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starks-hero · 2 years

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Iris

Pairing: Crowley x human!Reader

Summary: “When everything's made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am.” Or, Crowley finally decides to tell you, his human lover, that he is a demon. He's justifiably terrified.

Word Count: 2.0k

Warnings: hurt/comfort

a/n: shout out to the wonderful anon that chucked me headfirst back into my good omens' obsession. anyway, I'm not saying you should listen to Iris whilst reading this but–

Crowley loved your eyes.

Well, he loved the entirety of you. But there was just something about their alluring shade, the way they watched him so intently and with softness he couldn't recall last being regarded with. Their divinity reflected that of the cosmos themselves. Crowley should know, he built them.

He never really understood the whole ‘eyes are the window to the soul’ line before you. From Crowley's, albeit limited understanding, souls didn't have windows, and even if they did, it wouldn't be a very good indicator of one's character. Even the bleakest of days look more promising from behind the safety of a window.

You were the one to change that perception, to take it in gentle hands and mould it into something softer, more sentimental. You proved to him that maybe there was some truth to the verses he'd heard poets recite again and again over the millennia. When with you, Crowley could feel the unconditional kindness beaming from you like rays from the sun, a readiness and willingness to be good that made him fall for humanity all over again.

And yet despite everything your eyes inspired in him, you were yet to see his own. And for good reason. Crowley still didn't understand what miracle, (or lack thereof) had transpired for you to be with him, but he did know that he wasn't about to put it at risk. You were his anti-thesis; made up of all things good and loveable. The thought of how quickly you'd leave the moment you saw his eyes and all they stood for was one that plagued him daily. But on the other side of the coin, Crowley couldn't disregard the fact that you deserved to know. You deserved the truth. You deserved so much more...

It was time for the bell to toll.

And so, Crowley followed his usual routine of picking you up after your shift, only this time the music was cranked up double what it usually would be (already deafening) in an attempt to drown out his frantic overthinking. The windows shuddered with each guitar solo and Crowley was sunk so far down in his seat his foot was pressed uncomfortably against the gas pedal. If it weren't for the fact that the Bentley was somewhat sentient, he probably would have swerved off the road a mile or two back.

The moment he set foot in your home an uncomfortable burning sensation shot up his spine. He cursed whoever had blessed your house before realising that said uncomfortable feeling was in fact a combination of both his nerves as well as the conscious he forgot he had.

The drive back to the flat was tortuous, for Crowley at least. Your hand was on his thigh as he drove, drawing circles into the fabric. The ever-alluring sound of Freddie Mercury's voice droned on in the background as Crowley rehearsed what he wanted to say, swapping out words and rephrasing sentences before restarting altogether. The closer he got to home the more hopeless he began to feel and by the time he was holding the flat door open for you Crowley fought the urge to find the nearest cave, catacomb or other undisturbed dwelling to take a century-long nap in. He just wanted to wait this whole thing out.

The reminder that you wouldn't be here in a century served as an adequate kick in the arse as he closed the door behind him.

His shoulders were slumped and his steps slow as he moved through the apartment's halls in all their bleakness. The only room in the entirety of the flat that had any real colour was his conservatory, filled to the brim with succulents and tropical plants. The moment he entered said room he was met with the sight of green leaves and an earthy scent heavy in the air. It was an impressive sight, really; plants that stretched feet off the ground, leaves proudly pointed skyward, (although given Crowley’s presence it is far more likely this display was out of fear.) Ivy vines had begun to climb up the walls, something Crowley had intended to deal with before deciding he was rather fond of how they contrasted the greyness of the polished stone they clung too.

Among it all, in the very centre of the botanical display, the plant you'd gifted him proudly sat. A purple Iris, its petals bright and its leaves healthy and succulent. Its scent was sweeter than that of the other plants and the flower, despite its size, did not seem intimidated by the impressive foliage that surrounded it.

Crowley’s fingers delicately ghosted over the leaves. the sentimental side of him liked to believe that the flower’s flourishing beauty was because it had been gifted to him by you. Something about everything growing better with love. The more reasonable part of him acknowledged that it was due to the fact the plant had been placed nearest to the window as well as being the first watered each morning and night. The battle between his sentiment and rationality was nullified by the fact that you were also the reason the plant received such treatment, favouritism having quickly steered his hand.

You just had that habit about you; inspiring beauty whether you meant to or not.

As Crowley studied the flower that in so many ways reminded him of you, he imagined the leaves becoming dry and shrivelled, of the royal purple petals withering beneath his touch. He pulled his hand away.

He found you reclined along the couch, one arm covering your face whilst the other hung weightlessly off the side of the furniture. Your dramatic pose was reminiscent of some tragic renaissance painting and the sight was one that inspired such fondness Crowley didn't even mention how you had your feet up on the fine velvet.

“Tired, love?” He asked instead.

“You have no idea. Today was an utter nightmare.”

Even whilst talking about the most mundane of things your voice was siren-like, resonant with divinity. Crowley could listen to you for hours, for the rest of his life. Until his immortal heart stopped and the earth beneath him turned to ash.

“I feel better now that I'm here with you.”

The words sent a dagger into his side, the following guilt twisting it in place. He moved to join you on the sofa and with a gentle tap to your ankle, he watched you move your feet before taking a seat beside you.

Your eyes were on him, he could feel it. The tension in his body and the seriousness of his expression was not something you were used to. He spoke before you could voice your concern.

“There's something I want–” He swallowed. “Something I need to tell you.”

“Okay.” Your breathy laugh that encompassed the word was an admirable attempt to hide your nerves but Crowley knew you better. “What is it?”

Silence followed.

Crowley opened and closed his mouth a few times, no words passing from his lips despite how hard he tried to voice them. There was a building pressure in his temples and he felt like his forked tongue was tied in a knot.

“Crowley.” Your hand travelled across the plane of his thigh and grabbed his own. It was a comforting touch yet he fought the urge to pull away. “What is it? You're scaring me.”

Another twist of the dagger.

“I– I just, it's that...” Crowley made a noise that fell somewhere between a groan and a whine. “I... I'm–” foreswearing words altogether, he reached for his glasses. With shaking hands, he pulled them away. “I'm not... good.”

He couldn't bring himself to look at you, to see the horror and fear in your eyes. “I'm quite the opposite actually.”

He felt your hand leave his own, the skin you'd once touched feeling bare. His chest hurt, his eyes stung and when he finally turned to you your fear and disbelief sent another sharpened blade through his chest.

“What–” The word fell quietly, the beginning of a sentence you'd never finish. Crowley took the liberty of answering regardless.

“Demon, unholy horror, the reason children are afraid of the dark.”

When you said nothing, he continued.

“I wanted to tell you. I should have told you. I never meant for this to go so far. I tried to stop it so many times but then you'd say or do something and I– just never wanted it to end. And I know that's selfish but–” Crowley motioned to his eyes. “That's what I am. Selfish, unforgivable– a bad omen.”

As his words set in you remained unmoving. Your eyes hadn't left his, not since he'd pulled off his glasses and laid everything bare.

“Love...” There was another stretch of silence and Crowley felt like he was drowning; like he was back at Mesopotamia with wind and rain at his back and a wave so large it blended with the sky fast approaching on the horizon. “Please, say something.”

You said nothing.

Rather, you raised your hand against his cheek, thumb timidly tracing beneath his eye, as if to ensure it was real.

Crowley flinched.

“This is what you've been hiding from me? All this time.” You asked. “And here I thought you just really didn't like the sun.”

Crowley blinked a few times, lips falling in a frown. He backed away from your touch.

“Crowley...”

“You've just found out that I'm evil incarnate and you're making jokes.”

“What would you prefer I do?”

“I'm a demon.” Crowley ensured to emphasise the word. “I'd prefer you did what anyone else would do.”

‘Leave.’ This part was silent. ‘For your own sake.’

You didn't waver. Your hand fell back against his shoulder, testing the waters and when he didn't pull away you continued.

“From my understanding, demons are supposed to be cruel, unlovable. So if you're a demon,” your hand ventured to his neck, Crowley's eyes falling shut despite himself as you traced his jaw. “Then no offence love but you're not a very good one.”

Crowley couldn't quite place the feeling that took hold of him at your words, but it left him feeling both hollowed and relieved. His eyes stung again, but this time he was smiling.

“You're being far too conversational about this.” His fingers encircled your wrist, he could feel the steady beat of your pulse beneath his thumb. “This really doesn't bother you..?”

You shook your head. “And even if it did, I'm in too deep now to get hung up on something like that.”

Crowley tried to think rationally but instead, he thought of the beauty of the cosmos, of dark purple petals and perfumed air. Of your eyes and their warmth and this time the idea of a withering flower didn't even cross his mind.

“You're sure about this, falling in love with a demon. Dangerous business, that.”

“I'll take my chances,” you mused. “Besides, being without you is the only real hell I can imagine.”

Crowley chortled, boyish and pure, a noise that certainly should not have come from a demon. "Aziraphale been loaning you his books, has he?"

“No, but I am trying to cheer you up." You gently nudged his side. “Is it working?”

Crowley's reaction told you it was. His eyes in all their vibrant brilliance shone so bright you felt you were staring at the sun. When he reached for his glasses, your hand worked on its own accord to stop him.

“Leave them off, please? I want to see you." Your words were cleansing and for the first time in an eternity, he felt worthy. Worthy of adoration, of love, of you.

Crowley kissed you, and you did not wilt.

tag list: @bakerstreethound @miraclesoflove @doozywoozy @mywellspringoflife

#sir let me kiss your head and spend the evening complementing your eyes in every language I know #man oh man did I have a field day with the title (the song his eyes AND the flower) 3 for 1 #crowley x reader #good omens #good omens crowley #good omens crowley x reader #crowley x you #crowley imagine #crowley x y/n #crowley good omens

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shoppncarticles · 1 year

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Every Binding of Isaac Boss: Part 2

Now we move on to the original game’s DLC, Wrath of the Lamb! This DLC added quite a bit to the game, such as many new, interesting items, alternate floor types, a new playable character, and most importantly, a decent picking of new bosses! So, let’s not waste any time and get into the new selection. If you haven’t read the last post on the base game’s bosses, I suggest you do that first.

The Seven Super Deadly Sins

The DLC adds a set of super-powered sins to make your descent into the unholy depths of Isaac’s basement that much more challenging, with each becoming a bit bigger and, usually, more grotesque. I like how Super Greed removes the subtlety he might’ve had previously and now bears a big dollar sign on his forehead, just in case you couldn’t tell how money-hungry he was before.

Pin is actually a weaker version of Scolex, one of the base game’s later bosses. Pin is another early game worm boss like Larry Jr., but instead burrows in and out of the ground, with an unchanging, unhappy expression. The poor thing really doesn’t want to be here right now, not helped by the fact that it might be the weakest of all the game’s bosses.

Widow

One of the DLC’s big changes was the introduction of various spider enemies to parallel the game’s previous selection of flies. While flies infest the Basement floors, spiders instead call the alternate Cellar floor their home. As such, an early game boss in Widow is provided to show off how bothersome the arachnids can be. I really like Widow’s design, since while it is spiderlike in shape, Widow’s body parts are clearly human in origin and make the whole thing seem a lot more unpleasant and vile in appearance. The upside-down head is definitely the best part, reminding me a lot of The Thing more than anything else.

The Blighted Ovum

Playing The Binding of Isaac for long enough will teach you a lot of medical terminology you likely wouldn’t have known about otherwise, such as with the Blighted Ovum here. This is Gemini’s posthumous counterpart, leaving the little sibling as a wispy spirit and the bigger sibling as a mostly flayed zombie. Death is anything but a deterrent for Isaac bosses though, since now the big sibling won’t ever get tired, and the little ghost now fires a giant blood laser if you ever cross its line of sight. Wild!

Gurdy Jr.

As if one Gurdy wasn’t enough, we also get a little Gurdy Jr. as well! Being far smaller than her original counterpart, Gurdy Jr. is fully mobile and can actually ricochet around the room at concerningly high speeds when given the chance. Those guts must be a lot slipperier than they look. This thing has to be scarier than any normal zombie would be, don’t you think? Imagine seeing a huge mass of internal organs sliding across the floor towards you at 40mph. One with a devious smile too, just to rub salt in the wound.

The Husk

The Caves’ alternate floor lies in the Catacombs, and there you can find the posthumous Duke of Flies. I like the exaggerated, hanging jaw of the Husk, it really conveys that this thing is dead proper compared to the still-living Duke of Flies. What’s more, the Husk is filled with spiders as well as the average flies, as if now that the Duke is dead nothing is preventing the flies from being hunted by other scavenging predators.

The Hollow

Wrath of the Lamb sure loves its posthumous bosses, giving us another with the Hollow, the dead version of Larry Jr. Instead of traveling along a grid, the gnashing worms now move in diagonal patterns, and flies to boot, as if now ghostly apparitions of the previous worms. The thinner teeth are a nice touch too, it makes the Hollow feel a lot more monstrous and predatory in design.

The Carrion Queen

Despite being a maggot, posthumous Chub shows that the big larva has an internal skeletal system with human similarities. What’s worse, it seems to retain enough organs to defecate still, leaving nasty poop obstacles that hurt to touch and never permanently go away. That’s maybe the worst thing about it, that it just pollutes whatever room it has with disgusting fecal matter. Maybe the most atrocious boss by far, but in the way it was intended to be.

The Wretched

Wrath of the Lamb even gives a posthumous variant to its own Widow, now becoming the even more grotesque Wretched. It feels even closer to a Thing-infected monstrosity, bloated and pimply with a more accurate arachnid mouth below its eyes. Don’t be fooled, though, the Widow’s original mouth still lies above its eyes, and appears to be stitched up now. It still opens up on occasion to spew out a few spiders, though.

The Bloat

Well, look who it is! Everyone’s favorite, the Bloat! This pale, festering corpse of the urinating Peep now can only bleed everywhere it goes, and can even shoot tremendous blood lasers from its eyes at a moment’s notice, both directly in front of itself but also to either side at the same time. If that wasn’t enough, both eyes constantly bounce around the room invulnerably, as if the corpulent cretin wasn’t enough of a hassle to deal with. It’s definitely one of the more horrifying creatures in the game, a shambling mass with empty, bleeding eye sockets and pained, hanging jaw. You might even feel sorry for it if it wasn’t one of the most annoying bosses to fight in the game.

The Mask of Infamy

A giant, empty mask and heart combo, the mask continually chases Isaac with its giant, gaping expression of sorrow while the heart sticks back and attempts not to be hurt. What’s interesting though, is that the heart will get killed before the boss fight ends, and in doing so the mask instead turns to an enraged expression and cracks open in the back, revealing a peeking face hidden within. Weird!

Lokii

Loki was lucky enough to get a posthumous counterpart as well, featuring the little imp simply bisected down the middle. Now it’s a pair of mischievous twins who fight in tandem to make your day that much worse. I like that the two are separated by a clean cut down the middle, showing off the internal organs within, like an anatomical model. In practice, they don’t act much differently other than being two Lokis you have to fight, rather than one, but it’s the thought that counts, y’know?

Teratoma

Technically the posthumous version of Fistula, Teratoma is instead a grotesque coagulation of discolored half-formed flesh, teeth, and hair, named after rare, real internal growths that consist of much of the same things. What’s worse about the game’s Teratoma, though, is that instead of being filled with maggots like Fistula, it is instead infested with spiders. Very nasty, and it’s probably better to not think too hard about where those spiders might have come from and how they got inside the thing.

Daddy Long Legs

Another spider boss, only one who dangles down from the ceiling and occasionally stomps down with malformed, stretched humanoid limbs. The best part of Daddy Long Legs, though, is the lack of a bottom jaw. He looks really annoyed about it too, just look at that expression.

Conquest

A new Horseman was added to the game, and sometimes replaces Death when he ought to appear in the game. If you knew about the Horsemen’s origins you’d think Conquest would instead replace Pestilence sometimes, since it’s Pestilence who stole Conquest’s original position amongst the rest of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse in modern culture. Ah well, the blindfolded look is neat, and suits Conquest’s role as a more holy horseman alternative, summoning great light beams from the sky when he attacks.

Triachnid

Another referential boss, to another of Edmund McMillen’s games, of the same name. I like Triachnid a lot, and certainly does a good job of feeling the most accurately arachnid of any spider boss in the game, even more so than its original Daddy Long Legs. The huge, glassy eye and prominent fangs give it an intimidating appearance, as it ought to have. The perspective and lighting on the portrait is really nice too. Look at the lower lighting and harsh shadows. Very cool! Just a shame, though, that Triachnid lacks a scripted item drop like other alternate bosses. What gives?

Isaac

Upon trekking through the new Cathedral floor, players are meant with the end boss being… none other than Isaac himself. The game hasn’t exactly been subtle in the past about Isaac basically fighting his own inner demons during the game, but this is definitely the most direct representation. Isaac even grows angel wings and gains holy light beam attacks as the fight progresses, as if being cleansed and accepted into heaven thanks to the Cathedral’s purity, finally ascending once the fight ends.

???

If you’re able to progress even further into the Chest, you can fight against ???, or Blue Baby, a representation of Isaac’s own corpse after suffocating in the toy box treasure chest he locks himself in during his fantasy escapism. The fight would then seem to be Isaac realizing, and maybe coming to terms with, how the escapism will lead to his inevitable demise, but I think there’s another fight added in the remake that gives the same message with a lot more spectacle. Blue Baby fights a lot like the Isaac boss did, only now can summon flies to assist him, being a rotting corpse and all. Incredible. He lacks a lot of the holy-themed attacks that Isaac had too, as if the whole ascension thing didn’t really work out. I guess that makes Blue Baby a posthumous version of Isaac actually, huh. I never thought about that until now.

Ultra Pride

Another version of the sin mini-bosses, but I had to save it until the end, since it’s a representation of none other than series creator Edmund McMillen himself, as well as a little baby partner reflecting the programmer of the original game, Florian Himsl. They don’t do a whole lot else that the regular sins don’t, but I still find it amusing that the creator himself is one of the enemies trying to actively kill you in-game. Now everyone can get back at Edmund for all the item balancing and nerfs he’s approved of.

That wraps up all of the original DLC’s additions to the boss roster. Next time I’ll talk about all of those added by the game’s remake, Rebirth. See you then!

[Isaac Archive]

#binding of isaac #tboi #wrath of the lamb #monster design #design critique #creature feature

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bemused-writer · 3 years

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VNC Mémoire 50 Analysis

This chapter went down very differently from how I'd envisioned. XD My main error was that I forgot that introducing Vanitas into a situation doesn't necessarily improve it and this chapter really drove that home. I got used to "Gévaudan Vanitas" but what we're dealing with is "Bal Masqué Vanitas," someone who is more unhinged than he wants to let on. I mean, I think it's safe to say Vanitas efficiently steered things into a ditch this chapter. Let's take a look as to a possible why and how.

The first thing I want to address is how the transition from Vanitas's attitude in chapter 46 compared to chapter 50 is pretty severe in terms of how he's acting towards Noé and at first seems, uh, completely insane but it's actually pretty consistent with how Vanitas has been in general.

Vanitas: Noé, stop! Don't go near him. Mikhail is--!

His reaction towards Misha actually is pretty consistent all things considered. The very mention of Misha filled him with fear in the catacombs arc and it does so here as well. We also see Vanitas demonstrate he is afraid of what might happen to Noé should he encounter him. And that thread is continued at the very start of this chapter.

We're absolutely dealing with subtleties here, but there are three things I think we can take from this exchange:

1) Vanitas is worried about Noé, but he doesn't want to be too demonstrative about it

2) He's trying very hard to hide the fact Misha unnerves him

3) Misha can read Vanitas easily

That last bit is important. Misha knew Vanitas for a couple years while they traveled with VotBM, so he knows his ticks. In particular, he knows what Vanitas is worried about. "I only made him drink my blood." The implication is that he could have done something worse and he knows Vanitas was worried about that in particular. I think it's safe to say the worse option was that Misha had corrupted Noé's name. With that concern thwarted, Vanitas's main concern regarding Noé has probably already been alleviated, which may explain why the continuation of the conversation is actually pretty calm for a moment.

In the previous two images, Vanitas is panicked or suspicious bordering on angry. In this one we see something closer to compassion and understanding. I think if the conversation had simply remained on the subject of Misha not remembering what happened to VotBM we would have gotten a very different chapter. At the very least, I think Vanitas would have focused on handling Misha in a calmer manner. I don't know if he would have explained things properly, but I think the overall vibe would be different. I think that a loss of memory is something Vanitas would sympathize with considering how protective he is of his own memories and that's probably why we got this surprisingly quiet scene with the two.

Such a thing could not last, however. Misha shook things up by revealing that yes, he thought he was dead, but he was brought back by a kind individual. Furthermore, this kind individual can bring back VotBM, too! As if that isn't enough, he calls Vanitas's entire goal in life, vengeance, silly. It's basically the perfect recipe to make Vanitas go ballistic and it worked immediately.

Okay, so in my last meta I said it's basically confirmed that Vanitas killed VotBM. I think this absolutely confirms he killed her if there was any remaining doubt. Furthermore, he talks about how he's currently working to erase her existence entirely, which is not a small statement. It could be symbolic as he is curing vampires, something she would have hated and likely going against her philosophy in some way. He is "erasing" her existence by defying her values.

He could also mean it very literally. VotBM is blamed for malnomen after all, which is the very thing Vanitas is trying to cure. If she did create malnomen and if she even had something to do with Charlatan then yes, Vanitas is very actively trying to erase her entire existence from this world.

You know, I'm sure this attempt at erasing her could lend itself well to his own self-hatred. If he wants to erase her (literally or metaphorically) then having her mark on him must be torture.

As a side note, we see Vanitas shooting with a gun in this chapter. He doesn't own a gun (weirdly) and as such I think it's likely Dante's. Dante was pretty drunk at the restaurant they were at, so he was in no position to come along, I guess. XD But Vanitas knew he would need extra protection and borrowed it all the same. Still, even Misha comments it's odd for him to use one, which makes me wonder why. Actually, the more I think about it, the stranger it is for Vanitas to go about without a gun. Sure, he has daggers and other skills, but he's in constant danger and some range probably wouldn't hurt.

Regardless, he brought the gun to fight Misha specifically I expect, which means he doesn't want to get close to him. Questions abound as to why. I do not have an actual theory about this one just yet.

At this point in the chapter, I think Vanitas had completely forgotten about Noé until he reinserted himself into the situation. After all, he needs to rescue Dominique and Vanitas is shooting at the person who has complete control over her right this minute. Definitely a recipe for disaster.

Misha gives Noé 15 minutes to find some way to drink Vanitas's blood and reminds him pulling any tricks won't work.

And this is where our communication disaster begins this chapter. Vanitas wants to handle everything on his own without interference. Noé can't allow that because he needs to protect Dominique and, also, Noé is already involved. He can't not be involved at this point no matter what Vanitas wants.

Rather than attempt any kind of sympathetic response or understanding, Vanitas goes right for the throat.

This is around where I think we need to address the elephant in the room: Vanitas and Dominique's relationship with each other. The second they met one another they couldn't stand each other.

This is the first time they really talk to one another and it's a mess. Dominique is understandably suspicious of this random human using her friend to help him cure curse bearers. She even states later on that she thinks he's using Noé for his abilities. As for Vanitas, he's simply being incredibly petty and arguably possessive to boot. He just doesn't like her getting in the way of him and Noé.

Then there's all this:

So, Vanitas knows these two are very close and overheard them as they shared an intimate moment together and even seems to have some kind of opinion on it, though it's hard to say what it is. He first seems surprised, then his expression becomes the neutral, unreadable one above. I kind of think his ultimate opinion about the whole thing is negative judging by his infamous insult to Dominique later on.

Look, Vanitas is a raging misogynist, but I think he takes special issue with Dominique. We can see with Jeanne that he actually does want to help her and holds some measure of affection for her (and now believes himself to be in love with her). He's been utterly neutral to all the other women in the series as well, such as Amelia. But Dominique? There is absolutely no love lost there and all of the above isn't even getting into one of his primary issues with her: she claimed he might worship VotBM.

Of course, Vanitas seems to get most angry when people approach the truth because there's also this scene:

I will admit that it's a little unclear who Vanitas is saying he never really hated in this scene. The official translation went with "Lou" but it could very well be "Lu" the beginning of "Luna" who was confirmed as VotBM in this very chapter, so... He hates VotBM but also loves her. That would seem about in line with the complete mess that is our current Vanitas.

So how does all this tie in with chapter 50? Well, Vanitas has a lot of issues with women, especially relationships with women and most of those likely stem from VotBM with a side dish of his being the cause of his mother's death while constantly being compared to her visually. Furthermore, he really doesn't like Dominique.

With all this in mind, is it any real surprise he refuses to help her? Because it wouldn't be that hard to. He has The Book of Vanitas and he knows what Misha wants. He could either do something to undo Misha's curse on her or he could tell Misha the information he wants to know. Furthermore, he could just make something up to tell Misha! His memories about that day are practically nonexistent after all!

But he doesn't. Some of that is, I'm sure, because he's not thinking very clearly, but some of it is definitely out of spite. Vanitas doesn't like that Noé has an attachment to Dominique. He believes it makes Noé weak. It's why Vanitas can't stand his own interest in Jeanne or Jeanne's attachment to Luca or any relationship in general. He firmly believes attachments make someone weak and I'm sure he believes his own attachment to Noé makes him weak. It's why he must do his very best to stomp it out this chapter. He must deny his own attachment to Noé, remove Noé's attachment to Dominique, and kill Misha to restore his own warped idea of order.

Vanitas is, needless to say, a human disaster.

Even with all this, there are still little glimmers of Vanitas's better side. He seems genuinely shocked and disturbed when he first hears about what happened to Louis, but then Misha continues with how it affected Dominique and he's right back to refuting the whole thing. We also get this interesting tidbit:

Talk about a loaded statement and some insight into how Vanitas views relationships with women! I have very little doubt he's thinking of VotBM right now. He says that by killing Dominique, Noé will be "free" in the way he is. Vanitas saw his relationship with VotBM (whatever kind it may have been) as a weakness and a curse and he cannot fathom that Noé's relationship with Dominique isn't somehow the same. From his perspective, it's just not possible for them to have a genuinely good thing going. He believes Dominique is too protective of Noé and is holding him back and that, clearly, killing her would be doing Noé a favor.

Vanitas's expression here reminds me of a key moment during the catacombs arc:

Here he was angry at Noé for showing compassion to chasseurs and for "holding himself back." He then tells him to get out of his sight (something he also pulled before) and calls him a slur, finally provoking a reaction.

That's not terribly dissimilar to what's happening now. Vanitas is angry at Noé for showing compassion to someone he coudln't care less about, he's "holding himself back" (as well as Vanitas), and Vanitas says the cruelest thing he can, finally provoking a reaction.

Just like in the catacombs, he got a much stronger reaction than he was betting on. I think it both cases, Vanitas was just saying whatever first came to his mind without thinking about repercussions (just like in the Bal Masqué... there's a theme here) and therein lies the second problem he has: he doesn't believe Noé will ever retaliate against him even though he has no real reason to believe that. He sees Noé as kind and mistakenly assumes this translates to him never reacting to Vanitas's cruelty. Probably because it takes a lot to rouse genuine anger out of Noé, but still. That's a serious oversight and potentially a part of that blind spot he always seems to have when it comes to Noé.

As for Noé, first he's having everything he believed about his relationship with Vanitas cruelly denied by the man himself and then Vanitas trashes on the one relationship he's managed to maintain his whole life with Dominique. It's not like Noé was going to simply drink Vanitas's blood either (that much I was right about). He asks Vanitas for his help, begs him to simply tell Misha about that day, and is denied. He confesses that it's "self-centered" but he doesn't want to do what Misha requested. He doesn't want to drink Vanitas's blood to get this answer.

So, Vanitas actually had a lot of opportunity to turn this situation around or at least delay it, but he opted instead to goad Noé until the worst possibility was realized. When Noé lunges for him, he is terrified and immediately lost in his own past where he is told to never let anyone take his memories. Both Noé and Vanitas are having painful memories awakened during this scene, so neither of them is thinking all that clearly. Vanitas is coping with Misha being right there and memories of VotBM and Noé is dealing with his own memories of Louis's death and Dominique's imminent demise. The ghosts of the dead are haunting them both.

These two pages are the most powerful of the chapter in my opinion and my personal favorites. The angling, the mutual betrayal and devastation is very well portrayed. We can see that Noé is shocked that Vanitas shot him. Not only that, but right in the eye, something a chasseur would do to weaken a vampire. We also see that Vanitas is not unaffected by the whole thing. His arm is shaking after shooting the gun and he's flinching away from Noé.

And speaking of the eye injury, I had a theory awhile back that Noé might be partially blind in his left eye due to the injury he sustained as a child. He tends to guard more with his left side and has been consistently injured on his left side as well, which suggests that's the weaker side for him. Now that his left arm is injured and his right eye is also injured, how well will he fare against Vanitas? Especially now that he has the chasseur drug (gifted to him from Dante, I expect). Normally, I would say that in a straight fight, Noé would win without a doubt, but he's been severely hampered for this arc.

Of course, none of this is taking into account the fact Vanitas has The Book of Vanitas. While shooting Noé is far from a great move, it's significantly less destructive than using the book against him and I have to wonder, why didn't he? He easily immobilized Noé during the Bal Masqué with it and if he did something like that here he wouldn't even have to argue with Noé about what should or shouldn't happen next. Noé wouldn't get a say. It's entirely possible Vanitas has simply forgotten he has it but it's also possible that some small part of him is trying to avoid the ultimate betrayal because, despite everything he said, he does care about Noé.

Meanwhile, Misha is delighting in the whole thing. He's convinced Noé will win after all, and then he'll get his answers. Except, as I've said before, Misha hasn't thought this out all that well and he definitely didn't know Vanitas had the chasseur drug. That changes a lot for this battle. Still, Misha isn't entirely uninvolved in this fight. He unleashed a bomb (I think because they got too close to Dominique? or just for fun?) and he did this:

I'm... honestly kind of confused at what I'm looking at here. Did he just turn on the lights? Or did he transform the area? To me, it's a little reminiscent of Charlatan, but they're definitely not here, so I don't know. Regardless, Misha is the one in charge of the arena and Noé only has 15 minutes to accomplish his goal.

The time limit is going to be the main problem here. I foresee these two fighting to a standstill unless Vanitas brings out the book. Then there's Dominique. She's watching all of this in silent horror. Vanitas and Noé aren't likely to stop without outside intervention. What I'd like to see happen is Dominique reestablishing power over herself and getting them to stop, but I'm worried she'll take the more dramatic route of flinging herself off the building. After all, she's dealing with a serious load of self-loathing herself and she might think she's taking away Noé's friend by being taken. I'm still holding hope for Dominique to come out of this alive, but her fate is the one thing I'm genuinely concerned about in this arc because while things are bad for Vanitas and Noé, narratively they have to eventually come back together. That's the premise of the series. There may be a bucket load of trust issues and all kinds of difficulties--they may avoid each other this whole arc--but they have to eventually work together again.

Dominique does not have that same kind of plot armor. Her fate is tied directly to whatever Mochizuki thinks is most effective for Noé's plot and, well, I guess we'll see what that is.

As for who Misha is working for, there are a couple of possibilities. My first thought was Moreau to be completely honest, but Misha does have memories of him, so it's unlikely he'd ever refer to him as "kind," so I'm going to strike that option off the list. Teacher is a vague possibility, but I also think it unlikely. He wants to observe the events around the book, not create his own. Ruthven was another likely source, but if it is him I think it's indirectly through his connection to Charlatan. He doesn't want Noé to potentially die to Vanitas after all; he has future uses for him. He also doesn't seem to have that much interest in VotBM.

So, after crossing off most of the options, I think we're left with Charlatan (who isn't really a person, so probably a no on that too) and, weirdly, Marquis Machina. Oh, and possibly the de Sades, but while they dislike Dominique, I don't think they'd expend this kind of effort. It would look bad for the family. Now, we know basically nothing about Machina, which makes him a great option because we do know he's a major player somehow but not precisely how. I guess time will tell on that one.

As for other general predictions, I think Noé and Vanitas will fight to a standstill like I said before. Their battle will probably be interrupted by something, whether that's an action taken by Dominique or a third party arriving. Misha will definitely get away regardless of which it is. Whether Noé is willing to work with Vanitas will depend on what happens to Dominique and whether Vanitas will work with Noé depends on how capable he is of just... pretending the whole thing didn't happen and whatever Noé says to him. For the most part, Vanitas has stuck with Noé because of the way Noé has spoken to him, and that's likely to remain the same. Probably. Noé wants to save curse bearers, so as long as Dominique is okay he'll probably also shove the whole thing aside in favor of doing just that. But at some point they will both have to confront that things got ugly very fast and that this is in no small part to the secrets they kept from one another and the biases Vanitas keeps.

Waiting for the next chapter is going to be hard. XD I'm personally very excited about how things are going. They're not what I guessed, but they are super interesting and will really have an impact on the series, so I'm definitely here for it.

#vanitas no carte #vnc #vnc meta #vnc spoilers #Bemused's post #long post

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palimpsessed · 3 years

Text

Medieval History AU

for @carryonthroughtheages

For my piece for the medieval era, I took inspiration from illuminated manuscripts.

(Please click the image for better quality.)

Read more about the piece below the break.

I want to first say a huge thank you to @bazzybelle for organizing this event and also for just being a really great human. ILY! Despite the fact that I of course left everything to the last minute, I have had a blast working on my two posts and can’t wait until I have time to actually look at what everyone else has done.

About the artwork:

This is a haphazardly researched piece at best.

I initially planned to simply do a group drawing, showing the gang dressed appropriately for their places in my medieval AU. I had that sketch sitting around for months and never felt inspired. Then I started to think about how I could adapt my arsenal of art supplies to give the effect of something more suited to the time periods. And then I thought about a lovely comment that someone made on one of my drawings, that it reminded them of an illuminated manuscript. And then the book art nerd in me was activated. Thus, I spent the next week pulling references from various illuminated manuscripts that have made it online in some form or another over the years. Next came the design. I wanted to find a way to still include the whole group, but a simple line-up no longer made sense. I wanted to make SnowBaz the focal point, for obvious reasons, but I found a way to include the others in insets, as some full page illuminated manuscripts depicted smaller scenes around a central idea.

I knew that I had to include at least one dragon for Simon and somehow reference Baz's vampirism. Monsters appear all over illuminated manuscripts, after all, and I saw no reason why they shouldn't be in mine. Vampires in medieval folklore were different to the way we think of them now; they weren't living people who turned into blood drinking creatures, but rather reanimated corpses. These revenants are usually depicted as some variation on a rotting corpse or skeleton. I decided to stick with our modern understanding of vampirism, because I'm not wholly sold on the zombie thing. A skull and some rats chilling around it probably gets the point across, and ties in Baz's years in the Catacombs, which definitely still exist in this AU. Also, I see medieval Baz as a minor feudal lord of some kind, which plays into the classic vampire metaphor. Simon is a former knight errant who gave up his questing days once he faced the reality that perhaps he wasn't all that different from the monsters he hunted.

The vessel at their feet, which sits over flames, is a crucible. Because of course I was going to include a crucible in my medieval AU. The crucible is an ongoing metaphor in Simon and Baz's story, and I wanted to carry that motif into my piece, too. I based the shape off a couple different depictions I found that related specifically to alchemy. Alchemy is all about transmutation, rather fitting for two half monsters who continuously challenge the roles they've been assigned. (One of the crucible drawings I found even had a tiny dragon looking down the spout and blowing fire into the vessel!)

The alchemy theme continues to the top right corner, with a green lion eating the sun. This is a very common image in alchemical texts, a metaphor for vitriol purifying matter, which would then leave behind gold. Next to the green lion is Agatha, who finds far more to interest her in making friends with unicorns than in the attentions of any courtly suitors. The larger panel in the center shows the castle, the hub of medieval life, inspired by the look of Watford as depicted in the map at the end of Carry On. This version of Watford is also protected by a moat filled with merwolves, because they are exactly the sort of unholy beast that would appear in the marginalia of an illuminated manuscript. (Maybe the Mage got the idea of the merwolves from one of the "four-hundred-year-old texts" he dripped gravy on.) Stars fill the sky, because we all know how important those are. On the castle's other side is Penelope, bent over a parchment in a room filled with thick books, living her best scholarly life, now that she's retired from life as Simon's shield bearer. She and Shepard are both modeling the latest trend in eyeglasses, which is to say, the only trend, because that was cutting edge technology back in the day. (Would either one of them have had access to that kind of fancy tech in their respective positions? Idk, but they have unicorns, and flying sheep, and merwolves, and dragons, so let them see is all I'm saying.) Shepard is, if you couldn't guess, a shepherd, because I had to. But he's still a nomad at heart, and this new flock was acquired in a rather secretive deal during his last adventure. Lastly, the slogans on either side of Simon and Baz are the Google Translate Latin equivalents of: "Magic separates us from the world. Let nothing separate us from each other" and "Light a match inside your heart, then blow on the tinder." (If you can actually read my writing, and you actually know Latin, and these aren't correct, just pretend that they are.)

Illuminated manuscripts were usually embellished with gold leaf, and my budget version is metallic gold marker, which I used sparingly throughout the piece for fire and other objects of note (though it's probably hard to see in the scan).

That's all, I think. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk!

Bonus! Process shots;

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inhumanescreeching · 3 years

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yeah I get you bc same it's not just abt the queer subtext it's just Not It in general lmao

and as for ships it's complicated (esp bc idk where you're at in the story so I fear to spoil things accidentally lol)

also Pleased Get Started On Noé

I WANT YO HEAR IT ALL (genuinely!!)

im at the part where noe was thirsting over vanitas' blood and got rejected *cries* they're about to board a train, and im too distracted/restless to sit still and read so- *cracks neck*

- noe is naturally a very caring/protective person, right? it extends even to strangers bc we see how he is with amelia, but with vanitas it's still different. why? simple. vanitas is human. he's constantly (ok maybe not constantly but he's said it enough) reminding vanitas that bc vanitas, in turn, keeps putting his neck out for him and the team.

i think this drives noe up the wall mainly bc vanitas asked him to be his shield right? yet this (capable but still) weak human keeps running head first into danger, and the warning bells in his head magnify. so the doting doubles for vanitas' case

- noe is usually a calm and collected person! not to say he doesn't have a temper, but he usually shows his more aggressive side to vanitas bc vanitas easily gets under his skin. (it goes the other way around too lmao it's just that vanitas gets to show more of his serious side and even while covering it up with his playfulness, noe can still see right through him)

- noe's jealousy!!!!!!!!!!!! that scene at the cafe where vanitas showed off jeanne's mark, i've read it so many times i lost count because that! is! jealousy! right there, babyyyyy. noe doesn't have any reason to be jealous of jeanne's connection with vanitas. "i've noticed his sweet scent since we first met/i should've asked him first before she did" or something along those lines isn't really something you say about a mere friend. it was highlighted so painfully clearly to everyone except noe that he wanted to be the first one to get a taste of vanitas' blood, it's his instincts telling him what he hasn't even thought of yet! that there might be something more to his feelings than he thought

- the "what is love" dance moment that comes right after the vanijeanne highlight. again, you don't just ask someone that question and not feel anything, like some expectation or some hope. contextually, sure, it fit right in what with vanitas' bold confession of love for jeanne after their first fight, but it can also be taken with the context of noe trying to sort out what he felt for vanitas too. his focus was on vanitas and how they danced, he asked vanitas and not domi, that's worth something

- the belltower scene. what a delight that was, to finally see them have an honest conversation. noe's first smile, and that "i've taken an interest in you, vanitas" line killed me

- the ending of the catacomb scene! where they were leaning on one another and noe's thoughts were filled with nothing but questions and concern!

now why, dear anon, did i list down these points? bc these are (what i think) point out the fact that noe archiviste, while not in love (no, we're not that naive in this household) may be well on the way there! not that i'm claiming him to canonically be so, but that there's potential but also! these are key points in his development! again, i'm not saying it's going to be romantic, but it's certainly more than platonic

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mihidecet · 3 years

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Sbi&co: D&D AU: The Hunt

Hello everyone! I’m a tad bit late but I do hope the extra wait was worth it ahahha

And I hope you’ll enjoy it! Let me know if you do, and as always thank you for reading! <3

"Alright boys, can everyone hear me?"

Tubbo's voice sounds crystal clear through the arcane earrings they have been given, but Quackity's nose still scrunches up: it's so weird to see his mouth moving in front of him and hear his voice come from a completely different direction.

Thankfully - or maybe not - they won't be seeing each other much during this game. Another good thing is how he won't have to do much running either, if everything goes well; he still feels very much sore after last week's obstacle course, so he absolutely does not mind staying back and coordinating everyone. That and, if anyone was in need of help, he could swoop in and save the day - always a win in his book.

Quackity gives a sharp nod with his head towards Tubbo, who smiles enthusiastically before turning back towards Fundy to resume talking about how they'll manage to replicate the enchantment for themselves. A part of him wants to get in on the fun, fantasize about how quests will be so much easier with the ability to communicate remotely. He can already imagine a grand infiltration mission that that would require elegant gowns and fancy clothes, concealed weapons and arcane tricks hidden up their sleeves, all with the objective of recovering an artifact of vital importance-

But he stops and shakes his head, as if it could get rid of those silly dreams. For once, it's not like he can really … stay; and also, he has much more important things to do.

Niki is in the process of stretching when a young looking wizard skips towards them with a blinding smile to let them know that they'll be opening the gates in less than five minutes. He figures that maybe he should have been warming up too, but his favourite pastime has always been people watching - which is extremely nostalgic for him and probably slightly weird from an outside perspective. Before he can lose himself again in his own mind - nerves will do that to him, he’s been noticing - a hand appears in front of his face and he grabs onto it on instinct. The fact that he’s hoisted upright quickly and efficiently clues him onto who it was, and he smiles gratefully at Niki.

She looks up at him, reciprocating the smile except for the slight furrow in her brows - a silent question, her wondering of why he’s been spacing out, but it’s not that bad after all, he can definitely handle it; he waves off her worries, gesturing with his head towards the bright gallery that will lead them towards the arena as he chuckles to himself.

“Is it time? I must have spaced out for more than I expected!” He half-jokes, willing to share his worry only partially, and realises he’s probably said too much when the crease in Niki’s forehead only deepens.

“Are you feeling well, Quackity? Is your shoulder still hurting?” The bard is - painfully - reminded that he is talking with a literal angel as her hand reaches forwards, palm already glowing slightly golden with what he’s come to learn is the sign of her healing divine magic, and he takes a step back, hands raised to stop her.

“I’m all good, no problem at all! I just got- distracted for a moment. Needed to clear my mind and all that ... It won’t happen during the hunt!” He adds hurriedly, suddenly realising that spacing out isn’t a really good sign when you’re supposed to be in charge of coordinating the whole team, but still, he knows what he has to do and he’s not going to lose himself in his own mind while they’re working - he wouldn’t still be alive in his line of work if that was the case!

But there’s a hand placed on his shoulder and Niki is smiling at him again, which has, for better or for worse, always been able to calm his nerves down. It’s not even like he’s know these people for a long time, and yet he knows that if he could, he’d stick around for the rest of his days, probably. If they wanted him to.

“It’s alright, I understand. I know we’re in good hands, we’ve been training for this.” Niki comments, sounding so sure of her words that he feels like he agrees with that too, to hell with his own self doubt.

“Of course! We know we’re in safe hands, big guy!” Tubbo adds, startling as he once again appears to reside inside his head, and Quackity is suddenly hoping that he didn’t accidentally broadcast their conversation to the rest of their team.

Before he can add anything else - or ask very subtly if either heard them talking - an arm is suddenly slung over his shoulders, the smell of ink and sulfur worming its way into his nose as Fundy leans on him and starts leading him towards the tunnel.

“Come on, enough with the training and the moping, we have amulets and gold to collect!” The conman exclaims, receiving a raised eyebrow from Quackity himself as the bard resigns to becoming a temporary armrest - he’s learnt that that is simply what Fundy does, be it in his fox form or his human form, he’s always on his or somebody else’s shoulders. It’d be sweet if it wasn’t for the indirect reminder of his height, or lack thereof.

“Oh, and you would know all about collecting gold, uh?” Quackity quips back as Niki and Tubbo both fall into step with them, Tubbo’s mechanical bee buzzing right behind.

“It was one time!” The shifter laments, prompting the rest of the group to burst out laughing, Niki’s voice raising over the others’ to protest:

“It wasn’t just one!”

Then, the roar of the crowd fills their ears, and they step into the arena.

It doesn’t take Fundy much to reach the first portal.

The arena has been suited for the occasion, since what used to be a huge but empty field of sand is now a thick, jungle-like forest, with vines that droop from a ceiling of leaves and brightly coloured plants that snap their petals at him when he runs by.

It didn’t take him long to get used to digging his way through the foliage, his shifter blood surely aiding him in the process, but he still tries not to move too fast - he will need to get back to the main clearing multiple times, to bring back the amulets that will give them more time to explore.

One of his hands lightly grazes a leaf, leaving behind a smear of orange - he has Quackity to thank for procuring them the thick paints they coated their hands with before starting, so that their paths will be marked; easy to follow for both them and the bard himself, if any of them would ever need assistance.

He’s been running for only a handful of seconds when the light blue glow of a portal catches his eye: he smacks his hands to the side of the tree that marks his change in direction, leaving behind a much thicker mark, and jumps into the portal.

“Light blue portal, I’m in … catacombs, I think.” He says, focusing on his newly acquired magical earring in order to broadcast the information to the rest of his team. A series of loud whoops answer him, bringing a satisfied grin to his face, and he slows down for a moment, trying to listen for anything happening further down the chambers he’s found himself in, eyes scanning the ground for any hidden traps.

The coast seems to be clear - there’s a faint whispering coming from the portal behind him, the familiar gentle hum of conjuration magic, but he’s fairly certain that he’s the only living thing in there.

Which in hindsight was exactly the point, he realises a moment later as he enters a dimly lit room, when an arrow sails just a couple of inches past his face - he flinches away from the blow purely by instincts, letting out a high pitched yelp while his hands raise upwards, brain suddenly put on alert and already thinking about what to do.

The situation isn’t hard to comprehend: there are half a dozen skeletons, armed, slowly inching their way towards him; a handful are standing right in front of the only other existing exit, as if guarding it - probably commanded to do so, since from his own personal experience skeletons are rarely smart enough to “stand guard”.

He is almost certain that there are no other paths he could have taken, so his only way is forward, hopefully towards something valuable. Of course that is, if he manages to get through.

The first thing Fundy realises is that there are a bit too many enemies to comfortably take on. For a moment he truly considers simply dropping a fireball straight into the middle of the room - quick, easy, efficient - but a part of him knows that it would be a bit of a waste of energies for so little enemies, and he does expect to meet plenty more enemies very soon. Despite the fact that time is of the essence, he can’t help but remember how bets in favour of Wilbur’s team had skyrocketed after their stellar performance in the arena a handful of weeks prior. And well, a conman has to know how to put on a show, doesn’t he?

“Hello gentlemen! Would you be so kind to form an orderly cue in front of me?” He’s quick to step to the side, away from another incoming arrow from one of the two skeletons posted in front of his objective, but thankfully the rest of the skeletons are quick to follow his request as they stumble forward, moving towards him and brandishing their swords.

One of them, apparently more eager than the others, launches themselves at him, their shortsword raised high and coming down in a swift swoop that crashes against a - hastily created - light purple magical barrier. Fundy tsks at the skeleton, shaking his head disapprovingly behind the hand he had to raise to form the arcane shield. With a quick look he assures himself of the optimal placement of his enemies, then he brings his hands together in front of him, rubbing his palms together quickly as if smearing something on them; an instant later he snaps the thumb and index finger of his right hand together, close to the wrist of his left hand: flames burst from his hands, catching fire as if he’d clicked together a flint and steel over warm coal, and he brings his wrists together, directing the stream of arcane fire towards the four skeletons still stumbling towards him.

With a flash of warm light and a chilling screech, the skeletons catch fire and burn, the necromantic binds keeping them whole snapping and breaking, charred bones falling to the ground in sad heaps.

The two skeletons still standing by the exit door let out a pitiful whine, arms clanking together as they nock their arrows - one falls to the ground a couple of feet ahead of him, the skeleton that shot it starting to look as frantic as an expressionless undead can, while the other manages to catch him off-guard and pierces his left shoulder, tearing a pained yelp and a curse from him.

And well, with most of his enemies gone, he can now get his hands a bit dirtier, metaphorically speaking, as he unsheathes the rapier Niki had gifted to him more than five years before, keeping his unoccupied and still somewhat smouldering hand close to the blade. As his thumb runs over the cold metal, it catches fire, green flames licking at the hilt as he runs forward, impaling one of the two skeletons: flames burst from the blade, almost completely enveloping his enemy, the old and dry bones quickly catching fire as if they were matches. When he flicks his wrist, turning the blade on itself, there’s another burst of flames coming from the hilt itself as a bolt of emerald green fire flies towards the other skeleton, hitting their side.

The only remaining skeleton raises their bow, trying to aim at him, but Fundy simply steps forward, into their personal space, hearing the arrow being let loose behind him and flying into a stone wall.

He grins, knowing his fangs poking their way over his lips make him look more menacing, and sheaths his sword into the skeleton’s chest, cutting away the arcane ties keeping them from dying, fire burning around them both - he releases the excess arcane energy with another bolt of green fire that burns a circular charred mark into the wall to his left.

For a moment, it’s all silent around him as he takes a small relieved breath, ever so thankful of Niki’s insistence of getting him to train with his sword.

Then, Tubbo’s voice rings in his hears, calling out a new portal he’d just found - a locked one, tinted red.

Fundy gives a vocal confirmation of having received the message, then puts away his sword - flames dissipating on their own - and quickly makes his way towards the still closed door.

Plenty of things to do, enemies to kill, amulets to find.

He can take a break when their time in the labyrinth runs out.

#sbi&co dnd au #itsfundy #tubbo #nihachu #quackity #sbi au #dnd au

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deathduty · 4 years

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I Sidhe You || Lydia & Deirdre

TIMING: In the distant past...at some point before Lydia’s attack PARTIES: @inspirationdivine & @deathduty SUMMARY: Lydia and Deirdre have a fun time in the mirrored district. Until Jerry.... WARNINGS: Some light stabbing, as a treat

Lydia had found an excellent puddle. Puddles under the right moonlight were much easier to get through than mirrors that had to be perfectly aligned to get the angle of sunlight just right, but the lunar puddles were rarer throughout the month. At least once they were correct, they were correct for the whole night. Not that it mattered on the other side, where it could be sunlight or a different lunar phase, or possibly even a different century. Lydia looked up, and grinned as she spotted her beautiful friend. Good lord, she desperately hoped this went better than their last fae escapades.

There were few places more scared to the fae than their aos sí; their communities, where life could be lived by their traditions. Deirdre's ancestors detailed the rise of humanity, their spreading like disease of the lands. And the importance of the aos sí, a place to exist as they were. Home. Deirdre's tether to her fae identity might have been confused, but she was happy to right it and could think of no better person to help her than Lydia—the kind of fae that had every right to be proud. "Hey," she waved at her as she approached, smiling happily under the moonlight. This wouldn't be like Emma, she wanted to say, but didn't think Lydia cared about that now. They were friends, even if Deirdre still worried Lydia might suddenly realize she wasn't fae-enough anymore. And friends were probably just happy to spend time together, like Deirdre was. Gleefully happy. "Is that the puddle?" She gestured. "It looks a little small. Is this a 'tuck your hands and feet in so they don't get chopped off' kind of deal? Teleportation?" She approached Lydia, eager to jump, itching to move—having to gently lay her hand against Lydia's arm to keep herself from plunging in. The idea of visiting an aos sí was magnetic. "You know….I've always wondered why you don't live in an aos sí."

“Hello darling!” Lydia greeted with a wide grin, giving Deirdre a quick hug in greeting. Emma also clung to her mind, but she didn’t see any sign of concern or worry in Deirdre’s features. She looked down at the puddle. “I don’t thin it will be a problem for either of us. I was entirely unprepared when Felix pulled me in. I flailed rather spectacularly, and wasn’t harmed. It’s more important we go together.” She offered her hand to Deirdre, to help guide her in. She looked up at the moon with a wide grin. “When I have children, I will. Many fae in Aos Sí are too… exclusive to other species by even my stands.” When she had Deirdr’e hand, she winked at the other woman, stepped into the puddle, and pulled Deirdre towards her hard as the floor gave way beneath her.

“Felix took you inside?” Deirdre shifted, “why does he never take me anywhere fun?” But that was a problem she’d take up with Felix after. For now, there was a puddle, and an aos sí to plunge themselves into. “Exclusive to other species---AH!” Her question was halted by a shout, barely subdued to keep its destructive property at bay. She tried to scold Lydia, remind her that surprising a banshee was a very deafening thing to do, but she couldn’t speak. Or move. Or do anything but fall. Her slow beating heart leapt up, as if trying to find an edge to hold. But whatever her body tried to grab for was simply not there, she fell and fell and then the sky was at her feet and she wasn’t falling so much as feeling like she was. “This--” She wasn’t afraid of heights by any stretches, but she enjoyed how grounding reality looked around her. This was not reality. “The---everything is flipped.” It sounded dumb as soon as she said it. “I mean, okay, I guess that’s why it’s called the mirrored district. But it’s---” With lingering nausea, she clung closer to Lydia. “How long until I get used to this?”

Lydia plunged through the water, and gasped in delight as she did every time. The world shrank and shrank around them until it would fit in a snowglobe, then popped and began to grow again, inside out and upside down. She held tight to Deirdre if only so that they wouldn’t be separated as the sky fell in place around them. Lydia laughed and laughed as the world settled, and she looked at the bridge leading them to the other side of town. Fairy lights twinkled in the evening air, and everything around them made her chest hum. Here, the grass, the fish, the birds in the sky, all of it was fae. Not too far away, a gold eyed woman waved at them. “Welcome cousins!” Lydia grinned and returned the greeting, only to hold Deirdre closer to herself. “A while. Don’t worry. I won’t let go of you while we’re here.” Deirdre could bind her to that. “Shall we explore?”

“Oh, are you two related or---” Deirdre thought about it, she looked at the fae Lydia was greeting and then Lydia. Definitely not related. Every aos sí had some number of quirks to them; ways to weed out the others and keep the members close. This place had a number of quirks she was only grasping at understanding. “Hello cousin,” she greeted back awkwardly, swallowing as chill after chill trickled down her back. Fae, fae everywhere. She wasn’t expecting anything less, but it was thrilling to see nonetheless. “Oh good, I’m still worried I might fall down…” Deirdre glanced at the floor...or what should have been the floor. She decided to keep her eyes on Lydia instead. “Lead the way. What’s there to do here?”

“Not like that,” Lydia agreed, “but we’re so interconnected, it looks like this place takes it more seriously than most.” She gave Deirdre’s arm a reassuring squeeze when Deirdre returned the cousin greeting. Here and there, other visitors dotted the streets, only identifiable by the wonder in their eyes. Sometimes that wonder held trepidation too, or downright fear. That was smart, but they didn’t have to be. Lydia chuckled. “Felix and I didn’t fall. Although, I have to say, every time I’ve been here, my stomach has felt completely out of place.” She held Deirdre’s gaze with a soft gaze. “There’s a beautiful flower garden. Or we could go to the shopping street, with cute artisanal fae things. Or the cemetery, if that’s more your thing,” Lydia winked, genuinely happy to go anywhere, as long as it was with Deirdre.

Deirdre smiled, "we are, aren't we?" That interconnection was exactly why she wanted to come here, and one of her favorite parts of being fae. "If that's how you look when your stomach is out of place well…" Deirdre grinned again and trailed off. Lydia seemed at ease, then again, she always seemed to. But her happiness rubbed off on Deirdre, and her eyes lit up at the mention of a cemetery. "That," she pointed out, "I want the cemetery. That—why would you even bother listing anything else? Of course I want the cemetery, I always want the cemetery." Since she stepped foot in the district, she wondered if death felt the same here, of course she did. She was a banshee after all, and a creature of habit just like anyone else. "Let's go there first. Maybe some shopping after. I'd love to buy something to take out to the...uh, other side." She gestured for Lydia to lead them, eager to get on.

“You know me, I’d never show even if it did bother me.” Lydia said softly. The incident with Marley had rattled her a little, which made her all the more determined to come across as pristine, always. She did laugh, joyfully, as Deirdre lit up in delight. “That sounds like an excellent idea, my love.” Lydia had, of course, only suggested the cemetery because it was Deirdre she was with. She lead her along what should have been a cobbled path, but the cobbles hovered above them, creaking ever so slightly with each of their steps. Little yellow lights danced alongside them as they stepped into the necropolis. It wasn’t too big, considering how few people were buried there relative to the graves in the rest of the town, but the monuments to the dead, well, Fae did that best. Each tombstone was a tree. Not carved in any way, but grown carefully so that over the years the bark would reflect the name and species of the individual entombed. Some tombstones were vines, intricately wrapped together. Some were great oaks, will gnolls like faces looking over them. It wasn’t covered in grass cut into submission, but a beautiful meadow, everything growing wild - clumps of hungry grass and stray sod abound. “Is this what you expected?”

“But you can,” Deirdre started in a small voice, realizing how strange she must have sounded; no one wanted to share that vulnerability, least of all a fae. “If you wanted to. It’s just us.” Or it wasn’t really, catching the hubbub of fae around her. She coughed and moved the conversation along, eager to see what the cemetery here had to offer. She pulled away from Lydia, mouth agape and eyes wide. The forest that surrounded Deirdre’s family estate was a necropolis itself, the trees stood tall and stalwart, though hundreds of years of no longer being a functioning graveyard let nature claim the land, and the markings of fae were buried under grass and flowers, as if they’d never existed there at all. By comparison, her family catacombs were filled with rigid stone structures, skulls and engravings. Neither of those places were like this, and her chest thrummed with the call of death, easily awash with the fae around her. She felt peace. “It’s lovely.” She moved forwards, running her hands along the twisted bark of the nearest tree. This was a resting place and a standing memory for fae as any should be--the perfect balance of wild yet tamed. This was how the fae were meant to live, at peace with nature. “I never know what to expect when I come into places of death, that’s the fun of it.” She turned to Lydia, “I can almost get over the fact that this place looks like trees growing out of the sky. It’s beautiful.” Deirdre glanced around with awe. “Fates, I wish Regan wasn’t so bound by idiotic human understandings of life, she’d really like this too; if she could just get over the fact that the ground is the sky.” Deirdre sighed, wistful. “Do you ever miss---” Rustling broke her sentence. “Did you hear that?” The banshee snapped her gaze around, trying to find the source, there was no telltale pull of a fae. “Does this place have animals?”

Lydia smiled wrily. “You’re one of my dearest friends, Deirdre,” she said simply. They both knew better than to expect more than that. Her composure was as much a shield from the world as her glamour. Without it, she’d walk into endless fae word traps, lose herself in her own vanity, and become altogether much too human. She could control herself, mostly, so why oughtn’t she? Deirdre looked serene as they walked through the cemetery, looking over the trees and markings, and presumably steeped in the feeling of death. Lydia laughed. “I’m just trying to work out where the coffins are. They must be somewhere, but I certainly can’t see them.” Then again, Lydia wasn’t looking too hard. Her stomach wouldn’t entirely handle it if a cloud shifted and revealed a mostly decayed corpse. “She would love it. Someday she will,” Lydia replied softly, but her eyes narrowed as the sound of someone or something nearby. “Fae animals, certainly. Foireaux cats, mummers, that sort of thing. I don’t know about anything else,” Lydia replied hesitantly. Not all fae creatures were as kindly to other fae as Foireaux cats. She couldn’t imagine that redcaps would be allowed to live here, but, well, something was hiding behind that tree there. Lydia slid her hand into her purse. She looked to Deirdre as they walked around where the noise was. She could hear trembling breathing. Pulling her pistol out, she pointed it to the source. “Come on out, whoever you are. Are you spying on us?”

And then Lydia pulled a gun. “Fates,” Deirdre’s eyes grew wide. “Why do you have a---” Deirdre gawked at it, the glinting metal against the odd mirror district reflections and Lydia’s hands wrapped around it. Guns were taboo in her family, whether it was the blade's sacred role or the offense of another loud, screaming object that made a deafening noise, she didn’t know. But there was always a particular shock she felt when seeing one.

“P-p-please don’t shoot me,” a weepy voice filtered out behind the stumpy tree before an equally stumpy man stepped out from behind it. He was trying to hold his hands up, but he was shaking so much it looked like he was dancing. “I j-j-just want to go h-h-home.” He started to cry, but he was so sweaty that Deirdre had trouble discerning what was droplets of tears and what was perspiration. He was human. Deirdre didn’t need to verify by triple-checking the absence of her tingling fae senses, she knew that because he was pathetic in that way only humans were. Which was very pathetic. His white dress shirt was completely soaked through with sweat, clinging to every quiver of his body. His pants were rolled up, in what Deirdre assumed was an attempt to cool down, though it obviously hadn’t worked. Sweat pooled in each wrinkle on his face and his peppery hair laid flat on his head. Deirdre hated him. “Please--” he sniffed ineffectively at the snot dripping out of his nose, “--help me.” And then he started wailing.

Deirdre cringed, picking up a nearby stick and poking him with it. “There, there, uh, poor human-sweat-creature.” She glanced back at Lydia expectantly, as if she would know what to do because she was, somehow, infinitely more wise. Or, as Deirdre hoped, would just shoot him.

"Because I need something with a little further range than kissing people when I need to protect myself." Lydia replied drily, but she was cut short as the man stepped out from behind the treestump. Her lip curled with disgust as he spoke, his body odor palpable even from here. Humans. They disgusted her on their best days, but the look she gave him now was like she’d found maggots in her wine. Doubly so when he began to wail. Lydia stepped back, and met Deirdre’s gaze. “Let’s leave him for a glaistig or something to finish off. If he didn’t want to be in danger, he shouldn’t have wandered somewhere he didn’t belong. I imagine that’s a new feeling, for him. Come on. I have so much more to show you!” Lydia smiled again, turning so sharply that her clothes swished in the wind, and began to walk away, Deirdre in tow.

“Can’t you just...spit?” Deirdre asked, though it probably wasn’t the point right now. She was raised to treasure fae abilities as their tools and weapons, anything else was just tacky. Then again, Deirdre had a scream far more potent than a gun. “Ugh, fine, I guess.” She turned to walk with Lydia, but found resistance. She tried to move her foot; it was frozen. She glanced back. “Please don’t leave me!” The man bellowed, hugging Deirdre’s leg. “I have dogs! I need to go home to my babies! What are they going to do without me!” Deirdre hissed, trying to shake him off, “let go of me!” But the more she shook, the harder he clung to her and the louder he begged. “Someone’s going to hear you!” And then find them, and then see some human wrapped around her leg and how was she supposed to explain that? He looked up at her pleadingly, continuing to repeat something about dogs and how they were named Ben and Jerry but not to be confused with his name, which was also Jerry. And they were chihuahuas, and they needed him. “Fuck,” Deirdre groaned, giving up, “fine! Fates, just let go of me and shut up.” Jerry obliged and Deirdre turned pitifully to Lydia. “It wouldn’t be so bad if we just...helped him out for a bit, right?”

Lydia smirked at the idea that she might be able to spit as far as she could shoot. This was very much not the case, she wasn’t a llama, but it was the most amusing type of image. Her turn to pull Deirdre away from the man was rudely cut short. She sneered at the man. “On the one hand, I do so love seeing humans grovelling on their knees. On the other, for goodness sake, we’re in a cemetery. Do try to have some inkling of dignity.” Lydia said scathingly, ignoring his pleas. Dear god, chihuahuas didn’t need foot massages, why on earth was he blathering on as if they did? Deirdre surrendered far too easily, and Lydia didn’t quite manage to hide her irritation in time. “Or I could make him drown himself in a cloud,” she said blasély, as if suggesting what they might have for dinner, then remembered their last encounter with human death. “Or just tell him to stay here silently.”

When was it that senselessly killing humans started to seem wrong to Deirdre? Was it before or after Emma? Before or after falling in love with a human? She grimaced at Lydia’s plan, then flinched as she expected some kind of outburst at her facial expressions. It didn’t come, and then she waited as the man continued to grovel and wail and beg. Deirdre continued to drag him along on her leg until he quieted enough for Deirdre to speak. “Or we could help him,” she asked Lydia quietly. Not as another fae, but as a friend. “Just this once. Just...maybe we can atone for Emma, in some small way.” Emma was, of course, a beloved student and daughter. This older man seemed like his only family were two poorly named dogs that he insisted needed daily massages, bedtime stories and a kiss goodnight or else they would be absolutely inconsolable. “Please, Lydia…” It wasn’t right, it wasn’t even what she should be doing. She didn’t even care about humans, let alone carry any desire to save them. But this one, just this once, she thought it might be the right thing to do.

If Deirdre had been anyone else, Lydia might have shook her head and moved on with their day. They would have forgotten the human under the enthralling nature of everything else they had to do here. Even for a human, he was a pathetic, unsightly specimen. He grovelled and begged, but Lydia didn’t care about that. She cared about the way Deirdre had flinched, just for having a contrary opinion. That fear, expressed, that Lydia would punish her. It wasn’t the first time Lydia had seen her flinch like this. Fae wanted to belong even with their strangest idiosyncrasies, and neither of them were any different. Someone, somewhere along the way had made that flinch necessary. It might even have been Lydia, who was not thrifty with her harsh words. Deirdre said please, and Lydia gently cupped the other woman’s face. “For you, fine,” she said softly, and press a small kiss to Deirdre’s cheek, safe in the knowledge that it wouldn’t hurt her, and would provide the comfort Lydia’s own affectionate traditions wouldn’t. “Let us find ourselves another puddle.”

Deirdre swelled with happiness. She grinned wide and perked up, flushing with affection under Lydia’s kiss. She had never had a friend quite like her, and she treasured every second of it. She didn’t know a fae that was better than Lydia, and she didn’t want to. “You’re the best, you know that right?” She beamed, then raised her voice to dramatism--if only to avoid sounding overly sentimental. “I just don’t know what I’d do without you, oh great Lydia. I would be hopelessly lost. I might even adopt two chihuahuas and become a very sweaty man.” She eyed the human, who was struggling to stand up now on account of all his sweating. She didn’t help him. “If he cries like that again, I’ll personally drown him.” She stood between Lydia and the sweaty human--Jerry, not to be confused with his dog Jerry, he kept trying to tell them--as they walked. She couldn’t figure out how to thank Lydia with her words, for all that Lydia was and for all that she had done, but she hoped her delight might have said it for her.

“I do try,” Lydia said, brightening up just under the influence of Deirdre’s cheer. If it was so easy to make her so happy, why didn’t she do this all the time? What was saving one paltry human when it could do this for Deirdre? She elbowed Deirdre at the dramatics, but the smile she was biting away was far from fake. And then her gaze turned to the miserable wreck of a man on the ground, waiting impatiently for him to stand up. He had a briefcase, she noticed with a groan. Not even real leather, and the seams were fraying at the edges. The classic way for white collar men to stroke their own ego and over value their own importance, to make themselves seem more valuable than they were. It was disgusting. She didn’t see how this would balance out for Emma in the slightest, but it was what it was. Because even here up was still down and left was still wrong, she held on to Deirdre’s arm tightly as they began looking for a way back to the other world. “Look, there.” Lydia wondered if they might push him through and be on their way, but they had no idea what part of town he might emerge in.

Jerry was insufferable. This was quickly apparent in the way he tried to wrench himself between Deirdre and Lydia, afraid that if they couldn’t see him, they would forget about him. When he realized he couldn’t do that, even with trying to swing his briefcase out, he started talking loudly instead. Mostly about his dogs, but occasionally about his new girlfriend, Jerri---with an ‘i’ he said, so it wasn’t confusing. It was with great relief that Deirdre took to observing the gateway out. "Look there sweat-boy, just go through that and you're done!" Jerry approached cautiously, glancing back at the two women. He asked where it led, Deirdre shrugged. "Outside, obviously. Who knows where. That's not our concern." And then he started to cry again. "I hate him," Deirdre turned to Lydia, "he's like a fully-grown baby! Fates, let me just push him in." With great reluctance, she untangled herself from Lydia and approached Jerry, who she then began to shove towards the exit. "Just. Get. In. There." But Jerry kicked and screamed and when his foot fell through the other side, he gripped Deirdre and dragged her down with him.

Jerry with a y was so intolerable Lydia briefly considered stealing his girlfriend Jerri with an I, and giving his dogs Ben and Jerry (also with a y) to Jared for safe keeping. In short, the more he talked, the more Lydia day dreamed about leaving him to the pixies to eat on. But Deirdre has wanted this, and Deirdre was the one batting him away every time he tried to squeeze between them. Lydia just held Deirdre closer until their shoulders were pressed together. "Oh, for God sake man! Pull yourself together. This is what a rescue looks like!" Lydia snapped - but it was too late. He grabbed Deirdre, yanking her right out of Lydia's grasp, and into the puddle. Lydia winced at Deirdre's fall, because it looked painful and terrifying, and being grabbed by that man seemed as disgusting as wading through a swamp. Lydia hesitated, then jumped in after them. Unfortunately for her, that second's hesitation had stretched into an hour on the other side of town.

“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU AND FEED YOU TO YOUR DOGS. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? YOU’RE DEAD, JERRY. DE---Oh, hello, Lydia.” Deirdre grinned, happily holding a knife above Jerry with one hand while Jerry’s sweaty dress shirt was bunched in her other. She hadn’t been expecting Lydia to join her. Life on the other side was an unimaginable nightmare. Deirdre watched and waited for Lydia to pop out, then considered that she wouldn’t---because why would she? There was a whole fae district for her to explore. And so she turned to Jerry, who had taken to looking around. “You know,” he started, “I actually think this might be the forest behind my house. Look! I can see my backyard from here.” And then Deirdre lost it. She could barely remember how exactly she’d spent her hour, but Jerry was crying and Deirdre hair and clothing were disheveled. Her dress was muddy, as was Jerry’s sweat-stained attire. She could remember chasing him around and throwing rocks and sticks in anger, all of it culminating in tackling him to the floor in front of the puddle they popped out of with a knife in her hand and murderous intent in her voice. “How fun for you to finally join me. Did you stop to do a little shopping or---” Jerry whimpered as Deirdre spoke and she slapped him. “I said cut that out! Fates--Do you know where we are Lydia? Jerry, tell her where we are.” He sniffled, “b-behind my house.”

Lydia took in the scene in front of her with a startled look. The knife raised, the mud, the leaf dangling from Deirdre's hair. How had so much happened in the blink of an eye? "H-Hi Deirdre," she replied, flummoxed as she stepped off the puddle and into the forest, momentarily thrown by the shift of the floor back where it ought to be and the pop in her ear that was always disorientating upon return. "Finally join you? Shopping? Deirdre. What?" Lydia replied with a long stare. The stare became even longer at his reply. "In your back garden? You miserly shrimp. We helped you and you dragged us to just behind your house? You really do top the dung heap don't you?" She pinched her the bridge of her nose. The trees filtered out the moonlight, so this puddle wouldn’t work anymore. Their trip to the mirrored district was thoroughly scuppered. “I don’t care whether you kill him or not, but this puddle is dead.but the night’s still young if you’d like to find some fun around town.”

Deirdre snapped her gaze back to Jerry like a crazed animal. He and dragged her down because he was afraid of where he's end up, and where he ended up was right behind his fucking house. Deirdre wanted to kill him so badly she nearly frothed at the mouth about it. One hour she chased this fool around, and one hour she wrestled with the desire to just scream and end him. "Look at my dress," she said, "look at my hair. I sincerely doubt I'll be able to enjoy a night on the town while I look like I just enjoyed a night pretending to be a pig." Jerry whimpered in her grip; she hated him. And so, she stabbed him. Three times. In the shoulder. She dropped him and staggered back. "I should kill you," she prefaced, "but I went through so much effort to save you. So, let's call ourselves even, right?" Jerry nodded. "And I need a promise you won't tell anyone about me, or her." Jerry promised. "Well then," Deirdre kicked him, "get on with it." Jerry, clutching his shoulder, scrambled away. Deirdre pulled the handkerchief she kept out and began wiping blood away. "You were gone for a while, Lydia. I didn't think you'd follow. Not that I'd blame you if you wanted some more fun in the aos sí." She smiled gratefully at her friend. "If you'd still like some fun, I'm sure I can steal someone's shower and a change of clothes. I don't really mind…" she slipped her knife away. "As long as I'm with you, my friend. That's the only place I'd like to be."

Deirdre was unnervingly unpredictable at times. It was extremely fae of her, perhaps more fae of her than Lydia, if they were both honest with themselves, but that didn’t change how unnerving it was to have heard just minutes ago (from Lydia’s perspective) that Deirdre wanted to make up for Emma’s death, only to watch her stab him, the blood immediately staining his soaked shirt, spreading faster through the cloth because it was already so sweat stained. She didn’t say anything as Deirdre made the promises, only stepping away to give Jerry a wide birth as he scampered away. Deirdre cleaned her knife methodically as Lydia walked over to her, concerned. She touched Deirdre’s muddy shoulder, careful to avoid the worst of the mud but also to offer reassurance. “I came right after you. I promise, I wasn’t trying to leave you with him. I’m so sorry, Deirdre. Especially for your dress and hair.” She smiled conspiratorially, and took Deirdre’s hand again. “Why don’t we go back to mine. You can shower, borrow one of my dresses… it’ll be a little short on your legs, but you have ever such nice legs, and then we can decide what we want to do for the rest of the evening.”

"Hey, I'm not mad at you about it, Lydia. Even if you were trying to leave me with him. I don't mind. You came out in the end after all, anyway. And you're here now, and that's what matters to me." Deirdre smiled, her anger had dissipated with the stabbing, and couldn't find a foothold under Lydia's reassurance. But there was...one thing she thought she might do anyway. With her free hand, she wiped up a glob of mud off her dress and held it. "Mhm, sounds great to me, friend." She grinned madly, holding up the mud. "You know, it'd be such a shame if I was the only one showering, right?" And with all the mischief of a fae, she chased Lydia around, threatening muddy demise.

#chatzy #wickedswriting #i sidhe you #c: lydia #this is wholesome time #WHOLESOME ACTIVITY ONLY #also i adopted the timing/summary layout because yOU KNOW WHAT IT IS BETTER #THE NON-EXISTENT PEER PRESSURE GOT TO ME #also lydia is good :/

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writer-who-wont-friggin-write · 4 years

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To Soar With Vultures: Chapter One

The Goddess Of Life Is A Bitch Apparently

In the countryside of Itreyan, a great empire by any measure, stood an manor built just at the edge of a forest. Something about the trees seemed to loom over the estate, the trees casting shadow no matter where the sun sat in the sky. If the stone hewn fence that surrounded the property was any indication, what went on in the places the light never reached was not something to be spoken of by any honorable, god-fearing, life-loving man.

Rayla stood deep in the bowels of the caverns below. The dim light of torches placed every fifteen feet was barely enough to let her see the pickaxe in her hands and the cave wall inches from her face. She raised the pickaxe in her hands and pitched it forwards at the rock in front of her with a heaving blow. Fragments of stone chipped away, but the impact reverberated up her arm and didn’t help with the ache that grew in her bones.

Bad idea little girl! The voice in the back of her head hissed. Stay away! Some things were not meant to be touched.

On a good day, her only company was the Akkator. The cranky little bastard of a god resided in the deep hole where her soul should have been, right along with bits of daemons and a power darker than what radiated through the air of the caverns. Who cared that she’d sold that soul to the same old god so that she could draw her power from the tainted ground and puppet herself around like a living corpse with a body that never died? She certainly didn’t.

“Would you mind quieting down? I’d rather face whatever is beyond this wall than another round of Jvar’s torture when I don’t find it.”

The thing inside her bristled. Was calling it in a thing fair when it had a personality and a few scraps of power to call its own? Maybe not, but the alternative was to acknowledge that she shared her head space with an old, backwater god called death itself, so calling it a thing would do nicely.

Believe me, if that axe swings another time you’ll regret being born. No. You’ll regret not being able to die.

Rayla swung her pickaxe again. To hell with the Akkator’s warning. True or not, it could wait for the long walk through the pitch blackness back to the upper levels that waited for when the torches burnt themselves out as a signal. The shackles on her ankles and collar on her neck were good reminders that whatever she was made of, she was still just a prisoner, still nothing more than a darker sort of pet for a sadist to experiment on.

And nothing was going to stand in her way of getting out of them. Nothing would get in her way of getting out of this place, tracking down wherever Jvar had stashed her little brother, and finding a nice, quiet little nook to wait for the end of days.

When the steel met stone and chipped away through a surprisingly thin bit of rock, nothing happened, at least not at first. It took a moment , but once the sound of something scraping from the other side reached Rayla’s ears, it was like the world came crashing down upon her shoulders.

Suddenly, the faint moans of those long dead that she’d grown accustomed to were joined by a swirling cacophony of new screams. This, she could be prepared for. More screams meant more dead, but she’d straddled between life and death and survived in the in between for 14 long, long years.

She’d survive whatever this new threat was, even if it drove her to the edge of insanity.

What she wouldn’t give to be five years old again and sitting in a palace of splendor before it had all burnt up in ash and ruin…

Worse still, when she peered into the small crack that led to more darkness,something looked back. It’s eyes were an empty, milky white that stood out from it’s peeling onyx skin, which would be a visage so incomprehensibly unhuman if it weren’t for one simple fact.

She wasn't exactly human either. There was a time when she was, but that was before Jvar. That was before she'd been made into the black blooded, clawed, creature with a mouth of razor teeth and a tail chained to her legs that stood here.

Humanity was a nice sentiment to cling to though. Not that it was necessary.

“Let me out my darling…” the voice in the crack crooned, desperately trying to stretch a thin, bony finger through the slit in the rock. Its voice was raw yet smooth. Rayla watched as it ran a claw down the shimmer veil filling the crack. Watched as it ran a claw down the oh so fragile veil between this world and all that lay beyond. “Otherwise I’m sure your soul would taste divine.”

The voices of those dead were screaming in warning that whatever lay beyond that veil should never cross it.

The broken sound of Rayla’s laughter filled the empty tunnel. Whatever that thing was, it was not all knowing, or it would have known one very ugly truth- Rayla Asarova had sold her soul long ago.

The body that simply brushed off death was absolutely worth the power it'd cost her.

The torch struggling to illuminate the catacomb finally sputtered out, signaling that after ten hours mining away at rock and going nowhere, Rayla was free to wander back up through the pitch darkness and rejoin the so-called land of the living.

She took one last glance at the crack. Her eyes, made for darkness, adjusted quickly. Something nasty was oozing out from it, just like a wound gushing blood. On a whim, Rayla waved farewell to that particular nightmare before starting back out of the mine.

“Made another time,” she called back to the thing in the darkness. Could it hear her?

The chill in her bones told her that she didn’t want to know.

Please don’t play games with her. I’ve heard she’s quite the bitch.

A soft chuckle escaped her lips. “If that ends up being the understatement of the century I’m going to kill you.” The words felt raw on her tongue. Spoken words from her were rare. It was better that way. If she was silent she’d never beg, never plead, and never humiliate herself.

But most importantly, if she never said anything, it meant there was something she could still control. It meant she could never betray her true intentions to anyone she didn’t trust. Jvar had learned to like her silent, to have a whore of a mutt who watched with glassy eyes with nothing going on upstairs. That was all she was, a perfect picture of whatever her enemies wanted to see.

Rayla knew the way back out of the mines so well that she let her mind drift off to the sound of her pickaxe scraping against the ground. Was the sound a risk? Yes. The daemons were always listening, and for most, an encounter with a hungry one meant death.

But Rayla Asarova could not die. So she walked on until she reached the gates.

She wordlessly handed her pickaxe off to a guard and stumbled into the searing, artificial light.

“Long time, no see,” It was another prisoner who spoke. He hovered at the edge of the crowd waiting to watch for the gate to be sealed shut. Just like her, they were all in shackles with collars around their necks. “Was really hoping you wouldn’t make it out this time.”

She drifted her gaze to meet his eyes. They were the same deep navy as his hair, but she knew that even though he loved to deny it, those eyes could cloud over into black pits. Just like hers did.

Go on! Say it. Rasaj, why don’t you drop dead? I heard Hel is particularly nice this time of year! Prick.

She said nothing, but she didn’t hesitate to part her black lips into a sneer. In her opinion, Rasaj needed a glimpse of those razor sharp teeth. Maybe he’d learn that she was with him in the highest security part of the asylum for suspiciously bloody reason.

Besides, the Akkator was playing. No matter what old rumors said, dead people didn’t come back as the daemons of the beyond. No dead person she had ever heard ever mentioned the Hel beyond or daemons.

Not true. Some of them were killed by daemons and still weren’t over it.

Rasaj stepped over to her and shoved a hand against her chest. She stumbled back a step and then caught her balance to the tune of his laughter. “Do you think Jvar would care if I offed his whore when nobody was looking?”

Jvar’s whore. What a shit nickname. When he'd first dragged her in front of everyone, a new introduction after all the time in near solitude, he'd called her the halival. The reaper.

But whore was the only thing that ever stuck. That was good, in a way. When the world thought she was just an empty eyed doll, a whore for a sadist, that meant they wouldn't be watching. They'd underestimate her, and there was power in that.

Nobody would suspect she played the long game. Nobody would suspect her when bodies started dropping.

It really took everything to remind herself that Rasaj was not the enemy, just an asshole, and that his russet brown skin was speckled with scars just like her.

They could both thank one sadist in particular. Jvar Vetrecini.

On an impulse, Rayla reached out a hand and dragged a clawed fingertip lightly across his throat, right above the collar. She didn’t press enough to actually draw blood, just enough to remind him that she was not harmless.

Rasaj jerked back, nearly knocking someone else over. Rayla couldn’t hold back a thin smile. There wasn’t a mirror, but with her wicked blood red eyes, deathly pale skin, and sharp smile, Rayla imagined that to Rasaj, she looked like a particularly vengeful ghost. It was a good visual.

And sometimes, when the seething craving for blood inside her that came from the daemons bubbled up, her eyes would go black. She didn't lose control, she'd practiced to hold onto it where others had failed. Jvar expected a feral animal. Jvar expected a broken doll. She'd be nothing more. She'd be nothing less. She'd be nothing else.

Otherwise she had her mother’s crimson eyes.

Before Rasaj could find a way to retaliate, a familiar, booming voice cut through the air.

Jvar Vetrecini was standing on his pedestal. “I have an announcement to make!” She had to admit, he had guts to stand in front of the people he quite literally tore to shred for fun and speak with a smile. Rasaj nudged Rayla’s arm.

“You know about this?” he spat.

Rayla didn’t even bother looking Rasaj in the eye, even as he turned to stand beside her and lean up against her shoulder. Of course she didn’t know.

“To be fair, I have a few announcements, but you guys don’t have anywhere to be,” Jvar said with a laugh and a smile that didn’t reach his opal eyes. “First order of business- fresh meat!”

He gestured to the tall girl who stood at his side. On some level, they looked the same. They had the same coppery brown skin and slender face, with eyes that actually seemed to shine like jewels, even from afar.

“This is Katara. Nothing too special, but here she is,” Jvar shoved her off the platform, leaving her to face plant on hard ground. Rayla winced a bit.Katara didn’t have it bad as far as “introductions” went, but the sinking feeling of having to crawl to your feet while bound in chains wasn’t pleasant.

Rayla watched someone help Katara to her feet as the crowd clapped and scowled. She remembered standing on the pedestal in a straitjacket with a muzzle on her face. She remembered when Jvar announced her as the Halival and brushed off what she did under the guise that she was lucky enough to be his weapon one day.

4 years was a long time, but not long enough to make Rayla forget what it felt like to be left to scramble off the ground alone while a few brave souls tried to crush her under their feet.

That was her life though. 5 years of getting to be a kid before getting dragged off to Jvar and filled with horrors. 10 years in his side prison being tortured before snapping and showing the guards that she was no child, just a wolf in sheep's clothing. 4 years here, in the asylum that Jvar personally oversaw.

14 years without talking to another person if anyone was counting.

“Second order of business- I’ve heard news from a...classified source that someone discovered a very special...something down in the mines,” Jvar paused for a moment, craning his neck to look around as if he could see into the soul of whoever found what he wanted. Every muscle in Rayla’s body tensed.

How in the Akkator’s name did he know?

Jvar stopped his dramatic looking around. “So whoever did so is going to come forward and describe exactly what they found and where they found it,” For once, Rayla hung on every word like the body of a criminal hung from a noose. He should not know what she found. She didn’t understand why, but something told her that Jvar shouldn’t learn about the thing down below that wanted to devour her soul. “Or there are going to be some nasty consequences that I would love to see come to fruition.”

You're right. Somehow, the Akkator managed to whisper despite being just a voice in Rayla’s head. He should not find what you found. And I would stop calling her an it. She has a name- Mor, goddess of life, and Queen of Daemons and the dark Hel beyond.

Rayla closed her eyes and sighed. There was something fucked about this place. There was something fucked about this world, and there was something fucked about the world beyond too.

Fine. She'd known that for awhile now. It wasn't like it would change.

#To Soar With Vultures #To Soar With Vultures Chapter 1 #original writing #my writing #Rayla Asarova #Rasaj #Chapter 1 #writing

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catmonsterscupcakes · 6 years

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I wrote a fic for @the-wonder-duo! I hope you enjoy it! This blog is so gret and gives me something to look forward to everyday ^_^

The passageway was narrow and dimly lit by hanging lights, the walls showed their age by the crumbling foundations and worn bricks that made them up.

Deku himself hadn’t dared to run his hand across the worn brick, but he could imagine the feeling of the rough foundation across his fingertips as he continued to walk down the path. He could imagine lifting his fingers to see a thick layer of dust coating them.

Being in the final resting place of so many others felt odd, it wasn’t like a cemetery where the reminder of death was hidden under layers of dirt and represented by tombstones; down here it felt so real with the scattered skeletons of the past blatantly making their presence known. He wasn’t scared - in fact he was morbidly fascinated, but with being surrounded by thousands of skeletal remains but it was impossible to not feel slightly uneasy. Considering all of the close calls he and Kacchan have had in their line of work. Despite his slight discomfort the familiar scent of his partner that was stitched into the borrowed jacket he was wearing calmed him.

His stream of thought was interrupted by “Oi! Deku watch where you’re going!”

“Sorry Kacchan, I was just thinking”, he could feel the slightly sheepish smile creeping up on his face.

“Tch. Of course you were, you’re always thinking out loud with that damn mumbling of yours. You were talking so damn fast that I could only catch the part about the dusty walls. If you wanna touch some dust so bad just touch the figurines in your collection, you never clean them. Now come on before the entire group leaves you behind.”

“Rude as always Kacchan”, as offended as he was from Kacchan’s statement about his figurines(they were not dusty, he just didn’t clean them everyday like someone he knew), knowing that his partner was acting like himself despite being in a place that should remind him of the torment he went through, made Deku feel relieved… for the most part anyways.

Kacchan was now walking ahead of him in the group seemingly unbothered by the physical reminders of human mortality around him, and the fact that he had almost lost his life in a similar underground environment. If Deku was being honest, he knew that Kacchan wasn’t over what had happened to him, not like that was a surprise. Most people would never bounce back from being kidnapped and having their hands chopped off. Unconsciously covering his mouth with both hands, his mind flashed back to when Kacchan had emerged from the manhole, the man he’d known for most of his life had been bloody and broken, and his arms…. god, his arms were….

Suddenly he felt a hand firmly grip his shoulder. “Deku snap out of it, your going to be left behind”, Kacchan said in a uncharacteristically soft tone, he was staring at Deku with a questioning look in his eyes, unasked questions swirled in the light surrounded by blood red. “Guess I’ll just have to stay by you to make sure your distracted ass doesn’t get lost. I can already see the headline”. He wrapped his arm around Deku’s shoulders and outstretched his hand as if he could make the words he was about to say display out of thin air, “Symbol of Hope Forever Lost in Catacombs Because He Was Too Busy Being a Nerd To Pay Attention”.

“Kacchan!”, he could feel the laughter shake his entire body, he really couldn’t help himself. The look on Kacchan’s face wasn’t helping either, the blond looked so proud of himself. Deku could clearly see him holding back a genuine smile behind his signature smirk until it morphed into a frown as the tour guide sneered at them.

She was an skinny older woman, with pronounced cheekbones and her hair done in an almost impossibly neat silver colored bun. Her uniform and posture were extremely crisp as she faced them.

“Excuse me Sirs, but could one of you please enlighten the group on what could possibly be so funny about one of Paris’s most treasured locations in which six million dead are buried? Seeing as you two seem to have no problem interrupting the tour?”. Her gaze was sharp.

“Um no-nothing, we’ll be make sure to be quieter, sorry”, said Deku.

“Hmph, alright.”, she turned to face the majority of the group. “Anyway as I was saying before being interrupted. To make room for more burials, the long-dead were exhumed and their bones packed into the roofs and walls of galleries built inside the cemetery walls. By time the 18th century came to a close, the main burial ground was a two metre high mound of dirt filled with centuries of Parisian dead, plus the-

As much as he wanted to listen to what the tour guide was saying to avoid more trouble, Kacchan seemed to have other plans. His friend still had an arm wrapped around Deku and he leaned into his ear and said, “Hey Deku, I bet she’s so pissed off because some of her relatives live here. I mean just look at her, she’s so skinny and you can practically see her skull through that pathetic excuse of a face. The lady is practically a skeleton herself”.

Deku covered his mouth to muffle his giggles, he keep his voice low and said, “Oh my god Kacchan you’re the worst”. Honestly he was having a really hard time not bursting into laughter. However, he did feel bad, the tour guide had been right, they had interrupted the tour. “She’s just trying to do her job”.

“Tch, whatever, old hag shouldn’t of been so rude”. Kacchan pointed his head forward, “Looks like we’re entering one of the chambers. God look at all of those poor fuckers, being stacked up like that.”

“Oh my god, Kacchan”

Attention! All of you have exactly ten minutes to look around and take pictures before you move on. I will be available to personally answer any questions you may have, but please remember not to touch the skeletal remains”.

Kacchan huffed, “Attention? Really? What is she a military sergeant?”

Deku let out a barely restrained snort. Kacchan was being horrible, but seeing the blond joke around so freely put a smile on his face. “Come on, let’s look around before we run out of time”.

The chamber was dark, only barely illuminated by lights that were attached to the low hanging ceiling. Various signs were built into the skeletal walls. The group had split up, some people were taking pictures, while others were asking the tour guide questions. Deku wanted to get a closer look at some of the skulls in a particular wall so he walked towards it, pulling Kacchan along with him.

“I wonder what some of these people were like when they were alive? What were their names? Did some of them have fulfilling lives or did they die too early?”, Deku rambled, chin resting on his hand.

“Statistically speaking at least two of these people had to be fucking while they were alive.”

Eyes widened and mouth agape Deku slowly turned to face Kacchan. “I- ugh… I guess you’re right but why is that the first thing you thought of?”

“It’s just a fact of life, you perv… besides it’s just statistics, your nerd ass should know that”, Kacchan sneered.

“Hey! You’re the one who said it! And Kacchan you graduated U.A in the one spot above me in the class ranks, so if anyone’s a nerd it’s you.”

“Tch.”

The rest of the tour had gone smoothly for them. The constant commentary by Kacchan never failed to make him smile, plus the fact that he was wearing Kacchan’s jacket and the blond’s arms had stayed around him the majority of the time made his heart beat faster. Deku couldn’t remember the last time the two of them were able to hang out like this alone. Kacchan was really nice to have around, he wished he would spent more time like this together with him in the future.

#bakudeku #the-wonder-duo #my writing #bkdkpositivityfriday #i tried #i wrote this in like a day #it's bad but i tried #theres so many grammar mistakes #i suck at grammar #but it was fun to write

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ecotone99 · 5 years

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[SF] Matilda and the Questionable Queen

[ XXX ]

It had been one long-ass battle after another: Matilda literally couldn’t stand up anymore from the trauma lacing her spine: inducing early onset Degenerative Disc Disease on her lumbar and collar bones. She wore her stupid Pocahontas ruffles even in her dreams: stuck a mascot of those victims enslaved and murdered for this Nation. She would always laugh at these weird props and situations meant to keep her hashtag humble: the gloves and the milk she could smell falling from her own chest somehow.

Matilda had no qualms with her ruffled collar, but had grown exhausted from the spike textured gloves strapped to the backside of her palms: another curse from Hera: acted out by Carmen. It were the same self-disgust she felt as a young girl: shamed for having kissed a boy she were once tethered to named Chucky. Matilda would panic naked in every shower even today: remembering Carmen and her shrill voice calling her disgusting. Her pale, scaly arm slowly reaching in and checking that the water could fully sanitize her whoredom. She were one of the witches that they had once campaigned to murder in Salem in a past life: the same villain in every story somehow.

She’d hold her tongue as she leaned over looking at their progress: dawning her frilled collar after her first incarnation: an Indigenous Warrior named Matoaka: a cursed name known only now as Pocahontas. It reminded her it were time to fuck some shit uppp: and that she had returned from the stars to help her friends while she gained her wings. She had been there to support Kness when his mother "Jake" who had been struggling with lyme disease: meeting a somber and lost Kness soon after her passing. He were lost with his siblings: Jada, and Cynths: left choosing between bottle and a mirror. She had also been an interesting and frustrating distraction to Harper: when his elder sister were battling sickness, his boundaries set specifically to keep her out of the loop. Matilda hadn't wished herself on these planes of existence: she had been summoned in their dreams: exiting because of one: dying inside because of the other. Never allowed to state an answer to either: left in limbo alone. She no longer believed in romance because of these two tall men: still managing to care deeply somehow as she still blushed if she had to look at them.

Such lunacy warranted a cot in the mad house: so Matilda went on her way without overthinking why this one individual bothered her so much. Surrounded by love and support: finally safe from the grasp of the woman who used to try and rip off her face. She were along the lines of the cunning and unpredictable evils she often avoided deep in the dark webs of her Golden Apple. Carmen were not to be trusted in the exact respects to how Matilda felt aboot the Questionable Queen in the East: her families rule dubious in sexual proclivities and violence. Finally Matilda had decided on a name for this queen that fit her old wrinkled face: a name given on a random whim: Queen Cersei. Matilda needn’t bash this old queen and her family since they did equally fucked up things: on ever timeline. Instead she cursed her readers blind if they ever chose to unsee it as she had commanded: watching the growing proof she had ordered the execution of the Princess of Wales the over-romanticized marriage to her own cousin. The queen forever de-crowned only by vanity somehow.

Matilda had only found the old queen after she had seen her worm and minion: a beast with no face: Benedict XVI. He had came out of his slimy hole after his predecessor out shined him with his take on the future: mad the new wizard had allowed them to be written in Matilda's permanent ink admitting themselves child molesters. Such slimy sons of bitches thinking they were slick locking her in a catacomb of static. Only remembering when she caught them trading posts: hypnotizing the people of the world with their magic Golden Rod. Matilda couldn’t wait to break that shit: or shove it up their butts. She hadn’t quite decided somehow.

Matilda were tired of the rape and pillaging over all this nonsense: no options other than to rip her spirit from her body until she could prove she were ready to elevate all those around her. Instead of always running from the Queen Cersei through space and time: Matilda hid her Indigenous Warriors in a dimension where they were safe. She put her wounded family in Tipis that were always half-full and a warm chant that kept them alive: A. She hid her Dupree standing in plain sight with his arms held up as he bore the weight of the world on his back kneeling from an injured shin: Y. Lastly she hid her Viking in his beloved lost culture: V. She were already: I and O. Sitting there in plain sight for all of times: mocking all those who dared wear the headdress that represented such an intellectual Nation built of alchemists. She knew her fellow criminals and occasional fuck ups would remember her smile the more time passed on: making them repent in their lives over and over again with sickness of disability or crime: according to their previous lives as traitor(s) overthrowing her rule. Sitting in plain sight as both a criminal and disabled individual who vaguely remembered being overthrown as ruler and had to turn a Golden Apple inside out in order to remake a Kness and find a Viking. Mad she were still unarmed, creating code in hidden in alphabets that she made forever ago: naked and chained to a wall...drifting through space somehow.

Matilda had flipped an apple inside out by blowing yo minds. Boom. That’s how you debate. Either way she were still stuck forever having caught ya’ll up on the deets of whatever shit is aboot to go down. Endgame style. She had lifted a veil of confusion for herself as watched as others looked for her finally in words and symbols everywhere, a Greenman walking in a tech filled world. Matilda knew her only job was to kill some beasts whenever she got a command from tech support. Her job was only to confess her sins in away that reflected the gracefulness of the last name Brooks, and hope that all those around her would finally love their children. Seeing that they were people too, and know that they needed help by others who weren’t their parents. Orphans just like Matilda: sad that the world left them behind as children somehow.

Matilda had no solution or series build up of a grandeur epic battle showdown. She did not believe in drawn out characters and open plot holes created to beat a dead horse for profit. Instead she memorialized her friends in a book: trusting their judgement in people as they had decided in their previous lives: hidden in plain sight. Instead she dedicated this book to her birth mother: A woman named Melissa Brooks: a beautiful, tragically fallen Indigenous Warrior. No words can say moments lost by anger, and so Matilda wrote her a book: in her sadness wondering why she had been abandoned. It was not her right to ask her how she had came to be so broken: but only drink her tears from a magic vase if it meant she understood privilege. Matilda had use this manuscript to weep her tears and refill her vase: mending it with her joy. She were finally a woman strong enough to understand that sometimes awful things happen, and that she had to work extra hard to differentiate what was right and wrong with the aid of her friends. Matilda was finally free to be a person of situation: no longer a victim to circumstances, finally gentle enough to say she were sorry for all the damage she had done. She would tuck away the vase left by Melissa for another winter: her tears still needed but no longer burdening. She would thank her elders for their efforts providing her clean water and air and continue to try and save their children from the epidemic of youth suicide, finally ready to let go of her past. She had wrote this as her dreams erupted when a scholar from Marysville had taken the lives of his peers: despite the fact he we an angel on Earth. The Indigenous Warrior had fell sick to the ways of Western culture, and Matilda now only worried aboot the rest of her scholars. She would have dreams walking up to him: begging him to put the gun down or point it at her in a crowded cafeteria. She would return telling him stories to calm his demons, always to the same result. She would say softly: this isn’t who we are fam, finally truly sorry that the statistics and facts only proved him right. Clamoring with her sweaty hands: annoyed she could still feel her gloves i her dreams. She were always unarmed or forfeiting her weapon. Other students were now in danger: scared he were no longer an Indigenous Warrior she could resurrect if he spilled blood. It would take almost three days and no sleep to write down the entirety of the story she once told him in his murderous rage dreaming: preparing to earn the title of privilege of life-taker like all the other dead-eyed savages. Matilda would now only reflect on that dream that became reality: shooketh to the core by how fucking awful this story panned out. Ending it all with a simple warning for her peoples: to never partake in human flesh, human waste, or bloodshed. She had broken the loop by finding her lost scholar and naming him after his once kind and gentle heart: Jaylen. Finally executing her mission by whispering: the last curses in the manuscript that had once started this all: Eureka.

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