weekend is only starting and every slimy Big Pharma exec has his price.” 

Ethan knew she was correct about the last part and his desperation to save Naveen made him willing to pay whatever that price might be. Regardless, he couldn’t help but smile at her unwavering optimism, particularly when her hand swept his bicep in comforting strokes. The motion was so comforting that Ethan was tempted to lay down his pride and every wall he meticulously built to bring her closer to him. 

With a reinvigorated spark in her green eyes and a smile to match, she said, “What you need, Dr. Ramsey, is a good swim.” 

She nodded toward the crystalline waters glittering like a gem. The taunting smirk she failed to conceal, left him thinking she was determined to get him shirtless. Or perhaps it was wishful thinking on his part. With an embarrassing leap of his pulse, Ethan realized he would willingly do it if she commanded it. 

“Fine,” he acquiesced, earning him an astonished expression. The way her rosy lips parted in surprise then melted into a satisfied smile made her far more irresistible than she had any right to look. That reaction alone was worth agreeing to something he would normally never even consider. 

“Okay. Confession time,” she said with a sharp intake of breath. “I'm not that great of a swimmer.”

Ethan smirked, enjoying the endearing blush on her cheeks. “Then why did you suggest it, Rookie?” 

“Because I didn't think you would agree?” 

He laughed and though she tried to throw him a sharp glare, the corners of her mouth quirked. 

“I'll be fine. I just won't go in that deep.”

Before he could assure her they didn't have to go in at all, she pulled her t-shirt over her head. A furious blush crept up from his neck all the way to the roots of his hair as Ethan hastily averted his eyes. He had not been quick enough, however, because he still caught sight of the smooth expanse of her bare stomach, the delicate muscles pulling taut as she removed her clothing. His eyes also managed to take in the top half of the strappy, neon orange bikini she wore. 

Never in his life did he imagine such an obnoxious color could be so…attractive. 

When at last he forced himself to meet her eyes, she looked back at him expectantly, looking as though she was about to lose the battle against an amused smirk. 

“Are you going in with your cable-knit sweater, Dr. Ramsey?” 

Ethan cut her a humorless glare before he removed the aforementioned sweater and all layers until only his swimming trunks remained. Unlike him, she did not avert her eyes. Instead, Lilac's gaze ascended from his abs to his chest and arms, tracing a path so stirring, it felt as though she was caressing him with strokes of her fingertips. 

Her eyes met his, her expression frustratingly stoic. “We need sunscreen.”

Thankfully, it was the type that she sprayed on. Ethan would have lost all restraint if her hands had rubbed sunscreen over his muscles. When at last they were in the cool water, bodies swaying in the waves, he was able to  slightly relax. 

“You were right,” he informed her, peering down at her. The water reached her neck while barely made it past his chest. 

“I usually am, but about what precisely?” 

“I do feel better.”

He suspected that had little to do with the lull of the ocean or the calming breeze and more with her presence by his side. She gifted him with a smile so radiant, he felt his body gravitate towards hers.

Ethan looked away, searching for change of subject.

“So are you the only person from Southern California who doesn't swim?”

Lilac gave him an unimpressed look. It inspired a chuckle from Ethan. 

“Do you think everyone in SoCal spends their days at the beach, loves In-N-Out, and says 'like' every other word?” 

“Yes.”

Her nose wrinkled in defeat. “Well, you get two out of three.”

“If you start using 'like' excessively, I'll never speak to you again.”

It was her turn to laugh. “You're a terrible liar, Dr. Ramsey,” she proclaimed. “You couldn't go a day without my pain in the ass tendencies annoying the life out of you.”

“Hrm. You're absolutely right, Rookie. I would miss the five shots I have to throw back at the end of the day to repress your antics.”

Her responding laughter was so captivating, all he could do was watch her with a satisfied grin of his own. Lilac opened her mouth and Ethan had no doubt she had a witty retort at the ready. However, she was brashly interrupted by a swelling wave crashing unceremoniously over her head. 

Ethan, being so tall, had easily sidestepped the water. Lilac, significantly shorter, had not been so lucky. 

“Rookie, are you okay?” 

Lilac only sputtered in response, blinking rapidly against the water dripping down her face. Her brown hair, previously immaculate and flowing in the breeze, now lay plastered against her face. Even completely shocked and sopping wet, she still managed to look entirely too adorable. 

Before Ethan could stop it, an unbridled bout of laughter escaped past his throat. Once it was out, ringing around them and earning them quizzical looks from other people, it was impossible to stop. As he laughed—truly, genuinely laughed—a spike of lighthearted warmth shot through him and his stomach muscles began to strain. Ethan could not remember the last time he had laughed so much or so freely. Perhaps not since he was a boy. 

“Are you done?” she asked, completely unamused. 

The question only made his laughter peak even more. It was soon disrupted by an impressive slosh of water against his face and chest, not from a wave but from the vengeful young doctor before him. Completely sobered up, Ethan blinked. 

It was Lilac's turn to laugh, unabashed. 

“Doesn't feel so—”

Her words cut and gave way to a small shriek as Ethan recovered and palmed a small wave of water her way, hitting her square in the face. Lilac retaliated at lightning speed and sent a torrent towards him. 

“I hope you realize what you’ve done, Rookie.” He propelled splash after splash of water with relentless speed. “You started a war.”

“I can take you,” she laughed, shielding her face from the wall of water coming her way. 

Ethan discovered she was correct, proving to be a worthy adversary. It was admirable that someone so much shorter than him could send bursts of water straight for his face. They laughed in unison, the sound teetering on the border of pure giddiness. As the minutes ticked by, their efforts reduced significantly, mostly out of exhaustion.

“Truce?” she breathed out. 

“Not a chance, Rookie,” he returned, not ceasing his movements. 

Lilac laughed, covering her face to no avail. She attempted a cautionary step back, as if distance would deter his attack, but she seemed to stumble, losing her balance. At once, Ethan stopped his movements, diving forward to catch her in his arms before she sank under the water. 

Body pressed close against his, she wrapped her arms around his neck, the movement so natural as though it was second nature. His own arms locked securely around her waist, lifting her slightly off her feet and bringing their bodies even closer together. At this proximity, Ethan was certain she could feel the untamed beating of his heart against his chest. Then again, she could probably see his agony written on his face with how closely she studied him. 

Neither moved to break apart, all traces of previous humor gone. 

“Dr. Ramsey,” she breathed. 

His breath hitched at the low, caress of a whisper. How he wished she would call him Ethan. The mere thought of his name on her lips tugged something loose in his chest. 

The longer they stood like that, in each other’s arms, the harder it became to let her go. Could he let her go? Common sense suggested he should abandon the fantasy of her lips against his, vivid in his mind for weeks now. He should let go of Lilac Allende and keep as much distance as a mentor should have. He should let go… 

And yet… 

“I give up,” he said so quietly that his voice almost got lost in the waves. 

Lilac smiled at that, much to his confusion. “Smart man,” she teased. “I told you I could take you on.”

Ethan released her, her body slowly sliding down his. She was talking about their small water fight, which Ethan had almost forgotten about. 

“Right,” he said, keeping his voice neutral. It was nothing compared to the chaotic uproar in his chest. “We should go back to the hotel. There’s a reception we should start getting for.”

“A reception?” 

“Did I not tell you? It’s a complete waste of time, but we might as well enjoy free drinks on Big Pharma’s dime.” 

They walked back to their hotel in a silence that felt too sacred to break. His mind replayed the memory of Lilac in his arms, her body fitting so perfectly against his, her green eyes studying his face so intently, her lush lips so close to his. 

He could have kissed her. 

Would she have kissed him back?

“Thank you,” Ethan said after a few minutes of peaceful quiet. It was a desperate attempt to stop his mind from veering into dangerous territory. 

Lilac looked at him, confused. 

“For earlier with Nash,” he explained. “But also, thank you for right now.”

“Glad to be of service,” she returned with a mock salute that made him laugh despite his better judgement. The again, judgement had been thrown out the window the minute he decided to bring her to Miami. 

________

Author’s Note: THANK YOU if you read this. The reason I wanted to include this into the Miami weekend was that I’ve been imagining a little scene like this for a while. I’ve been wanting to write it out since before I wrote Lovely and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity. Thank you for putting up with my shenanigans. 

The next part is the kiss for sure. I can’t wait to write that :) I was closed to naming it after the actual chapter (Risk and Reward), but I decided to name it after an ABBA song. LMAO!

Thank You @aestheticartwriting​ for your help with this! 

PS: What do you guys think of the new style for the cover moodboard? I wanted to try something new!

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