#Whose loot are you most after?

[nottragic-stilltoothsome]

Everything I found in Szarr's palace, for all your fanfiction-writting needs. I haven't found any other post like this one, so i hope i m not copying anyone. Posting it here, because editing the official wiki feels intimidating. Feel welcome to add anything I missed.

Astarion's siblings (the other spawn):

Petras - one of the two you meet in the Flophouse.

Dalyria - the other one from the two you meet in the flophouse. Her diary can be found in the "guest room". Before Cazador turned her, she was a doctor, a "Physician General to the Parliament of Baldur's Gate". She thinks vampirism is a disease and plans on curing herself of it by drinking blood of someone young and healthy - other spawn's daughter, Victoria.

Leon Onufrio - before Cazador turned him, Leon was a sorcerer. He is the one whose daughter's (Victoria's) body is found, cursed, in the room where with the Kozakuran dictionary.

Leon put a protective counter-curse on her, to discourage other spawns from attacking her. Despite his efforts, Dalyria bit her, hoping it'd cure her vampirism. Needless to say, it didn't and Victoria died @easterlingwanderer found out that if you use "speak with the dead" on the body, it turns out that it was a random urchin and Leon did get Victoria out of the city on time. After removing the curse inflicting you with necrotic demage, you can loot a letter of her body from her father instructing Victoria to read said dictionary, so she can freely move around the castle.

In the favoured spawn room, you can learn that Leon was the one usualy occupying it (along with his daughter). His diary reveals that he put extra effort to be Cazador's best hunter, so he can keep Victoria away from others and that he came up with a plan with Figaro to disguise and sneak Victoria out of the palace.

He also notes that he doesnt like the way Violet looks at Victoria and Cazador's wicked smile, when Leon asked him what his master was planning to do with his daughter.

Violet - you can find her Diary in the Dormitory of Spawn. She notes that she put garlic in Yousen bed as a prank.

Aurelia - a tiefling

Yousen - @neophytepagan noticed he is a gnome

Other:

The chamberlain of Cazador was Antwun Dufay. In his diary, which can be found under his bed in his room after a successful passive perception check, it says that he had a lover Lurianna (a werewolf, who can be found dead by walking through fake north wall of chamberlain's office, or through another fake wall in Chamberlain's private room). He knew about Cazador's Black Mass enough to fake his death in order to avoid the threat of taking Astarion's place. Unfortunately for him, it seems he confused the actual death potion and fake death potion, and really died. His lover drank the other potion, which melted her guts. The actual fake-death elixir can be found in his desk, which puts the player in 10-turn coma. He ordered the elixir from Bonecloaks', where he also ordered most of the things the palace needed to function (like bloodstain remover, candles and food for "guests").

Godey - Cazador's right hand. Astarion says that while Cazador was the master of the palace, the kennels (the room where the spawn d be tortured, when they did something Cazador didnt approve of) was the domain of Godey. Godey tortured the spawn when Cazador didnt feel like it. Cazador trusted Godey with the key to the sealed ballroom for the duration of the ritual.

Through the palace, fanatic-servants cleaning the palace: Syrin - human, Greenfern - wood half-elf, Vilhelm - human, Varderola - also human. All of them are servants, who Astarion said are devoted to Cazador and came to the palace of their own will, beggining Cazador to turn them into vampires. Vilhelm is most noteable, as you can talk to him and he asks Astarion why isn't he downstairs, that he is late and the ballroom is already locked. If pressed, he informs that Godey has a key and that the Cazador is going to punish Astarion for missing the ritual (and from his expression, he seems to quite like the thought).

Chamberlain Dufay wrote a blooddonnors ledger, instructing the Spawn to favourite the lower class as prey, as too many missing patriars may drow too much attention.

The language Cazador uses is Kozakuran, from a distant land of Kara-Tur. Astarion notes that they were strictly forbidden from learning it. From Cazador's Journal you can learn that Astarion was not an unreliable narrator when he said Cazador liked torturing him the most: Cazador paid the most attention to him in the journal.

In the favoured spawn room, there is a ledger with the list of spawns who have been favoured (its only Leon and one time Violet).

Amanita Szarr - on her 13th birthsday, invited by her Uncle Cazador. She was invited to the ballroom. She became a vampire, but was not happy about it. She rejected her family name Szarr and named herself Lady Incognita. She claims she stays in the attic and writes stories. One of the books written by her can be found on Cazador's desk.

Mrel Alkam - vampire mastress from Athkatla that Cazador wrote a letter to.

#astarion #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #spawn #astarion's siblings #cazador szarr #cazador #fanfiction #godey #astarion x tav #resources #astarion ancunin #lore #chamberlain dufay

[spacelazarwolf]

before yom hashoah ends, i want to remind folks that sephardi, maghrebi, and mizrahi jews were also deeply affected by the holocaust.

this is by no means inclusive of all communities who were affected by the holocaust and its aftermath, i do not have the emotional bandwidth for that, but hopefully this gives you some insight into jewish experiences outside of what's usually talked about.

the jews of morocco, algeria, tunisia, libya, and italy were all subjected to the racial laws of the vichy regime or fascist italy, which prevented them from attending educational institutions, holding public office, and owning businesses and sometimes property. moroccan jews were protected from some of the violence faced by other jews of the mediterranean and north africa because of the moroccan sultan mohammed ben youssef, who was vocally opposed to the anti jewish laws. he reportedly told the vichy government, "there are no jews in morocco. there are only moroccan subjects." he believed he had a god-given responsibility to protect moroccan jews. "moroccan jews are my subjects, and it is my duty to protect them against aggression."

unfortunately, other jewish communities did not receive that kind of protection. algerian jews faced a pogrom by the local arab population in constantine, killing 25 and destroying several jewish homes and businesses. 2000 algerian jews were sent to concentration camps in bedeau and djelfa, where many died from hunger, exhaustion, disease, or beatings. 5000 tunisian jews were forced into labor and detention camps where over 400 of them were killed. in libya, there was a violent pogrom which killed 500 jews out of a community of 4000. 2600 of the survivors were sent to the giado concentration camp, of which 526 died. in tunisia, there was a violent pogrom which killed over 130 jews (including 36 children), injured hundreds, and left 4000 homeless. italian jews faced pogroms, the jewish ghetto in rome was raided and over a thousand jews were detained and sent to concentration camps. a total of 7680 italian jews out of a population of nearly 45,000 were killed.

in greece, thousands of jews were deported to auschwitz. as many as 50% died en route, and only 10,000 out of over 75,000 survived, a nearly 90% death rate. their homes were looted and their property was stolen, and when the few survivors tried to return after the war (a difficult task as the greek foreign ministry attempted to delay or prevent their return to greece), most were unable to regain their property and possessions, forcing most to seek asylum in israel or other countries.

egyptian jews were not directly affected by the axis powers, but extremist organizations like young egypt and the muslim brotherhood sympathized with the nazis and even secured nazi funds to distribute thousands of antisemitic propaganda pamphlets. sporadic pogroms took place throughout the 40's, stoked by political leaders like mahmoud an-nukrashi pasha who said to the british ambassador, "all jews were potential zionists" and dr heykal pasha who said "if the u.n. decides to amputate a part of palestine in order to establish a jewish state, ... jewish blood will necessarily be shed elsewhere in the arab world ... to place in certain and serious danger a million jews." this political extremism prompted the 1948 cairo bombings that killed 70 jews and wounded 200, with many more being killed in the riots following, and eventually led to the expulsion of nearly all egyptian jews, whose money and posessions were all confiscated by the egyptian government.

similar political persecution was directed at iraqi jews, leading to the farhud, a pogrom which killed 180 jews and forced tens of thousands to flee. though there were many who did not support the nazi regime or agree with their views, there were just as many in arab countries who did, in no small part because of active effort by the nazis to gain sympathy from arab populations who already did not get along with their local jewish populations. this led to several other pogroms that took place in the 30's and 40's across lebanon, syria, and british mandate palestine, including a pogrom in jaffa which killed 9 jews and forced 12,000 jews to flee, and another in tiberias which killed 19 jews (including 11 children), most of whom were stabbed to death.

it's understandable that most of what the general public knows about the holocaust is the stories of ashkenazi jews from central and eastern europe, because they comprise the vast majority of the victims. hopefully, this encourages you to do further research into the ways other parts of the diaspora were also affected.

#yom hashoah #jewish #jumblr

[cathkaesque]

When it comes to understanding migration, this needs to be taken into account: if you are in a rural area in the global south, like Honduras, you have basically no access to social services, medicine, and education. In fact, the funding for those services is actually being cut, as the social security funds have been looted by corrupt politicans appointed by a military coup. Then you have to factor in that you likely have no access to the land, and no access to credit to buy seeds, and have to sell yourself for basically pennies to an agroindustrial giant. The peasants feed the local people; the agroindustries feed the Americans. In Guatamala, there is a neo-corporate fuedalism where you are allowed a patch of land if you are willing to work, unpaid, for coffee plantations which sell their produce to the German company Ritz. If you attempt to settle unoccupied land, a local businessman will claim it is his without any proof, and the police will take his side because the Agrarian Reform Institute, which issues land titles, is controlled by coupists whose main concern is squeezing as much wealth out of the country as possible. Thugs will murder a man and his wife in broad daylight, and the judge will respond by evicting you and your family from the land.

There is nowhere else for you to go but Tegucigalpa, where you can work trying to wash car windows or selling snacks to passing cars for a handful of lempira a day. Or perhaps you could work for a few dollars a day in one of the maquila factories making textiles for the American and European market, which are set up in special economic zones called Charter Cities where the constitution and labour laws do not apply, which can close down and spirit away whenever they like to another country when they are more willing to sell their people for even less. And then you have to factor in the hurricanes that sweep through the country, destroying everything, that the rains no longer come when they used to but when they do they come in flooding torrents. Much of the north of Honduras is currently underwater; most of the banana and coffee plantations have been destroyed.

And then you factor in when you tried to change this via electing a better government in 2006, he was overthrown in 2009; when you tried to get organised and resist the coup, your friends, your loved ones, your trade union leaders and peasant resisters all turned up mysteriously dead while the military and police worked with drug gangs disguised as agribusiness like the Dinant coproration to burn down villages that opposed them. For trying to change things in the way that you were supposed to, through non violently protesting, organising, and voting for something better, you were subjected to a decade of counterrevolutionary terror and violence that the “international community” not only ignored but gave its active approval to. All of the factors listed above have not only been ongoing for the last 10 years, they’ve been intensified, hothoused by the global counterrevolutionary terror that was the response to the 2011 wave of post-financial crisis uprisings and revolutions and accelerating climate apocalypse.

And at the same time, all of this is being done so more of the country can be turned into a massive cash cow for the benefit of foreign corporations and domestic oligarchs. The wealth of your country is siphoned off and flows around the American and European financial system, benefiting them and building a consumer disneyland that looks like paradise compared to your situation. That could, even if you are worked for nothing, give you a few dollars to send home that could build your abuela in the countryside a nice home for her to live out her days. What other option is left for you and your family other than joining the exodus of people heading north, to the countries where the wealth and profits and rewards of your homeland’s suffering are being kept. And after you cross mountains and rivers which freeze you to death and sweep you away, you are faced with a massive border wall of ahte and soldiers on horses which hit you with sticks. You are faced with an immigration detention centre that will chain you to your bed while you give birth and separate you from your baby who will be given away for adoption to a white couple. When you make a charge against the border fence in Melilla, fed up with being kept in shacks with nothing while the Northerners debate what to do about the problem people their greed has forced to move, the Moroccan police will beat 35 of you to death.

And then when you get there to that golden paradise, you end up doing work not dissimilar to the work you were doing back home, working for pennies (though pennies that are valuable enough back home to buy the family that remain the tiniest slice of comfort) for an agroindustrial giant that supplies supermarkets with cheap produce picked by cheaper people. While you work in the fields, a crop duster plane will spray you with paraquat; when support organisations try to raise this with OSHA they will ask for the plane’s number, and when this can’t be provided they will say nothing can be done. In fact, inspectors are ordered to stay away from the plantations on the Texas border. A member of the Border Agricultural Workers Project says she hasn’t seen a normal child born on the border in 20 years, such is the effect of agrichemicals. If you fuck up in the slightest, have any interaction with the state, you will be deported and sent back to square one. There are a 14 million migrants in the US in the same precarious state, effectively without any way of enforcing their rights. My aunt is a Mexican migrant in California. Her son was deported because he got a speeding ticket. It was 15 years before she saw him again, other than through the bars of the border fence, when she finally got her green card.

The situation in Honduras can be repeated for almost any other country. Syria, Venezuela, Iraq, South Sudan, Libya, all the headline countries are countries that have been subjected to a severe counterrevolutionary terror. The processes of dispossession and destruction of peasant economies and communities (primitive accumulation to use the Marxist jargon) have been hothoused over the last decade by war and violence. I just wish that relatively comfortable people in the imperialist countries realised that the “migrant crisis” is the result of policies that their governments forced on others. Violence that their elites made their fortunes off. What a monstrous, barbarous way of life we have.

[boytoyhalo]

Can you give me your fitpac headcanons to make me feel better after whatever the fuck Bad's stream was today. I am so unwell...

absolutely i can!!! let's see here hmm

pac likes to sleep/cuddle with fit sprawled out directly on top of him, like actively crushing him, because the deep pressure makes him feel safe (i think I said this in a different post but accidentally switched the names around, tho tbh i could see this being true both ways so maybe they take turns)

pac's ring markings glow bright blue when he's flustered or startled (see my blue ringed octopus hybrid pac headcanon) fit discovered this for the first time with the "how you doin big daddy" incident and since then fit has been going out of his way to sneak up on pac to make it happen because he thinks it's cute, this is also part of why he's gotten more confident with his flirting

fit would never say it out loud (partially because it would embarass him and mostly because he knows it would embarass pac) but he actually capital l Loves it when pac says his name with the "-tch" sound at the end. he thinks about it more than he shoud probably

this is less of a headcanon and more a writing prompt or like. a scenario that i think would happen but i think that at some point they'd be goofing around and threatening each other over whose a better fighter (they both think its each other but theyre arguing for themselves. for the bit) and fit would take off his prosthetic arm to hold it in his other hand and point it at pac like a sword and pac would be all oh yeah i can do that too and try to take off his leg standing up and would of course immediately overbalance and fall and fit would rush to check if he's ok while laughing his ass off and pac would use the leg to knock his legs out from under him so they would both be on the ground laughing so hard they couldn't breathe. and then fit would make a stupid pun about pac "not having a leg to stand on in this argument"

speaking of prosthetic's pac normally likes to keep his metal leg covered but the first time fit gets a proper look at it he's like woah your prosthetic looks so cooler and sleek and high tech i wish mine was like that and pac preens because he made it himself (ok it was him and mike but thats practically the same thing) and after that pac starts wearing his right pant leg rolled up (fit is only half of the reason, the other half is that it makes richarlyson feel better about his own leg but this is a fitpac post)

they both Really Like watching each other fight, hence the dungeon dates, but their favorite part is after all the mobs are cleared when they're cleaning their weapons and sorting through loot and just sitting quietly together basking in the shared victory and adrenaline and praising and complimenting each other for a fight well done

fit is aroacespec (he can count the amount of people he's been actually attracted to on one hand) and between that and his trust-no-one 2b2t background he's pretty inexperienced with most relationship related things, so pac is a lot of firsts for him. Pac not-so-secretly loves this because he's possessive and likes that no one else gets the type of attention he does from fit

fit starts wearing his glasses more often when he's not expecting combat or some other situation that will make them too inconvenient because pac says he looks cute in them

pac likes to make fit carry him on his back because 1. he likes the contact and 2. its fun to feel tall. the first time this happens it's because pac's metal leg takes a hit during a battle and is basically useless til he can repair it, so fit carries him back to chume labs out of necessity. After that pac usually makes up an excuse or plays up any hits he take so fit will do it again, except he's really bad at lying so fit knows what he's doing but he doesn't mind so he doesn't call him out on it

pac's hair looks really soft and fit realllly wants to run his hands through it but he's way too awkward to ask because that feels like a line being crossed and whenever pac runs his own hands through it fit just stares like a total weirdo which tubbo and phil both make fun of him for but somehow even then pac doesnt seem to notice. it takes him a long ass time to mention it to pac who he then finds out really likes having his hair played with and has been wanting fit to do it for forever but has also felt too awkward to ask. and then they laugh at themselves for being dumbasses (and then when they kiss for the first time and every time after that fit's flesh hand immediately goes up to his hair)

fit mentions that when he gets overstimulated sometimes its too much effort to remember to take his hearing aids out so pac asks if he can borrow them for a little bit and gives them back to fit with a new noise cancelling feature, and fit has to stop himself from literally proposing marriage right then and there. He settles for just cleaning chume labs top to bottom and leaving some chocolate and an embarassingly sappy thank you note that would read as a straight up love confession to anyone outside of him and pac's oblivious-but-also-not-oblivious slowburn-but-not-slowburn bubble

sometimes if pac is tired but cant get to sleep he'll go find fit and ask him to just talk at him for a bit because his voice is relaxing and if he falls asleep with his head on fit's shoulder or in his lap fit will sit as still as a rock for hours to not wake him up

ok ok you got me rambling this post is way too long now and most of these can barely count as headcanons but yippeeee i hope u like them!!!! everything will be ok we will have our morning crew and fitpac content back soon i promise

#fitpac #headcanons

[unluckycactus]

Acquaint Fate bonus scene

Rosalyn, Alberu & Choi Han tell Cale about HeniRoksoo's shenanigans in the destroyed world

◇──◆──◇──◆ ✦ ◆──◇──◆──◇

After Cale busts the meetings in Beacrox's kitchen and confronts everyone, thus making HeniRoksoo no longer a taboo topic, there's this moment—

In-between their plan to drag HeniRoksoo to their world, an unlikely scenario occurs.

It’s late at night. The kids are asleep, so are most adults at the villa.

In a room far away enough to not disrupt anyone, Rosalyn, Alberu and Cale gather. They’re tipsy as fuck (we all know Cale is sober), laughing quite loudly.

Choi Han is there as well, sitting on the far end of the sofa Alberu and Cale sit at as well, looking at a spoon in his hand as if it held the meaning of life.

Rosalyn cackles madly, hitting the armrest of her individual seat as she says:

“Remember when he made the Orsena go bankrupt?"

Alberu's groan says he knows exactly what she's talking about.

"That was nasty."

Rosalyn giggles, swirling her cup of wine.

"Oh, please. You loved it."

"For political reasons, I can't deny nor confirm that statement." They lock eyes, and Alberu breaks character. “Oh, who am I kidding?”

Cale raises an eyebrow, but waits until his friends are done laughing. He knows they will fill him soon enough.

"The late Duke was into gambling." As per usual, Alberu doesn’t betray expectations.

Cale takes a sharp breath, already anticipating the outcome.

"... He did not."

"That punk faked a losing streak and lured the Duke into betting everything he had— and I mean everything, not even the clothes on the Duke's back were left to his name after Kim Rok Soo was done with him."

"Shut up." Contrary to his words, Cale’s tone carries sheer elation and the underlying message of how offended he will be if Alberu dares cut the tale short here.

"But he didn't stop at that. He gave the Duke a grace period to pay the debt and they signed a contract."

"— what did that punk ask for as collateral?"

Alberu’s smile twitched, and Rosalyn was shedding tears, so Cale leaned back expecting something great:

"The Duke's main residence."

"... he made them homeless?" Wow, now he wants to go on a looting spree with Kim Rok Soo. That guy sounded like a lot of fun.

"It gets better." Rosalyn assured.

Alberu nursed his drink and asked mirthfully:

"So, the Duke was forced to ask for a loan— Cale, whose family do you think is one of the major shareholders of the Royal Roan Bank, hm? Who do you think has enough sway to convince them of lending that amount of money in such a short notice?"

Wheeze.

"He didn't stop at that." Rosalyn interjected. "Lady Orsena, that bitch–"

"Gasp!" Cale mock-gasped.

"You know she's a bitch. Anyways, back then, she wasn't quite the successor of House of Orsena yet."

Alberu, always privy to his own kingdom’s political gossip, added on.

“Lady Orsena needed an accomplishment to prove herself in front of the vassals. Eventually, she got word of a land that was up for auction in the south; various intel sources assured it contained high-grade mana stones.”

Cale’s lips twitched.

"He spread that intel.” It wasn’t a question.

“Uh-huh.”

Kim Rok Soo, that bastard—

“... he didn’t make it a cheap investment, did he?”

Alberu threw his head back and barked out a laugh, so Rosalyn took over telling the story.

“Oh no, Rok Soo pulled a you and made Lady Orsena’s pocket bleed, until she won the auction—”

“— only to realize it was money that her family did not have.”

“The mine promised to solve all of their economic problems, but payment was due in a week, so….” Alberu and Cale locked eyes. “Lady Orsena took a loan, and became the new owner of a salt mine.”

Cale’s own eyes started to tear up. This domino-effect level of screwing someone over was just glorious.

“Then Rok Soo waltzed into their main residence a week after that, contracts in hand, and kicked the Orsena out. The Duke’s debt, his own loan and his eldest daughter’s loan had accumulated astronomical interest by then.”

Alberu sounded way too thrilled for someone whose kingdom had a whole dukedom befall into ruin.

“Their contracts had a clause stipulating that, if the Orsena failed to repay at least twenty percent of the debt in half a month, the bank would put their properties up for sale until the entire debt was paid off.”

The three bursted into laughter yet again.

The whole thing was so over-the-top and petty, and yet so satisfying.

“Wait.” Cale suddenly sobered up. “He brought Raon to the casino–?”

Raon normally helped Cale by providing information about his surroundings. He also played an important role in his scams.

Therefore, Cale kinda expected for Rok Soo to make a similar use of the little dragon.

“No, he didn’t let Raon tag along." Everyone turned towards Choi Han, who finally joined their conversation. “Rok Soo-ssi is very good at mathematics. I don’t understand, but the basics is that he kept track of the cards and calculated all the possible hands he could get; the same applied for the other games, he made his bets based on probability.”

Alberu low-whistled.

“... look at that punk go.” Snorted Cale.

“Right? Right?!” Rosalyn looked quite proud.

#acquaint fate spoilers #well not quite #choi han and the spoon are relevant later #they're chilling and gossiping your honor #lcf fanfiction #tcf fanfic #og cale henituse #original cale henituse #kim rok soo #alberu crossman #tcf rosalyn #choi han

[biscuitbox23]

The Stag and the Warbler

Pairing: Jaskier/Dandelion x Witcher!Reader.

Summary: The bard has written a song about you. And it has given you a lot to think about.

Author's note: It's a late night thought I've had for a while. Jaskier has always been my favorite character in both the Witcher games, books and the tv show. I wanted to give him a bit of honor by writing this :) —also a little Skyrim reference cuz im not creative in song writing.

Warning: platonic love, fluff, kind of a bittersweet ending.

As Jaskier strummed the strings of his lute, he hummed the tune of a popular ballad. "Our hero, our hero, claims a warrior's heart…" he sang but then paused mid-verse, his forehead creasing in concentration. "I tell you, I tell you, the Witcher comes- no, that does not sound so good," he muttered.

You couldn't help but chuckle at him. You busied yourself with grooming your loyal steed, Melorax. The horse stood still, contentedly munching on bits of hay. While you brushed off dust and dirt from his coat, you could see the tiny frown written on Jaskier's face as he tried to come up with a better verse for his song.

Curious, you asked him, "Who is this hero exactly?"

Jaskier looked up, glad for the distraction. "Ah, well," he said, his fingers stilling on the lute. "It's just a tale, my friend. A story of a brave warrior who fights for justice and honor."

You nodded, understanding the stories that Jaskier shared with you during your travels as a Witcher. Tales like these were always inspiring and entertaining. Jaskier had been your companion for quite a while now, and you had grown fond of his musical talents and witty banter. He would often compare your kinder nature to his friend Geralt, who hailed from a different Witcher school whom you had heard of but never met. After grooming Melorax, you approached the front of the horse and kissed his soft muzzle. The horse whinnied softly, and you smiled at him, feeling content.

"You know I just hunt monsters for coin," you recall, sitting near him as you started the small bonfire.

"Well, yes. But, Y/n of Verden makes a good song subject. Don't you think?" Jaskier smiled widely at you as you put your hands near the fire for warmth. His fingers began strumming on his lute, calmly humming with the tune of his renowned instrument.

You began to listen closely. "With a silver sword gleaming and signs so fierce and cold…" Jaskier sang, "Believe, believe, the Stag of Verden has told."

"Stag?" You asked sheepishly, looking over at him with an expression of confusion.

"Umm… do you prefer to be called deer?" Jaskier asked sheepishly.

"Just confused with the Stag part…" you replied.

"Well, you remind me of a stag."

"How so?" You asked.

"Well, you're strong, very resilient, and almost similar to that of a protector of the realm," Jaskier beamed with poetic pride.

Upon hearing those words, a sense of pride and appreciation washed over you. It was rare for a Witcher to receive such positive recognition, as they are empty vessels of beings whose sole purpose was to slaughter monsters and collect payment. Being regarded as a hero was a new and unexpected experience for you. However, it was evident that most people still saw you as an exterminator who only existed to rid the world of dangerous pests rather than a true hero. All you let out was a slight chuckle.

Jaskier turned his head towards you, and his eyes met yours. He noticed the corners of your mouth curling up, and your eyes sparkled. Curious, he leaned slightly to his right and tilted his head, trying to catch a glimpse of what had caused this reaction in you. "What's so funny, Y/n?" he asked, his voice full of genuine interest and amusement.

"Oh, nothing," you jested. With a look of concern on the bard's face, he turned his gaze back towards his musical instrument, the loot. He asked in a questioning tone, "Is there something wrong with my song? Don't you like it?"

"I assure you that I like it," you said to the worried songwriter before returning to warm your hands by the fire. "Please continue."

Jaskier's face lit up with joy as he responded, "As you wish." He meticulously plucked the strings of his lute, producing a melody that seemed to flow effortlessly from his fingers. His body swayed with the rhythm, and it was clear from his performance that he was a true virtuoso of his craft.

"In the heart of the woodlands, where shadows dance and play Beware, beware, the Stag is on her way For monsters she'll conquer, with every foe she'll slay

You'll know, you'll know, the Stag brings light to the gray."

You were captivated as the bard plucked at the strings of his lute, his voice soft and sweet as honey. The music wrapped around you like a warm embrace, easing the tension in your body and calming your mind. The bard's songs were beautiful masterpieces of melody and meaning. What impressed you the most was how his music seemed to capture the essence of the world around you, bringing to life the sights and sounds of your travels in a way that words alone never could. Being a Witcher often meant living a life of solitude and danger. It made you feel isolated and alone. But having the bard by your side changed everything. His easy conversation and quick wit were a constant source of comfort and amusement, and you eagerly looked forward to every new adventure with him by your side.

By the end, you knew you could never repay the bard for all he had given you, but you were grateful nonetheless.

"You know one thing," you thought to him, "you remind me of a Warbler."

The bard chuckled at you with his sweet smile, "a warbler?"

"Yeah, those birds that sing a lot," you recalled.

As you reminisce about your childhood, your mind wanders back to when you were a young girl, growing up in a Witcher school. Life wasn't easy for you, especially since you were a frail child with a mother who struggled to provide for you. Days at school could be long and tiring, and you often find yourself exhausted by the end of them.

One particular memory that stands out to you is the sound of the Warblers that would perch on the window sill of your room. Their melodic songs would echo through the walls, piercing your ears and keeping you awake at night. You would try to drown out the noise by covering your ears with your pillow, but it was no use - the Warblers always seemed to find a way to sing their way into your thoughts. Despite the annoyance they caused, however, you couldn't help but feel a sense of comfort and familiarity in their presence. After all, they had been a constant presence in your life for as long as you could remember.

"They were annoying when I was young," You scoffed playfully, "I hated listening to them sing whenever I wanted some peace. Now that I'm older, I wish they still sang to me," you look at the burning bonfire as the warmth engulfed the front of your body. “I like your songs, jaskier, even if you played the same tune for a week. I won’t get tired of you.”

"Huh…" Jaskier gave your statement some thought, "I've never had anyone think of me that way." He sat over next to the fire, feeling a bit cold.

"Why? May I ask," You cocked a brow at him.

"I'm a bit of an exasperation and––" Before Jaskier could continue, he stopped himself. He could ruin his godly reputation in front of you, and he did not want that.

"A skirt-chaser?" You continued.

"Oh- No, no, not that," you can sense the embarrassment that overcame his confidence.

"right, alright," A mischievous chuckle escaped your lips as you heard the mention of the notorious bard. His reputation preceded him, and you couldn't help but be amused. Word on the street was he had a knack for breaking up marriages or being the third person for sleeping with married men's wives. You won't deny it. Jaskier was handsome and quite the romantic.

The atmosphere was serene as if the world had a standstill. Not a sound except for the gentle rustling of leaves as the wind passed through the trees. "Can you sing me a song, Jaskier?" You asked, "Please?"

As Jaskier continued his endless string of tales, you couldn't help but politely express your reluctance to hear more. In response, Jaskier flashed a sweet smile and said, "Yes, you may, Y/n."

One day, Jaskier won't be around you. One day, you won't ever see him again, and it will be just you and Melorax on the lonely road. It could happen tomorrow, or it could be years from now. You tried not to dwell on that possibility, but it was always there lingering at the edges of your consciousness. But that did not matter now. It was a love that grew deep inside you that you have never felt. It's a companionship that was a strange yet familiar feeling. One day, he will see you as a monster like everyone else did when they saw you. Despite this, You listened intently to his stories and musings, even when they seemed nonsensical or meandering. You laughed at his jokes and marveled at his wit. You knew these moments were precious, and you never took them for granted because you will never know when that moment will end.

A/n: hey guys :) I apologize if my interpretation of Jaskier and the Witcher universe had errors. I was busy with school to read the books and watch the show for extra context and accuracy and did this all by itself. Overall, im unite happy with how this turned out.

#the witcher #the witcher netflix #the witcher fanfiction #jaskier x reader #jaskier the witcher #witcher netflix #dandelion #jaskier #the witcher 3 #biscuitwrites #Show some love guys <3

[rockingrobin69]

Horrid

“It’s horrid!” Pansy cried delightfully.

“It’s vintage,” Malfoy rolled his eyes. He wrapped the shawl over his shoulder carefully, and leaned back in his chair. “Thank you, secret admirer. This one is my favourite.”

“What! I got you an actual Prada, you git.”

The tip of Malfoy’s lip tugged upwards, and something fluttered in Harry’s chest, unbound. It shouldn’t still have such an effect on him. It did. “Yes, love, and it was very nice. Thank you.” He turned to give her a little kiss on the cheek (and Harry didn’t pout, because he wasn’t a baby, but he felt his face do something, not small and not subtle).

“Good loot this year,” Greg said with a considerate hum at the piles stuffing the back room. “Much better than last.”

“Yes, it’s almost like you’re famous now, darling,” Pansy drawled. “Have you seen the amount of people outside? Your show’s going to be wild.”

“I’ve seen,” Malfoy said. “I’ve also noticed the, ah, addition to the list.”

Everyone else in the room looked at each other then promptly dropped it. “What do you,” Greg, and “Certainly nothing,” Pansy, and “Hmm,” from Harry, who couldn’t think words fast enough. Then silence. Then:

“She wanted to come,” Harry found himself saying, and felt like a right idiot. It wasn’t his place and it wasn’t even a thing. It was just, Malfoy with that hint of a blush, the tightening in the corner of his mouth and the way his long fingers kept tapping the edge of the table. “The flowers are from her.”

Malfoy very pointedly did not look at the bouquet. Must have been quite the effort; it took over half of the room. “I,” he said, then swallowed. “Well then. Mother picked a good show to attend. I’m sure she’ll be entertained.”

Harry’s seen his show a hundred and seventeen times before. ‘Entertaining’ wasn’t even close, not in the realm of what he was, of what he created. Like magic but not flawless: thoughtful and honest and brilliant and tight. And large and bright and colourful. And compelling and funny and direct. And—

“What,” Malfoy, dryly, at the helpless thing Harry’s face was doing. “Speak.”

Pansy and Greg were looking at him too. Fuckers: they all agreed on this, and now of course he’s the one caught in Malfoy’s crossfire. In his disappointed eyes. Pleading, “You’re the most—your show is—she wants to see, so what? So she’ll see. Worst case she goes home and you still never speak to her. Best case…” left it off, no chance for him to say the right thing anyway. The depth of it, the hurt of it, and the miracle of it were all Malfoy’s to determine.

“Merlin, you absolute sap,” but without the venom Harry knew his voice still possessed. A hand, warm around his sleeve: and glitter, and Malfoy with his mascara-long lashes, and his lovely, lovely, lovely eyes, and being so close and bafflingly warm and smelling so nice, so sharp.

“Okay,” Malfoy said. “You will all pay for this, of course. But okay. I didn’t—never expected her to want to see me.”

Who wouldn’t? Harry thought. Ah, no, said, out loud. Everyone heard, including Malfoy, whose expression took on this icy disbelief quickly melting into something… worse.

“Oh.”

“Erm,” said Greg.

“I…” Harry rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks caught on fire.

“Well,” said Pansy.

Malfoy looked from her, to Greg, to Harry. His eyes were—very eyes. His face, entirely face. “All right,” he said evenly. “Too much. For just now. Harry, if you wouldn’t mind staying after the show?”

Like he has done for the past, what, three months? Every night? “Sure.”

The amusement-confusion-nausea must have been evident in his voice, for Malfoy rolled his eyes, and at that moment there was nothing dearer than him in the whole universe. “Right.” Toying with the shawl, the one Harry agonised for ages over purchasing. “Right. You’re all arseholes and get out of my dressing room, etcetera.” When they shuffled to leave: “Wait—Harry.”

Gulping, he stayed.

“I,” Malfoy said, “don’t normally appreciate people butting in.”

Gulped louder. “Sorry. I know it’s… shitty. Sorry.”

“You will be,” dead serious. “Also, thank you. For the gift.”

“You’re welcome?” Was it very obvious, how badly he wanted to give him everything? Malfoy, being Malfoy, laughed.

“All right, tosser, off you go now. Pansy wants to get you drunk, by the way. She thinks it’s funnier when you’re drunk. Did you know you speak rather a lot? When inebriated. Anyway, she thinks it might be necessary, but I have other plans, so better keep sharp, hmm? Will you be a good boy for me?”

Throat dried up so quickly he stumbled, “Y-yeah. Yeah? Yes. Yeah.”

He was so beautiful in his eyelashes and glitter and the shawl. And the kohl and the nose and the look in his eyes which were so very eyes and so very his.

It truly was staggering, how gone Harry was. How terribly he liked it. “See you after,” he said, his voice strangely soft, and bent to place a brave kiss at Malfoy’s cheek. Then ran away, to the traitors Pansy and Greg who were waiting at the bar, ready to squeal and punch his arm and give awful advice he would never take.

Horrid and bright and not flawless. And magic.  

For anon, from ages ago.

#drarry fic #hiiiii so remember me #anon - this isn't exactly what you asked for. i think #but it's in the spirit of #900 words #smitten harry #performer draco. in makeup #rockingrobin69 #who even is this girl

[a-killer-obsession]

Wavelengths [Killer x Reader, Heat x Reader]

🔞 Minors DNI 🔞

A search for a rumored Vegapunk weapon leads the Kid Pirates to an unexpected new crewmate, with a bloodlust that rivals their own and an incredible power.

CW: Please check AO3 for all current warnings, but general warning for smut, slow burn, serious gore, and really dark themes. AFAB reader, she/her pronouns.

Masterlist || AO3 || Chapter 1

Chapter 3 - Shopping Date

Killer learns something surprising, and you get some much needed shopping done.

WC: ~8k

Heat made quick work of the tour, it wasn't like there was that much to see on a ship, even one as large as the Victoria Punk, and he really did have shit to do. Everyone had tasks they were assigned to, everyone pulled their weight on the ship, even if it seemed like it was the cabin boys and henchman doing most of the work. Well, I mean, it kinda was, it's not like you’d ever catch the commanders swabbing the deck, but they had important jobs none-the-less. With a resupply island so close, Heat's work was piling up and he would be no doubt busy for the rest of the day.

During the tour he also explained to you the dynamics of the crew. It was split into three main categories: the top dogs, the henchmen, and the cabin boys.

The job of the cabin boys was clear - they cleaned, they ran errands, and they trained - hoping to one day be considered strong enough to join the henchmen or top dogs. They were all young, ranging from fourteen to nineteen years old. Most were orphans, kids they'd picked up after raids who had a little fight in them and showed promise, most taken against their will (since the Kid pirates were usually the reason why they were orphans) but it worked out. Kid and Killer knew well how hard it is to be an orphan, Heat explained, so they took these boys to save them from starvation and hardship. Even if they fought it now, one day they’d come to see it as a blessing. A few more fiery cabin boys were volunteers, boys who were already street urchins looking for an out, or just boys with straight up anger issues whose parents couldn't handle them. All of the cabin boys slept in one long room on hammocks, each with a small wooden trunk provided to them where they kept their few possessions. They didn't get a share of the loot, so they couldn't afford to buy new things at will, and had to put in a request if they needed anything. Right now there were eight cabin boys on the Victoria Punk, but the room could accommodate ten. Cabin boys didn’t usually join fights, but every now and then one would inevitably be lost during fights at sea, when there was nowhere to run.

The henchmen were next up on the food chain, making the bulk of the crew. They cooked on a rotation, and helped with the harder cleaning jobs like swabbing the deck - which had to be done every single day to keep the wood impregnated with sea water, which kept it from rotting - as well as taking care of supply runs, training the cabin boys, and being expected to have the top dog's backs during fights. They also took care of the ship's maintenance and repairs, as well as hoisting sails and dealing with the anchor and helm, being that most were men who had experience as sailors, often being ex-marines or leftovers from defeated pirate crews. Kid sometimes used his fruit to reel in the anchor, but only if they were in a rush. Henchmen had an unfortunately high turnover rate, as they were usually the first to die in battle, and those that did last were usually promoted to the top dogs. Currently there were sixteen henchmen, split between three rooms that could hold six men a piece, a few beds currently being empty after the fight at the marine base. Their numbers would no doubt be replenished at the next few islands, Kid liked to have a full force of henchmen to keep up his crew’s strength.

Next were the Top Dogs. These included the commanders - Kid, Killer, Heat, Wire, and two others that you hadn't formally met yet - Mohawk and Double. One had been on nightwatch, and thus asleep when you were freed from the mast, and the other on the current watch, which is why neither had been at lunch. You had seen them around the deck though, and picked up their names when they were addressed by henchmen. Heat told you they hadn't known Kid and Killer as long as Wire and himself had, but were still close, trusted advisors and fierce warriors.

Mohawk was a small man compared to the other commanders, who, as the name would suggest, sported a large, vibrantly orange mohawk, the rest of his head being decorated with zigzags neatly shaved into short, unnaturally yellow hair. Despite his height, being only barely taller than you, and a thin build, he was still one hundred percent muscle, with speed and a short blade known as a falcata being his weapons of choice. He seemed to have a short temper, and usually wore a setup of head to toe leather decorated with metal spikes, even in hot weather.

Double was his near opposite, being just as tall and broad as Kid, but he lacked visible muscle, instead it was hidden under a thick layer of fat - hence the less than kind nickname that he had come to embrace. He was a sniper, very rarely ever caught in the heat of battle. He usually stayed far from the field, or up in the crow's nest, covering the other commanders’ backs with a sharp eye and a deadly precision that could rival Yasopp of the Red Haired pirates. He had a vibrant head of green hair, almost neon, which he kept tied in a tight man bun. Like Kid, he always had a set of goggles on him, presumably to protect his vision so as not to be caught weakened by the environment during battle, though he preferred to let them hang around his neck most of the time. Like the majority of the Kid pirates his closet seemed to consist of mostly blacks, as well as some dark forest greens, and his outfit was usually made up of some sort of cropped shirt and baggy pants, tucked into tall heeled boots. Despite the nickname, it was clear he felt no shame about his size, and was just as strong as the other commanders when it came down to it.

The rest of the top dogs were made up of promoted henchmen who had proven themselves to be strong fighters and had made their way up the ranks through hard work. They were known as the officers, and were in charge of the day-to-day running of the ship, keeping the henchmen and cabin boys in line so the commanders could focus on the more important shit. When battles happened they were usually on the front line, right behind the commanders, and were all dangerous men with a heavy bloodlust.

Currently, including the four commanders and you - who was classified as a commander, as per your demands - there were eleven top dogs. Kid and Killer had their own rooms, as you had seen on the tour, with their own private bathrooms you were told. The other four commanders were split between two shared rooms with a shared bathroom between the four of them. The remaining four, sans you, shared one room, and shared a communal bathroom with the henchmen and cabin boys. Then there was yourself, who currently resided in what was formerly a storage room where Heat had ended the tour, and would be sharing a bathroom with the other commanders. It still meant sharing a bathroom with four men, but it was better than sharing with the henchmen.

Everyone on the ship pulled their weight, even if it didn't seem like it outside of battle. Obviously the henchmen and cabin boys were always hard at work, but the top dogs also held their own. The officers took care of the day-to-day work, but the commanders also had important jobs to do. The first job, shared among all of the top dogs, was the watch. There was always a man in the crow's nest, regardless of the weather, whether it be out at sea or docked. The watch was rotated three times a day, in eight hour shifts, swapping at six in the morning, two o'clock, and ten o'clock. The importance of the watch couldn't be understated, being the first line of defense against rival crews, marines and seakings, so it was only entrusted to the top dogs. As annoying as it was, they didn’t trust the henchmen to not fall asleep on the job.

Each of the commanders had specific roles on the ship as well. Heat was the commander in charge of most consumable supplies. It was his job to make sure the infirmary was well stocked, the shipwright team had everything they needed, even the toilet paper was under his domain. If a cabin boy needed something, it was him they pleaded their case to. Which was probably in their best interest - Heat was a bit of a softy and hardly ever denied a request. His job consisted mostly of running between the various teams of henchmen and officers to make lists, and making sure someone was assigned to procure all of the necessary items.

He worked closely with Wire, who was in charge of the money. He made sure everything was budgeted for and let the captain know when a raid was needed to keep up with costs. Heat and Wire spent a lot of time negotiating supplies, if a request was denied it was usually because of Wire. He also took care of the ship's records, keeping track of all supplies, loot, and money that moved on and off the ship. He was often found in the navigation room where he kept a desk and several filing cabinets full of well organized records. You’d barely seen him over the last week, but you realised after Heat’s explanation that it was probably because the crew had taken in a great deal of loot from the marine base, so he’d likely been taking all his time taking inventory of it.

Killer was in charge of food. Heat told you, much to your surprise, that Killer actually really enjoyed cooking, and often cooked for the commanders, it was somewhat of a hobby for him. Since he spent more time in the kitchen than any other commander, and had far more knowledge about cooking, he was more than happy to work out the food roster with the officer in charge of the kitchen, since he could work in his own preferences. Food was planned months in advance, since there was never a promise of when the next resupply would be. Even if the map claimed to have a town on an upcoming island, they could never be sure that it hadn't been raided or destroyed before their arrival, so it was important to be prepared, lest they starve at sea. Water was taken care of by a filtration system, stolen from the marines, and one of the other officers was in charge of its upkeep as part of his managing the maintenance of the ship.

Mohawk, despite his short temper, was actually the ship's doctor. He didn't actually have a medical degree, but he had been saved from a life as a street urchin in his youth by a kind doctor, and trained under him. He would have gone to medical school, but he unfortunately suffered from dyslexia and was unable to pass the entry exam because of it. He wanted so badly to be a doctor though, and without a medical degree even the marines also wouldn't accept him. So when the opportunity to join an upstart pirate crew as the ship doctor arose, he quickly accepted, as a means to fulfill his dreams. As the ship's doctor he was in charge of the infirmary as well, and made sure it was well stocked, being that the Kid pirates were always running face first into fights.

Double was the navigator, and thus could usually be found pouring over maps in the navigation room. When he wasn't there, he was at the helm, preferring to steer the ship himself lest some idiot henchman put them off course. He'd spent most of his teen years sailing on his own on a small boat in the South Blue, so even though helmsman was his preferred job, navigation skills had been a must have. It was for these skills that Kid had let him live when he'd found himself on the gang-ridden island where the other commanders resided, the last piece of the puzzle the Kid pirates had needed to go out to sea.

Lastly, there was Kid, who at first glance seemed like he did shit all, but it was his job to make sure everyone else was doing their jobs. He worked closely with all of the top dogs, keeping everyone on the same page and making the big decisions about where they were headed. He was also in charge of weapons, and could usually be found tinkering with new ideas for them in his workshop. His workshop was completely off limits to everyone except Killer, unless specifically invited in. And of course, it was his dream to become King of the Pirates that kept the whole crew moving forward, giving them all a common goal.

As soon as the tour was over, you had laid down for a nap, your sore body begging for the chance to lay flat after a week strapped to the mast. The crew hadn't expected to be converting a storage room for you when they landed at the marine base, so the room right now only consisted of an extra bed, hastily stolen from the marines before they left the island, and a small wooden box to act as a side table. It was more than enough for you though, after spending years in cells that had little more than a thin, dirty, sorry excuse for a mattress on the floor, if you were lucky, and a bucket or hole in the floor to piss in. Hell, this room even had a small porthole, what a luxury. A pillow and blanket had also been thrown on the bed, clearly stolen as well given the small repeating pattern of marine logos on them, but it was better than nothing.

You kicked off your shoes and flopped onto the bed, quickly getting comfortable on your back - not by choice but because of your mask limiting your ability to lay on your side or front. It’d been a long time since you had to sleep in it, you’d have to get used to it again. You wondered if Killer had the same issues. Without the mask, the overwhelming sounds around you would be too much to fall asleep. You made a mental note to find a piece of seastone to hold so you could sleep without it. Regardless, you had the best sleep she'd had in years. Heat tried to wake you for dinner, but you really did sleep like the dead, and unlike Killer he wasn't about to kick to rouse you, so he let you be.

You woke up the next morning in what was probably the best mood you had ever been in. For the first time since eating your devil fruit, you had woken up feeling truly free. You could leave whenever you wanted, but it was your choice to stay, and today, for the first time in your life, you would be allowed to choose your own clothes - the thought made you giggle to yourself with excitement. Your clothes had always either been picked out by your mother or the marines, with the exception of the jacket Atlas had given you. Your mind was racing with the possibilities and you thought about every fashionable woman you'd ever seen, though the last time you were able to walk the streets of any town was many years ago, fashion had no doubt changed since then. You would have Heat with your though, and he seemed like a fashionable guy, right? With his cool corset thingy and his tattoos. Yeah, Heat could help, definitely.

You slid out of bed and stretched, cringing as your knees audibly popped, years of cold cells and a week on the mast hadn't been kind to your joints. You straightened your mask and pulled down your borrowed shirt. The sky was green through the porthole, sunrise. Ah, your marine-built body clock was back in action apparently. You weren't at all surprised you'd slept through dinner, your body no doubt needed the reset. With your heart fluttering with excitement you left the room, making your way first to the commander's bathroom to pee and straighten your hair as best you could without a brush, then out to the deck. To be fair, you'd been using the ol’ finger comb for years, so it's not like your hair was ever that tidy to begin with.

You made your way to the front of the ship, where a large dinosaur skull was mounted. You'd seen several of the commanders sitting on it over the last week, but never anyone of a lower rank. You were, however, also technically a commander now, so you decided to climb on top to sit cross legged on the top of the skull, spotting the tiny dot on the horizon straight ahead that you assumed must be the island they were coming up on. You tuned your visor to see under the water, scanning quickly for seakings and thankfully finding none, though a large manta ray was dancing not far off the ship, and you watched its graceful movements under the water for a short while before setting your mask back to the default settings.

You turned your attention to the ship itself, stretching and exercising your devil fruit to scan it. You'd been bound in seastone for many years, you needed to practice as much as you could now that you knew you would have regular food to keep up your energy, so you could get back into your best fighting shape. Your job on this ship was as a human weapon, and you took that role seriously. You'd pull your weight, just like everyone else did, and prove you belonged here. You would protect this ship, and its crew. And kill lots of marines, of course. You made a mental note to ask someone to spar with you so you could get back in shape soon, though after the fight at the marine base you knew you were at least less rusty than you thought.

You closed your eyes, building a picture in your mind of the ship and its inhabitants, like a three dimensional schematic, sensing the different levels of vibrations from the molecules of all the things that made the Victoria Punk. It was something you found easier to do in your mind, rather than simply with your eyes and the right visor setting. It was easier to focus on the details like this, instead of just one singular view. You could see the cabin boys in their hammocks, a few were already quietly waking and sliding out of them. You could see the henchmen, all deep asleep save for one. Judging by the vibrations, you guessed a few were snoring. One was definitely jacking off in the bathroom, you watched out of curiosity for a moment but he didn't last much longer. ‘Boo, waste of a show’ you thought. The commanders and officers were all asleep as well, except for Wire, who seemed to be reading in bed.

You moved your mental image along to the front end of the ship, where Kid and Killer's rooms were, as well as the navigation room. Most of the other rooms were held towards the back of the ship, like the galley and officer's rooms, or under deck, which is where the henchmen and cabin boys slept, as well as most of the storage. Kid was sleeping soundly in his bed, notably without his metal arm, which appeared to be propped up against the bedside table. Killer's bed was empty, ‘how curious’.

Come to think of it, the officers and commanders were all in their beds, which meant Killer must be on watch. You scanned the crows nest - ‘ah, there he is’. The telltale change in vibrations that indicated his mask made it easy to identify him. He was definitely watching you, so you turned your head, looking over your shoulder up at him. You stared at each other for a moment, before he cracked at the strangely intimate staredown and looked away. He couldn't see your eyes, and you couldn't see his, but there was a weird mutual understanding in the glance. Respect, maybe? You couldn't name the feeling, and neither could he. Whatever it was, being caught staring at you made his heart beat funny, and he was deeply uncomfortable.

You let out a heavy exhale, releasing the visualization to come back to reality. You would need to practice more, definitely. It was a skill that would no doubt be useful to sharpen, but it was taking far more energy right now than it should. For now, you returned your attention to the horizon, focusing on the way the island, still just a speck on the horizon, slowly got bigger as you approached.

You stayed on the figurehead til the morning watch came to free Killer, and he found himself approaching you before he realized what his feet were doing. He leaned against the railing beside the skull and looked out to the sea where you were looking. It'd been about an hour since you woke up. He was an early riser regardless of the night watch, but he was surprised to see you up so early. A lot of the ex-marine crewmates woke early, but it'd been a long time since you were in service, he thought you would've grown out of the routine by now. Maybe it wasn't too surprising though, given you'd apparently slept for near fifteen hours. It was about fucking time you woke up, Killer didn't like people skipping meals so he wasn't at all impressed when you slept through dinner. Especially considering how emaciated you were, you needed every meal you could get if you were gonna get back in a good condition.

“Morin’ Killy,” you said, leaning back on your palms and turning your head to smile at him. His steps were near silent, but you'd felt the change in the air as he approached.

“Don't call me that,” he replied in his usual flat baritone.

“Grump,” you mumbled.

“You're up early,” he said, it was basically a question.

“I usually wake this early,” you replied, “I like sunrise. It's pretty, don't you think?”

The sun was just over the horizon now, almost directly in front of the ship, the sky now a dull orange that turned to a pale blue, the clouds painted ochre with heavy shadows. It reflected beautifully on the slightly choppy seas of the autumn island you were approaching, the air brisk and making the skin on your bare legs prickle with goosebumps. You didn't shiver though, your jacket keeping your upper half warm and the occasional use of your powers keeping your legs from freezing off.

Killer looked out at the sunrise. It was beautiful, to be frank, but he wasn't one to admit to thinking something was pretty. He just replied with a gruff grunt, before turning to leave for the galley.

“I'm gonna get started with breakfast,” he explained, then paused before speaking on a whim, “did you want to come help me?”

Your agreement with Kid was that you wouldn't be subjected to chores, but if Killer was cooking that meant he was doing it by choice, and only for the commanders. So really it wasn't a chore, it was helping with a hobby. You felt warmed to be invited to join him, and you quickly made up your mind to accept, hoping it would help you make friends here.

“Yeah okay,” you replied cheerfully, shimmying off the skull, “I don't know how to cook though”

“Really? You've never cooked? Or just shit at it?” He asked curiously as you walked towards the galley - not really together, it was more him walking at his own quick pace, and you almost jogging behind to keep up.

“You already know my past, when would I have ever learned?” you replied, a touch annoyed.

“Ah, right,” he said, feeling a little guilty, “sorry. I can teach you, if you'd like”

“Yeah, I think that'd be nice,” you replied. In truth, it was best you learned, in case you ever decided to leave the Kid pirates. It was also a good excuse to spend time with Killer. It seemed like he respected you, and was expected to show a certain level of civility considering your commander status, but that didn't mean he trusted you, or that you trusted him. But trust was important on a crew, you needed to know he'd have your back, and he needed to know you'd have his, so spending time together would help build that trust.

You followed him quietly into the galley, through to a back room past the serving counters that held the kitchen. A few henchmen and the officer in charge of the kitchen were already working on breakfast in the industrial setup, but there was a corner that was untouched. It seemed more homely, the equipment there all on a smaller, less commercial scale, more like what you'd find in a regular, domestic kitchen. It seemed to be Killer's domain, as he made a beeline for it, pulling out pans and ingredients from a fridge.

He pulled out a cookbook from a cabinet and handed it to you before returning to his rummaging. “Find me the recipe for breakfast muffins, and then get out all the ingredients it lists”

He didn't notice the way you stared blankly at the book before opening it, carefully observing the pictures on each page. He was halfway through frying his first batch of bacon before he realised you hadn't moved. “Just find it in the contents page at the front and flick to that page,” he explained. He was trying very hard to be patient.

His patience wore thin when several minutes later you still hadn't pulled out any ingredients, and he turned to yell at you, a deep pre-scorn breath already taken, before noticing the sour expression on your face and putting two-and-two together with a stark realization, the breath he'd taken let out with a heavy exhale.

“You can't read,” he stated.

“Sorry…” you whispered. You felt utterly stupid, and put the book down on the counter in defeat, trying your best not to look at him. He thought hard about what you'd said earlier - when had you had the opportunity to learn to cook? Similarly, when had you had the opportunity to learn to read? He felt wracked with guilt now, it wasn't your fault nobody had taught you to read, and you were clearly embarrassed about it. One conversation and he'd already managed to accidentally hit a sore spot with you, he felt awful about it. He wondered how many other basic skills you'd never been taught.

“It's okay,” he said, softer than he expected it to come out. He put a hand to your waist and gently pulled you in front of the hob, handing your the tongs he'd been prodding the bacon with, “Here, why don't you come cook the bacon instead, just keep shifting it and flipping them every now and then so it doesn't stick, till it looks like the ones I already cooked”

You graciously accepted the change in task while he turned his attention to the book, quickly flicking to the page he needed and scanning the ingredients, before starting to retrieve them from the fridge and cabinets. You were quiet, far quieter than he expected, it made him uneasy.

“You shouldn't feel ashamed of it,” he said as he measured out several cups of flour into a sieve, “those marine pigs should have taught you. Selfish pricks. It's not too late to learn though. We can teach you”

“You don't have to do that,” you replied, a sadness in your voice that made your sound like a kicked puppy, “that sounds like a lot of extra work for all of you, I don't need to be able to read to kill”

He paused. It dawned on him that your whole life you'd been treated like nothing but an object - whether that be as a weapon, or a warm body to fuck. Had anyone ever treated you with any ounce of kindness since being separated from your mother? Those marine cunts really did a number on you, you were somehow even worse off than he'd initially thought. He knew your life had been fucked, but it seemed like every conversation with you revealed another awful part of your backstory, and he wondered how deep the hole went.

“You're more than just a weapon,” he said, collecting some of the bacon he'd cooked earlier to dice up for the muffins, “you're a human. You're allowed to have your own wants and needs. Do you want to learn to read?”

You paused your prodding and looked at him. He returned your glance, your mouth making a tight line as you visibly tried not to cry. “Yes…” you said quietly.

“Then I'll teach you,” he said, returning to the bacon, “it's not a big deal, you'll be more useful to us anyway if you can read”

There was a long, pregnant pause while you tried to avoid the whole topic of your lack of basic skills, and while Killer swam around in his guilt. Not to mention, he had no idea how the fuck to teach someone to read. Maybe he would ask Wire, he taught Killer and Kid to read after all.

“... I think this bacon is done,” you said anxiously, trying to change the subject. He slid a little closer to look at the pan, his arm brushing against yours in the process. You flinched a little at the unexpected contact.

“Yeah, it looks good,” he said, quickly moving away before the accidental touching could register properly in his brain. You were quiet again while you removed the bacon from the pan, holding each piece over the pan for a few moments the way you'd seen him do earlier, so the excess oil could drip off.

“Hey Killer?” you almost whispered, staring at the plate of bacon, not quite sure what to do with yourself now.

“Mm?”

“Could I maybe borrow some more clothes?” you asked nervously, “just till I have a chance to buy my own today. I was hoping to have a shower before I disembark”

“Yeah that's fine,” he replied, pouring the finished muffin batter in to a greased muffin tray, “I'll grab you something after breakfast”

“Thanks,” you mumbled, before excusing yourself to go sit at the commander's table, not really in the mood to talk or help cook anymore.

Your mood picked back up once Heat woke up and joined you at the commander's table, just as excited as you about your shopping trip. The rest of the commanders joined not long after, with Kid arriving just in time for Killer to finish cooking. It was almost like Killer knew exactly when to expect him and had timed his cooking accordingly.

Kid slammed down a dagger and thigh holster on the table in front of you as he sat down, digging straight into the freshly baked breakfast muffins, scrambled eggs and bacon Killer put in front of him.

“Oh, my knife!” you exclaimed, immediately working on attaching the purple leather holster to your thigh. You picked up the dagger and inspected it, it was cleaner and sharper than it had been in years, the delicate floral engravings on the handle now completely free of tarnish. “You cleaned it for me? It looks brand new!”

“It's a well made blade,” Kid said with a mouth full of food, “real fucking shame those marine cunts didn't keep it maintained”

“Well, thank you,” you said with a genuine smile, “I appreciate it, truly”

“Consider it a welcome gift,” he said, brushing it off. He turned to Heat, who had not long finished his breakfast. “Make sure you get her a second weapon today, you know how I don't like not having back-ups. And make sure you gets some warm shit, there's some winter islands coming up, lanky bitch will freeze to death without a proper coat”

“Oi, what's wrong with my jacket?” you pouted, “I'll have you know this is Vegapunk tech, it's more insulating than anything you own. I could do with some pants though, I don't know how much longer I can survive in Killer's shirts and skivvies”

Kid spit out his food in surprise, looking with amused astonishment between you and Killer, “You're wearing Killer's underwear? That's fucking hilarious”

“You thought I was just freeballing it under here?” you laughed.

“A man can dream,” he grinned, “but Killer's undies is definitely ruining the fantasy”

“Damn, what a shame,” you smirked, “well, there goes my chances to be queen of the pirates. Killer, you need a duchess? I mean I'm assuming you'll make him a duke, right? I better invest early”

“I have a position open for you,” Heat toyed.

You and Kid only had to glance at each other before you both erupted in a fit of laughter and in perfect unison yelled “I'M SURE YOU WANT PLENTY OF POSITIONS”

Heat slammed his head on the table with a long groan while you and the captain almost died of laughter, Kid very nearly choking on a muffin. “I walked into that one,” Heat mumbled into the table. Double and Mohawk didn't quite understand the inside joke, but were losing their minds nonetheless. Wire had a shit eating grin on his face at Heat's expense and Killer's shoulders were shimmying in silent laughter.

“Fuck you're a laugh,” Kid laughed, finally catching his breath and smacking you on the shoulder playfully, that was definitely going to bruise, “spend whatever you want today, the log pose will reset tomorrow morning so make sure you get everything you need. I'll hand Heat the money before we dock”

Killer started to stand, as entertaining as this was, he needed to get some sleep before they docked, “I'll leave clothes for you in your room” he told you as he started to leave.

“Thanks Killy!” you shouted after him.

“Don't call me that,” he grumbled as he left.

The ship came into port not long after breakfast, well ahead of schedule thanks to the strong winds around the autumn island. The ship was moored at a small secluded bay, about a fifteen minute walk from the main town, where a small dock had been built on a pleasant stretch of sandy beach. It was far too cold for swimming, but the weather was set to be fine for a bonfire, and there were plenty of trees near the beach to build one. Usually they would have no problem with dropping anchor at the main dock of a small island like this, but given the plans for partying later, they wanted a more private spot.

Heat could barely keep up with you, excitedly skipping along the small worn down path that led to the town ahead of the rest of the group, which was made up of mostly those who had supplies to buy, including most of the commanders. Double wasn't keen on the fifteen minute walk each way, so he'd volunteered to stay with the ship. As soon as the town came into view you were grabbing Heat's hand and dragging him along, anxious to get started.

The first shop you went to was for furniture. Kid expected his commanders to be kept to a certain level of comfort above the other crewmates, to give the henchmen and cabin boys something to work towards, so a small stolen bed and a wooden crate wasn't going to do. They'd come to this store first so henchmen could collect the furniture once they'd rented a cart, so they could bring it all back to the ship and set it up while you were still out.

It was tricky, you'd never even considered buying furniture before and had no idea what you even liked. There weren't any options at these stores along the lines of ‘gross, moldy, incredibly thin mattress with questionable stains’. Thankfully the room was small, all you needed to choose was a bed and mattress, a bedding set, a side table, a chest of drawers, and perhaps some curtains and a few decorations. The decorations for the most part could wait though, they'd probably come more naturally as things caught your eye during the day.

The easiest thing to start with was the mattress. you took your time laying on each of the display options, ultimately picking the hardest one you could find. After years of sleeping on a thin foam pad you simply couldn't get comfortable on a soft bed, though even the hardest option was far softer than what you were used to and softer even than the worn down, stolen mattress you'd slept on last night.

Next came the furniture. If you picked a set it would save you making three individual choices for the bed, side table and dresser. The island was well known for its wood production, so the store featured many finely crafted sets of different wood types to choose from. A purpleheart set caught your eye, with floral carvings embellishing the drawer fronts and headboard. It was probably garish by normal standards and made for a little girl, but you'd never really had a chance at a childhood so who could fault you for wanting it. Heat seemed to approve of the set, saying it suited you, and you picked out a set of yellow floral bedding with a soft, downy comforter to match it.

The only thing left now were the decorations. You wandered around the entire store, followed closely by a sales associate who was noting down everything you were ordering, almost salivating at the commission fee he was going to get from this massive order. You had no idea you’d picked out some of the most expensive items, given you couldn't read, but the Kid pirates had money to spare looting the base they found you on, so Heat hadn't stopped you. With his help and suggestions you picked out a decently sized round mirror with a purple heart frame to match the other furniture, a small brass lamp that was shaped like a droopy flower, some plain cream coloured curtains on a brass rod, and a small, round, lilac rug with a faint floral pattern in slightly darker purple.

Happy with your choices, the sales associate totaled up the amount and Heat handed over a thick stack of money, the sales associate thanking him profusely and quickly setting off to yell at some other employees about getting the order ready for collection. A successful first stop all in all.

Next, Heat took you to a home goods store. You mostly just wandered around, picking up little trinkets here and there to decorate your room, but Heat made sure you picked out several spare sets of sheets, towels, hand cloths and a practical looking duffel bag for occasions when the commanders stayed at inns. He also made sure you got a laundry basket and a lockable box for valuables, in case a sticky fingered cabin boy happened to be cleaning your room.

The next store you went to was for weapons. Being trained by the marines for so long meant you were proficient with many weapons, but you preferred knives and swords since you could use your devil fruit to heat or cool the blade. The old man who worked at the store helped you pick out a katana with a beautiful wavy hamon and a handle wrapped in dark purple cord. You were disappointed that they didn't have anything in the way of fun coloured holsters, so you selected a basic tan coloured belt, which as an added bonus helped cinch Killer's baggy shirt you were wearing, and after Heat haggled for a good price you slipped the new sword in to your belt. You doubted it'd get much use but Kid was right, it was good to have a backup, and a dagger was easy to lose in the chaos of battle. You hoped to eventually find a cross body holster in a colour to match your thigh holster, but that could wait for now.

Before leaving the store a thought occurred to you, and you asked the old man if they sold any seastone. He hummed to himself in thought before disappearing into a back storage room, reappearing shortly after with a small, worn down cardboard box and placing it on the counter. Inside was a variety of seastone pieces, all raw, ranging in size and shape.

“I was going to make weapons from these, but my arthritis got the better of me,” he explained, “take whatever you want, they're not of much use to me now anyway”

You rummaged through the box and selected a small piece of seastone, chucking it in the pocket of your jacket, before thanking the man and leaving. It was small enough to hold in a closed palm, with edges that had been smoothed by time, perfect for your needs. Heat didn't know what you wanted with a piece of seastone, he didn't know a single devil fruit user who wanted seastone, but he handed the man a tip anyway to thank him for his kindness before following after you.

Heat had wisely planned to get all the most important shopping out of the way before you started on clothes, which would no doubt take the entire afternoon, so he dragged you away from a small boutique to go to a basic grocery store. There he made sure you picked out all your basics, like hygiene products. You spent a fair while standing in front of the shampoos and body washes, sniffing each of them before deciding on a matching set of mango and coconut milk scented washes, and a fluffy purple loofah puff. You also spent a fair while standing in front of the hair removal products, wondering whether that was something you should do. This whole time your legs had been out and fully forested - not that your thin, pale, lavender hairs were much of an eyesore. You'd never considered it a choice before, you’d often been forced to wax by perverted commanders but it'd never been your choice. Ultimately you grabbed a bright pink razor, deciding that maybe you enjoyed smooth, shaved skin, as well as grabbing a pack of pads. You only ever needed one or two each cycle given the way you used your devil fruit, and it'd probably be months before it was back, but it didn't hurt to have them on hand.

After begging and pleading, Heat also allowed you to also buy a serious amount of candy and chocolates. You were going to get fucked up on sugar and artifical colours tonight and nobody was going to stop you. You also picked up a hairbrush and a significant amount of hair ties and bobby pins. You had a specific way you liked to do your hair, back before your imprisonment, but you were always losing your accessories.

By now several hours had passed, and both of you were exhausted from shopping, with the hardest part still to come, so you set out to find lunch. You'd both just grabbed several takeaway containers of food from a street vendor and were looking for somewhere to sit when a snotty looking blonde girl bumped into Heat, very purposely making him drop his food.

“Oops, sorry freak!” she laughed, her boyfriend and the other couple they were with snickering behind her, “it's fine though right? I don't see any brains in the mess, so you probably weren't going to eat it anyway right?” she looked at you with a snarky smirk, “or maybe it was for your skinny little whore?”

You were about to rip her head clean off her body when Heat grabbed your arm to calm you. “It's not worth it,” he whispered, his eyes somehow looking even sadder than usual, “we've still got plenty, let's go sit and eat before my feet fall off.”

He completely ignored the group's continued slew of snide remarks as you walked away, dragging you, almost feral, behind him to a quiet bench that looked out over the water. He basically had to force you to sit, still entirely intent on going back and beating the shit out of her.

“What are we doing? We should just kill that bitch,” you growled. He opened the food container in your hand and shoved a fork in it.

“Eat,” he said plainly.

“Heaaaaaat let me go kill her! It'll be so quick I promise!” He couldn't help but think it was cute that you were begging to kill someone the same way you'd begged for candy only half an hour ago. It was sweet, in a fucked up, Kid Pirates kind of way.

“If you kill her it'll make a scene and then it'll be a whole thing and we won't get to shop anymore,” he explained, grabbing one of the unspoilt containers you'd been carrying, “it's fine, I'll just kill her tomorrow if I see her around”

“Fineee,” you pouted, shoving a forkful of fried noodles in your mouth, “but take me with you, I wanna see her bald after I fry her hair follicles. What the fuck did she mean about brains?”

“She was implying I look like a zombie,” he explained, eating his own food, entirety unbothered. You paused and took a long, hard look at him.

“I don't get it,” you said blankly, “I thought zombies were supposed to be like… all gory and ugly and shit. You're too cute to be a zombie”

“That's sweet of you to say, but I get the zombie comment a lot,” he smiled. He was more than used to it by now, but he liked the way he looked and that was all that mattered, the rude comments didn't really bother him anymore.

“Well, they're blind idiots then,” you said plainly, “and I'll fry ALL of their hair follicles”

“Can you actually do that?” he asked curiously, pointing a fork at you, “why did you buy a razor then?”

“Cos it hurts like a bitch, duh,” you laughed, “I did it once to my cooter cos I got sick of sticking my leg in the air to wax it and I swear I still feel it sometimes”

Heat laughed and tried not to think too hard about your apparently bare pussy. ‘Killer's skivvies, Killer's skivvies, Killer's skivvies’ he repeated to himself to keep his dick calm. Unfortunately he immediately remembered your comments from dinner yesterday about picking out panties, and had to basically stab himself in his leg with the fork he was holding.

“You good Heatie Baby?” you asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yup,” he wheezed, “perfectly fine, eat your food so we can get moving”

Clothes shopping with a woman who had no idea what she liked ended up being a whole situation, who would have thought. The sales clerks clocked you the second you walked in, and you immediately fell victim to them, ending up with several expensive perfumes, a couple of lipsticks that “made your visor pop”, and a handful of nail polishes in your basket before you'd even reached the clothing section.

Picking out clothes was chaotic, and you had no idea what size you were so you had to pick out several of every item and try on everything before making choices. At Heat's suggestion though, you bought everything in a size too big, knowing that hopefully soon, with proper nutrition, you'd be able to put some weight back on. At some point a sales associate noticed Heat's massive handful of options he was carrying for you, as well as his many other shopping bags, and immediately offered to help (which was definitely absolutely nothing to do with getting a commission bonus, definitely). She ended up being extremely helpful in the end though, procuring a cart and helping you select fashionable items that suited you and worked well with your prized jacket, in your selected size so you didn't have to try on several of each item. She even helped you select several sets of shoes to match, as well as some other smaller accessories like hair barrettes and ribbons, and a few necklaces and bracelets. After spotting your marine tattoo you even helped you find a nicer belt for your weapon, in a purple leather that matched your thigh holster. Still not crossbody like you'd like, but better than the previous tan one. ‘Funny how much sway a tattoo she was forced to get has’ Heat thought to himself.

Heat was especially thankful for the woman's help when they reached the underwear section. She showed Heat the ‘boyfriend seat’ before whisking you away to find your bra size and help you pick out a good amount of sets, as well as several sports bras and some more practical panties. The last thing you needed were some pajamas, and you opted for some dainty negligees and a couple of sets of warmer pajamas for cold nights.

By the time you were done it was late afternoon, and you left the store with a truly ridiculous amount of shopping bags - most of them carried by Heat of course, ever the gentleman that he was. All round though it had been a good day, and Heat had enjoyed spending it with you, even if it meant he was too tired to go chasing whores now. He'd have to wait till the next island to get his dick wet.

[NEXT CHAPTER]

#one piece fanfiction #one piece smut #killer one piece #killer x reader #massacre soldier killer #heat one piece #heat x reader #kid pirates

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #1 – How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

I read the overwhelming majority of this book in 2023 but I finished it after new years so review #1 of the new year it is! Despite it by all accounts being very critically acclaimed and well-reviewed, I had absolutely never heard of it before opening up the packaging on a ‘blind date with a book’ thing a bookstore was doing (incredible gimmick, for the record). Overall a great book, if rambling at points and with a somewhat weak and confused ending.

The story takes place in Kosawa, a village on the western periphery of a fictional west African country, with the incredible bad luck to have been built atop a fortune in oil. The story is told through several POVs, and follows the villagers struggle against the Pexton corporation and their country’s de facto neocolonial government to try and have their home restored to what it was before the river and soil were poisoned and children started dying. It’s told on a generational scale – stretching from the ‘80s to the mid 2000’s – and follows the main cast of characters from childhood into their forties, As might be expected from that, it’s not exactly fast-paced or full of heroics – lots of promises and reassurances being given and never lived up to, and dramatic actions being taken and leading to awful tragedies or only compromised half-successes. The book really beats in the theme that if you’re really powerless and the ones fucking you over have all the cards, a lot of time there really isn’t a winning move. Well, and maybe that the heroic, principled attempts at violent resistance repeatedly got everyone involved killed but did win real concessions and aid for the other villagers who were willing to play along (or just to sell out or give up Kosawa for dead), though I’m not entirely sure that’s how the story’s intended to be read.

The prose isn’t usually eye-catching, but it’s extremely well-constructed, and beautiful at points. The story does a lot with shifting points of view, jumping from a corporate one of a particular age-group of children whose lives parallel the story, and closely individual ones from different members of a particular family whose daughter Thula ends up becoming the moral/intellectual heart of the resistance. Each voice feels incredibly distinct and focused on very different things, in a way that really worked for me. The massive timeframe covered also lets the book really indulge in showing what the day to day life of the villagers looks like – how they sustain themselves, the social rhythms of life, the rituals of adulthood, marriage, and childbirth, how widows and children are treated, and how the poisoning of the environment around them weighs down but doesn’t destroy any of it. It even does a great job of really selling the perspective and world-views of people for whom the world is enchanted and spiritual rites have real direct physical effects, which in my experience the vast majority of books about religious/spiritual characters totally fail to.

The tone of things is pretty overwhelmingly melancholic – this is a story with a deep sense of history, which also means a very tragic imagination. Characters who really dedicate themselves to trying to change the world are portrayed as deeply admirable but almost certainly doomed and even likely to cause more harm than good. You see this most prominently with Thula, whose basically a genius and devotes her entire life from childhood to activism and social change with saintly (if not near-inhuman) purity and focus, and dies in her forties having not won much at all. The ones who take what they can, get government jobs and use the opportunity to become exactly as corrupt as the men who came before them and loot the country for the benefit of their friends and families meanwhile – well, they definitely aren’t making the world any better, but they’re shown as very human and sympathetic and they mostly end up with exactly the lives they were hoping for.

#book review #clifi #literature #How Beautiful We Were #Imbolo Mbue

[officialaemondtargaryen]

Never Told You

Summary: Before you move on, you just have one thing to say.

Characters: Eddie Munson x Reader

Word Count: 2k

Warning: Mentions of character death, angst

Author's Note: Surprise! Two fics in two days?! I could not stop thinking about this idea. Sorry to share my suffering with you.

The owners of the Hawkins, Indiana Cemetery refused to allow Wayne Munson to buy a burial plot in his nephew's name. When the ground opened up to hellfire and brimstone and swallowed half of the town, the media placed the blame on the young metalhead; stating that he had opened up a portal to Hell after performing a series of ritualistic murders. They were afraid that a headstone in his honor would attract local Satanists- the other members of his cult- who might use it as an altar for satanic worship.

However, Wayne was a determined man. He went out of state to have a small headstone made, and with the help of a few of his friends from the Plant, nestled it quietly in the woods behind Forest Hills Trailer Park, where Eddie used to play as a child.

You had been back to Hawkins a few times since the evacuation.

It wasn't the same small town that you had grown up in. It was a ghost town. Most of its residents had chosen to flee to one of the neighboring counties or Indianapolis for a taste of big city life. The majority of businesses had closed their doors permanently and graffiti had now littered the abandoned storefronts. Missing person flyers were tacked to every street light and stop sign for miles.

You hardly recognized it in the months that had passed as you drove through downtown. The faces of the folks who had stayed behind were gaunt; frowns and permanently wrinkled in worry and sadness. Most of them were ones whose family members had gone missing and they were still holding a candle of hope that they would return.

One of them was Wayne Munson.

Even after he learned his nephew's fate, he didn't give up hope that maybe the boy had just left; took his guitar and his van and was out there- somewhere- playing music in a new band and making his own way in the world outside of the cruelty of Hawkins, Indiana. As much as you wished that to be true, you knew better, yet you would never fault Wayne for believing.

Forest Hills Trailer park had been abandoned. It was one of the four places that had been hit the hardest by the 'earthquake'. It had also been looted and nearly destroyed. Near the picnic table, there was a small memorial to the victims who had lived there that lost their lives on that day; four people, five if you counted Eddie, all of whom you had known and grew up with living in that same trailer park for most of your life.

You pulled your car over. The gravel crackled beneath your feet as you walked over to the memorial. It was littered with leaves and dead flowers, and as you usually did when you would come to visit, you dusted off the dried petals and cobwebs and placed a fresh rose underneath each picture frame. One for Ms. Debbie who used to babysit you when you were a child. One for Mr. Lloyd who was a kind old man who never turned down a plate of leftovers. And two for Mr. and Mrs. Roots who weren't the nicest neighbors but still didn't deserve what happened to them and their dog Cooper.

Your eyes began to burn as you looked over the photographs of the people that you had once known; the photos, the empty trailer park, all of it a reminder of the tremendous loss that you had felt. It wasn't just the people, the memories, your childhood- it was your home. It hadn't gotten any easier over the last seven months, despite how hard you tried to move on; looking out of your bedroom window at a street you didn't recognize, a neighbor that you didn't know waving as you drove by, trading one small town for another and having this trauma fester in your chest while everyone else seemed perfectly fine...

Eddie's grave sat at the base of a giant oak tree.

The green ivy that was growing up the tree had begun to spread along the headstone, and somehow, made it even more beautiful.

The old tire swing still hung from the largest branch and you remembered the countless nights spent out here with him; playing hide and seek when you were kids, pretending that you were characters from one of Eddie's fantasy books in an enchanted forest. Wayne would come out and set up a tent and you and Eddie would camp out for the night, telling scary stories and making s'mores. When you both got older, it became your spot to hang out and smoke and talk about all of the people that you both hated. You still came out to talk, only now it was less often and Eddie could only listen.

Sometimes it felt like you could still hear him.

You placed the last rose at the base of his headstone before taking a seat on the cold ground. All you could do is stare at his name in front of you; Edward Munson, beloved son, nephew, and friend.

"It's not getting any easier," you whispered quietly as you picked up a dry, brown leaf and mindlessly fiddled with it to keep your hands busy. "I thought that it would, you know? It's been over six months."

The cold, early October wind sent a chill through your body.

"I'm still waiting for you to call," a tear fell to your cheek. "I'm still waiting for someone to tell me that this was all a big joke and for you to bust through the door with that big, stupid smile."

Silence hung in the air around as you waited for a response that you would never get. You chewed on your cheek as you stared at the cold, grey stone in front of you.

"You know I told myself that I wasn't going to come and see you anymore," you admitted. "I told myself that I needed to move on, and my parents agreed." It was almost as if you could hear him chuckling from beyond the grave. He never really got along with your parents. "But I can't do that, not until I-" you paused for a moment and pulled a piece of paper out of your pocket. "I wanted to tell you this before, but I was terrified that you didn't feel the same way. And now I'll never know."

"Dear Eddie," you began, letting out a breath. "Right now, you're playing 'Romeo and Juliet' on your acoustic guitar and you think that I'm studying; I am, just not trigonometry. Instead, I'm studying the way that your hair falls over your shoulders and how your tongue sticks out when you're concentrating on the more difficult chords. You're so fucking cool, sometimes I hate you for it."

"That's not true. No, the truth is that I love you, Eddie." Your eyes burned with tears as tiny droplets fell to the crumpled paper below and left behind damp, grey circles between the lines. "I always have. Ever since I moved into this little trailer park, ever since you came knocking on my front door asking if I wanted to come outside and play. I'm pretty sure that you're my soulmate. You'd probably laugh at me if you knew I believed in stupid shit like that, but it's true. I wish that I had the guts to tell you, but I can't. I'd never risk ruining this. So you'll continue believing that I'm in love with that asshole, Tyler Sneed, and I'll continue to pretend that I am so that you never find out that it's really you. But it is you, Eddie. It will always be you."

You sighed and breathed in deeply, the cold air clearing your sinuses as you reached up to wipe your cheek with the back of your hand. You folded the note back up and sat it at the base of his headstone, next to the rose.

"So now you know my big secret," you let out a breathy laugh and instinctively waited for a response. A frown spread across your lips, once more, when you didn't receive one. "I should have told you that night. You don't know how bad I wanted to. But, there is a small part of me that is glad I didn't. Because I can't help but think that if you felt the same, if we had been together, it would have made losing you that much worse."

As you sat there, you couldn't help but feel the creeping sensation that there was someone there with you; watching.

Behind you, a branch snapped and you whipped your head around as you inadvertently gasped. Your eyes darted from side to side, searching for the source of the sound; heart pounding at the thought that you were not alone. But it was just the wind; the tops of the autumn-colored trees swayed back and forth as if they were whispering to each other.

"I'm not coming back here anymore, Eddie. I can't." Just saying those words caused you pain. "It just hurts too much. I have to figure out some sort of way to start healing, even if it takes the rest of my life to do so. I know that you would want that for me, even though I also know that you're probably getting a kick out of watching me wallow in my misery from wherever you are. You were always kind of sadistic like that." You made yourself smile at that. "I miss you more than you could imagine and I love you."

You stood to your feet and dusted the dirt from your legs. Looking around, you took in your surroundings once more. You knew that this wouldn't be the last time you ever came to visit him, but that it would be the last time for a long time. As you made your way back through the wood, you could have sworn that you heard someone say, "I love you, too". Coming to a stop, you glanced over your shoulder, only to see dried leaves fluttering across the ground. Your lips turned up into a smile as you shook your head and continued back towards your car, and with your head held high and a weight lifted off of your chest, you left Forest Hills Trailer Park in your rearview mirror.

The radio was kept off on the ride home, not wanting to hear anything that was going to remind you of Eddie. You wouldn't be able to avoid it forever, but you were doing better than you thought you would be, and you wanted to keep up that facade for as long as you could. You didn't allow your eyes to linger on the arcade where you spent countless nights trying to beat each other's high scores or the tire shop he used to work at as you drove back through town; they were both shut down now, anyways, as was the pizza place you frequented after school on Fridays.

You'd always have your memories of this place, but it was time to leave Hawkins behind.

As you pulled into your driveway, however, you noticed a familiar figure sitting on your front porch. You bit down on your bottom lip and sighed as you opened your door and climbed out of the car. Just when you thought that you would be able to move on...

"Dustin?" You asked, not having seen him since you moved six months ago. "What are you doing here?"

The younger boy stood up and rung his hat in his hands. He looked anxious, and it worried you.

"Is everything- is everyone okay?"

"Y/N," He began. "There's something I have to tell you."

#for now i don't think that there will be a part two #so it's open to interpretation #let me know what you think #this has been sitting in my drafts for forever and it kind of crept up on me today #i hope that you all like it #stranger things #stranger things fic #stranger things eddie #stranger things imagine #stranger things one shot #stranger things x y/n #stranger things x reader #dustin henderson #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson angst #eddie munson oneshot #eddie x reader #eddie x y/n #eddie angst #eddie x you #eddie munson x you #wayne munson #stranger things 4 #is eddie alive? #joseph quinn #eddie

[danceylancey]

In an attempt to help each of them work with each other better they decide to do a mind meld. It will, at random, put all of them into one of their memories. The five of them agree at various levels of confidence, Lance the most uneasy and only agreeing after Coran gave them a device that would signal that wanted to leave and swore to respect it. It starts of well enough, they get to see Hunk with his family as his dad works on a car and tells his son he doesn’t have to do manly things to be a man. His dad tells him that being a man means good and kind, decent to those around you. He tells his son that he doesn’t give a damn if he wants to cook or fly or whatever, as long as he’s true to himself his father will always be proud of him. Next they see Pidge having argument with her brother only for him to spin it around and comfort her. The memory ends with them getting into a tickle fight. Shiro and Keith have a similar memory of their first meeting, though for Shiro it’s Adam joking with him about picking up strays and having a teachers pet and for Keith it’s the jump on their bikes. When the next memory forms they find themselves in an abandoned street looking at a corner store. It’s window is smashed and it’s clearly been looted, the rest of the street is in a similar state. A car nearby looks as if it’s been exploded. They all look around, wondering whose memory they his could be. Before they can question anything aloud, two people come sneaking out of an ally and behind the burnt up car. There’s a girl who looks like she’s close to eighteen and a little boy who could be eight, both have dark tanned skin and rumpled, torn clothing. Pidge asks if it’s Lance, but the other doesn’t respond. They’re all too caught up in the scene before them to notice his uncharacteristic silence. The boy and girl go into the store while looking around, as if waiting to be spotted. The girl starts grabbing objects, mainly canned food, tape and some other odds. The boy crouches behind the low wall and peeks through some broken glass, on watch. He’s breathing heavily and his little hands are shaking as he wipes his face from snot and dirt. The girl suddenly drops her bag, contents clanging down. They watch as she backs ups it’s her hands in the air, a man with military like uniform stumbles forward with his gun drawn. He’s grinning but stumbling, possibly drunk. He speaks in a language they don’t know, but by the way he grabs his crotch it’s clear what his intentions are. Their all watching in shock, waiting for something to happen. The girl speaks, a few tears going down her face as she does. Then, so suddenly it makes them all jump, a shot rings out. It’s silenced but still clear. The man cries out and falls back, looking at his slowly bleeding shoulder and looks towards the shooter. They all turn to look at where the little boy had been and find him holding a large pistol, bugger than his forearm. The man shouts something and stumbles away as the girl rushes over to the boy and grabs the gun, pointing it at the fleeing man and shooting again. The man falls instantly, like a rag doll. A headshot. The girl turns to the boy and pulls him ive to her bag as she works faster to recollect her things so they can flee. This time when she speaks in its English, “you shot his shoulder.” It’s both a statement and an accusation. The boy, now silently crying, looks ashamed as he says, “I’m sorry, I missed.” The girl scoffs but then turns serious and tells him with a cold voice, “you never miss. If you can’t kill someone, they will kill you. That’s how the world works, Lance.” The boy, Lance, nods and looks over at the dead body. The two flee, the girl getting the soldiers gun and spitting on his body. By then their all looking at Lance, whose face is blank but eyes are filled with a deep sadness. Without a word, he presses his panic button.

#lance mcclain #lance centric #langst

[atinytokki]

Orbit

Chapter 1: SS Aurora

07:21 Open Space Calibrated Time

They were stranded, stranded in the astral sea.

The spaceship’s auto navigational system spoke into the darkness with a request. “Would you like to set a course?”

“No.”

For now, they would remain adrift.

Untethered. Directionless.

A frail wisp of steam curled upwards from the cup Seonghwa was holding. A calming tea made of rare leaves from his home planet. One that should’ve relaxed him.

It should’ve been a day like any other in between jobs, floating along in their spaceship through the open space that connected distant planets just outside the Aten-Odae Asteroid Belt. A leisurely morning when the residents of SS Aurora took their time rising from their bunks and wandering to the central area.

But this time no one had gotten more than three hours of sleep, and instead of enjoying breakfast together, they were huddled around the table under the lowlight, waiting in an anxious silence.

Because today they were only seven, with their missing leader in the clutches of the Intergalactic Trade Guild, an empire with control over the farthest reaches of the galaxy that waged war on the surrounding systems.

He was gone and for three days now they had heard nothing.

“He’s dead,” Mingi whispered, terrified of his own words as he said them, while Yunho calibrated the holoscreen to tap into the Guild’s most popular news network. “They’ve killed him already, they’d be insane not to.”

“We don’t know that,” Wooyoung scolded, ever the optimist. “Even the Guild has to follow their own rules. He’ll be on trial.”

Seonghwa met his eyes with a wavering smile that quickly died out. He had no encouragement to give when his own breathing was laboured with the stress of the situation. He was a moment away from passing out if he forgot to breathe properly.

Inhale. Exhale.

Relax.

“But do you really think there’s any point in a court proceeding?” Yeosang questioned softly, picking at the food on his plate. “After what he did?”

He was referring, of course, to their Captain’s surrender. Hongjoong had insisted on being captured to allow the rest of the crew to escape the ambush three days ago with their loot and not even Yunho knew why. The credits they had been stealing at the time were not worth Hongjoong’s life.

And, loathe as Seonghwa was to admit it, Yeosang made a good point. They had more than enough evidence against him already, so why not put him to death and be done with it? It didn’t make sense for the Guild to make a judicial spectacle when the price on Hongjoong’s head had been astronomical.

Seonghwa should know, because that price had once been of great interest to him.

The sour taste of bile rose in his throat and he forced it down, focusing on the broadcast when San shushed the discussion and pointed everyone’s attention to it.

“A new case of great interest has taken over the intergalactic networks today due to the figure in custody,” the announcer was saying, his eyes practically devoid of life even as he spoke with an animated voice. “Notorious pirate Kim Hongjoong, whose full identity was revealed upon his arrest, has supposedly been a known public enemy to the Guild for fifteen years, about whom authorities have provided very little information from their investigation.”

A collective outburst of relief swept the room as it sunk in that Hongjoong was indeed alive. “See?” Wooyoung whispered encouragingly, squeezing Seonghwa’s hand from across the table.

Jongho, their mechanic, was shaking with rage. “Fifteen years— are they even hearing themselves?” He barked a mirthless laugh and scanned the room for approval. “That would mean he was branded a traitor when he was just a kid!”

Seonghwa trained his eyes on Yunho, technically their second in command, who had been quiet and singularly focused since setting up the holoscreen. “Did you know about this?” He asked him quietly, unable to keep a hint of betrayal out of his voice in his efforts to restrain the panic overwhelming him. That Hongjoong’s identity had apparently put him at risk since childhood was an unexpected blow on this morning of continuous punches to the gut.

“No,” Yunho responded solemnly, still not looking away from the screen. “But I can’t deny I had my suspicions.”

Seonghwa didn’t have time to dwell on that fact as the broadcast tuned back in.

“The proceedings today will be significant in uncovering potential rebel activities, terrorist acts, and connections to other anti-Guild factions,” the second news presenter continued with growing interest even as she read her lines from the prompting screen behind the camera. She glanced at her partner for a moment before returning to her mark. “And we’ll have all the coverage for you right here when we come back from the break.”

Frozen to his seat, Seonghwa tried and failed to wrap his head around what was going on. The botched heist and Hongjoong’s capture three days ago had already sent him reeling, and now their captain was about to be tried in possibly the most biased courtroom in the universe for all the galaxies to see. How could this be real?

How could he have let this happen?

Suddenly needing to busy his hands while the nauseatingly bright advertisements began to play, Seonghwa stood to collect plates. None were empty, most barely picked at, but he couldn’t blame anyone for their lack of appetite when he wasn’t able stomach anything at the moment either.

Alone in the galley, he wasn’t sure now which was worse; waiting to discover Hongjoong’s fate, or watching it be handed to him live.

Light hovered over him while he scrubbed with limp and useless hands. A stain of food still stuck to one of the plates despite his efforts.

When the obnoxious sounds died down, he hurried back from the galley to see the Guild’s high courtroom on the holoscreen.

It was too soon, much too soon.

“What did I miss?” He nearly choked out.

San’s hands were in his hair, tugging at unruly strands while he explained, “They’re expediting the trial process. His entire case is happening today, now.”

Seonghwa forced himself into a chair to quell his shaking legs. It was all so fast, with no chance for anyone to scheme a way out of the situation.

How would Hongjoong even formulate a defence for himself?

“This whole thing is a sham,” Mingi gritted out, getting up to pace the room angrily. “Just a media circus. They won’t even give him a chance.”

“He’ll find a way…” said Yeosang around an audible gulp, glancing at Yunho for confirmation. “Right?”

The second in command and aristocrat-turned-thief merely shook his head and sighed, jaw locked immediately after. He had known Hongjoong the longest by some slim margin, but evidently it wasn’t enough to be privy to some sort of secret emergency measures for this kind of situation.

There had never been a need to appoint an official second in command, a provisional captain of sorts. Not outside of targeted missions.

Seonghwa folded his arms across his chest to mask the way he shuddered and watched on the screen as their captain was led into the courtroom, an amphitheatre-type space with harsh lighting. The judiciary council remained shrouded by their dark robes and headpieces, a stark contrast to the spotless room and the white-clothed prisoner.

The moment he saw him, his eyes blurred with tears.

It was easy to assume Hongjoong had been locked in a holding cell for three days from his dark, unruly hair or the dull pallor of his skin but what really stood out were his eyes. They found the camera immediately and stayed there for just a second too long to be comfortable, betraying nothing about the feelings inside.

Was he afraid?

Was he angry?

“No visible injuries… that’s a good sign…” Wooyoung was muttering his observations in an effort to convince himself of his own words. As the team’s trained medic, he naturally scrutinised their leader’s physical condition first.

“Injuries we can see, anyway,” San pointed out and, despite having the same thought already himself, Seonghwa felt that much more uneasy hearing it voiced aloud. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other and kept his eyes fastened on the display.

Hongjoong was ushered into the seat of the accused and the opening remarks were in full swing without any more introduction. He seemed to be listening with a disdainful expression on his face until the head speaker addressed him directly.

“Kim Hongjoong, you stand before this council accused of piracy. How do you plead?”

Guards on either side of the defendant’s seat dragged him to his feet and it boiled Seonghwa’s blood to see his captain manhandled this way.

He shook them off in annoyance and stated his answer clearly for even the drone cameras to hear.

“Guilty.”

Seonghwa’s jaw dropped.

“No!” Yunho burst out, bringing a shaking hand to his mouth in shock. Surely they had all misheard. “Pleading guilty?”

“What else can he do?” Jongho cried with a helpless laugh that quickly became tears and trembling lips. “They’ve already decided his punishment. If they set this up to make a fool of him, he has no reason to play along.”

Wooyoung’s breath hitched in an attempt to protest, “But—”

“Yes, I took those credits,” Hongjoong was continuing to speak, and silence fell in the Aurora while he commanded the stage. “But they never belonged to the Guild in the first place. Those served by cause I donated my share to are the rightful owners. So which one of us is the real thief?”

One flickering moment of silence resounded before shouts broke out from an unseen audience on the broadcast and the holoscreen’s display quickly switched back to the newsroom where the first presenter smoothly formulated an excuse.

“Our apologies for the disruption, but it appears there have been technical difficulties—”

“Censorship,” Yunho muttered, collapsing back into his chair with a shaky sigh. “They’re afraid of what he might say.”

Though he had likely sealed his own fate, he would speak without being silenced. Glancing between Yunho and the screen, San shook his head and added, “If they think they can control him… well, then they’ve lost their minds.”

Individual access to public channels via holoscreen had been a luxury in Seonghwa’s childhood, but even having become acquainted with the intergalactic network in recent years, he had never seen anything quite like this.

There was no question what the Guild was trying to do.

This was a performance. A taunt. A message— to Hongjoong’s friends and supporters, yes, but also to anyone who might even consider questioning the total authority of their government. It was a promise they would be silenced in turn.

It was a threat.

And Seonghwa couldn’t help but feel the guilt coursing through him, because he knew deep down, no matter what the others said, that this was his fault.

___

3 days ago

“Seonghwa, can I talk to you for a second?”

Hearing the captain’s voice behind him, the former bounty hunter glanced up from his weapons store. “Alright,” he agreed, joining Hongjoong in the hall and signalling the armoury door to slide shut behind him. “Something I can help with?”

Hongjoong opened his mouth to respond and suddenly thought better of it, dropping his head and allowing himself another moment to think.

Seonghwa could sense an unusual level of anxiety about the upcoming job and made an attempt to relieve it. “If this is about the plan—”

“It’s not the plan,” Hongjoong cut him off tiredly and finally looked up so Seonghwa could meet his eyes. They were as warm and trusting as ever, but with that calculating shine that hinted at a sharper edge inside. “How sure are you that Yang’s word is good?”

The source of the tip that had led to this job, the crime boss known only as Yang, had multiple systems under his control and the Intergalactic Trade Guild themselves struggling to operate on Venop 4, the planet he and Seonghwa himself hailed from.

He had sent route information about a Guild cargo ship, including the name of the planet where it would be refuelling, and proposed a generous split of the payload it would be carrying should the Aurora crew succeed in robbing it; 5 million credits.

Seonghwa hadn’t intended to have any business with the notorious gangster, but a life of poverty growing up on that world left few options. As a bounty hunter, he had taken what commissions he was given and without complaint. The strength of a client’s word was rarely part of his considerations.

And so Hongjoong’s doubts, while not entirely out of place, weren’t particularly relevant.

“Does it matter?”

“He wants me dead, Seonghwa,” Hongjoong reminded him, quietly but intensely. “Enough to make multiple attempts. I mean, do you really trust him?”

“Not completely,” Seonghwa admitted, because he knew the fact was hard to ignore. He had personally been extremely fortunate that Hongjoong had overlooked this earlier. “But Yang loves money more than anything else and he knows we’re the best crew to get it for him. I don’t think he’d pass up his share of the payload just for the chance to take us out.”

Hongjoong crossed his arms and glanced out the nearest hall window, withdrawn. There was just open space all around, a dark void for them to hide in, dotted with distant star systems. He was still thinking of an excuse. “It might mean more credits for him in the long run if he does, you know.”

This was more nervous behaviour than usual from Hongjoong. If he let his guard down around anyone, it was usually Seonghwa, but after the communal planning stage, the captain typically kept any further worries to himself.

“I realise that,” Seonghwa replied with a lighthearted shrug. “I’m just hoping he hasn’t.”

There was no more time to debate the future, and Yunho was already poking his head around the corner to interrupt them, “Hyungs? Time to space jump.”

“Alright.” With a final cursory glance at Seonghwa, Hongjoong moved past him and headed towards the cockpit. “Fire up the Infinity Drive.”

Cracking a smile, Seonghwa eagerly followed after a brief stop in the armoury to collect the weapons they’d need. He took the arming of his fellow pirates very seriously.

His position on this particular job was to remain onboard the Aurora keeping watch for enemies, providing a quick getaway, and managing communications between the members and, more distantly, with Yang. This was not a task to be taken lightly, and although Seonghwa’s skills usually lay on the battlefield, his personal relationship with the gangster was of greater value today.

“How did the crossbow work for you in practice?” He asked a stoic Yeosang in the seat next to him as the pair strapped in for the space jump.

“It’s excellent,” the mercenary responded, patting the compact weapon where it hung from his belt. “But is there a way to remove the stun feature? It makes that buzzing sound and I’d like it to be quieter.”

“Yes, there’s a switch to activate silent mode,” Seonghwa described and gestured with his hands. “You’ll just have to make sure your aim is perfect because a near-hit won’t take anyone down with the energy field turned off.”

“Not a problem,” Yeosang chuckled. He hadn’t missed a shot any time in recent memory, and both of them knew it. Life as a soldier for hire on a dying planet required a great deal of precision.

“Hyung,” Mingi suddenly gasped, turning around in his seat to face Seonghwa, clearly having just remembered something. “If you use the drones for intelligence, don’t forget to turn on the stealth feature! We do not want a repeat of QD81.”

From the way Yeosang shuddered next to him, Seonghwa could tell bad things had taken place at the aforementioned incident, but it must have been a time from their history together before he knew either of them.

Mingi and Yeosang both hailed from Diistro, a world so badly scorched by its expanding sun that the atmosphere was nearly sucked away by now, the planet itself turned oblong and misshapen from the pull of gravity. They had been born in different countries, but the arbitrary lines of territory became irrelevant in the worsening climate, leaving a wild and lawless place. The pair were not the simple refugees they appeared to be in the years that followed. They did what they must to survive.

“Right, I’ll take care of it,” Seonghwa assured Mingi, patting him on the shoulder and urging him to buckle up properly. The space jump was always a jolting experience.

“Engaging Infinity Drive,” Yunho called out after the final seatbelt clicked, and everyone braced for the coming plunge through bended space-time. “Prepare for a Level 10.”

Hit with all the G-force of hurtling past systems at indescribable speeds, Seonghwa gritted his teeth until the Aurora slowed to a normal pace on arrival and his tension melted away. The entire process lasted only a few seconds.

Travelling so unnaturally fast put a great deal of pressure on the body, making the highest setting—Level 10– only for emergencies. Going a fair bit slower was much more sustainable for the Infinity Drive as well, but today it couldn’t be helped.

“Approaching Eogawa,” Hongjoong announced as he again took manual control of the spacecraft, banking slightly to the left to bring the planet in view. “Prepare for atmospheric entry.”

Being a gas giant, Eogawa was essentially nothing but atmosphere.

Tinted a soft pink hue in the light of its distant sun, the planet’s peaceful appearance was riddled with hidden dangers. Aside from the storms that raged among surface gases, Eogawa was ringed with massive, thick bands of dust and ice. A lesser pilot might run afoul of such a hazardous minefield, but Hongjoong was careful to avoid the rings and zeroed in on the area Aurora’s radar was pointing him to.

“The refuelling station,” San called out, spotting it first through wispy clouds that flew past once they entered the atmosphere and splattered rain droplets on the windows. “It’s huge.”

Seonghwa shared his astonishment when he leaned forward to catch sight of the station and noticed its size. Not merely a lone rig floating in the sky. Much bigger than expected.

Taking in the sight, Hongjoong directed the ship downwards to the lower platform that appeared to be a service entrance. “First team ready?”

Jongho, Yeosang, and San rose from their seats and filed out, weapons in tow, to their starting position for the heist. Their next task would be to steal themselves some uniforms from the locker room to disguise as robot workers.

Yunho rose to follow them out, assigned to lead their team, but Hongjoong stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and a nod to the right where their next objective lay. He would turn the Aurora eastward in search of a different station.

“When is the train coming next?” Hongjoong asked, sounding somewhat distracted while he scanned the layers upon layers of swirling clouds.

Yunho merely had to check the time to provide an answer. “Thirty seven minutes.”

Thanks to his extensive research, the pirates knew Eogawa’s fuel transportation system was fully automated and operated a levitating train which passed through the station every hour. For a ship as big as the Guild freighter they were after, it would take at least thirty minutes to refuel, likely having maintenance performed by the robotic service workers in the meantime.

This system provided both a way in and a way out with the credits.

“We’ll be on it and ready for transport,” the captain encouraged. “Be careful, the Guild ship should be docking any minute.”

“Understood,” Yunho replied with a smile, and he turned to disembark, sharing a glance with Seonghwa who patted him on the back with a measure of nervous excitement.

It was always a bit nerve wracking splitting up to do their various jobs during a heist or a boarding. Seonghwa knew the risk they were taking every time someone was sent off into hostile territory. If a member was caught, it was expected that they disavow any knowledge of the rest of the group and claim to be acting independently.

They may be pirates, but they all served a higher cause. Something a bit more substantial than mere interference in Guild activities.

“Comms operational?” Jongho’s voice crackled through the radio as soon as the Aurora had set off for the levitating train station.

“Loud and clear,” Hongjoong answered to the mechanic’s satisfaction, and soon the train station came into view. It wasn’t intended for humans, so aside from the cleaning droid bustling around, the platform was empty.

Hongjoong, Mingi, and Wooyoung would board the train to clear out a container and pick up the credits and their disguised members, much more discreet there than in the Aurora.

As he handed control of the ship over to Seonghwa, he gave the dashboard a loving pat. “Take care of things while I’m gone,” he instructed, a redundant request for the meticulous bounty hunter.

“She’s safe in my hands,” Seonghwa assured him anyway, saying his farewells and watching the door slide shut behind them.

Suddenly it was very quiet onboard, and put off by the silence, Seonghwa powered up the engines again and directed the Aurora to the waiting point, behind both stations in the direction the train was sure to come when the heist was finished.

Staying with the getaway vehicle made for a bit of a boring job, so for the next half hour there was nothing much to do but fiddle with his weapons and watch the sun set from gold into soft violet.

He listened in on the comms chatter as the teams informed each other of their progress; Yunho’s team securing disguises and Hongjoong’s team successfully entering a train compartment.

And then, fifteen minutes before the train would arrive, the moment he was least looking forward to arrived in the form of a call from Yang.

Schooling his expression into something vaguely neutral and unbothered, he accepted it and watched the hologram materialise on the dashboard.

The crime lord was evidently seated in his sunroom, snacking on a homemade flatbread that made Seonghwa’s stomach grumble just by looking at it. As glad as he was to be offworld, he had missed the tastes of home.

“Mr. Park, do you have a status update for me?” Yang asked him with a monotone voice, brushing crumbs from his shirt in boredom.

“Everything is proceeding on schedule,” Seonghwa answered, slightly reserved, knowing Hongjoong would prefer he keep the details private. “I’ll let you know when we have a count of the credits and—”

“We found the credits,” San’s voice interrupted through the comms, unaware of Seonghwa’s ongoing conversation. “Five million, it’s all here. We’ve been unloading one case at a time, there’s just two left.”

“Ah,” Yang chuckled, overhearing him. “How efficient, just as expected.”

Seonghwa resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the crime lord’s empty flattery. “Before I go, I thought I’d ask,” he regained control of the conversation while subtly muting the comm radio in the middle of Hongjoong’s response to San. “Where do you suggest we rendezvous?”

Yang glanced to the side, probably out his highland window at the marshes below. It was the time of year when Venop 4 enjoyed a brief reprieve from the rainy season and Seonghwa could practically smell it through the holoscreen.

“Surely it isn’t too much trouble for you to bring the money here?” The crime lord posed the question innocently, but his hard gaze was a clear indication of his thoughts on the matter.

“If I recall correctly, we agreed on a rendezvous, not a delivery,” Seonghwa answered him politely but with enough insistence of his own to carry the point across. “Perhaps with one of your currently deployed ships?”

Yang stared back for a moment, but his little blue hologram didn’t intimidate Seonghwa in the slightest. The boss had much less power in this form than he had last time Seonghwa had seen him, at his compound. Even if he was standing there now, there was something about the freedom of becoming a pirate that made him feel indestructible, like everyone else would simply bounce off his invisible shield.

“Halfway then,” Yang relented, flashing a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “My ship Nexus is in the orbit of Sarkei. You can dock there and split the payload.”

“I’ll inform you when we’ve left Eogawa,” Seonghwa promised, satisfied with the answer, and moved to end the call. “Until then—”

“And Seonghwa?” Yang interrupted him, and it gave him pause to hear his given name spoken so easily by the criminal overlord. While it didn’t come as a surprise, it put him on edge knowing Yang had much more information than he was comfortable with. He chuckled like he knew something Seonghwa didn’t, “I look forward to working with you again.”

The bounty hunter didn’t plan to. He could get his intelligence on Guild operations elsewhere.

He was lost in thought for a while after ending the call with no further response, until something in the distance caught his eye. It was the levitating train, moving toward the Aurora quickly. A hatch was open in the top of one of the compartments, and Mingi halfway out of it, yelling something into the wind that Seonghwa couldn’t hear.

Jolting upright, he positioned the ship above the train and lowered the ramp from the undercarriage. He had completely forgotten to unmute the comms.

“Load up and go back!” Mingi was saying, bringing a couple of cases of money with him as he climbed up into the suspended Aurora and ran to the cockpit. “We have to go back, hyung!”

“Why?” Seonghwa watched with growing dread as the others quickly began loading the ship. “What’s going on?”

Yunho dropped a case in the cargo area and joined him at the controls while Mingi ran back to fetch another. He was visibly angry, face red and breath heavy, though at what Seonghwa couldn’t be sure until he opened his mouth.

“He stayed— the idiot!— he got out of the compartment and went back into the refuelling station just as the train took off,” Yunho panted with the effort of the words, clearly in disbelief himself.

“Who?” Seonghwa breathed the question out, strangled by it. 

Yunho finally looked him in the eyes.

“Hongjoong.”

Cursing softly, Seonghwa set the Aurora to autopilot, precariously hovering above the moving train, and joined the others in moving the last few cases to their cargo hold.

The next train station was on the horizon when Seonghwa reached down for another case to pass along and was met with San emerging from inside the compartment instead. His instructions were curt, “We’re loaded, turn around.”

Seonghwa helped him into the ship and retracted the ramp, hurrying to the cockpit before being stopped by Yeosang. “Wait!” The mercenary insisted on it and wrapped a hand around Seonghwa’s arm. “The drone. Send in the drone first.”

He was right to be cautious, Seonghwa came to realise when he piloted the drone into the refuelling station from the safety of the cockpit a few minutes later. Guild officials had emerged from the freighter they just robbed and someone was watching them from the secrecy of a connecting hall.

Seonghwa could tell who it was the moment he saw the back of his head.

Lips pursed with worry, he navigated the drone closer. “Let me turn on comms and ask what he’s doing—”

“He already switched off his channel,” Wooyoung broke in before Seonghwa wasted time trying.

“But you can try to patch through to the drone,” Mingi reminded them both, reaching over to turn off the stealth feature he had insisted upon earlier. “There, now the speakers.”

“Hongjoong?” Seonghwa called immediately when it was clear the audio was stable. “Hongjoong, answer me.”

The captain turning his head toward the screen was confirmation he had heard him. “You all need to get out of here,” he said under his breath, returning his gaze to the platform. Clearly he knew something they didn’t. “This is an ambush, Yang must have tipped them off.”

Seonghwa’s stomach dropped.

He should’ve known. Yang would never let such a good chance pass him by, even if he had to work with the Guild for compensation. Even if it meant fewer credits. All his teasing had been meant to distract, and it had succeeded easily.

Hongjoong was hurriedly giving out last minute instructions, “Cut off contact and don’t bring him anything, just get the money to Aten-Odae. The Manager will know what to do. I’m counting on you.”

“Why can’t you come with us?” San protested, unable to keep his voice quiet in his distress. “What are you doing in the station? We could be picking you up right now. There’s still time!”

Hongjoong’s eyes fluttered shut with a sigh. “Check your radar,” he murmured, regret in his voice. “There are ten Guild dreadnoughts with hwacha missiles trained on the Aurora right now. We are out of time. You need to leave while I call them off.”

And when Yeosang pulled up the screen, Seonghwa had to catch his breath. Hongjoong was right. Exactly ten of the Guild’s most heavily weaponised spacecraft were advancing on their position silently and undetected until now. It was horrifying.

Wooyoung’s voice stuck in his throat wetly as he fought back tears, begging him, “Please don’t do this, hyung, we can figure out another way, there has to be something—”

“There isn’t another way, Woo.” From the way Hongjoong spoke, it sounded like it was breaking his heart, too. “I wish there was but… I know I have to do this. Don’t come back here, understand? I won’t let them take you.”

And Seonghwa knew he was right, even as he sat frozen in shock and let Jongho and Mingi argue with the increasingly unresponsive captain while he advanced through the hallway toward the Guild officers.

They’d been tricked and there was nothing else but to retreat.

Seonghwa didn’t realise there were tears streaming down his cheeks until he had already said in a haze, “Don’t go. Don’t.”

It was selfish and he should follow orders and be strong for the others but he couldn’t do it. If Hongjoong stayed behind, there was no way out for him. “I won’t forgive you,” he sobbed.

Hongjoong couldn’t see him but he knew.

“Hey, don’t cry. It’ll be alright,” he comforted softly, taking slow steps backwards away from the drone until a doorway separated them.

His hand hovered over the sensor. “I’m sorry.”

And then he hit the switch and the door slid shut, cutting him off from view.

The feed was blank without a subject in view and Yunho took the controls and directed the drone back out of the station, bringing it aboard the Aurora then suddenly tossing it to the floor in a burst of anger and dropping into his seat wordlessly.

For a moment it was still and silent, and then Wooyoung began to sniffle. Seonghwa reached out to comfort him, but it felt like he was underwater.

The world was moving in slow motion and he was drowning in his own despair. A distant beeping surfaced and he noticed the display, bright red with warning symbols and a repeating alert message.

Enemy ships approaching.

Spurred into action, he sent the Aurora upwards, up through waning sunbeams to the higher layer of clouds and then the next layer and then the next.

“You can’t be serious,” Mingi laughed emptily, glancing in disbelief between Seonghwa and the rest of the team. “We’re leaving him?”

Yeosang’s head was in his hands. “They’ve locked targets on us. There’s no choice.”

“Why didn’t he just call it off before we loaded the ship?” San was bargaining with hypotheticals. “We could’ve used that time. We all could’ve escaped together.”

And of course there was no point now in wondering. They might never know.

Rosy pink rays faded to dusk and seven pirates strapped into their seats and shot up past the highest layer of clouds only to be immediately faced with the enemy dreadnoughts.

Silent and hulking, they simply watched the Aurora fly past them, making no move to shoot the smaller ship down.

Wooyoung dried his eyes and craned his neck to look up at the menacing dreadnoughts through the front window. “They’re just… letting us go.”

“Hongjoong hyung. He turned himself in,” Jongho said mournfully and then braced himself for the space jump as soon as they were clear.

Seonghwa’s tears soaked into his collar. 

The stars raced by like a stain on the black canvas and they left their captain behind.

___

18:47 Open Space Calibrated Time

Seonghwa’s light dozing was interrupted by the holoscreen broadcast. After a back and forth of testimonies and cross-examinations by the most incompetent legal representatives the Guild had to offer, a verdict had been reached.

San and Yeosang were called back in to the living area to watch from their various restless activities around the ship.

The head speaker removed her headdress and spoke, unveiled at last, to the accused.

“The council has deliberated at great length to determine an appropriate finding and will vote next on a punishment suitable for the nature of these crimes.” Her beady eyes looked up from the floating wall of text behind the camera she was no doubt reading from and in the direction of the seat of the accused, remorseless. “However, regarding today’s business, it is the decision of this council that on all counts of piracy, assault, corruption, illegal possession of firearms, possession of stolen property, fraudulent or unauthorised access to Intergalactic Trade Guild networks, conspiracy, theft of an Intergalactic Trade Guild spacecraft, and false personation, Kim Hongjoong is found guilty and sentenced to death.”

It was like his throat closed and then was forcefully reopened again as Seonghwa vomited and then blacked out. When he came to, San was rubbing his back. Every eye on him was ringed with red.

He had been expecting it, but the verdict stung like acid in his face.

The broadcast was off now and he hadn’t even been able to see Hongjoong’s face again.

Was he afraid now?

Mingi looked around and finally asked, voice hollow, “What do we do?”

“The Manager told us to split up and lay low,” Yunho scoffed. He was scary like this, stern and sarcastic and so far away from himself.

Hongjoong was their glue. Without him there to hold them together, surely they’d drift off, each going his own way with a heart full of regret and a useless supply of credits in his pocket.

But they hadn’t done so. No one had wandered off yet, ejecting themselves from the Aurora and wishing the rest good luck and goodbye. Even now they huddled together, waiting for something. A sign.

Seonghwa trembled in the cold of realisation washing over him. There was nowhere else to turn. The floor underneath him began to feel firm and he grounded himself in it. He clutched the blanket around his shoulders closer.

More than ever before he pined for Hongjoong’s help, for his guidance.

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Seonghwa finally said, shaking his head with some sort of resolution.

He raised his head to see all the others looking at him.

They knew what needed to be done, but no one was ready to speak the words aloud. No one except Seonghwa.

“We break him out. We have to do it ourselves.”

He watched them realise, one by one, that it was up to them now. That they could not go on as a team without their captain. He had brought them together only to abandon them, but he would not be allowed to give his life for theirs so easily.

Jongho nodded and got to his feet, ready to contribute however he could. “All we can hope for now is that his execution is scheduled far in advance.”

Seonghwa did not care what it took. They had to get to Hongjoong first, even if they burned up on entry.

They could not escape the pull of his gravity.

___

A/N: Welcome to my submission for 8 Makes 1 Family Fest Round 2, 2024 version (shh it's not technically revealed yet there so don't tell lol), based on a lovely prompt that grabbed me immediately and is responsible for probably a good chunk of this story's appeal! It will be multi-chaptered and I'll do my best to portray the slice-of-life (the theme of this round) and not go too heavy on the plot but uhh no promises lol. Also if you happen to be a fan of Andor, the randomly insanely good Disney+ Star Wars show (if not, watch it) I think you will also like this! I took some inspiration from it so, while I did make this AU myself, there are things in common.

Thanks for reading and let me know what you thought!! <3

Masterlist | Next →

#tokki writes #ateez au #ateez fanfic #ateez fanfiction #ateez fic #ateez angst #ateez hongjoong #ateez seonghwa #ateez yeosang #ateez yunho #ateez san #ateez mingi #ateez wooyoung #ateez jongho #sci fi au #space pirates #space pirate au #heist #prison break #platonic ateez #orbit

[audacityinblack]

Day 2: Secrets, Kept and Told

Let it Fade

Summary: Albine finds things out about Zevran he never intended her to know.

----

She couldn't get the image of him on the rack out of her mind. He never mentioned being tortured; the first she learned of it was when she stumbled by chance into his nightmare, a traumatic memory of his past in which the Sloth Demon had trapped him.

She barely even knew the assassin, but the sight of him being tortured on the rack by a pair of illusory Crows instinctively made her throat tight with shock and her muscles hot with anger. She was ready to fight not just to protect him, but to avenge him. Perhaps she couldn't go after the real Crows who had made him suffer, but she could at least make these imposters pay. So, she shifts into the form of a spirit, freezes them solid, and shatters them to pieces with a crushing wall of pure force.

He barely has time to realize what happened before waking up in a new location, alongside her and the others against a demon called Sloth, against whom the Grey Warden was utterly relentless. She was a blur of shifting forms raining magical fury on their captor until he became nothing but a fading memory. ~~~ Everyone made it out alive that night. The Grey Wardens went where no one else could, saving the Circle both from its demon captors and from its annulment by the Templars, and the Circle agreed to lend aid to the Wardens.

In war, victory.

But Albine was in no mood for celebrating. On the row back, she threatened to throw the smug Templar in the lake (a sentiment that Zevran quite vocally agreed with, if only for the sake of levity) and cried out that she didn't want to speak of the Circle anymore.

Instead of statements of doing their best or saying the dead are now at peace, he simply voiced his relief that they all escaped alive, and gently coaxed the same sentiment out of her. He put no pressure on her to be a hero, only mentions that many lives were saved that day, they got the allies they came for, and they found a sizeable amount of valuable loot. What goes not quite spoken is that one of those lives was his, twice over now he owed her the debt. All things considered, his spirits were higher than they had been in a while.

It felt good to save people. Perhaps, in saving them, he was saving pieces of himself. But most of all, he was pleased that Albine was alive and safe. Her mind and soul were leaden with guilt and grief and many other troubles, but as long as she was still alive, there was always hope that such things might pass.

Perhaps, with his help, they might pass just a bit more quickly. She was the hero of the day, and she deserved nothing more than to be able to savor that victory.

As he went to collect a bowl of the fish stew they were having for supper that night, he laid his bedroll out next to hers by the fire. "You know," he said casually, "The fire is just a bit warmer tonight, the stew a bit less bland." He threw in a little chuckle to ease any notion he might be complaining about the food again. "And you, my dear, are more than a bit more beautiful." He paused to ladle a bit of soup into his bowl, and held its head in her direction. "May I fill your bowl?"

Albine's lips bent into a warm smile of their own accord, almost as if animated by some outside force. For one whose trade was death, he had a remarkable talent for making her feel a tiny bit more alive. "Please do," she said, holding out her varnished wooden bowl.

More than anything, she was relieved her companions, now the only family she truly had left, had survived such a hellish ordeal. Zevran's words struck a softer and rawer spot, considering what she had seen in his nightmare. A bad dream, he'd called it. A bad memory. If it had been a memory, it meant at some point that he had truly been brutally tortured as part of his training. Any doubt she had that he had suffered terribly at the hands of the Crows was put to rest that instant, to be replaced with an awful, sick ache in her chest at the idea of one intelligent and feeling being doing that to another. There was an urge at her gut level, woven into her by the Maker's hand, to tear his shackles off and pull him into her arms.

And yet here he was, smiling brightly in the face of so much hardship. It seemed to almost be an act of defiance, the way he snatched little moments of pleasure in a world so full of pain. It was confounding and intriguing, already enough to awaken her curious interest, but there was also a rousing spark of passion that seemed never to die despite the most raging winds. If he had been through such torment and still held on to that tiny spark, he must hold a tremendous inner strength she couldn't help but admire, but thinking of it only made her ache that much more with compassion for him.

He spooned several hearty ladles full of stew into her bowl, followed by his own, and gestured with her to follow him to their bedrolls. "Come. Let us chase away those old nightmares and enjoy one another's company." His tone was soft and just slightly pleading, and like her, he placed Kinloch Hold at his back. If he could help it, he would never set foot in that place again, and he hoped she would not have to for some time.

The Circle Tower was, in no uncertain terms, a prison; mages were confined there for life, kept away from even the most basic, Maker-given pleasures of breaths of fresh air, sunshine on one's face and the cool breeze blowing through one's hair. He may have suffered horrific torture, but he was eventually allowed to see the light of day. No wonder the Warden always seemed so melancholy, it seemed that the Chantry was determined to deprive her of joy itself.

Even as he smiled at her, his lower lip swelled with sympathy. Quickly, though, he was able to turn it into a tempting smirk. "Perhaps we could give one another more pleasant things to dream about?" His voice took on a silky and inviting tone.

The idea made her heart throb and her cheeks burn. In his defense, sex would be an excellent distraction from these feelings, and indeed, she had already begun to think of him in progressive states of undress. She wanted to see the full extent of the ink work on his skin, not to mention its canvas. His lithe form would be pleasant nestled against her own curves, and he would certainly enjoy being surrounded by her warmth. Those full, fast-moving lips and silver tongue of his--

Maker.

But she couldn't get the image of him on the rack out of her head. How many other terrible things had they done to him, especially when it came to business of a sexual nature?

What if, in her own ignorance, she caused him more pain.

"Oh, I see a blush~" he teased gently, between mouthfuls of stew.

"Zev?" Her tone was hesitant, with something of concern or perhaps warning. Her finger pressed around the sides of her bowl, and she swallowed a mouthful of broth as if to loosen her tongue. "Before I...we...do this, there's something I need to know."

"Hmm?" He shifted his posture to face her, his gaze nothing if not attentive. "Ask away, my dear Warden."

Albine cleared her throat and took a breath, thinking carefully of how to word her questions. There was always the possibility he may not wish to speak of such things, as they could open doors he'd rather stay shut. But the idea of harming him further, even by accident, disturbed her more than the idea of an awkward and at worst moderately uncomfortable conversation.

"I saw your real nightmare," she said, as plainly as she could. "The Crows tortured you."

Zevran flinched, gulping down a mouthful of stew that his gut clenched around when it hit. That part of his psyche was never meant to be seen by anyone, let alone the Warden. The vulnerability of it nearly set his nerves into a threat response, but he quickly silenced it by swallowing some broth and taking slow, measured breaths to still his nervous stomach.

The thing he remembered most about that dream was that she was distinctly there, so much so that he recognized her presence as out of the ordinary. More so, she was the one who saved him. It was a strange, uncertain feeling, knowing she had seen him so nakedly vulnerable beyond anything he could hide, but instead of leaving him to suffer or taking advantage in his moment of weakness, she leapt into action to defeat his captors and rescue him.

But what would she do with that knowledge now? How would she use it? His shoulders tightened, and his body language seemed to subconsciously shrink.

His gaze broke from hers for a fraction of a second, as his instincts searched for a route of escape. Despite the mouthful of broth he had just swallowed, his mouth somehow stayed dry. Her eyes on him felt like an icy burn.

"It is true," he said, with a tensely stilted tone. "I was tortured. All Crow recruits are, as part of our training."

"I--"

He raised his hand and shook his head before Albine could get an "I'm sorry" out. "No, no, my dear, do not pity me. I am one of the lucky ones, you see. Most of them did not make it out alive." His cadence became hasty, with barely any breaths between his words.

"Zev--"

"And luckier still, I escaped. With help from none other than your lovely self. The Crows are still in Antiva--"

"Zevran--"

"The Crows are still in Antiva--"

"Zevran!" Albine practically had to shout to get Zevran to stop anxiously rambling, raising her own hands in a gesture to calm him. "The Crows are still in Antiva," she repeated his words as a gesture to tell they were heard, "And if they come after us, we'll make sure they never make it back." There was a slightly cold and sharp edge in her voice, signaling the ruthless determination that he found simultaneously intimidating and captivating.

But then her gaze on him practically melted between one moment and the next. "But that's not why I brought this up." "Why did you bring it up, then?" Zevran asked, aloof and guarded, watching her carefully.

"Because," Albine was finally able to explain, "If we have sex, I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to do anything that brings back those bad memories, or makes you not feel safe with me." She drew a heavy breath, and leaned toward him over the soup cradled in her hands. "I've not done this with anyone in a long time, and I don't really know what I'm doing. The idea of hurting you..."

There was a quiver in Zevran's chest that he couldn't quite identify, but his tense posture soon unwound and he swallowed a mouthful of stew to warm the cold spot growing in his belly. She was so terribly honest, he almost wished she would use and abuse him. That would at least make more sense than whatever this was.

You don't deserve it, that cruel voice with the pitch of a corvid's caw whispered in his head. Murderer. Slave. Son of a whore, and twice one over. Betrayer of lovers, ungrateful to the masters to whom you owe your very life. You betrayed Rinna, and you will turn on the Warden as well. It's all you know how to do.

The bowl shook in his hands, and his teeth clenched behind closed lips.

No, he replied with his own mind's voice. I can be more than this. I must. I was given my life, by the grace of the Maker, and I shall not squander it.

You will fail, said the Crow-masked avatar of the master of the Third Talon. Your life is ours. You are of the Crows until death.

Cállate, malpico. Fly away back to Antiva before you end up in the stew. With that, he sank the whole of his attention into finishing the bowl, setting it aside and sighing with satisfaction. A slight burp escaped his grasp. "Pardon me," he said with a soft chuckle, seizing the moment of levity to pull himself out of the mental rabbit hole he'd been dragged into.

At last, he felt well enough to answer her concerns. "Your care is much appreciated, my dear," he said, with a sincere smile. "But worry not. Sex is a simple thing, as far as I am concerned. It is something I happen to have a great deal of experience with, that also happens to have a great deal of uses." He puffed his chest out proudly. "I can use it for anything I need or desire, and I take pride in doing so." He set his bowl aside and shifted his legs in a way that showed off the shape of his thighs. "And if we are leaving the Crows in Antiva, that means it is my own desire guiding me. And my desire..." He turned to lean on his arms, and gave her a come-hither look from below, lowering his voice into a sensual rumble. "...Is your command." Albine's face burned hot, and she didn't even bother hiding it. She had to place her hand against her chest to calm her pounding heart, and a heady grin broke onto her lips. "In that case...my tent after supper?" He rolled over on his back and spread his arms wide, lifting his knee and tilting his head back to gaze at her invitingly. "I shall see you there, querida."

#zevwarden week 2023 #zevwarden #zevran x f!warden #zevran

[iruiji]

Part iv.

For the life of me I still can't think of a proper title for this. But yeah this is Part iv of my take on SAGAU/Imposter AU! I am so tempted to give this an embarrassing title like I did with the Fungi one lmfao.

yeah. that's it. that's the whole scene. i think y'all know where this is going. i started this thing with one ending in mind- and it won't take very long because I only planned to write until the Sumeru Arc. ehe. maybe some snippets if someone drops an ask or smth.

For the sake of my sanity I'm going to limit Reader's powers to whatever I mentioned in Part ii and adding the one in this.

'nyways.

The Million Dollar Mora question, can reader Teleport?

Short answer? Yes. Long answer? They can Teleport like in game: whenever and wherever, even in a middle of a fight, they can nyooooom tf outta there, easy. The only difference is that, while doing so, the world, or rather, time doesn't stop. It was both a blessing and a curse - reader can escape from the most enemies but for faster ones?

As a Xiao main, it's becoming more and more scarier for them to imagine meeting them.

Dammit, they can't even enjoy being an Ex-Deus Machina!

The plan after.. kidnapping the inventor of course involve somewhere to hide after: a safehouse, if you will. And after a bit more planning which involved going at Enkanomiya and surveying the area and looting the place with usable weapons (reader got a spear and a short sword) without interacting with any of the ghost, reader made a make shift camp at the little cave underneath a run down stairs somewhere around Mt. Tianheng.

A few more days passed with them hiding and watching from the shadows at some of the buildings to observe the Harbor itself, noting and setting traps at some of the alleyways.

And yeah did reader mentioned they have super strength now? Yeah. One of their daggers got nearly lost when they were training with throwing them, and then was frantically looking at the ground and suddenly noticing they've lifted up a tree to check underneath it's hollow.

"Huh? What.." and proceeds to uproot a whole Sandbearer Tree, just to check. "The actual fuck.." and then throwing that tree towards the lone lawachurl in the area, killing it instantly.

"..."

Yeah but reader still wants that gun. Unfortunately they can't test how durable their body is now, especially when they're going into a literal do-or-die mission and they can't waste their time anymore training this new ability so they just have to make do.

Just their luck that it doesn't activate unless they wanted it to.

Four days after arriving at Liyue Harbor, Reader adjusts their cloak; mask in place and daggers in position underneath their sleeves. Sighing, they jumped off the roof they were hiding to greet their target.

Damn. How badly they wish for their team to be here.

"Hello, Gentry Maocai."

Reader nods, impressed, when the man immediately pulled out a short knife. Honestly, they expected the guards with swords but not the man to have weapon on himself. But hey, must be reader starting to get incompetent; they haven't had proper training in Diplomacy for months.

Raising their hands, Reader tried to show that they're not an enemy.

"Not an enemy?! You must be with that Harbinger who attacked us last night!"

Aw, man. Fucking timing, amiright?

Releasing a defeated sigh after beating his guards to a pulp and realizing the man was gone, Reader nods to themselves as they jumped up the roof and wobbled. Yep, deeefinitely getting rusty.

For a guy whose wearing those long-ass clothes, he's fast. Not as fast as reader though.

"Gentry Maocai? What seems to b-" Aw, shit.

"Get away from me!" yelled the frazzled man, swiping his weapon to the man in front of him. The latter merely dodged to the side, as if facing something inconsequental.

I mean, he's not wrong.

He's the Geo Archon, after all.

Gentry Maocai doesn't know this, of course, so he tried to swipe his knife again in his haste to get away. Another swift dodge and Maocai groan in frustration, before he aimed for the man's chest with a growl.

Vortex Vanquisher appeared right then, shimmering in gold as it parries the metal. Zhongli kicked it off his hands, before reaching for Maocai's clothes.

Annnnnddd that's my cue!

Jumping from the roof they're perched on, Reader activated their ability and swooped down. Predictably, Zhongli noticed in an instant, pushing Maocai on the side and raising his weapon to parry Reader's daggers.

Their weapons clashed with a resounding: 'BOOM!' before the ground Zhongli was standing at caved down and shatters. With the impact's blast, it pushed everything within a five meters or so away -

- including Reader's hood.

A small gasp was heard from the Geo Archon in that split second, before he was flying through several buildings after Reader kicked them away.

Well, oops.

Reader snatched Maocai quickly and ran to an alley where they Teleported to the safehouse in Enkanomiya.

Maocai dug in his meal with a vengeance, sprawled besides the small camp fire Reader made two hours prior. He's still reeling from the events earlier. Dammit, he was supposed to be eating at Xinyue Kiosk right now, not some.. what even is he eating??

"It's fish."

He yelps in surprise, glaring at Reader. Did he say that out loud?

"You did." He didn't, Reader is just guessing, but the man was sputtering in his seat it's hard not to bully him a little. "Look, just take my offer and we're good! I get my guns and you get your money!"

"I need to go home!"

Reader wave their hands frantically. "Old Man, didn't you say a Harbinger just attacked you yesterday? How can you go back there when you're not even sure about your safety?"

Maocai gave Reader a scathing look, "And you think you're better? You kidnapped me!!"

"You're body's probably on its way to Wangsheng Funeral Parlor if I left you there."

"Nonsense!"

"Yes-sense!"

"What???" came the dumbfounded reply.

Reader sighed and placed down their plate at the side. "You know, if you agreed earlier, you could be finished by now!"

The man gave a look of disbelief. "Are you stupid?! You can't finish building a prototype by hours!"

"I'll give you four months."

"Incorrigible!"

"Two months then."

Gentry Maocai finished the prototype within one and a half month.

Part i. Part ii. Part iii.

@noitsgrapejuice @yuumaofc @mentallyunpresent @salor-ilor @shizunxie @jaxielous @imaginewriting @simpaghettits @asteriacos

Sorry if I missed someone y'all. But uhhh. Hope ya like this one. G'night!

#genshin imposter au #genshin impact #genshin sagau #sagau #sagau impostor au #genshin isekai #hell yeah here we go babes

[invested-in-your-future]

You think RWBY says fighting racism is wrong just because it treats a white guy as evil for being a psychopath who doesn't actually give a shit about fighting racism. You're a sad racist loser.

No I think RWBY ends up saying (intentionally or not) that fighting racism is wrong because:

The show takes one of the leads with the most clear-cut stance against racism and turns her into literal clueless princess that grew up in basically a castle in an island paradise. Making her strong opinions be literal trope of people writing off real life activism as "twitter activism from clueless people who did not have it as bad as people in Insert Country Here". Menagerie is literal island resort LMAO.

The show does literally nothing with the other one of the leads whose flaws involve social biases and prejudices learned via her toxic and classist family that literally owns slaves.

It's literal "racism against faunus subplot" culminates with Blake delivering an absolutely awful monologue about how "faunus are no better than the racists" because "look at all the fire and looting and damage we did". You know, the literal fascist talking point used against any form of activism or protest in real world???

Ilia's arc culminates with "her deciding to be the model minority because that solves racism".

The show literally just wants you to forget the racism subplot existed and does not bother to actually give focus to it. The show literally moves on to the kingdom that supposedly is the most racist and does nothing with it because whoops gotta get rid of these pesky human REALISTIC villains because goofy magic fortress of doom is arriving.

The show conflates LITERALLY EVERYTHING from activism and civil disobedience to blowing up things with bombs into one. In MilesWBY, if you do ANYTHING beyond merely frowning and sighing at bigotry, you will suddenly find yourself planting pipe bombs to murder government officials or something.

Literally every instance of minorities standing up against persecution is treated as "evil" or "unhinged". There are two states of being for Faunus - "living like racism isn't there and hoping some non-faunus girl will literally cure racism of people targeting you with a speech" and "literal freaking terrorism".

Even beyond the "intended minority" of faunus the show treats it's non-white and non-straight characters absolutely awfully. If a non-white character survives their first on-screen appearance, they are bound to either get absolutely done dirty, be treated as "evil" or disappear off the face of the earth right after.

I literally don't care about Adam's whiny nonsense, LMAO. Hi, hello, you talking to one of the earliest "Adam is Gaston" posters in the fandom right now, LOL. The only flaw is that Blake(and yang) did not get a proper arc of absolutely demolishing him and parsing years of abuse and fear she suffered because of him.

#rwby #rwde

[worddevourer]

So, in 2018, Magic the Gathering finally exchanged the clunky 'his or her' on their card text with the dramatically smoother and cleaner singular 'their.'

This... had no effect on gameplay to my knowledge, but join me, for a moment, in the world where it did.

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EDH Deck Tech: Nicol Bolas' Genderfluid Swag

Hey guys! Got a spicy brew for you today, but I'm warning you ahead of time, you've gotta be prepared to be neither man nor woman for the duration of the game. Or... At least to tell the judge that 'he or she' doesn't apply to you.

And the reason this is relevant is because recently, WotC made a questionable choice for game balance in the form of rule 729, 'use of the phrase 'his or her' in card text.'

Most of what the rule says doesn't actually matter, but I want to pay special attention to sub-rule 3:

Rule 729.3, 'Cards using the gendered pronouns 'his or her' to refer to a player are not considered to refer to those players whose preferred pronouns do not include either of those options, unless an errata has been issued for that card modifying instances of 'his or her' to 'their' which refers to any player regardless of preferred pronouns.'

This... was probably the sloppiest way they could have implemented this rule, and I expect in future they'll just have either a blanket errata or change this, but for now, even in cEDH, this means there are a handful of cards that you can just completely ignore as long as you don't use him/her.

Now, per rule 729.4, you can't change your preferred pronouns (for gameplay purposes) after the first time you've set them in a game, so here's the way this works:

We're running a Grixis deck with Nicol Bolas, Unchained as our commander. (which is extra funny since his initials are NB). And we're using his hand/sideboard swap ability to switch between a 'him or her' mode, and a neither mode.

In Grixis colors there are about 30 solid cards that haven't been errata'd that rule 729.3 applies to.

Primarily, we're interested in two:

Ravenous Chasm, which forces all players to discard a card from 'his or her' hand, (potentially not us)

And

Everflowing Volcano, which can tap and pay X to make each player exile the top cards of 'his or her' library, and be able to play them until the end of 'his or her' next turn.

Basically, using Bolas' ability to sideboard cards and loot, we can decide whether it's more advantageous this game to use a given set of pronouns (and we can force our opponents to choose first using, something like, fittingly enough, Tough Choice), or another.

Once they're locked in, we choose opposingly, and set our gameplan.

It's definitely not top tier for cEDH, but I've caught plenty of people off guard with it.

Take a look at the deck list, and have fun!

#MTG