#(the moonlit scent thing????? itches my brain to death.)

[undefeatablesin]

Hello! Hope you're well. I have a mildly silly question, but does Ruza have heterochromia?

I've been staring at your art of her and been puzzling over it.

I figured her reference pics would be best, but while it's true in her Thorn Uniform, her eyes don't looked colored in on her Hunter Garb page, and I figured her eyes both being depicted as the sort of red tint was more of an artistic choice but it could also just actually change, Yharnam does weird stuff to people, and I hope you don't mind me asking you directly.

No such thing as silly questions here, my friend! I don't mind at all, I'm only too glad to answer any questions people might have 💙

But anyways, yes, Ruza does in fact have heterochromia. Her right eye is brown and her left eye is blue. I haven't made any HQ refs of just her face, so its understandable that it might be a bit confusing to puzzle out from just my regular artwork alone or from the really small face scale on my garb ref sheets. The clearest depiction of her heterochromia that I have in my works at the moment is this sketch-but this indeed is the correct colouration for her eyes across all of her designs.

While I'm here though, I'd like to share a little about this design choice; I mentioned this briefly in the tags of another post, but initially I had planned for Ruza to have started with both her eyes being brown, but for the left to have changed to its pale blue hue after becoming tied to the hunter's dream. Individuals are already "marked" by the Great Ones in some fashion in the canon of the game, such as the characters that drop the Oedon Writhe rune after death and like everyone commenting that the Hunter has a specific strange "moonlit" scent. I thought it would be interesting to take that idea a step further by introducing a physical indicator of the hunter's moon-bound state-and given the game's most prevalent theme of eyes, that was ultimately what I felt appropriate to change.

The pale blue of her left eye was, none too surprisingly, therefore meant to evoke the colour of the moon, and it was no accident that the pupil of that eye is depicted as red in some panels and lighting. It was all part of the idea of her connection to the dream and the fact she, as all paleblood hunters are, is presently under the Moon Presence's thrall.

However, I wasn't entirely sure whether to keep this idea, if it blended well with the lore or if it was maybe too on the nose or cliche, so I haven't really canonised it entirely as part of my lore specifically. Even so, heterochromia has become something I feel Ruza would have regardless, so it remains as one of her features across all of her incarnations and still receives these stylistic nods and hints in the comic and such.

#sinbox #(thank u for your interest!!!! im always more than glad to explain things omg) #(i do need to make some refs for her face and hair from different positions tho its on my to do list) #(the pupil always has that red sheen it just doesnt always show) #(the moonlit scent thing????? itches my brain to death.) #(bc if the moon presences name is flora then is it safe to assume the moonlit scent is flowers?) #(the flowers in the hunters dream perhaps........) #(well anyway thats what ruza smells like so LDFLDLDL) #(I ENJOYED EXPOUNDING ON THIS ALDLDL i appreciate your curiosity)

[pinesprings]

Aetea: Chapter 2

(Just give me a reason, why is it so hard to find one)

Chapter One

Summary: The can of worms is open but it's not the only thing that is. Hearts get poured out somewhere amidst the action and the aftermath

Notes: It's finally here! Took longer than I expected. This is twice as long as the 1st chapter due to.. personal reasons. Im treating you fluff today uwu. I certainly do hope it's better than my anxiety is telling me it is. Anyway, enjoy!

Warnings: child abuse, blood and violence, head injury, injuries, panic attacks I guess. In one word, angst.

Reading Time: 28 mins (3.5k words)

Or read here on ao3

***

It wasn't supposed to go this way. No, no. It was supposed to be fine.

This did not qualify as fine.

But like lives are not supposed to sail in the storm and the storm is not supposed to help death outrun their years by sinking them beneath the waves and foam, things don't always go as planned.

JJ's body wasn't supposed to look so broken and Kiara's hands weren't supposed to have blood on them. No, her fingers shouldn't have been dyed in this dark crimson of sin.

The remainder of tears stored in her decided to leave her eyes and dance with the blood in her hands, dance with the sin, try to wash it away.

She let out the weakest mumble of despair as realization had hit her. She might have killed someone. She might have-

Her eyes moved frantically between the two bodies slumped over each other, as full of life as all those inanimate objects littering the ground. They were both too still. She gasped at the sight, panic overwhelming her and her senses dimmed by the thought that plagued her brain.

That she had no damn idea what to do.

Kiara kneeled down and gathered all her strength to move the weight of the monster off of her friend. She gritted her teeth in a feckless attempt to free the blonde boy from being crushed by the man.

Even unconscious, he was still causing him pain.

She cursed under her breath before pushing again with all her might and managing first to shove the man to the side, then to get ahold of the boy, pulling him on top of the mess of tangled limbs.

"JJ! JJ can you hear me?" she practically yelled at his bruised face, her voice cracking under the pressure. Not getting an answer, she swallowed the throbbing pain wanting to escape her throat and tried to put some kind of order in her pounding head.

Heartbeat. She had to check his heartbeat.

She wiped her palms on her thighs to rid them of the sweat. A pointless action, since the fluid kept escaping through her pores, itching her skin as it fell down in thick droplets.

Taking a deep breath, Kiara placed her fingers on his neck and by the time thirty seconds had passed and she could calculate the rythm of his pulse, she was ready to faint.

It was fast, but steady.

A breath that she wasn't able to let out before evaded her lips, along with a relieved chuckle. His heart sounded just like any heart should. Still, his breathing was ragged. She figured it was because of the state of his ribs and nose. His entire body was covered in scrapes and the various bruises had already started dyeing purple patches of skin.

She was dreadfully sure she had heard something break, perhaps right before she had…

Right before she had potentially murdered someone in cold blood.

Oh god.

Sweat started showering her again, an insufferable heat urging her to try -and fail- to catch her breath. Drowning in vague but persistent ramblings racing through her brain, Kie felt like she could throw up any minute.

Should she call 911?

Should she check if the monster is still alive?

She should call.

But first check.

But what if..

…what if he's dead?

For a solid minute the single thing she felt capable of doing was pacing back and forth while frantically pulling at her hair, as if she was plucking the weed from the field of her mind, so that she could plant a sensible contemplation.

Resisting the ever growing urge to vomit she crouched next to the unconscious body of the man, reluctantly raising her hand above his nose. In a swift flare of his nostrils warm air blew against her palm.

A sniffle escaped her as she withdrew her hand from the repulsive face.

She sat down, her head facing her bent knees. Another one. A tear followed.

Slowly tears were falling like currents destined to ford countries and forests of her cheeks to end up in the sea of her lap. She let each and every muscle in her body relax and fall down, mirroring that one wall that falls and lets the enemy breach.

Surrendered to the sensation of emerging from the moonlit waves and breathing in the midnight breeze.

Rich, chestnut waves a crown on her head as it arose to face the ceiling, or perhaps what laid beyond, and while the tears were still fresh carving their path down her skin, she started laughing.

Laughing so loud it almost sounded hysterical. Nothing made sense anymore so why should that matter?

"I'm not a bloody murderer" she announced in between laughs, the knot in her stomach starting to dissolve just an inch. Taking a deep, shuddering breath she whipped her phone out from the back pocket of her shorts and dialed those three numbers every soul knows by heart.

"911, what is your emergency?"

"I--"

Kiara suddenly froze. She turned to look at JJ's broken form with guilt in her eyes. That was it. Questions would be asked and the answers required would simply birth more problems. The wolves had chased them and they had run, but now they had come all the way to the start of the cliff.

They would have to learn how climb down the rocks. To survive.

"Miss?"

Her attention shifted back to the ongoing call as she took a deep breath before spitting out those next sentences that would save her JJ, but could perhaps doom him.

"Two people are injured. Badly" she declared with an unnaturally casual tone. She flinched at how cruel and unfeeling she sounded after having been drained of the pearly tears. Numb, she ventured. Yeah, that should be the word.

After having shared their location and been told that a bus would probably arrive there in less than fifteen minutes, Kiara sat down on the edge of the couch with her gaze fixed on JJ's closed shut eyes. She pictured those wonderful blue eyes, captivating depths of the ocean, waves inviting, that could devour you in a heartbeat, bringing you down beneath the horizon, the warm rays bathing your salty skin in the sunlight like a faraway promise of safety. Like home.

She always felt secure with JJ. When she could smell his scent of carefree summer and admire his loose strands of hair flowing with the gentle wind like golden sand reshaping the desert hills, she felt untouchable. Clear dominance over her self, only she could dictate her destiny, in spite of any concept of fate. Ironically enough, it was not her will that demanded she quenched her thirst in the radiant oasis that were his eyes, amidst the fervor of his blazing smile.

I'm getting carried away, she reminded herself and dismissed the thoughts with a shake of her head.

She decided it would be best if she didn't attempt to wake him up. It would serve no purpose other than she'd have an easier time waiting, the knot in her stomach would have begun to untangle.

Her fingers absentmindedly toyed with her bracelets while her concerned glare lingered on JJ's limp form. Instinctively, her grip tightened on the bright colored beads when her eyes met with the purple patches of skin. They looked like a spiraling vortex, bizarre black holes embroidered on his soft epidermis.

Kiara was exhausted of witnessing the manifestation of his father's corruption on his body. She yearned to feel him in the safety of her lap, her breath caressing his ear with soft whispers of comfort. And when his wounds would heal she wished they never reappeared, no secret pain staining his teasing smirk after he had found yet another way to mess with her.

The ambulances arrived shortly indeed. Father and son were loaded inside the vehicles while paramedics tended to the most urgent wounds. Kiara played along the lines of being too shaken up to provide any answer to questions, which wasn't that far from reality. She reached her parents' car, loyally waiting parked a few feet away from the house and turned on the engine.

Following closely behind the vehicles as they rode to the hospital she utilized the few minutes to try and conjure a scenario that would explain what happened as painlessly as possible, but the thoughts kept slipping through her mind. Her grip was tight on the stirring wheel, the knuckles on her clammy hands assuming an almost deathly tint.

He's going to be alright, that was all she kept repeating in her brain like a poem.

Maybe if she said it enough she would believe it.

***

"Hey.. hey, you're awake"

JJ's eyelids drowsily fluttered open only to wince at the immense brightness his pupils were greeted with. He begrudgingly welcomed the cold, emotionless white light while his eyes adjusted to the silhouette looming over him only a breath's distance away.

Kie, he figured, if the soft voice and lovely smile were anything to go by.

JJ sighed in relief at the familiar presence lending her warmth to his waking body, estranged by his surroundings. Or perhaps that's what he would have done, had the air not caught on his chest and diminished into a spark of flame that burnt more and more as it licked his bones and climbed up his ribcage. The pain elicited a faint wheezing sound from his lips, the later which parted with a difficulty that could only indicate they had been sealed together only for a significant amount of time. He didn't release the breath before the inferno flaring inside his chest dissolved into a dull fit of throbs.

"What's wrong? JJ! Are you alright?" she whispered-shouted somewhat frantically, the undercurrent of panic mildly enhancing her as usual gentle voice.

JJ simply nodded, his teeth still grinding to help deal with the pain born from what he assumed was a broken rib.

A quick -although dizzy- glance around the room was enough to confirm that he was in fact in a hospital room, and soon the pale mechanical beeping of a machine perched behind Kiara shifted into his focus, enhancing the whole 'hospital aesthetic'.

" 'ey Kie…" JJ barely rasped out. His throat felt as dry as a sun-cooked raisin- a weird metaphor but it was the one that dared materialize into a thought. Nevertheless, his words were accompanied by a sleepy smile.

"miss m?"

A genuinely joyous grin was plastered on her features as soon as his breath tinged his vocal cords to produce the melody of speech. The exhale of air that left her body was long, perhaps releasing two breaths caught at once.

The skin around his nose was itching him but his limbs felt way too heavy to lift, so he let them stay warmly tucked beside his torso. The pleasant heat and smell of the freshly washed sheets spread across his body made it even harder to wish to move.

Kiara's face lit up with realization as her brain processed the way his voice was hoarse and rough, deducing that JJ's throat was most likely in need of hydration after that many hours of being asleep.

"Do you want anything? Water?" she offered, already pouring some of the transparent liquid in a spare cup from the stack on the bedside table. The sound was almost soothing but JJ willed himself awake. Making a huge effort to regain motion in his arm to press the button that tilted the bed so that he was no longer lying down, his fingers found his nose to scratch away the itch, only to be met with the rough feel of a cast.

Kiara practically shoved the cup into his hands.

"Here. Drink" she ordered and he complied, gulping down the liquid greedily. The pain awakened in almost every part of his body but he ignored it, instead reveling in the pleasant velvety coolness of the water.

"How are you feeling?" Kie asked him as she plucked the halfway empty cup from his fingers and placed it next to the telephone on the bed stand. Looking at her a bit better he could make out dark circles underneath her eyes. She looked overall tired and pale.

"Just peachy" he yawned. "What happened?"

"After…?"

"You know" he sighed bitterly

"He- You.. almost woke up a couple of times. Like, your eyes stirred a couple times, you probably don't remember. The doctors said you were lucky because you had no brain damage, but you still-"

JJ shook his head.

"I meant, how come he stopped using me as a piñata"

Kiara stopped and stared at him for a second -perhaps hurt by the choice of words- before her shoulders drooped and she leaned into the chair.

"I… I smashed a vase over his head"

"You did what?" JJ asked while a sly grin grew on his face. He chuckled incredulously, which he immediately regretted when the searing white pain rumbled in his chest.

"He's still alive" she said with pursed lips, almost as if she considered the outcome unfortunate.

He searched her eyes for as long as it took him to sober up again and for the severity of the situation to sink in again.

"Here?" he mumbled, dark shadows making his eyes misty.

Kiara simply nodded solemnly. Her brows remained firmly in a deep frown as they fell in a brief moment of uncomfortable hush. The thoughts neither of them was brave enough to voice were sure to invade every cell of his mind as he gazed groggily up at the IV leading nutrients and all that medical mumbo jumbo he didn't know to the catheter penetrating his forearm.

Just as he was about to ask for more details two swift knocks prompted both their heads to turn to the door. The ivory painted wood was shunted aside to reveal a woman dressed in the pearl white robe of a doctor over scrubs.

"Good morning mister Maybank."

JJ flinched at the name.

"I'm dr. Garcia, you're my patient for today" she said primly, uncrossing her arms from the chart balanced against her chest. "I see you've woken up! Don't worry, I'm just going to check a few things and change your casts"

"Whatever you need do, doc" he said with shallow fervor.

By the time traces of sweet cologne were all left in the room from dr. Garcia, any tension in the atmosphere between them had dissipated. JJ's thoughts were less blurry, his mind perhaps had awaken, but with it arose freshly painful memories and the loose ends they brought.

The previous evening kept repeating and playing in his brain much alike scratched vinyl, stuck to the same part of a song, condemned never to leave the nicked words behind. As his senses felt the terror all over only without the rage to numb the pain, his ears remembered a sound he wouldn't think he could forget, even for that short amount of time.

A million faces changed on his skin as he pondered and gathered the courage to bring the issue up, afraid phrasing would take the dream away and crush it like a flimsy piece of foil. The accelerated beeping of the machine mirroring the crazy thumping of his heart against his ribcage only betrayed him further.

"Hey, Princess?" he said cautiously, but to his ears it sounded like a desperate whimper. He gulped and plastered his best nonchalant expression on his features before resuming. "Do you remember when I decked him in the face, what you told me. Did you mean it?"

Even JJ himself could realise how pathetic of an attempt at his voice not shaking that was. The lump in his throat made it immensely more difficult to speak, combined with the throbbing pain in his chest that visited at every passage of air through him.

"What I said- Oh. "

She fixed her gaze on the ground, smiling sheepishly. Before she hid her face out of JJ's eyesight he managed to catch a glimpse of her furiously blushing cheeks. He didn't know what to make of it.

"Did you mean it?"

Kiara looked at him, fidgeting restlessly. She hugged her torso, brushing her blouse soothingly with her fingers. Whether she picked up at the way the machine beeped almost as persistently as a heart attack, she didn't show it.

One brief intake of breath that could have lasted for a decade. To say JJ had been hanging from her lips would be an understatement.

One inhale, and then the answer.

"Yes"

The blonde gawked at her, stunned.

"I meant it"

JJ shook his head, leering back a little.

"But what about Pope? I thought.."

The girl waved her hand dismissively.

"There's nothing between me and Pope. If anything we're more of siblings. I had this discussion with him too, I just" she paused, "I hadn't found an opportunity to tell you -well, until now"

She peered at him expectantly but JJ was malfunctioning.

She bit her lower lip.

"You know, after the entire gold fiasco.. John B's disa-.."

Her voice broke at the mention of their friend. The heel of her palm shot up to wipe at the welled up corner of her eye. "I needed.. something- someone to hold on to. Like an anchor"

"But I guess deep down even before then, I knew. I wanted you to be my anchor." she paused, smiling bitterly.

"I've known for a while. I like you, and a lot"

JJ was glitching like his cousin Kyle's relic of a laptop, perfectly mimicking a deer caught in front of headlights. His mouth opened and closed right back as he fumbled for words. He could practically sense a blush creeping in and painting all over his cheeks and underneath the cast.

Kiara giggled timidly, burying her face in her palms.

"You know what just forget it"

"-But I've made so many moves!" JJ finally blurted out, tone almost accusatory.

"What?"

Kiara sat back straight and stared at him, only traces of shame remaining in her eyes, for it gave way to bafflement.

"You always rejected me, so I accepted that nothing between us would ever happen" he frowned.

"JJ." she grinned as she caught on with his claims, "Joking about my ass doesn't count as a move"

"I-" he tried, looking mock-offended "It's a lovely ass!"

Kiara laughed and JJ loved it, cherished the sound melodious and calming like the gurgling of refreshing spring water.

His own burbling laughter blended with hers in perfect sync, in spite of his ribs protesting in ache.

"Seriously, I did. Numerous times" he mumbled somberly.

"Yeah, yeah, you sure did" she teased, raising her eyebrows smugly. "…so?"

"So.. you like me a lot, huh?" JJ teased loftily, gifting her a lopsided grin. His chest burned like a wildfire, and this time it wasn't due to the hurt.

The taunt earned him a scoff.

"Yeah?" Kie raised an eyebrow mischievously.

"Well I like you a lot too" he said simply. His smirk melted into a sincere smile filled with love and uncertainty.

He felt bare, naked.

Aflutter, the boy apprehensively regarded the girl, what now his heart was exposed and offered as a promise he was afraid would be refused to be made.

The girl looked at him almost fondly as he struggled not to cower in the comfort of the sheets. The heat almost felt unbearable all of a sudden and the skin beneath the gauze and casts felt damp and itchy.

"You sure I'm not dead?" he gulped, "Cause this feels a lot like-"

Whatever muffled words followed were drowned out as Kiara cautiously leaned in and planted her salty lips on his, tucking her loose strands of hair behind one ear. JJ simply stared with his not swollen eye open wide at the soft lips encompassing his skin in their warmth, before he gave in to the kiss.

-Heaven

It was tender, fragile, an intimate moment as they shared their love, in whatever form they knew love to be. Gently, carefully, like being afraid that the full strength of their passion would shatter the other with as much ease as a fire would crumple the edges of love poem-filled paper.

She took the offering.

Suddenly the two were one and a whole, like the notes of a harpism finding their place in the melody, only to be sung and forever treasured in the minty aftertaste of raindrops on twilit grass. Their flesh demanded to be melt in the heat of one another, and then the beads to be intertwined as they bloomed into smoldering flames.

Kiara pulled back but the memory of her taste was imprinted on JJ's lips, leaving him breathless.

"I love you"

They could be eachother's reason.

"Love you too, idiot"

For as long as it made sense.

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