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split-n-splice · 4 years

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A chapter in which Drakken is a purveyor of human suffering and Shego is a bad apple. owo

[Chapter Guide]

5. Enabler – 2

Shego couldn’t help scrutinizing the twitchy man as he pulled out a small leather-bound notebook from under his newspaper and flipped it open to a blank page. He held out an expectant hand, but she just stared at it suspiciously, her glower asking a question she didn’t have to say out loud, which he read even with his dorky magnifying goggles on.

“You’re getting an upgrade,” he claimed. It did little to alleviate her suspicions.

She was reluctant to humor him, but offered up a single glove nonetheless and watched him carefully. The curious man examined the meager article of clothing, looking it over inside and out. He hem-hawed.

From a distance, there was nothing unusual about her gloves – they were just gloves. She’d been heckled by villains before that they looked like dishwashing gloves. Shego knew her own gear well though, and knew they were more than what met the eye, as Dr. Drakken was surely finding out now as he studied the clusters of pin-holes dotting the hefty fabric, the palms and fingers laced with tiny eyelets. At a glance, the pattern might appear to be for grip, but Drakken wasn’t so quick to dismiss them.

“These holes, they’re for…breathability?” he guessed.

“Doy,” was as eloquent a confirmation as he was going to get. He was too distracted to snip at her for the attitude though, and her guard slowly lowered as she studied him. The thought of an upgrade was both tempting and laughable, but she wasn’t laughing. “The gloves hold me back. I don’t even know why I bother with them,” she admitted.

Demonstrating on impulse, she held both hands over the countertop, palm up, and watched as Dr. Drakken flinched back when they flared with her bubbling green plasma. The glow radiating from her covered hand was noticeably dampened, physically rather than drug-induced, by restricting the amount that could escape.

She wasn’t proud as she explained, “GJ designed them to keep me from going overboard on the firepower. I got carried away sometimes. So they did everything they could to keep me dialed back without making me useless to them.” She shrugged meekly. Even without full power, she could serve a hell of a sucker punch and leave second-degree burns, though the whole point of being a hero was to help more than harm.

“I see,” muttered Drakken.

He relaxed when she snuffed out her glow and pulled her hands out of sight behind the counter, tucked safely between her knees.

The blue man began jotting down notes on the pad. “Your hands still need protection though, so an upgrade is in order. These are getting worn out anyway.” He tapped his pen on his chin, humming. “Subduing you won’t do. I’d rather amplify this glow of yours if possible.” When he caught a glimpse of her piqued interest, he smirked. “I’m sure I can find something to conduct it.”

Fixing her face with mask of indifference, she refused comment. As the blue man sketched and scribbled nonsense across two pages of his notebook, Shego began to shift uncomfortably across from him. She sipped her soda, unsure if she was free to go yet. After a couple minutes, she was about to slip off the barstool and leave him with the glove, but he spoke up again.

“Can you produce this energy from anywhere else?” he wondered without lifting his attention from the notebook.

That was an invasive question if she’d ever heard one.

Shego narrowed her eyes at him, leery once more. The deep-rooted fear of becoming a lab rat and subjected to studies reared its ugly head, but she beat it back. This guy had been bullied out of the driver’s seat earlier and could be pressured doing her bidding with stupid threats like breaking the seals on his hoard of pickles if he didn’t drive her to Cow-n-Chow. So if he thought he could turn her into a test subject, he had another thing coming.

In any case, if she was hoping to make anything of this stint with the rogue doctor, then complying could work in her favor. Especially if he was willing to engineer custom gear for her.

She swore she’d spat fire at him before, a long time ago, but she couldn’t be sure. She was tempted to try coughing up plasma-laced phlegm to see if that would jog his memory or at least answer his question, but she resisted. If nothing else, the spoken truth would have to serve as a warning that her fists weren’t her only weapons.

“I can,” she said vaguely, and held out her bare hand again to show him her palm, sans glow. “My hands are just convenient.” Channeling the energy to her hands was second nature to her now, and over the years they had become the only area completely desensitized to the fire aspects. Although she still had all her nerves intact, and she still felt it when he reached out for her hand. She fought the impulse to jerk it back as she let him have a closer look, unsure what he expected to find.

His mouth twisted into a frown as he inspected her smooth fingertips and palms, much more interested in the faint old scars and lack of identifying fingerprints than her freshly-painted nails. “Does it hurt?” he ventured. “The glow, I mean.”

She was becoming increasingly aware how rough his hands really were in comparison.

Shego shrugged. “Used to. Now it kinda just tingles. But I mean, the first time it happened – that was yow.” She laughed a little nervously at the recollection of blacking out from searing pain and the bandages she’d worn for some time afterwards. Discovering her power in a hospital ward in Global Justice’s custody wasn’t a fond childhood memory. “It took time for my body to adapt, but I got used to it.”

The rogue doctor gave another thoughtful hum. “How did you even acquire this glow?” he asked, dumbfounded.

Her smile was brittle and crumbled away even as she quipped, “Y’know, you’d know all of this if you’d stopped to read my file.” She otherwise refused to answer.

The geeky man must have realized by now that she wasn’t so open to talking about it, because he mumbled a sheepish apology for prying and released her hand he’d probably only just realized as well that he’d hung onto for way too long. He quickly shifted his attention away in favor of her glove and the notebook.

It was another moment before Shego spoke again. “So, you’re gonna upgrade my gloves?” she asked carefully, and when he nodded, she willingly forfeited the other. Folding her arms over the counter, she leaned forward and chewed on her lip as she watched him compare them briefly for any differences beyond color.

Shego couldn’t help smirking. “You could have just asked for the specs,” she snickered lightly, and tapped on the notebook where he was brainstorming some gibberish in the tiny illegible scrawl of a doctor. She hummed wistfully after another moment, musing, “I used to think it would be totally rad to have, like…claws. But it didn’t fly with big brother.”

“Claws,” Drakken echoed in disbelief, looking back up at her finally. “Isn’t that…I don’t know, a little tacky?”

“Says you. Those goggles and that polo shirt? Yeesh.”

Drakken grunted. His face was tinged with a funny shade of purple. “You want claws, I’ll make you claws,” he sighed agreeably.

“Seriously?” She considered telling him it was a joke, but was curious now if he’d deliver. A smirk quirked her lips. The whole thing was probably a huge waste of his time, but it might be fun to see how much of his time she could waste.

“Sure,” he groaned, and removed the magnifying goggles to rub his eyes and push his usual glasses back on.

As the man squinted down at his notebook, Shego caught herself staring, inwardly musing that he might be more intimidating without his nerdy spectacles – but that was only logical. The small accessory advertised a form of weakness, however trivial and necessary, which wasn’t conducive to aspirations of being feared and respected. “You should lose the glasses,” she announced flippantly, and acted before she could think twice about snatching them off his face.

“Excuse you!” he barked, reaching across the counter for them, but she held them out of range. “I need those. They aren’t a toy.”

“I’m tellin’ ya,” she twittered as she inspected the snatched eyeglasses and then him. “You’d look badass without them. It shows off your scar better.” As she slipped them on herself, she wondered inwardly if it was the same warped and clouded vision he experienced without them. She peeked over the rim at him squinting peevishly at her.

“I’d say you look cute, but I can’t be sure,” retorted Dr. Drakken dryly, as if it were meant to be offensive. “Unfortunately, I still need them, so fork them over.” He held out a hand, fingers beckoning for the return of his glasses.

She obliged reluctantly, and he finished a couple more notes before peering back up at her, his inquiring gaze lingering a little too long for comfort while she sipped on root beer. “How long have you been like this, anyway? How did it happen?” he wondered, though it felt more like idle chitchat now. She almost answered until he added, “Team Go sprang up just a few years ago and it was short lived, but—”

Guard shooting back up, Shego snatched her gloves back and fixed the startled man in a heated glare. “Where you snooping?” she accused, paranoia rising.

“Easy, Shego, easy. I wasn’t snooping,” Dr. Drakken defended calmly, hands up in peace. “It was on the news. I’m entitled to watch the news.”

It took a long moment balancing on the precipice of distrust before she backed away from that ledge. He had a point there. She couldn’t hold it against him, no matter how much she detested the thought of him knowing anymore about her than she was willing to share herself. It was information the general populace of Go City already knew anyway.

Shego set the gloves back down and breathed deep, but still didn’t answer his question.

Thankfully, Dr. Drakken didn’t press it. “I was only making small talk,” he muttered, and it seemed he was ready to drop the subject altogether now because he was tucking his notebook into the pocket of his trousers and circling around the kitchen island to rummage around in the freezer.

Shego relaxed slightly, sitting back down and swiveling in her barstool to watch his back and sip her soda as the quiet blue man tasked himself with preparing a TV dinner. Looking to the favored frying pan gathering dust up on the wall with all the others, she wondered when he’d last cooked a real meal for himself. Not that she was about to do it for him.

Watching him ignore her, she considered a bargain long and hard before she finally spoke up again. “I’ll tell you,” she called over. It wasn’t like that information hadn’t already been leaked anyway. Nonetheless, Drakken glanced over his shoulder inquisitively. “If you tell me what your deal is with the all the blue.” And if he tried to tell her it was because he had the blues, so help him, she might just hit him with plasma.

He turned to face her fully and just stared curiously for a moment. “You want to know why I’m blue?” he asked dumbly, as if no one had ever asked the obvious before.

She gave a halfhearted shrug in confirmation.

The man leaned back on the counter and frowned, rubbing his neck as if the subject was a sore spot, but he chewed it over and took a deep breath before giving her the gist of it. “Classic tale of an experiment gone wrong,” he said with a moody huff. “It wasn’t even mine. I was an intern at a research lab owned by some big shot, Gemini. Some damn top-secret experiment malfunctioned, I got caught in the crossfire, and there you have it. I’ve been reduced to just the blue freak ever since.”

“Gemini?” Shego uttered, blinking at him. Hearing that familiar name shouldn’t have been so surprising. Still, it was unexpected. She tilted her head questioningly. “Did he have a personal vendetta against the director of Global Justice?”

“Bingo.” He shot a finger gun at her. “How many Gemini do you think there are?”

Shego eyed him suspiciously for another moment, until the man began to shift uncomfortably. She racked her brains, connecting the dots, and took a wild guess as to the picture it formed. “You don’t happen to have superstrength, do you?” she asked with a small incredulous laugh, but Dr. Drakken only gave her a funny look. She took that as a negative. “Do you know what he was trying to do?”

The man’s brow furrowed at her, as if he was the one ill at ease now. Good. “Not a clue,” he said slowly. “It wasn’t my post. Why?”

She only smirked and waved dismissively. “Nothing.” She didn’t need any more details anyway to convince her that the whacked-out twin brother of Global Justice’s head honcho had been trying to recreate Team Go. Had Gemini ever succeeded, she was sure she’d have known about it.

Dr. Drakken made a pleading sort of whine and tapped a foot irritably, and he didn’t need words to convey he was displeased that she clearly knew something about his condition that he didn’t.

She denied an explanation though, instead scoffing to herself and shaking her head in amazement. She might share her suspicions later, if she was feeling nice. “Small world, that’s all,” she mumbled.

“Indeed,” grumbled Dr. Drakken. He spun around and slumped over the counter to watch the microwave, as if there was really something of interest was going on in there. “Your turn, Shego.”

But Shego smirked wryly, leaning back on the counter and crossing her legs, giving her foot a bounce. “I said I’d tell you. I never said when I’d tell you,” she teased.

Drakken groaned. “Of course.” He hung his weary head, though it was counterproductive in trying to rake his hair back as he ran his hand through it. He waved dismissively at her, ordering, “Be gone, then. Dementor is bound to want payback, so go watch the surveillance or something.”

“Aye-aye, captain,” she said, hopping off her barstool and leaving her gloves and a smashed soda can behind. She had more engaging company to track down.

Shego had to mindfully keep her pace in check until she was out of Dr. Drakken’s personal living quarters, and from there she all but skipped through his workshop and down the twisting flight of stairs. She didn’t even pause to check the surveillance feed, taking the shortcut through the office to hit up the rec room in henchmen’s forbidden domain.

She’d found a routine over the course of the first week, the scenario quickly becoming part of her daily ritual. Dr. Drakken would unwittingly put her on surveillance watch, and while he was busy tinkering in his lab or vanished into the depths of the lair, Shego might order some pushover henchman to the CCTV desk in her place while she occupied herself with the rest.

They were all threatened to keep her prohibited visits on the down low, though she sensed threats of knuckle sandwiches weren’t what kept them quiet. More likely, the thugs just didn’t want her ban being reinforced. She was fine with that, to an extent.

It was unfortunate she wouldn’t have the enjoyment of breaking the tantalizing rule of don’t mingle with the henchmen for much longer. By day, she made it her business in the lab to annoy Dr. Drakken at regular intervals with trivial things like mocking how creepily engrossed he’d become over a stupid pair of gloves, or by refusing to budge from his cushioned computer chair when she was ordered to come test the effectiveness of new adjustments. He would be sick of her by evening and tell her off, usually shooing her down to the office, when she could slack off and go join the guys.

Eventually, she was caught red-handed.

++X++

The special order had been a welcomed distraction from the monotony of constructing power staves of a short life expectancy and shorter warranty for a villainous client. After several days of several scrapped prototypes to give him grief, Dr. Drakken at last finalized what he hoped would the last set of custom gloves he slaved over for a while.

Just as he applied the finishing touches, something missing began to nag at him. He poured over a mental checklist and looked over the new-and-improved gear, but that wasn’t it.

He was ready to proudly present the polished product of his handiwork when he discovered he was alone.

Which shouldn’t have been so damn disheartening.

Over the past couple weeks, he’d begun to get used to not being the only soul in the lab, whether he liked it or not. If it weren’t for the aloof subordinate’s nitpicking or devotion to being a nuisance, he might say he enjoyed the company, even if she wasn’t much for conversation. There was something relieving about having someone other than himself to divulge his process to at least, even if it did go in one ear and out the other with an occasional scoff or snarky remark he had to decipher as feedback.

So when Drakken turned around to call for her, the name died on the way out as he scanned the hollow cavern of his lab. He pulled back his sleeve to check his watch, brow furrowing. It wasn’t even noon yet, and he couldn’t recall dismissing her. The subordinate wasn’t duty-bound to stay by his side though, so he shook off the undue disappointment.

He checked his living quarters, expecting to find her scrounging up a lunch in his kitchen or lounging on his couch watching television. When he didn’t find her there, he prowled across the lair to her bedroom and rapped on the door, ready snip at her if he found she was napping, but he received no response. Boss or not, he grudgingly accepted the potential for repercussion if he were to invade the volatile woman’s privacy by simply opening her door to steal a peek.

His next course of action was to stalk down the hall and to his office to scan the surveillance feed in hopes of pinpointing where the elusive woman had strayed off to.

When he did find her, he was none too pleased with where.

Skipping the intercom, he set off at once, winding deep into the lair, to order her back to the lab in person. It was good to show his face to rest of his subordinates once in a while anyway – to at least remind them who the boss was around here.

Drakken stepped out on the catwalk that ran through a spacious man-made cavern serving as the gym, and glared harshly down at the scene below him. His frown quickly dissolved as he stared, puzzled.

For a minute, Dr. Drakken wasn’t sure if he was watching interpretive dance or a genuine quarrel among the four involved below. The swings and kicks of the henchmen held a very real force behind them, but the former superhero ducked and dodged with fluid movements and feline grace. She must have had the situation under control, because when she held up her hands to signal for a timeout, the men froze and allowed her to go along physically manipulating stances and chiding them before they resumed at her goading – or order? – to come at her like they meant it.

By the bruises and welts blemishing their faces, Drakken surmised that this wasn’t the first time they’d had such a session, but what began as a sparring exercise escalated as the men became increasingly frustrated with the newcomer continuously besting them. Drakken watched as their demeanor began to slowly change as their tempers rose, and he gripped the guard rail as he waited with baited breath for some sign it was time to intervene.

In a maneuver that made Drakken wince, he watched as Shego dove at one goon and flipped him over, pulling a backbend to slam the brute on his head. She proceeded to bounce away in time to evade another henchman charging at her with his fists flying. She laughed meanly as he stumbled over his fallen comrade, and she turned to try catching the third to attempt the move again, perhaps to test if the bumbling idiots would fall for the same trick twice. This one had wizened up and avoided her hold, but while she was dodging his punches and kicks, she managed to slip behind him, and even Drakken was surprised when she seized him by his belt and wife-beater, hoisting the thug clear over her head to toss him into another.

Even without her glow to aid her, she was stronger than she looked. She must have a touch of superhuman strength too, Drakken decided as he studied the woman jeering as his men, coaxing them onto their feet to attack her again. The sparring carried on for a few more minutes, the newcomer smiling and laughing in delight every time she got the better of the henchmen she toyed with.

Shego was rather enjoying herself. The henchmen, not so much.

And strange as it was, Drakken might have been enjoying it a little bit too, because he folded his arms on the rail to loiter, watching the show with profound interest. True, there was some shame seeing his men defeated with such ease, but he still smirked at the flicker of glee to have someone better than them on his team.

Some minutes later, two men still left standing managed to get the best of her. While one distracted her, the other swept a leg under her heels from behind, her reaction time just an instant too slow. As she fell back with a startled yelp, the men closed in, one of them snatching her arms so she couldn’t catch herself and bounce back up, and the other grappled for her ankles. Her smile was replaced with a disgusted sneer. Shego’s amusement had vanished as they fought to pin her down while she writhed and gnashed her teeth at them as she swore orders to let her go.

One henchman on the sideline nursing a black eye shouted at the active players to watch out for her hands, but the fools didn’t heed his warning as they scrapped with her on the floor.

Drakken couldn’t believe their impudence as the henchmen’s objective became crystal clear. One kept a secure grip on her wrists and the other fought past her thrashing legs to her belt. She was clearly not enjoying the roughhousing anymore as she spat a final warning at them to back off or else. Orbs of plasma were charging up in her hands when Drakken whistled sharply for attention.

Everything halted, if only for a split second.

The startled men released her and backed off abruptly when they finally realized they were being watched, and Shego hastily leapt to her feet, stumbling as she whirled on the men to discharge her plasma blasts at them as they scrambled out of the way. By the shouts of alarm, the two oafs having a go at her hadn’t known about her superhuman gifts.

The livid young woman turned her back to all, her head down and mane of hair sparing her from having to look at anyone for a moment while she fixed her belt and checked her zippers. She took a moment to calm own, heaving and visibly reigning herself in as she flexed her fingers, glow flickering erratically until it ceased.

She didn’t thank Dr. Drakken for the intervention, oh no. Instead she glared at him up on the bridge above, her lips pulled back over her teeth in displeasure as if he were the one in the wrong here. “I didn’t need you calling off your dogs!” she snapped indignantly up at him. She spat in their direction for good measure as she retreated up the staircase to join him, the steel rattling with each hasty stomp.

“Oh, I know you could destroy them if you wanted,” Dr. Drakken said airily, hoping to let it go for the moment. Though it did give him an idea for cruel and unusual punishment. He glared down to the henchmen returning to their exercises, but they didn’t look terribly shamefaced for attempting to assault the new recruit. Something about the grins the two instigators exchanged was enough for Drakken to go with his gut and write them off.

“Don’t disappear on me,” Drakken called to the newcomer’s back as she made for the exit ahead of him. “I need you in the lab.”

“Whatever,” she snorted.

Drakken almost snipped at her to watch her tone when speaking to him, but thought better of it.

On the way back to the upper level, the woman slowed her stomp. She combed her fingers through her hair and smoothed down her uniform, and double-checked her belt to be sure everything was in perfect order. Finally she threw a glare over to Dr. Drakken as they entered his office, and he knew the elephant in the room hadn’t disappeared just because they’d left the henchmen back in the gym.

“Here’s the deal, Doc,” she ground out bitterly. “If you wanna keep me around, you’ll get rid of them.”

He blinked over at the tense scowling woman stalking alongside him. He might have already planned their dismissal on impulse, but the subordinate’s command still surprised him and elicited an obstinate reaction. “What makes you think you’re more valuable than them?” he retorted in reflex, not especially happy to be bossed around to such degree.

Shego scoffed. “Because they’re a bunch of Henchschool dropouts and have to tag team for more than an hour just to wear me out enough to knock me down,” she answered, following him up the stairwell. “I’m not working with sex offenders that are gonna try pulling some sleazy shit on me. That goes for you too.”

“Understandable,” Drakken grudgingly grumbled, and he swore he could feel the daggers gouging into the back of his head. He’d have to brush up on everyone’s records. “Whatever happened to them being a bunch of pansies? I thought you wanted to hang around hardened criminals and lowlifes.” If it had been an attempt to lighten the mood, he’d failed miserably, quickly realizing she didn’t find his teasing humorous when he peeked back.

The woman snorted again and sneered, “Not the kind that are gonna turn on me like animals.”

He shook his head, grimacing. “It comes with the territory, Shego. If you had stayed away from my men like you’ve been told, they wouldn’t be a problem,” he argued weakly, but suddenly she was a step above him, looking down at him as she poked him hard in the chest, her glare burning into him. She could push him down the stairwell to his demise if she wished. It was pretty steep, and he was suddenly all too aware he’d never had a handrail installed.

“It’s me or them, Dr. Drakken,” she seethed venomously. “This is nonnegotiable. I mean it. They go or I go. What’s it gonna be?”

Dr. Drakken held up his hands in peace. “Okay, you,” he hastily agreed before he could overthink it. “I choose you. Henchschool dropouts, as you put them, are dime a dozen, but there’s only one of you. I’ll review staff tonight, if it makes you happy.”

“Good,” Shego said arrogantly, and turned back up the stairs, leaving him to tug his collar and hope she hadn’t seen the sweat on his brow. “You know, if you didn’t have that kind of criminal on your team, maybe you wouldn’t have to worry about them acting out of line.”

“What can I say? They’re cheap,” Drakken admitted unhappily behind her. “It was never an issue before.” It wasn’t like there was a foolproof way of weeding out such seedy fellows, but he wasn’t about to argue the matter here on the staircase, no matter how tall the order.

Shego peered back at him with a withering glance that told him she would be holding him to his word, but for now that was the end of the discussion.

++X++

Back up in the nerdy tech lab littered with scrap fabric and half-built staves, the rogue doctor wasted no time in handing over the new and improved pair of gloves.

The old pair from Global Justice was looking rather shabby in comparison, fiber frayed around the knuckles, and signs of wear around the palms as well. Shego was happy to toss them aside. Inwardly thrilled that the self-proclaimed mad scientist had actually come through for her, she kept a lid on her eagerness as she pulled on the brand new custom pair.

The new set looked slightly less like dishwashing gloves, with lightly padded knuckles, and sleek and slim-fitted over the fingers for dexterity. Seamlessly incorporated into the tough specialized fabric at the fingertips were the so-called claws she’d requested in jest and had tried to tell him so repeatedly. Though she was sure he’d added them to remind her to be careful what she wished for, she was still pleased by the surprisingly natural feel of the unobtrusive extensions.

More importantly, the hand protection didn’t hinder her glow at all – and most shockingly of all, her glow was indeed amplified to some degree, just as promised though she wasn’t even sure how he’d managed the feat. It only took one flare up to find out that much.

The new set of gloves fit like a dream to boot, but she knew that much from earlier prototypes. It was still something else to see it all come together in a finished product.

Depending how they held up, she might have to finagle more out of him.

Shego’s smile fell and she jumped when the blue man cleared his throat behind her. Wearing a strange sneer that almost passed as a smirk, he suggested she take the new gear out back to put them to the test. She hadn’t been outside in days, not even for a smoke break, and the thought of fresh air – along with releasing pent-up energy and getting a feel for what her new liberating gloves were capable of – was effective in bringing the smile back to her face.

She expected Dr. Drakken alone to accompany her. She was wrong.

He stopped before he could exit the lab with her, humming as a thoughtful look crossed his face, and turned back. She was told to wait outside for a surprise.

She wasn’t sure if she liked the prospect of a surprise, but she wasn’t kept waiting or guessing for long. As much as she itched to blast something while she waited, she resisted taking it out on the parched pines climbing up the slope beyond the expanse of blacktop wrapping around side of the oversized garage.

When he joined her, she was sure she didn’t like the surprise, whatever it was. Not keen on being made an exhibition, it had her frozen with a sort of stage fright as his crew of henchmen marched out from the side-door of the garage after him. Approximately a dozen rugged men – she didn’t stare long enough to count – congregated, all in red jumpsuits. The masks that usually concealed the better half of their faces were removed, but the broken dress code was the least of Shego’s concerns.

Dr. Drakken came to stand beside her, giving her a wry smirk, and motioned for the gangliest of his crew. The youngest henchman scurried out hastily to set up a row of plywood dummies for target practice and retreated back to the audience just as quickly. The rogue doctor then gave Shego’s back a small push and curt words of encouragement, “Go on. Show them.”

Her fists balled at her sides. She wasn’t so sure about being put on display like this. She’d spent enough of her life being a spectacle.

The chief must have read her hesitation, because he frowned at her and then turned to address his crewmen with biting authority, pacing like a drill sergeant with hands gripped behind his back. “There seems to be some confusion lately. It seems some of you think our newest addition is a secretary, or here to be your plaything,” he barked at his crew, dripping with derision as he issued a warning. “Make no mistake. A lovely little thing she may be, Shego here is your superior, and may God have mercy on the next man to lay a hand on her.”

The booming tone of his reproach was jarring compared to the softer indoor voice used whenever he wasn’t worked up or hollering across the lair. It surprised her for a second, but she reminded herself he was an aspiring villain after all, and most had to put on a mean show if they wanted to be taken seriously, especially by a bunch of thugs as underpaid henchmen tended to be.

“Flatterer,” she hissed under her breath. Her face was hot. It was an underhanded way of goading her on, even if superior sounded nice. She took it with a grain of salt though.

Returning to her, Dr. Drakken narrowed his eyes and impatiently ground out through his teeth, “Hurry up and light some fire under their asses, Shego. Don’t keep me waiting.”

Her reservations aside, Shego swallowed and nodded despite the onlookers watching her back. As she had so often in Go City, she tried to pretend they weren’t there as she let her clenched fists ignite. Four throws was all it took to reduce four dummies to a mess of splinters and flaming debris. It was overkill. Without her medication and old gloves, it was too easy to overcharge the blows, but the gloves held up. She’d really have to practice discipline now, she realized.

Nonetheless, she took a deep steadying breath and stared in wonder at her own hands. Her lips quirked into a smile, which Dr. Drakken caught and mirrored tenfold.

The man got his grin under control as he came to stand perhaps a little too close and fearlessly considering he’d just watched her obliterate targets with ease. “Well?” he pressed, lowering his voice to keep it between them. “How’s it feel?”

It was a stupid question when the answer was written on her face already. Between the new liberating gloves and having prescribed suppressant out of her system, she felt glee bubble up and escape in a small laugh. “Amazing,” she confirmed a little too happily. If she weren’t suddenly aware they were being watched by an audience, she just might have hugged the man for making such freedom possible – but she quickly locked that notion away. Such gratitude would be unbecoming of her now.

He was sidestepping away anyway, clearing his throat. He fixed the crew in a deep scowl. “Any questions?” he called out brusquely, but the crew remained silent. He stroked his chin as he paced along the row, and picked out two men from the crowd, beckoning them forward with a finger rather than by name. Either of the men could have flattened Drakken if they so wished, yet they humored him with hateful glares he appeared to willingly overlook.

Shego’s stomach lurched as she glared back at the loathsome men who’d made an attempt to rough her up mere minutes ago. Sure, she still burned with malice, but she couldn’t help flicking a disconcerted glance to the blue man presenting them to her as if they were gifts. Dr. Drakken’s smile didn’t reach his eyes, and he raised his brow expectantly as he nodded to them.

She had a hunch what was coming, but she was done. Demonstrating her capability on wooden dummies for the ignorant crew was enough. Still she had the gut-wrenching suspicion he had every intention of pushing it further. There was no reason to push it further, and yet—

And yet, Dr. Drakken was speaking loud and clear again. “Since they thought they could have their way with you, why don’t you return the favor and have your way with them, hm?”

Both humiliated and put on the spot, her skin crawled as she studied the grave mask of malevolence Dr. Drakken wore as he shoved the larger of the two men roughly toward where the incinerated targets had stood.

Shego stared at the new dummies standing rigid in their place. Live dummies.

Even if they deserved a lashing and she had reason enough to bear a grudge against the men, she wasn’t sure about raising a hand to them as they were. She would have wailed on them in the gym minutes ago had Drakken not interrupted, but now they were just standing there among the cinders and ash, doing nothing more offensive than giving her ugly looks.

Shego glanced to Dr. Drakken again, waiting for him to laugh and say it was all a twisted joke, but the stoic man stood to the side with his hands behind his back, reminiscent of a bailiff watching men on trial.

She was frozen like a deer in the headlights, stunned with disbelief at what was expected of her and entirely unsure how to proceed with dishing out punishment. Her fists curled as she weighed how badly she wanted to see them hurt.

After another moment, Dr. Drakken stalked back to her, shaking his head in exasperation, and grabbed her roughly by the arm. She almost twisted away. “Shego,” he hissed quietly. “You’re making me look bad. Show me you can be merciless.”

“But—,” but she was interrupted before she could articulate an excuse.

“Need I remind you, had you been any ordinary girl, these men would have hurt you. Horrendously. So punish them already and get it over with. Kill them if you want. They’re expendable.”

“Kill?” she uttered in surprise. She’d been at least partially responsible for deaths before – by mistake – in the heat of the moment – but it couldn’t be proven she was to blame for the casualties. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see the goons on display pay after what they’d tried, but murder might have been a touch too severe.

Suddenly one of the men on trial made the dire mistake of calling the bluff, and not in a particularly clever way. “Pussy,” the thug coughed under his breath. The man was cracking. The moron must have decided to let his mouth go unchecked if he was on death row for a little misconduct. “What’s wrong, boss? You sore the mistress is a slut?”

Like she hadn’t been called names before.

Before Shego could roll her eyes, the crack of a gunshot split the air and the offender jumped, crashing into the other at the spark of a bullet striking the asphalt where he’d stood a moment before.

“Do something to them, Shego, or I will,” Dr. Drakken snarled over to her, only lowering his revolver slightly. She recognized it. So it wasn’t just for show.

“I thought you were above using those,” Shego snapped, stepping back from him. She could understand now why the henchmen avoided stepping out of line.

Dr. Drakken waved the gun in a dangerously flippant manner. “Well sorry if it’s tactless!” he drawled bitterly. “It’s effective, and this isn’t the time to argue about villain tradition. Show these men you are not to be reckoned with, Shego. That’s an order.”

“What do you expect?” shouted the moron who was lucky to still have toes at the moment. “You hired a hero!”

Nasty names she could handle. Nastier idiots mistaking her for an easy target she could handle.

But like a magic word, it was that accusation that set her off, and she didn’t need any more encouragement than that. If the vile thug wanted a fight, he could have it. She’d show them just how much of a hero she was.

Letting a furious scream rip, Shego lunged into action to make an example of the offender before Drakken could shoot the fired henchman himself. Hand blazing hot – too, too hot – she let the swipe come down before the goon could dodge, connecting with the man’s torso with enough power to shred through his overalls and carve into the unthinkable beneath. A hot knuckle sandwich and the heel of her boot weren’t the taste of her they’d wanted, but it was what they got as they tried and failed to fight her off. One tried to flee, but he didn’t get far – as one plasma shot to the back and he was down for the count. He was the luckier of the two.

This time there was no intervention in the brawl, not that it lasted long enough for anyone to try.

Her brothers were thousands of miles away, but in her head, she could hear them screaming at her to stop over the roar of blood and her own scream in her ears.

Once the men were down, her fury died as quickly as it had been kindled. In no time at all, she’d overdone it, and she didn’t stop to wonder how many teeth she’d knocked out as she leapt back from the whimpering bloody pulp she’d been laying into.

Shego left the battered men sprawled on the ground as she abandoned the brutal scene without a glance back. She examined her knuckles as she went. The new gloves were sullied and in need of a good wash, but otherwise they had held up well, and the sharpened tips served a function after all, though she didn’t want to think too hard about it or that Hugo had been right that they weren’t too conducive to hero work.

Dr. Drakken barked an order for the offenders to be taken care of, and then he wasn’t far behind her, although he kept his distance.

#The Company You Keep fic #drakgo

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ranilla-bean · 7 years

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7, 8, 15, 16, 20, 30!!

yooooo giulia thank!!

7. How often do you use references?

Practically all the time tbh. It’s always important to go back to reality when you’re drawing, I feel, and I think Plato’s ideal forms theory is a good analogy (even if it’s complete bullshit). Basically, he theorises that there’s these perfect ideal forms, and that reality is just a copy of these ideal forms (i.e. there’s like the Perfect Triangle, and in reality we have copies of the Perfect Triangle), but in the copying process there’s inevitable little errors. So when you try and make a copy of these copies, it becomes more and more imperfect each time you do it. So it’s always good to go back to the original and copy off that; it’ll just help you pick up on stuff.

Also one of my old VA teachers had this excellent saying of “draw what you see, not what you know” which summarises this idea quite well; the way we think a tree looks is probably nothing like what it is, or even the way we may think water is blue but it could be clear/green/yellow in certain lights, etc. Real life references force you to think in terms of reality –> art, as opposed to semiotic sign –> art.

8. Do you draw professionally, or just for fun?

I prefer to just do it for fun; it’s a hobby, so I can’t feel pressured to do it. Also the one commission I’ve done was a compleeeeeeete pain in the arse so if I am to do one again I’m going to really push up the prices and put some rules in place so I don’t Get Exploited Again Ha Ha.

15. How long does an average piece take you to complete?

Honestly it really depends? Also I don’t really keep track of time when I draw. I think that a face/bust with watercolour is maybe half an hour at most??? So not too long.

16. Do you draw more today than you did in the past, or do you draw less?

On average I draw a lot more now than I used to, and I have hard evidence of this from my sketchbooks because it used to take me a couple of years to finish one and now the one I’ve been using for less than half a year is practically finished, even though I’ve started using both sides of the pages.

My friend’s getting me a new one for my birthday lmao.

I haven’t been drawing a lot of “proper” stuff lately though, mostly scribbles and prac sketches, and I certainly haven’t been drawing as much as I did during my summer holidays (when I went to Melbourne/Geelong I basically did a mini travel diary in my sketchbook and drew everywhere).

20. What is the easiest thing for you to draw?

HECK I dunno there’s a lot of stuff I can draw which doesn’t require much skill hahah (i.e. clouds, stick figures, circles, lanyards, ties). Plants are ok with references???

30. What inspires you to not just make art, but to be a better artist?

I get motivated to be a better artist mostly by looking at other people’s art and going like ‘holy shit that’s beautiful I wish I could draw like that’ and then making myself draw more so that I can LMAO

Like in general I think it’s important that art exists in “dialogue” with other art/artists; like you shouldn’t just create stuff and hoard it all to yourself and refuse to interact with other art because you would lose the influences and development that these opportunities offer.

#um #thank for the questions frand!!!#carlpalmer

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blueisunlucky · 7 years

Text

1. more cereal than milk 2. no 3. a broken adventure time card holder given to me from the one that got away on halloween three years ago 4. i don’t drink coffee & i take my tea with two sugars, sometimes one and a half, depending on the size of the mug 5. yes 6. no, but i’d like to 7. - 8. words 9. no 10. side 11. shipping each other with males whom they have a vague connection with (e.g. makes a teacher laugh once, sees a random boy’s name on their Snapchat contact list that we don’t know,) 12. earth 13. my brother showing me a meme 14. spiral stairs, raw brick walls, a neutral colour scheme and warm fairy lights. lots of them. these fairy lights will be stringed across the walls and have candid poleroid photos pegged to them. tables covered in newspaper clippings, sketches of plants and fairytale creatures, cutouts from magazines and used mugs. strange abstract paintings from market stalls that we thought were funny, creaky wooden flooring and shaggy rugs on top. 15. 99% of our solar system’s mass is the sun! the sun is fucking huge 16. spaghetti without the sauce 17. blonde, but people think it wouldn’t suit me. blue seems intriguing 18. i used to write these cheesy erotic short stories about my friend and some guy (see no. 11) on scrap pieces of paper for my friends to annoy the said friend. these papers are now lost, but the memories of them aren’t 19. no. i have tried, but i always forget about it after a while 20. blue, for the first girl my heart latched on to. 21. i don’t have a specific bag, but an assortment of school bags that constantly broke or were horribly bulky that i kept pushing or bashing people 22. is anyone? 23. write, but i never get the time anymore 24. yes 25. me break into someplace? ha i’m a pussy 26. what is this question? my school shoes, because i’m obliged to wear black shoes? 27. bubblegum is already a flavour 28. sunset 29. one of my friends literally lights up from about 20 to 100 if you mention something she likes. she has such pure, childlike enthusiasm 30. yes 31. socks. I despise the rise of ankle socks. you’re paying the full price for half a sock. like?!!1!? otherwise, i enjoy all socks, frilly, knee length, comical, odd. maybe not sports socks though 32. i have never been out with my friends after 3am. sad times. 33. apple pie, no doubt 34. i had a stuffed tiger toy called “Tiger” but pronounced like “Tigger”. he wasn’t the Disney one. my father bought it for my mother, and she gave it to me. my younger self called him my husband and I liked kissing him. he currently sits at the back of my wardrobe. 35. i am the stationary whore. i steal and hoard pens, pencils, rubbers, coloured paper, paper clips, etc, that i find on the floor or abandoned in classrooms when the coast is clear. 36. coldplay 37. messy 38. the sound of chewing, saliva, and those sort of things 39. i’m not sure. if i had to choose, i’d guess grey? 40. i have a gold ring with a gold bow on it in the drawer of my wardrobe. back in high school, me and my mates had this inside joke that one of my friends and I were “married”, so one April she and the others came to my house and she joke proposed to me. 41. Thanks for the Trouble, by Tommy Wallach 42. i wish i had a small, pretty corner coffee shop to tell stories about, but i just don’t drink coffee. all i got is the Starbucks and the Costa’s i grab hot chocolates from when i’m outside and alone, or when my friends feel like it 43. probably my cat 44. AS results day. we all got crappy grades, and the four of us sat in a playground and laughed 45. no 46. compasses and protractors are banned from my school because they’re considered weapons of math destruction 47. peppercorns 48. i don’t think i had a fear when i was younger, but now i fear rejection and being seen as boring 49. i’ve never owned a record and the last CD i had was given to me during primary school. everyone uses online copies now, unless they’re being aesthetic ™ 50. stationary (see no. 35). 51. Jenny, by Studio Killers 52. is Hollyweed considered a meme? 53. nope. i’m uncultured swine 54. my mother 55. pretend to forget, like faking momentary amnesia, and boy, it was the worst decision i’ve made to this day 56. nicknames, gift giving outside of holidays or birthdays, remembering little details 57. chaotic, suicidal, but nearing the end, strangely peaceful 58. i’m the vodka aunt, for i spike my own tea with it, as an “experiment”. I’m yet to find the wine mom 59. religion 60. yeah, i like it. La Belle Dame Sans Merci, by John Keats, at the moment, but i haven’t read enough to make an informed decision 61. a toy cross bow for my father. he never used it, and i don’t know why i got that; i just wanted to get him something. for me, a penguin cuddly you from a girl i hardly talked to anymore. i was sixteen or seventeen i think? i don’t mean to be rude but why? 62. i don’t have time to drink in the morning. the exception would be when i was doing that vodka-tea experiment (see no. 58) 63. my books are currently in a rainbow colour order. if they weren’t, i wouldn’t care too much 64. a pale blue, with a smudge of purple-grey clouds 65. the first friend i ever made, Tusma. she moved houses at the end of year three. i haven’t seen her in about eight years 66. depends. i’m torn between going dainty and picking yellow: buttercups, dandelions, daisies, with soft clovers and the occasional purple wildflower, like a rugged, forest fairy. or standing fierce, a red rose crown, thick with thorns, holly leaves and berries, some crushed, scarlet liquid dripping down my forehead but eyes staring straight ahead. 67. powerful, invisible, stealthy 68. cold, bitter, sometimes dry like a cough or wet and uncomfortable. it doesn’t snow anymore 69. scrabble, monopoly 70. in year nine, some kids decided they wanted to use a ouija board. i was curious, and i walked into the science room they were planning to use when the teachers were gone and the lights were off, despite my friends’ protests. it wasn’t an actual ouija board, but an imitation, scribbles on a piece of paper. i can’t remember who did it with me, but i’m pretty sure some of them were the popular kids. we felt no presence, although everyone tried their best to scare each other. we never said goodbye. no ghosts have haunted or killed me yet. 71. earl grey, or normal tea with a sprinkle of ginger 72. i feel as if i’m going to forget and can’t handle things, but i rarely note things down. i seem to cope, just 73. daydreaming, procrastinating, not being able to keep my own secrets 74. shy, quiet bean, needs to be protected at all costs, their laugh is more of a giggle, good at art, baby of the group, secretly wants to get drunk and make out with people, i suspect a little bi-curious but i can’t be sure, has technology and food kinks (but not at the same time) 75. i have a black and white cat named Wallace, after Wallace from Wallace & Gromit, because he eats cheese. he has a wonky tongue because he cut it on something but we never found out what that something was. he’s eleven years old, so he’s getting on now, and i think there’s a rising rivalry between Wallace and a mysterious black cat that keeps popping up near our garden 76. revising, duh 77. have never tried pink lemonade, so yellow 78. hateclub 79. sent me a claraxeleven edit as means to make me stay when i was thinking of running away. i thought only those deep in the doctor who fandom watched those, and it may have suggested i was rubbing off on him 80. lilac. i chose it because when i first moved into this room i was sharing it with my younger sister, so i wanted to choose a colour that she wouldn’t hate that was also not pink 81. watery brown stone (cba) 82. yeah, i was usually in the top or second top groups 83. i don’t buy albums, so i wouldn’t know where to start 84. yes. a small TARDIS at the back of my neck. maybe a ruffled feather, despite it being a little cliché, it has a literal importance to me. something related to space on one of my thighs, and perhaps something with roses, or skulls 85. unfortunately, no 86. i don’t know what those are 87. The Imitation Game, High School Musical, Edward Scissorhands, Men in Black, Shrek, Home Alone, Independence Day, The Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter, Hidden Figures, the Star Wars trilogy, Freaky Friday, Titanic, Jurassic Park, Alien, Terminator, Jaws, Jumanji 88. dancing when i’m alone, and dabbing (sorry not sorry) 89. debatable 90. it isn’t a city, but my favourite place is the Isle of Wight. i first tried tea in a big blue breakfast room at the b&b and learned to play pool at a pool table you had to put a pound in to play. i fed a lamb and my brother wet the bed and we watched a Lara Croft movie in our little room and it rained most of the time but i loved it all so 91. no where 92. barely sprinkles 93. bedhead, sometimes brushed 94. yesterday, a boy who loves me but i ran out of love months ago 95. nothing unusual 96. procrastinate 97. myer briggs? what is this? capricorn, gryffindor 98. NCS, where we all hiked across the coast of Wales, and at the end of it i thought my legs were going to fall off and my feet were all numb. beautiful views though 99. If I Lose Myself, One Republic; Give Your Heart a Break, Demi Lovato; Get Out, Casey Abrams; Oh No!, Marina and the Diamonds; Spectrum, Zedd 100. past, because i know what i’d do

#i spent hours on this #and no one will care

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maedarakat · 7 years

Text

Margin for Error - Chapter 7

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 - Part 6

Ruff groaned irritably as she dunked the next dish into greasy, sudsy water. It's not so bad, just a small pile left, then you don't have to even think about dishes until after dinner, she told herself. You can do it.

It wasn't that the task was particularly hard, it was just unpleasant. Globs of oil skimming in the water's surface, damp drying towels, mysterious floating debris in the lukewarm cloudy water that bumped against her submerged hands . . .

She. Hated. Doing. Dishes.

It was even worse this morning, when the water couldn't seem to stay heated. Fishlegs' idea of dropping dragon-heated rocks into the tub was far better than waiting for a pot to boil over the fire, but it could use some fine tuning; those heated rocks hadn't lasted very long against the frigid temperature of the well water. The tub had barely stayed hot enough to allow Ruff scrub the bacon grease off the skillet. And now her sponge resembled a wet lump of black lard. Ugh, gross.

It was impossible to clean off the dishes any longer like this - maybe she could go out on the deck and summoned a dragon to give the water a friendly little blast. Ruff was already hearing the sound of big wings. Was that Hookfang?

She saw the big orange dragon and hurried to flag him down, nearly tripping over a box that someone had placed in the doorway. A box full of dishes . . . greasy, moldy, crusty dishes - even a scorched pot or two. Who had -

"Hi!"

Seething, she spun around on the owner of the voice.

"Hi, Snotlout!" Ruff greeted through her teeth, oozing with dangerously false sweetness. "What's all this?"

"Oh, well, Astrid told me earlier to grab all the hoarded plates us guys hadn't brought back to the kitchens so they could be cleaned."

"I believe she asked us all to do that a month ago." Ruff iced.

"Yep! And you know what? This morning, I just happened to remember."

Ohhh, she wanted to punch him right in his smug little face. Ruff hoped this meant his yak-pants were ruined.

"How did you even hoard this many dishes?!" she shrieked, throwing her hands up. Honestly, if the situation was any different, she'd be impressed.

Almost half the island's dishes and pots were in this freaking crate. All of them completely disgusting. She held up a soup pot so burnt that its bottom was bulging outwards, utterly mystified. "And how did they get like this?!"

"They aren't all mine, I just took up a collection. You can thank Astrid for that particular masterpiece - I think it's one of her failed cooking experiments. Saw her trying to bury it behind her hut."

"And so you unburied it?!" Ruff screeched in outrage.

"Pretty much. Enjoy! Whoooo! SNOTLOUT!" He hopped into Hookfang's saddle and they flew off, just barely dodging the furiously hurled cook pot.

Ruff let loose a long stream of decidedly unladylike invective.

She fumed at the box, wondering if she could just push it off the deck. Those dishes had been missing for a month - and maybe nobody would notice all the broken crockery on the rocky shore below?

That's how Dagur found her, trying to drag the entire thing toward the railing.

"Huh. Wow, those are some nasty dishes."

"Ack!" Caught in the act, Ruff straightened up to face him. "You saw nothing!"

"Hmmm, nope, pretty sure I saw something almost happen," he teased lightly. Seeing Ruff's crestfallen look, Dagur hastened to reassure her. "It's okay, I actually came to help you do dishes. I figured it isn't fair - you having to do them all alone, just because of me."

Ruff's eyes widened at that, then softened. "Awww, really? You came to help me?" Her smile faltered a bit when she looked back at the crate. "Ugh . . . even if we get the water hot again, it's gonna take all day to do those. And by then it'll be dinner time, which means even more dishes. You sure you don't wanna just look the other way while I chuck them all into the ocean?"

Dagur looked thoughtful, and then suddenly grinned. "Funny you should mention the ocean . . . I think I have an idea."

---------

If there was anyone on Berk who Tuff knew not to push his luck with, Gothi was near the top of the list. The tribe's Völva had a gentle healing touch, but a mouthy patient usually wasn't above receiving a sturdy whack with her staff or even one of her dreaded ear-pinches.

Tuff kept his complaints to a minimum as Gothi's bony fingers pressed and prodded his bruised ribcage, though he couldn't help but squirm. She looked surprised when she found no breaks or dislocated ribs. Tuffnut almost blurted out that he'd already had the latter, but explaining how they been fixed and by whom might cause some problems.

Once her examination was complete, Gothi motioned for him to put his vest and tunic back on and scribbled a message into the dirt. She then hooked one of Gobber's helmet horns with her staff and dragged him over to read it.

"Hey, now! You're awful bossy. Right, I know, you've got things to get on to, well so have I! Grump's going to eat everything in the forge if I don't hurry back."

Gothi looked up at him half-lidded, unimpressed.

"Alright, let's see - she says you'll need a hook - OWW! Sorry, off the hook, doing any heavy chores. And that it's a miracle you don't have anything broken, so try not to do anything stupid and reckless for at least three weeks. You'll have to breath very deeply several times a day to keep from getting ill. It'll hurt, but do it, because coughing when ye get sick will definitely hurt worse."

"Yeah, I hear that," Tuff winced at the very thought. Even sneezing sounded like agony.

Gothi smoothed the dirt with her foot and wrote something else.

"Aside from all that," Gobber translated, "Is there something you should be telling me?"

Tuff blinked, unable to stop the guilty look that crossed his face.

"Ahh. Thought so. Well out with it, then. What've you stolen, or broken, or --" Gobber looked down in surprise as Gothi gave him a light prod toward the door with her staff. She made a dismissive motion with her hand, as though shooing off a chicken.

With a shrug, and a glance at Tuff that suggested it had been nice knowing him, Gobber headed off to visit his hopefully still-standing forge.

Gothi looked at him sharply and drew something in the sand. All at once he realized that this had nothing to do with the fugitive Berserker they were hiding. Tuff stared at the crude arrow sketched in the dirt and swallowed hard.

"Did you dream about the arrows too?" he muttered, looking up at her. "A sky full of black glistening death?"

The Völva went a little pale at that and gripped her staff tighter, leaning against it. Okay, so maybe he'd been a little too dramatic there . . .

It was only a moment of weakness, for Gothi straightened up and nodded briskly at Tuff, patting his shoulder. She gestured for him to get up and go on his way.

"Wait, that's it? That's all you wanted? No details, theories, hypothesis - nothing? Just gracias, mi hijo, buenos dias?"

Gothi gave him a remarkably patient look and then nodded again, gesturing for him to leave. Tuff frowned, but obeyed. He knew he should be honored she even believed him, but being simply dismissed afterwards was upsetting.

Maybe if he and Ruff had been trained officially in spae-craft under a Völva, it might have been different; his input would actually be valued. Either way, he didn't regret learning what he knew from his mother, even if it wasn't considered 'good' magic.

"Hey," Heather greeted him, on the landing with Windshear. "Gobber just told me you're excused from hard labor, which I thought would be good news. So what's with that expression?"

"Eh. It's nothing," Tuff shrugged. "Guess I better go see Mom. Wonder what the Chief meant by her having her hands full?"

"It's nearing harvest season. Are any other members of your family helping out with that?"

He thought about it, and shook his head. "No, Uncle Sven and Cousin Lars have their own fields. Other than the kitchen garden, we have more chickens than crops, so mostly we sell eggs."

Tuff brightened a little. "I'll get to see how Mom's little chickens are doing. Maybe there was a hatching recently. Oh, Heather, I hope it's so - you haven't lived until you've held a soft fluffy little peeper in your hands."

Heather smiled as they walked together toward the Thorston home. "That sounds nice. My village used to have chickens and every morning I'd collect the eggs from my family's coop. I learned to leave the brooding ones alone pretty quickly."

"Too true, Heather. Those proud little mothers certainly know how to bite." Tuff smiled at her until he noticed the melancholy look that passed over his friend's face. She'd been doing better until he'd found Dagur, with the whole missing her family thing. Tuff sighed softly; she and her brother needed to talk.

Both siblings seemed to be holding back information that could help them understand what had happened - with Oswald, with her village. Until Heather felt ready to relive that pain again, she wasn't going to be able to listen, and Dagur wasn't going to make her.

"Have you ever had a rune-reading?" Tuff blurted, startling Heather out of her thoughts. "Just sat yourself down with a nice aromatic cup of tea, while letting someone sing to the Norns and spirits to find all the hidden answers? It can be very motivating. Maybe even soothing, for a lost troubled soul such as yourself."

"Tuffnut, I'm not a 'lost troubled soul'."

"Aren't you?" he asked dramatically, raising one eyebrow. As Heather stared at him flatly, he waggled them ridiculously until she started laughing. He joined in, slinging an arm around her shoulders as they walked.

"Seriously though, you should let my Mom do a reading for you. She's pretty good, and it won't even cost you money. I'll work something out with her." Heather looked a little unsure but Tuff just grinned. "It'll be okay. You could even ask about future loooove. You and Fishy, sittin' in a creek . . . Wait, no, that's not how that goes."

She blushed, but looked a bit more relaxed at that. "You know what, sure. Maybe it could be fun."

"There we go! That way you won't be bored while I help Mom with whatever she needs help with."

Heather nodded and leaned into his one armed embrace. "You and your family seem pretty close," she noted.

Tuffnut shrugged, thinking of who else was waiting at home. "Eh. Most of us. A little more than half at least." His father would be asleep at midday, drunk asleep by the fire in his chair. There shouldn't be any trouble with him while Heather was over.

One could always, always hope.

---------------

“You ready?” Dagur asked, balancing carefully on Belch’s neck. The Zippleback had agreed to let him ride, though it had taken several mackerel (Belch’s favorite) to warm him to the idea. To be fair, the Berserker and the two-headed dragon did have a rather unpleasant history and Zipplebacks never forgot.

Ruff beamed at him, and eagerly twined the rope around her arm to make sure their load was even. “I was born ready for this!” she crowed.

Dagur grinned back at her and the two of them urged their dragon to swoop down over the ocean, hovering purposefully too close to a breaching Scauldron. It ignored them for a while, but as they persisted to trail it, the Scauldron lifted its head above the water and glowered at them balefully, she needscheeks puffing out.

Ruff and Dagur dropped their cargo directly in the path of boiling spray, letting the rope go slack as they flew up out of the way. The blast hit the net full of soiled crockery full on. Ruffnut whooped as she saw the dirt, sludge and grease run off the dishes and pots, splattering into the ocean.

“Oh, that is nasty!” laughed Dagur. “I can’t believe they were going to make you clean all that by yourself!”

“Hey, if I get to do it this way?! I want to do dishes all the time! Sign me up!” Ruffnut blew a fond kiss at the Scauldron, which grumbled at them now that they were out of range. She reached back to the saddlebag behind her and pulled out a salmon, tossing it down to the Scauldron. The water-dragon caught it, and swallowed the fish whole. It looked up at them expectantly, waiting for more.

“Hey there, pretty boy! Can you do me one more solid and fire some hot water again?” Ruff asked sweetly. “There’s more salmon in it for you!” The Scauldron made a curious sound but didn’t seem averse to getting more fish, lazily treading its tail through the water as it waited.

Ruffnut shook something over the net – a powder made from dried soap flakes and soda ash. “My mom uses this stuff when she needs to get something really clean. It’s been passed down through the Nut family,” she explained to Dagur.

“Neat! I’d like to meet your family someday.”

“You’d want to meet roughly half my family,” Ruffnut smirked. “The half that isn’t all jerks.”

She again blew kisses at the Scauldron, thinking of the one she’d met and helped so long ago. It obligingly sucked up some more water and blasted the boiling liquid directly at the net, causing even more sludge and slime to dribble out.

“Alright! Here you go, scale-baby!” Ruff called lovingly, and tossed another couple salmon down.

The Scauldron snapped them up and turned to swim off with its prize. She made sure to save some for Barf and Belch, who were obviously getting jealous of the strange dragon.

On the way back to the island they dipped the net into the ocean and dragged it through the currents to fully rinse everything. “If all that doesn’t get these clean, nothing will,” Dagur shrugged.

Sure enough, the dishes were all but sparkling in the sun as they flew high enough to pull them out of the water. Ruff let out another whoop of victory. “Best. Chore. Ever!”

Dagur smiled at her, impressed. “You’re really good at training Scauldrons.”

“Thanks, but I didn’t train him. We just did each other a favor. One time Tuff befriended a Typhoomerang just by yakking at it. It ended up saving our butts from a forest fire, but didn’t stick around. I don’t know how he does it – he just talks and talks and somehow dragons like him enough not to eat him. I just make sure to always have lots of fish on hand.”

“True. Never met a dragon who doesn’t love fish.”

“Well, we have! It's called the Whispering Death. Those things don’t like anything. Tuff’s impossibly in love with them – I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve had to drag him away from trying to hug one.” Ruffnut gave an exaggerated sigh. “Thank Loki he’s moved on to chickens. I can handle chickens.”

Dagur smiled, shaking his head fondly. “I’m glad you two get along so well.”

“We don’t all the time, but I get what you mean. After we put the dishes away, there’s a few hours before dinner. Wanna check out our boar pit?”

The Berserker perked up. “You guys have a boar pit!? Uh, yeah I want to check it out!”

Ruff cackled in delight as they flew back to the Clubhouse. “This is gonna be awesome!”

-----------

Tuff must have missed her more than he realized, for the moment he saw that familiar shape clad in vivid colors, he quickened his step.

His mother was a broad-shouldered woman who seemed to like wearing the brightest of colors - if only to flaunt that she could easily make her own dyes and dress like the noble woman she wasn't. Her rainbow rags cheapened the otherwise expensive indigos, reds, and purples that upper class families preferred, especially when worn for doing laundry in the front yard.

The outrage seemed to amuse Madge Thorston greatly; anytime Tuff had seen villagers openly scorn her clothing in the market square, she had stood up straight and laughed for an uncomfortable length of time in their faces.

His mother was proud, brave, and strong. Nothing could bring her down, make her submit, or stop her from doing exactly as she pleased.

Well, maybe except for her husband.

That explained why she was out in the yard even past noon, face and hands reddened from the cold and scrubbing linens across a board. Tuff grinned at her as she looked up, expression changing from annoyance to surprise as she recognized her son.

"Oh!" Madge dropped the sheet back into the pail and scooped Tuff up in a bear hug as though he weighed no more than a straw. "Ha! My scrawny son has come home! I'd half-thought you were Mrs. Nygenskar, back to pester me about her damned missing chickens."

She promptly pinched Tuff's ear between finger and thumb, causing him to yowl. "A good thing you weren't, because then I really would have popped you one. Why'd you have to be so terrible at stealing, getting caught all the time? Now everyone thinks we're thieves. Thieves!"

Heather glanced over at a full milk pail that had the Hofferson crest carved on its side and bit her lip.

"Well, Mom, we sort of - I mean, that's our thing. 'The family that nicks together, sticks together.' It's our motto," Tuff answered.

His mother let him go. "Stick out your tongue," Madge said sharply. Tuff groaned but obeyed, and she flicked it hard enough to make him cringe. "That's for having loose lips in front of a new face."

"Oh, uh, my name's Heather," the 'new face' ventured. Madge turned to look at her appraisingly. "Your son was telling me you did rune-readings?" Heather glanced at Tuff for help. He rather unhelpfully gave her a thumbs up.

"Hmm. You came for a reading, did you? Having some trouble with a certain family member?"

"Um, yes- how did you know?" Heather stammered, shocked.

"The Nut knows, my dear. Also, I've seen the same look on my daughter's face since the pair of them were born. Your brother has you at wits end just by being near, and on top of all that there's a whole different mess to sort out. Very well, there's time for tea and a reading. How much coin can you bear to part with?"

Yep. Blunt and to the point. That was Mom at her finest.

"Actually, since Heather's technically adopted family, I was thinking I could pay for her first time," Tuff interjected, coming to his friend's rescue.

Madge raised an eyebrow, thinking for a long moment. "Fine. You've done well enough making effective staves(1), so I'll have three more. One for the chicken coop against predators and thieves. Then I want two new ones for the house, one to ward against financial ruin. Another against violence.

"Carve the two into beams upstairs, but don't wake your father. I'll not have him running his mouth off at anyone else today."

Her words were sharp, but Tuff could easily hear the affection in them. "Okay, I can do that, Mom." He darted forward to hug her, and was pleased when she rested her hand on his head.

"Good, now get to it." Madge swatted the small of his back as he ran toward the house. Tuff heard her turn to Heather, who was waiting nervously. "Now my dear, do you like your tea sweet or spicy?"

Yeah, she was in good hands. Tuff knew he'd have at least an hour to carve the staves and sneak some stored bedding and clothing out the window. Hardsell would sleep through everything and he probably wouldn't even have to talk to him.

He carefully pushed open the door, only halfway before the hinges would squeak, and slipped inside, just as carefully easing it closed.

A thick hand palmed the door, just over Tuff's head, shoving it closed with a solid thunk.

Tuffnut froze as breath touched the back of his neck and he failed to register the usual snores by the fireplace.

"Welcome home," Hardsell said flatly, looking anything but pleased.

Tuff turned his back to the door and grinned as brightly as he could manage. "Hey, Pop. How've you been? I see you got your beard trimmed a few months ago. Looks good. Real good." Tuffnut's grin was strained but genuine, and his clasped hands were the only sign he was inwardly screaming.

Hardsell gave a snort and gripped the back of Tuff's neck, steering the boy toward the fireplace and the chairs that sat next to it. "Sit."

It wasn't a request.

Tuff stifled his dread and obeyed, heart pounding a little fast. Only two things could ever get Hardsell to stand up of his own volition: Needing to refill his mead mug and 'putting people in their place.' Usually with a fist or well-aimed kick. Cutting words were also a given.

Gods, no wonder his mother was outside. Probably spending her nights in the warm family bath-house too.

"For whatever reason, you're loose in Berk. Without your sister. I take it she isn't involved in whatever disaster you plan to cause. Definitely the smarter twin."

"Oh, definitely - most definitely -" Tuff agreed, and because his anger was faster than his logic, he eased right into sass mode. "By the way, excellent job coherently stringing together more than three words - you must have switched to the alcohol-free mead."

Hardsell chuckled at him, humorlessly. Then he flung the contents of his mug into Tuffnut's face.

Tuff yelped in pain and wiped at his smarting eyes. The liquid stung terribly, but not like mead . . .

"That's vinegar, boy. Gothi's prescription for a failing liver is apparently to drink vinegar. One mug of tea in the morning, then the rest of the day and night -"

Hardsell looked at his mug and paused for too long. Tuffnut considered getting out of his chair and hiding beneath it, but of course he moved far too late.

The heavy mug hit him as he flinched down, shattering against the back of his chair. Tuff yelped as the ceramic shards flew everywhere, piercing skin and scattering unpleasantly across the wooden floor. He remained seated, trembling as his father loomed over him.

"As I said. Vinegar. Made from last year's apple harvest, I believe. It doesn't taste very good, but my mind has never been clearer. Your old man is going to be changing this family's fortune, boyo. Starting with you."

"Me?" Tuffnut asked, raising an eyebrow. He was terrified already, but he refused to give his father the satisfaction of admitting that. "Ah, I get it! This is another one of your inspiring 'get a job' lectures. That's okay, because I'm actually already employed as a Dragon-Rider of Berk. I personally don't think I can do any better, but I'm so flattered you do. I'll keep that forever in my heart. Now if you'll excuse me -"

Tuff's attempt to leave was met with a cuff to the head and he was all but thrown back into the chair. "Stay seated, I'm not done."

Well, this was just fantastic. The youth obeyed and remained quiet as Hardsell continued. Nervous fingers tapped against the frame of the seat and he hoped the man couldn't hear them.

"Your sister will bring the family money in her own way - by means of her marriage. Though she's proven too ugly to capture the attention of Chief Stoick's son, there are plenty of rich men looking for a younger bride to keep them warm this coming winter."

Tuffnut's fingers curled into fists. He hated when Hardsell insulted Ruff - especially because he only did it when she wasn't here. Cowardly didn't describe half of it.

As for forcibly marrying her off? Yeah, sure, good luck to the poor idiot that agreed to be her groom. Had Hardsell forgotten they had dragons? They could fly away from anything he threatened. Still though, incredibly uncool. Tuff held his tongue, aware he was being provoked. Hardsell took another drink and once more focused on Tuffnut.

"But you . . . you'll never amount to anything. You've no future. Why waste money on a bride for you? Would you even know what to do with one?"

Ah, the classic narrow-minded insults about his manliness he'd come to expect.

Tuff snorted, almost amused at the predictability. He didn't take the bait, putting on an air of boredom. Small beads of blood were still sliding down his face, turning gradually into streaks and stains. He focused on the little cuts on his face, absently picking out bits of debris from the shattered mug.

"Your cousin Lars - now there's a boy deserving of a girl. So we'll trade you for one. There was a visitor from afar who visited one of our family elders. Seems he's in search for a boy, about your size and build, with long blond hair and a Berkian accent. Seems this 'boy' owes some of his men quite a bit of gambling money."

Hardsell glowered at Tuff, who just shrugged. "I don't owe money to anyone. And I'd never gamble anything if there was a chance of losing. I'm not that stupid. If I was, Ruffnut wouldn't let me be."

"Hmm. Well, he's willing to do a trade anyhow. The boy in question's whereabouts, for one of his men's eligible daughters to marry your cousin."

Uneasily, Tuffnut looked up. "Why exactly would he want this 'boy'? I mean, if he's owed money, wouldn't it make more sense to just ask for a dowry?"

"Oh, we didn't pry. It's a good enough trade for me. He can decide how useful you'd be when you're his. You know what they say, boy; one man's garbage is another man's gold."

Okay, that had hurt. Tuff glowered. "That's it, I'm not buying it anymore. There's no possible way the family can sell me or trade me - to anybody - if I don't want to go. I'm a Dragon-Rider; I help defend Berk - you can't just send me away like I'm worth nothing!"

"You're only worth nothing to me, boyo. But you must be worth quite a bit to the men you owe all that gold to."

"I told you I haven't been gambling! They aren't after me!"

"Who else would make such trouble? Was it your sister, then? Perhaps you'd prefer to blame that older, more successful cousin of yours -"

Tuff scowled, growing angrier. "Don't you even try to bring Ruff or any of my totally awesome cousins into this - they're completely innocent! Lars, on the other hand . . ."

Hardsell cuffed him again, making Tuff flinch down and cover his head. "You bite your lying tongue - Lars is the son I wish I'd had."

Tuffnut growled in frustrated anger, his emotions finally getting the better of him.

"Oh, poor you, you got me and Ruff! So sad! Not like you did any work to raise us anyway - you just sat there and drank for twenty years! And now - all because someone cared enough to finally force you to quit - you're in a bad mood and you're taking it out on me and Ruff, and even Mom! Your crappy liver is not my fault!"

"Really? Isn't it?" Hardsell snarled. He gripped Tuff's bleeding face harshly, thumb smearing across a cut. "Maybe letting such a disappointment live after it was born and not exposing it to the bitter cold is the reason I started drinking in the first place!"

Tuff lost his defiant sneer and simply crumbled, devastated. He glared through it, trying to will away the hot tears filling his eyes.

His father was full of shit; there was no way he'd actually go through with this or that the family was planning to. Hardsell was simply trying to hurt him, as usual.

Well, he'd fucking succeeded.

Even now, the man was watching him carefully for a reaction, so obviously itching for a reason - any reason - to hurt Tuff even further. The youth decided not to give him one and simply got up, pushing past the bigger man to go upstairs, to the loft where he and his sister used to sleep.

Hardsell said nothing, save for chuckling and sitting back down.

Somehow that hurt even worse.

Tuffnut took a few moments to get his head together, and gripped the dragon-toothed necklace around his throat. It was times like these he really missed having his sister with him. She would have known the exact thing to say to make that jerk pucker his lips shut.

After a few deep breaths, he took a knife out of his pocket and began to carve a stave into the beam above the stairs. His hands were shaking badly; he nearly cut himself twice and once almost dropped the knife entirely.

Still, he managed to carve the first - a protection circle with symbols warding off ruin. He began to make four marks within the circle - one for every member of their family. Mom, Ruffnut, himself, and . . .

The tip of the blade was digging into the wood, ready to make the mark for his father, but Tuffnut was unwilling to commit to it. A bead of red blood dripped into his eye and he wiped it away, staring at the smear of red on his fingers.

Bright red, just like . . .

There was the memory of warm arms around him, of kind words and a sincere smile.

Tuff's eyes spill over suddenly and with no warning. He refused to make one sound of misery, instead carving the fourth mark.

Not for Hardsell, but for Dagur.

Let the house and land wights and all the Gods protect Dagur from evil; his father could be ripped to pieces by a draugr for all he cared. Or better yet, a hill-lurking troll. Ooh, or drowned by a nokken under the ice floes - yeah, that would be fine by him. He couldn't imagine his twin being all that upset either.

Tuffnut carved the second stave his mother had asked for, against violence. It was exactly the same - he made the fourth mark on Dagur's behalf and left Hardsell unprotected.

Though Odin Allfather may frown on him for his lack of duty toward his father, Tuff knew in his heart that Loki was standing just behind Odin's throne, giving him a sly grin and a thumbs up.

He put the knife away and wiped furiously across his eyes, hitching quietly as he entered the empty bedroom. Tuffnut would need bedding and a pillow and shirts. He went to the far end of the room and opened a cedar chest.

The nicest shirt he found that would fit Dagur's frame - dark blue linen and seldom worn - was rolled up and hidden in a goose-down quilt his grandmother had sewn.

It didn't matter who it used to belong to. As far as Tuff was concerned, it was Dagur's now.

Tuff also stuffed a pillow and a fur-lined brown vest into the roll; surely his erstwhile roommate would appreciate the additional warmth. He found a set of his grandfather's throwing knives as well, and stuffed the leather-wrapped bundle into his belt. Hardsell would eventually know they were missing, but Tuffnut refused to give him the chance to sell them.

He climbed out the window and onto the roof, letting the rolled goods gently tumble down to rest over the frame of the chicken hut below. Tuffnut eased himself down as quietly as he could, knowing Hardsell might see him out the kitchen window.

He couldn't risk it. With the sour mood his father was in, he wanted no further encounters - not today, at least. Tuffnut watched the window warily for signs of movement within, and relaxed when nothing in darkness stirred. Probably sucking down another mug of vinegar by the fire.

Might as well do the last stave then; it'd be quicker than the others. Tuffnut pulled out his knife and made short work of it, scratching a mark for everyone of his mother's six (no, wait, nine?) chickens.

One of the hens burbled at him while he worked and Tuff smiled at her. He clucked back and was reaching in to stroke her white feathers when she flapped her wings in sudden alarm. Tuffnut had no time to react as a hand seized the back of his neck and pulled him away from the coop.

For a moment he strangled on the leather cord of his necklace, oddly afraid it would snap, then gasped as he was shoved down to hit the hard packed earth. Tuffnut's ribs started screaming and he gave an abortive moan, curling around them.

He didn't bother looking up at his attacker. He didn't need to.

The bed roll was dropped in the dirt beside him and shaken open, all the goods falling out. Hardsell, pulled out the blue shirt. "Hmm. A gift from your mother to me, when we first met. She dyed it herself."

He tossed it back on the pile as though it meant little; no, the reason he cared at all was because it was his and Tuffnut had attempted to steal it. That was reason enough for Hardsell to continue, but he also went for Tuff's belt, pulling away the throwing knives. "And these were my father-in-law's. I'd wondered where they'd gotten to."

If Hardsell was trying to make Tuff ashamed and submissive, he was barking up the wrong tree. That ship had already sailed.

"Oh, I can tell you that. It got thrown carelessly in a trunk upstairs, during all those years you held down a chair in front of the fire, drunk out of your mind," Tuffnut sneered.

A pair of hands gripped Tuff's upper arms, hauling him to his feet, and giving him a rough shake. "This isn't something you'd steal for yourself. That shirt wouldn't fit you, or even the Ingerman boy. You're hiding something."

Tuff winced but remained defiant. "Nope, I was just going to cut it up into rags. The outhouse on the Edge is all out of good paper."

"Lying spawn of Loki." One of those hands began to twist Tuff's arm, putting strain on his shoulder. "The vest, the shirt, the knives . . . even the extra bedding. They're for someone. Who?"

Tuffnut whined as his shoulder started to genuinely hurt.

"Let go-" he gritted out, taking back every wish he'd ever made that his father would stop being a drunken unmoving lump and do something. In retrospect, being a drunken lump was preferable to this.

Hardsell only continued, with calm purpose. Was it the mead that had kept him calm for so long? All this time, had it been merely dulling the man's hatred of him?

Tuff's shoulder burned with pain and he couldn't help the sobbing plea that tore past his lips.

-------

Madge had helped. She really had.

Not so much with casting the runes and telling her the secrets of the Norns - though that was helpful too if you really believed in that sort of thing. Rather, the Thorston matriarch had a level head, a wise outlook on life . . . and lots and lots of experience when it came to talking to estranged family members.

If Heather could boil down the whole experience to one phrase, it would be that seeking out the truth is far more cathartic than blind forgiveness could ever hope to be.

"Usually," Madge had said, blowing across her teacup, "You'll end up mad at yourself for not asking the truth sooner. You deserve to know it, certainly. Your brother deserves to be given the chance to tell you. There are reasons he did what he did, not excuses - but reasons.

"I think it's worth noticing that he's never once begged to explain away his actions. He knows what he ended up doing was wrong, no matter what information he was or wasn't told."

A strange statement, but Heather hadn't had time to ask anything further; a neighbor had showed up unannounced to argue over something missing. From the sound of the raised voices, it was going to take a while. After twenty minutes of waiting, she'd set down her tea and walked politely away, heading toward the house to see if Tuff was finished yet.

When the front door did not open she, walked around to the chicken yard.

For half a moment, Heather stood there utterly frozen in shock.

Seconds later, she was bending back two of the man's fingers - forcing him to let go of Tuffnut. She used the grip on Hardsell to spin him and twist the man's arm against his back, slamming him into the wall of the coop.

"Don't. Move," Heather hissed, beyond incensed. Her axe's edge pressed against his jugular. She didn't know or really care who this stranger was, but he was no doubt responsible for the blood and marks she saw on her friend's body.

"Tuff, grab your things, okay?"

"Yeah," came the ragged answer. "H-Hold on." Tuffnut managed to kneel, gathering up the scattered items and re-rolling them. He stood with difficulty, and bundled it under his arm. She saw him looking helplessly at a smaller wrapped parcel of leather further away on the ground.

"I got it." Heather let go of Hardsell to snatch it up, never looking away from the dark-haired man, who glowered right back. He didn't keep it up, eventually lowering his eyes from her piercing glare. "Keep walking, Tuffnut."

Heather didn't sheathe her axe and kept looking over her shoulder until they came around to where she'd last seen Madge. After one look at them, the woman turned from her argumentative neighbor mid-sentence and moved swiftly toward her son.

Mrs. Nygenskar took a long gander over the apparent situation and walked away, obviously finding gossip more valuable than her chickens.

"I may actually kill him this time," Madge murmured, looking him over. Tuff swallowed hard and fell into the woman's arms, dropping the roll to hug her tightly.

"Stay somewhere else for a while?" he begged. "I think Pop's gone insane."

Heather felt her stomach twist. Part of her had suspected, but hearing it confirmed was still awful.

"Tch. Why would I leave my house? I can handle him. Hardsell doesn't raise a hand to me, and . . . Gods, I'm sorry, boyo. I thought he'd be hard asleep." Madge sighed and dipped a rag into the bucket of clean rinse water, gently dabbing at the cuts on Tuff's face. "You don't worry for another second on me; get back to that base of yours before dark. Let the grown-ups handle all of this."

Tuffnut hitched and looked up at his mother imploringly. The desperate worry on his face made Heather's chest hurt.

"Neither of us want to leave you in any danger," Heather supplied for him. She still had yet to sheathe her axe. That was how much Hardsell had alarmed her.

"Oh, I won't be. I'm fixing to kick him out for a couple nights. Let him miss the fire's warmth and sleep on the benches in the Great Hall. I'm sorry he laid hands on you. I promise it won't happen again - he'll be on good behavior by the time you both visit for Snoggletogg."

Tuff nodded, smiling ruefully. Heather wondered how many times he'd heard that same promise and her heart ached for her friend. She put an arm around Tuff's shoulders and finally put away her axe.

"You two have a safe journey back. Don't cause more trouble than you can handle, and tell your sister the same. Give her a hug from me, whether she wants it or not. Heather, I hope our short time together was helpful."

"It was . . . thank you." And please be safe. Heather returned Madge's smile and turned, wordlessly coaxing Tuffnut to walk beside her. They would go to Gobber's forge and see if Hiccup was anywhere near done with the wing prosthetic.

Tuffnut was quiet for a moment as they walked, occasionally shivering. Heather was inwardly distressed, not having any idea what to say, but her friend solved that for her.

"You, uh . . . you remember that time we blew up that ship together?" he asked, lightly jostling her shoulder. "That was fun, huh?"

She looked confused, then realized he was changing the subject. "Yeah, it was - Tuff, should we take you to see Gothi? Is your shoulder -"

Tuffnut pulled away from her questing hands and rolled his shoulder, forcing it back in with a small crunch. The resigned pain on his face showed Heather he was far too used to this. "It hurts more when other people put it back in," he explained, not meeting her eyes.

Heather gazed at him, understanding, and drew him into a hug. "If you don't want to talk about it, it's fine. Just know that I'm always here if you do."

Tuff made a small weak noise, face muffled in her hair, but he didn't push her away. "Okay," he whispered shakily. She let him go and he raised his face, expression worryingly blank as he fought back tears. "We should find Hiccup. I think I've had enough of Berk for one day." Tuff tried to laugh, but it sounded more like a dry sob.

Heather linked her arm with his, and walked with him in silence to Gobber's forge.

- Tbc

Notes:

1.) Staves are sigils - in Norse magic, a passed-down or self-designed symbol that is made for a purpose. There are staves for binding prisoners, staves against getting lost, or drowning - even staves for picking locks! Madge has taught the Twins all her own staves, passed down through the Nutt family, and how to make their own.

Here is a link for further examples and information: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_magical_staves

#tuffgur #dagur the deranged #tuffnut #rtte

9 notes · View notes

kyberled · 7 years

Note

does braig use any different colored ink in his journal? or doodle?

Ask me stuff about Braig! || Always accepting

He does, actually! His journal is less a traditional sort of ‘diary’ and more of a mish-mash of tally-mark lists, such as ‘Times Obi-Wan Flirted With The Enemy (STOP)’, and it’s sorted into little boxes to keep track of who has been flirted with - There’s a box labelled ‘Ventress’ filled with ticks (the page across from it, labelled ‘Surprise, It’s Ventress’, has just as many ticks), one labelled ‘Grievous’ with a few uncertain marks and question marks, one labelled ‘Dooku’ with the word ‘NO’ written in all caps, bolded, and underlined, ‘Geonosian Queen’ with a small sad face, ‘Other’ with a few marks, and ‘the Literal Incarnation of the Light Side of the Force’ with ‘Gramps, we need to talk’. - another page labelled ‘Times Anakin Probably Should Have Died But Didn’t’, ‘Ahsoka Saves The Day’, and other such lighthearted pages, as well as more serious ones like ‘Battles I’ve Survived’, though this one has shaky, unsteady lines, since he tends to tick those off right after the battle ends. It’s almost therapeutic, in a sense - a way to say ‘look, I actually made it’. Sometimes, if he’s feeling really discouraged on a mission, or in general, he flips to that page and just sort of goes, look, I made it this far, I can keep going for a while longer’ and tries his best to steel himself for the coming battles. It also has lists, like ‘planets I’ve been to’, ‘planets I want to visit’, ‘languages I’ve learned’, ‘languages I want to learn’, ‘weird things Gramps has eaten to avoid offending the locals’, etc. There are also a bunch of pages of notes from lessons and lectures he’s heard, books he’s read, even rough line-of-action sketches of older knights doing forms - he’s not necessarily a phenomenal artist, but he’s figured out how to get gestures down, mostly due to practise/trial-and-error. On top of that, there are blueprints and designs for his sabers and any changes he might have wanted to make. There are also more typical journal entries, records of his thoughts and experiences… The entire book is basically organised chaos made manifest. Braig knows how to find everything and it does help him organise his thoughts, but he’d probably be asked to re-order the contents if he ever wanted to submit it to the Temple Archives.

And to answer your question, each page is covered, margins and all, with all sorts of scribbles, doodles, and additional notes. Paragraphs are peppered with underlined phrases, circled potions, arrows connecting circles to underlines, like to like, separate excerpts or quotes to each other, bits scratched out, comments written in free space, all that good stuff. On the saber designs, he scratches out bits that don’t work out, makes notes as to why they didn’t or where they failed in the dojo-oriented test runs, circles around parts he wants to change, but isn’t sure how yet - or just to highlight parts for whatever reason; The ticked-off pages (lmfao) have quotes or notes to explain what the ticks are for, like ‘Cody punched a droid’s head off’ on the ‘Cody Was Awesome’ page or “Kenobi, you almost look surprised to see me!” (Note: we were not.)’ on the ‘Surprise, It’s Ventress’ page. The one absolutely covered in writing is a page tucked into the back cover of the book, in a notch he got in the leather, titled ‘Reasons I Have The Best Mentor Ever’. It’s filled, front to back, margins and all, with ticks, quotes, notes about things like tea varieties and ceremonies, languages, lessons and corrections he got, random little things Obi did - just something Braig keeps track of. He thinks it’s too sentimental for a Jedi, but it’s something nice to look at when he’s feeling horrible so he can cheer up, but he wouldn’t really tell anyone about it it’s kind of really personal and again he thinks it’s not a Jedi-ish thing. … And if this sounds cute just remember Rodi and I have had it so the only times Obi ever found out about it were after Braig’s untimely death, usually when Braig was a young padawan. Again, when I said Rodi and I don’t let our boys be happy, I was was serious.

He has a small collection of pens which he sort of hoards in his room or his robes, since actual writing utensils seem like they’d be pretty hard to come across. Not impossible, but difficult. As of right now, he has one (1) rather nice fountain pen he spent a long time saving up for, that writes in dark green ink - kind of a pine, if we’re being specific. This is one is pretty special to him, and he doesn’t take it on missions with him. He uses it for titling pages, or actual diary/journal entries, since he doesn’t really want to waste the ink - inkwells are even harder to find than actual pens. He also has two (2) cheaper pens, the sort you can buy in bulk at Staples or whatnot. One is a pen with a cap that’s a little nibbled on and writes in bright red ink, and the other is a click-pen that writes in black. He’ll take these on missions, or even let other people borrow them, as long as he can trust them to be returned. He has one other pen, as well, given to him by Nihrik as a Lifeday present - It’s roughly 20 000 years old, carved of bone, and engraved with an ancient Chaulean script that Reyvahl translated to say ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’. It writes with gravity, and its ink is reportedly ‘A deep crimson colour disconcertingly close to blood’. He doesn’t take this one out of his room, aside from the one time he brought it to Reyvahl for language lessons. He uses this one similarly to the fountain pen, only for titling and journal entries. Since he doesn’t take it out of his room, most of the entries written in dark red are either recounts of his days in the Temple, recounts of missions he’s just gotten back from, or dreams he’d just woken up to. Menial things like that. Sometimes, he’ll use the red bone pen to edit the green fountain pen’s writing, and vice versa; Or just write in paragraph-style notes, here and there - he doesn’t use the fountain pen or bone pen for idle doodling. In fact, because both pens require precision to use, unlike his cheaper set, he uses these to refine or clean up the lines of his saber designs. He’ll use the cheap ones for anything and take them anywhere, but the more expensive ones, the ones that would be difficult or impossible to replace, he is more careful.

The doodles in his book can be anything, but some general themes include small lightsabers, flowers, spirals, the Jedi Order logo, the Republic logo, little stars and/or planets, letters/words/etc in languages he’s learning, anything like that. Sometimes, he’ll scribble droids, little attempts at star ships, but those are a bit more difficult, and he doesn’t like flying. Piloting isn’t his strong suit. Typically, it’ll be those things I mentioned before, but he also draws/doodles things he sees. So, if he was scribbling on Kamino, he might scribble a Kaminoan, or some fish or whatever, or might scribble a rough lil mountain range if on Alderaan, etc etc. Usually, it’s either to help him concentrate or paradoxically because he spaced out, though he does use more complex sketches (eg blueprints) or entries to calm himself down after bad nights. It’s kind of therapeutic.

#this is a lot but his journal is super important to him so he wanted to ramble #long post //#scriptorus #&& give the sun a head start; ooc #&& as best i can; answers #&& temple archives; headcanons

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ecotone99 · 5 years

Text

[RO]

Portrait of a Portrait

https://medium.com/@mr.cat.computer/portrait-of-a-portrait-629b0a57b9c4

https://mr.cat.computer/2017/02/28/portrait-of-a-portrait/

His hair was long and oily, curling slightly upwards at their ends in an open rebellion against gravity which mirrored the expression that had been etched into his face over years of defying what others condoned as common sense. His choice in clothing indicated a preference of holding onto comfortable, well-worn items: his faded olive green jacket which showed its age through its broken zipper, tattered velcro wrist-straps, and easily-missed burn-holes from back when he still smoked. If you held it against your nose and breathed deeply, you could still smell the smoke from all those years ago. It illustrated the side of him I liked the most: that endearing loyalty to things which had endured the good-and-bad with him.

His wristwatch might have been the only item that glimmered a hint of the richness beneath the rags: but even that, on closer examination, had scratched up steel-straps where his hands had rested on desks as he’d worked long hours toiling over computer programs, or those rarer occasion when he’d chanced to bump into something through one of his deft, practiced movements.

Usually, he bumped into me. Then he’d come back and caress the spot, like that was going to make it any better; he did it with a sensuality that made it pleasant, forgivable, and altogether familiar.

Much of his behavior conveyed an open disregard for aspects that might have bothered other people: how he went out with me to fashionable places in those same faded clothes with a two-day shadow upon his jaw and chin which he would stroke almost proudly, how he enunciated the grooves his glasses had left upon the bridge of his nose by taking his spectacles off only to massage those very darkened spots.

It was only when you looked into his razor eyes that you could see how effortlessly he could remedy any of these visual artifacts, if only he found a compelling reason to do so. I gave him none for I had accepted him as he was, and as if I was his only reason for doing anything, he thus did nothing.

We didn’t talk much. He didn’t coddle our relationship by decorating it with words or telling me how he felt each day or what work had been like. There was the occasional outburst when he just had to rant on about something completely technical, and I could only help by interrupting him with trivial questions that he always answered with the greatest attention — so much so, he’d often completely forget what he’d been rambling on about in the first place. Then I’d have to gently remind him with a sparkle of humor. I loved moments like that, moments of knowing I was the only one privy to this aspect of him.

I held a keen awareness of the fact that he relied on me the same way he relied on his pencils to draw those sketches that bordered on artistic; relied on his dusty mechanical keyboard to write stories that fell short of being literary; and relied upon his aged electric guitar and tube-amp to produce those sounds that seemed to thrill him as being musical where others would have criticized it as meaningless noise.

In just the same way, he relied completely and wholeheartedly upon me to be his anchor to humanity, else he would certainly have careened away in any breeze that happened by.

It was in this unspoken reliance and attachment to me that our love existed: he loved me, and I loved that he needed me. His dependence was so juvenile, he would go so far as to regularly point out jewelry and clothing on other women and then say, “darling, wouldn’t that look so much more stunning on you?”

In similarly naive manner, he occasioned to fashion love poems he’d leave hanging on the refrigerator, saying such things as “thine beauty hath chained my soul; without thee I shalt never be whole… be back late” to indicate another restless night of wandering the streets, struggling to draw upon that tenuous river of inspiration that flowed within him.

I asked him once, “what compels you to write, to draw, to make music when no one cares to read, to look, to listen?”

He smiled in a mysterious way. “You do.”

I blushed. It was true; I couldn’t help but listen and look and read and see that all his art, every last bit of it, even those scribbles and vague sketches: all of it was devoted entirely to me.

“I sometimes wish I had more to give to the world… but immortalizing my love for you is all I have to gift.”

I both loved and hated that he said that. I adored that he could not help but express his love for me in so many ways. I hated that he belittled it as though it were something so small when to me, it was more valuable than the world itself.

Can’t you see your own worth as a man?

I knew he was blind to that. No one had ever told it to him — not even me, for I secretly feared if he understood the true magnitude of who he was, he wouldn’t care to have anything to do with me, not when there were so many more selfless and beautiful women out there.

Selfishly, I despised myself for hoarding his magnanimity. In a certain word, I’d always believed that it was the woman who makes the man. Our marriage had cemented that belief, but in so doing, I began to feel an inexplicable burden of guilt for transforming an otherwise talented and ambitious human into one not so different from myself: comfortable with the status quo, content with a life of quiet insignificance. I wondered what more he could have become that he chose not to. His passion for me was what I loved; it was also what I hated most.

Often, he would come home and I’d be occupied in the kitchen, and he’d constrict his arms in a manner tighter than a hug, so I couldn’t move or escape if I wanted to. I rarely felt anything when he did things like that, at best I found it a nuisance and loathed it.

Except that it was the loving sort of loathing one gets after hating something for so long, one can’t help but feel comfortable with the familiarity and fall in love with it.

Of course it was more than that — some deeper part of me felt satisfied in an inexplicable way, because it was his gesture to communicate: “I’ve been thinking about you dear, and all the things you have to deal with when it comes to me, everything you take care of without my asking…”

I knew that was how he meant it because as soon as I’d stilled myself and stopped what I was doing, rolling my eyes with a faux pas frown he was forced to notice, he’d caress my fingers, seeking out callouses and imperfections, rubbing and enunciating them. Then he’d begin kissing my cheeks, particularly the beauty marks and all the speckled imperfections that he would often touch in gentle reminder. “Perfection in imperfection,” he’d wink.

Those were his ways of saying “I love every inch and last detail, the good and bad, the beautiful and ugly.”

He was so dependent. So very dependent. And I so very much needed that dependence, I almost despised myself for my addiction to it. I was his opiate and he was my liquor.

Sometimes, out of boredom, I’d say something arbitrary like, “I hear there are some beautiful beaches in Bali.”

Then ten months later, out of nowhere, he’d rouse me one morning with his lips against my neck, his arms in an uncomfortable embrace. We’d get up for breakfast, and he’d present me with an already-packed bag, and we’d be off. Except we wouldn’t go to Bali, we’d end up somewhere quite the opposite, like Finland. I would feign boredom and irritation as he’d incessantly take snapshots of me with his semi-professional camera and small set of lenses. When I would try and reverse the situation to capture a snap of him, he’d playfully dodge, leaving it blurred, or with one of his sardonic expressions that yelped “no you don’t!”

“Look, photos are to remember things that are important to you. You’re important to me. Me? I couldn’t give a hoot about myself. Why would I want to remember myself?”

“You idiot,” I’d scold him, shaking my head. “Do you even realize how juvenile your logic is? You sound like a three-year old. I’m not taking photos for you to remember yourself, I’m taking photos for me.”

He’d shrug with the most worthless comeback. “Unlike men, I’m pretty sure women have perfect memories and remember everything. I mean, how else do they remember the most useless things to hang over their husband’s heads?”

“Like knowing all the places you forget your keys? Remembering what foods you like?”

“Buttered toast is not my favorite food.” Then, without giving me time to riposte, he’d steamroll: “To my point, men need photos to remember that things are even important and worth remembering. For women, photos are a luxury, because they already remember the things that are important.”

I actually couldn’t argue with him about that. In this way, he amassed a myriad photos of me, while I had almost none of him. I had more photos of him as a child and a young man than after our marriage. Actually, I had more photos of us during our honeymoon than in the ten years following.

When we’d return to the airport for our flight back, he’d fake a puzzled expression and say, “strange, I seem to have booked the wrong tickets…” and then we’d end up in Bali, just like I’d wanted, me in a bikini and strangely self-conscious of the slight weight I’d gained with age while he would squeeze just those aspects of me in a way that stated, “I love that, too.”

He didn’t just do this sort of thing once. This was a stunt he repeated on a semi-annual basis. In the same way that I hated how tightly he would hug me at times, ever vacation had to start with going somewhere that I definitely did not want to go.

As part of the almost cat-and-mouse nature of our marriage, there were certain things he hid from me. He was secretive in logic-defying ways, freely acting as though he were having an affair with another woman, purposefully locking files away in encrypted drives with cryptic names that suggested it was someone other than me. I knew that possibly couldn’t be true and found the way that he toyed with my insecurities and paranoia frustrating. Some days he would just… not come home until one AM, claiming he was in the office writing or working on a personal project. (To wit, I had actually installed a miniature GPS tracker in the shoes he always wore, so I knew he wasn’t lying)

He would drive me mad with such behaviour, which would invariably lead me to playing my trump card to squeeze the truth out of him by seducing him in the ways I only knew how.

Even then, his mockery seemingly never ceased. It was only through the years that I began to realize this was his strategy for openly addressing the unspoken fear of infidelity that is on everyone’s minds, but rarely discussed in a healthy way. As someone who had been in more than a few such relationships, I began to appreciate the thought behind his actions, even if I detested the actions themselves.

In spite of it all, there was one thing he never yielded on: he would never let me actually view the contents of his caches of supposedly illicit media. The thought of not knowing burned at me for a bit, but then I realized it was okay to let him have a few secrets. So long as I knew that there were secrets and how to get to them, that is. It was the secret secrets, the unknown secrets, that were truly frightening.

When I got the call about the accident, the first thing, the only thing, that I could think was: “Now I’ll never know.”

Later, I would think of myself as a terrible human being for thinking something so trivial in the light of such tragedy. It was my counselor who gently described to how our minds, not knowing how to deal with trauma, often thinks of the stupidest things as a means to cope, to distract from the true immensity of what has transpired.

After the funeral, I couldn’t bring myself to go back to our home, to see anything that reminded me of him. I went to stay with my parents during that time, embroiled in a state of constant shell-shock and symptomatic PTSD. The days following the funeral seemed like years. I spent those years laying in bed, tormented by my memories of him, by things I expected to be there. His being gone was like a missing appendage, more valuable than a leg or an arm. Some unspeakable part of me had gone missing, and my mind echoed ghost pains every waking moment.

Sleep was my makeshift cure for my permanent affliction. I did everything I could to fend off consciousness: the constant pain of being awake was unbearable; it would ebb and flow between just barely tolerable to mind-warping.

When I was awake, I found food and drink wholly unappealing and unsatisfying. It was as if my ability to enjoy anything had been almost utterly and completely evaporated. I felt desiccated, a husk whose juices had been dried out, leaving just enough to form a walking corpse, a zombie. My mind lost touch with reality for nary a month, until one morning, my mother forced me out to meet with his lawyer and review his will.

As my mind glazed past the details of the assets I’d inherited, I could only think how little any of it was worth, how thoroughly hurtful any reminder of him would be, and how everything I got felt like blood money. In too many ways to count, I felt like what I was receiving was a curse, things that would torment me which I could not bring myself to be rid of.

Then, at the end of our meeting, something unexpected happened. His lawyer gave me a letter of personal instructions. I didn’t want to read it then, but I was instructed that, as the executor of his will, I had a legal obligation to review his personal instructions in the presence of a notary, so the transfer of assets could proceed.

My heart ached and I could hardly breathe for the stone in my throat. In the end, my mother opened the letter for me, gently wiping the tears occluding my vision so I could see what was written.

It was a handwritten note, his slanted scrawling slashing through my heart. I suddenly felt glad that I didn’t have that many pictures of him, and then I felt horrible for thinking that.

See you on the other side. Don’t let me be the weight pulling you down.

Bet you’re glad you don’t have so many pictures of me now, eh?

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I’d let the lawyer and notary review the note, then I crumpled it in illogical fury, keen to toss it and just barely able to restrain myself into pocketing it. I was angry at him, his tone, the way he seemed to know what would go through my mind before I did. Most of all, I was livid at him for leaving me here alone, with so little, with so few words. This is all he could find to say, after all we’d been through? Even in death, he continued to mock me sardonically, playing those same games as if he were still around.

It was that anger that jolted me out of what I was going through.

In the days following, as I began to throw myself back into life with a frightening aggression, it began to dawn on me just how much one person has to love another to know the right words to say for something like this. How much a single person had to have thought about another person and what they would go through. Somehow, in the way I loved and hated, he’d left me feeling inadequate yet complete.

His nonchalance, machismo, and gentle affection were so tersely conveyed in those simple words — See you on the other side. It was a phrase he’d used often enough, before work, before going to sleep, before any time we parted. In all of these circumstances, it was obvious that we would see each other again. But now that it no longer was, now that such certainty had been buried in permanence, he chose the words he would have said as if… nothing had happened at all. It was that stupidly reassuring and endearing absoluteness, that idiotically absolute faith, that comforted me the most. It made life feel… like I would be without him but a single day.

When I finally got back to my apartment after spending another month with my parents, I saw his computer and something in my mind clicked. I remembered the note. I hadn’t thought about what the random string was, but in that moment, I knew.

I booted his machine up and logged in. I began to decrypt his folders. I began to gain some semblance of what he was always up to at his office.

I had always assumed he showed me all his artistic creations. I began to realize I was grossly mistaken. There were photographs of me, often when I wasn’t looking, capturing some aspect of my expression in the most natural ways. Notes about how my face looked in different light, poetry about my hair and hands, countless practice recordings of his songs that illustrated the countless hours and attempts he poured into them, and… perhaps what struck me most of all were the things he’d never shown me. Short stories he’d written about our relationship. Digital paintings of me based on photographs. There were even complete fictional novels centered around stories I’d told him from my childhood, or discussions we’d had.

Everything he had ever shown me and said to me was hardly the tip of the iceberg to the vast volumes of art he’d made about me. In his works, I began to see how much more to him there really was, how little I really knew about the person I’d married. I knew his behaviorisms, how to tell when he was lying, how to manipulate him to do what I wanted. I knew his likes and dislikes, his birthday; his past, his hopes, his dreams. I knew his tendencies, his moral strengths and shortcomings, his philosophies. I knew his focus, his almost cold-hearted look when thought through problems. These were things I had always equated to knowing a person, but they suddenly seemed inconsequentially superficial. All the nuanced complexity and shades of his soul, the unspoken and incommunicable aspects that made up his depth as a human… the core of his being, that manifested as the person I knew: this was something I had no idea about.

I began to realize how much of him was still here.

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