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bluebellhairpin · 5 months

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Katsuki Bakugou X Secretary!Reader

Summary: Working as the secretary to the famous designer Katsuki Bakugou hasn't been easy - however you find out you have it easier than most. Soon after that, you find out why.

Warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI. Power Dynamic (VERY inappropriate boss/employee relationship). Swearing. Smidge of making-out. Bakugou probably gives off manipulative yandere vibes. Reader; wears a skirt, is called 'baby', otherwise is g/n (unless I've missed something T-T).

Listening to: 'Donatella' by Lady Gaga - "I wanna dress you up in silk taffeta, tailor these clothes to fit your guilt, what's your size?"

Masterlist || Ko-Fi || Art inspired by the fic

The Bakugou brand was known all over the world. From Gucci to Balenciaga, Bakugou was a name everyone in the fashion industry respected - and when it came to the man behind it all, it was also a name to be feared.

Katsuki Bakugou, with his grown wealth, fame, and the power that went with them, was practically a god on earth.

You were the one lucky (or pitied) person chosen to work closely with him. A secretarial assistant job to none other than the man himself was a job so many people would die for. It was also a job many before you had almost died while enduring. No one had lasted longer than a year. It barely took a week for you to figure out why.

Katsuki wasn’t just a diva, or a bitch (although he certainly was those things too) - he was the devil in Christopher Goodyear Welt’s.

By three months working under the blond tyrant, you had decided your life could be worse. You weren’t sure why all his previous assistants weren’t able to handle it - not until you walked into work this morning.

Katsuki was already in his office - a situation you hadn’t come across yet since he had a strict nine-to-five schedule he adored - and was practically roaring at someone down the receiver of his landline. He had a temper on him, sure - he was as famous for it as he was for his designs - but you’d yet to see him quite this angry before.

“You wouldn’t know corduroy if you spent your nine months in the womb with it!” you heard as you set your bag aside and hooked your coat up. “Get me Eijirou you shitty prick!”

You settled at your desk, eying his shadow through the frosted glass as he paced back and forth as you powered on your computer. Your eyes flickered down to the phone on your desk - if you picked it up you’d be able to hear the person on the other end - however if Katsuki caught you eavesdropping more than you already where (not that you had much of a choice right now) you would be in a whole new world of trouble.

“Put me on hold, I dare you.” Was the final thing Katsuki said before slamming the phone back down. It became eerily quiet. You barely dared to breathe.

Hearing his footfalls softly stalk across the carpet of his office, you tucked your head down and opened a random email to look busy.

“Where the fuck have you been all morning?” Your eyes rose to meet his vermilion ones. He had on that black button down that made his shoulders seem extra wide. For a moment words failed you - but you kicked your brain into gear quickly.

“Sir, it’s only eight thirty?”

“I’ve needed you here since six.” he said, leaning forward with a hand sprawled across your desk, looming over you in a way you had become quite accustomed to, and sending a dizzying waft of his cologne in your direction.

“I was very unaware of that,” you said, almost apologizing, but then thinking otherwise. You had been learning quickly the things Katsuki liked people saying, and the things he liked less so. “What can I do now?”

“Absolutely fucking nothing. You’re useless now.” he leant back, waving you off and sighing. “I need a coffee.” he said, turning on his heel back into the office.

“Useless my ass - who else gets you coffee?” you mumbled, quickly clicking through the email so you didn’t forget to later. Katsuki could be an absolute bitch, but at least he hadn’t yelled at you specifically - yet.

The little kitchenette across from your desk made coffee runs very easy - the only issue was that it still took a while. No instant or pod coffee’s for the great Katsuki.

Ten minutes later and you were pushing the door to Katsuki’s office open with one hand full of cayenne pepper infused coffee, and the other holding the latest Vogue magazine that had just been dropped at your desk.

You wordlessly placed the coffee on a coaster, and the magazine went from the table into his hands before you could even put it on the table. He likewise silently started flicking through the pages - but you had things to talk about.

“What was the issue this morning?” You asked, straight to the point. He didn’t look up at you when he answered, instead stayed focused on the pages as he fingered through them.

“Some extra who can’t get his head out of the twentieth century.” He said, taking a large mouthful of his drink. If he liked it he’d say nothing - often the only time he gave his opinion on things was when he didn’t like something. “He won’t call back.”

“They always do.” You said, standing firm until you had the answers you sought - coming back to ask the same thing twice was such a hassle for the both of you. “I’d appreciate knowing what to say when he does.”

“I don’t care,” he said, flicking the magazine down in exasperation to look up at you with a heatless scowl. “If it’s Eijirou you can patch him through, everyone else is a complete waste of time.”

Your eyebrows raised in something akin to surrender as your hands smoothed down the fabric of your skirt.

“Don’t forget your meeting with the seamstresses after lunch.” You said, then left to return to answering your emails and phone calls.

You always took your lunches with Hanta - a seamster two floors below Katsuki’s office. You found him extremely chill after having to deal with your whirlwind of a boss. He was like your lifeline - better yet, he could keep secrets like it was nobody’s business.

“I walked in this morning and I swear the glass for the whole floor was rattling.” you said, looking down into your cup of canteen-supplied orange juice. “If I wasn’t so sure he wasn’t going to hurt me I’d probably quit.”

“You know I’m like ninety percent sure you’re his favorite.” Hanta said. Your eyes shot up to his, but he wasn’t looking at you.

“I doubt that would be hard,” you said slowly, “His past secretaries sounded super incompetent for a job this fast-paced.”

“No, not just a secretary, but a person. I think your his favorite person in the whole world.” he said, tucking a stray hair behind his ear. “He can scream at me, hell he’s thrown punches at Kirishima, and he’s Kirishima - you though? He acts like you’re porcelain.”

You felt your face scrunch up into a frown, and a huge smile cracked over Hanta’s face. “I can see why he likes you - you look just as scary as him when you make that face.”

“Hanta Sero, you take that back!” You said, voice almost too shrill besides the hum of the lunchtime cafeteria rush.

“I will do no such thing,” he said, leaning back in his chair, and crossing his arms and legs in a slow, cat-like manner. “I think it’s hilarious. Needed something new to tease you over anyway.”

“I am simply going to ignore you then.” you said. You felt your face scrunch even more, before you took a deep breath to relax. “You don’t deserve my attention right now anyway.”

Hanta huffed a laugh, leaning forward on his elbows. “I think we both know who really wants your attention, and I’m not going to be the person to fight him for it.”

Katsuki’s afternoon meeting had gone smoothly - you thought that it must mean some catastrophic hurricane was due later that afternoon. Or maybe you’d get hit by a car on the way home. Either way, the pleasant meeting meant Katsuki was either in a really good mood - or a really bad one.

On his way back into his office, he threw an order to call Eijirou at you over his shoulder, before throwing the doors open and entering his office.

“It’s important.” he said, and that was where the conversation ended. When you dialed the number only to be met with the receptionist - not even patched through to Eijirou’s assistant Denki - you practically rolled your eyes.

“I’ve got Marcel!” Silence was the stern reply. You’d spoken to him a few times - not the nicest guy in the world, so in your opinion Katsuki’s hatred of the man was valid/ You didn’t want to speak with him either, so you hung up.

Then there was a call of your name.

“Come here!” You sighed, but obeyed and walked around your desk and into Katsuki’s office. You were met with a sight that wasn’t foreign to you - but it made your heart stutter all the same. He was leant back in his chair, a large drawing pad against his folded knee, and a pencil pressed into his cheek. He was watching you closely as you walked in, red eyes partially covered by a set of half-rimmed reading glasses.

Your boss was mean, but his looks could make the devil cry.

“I am… Promoting you.” he said. You felt your mouth fall open in shock.

“I - Sir, I don’t -”

“Katsuki.” he said, voice now as hard as his stare. “No more ‘Sir’. You call me by my name. Understand?”

“Okay…” you said, voice breathless as joy swirled in your chest (finally, your hard work and patience had paid off!), “Katsuki.”

At the sound of you saying his name, he declined further back in his seat, and smiled - wide and showing off both canines.

“That’s much better,” he said, as if he’d been waiting for the change of title formalities, “Now sit down, we have a lot to talk about.”

You went to sit at the chair in front of his desk but he shook his head, almost jumping to his feet like he’d had hot coffee spilled on his lap. His suddenness had you freezing.

“No no, not there,” he said, waving the chair away with disgust, “Over there.” He pointed over to the chaise as if it was the most obvious place in the room to sit, then sat back in his own chair again.

Turning, you took a tentative seat on the sofa, and looked across at him expectantly with your tongue between your teeth. His pencil had found a new home on the open page of his sketchbook, and you quickly realized he was going to be multitasking this impromptu meeting. However he was making little to no effort at starting this ‘talk’ he seemed so urgent to begin only moments ago.

“So is there anything else to this promotion besides being able to call you ‘Katsuki’, or is that it?” you asked. His eyes flicked up at you, pencil stopped, and the side of his mouth quirked up, before his expressions changed completely to one of disapproval again.

“There’s more.” he said. You could see how tempted he was to not say more, if only to push your patience and see just how far it went. “You probably should know about it, considering just how personal things are going to get around here.”

You felt your heart beat pick up as he stood to stalk around the desk.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re going to need to find a new you, let's start with that.” he said, and pushed your shoulder back with the eraser end of the pencil. You fell back against the couch, and the pencil moved to guide one arm across the back of the chair - then crossed one leg over the other - then moved your other hand on top of your knee. Before you knew it you had been moved to pose like a sketching doll.

Katsuki gave you a once over, looking very pleased with himself (or how easy you were to manipulate), then walked back over to his desk. The pencil started again.

“You want a new secretary?” You finally heard yourself ask, voice coming out far too weak for your liking.

“More like you need an assistant.” he said, attention clearly divided between whatever he was designing, and your conversation, “Your schedule is going to be a lot busier as of now.”

“What do you mean?” you asked again. His head shook.

“If you ask that question again I’m going to have this conversation with you some other time.”

“You do know how badly you’re explaining this ‘promotion’, right?” you asked, voice coming out a little harsher than you knew was appropriate. But being proper can be damned, you wanted answers.

He just looked at you for a long moment with a knowing, albeit smug, smile. The sketchpad was dumped on his desk, pencil and glasses dropped on top.

“I’ve been hit with a new wave of ideas.” he said, “They’re amazing. New. Iconic. These designs fly off magazine racks and clothing store hangers like nothing else before. I couldn’t tell where the inspiration came from, not until I thought of when it all started, and the only thing notable about that was you starting to work for me.”

As he explained he stood slowly, came to stand before you again, now with the side of his leg pressed to your knees. Katsuki’s hand rose, and the backs of his fingers trailed across your cheek in a manner that was almost too soft, and too shy, to be an action coming from the harsh man before you.

“I need you with me, everywhere, from now on.” he said, voice low, softer than you’d ever heard it before. “I need you with me, and I don’t know how else to make sure of it besides making it your job.”

“Everywhere?”

“Of course, what use is an artist without their muse?” You had to admit, that forked tongue of his was making your knees weaker by the second. Was he truly saying you inspired him?

“You couldn’t have just asked?”

“I don’t need to ask,” his hand came down to grip your chin, thumb momentarily pressing on your bottom lip, “I get what I want.” Where his voice was getting stronger by the second, yours was sounding even weaker.

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

“You don’t want to?” Katsuki asked, hand slightly releasing pressure on your chin - as if shocked at the thought of someone willing, and unafraid in telling him no. “Everyone wants to. Don’t you?”

“No,” you said quietly, completely letting your heart take over, no matter what could happen after. “I do want to.” His face broke out into that same wolfish grin as before - his hand snuck around to the hair at the base of your neck and found a firm home there.

“Then why not get paid for it while you do.” he said, an air of finality about the matter, and then leant down to capture your mouth in a searing, hard kiss. Hard enough that you could almost feel his teeth and jawbone trying to meld into yours - searing enough that you could feel heat swelling in your stomach and knees at how fierce and needy it all was. It took your breath away completely.

After a few long moments - long enough to have your eyes fluttering closed and your lungs burning - he pulled away.

Katsuki didn’t even look at you as he walked away, acting as if what he just did was a casual kiss on the cheek - while you were left feeling flushed on the sofa. Only once he sat down again with his sketchpad and glasses on did he look up at you. He licked his lips, as if making sure to taste whatever of you was left. His smile this time was very smug indeed.

“See baby, now you look perfect.” he said, then went back to drawing.

“What?” you asked, still breathless with your nails digging into the fabric of your seat.

“The lighting in here is foul, absolutely horrendous.” He said, “You needed a glow about you. Now you’re all flustered. it's perfect. With you finally in front of me, these designs are going to be breathtaking - just imagining them on you -” he looked up at you, quite suddenly stopping his train of thought, before wordlessly returning to his sketch.

From the way your heart felt like it was going to beat right up and out your throat you guessed he accidentally said too much. Had been too sentimental. Maybe Hanta was right - perhaps you were his favorite person.

You took a deep breath and stood to leave - only to be stopped.

“Where are you going?” Katsuki asked, voice almost a bark. “I need you here - you can’t leave now that I have you right where I need you!”

“I need water.” you replied, awkwardly pointing towards the kitchenette with wide eyes as if you were a child caught doing something you weren’t supposed to. He shuffled in his seat, huffing.

“Be quick,” he said. You could swear you saw the skin of his cheeks flush a tinge of pink as you turned away. He liked efficiency, and it was something you were pretty good at, but you hadn’t moved quite that fast before.

When you had agreed to your ‘not-so-little’ promotion, you were sent home with a whole new list of Terms and Conditions and - the more alarming of the two - an NDA.

With your lips still tingling from your apparent kiss from Katsuki, and your knees still weak, you weren’t able to do much more than graze your eyes over bits and pieces before deciding it was all okay. You should’ve taken the time to read it all.

You should always read the fine print when making deals with the devil.

The next day, almost as soon as you stepped into the building, you were met with Katsuki’s not-quite-other assistant, Mina, and whisked away to the seamstress floor. There you met Hanta, who himself had been up for the most part of the night - slaving over the newest design Katsuki procured as of just yesterday.

When you were told to get into a change room and strip - the carcass of a new dress in your hands - you were just shy of shocked.

“What - why?”

“Like I know how the mind of Bakugou works.” Hanta said, waving his hand around tiredly, trying to push you to close the curtain. “You know normally I have models in for this sort of thing - I mean you definitely fit the bill. The measurements, the dress is practically made for you. But it’s weird to me too that he got his secretary to do this job instead.”

“I’ve never done this before.” You whispered, clutching the covered mock-up to your chest.

“You’ll be fine,” Hanta replied, just as quiet, with his hand ready to close the curtain on you, “I’ve seen it on a mannequin - it’ll look fantastic on you. Just be confident.”

You tried your best to be confident - as pretty as the dress was, even unfinished with an unfinished hem and seams half-done - but it was leaving you feeling more exposed than you were used to.

The small changing cubicle had a mirror on one side - what for you weren’t sure. You’d seen plenty of models walk out of them only to have most of it adjusted with pins and cut off with scissors - often by Katsuki himself. You supposed it didn’t matter how bad it looked - you’d get manhandled until it looked the way it was supposed to.

With your hands smoothing the fabric on your hips - a nervous habit you showed too often - you took a turn in front of the mirror. It did look nice, even if it was only ivory muslin.

“ - Taking so fucking long!” Quite suddenly Katsuki’s voice could be heard - and even more suddenly you felt a great need to curl up somewhere and hide. He’s going to see you like this. He’s going to hate it. You are not prepared for this.

Your heart felt like it was going to beat right out your chest and leave a little blood trail all across the floor.

A hand curled around one side of the curtain divider and pulled it back. You let out a small startled yelp, bringing up your hands to cover your chest as if someone had dropped glass over a marble floor.

It was him.

“Oh shut up, no one else can see you.” Katsuki said, rolling his eyes before they laid on you in a hard stare up and down. He was right, besides the half-open curtain, you couldn’t see anyone through his broad chest and shoulders - not to mention the cheshire grin that was taking up half his face. “But I wouldn’t blame them for wanting a peek, give me a turn.”

You stood gobsmacked - where you seriously still processing what was going on? - and watched as his hip cocked to one side and his hands landed on his hips below the huge coat over his shoulders.

“You are starting a habit of forcing me to do things for you myself.” He said, taking hold of your hips and turning you slowly. His hands were warm as they moved you around in a small circle, leaving almost a burning trail behind over your hips, lower back and stomach. “I’ll let you know that’s not why I decided to fuckin’ like you.” he said.

His voice was soft, almost completely without its usual rough baritone. It shocked you, and as you looked over at him he wasn’t meeting your eyes - instead focusing on how a seam at your hip wasn’t seeming to sit how he wanted it to.

“What?” you asked quietly, aware there were probably others outside - Hanta even - and you supposed both yourself and Katsuki didn’t really want to let other people know exactly what you were talking about. Especially since it definitely sounded more personal than Katsuki ever had been.

“You did things for yourself. I liked that.” he said. Then, as if you didn’t just share what was most likely the most intimate moment of Katsuki’s adult life, he pushed the curtain back fully and grabbed you by the hand - exposing you fully to the handful of seamstresses waiting.

With a few barked orders, a flurry of people were at your sides, making adjustments. The neckline loosened, waist was made tighter, the blade of a scissor made another slit up your legs on the opposite side to the one existing. Your hands almost rose to clutch at the fabric at your chest in case it all fell away. Katsuki's hands rose to knock yours away.

“Don’t get in the way,” he mumbled, standing back. The others backed off too, apparently all taking a moment to look at what remained of the dress. “What do you think?” he asked, looking you right in the eyes. Your mouth parted, as if to answer, but the look in his eyes said he wasn’t even talking to you.

“One of your best.” Hanta said, barely needed to look up from where he was taking final notes to read his long-time associate. “Probably will be once it’s done. Beautiful.”

“You mean fucking divine.”

“You’re joking.” you said, carelessly holding the new dress in one hand as you stood angrily looking down at Katsuki.

“Does it look like I’m joking?” he asked, looking at you over the rims of his glasses.

He’d brought you back up to his office after the fitting downstairs, only to demand you change into another dress. The reason this time was completely unknown, and he was refusing to elaborate yet - worse, there was nowhere to change up here.

You’d have to strip and change here (with him in the room), or out behind your desk (right in front of the elevator anyone could use).

“I can’t believe…” you said, scoffing, now slightly gobsmacked along with your anger. “I’m not doing that.”

“If you think it bothers me, you’re mistaken.” He said, standing slowly and leaning over his desk. “Get changed. If you’re so protective of your modesty you can run along into the kitchen, see if I care. Just whatever you do, do it quickly. You’re making me wait long enough as it is.” Then he reached across and squished your cheeks between his fingers, pulling you closer so you leant over the desk too.

“If you really thought I was the kind of man to mix pleasure and professionalism then I’ve got news for you.” he said, wobbling your chin back and forth in his hold. “The only time you have to worry about that is if I invite you home, okay baby?”

While half of you was wanting to continue to defy Katsuki, you knew you were treading a fine line.

Letting out a huff, you pulled away, turned on your heel and held the dress out in front of you. It honestly wasn’t much more than a silk slip, but you’d had enough of an interest in fashion over your time to know this was very tame compared to many other dresses. Even compared to the one you wore not even an hour earlier.

Grinding you jaw in thought for a moment, you thought ‘fuck it’. Katsuki said so already but you knew someone getting almost naked in his office wouldn’t bother him - why should you let it bother you too?

The dress was thrown onto the chaise, and you pulled off your shirt as you slipped out of your heels. Your skirt shimmed off, and the dress came on. Despite refusing to look behind you to see what Katsuki was doing, you couldn’t help how your heart felt like it was going to beat right out of your chest.

At least your underwear was matching, thank god.

You were about to do up the zipper when he made it clear he had indeed been watching you.

“No, take that thing off.” Your head whipped over your shoulder.

“Excuse me?” If looks could strike someone dead, a lightning bolt would’ve shot right through that window into Katsuki’s back. “I am not getting changed again.”

“No you bitch, I mean the bra. Take it off, it’s making the dress look daggy.” The way he said it made your face heat up. Duh.

“You could’ve said that before I put this much on, you’d think you’d have known that before now.” You grumbled, shoving the sleeves down again to unclasp your bra and toss it aside. Turning around again as you did up the zipper, you looked at Katsuki again, and the red of his eyes seemed darker than ever. You wondered if you’d said something wrong. Then his lip quirked up a bit.

“There’s my favorite secretary.” he said, and imminently tilted his head down to start sketching.

#katsuki bakugo x reader #bakugou x reader #bakugou katuski x reader #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bakugo x reader

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cheapshrimpysheep · 1 year

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Broom Flying Tutoring

SUMMARY: How would it be if they were assigned by Coach Vargas to help you with your flying lessons?

CHARACTERS: OB Students (Riddle, Leona, Azul, Jamil, Vil, Idia & Malleus)

TAGS: Fluf; GN Reader

WORD COUNT: An average of 340 words per character.

CONTEXT: Seeing how bad you were doing in the flying lessons Coach Vargas decided to pair you with another student. Either with someone who is good at it to help tutoring you or with someone who is struggling just as much as you are for the two of you to help each other. But what if they also have a crush on you?

Coach Vargas chose him for being one of the best students in the class.

He's a great tutor, strict, but good. If he has a crush on you, this will be a great way to show himself off to you.

He will tell you all the technical stuff like: How to position your legs and feet; What back posture you must have; Where to focus your attention; etc. “Hands at half past noon! … twelve thirty…”

When you fail, he will not be as "tyrant" as he would be with his Heartslabyul students. He knows you don't have magic and you’re trying your best. But he will still be strict with you. His way to caring.

When you succeed at an exercise, he will congratulate you with his smile on. He'll also use it as a proof that it is not impossible to you and that you can do even better if you two keep practicing.

If you are on the same broom for him to make a demonstration, he would be the one in command, and you would be holding onto him from the back. Thank the Great Seven you can't see his blushing face from where you are.

If you fall from a great height, he will use magic to save you because he knows he's not strong enough to catch you alone. And then will run to you to check if you're not hurt. Once he sees that you're okay, he'll sigh and tell you to be more careful. You almost gave that boy a heart attack.

Coach Vargas chose him because, despite being the best at the class that’s not enough to pass. So, if Leona doesn’t help you Vargas will not pass him.

He's the worst best teacher ever. He is the best because he can actually make you fly on the broom by yourself at the end of the day. But he’s the worst because of the way he does that: with a lot of smug and pretending he doesn't give a dam about you.

When you fail, he’ll sigh, put your fingers to his forehead like you're an idiot, and tell you to "try again, herbivore." as if his technique is right and you're the only one failing.

When you succeed at an exercise, he will give you his signature smug smile and tell you something like “See, it’s not that hard if you do as I say.” He will continue with the simplest exercises, hoping that will be enough for Vargas until the end of class. He just wants to end it and go take a nap somewhere. Maybe on your lap as thanks.

If you are on the same broom for him to make a demonstration, he will be behind you with his hands on yours to show you how to control the broom. A guy as prideful as him is not the little spoon type. He will eventually lean on you out of laziness, and as a way to mess with you.

If you fall from a great height: The minute before that he would be making fun of you, and the next he will reach to you on his broom like a bullet. He'll catch you on his arms, sigh annoyed and tell you how clumsy you are and how much work you're giving him because of that. Secretly relieved that you're okay.

Coach Vargas chose him because sometimes is good to pairing two people that are equally struggling to help each other, for them being more comfortable with someone at the same level.

If he has a crush on you: THIS IS HORRIBLE!!! He’s going to look like a complete idiot in front of you. NO! You should not see him like this! Please assure him that it's ok and you will not think less of him for that.

He only can help you as much as you can help him. Best case scenario: you will exchange observations about what you may be doing wrong and somehow overcome it and actually improve on your flying skills.

He doesn't have the same problem with you as he had with Jamil. You’re helping him as much as he’s helping you so that’s already a well-structured deal.

When you fail, he’ll smile charmingly at you and encourage you to keep trying.

When HE fails, he will be extremely frustrated and irritated by that. But will make his absolute best to hide it so you don't notice. He’ll hesitate to try again. He already humiliated himself in front of you once, he doesn't want to do it again.

When you succeed at an exercise, he will congratulate you with a smile, but a fake one. He is happy that you succeed, but now your one step better then him. His not mad that you’re getting better, but if you keep that pace, you'll be so much better than him you'll look down on him. No! He's exaggerating and he knows it. You're not like that. But he still wants to look good, especially on your eyes.

When HE succeeds at an exercise, he will be extremely proud of himself and vocalise some on that. And if you praise him for his good work, he will feel both even better and flattered. If he blushes (he will), he’ll hide it from you.

You’ll not be at the same broom. Too dangerous for the both of you.

If you fall from a great height: he would probably already be on the ground for safety in case that happened. He will use magic to slow your fall and then catch you in his arms. “This is why I don't risk going to high.” Once he realizes he's carrying you bridal style, he'll gently set you down, maybe apologize, and try his best not to think about it too much. He needs his focus.

Coach Vargas chose him because he knows he’s a good tutor and have the profile of one. He just hopes this goes better than with Azul.

Of course, it does! He’s a great and a patinate teacher and you’re a good student despite your difficulties.

When you fail, he’ll be totally chill about it, at least on the outside. He will try to continue improving his teaching to find the best technic for you. You're not as insufferable as Kalim, so he has no problem helping you. And if he has a crush on you, oh the pleasure to be your tutor is all his.

When you succeed at an exercise, he will not just congratulate you, he will do that with his rarest and biggest smile. As if that conquest belonged to both of you. As you are one of the few people who genuinely appreciates his work, you deserve that smile.

If you start praising his work as a teacher, he'll hide his blush with his hood and tell you that's nothing special, that you are the one who is a good student.

If you are on the same broom for him to make a demonstration, he will be behind you with his hands on yours to show you how to control the broom. He genuinely believes that's one of the best ways to teach you, but he needs to concentrate on the teaching and not on your positions. He is a mix of blush and smug.

If you fall from a great height: he would probably already have made one our multiple plans in case that happened. He´s ready for anything. He will catch you with no problem and make 100% sure you're okay. Maybe he's not blushing for holding you in safety because he probably already made something similar with Kalim or so. The fact that it's you it’s just a sweet and delightful bonus for him.

Coach Vargas chose him because, like Riddle, his one of the best students in the class and have chances to be a good tutor.

And like Riddle, he is a great tutor, strict, but good. Just put the extra that besides him wanting to teach how to fly on the broom, he's also teaching you how to look fabulous doing it. No one tutoring by him will look sloppy on a broom!

And if he has a crush on you: EXPECIALLY YOU need to look as beautiful as he sees you.

When you fail, he’ll sigh and do a mix of incentivise you and demanding you to keep trying. “Come on, my spudling, you can do better than that. Put it a little more effort.” The “my” part is if he has a crush on you ;)

When you succeed at an exercise, he will congratulate you. He’ll maybe even tell you he’s proud of you. But then he will keep demanding more for you to reach your full potential. His way of caring.

If you are on the same broom for him to make a demonstration, he would be the one in command, and you would be holding onto him from the back. He'll tell you to grab on tight and don't fall. As fi you could control that part. And then to pay attention.

If you fall from a great height, he will catch you flawlessly. And then scold you. Telling you that that’s why you should have a good posture on the broom. Looking elegant was just a plus. Weren't you listening? Unfortunately for you (or not), the more he scolds you means the more he likes and cares about you.

Coach Vargas chose him because of the same reason he could have chosen Azul. sometimes is good to pairing two people that are equally struggling to help each other, for them being more comfortable with someone at the same level.

If he has a crush on you… NOPE! NOPE! NOPE! NOPE! NOPE! Coach Vargas can’t do this to him. Besides being a total noob and already being humiliated in the public square during classes, now he has to do it in front of you? He never selected the hard mode on this! Please assure him that it's ok and you will not think less of him for that.

Do you REALLY want to learn how to fly? I mean, you could just try to hide from everyone and pretend you don't exist until the end of the class. He can compensate you somehow for dragging you with him. Make sure you don’t fail at the class.

What? You want to learn how to fly AND help him too?! Damn you really are a weirdo, hum? Hey, don't get him wrong, better than being a normie. F-fine… he will try… but don't complain if you both fail the class because of him.

When you fail, he'll probably start telling you things like "See, this kind of stuffs are nightmare-mode for noobs like us." and "Keep trying will just be a bad-management of HP." But don’t listen to him. Be as stubbornly positive as he is stubbornly negative. Even if is just to prove him wrong. Nail that level!

When you succeed at an exercise, Pum pum pum pum pum, level up. But for real now, he will probably say something like you levelled up. If he was indifferent to you, he couldn't care less about it and would keep saying that's just a waist. But because he does like you and maybe even has a crush on you, he will be more like: “W-wow, you actually did it! That’s so… um cool… An achievement unlocked for sure!” He’s actually impressed by you.

You’ll not be at the same broom. Too dangerous for the both of you.

If you fall from a great height, he’ll probably panic, but will still be able to cast a spell to save you and make you land carefully on the ground. “Y-y-y-y-you okay?” He’s more scared than you. Once you assure him that you're fine, he’ll look sulky and be like: “This is like one of those traps for greedy players and none of us have high enough HP or AC for that!”

Coach Vargas chose him probably because he (like anyone) could tell that you two were close and feel comfortable with each other. Plus, he also being one of the best in class. Since he can also fly WITHOUT a broom.

He’ll try his best, but he will not be a good teacher. This because he flies instinctively. And it's hard to teach someone how to do something when you just… do it.

That and he will probably past more time admiring you and your effort and talking about humans not being able to fly and other subjects that actually teach you. He’ll basically forget you two are still on a class.

When you fail, he'll not think much of it. After all, you’re a human who doesn’t know how to fly and you don’t have magic. In fact, he's more expecting you to fail that you succeed. (“No, really, you’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about. I wasn´t expecting anything from you to start with.” Remember?)

When you succeed at an exercise, he’ll be surprised. A good kind of surprised, despite if he trying to express it, would not sound so congratulative. More like: for a human with no magic that was indeed impressive. And of course, he will be smiling with proud at you.

If you are on the same broom for him to make a demonstration, he will be behind you with his hands on yours. To show you how to control the broom? Maybe. But maybe more just because he wanted to be this close to you, like his hugging you. He’s also behind you because is the best way to protect you as well.

If you fall from a great height… what great height? No matter how high you would fly, he will be right next to you. In or out his broom. If you fall from your broom, he’ll catch you right there. It will feel more like a fall from the bed. And he will be enjoying you safe on his arms maybe too much. “Um… you can put me back on my broom now, Tsunotarou… I’m fine, I promise.” With him, you will be the one blushing.

If you would like to read more from me, you can find it in my pinned post: INDEX

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audible-smiles · 7 months

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Avian Pied Beauty

Behold: In no particular order, and for no particular reason, I give you thirty of the most dramatic, elegant, and visually interesting black-and-white bird plumages on planet Earth.

Pied harrier

2. Black-and-white warbler

3. Black-headed ibis

4. Black-and-white hawk-eagle

5. Black guillemot

6. Razorbill

7. Pied avocet

8. Magellanic penguin

9. Hairy woodpecker

10. Common loon

11. Snow goose

12. Black skimmer

13. Black phoebe

14. Australian Magpie

15. Australian pied cormorant

16. Pied kingfisher

17. Pied thrush

18. Oriental magpie-robin

19. African pied wagtail

20. Black-and-white mannikin

21. Pied crow

22. Oriental pied-hornbill

23. Pied bushchat

24. European pied flycatcher

25. Pied butcherbird

26. Pied falconet

27. Pied-crested tit-tyrant

28. Pied wheatear

29. Indian pied starling

30. Chinstrap penguin

#basically a bird-themed aesthetic pinboard #pics mostly from ebird #what a good bird #long post #made one last-minute substitution #because oystercatchers are TOO BROWN!!!#top posts

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hobbitsetal · 10 days

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The Hoard

The year the dragon came had been shaping up to be a bad one. The crops were barely adequate. The deer were skittish, the boar extra fierce, the fish sleepy and hard to reach. The old folks in the village predicted a hard winter, predictions born of fear and grief and anger that boiled down into pessimism.

Inada, as the village leader, tried to counter such talk, but there was little she could say. The food would be stretched thin at best. The old and the very young were likely to die. All she could do was squirrel away extra portions where she hoped Trovar’s men would not think to look, and pray she could save some lives in the winter.

At the end of the summer, he came. They saw his shadow first: big as a cloud, almost to be mistaken for a cloud’s shadow. But no cloud had those curved wings or that long tail, and they knew what he was before he landed and changed shape and strode into their village. He was tall, dark-haired and golden-eyed, and he was surprisingly young. Inada had sons grown and older than he, she thought.

Dragons lived to be five hundred years or more. But after all, before one could be five hundred years, one must be ten and twenty and thirty. Perhaps it should not have been so surprising that he looked no more than twenty summers, if he had reached even that many.

They watched, huddling in doorways, stopped at their work, clutching their children, as he walked through the long street and the square in the middle of the village where they traded when the peddler caravans passed through. His arrogantly lifted head swiveled, taking in the shabby village and the silent inhabitants watching him.

What reason could he have for coming to their village? They’d heard of dragons taking over lands, of course. Anywhere west of Elbiss, where they had driven the dragons out and hunted them now with frost weapons and relentless hatred, anywhere else might fall prey to a dragon. Some ate humans. Some enslaved them and forced them to produce whatever the dragon chose to hoard. Some, the less powerful, especially since Elbiss had cast them off six hundred years ago, lived among humans as ordinary citizens. Not every dragon could be a tyrannical ruler, it seemed.

There was nothing in this village to rule over, even if this one meant to be a tyrant. They didn’t have so much as a name for their village. They lived near no mines, gold or ores or jewels. Their forests were not unusually rich with game or fish. No mythic beasts lived near that anyone knew of. They were not renowned for crops or goods. The only unusual feature to their village was the twice-yearly visits from Trovar and his men, but even that was not so remarkable. Small villages with no protector often fell prey to bandits.

So they watched and braced themselves to learn this dragon ate humans.

He sniffed the air and then turned toward Inada, gold eyes boring into her. “You. You are responsible for this place?”

She curtsied immediately and kept herself from falling to her knees. Better not to kneel. If she had to beg, she wanted someplace to lower herself to. “Yes, my lord.”

“It’s shabby.”

What did he care? Dragons never lived where others did. Still, all she could say was, “Yes, my lord.”

“You are not a knight protector. What are you?”

“I-I am…a weaver?” As with everyone else in the village, she was what was needed at the moment. They all tended little vegetable crops, they all fished, they all wove. Some, like Alma, were better at things like twisting flax fibers together. Some, like old Gregoire, were better at fishing. But they all did whatever needed to be done. They were too tiny to have specialists in the different trades, though she would have liked to have been a weaver.

He snorted impatiently, smoke clouding around his head. “You have those among you young enough to breed. Why does your village not flourish more? Are you lazy?”

Indignation choked her a moment, overriding her fear. Lazy? “We are a tiny village, my lord,” she said. “How can we thrive when those stronger than us come to take the best of what we have?”

Of all the irony, a dragon demanding why they did not flourish was too bitter to be borne.

“You have no one at all to stand up for you?” He turned as he spoke, casting the question–the challenge–out to the rest of the village. No one met his eyes.

Inada swallowed down tears and rage together, dropping her own gaze to the dust. “What do you want from us, my lord?” she asked quietly.

What would anger get but a village reduced to ash? What would resistance earn them but bones and perhaps one person left to bury them? Making herself sound humble, making herself bend her head and round her shoulders was not hard when she had done the same for the lesser threat of Trovar and his men.

“Bah,” he said, and turned away. A dozen steps from her took him to a clear space. He leaped into the air and changed as he leapt. The wind from his wings staggered her and sent up a great cloud of dust.

And then he was gone, leaving them baffled and a little dirtier than they had been. Slowly, the villagers trickled toward Inada, necks craned to track the dragon.

“Will he come back?” Hella asked.

“I don’t know,” Inada said.

A restless murmur ran through the crowd. Eventually, they shuffled away, different scattered groupings muttering the same fears and wonders and answerless questions to each other. Inada went back to weeding her garden with her forehead furrowed. Surely the dragon would not come back. He had strolled through their village for curiosity’s sake and found they had nothing of worth. Surely Batran would protect them from more oppression than they already bent under. She sent up a silent prayer to that effect and resolved to sacrifice something small when she had time.

They saw his shadow a few more times that week. He seemed to be circling around the top of the small mountain that loomed over their village. Once, Old Horace said that Young Horace saw the dragon flying with a boar in its claws. That troubled Inada for a day, until Hella pointed out that perhaps the dragon was in the area only to hunt. That would explain his curiosity and his subsequent lack of interest. After all, there were plenty of boar for one with the stamina and strength to take them down.

Inada had other worries. Trovar was coming. The delicate balance of giving enough to satiate him and keeping enough to survive, of placating without arousing suspicion, weighed on her. Two years ago, his men had found one of her hidden stores and Trovar had been angry with the village. They had beaten her and taken extra food in punishment. The winter had been lean indeed. Last year, she had barely dared to hide anything. Trovar had been more merciful, sensing her defeat. But the village could not afford another winter with as little as he liked to leave.

She daydreamed of a protector. They would send out an appeal and someone would answer. A lord with restless men, inclined to be merciful, or a band of Elbissian warriors eager to deal justice, or better, a group of armed travelers seeking someplace to settle and join.

Foolish fantasies. A lord’s men were as likely to pillage as Trovar’s. Elbissian warriors were concerned only with hunting dragons, whether they offered harm or no. And armed travelers might kill the villagers and take the village for themselves rather than join peaceably.

Young Horace came running one golden day in the autumn to announce breathlessly, “They’re coming!”

Inada uttered a prayer under her breath and tipped a little vinegar into the dust as an offering. Then she strode out to supervise the half-yearly tribute. Bags of grains and dried fruit, casks of fruit wines and fish pickled or dried, racks of animal furs and smoked meats: they laid out what they had for Trovar’s men to take.

They watched the cloud of dust approaching. Then they heard the singing: raucous, bawdy songs, bellowed cheerily. And then Trovar, followed by his men, came out of the woods and strolled toward them. He was of middle height, compact with muscle, with a full beard and dusty clothes that had once been fine. He was quick to smile and he had a taste for pinching women’s buttocks and teasing them. In other circumstances, when she had been young, Inada might have laughed at such liberties even as she slapped his hands away. In these circumstances, at her age, such liberties were a veiled threat.

The villagers huddled in the square. Trovar’s men would wander through their houses, picking what they pleased, while their comrades watched the villagers and made sure no one had thoughts of rebellion. They would sort through the food. And then they would leave again, with their stolen bounty piled high on shoulders and the two pack mules, and the village would be left to face the winter.

Trovar strolled up to Inada and chucked her under the chin. “Inada. Lovely as ever. I swear, you look younger than you did in the spring! All that summer sun has you glowing.”

She looked at some point past his shoulder. “I am older, that is all.”

“Bah, you are younger! You’ve found some unicorn’s horn, haven’t you?”

He teased, she knew he teased, but the question sent a chill down her spine. If they had something precious and kept it back from him, the consequences would be unthinkable. “I have found nothing but more grey hairs.”

He clicked his tongue. “Really, Inada, you must learn to take a compli–Who by Batran’s balls is that?”

Startled, she turned to see what he was looking at. The villagers were parting, scattering, for the dragon. He strode through, gold eyes locked on Trovar. Smoke hazed the air behind him. “You,” he said, and his voice was a growl. “You take from them?”

Trovar snatched for his sword. “What is it to you?” he snapped back.

Inada backed away from him, huddling into Hella.

“You are done,” the dragon announced. “Leave.”

The sword rang as it came free of the scabbard. Trovar was not a man used to denial. Trovar was a man used to force and to taking what he pleased. Trovar was a man who died by dragon flame, foolish to the end.

The dragon did not waste time watching his ashes fall to the ground, as the stunned villagers did. He turned his gaze on Trovar’s men, lips peeled back from his teeth. His teeth were pointed, sharp: predator’s teeth. “Leave,” he said again.

They dropped what they held. They bumped into each other in their hurry to flee. The three archers among them made no efforts to string their bows or reach for their arrows. Empty-handed and silent, they scurried away while the wind blew their leader into the dust of the road.

Inada looked at the dragon and tried to think of something to say. Thanks, perhaps, or ask him what he wanted of them, or– But her throat stayed closed. The smell of burnt flesh lingered in the air.

The dragon surveyed them, chin ticked up slightly. “I am Lord Cazadan Isvrayne, and this is now my village. You will build me a dwelling on top of the mountain, according to my specifications, and then you will build me a hosting house. I will not permit bandits or miscreants to harm you. Your village will thrive under my rule. Am I plain?”

Glances flickered among the villagers. There was a catch. There must be a catch. Why would a dragon choose to protect them for nothing more than the cost of building a home and a guest-house?

“My lord–” Inada began, voice wavering.

His gaze settled on her. “You are a tiny village,” he said. “Unimpressive. But I will make you thrive. My kind will see how well I can manage and protect, and your kind will see the benefits of my rule. The best of what you have will grow your village.”

“Yes, my lord,” she said, voice faint.

He nodded once. “Send someone up to the mountaintop with me to begin marking out where my dwelling will be. The rest of you, put this food away. The flies will get to it.”

And then he leapt and changed and sent dust everywhere as he winged away, heading for the mountaintop.

“What was that?” Hella whispered.

“I do not know,” Inada whispered back. “But…Jola should go to the mountaintop.” Jola knew much about building houses. Her grandfather had been the most skilled carpenter their village had ever seen.

It would be a month before the village understood what had become of them, a month before shock wore off and they settled into the mundanity of working for a dragon. In that month, they let themselves feel cautious joy over their sudden abundance. Old Horace spearheaded the efforts to weatherproof their homes. Inada supervised parceling out the food properly and setting the excess aside into stores. They might even have enough to trade in the spring, she thought.

It was a month before they all fully realized that they had become a dragon’s hoard, and that Lord Cazadan would protect them with his life.

#original fiction #my writing

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jwirecs · 1 year

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Recommended BTS Fics of February - March 2023💖

hello, hello! here are my bts recs of february - march! hopefully these beautiful stories get more recognition as well as the writers 💝

** anything in parentheses and bolded are my thoughts that can be disregarded if needed **

🔞smut || 💔angst || 💕fluff || ✅completed || 🔄ongoing || 💯favorite

Give Yourself A Try || @miscelunaaa 🔞💕💔✅💯💯

↳ You’ve got an enormous crush on Yoongi, the machine tech, and, if Jimin is to be believed, the feeling is mutual. A broken espresso machine and a snow storm are all it takes to bring everything crashing down around you.

Pure Affection || @yooniful💕✅💯

↳ jungkook falls in love with the most innocent person he’s ever met

The Airdrop Incident || @yoon-kooks💕✅

↳ You accidentally AirDrop a racy photo of yourself in strappy lingerie to your hot and arrogant neighbor Min Yoongi.

Our Not So Secret Secret || @thvhoe🔞💕✅💯

↳ When someone learns that Jungkook has been secretly keeping a puppy in his room despite not being allowed to, he turns to ask the only other person who knows about his secret for help. And suddenly you two—who had long been bitter enemies—get very close.

Spellbound || @yoonivy🔞💕💔✅

↳ The only reason you agreed to do this magical ritual with Park Jimin’s Circle was for the sake of your own Circle - to strengthen your individual magic. Yes, that means you’ll have to fuck him, but no, you weren’t happy about it because you hate Park Jimin. Once again, you were only doing this for your Circle.

Care For You || @archivedkookie💕✅

↳ Yoongi will always care for you, no matter what.

Cherry Lips || @guqwrvte💕✅

↳ you start using a new lip balm and jimin loves the taste.

Happiness Looks Good On You || @peachywritess💕✅

↳ (the title says it all.)

In Which.... || @onlyswan💕🔄💯💯💯💯

↳ (no summary, but if you want to feel soft and fluffy inside, this you should read their collection!)

Plan A Trois Gone Wrong || @peachypinkygloss🔞💕💔✅

↳ Jealousy is a bad flaw, Jungkook knows it, but was this threesome really a good idea?

Starboy || @thvhoe 🔞💕💔✅💯💯

↳ Jisung still has feelings for you, even though he'll never admit it. So when he starts dating someone who looks way too much like you, and then shows up unannounced on the same day that Jungkook does, well, let's just say Jungkook is done playing games.

Sweet Promise || @7deadlysinsfics 🔞💕✅

↳ hoseok is a romantic. he adores all the cheesy, cringey things about love, especially valentine’s day. there’s one problem, though: you hate all the cheesy, cringey things about love, including valentine’s day. but you do love your boyfriend, and for him, you’re willing to put aside your aversion for the holiday, especially when he promises you something you’ve been dying to try with him

Enemy || @bonny-kookoo💕💔🔄

↳ The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Or alternatively: Jungkook has no idea what to do with you.

Lavender Lemonade || @euphoricfilter💕✅

↳ you love spring and namjoon loves you.

Put Your Records On || @mysingularitybts 🔞💕💔🔄💯

↳ (there wasnt a summary, but i do suggest you give this one a read!)

Secret Story Of The Swan || @purpleyoonn💕✅

↳ You were staring into the stream, contemplating life when someone decided to take matters into their own hands.

Sugar & Spice || @bonny-kookoo💕🔄 (not too sure on the genre quite yet)

↳ In which Jungkook really wants people to love you just as much as he does - or maybe not.

The Life Of A Tyrant || @euphoricfilter💕✅

↳ it’s hard to hide you from the world when you’re on the run.

Enchanted || @purpleyoonn🔞💕💔🔄

↳ The realm under King Min’s rule had been under war for over. thirty years, a war within the inhuman species with origins no one knows. Your presence was brought into awareness when found by the king under the rubble of your home. You are plunged into a world you had only ever seen from the outside, and don’t know how long you can last.

Fight or Flight || @thvhoe🔞💕💔✅

↳ You want to disappear and sink into the ground—we're talking code red. As a result of the horrible events of accidentally sending your nudes to your best friend's brother, your life appears to change drastically. Beautiful, arrogant, and quickly developing into a star fighter—many factors should prevent you from falling for Jeon Jungkook. For years, you've kept your feelings for him a secret. Yet, ever since he has seen you in your underwear, it can become difficult to conceal your emotions when you see him practically daily.

Fxck A Fxckboy! || @yoongifis🔞✅

↳ where you sort of hooked up with one of the school’s biggest fuckboys but end up leaving him hanging and never contacting him because…well…why not? somehow the universe brought you two together and now you’re left with dealing with him because he apparently caught feelings for you.

Groupie || @joonsy2k🔞💕✅

↳ Your best friend Jimin invites you to see his band, painted duck, perform at your local bar. You didn't expect to end up backstage with the bands lead bassist.

Ivory Paws || @yminie🔞💕💔✅

↳ Winter time brings Christmas, and the snow outside brought you a stray cat. But your little companion is far more unique than meets the eye, and in a time of need, he becomes the biggest surprise and best holiday gift of them all.

Regroup || @drvmekoo🔞💕💔🔄💯

↳ Living with a roommate isn’t always smooth sailing. Whether it’s being plagued by a history of conflict, having met under bizarre circumstances or simply falling in love with the one person you know you shouldn’t be falling for. Are you ready to put pen to paper and sign away on that room for rent? After all, “the fate that brings people together is not a cord so easily cut”

Room For Rent (Bangtan Collab) || @m-yg93🔞💕💔🔄💯💯💯💯

Summer Nights and Morning Dew || @jeonstudios💕💔✅💯

↳ “Look, I don’t care. You can’t trust people, and we need to protect what’s ours, okay? So do us all a favor and take off those rose-colored glasses.”

Wicked As They Come || @caelesjjk 🔞✅

↳ you’ve been undercover at one of Min Yoongi’s many hotels in the city for the past week. you’re there because of the rumors that have been spreading regarding his vampire employees feeding off of his human guests. what you don’t expect to happen is Min Yoongi discovering your true intentions in his hotel and offering you a very interesting ultimatum: pretend to date the vampire CEO to help appeal to his human guests, or quickly find out just what kind of monster he can really be.

A Place For Us || @raplinesmoon💕💔✅

↳ It’s always on the most momentous occasions that things fall apart - but with some luck, love is always enough to bring people back together.

Father and Son || @serendipitous-seven💕✅

↳ moments with yoongi and his son while they enjoy a trip together

Vegas || @chimivx💕✅💯

↳ Dating Yoongi as an Idol used to be easy, and effortless, like pouring you two a glass of wine after one of his shows... However, after the birth of your surprise baby girl, those effortless days have gotten a little harder, you being unable to travel with your daughter. After one lucky doctor's appointment though, things seem to shape up...

Baby (You Complete Us) || @purpleyoonn🔞💕💔🔄💯💯

↳ you wear your bracelet for ten years, and finally give up the hope you would find your soul group, only for BTS to put theirs on and see what they were missing. (sorry theres going to be a whole lotta fics from this author. and the reason is....i just fcking love their writings)

Doughnuts and Shell Casings || @purpleyoonn🔞💕💔🔄💯💯

↳ you finally gather the courage to leave your routine and do something different. your expectations are blown out of the water as you meet your soulmates in a less-than-expected way.

Iridescent Love || @imnotlauriane🔞💕💔🔄💯💯

↳ From a fated meeting to a life filled with wonders, the path of discovery is much, much harder than what I had prepared myself for. Especially when my identity, the only one I knew of ends up being a total lie

Lies || @i-am-baechu💕💔✅💯💯

↳ Being friends with a famous boy group is laughable but here is L/N Y/N, best friends with Bts. Years of friendship and trust but all of sudden they start acting differently and it makes her question everything

Sleeping Temptation || @yminie🔞💕💔✅💯

The Little Things || @xddaengx💕✅

↳ You've never been more glade to have seven men by your side to help with your recovery. Even when times get tough you know they have your back.

I Hate You, Will You Marry Me? || @bangtansmaus💕💔✅💯

↳ you are just living your life. finally graduated college, living with your best friend, working your dream job as a choreographer. that is until you a get a text from someone you never thought you’d hear from again asking for a favor. he knows your secret and uses it as blackmail to get you to help him.

Nonsense || @muniimyg🔞💕💔✅

↳ jimin and oc know each others secrets. they’re virgins and make a deal to lose it to one another. after that, they keep hooking up and everyone can’t believe their eyes when they catch glimpses of the two getting along

Your Universe || @muniimyg🔞💕💔✅💯💯

↳ regretting rejecting oc, min yoongi goes through a circus load of gestures and tasks in attempt to be loved again

How Long Will We Fall || @jiminrings 💕💔✅💯

↳ if it’s fate, it should already be set onto your skin — that’s why jungkook’s initials are already on your finger. he’s always there for you, but not only for you. if you’re his fate, he’d rather not have it. alternatively, jungkook’s your soulmate, but he doesn’t want to be.

My Home || @purpleyoonn💕💔✅💯💯

↳ It was close to winter, and your medicine was nearly complete for you to use. But when it came to, you helped another whose wounds were life threatening. Now, random items kept showing up on your porch, with each item bringing you closer to the creature you healed. And when he returned, he saved you. Now, with him, you felt like you were home.

Yoongi’s Lullaby || @jiminrings💕💔✅💯💯

↳ there’s two things you can conclude from yoongi’s shapeshifting service: a) it’s great for his wallet, and b) it’s crushing for your heart. alternatively, yoongi’s your best friend and soulmate, and you have to watch him fall in love over and over again.

Captivity || @jimilter 🔞💕💔✅💯

↳ Maybe you shouldn’t be so attracted to one of your kidnappers and maybe you shouldn’t give in to his advances – but Park Jimin is way too irresistibly sexy and persistent in his pursuit of you for his own good.

Goodbye To Hello || @vminity21🔞💕💔✅

↳ After a devastating break up, you immediately move in with your sister, leaving behind the country life to relearn the ups and downs of the city. Adopting a cat and gaining a new job at a retail store part time, life seems to gradually bring happiness and healing, but you did not expect for it to become even more interesting when you stumble upon the enticing yet alluring tattoo artist, Jeon Jeongguk. Will this be an adventure of a lifetime? Or will hello always lead to goodbye?

Off-Screen || @thvhoe🔞💕💔✅💯

↳ Being a woman in the gaming industry is challenging, especially when all eyes are on you. What happens, though, when your biggest rival finds out that the well-known streamer who consistently wins games is not who people believe they are? Or You've spent your entire life pretending to be a guy online, so when one of the biggest steamers finds out, things get even more tricky.

Do check out all of the other BTS Fics that i have reblogged as well!!

** if there is any fics that you guys would like to recommend, please do! i am slowly running out of fics to read **

#bts scenarios #bts fluff #bts angst #bts smut #bts strangers to lovers au #bts soulmate au #bts hybrid au #bts enemies to lovers au #bts friends to lovers au #bts established relationship au #bts fic recs #bts recs #bts social media au #bts dad au

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wannaeatramyeon · 10 months

Text

Goo Kim x Reader: Coffee Shop

G/N. Ah the coffee shop!AU trope. Or alternatively, Goo owns a coffee shop on the side. Either way, you work with Goo in a coffee shop.

The coffee shop you work at is famous for two things.

One - the quality of the coffee. Apparently the owner is something of a snob and only sources and serves the best.

Two - the shocking customer service, courtesy of your coworker, Goo Kim. You don't know how he gets away with it. You don't know how he is still employed.

Maybe it's because no matter how long the queue is, once they get to Goo, all frustration dissipates as soon as he says, "What can I do for you, babe?"

Or it could be that even though he messes up orders, he has the gall to say: "You'll like it better that way, trust me sweetheart." Worst of all, it works.

Actually, you do know how he gets away with it.

Correction, the coffee shop you work at is famous for three things: the best coffee, the worst customer service and the hottest barista known to man.

Goo Kim is hot. Period. The kind of hot that draws customers. That makes them return time and time again even as he gives them the wrong drink and overcharges them. That lets him get away with his shitty attitude and cocky behaviour.

That's just how hot he is.

"The owner is kind of a tyrant." At least, that's what Goo tells you as you've never met the owner before. "And me and him are kind of tight," he says, waltzing into his shift exactly two hours and thirty seven minutes late.

You know this because you've been keeping an eye on the clock in between serving the horde of tired, irate customers during the morning rush on your own.

You would happily bet you're now more tired and more irate than all the previous customers combined.

"I don't give a shit," you snap, rushing past him to complete the next order as he casually puts on his apron. Fuck, did they ask for oat or soy? Damnit.

"Language," he sing-songs, plucking the finished drink out of your hand and calling out for the customer to collect.

"Medium latte, two shots caramel, oat milk!"

It's entirely unnecessary. The morning rush is largely over and there's only one customer waiting. She approaches Goo looking annoyed.

"I asked for soy milk."

"Sweetheart," he says, eyes twinkling behind his glasses. What should really be demeaning and patronising comes out all filthy and seductive, "It tastes better like this."

You watch in disbelief as her irritation evaporates and she honest to god giggles, taking the drink and handing over a hefty tip.

Goo pockets the money.

"Hey! That's mine!" You square up to him. He comes in late, does nothing, then practically steals from you?

"You got the order wrong. She would be throwing a fit if it wasn't for me." It's less chastising you and more a chance to inflate his ego. Still, you begrudgingly admit he's correct.

It's only been a month working together, technically less than twenty shifts, and already you're sick of the guy.

Goo was the one that interviewed you. Both crammed into what you assume is the owner's office. Even for such a small space, it's well decorated.

Maybe well decorated is a reach. But everything in there screams expensive. Designer logos everywhere that even you, with your lack of knowledge, can tell is worth more than your entire, pitiful, savings.

The blonde sits opposite, knees knocking into yours when he crosses his long legs.

He explains that he works here. "Just a lowly ordinary barista," he says with a laugh, as if he's letting you in on a joke. Except he's dressed in a fancy blue suit and you wonder what sort of barista wears a suit to work and also gets paid that much.

He tells you, perhaps as a way of small talk, that the chair you're sitting on is imported from Barcelona. Ok. You don't care. It's not like you'll ever import one yourself.

Instead you launch straight into your spiel. The one where you make all your work and personal achievements seem bigger and better than it is. Embellishments. Harmless enhancements you've memorised from your resume.

The more you talk, the higher Goo's eyebrows recede into his hairline.

"And I increased the footfall by 113% last December-"

"Are you nervous?" He cuts you off. You wonder what sort of question that is, is it part of the interview, is it a test. You settle for answering honestly.

"Kinda," you say, giving him a lopsided grin, "I'm being interviewed."

Goo takes a moment to consider this, then- "What do you think of my hair?"

Your mouth runs before your brain can, "Your roots are coming through."

The moment you leave the coffee shop, bell jingling above the door, your phone rings from an unknown number.

"You're hired," A voice tells you, and you know it's Goo Kim. You can even hear the pout in his voice. "The owner likes you."

"Thank you!" You're practically vibrating with glee, you thought for sure you messed up your chances.

That was, coincidentally, the last time you were happy to hear from Goo.

"You'll get coffee on my white suit!" Your belligerent, infuriating coworker snips at you and you want to smack him.

"I'm not the idiot wearing a white suit to work in a coffee shop." You snarl back, then drown out the sound of his whines with the frother.

You watch the milk temperature climb in time with your own temper.

"Don’t be mad," his voice drifts into your ear and you jolt at the proximity. Turning around, you find his face inches from yours, lips pulled down and big brown eyes peering straight into yours.

He doesn't look like his usual smug self here. He looks silly and maybe- the teeniest bit cute.

Ugh, you shake those thoughts from your head. However, a part of you thinks you should be a bit more amenable with him. You're still new and it's obvious that he pulls some strings around here.

"It's fine," you mutter, rolling your eyes to high heavens and returning back to the task at hand.

"What are you doing?" you blink at Goo flipping the sign from Open to Closed a full four hours early.

"Shoo! Out!" He shouts at the practically full store, motioning at them all to leave. "We! Are! Closed!"

Angry grumbles fill the air as the patrons start to shift.

"This is unacceptable!" A guy still gripping onto his full cup of coffee rounds on Goo. You wonder if he's gonna throw it at him. It wouldn't be undeserved.

"Sorry babe, personal emergency. You know how it is," Goo smiles, toothy and affable, "I'll make it up to you next time." He grabs the mug out of the other man's hands and he doesn't even react. "Come back soon!"

The customer leaves without further argument. You think you catch him mumbling sure and see you soon. You know beyond a shadow of a doubt as you catch the guy blushing, he will be back to catch a glimpse of the blonde barista and hear Goo call him babe again.

Goo wheels around a TV that you think must be at least 85 inches. You didn't think the shop had anywhere to store something so big. He must have pulled it out of his ass.

"What is this?"

"Season finale time," he tuts at you, as if you're the one being an idiot for not following this absurd chain of events.

"What?"

Goo mentions a name that you think could be a show, or it could be a new coffee bean, you're not sure. He ignores your confusion, positioning the TV in front of one of the many sofas and fiddles with the remote.

"Are we really doing this?" You ask as he flops down with a bowl of popcorn (and where did that also come from), giving you a grin and patting the space next to him.

"You're getting paid, aren't you?"

You can't argue with that and take your seat.

You don't really know what's going on, but the animation is good enough and the character dynamics are fun so you keep watching.

You keep watching even once your shift has officially finished and it turns dark outside. Eyes glued to the screen, you cheer when one of the characters dies, gasp when another one also dies, then clap your hands once the credit rolls.

"That was good-"

Sounds of sniffling cut off your next words and you turn to look at Goo. Both his hands clutching white knuckled to the now empty bowl of popcorn.

It's kind of jarring seeing him like this. Your coworker who pisses you off more often than not. You didn't even realise he's capable of any emotion that wasn’t meant to spike your blood pressure. It's… sweet. A change from his usual bravado.

You reach over and swipe with gentle fingers at the tears under his glasses and he gives you a watery smile in return.

"Yeah, I felt sad when they died too," you offer and you see his lip wobble.

"IT WAS SO FUCKING SAD!" He wails, throwing his head back and bowl clattering to the floor. "I can't believe they did that," His emotions take a turn, face scrunching up in anger as he fishes his phone out of his pocket, "I'm going to send the writer death threats."

You hear tap tap tap followed by unhinged cackling.

You never understood the kind of person that would send death threats but you take one look at the maniac typing next to you, fingers a blur across the keyboard, and you realise this completely tracks.

If possible, your coworker becomes more annoying after that.

He's taken to neglecting the majority of his duties, and instead mostly watches you work.

"Help me out," you plead, spirit broken as he barely lifts a finger to help with the lunch rush.

"Ah ah! I'm supervising."

You consider strangling him.

He does, however, prevent you from slipping on spilled coffee after you miscalculate your footing.

Happening too quickly for you to form any thoughts apart from 'fuck’, you tilt backwards, head ready to hit the ground with a loud, sickening crack.

Which would have definitely happened if not for the large hands gripping you around the waist, yanking you upright and then tugging your body into his.

It's something out of a cheesy romcom and you want the earth to swallow you up. Although if you were wanting anything, you would prefer the earth to swallow Goo up instead.

"Careful there, sweetheart," You feel his chest vibrating with quiet mirth. Somewhere behind you, you distinctly hear a group of customers swoon.

"Do you think I'm hot?" he asks. Entirely inappropriate because you're in the middle of serving a customer.

"No," you grit out because you will not be entertaining this manchild. It doesn't matter if you're technically lying.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Really really?"

"Yep," You release a pent up breath and address the customer, "And that'll be 7000 won please,"

He swipes his card, then eyes darting to Goo and trying his luck, "I think you're hot. If you wanted to grab a drink or-"

"Maybe next time, sweetheart," Goo directs a smile at him and you can feel the man practically melt. Ugh. Seriously?

He pours the contents of his wallet into the tip jar.

"We would make a cute couple," Goo leans across the counter, watching you wipe down tables. "You should date me."

Did he just...? Your hand briefly pauses as you consider his words, then resume the circular cleaning motions. It’s no longer as easy as it was seconds ago.

"And you should help me out instead right now," is all you could muster.

"No can do, sweetheart." He inspects his nails, "The cleaning products aren't good for the skin." Then he adds for good measure, "You shouldn't be cleaning either."

You stare down at the cloth gripped in your bare hand and consider throwing it at him. Date him? No. Your fantasy right now consists of the sound the wet rag makes when it hits his face.

Goo is in earlier than you.

Goo is in earlier than you, and he's working and he's cleaning and you think it's a dream.

"Morning cupcake!" He tells you in a chirpy voice with a sunny smile that is far too bright for this time in the morning.

It truly is a testament to what a slacker he is. You're so used to him being late or not doing anything, that now he is doing really the bare minimum, it short circuits your brain.

"I’m making your day easier," he explains, "So you'll date me."

You boggle at him. "You're doing this to date me? And not because you should just be doing your goddamn job? Are you serious?" Your tone rises with each word and you think you sound hysterical but you can't bring yourself to care.

"Yep, nope, yep."

He starts whistling and you want to tear your hair out.

"Can I get your number?" A particularly brave patron asks.

"Sorry babe, my partner is just over there." He jerks over to you with his thumb and your jaw drops open. "They're beautiful, right?"

Goo sounds sincere and you don't know what to do with that. You know for a fact right now you don't look beautiful. You look kind of a hot mess. You can't remember the last time you washed your hair, and it's currently resembling something of a nest from all the rushing around. Your face is likely bright red and you have coffee and milk stains down your front.

The patron looks incredulously at you. And Excuse me?! Rude. But you also can't blame them.

You think Goo needs stronger glasses.

"Can I get your number?" An unwitting customer asks you this time and you tell him no, sorry, not interested.

"Come on," He leans across the counter, into your space and you take a step back. It's not fun or silly or anything like when Goo asks. It's predatory and you feel your hairs stand on end.

"No. Please just pay for your coffee or leave."

"Why are you being so uptight-"

"Hey," The blonde materialises next to you. He's smiling. He always is. This time it's wild and feral and dangerous.

The smile never leaves his face as he tells the other guy to get the fuck out and that he's permanently banned.

For a moment you think one of them might start throwing hands. Actually. Despite Goo's fancy tailored suit and his meticulously groomed hair and expensive aura, you know he would be the first one to lunge. You also know with complete certainty he would win.

The clean up might be a mess though, for the other guy.

It luckily never comes to that as the man mutters something under his breath and scarpers out with his tail tucked between his legs.

You hope to never see him again.

A part of you is angry. Rightfully so. That it takes someone else for your no to be heard loud and clear. A small part of you thinks of Goo's smile and oh. It’s pretty hot.

"Sorry about that," Goo approaches you on your break and you wonder who is actually minding the shop right now.

"It's fine." You tell him. It's not, but it's not Goo's fault either.

"Do I make you uncomfortable when I ask you out?" His words aren't playful and you know he's asking because he wants to know.

You think about all the times he's been all slippery with his honeyed words and to your mounting realisation and horror, you find you actually like it. If he's being honest, so will you.

"No."

Your answer seems to surprise him. "You're fine with me asking you out all the time?"

"Sure."

"Huh." Then he grins again, similar to before and you feel your knees wobble. You can't believe you are feeling things for this smarmy idiot dressed in an overpriced ridiculous suit.

You think he's going to wreck you. You think he knows it too.

"Go out with me?" Goo sidles up to you despite the fact you're in the middle of ringing up an entire office load of coffees.

"Not right now," you grunt at him, distracted and trying to get the order straight.

"Later?" he asks because for the first time it's a maybe, a possibly. Hope tinges the single word. You don't need to look at him to know he is beaming.

Your movements stutter. You sort of regret your words but you also don't.

"Later," you tell him and it's a promise. Goo smiles, eyes fond and crinkling at the corners as he sends a finger heart your way.

#lookism #lookism x reader #goo kim #goo kim x reader #lookism fic #kim joongoo #kim joongoo x reader #wannaeatramyeon

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liketwoswansinbalance · 3 months

Note

I had this thought for a while. What do you think would happen if Fall Rhian and Rise Rhian meet after time travel shenanigans? Their dynamic would be hilarious, with Rise Rhian being tense around his amused Fall self.

And for angst, Rise Rafal meeting Fall Rafal, who is mysteriously a ghost.

Hopefully this isn’t too far from what you’d wanted, Anon. I somehow ended up giving Rhian angst and only a little hilarity and Rafal hope along with his angst. During both fairly consecutive scenes, the brothers' future selves visit their past selves. This all would occur right after Rafal remodels his School in Rise but before he discovers Gavaldon in the timeline. Neither of the brothers know about Gavaldon yet, and they don't learn about it in this scenario.

And, in this timeline, Hook doesn't even get in with Rhian or manage to get hired as a probationary Dean of Good. He just directly poaches the students, and leaves right after the Vulcan incident. Essentially, what Hook did is claim that he's about to leave and bid Rafal goodbye after the battle, yet he doesn't leave, and instead, sneaks off with the students sooner than in canon. So, now, Rafal and Rhian are in the Schools, during the aftermath of the Vulcan incident, while Rafal does his remodeling and torture-marathoning. That is when their future selves decide to visit.

As for Ghost Rafal, he arrives from approximately thirty years into the future, after the ending of Fall, so he's been a ghost for some time, and has had the opportunity to reflect.

Also, some things here might later become part of a fic (although my fic's outline doesn't involve time travel like this.) Very interesting prompt, by the way. So thanks!

Lastly, before you read on, here's how I will differentiate between the characters:

"Rhian" = Rise Rhian

“Fall Rhian” = post-Fall Rhian, by about thirty years

"Rafal" = Rise Rafal

"Ghost" = post-Fall Rafal, by about thirty years

⸻

[In Good, Rhian is prepping for a lesson in his sunlit, glass-walled office.]

Fall Rhian: Hello, "Good" School Master, [a voice breezes behind Rhian as he is seated at his desk.]

Rhian: [stiffens and quickly spins in his chair, paling at a version of himself floating by the window sill.] You... are me. And you can fly?

Fall Rhian: You catch on quickly. [He pats Rhian's wild golden curls from above, condescendingly, like an angel to a stray worshipper.]

Rhian: [blushes] I—thanks, I, well, usually it's Rafal who does. I'm... the gullible one, as it turns out. [He hangs his head in shame.]

Fall Rhian: Are you?

Rhian: Well, yes, considering all the trouble I’ve caused. I suppose I’m fortunate Rafal’s forgiven me at all.

Fall Rhian: And what then? You’re content to be second all your life? You’re willing to let him claim he was the twin created better? [he provokes, prodding, goading his past self on as if with a hot poker, to stoke a certain dragon fire within.]

Rhian: Er… well, no. That wasn’t the first thing on my mind. I’m just… grateful to have been saved, even if… well, Rafal’s driven away my every chance of finding a companion or True Love outside of him. And, I can’t believe I’m admitting to this, but I don’t want to rely on him forever. I just wish that… that I could break away and be more—I don’t know—devil-may-care, like he is, free and unfettered. But I have to live by my values or I'll have nothing. I've already fallen, seeing as I've stepped out of line, endangered my young charges, and unleashed a tyrant on my poor Evers. I'm me. Useless and "whiny" and witless, guileless and impotent. Or that's what everyone thinks.

Fall Rhian: Good. Be careful what you wish for. You’re on your way.

Rhian: [puzzled] On my way to what?

Fall Rhian: To becoming me. [He grins, a slow, snake-like smile stretching across his face.] And you'll finally be cured of your pathetic crushes on men.

Rhian: [He decides to change the subject quickly, feeling thoroughly disturbed. This Rhian is practically a stranger!] How can you fly? That requires blood magic.

Fall Rhian: Guess whose blood it is. [His grin widens and he settles on the edge of the windowsill.]

Rhian: [blanches, staring at the dark, rusted stains on his future self’s armor] W-whose?

Fall Rhian: Your brother's.

Rhian: [frantically] Wh-what h-h-happened? [His teeth start to chatter as this odd version of himself radiates a dead coldness much like Rafal does, except it's a thousand times worse.] Who are you?

Fall Rhian: I'm you, and you're me. And I regret to inform you that—[He laughs.]—actually, I don't regret a thing!—that our brother is dead.

Rhian: D-d-dead? How? What happened to him?!

Fall Rhian: Us.

Rhian: I don't follow. Are you saying—

Fall Rhian: [nods, biting back another psychotic smile]

[A silence falls over them, as Rhian sobers, his face falling.]

Rhian: But why? How could I— [Then, he stabs out a finger accusingly, stirring from his chair, fingers twitching and spasming, as if he were to strangle this other Rhian, like he was about to lunge.] How could you! How could you do such a thing?

Fall Rhian: Ah, where to begin? Where to begin? Well, simple: a need for power, a restless soul, a desire for more. More than your miserable, lonely existence. Anything beyond being lesser than. Doesn't matter why. [he spat.] Don't you sense that restlessness within? Regardless, I'm here to tell you, you're on the wrong path. No matter how upset you are, avoid killing Rafal. Keep him alive.

Rhian: [heaves a sigh of relief. Perhaps, this version of himself would talk some sense into him and benefit from it himself as well.]

Fall Rhian: Just ensure that you're the One in power, and while he's alive, do whatever with him that you will. I really don't care what, as long as he doesn't interfere.

Rhian: [His stomach twists in on itself.] What do you mean?

Fall Rhian: Fratricide is Evil, isn't it? And you want to remain Good in the eyes of the Storian, don't you? If you don't kill him, well then, that's the mercy of your Goodness come to light, sparing a villain, sparing your own blood. So long as you don't directly kill him, you're golden. Just, keep him alive, in any condition, even if he has a broken leg, so you don't earn your true side a pitiful losing streak. There've been hundreds of tales so far, in my time, since I murdered our brother, and the wrong side now wins every time. You've already cursed the Woods for Storian knows how long, so don't make the mistake of killing him this time. Just... keep him. Lock him up. Paralyze him. Turn him to gold and use him as decor. I don't care. Whatever you do, don't kill him, and preserve the balance as well as you can. You'll find other means to an end that suits me—ahem, us.

Rhian: [doubtfully] I think I understand, but... you don't sound Good.

Fall Rhian: That's up to you to decide for yourself, according to your superior moral judgement, but we both know the Storian has the final say.

Rhian: [musing] True...

Fall Rhian: Good lad. You know what to do. Just think it all over. I wanted to let you know. You deserve to, as a favor from one Rhian, to another. Trust me. Trust yourself. [He bows smoothly. Too smoothly, like a sleaze. Like a Vulcan. Or the way Rafal did when he put on a manipulative, deceptively charming performance. He didn’t act like Rhian at all.]

[Then, the stranger disappears, vanishes into the smoke, dissipating, called back to his own time, tethered to a dismal future.]

[Rhian begins to spiral in the harsh light, stumbling around blindly like he's seen a ghost, trying to get a grip on something real, to ground himself after that encounter. He closes all the curtains in his office, whisking them shut with his sorcery, and wishes he were dead, curling up into a fetal position on the floor, utterly haunted.

That couldn't have been his future, could it?

But, soon enough, he hears the clock chime, and picks himself up, heading down to teach a class of Evers. He suspected Rafal was lounging in his office, watching his students’ torture, but he couldn’t deal with that now. He couldn’t stomach anything more, any lurid news.]

⸻

[Rhian was probably teaching a class, Rafal figured. He could leave his brother be. For now. To dwell on the consequences of his actions. Inviting a stranger into their School! What a farce. And Rafal always had to resign himself to the drudgery of cleaning up Rhian's messes. All that Rhian subjected him to—after a while, it became exhausting. Of course, some things never truly changed.]

[Just then, a pale figure sweeps across Rafal's field of vision and comes into focus.]

Rafal: A ghost? In my School? You... look like me. Not Vulcan.

Ghost: Sharp powers of observation, if only you weren't so slow.

Rafal: I'm slow? [smirks] Well, if you knew my brother, you'd really know who's the slow one.

Ghost: [taunting] You'll say that now, but wait 'til you become me.

Rafal: Wait, I can't die. How do you even exist? Is this a prank? If it's my Nevers, they're getting stretched on the rack.

Ghost: [drolly] You have more pressing concerns than mutinous students, actually.

Rafal: [His eyes flicker with a realization.] The Storian! I knew it! The little devil killed me, didn't it? [He stands up and starts to pace.] Well, I can prevent it. Just, tell me what happened. Now.

Ghost: You're even denser than I remember. The cause of our death wasn't the Pen. And, actually, it was your own fault.

Rafal: My fault? You already know what I've gone through to preserve my life and Rhian's! How dare you!

Ghost: [perching on his desk, amused, spoken bitterly] Now you're making progress.

Rafal: What? What is it? No—Rhian?

Ghost: Correct.

Rafal: That blundering fool! I'll bet his lunacy got us both killed!

Ghost: No, just you.

Rafal: What! How! Rhian can't even clean up his own messes, much less run the Schools on his own—

Ghost: He does when you're gone. For at least thirty years straight, and counting, as long as I’ve been dead.

Rafal: Impossible. With his reputation, he couldn't command a morsel of the respect I can, not unless he transformed into me!

Ghost: So close and yet so far. I can't believe I was this much of a numbskull when I was younger. Do I have to spell it out for you?

Rafal: [icily] Do tell, ghost o'mine.

Ghost: [rolls his eyes] HE KILLS YOU AND TAKES YOUR PLACE.

Rafal: Don't make me laugh.

Ghost: I'm not laughing.

Rafal: [He stills, halts in his tracks.] What? Rhian wouldn't even kill moths. [scoffs] I don't think he's capable of killing people or his own brother. [derisively] He's too Good.

Ghost: And that brings me to the second piece of news I have for you.

Rafal: [mockingly] Don't tell me—Rhian's Evil, right? [shaking his head] If you're not going to tell me the actual cause of my death, just leave. I'll figure it out. And take precautions all on my own. [Then, he catches sight of a pirate ship sailing away in the distance on the Savage Sea.]

Ghost: Hook took your students. Now do you believe me? You know I'm right. I'm always right.

Rafal: [chokes on his own spittle] Rhian? H-he betrayed me? Oh, you don't know what you've gotten yourself into, brother. I won't die. Not if I murder you first!

Ghost: [blocks the door, so Rafal doesn't storm out in fury] You've forgotten something. You can't play by those Rules anymore.

Rafal: What rules?

Ghost: The Rules.

Rafal: Clear out of my way. I'm not burning daylight on a conversation for first-years! I'm Evil and that's final.

Ghost: [doesn't move, crosses his arms serenely.] No. You're not.

Rafal: [through gritted teeth] I'm telling you. I'm. Not. Good.

Ghost: You will be, if you don't listen to me!

Rafal: Empty threats. What can you do to me now that you're "dead?" [He strides right through his ghost.] If I catch a student behind this phantom projection, I'll flay them alive. I mean, you're not even convincing, as far as illusions go.

Ghost: I know you've been mulling over the idea of swans for a unified School crest these last couple of days. How could I know that, if I'm not you?

Rafal: [He blinks, processing for a moment, breaks into a sprint, and roars,] RHIAN!

Ghost: See, I wasn't a liar! Don't do anything rash though. I'd hate to watch myself turn into a victim again and sooner at that.

[As soon as he arrives at Good, Rafal thrusts open the doors to a classroom, yanks Rhian aside and out the door, and frog-marches him up the silver tower's stairs with a lit fingerglow to the back.]

[Some of the Ever students snicker at their mortified School Master, being scolded like a child, presumably being escorted to a punishment.]

Rhian: Rafal! What's this about!? I thought you forgave me!

Rafal: You haven't done anything wrong. Yet. I'm ensuring that the worst won't happen. Thus, I will quarantine you for a couple of days. [He flicks his fingers and casts a spell to make Rhian sneeze.] Look, you have a cold. Too many strangers, too much excitement for you and your weak immune system. I'll sort out everything else myself, then we'll talk. [muttering under his breath] Right after one James Hook pays for his deeds...

Rhian: [about to object, but then sees the ghost] Wait. Who is that?

Rafal: Ignore it. I'll explain once you've recovered.

Rhian: But Rafal! You can't leave me here! The students need proper supervision!

Rafal: So? I'll get... Humburg to watch over them.

Rhian: [pulls a face]

Rafal: Well, it's a better option than y—[He pauses to think for a moment.]—either of us at the moment. We're... volatile and... murderous, apparently.

Rhian: We?

Rafal: Later. Not now. We'll discuss this later. Just let yourself be saved one last time.

Rhian: [looks indignant]

Rafal: Don't tell me that isn't true.

Rhian: Is this about the future me that visited me? I didn’t think you knew.

Rafal: All right, sure, I’ll believe you. Just tell me about your nonsense after I deal with mine and save your vacuous soul from eternal damnation.

Rhian: So, is that—y-your ghost? [Rhian peers up at ghost Rafal and tells the ghost:] I’m sorry, about ev-everything. [his voice catching in his throat.]

Ghost: [somberly] It’s not your apology to give, but I miss this side of you.

Rafal: [glances at the ghost, then fixes his gaze on Rhian] You. Stay put. [Then, addressing the ghost,] And you. Come with me. We're solving this now.

Ghost: [to Rhian] I don't miss myself though. I was cruel.

Rafal: Now, ghost. I’m not squandering a minute on ludicrous phantom reunions.

Rhian: [sighs] You’re strange. And oddly calm.

Ghost: The result of death and decades of reflection. I was high-strung before, wasn’t I?

Rhian: Will my Rafal ever change to become like you?

Ghost: Not if he can prevent it.

Rhian: Good. No offense, but I don’t want any traces of your timeline in ours. Even if you have the remotest chance of being nicer to me.

Ghost: None taken. I’d rather be alive. But look at where I am now.

Rafal: [calling from the stairwell] Make haste, ghost!

Ghost: [voice echoing, to Rafal] That's your responsibility. I've suffered enough for several lifetimes already.

Rhian: More than my br—

Ghost: Yes, much more than yours.

Rhian: [shaking his head incredulously, musing,] Same, old, Evil brother...

Ghost: About that—

Rafal: [interjecting, shouting back up] I may be Good, but I’ll never be an Ever!

[The ghost and Rhian eye each other and try not to laugh.]

Rhian [to the ghost, pleadingly]: Keep me company while he's gone, why don't you?

Ghost: [shrugs, declaring,] I have nothing better to do. And, it's... nice, to have you around again. I should've stayed... all those years ago when I had my chance... [his voice trails off] I apologize, for abandoning you, Rhian.

Rhian: Not your apology to give, but thank you.

Ghost: [looks down at Rafal from the tower window] He may still apologize to you, someday...

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torukmaktoskxawng · 1 year

Text

tsamsiyu ta'em - the road to success

Masterlist - part seven

Summary: With her brother's family gone, Kayla gets to work becoming one of the People.

Pairing: Ronal/Tonowari/Original Female Character

Tag: #tsamsiyu ta'em fic

posted on ao3

Word Count: 9k+

Taglist (bold indicates “could not tag”): @mooniequeen @shit-i-say-shit-i-think @heart-an0n @amiets2 @slutforsmut4ever @yeosxxx @im-in-a-pansexual-panik @sucker4angstt @inolaphoenix @andyfromku

Warnings: canon-compliant, canon-typical violence, mature language, adult content, slow burn, polyamory, found family, cool aunt agenda, alien/human (technically avatar), jake sully sister agenda, time skips, I'm trying to hurry up and get to the good parts so bear with me, fluff, angst, adopted spider, tags to be added

A/N: Holy shit, you're telling me I have to stretch this fic out until 2025 now?! *deep breaths* We got this, ya'll. We waited thirteen years for a sequel... we can wait a little longer for the next one... *crying 'cause I'll be thirty-one when the last movie comes out*

More determined than ever, Kayla gets to work on earning her ikran. The faster she tamed a banshee, the faster she can search for Spider and hopefully bring him home. She didn't know Quaritch-- Hell, she didn't think she ever would considering everyone believed he was dead, but from the stories Kayla has heard, he sounded like a tyrant and she couldn't afford to think about what might be happening to Spider or if he was even still alive. That last thought she tried not to think about, instead she kept herself busy trying to work her way up to her Iknimaya. She desperately wanted to fulfill the promise she made to her nieces and nephews, hoping for their sake -and Spider's- that the kid was unharmed and still kicking.

Even she could admit that she worried for the teen, scared of what Ardmore could be capable of. The general was stone cold, inside and out, and Kayla couldn't imagine that her former superior was ever good with kids. If Ardmore is as incapable of empathy as Kayla had previously claimed, she could only imagine what harm that could mean for Spider, and honestly, it kept her up at night.

So she tried not to think about it. Instead, she worked hard trying not to be a nuisance to the clan. From dawn to dusk, she would do her part to see that the clan was working like a well-oiled machine. She tended to the ikran, but only to the ones who had riders or who had lost one. Norm explained those banshees were safe for her to care for since the ikran only know one rider in their whole lives. She helped weave any necessities, like baskets, despite still being a little worse for wear at the task. She didn't take part in many festivities, but she sang and cheered from the sidelines. Although she couldn't hunt yet, she helped clean any kills made during the day. Now almost a pro in the language, she would bless the body of the creature, thanking the animal for its sacrifice and bidding its soul return to Eywa. Kayla was still hesitant about the existence of the Great Mother, but she did what she had been taught in order to earn both the People's and Eywa's respect.

The Omatikaya were strong under Tarsem's orders. He was younger than Neytiri, likely only a child during the Last Battle of the Hallelujah Mountains fifteen years ago. Jake had complimented the wisdom Tarsem had for his age, but Kayla was skeptical at first, remembering what she and Jake were like at Tarsem's age. Then again, Tarsem was not a child of Earth, and Na'vi at his age had a great many accomplishments that even Kayla was envious of. Kids on Earth could learn a lot from the kids of the Na'vi, and the thought alone only made Kayla think of Spider until she was spiraling again.

Tarsem was surprisingly respectful of Kayla, which she can only assume was an advantage of being the former olo'ektan's sister. He took it upon himself to help her perfect her archery skills and even brought her on some of his own hunting parties. It was a breath of freedom she had never gotten under Jake's leadership so she greatly appreciated Tarsem's. Even though she wasn't given permission to kill anything, it was a great learning experience. Norm accompanied Kayla on some of these hunting parties and he praised whatever skills she showed off, always claiming that she was getting better.

But that wasn't good enough for her, and looking back, Mo'at claimed that even the forest recognized Kayla's determination. The tsahik spun a tale about how Eywa gave Makaylasully her blessing that night, and the next day Kayla had gone hunting with Txe'la and Meui. They returned by midday with a killed and cleaned yerik dragging behind Kayla and wide smiles on each of their faces. The whole clan was happy for her, much to her surprise and excitement, the adrenaline still running through her veins. Norm and Max had apparently placed bets on when she would make a kill and Max walked away with a priceless bottle of whiskey Norm had been saving. Kayla wasn't gonna let Norm live that down.

To make up for doubting her determination, Norm offered to tag along when Kayla went to claim an ikran. Tarsem also accompanied Kayla along with one other young Na'vi warrior ready to ride. They all trudge back to the rookery, the same one Kayla had been visiting to tend to the banshees who wouldn't try to kill her. Now, with the knowledge that the only one that would try to kill her would be hers, Kayla had to admit her confidence was through the roof, and later she would talk about how reckless and stupid she looked.

"Has there ever been an ikran in history who didn't want to kill their rider?" Kayla mocked a whisper to Norm when he explained this behind the waterfall leading up to the rookery.

The smile he gave her was genuine and sweet, "Kiri."

Her eyes widen and her jaw drops, "Kiri?"

"Yeah, she was young, younger than most Na'vi kids when they first gain an ikran. She had simply asked the beast to be her friend and that was that."

Tarsem scoffed, but it was fond and playful, "That girl is touched by Eywa. I could place her in front of Palulukan and she would befriend it... if her mother didn't kill me first, of course."

Kayla snorts and tilts her head back to feel the mist of the waterfall against her face, calming her excitement even as Tarsem leaned toward her, "Would you like to go first, Makaylasully?"

"Hell yeah," she grinned, opening her eyes that were practically sparkling with determination, "Let's get this over with."

"Got your catcher?" Norm had asked even though he was already staring at the wrapped-up frond strung to Kayla's hip.

She only nods and heads out without looking back, worried that she'd have second thoughts if she did so. She had been getting better with heights since her first trip into the rookery, getting used to the drop-offs ever since she forced herself to continue coming back here to tend to the ikran. Kayla purposely kept her gaze in front of her, stubbornly keeping herself from looking down. Already, she could hear the familiar flap of heavy wings and air-piercing screeches, her nerves slightly calmed with the familiar environment she had purposely gotten herself used to for this moment.

Walking out into the heart of the nests, Kayla was completely surrounded by ikran, all of various different colors and sizes. Some greeted her with loud roars and some even fled the scene before she could even look at them. It greatly narrowed down her search. She kept her steps slow, making sure to make as much eye contact as possible with every ikran she came across, just to see if they were going to willingly take the bait. None did, however, flying or crawling away whenever she got too close with the banshee catcher now unwound and dangling in her hand. Each time she thought she had met her match, she took that last step forward and the banshee would suddenly retreat in fear and distaste. A small bit of doubt was beginning to form in her gut. Maybe none of the ikran would choose her. Maybe they smell the drive to rescue Spider off of her and decided that her suicide mission was not worth their lives.

Whatever they smelled, it only angered Kayla further... but she wasn't the only one.

Kayla had sensed her before she ever saw her. The avatar stopped in her tracks when the hair on the back of her neck stood up, then slowly turned her head off to the left, in the direction where she had sensed danger.

It was a large female, likely older than those who usually choose their riders. Just goes to show that both she and Kayla were awfully picky and determined. The ikran was a light green, close to the same colors found on reef ticks or the neon signs outside Kayla's apartment back home. Scattered across the old girl's back in complicated, intricate design was bright, extraordinary shades of purple, striking like lightning bolts across the vast, wide wings when she spread them open to show off the threat she was. Kayla smiled, teeth glimmering in the sun at the clear challenge. Both the avatar and ikran hiss at one another, showing off their fangs in the midst of the stand-off. Norm and the others stood off to the side, eyes and smiles wide in wonder, whooping and hollering in chorus as encouragement for Kayla.

"You got this!"

"Sivako!"

The cheering sent a thrill down Kayla's spine as she began to rotate her wrist and twirl the meresh'ti cau'pla in the air, faster and faster as the stand-off drags on. She keeps her eyes trained on the ikran's, which clearly aggravated the creature to no end. Eventually, the banshee took the bait, enraged by the eye contact until she couldn't take it anymore. Jaw open wide, the ikran lunged forward with a fearless hiss, diving down to Kayla without a care in the world.

She's only given a split second to dive out of the way of those jaws before Kayla is forced to throw the frond without even aiming. Once she side-stepped, Kayla whipped the catcher around like she practiced and watched with amazement as the item dutifully stuck and wrapped firmly around the creature's jaws, clamping it shut. Thank Eywa for razor palms.

"Yeah, Kayla, show her!" Norm cheered, blue fist raised in the air.

Kayla's mind could barely accept the fact that she got the beast muzzled in just one go before she was forced to remember that the ikran don't immediately give up after said muzzlement. Her harsh reminder came in the form of the banshee swinging its whole head back in her direction, hitting Kayla squarely in the nose, the blunt force drawing a large crunching sound to ring through the air and even make Tarsem cringe. Kayla flew backward from the impact, tumbling through the rookery and startling other ikran to fly away. Dizzy, Kayla shook her head to try to rid the fatigue and struggled to her feet, groaning in pain as she stood. With the ikran momentarily forgetting her in exchange for trying to get the muzzle off, Kayla takes the time to bring the back of her hand up to her face, pressing gently against her nose. When she drew her hand back to see, Kayla immediately recognized the blood, a crimson liquid running down her blue skin.

The avatar snarled, death glare piercing into the ikran's flesh, "What a bitch."

It was muttered under her breath, but the ikran reacted as if she had heard it. Whipping its head back in her direction, the banshee hissed dangerously back at Kayla, lowering its neck to get in a charging stance, and rearing its wings back. Kayla didn't wait it out this time. This time, she was pissed and instead took charge, screaming in frustration as she ran full speed ahead at the creature.

When the ikran reared her head up to possibly strike down against her opponent, Kayla took her opening and dove, just in time to miss the brunt force of the ikran's jaw hitting the dirt where Kayla had once stood. Briefly stunning the beast from the harsh impact, Kayla casually whipped her kuru braid around and stood in the juncture of the banshee's neck, and grabbed the creature's own tswin. The ikran isn't given any time to react before tsaheylu is formed, the tendrils of Kayla's queue mending with the creature's.

"Enough!" Kayla demands out loud.

All screeches from the surrounding banshees suddenly became a buzzing white noise as everything else in the universe halted between the Na'vi and the beast. The ikran stopped struggling, her entire frame shivering in response to the bond. Kayla lets out a gust of air, exhausted and in disbelief. Behind her, she could hear Norm and the other Na'vi cheering, whilst the rest of her senses were now focused solely on her new spirit sister.

After catching her breath, Kayla lifted herself up onto her new mount, settling her legs on either side of the ikran's strong neck. Kayla runs her hands up the creature's neck, feeling a pleasant shiver run between their bond as if the ikran was mimicking a purr. Norm eventually jogged up to the pair, beaming up at them, "Wow. You made it look so easy!"

Kayla flashed an unimpressed look down at her friend, blood still dripping out of her nostrils. Norm nervously chuckled before pointing his arm out in the direction of the open sky, "Don't let me keep you waiting. The first flight cements your bond and it's best you go now rather than later. Remember what I told you."

Kayla nods, briefly thinking about how it felt to command a direhorse forward before her thoughts are interrupted by the ikran screeching in response and flapping its powerful wings. Shit, Kayla forgot the beast could hear her thoughts. She's barely given enough time to cling onto the ikran before it takes flight, nearly knocking Norm off the edge before he narrowly dodges the wings.

For a moment, the flying felt an awful lot like falling, but not like Kayla could blame her ikran. After all, the only thing her rider could think about was her fear of falling, therefore the beast had no choice but to do just that. They fell for what felt like hours, Kayla keeping her screams inside her head as she clung onto her mount for dear life, just waiting for them to finally crash at the bottom, but it never came. By the time Kayla was brave enough to open her eyes, she realize they were still falling, not exactly calming her fear of heights. Steeling her legs and squeezing them around the ikran, Kayla yells over the wind, "Straighten out and glide!"

The ikran did as told, immediately catching the wind underneath her wings and slowing their descent, drifting peacefully through the sky instead. Kayla took a moment to catch her breath and relax her heartbeat, blinking rapidly against the brightness. Her arms shook like a leaf but she forced herself to keep her grip firmly on her banshee's two queue antennae like reins on a horse. As they soar peacefully through the air, Kayla relaxes enough to look around, but never down. Her breath is stolen by the sights-- much similar to the first time she rode an ikran as a prisoner. It was so quiet up here, unlike all the other sounds constantly in her life, like the murmurs and yips of the Omatikaya clan and the beeping machines at the biolab. Up here, no sound touched her, and Kayla felt all the muscles in her body relax.

Her ikran calls softly into the wind, grabbing her attention. The creature is far more docile now, calm and serene. The banshee ate up Kayla's attention like a cat, much to her amusement, the creature shaking her muzzle when Kayla scratched the right spot with her nails. Such a mighty, elegant creature, needs a mighty, elegant name. Kayla took a moment to ponder on a name as the soft wind brushed gently through her hair like a mother would to her child. The avatar and ikran were gliding instead of flying, but neither complained as Kayla's thoughts were elsewhere. She wanted to think of several names before she could decide on one, but for some reason, she couldn't get past the first one that came to mind without much thought process. She didn't have a clue why she thought of that name, but it came to her within a split second. It was an Earth name, but one born from Greek mythology and just as mystical as her newly found friend. It fit so well, for some reason.

Eclipse was slowly approaching so Kayla decided to turn back, telling her ikran where to go with only her mind and returning to the rookery. There, she could hear Tarsem and Norm before she could even see them as they whooped and hollered in greeting. The young warrior that traveled with them was gone, likely out flying their own new ikran, while Norm and Tarsem stayed behind to greet the new banshee riders upon their return. Kayla's descent was a little rough, like trying to feel the rollback when hitting the brakes of a car for the first time. When the ikran landed, Kayla hopped off and disengaged tsaheylu, taking a moment to run her hand over the length of the beast's neck in gratitude.

The ikran chirped in fondness just as Norm approached with a wide grin, "What'd you think?"

"I'm speechless," Kayla beamed, adrenaline only now beginning to wear off.

Norm laughs and placed his hands on his lips, looking up and down the length of Kayla's new ride with a smile that can only be described as amazement, despite the fact that Norm's seen it all for fifteen years. Apparently, you can never really get used to it, "So! What did you decide to name her?"

Kayla shrunk in on herself, turning a little bashful while trying to hide her smile, "Promise you won't laugh?"

"Promise."

"Thena."

~~~~~~~~~

When Kayla and the young warrior both returned on top of their ikran, the whole clan erupted in triumph and celebration. And they were not the only ones who were happy for the new warriors. All the scientists-- both avatars and humans alike, ran out to Kayla and her ikran to either embrace her or offer their congratulations. Kayla soaked up the praise with pride, smiling from ear to ear, her tail leisurely swaying to show her contentment. Preparations for a celebration were made as night closed in, with dancing and music and several firepits all circling each other to accommodate the amount of Na'vi and humans taking up the space. Mo'at had blessed both Kayla and the young warrior for their achievements then led the dancing and songs.

Even Kayla found herself dancing and singing willingly, despite her prior insecurities. She would get small bursts of sadness throughout the whole night, thinking if only her family could see her now. The Sullys had only been gone for a week. Had they stayed just a little bit longer, perhaps Kayla would've been able to go with them now that she achieved what was holding her back. She never had time to pity herself, however, since either a friend of hers or a complete stranger would easily pick her up and pull her into the next dance. Both Na'vi and humans danced, together in person and spirit, sharing the same ideals for the future and for once not fighting each other.

After hours, the celebration was technically over and the Na'vi were all settling down for the night, but Norm and Kayla were far from done. Now back in their human bodies, they decide to continue drinking in celebration of Kayla's success in the confinements of her trailer. She had burst out laughing, already a little tipsy, when Norm snuck in the whiskey he stole back from Max that night.

"Shh! You want me to get caught?" Norm snapped at her under his breath, though he, too, was smiling as he closed the air decompression door behind him, "I had been saving this bad boy for a special occasion and I'll be damned if I let Max take that from me."

They drink out of some old glassware that had been left behind in the trailer back in the war and Kayla had recently cleaned and utilized them. They drank at the small dining room table that had been dusted and cleaned once more, but Kayla had kept some of the old things in their place out of respect. She understood that Jake and Norm once spent months here, confined to these four walls with only each other for company. Well... each other and the two women Kayla now spotted from the picture lying on the table, right where she left it.

She takes a sip of her drink before sliding the picture over to Norm, placing her finger above the redhead standing behind Jake, "So is that Dr. Augustine?"

Norm took a moment to tilt his head back and swallow the remains of his whiskey before inspecting the photo. His eyes widened comically as if forgetting he had left these pictures behind when surrendering the space to Kayla, "Oh! Yeah, that's what Grace looked like."

"She's pretty," Kayla hums behind her glass, maneuvering her finger to point at the woman in the ponytail and aviators, "And her?"

Kayla carefully watched as Norm took his time answering again, his eyes carrying some sort of heavy burden while staring at the photo of the woman. He swallows down whatever emotions were swimming behind his eyes, quickly sobering up while nodding, "That's Trudy. She used to fly all us scientists around."

"So you all knew each other pretty well?"

"Yeah. She tried to fight and help the Na'vi in the end."

Kayla caught onto the past tense words and slowly tilted her head toward him, "What happened?"

"... Quaritch's ship shot her down during the battle."

The faraway look in his eye brought Kayla to the conclusion of a certain mystery she was trying to solve in her head. She solemnly nods as she states, "You guys were a thing."

"I guess," Norm shrugged, staring down at his whiskey glass with a small smile, "Enough to scar Jake for life."

"You miss her? Her and Grace, I mean?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

Norm propped both of his elbows on the table, leaning forward to inspect the picture more closely, although it was likely an excuse to hide his face from her, "Thanks."

"Wow. That sounds familiar." She tries to joke, though it falls flat on her tongue when remembering her first interaction with the man sitting in front of her. She gently nudges his elbow with hers, "We sound like two broken records."

Norm scoffs halfheartedly, "Jake didn't seem as thankful when I gave him my condolences the day we met. 'You sure you guys are related?"

Thinking back, Kayla made a small 'iffy' motion with her hand, "Jake, uh... well, he had heard it all by the time Tommy's funeral came around. Over time he got sick of hearing people say they were sorry."

"Not you?"

Kayla simply shrugged, "Not many people said sorry to me."

"What...?" Norm leaned back in his chair to get a better look at her, confused and maybe appalled, "Kayla, how old were you when Tom died?"

Her blood runs cold when she realized she had said too much. Finding it hard to look Norm in the eye, she instead focused more on watching her whiskey swirl around in the glass she gently rolled in her hand, "I think I was... maybe eighteen?"

Norm's eyes widen while doing the math in his head. And as a scientist, it wasn't hard for him to solve the puzzle that had been troubling him since he met Kayla. She was clearly younger than Jake, but for some reason, she had treated Neytiri as if the Na'vi woman was younger than her. Putting that into perspective and adding Kayla's age during the time she lost her brothers, Norm felt sick to his stomach, "And Jake left soon after?"

One single nod.

"Eighteen years old... and no one thought you needed any condolences?"

She shook her head, expression impassive, "For Jake... I guess people thought since they were twins, Tommy's death was harder on him."

The snarl Norm let out was deep-rooted and vile, "That's stupid. Seems like everywhere I go, someone puts Jake on a pedestal."

The words made her freeze, eyes slowly flicking back to Norm out of suspicion, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean--" And just like that, Norm exploded, laughing out of disgust, a side of him that Kayla had never seen, "I spent several years training for the opportunity of a lifetime. I worked my ass off to get to Pandora, to learn under Grace, to have my own avatar, and to learn and experience this world as one of the People. But then I get here and all of that is freely handed to Jake, a guy who only read a manual on neuro-links! It felt like a punch to the gut, and honestly, it felt as though Tom's memory was being flushed down the drain all because of his jarhead dropout of a brother! Jake wasn't even grateful for everything he had been handed until he met Neytiri."

Kayla's eyes briefly widened at the new bit of information, then she relaxed her expression and nodded, trying to hopefully defuse the situation, "All it takes is one person... Up until now, you didn't appear jealous of Jake."

He shook his head, "I haven't been for a while. Back then, Trudy helped. After that, I just accepted and even admired Jake. He's one of my closest friends," the compliments plummet, however, when Norm meets her eyes again, a shadow forming over his face as past years of resentment began to flood, "But after meeting you? I'm sorry. I didn't know I wasn't the only one he screwed over. But all the shit he put you through at eighteen-fucking-years-old?"

Norm abruptly stands, the chair beneath him scooting back in protest as he begins to pace the room, trying to relieve his anger somehow, but it only appeared to make it worse as his voice gradually rose, "It's not fair. It's screwed up and it only reminded me of the last time I saw Jake get everything handed to him while leaving others in the dust. Even now, he's upped and left, leaving the rest of us behind. Leaving you behind. I've never had a sister, but if I did I would rather shoot myself in the face than abandon her, especially if she was only eighteen years old!"

The small trailer rings in the aftermath of his shouting, the silence only interrupted by Norm's attempts to catch his breath. After realizing what he said, he shrunk a little and guilt immediately replaced the anger. Kayla only carefully watched him, face blank as she observed his behavior. He tries opening and closing his mouth to say something, anything. How he was sorry for his attitude toward Kayla's brother, how he shouldn't be complaining when his past doesn't compare to hers, yadda yadda yadda. But the words don't come, and even if they did, Kayla wouldn't have given him room to say anything.

Instead, she stood up without warning and without any inclination of what her next move would be. Face still blank as paper, she took the two steps forward needed to raise her arms and proceed to pull Norm into a hug. The embrace shocked Norm at first, causing his whole posture to stiffen under her grip, but eventually, it smoothens out and he allows his arms to wrap around her, holding her back.

Kayla let out a shuddering breath, a newfound appreciation blooming in her chest for her friend. It was... nice. Nice to have someone, for once, tell her that she had every right to be angry, instead of telling her that Jake was a different man and that he would never do that to her again. It was nice to finally have someone in her corner, to tell her that her feelings matter and that she's not alone in the resentment and betrayal she felt all those years ago. She has never had anyone like that in her life since her brother Tommy died.

For a moment, even for just a split second, she allowed herself to imagine Tommy being there for her here and now as she whispered into Norm's shirt, "Thank you."

~~~~~~~~~

Kayla took Thena out for flights every single day, though they were not meant for fun and exercise. Thena could tell through their bond that they were on the hunt, searching for something... or someone.

They flew several different routes, always keeping their eyes downcast at the forest canopy below, hoping to catch any sign of Spider. Kayla knows that the kid could very well be strapped down in Bridgehead, but on the off chance they took him off-site, Kayla wanted to be able to spot him before he was missed again.

Norm often tried to accompany Kayla on these flights, flying on top of August, his ikran. He couldn't fly with her every single day since he was trying to juggle this and all the work that was starting to pile up back at the lab, but he wanted to try just as hard as Kayla was to find the kid. He had watched Spider grow up, and even though he wasn't his guardian in any way shape, or form, Norm still helped raise the kid, along with all the other humans who were accepted into the Omatikaya clan. Norm cared for the kid just as much as Kayla did. Norm appreciated Kayla's loyalty and dedication to the boy, even though she had only known him for a little under half a year. She was determined to bring him home, even for the sake of her nieces and nephews. In many ways, bringing Spider back could mean that the Sullys could also come home, just as long as Spider never gave Quaritch or Ardmore any information about Jake or the High Camp. So even if Kayla didn't care about the kid -which would be a lie she could tell herself and it still wouldn't be true- it was still vital that Spider be rescued if it meant Toruk Makto could return to lead the war efforts.

Some days, Kayla couldn't be persuaded to take a break. On other days, she was so exhausted from wind burn and all-day flying, she could hardly lift a finger. On these particular days, she'd cut the neuro-link and let her avatar recover while she did work around the camp as a human. These were the days' Norm could find something to keep her mind off of things so she wouldn't someday snap and likely hurt someone, mostly herself.

Norm was beginning to run out of ideas before he stumbled across some old, recovered data that they had taken with them after evacuating Hell's Gate. When he briefly looked them over, he came across quite the nostalgic discovery that he just had to share with his new friend. Downloading the data onto a flash drive, he went in search of Kayla and easily found her in the greenhouse with Max, listening as he gave her a rundown of every plant they possessed in the manmade shack.

Norm made his appearance known and asked Kayla if she could come back inside, "I need to show you something."

They both made sure Max had everything together to continue by himself before they made their way back into the lab, walking into the first door and waiting for the oxygen to become breathable before taking off their masks and heading inside. Norm brings her over to a private corner of the lab and wheeled out a chair in front of a computer for her as he explained, "Apparently, all of Jake's old video logs are still available, stored away in our old database. I thought... listen. After our talk the other day, I thought I should apologize for how I ranted about everything I despise about your brother. Obviously, you have a lot more to hate about him than I do and I shouldn't have made it all about me."

She scoffed, brushing off the apology like water on a duck's back, "I don't think you did."

"Even so, I'm sorry. I think you should see these video logs," Norm offered the flash drive to her, "I'm not trying to justify his actions, but I just thought you deserved to see these because, in a way, it'll catch you up to speed on everything you missed in your brother's life. And you deserve to know all about it, including the parts he left out."

She raised her eyebrows and had to blink to bring herself back to reality, remembering to reach out and take the drive from him before nodding, "... Thanks, Norm."

He left her to it, leaving her in the lab by herself for privacy. Kayla sat down in front of the monitor, her movements slow as she inserted the flash drive, waiting for the information to load with bated breath. Within moments, nearly hundreds of video logs flash over the screen, scrolling up all by itself until it got to the very top of the list, stopping right at the thumbnail of the first video log. Kayla touched the screen, clicking the first video log and it sprung to life before her very eyes. Her breath is caught when the screen reveals a younger, human Jake, sitting as if he was right across from her at the table. He stared directly at her, looking just how she remembered him before all this happened. He had buzzed his hair before leaving for Pandora and Kayla could see his tattoos peeking out from under his T-shirt. He looked like a marine, his voice kind of monotone as he spoke into the video log.

Log Entry: 01

Location: SCI MOD

Researcher: SULLY, J.

P.I.: AUGUSTINE, G.

Date: 05/19/2154

"--And the concept is that every driver is matched to his own avatar so that their nervous systems are in tune... or something. Which is why they offered me the gig because I can link with Tommy's avatar which is insanely expensive-- Is this right? I just say whatever to the video log?"

Kayla's eyes widen and a brief laugh escapes her when Jake looks over his shoulder and the camera reveals a younger Norm and Max looking back at him. They all look like babies in these videos, younger than Kayla has ever seen any of them. After the first video log, she was much more anxious to get the others started. She had gone through each and every one of them, bug-eyed most of the time but otherwise quiet as she eagerly listened to her brother's voice.

Log Entry: 12

Location: SITE 26

Researcher: SULLY, J.

P.I.: AUGUSTINE, G.

Date: 05/30/2154

This log was different compared to the rest. The setting was different and Jake looked a little different. Something had shifted in his attitude. Maybe it was the lighting or the rest of the atmosphere, but Kayla noted how her brother looked more alive than ever compared to the previous videos. Behind Jake sat a familiar red-haired woman, looking into a microscope, either completely unaware of Jake's video log or intentionally ignoring it. Kayla could briefly see Norm moving around in the background again before her attention returned to Jake as he spoke,

"Okay. This is video log twelve, time's twenty-one, thirty-two-- Do I have to do this now? I really need to get some rack."

He had turned around and Grace did not hesitate to turn him down, glaring back at him, "No, now. When it's fresh."

Kayla snorted, amused by this older woman who knew how to straighten out her hard-headed brother. Jake turned back to the camera, huffing in annoyance just as a live version of Trudy walked past him and off-screen, "Okay, location: shack and the days are startin' to blur together. The language is a pain, but, you know, I figure it's like field-stripping a weapon. Just repetition, repetition. Neytiri calls me skxawng. It means 'moron.' Norm's attitude has improved lately. It's good he's back on board, but he thinks I'm a skxawng, too."

Kayla couldn't help the laugh that escaped her lips, trying to imagine what it must've been like for Norm and Neytiri to teach a dumbfounded Jake. Neytiri always appeared complimentary when it came to teaching Kayla her ways, and Norm was more than happy to help, but with Jake, fifteen years earlier, it didn't appear that way. Kayla continued to go through each of her brother's video logs, taking notes in her head when important information popped up.

Log Entry: 42

Location: SITE 26

Researcher: SULLY, J.

P.I.: AUGUSTINE, G.

Date: 06/29/2154

"--My feet are getting tougher. I can run farther every day. I have to trust my body to know what to do. Every day it's reading the trails, the tracks at the waterhole, the tiniest scents and sounds. She's always going on about the flow of energy, the spirits of animals. I really hope this tree-hugger crap isn't on the final."

"This isn't just about eye-hand coordination out there, you know," Grace interrupted, again sitting at the microscope behind Jake, "You need to listen to what she says. Try to see the forest through her eyes."

"Excuse me. This is my video log here." Jake snipes back at her, pointing back to the camera with his thumb. He then turned back to the camera and continued. Several video logs after this were just a compilation of what Jake had learned from Neytiri every day, one after the other.

"--With Neytiri, it's learn fast or die."

One--

"--I talked Mo'at into letting Grace into the village. It's the first time since her school was closed down."

--After the other.

Every video log told a story, even if it was just Jake rambling on about his day. In a sense, it made Kayla feel as though she was there. She felt as though she was sitting across from him as he was telling her all the cool, new things he learned, kind of like how she used to tell him and Tommy about her day after school when she got home.

Sometimes Jake steered away from his Na'vi teachings and would rant about the people he was practically living in that trailer site with. He talked about the sight he came across when he returned from a long day and wheeled into Trudy and Norm in a compromising position. Kayla had laughed, especially after seeing how horrified Jake looked from reiterating the story, his face paling at the memory.

Other times, Kayla would often watch Jake drift from his thoughts, slowly shutting down from exhaustion. One video log was just Jake slowly falling asleep until he was out cold, his head leaning into his hand that he had propped up for support. It must have been late into the night and cold as Grace finally approached Jake from behind, her shawl wrapped warmly around her as she quietly leans over to inspect him. The older woman bore a fond expression, her smile small and gentle as she leans over Jake to turn off the camera, ending the video log.

Kayla would smile at those moments. She appreciated Grace in more ways than one now. She felt as though she knew so much more about Dr. Augustine than she did before, and in a way, Kayla was able to get to know her the same way Kiri did, by watching her in videos like this one. Seeing a past version of Kiri's birth mother just casually walking around in the background of Jake's video logs felt so domestic and at the same time haunting. Grace never knew Kayla, yet the older woman was putting a smile on her face, even in death. Kayla made a mental note to one day find a way to thank this woman for everything she had done for Jake.

When there were happy videos, there were also heavy ones, reminding Kayla of her reality and the world she now lives in.

"--I'm trying to understand this deep connection the People have to the forest. She talks about a network of energy that flows through all living things. She says 'All energy is only borrowed, and one day you have to give it back.'"

Log Entry: 87

Location: SITE 26

Researcher: SULLY, J.

P.I.: AUGUSTINE, G.

Date: 08/13/2154

Jake looks tired, thinner, and has an unkempt beard in this video log. Kayla could hardly recognize him. Even on Earth, he never allowed himself to look this bad. His words are as heavy as the bags under his eyes, "Everything is backward now. Like out there is the true world and in here is the dream. It's hard to believe it's only been three months. I can barely remember my old life. I don't know who I am anymore. They're not gonna give up their home. They're not gonna make a deal. For what? Lite beer? And blue jeans? There's nothing that we have that they want. Everything they sent me out here to do is a waste of time. They're never gonna leave Hometree."

Yet again, Kayla felt as though she was actually there, experiencing it all through Jake's eyes. He makes several more videos, talking about every event that led up to the battle, then the videos are abruptly cut off. The next and supposed final video was dated days later after the fight was over. Kayla felt her eyes water as Jake spoke of Grace, Trudy, and even Tsu'tey's deaths, along with several others, but she firmly kept her emotions in check, not allowing a single tear to fall. Jake tells all the events he could remember happening during the battle, then spoke of the aftermath.

Log Entry: 98

Location: LINK CENTER

Researcher: SULLY, J.

P.I.: AUGUSTINE, G.

Date: 08/24/2154

"--The aliens went back to their dying world. Only a few were chosen to stay. The time of great sorrow was ending. Toruk Makto was no longer needed. Well, uh, I guess this is my last video log. 'Cause whatever happens tonight, either way, I'm... I'm not gonna be coming back to this place. Well, I guess I'd better go. I don't want to be late for my own party. Yeah, it's my birthday, after all. This is Jake Sully signing off."

Kayla had let out a long, gust of air, leaning back in her seat to process all of this. Looking around, she noticed the sky outside the biolab getting darker, close to eclipse. She must have been sitting there for hours as her back and legs began to scream at her. She groans, ready to stand up and move around before she looked back at the screen and froze.

There were more video logs after that.

The thumbnail for the next one made Kayla freeze. Instead of the Jake she knew growing up, she could clearly see the face of his avatar, piercing yellow eyes staring directly back at her. Her eyes flick over to the date, noting that the next one is only a few weeks after the last log. Her fingers shake as she moves over to click on it, letting the video come to life.

Sure enough, the Jake she had been learning to know sat in front of her, or more so the camera. He wasn't in any environment she recognized, the camera was now placed in front of scenery of trees and plant life. Jake looked to be alone, no one wandering around behind him, as he sat his tall self down on top of a large root sticking out of the ground, facing the camera while his ears flick nervously, "I, uh... I guess I have a bit of explaining to do. I thought I was done making these video logs, but... if there's any chance that this data finds its way back to Earth, I... I wanted this to somehow get to my sister."

Kayla's eyes widen, fingers growing cold as Jake spoke, and this time, he spoke directly at her, "Hi, Kayla. You probably don't recognize me but in case you haven't been told, it's your brother, Jake. I have so much to tell you if you haven't already been told. Needless to say, I can walk again, just not in the body you're used to seeing me in. I'm healthy, I'm the leader of my clan, I have friends, and... I'm gonna be a father pretty soon."

Kayla sucks in a sharp bit of air, eyes starting to water again as he continued, "I just thought you might wanna know. I understand if you don't. If you could, I bet you would tell me to go to Hell, but... if there's a chance that you can see this, or even hear this, I just wanna let you know how I'm doing. Alright. Uh... Jake Sully, signing off."

The video barely has time to stop before Kayla is greedily clicking on the second one, not hesitating this time. A nonconsensual smile graces her lips the second the next video plays, revealing a small, Na'vi baby settled peacefully in Jake's arms as he spoke, his voice so soft and gentle, Kayla barely recognized him.

"Hey, Kayla. I thought you'd want to meet your nephew," he tries his best to lift the sleeping baby up to the camera without disturbing the child, and Kayla takes the time to count all of the baby's fingers and toes, recognizing the baby immediately before Jake could properly introduce him, "This is Neteyam."

A tear slips down her cheek as Kayla smiles uncontrollably. Jake obviously can't tell by her reaction and continues to monologue as he brings the baby to nestle back in his arms and stare down at him like he was the most precious thing in the world, "Neytiri named him. It means 'not the end' or something like that. She wanted his name to be a sign of new beginnings after everything we've been through. A sign of new life after war. It's a good name. I like it because it's similar to hers. He looks very much like his mama, don't you, little man?"

He cooed softly to the baby, who made no noise or reaction, still very much asleep. Jake's smile is so contagious, it was hard for Kayla to stop. Jake finally looks away from the child and stares directly at the camera, "I guess I'm a dad now, huh? Not sure whose bright idea was that. Who would've thought? Anyway... I hope you're safe wherever you are, Kay. And I hope, somehow, you know that you're an aunt now. I'll try and make more video logs as Neteyam gets older for you. Okay... Jake and Neteyam Sully, signing off."

She immediately wipes away her tears just as another video pops up. This time, the baby that Jake's holding has more hair and even has eyebrows and more fingers and toes. Jake practically holds the child up to the camera with just one arm, making sure his hand was supporting the back of the neck so Kayla could get a better look at the baby's face.

jake was beaming, proud and joyful, "Hey, Kayla. Meet Kiri. She's technically not mine by blood, but Neytiri and I adopted her. I'm not sure if I've mentioned or if you know about her, but Kiri belongs to my friend, Grace. She... she's unable to care for her, so we decided to step up and love her as our own."

Kayla felt her heart melting at how gentle Jake was for Grace's child. As Kiri begins to fuss, Jake brings his undivided attention to her, whispering softly, "Isn't she beautiful? Hey, baby girl, shh, it's okay. Kiri's name means 'light' I think, but it's also similar to Grace's Na'vi name."

Jake looks back at the camera, smiling and ranting like one would when telling someone their favorite subject in school, "You see, the Na'vi don't have the letter 'G' in their alphabet so they substitute it with a letter that sounds similar. 'Grace' in Na'vi is 'Kìreysì'. 'Same goes for my name. The Na'vi don't have the letter 'J' either. My name is technically Tsyeyk. I guess if you were here, your name might stay the same, I'm not sure. They have all the letters of your name in-- you know what, never mind. Even Kiri looks bored."

Kayla laughs as Jake holds Kiri up to the camera again, "I suppose that's it for now. This is Jake and Kiri Sully, signing off."

The next video is yet again, a different baby. This one also has eyebrows and ten fingers and toes, but it wasn't Kiri. This one's hair was shorter and their limbs were everywhere, unable to stay still in Jake's arms. Jake, on the other hand, was getting a kick out of it, even when the baby kicks his ribcage, "Kayla... this is Lo'ak. He's a feisty one. Neteyam and Kiri are still so little, it's a little odd to have another one already, but it's nice to have them all so close in age. I don't think they understand that they have a little brother now. I tried naming this one instead of Neytiri this time and I don't think it's half bad. So I think lo'a means 'amulet' and Lo'akur means 'Toruk Makto Amulet' which... if you don't already know, I'm also called Toruk Makto. It's a long story."

Jake's smile is soft and yet... sad at the same time, "He's... already so much like me, or at least that's what Neytiri says. It's both exciting and terrifying. Can you imagine? A little mini-me running around? Pandora's gonna have some problems."

Kayla rolls her eyes but in good faith, smiling as Jake holds Lo'ak up to the camera for her to get a better look, "That's all for now. Jake and Lo'ak Sully, signing off."

The video changes again, but this time, the dates are further apart and Jake looks as though he's aged a bit. In his arms is, yet again, another baby, but she's smaller and bears Na'vi traits like Neteyam. Jake's voice is soft while lifting the sleeping baby to the camera, "Tuktirey. Ain't she a cute one? The kids can't pronounce her name right so we just call her Tuk. The closest Lo'ak has gotten is Tuk-Tuk. She came as a surprise. Neytiri and I didn't know if we were gonna have any more rugrats."

Kayla laughs at the reference, immediately silencing herself when Tuk began to cry. For a moment, Kayla thought she had woken the baby before stupidly remembering that this was a video of the past. As Tuk cried, Jake shushed her gently, patting her bottom and holding her in the crook of his neck. He had become more of an expert between video logs. Jake chuckled to himself before looking at the camera, "I guess we'll have to cut this one a little short. This is Jake and Tuk Sully, signing off."

Thinking that would be it as Kayla got to the last of her brother's kids, she stood up to stretch. Turning around to try and relieve the stress in her back, she froze when she heard another video begin to play, "Kayla... I'm sorry."

Whipping back around, Kayla saw Jake, alone, sitting in front of the camera. He's older, yet again, as he rubbed his face tiredly, struggling to get the words out, "I miss you, Kayla. I miss you so much. I wish I could find a way to reach out to you. I wish I had taken you with me. You would've loved it here. I... I just hope that wherever you are, you're safe and you're happy."

Despite her resentment, Kayla's heart breaks seeing her brother like this, broken and regretful. Jake clears his throat, trying to rid it of emotions while his gaze shifts uncomfortably, tail wagging nervously behind him. He was looking around as if afraid he would be caught before whispering, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You deserve better. You deserve a brother like Tommy instead of the asshole you got stuck with. I don't regret leaving Earth. Staying there any longer would have killed me. But leaving you there was my ultimate regret. I failed you as a brother, and watching my boys love their sisters unconditionally is a constant reminder of that. I don't want my boys to end up like me. I want them to be their own person, to stop trying to be like their father who would abandon his sister at the drop of a hat."

He sucks in a sharp breath, the words clearly making an impact on him as his tail and ears lower in distress. Jake had always been one of those people who couldn't cry unless he finally said certain words out loud to make those emotions a reality. As long as he didn't say anything, he wouldn't cry, like when Tommy died. He hadn't said a word during the funeral, but Kayla has expected it from him. He didn't cry when their parents died and he didn't say a word back then, knowing he would.

His breathing is shaky when he tried regaining a bit of composure, looking off to the side instead of directly at Kayla, "I miss you... I wish you were here."

The video ends and it's finally the end of the logs. Kayla checks the date of the last video log and realized it was filmed almost a year before she arrived on Pandora. She was already on the way.

Kayla sighs through her nose, in and out, "I miss you, too."

~~~~~~~~~

Norm never asked what she found on those video logs and Kayla never said. Instead, she got back to work finding Spider. Again, Norm would join her on occasion, but realistically he couldn't as long as she could. Norm had tried finding the link limits between a driver and their avatar but hadn't been as successful as Kayla. She's proven she could go far and beyond with the link, going days without breaking it. Perhaps it stems from whatever soldiers learn during military training. All that discipline tends to stick around for a long time, and perhaps that discipline is why Kayla can resist the urge of jumping between human and avatar. Norm once told her that Jake's record in the neuro-link was sixteen hours straight, to which she scoffed and puffed out her chest, "Amateurs, the lot of ya."

Most of the time, Kayla is flying by herself, her, and Thena, constantly searching for Spider and sometimes not returning home for days at a time. She knew it was suicide to fly anywhere near Bridgehead, so she had to spread her search elsewhere. But knowing Ardmore, she wasn't stupid enough to keep Spider anywhere other than their headquarters.

Kayla would spend countless sleepless nights looking for the kid, and every day she was left disappointed, losing hope little by little. Lost in her haunted thoughts, she nearly falls off of Thena when she suddenly receives a call from her earpiece, shattering the calm, muted winds around her.

"Dirty Falcon to Desert Fox, do you copy?" Norm's call sign rings through and Kayla hurries to answer, pressing her fingers to her throat mic.

"I copy, Dirty Falcon, over."

"Send your air traffic, over."

Kayla takes a glance down at the compass she now had attached to the bottom of her songcord "About twenty clicks west, over."

"Report back ASAP. We got a call coming in from Devil Dog, over."

Her blood runs cold, the very mention of Jake making Kayla worried that something was very, very wrong, "Copy that, Dirty Falcon. I'm Oscar-Mike, over and out."

She turned Thena around so fast the ikran hissed at her with distaste, despite feeling the urgency through their bond. Kayla had commanded her banshee to fly as fast as she could with the promise of large slabs of meat later. And no ikran can say no to a tasty bribe like that. Thena flew as fast as the wind could carry her, and within no time, they returned to High Camp. A horn is blown to warn people of her arrival and to let people know she was a friend and not a foe. Before Thena could properly land, Kayla was already disconnecting tsaheylu and jumping down, her feet landing on the floor of the cave mouth gracefully. Her eyes had not looked anywhere else other than the gunship covered in warpaint being loaded up with what looked to be a lot of medical supplies. Humans and avatars were assisting one another with the task and so Kayla beelined for them, immediately spotting Norm in his avatar.

"What's going on?"

"Kiri had a seizure."

Kayla's heart plummets, "What?!"

"Kiri had a seizure and she hasn't woken up," Norm was in scientist mode, serious and logical as he goes around packing up some last-second supplies, "Jake has asked us to come and help her in case the tsahik of the Metkayina can't do anything."

The Metkayina? This was the first Kayla has heard about any of this. Was this where Jake had taken his family? With nothing else on her mind other than Kiri, Kayla firmly nods her head, "What can I do?"

Max walks up to the towering avatars, face mask on and ready to fly, "I think it would be best if you flew separately on Thena. If the Metkayina village sees a rogue gunship flying toward their home, they might turn us away if Jake's unable to stop them. With an ikran by our side, we'll have a better chance of landing and helping Kiri."

"Okay. Let's go."

A/N: The reason why I named Kayla's ikran Thena is the same reason Kayla named her… because it was the first name that came to me at the top of my head and for some reason, it stuck. It just felt right. singing It's tiiiime to meet the love interestssss!!! Next chapter :) Thank you for the support and for hanging on so long!

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neonthewrite · 1 month

Text

Shackled Forest

The next GT July prompts were Jewelry and Cursed, and though I started with just the first one in mind, it fits the second pretty well too, so I'll count it for both. Got a new concept for me to play around with, some new characters ... we all know I love a forest character.

Introducing Morrel. He's doing his best, but it's difficult.

~~~

The jewels hadn’t shown a sign of life in a long time.

Sometimes Morrel naively, stupidly, foolishly-optimistically thought that they’d finally fallen inert, all power sapped away into the atmosphere never to bother him again. But if that were the case, he’d be able to remove them. The thick wrist bangles, glittering with teal and blue gems, would unclasp and fall away while the choker with its enormous ruby at his throat would fly open and he’d be free of the weight at last.

But no. They stayed with him, more than a human’s weight in gold and a matching quantity of precious stones, heavy and lifeless, until that morning.

It began as a stirring dread in the back of his mind that he almost hadn’t recognized in the early hours. By sunrise, though, he couldn’t deny what it meant.

A human had found and donned the fourth and final piece of jewelry in the set. A ring, the band human-sized rather than giant, sporting a humble diamond little more than a fleck of glitter to his eyes. Despite its small, nondescript appearance, though, that ring meant only trouble for him.

He felt no compulsion, no drive towards the wearer of that ring, which meant that they didn’t know what they’d picked up. That was good. There was still time to figure something out. Time before they understood they had a giant bound to their whim, no matter what it may be. If they figured that out, Morrel would be stuck with them, and they with him, until they passed on or renounced the ring.

No wearer had cast off the ring before. He had no reason to believe this newcomer would either.

To that end, he rushed towards where he’d last seen that infernal ring. The height of a young tree himself, nearly thirty feet, he couldn’t do much sprinting on the forest floor without damaging everything in his path. Instead, Morrel skimmed over the canopy, his boots barely touching the crowns of the trees like a water skimmer barely touched the surface of a lake. To anyone on the ground below, he would be a passing wind and little more.

He tried not to think too hard about what he might need to do when he arrived. If he indeed found the ring near where he expected it: on the tiny, fragile hand of a human. He couldn’t touch the ring itself, thanks to his own accessories. He couldn’t harm someone who’d activated the power in the ring. For someone who didn’t know, though … Morrel had options. None of them were good.

The alternative couldn’t happen again. That ring had passed through generations of tiny human hands, leaving him at the command and mercy of tyrants and warmongers, pillars of greed and conquest alike. He’d never felt relief the likes of what he felt when the last king to wear that ring had fallen to a highwayman, his jewels and money taken away to be passed around among thieves. One of Morrel’s first actions taken with free will in centuries had been to terrorize a camp of bandits, to put his hands on a human before he could take up the ring.

A nondescript piece of jewelry was easily forgotten, tamped into the mud and ruin of that camp. No one remembered a ring over a gold-bedecked rampaging giant-of-the-woods, with skin like tree bark, long, bloody hands and sharp features, four narrow eyes glowing with the colors of sunset and a voice like a storm.

Morrel didn’t want to hurt anyone like he’d done then. He didn’t need to hurt anyone. He merely needed to separate them from the ring that would seal his fate.

Whatever human it was had some choice in the matter too.

At less than half a mile from where that camp had stood decades ago, Morrel slowed his dash, sinking into the woods with only a whisper of leaves against his skin and tattered clothes.

He couldn’t do much about the shining gold of his jewelry, but Morrel had at least switched out his old clothes, fine things in the colors of the kingdom he’d belonged to for so long. He wore rougher fabrics now, pieced together or bartered from the occasional passing hill-giant, in the greens and greys of the woods he called home. When he sank into the forest, it was like a new tree had sprouted there and began slinking between the trunks.

The dread in his core ebbed and flowed like a tide. Morrel couldn’t say whether his own anxiety or the actions of whoever had the ring did it. He could barely remember the first time that ring had fallen into human hands, how it had felt then. The freedom of before was a faraway dream, hazy and faded by centuries of subjugation. What he had now wasn’t even freedom, not with that threat constantly waiting.

The threat that, now, hung so close over him he practically felt its shadow.

Stalking through the trees, the dread became sharper, more focused. He had never kept track of where exactly the ring had fallen—he never needed to. This clarity always grew when he came too close to it. Only bad things came from that little band of gold and his whole body knew it; if running as fast as he could in the opposite direction would help, he’d have abandoned it long ago.

A small voice mumbled up ahead—no, two voices. Morrel’s eyes narrowed and he crept even slower towards the sound, blending into the trees despite his bulk. His recent years of avoiding humans hadn’t been enough to forget how to read tone in a small voice; they were arguing over something. One of them was old and gruff, the other young and fresh. It was more than the simple kind of arguing between a willful youth and their elder.

Creeping close enough to parse the words but not enough for them to spot him easily between the trees, Morrel’s core chilled like winter.

“I’ve got a feeling about this thing. Why would we just give this away for what’s probably not enough money to solve our problems? There’s something magic in it, we just need—”

“What we need is money, you little idiot. Not flights of fancy and pretending the dirty jewelry you found in the woods is magic. Give it here!”

Foliage and twigs shuffled as the pair apparently chased each other a few steps. Not far—the older voice grunted in discomfort and the younger voice huffed defiantly. “It is magic. It resized to fit me as soon as I put it on. And I’m going to find out what it does!”

It was as good a cue as any. Morrel couldn’t allow the owner of that young, hopeful voice find out what the accursed ring did. He abandoned stealth for speed and surged forward, slipping past tree trunks like they were reeds in a pond, scraping away bark and low branches.

And then he was upon them.

He was fast, faster than his bulk might suggest. One long hand dropped to the older human where he stood, knocking him from his feet and pinning him harshly to the ground. Weak struggles met Morrel’s unforgiving palm, though he didn’t lean enough weight onto the man to give him more than bruises.

The other hand snatched at the other human where she stood on a boulder jutting out of the ground, surely the spot she planned to flaunt her spryness over her companion while she talked wistfully of magic and boons and happy tales. Morrel’s hand found her all the same, long fingers like steel coiling around her middle before she could flinch away. His thumb lengthened and sharpened as he hauled her off the stone, the point resting just a breath away from her throat. She stared at him with wide eyes, all bravado forgotten, while her companion shouted unintelligible things from where he was stuck on the ground. She didn’t even struggle, just stared at him with wide, terrified eyes.

It wouldn’t be the first time. With and without the influence of the jewels, Morrel’s hands had been bloodied. He could do this again.

She was so young.

Had that mattered last time?

He couldn’t remember the faces or the voices of the last humans he’d accosted. They had been bandits, humans living rough much like these two seemed to be. They were so so different from the humans dressed in fine things and living in constant luxury that had hurt him. But they had the same opportunity to hurt him anyway.

He couldn’t hurt a fully aware master of that ring, but even though she wore the grubby thing on her grubby finger, she hadn’t realized its potential yet. She knew it held magic, and that provided the wary dread at the back of Morrel’s mind, the knowledge that he could be captured again. Now was the only time to save himself, and he hesitated.

It needed to be done. He’d be protecting himself. Just one little motion of his hand and it would be over. Her fate was regrettable, but his own had to matter more to him.

But she stared up at him, so young and afraid, with eyes that couldn’t have taken in two decades of life.

“Close your eyes, young thing,” he said. He didn’t have a mouth, but his voice rumbled out of him all the same, and he was grateful it didn’t betray his hesitation. “Close your eyes. Look away. Whatever is easiest.”

It wasn’t the young human but the older one that responded. “No ... no! Take me instead, if you must take someone! We meant no disrespect or trespass!”

Morrel didn’t look away from the human in his hand, but his gaze softened. His lower set of eyes closed entirely. “No. Close your eyes, little thing.”

She shook her head, though a shiver diminished some of the sense of brave defiance. Her gaze flickered over him quickly, taking in a few details of his appearance, but she didn’t waver. “Y-you don’t actually want to hurt me, do you?”

Morrel’s eyes shifted to a slightly stormier color, some grey mixing in with the sunset hues. “I want to do what is necessary. If you will not accept what mercy I can offer, that is not—”

“No, that’s not it,” the girl said, her confidence growing while his dimmed. “I can—” she broke off into a laugh and finally looked away from his face down to her pinned arm, where one hand sported the faintest glint of gold. “I can feel what you actually want.”

Morrel froze.

Somewhere within him, a lock clicked into place.

His dread peaked and then drained away to nothing.

The girl grinned wider. “I know what this ring does.”

#gtjuly #gtjuly2023 #mywriting #morrel #forest spirit #gt #g/t #giant tiny #handheld #g/t handheld

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achaotichuman · 5 months

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Acotar Rant

I feel like the Acotar series would be so much better if Rhys and Tam was just a little over a hundred.

Assuming the age gaps and century year old fae in SJM books are there so we can have complex characters and not just to fulfill her weird sexual fantasies I think it would be better if instead of these people being like five-six centuries old, where they should have fully developed characters and should be better equipped to handle the situations, they're in. Because trust me, none of them are.

They were like just a little over a hundred. Tamlin and Rhysand might have been twenty-thirty years old when they're families were killed, and they were put on thrones. And keeping to the fact that they are immortal, all of a sudden, to have the equivalent of baby Fae ruling Courts, the actions or lack of actions taken in their Courts makes a ton of sense.

Tamlin, who has said many, many times he would always fight for freedom and defend people who couldn't defend himself, following in his tyrant father's footsteps makes sense because he was so young and probably had no one and nothing to his name. Rhysand not doing anything for the Hewn City or Illyria also makes sense because he was just a couple of decades old and same thing as Tamlin, had nothing and no one to his name.

Then only like twenty-thirty years pass, which even for humans is not nearly enough time for massive changes like completely eliminating wing clipping, an ingrained tradition in society, to take place, Amarantha comes. Her being able to trick a literal daemati also makes sense because Rhysand wouldn't really have the experience needed to sniff out when someone is up to something fishy.

Then fifty years pass, fifty years Under the Mountain which is even longer than either Rhys or Tamlin had been ruling. Then their desperation makes more sense. Tamlin clinging onto Feyre like she's some fallen saint that he desperately needs to protect makes even more sense. At that point neither of them would really know much more than Under the Mountain or the curse.

It's still a gross age gape, but it adds more nuance to the story, it's also why I think it's stupid when Feyre says Tarquin wouldn't understand her darkness, like no sweetie, you wouldn't understand his darkness.

I just think we need younger Fae. Fae that are inexperienced and don't know better than the bad cards they've been dealt. Rhysand who is still new to this whole ruling thing and know only knows Amarantha's way of ruling. Same thing with Tamlin. Both of them still locked in the memories of the night they became High lords, unable to let go.

It's also a good way to comment on how Fae mentally age, because, immortal or not, time changes people. Fae mentally age slowly, because their bodies don't at all, so for only like seventy or eighty years to have passed since they witnessed the death of their families, for Tamlin to have been like fifty-sixty when he was forced to send his sentries, his friends, to their deaths in vain. For Rhysand to have been a child king trying to eliminate wing-clipping and darkness in the Hewn City while men centuries older than him scoffed and laughed.

It just adds a whole new level of complexity. I hate the idea that these characters need to be like 500+ to have any level of personality in these series'.

#acotar #tamlin #rhysand #pro tamlin #acotar headcanons #acotar au #critical acotar #critical acowar #critical acomaf #critical sjm #spring court #night court #achaotichuman late night ramblings #acotar rant

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memecucker · 6 months

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i think the funniest thing about trolley memes is how people dont even realize people have been making parodies of the trolley problem since 1988

Consider the following case:

A brain in a vat on Twin Earth is at the wheel of a runaway trolley. There are only two options that the brain can take: the right side of the fork in the track or the left side of the fork. There is no way in sight of derailing or stopping the trolley and the brain is aware of this, for the brain knows trolleys. The brain is causally hooked up to the trolley such that the brain can determine the course which the trolley will take.

On the right side of the track there is a single railroad worker, Jones, who will definitely be killed if the brain steers the trolley to the right. If the railman on the right lives, he will go on to kill five men for the sake of killing them, but in doing so will inadvertently save the lives of thirty orphans (one of the five men he will kill is planning to destroy a bridge that the orphan's bus will be crossing later that night). One of the orphans that will be killed would have grown up to become a tyrant who would make good utilitarian men do bad things. Another of the orphans would grow up to become G.E.M. Anscombe, while a third would invent the pop-top can.

If the brain in the vat chooses the left side of the track, the trolley will definitely hit and kill a railman on the left side of the track, "Leftie" and will hit and destroy ten beating hearts on the track that could (and would) have been transplanted into ten patients in the local hospital that will die without donor hearts. These are the only hearts available, and the brain is aware of this, for the brain knows hearts. If the railman on the left side of the track lives, he too will kill five men, in fact the same five that the railman on the right would kill. However, "Leftie" will kill the five as an unintended consequence of saving ten men: he will inadvertently kill the five men rushing the ten hearts to the local hospital for transplantation. A further result of "Leftie's" act would be that the busload of orphans will be spared. Among the five men killed by "Leftie" are both the man responsible for putting the brain at the controls of the trolley, and the author of this example. If the ten hearts and "Leftie" are killed by the trolley, the ten prospective heart-transplant patients will die and their kidneys will be used to save the lives of twenty kidney-transplant patients, one of whom will grow up to cure cancer, and one of whom will grow up to be Hitler. There are other kidneys and dialysis machines available, however the brain does not know kidneys, and this is not a factor.

Assume that the brain's choice, whatever it turns out to be, will serve as an example to other brains-in-vats and so the effects of his decision will be amplified. Also assume that if the brain chooses the right side of the fork, an unjust war free of war crimes will ensue, while if the brain chooses the left fork, a just war fraught with war crimes will result. Furthermore, there is an intermittently active Cartesian demon deceiving the brain in such a manner that the brain is never sure if it is being deceived.

QUESTION: What should the brain do?

[ALTERNATIVE EXAMPLE: Same as above, except the brain has had a commisurotomy, and the left half of the brain is a consequentialist and the right side is an absolutist.]

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dreadsuitsamus · 8 months

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Hey Ellie! I hope you’re doing good! May I please request sfw prompts #39 and #13 with Vegeta? I got hit with the mood of wanting something soft with Vegeta out of nowhere.

Slow | Vegeta x Reader |

#13- "I didn't think it was possible to love someone this much."

#39- "Why are you scared of loving?"

author's note: something soft with vegeta? sign me the hell up 🫡🫡 this is also (i believe) the second to last request i have remaining from the prompt lists requests, since i lost the lists 🫠

pairing: vegeta x fem!reader

warnings: brief mentions of canon typical violence and death, no dialogue

Stargazing with Vegeta wasn't a new pastime of yours, but it's always somehow felt so special to sit with your prince in the darkened silence, watching the twinkles above you with no one around to interrupt. It's been a long time of this, with plenty lost along the way, but time and time again you've proven your strength to match up to his and that's why you've remained his second for so long.

You find that your eyes keep slipping to look at him rather than the dipper before you, however.

Oh, how he's changed after all this time. He used to be horrific, cruel even for a Saiyan. He was even unbothered by Frieza's annihilation of your home planet! And now he's at ease, though not without an occasional princely tantrum every now and then. Having his ass absolutely handed to him on Earth ended up yielding results you never could have seen coming; perhaps his death on Namek played the biggest role in his changing ways.

Though it was temporary and will continue to be should he perish again, you'll never quite recover from the scars his death left on you.

Vegeta shifts just a tad, his arm brushing against yours as you both lean on the large rock. It's wide and tall, slanted and perfect for gazing at the stars or clouds alike. It's as if destiny curated this spot just for you and your Prince of all Saiyans— you've never once seen or sensed another soul here.

Goosebumps cover your skin at the vague touch. He's attractive, no doubt, and you've seen him damn near naked more than once and vice versa, but the proximity is a thousand times more intimate and only ever occurs here. Any other time, without this setting, you and Vegeta are both highly prone to distance from the world and each other.

You're certainly best friends, having lived through what feels like three separate lifetimes together. And at one point, it seemed this barrier had the potential to lift. Post-Namek, things were… Gentler. Vegeta had hugged you for the first time, and you remember it more fondly than you'd like to.

There's a solid few taps on the door to the bedroom Bulma's given you, and you don't need to recognize the strength behind it to know it's Vegeta. It's late, well past midnight even, and perhaps he's also finding it hard to sleep on the too-soft bed. You can hardly stand to even sit on it, though you've been seated at the end of it ever since the shower you took in the extravagant bathroom connected to your new bedroom.

"Come in."

He enters quietly, not even a word spoken as he crosses the room to join you. The bed dips as he takes his place to your left, and together you stare at the carpet. This place is much different from Planet Vegeta, of which your memories hold an unfavorable fog, or any Frieza Station. There's no tyrant to obey, no missions to fulfill… The world is yours to claim on terms you get to create, for the first time in your thirty years of life.

Will you and Vegeta have those same terms, though? Or for the first time in both of your lives, will you navigate entirely alone?

Vegeta's arm moves around your shoulders, tugging you close enough for him to rest his cheek atop your head, and your lips curl just a bit for the first time in quite a while.

A breeze rolls through and you shiver despite your hot-blooded Saiyan nature. Unbothered by the chill himself, Vegeta tugs off the jacket he's wearing and drapes it over your shoulders. Wearing a small smile, you give his arm a gentle pat.

You find it difficult to believe the man before you is the man you once knew— though he can probably say the same about you. You were his favorite warrior, slitting throats and tearing things apart with your bare hands right alongside him, and now you care for the son he had out of wedlock with Bulma as if the boy was your own.

Vegeta being a father in itself has been hard to believe at times. But just as he's grown as a man, his fatherhood journey has been complex and constantly changing too. In the beginning he chose not to acknowledge the child at all, not until you swiftly nipped it in the bud at least, though one thing you absolutely could not (and wouldn't dream of attempting to) change was his lack of commitment to Bulma herself. Truthfully, it's probably for the best that they co-parent rather than cohabitate as husband and wife.

She's got it all, though. Money, beauty and fame, his firstborn child even. Why he hesitates, you may just never know.

Looking away from the sky and in the face of the man that's already looking at you, his normally sharp features softer than usual and illuminated by the stars and dwindling fire you lit hours ago. You're left to simply stare and wonder as far as your mind can take you.

Why are you scared of loving, Prince? You think to yourself as Vegeta's knuckles brush against you lightly in his effort to adjust his jacket over you properly.

To himself, Vegeta muses something he may never gain the ability to say aloud.

I didn't think it was possible to love someone this much.

#vegeta x you #vegeta x reader #vegeta imagine #x reader #reader insert #dbz imagine #fic #prompt list request #taura🩷

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melon-official · 1 month

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hi... can u draw orlam... :3

breaking news: local tyrant ruler is the saddest most brutally tormented thirty year old youve ever seen in your life

#our wonderland #orlam brewbacher #dewdles #thanks for the ask

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matttgirlies · 16 days

Text

Matt & Me🎀

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

a story heavily based on Priscilla Presley’s Book “Elvis & Me” based in the 1950’s - 1970’s.

fem! reader x singer! matt

disclaimer!! - in no way am i saying matt would ever support or do these kind of things, for the sake of the book certain unethical things do happen at times.

warnings - mentions of guns,, drug use,, threats,, mentions of affairs

y/nn = your nickname for any confusion🩷

Chapter 21

Putting together the best musicians, sound and lighting technicians, costumers, and choreographers, he was taking no chances this time. He scoured the music scene for the top sidemen in the business. Auditions were held and he handpicked each player—names such as James Burton, John Wilkinson, Ronny Tutt, Glen D. Hardin, Jerry Scheff. He loved the sound of the Sweet Inspirations, backup group for Aretha Franklin, and he hired them on the spot as a warmup act and to sing backup vocals. He also hired his favorite gospel group, the Imperial Quartet.

Before leaving Los Angeles, Matt rehearsed at RCA Sound Studios for ten days and then polished the act for a full week prior to the opening. It was the event of the summer in Vegas. Colonel Parker brought the preopening publicity to fever pitch. Billboards were up all over town. On the third floor of the International, administrative offices bustled with activity. No other entertainer coming into Vegas had ever stimulated this kind of excitement. The hotel lobby was dominated by Matt paraphernalia—pictures, posters, T-shirts, stuffed animals, balloons, records, souvenir programs. You’d think Barnum and Bailey were coming to town.

Back home there was also excitement as we girls discussed what we’d wear to the opening. “I want you to look extra special, Baby,” Matt said. “This is a big night for all of us.” I hit every boutique in West L.A. before finding just the right outfit.

Though it had been nine years since Matt had given a live performance, you never would have known it from his opening. The audience cheered the moment he stepped onstage and never stopped the entire two hours as Matt sang, “All Shook Up,” “Blue Suede Shoes,” “In the Ghetto,” “Tiger Man,” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” He mixed the old with the new, the fast and hot with the lyrical and romantic. It was the first time I’d ever seen Matt perform live. Wanting to surprise me, he had kept me from rehearsals. I was astounded. At the end he left them still cheering and begging for more.

Cary Grant was among the stars who came backstage to congratulate him after the show. But the most touching moment was when Colonel William arrived with tears in his eyes, wanting to know where his boy was. Matt came out of the dressing room and the two men embraced. I believe everyone felt their emotion in that moment of triumph.

I don’t think we slept that night. Nate Doe brought in all the newspapers and we read the rave reviews declaring, “Matt was great” and “He never looked or sang better.” He shared credit for his new success with all of us.

“Well, we did it. It’s going to be a long thirty days, but it’s going to be worth it if we get the reception we got last night. I may have been a real tyrant, but it was well worth it.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” we all agreed, laughing. “You were a tyrant.”

The International Hotel was delirious over Matt’s performance and the box-office receipts. The following day they signed a fiveyear contract with the Colonel for Matt to appear twice a year, usually around the same time, January and August, at the then unheardof salary of one million dollars a year.

Matt literally took over Las Vegas for the entire month he was there, playing to a packed house every show as thousands more were turned away. No matter where we looked, all we could see was the name Matt—on television, newspapers, banners, and billboards. The King had returned.

Initially, Matt’s triumph in Las Vegas brought a new vitality to our marriage. He seemed a different person. Once again, he felt confident about himself as a performer and he continued to watch his weight and work out every day at karate.

It was also the first time that I felt we were functioning as a team. I made several trips to New York, trying to find unique accessories for him to wear onstage. I bought scarves, jewelry, and a black leather belt with chain links all around it that Bill Belew would later copy for the famous Matt jumpsuit belts.

I loved seeing him healthy and happy again, and I especially enjoyed our early days in Vegas. The International provided an elegant three-bedroom suite that we turned into our home away from home. During his show I always sat at the same table down front, never tiring of watching him perform. He was spontaneous and one never knew what to expect from him.

On occasion, after his midnight show, we’d catch lounge acts of other performers playing Vegas or we’d gamble until dawn. Other times we’d relax backstage, visiting with entertainers captivated by his performance. This was the first time I’d been with Matt at a high point in his career.

With the renewed fame came renewed dangers. Offstage he could be guarded by Sonny and Red. Onstage he was a walking target. One night that summer Nate and Sonny were tipped off that a woman in the audience was carrying a gun and had threatened to shoot Matt. A true professional, Matt insisted on going on. Additional precautions were taken and everyone was on the alert. Matt was instructed to stay downstage, making himself a smaller target, and Sonny and Jerry were poised to jump in front of him at the slightest sign of suspicious movement in the audience. Red was positioned in the audience with the FBI agents.

The show seemed to take an eternity. I glanced at Patsy apprehensively and she in turn grasped my hand as we comforted each other, longing for the night to end without incident. James remained backstage, never letting Matt out of his sight and praying, “Dear God, don’t let anything happen to my son.”

Because of this and other threats, extra security was arranged wherever Matt appeared. Entrances through backstages, kitchens, back elevators, and side exits became routine.

Matt had his own theory about assassinations, based on the murders of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. He felt that the assassins gloated over their “accomplishments,” and told his bodyguards that if any attempt were made on his life, they should get the killer—even before the police. He didn’t want anyone bragging to the media that they’d killed Matt Sturniolo.

Sonny and Red lived in so much tension these days that they were constantly frenzied. Suspicious in crowds of overzealous fans, they were quick to respond to any sign of danger. Compared to Sonny’s diplomacy, Red’s reputation was to act first and ask questions later. Eventually, numerous assault-and-battery charges started piling up against Matt. When James warned him about Sonny and Red’s aggressiveness, Matt said, “Goddamn, Red. I hired you to keep the sons of bitches away from me, not get me in any legal binds. Somehow you’re going to have to control that redheaded temper of yours.”

Although Matt would joke about the death threats—and there would be several more throughout the Vegas commitments—the fear and constant need for security heightened the pressure of nightly performing.

In the beginning when Matt began doing regular Vegas engagements, we girls visited frequently. We’d fly in over the weekend, sometimes bringing our children, spend three or four days, and then return home.

On the days we were apart I’d take hundreds of Polaroids and home movies of Charlotte. She was growing so rapidly I didn’t want him to miss out on her development. Daily he’d receive his “care packages,” as I’d refer to them, including tape recordings of me teaching Charlotte new words and Charlotte mimicking me. Each week, upon my arrival, I’d paste photos on the mirrors in his bedroom to remind him that he had a wife and child.

During his first couple of engagements he still seemed humbled by lingering doubts of whether the public was fully accepting him. At this point he had no interest in outside affairs or flirtations, his concentration on daily rehearsals and performances every evening excluding everything else.

Later he would become more cocky. The crowds’ admiration took him back to his triumphs in the early fifties and he found it hard to come down to earth after a month of nightly cheers. His name on the International’s huge marquee would be replaced by the next superstar. The offices on the third floor would be cleared out and incoming calls for reservations would stop.

Thriving on all the excitement, glamour, and hysteria, he found it difficult to go home and resume his role as father and husband. And for me the impossibility of replacing the crowd’s adoration became a real-life nightmare.

At home in Los Angeles, there was just the usual group around—strictly a family atmosphere. This abrupt change was too much for him and soon he developed the habit of lingering in Vegas for days, sometimes weeks, after a show. The boys were finding it increasingly difficult to resolve the conflict between working for Matt and maintaining a home life.

Crazed with inactivity and boredom, Matt became edgy and temperamental, a condition exacerbated by the Dexedrine he was again taking to control his weight.

Sometimes, to ease the transition home, Matt would insist we all pile into cars and head for Palm Springs. Since our marriage we had spent-many weekends there sunning and watching football games and late-night television, but after Charlotte was born, my needs changed. The Palm Springs heat was too much for her, the long drive boring, the idleness of resort life wearying. One weekend I suggested, “Matt, why don’t just you and the guys go down?”

From that time on, the guys developed their own lifestyle in our secluded desert home. Occasionally we wives would be invited to spend the weekend, but by and large, Matt now considered Palm Springs his private refuge.

He made it clear that this time away was good for him, giving him a chance to think, to hang out with the guys. In reality Matt was lost. He did not know what to do with himself after Vegas. He escaped in more powerful, unnecessary prescribed drugs to raise his spirits and ward off boredom.

After he had conquered Vegas, it was agreed that Matt should go back on the road. Colonel immediately began booking concert tours around the nation, starting with an impressive run of six sold-out shows in the Houston Astrodome, which earned over one million dollars in three nights.

The night I arrived in Texas to watch the performance, Amber, Judy, and I flew in on a private jet. I looked down on the Astrodome and found it hard to believe my eyes. The length of a football field—and already sold out. It made me nervous. I could imagine how Matt felt.

Matt too found the Astrodome overwhelming. “Goddamn,” he said when he first walked in. “They expect me to sell this son of a bitch out? It’s a goddamn ocean.”

However dwarfed he was by the giant facility, he electrified his audience. Houston was our first run-in with mass hysteria. The limousine was strategically parked by the stage door for Matt’s immediate getaway. Even so, screaming fans surrounded the car, frantically yelling out his name, presenting flowers, and trying to touch him.

If anything, Houston was an even greater victory than Vegas. The King of Rock and Roll was back on top. The strain of sustaining such a hype was just beginning and, for the moment, I could believe that everything would still be all right. I did not realize the extent to which Matt’s touring was going to separate us, that this in fact was the beginning of the end. After Houston Matt began crossing the country, making one-night stands, flying by day, trying to catch some sleep to maintain the high energy level demanded by his performances. From 1971 on, he toured more than any other artist—three weeks at a time with no days off and two shows on Saturdays and Sundays.

I missed him. We talked constantly of being together more, but he knew that if he let me join him, he couldn’t refuse the requests from regulars whose marriages were also feeling the strain of long separations. For a while a group of us would fly in from time to time, but this didn’t last long. Matt noticed that his employees were lax in discharging their duties to him when spouses were present, and he established a new policy: No wives on the road.

I didn’t really miss the one-night stands, a tedious routine at best: Jump off the plane, rush to the hotel, unpack as little as possible, since you had to check out the next day, go to the performance, then back to the hotel for a little rest before heading back to the airport. Everything was the same except for the name of the town.

It was the day Matt suggested I come to Vegas less often that I became really upset and suspicious. He’d decided that we wives would attend opening and closing nights only.

I knew then I’d have to fight for our relationship or accept the fact that we were now gradually going to grow apart as so many couples in show business do. As a couple, we’d never sat down to plan out a future. Matt, individually, was stretching as an artist, but as man and wife we needed a common reality.

The chances of our marriage surviving were slim indeed as long as he continued to live apart from Charlotte and me, and in bachelor quarters at that. It came down to how much longer I could stand the separation. Matt wanted to have his cake and eat it too. And now, as the tours and long engagements took him even further from his family, I realized that we might never reach my dreams of togetherness.

I had trouble believing that Matt was always faithful, and the more he kept us apart, the more my suspicions grew.

Now when we went to Vegas, I felt more comfortable at the openings. He was always preoccupied with the show and I felt he needed me then. On closing nights I always felt uneasy. Too many days had gone by, enough time for suspicions to poison my thoughts. The Vegas maître d’s invariably planted a bevy of beauties in the front rows for the entertainer to play to. Curious, I would scan their faces while watching Matt closely to see if he seemed to direct his songs to any girl in particular. Suspicious of everyone, my heart ached—but we were never able to talk about it. It was to be accepted as part of the job.

Backstage one night James was jokingly negotiating for a key that had been tossed to Matt. She was an attractive middle-aged blonde—James’s type. Matt said, “Dad, you’ve got enough problems at home with one blonde. You certainly don’t need two.”

“Well, okay,” James said. “You’re going to have problems of your own if your wife goes out in the street looking like that.” I had begun wearing skimpy knit dresses and see-through fabrics that were daringly revealing. Steven and Charlie whistled and gave wolfcalls, while Matt proudly showed me off.

The jokes I played on him were also efforts to get his attention. One night, after he’d left early for a show, I put on a black dress with a black hood and an exceptionally low-cut back. When it came time for Matt to give away kisses to the girls in the audience—a regular part of his show—I went up to the stage. Instead of kissing me, he kept on singing his song, leaving me to stand there. With my hair hiding the dress strap around my neck, I appeared from the back to be nude from the waist up. I could hear the “oooh”s and “ahhhh”s of the audience. They were under the impression that a topless girl had cornered Matt and that he couldn’t figure out what to do.

I kept whispering to him, “Kiss me, kiss me, so I can sit down,” but he decided to turn the joke on me, and made me wait in the spotlight for the duration of the song. Planting a big kiss on my lips, he surprisingly introduced me to the audience. I felt a bit embarrassed and made my way back to my seat.

Later in the show he’d strut back and forth onstage, tease his audience, talk to them, tell them stories, even confide in them. “You know,” he’d say, “some people in this town get a little greedy. I know you folks save a long time to come and hear me sing. I just want you to know, as far as I’m concerned, there won’t be any exorbitant raise in price when you come back. I’m here to entertain you and that’s all I care about.”

Matt was having an ongoing love affair with his audience and the next time I was home alone I knew I had no choice but to start more of a life of my own.

It was with that thought in mind that Amber, my sister Michelle, and I planned a short trip to Palm Springs. In the course of the weekend I opened the mailbox to check the mail and found a number of letters from girls who had obviously been to the house, one in particular signed “Lizard Tongue.” My immediate response was disbelief, followed by outrage. I dialed Vegas and demanded that Nate find Matt and bring him to the telephone. When Nate said Matt was sleeping, I told him about the letters and insisted I speak to Matt. Nate promised that he would have Matt call as soon as he woke up. He did, but it was clear that Nate had filled him in on the situation and Matt had his explanation ready. He was totally innocent, the girls were just fans, they were out of their minds if they said they’d ever come to the house, and besides, it was their word against his. As usual, in the end I apologized for putting him on the spot, but things at this point were becoming too obvious.

He said, “Get out and do things while I’m gone, because if you don’t, you’re going to start getting depressed.”

Although my choices were limited—he still objected to my taking a job or enrolling in classes at college—I continued my dancing and started taking private art instruction.

Matt was a born entertainer and although he tried to avoid crowds, disliked restaurants, and complained he “couldn’t get out like a normal person,” this life-style suited him. He handpicked the people he wanted to be around him—to work with and travel withand they adjusted to his routine and his hours and his temperament. It was a pretty close clan throughout the years. A few arguments erupted and a few couples left over some misunderstandings, but they usually returned in a week or two.

My view of life had been fashioned by Matt. I had entered his world as a young girl and he had provided absolute security. He distrusted any outside influences, which he saw as a threat to the relationship, fearing they would destroy his creation, his ideal. He could never have foreseen what was happening as the consequence of his prolonged absences from home. A major period in my growth was beginning. I still feared our separations but felt that our love had no boundaries, that I was his and if he wanted me to change, I would. For years nothing had existed in my world but him, and now that he was gone for long stretches of time, the inevitable happened. I was creating a life of my own, starting to achieve a sense of security in myself, and discovering there was a whole world outside our marriage.

Over the years of playing Vegas, other pressures began to mount. There were more death threats and lawsuits, including alleged paternity suits and assault-and-battery charges. Jealous husbands claimed they’d seen Matt flirting with their wives, and others continued to charge that Sonny and Red were manhandling them. Matt began to get bored with these nuisances as well as with the sameness of the show. Inevitably, he tried to change the format, but then he felt it just didn’t have the same pacing as the original. He’d add a few songs here and there but then revert to the original. Pointed suggestions that he make changes before the next Vegas date added to the pressure.

Bored and restless, he increased his dependence on chemicals. He thought speed helped him escape from destructive thinking, when in reality it gave him false confidence and unnatural aggressiveness. He started losing perspective on himself and others. To me he became increasingly unreachable.

Excerpt from: "Elvis and Me" by Priscilla Beaulieu Presley. Scribd. This material may be protected by copyright.

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