#admittedly part of the problem is that. for a game about politics. three houses sure doesn't know about politics.

[z-cerulean]

I analyse Marianne's supports (Three Houses)

I did this as a Twitter thread a while back but that was... a while back, and lacking twitter's character limit gives me a bit more freedom to do something like this.

Marianne is a character from Three Houses, and part of the Golden Deer class. Over time she's become my usual name for my favourite character in any piece of media and has become quite important to me for a number of reasons, as I'm sure is the case for most people's favourites.

So I'm going to go over each of Marianne's supports in Three Houses. I'll get around to one for Three Hopes when I do Azure Gleam.

Disclaimer, this is just what I think. Fair warning, while I'll keep to a minimum, there will be spoilers for Three Houses if you're yet to play it. Marianne's narrative is rather isolated from the rest of the game's story, so if you don't mind knowing that, there's no problem.

Who is Marianne?

Marianne is the adoptive daughter of Margrave Edmund, one of the Leicester Alliance's up and coming noble houses, and is sent to Garreg Mach's Officer's Academy as per his demands. Marianne herself is shy and reclusive, often only speaking when spoken to and generally evasive of conversation where possible, often freezing up for not knowing what to say. Claude, in his introduction of her to Byleth, says he knows not much about her himself and wouldn't be surprised if someone had never heard her speak. Marianne seemingly spends most of her spare time around animals or praying to the goddess. Her self-esteem is demonstrably low and is quick to disparage herself, she claims that individuals around her suffer misfortune, and keeps details of her Crest to herself, Margrave Edmund himself playing a considerable amount of money to Garreg Mach to keep Marianne's Crest a secret.

Marianne's paralogue isn't available until partway through the War arc of the game, where she's harassed by a scholar over her Crest. Her ancestry can be traced back to the forgotten 11th Elite from the Nemesis and the 10 Elites legend, Maurice. Maurice, through overextending his own limits with his Heroes' Relic, had been thought to be cursed into a Demonic Beast and to this day stalks a forest near Edmund territory, the basis of a legend that his descendants would likewise become beasts. The paralogue follows Marianne going to said forest, finding Demonic Beast Maurice still alive. Upon defeat, the only things left of him were his Relic, Blutgang, and human bones. The scholar that harassed her initially, seeing the sword, found himself proven wrong and apologises. Marianne, finally able to prove rumours she herself believed about her crest were wrong, is finally able to move on. In her solo ending, following the war's end, she becomes a celebrated hero and skilled orator, inheriting Edmund territory.

Of course, this is a broad simplification of her journey, that does get significantly fleshed out in her supports. Speaking of:

M/F Byleth Support

Doing both of these together since both Byleth supports are effectively identical, except for the M!Byleth S support existing.

I... admittedly don't really like this support that much. For reasons that become more apparent as the other supports are discussed, should say, but this support is definitely a victim of being... a Byleth support, since Byleth doesn't get proper lines like Kris, Robin and Corrin before them. As a result this support very much reads like an overview of Marianne's arc, rather than Byleth engaging as much with her. At points it very much feels like Marianne speaking to a brick wall, for lack of a better term. Though points for the A support having an added line if her paralogue is completed, stuff like that is fun. I'll be making more solid arguments for why I'd say this is my least favourite Marianne support once the others are brought up.

Though this is also where we get a window into her relationship with her adoptive father. Marianne seems to mostly perceive him as using her for political legitimacy, since she has a crest, and plans to marry her off for similar gains. Since Margrave Edmund never appears in person, even in Three Hopes, Marianne's perception is all we have of them.

Claude Support

Now here's a step up over the Byleth support. The Claude supports follows Claude making a guess about her crest issues, describing both her Crest and his dual heritage as 'burdens', saying they can be cast aside no matter how difficult, and offering his support to her.

This is a pretty sweet support all around. It's one of the few Claude opens up to someone in, purely for someone else's betterment at that.

While this isn't my favourite depiction of it, it's also an introduction to what is my favourite aspect of Marianne's conflict. Putting it as Claude does, "...people are born with burdens to carry. That much is undeniable. But whether they bind us or we cast them aside... that's up to us. " Nothing changes about Marianne's burdens if she does nothing towards casting them off. But, by putting in the effort and with help from others, she can move towards a better tomorrow.

This is something I feel the Byleth support doesn't portray that well, and is a big part of why I'd rank it fairly low. Though that could be an opinion influenced by some individuals perceiving the support as Byleth 'fixing' Marianne, which entirely defeats a big reason why I like Marianne.

There's also the first case of Marianne 'talking' to animals, as she puts it, specifically to Dorte, a horse at the monastery. That gets touched on a bit more later.

Hilda Support

This support is one of the few where it isn't about Marianne confronting her Crest. Instead, Marianne and Hilda tidying turns into the Hilda's help being repaid by tea parties provided for by Marianne.

I like this support. If anything, I wish Marianne had a few more that weren't as serious like this one. It's basically the only support where Marianne's clumsiness comes into play, which I'm glad isn't played up too much.

I don't really have as much else to say about this one, it's pretty good.

Leonie Support

In brief, Leonie loses her temper at Marianne for putting down her own abilities without attempt, with Leonie apologising and helping her with conversation in the B support.

This support is very... fine. It does the job for sure, but there's not as much to it. This is the first showing of Marianne expecting the worst of more simple gestures, to extent of refusing to help from those more catastrophic outcomes. I kind of wish the B support leaned a bit more explicitly into this, I guess, based on what's here.

Lysithea Support

The Lysithea support is also... fine, for being basically just another incarnation of the Leonie support, though about an accident this time rather than a supply run, followed by a second event with a battle strategy enquiry this time in the B support.

I think I'd probably put this one beneath the Leonie support, it didn't need to spend two supports mostly on effectively the same thing, though I like the ending of the B support.

Lorenz Support

The support is a bit more compelled by Lorenz than it is Marianne. I think it's a fine support, I like the B support, though I'd not call it a favourite, a lot of the big moments are mostly due to Lorenz. If anything though, their paired ending with them becoming 'the mother and father of horses and cattle' with Lorenz hating it is pretty funny.

Ignatz Support

The Ignatz support is another mostly compelled by Ignatz, in some ways it's effectively another version of the Lorenz support. I think I like this one a bit more than that overall, the angle of 'words aren't necessary for communication' is nice, and anything where Marianne is motivated towards an active effort is nice.

Raphael Support

The last of her in-house supports, the Raphael one... I have mixed opinions on.

One hand it has a couple nice moments and it is one of the few more relaxed supports, on the other I'm finding it's sort of hamstrung by Raphael's sheer idiocy at points. Not to say I dislike Raphael, he's fine, but I feel like I could have done without it.

Ferdinand Support

The Ferdinand support is pretty nice as well, it's basically the only time Marianne gets openly frustrated, and I like the resolutions where she ends up approaching others herself about her problems or resolutions. Plus Ferdinand is just kind of a cool dude to begin with, so yeah I'd put this one pretty highly.

Linhardt Support

It's nice, Linhardt putting in active effort (albeit related to his vested interests) is a fun change of pace and the closure on Marianne's part is nice. I'm not as crazy about this support as others are, but it's nice.

Sylvain Support

Sylvain's another character I like a lot from this game, so pretty great as is, and the Marianne support definitely helps with that. I kind of wish they got an A support to cap it off, but I guess Sylvain will have to deal with only being able to A support like three of the rest of the female cast.

Ashe Support

While I like this support for sure, it mostly just reads like a slightly lamer version of the Ferdinand support to me. Not an inherent negative, but one of my gripes with Marianne's support lineup is how homogenous a lot of her supports end up being, I'd have liked a few more like the Hilda support where she mostly just gets to relax, is how to put it.

Dimitri Support

This one's my single favourite support of Marianne's set. Whether that's bias on also liking Dimitri a lot, debatable, but this one just hits. The A support is phenomenal, in particular. The two of them basically just get each other and in short I do basically every Heroes' Journey with these two now.

Hanneman Support

Man, the Hanneman support is pretty great. It's the most directly confrontational towards her bloodline, which allows this one to hit the hardest on it for not having overused it too much in the other supports. Also the A support is great.

Conclusion/Ranking

If I had to rank Marianne's supports on a tier list it'd probably be something like this:

Depending on the day I'd probably order them differently, so mostly just take them as within tier. I'd have liked a few more 'Marianne just gets to relax and have fun' supports, as said before, but for what we have I'm fine with it. From what I've seen of Three Hopes so far, she gets a couple more along those lines, so I'll do another of these for when I get around to Azure Gleam in that game.

#marianne von edmund #fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fe three houses #marianne

[holdharmonysacred]

i will say though that i think edelgard fire emblem got done fucking dirty. I want to like her so bad but all the weird Yikes undertones in the game + the weird Yikes undertones with how a lot of edelgard stans I’ve seen treat rhea + the way the game itself fucking cheats her of actually good character development by never letting her admit she was wrong or that maybe imperialism is bad or how she never gets to confront her abusers in her route or how she only really gets challenged on her bigotry issues in goddamn fire emblem heroes just. sours her for me a little.

It’s like. Weird comparison, but it feels like she has the same issues with her writing that the Diamonds in SU (and the Sympathetic Fantasy Imperials character type in general) have in that like. Yeah, the arc she has is thematically nice and good for the story her route is trying to tell, but it completely clashes with the worldbuilding and setup that the entire rest of the game provides, and also never quite properly addresses that at the end of the day, Edelgard is an Imperialist, she thinks imperialism is the solution for doing things, and the game failing to adequately address that gives the story some serious Undertones of the not-so-good kind. It could’ve made for a super good story to have Edelgard be forced to actually seriously confront her crimes and admit that she’s super complicit in some really bad shit, and rather than pushing on out of sheer Sunk Cost Fallacy she needs to actually seriously try to fix her mistakes and confront her own biases, but the game doesn’t want to do that for some reason, so the framing in her arc is just. an awful mess.

#admittedly part of the problem is that. for a game about politics. three houses sure doesn't know about politics. #like how the game thinks edelgard starting a meritocracy is a good thing #even though anyone who knows anything about how capitalism is bad should also know meritocracies bad #(hint: meritocracies is how people justify oppressive hierarchies #and people with more wealth and power and privilege have more opportunities to show off their merit than those who don't) #to be clear i really do think edelgard has some real good potential as a character under there!!!!!!! i want to like her super bad!!!!!! #but just. the way her route never lets her get to be wrong when the rest of the game shows that she's wrong about A Lot #it feels bad. it feels like bad writing and missed opportunities. and has some bad undertones. #edelgard's final boss should've been the pale people slither crew instead of rhea. #the culmination of her route should have been her fighting the people who ACTUALLY made her life a living hell #not the traumatized lady who - while still very flawed - is basically just. the scapegoat. #killing rhea does not solve the fundamentally flawed systems in fodlan because many of those systems were not her fault #nor does it help edelgard overcome her own trauma in any way. all it is is just. her doing exactly what her abusers want. #her whole route is basically her getting played like a damn fiddle and the game never properly calling her out on it #edelgard's ending should've been her unlearning adrestian imperialist propaganda and beating up the slitherers and them's the facts

[the-insomniac-emporium]

Everybody Talks Too Much (Cassandra Dimitrescu/Mute!Reader)

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village Rating: T for language, brief violence Summary: Whenever Cassandra gets angry, no one wants to deal with her. Well, no one but you, that is. Thankfully, the middle child appreciates your company... not that she'd ever admit it. Notes: Another self-indulgent fic with a selectively mute reader. This one's a lil different. Sections in italic are mostly indications that the reader is miming actions in order to communicate, though there are a few internal thoughts that are marked as such. Unlike the past two I've done, this takes place pre-relationship, so there's some mutual pining of sorts. I think that's the word.

--------------------------

Among the many servants of Castle Dimitrescu, there were a number of secret rules to be followed. Guidelines that were never written down, only spoken in hushed whispers, for specific (and dangerous) circumstances. Most could be divided into one of two categories: 1, how to reduce the chances of a Lady of the house killing someone. 2, how to make sure that if they kill someone, it will not be you. Of these rules, there was one that you knew best of all, despite never having been told it. Why? Because you have observed it time and time again. After all, the rule revolved around you. To put it plainly… If Cassandra Dimitrescu was in an awful mood, but had yet to draw blood, send in the mute.

Even now, as you rushed down a corridor, you did not know why this rule was in place. You simply knew that you had been summoned countless times by frantic maidens, to go serve their volatile mistress. Admittedly you did understand their eagerness to thrust the task upon someone else. Cassandra was often considered the deadliest of the Dimitrescu daughters, for she was the quickest to anger, the one with the deepest bloodlust, and took the longest to calm down. Personally, you disagreed, believing that it wasn’t terribly hard to know what she did and did not like. All it took was some observation. It was Daniela who scared you, seeing as she was unpredictable. She didn’t even need to be in a bad mood to want to kill you.

Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean that you saw no danger in working with Cassandra. In fact, you saw a fair bit, such as now: Right as you round the corner, a shiny object hurls past your head, embedding itself into the wall. Had you been walking ever so slightly faster… Well, you preferred not to dwell on such things, especially not when the one who threw the thing was still nearby. Based on the howling laughter and swarm of insects that moves around you, the intended target was Lady Daniela. Across the room is the markswoman herself; Cassandra stood tall, huffing in anger, staring at the spot her sister had just vacated from.

“Damn it!” She yelled, stomping her foot as if the resulting shockwave might do what her weapon had not. Oddly amused, you’re quick to remove the sickle from the wall, careful as to not damage it. It’s a tad dirty, but nothing you can’t fix with your handy pocket cloth. Cleaning as you walk, you slowly move towards your employer, not even bothering to spare her a glance. After all, you had your own rules for dealing with her.

(1: Avoid eye contact for at least one minute after an outburst.)

By the time you make it to Cassandra, the minute has come and gone, allowing you to ever-so politely look her in the eyes when you return her blade. She scoffs, then practically rips the sickle from your hands. This was your job, however, so you made no complaints. Not that you could, at least not verbally. Instead, you gave a short bow of acknowledgement. Afterwards you stood still, awaiting either instructions or a dismissal. Neither came.

“I can’t believe that little shit tried to take my favorite dagger and thought she could get away with it! Agh, the nerve of her! Can you believe this?” Cassandra snapped, turning to you as if you might agree with her. Nod, simple yet effective. “At least you know how to handle a blade. Damn Daniela is lucky she didn’t get any scratches on mine.” Then she pulls the knife in question from its place on her belt, letting it gleam in the light. A soft exhale, head tipping to the side, wow is it pretty. So is the one holding it. Your mind wanders but your gaze does not. Always polite, always ready to serve.

(2: Do not get distracted; she is no patient lover, rather a demanding boss.)

“Cassandra! What was all that noise a minute ago?” Someone called, interrupting your ‘conversation’. The speaker soon appears, being none other than Lady Bela, the most reasonable of the castle residents. Though that meant little, considering the nature of her family. As if to prove your point, Cassandra merely rolls her eyes in reply, refusing to divulge the truth. And so Bela turned her gaze to you, perking a brow. “Feeling up to talking today?” She asked, already knowing the answer. Of course, your hands are already moving, not even waiting for her to finish speaking. This is a game you know intimately.

A hand goes to your belt, moving to pull a nonexistent blade from its sheath. Raising it, moving it forward then back several times, launching it towards the wall- towards the hole left behind. Then shifting, waving your hand in front of your face while exhaling a sharp breath. Flinching. An exaggerated gulp, pretending to check if your nose is still attached, sighing in relief. Lastly, an inclination of your head towards the culprit. Cassandra.

“I was aiming for Daniela. Not that it matters, nobody got hurt,” she stated, confident. Both hands clasped together, then tapping the palms together, mimicking a heartbeat at a reasonable pace. Suddenly a stomp. The beating stops, and you hold your hands next to your ear, as if listening for signs of life. Pause. Three seconds. Worried expression, eyes wide. Finally, fast as a gunshot, the heart beats again, wildly. At this, Bela shoots her sister a look of doubt, as well as judgement. Hoping to change the subject, Cassandra looks to you. “What are you doing here anyway?”

Rubbing your chin, thinking. Squinting for effect. Ah, got it! Both hands go to your sides, lifting the imaginary hem of a dress you aren’t wearing. Waltzing forward, yet in place, with the poise expected of a professional maid. Then the focus shifts to your face. Fear. A silent scream, a hand at your forehead, feeling like you… might… faint. Falling backwards, making a step at the very last second to prevent a real collapse. End scene.

“Someone was scared?” Bela asked, sounding uncharacteristically unsure of herself. When you nod, she does as well, considering the implications. “Why would they send you?”

“I hardly care why, I just want to know who so I can kick their ass,” Cassandra interjects, taking a step closer to you. All you do in response is shrug. Unsurprisingly this is not enough to please her, and before you know it she’s wrapped a hand around your throat. “Give. Me. A. Name. Now.” A perked brow. Thoughts practically telegraphed. ‘What do you expect?’ Opening your mouth, slightly, then wide, back to almost closed. No sound comes out. Obviously. It’s not like you wanted to break your own rule, but in this case you had no choice.

(3: Give her whatever she wants, consequences be damned.)

Luckily for you, Bela acts as a foil to Cassandra, there to smooth the seas. Moving behind you, she reaches into your back pocket and retrieves the notepad you keep there. Then she’s handing it to you while making eye contact with her sister. Cassandra promptly releases you, though she’s clearly not pleased, going so far as to push you away in one last act of anger. Internally you roll your eyes. On the outside, however, you quickly write down everything you know… which isn’t much.

“I don’t remember who it was. A lot of people have asked. This happens a lot.” Then you hand the paper to Bela, who soon looks back up at you in confusion. Too antsy to wait for her own turn, Cassandra yoinks the notepad from her sister’s hands, reading it over several times before reacting.

“What the fuck? Why would they send you to me because somebody pissed their pants in fear? I’m going to kill someone. Ugh, I don’t- this doesn’t make any goddamn sense,” Cassandra ranted, pacing back and forth, looking like she wanted to destroy something immediately. To your surprise, Bela doesn’t look the slightest bit concerned. If anything, she looks amused, and smiles when the two of you make eye contact. Something tells you that she knows something that you don’t. Before you can react, she quietly retrieves your notepad and returns it to you. Then she pauses, thinking, eying you with curiosity.

“Why don’t you go for now? See if anyone thanks you for stepping in, hmm?” She suggested, tone implying that this was absolutely about something else entirely. Still, you don’t care to disobey, and so you bid the two of them farewell with a deep bow. As you leave, you can almost make out part of what they say next. But you’re certain that you must have heard incorrectly. “Showing your favoritism a little too much, sister? If even the servants can see it-” the rest of the sentence is cut off by angry muttering from Cassandra. After that you’re too far away to hear anymore. What a strange day...

--------------------------

“Hey, you know where Lady Cassandra’s room is, right?” Ygritte asked, casually, definitely not having just been told by someone else that you were the solution to her problem. Pretending that you were unaware of this, you give her a smile and a nod. Later, behind her back, you will mentally add her to your list of people to watch out for. Maybe even decide to refuse to share your biscuits with her. In the meantime, you pretend that you don’t mind whatever task she’s about to dump on you. “Can you bring these books to her? I really have to get back to the kitchen soon, and that’s in the opposite direction…”

Technically true. Something told you that the real problem was that Cassandra had been extra loud the past few days. Regardless, you accept the books from her, leaving before she even finishes thanking you. Why do people do this? I don’t get it, you think. It’s like they think I’m immune to her rage. If that were true, I’d gladly throw myself between her and others. But no, that’s not the case. Hmmph, if only they saw my scars. Shaking your head to clear your thoughts, you keep walking, subconsciously rubbing the spot on your arm where Cassandra had cut you. Well, the worst spot. Being pain tolerant had made her take interest in you, during your first few weeks, but it’s what allowed you to learn her rules. Your rules, really.

Knock. Knock. A pause… three more, much softer. The door swings open, revealing your Lady, whose eyes widen at the sight of you. Tipping your hat (which you are not wearing), you greet her, forcing another smile. Then you present the books, free hand gesturing with a spiral motion towards them. She doesn’t respond. No, wait, she glances at the door hinges, considering closing the door in your face. Now both of you are staring at each other, daring the other to move.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she finally said. There’s a gruffness to her voice that you hadn’t expected. It’s unlike her usual tone, less angry, more tired. Were those bags under her eyes?... No, just smudged makeup. “Don’t just stand there- tell me why you’re here.” Again, you gesture to the books, extending your hands further towards her. This time she takes a half-step backwards to avoid you. Peculiar. “Someone else was supposed to bring them, dipshit. Fucking hell, why can’t anyone around here do their damn jobs?” At last, she takes the books from you, carrying them deeper into your room. Though she does not close the door, you assume that your job is done. Or maybe you simply do not wish to deal with a Cassandra who’s frustrated by your specific presence. Either way, it breaks one of your rules, though you do not remember until it is too late.

(4: Do not leave until dismissed by a member of the family.)

“Where the hell are you going?” The sound of buzzing flies, a blur of motion around you, then the form of Cassandra solidifying in front of you. One of her hands is raised, pressing against the center of your chest. She pushes you, hard, making you stumble backwards into her room. Next thing you know you’ve crashed onto her floor. A tad stunned, you bring a hand up to hold your head, blinking rapidly for a few seconds. There’s the sound of a door closing, and then someone’s trying to help you stand. “I didn’t say you could leave yet. Now c’mon, I’ve got stuff for you to do.” Then she’s guiding you to her bed, making you sit down on the end. Panicked thoughts race through your mind one after another. What exactly was she intending? Thankfully you don’t have to wait long to find out. “Read through these, and-” a pause, like she hadn’t known what she was going to say until she was already speaking- “take notes. Make a summary of the bookmarked sections, or whatever.” Handing you a couple books (neither of which being ones you had just brought to her), she sits on the other side of the bed, refusing to look at you. She does, however, say one last thing, voice barely above a whisper. “Just stay for a while, okay?”

Inside your head, you make a mental note to amend your list of rules.

(4.b: Do not leave until dismissed by a member of the family. If Cassandra asks you to stay, you stay, no matter what. It’s worth it.)

#cassandra dimitrescu x reader #cassandra dimitrescu #resident evil: village #re8 village #stayed up to write this #totes worth it

[astaroth1357]

An MC Who Treats The Brothers Like a Kindergarten Teacher 

Okay, so I know I still have requests. I will get back to them right after this, but I just saw a post that gave me this idea and I had had had to get it out!! Requests will be back after this! Thank you MRS. Green Apple (my favorite band ever) and their song Present for this fun little romp of mine. 🤭

Lucifer

He is so conflicted on this it makes him wish he drank more…

On the one hand, he HATES how patronizing they can be… but even he can't deny how much progress they’ve made in his brothers. Mammon especially.

They're all actually studying more, cleaning up after themselves, doing their chores, and being polite… it's… admittedly he having an existential crisis...

This is what he's been missing this whole time?? Sticker charts?! And come on, they're all on the Student Council for Hell's sake! How could the most powerful beings in the Devildom be won over so easily by the same tactics used on human schoolchildren!?! Have some dignity!!

For the first month he just watched them whip his brothers into shape in barely concealed horror. It was so surreal...

But at about the time the MC managed to get Mammon and Levi to stop fighting and apologize for being mean to each other, he threw in the towel. Whether he liked them or not, he conceded that the human was a blessing in disguise and left most of the discipline to them from then on.

He's never been more productive in his life and he can actually get a night or two of good sleep with no interruptions... He's taken the MC out to lunch on multiple occasions and is still trying to talk Diavolo into letting them make this a permanent arrangement. They may actually get his brothers to become well-behaved demons yet...!

Mammon

Okay so, don't get it twisted. He doesn't need their stickers, or their love, or their approval, or all that positive reinforcement or anything! He's just playing along with them okay?? Okay?!

He scoffed at the whole thing at first because, look, he's no child. He's a grown-ass demon! What were little stickers of Devildom currency supposed to do for him??

But when they told him a completed chart would earn him a shopping spree outta their pocket… Well now they were talking.

He just did it at first for the big prize, but every time he finished a task the MC would be sure to notice how hard he worked and tell him he did a good job or compliment him somehow and… well… he doesn't get that a lot...

After a while he kind of forgot about filling out the chart because he would be excited to run to them and tell them what good thing he did next. Turns out this boy was starving for any kind of approval. 😖

The first time he actually finished his chart they told him how proud they were and he almost cried... Almost. He ain't that soft, okay??

Though he does mess up still, he probably makes the most progress of the House, much to everyone's disbelief. He's also super protective of his stickers and HATES when they're taken away so none of y'all better drag him into your problems, ya hear??

Leviathan 

He feels like this normie is weird even for human standards… Why do they keep offering him stickers…?

Well… They are Ruri-chan themed so he's not complaining that much.

He's not even sure where they got them from… He thought he had a pulse on every bit of merch that comes out for his favorite characters so they must had those custom ordered and that's dedication.

They told him that they'd get him a new game for every finished chart, which was nice but not necessary, he kind of just liked getting more little pictures of Ruri-chan like the collector he is. 😌

After a while, the MC started subtly theming his tasks more toward getting out of his room and being more productive... In baby steps, of course.

He'd be scared, but they were always there to praise him any time he tried. With a little bit of time, he actually started getting more confident! I mean, not a lot but hey. It's improvement.

The human even managed to get Mammon to pay him back a little bit of the money he’s owed! Well, it was literally just one night's paycheck from Hell's Kitchen but it was still more than he's seen in three centuries so he'll take it! He goes to them whenever he needs to butter up Mammon now... They’re an excellent go-between.

Satan

Ah… So the MC is well-versed in psychological manipulation… Well he refuses to fall for it.

They could offer him all the stickers they wanted, he’s going to just fall in line like his brothers! He didn't need any psychological training from them, even as the youngest he’s centuries older than they are!

But wait… are those stickers cat themed…? And is that one in a little cowboy hat??

… Touché human. He'll play nice once or twice but he doesn't need their cute stickers!

A part of him got a lot of joy out of watching Lucifer finally admit that this living nursery rhyme of a being was better at controlling his brothers than he was… Talk about a slice of humble pie, he even got it all on camera… 😏

But his brother wasn't wrong... The House has never been cleaner and everyone's grades were up, even his own. As odd as it was to say, bringing the human to the Devildom seemed to have produced a net positive all around. 🤷‍♀️

And after he discovered that the MC convinced Lucifer to let him volunteer at a human world animal shelter each time he completed a chart… Move over, Beel. He's going to finish the most charts in the House now. Just you wait.

Asmodeus 

Oh honey, he knows a thing or two about punishment and reward systems. It's going to take some pretty nice prizes for him to play this game...

Which is why his stickers get followed up by kisses.

For each new sticker, he gets to pick a spot to kiss them or for them to kiss him (though they don't let him get too pervy with it)

Finish the dishes? Get a kiss on the hand. Two hour of studying? There's one for the cheek. And so on.

The others get jealous of his deal pretty quickly and start asking for kisses too but he'll throw a fit if he ever finds out. The human's kisses are HIS prize so everyone else will just have to live with it! 😠

Asmo, drama-hog that he is, is also the biggest snitch in the House. He loooves telling the MC about when his brothers mess up and should lose stickers, Mammon especially because it make him sooo pissed.

He's also in a betting war with Satan over how many days it’ll take Belphie to actually get up and do his chores for a change... The current wager is two weeks or more.

Beelzebub 

Thought it was a little weird that the human seemed so obsessed with praising him and calling him a good boy but whatever. 

(Little did he know they were subtly using him like a role model of everybody else but that's neither here nor there 🤷‍♀️)

He doesn't mind the sticker thing because he gets them so easily. The theme seems to be: be responsible, helpful, and not a jerk which he passes with flying colors so it’s really not a challenge for him.

It was only after they told him that they'd take him out to Hell's Kitchen with each completed chart that he really got serious about it...

If you think normal Beel is sweet, actually trying to be sweet Beel is practically an angel all over again. He even stopped stealing food from other people's plates when the MC told him he could lose stickers for it… (which means that Levi can start eating breakfast for a change, at least. 🤷‍♀️)

He's long since completed five charts and is well into his sixth. It doesn't matter what it is, if food is on the line then Beel will knock it out of the park every time. If Lucifer wasn't funding their sticker project, then he honestly would have bankrupted the MC a long time ago… 😅… 😟… 😥...

Belphegor 

What the-? Did he leave his brothers for a few months and they all formed a cult or something?? Why is everyone suddenly so obsessed with stickers???

He doesn't understand the appeal at all... Do chores around the house and get a prize? What kind of game were they trying to play here?? No thanks. He'll pass.

Belphie proved pretty hard to motivate, even with prizes, so the MC had to try a different tactic…

If there's anything that can motivate Belphie, it's the promise of good sleep and cuddles. But if they made it too difficult to get and he'd just sleep by himself in pouty defiance...

So they told him that he needs to get at least two or three stickers every few days or they'll stop cuddling completely until he does. 

He didn't think they were serious at first… but any time he'd try to get his arms around them, they'd sidestep or slip out of the way like they had a sixth sense or something! What kind of superhuman reflexes do you need to keep up with human anklebiters???

It took a week for him to finally relent and join the freaky sticker cult that makes up the rest of his family... He remains self-aware enough to always point out how fucking bizarre it all is... but hey. He's too lazy to do much about it, so who cares right? 🤷‍♀️

Check out my Masterlist for more!

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me headcanons #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me belphegor #obey me beelzebub #obey me asmodeus #it just needed to happen #i have weird ideas sometimes

[advena87]

Lambert and Keira Metz after the events of Wild Hunt run a joint business in Lan Exeter. Unexpectedly, a  stranger witcher appears on their doorstep with an unusual task.

So the translation of the first chapter of my fanfic where it turns out that Aiden is alive after all.

My English is shitty, so please forgive me for mistakes. I will be grateful for feedback, both in terms of language and story. I don't know if I will translate it further, it's really difficult and exhausting for me, at the top you have a link to the Polish version.

I dedicate this translation to @gridelincarver @marbienl13 @all-my-queens If it wasn't for you, this text wouldn’t have been written, so thank you very much for motivation!

______________________________________________________

Granda

granda (polish) - rumpus, ruction, brawl, bunch but also fraud, hoax, humbug

Chapter 1

Lan Exeter was a beautiful port city, full of vivid but narrow houses and canals instead of streets. The winter capital of Kovir and Poviss, like the whole country, was favorable to sorceress and sorcerers who escaped from war-torn Redania from Radowid's witch hunters. Magicians from the Northern Kingdoms found here a safe haven, job and had great freedom in conducting their research and experiments.

Despite these many advantages Keira Metz didn’t like to live here. It was difficult for her to explain it rationally, she really couldn’t complain about anything, especially after what she went through hiding in Velen. But Lan Exeter got on her nerves. She couldn't focus here and felt something hanging in the air.

Lambert on the other hand was very pleased with the new location. Despite the fact that it was Triss Merigold, who arranged for them enter to Kovir, it was the witcher who indicated the winter capital as the right place to start their small project. He had acquaintances here, in the past he has made several large contracts for important officials. Thanks to these acquaintances, they didn’t encounter any major problems to rent a small, but well-kept tenement house not far from the city's main square. At the start they paid for it from what Lambert saved from contracts, Keira's savings went to the apparatus for the laboratory she arranged in the attic of the building. Now the sorceress has already run her own business, from which she had considerable profits and they divided expenses in half.

She couldn't complain here either. Despite his difficult character, Lambert was a resourceful and responsible man when it came to finances. He systematically searched for contracts and efficiently bargained with clients. He wasn't wasteful and basically the only thing he spent money on was weapon. As for the alchemical ingredients and components, Keira made sure he didn't run out of anything. Always taking orders for her business, she took into account the witcher's need for potions. Before they looked back, they worked out a routine for functioning and cooperation on both: private and professional grounds. And that was another thing that had been bothering her for some time.

Her relationship with Lambert was turbulent at times, but it was exemplary. The Witcher didn’t cause problems, except for the fact that he sometimes returned half-dead from work. And that was basically the only thing they could argue about. Both of them had an explosive temperament, arguments could sometimes alarm their neighbors. However, it always found its finale in bed, which didn’t diminish the amount of decibels they generated and Keira finally cast a silencing spell on their building, because tenants from behind the wall intended to report noise to the owner of the house.

Either way, her life under one roof with the witcher slowly and disturbingly began to resemble a marriage. And just thinking about it, Keira shivers. That wasn’t her ambition. She never dreamed of hiding in a charming house at the end of the world with the One. Keira wanted power and fame, constantly thinking back to the time she sat on the royal council of Temeria, she still remembered the conventions of sorcerers and the feast of the elite, where her word was sacred. That Keira Metz wore the most fashionable and provocative outfits, every night she had a different lover, drank the most expensive and exquisite wines on the Continent, and pulling the strings on the political scene of the country was her element. She had a reputation, people knew her name and felt respect for it. She wanted to create history and have fun, she wanted to taste life. Meanwhile, she was sitting in the politically neutral and boring Kovir, where no one knew who she was, she was selling her knowledge to the populace and slept with witcher.

Well, it was always a few steps better than forgotten by gods Velen, a bunch of illiterate peasants paying her with eggs and shareing bed with bugs. Not to mention the threat of burning at the stake still hanging over her then. So she knew it could always be worse. And she really couldn't say she was unhappy here, just ... it wasn't the kind of happiness she wanted. And Lambert himself was a completely unsolvable matter for her. They weren’t officially together, none of them came up with the funny idea of having a serious relationship. Lambert was supposed to help her with her research, and sex was just a nice addition for both of them. They didn’t claim any rights to each other, they didn’t swear allegiance and devotion, they just went with the flow and in some unexplained way they found themselves in this place. In a shared apartment, with shared business and shared life. Keira didn't remember when she had spent so many nights in her own bed with the same man by her side. She was beginning to fear that it had never really happened before.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a bell. In the tenement they rented, ground floor was adapted for Keira's magical business. At the front door, which was constantly open for the public, they hung a bell that signaled the arrival of a potential customer. The sorceress rose from behind the table, closed the book, which she reviewed to make a mixture ordered by one of the townsmen, and headed for the curtain separating the back room from the main part of the store.

She saw the figure next to the bookcase and thought it was Lambert for a short split second. She was fooled by two swords on his back - such characteristic accessories for her witcher. But it wasn't Lambert. The man was slightly taller, but thinner, he was standing back to her, and he had a hood on his head, but the sorceress knew her witcher too well to confuse him with someone else, she had no doubt. However, newcomer wasn’t interested in books, but in other objects based on a bookcase. Kiera shuddered a little, of all the things that were in this room, he had to choose that one.

"How can I help you?” She finally said, hoping that would surprise him and divert his attention from the things he was watching, but nothing like that happened.

The man, unmoved by her question, still with his back to her, reached into one of the hilt of two swords leaning against the bookcase. He grabbed it and pulled the blade out of the scabbard.

"It's not for sale," she said firmly, and finally got a reaction.

The stranger turned slowly toward Keira, looked her up and down, and a pair of amber cat eyes flashed from under his hood.

"Witcher,” she noted with surprise.

The man weighed the sword in his hand, ran his fingers over the carved runes. Keira didn't miss the way he was holding it. To be sure, she looked at his own swords protruding from his left arm. He was left-handed.

Lambert once told her that a left-handed swordsman is a real pain in the ass. A left-handed witcher, on the other hand, is a death sentence. Admittedly, it doesn't matter with monsters, but warriors trained in swordsmanship don't have much chance against someone like that. Regardless of school, master or experience, almost every swordsman has a dominant right hand. Even if he was born left-handed, when he enters the training he is immediately switched to the right one. Those who decide to train on the left have more difficult learning, but the advantage they gain thanks to it is huge. Left-hander is accustomed to right-handed opponents, they are his daily bread, but people relying on their right have a very difficult task fighting a mirror reflection. As a result, it was also established that a left-handed swordsman was a cheater without honor, so there were only a few schools and masters favorable to teaching left-handers on their dominant hand. Unless they want to train the assassin.

“The devil does not sleep,“ witcher read the inscription from the blade, still carefully examining the sword. ”Silver blade, witcher gear. Where did you get it from?”

"It's not for sale," she repeated and walked over to him, emphatically raising her hand, expecting that he would give her the weapon. “It belongs to my business  partner, also a witcher”.

"I see...” He smiled at her, which revealed dimples in his cheeks, but it was hard to call that smile cordial. He obediently gave her the sword and finally pulled off the hood.

Keira blinked in surprise. She may not have been an expert, but apart from Lambert, she was also dealing with his brothers from the Wolf School and that assassin of Foltest. The witchers were interesting in their own way, but it was hard to enter them into the standard canon of beauty. And the one in front of her was a little more unusual than the norm she knew.

First of all, he was redhead. She lived among the villagers long enough to know that redhead was for them a synonym of a soulless freak. So the red-headed and left-handed witcher would probably be cursed three times for them. Of course, these were only nonsense superstitions of the illiterate pleb, but someone with such qualities had to have extremely hard on the path. His appearance alone was enough for people not to trust him.

Secondly, he looked young. The Witchers in general grew old very slowly, but she has never met monster slayer who looks as young as this one. It wasn’t about the number of wrinkles, but about the youthful charm of teenage daredevil, and when he smiled, two deep dimples appeared on his cheeks. However, his cold gaze revealed that he was long after his teenage years. These eyes could see enough to look distrustful and insensitive now. Combined with this beautiful but predatory smile, he looked like a hungry shark.

Thirdly, he had no scars on his face except for one, thin as a thread that cut his lips vertically to the right and disappeared just above his chin. It was visible mainly because the witcher had a stubble on his jaw, if it weren't for it, it wouldn’t have been visible at first glance. Keira hasn’t yet met the witcher without the obvious scars that disfigure face. The only noticeable defect was the damaged right ear. The helix was clearly jagged, and although the flaw was completely healed, it seemed to be a fairly recent matter.

"Your partner left without swords?” witcher asked with a sneer, and Keira felt uncomfortable.

The tenement house was storeys, there could have been two dozen partners upstairs, but the newcomer knew she was here alone. The sorceress wasn’t particularly fearful and usually she felt more than at ease with men, but he gave her goosebumps. And not the good one.

In general, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to her that he exactly knew who was and who wasn’t around. She lived with Lambert long enough to learn that he hears from the ground floor a falling pin upstairs, but for some reason she attributed this skill only to him. Meanwhile, superhuman senses were a feature of all witchers.

"These are souvenirs," she explained and invited him to the table where she was hosting clients. Before she joined him she put the sword back into its sheath and laid it on the table. "He doesn't use them, so I wanted to hang them on the wall for decoration, but he didn't agree. And then I forgot to put them back in their place.”

"Why didn't he agree?” He asked in a tone of conversation about the weather and sat down, taking off his fingerless leather gloves.

"Like I said, these are souvenirs," she repeated, shrugging. “These have sentimental value and, as he said: ‘these aren’t ceremonial sabers to hang on the wall’."

"So neither for show nor for use," he said, looking at the weapon in front of him for a moment, then looked up at Keira, clearly stopping his gaze on her décolletage. A short grimace ran over his face, and Keira could have sworn, it was amusement. But it disappeared as quickly as it appeared, and after a moment the witcher was looking straight in her eyes, his face expressing nothing. “So much good steel is wasted. I will gladly buy them, I can offer a good price for them”.

Keira frowned. She had already told him twice that swords weren’t for sale. However, that wasn't what worried her. Not even that he was looking at her decolletage. She noted it with relief, because it was something she could deal with and finally he showed some human impulses, even if this view amused him for some reason. What she didn't like here was how quickly he decided to make a purchase. He didn't even look at the second sword!

She witnessed how Lambert bought new blades. The whole process lasted almost a month. A month of watching and comparing weapons at various craftsmen, a month of whining and fussing, and finally commissioned them to be forged. But he was still dealing with materials, because it was necessary to import a special steel alloy. It cost her witcher a lot of nerves and even more money, but he told her then that his life depends on these blades. They must be an extension of his hand, no compromises. 

And this witcher wants to buy swords that he didn't even look at properly.

Maybe he collected them, or maybe he was just stupid, it didn't matter, Keira wasn't going to sell them, even if he had a mountain of gold. These swords were important to Lambert.

"Not for sale," she repeated for the third time, this time in the tone she extinguished the royal advisers in the council, when they began to be a pain in the ass. “Please, better tell me what brings you to me. And to Lan Exeter if I can ask. The witcher in the city is quite an unusual thing.”

"From what I have found out, you live with a witcher,” he raised one eyebrow. “You are one of the last people who should be surprised.”

“That's why it's unusual. Two witchers in the capital are a crowd.“

“I must admit that this is not a coincidence. I’m looking for a partner to fulfill a big and difficult contract. A large and strong imperial manticore come along from the mountains to nearby villages. Kidnap people, slaughter cattle. Three villages funded reward.”

“So you didn't come to talk to me, but to my parner," she said, ready to end the discussion here. She couldn't take contracts on behalf of Lambert.

And it sounded really bad. Maybe the money could be good, but the manticores were extremely dangerous. If the monster flew here from the mountains, then the trip to track it down will be long and exhausting. She didn't like it at all.

“It's not just about the manticore, I also have a request to you. It is very fortunate that I find a sorceress and witcher in one place, although this is an unusual thing.“

“Maybe here in Kovir. Where I come from bards even sing ballads about the union of the witcher and sorceress. A few of my colleagues value such cooperation very much, so I decided to take their advice and enter into ... a partnership with the witcher.“

“I know master Dandelion’s ballads,” he smiled mischievously, and she had to admit that he looked attractive with that grimace on his face, even if it lifted her neck hair. For some reason, his smiles were like a bad omen for her. “And please forgive me boldness, but is your deal just business, or do you also aspire to ballad heroes?”

Keira raised an eyebrow and finally clarified what she didn’t like in this witcher. His cat's eyes were vigilant, just this how he surveyed the room and looked at her... without doubt it was a predator's gaze. A predator who just smelled a prey and was getting ready to jump. The sorceress repaid the same and finally began to analyze more closely what she saw. Neither the weapon nor the armor he wore had any distinctive school features. And most importantly and most disturbing in this all - this witcher didn’t have a medallion around his neck. And a witcher without a medallion can't use signs.

What the hell? She was beginning to conclude that everything was wrong with this stranger. And no wonder that he was looking for a partner to kill the manticore. Lonely expedition for such quarry, when you can’t use signs, is suicide.

"Interesting question," she said finally after a little too long pause. The witcher narrowed his eyes as if he sensed she was uncomfortable. “Are you asking out of professional curiosity?”

"Entirely private,” and that beautiful smile again, but this time it clearly contained a threat. Like an animal that bares its fangs before it attacks. “You're a beautiful woman. I was wondering if you want to replace a witcher.”

Keira frowned threateningly and looked at him with disdain, finally openly letting him know that she didn’t like the direction in which this conversation was going. Far more than once in her life she had to deal with not very subtle advances, and all in all, this witcher hadn't crossed any boundaries yet, but something was very wrong here. Keira never avoided men, even those not very subtle, if she was in a good mood, could count on flirting with her. This one, however, didn’t flirt. Contrary to what he just said, he wasn't interested in her, not in the way he was suggesting. His gaze was cold and calculating, but she saw no desire in it.  

“Please forgive me if I sent any wrong signals,” she announced finally icily, although she knew that she didn’t send any, and her exposed breasts, which was often interpreted in this way, mainly amused her interlocutor. “So now let me be clear, to avoid any further misunderstandings: me and my witcher are loyal to each other. Both professionally and privately. I’m flattered by your interest, but let's get back to business. My witcher would be very unhappy if he knew that we raised such a topic.”

She said this to give him a clear warning. What she meant by this was that if he has bad intentions towards her, he must take into account that she has another witcher behind her, who will deal with him if even a hair falls from her head. However, she was surprised to find that the words she said were true. She wouldn’t turn her back on Lambert, she wouldn’t betray him, even if this witcher turned out to be King Tancred himself. And she was sure Lambert wouldn’t turn his back on her either. The awareness of this alerted her more than the bizarre conversation she was having with her annoying visitor. She quickly put those thoughts out of her mind, this wasn’t the time to analyze her relationship with Lambert.

"My apologies if I offended you,” he raised his hands defensively and something changed in his posture. He became less tense and less alert. The predatory gleam from his eyes was gone too, but he didn’t seem in any way contrite or embarrassed. “I'm not looking for trouble. It just seemed to me extremely… exotic that a sorceress, a woman of scholar, of such status, was interested in a witcher. Perhaps I envied my colleague a little. You understand, we don't have a very good reputation.“

You certainly don’t, she thought.

"It depends on the school,” she finally decided to attack, she was getting tired of this game of cat and mouse. “But you don't wear the medallion. What school are you from? It is quite strange, I thought the medallion was sacred to a witcher.”

The man made a gesture as if to reach for his neck, but he immediately reflected and nipped the reflex in the bud. He winced slightly.

"That's what my assignment to you was supposed to be about," he said. “Some time ago I lost my medallion. It's hard to find a good craftsman to make a thing like this. I was hoping that the sorceress help me. I've heard a lot of good things about you, people praise your amulets and potions. In addition, you work with the witcher, which makes you, in my eyes, more qualified than the rest of the wizards in the city.“

"I have never had a similar order, I will have to ask Lambert to show me his medallion,” for the first time she mentioned her witcher's name and noticed how her interlocutor slightly twitched an eyebrow. She had to admit he surprised her with this order. She also noted how carefully he ignored the question about his school. “Also, there is no elemental circle in the area to charge it, although there is a lot of intersection in the city due to the wide network of canals and the water flowing in them ... I'll have to cast the silver, and have to order the mold from a craftsman… Either way, it'll be expensive.“

“As I mentioned, I have an eye on a big contract,” he reminded. “So I should be able to afford it. Please do a valuation, I will be able to confront it with my savings. And here we come back to the heart of my visit. When can I expect your witcher to return? I'm very keen on this cooperation. I can offer a profit split of up to 30% by 70% for the benefit of your witcher, of course, but I hope that I will get a discount on the medallion. If you have time now, we could initially set some amounts.“

The way he said "your witcher" made her think. She had deliberately emphasized this belonging beforehand in order to make him understand some things, but he made this point with scorn, lined with mockery. She couldn't help but get the feeling that what he really meant to say here was: “Where is your pet sorceress? Will you lend it to me?”, and it immediately infuriated her.

“Slow down, witcher,” she barely suppressed a hiss. “Lambert is my partner and I won't be bidding without him. We don't even know if he will be interested in this at all, so for the moment please consider the medallion issue and your manticore contract as two completely separate matters.How you will resolve the issue of splitting payments will be between the two of you. Then I will possibly consult with him if this transaction will be related to the medallion in any way.”

The witcher raised his eyebrows, his face expressive for the first time. He was surprised. And he was probably pleasantly surprised, because his gaze softened. Previously, it had lost its ferocity, now there was a gleam of sympathy in it.

“I guess I've been making a blunder again,” he said, but he didn't seem a bit too concerned about it. He looked like he was starting to have fun. “Since you are a scholarly woman, I assumed that you are the head of this business.”

“Don't you know the meaning of the word ‘partner’?” Keira was getting harder and harder to hide her anger, her service mask slowly started to fall off, she was on the verge of showing him why teasing a sorceress is a bad idea.

“Oh, I know. It even happened to me that I was called a partner,” she found his stupid smile less attractive and more irritating with each passing moment. “But witchers have a hard time in business, and we are rarely treated as equal partners. We're usually just boys for the dirty work. People value our skills but not us. For them, we are no different from rabid dogs that are unleashed in pursuit of prey, and the command is always the same: kill. Do you know what they do with a rabid dog after it does its job?”

"I can imagine," she said coldly. “And I conclude, from what I have just heard, that you don’t know the correct meaning of the word ‘partner’. You know the highly distorted meaning of this term. Generally sorry to hear all this, but I'm not a rabid dog breeder and you won't find any here. However, when it comes to my partner --”

She broke off when the witcher unexpectedly put a finger to his lips, ordering her to be silent in this non-verbal manner. She hadn't expected this, she opened her mouth to protest this blunt silencing, but realized that her interlocutor suddenly became very tense and focused. He tilted his head a little, like an animal that heard a strange noise, listened for a moment, then sighed heavily, closed his eyes and froze as if waiting for something.

Keira was amazed how his attitude completely changed in a split second. A moment earlier he had been nonchalant and self-confident, now he was sitting in front of her hunched over, evidently disturbed and anxious. Was it the same person at all?

The bell at the door rang and Keira looked away from the man in front of her to look toward the entrance. She saw Lambert in a bloody armor on the doorstep, but he moved freely, he didn't seem injured. For some time now, the sight of blood on his clothes had stopped alarming her, because it usually wasn't his.

“Are you all right?“ she asked anyway, immediately abandoning visitor and getting up from the table, heading towards Lambert.

"Yeah," he replied a bit impatiently, he looked annoyed with her concern, but Keira knew better. There was no anger in his gaze, he was glad to see her. “It's just --”

He paused as his eyes finally fell on the witcher's sitting at the table. The stranger sat with his back to the door and didn’t bother to look back and see who had just arrived. Keira understood that his earlier behavior was due to the fact that he heard Lambert approaching. Lambert must also have been aware of the client's presence before he even entered the house, but it seems that only now he noticed that it was a witcher.

"We have a visitor?” He looked at Keira, there was a question in that look: Is this a client or a threat? It seems that he sensed the tense atmosphere and the sorceress's nervousness.

"Yes, this is--" She paused mid-word, as she was about to introduce them, but she just realized that the stranger witcher hadn’t deigned to give his name. So she turned to him, this time openly irritated. “What is your name, Mr. Witcher, without school and medallion?”

The man at the table slowly straightened and stood up. He waited for an unbearably long moment to react before he turned to face them. And he looked straight at Lambert.

Everything that happened next took fractions of a second. Lambert inhaled sharply and immediately reached into his belt pouch. He took a silver orion out of there and threw it at the strange witcher, but he seemed to be waiting for it. He put his hand out in a defensive gesture, the star digging into his right hand. If he hadn't, it would have hit him in the chest, but not in any vital place.

Keira absolutely didn’t understand what was going on, but since Lambert attacked she had a defense spell on her lips, ready to stun the second monster slayer. She noticed that as Lambert made his throw, he hissed in pain, which meant he must have been injured. Keira had a firm resolve not to let him fight an opponent who was left-handed and in full strength. Unlike him.

“Easy, sorceress, he was just checking,” the red-haired witcher said, very slowly showing his hand to her with an orion in it. “This toy is silver.” After that, with a firm wave of his arm, he threw the star aside, which dug into the wooden floor at their feet, leaving a bloody streak behind it.

Keira was still holding the active spell in her clenched fist, but after this declaration she lost her vigilance. Her eyes followed the orion, then looked up at Lambert.

Her witcher after this violent reaction stared at the other man. Keira hadn’t seen such an expression on his face before. Lambert was absolutely shocked and furious.

"He's checking to see if I'm a doppler,” the stranger kept both of his hands in plain view, as if he were making a gesture to assure them he was not a threat. “I'm not,” he added softly. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have held silver in my hand. I'm bleeding so I'm not a ghost either. I can also tell the story of your commemorative swords to prove that I’m not a fraud. I know what the inscription is on the steel blade, and the sorceress knows I didn't get to see it outside the scabbard when I got here. Anyway, ask me any question yourself to test me.”

So Lambert asked: “Aiden, what actual the fuck?!”

“Aiden?” Keira looked at the stranger no less surprised than her witcher.

She knew the name, Lambert once, being heavily drunk, told her about him. She knows who Aiden is. Or who he was, because from the information she had it was clear that she was dead. Meanwhile, he was standing right in front of them, safe and sound, with puppy eyes. Now she understood why Lambert had attacked him, generally seeing someone who should be dead never bodes well. She tried to understand how this was possible, but suddenly realized something else.

First of all: Aiden knew from the beginning what he was here for. He was aware that the witcher Keira was working with was Lambert. He wanted to buy fucking swords because he knew them well - they had belonged to him before. And he was well aware that if he came at this time, he would find only the sorceress here. He came to take a look at her, test her, tease her, and mock her.

Second: Lambert has been mourning Aiden for a really long time. It could have been avoided. However, he allowed him to suffer and murder in the name of wrongs that probably didn’t take place.

In an instant she went mad and did something that neither of the two witchers apparently expected. She didn't really know when she let out the spell that hit  Aiden hard and threw him against the wall. Before he could pick himself up, she caught up with him, casting another spell. The witcher began to choke.

“Did you have fun?” she hissed furiously and raised her clenched fist with the spell upwards, as if she was pulling an invisible cord, thus forcing Aiden to look at her. His pupils were constricted to thin vertical lines, he tried desperately to gasp for air, certainly unable to answer questions. "You miscalculated my dear, you shouldn't mess with someone who might wipe the floor with you!"

"Keira!” Lambert grabbed the sorceress's wrist like a vise, Keira released the spell, and Aiden finally caught his breath. "That's enough!”

“Sorry, I got carried away,” she said weakly, trying to get her balance back. Her heart pounded like a hammer. "But he's been provoking me ever since he got here and he finally got it."

“All this violence is absolutely unnecessary,” Aiden croaked, still kneeling on the floor rubbing his neck. “Can we talk? I'll explain everything.”

"Dead people don't talk, Aiden," Lambert said in a voice that an iceberg wasn't ashamed of. He stared down at him with a mixture of anger and disbelief.

“I've always been special.” Aiden smiled brightly at him. “Come on, give me a chance.”

This smile was completely different from the one he presented Keira for the last half hour. Most of all it was sincere and gentle. He looked at Lambert with trust as if he knew he would agree, regardless of the proposal.

Lambert let out an irritated huff, leaned over, grabbed Aiden by the neck like an unruly kitten and, grimacing in pain, pulled him to his feet.

Something wrong with the right shoulder, Keira noted in her mind. It was the second time he had to use it that he showed signs of discomfort.

“I mourned you, you asshole,” Lambert growled angrily, still holding his collar. “I killed a lot of people to avenge you. You better have a fucking good explanation of this farce.”

“I’m sincerely touched by your devotion.” The smile didn’t leave Aiden's face. "And if it comforts you, you haven't killed anyone who didn't deserve it."

Lambert's eyebrow twitched dangerously. Keira thought that just a moment longer and her witcher would kill someone who definitely deserved it, and then he would regret it very much.

"Okay, that's enough." She interrupted their exchange of glances. “Let's go to the back room, sit down, talk quietly and dress your wounds. Lambert, let go of him and take it off, I want to see your arm.”

They both looked at her in surprise, but neither moved. They irritated her immediately.

“What, did I stutter?“ She huffed and gestured in the direction. “In the back, like, right fucking now. I don't need a client to come and find this scene.”

“You're letting her to boss you around?“ Aiden glanced at Lambert, one eyebrow raised in an act of ironic disbelief.

“Don't piss me off, or I'll let her finish what she started,” the other witcher  hissed in response and obediently moved to the back, dragging Aiden with him.

Keira went to the front door and locked it. It was going to be a long and stormy evening, she decided that there would be enough clients for today.

_________________________________

#witcher 3 #witcher 3 wild hunt #tw3 #post tw3 #wild hunt #post witcher 3 #witcher fanfiction #witcher fanfic #witcher lambert #lambert #witcher aiden #aiden #keira metz #lambert x aiden #lambert x keira #bisexual lambert #aiden lives #keira metz is badass #fanfiction #fanfic #Granda #fix it fic #fix it #wiedźmin #wiedźmin 3 #wiedźmin 3 dziki gon #wiedźmin fanfiction

[johnrossbowie]

LEAVING TWITTER

I wrote this earlier in the fall, before the election, after dissolving my Twitter account. I wasn’t sure where to put it (“try up your ass!” – someone, I’m sure) and then I remembered I have a tumblr I never use. Anyway, here tis.

How do you shame someone who thinks Trumps’ half-baked policies and quarter-baked messaging put him in the pantheon of great Presidents? How do you shame someone so lacking in introspection that they will call Obama arrogant while praising Trump’s decisiveness and yet at the same time vehemently deny that they’re racist? How do you shame someone for whom that racism is endearing and maybe long overdue?

You don’t. It’s silly to think otherwise.

Twitter is an addiction of mine, and true to form, my dependence on it grew more serious after I quit drinking in 2010. At first it was a chance to mouth off, make jokes both stupid and erudite and occasionally stick my foot in my mouth (I owe New Yorker writer Tad Friend an apology. He knows why, or (God willing) he’s forgotten. Either way. Sorry.) I blew off steam, steam that was accumulating without booze to dampen the flames. Not always constructive venting, but I also met new friends, and connected with people whose work I’ve admired for literal decades and ended up seeing plays with Lin-Manuel Miranda and hanging backstage with Jane Wiedlin after a Go-Go’s show and exchanging sober thoughts with Mike Doughty. When my mom passed in 2018, a lot of people reached out to tell me they were thinking of me. This was nice. For a while, Twitter was a huge help when I needed it.

I used to hate going to parties and really hated dancing and mingling, but a couple of drinks would fix that. Point is, for a while, booze was a huge help, too.

But my engagement with Twitter changed, and I started calling people my ‘friends’ even though I’d never once met them or even heard their voices. These weren’t even penpals, these were people whose jokes or stances I enjoyed, so with Arthurian benevolence I clicked on a little heart icon, liked their tweet, and assumed therefore that we had signed some sort of blood oath.

We had not. I got glib, and cheap, and a little lazy. And then to make matters much worse, Trump came along and extended his reach with the medium.

There was a while there where I thought I could be a sort of voice for the voiceless, and I thought I was doing that. I tried very hard to only contribute things that I felt were not being said – It wasn’t accomplishing anything to notice “Haha Trump looks like he’s bullshitting his way through an oral report” – such things were self-evident. I tried to point out very specific inconsistencies in his policies, like the Muslim ban meant to curb terrorism that still favored the country that brought forth 13 of the 9/11 hijackers. Like his full-throated cries against media bias performed while he suckled at Roger Ailes’ wrinkly teat.  Like his fondness for evangelical votes that coincided with a scriptural knowledge that lagged far behind mine, even though I’m a lapsed Episcopalian, and there is no one less religiously observant than a lapsed Episcopalian. But that eventually gave way to unleashing ad hominem attacks against his higher profile supporters, who I felt weren’t being questioned enough, who I felt were in turn being fawned over by theirdim supporters. If you’re one of these guys, and you think I’m talking about you, you’re probably right, but don’t mistake this for an apology. You suck, and you support someone who sucks, and your idolatry is hurting our country and its standing in the world. Fuck you entirely, but that’s not the point. The point is that me screaming into the toilet of Twitter helps no one – it doesn’t help a family stuck at the border because they’re trying to secure a better life for their kids. It doesn’t help a poor teenager who can’t get an abortion because the party of ‘small government’ has squeezed their tiny jurisdiction into her uterus. It doesn’t help the coal miner who’s staking all his hopes on a dying industry and a President’s empty promises to resurrect it. I was born in New York City, and I currently live in Los Angeles. Those are the only two places I’ve ever lived, if you don’t count the 4 years I spent in Ithaca[1]. So, yes, I live in a liberal bubble, and while I’ve driven across the country a couple of times and did a few weeks in a touring band and am as crushed as any heartlander about the demise of Waffle House, you have me dead to rights if you call me a coastal elitist. And with that in mind, I offer few surprises. A guy who grew up in the theater district and was vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage or felt you should own an AR-15? THAT would be newsworthy. I am not newsworthy. I can preach to the choir, I can confirm people’s biases, but I will likely not sway anyone who is eager to dismiss a Native New Yorker who lives in Hollywood. I grew up in the New York of the 1970s, and that part of my identity did shape my politics. My mom’s boss was gay and the Son of Sam posed a realistic threat. As such, gays are job creators[2] and guns are used for homicide much more often than they are used for self-defense[3]. I have found this to be generally true over the years, and there’s even data to back it up.

“But Mr. Bowie,” you might say, though I insist you call me John - “those studies are conducted by elitist institutions and those institutions suck!” And again, I am not going to reason with people who will dismiss anything that doesn’t fit their limited world view as elitist or, God Help Us, fake news. But the studies above are peer-reviewed, convincing, and there are more where those came from.

“But John,” you might say, and I am soothed that we’re one a first name basis - “Can’t you just stay on Twitter for the jokes?” Ugh. A) apparently not and B) the jokes are few and far between, and I am 100% part of that problem.

I have stuff to offer, but Twitter is not the place from which to offer it.

After years of academically understanding that Twitter is not the real world, Super Tuesday 2020 made the abstract pretty fucking concrete. If you had looked at my feed on the Monday beforehand – my feed which is admittedly curated towards the left, but not monolithic (Hi, Rich Lowry!) – you’d have felt that a solid Bernie surge was imminent, but also that your candidate was going surprise her more vocal critics. When the Biden sweep swept, when Bernie was diminished and when Warren was defeated, I realized that Twitter is not only not the real world, it’s almost some sort of Phillip K. Dickian alternate timeline, untethered to anything we’re actually experiencing in our day to day life. This is both good news and bad news – one, we’re not heading towards a utopia of single payer health care and the eradication of American medical debt any time soon, but two, we’re also not being increasingly governed by diaper-clad jungen like Charlie Kirk. Clouds and their linings. Leaving Twitter may look like ceding ground to the assclowns but get this – the ground. Is not. There.

It’s just air.

There are tangible things I can do with my time - volunteer with a local organization called Food On Foot, who provide food and job training for people experiencing homelessness here in my adopted Los Angeles. I can give money to candidates and causes I support, and I can occasionally even drop by social media to boost a project or an issue and then vanish, like a sort of Caucasian Zorro who doesn’t read his mentions. I can also model good behavior for my kids (ages 10 and 13) who don’t need to see their father glued to his phone, arguing about Trumps incompetence with Constitutional scholars who have a misspelled Bible verse in their bio (three s’ in Ecclesiastes, folks).

So farewell Twitter. I’ll miss a lot of you. Perhaps not as badly as I miss Simon Maloy and Roger Ebert and Harris Wittels and others whose deaths created an unfillable void on the platform. But I won’t miss the yelling, and the lionization of poor grammar, and anonymous trolls telling my Jewish friends that they were gonna leave the country “via chimney.” I will not miss people who think Trump is a stable genius calling me a “fucktard.” I will not miss transphobia or cancelling but I will miss hashtag games, particularly my stellar work during #mypunkmusical (Probably should have quit after that surge, I was on fire that night, real blaze of glory stuff I mean, Christ, Sunday in the Park with the Germs? Husker Du I Hear A Waltz? Fiddler on the Roof (keeping an eye out for the cops)? These are Pulitzer contenders.). Twitter makes me feel lousy, even when I’m right, and I’m often right. There’s just no point in barking bumperstickers at each other, and there are people who are speaking truth to power and doing a cleaner job of it – Aaron Rupar, Steven Pasquale, Louise Mensch, Imani Gandy and Ijeoma Oluo to name five solid mostly politically based accounts (Yes, Pasquale is a Broadway tenor. He’s also a tenacious lefty with good points and research and a dreamy voice. You think you’re straight and then you hear him sing anything from Bridges of Madison County and you want him to spoon you.). You’re probably already following those mentioned, but on the off chance you’re not, get to it. You’ll thank me, but you won’t be able to unless you actually have my email.

_______

[1] And Jesus, that’s worse – Ithaca is such a lefty enclave that they had an actual socialist mayor FOR WHOM I VOTED while I was there. And not socialist the way some people think all Democrats are socialist – I mean Ben Nichols actually ran on the socialist ticket and was re-elected twice for a total of six years.

[2] The National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, “America’s LGBT Economy” Jan 20th, 2017

[3] The Violence Policy Institute, Firearm Justifiable Homicides and Non-Fatal Self Defense Gun Use, July 2019.

[bevioletskies]

signed, sealed, delivered (i’m yours) [2/3]

summary: “Did you know Mister Peter has a big crush on you?”

“That’s not - that’s hardly appropriate conversation for the classroom, Clementine,” Gamora scolded. She paused. “When did you hear that?”

“Yesterday in his music class, when he told us,” Clementine said cheerfully.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean it like - ”

“He said, ‘I think Miss Gamora is real smart and cool and pretty and I like her a whole lot. Do you think she likes me, too?’. We said we weren’t sure,” Clementine continued, oblivious to Gamora’s incredulous expression. “I mean, you yelled at him real loud last week when he accidentally broke your pencil sharpener. But I think he did it ‘cos he wanted to talk to you.”

word count: 8k

a/n: Fic title is from the song Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours) by Stevie Wonder.

ao3 | tag

Mantis quirked an eyebrow at the sights and sounds of her brother practically skipping into the kitchen, whistling cheerfully. “You seem to be in a very good mood this morning. Does it have anything to do with last night’s party?”

“You know I like to entertain,” Peter grinned, pouring himself a fresh cup of coffee and leaning against the kitchen counter. “You enjoy yourself?”

“Of course. But I want to talk more about you,” Mantis said slyly. “You spent over an hour with Gamora on the balcony. I saw you go upstairs with her, you know. At first, I thought it was for something else, but I did not think she would - ”

“Mantis!” Peter exclaimed, mildly scandalized. “I would never - ” she made a face “ - yeah, okay, you have a point. But no, it’s not like that.”

“Except I have never seen you grow so attached to someone so quickly before,” Mantis shrugged. “And you feel...excited. Like you are anticipating something.”

“She offered to look over my lesson plan when we go back to work on Monday,” Peter replied innocently. “C’mon now, I don’t got ulterior motives.”

“But you do like her,” Mantis insisted, tapping her finger against her temple. “You can’t lie to me, Peter.”

“We just...we talked about a lot of stuff. Felt like we both really needed a new perspective.” He smiled, shaking himself. “Anyways, what’re we doing today, other than cleaning all the crap people left around here?”

Come Monday morning, Peter was practically vibrating with nervous excitement as he approached Gamora’s classroom during his free period. He couldn’t help himself; there was something so inexplicably magnetic about her that made him crave her approval, her attention, not to mention the very strange and morbid thing they had in common, something that made him feel closer to her than he otherwise would. He could only hope that, in some small way, she reciprocated.

He knocked on her doorframe, peering inside the room where the kids were currently working quietly at their desks, poring over their textbooks. Many heads immediately shot up at the sound, and they all perked up at the sight of him. “Mister Peter!” several of them chorused happily.

“You’re bein’ nice to Miss Gamora, I hope,” Peter said half-sternly, wagging his finger at them. They burst into mischievous giggles.

“I’ve already given three detentions today,” Gamora said without looking up from her desk.

“It’s not even noon,” Peter said incredulously. “What’ve you kids been doing?”

Before any of them could respond, though, Gamora quickly stood and grabbed Peter by the wrist, yanking him out of the room. “Can we talk outside? Please?” A chorus of “ooh”s followed them out the door like they were doing something particularly scandalous.

Once they were in the hall, Peter furrowed his brow at her in worry. “You said I could drop by, right? I didn’t imagine that?”

“They have detention for asking me about the party. Did you say something about me being at your house this weekend?” Gamora demanded, folding her arms across her chest.

“I - well, yeah, I passed some of ‘em in the hall, they asked me what I did this weekend and I told ‘em. All I said was that I had a housewarming thing and I invited the other teachers,” he protested.

“We still need to keep our distance professionally, Peter, we can’t just let these children know every intimate detail of our lives,” she said, groaning.

“I didn’t think telling a couple of kids that having the faculty over for dinner at our place was a big deal,” he replied. “It’s not like I told them about anything we talked about. I didn’t even mention you specifically!”

“Just...be careful, okay?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “There are still people out there, looking for me and Nebula. If the wrong person heard about us, puts the pieces together...the consequences could affect far more than just us.” She straightened up, brushing away nonexistent lint from her pants. “Besides, I’m fine with them thinking we’re friends, for the most part. But I don’t want them to get the wrong idea.”

“The wrong idea being…?” Peter smirked.

“Don’t bait me, Peter, it doesn’t work,” Gamora said cooly, though she gestured for him to follow her back inside. “Pull up a chair and I’ll look at your lesson plan.”

“You got it, Miss Gamora,” he said with a wink.

From then on, they had an amicable, if a little unpredictable friendship in the works as the semester progressed. Gamora was wholly unemotional at times, especially when they were at work. They would chat at a polite distance in the teacher’s lounge, have professional back-and-forths during meetings, and she was definitely most reserved whenever students were around, though for good reason. Peter could tell underneath her acerbic demeanor, she was still looking over her shoulder for someone or something that could hurt her or her sister. At least Peter knew that he and Mantis, for the most part, were unambiguously safe.

When they were alone outside of work, which admittedly wasn’t very often, she seemed more relaxed, more prone to witticisms and biting remarks that made Peter laugh. Mantis helped, too, often inviting Gamora and Nebula over for dinner every now and then, preparing a hearty meal and indulgent dessert in contrast to their otherwise strict maintenance diets. Nebula would say practically nothing, even managed to wiggle her way out of joining them sometimes, but from what Peter could tell, it was real progress for her.

“Man, it’s really comin’ down hard out there,” Peter said one December morning as he trudged into the teacher’s lounge, shaking snow out of every crease in his coat and pants. “Surprised we still have to come into work. I bet half the school’s gonna be empty this week.”

“I’m sure most have already left on vacation,” Gamora replied, briefly glancing at him in greeting. “Mantis tells me you have plans for the students before we’re out for the year.”

“Yeah, I was thinkin’ of incorporating some Terran holidays around here, maybe see if there’s traditions from other cultures we could add to the school calendar.” He plucked the year-at-a-glance calendar from the bulletin board by the door and sat across from her, his eyes scanning over it intently. His feet went up on the table; she promptly swatted him away. “I mean, we don’t got much here other than sports games and career day. We gotta get these kids more involved.”

“They already detest the idea of being in school, we don’t need to prolong the experience,” she countered.

“Which is why we need to make it more fun,” he insisted. “Events, games, contests, whatever it takes. Something real memorable.”

She looked at him curiously. “Was your mother a teacher?”

He paused, lowering the calendar away from his face to look at her. “No, she was a nurse, why?”

“You’re just very...passionate about all this. Making school not just a place, but an experience,” she commented. “I just thought it might have come from her influence since you speak so fondly of her.”

“I guess she sorta does, in her own way. She used to invent all sorts of games to keep patients from thinkin’ about their problems, even for just a little while,” he smiled. “My mom was - or, still is - the most important person in my life. I wanna honor the planet we lived on together, the place that I came from. And we’ve got such a diverse student body here, all walks of life. It’d be a waste not to at least give ‘em a shot at feeling like they’re home, too.” He brightened. “What about yours?”

Gamora inhaled sharply. “Thanos...he didn’t just kill my parents. He destroyed the entire planet. Whatever is left of my culture remains in the records. I have no recollection of our traditions, personally. I was too young to hold on to them, too vulnerable and impressionable to remember.”

“Oh...geez, Gamora, I’m so sorry,” Peter said sadly, his shoulders slumping. “Mantis is sorta like that, too. She knows way more about Ravager culture than anything about her home planet. Hell, it always takes her a second just to remember its name. Me, I’m kind of a blend of both. Not the Celestial crap, but I got some of that Ravager blood at heart, y’know?”

“Roguish, unrefined, arrogant? I see it.” She smirked weakly over the rim of her coffee mug, still affected by her memories.

“Hey,” he chuckled. “Also, that reminds me - I never asked you about what happened after you got picked up by the Nova Corps.”

“This isn’t the time or place for that kind of discussion, Peter.” She got to her feet, moving to leave the room. He inwardly cursed himself for asking - though he’d mostly gotten used to conversations with her, it sometimes still felt like he was feeling around for an explosive, and didn’t have the foresight to know he’d gotten there until it was too late.

“Will you help me plan something, though?” he called after her, relieved to see her pause in the doorway. “Don’t have to be big, just somethin’ special. For the kids.”

She did a quarter-turn, her expression decidedly neutral. “Fine, as long as it doesn’t take too much of my time. I’m assuming you’ve recruited Mantis as well?”

“Gotta get the dream team together!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air in celebration. “This is gonna be great, you’ll see.” ______

As expected, Mantis immediately went into a high-energy frenzy the moment Gamora mentioned Peter’s idea offhand during their lunch break, her eyes bugging out of her head almost comically at the word ‘party’. Gamora was mildly concerned she was about to burst a vein. “We will give them a winter break send-off they will never forget!” she had declared.

Gamora didn’t return home until late into the evening since Peter and Mantis managed to convince her to stay behind to talk about their ideas (and they were certainly full of them). She set the take-out bag on the kitchen table, glancing around curiously at the utter silence. “Nebula?” she called. “I brought dinner.”

“You’re late.” Nebula emerged from a shadowy corner in the sitting room, her head bowed.

Gamora frowned. “I texted you, didn’t I?”

“It was just an observation,” Nebula said defensively, plopping down into a chair without much grace. “You spend nearly every waking hour in their presence instead of leaving that place the moment you can. You seem to actually like them.”

“They seem like honest people. We don’t get much of that, being who we are.” Gamora began pulling out cutlery from the kitchen drawer, pausing in realization of what Nebula was actually trying to get at. “Is there a problem?”

“You trust people far too easily, sister,” Nebula said, slouching back. “Someday, it will be too late.”

“And they say I’m dramatic,” Gamora snorted, moving to join her sister at the table. “Do you feel I’ve been avoiding you in favor of their company? Is that what this is about?”

“Don’t bother psychoanalyzing me, you won’t find anything of interest,” Nebula drawled. “You know I’m content to be home by myself. I prefer it.”

“So you’d rather live a life of complacency? That doesn’t sound like the sister I grew up with.” Gamora absentmindedly stirred her food, staring down at her plate without really wanting to eat; her appetite had rapidly declined. “I can tell you worry about me, about us. I worry about you, too.”

“Really? That’s a surprise to me,” Nebula said bitterly, stabbing her fork downwards, making an awful scre-e-ech across the surface of her plate. “You either shadow my every move or leave me behind when it’s convenient. It’s about time you pick one.”

“Then I choose to be a good sister...maybe even a friend,” Gamora murmured. “I just want you to be happy, Nebula, and I don’t think you can be truly content until you’ve found your purpose.”

“My purpose was to kill for him. Then we killed him. There is nothing left for me. No purpose to fulfill, no master to serve. So just drop it,” Nebula hissed.

“I don’t believe that,” Gamora said, vehemently shaking her head. “I’m not saying you need to work, the Nova Corps compensate us generously for our troubles. But there has to be more than you just sitting in your room, day and night.”

“Just because you’ve decided to become a social creature, it doesn’t mean I have to.” Nebula stood abruptly, snatching up her plate. “If you insist on continuing this inane conversation, I’m leaving.”

“Nebula - ” But she was already gone, stomping up the stairs with all the attitude and dramatics of a teenager who didn’t get her way. Gamora sighed, running her fingers agitatedly through her hair as she took her first bite of her now-cold dinner. It was an awful train of thought, but she couldn’t help but think that this - this back-and-forth, this animosity - was exactly why she spent more time away from home. No, not home. Just a house that they happened to live in.

She kept quiet about her issues with Nebula over the rest of the week while she, Peter, and Mantis continued to work on planning the festivities for the last school day before winter break. Then came Thursday night, and Gamora found herself sprawled across Peter and Mantis’s living room floor, a soft song crooning in the background while she painted some banners despite her lack of artistic ability. “How do I let you two keep talking me into these things?” she muttered, mostly to herself.

“We were just too charming and you couldn’t help yourself,” Peter said with a wink, walking in with a bowl of snacks. “Too bad Nebula didn’t wanna join in, we could use an extra set of hands.”

“Nebula doesn’t exactly...help.” Gamora hastily straightened up.

“You said she does not do much of anything.” Mantis entered the room next, also hauling an entire tray of food that made Gamora’s stomach hurt just thinking about it. “How does she not get bored all the time?”

“Boredom is a comfort for us. Boredom is far more preferable compared to what we’d suffered before,” Gamora said. She had told Mantis the story she’d told Peter not too long after their housewarming party. “You must have felt the same way after...your incident.”

“I suppose,” Mantis said quietly, sinking down beside her. “But I like to distract myself after bad things happen. Then I do not have to think about the bad thing as much. Then, eventually, I do not think about it at all.”

Gamora glanced at Peter, who merely shrugged. “Music does that for me,” he added. “It’s all I had when my mom was in the hospital, and it’s all I got left of her.”

“You have your memories,” Gamora suggested before she could stop herself. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” She gestured around the room at the multitude of decorations, activities, and the like they had prepared in anticipation of the following day.

“Yeah, but...I dunno. It’s not like it’s gonna bring her back.” Peter smiled tightly, getting to his feet. “I’m gonna go grab more stuff from my room.” Mantis’s gaze followed him worriedly up the stairs, turning back to Gamora with a melancholic smile on her face.

“It is so nice to have you here with us,” she said. “When we first met, I did not think we would come this far.”

“Neither did I.” Gamora picked at the lettering on the paintbrush, thinking back to her conversation with Nebula. “You were so persistent about it, I was...suspicious, almost. But now...I appreciate that about you both. Your tenacity.”

“We enjoy having you around,” Mantis said simply, though she smirked as she said it. “I think Peter is especially glad for it.”

“You’re both insinuating something that isn’t happening,” Gamora frowned, curling her legs up underneath her. “I know nothing of his history, but I don’t care to. Not when mine isn’t exactly...happy.”

“Oh,” Mantis said, brow furrowing. “What happened?”

Gamora turned away fully to dip her brush into the clear glass of water, watching intently as the colors swirled about, washing out of the bristles. “Let’s get back to work.” ______

The kids whispered excitedly to one another as they filed into their respective classrooms after the first bell, the chattering growing increasingly louder and louder until Gamora had to scold them into respectful silence. It was hard to get too mad at their enthusiasm, though, since the school had been transformed into something unlike anything they’d seen before - there was a banner hung across the front doors proclaiming the building to be a winter wonderland, paper-cut snowflakes taped up in every windows and illuminated with string lights, the red-and-gold ribbons twisting their way along the walls and pinned to the perimeters of every bulletin board. There was garland framing every doorway, jazzy music crooning through the building’s audio system, and fake snow artfully placed on the floor of every hallway (something that Yondu wasn’t fond of, given the startled shout and subsequent undeserved lecture he gave the janitor upon his arrival that morning). Last but not least, every student was given a name tag sticker of a holly branch and a small candy packet, with a promise that there were even more surprises inside.

“What’s going on, Miss Gamora?” one of the students asked, bouncing up and down in his chair. “Are we havin’ a party?”

“Of a kind. Now sit down,” Gamora ordered.

Then Peter’s voice crackled in through the speakers, startling the children. “Can we have everyone come down to the gym right now? We’ve got an awesome surprise for you!” Almost immediately, the entire class jumped out of their seats and went sprinting for the door, Gamora’s shouts of protest falling on deaf ears. She silently cursed Peter - and herself for enabling him - before following her students, trying her best to keep the chaos to a minimum as everyone poured out of their classrooms and into the hallway.

When she entered the gymnasium, she spotted him at the far end from the entrance, her heart drumming a little faster in her chest. She was oddly nervous about the ordeal, having never done something so...involved before. By contrast, Peter looked like he was in his element, waving his arms enthusiastically, urging everyone to come closer.

The students oohed and ahhed over the sight before them - tables covered in spreads of breakfast foods from all kinds of cultures, ranging from Terran classics like eggs in a variety of styles and generously thick slabs of toast, to hearty stews, cold noodles, and everything else in between. By Peter, there were tall stacks of plates and trays of cutlery, waiting for everyone to dig in.

Gamora joined him to help supervise, knowing he wouldn’t reprimand children who cut or shoved in line the way she did. “How early did you get here?”

“You could say I haven’t slept,” Peter admitted with a far too casual laugh. “Go grab a plate, I got this.” She frowned at his dismissal, moving quickly to get herself some food before returning with a defiant glare. “Man, now you’re temptin’ me.”

“What?”

“The food. Why, what’d you think I was talking about?” She wanted to wipe the smug look off his face, but her hands were too full.

“Communal eating isn’t common in all cultures,” she commented instead, her gaze traveling across the gymnasium, watching students point out dishes they’d recognized to their classmates, sitting together in large groups to socialize. “But looking at this...you would never know it.”

“Was that something your family did?” he asked.

She smiled sadly. “Hunger was commonplace on my planet. It was considered impolite to gather around a table if only one person could eat that day. In my family, that person was usually me.”

“Oh.” Peter bowed his head, unsure of what to say. It always seemed to happen whenever Gamora became oddly self-reflective for someone who claimed to keep her cards close to her chest. “So your parents…”

“I was their only child. We didn’t have much of an extended family, so if we only had enough food for one person, it went to me. Sometimes I could still feel my belly ache afterward, my head spin, but there was no use in complaining. I was grateful that they did such a thing, regardless.” She swallowed. “There are some students who still experience that now, you know. Maybe...we could make communal breakfast a permanent installation here.”

“We should,” Peter nodded, his eyes following one particularly gaunt-looking boy who was stuffing pieces of bread into the pockets of his bookbag. “And hey, this whole thing, all the stuff we got planned for today, it wouldn’t’ve happened without you. So...thanks, Gamora.”

“These ideas were yours and Mantis’s, I was just a helping hand,” Gamora protested, though her face warmed somewhat with pride.

“I just mean...look, I know what everyone thinks when they see me. That I’m just a kid who don’t got much ambition, just kinda goes around doing whatever he feels like. Right?” Gamora nodded slowly, albeit guiltily. “It’s sorta...true. I wasn’t great at studying, ‘applying’ myself, all that crap they tell you to do in college. I dicked around for a while, I was kind of an asshole when I was a teenager. But I’d like to think I’ve moved past that stuff ‘cos of the good influences I had in my life. My mom, Mantis...and you’ve been a big help, too.”

“With what?”

“With giving a shit.” He laughed. “I know, it sounds dumb. We’ve only known each other for four months, but I learned a lot about how to be a teacher...maybe even how to be a friend. I dunno, I guess I just wanted to say that I’m glad to have you around.”

She could feel her throat stick, though she suspected it wasn’t because of the food. “You really shouldn’t be.”

“Gamora, wait - ” And just like that, she vanished into the crowd.

The rest of the day’s activities went by relatively smoothly, though Peter could feel discomfort brewing in his stomach from his conversation with Gamora. He led a holiday sing-along in all sorts of languages (most of which he was admittedly terrible at) in his classroom, went into the art studio to watch Mantis show students how to make paper-cut snowflakes and douse them in unhealthy amounts of paint and glitter, and even swung by to see Rocket and Groot, two teachers he hadn’t spent much time with until relatively recently, attempting to teach the children how to make cookies.

“This is undignified. We teach science and math, for god’s sake,” Rocket complained once they had sent the kids on their way, Groot watching them carefully to make sure they didn’t burn or cut themselves in the process. “I got years of engineerin’ experience and here I am, doin’ a baking tutorial for a buncha ten-year-olds!”

“You never know, these guys could be future engineers,” Peter pointed out. “You could have a whole room full of geniuses!”

Rocket side-eyed him. “These idiots can barely tell the difference between a gas and a liquid.”

“They’re kids,” Peter exclaimed. “C’mon, Rocket, give ‘em a break. How’d you end up here, anyways?”

“Started off as community service for some of the bad shit me and Groot did when was younger,” Rocket said. “We were TAs at first. Then Groot got too attached to the kids, and, well...where he goes, I go. So we both got certified, and bam - been stuck here ever since.”

They watched in amicable silence while Groot gently patted the heads of every student who managed to roll their cookie dough into decent-sized balls, ready to be placed on the baking sheet. Peter smiled. “I can’t imagine Groot doing anything wrong in his entire life.”

“Decided to be friends with me. That’s when it all went sideways,” Rocket snorted, though something about his tone told Peter it wasn’t entirely a joke. “But you’re right. He’s good. He’s right where he belongs.” Groot looked over at them like he’d heard his name, smiling and waving cheerfully like they hadn’t seen in each other in ages. Peter and Rocket automatically waved back, Rocket scoffing with unmistakable fondness. “Anyways, how’s it goin’ for you, Quill? Did the brats break you in yet?”

“Not exactly the life I pictured living when I was a kid, but I’m liking how it’s going so far,” Peter shrugged. “I got my family, I got my music, I got enough money to live the life I wanna live...what else do I need?”

“More ambition, for one thing,” Rocket said, shaking his head. “You gotta think bigger, Quill! You don’t at least want more cash?”

“I’m good where I am. Aren’t you?” Peter countered.

Rocket sighed, his ears drooping as he did. “Yeah, who am I kiddin’. Who else is gonna hire me n’ Groot, anyways? We’re not exactly model employees. We ain’t model anything.”

“You’re decent teachers,” Peter offered. He smirked. “Or at least Groot is.”

“You’re an asshole, Quill, y’know that?” Rocket laughed without any real heat to it. A few students nearby gasped at his language. “Yeah, yeah, don’t tell the admin I said that, kids. I already got Kraglin on my tail for tinkerin’ with Ol’ Blue’s ship last month.”

Peter paused. “That was you? Yondu thought it was one of the older students!”

“Oh, man, what was the look on his face when he saw what I did to the engine?” Rocket was genuinely elated in a way Peter had never seen before, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. “Did he start screamin’, like when his voice gets all hoarse and that vein in his neck starts pulsing - ”

“I think you might be the real asshole around here,” Peter said, shaking his head.

“You’re not gonna tell ‘im, right?”

Peter looked down at Rocket then, an honest, earnest expression on his face that betrayed his usual crass demeanor. “Nah. You owe me, though.”

“Thanks, Quill,” Rocket said, relieved. “Hey, so what’s up with you and Gamora? You seemed okay until this morning. Saw her run off like you told her you were diseased or somethin’.”

“She gets weird about feelings, I guess. All I said was that I was glad to know her,” Peter sighed. “Didn’t think it’d be a big deal. Guess I was wrong.”

“Aw, you’re such a sap,” Rocket teased. “Gamora ain’t the type to get touchy-feely, never was. The fact you and your sister managed to get her to say more than ‘don’t do that’ and ‘listen to me’ is a damn miracle.”

“I don’t wanna make her uncomfortable or nothin’.” Peter glanced briefly at the door, wondering if it would be too late to drop by and apologize before the day was over. “I was just hoping...I dunno.”

“Go talk to her, then,” Rocket insisted. “Though if you manage to piss her off even more…” He trailed off with a horrified shudder.

“Yeah, I…I should do that.”

Peter left for her classroom a few minutes later - he had briefly stayed behind to help out with a student who had almost set Groot on fire somehow, resulting in the usual panicked chaos that was commonplace for Rocket and Groot’s joint classes - wondering what he could even say that wouldn’t make everything worse. He was so lost in thought he barely noticed her standing in the doorway when he walked right into it, or more accurately, walked into her.

“Peter,” she growled.

“Hey, fancy meeting you here,” he grinned, wiggling his eyebrows. The kids pointed and giggled. It was then that Gamora felt a cold sweat of dread break out across her forehead, her head slowly tilting upwards to see the mistletoe hanging above them.

“What is its purpose?” she had asked him last night as they were organizing the decorations.

“It encourages the people under it to kiss,” he had replied with a salacious smile.

“That sounds like a horribly antiquated tradition. We aren’t going to have it, especially when they’re just children,” she had protested.

“I don’t have time for your nonsense, Peter, especially not now,” Gamora hissed under her breath, glancing warily over her shoulder at the wide-eyed children.

“Wait, can we at least talk about earlier? Before we don’t see each other for two weeks?”

“There is nothing to talk about,” she said coolly. “And I heard Rocket was having troubles in his lab, so if you’ll let me by - ”

“I just came from there, he’s fine, Groot only got a little burnt,” Peter said, waving it off. “Come by my room before you leave, okay? I’d hate for you to be mad at me.” Behind her, the class crooned with delighted approval.

“This is exactly what I was talking about, Peter,” Gamora whispered, taking a step back so he would do the same. “And no.” With that, she firmly shut the door in his face. ______

Peter took what felt like his tenth lap around his empty classroom, hooking his fingers through the cabinet door handles along the way and rattling them to make sure they were locked, even though he’d done it three times already. His eyes roamed the rest of the room - clean whiteboard, chairs stacked neatly by the door, his bag sitting underneath the window, waiting for him to pick it up and go home.

“Mister Peter?” A timid voice came from the doorway. He turned on his heel to see Clementine, one of his fifth-graders, worrying at the shoulder strap of her bag fretfully.

“Hey, Clementine. You alright?” He gestured for her to come in. She took a few tentative steps toward him, her smile shy.

“I wanted to say thank you for the food,” she mumbled. “I know me n’ some of the others don’t have much where we’re from.”

“Where are you from?” He settled down on the raised steps, patting the spot beside him for her to sit. She complied, her head lowered so he couldn’t see her face.

“Foster home,” she said. “They treat me well and try to get me new clothes and toys, but they haven’t been doing so good at work lately, so there’s not a lot of money for anything.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Peter said gently. “If you need food, or if your shoes start to feel too tight, or you don’t have new pencils, you come to me, okay?”

“I’m not asking for help,” she insisted. “I just think...maybe we can have breakfast at school be a regular thing. For kids like me.”

“Yeah?” He smiled. “You know what, I was thinking the same thing. This might not be the best school on Xandar, but we still have some money set aside for situations just like this. I bet I can convince Principal Yondu to make it happen.”

“Thank you,” Clementine breathed, her large ice-blue eyes, unsettling at times, now softening with warmth. “I’m so glad you’re here, Mister Peter. I never thought much about music until you told us all those stories about your mom. And now, it’s sort of my favorite class.”

“That’s amazing, Clementine,” Peter grinned. “Glad I could change your mind. You remember your break assignment, right?”

“Find a song that makes me happy,” she recited, smiling brightly. She got to her feet, standing straighter than she had been before. “I’ll see you after break, Mister Peter!”

“You got it!” He waved as she skipped off with an invigorated bunce in her step. It was then that he noticed Gamora leaning in the doorway. “You always like to creep outside my room, don’t you?”

“Only when I’ve wronged you...when I need to apologize for what I’ve said and done. It’s not something I expected to happen so often,” she admitted, walking over to take Clementine’s spot beside him. “I shouldn’t let my impulse take precedence over my rationale. You were trying to be kind, and all I could think of was all the false niceties I’d been fed before. I suppose that’s where we differ the most.”

“What d’you mean?” He stared down at his hands, unsure of where to look.

“There are certain...concepts, I think, that we take to very differently.” Gamora smiled tightly. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to fight against what those six years had done to me, had expected of me. That I would become cold, distrustful, full of vitriol and spite. Then...it happened anyway. Those expectations, they dictated everything about me.”

“And me?”

“You defied your tragedies, recovered from them. You think yourself charming, romantic, sentimental - the hero of whatever story you’re trying to tell. And you have your issues, too, but they don’t exist in the forefront of your being. Not like mine. This...this isn’t me trying to say you haven’t suffered, or that my suffering justifies my behavior, but that this isn’t some magical moment in which we both find whatever it is we’re looking for. We aren’t going to be able to solve each other’s problems, just like that.”

Peter swallowed, sinking a little into himself. “You’re perceptive, y’know that?”

“I prefer ‘analytical’,” she said, straightening up. “Do you understand what I’m trying to get at, Peter?”

“The way I see it, you like to over-complicate things. And I like to over-simplify ‘em,” he shrugged, turning to look at her. “You find a million reasons why something won’t work. I just need one reason that it will.”

“There was a...language teacher here before. He had a talent for all sorts of topics - grammar, poetry, short stories, the like. But he had a particular affinity for analytical reading,” Gamora murmured. “We were...involved. He loved to tell me how I would read as a character in a story - the tragic heroine who overcame her past. But he was wrong. I never did. I still relive it, over and over again. It was his misunderstanding of me that ultimately ended our relationship.”

“Okay, I get it, I won’t try to put labels on you,” Peter muttered. “I mean, what do I know?”

“You’re more accurate than he ever was, actually.” Gamora shot him a small smile. “I like being friends with you and Mantis. It’s a comfort compared to every other relationship I’ve had in my life. But that doesn’t mean we need to fundamentally change each other’s lives to be...important.”

“Important, hey?” He cracked a smile of his own. “All that to say that I’m important to you?”

“Peter - ”

“I got it,” he nodded, the knot in his stomach slowly untwisting. If anything, he could appreciate her bluntness, though he was a little disheartened. “For what it’s worth, sorry if it felt like I was pressurin’ you to be anything, really. Holidays make me weirdly sentimental.”

“Speaking of…” Gamora got to her feet, gesturing towards the door. “If you’re ready to go, I have a few ideas for some events we could have in the new year that I could leave you with on the way out.”

He grinned, standing as well. “Walk with me.” ______

“You’re wearing holes in the carpet.”

Gamora turned away from the window, half-glancing over her shoulder across the room at Nebula, who was sprawled across the couch, her feet kicked up on the coffee table like the furniture was theirs. They were in a hotel in the heart of the city, surrounded by nothing but towering skyscrapers and the rush of life and sound bustling below. “They don’t usually take this long. What’s keeping them?”

“You ask as if they care to keep us informed,” Nebula said, rolling her eyes. “We are nothing more than a footnote in their agenda. I doubt they even remembered they were supposed to come back for us.”

Then, a knock on the door. Gamora smiled triumphantly, crossing the room to open it and greet the two Nova officers stood on the other side. “We’re ready for you,” one of them said, gesturing for her and Nebula to follow.

They went down the hallway into the largest suite on the floor, a room they’d never entered before, with high-vaulted ceilings and plush furniture, a contrast to the decent, but sparse-looking room they had been set up in. The most interesting thing in the room, however, was Nova Prime, sat on the fainting couch, with a spread of documents and files across the table before her, flanked by blank-faced officers. She barely glanced up when they entered.

“Sit,” she ordered kindly, but firmly. Gamora and Nebula sat opposite her in narrow armchairs, exchanging confused glances. “You’re wondering why I’m here, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Gamora said cautiously. “We haven’t seen you since we were children.”

“We’ve done these evaluations every year since we first found you. Every single time, we see improvements, setbacks, some drastic, some minor. All normal, all healthy. You’ve adjusted remarkably well compared to some others we’ve met with similar stories. So I thought I would go over your results and talk to you myself, and maybe...this could be the last time.” Nova Prime smiled.

“Okay,” Gamora nodded, swallowing. She could feel her heart beating in her throat.

“I’ll be blunt since I don’t think the three of us are the type to tiptoe around the subject. You two almost seem wasted in civilian life. You’ve got a lot of skills and knowledge that would guarantee excellent results in far more ambitious career paths. Teaching is an admirable job, of course, but I can’t imagine they appreciate your talents as they are, Gamora.”

“That’s...kind of you to say, but I have no desire to become an officer, or a spy, or whatever it is you think would suit me better. When I decided to become a teacher, it was because I wanted to be as far away from my old life as possible. I wanted to be a positive influence on children when I had none myself,” Gamora said.

“And I understand that. Your trauma has made those kinds of occupations and lifestyles unpalatable for you both. I thought I would just mention it, but we can move right along,” Nova Prime replied, her expression softening. “There haven’t been any incidents of any sort, violent or otherwise. You’ve been seeing your therapists when needed. It also says here you’ve made friends this past year, correct?”

“Yes,” Gamora repeated. “They’re mostly work friends, but Nebula and I have been spending time with them outside of my work hours.”

“That’s good to hear,” Nova Prime smiled. “You work, you socialize, you engage in self-care...and your transcripts, especially Gamora’s, they’re insightful. Your reflections are the kind of thing we like to see, though I hope you’re not getting too lost in your own thoughts.” Gamora thought back to two weeks ago, sitting beside Peter in his classroom, lying to him about how much he already meant to her in the last few months. She wondered if she should - or even could - keep up such pretenses forever. Then Nova Prime turned to Nebula, who was fixing her with a steely-eyed glare. “Do you feel that you’re unfit to work, Nebula?”

“I feel...that I am unfit to do anything other than what I was built for.” Gamora looked at Nebula in shock.

“You weren’t built, Nebula, you were made,” Nova Prime said quietly. “I’m not saying you have to live your life the way Gamora does or anyone does. But your sister has expressed concern over your wellbeing many times, especially during the last few evaluations, and I just - ”

“I would like to go one day without hearing about what my sister wants for me,” Nebula growled.

Nova Prime sat back, glancing over at one of the other officers, who wordlessly began to write something down. “Then I only have one more question for you both, and then we can finish up here. Are you...happy?”

“No,” Nebula said shortly. She stood and promptly stormed out. One officer moved to grab her, but Nova Prime silently held up her hand to stop him.

Gamora could feel pressure building in her chest, her breath coming in short. “Happiness isn’t as simple as you make it sound, Nova Prime. But if we’re speaking in general terms...I think I am. And that’s the best I can do for myself right now.”

“Okay.” Nova Prime’s smile seemed a little sadder now. “You’re free to go.”

“Is this the last one?” Gamora was almost afraid to ask.

“No, I...I don’t think so.”

Gamora returned to an empty hotel room, though she had a sneaking suspicion Nebula had gone downstairs to the hotel bar. She sat at the foot of her bed, ruminating over everything that had happened over the last few hours. The year’s end, while a time of celebration for most people, was a whirlwind of anxiety and emphasized loneliness for Gamora, knowing that their psychological evaluations were to be done. Between Gamora’s need for order and Nebula’s tendency for chaos, it usually took weeks for them to return to some semblance of peaceful co-existence. For now, it was like their childhood all over again - right at each other’s throats.

Then, she remembered what Nova Prime had said about her specifically, about letting herself get caught up in her own doubts. It sounded like someone else she knew. “Million reasons or one,” she whispered to herself, reaching for her phone.

“Gamora? Are you actually calling me, or did you mean to call Mantis?”

“I mean no offense to her and her abilities, but I’ve already had enough people telling me how I feel today,” Gamora said wryly.

“So then...what’s up?” She could hear the vague shuffling of Peter moving around, likely so he could sit. For a brief moment, she imagined him getting comfortable in the living room among the scraps of supplies she hadn’t managed to clean up before leaving his place a week ago. “And wait, what people?”

“Nebula and I are evaluated on a yearly basis for our psychological health, after everything that had happened to us. We speak to experts, let them poke and prod us like lab experiments. They asked about motivation...intention. Wanting to know that we think the way other people do, that we can still be a part of society like everyone else. I mentioned how I had a...friend, who said I tend to overcomplicate everything.”

“Sounds like someone important,” Peter teased. There was a pause. Somehow, it was like he could sense her glaring through the phone. “Sorry, yeah, go on.”

“You talked about how you’ve been learning a lot from me, but I haven’t put in the effort to do the same for you. So...I’m going to try and learn when I don’t have to think about every last detail, every single outcome. I don’t need to worry about what our students think is going on between us, or what people think when they see me and my sister in the store, or what my parents would think of me if they saw me now.” Ironically, she hesitated. “I decided I didn’t need a reason to call you. Other than the fact that I wanted to.” Gamora hugged her knees into her chest, feeling as if she’d said something extraordinarily intimate.

His breath hitched. “Okay. I like the sound of that. What did you wanna talk about?”

“Anything that will help me forget that my sister is fifteen floors below me, drowning in alcohol and self-hatred. That, if I go and try to talk to her, it will do nothing but make everything worse.” She sighed. “Tell me about your time with the Ravagers. Or maybe your time with your mother. Something...happy.”

“Oh, I got stories,” Peter chuckled. “You got time?” ______

The first day back felt strange, to say the least. A new year always implied new beginnings, and yet, Peter felt like nothing had changed. The weather was still bitterly cold, the door handles still squeaked, his boots still needed to be replaced, and his room smelled vaguely of cleaning supplies, just barely masking the smell of stale, poorly maintained instruments.

Stranger still, he found thirty sets of eyes following him across the room while he set his bag down. “Hey, guys, how was your break?” he asked, turning to look at them.

“Good,” they chorused.

“Mister Peter, did you have a good break?”

“Yeah, I did. Miss Mantis and I went on a little vacation together to a resort planet. Got myself a nice tan.” He held out his arm to show them, though he suspected they had something else on their mind. “So what’s with the funny looks? Did I forget to wear pants today?” Peter glanced downward, hopping exaggeratedly back and forth on his feet. The class laughed, but they were clearly still distracted.

“Some of the other kids said they saw you and Miss Gamora underneath the mis’letoe on the last day of school,” one of them exclaimed. “Is that true?”

Peter abruptly came to a stop, his feet slamming against the floor. “I wanted to talk to her, we just happened to be standing under it. That’s not...we aren’t...c’mon, guys, we got better things to be doin’. Grab your stuff and let’s start the lesson, okay?”

“Do you like her, Mister Peter?”

He ducked to start rifling through his bag for the handouts he was looking for, his back turned towards them so they couldn’t see the way his face was burning with more than mild embarrassment. “I said, let’s start the lesson.”

“So you do like her,” another student concluded.

“No, no I don’t,” Peter said far too quickly, straightening up. He sighed, rubbing at his temples. He was starting to see why Gamora was so against the idea of a publicly-known friendship. “I mean, I like her, she’s my friend and all...let’s not do this today, guys, c’mon. Take a handout, pass ‘em around, and let’s start with our break assignment. Anyone wanna share their song with the class?” The children looked disgruntledly at him, dead silence filling the room. “Anyone?”

“Did you find a song, Mister Peter?”

Peter threw his hands up in the air in defeat, settling down in his chair. “Fine, fine, I’ll start.” He reached for his Walkman and pressed play, keeping the volume low so they could still hear him. “So, while I was on vacation, Miss Mantis and I were talking about family. You know how we were both adopted by Principal Yondu, right?” They nodded, sitting forward eagerly. “So we thought of all the good times we had with him, and I also thought about my mom. All the fun and cool and wonderful things we got to experience together...and some of the things that we never will.”

Where were you when I was just seventeen?...searching for you in each and every dream...

I needed you those wasted years between...where were you all of my life?...

It wasn’t until Clementine approached him with a tissue that Peter realized he’d started to cry, his eyes burning hot with tears as they threatened to roll down his face. “Don’t cry, Mister Peter,” she said sadly. “Your song was s’posed to make you happy.”

“I am happy,” Peter promised, accepting the tissue with a grateful smile. “I just miss her, that’s all.”

“I’m sorry we asked you about Miss Gamora,” she continued. Clementine glanced over her shoulder at the rest of the class, who nodded in agreement. “We just saw you spending lots of time together and talking and stuff, and...we just always wanted Miss Gamora to have a friend. And now you’re here.”

“That’s okay. It’s good to be curious. Just not too curious, alright?” Peter squeezed Clementine’s shoulder before sending her back to her seat, wiping his eyes and nose in haste. “We all know Miss Gamora likes her privacy, so don’t go askin’ her, either.”

“Okay,” they said reluctantly, though their faces were brighter than before. Hopeful, almost.

Peter smiled. “Good. Okay, so who wants to go next?”

a/n: As I've said before, it's not a long-ish Peter/Gamora fic from me until I've taken a detour into Gamora and Nebula's relationship, too. This also somehow turned into my first Christmas-themed fic of the year, whoops! The next part will be focused on the spring semester and a certain end-of-the-year school dance ;)

Speaking of, the last part of this fic will be posted on the last Friday of November! The song at the end of this chapter was Where Were You All Of My Life by Bobby Vinton, which, pointless fun fact, I've been trying to fit into a fic since I was writing the second chapter of everybody wants to rule the world. Thank you so much for reading, comments and kudos would be much appreciated, and I hope you enjoyed :)

#starmora #starmora fic #peter x gamora #gamora x peter #gotg fic #myfic #myfic: ssd #marvel #i wrote this chapter in like five days #i've been so swamped with school and sickness lately that this was kind of a stress-reliever haha

[luvsjimmyreed]

Interview: M Shadows, Zacky Vengeance, and Jimmy Reed

*What is your name?*

M Shadows: Matthew Charles Sanders. You can call me “Matt”, “Shadows”, or “Shadz”.

Zacky Vengeance: Zachary James Baker. You can call me “Zack” or “Zacky”. I don’t care.

Jimmy Reed: Mathis James Reed. I prefer to be called “Jimmy”. I was never too keen on my first name, and it’s been ages since anyone called me any variation of it.

*How old are you?*

M Shadows: I am currently 37 years old.

Zacky Vengeance: Chronologically, I’m turning 37 in a couple of months - but I was turned a little over eleven years ago, when I was 25.

Jimmy Reed: Chronologically, I just turned 92 years old - but I was turned at the age of 29, just a few weeks of turning 30.

*Height?*

M Shadows: I’m 6 feet and 1 inch tall.

Zacky Vengeance: I’m 5 feet and 8 inches tall.

Jimmy Reed: I’m 5 feet and 4 inches tall.

*You Got Any Bad Habits?*

M Shadows: Well, I used to have a very bad temper - and I used to be very politically outspoken. Currently, I think maybe I’m a bit addicted to video games.

Zacky Vengeance: Admittedly, I’m not exactly the healthiest eater around. I’d be a bad one to come to for dietary advice.

Jimmy Reed: *nodding* Yeah, pretty much as Zacky said. And, as with Shadz, I can be a bit obsessive with video games. I’m more of a casual gamer, though. Oh, yeah, and before I was turned - I used to have a pretty bad drinking problem.

*You A Virgin?*

M Shadows, Zacky Vengeance, and Jimmy Reed: *burst out laughing*

M Shadows: *through chuckles* Yeah, I’m a virgin with two biological children!

Jimmy Reed: *still laughing* And I’m a virgin with eight biological children! And plenty other adopted children.

Zacky Vengeance: *stifling laughter* Well, as far as I know, I have no biological children - but I definitely am not a virgin!

*Who’s your Mate?*

M Shadows: My lovely Valary. Who else?

Zacky Vengeance: My sweet Kelsey, the very woman who turned me.

Jimmy Reed: My precious Mary, for a little over sixty years

*Have Any Kids?*

M Shadows: Yeap, I’ve got two lovely lively young boys!

Zacky Vengeance: Two lively dumplings here, myself.

Jimmy Reed: Oh, goodness! Oodles of them. Eight of who are biological, and plenty others who are adopted.

*Favourite Food?*

M Shadows: Hm, a nice steak dinner. Cut of steak don’t matter much, so long as it’s at least “choice” quality and served rare.

Zacky Vengeance: I’ve a fancy for Italian food. It’s in my blood. My buddy Jimmy here introduced me to a great Italian dessert called “sanguinaccio dolce”.

M Shadows: Yeah, I quite enjoy me some sanguinaccio dolce - even if I’m not a vampire like you two are.

Jimmy Reed: Oh, yeah,that’s one treat I’ll never tire of. My wife and I had even compiled a cookbook of blood-based recipes.

*Favourite Colour?*

M Shadows: Tough choice, but I’d go with red.

Zacky Vengeance: For me, it’s gotta be green. Specifically, mint or lime green.

Jimmy Reed: Yeah, as lovely Zacky here said.

*Most Annoying Person?*

M Shadows: Eh, gotta go with Donald Trump.

Zacky Vengeance: Yeah, Donald Trump really scares me.

Jimmy Reed: Good choice, both of you. Good choice. He’s the first presidential candidate I ever publicly opposed.

*Best Friend?*

M Shadows: My band mates in Avenged Sevenfold... and Jimmy Reed.

Zacky Vengeance: Yeah, as Matt said.

Jimmy Reed: Yeah, all of Avenged Sevenfold.

*Any Secrets?*

M Shadows: Well, if I told you - then it would no longer be a secret, would it?

Zacky Vengeance and Jimmy Reed: *nodding in agreement*

M Shadows: So let’s move on to the next question already - shall we?

*Love Anyone?*

M Shadows: Uh, I think you already asked this question: Valary!

Zacky Vengeance: Still Kelsey!

Jimmy Reed: Still May Lee!

*TACOS?*

M Shadows: Oh, yeah! Most definitely!

Zacky Vengeance: Yeah, I’m never one to turn down tacos.

Jimmy Reed: Same here. I’ve always been a huge fan of tacos!

*Ever Slept In All Day?*

M Shadows: Most definitely! Who hasn’t?

Zacky Vengeance: Well, as a vampire, “sleeping in” would mean staying in bed hours past sundown. And, yeah, I would say I have.

Jimmy Reed: *nodding* Yeah, as Zacky said.

*Species/Race?*

M Shadows: Well, I think I’m the only mortal at this interview.

Zacky Vengeance: I’m a vampire. Been a vampire for over eleven years now.

Jimmy Reed: Yeah, I’m a black vampire. I’ve been a vampire for over sixty years, now.

*Crush?*

M Shadows: This question *again*? Valary! Why would my answer suddenly be different?

Zacky Vengeance: Yeah, no offence - but you’re being a bit repetitive with that question.

Jimmy Reed: Yeah, Zacky and Shadz are right. It’s the third time you asked us that.

*Favourite Band/Singer?*

M Shadows: Jimmy Reed!

Zacky Vengeance: Yeah, Jimmy Reed!

Jimmy Reed: Avenged Sevenfold!

*Eye Colour/s?*

M Shadows: Brown.

Zacky Vengeance: Green.

Jimmy Reed: Green... I mean brown.

*Skin?*

M Shadows: Uh, yeah, I have skin.

Zacky Vengeance: Yeah, I think I’m still all covered with skin.

Jimmy Reed: Oh, yeah, my body is definitely covered with skin.

*Fat/Average/Slim?*

M Shadows: Average, I think.

Zacky Vengeance: A little chubby.

Jimmy Reed: Yeah, somewhat chubby.

*Rain, Sunshine?*

M Shadows: I would go with sunshine.

Zacky Vengeance: If I had to pick... rain. I was never a big on the sun, even before I became a vampire.

Jimmy Reed: Why is moonlight not a option for us vampires?

*Camping Or Staying Home?*

M Shadows: Staying out. Camping is nice for a few days, and then the bugs start to get to you.

Zacky Vengeance: Camping is nice, as long as we can find a campsite covered with tall shady trees.

Jimmy Reed: As Zacky said. I mean, having plenty of shady areas is kind of important for us vampires.

*Dog, Cat?*

M Shadows: Definitely dog!

Zacky Vengeance: Gotta go with dog. Kels and I have three dogs in our home.

Jimmy Reed: Well, both are nice... but I think we’ve had dogs more often than cats. Both are great companions, though - in different ways.

*Believe In Aliens?*

M Shadows: Sure, why not! Our universe seems quite enormous.

Zacky Vengeance: I would think so, but I’m guessing they’d be nothing like how much of sci-fi portrays them to be.

Jimmy Reed: Well, we know that there are alternate universes - so why rule out other planets in *our* universe?

*Natural Born, or Clone?*

M Shadows: I’m pretty sure I’m natural born.

Zacky Vengeance: Same here.

Jimmy Reed: Yeah, definitely natural born - although, we did different versions of ourselves from other universe.

M Shadows: Oh, yeah, about that... I find that some of the alternate younger versions of me can be pretty annoying - and... I find that to be a bit unsettling.

*Teeth?*

M Shadows: Yeah, I’m pretty sure my teeth are all present.

Zacky Vengeance: As a vampire, I do have a set of fangs on the top.

Jimmy Reed: Yeah, the same with me.

*Ever Destroyed Something Out Of Blind Rage?*

M Shadows: Sadly, I have. When I was very young and I’ve not yet learned to control my anger.

Zacky Vengeance: Hm, not that I can recall.

Jimmy Reed: Yeah, I can’t say that I ever have.

*Are there any unusual things about you?*

M Shadows: I’ve been kicked out of several schools. Definitely not something that I’m proud of.

Zacky Vengeance: Well... I’m left-handed, I’m a vampire, and... and I have an extra bone in my foot.

Jimmy Reed: Well, one could say that my family dynamics are a bit unusual... particularly as I *am* a vampire.

*How Much Food/Drink Do You Need A Day?*

M Shadows: Well, I’m a pretty big eater.

Zacky Vengeance: Definitely gotta have three big meals a day... and always keep a Thermos of blood around.

Jimmy Reed: Getting enough food to eat isn’t so much an issue for me as getting enough blood in my food intake, particularly when I’m on the road.

*Favourite Place?*

M Shadows: Oh, definitely the beach.

Zacky Vengeance: Yeah, the beach... after sundown.

Jimmy Reed: I think a lot of mortals don’t quite realize how nice it is to visit the beach at night.

M Shadows: Hey, I do!

Jimmy Reed: Yeah, I know *you* do - but I mean in general. I see the beach clear out within moments of the sun setting, and I... I don’t quite understand that.

*Pet Peeve?*

M Shadows: Toxic political discourse. I’m ashamed to admit that I, at one time, had been part of the problem.

Zacky Vengeance: Political discourse seems to be getting worse, though - what with social media and all.

Jimmy Reed: Yeah, seeing how toxic discourse on social media can get really... worries me.

*Have you ever done drugs?*

M Shadows: A little bit, back in the day. When The Rev’s condition started getting very bad, though - then I know we had to get clean.

Zacky Vengeance: Same with me, before I became a vampire.

Jimmy Reed: Well, does alcohol count? I used to have a drinking problem before I became a vampire.

*Are your feet ticklish?*

M Shadows: *smirking* Well, I don’t think mine are so much - but Zacky’s definitely are!

Zacky Vengeance: Hey! Matthew Charles Sanders!

M Shadows: *innocently* What? What did I do wrong?

Jimmy Reed: Hey, are you... by any chance... that persistent question asker who kept sending me all those feet questions on my YouTube channel? And, yeah, don’t touch my feet.

Zacky Vengeance: Can we move onto the next question, already?

M Shadows: Fine! Be that way!

*What do you think about Led Zeppelin?*

M Shadows: Very fine band! Always loved them. Definitely a major influence for our band’s music.

Zacky Vengeance: Same here! I used to be a big Jimmy Page fan... until I realized that I like Jimmy Reed even more.

Jimmy Reed: Aw, thank you!

M Shadows: What about you, Jimmy? What do you think about Led Zeppelin?

Jimmy Reed: Well, I think they could’ve been a bit more prudent with giving credit where deserved - but I can’t deny their influence on the future of rock music.

Zacky Vengeance: Yeah, I’m not sure if Avenged Sevenfold would’ve been possible without them - but, likewise, Led Zeppelin... and, indeed, the entire genre of hard rock... wouldn’t be possible without blues music.

Jimmy Reed: And I don’t think my music would’ve been possible without Robert Johnson, Son House, and John Lee Williamson... a.k.a. the first Sonny Boy Williamson.

M Shadows: I know I can’t really dictate what music others should listen to - but I think anyone who digs rock music should, at least, give blues music a try. The blues are the roots, and rock music is... the fruits.

*What is your view on woman’s rights?*

M Shadows: Well, I firmly believe that women should have all the same rights that men do. I know I once really slammed feminists - but, as long as they’re reasonable people who don’t blame the entire male population for all their problem, then I’ve no issue with them.

Zacky Vengeance: There are definitely legit issues, though, with how some of us men are trained to view women. I think that stuff is worth criticizing, but not to the point of demonizing an entire group of people.

Jimmy Reed: Indeed, there are some... worldviews... that we, at a society, could maybe rethink. In short, we should do our best to be polite and considerate to one another - but, at the same time, not be quick to attack people for... minor missteps. So... that’s where I stand on this.

*What do you think about The Beatles?*

M Shadows: Well, I do like some of their music - but I think they might not be quite as influential as... they’re often made out to be.

Zacky Vengeance, Yeah, not to disparage The Beatles in any way - but The Rolling Stones came out at around the same time.

Jimmy Reed: I can definitely understand why many people enjoy their music. I can’t honestly rank them amongst my favourite, though. But that’s my opinion.

*What do you think about rock and roll music?*

M Shadows: *chuckling* Well, we’re a rock band! What do you think?

Zacky Vengeance: *laughing* Yeah, we hate rock and roll. That’s why Avenged Sevenfold is a bluegrass band.

Jimmy Reed: *smiling* Wow! You both crack me up. But, yeah, I can appreciate many types of music - including rock and roll.

*What do you think about rap?*

M Shadows: Some of it is pretty enjoyable, actually.

Zacky Vengeance: Yeah, such as I Love Big Butts by Sir Mix-a-lot.

M Shadows: Actually, that song is called Baby Got Back.

Zacky Vengeance: Oops, you’re right. My mistake.

Jimmy Reed: I do like some of it, some of the time... as long as the lyrics have a good message to it.

*Do you like the word “harmony”?*

M Shadows: Oh, certainly! Lovely word, and could certainly use more of it in this world.

Zacky Vengeance: Oh, definitely love me some “harmony”. Both in music and in life.

Jimmy Reed: Indeed! That’s a very beautiful word. I even have a great-granddaughter turned daughter... Remember, earlier on, I said my family dynamics were quite unusual? Well, why great-granddaughter turned daughter is named Harmony. She’s a very sweet girl, too. Of course, *all* of my children are such sweeties!

#Avenged Sevenfold #jimmy reed #zacky vengeance #m shadows #Blues

[ultimafangirl]

Meeting Ambrosia (One shot) (for now)

Summary: When the kids of the latest killing game in up in Selphia they decide to make the best of things. Then Gonta makes a new friend.

Also on my fanfiction.net and AO3 accounts. Will link eventually.

Some chapter 4 spoilers are hinted at. Warning you now. 

(Actual story under cut.)

It had been a few weeks since the sixteen of them showed up in Selphia. Though none of them knew just how they had managed to end up there, although Angie did have a theory, they had all decided to make the best of it. And part of doing so was their decision to stick together. To try to get to know each other and become friends again without Monokuma and the threat of horrible death hanging over their heads.

Though that idea did have some setbacks. There was no place in the town quite large enough to fit the entire group after all. They had to be separated for a while, in various vacant houses, until a house was built that could hold all of them just on the outside of the town.

It was a decently sized place. Even if there were only three rooms. The first room functioned as a sitting room/dining room/kitchen. While the other two rooms served their roles as bedrooms: one for the guys and one for the girls.

The time together, even if they had all agreed to this, was awkward at first. However, in time, they did adjust. Not only were they reforming the friendships they had made before. But they were also recovering nicely. The phantom pains that plagued the majority of them had mostly faded into nothingness. And the night terrors, while still a problem from time to time, had faded as well with each others support.

-------------------------------------------

One day, with the chores done and everyone off doing their own things, Gonta decided to go for a walk in Yokmir Forest. Which wasn't unusual for him of course, even after everything he never really lost his love for insects and nature. He had little to worry about. The insect monsters had never bothered him once and the other monsters could do little harm to him as well. So into the forest he went.

He smiled at the ants and the beetles when he noticed something odd. While there were plenty of butterflies to be found in the forest; today their numbers seemed even greater than usual. So Gonta decided to take a look into that. Following the butterfly swarms carefully he was eventually led to what appeared to be a giant pupa.

Gonta was fascinated of course. This pupa was about the size of a human, larger than the giant ants or beetles that regularly roamed Yokmir Forest. And, of course, far larger than the butterflies that flew around it. Unfortunately he was unprepared to take a closer look at it, he had only intended on taking a walk after all, so he decided he would have to come back later.

-----------------------------------------

"Later" ended up taking longer than Gonta had planed though. There was some excitement in Selphia. First that a princess who had lost her memory appeared. The princess, named Frey, had spoken to everyone in and out of town that day. Gonta made sure to thank her for taking the time to speak to him of course. Then the next day a prince named Arthur arrived as well. Though Gonta didn't really understand everything that was going on in the castle he was happy to have a chance to make new friends.

Then the weather turned south. They were advised to not wander too far from the town for a while and Gonta was forced to put his plans off further. But finally the weather was sunny again and Gonta could once again head out to the forest. This time he was prepared.

Sort of. He was not prepared for the fact that the chrysalis to have hatched while he was gone. And he was definitely not prepared for the sight in front of him. To his surprise the insect that floated around was far more humanoid than he had ever expected. It seemed to have the appearance of a young girl, albeit one with green hair, dark purple wings and antenna. Some sort of grotesque flower-looking things seemed to function as a skirt and their thorny vines traveled down her legs.

She didn't seem to notice him at first, instead choosing to take in her surroundings. But when she did she flew at him with a speed that would have caught Ryoma off guard. But Gonta stood his ground and she stopped right in front of him. She seemed almost curious as she circled him, as if trying to figure out what he was doing there. It took a moment for the shock to wear off but Gonta quickly remembered his manners and straightened up to introduce himself.

"My name is Gonta Gokuhara and-" She backed away at his words. Gonta was worried that he may have scared her off. But she came back, looking at him curiously again, when she suddenly started making a buzzing sort of noise. Gonta nodded in understanding and smiled "Oh! It's very nice to meet you Ambrosia!"

Ambrosia flew around him again before smiling at his words and flying off.

----------------------------

Gonta continued to visit Ambrosia in the days after that. While she never really would allow herself to come too close, she had yet to attempt to attack him. But she would travel outside of the deepest part of the forest to greet him sometimes.

And today was one of those days. Gonta just arrived in the forest when Ambrosia approached. Gonta was smiling as he greeted his friend. "Good morning Ambrosia!" Ambrosia flew around him like she usually did before following him at her usual distance. "Gonta told all his friends about you!"

This, however, made Ambrosia stop in her tracks. She tilted her head at him curiously and Gonta found himself trying to backpedal. "Gonta told his friends that he met a friendly monster! But..." Gonta trailed off, looking sheepish. "Ventuswill did seem upset for some-"

At Ventuswill's name Ambrosia suddenly changed. She grabbed her head and the buzzing sounds became more erratic. Gonta ran toward her, hoping to calm her down. But his attempts did nothing and instead she lashed out and attacked.

Gonta took the full force of the attack and was knocked back toward the cliff's edge. Ambrosia seemed to turn red with anger and she flew at him again. Not wanting to hurt a friend, Gonta quickly dodged her. Only for his foot to slip.

For a moment Gonta seemed to hang in the air. His mind raced back to the last time he had felt this way, with his feet off the ground. Then he fell. Ambrosia flew toward him, this time with worry on her face, but he fell faster than she could fly.

-------------------------

When Gonta came to his head was hurting. His vision was blurred but he couldn't tell if it was from the fall or simply from the fact that his glasses had fallen from his face. He couldn't deny he was stuck though. He could hardly see to get out of where he was after all. And unfortunately, he had yet to fully master the teleportation spell that the others were able to use so easily. Though, admittedly, using it in his current condition was probably not the smartest idea.

"You're ok!" A girl's voice, one that Gonta couldn't recognize, called out. Gonta turned in her  direction but with everything blurry he couldn't make much out. A pair of hands quick grabbed his wrist and started to pull. "Come on! Everyone's worried about you!" The strange girl continued to pull and Gonta followed behind her. There were times where he could have sworn he sensed a monster nearby but the two of them were ignored. Gonta had questions of course but for some reason he couldn't seem to make himself ask them. Then after who knows how much wandering-

"Gonta!"

"What happened!? Are you hurt!?"

"We've been worried sick! Why didn't you teleport!"

"What happened to your glasses?" Gonta was quickly surrounded by his friends. They had been searching for him and they were checking to make sure he was ok. In the noise and minor bit of celebrating though, the strange girl had disappeared.

--------------------------------

Between making sure that he recovered completely and having to get new glasses Gonta wasn't allowed to do much for a while. But finally after replacing his glasses, and promising the others that he wouldn't scare them like that again, Gonta went back to Yokmir Forest. But this time he was surprised to see that he wasn't the only one there. Forte and Frey were had just destroyed a monster portal when they saw him approach.

"Good morning Gokuhara."

"Good morning Gonta! Are you feeling better?" The two of them greeted him and Gonta was quick to return their politeness.

"Good morning! Yes, Gonta is feeling much better today! Thank you for asking!"

"That's good to hear." Forte spoke up with a smile before her expression turned serious again. "The forest can be dangerous if you're not prepared."

"That's why we're here." Frey spoke up this time. "Venti- I mean, Lady Ventuswill asked us to take care of a monster that's been causing trouble. This way we won't have to worry about something like that happening again." Gonta nodded at her words and they soon split off as a group of orcs had appeared. While Frey and Forte fought, Gonta headed on to visit Ambrosia. He was hoping to apologize for upsetting her last time he visited.

In no time at all he arrived at the same place he had met Ambrosia. She quickly flew down to greet him, but this time her expression was different. Gonta couldn't quite place it but he quickly bowed. Before he could get a chance to apologize though a voice spoke up behind  him.

"Gonta! Get away!" Frey and Forte came rushing past him. Frey swung her sword at Ambrosia. The attacked missed and Ambrosia flew out of her reach. It took barely a second for Gonta to get in-between her and the other two.

"What are you doing!?" Forte and Frey both took a step back. They weren't used to seeing Gonta angry. This was a shock to the both of them. Forte recovered quickly and stepped forward.

"Gokuhara, this monster has attacked someone. We need to send it back to the Forest of Beginnings."

"No! It wasn't-"

"Gonta! I'm sorry!" Frey bowed her head to him. "But if we don't send it back it could hurt someone else! Venti asked us to do this so we can keep everyone-" An erratic buzzing sound quickly silenced Frey. The three of them looked up at Ambrosia. She was shaking and holding her head again. Then suddenly she appeared to flash red and flew straight at Frey.

"Look out!" Gonta was frozen at the sight in front of him. Forte had moved to protect Frey, and her sword had gone through Ambrosia. Shaking, Gonta fell to his knees at the sight. His skin itched and he could feel a pain he wished he could forget pierce through him. But he couldn't make himself look away. Forte pulled her sword out of Ambrosia who started to shake for a moment. Then her wings stopped and she fell to the ground.

There was a flash of light that blinded all three of them for a moment. And when it cleared Ambrosia was gone. And in her place was a young girl with green hair.

#gonta gokuhara #amber (rf4) #ndrv3 #ndrv3 spoilers #rune factory 4 #fanfiction #tima's stuff #still trying to come up with a ship name #any suggestions #gentle butterflies

[joylee56]

Leaving to Spend More Time With His Family

For Fluffapalooza

Happy Skin Deep Anniversary

“Belle,”  Mrs Lucas shouted across the newsroom.  “Get your butt over here.”

Saving her story notes, Belle grabbed a notebook and headed toward the conference room.  'Granny' Lucas had been working the Congressional and National news beat since her days as a runner during the Nixon era.  Now editor, she tolerated fools badly, reporters who did not nail down their facts not at all, and regarded typos as the work of the devil.

As Belle always got her sources on the record, was good at grammar and made a point of running the spell checker twice, she and Granny got a long very well. Sidney Glass, who had just spent half an hour in conference with Granny and Mulan Fa, one of their investigative reporters, was not so fortunate.  

Belle had little sympathy for Sidney.  He was enraptured with Regina Mills, a high level Republican political consultant.  Which led to him accepting her statements unreservedly.  Not to mention he seemed never to have learned the difference between there, their and they're.

“Two weeks Sidney's been working on why Rumford Gold is stepping down as Senator Blanchard-Nolan's chief political adviser and this is what he turns in.”  Granny tossed some pages at Belle.

Skimming the story it was easy to see why Granny was upset.  It looked like Sidney had simply listed every scandal that might cause a political adviser to quit as possible alternatives without having anything to back up any of them aside from some snide suggestions from an 'anonymous' source who was clearly Regina Mills.  “Well, you can rule out going to work for her opponent.  Aside from the fact that he's been with Mary Margaret since her days on the Storybrooke School Board, nobody I've talked to has heard so much as a rumor about him going to work for another politician let alone that idiot running against her.  And a couple of lobbying firms apparently tried headhunting him and got turned down flat.

“Also I don't buy a sex scandal at all.”  Belle snorted.  “He's divorced.  No reason for anybody to care who he's sleeping with.”

“He's not sleeping with anybody.”  Mulan put in.  “That was the first thing I checked.  If it weren't for the way he flirts with you, I'd guess he was asexual.  But apparently he's just celibate.”

“We do not flirt!” Belle denied.  Did they?  They bantered.  Each trying to get the upper hand.  But that was just been part of the job.  

“Oh, please. There have been press briefings where the rest of us have been ready to take up a collection to get the two of you a room.”  Mulan rolled her eyes.

“We had a completely professional relationship.”  Belle told her primly. Admittedly bantering with Rum was frequently the high point of her week.  Still it was part of her job.

But there was no rule that you could not enjoy your work, right?

“Still you know him better than anyone else.”  Granny told her.  “Which is why you're taking over this story.  At the very least I want an interview with him to find out the official story.  A more in depth explanation than Senator Blanchard-Nolan's office's two sentence 'leaving to spend more time with his family, he will be missed' folderol.  Even they couldn't deliver that one with a straight face.”

“Good luck finding Gold.”  Sidney told her before stalking off to sulk. “Blanchard-Nolan's office refuses to give out any contact information for him.  And one of my sources says he's left the country.”

Mulan was at least willing to share her notes.  “It was one of <i>my</i> sources that spotted him leaving the country.  He was getting on a flight to Heathrow.  But he came back after a couple of days.  Since he's British that kind of backs up the 'spend more time with his family' excuse.  You don't suppose it's actually true for once do you?”  

“More likely he was visiting his kid.”  Belle told her.  “His ex moves around a lot, but she's British too.”

Contacting Gold proved trickery than she expected.  Mary Margaret’s office manager was apologetic, but firm.  “I'm sorry, Belle.  We have to protect Gold's privacy.  I just can't hand out his private information.  I'll pass along your message if he calls in, but we don't expect to hear from him this week.”

She did have Gold's personal cell number.  He had called her from it a couple of times. But she had learned from the comments by some other reporters that Gold did not normally give out his personal number.  Making her reluctant to take advantage of the information,

Still if he no longer had a work number this was the only way to contact him. That should make it alright shouldn't it?

She deliberately did not think about what it meant that he was willing to give her information about how to reach him outside of work when he apparently jealously guarded it from others.  

Still he did not seem put out when she called.  “What can I do for you, Belle?”

“Can't I just check up on an old friend?”  Oh, dear God.  Mulan was right.  She did flirt with him.

Which he clearly did not mind in the least.  “You can, but as you must be on deadline right now, I can't imagine that's the case.”

“My editor would like an interview with you.  The usual.  Why you left.  What you're planning to do now.  That sort of thing.”  

He sighed.  “I suppose better you than Sidney.  Or worse Fox News.  I've a full schedule today.  But I'll have some time to talk this afternoon if you can meet me.”

The address he gave her was in Chevy Chase.  A park in an up scale suburb.  The sort of place young professional families moved to raise their kids.  She located him in the bleachers overlooking the soccer field.

Sitting down next to him she asked.  “So who are we rooting for?”

“The Bears.”  He waved toward the left hand side of the field.  “They're in brown and yellow.”

That did not help a great deal.  To Belle's eye the children all appeared to be wearing either dark muddy clothes or slightly lighter muddy clothes.  “They look more like cubs than bears.”

“Aye.”  Gold chuckled.  “At this age they're lucky to remember which goal is which.  But they're having a good time which is the whole point of the exercise.”

This was much more laid back attitude than most parents of Belle's acquaintance.  Then again a children's soccer game was pretty small change compared to the level Gold usually played at.

“So why is your editor so interest in my future that you felt you had to hunt me down in the wilds of Maryland, Belle?”  Gold glanced her way but kept an eye on the players.  

Or rather a player. A small slight boy who's dark curls had long since lost any semblance of order.

Suddenly Belle was pretty sure she had the answer to the puzzle.  “He's older than in the picture on your desk.”

“I've gotten a new picture for my new office.”  Gold chuckled.  

“And where is this new office?”

“George Washington University.”  Gold leaned back on the bleacher seat behind them. “I'm going to be lecturing on Public Affairs and Campaign Finance Law.  Possibly overseeing some of the law students in some pro bono appellate work if I can shake someone down for a grant.”

“That shouldn't be a problem for you.” Not after all the campaign fund raising he had done.  “Is the small forward out there the reason for this sudden move to academia?”

“Aye.”  Gold nodded toward the boy.  “His Mum got a position with a documentary company.  She and her boyfriend are going to be traveling all over world.  Her 'dream job'.  Called me out of the blue three weeks ago and informed me I needed to pick the boy before they left for Aleppo.”

“So you dropped everything and dashed off to Maryland.”  

“I dashed off to London.”  He corrected her.  “I brought the boy back to Maryland. There's a good school here set up along the lines of the one he was going to in London and the house I found is an easy commute to GWU. He seems to be settling in alright.  So far he misses his nanny more than his Mum.  I signed him up for this football club in the hopes he'd make some friends.”

“Can I have this on the record?  That you're stepping down as Senator Blanchard-Nolan's chief political adviser to become a soccer Dad?” Sidney was going to blow a gasket when he found out his big political scandal was not only not a scandal but had no political implications what so ever.

Gold shrugged. “Mary Margaret was understanding.  I can't work sixty hours a week and look after a seven year old.  And with her as chair of the DSCC next year the hours will only get longer.

“If you're looking for a story,”  He added,  “It looks like they're going to hire Mallory Drake to replace me.”

“I'll be sure to include that.”  Belle made a note.  “But the story I'm working on is why you left Senator Blanchard-Nolan's staff.  You're at the top of your game.  Rumor is that Mary Margaret may be running for President in 2020.  You could hire a nanny like your ex did to look after...”

“Baden.”  Gold supplied.  “I could.  But why should I?  Political advisers are thick on the ground in this town.  Bae only has one Papa.

“And I only have one son.  It'd be different if I had to work those kind of hours to feed us, but I don't.  So I'm just going to enjoy being Bae's Papa for a while.  Milah got full custody because of the hours I worked. I've got a second chance with my boy.  I'm going to take full advantage.”

That was going to make a wonderful quote.  “I'm happy for you.  But I'm going to miss our sparing sessions.”

“So am I.”  Gold glanced her way.  “Uhm, it occurred to me after I took this new job that there isn't much chance of any conflict of interests coming up between a reporter and a University lecturer.”

Belle closed her notebook.  “You're right.  That does seem unlikely.”

“So there wouldn't be anything inappropriate if we were to have dinner together sometime.”  

“Not a thing.” She agreed.  “If you were to need a sitter, my editor's granddaughter, Ruby, has experience and might just be a student of yours.  She goes to George Washington.”

“I will make a point to look her up.”  Gold nodded.  “Soon.”

The game was wrapping up and the little boy ran over to the bleachers.  “Did you see my shot, Papa?  I was the only one to almost get it in the goal.”

“I did.  Very well done.”  Gold told him.

The boy had kicked the ball pretty much right into the arms of the goalkeeper.  Since none of his teammates had managed to actually kick the ball into the goal area though he had a right to be pleased with himself.  Belle had to smile at his enthusiasm.

“Ah, Belle, this mud-ball is my son Baden.”  Gold introduced the boy.  “Baden this is a friend of mine, Belle French.  She's a reporter.”

“It's nice to meet you, Ms. French.”  Baden held out a grubby hand.  Belle took it anyway.  He was just too cute not to.  “Are you writing a story about Papa?”

“I am.”  Belle told him.  “Everyone wants to know about your Papa's new job.”

“He's going to teach people to be lawyers so they can help people.”  Baden explained to her.

“He was just telling me about it.”  Belle said.  “It sounds very interesting.”

“We're going to get hamburgers.  Do you like hamburgers?  You should come with us and Papa can help you more with your story.”  Baden was bouncing up and down.

“Belle may have other things she needs to do.”  Gold cautioned his son.

“I don't actually.” Belle smiled at him.  “And you were just talking about getting together for dinner.”

“I was thinking in terms of something a little more impressive than Five Guys.” Despite his grumbling Gold smiled back at her.

“As it happens I love hamburgers.”  Her grin got larger.

“And milkshakes. You have to buy her a milkshake, Papa.”  Baden instructed.  Then he added in a failed attempt at a whisper,  “Girls like it when you buy them a drink.”

“I'm an ice tea girl, myself.”  Belle told him.

“Then ice tea it shall be.”  Gold offered her his arm as they set off toward the car park.

#Fluffapalooza #rumbelle fic #Leaving to Spend More Time With His Family #joylee56 fanfic

[theritualofourexistence]

2-0-GREAT-TEEN.

Just kidding. I absolutely refuse to call 2018 a “great” year. Mostly because I don’t know that anything is ever really “great” to me... I enjoy life’s complexities and I’ve worked hard to embrace them. But, when you take that approach, the live-in-the-moment, go-with-the-flow perspective shows you the good and the bad in basically everything. And while I have accomplished a lot this year, nothing is ever purely good. If nothing is ever purely good, and there’s always at least a little bit of bad, it feels sort of misleading to call anything “great.”

This sermon may or may not be connected to our idiot-President’s infamous slogan. 

And the knowledge that America has never really been great because we’ve been slaughtering entire populations of minorities for literally our whole existence.

ANYWAY.

That’s not why we’re here today. Today, we’re here for a recap! It’s early but I saw a post on Facebook recently that inspired me to sit down and write this now so here we are. 

Theeeere’s the punchline! 

Though I think some people probably see that little comic and think, “wow, what a dark way to look at a year,” for me (and for many people I know) not only is it a very real feeling but it’s also a triumphant one. 

So, with that picture in mind, let’s look back at 2018.

I survived my mom’s second foot surgery. My year started with Mom’s recovery from foot surgery number two. We weren’t able to do our normal holiday travel but it was really nice to spend that time at home and just relax. Once she was feeling well enough to travel, we headed to Jersey for time with cousins and their sunshine babies. 

I survived THE EAGLES WINNING THE GOTDANG SUPERBOWL. And let me tell you, I very nearly didn’t. The number of times my heart came to a screeching halt in my chest during playoffs and the run up to the Superbowl was too high to count. Then the actual game itself. I legitimately burst into hyperventilating, heaving sobs when the game ended. I’ve been an Eagles fan for a long time... I think I’m probably amongst the masses when I say that no one had expectations for success going into the playoffs last year. Watching the Eagles win was SUPER cool, but do I think they’re a great football team? ... No. I love them. And I will always root for them. But last year felt very much like some sort of fairy tale. An admittedly fun fairy tale though.

I survived my first semester of full time classes and internship. It was hard but I did it. And I got some good experience at a non-profit that focuses on rehabilitation of returning citizens... something very close to my heart that I hope to make a significant part of my career some day.

I survived the March for Our Lives. And I am SO glad that my professor allowed us to leave class to be a part of it. There are a handful of other socio-political/social justice issues that I wish I could’ve marched for but at the end of the day, gun control is one of the most important issues to me and I am honored to have been among the marching masses that day.

I survived Avengers: Infinity War. Barely.

I survived (and passed) my comprehensive exam. Though I spent most of my vacation preparing for and worrying about it... I did what I needed to do to cross it off my list and I am so proud of how I managed my anxiety in the weeks leading up to the exam.

I survived Crisis Intervention Team training! This is how I completed the internship requirement for my MA program and it ended up teaching me a lot of incredibly valuable skills for crisis situations as well as introducing me to a lot of the local resources available in Centre County. Hopefully the contacts I made during my training will be helpful in the continued pursuit of my career as well!

I survived the World Cup. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but it was still SO much fun to watch good soccer with my family. My team ended up being Croatia and they came so, so close to winning their first Cup. France played like champions for the whole tournament though and I cannot wait to see the type of player Mbappe becomes.

I survived my family reunion! I have almost always struggled with personal comparison. Whether that looked like competition between my friends in high school for the best grades or judging which cousin got into the best school and how well they did there... it’s been a problem for me for a long time. I’m the oldest of 15 cousins on my dad’s side. I am the only one who is overweight/obese. I am the only one who is nearly 30 and still living at home. It is SO hard not to get sucked into self-pity when I think about these things but my time with my family ended up being a true delight. 

I survived a beautiful photo shoot with my two favorite ladies. Shannon and Mikayla set me up for the best birthday present ever and I had a reclaiming-my-body-positivity photo shoot that yielded some of the truest, most beautiful pictures of me I have ever seen. I am still so thankful for this gift!

I survived our family trip to LBI. I played lots of mini-golf, I spent lots of time in the sun, and I gave myself a chemical burn with lime juice. COOL COOL.

I survived seeing “Hamilton” at the Kennedy Center! The show was incredibly and I feel so fortunate to have seen it... the staging was remarkable and I still think about it A LOT.

In a period of one week, I survived my best friend’s bachelorette party, a serious allergic reaction to a bug bite, and an infection that required antibiotics. I dunno, that kinda speaks for itself. SO fun to share in the party for my best friend... SO hot. And SO not fun to go to urgent care like 4 times in the course of 3 days.

I survived the Kavanaugh saga. This is maybe the thing I am most proud of. I won’t get into it again here but I spent a long time really upset and managed to come through the worst of it. See previous posts for more info.

I survived making cupcakes for and being a part of MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING. It was amazing. I am so honored to be a part of your lives, Kelley and Zak, and I am so grateful to have shared in your special day. It’s almost time for your honeymoon and I cannot wait to hear all about your first real adventure as husband and wife!

I survived flipping the house. We still have a lot of work to do but voting is one of the best ways to work for change and I did my duty this fall. 

I survived iron deficiency anemia! In three months I was able to boost my hemoglobin from 9 to 13.8 by taking supplements every other day and by rearranging my diet... I don’t exactly know what that means but my mom says it’s super impressive so this is also something I’m super proud of!

I survived another full semester of classes and my first paid job in my intended field! It was a LONG semester. There were times when I really struggled emotionally and I am so grateful to everyone who helped me stay on track. 

This year I survived a handful of excellent tattoos, I survived the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” I survived so many wonderful friend dates with my tribe in DC, I survived panic attacks and migraines, I survived dating apps, I survived ups and downs and politics and nausea and cat cuddles... I survived my Masters program.

So here we are. I’m not in a great mood today. I’m anxious about our travel for the holidays and my upcoming job search. I have a lot of things on my to do list and I’m sprinting head-first into my fourth holiday season of single living. There are a lot of things up in the air for me now so I’m finding it hard to be positive. But the reality is that for all the hurdles and successes of 2018, when you boil it all down, I survived a lot. We all did. And if nothing else, that’s something to be proud of and to celebrate.

Plus, if I survived all that, I’m sure I will keep fighting and finding new ways to survive whatever comes next. 

If nothing else, I’ll just keep re-reading “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” until I feel better.

“As Hagrid had said, what would come, would come... and he would have to meet it when it did.”  

#2018 #recap #annual report #annual recap #a year in the life #a year in review #ups and downs #Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire #survive #surviving #positive #anxiety #successes #failures #keep going #keep fighting #keep surviving