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masked-buffoon · 3 years

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Chapter 3: The Sweet Appeals (Part 1)

Warnings: murder, torture, cruelty, parricide

Author notes: I have a single thing to say, which is, do not read if you feel uncomfortable with very explicit violence... Enjoy!

I had taken only five henchmen with me to complete the task. According to my memories of the mansion, there was no need to have more. The domestics would easily be taken care of, not to mention the owners. They would be wiped out immediately, were we all to enter with machine guns. However, revenge, when killing the enemy was implied, could only be done once. It was a moment I had to savour like a once-in-a-lifetime dish, ephemeral minutes which would become a memory as soon as I would be done. I had to do it properly to enjoy myself. Torturing people was supposed to be a job. Killing them as well. Yet, I was heading toward a cold-blooded murder guided only by desire and bloodlust. I would never be able to justify these actions as "working", but I did not care. That would be a unique experience. Besides, shooting at everyone blindly was an option I could not use, not when I had dared stealing a vial of poison in the pharmacy of the Port Mafia. There was something I had to do in that mansion, other than taking lives.

There was a residential area near the harbour. The mansion was situated there and even had a pretty view on the ocean. It could have been a bliss to just climb to the balcony and have tea, contemplating the sun crashing against the horizon in the end of the afternoon, accompanied by the seagulls' cries and the dying rumours of Yokohama. The silence would fall upon the sea, and the night would take over, calm, imposing. And the moon would soon reflect itself along the waves. I glared at the peculiar balcony, darkly. There were some pleasures in being rich I had never experienced. Only the rotten side of fortune had I known and wanted to eradicate. While these people were feasting and enjoying their life of leisure in a mansion where empty rooms were warmed up, hundreds of men and women and kids starved in the freezing cold of winter. It was unforgivable.

I demanded the men to wait for me outside, for I had a plan which would allow me to enjoy these people's last moments the best. In front of the heavy doors which had violently closed behind me a year ago, I swallowed a pain reliever and knocked, calmly, trying to put on my most friendly smile. It was rather difficult; I had long forgotten how to use my facial muscles. The mansion opened only a few seconds after, onto the familiar butler who had taken care of me during my entire childhood.

"Ojō-sama...!" He exclaimed, nearly choking on his breath "I can't believe it... You're alive..."

Emotions took over him and he wrapped his arms around me to pull me into a tight hug. To me, he had been like my own father, and I knew the feeling was reciprocated. I let myself enjoy these seconds of human warmth, having been deprived for so long.

He had almost made me quit that terrifying mission. Almost.

"You must want to see your parents." He said after a moment "You grew a lot...! Although, you don't seem too well, I am delighted to see you again, ojō-sama..."

"Thank you..." I smiled at him.

I was unused to such sincere words. From him, they were even more precious. He had been the one to teach me words and numbers, the one who had secretly introduced me to my little sister, who had brought meals for me, who had used his own money to buy me decent clothes. Everything a normal child could experience, he had given to me, as much as he could have. I felt extremely grateful to him. Even so, none could say for sure I would not kill him. Everyone needed to be eradicated, and although it made me flinch to think about murdering him as well, I had no choice at all. He would most certainly call the police, and to avoid such a disturbance... Why, ending him was the only way.

"Your family is in the living room. Do you want to give me your coat, to make yourself comfortable?" He suggested me.

"I'm not planning to stay too long..." I declined his offer "I just happened to pass by, so I thought I could at least greet them. I hope they've forgiven me..."

"What for, ojō-sama?" The butler frowned "You did nothing deserving of being thrown away. You are part of this family... I, for one, will never forgive the master for abandoning you."

"Thank you... Again..." I felt tears in my throat "You... You've always been there..."

"Of course..." He patted my head "I am not one to turn a blind eye on such a lovely child... Are you sure you won't remove your coat?"

"Most certainly..." I shook my head, regaining my composure "I feel... Safer, with it."

"As you wish, then."

Indeed, removing my coat would reveal my holsters and would deprive me of the precious pain relievers. The elder man went into the room, surely to announce my presence, then the doors opened on my little sister, whose smile made my heart melt. I thought it had been frozen and made hard by my life in the underground organisation, but the little ray of sun she was could have touched it. Tightly, I held her against me. Truly... I could never harm her. She was the only being I would have regrets killing, along with the butler. I wondered if there was a way to keep him alive... But I would have plenty of time to consider such matters. For the moment, reuniting with those people was my priority.

"Onē-chan! I thought I would never see you again!" Ruriko-chan wrapped her arms around my neck "I was so sad..."

"It's alright... I am there now..." I muttered, patting her hair "You've grown... Do you eat well?"

"After your disappearance, she refused food for a month..." The mother approached me, uncomfortable "She was hospitalised and saw a psychiatrist... Fortunately, she could recover..."

"Is that so...? I am sorry, Ruriko-chan..." I gave the woman a meaningful glance.

"Come on...!" The fat pig whose blood ran in my vessels exclaimed "She was merely quibbling and being difficult about food...! Don't be sorry for being abducted!"

Abducted? Oh, so that was the story they had told her to explain why I had vanished from the mansion. What if I told the truth...?

"I was not..." I let go of the twelve years old girl a moment to face the father

"I was not abducted, but tossed out of the mansion. Have you forgotten?"

"Oh... Oh, well..."

"Tossed out...?" My sister asked.

"It means that your father chased your sister away from home..." The woman explained, much to my surprise.

"Why...?"

"Because I was a hindrance." I huffed "But also because I tried to kill him. Well, I suppose I was not completely innocent... Let's be honest, nonetheless; that was just an opportunity to get rid of me, wasn't it? Whatever... It's all in the past now...! I have learnt forgiveness after all..."

"Well... Let's drink to forgiveness, then...!" The man was suddenly quite uncomfortable "Would you like to have tea with us? The chef prepared some pastries, too..."

"With pleasure, then." I smiled, sickly sweet.

We all sat around the table, where lovely cakes were displayed for us to eat. Since I was there, I made myself comfortable and enjoyed the sweetness as much as I could. After all, some sugar would not hurt. And I had not eaten properly for months.

"Is there something you want? I can ask for it." The man suggested.

"I am fine, thanks for your concern." I chuckled.

"Onē-chan, onē-chan! Tell us what you did, then...! I want to know how you managed to live...! Is it like in adventure books?" Ruriko-chan asked.

I wiped away the cream on her mouth with a towel. The woman blemished and darted her eyes from me — as always, anything about me made her uncomfortable.

"It is very different from books, but I'll tell you my story." I said "First, I was very lonely. I didn't know how I could survive, all alone in the streets, without any money, food, clothes... I happened to end up in the slums of Yokohama. It is a place with many homeless people, just like I was, but it isn't somewhere I'll ever take you. There, I met thieves, who taught me how to steal so I could eat."

"That's so cool...!" Her eyes sparkled "So, you can pick up locks like they do in the movies...?"

"I can." I laughed "But the thieves were unlucky... We wanted to rob a jewellery, just like real burglars, but we were caught... And everyone died... The owner of the shop was a powerful mafia, and I was nearly killed, too, but I ran away so fast they could not catch me!"

"Woah...! You're stronger than the bad people...!"

"Of course I am... I am your big sister, after all..." I took a sip of tea, relishing in the parent's horrified expressions.

The father only seemed to realise what had been the consequences of his act, while the mother... Well, the mother was trembling, face down. I could not quite see if she was crying or not. Not that I cared.

"What happened next?"

"Next...? Mmh... I left the shallows to live in the streets. I thought I could pickpocket people, you know, stealing their wallet. That's what I did. Then, I met someone, a very nice man." I recalled.

"Is it thanks to him that you are there...?"

"You could say that, I suppose... He and his wife took care of me for a moment. They were nice people, and they had a little girl who reminded me of you." I poked her nose "One day, they dressed me up, and we left..."

"Where did you go...?" The woman finally spoke up, out of breath.

"All the people you meet in the streets don't bear good intentions... I learnt that when I found myself in an underground auction. It's a place where they sell illegal goods, like pieces of art, slaves... I was sold, too. My new owner was an old man."

"... How did you escape...?" Ruriko-chan frowned.

"At first, I didn't. He tried to rape me in his car, but I threatened him with his gun and forced him to free me. In fact, I killed him and his chauffeur, then put the car on fire and washed in the river." I stated calmly, as though such events were normal.

"You... You killed them...?" My sister sounded less impressed "That's horrible...!"

"Right? It was only the start of the horrible path I chose." I put a piece of cake in my mouth "Afterwards, I met a strange cat, which somehow guided me to a man. He is the one who took me in and gave me a job. His name is Dazai Osamu."

"Is he a good man, onē-chan...?"

"Oh, he isn't. But your sister isn't a good person either. She makes a living by blackmailing and murdering people for the Port Mafia, under the orders of Dazai-san. She does the best she can in order to buy pain relievers which relieve nothing at all. That's the kind of life I have. That's the kind of life your parents gave me." I glared at them "Thank them, for turning your sister into a criminal."

"Yōko, it was never my intention —"

"Shut up." I demanded the father, curtly "Even if it wasn't your intention, you abandoned your then fifteen years old daughter in the streets. It isn't the behaviour expected from a parent... It isn't how you treat your children...! But whatever was done is in the past... Today, I came for one thing; working."

"W-What...?"

"Why, one way or the other... You offended the Port Mafia... Which requires to be executed."

I stood up to lock the door, then shoved the key in my pocket before turning toward them.

"No one leaves this room. Alive, at least." I gave them my most wicked smile.

"How can you — No! Let me out!" The man ran toward me.

I punched his stomach, so hard he coughed and fell down onto his carpet.

"Your wife and daughter were threatened to death and you think about yourself only. Pig." I spat on him, kicking his face harshly "I shall take care of you first."

"Why?! Why did you come??" He cried loudly.

"Why? It seems the Boss is displeased with you. That's why."

"But I didn't do anything!!" He squealed, covering his head.

"Are you saying the Boss is arbitrarily suppressing you?" I snarled "Even he seems more righteous than you. At least..."

I crouched down to pat his cheek, my gestures frighteningly soft. Ah, he was so weak, completely at my mercy. I could break his neck, cut his jugular and ruin his face, he would not be able to do anything. Was this power? Strength? Was that how Dazai-san felt when he looked down at me?

I brusquely slapped his face, taking pleasure in this violent act. I had always, deep inside, dreamt of doing this.

"Thanks to you being a jerk, I will live!!" I cackled, repeatedly kicking and beating him "I will live!! Live!! And you will die, by the weakling's hands!!"

He was spitting blood by the time I was done with him, and his entire face was reddened by the bruises I had inflicted him.

"Why did they send you...?" His ordinarily smug voice was reduced to a murmur.

"They did not." I hummed, rejoicing in seeing realisation in his eyes "I requested to come."

"Yōko onē-chan! Why do you do that?" Ruriko-chan sobbed in the mother's chest.

"Because..." I exhaled, retrieving some of my sanity "I saw and lived things I wish you will never experience... Because of those people's fault. I know what hell is, I know what suffering, yearning is. I hope you will never count the days left to survive."

"That's not true!! That's not true!! Mother didn't want —"

"What did she do when that pig threw me out?!" I barked angrily "This woman was never good at anything but darting her eyes away from my pain!! Don't talk about things you don't understand... When you witness but do not act, it's the same as being an accomplice!"

I suddenly pulled out a gun and shot at the man, who was aiming at me from behind. It only wounded his hands, making him drop his gun. Fortunately, there was no stray bullet.

"Y-You..." His eyes fell onto his missing fingers.

His scream echoed in the entire mansion, and I noticed the other covering my sister's eyes and ears to prevent her from seeing the scene.

"This is troublesome..." The inner pulses of violence came back "I originally wanted to torture you in the crudest ways I know of, but you leave me no choice but to suppress you. Or perhaps..."

A mad idea crossed my mind, and my face was darkened by the cruelest smirk. I walked toward him, and grabbed his valid hand without any delicacy, to put a gun into his hands.

"You seem to value your life a lot more than others'. Perhaps can I let you stay alive if you shoot your little girl? Mmh~?"

"How can you —"

"I may be a monster, but then, you are far worse than the lowest garbage on earth." I glared at him "Besides, thoughts do not betray... If you understand my words~"

"I have to do it! I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"

Absentmindedly, he walked toward his wife and daughter, pointing the barrel toward them.

"Husband, you can't do that!" The woman jumped toward him, taking the gun into her hands without fearing he could press the trigger.

I looked away, opening my box of pills to relieve the forming headache. All this noise, the ruckus and brouhaha, had my head banging loudly, and I, for once, wished I was not there. The woman's behaviour was particularly disturbing; why would she take action for Ruriko-chan while she... To me... I did not understand her, and could not hear her thoughts... Never had I been able to.

"Mother!!" The strident scream of my sister broke my thoughts as a gunshot resonated around us.

As expected from such a situation, the pig had accidentally shot his wife, right in the middle of the chest, as they were fighting. I sighed heavily. One was done.

"Mother!! Mother!!" My sister ran to the woman, whose body had fallen to the ground.

Blood was quickly pouring onto the expensive carpet, and when I realised the same liquid ran through my vessels, I felt nauseous. This was... My attention was drawn toward the man when he disgustingly headed toward my sister, the gun pointed right toward her head. She shut her eyes tightly, but the hit never came. I had taken him down first, with my second gun.

"It is the end befitting you, cowardly bastard." I cursed.

Ruriko-chan was crying, and crying. I could not even distinguish her sobs from her hiccups, and her face was soaked by tears. I crouched down next to her, and took her in my arms.

"No!! Are you going to kill me too??" She fought back, but I did not let go of her.

"I won't." I promised "Now, listen to me, attentively, if you want to live."

"H-Huh...?"

"I am not alone. I have a squadron, and they are waiting for me outside. However, they will kill you if you don't follow my instructions." I pulled out the vial I had stolen "This will stop your heartbeat during an hour or two. You will look as though you are asleep, and they will think you are dead. You are going to hide behind the couch, and nobody will find you there."

"Why should I believe you?!" She protested "How do I know you aren't trying to kill me?!"

"Because you are the only family I've ever had." I admitted, sincerely "I did not come here to kill you, but to kill them. When you grow up, you can do whatever to me, but now, you have to listen to me."

I took her hand and brought her behind the couch, where I made her lie down.

"It is odourless, and colourless." I opened the vial "And painless."

"When I grow up, I'll make sure you rot in jail!" She glared at me and drank the liquid.

"You know..." I stroked her hair as she slowly fell asleep "There is no meaning in this life, yet we can't help going on, desperately clinging onto whatever mean we have to survive. However, if you have a purpose, you can keep going on, more easily..."

"What is yours...?"

"That's the point..." I cracked a gentle smile "I don't have one..."

"It's a pity... Be prepared to be arrested... For your crimes... I'll see that you are..." She whispered, her eyes closing.

"I'm looking forward to that..." I checked her pulse.

None. I stood up, and pushed the couch so no one would be able to see her, even if they entered. Casually, I shot the doorknob to exit the room, forgetting about the key, but on the way out, I heard someone talking.

"Yōko...-chan..."

The woman was still alive!

"Still yearning to live? Your time's up, though." I hissed.

"I will die, anyway... But I... Thank you, for Ruriko-chan..." She feebly said.

"I did it for her, not for you." I defended "The bullet didn't touch your vitals, that's why..."

"Before you kill me... You have to know..." Her hand extended toward me, but I did not take it "The name of your ability..."

"Oh, I've long forgotten it." I huffed "Any last will?"

"It is The Sweet Appeals..." She smiled "I only desire that my daughters... Can have a good life..."

She died from haemorrhage. I lowered my gun, and barged out of the room, angrily.

"Don't say that after abandoning me, you silly woman!" I mumbled, passing in front of the servants' horrified look.

"Ojō-sama, what's wrong...?"

Upon seeing the butler's face, I almost burst into tears, but I held back my need to fall into his comforting arms and pointed my gun toward him.

"I... I did something horrible..." I barely muttered, voice trembling "I... I killed them... All..."

"Ojō-sama..." He exhaled, hugging me nonetheless "It's alright..."

"I-Is that so...? You... Aren't going to call the police...?"

"Of course, I'll have to, but —"

The bullet landing in his forehead stopped him from ever finishing his sentence and he fell down onto the floor. I regained composure. It was the right thing to do, after all. I could never go back now. Once I was out, I whistled, giving the signal to my men.

"No one leaves as long as a soul is alive in there." I ordered and stayed at the door.

The maids were all killed without any hesitation, their screams of fear and agony mixing perfectly well with the noise of the machine guns. Wordlessly, I emptied the box in my mouth, swallowing all the pills I had left, but it did not relieve my headache. However ecstatic I had felt earlier, there only remained a weird emptiness in the pit of my stomach. I could not find the satisfaction I had looked forward to when receiving the order to kill my family, and I disliked this frustration.

At least, I could have erased my past and my regrets to fully focus on my days in the Port Mafia.

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ihearthorror · 3 years

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My Top 10 Favourite Horror Films of 2020

Every January, most people who review or talk about movies on YouTube tend to piece together a Top 10 list of their favourite movies from the year prior. In order to stand out from the crowd (and also because I was too lazy to do this sooner), I decided to wait until March, by which time most YouTubers aren’t really talking about movies from 2020 anymore.

I know what you’re thinking: sounds kinda stupid – why would anybody care about a Top 10 list of the best movies of 2020…THREE months into the new year!? Well, as you’ve likely heard, 2020 was a year like no other, and as result of the ongoing global pandemic, movie release dates from 2020 were pushed back months, sometimes multiple times. Some films that were supposed to be released last year didn’t arrive until 2021, even though they’re officially considered “2020 films,” according to their profiles on websites like IMBD and Letterboxd.

And so, some of these so-called “2020 films” were not available (at least to me) until only recently, such as Saint Maud or The Dark and the Wicked. I feel like I’ve now had a chance to see almost all of the horror films I’ve wanted to see from last year. In this video, if you care to stick around, I will share with you my Top 10 favourite horror films of 2020. So, here we go…

#10/ The Dark and the Wicked:

A sister and brother return to the family homestead where their father is slowly dying and their mother is understandably distraught but also disturbed and distant. The siblings soon realize that something evil has invaded their family home as they are terrorized by whatever is slowly killing their father. Directed by the same guy behind 2008’s The Strangers, The Dark and the Wicked is at times bleak and unsettling, and it does a good job at keeping you intrigued in this family’s unnerving conflict. However, it felt a bit rushed and undeveloped at other times, and its ending left me somewhat unsatisfied.

#9/ Relic:

Soon after Kay and her daughter Sam return to their remote family home following the disappearance of the family matriarch, the widowed Edna, they discover that something sinister has taken hold of both Edna and the house itself. Although Relic – which was co-produced by Jake Gyllenhaal and marked the feature directorial debut for Natalie Erika James – isn’t exactly offering up any enticing twists or salacious gore, or even a original concept for that matter, it relies on evoking dread and building tension to compel its audience to stay invested until the bitter end.

#8/ Amulet:

Taking its sweet time to unravel, Amulet is centered around Tomaz, an ex-soldier who is now homeless but is offered a place to stay at a decaying house in London, which is inhabited by a beautiful young woman named Magda and her dying mother. As the story moves along, we see that Tomaz is starting to develop feelings for Magda, who seems a bit…off. His feelings for her don’t wane even after Tomaz discovers that there’s something insidious going on in the attic of the house, where Magda’s mother is seemingly imprisoned. Toss in a suspicious nun and you’ve got yourself a creepy little film that seems to have fallen between the cracks.

#7/ The Beach House:

One might argue that not a lot actually happens in The Beach House and that the payoff isn’t worth the investment, but if you go into this film with an open mind and zero expectations, you should at least be satisfied. Two troubled college students head to a deserted beach getaway to spend some time together, but end up struggling to survive alongside some unexpected guests as a mysterious infection disrupts their holiday. Although it is a slow build up to the film’s climax, it is a tense and intriguing ride along the way, as a series of unsettling events give way to an apocalyptic episode that feels almost like a throwback to the sci-fi films of the 1950s. Making his feature film directorial debut, Jeffrey A. Brown elicits with The Beach House those brooding existential thoughts that lay dormant in the deep boroughs of our minds.

#6/ The Invisible Man:

There’s always an elevated risk when making a modern film based on an old story that has already been told through cinema numerous times before. The last time H.G. Wells’ 1897 novel The Invisible Man had been adapted by Hollywood was in 2000’s Hollow Man, which was panned by critics despite making a sizeable profit. The 2020 adaptation is far superior and is perhaps the best adaptation of Wells’ classic in any medium. Elizabeth Moss gives a stellar performance that draws real emotion, so that we agonize alongside her as she is essentially haunted by a relentless ghost hellbent on controlling every aspect of her life. We live in an era when technology has advanced enough to bring this 124-year-old story to life like never before, while a polished script and an exceptional lead performance gives The Invisible Man a deeper level of emotion and terror.

#5/ Saint Maud:

For most of Saint Maud it is unclear whether certain experiences are actually happening in reality for the main character or if it’s all simply in her head, as some sort of mental breakdown caused by a work-related tragedy. Maud is a young hospice nurse and a newly-converted Roman Catholic who suddenly becomes obsessed with “saving the soul” of the woman she is currently taking care of, Amanda, a hedonistic dancer with a chronic illness. Maud’s behaviour worsens, as does her mental state, as horrific scenes and visions make us question if she’s actually losing her mind or experiencing something beyond this world. Saint Maud is an A24 feature by the way, so that should be enough to know what you’re getting here in terms of quality.

#4/ The Lodge:

Isolation is often embraced as a way to pad a horror film’s fear factor, and it works especially here in The Lodge, as a soon-to-be stepmom becomes stranded at a remote holiday home in the middle of winter with her fiance’s two children. The kids begin to untangle the dark past of their stepmom-to-be and a series of disturbing events transpire as their hope for survival fades. The Lodge is a dreary, atmospheric slow burn that leaves you somewhat unsettled. With its wintry backdrop, stylish sequences, and almost claustrophobic dread, the film doesn’t ever allow its audience to feel at ease for long, insisting that an underlying foreboding remain intact throughout. Although I found the ending somewhat disappointing, I immediately began to concoct a possible prequel that would delve into the backstory of the film’s lead character. One can hope.

#3/ Host:

It’s increasingly difficult to be innovative and original when it comes to horror films these days, especially in the particular genre of so-called “found footage.” Rob Savage’s Host, however, comes off as something different, setting itself apart from most films in this realm in various ways. It centers around six friends who hold a séance via Zoom during a COVID lockdown, guided (at first) by a medium they hired. The séance then takes a dark turn and things soon escalate into madness. Sure, there are elements in Host that are prevalent in numerous horror films, but it uses a modern and topical way to implement them, while also refusing to overstay its welcome by cueing the credits less than an hour in. Overall, this film’s popcorn-and-Saturday-night-movie fun factor is why it ranks so high on this list.

#2/ Possessor:

It’s always a treat to come across an original idea, especially when it’s within the horror realm, and Possessor is certainly unlike anything else I’ve seen in awhile. Andrea Riseborough plays an elite corporate assassin who uses brain-implant technology to take control over other people’s bodies in order to kill high profile targets, though with every mission she gets further and further away from her true self. With her latest possession, she becomes trapped in the mind of a man who threatens to obliterate her for good. It is a provocative vision by director-writer Brandon Cronenberg, who just so happens to be the son of legendary Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg, and it serves as a disturbing piece of dystopian fiction that is even more frightening because it isn’t too far beyond belief.

And because everyone else is doing it, here are five honorable mentions that narrowly missed the list:

- The Call

- Color Out of Space

- Don’t Listen

- The Mortuary Collection

- Porno

#1/ His House:

In addition to its emotional storytelling and genuine moments of terror, His House – from first-time director Remi Weekes – sheds a light on the plight of refugees in a way that feels both respectful and empathetic. After a Sudanese couple make a harrowing escape from their war-torn homeland, they are granted asylum in England, where they struggle to adjust and fit in. They are assigned a shabby house on the outskirts of London, where the couple begin to experience terrifying and unexplainable events. His House is built around a fresh concept, two fantastic leads, and some truly haunting imagery, and I wish that more horror directors would put as much effort into quality filmmaking as Weekes did here. If this is his first venture into feature filmmaking, I am excited to see what his future has in store.

There you have it, my Top 10 favourite horror films of 2020. What did you think and were any of these titles on your own Top 10 list? Please tell me your thoughts and recommendations in the comments below.

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kurgy · 3 years

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first, im gonna say this is heavily inspired by the myth of Kronos (Cronus? w/e) and his children

now ill list the kids names from oldest to youngest along with their ages

Saru, age 24

Sari, age 23

Sori, age 23

Soni, age 21

Sami, age 19

Soli, age 17

Suli, age 15

Sali, age, 14

Sili, age 13

Sela, age 12

Sula, age 6

Semi, age 1

Happy Child takes place in a fantasy world, with various inspo from real life time periods like ancient greece and the early 1800s.

the clothes are inspired partly by ancient greek clothing, but mostly its all fantasy

Happy Child's story is kinda dark, not straight up horror but definite horror elements and dark themes

the main character, Saru, is son and first born to Babu and Mira, the heir to Babu's fortune and vast estate.

Babu was once a poor man, homeless living in the town Kowlyn, but he sold his soul to a demon for riches and fortune, buying a large manor in the forest just outside town and filling it with the most extravagant and luxurious items, then choosing a wealthy mans beautiful daughter (Mira) and buying her as his wife.

Babu was obsessed with beauty, and wanted to have the perfect, beautiful child.

when Mira became pregnant he was ecstatic, but when his son, Saru, was born, he found him lacking and was nothing but disappointed. for this he cast Saru aside, and while still providing him with the best tutors and teachers didnt love or nurture him like a father should. However, he controlled every aspect of Saru's life. What he wore, what he did, how he wore his hair, and what and when he ate (often starving him to force him to achieve Babu's small minded idea of beauty).

Mira was more sympathetic to her child, trying to love and nurture him but often she wasnt permitted to even see him.

Babu wanted another child to "try again" and thus Mira gave birth to twins Sari and Sori, but again, Babu was unsatisfied with the children, repeating the same pattern he had done with Saru.

Babu tried over and over to create the "perfect" child, forcing Mira to give birth to a total of 12 children that all couldnt meet Babu's standards.

after the birth of their last child, Semi, Babu demanded they try again, and while Mira did get pregnant, due to her age she suffered a miscarriage, and after over 20 years of abuse suffered a psychological breakdown.

sometimes she was sullen and wallowing in despair, while others she was stark raving mad, and Babu, furious, disallowed her from ever seeing the children again, locking her in her room where her mental state only declined further.

Saru being the oldest took on the role of caretaker for his youngest siblings, especially Semi and Sula, being only 1 and 6.

None of the children were ever allowed to step foot outside, Babu being ashamed of their lack of perfection and instead focused on Saru, while not Babu's perception of beautiful, wanted him to be the perfect heir.

on Saru's 24th birthday, Babu has a dream of his children taking his fortune, and growing more successful than him until Babu becomes forgotten, and becomes terrified and paranoid that his children are secretly planning to take everything he has.

he becomes insane, at first restricting his children even more, not permitting them out of their rooms, but as his paranoia grows he loses himself more and more, until finally makes a plan to " take care" of his fears while also not losing his children as he saw them as part of his belongings.

in the dead of night he travels to their rooms, stopping at Semi's room first, and he devours Semi whole. he works his way up through the rooms, his body becoming more monstrous and grotesque after each child he devours until he reaches the twins room, each screaming at the sight of him, alerting Saru across the hall.

he devours them, and when the screaming stops Saru knows that whatever his father is doing, hes next.

he breaks a leg off a table in his room, and hides in the closet. When Babu enters, Saru peaks out to see and almost screams at his new monstrous form, forcing himself to keep quiet until Babu turns his back to the closet. Saru jumps out and stabs the table leg into Babu's back and runs out the door as he screams in pain. he checks a few of his siblings rooms, but when he finds no trace of any of them decides its too late for them and makes a run for the front door.

Babu screams and cries for him to come back, but Saru keeps running until hes in the front lawn, running into the forest aimlessly just trying to get away.

he runs until the sun rises, stumbling into town and everyone is stunned at the beauty Babu couldnt see. he meets many people, one being Ruko, a blind man who becomes bewitched by Saru's voice, but nothing can ease Saru's despair, and after 12 days he flings himself into the sea and drowns.

he awakes back in the forest and is forced to relive those same 12 days over and over until he can return to Babu and free his siblings from his engorged stomach

#long post #Happy Child #bitter-asexual #The Sin of Myth

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hyggeligbirch · 4 years

Text

Poppy Red

An EXO Fanfiction

pairing: jongin x baekhyun word count: 2 637 warnings: none

summary: Everyone knows that being twenty-three and terribly ill only means one thing. You’ve put off finding your soulmate for a little too long.

The apartment comes cheap. Excessively cheap. But Jongin doesn’t really have room to worry about it. Excessively cheap is the only thing he can afford on the tiny savings that have brought him here.

It’s a tiny place, barely room to breathe, much less live. The bed is lofted above a small table, which presses against the chest of drawers that make up the only storage in the place. The swing of the door takes up the rest of the room; the bathroom is shared, at the end of the hall.

But he can live with that, he supposes. It’s not like he has much to his name anyway. And when he’s pulled in what little he has - thrown his blankets on the bed, set his rice cooker on the table, tucked his plants on the chest of drawers - it feels a little more like a home.

He starts work that first morning, pulling an opening shift at a friend’s shop. Only place he could find work on such short notice. It’s not as bad as he’d feared.

Sure, there are a lot of slow periods, a lot of rude customers. But Jongin likes sitting in the back with the flowers, and some of the customers are sweet.

Days come and go. He tires. He pales. Miss Sophie, who comes in every day at noon wearing a blue dress and straw hat to buy exactly three sprigs of baby’s breath, notices. She buys a little red poppy, and tucks it in his hands.

“She wants to protect you,” she says, in the way of wrinkled old women. “Let her try.”

Baekhyun has always been active. Sitting still just doesn’t seem to work. There’s always something to do and something to see. Normally it doesn’t cause too much trouble, this need to move. At least, not since he graduated school. He had immediately picked up a job at a local nursery, and it fits perfectly. The little kids certainly don’t mind having someone to run around with, and the teachers appreciate the time to work in peace.

He goes from work to his second job, a few hours in the evening at a little cafe, and then he usually goes out with friends. Sometimes just himself. And then he stumbles in a little before midnight, finally tired and a little bit drunk, stopping just long enough to take his shoes off before collapsing on his bed. He’s not a complete heathen, after all.

But then the third week of November rolls around and it’s like he hits a brick wall. He’s tired, like he’s never been before. He begs off of drinks to go home and read. He calls in sick to the nursery because he can’t pull himself out of bed. He figures it’s just a bug. He’ll sleep it off soon enough.

Nothing is appetizing, and Jongin knows it shows. His clothes are starting to get baggy and he can count his ribs when he stands in front of the mirror. Junmyeon stops him as he’s clocking out, the fourth Tuesday of January, and invites him to dinner. Miss Sophie gives him cakes every Tuesday and another flower every Friday and comforting smiles the rest of the week.

But it’s not like it’s worth anything. Food just isn’t appealing. Still, Jongin tries. He wakes up and makes breakfast. He makes extra rice for his dinner and packs a large lunch. He forces his food down until he feels sick, and then a little more. There’s still always some left.

When he was fifteen, it was just one of the magics of teenage boyhood, eating mountains of food and still managing to lose weight.

When he’s twenty-three, it’s a little more worrisome.

In the middle of February, Baekhyun quits the nursery, collecting hugs and crumpled drawings from dozen tiny hands. His energy still hasn’t come back from November and it’s finally time to give in to reality. His new job consists of sitting in a cushioned chair and answering phones for eight hours a day. It’s honest work. It pays the rent.

As he crashes into bed at half past eight on a Friday night, exhausted to his very bones, he realizes that he’s scared. He’s already twenty-five.

(Fifth grade health courses all look the same. An old woman wearing too much perfume walks into the classroom with gym teacher. She takes the girls to another room, where she teaches them about the horrors of life. The boys get to stay and hear about their own growing pains from a man who survived them himself.

When the groups are brought back together, the atmosphere settles from general disgust to solemn contemplation as the projector hums to life.

“Soulmates,” the film always starts, a deep voice that booms through tinny old speakers, “are a fact of life. Each of you has one; it is your duty to find them.” As scenes of domestic bliss play out, it continues. “When you are with your soulmate, there will be no pain. The world is a beautiful place when shared with your soulmate. Everything is brighter. The birds sing sweeter and the wind blows gentler….” It continues, extolling the virtues of a soulmate.

There’s always one kid who raises their hand at the end of the video and asks, “What if we don’t want a soulmate?”

The adults are always aghast.

“Soulmates,” they warn, “are necessary for life.”)

Jongin lives alone in an apartment that is barely big enough for himself and his forest of potted plants, and it’s his own damn fault. The thing is, he doesn’t particularly care.

He doesn’t care because he remembers being twelve and wondering why his classmates had become obsessed with every mark on their skin, wondering if it was a message from their soulmate.

He doesn’t care because he remembers being fifteen and watching his best friend crushed by the realization that his soulmate was an empty-minded girl who could think of little more than when she could next get high.

He doesn’t care because he remembers being eighteen and finally finding the strength to voice his greatest belief. “I don’t want a soulmate,” he had said, quietly at first and then forcefully, again and again into frozen air in the middle of the night.

And he doesn’t fucking care because he remembers making a panicked phone call at half past two in the morning, when he was twenty-three and homeless. “If you really want to be alone so badly,” his father had said, when Jongin finally refused to pretend to care any longer, “then you can leave. I’m not boarding suicidal idiots.”

Jongin is twenty-three and he still doesn’t want a soulmate.

His apartment is small but it’s cheap and it’s his and he’s happy with this life.

And then he wakes up on the eighteenth of February with a thick black streak across his forarm.

Baekhyun stares at the mark on his arm. The marker drops to the ground as he realizes what he’s done.

He’s never seen a mark like that on his skin. It’s a child’s game, drawing shapes on your own skin in hopes that your soulmate will respond. He’d never done it as a child, preferring to mess around with his friends when they weren’t looking. And no marks had ever appeared on him.

By his seventeenth birthday, he was too afraid to even try. What if he was the one person in the history of the world not to have a soulmate?

But now he’s twenty-five and so, so exhausted. It’s worth the shot.

Soulmates are necessary, after all.

Jongin wears long sleeves to work the next week, terrified of the marks on his arms. There’s a new one every day and he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t want a soulmate. He’d even gotten a lifetime of the hope that he’d gotten lucky and didn’t have one. Now he’s not sure what to do.

Miss Sophie notices, of course, wrinkled hand seizing his wrist and pushing up his sleeve as he hands her her flowers. “Someone’s a little antsy,” she observes. “You should probably reply.”

He tries to pull his hand away, refusing to look her in the eye. After a moment, she lets him.

She pauses at the door, old fingers curved around the bottom of the glass vase. “He just wants to protect you.”

Friday comes. Miss Sophie buys exactly three sprigs of baby’s breath, and leaves. Jongin gets no flower today. Miss Sophie doesn’t even have to say the words; the silence as the door closes speaks them loud enough.

Let him try.

Monday morning brings torrents of rain and an ache in his bones, but Baekhyun is too distracted to particularly care. He’d gotten up before dawn and stumbled blindly into the shower, cursing his stupid job. Nothing’s strange then. He’s exactly as pale as he’s always been, save for the black marks up and down his arms, but he knows every one of them, each straight line and careless dot.

And nothing is strange when stumbles back out, skin reddened by the far-too-hot water and the roughness of his towels. He dresses quickly, carelessly, pulling on a pair of not-too-wrinkled pants and a shirt that’s definitely seen better days.

The only thought he has is of coffee; while the pot brews, he reheats yesterday’s dinner, hoping that maybe it’ll taste better today.

Things only get strange when he drops his fresh coffee on his almost-presentable pants.

Baekhyun scrambles out of the sodden pants, near tears because fuck that was hot. He drops his pants on the table and stands stock-still in his briefs as his exhausted mind tries to catch up. It clicks through slowly. Picked up coffee pot. Poured coffee into cup. Wait. Forgot cup. Poured coffee onto – and cuts off abruptly. That is not what his thigh looks like.

Jongin panics. Just a little. Just for a day. It takes three heartbeats after he’s scrawled three stark words – Where are you? – on his thigh for him to scramble into jeans and sweatshirt and not take them off again. He’s twenty-three and he’s wasting away into nothing and it’s scaring him, but it scares him even more to reach out. It feels fake. He’d rather die alone.

But that’s not really an option. Death goes both ways, when it comes to soulmates. And Jongin is no murderer.

Where are you? Baekhyun had been asked. He answers, immediately. And then he asks When can we meet?

The response comes just before midnight, a hasty scrawl in a spotty blue pen. It feels like a feather brushing just inside of his skin and there’s the most absurd urge to claw the words out of his skin. But he doesn’t. It’s been a long day of stressed waiting and now it’s nothing but relief.

Friday, his thigh reads. Noon. Outside the flower shop on 3rd.

It’s chilly, but not cold. Sharp winds tear through the streets, upsetting bins and tearing away awnings. Jongin taps his fingers anxiously on the countertop as the clock ticks on. He can’t run. He can’t hide. He can’t pretend that this was all some big mistake. He watches the world swirl by the windows and wonders absently if the window boxes will survive.

The immediate snaps back into focus with the soft jingle of the door. Miss Sophie walks in, her low heels clacking on the floor. She looks at him though her thick glasses. He starts. It must be noon.

“I’m sorry, Miss Sophie, I have to step out for a moment.” And he’ll swear his voice doesn’t crack.

She smiles at him. “Of course, dear.” She smiles at him. “Oh, but wait a moment. Take this with you.”

He reaches out without even thinking, mind already a thousand steps away.

They say that you just know when you meet your soulmate. They say it’s not a jolt of electricity or niggling feeling in the back of the mind, but a quiet certainty.

Baekhyun thinks it’s like looking in a mirror.

The streets are surprisingly crowded for how chilly it is, this late in February, and he’s been jostled back and forth for almost ten minutes while he’s strained to see faces. Hoping he doesn’t miss his soulmate. Whoever they are.

He catches a glimpse of yet another mop of black hair and the whole world slows. Stops. The man’s two feet away from him, just stepping out of the flower shop, dressed in jeans and a pale sweater. He’s taller than Baekhyun had expected. And then he turns, casting nervously about and Baekhyun could swear he can hear the world click back into place.

Baekhyun is pale and tired and this man is dark and dangerously thin. It still feels like he’s seeing his reflection walking towards him.

He steps forward. Introduces himself.

Jongin has no words. They’ve all been stolen away by this intense feeling of belonging. It doesn’t seem to matter, though. Baekhyun’s got enough words for both of them.

“Poppies are my favourite,” he says, pointing at Jongin’s hands. “You like them, too?”

Jongin looks down, confused. Smiles at the poppy in his hands. “Yeah. But this one’s for you.” It has to be.

Baekhyun’s smile doesn’t quite clear the bags under his eyes. “So, do I get a name with the poppy, or what?”

Baekhyun’s thrilled at Jongin’s apartment. Jongin never thought it was much, just small, and cramped, and horrible, but Baekhyun’s glowing. He buries himself in the flowers, drifting his fingers over their delicate petals. He looks blissful. Due mostly to finding his soulmate, Jongin is sure.

But Jongin feels like hell, because this isn’t something he’s ever wanted. But he doesn’t want to break this moment. Baekhyun is happy, and that feels almost like peace.

Best to ruin everything now, he figures. It’ll only hurt more, later.

“Baekhyun,” he says, and almost chickens out, “I don’t want a soulmate.” There’s more to say, there’s more he needs to say, but he can’t find the words. So, he waits.

“Then what do you want?” If Baekhyun’s hurt at all by Jongin’s words, he hides it impeccably.

“I don’t know.”

Jongin’s panicking and the room is too quiet and too loud all at once. This is not how it’s supposed to be. You’re supposed to want your soulmate. You’re supposed to feel like your life is complete. You’re supposed to want the perfect life with them, children and a marriage and holding hands as you die. And he does he does he does, but he doesn’t. Baekhyun feels right and complete and his, but none of that is happy.

But then there’s a hand in his. “That makes two of us.”

The world settles. Again. Baekhyun’s smiling and Jongin can’t help but smile back. It’s a little ridiculous. He’s willing to try, just to keep that smile going.

“Poppies will protect you,” he says, and what kind of idiot just says stuff like that?

Baekhyun doesn’t seem to mind, tilting his head and considering the table full of poppies with drifting fingers. “Will they really?”

“As long as you let them try.”

Their apartment comes cheap. Cheap is good. Cheap means a plant on every surface. Cheap means dates to local restaurants where they drink a little too much and fall into bed laughing, after. Cheap means only two jobs between them and food still on the table and a furnace that works.

It’s not orthodox, not in the least. There’s a fish, but no children. There are books, but no marriage. There’s a bedroom, but two beds.

But they’re happy and they’re healthy and nothing but themselves.

It’s all the poppies’ fault.

Ende

#exo fanfic #exo fanfiction #kim jongin #jongin #kai #kai fic #kaibaek #kai x baekhyun #jongin x baekhyun #baekhyun #byun baekhyun #baekhyun imagine #jongin imagine #kai imagine

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olicitysecretsanta · 5 years

Text

True identity

Happy Holidays to @smoakmonster. Hope you’ll enjoy some nice Smoak-Queen-Clayton holiday goodness.

Summary: It’s time for the holiday’s and William is quite nervous to introduce his new significant other to his family.

Rate: G Genre: Future Fic

William stops at the threshold of the kitchen and smiles at the site before him. His father is at the stove cooking what he’s sure is another delicious meal, while his little sister and stepmother are at the dining table icing sugar cookies. It’s an image he misses seeing.

He’s been living at Ivy University for almost four years now, yet he still feels like that little boy who was sent away to boarding school anxious about his family’s safety. That’s why every time he sees them well and happy, he always breathes a sigh of relief. It’s irrational considering his parents are literal superheroes that are more than capable of protecting themselves. But that constant feeling of worry never truly goes away, no matter how much has changed in the past few years.

William hasn’t been back home since that one weekend back in October when he surprised his baby sister with a visit for her birthday. Before that, it was during summer vacation. Since it’s his last year and trying to wrap up his senior year of college, he’s busy as ever. He didn’t even have time to come home during Thanksgiving, something his family was disappointed about but understood.

That’s why he’s making as much of an effort to be with them now. After all the crap they’ve been through, William has developed a sort of separation anxiety when it comes to his family, especially after his baby sister’s born. He’s learned to grow out of it… mostly. But not seeing them for that long has made him want to spend time with them whenever he can.

Also, he wants this feeling of being with his family before… well before everything changes between them.

His little sister’s the first one to notice him. She looks up from the cookie she’s decorating and her face lights up.

“Will!” she squeals, immediately jumping off the chair and runs over to him, tackling him with a hug.

“Hey there monkey.” he says affectionately, lifting her up.

“Mia, be careful not to get any icing on your brother.” Felicity says warningly as she wipes her own hand with a hand towel.

“It’s okay, i don’t mind.” he truly doesn’t. His baby sister is one of the many joys of his life and he will take every tackle hug he can get from her.

Their lives in the past ten years have been a roller coaster to say the least. It’s been filled with so much tragedy and heartache; his baby sister being born had been like a light shining down on them, giving them the hope they needed to move past everything. For him especially. He’s experienced so many losses in his life that having this baby, representing the love of his family, has become his saving grace.

His baby sister is still clinging on to him, both of her legs wrap around his torso as her arms wrap around his neck. It’s easier now since her limbs have grown a couple of inches. It’s amazing how much she has grown since the last time he’s seen her. Mia’s only seven and she’s already growing at a rapid pace, it’s enough to make him feel homesick.

“Still, Mia needs to learn manners, even if you are her brother.”

Mia immediately shakes her head, burying her face on the crook of his brother’s neck. She’s just as needy for her big brother. Felicity sighs, knowing no amount of scolding will get her daughter to separate from him.

“How are you, honey?” she asks her son, kissing his temple and ruffling his hair, something she always did ever since he was a kid. “Are you feeling all better now?”

“Yeah i’m good, I guess I just needed the rest.”

“What’s going on? You’re never usually this tired after your trip. Is everything okay, hun?”

William tenses for a moment, wondering if his stepmother has caught on to what’s been brewing in his head. But when he sees the genuine worry on her face, he realizes it’s just her being concerned and he relaxes a little.

“I’m fine.” he croaks out, giving her a timid smile. “Really, I think this semester is just starting to get to me.”

Felicity smiles at him warmly “I’m sure you’re doing great, sweety.”

“I hope so.” he sighs. Though the pressure’s of his last year in college is always looming in the back of his mind, it wasn’t exactly the reason why he’s so nervous.

“Will come help decorate the cookies with us!” Mia suddenly pipes up, pulling her head off the crook of his neck. “Please, please, please!”

“Hey what about me?” Oliver’s voice pipes up from the stove, looking at the three of them with a feign pout on his face. “Why’s nobody helping me?”

“Because you’re a control freak in the kitchen, hon.”

“Only because my options for sous chef is our 7 year old daughter and… well you.”

Felicity looks at him offended.

“Oh come on, honey, let’s not pretend here. You’re amazing at a lot of things, but cooking is not one of them.”

“But I want to decorate cookies with Will!”

“Hey little monkey,” Will says to his sister gently. “How bout you decorate cookies with mom and i’ll cook with dad. I’ll be right behind you the whole time.”

Mia continues to pout but nods nonetheless. Her hold on his loosens and Will lets her down gently. He walks over to his dad by the stove, welcoming a hug from him before he’s put to work, helping with chopping the vegetables.

The whole counter is filled with all sorts of food, prepped and ready to be cooked. In six hours from now, their whole friends and family will arrive for their holiday dinner. Their family alternates every year on who hosts the Christmas dinner. It just so happens that this year, not only is it their turn, but Christmas Eve is also the first day of Hanukkah so their menu also includes all of Felicity’s favorite Hanukkah food. Even the holiday cookies Felicity and Mia are decorating are more Hanukkah themed than the usual red and green Christmas theme from before.

Normally they would have a small dinner on the first day of Hanukkah as it usually falls separately from Christmas. The 25th would be when their whole extended family and friends join them for a big feast. But on those years when the two holiday’s combine, they always turn it into a big celebration. Needless to say the food prep this year is insane and Oliver can only do so much on his own.

“This is a lot. It seems a lot more than last time.” Will notices.

“It’s a special year.” was all Oliver says as he stirs the pot.

“Are any of these for the homeless shelter as well?”

“No, Dig’s already dropped those off today.”

“So why so much food. How many people are coming this year?”

“Just the normal lot. Your Uncle Dig’s family, Rene, Curtis, Dinah and their family. And of course, your Alex.”

At that, William’s breath hitches.

“We weren’t sure what food Alex likes so your father thought to just cook everything,” Felicity adds.

He looks at his parents, expecting them to grill him some more, but both Oliver and Felicity are in their own little world. His father stirring whatever’s he’s cooking and Felicity frosting the cookies with Mia. They are still none the wiser.

He and Alex have been dating for a couple of months now though they’ve known each other for years. Ever since sophomore year of college when he became Alex’s tutor, the two have been friends. The beginning of this school year, they finally took the plunge and started dating.

Now Alex is coming to their Holiday party and officially meet his parents and William is absolutely terrified of the outcome. It’s the first time he’s brought someone home since… well since his high school girlfriend and that one didn’t count since his family already knows her. It’s a pretty big deal for his family and for him too, but for completely different reasons.

“I’m sure Alex will like anything you guys make.”

“Still, we want to make sure Alex feels at home here.” his father says sincerely.

William swallows a large lump in his throat. It almost makes him want to break down at his father’s words. He doesn’t know how much those words mean to him and only hop they still hold true when Alex comes.

“So when is Alex getting here?” Felicity asks.

“Uumm… any minute now.” he checks his SQ Smart Watch for the last message letting him know the ETA. “Zoe went to pick Alex up at the train station, they’re already on their way here.”

“Isn’t it a little bit strange that your ex-girlfriend is picking Alex up?”

William shrugs. “I don’t think it is. Zoe’s known about Alex since before we got together and she’s cool with it.”

“I don’t mean about Zoe.”

“Alex’s fine with it too.” he assures his father. “Alex knows how important Zoe is to me and everything we went through. Well not all the gory details, but, you know.”

Having experienced trauma like he and Zoe did, it was something that brought them together in their teenage years. They leaned on each other whenever their city and family were being terrorized. Zoe’s his best friend, the one person outside of his family he would go through the end of the world for. His love for her never went away, it only grew. Though it didn’t grow into romance like they expected it would, neither did her love for him, but what they have now is special.

When he first started liking Alex, she’s the first person he called. They were already broken up, but still remained close friends. Whenever there’s something going on in his life that he doesn’t want to talk to his parents with, Zoe’s always that person he turns to. Knowing he has her support has made this whole thing easy.

“Oh come on, honey, it’s not like it’s the strangest thing in the world for his ex girlfriend and current boyfriend to be friends.” Felicity says with a snort. “Do you realize how many of your ex-girlfriend I’m friends with. And how many of my ex boyfriends you’re friends with.”

“As I recall, it’s only the one.” Oliver retorts. “Just Sara… and your ex-boyfriend Ray.”

“What about Laurel and Barry?”

“Laurel doesn’t count, she’s a doppelganger-”

“Yeah but I was also friends with our Laurel. She was gonna be my bridesmaid for pete’s sake.”

“And Barry also doesn’t count, you two went on like one date.”

“We went on a couple dates only, I admit that, but it was enough for you not to like him at first.” she says, giving him a teasing look. “And now he’s one of your best friends. Just like i’m sure Zoe and Alex can be friends too. Besides, they kind of have to be because it’s not like Zoe’s gonna be out of our lives any time soon, right hon?”

She looks over at her son with a beaming smile, as though this is one of those moments when they gang up on Oliver together. Though all she sees is her son, his face pale white and his eyes widen in shock.

“Are you alright Will? Why are you -” then she gasps and clasp her mouth. Her eyes widen, looking back and forth between her son and husband. She realized her slip up. “I’m so sorry, i didn’t mean to spill the beans.”

“How… how did you…” Will stammers, his hand starting to shake.

“Here, let me take that.” Oliver says gently, taking the cauliflower in his hand and putting it on the chopping board. “Mia, why don’t you go play with the tablet in the living room?”

His daughter immediately whips her head around to look at him, a scowl on her face. “But i’m decorating the cookies, Daddy!”

“I know, but your mom and I need to talk to your brother for a minute.”

“Why can’t I stay and talk too?”

“Cause this is grown up stuff we need to talk to Will first.”

“Is this about his boyfriend? I already know about that.” the young girl rolls her eyes.

“Moira Elizabeth Queen,” Felicity says in her sternest mom voice. “Listen to your father please. We just need a moment to speak to your brother.”

“Fine.” the young girl sighs and steps off the chair. “But I’m watching Doctor Who on the tablet.”

“One episode.”

Mia didn’t respond, which probably means she’ll try to download more than one episode. Right now Felicity can’t really manage her daughter’s watching habits as she needs to make sure her son is alright first. As soon as their daughter is out of sight, she turns to her son.

“Oh honey, i’m so sorry.” she says apologetically. “I didn’t mean to take this away from you. I know you wanted to tell us on your own terms.”

Her hand rubs his arms in a comforting manner, the way she always does whenever he’s feeling anxious. The feel of it made William feel a little bit better, but his head is still wrapping around the fact that his parents know.

“How did you… know? That Alex is… ” he couldn’t finish the sentence.

He feels his mouth going dry and his eyes burning with unshed tears. He didn’t think this is how it would happen. He had mentally prepared for this, gone over in his head how he wanted this to go. He expected to sit down his parents and break it down to them slowly. Never did he expect for them to already know.

“A boy?” Oliver finishes for him. “We’ve known since you told us you were dating him, Will.”

“But… How?”

Felicity shrugs, looking over at her husband. The two share a look, one that Will has seen a million times before. It’s the one where it looks like they’re exchanging words with just a look. Will has never been able to decode it, and now he’s even more nervous knowing the subject they’re most likely communicating about to each other.

“We just knew.” Felicity says simply. “We knew something about you had changed. And the way you talked about Alex, it was different. Besides, you also mentioned Alex before and you definitely referenced him as a boy.”

“I did?”

“Mh-hm. We listen to you, Will. He’s the boy you tutored two years ago, right? You wouldn’t stop talking about him back then. Whenever we spoke to you on the phone it was always Alex this and Alex that. Back then I swore you had a crush on him. I guess i was right.”

Will blushes at that. He didn’t realize how transparent he had been. “You guys knew back then?”

“We suspected it.” Oliver says. “We didn’t know if you were just admiring your friend or if there was something more. But then you came home and we can tell it was different.”

“When you talked about Alex, your face would light up. It reminded me a lot of your father.” Felicity looks at her husband lovingly before looking back at her son. “Your Nana Donna would say the same thing about me too, whenever I talked about Oliver. So it was easy to recognize that it was more than just an admiration of a friend. You liked him.”

“So you knew even back then that I liked him and you didn’t say anything?”

“It wasn’t our place to say. Also, we didn’t think if you realized it yourself; we were just waiting for you.”

“But then you stopped talking about Alex.” Felicity continues. “At first we thought maybe you two had drifted apart and that we were wrong about our assumption. But then when you came home last summer, you didn’t look like someone who fell out of touch with a friend, you looked heartbroken.”

“Yeah he, uh… he starting dating this guy and I… it took me a while to figure out why it didn’t sit well with me. Why it hurt so much to see him with someone else.”

“Oh honey.” Felicity immediately pulls him in for a hug, which Will gladly accepts. “I know how much it hurts, seeing the person you love with someone else.” her eyes meets Oliver and they have that silent conversation again.

“I didn’t even realize I loved him. And when I did I got scared. Scared of what it meant that i was in love with a boy.”

“I’m so sorry Will.” Oliver says.

“What are you sorry for?”

“That you had to go through that alone. I wish we could have been there for you and i’m sorry if we ever made you think that we wouldn’t accept you-”

“No!” he immediately interjects, even jerking himself away from Felicity’s embrace. “It’s not that at all!”

Felicity still has her hand on “Then how come you didn’t come to us?”

“Because I was still confused. When I realized what my feelings for Alex were, I got scared and didn’t know how to deal with it. It took me a while to finally accept who I am, I talked to Zoe about it so many times.”

He still remembers the countless conversations with Zoe during the summer about his sudden realization of his sexuality and the feelings he harbored over Alex. She was his rock during that time, she still is. If it wasn’t for her support he didn’t think he’d come to cope with who he is so easy.

“I wanted to figure it out myself and when I did, when Alex and I finally got together, I don’t know. We were just in our own little bubble and I didn’t want that to be ruined, not just yet.”

The past four months have been the best of his life. He feels like he’s thriving more academically than he ever did in the past three years at school. His group of friends at school are the ones he knows he can lean on for years to come. Then there’s Alex, beautiful, amazing Alex. Being with him has given him a sense of happiness Will hasn’t felt in a long time.

“Did you think we wouldn’t approve?” Felicity asks gently.

“No.” he sighs. “I know you guys would love me no matter what.”

“But you were still scared to tell us.”

“I knew that once I told you it would be real.”

He’s only ever been honest with himself since the summer. He still needed to take some time to get use to his sexuality.

“Are you still confused about your sexualtiy?”

“No, not anymore. I finally know who I am and i’m finally comfortable with who I am. I like girls.” he states simply. “And I like boys too. And I also happen to be head over heels in love with a boy and I want you two to meet him and love him too.”

Felicity practically beams at his confession. “We will. If he loves you as much as you love him, then we will love him too.”

“He does, he loves me. I still can't’ believe someone as amazing as him loves me. And i’m so in love with him too.”

“And he makes you happy?” Oliver asks. “He treats you right and respects you?”

“He is never anything but good to me, dad.”

“Good. that’s all we ever want for you, son. For you to be happy.”

“I am. I really am.”

“Come here, buddy.”

Oliver pulls his son closer as his wife also moves in and soon enough the three of them are wrapped in each other in a tight hug. They spent a moment, the three of them, locked in the embrace as William takes in the love and support from his parents. He’s always known his they would be supportive, but it’s still a scary thing to coming out to your parents.

Now that his family finally knows the truth, he feels all this weight lifted from his shoulder. It felt wrong to keep something so big like this from them and now that they know, he feels such relief.

“We will always love you, Will.” Oliver whispers in his ear. “No matter what you go through in your life, whether it’s girlfriends or boyfriends or school or work, we’re always going to be here for you.”

“We love and support you no matter what.” Felicity finishes.

William finally sheds the tears he’s been holding in. he feels so much love for his family and the fact that they love and accept him means the world to him. He knows he has it easy, most people in his situation couldn’t even get half the support he has now. Which is why Will knows he will never take for granted the amazing family he has.

Now that he’s told his parents, he’s not so scared to tell the world about who he is and who he loves. It’s such a liberating thought.

The three finally separates from each other, thought Felicity is still clinging on to her son.

“Now that that’s out of the way. Tell us a bit more about Alex? How did you guys get together?”

“When we met up again after the summer and he wasn’t with his boyfriend anymore, we finally talked. He told me he was never in love with the guy and that he was with him to get over me. He didn’t think I was into him, or into guys at all for that matter. When I told him I was, well… that was that.”

“Oh, that’s so precious.” Felicity places a hand over her heart, her face scrunching up as she tries not to tear up. “I’m happy that you’re happy, WIll.”

“Yeah, that’s all that matters to us.” Oliver agrees.

“Thanks you two. And, actually, Alex is doing an internship here in Star City, which means we’ll most likely come visit more often.”

“That’s even better!” Felicity squeals, pulling him in for another hug.

“Okay, mom, too tight.”

“Ooops, sorry, got way too excited there.”

“Come on, we should get back to the food so Alex can have something to eat.” Oliver says, already moving back to the pot.

“I heard mommy screaming, can I come back now?” Mia’s voice comes from the threshold of the kitchen.

William, giddy from his coming out, immediately scoops his baby sister into his arms. “Come here you monkey.”

“Aaahh!” Mia lets out a squeal of her own as her brother starts tickling her. “Will stop, stop stop!”

“Will, come on, let’s get back to work.” Felicity says, trying to get her kids back on track.

“Does your boyfriend like menorah cookies, Will?”

“I’m sure he does. He’s part Jewish.”

“And he’s Jewish too?” Felicity cries, clutching her heart, her face beaming with pride. Then her face falls. “Oh god, I’ve turned into my mother.”

Oliver chuckles behind her.

“It’s not funny, i’ve officially turned into my mother!”

“Come here honey.” he pulls her in for a hug, kissing her forehead.

“Does your boyfriend also like Doctor Who?” Mia asks his older brother.

“Oh yeah.” Will nods. “He’s obsessed with Doctor Who. probably more than you and mom.”

Mia gasps. “No one likes Doctor Who more than mommy!”

“I don’t know, Alex might.”

“Do you think he’ll watch it with me?”

“Oh definitely.”

“Yay! I when is he coming! I want to watch Doctor Who now!”

“He should be here any minute.”

Just as he spoke, the doorbell rang.

William smiles. “I think that’s him right now.”

“Yay! I’ll go get it.” before he could stop her, Mia has already jumped off her brother.

“Mia don’t open the door by yourself!” Felicity calls after her daughter. “Will…”

“I got her.”

Will rushes after her sister and was able to catch up to her before she could reach the door. He didn't’ even care that Mia is wiggling in his arms, trying to get off as she’s too excited by their guest. He is too.

In fact he’s freaking happy. His family finally knows about him, well, they’ve known all along. But everything is finally out in the open. He’s free to be himself and be with the love of his life. Speaking of, he’s on the other side of the door right now.

William couldn’t wait. He’s already deemed this to be the best Christmakkuh ever.

#arrow #olicity #olicity fic #olicity secret santa 2018 #submission

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sardonicnihilism · 3 years

Text

A Biography of the Woman Who Never Was

Part 3 The Young Adult

Chapter 30

Shannon and Sam sat on the hood of her car, looking out over the view. They were parked in a clearing overlooking the ridge of the mountains. It was approaching evening, and from where they sat, they could see the transition lines in the sky. Blue closet to the ground, golden bands of clouds sectioning off the layers of red, orange, and pink, hazy purple above that, and the blackened night sky crowning all of that. It was like looking at time itself. Bellow the sky lines, was a sea of green tree tops, stretching into the far horizon.

"Mate! This is gorgeous!" Sam said in awe.

"Don't you have views like this in Australia?" Shannon asked, somewhat amused and proud at the same time.

"Not where I'm from. We got the beach. But after awhile, all the sunsets look the same. This is something else."

"Well, I've never seen a beach sunset before, so it'd be new to me, but, yeah, this is pretty amazing." Shannon was pleased that this place was having the effect on him that she had been hoping for.

"How'd you ever find this place?"

"My one aunt lives over the ridge here. I saw it when I was driving past to visit one day. I come up here to think sometimes; clear my head. There's horse trails over there I sometimes walk in the daytime."

"Well thank you for sharing this with me. I'm unbelievably grateful and humbled."

They both continued to look out over the ridge and watch as the night sky slowly melted down over the other layers, taking them over.

Sam began to have a gnawing sensation in his conscience. He bowed his head and spoke softly. "You know, Dan warned me about you. He said you were a spooky girl. That you were dangerous."

Shannon just shrugged, never turning her gaze away from the horizon. "I'm not surprised. It's a reputation I got honestly. I'm not even sure I regret it. It has its advantages and disadvantages; like most things in life I suppose."

By now, Shannon was almost hypnotized by the night sky. It's infinite blackness called to her and her mental barriers started breaking down.

"I love horror. Horror novels, movies, short stories, I even read the reprints of the old EC horror comics. My favorite type of horror is cosmic horror.

"Cosmic horror is about how humans are an insignificant speck in an indifferent and even malevolent universe, controlled by things we couldn't possibly understand and would go insane if we tried."

Sam turned his head to Shannon. "Is that what you believe?" He asked worryingly.

Shannon shrugged again. "I'm a Christian. I believe that the universe was created by a just and loving god, who'll one day come down, make everything perfect, raise the dead, and we'll all live forever with perfect, beautiful bodies. At least I think so. That's what I tell myself. That's what I want to believe.

"Except, that's not what I see. How could a just and loving god sit back and watch His children die? Either by there or natural causes? Why would He create a reality with diseases, earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters? How could He sit back and watch war, murder, rape?

"I was born the illegitimate offspring of an alcoholic mother from a one night stand. She was physically and emotionally abusive. One night, when I was about five, her boyfriend at the time, came into my room and molested me. Thanks to him, I knew what cum tasted like. I eventually went to live with my biological aunt who I call mom because she actually did the fucking job of raising me, but my sister remained with my birth mother.

"I was severely, morbidly obese for most of my life. I was picked on, hit, ostracized from all others. The only friend I had, used me and almost let me drown. Meanwhile, I lived with my grandmother who was quite literally insane. She pissed and shit in a bucket beside her bed. Sometimes I would wake up during the night and see her just looking in at me like some ghost.

"One time I tried to kill myself by slitting my wrists. When I got out of the hospital, my one uncle asked what I did. I told him. He asked how. I showed him the scars going across my wrists. He said, 'oh no, that's not how you do it. You got to cut down your forearm, not across '. I told him I'd try to remember that for next and he responded that he was just trying to help.

"I eventually got mixed up with a bunch of self proclaimed witches. They told me I was a natural witch. I started learning witchcraft underneath them. Then, one night, I did a vision quest ritual with them. They gave this sour, red liquid, and I had a vision where I was proclaimed the new Lilith and Shub Ni' gureth. Millions of horrible creatures tore out of my body, each becoming a new universe, because all universes are born of pain. Then what was left of me was devoured by Azathoth. When I woke up, I was terrified. I told them I didn't want to go any further, so they kicked me out.

"I tried to rededicate myself to my faith, but I started hearing voices and seeing things; shadows and specters, just outside my view. I started hearing other noises and things seemed to move on their own. I never feel alone. No matter where I am, it always feels like millions of eyes are looking at me, watching me, waiting to pounce.

"It got so bad, I started believing I was an angelic warrior and this was God testing me. I started carrying a dagger around with me everywhere. One night, I attacked my mother and almost killed a homeless man. I think. I can't be sure if he was real or not. All that right before I started school.

"When I started, everyone I met, I talked about witchcraft and demons too. I scared a lot of people. Traumatized a couple. So, yeah, I am a creepy girl. I'm still trying to find out about the book the coven used, 'The Book of Forgotten Nightmares'. So far, I can't find anything on it. I figure that's either because it doesn't exist or it's so obscure, no one knows about.

"And God sat back and saw all of that and did nothing to intervene. How could He do that? Why would he do that? Maybe because if He does exist, He's not benevolent. Maybe He's a sadist. Or maybe he doesn't exist at all. Maybe we all are just a dream in the mind of Azathoth and the most merciful thing he could do is wake up."

Shannon suddenly realized everything she had said and bowed her head in embarrassment. "Sorry. I guess I scared you off now."

To her surprise, Sam softly said, "No."

Shannon looked at him in shock and noticed that he, now, was too, looking off into the night horizon.

"Me dad was a drunk. He started out ok, owned his own business, only the occasional drink with the lads on the weekends. Then the business started to fail, he started drinking more, becoming violent. More so to mum than me sister and I, but we still got our share.

"Our next door neighbor, he had always been nice to me. I thought of him like a friend, like an uncle, hell, like a bloody father. One day, he says he has a bike for me in his house. I walk in, he shuts the door behind me, next thing I know, he's on me and then in me. Eventually he gets me to start bringing my sister over and he makes us 'perform' while he videos us for him and his pedo friends.

"One night, Dad gets extra wasted. Starts beating on all of us. Mum says she's had enough and tells him she's leaving with the kids. He goes, gets his shotgun, lines us up against the wall and says he's gonna kill us and himself. Mum says he might be evil enough to kill us but he's too chicken shit to pop himself and he's not man enough to survive prison. So he throws us out.

"We go to Mum's mum and dad's but they say that we're an embarrassment and she made her bed and now she had to lie in it. Luckily there was a women's shelter nearby and they took us in. We lived there for about a month before Mum found a job and a place to live. Never saw Dad again after that. I heard he got remarried and has a new family now. Good on him if he did, but I can't give a rat's ass about him.

"I had dreamed of being a professional dancer. Trained nearly all me life for it. Then, one day, I realized that if I ever did get famous, the tabloids would go digging and knowing that there's pictures and videos of me, out there, somewhere, being forced to rape my sister, I couldn't take the chance, and gave up on that dream."

Shannon just stared at Sam in horror. "So you know," she said slowly and methodically, watching her words carefully, "the world is a cruel and indifferent place, set up to destroy us and drive us insane. It truly is best to never have existed at all."

Sam suddenly spun around and looked at her in shock. "No! To the contrary. Life isn't fair but it's not unfair either. Life is just a series of physical and chemical reactions. Fairness is a human construct we try to impose on nature. But that's the thing, it's up to us to say what is fair, to hash it out, to make life fair for us.

"I don't regret being born. I'm glad I'm alive. Sure me life ain't be easy, but it hasn't been all bad. There's been a lot of good too. Even in the darkest night, there's still light. Life is a tapestry. Like all tapestries, there's light colors and dark, but all together, they form a beautiful picture. We just have to learn to appreciate it."

Shannon shook her head and smiled. "I don't know if I should hug you or punch you for being so wonderfully naive."

"Well, if I have choice, I know which one I'd pick, especially given those arms of yours."

Shannon laughed and said, You dork!", and laid her head on his shoulder.

"Not that's its my business, but what made you go this route?"

"What, the muscles? Well, like I said, I was morbidly obese as a kid. Larger muscles burn more calories. Also, it makes men think twice before trying anything. I mean, you could be 300 pounds of pure muscle, a black belt in every martial art, and a champion boxer, but if you're out cold because someone spiked your drink, it doesn't matter, but, still, they see how big I am, it causes them to think twice. The best way for prey to avoid a predator is to become one herself."

"Fair enough," Sam said and they both turned to look at the night sky.

For the first time in a long time, Shannon didn't just see the infinite darkness but the billions of stars within. Each one giving out unfathomable heat and light. Even with all that, they couldn't dispell the darkness but, each, in their own way causing it to retreat just a little bit and in the process, shine that much brighter.

It was then she thought about how far away those stars were - hundreds, thousands, millions of light years away. Surely some of those had burned out long ago; dead, yet their light still shone, going on forever. She started to fell like she was on the verge of a profound epiphany when she suddenly farted. A loud, long, rumbling fart.

Both Shannon and Sam started busting out laughing. Maybe in the end, the only true and appropriate response to the eternal infinite is just to let one rip and laugh your ass of about it. It's not like the universe is going to mind.

#dark #fiction #drama #queer stories #sad #slice of life

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luanna801 · 6 years

Note

1, 2, 7, 11, 12, & 17 for Clem ;D

Awesome, thanks! :-)

1. What influenced or inspired the creation of this character?

I think the strongest influence was probably Eloise McGraw’s The Moorchild, which was a favorite book of mine growing up. Like the heroine of that book, Saaski/Moql, Clemency is a very obviously not-normal child born to (seemingly) normal human parents, who have to struggle with how to deal with the situation and protect their kid from the townspeople’s prejudice. But whereas Saaski looks basically human enough that her parents can try to convince themselves she’s a regular human child (and hope everyone else will think so too), Clem is very obviously tiefling, with her horns and her tail and her glowing eyes. So her parents chose to just hide her away out of fear of what prejudiced people might do to her, which ended up massively backfiring when the townspeople inevitably did find out. (Now that I think about it, there are also elements of Frozen in there, but I wasn’t consciously thinking about it at the time.)

In general I’ve always loved stories about characters who come from some sort of evil lineage or dark background and yet choose not to be the stereotype. The Dark Is Not Evil trope, in general. So Raven from TT is definitely also a character with strong similarities, and Nico di Angelo to some degree, etc.

2. What is your character’s relationship with their family? Family is a word which here refers to biological relatives, close companions, and/or the individual(s) who raised them.

So like I talked about above, her biological parents* chose to hide her away because they thought it was the only way to protect her. Arguably, that was a bad choice, but you do also have to remember that major prejudice against tieflings is a pretty big thing in the D&D universe, and they weren’t wrong to worry that their very normal human village wouldn’t take well to the demon baby in their midst. So right or wrong, they were very much motivated by wanting to protect their kid, and they were loving parents who did their best to raise her well and make her feel as accepted as they could. But I do think from an early age that very much gave Clem a mentality that her very existence was something shameful and monstrous that needed to be hidden away.

When Clem was 9, the townspeople (who had been getting increasingly suspicious over time) finally found out about her existence and demanded her parents hand her over. They refused, which ultimately led to the townspeople rioting, and her parents ended up being accidentally killed while trying to protect her. To this day, Clem feels incredibly guilty about their deaths and feels like she should have been able to do more to protect them.

After that, she was on her own for three years before being taken in by a sorcerer, who taught her to use her innate abilities and became a surrogate father to her. Sorcerer Dad (I really ought to give him a name) is, without a doubt, the most important person in Clemency’s life, and the person she feels she owes everything to. He not only took her in and took care of her when she had nothing, he’s the first person who ever made her feel like her demonic heritage wasn’t innately a bad thing. And as of this point, he’s the only person she genuinely trusts. (Unsurprisingly given her backstory, girl has some MAJOR trust issues.)

*Because Clemency is a tiefling child born to seemingly human parents, there’s also the possibility that the man she thought was her biological father was in fact not. However, it’s also possible there was just demonic heritage further up the family tree that skipped a couple generations, so Clem’s mom may be innocent of any wrongdoing. :-P At this point, Clem herself doesn’t know for sure, but there’s always the possibility a tiefling biodad might turn up someday.

11. Are they normally peaceful or aggressive?

Definitely peaceful. For one thing, Clem’s very aware of the stereotypes about tieflings, and I think she feels that if she ever let herself become violent or cruel, she’d be confirming what everyone thinks about her (and her race, in general.) She also had to get in the habit of learning a lot of self-control from an early age, since she was trying to stay hidden. (And her temper tantrums tended to get… literally fiery, which was a motivation for staying calm all on its own.) But of course, like anyone, she can lose her temper in a major way if the right buttons are pushed. And unsurprisingly, it’s terrifying when she does.

12. How does this character handle stress?

She lost everything at the age of nine and was homeless for three years, and faces extreme prejudice from almost everyone around her on a daily basis, so… she’s not easily phased by much, at this point. She’s extremely tough and a survivor by nature. But that said, social situations freak her the heck out. She desperately wants to make people like and accept her, and has almost no idea how to do it.17. If they were in possession of a trio of wishes, what would their three wishes be?

That’s an interesting one. I think at one time, she’d definitely have wished that she wasn’t a tiefling, that she was just a normal human girl who could live a normal life. But I think as she’s grown up, she’s thankfully come to accept herself more and also to put more blame on the world for not accepting her and her ilk, rather than on herself for being what she is. So I think at this point, she’d simply wish to find a place where she can feel accepted and normal as she is. She’d probably also wish for her biological parents back, considering how much guilt she feels over their deaths. (Bringing back the dead is objectively a terrible idea, of course, but that kind of guilt and loss isn’t always rational. Just ask the Elric brothers.) For her third wish… I’m honestly not sure? Maybe she’d wish the world were kinder to tieflings in general. Or to people who are different, even more generally.

#replies #bxtgrl #clemency

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itsreddiebitch · 6 years

Text

Family First Chapter 7

Summary: Emily Tozier knew one thing. Her father loved her as if she was his own. Yet, secrets and lies kept for years will push her into finding out the truth about her real father and his connection with Richie.

Harry smiled to himself as he left the store. He looked at his phone to see the name Emily Tozier with a smile in his contacts. He was relieved that Emily was nice to him. After the events of yesterday, he wasn’t sure how they would treat him.

Of course he didn’t know these people, it shouldn’t matter what they thought. However, Harry had a problem with how people viewed him ever since he came out. He was teased at a young age for being feminine. Harry never played sports or video games. His interests consisted of photography and collecting dried flowers. It was not something a normal straight teen would do. When he finally came out to his parents he was welcomed with hugs and promises of always being supported. Harry was overjoyed and thanked his parents for being so understanding. He had always wanted a love like theirs. Yet, he worried he would not find the right person.

Harry walked up the stairs to his hotel room. He wasn’t sure what he should do. He wanted to hang out with Emily and the others but feared how Ethan would react. They seemed to be searching for answers just like him. While he was here to see where his parents grew up, he was really here to see why his mother would wake up screaming some nights. He also wanted to know why his father had that scar of an H on his stomach. He always wore a shirt and it took years before Harry was able to see it. He loved his parents but was sick of the secrets they were keeping.

Once inside the room, he dropped his bag on the bed before entering the bathroom. It wasn’t like any bathrooms he had used before. The pink tile surrounded the small room almost overwhelmingly. It seemed to be remolded in the late seventies and was never remolded again. The sink and bathtub had the same bright pink color. Harry turned on the warm water and began to wash his hands. He thought of how he could visit the water tower next or even the library. That was where his father wrote the poem. A chilling laugh broke him from his thoughts.

At first, he did not know where it was coming from. It could be some kids playing outside the window. Yet, the window was closed. He stopped the water and turned away to dry his hands. Once he turned back he almost jumped from the sight in front of him. There stood his mother. She was thirteen and her hair was cut short. She was looking into the sink asking if anyone was there. He watched entranced by what he was seeing. Harry saw her move closer into the sink as if she would be able to see all the way down. She left the room quickly which made Harry wonder if she was even real. He was about to leave the bathroom to take a walk till she came back in with a tape measure. Beverly began pushing it down the drain. Harry wanted to tell her to stop for he didn’t see a reason for it. Even if there was someone down there a tape measure wouldn’t help.

Harry let out a breath, trying to gather the courage to speak to his mother. He knew he had to be dreaming. She pulled out the tape measure to reveal a thick bloody hair wrapped around it. Harry felt his stomach begin to turn as he covered his mouth to keep from gagging. Blood. Blood was something he could not handle. Harry fainted at the sight of blood ever since he saw Sherry Bloom bleeding on the playground. She was crying as blood gushed from her knee. Harry couldn’t tear his eyes away and fainted after the blood began to drip down her calf. It was only a matter of time for him to fall to that same fate.

Suddenly hair began to spread out from the drain. It wrapped its wet locks around her neck. She began to scream which made Harry’s legs begin to shake. The hair looked as strong as rope as it pulled her closer to the drain. He wanted to get up and stop her but something was holding him back. He could only watch in horror as she continued to scream for her life. Blood began to rise in the sink and Harry didn’t have a chance to look away before it burst through the drain. Blood rushed out as if it was trying to tame a fire. Panic began to rise in Harry’s chest as he watched his mother become drenched in blood. The walls, the floor, even the tub was covered in blood. Harry felt blood splatter on his face making him dizzy. Beverly continued to scream before falling and pushing herself far away from the sink. A loud laugh began to bounce off the bathroom walls. Harry fell to the floor. His head hit the ground hard leaving an open wound. He looked at his mother’s terrified face before losing consciousness hoping to wake up from this nightmare.

Emily barley reached the Denbrough house before collapsing on the front steps. Her breathing was rigid as tears fell from her face. She didn’t know how to explain what she saw to anyone. The man’s withering lips smiling at Emily from across the street. She raised the inhaler to her mouth. She closed her eyes and could see Eddie’s face clearly behind her eyelids. His trembling hands, his hesitant eyes. The medicine spread down her throat and she felt relief instantly. She opened her eyes expecting to see the decaying form from earlier. Instead, she was welcomed to a quiet street. The only sounds were of cars that past. Emily let out a shaky sigh as she clutched the inhaler in between her fingers. It was over now. She could relax. The front door opened with a loud snap. Emily stood up quickly and began wiping the tears off her cheeks.

“Emily darling why are you out here? You are going to freeze.” Ethan’s grandmother smiled down at Emily. Her eyes roamed Emily’s face. Emily’s skin was hot to the touch and her eyes were slightly swollen. Emily wanted to scream she wanted to explain what had just happened. Yet, this old woman was looking at her with such concern and love that she worried what would become of her if she knew the truth.

“I’m just getting some fresh air.” Emily walked inside trying to ignore the looks Ethan’s grandmother was giving her. She headed upstairs ready to call her father and ask him questions. Did he know about the man hiding under the porch? Did Eddie tell him or did he see him as well? Emily had almost reached the door to her room. She was so close to the door she almost broke out in tears. However, the sound of a door opening stopped her in her tracks.

“Hey, what took you so long?” Ethan smiled looking as if he was prepared to hit her with another one of his jokes. Emily turned fully to face him and realized she had left the bag of sandwiches on the street. Guilt broke the dam of tears that she tried to hold back. Ethan quickly wrapped her in his arm and moved into the room to not let others hear. Emily held on to Ethan’s arms as if he was the only thing keeping her from falling. It took time before she could regain her composure.

“I-I saw Eddie.” Emily looked at her inhaler thinking of the young boy biking down the street peddling his heart out, hoping to not be caught in the slimy grip of that man. “There was….a man. He looked homeless, he looked dead even. I…” Emily didn’t know what else to say. The memory played back in her head like a film.

“The Leper?”

“You know what he is?” Emily moved away from Ethan to look at him in the eye. Did he see what she saw in a dream or maybe Bill had seen the Leper too?

“I had a dream where my dad and all his friends were talking about creepy things they had seen around town. Eddie talked about a man who looked as if he was a walking disease. They all had seen something. It was something trying to get them, trying to kill them.” Emily had a hard time not believing this all was a dream. Ever since they had arrived in Derry she never stopped feeling uncomfortable. Even with the beautiful trees and lakes, the town was not as quiet as it seemed. Something was rotting inside the town. It had no stench. Yet, it took over Emily’s senses and made her see things that were not really there.

“Why would someone try to kill them?”

“I don’t think it was a person. I think it was more of a something.” Ethan did not get a chance to explain for the door to the bedroom opened revealing an annoyed Stacey.

“Have you guys seen Lucas? He was supposed to meet with me but he never showed.” Stacey tried to look as if it didn’t upset her. However, her hand balled into a fist said otherwise. Emily looked at Ethan before turning her attention towards Stacey. She wondered if she should tell Stacey what she say today. Ethan could tell her what he saw as well.

“No, we haven’t. Do you want help looking for him?” Stacey eased at Emily’s words and smiled in appreciation. Emily did not think now was the best time to explain that Stacey’s father may have escaped death in his childhood. They also did not have all the facts.

“Yeah, let’s start in the…” The telephone ringing from downstairs caught their attention. It was quickly picked up by Ethan’s grandmother. A few moments later they heard their names being called.

“Ethan dear, Mike wants to show you and your friends some fun facts at the library.” Ethan looked at Emily to see if she was thinking what he was thinking. She nodded before they headed out of the bedroom. It was no coincidence that Mike had called them that day. It was also no coincidence that Mike knew they all would be together. This town was filled with many things but none of them were coincidences.

The three teens headed out to the library. Emily couldn’t help but look around as they walked over. She feared that man would be lurking behind the grocery store or the blue house at the end of the street. He could be hiding under the porch, waiting for them to pass by. His grotesque fingers will reach for Emily’s ankle and drag her into the dark. Emily reached for her inhaler and brought it up to her mouth. Both Ethan and Stacey looked at Emily with concern. For the first time since they traveled to Derry Emily felt annoyed by that look. What it really meant was are you able to handle this. Are you able to survive? She didn’t want to seem weak just because she needed medicine for her lungs.

“I’m okay. Just not use to this smogless air.” Emily did her best to seem light-hearted about it all. However, she could tell Ethan and Stacey didn’t really believe that was the reason. Well, if they did they didn’t mention it. Once they got to the Derry Library parking lot, Emily saw a man holding his head lightly sitting on a bench. As they got closer Emily could see it was Harry with a gash on his forehead. A blood-stained cloth was pushed up against the wound. She broke out in a run which caused Ethan to call after her. She ignored his call and continued to run till she was in front of Harry. He looked up at Emily, almost startled by her appearance.

“Oh, hello Emily.”

“What happened?” Emily bent down to get a closer look at his face. She wondered if he saw something as well.

“Could you do me a favor? I can’t stand looking at blood. Can you change out the cloth please?” Harry looked tense as if he was holding an invisible weight on his shoulders. Emily grabbed the cloth and replaced it with a fresh clean one. The wound was not as big as she thought. However, it needed to be treated with a bandage.

“Why didn’t you go to the hospital?” Emily began to lightly pat the wound so the cloth would begin to soak up the blood. Harry kept his eyes closed, too afraid to open them.

“I got a call from Mr. Hanlon. He said to come to the library right away.” Stacey and Ethan were now behind Emily. Stacey brought her hand up to her mouth in shock. Ethan crossed his arms and sighed in annoyance. Emily was ready to turn around and put him in his place but the red-headed boy in front of her needed her attention.

“Let’s go inside and see if they have a first aid kit. It’s okay I can lead you just breathe.” Emily took Harry’s arm and lead him towards the front door. Stacey followed behind them but turned when she realized Ethan was not following her. She looked behind her to see Ethan with a frown on his face. She shot him an icy glare and motioned for him to follow. He followed reluctantly behind her.

“Hey guys! Woah, are you okay Harry? Let me get you a first aid kit.” Lucas ran over to the supply closet. He grabbed the white box with the familiar red cross and rushed back towards the teens. Emily took the box from him and began to gather the materials she needed. She wasted no time and began to wipe the blood off his forehead.

“Take deep breaths, the blood is almost gone.” Stacey grabbed Harry’s hand and squeezed it. Emily could tell she was doing her best not to talk to Lucas or even look at him. The tension in the room grew as the group stayed silent. Emily wiped the wound with an antibacterial pad. Harry winced in response to the burning sensation spreading throughout his skull. Once she finished wiping the area, Emily placed a bandage over the wound. Ethan loomed over her, watching her every move.

“You are pretty good at this Miss Hollywood. You nurse on the side?” Emily rolled her eyes before closing the first aid kit. “My dad has a tendency of tripping over things or breaking his glasses when he wears them.”

“Nothing has changed with that Trashmouth.” The sound of Mike’s voice made the teens jump in fright. They looked to see Mike standing in front of the hallway. His eyes looked tired as if he had not slept the night before. “Please, come into my office.” He turned around and walked into the office, expecting them to follow. Just like a few days ago they were all sitting near Mike’s desk but this time they had one more person wanting answers. Mike’s desk was filled with photo books and journals. “For years I have researched this town and his history.” Mike began to flip through the photo book until he found the page he was looking for. He flipped the book over so the teens could see the photos inside.

“What are these?” Stacey leaned in to get a better look which encouraged the others to do the same.

“These are incidents in Derry that have happened every twenty-seven years. These photos and the history has been forgotten by the people of Derry with every passing year.” The photos were of many places around Derry. Lucas looked at the Kitchen Ironworks burning. There was chaos outside as firefighters struggled to put out the fire. The photos included several missing children flyers.

“What does all this mean?” Emily felt more confused than she did before. These pictures didn’t connect to the memories she has seen. There was no crazed man running around the streets of Derry in these pictures. None of these kids looked familiar as well. Mike let out a sigh before gathering his hands together. He pressed his palms together as he thought of how to explain this in a way they would believe.

“Your parents and I experienced something that happened every twenty-seven years. There is a reason your parents deal with night terrors Ethan. There is also a reason why your father is not with us anymore Stacey.” There was a long pause before he continued. “You all have seen something out of the ordinary since you have come here yes?” All the teens nodded except for Stacey.

“I haven’t.” She looked uncomfortable at knowing she was the odd one out.

“You will with time. What you children are seeing is memories from what has happened to your parents in their childhood. This town was the home of a creature that was not from this world. It projected our fears by shapeshifting into them.” Emily thought back to the man on the porch and how Eddie was so afraid of him.

“You have got to be kidding me?” Stacey narrowed her eyes at the man in front of her.

“I can assure you I am not.” Mike’s voice was stern. He showed no evades of lies. “We as a group defeated IT but the first time we were not successful in killing it. Twenty-seven years passed and I called everyone to come back an fulfill the promise we made. Your father…”

“No, you are expecting me to believe that something was trying to kill my father? Not to mention that this thing caused my father to give up his life?” The room was dead silent and Stacey stood up in rage. She looked torn between what she wanted to do. No one seemed to be backing her up that this was a load of bullshit. Not even Emily who was sitting down looking at her crossed hands. “You guys have fun with your horror stories and bullshit I’m out of here.”

“Stacey come on.”

“No, shut up Ethan. Do you believe this crap?” Ethan did not break eye contact with Stacey. His eyes told her the answer she didn’t want. She turned and left the office. Lucas nodded to his father before following her out. Mike let out a deep sigh while the others let out a breath they didn’t know they were holding in.

“So, that man… That was chasing after Eddie he was…”

“IT became Eddie’s fear. Just like how IT became a giant bird for me. Everyone has a fear and that was the way of getting IT’s…nutrients.” Mike paused at the word and rubbed his arms as if the word made the temperature in the room drop.

“Wait, does that mean it would eat people?” Harry’s eyes widened at the possibility of his assumption being accurate. He thought of the blood and how his mother was trembling as the hair clung to her body. He closed his eyes for a moment to relax. He didn’t want to pass out in Mike’s office over the thought of blood.

“Yes, children specifically. That is why we were targeted. These missing children were all victims of IT.” Mike motioned towards the missing children posters in front of him. Emily felt her stomach turn as she imagined all these children being eaten alive by this… She didn’t know what it was.

“So you guys came back? All of you after twenty-seven years?” Emily thought of Richie having to go back to a place filled with such horrifying memories. She would never wish that kind of terror on anyone.

“Yes well, Stan did not join us. I believe after I called him he made that decision.” Mike looked down at his desk holding back tears. He must have blamed himself for it at one time. Emily noticed that when Stan was mentioned before to Mike that his eyes would gravitate towards the floor. Something clicked in Emily mind. Stan had to be the one that Richie grieved for at home. While Richie never said Stan’s name out loud, he explained how he remembered moments from his past. Emily felt a surge of hope at the thought that maybe Eddie was not dead after all.

“Is this thing still in Derry?” Ethan thought of his uncle being dragged into the sewer. He swallowed down the rising panic of having to watch any of his new friends meeting the same fate.

“No, we were able to kill IT but there were many casualties. The town of Derry has been the home of IT for so many years that it left a lasting impression. Almost like a stench. Usually, the memories only show on the date they were made. Lucas and I believe it is because you all have come here.”

“Why are we learning this now though? I understand that it is a terrible time in all your lives but if our parents would have told us in the first place we wouldn’t have had to come here.” Ethan knew what he was saying was rude. He couldn’t help it. He felt hurt that his parents could not be honest with him about their experience. Ethan felt distant from his parents because of it.

“When everyone left Derry their memories left with them. I have stayed in Derry my whole life, so I never lost them. It is hard, having your best friends forget you and having to call them back.”

“So will we forget each other as well?” Emily feared she would forget the friends she had made through this journey. She couldn’t help but look at Ethan who was looking at her as well. His eyes were filled with pain and hers mirrored his own.

“I am not sure. I am sorry I am the one to have to tell you all of this. However, please keep in mind the pain your parents went through. You never know what someone is going through until you walk in their shoes.”

Stacey wanted to go home. She had wasted so much time on this town, so much time on these people. Do they actually believe a monster came after their parents? It sounded like some Halloween ghost story used to scare kids away from staying out late at night. Stacey walked down the streets of Derry not sure where she was heading. She was filled with frustration. She came on this trip to know more about her father. For years she tried to get her mother to talk about him but to no avail. She would either get angry or just straight up ignore Stacey. Thee were moments where she would catch her mother crying into one of Stan’s sweaters or caressing a photo of him she kept away from Stacey. Stacey never brought it up though. She wasn’t the one to lose a husband. She didn’t have to mourn like her mother did.

Stacey began walking to the park where the Standpipe stood. She remembered it from the tour Lucas gave them, that was another reason she wanted to leave. Lucas blew her off without any reason or explanation. He wouldn’t even look at her when she was in the library. So much for traveling together. Stacey was about to turn back to the house but the sight of a curly-haired boy stopped her in her tracks.

He had brown curly hair, exactly how her hair was before she straightened it every morning. The young boy had a book and binoculars with him. He was looking at the trees waiting for something as if he expected it. Stacey slowly approached the boy hoping to not scare him. Yet, she felt her feet stop a few feet away from him. A bird flew by which made the boy open his book and quickly flip through the pages. He looked back up at the bird admiring its beauty. The bird landed in the birdbath a few feet away from the bench where the boy sat. Emily knew from the moment it’s wings spread what kind of bird it was.

“Cowbird.” Both Stacey and the boy said the name out loud. Stacey almost jumped at the sound of the boy’s voice. It was calm and quiet. She would not have heard him if she was a few steps back. He used his binoculars to get a better view of the bird. Stacey observed the boy feeling as if he was familiar. She didn’t know who he was but she felt a connection that she couldn’t quite comprehend. A loud sound echoed through the park making them jump. Stacey looked up to see the door to the Standpipe open. The boy was still looking around for the source of the noise. A feeling of dread filled her body as the boy walked closer to the Standpipe.

She wanted to tell him to stop, that it was too high and dangerous. He made his way over to the door and reached towards the grown to pick up the broken padlock. Stacey followed him as much as she could but the force that kept her away was strong.

“Is anyone there?” The boy looked into the water tower as if expecting someone to answer him. Music began to bounce off the walls of the Standpipe. The boy began to walk inside it. Stacey could only watch as his curiosity brought him deeper in the dark. She felt as if she was under a spell that would not let her move and talk to the boy in front of her. His actions seemed reckless and foolish. However, the music was like a magnet that pulled him down the stairs. Just as his curls went out of sight the door closed. Stacey yelled and grabbed for the door. It wouldn’t budge.

“Help! There is a boy locked in here. Please somebody!” No one was around to hear Stacey’s plea. She could hear the music from inside the tower.

“Who’s here?” She could hear the boy scream and a crackling voice that followed.

“The dead ones, Stanley. We’re the dead ones. We sank, but now we float…and you’ll float, too.” Stanley. Stacey felt her body go rigid at the realization that her father was stuck in the Standpipe. She felt her body move backward. The boy began yelling out names of birds trying to scare off whatever that voices were. The door suddenly opened up and Stan came tumbling out of it. He ran as fast as he could trying to distance himself from what was inside. Stacey watching the thing come outside. Stan turned and she finally saw what made him so scared. It was a small child that looked damp and bare. His skin was almost blue and his finger pruned to the bone. Orange pompoms bounced on his fingertips, beckoning Stan back to the Standpipe. Stacey felt hot tears roll down her face as she watched her father run across the street without looking. She fell to her knees trying to understand what she just saw.

A pair of hands wrapped around her shoulders. She screamed and began to move away but the hands were stronger. She expected to see cold damp hands wrapping around her neck. Instead Lucas was holding her down looking concerned at her shaking body. Instead of yell at him or try to move away she threw her arms around his neck and cried into his shirt. He didn’t say anything cause he knew what she saw. Stacey continued to cry holding Lucas as if she let go he would disappear and the drowned children would come back.

“It’s not real…It’s not real… It’s not….” Stacey could not ignore what was in front of her. She understood now, she understood why her father ended his life.

@muruchwitch @trashmouth-tozier69 @reddiestenbrough @just-an-akward-fangirl @allison0609 @rheddie

#reddie #it 2017 #it stephen king #mike hanlon #beverly marsh

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kaen-ace-of-diamonds · 6 years

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i’m going to talk about some of my Emerald headcanons for a little bit because i can’t shut up about my faves for a single second

and because come on, being homeless, alone, and starving for most of her life absolutely 100% left her with physical and psychological scars that may or may not ever be brought up in canon

- Like her teammates, she doesn’t have a good relationship with either of her parents.

Her father, also a skilled thief, left the family when she was five years old, and she has no idea where he is, what he’s doing, or why he’s gone, only that if she ever sees him again, she’s going to make him pay dearly for abandoning her.

(He actually left to try and make a fortune to support his girls, but refuses to return or contact them until then, out of pride. He doesn’t think things through very well: he ends up becoming the successful leader of a gang of forty thieves, but returns home to find his family gone without a trace, years after his wife died and just a few days after Emerald left their home city with Cinder. He has no idea where to go from there.)

Her mother was a drug dealer, which wasn’t a very profitable profession seeing as dealers of illicit products are a dime a dozen in Mistral, and compared to the rest, she didn’t have much to bring to the table. Life in abject poverty with a bitter, stressed, temperamental mom was difficult enough, but then Emerald unlocked her Semblance and somehow shit got even worse.

Her mother freaked the fuck out at the idea of her kid being able to mess with her head, and threw Emerald out of the house, calling her a freak and telling her to never come near her again. Emerald was eight. About five years later, she came across her mother in the street, dead of a gunshot wound, and was disgusted with herself for still getting upset at the sight.

Cinder is the only one who has ever told her that her Semblance wasn’t bad or wrong, that it made her wonderful and special and was something to be proud of. It was the first time in Emerald’s life that she felt like she was worth something.

- Her immune system is total shit. She used to get bad cases of flu and chest infections every winter, and even had pneumonia once, which would have killed her if she hadn’t managed to steal some antibiotics. Even now that she’s able to take better care of herself (despite mammothrider’s claims to the contrary, Cinder doesn’t exactly have a healthcare plan for her minions, but she can pay for medicine, vitamin supplements, etc., when needed), she’s still pretty vulnerable in bad conditions, and absolutely detests the winter.

- She’s touch-starved as all hell, and would love to be held and cuddled, even if she doesn’t yet realize that fully. Cinder, however, gets exactly what’s going on when Emerald reacts more strongly than is typical to things like quick hugs and little hair strokes, and immediately files it away as another tool of emotional manipulation.

All I’m saying is, back in “Best Day Ever,” Emerald probably wouldn’t have tried to go in for a hug if she didn’t think there was a chance she’d get one

- She’s an avid reader when she can get her hands on books (a habit she unknowingly shares with her father), and primarily enjoys mysteries and suspense. Adventures are okay, too, so long as the protagonists aren’t annoyingly happy and pure of heart and all that. Antiheroes are her favorites.

- She sleeps curled up tight in the fetal position, either hugging herself or hugging a pillow, under as many blankets as possible; the warmth and pressure make her feel safe. She's also a very light sleeper; any touch or noise near her will wake her up and for a second, she’ll be terrified and think someone is attacking her, until she remembers that she’s not alone on the streets anymore and calms down.

- She based her current outfit partially on the one Cinder used to wear. Look me in the eyes and try to tell me that this didn’t look at this and become this.

- She and Mercury got along surprisingly well with Neo when she was brought onto the team to go to Beacon, though Neo’s cheerful sadism still unsettled them both at times.

They were the ones who helped her come up with an alias to use on her fake records, since she was the only one whose name and face were public knowledge and had to be kept secret. It took a little while, but the three of them finally decided on Nero Midori: “black” and “green” to go with her chosen disguise.

(Cinder thought it was ridiculous that it took them that long to come up with the idea of just adding a letter, but whatever, she supposes that that’s just what happens when you discourage your subordinates from thinking too much.)

Emerald and Neo conspired to steal one of Mercury’s legs and keep hiding it as a joke, but had to stop after only a couple times: they had to keep the secret that the legs were prosthetics from the rest of the school, and there were only so many hiding places in Team CMNE’s dorm room.

Neo was interested in comparing her own Semblance to Emerald’s, since they both deal with disguises and illusions, and wanted to see how far Emerald could take hers. Emerald is...far less willing to experiment with the boundaries of her Semblance, considering that she gets those splitting headaches whenever she pushes it too far.

- The illusion of the little girl that she used to lure in Amber was based on how she herself looked as a child. It’s the easiest for her to create, so it’s one of her go-to illusions for distractions.

- It’s not by much, but she’s the youngest member of Team CMNE.

- She can’t eat more than a little bit at a time or it will make her nauseous, but Emerald has found that she loves candy and other sweet things.

Both Mercury and Ruby have had a lot of fun giving her new treats to try and watching her have a quiet “oh my god this is so good this is so good this is sO GOOD” freakout.

Neo’s first token of friendship was to steal her a tub of neapolitan ice cream, signing, “Food is always sweeter when it’s stolen, don’t you agree?”

Cinder, in the background with no sweet tooth at all, snacks on her Dragon’s Breath chili peppers and Ghost Pepper hot sauce and wonders what all the fuss is about.

- Now that she has unlimited access to food (something she’s still lowkey shocked by, every once in a while), Emerald is fascinated by the idea of cooking and baking, and likes to experiment in the kitchen when she gets the chance, but hasn’t quite gotten the hang of it yet. The first time she seriously tried to cook something nice, she accidentally burned Mercury’s eyebrows off. (Not that they were missed, but still.) She’s trying, though.

- Speaking of which, she has...quite a few issues centered around food.

She has an absolutely cast-iron stomach, from scrounging around in the garbage to eat when she couldn’t steal any money. There’s nothing she can’t choke down if she has to, no matter how disgusting it is.

She also can’t quite break the habit of eating as much as she can, as fast as she can, because there’s still that little part of her that’s warning her that she doesn’t know when she’ll eat again so she has to.

Now that starvation is no longer a real possibility for her, she needs to be careful not to gorge herself so much and so fast that it makes her sick. Her stomach still isn’t 100% used to normal meals or too-rich food.

(Cinder watches her new subordinate bolting down the meal she’s been given like she’s afraid somebody is going to snatch it away from her, and she smiles, because gods be praised, this is just too easy.)

(“It’s all right,” she says sweetly, “don’t make yourself sick. It’s not going to disappear on you. And there’s plenty more when you want it.”)

- But, more than anything else, Emerald has a Sakura Kyouko-like tendency to get furious whenever she sees somebody wasting food.

(If Team CMNE had gotten to Beacon in time to witness The Epic Food Fight of 2014, she would have had no conflicted feelings about seeing everyone in the school get eaten by Grimm; death to those who would throw away perfectly good food that could have gone to starving Mistrali orphans named Emerald - !)

She and Mercury bicker plenty right from the start, but the first serious argument she has with him is one night a few weeks after he was recruited, when the trio are on the road and eating dinner around the campfire. It’s nothing special; Emerald finishes it off quickly, true to form. But Mercury decides halfway through that he’s had enough, and throws the rest of the meal away uneaten. Emerald freezes, then flares up and starts reaming him out.

Mercury is startled and extremely confused, and defensively yells right back, not getting what the big deal is. “Lay off! It’s just a little food!” and Emerald sees red for a moment because not too long ago, just a little food could have made the difference between her surviving the day and starving to death. And instead of silencing her, Cinder takes her side for once and chastises Mercury, too (though her anger is far more restrained), and it only frustrates Mercury more. “Damn it, what is with you two? What’s your problem?!”

Because neither of them have leveled up anywhere near enough to unlock her tragic backstory yet, Cinder clams up, refuses to explain herself, and storms off. But Emerald and Mercury stay by the campfire -- no longer shouting, but still angry, still unwilling to back down. The silence hangs, for a solid minute of glaring. Then, without really thinking about it, Emerald snarls, “You want to know what my problem is?” And Mercury snaps back, “Yeah. Fine, I do. Why don’t you tell me all about it?”

Both of them are fully expecting for it to devolve into another argument. But, to their surprise...They end up actually talking, albeit with some reluctance to divulge their most personal pains. Emerald explains, in the most bare-bones way she can, how she has lived up until now, stealing and struggling for every scrap of food she ate, never quite feeling satisfied. Mercury has never known starvation or thirst, but he knows suffering intimately, knows how deep its roots run even after the worst is over, and it’s shared knowledge of suffering and their new release from it that the pair start to truly bond over.

The fire cools and dies, and their anger does, too. Calm is restored, maybe a grudging apology or two is uttered, and Emerald and Mercury can’t exactly call each other friends, but they understand each other a bit better, now, and that’s what counts.

(Damn it, thinks Cinder, with her ear to the tent flap five feet away from them. I should have been the one to solve that and establish dominance. I really need to get a better handle on this whole ‘being in charge of people’ thing.)

- Before joining Cinder’s team, she’d only ever killed in self-defense before, and even then only once or twice. (She always tried not to think about it. That hasn’t changed.) But she’s always felt bitter and vindictive towards the people around her, both hating and envying their happiness when she has never known any. Cinder, having very similar feelings, catches on right away and uses that to coax Emerald into taking things further and further, down the slippery slope into true villainy.

You want to do this, says Cinder’s voice at the back of her head, sweet and dark and poisonous. You’ve always wanted to do this. Remember how they’ve laughed at you, looked down on you, beaten and starved you. They don’t care how you suffered, wouldn’t care if you had died. Why should you care what happens to them? They deserve all of this.

And for a while, it works. Instead of guilt or sadness, she feels only the vindictive pleasure that she was promised.

Fighting the Fall Maiden is terrifying, but the girl falls to Cinder’s arrows, just as planned. Emerald grabs her arm and yanks her up, kicks her hard in the back (can she even feel it anymore, the way that arrowhead pierced her spine? Who cares, it doesn’t matter), smirks as Cinder approaches to rip the girl’s powers away. She remembers the stark terror of moments before, the wind knocked out of her and the point of a sharpened gem just seconds from being driven through her body, and thinks, Serves you right.

It’s easy, she thinks. It’s her idea to find and kill Tukson, in hopes of impressing Cinder by succeeding where Roman is failing. A thief, in many cases, gets her mark by acting friendly and accomodating, and Emerald has perfected her earnest voice and false smile. Both are easy to pull out when she toys with the Faunus, watching him try not to squirm under her cool, unperturbed gaze and liking the sensation of power it seems to give. (She wonders if this is what it feels like to be Cinder.)

There’s an instant of fright when the claws come out, but between Mercury’s devastating kicks from one side and her own blades flying in from the other, Tukson never stood a chance. Easy -- her self-assured attitude is only broken when it turns out that Cinder’s not impressed, not at all, and scolds her instead of thanking her. She’s a little taken aback (she was only trying to help, wasn’t she?), but decides it must be reasonable: she should know her place by now, and of course Cinder knows better than her anyway.

Plans take time, Cinder emphasizes patience above all, but living at Beacon only makes her want the promised night to come faster. She plays the part of the friendly visitor perfectly, as expected, but it makes her want to puke. These idiot kids, always with their happy-go-lucky smiles, always laughing over nothing...She’s sure none of them have ever known what it is to be hungry or cold, to be terrified right down to the core, to be completely, hopelessly alone. They’re not like us, Cinder says. We’ll teach them pain, Mercury says. She smiles along with them.

The doubles round and the trick with Mercury’s leg are, minus the headache, so simple she barely remembers them. Her final task, however...gives her some pause, when the time comes. She does her best to think of Atlas’ robot as “it” instead of “her,” but she still feels an unpleasant twist in her chest to see the girl torn limb from limb on her own wires. It passes quickly; hearing Cinder’s voice in the air, returning to her side, makes her feel safe again: one of only two in Beacon whose safety is guaranteed tonight.

But when the massacre is finally unfolding below them, that feeling evaporates even faster. The air filled with screams, bodies trampled under the Grimm’s hooves and shredded by their teeth and claws, the scent of blood and terror, heavier than anything she’s ever felt before...Her insides go cold, her stomach turns. She doesn’t want to watch but she can’t look away. This isn’t the grand, perfect revenge she’d been thinking of at all.

Mercury’s smile is vicious, like a wolf scenting blood and knowing it means a feast. Beautiful, croons Cinder, looking on the chaos like an artist at their masterwork. This time she can’t smile with them, much as part of her wishes it could be just like before; now she can only feel sick. Because it’s just now dawning on her that there’s a limit to how far she can go (willing or not), just how much bloodshed she can stomach. If Cinder and Mercury have any such thing...It certainly hasn’t been found here. And for the first time in a long time, she feels her confidence -- in her place, in Cinder, in herself -- start to shake.

Still, even now, even now, she knows she can’t run away. She isn’t even certain she wants to. When the blinding white wings arch out from the top of Beacon Tower, and she knows with a deep, gut-wrenching certainty that it means Cinder is in trouble (that Cinder needs her), she doesn’t think. Her body just moves, has her sprinting for the tower to help before her mind’s caught up with her. The perfect chance to escape, and she’s too terrified to consider it, or even fully realize it’s there.

But she wouldn’t have taken it, anyway. This is where she was meant to be. It must be, she tells herself insistently, because where would she be if not for this? Because there is one thing that she is absolutely certain of: she will never go back to where she had been before. She would rather die than risk that, she’ll go through anything if only to protect herself from being alone in the world again. No one else has ever accepted her, or will ever accept her, especially after tonight. And so, she will stay, follow Cinder into hell and back, because there is nowhere else to go.

#this may have turned into a small character study fanfic towards the end but i don't care #when will my daughter return from the war #emerald sustrai #RWBY #kaen's headcanons

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ramajmedia · 5 years

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Mom: 10 Funniest Episodes, Ranked | ScreenRant

Mom is just about to enter its seventh season come its September 26th premiere date. Starring Allison Janney and Anna Faris as a dysfunctional mother and daughter duo, the series has covered their journey from recovering alcoholics to repairing their relationships with one another and basically everyone else. They're not perfect but they certainly earn awards for trying. Over the last six seasons, they've made us laugh with their antics plenty a time. We're taking a moment to narrow down some especially funny episodes, which is no easy feat when it comes to a show as funny as this one. That said, here are 10 of Mom's funniest episodes, ranked.

10 "Crazy Eyes and a Wet Brad Pitt" - Season 2, Episode 6

Bonnie and Christy are swept up into the life of high society when the woman Christy is sponsoring, Jill (Jaime Pressley) asks for their company. From there, everything spirals into luxurious gift-giving, a good highlight for a change when it comes to the uneven and oftentimes unstable lives of Bonnie and Christy. What makes this particular episode funny is the relatable moment of showing off: Christy and Bonnie model their fancy new outfits as they strut into an AA meeting. If you've got it, why not flaunt it? It's more fun to show up to any gathering in style--as long as you don't get too carried away.

9 "Fish Town and Too Many Thank You's" - Season 5, Episode 2

This episode finds Bonnie and Christy in a fix when they take Bonnie's brother's fancy car out for a joy ride. Having been suspicious of her brother being up to something earlier in the episode, Bonnie's suspicions are confirmed when Christy finds substances and marijuana in the glove compartment of the car--right as they're pulled over by an officer for a burned-out taillight!

RELATED: Everybody Loves Raymond: 10 Storylines That Were Never Resolved

We have to laugh at their unfortunate debacle as they try to act cool (especially in the moments where Christy is unsure of where the drugs ended up when she hid them). Not only that, but we loved watching the two enjoy their joy ride in the Mercedes while listening to the radio--how many of us can say we haven't done that at one time or another?

8 "Sword Fights and a Dominican Shortstop" - Season 4, Episode 2

The funniest element of this episode is Bonnie's attempts at hiding her past relationship with Jeanine (Rosie O'Donnell) from her boyfriend Adam (William Fichtner). Bonnie and Christy cross paths with Jeanine when she speaks at one of their AA meetings, and the episode takes off from there. While Christy struggles with whether or not she should quit school and take Jeanine up on her offer of working at her real estate firm, Bonnie fields questions from Adam about her relationship with Jeanine. Adam fishes for details and seems amused at continuously throwing Bonnie off-guard, much to Bonnie's chagrin (which of course we enjoy watching the two of them do in any episode).

7 "Chicken Nuggets and a Triple Homicide" - Season 2, Episode 3

Homeless Christy and Bonnie, alongside Christy's kids, finally find a home with an amazing discount out in the country. Trouble is, there's a string attached: the house comes with a history of a triple homicide. At first thinking they can move past it, Christy and Bonnie soon find that they're too terrified to stay in the house of horrors and run back to Marjorie's (Mimi Kennedy) house, where they were previously staying.

RELATED: Friends: 10 Jokes That Everyone Completely Missed

The ironic thing is that it was Marjorie masquerading as the serial killer in the window to get them to come back to her house as she missed their company. What they don't know won't kill them.

6 "Snickerdoodle and a Nip Slip" - Season 3, Episode 8

Candace (Sara Rue), newly engaged to Christy's ex Baxter (Matt Jones) arranges a fancy lunch at a golf club with Christy and Bonnie to better the friction between them for the sake of Christy and Baxter's son. Just when things seem to be coming along, Candace's and Christy's relationship turns icy once more when Candace's wealthy father takes an interest in Christy. Bonnie highly encourages Christy to go after him for his money (especially since she just ruined a Neiman Marcus dress that she can't afford) and an initially reluctant Christy complies. Funny thing is, she actually likes him, much to Candace's horror and Bonnie's joy.

5 "My Little Pony and a Demerol Drip" - Season 3, Episode 9

The fun continues in the next episode when Candace shows up to Christy's and Bonnie's home drunk in the middle of the night declaring her distaste for Christy's relationship with her father. While Christy and Bonnie make fun of her in her drunken state, Christy also acknowledges why Candace can't stand Christy's relationship with her father and saves Candace from having her eyebrows shaved off courtesy of Bonnie. Baxter later shows up looking for Candace and begging Christy to stop dating his soon to be father-in-law, even offering her a bribe.

RELATED: Big Bang Theory: The 10 Worst Things Amy Has Ever Done, Ranked

Turns out, Christy doesn't like how her new beau treats his daughter and dumps him, to which Candace smugly says it was only a matter of time before her father moved on. Christy lets this go, as she understands why Candace is as mean as she is, while Bonnie grieves for her lost fortune and her "people."

4 "Kitty Litter and a Class A Felony" - Season 2, Episode 12

Still reeling from the death of Alvin (Kevin Pollak), her boyfriend and the father of Christy, Bonnie takes drastic measures to keep him in her life. Grief affects all in different ways, but Bonnie takes it up a notch when she breaks into the home of Alvin's ex-wife to retrieve his ashes and refuses to let go of them. Christy, wanting to do the right thing, substitutes her father's ashes with kitty litter to fool her mother and returns them. It's given that Alvin's ex-wife was being cold-hearted, so perhaps Bonnie was right in taking Alvin off her hands just for a little while. If nothing else, Bonnie's antics in this episode were nothing short of hilarious.

3 "Dropped Soap and a Big Guy on a Throne" - Season 2, Episode 18

When Bonnie takes a fall in the shower, chaos ensues. First, she and Christy face temptation when Bonnie is prescribed pain medication for her injured back. Then, when Bonnie receives a new dose of said pain medication, she becomes completely loopy.

RELATED: Arrested Development: 8 Cameos From The Office Cast

This episode highlights some of Bonnie's funniest moments as she engages in illogical conversation with a nonexistent pair of missionaries. Well, there have been worse drug-induced fantasies, scenarios or situations otherwise.

2 "Cheeseburger Salad and Jazz" - Season 2, Episode 13

Crazy, insane, outrageous--also known as another day in the life of the Plunketts. Concerned that Bonnie isn't coping with Alvin's death, Christy tricks her into going to therapy. The therapist himself is young and clearly has issues of his own (especially where it concerns his grandmother). Then, Bonnie turns the tables and Christy winds up being the subject and is tasked with drawing her feelings. While Bonnie tries to make another man into Alvin, Christy repeatedly uses her disturbing drawing of a scary face to express her feelings on Bonnie's ideas throughout the episode (especially when it comes to dating a man that Bonnie believes is her next Alvin). To sum up the episode in a word: hysterical.

1 "Wind Chimes and a Bottomless Pit of Sadness" - Season 4, Episode 12

Without a doubt, the funniest episode of the series is when Bonnie snags some of Adam's cookies that, unknown to her, contain pot. She shares them with Christy, and later their friends Jill and Wendy (Beth Hall) as well. The four of them unknowingly get high and start acting all kinds of kooky, especially when they make their way to a playground with little horses and a merry-go-round. While we're sidesplitting with laughter, Adam hurriedly tracks them down, tells them the truth about the cookies, and just as soon as the fun began, it ends when they realize they've broken their sobriety. Luckily Marjorie is there to calm them down and save the day, but we're still busily laughing over the playground scene (and rewinding the DVR so we can watch it again).

Mom has a handle on comedy of all kinds. Slapstick, dialogue, physical, punchlines. You name it, they've done it. We're grateful we've got season seven to look forward to for more laughs--it's the best show to turn to when you need recovery time from the workday.

NEXT: Friends: 10 Joey And Chandler Memes That Are Almost Too Funny

source https://screenrant.com/mom-funniest-episodes-ranked/

#screenrant

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mrs-jughead-jones · 7 years

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Jujube Jones || Jughead Jones

Prompt: 42 with jughead jones the third please

42.) “Stop being so cute.”

A/N: This is probably not what you had in mind when you submitted the “Stop being so cute” prompt, but I hope this super long and fluffy fic makes up for it!

Gif by @nessa007

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If someone told you four years ago that when you turned sixteen you would be five months pregnant with your best friend’s baby you would’ve laughed in their faces. Young you probably would’ve made a judgmental remark saying that you weren’t like “those River Vixens” and that although you loved Jughead, you and he could never be more than best friends.

Well, one night changed that.

It was a typical movie night for the two of you. Watching the classics, eating popcorn. You didn’t know who initiated it. You didn’t know who kissed who first. The next thing you knew was that the two of you had made your way upstairs to your bed and that clothes were coming off. You knew that this wasn't right. The two of you were best friends. You couldn't do this.

But how could something so wrong feel so right?

The both of you agreed it was a mistake immediately afterwards. Agreed to never talk about it again. Agreed that as far as the two of you were concerned, it never happened. It hurt you. You thought that you and Jughead had something there. A connection. But you couldn’t tell him how you really felt. You couldn’t hurt the relationship more than the two of you already had. Jughead felt the same way, although he never voiced his true thoughts either. He was Jughead after all. The friendship was more than a little awkward after that but the two of you managed. For a few weeks at least. Around six weeks after the two of you had sex, you started feeling fatigue. You got violently ill almost everyday. You thought it was just a stomach bug until you missed your period.

You immediately told Betty and Veronica about your suspicions. They told you that you needed to take a pregnancy test as soon as possible. While Betty stayed with you and tried to calm you down, Veronica was kind enough to go to the convenience store and buy the test for you. She said that she had been in your place before and that it was probably just a scare, like hers.

She was wrong.

As you stared numbly as the positive pregnancy test, you knew that your life was forever changed. You already made your decision about what you wanted to do. The next step was to tell Jughead and your parents.

Betty told Jughead. From what he told you later, it had just slipped out. She didn’t have any malicious intentions. You knew she didn’t, but it didn’t stop you from being angry with her for a good month or so. He had come over to your house the day after you took the test, tears in his eyes. Immediately you saw he was terrified of being a dad. The situation about what happened to his mother and sister and having a deadbeat dad involved with the Southside Serpents didn’t help either. Jughead vowed that he would never leave you to do this on your own and promised to help in any way he could. When you told your parents, they were furious. Without another word, they kicked you out. Now you and Jughead were both homeless, expecting a baby in approximately seven months.

Fred Andrews came to the rescue. He had found out from Archie that the two of you were homeless and found a little two-bedroom trailer near the edge of his construction site and got to work on fixing it up. He even offered Jughead a job, which Jughead accepted immediately, giving him work after school and on the weekends. In the meantime, Hermione Lodge had found out about your situation from Veronica. She swooped in, scheduling all your doctor’s appointments for you and paying for all of them (“It takes a village to raise a child, Y/N.”) She even convinced Pop to give you an after-school and weekend job after the baby was born. But most surprisingly of all, it was the Coopers, specifically Alice Cooper, the Alice Cooper, that offered to babysit for free when you and Jughead were at school. Why? You didn’t know. But you had a feeling it had something to do with making up for lost time with Polly in her youth.

Since the trailer Fred fixed up had two bedrooms, and one of them was being used for the baby, this made your and Jughead’s relationship complicated. In the beginning, the two of you agreed to sleep together, but not together. You weren’t a couple. You had also originally agreed to platonically co-parent when the baby arrived, wanting to stay as friendly with each other as you could. You weren't going to repeat Jughead’s parents’ mistakes.

As time progressed, you began to fall more and more in love with Jughead. You knew it was a dangerous path you walked on, knowing that he didn’t like you back. As your due date got closer, the two of you started fighting more. It wasn’t like the two of you were angry at each other, but you were stressed and you just happened to be taking it out on each other. After one particularly bad screaming match, you had started crying uncontrollably, the stress becoming too much to handle. To your surprise, Jughead began to cry too, apologizing to you over and over again even though it wasn’t his fault. Whether it was the hormones or whatever, you had kissed him impulsively. He had kissed you back and the next thing you knew, you were on your bed.

So much for platonically sleeping together.

Afterwards, rather than lying again and saying the sex (again) was a mistake, you decided to be bold and told Jughead you loved him. After Jughead was silent for what seemed like an eternity, he said that he loved you too. That he had since he was a kid. More tears followed and you never screamed at each other again.

Forget the platonically sleeping together, so much for platonically co-parenting.

Jujube Forsythia Jones, named after your and Jughead’s favorite candy and Jellybean Jones’s real name (“For God’s sake, we don’t even know if it’s a girl, Jughead! And if it is, we’re not naming her Jujube Jellybean Jones! One candy is enough! Just use Forsythia!”) was born on a unusually cold and rainy spring day. Jujube’s (nicknamed Julia by you and everyone else except Jughead) birth was pretty uneventful which you were thankful for. Everything was relatively calm (thank whoever was up there for the epidural) and everyone didn’t panic (the exception being Jughead). When Julia was laid in Jughead’s arms for the first time, you saw the wall that he had built up over the years come crumbling down. He immediately adored her. Julia was his everything. When she cried, Jughead was immediately up and ready to attend to her every whim. She was a daddy’s girl. She was also the spitting image of him, with his hair and smile. But she had your eyes, making her a beautiful mix of the two of you. Everywhere she went, people melted. Even Cheryl liked her. (“I guess you’ll make a good River Vixen someday.”) You had never seen Jughead look so horrified at such a prospect before in your life.

You sighed as you remembered all the craziness that had went down in the last three years. You looked over from behind the counter at Julia who was in a booth, drawing with some old crayons and printer paper from Sheriff Keller’s office. Julia was an unusually well-behaved toddler. You had been waiting for the terrible twos to hit but at 2 ½, she was still relatively relaxed. That meant you were waiting for the hell that would come from the fearsome fours. Despite this, when you were working, you always made sure to check on her to make sure she wasn’t causing mischief. She never was. All she did was draw. Although it was just scribbles now, you knew she would be a great artist one day.

The bell tinkling of the front door brought you out of your daydream and you looked up, smiling at the person who walked through it.

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Jughead said, closing the distance between you and giving you a quick kiss, the counter the only thing between the two of you. “Got held up at work.”

Hearing her father’s voice, Julia looked up and beamed.

“Daddy!” she exclaimed

Jughead’s smile widened when he saw his daughter.

“Hey, Juju,” he kneeling down to pick up the little girl, holding her tightly against him as she rested her head on his shoulder. He pretended the toddler was heavy, and groaned, acting as if she was nearly impossible to lift.

“You’re getting too big for me to carry, Jujube.” he said, standing up, Julia’s head still resting on his shoulder.

Julia lifted her head, her little black pigtails bouncing, and looked at her father.

“I’m not getting bigger! Aunt Betty said I’m getting cuter.” she proclaimed.

Jughead snorted.

“Yeah, well, stop being so cute. It’s not healthy.” he said, touching his nose to hers, giving her a little eskimo kiss.

Julia giggled and Jughead turned his attention back to you.

“You ready to go?” he asked, putting down the little girl.

You nodded as you took off your apron, looking up at the clock. It was 6 pm, the end of your shift.

“Yeah.” you said as you waved your goodbyes to Hermione and Pop, joining Jujube and Jughead as the three of you walked out the door, you and Jughead holding on to Julia’s little hands.

Your little family.

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A/N: That was my all-time favorite fic to write. I hope you guys enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. :) Let me know what you thought!

Taglist

@gottalovetheapocalypse @lydixstiles @jughead-from-riverdale @pinkhappypanda @iamthegoatmaster @subsi4123 @reginaphlanageadams @river-vixns @deanskitten @latenightbooknerd

#mrs-jughead-jones #jughead jones x reader #jughead jones #riverdale #request #oneshot

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misedejem · 7 years

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The Childhood of Angelo Panettone

Word Count: 14,885

AO3

After losing his family at a young age, Angelo found himself growing up in Florem amidst the horrors that the war between the Duchy and the Orthodoxy brought to his country. Driven by ambition, pride, and personal vendetta, the baker was thrust into a path of hardship that would eventually lead to the Glanz Empire, and the prospect of bliss that lay beyond it.

Eleven short stories about Angelo's backstory and motivations between his fifth and eighteenth years.

(Major spoilers for Bravely Second chapter 5 in the section titled ‘Heaven’, and a moderately graphic depiction of violence in the section called ‘Eternia’)

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Year 2391 (Five Years Old) - Orthodoxy

The Great Plague had taken over half the population of Luxendarc since it had arrived on a ship twelve years ago. Every winter, it threatened to resurface, and simple diseases grew more and more potent as scientists struggled to restrain it, until death lingered over every country, picking people out sporadically, leaving the world in a state where every child in every major city could say they had seen it for themselves. The Great Plague had been cured four years ago, but still, one way or another, hundreds of deaths each year could be linked back to that dreadful calamity.

The youngest child of Sienna and Oscar à la Mode could not remember the first time he hadn't known somebody who died. His father had fallen ill a few months after his birth, and had never recovered, but he had been too young to even remember what he looked like. Even so, he didn’t need knowledge of his father’s demise to recognise that, without a doubt, his mother had gone to join him.

“Why did mama die though? Was she sick?” Angelo’s voice was muffled by his older sister’s arms, which were wrapped around him so tightly that he could not escape if he tried to.

“Even if she was, she wouldn’t tell us.” Praline à la Mode was forcing her words through heavy sobs, her small body shaking and tears streaking down her reddened cheeks. Her grief was in contrast with her brother’s fear, for he was frozen in place, confused both at the circumstances and the way his sister was reacting. He’d seen Praline upset before, but never like this, and it was actually quite terrifying to see. He was scared that she would never be okay again. He didn’t want her to cry.

The two siblings sat huddled against the wall in their hallway for some time. It was growing dark quickly, both of them being too small to light the lamps, and Angelo was becoming restless. Praline made small whimpering noises every time he attempted to move.

“Purin? What are we gonna do?”

“I dunno…”

“…I’m hungry.”

“Me too… But I don’t know how to get us food. We’re alone now.”

“Is nobody gonna come get us?”

“Maybe… If I don’t turn up at school, they might…”

“Who is gonna teach me school stuff now mama is gone? I’m not allowed to go to your school!”

As Florem was a city where only women were allowed to live once a person turned eighteen, there were no nearby schools that Angelo could attend, meaning his only options were to be sent abroad, or home-schooled.

“I’ll teach you. I know more stuff than you.”

“You’re seven. You know stuff, but you don’t know enough stuff.”

“Then we’ll go to Eternia!” Praline raised her head from her brother’s shoulder. Her eyes were still glistening with tears, but she was no longer sobbing. “Auntie Cara lives in Eternia. We’ll go and live with her.”

Angelo beamed at her, overjoyed to see his sister showing a sign of hope. Seeing her baby brother so elated in the face of utter despair seemed to stir something in Praline, and despite the circumstances, she began to grin as well. His smiles were contagious, passing to her even though her watery eyes and quivering hands made her seem so sad.

Then the front door opened and the smiles vanished, replaced with a wide-eyed look of horror as both children froze in place.

A pair of acolytes from the Crystal Temple entered the hall, hoods drawn over their faces, and one of them clutching a piece of paper in their hand. This one offered a smile to the cowering figures, as the other one looked at them pityingly, one hand on the doorframe so the remaining natural light of the evening wouldn’t completely vanish from sight.

“Praline?” The smiling acolyte held out a free hand in Praline’s direction, and Angelo felt her muscles become tense, and her body stop shaking.

“What are you gonna do to me?”

“I think we were too late. An unlocked door… a dark house… and look at their faces.” The acolyte at the door hung their head.

“It’s alright, my dear. You’re safe now. Your mother wanted us to come and take you to a safe place.”

“I don’t… Understand…”

The acolyte bit their lip. “I will explain it to you later. Are you prepared to leave?”

Angelo couldn’t quite grasp what was going on, but he sensed that something was wrong when Praline suddenly squeezed him tighter.

“What about Angelo? Why aren’t you asking him to come too?”

“Well… It’s against the Orthodox scriptures to allow boys to serve the Temple. I’m sorry dear, but your brother is going to have to stay in Florem.”

“No!”

“It’s getting dark. We want to be on the road soon. Just take the girl and let’s go.”

“NO!” Praline began to bawl again, her words strangled by her tears. Startled by the sudden yelling, Angelo started to cry as well, and he buried his face into Praline’s chest, digging his fingers into her clothes.

“I’m sorry Praline. These are your mother’s wishes, and it would disrespect her memory to disobey them.”

“So you’re gonna let my baby brother die!? No! I won’t let you leave him!”

“I hate it when they start screaming.” The acolyte that had been holding the door let it slip from their grasp, slamming shut and filling the hall with darkness once more. Angelo began to cry harder, and Praline continued to yell.

The dark was perforated by a sudden, brilliant lilac light that seemed to burst from the hands of one of the acolytes. Angelo stopped crying as he began to feel light headed, and his limbs grew heavy with a sudden wave of exhaustion, as though somebody had drawn all the energy from his body. Praline, too, began to slump, her arms sliding from around her brother as the two of them began to fall backwards. Angelo’s eyes slowly began to close as Praline, the acolytes, and the world slipped away into the darkness.

Year 2392 (Six Years Old) – Bakery

“I’ve decided I don’t want to learn maths anymore.”

Angelo proceeded to make a scene by sweeping the paper and pencil off the table, and folding his arms dramatically.

“You don’t have a choice, kid. Pick it up.”

Though Olivier Panettone was very young, and had no actual experience with looking after children, she was generally accepted as nothing short of incredible by the younger community in her neighbourhood. As much as he enjoyed teasing her, Angelo was inclined to agree. He had nightmares about what would have happened if she hadn’t come to rescue him from his family’s abandoned home a year ago, and he knew with full certainty that he never wanted those dreams to actually happen.

“It’s so boring, and really hard too! Can I come and help you instead? Please?”

“Not until you finish five sums. Alright?”

“Why do I have to do this?” Angelo slid down his chair, staring at the table in front of him with every ounce of contempt he could muster.

“You need to learn maths so you can measure out your ingredients properly. If you want to help me, you have to know this stuff.”

“You need to know maths to make cakes?” Angelo looked up slightly from his slump.

Olivier nodded frankly. Sighing, Angelo realised he had no choice but to concede defeat, and he picked the paper back up again.

The Panettone bakery was a small but successful business that sat in one of the outer suburbs of the city of Florem. Before she had adopted Angelo, the proprietor had worked alone, but Angelo had quickly discovered that he enjoyed nothing more than helping her produce the cakes that the people of their neighbourhood clamoured for. He was getting pretty good at it as well.

“You look like you’re enjoying yourself there.” Olivier beamed at Angelo, who was standing on a wooden crate at the counter, kneading a hunk of dough with his tiny hands. He vaguely noticed his adoptive mother brushing a dusting of flour from his nose, but he was too engrossed in his work to even respond to her remark.

She did have a point, though. Baking was the thing he looked forwards to the most. He revelled in the idea of making something wonderful that would make everyone who tasted it smile and give him praise, and it was those very compliments that fuelled his motivation to keep getting better and better.

“Oh my, what a talented little one you’ve got here!”

“He’ll go onto great things, that one.”

“Isn’t he just perfect?”

Most of all, it was when Olivier told him how proud she was that he gained an intense buzz of joy that spurred him throughout the day. After all, Olivier had saved his life, and he just wanted to make her happy as best as he could. He hadn’t quite grasped his school work, or housekeeping, but he thought that whenever he succeeded at baking, that was what gave her the biggest grin.

Besides, it was the perfect way to make him so tired and focussed that whenever something went wrong, or he had a bad dream, it wouldn’t bother him quite as much.

“Baking is very therapeutic,” Olivier had mused when he told her this. He had no idea what ‘therapeutic’ meant, but the way she nodded her head suggested to him that she agreed with his sentiment.

If ever it rained, or started to go cold, every evening after the shop closed its doors, Olivier would invite the street children inside for a warm meal and shelter. She would always mention to some of the grown-up customers she met during the day that Florem had a serious problem with homeless children – usually boys – and that somebody had to do something to help them. Angelo usually hid himself upstairs and read or doodled in his bedroom when the small crowd of children herded themselves into their kitchen. He did want to help them as well, but in truth they frightened him a little. He was well fed, and had clean clothes, and his own room, and an education, and they had nothing of the sort. It was so scary to him that the world could make people suffer like that right outside his window every night, and that if Olivier hadn’t come across him a year ago, he would have joined them.

“Why can’t you let them live here like you let me?” He asked her one evening as she did up the buttons on his shirt.

“Oh, honey… The house just isn’t big enough for that many people to live in. They would have nowhere to sleep.”

“Why don’t other people let them live in their houses?”

Olivier furrowed her brow. “Well, perhaps they don’t have any money to look after any children. Or they don’t have enough space… Or compassion.”

“What does that mean?”

“There are some very unkind people in the world.”

“Oh…” Angelo’s face fell, and Olivier pulled him into a hug. “Why did you save me though? Why am I different to them?”

“I loved your parents very much. Like I love you. I wasn’t going to let their baby end up on his own.” She sniffled slightly. “Maybe when I have enough money, I’ll build an orphanage or something for them.”

“You give them pancakes though. I bet that makes that happy.”

Olivier laughed slightly. “Yes, I suppose it does. The best part of this job is being able to make people smile with the things you've made.”

Year 2393 (Seven Years Old) – Fighting

“Olivier, you can’t keep avoiding us forever. You have to get your ass back out there!”

“I understand, I really do. I just can’t leave my son home alone, and don’t even think about suggesting I take him with me. He’s not ready for that. “

Shortly before his sixth birthday, Olivier had announced that, on top of learning to cook, read, write, and do maths, Angelo also had to learn how to fight. He assumed this was because the area of the city they lived in wasn’t the safest. It was so close to the forests and fields on the outskirts of Florem that oftentimes the carnivorous flora and fauna of the countryside would make its way into the residential areas of the city. Children could quite easily end up getting eaten. He still vividly remembered the time he had woken up to a sound outside his window, and had spotted a mandragora in the bins behind their house. He had slept on his mother’s floor for a week afterwards in the fear that a monster would get into his bedroom and eat him.

It was early in the morning, and Angelo had not seen his mother at all, having only just crawled out of bed. Still slightly groggy, he was not entirely sure if the conversation he could hear on his way to get some breakfast was happening.

“Why the hell would you even adopt the kid in the first place? He’s done nothing but cause you trouble.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve done plenty for you guys over the past few years. All Angelo has done is make it so that I can’t leave Florem, and frankly I don’t really care about that.”

“He’s made you complacent. You were the best we had, and we should come first. Not him.”

There was the sound of flesh hitting flesh, and Angelo peered his head around the doorway just in time to see a red-haired woman with a red mark on her cheek strike his mother across the face.

He was far from sleepy now, a rush of adrenaline suddenly hitting him, coursing through his body as he hurled himself towards the woman and collided with her leg, knocking her backwards.

“What the hell? You little monster!”

“Angelo!” Olivier quickly scooped him up into her arms and gave him a warning look.

“She hurt you!”

“Only because she hurt me first,” the woman muttered as she got to her feet. “Crystals, Olivier, what kind of child are you raising? He hits hard.”

“He’s a strong kid.”

“Yeah! I am strong!” Angelo chimed, smiling smugly.

“You’ve been training him?” The woman squeezed Angelo’s upper arm, and his smile turned into a frown. He tugged his arm from her grasp and scowled at her. She looked slightly taken aback.

Olivier shrugged. “I had to find some way to keep him occupied and stay in shape at the same time. I figured that if I was just working from the kitchen now, I might as well pass my skills onto someone else.”

“All your skills?” The woman raised her eyebrows.

Olivier shook her head. “Angelo knows why he’s not allowed to touch the cupboard where I keep my special ingredients. That’s all he needs to know until he’s older. He’s getting really good at baking, but he’s not quite ready to start experimenting yet.”

Angelo nodded in agreement. When he’d asked his mother what the many locks on the cupboard were for, she didn’t hesitate to tell him bluntly.

“In there are my special ingredients that are too dangerous to keep with the rest of them. They’re only for when heroes commission me to help them get rid of bad guys.”

He had no issues with his mother’s ‘status ailment cakes’, as she called them. He thought it was really cool that she was helping fight crime from the comfort of her own kitchen. Yet, he didn’t feel comfortable that he could learn how to make them himself. Besides, he preferred making things he could eat afterwards.

“I know how to use a knife though! I’m good at that.”

“A wooden knife,” Olivier corrected him. Angelo noticed her shooting the woman a wary glance, though he was unsure why. “He’s still learning. He’s seven.”

“That’s not that young. He could pass as eleven, easily, if you wanted him to.”

“I don’t want him to. I’m not going to force him to do anything. I just want to give him the skills he needs to take whatever path he chooses.”

The woman folded her arms and sighed. “Will we ever be able to tear you away from him?”

“I suggest you start looking for my replacement.” Olivier placed Angelo down and swiftly escorted the woman out the door.

Later that evening, as Angelo was scrubbing away the remains of the night’s dinner, Olivier approached him and placed a slender, wooden box on the sideboard next to him.

“I’m giving you this. I want you to be very careful with it.”

Angelo looked up from what he was doing, and hastily dried his hands before opening the box as carefully as his excitement could handle.

Inside, on a silk cushion, was an ornate, silver cooking knife with a handle carved from wood. It was a lot longer and sharper than the one Angelo used to serve his desserts. His fingers were shaking as he began to lift it from the box, and he was surprised at how light it was in his hands.

“It looks delicate, but it’s strong enough to slice your hand clean off. Somehow, it reminds me of you. Maybe because you just floored a fully-grown woman?” Olivier smirked at him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I think it’s time to teach you how to fight for real.”

Year 2394 (Eight Years Old) – Orphans

Angelo’s entire body was in pain. His head pounded, his eyes stung, his shoulders were screaming, and the angry blisters on his palms were so sore he could barely stand to touch a thing. Less noticeable, but nonetheless there, were the hunger and exhaustion. He supposed he needed to eat and sleep, otherwise he would lose all the strength he still had, and yet he could not bring himself to move. Instead, he brought his knees up to his chin and remained sat in the dirt at the foot of Olivier’s grave, trying very hard not to cry.

Olivier had been murdered a week ago, or so he thought at least. The sleepless nights and endless days, punctured with visions of her death, had all merged into one. Had it not been for the orphans - who had come one night to find shelter from the rain, only to find four bloody corpses and a shivering boy in the corner - perhaps he would be wasting away already, dying just like she had. Like his parents had. He’d expected them to run. Instead, they got him his quilt and wrapped it over him, and had moved him to the kitchen, far away from the shop where the bodies were. The older ones, tall enough to reach the counter, grabbed a box of cakes from the side that Olivier had prepared to sell the next day and convinced him to eat, sharing the rest amongst the other children.

“I wonder who those other guys are?” one of them asked another in a hushed whisper.

“I recognise their clothes. They’re with the duchy of Eternia!”

“They’re the people who took that quiet, frowny boy away to safety, aren’t they? What was he called? Alternis?”

“I wonder who would do such a thing? To Miss Olivier as well…”

Angelo scowled. The man who had killed his mother said the soldiers that lay dead in the other room were part of the Black Blades, and that they were the duchy’s elites. He didn’t want to scare the children by telling them the duchy had murdered the woman who was more of a mother to them than anyone. They already had too much to be afraid of.

Furthermore, wouldn’t they stop helping him if they found out who had killed those people?

The next day, they helped him bury her, and kept coming back each evening to ensure he was alright. He didn’t know why, but he was definitely grateful for them being there. It crossed his mind once or twice that perhaps it was because he was one of them now, but he quickly dispelled that thought. It made him feel nauseous to think about.

A sudden noise from inside the house snapped him out of his stupor and his hand instinctively flew to the knife he always kept by his side. It couldn’t be the kids, could it? They didn’t usually show up while the sun was still out, as they liked to make the most of the good weather.

A sudden, terrifying thought came over him, and he shuddered. What if its more Black Blades? What if they see the others?

He and the orphans had not moved the bodies of the soldiers. What if more of them came? What if they found the bodies, or worse yet, what if they knew he was responsible for their deaths?

He couldn’t help it. They were trying to kill his mother. She was screaming - she didn’t even have her weapon. They didn’t notice him at all, until he was driving his knife into their backs, as high as he could reach. Then they started to scream, and his hands and blade turned red with their blood.

It had all been for naught though. Olivier had been cut down by the blade of a katana before he had seen the person who wielded it. She was dead before she touched the floor. Her killer, the tall man in the green robes, was the demon who had been haunting his nightmares ever since.

These thoughts fresh in his mind, he scrambled back into the house.

“Oh, you’re there. Good. I’m glad.”

A tall, red-headed woman who seemed vaguely familiar was stood in the hallway, outside the door that had once connected the shop to the house. Now, it was boarded up, thanks to the orphans, and there was a huge red cross painted across the wood. Angelo froze in place and stared at her. She didn’t look like an Eternian soldier.

“You’ve grown even taller. It’s Angelo, isn’t it?” The woman offered him a smile. “You pushed me over once. Remember?”

Angelo nodded, recalling the year before when somebody had threatened to hurt Olivier. This woman had the same red curls. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes. Why had he failed to protect her this time? Did this woman know Olivier was dead? Was she there to laugh at him because of it?

“Hey,” she cooed in a soft voice, apparently noticing his tears. “Don’t cry, please. I’m not here to hurt you, I promise.” She sighed and sat down on the floor, patting the ground next to her as though she was beckoning him. Slightly sceptical, Angelo instead sat down opposite her, still clutching the knife in a shaking hand.

“I’m sorry. I know what happened here, and I wish there was something I could have done. It was the Swordmaster, wasn’t it? Kamiizumi?”

Angelo nodded again.

“Mm. I know him. He’s after me too, so I didn’t want to show my face around here until I knew the time was right. I knew you’d be safe, so that’s why I took so long to get here. Those kids have been looking after you.”

“Did you ask them to?”

“No. I’ve never spoken to them in my life.”

“Then how did you know?” He furrowed his brow and looked at her. His eyes caught sight of the choker she wore, adorned with a strangely shaped, orange crystal, which she tentatively touched when she saw him looking. She smiled again.

“Because I have magic powers,” she crooned, waggling her fingers for effect. “It’s hard to explain, and I probably don’t know how to word it so a kid will understand.”

“I’m not a little kid.”

“Haha. Of course you’re not. But this is real complicated stuff. Even Olivier didn’t understand it.”

Angelo wiped his eyes furiously with his sleeve. The woman did have kind eyes, but every time he thought about her encounter with Olivier, he got an uneasy feeling in his stomach. She was strange, and he wasn't sure he liked it.

“Why are you here?”

“Hm… How to put this…” She looked up at the ceiling. “I’m here to bring you somewhere safe before the duchy do come back.”

“No,” he stated almost immediately. He decided he was going to trust his gut.

“Do I have to make you unconscious? Because I will.”

“If the duchy are coming back then I’m gonna fight them,” he told her, using the quickest excuse he could think of. He would have been lying if he said he hadn't considered that though. His knuckles turned white on the handle of his knife just thinking about the duchy.

“Oho!” the woman threw up her hands. “Aren’t you fired up? You’ll be killed for sure. I’m not letting an eight-year-old take on a battalion.”

“They killed my mother.”

“Yeah. Believe it or not, she was my friend. Kamiizumi’s got a lot of people out for his blood for what he did. But we’re all adults, and none of us is stupid enough to take on any of the Black Blades on our own. You got lucky that you took them unaware.”

“How did you –”

“I’ll explain it later.”

“Hmph…”

The woman sighed and rose to her feet. “Fine. If you want revenge so badly, you can have it. Once I’ve decided you’re ready, I’ll let you have him.”

“But I… You can't tell me what to do!” It sounded childish, but it was the best he had.

“Do you really think Olivier would want you to sacrifice yourself like this? She gave up so much for you. Do you know what she did for her job, Angelo?”

“She had a bakery.”

“No, not that. The other thing. I know you know what I mean.”

Angelo scowled. This woman kept talking down to him, like he was a baby. Like she thought she was his mother.

“She used to beat up bad guys with her special cakes.”

“Right. Do you know where she kept the ingredients?”

“Mmm… There’s a cupboard in the kitchen.”

“And her recipes, they’re in there too?”

“They’re in her bedroom… Under the floorboard.”

He wasn’t sure why he was telling her this. He supposed it no longer mattered. He didn't care what happened to the recipes as long as the duchy didn't find them. They sounded scary in evil hands.

“You know how to bake as well, right?”

“Yeah.” He perked up slightly. He'd always enjoyed talking about his talents, especially when he was praised for them.

“You any good?”

“I'm super good.”

“Excellent. Olivier’s skills were invaluable. It’ll be useful to have someone else who can use them.”

He immediately frowned again. “Are you going to use them to fight bad guys like she did?”

“Me? No, I can’t cook. I’m a mage, through and through. You, however, could probably pull it off.”

“Oh. You want me to fight the bad guys instead?”

“Well, not alone. But yes, that’s the idea. There was a group of us, that your mother was part of. People tell us about evil people, and we go out and get rid of them. If you’re serious about wanting revenge, I think you should come with me. I’ll train you so that you’re strong enough to win.”

“… You mean it?”

“Yes. I promise.”

It was then that it dawned on him that, if he went with this woman, he wouldn't have to live on the streets. The woman was strange, but she was nothing compared to one of the scariest things he could think of. He didn't want to be alone.

“…Okay then. I'll go with you.”

“Good boy. I’m not really the parenting type, but I don't think I could have ignored you… Not when the last thing I did to Olivier…” Her voice trailed off, which took him by surprise. He hadn't expected such a sad voice to come out of her, not when she'd been trying to make him smile their entire conversation. It didn't last though, she quickly started smiling again and changed the subject. “I’ll also send food to this place for those kids every week or so, so that they don’t starve. That’s what Olivier would have done.”

“Oh! Thank you.” Angelo had almost forgotten about the orphans. He supposed if he was really leaving then he needed to thank them first.

“I’m Divinia, by the way. But in my line of work, I’m the Oracle. It’s a safety procedure sort of thing.”

“Umm… Okay? Like a secret identity?”

“Yeah, you can put it that way. Hm, I guess you’ll need a code name too… We called Olivier the Confectioner, but that would draw too much unwanted attention if we reused it.” She frowned, deep in thought. Then she grinned. “So from now on, I’m going to call you the Patissier.”

Years 2395-2398 (Nine to Twelve Years Old)

Divinia took Angelo into her home after that, telling her neighbours that she was doing a favour for a friend. He supposed that wasn’t too far from the truth, at least. In exchange for him cooking every night, she gave him classes in the mornings, and trained alongside him in the afternoon, but unlike Olivier, she didn’t drop everything to be with him all the time. He quickly learned to be more independent in her care.

He soon learned the reason for her namesake was because she had developed an entire fighting style designed around foretelling the future, which admittedly made it quite difficult to attack her. Her predictions didn’t have 100% accuracy, like she wanted to claim, but she was still right far more often than she was not. She wasn’t afraid to hold back, either, especially not as he grew older, fighting more fiercely and speaking more directly than Olivier ever had. She treated him like a friend, and a student, but never like a son. She knew she could never replace his mother.

That was how the next four years of his life played out. All his spare time, he spent baking, trying to perfect Olivier’s recipes, and then inventing his own. Homelessness was not as big an issue in the area where Divinia lived, so he could not unload the excess cakes onto people who needed them, so instead he would travel to the nearby villages and try to sell them. It was surprising how quickly he began to make a name for himself, and festival planners for events like the Sacred Flower Festival soon began offering him work.

It was marvellous, they all said, that somebody so young could be so talented. Their compliments were what fuelled him to better himself every year. There was a certain euphoria he got out of being praised for his work, and it bolstered not only his confidence, but his pride as well.

It was a lot more difficult to get feedback on the cakes with side-effects, however. Their potential to be fatal, or to deal permanent damage meant he was sceptical about testing them on innocent people, and even more sceptical about testing them on himself, and the Oracle did not like the idea of people getting hurt on the off chance her clairvoyance was not accurate enough. Instead, she would take them with her whenever she was assigned a new criminal to take down, and would report the results back to him, but it was a slow process. It took over three years for him to have a complete arsenal of edible status ailments that had been tried and tested both by Divinia and, once he turned eleven, on assignments of his own.

The more he found himself having to please people to make a living for himself, the more he began to focus on the more superficial parts of his life. His cakes needed to be as equally flawless as his appearance, and being outshone by anybody quickly became out of the question. Divinia liked to tease him for his vanity in what was a pointless attempt to remind him to focus on his goals. She didn’t realise that they weren’t something he was going to forget. He would still see his mother die in his dreams, and every mention of the duchy filled him with a seething anger. He even took on the name Olivier as part of his own so that he would always remember what he was fighting to do.

The thing was, he would tell her time and again, that even after four years, they both knew he was far from ready to take on his enemies. He didn’t want to sacrifice the luxuries he had when he still had all the time in the world.

Year 2399 (Thirteen Years Old) – Bloodrose

“At least now we know they aren’t here for us,” Divinia announced as she entered the kitchen, tossing the day’s paper into a small patch of sunlight streaming from the blinds onto the kitchen counter. Angelo cast a glance towards it as he dished up their breakfast and frowned.

“The Sacred Flower Festival? What does that have to do with the Bloodrose Legion?”

It had been several months since the duchy had dispatched troops from its third division to occupy parts of the city of Florem, withholding any reasoning from both citizens and the Matriarch herself. Divinia had been tense since they had arrived, worried they had been send to finish off the job the Black Blades had started now they were seemingly involved in the civil war in Eisenberg.

“Everyone’s been saying for months that the really lovely girl who sometimes went into the slums at the far side of the city just to look after the kids on the streets was definitely going to win. But she didn’t. Some other girl did, apparently because her hair and dress looked ‘more suitable’ to be flower maiden.”

Angelo could not help but smirk. The Oracle had been particularly despondent ever since that victory, most likely because the girl who had been snubbed had red hair, just like she did.

“Yes, I remember. What about it?”

“It just seems strange that the year the duchy turn up, our biggest Crystalist tradition takes a nosedive like that. I think they’re trying to spread their Anti-Crystalist agenda.”

“Because a better-looking girl won? Is there a competition for weird old ladies who come up with stupid conspiracy theories? Because you should enter. I think you’d win.”

“Do you think the Orthodoxy would just abandon their traditions like that?”

Angelo bit his lip. He knew Divinia well, and had a feeling she was testing him. She was very much a Crystalist, and while he did not have any opinion either way about the faith itself, he would never forgive the organisation that ran it for what they had done to his sister all that time ago. They were every bit as bad as the duchy in his eyes, but expressing those opinions always got him into trouble. He decided to keep quiet.

“This city feels so… vapid now. I suppose you probably wouldn’t understand what I mean though.” She crossed over to the counter and took her breakfast as she spoke.

“Hmmm… No, no, I get it. I think. Is it that people are trying their hardest to be beautiful lately, but they just don’t have the decent personalities to match? Unlike me, they struggle to be both pretty and charming.”

“Oh boy…”

“It’s like my confections. If they look beautiful, people will praise them, but they must taste as equally beautiful to be good. Otherwise they’d just be worthless.”

“But don’t you think an ugly cake is still a good cake if it tastes good? It’s just food, and food is meant to be eaten.”

Angelo sighed. “You don’t understand. Florem is becoming obsessed with beauty, but they’re shoving aside the things like saving the orphans to do it. They’re not the ugly cake that tastes good, they’re the pretty cake that tastes bad. And that’s a really crappy cake.”

Divinia smiled at him. “Fine. You make a good point.” She placed her plate back down and ruffled his hair, which made him grimace and squirm away. “Just… Don’t you go forgetting that looks aren’t everything, alright?”

Year 2400 (Fourteen Years Old) – Al-Khampis

The Red Mage was supposed to have died three weeks ago. Six of Florem’s finest killers had been placed around the perimeter of the country’s most lavish gardens, waiting to ambush him as the Duchy’s third division marched on the settlement that dwelled there.

Hundreds of people lived in that village, protected by some of the country’s strongest assassins and the Bloodrose Legion had slaughtered nearly all of them. The flowers were tainted red with the blood of the people who had once called the Gardens home.

Angelo had been lurking on the outer bank of the river that ran past the Gardens, away from the heat of the massacre. He had placed himself there on the off chance that DeRosa, their elusive target, would not want to delve into the fray himself, and he fully intended to drug the man as he was no doubt doing to the people of his hometown. It wasn’t until he returned to Florem that he learned DeRosa had not been there at all. He hadn’t even been in the country.

“The last time our target was sighted was in the city of Al-Khampis in Harena. It’s supposed to be a student town, so it’s downright disturbing that this disgusting man is going anywhere near it.” Angelo crumpled the paper with his assignment back into his pocket. “How’s your leg today?”

“Doesn’t hurt anymore, at least.” The girl sat next to him ran a hand gingerly over her right thigh. “I reckon it’s gonna scar badly though.”

“Mmm, serious wounds like that often do.” Angelo rolled up his right sleeve to reveal a large, shiny burn on his forearm.”

“How’d ya do that? Monster?”

“Erm… Oven…” He blushed slightly, and the girl laughed.

Aimee Matchlock had nearly been killed in the Legion’s attack on her village. Had Angelo not been there to fish her from the river, she would have surely died. She absolutely insisted on staying by his side afterwards, despite his vocalised worries about her injuries, though he had to admit that having her around had its benefits. It was pleasant to have somebody his age to talk to, and she was a bubbly person even in the face of the horrendous tragedy that had just befallen her.

Their ship docked a few hours away from town, so they were forced to eat the food Angelo had prepared and packed in a carriage on the way there (much to his joy, as he did not like the sound of the spicy, overpriced student food the city was famous for.) He advised they spend the rest of the journey getting some sleep, but instead Aimee seemed to ignore his advice, more insistent on checking her hunting rifle over and over. She had masterfully affixed a blade to the underside of the weapon, claiming that it helped her fight in both close and long range situations.

“You know, I’ve never seen you shoot that thing. How do I know you’re any good?”

“Yer just gonna have to trust me. I’m a crack shot, I promise. I wasn’t about to fire this thing in Florem though, guns are dangerous in crowded places.”

“That’s why we’re attacking at night. You work best in an empty field, and I work best with no witnesses to see what I’m doing.”

“I’ll bet we make a good team. I’m excited to work with ya, Mr. Panettone.”

“Ah… Please, just Angelo is fine.” He found himself blushing again. “We’re the same age and social status and everything, so being formal is totally unnecessary.”

“Oh! Right, makes sense.”

Angelo couldn’t help but wonder if Aimee had slept at all as they entered Al-Khampis. Even as she peered around the city in awe, he realised how dark her eyes were looking. He supposed, thinking back to that awful time following the death of his mother, that she was probably going through a lot of mental turmoil. He couldn’t deny that he was slightly concerned that she wouldn’t be up for the task ahead, especially not with her injury on her leg. She still walked with a slight limp.

“You really didn’t have to come with me.”

“Nah. I did. I owe you as much.”

The two of them spent the next hour camping in a secluded spot Aimee had suggested – one that gave them perfect view of the entire path to the Spire without being spotted themselves. Angelo’s intel suggested that DeRosa would be attempting to make a deal with one of the staff members at the school some time that evening.

“I’m guessing hunting humans is a little different to animals, but finding a good hiding spot is probably more effective against people. Humans don’t tend to have strong enough instincts to detect a good hider without some kinda divine intervention,” Aimee whispered, pushing the brim of her hat back.

“Just think of them as animals.” Angelo shrugged, and she gave him a confused look. “It gets easier after a few years.”

“If yer tryin’ to scare me, give up. I’m on your side now. Do you smell somethin’?”

“No.”

“I smell roses. But not the real, sweet smellin’ ones. The fucker is nearby.”

Angelo wanted to ask her how she could tell, but, almost as if it were rehearsed, Fiore DeRosa came into sight, his garish garb a beacon in the growing moonlight. He was quite some ways away, so even with the knowledge they’d been given about him, Angelo had no idea how Aimee was able to recognise him so easily. He would never admit it, but he was utterly taken aback by how impressive she was. Her resolve, her senses… He hoped her shot was just as good.

Their plan, which they hastily devised in a minute after realising DeRosa had gone inside the school building itself, was for Angelo to lure him out onto a balcony (and slip him a sedative if he could manage), so Aimee could shoot him. The Red Mage had shut himself with his associate in one of the empty classrooms that faced the front of the building. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, Angelo followed him up a flight of stairs and camped himself outside the door before hastily preparing something he could hurl at the man to slow him down long enough for him to get him to an open space without too much of a fight.

He despised this kind of mission. The high-risk kind of thing that placed his life uncomfortably close to being snuffed always left that unpleasant sense of dread in his chest that he couldn’t rid himself of for days. Only in the direst of situations would he accept a task that would involve stepping into a potentially fatal battle.

“Unfortunately, the division the Templar has dispatched to Anchiem is backed by an incredibly loyal force. The city cannot be allowed to remain intact much longer.” DeRosa’s muffled words oozed with a slick poison. He spoke of a massacre as though it were nothing.

A breeze crawled through the cracks in the door after the unmistakable sound of the bay windows being flung open, and DeRosa continued to spew his filthy words.

“My acquaintance in Eisenberg sent me over an experimental drug he’s been working on. There is a chance there are students in the halls. Perhaps we should test its effects, just to cover our tracks?”

The breeze became tainted with a sickly-sweet smell that seemed to clog the senses like a cork stopper. Angelo climbed to his feet, already feeling woozy and attempted to make a run for it. The last thing he remembered was a startling banging noise and a scream from behind him that made him jolt forwards in shock as he approached the staircase, before his vision faded completely.

He awoke to the sun on his face and a bed beneath him, his whole body aching horribly. When he tried to move, a fierce pain struck around his right shin.

“Oh, thank the fuckin’ gods, you ain’t dead.”

“Hello Aimee…” He recognised her voice instantly. “I would look at you, but every movement is agony.”

“The nurse said your injuries weren’t that bad! She lied!”

“I might be over-exaggerating just a bit.” There was genuine worry in her tone, and his face fell. “Though my leg –”

“It’s broken. I found ya at the bottom of a staircase, probably after fallin’ down it. Then I saw a teacher on night duty, and he said to bring ya to the dorms.”

“I was near the stairs when that loud noise happened. Did you hear that too?” It came to him as an afterthought that he may have been hallucinating.

“Ah… That might’ve been me. I must’ve startled ya when I shot DeRosa. Sorry. I fucked up big time…” Aimee’s voice began to waver.

“You… Shot him? Is he dead?”

“Nah… I really did fuck up. I shot him from our hiding spot, so he was too far away to see. I must’ve missed, because he managed to get away by the time I got to the Spire.”

“You… What?”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Frankly, he was just glad to have survived the ordeal, but he wasn’t going to mention that. “You did hit him. I heard him scream.”

“Oh? That’s kinda awesome.” Her voice took on a triumphant tone.

“You hit him from that distance? You actually hit him, and you couldn’t even see him?”

“Uh, yeah. I told ya, I’m a crack shot. Well, I’m not the best. I was aimin’ for his head. But I guess if I hadn’t injured him, he mighta killed ya, so there’s that.”

“You’ll get him next time, though.”

“Next time? Wait… I broke yer leg and messed up yer mission. You want me to be there next time?”

He considered, for a second, letting her know what he was thinking. She thought this was her fault, but in truth, the only person he could blame was himself. He could have died. Without Aimee, he probably would have. Admitting that, however, would be admitting he was weak, and the last thing he wanted was for anybody to know that. Instead, he kept that to himself.

“I think your skills could be really useful in this line of work. I would gladly allow you to be my partner. I think we could be a real match made in heaven.”

Year 2401 (Fifteen Years Old) – Duchy

“…And therefore, the proverbial rot that is Fiore DeRosa has obviously infected the Florem Police force as well.”

Aimee raised her eyebrows. “So that’s why the matriarch has got our lot trailin’ this kid instead?”

“I suppose that’s the most logical explanation.” Angelo folded his arms across his chest. “That, and if we do happen to gather solid proof that those dead girls and the winner of the Flower Festival are linked, you could easily dispose of her from a distance.”

Aimee stooped to one knee and began loading bullets into her rifle, the blade she had fixed to it scraping the floor as she did. “I don’t really wanna shoot a little kid, so I kinda hope we come up blank. Do ya’ really think a pipsqueak like that girl would even be capable of killin’?”

Angelo chose not to reply. He knew first hand that a child could kill a person, but he’d never told Aimee about his encounter with Kamiizumi seven years ago, and didn’t wish to explain it to her now. She was a useful ally to have, and he didn’t want to sully her opinion of him.

A sudden commotion from the path leading away from the central plaza towards the Inn caught their attention, and they froze. Anticipating their target, they quickly hid themselves away. Shrouded in the darkness of an alleyway, all they had to do to make themselves invisible was to not make a sound.

“Ah! Olivia! She wrote me a letter!”

As an excitable voice began to read the contents of the letter aloud, speaking of the Orthodoxy and of hidden villages, Angelo found himself having to use every ounce of self-constraint he had not to throw something at them.

“How ignorant do you have to be to read private information out loud like that in public?” He hissed, completely forgetting that he was supposed to be silent. “Especially when there are Eternian Soldiers crawling about everywhere!”

“Damn straight. You might wanna keep your voice down a bit though. If Eternian Soldiers hear us, we’re just as fucked as those kids are.” Aimee began to bite her lip, then added in a whisper. “Do ya’ think we should maybe warn ‘em?”

“No. I’m not risking my life just because some idiot children think it’s funny to scream about hidden Orthodoxy pockets for anybody to hear.”

Much to his disdain, Aimee seemed to ignore his judgment, and peeked her head out around the corner of the alleyway. Angelo was about to scold her, but started as she suddenly jerked herself back, cussing under her breath.

“Did they see you?”

“Nah. Not them. Somebody was up on that balcony, and they looked right at us.” Aimee motioned with her thumb towards the Inn.

“Probably just a citizen, or a tourist, I guess. You need to be more careful, Aimee.” He added that last part rather curtly.

“Says the guy who was shouting just a minute ago.”

“I’m sorry, what did –”

Angelo did not get to finish his sentence, as Aimee quickly got to her feet and placed a hand over his mouth. She was frowning, but kept her eyes fixed on the entrance of the alleyway. Her entire body was tense, and something about the way she was standing so rigidly suggested that her superior senses had detected something Angelo couldn’t. He knew it would be stupid to so much as throw her hand from his face when she was like this.

In the silence, he suddenly became aware of the sound of heels against the cobbled streets in front of them, and soon after, a voice could be heard as well.

“Perhaps you ought to go on ahead, Victoria. Allow me to perform a thorough sweep of the area to ensure we are unlikely to be followed. I shall meet you at the ruins to the west, and it would be best if you were to wait for me there.”

There was something about that voice that was soothing, and at the same time utterly chilling to hear – no doubt due to the connotations of the words it spoke.

Someone had overheard those kids, after all, and they fully intended to follow them. Victoria… The same name of the girl the matriarch had asked Angelo and Aimee to tail, a suspect in the murder case of two young women.

Perhaps Aimee was thinking the same thing as Angelo – that they should ambush these people before they could get away – for her arm slackened and her hand fell away. That train of thought was dashed, however, when a tall figure appeared in the opening of the alley. Before the two of them could react, the figure raised their hand, and a bright, scalding light filled the area, followed by nothing but darkness.

A dull aching was the first thing Angelo noticed when he came to, though that already felt like it was ebbing away as an unusual warmth trickled through his body. It was due to this warmth that it took a few moments for him to register that he was lying sprawled on his back, with Aimee stirring a little way away.

“Ah, good. I feared I was a little too forceful with my magic. I merely wished to momentarily stun you, but alas, I appear to not know my own strength. I prefer not to use that particular spell.”

The voice was coming from that of a bespectacled man in an adorned, white lab coat. Though his face was hidden behind a huge mane of fluffy, grey hair, he had the complexion of a much younger man – the dark circles under his eyes aside. He had placed a peculiarly shaped golden staff up against the wall, and was using this, as well as his own frame, to form a barricade between the two teenagers he had subjugated and their own weapons.

Angelo expected to feel some kind of pain as he attempted to sit up, but instead he felt nothing. He gingerly prodded his chest with his fingers, not altogether sure if he was hoping to find a trace of injury or not.

“I took the liberty of healing you. As I mentioned previously, I did not mean to hurt you. My sincerest apologies.” The man gave a sweeping bow. “My name is Doctor Victor S. Court. I merely wish to know what you just overheard. And...” His eyes flickered to the weapons behind him. “To question the legality of these. I trust they are yours, yes?

“Legality? What kinda bullshit is this? They’re perfectly legal!” Aimee began to rise to her feet, and Angelo joined her. He hoped he wouldn’t have to restrain her.

“You see, from my knowledge of Florem’s laws, I am aware that you are not permitted to carry firearms until you are eighteen. If you can prove you are of age, I can give this back to you. I have some more pressing queries for you though, so if you would just w-”

“Who are you to be enforcing your laws on her? This woman knows more about guns than you probably know about your stupid medicine, or whatever, so you have no place to be telling her what to do with them.” Angelo placed his hands on his hips and scowled, trying his hardest to seem intimidating. He had completely forgotten that he was supposed to be questioning this man on his ties to the murders – now all he wanted to do was give him what he deserved for being so unpleasant to Aimee. However, even though Victor was his height, and didn’t look as though he had an ounce of muscle on him, in truth the way he was glaring was enough to make the bravest soldier cower. He could feel his heartbeat in his throat.

Victor sighed, and muttered something about their stubbornness under his breath. “I don’t have time for this. I have to meet with my patient. If you refuse to cooperate, I will take these weapons with me and take my leave.”

“Well, fuck you too!” Aimee spat, making an obscene gesture in his direction.

Angelo wanted very much to stop her before she went too far, and then cause a diversion so she could run for it. However, Victor’s neutral face turned into a grimace, and before Angelo could act, he flicked his wrist suddenly. With a tremendous force, the staff by his side cascaded towards them and pinned the two of them up against the wall. He emitted a small gasp of pain as he felt his ribs crack.

“What… the hell…”

“A dear friend once told me that you should never underestimate the power of a White Mage. I could strip you to the bone with an incantation, were I a more violent person. Luckily for you, I aim to prevent death, not cause it.” Victor’s voice turned harsh. “Now then… Do tell me all about the concerns you expressed earlier involving ‘Eternian Soldiers’. You seemed quite unnerved about them. Were you, by chance, doing anything illegal? Besides carrying a firearm, of course.”

Angelo’s chest was hurting too much for him to speak. The heavy metal of the staff was putting an awful amount of pressure on his broken ribs, so all he could do was grit his teeth.

“We’re just wary of the bastards, alright?” Aimee replied. The shakiness in her voice was somewhat harrowing to hear, and Angelo swore that from the corner of his eye, he could see her watching him and not their adversary. “They turned this country to shit, and they’ve been making the residents’ lives hell for no fuckin’ reason. Do ya really think we’d be all chummy with them after that?”

“I’m afraid the duchy has greater concerns at present than whatever is going on here. We have not had any reports that there are any issues with the way Florem is being handled. The Grand Marshal’s words are law, and the Grand Marshal has said nothing regarding the actions of the Bloodrose Legion.” Victor’s words seemed uncaring, but his voice quivered with regret.

“Then the Grand Marshal’s gotta pay for pullin’ this crap in the first place.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it if I were you. Look at yourselves. You are being thoroughly bested by the weakest of the Council of Six, and I will not deny that fighting is not my strong suit.”

The reveal of Victor’s title made something click inside Angelo’s head, overriding the fear, the pain, and the confusion that the night’s events had awakened within him. As a bubbling anger began to rise in his stomach, enhanced by the sharp stabs of pain with every breath he took, a clock began to chime somewhere in the distance, and Victor’s face fell.

“I am already late. What a waste of time this was…” He then rose his voice slightly. “I must adjourn. My apologies. I don’t have the time to deal with the two of you anymore.” He outstretched a hand and his staff returned to him, leaving its prisoners in a heap on the floor.

Angelo involuntarily let out a yelp, and amidst the new wave of pain he could feel Aimee’s hands grasp his arm. Victor frowned, crossed over to him, and placed his hand gently to the boy’s chest, ignoring his flinching. The warm sensation from earlier came over him again, and the pain began to fade.

“I don’t want help from duchy scum like you…” Angelo could barely manage a wheeze, but he got his words out all the same. He wouldn’t be able to live with the humiliation if he let an Eternian best him without at least forcing a few of his choice words their way.

“Shut up. Now, don’t strain yourself for a few days, and you’ll be good as new.” Victor rose to his full height and turned on his heel to walk away. As he approached the mouth of the alleyway, he stopped and cast a glance back at Aimee and Angelo. “One more thing, and heed my words well. Do not mess with the Duchy of Eternia. You will most certainly be killed, and not even revenge is worth throwing your lives away like that.”

Year 2402 (Sixteen Years Old) – Performer

Olivier’s bakery had grown dilapidated and worn in the eight years it had been abandoned. The roof leaked so much now, threatening to cave in, that it looked as though even the children who lived on the streets refused to use it as shelter. It had become nothing more than a canvas for graffiti artists, but even that looked old now. Monsters would likely soon start moving in.

Or at least, they would have done, had the entire building not been completely engulfed in flames.

Angelo had used Olivier’s own recipe to set her home alight. He figured that if she could use it to turn people into a human flambé, he could do the same to the place where she was buried. Burning wood smelled a lot nicer than burning flesh, but it did choke the air with a very thick cloud of smoke. He had to run for it to get away before he suffocated, hoping that the heavy bag he had at his side would not slow him down. He couldn’t die. Not yet.

There was a new family living in the manse that used to belong to Sienna and Oscar, so he could not do the same to his other childhood home as he had to this one. He had no intention of hurting any innocent people and putting himself on the level of the Eternian scum he so despised. He hated his parents and he hated Florem, but sullying his name like that would be too humiliating to bear. Besides, his parents’ house was not theirs any longer, and Florem had already been punished enough. The knowledge that the scourge of the city, DeRosa, still lived was the only thing stopping him from torching the place to the ground. He would rather they live in fear of that man for the rest of their lives for every vain, elitist thing they had ever done.

There were huge crowds of people making their way towards the upper plaza of the main city, drawn to the gaudy lights and loud music bursting from the rooftops like a swarm of garish moths. None of them noticed the baker covered in soot assimilating himself into their midst, his hand quivering on the handle of his delicate, silver cooking knife. They had the same destination, and they were covering him up perfectly as he made his way there.

“Hey! The hell do you think you’re goin’?” an all too familiar voice called. Angelo scowled and kept walking.

“Angelo! Oi!” There was a heavy patter of footsteps and a hand grabbed his sleeve from the crowd, pulling him away.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Aimee. Leave me alone.”

“What have you done?” She asked him, wide eyed, having caught sight of the black dust that clung to his face, hair and clothes.

“I told you to leave me alone,” he told her through gritted teeth.

“I ain’t going anywhere mister, not until you explain yerself! Like how you could just leave Divinia on her own like that.”

He stayed quiet, scowling at her. She just scowled back, maintaining her strong grip on his sleeve and refusing to break eye contact. He turned his head to the side and let his fringe fall over his face.

“What’s happened to you?” she asked, her voice now shaking. Angelo could not reply.

“Aimee, I have to go.”

“Where?”

“…The concert.”

He attempted to tug his sleeve away, but she grabbed his other arm.

“Concert? That concert over there?” She looked past him towards the light show that was dyeing the sky in neon.

He nodded, and tried to pull away again, but to no avail. Aimee was smaller than him, but she was stronger too, and he didn’t dare hurt her. That was the last thing he wanted.

“Stop that. Why?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Well I’m not going anywhere. Not ‘til you tell me why you ran away.”

“… I can’t tell you.”

“You can tell me anythin’. I won’t judge.”

“No. I can’t. Let me go before it starts.”

“Oh? What happens when it starts?”

“Then I’ll miss my chance. Let go!” He sighed, realising that nothing he could say or do would make her let him go. She was impossibly stubborn like that. Now, more than ever, it was really making his blood boil. It was taking everything he could muster not to lose his temper. “Aimee, listen. The singer who is performing tonight once served the duchy. She was one of the Black Blades.” He breathed in deeply. “So I have to kill her. I can’t let an Eternian get away, not again.”

“Seriously? That blonde bitch on all the posters is an Eternian? You leave her to me, I’ll pump her so full’o’ holes that-”

“No. Not her. I have to take her out on my own.”

Aimee looked as though she were about to retort, but was suddenly cut off by an eruption of cheering coming from the concert. Angelo cursed himself. He was too late. In her shock at the sudden sound, Aimee had loosened her grip on his arms, and he managed to break free. He stormed off towards the city gates, despising the fact that his eyes were welling up and that his legs were shaking. It suddenly dawned on him that he had not packed anything to dry his eyes with in his bag, but there was no way he could return to Divinia’s house. Not after he had stormed out on her.

When he had seen the posters for Praline à la Mode’s concert, the one advertised as a first for her hometown, it was as though somebody had driven a fist into his stomach and had kept doing so ever since. Images of a young girl with golden curls and a big smile were replaced with the bunny ear headband and sickly-sweet gaze of the woman plastered all over the city. For so long, he had thought it was the Orthodoxy who had been withholding his sister from him. He had thought the duchy had killed her along with the rest of the acolytes, and the Vestal of Water herself. But the gossip around the city when the posters came out was that she was one of them.

He did not know what hurt him more. That his own sister served the people who had killed Olivier, and who had destroyed his country, or that she had never, in all that time, come back to find him. He found himself blaming her for the way he lived, for all the lives he had taken just so he and Divinia and Aimee could survive. He blamed his parents too. If they hadn’t died, none of it would have happened. It would be their family in the manse he had been born in. He would be happy. He wouldn’t know what it was like to feel alone, to feel betrayed.

That was why he had run away. He never wanted to feel that way again, so he chose to break himself off from everybody he had ever known. He had burned his favourite home so that guilt could not drive him back. He had betrayed Divinia so that she could not betray him. Only by abandoning his old life could he guarantee that it would not abandon him. He had thought killing his traitor of a sister would have severed his ties to Florem for good.

Then there was Aimee. She had stuck by his side ever since they had met. She had never failed to make him smile. She was always there to watch his back when things got dangerous, and in turn he had been there for her. She was so good to him. He knew that she would have been the hardest one for him to leave behind. Even then, as he stepped out into the fields outside Florem, he could hear her just a few steps away. He grimaced. She was making something that was already threatening to break him so impossibly difficult, and he had a feeling that was how it was going to remain.

From then on, he decided he would just ignore her. If he had to work with her then he would treat her as a colleague and nothing more. Keeping his distance was the only way, he thought, that her death would not destroy him when it came.

Year 2403 (Sixteen Years Old pt.2) – Eternia

A cold breeze blew into the vent Angelo was hiding in, making him shiver even in the layers of thick wool and armour he was wearing. It was awfully irritating that his hiding spot was so close to the gargantuan entrance of the Eternian Central Command Centre, but he supposed that meant he could make a quick getaway if somebody saw him. Not that something like that would happen.

It had been surprisingly easy to get into Central Command, considering it was the primary stronghold of what had once been the most powerful ruling force on all Luxendarc. The hardest part had been finding somebody who worked at the centre who was over six feet tall for him to steal a disguise from. He had lurked around in the city for hours waiting for someone to show up, and after a few days in the cold climate planning his attack, he was starting to regret not bringing warmer clothes. He seemed to be coming down with something, and his head was feeling awfully stuffy. If he got sick, he would personally find the only tall soldier in the duchy and smash a cake in their face.

There was a loud clatter outside his vent, and he smiled. He had swapped out the cakes in the building’s canteen for his own, all filled with a powerful sleeping draught that appeared to have just taken effect on the guards outside. He peered out, judged that the area was clear and filled only with unconscious bodies, and slipped out as smoothly as he could in the ugly, bumpy armour. Every soldier in the building was likely to be asleep or eating, so he felt safe shedding the stuff the minute he had his feet on the ground. Not only did it obscure his face, but it hindered his movement as well, and he could do without that bother.

The target Goodman wants me to kill is in the dungeons, he reminded himself, before beginning to search the sleeping guards for the key. He’ll have been drugged as well when they brought him his food. Angelo had made sure to change the concoction in the prisoner’s food, however. Goodman had told him the bastard was responsible for the deaths of thousands of soldiers, both friend and foe, and he had been one of the Black Blades’ top officers. To make matters worse, he was the scum who had provided Fiore DeRosa with the drugs he had used to bring Florem to its knees. He wanted to see this man squirm as he killed him.

“Help! Guards, help me! Something horrible has happened! I can’t move my arms or my legs!” A voice squealed from within the depths of the dungeons as Angelo made him way through them. He judged that, by the lack of response, nobody was around to hear the voice’s pleas.

“You there! You’re here to help me, right!” the voice begged when Angelo came into view.

“That depends. You’re Dr. Qada, am I right?”

The man in the cell who was talking to him nodded feebly. Angelo offered him a smile and began to unlock the cell door.

“Oh thank you! Tha-” Angelo cut his sickening gratitude short with a swift and sharp kick to the face.

“Shut up. I don’t have time to listen to your bothersome babbling. Your voice is giving me a headache.”

Qada started making a pained squeaking noise, like a deflating balloon. Angelo smirked at his pitiful state, and knelt in front of him.

“Did you enjoy my cake, doctor?”

“Cake?”

“Yes. The delectable delicacy the kitchens served you today was made by none other than yours truly. For you, I included a special ingredient. I’ve no doubt that while you can move your head and your neck, you can’t move much else. Isn’t that right?”

Angelo found Qada’s reaction incredibly perplexing. Instead of showing any sign of shock or rage, the man just laughed.

“Gyah ha ha! Oh how fitting! You’ve bested me with a taste of my own medicine.” He suddenly lurched forwards, and Angelo stumbled back, ever so slightly unnerved by the scientist’s change in façade. “You boy, you’re not so different from me are you? I preferred to kill my victims with salves in their raw forms, but that’s not really a huge difference at all now, hmm?”

“Be quiet! I’m nothing like you. You’re foul, you’re a monster.”

“Don’t be so foolish. You have a pretty face, but those are the eyes of a killer. Why, they’re perhaps your most striking feature.”

Angelo pulled his knife into view and held it firmly to the man’s throat. Was it the cold, or the illness that was making him shiver, or was he letting Qada’s words get to him?

“One more word like that out of you, and I start cutting things off.”

Qada just grinned. “The duchy are going to kill me, you know. I’ve got the death penalty for my actions in Eisenberg. They say they were war crimes. Hmph. I would disagree. Regardless, there’s no point in waving that knife around. Do you really want to sully your pretty hands with the blood of a dead man?”

“Hah. I was sent by the Shieldbearers to prevent exactly that. Goodman thinks that the duchy disposing of garbage like you is a win for the Swordbearers. He’s paid me a lot of money to make sure it’s on his word that you meet your end.”

“You hypocrite. You don’t see it, do you? The reason he hired you and not one of his own grunts? I kill for glory, and you do so for money. You avaricious fiend.” He started to laugh again. “I’m being killed by my own equal! How exhil-”

Once more, Qada’s speech was cut off. Angelo plunged his blade into his throat, severing the windpipe and spattering his blood across the stone floor. He stirred feebly, unable to scream in pain.

“I’m not like you. I’ve made myself clear. I don’t do this for money. I don’t enjoy this.” He shifted his position, and thrust the knife into Qada’s back. “The world just needs less people like you in it. That’s all.” He drew the knife out and stabbed again, and again, until he stopped moving, and the pool of blood had grown so huge that there was no way he could survive.

It wasn’t until he stood again, and looked down at the dead man who had taken the lives of so many, that he realised he had forgotten to breathe. His head was still spinning as he stumbled his way out of the dungeons, and by the time he’d squirmed his way back into the suit of armour – not wanting to leave a trail of blood as he walked back to the city – he felt positively nauseous. By the time he got back to Eternia, he couldn’t stop sneezing. If only he wasn’t covered in blood under his disguise, he could probably have sampled some of the city’s famous remedies, but he decided it was probably safer to carry the cold back to Gathelatio. Aimee was waiting for him at one of the inns there, insistent of at least following him into the country, even though they had decided it would be safest if only one of them travelled north.

It was the first time he had taken an assignment on without her ever since they’d first met. Even when he’d left Florem, adamant that she should stay, she had refused to leave his side. As the months had gone by, he'd been trying to distance himself from her, but even as their relationship began to weaken, she still stood by him. It was certainly odd not having her around. He thought it would be liberating, but it was almost dull without her. Maybe even a little lonely…

He shook his head quickly, as though he wanted to dislodge the thought from his mind. Those were exactly the kinds of feelings he was trying to avoid.

Year 2404 (Seventeen Years Old) – Heaven

“We held a memorial service for him. Janne said you didn’t want to come…”

“Janne never asked.”

Angelo bit his lip, watching the petals on the bouquet at his feet flutter gently in the sea breeze, partially obscuring the plaque beneath them.

‘Here remains the lasting memory of Denys Geneolgia, also known as Kaiser Oblivion, who nobly sacrificed his life so that his friends and family may live on and create the peaceful world he dreamed of.’

“Please forgive us.”

Angelo didn’t know how to respond. He realised that this was the first time he had ever had an extensive conversation with the Wizard, Bella, and he was not accustomed to dealing with her. Especially not when they stood over the memorial dedicated to a man they both owed so much to.

“Janne is abhorrent. I think I’d rather blame him.” He gave an awkward laugh, but the woman’s expression did not change. “I guess I didn’t know the Kaiser that well anyway. I didn’t even know he was a Geneolgia.”

Bella shook her head. “Very few of us did.” Her lips barely moved when she spoke, but there was no doubt that he was speaking to her, and not the doll she always used as a mouthpiece whenever he saw her in passing.

The memorial plaque was just outside the stately manor house of Geneolgia that shadowed the city of Gathelatio in its size and power, and it was as he was descending the steps leading away from the house that Angelo had spotted Bella’s unforgettable shrouded appearance. It took him a couple of minutes to assure himself that he wasn’t seeing a ghost, for he had been under the impression that she had been killed in battle. As it happened, he had been completely misinformed.

“I am keeping Cù Chulainn waiting. I should go.” She announced in a deadpan tone, breaking the long period of uncomfortable silence.

“Uh, right. You shouldn’t make him wait and all that…” Angelo nodded.

As she turned to leave, he added something as an afterthought:

“Please come by whenever you’re in Gathelatio. We – Aimee and I, that is to say – are opening a bakery here and I, um… I think she’d really appreciate it if you would stay in touch with her.”

Bella's painted lips turned upwards into a grin. Donna the doll sprung to life in her hands and began to speak.

“We’re soooOooo glad you’ve come to your senseeeees.”

“Aimee deserves happiness, so would have hexed you if you hadn’t.” Bella added in her normal voice.

“I don’t –”

“Goodbye Panettone. Until we meet again.”

***

“ – but yes, she was just as weird as ever, but very much alive,” Angelo said, casting a glance at Aimee, who was stood next to him. She was still hacking at a piece of meat for him to use in that night’s dinner, but was doing so with little enthusiasm – nothing like she had been mere minutes ago.

“I’m glad they’re alive. Sucks about the Kaiser though.”

“Mmm. And the fact that Janne had the cheek to exclude us from the funeral.” Angelo sighed deeply, tightening his grip on his mixing bowl. “The man saved our lives – twice – and this is how we found out he had died.”

“Would’a been nice to pay our respects. Next time I see Janne, I’m gonna fuck him up.” Aimee drove the meat cleaver into the food with such force that Angelo almost dropped his spoon.

“I’ll watch your back whenever that is, but the kitchen doesn’t deserve that kind of punishment.”

“We ain’t stayin’ here anyway.”

“True…”

“I won’t abuse the house when we get to Gathelatio, how’s that sound?”

“I’m sure the house will take its fair share of beatings regardless of where we stay. You’re a rough fighter.”

Aimee shrugged. “That’s all on you, buddy. I can’t help but be rough when my sparrin’ partner’s so much bigger than me.”

“Perhaps when we meet the Eternians, I’ll just smile at them and then you shoot them while they’re distracted. That will save us a lot of unnecessary furniture repair costs.”

She laughed. “I know that’d work on most people. Not sure about those bastards though.”

She pushed the chopped meat towards Angelo, who began to pile it into the pie base he had been preparing.

“You make this a lot quicker. I actually quite dislike preparing savoury dishes. They’re an inaccurate representation of my talents.”

“I can’t cook for shit. I guess I could learn though.”

“Why would you want to? You hate cooking, and you have me.”

“Uh…” Aimee began poking at the groove she had left in the countertop. “Like I’m gonna let you do all the work. You got me thinkin’, there’s gonna be a lot more demand for your cakes up in Gathelatio. It’s huge port town, and every time I’ve seen it, the place has been packed with traders an’ stuff.”

“I suppose you’re right about that. With no monsters to contend with like here, tourists are going to be clamouring for a taste of my delicacies.” He pushed his hair back from his face and grinned.

“Not if yer too tired to make ‘em.”

“Oh. I see what you’re getting at. It’s alright though, you don’t need-”

“How about you let me help you out every once in a while? This goes in the oven now, yeah?” She pointed to the food.

“Mmhmm.”

“Yer blushin’ real hard right now, by the way.” She teased him as she crossed over to the oven. Her relief that Angelo had already prepared it was almost palpable, as both of them knew she had no idea what she was doing.

“I know…” He pressed a hand to his face to try and suppress his grin. He had a feeling he looked like an idiot already, and didn’t want to make it worse. “You’re being so good to me… It’s so… So sweet of you.”

Angelo’s talents undoubtedly extended to having a way with words that could charm anybody almost as effectively as his cakes, but the security he brought through his words was fabricated to make people bend to his will. He could make things up with no problems at all, but he had always had trouble articulating his actual feelings. He had an awful lot of friends and allies who had died before he had the chance to give them the acknowledgement they deserved – the Kaiser perhaps most of all. He’d been close to Aimee – regardless of whether he was willing to address that or not – for nearly five years, and he still found it hard to tell her how he felt sometimes.

He supposed she’d probably figured him out by that point, however, as she beamed at him and wrapped her arms around his waist, moving across the room so quickly that he’d barely seen it happen, and in the process sending her hat flying when it collided with his chest. Still smiling, he hugged her back.

“Idiot. Of course I am – it’s the least I can do after everythin’ you’ve ever done for me. An’ I love you. That’s more than enough reason to give ya all the support I can.” She nestled her head into him. “You don’t mind, right?” She added, with a little more urgency in her tone.

“Heavens, no! I mean… I appreciate every little thing you’ve ever done for me. I know I haven’t shown it in the past, but I assure you, I’ll support you every bit as much – no, wait. Double the amount. To make up for the past few years.”

“Thank you, darlin’. Really, thanks.”

“And like you said, it really is the least I can do as well. I love you too, Aimee. I love you so very much."

***

“Angelo? Were you having a bad dream again?”

“Yeah…” he replied when he had managed to catch his breath. “The same one… Every time.”

“I gathered. You okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

He rubbed his neck, which was oddly stiff, and surveyed the room with his eyes. After they had eaten, he and Aimee had started packing some of their things for the move to Gathelatio, and judging by the large crate in front of him, he supposed he must have fallen asleep. Tiredness was just a normal part of their lives ever since the dreams had started. Any sleep they could get was valued.

He felt something soft but heavy fall on his back as Aimee draped one of their blankets over him, before snuggling under it herself and placing her head on his shoulder.

“I woulda thought beating Geneolgia up would get rid of ‘em…” she sighed. “Guess not.”

“Hmm, technically he beat us up. Maybe we should challenge the brat again when we next meet, and see if that helps?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Oh… But we owe the Geneolgia household so much. Also, isn’t he technically our boss now?”

“Huh, yer right. Shit…”

“And we owe his brother a lot too.”

“We do?”

“Oh, uh… I didn’t tell you? Kaiser Oblivion’s real name… It was Geneolgia. Denys, or something like that.”

Aimee didn’t say anything for a while. Angelo frowned. Was this her way of grieving? It wasn’t like her to be so quiet and subdued, and it brought a pang of guilt to his chest. How many times had he been so completely oblivious that he hadn’t realised she was hurting? He’d been so self-centred for so long that it hadn’t even occurred to him that she was genuinely in love with him. He’d been so stubborn that it took mental torture – in the forms of these nightmares – to realise he was in love with her as well. It didn’t seem unlikely that he had missed this along with everything else.

Just thinking about his behaviour over the past few years made him cringe. He'd been so overcome with his own cowardice that he'd turned foul, treating the people who loved and admired him like dirt for some selfish desire to protect himself. He was ashamed, and he knew just how lucky he was that Aimee had never given up on him. Not only had she stuck through that dark time of unpleasantness with him, but she'd also been so supportive of his endeavours of self-improvement in the recent months. He slid his arm around her and told himself that he would never disrespect her again.

“Maybe Yew will know what we can do to repay him. Think I’ll ask him, instead of shooting him.”

Angelo smiled, and held her closer. “Do whatever you think will help.”

“Yeah. I suppose we better make amends with the Glanz Empire before we get our revenge on the duchy as well. Just so nothin’ is left undone if we fail.”

“Yes. We need to let Divinia know we’re alright as well. She’ll be worried; we just up and vanished. There's something I need to tell her anyway,” he stated. The Geneolgia brothers had made him realise just how awfully he had treated her as well, after everything she'd done for him, and he knew he needed to apologise, even if it was hard to admit out loud. He breathed deeply. “Aaah, we’ve got a lot of things to put right. So that means we’ve got a lot more life to live. This mission might mean our ends, but our families deserve to be avenged, so… We just have to do everything we need to do while we still have the chance.”

“Yeah. I need to see the Venus sisters, and put things right for my people. I don’t wanna die, but it’s somethin’ I gotta do.”

“I don’t want to die either. But I won’t rest easy until I’ve faced the Black Blades for what they did to me.”

“That’s years away though, right? We can’t go throwin’ our lives away this young. Neither of us have even turned eighteen yet, we’re still nothin’ more than a couple o’ dumb-ass kids. So we don’t have to rush or nothin’. There are things I definitely wanna do before I die, and I wanna do ‘em with you.”

“What kind of things?”

Aimee smirked. “Stay alive, and you’ll find out.”

“Seems reasonable,” Angelo laughed. “I suppose I better do just that then. I’m not dying on you. And you’re not dying on me. That’s how we’re going to support each other.”

“Aaah, yer the best. I love ya, darlin’.”

“I love you too… My sweet little sugarcake.”

She wrapped her arms around him tightly and nuzzled his face. He smiled contentedly and pressed his lips to the top of her head, closing his eyes and letting that moment take over like nothing else mattered in the world.

They spent the rest of the evening in each other’s arms, sharing kisses and stories about nothing in particular until Aimee eventually dozed off on him. Angelo’s arm was dead at this point, but he didn’t really care. He was too content to notice. And regardless of how numb he was, or the fact that he couldn’t move if he wanted to, he had assured himself that if Aimee needed him when she woke up, he would be there for her.

It was all he could do for the person who had made his life so much more complete. She was the sole reason that, even though he had no idea what his future held, or even if he had a future at all, he could die happy, knowing for certain that he could say he had been to Heaven.

#bravely second #angelo ovo panettone #aimee matchlock #bravely default #misede writes

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