#TECHNICALLY i already own a sword but- | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mediumgayitalian · 2 months

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“Hide me hide me hide me hide me hide me.”

Nico blinks, watching blankly as Will ducks under his arm, situating himself behind the door and peeking around it. When Nico doesn’t move, he cranes his neck to look at him, face urgent, and says, “Close it, dude, hurry up!

“Solace!”

“Fuck,” Will curses.

Nico blinks again. He squints across the common, trying to suss out what Will’s staring at. It doesn’t take long. She’s hard to miss, especially in full armour.

“Are you…hiding from Clarisse?”

“Am I hiding from —” He scoffs. “No, I’m just behind this door for fun. Fucking obviously I’m hiding from Clarisse, Nico, now get with the program and close the damn —”

“Solace!”

Both of them jump. When Nico looks, Clarisse is already way closer than she should be. Before he can process enough to slam the door, and heedless of Will’s increasingly-harried oh my gods oh my gods oh my gods fuck fuck fuck fuck, Clarisse is closer, and closer, and then suddenly she’s barging inside, pushing Nico aside like it’s not his damn cabin.

Will groans. “Aw, come on, Clarisse!”

She doesn’t bother to humour him with words, choosing instead to grab him by the collar and drag him bodily out. Will does not make it easy, going completely limp and getting his clothes grass-stained beyond belief, because Clarisse tugs him along like a sled behind her, bouncing over every stone. Nico follows, on the grounds that it’s not being nosy if Will dragged him into it technically.

“You have siblings! You have a boyfriend!”

“And yet I’m choosing you,” Clarisse says easily. “I’ve already told Chiron. It’s a done deal, weatherboy. You’re chariot racing with me.”

Will groans, trying in vain to squirm out of Clarisse’s grip. “There is no reason for me to be your partner in the stupid chariot race, I am a healer, I am at camp to heal —”

She shakes him a little to shut him up. “All the more reason. You focus too much on one thing, brat. All you do is heal and study like a big nerd. You need to get out of your comfort zone.”

“Um, no way. I’m very comfortable in it. That’s why it’s called a comfort zone.”

“You could use some training,” Nico pipes up, and the betrayed look Will gives him would be more effective at making him feel bad if it wasn’t so funny. “Last time I tried to teach you how to use a sword you almost sliced off your own face, so.”

Clarisse looks at him with appraisal. “Maybe you do have some sense in you, di Angelo.”

Nico chooses to take that as the compliment it is.

“Ugh,” Will says dramatically, and finally manages to wrench out of Clarisse’s grip in order to embed the appropriate level of drama in his face-down flop to the floor.

Clarisse kicks him. “You’re pathetic.”

“Ugh.”

Notably, he stops protesting. She kicks him again, affectionately this time, and stomps away.

———

“If I work myself into another coma, I don’t have to chariot race,” Will says gleefully, shoving the bottles of nectar Nico hands him onto a shelf. He’s been buzzing around the infirmary all day, healing things he is meant to be healing with a band-aid and a stop being a clumsy dumbass, dumbass with hymns and salves. “I’m gonna try to cure cancer again.”

Kayla, walking by, reaches out and smacks him. “Try it and I’m crack your country CDs in half.”

Will turns to her, opening his mouth —

“Every single one of them,” she stresses, green eyes narrowed.

— and closes it again, huffing.

“I’ll find a way,” he says glumly.

Nico pats him delicately on the back. “There, there.” A pause. “I mean, personally, I can’t wait to watch you fall out of a chariot.”

The look Will shoots him is nothing short of wounded. “You think I’m so uncoordinated I’m gonna fall out of the chariot?”

“Gracefully!” assures Austin from across the infirmary, smiling supportively. He grins brightly when they turn to look, nose scrunching with the force of his smile. “I’m sure!”

Will’s scowl twitches in the face of his brother’s blind enthusiasm. (It is impossible not to be endeared by Austin. He is genuinely the sweetest kid in the entire universe. Nico even gets, to his horror, the occasional urge to squish him. Gently.) He sighs.

“Thanks, Austin.”

“Of course! Love you Will!”

The twitching scowl melts into a full smile. “Love you too, kiddo.”

———

Watching chariot race practices, very quickly, becomes Nico’s favourite pastime.

He sees, now, why Achilles would bring them up, unprompted, wistful look in his eye, every time Nico visited. There’s a beauty in the rawness of it; the whipping winds, wild horses. Squealing wheels and bending axels, open-backed and inches from death at all time. Dangerous, exhilarating. Humanity, at it’s most thrilling and old — some of the first tools, the first domestic animals, the first machines, all at once. It’s pure, raw excitement.

Also, Will falls out of the chariot, like, eight whole times. And there’s nothing funnier than watching him lose his shit at a splintered pile of wood that was once a carriage, helmet thrown to the ground in a fit of rage, accent so thick he’s literally incomprehensible. Nico never gets to see him like this. His stomach actually hurts from laughter on several occasions.

Slowly, though, he starts to get the hang of it. He’s smart — incredibly so — and when he stops spending half his time complaining, and the other half pouting, he actually gets pretty decent. He’s fast, after all, and quick to observe, to respond; the other teams struggle to land hits on him, in practice runs, and sabotage is difficult when your opponent seems to have an almost prophetic gift to see things coming.

He can’t, however, steel himself to hit back.

And therein lies the trouble.

“For fuck’s sake, Will, I’m not asking you to kill anybody,” Clarrise snaps. “You need to get your head in the game!”

Will’s shoulders curl defensively. “I know! I’m trying! It’s just —” He kicks at their broken wheel, in two clean pieces on the ground. “Do no harm.”

“Do some harm. Or I’m gonna kick your ass.”

Will brightens. “And then ask somebody else to be your partner?”

“No, and then make you my partner forever.”

“Oh.”

Will’s sullen face is hard to look at. He’s got those big, puppy dog eyes, round and sad and pouty. Not even Clarisse is immune. (And certainly not Nico, who finds himself halfway off the spectator’s stands and jogging to the tracks before he wonders what exactly, the fresh fuck, he is doing, and sprints right back.)

“Shit, Solace, don’t look like I killed your goddamn mother.” She cuffs him on the shoulder, sending him sprawling with a muffled oof. “We’ll figure it out. Let’s go again.”

Accepting the spare chariot someone wheels towards her, she pulls herself up, making space for Will to do the same. He doesn’t get on immediately, still looking miserable, but concedes eventually.

His forearms look kind of nice when he grips onto the rails for dear life, Nico notices. From a totally objective perspective.

The four practicing teams guide their horses to the starting line, running a few last minute checks. To avoid spilling any secrets or strategies, everyone uses the same practice-issue wooden chariot and wears the same armour, but it’s still obvious who’s who.

The Hephaestus team’s chariot, despite being standard issue, gleams like it’s brand-new. The wood is polished and looks to be altered, barely; a carved groove here, a sharper wing there. Nothing that could really be considered an upgrade, but definitely making the whole thing look smoother. The spears they hold promise a plethora of untold ability hidden within.

The Hermes chariot looks deceptively beat up. There’s a chunk missing from the top of the left side, and one of the wheels appears to be just slightly out of alignment. Upon careful inspection, though, Nico can see clear, hollow tubing attached along the rails and open to the back — definitely a quick rig of some sort. Base (not acid, Cecil had happily lectured him on the benefits of using a base rather than an acid when dissolving anything from steel to human flesh), if Nico has to guess, or maybe Greek fire.

The Aphrodite-Iris chariot doesn’t have to do much to look great. The whole thing seems to coast gracefully to the beginner line, and neither charioteer looks particularly bothered or preoccupied with the competition — if Nico recalls correctly, and he does, their goal is to win through “gay audacity”, which Nico does not understand but supports wholeheartedly.

Will and Clarisse’s chariot, by comparison, is pretty run-of-the-mill. They haven’t done much training with the Ares horses or the Apollo flying chariot, because Clarisse is primarily concerned with training Will — she knows the equipment is fine.

Lacy, standing at the edge of the track, puts a sparkly pink whistle to her lips and blows loudly. It’s not nearly as loud as one of Will’s sonic whistles, but it does the trick, and the teams are off in a blur of movement; Will and Clarisse in the lead, Hephaestus behind them, Aphrodite-Iris in third, and Hermes lagging slightly behind.

As they turn their first corner, positions largely unchanging, Nico hears footsteps from his left — Lou Ellen smiles at him as she climbs the stand, settling into the space he makes next to him.

“What’d I miss?” she asks, brushing dust off her hands.

He shrugs. “Not much. They were in the lead the last practice round, too, but on the last lap Hermes caught up.” He gestures to the heap that was once their practice chariot. “Julia had her sword at their wheels. They were on the inner ring, nowhere to move; the only way to get rid of them would have been to knock her arm, probably dislocate her shoulder. Will couldn’t do it.”

Lou Ellen winces. “Ah.”

There’s a ripping sound, followed by cackling — the Hermes chariot has finally made use of their hasty rigging, setting off an explosion behind them that rockets them forward. It has the added bonus of shaking the ground, slightly, unsettling the other drivers for just barely long enough for them to pull into third place. Far ahead, still in first, Nico can see Clarisse yelling instructions at Will, although he can’t hear what they are. His grip on the rail has tightened.

“Why,” starts Nico carefully, and based on Lou Ellen’s pinched face she knows exactly where he’s going, “does she make him — well, you know.”

Lou Ellen is silent for a good long while, watching the practice chariot race with eyes that aren’t paying attention. Hermes is gaining, but Hephaestus is gaining faster.

“Clarisse has always liked Will,” she says eventually. She meets Nico’s incredulous expression, snorting. “Well, as much as Clarisse can like people. I got here way after he did, so I don’t have any more details there than you do, but he’s never been afraid of her, and she likes that. He’s never been mean to her, either. I mean, I know she can be a bully, but people aren’t exactly light on her, to be fair.”

The Aphrodite-Iris chariot turns out to have some tricks up its sleeve — it starts to glow; barely at first, but quickly blinding. At its crux, everyone has to look away, allowing them to pull into first.

Well, except that Will doesn’t seem nearly as staggered as everyone else. In fact, he doesn’t look bothered at all — for the first time that Nico has seen, there’s something like competition pulling a crooked smile on his face. He stares straight at the still-too-bright chariot, reigns wrapped around his arms as he yanks them forward.

“Is that why she drags him away sometimes?” Nico asks. “To train?”

“Something like that. Most of his training was with —” she falters. “Well, you know who. Medicine and some archery.”

They’re both quiet for a while. Neither of them ever knew Lee or Michael well, if at all, but over time Nico has found himself almost clamming up at the mere thought of them, the way one might tiptoe around an authority figure when they have something to hide. Forbidden subjects, where before Nico simply didn’t think of them often.

“You can’t just not train, though,” Lou Ellen murmurs, eyes trained on the chariots. Hephaestus throws one of their spears, lodging it in the spokes of the Aphrodite-Iris chariot. They come to a very abrupt and very screechy halt, knocking them out of the race in any real capacity. “Not at Camp Half-Blood. She taught him hand-to-hand because she was the only one strong enough to physically drag him to the arena. Everyone else gave up after the first few tantrums — I think she was kind of amused by the challenge. Or something.”

“Or something,” Nico agrees. Privately, he thinks that there is something about Will Solace that makes you want to protect him. Not frailty — he is not by any means incapable — but something about his smile, his genuineness. The stubborn belief that people are good and kind and worthy of everything he has to give. A naivety, except someone who’s been through what he has (what they all have) cannot be naive — his hope in the world is hard-earned and well-won. It makes people want to protect his hold on it, by any means necessary.

Even, Nico reasons, ornery old fuckers like Clarisse LaRue.

The three remaining chariots start the last leg of the race — Apollo-Ares, barely squeezing out in front; then Hephaestus, quickly gaining; and finally Hermes, lagging slightly but not to be discarded. As they round the bend, Nico watches as Clarisse cuffs Will briefly on the arm, clearly proud. This is the farthest they’ve made in first so far, after two weeks of training. Will, reigns safely transferred back to Clarisse, beams at her — bright enough that Nico can see it from dozens of yards away.

With sudden, calculated speed, the Hephaestus chariot surges forward.

As if coordinated, Nico and Lou Ellen inhale sharply, leaning forward. He sees the scattered few other campers so the same in his peripherals, watching with single minded focus as the chariot levels exactly with Will and Clarisse. Nico eyes the spear nervously — of all weapons, they’re the easiest for Will to dodge, to fight off. More impersonal.

But the sons of the smartest god around would know that.

For at least a hundred feet, nothing happens. Ares-Apollo and Hephaestus stay neck in neck, every urge forward matched, every pesky road-blocking stone avoided. The finish line is dangerously close, but no one pulls ahead, nothing changes. Four shoulders remain tense, four helmets stare resolutely forward.

Then, in a quick movement, the taller Hephaestus charioteer hands the spear off to the shorter, swiftly taking the reigns, and the shorter lunges — aiming right for Will’s shoulder. Will’s quick, though, and has his own spear poised to parry in an instant. There’s a barely perceptible nudge from Clarisse, and then Will’s eyes harden, and he lifts his spear to jab right back, needle-thin tip gleaming in the late afternoon sun, right for the chink in the charioteer’s armour and then —

The charioteer rips their helmet off, dropping it at their feet.

It’s Harley.

Hephaestus’ darling; hell, the camp’s darling. One of their youngest and brightest, with big, mischievous brown eyes, contagious smiles, endless enthusiasm. Cute, clumsy Harley, the only one of Hephaestus’ children Will doesn’t have to nag to get treated, who walks dutifully over the infirmary every time he gets so much as a second-degree burn and treats each one of Will’s overcautious instructions with utmost seriousness. Who Will sends away each time with an affectionate kiss on the forehead and a prized purple sucker — who Will, frankly, favours. Who Will would never, in a million years, even consider hurting.

A dirty trick by the Hephaestus cabin.

But an effective one.

Immediately, Will flinches back, spear dropping from his hand and splintering under thundering hooves and spinning wheels. Without a second of hesitation, Harley launches his spear in the same move as before — sticking it in the wheel’s spokes, inertia sending the charioteer’s sprawling, knocking them out of the race.

Except, maybe it’s different when the chariots are so close. Or maybe the chariot was faulty to begin with. Because as soon as the spear gets wedged, the fragile floor of the chariot seems to implode — sending Will and Clarisse under the still-moving machine, instead of flying over. The horses, disoriented from the sudden change, rip free of their harness, adding more force to the already precarious tumble.

There’s a sharp, sickening crack, so loud Nico can hear it as if it’s next to him. In the brief nanosecond immediately afterwords, he closes his eyes, sending a prayer to his father: please be the axle. Please be the axle. Please be the axle.

As the Hephaestus and Hermes chariots rocket past the finish line, Clarisse lets out a shrill, blood-curdling scream.

———

Nico’s off the bench and halfway towards the crashed chariot before he can blink. He’s not the only one — he processes, barely, everyone else’s quick convergence, including the remaining charioteers — but he’s there first, diving into the wreckage seconds before anyone else is close enough.

There’s not a lot of actual debris, chariots being as small as they are, but the dust cloud from the track is so huge and the pieces of wood are so splintered that it feels like there is. As the dust settles, and he kicks some debris out of the way, he starts to see the shape of Will, kneeling, in front of a prone Clarisse and an ever-growing pool of blood.

There’s a bone sticking straight out of her thigh.

As the rest of the campers converge upon them, Will looks up and meets Nico’s eyes. His own blue eyes are dark, steely — determined, but afraid.

“I don’t have time,” is the only thing out of his mouth before he braces both hands on Clarisse’s leg, immediately starting to sing urgent hymns.

Nico understands.

“Lou, Julia, Chiara,” he barks, taking charge in absence of Will’s voice. The three girls snap forward to him immediately. “Sprint the the infirmary and tell them what happened. Austin’s on duty — make sure he doesn’t come with you, we need him to prep a surgical suite. Send everyone else and send them fast. Bring a stretcher.”

He turns to the Hephaestus kids. “Jake, Harley, start clearing the debris to make space. Damien, join them; move the big stuff first, small stuff is secondary. We need a space for Will to work and a space to lay the stretcher. Jen, Butch, Lacy —”

He barks off a list of orders, doing his best to channel the commands he’s watched Will give dozens and dozens of times. In minutes, he has the track cleared, Will’s medical bag dragged over from the stands, and everyone who is not helping stabilize out to the infirmary to help as needed.

As soon as there’s an opening, he rushes over to Will and Clarisse, kneeling by her head.

“Help is coming,” he promises, watching the glow dim and flicker in time with the rhythm of Will’s chanting. The bleeding has slowed, marginally, but he can tell from the volume of blood alone that this was an arterial hit. It’s going to take more than Will’s raw healing power, although there is a lot of it, to keep Clarisse alive and keep her leg functioning in recovery. He needs tools, he needs nectar and ambrosia; he needs the surgery suite. He needs time.

“Is it helpful for me to knock her out?”

Clarisse, of course, is still conscious. Barely — and in so much pain Nico will be surprised if she’s processing anything at all — but enough that every few seconds she lets out an agonised shout of pain, writhing and flinching so hard Will has to focus on steadying her as much as healing her.

Without breaking his song, eyes still trained on the injury, Will nods. Nico breathes, squaring his shoulders, then shuffled forward to rest Clarisse’s head gently in his lap, fingers pressed to her temples. He presses, hard enough to feel the beat of her heart — weak — through his fingertips, and squeezes his eyes shut.

He’s no son of Hypnos, but dreams are the Underworld’s domain. Are his domain, as heir and prince of the Underworld, in every way that matters, that can be counted.

He lets himself sink into careful limbo; body in physical space, mind and soul elsewhere. Not too much — he’s no use if he falls unconscious — but enough to slip into Clarisse’s mindscape, step into her subconscious.

The whole place bleeds white, hot anguish.

Nico stumbles when he first walks in, nauseous despite being nothing but his own mind. It’s been a while since he’s experienced this kind of pain, his own or not, and he has to consciously beat back memories of brimstone and rot; liquid fire, endless red, red, red.

“Clarisse?” he calls, softly as he dares.

She doesn’t respond. He’s not sure she knows how to respond, even if she could. Cautious of the memory and emotion swirling around him, he steps forward. If he focuses, her anguish is pointed — is central. She will be at the centre of it.

He has volunteered, but he’s not sure he wants to follow.

Steeling himself, he shoulders through swirling masses of pain, of hurt, of fear. It’s blisteringly hot, and feels not unlike the sandstorm he was once stranded within, in the middle of the New Mexico desert four years ago. His face prickles; he’s blinded.

He trudges forward.

“Clarisse? Clarisse! Can you hear me? It’s Nico!”

Desperately and uselessly, he wishes he had more practice. Will has offered, the few times he’s needed to anaesthetize someone, but for the most time Nico has foolishly declined. Why on Earth he would pass up a much easier mindscape to navigate through in preparation for something like this is a mystery to him. Fuck.

“Clarisse! Try to — focus on me, can you hear me?”

He forces himself forward, a few more — well, there’s no distance in a mindscape, nothing measurable, anyway. He forces himself to look up, braving the assault to his face, and try to scan his surroundings. The swirling mass is more centralized, now, almost hurricane-like and conal. He’s closer than he was before, but if he can only find…

He looks up, and almost cries in relief: weak against the roaring storm, but still present, is a flickering, golden light. A very familiar light. Nico squeezes his eyes shut, thrusting out his own energy in an uncoordinated mass — boy, is that going to be uncomfortable to extract later — and flails wildly until he finally feels the warmth of Will’s energy entangling with his own, grounding him. He opens his eyes, and suddenly everything is clearer.

Clarisse kneels in the centre of her mindscape, hands pressed tightly to her ears, eyes screwed shut, mouth open in a silent scream.

“Hey,” Nico murmurs, kneeling in front of her. It takes a few seconds, and a few moments of gentle coaxing, before she looks up.

“It hurts,” she croaks.

She’s more vulnerable than he’s ever seen her — eyes brown and big and wet, pained, face twisted and chin trembling and achingly, unbelievably young. She is nineteen years old, but in that moment she appears almost childlike. The years of warrior’s hardness has abandoned her; she is armourless.

Nico swallows the lump in his throat. “I know.”

“Help me. Please.”

“Come here, Clarisse.” He reaches out and wraps a gentle hand around hers, tugging her close. The knee jerk discomfort at close contact is barely a flicker — he is so entwined in her right now that her fear has started to bleed into his; her rawness. He needs this comfort almost as much as she does. Right now she is a person, in agony, and so is he, and it is unbearable.

He holds her until the pain slowly stops.

———

Will is in the surgical suite for seven straight hours.

“Bed,” Nico says softly, rising up to meet him as he exits. It says something about how exhausted he is that he doesn’t even protest, letting Nico place a hand on the small of his back and guide him past the on-call room, past the patient cots, past the Big House living room couches, past Cabin 7. He leads him across the common and right into Cabin 13, with its double beds and blackout curtains, with its insulated, soundproof walls. With Nico.

He helps him out of his bloodstained scrubs, peeling them off his skin and tossing them directly into a trash can. He’d guide him to the shower, usually, but there’s a — glassiness, to his eyes, that there usually isn’t after surgery. Nico chooses instead to skip it, guiding him into the sweatpants he left behind the last time he was here and an oversized The Doors t-shirt of Nico’s, and then to the spare bed he always uses, across from Nico’s. He peels the covers back for him like he’s a child, tucking him in, brushing the hair out of his eyes. He’s asleep in minutes, curled tightly around a pillow, furrowed crease not leaving the space between his eyebrows, even in sleep. Nico smooths it away with his thumb.

“Goodnight, Will,” he murmurs, brushing the backs of his knuckles across his forehead.

He watches him sleep far past what is normal, and then slips back out of the cabin.

———

“On the bright side,” Will says, squeezing the hand that has left to leave Clarisse’s arm, “you’re free from your chariot race obligation! As am I!”

Predictably, she only glowers.

“Not a chance, Solace,” she rasps.

Will helpfully gets her a glass of water, fussing over her blankets while she drinks until she bats him away. Chris watches the whole thing with great amusement, shoulders brushing Nico’s.

“He’s a mother hen, isn’t he,” he comments, tilting his head in Will’s direction, who narrowly avoids having his fingers bitten off trying to feed her a square of ambrosia.

Nico snorts. “Yeah.” He watches the fussing for a few more seconds, making note of Will’s shaking hands, his shakier smile. “He’s guilty.”

“He didn’t do anything. She doesn’t blame him.”

Nico meets his dark look, mouth twisted in understanding. They both know this logic is futile.

“Yeah, well, someone tell him that.”

“Will — stop it.” In a startlingly quick move for someone on as much morphine as she is, Clarisse darts out and clutches Will’s fluttering hands. He hesitates, wondering if it’s worth it to pull out of her hold and possibly jostle her leg. “I’m fine. And you’re still charioting.”

“You’re not fine,” Will frowns, conveniently ignoring the part of the sentence he doesn’t want to deal with. “Your femur snapped in half and tore through your femoral artery on its way out of your leg. You’re going to be on bedrest for a week at least, and it’ll be tender for a good long while besides. That’s what we in the medical business call a Big Fucking Deal.”

She tightens her hold, staring at him until he finally meets her eyes.

“Will.” She narrows her eyes. “You are still participating in the chariot race. I’m not asking.”

“It’ll have to wait until you’re better,” he says lightly. “Besides, we’re focusing on you right now.”

Nico can see in her face when she decides to switch strategies.

“Okay,” she says, stubborn glean in her eye, “then I’m asking you, as a personal request, to stay in the race. Or else I’ll drag myself onto a goddamn horse myself, killing myself in the process, and that will be on your head.”

The tactic works.

Will scowls. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

Clarisse doesn’t bother repeating herself, letting go of his wrists and readjusting her blankets.

“I am done talking now. I believe it’s time for morphine-induced unconsciousness. Please remember that I took down a drakon with my own bare hands; it is well within my abilities to drag myself out of heroin-haze and onto a chariot with no legs, let alone one. Good talk.”

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she leans back on her pillows and passes out. Genuinely, actually passes out — not closes her eyes, not behind to fall asleep; she is unconscious. Snores ring through the air.

“Well,” Chris says carefully, unfolding his arms. “It might be time to let Clarisse rest for a while.”

Will, healer that he is, cannot exactly argue with that. Will, drama queen that he is, decides to make his fury known by stomping out of the room, a feat in flip-flips possible by him alone.

“She is so infuriating!” he shouts the second they’re in the main room, startling several people. He either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. “I put effort in! I failed! She can’t even — it’s not even about spending time together, obviously, since I still have to do it! What does she want from me?!”

Chris, like Nico, has wisely decided to let the hypothetical questions remain hypothetical and stay silent, lest his fury be turned onto them. Ten minutes into Will’s rant, Chris excuses himself to go sit by Clarisse. Nico waves him off.

“Will,” Nico suggests the next time he takes a breath, ��let’s maybe go for a walk.” He glances at the group of wide-eyed patients. “I think you’re scaring people.”

Deflating, Will nods, following Nico out the door. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go for a walk.”

The fresh air probably doesn’t fix things, per se, but as they lap around the cabins, Will seems to droop further and further, curling in on himself. The anger recedes from his features.

“I feel really shitty,” he admits softly. “Just, like, generally.”

Nico softens like a goddamn slab of ice cream on hot pavement. For the second time in three days, he opens his arms in offering, although this time it’s significantly less difficult.

“Come here.”

Without even a beat of hesitation, Will collapses into him, arms around his waist, head tucked under his chin. Nico fights the urge to wince — Will, usually, takes quite a bit of pride in his height. He likes to be the one to wrap around people, not the other way around. Nico has been indoctrinated into Will-affection, in the time since the Giant War, and if Will is the one curling into him, seeking comfort, than he is struggling.

Nico hates it when Will struggles. He always feels out of his depth.

“There, there,” he hedges, feeling a good bit like an NPC. “It’ll be okay.”

Will makes a small, wounded noise. “You don’t know that.”

“Um, yes I do, I know everything forever. I’ve never been wrong even one time in my life.”

His awkward attempt at lightening the mood is rewarded by Will’s laugh. It’s slight, and nowhere near the brightness it usually is, but it’s there and it’s genuine and that’s all Nico wanted, really.

“You good?” Nico asks softly, squeezing his arms.

Will nods. “Yes.” He hesitates. “Can I stay here a little longer?”

Nico wraps his arms impossibly tighter, aching at the quiet vulnerability in his voice.

“As long as you need.”

———

The last practice before the chariot race is nowhere near as fun to watch as the others. In fact, it’s not fun at all.

Clarisse, casted and upright, appoints her brother Sherman to race in her place, much to both his and Will’s very vocal complaints. Will’s, because he still doesn’t want to race at all and especially not now that Clarisse is out of the running, and Sherman’s because, well, when isn’t Sherman complaining about having to breathe the same air as someone or whatever.

Clarisse silences both of them with a glare. “Do it,” she orders.

They comply, stomping over to their practice chariot.

The practice race is awful. Nico is surprised, frankly, that they managed to finish at all, as badly behind as they managed. He could practically hear their squabbling all the way from the stands. For as much as Will is generally easy to get along with, he’s impossible when he’s stubborn, and worse when he’s petulant. He takes every command from Sherman like it’s a personal offence, and Sherman, being who he is, does too. Every shout to veer right or deflect an attack somehow sounds like a jab at Will’s speed, or a remark about his general intelligence. When they stomp off the track, helmets thrown in a heap with the rickety chariot, Nico is almost relieved.

“We’re going to lose, tomorrow, and I can’t wait,” hisses Will darkly, fists curled at his sides.

Nico watches him warily. “You’re not even going to try?”

“What, so he can remind me that even when I’m trying I’m a useless idiot? Not a chance.”

Nico has to almost jog to keep up with him, striding as powerfully as he is. He’s not even sure where he’s going — he seems to be, mostly, going away from the track and from Sherman, wherever that may be.

“You’re not a useless idiot,” Nico offers, when some of the stormcloud has lessened its hold on Will’s usually sunny face. “Nobody thinks you’re a useless idiot.”

Will closes his eyes, sighing. “I know.”

“And Sherman is just a generally grouchy person.”

“I know.”

“It feels very, very weird to be the optimistic and comforting one, right now.”

Will snorts, finally meeting his eyes. “I know.” He flops onto the ground, cheek resting in his knees, and pats the space next to him. Nico sits much more delicately. “I’m sorry I’ve been such an asshole lately.”

“You’ve been stressed,” Nico points out. “A little assholery is warranted.”

“I’m still sorry.”

Nico knocks their shoulders together. “I forgive you, then.”

Will smiles. “Thank you.”

For a while they sit in comfortable silence, watching the hustle and bustle of camp. Will’s presence is a comforting one, even though Nico can feel the turmoil leeching off of him. Strangely because of that, actually — sometimes Nico feels like he’s the only one who struggles out of the two of them. Will spends so much of his time smiling and joking and lecturing, hands on his hips, that Nico had almost forgotten that he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing, either. He’s just good at faking it.

“I’ll be watching, tomorrow.” He bites his lip. “And I won’t, like, bring pom-poms, or anything, but I’ll be cheering you on.”

Will grins tiredly. “Silently and in your head?”

“Uh-huh.”

His smile softens considerably, melting into something almost shy, before he turns back to face forward.

“Well, then, damn. I guess I’ll have to try.”

———

On the morning of the chariot race, Will acts like Nico is escorting him to his goddamn execution.

“It is a race that will last a maximum of twenty minutes,” Nico says with no small amount of exasperation, “including prep time.”

Will looks no less grim. “A twenty minutes that will never be returned to me.”

Nico rolls his eyes and decides to stop humouring him.

He drops him off at his chariot with a quick pat on the shoulder, jogging back to the stands. They’re full, today, as expected, with every camper and countless others cramped into the minimal space. Nico looks at the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, and is about to consider breaking his promise and fleeing back to his cabin before he sees a doodled-on hand stick in the air, waving wildly. He exhales in relief and heads over to sit in the spot Kayla and Austin have cleared between them.

“How miserable is he?” Kayla asks brightly, tapping her purple shoes. “He left before we woke up this morning. Assumedly to sprint around camp a few times like a feral cat.”

“Pretty miserable,” Nico answers. He reaches over to pat Austin’s head when he rests on his shoulder, knowing he’s nervous even if he tries not to show it. “A lot of it is self-induced, though. Like, yeah, Sherman is going to be a dick and it’s going to be stressful, but I feel like, in the grand scheme of things, this is among the least stressful things he’s ever been forced to deal with.”

“There was that one time he had to remove a brain tumour in the middle of the forest,” Austin muses. “I think that was probably pretty stressful for him.”

Nico opens his mouth. He closes it again.

“Demigod life is a nightmare,” he settles on eventually.

“Hear, hear,” both siblings mutter.

They lapse into silence as they turn back to the racetrack, evaluating the turnout.

Competition will be hefty.

Sherman has finally arrived, Ares horses in tow. The garish things look almost wrong next to the brightness off the flying Apollo chariot, but that may just be the tension between the team’s charioteers that’s so potent it seems to warp the air around them. Nico is vaguely surprised that they’re managing to stand so civilly next to each other, even if they could not be more visibly uncomfortable. Will, at least, tries for a smile, which drops immediately when Sherman mutters something too quiet to be picked up this far.

Nico sighs. This is going to be hard to watch.

There are about twenty other chariots lines up. Hermes, Hephaestus, and Aphrodite-Iris, like at practice, but Athena is competing too, as well as Nike, as per usual, and Tyche. In fact Nico, and by extension Hades, is one of the few cabins not participating — everyone else seems primed and ready for a chance of laurels and extra dessert. And, of course, settling personal rivalries via bloodshed, et cetera, et cetera.

The biggest competition, if Nico had to quantify it, will be Hephaestus, tricky as they were during practice; Athena, for obvious reasons; and Will and Sherman themselves will be their own worst enemy. He can’t tell if it would be better for them to fail out early to avoid racketing tension up further, or last close to the end to keep things at a healthy simmer.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. The second warning whistle goes off, and the chariots rush to the starting line — Will and Sherman at third position, Demeter to their left, Dionysus-Hypnos to their right. The stands go silent, the charioteers get in position, and with a sharp, shrill whistle, they’re off.

The first few seconds, as always, are chaotic.

In the ground with the settling dust are three separate chariots, including, surprisingly, Hermes, whose rigging backfired and sent their entire chariot up in smoke. They are luckily unharmed due to their unusually well-prepared fireproof armour, but neither Julia nor Connor seem too pleased about being out so soon.

The rest of the race continues on without them. Athena has a decent stretch of first place, but Nike is following fast. Behind them, barely a hair’s breadth of distance, is Will and Sherman, rocketing forward smoothly. Unlike Clarisse, Sherman does not care for giving Will any learning opportunities — despite the horses being Ares’, Will is on the reigns. Sherman is armed with his sword and his spear, slashing and jabbing at anyone who gets too close. Neither Ares or Apollo is big on tricks, not like some of the craftier cabins, but together they’re fast and strong and make a formidable opponent.

Or, well, they would. If they were working together, rather than two people simply being in the same chariot.

They cross into the second lap, Will guiding them across the innermost ring to move them up past Nike. They’re gaining on Athena, now, but that won’t be an easy task — challenging the camp’s wisest never is.

Kayla hisses through her teeth. “Shit.” She purses her lip at the trailing Nike chariot — they’re gaining, and they’re seething. Damien — at least Nico thinks it’s Damien, it’s hard to tell with the helmets — has an arsenal of throwing knives poised in his left hand, and as his teammate steers them steady, he takes aim. Nico has to resist the urge to shout a warning.

As the short knife sails towards the reigns wrapped around Will’s hands, though, aim ringing true, Will’s spine goes ramrod straight. Almost as if he can feel it. With an eighth of a second to spare, he shifts and jerks his hands out of the way, avoiding the knife and managing, somehow, to stay on track.

With a skill and ferocity that has Nico’s jaw brushing his toes, Will dodges all eight of the knives lobbed in his direction. In one memorable manoeuvre, he rips his left hand from the reigns, holding them in his teeth, and uses it to shove Sherman down behind the wall of the chariot right before a knife would have lodged itself in his uncovered cheek. Out of weapons, he steers their chariot right next to Nike, allowing Sherman to sever their reigns and send them rolling to a sad, victory-less stop.

Without pausing to look behind them, they race on.

Athena’s chariot has a lead, but their chariot is built for stability, not speed. They’ve accounted for every possible sabotage and built accordingly. They have not accounted for, however, stubbornness and sheer force of Will. The Ares-Apollo chariot gains on them, helmets glinting, skeletal horses gaining faster, faster, faster. Both Sherman and Malcom, Nico believes, have their spears drawn, ready, as the space between them gets smaller and smaller, to fight barbarically for first — for honour.

Nico doubts even Rachel, powers of prophecy fully restored, could predict what happens next.

Either too furious to accept a loss or simply deciding to throw the game, one of the Nike charioteers crawls out from their carriage, darting onto the live track. They scan the ground, looking for something. When they stand in the dead centre of the track, body perfectly tense, gripping something glinting in their hand, Nico gets it.

Austin gasps, nails digging into Nico’s arm. “Oh, no.”

Before anyone can say anything, they take aim. They measure once, twice, and then let the knife loose with deadly precision, knife cutting through the air with ease and hurdling with impossible power towards to two finalists chariots.

If the knife hits the Athena chariot, it will slice clean through the axle. Architectural wonder it may be, the chariot cannot withstand Celestial bronze at terminal velocity, and it will give, and the chariot will crumple. In an effort to lesson the chariot’s load, the Athena charioteers have largely forgone armour. Their fall will be painful and disastrous; as deadly as Clarisse’s, if not moreso. A hit to the Ares-Apollo chariot will be similarly as race-ending, but both Will and Sherman are in full armour. It will be bruising, but not deadly. They will lose, but they will survive.

All they need to do to win is shift, just slightly, so that the knife hits the Athena chariot.

Will, like with all the others before it, seems to feel this knife coming. Unlike the others, he glances backwards, looking at the knife, looking back at the Athena chariot. Sherman follows his gaze, and seems to realize what Will has calculated a split second after he does. He shouts something — presumably an order to move, to shift, to sabotage.

Will hesitates.

The knife hits the Ares-Apollo chariot, slicing through the left wheel.

It careens around, unbalanced, dragged into a heap by untethered horses.

The Athena chariot pulls forward to victory, the remaining functioning chariots quickly following.

The Ares-Apollo canon is left broken and humiliated only a few feet from victory, the almost-first-place.

———

As soon as they come off the track, things get messy. Both Will and Sherman are covered in dirt and grime, striped with grease from the broken wheels, bleeding sluggishly from various scraps. Sherman has his non-flailing hand clamped to an oozing wound on the side of his neck, and Will is limping.

“—and I cannot fucking believe you, Solace! All I asked for was effort!”

“Oh, forgive me,” Will says sarcastically, finally close enough to hear. “In the hustle and bustle of being shot at, I made a couple errors.”

“That gonna be your attitude in battle? ‘Oh, sorry, there was a monster chasing me so I lost all focus —’”

“Battles are not usually fought on a chariot going a hundred fucking miles per hour!”

“That’s no excuse! You need to be —”

“What, Sherman, fucking what? What indisputable flaw do I have, oh great one, that needs to be so desperately remedied?”

It’s startling when Will’s composure cracks. When he goes from bitey and sarcastic, eye-rolling from his usual distance, to right in Sherman’s face. It’s eerie to see him at his full height, no slouching, reminding anyone watching that yeah, actually, their laidback medic is six-two, strong, capable, in more ways than what they’re used to.

Sherman, in usual Ares kid fashion, doesn’t even flinch.

“Your reflexes, for starters,” he says coolly. “No matter what you do, Solace, you’re always one second too fucking late.”

A collective gasp ricochets through the gathered campers. The tension rackets up so rapidly that Nico coughs, lungs suddenly constricted. Will rears back so violently Nico is half-convinced Sherman actual punched him.

Sherman, for his part, seems to realise he’s crossed some kind of line. The cold look on his face twists into a scowl, uncomfortable and apologetic at once. “Look, Will, I just mean —”

“You don’t get to say that to me.”

Will’s quiet voice seems to echo through the entirety of the valley, cutting through laboured breathing of charioteers, pegasus neighing, even the crashing of the waves in the distant shore — everything goes silent.

Nico likes to think he knows Will pretty well. He knows what he sounds like when he’s giggly, watching his siblings argue about nothing; when he’s excitable, rambling about his newest obsession; when he can’t choose between amused and stern at whatever dumb thing Nico has gotten himself into. He knows what he sounds like when he’s exhausted, too, overworked and done with everything; when he’s annoyed, when he’s hurt and sad.

But he’s never heard Will sound so dangerous.

“Of all people.” His words are articulated, deliberate. The usual warmth of his eyes is gone. He’s completely still in a way he never is outside of surgery — no shaking in his perpetually trembling hands, no bounce to his curls, none of the constant energy that seems to constantly exude off him. Still, cold. Icy. “You do not get to talk to me about being one second too late.”

Sherman looks stricken. Guilt is written across each of his features, and for a second he steps back — as if afraid.

“Will, I —”

The son of Apollo turns without another word, striding over to the distant tree line and disappearing into the woods. No one chases after him.

No one even moves.

———

Predictably, the silence does not last long.

“You fucking idiot!” Clarisse explodes, the second Will is out of eyesight. She bats Chris’s hand away from her, and he, surprisingly, lets her go easily — his usually understanding face has hardened. She hobbles towards her brother, remarkably quick with her clunky cast, and starts truly tearing into him. “I asked you to do one fucking thing! One!”

Sherman quickly gets defensive under the scrutiny. “Well, you didn’t make it fucking easy! Just because he’s your protege doesn’t mean he’s my fucking problem —”

Nico doesn’t stick around to listen to their argument. He searches around the gathered crowd until he meets Kayla’s eyes, flicking his head towards the woods. She nods frantically. Knowing he’ll make sure they have privacy, he takes off, aiming for the same place Will went, barely slowing down once he enters the forest.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Will?” he calls, well aware he’s not going to get an answer. “Where are you?”

While there’s definitely no response from Will, he damn near jumps out of his skin when a dryad melts from her tree, shuffling towards him.

“Blond boy?” she asks, leaning close so he can hear her whisper. “Tall? Crying?”

Nico swallows. Fuck. “Yeah.”

“Headed down southeast, ways past Zeus’ fist.“

“Thank you,” he says, hoping she understands how much he means it.

She nods, then disappears back into her tree.

Following her directions, Nico jogs down beaten paths, heading in the direction that he is vaguely sure is southeast and mostly praying that he’ll find Will eventually. He shouldn’t have that much of a head start, since Nico left maybe five minutes after he did, but who knows. Will’s fast, and sometimes this forest seems bigger than it really is. It’s easy to get lost.

He searches for what feels like hours, and might actually be hours; sky darkening as the sun disappears into the lake. The temperature drops significantly. Nico is hoping that he won’t be spending the night sleeping in the dirt when he hears sniffling.

Heart pounding, he freezes, focusing on the sound. It’s muffled, sobs choked-off and sound hidden behind cupped hands. The echo sounds strange, too; it’s close, that much is obvious, but Nico almost can’t tell if it’s coming from the left or the right. Truthfully, it doesn’t sound like either.

On impulse, he looks up. Almost invisible in the branches of a large oak tree is Will, stained clothes blending in with the scratchy bark, leaves covering the rest of him.

Except, perhaps fittingly, his bright, golden hair.

Worried that calling out to him might startle him right off the tree, Nico begins to climb. He’s not great at climbing — he doesn’t have a natural sense of what is and isn’t a good foothold — but oak trees are easy. Every half-step has a branch, and this tree is old enough that the branches are thick, sturdy. He’s twenty feet up before he even realizes, barely breaking a sweat.

He pauses a few feet shy of his target, straightening until he’s standing on an almost flat branch, arm looped tightly around the trunk.

“Will.”

Will startles. He looks around frantically, struggling in the dark, until his bloodshot eyes finally land on Nico. He bursts into more tears, shoulders shaking as he sobs.

Alarmed, Nico crawls all the way up.

“Woah, Will, breathe, vita, breathe —”

He’s not sure what tree-sobbing etiquette is, but regular sobbing etiquette often involves some kind of comforting physical touch, so he goes with that. And Will, he knows, likes to be crowded, likes to be almost suffocated with the sights and touch and smells of other people, to remind him he’s not alone, even if he feels it. So Nico scoots as closely as he dares, legs wrapped around the branch, and slides one arm around Will’s back, one against his chest, and tugs him closely.

Will comes easily.

With a bit of manoeuvring, he’s tucked under Nico’s chin, shoulders hunched and shaking, enveloped entirely in Nico’s arms. He can feel a wet spot growing on his left sleeve, and honestly he should be at least a little bit disgusted, but he barely even notices. He’s too busy fighting the lump in his own throat, blinking back his own tears.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to Will’s curls. “Let it out, Will. You’re allowed.”

Will wails, a deep, choking, broken sound, and Nico loses the battle with his own tears. He’s never heard Will like this. He’s never heard anyone like this, except himself, in the echo of this same forest, years ago. It hurts like biting ice.

“It hurts, they’re gone, they’re gone, and I hate them, I hate them so much —” he heaves, dragging in breath like it cost him to say it, like part of his soul was dragged out of his vocal chords — “and I hate myself for hating them, I hate, they’re gone, I’m never —”

He dissolves into sobs, again, words breaking into nothing understandable, crying around the same repetitions over and over again. Nico hides his crumpling face in Will’s hair, wincing at every broken cry, every hitched breath, every moaned word. His heart feels like it’s breaking into a million fractals. He’s never felt so out of depth in his life.

“Let it out,” he whispers again, for a lack of anything else to say. “Let it out, sweetheart, let it out.”

For a long time, Nico had no one to hold him.

When he lost Bianca, he was by himself. And when he thought he had someone to guide him, someone to fix him, he was wrong — he was vulnerable and easy to manipulate. He had no one to hold him until he was too bitter and too closed off to let himself fall apart, anyway, and losing Bianca stayed somewhere rotten inside him, a bruise that never, ever stopped aching.

Until Will.

Last December he had cracked like an egg. He hadn’t meant to — it wasn’t even in the back of his mind — but he’d opened the door to Will’s smiling face on the morning, cold and sad as it was, and just started bawling. Some part of him, some deep, buried part, stomped it’s way from the prison Nico had kept it in and took the hell over, yanking open the floodgates, forcing him to expel every last drop of shadowy, strangling pain that had stayed inside him so long. He thought he was going to die. His entire body shook and jerked like a rowboat in a deep ocean storm, and it had been Will’s lighthouse, his endless, light eyes, his warm hands, his firm hold that had held him steady until he’d dragged himself out to the other side. It was and is the most painful thing he’d ever done in his life. And the most important.

He doesn’t think Will has had anyone to hold him, before, either. Not ‘til right this moment. Not Chiron, not his mother, and certainly not an older sibling. Will has been running on empty for as long as Nico has known him. Longer.

“Let it out,” Nico whispers again, and holds him tighter.

———

By the time either of them move again, it’s pale, early morning, and they’re damp from the dew and Will’s tears. Nico is as stiff as the tree he’s sitting on, but doesn’t dare say a word about it.

“I don’t want to go back,” Will croaks, the first either of them have spoken in hours.

Nico tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, resting a gentle hand on his cheek. “Okay.”

“We can’t stay here forever.”

“We can stay a while.” Nico pulls away slightly, just enough so that he can cradle Will’s face in both hands, tilting his chin up to meet his gaze. “I mean it, Will. As long as you need.”

“What if I’ll never have enough time?”

“Then I’ll stay with you until time runs out.” He presses a tentative, careful kiss to the centre of his freckled forehead; staying when Will shudders, leaning into it. Against his skin, he murmurs, “But you’ll have enough time, vita. You’re the strongest person I know.”

“I don’t want to be strong.”

“So don’t, I gotcha.” He presses another kiss slightly above the first, and another, resting again at the crown of his head. “But you can be.”

They stay like that until Nico’s face starts to go numb, and even then he doesn’t go far, shifting so his cheek lays on the top of Will’s skull. He ignores the slight tickle of his curls against his nose, focusing instead on the brand of his hands on his waist, the shakey but constant inhales, holds, exhales, again, again, again.

“Clarisse is my friend,” Will starts. “She was as important to me as — as Cass, before the war.”

Nico hums. “But she betrayed you.”

“All of us.”

“And you resent her for it, a little.”

Will nods. “It’s disgusting.”

“It’s human, Will, Christ.” He moves them around so they’re both sitting facing each other, Nico’s eyes firmly meeting Will’s. “I will never fully forgive Percy for letting Bianca die. Never. It’s not fair to him, and I love him anyway, and I am choosing to move past it. But I will carry that burden. Am I disgusting for that?”

Will glances away. “No.”

“Will, you — look at me.”

He does.

“Clarisse actively chose her pride over her people. So did the rest of her cabin. She’s not fully responsible for that choice, and the blame, as always, lands on Kronos’ shoulders, but —” Nico laughs, a bitter, defeated sound. “Out of all of us, you lost the most. No one lost as many as Apollo. No one burned as many shrouds. You’re allowed to be hurt, allowed to be angry.”

“I forgave them,” Will admits. “I did it publicly and called off the stupid rivalry right after the war. It was the first thing I did as head counsellor.”

“Trying to do what Michael would have done?”

“Are you kidding me, he —” Will scoffs, swiping at the tears trickling down the corners of his eyes. “If Michael were alive, and he found out I forgave them after what happened to Lee, too Diana — he would have been furious. He would stop speaking to me. If I was trying to be like Michael, I might’ve refused them treatment.”

Nico tries to imagine that for a second — Will refusing anyone treatment. It makes something sour uncurl in his stomach, something unsettling.

“You would never refuse someone treatment. I didn’t even — I didn’t think you guys were allowed.”

Will shrugs. “There are no rules to our practice. I just never made refusal an option, and the kids are too young to know any different.”

‘The kids’ — as if Kayla and Austin aren’t as old or older than Will was when he was in charge, when he held the bashed pieces of his brother’s brain as it oozed out of his skull. As he sat, exhausted, hands shaking, next to Nico, and embroidered twelve shrouds. As if Yan and Gracie are his, rather than Apollo’s.

“You forgave them so your siblings wouldn’t grow up bitter,” Nico realises. “Oh, gods, Will.”

He shrugs again, picking at his nails. “For me too. Grudges aren’t healthy.” He tries for a teasing smile. “You’d know.”

“I would.” Nico tries to smile back. It’s easier than he thought it would be, although it fades back into something serious quickly. He reaches out, linking his hands with Will’s to stop him picking before he bleeds. “You can be selfish sometimes, you know.”

“Not in front of anyone.”

“You’re admitting it in front of me,” Nico points out.

Will hesitates. “That’s — different.”

“How?”

“You get it.” He looks down, voice quiet. “You get me. I can —” He meets Nico’s eyes again, a kind of helpless smile on his face. “I dunno. You’re safe. You’re okay with me, even when I’m ugly.”

“Even then,” Nico echoes quietly. He reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind Will’s ear again, even though none were loose. His fingertips linger, and the skin under his touch warms. “Especially then.”

“You can, too, you know, I lo —”

“I know.”

Will exhales in relief. “Good.”

He slumps forward until his forehead rests on the swell of Nico’s shoulder, breaths warming the air between them. Nico tries to match his rhythm — in, out, in, out. Hold. Out, in.

“Can we — hide here, for a little bit? Just a little longer.”

“Of course,” Nico murmurs, squeezing his wrists. “I’ll hide you as long as you need.”

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starry-bi-sky · 3 months

Text

fast food is the best course of action after causing a scene. ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀɴʏᴀʟ ᴀʟ ɢʜᴜʟ ᴀᴜ

(First Post Here and Second Post Here

--------

Danny finds Sam easily.

She's right where she said she was over the phone: standing outside on a balcony, in Gotham, at Father's many charity functions.

("Would you still be willing to fly over to Gotham, Danny?" She asks, her voice ringing clear through the speakers. Danny is already climbing out his window before she even finishes her sentence. He was just about to settle down for the night, his ghosts would know better by now than to disturb him at this time. The Box Ghost not included.)

("Of course." He says, sounding more confident than he feels. Sam was one of his best— closest friends, he would do anything she or Tucker asked. Even if it means stepping foot into his Father's city. He drops down silently, and walks through the house's ghost shield. "Would you like me to bring you anything?")

(Sam sighs through the phone, relief leaking through. "One of the veggie burgers from Nasty Burgers would be great, with their new ecto-fries. Extra salt. I'm sick of all this rich people food.")

(A small smile pulls across Danny's face, tilting at the corner as his living form falls away to his ghost self. "Alright," he says, and kicks himself off the ground, "I'll be there in a few minutes.")

("Thanks, Danny.")

He had the bag of food with him, stored in a container he had to run back to the house to get that would prevent the food from cooling during his flight over. Clutching it in hand, he floats down behind Sam and sheds his invisibility.

Being visible and being invisible always felt different, but in a way Danny can never describe, no matter how many times he tries to think about it. It's like a gut-feeling, a sixth sense, he always knows when he's visible and when he is not.

His ghost form burns away like steel wool being lit, and Danny drops the last foot to the ground silently. In his other hand lies his thermos, but filled with plain ectoplasm — lazarus water. "I have your food."

(He brought the thermos for himself — his side was still healing from his last fight with Technus. The ghost impaled him with a broken pipe, and Danny returned the favor by wedging his sword into his chest. Technus had been quite offended by him ruining his favorite coat.)

Sam jumps a foot into the air, and her hand slams across her mouth to muffle the shriek she lets out as she whirls around. "Danny!" She hisses, her voice rising in pitch, and her eyes narrow at him into a glare. "Freaking-- Tucker's right, we seriously need to put a bell on you."

"You have been saying that for years," Danny grins, sharp-toothed and jack-knifed, and passes the container over to her. "And yet I've yet to see any kind of bell." He was going to start getting disappointed at this rate.

As Sam takes the container, Danny hops up onto the railing and looks around. He hadn't seen any of Father's other children lurking around the building before he revealed himself, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. He wasn't going to fool himself into thinking that their stealth skills were poor.

He wasn't that arrogant.

...Anymore.

"Oh you will." Sam threatens, unzipping the container and grabbing the takeout bag. "I'll get you a collar and everything, we can start calling you Catwoman." When she pulls out her fries, Danny snaps forward and steals one from the box, ignoring her indignant yell as he pops it into his mouth.

"I spent my own money on these fries, Sam." He sniffs, leaning away from her with a stifled huff of laughter as she swats at him. "So they are technically my fries. And also, Catwoman would be a poor thief if she wore a bell."

Sam grumbles at him, and takes a bite out of a handful of fries. "I'll venmo you money." She says past a mouthful of food, Danny would have been disgusted in the past, when he was still new. But he's gotten used to this... normality. So he makes no reaction to it. "How does three hundred bucks sound?"

Danny immediately frowns.

"Did you have a fight with your parents?" He asks, eyes glancing to the doors. Doors that are covered heavily by curtains and blurred heavily, decadent music passing through in muffled sounds. He shifts himself away from the light. "You only spend that much money when they've pissed you off."

Sam's chewing stops, and her annoyed expression falters into one Danny knows well -- hurt, furrowed brows, a small frown, disappointment -- and she turns her head away from him. She swallows. "Yeah." she says, quiet.

Oh.

Danny knows that tone too.

Guilt settles like a rock in his chest. He leans forward, "Was it about me again?" He wasn't blind to the disdain Sam's parents had for him, far from it. This wasn't the first time Sam had gotten into a fight with them over her friendship with him and Tucker. But especially him. He unsettled people, even after years of observing his age-mates and trying to mimic their behavior, and anyone who knew him in middle school knew it was an act.

Sam's silence gives him all the confirmation he needs, and the guilt heavies itself with the weight of the sky. Danny's never much cared about others' opinions of him -- he is (was?) an Al Ghul, they never heed to mind what the weight of a simpleton's thoughts.

But.. he cares a little a lot when it hurts his friends like this. He presses his lips together into a thin line, and forces the words out through his teeth. It sounds robotic. Al Ghul's do not apologize. "I... am sorry." But this one does. It doesn’t come easy.

Sam sighs through her nose, and turns to roll her eyes at him. "Don't apologize on their behalf when you won't even apologize for your own; their assholes." She says, and goes reaching for more fries.

It's a sign, a signal. A silent word for the conversation to move on, to change. A distraction. Danny grasps it with both hands, and makes an offended noise in the back of his throat. And like he has learned, puts a hand to his chest like a scandalized American southern lady. "I apologize! I apologize plenty."

She snorts. "Only when you think it matters." And pokes him in the ribs sharply with her fry. He withholds a wince and snatches it out of her hands. "You're about as unapologetic as they come, Danny J. Fenton. I've seen you look more sincere when you're trying to drive your sword between Vlad's ribs."

"Stabbing Masters is a very important task for me, Sam." Danny says in only partially faux-seriousness. Masters has yet to realize that Danny had no interest in becoming his son, but he had to (reluctantly) admire his persistence. "Of course I will apply myself to it as best as I can."

He grins triumphantly when Sam laughs, and she reaches over to shove him square in the chest. He barks out a laugh of his own as he grips onto the balcony railing and catches himself at an angle.

"Quit with your method actor talk," Sam retorts, grinning sharply while Danny twists himself back up elegantly. "I know you can talk like a normal person, I've literally seen you do it."

Danny sniffs, and snatches more fries from the carton as revenge. "I'm not entirely sure what you mean, Miss Sam." He says, grin-twisting when Sam rolls her eyes. "My speech has always been this way. This 'normal' you speak of, I do not know it."

She waves her hand dismissively at him. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. But if you keep talking like that, I'm pushing you off the balcony."

"Such violence, Sam."

He gets a laugh again, full of disbelief without any of the annoyance. "I'm gonna be the one that stabs you, oh my god. Pot meet kettle." She looks at him again, smiling.

Danny smiles back, and with a flick of his wrist pulls out a kunai from his sleeve. It was one of the few weapons Mother was able to pass on to him whenever she made her scarce visits. He cherishes it well, along with anything else she was capable of giving him.

He holds the handle out to her, and watches her face shift from disbelief to shock, then back to disbelief. "Then you're gonna need a weapon to do that."

"Of course you have a pointy object on you." She mutters, and takes the kunai and puts it in her purse. Danny makes a pleased hum, it resonates low in his core, and drops his hand. "When do you not have a pointy object on you?"

As if to make her point, Danny's hands twist near his side, and he holds his palms up to her, revealing the shobo he had also hidden on him. He gives her a shit-eating grin. "Never." He lowers his hand, and pockets the small weapon once again.

Sam huffs, "Of course," she repeats, "thanks. I was gonna bring a knife but..."

Danny finishes the sentence for her, kicking his feet idly and knowingly. "The security at the door?" He'd seen them on his flight over the building. It wouldn't do much in the face of the Rogues, but at least they were good at keeping appearances and keeping out the smaller threats.

He rolls his eyes and turns his head away, looking up to the ugly, smog-covered skies. There was no bat signal in the air, and while that was a good thing, Danny almost wished there was. He wanted to see it. "I saw, and I would’ve called Father foolish if he hadn’t hired help. He attracts trouble almost as badly as I do."

"Maybe it's hereditary," Sam jokes, laughing under her breath. With her fries finished, she started on her veggie burger. "At least your dad isn't a vigilante like you are."

Danny smiles wryly. It felt nice to be able to talk more freely about this. That he didn't have to hide the fact that his father was Bruce Wayne, now that Sam knew it from her own accord. Maybe he could have conversations like these more often. Even if it was limited to Bruce Wayne only.

(Even if it felt a little terrifying to know that his father was so close by, close enough that Danny could reach out and touch him. To speak to him. But how would he explain that? And with an audience?)

(He’s wanted to see him since he was a kid, and he still does. It clings onto him like a cough that doesn’t go away after the cold already has, and while it has faded over the years, it clings. His mother’s words still ring in his ears however; it’s not safe. It’s not safe.)

(And isn’t that why he faked his death in the first place? So that his little brother would be safe? Why he gave up the heirship, his home, his Mother, Damian, and his chance to meet his Father? Going to see Father, even now, would be throwing that all away. He has to stay away.)

(Why is Damian with Father if staying with Father was unsafe?)

He just needed to tell Tucker. Danny wouldn’t keep him out of the loop, he was just as much as his friend as Sam was. His eyes draw towards the door, where the golden glow of lights was still pouring through, where music was playing loudly. "Yeah, fortunately."

They fall into a comfortable silence after that, and Danny finally cracks open his thermos. The pipe Technus impaled him with was covered in a goo that Danny didn’t recognize, but whatever it was, his injury was taking its time healing. The ectoplasm was speeding it up.

He isn’t sure what the difference between the ectoplasm that Drs. Fenton collected and Grandfather’s Lazarus pools is, but there’s a difference. He swirls the thermos slowly, watching as the ectoplasm inside twists into a small whirlpool sluggishly.

When left alone, it thickens into a consistency similar to egg whites, or perhaps a thick smoothie, but reverts back into a water-like substance when moved and swirled. It was strange; unexplainable. He can understand, to an extent, why the Drs. Fenton are so obsessed with studying it and the dimension it comes from.

Sam watches him idly as he brings the thermos to his lips and drinks from it. The effect is instantaneous, a sense of relief washing over Danny as if someone had put a soothing balm onto an injury. It buzzes down to his fingertips, and when he lowers the thermos, he licks his lips and watches the tips of his fingers burn green like frostbite.

“Your hair turned white again.” Sam comments, her hand reaching out and touching the hair on the nape of his neck. While it’s not the first time Sam’s touched his hair, it still makes him tense up with her hand so close to his throat. Instinct. dan

He ignores the urge to bat her hand away, humming thoughtfully. “I’ve noticed it does that.” He says, pulling down his bangs to see if they’ve also turned white. No, still black. He lets go. “Let me guess; my eyes are green too?” He lifts the thermos again and peers into the chrome casing.

Sam nods, “Yep, but it’s only the, uh.” She makes a circle around her eyes with her finger. “The iris part. Everything else is fine.”

Danny can see that. The faint reflection on the chrome casts back an intense green. He takes another sip. It chills the back of his teeth, and he can feel his canines warp and sharpen. He runs his tongue over them, and swallows.

Sam is still watching him, her fingers drumming against the balcony railing. “What’s it taste like?”

“Carbonated.” He says dryly, before taking a large swig. He couldn’t name a specific flavor if he tried, it changed every time he took a sip. The only thing that stayed consistent was that it tasted carbonated. And slightly sweet. When he pulls the thermos away, Danny twists his body towards her and offers it out, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Want to try?”

Her reaction is immediate. Sam’s nose scrunches up and her mouth twists into a smile, and she makes a huffing-laugh sound. “No, thank you.” She pushes it away lightly with her fingers, “I don’t know how to explain to my parents why my hair is white.”

Right. Danny pulls the thermos away and puts it down beside him, straining his eyes to see if the rest of his hair has changed colors. Even just his first sip would take half an hour to fade back to its normal black, and he was a halfa. He had no idea how long it’d take to fade on Sam, who was human.

There’s movement from the corner of his eye, and Danny snaps his head towards the source. There’s a figure, small, a boy, trying to hide behind one of the curtains at the door. His form just barely peeking out from the angle Danny was sitting at. He wouldn’t have seen him if the boy hadn’t moved.

His fingers curl tightly into the railing, and he breathes in sharp. Sam’s smile crumbles away and she turns to see what he’s looking at. “I should go.” He says, and reaches for his thermos. “There’s someone spying on us. Don’t say anything, just look at me.”

Sam’s expression warps, twists. Her eyes widen, her jaw starts to drop before fixing itself into place, and her shoulders curl up and tense. She forces it all to smooth over, and she leans casually against the railing. There’s a tick in her jaw. “I see.” Her voice comes through teeth. “Do you think they saw you?”

“I am not sure.” Danny says. He keeps an eye on the figure as he twists himself over and grabs the Nasty Burger bag and the container. He tries not to look like he’s rushing. He is. How long has that boy been there? How much did he see? Did he hear anything?

“Father, fortunately, has privacy films on the glass. Nobody should have seen me unless they’re specifically trying to peep through the door.” He says. The boy seems to realize that Danny was starting to leave. And, his heart beginning to sink, instead of leaving, moves to grab the door handle instead.

No. No, no, no, no, no.

Danny’s breath catches in his throat, he’s hoping that isn’t who he think it is. But how else would he have not noticed an eavesdropper on their conversation unless it was someone who was capable of bypassing those skills? He told himself that he wouldn’t fool himself into thinking that his siblings’ had poor stealth. He got distracted.

Five years, five years. He refuses to let that go down the drain. He zips up the container and throws his legs over the other side of the railing, his back facing the door. He hears the doorknob click, and without a word to Sam, slips off down the side and down to the ground below.

Just in time. The once muffled music now sounds blaring as the door presumably is thrown open and the pull of invisibility washes over him like a second skin. He doesn't stay to see who it is.

#dpxdc #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #dpdc #dpxdc crossover #danyal al ghul au #older brother danny #first danny pov of the au! whoo!#danny's hair turns white if he drinks ectoplasm brrrrr and his eyes turn green. good for him #this sat in my drafts for the last few days until i finally finished it during class #it was a math class and i already knew the material so tis fiiiine. now i just need to finish my CFAU post rewrite :)#ectoplasm tastes like that time i went to go get pepsi from the soda machine and it was all out of the pepsi flavoring so instead i got a #cup full of carbonated liquid. it was disgusting. ectoplasm kinda tastes like that. sometimes.#danny smiles in this more than i thought he would but yk it fits. he IS more smiley around his friends and family.#ectoplasm is a weird non-newtonion fluid and danny is fascinated. its got the consistency of egg whites one minute and then water the next #its a water slime and then suddenly its as brittle as annealed glass. it heats up and rots like milk or it heats up and boils like water #it congeals. it thickens. it boils. it solidifies. it does whatever it wants. it gels and melts into a tar-like substance #how long has damian been standing there? good question. :) i almost had him open the door and make eye contact with damian before falling #backwards. i also almost had it be *bruce* and damian opening the door bc bruce found out that damian pulled a knife on sam and was gonna #have him come apologize. that would be a fun scene. prolonged eye contact prolonged eye contact prolonged eye contact #imagery brrrr. had fun playing with how danny's ghost form works. if anyone has seen a video of steel wool burning thats how i imagine #danny's ghost transformation to be like.#also ayyy balancing danny's dialogue be like “how fancy should he sound and how Normal Teenager Should He Sound”#when sam gets home she catches tucker up to speed about everything including the convos with the waynes she had and they both form the #'“Fuck Them Waynes” squad. Sam has jumped to the entirely wrong conclusion about danny's separation from his family but in her defense.#it is a pretty sound conclusion to jump to considering the lack of context she has from danny's prior home life. which is almost none at al #so to her it looks like danny got abandoned by bruce wayne

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ramons-elevator · 10 months

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Bad mentioned on his stream that all the dead eggs lives impacted how different we treat the eggs on the server and I realized that EVERY egg death changed history on the server and how we treat the eggs.

Juanaflippa- Obviously her second death made everyone very weary with the beds (and the admins bc i believe they made the beds harder to break). But her third death with sweeping edge and how everyone needs to be careful around the eggs with swords.

Tilin - Their death kinda goes hand in Juanaflippa about how NOT TO USE SWORDS around the eggs. But also Charlie went into eggxcile because of Tilins death and that snowballed into Gegg. Also helped with Luzu’s character and how he switched to Arin and with the computer/Code.

Chayanne- Technically chayanne lost their first life to neglect BUT the nightmare Phil, chayanne, and Tallulah had i believe introduced ‘nightmares’. Also it made the admins disable some born in chaos mobs and made Philza even more paranoid about the island than he already was.

Bobby - his death was the first permadeath we had since the trio died. It hurt a lot and made Forever realize that his death could have been prevented. Thus making Forever build the Ninho and make everyone very cautious of everything.

Ramon - same with Chayanne’s were his first death was to a Blaze but his nightmare was significant. It made the admins make solid ground rules about certain things and make sure everyone knows the rules about reinforced bases.

Leo- Her death with whales made everyone realized how fucking beefy and super dangerous the whales are. Also that you shouldnt just AFK anywhere. That you should try to be in a safe place before AFKing.

Dapper - His first death was SUPER significant. It made people realize that the code is learning and adapting. Thus made Bad, Forever, Cellbit, and Etoiles go to Luzus computer and explode it. Which lead to Forever getting pieces of the computer and getting the motivation to try to bargain with it. Which lead to Cellbits betrayal and enderchests getting banned. It also gave the most insane book by Cucurcho which is “Perfect for you or for me?”

Richarlyson- His first day nightmare gave us that the eggs have first day immunity. Then his actual death showed us that uhh fuck bulls and that Mike blames himself for Richas death to this day. Also gave us Imortalyson and kinda Richarlyson’s mindset of ‘fuck it we ball’. All he has ever known is one life.

Trumpet - THE MOST IMPORTANT DEATH ON THE FUCKING SERVER HOLY SHIT. Yes Trumpet died from neglect but his death lead to the Theory Bros. For those who dont know, Bad went to Maxs house to comfort him about Trumpets death and one of the ways he tried to get Maxs mind off of Trumpets death is talk about how weird the island is. Thus Bad and Max theorizing about the island and the rest is history. Also it lead to Max and Bad interacting more and kinda making Max talk to more people around the island.

Tallulah - Her nightmare with Phil and Chayanne has significance as stated above. But her death with the Code is significant because it was the first time Forever saw an egg’s death. It deeply upset him and made him a lot more serious about the eggs. Also again made Philza more paranoid.

Pomme- She hasnt died yet but her nightmare I would say is pretty significant. Kinda with Ramons nightmare, it helped give the players, admins, and audience some more rules on things and what the admins can/cant do. It also made everyone realize “Holy shit theres a weapon that does 50000 damage and will one shot you and destroy your armor” which is terrifying on its own.

Everything is so significant on this fucking island and every egg is extra significant to this island. No death is taken in vain. They truly shaped the island and everything we know about it

#qsmp #qsmp eggs #qsmp chayanne #qsmp trump #qsmp trumpet #qsmp tilin #qsmp tilín #qsmp bobby #qsmp dapper #qsmp ramón #qsmp ramon #qsmp leonarda #qsmp juanaflippa #qsmp tallulah #qsmp pomme #qsmp richarlyson

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serafilms · 4 months

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song 53! magic (one direction) + percy jackson requested by @isabelboo (2023 spotify wrapped event)

you, you’ve got this spell on me, i don’t know what to believe, kissed you once now i can’t leave

Percy isn’t really sure how or when it started, but he’s pretty sure you’ve put some kind of curse on him.

His thoughts are consumed by you day and night. His vision tunnels in on you every time you’re around. Whenever you talk to him, all he can do is think of your lips. It’s excruciating. It’s nauseating. And it’s definitely affecting his daily activities, he thinks as he sits, dazed in the infirmary, with a stab wound (a very minor one!) in his side.

It has to be some kind of magic, he thinks, because he’s never felt like this. Maybe some voodoo? Maybe a trick by Hecate as vengeance for defeating the Titans. Maybe you’ve been slipping him potions in his food. It could be anything, and Percy is not as well-versed in magic knowledge as some other people at camp, so he has no idea.

But he finds himself always looking for you, asking after you. He finds himself trailing after you always, and depressed when you’re not around.

The strangest part is that nobody else seems to notice anything out of the ordinary, and he’s too afraid to ask them about it.

He mentioned something about it to Annabeth once, but she merely waved him off.

(“It’s like I can only think of Y/N,” he said.

Annabeth looked over her notes distractedly. “Uh huh, yeah, that’s great, Percy. Hey, since you’re not being any help here, would you mind getting Y/N so they can help me finish the Capture the Flag plans?”

Percy blinked. “Okay?”)

He thinks it must have started somewhere between all the times you held his hand to lead him somewhere, or the times he stood behind you to help correct your sword fighting posture, or the times you touched his hands and arms to correct his archery posture. He always ended up blushing furiously after each of those ordeals.

Or maybe it started that time he kissed you. Although, technically, you’d kissed him first (on the cheek, nothing crazy!) before he went off to face Kronos.

But then again, Percy had been the one to kiss you on the lips when he found you again after.

(“Percy!”

He heard the call of his name, registered your voice, and his head was already whipping around to find you. He found you, a strained look on your face as you hobbled towards him, and Percy rushed towards you.

No sooner had you steadied yourself by holding onto his forearms than he had leaned forwards and kissed you on the lips.)

But Percy couldn’t help it! He’d just been so worried about you, and so relieved to find you alive. He thinks maybe during one of those kisses you transferred your evil little spell.

Still, he hoped that kiss might have meant something to you, more than friendship, but you hadn’t gotten the chance to talk about it, since you’d collapsed on your broken ankle right after.

Even until now, you two have never really discussed what you are, or what the kiss/es entail for your future relationship. Because magic spell or not, Percy’s endless thoughts about you have him planning out your future (however much of it you can plan for two demigods who face certain death before their prime). An apartment in New York, close enough to his mom and Paul but not so close that it’s overbearing, college and planning schedules to match up, weekends out with your friends laughing and eating and watching movies and doing normal teenager things.

That’s all he wants. But he’ll settle for the lingering touches and smiles he gets from you for now.

But this curse, spell, whatever (because gods forbid Percy Jackson admit he’s in love with you before he’s sure you’re in love with him. They kissed you, Percy! What more do you need, for Zeus’ sake) is seriously becoming a problem, because somebody explain to him how from 30 feet away, Percy managed to see an Ares camper headed straight for you and make it over the battlefield in time to intercept it. With his own abdomen.

It was a stupid mistake, he acknowledges now. He’s been through countless battles, and he knows he could’ve incapacitated the camper from behind, or just knocked the spear out of his hand or something. But something about seeing you in danger just sets alight a fire in his mind that burns through any rational thought, leaving only an urge to stop you from getting hurt.

A little inconvenient now that he’s wincing on an infirmary bed with his side burning up. But at least you’re okay. And oh, look! It’s you! He’s not sure if he’s hallucinating now, or if you’re really standing in front of him.

“Seaweed brain,” you say, sniffling.

Okay, definitely you.

“Hey Y/N,” Percy says meekly. His side still feels like it’s on fire but his heart feels warmer with you here.

You take his hand and his heart aches at the tears in your eyes. “Hey, I’m fine,” he assures, ignoring the fact that he is definitely not fine.

“You’re an idiot, is what you are.”

“Yeah, that too.”

You look at him, at the ridiculous little smile he’s giving you to reassure you, at the bandages around his waist, and his hand in yours, and you lurch forwards and press your lips to his.

Percy jolts in surprise and feels his abdomen screaming at him from the movement, but kisses back nonetheless, feeling your lips on his once more and your tongue graze his bottom one.

When you pull back, he stares at you in a daze. If kissing is how you kept this spell on him, he is okay with being under it forever.

“You’re ridiculous, Percy Jackson,” you say, “but I love you.”

He swears his heart has never felt this warm. “I love you too.”

(“Sorry,” Leo says, looking rather gobsmacked, “they weren’t already dating?”

“Leo!” Piper throws her hands up in exasperation.

He smacks his cheeseburger back down on his plate and stares at the faces of his friends. Jason and Frank also look rather miffed, but the girls are all rolling their eyes. “Excuse me for being surprised! They’ve known each other since they were, what, 13?”

“12, actually,” answers Annabeth.

“12! When Percy woke up on the other side of America, the only name he could remember was Y/N’s, right?”

“Correct,” says Frank.

“And we spent ages on the Argo II, during which they got caught in the stables—“

“They were just talking,” says Hazel.

“—and they fell into Tartarus together! Because he refused to let go of her hand! They literally went all the way to hell, all the way through hell, and back out, together!”

Nobody says a word, all looking at Leo.

“You’re telling me,” Leo says, breathing very intensely as though he just found out that his pet dog has been run over, “that during that entire time, neither of them asked each other out?”

“Nope,” says Annabeth matter-of-factly, “and he also kissed Y/N on his 16th birthday.”

“Man,” Jason sighs, “talk about slow burn.”)

#percy jackson imagines #percy jackson x reader #percy jackson imagine #percy jackson #heroes of olympus #hoo #pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo x reader #pjo imagines #pjo imagine #written works !#2023 spotify wrapped event !

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matrixbearer2024 · 2 months

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I just got this crazy idea with Reader having a pet dog and cat and is always distracted or always talks about there Cat and Dog playing, resting, cuddling with Reader and Vox just being jealous at this point wanting some attention too 😂

What A Jelly TV

Vox x CollegeStudent!Reader

A/N: Ah yes, the double edged sword- Vox is literally going to fight himself in this one since he himself is a pet owner. And yes, I'm mentioning Vark in this cuz about fucking time LMFAO- another slice of life chapter cuz I love writing these. That and we kind of get weird cuddles with the funny TV man, weird in the sense where it's literally a remote connection. Reader is kinda tired of Vox's shit but oh well HAHAHAHAH-

A/N: By the way, I just wanted to mention that timeline wise- this entire series happens AFTER Hazbin's Season 1. So I'll make references to certain things that happened but because I don't want to intermingle the story with canon lore too much- I made things happen after it all. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy this installment- it was a little hard to write since I didn't have a prior vision to it but I think it turned out alright Hahahaha- and as always, Happy reading guys!

Vox would proudly admit he was a lot of things.

The king of the biggest technology empire in all of hell-

An oh so powerful overlord-

A conniving and esteemed businessman-

But this-

This was a new low.

Even for him.

Especially when the realization hit like a sack of bricks to the face.

Vox grew to like your presence in his daily routine-

Most of the time even bothering you out of boredom.

He found he liked your attention, not that he'd ever admit it.

He would rather die twice-

But when he figured out pretty soon that he had to share you-

That didn't really sit well.

"Dude, it's just a puppy. Stop being all pissy already-"

Vox just scoffed, you rolled your eyes at his antics.

You kind of expected it, remembering the incident you had with your initial desktop pet.

Glancing over to the open laptop screen nearby, the small digital Vox just waved at you.

Aha... yeah-

This was pretty expected.

"And they're not going to be here for much longer, just until [friend name] finishes moving into their new apartment."

It was only a little over a week ago when your friend called to ask for a favor.

You assured your overlord buddy that it wasn't anything you couldn't handle and Vox eventually just let it go.

Of course, that was until he found out what you had agreed to.

At the start, he didn't really mind.

Hell, he even showed you some pictures of Vark in return while you guys were talking about pets.

But as the days went on and you acted more and more affectionate towards your friend's pet-

It was starting to get under Vox's skin and not in a good way.

You'd coo and cuddle the little fur-ball so much that it was nearly all he saw whenever you guys were talking.

It also doesn't help that you would end up shifting the conversation towards [pet name] and how cute they were after a while.

Vox understood how it was like to fall in love with your pet, he had one of his own after all-

But he couldn't help the envy creeping in seeing the puppy just napping in your lap.

"It's been more than a week doll, just how much longer do you plan on keeping the puppy???"

You were shocked by the fact Vox had been counting days, you didn't really bother to take notice of it.

Not to mention he seemed a little... pouty even?

You just sighed.

"Look, I'll check with [friend name] how much longer they need. I give no promises. Why the heck are you so grumpy about it anyway? It's not like you're the one taking care of the puppy Vox."

The overlord buffered slightly, why was he...?

Honestly speaking, he didn't really know.

He didn't know why he was feeling the way he was.

Only what caused it.

The freaking puppy.

As Vox stared at the screen, he tried to find an excuse that won't make it seem like he got jealous of your freakin pet.

Well, it wasn't even technically yours.

But that isn't the point-

You just expectantly stared at up at the TV screen while the overlord opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish.

Your question was straightforward, no nonsense or beating around the bush-

And still he struggled with an answer?

Soon, a small yip from your lap snapped up your attention again.

You smiled down at the now awake pup and moved to pet it.

Okay that was fucking it-

Static white noise suddenly blared obnoxiously from the TV speakers and you had to cover your ears.

The poor frazzled puppy immediately jumped off your lap and ran off, leaving you and your digital companion alone.

"Ow?! The fuck was that for Vox?!"

He didn't respond to that, just nonchalantly looking off to the side like he didn't just try to destroy your eardrums.

You let out a frustrated sigh, what the hell was this guy's issue???

"Geez, what the hell is up with you today?!"

Vox cringed slightly at your harsh tone.

Okay, he might have gone overboard trying to scare the fur-ball away-

But he didn't think you'd be that upset with him.

Oh well, better to face the music than run.

"Well- maybe if you stopped only paying attention to that fucking fleabag then maybe I wouldn't have to scare it away!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, Vox instantly regretted saying them.

It was fucking pathetic.

Your confused expression didn't really help either, he was not going to elaborate-

"You- were you jealous of the fucking dog???"

You couldn't stop the amused grin on your face when you finally understood what was going on.

Not that you would've even noticed anything anyway-

"I- No?! Fuck you!"

This time you couldn't help but laugh at Vox's expense, the TV starting to fizzle and glitch while he uselessly tried to get you to stop.

It was a little...

What was the right word for it?

Cute?

No-

Adorable??

Not really-

Flattering???

Eh, whatever-

Point was, you felt a little fuzzy because Vox wanted your attention.

Like, he didn't know how to ask for it but the fact he still wanted you to just stay and interact with him made you feel funny.

That reminds you-

"Ah! Wait, let me just get something- I wanna see if it works with you-"

"Works? With me?? Doll, what kind of experiment do you want to launch me into this time???"

"Nothing too crazy I promise! Heck, maybe you'll like this one!"

Vox heard your voice call from out of view, the fact you had to run to another room to get it slightly concerned him.

He couldn't tell what you had planned this time, every single other instance he thought you couldn't get any crazier and you just did.

But instead you just came running back with a... pillow?

"Dollface, I think you have plenty of pillows already. What's up with that?"

You smiled cheekily at your flatscreen companion, sitting down on the couch before you plugged in your phone to the pillow.

It was a gift your friend got you months ago that they mentioned would help you sleep better.

The fact humanity managed to put tech in a pillow of all things was still surprising but in this case not unwelcome.

Vox was already surprised that the thing had to be plugged in, but he buffered when an odd warm sensation immediately spread throughout his entire body.

"Wh- What the hell did you just do??"

Your smile soon turned into a grin as you gently hugged the smart pillow, gauging Vox's reactions on the screen as he went from shocked to utterly confused.

It was like he could sort of feel being pressed?

Similarly to how you were hugging the pillow, he could feel himself gently being squeezed.

"So...? Any good?"

"If this is how you're trying to awkwardly hug me then I guess?"

"Ayyyy! It works! Okay, if I give you some cuddles would you stop being pissy at [puppy name] then?"

You knew you won when the screen suddenly tinged pink and Vox just stumbled over his words.

You bit back a snicker as you got comfortable on the couch, shifting slightly to better hug the pillow.

"I'll take that as a yes."

And to no one's surprise, the tech overlord had no complaints.

#hazbin hotel #vox x reader #hazbin hotel vox #vox #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin vox #hazbin vox x reader #hazbin hotel vox x reader #vox x you #get off my screen series

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pastrydragon · 4 months

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The BG3 Beef I wanna see shitpost

While I do love the idea of Tav/Astarion/Karlach/whoever getting more unique mean dialogue with Ulder Ravengard, especially when he has the audacity to take up space in your camp like that instead of someone cooler like Barcus or that one bullied hyena, I want very specific flavor text that you'd only get in the epilogue party if you pick a specific ending even more.

I think if you romance Wyll as Gale or Gale as Wyll and then you don't go to Avernus, I think it would be totally galaxy brain to have dialogue in the epilogue that reveals Ulder Ravengard and Morena Dekarios fucking DESPISE one another. Because they absolutely would.

We never get to meet Morena in game but you can tell from what Gale and Tara say about her and Gale's... Galeness that she is at least a part time passenger on the "Fuck you my child is fine" train. Her sweet little boy? Commit evil deeds? Never! There has obviously been a mistake. I mean she indulged that "Gale Of Waterdeep" nonsense and when Gale summoned a full on Tressym after being explicitly denied a kitten as a child, she just let him keep her. No repercussions.

And then her sweet boy brings home another sweet boy who is probably EXACTLY what she pictured Gale's partner should be like.(Because Wyll is the damn blueprint for "Guy you could bring home to mom") Wyll is ridiculously sweet to Gale, he's the perfect gentleman, he's very open to the idea of giving Morena the grandchildren she's been nagging Gale about in the very near future. Pinch her, she must be dreaming!

I cannot imagine her reacting to Wyll's backstory with any amount of empathy towards Ulder, obviously that man is a cruel psychopath to throw poor Wyll out like that after "a tiny misunderstanding" and Wyll is just too good of a son not to see it. Which is partially true, Wyll is definitely still in some kind of denial stage over what his father did but that's not the point of the post.

Then there's Ulder who probably thinks Gale is... Fine. He's not someone he ever would have pictured for Wyll. Gale is a babbling oddball, he has chronic foot-in-mouth disease and has only ever met the pointy end of a sword. But he can't say anything because Gale saved him, his son, and Bulder's gate, and a small army of tieflings, and apparently a bunch of mushroom people and blah blah more reasons he can never have the moral high ground blah. He's undeniably stuck with this fucking wizard, and his nightmare of a mother.

Morena firmly believes that since the Ravengard manor is technically Wyll's now, then it's also Gale's and thus is now hers as well. When I say she would walk through the doors like she owned the place I mean it very literally. Where did Ulder's old helmet display go? "They were rusty and it was ruining the wooden shelves, besides these enchanted swords go better with the new drapes we had to get, I don't know how you didn't notice how moth eaten they were getting." Everyday he wakes up and something about his own damn home has been changed to make it look more like a wizard tower. She doesn't even live here most of the time!

And it doesn't stop there, not at all. No this women has to make sure his son doesn't live there full time either. Every holiday and birthday she has to send Gale a letter about how much she misses him and you should visit so you can take a break from all that(Very important!) work and how she already has the venison just for Wyll.

And every time he's forced to interact with this harpy she looks at him with a sweet smile on her face, honey in her voice and the burning hatred of a thousand suns in her eyes then somehow managed to insult him five times in one sentence without ever explicitly insulting him. This women is a devil from Avernus sent to punish him for his sins and she's even won over the grandkids. Obviously that women is a manipulative psychopath for using her control over Gale to manipulate his son. Which, yeah Gale not being able to say no to his mom has contributed greatly to this and if Wyll knew what healthy boundaries looked like he probably wouldn't have put up with it but he doesn't so here we are.

Let these two be the Tom and Jerry style B plot to BG4 is what I'm saying.

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #bg3 gale #wyll ravengard #bg3 wyll #ulder ravengard #morena dekarios #gale x wyll #I don't know their ship name #I only ship it for the family drama #Astarion can also fill this role as Wyll's SO but this is funnier to me #bladeweave #thank you dromaeocore for telling me!

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cowboythighs · 8 months

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little alpha eddie finds lost omega steve in the woods while playing in the rain. his baby alpha instincts kick in and he decides he needs to protect this little lost sheep.

⬇️⬇️

little alpha eddie finds lost omega steve in the woods while playing in the rain. his baby alpha instincts kick in and he decides he needs to protect this little lost sheep.

little alpha!eddie loved playing in the woods behind the trailer park. he knew that technically wayne had said he wasn’t supposed to go into the woods. but wayne had made that rule when he was a baby, and he was eight now! he was totally old enough to go on adventures by himself now!

he put on his oldest, dirtiest pair of tennis shoes (knowing if they got dirtier it wouldn’t be noticeable) and his rain jacket pulling the hood over his head and donning the role of strider setting off on his quest to find lost hobbits!

eddie splashed his way through the woods, pulling out his imaginary bow to shoot orca from trees and pulling out his invisible sword to fight off the ring wraiths! he was in the midst of a particularly fierce battle when he heard sniffling nearby.

eddie paused, listening, and heard the sound again. it was harder to smell in the rain, but if he tried really hard it was there- the faint smell of distressed omega.

eddie followed the sounds and smell to a massive fallen tree and found a little pup curled up underneath its shelter, crying quietly.

“hey,” eddie called out, approaching slowly, nose scrunching up as the distressed scent got stronger. the pup looked up, startled.

“it’s okay,” eddie assured him, squatting down a few feet away so that he was eye level with the little omega. “you don’t need to be scared. i’m eddie.”

“i’m steve,” the omega replied with a particularly big sniff. eddie wished he had a tissue.

“what are you doing out here all by yourself?” eddie asked, looking around and confirming that there were no adults around. “babies aren’t supposed to be in the woods by themselves. my uncle wayne told me so.”

steve looked up with a scowl, tears momentarily forgotten.

“i’m not a baby. i’m almost seven. and you’re by yourself too!”

eddie hummed in the way adults always did when he could tell they wanted to correct him but couldn’t be bothered.

“yeah, but i’m eight,” eddie said as if that settled things.

steve’s reply was cut off by a particularly fierce bout of shivering.

“you don’t have a jacket,” eddie pointed out. “you should go home and get one.”

“i can’t,” steve wailed, scenting heavily of despair, “i’m lost! i don’t know where home is and now i’ll never be able to find my nest again!”

“hey, it’s okay,” eddie scooted closer to throw his arm around steve’s shoulders. “it’s not like we’re in mordor or anything. this is just the Old Forest, we’re still close to the Shire.”

“the shire?” steve asked, confused.

“yeah, that means we’re not far from home, so you don’t need to be scared. plus i already killed off all the bad guys so we’re safe.”

“you killed bad guys?” steve looked shocked.

“it’s okay,” eddie assured him. “it’s just pretend. you can come home with me though, i’ll keep you safe! and when my uncle wayne gets home from work he can find your home! he’s really good at finding things. he finds my toys and my socks for me all the time!”

“okay,” steve sniffled through the last of his tears and stood up, and took eddie’s outstretched hand, ready to follow him all the way back to the Shire.

when they made it back to Forest Hills Trailer Park, eddie pulled steve into his trailer and helped him strip out of his wet clothes and put them in the washer with his own.

“you know how to do laundry?” steve asked sounding surprised, leaning in closer to smell eddie. “but aren’t you an alpha? my dad says alphas don’t do laundry.”

“your dad sounds like a bad alpha. sorry!” eddie quickly apologized. “my uncle wayne just says that alphas should be able to take care of themselves and their omega too.”

“woah,” steve said, looking at eddie in awe. “is your uncle an alpha?”

“no,” eddie said, leading steve to his room to pick out dry clothes. “he’s an omega. he’s also like, the best person ever. if you’re still scared we can take some toys and go lay in his nest. i’ve got action figures and race cars and teddy bears.”

“i’m not scared,” steve insisted putting on eddie’s too-big pajamas. “but i guess we could go lay in your uncles nest if you are.”

“okay, grab a toy and follow me.” eddie said, taking steve’s hand for good measure after he picked up eddie’s biggest teddy. he took steve right to the center of the nest, giggling when steve burrowed in and let out a little purr.

“it’s good, right?” eddie said as he breathed in deep. “uncle wayne smells like a campfire marshmallows.”

steve hummed his agreement. “you smell nice too. like cinnamon and christmas trees.”

eddie’s cheeks grew hot. “you smell better now. you were sour in the forest, but now you smell like an orange.”

steve blushed and hugged his teddy bear tighter. “can you hug me while i go to sleep? my nanny always hugs me until i go back to sleep when i have scary dreams.”

“sure,” eddie scoots closer and wraps his arms around steve, “you’re safe now. uncle wayne will be home soon and he can find your house. or you could just stay here and live with us! we could be friends. i’ve never had a friend before; i bet it’s even better than pretend ones!”

steve’s soft little snore was the only answer, but eddie didn’t need a reply. something in his chest clicked when he held steve and he knew that they’d have forever to talk once steve woke up, because steve was his and he was steves. eddie snuggled in closer and let his own sleepy lids flutter shut. he fell asleep wondering if steve would rather be legolas or frodo next time they ventured into the woods of middle earth; no doubt in his mind that they would share their next adventure together.

#steddie #stranger things ficlet #alpha eddie munson #omega steve harrington #cowboythighs #fluff #am i a day late and a dollar short on omega verse week? yeah! but i needed the fluff this morning so here we are!#cross posted from my twt

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theminecraftbee · 2 months

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finalized smallishsona au party, in true join order:

grian, justice. his persona is signy, and his weapon is a naginata. he's an all-arounder who gets both physical and magical attacks, with a focus on dark and light magic (eiha/kouha damaging skills and mudo/hama instakill skills alike). technically the earliest member of the team, also one of the three starter members of the team when joel joins. he has been doing this the longest out of anyone, and sometimes, it shows in ways that aren't so great.

scar, magician. his persona is majnun, and his weapon is bows. a magic and ailment-based attacker, but he gets healing and support skills in his moveset as well (that, story-wise, he focused on due to him and grian being the only two persona wielders for a while, and scar's persona being the only one suited for them). his element is wind/garu. acts as the early-game healer until joel gets better options, then settles into massive magic damage and ailments.

joel, wildcard/fool. he has many personas and roles, but his starting persona is pygmalion, who is associated with ice/bufu. his weapon is knives. his role in the party is to be everything for everyone all the time. no this doesn't say anything about him. shut up.

skizz, chariot. his persona is enkidu, and his weapon is brass knuckles. a heavy physical attacker through-and-through, the fact that his attacks cut his own hp to deal damage is unfortunately fitting for his character. what little magic he gets is fire/agi, but like, he's the party member that learns charge naturally, you will not be using those unless you have to knock over some guy's weakness and joel forgot to bring a persona to cover it. while his rescue and awakening happens before joel starts exploring Altered Space, it takes a little bit for skizz to join, as unlike joel, using his persona does not come naturally to him. also is the earlier members to get various buff skills.

mumbo, moon. his persona is ariadne, and he is the navigator. for those unfamiliar, the navigator does not enter battle with the rest of the party, but DOES have the ability to help buff the party, scan enemies for weaknesses, and do other helpful things to help the team, well, navigate. giving a man with anxiety an all-seeing web probably can't hurt anything, right? in my head he functions as a cross between fuuta's very useful scan and various dungeon skills (like the escape one), and futaba's very useful in-battle buffs.

impulse, emperor. his persona is siegfried, and his weapon is axes. he's the TRUE party healer who gets stuff like me patra (heals the party of any status effects), samerecarm (revives someone with full health), and mediarahan (heals the party to full health) as his persona gets to higher levels. he also picks up electric/zio skills for decent damage (although he doesn't have scar's magic stat and is very much built to heal most of the turns he's around). it probably says something about him that he gets healing skills once he truly awakens his persona, especially given skizz. while he's aware of his persona from the start of the plot, it takes until a bit of a ways into the plot for him to truly awaken to it. also, because this is an au and not an actual game, i can get away with the most effective party healer joining this late. any other persona game, he'd be one of the earliest members. for obvious reasons. (and the fact scar is their most effective healer for a long while is. DEFINITELY a plot point here.)

gem, empress. her persona is atalanta, and her weapon is swords. she's a late-game powerhouse type build, with powerful bufu/ice magic in combination with almighty/untyped magic damage. she can show up and cast megioladon on the shadows' asses, is what i'm saying. she also gets the debuff and buff skills that aren't already scattered across the existing party members, but unlike scar, she doesn't get concentrate, so she's not the PERFECT damage-dealer here. as one of the two party members who hasn't been directly tied into this plot from the beginning, it's possible she has her own motivations and things going on that the rest of the party doesn't know behind her awakening. but that would just be silly, right...?

#smallishsona au #yes i know i already have this masterpost but i want everything in ONE PLACE #especially since i plan on making a real masterpost for this au soon #also I changed impulse from odette to siegfried here #which keeps the swan lake thing but fits him SLIGHTLY better into emperor as an arcana #these are PROBABLY the finalized first-stage personas. luckily I don’t have to know their ultimates yet! lol.#I should also probably decide each of their weaknesses it strikes me.#OH WELL. WILL DO THAT LATER AND ADD IT TO THIS.

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mediumgayitalian · 1 month

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Nico really fucking hates capture the flag.

Well, not always. Last week was fun. Last week was the annual Everyone Against The Stolls (to atone for their crimes), and Nico got to chase Connor around at top speeds, cackling, committing his shrieking and begs for mercy to memory. That was nice. That almost made him forgive the fucker for digging a trench under Nico’s unwelcome mat for him to fall into at seven thirty in the godsdamn morning.

But tonight’s game is boring.

He’s been standing, alone, at the base of the flag for the past forty bajillion hours. He’d raised a few dozens skeletons to spar with at first, since animating them to fight himself isn’t technically against the rules, but that got dull fast. (It isn’t much fun sparring with a partner who doesn’t have a brain. He already has to do that enough with Percy when he comes to visit camp.) He’d climbed the various trees around the clearing, or at least he tried until he got reamed by the dryads for climbing on a manner that was too annoying (?), and tried his hands at a few summoning spells. Nothing held his interest long.

And now he’s just standing, doing nothing, and he’s not allowed to leave. He has to stay in this stupid spot on the off chance that someone comes stumbling over to fight him for the flag.

“You’re our best swordsman, she said,” he says mockingly, beaming the nastiest vibes he can manage in Piper’s vague direction. “We need you on our defensive line, she said. Nyeh nyeh nyeh.”

His checks his watch. He groans. He looks critically over the grass, looking for a softer patch, and when he locates it he throws himself dramatically upon it, groaning louder.

“This sucks!” he yells, to no one.

“Will you shut up!” shouts back the dryad he pissed off earlier. “For the love of photosynthesis! Fuck!”

He bites his tongue hard to hold back laughter. (If he can avoid getting his entire cabin overgrown with prickle bushes again, that’d be great.) “Sorry,” he calls, trying with everything he has to sound contrite. Convincing his father to fight the Titan War was easier, actually. Acting is not his calling.

“Hmph!”

At least listening to see if she’ll come out and yell at him again provides something to ease his boredom. Yes, he’s going to regret bothering her, but in his defense, solo guarding is cruel and unusual punishment. He’d rather sit by an outlet with a fork and see if he can poke and let go fast enough to avoid dying. That at least would be interesting.

A rustling of leaves recaptures his attention, and he pauses.

“Holly?”

When no one answers, which is odd because she’s taken every opportunity in the last hour to either insult him or pelt him with stones, he lifts his head.

“You’re not going to scare me, dude. I had my fear glands surgically removed to become a better soldier.”

Not true. Obviously. But a fun bonus of being the camp weirdo is that no one doubts anything he says. He’s working on convincing everyone younger than him that he needs weekly tributes of chocolate delivered to his door every Friday or the dead are going to take over the world. So far, it’s working.

“Look, Holly, I’m sorry about the zombie, okay, I promise it didn’t mean to sneeze part of its brain on you —”

The rustling sounds again, only this time Nico can see that it’s not Holly’s tree, and in fact she is nowhere to be found. Alarmed, he jumps to his feet, shifting so he’s balanced on the balls of his feet, poised to attack. Is Piper’s plan failing? Has someone actually managed to make it all the way over here without getting (gently, probably, although they lost the last game and Piper gets cranky without dessert) maimed?

The rustling sounds for a third time. This time, an armoured someone stumbles out of the underbrush, tripping over their own foot and nearly landing flat on their face.

Nico has his sword at their throat in a millisecond.

“Wo-oah, Morbius. That’s probably my least favourite sword you could stab in me.”

Nico goes bright red. “I have never wanted to stab you more than right this second.”

Will, chest plate skewed to the right, quiver completely empty, and black paint smeared under his eyes, snickers. He puts a finger on the tip of Nico’s sword and pushes it away from his neck.

“The opportunity was right there, babe. I couldn’t not.”

“You really, really could. In fact at all times, you should remember these words of wisdom: shut up.”

“…Damn. Inspiring.”

Nico rolls his eyes, but the effect is somewhat lessened by the smile on his face and the obvious pleasure in his expression. He’s even feeling merciful enough to accept Will’s kiss, although his sword keeps a good amount of distance between them. (Will’s on the blue team, after all. It would be unprofessional to be fraternizing with the enemy.

…Well, too much, anyway.)

“What’re you doing here? You’re supposed to be with the other archers, sitting in trees and causing havoc.”

Will shrugs, grinning lazily. “I quit. This game is senselessly violent and I’m Against It On Principle. I’m a pacifist, you know.”

“Uh huh.” Nico raises an eyebrow. “I assume this doesn’t count you choking Cecil out in a headlock, this morning.”

Will opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. He closes it again.

“Cecil is my mortal enemy,” he grudges after a moment. “He doesn’t count.”

“‘Course not. Not like you cried for two hours when he went to visit his mom last weekend or anything.”

“Will you — stop saying I cried. I barely teared up, okay. Barely.”

Nico can’t quite force down the stupid grin that pulls across his face, matching Will’s, nor can he resist grabbing the leather straps of his boyfriend’s armour and hauling him close.

“You better not be here to distract me,” he mumbles, leaning close and pressing a kiss to the underside of his jaw, the corner of his mouth. Will hums, settling his hands on Nico’s hips.

“Nope. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Drama queen.”

“Excuse — I am the least dramatic, I’ll have you know. I’m a pinnacle of solemnity. I am a shining beacon of stoicism. I am — mmfh,” He trails off. “Okay, doing this now, mhm.”

Nico smiles triumphantly into the kiss. Will, he has found, is very easy to shut up, despite his long-running nickname of Motormouth. It’s almost like he has an off button that can be accessed only by Nico sticking his tongue in his mouth. Nico is doing his civic duty, honestly. He should be compensated for his service.

(‘Course, doesn’t hurt that Will smells, like, really good, all the time, and his lips are soft as hell and he is actually quite the kisser, in fact. That is definitely a fun bonus.)

He smooths his hands over Will’s shoulders, travelling up the sides of his neck and settling in his hair. Will keens, slightly, when he wraps a finger around a frizzy golden curl and tugs, slightly, when he scratches his nails along his scalp. The rush of power at the feeling makes Nico dizzy, and his sword clatters to the ground as he busies himself with more interesting — and important — things.

Like pulling more of those sounds from his boyfriend’s throat. Or making his knees buckle, again, like he did the other night — gods, that was good, it made Will flush scarlet and Nico feel like he was fuckin’ floating, to have Will so needy and touchy and totally at his mercy —

“Free line to the flag! Go go go go!”

Nico startles, whirling towards the sudden cacophony of noises. To his horror, what looks like half the camp, helmets shining with plumes of blue, comes pouring into the clearing, weapons raised, voices mixing in one long, victorious shout. He lunges for his sword, but before he can grab it, two strong arms tighten around his torso, pinning his hands to his side.

Immediately, he knows he’s been set up.

“Oh, you — fucker!”

He feels the curve of Will’s grin against his neck. “First shower privileges for a whole month, baby.” He noses along his jaw, pressing an apologetic kiss to his cheek. “Couldn’t resist.”

Nico struggles, aghast, watching the once-red flag shimmer in Lou Ellen's hold to a bright, shining blue. “I am breaking up with you, you traitor, you Iago, you vixen — ”

Will snorts. He ducks down and pecks Nico on the lips, again, and again, and then shifts to his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, his temples, his forehead, and all over his face, making louder and louder mwah sounds until Nico is laughing, punching his shoulder and shoving him away.

“Okay! Okay. Let me go, you villainous toad. We will discuss how much you’ll have to grovel for my forgiveness after Piper finishes yelling at me for getting distracted.”

Will presses one last kiss to his nose, smiling cheekily before stepping away, heading towards his boasting team. “Enjoy that lecture! Love you!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Nico rolls his eyes, resting his aching cheek in his hand. “Love you too, asshole.”

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adonis-koo · 1 year

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wicked • 16

↳ Summary: In a desperate hope to stop war from breaking you are a serviced to wed the most vile man alive, the one who has committed atrocities and war crimes beyond comprehension, he who is responsible for the fall of many nations, the wicked prince who’s heart is made of stone. You are to marry a man who challenges every belief and moral you stand for, all while being faced in a foreign land with nobody but yourself too trust…But are you both truly that different? Or is hate not too far from love?

↳ Pairing: Jungkook/reader

↳ Genre: arranged marriage AU, enemies to lovers, it’s kind of a period AU??? Historical but also technically not? prince!AU, eventual smut

Word Count: 10.8k

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Note: the queen has returned everybody! good luck

Wood echoed off of wood, clapping together in a viscous motion as Jungkook’s brows pinched together, frantic to stave off the aggressive blows. He was already exhausted though, training before sunrise until sunset, only to sneak out like this.

It could get him in a lot of trouble- both of them for that matter.

He fumbled against a blow he deflected, stepping back only for his foot to hit a dip in the ground.

The next blow came but his reflexives weren’t sharp enough to block it, resulting in the wooden sword slamming hard into his shoulder as he yelped out.

The breath felt as though it had been knocked out of him as he gasped for air, his back planted into the ground as his name was called- or perhaps the closest he usually heard to it.

“Your Highness!” Big brown eyes peered over him in concern, “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Jungkook sputtered, long black hair accidentally getting in his mouth as he waved her away, “You didn’t hurt me Wheein, and stop calling me that!” He hurriedly sat upright before slumping a little.

Though Jungkook said it, it didn’t take away from the fact that it did hurt, Wheein hit hard, perhaps harder than she intended too. But Jungkook wouldn’t shy away from it, he needed to be pushed hard if he wanted to one day be a good swordsman.

Wheein quickly backed away from him, kneeling down as she peered at him, still in mild concern, “But you’re the Crowned Prince.”

This made Jungkook cross his arms with a huff, he knew he was the Crowned Prince, but for once he just wanted someone to treat him as a friend. He hated his title, he didn’t ask to be the next King of Penumbra, and he certainly didn’t ask to be drafted into this stupid war.

Just the thought had fear plunging into his veins like poison, he only had two weeks of training left before his official draft would begin.

When his father told him, Jungkook knew better than to cry, though he wanted to. He kept it in, but still his father was repulsed at the sight of the boy groveling, begging his father to not send him.

‘This isn’t fair, father!’ He remembered crying out, his eyes filled with hurt and glassy, on the verge of tears he told himself he wouldn’t cry.

And then his father’s response was even more vivid than his own.‘Life isn’t fair nor is it kind Jungkook, and you best be learning that as soon as you can.’

Just the memory made him clench his fists, and just as his father suggested, he decided to put all of his anger and frustration into training. But no matter how hard he trained, how hard he tried, how much he exhausted himself.

It still hurt.His uncle, Jeong Dae didn’t seem to understand either, he had gone to him in some effort to lick his wounds and receive a bit of comfort, but his uncle only replied by telling him he should be honored to serve his country.

That this was his chance to prove himself to his people, to the Rosewood’s, to the world that he would be worthy of being King.

The only problem was that Jungkook didn’t want to be King. He didn’t want to rule, he didn’t want to go to war and he certainly didn’t want to die. And no matter how much everyone tried to pet him, he could see past their empty eyes, they were sending him to his grave, he was certain of it.

“Are you okay?” Wheein frowned, mirroring his own as she set down her sword, “You’re crying…”

Jungkook’s bottom lip quivered, both in anger and pent up sadness as he roughly shoved his tears away. How they had managed to slip out was beyond him, but he wouldn’t let it happen again. For his father, his family, and his country, he would do what was expected of him.

His feelings didn’t matter, evidently enough.

“It doesn’t hurt that bad.” He shook his head, ignoring her words, “You should get back to Skol before Di Jin catches you out here.”

Wheein’s frown deepened as she folded her hands together, taking one long look at him before she took a breath, “Alright, you should rest as well, I know the War Matron has been pushing all of the underling’s after dark now that there’s only a two weeks left until graduation.”

Jungkook set his hands on his lap, “If they’d let you serve the war would be over in a day.”

Wheein offered a small smile, “Maybe, but I’m not a boy and I’m not royalty either. Rest well Prince.”

And with that Wheein grabbed her cloak that had been discarded, pulling it over her head to conceal her figure before she disappeared into the dark. Jungkook might have been concerned had it been anyone else, but he saw her take her wooden sword.

He winced as he rubbed his shoulder, she could easily bludgeon someone to death if they made her angry enough, she’d be fine.

Jungkook had sulked for only a little longer before getting up, rubbing his shoulder as he grabbed his wooden sword before sneaking his way back to the boys barracks.

“You are an idiot, truly.”

Jungkook hadn’t said anything for a long while, his gaze looking out over their great kingdom, the very same one his great grandfather built stone by stone, all for it to turn into this? And even despite the shitshow of a display earlier the only person missing from the parlor was his father.

Perhaps unwilling to bother with such trifles at the late hour despite it being the Crowned Princess who had been missing. Jungkook had felt his whole stomach lurch when he had woken up, you missing from his embrace and he attempted to be rational at first, assuming you had gone on a late walk and taken Yoongi with you.

But upon seeing Yoongi still on watch outside the doors had him immediately reeling, flashes of anxiousness and worry wrought in his entire being which came in lashes of anger to everyone around him. It didn’t matter what Jeong Dae and Areum told him in an attempt to calm him down, he wouldn’t be until you were found and safe.

And the relief he felt when you came in, when he was finally able to hold you once more and see with his own two eyes that you were safe, it was in that moment that he knew there was no going back with how he felt.

You had somehow entangled yourself in his entire being, somehow wiggling your way into the forefront of his mind every time you were apart and making him constantly have the desire to keep you wrapped against him.

And yet he didn’t understand. Your words still coldly rang in his ears. Things could not be over between you both, they had hardly even begun, so surely, out of a fit of rage, much like you had in the past, said something damning in the moment.

Still, it troubled him deeply, Jungkook shook his head, “I don’t understand what I said wrong,” He frowned, deeply troubled by what had transpired, “It was the truth nobody else would tell her…”

He was honest when he said he took no pleasure in telling you the truth, but everything he said was the truth you so desperately wanted.

Your anger was justified, but why couldn’t you see from his side…? He was stretched beyond thin and Jeong Dae had only goaded him further into investigating you, he was the one who had planted a seed of doubt.

But deep in the crevices of Jungkook’s mind laid bare his true feelings, ones he wanted viciously to deny, but still they lingered in the dark, perhaps the seed had already been there, Jeong Dae only watered it.

“You don’t…!?” Areum raised her brows, groaning as she ran a hand through her hair, “Good god you don’t understand why she was upset with you!? Jeon Jungkook! You don’t tell the women you love that you were justified in what you did!”

“Then what would you have me do?” Jungkook snarled, his gaze finally snapping to hers.

He already had one woman scold him tonight, he didn’t need another one to further it.

Areum puffed a breath, crossing her arms, “You could first start by swallowing your pride and admitting your’re wrong, and then you could move along to groveling for her forgiveness. But something tells me she won’t care until you genuinely mean it.”

Jungkook’s lip twitched as he angrily shook his head, “She’ll be fine after she’s done throwing her tantrum. She’s prone to saying cruel things when she’s angry, she didn’t earn that title for nothing.”

His words may be cruel, but they were a truth no one could dispute, Jungkook was the first to witness your wrath the very moment the door to your wedding chambers had closed. Though in time he grew to know you as you were truly seen by those closest to you.

Tender to the core, there was such a profound air of softness about you that was constantly coiled tight like a venomous snake, hissing and ready to strike at anybody who dared get close to it.

And yet again, Jungkook was struck by your venom this night. When you loved, you were like the gentlest, warmth of days, the embodiment of the sun in his eyes, incandescent and enchanting, but when you raged?

You were nothing short of a thunderstorm, not the rain but the lightning that followed, striking yet again in a chaotic manner that no one, let alone he could predict. Your voice was like a war drum that would not be silenced. Areum only raised her brows at this, “Right…well, let me know how that goes for you little nephew. Betrayal is easily the deepest wound one can inflict, lest we all know that here. Goodnight.”

She spoke with finality before she exited the room, leaving Jungkook alone with his uncle.

Silence lingered in the room, the fireplace roaring with flames and wickedly dancing as Jungkook glowered in the coals.

He only wanted your safety tonight, perhaps if he had stayed asleep, this all could have been prevented.

“Are you satisfied?” Jungkook finally asked, “She hadn’t even sent a single letter out until she began writing to her mother to inquire about Yule.” It left an empty feeling in his chest as he crossed his arms, “She’d never be a spy, it isn’t who she is.”

You were many things, a dichotomy to the court. You were soft but sharp, merciful but unforgiving, hot and cold. But of all the things you were, Jungkook knew the one thing you were not, was indefinitely, a spy.

He was consumed by paranoia when he sent for your letters to be searched, in hindsight he wondered if he had calmed his mind down, he would’ve made a different decision.

Jeong Dae walked over to him, putting a hand on his shoulder, “You did what you must to yet again secure your seat to the throne, we would never be certain until you had it done. True as Areum’s words may be, the girl will come to one day understand your reasoning.”

Jungkook said nothing in return, his eyes still cast out over the dark kingdom, “I hope you’re right.”

“Get some rest Jungkook,” Jeong Dae replied, “You’ll need it in the days to come.”

Jungkook was then left alone with his thoughts before he reluctantly returned to his chambers where it laid empty just as he had woken up earlier, the bed felt entirely too big and as he laid awake in bed, staring up at the canopy a feeling began to creep into his chest that felt entirely too much like regret.

“Princess…I’m not typically someone who pries but…is there a reason we’ve been here all morning?” Yoongi had finally spoken up after taking you to the stables at the first light of day where you had been keeping Fenrir company.

At first you had went on a walk with him before playing with him and now you had been resting in the stables for the last hour, tenderly stroking through his fur as he rested his chin on his paws, perhaps sensing your downcast mood as he licked at your hands occasionally in comfort.

The pup had definitely grown, he was bigger now, to some guards uncomfortably so, his head was perched at the top of your stomach when he stood tall now.

“No reason in particular…” You mumbled, not wanting to talk about it at the moment. You had so many things and feelings to sort through, and admittedly you were not used to working through it completely by yourself.

Not only were you having to deal with Wheein being unrightfully accused of being the assassin but now with the betrayal of Jungkook having investigated you as a spy behind your back along with the news of Eunoia.

It made your head dully ache in all truthfulness, it would have been one thing if Di Jin pounced on you with a dated piece of information, something you wouldn’t have put past Jungkook to do just after your wedding.

But two weeks ago?

Two weeks?

You felt incredibly naive and stupid to believe, geniunely that you both were closer then this. You didn’t know how to feel, about anything anymore, and more than anything you were wrought with homesickness.

You didn’t want the gray chilled days anymore, you wanted to go home.

Yoongi sighed in exasperation as he nodded, “Very well, then let’s discuss why you thought it was a good decision to go outside the castle after hours, by yourself, telling no one of your status and meeting up with the sworn enemy of the crown!”

Your lip jutted a little, not appreciating the scolding, but it was a foolish decision you made and the least you deserved was this for that. One thing however caused your head to shoot up right, “How did you…?”

It was one thing for you to admit to going to the Undeside, but how could Yoongi know that you met up with Claudin? He fled the moment he got you outside the courtyard.

“I’m Areum’s right hand and before that an assassin, I have more eyes then just my own after hours.” Yoongi’s glare furrowed, “And to let that rat take you to the Underside, did you want a death sentence Princess?”

You glumly leaned back against the wooden wall, your hand mindlessly stroking Fenrir’s side as he sprawled out at the attention, his feet digging into your side but you paid it no mind. Had you not gone to the Underside you would’ve assumed he meant all of the looming assassination threats.

But after having gone, it was only now that you realized being assassinated was a lot lower on the list of ways you could potentially die in Penumbra then you had originally thought. It was undeniable that your eyes were opened to the truth. Just about everyone in this damn kingdom wanted your head on a pike. It was a bitter pill to swallow.

“Well it’s certainly come to my attention that a death sentence for me is far more imminent then the court ever let on. If visiting the Underside was anything to go by.” You mumbled the comment that occupied your mind.

Yoongi ignored your question, “Send me outside if it upsets you Princess but I’m going to ask anyway, why did you go with him?” You shook your head, lip twitching with anger just as he anticipated, “I had no other choice,” You finally spoke, eyes raw with rage, “Not a single person in this castle dared to tell me anything, it’s as if, I was living in a bubble this whole time, blind to what’s been going on in the outside world. I took no pleasure in going with Claudin, but he was the only one willing to show me the truth.”

Yoongi frowned deeply as he crossed his arms, “And how is that cold truth treating you Princess? Being ignorant is a blessing few come by these days.”

Your eyes stung with tears of rage but you refused to let them fall, “That is a luxury I was never allowed to have as a child. I tended to the disembodied civilians of children, men and women alike, all left from the wars your country waged. I stoked the fires with their bodies and choked on the ash of their bones. Ignorance was never an option.”

Yoongi huffed shaking his head, as though he didn’t particularly enjoy hearing about the mess they caused without thinking twice, “How long will you weaponize the past against Penumbra?”

You shook your head, “It’s not a matter of weaponizing, it goes beyond Penumbra, beyond myself, it goes back to the Age of Celestia, the moment the Dryads left this earth, the moment we were stripped from our grace. That’s when our eyes were opened to the world around us, it is our curse to bear. To be savage, tooth and fang and yet wholly crave the peace of the earth.”

“Call it whatever you may, but I would always rather the unpleasant truth than the sweetness of lies.”

Yoongi said no more, leaning against the side of the wall as he shook his head.

It was silent for a long moment before you spoke up, not wanting to bid ill with him, after all he was your personal knight, or you supposed assassin was a better interpretation. He had every right to be upset with you, but you didn’t want any more bad blood to fester.

“Last night,” You frowned, “When Di Jin came in, it was he who announced I went to the Underside.”

Yoonig snorted, “A pot-stirrer that one, I’m not surprised.”

“Neither am I,” You admitted, the little time you’ve spent with Di Jin would point to such, “But it was what Jungkook said to him in return. Something that insinuated Di Jin played a hand in the Underside…?”

‘My wife would never step foot in that pit you caused.’

Jungkook’s words rang in your ears as you glanced at Yoongi, perhaps with him being Areum’s right hand, he would have more insight into this. Yoongi however only sighed as he ran a hand through his hair before he finally took a seat upon a bale of hay that was against the wall beside him.

“While I am still indefinitely angry at you,” Yoongi glared a little before it softened, “I also want to impart some knowledge on you, seeing how serious you take this whole truthful business. While what you saw in the Underside is very real, it is only a fragment of Penumbra as a whole. It is the depths of criminal activity and the most low or dangerous of people roam.”

“Di Jin was the captain of the Guard during the five year war, but during this time, we had serviced many into the war to help, many volunteered as well, food had to be rationed and many mourned for their men and boys that would not return. But many men also resisted to help in the war, they flooded the streets with crime of all sorts as a way to rebel against the draft,”

Yoongi frowned as he recalled those days, “While the King was busy buried in the war room, Di Jin took it upon himself to create a prison of sorts in the lowest district in the city, him and his guard raided the whole Capitol at night and threw them all in there as some means of justice and restoring order.”

You tilted your heads in curiosity at his words.

“And I understand the idea he had in mind,” Yoongi admitted before scoffing, “But imagine it Princess, throwing all of the lowly thieves and murders together in one place? It’d be hell on earth, well instead of murdering one another like Di Jin assumed they would, they ended up couping the whole place. Tearing it down in troves and claiming it as their own little Kingdom, it is now shrouded from the Capitol in fear of who still roams there. It is without a doubt the most dangerous part of Penumbra.”

“So what happened to Di Jin when they all took hold of the district?” You asked, almost eager as you sat upright from your previously slumped position.

“Well he got decommissioned,” Yoongi grinned, as if it amused him, “Conducting something on that scale without the King’s permission was a one way ticket to it, not only that but thoroughly botching it too? Because Di Jin served in the war alongside the King, he allowed him to walk free. Otherwise he’d surely be rotting in the dungeon right now.”

You grabbed your chin in thought, “There must be a reason Di Jin is trying to say Wheein is the assassin, I just can’t make sense of it…”

“I wouldn’t think much of it truthfully Princess,” Yoongi said with a soft lament, “I feel as though, in some cases, it purely has to do with being at the wrong place, in the wrong time.”

Somehow this horrified you even more than if it was some clever plot, “Wheein does not deserve to die- let alone at the fate of being at the wrong place and the wrong time!”

“But think Princess,” Yoongi urged you, “If Di Jin caught the ‘assassin’ he would be back in favor with the court and more importantly, the King.”

“Why would he want the King’s favor now though?” You wondered aloud, frowning at the idea, surely Dae Seong wasn’t blind to the idea that letting Di Jin into his court was a poor idea, let alone letting the man be an advisor to him.

‘Well…You said Di Jin was the one who announced you went to the Underside, did he say anything else…?”

You thought on it for a long moment, “No he didn’t but…” you trailed off at remembering what Yoongi previously said, how he had more than his own eyes at night, “It’s more, what he didn’t say.”

You felt a sense of dread fill in your stomach as Yoongi urged you on, “And what would that be?”

“You said you knew I went with Claudin,” You replied, “But Di Jin…He didn’t mention Claudin at all, just that I had been seen there…Yoongi.”

You turned to him, something akin to the realization in your face, “After Di Jin was decommissioned from the Captain of the Guard…he became a bounty hunter. The Wolf of the West.” Yoongi's expression twisted from confusion to shock and then to pure anger as he crossed his arms, “Perfect, now we have two rats to deal with. Best we set one trap for both Princess…”

You nodded, “Yes...you are certainly right about that.”

The idea of facing your husband once again at the table of Namjoon’s study was less than desired, but if your judgment was right, then you would simply have to put your hurt aside, for the safety of not only Wheein but for yourself and potentially the whole of the kingdom.

“Are you ready Princess?” Yoongi asked, grabbing the handle of the door. Taking one deep breath to calm yourself you nodded before he opened the door for you stepped inside.

The others were in hushed voices before pausing at the sight of you, all giving you a bow except for you at the end of the table.

Jungkook.

His eyes were unreadable as yours at the moment, but the coldness between you both was difficult to not notice. It was hard to imagine once upon a time, this was a normal interaction to you both, now you felt oceans apart.

“Princess,” Namjoon spoke first, his eyes filled with both concern and curiosity, “We all received word about you urgently needing to speak with us, has something new developed.”

“It has not completely revealed itself but Yoongi and I were speaking this morning and happened upon an odd but…damning clue that’s been staring us in the face this whole time…” You frowned as you walked to the table, “Please sit.”

Everyone did so as Yoongi pushed your chair, sitting at the opposite end of the table you chose to ignore his intense stare as you began to recall the events of the evening, leaving out most details of the Underside as you were simply too embarrassed to actually speak of what you had discovered.

After explaining your thoughts and concerns to them Jungkook was immediately the first to speak, “I’m going to slaughter that man,” There was a deep rage in his eyes, “To have the audacity to parade around in my castle, pretend to be someone he isn’t at my court. Try to murder my wife.” It was hissed out, his fingers twitching as if wanting to pick up a blade and slit the man's throat this very moment.

“Jungkook,” Namjoon ushered in a soft chastising voice, as if scolding a younger brother that was being too hasty with his decisions, “As the Princess said, we don’t know if this is the full truth. However it is the best lead we have and most likely right. But we need to play our cards right, Dae Seong favors him, it would be best to not go in accusing him of anything without any evidence.”

“So where does that leave us then?” Hoseok frowned looking in thought, “We’ve double downed on our efforts but whatever Di Jin is hiding, it’s locked tight.”

“It would make sense though,” Jimin frowned, leaning back in his seat, his cheek resting on his palm, “Whenever I’ve spoken to him all he’s said is cryptic things like, ‘if you side with me you’re boon will be great’ or ‘just wait watch as the chaos unfolds’.”

“Chaos unfold?” Namjoon asked with piqued curiosity.

Jimin lifted his hands in exasperation, “Don’t ask me, I never knew what the hell my old man was on about. What I do know is that he has always put himself first. So even if he is aligned with the Rosewoods, it’s only temporary.”

“So what?” Yoongi asked, “You think if the Rosewood’s take the crown Di Jin would simply murder them and take it for himself.”

“That's what I would do,” Jimin shrugged, “Take’s a bastard to know a bastard.”

“If his information is locked tight then we need to dig harder.” Jungkook replied, he looked brooding and still very much angry, “I want eyes on him at all time.” He looked to Yoongi who nodded, “And Claudin as well, as much as they can without compromising their position.”

Everyone nodded at this before the meeting was dismissed, everyone departing until it was three who remained.

“Yoongi, leave us.” Jungkook still sat at the opposite end of you, not even sparing the assassin a glance.

Yoongi however did not leave as he glanced at you, as if asking for your permission if you were okay with this.

Did you want to talk to him? Not particularly, but he was your husband and this court was only so big, you would eventually have to talk to him about it, the idea of forgiving him made you seethe in rage though.

You were tired of compromising, tired of learning, tired of having to be understanding.

“You may wait outside.” You finally glanced at Yoongi with a nod, he then bowed before he exited, closing the door behind him. It was silent for a long minute as you glanced around the study, it was well decorated, maps lining the walls and bookshelves filled to the brim.

It was a quaint thing, not at all organized like the great library, but absolutely Namjoon, books of all shapes and sizes crammed together, some standing up right, others laid on their side to fit inside.

You stood up to wander around a little in curiosity, ignoring the blatant stares of your husband before you finally settled at the window out looking over the woodland of the meadow.

“It doesn’t have to be like Y/n…” Jungkook sighed, staring at your back, a sense of yearning in his chest, as if you were so close and yet so far from his reach once again.

“No it didn’t.” You agreed coldly, folding your arms. He acted as if you’re the one being unreasonable here when he was the one who betrayed you.

“All you have to do-”

“Yes I know!” You snarled, turning around as fury whiplashed into your veins once more, “All I have to do! Tell me Jungkook had I not been the one to apologize first to you, would you have ever given me a chance? Had I not been the one to swallow my pride, take the lashings from you even so. All I have ever done is give. I am done giving.” Your lips trembled despite the glares you both mirrored, “I have nothing left to give. I meant every word I said to you last night. I may be many things but I am not a fool.”

“What I did was necessary to secure the crown,” Jungkook hissed back, angry and upset with your words, as if flat out refusing to believe they were nothing but the truth you spoke, “The world is engulfed in politics, all of that of Eunoia is only rumors, rumors you were better off not festering among the thousand other things we’re dealing with. But most of all, I am not your enemy Y/n.”

You shook your head angrily, “That may be how you feel but that isn’t how I see it Jungkook, I had every right to know about Eunoia, even if nothing more then rumors. You may not be my enemy but you are certainly not my lover.”

Jungkook’s lip visibly twitched, as if what you had said struck a nerve before he leaned in, eyes cold as before his lips curled in an icy smile, “That’s not what you said when you were moaning like a bitch in heat stuffed full with my fingers.”

You ignored how hot the tips of your ears burned as your hands curled into fists, you had thought Claudin would be the only person who ever provoked you enough to consider violence and yet here you stand, silenting seething in rage as you glared up at your haughty so-called husband.

You were above slapping him, but it certainly seemed tempting. So instead you say the next best thing.

A cruel smile on your own dancing on your lips, “Perhaps because I was imagining it being my actual lover instead of you.”

You were suddenly jostled around, pressing against the window with his chest against your back, a hand slithering possessively around your throat, “Funny because you were moaning my name the whole time.”

It would be a lie to say you weren’t shamelessly turned on right now, the sexual tension in the room was bursting from the seams, especially so with the visitation of your last intimacy together.

But unfortunately for Jungkook, your pride would always outwin your sex drive. “You’re doing no favors for yourself right now.” You glared over your shoulder at him.

You were unable to, however, as his mouth was already pressing a sloppy open mouthed kiss against your skin, his voice deep and breathy against the shell of your ear, “Then let me do a favor for you.”

When you don’t reply he turned you back to face him, his lips pressing from your neck down your chest as his hands dragged from your waist to your hips, kneeling down in front of him.

In the moment you couldn’t help but scoff a little, suddenly grabbing a fist full of his hair, yanking hard on it to make his eyes meet yours, what surprised you however was the moan that escaped his lips.

His expression may have remained neutral but you had gotten to know him too well, the slight part of his lips, his pupils blown out from lust.

The gesture only made you more angry, “The fact that you think head is going to fix this is a joke better left unsaid. You had your chance and now it is gone. I have things to do, do not bother me again.”

You shoved his head away from you before you stepped away from him, walking out the door without looking back.

‘Are you ready to go Princess?”

“More than ready.”

“Would you like to visit Wheein meanwhile?”

Your gaze shot up, “I can do that?” It felt like a stupid question, you were the Crowned Princess, it felt as if you shouldn’t even need to ask but given this was Penumbra, you didn’t know how things work.

Of course you had heard of dungeons before but you had never been in one, nor did one even exist in Eunoia, the closest equivalent were called Repentance Rooms, and they were nothing like a dungeon, they were clean and well lit with barred windows captives could look out of.

Comfortable even, they were for the liminal time between a captive being captured and trialed and if their punishment was severe they would be sent to the housing district next.

You wouldn’t even know where to begin looking for a dungeon.

Yoongi frowned at your words, “Well, you certainly can but last thing you want is for Di Jin to catch you snooping about.”

“Can you make sure I’m not seen?” You stood up, folding your hands together as you stared at Yoongi pensively.

His lips curled into a small smile as he kneeled down in front of you, grabbing your hand, “Of course, my lady. But just know there will be guards that are siding with Di Jin, if they see you they’ll alert him immediately.”

Your face was covered with a hood and Yoongi had skillfully guided you along the narrow halls as you entered the lower levels of the castle where everything was dark and dimly lit, the smell of must becoming overpowering as guards patrolled each hall.

Just the dim lights and dank smell made you increasingly worried, you had heard about dungeons before what it meant for captives in other kingdoms, but never thought you’d live to see one yourself.

A naive thought once upon a time. But here you were, visiting your dearest maid who was being wrongfully accused of something you knew in your heart she’d never do.

Yoongi had you hide in one last nook before he guided you to the very last dungeon, “Okay,” He spoke softly, “You’ll have only a few minutes with her, be brief.”

You nodded as you crouched down, making your way to the gate, the sight broke your heart, you could hear a soft sob but Wheein was laid down on the ground, nothing but a pile of straw hay serving as a bed in a windowless cell.

“Oh Wheein,” Your eyes immediately welled with tears, “I’m so sorry.”

She jolted, scrambling to get up before she gapped at the sight of you, tearings streaming down her face before she crawled to the bars, “Princess.” She wept softly, before reaching throught the bars to you.

Your arms curled around her as best as possible as she whimpered quietly, “I don’t want to die! Please! They’ll burn me! That’s what Di Jin will do, please!”

“Princess,” Yoongi ushered out, “One more minute.”

“Shh!” You ushered, trying to keep your voice down as you pulled away from her, grabbing her soft cheeks in your hands, “We aren’t going to let that happen! Okay?” You nodded, “We’ll find a way to prove your innocence I swear by it Wheein.”

Wheein only continued to cry, shaking her head, “He’s going to kill me Princess, I’ve dreamt of it for so long, I just know it.”

You grabbed her hands into yours squeezing them tight as your heart ached seeing her in so many tears, “Not as long as I’m alive he won’t,” New determination rushed into your body, anger that hell had not rage against burning in your veins, “I swear on Galadria that I will serve justice where it is due.”

“Princess! We need to go.” Yoongi whispered out, ushering you quickly.

Wheein closed her eyes as tears trickled down her face but said no more, quickly you ushered her into one last hug before you whispered, “I’ll return soon! We better news than I have now.”

“Please Princess, be safe.”

Those were her last whispered words before Yoongi quickly guided you back to a crook to hide as the guards made their rotation. Unfortunately for Wheein, you had no intentions of being safe, you were going to prove her innocence at whatever cost was needed.

When you had first been told by the King, Dae Seong that you would be expected to dine with the family once a week, it had filled you with nothing but dread. Being among three men at the time was daunting.

Two which didn’t take you seriously at all, and of course the third, your husband who would either pretend you didn’t exist, or give you an icy stare and then proceed to pretend you didn’t exist.

But after the incident in the market place, Jungkook and you had somehow grown closer, fonder of one another, came to an understanding of one another and where you both had come from.

Two weeks ago…

Your heart squeezed as you stared in the mirror, several maids floated in and out of your room and while you always tried to be kind, today you felt exhausted, only giving simple answers to whatever they asked.

What did you do two weeks ago that finally made him decide to have you spied on? You had gotten into an argument that week- at the time you thought it stupid but only now did you reflect back and realize Jungkook was venomously jealous of any inkling of an idea of Seokjin ever being your lover.

Not only this but an odd inferiority complex he has that he would rather die than ever admit too. But…why? It made your eyes sting with tears that you refused to shed. You had said hurtful things during that argument but surely it wasn’t enough to make him do that? You’ve had worse arguments with him before that moment.

You just didn’t understand.

“Finished Your Highness.”

The maid placed the crown on your head as you stared at yourself in the mirror, taking it in, it was heavier then it looked, but then again it was made of Noxtria metal, elaborately weaving with sharp, angles stones of onyx and metal winging out of it's sides and one large center piece in the middle.

The maids all courtesy to you, you offered a weak smile and thanks before they were dismissed.

You took a deep shaky breath, wiping your eyes before any real tears had fallen. You just had to get through tonight, somehow, despite all of the time that had passed, it felt as if you were in some liminal space between how you first felt going to a family dinner and what it had slowly turned in too.

Family dinner was expected tonight, however an additional note had been added on, Di Jin and close friends of the family would be attending tonight. Knowing your friends, and though you were upset with Jungkook- that they would be there brought you comfort.

But having to deal with Di Jin all evening was not something you wanted to deal with.

However, you were not about to cower away from him, your eyes had gone from mournful to near vengeful as you glared in the mirror, your hair elaborately done for the night by your request and a specific dress for the occasion.

It had been hanging for a long while and you had truthfully shied away from it, feeling it was a bit too Penumbrian even for you.

But not tonight.

It was a raven black gown, cold metal weaved into leaves intricately, an armored sweetheart neckline that wrapped all the way up to your throat, your upperarm dawned with cufflets that flowed with even more black fabric and a solid band of metal cinching your waist.

Black had become a color of mourning in Eunoia, it was something you wore daily during the Five Year war while working in the tents as a healer. But something dawned on you as you looked through your gowns earlier in the evening.

Before that, during the Age of Celestia, it was said that black was the color of power. Queen Celestia wore it for her ascension after devouring her husband, becoming the sole ruler of Eunoia.

You didn’t like to think you took after the gruesome woman. But something that wasn’t often talked about was Celestia and Galadria were sisters. You shared just as much blood from one as the other.

And right now, you wanted to wield power, not grief.

Standing upright you were escorted down the hall, heads turned in your direction from various aristocrats to maids and servants alike as you kept your head held high and an unwelcoming expression on your face.

The double doors were shut as per usual and though you had walked through them many times, tonight you felt just as anxious as you had the very first time as they opened. Every set of eyes at the table had turned to you, seeing as you had clearly interrupted the conversation that went on.

Many at the table had quickly stood up, bowing to you, some more begrudging than others as your eyes locked onto Di Jin’s, his lip twitching a little as he bowed, your expression stayed as unwelcoming as before.

You may not have been a Jeon by blood but you would certainly pretend you had their trademark cold glare tonight.

Taehyun who had been standing behind Jungkook’s chair had stepped back to pulled the empty chair out beside his, your cold look softened only a little for him, offering a brief tiny smile of thanks as he pushed you in.

Jungkook had previously looked bored, crown of his own on his head, though from how he slumped in his chair it was just a hair crooked, dark hair dusting in front of his eyes as they met yours.

And for the briefest moment you felt just a bit stronger having him by your side before anger quelled in you once more at the memory, two weeks, for some reason two weeks ago he chose to no longer trust you.

Your expression remained as you looked away from him as the voice of Di Jin spoke, “It’s good to see the Princess can finally grace us with her presence.”

“Yes, just in time for the meal, seeing as the conversation wasn’t much to look forward to.” A mocking smile curled on your lips, never before did you usually take pleasure in having power over someone, but you were experiencing many firsts in Penumbra.

No matter how much Di Jin disliked you, he knew better than to openly disrespect you, no matter how hard he tried to undermine you in his discreet way.

“What matters is the Princess is here now,” Jeong Dae’s gaze narrowed on Di Jin before nodding, “let us all dine now. Tell me, the progress on the market is coming along, yes?”

You stared into your glass of wine as you swirled in, “Yes, they’re starting to lay the foundation down. Though I must confess, my servant being thrown in the dungeon has caused quite a bit of a mess in my schedule.”

An uncomfortable energy had taken over the table as you shrugged, taking a long drink from your cup, you were not going to sit here and pretend along with everyone else that Di Jin had not done what he had.

“It’s a necessary precaution, once this assassin business has been taken care of you’ll have your servant back,” Dae Seong answered gruffly, not appreciating your lack of tack, “But should more incriminating evidence come out, a servant is expandable and just as easily replaceable.”

Your gaze slowly pulled to his as the silence at the table ensued once more, when had human life become so expandable as he said?

You understood less and less as to why they felt this way, why they chose to believe this.

After a long moment your lips twisted into a grin that looked more like a grimace, “I thought you might say that your Majesty.” You however said nothing else as you took another drink from your cup.

The table was quiet for a long moment and nobody spoke, despite the silence it was almost comforting to you, to know that your words held some sort of weight to them even if it felt in the moment they were nothing more than an illusion to how you truly felt.

“Not to interrupt this moment, but perhaps we should discuss the east, it's come to our attention that Kyoto has movement in the east, if they continue our progress will be delayed“ Jimin spoke up, a frown on his face with evident worry, “We've been tracking them down, and it seems they're making a sort of pattern, if I didn't know any better I'd say they were mapping out the best way to invade us.”

“That would be hasty on their part,” Jeong Dae spoke up, “We just passed The Rite of Peace this year, they wouldn’t be foolish to invade us just after the prince and princess wed.”

“Fools aren't so different from the brave,” Jungkook spoke up, swirling his goblet of wine in his hand looking rather bored, though his gaze occasionally went to you, as if hoping you would be looking at him, “ Would it be that outlandish to assume, that they do not care about the Rite of Peace?”

“This is true,” Di Jin, surprisingly spoke up with agreement, “After all, why would the world let a nation as glorious as us live for one simple girl.”

There was a certain amount of venom in his tone that did not surpass you, though you didn't let it disturb you as it once may have. you suppose somewhere along the line, that you had gotten used to an unsurpassable amount of hatred that for some reason people in Penumbra felt entitled to take out on you.

it was a ugly truth, but it was the truth nonetheless, and Di Jin had a point, no matter how unpleasant it was, why would the world let a nation that had killed countless people, destroyed homes, decimated nations live on, if there is one thing you had learned in Eunoia, it was that you were indeed replaceable.

Dare you say you felt almost as if you were a sacrificial lamb, sent to slaughter, and whether you died by an assassin or by an invasion, did it ever truly matter in the end? You weren't sure.

Jungkook did not speak, but he didn't need words to convey his feelings, his glare was enough to display his displeasure in Di Jin’s words.

Hoseok cut in, “Perhaps, but if they were to invade, there's no telling what kind of uproar it would cause with other nations. Especially if they kill the princess in the process, even if it is only one person, nobody can deny the influence Eunoian Princess has.”

“Regardless, it would be wise to have a plan.” Namjoon said diplomacy and his voice as he attempted to steer the conversation into a less hostile direction, “The people are restless, and with word having gotten out about Eunoia training soldiers along with Kimhae, and now Kyoto, they'll need guidance especially as winter approaches.”

You sharply inhaled, trying to not let anger seep through your veins again, though tempting, just the idea of Eunoia training soldiers was outlandish, ever since the Age of Celestia soldiers have been out of the question, if the rumors were true why would they start now?

Nothing made sense, you tried to ignore the stares, but it was evident that people in the room did not trust you, after all even your own husband felt he could not trust you at one time.

Two weeks ago, no matter how hard you tried your mind kept going back to two weeks ago, what had you done two weeks ago to warrant his distrust, what could you have changed to have changed his mind.

Just the thought made your heart ache and for a brief moment your anger had subsided.

“It would only be right to assume that Eunoia and Kimhae have their own plans to invade us. it would be within our best interest to strike first if that is the case.” Di Jin lifted his goblet before taking a long drink.

I'm just like that your anger had returned.

But before you could speak, your husband had beat you to it, anger evident in his voice as he spoke, “When we wrote the Rite of Peace, we promised Eunoia protection should someone ever threaten Invasion on them, they are honorable, if they desire to have their own protection let them have it, but do not sit at my table and claim loyalty to my family, and then proceed to disrespect my wife and her country in front of me.”

Di Jin laughed, “You've got a lot to learn boy, love rarely saves anyone and the few bastards it does, life has a certain way of shortening their lives.”

“And men who disrespect women, tend to live even shorter lives.” Jungkook said, his voice having grown a little darker and expressionless, his fingers now drumming against the table as if aching to reach across it and wrap his knuckles around Di Jin’s neck.

“Regardless of Kimhae and Kyoto, I can only speak for my own nation, and I can swear this we are pacifists by nature, we do not desire for nor want bloodshed, but do not mistake our heritage, we do bite back should we be provoked, after all, history proves that.” You spoke, your voice calm, “Should we be treated fairly, you will only expect kindness in return, for that is who my people are, while I understand your caution, we created the Rite of Peace for its very name, to bring peace to the world and put these past grudges to rest. And I intend to keep it that way to the best of my ability.”

“It seems you've all mistaken this dinner, we are here to gather and make merry not discuss politics,” Dae Seong looked much like his son, bored by the conversation, “We will not strike first, nor will we feed into their antics, after all this was the very reason I recalled the march to the East, there is no reason to wage war when our enemies have been defeated.”

You glanced around, noting the expressions on some of your friends' faces, it was evident just about nobody agreed with Dae Seong in one way or another, But nobody dared express how they felt, after all he was the king.

The dinner had went on for the rest of the evening without much of a hiccup, granted it gave you a headache and you had found yourself sunk back into your chair the whole time, more than anything you wanted to get out of your seat and away from your husband, who had been staring at you with puppy eyes most of the evening.

Occasionally you'd watch his fingers twitch as if aching to reach out to you, to pull your chair closer, to brush your hair from your face, or to fix a piece of your dress that I've been wrinkled, but he knew better rather he kept his hand in his lap or against his cup, his sixth glass might you add.

In some ways you understood that this was perhaps unfair on your part, the more you thought about it the more you realized that you could have confided him and you had chosen not to, this was in some ways your fault as well but it did not take away the hurt you felt, that you felt you were closer than this.

But it seemed you both were wrong in many ways and you weren't certain of how to fix this, if you even wanted to fix this anymore, what you did know was that you were at a breaking point, you were uncertain of how much more you could take before you would break.

And every time you thought it couldn't get worse it without a doubt somehow got worse, but surely you would hit a plateau, your husband had lied to you, your servant was on trial for your attempted assassination, and you found out your home country was enlisting soldiers into a military, to say your life had fallen apart was an understatement.

Or at least that was how you felt.

You had been sat in bed, a book in hand though you hadn't read it all evening, and once again no matter how hard you tried to focus a book was just a book, and words were just words, you could read but the sentence just kept going over your head each time you read it, no matter how hard you tried, you just couldn't focus.

A knock at your door however had drew you from your thoughts causing you to stand up reluctantly before trudging over and opening the door

The person who stood before you was unshocking to you, after all it seemed since the unsavory reveal of his deeds your husband could hardly stay away from you, no matter how many times you would ask him to give you space, in fact he seem to be doing the opposite these days.

“I know you don’t wish to see me-”

You abruptly tried to shut the door but his arm caught against the door.

“Y/n just listen to me,” Jungkook’s voice was weak, hair brushing over his eyes but the desperation in them was pathetic, “Let me talk, please.”

“You’re drunk Jungkook,” Your teeth gritted but you didn’t try to force the door anymore, your hand still curled tight against the knob as you glared at him. He reeked of liquor and it was evident as his white shirt had a large inky red spill down the front that had been dried out, this was his sleep shirt which meant he hadn’t stopped drinking even after everyone had retired.

Jungkook had one hand still flat against the door keeping it ajar and the other on the frame as he peered down at you, “I just wanted to see you, to tell you in my own words, I was complacent about your feelings, about my own. I have no excuses left, I have no words to defend myself, only my desire to be with you.”

You shook your head, trying to not let your heart twist further in pain, you wanted to look past this, to let it go, but how could you? Spying through letters was the first step, how could you know this wasn’t some elaborate plan all along to use you?

“It’s not that easy Jungkook,” You tried to contain the grief in your voice, guilt eating you up the more you thought of your own actions, “I should’ve trusted you more, confided in you about what I heard from Claudin, but I didn’t. I think it’s best if whatever this, does not continue.”

It was Jungkook’s turn to shake his head, his knuckles curling against the door, “We’ve both made mistakes. Forgive yourself Y/n and forgive me. Let me prove myself to you, let me earn your love.”

You roughly brushed the tears from your cheeks, “We were never meant to be together Jungkook, you know that just as well a I do-”

You were cut off abruptly by his hand suddenly snaking through the small gap of the door, wrapping around your waist and his lips immediately pressing into yours in a devouring hold, a surprised whimper escaped you at his iron hold increasingly becoming tighter on your waist.

Your head was telling you one thing, but your heart was so desperately wanting another.

His other hand immediately snaked around your throat in a firm grip, not tight but not loose as you tried your best to not give into the temptation to melt into his hold but it was becoming more difficult when his tongue had pushed between your lips in determination.

You broke, unable to resist the soft moan that escaped you as you felt your back push against the wall, arms wrapping around his neck before curling into his soft locks, giving them a soft yank as he moaned into your mouth,

You could taste the sweet wine still lingering on his lips, the unmistakable feeling curling into your stomach as you let yourself surrender to him for the briefest moment, and for the brief moment, everything felt better.

Two weeks ago…

The realization quickly followed after you and anger kindled in your veins once more, your hands had quickly slid to his shoulders to push back against him, “Jeon Jungkook!” You broke the kiss by turning your head with a hiss.

Jungkook didn’t relent though his forehead pressing against yours as he heaved a breath, “What have you done to me? Some ancient dryad magick?” He gave a mirthless smile, “You are all I can ever think about from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed, seeing you cry makes me want to kill whatever is causing them, I’m drowning in you my sweet doe. I’m intoxicated and desperate so indulge me,”

“Tell me what I need to do to earn your forgiveness.” Jungkook ushered out, wet kissing being placed on your neck as the internal battle waged war in your head, one part of you wanting to immediately crumble but the other was indignant, this relationship surely would not end well.

At one time when you were younger, you would have laughed, after all you were married. But your eyes had been opened, things were never that simple, not when one was a Princess, marriage was contract, love was a luxury.

He broke away from you only a little, almost nose to nose with you and hair hanging over his eyes like a cloud, “I thought I knew love, I thought I knew many things before I met you,” His hands trembled as if the emotions were too powerful, “But it turns out I know nothing. Without you, I know nothing.”

“Jungkook…” You ushered out quietly, shaking your head as you tried to swallow down the hurt that began to bubble once more.

“I feel like I’m being consumed by you,” Jungkook confessed, his hand squeezing your neck ever so slightly, his thumb rubbing softly along your windpipe, “It feels like you’re very being is sucking the soul from my body. And now that I’ve had you,” His voice broke only a little, his eyes like steel as he whispered a growl, “I would die without you.”

“Jungkook!” You whispered out frantically at the sight of him letting you go only to kneel down on both knees.

“Let me repeat my question; what do I have to do to earn your forgiveness?” Jungkook’s eyes burned with a bright intensity that nearly frightened you, his hand stroking up your thigh, “Is it Wheein? I’ll get her back for you. I’ll burn this entire fucking kingdom and rebuild it if I have too.”

Was he hearing himself right now!?

You were panicked at his words and his actions, he had pushed his way into your room but the door was wide open, anybody could walk down this corridor and overhear him! “You can start by getting off the ground and going to bed!” You hissed out panickedly, flailing your hands to gesture him to stand, “And give me some time to think about it! Jungkook I…so much has happened I just need time! There’s no reason for you to say something so damning!”

“I mean every word I’m saying.” Jungkook’s voice was serious, his eyes burning into you as he gazed up at you.

It was silent for a long moment and Jungkook’s gaze did not lighten, hesitantly you lowered a hand down to his head, running your nails through his hair, it caused his lids to lower until they closed, his forehead resting against your thigh, hands still delicately trembling against your thighs.

“If you want my love so desperately, then give me time and space,” You whispered out, “You’re right, we’ve both made mistakes, and they can be forgiven, but forgiveness takes time that cannot be rushed.”

“I can’t lose you.” Jungkook mumbled out, his weight slowly sinking into you.

“You won’t.” Your words however went unheard as he slumped down, before collapsing to the ground, passed out.

You stared down at him for a long moment before you sighed, “I’m sorry but you’re not spending the night here.” You stepped over him as you walked to the door, glancing around, the guard at your door must have been dismissed by him.

You were in luck however as a pair of guards were at the end of the hall, walking quietly as they spoke, you flagged them down, requesting they find Taehyun and then have your guard returned to your door.

Shortly Taehyun had arrived, the poor boy looking half asleep himself as he took in his Prince’s slumped figure on the ground, “He didn’t cause too many problems did he, Princess?”

You shook your head, “No more than he usually does, I apologize for interrupting your night Taehyun, thank you for taking him back to his room.”

Taehyun offered a tired smile, “Of course your Highness, have a restful night.” He hauled Jungkook up with a groan, and briefly you wondered if Taehyun could even carry him, but he did manage to get him out the door and you supposed that was good enough.

Taking a shaky breath you sat back down in your bed, deciding you would be reading deep into the night, as you surely wouldn't be getting any rest regardless.

It was late morning and you had been eating out on the second floor terrace, the day was slightly warmer but still gray and cloudy, it made you depressed and you briefly wondered just how Penumbrian’s coped with it.

But then again, they knew no different, for them, this was normal.

You envied that.

“You mind if I join, Princess?”

You twisted in your seat at the sight behind you, “Areum, of course, please have a seat.” You gestured to the empty table.

You had been sitting out here alone, Yoongi on the inside as you wanted a moment to yourself but deep down you felt alone and you deeply missed Wheein’s company, each passing day made you more anxious, and the gap in your heart widen even more.

Many questions filled your head, how would you set one trap to catch both Di Jin and Claudin in? You were not in a favorable position either way, Di Jin had a personal connection to the king and Dae Seong would need a damn good reason to believe you.

And you would have to be extra careful navigating Claudin as the Rosewood ties with the Jeon’s was already strained, one weak accusation and it could cause a civil war.

“You seem so sullied these days Princess,” Areum commented as she sat next to you, promptly grabbing a plate and stacking it with rice cakes.

“I miss when I first arrived here,” You admitted, “Things weren’t complicated the way they are now.”

“Perhaps,” Areum agreed, “But my, my, look how far you’ve come. I heard from your husband this morning. He looked dreadful.”

Your lips curled into a brief grimace at the memory, he looked rough last night, you couldn’t possibly imagine what he looked like when he woke up, no doubt hungover and upset.

“What of it?” You felt slightly nervous, had someone overheard Jungkook’s over dramatic declaration last night?

“He asked me to take you to the Jeon Estate,” Areum smiled at your surprised and confused expression, “The estate was created for the royal family during the early days of Penumbra when the castle had yet to be built. It’s no longer used regularly, but occasionally we still hold family celebrations there for privacy. It’s deep in the woodland forest, past the Seer’s refuge.”

“...May I ask why?” You frowned, uncertain of how to feel about this, there was so much at stake, how could Jungkook just expect you to leave…?

Areum smiled, “Something about wanting to allow you to have space and piece of mind. I understand your feelings Princess, I can’t imagine the weight you must be feeling right now, and I certainly wouldn’t blame you if you want to stay here at the castle.”

Areum tapped her chin, “However I will say this much, the Estate has something primal to it, some may even call it magick. If you are seeking answers, there is no better place to meditate than there.”

“I’ll think about it.” You nodded as you gazed out over the meadow in thought.

Perhaps time away from the castle and Jungkook would serve you well.

#bts #jungkook #jeon jungkook #jungkook x reader #jungkook x reader smut #jungkook x y/n #jungkook smut #jungkook imagine #bts scenarios #prince!jungkook x reader

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anthurak · 23 days

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One thing that always feels so funny for me when it comes to the Rosebird Parents Theory isn’t when people simply disagree with the theory, but rather people apparently seeing the prospect of a ‘Raven is Ruby’s real father’ reveal to be this totally unthinkable thing and how could anyone ever think this could happen?!

Because once you get past the whole ‘two ladies making a baby’ hurtle, Raven being Ruby’s dad really fits into so many well-known fantasy/sci-fi tropes. Many of which RWBY notably has not done yet, or have already been tied to Raven herself.

I mean, the mysterious villainous and/or anti-heroic loner with ties to the family pulling an ‘I am your Father’ reveal on the protagonist? That’s a fucking CLASSIC. Hell, let’s consider a few things about Raven:

Big, intimidating helmet.

Clear Samurai inspiration.

Wields a katana-like sword that technically has an energy blade (dust=energy) which is generally RED-colored.

Possesses mysterious and terrible over-worldly powers.

Has a mysterious past tied to our protagonist’(s) family.

Was probably in love with our protagonist’s (apparently) dead mother.

Yeah I’d say Raven makes for a pretty good Darth Vader-expy.*

Beyond that specific case, we’ve already seen the story connect Raven to a BUNCH of ‘mysterious and angsty deadbeat dad who left their kid for unclear reasons’ tropes when it comes to Yang. Why not have those apply to Ruby as well? People have been clamoring for years about wanting to see Summer’s narrative dynamic with Yang explored as much as the one she has with Ruby, so why not have the reverse be true with Raven and Ruby as well?

After all, it seems that the story has now given Ruby a reason to seek Raven for answers just as Yang once did.

And as I’ve noted in previous Rosebird Parents posts, No I don’t believe Raven also being Ruby’s deadbeat dad would be somehow ‘redundant’. Particularly because the context is completely different: Yang has known that Raven is her birth-mother for most of her life, whereas Ruby would only just now be finding out that Raven is her birth-father. Far from being redundant, this would allow the story to explore two very different responses of kids to an absent parent: One who has had to live with the knowledge of that absent parent for years, and one who hasn’t and has to deal with this NEW information suddenly getting dropped on her.

Plus, as I alluded to earlier, it’s rather notable that RWBY hasn’t done some big ‘dramatic parent reveal’, given how much of a staple it is to the genre. And given how reimagining, twisting and flipping classic and well-worn fairytale/folklore/fantasy tropes (often via playing with gender-roles) is basically RWBY’s bread and butter at this point, I’d say giving the series heroine an ‘I am your father’ reveal from a woman would fit PERFECTLY in this series.

And if you’re going to ask ‘but how do two ladies make baby?!?’,

Raven can be intersex. Boom. Done.

Alternatively, magic.

As an aside, yes Summer being trans is a perfectly viable alternative. I just think logistically speaking, Raven being intersex and being Ruby’s ‘father’ makes a dramatic reveal a bit more streamlined. Also, the idea of Raven managing to be BOTH a deadbeat mom AND a deadbeat dad is just too funny XD

*Of course, this comparison gets even more fun when we consider Summer having her own Vader-parallels, ie; Summer almost certainly being taken by Salem and given what we can probably assume to be a Vader-esque makeover via grimm-hybridization in setup for a big reveal. So when we combine this with Raven, I think we can view what happened on their last mission as ‘What if Padme/Obi-wan got turned into Vader INSTEAD of Anakin?’ Like Raven in the present is basically Anakin doing Obi-wan’s traumatized hermit shtick, except all angry and edgy because it’s still Anakin.

#rwby #rwby theory #Raven Branwen #Ruby Rose #Summer Rose #rosebird #rosebird parents #rosebird parents theory #star wars references #guess who's back on their bullshit? XD

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ganondoodle · 20 days

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Since you said it's ok to send you random ask, i've always found your "monsters" design to be really really gorgeous, and I wanted to know : in any form of media you've interacted with, what's PEAK monster design for you ?

i have been thinking about this ask alot bc ... i dont ... know? theres a problem with what counts as a monster really too, most are either some sort of anthro/furry or the horror gore type of monster that instills you more with disgust than awe

i guess theres some i really like but idk if thats what id call 'peak' (though its rarely JUST the design but their vibe and stuff too);

(its a lot of zelda.. sorry)

Eldra, Farodra and Naydra (engl Dinraal, Farosh(?)) though Eldra is def my fav one of them, i like how they are a little more less typical dragon- with the fur around the neck the floppy ears and kinda goofy face yet manage to be the most ethereal, awe inspiring creature i have ever seen in a game with how they act and are presented as (in BOTW!!! do not mention anythign sonau/zonai with stupid magic pebbles to me about them i will manifest worms into your tea)

Leunen (Lynels) (botw) -i could not find a better picture wtf, fav are white and silver ones) FINE they had some pretty neat new horn designs in totk- idk i just like them alot, rather simple if you think about it, horse lion plus horns- but its so well put together it just kinda scratches my brain in a good way (also how intelligent they clearly are, like the way they fight and act and also even their death animation is so??? huh?? you are just gonna treat them like any other mindless monste- *remmbers they treat ganondorf even even worse all things considered* .. nevermind you're good)

'Beast' Ganondorf (twilight princess) its my favorite beast ganon design (even if it technically is just kinda a man boar .. again) though if ww gan had a non puppet beast form that one would most definitely be my fav lol (i will not get over the fact that some descriptions call this a hideous beast EXCUSE ME???? WHERE???) (honorable mention here, darkbest ganon from botw, pig on fire but it looks cool as fuck)

Nimbusgarde (ww) .. (engl .. darknuts?) do i need to say anything? (i could throw alot of ww design here) not sure if it counts as monster but they are not human so ????

the pathless bosses- (here in order, Cernos, the Godslayer, and Kumo) all of them are rad as hell (except for the final version of the godslayer ... liek im sorry but it looks to boring compared to any other one lol) again not just the design but man do i love them

since i dont know what would count as a monster or no i could just list my fav characters here bfmjbfmjsbmj like radahn (elden ring) is just kinda a zombie, aurelion sol (league of legends) is a space dragon, the forest god in princess mononoke, Narisha (skyward sword- sky whale)- i could go on but this post is long already (honorable mention to Omus in nausicäa, weird bugs but also something divine, though it is much more how they are treated and the vibe etc)

in all honesty though i cant think of one that i would describe as perfect, what i want of a monster design is to be ... cool but also a little weird, big hulking monsters that have something off about them and something that makes them 'other', but also not, as much as i like bloodborne, just bloody gory messes of rotting flesh, AND not just as a monster to kill, i just crave a game or otherwiese piece of media where the cool monsters arent just there for you to kill- the perfect one i guess would be something kinda big scary weird and off but while non verbal clearly not a mindless beast?

and here is the thing; my own characters do not furfill that, my designs are really rather conservative, much to my dismay, anthro of a mix of animals, maybe an extra arm thrown in- Eadrya, one of my favorites, is really just a blueish furry (yes they have fur) and their demon form is a mix of seals and catfish with some extra arms, too many teeth and a mouth that goas wayy to far (if they want) - Shargon is a feather dude with extra arms and his demon form is really just a chinese type dragon crossed with a bird, throw some darts at the color wheel, done

together with my problem of my monster characters losing their 'otherness' vibe within the story rather fast bc the majority of my characters are non human and speak and you see them in all sorts of emotions and parts of life- they lose that divine, unknown vibe and i HATE that that happens, i want them more akin to the forest god in mononoke but thats not possible unless i start from scratch

and i really dont mean to make myself look bad to sound self depre- ... however you spell that; i really am rather dissatisfied with my own designs but mostly just roll with what i got bc i never seem to be able to actually achieve what i want

even my redesigns often really make things LESS interesting (unless maybe the og was just ... human, but they are blue eyed with golden hair and white so that makes them divine you seE-), the skyward sword dragons as i redesigned them made them much more classical dragon, in part intentional bc i was drawing a connection of them becoming the botw dragons at some point, but by all means the canon design is much more weird and unusual than what i did with them, you could apply the same to even demise, his canon design might seem a little uninspired but really what did i do? inject him with some classic satan spice like that makes it in any way less stereotypical evil demon ??? lol

im sorry this post devolved into whatever this is but i really am trying to answer sincerely, i am confused about it myself, what counts as a monster, what doesnt, there must be more that i really loved but why cant i think of them, why do i design characters like this when i really want something much more different, i dont know, i feel like my brain is in a cage, why do i keep making things less interesting in an effort to make it interesting, am i falling into the corporate trap of cool sells who am i what am i doing

(theres a zelda artist with a style so strikingly genuis in shape, color and just .. DESIGN that i want to chew my nails off bc i cannot design like them, their designs and redesigns are so different yet sensical and so full of crisp shapes i have never seen before it drives me nuts and i would want to give them a shoutout but i think they dont like me so aaaaarhekjbfhgdknbgdfklbg)

#ganondoodles answers #hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh #this ask was so innocent and nice #what did i do to it #me trying to think of my favorite monster design spiraling into me realizing i am making things often more boring than the og #and in general just dont achieve what i want to even with my own creations #i have infinite possiblities of creativity at my fingertips and yet what to i draw #blue furry :)#i feel like an ant that just experienced cosmic horrors of realization #(to be clear- having infinte possibilites and yet deciding to just draw furries is FINE AND VALID if thats what you want #(do -I- want that though??????????????????????

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completeoveranalysis · 4 months

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[2]

NEW FAVOURITE COVER?

NEW FAVOURITE COVER!

Chapitre 201 - The Truth from within the Ruins

Oh this is just beyond gorgeous. Who can stand against the pure concentrated adorable that is Tsubasa Babies Family Photo? Now with all four of them!

I’m in love with all the tiny details that they clearly spent so long on - all the lovely folds of Sakura’s dress, the intricate detailing on Fai’s robe and staff. Lava Lamp is in his ceremonial garb, and tiny Kurogane IN HIS FANCY LITTLE OUTFIT. (AND HIS POSTURE? GET OUT. Incredible)

Kurogane doesn’t have Ginryuu yet (since this is Happy Childhood AU, so his father will still have it. Still has the moon though!) but Lava Lamp has the Syaoran Family Sword all ready to go. His outfit would be incomplete without it - they’re all wearing clothing from their home worlds, or maybe their families? I’m technically not sure which world Lava Lamp comes from, but his outfit is Family Legacy all the way down. I’m dying to know if Fai’s outfit is in the style of Seresu or Valeria - I don’t think they’re all that different, but I think I would put my money on Valeria based on the position of the fur and the curl motif. In which case it’s fun for me that his Happy Family AU is in Valeria instead of with Ashura. (sorry not sorry Ashura get fucked)

I suppose in this version he never had reason to leave Valeria in the first place, so it’s a very nice touch that the outfit doesn’t immediately resemble the clothing he wore in his backstory, since that’s all so closely linked to the death of his twin, who would be alive here. Very nice visual choices all around, especially with each of them in their own unique colour pallette. Oh, and even with the colour differences they all have bits of yellow somewhere on them, showing their connection.

The left/right split between them is really fun too - sword wielders on one side, phenomenally powerful magic users on the other, cats vs dogs, unique child/parent pairings, etc. It’s very funny to me that they found a super fancy chair for Sakura and a cushion for Kurogane, but nothing for the other two. But Fai draping himself over the chair is such an incredible piece of character flair, which I am in love with, but also, the TOUCH? The little touch of tiny hands? Sakura reaching back to put her hand on the back of Fai’s? Tiny Lava Lamp’s little grip on Kurogane’s arm? OH it’s so touching.

And behind them all? THAT WINDOW. Such a clear symbol positioned directly in the centre frame. At first I thought it might be an eye, but this is Happy Family AU so there should be no Evil Wolverine to spy on them. What I’m voting on instead is CLAMP playing with Tarot symbols again and this being the Wheel of Fortune, or a similar idea of a wheel of destiny. They use the latter idea a lot in their earlier works (RG Veda and X/1999 say hi), but I think the tarot symbol in particular really shines through with the ideas they’re playing with in Tsubasa/xxxHolic, and has a very strong parallel to the idea of hitsuzen.

After some much safer googling it looks like the “Wheel of Fortune” in Tarot can mean change or cycles or inevitable fate, but on the flipside could also be lacking control. I think the reversed meaning of the card really speaks to me the most about their situation in general, as it describes bad luck and misfortunes thrust upon you from external forces, that you are fighting to take control back from an unwinnable situation. That fighting it is impossible, that continuing to fight it can only bring more suffering, and that the only option is to let it go. To stop blaming yourself for the thing you did wrong, or the thing that you think was your fault. To forgive yourself, to accept it all, to let yourself move on, to accept that change is inevitable, and to finally be able to move forward and just let everything happen.

Because if that’s not exactly the whole situation we are in I don’t know what is. It’s a mirror for the things that Fai and Kurogane have already been through, and for what Lava Lamp Guy is still currently fighting, and CLAMP love to do drop these symbols all the time.

And this is a bit of a tangent but who’s gonna stop me? Clamp LOVE their tragic destiny pairs, especially in their early works - the couples deeply love but also cursed by fate, like Kendappa and Souma, Ashura and Yasha (flavoured differently in RG Veda, but still fitting this cycle again in Tsubasa), Subaru and Seishirou, Sorata and Arashi (unfinished), Kamui and Fuuma, etc. The characters who are so different from each other, so diametrically opposed, but in love still, and it burns so strong that they either have to kill each other or let the world burn around them - or both! They’re always fighting destiny, just like the reversed wheel of fortune, and they fight it to the point of obliteration.

AND THEN we have Tsubasa, and I think it’s so endlessly interesting that they took the same pattern and turned it around. Syaoran and Sakura definitely fit the theme (and wild that they took the Cardcaptor Sakura happy couple deliberately to make the most universe shattering tragedy out of it, but I still haven’t seen how their story ends, whether one will have to tragically die to save everything or whether they’ll get out somehow). But what I mostly want to talk about (surprise surprise) Kurogane and Fai, who fit the pattern exactly. Complete opposites, diametrically opposed, set up as antagonists and destined to kill each other but fall in love instead. That they both fight against the tragic pasts that defined them and eventually change their mind. Eventually, slowly, they accept love again and realise that they can actually live with themselves and each other if they let it all go.

And I think what really gets me is that if this was an earlier Clamp work they absolutely would have tragically died - they would have killed each other in the climax of Seresu and it would have been beautiful and terrible and no-one ever would have ever emotionally recovered from the complete and utter devastation.

BUT THEY DIDN’T.

CLAMP spend all of Tsubasa revisiting all their old works, taking us through a parade of the various tragedies they’ve sung across the years, all leading up to them ultimately breaking their own pattern and letting Fai and Kurogane save each other from the same Clamp fate that claimed every tragic pair before them. They choose each other and get out alive. They stop blaming themselves for the unchangeable parts of destiny and finally forgive themselves. And it’s just very emotional to me that it’s these two that make it, these two that get to recover and choose each other and live their lives inseparable from this point on. The two that had arguably the most tragic backstories also get to face their trauma, survive, and live.

And it’s just so beautiful to see how the CLAMP storytelling method has changed over the years, and to find out that after all these years, the big destiny story they really wanted to tell in their longest and most detailed work was about the two men who fell in love, against all odds and saved each other. Despite absolutely everything saying that it should be impossible, it’s Kurogane and Fai that finally flip the tarot card back around and live.

And I’m extremely interested in what this means for Lava Lamp and Not!Sakura.

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punkpandapatrixk · 9 months

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🐶The Moon’s Message to Your Inner Child ♦︎ Timeless Pick A Card

This PAC is in collaboration with @faerytreealtars and her part of the PAC covers a message from the Sun🌞Check out her PAC to get a full circle reading~🍃😉

["Wisdom from the Sun" – how to reach your divine self]

‘Do you like to draw with crayons? I’m not very good at it. But it doesn’t matter. It’s the fun of doing it that’s important. Now, I wouldn’t have made that if I’d just thought about it. No matter how anybody says it is, it feels good to have made something. The best thing is that each person’s would be different. In a way, you’ve already won in this world. Because you’re the only one who can be you. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be.’ – Mr Rogers

SONG: Take Me by Miso

MOVIE: Finding Neverland (2004) & Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017)

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Pile 1 – Kinder and Kinder to Your Younger Self

VIBE: BAD MODE by Utada Hikaru

your heart’s secret desires – XIX The Sun

You are actually somebody who believes deeply in world peace. You desperately want to see the world become a sweetly welcoming place for all, especially children and animals. You have a belief that children and animals are so deserving of gentleness and safety. But you often forget that all adults are just as deserving of the same kindness we bestow children and cute animals.

At some point if Life, you grew up and became tough. I think you thought that you needed to become so. I think your environment made you believe it was important to become so tough the world you wouldn’t beat you to it. You’ve experienced quite a bit of hardships, too, so it was rather easy to fall prey to this cruel notion that adults must all toughen up.

‘If you’re tough with yourself, the world will be gentle with you.’ ??

Though it may seem like those words contain so much practical wisdom, deep down, your heart is terribly disturbed by it. There’s just something that’s not quite right about it. If everybody is hard on themselves… how can anybody be gentle with someone else?

in your element – 2 of Swords

Irrespective of what your Moon Sign is or where in your natal chart it is placed, you’re technically not a person who wants to toughen up. I think you’re a deeply sensitive Soul who still believes that patience and compassion can solve many of the world’s problems. Because in fact, your Higher Heart knows this to be true. You’re somebody who can make real compromises to accommodate the needs of others and you’re genuinely capable of real charity because you’re the type that tries to understand wholeheartedly where somebody else is coming from.

When you help others, you do so with their best interest at heart and you don’t even expect anything in return. When you are useful to other people, when your existence can improve other people’s life situations, you feel most like yourself. All that you hope for is that people are at minimum grateful because when people are grateful, they’re really only increasing their own ability to manifest even more ease and abundance. You’re not even expecting them to be grateful to you. My goodness, you must be God🤩

But uhm… You sure, honey, you’re not compromising way too much because you’re also somewhat people pleasing for a lack of gentleness in your childhood?

making dreams a Reality – V The Hierophant

See, The Sun is no.19 in the Major Arcana; that reduces to 10. The Hierophant is no.5 and this is telling me that you’re about halfway to manifesting all your dreams of ease and world peace. The half of your manifestation is already stored in your Higher Heart and you have nothing to worry about it. What you do need to focus on is learning to be kinder and gentler with your own younger self. You’re so kind and accommodating to others but often forget that you need tender care yourself.

There’s a possibility that you grew up with stern adults who didn’t know how to be gentle with children. You grew up being a victim to this kind of behaviour so you overcompensate by being overly nice to others because you don’t want to become like them. But you’re still hard on yourself because this is like already programmed in your subconscious, and if you notice, you have a tendency to also be quite stern with those closest to you. And wow… that often kinda gets messy.

Can you imagine if you became a parent yourself? You could become a perpetrator of a cycle of old people pointing fingers at young people who are still trying to figure out their place in the world. I don’t think you’d be happy with yourself in your older years when you realise you haven’t broken this pattern yourself. I believe you’re someone who wants to leave a legacy of a more peaceful nature🍂It begins by creating a new world by creating a new you, after forgiving yourself for past mistakes you made when you didn’t yet know so much🍃

INNER ALCHEMY🔻❤️

balancing logic and emotions – Silver Astrologer (John Dee)

speaking with conviction – Priestess of Inspiration

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Pile 2 – Baby Venus, You Came Here to Beautify This World

VIBE: Forever by aespa

your heart’s secret desires – Ace of Cups

You are for sure a Lightworker. Maybe even a Starseed. Or something of a cosmic mystic. Could also be from the faery or elven realm. The point is, your Soul is deeply connected to a realm other than this Earth we perceive consciously right now. That makes your heart EXTRA pure and sparkly because the essence of your being is more refined, baby!

What does it even mean to be Human? Often you don’t have an answer to that. Only thing is, a lot of things about common human conducts that seem to denote their humanness don’t seem all too humane for you. It’s like you’re wondering, ‘If these are the traits that make people Human… then what am I? Because I certainly am not that harsh, deceitful, destructive, or whatever else!’

You have a strong morality about you and you should damn well honour this. The Human world is ugly, indeed, and from your place of beauty, your Soul volunteered to be born here to teach Humans about beauty. Beauty is nice. Beauty is good. Beauty elevates the Human Spirit and if only more people would open themselves to the possibilities, surely everyone would be a lot happier than they are now.

That’s your philosophy, more or less✨🪷

in your element – VI The Lovers Rx

You may resonate to a large extent with being an activist of sort. Whether or not you call yourself an activist or are involved in any real activist project, you know deep down that you’ve always been an activist before even knowing such a term exists. You want to fight for something good in this world. You want to bring an end to all these uncomfortable things that you are witnessing being perpetuated in the Human world. Problem is…

It's been quite hard for you to find people who are on the same bandwidth of frequency as yourself. I think you have a lifelong mission to find your Soul Tribe whilst being incarnate on Earth. I mean, your kind is far and between, honey. It may take some time to find each other and unite for a good cause.

Although you may feel misunderstood and lonely from time to time, the way I see it, you could view this whole journey to finding kindred spirits as a wholesome adventure story. Like a fairy tale, you know. After all, you are a faery. Your Life Story has a purpose to beautify the human spirit later when all’s weaved together to create a grander story with your kindred spirits. It’s all written in the stars already, so might as well enjoy the story writing itself from now🧚🏻‍♀️

making dreams a Reality – II The High Priestess

For you really aren’t of this world, I sense that you actually possess some kind of a superpower. Sure, others might think you’re a weirdo (even a freak for some of you) and that your interests and hobbies are strange and taboo. But what do they know? These mortals are prisoners of their own fake realities.

Since you were a kid, you’ve always known there are holes within this perceived reality and somehow, you’ve always believed there are ways you can bend reality with thought alone. You kinda just didn’t know exactly how that works, you just know it. Like breathing—unless you’ve studied biology, you wouldn’t know how to explain how breathing works but you just know that it happens and how it feels. Something like that.

Your connection to your personal spirituality, your personal occult practices, and everything else of that nature, holds the key to making your Divine Dreams a part of this mortal reality. It’s a beautiful process that only you can experience in your own divine ways, so I can’t tell you what to do exactly to manifest your Destiny. You’ve just gotta keep going at what you know to be your truth🧜🏻‍♀️

And the truth is, you are a magical being who doesn’t even play in the same dimension as the mortals😉Keep doing your magical shit!

INNER ALCHEMY🔻💗

balancing logic and emotions – Silver Astronomer (Galileo Galilei)

speaking with conviction – Priestess of Illumination

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Pile 3 – Don’t Kill Your Dreams No Matter How Wild

VIBE: Anata (Darling) by Utada Hikaru

your heart’s secret desires – 5 of Cups

Hellow, wildchild. It seems you’ve been through quite a bit in Life. There was something in your childhood that erupted in ways your child mind couldn’t have anticipated and it broke you emotionally and spiritually. You’re a pretty logical person, actually, so there’s a part of you that’s been wishing you could get over this heartache. But it hasn’t been easy, at all.

The reason for that is that you care too much. Because you’re incredibly sensitive and kind, you couldn’t help but care. Your heart gets easily disturbed by any small distortion you perceive in this Matrix Reality. You have spidey senses for this kind of thing. Your inner world is so expansive and this is partly why you always feel like you want to help. You want justice to win over evil.

You tend to feel like you’re the one who has to be strong and prove everything to everyone. Not only are you helpful, but you’re truly heroic! That’s how I see it😎The problematic thing is… human beings are not exactly a grateful bunch, so… Maybe being so helpful and heroic isn’t always the best way to nurture your Soul whilst living in this human world?

in your element – Page of Wands Rx

I’m not saying you should stop caring and become a coldhearted bitch. But perhaps posing to be one is a good strategy to preserve your sanity?😜The truth of the matter is that you’re really too precious for this world. You know when people say, ‘We don’t deserve this man or woman or dog or cat.’ You’re exactly like that.

Your passion for making the world a better place is often used against you. I’m kind of thinking of someone like Elon Musk in your case. He was bullied badly at school, but look what he’s doing now. He’s making attempts to improve the lives of everybody that even those bullies are bound to benefit from his passionate work. The haters today are probably gonna benefit just the same, right?

Well, I’m a coldhearted bitch, so my petty view is that these losers don’t deserve to benefit from the works of Elon Musk LMAO But what do you think of yourself? I know that in this lifetime you are going to make great leaps that will improve the lives of those you care about. But what about your heart? Will you be able to forgive those who have made hell out of your Life? Or will you become a vengeful barbie bitch who shows them the door to hell of their own making?

It’s up to you and it should be a very exciting spectacle to anticipate👻

making dreams a Reality – XII The Hanged Man Rx

The Hanged Man is a card that has some relations to The Lovers (to think you even get the Priestess of Love for the bonus content🤯). The Hanged Man often talks about compromises and sacrifices. It’s like, when you love and care so much you’re bound to make sacrifices because the world is far from utopian. In an ideal world we wouldn’t have to hurt just to manifest blessings and abundance, for ourselves or everybody else. But… this is what we have, so…

But although this world is messy and hurtful, it wouldn’t be wise for you to reduce the brilliance of your dreams just to avoid heartache or disappointments. You’re avantgarde; not that many people can see the value of what you wish to achieve with your talents. Never kowtow to the convention. Although you’re helpful and a very pleasant person to be around, you’ve got your own big dreams that are needed by the community. I think you just haven’t allowed yourself to fully embrace this idea.

Know that you’re supported by the cosmos in pursuing to improve what you know to be your true talents. One day, the world will be so grateful that you never gave up on your Light. But when that day comes, what’s your care? Gratitude is the least of your concerns. Basically you just want to live on your own terms and create magical pathways for the world to enter into🌏Whilst at it, might as well do whatever you like🌞

INNER ALCHEMY🔻🧡

balancing logic and emotions – Gold Historian (Raphael Holinshed)

speaking with conviction – Priestess of Love

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