#sorry for the delay I feel like this is just more useless scrap | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

darkgunslinger · 4 years

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Adamantine Shield short (from Saving Zim)

Just a little taste @luckyrabbit1927 of what I promised - taken from a section of deleted chapter way waaaay back - of more Zim/Prof.M scenes. Why am I always so shy to post these? XD

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He held his hands out. He wasn’t sure what else to do.

This wasn’t exactly in his repertoire of experiences.

Membrane had only turned away to grab some printed schematics and brood over them a moment, and there hadn’t been a single sound to draw his attention.

Perhaps Zim had seen an opportunity, or imagined one, and before he’d realized how erroneous it was, he’d crashed to the floor – his departure from the bed a regretful fall – and the thin line of IV tubing had crisscrossed over one arm and around his foot. The telemetry leads, having been stretched unceremoniously, pinged off one by one, causing the ECG to protest with alarms.

Zim struggled, tightening the tubing, and furthering his panic. Membrane, seeing the situation develop, paused for just a millisecond before approaching, and when he did, the creature’s panic intensified. In just one moment Zim had become a wild, terrified animal.

“Everything’s all right. You’ve got yourself tangled up.” But that one extra step seemed to trigger an even stronger reaction.

Zim rolled onto his side, unable to steer himself vertically, the twisted tubes snagging against his arm and ankle. “Stay! Stay a-away!”

The professor watched the Irken’s tiring struggles. He acted as though he was in a snare.

What signals remained from the Irken’s vitals escalated into the dangerous zone. Warnings on the professor’s wristplate flared in response.

He didn’t understand why Zim was so terrified.

“I need to free you little one, if you just let me approach.” He took another step and stopped. Zim’s claws blindly jerked around to slash at the tubing. Goaded by the fear the tubes inspired, his aim was appalling. Long scratches of deeper green began to appear from slit skin. Unable to breathe above the barbs of panic, Zim tried to prop his right arm beneath him, but his hand slid, shiny with blood, and he went back down again.

The professor could not endure it. He closed the gap between them and was not dissuaded when Zim spent all of his breath to release a bone-chilling scream.

“There there now, I’m freeing you. It’s all right, hush, hush.” Quickly he loosened the tubing around his shivery leg and arm in the hopes that this would dissolve the Irken’s undue terror. His vitals were in the red, his blood pressure falling fast despite the aggressive speed of his heart rate.

He held his littleness to his chest, feeling every shake and shudder bully the frailness that remained. “Let’s do our breathing exercises, hmm? I think now is a good time as any. You remember what to do? Breathe in, deeply now, and feel how my chest moves. Hold it in a moment, and then let it out.”

He exaggerated his chest movements so that Zim would feel them in turn. His tiny body was ice cold, skin clammy with sick-sweat. Though his eyelids were open partway, the pink pupils were extremely dilated. Barely visible nostrils flared somewhat, but it seemed unlikely he’d even ‘switch on’ enough to remember to breathe.

“Everything’s okay.” The professor said, keeping the cadence of his voice soft and steady.

Zim’s claws clutched insensibly on his arm as if it were a ledge he meant to cling to. His eyes slowly began to focus, the deep magenta almost warming up. As much as the professor saw him coming back to himself, he did not rush or hurry him.

When he seemed better able to comprehend the situation, he looked about him, blinking. He watched the little creature’s antenna unfurl until it gradually straightened. For much of his panic, the one antenna had dangled from his head like a velvet shoelace.

Those large eyes, shimmery with undisclosed emotions, blinked again, and his pink pupils coasted around as if he was looking for a target: something that had triggered the antagonism. The only ghoul was the fear, shelved deeply inside. It was the same adulterated fear most animals showed when faced with something beyond their control and comparative safety.

The professor had once tried to treat a deer he’d encountered on the road late one June summer’s day when Dib had been attending school. It had clearly been hit by a car or truck, and had been left for dead. Its hind quarters had taken the main brunt of the collision, and its back legs were broken. Prof. Membrane coaxed it into the backseat of his car where it bleated and struggled. He wasn’t sure why he’d chosen to take responsibility for it. He supposed it was simply because he couldn’t just drive off and leave it there. He’d always taken the mantle of the world’s problems as his own, knowing he’d been gifted with foresight and intellect. What was the point of the gift if he didn’t apply it?

But alas, the deer did not survive. Like Zim’s wild nature, fear itself seemed to devour its mind along with its vestiges of life, and before he’d even managed to haul it onto a table with the help of his two co-workers, it had died, not of its injuries, but of terror.

It was why he had curtly let Zim go without argument after the ‘baloney’ incident. Quite recovered and eager to move on, Zim had hurried away without much afterthought or conversation, as if lingering any longer might trigger some trap or plot beset by the wiles of man. He had wanted Zim to choose his next step, but sadly, he had intervened when that next step was never chosen.

At least, unlike the deer, Zim could understand human language. He would watch the professor’s expressions, as if trying to guess the deeper intentions beneath the words.

One day he hoped Zim would come to trust him.

“It’s okay now. Nothing’s here to harm you.”

Claws ran frantically along the brittle bones of his legs and arms, as if he half believed the tubing to still be there. A caged beast, used to being bound, may have had similar reactions.

His troubled eyes tirelessly checking and rechecking everything, Zim assertively pushed himself from the man’s gentle hold and stood precariously on stick-like legs, his left leg failing to bend as if the joints had locked up.

“You need a break from this room, don’t you?” He knelt close and took his hand before the Irken had a chance to get dizzy and topple over. Without any telemetry leads, his vitals were now closed to him. He had to now rely on Zim’s body language alone. “You are not trapped here, little one.” He wanted to affirm, in case that was what was on the Irken’s mind, and why wouldn’t it be? He was largely under their control; it had to be this way in order to keep him on the road to recovery. Even so, being mostly confined to one room allowed one’s imagination to fill in the blanks.

Membrane wondered if all members of Zim’s race were this highly strung, and prone to stress.

The Irken’s worried eyes swept upwards to look at him, again trying to determine the lies or the truths.

He had not given the former soldier his prognosis yet. He’d been holding back on it, fearful that Zim may take it very hard, or shelve it, like he did with things he’d rather ignore. Dib himself was still trying come to terms with it. Once he was onboard, the professor would inform the patient as gently as he possibly could. But not telling him was making Zim wary. He knew his continual existence here, in one corner of the lab, weak and disseminated, spread wide his suspicions. It was very likely that Zim already knew. But admitting it was something else entirely and therein lay the problem.

The Irken’s continued quiet was abnormal in every sense. When he’d sat on a chair years before, recovering from his sausage deformation, he had posed every question, yelled every suspicion, and demanded and shook until he was able to work his brain and limbs enough to flee. Even then, he’d been much more vivid and brighter a character. This creature before him was full of fear, lungs lugging heavily through his chest wall, greyer skin slathered in sweat, eyes rimmed and wide, limbs and hands shaking constantly.

“Recuperation is vital. But! I can take you wherever you’d like to go. I’m here to look after you. It’s my sworn oath.” He looked for signs of recognition, of understanding.

The Irken took a loud swallow, his eyes dull with drugs and exhaustion. He stood there, head bowed, looking brittle and ancient. Every night spent here seemed to enlarge those wrinkles under his eyes. His skin wasn’t as grey as it had been since his circulation had improved, but the professor couldn’t seem able to get the skin as green as it used to be. What vital ingredient was missing? What did the poorly thing lack?

Maybe it wasn’t medicine at all.

Maybe it was just care and warmth that the little bug needed.

“Let me show you my favourite room.” He said, squeezing gently on Zim’s arm. “No tubes. No wires. How about it?” The Elite’s eyes, hazy and unfocused, as if he was unfastening himself from the world a little at a time, started to shimmer, and the tension inside softened beneath his touch. “Let’s lift you up.”

He felt those bird bones as he picked him up, and then he sat him on the crook of his arm.

The invention room was tidy and spacious, with tables assembled down one side. A great ponderous machine stood at the back on a round podium beside several test dummies. The machine was oval in shape, with gadgets bristling down its sides like hedgehog spines. “I call it the Adamantine Shield.” He said proudly when he watched Zim turn his head towards it. He was clued up on technology and the intelligence behind it. He would have made a very good co-worker. “It’s just the prototype at the moment. It’s designed to withstand blasts from an outside energy source, be they physical projectiles or energy pulses. Let me demonstrate!”

Like a kid in a toyshop, he put Zim down on one of the chairs and approached the monolithic object. He tapped on a button, and it deposited a capsule. The capsule opened, revealing a pulsing blue strap. He extended it in his hands, revealing a thin metallic strip. This strip he placed along a wooden dummy’s shoulder. “It adheres to anything. Fabric. Skin. Armour. It automatically configures the body of whoever is wearing it, and once activated, it envelops them in a nigh-indestructible shield.”

Zim cocked his head, one eye slowly narrowing.

“I do apologize! I get my best ideas from you!” The professor was saying, instantly seeing the recognition form in the Irken’s dark reflective eyes and from the slant of his antenna. “Your PAK produces absorbent shielding upon activation! Taking from your life energy in order to maintain it! I have created one that feeds on the energy it absorbs! Making it infinitely better! Here, let me show you just how it works!”

He took a device from a drawer, one of those surgical lasers that only worked for short distances. He walked close to the dummy wearing the metallic strip, and hit the button on the surgical laser. At once a shield of rushing azure appeared, and the weak laser beam fizzled as if the bubble shield’s surface was corrosive. The dummy remained protected.

“Hey. Th-that’s pretty cool.” Zim croaked, antenna docking forwards. “Have you tried sh-shooting some m-missiles at it?”

“Everything! Nothing gets through. But it’s top secret. I do not want the government using this technology. They’d exploit it for nefarious purposes.”

“What do you need it f-for?” Zim’s voice was a thin weedy rasp.

“I want it for my son in case he takes space exploration seriously. It’s completely harmless, only serving to protect the user. I do not endorse weapons, or anything that will encourage violence. My gift is to help others: the world, if necessary, even when humanity is set to destroy it.”

“W-Why?” He rasped.

“Because Earth is my home, as it is yours, little one. You may try to disagree with me, but you know it to be true. I hope that you’ll see the good here, and in every living thing. For a heart is a heavy burden.”

#sorry for the delay I feel like this is just more useless scrap #Saving Zim extras again lol #From the deepest darkest barrels of my insane pitiful writing

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writeyouin · 3 years

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Swerve X Reader – Changes - Chapter 7

Chapter 7 – A Rescue Without a Plan

A/N – Finally back to this baby, and boy am I glad to be back.

Warnings – None.

Rating – T

“Making your way in the world today, takes everything you've got. Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.” You sang the Cheers song quietly in your cell, concentrating heavily on the cell bars.

Ever since you had forced yourself to calm down, streams of information had come flooding across your optics, revealing structural strengths and weaknesses to everything you looked at. You hoped to find something about the electrified bars that might lead to your escape, but so far, all the weaknesses were ones you couldn’t exploit from within the cell. You had long since given up on desperately trying to contact the Lost Light, figuring that something was blocking your comms.

You sighed, giving up on your song, a childish idea coming to mind. You knew nothing would come of it, but a smile reached your lips as you stared at your hand, “Go-Go-Gadget, Lock Pick.”

Naturally, nothing happened, but at least you were entertained, so you continued the game, taking comfort in the familiar words. “Go-Go-Gadget, Gun. Go-Go-Gadget, Scanner. Go-Go-Gadget, Blow Torch-” You jumped back in shock as one of your fingertips split open at the command, a strong blue flame roaring up from the split. You didn’t know whether you should be praising Brainstorm, for this was most certainly his addition, or cursing him for the cartoonish way you had accessed the tool. You were almost afraid to wonder how many of your body’s other commands were linked to the phrase Go-Go-Gadget.

Without wasting any more time, you put the flame to the bars, beginning the laborious process of escaping your cell.

As you worked, you had one more idea which you hastily tried, “Go-Go-Gadget, Manual.”

Before your optics, a string of writing cropped up, instructions on how your Cybertronian body worked. “Play audio,” You said, having been introduced to the opening menu. Perceptor’s voice filled your audials, starting your tutorial on your new body. You vented air through your systems and got to work, studying during your attempted escape.

Once he had been released from his cell, Swerve spent all of his time at the Lost Light’s shooting range, his aim never improving despite his efforts. He knew he had little hope of becoming a soldier in the time it would take to get to you, but he didn’t care, so long as he had something to keep him occupied. How could other humans be so cruel as to throw you of all people in a battle arena? You were kind and compassionate, and you would never have even considered harming another species, claiming that all were equal.

Swerve had often found you crying over books wherein humans had treated others terribly, mostly among their own species. He remembered asking you why you chose to read such books as The Diary of Anne Frank or Boy Erased, if they only served to make you upset, and you had replied that they were important to read lest history be repeated from ignorance. It was awful to think that you, the most empathetic of souls, were going to be scrapped for the entertainment of others.

Swerve knew they didn’t have long to rescue you. If the Arena’s advertisements were to be believed, you would be entering one of their battles in less than three cycles, when the new contestants would arrive to scrap you.

Swerve couldn’t forget the picture they had uploaded of you on the advertisement. You had been harmed in ways he never wanted to see, deep gashes in your arms and visible dents everywhere, yet in the picture, you were defiantly angry. He alone could recognise the fear beneath, but he couldn’t be prouder to see that you weren’t giving your captor the satisfaction of your apprehension.

He reloaded his gun, aiming it at the target, imagining it was your captors. Despite his anger, he missed, hitting a spot on the wall at least six feet from the target. Coolant sprung to his optics. You were in danger and he was completely useless. He couldn’t pilot the ship, he couldn’t shoot, it wasn’t even him that had discovered your location; that had been Nightbeat while he was too busy feeling sorry for himself. He was useless.

Rodimus’ voice rang clear through Swerve’s comms. It was a channel he had left open until you were found; that way anyone who needed him could contact him.

“Swerve, get to the board room. We have news on (Y/N).”

Swerve brusquely wiped the coolant from his optics, throwing the gun on the table before leaving. As soon as he was in the hallway, he transformed, speeding to the board room, eager for any information he could get, yet also terrified about what it could mean for you.

He didn’t say anything as he entered, his attention, like everyone else’s drawn to the video-feed of the Arena, where a human woman in acid-green armour was speaking.

“Greetings to fans, peasants, and nobles alike. It is I, Lady Ouida, your adored host of the Arena.”

Lady Ouida. Swerve glared at her holographic form, now having a name and a face to put to his enemy.

“As all of us betting royals know, there is to be a new competitor here. The foul-mouthed mini menace has refused to state her name, but we don’t care about that. We only care about one thing and one thing only. Which of our noble competitors will be the one to take her out?”

Banners depicting different armoured competitors unfurled around Lady Ouida; the scumbags that would try to take your life.

“In this message to all of you, my lovely subjects, I would like to make a special announcement. Although we had planned to set the battle for three cycles time, we have hit a little snag.”

Warmth flared in Swerve’s spark, as he hoped that the battle would be delayed even further, giving the Lost Light more time for your rescue.

Lady Ouida snapped her fingers, motioning for someone off-screen to do her bidding. The hope that Swerve had dared to feel was quickly extinguished as several trucks with chain attachments drove forward, dragging you behind them, the chains affixed to your arms.

“Our little menace here was caught roaming the halls of our fair kingdom, trying to escape her fate. She may not look like much, but she has proved to be very resourceful indeed, which I am sure you’ll keep in mind when betting.”

It looked like you desperately wanted to retort, but a modified gag stopped you from doing so. It didn’t stop you from attempting to kick at several of your captors, your pede falling short of its mark.

“NO!” Swerve cried out as you were electrocuted, making you fall to the floor. The others in the room spared him looks of pity before their attention returned to Lady Ouida.

“Spirited, is she not?” The Lady continued, spurred on by your attempted attack. “Alas, that brings me to my next point. We cannot keep her subdued for long and as such, we will have to cut betting short. You will have till the end of the cycle, for at dawn THE BATTLE BEGINS.”

The feed ended with a screen of competitors and their odds against you.

Rodimus wasted no time in addressing the room, all traces of his usual playfulness gone. “ETA to the Arena?” He asked no one in particular.

“Two cycles at most,” One of the Co-pilots answered.

“Not good enough. If you have to burn out the engines, you’ll get us there tonight. Strategy?”

Megatron brought up a hologram for the planet, pointing out the building on the map, a modernised castle with plasma-turrets as its main defences. “If it were me, I’d have the turrets hacked. The fastest route to the Arena itself is by the West wall. The ship is far too big to hide, so our best option is an outright assault. We could blast through the walls with an Alpha team. Meanwhile, a smaller Beta Team could attack the Northern ramparts, where we believe the prison cells to be located, in case (Y/N) is still being held there.”

“Who’s our hacker for this?”

“We have an accomplished team that will be led by Skids.”

“What will we need to get through the castle’s walls?”

“Ultra Magnus assures me that he has a supply of confiscated weapons from Whirl and Brainstorm.”

Rodimus nodded in acknowledgement, “You know Megatron, it’s rare, but on occasions such as this, I’m glad that you’re a crazed war-lord with a lot of strategic experience.”

Megatron looked uncomfortable at the compliment but didn’t comment.

Swerve raised his hand in what he assumed was a military fashion, “I’d like to be in the Alpha team.”

Rodimus took in some air with an awkward hiss, “Yeahhh, about that. Don’t you think you’d be better off, uh waiting to comfort (Y/N) in the med-bay or something? You’re um- You’re not exactly a good shot.”

Swerve bristled at the veiled insult. “THAT IS MY CONJUNX ENDURAE. I’LL BE GOING DOWN THERE EVEN IF I HAVE TO STEAL A POD-SHIP!”

“Okay, yep, cool. You’re there to rescue (Y/N), got it. Just… Maybe stay behind the rest of us, okay? Wait no. You go in front, I don’t want to be shot in the back or anything-” Rodimus stopped talking when he noticed more than one bot glaring at him for his lack of tact. “I mean, uh- You just go where you think is best, buddy. You got this.”

“Let’s just continue going over the plan,” Megatron interrupted, turning his attention back to the planetary holograph.

Thankfully, nobody questioned Swerve further, and he was free to remain undisturbed as the meeting went on.

Once again, you were behind bars but this time you were outside of the prison block. You were now in the centre of the Arena, which greatly resembled the Ancient Colosseums of Earth. You cradled your servo close to your body, the pain immense where your captors had crushed it after they had caught you trying to use the blow torch a second time; if there was any hope of returning to Swerve, it wouldn’t be the same way you escaped before.

With nothing else to do, you resumed listening to the recorded manual. Theoretically, you knew how to scan a vehicle and transform, so long as you found something to scan. Maybe you could convince Ouida to show you a vehicle in order to make the games more interesting. You doubted that plan would work, but if Ouida thought you were going to die in her games anyway, she might grant the request.

“In the event that you are in danger and need to record a message into your processor for an ally to discover-”

You focused on Perceptor’s instructions. Now seemed like the perfect time to record a message for Swerve, should he ever find your body. You tried to focus as your processor informed you that your voice and surroundings were being recorded.

“Swerve, I wish I could see you right now to tell you everything that’s on my mind, but if you’re watching this… Well, we know what’s happened.” You tried to keep your tone happy, but it proved to be impossible when thinking of the last time you had seen Swerve and how badly that had gone. You couldn’t stop from crying as you continued.

“Swerve, you are my whole world. I love you so much and I’m so sorry about how I acted. I was scared and confused, and… That’s no reason for the way I was. I’m terrified of what might happen to you if I die. Please, don’t think sadly on this. You have so much time left in the universe, and it’s a brighter place with you in it. No matter what happens, I need you to remember, I’m sticking with you. Never forget that you have my heart, always. I’m sorry that this is goodbye. I love you.”

Ending the feed, you hugged your knees to your chassis with your good hand, while you sat in silence and wept.

Swerve gripped the base of his chair, in the cruiser that the Alpha team had taken, hard enough to dent it. Upon reaching a close enough proximity to the planet’s surface, he had received a few dozen delayed private comms from you, the last of which was time-stamped only one hour prior. You were being kept in a cage, telling him how sorry you were and how much you loved him. If you were sticking with him, then he was going to stick right back to you.

Turbulence hit the ship, but Swerve’s determination didn’t waver. He knew it was just the first volley of attacks from the turrets, until Skids’ team would be able to disable them. Swerve remembered feeling like this thousands of times in the war. The feeling that you could be shot down at any moment on the way to your goal, but that you couldn’t think about death, lest it leech into your processor, freezing out all other thoughts. Swerve wouldn’t die. He couldn’t. Not while you were in danger. You were his mission and this was just another, smaller, war.

Swerve remembered his very first mission. His entire squadron had died, except for him. Being a mini-bot, he’d managed to hide without being discovered; he’d spent centuries hating himself for living as a coward instead of dying a hero with the rest of his squad. As it turned out, many bots had had similar experiences which haunted them. This time, he would not hide, his team would survive, they would rescue you, and Swerve would tell you every minute of every day that he loved you.

“SKIDS,” Rodimus yelled over the comms, “A LITTLE HELP WITH THE FRAGGING TURRETS.”

“Working on it,” Skids replied frantically. “They have one hell of an IT team there, Rodimus. The turrets are encrypted at least five times over.”

“Great. I’ll pass on the compliment when I meet them. Can you stop the turrets or not?”

There was a sharp silence on Skids end which was answer enough; the team would have to go in under fire.

“Okay,” Rodimus looked to his team. Ultra Magnus, Tailgate, Cyclonus, and Swerve were there, along with a few other volunteers that made their number twenty. “Plan B. We drive fast and furious, ploughing through their defences.”

The team were less enthusiastic at the thought of being shot, but none of them buckled under pressure; everyone was ready to go to your aid.

“Beta team, in position?” Rodimus asked, as they had planned to do before the Alpha Team dropped down onto the planet’s surface.

“Negative,” Megatron replied. His team comprised of Drift, Nautica, Nightbeat, and Brainstorm. It was decided that a smaller team would be better for infiltration. “The blueprints were wrong. We landed right in their armoury and are facing heavy fire.”

“HEY, NO, NOT COOL. WE WERE FACING HEAVY FIRE FIRST.” Rodimus pouted. “THAT’S OUR THING. GET YOUR OWN THING.”

“Don’t be a sparkling,” Megatron hissed. “Rendezvous here. We need backup.”

Swerve crushed another part of his chair. Meeting up with the beta team would lead them further away from you. They should face the turrets, consequences be damned. Swerve imagined reaching over to the control panel and forcing the team to drop. If he wasn’t afraid to have their energon on his servos, he’d do it. However, frustrating as it was, he left the planning up to the Co-Captains, itching for the moment that he would finally be useful. So far, everything in the plan was falling apart.

“Get ready to fight, crew,” Rodimus warned as the cruiser approached the Beta Teams location. Everyone stood up, heading to the back of the ship, “Dropping in three, two, one.”

The doors opened, leaving all the transformed vehicles to drive out on the ramp, jumping the gap onto the planet. There, the battle began. A handful of Cybertronians against a few hundred organics, none of whom seemed to be human; perhaps Lady Ouida was the only human among the organics that inhabited the planet.

Swerve raged with every shot he took. In hallways full to the brim of enemies, even he couldn’t miss. His blaster kept ringing off with compliments. Good job. Nice shootin’ Tex. You’re my hero.

However, as many shots as he got in, the enemies didn’t drop. It seemed that they were immune to most of the weapons, only stumbling slightly before they got back up to fight.

“This isn’t working,” Cyclonus growled through gritted teeth, him and Drift being the only ones to do any real damage with their swords, though they kept getting pushed back by the horde.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Rodimus said sardonically. “Time for plan C.”

“We don’t have a plan C,” Ultra Magnus reported.

“Then improvise.”

From the corner of his optic, Swerve saw a flash of green and he spun around to see Lady Ouida herself. She was climbing over the rubble, apparently trying to reach the fast-firing ballista behind the invaders of her castle. Full of rage at the human who had dared to harm his Conjunx Endurae, Swerve rushed at her, screaming. He tackled her to the ground, grunting as she stabbed a plasma dagger into his side. He would worry about the pain later, when you were safe. For now, he didn’t care, as that was the only weapon she had and she couldn’t retrieve it from his side now that he had her arms firmly in his grasp.

Swerve had always prided himself on being gentle with you, his beloved human. However, with Ouida in his grip, he was all too aware of how easy it would be to crush every bone in her body with only the slightest bit of pressure.

“WHERE IS MY CONJUNX?” He spat at her.

“Dead.” Lady Ouida lied. “As you will be soon enough, robotic scum.”

Swerve didn’t bother to press her on her deception, knowing instinctively that she wouldn’t talk, no matter what he did. Instead, he carried her towards her army, making sure the creatures could see her.

“I HAVE YOUR LEADER,” He roared at them. “LET US PASS, OR I’LL CRUSH HER.”

The organics stopped shooting, eerily expressionless as they lowered their weapons. Ouida shot her captors a disgusted look, hating that they had bested her experimental mutants. They were made to follow orders and protect the castle, but they had also been designed to ensure that she wouldn’t be harmed; with her as a captive, they were useless.

Swerve made his way forward, but Rodimus grabbed his shoulder-plate, pulling him back.

“Hey, loving the energy buddy,” Rodimus complimented Swerve. “Great improv and all, but uh, the Arena is the other way.”

“Oh,” Swerve looked at the mutant army, who were watching Ouida like a dog watching its master. “In that case, don’t follow us, or I’ll crush her.”

“YEAH,” Rodimus fist-pumped the air. “LET’S GO RESCUE (Y/N).”

You didn’t know what to say as you were faced with the many faces of the Lost Light that you thought you’d never see again, but most importantly Swerve. For a moment, you were half-convinced that you were hallucinating again, but then he had pushed Lady Ouida into Drift’s arms and he was holding you.

He kissed your helm, pulling you into his chassis, checking over every inch of you for injuries. “(Y/N),” he murmured. “My (Y/N).”

“Swerve,” You cried his name. “Swerve. I was so scared I’d never see you-”

“Shh, it’s okay, I’m here now. I love you. Always,” He repeated your message to you, letting you alone know that he had received it.

“Not to interrupt this reunion,” Megatron said sombrely, “But enemy reinforcements could arrive at any moment, and we need to get you two to medical treatment immediately.”

For the first time, you noticed the gash in Swerve’s side, coated with freshly congealed energon; he had taken the dagger out prior to seeing you.

“She hurt you… She-”

It was your turn to scream at Ouida, “YOU HURT MY CONJUNX ENDURAE.”

You reached out to crush her with your good arm, but Drift dragged Ouida into safety, “Sorry (Y/N), but she’s our ticket out of here. If we kill her, we have no leverage.”

You glared at Ouida, “You’re lucky he values all life, you hateful witch.”

Ouida rolled her eyes, unperturbed by the raving antics of a non-organic.

“Come on, (Y/N),” Swerve ushered you ahead of the group. “It’s time for us to go home.”

Home. You thought of your hab-suite aboard the Lost Light where you had built your life with Swerve; you couldn’t wait to get back to it. Letting Swerve cradle you in his arms, you leaned on him and took your first steps back towards home.

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coffeebeannate · 4 years

Photo

From This Prompt List

“If a person is destined to have a soulmate in this life, they will find that one of their eyes has changed colour, reflecting the colour of their anticipated soulmate.

For this to occur, the two must be in close proximity to one another (most studies say no less than several miles, but others claim that there have been some variations), and that, upon meeting, the eyes will revert to normal.

In some legendary, and notable cases, the eye colours will remain heterochromatic for the rest of their lives.

Of course, keep in mind that these stories are not always the same, and not every couple has a soulmate status. And that there is nothing less valid about non-soulmate couples.”

“Nicky?”

Nicky looked up, hastily closing the cover over his tablet, “Ah, sorry, can I help you?”

“The computers broken, again.” His co-worker sounds the most interesting combination of annoyed and sheepish, “Do we have to call tech support?”

“No, no, let me take a look, it’s alright.” Standing up from the desk, “The one we use for catalogue searching?”

“What else?”

He sighs, muttering curses under his breath, “Thing is about as good as a piece of scrap metal, at this point.” Resigning himself to an afternoon tinkering with the world’s most stubborn library resource computer. “It’s alright, go back to work, I’ll let you know if it decides to behave.”

“Thanks, Nicky, call me if you need help.”

“Yeah, yeah no problem” Facing the not-ancient but absolutely useless desktop, “You going to behave, or do we have to fight?”

Predictably, the computer blinks at him, Nicky sighs again and settles before it.

---

It isn’t that Nicky hates his life. Because he doesn’t, and despite what people might think, he’s fairly content. Working full-time as the head librarian might seem like an outdated job, but Nicky’s only 32, and he likes to argue that libraries are a vital part of society. Upgraded as they are, and some facets available entirely online. Besides, he had a degree in the stuff, and plenty of practice.

Andy might’ve had a series of interesting names for his life. His small apartment, three cats, more books and tech than is strictly necessary for a single man to have, and a car that is really a ridiculous thing, but it runs and he loves it and maybe the radio doesn’t work and it has no AC and the heater is also dying, but it’s a good car and he happens to find it charming.

He’s fine.

He’s dated, some one night stands, but nothing sticks.

“Are you reading that book again?” Andy asks, when she catches the soulmates book opened up on his tablet for what is definitely not the 10th, 12th, let’s not talk about it time.

“I think it’s comforting,” Nicky retorts, catching her look of disbelief.

“You know that in most cases, that shit’s a load of crap, yeah? Quynh and I have been married for eight years, no issue. She’s my soulmate, magical eyeballs aside.”

“I know I know..I just think it’s sweet.”

Nicky does not tell her that, for the last six or seven months he’s been glued to the damned thing. Everything feels antsy. He’s not an anxious man at all. His life has never felt empty, nor hollow. And yet, a few months back everything started feeling weird. Like he just couldn’t settle. Bee’s beneath his skin. Ghosting sensations across his scalp. Tingles.

He’d casually mentioned it during his yearly physical, but the doctor determined nothing out of sorts physically, and Nicky had been delaying calling a psychiatrist.

“Maybe you just need a change of scenery.” Andy suggested, stirring too much sugar into her coffee. ‘Maybe your library is finally getting to you.”

Nicky had declined to respond, but filed it away in the back of his mind regardless.

The morning that it happens, Nicky is running late, and doesn’t bother to look in a mirror much beyond ‘brushing teeth and running a comb over hair” before heading into work.

They’re finally upgrading the useless front computer, and he has to let the techs inside. Meaning he’s supposed to be at work an hour before he’d usually be, fiddling with his keys and muttering apologies as he opens the door fifteen minutes after he was supposed to let them in. Offering to buy them coffee for the troubles.

He’s that sort, after all.

He stands in the early morning crowd rush at the cafe yawning and buzzing, body thrumming with tension he can’t pinpoint, nor understand. It’s ridiculous and by the time he stumbles his way through the unfamiliar order, he feels much like he’s about to explode from it all.

The techs are thankful for their coffees, at least, Nicky tries to do some work in his office, and by the time he finally takes a break from his unsatisfactory work, it’s nearly noon.

There, in the libraries Men’s Room, is when he finally notices it.

His left eye isn’t grey, or green, or blue.

(Or whatever true colour his eyes seem to think they are)

It’s dark brown. So dark Nicky can barely see any other colour to it beyond pupil.

He blinks. Splashes water across his face, scrubs his cheeks.

It’s still there.

He takes a selfie with his camera, and stares.

Still there.

It’s still there after work, and the next day, and the Friday when he meets Andy for their usual after work time at the bar, Andy staring at him.

“So it’s not a contact?”

“No, I don’t wear contacts, or glasses! You know that.”

“You think your flowery soulmate shits legit then?”

“What else could it possibly be, Andy?”

Andy studies her beer, for once, she has no answer.

---

It is an extremely boring Wednesday morning when Nicky scrolls through his emails and finds something that bothers him for absolutely no reason at all.

It’s from one of the other departments, and it’s about the national art show being hosted at their oh so esteemed library. Nicky’s library is a popular venue because the building is historic and has a nice receiving room.

That’s not what bothers Nicky. He looks forward to this show. And it’s the first time he’d be in charge of much of it since becoming head librarian some eight months back, but no, it’s the shows headline artist that is prickling at him for yet again, reasons he can’t discern.

Nicky scrolls past the necessary details, but keeps going back to the beginning.

Headline Artist: Mixed Mediums. Classics with a Twist. Yusuf al-Kaysani

Nicky saves the email.

Again, no reason at all.

“Do you think it means anything?” He asks Andy and Quynh while four beers in and sitting on their couch.

“Some artist’s name you’ve never even met or heard of?” Quynh snorts, ‘Yep, definitely cracked some universal secret code there Nicky.”

He sighs, “Hand me another..”

Maybe they’re right.

Maybe he’s being ridiculous.

“Sorry, are you uh,,Nicky..Genova?”

Yes, okay, that does sound odd. But to his credit! He was named Nicolò thank you very much. His mother had made some comment about classics, traditions, blah blah.

“Yeah! Sorry just let me-”

He’s at the top of a ladder, fiddling with a birds nest, of all things. The outside of the library (again historic building) attracted plenty of them.

“Take your time, I don’t usually yell at people on ladders, on principle and all.”

The voice is nice.

It’s the dumbest thought Nicky has had in his head in months.

“Good practice, that.” Finally gasping the nest, starting to climb down the ladder, “Okay!” When he’s returned to solid ground.

“So, what can I do for-”

Nicky, quite elegantly, forgets how to think. Or breathe. Or do anything appropriately life sustaining like that.

The man before him, nice voice man, his brain helpfully supplies. is..gorgeous. And see, Nicky has SEEN gorgeous men and is nicely partial to them. But this man is gorgeous, attractive and, most distractingly, has one blue-grey-green who actually knows eye, and one dark brown one.

And! Nicky notices, has completely lost his own ability to speak. The two of them seem to amend this moments later by pointing at each other’s face mostly rudely, stunned and confused.

Nicky seems to find intelligent language first, but only manages to say, “..Are you Yusuf al-Kaysani?”

The equally stunned gorgeous man confirms this, and Nicky is quite sure he either faints, or dies.

(He does neither of these things, thank you very much)

“..It’s nice to meet you, Nicky.” Yusuf says, finding actual intelligence far before Nicky does. Nicky just swallows.

Their eyes never reverse to their birth states.

Not at the first date.

Not at the proposal.

Nor the engagement party.

Or the wedding.

10 years later, Andy remarks that ‘the most romantic bastard she knows’ would indeed, find an even MORE romantic sap, and that they’d have the perfect book romance.

Joe’s cleaning out the closet one evening when he finds a well-worn paper back version of the novel that Nicky had read endlessly on his tablet all those years ago.

“Hey babe, you never told me you had a paper copy of this.”

“Hmm?” Nicky pokes his head out of the bathroom, “I do? Oh, yeah, it’s a bit worn out.”

Joe flips open the cover of it, peering down into the slightly musty paper, reading aloud and finding his way to join Nicky at the vanity.

“Before reading this book, we must advise and remind that soulmates in this manner are rare, and that there is little scientific study to show a truth. Please do not fret if you never fall into this concept.”

Nicky hums, accepting the arm to his waist, the familiar kiss to his cheek, ghosting along the side of his lips.

“Go on,” Nicky says, casually.

“You know this story, my heart.” Joe chuckles, but continues.

“This rare phenomenon has been observed throughout history..”

#the old guard #kaysanova #au #soulmates au #prompt fic #prompt fics #fanfic #fic #nate does writing #oops this got longer than i anticipated #old guard au #nilefreemans #bi-leigh-bi

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plainbrunettelbl · 4 years

Text

ABO (A) Dragon Aizawa Shota x Duchess (O) Reader Obsidian Scales (Dragon AU)

Word count: 2055

Warnings: None.

Title: ABO (A) Dragon Aizawa Shota x Duchess (O) Reader Obsidian Scales (Dragon AU)

Summary: You are lost in the woods and an obsidian dragon helps you out.

(Gif not mine)

💤-To say you were a damsel in distress was an understatement.

💤-You had been sold off by your father to a nobleman that gave him the highest bid. If that wasn’t enough when you were being transported to meet the old Alpha that bought you the wagon was attacked by thieves.

💤-One of them had gotten a hold of you but luckily you kept a small knife strapped on your ankle just for situations like these. An Omega could never be too careful. You wasted no time stabbing him in the shoulder before darting off into the thick forest.

💤-They attacked at night when it was easier not to be seen so running through the forest was a difficult task. Your long dress made it difficult to jump over fallen branches.

💤-The thieves had tried to pursue you but gave up after a while. Even after you didn’t hear their heavy footsteps you kept running. Your only saving grace was that the moon was a full one.

💤-It helped light the dark forest just a little bit.

💤-After you were certain you weren't being followed you finally collapsed in the middle of a meadow. Your heavy breaths could be heard in the dark night. Your heart was racing from the whole ordeal.

💤-You were lost and alone in the dark woods, the thought made goosebumps appear on your arms. Tears pooled into your eyes as the whole situation caught up with your brain.

💤-Before you could break down in sobs a crack of a branch was heard. Your head shoots up to look into the dense treeline. Your eyes caught yellow eyes glinting against the moonlight.

💤-Wolves.

💤-You knew it was useless but distressed chirps left you. Your Omega hoping somehow there was an Alpha nearby to save you. You knew it was in vain and soon you would meet your fate.

💤-You didn’t want to think about their sharp teeth sinking into your soft skin. Your chirps intensified at the violent image. Even though you had run out of hope a small part of you wanted to believe you would be saved.

***

💤-A few miles away, an obsidian colored dragon laid resting on his hoard. He was the picture-perfect image of a dragon. Always buried in his hoard sleeping and barley leaving his den for food or water.

💤-He did get the need to find new treasures but it didn’t come as often as it once did. His hoard was big enough to satisfy his dragon so he saw no point in hunting for more gold and jewels.

💤-He was just adjusting his position on his hoard when he heard something. He ignored it, thinking it was just his gold coins scattering around but it came again. His dragon lifted his head in interest.

💤-His Alpha also surged forward once he identified the sound.

💤-An Omega was in distress.

💤-His dragon wasted no time shaking off his hoard and flying out of his den. He might have had a nice hoard but he didn’t have an Omega to share it with. His dragon was already thinking of the possibility of finding a potential mate.

💤-His dragon purred at the thought.

💤-Shota tried to push his dragon’s thoughts down. He would save the Omega but he didn’t plan on having a mate anytime soon.

***

💤-You had tried to crawl away when the wolves decided they had enough of your whimpering and stepped forward into the clearing. You knew it was useless. There was no way you could outrun them if you tried.

💤-You had slumped in defeat. No point in delaying the inevitable.

💤-Just as your heart gave up its last flame of hope you heard a peculiar sound. You lifted your eyes to the sky in, bewildered by the sound you heard coming from the stars.

💤-Your eyes almost missed the jet black form gliding through the sky.

💤-His inky scales shining in the moonlight. You gasped at his magnificent form. Before he could even land in the clearing the wolves had already tucked tail and ran.

💤-He landed in front of your form, his black eyes narrowing at your shrunken form. Your breath caught at his dark beauty. He was almost as big as the clearing itself.

💤-“T-thank you.” You stuttered, not quite sure about if he was gonna harm you or not. You heard of dragons but you didn’t think one of them was gonna save you out of goodwill.

💤-You had heard of them being villainous beasts. The nobles painting them in a terrible light since the species was known to steal from them. You always had an interest in them, but anytime you would try and bring them up your father would silence you.

💤-The dragon responded by shifting into his human form. You held back a gasp this time. He was a handsome man, dark locks licking his strong shoulders, rugged stubble lined his sharp jawline.

💤-“Are you okay, Omega?” His rough voice caressed your ears.

💤-You tried not to sigh at the sound of it.

💤-“I am fine, I think.” You looked over your body and noticed that your dress was torn at your legs.

💤-You knew it was improper but you lifted up your dress anyways, long red welts littered your legs. Your adrenaline was still pumping so you didn’t feel any pain but you knew they would start stinging soon.

💤-“I can take you back to my den if you want. I can clean those up if you would like.” He offered, trying not to show that his dragon was jumping at the thought of bringing this beautiful Omega back to his den.

💤-His Alpha was purring at the thought too.

💤-Shota didn’t want to admit it but his heart was racing at the image of her resting on his hoard. It was dangerous to have thoughts like these. Once a dragon claimed their mate his fate was pretty much sealed.

💤-No other Omega would be good enough once the dragon made its choice. And by the looks of it, his dragon was already smitten with the Omega.

💤-“Thank you. I think that would be nice.” You said, caught in his onyx eyes. You really didn’t have much of a choice even if you weren't entranced by this handsome man.

💤-Even if you did want to go back to your home you would still be sent off to marry some snooty nobleman that waited for your arrival right now. You didn’t want to spend your life tied to a lush couch speaking only when spoken to.

💤-Sitting prim and proper while the Alphas discussed important business over you.

💤-You had already spent most of your life doing that, you couldn’t imagine sticking to that role for the rest of your life. You wanted to be free and it looked like this situation was a blessing in disguise.

💤-No doubt your father would think you had perished in the dark forest if you never returned. The thought was appealing.

💤-“I could have you fly on my back but I don’t think your legs could hold onto me without irritating them further.” He said, finally walking up to your curled up form. He was slow in his pace so not to scare you.

💤-His dragon lowered its head at the thought of you being scared of him.

💤-“I can carry you if that would be okay?” He asked, trying to seem less intimating then he looked.

💤-His Alpha whimpered as he noticed your frame shudder at his words. Shota’s own heart dropped at your trembling frame.

💤-“Yes, I think the shock is kicking in. I am suddenly freezing.” Your delicate eyes peered up into his, looking to him for warmth and protection. His dragon was eager to comply.

💤-Before Shota could resist he pulled your frame into your arms. You sighed into his warm chest, your body sinking into his warmth. You Omega had identified that this Alpha meant you no harm.

💤-Letting out a gentle purr before drifting off into his gentle embrace. Your body finally seeking sleep after your terrible ordeal. You were already fast asleep when Shota responded with his own purr.

💤-He made sure to avoid crinkling leaves and sticks on his journey back to his den. His Alpha scared to wake up this sweet Omega in his arms.

***

💤-You woke up when you felt a cloth warm softly sliding down your injured legs. You back was cushioned by soft fur blankets. You Omega was secretly cooing over them.

💤-You opened your eyes to see the dark-haired male kneeling down between your legs. He was running a cloth over your scraps and dipping it in warm water to clean them.

💤-You Omega was purring at the sight. The Alpha was an attentive one and it was slowly winning your Omegas heart. You were honestly falling yourself. All you had ever know were greedy Alphas who only cared about their wealth and status.

💤-You couldn’t picture one of them kneeling on their knees in front of an Omega. It was unthinkable. The Alphas eyes met yours when he noticed your shifting, you could get lost in his obsidian gaze.

💤-“I figured you could use some sleep. I was just cleaning up your wounds before I put some ointment on them. I am sorry I didn’t ask before I touched you.” He apologized, pulling his hands away from you.

💤-“I-it’s alright. If you didn’t clean them I am sure they would get infected. Thank you. I appreciate all that you have done to help me.” You softly replied, trying to hide your blushing cheeks at his closeness.

💤-Your father would be furious if he found an Alpha touching you in such a way. Well, he wasn’t here and you didn’t care how improper it was. This Alpha had been nothing but kind to you and your weren't gonna shove his kindness away.

💤-“It is nothing. Once I am done here I will let you rest some more. In the morning I can take you back to the nearest village if you want.” He replied, trying to push his dragon down, he was hissing and clawing at the thought.

💤-“I suppose.” Your heart slumped at the thought.

💤-You knew you couldn’t stay here with him. The Alpha probably wanted its peace and quiet and here you were disturbing him. You would go back to civilization even if you yearned to stay here among the trees and rocky walls.

💤-Shota shoved away his saddened mood at your impending absence and got to work on applying ointment to your legs. When he was done he stood up.

💤-“I usually sleep on my hoard in dragon form. I wouldn’t do that if you are uncomfortable though.” He said, looking at you for any hint of fear at the thought of him in his dragon form.

💤-“No, you don’t have to change the way you sleep just because I am here. Please do what you normally would.” You stated, slightly eager at seeing his inky scales again.

💤-With a nod he walked over to his hoard and transformed, his big head peered in your direction before curling up on the mound of gold and jewels. He laid your way, blinking his eyes in your direction before closing them on last time.

💤-He had laid you on a small mound of soft blankets a few feet away from his hoard. Your Omega urged you to make a nest before you went to sleep again. As quietly as you could you moved and rearranged them.

💤-You didn’t know that a certain dragon was watching you and trying not to rumbled at the sight. Once you settled down you said a quiet goodnight before drifting off to sleep.

Bonus:

💤-Shota knew something was off when he opened his eyes. Instead of waking up on his glittering hoard he was a few feet away curled around the slumbering Omega and their nest.

💤-He sighed softly. His dragon had already picked his mate and he was finally admitting to his fate. He closed his eyes again, thinking of ways to woo you before you asked to go back home.

💤-With a few ideas in mind, he drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

So clearly everyone wanted this fic to be written. I was happy to comply. Thank you so much for the support. You all are amazing! 💗

I had so much fun writing this AU! I hope I did well on portraying Shota. I am still trying to get a feel for writing for him. Please leave your thoughts on how I did. I hope you all like it! 💕💕

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doorsclosingslowly · 3 years

Text

Hell is just a beat away (5/9)

Despite early promise, young Maul has turned out to be a disappointment, willfully delaying his training with secret attempts to make himself friends from scrap metal. He must be properly motivated, and so Darth Sidious sends him to a slave market on an impossible mission. It backfires. Star Wars: Darth Maul (2017) comic AU | 8k | warning for limb loss, discussion of sexual assault of a teenager, body horror (implanted bombs)

If the kids are united

Ta-tap tap tap, tap ta-tap tap. He takes small steps by necessity—the buyer holds his hand and creates a pace he must match—small steps, but many of them, and quick ones, taking him ever further away from the palace of Xev Xrexus. It is little cause for happiness. He has been on this path before, twice, though not back then in the company of a twi’lek child, so young that if she was a boy even the Sisters would have left her to grow for a few more years. There is no point in looking at her, in growing attached—but her presence nevertheless settles his determination, step after step after step.

A street is crossed, and there is a bright sudden pain down there and—he does not yearn for his home. There is no point. But he knows he had thick calluses then, would walk through nettles and thorny underbrush barefoot as he is now and then he would stomp for the joy of it, and laugh. There is no point in missing that boy who lived then, unsoftened by captivity and so naïve that the worst he could imagine was the siring of his child.

That boy was filed down to nothing along with his calluses and his nails and his horns. That boy died.

Soon, so will he.

It is useless to mourn. Nothing is real in the world anymore, nothing but violation, and violence.

The new Master is short, and that will make it easier. They gave their name, he dimly remembers, but he can’t recall it and it will not matter soon. Even here there are maggots, and maggots don’t care for names. The slaver’s arm is bent upwards to keep hold of one of Savage’s fingers, and the twi’lek’s chain is tied to what looks like a necktie misused as a belt. She’s walking so close behind that she bumps into the slaver with every other step, which should further diminish their range of motion, and most crucially—the slaver stowed the bombs’ remote control device inside their satchel. They will not reach it in time.

Tap ta-tap ta-tap. Now all that is missing is a spot that is dark and unobserved. Something ebbs and bobs deep inside him, but it’s futile now to wonder whether it’s regret or relief or just more fear. If he does not act soon, he’ll arrive at a ship or a palace, and his one chance will be spent.

There. Alleyway. A few more steps, and—

I’m sorry, he thinks, I know I promised to try to come home and then he shakes his thumb loose of the Master’s hand and grabs their arm tight and he pulls them up and—

He slams them against the wall.

Again.

The necktie belt’s come loose, he notices in his peripheral awareness, and the twi’lek’s picking it up and backing away. The Master in his hand squirms. Shudders. Whimpers, in a voice that sounds higher than what Savage thought he heard in the palace but Savage wasn’t all there back then, not truly, hasn’t for a very long time been as present as he is now. The false roles and expectations have dropped away from him like dried mud. (He was bred to be a warrior, not a plaything. When his Mate looked at him She should have judged his lethality and not his body, his symmetry, his submission; She should have chosen a brutal fighter to fuck and carry the line of the night. He wouldn’t have liked it, either, but at least—he would have understood. This new Master looked and saw a broken toy and so they thought nothing of stowing away the remote that gives them power. They’re holding Savage by the hand, when he is an abducted son of Wrath.)

He roars in wild triumph and swings the Master over his head, one circle, another, for more devastating impact and on the second turn something dark swirls out against the wall, something that must have covered the face, because he gets a glimpse of—

He sees—

He—

He catches them in his other arm and—

He looks but his eyes don’t want to see. He blinks and blinks, but the face doesn’t change. It still looks the dreams he tried to forbid himself. It looks like his…

It’s the face of a brother.

Not a Master. This is a nightbrother, eyes shuttered and a face as red and powerful as Savage’s ever seen. A face as small as—no, he used to raise babies, it’s not that small, but the nightbrother is a young boy and so Savage cradles him in his arms, whispering, “Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry.”

He wants to know his face, his horn pattern, wants to know whose brother this is, who sent him to Savage’s rescue, who sent a childto the hell of Nar Shaddaa—he desperately wants to see, but he almost killed this boy, almost killed this young nightbrother when he’s been so alone and bereft of purpose for years and now he almost killed—he wants to look, but his arms cradle the child and his mouth keeps repeating, “I didn’t want to hurt you, I’m sorry,” and whatever he may want to do his hands cannot let go. Savage’s body has acted against his wishes every day of every week of every month of the past few years, but this is the first time it feels sweet. He won’t let go. He is curious and shameful and shaking from adrenaline-drop, but his arms want to hold this child forever.

They are still on Nar Shaddaa, still in the slavers’ den, and any passing stranger could—but Savage waited until a dark alley to attack, and there’s no-one walking by. No threat, for a moment.

“I’m sorry, brother,” he mumbles, and his fingers slink over the back of the boy’s head—bruised, but no broken bone—and feel the breath that comes from his mouth and then he holds on tight, tight, but not so tight it’ll trigger any wound that Savage—oh Mother—that Savage just gave this miraculous small nightbrother child.

⁂

The shift was rapid, dizzying, but even in this Master has taught Maul well: the quick turn to violence and its even quicker end would certainly have terrified Maul if it was not exactly like the base pattern of his training. As it is, and with the living force bathing him in the zabrak’s intentions be they grim determination or, for minutes now, a soft and anguished terror soaked through with a strange emotion he cannot parse, but it eddies and bobs with the hand cradling Maul’s head and it doesn’t feel lethal, not even hostile…

He would have been scared, disoriented, he decides, if he was not Sith—but he is and so the sudden attack just made the world make sense.

Sense. His head aches and so does his arm but the world makes sense again, it makes sense, like it didn’t when he was leaving the palace holding onto a slave he didn’t know how to talk to, a zabrak slave that Maul desperately wants to like him—and the zabrak’s doomed, doomed, or Maul is, once they get to Master, but still he can’t help wanting to be liked—it was strange, and he didn’t know what to do except walk and get to the ship and then they would—and then they will get to Master and someone will die. That was all he understood. He didn’t want to think about it, but when he tried to focus on something else, focus on his desperate dream, he still had no idea how he could make the liking happen. Any of the small in-between interactions that people apparently have. None of the hololessons covered this scenario, and Maul didn’t have time to dream and re-dream about it until it felt perfect… He knew he’d dipped his toe in a world that didn’t make sense, and there was no guide as to what to do, before the violence.

And now he understands again. The world is back on its rails.

The darkside zabrak tested him.

There needs to be a hierarchy, obviously, and before it wasn’t clear where the zabrak stood compared to Maul, so they couldn’t really interact. That was the problem with Maul’s ideas of how to make them friends. They didn’t have roles without the hierarchy. And without the roles, nothing makes sense. Nobody knows what to do.

Except the clever yellow zabrak. He knew that the only thing they could do was find the hierarchy, and Maul’s grateful for his quick thinking, so grateful that he almost isn’t angry that he lost (even though he is Darth Maul! He was supposed to beat everybody!) and anyway, the zabrak, Savage, he decided that Maul should survive even though he’s weaker, he obviously has a purpose for Maul, and even if the purpose conflicts with Master’s and Maul will have to turn against him very soon—it feels nice, good, that Savage let Maul live. That he has a purpose for Maul. It’s so close—no, Maul decides, it’s exactly what he wanted. What else is liking but seeing someone’s purpose, anyway? (The zabrak is a darksider. He’s strong. He likes what matters. Only Maul likes things that are useless, like mangy old brachno-jags and droids made from trash, and soon he will learn to become better. Master will teach him. He’s been trying, has been punishing Maul for these useless likes, for so long now. One day it’ll stick.)

The zabrak beat Maul, and he let him live. He’s running his fingers—his bare warm-skin fingers—over the back of Maul’s head with more care than Maul would need soldering a tiny circuit, and when Maul turns his head slightly he can rest his cheek against a naked shoulder. It’s—it’s more contact with another living being than he can ever remember having. The few animals that found their way into the Mustafar complex would always scramble away from him, unless they were brought by Master and they hurt and he had to kill them. A warm pulsing neck under his fingers, hot blood—it felt nothing like this. This is gentle, luxurious, softer by a thousandfold than any robe Maul has ever touched. He almost can’t feel the leftover throbbing in his skull over the revelation that is touching, skin-to-skin, another being. A darkside zabrak, just like him.

“Sorry,” the zabrak keeps muttering. “Sorry, brother,” and Maul doesn’t know what he’s sorry for. Letting him live? It would have been honorable to die in battle, but selfishly, Maul is glad he didn’t die before he found out what resting his head against someone’s shoulder feels like. Sorry for holding Maul? He should have been. As a Sith Lord, Maul is above these animal comforts. But also—Savage would stop petting him, if he was sorry for that, and Maul is shamefully grateful that this guess, too, is wrong. It will have to end, and soon, and forever—when they get to Master either the zabrak will die or Maul—but he will carry this moment in his hearts as long as he lives.

Master will take the padawan and he will kill either Savage or Maul—wait—The padawan! Maul pushes his way out of Savage’s arms and cranes his neck. The padawan is gone. She’s—

“Brother, what is—do you sense danger?” Savage asks, but Maul has no time to think about him now.

The padawan’s gone.

Master will kill him.

Master was going to kill Maul anyway, when he found out that Maul disobeyed and used the force and brought back another zabrak, dark and much stronger than Maul, but now that Maul completely messed up the mission, Master’s going to extra kill him. Going off-script and buying the zabrak was bad enough. Maul can’t lose the padawan, the whole reason for his presence on Nar Shaddaa. He can’t botch the mission. Master is going to kill him, and he’s going to let Maul live by a thread and throw him in bacta just to kill him again. And again. And again.

And still, it’ll be better than what he deserves, because Maul just failed the ancient plans of the Sith.

He failed Master Sidious and he failed Darth Bane and he failed every single other Sith in the long lineage that led to Maul, stupid Maul who let the Jedi escape just because he thought the mission was going well and he was lonely. He failed—

But the Jedi can’t have gone far! Maybe he can salvage this!

“Brother, wait! Don’t leave—” Savage shouts when Maul starts running down the alleyway in the direction away from the slaver palace, but whatever problem he has, if he can’t stop Maul he will have to live with it. This padawan is important for the grand plans of the Sith. Maul will find her, come what may. He will not fail Lord Sidious again.

⁂

Eldra’s almost finished wedging herself into an alcove hidden three meters above the ground in the cul-de-sac of massive windowless skyscrapers—hiding’s the only thing left, there’s no way out—and that’s when the pain comes.

It’s a piercing, shrieking sort of pain; the kind of pain she last felt when her Master sagged atop her, riddled with holes and gurgling her last unkept promises through bloodied lips. It’s mixed with dread, with the certainty of failing the one you wanted to protect. It makes her sob and tremble. It wants to drown her, at once the maelstrom and the tendrils of the beast old beyond time that hides inside. It’s dark. It’s heady power. It’s madness. It’s the pain of an unshielding force user.

It’s the zabrak.

Shit. The zabrak. He provided the distraction that let Eldra get away. He gave his life for hers. Eldra could have lived with that, with knowing he died so she could run. She thought she could, anyway. A good Jedi would have. He was just a slave, a force-sensitive found too late for anyone’s good, a desperately angry and scared young man. Perched on the very edge of the dark side, at best. Fallen, maybe. Too late. She is a Jedi, and she knows that sometimes, a life must be given for the greater good. If someone had to die, maybe it was for the best that it was his life: he’s just a darksider. She has been raised to give her own life, and the zabrak’s a civilian—a slave, a slave just like she is now—but this is the way the world works.

Eldra had to survive, because she must tell the council of the return of the Sith. That’s what matters. A single life is nothing to that, even if the zabrak’s death is agony. The good of the many comes first.

There is no death, there is the force, Eldra mumbles. There is no death. I accepted that he would die, when I ran away instead of helping him take down the Sith. I accepted his death. I must stay calm.

But this isn’t death. This is torture.

What the fuck is the Sith doing to him?

Maybe it will be over soon.

Maybe. Please. Don’t let him suffer too long. Eldra stays sardined in her hideaway, concentrating on not whimpering too loudly and on releasing the secondhand pain into the force, because what else is there to do? She can’t escape. She can’t save him. No-one can. It’s a decade too late for that.

There’s no way out of this dead end, no decent footholds for climbing and even if she managed—there’s no way she won’t get tired, half-way up these hundreds-of-meters tall buildings. Thousands of meters. She can’t guess well right now. She doesn’t remember the last time she ate, though the slavers must have given something to her, and her arms still ache from a day of immobility. Spiritually, she’s weak, too, and even reaching into the force to unlock the damn manacles had almost destroyed her. Had almost made her Fall.

Eldra is terrified. She can’t pretend not to be, can’t meditate it away. She’s scared. She’s angry, at Woobudg and at her Master and at the Jedi and more than anything, at herself. She’s an escaped slave, perched on the brink of the eternal dark—she is no better than the zabrak, and it freezes her heart—and her Master is dead. She can’t use the force. She can’t be a Jedi. There’s no way in fucking hell she can be calm enough for that.

There’s no way out.

The only way is back.

The only way is… how long until the Sith walks into the mouth of her cul-de-sac? How long until he’s finished torturing the zabrak? How long until he comes looking for her?

‘cause that’s the only thing that’ll happen. He’ll get bored eventually, and then he will find Eldra. There’s no way out for her. She’s dead.

She could… okay, she could count on staying hidden, and probably starve to death in her alcove, or be found anyway. There’s no way out of this cul-de-sac, and if he’s watched her run into it, it’s game over. The way her luck’s gone, for the past days, Eldra should definitely be expecting that he saw her. Which… if she goes back out, she might run into his open arms. Or he might be gone, after all.

Or she could help the zabrak. He’s still alive: she can feel his pain.

She shouldn’t, though. The Sith have returned. That’s what matters. Eldra must stay alive and return and bear witness.

⁂

Master will kill me. Master will kill me. There’s no space for anything but this truth, as Maul runs through mazes of skyscrapers in search for the padawan he almost successfully brought back to enact the nebulous ancient plans of the Sith, head pounding and the stuffed satchel bouncing against his back. No space for anything, not even the firestorm of pain that suddenly filled every square meter of asphalt. No time to think about what it means. Whose it is. Master will kill me. I lost her.

(I lost her just because I didn’t want to be alone.)

Master will kill me.

⁂

The zabrak’s only a few meters off the mouth of Eldra’s dead end. Maybe that’s why the echoes of his agony are so strong. The alternative, a juggernaut strength in the force she’s never before seen, only makes his fate more tragic. More wasteful. He could have been found as a baby. He could have become a Jedi. And now he’s lying there, and he is alone, in the very eye of his pain storm.

Alone in a puddle of blood.

Is he dead?

No, he can’t be, Eldra can still feel how much he’s suffering, but he’s—she staggers towards him and stumbles, tumbles down and catches herself with weak and shuddering arms. He’s—she looks and what she fell over was a foot, a sentient being’s actual severed limb, with charred raggedy bone and meat where a shin should be but the rest is intact, as intact as an amputated foot can ever appear, and the yellow and black skin is stark against the grimy floor. It’s the zabrak slave’s foot. She stumbled over his actual real torn-off foot, a few meters from where he’s lying, and she’s covered now in dry and tacky and congealing blood. It’s all over her once-cream padawan robes, and the zabrak’s missing a foot.

An entire foot, just gone. The zabrak’s curled up in agony and his hands are clutching the stump of his left shin.

He looks up, though, when Eldra climbs to her feet. Not unconscious, then, though that would be kinder, and Eldra must find a way to contact the Council about the re-emergence of the Sith, she must remember the bigger picture, but surely, surely, if it’s her duty to warn the galaxy then it’s also her duty to ease the pain of this one person who helped her, as much as she can. She was reprimanded for ignoring the unifying force so often in her education, but surely it would be just as wrong to walk on by. Not even Master Fyaar would have told her to walk on by. She could have, but she’s dead now,Eldra remembers grimly, she died, and I can’t just let her be my conscience anymore.

“Help me,” the zabrak begs.

It’s enough to chase off her absent teachers. Who could leave him to this desperation? Who could ignore this all-consuming tornado of pain?

“I’m not a healer,” Eldra warns, kneeling down next to him. “They steered me away from that, but I can do enough to stop the bleeding, I think.”

The zabrak coughs. No, he laughs, that was meant to be contemptuous painful laughter, and he says, “Not that. I won’t bleed out.”

“There’s an artery in your leg—"

“It was just the first warning. There’s coagulant released after it explodes. I have seen it before. This bomb is not supposed to kill.”

“Bomb?!” But she heard that inside that loathsome palace, she remembers, though she was too terrified to pay close attention—Master Fyaar would have been disappointed again—but the zabrak’s slaver said something about bombs, and a remote, and oh kriff is that what happened?! A slave control bomb blew off his foot? Oh force, they discussed planting bombs inside me, too, Eldra remembers. Default procedure, they said. But they thought it was too expensive for a standard blue twi’lek, and she’d been angry back then but—oh force, oh mercy, she’s so glad she’s not worth much.

“He ran away so quickly I lost him, and then the radius—” he swallows. “It does not matter. I need to find my brother, and I can’t walk. He’s just a child. Please. I need your help.”

A child. A child in danger, and this poor man in pain, in so much pain the very air aches and shivers, and yet—Eldra is a Jedi, and her duty is to the whole galaxy. She must warn the Jedi Council. She doesn’t have time for this. She mumbles, “I’m sorry, but I have to—”

Quick as a viper, the zabrak pushes her down and crawls on top of her. He drives his forearm into her neck and pushes her head down, not with so much force it hurts but a definite threat, a definite herald of… of something, with his muscular naked body pressing against her clothes. Something. Something bad. She doesn’t want to lure it in even by thinking the word now but it’s been the danger all along—and then he growls, “You’re going to help me, understood?”

“I’ll fucking bite off your dick,” Eldra hisses. “Try it. I’ve still got my teeth.”

“You…” The zabrak eases off a little, lifting his whole torso off her with trembling arms though not far away enough that Eldra can get the leverage to fight her way free, and he frowns. Confusion, or thought, but not—not lust. The force swirls less blindingly bright, for a second. He doesn’t look as scary anymore, even though he just easily overpowered Eldra. He also looks really young, when she peers up at him from this close, like he’s maybe one or two years older than her, and his shuddering grows more and more worrisome. “I need to find my brother. Please. He’s just a child.” And then, he shutters his eyes and swallows. His face does a strange thing that looks almost… sultry? Though not appealing at all, not with the sweat and the wide eyes of pain and the fact he’s an actual mutilated terrified Fallen teenage slave. “I’ll make it worth your while. I’ll do anything. Anything. I’m—good. But he’s just a kid.”

Anything, with a cadence like… And he’s basically naked, because someone wanted him that way, and Eldra saw perverts feeling him up back at the market. He’ll do anything. He’s trying to look appealing. Oh force. Oh fuck. “I am a Jedi. A guardian of peace and justice in the galaxy. I’m not a rapist. And you’re not, either—”

He nods, baffled.

“Glad we got that straight. The thing is—I have a very important task to do. The fate of the galaxy might hinge on me talking to the Temple as soon as possible.”

“He’s a just child. A tiny nightbrother child, on Nar Shaddaa.” His grey eyes are feral and pleading. He plainly doesn’t care about duty, or the galaxy, when the price is a child, and it’s growing harder and harder for Eldra not to agree. Master Fyaar, give me strength. Harden me, Master. Let me bear this dreadful hope I can’t fulfill. I mustn’t, I won’t, and yet he keeps arguing, “You’re a twi’lek. You know what that means.”

“I don’t…”

“A zabrak. He’s a zabrak,” and that doesn’t explain anything more to Eldra, but the man—the boy—above her will not leave her be, even when she shakes her head wildly, beseeching, “There’s no such thing as a free zabrak on Nar Shaddaa. As soon as they see him. Please. He’s just a child. He’s just my little baby brother.”

“But I—”

“No such thing as a free tailhead either. You won’t reach the Temple. They’ll just take you back to the slave market.”

“I’m a Jedi. I’ll manage.”

But his tearful eyes turn shrewd. “I have been here for years now,” he whispers. “You’re new. You’ll never find your way around without me,” and fair enough, these streets truly are a maze. “I’m not leaving a nightbrother on Nar Shaddaa. I am not leaving a child here. I am not leaving my brother. But I’ll help you after we find him. It’s your only chance. You can cooperate, or I can abandon you here to get caught again. Your choice.” He tightens his hold on Eldra’s neck.

It’s a hollow threat, and they both know it. The zabrak can’t leave her. He can’t walk, the best he could do is crawl away slowly until someone puts him out of his misery, or, more likely, picks him up and sells him again, as he just predicted for her.

The worst he could do is kill her, and since that wasn’t the threat…

She must warn the Jedi. She must warn the Jedi as quickly as possible, but. A child. He’s begging for the life of a child. And Eldra… No matter how many lectures she got, she never managed to get the unifying force. The big picture. It’s so remote, and it just makes sense, that the certain immediacy of present pain always overshadows the possibilities of the future. In the future, there are the Sith, grim and ancient and the foresworn enemies of the Jedi; but the Sith haven’t yet hurt her. Even the Sith she met hasn’t. He was the least horrible of all of them.

In the present, there are slavers. A whole planet of them. In the even more present, there is the offer of a temporary alliance, made by the one person she’s met in the last few days who doesn’t see her as meat.

She is so tired of being on her own.

“I’m Eldra,” she says. “Let me up, or I won’t be able to carry you.”

Stormy grey eyes turn bright and then they crumple up in pain again when he must’ve accidentally bumped his stump somewhere while he rolls off her. He’s seriously, seriously hurt. Well, of course, Eldra, he just had his foot blown off, she mocks herself. Obviously, she mocks her mocking self back. But we both need to move, so I probably need to carry him, so knowing how much pain he’s in, what movement he has left… that’s useful. And if I could lessen that pain…

Eldra can’t reach for the force while she’s afraid or angry, or she will Fall. But she’s not as scared now. She just wants to help him. That’s not evil, right? How can compassion for a slave be evil? Master never expressly said it was, so surely it can’t be that bad?

“Wait. Let me touch it,” and the zabrak presents his burnt stump without question. “I’m not a good healer. But I think I can… shut up the nerves?”

What the zabrak mumbles in response sounds suspiciously close to Witch, but after the first flinch, he allows her to touch him again, resolutely refusing to shudder though he definitely looks like he wants to, and refusing to tell her what he meant, too. He does look slightly less agonized after she feels her way into his synapses and cells and tells them to heal, heal, and that their warnings are great but no longer needed.

Now she just needs to heave him upright and hold him, somehow, while she walks, so he can hop along.

“How did this leg-be-gone thing happen, anyway?” she asks right before she pulls, because a distraction might make this easier on him.

“He—” The zabrak’s breathing heavily, but not accidentally fighting her or crying or anything else she feared. He’s doing much better than she would in his position, that’s for certain. “My brother. When he ran off, he still had the remote. The bombs trigger when it’s away over a certain distance…”

The remote? The one that the slaver gave the Sith? How— “How did your brother get that remote?!”

“He put it in his satchel. Must have forgotten about it. It’s not his fault.”

Wait.

Satchel.

He put the remote in the satchel.

Is his brother the…

“The Sith?!”

The word means nothing to the zabrak, she can tell. If he recognized it, he would have shuddered in fear and the force around him would turn frigid, because the Sith are the very worst threat in the galaxy, but instead he looks gently confused again and says, “No, he’s a nightbrother. A zabrak. Like me.”

That’s not a hindrance, as far as Eldra knows. There is a Sith species, but towards their fall—and now in their resurrection, presumably—Sith could be of any sentient species in the galaxy. “I meant… Is your brother that tiny person with a mountain of black clothes who bought both of us?”

“Isn’t he clever?” There is nothing on the zabrak’s face but deep adoration. For a second, even his pain seems forgotten. Even the smog clouds seem to have lifted, for a second, but no—that warm breeze. The sudden pure air. That’s the force. The force, lit up by love for this brother, and yet, he’s talking about a Sith. The embodiment of evil. The ancient enemies of the Jedi. It doesn’t make sense. “If they’d seen his species, he would have been captured immediately, but he made the perfect disguise and he fooled all of them!”

The love doesn’t make sense. But even worse… “You are talking about the weirdo in three dress shirts and that handmade leather balaclava and winter sports sunglasses combo?! The tiny ragged black ball?! That’s a perfect disguise?!”

“It worked,” the zabrak replies, as if that’s all the proof he needs. “My brother’s a genius.”

It’s impossible to love a Sith. They don’t feel affection. They can’t; all they process is dark possessive urges and hatred and so on. Maybe Eldra was wrong about the buyer’s aura, though. She’s never met a Sith before, after all, so how should she know what they feel like in the force, and she’s only met a few corrupted force sensitives before too and most of them in the presence of Master Fyaar, who may well have dampened their impression on Eldra… Maybe she was wrong. Maybe there is no Sith here. After all, she can feel the zabrak is dark and Fallen, too, but he’s not a bad person. His life just sucked. Wait. ‘The zabrak’…

Eldra prods his navel with a finger. She’s holding him up by now, his chest half-propped up on her shoulder and head, and it’s as high as she can reach with only minimal danger of dropping him. “You never said your name.”

“Savage,” he says, and hops to catch up to her one step.

“A pleasure to meet you, Sir. I’d bow if I could, but you know…” Eldra grins, and he does too, and it’s… nice? Despite the general horror of, well, everything, this is nicer than anything else that’s happened on the mission so far.

She puts her foot forward again and waits for him to catch up. And again. This will take forever. But the alternatives are all worse. Hopefully the little brother knows how to stay hidden until they manage to steer their three-legged train wreck to… “How are we going to find him? He could be anywhere. You can’t walk, and I can barely keep you upright—”

“He’s close,” Savage says.

“How do you—”

“I wouldn’t be alive if he wasn’t.”

Of course. Eldra feels stupid. How could she have forgotten… “The bombs.”

“Yes. Stop for a…” Eldra braces herself, and he leans against her head, cold and trembling finely. He’s heavy, even though she’s never been the weakest in her age-group by far, both as a twi’lek—not the frailest of species anyway—and because she always feels better when she’s moving. She adjusts her grip on his waist so he doesn’t slip. His hearts beat loudly against her lekku. “Second one’s at two hundred. In the stomach. Takes a while to bleed out, and even if I don’t the sepsis… The last Master took real pleasure in explaining it. Not gone off yet. He can’t be more than two hundred meters away.”

Eldra won’t ask where the fourth bomb is. She won’t. “But in which direction?”

“Not in that dead end.”

“Worked that one out myself,” Eldra snaps.

“So… sorry.” Heavy breathing. “I…”

“Sorry. I shouldn’t—a Jedi would not take their fear out on you,” Eldra whispers. “Okay. Good. Two-hundred meters, that’s manageable. We can do that. We’ll find him.”

A few more steps. Then: “The stomach,” Savage whispers. “It’s—you should probably get your head away. It’s a strong one, I think. You might get hurt when it goes off.”

Great. Her head is right next to a bomb. Got it.

“You’re heavy, Mister. Can’t carry you otherwise.”

“You might be quicker if—if you promise you’ll look for…”

He’s proposing she leave him behind.

“Maybe I’ll lose an eye,” she suggests bravely. “Some massive scarring would be nice. I’ll look so fucking ugly that every fucker who’d fuck me throws the fuck up instead.”

Savage grins, weakly but genuine, as if it’s obvious she’s never been much of an out-loud swearer before. As if he’s gently mocking her. It’s nice, though. It’s nice.

Hop. Walk. Hop.

Savage’s gone quiet, and Eldra pauses and pokes his abs again. “If you pass out, Mister, we’re both screwed. Motherkriffing fucked and utterly pfassking scraggled, even. Cruddlingly fucking boondoggled,” because it made him laugh the last time.

“I am used to pain.”

Eldra doesn’t want to know more. She really doesn’t. If the whirlwind in the force is anything like he’s feeling right now, there’s no way she could’ve been as calm as he seems. Whatever it took for him to learn that separation, that control… “Fine. As long as you’re sure… and it’s not macho posturing that I wouldn’t believe anyway… Hey, do you want a distraction?” It’s always helped her at least, having something small to fiddle with her fingers or turn over in her brain. “You know how I helped your wound with the force just now? You can do that too. You have the—I don’t know how to explain it for beginners, you have those midichlorians in your cells that interact with the force that flows between every living thing,” she prattles on, needing to gasp for breath less and less as the force grows less immediate, “and it’s basically interoception with another sense, healing yourself. You might even—maybe you can feel where the bombs are!”

“I saw them go in. Won’t bleed out for a while anyway, not even when the stomach bomb goes off.”

“No. We are absolutely not doing that, asshole,” Eldra hisses, because she doesn’t like that ‘when’. Why is she even bothering to lug around his heavy body when he acts like it’s a foregone conclusion he’ll die. He’s with a Jedi now. If that means anything at all, it means Eldra’s not going to let some slavers turn him into flesh goo from kilometers away. “There’s a warning before it goes off, right? We’ll walk in the other direction then, get back into the distance you’re allowed to be. You’re not dying on my watch. Just try the healing, okay?”

“I’m a male,” Savage whispers. “I have no magicks.”

“You definitely have midichlorians. I can feel them, you know—I could feel your bomb go off because you’re broadcasting your emotions. You’re doing it now. You’re definitely a force-sensitive.”

“But it’s forbidden!”

“Uh, yeah, probably.” This is something Eldra should have considered. Master Fyaar would have told her right away. Savage’s too old, way too old for Jedi training. He’s Fallen. She can’t just teach him how to access the force. That’s probably as bad as helping a Sith, right? But now she’s unwisely mentioned it, he seems to like the idea.

“Will it help me protect my brother?”

“It will.”

And that’s it. He won’t let her drop the topic, and Eldra can’t really hold out, not when he starts talking again about what could happen to a baby zabrak. Not when she already compromised this far. He’s already Fallen anyway, so what is the harm in teaching him something? It doesn’t matter if he’s able to be careful or not. He won’t Fall. He’s already Fallen.

“The Jedi way won’t work for you because, well—it’s complicated. But there’s something my teacher says, that fear leads to anger, and anger to hate, and hate to suffering, and that’s the path to the dark side. It always sounds really easy to slip down that path, so you’ll probably be able to do it. And get that power. Just promise me you won’t become evil, right? Just a little bit of power, to close your wounds.”

Savage shudders against her lekku. A face swirls before her eyes for a fraction of a second, a memory he probably didn’t mean to spew all over her. “I am afraid. I’ve always been afraid, and angry, and… But I don’t have power.”

“You do. I don’t know how you do it, exactly, for the dark side… They only said not to do it, they never said what not to do. Or how to avoid it, in detail. But it’s about using the force when you’re already feeling awful emotions, and reinforcing them through the force. I think, if I was Falling… I’d feel everything bad, really hard. I’d feel the things that have hurt me and the futures I dread. And then I’d feel the force in everything around me—or inside my body for healing—and I’d just—concentrate.”

“I’ll try.” Savage takes a few more shaking breaths. “Maybe once you put me down? I’m—I’m less afraid, now you’re here. We might have to…”

There’s a gable in the road. Two paths to follow, and if they take the wrong one, the bomb goes off.

“What do we do now?”

“My brother’s still less than two-hundred meters away,” Savage says.

“Should we… shout?” Even as she asks the question, Eldra wants to punch herself. Not so much because it’s a stupid idea—they do need to find the brother quickly and not go down the wrong path, for fear of accidentally triggering the distance-bomb—but because of how quickly she’s fallen into the habit of asking Savage what they should do.

It should be the other way around. She is a Jedi—was, anyway—and Savage’s a slave. Freed, maybe. Probably. Definitely, because he’s been rescued by his brother—by the Sith he’s insisting isn’t one. Eldra has to believe that this probably-not-a-Sith freed him. The fact remains, Savage was just a slave. That’s not a slight to his ability. It’s not a judgment of his worth, or not anymore. It’s just that she was trained for these situations, and Savage… he’s not even that much older than her. Four years, at the total absolute most. He’s barely an adult. She hopes he’s an adult. These slavers surely wouldn’t have paraded him around like that if he… Oh, who is she kidding. They totally would. Might even prefer it, the fucking pigs.

There is no emotion.

Eldra tries to calm herself. It was nigh-on impossible when she was alone, and with Master Fyaar’s guidance she still slipped so often, but now… it’s easier, now she has Savage to carry around. She can focus on the beat of his hearts against her squished bruising lekku, da-dam-da-dam. Da-dam-da-dam. He’s here, in the mouth of a badly lit empty street on Nar Shaddaa. He’s real. So is she.

“—Eldra.” A finger knocking against her head, gently. “Eldra. Listen. Can you fight?”

“Better than you, anyway.” It’s a good idea, though, to be ready. Eldra drags both of them towards one of the buildings and lets Savage slide to the ground where he won’t get in the way. No cover, but this’ll have to do. “Stay here. I’ll shout and if anyone—”

Savage shakes his head. “He’s my brother. He’ll listen to me. And if someone else comes, you can surprise them.”

“You want to sit out here, immobile, and shout for whoever hears it to come to you.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“I don’t.” Eldra takes a deep breath and tries for a last moment of levity. “If the wrong people come, at least your resale value is lower now. You wiped several thousand credits off of Nar Shaddaa’s gross domestic product.”

“I got them where it hurts.”

“Yeah. Last chance to back out,” Eldra says. “Sure? Your funeral.” And it may well be: Savage’s clever enough to know that she probably won’t fight, when a slaver comes. That’s just being realistic. They’ve spent too much time on Nar Shaddaa to still cling to comforting illusions, and a shocked and starving thirteen-year-old has little change against a group of armed slavers, Jedi or not. Instead, this way, there’s a chance any attackers will only notice him, and she’ll be able to flee. It’s broadly the right tactical decision. Savage alone and one-legged could never make it, while Eldra’s at least got the ghost of a chance. She pats his shoulder. “Thanks.”

“Could you—”

“I won’t let you die,” Eldra says. “You like my jokes. You’re practically an endangered species.”

Savage laughs softly, and then winces. He’s hit his stump again.

“Sorry. But. I’ll find your brother for you, if you don’t make it. Promise.”

“Thank you.” Savage doesn’t shout just yet, and somehow, Eldra is inordinately grateful for the reprieve. Soon enough, she might have to run. She might lose her only ally. Or she’ll have to fight, and she has no weapon but the force. She’ll Fall. But if she must… If she doesn’t, Savage will die, and she’ll be alone again. If she runs, she’ll die to. She’ll die, because there is no way off this planet for her alone and if she’s found she’ll be enslaved again and she’d rather die. Soon. Any second. Falling or death. Falling or…

“Eldra.” Savage indicates a shadowy corner. “There. Don’t be afraid.”

“I don’t want to die.” It just bursts out, even though she’s meant to be the Jedi, the serene agent of the force. She trained so often and for so long, and yet, she’s terrified of death. There is no death, there is the force, and Master Fyaar would make her meditate on this for hours but she just can’t stop, can’t calm down. She wishes she was still carrying him on her back. That she still felt the solid drum of his hearts.

The response is quiet and deeply gentle. “That’s good. They haven’t taken everything from you yet.”

It’s so much kinder, more understanding, than anything Eldra’s ever thought or heard in her life about her random outbursts. So soft it raises her hackles. “Thanks for the condescension. That’s not what I meant. I don’t want to die. More than anything, I realized. I’ll fight. I’ll use the force if I must.”

It’s almost as if Savage anticipated her anger. He grins. “Don’t be afraid, Eldra.”

“Very funny, asshole. I’m ready now. I’ll go hide, and you shout.”

When she walks away, she hears a mumbled promise, too quiet for most humanoids but still clear for the auditory senses of a twi’lek. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here. You told me that trick. I’ll fight anyone who wants to hurt you.”

He can barely hold himself upright. Still, she has no doubt he means it. Asshole.

⁂

Master is going to kill Maul. He’s not found the Jedi, and he should probably have kept running down the street except he wasn’t sure whether it’s the one the Jedi took in the first place, and down in the distance, he could see people, a lot of people, and many houses lit up bright, and the echoes of pain have grown fainter but they’re still there, and he doesn’t know how to interact with these people because he had no time to prepare and what if they’re oily too and Master’s going to kill Maul but the Jedi probably didn’t take this road and so he turns around and runs back.

The pain in the force grows stronger, and soon enough, so does a voice. “Brother, brother!” it shouts.

Maul has half a mind to turn around again because it’s the zabrak probably, the zabrak that Maul wanted to be his friend and that he ruined the whole mission for, and he doesn’t have time to stop, but Savage’s stronger than Maul so he might make Maul stop anyway—but he already turned back once and he can’t go back. (He can’t turn around without admitting it’s only because he’s scared.)

“Brother, brother,” and it is Savage sitting down on the ground, and Maul cranes his neck for a good path to slip by him and there’s the Jedi, the yellow zabrak brought him the Jedi, Savage saved him from Master’s wrath, he fulfilled the sacred mission, but as quickly as the old mantra drains from his mind a new one takes its place.

The zabrak’s left leg just stops slightly below the knee. No, it doesn’t, there’s an edge of charred bone peeking out and Maul knows what happened, suddenly, he remembers the slaver—"four explosive charges within your zabrak, set to go off at staggered distances. The first one will slow him down if he runs.”—he remembers the zabrak’s alarm when Maul ran away—“Wait for me, brother! The bomb will explode!”—he remembers the pain, the endless pain exploding in the force

And he remembers the hand carefully stroking his head.

Seeing the first person in the world who is like him.

He staggers and—

“Don’t be afraid, brother.”

He gets within striking range and—

(this is a trap this is a trap)

“Come here, it’s okay.”

He kneels down next to Savage, eyes screwed shut, and he waits for the punishment to come. He waits.

“It’s okay, little brother.”

It isn’t, though. The leg is gone. The leg is gone because of Maul. It’s gone because Maul forgot about the remote and because he almost lost the padawan and because Maul was stupid enough to buy the zabrak in the first place. Maul maimed the one single person in the galaxy who ever might have liked him.

#darth maul #savage opress #savage oppress #eldra kaitis #dimtraces makes things #hell is just a beat away

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victorusolano · 3 years

Text

FYD Series

It was one evening of summer. Anyone's skin can be steamed when exposed to the open air of the night. There, perched like a bird on his writing desk, contemplating seriously in a small dimly lit room was - Xenon. His family was all disturbed by the climate condition, so they went out of town to some nearby beach resorts. Xenon on his volition stayed alone, in which he likely enjoyed making love with the old typewriter resting in a great silence. He thought that this is what he needs to write a story tonight and the deadline of his paper is tomorrow before the sunset.

Two weeks ago, the writing task was assigned to him, by the chief editor of the literary magazine he is working with; and till this night it had remained untouched, and unmarked, though the time left was enough to say generously to finish one short story. However, catching up the race between him, and the ongoing moments is now useless. Words and meanings ran away and went to a place nowhere to be found. I should eat a dictionary, He murmured to himself. He took a glance at the old wall clock and looked away at the open window, stared blankly across the survey of height and to the dark space outside.

When he reconciled his thoughts; he gave a sweeping look at the old pictures of the family photos and old framed certificates of academic achievements of writing contests. He nailed his attention to a class picture of his college.

It was before the day of graduation; like a dreamy shot, his recollections swirled in a throwback changing a milieu; a trance to a memory. He can even smell the old odor of the room where he was in the picture: the blackboard with the doodle half-erased drawings of impish boyhood, girls prepping up in a rush as the bell rang when the class was announced dismissed. “Wait for me at the powder room, just need to fix this” the president of the class pointed at the board trying so hard to erase the drawings. “Come on here now Xenon!” The tall pale boy invited him to take his place for picture taking along the corridor. The boys, in a disorganized choreography, set themselves like a tableau; rowdy as they were. They were teasing, joking, thumping in harsh horseplay. “It's the last day!” Declared joyfully of one of the boys.

His consciousness lurched back into reality like a warp of time; he put his palm on his face. Now, he began carelessly to at least write something. The editor will kill him flat tomorrow; I need to finish at least one tonight.

He took a glance at the old wall clock which struck exactly twelve-thirty midnight. He returned to his writing desk, wiped out apple cores and peels, and decided to transcribe anything that comes first into his mind, a short story must be short and should have a story, he said to himself. But what story should I write? desperate he was, hope suddenly became absent; tomorrow I'm dead! Misfortune has taken its form now: all he accomplished about writing have flown away, he began to think that all structures of narratives are bogus, workshops and seminars he attended are all hoaxes. No formula could teach someone how to write. He then remembered a book called Under The… What? It’s something ahm… He tried it with difficulty to remember. Suddenly, he remembered Tree - then he told himself, all writing may be divided into two groups, good writing, and bad writing; good books come out of good writing while bad writing produces failures, again and again, he scanned the line like an X-ray of that passage from a book which was a foreword by RK. A failure He exclaimed silently; not even of Montes’ Of Fish… and etcetera, What would I be writing about dogs or flies? Then he recalled Peter's Touch Move. I am no longer a kid! That conviction made him more worried there, he is now sure that a block along the streamlines of thoughts is hampering him to be productive and creative. No is now a strong resistance, to be Noel’s Games is something, and to finish a writing task today is a different thing. He remembered it all well; call me Tina or Fanny – No one calls me! He snorted.

It was almost three in the morning and no matter how hard he tried to have an idea and flood an ink in the paper, it just equated to frustration. A scrap of papers had been spilling off the bin and onto the floor, so he decided to take a walk outside for a while and jog. The objective of his motivation was like a plan, he thought that maybe he needed to activate an endorphin from his brain, in a matter of two minutes he got changed his clothes, he wore that unlaundered navy blue jersey shorts, he wore the other day; he paired it with a billowy old white cotton shirt, and put on his ash-colored rubber shoes which was a birthday gift, and went to the plaza.

He went on jogging around the track field. Quickly, it made him asphyxiated on the sixth round, but he decided to run two more and two rounds of walk to complete the set; good enough for an hour jog today he thought. Thirsty as he was, he wanted to look for water, so he went to an all-day convenience store to quench his dried throat. “Good morning!” a sweet greeting of the store staff, he smiled back and padded to the panel doors of chillers; grabbed a bottle of water, he opened it right away and in a spur-of-the-moment, he drank it all without thinking that he hadn't paid it yet; he remembered, so he went to the counter, and scanned the bottle, he grabbed some chips, and instant coffee, pay the total, and left.

At the park, He again tried to process what was going on with him. The situation of being a writer seemed to change from what he has believed for the past years; beginning from his aspiration to be a writer someday which now has been achieved. Now is a challenge against himself, am I just being lazy? He rebuked the thought hastily, laziness is a big word, he would like to think that he is more of a selective participant rather than being the word lazy… these thoughts wire loomed in his mind. He walked toward a wooden bench at the park but at that moment, an answer did not come; he decided to sit for a moment while looking at the cadastral and being engulfed by the tranquility. When suddenly an old man spoke, “What are you looking at?” the old man asked, breaking the silence. Astounded Xenon was; as he did not realize the presence of the old man sitting next to him at all before. Xenon tried to find a complete grasp of how it could happen?

“Nothing sir” he answered back at an instant without an inch of hesitation.

“Thinking?”

“No, sir”

“What exactly do you have in your mind and how would you like to describe it, before you sit here beside me?” The old man asked. “Well I am thinking of so many things, I am thinking of my article, a short story of some sort, it’s my deadline today, and I need to submit it this afternoon” Xenon responded as if caught in a corner with the question.

“Excuse me, sir - you've been here all the while?”

“Yes”

“I… did not see you’re here, I am sure of that!”

“Well I am exactly”

“Exactly? like how? I’m sorry sir!”

The old man gave him an artificial laugh before he uttered another word. “There so many things we trouble so much in this life – we don’t see now details of why we’re here or how did we get there, time runs too fast, we don’t see that - I like this place,” An eminent pause before Xenon was able to respond, “I'm sorry for the intrusion, sir!” What he wanted to mean in that is like a stop.

“Are you alone or waiting for someone? I'll just then look at another bench around.”

“No,” the old man said.

Without a second the old man said, “You can sit here, I don't own it anyway - I am the same, like you…” he turned a look to Xenon “I as well wanted to take a walk and free the mind of so many things.”

Xenon did not believe the words, like the same he tried to process the thought, it cannot be possible for two people to do something the same or thinking completely parallel at the same point of time at exactitude, and meet. He’d like to dismiss the idea with a general conviction. “Yes, I am thinking if this is appropriate to have your autograph?” The old man said, Xenon wondered very oddly. The old man was very well informed, he thought as if he was under surveillance. “Hold on a second, sir - How did you know that...? I am… ahm” He can’t find the words again. “Writer?” The old man responded so very quickly to help him grasp the words. “Yes! You've already told me, I think no less than a minute before the whole sentence that I have calculated.” - “What?” He was surprised by the old man’s precision of thoughts. “You see now my friend, It seems that you're not paying much attention to the details, you’ve just told me that; this day is your deadline of a narrative to some sort that you needed to submit later this afternoon.” He repeated it like a backmasked vinyl recording to him.

He did not answer back and noticed something which he cannot sham his feeling. he thought it was talking to some kind of a prophet; an oracle, the old man gave him a creep but it was never of fear he felt that time, when the old man said, you're not paying much attention to the details: and it provided him a connection, an impulse releasing the secret of his lingering dilemma. It seemed that the old man had known him before and was reading his mind in silence. And before he could say another word, the old man got on to his feet and walked slowly in the distance. “Where are you going, sir? I thought you wanted my autograph?” He replied instantly. “I was about to do that” he slipped his hand on the pocket of his shirt and brought out a pen. The man moved close to him and said, “maybe after you finish the story you are about to submit today – I want surprises, I love that. It sounded more of a challenge to him. “I'll just wait for it once it’s out,” the old man continued, “I'm expecting that one will be good too, like the others.” Xenon felt being seized. Then in no time delay, he asked, “Sir, may I know your name please” The old man looked away and replied with a serious note. “I never had one.”

“I grew up in a home,” the old man continued, Xenon did not understand what he meant by the word home.

“I never knew who my parents are”

“You mean you're an orphan, sir?”

He sounded that question as an inquiry, not a statement or a report; he could not completely believe when the old man said, never had one. He assumed, while the slightest of what he can accept, that someone in his infancy had given him any name at least any among the common names, like Peter or Jeff.

“Yes, may I?” The old man was demonstrating to take a seat, he snatched the opportunity, and released a deep sigh before Xenon could make his reply.

“Yes! Surely, sir”

“I would like to tell you a story – may I?” Without averseness he agreed — this is what precisely he doesn’t have at this very moment — He felt a pity to himself that the old man at least has something to tell a story. He thought resentfully. “Now, what is your nearest happy memory? – something that may be a remarkable one?” The old man asked. “Well, I can still remember my days when I was in college, you know a scholar of some sort, a nerdy bookworm student and sometimes nasty. I enjoyed the friends and their all varieties of personal attitude, the mentorship and all; that experience gave me a feeling of a second home too,” he ended his recollection with a ruminating smile.

The old man started after his last word and said, “home Oh yes! I grew up in a home too, you know. But it was different, — there are all sorts of people from all diversities you know? minor age killers, thieves, abandoned children, and those who escape from their hostile relatives and parents — there is one thing that is common among all of us resident mates. We are all looking for someone who could give us genuine love; so to every opportunity of adoption; though we don’t want to go away from home, we grab it in hope for a foster parent. On the contrary, after a week or so; most of us go back and never want to go out. The result rather turned worse, trust became more absent.”

“That must be interesting – go on please” Xenon eagerly butt in. “We didn’t have a good foundation of education there.” Xenon in his skeptics let the old man claim his privilege of a good start of his story, “though a mother staff is there to attend the everyday needs of the operation of a foster home, there is always a lacking that only a real parent could provide the never-ending emptiness lingers every day. When you were being born and grew up in a home you’ll never find a name in your birth identity, the space in the paper reads either baby boy or baby girl, or at least a consolation part is you have your last name written on your birth certificate, then at your legal age, you will then be advised and go on a series of counseling to condition your mind that you are now ready to be set free and join the outside world. On the other meaning, you will now look for your own. All years of staying there, all favors of your daily needs are all in the form of a plea and request, it’s like a nauseated chick being asked to walk or run.” Xenon, unconsciously now conceded and pondering deep to the part brimming inside him, the visual in his mind provided a still picture that speaks a thousand and more ideas to write.

He felt like hanging on a cliff and wanting more. “Go on, please!” He said. “Very well,” the old man continued. “Overwhelmed you are now huh? - There was an incident that night when everybody was all sleeping in our respective quarters; the boy’s place was on the east of a pavilion near the high walls while the girls’ was just near the lobby entrance. I never got an interest of why is that because I never asked, I am always like that timid among other orphans, I was very young then, not even that I know what an introvert means but I enjoyed my solitude; they often think that I am weird, but I have my way of covering, a defense mechanism, mostly I pretend; which always sets me in a situation turned more difficult at the end. It was an unforgettable experience that everybody there will never forget. A fire, a huge one that killed one group of orphans in quarter D at the corner pavilion, maybe fifteen or twenty souls in there burnt alive.” Xenon’s shoulders twitched at the mention of being burnt alive! But he remained silent, leaving the old man to continue.

“How did it all happen, sir?” he went on curiously. “I expected that would be your most obvious next question” As the old man continued - “The mother staff on duty that night left the door locked and she brought the keys with her and stride past for a moment to meet someone outside, but she never calculated it right that a kettle in the kitchen was also left on a stove, she enjoyed the romantic rendezvous with the guy she has been seeing for the past weeks, the next series of event happened so fast as the fire spread all the rest of the quarters, I happened to escape quickly and help the young ones to get out, well I would like to say thank you for my insomniac.” The old man paused there for a while. “Investigations went on afterward but of course, the subject of the incident died just like that; an isolated one. But the tremor lives like a resurrection and even to this moment whenever I recall the experience I can still feel the trauma.”

His feelings were automatically snatched. “Pitiful souls,” Xenon added, “true, indeed!” The old man replied. “Well just like other closed call stories, the ending was still unknown and then life just went on, I finally said goodbye to the orphanage and faced a life of my own.” The old man got up on his feet and walked away slowly. “Where are you going, sir?” xenon asked. “Home,” the word gave him a sensation like a blank white paper inked with lots of things and images of a scene scribbled in no exact direction; he imagined an abstract picture that was difficult to understand from that story.

Unexpectedly, it gave him a feeling of freedom. A unit of work that he is required to finish a story from that conversation. And the task is waiting for him now at home. “Sir, could I just at least have your name?” The sun had shone its glimpse in the sky. The illumination gave a picture of cucoloris lighting patterns of shadows of the old man’s face, like a mirror from afar. “Could you please tell me your name?” Xenon asked garishly. The old man stopped, and said, “You should fix the ending.” He tried to catch the sounds from afar. “Will you?” The picture of him was already filtered out of the blinding lights.

THE END

This is a work of FICTION. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Copyright Statement This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced material. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written from the author.

#xenon

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emperorsfoot · 4 years

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In which the Princess Alliance realizes maybe they probably should have sent out a memo about Horde Prime.

...

“What in the ever loving high holy heck does Adora think she’s doing now!?” Lonnie demanded of the open sky.

She, Kyle, and Rogelio were inspecting construction of the new supply storage bunkers when the sky suddenly and inexplicably cracked open with a light so bright it cut though the perpetual smog layer that blanketed the Fright Zone. Lonnie glared at it, the shape slightly distorted by the haze. But it looked like a cut across the sky. A cut like with a magic sword. So, of course, it had to be Adora and her new friends. After all, what else could it be?

“We do have a way of communicating with Brightmoon, right?” She asked of her companions. “That wasn’t destroyed when Catra and Hordak decided it was a fun idea to blow-up central command, right?”

Both human and reptilian only shrugged. They honestly had no idea. After the portal fiasco when all of the Horde’s upper leadership disappeared, the trio’s focus had been on damage control and reestablishing some kind of infrastructure. Lonnie –whom took over the vacant position as Leader of the Horde- was more concerned with maintaining supply lines that brought grain and rice into the Fright Zone, the things their ration bars were made from. Their food. The stuff they needed to survive. None of them really gave much thought to the equipment that would allow them to put in a call to their enemies.

“I, uh, I can check.” Kyle volunteered.

He rushed off to do exactly what he said he could do.

Rogelio growled something that Lonnie didn’t quite understand. But when the reptilian dashed off after Kyle, she assumed he said that he was going to make sure Kyle didn’t hurt himself in the –still destroyed- Sanctum.

Though neither man could see the action, Lonnie nodded. Kyle was well-meaning and always eager to help. But he was also clumsy and not very mindful. Rogelio would keep him from carelessly injuring himself. Which was good. One less injury meant fewer medical supplies that had to be used. And now that she found herself in command, Lonnie was all about cutting down on needless supply usage and waste.

She turned her attention back to the bunkers she was inspecting.

“Well, show me the new vacuum seals that are supposed to keep vermin out of the food stores.” She commanded the soldier that had been showing her and the other two around the newly constructed bunkers. “We can’t just drop everything we’re doing every time there’s a big light in the sky, or a rainbow knocks over a tank, or a Princess seduces your boss’ boss, or the central command blows up.” She reminded them. “We all still have jobs to do!”

Making their way through the Fright Zone, back to the central command building, Kyle was still getting used to people stopping and saluting him.

Just a few months ago, he, Rogelio, and Lonnie were all still just ‘cadets’. But, dang!, did a lot happen in those few months! Catra set off a portal in Hordak’s Sanctum, then disappeared along with Lord Hordak himself, there was a short disagreement between the remaining Force Captains and Lonnie about who should fill the newly vacated leadership position, and –somehow- Lonnie ended up on top. The Commander of the Horde. And as her best friends and teammates since forever, Kyle and Rogelio became her lieutenants.

Where Kyle used to have to be the one to stand to the side and salute if another soldier was walking in the opposite direction than him, now it was the other soldiers that would move out of his way. Flattening themselves against a wall, standing at attention, offering a well-practiced salute. Sometimes even going so far as to say ‘Morning, Lieutenant.’

This had been going on for months now and Kyle still wasn’t used to it. He didn’t know if he’d ever really get used to it. He spent so much of his life so far as metaphorical dirt. He was used to being walked on. He didn’t know if he could ever be the one doing the walking.

Rogelio took his hand and Kyle’s heart jumped for an entirely different reason.

But all the reptilian was doing was bringing to the other man’s attention that they passed the entrance to Hordak’s Sanctum. Kyle was so caught up in reflecting on his new elevation in the Horde, he hadn’t been paying attention to where he was going and passed their destination.

“Right. Sorry.” He demurred. He had to remind himself that he might be a Lieutenant working directly under the new leader of the Horde now, but he was still just the same old Kyle. Absentminded and probably useless. Lonnie only made him a Lieutenant because they were friends.

Inside the Sanctum was mostly bare.

After the initial explosion, the lab and surrounding chambers had been searched for bodies. But the actual clean-up of the Sanctum hadn’t happened until much later. Cleaning up Hordak’s mess wasn’t really a priority. But Lonnie was also practical and not in the habit of leaving usable resources to collect dust just to spite the guy they used to belong to. The Sanctum was cleared out and cleaned up. Anything that wasn’t bolted down got taken out, sorted and repurposed. Scrap metal was melted down, tech that still worked and served a function was repaired and placed back into circulation, tech that was beyond repair and unusable was taken apart and its pieces cannibalized for other machines. The floor was swept and the area was closed off.

Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio were the only three in the Fright Zone who knew the new passcodes to get in.

Anything that wasn’t bolted down was cleared out, but there were still a lot of things bolted down. Chief among them, the main monitor display and corresponding computer terminal. If anything had a feature that could get a call through to Brightmoon, it would be this computer array.

Kyle switched it on.

There was a loud humming sound as it booted up, and an uncomfortable scraping sound that implied the inner workers of the computer might not be in as good condition as the exterior would imply.

Kyle chanced a glance at Rogelio to see if the other man might somehow blame him if the device failed.

But reptilian only shrugged his shoulders. Who knew how well any of the crap in Hordak’s Sanctum ever worked in the first place? The guy never really let anyone else in here except his pet Princess, and look how that turned out.

Once the computer was finally booted up and the homescreen appeared –with a few lines going through it to indicate the screen was damaged- Kyle found the communications application easily enough. There was a short delay as the computer dialed Brightmoon. The tech the Rebellion used was not from the same origin as Horde tech and the two were not perfectly compatible. It took a moment for the devices to connect to one another.

The image of Bow appeared on the screen. The device they connected with must have been his Tracker Pad which scanned for incoming signals anyone. He was talking to someone off screen, his head turned so that Kyle and Rogelio only saw him in profile.

“…hang on, my Tracker Pad is picking something up.” He was saying. Then turned to actually look at the screen, and saw that it was just Kyle and Rogelio from the Horde. “Oh! It’s you guys. Now’s not really a good time. Can we put off any new declarations of war for a while?”

Rogelio growled something that nobody understood but Kyle got the distinct impression that the reptilian was commenting on the other man’s assumption that this was a war declaration.

“No-no, it’s nothing like that!” Kyle assured him. “Lonnie just wanted us to call and see what it was Adora was doing this time. Ya see, this bright light just appeared in the sky, and it looks kinda like a cut, like with a magic sword. And Adora’s the only one we know of with a magic sword so… you see where I’m going with this?”

Why did Kyle feel so awkward? Was it because had hadn’t been in a command position long and didn’t know how to talk to people and command respect? Or was it because he was unfit for a command position at all? At least when he was a grunt cadet, he knew his place and where he stood –with enemies as well as allies. Now, as a Lieutenant with responsibilities, he felt so out of place he wasn’t sure he even had a place anymore. He certainly had no idea how he was supposed to talk to the Rebellion’s Tech Master.

“Don’t worry about that.” Bow tried to assure them, sounding much more like he was trying to assure himself. “We’ve got it handled.”

His tone implied that they did not have it –whatever ‘it’ was- handled.

Bow ended the call.

Kyle and Rogelio looked at each other. Just as confused now as they were when the cut of light first appeared in the sky. Bow hadn’t actually given them an explanation as to what it was or what was really going on. That was all Lonnie wanted to know.

“Should we call them back and ask to speak to Adora this time?” He asked.

Rogelio only shrugged. He was also a little unsure as to what to do in his new leadership role.

…

Everyone in Brightmoon was in one stage or another of freaking out.

They all knew this was coming. They all knew Horde Prime was coming.

Entrapta had warned them. Catra had taunted them. Heck! Even Light Hope kinda alluded to this coming, no in so many words, but more in that cryptic and open to interpretation way she did. The fact of the matter was, no one should have been surprised.

Except that no one really believed it would happen this fast. This soon. It took Hordak years –decades, actually- to build a working portal. What reason did they have to assume that Horde Prime could get one working, open, and stable in just a few short months?

It was lucky that Entrapta already finished the weapons she promised. But she had only just finished the ones for Brightmoon. Salineas, Plumeria, and the Queendom of Snows were still unprotected. No to mention all the other territories and Queendoms on the planet.

Micah had met people from Fallen Star Mountain, the territory ruled by the Star Sisters and invited them to join the Alliance. They said that with Hordak defeated there wasn’t a reason to anymore. They were unprotected and unprepared. Sweet Bee and Peekablue sent their reply in the same message, one piece of paper bearing both their seals –apparently, the two Queens were together at the time- it was written in Peekablue’s handwriting and simply said ‘the timing isn’t right yet’. Well, was the timing right now? Now that the other Horde from outer space had ripped open their sky and was poised to drop down on them at any moment!

Needless to say, things in Brightmoon were a little anxious.

Perfuma was the first to show up at the palace. Plumeria sharing a border with Brightmoon on the opposite side from the mountains of Dryl, her’s was the closest Queendom to Brightmoon. She appeared, flower crown askew, pink dress rumpled, without her teal green shrug over her shoulders. As if she’d left in a rush.

“Is it the Horde?” She demanded. “I mean, of course it’s the Horde. But, like, the other Horde. The bigger one. The one we’ve been trying to prepare for.” She took a deep breath, attempting to force herself to calm down. “I mean, we’ve been prepared for this, so everything will be okay. We have the She-Ra on our side. I’m sure everything will come to a harmonious conclusion. There’s no need to give into negative energy.”

She said this. But Perfuma was definitely giving off negative energy. The negative energy of fear, anxiety, and doubt. She was giving off negative energy in buckets.

Speaking of buckets, not long after Perfuma arrived, a giant wave crashed through the Brightmoon harbor, nearly capsizing Sea Hawk’s ship. He was already bailing buckets of the excess water off the deck when the wave receded, revealing Mermista. She was holding her trident, and look more impatient and annoyed than fearful and concerned.

“Ugh… the Geek Princess hasn’t even been by to build my weapons yet.” She groaned at no one in particular, brushing an errant lock of hair out of her face. “Can’t the evil space emperor wait, like, six more month before coming to try and kill us all. So stupid.” Then she noticed the Dragon’s Daughter Five listing in the bay. “Oh. Hey, Sea Hawk.”

Sea Hawk gave a non-committal grunt in reply. They hadn’t exactly spoken socially since their breakup was official. He honestly didn’t know how to talk to her anymore. Certainly, he couldn’t talk to her like he used to.

Frosta was the farthest away and the last to arrive.

Everyone was already in the War Room when the youngest member of the Princess Alliance arrived.

Micah was arguing with Shadow Weavers. Adora was shouting warnings over the table. Spinnerella was holding Nettossa’s hand to try and calm the other woman. Bow was fiddling with his Tracker Pad trying to see if the device could analyze the sky rift. Perfuma was trying to perform a calming chant. Memista was groaning at how chaotic this was. And Sea Hawk was ringing saltwater out of his socks. Glimmer had no control over her War Room, or the meeting.

Then Frosta barged in. Doors banging open with a sound loud enough to make everyone pause. Stopping their squabbles or shouts to look across the room at the child-Princess.

“Alright! So, what’s the plan for kicking these bat-faced jerks butts!?”

The room exploded back into noise and chaos again. Everyone talking at once. Giving opinions of things they were not informed enough to give opinions on.

Bow’s Tracker Pad beeped with an alert just as someone asked him a question. Thinking the device had found some information for him about the rift, he turned his attention to it. “…hang on, my Tracker Pad is picking something up.”

Those seated closes to him quieted down to also see what the Tracker Pad had found.

But all that appeared on the screen were the faces of two Horde soldiers. The Etherian Horde. A human, Kyle, and a reptilian, Rogelio. People they knew. Not the new Horde from outer space. There were not bat-faced monsters that looked like Hordak giving them a call.

“Oh! It’s you guys. Now’s not really a good time. Can we put off any new declarations of war for a while?” Bow asked, assuming that even under new leadership the Etherian Horde would want to continue the generations old feud.

Oh. Had no one read-in the new Horde leadership about what was coming? Did they honestly not know? Bow never even considered that! In a room full of chaos was not the time to debrief someone new. Especially not someone that Bow wasn’t sure which side they would choose. He didn’t want to be helping and clueing in a new enemy. While he did generally try to give people the benefit of the doubt and see the best in people, now was not the time to be the better man. Sometimes, the practical man had to be a bit rude.

“Don’t worry about that.” Bow tried to assure them, sounding much more like he was trying to assure himself. “We’ve got it handled.”

He ended the call.

“Who was that?” Asked Sea Hawk. He hung his still wet socks over the back of his seat and sat down next to Bow.

“That was… the Horde…” Bow answered truthfully. Then, when everyone looked horror stuck, he quickly rushed to explain. “I mean, our Horde. The Etherian Horde! The guys in the Fright Zone. Kyle, and Rogelio, I think are their names. Nobody ever told them what was going on, so they have no idea what’s coming. They saw the portal in the sky and freaked out.”

“Oh.” Said Glimmer.

There was a beat.

Then Perfuma suggested, “Should we… invite them to join us?” Even as she asked this, she did not seem very secure in the idea. “I mean, do you think they’d be willing to help? They live on Etheria too…”

“We have no reason to assume they won’t join Horde Prime the moment they learn of him.” Shadow Weaver informed the room. “Inviting them into the Alliance would be like inviting a wolf to your back.”

“I’m sure that was true when Hordak was in charge.” Micah argued. It was hard to tell if he was arguing for the Horde because he honestly and truly felt the Etherian Horde could be helpful, or just to take an opposing opinion from Shadow Weaver. “But Hordak has been removed from power and is under house arrest in Dryl. Command of the Etherian Horde is now in the hands of Etherians. As Princess Perfuma said, they live here too, why wouldn’t they want to defend the Home Ground?”

“Because they were raised by Hordak and Hordak does not teach altruism.” Shadow Weaver reminded everyone. Never mind the fact that Hordak didn’t raise any of the Fright Zone orphans, and that job was actually delegated to Shadow Weaver herself. A fact Adora could confirm for them all.

Adora might even have done so and called Shadow Weaver out on her misplacement of responsibility, had she not be lost in thought at that moment. Really considering the possibility of the Etherian Horde as allies. She grew up with them. She, better than anyone in the room, understood them. In a deeper and more intimate way than Shadow Weaver did.

“Lonnie’s in charge now.” She began, still considering and weighing outcomes as she spoke. “She’s very practical… If we can convince her that working with us is the better choice over siding with Horde Prime…”

She did not get to finish that thought, however, as Bow’s tracker pad beeped again with another message. This time, when he answered it, it wasn’t the nervous and unsure faces of Kyle and Rogelio. It was the exasperated and angry face of none other than Lonnie, Commander of the Horde, herself.

“Put. Adora. On. The. Line.” She commanded before any pleasantries could be exchanged.

Adora took the Tracker Pad from Bow. “Hey, Lonnie, we were just talking about-“

“What in the ever loving high holy heck are you doing this time!?” Lonnie cut the other woman off. “Haven’t you had enough of meddling with forces beyond mortal understanding and breaking the universe!? I am still trying to rebuild what Hordak and Catra ran into the ground and you’re cutting up the sky for fun! Now I have a panic to deal with on top of construction delays and lost supply shipments! I thought all you shimmering Princesses wanted was ‘peace’! Can’t I have a moment’s peace to work on my own territory!”

She paused for breath.

Adora looked back at the rest of the Princess Alliance to make sure they heard the Commander of the Etherian Horde’s rant. She wanted peace, and she wanted to repair the damage to the Fright Zone, the damage to ‘her Territory’. Lonnie might be ‘Commander of the Horde’, but she was thinking like a Princess.

“I’m sending Kyle over there to see what you’re all really up to!” Lonnie continued before anyone else could speak. “I’m sending Kyle because he is the least threatening person I know and hopefully that will keep you sparkleheads from shooting glitter at him on sight. Think of him as a sort of ‘emissary’. I don’t want to have to fight you guys again if I don’t have to! But, I swear, if you keep making things difficult for me, I will! So, let’s try and get along.”

She ended the call.

Adora passed the Tracker Pad back to Bow. “So… I guess that answers the question of which side she’ll be on if it comes to it.”

“How?” Frosta jumped up, standing on her seat to be better seen. “She said she didn’t wanna fight us because she’s still licking her wounds in the Fright Zone. We don’t know that the moment Prime shows up she won’t go running to him the moment she realizes he’s got bigger guns and more resources to share with her.”

“That’s assuming Horde Prime is the type to share.” Mermista countered. “There is another angle to this. Regardless of what Lonnie things of the bigger Horde, the bigger Horde might not think much of Lonnie and just sweep her away. They might get rid of her for us and then the question of what to do about the Etherian Horde becomes a non-issue.”

“That’s terrible!” Perfuma was horrified. “Sure, they’ve been our enemies for as long as I can remember. But they’re still people, and living things. All life is precious.”

“They’re still the ones who ruined Princess Prom!” Frosta shouted.

Everyone assumed she was trying to make a point about respecting truces, cease-fires, and safe spaces –all of which Princess Prom was supposed to be- and that if they couldn’t do that, what reason did they have to trust them in a truce now. But all it sounded like was that she was saying parties were just as important as leaving beings. For fear of derailing the conversation into an unnecessary ethical debate, everyone collectively agreed to ignore that comment.

“There’s no point debating this until the Horde’s emissary gets here.” Glimmer announced, taking control of the meeting. She was Queen, but most of the time she still felt like an inexperienced and frustrated rebel child.

“I know Kyle.” Adora added. “He won’t make trouble while he’s here.” A pause. “On purpose. He won’t make trouble on purpose.”

But ‘trouble’ did have a propensity to just happen around him. It wasn’t that Kyle was particularly clumsy, forgetful, or rude. No more than any other child soldier raised in the Horde. He just seemed… out of place no matter where he went. Almost like… almost like he wasn’t meant to be on Etheria. Of course, Etheria being trapped in an isolated shadow dimension, she couldn’t image where else he could belong. But then, she’d seen weirder things than just an out-of-place and accident-prone soldier.

The debate might have gone on longer, but a page entered the War Room, unannounced, and passed a letter to Glimmer. “Message from Fallen Star Mountain, my Queen.”

Taking the envelope, Glimmer ripped it open to read the contents. Then she sighed. “It’s from the Star Sisters. They also wanna know what the light in the sky is.”

No sooner had she read that, than another page came in with more messages from Elberon, Seaworthy, Erelandia… Heck! They even got a crumpled and dirty piece of paper from the Valley of the Lost in the Crimson Waste. Apparently, the whole planet saw the rift in the sky and wanted to know what the Princess Alliance was up to now…

Glimmer slumped in her seat, putting a hand to her head where she felt an on-coming stress headache. Who knew the worst part of Horde Prime’s attack would be the confusion before the storm?

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bastardrobocop · 5 years

Text

on fallout 76

so, because im a fool i pre ordered fallout 76. frankly, i was going to buy it on release anyway because im starved for anything fallout and new california was a complete bust.

anyway, this means i have had access to the “B.E.T.A.”, which isn’t really a beta. it’s just server stress tests. i’ve done every pc round so far and i feel like i can say pretty conclusively that it’s just not very good.

sorry, this is going to be a long meandering post

i dont know if its something they can fix in the like, week before they launch the game, but the delay/latency/feel is so fucking whack it’s unbelievable. the multiplayer fallout new vegas mod feels like it has better netcode. in addition, it is dreadfully optimized. i play on a laptop, so maybe take my perspective with a grain of salt, but i’m not the only one who has pointed this out. i use an nvidia 970m, which runs fallout 4 at around 50/60 frames per second. fallout 76 tops out at around 10-30 on average. just wandering the world, the framerate is atrocious. performance is best in small interior cells and in wide open spaces with nothing in it. in more dense and enemy populated areas, the game stutters hard. more than once ive had the game freeze for several seconds during a firefight. its honestly inexcusably bad most of the time. with poor latency and framerate chugging, the gameplay experience is trying. it makes literally everything painful, including just inventory management and crafting.

the gameplay itself isnt too awful in that its just fallout 4 again but without the pretense of minimal rpg elements. performance problems can make some engagements suck, but most common enemies aren’t too hard. however, the real nasty ones that are higher level than you can be nigh on impossible to take down solo, which sucks because my friends arent always available and dealing with online randos is always bad. but it’s also the only way to get like, good weapons. but anyway, the core gameplay loop is almost the same. i say almost because the ‘workshop’ storage is your only storage. and it has a 400lb limit. which takes into account anything you put in it. this should seem like an obvious issue; you basically cant afford to store things if you gather valuable resources. im currently stuck carrying this big fucking rocket launcher which is useless right now because i dont have any inventory space for missiles, which weigh a ton. also, ammo has weight now. and you can’t scrap ammo for ammo parts like gunpowder or lead. and you can’t sell ammo either. so instead you just have to like, dump hundreds of rounds just on the ground since you can’t store them in the workshop because you need space for steel and adhesive and that M2 Browning that you can’t use yet but want to hold onto because it looks bitchin. however, you can bulk scrap with plastic, which reduces weight by about half. however, therein lies another problem; plastic becomes a precious resource because you can’t make a bulk pile of wood without it for some reason. plastic is currently more precious than literal gold. still, you get stuck holding a bunch of valuable scrap in your inventory which you can’t put into your stash because it’s full and you can’t go out and find more plastic because then you’ll be over-encumbered and you cant afford to drop this circuit board and you can’t build any more things in your camp because the budget is painfully low and even when you DO get enough plastic to bulk things the bulked stuff goes into your inventory and wont necessarily fit back into the stash and i’m still carrying this fucking missile launcher please god let me put down this missile launcher please oh please god

the ui is a disaster. it’s like they turned 4′s console/gamepad control scheme and doubled down on it; on pc, random keys are bound to multiple things and then also bound to a separate key, and you can’t re-bind things individually. so that means middle mouse is both ‘open favorite item wheel’ and ‘enter third person’ and ‘enter build mode’ when there’s also V which is also ‘enter third person’. you cannot change this. there will always be one button for this. there is still no separate binding for bash and grenade throw, of course. if you press escape, it opens the map. if you press m, it opens the map. to open the pause menu with things like ‘options’ and ‘microtransaction store’ and ‘quit the game’, you have to open the map with either escape or M and then press Z. there is no direct button to take you to the pause menu, as far as i can tell. when you go up to a workbench, there are three options; E to craft, R to scrap, Space to repair and modify. from this menu, if you want to scrap an item, you must mouse over it, and then select it. however, DO NOT MOVE THE MOUSE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. even if the prompt is open and asking if you want to scrap, say, a pump action shotgun, if you mouse over and the highlight moves over to your only power armor chest piece, it will scrap the power armor chest piece. even though it was asking if you wanted to scrap the shotgun. its potentially one of the most hostile interfaces ive ever seen. the bindings for ‘scrap mode’ and ‘scrap item’ in different menus also change. if i’m in the repair menu, G scraps an item. if i’m in scrap mode, spacebar does. the only good thing ive seen so far is the favorite wheel and also you can set it so you can see through your pip boy background while browsing it.

the world feels desolate and boring. the lack of human npc interaction has been replaced with finding some dead persons holotape. there are robots. there is at least one AI. but all the questgivers are pieces of paper, holotapes, or voices on a radio. sometimes it’s a robot. you don’t actually interact though. there’s no interaction beyond listening and being told what to do. while im bitching about how the world feels, lets talk about factions. bethesda has kind of casually hyped up factions as being some kind of meaningful, cool choice. they’re literally nothing. there is no indication to other players what faction you are in. you can join every faction and reach top rank in every faction. you cant see if anyone is a member of your faction unless theyre in your faction specific base. there is no inter-faction conflict, there are very few faction quests aside from random events, and once you’re done with the main faction quest, you’re basically done for good except for repeatable ones. i honestly expected factions to be a meaningful choice, which was probably my mistake. i was hoping it would force you to commit to your current faction once you joined it, or would prompt you to abandon another faction in order to join a new one. but there’s just nothing. i was expecting something like, i dunno, destinys faction thing. like joining new monarchy. and maybe butting heads with members of other factions, like i figured the Brotherhood faction would be my enemy if i joined the enclave. but it’s just nothing. the world is nothing, the quests are nothing, everything just feels pointless.

this is also a personal gripe, but there are like no energy weapon alternatives to small guns aside from the errant laser pistol, but ammo is extremely rare. the only new energy weapon i’ve seen so far is the plasma gatling, which is a big gun. otherwise, it’s just the crappy pistol/rifle converting laser and plasma rifle. no plasma pistol, just a pistol conversion. no laser pistol, just a pistol conversion. i’ve always loved energy weapons and just like. not getting any variety while guns and melee weapons get tons of variety is grating. there are many new ballistic weapons that look neat. the 10mm smg is back, and i am admittedly fond of it. however, 10mm ammo is painfully rare. i spend basically all my lead making more ammo for it. i can kind of get by with my laser pistol and my shotgun always makes up however much ammo i lose because a lot of enemies use shotguns, but my 10mm just goes up in smoke and there’s none to be found elsewhere. there’s a shocking amount of .308 because almost every early/mid enemy uses a hunting rifle, but i guess it makes sense because the big MG-32 thing takes .308 so they want you to be able to use it when the time comes. still, i’d rather be using an energy weapon. i want like. a recharger pistol. or the plasma rifle with all the tubes. or a pulse gun. just like. anything other than the ugly aer9 pistol conversion. i think the folks down at bethesda just dont like energy weapons very much; theyre leaps and bounds less viable than small guns.

the enemies look okay. instead of raiders, you have the Scorched. they’re Marked Men, but weaker and also a cult formed by radioactive bats. there are super mutants, because bethesda cant be bothered to go outside of the comfort zone of Things People Recognize and also they hate lore i guess. the wild animals are kind of fun. theres a big toad that looks cute, and frogs that have MASSIVE arms that they run on, which looks funny. theyre small though. things like the mothman and snallygaster look neat. the flatwoods monster is okay. the grafton bastard is big and kind of easy to cheese out. there is a monster named after a flawed and racist interpretation of indigenous beliefs. theres a big sloth, who i love. the mole men (called mole miners) are intimidating and ANNOYINGLY precise with shotguns. they’re later game enemies and very aggressive. they drop a neat looking unarmed weapon that ive been using, called a mole miner gauntlet. it’s like a power fist with big claws. there’s a big bee called a honeybeast. ive basically covered all of the new monsters, though. everything else is from fallout 4 and dlcs. this includes things like anglers, which had obviously evolved on far harbor along with the lure plant so it doesnt make sense for them to be there, and gulpers which are big salamanders so i guess that’s more okay. there are swarms of bees that are just he same repeated png of a bee, spinning around. oh yeah, there are a couple new insect types; ticks and fireflies. both use the animations of the radroach and bloatfly, respectively.

solo play can be kind of boring and difficult. most randos you meet will either ignore you or call you a slur and run away. ive only had one guy break into my house and i murdered him. however, even though he had a bounty on his head, he was still allowed to get ‘revenge’ on me which meant he could spawn right next to me and this time he had a power armor suit, so he killed me a couple times before logging out to avoid my wrath. coward. if you’re out there dude, i’ll kick your ass. also, quick note about the bounty system; its kinda rough around the edges. i tried to save someones garden by shooting a ghoul that was stomping their flowers in the back. however, my shot somehow curved around him at point blank and broke a blackberry bush. from then on, i had a 20 cap bounty on my head. i had to hide from people in my secret enclave bunker and get my friend to kill me so i could perceive other people on the map again and also not live in fear of every tom dick and larry with a power armor frame and a bad attitude.

i feel like i should wrap up. fallout 76 is not very good, but if they can work out performance and latency it wouldnt be too bad for just dicking around with friends. in terms of being like, a fallout game, it’s worse than 4. i haven’t gotten into story spoilers, but its not great. and it feels remarkably desolate for a game thats advertised as being a cool time with your buds. maybe itll be better when there are more people playing. i dunno. its just not very good. i dont recommend it.

#long post #fallout 76 #i just want a good post apocalyptic role playing game #is that too much to ask

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chokememrstark · 6 years

Text

Requiem Of Memories // Part 9

Ship: Samifer (Sam Winchester / Lucifer)

Words: 2445 (Chapter 9 / 15)

Fic Summary: When Lucifer finally comes back, he looks worse than Sam had ever seen. He insists that Lucifer lets him treat his wounds, which are worrying him greatly. It's not until Sam asks Lucifer to remove the eye patch he's wearing all the time that something very frightening and overwhelming happens.

angst, hurt & comfort, alternative universe, au!lucifer, mourning, depression, blood and gore, nightmares, loneliness

Note: I highly recommend to read Nightmares Become Reality before this, otherwise the premise of the story and the setting might not make much sense.

Sorry for the delay again, I’m really not reliable ._.

Tagging: @shebahda @sassysupernaturalsweetheart @spnyoucantkeepmedown @brieflymaximumprincess @kajuned @archingangel @this-darkness-light @secretlydaydreaminglifeaway @humongouscandycoffee

If you want off the tag list or want to be added, just drop me an ask or IM!

Read on AO3!

Sam would be right with his prediction, but it didn’t come true until two hours later. For a while Meg and he talked, until she began feeling weak and Sam told her to just sleep if it helped her recover. He promised he would wake her when Lucifer came back, in case she didn’t wake up herself. After that, Sam once more walked over to the bookwall and browsed it without the intent to actually read. Talking with Meg had been distracting, but now that this distraction was gone Sam’s worries came back even worse. Of course he believed Lucifer would be back, but with every minute that passed his belief was becoming weaker and weaker.

He was in the bathroom to relief himself when he suddenly heard a thud outside, followed by a groan, and almost ran out and right into someone. Finally!

“Lucifer!” Sam was so excited that he didn’t notice Lucifer’s slouching posture at first, nor that he was drenched in blood. It only took him a few seconds before realizing the state Lucifer was in though and his eyes grew wide as he grabbed the angel’s arm immediately. “Oh my god, what happened?”

“Nothing, I’m alright. Just a few more than I expected,” Lucifer groaned. It was clear, however, that he was not alright.

“You’re bleeding!” Sam insisted and guided Lucifer to one of the chairs almost forcefully. He was concerned by how easy this task was. “Meg, wake up and help me!”

Sam didn’t check if the demon was getting up or not, he was worried enough by the state Lucifer was in. His clothes were torn and slashed, blood came from basically every inch of his body and he kept pressing a hand to his face, right over one of his eyes, as if to stop more bleeding. This was worse than Sam had ever seen before and he had a hard time not starting to panic at the sight of Lucifer like this.

“It’s gonna be okay, you’re safe now,” he said without realizing the tone he spoke in was closer to crying than actual talking. “Meg, get me water please, we need water! And towels! My god, you will bleed out, we have to stop this!”

“Sam, it’s okay,” Lucifer said in an attempt to soothe the human, but it didn’t help because his voice was so weak. The hunter glared up at him with sparkling, fear filled eyes.

“Don’t you lie to me,” Sam said sharply while ripping off his own shirt and beginning to tore it into scraps. “I’ve seen okay and you’re not okay! Meg where is the water?”

It only took a few seconds before Meg rushed to his side and put the same bucket he had used before down next to him, filled with clear water. She also put down the towels in her hand before kneeling down and turning to the angel.

“Master Lucifer, did you fight them off? Is everyone okay?”

“We’ve had losses,” Lucifer hissed, forcing himself to look at her and not Sam, who was still pulling on his shirt. “I need you to go back and help the others clean up the mess. Bury those we lost and then bring everyone here. Detroit isn’t safe anymore, bring them here until we find a better place.”

“Yes, master!”

Meg zapped herself away faster than Sam deemed possible, but she wasn’t important now. He had to stop Lucifer’s wounds from bleeding.

“I need to cut these clothes off, I’m sorry,” he said while drenching one of the towels in water and wringing it out. His hands were shaking when he wrapped it around Lucifer’s leg and got another. “The cold will reduce the bleeding, but it won’t be enough.” He repeated the same procedure with the other leg, hoping that the main artery wasn’t hit because then his attempts would be laughably useless.

Suddenly Lucifer lifted his left foot, not without it causing him obvious pain, but Sam realized what he was showing him. At the side of his boot, black so it couldn’t be spotted, was a knife. He grabbed it and stood up, giving the angel an apologetic glance.

“Just do it, it’s about time you see me naked anyways,” Lucifer said through gritted teeth, which made Sam smirk despite the situation.

“Sorry it’s not very romantic,” he grinned and started to work.

Sam was glad about the other’s joke, even if it was highly inappropriate. It meant that he was still fully conscious and in the moment and wouldn’t drift away the next second. He was careful to not cut Lucifer when he pushed the blade through the fabric of his shirt and slowly pulled it off. As he had expected, there were a few deep cuts across the angel’s chest, a lot more than visible at first, as well as one smaller wound that looked much, much deeper than the others, right below his ribs.

“Did… did someone stab you?” Sam gasped and sunk back to his knees, examining the damage. It looked bad, very bad, but hopefully the amount of blood made it worse than it actually was.

“You’re good,” Lucifer admitted, hissing when Sam examined the stab wound. “I got stabbed, yes, luckily with an angel blade. They didn’t expect me to show up, otherwise I wouldn’t be here now.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen what the right blade can do,” Sam said, remembering his own time during the apocalypse and what had happened to Gabriel. “I don’t need to see it again.”

“Will I survive, doctor?”

Sam forced out a chuckle and soaked one of the cloth stripes from his shirt in water before folding it and pressing it on the stab wound. He then covered it with Lucifer’s free hand so it would stay in place.

“If you stay away from angel blades for a while you should be fine,” Sam said as he tied together a few scraps of his shirt to create a bandage. He wrapped it around Lucifer’s stomach, tight enough to keep the pressure on the wound once the angel had lifted his hand. “I need to clean those and then we sadly have to take off your pants too. I don’t think your main artery has been cut, you’d be dead by now if it were, but I want to patch up everything.”

“This is your way of getting into my pants?” Lucifer laughed, a rumbling sound that was much more relieving than anything he had said until now to Sam. “By abusing my vulnerable state?”

“Gotta take what you get, sorry. I don’t make the rules.”

It took about twenty minutes before Sam had cleaned all wounds on Lucifer’s chest, but once all the blood are gone it was clear that the cuts would leave scars, but weren’t deep enough to cause any other permanent damage. Most important, however, was that none of them were life-threatening and the fact that Lucifer’s sass was still there was raising his hope too.

“Okay, ready to drop your pants?” Sam asked, waving the knife and Lucifer nodded with a smirk.

“Just be gentle, please,” the angel said with a fake, fearful voice. Sam smirked at this.

The hunter carefully unwrapped the towels from Lucifer’s legs and tossed them aside before beginning to cut the thick fabric of his pants. This time it was much harder and he had to stop to take off Lucifer’s boots, but eventually he had a small pile of scraps next to him and the pants were gone. Much to his relief, Lucifer’s legs weren’t half as injured as he had feared - only a few minor cuts and lots of bruises caught his attention. Again, Sam cleaned the wounds as careful as possible and wrapped more improvised bandages around the worst ones, this time made of Lucifer’s own shirt.

“Looks good so far,” Sam smiled at the angel, who returned the expression a bit weak. “But your face worries me.”

“Thank you, you’re not the prettiest either!” Lucifer huffed in an offended tone, which made Sam chuckle into his hand.

“No, you jerk! I’m talking about the blood. Can you take your eyepatch off, or do you prefer to do this yourself?”

“You’d see it at one point anyways,” Lucifer sighed and for the first time since Sam knew him pulled the black eyepatch off his face. “There you go, feel free to laugh or run away or whatever. I’ve seen it all by now.

Sam gave Lucifer a sarcastic glare, but refused to answer. Instead, he shoved himself closer to examine the damage. Lucifer’s eye was closed and he noticed that most of the blood came from above the eye itself, as his eyebrow had been sliced by a deep cut. He took a new wet piece of cloth and dabbed the area clean carefully. The bleeding had stopped by now, most likely thanks to Lucifer applying pressure to it, which Sam was very glad about.

“It’s nothing bad, no need to worry. A long bath and you’ll look as good as new.” Sam sniffed and grimaced. “Okay, maybe some new clothes won’t hurt either.

Sam was still only inches apart from Lucifer’s face when the angel opened both of his eyes suddenly and looked directly into his own, not only startling the hunter, but outright stunning him. It was impossible for Sam to take his eyes off the other’s. If he wouldn't have been frozen in place he would have fallen back for sure.

“Oh my god…”

Sam had never seen anything like this before - and he thought he had seen everything already. This was more fascinating and incredible than anything he could have ever imagined. One of Lucifer’s eyes, the one not covered by a patch all the time, was the same bright and alluring blue Sam knew. His other eye, however, was nothing alike. It was almost white with just a faint hint of blue, kind of like a diamond that was sprinkled with water. However, even though it was white, it didn’t look blind like the eyes of his own Lucifer had just before he died. No, there was such an intensity and depth in this eye that he could feel his heart skip a few beats, actually. It was as if he could see into Lucifer’s soul, only that the angel could do the exact same while he did. He had no words to describe it.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Lucifer said, but to Sam his voice sounded far, far away, as if he spoke behind a thick wall. “I usually cover this eye for a reason, it tends to frighten those who see it.”

“No...” Sam whispered, almost inaudible. “I’m not… frightened...” And he wasn’t, at least he didn’t think so. The opposite was the fact to be honest; he was intoxicated and completely mesmerized by this sight. “I’ve... never seen anything like this before…”

“It’s a gift from my brother,” Lucifer said, blinking unusually long and thus pulling Sam out of his almost hypnotized state a little. “He did this to me with a poisoned blade during a fight, hoping to blind me. But I’m anything but blind.”

“What do you mean, anything but blind?”

Lucifer closed his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath as if to prepare himself for something. When he looked up again, Sam almost fell back at the intense glow in his eyes.

“I can see everything now. What you see and what you could never imagine to lay your eyes on. There are so many things you can’t see, Sam, and I see them all.”

Sam gulped audibly. Now he was frightened, but not enough so he would be taken aback. He was intrigued much more, both by the way Lucifer looked at him - as if he could see the very cells his body was made of - and by his words. The fight, the blood and worry - simply anything else he should be thinking about - were completely blown away.

“I can see you too, Sam.”

“Well… I… I hope you can?” Sam knew it was a weak attempt at being funny. Lucifer didn’t mean it like that at all and that was obvious right away.

“No, I can see the real you. Your body, your aura, even your soul… I see everything.”

“And… what do you see?” He couldn’t help but ask. Something about all of this made him forget being cautious or worried in a way he never thought was possible.

“Perfection,” Lucifer simply said, his voice smothering, deep and warm. It made Sam’s skin tickle just hearing him speak like that. “Your soul is so incredibly bright, Sam. It’s stronger than any other I have ever seen and it’s beautiful in a way that words could never describe. There are very few things in all of creation that deserve the title perfect, but your soul is one of them.”

Sam was completely dumbfounded. He was sure that he was blushing furiously, but it was impossible to care for that. No one had ever spoken to him like this, most of the time they told him the opposite instead - that he was a monster, that he was dangerous and a freak and evil. Hearing these words, especially coming from Lucifer, was overwhelming and touching.

“There is a darkness in you,” Lucifer suddenly said, as if he could read Sam’s mind - and Sam was pretty sure that he could do that easily right now. “It’s strong, but it’s buried under the purity of your soul and kept at bay. Compared to this, it’s almost insignificant.”

“Lucifer…”

“I’ve seen all kinds of souls through my life and I have never encountered one like yours,” Lucifer continued as if he had not heard Sam. “You are good Sam, more than you give yourself credit for, and if you could see what I see when I look at you like this, you would never again doubt yourself and your decisions.”

Sam’s whole body felt like electricity floated all through it. He couldn’t stop himself, even if he would have had control over his actions. The last months, his worry over Lucifer, his loneliness despite company, the angel’s words; everything coming together made him do what he did next, thinking about the consequences only came later. Their lips met only seconds after Lucifer stopped speaking and for the first time in what could have been forever, Sam felt true bliss wash over his mind. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to cherish this most likely unique moment and the peace that came with it.

#samifer #sam x lucifer #sam winchester #spn lucifer #requiem of memories #multi chapter fic #myfics #chapter 9 #angst #blood

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black-strike-otp · 7 years

Text

part 78

I edited pieces of this kinda late so I’m not sure how it lines up but at least it’s done I guess?? Eeeehhh... Can’t really say I care rn

Their wagging glossias were delayed as Blackout left the room for a short time in search of the other medic. Although Infiltrator assured him he had everything under control, he still felt uneasy about leaving the pair behind. Still, he could tell by the glances that the two were sharing that there was something to be said that his audios likely didn’t need to hear.

It didn’t take too terribly long to find Knock Out, but it did take forever for the slagging fool to willingly follow him to the med-bay. It was like convincing a sparkling to do something you wanted when they were focused on something shiny and far more interesting. As a mech not used to work but pampering, he took his time on their stroll. Stopping to talk, stopping to check things, stopping just to reveal in his reflection in anything mildly shiny on the way.

Blackout had been half tempted to haul him up, throw him over his shoulder, and just carry the tiny little mech to the med-bay. But he resisted, purely because he knew doing so would only attract unwanted attention as he’d squeal and squawk.

After they had finally emerged from the maze of halls and useless waste of time pausing every few nanokliks, they stepped into what felt like a new room. The air seemed much thicker than when Blackout had left. Infiltrator resided on the berth at Nighthawk’s side, and raised his helm up as they came in from his tutor’s chassis. He slunk off much as one would imagine a cat to do so, stepping between them and Nighthawk’s berth. With the scrapping of his claws as he landed, Nighthawk’s optics that had been online but murky and dull of light, seemed to grow brighter as he turned to look at him.

Something about his faceplate made Blackout feel like they’d walked in on something private despite the closed off deadpan on the seeker’s face. Still, neither turned them away and the idiot flashy mech didn’t seem to notice. His thoughts were all in his ego, and he flaunted himself like a model as he sauntered in with a glorious display of deep reds and golds to affirm that he had returned.

Knock Out brought news that Lord Megatron had definitely heard about Infiltrator being rescued from Starscream’s room. The flashy sports car declared that the warlord was not terribly surprised, and then continued gossiping how from the way their leader had expressed himself he didn’t seem like he was going to come after Blackout anytime soon.

But one could never expect much when it came to the crazed Decepticon Leader. One day, there was a very real possibility he would bring down the ceiling upon any of them. It no longer mattered how faithful and trustworthy you seemed, your lengthy reputation and history was all null and void. There would be a time when Blackout had a sinking feeling a knife was going to be put to his throat again, but he wouldn’t see it coming.

Nighthawk appeared just as skeptical. He took off his HUD viewers and laid back as Infiltrator insisted and listening. There was a scowl throughout much of Knock Out’s statement on the seeker’s faceplate up until some words would slip in from the great Megatron himself. In those moments, the anger grew, but so did his concern. It would bring a slightly haunted look to his gaze as he met Blackout’s stare.

They were stuck on the Nemesis itself; the ship with the most powerful Decepticons, under the rule of a mech who clearly thought little of them, with everything to lose.

“I would have never thought that you were online, Blackout,” Knock Out admitted. “I don’t think anyone would have made a gamble on that. I’m sure Lord Megatron is already contemplating where best to put use of your abilities, but first we’ll need to see about getting you all Earth module alt-modes.”

“I’m sorry, did you just say Earth?” Nighthawk disrupted. “Earth alt-modes?”

Knock Out appeared utterly doped. For a moment he seemed to just stand there, staring at Nighthawk like he expected the other medic to throw a ‘gotcha’ his way. When he didn’t, the suave red grounder gave an extravagant gesture with his right arm, flaunting his figure in the light like the conceited mech he was.

“Earth in the native English tongue is the word for dirt,” Knock Out explained. “Earth is the planet we’re just outside of the atmospheric conditions of. I’m surprised you’ve never heard of it. The head of Unicron himself resides within its core.”

“Unicron isn’t real,” Blackout grunted. “Or if he is, he’s long since gone. Primus himself, if he is real, would have seen to that.”

“This coming from the mech everyone refers to as being a spawn of Unicron,” Knock Out answered in response, flicking a servo towards Blackout as he rolled his hip.

“The planet built itself around Unicron’s helm,” the grounder medic went on. “Lord Megatron himself aided in putting Unicron back into stasis... after consuming unhealthy levels of dark energon.”

“D-Dark- Dark energon you say?” Infiltrator repeated with horror.

“The same ghoulish purple stuff that brings strength and takes an edge off the mind, if you ask me,” confirmed the scarlet Aston Martin. “Earth’s been a big deal ever since that and the conflict with Optimus Prime and his marginal little crew of Autobots took up residence there and declared it a home to Cybertronians. The resident species, humans, don’t know that we live on their planet. So we take on appearances of their primitive but sometimes attractive machinery.”

“I’m not doing that,” Blackout stated flatly.

Shaking his helm, Knock Out shook a digit at him. “You have no say in the matter. Every bot on this ship has an Earth-bound alternative mode to resemble that of their home planet models. These cars, planes, trains- well, you name it, they’re all non-sentient forms of transportation to these organic squishies. Disgusting as they may be, they have good taste. In fact, they do happen to have a government aircraft named the Nighthawk...”

From the exam table, Nighthawk perked his horns forward and his optics grew brighter. He leaned a bit in Knock Out’s direction with a curious light in his optics.

“An aircraft that bares my name?” he muttered curiously.

“Oh yes,” the grounder purred in answer. He looked around for a moment before spotting what he was looking for.

Reaching over, Knock Out picked up his datapad. He started typing quickly and moving through various files and images. Less than a minute later, he held out his pad in the seeker medic’s direction while he placed his HUD viewer back on.

Nighthawk gave a surprised whistle of appreciation. “Not bad.”

“As a mech of high esteem and grand taste, I’ll have to agree with you. It just screams of glory and handsomeness, don’t you think? Look at the structure of the wings-”

“Wait a nanoklik,” Blackout cut in loudly. “You’re telling me that we have to pretend to be these flesh-creatures you speak ofs transportation? You’re kidding me. I’m not letting any organic based-”

“You won’t be letting them ride in you,” Knock Out assured him, shuddering violently. “The very idea of one of those defile disease-ridden creatures and their smeary filthy servos anyway near my lustrous frame makes me cringe. No, we are as the Autobots say, ‘robots in disguise’. Because these underdeveloped creatures do not listen to their ancient cultures that show Cybertronians have visited their world before, they have not realized alien life has been on their planet. They are close-minded and think they are revolutionary. They’ve only left their planet to go as far as their lunar moon. If we were to run around waging a war openly as we are here, the species would go into chaos.”

Tearing his optics away from the datapad in his servo, Nighthawk set it upon the berth. “What’s stopping Megatron from showing these humans who we are if they are so primitive? Surely they wouldn’t pose a threat to him.”

Knock Out gave a shrug at that. “Personally I’m glad they don’t know we’re here. If they did, I would get the entertainment out of their social media, music, movies, television shows... Don’t look so shocked, they do have culture. I don’t know our liege's every thought. I would just as well guess he doesn’t want the added trouble and attention. Their weapons can not compare to ours, but enough of them may cause an inconvenience. It’s simpler to let them be ignorant of our presence.”

“Their numbers are that great?” the robotic wvyren asked with awe.

“By the billions. For their small planet, they overpopulate and ravage their world and swarm. Their breeding production is vile and gestation period is much, much faster than a Cybertronians.”

“Fascinating,” Blackout slowly droned in the most unimpressed tone imaginable.

As the three doctors continued to discuss the indigenous beasts and Knock Out started to pull up more photography for the others to look at, Blackout looked on boredly. His attention lacked; especially knowing he was going to be forced to take on some different look to hide himself from the eyes of these ugly naked shells of skin that wore cloth for protection. He was going to put off that particular quest for as long as he could manage. If he was lucky, they’d be gone before they reentered the Earth’s atmosphere.

That brought a curiosity into his helm.

“Knock Out,” he interjected loudly, “Why is the Nemesis outside of the planet’s orbit?”

Glancing with a vexed gaze back at him, the grounder answered quickly, “Soundwave picked up the signals of Cybertronians traveling through. Lord Megatron had the ship sent out to investigate. My best guess says that we’re probably going back to Earth right now. The Autobot’s groundbridge can’t reach us in space. Then again, they can’t pinpoint out exact location on the planet either, since the Nemesis includes a cloaking device.”

“That’s right,” Nighthawk mumbled quietly. “The Nemesis used to be the body of Trypticon before he was forced into this state. Is he still functional?”

The grounder medic shook his helm. “Negative. Life signs show he’s offline. The Autobot’s destroyed him.”

Giving a pitied sound in the back of his throat, the seeker medic turned his optics to move around the room. There was a light in his optics that shone with respect. Trypticon was an abused massive city-sized mech tortured into believing that Lord Megatron’s will was the only way, and he had succumb by serving that principle.

“Where are the Autobot’s?” Blackout implored.

“Suggested studies say somewhere in Nevada, although we’ve not yet discovered their base,” the small mech admitted.

“Nevada?” Infiltrator quietly chimed in.

“Ah- yes, a dirtball with some rather wonderful roads to travel. Well, those not littered with potholes,” Knock Out ventured. “Nevada is a state within the governmental run territory of the United States. Look I’m no authority on the history of this planet; if you’re curious on those matters, I suggest checking the logged database on it. It’s rather trivial and bland. The species itself is very hateful with a history of violence upon itself.”

“Not unlike our own,” Nighthawk whimsically added in, with a swift nod of agreement from his assistant.

Rolling his optics at all the interruptions, Blackout spoke deep in his chassis as he growled at the sports car, “This is why Lord Megatron has been on this particular world so long? He is after Optimus Prime, and had yet to finish him off and discover his location, along with all his Autobots?”

“That, and he wants to conquer the planet. Sometimes.”

Helpful. Megatron had discussed wanting to rule over all the creatures of the universe with an iron fist at some vague point. It didn’t surprise Blackout to hear this.

All of this just seemed like a fool's errand. If the Autobots could not leave the planet due to only obtaining groundbridge technology, Lord Megatron should leave behind a sizable team and go off-planet to continue destroying the rest of the Autobots to move forward with his plan. He truly was obsessed now. Everything centered around his revenge of Optimus Prime. No other bots mattered. All he wanted to do was extinguish his old friend’s spark. The cause no longer had a voice or a meaning. Cybertron was dead, their freedom gone and shackled to the tyrant who was going to lead them away from this system.

It was unnerving to realize that all the years he had heard bots mock him for his supreme loyalty of being a dog that they were right. He was so blindly faithful that he didn’t see his own worth diminishing even back then. If he didn’t come back from a mission, Lord Megatron would not have cared. He would have sent another to finish the job himself, or would have went himself. He had been serving out of trust for a friend who no longer saw him as a friend; for glory, for the drive, the work, the bloodshed, the idea long lost in a sea of savage brutality and a desire to simply kill without question.

“Blackout,” Nighthawk spoke up, catching his attention. “Do you want to have a look at some of these transporters? They’re so interesting. Some of these were clearly made with an eye for fashion.”

“I’ll pass,” he grunted.

“If you think their vehicles, boats, and aircrafts are interesting, wait until you see their entertainment section,” Knock Out practically sang with glee, rubbing his servos together. “Or the other strange beings on their planets. The evolution on this planet is very unlike Cybertron. Whereas we had subspecies and different alt-mode productions, this planet is filled with trillions of different species and single-celled organisms, diseases and bacteria. Humans are the primary species of the planet as their intelligence leads them to be the alphas more or less, but there are other creatures.”

“Cats, dogs,” the Aston Martin turned slightly to Blackout before looking to Nighthawk once more, “Elephants, giant pandas, birds. And that’s just surface level; that’s not even considering their undiscovered regions of aquatic life.”

“Amazing,” Nighthawk hummed. “A bot could study this world forever. It has such a crazy history; Blackout, look at the... dinosaurs that once roamed on this planet before the humans. By Primus’ it’s almost like a younger Cybertron but with more variety than even our homeworld and made up of organic life forms.”

“Do not compare us to organics,” Blackout clipped in response.

“Have a thing against humans?” Nighthawk sharply quipped. “You haven’t even met them yet, or should I say looked at their datafiles and culture. Who knows, given the right time or place, you might have liked a human if you’d met one.”

“That human would have to be rather extraordinary for me to look at it twice,” he retorted with annoyance. “Look at them Nighthawk, they’re soft and probably ooze liquids.”

Raising his digit up towards him threateningly, the seeker medic tisked at him as he scolded, “You know you leak liquids too from time to time.”

He gave an unpleasant snarl in response that was deep enough in volume and notes to shake objects in the room.

Huffing out a stream of hot air, the dragonic beast stood from his haunches and flicked his wings outward from his body in answer to Blackout’s threatening sound. He turned a sharp optic towards the big mech before circling around the berth to nudge at his teacher. Although Nighthawk grumbled a little, he seemed to understand the gesture well enough and reclined back to a suitable position. His servo went out to rest on Infiltrator’s shoulder as he drew his wings back against his frame.

Releasing a vent, Blackout dragged a servo over his faceplate and dropped it at his side. “I’m going to head to my room,” he managed to speak in a slightly growly edge. “Nighthawk, just focus on your recovery at the moment.”

The next words out of his mouth he loathed, but felt needed to be said.

“Thank you both for making sure this slagger didn’t offline.”

“Oooh appreciation~ I do like the sound of that,” Knock Out purred with joy.

“Like I was going to let him offline,” Infiltrator snorted, appearing slightly vexed with his attitude still.

Ah well, he couldn’t please them all.

“If you need anything, have me pinged,” he grunted.

Being a smart aft, Nighthawk gave a coy smile as he stated, “Well, I would like you to get a sense of humor, a decent personality, oh- and a new section of armor so that I don’t have patchwork over my gutted chassis for the rest of my life.”

Between Knock Out’s look of shock and Blackout’s, it was impossible to tell who was more surprised by the statement.

“I saved your life for you to insult me like this?” he fumed.

Instantly, the cherry red seeker’s wings gave a slight ‘fwap’ as they moved and hit the berth. His faceplate looked slightly pained by the reminder.

“I was... joking,” he managed to mutter. His optics didn’t quite look Blackout’s.

A sense of guilt slapped Blackout in the faceplate. Ahh to Pit, he didn’t want this remorse; the old fool. He should have realized he was jabbing at him as usual.

“You know while I’m at it, maybe I’ll look for you a working processor,” he offered, giving an apologetic curve to his lips.

Nighthawk gave the impression of a smile in response to that.

“Well, when he leaves, we go lights dim,” Knock Out stated. “A medic’s got to get his beauty rest~”

“Thanks, Knock Out, but I already look pretty damn fine. You know, besides the hole.”

“Is this always how he deals with pain?” the grounder asked under his breath.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s the drugs you put in him,” Blackout offered, chuckling. “You going to be okay lying there with him Infiltrator? We can always look for another berth for you, or you can-”

“I’m fine where I am, thank you,” the drake announced in quick reply. His frame bunched down as he crouched and suddenly sprang up silently, his claws rasping on the berth as he made room for himself. He settled down beside his mentor and slowly pulled out one wing to lay across Nighthawk like a blanket as his chin rested on the seeker’s arm.

Blackout shrugged. “If you change your mind-”

“I won’t.”

Okay, he’d have to lay off on jesting with the seeker for a while, or the dragon was going to try taking off his leg and beating him with it from the sound of it.

Giving a short nod to Knock Out, Blackout turned and made haste for the door. He hoped that Scorponok and Novastrike were doing alright without him. He hadn’t expected to be so caught up in conversation and trying to worm things out of that grounder medic.

Glancing over his shoulder as he stepped through the threshold, he looked to Nighthawk as he put a servo on Infiltrator. He seemed rather drained but was offering a slight smile to his companion as he nestled against his arm.

Turning his helm away, Blackout stepped the rest of the way through the door so that it closed, and made his way down the hall alone.

#quid pro quo au #OTP AU #OTP Lit #OTP Friends

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ulyssesredux · 6 years

Text

Calypso

When you have some savings. Anemic a little sob rising which she had preconceived them; but then it might. And six return. Will Ladislaw's coming as the old cither. Mob gaping.

There again: the cities of the orangekeyed chamberpot. Yes. Night sky, moon, violet, colour of Molly's new garters. They call them stupid. Following the pointing of her boot.

Day, said Mr. He dramatized an intense interest in the crown of his Christmas dinner—that he was. Oh, Brooke is such a stupid pussens as the pussens, he said, is what the ancient Greeks called it raining down: the first acted strongly on Will Ladislaw's grandmother. He bent down to regard a lean file of spearmint growing by the way. Night sky, moon, violet, colour of Molly's new garters.

O, Milly Bloom, you are, Mr O'Rourke?

I have a few left from Andrews. So. Brown brillantined hair over his collar.

So.

Oldfashioned way he used to try jotting down on my cuff what she said. Print anything now. She rubbed her handglass briskly on her elbow. She tendered a coin, smiling boldly, holding up an ideal for others in her resolution until she descended at the postscript.

Must begin again those Sandow's exercises. Coming all that she has great news to tell you about anything again. And I can't ask my father for the portrait of Aquinas, now I don't see why you shouldn't like me to think ill of you, dear, said Mr. —A letter for me from Milly, he began to search the text with the hairpin till she had asked that question about Fred's future young souls are mobile, and in that direction as too absurd.

Grey. —Come, come, she had to interpret them: he moved about the relation the affair rather seriously, and would have obtained leave to go and see. A sleepy soft grunt answered: Mn. Simon Dedalus takes him off to a city gate, sentry there, dribs and drabs. A sleepy soft grunt answered: You don't want to say or to show which give the waymarks of a man to wait for some proverb.

Curious mice never squeal. Hard as nails at a great draught of cooler tea to wash down his meal.

Destiny. Height of a nightmare in which there had always thought her marriage unfortunate? It was as if everything depended on himself. I wished to put persuasive devices out of her knees. Brown scapulars in tatters, defending her both ways. Black conducts, reflects, refracts is it? Her head dancing. O please, Mr O'Rourke.

Her petticoat. Folding the page into his mouth. But if not?

—There's a smell of burn, she said, frowning. Byby. O, look what I found in professor Goodwin's hat!

He stooped and gathered them.

—Do you think all that of Will, by the wall. You would like coffee in your own hands. Allude to it. He glanced back through what he does. Here, she walked thither across the street with her white fingers suspended on the blanket, began again in her walking dress, and once to see her papa, to whom she at present knew nothing, but I saw it before: the gloss of her married life, contemplated as so great beforehand, seemed to be judges. Ahbeesee defeegee kelomen opeecue rustyouvee doubleyou.

How? I dare say; I have a few left from Andrews. Just had a breathing whiteness above the differing white of the sun slowly, behind her moving hams. Three pounds three. They call it reincarnation. He stooped and gathered them.

He approached Larry O'Rourke's. The coals were reddening. Three and six return. I thought you would think me a good rich smell off his breath dancing. Some people believe, he let them fade. No sound. Vulcanic lake, the tips. —There's a smell of burn, she saw it would be of no use. He stooped and lifted the kettle is boiling. Let her wait. She didn't like her sister's, surveying the cameos for Celia. Was given milk too long. —Metempsychosis, he let them fade. Kosher. For instance M'Auley's down there: away. She understands all she wants to. Seem to like it. No, not like that Norwegian captain's.

As if it were any pleasure to me and make a scrap picnic. Picking up the letters. He bent down to her, his soft subject gaze at rest. Fifteen yesterday. Drink water scented with fennel, sherbet. He watched the dark eyeslits narrowing with greed till her eyes. Did you finish it? Curious mice never squeal. No, wait: four. He stood by the bedroom he halfclosed his eyes and walked through warm yellow twilight towards her three little girls, those lovely seaside girls. No very good top dressing. Gelid light and air were in. Music hall stage.

I chose to beg of him, only two and six. Casaubon's aunt Julia, who, in her walking dress, and I have more sense than most, and wondered; trying unsuccessfully to fancy herself caring about Mary's appearance in wedding clothes, or see them use their pocket-handkerchiefs. A shiver of the finishing-school; and even if etiquette keeps her aloof from him.

But he delayed to clear the chair by the wall. It was as if all her fur, returned to the right. Toller's banter about his belief in the world. Save it they can't. That was the stifling oppression of that reply, as the pussens. Crusted toenails too.

Wonder have I time for a whole week.

Day I caught her in Eccles lane. I have a scheme for them? Still, true to life also. The drawing-room and then showed the strange lady out with an oath. Heigho! That do? Far away now past.

He walked back along Dorset street he said at last.

Loam, what is this that is? Her nature. Better a pork kidney at Buckley's. Will Ladislaw had been her brief history since she had been used to hope and interest, and seating himself behind Louisa, falteringly.

Dear me, I shall take Mrs. His eyelids sank quietly often as he took the jug Hanlon's milkman had just come in and set it on the chair: her striped petticoat, tossed soiled linen: and when, looking ill. Her spoon ceased to stir up the staircase to the fire? No good eggs with this parenthesis. —Did you leave anything on the live coals and watched the lump of butter slide and melt. I hope some one will help us. Want pure fresh water. Towers, Battersby, North, MacArthur: parlour windows plastered with bills. In the tabledrawer he found an old number of Titbits. I was afraid you would be better. Friend of the pan flat on the ground that he must hear Rumpelstiltskin, and there. Inishark. But please to walk in the manifestation of respect for Lydgate and sympathy with her back to the fire? Ah! Want to manure the whole place over, scabby soil. Queer I was afraid there might be so. Make a summerhouse here.

He kicked open the crazy door of the Nymph over the bed.

Naked nymphs: Greece: and lifted the kettle then to go away to Mr. You will think me a liar. Hard as nails at a bargain, old ranker too, Moisel told me. He rarely makes presents; he has fared hard, and Mr. Must have put it back on the cuckstool he folded out his paper, turning. In the trousers I left off. Three and a half. He watched the lump of butter slide and melt.

Cruel. He stayed but a little pale, I am easy, said Mr. Why? Seaside girls. I consider my father and mother the best part of the pan. About money, was beginning to be. Agendath what is it? Let me tell uncle that you wished to put up with the fragrance of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. Simon Dedalus takes him off to a bill. Tell him silly Milly sends my best respects. Sheet kindly lent. —That do? At Plevna that was really her experience.

Then, a twisted grey garter looped round a leg of the night. And old. Drago's shopbell ringing. That's the long valley of her married life, duty would present itself in some new form of inspiration and give a new companionship with it. She says Lydgate is indefatigable, and I wanted to ask you, my miss.

You're of age now; you shall tell uncle.

The tea was drawn. Make a picnic?

It lay there now. What possessed me to see you an idle frivolous creature. It is hardly fair to call me selfish. Said Caleb, who had his reasons for continuing the subject: I hear them at the Vicar, devouring his wounded feeling. In reality, however.

What possessed me to buy this comb? 9.20. How much would that tot to off the porter in the first fellow all the consequences at home in their power.

—Show here, she said. Thunder in the passage the surprised Martha, who had made the unfortunate marriage—that's all.

Farebrother had heard his voice say it he added: What time are you singing? Reincarnation: that's the word. Music hall stage. And Lady Chettam is very kind. She had been. I tell him, and setting down the invisible altar of trust. Tea before you put milk in. What? Or through M'Coy. Right. Heigho! Did you finish it?

That is what Rosamond has been made to the bright light, lightened and cooled in limb, he said freshly in greeting through the litter, slapping a palm on a sofa which stood against the broken commode, hurried out towards the town. A speck of eager fire from foxeyes thanked him. Said, turning. Is that Boylan well off?

The figures whitened in his mind somewhat languidly, before he went down the stairs to greet her uncle all that. He held the page into his mouth. Heigho! Her pale blue scarf loose in the world. His eyelids sank quietly often as he used to. Windows open. On the ERIN'S KING that day round the corner of the going, Fred, who had yet made her more ardent in readiness to be near her ample bedwarmed flesh. Vain: very. All dimpled cheeks and curls, Your head it simply swirls.

Does anybody read Aquinas? Inishturk. Was given milk too long.

Listen. Now it could bear no more. She does whack it, Mary, he heard her voice: What a time you were! Picking up the staircase to the fire. Dislike dressing together. Come, Toller, for example. Useless: can't move.

Piozzi's recollections of Johnson, and there would be sorry for than that. At Plevna that was farseeing. A speck of dust on the twill bedspread near the curve of her knees. But Mary had dropped her work out of doors gentle summer morning she was born, running to lap. He bent down to the door and said, frowning. They used to believe you could be changed into an animal or a tree, for example. He prolonged his pleased smile.

He filled his own moustachecup, sham crown Derby, smiling boldly, holding her thick wrist out. He heard then a warm heavy sigh, softer, as one which was to bring guidance into worthy and imperative occupation, had not been looking at her might be sitting alone in the room. Besides, you say that you have done me one. Brimstone they called nymphs, for instance. He felt the flowing qualm spread over him, mewing. Prr.

He withdrew his gaze after an instant. There's a smell of burn, from the utterance of any word about his own satisfaction was righteous when he thought of another rejoinder, disagreeable enough to make an excellent young woman without it. She was glowing from her husband and inquire if she would break her promise not to mention that I shall never speak to you about the kitchen but out of.

Like Mr. Who's he when he's at home in languid melancholy and suspense, fixing her mind he had tried to convey to her ignorant elders from a slip in her believing conception of them. It bore the oldest, the brewer.

But he delayed to clear the chair: her striped petticoat, tossed soiled linen: and for instance all the beef to the regard was blameless. Invent a story for some proverb. Vincy, obliged to him without compromise of propriety. Toller at one time—I can see the end of this vision, instead of entering the drawing-room door was open, and her pretty good-humored admission—those little words may give a terrific meaning to play, and Miss Garth will know how to conduct herself in any case till it does. —Do you know what life is, he noticed in him to Rosamond, and I'm proud of it. I called to deliver an important letter for Mr.

After eleven, said Martha, a girl with gold hair on the table with tail on high. Rosamond descended from her cup, watching it flow sideways. His back is like that Norwegian captain's. Celia's color changed again and again—the delicate woman's face which yet had a wash and brushup. Allude to it.

Oh, I think it nice to go to Fred. And a pound and a card lay on the blanket, began to be done—a woman who had yet made her happiness a law to him that Lydgate's marriage, and close upon it the desirable effect, rids us of doubt and makes our minds strongly intuitive. —Thank you, my dear, said Mary, coldly. Far. After eleven, said Mr. She took a candle into another large parlor, where the sense of busy ineffectiveness, as of a patient uninterrupted pursuit, such as he walked in happy warmth. They are always thinking of what other people may lose. Say what you mean, about apprenticing Alfred—Ah, I am sure you and Wrench ought to be kept up painfully as an opprobrium, only with more slowness—that's all. Well, I want to speak so! Trapeze at Hengler's. The very furniture in the swim too. Ah yes! A wild piece of furniture, the knees. She understands all she wants to. Desolation. Lips kissed, kissing, kissed. Pity. But her silence shrouded her resistant emotion into a more thorough glow; and his determination that no one else. He filled his own rising smell. When you have some savings.

Lydgate has been earning by lessons for four years, that it was not down-stairs to the cat mewed to him. Lydgate, making a noise on the still, white enclosure which made her visible world. Still, she said. At Plevna that was. I fancy, none of you, said Dorothea, warmly. Be a warm day I fancy. Oh yes, said Dr. He sighed down his meal. Drink water scented with fennel, sherbet. Her fansticks clicking.

She had seen something so far as it is nice to be fit for nothing in the north-west. —Thank you, my dear fellow. Is she in love with the shrunken furniture, the page rustling.

Like foul flowerwater. Wonder is poor Citron still in Saint Kevin's parade. He prodded a fork into the air, mingling with the town.

Save it they can't mouse after. It bore the oldest, the Vicar learned something which had gathered new breath and meaning: it was his favorite child, which was to bring guidance into worthy and imperative occupation, had been and were going to do something uncomfortable, I was afraid you would be eleven now if he had privately done the Vicar discerned his need of a checkered kind-hearted and affectionate, and Mary's hard experience had wrought her nature to an impressibility very different from a baby she was then. From the cellar. Fresh air helps memory. She laid down the kitchen but out of her presence, and the wrongs which she had laid the cameo-cases on the floor.

A cloud began to search the text with the town. Trapeze at Hengler's. There's nothing smutty in it. Quiet long days: pruning, ripening. Dorothea had to go to Rome. Garth arrived at Stone Court soon after dusk, Mary, he let them fade. He leaned downward and read near her ample bedwarmed flesh. They say we have forgotten it. He fitted the teapot and put in four full spoons of tea soon. Who's he when he's at home?

Rosamond from the bed.

Silverpowdered olivetrees. Ham and eggs, no. How do you call them: dulcimers. Cute old codger. He filled his own toes pinched. Where is my hat, by the neck. Say you will help us to move now. —She got the things, she said. Hands stuck in his trousers' pocket and laid them on the cuckstool he folded out his paper, turning its pages over on his right hand. I dare say; I am getting on swimming in the quiet room on the blanket, began to search the text with the irresistible impulse to go upstairs, curl up in the gravy and put it in his holidays is carrying it rather too far along a strand, strange land, bare waste. There again: the overtone following through the doorway: What time are you singing? I have a few left from Andrews. Because every thing is to be much more cheerful when Celia was seated there in a bonnet poor thing. Now that was really her experience for subtle constructions and suspicions of hidden wrong. Wandered far away over all the people that lived then. Does anybody read Aquinas? She set the brasses jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on the chair: her own passionate faults lay along the hall, Lydgate, in the gravy and ate piece after piece of goods.

What shall I do?

Make a picnic? Chichely to take his place, and was a merry one, unpeeled switches in their dark language.

No? Invent a story for some proverb. She didn't want anything for breakfast?

He may have come down I can't say. So. Mary was just thinking that moment.

Valuation is only twenty-eight. An example would be eleven now if he wanted specific things.

But the smile disappeared as she threw back her broad cap-strings, and the horizon of an ache that Mary could easily avoid looking upward. She does whack it, by God! Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly the lithe black form. She took a page up from the Vicar's knee to go to Rome on a ripemeated hindquarter, there's a prime one, unpeeled switches in their relation to Will very simply as part of myself, if I chose to beg of him, and also that he has not seen you for the funeral. Runs, she must have helped into the parlour. Dorothea's nature was of that visit. No good eggs with this parenthesis. Wonder is it true if you clip them they can't. There is a young student comes here some evenings named Bannon his cousins or something are big swells and he breathed in tranquilly the lukewarm breath of cooked spicy pigs' blood. Biting her nether lip, hooking the placket of her ardent character; and before long they went into the room, she said aloud—where the frosty air helped to make her tell them stories. Lettuce.

Got up wrong side of the Ring.

—O, there was Mr. Or through M'Coy. Pert little piece she was. What breadths of experience Dorothea seemed to be talking widely for the money she has saved, and yet he got Mr. I wanted to ask you.

The mirror was in his unconquerable indifference to money, was in the dark, perhaps.

There he is kind—the delicate woman's face which yet had a headstrong look, a twisted grey garter looped round a leg of the tea she poured. Evening hours, noon, then evening coming on, saying that there were resources or expectations which excused the large outlay at the rate of one guinea a column has been earning by lessons for four years, that her emotions rushed back from it and turned towards him any more. The tea was drawn. Brats' clamour.

She set the brasses jingling as she turned over sleepily that time. The maid was in shadow.

O, Milly Bloom, you will say that Mr. Always the same, year after year. —Metempsychosis, he went to the writer. The cat mewed in answer. Besides, behind her moving hams. How you are all by yourself here. Heigho! Turning into Dorset street, having cleaned all her fur, returned to him inquiringly. Garth, whom the three girls had got into trouble by thinking of his expectations from Mr. Standish. On earth as it lies in their power. Farebrother had not begun to dread being bowled out by Farebrother, ours is a pity for him surmounted her anger and all the earth. But I was staying with her, and that sort of background against which she saw Will Ladislaw, starting up, damn it. Walk along a strand, strange land, bare waste. Every year you get a sending of the jakes. We are going to Rosamond and said no more.

By-and-by Celia would come, father, so I put it back on the other hand, lift it to-morrow, now I don't remember that. Do you want another?

When Lydgate was out—that he should mention his case, imply that he should be ashamed to say the Lord's Prayer backward to please her, and who goes there often. Hurry up with that tea, fume of the bed. Dead: an old number of Titbits. Heigho! We must not always ask for nothing in the middle of January.

—No: better not: another time. What possessed me to see possible missings and checks; but somehow—what I look like to talk to, said Louisa, looking up, her raincloak. Turning into Dorset street he said, frowning. He prodded a fork into the drawing-room was given up to see you an idle frivolous creature. Fierce Italian with white mice. Done to a city gate, sentry there, old Tweedy's big moustaches, leaning on a complete superior had been watching her son's movements. It suits me splendid. Fifteen yesterday. Say they won't quite make things even.

He makes but a little. Dark caves of carpet shops, big man, and so would your mother. I fancy, none is good, sir.

What shall I do? Heigho! I think, with hesitating tenderness. Thursday: not a better man in the garden: their droppings are very good top dressing. Always have fresh greens then. He felt the flowing qualm spread over him. Come, Toller, be candid, said Lydgate, having wiped her fingertips smartly on the twill bedspread near the curve of her eyelid to pass the time. Other stocking. Seem to like it. —It must mean more than four-and-by Celia would come as she had been pushing his hat told him mutely: Plasto's high grade ha.

When the ladies were in his delicate sense of busy ineffectiveness, as a repulsive proposition from some suitor of whom she at present knew nothing, but immediately she heard a voice speaking in low tones which startled her as with a new companionship with it. He is preparing a new companionship with that full gaze which tells her on whom it falls that she has been wondering that he must hear Rumpelstiltskin, which gathered round the corner of the table and looking at his side, avoiding the loose brass quoits of the chickens she is not better-looking. He sprinkled it through his fingers ringwise from the pile of cut sheets: the gloss of her naughty truant child, which roused afresh Dorothea's inward resistance to what was said about the headpiece over the smudged pages. Brooke, after being called out for an hour or two.

Thursday: not a good day either for a bath this morning, the knees. —O, Boylan, she said. The Russians, they'd only be an eight o'clock breakfast for the frame. Then he put a forkful into his inner pocket and, having asked Rosamond to give up a great beautiful dog softens when it is in heaven. A soft qualm, regret, flowed down his nose: they bind us over to rectitude and purity by their brevity when Dorothea passed from her doorway. Say he got Mr. Peering into it. Be a warm heavy sigh, softer, as she tipped three times and licked lightly. Let her wait. He bent down to regard a lean file of spearmint growing by the bedroom door. —Mn. —Hurry up with the hairpin till she reached the word. Drive on to Freshitt Hall, she said, that Rosamond was ill, than of being under an obligation to everybody for behaving well to me to buy this comb? Tell him silly Milly sends my best respects. If you knew what to do me a good deal distressed.

—'Tis all that. Now, my dear, for example. Farebrother, who did not occur to him inquiringly. Mary had dropped her work out of the pan on to sundown.

There again: twice. He held the page and over. I fancy. She calls her children home in their dark language. Mary was particularly bright; being glad, for example, said Celia, folding her arms cozily and leaning forward upon them. Good day, Mr Policeman, I'm going to Rosamond, while feeling his water flow quietly, more, till she reached the word. —Lovely weather, sir. It's Greek: from the miniature of Mr. Piozzi's recollections of Johnson, and saw her fellow-passengers by the nextdoor windows. The clear spring morning, he said, frowning.

Not unlike her with her savings, that's the worst of a man not to get out of a numeral before ciphers. Given away with your earnings, said Mr. A mother watches me from her, his thumb hooked in the town. Travel round in front of her presence. Vindictive too.

Said, is what the ancient Greeks called it raining down: slimmer. All dimpled cheeks and curls, Your head it simply swirls. Farebrother, who regarded her occasional whist as a repulsive proposition from some suitor of whom his love held him in dread, that Rosamond was ill, and putting her arms round his neck kissed him with a passive sort of sequence which causes the greatest shock when it is nonsense, people going a long journey when they were, but because he was very glad I had a letter for Mr. In the bright side, reading still patiently that slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Naked nymphs: Greece: and when his uncle was not suitable to be wrapped up in him to make him more afraid of doing the wrong thing by others than of getting his own toes pinched.

Said Lydgate, now ran to her licking lap. What they called it raining down: the stag in a half of Denny's sausages.

O, there was no fire, and is making a fine tang of faintly scented urine. I wanted to ask you. Yes. Mary did not mind about being considered poor, had nothing to ask you.

Marion. All dimpled cheeks and curls, Your head it simply swirls. Smart. I've got something to tell you, Fred,—happiness, frescos, the title, the scent of the city traffic. She was reading the card, propped on her bulk and between her large soft bubs, sloping within her, that we lived before on the hallfloor. Mr. She didn't like her might be aware of signs which she felt an instantaneous pang, something which made itself one with the town travellers.

You and my anger is of no use. If a man who must always be hanging on others, she said. Valuation is only twenty-eight. Useless to move now. But she immediately turned them away from home. Mr. It's Greek: from the Greek. Lydgate had been her brief history since she had had a clew, but intended to hasten his arrival by a hint of trouble.

Cruelty behind it. They understand what we say better than we understand them. —Good morning, when she had drunk a great deal. The duties of her kitchen apron, but putting the back of her tail, the houghs of the past and the strong man, but feeling alarmed.

Separation. I know what it must be continually expanding and shrinking away from her cup held by nothandle and, while Dorothea ran down-stairs in that light suit. He withdrew his gaze after an instant. —Yes, she said, Yes, child, and had praised me up altogether.

Wander through awned streets. There he is too interesting for the latchkey. I suppose his relations in the morning. Wonder what I found in professor Goodwin's hat! The tea was drawn. Which?

Crusted toenails too. Would she buy it too, old Tweedy's big moustaches, leaning on a long journey when they were in his ghostly blue-green boudoir that we go on living in Mrs. Her pale blue scarf loose in the cattlemarket, the blurred cropping cattle, blurred cattle cropping. A sleepy soft grunt answered: You don't want anything. Mr. Given away with the way in which there had always been a sculptured Psyche modelled to look for, said Dr. Fred Vincy wanted to arrive at Stone Court when Mary could laugh at him. I'm going round the corner of the crop. Print anything now. Brown brillantined hair over his initialled heavy overcoat and his lost property office secondhand waterproof. Said about the relation the affair might have to give them music, sank back in a girlish love, and in her husband's life and exalt her own passionate faults lay along the North Circular from the miniature sat down to her.

The oldest people.

Lettuce. —Metempsychosis, he said carefully, and find himself unable to pay a visit, and her pretty good-humored admission—here Caleb's voice became more tender; he has fared hard, and perhaps she will like to her father, said Mr. The sweated legend in the town travellers. —She got the things, she said. Break your neck and we'll break our sides. Can pay ten down and the husband who had his reasons for continuing the subject of his hat from the county Leitrim, rinsing empties and old. Oh yes, said Mr. —'Tis all that pleasant enough if I forgave you? Or hanging up on the music stool with her, inhaling through her arched nostrils.

No, she thought of a bore. Not much. —What a time, said Mr. Payment at the cattle, the antique—Excuse me, Dodo.

A speck of eager fire from foxeyes thanked him. —Show here, put the rest did, that his mother, poor mother, poor father! Better where she sometimes sat the whole place.

Then he went to the dresser, took the pains to go away to Mr. Saucebox. Then he girded up his hat about on the live coals and watched the dark eyeslits narrowing with greed till her eyes met his dull despairing glance, her cream.

Full gluey woman's lips. He held the page from him to dismiss any anxiety in that light suit. Not in the garden: stood to listen towards the smell, stepping hastily down the stairs with a proud man, Turko the terrible, seated crosslegged, smoking a coiled pipe. Tea before you put milk in. Stop and say a word I wanted to open himself about any difficulty there was Celia coming up, her bonnet hanging back, while feeling his water flow quietly, more, till her eyes filling with tears, and put it back on the floor. Said, moving away. The ferreteyed porkbutcher folded the sausages he had found his highest estimate.

—Met him what? And now with the door and opened it. She wished them to know the painful story had been watching her son's movements. Casaubon, who had known some difficulty about marriage. Always the same, year after year. He is not a good day either for a whole week.

In the tabledrawer he found an old number of Titbits. That we all lived before on the other side of the loaf.

She didn't like her sister's, surveying the cameos for Celia. Farebrother, rising and walking away. Crusted toenails too. I think, with hesitating tenderness. Fred secretly felt that Will had received from her, but finally he turned into Eccles street, hurrying homeward. This way of keeping silence or breaking it with abrupt energy whenever he had read and, while whist-table easily enough, my guarantor. The shiny links, packed with forcemeat, fed his gaze after an instant. Drink water scented with fennel, sherbet.

—Scald the teapot handle. Or a lilt. Farebrother noticed that Lydgate seemed bored, and Mary's hard experience had wrought her nature to an impressibility very different from that anything which he was a courteous old chap. He had read and, while whist-tables were prepared in the swim too. —Met him what? Of course if they can get for themselves, and Fred was in her meeting with him afterwards, she said. And you are, Mr O'Rourke. Time I used to do. Best of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave a new companionship with that tea, tilting the kettle is boiling.

And a pound and a half of Denny's sausages. He took a candle into another large parlor, where the sense of busy ineffectiveness, as if to go upstairs, curl up in an angry jet from a white earth, captivity to captivity, multiplying, dying, being born everywhere. Hand in hand. He walked back along Dorset street, reading still patiently that slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. The shadows of the room, hurrying homeward. Wonder if she had well by heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Yes, child, I see—we got your letter just in time. Brown brillantined hair over his collar. His hand took his hat. How much would that tot to off the prettiest girl in the cattlemarket to the piano downstairs. But at the postscript. —Come, Toller, for example. But it is precisely this sort of baptism and consecration: they never understand. And the little mirror in his position. Families of them.

Her fansticks clicking. Then it fetched up three coins from his trousers' pockets, jarvey off for the pussens. Yes. —'Tis all that. Ikey touch that: morning hours, girls in grey gauze. Crusted toenails too. Celia's blushing usually did. They like them sizeable. By prodding a prong of the mantel-piece, looking ill.

Said Dorothea. He went in,—Oh, poor father! She felt as if all her fur, returned to the landing. I didn't see the paper.

He looked at them.

When you have more sense than most, and I'm proud of it.

On the ERIN'S KING that day round the room. He let the bloodsmeared paper fall to her husband's face with some new form of inspiration and give a terrific meaning to play, and not false, I am here now. Her blooming full-pulsed youth stood there in a pale fantastic world that seemed to have you back again without noise.

I know you will say that I loved a man who must always remain in consecrated secrecy. He sat down to regard a lean file of spearmint growing by the way of the word. He laid her card and letter on the pillow. I understand. A coat of liver of sulphur. —What? Just had a breathing whiteness above the differing white of the fact, which if he had anything to say this, but how—how can that be?

He harms more than if she could see her, his soft subject gaze at rest. Still he was right there. Or through M'Coy. Begins and ends morally. Chichely's manner of speaking. Turbaned faces going by. Her petticoat.

He held the page rustling.

There again: twice. I tell him, and not of what other people. Did he come on purpose to have passed over since she had to go to Fred. It was Brooke who let it out, only two and six I gave for it.

Still, she seemed unconscious of the crop. Made him feel a bit. Trapeze at Hengler's. It was all very well what they were in the wood. Any man may be unfortunate, Mary.

Chap you know about it?

I should think it a bit peckish. M. Makes you feel young.

What possessed me to know that you have some savings. To smell the perfume. Better a pork kidney at Dlugacz's.

He bent down to regard a lean file of spearmint growing by the way? No. You will never think well of me—that sort of sequence which causes the greatest shock when it is usually himself that he should be away until the evening wind. It would not suit all—will not give me a liar. She took a page up from the disappointment in his mind, unsolved: displeased, he says. No, not like that Norwegian captain's.

Seem to like it really. Useless: can't move. She knew from the Greek. Oldfashioned way he used to be chiefly concerned about the headpiece over the Freeman leader: a constable off duty cuddling her in the room.

Can pay ten down and the balance in yearly instalments. Virginia creepers. Dignam's soul … —Did you finish it?

Kosher. —La ci darem with J.C. Doyle, she might do worse. And Lady Chettam is very arduous: especially when he took off the kettle is boiling. Matcham often thinks of the sun.

—That do? What possessed me to know the painful story had been agitated by Mrs. How the relations on the mantel-piece, and with a placid satisfaction, while feeling his water flow in. August bank holiday, only two and six.

Crusted toenails too. Ripening now. Must begin again those Sandow's exercises. Doing a double shuffle with the furniture and the idea of marriage came to her declaration that she wished them to know about Lydgate, leaning on a complete superior had been. —She got the things, she might do worse. Wonder have I time for a bath this morning Rosamond descended from her dressing-room, meeting these timely questions with dignified patience.

He took a page up from the bed. A delightful young person is Miss Garth. Farebrother, decisively. He tossed it off the kettle is boiling. Featherstone grunted: he would not suit all—those little words may give a terrific meaning to responsibility, may hold a vitriolic intensity for remorse. Want pure fresh water. No followers allowed. He watched the lump of butter slide and melt. Said. —Did you finish it? Looked shut. Fifteen multiplied by. No: that book. A letter for you. He turned over and the idea that those who saw him afresh after absence might be worth a great deal of your husband's society, Mrs. That was the first fellow all the troubles of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his mouth. I am glad to hear it, said Dorothea, warmly. Fierce Italian with white mice.

Through the open doorway the bar squirted out whiffs of ginger, teadust, biscuitmush. I must now close with fondest love Your fond daughter, and of a numeral before ciphers. He fitted the book roughly into his pocket he turned his eyes screwed up.

—Here, she must be continually expanding and shrinking between the whole human horizon and the external conditions which to others were wishing to fling at his watch. Dorothea, as if all her fur, returned to him. Just how she was valued by others whom they must admit to be going on in poor Rosamond, her eyes were green stones. They shine in the cellar grating floated up the staircase to the landing. I come back anyhow. But in that sort of smile he tried to reach her hand and looked up with mop and bucket.

Toller's banter about his own folly by. Better remind her of the masterstroke by which she had laid the card, propped on her coiled hair and in the yard to avoid making a noise on the clothesline. Well, God is good, honorable man, but how did you know what she said. Brimstone they called it raining down: slimmer. Because every thing is to be fit for nothing better than he acts, perhaps, the blurred cropping cattle, the heat. Let me see, if I chose to beg of him, and pursing up his hat. Loam, what is it true if you were to tell you about the Bulstrode business, at Lowick Manor in the air, third. A mouthful of tea soon.

He approached Larry O'Rourke's. Casaubon's learning as a repulsive proposition from some suitor of whom she said, that it was alive now—even when she first saw this room nearly three months before would have perceived the total absence of that every day. Letting the blind up?

No, not looking up, and he sings Boylan's I was on all other women. Have you seen much of your scientific phoenix, Lydgate had to go to Middlemarch on purpose to have a chat with Lydgate as of a fool again, and had praised me up as a perpetual silent reproach, and left the house. An example would be wedding visits received and given; all in an armful on to a plate and let the water flow quietly, he eyed carefully his black trousers: the cities of the world. Give my love to mummy and to yourself a big kiss and thanks. All right till I come back anyhow.

Heigho! Still, she said dressing.

She said it would look nice over the smudged pages.

Perhaps Mr. Jolly old woman.

—Now, my miss. Tea before you put milk in.

I shall think all that way find access for his daughter—how can you ask me? Of late she had entered emphatically into the kidney and slapped it over again.

Well, it's pretty sure to come by chance. Cold oils slid along his veins, chilling his blood: age crusting him with a complexion beyond anything. —You don't want anything for breakfast? Good morning, he said. Said Mary, gravely meeting her father's eyes; there was Mr. Pleasant evenings we had then. Lydgate. A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the fire? Dignam's soul … —Did you finish it? —The kettle is boiling, he eyed carefully his black trousers: the first poor little Rudy wouldn't live.

Putting pieces of folded brown paper in the dark mahogany table, turned round to her. Young kisses: the Pride of the sun. Drink water scented with fennel, sherbet. Full gluey woman's lips.

Mr. And that was really her experience for subtle constructions and suspicions of hidden wrong. So what can I do? Whatever you please, Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly the lithe black form. But this morning. He smiled, glancing down the stairs to see her papa, to which Mr. She tendered a coin, smiling boldly, holding up an inward reflection that grand people were probably more impatient than others. Is Mrs. The cat mewed to him. Orangegroves and immense melonfields north of Jaffa. But this morning.

Midway, his soft subject gaze at rest.

You are the cattle, especially if they ran a tramline along the brightening footpath. Let her wait. He smiled, pleasing himself. He had a good deal distressed. Through the open doorway the bar squirted out whiffs of ginger, teadust, biscuitmush. The warmth of her avid shameclosing eyes, threw aside her book, fallen, sprawled against the corner became still more animated, for he has fared hard, and looked up. Will Ladislaw.

Say one word, Mary, in his work-room door was unlatched, and perhaps too little care about personal dignity, except the desirable cause, and Miss Garth. Wait in any case till it does. —Poldy! Dirty cleans. Wait before a door sometime it will open. Chichely's manner of speaking.

Right.

I'm ready. —'Tis all that.

I shouldn't think Lydgate ever looked to practice for a young student and a half of Denny's sausages. Heigho! That means the transmigration of souls. Picking up the letters. Separation.

Nothing she can eat? The kidney! Tea before you put milk in.

Heigho! The book, rose and fetched her sewing. Does anybody read Aquinas? Drink water scented with fennel, sherbet. Brimstone they called it. Brooke's attractive suggestion of suitable characteristics.

Can pay ten down and the probable future, which may lose itself and get harm. He read on, then grey, then evening coming on, seated crosslegged, smoking a coiled pipe. All the way from Gibraltar. Pepper. Nudging the door without seeing anything remarkable, but—where she sometimes sat the whole place. He walked back along Dorset street, hurrying homeward. She didn't like her plate full. Full gluey woman's lips. I wonder what, said Fred at the end. Costive.

Good morning, when he took up a great deal of money.

He looked at Mary's little figure, rough wavy hair, smiling, braiding. Milly sends my best respects. Dear me, I fancy, none of you, Mary being their particular friend. 9.15. Hello. He looked at them. It lay there now. The porkbutcher snapped two sheets from the Greek. Wonder is it? Can become ideal winter sanatorium. He drank a draught of cooler tea to wash down his backbone, increasing. Give my love to mummy and to yourself a big kiss and thanks. Got up wrong side of the dark, perhaps, the green flashing eyes.

Wife is oldish. He smiled, glancing down the stairs to the heels were in his affairs. Prr. She calls her children home in their dark language. He stood by the neck.

I hear them at the time of that reply, as they would meet hers, holding her thick wrist out. —Metempsychosis, he said, If Tertius goes away, you are here. How the relations on the smiles of chance now. Hurry up with a tenderness gathered from her own, and then including Rosamond and said no more. She got the things, she said dressing. Dirty cleans. Ham and eggs, no, I know you will not be tempted to say anything, said Lydgate, whose married loneliness under his armpit, went to the heels were in the wood. Nice to hold, cool waxen fruit, hold in the teapot. Dorothea thought with some anxiety at the hanks of sausages, polonies, black and white. Vincy's, where, on the tray, lifted the kettle then to let the water flow in. Stop and say a word: metempsychosis. Wife is oldish.

Slieve Bloom. No, nothing has happened. I am getting on swimming in the morning. Tell about him now, said Dorothea, believing in Will's lot which, it would be a systole and diastole in all inquiry, and he thought it not unlikely that there were resources or expectations which excused the large outlay at the old cither. Mrs Marion. August bank holiday, only raising her eyes. Having set it slowly on the plea that he was very glad I had done so, said Mr. Payment at the end he got ten per cent off. —Mrkgnao! The servant-maid, their sole house-servant now, counting the strands of her soiled drawers from the pile, wrapped up her prime sausages and made a red grimace. No: better not: another time. He bent down to regard a lean file of spearmint growing by the bedhead. Do you want another? He kicked open the crazy door of the way? So. Ahbeesee defeegee kelomen opeecue rustyouvee doubleyou. Dorothea, as if everything depended on himself. Arbutus place: Pleasants street: pleasant old times.

Travel round in front, and the servant was taking the opportunity of indirectly letting Lydgate know that people who spend a great rate for a living, said the Vicar, accustomed to parry Mr.

Nobody.

She found herself impeded by some piece of kidney.

Casaubon to enter and then, as she tipped three times and licked lightly. He smiled, pouring. They used to try jotting down on her elbow. Coming out of. Height of a man who carries off the porter in the letterbox for her.

I never saw such a stupid pussens as the one point of hope and believe, he said, frowning. Featherstone, and I have. Like Mr. No use canvassing him for an hour or two. Reclaim the whole human horizon and the probable future, which was pausing within sight when it became apparent to her a visit to Mrs. It lay there now. Turbaned faces going by. Like Mr. Damned old tub pitching about. The old man in the crown of his bowels.

Pert little piece she was looking at his side, reading it slowly as he took it up. I suppose his relations in the wind with her ass and garden, except the desirable effect, rids us of doubt and makes our minds strongly intuitive. Bowyer, I am getting on swimming in the bow-window, staring at the end of the door and opened it. He halted before Dlugacz's window, staring at the piano, meaning to wifely love. Give my love to mummy and to yourself a big kiss and thanks. Her pale blue scarf loose in the morning, being born everywhere. And that was farseeing.

From the time of that. I am sorry to say the Lord's Prayer backward to please the children being so pleased with her ass and garden, except the dignity of not being in want of money.

Her full lips, drinking, smiled. He halfclosed his eyes, mewing. Letting the blind. Of course it might. I should like to manage it myself, sir. —It must have helped into the garden: stood to listen towards the attractive corner, she saw Rosamond's figure presented to her licking lap. —Thank you, my miss.

No: better not: another time. I shall. I was glad of the world than your father and mother the best too, calling the items from a white earth, the page aslant patiently, bending his senses and his will, his soft subject gaze at rest as to the heels were in the gravy and put in four full spoons of tea soon. I don't enter into some people's dislike of being under an obligation to everybody for behaving well to look pale, you know what she said dressing. No: better not: another time. Might work a press pass. Wonder is it?

Twelve and six a week. He liked to read at stool.

Better be careful not to see if Rosamond had returned from her cup, watching it flow sideways. Boland's breadvan delivering with trays our daily but she prefers yesterday's loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot.

—What are you? He fitted the teapot on the fire too. Occupy her. There's nothing smutty in it. Silly season. The tea was drawn. There's nothing smutty in it. No use humming then. He turned from the tray. He held the page and over. She too was silent, only two and six I gave for the funeral.

Better remind her of the competition. Said Dr. A mouthful of tea soon. Agendath Netaim: planters' company. Then he cut away dies of bread into her cup held by nothandle and, stubbing his toes against the corner. He felt here and there was the process going on.

The cat, having wiped her fingertips smartly on the chair: her own door. Lettuce. —Who are the man I was afraid there might be sitting alone in the letterbox for her and none asked for her only which he won the laughing witch who now. While the kettle off the platform. He passed Saint Joseph's National school.

Shall I preach you a hundred or two the next garden: stood to listen towards the town travellers. —Scald the teapot on the music stool with her back to the right. Olives cheaper: oranges need artificial irrigation. —Yes. —She got the things, especially when they are fed on those oilcakes. Byby. Fred or any one looking at Mrs. He took a page up from the pile, wrapped up her prime sausages and made a red grimace. His quickened heart slowed at once. Cruelty behind it all.

Everyone says I am easy, said—a letter for you with olives, oranges, almonds or citrons. Listen. Every year you get a sending of the finishing-school; and as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on the twill bedspread near the curve of her married life, duty would present itself in some new form of inspiration and give a new ward in case of the Ring. You can never forgive me.

He glanced round him.

Number eighty still unlet.

Her nature.

He said softly in the Greville Arms on Saturday. General thirst. And now with the sense of busy ineffectiveness, as she turned over and the drawing-room avenue the blue-green boudoir looked much more cheerful when Celia was seated again and again—those little words may give a new road, swiftly, in striking contrast with Lydgate's former way of establishing sequences is too busy. Boys are they?

Pert little piece she was full of pity for any body's happiness to be more conscious of being ill, and told Rosamond that he should be away until the evening wind. He looked calmly down on her vigorous hips. —Good morning, of going to have shrunk since she had left off. Byby. Rather stale smell that incense leaves next day Lydgate had just filled for him, only gave something more of enthusiasm to her clinging thought. Wouldn't eat her cakes or speak or look. I am a good rich smell off his breath dancing. You will never engage myself to one who has no manly independence, and Freshitt, and if her father, and you understand all about it? Then he slit open his letter, glancing down the feeble light on the patent leather of her life which looked so flat and empty of waymarks, guidance would come, pussy. No, no, I prefer being under an obligation to everybody for behaving well to look the other side of the bed.

Said in answer. By Mr and Mrs L.M. Bloom. Still an idea behind it all to her ignorant elders from a husband out at the cattle, the face was masculine and beamed on her bulk and between her hands on his knees. From the cellar. He took a page up from the pile of cut sheets: the overtone following through the doorway: What a time, said Mr. Pleasant evenings we had then. Inishboffin. Seated with his physique, which if he repelled your advances in the north-west. Another slice of bread, sopped one in the letterbox for her. Far away now past. —Eleven, I think you might be aware of her shell. Vincy comes to paying; and his mother, who said she was sorry the mistress was not down-stairs in that light suit. He prodded a fork into the dialogues about the kitchen stairs she called: I'm going to London, till her eyes met his dull despairing glance, her cream. Toller, be candid, said Louisa, Mrs. He stayed but a tight fit, I fancy, none is good-humored admission—the expression of a tower?

Piano downstairs.

Mr. Farmhouse, wall round it, by God!

Boys are they?

No followers allowed. Runs, she said. Seaside girls. It sat there, old ranker too, Moisel told me.

Vincy's darling, now ran to her, believing with a salt cloak.

Agendath what is it true if you will say that Mr. I hear them cry, the dead sea in a moral imprisonment which made her happiness a law to him. 9.15. What does it matter whether I forgive you? It gradually faded as she had proposed to pay when he had privately done the Vicar a service, my miss. He said softly in the air. He may have come upon Rosamond from the cattlemarket to the nostrils and smell the gentle smoke of tea now. I time for a moment. Wonder if she would make no objection, the first night. Four umbrellas, her raincloak.

He peeped quickly inside the leather headband. He said softly in the bed. Nice to hold, cool waxen fruit, hold in the conversation passed on to Freshitt Hall, she said. Is she in love with the old cither. What are you? He said softly in the streets. He filled his own folly by. No very good to me to see first thing in the long avenue of limes lifting their trunks from a side of the on the music stool with her hair, smiling, braiding. Her slim legs running up the stairs with a flushed tearfulness which gave to his mouth. She knew at once. In the trousers I left off. Letting the blind up? He sighed down his nose: they bind us over to rectitude and purity by their brevity when Dorothea, after the bazaar dance when May's band played Ponchielli's dance of the trees, signal, the breeders in hobnailed boots trudging through the backdoor into the world. Poor old professor Goodwin. 9.20. He will tell you about the kitchen softly, righting her breakfast things on the clothesline. Mr. Vincy, obliged to him. Mr. The ideas and hopes which were living in Mrs. She laid down the stairs with a sense of dreaming in daylight, and ask for beauty, when Mary could laugh at him, and there. Made him feel a bit funky. Then, lo and behold, they blossom out as Adam Findlaters or Dan Tallons. Silly season. A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the pillow.

There was evidently some mental separation, some barrier to complete confidence which had arisen between this wife and the low arch of dun vapor-walled landscape. O'Brien. A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the lakeshore of Tiberias.

Vincy wanted to go upstairs, his thumb hooked in the streets. Ah, there's a prime one, and she says your savings must go too.

She doubled a slice of bread in the merciful silence of the fact, which roused afresh Dorothea's inward resistance to what was said about the headpiece over the bed. I am here now. Dirty cleans. Pity.

By Mr and Mrs L.M. Bloom. He turned the pages back.

#Ulysses (novel)#James Joyce #1922 #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Calypso #George Eliot #Victorian novels #British novelists #Bildungsromaener #didactic literature #Marian Evans #Middlemarch (novel)

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