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lady-charinette · 3 years

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Omg could you do prompt 100 with Marichat!?

"Wouldn’t it be better to tell her even if the timing is wrong, than to never tell her at all?"

Tags: Romance, Hurt/Comfort, mild swearing, one-sided identity reveal

Relationship: Marichat (Marinette Dupaincheng/Chat Noir)

Word count: 1.945

___________________________________________

Chat Noir lived with his heart on his sleeve, baring his emotions that he couldn't always show as Adrien Agreste.

But this time, Chat Noir had concealed his heart, kept it in the protective clutches of his claws to hide from sight.

Especially from a certain blue-eyed friend of his.

Friend.

He swallowed, claws digging into his palms as he tried to breathe.

That's the word he'd tried burning into his brain ever since he started spending more time with Marinette, ever since they opened up to each-other about their broken hearts that one fateful night. How he saw sides of her he only caught glimpses of at school.

She'd started spending less time with him as Adrien, but had somehow acted...more friendly towards him at the same time. Her stuttering was gone around him now, she greeted him every morning, asked questions easily. He didn't seem to annoy her anymore.

Chat Noir had started becoming a steady presence in her life, from silly balcony karaoke and dances, to movie nights snuggled in respective blankets, popcorn flying when a scary scene appeared.

Of course, Marinette sometimes picked horror movies where poor black cats drew the shorter end of the stick, it was rare, 'to not traumatize him', she said. He enjoyed their time together all the same.

Friend.

The word he'd burned into his brain, but not his heart.

He'd tried getting advice from Ladybug, with whom he had a better friendship with, she was friendlier with him too, started indulging in his puns even more than before. But he got answers he already knew, deep in his heart.

'Tell her,' Ladybug had said, 'Your friend...this girl, she sounds amazing, she also sounds like she might have feelings for you too, Chat Noir.'

Chat Noir retrieved the good luck charm from his pocket, the one Marinette had given to Adrien a long time ago, running the tips of his claws carefully over the pearls and shapes.

He also remembered what he had told Ladybug too.

'I...I can't. She...she's in a relationship with this one boy...'

Ladybug had considered his options with this newfound information and her eyes looked like they tried to tell him a story her mouth couldn't. 'Wouldn't it be better to tell her even if the timing is wrong, than to never tell her at all?'

So, Chat Noir stood there, on a rooftop opposite of her balcony, the dim light from her room illuminating the small space outside.

Clutching his good luck charm against his chest, he safely stored it in his pocket before leaping off the roof, staff propelling him forward as high as his heart jumped in his throat.

Marinette had heard the telltale thud of Chat Noir's feet hitting her balcony, even if tried being as silent as possible.

She greeted him with a smile and a small wave, like she mostly did. Sometimes it was with a playfully annoyed frown, other times she would take the spray bottle in her hand when she was gardening and he was a little too close to a plant precariously positioned on the metal fence.

"Good evening, kitty," her smile seemed to be brighter than the light and it made the frantic hummingbird that was his heart beat even faster against his ribcage.

"Good evening, Marinette." He called her often by her name now, but the serious tone in his voice made her climb out of the hatch and close it, walking towards him with a worried frown.

"Is something wrong? Did something happen?"

He quickly shook his head, eyes downcast, staring at the silver toes of his boots.

He noticed how small her feet seemed compared to his, almost as small as Ladybug's when they stood side by side.

He sighed deeply, hands flexing. "There's something I have to say."

Marinette nodded slowly, unsure what exactly Chat Noir wanted to say. Did he come to seek her advice about the mystery girl he liked? Had her advice as Ladybug not been good enough? What else could she tell him? She felt it was right that he told the girl his feelings, even if...that girl wasn't her.

Chat Noir deserved to be happy, even if it wasn't with her.

And then, finally, the secret that made her heart squeeze fell from his lips, but her heart squeezed in a different way, "I like you, Marinette."

Bright green eyes seemed so scared, so raw and vulnerable it made her want to hug him and never let go.

Her brain finally caught up to the exact words he said and she froze.

'You'

He said 'you'.

Not 'her'. Not "the girl I like". He said 'you', as in her, Marinette.

"Was he talking about me all this time? Was I the one he asked Ladybug's advice for?" Marinette's mind was running a mile a minute, not seeing the crestfallen look on her crushes face.

Chat Noir spoke softly as his heart was slowly breaking, "I liked you for a while now Marinette, but I understand you don't feel the same. I just...I wanted to tell you, I guess, a good friend of mine said it was only right I told you even if...the timing is off." He stared down at his feet, cat ears flattened to his head.

His voice cracked, "I..." he cleared his throat, green eyes bright with unshed tears, "I just...wanted to tell you, and- you don't have to," he sucked in a sharp breath, his chest hurt, it hurt worse than the time he used Cataclysm on himself, "You don't have to say anything. I know." Chat Noir looked off to the side, a hint of bitterness mixing into the sadness. "I know about the boy you're...together with, so, um, I don't want to stand in the way of that. Don't worry."

His eyes darted this way and that, missing the way her elated face morphed into confusion.

"Wait, Chat Noir, what boy-" Marinette's mind was still stuck on the 'I like you' part, too stunned and happy to react quick enough.

Before she could continue, he scratched the back of his head and turned his back to her, shifting his weight on the balls of his feet. "I think I uh, his name's Luka? Or Luke? Something like that. Um, anyway, I-" his voice cracked again and Chat Noir felt the first hot tears hit his cheeks, "I wish you all the happiness in the world, Marinette."

"Wait, Chat Noir, you have it all wrong. I don't like Luka, I like-!" before the last words could leave her lips, Chat Noir was already gone, jumping onto the next roof, ears ringing too much from the sound of the blood rushing in his ears.

The tears sliding down his face made the city a big blur, lights as smudged as the shimmering stars. "You deserve to be happy, even if it's not with me." his heart sank even lower with those words and he picked up speed to mend his broken heart.

-------

"-you..." Marinette whispered into the night, her heart as broken as the boy's who left her there.

Tikki emerged from the protection of her room, quickly flying up to her friend's face. "Marinette! Are you alright? I can't believe Chat Noir felt the same! But he left before he could hear your answer, didn't he?"

The sullen bluebell eyes suddenly hardened in resolve, "No, he didn't."

Tikki's mouth fell open in confusion, "What? But- but I heard-"

"Tikki, spots on!"

"M-Marinette, what are you doing?!" Her kwami got sucked into her earrings and in a flash, Ladybug stood in Marinette's place.

Red rimmed eyes stared after Chat Noir in determination, hand clenching into a fist around her yoyo.

Finally, the simmering ire in the pit of her stomach turned into fiery rage. "You stupid cat!"

With one strong leap, Ladybug was in the air, the string of her yoyo already catching a lamp post. Her arms burned at the intensity she used to propel herself forward, to match Chat Noir's speed. "I won't let you just leave like that!"

Building after building Ladybug jumped and ran over, eyes darting every which way to try and spot sight of her wayward partner.

The sun had set, it was already dark, his suit would be difficult to spot, Ladybug could only hope she could spot his blonde hair if he was still in the area.

'Damn it! Where could he have gone so quickly? This is why I always grab his tail, he would rush head first into danger like this too! I always managed to grab his tail, but why not now? Why didn't I move!?' All these thoughts swam through her head, eyes constantly darting around to spot Chat Noir.

Where would he go? Would he go home? Would he go somewhere to be alone? But where?

Ladybug picked up speed and finally reached the Eiffel Tower, but no sight of the cat.

The Louvre was empty as well.

Where else could he be?

Ladybug wracked her brain for any more places they visited often, anything that could give a hint that wasn't his home.

The park.

Marinette kicked herself for not thinking of it sooner, the park near her school. They often went there for ice-cream.

And sure enough, when she landed back on the ground in front of the park, Chat Noir was there.

Sitting with his back bowed, shoulders slumped, she could hear him sniffling and sobbing.

Her heart cried out even more at the sounds, "Chat Noir!"

He jumped up with a jolt, hands almost immediately moving up to frantically rub away his tears. "L-Ladybug?!" His voice sounded hoarse, thick with emotion.

Ladybug crossed the distance in several long strides, grabbing the hands that tried to hide his face from her.

She peered in between the gaps his fingers left and felt her own eyes grow misty at his puffy red ones. "Kitty..."

"H-How did you- why are you-" his eyes kept darting everywhere but at her.

Ladybug pried his hands away with a bit of force and tenderly cradled his face, green eyes staring wide eyed back at her. "M'lady-"

"Spots off!" The command made Chat Noir still, eyes trying to slide shut but still catching a glimpse of the PJ's Marinette was wearing only a few minutes ago.

"W-Wait, Mari-"

"You impatient cat!" the words left her lips in a hurry, at the speed she couldn't muster before, "Why couldn't you wait before I finished talking?! Why couldn't you wait for my answer Chat Noir?"

He didn't understand why Marinette was crying, he didn't understand why Ladybug transformed back and Marinette stood in her place. Had she been Ladybug this whole time? Had he been asking advice from his former crush turned friend for his former friend turned crush?

"Chat Noir!"

"S-Sorry! I'm here!" he clamped his mouth back shut after squeaking out his reply, eyes fixated on Marinette, who was red faced and angry.

"I said I like you back!"

"Wh-" and suddenly, her face was too close to his, his ears were ringing, his broken heart was slowly pulling itself together.

Marinette stopped, eyes reading his expression, before she softly kissed his cheek and hugged him tightly to her. "I like you." She repeated herself, "I like you, kitty." and again, and again.

She repeated herself until she felt arms slowly wrap around her back, one hand cradling her head, his whole body shaking.

"I like you."

Chat Noir let the tears fall, soaking into her PJ's but his lips were stretched into a wide smile.

"I like you too, Marinette."

Thanks for reading! :3

#miraculous ladybug #ml #adrien agreste #chat noir #marinette dupaincheng #marichat #one sided identity reveal #identity reveal #identity reveals #miraculous #my fic #my fics #god damn here i go again breaking my own heart #ask #anon #ml request #ml fanfic

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bruhman745 · 2 years

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I have been thinking about Minecraft but realistic worldbuilding too much lately too and now I'm wondering how differently we imagine things now, and feel the need to have a long conversation comparing things which sadly would be uncomfortable through anon asks and spam would annoy people which makes me sad (｡•́︿•̀｡) - fanfic anon

i think it'd be fine! ill just dump the stuff from my planning doc below and, while it's not that in-depth and a bit rambly, im sure it could help us get on the same page a little better :)

putting it in the read more! (no spoilers ahead)

Minecraft -> IRL Mechanics

Elytra work mostly the same. They are held on by a harness and the hermits use rockets to propel themselves. They have to pull a string on the rocket and hold on, using the elytra to glide where they need to go. The rocket dissolves in their hand as they fly

Enchantments are studied for years and only certain hermits know how to practice them. They have to study them for years and help the others enchant their items, often setting up shops to make a profit from their knowledge. The hermits that can enchant and are relevant to the main storyline are:

Scar, Pearl, Grian (Learning from Scar), Xisuma

Instead of crafting recipes or online resources, they have a community library full of the same things that they’d find online. It’s usually busy w/ hermits searching for info and is separated by categories like redstone, enchanting, etc.

The chat is replaced by a system of communicators. They’re small and don’t take up inventory space. Every hermit has one and they can “mute” it if they please. They always have it after respawning, even if their things burned in lava. Communicators display their chats to the whole server, death messages, and can be used for private messaging. They also display who is AFK and offline.

When someone goes AFK, their name is greyed out on the communicator. They freeze in whatever position they were previously in and can hear and see whatever is going around them, but once they talk they won’t be AFK anymore. When you are AFK, you feel like you’re watching what’s going on through a screen and you can still die.

When someone goes offline, it is almost the same as being AFK. They are physically frozen wherever they had been last, but they cannot see or hear what is going on around them. They can also not be killed and their name disappears from the communicators.

When someone dies, their corpse lays wherever it’d been until they decide to respawn. It then disappears and the things that they’d had on them lay there in a pile. If they die in lava, everything that can burn will burn and they won’t be able to get it back. Items will not despawn and need to be thrown in lava to be disposed of. Respawning is like waking up from a bad dream or from being passed out and they respawn in their bed or at the world spawn if they did not have a bed set. Dying hurts just as it would in real life and can leave scars if they were killed by another player or a mob since those things would show up on the statistics page.

thats pretty much it! ofc theres some things like mob spawning, redstone, and other bits nd bobs, but those havent come up as much and redstone doesnt need to be that in depth imo

#i think i wanna go in-depth and figure out inventories #but i might do that later #maybe ill make a masterpost some day #who knows #bmanons #bmanswers #w&w update #ff anon #worldbuilding

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marveldc-imagines-hub · 3 years

Text

That One Valentine’s Day Special (Captions)

Anon said: “Hello!! I saw that your wandavision requests are open and I had to request something! I’m so obsessed with Vis right now, it’s very bad. I can’t think of any specific plot ideas, all I know is that I would really love to see some fluffy Vision just head over heals in love with reader. Kisses, cuddles, all that jazz. Thank you so much ❤️❤️❤️”

Anon said: “maybe a request where it’s valentines and the reader and Wanda team up to get really dressed up and make an amazing dinner to surprise Vision, but when he comes home and sees them both he’s so flustered that either like has a shutdown or faints? And then obviously Wanda and the reader panic and spend the evening taking care of him and also teasing him for being so adorable/fainting? Thank you!!!”

A/N: Combined aspects from both of these requests to make an ooey gooey Valentine’s Day special (which got belated because I lost half of the writing when I transferred it from doc to Tumblr post :’D)!

Don’t think this is the type of dressed up you meant but I hope you like it, either way! The type of nightwear I was going for with Wanda was something like this.

Subtitles/Captions Masterlist

Tip Jar

Word count: 7,117

Warnings: Valentine’s Day sap. Lingerie, passionate kissing, and everyone being flirty (nothing graphic). Reader makes a really, really, just terrible pun in order to compliment Wanda. This was edited very late at night, so there might be a few errors.

Tag list: @cyanide-mustard @badasspolygenderfriend (These were the only two on the tag list who confirmed that they wanted to be tagged in everything WandaVision-related; if anyone else on the Subtitles list does, just let me know!)

~~~

“Hey, Wanda?” You hollered to the woman in the other room. You were standing in front of the mirror in the Maximoff bathroom, adjusting the collar of the somewhat too-big shirt you wore.

“Yes, dear?” Your girlfriend hollered back from a couple of rooms away.

“While I definitely get the why we’re doing this,” you continued, tugging the shirt’s shoulders farther to one side, then back to the other, before giving up and moving onto your hair, “with Valentine’s Day and all, you know--”

Wanda piped up, probably to assure you that she was listening more than anything, “Yes, I do.”

You snorted. “--but is there a reason we’re doing so… much?”

As you spoke, you ran your hands through your hair, ruffling it to give it a bedhead type of look. You faltered a bit when your eyes settled on the ugly scar on your forehead that your hair couldn’t cover without being in a bizarre style. You frowned and dug a finger into the scar tissue, feeling very little other than mild pressure when you did so.

There was a pause on Wanda’s end. “You don’t think he deserves it, working so hard this past week?”

You reeled back, insecurity forgotten, and quickly left the bathroom. You walked down the hall to where Wanda was working on her own outfit in the bedroom she shared with Vision, rambling away, “No, no, no! I mean no as in no, you’re wrong, not as in he doesn’t deserve what we’re doing. Of course, he does! To be completely honest, he probably deserves it more than anyone in town--aside from yourself, of course--but… For example, we did a lot revolving around food and… Vis doesn’t eat.”

There was another pause and you halted by the closed bedroom door, mainly to pick a rose petal from where it stuck itself to the bottom of your stockinged foot but also because you didn’t want to walk in on your partner.

“But Valentine’s Day revolves around food quite a bit, doesn’t it?” Wanda said from the other side of the door. At this point in your relationship, you could pick up pretty easily how Wanda was feeling by her tone of voice. She spoke thoughtfully, which wasn’t all that concerning, but there was a certain edge to her voice that made you worried; she was going to start overthinking and scrapping the entire idea if you didn’t interfere soon.

You tilted your head from one side to the other while considering her statement before giving a nod she couldn’t see and responding, “I suppose you’re right there. Lots of holidays do, now that I think about it. Thanksgiving? Turkey. Easter? Candy. Christmas? Just… food in general.”

You glanced around as you spoke. You couldn’t see much of the house from where you stood in the hallway but you knew what to expect when you walked to the main part of the house. All of the house’s lights were off, save for a few lamps that washed the house with what would have been a low, cozy, get-comfortable-before-bed sort of light if Wanda hadn’t used her powers to turn the lightbulbs in said lamps from yellow to a red; because of this change, the dim light gave off a much more romantic energy that fit with the rest of your and Wanda’s decorating. Red, pink, and white rose petals were scattered all across the floor, starting from the front were, where Vision would be when he walked in after work and making a trail to different rooms of the house. One path led to the kitchen and dining area, where you and Wanda had spent a good part of the day preparing various sweet, Valentine’s Day- and romance-themed treats plus dinner and setting up the table with candles and flowers and a pink tablecloth that matched the pink rose petals. Another led to the living room, which was decorated in a similar nature. Thanks to Wanda’s ability to conjure, she was able to quickly clean up the area that was usually hidden under a mess of baby equipment, change the color of the throw pillows and blankets to the correct red and pink theme, and even had “floating” heart decorations that danced across the ceiling on transparent strings; the babies themselves were gone for the night, safe under Agnes’s care once she and you had been able to convince Wanda. Finally, a rose path, accompanied by ceiling hearts, led down the hallway until it made a fading stop at where were you currently stood, leaning next to the bedroom door. The bedroom itself wasn’t decorated and neither of you had really talked about the assumptions that could be made from looking at the trail, but what you had discussed was how many romantic movies Wanda was going to project onto one of the walls after dinner while cuddling would most certainly take place on the couch.

The third path was mainly to guide you down the hallway while Wanda greeted Vision from the kitchen. It was also to lead Vision to go change into his own set of comfy pajamas when you and Wanda would ultimately have to push him to do so after him grumbling about too tired to do so.

Poor thing, you thought while pushing yourself away from the wall.

Being the company’s fastest and best worker, Vision had become victim to Mr. Hart doubling his workload and as a result, the gentleman had been working like a dog for the entire past week. His days had consisted of getting up way too early only to go into work and be worked to the bone, then come home and relieve Wanda of the babies--regardless of her assuring him that she’d be fine while he rested--until he passed out on the couch sometime later into the night. You’d been surprised, after learning of his synthezoid identity, that he’d need to sleep at all but you supposed anyone would need to recharge after a day like that.

You, on the other hand, had racked up some vacation days and, after a chat with Wanda about the upcoming romantic holiday, decided to add an extra day to your weekend so the two of you could do something nice for her husband. You’d probably regret this on Monday but for now, you were just happy to have spent the day working with Wanda and were hoping the rest of the night went well.

Speaking of the woman, Wanda had been quiet for some time now, other than the sounds of rustling fabric. You decided now was a good time as any to get involved before she decided that she should do something completely different and cause all the previous work to go to waste, so you knocked. After getting a verbal invitation, you strolled in, only for a sharp inhale to almost propel you back to slam into the doorframe.

Wanda was standing in front of a full-length mirror against the far wall of the bedroom, anxiously fiddling with what little clothing she had on. She wore what looked like a bathing suit but was made out of a sheer, body-hugging, baby pink fabric and embellished with a subtle pattern of roses. Her back was turned to you but you could see from the mirror’s reflection that the piece still left plenty to the imagination with a more opaque version of the same fabric keeping her chest, the bit of fabric held snugly between her thighs, and even an upsidedown V-shaped panel that was framed by silky white bands and reached from the middle of her torso to the lower part of her hips covered. This lovely piece, clothing an even lovelier woman, was paired with similarly colored stockings of the same fabric, minus the rose pattern, and you were both surprised and amused by the addition of a string of pink pearls around her neck and one wrist with matching earrings and a pair of white low heels with a bow on the toe strap. Wanda’s hair was styled in loosely curled waves, making it look shorter than it actually was, and pushed back with a headband that could be mistaken for a minimal tiara, which was also embellished with pink-tinted pearls.

You knew that you were staring, flushed, and with eyes almost bulging out of their sockets--you knew only because you could catch part of your own reflection in the mirror, not because you could feel anything other than goosebumps-inducing tingles travel across your body--but it took Wanda laughing softly and catching your eye in the mirror to pull your slacked jaw off the floor and close your suddenly dry mouth. You eventually also tried to speak but not much other than a stammering “Uhhh…” came out and you gave up, instead choosing to scrub your hands over your face so you would at least look away.

Then Wanda dared to ask, “So, do I look okay?”

You stared at her again but this time it was one of disbelief. “I’m sorry, what?”

Wanda rolled her eyes and chuckled again at your utter belief before nervously running her hands down along a perfect set of curves. You fully believed she had no intention of torturing you by doing so but here she was, doing just that. If it hadn’t been for the awkward look on her face, makeup-free except for light lipstick and a little mascara, your gaze probably would have stayed with the path her hands made over her stomach and down to rest on her hips. You watched her gaze jump worriedly from one part of her body to the other instead.

“Look,” she continued, “I know I look okay, I know I look fine--”

Fine? Only fine? If Wanda asked you to strip naked and run through Westview while screaming her praises, you would do so without a second thought. Well, you probably would have done it regardless of what she was wearing but you wouldn’t be complaining about the extra bit of help.

“--but ever since the twins were born, I feel a little… hmph… wearing something like this.”

While you couldn’t possibly fathom how she could see herself as anything but one of the most beautiful living creatures ever, but you’d also figured out quite a while ago that she didn’t exactly see herself the same way you did. You chewed the inside of your cheek a bit before walking over and wrapping your arms around her; her own hands settled to rest on top of yours. You rested your chin on her shoulder and met her gaze in the mirror one last time.

“I suppose even goddesses have their insecure days, huh?”

Wanda laughed and rolled her eyes so hard you were vaguely worried about them rolling back into her skull. She lightly slapped your arms but still leaned back into your embrace as she scoffed, “Be quiet.”

“Wanda,” you said, “you had kids. You still look great. You look so good. So, so, so good. Insanely good. Earth-shakingly good. So pretty. Very gorgeous. Amazingly foxy. Incredibly stellar. Your mom body? Could demolish Aphrodite in a beauty pageant.”

You rambled on a bit longer before Wanda was smacking your arms again. She looked more at ease now, though, completely relaxed in your arms with her head leaning into the crook of your shoulder and one ankle loosely crossed over the other.

“Mom body.” She snorted. “Please, enlighten me further about this mom body I have.”

You quickly shook your head and gave her reflection a warning look. “Can’t. If I say much more, it’ll upset the gods. Every single one of them. I’ll be thrown into the pits for all the sinful things I’d have said.”

Wanda’s head fell back as she laughed again; you felt the tickle of her hair against your exposed neck as you grinned against her shoulder. When she settled again, you gave her a serious look, moved your lips to kiss the shell of her ear, then muttered, “But let’s just say you’re a foxy mama in absolutely every sense of the word.”

The woman in your arms erupted with laughter once more, though this time it was short and accompanied by a gentle slap to the cheek. Then her hand rested there, holding your head close as she leaned her forehead partially against yours.

“You and my husband,” she said with a little shake of her head, “and those ridiculous puns of yours.”

You nodded slightly in agreement, then tilted your head to peck her cheek. “That one really was just…”

“Awful?”

“Yeah, no, not good.” You chuckled and reached a hand up to poke her cheek. “Made ya smile though.”

Wanda hummed, squinting at herself in the mirror, then huffed. “I suppose.”

There were a few moments of the two of you just holding each other and soaking up each other’s presence.

Then Wanda just had to ask again, “Do you really think I look okay?”

It was your turn to roll your eyes. “Wanda! You’re so pretty! You’re so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so--”

“You tell me I’m pretty all the time,” she pointed out.

“I have yet to be wrong,” you countered.

She looked herself over again. Tilting her head and glancing up at you from under her lashes, she said, “You could call me sexy.”

“I could,” you agreed, “Don’t want to make you uncomfortable though.”

Wanda raised a brow. “Did I not just say you could?”

You snorted. “Was my foxy mama joke not enough? Do you know what havoc me doing so would release onto the world? Would you want the gods to reject me because of my filthy language?” You leaned your head into her neck while keeping your eyes on hers. You waggled your eyebrows and lowered your voice. “‘Cause I’ll do it.”

Wanda made a face at you, scrunching up her nose and pursing her lips in the special, incredibly cute way that only she could. Then she smiled and ruffled your hair slightly. “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind you calling me sexy once.”

“Oh, nay,” you insisted, “if it happens once, it shall happen a million types! An unholy, unhinged, affectionate monster shall be released from its mortal prison!”

Wanda hummed thoughtfully and made a show of tapping her chin and tilting her head. “Okay, deal.”

You rolled your eyes and smiled. Giving her cheek another quick smooch, you said simply back, “‘Kay, you’re sexy.”

She smiled back at you and did a single clap. “Yay.”

“And, hey,” you said, tapping the scar on your forehead, “even if you weren’t a level of beauty that matched an immortal otherworldly being--impossible--at least you don’t have a scar on your face.”

You saw Wanda’s gaze soften in the mirror before she twisted around in your arms to face you. She gently took your face in her hands and your eyes fluttered shut as she leaned up to kiss you directly on said scar.

“I like the scars,” she said softly, “It means you survived something, even if you don’t know what it was, and I’m happy that you did.”

Your eyes blinked back open. “Why?”

“You wouldn’t be here for me otherwise.”

You huffed out a little breath, somewhat involuntarily, and were suddenly very aware of the fact that you two were practically tangled around each other now. You squished your nose against hers in a nuzzle and said in a lower tone, “Lucky you then.”

She dropped her hands from your face to wrap her arms around your neck. She matched your tone and bumped her nose back against yours, tilting her head a bit. “Very lucky.”

It was almost like a mutual decision when your lips crashed against each other.

Having been prone to the feeling of floaty dizziness as a result of your migraines, the feeling itself wasn’t particularly jarring. What replaced the usual undercurrent of pulsing pain, however, was what made this dizziness feel heavenly instead of hellish. When you kissed Wanda, it was like immediate intoxication but instead of booze, it was the taste of the gloss on her lips and the strawberry flavor that still lingered on her tongue from your cooking session earlier that day and the mix of citrusy sweetness from her perfume and shampoo that made you think of candied orange slices whenever you inhaled. You’d always be too busy to mentally describe it while in the moment, far too concentrated on committing whatever part of Wanda’s body that you were touching to memory via your grazing fingertips and adding new scents, words, feelings, images, and whatever else to the catalog of things that reminded you of her in your head, but when you thought about the love-drunk dizziness that followed the initial intoxication after the fact, you equated it to being a little tipsy and stumbling into a warm home. Only this time, home was a woman whose arms and mouth kept drawing you back for one more kiss, and then five more, and the thing that made you tipsy was the way the air crackled with invisible electricity and magic, and the look in her eyes when your eyes fluttered open after parting.

While time seemed to slow to a stop during your and Wanda’s moment, it hadn’t actually done so at all. This was proven when you heard the front door begin to open, causing you and Wanda to practically leap away from each other. She stared at you with wide, startled eyes and you couldn’t help but note your handiwork; her entire face and neck were flushed a deep red, her hair was significantly messier than it had been previously, that the lip color she’d been wearing had been partially transferred to your mouth.

The admiration could only last a moment. “You’re supposed to be in the kitchen.”

“I’m supposed to be in the kitchen,” Wanda repeated. “My lipstick is all over your face.”

You brushed a thumb over your bottom lip and it came away with a glossy pink. “Your lipstick is on my face.”

Wanda stood in front of you, suddenly frozen except for flitting eyes and hands grasping at the air while she tried to think of something. Then, with a couple of snaps of her fingers, she remembered her magic a moment later. “Oh, I can just-- You look amazing, the shirt’s a nice touch. See you out there!” She snapped once more and disappeared in a puff of red smoke just as you heard the front door swing open and Vision’s voice drifted down the hallway.

“Darling, I’m ho-- Oh.”

Then Wanda’s voice also bounced back your way from where she was probably now perched in the kitchen. Her tone was one part frazzled, two parts cheery, and five parts flirty teasing as she spoke. “Hiya, honey! Whaddya think?”

You drew your attention from their voices to the mirror that you now stood in directly in front of. The outfit you wore wasn’t nearly as polished as Wanda’s, but it had its intimate charm. While the two of you both wore stockings, that was where the similarities stopped. Your stockings were a sheer brownish-black and you wore no form of shoes with them nor any other accessories aside from your lightly ruffled mess of hair. In contrast to Wanda’s overall body-shaping attire, the pair of high-waisted silky shorts that you wore were flowy and loose, and instead of the shorts’ matching tank top with uncomfortable lace straps, you wore one of Vision’s pajama shirts that was a similar shade of red with vertical yellow and dark brown stripes. Posing a couple of different ways for yourself in the mirror, you were pleased to find the red and yellow were an almost match to Vision’s skin and the glowing gem in his forehead; with a little more pondering, you were a tad upset that the shirt you were wearing had yellow stripes instead of yellow spots.

If it had spots, you thought, I could look like a strawberry with a thigh-high chocolate dip.

Pleased with your look otherwise, you aimlessly moved about the bedroom before hovering around the doorway where you could almost make out the rest of Vision and Wanda’s conversation. The plan in place was that Wanda was going to give Vision the itinerary for the night--gifts and cards, dinner, because there was food to be eaten whether Vision ate any or not, an indoor movie theater that Wanda would magically whip up, and the rest of the night spent in romantic snuggling bliss--and then would give you a cue. When the actual process of getting the gifts came about, you were to bring said items to the living room, being somewhat of a surprise gift for Vision in your own right. You glanced towards the bed, where a white clothing box wrapped in a red ribbon sat with a trio of cards, one each from you and Wanda and one Wanda had made on behalf of the twins, who were still too young to do much on their own.

You couldn’t be sure whether it was because Wanda had slipped up and mentioned you--it was much harder to hear them from the other part of the house after their loud introductions finished--or if Vision, clever and curious man that he was, had caught on to your and Wanda’s plan already and decided to uncover it ahead of time. Either way, you suddenly caught a glimpse of Vision turning down the hallway, hovering a few inches off the ground to probably preserve the rose petal trail underneath his feet, and jumped away from the doorway before he could see you. While you couldn’t quite make out what Wanda was saying, you could hear a slight strain in her voice as she tried to get Vision to back down from his cause, to no avail. You only had a few moments to think of something and you decided to hop onto the bed and get comfortable in a casual sitting position, moving the small stack of Valentine’s Day goodies and looking coolly off to the side just before Vision floated into the room.

The soft thud of Vision landing on his feet your attention back over to the doorway and you saw him standing there rigid in his work suit, his gaze roaming over you before respectfully glancing away--only to be slowly dragged back less than a minute later. After watching this process continue a couple more times, you decided to tease him.

“Oh, hey there, crimson toaster oven,” you quipped nonchalantly, reaching up to toy with a stray piece of hair as you did, “how was work?”

Vision’s eyes settled on yours as you watched him with a cocked head. You expected some sort of reply, and for a moment he seemed like he was about to speak. Instead, though, he settled into an almost completely frozen state, jaw clenching slightly.

At first, you were amused. Then you realized he was quite literally frozen, nothing moving aside from the whirling of gear-like shapes in his irises, and your facade broke down a bit.

“Vis?” you questioned, sitting up straighter and moving the Valentine’s Day gifts aside, “you okay?”

No response.

You frowned and got up to walk over to him. “Um, Wanda?”

The Sokovian woman appeared a moment later shimmying around Vision’s form to stand next to you.

“Is he okay?” you asked.

“Oh, dear,” Wanda murmured. You watched as her gaze turned red and she looked him over, using her powers to check that his internal functions were still working properly. Eventually, her gaze stopped at his face and after squinting at him, Wanda said, “Ah. [Y/N], it appears we broke him.”

“I’m sorry?” you choked, “Broke him?”

Wanda seemed much less worried than you felt about the implications of Vision being some form of broken. She instead smiled and stepped up to him, giving you a simple “Yep” before pressing her fingers to his temples. Her eyes flashed red again and a second later Vision’s body sagged into a much more human position. “There we go.”

You blinked and watched as Vision shook himself out, flapping his hands and then rotating his arms and neck with a grumble.

“Ah,” he said, “much better.”

You eyed him. “Everything’s chill then? His gears got, ah, de-gummed, so to speak?”

Wanda snickered. She was now tucked against Vision’s side and helping him shimmy out of his jacket.

Vision seemed to remember where he was and what was going on because his eyes flitted from Wanda to you and back. When he settled a bit more, he looked at you both in turn, his gaze making a slow, deliberate path down both your and Wanda’s bodies as he took in what each of you wore. Finally, his eyes jolted back up to meet yours, and he responded in a low, gravelly voice, “Well, right now, I’m doing absolutely marvelously.”

You grasped that everything was back on track again and a smirk graced your face. “Well,” you said, clapping your hands together and turning back towards the bed, “as long as the short-circuit didn’t fry anything, the step of the night is gifts.”

Then you were being dragged back to Vision’s side by your wrist and he had an arm around both your and Wanda’s waists. “Now, just hold on there, [Y/N]. Shouldn’t I get to spend some time with my lovely partners, especially after seeing all the effort they’ve put in? Besides, I haven’t even gotten to compliment you about your looks.” He paused and pressed a kiss to Wanda’s temple, then nuzzled the side of your neck. When he moved his head away again, he eyed the way your shirt hung loosely off your shoulders. “Is that my shirt?”

You and Wanda shared an amused glance. She’d told you earlier that day about the anniversary-Hart family dinner mishap she and Vision had had when they’d first moved to Westview, the same day you’d met the couple, and how Vision and the Harts had come home to Wanda wearing an intimate nightdress that had made Vision more than a little flustered; the story is what sparked the idea for the evening’s current attire. She ignored his comment about you wearing his clothes and decided to nudge him back to the plan as hand, brushing a hand over the suit jacket now hanging from her arm. “I don’t know about that, honey, your eyes were certainly saying something.”

Vision pouted and hummed, probably trying to come up with another reason to keep hugging you and Wanda close to his body. After a moment, he chirped, “Ah, well! I brought you each something and something for the boys, and I left everything out in the living room. We can’t open gifts without all of them, what a pity. We might as well--”

“I have an idea.” Wanda interrupted. When you looked from Vision to her, she was still smiling but her eyes sparked with a playful warning. She freed herself from Vision’s hold, much to the tall man’s dismay, and walked over to the bed. She picked up the cards and tucked them under the arm that also held Vision’s jacket, then brought the clothing box over and held it out to you. “How about I go and make sure the food is warmed up and the table is set, then get all the cards and things into one place while, [Y/N], you give Vision the one gift he should still have.”

You raised a brow as you took the box from her and watched her saunter to the door, consciously moving out of Vision’s range. “You don’t want to see him open it?”

“I saw you open one I bought for you, you get to see the one you bought him,” Wanda said simply. “And I have a feeling that we’re better off if we’re not all in the same room until things get back on track, Vision might run the risk of shutting down again.”

You gasped dramatically and pressed your free hand to your cheek. Looking at Vision with wide eyes, you whispered, “How will I warm my bagels?”

Vision narrowed his eyes and made a grumbling sound from so deep in his chest you could feel the rumble where you were still held against him. Said sound and Vision’s overall reaction so far made you perfectly happy with the idea of the night derailing a bit off course, but you knew how much of a stickler Wanda could be when she made a plan and this was just as much a night for her as it was for Vision or you.

With no further objections, Wanda walked out of the room. The heels she wore gave her a sashaying step and neither you nor Vision were particularly upset as the two of you watched her go. Then the door was shut and you two were alone.

“So,” Vision said slowly as he turned his attention fully to you, “this is what you’ve been up to instead of going to work today.”

“It is indeed,” you confirmed, “and before you say anything else, I know full well what I’ll be getting into when I go in on Monday.”

“I hope so. You’ll be working harder than I have all week.”

You hummed and chewed on your lip as you thought. “Maybe… I could just… quit my job…”

“Hah!” Vision laughed and waggled a finger at you. “No, no, no, no, no. If I have to endure it, then so do you.”

You grinned and turned away from his finger as if to avoid his complaint. He chuckled and tried to catch your eye, rambling away about Oh, the work we shall both do, but you merely twisted away further, feigning beautiful, blissful ignorance. You even went so far as blocking Vision’s face from your sight with the box you held, which made Vision break off briefly to laugh again.

“--and then, maybe someday you will come home,” Vision continued, catching you in his arms again and tugging you close to him, “and see both of your partners, looking very fetching and being even more wonderful than usual because they’ve set up and entire romantic evening, not only because it’s a romantic holiday but because they specifically wanted to plan something to help you relax after a particularly busy week.” He paused, then added, “And it might even be a little better for you than it will be for me because you actually get to eat the food that’s taken up the entire kitchen.”

You tittered, tilted your head in mock thought even though Vision couldn’t see it, and then lowered your chipboard shield just far enough for your eyes to poke out from over it. “Mm, now that does appealing. Just one question though.”

“Of course, darling.”

You waggled your brows at him. “Which outfit will you be wearing, Wanda’s or mine?”

Vision smirked just slightly but it was enough to set off a volcanic eruption of heat throughout your entire body. You felt his fingers suddenly brushing against yours as he started to gently pry his gift out of your hands.

He said, “Depends on what’s in the box.”

He snagged the box from your hands, revealing your blushing face, but instead of opening it right away, his arm moved around your waist to be with the other once more. He pressed his forehead against yours and you felt a different sort of warmth as the golden gem in his forehead touched your skin. He tilted his head closer still to nuzzle his nose against yours then--

You quickly turned your head away again, flashing him a wicked grin when he stared at you, dumbfounded. You draped your now free arms loosely around his neck, fingered brushing lightly against his neck and fiddling with the collar of his button-up shirt. You shuffled closer to him to eliminate what little space left there was between your body and his, looked him in the eye, and teased, “Careful now, Mr. Maximoff. Wouldn’t want to knock another screw loose in that gorgeous, handsome head of yours.”

Vision’s low chuckle vibrated in his chest, feeling almost like a purr against your own body.

“Or,” you added, “knock one too many screws in?”

“[Y/N].”

“Wind the gears too tight?”

“[Y/N].”

You looked at him innocently; the irritated scowl on his face was contradicted by the mischievous twinkle in his pretty blue eyes. “I can keep going.”

“Oh, I’m very aware of that,” said Vision in that grumbling voice that would probably make you implode every time if it were his regular speaking voice, “but we are never going to get out of this room.”

“Interesting hypothesis,” you said with a very serious nod. “You are welcome to test it or stop me at any time. Now, where was I?”

It took a smirk and a raised brow to kick Vision back into gear but then you were grabbing his face and laughing against his mouth as he all but threw himself at you.

Kissing Vision was quite different than kissing Wanda, although no less addictive. Wanda’s kisses always felt needy but not in the way that one would think. Her kisses always felt like she had been lost up until the very moment your lips would touch hers, and then she was finding refuge and trying to absorb every bit of warmth and comfort that came from the way her mouth melded against yours before the kiss ended and she was alone and lost again. She almost always felt soft and sweet against you but you could feel a wild, restrained power brewing just underneath, and her power seemed to draw out and entangle itself with a power of your own, whatever that power was; the kisses never seemed to last long enough for you to figure that piece out.

When you kissed Vision, you could never get the idea that you were kissing someone not totally human out of your head, but in the best way. One of your favorite things to do whenever you kissed him was to run your hands over his skin and explore every single uniquely intricate thing about him, like the way his skin somehow felt soft and dense at the same time and how it was just slightly textured with lines and grooves that felt inhuman or the way that he didn’t really have a heartbeat or a pulse but rather a gentle constant rumbling of whatever gave him life doing its job, and sometimes this rumbling would jolt or slow depending on where you focused your ministrations. No matter his current state of being--exhausted, flustered, distressed--he was always strong and steady under your hands like he was ready to catch you if you suddenly misstepped or fly you to safety at a moment’s notice should the need arise. You couldn’t help equating the way his mouth worked against yours with the phrase “built to please”; he was always curious and searching in the way his hands and mouth roamed, and he seemed to get the most pleasure when he figured out exactly what you needed and did that--and he was much more often than not oh so very right.

While Wanda felt wild, Vision felt grounding. When you were kissing Wanda, you were so focused on her body and yours and the energy that wrapped the two of you up in a magical cocoon that you felt like you could start bursting at the seams at any moment. Kissing Vision got you much more out of your head, to the point where you were merely exploring him as much as he was you, which led to the occasional knocking of teeth or finding a ticklish spot that caused the kiss to break into giggles and teasing; maybe you would go back to kissing or maybe the two of you would slip into a conversation so seamlessly that you wouldn’t even notice until a couple of hours had already passed.

You often wondered if, when you weren’t around and your partners kissed each other, if either of them felt the same thing that you did. You wondered even more often how Wanda and Vision felt kissing you.

This time, though, it was Wanda’s voice from a couple of rooms away, muffled but noticeable, that finally broke the two of you apart.

“Any day now,” she hollered, although there was no trace of irritation in her tone. “It’s not like we only have a few hours left to celebrate Valentine’s Day or anything.”

Vision’s face scrunched up and he eyed the wall that separated the kitchen and bedroom via another room in between. “Mm, she’s got a point.”

You pursed your lips and squinted at the wall as if you would see red magic permeating it if you did so for long enough. “Do you think she X-rayed us?”

Your partner let out a short little chortle as he disentangled himself from you and looked over the box he’d managed to hang onto during your kissing session. “Even if she did, not like it’s going to be any different once we’re all in the same room together.”

“Good point,” you said. “Mm, more kisses.” You were still curious, though, so you hollered back to Wanda, “Hey, magical girl, did ya see me kiss your husband?”

All you got was a laugh back, which had you smiling.

Then you turned back to Vision, who was toying with the box’s bow, and said, “Alright, Vis, happy Valentine’s Day. Now give me your tie and your pants.”

You and Vision joined Wanda in the dining area shortly, Vision now dressed in a dark blue set of silky pajamas that matched your own shorts of the same shimmery fabric. Wanda had lit the candles not only at the dinner table but also around the rest of the house and she’d set proper places for three at the dinner table, although only two of the places had been served with simple dinner and various sweet, gaudy treats. After the three of you sat, Wanda gave Vision his cards: a beautifully designed one with a poem on the front and a lengthy handwritten letter on the inside from Wanda, a handmade one with bad Valentine’s Day puns and flustered ramblings all over it from you, and a “hand-drawn” one from Tommy and Billy that had really been drawn childishly by Wanda again as the babies were still too young to do so themselves. As he’d mentioned earlier, Vision had gifts of his own, which included a Valentine’s Day cupcake of your favorite flavor that he had snuck from work for you, cards and flowers for each of you, and a pair of inversely colored, Valentine’s Day themed stuffed puppies for the twins. With Tommy and Billy mentioned, Vision questioned their whereabouts and was surprised that Wanda had even let them out of her sight, though somewhat appreciative.

Dinner was next and went fairly quickly. You and Wanda ate a late dinner while the three of you conversed, mainly about Vision’s day and overall week but also you and Wanda explaining how you’d planned and prepared for the date without Vision being any the wiser. Vision made a comment that he, as an incredibly smart individual with a very expansive range of knowledge, should have noticed something sooner, which led to another bout of teasing from primarily you about how he’d fried his batteries when he saw his partners dressed up in pretty clothing and one of his shirts. Then topic conversations bounced around aimlessly for the rest of the time until both you and Wanda had cleaned your plates and even helped yourselves to some of the other goodies. Vision absolutely refused to let either of you do cleanup work, so you convinced Wanda to go change into something a little comfier--“At least take off those pearls and heels. Don’t really mind the rest of the outfit, though.”--and then went over to prepare the living room for movies by bringing over a few more treats to snack on, cleaning off an area for Wanda to magically project movies on the wall without clutter, and turning the couch into less of a decorative scene and more of a nest of red, white, and pink pillows and blankets.

Finally, the three of you settled onto the couch with Vision in the middle. That wouldn’t last for long, though, as you each grabbed a blanket or pillow and shifted yourselves into a big, fluffy, snuggle pile. You and Wanda managed to end up squished between Vision’s arms, where both of you could comfortably rest your heads on his chest. You could also slip an arm around Wanda and absentmindedly run your fingertips underneath the hem of the pajama shirt she now wore--another of Vision’s; it was a light blue and white striped button-down--and over the rose patterns of the sheer fabric hugging her hips. Instead of starting the movies right away, the three of you laid in comfortable silence for a while, enjoying each other’s company.

Vision briefly had to unwrap his arms to stretch and yawn, the yawn something that wasn’t entirely necessary for him. After placing them back, he murmured, “We don’t normally celebrate these types of things, do we, Wanda?”

Wanda’s eyes fluttered open; you had been watching her lay in quiet, cozy peace and she smiled sweetly at you when she caught you. “Goodness, no. We’ve proven time and time again we’re not exactly the remembering type when it comes to holidays. Holidays, events--”

“Anniversaries,” you offered with a little grin. “Especially those that coincide with meetings with bosses.”

Vision groaned softly. “A minor disaster.”

“Ended well though,” Wanda pointed out.

“And provided the idea for this whole thing,” you added.

Vision hummed thoughtfully and you felt his hand run down your back. “That so?”

“You getting flustered over sexy nightwear?” you said. “What potential.”

Wanda snickered. “What potential indeed. We broke the man.”

“Well,” Vision grumbled, his arms tightening slightly around both of you, “I assure you I’m doing fine now.”

You whispered into his chest, “Only because Wanda put on a shirt.”

Your trio broke into tired chuckles, which then faded into warm silence. It continued for a few moments before Vision pointed out that the movie-watching part of the night didn’t necessarily need to happen.”

That you sitting up and reaching for a movie list you’d compiled much earlier in the day.

“We must watch at least one movie,” you demanded, “and that movie is Grease.”

78 notes · View notes

stagbells · 3 years

Text

Summerdew and Sweet Kisses

From: @daikoski

To: @strawberryaeris

Written work under readmore!

notes: hello!! i had lots of fun writing this, it was such a joy to work on! it’s my first time writing lacenet, so i hope you enjoy!! summertime love :D

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It’s date night, and Lace has full reign on what they’re doing today.

It’s less of a spoken thing and more a silent agreement that one of them can take the lead and decide what sort of day the two will share together. Whether it be cozying it up at home, or working on individual projects with the other close by, going hunting, or seeking out a new activity to share, most of everything is free game when it comes to them.

To which, she’s deliberately chosen something new.

Hornet had mentioned one time, in idle conversation, that she’d never really swam for the sake of it. If anything, it was a shortcut, if she couldn’t easily cross the body of water with her needle and silk. That she hadn’t really considered it as a fun passing of time, a recreational activity of sorts.

Well. Neither had Lace, but the thought of it now sounds far more appealing now that they’ve both claimed better lives for each other, for Hornet’s family, doesn’t it? It’s safer now, and they’re easing into a life beyond just fine, but something good instead.

And... there are plenty of beautiful, isolated spots within the land that Lace has seen, and what better to enjoy it than with her darling?

And what a pretty little area it is too; a pond, hidden within the depths of a lush grove. hidden, but with evidence of prior life, if the cute wooden dock is any indicator. The surface of the pond is scattered with aquatic plants in little vibrant clusters, pearls of colour that sway with the breeze.

“Are you sure you don’t want to enter the water, dear?”

From her spot, with Hornet sitting perched on the dock, dangling her peets into the water and swishing them around in such a way that makes Lace laugh, before settling her always so composed regard on her, she looks nothing less than perfect. And also very wary of getting wet beyond that.

Cute.

“I’m considering it,” is just enough of a not-response that Lace hums, a touch understanding, a touch mischievous. Ah yes. She’s considering it.

Hornet has been sitting on the edge of the dock for almost an hour now, the two making idle conversation as they enjoy the balmy air that’s heavy-sweet with ripening fruits and bright flowers, hot to the point of being almost unbearable, but alas, she is still considering it.

Such a shame.

Lace splashes the unsuspecting spider.

Not a full-on wave, of course, she isn’t that mean, but as of now, a little urging on her part wouldn’t hurt, and Hornet immediately shields herself from the water. The top-half of her cloak is soaked.

“Lace—!”

“Yes?” Her voice as innocent as she is not, she merely swishes her hands within the water, propelling herself back a bit from the dock before holding her hands out in gesture, as if to catch Hornet if she were to dive in. “My, dearest, do you need any help with that? You’re already halfway there!”

“My silk is going to melt, and my things could rust...”

“A little water won’t hurt, but if you need a place to keep them, there’s a little nook over there that’ll keep them safe.” Shrouded by bits of sweet grass and soft soil, it’s a perfect spot to keep anything important safe. Besides, they’re both well aware that both of their belongings are far sturdier than that...

“If you had wanted me in the water so bad, you could have asked.”

Kind of haphazardly, more deliberate than not, Hornet unburdens herself of all the little tools and trinkets she keeps within her cloak, before finally sliding into the water. (It’s a mess, but a mess that she understands and who is Lace to question that.)

“There. I’ve removed everything from my pockets, and I’m here now.” Her tone is just a touch grumpy, though that’s easily dismissed with the way Lace can feel the faint stutter-rumble of her purr as she rests a hand on Hornet’s chest.

“Cute, but I think the little questions I’ve scattered into our conversation were not given much heed.”

“Maybe if you asked again...” Ah, now that is most certainly petulance. “You’re enjoying making a fool of me today, aren’t you?”

Hornet’s claws are carefully gripping her own, smaller hand, and Lace brushes the pad of her thumb over her now damp fur. The distant, light waves that carry them ever so slightly kind of pushes her to Hornet, and she can only smile wider at the way her lover’s claws go to brace her gently.

“Ahh, my apologies, I'm not trying to be mean!”

“Really.”

“Mm. At least, just a little bit.”

“So you do admit it.”

“And you must believe me, dearheart, when I say I have no ill intent~!”

Intentionally, Lace lets her mandibles curl in a teasing, honey-sweet manner that always has Hornet unable to look away for just a little bit, and she relishes in the attention just as much as the way her darling swats a wave of water her way in reciprocation.

Because even if she says it in a teasing way, going so far to jab her elbow lightly into Hornet’s side with a laugh, she hopes that the cute spider knows she means every word of it.

Because she’s something wonderful, isn’t she? Direct in a way that’s refreshing, because how often is it that Lace gets to experience something like that? Sharp and honest (and even if she does sometimes struggle with expressing her feelings, she’s still honest) and it’s in such a way that makes Lace want to be the same towards her, be something more open, more real.

...Weird concept, and Lace finds herself laughing to herself, just a little trill of delight.

Yes, but nothing could ever make her stop wanting to tease the spider. Her reactions are so cute after all!

But, her sappiness can be saved for later. Not when there’s currently the cute culprit of these thoughts right in front of her. It’s fun to splash around and goad her dearest on into something of a playfight, one that results in the both being absolutely drenched, but it’s just as nice to relish the coolness of the water against her shell, and in turn be able to admire the many facets such a new experience has brought upon Hornet’s visage.

Cute.

Such as the vague flit of surprise that had so graced the spider’s face when Lace had dunked herself beneath the water; not so many bugs feel comfortable doing such a thing, after all. Or the fond, subdued smile that quirks her fangs just so with each sharp banter that slips so naturally out. It’s nice.

And when the sunlight becomes something a bit too bright and Lace can see the films of Hornet’s eyes try to flick up as she winces from it, she can’t help but bump shoulders with her, before drawing her hand over the smoothness of Hornet’s mask in an unsubtle way of blocking the light, for even just a moment.

“You’re getting water in my eyes,” Hornet half-protests, fangs scrunching but looking so much more relaxed now, and Lace can only think of it as a job well done.

She had purposefully made it so that they would go out later in the day anyways; noonlight was something so sharp sometimes, but alas, even in the evenings can the sunlight bother her dearest like so. They continue like that for a good while longer, idly floating about and conversing, one instigating another splash war on occasion.

It’s all fun and games until they have to get out of the water.

Hornet, the poor little thing, looks just a bit miserable as she works on flicking the water from the tufts of fur that lines her body, chelicerae working ever so slightly concentration. Well, it’s good she’s come prepared.

“Here you are, lover!” Easily tossing a towel around Hornet’s shoulders, Lace gives it a light tug to pull her spider down to press a little kiss and a nuzzle against the side of her mask.

“You planned for this.” Hornet is nothing short of accusatory, and she laughs, just letting a playful hum be her response as she helps tumble dry her.

“What, to trick you into the water so I can give you a kiss?”

Could it really be considered such a devious plan when she was planning on kissing her either way? Endearing thought, especially since Hornet herself is the one to go through some length to muster up something as direct as asking for a kiss. Usually all she’d need to do is start purring up a storm to leave Lace as the one giving the kisses!

At some point, Hornet had cuddled up to her, both drying beneath the steady heat of the sun, but indulging in the warmth of one another for as long as they were allowed. Laying back onto the wood of the deck, peaceful and soft and warm, where the only sounds were that of trickling water and slowing breathing.

Despite appearances, Hornet can be quite the cuddler, curling herself as close as possible to Lace, little tail and everything looping around her as she dozes. Well, this is her fate now.

She doesn’t have the heart to move and disrupt Hornet from a well-deserved nap, even if the way they cuddle always traps her beneath her weight. Not until the sun begins to fall, and the faint glimmers of the starlight begin to settle in, does Lace think of stirring the spider.

This is the sight she wanted to share with her, after all. To deliberately take a moment and enjoy the sight the massive void above has to offer, with all its strange mysteries and stories to tell. Stories she only really heard as a grub, but ones she’s more than willing to try and scrounge up to share with her lover if she so asked...

“Hello there, darling,” Lace carefully nudges her girlfriend awake, and Hornet untucks her face from the crook of her neck. “The sky is clear tonight, take a look.”

(There’s no teasing note to her voice—there’s no need to bring it forth, rather. Not when everything is so quiet, so subdued, and Hornet is still shaking off the last lingering bits of sleep from her eyes, looking so peaceful and comfortable that the sight brings an ache forth in her chest.)

(That this is something they both get to have.)

“It’s night time already?” Hornet murmurs, twisting herself to lay on her back, “Would you not get cold?” The sleepy note to her normally composed and cold voice is something so cute, and Lace leans in to give her a little nuzzle.

“No, and even if I do, I have you, as well as the shawl you had weaved for me so kindly.” And alongside that, the soft, genuine fondness in her own voice is still something so faintly unfamiliar, yet so nice. She could get used to it.

Hornet flushes a bit, perhaps at the prospect that Lace had decided to take the gift she had made for her along in case the night air became chilly, before letting a little ‘mrr’ of disappointment out.

“I am not sure if we should stay out so late...” she begins, before gesturing a bit vaguely, “that, and I had mistakenly assumed we were to return home by nightfall, so...”

Ohh, are her siblings expecting her?

Lace sits up, and unable to help it, stares for a moment. It clicks. Right. They usually go hunting during their dates, two belflies with one stone so to say.

“Did you leave your siblings at home with nothing to eat?” is her automatic question, more concerned for Hornet than anything else. Hornet sits up as well, adjusting her cloak.

“Not nothing.” Hornet frowns, but there’s a small smile hidden, tucked away beneath her mask and Lace knows she’s not truly upset at her question, “they’re most likely eating as we speak. And if they so happen to finish all of our food at home, neither are the type to allow the other to go hungry anyways...” so they could very well be hunting, too.

“Ah, but I can tell you still dislike the notion of leaving them without a fresh meal.” Lace points out, and Hornet leans into her side a bit.

“...Yes.”

“Cute! If it so soothes you, my worrier, then we can take a little detour. I wouldn’t mind if this date takes a turn for our usual.” Carefully extracting herself from Hornet’s hold, Lace hops up with ease to swipe up her belongings—including her pin.

Hornet visibly hesitates—and by visibly, there’s the slightest press of her claws against Lace’s arm, just a light pressure as if to gently tug her back to her side—before she too stands. Not one to leave things undone, not one to linger, but oh, so it seems for the both of them, lingering is just so much easier nowadays...

“Apologies...” she mumbles, and whether it be due to cutting their plans short, or the hesitation, Lace hums affectionately to comfort her. “We could stay a little longer?”

“We can always go stargazing another day, my dear. And hunting with you is always a treat, there's nothing to apologize for.” and with a little nuzzle, the two are on their way.

(A part of her delights so wonderfully at the fact she’s come to pick up so many of Hornet’s cues; not when so few bugs can say the same, and it makes her preen with a silly sweet sort of pride. Hers, just as much as she is Hornet’s.)

It isn’t until they’re both following an easy scent trail that Hornet speaks up again, breaking that routine silence and looking beautifully dangerous in the moonlight, needle and silk carrying her onwards.

“...Did you call me your ‘warrior’ or ‘worrier’?”

Pfft!

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

...

“I suppose I’ll just earn back my title as your warrior with this hunt.”

#stagbells #summer stagbells 2021 #hollow knight #lace #hornet #lacenet #written works

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resonating-kitty · 3 years

Text

Do Not Defy Death - (Mumza as Goddess of Death Surpremacy)

Headcanon idea turned into a short fic. :)

Edit: I read this back this am and whooo boy... this is a rough draft. Ima fix it and put it on a03. Also totally didn't figure something I wanted to add with Tommy.

A03 Link

Dream stood on the platform that hung over the ruins of L'Manburg. He did not stand alone. To his right stood Wilbur Soot and to his left stood Schlatt. The whole of the SMP was gathered together below. Some stared with shock and some with horror at what they were seeing.

"I am a God!" Dream's voice rang out loudly, confidently. He threw his arms out wide, his signature mask hiding his face from view yet everyone could see the smugness heavy in his words, "Look at what I am capable of! My power is beyond anything anyone of you have ever seen! This is my server and things are about to be very different from here on out!"

Murmurs rose up from the crowd below but none stepped forward to challenge the green clad man's words. Fear saturated the air.

Until.

"You sure about that mate?"

Everyone's attention turned at once to the figure standing at the top of the Prime Path. His armor shined faintly in the weak sunlight, his sword hung sheathed at his waist. His black haori waved gently in the breeze and his jet black, scarred wings rested folded against his back.

"Philza Minecraft" Dream spoke his name in the same mocking tone one would a misbehaving child. Even though he knew Phil outdated him by many many centuries. "Are you confident enough to try and stop me? You, a flightless Angel?"

Phil smirked, raising his shining blue eyes to Dream's level as a loud rumbling noise started to sound. "It's not me you gotta worry about mate." With a loud roar the very stone beneath the platform because to crack and crumble away, creating a large bottomless hole. "You see, Death, she don't like it when her souls get poached."

A blinking white ball of light shot up through the hole, flying up past the platform into the sky above. The light burst in a shatter of sparks and fire as two huge white wings spread wide. Hovering in the air was a woman. She had fair skin, jet black hair that was pulled high in a ponytail. She wore black armor from head to toe and held in her hand a black sword. Her eyes were fixed on Dream, cold and unforgiving.

It was enough to make Dream take a step back.

The woman, she did not speak. She just hovered as if waiting for something to happen and soon something did. From the hole came one, two, many, and finally thousands of small orbs of varying colors. They danced and swirled and flowed unto the land much like orbs of experience. Some rose up towards her and some flowed through the startled crowd and up the stairs to hover around Phil's person.

Thousands of voices rose up suddenly, all speaking at once, as one.

"Dadza! Dadza we told Mumza the thing!"

"Good job guys! I'm proud of you all!" Philza laughed and the woman smiled, flashing a warming glance in the Angel's direction momentarily before fixing her gaze on the three on the platform once again.

"Yes my dear," She spoke, her voice radiant, sharp. Crisp like ice, "My children have informed me of the violations that have occurred within my realm. Violations that will not go unpunished." Her hand closed around the hilt of her sword and slowly, she pulled the blade from it's sheath and held it loosely in her grip. "What, my children, shall I do with the one who dared to steal my souls from me?"

The thousands of voices rose up once again, all saying in unison, "Belt! Mumza! B E L T!"

Death raised her sword, lips lifting upwards in a grin. "Very well."

She drove, a flash of white feathers and shining orbs. Her sword met Dream's so hard that sparks flew from the impact. Her feet hit the obsidian floor and her wing propelled her forward, knocking Dream back with her momentum.

An ender pearl flew and moments later Dream was gone. Wilbur, realizing that he'd been abandoned, quickly tried to do the same but he was not fast enough.

"Where do you think you're going?" Death asked, scolding, as she gripped the back of his jacket and pulled him toward her. "You're time here is up Wilbur Soot. Back to the afterlife with you, this time for good." She ordered and Wilbur screamed in defiance and anger as she shoved him from the platform, where he fell and disappeared in the hole below.

Death then turned her gaze to Schlatt, who was still standing calmly off to the side. He had his arms crossed and a cigar burning away between his lips.

With a heaving sigh he reached up to pull the cigar from his lips, guessing "I gotta go too huh?"

"It would be best." Death confirmed and Schlatt heaved another sigh before letting his gaze rake over the crowd, seemingly looking for someone. "Tubbs! I'll see you next week still yeah? I'm still on to babysit the pipsqueak right?" He called down to Tubbo, who startled slightly but nodded and called back.

"Y-Yeah Schlatt! If you want!"

"Of fucking course I do Tubbo! Kids my nephew after all." Schlatt called back. Death cleared her throat, attempting to hide the smile on her lips. Schlatt's gaze landed back on her, offended, "Alright alright! I'm going! Sheesh!" And with a snap of his fingers, Schlatt disappeared in a swirl of blue fire.

"Mumza! Behind!" The voices rose up in a sudden panicked wave and Death turned just in time to dodge the sword aiming for her back. She side stepped Dream, allowing him to fly past her, tripping on his own momentum for a moment before he balanced himself once more.

"This is my server!" Dream spat, coming at her in a frenzy. She easily parred his moves, deflecting each thrust and swing of his sword.

"I am powerful!" Dream charged her, lashing out. Growling with pure animalistic rage when everything he tried was blocked or countered.

"I am a God!" Dream screamed and Death laughed. His sword fell to the void moments later and his back hit the obsidian with a thud.

Death towered above him, her sword resting just under his chin. She gazed down into his burning hate filled eyes, right through his mask, and her voice reverberated with her power when she spoke.

"Even Gods cannot outrun Death."

Dream's death was not kind of him. His soul fought with every ounce of its power but Death won, as she always did. His final life ending sent a ripple across the land, a breath that the very world itself seemed to be holding was released.

Death felt peace once again return to the land.

She flared her wings in a silent command. The orbs obeying at once. They flowed, just as they did before, back into the hole.

She rose high into the sky, her gazed locked to the crowd below and one man in particular. "Until we meet again my love." She smiled before folding her wings and diving with grace into the hole.

Rumbling sounded again as the land shook and knitted itself back together.

Silence hung heavily in the air before an exclamation of "What the fuck?" broke it. All eyes turned to Philza, the same question swirling unspoken in them.

"My wife!" Phil shrugged, offering no more information and turning away to leave. A course of "What the fuck Philza?! WIFE?!?!" following after him.

#mcytblr fanfiction #philza #philza minecraft #zablr #dream smp fanfiction #mumza as goddess of death #mumza as death #kitty wrties #green man gets owned by kristin basically #wilbur soot #schlatt #tw death

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walker-journal · 3 years

Text

Bellyflop into the Abyss (Dave, Mina, Adam- POTW)

Characters: Adam Walker (Hunter-Tapir), Wilhelmina Fitzroy (Nix-Virginia), David Herring (Selkie-Immo)

Summary: Seeking ways to combat the rifts opening across White Crest, Adam and Mina meet with Dave and dive into the sea of a Demon Dimension in search of answers

Content Warnings: Head Trauma, Parental Death mention, Gun Use

Adam’s shoes sloshed on the partially flooded floor of the empty convention center, beckoning for Mina to follow. Deluges of water expelled from the dimensional rift in the Common had begun to create pools of standing water around White Crest’s greenspace, gradually rising and spreading to the ground floors of nearby buildings.

“So I’ve set up a meeting with another hunter who's been fighting underwater monsters for a long tide,” Adam explained as he waded through the strangely colored waters from another world towards a staircase. “Before the portal opens we’ll probably want any advice we can get y’know?”

The water was high enough that Mina had simply taken off her shoes and left them in her car before she and Adam had made it to the common. It wasn’t like there was anything in the water that could hurt her before the water itself healed her. She couldn’t afford to ruin or lose another pair of shoes, seeing as how she… kept ruining and losing her shoes. She’d been sleeping (in the loosest sense of the word) in the woods more and more, and that was more detrimental to her footwear than she’d imagined.

“That works for me,” Mina said, nodding as she looked around in the water, watching out for creatures that might pop out. Mina agreed to this because she couldn’t not. She wanted to help people. She wanted to protect people. She wanted to feel useful. “What, exactly, are we looking for in the portal? Just a way to close it, right?”

Of course all hell had broken loose while Dave had been locked up in Rio’s scribary. If he hadn’t already been in a piss poor mood thanks to the lancing pain where his arm was healing, one of the hell dimensions looked like it might even be fun. But with a firm warning from the doctor that he could lose the rest of the functionality in his arm if he didn’t let it heal, Dave knew better than seeking out new hunts in new waters while under the weather. When Adam had approached him with ideas for a frogman mission, the best he could offer was the equipment to keep anyone else from drowning.

Dave had set up his gear on the roof, considering the rumours of how high the tide would come in, and it kept him out of sight of wandering eyes. His pelt was carefully folded to the side, constantly in sight. Just in case it was needed, considering how much faster. It was a sign of trust that might well go right over the young hunter’s head, but Dave didn’t mind that so much.

At the vibrations of footsteps heading up the water-soaked stairs, Dave turned to the emergency exit door he’d wedged open. He raised his less injured arm to greet Adam, but his features dropped into a frown as a second figure followed him through. Fuck. Mina. The last time he’d seen her, he’d nearly crushed the life out of her. Dave took a step away from the gear behind him, hoping that having one arm in a loose wrist sling would make him look less threatening. “Hey.” He said gruffly, his tone contrite. “Not gonna hurt you again. I was sick. I’m sorry.” Better to get that out of the way before she freaked out.

“Yeah some clue to what caused it to open, maybe what’ll close it,” Adam continued as they walked into the room, the Hunter’s shoe’s squelching from the trip through the sudden bottom floor.

“Yo! Professor Porpoise! This is Mina and she…”

Adam paused midsentence, brown eyes flicking between Mina and an apparently contrition-struck Dave.

Aw shit, bad blood with the Scuba Hunters. Adam swallowed and looked over his shoulder at Mina, wondering if he just walked her into a meeting with her mom’s sealy exboyfriend who ruined the Atlantis family through bad self-care or something.

“Alright, good,” Mina said, structuring everything into mission objectives in her head as she followed Adam up to the roof. “Find out what’s happening, make it stop, keep the Commons from becoming the next Dark Score Lake. Sounds--” She stopped in her tracks when she saw Dave, though.

Mina’s first thought was to make sure that Adam knew the danger and then get them both out of there, as against the idea as the other hunter might be. But Dave… wasn’t attempting to hurt either of them. She let her eyes scan over the selkie, taking in his posture, his facial expressions, his arm in a sling. And his words were confirmation of what she’d thought, that something had been wrong. (She still remembered his words, how he’d thought she was a monster, how he’d broken her like it was nothing.)

“Hi,” Mina said, her tone cautious, but there was relief there, too. She’d been right when she thought that something was wrong. And, besides, there was no one to stop her for forgiving him. He’d been sick. Something in him had seen her as a threat, as prey. Something had been wrong. She couldn’t fault him for that. He’d been kind to her, before, and she could see proof of that man standing before her. “I thought-- I thought something was wrong with you, then.” She cleared her throat. “So, ah, Professor Porpoise, was it?” She felt strange joking, still a little on edge, but she was trying. “I take it you’re our equipment expert, then?”

The air saturated with a pregnant pause as Mina weighed him up. Dave waited, quietly, for her reaction. He nodded in confirmation, gesturing to the slowly healing bite on his injured arm. Too slowly. Every bad incident was taking too long, and even with the infection cleaned out of his system and the rest he was careful to give it now, the joint of his elbow wouldn’t be the same. And then the moment passed as she repeated Walker’s newest nickname for him.

“Not sure if that’s better or worse than what I was being called before,” Dave eventually settled on gruffly, without a lick of heat to it, there was even a twitch of a smile. It was a good nickname, all things considered. He did love word play, even if he was considering finding some land mammal comparisons for the two of them.

“Something like that.” He looked over Adam and Mina’s gear with a critical eye. Mina wouldn’t need scuba gear, so her wet suit would have to do, and Adam’s scuba gear was recognisably combat oriented, with a rebreather, but limited. “Looks like you won’t be needing any knives between the pair of you. Take your pick of the rest of this. We’ll start with these,” Dave said, with small boards that could be clipped onto wetsuits, each featuring a clock, underwater compass, diver’s white board and small computer with depth sensors and tracking devices. “At the very least it should help the pair of you find each other if you get seperated, and if the portal plays nice with the comms, should help you get back here too. This,” Dave gestured to a streamlined black propellor with handles, “will let you,” Dave pointed to Adam, “keep up with you,” this to Mina, “and get away from some of the gnarly things in there. Pretty damn quiet, never had anyone have an issue with it that they wouldn’t have had without it.”

“As for what weapons you’ll need,” Dave gestured at a few options of underwater pistols, rifles, bangsticks and explosives, “it’s really gonna depend on how much time you want to spend killing things while in there. Firearms and bangsticks are a good call for merms, grindys and dievalves, but a bootstrap worm washed up here this last night. If you catch a hint of those, the better call is to swim away.” Dave rubbed his jaw. “The deeper you go, the weirder shit gets. Don’t go too deep.”

Adam knelt besides the black propeller and squinted at it. “This’ll be interesting.” It really hadn’t occurred to him yet that down in the depths he’d be the slow one. It was a weird feeling being the liability here. “Aww sweet bangsticks,” the Hunter looked at the explosives with affectionate reassurance, as if being able to blow things up made the prospect of diving into a alien world less unsure.

“How deep are you comfortable with going Mina?”

Taking one of the small boards Dave offered, Mina clipped it to her suit, checking to make sure that all of the components were working. Everything appeared to be in working order, though it wasn’t like she knew how to work half of the devices on it. She probably wouldn’t need to. Before, she might have been interested, might have wanted to know how all of the different parts worked so that she could explain them to Bex in a way that made this seem less like a life or death situation and more interesting, like a learning experience. Now, she just wanted to do her duty and exhaust herself and try to sleep.

Grabbing a few bangsticks, Mina looked at the firearms and decided against them. She was a terrible shot. She could only imagine that it’d be worse underwater. She looked at Adam. She was so tired but determined. “However deep it takes. We’re looking for something, right? We stay down until we find it.” She looked at his equipment.” Or until you run out of air.”

“Just keep factoring in decompression time the deeper you go. Hunter healing only accounts for so much,” Dave replied grimly. “Tide washes in through the portal for three hours and thirteen minutes each day, try not to miss getting back.” He had no doubt Adam knew the limits of the equipment he used like the back of his hand, but he also knew how hunters could get around their own bodies. He’d learned that first hand. There were a dozen more likely ways either of them could die, but the bends was a shitty way to go.

“If you’re within three to four hundred feet of the portal, I might be able to help if something goes wrong.” Dave held out a small ziplock bag with a slime covered mother of Pearl, handing it to Adam. Best not to ask what the slime was. “Spellcaster magic. You swallow it and it’ll put a few minutes oxygen in your blood. Hurts like hell and I only have the one.” A payment for the kind of job that had left Dave feeling like it’d be better if he could peel off his human skin too. If they were deep enough, that Pearl wouldn’t matter if some monster punctured Adam’s gear. If they were far enough, his pelt wouldn’t either. He looked from one to the other, determined, young faces, and hated what had bitten him just a little more.

“Three hours huh,” Adam repeated. It wasn't exactly a big window considering how broad their objective was here. They’d both have to economize their time in the portal, but Adam doubted splitting up would be a good idea in a Hell Dimension. The Hunter frowned at the puzzle, trying process what Mina and Dave were saying while trying to get a firm vision of what needed to be done.

The sheer impossibility of his calling, of holding back entire universes from encroaching on Earth, was crushing in its weight. The inevitability of everything being swallowed up in the Hells, how frail and tiny we all were in the grand scheme of things, yawned in the back of Adam’s mind. Not for the first time, Adam Walker secretly wished he’d never been shown the truth, that he could just be playing ball, blissfully unaware of how precariously Earth teetered to a vast uncaring abyss.

So Adam did what he always did when the cosmic insignificance got a little too real: He grinned and played the fool. It felt good, comfortable. It was the only way he could stay sane sometimes.

“Aw sweet! Sea witch jizz!” Adam guffawed and poked the bag experimentally. The fraternity boy let his mind drift away from the fact that he was about to plunge into an alien universe full of hazards humanity had never evolved to face, away from the inevitability that he’d keep doing this again and again until one day he didn’t come back. No one would ever know how, or where he died, or that it’d been for their sakes. Just like Dad.

It felt good to be funny, everything was fine if he made it funny.

“We’re looking for like...something to close the rift,” Adam replied to Mina with a confident nod and smile. When others were struggling you needed to be strong for them. A lifetime of athletics, drills, and just generally being an extrovert had acquainted Adam with the self-fulfilling nature of confidence, that lie you wore outwardly until it became real inwardly. “Like I dunno ..an off switch?” He shrugged nonchalantly. “We’ll figure it out y’know? But yeah def’ no going till we run outta air, I want to make it to date night with Nell.”

It was a cheerful lie of course. Adam never scheduled anything after Hunts. Surviving was a privilege not an assumption.

Mina couldn’t help but snort a little bit at Adam’s comment before she turned back to the task at hand. It was good. It was funny. It was nice to laugh. But they had work to do. She just wanted to do something good. Maybe this was her proving herself to herself. She wanted to prove that she could protect people. She wanted to prove that so much that it ached like a bruise. And maybe no one else would know but the three of them, but she didn’t care. She needed this.

“Okay, then we go only long enough to where we can make it back before the portal closes from no matter where we are with… at least ten minutes to spare. In case something goes wrong.” Mina set a timer on her board that she’d start as soon as she went in. She shot Adam a warning look, one laced with fondness. “And you, don’t pull out any short of heroics if things start falling apart within the last minute, alright? Of the two of us, I can survive if I get stuck in there.” Probably. “So you’re getting out first.”

She almost made him promise, but she didn’t want him to get hurt worse if he did try and pull something.

Looking back at Dave, Mina added, “Please get him out first if something goes wrong.” She shot Adam a smile. It was almost genuine. “Nell would have my head if you missed date night, after all.” But she went over the objectives: go in, find an off switch, whatever that meant, and get out. Whatever destruction was caused along the way would be dealt with as it came.

Even Dave’s lips quirked as he rolled his eyes at Adam’s antics, good-naturedly grumpy at the way his gift was being treated. In the face of… extraordinarily fucked bullshit, what else was there other than to laugh in the face of it. Adam had done this on the catfish hunt too. Even if his confidence in finding a magical off switch was a little too much even for Dave. Learning anything from the portal would be a win, even if it was somewhere to rig explosive or steel guards to stop some of the monsters coming through. But Dave knew he was too cynical and too old, and dampening that hope was a dick move. Hell, it wasn’t even his mission. The more the two of them got ready to go, the more Dave itched to ditch the sling and the constricting human clothes, fit in his better skin and be more fucking useful than playing a discount Q in this Mission Impossible.

The information that Adam was dating the dimension breaking spellcaster barely had a second to set in before Mina was giving Dave instructions on who to save. Enhanced healing or not, Adam was the fragile one here. And the one Dave knew better. But it wasn’t a promise he could keep. In the dark, deep water, it wasn’t a question of choosing, it was a question of who he reached first. He couldn’t distinguish between two swimming human sized forms until he was too close to change his mind. He nodded curtly. “Let’s not let it get that close,” was all he said.

He looked out to the portal, a icy chill spilling down his spine. That was the creeping dread of being somewhere he’d been before. Dave always got older, but no hunter aged with him for long. It still felt wrong to send folks who had barely touched adulthood into those unknown depths. What he wouldn’t give right now to be diving with them rather than sending them off without him. The first splash of water bubbled over the edge, spilling a clump of algae onto the ground. “It’s time. Try not to get eaten this time around,” Dave teased wryly.

Adam hadn’t been raised with any notions of male disposability, where the loss of a woman was somehow more emotionally significant then that of a man, thus obligating him to assume Mina’s life had more gendered importance then his own. Like most Hunter families, the Walkers didn’t see the gender of their children as relevant when training humanity’s protectors, and Adam fought alongside his sisters, aunts, and fem-cousins without any assumptions that he’d need to do a square-jawed Hollywood leading man sacrifice for their sake.

Nevertheless Mina’s insistence that he go out first and not try any heroics still bit at Adam in a way that had nothing to do with chivalry. It gnawed at him even as he smiled and nodded noncommittally at her good-natured implorement.

Why? Did he feel inadequate being the weak one here? Maybe? How’d that make sense though? He’d asked Mina to accompany him for exactly this reason. This was her speciality and everything she’d just said made logical sense. The tactical part of Adam’s brain had accepted that and already moved on.

Then...why had it tilted him so much?

Dave’s gentle ribbing and announcement of the portal opening came as a relief of sorts from the unwelcome thoughts sneaking their way into Adam’s head. Adam drew in a deep breath and let out a long exhale, broad shoulders rising and falling as the athlete put himself in the zone. This was the good part, that high you got right before the game started where everything started to make a simple violent sense. Adrenaline began to transmute anxiety in a peaked awareness of his own body and surroundings, climbing in euphoric intensity as Adam looked out the window to see a churning whirlpool pour open into thin air above the Common greens.

Adrenaline and Adam were old friends. It was the only drug he’d ever needed.

“Fuck yeah!” The Hunter grinned. “Nah don’t worry Professor Porpoise being swallowed is actually like...way more horrible than it looks in the movies, easy one outta ten won’t repeat. C’mon Mina! Let’s get flushed by the universe!”

Adam had begun the boot camp hustle down the stairs, laden with equipment, when he turned back to look up at his pelagic benefactor.

“Hey Dave, thanks man, like seriously, I owe you man this wouldn't be possible with you.”

“Flushed by the universe,” Mina said quietly as she followed after Adam, webbing already forming itself between her fingers. Scales formed on her arms, on her legs where the wetsuit ended on her calves. Her gills opened on her neck, ready to take in water. “Might as well be flushed by the universe, I suppose.” At this point, why not?

She followed at a more controlled pace than Adam, but Mina was practically buzzing with adrenaline, with energy. She was ready. She was so tired, but she was ready. Her body may have not been made for hunting, but it had been trained for it, and there was nothing she was more prepared for than this. For once, she would be the one with the speed, the healing, the capabilities. She was ready.

Looking back at Dave, Mina gave him a wary smile and said, “Who knows? This could go quicker than we think. We could be in and out of this within fifteen minutes.” Nevermind that neither of them knew how to close the portal, nor did they know what would happen when it closed. She was just hoping they didn’t get stuck in there.

Don’t thank me, Dave wanted to say. The weight of their debts, in Dave’s mind, was stacked in Adam’s favour. His life had hinged on Adam’s decisions plenty of times already. But he knew it might be the last time Adam got to say. The last time Mina would stand on firm soil, maybe. His heart twinged, and Dave quieted it. “I expect anything that doesn’t get used up back at the end of this,” he said instead, his voice so hard it could have been mistaken for brittle.

“Wouldn’t that be something,” Dave replied to Mina with a raised eyebrow, then shrugged. “I’ll be here, waiting for as long as it takes. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.” The third wave spilled over the portal into the common, and a young, small karkinoid lay in the grass on its back, wriggling as it tried to right itself again. A few days of this had left everyone evacuated from outside the flood zone with cordons keeping people away, but denial was a powerful drug, and a couple people were straying a little close. Dave sat on the roof, peering into the portal. He started his timer. Don’t die, was what he’d wanted to say.

Adam looked up at the portal churning a few feet above the green, trying to hold his ground as strangely water burst out of thin air as if reality were a dike that’d busted a whole. Doubts snuck their way into the Hunter’s brain as another water nearly knocked him off his feet.

So Adam decided to spit in fear’s face and defdefiantlyinately turned his back on the portal and gave Mina a thumbs up.

“See you in Atlantis Fitzroy,” he assured before jumping into the spatial tear backwards like it was a water park slide.

Then Adam’s body was being torn apart, for hours and just moments he was shredded down to the molecules in a space between spaces. He was completely conscious yet also obliterated.

So it took Adam a bit too realize he was now screaming and flailing like a dumbass in the deep.

There was no up or down, no sky, shore, or trench bottom. Adam squinted through the beam of his diving lantern light at an ecosystem that was entirely marine, a universe of endless water where his own branch of evolution had never taken place. He was just thankful that whatever otherworldly rules of water pressure existed here hadn’t crushed him immediately.

Stars didn’t exist here, but there was no shortage of light. Immense islands of bioluminescent coral drifted in the deep. Rainbows of biological light permeated through water from three-dimensional reefs ranging from glowing boulders to entire archipelagos of riotously colored polyps and anemones on the aqueous horizon. Adam glimpsed drifting forests of alien kelp, their slimy shadows hiding arboreal ecosystems of flowering growth and predation the naturalists of Earth could scarcely imagine. Currents of cold rippled through the water occasionally from submerged icebergs that had been hollowed out with caverns by the locals. Warmer currents were thick with shining heavenly cloudscapes that turned out to be bizarre forms of jellyfish on closer inspection. Some of the extraterrestrial Medusozoa shimmered with their own electrical charge, lighting arching within the colossal jellyfish flows like tentacled storm-clouds.

At first Adam thought he was in some kind of underwater aurora from all the waves of color shimmering around him. But as the Hunter’s eyes adjusted he realized there were actually tiny plankton-like creatures all around him, their bodies fluctuating together through spectrums of bioluminescent color as if it were some kind of eusocial communication.

“Hey...Mina,” Adam tried the coms as he looked around. “Can you hear me?”

Unlike Adam, Mina wanted to see exactly what it was that they were flinging themselves into. Even after Adam jumped in, she stayed back and stared, her heart beating rapidly. But she steeled her resolve and gave a nod to Dave before she dove in, hoping to have some sort of control over her descent.

No such thing. The moment Mina hit the water, she was in a current that even she couldn’t fight off. She tumbled through the water, moving so fast that it took the oxygen from her lungs even when it was supposed to be filtered in. She was disoriented and confused, but she adjusted. She was back in the headspace she’d held for twenty-something years, and that meant to be prepared for less than ideal situations. That meant being able to adjust to a world that was only water, and light came in a multitude of colors that took even her eyes a bit to adjust too, and that meant an immediate catalogue of her surroundings and person.

She hadn’t lost any of her gear, though it wasn’t like she had much in the first place. Adam was nearby, looking disoriented as he adjusted himself to wherever it was that the portal spit them out. Looking around, Mina couldn’t help but be slightly in awe of how beautiful it was. A world of endless water, no sign of the surface. She wondered if this was what the bottom of the ocean looked like. She wondered if it was better. But those weren’t the kind of thoughts she needed to have. She needed to focus. They had a mission.

Hearing Adam’s voice in her ear, Mina looked over to the other hunter. There wasn’t really anyway for her to talk back to him since she wasn’t wearing a mouthpiece, and it was likely that the sound of her voice would get lost underwater, but she gave him a thumbs up. Yes, she could hear them. Hopefully, they would have no trouble communicating back and forth with gestures.

Adam looked over the expanse of luminous plankton aurora, reef islands, and kelp forests. It was an entire universe of monster-infested haystack to search for a needle that might not even exist.

Adam felt the constriction of despairing panic at this impossible task grip his gut. But the Hunter took deep breaths that sounded thunderous in the diving mask.

Focus. The town is in danger. No second thoughts. Focus.

Ironically, the gift that made Adam valuable, the ability to sense any kind of supernatural creature was useless here. Every lifeform here was supernatural and the water was absolutely saturated with alien varieties of kelp and plankton. It was just dull static in the back of his head from so many Hunter vibes.

Kay, so the lead wouldn’t come from him. That meant…

“Hey Mina,” Adam began swimming down to her, leaving a small stream of bubbles in his wave. “We are looking for something that like...vibrates or gives off vibes similar to the portal.” Adam jerked a thumb back at the churning whirlpool in the distance that’d flung them into this universe. “Any chance you might feel a pull or like some vibrations in the water,” he asked, wishing they’d had time for Dave to give a course refresher on that particular bit of Aquaman wisdom. “It doesn’t matter how small it is,” he answered, “anything that tugs at your instincts.”

Mina’s eyes were designed to see in water, even without the aid of the luminous sea life around them. She could see the look on Adam’s face as he got closer, the look of being impossibly overwhelmed. She recognized it. She saw it in a mirror almost every time she looked. But they didn’t have time to be overwhelmed. Every minute that they were in the portal counted and had to be utilized to finding what it was that they were looking for.

She could feel vibrations, certainly, but Mina wondered if it was vibrations that she needed to be sensing at all. This was a supernatural artifact, something similar to the portal. A portal that opened up and let monsters loose. There had to be something about it that drew creatures to it, which meant, at least to her, that the key, whatever it might be, was something similar. It drew supernaturals to it. She would prefer if it was some sort of deterrent, but she couldn’t see that being the case. So she wasn’t trying to listen, to sense the key itself. She was headed towards something big. Something major.

There was a lot going on in one direction. She looked at the compass on her board. West. There was a lot of activity to the west. She pointed in that direction, hoping that she was right. If nothing else, they were in for an interesting time. There was something big down there.

Adam nodded and twisted the knob on the black water scooter that Dave had provided. The propeller churned to life and Adam felt a kinetic lurch as he surged forward through the water. Damn this thing had kick.

Silver light illuminated the deep growing brighter and brighter as they drew closer. Passing through another kelp forest, the Hunter pushed fronds out the way to see an incandescent sphere on the horizon. At first Adam had the crazy thought that it might be a submerged moon or even a star. Demon dimensions didn’t play by the same rules of physics as Earth after all.

But as they drew closer that ‘moon’ turned out to be an enormous pearl the width of a football stadium. It was nestled within an even larger clam, whose open ridged shell towered higher than most Earthen skyscrapers. The great pearl shone with its own inner light, casting the surrounding seas in a brilliant argent hues as if Mina and Adam were swimming through molten silver.

“Damn, got any vibes what we are looking for here,” Adam asked before seeing some scaffolding at the bottom of the pearl. Altars and tents made of seaweed formed a camp on the fleshy surface of the giant oyster’s interior. “Looks like the pearl has...uh ..worshippers?”

Keeping up with Adam’s water scooter was surprisingly easy; Mina never really knew how fast she swam. There was no one for her to race against, and she’d never utilized what she was for a hunt before. Being a nix and being a hunter had never correlated before. She was kind of glad to be useful for what she was, for this aspect of her life.

The Pearl was mesmerizing. Mina almost couldn’t look away from it. She looked at her hands, at the way the silver of her scales reflected in the silver of the pearl’s light, and she thought that she probably belonged in a place like this more than she did somewhere like White Crest. She could just… stay, make sure Adam got out with the key and closed the portal for good. Wouldn’t that be better for her? Wouldn’t she belong here?

Mina shook those thoughts away. Mission. They had a mission. And she still had a home and a life and people, even if she was distancing herself from people. More than that, she was there to do her job. That was what mattered. The job.

The pearl was definitely an epicenter of sorts for activity. Clearly, whatever intelligent life forms loved in this world had made the surrounding areas into some sort of temple. But there was no one around them, and that worried Mina they needed to be looking for a lot of life, and this place almost seemed abandoned.

Mina pointed again. Further. They needed to keep swimming.

“Careful,” murmured Adam as pressure suddenly began to build in the back of the Hunter’s head. “I’m getting like ...huge vibes here.”

The shape that first emerged from the murk appeared to be a tampa drill shell the size of an aircraft carrier, it’s ridged spire bearing spiraling designs that evoked a language Adam didn't understand. However its contours were a bit too smooth, with walkways and portholes grown into the structure of itself that no snail or oyster would ever need. It was then that Adam realized that this wasn’t the cast-off shell of a marine animal, but rather a submarine vessel that’d been grown by intelligent beings.

More of these massive organic submarines of calcium carbonate and chiten became visible as the divers pressed forward. Some types of shells were recognizable, while other ships were crafted from strange nautiloids and even submarines that appeared to be immense plants or a few titanic demonic fish that seemed perfectly alive despite the crew of lesser demons working inside their hollowed flesh. All the marvels of demonic biotechnology were connected together by enormous pyrosome colonies that formed long luminous tubes, perhaps to allow easy passage between ships.

“It’s like...a dockyard,” observed Adam, “for these demon shell ships.”

Mina was also picking up vibes, but they weren’t Fae vibes, hunter vibes. She felt ill at ease, like she had back when that creature had been loose in the lake. The two of them were small and insignificant in this vast, fathomless world with life that was possibly just as intelligent as life was in the place that they came from.

It felt like Mina’s stomach was trying to sink to the bottom of this bottomless place. Maybe Adam was onto something about Hellmouths ripping themselves open. She gave Adam a nod as he pointed out that this was some kind of dockyard. This was a horrifying place.

There was still a part of her that was aware that she could disappear here and stay.

They needed to steer clear of this area, but… the more Mina looked around, the more she felt like this was where they needed to go. Something was drawing her towards this area, something primal that she’d rather avoid. In a place like this, she believed, rather unfortunately, that places that she wanted to avoid were the very ones that they should head into. They needed to be quick about this. They needed to be careful about this.

Adam noticed a slight thinness in his breath as they passed under one of the behemoth shell vessels. His air supply was probably at the halfway point, but Adam felt like bringing that up would be counterproductive when they had a lead.

The each horned prong of the shell above them could’ve skewered earthly ships on its glossy spiral. Occasionally there were windows in the bio-vessel’s sides, not of glass, but made from translucent filmy slime stressed across the opening. Adam pressed a hand against one of the portholes and found the slime substance yielding and permeable.

“I think we can get in from here.”

Mina’s two main worries about this whole situation, as she looked at the strange ship, were knowing how much time they had left to do this and making sure she remembered the right direction to get back to the portal. That was what mattered. She needed to remember how to get them back to the portal. Or maybe Adam had some sort of gps machinery on his diving board. She wasn’t bothering with hers too much, trying instead to mesh hunter thoughts with nix thoughts in order to navigate this strange land. Find some sort of key. Get back. Insure they both survive. Close the portal. That was what mattered.

Wrinkling her nose a bit at the weird slimy material, Mina put her hand against it and pushed through. It wasn’t the weirdest thing she’d touched by far, but it still wasn’t pleasant. She was most worried about whatever sort of creatures they were going to run into. It’d been ominously quiet since they jumped in.

Adam wiped slime off his goggles as they drifted through the portal into the demon vessel. In some superficial ways the interior resembled that of an Earthly sea shell. A central columbell pillar ran through the shell from aft to its spiked stern. Whorls and sweeping structures expanded outward from the central columbella axis, forming great sloping charmpers with slickly smooth walls that were all linked by spiraling curvatures and twists rather than doors.

What furniture existed was grown out straight from the central coiling axis, though Adam couldn’t really guess what ergonomic purpose most of these chitin groves and indentations served.

Two creatures that appeared to be human sized moray eels covered in glowing pustules glided out from along a curving wall. Long sinuous strands extended eel demons’ pustules like seaweed wart hairs. These hairs caressed strange pearls and mussel clusters inset into the shell vessel’s walls, as if they were operating equipment of some kind.

Multiple sets of yellow eyes with large black pupils swiveled in their rows of sockets down the eel demons’ body to regard Adam and Mina. Both the head and apparent tails of the eel demons opened to reveal rows of glass-like teeth as they zipped through the water towards the intruders.

Mina would have been lying if she said that she wasn’t a little disappointed that the first creatures that they came into contact with weren’t mermaids. She really wanted to rip into a mermaid. It might be nice. It might get a lot of frustration out. But eels were fine, too.

Ducking out of the way as the creatures headed towards them, Mina considered the best course of action in dealing with them. She didn’t want to touch anything on them that glowed, fearing some sort of electrical backlash, and she didn’t want to touch those strange hairs, either. But she didn’t have any sort of ranged weapons, nothing that would help in a situation like this. As one of the creatures approached, she moved to the side and raked her claws against its smooth hide, causing the bulbous head with its mouthful of sharp teeth to turn back in her.

Mina jabbed the bangstick into the eel’s face and fired. Even creatures from whatever sort of Black Lagoon horror dimension this was didn’t enjoy a bullet to the face. There was the bang, and dark blood exited where the bullet went in, the creature’s body still floating even in death. Mina turned to Adam, hoping he was faring well. They needed to get moving. They had work to do.

Adam slid a still twitching demon off a long silver-tipped spear that had jutted out from what’d looked like a small baton. The human was less graceful in the water than his fey counterpart and red electrical burn marks stood out from long slices the demonic spine-hairs had seared through his diving suit. However Adam had apparently jutted the telescopic spear’s baton up against the thing grappling him and released a pressured seal that sent the silver spear straight through the demon’s innards.

Adam tried to keep focus as they swam through the smooth twisting gyres of the shell-ship. He would occasionally warn of presences beyond the next curve or loop, holding back as school of eel-demons, Vodnik, and even stranger creatures went about doing whatever inscrutable processes maintained a bio-tech vessel like this. It was tense business, ducking patrols and trying not to lose ones’ way in dizzying chambers of chitinous spirals that didn’t resemble any human norm of architecture or even up and down. The burning lashes across his chest throbbed and the air in his tank became ever thinner, but Adam kept his head on the mission. Surrendering to nervousness would likely be a death sentence here.

It was on reaching a porthole leading out into one of the Pyrosomes tubes that Adam discerned something resembling a central meeting point.

Pyrosomes were actually colony structures made from tiny organisms about a few millimeters in size. They often looked like cylindrical tubes of a gauzy texture that glowed with bioluminescence. But while Pyrosomes could get to about eighteen meters long on Earth, whatever extraterrestrial zooids these things were made of allowed the Water-Hell Pyrosomes to grow to far larger. Adam guessed they might even intentionally cultivated that way using whatever weird sciences the demons had at their disposal.

Glowing pyrosome tubes, some many hundreds of feet in length and wide enough to drive semi-trucks through, extended from each of the behemoth shell-submarines. Many of the pyrosomes linked the ships together in pulsating networks, perhaps to exchange crew and cargo. However, Adam saw a great many pyrosome tunnels extended towards a central point, a great helical axis of coral that this vast hell armada seemed tethered around.

“See that coral island that looks like a helix? I think whatever’s on there drew the demons here,” Adam theorized. “It might be what we’re looking for.”

They needed to hurry. That was all Mina could think about as they moved through these strange ships, this strange world. Adam was looking worse for wear, thick marks in his suit showing burned skin, and she knew they were running out of time. His tank wouldn’t last that long. Mina needed to get him out of there. She should have just come alone. She wouldn’t have had to worry about air supply or another person. Adam was one of the few hunters in the entire world that tolerated her, liked her, too. She didn’t want to lose that, especially not here in this underwater hell.

Eyes following where Adam pointed, Mina looked towards the helix. Even she could feel… something. A draw, a pull, a desire to head in that direction. She had no doubt that every creature near them felt that pull, too. That was the most dangerous area. That was, she was sure, where they needed to go. She hated that. She really, really hated that.

Mina nodded to Adam and pointed towards the glowing tube that would take them down to the helix. That’s what they needed to do, right? They needed to go down there, take whatever they found, and hoped that it helped the Common stop flooding with monsters every day. Taking a bit of initiative, she headed to the tube and, before she could think twice about it, got in it and hoped for the best.

It wasn’t like Mina meant to let out the slight scream as she was rocketed down the tube. She hadn’t. She was usually more composed. But she hadn’t been prepared for the speed, and she hadn’t been prepared for the tumble she took as she came out on the other end, and she hadn’t been prepared for the glowing sight that awaited them. This was where they were supposed to be.

And it was filled with monsters.

Adam caught his bearings and took in their surroundings. The stony spirals rotated parallel to one another. One was comprised of scarlet Precious coral and the other of aquamarine Octocoral. Though separate, these colony structures orbited each other in the pattern of a helix by some quirk of gravitation Adam couldn’t comprehend. But the source became clear as Adam perceived two glowing coral keys of the same respective coral types nestled on the spiraling ridges. They filled the water with conflicting hues of red and blue, blending into livid purples in some places at the helix's’ center. Light seemed to warp around them, twisting into strange flares and halos around the keys. Adam had a gut instinct that it was their power that was causing this helical gravity and had drawn the demonic armada here.

Unfortunately, the stares from an aquatic school of luminous eyes, antennas, and blind tentacle feelers extended their direction gave Adam the feeling that sheer surprise was the only reason and Mina weren’t already dead.

“Mine, grab the blue key!” Adam shot up towards the scarlet key, stabbing the silver spear through a giant brain covered in spines that’d tried to impale him against the reef.

There were the mermaids. Mina had been wondering when she’d see them. While Adam was dealing with something that looked like a creature out of some sort of science fiction movie, Mina had something a little more understandable to deal with, and, as one of the mermaids came at her, she went straight for the lure before aiming low, ripping into the creature’s head with her knives. And another one. And another one. She could feel their teeth tearing at her wetsuit, tearing holes in it and her skin. She wasn’t safe there just because she was a water dweller as well. Food was food.

Mina wasn’t food. She was claws and blades and so much pent up aggression. She wanted to fight. She just wanted to fight. So she did, against mermaids and Vodniks and creatures that she didn’t even have names for. All the way to the blue key that Adam mentioned.

It was so bright. It’s glow filled the whole space, blending with the other key’s shades of red. It was so nice to look at, so pretty. Mina was drawn into the soft blue colors, wanting to bask in them for as long as possible. No. Focus. She needed to focus. She had to focus. She snatched up the key, washed in a blue glow. The key’s glow dimmed, and it was warm in hand. So warm. She wrapped her hand around it tighter and and started swimming to Adam. They needed to go. They needed to go soon. The creatures were turning to look at her, drawn to the glow in her hand. They needed to go.

Adam skewered an eel demon to the coral with the spear in one hand while reached towards the scarlet key with the other. He squinted past the ruby halos and flaring star-like lights in the water, hand straining towards the key resting on the opalescent curves of a hollow shell, like on idol on an altar.

Adam’s hand closed around the key, and the world exploded in pain and blood.

A spine projectile punched through Adam’s back and out the front of his chest like a surgical bullet. The brain urchin creature had drifted dying in the water from Adam’s spear, but had sent a departing gift after its slayer in the moment of victory.

Everything was agony as Adam’s vision was rimmed as darkness as he fumbled at the controls of the water scooter. “C’mon,” he gasped, rapidly losing blood and air as hungry demons closed in.

Adam flicked the water scooter up to its threshold speed and held on as they tore into the deep towards the whirlpool between worlds.

Mina screamed as she watched Adam get skewered by one of those creatures. No. No. He had to get out. He was supposed to get out. He couldn’t die here. She started swimming after him as fast as she could, easily keeping up with the water scooter as she guarded their backs.

With each creature that got too close, Mina slashed out at them, baring sharp teeth and wielding sharper knives. Go go go. They had to go. They had to get to the portal and get out. She finally looked up at it, watching with horror as it got smaller even though they were getting closer.

The journey to the keys had taken too long, but the journey back to the portal was an ascent. Mina knew they were going to get there before Adam ran out of air. At least, she hoped. She just didn’t know if they were going to make it before blood loss became a problem. The blood spilling into the water like an ink trail was attracting all the monsters, making them swarm.

The portal was close. In her head, Mina said, Fuck it, as she turned to Adam and grabbed him before swimming them both as fast as she could through the portal. The exit was as rough as the entry, spitting them back in White Crest. Mina was gasping as she breathed straight air instead of water, as she dragged Adam with her towards where they’d left Dave. “Still with me, Walker? Come on, come on, come on. You’ve got things to do, you know.”

Somewhere they tore past the sun-like radiance of the giant pearl temple, Adam had slipped into darkness. He drifted down into himself, everything was so peaceful and numb. Soon even the hiss of the air tank became muted in some inner distance. There was no duty. No pain. Nobody to save and suffer for. It was just Adam in the undemanding dark.

How long he drifted like that Adam couldn’t really say.

An exhausted part him wanted to stay, but Adam knew that other people were gave everything meaning, and they weren’t in here.

So Adam forced his eyes open, shuddering and coughing and he coughed up blood and hell water on the Commons grass. The agony and color came rushing back like a punch to the solar plexus. He just lay there for a bit, the Earth’s grass reassuringly familiar.

The rough coal edges of the key bit into the skin of Adam’s palm, reminded himself that it all hadn’t just been a nightmare.

“So Mina,” Adam rasped grinning blearily up at his hunting partner. “How’d ya like Atlantis?”

The longer Dave watched the portal, the longer he itched to jump in it. For them, and for the simple siren call of water he wasn’t acquainted with yet.Each tide brought the swirling vibrations of their bodies moving through the water until one wave he couldn’t feel them at all. Instead the waves brought monsters, some which could be deterred by firing backsticks into their heads and some that Dave couldn’t hunt so easily with one arm in a sling. He kept people away instead, all the while making sure he had skin in the water, as the minutes went by and threatened to become hours, until the tide began to ebb.

Dave’s heart stayed in his throat until he felt the vibrations of the pair returning, racing through the water and a little closer with each wave. He turned as the next wave rushed through the portal, and spat out the pair of them with it. Alive, gasping for air. Dave couldn’t help his relieved grin. They filled the air with the stench of quickly spilling blood, freshwater algae and eel slick. His smile slid off his face as he saw the injuries that were becoming a staple of hunts with Walker, and hurried over to meet them. The first aid kit in his bag wasn’t going to cut it.

#gun use tw #parental death tw #head trauma tw #potw #Portal Combat #seizethecarpe #drowningisinevitable #walkerjournal

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loxare · 3 years

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More Untamed ficlets when I should be sleeping, yay!

Madame Yu hated the boy.

But if she were inclined to be fair, which she usually isn't, she would have to admit that it wasn't because of anything the boy himself did. No, she hated the rumors that his presence sparked, that her husband would disrespect her enough to have an affair with a woman who had rejected him. She hated the way that despite her best efforts, her children regarded him as a sibling. But most of all, she hated the way her husband looked upon the boy with more tenderness than he did upon his own children. Her own children.

It was far too late to get rid of him. Now that he had developed a golden core, to toss him out without teaching him how to properly develop it would be worse than negligence. An improperly developed core could lead to overloaded meridians, causing weakness in the body later in life. So no, she couldn't just kick him out.

But perhaps she could make use of him in another way.

Her maids packed efficiently, as they always have. The boy was training, and as such it was nothing for Yinzhu to sneak in and put a change of clothes in a bag for him. He would not need much. As Madame Yu wrote a note to her daughter, to avoid straining her constitution with worry, Jinzhu got the boat ready. Jiang Fengmian received no such note. He could pace a hole in the floor for all she cared.

By the time Madame Yu walked onto the dock, the boat was prepared and her maids were seated primly, a confused, sulking and soaking wet Wei Ying between them. She raised her eyebrow. Yinzhu said, "He was struggling, so I put him in the lake until he cooled off."

"I told you I could walk by myself," Wei Ying groused. "You didn't need to carry me."

Madame Yu's exact order had been for Yinzhu to pick up Wei Ying from training when they were ready to go. If she decided to interpret her orders entirely literally, Madame Yu was not going to take that from her. Especially since she had also ordered her maids to mind Wei Ying and keep him from annoying her as much as possible. They should get to have some fun.

The journey was peaceful. The river was slow this time of year, so the trip upriver was quick and not turbulent. Wei Ying ran to and fro on the boat but, largely due to Jinzhu and Yinzhu's efforts, stayed away from the shaded pavilion Madame Yu sat under. He fell into the water twice. Gradually, the river narrowed as tributaries branched off, and the water became the swift, clear white waters Madame Yu knew best, and the disciples driving the boat were forced to put down their bamboo poles and use talismans to propel the boat instead.

Finally, they stopped. Meishan Yu had one dock for trading, situated on a slow moving canal dug for that exact purpose. The rest of the river was too fast for any boat to stay docked for long and ran as wild and free as the people who lived along it. The disciples were given their orders, to wait for Madame Yu's return, and then Madame Yu and her maids took their charge into the mountains.

The hall of her grandmother was grand and old, although not as old as the woman herself. It was not a sect headquarters, not technically, but it was where most of the juniors were trained before they were sent into the wilds to complete their lessons.

Her grandmother sat in the central chair on the dais, with Madame Yu's twin elder sisters on either side. Madame Yu stopped a respectful distance away. Jinzhu and Yinzhu retreated to the sides of the hall. They would not be needed here. At her side, Wei Ying fell to his knees and pressed his forehead against the floor, as she had instructed him. Madame Yu bowed. "Popo. Da-jie. Er-jie."

"Ziyuan." Da-jie stood at her grandmother's nod, and took three steps forward, so Madame Yu was addressing her directly. She was the head of Meishan Yu. It was only right. "Why have you come here?"

She knew already. Madame Yu had sent a letter ahead. But now it was time for Madame Yu to make her case. "I have come to have this child trained as a Pearl." Beside her, Wei Ying gasped. She had not told him of the reason she was bringing him here. It was not his business. Wisely, he said nothing.

Da-jie sniffed. "You have two Pearls, Ziyuan. To have more is greedy."

"Not for myself. For my son."

Er-jie laughed. She had not approved of Ziyuan's marriage, but she had not had a voice at the time. "Your son is Jiang. Only Yu may have Pearls."

"My son is half Yu. The blood of the steppe runs through his veins as it does mine." He was not much of a Yu, to be fair. His anger was as quick as the river that rushed through the wilds, but he was timid in his decisions, too soft and slow to deviate from the path carved before him. He was like the slow rivers of Yunmeng.

Perhaps he should come here for training as well.

Da-jie considered. Madame Yu knew it would not be a hardship for her to train Wei Ying. The training for a Pearl was far more intensive than for a disciple, but Wei Ying had already shown a knack for learning and adapting quickly. And it would be a change of pace for Da-jie, who changed the training schedule weekly to keep from getting bored. Training a Pearl would keep her entertained for a while.

Slow as the sun setting behind the mountain, a smile crept over Da-jie's face. "One Pearl for half a Yu. Very well, Ziyuan. Shanzhu. Fengzhu." At her call, Da-jie's Pearls came forward. "Take this out into the field and test him."

Shanzhu grabbed Wei Ying by the back of his robes and hauled him to his feet. He looked upon her with eyes wide. "Madame Yu?"

She did not owe him an explanation. He owed her sect his life and she was going to ensure that life would be a useful one. But something in his gaze made her soften. She did not owe him an explanation. But for most of his life, he had not had a home. And now she was taking from him what her husband had promised would always be his. So Madame Yu said, "you may return to Lotus Pier once you have finished your training."

Wei Ying did not get a chance to respond, as Shanzhu pulled on his arm and dragged him away. But he looked determined rather than frightened.

Er-jie watched as they left. Then she slung an arm around her younger sister's shoulders. "Well. While you're here, why don't we renegotiate our trade contracts? I would love to take even more chilis and lotus silk from you."

"Xiao-Yan." Popo stood and took Ziyuan's hands in her own. "Welcome back, Xiao-Yuan. Come. You shall have lunch and tell me of my grandchildren, and then you will explain why they haven't visited me in four years."

"Yes Popo." Lunch was delicious, and almost as hot as she preferred it to be.

The trip home was quick and quiet, especially with Wei Ying no longer on the boat. When she got home, she was pleased to see that a-Li had not told her father where Wei Ying was, as she had requested. A-Cheng was grumpy but not worried, so she had told him, but Fengmian was in a state of panic. He clearly hadn't played enough attention to his children to see that they were calm.

He was not pleased when she told him where Wei Ying was. But in the end, he did not have a leg to stand on. As the Lady of Yunmeng Jiang, she had final say on which disciples she trained personally and which she did not. If she decided to outsource the training of a disciple to another sect, that was her business. Additionally, she could guarantee that Wei Ying would be fed, clothed, and housed while he was gone, which is what he had been promised when Fengmian had acquired him.

A-Cheng and a-Li both spent the fall and spring in Meishan for the two years after that. The year after, Wei Ying returned as Tiezhu and received Wuxian as a courtesy name, the same day a-Cheng received Wanyin.

Wei Wuxian had used his time in Meishan well, and it did not take him long to catch up with the other juniors. Fengmian named him head disciple, probably to spite Madame Yu, but even she had to admit that he had the skills for it. Wei Wuxian was better even than some of his seniors.

Fengmian stopped praising Wei Wuxian for his skills when the boy stopped reacting well to them. In Meishan, pretty words were meaningless, as ephemeral as the clouds in the sky. Fengmian had never understood that in all the years they'd been married.

Wei Wuxian was stronger than her son. He always had been, and he always would be. Madame Yu had always known this. But now, he was a weapon for her son to wield, a sword to pierce his enemies or a shield to take the blows meant for him. Now, Wei Wuxian's strength was Jiang Wanyin's strength.

Madame Yu watched her son grumble at his laughing Pearl, as a-Li fed them baozi. Her own Jinzhu brought her some more tea while Yinzhu stood at her shoulder.

Her son would always be protected. Her daughter too, if Madame Yu read Wei Wuxian correctly. And this, this was something she could be content with.

***

Madame Yu gets Jinzhu and Yinzhu (gold pearl and silver pearl), so why not Jiang Cheng, I ask myself at an hour past my bedtime? Tiezhu means iron pearl, but the (very brief, very sleep deprived) research I did said that 铁 tie also means weapon, unshakeable, determined, strong, and close, as in "always close to Jiang Cheng". I thought it fit but I might disagree with myself in the morning.

Oh, and Shanzhu means mountain pearl and Fengzhu means summit pearl. Probably. Feel free to correct me if those are wrong

#Untamed #mdzs #Wei Wuxian #Madame Yu #Yu Ziyuan #wwx #Don't get me wrong this still isn't a great relationship for yzy and wwx #and it's not great for wwx's self sacrificial tendencies #like at all #this isn't really a fixit in that canon events will be better #or maybe they will idk I just work here #but it's better for both yzy and wwx #and also! a better use of resources!#Come on yzy you have an entire person here ready to throw his life away for your children!#You gotta focus that energy #Anyways the kids go to Gusu in a few months and wwx is just as much of a disaster as he usually is #because if the Burial Mounds couldn't completely destroy his personality nothing can #especially not a fun (?) two and a half years running around Meishan and learning from Shan-jie and Feng-jie #he's just twice as deadly and three times as protective of his siblings #Thinking about it I don't think jzx is going to get away with just one punch to the face #rip to jzx's pretty face I guess #Loxie's fics

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from-home · 3 years

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𑁍 MARK LEE┊ 𝒔𝒊𝒙𝒕𝒚 𝒔𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒔, 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕 / one ˎˊ˗

𑁍 summary : the one where mark lee time travels back and forth throughout the past and future with his crush, (y/n) ˎˊ˗

𑁍 pairing : mark lee x older!reader (by like three years lmao) ˎˊ˗

𑁍 word count : 6.7k ˎˊ˗

𑁍 genre : fluff, comedy (i hope??), minimal angst, time travel!au ˎˊ˗

𑁍 warnings : swearing, unrequited love (i know that shit hurts omg), my humour is ass, mark gives me slight second hand embarrassment in this, bad writing??, i gave up like halfway through this lol, first time writing a fic like this pls have mercy, it’s almost 2:30 am i'm too tired to proof read fuck ˎˊ˗

𑁍 a/n : first chapter of my first ever fic on here hehe - idk when the next chapter might come tbh but hopefully i’ll continue this series for my own enjoyment! in the meantime, uni still kicks my ass >:(( but anyway, enjoy and i hope that at least someone will find joy with this! ˎˊ˗

[ 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟬 : 𝗗𝗔𝗬 𝟬 ]

when your pastor dad’s best friend was the biggest nerd in high school and became an eccentric scientist

O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,

What a beautiful Pussy you are,

You are,

You are!

What a beautiful Pussy you are!

If he could write like that, maybe Mark wouldn't need to be here in this boring literature class of his. Don't get him wrong, he liked writing, and he liked the way he could express his emotions through a pen and paper. But for the twenty-one-year-old boy who could barely sit still in one place without his mind wandering off into four different dimensions, it was hard to be interested in whatever the professor was rambling on about. Maybe Professor Jung was telling the story of how she met Dylan Thomas' widow's sister's friend's cousin, and how much of an artistic impact it had on her. She had told the story a good three times in the past two months - Mark kept count.

Yeah, writing was fun and all, but literature class specifically was boring and dull to him. "Oh but Mark, why take this course then?" one might ask. But one should also know that it was a necessary course if Mark wanted to earn his oh-so-coveted diploma.

Curse him for majoring in creative writing. His dad always did wonder why writers even bother writing when the bible exists.

But maybe one day, an hour and a half of John Keats would produce him some ideas for a romantic poem that he could write and gift off to his love of seven years... and counting.

(Y/N), the shiniest of all pearls and the most beautiful of all Mona Lisa's, the older woman and her beauty often left Mark stunned and helplessly in love. He first met her when he was fourteen, when she had been introduced as his seventeen-year-old tutor. She was so pretty back then, and still was now. In fact, it was as if she didn't age at all!

Someone who resembled a goddess like (Y/N) deserved only the most romantic of all romantic poems, and Mark Lee made it a mission to be the one to write it for her. He was so helplessly in love with her that he was able to channel his feelings for her into five different written forms: poems, song lyrics, an 'A for effort?' drawing of her, letters, and anonymous blog posts about how "unrequited love hurts".

Sure, those blog posts were anonymous, but as good as Mark thought he was at hiding his feelings for her, everybody in town and their ancestors' spirits knew about the big crush Mark had on her. But no one bothered to tell (Y/N) about her not-so-secret admirer and nobody bothered to let Mark know that his mysterious crush wasn’t as well-kept to himself as he thought it was.

But it was cute. Not the part where Mark slowly died on the inside as each day passed without his feelings being returned (that was pretty sad, everybody acknowledged), but the part where the adoration in his eyes were so clear for (Y/N). Legend went that he held stars in his eyes whenever his gaze rested on the older woman - like, actual stars from the galaxy. Or so the first-hand accounts go.

Mark Lee was a talented and hardworking boy, that much was a shared sentiment by everybody in town. He excelled at all subjects, mowed the lawn twice just because he thought he missed a spot, gave it his all at church every Sunday by rapping and dancing in the name of Jesus Christ until he was reduced to sweat and threatening to rip his dress shirt off - he was a jack of all trades. There were even rumours that whenever it was time for a 'Make a Wish' patient to... make a wish in heaven, he would dress up as Spiderman and visit them in the hospital to make their final dreams come true. So maybe that's why it was so endearing, his one-sided love for his noona. If there was one person who could jump over that hurdle of "just friends" and out of the friend zone, it had to be Mark, the boy who's always gave it his all in everything ever since he moved here from Canada when he was twelve. It was one thing to have this crush that you desperately wanted to be returned, but it was another to have the whole town cheering for you - it said a lot about Mark's character.

Which is why! There was no other perfect test subject for Scientist Kim, the local eccentric scientist who was obsessed with creating his "next big invention". He also happened to be the best friend of the town's pastor (weird combination, everybody knows), courtesy of their high school days and a misunderstanding over a carton of milk. The town's pastor also oh-so-coincidentally happened to be Mark's father, who had lived in Korea for all his life until he moved to Canada so his wife could give birth to baby Mark. He ended up moving back to his hometown, however, thus creating a new relationship between his best friend and son.

Now Scientist Kim - who liked to go by "Cabbage" as a homage to his idol, Charles Babbage - didn’t really care about Mark's painful one-sided love, but he knew the boy could never say no to his father's best friend from high school, so there was no one better to try out his experiments and inventions than Mark. Like, there was literally no one else at all - the whole town swore Cabbage was out of his mind and were still waiting for the day the newspaper would come out with a headline that he's been charged with involuntary manslaughter. Everybody would be disappointed, but not surprised. But such an incident hadn’t happened yet, so for now, Cabbage was still freely working hard everyday to successfully complete and unveil the invention that would propel him to "the front page of every science magazine and a Nobel Prize in Physics".

And it just so happened to be today, October 30th 2020, when Mark received a phone call from his dad's best friend in the middle of class. He was glad he kept his phone on vibrate, but god, was it distracting. To answer or not to? Why now of all times? Right, he forgot that some people don't have anything else to do with their lives other than... creating things that usually end up on fire by the end of it. You know, now that he thought back on it, the last time Mark willingly participated in Cabbage's experiment which involved some tinfoil, antennas, and laser beam machining, it left Mark's right shoe on fire - thank God he had brought a fire extinguisher over to Cabbage’s house with him.

Just that memory alone convinced Mark to ignore the call, nearly forgetting about it once it had stopped ringing if not for the fact he received another call just seconds later. "What is this, an infatuation?" Mark grumbled to himself, before glancing up at the front to see if Professor Jung was distracted enough for him to take this call without her noticing. It didn't help that he sat three rows away from the front. But she still seemed to be rambling on about how much she loved Dylan Thomas' works, and that was a sign for him to accept the call. He kept his voice to a hushed whisper, however, "Hello-"

"Mark! You have to come over!" There was no way Professor Jung did not hear that screech that came from his phone. He glanced up nervously, noticing his classmate's startled gazes on him. But his eyes wandered over to the front, and judging by how Professor Jung was now going on about Dylan Thomas' "attractive appearance", it seemed he was in the safe for now.

"Cabbage, I'm in class, so could you keep it down?" Mark hissed quietly into the phone.

"Right, right, sorry!" While he was still loud even after lowering his voice down, it was more than quiet enough for Professor Jung not to notice, thankfully. "Mark, I've just completed my latest invention. But this isn't just any invention, it's the invention of both my - and everybody's dreams!"

Mark would be mildly curious if not for the fact that Cabbage said that about every invention of his, but he figured that his dad was going to urge him to go anyway, even if Mark didn’t want to. "But he's my best friend, Mark!" Jeez, because how could he possibly say no to the power of friendship?

"Mark? Boy? You still there?" Cabbage’s voice pulled Mark out of his thoughts, and the boy could do nothing but sigh. This was just going to be like every other time - he’d be introduced to some machine that supposedly did one thing, said machine would catch on fire the next minute, and it would all result in Mark going home an hour later.

"Fine, I'll be there. After class in like, half an hour." Mark reassured the scientist, and he swore, he could hear something catching on fire in the background.

"Great!" He then heard rushed footsteps and... a fire extinguisher? "See you then!" And the call ended.

He just couldn’t wait.

When visitors would come to the humble town of Uicheon (의천), located just thirty minutes away by car from the bustling capital city, Seoul, the first thing they would notice was how much the town gave off Suburban American vibes, like walking through a town where the main characters of some random Disney high school movie lived. All single detached houses, varying in style from Country French to Cape Cod with recent contemporary and modern upgrades to those houses by residents who wanted to "spice it up".

Uicheon was a town seen by others where most of the population was upper-middle class. There was nothing wrong with that at all, and actually, the residents of Uicheon were both happy and welcoming of anybody and anyone who stepped foot into town or even took an interest in moving, no matter of their social or economic status.

If anything, the residents of Uicheon - the ones who've lived in the town for longer than ten years at least - were often worried that those who did show interest of moving in inevitably get... scared off. By one particular daunting house.

It was a beautiful town. No seriously, Uicheon had been mentioned on multiple "Top 5 beautiful towns just outside of Seoul that you should visit!" lists published on the internet. And in the beautiful small town where all the houses provide comfort and beauty, surrounded by flowers on nearly every available patch of grass like something straight out of a magazine, there stood a modern house - the only completely modern house in the town - its exterior all... black. Even the big windows were tinted black, and it was obvious that the house stuck out like a sore thumb. Sometimes, the local kids told stories of how the house was abandoned, and was home to a ghost with a vengeful spirit inside who wanted to steal your teeth. The residents of Uicheon had gotten used to the house's presence already, but it didn’t stop the mutual sentiment of "...really?" amongst them.

And currently, Mark stood in front of its black front doors, ringing the black doorbell and covering his ears as trumpets echoed from inside the house, playing to the tune of the guitar solo of Gun N' Roses' 'Sweet Child O' Mine.' Only seconds later, did the door swing open, revealing a robot, half of Mark's height. "SCANNING FACE... HELLO M-A-R-K, MARK." It greeted, well, robotically.

"Hey, Edison," Mark greeted the robot nonchalantly, walking in and shutting the door behind him, "where's Cabbage?" He asked as he took off his shoes and placed it on the nearby shoe rack.

"LOCATING THE DOCTOR..." Edison's eyes turned yellow, colour blinking repeatedly until it turned into a green light and stayed like that. "DOCTOR LOCATED - HE IS IN HIS LABORATORY DOWNSTAIRS."

Because was it really surprising that the house belonged to a guy who invented things for a living and went by the name of a vegetable in a bizarre way to honour his idol?

"Got it, I'll go meet up with him then." Mark informed, heading down the hall until he reached the black spiral staircase that led both to the third floor and bottom floor. It was really nice up there on the third floor though; Mark had been there before and it even came with a movie room! Too bad Cabbage rarely used it because he "doesn't have time for action sequences". So Mark, being the loyal lab assistant/test subject he was, headed down instead to the bottom floor, where he was greeted by a hallway that was lined up with pictures of old men on the walls. "My inspirations!" Cabbage would say. Among them were the likes of Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison (who he named his robot after, clearly), Nikola Tesla... you got the drift.

Regardless, Mark never stayed in the hall longer than he needed to - he wasn’t sure if portraits of old men who were dead by now staring at him was exactly his kind of vibe.

At the very end of the hall, all that awaited him was a grey metallic door that had some vapour seeping through the narrow space at the bottom of it. "Shit, I didn't bring a fire extinguisher today..." Mark cursed, grabbing onto the straps of his backpacks and readjusting it on his shoulders. "It's okay, Mark. He hasn't killed you before, so he can't kill you today...?" He wasn’t sure what the logic behind that thought was but you couldn’t blame him for trying to... reassure himself for whatever was about to come beyond those doors. It was funny to him; he had been the lab rat of many of Cabbage's crazy experiments and inventions, yet he kept coming back and every time he did, the jitters were always there.

Maybe it wasn’t because he was scared of death. Because he wasn’t - his father always drilled the idea into his head that God would welcome him with open arms when the time came. At the very least, if Mark died - most likely because of one of these experiments and inventions - he'd be bringing Cabbage with him. But hey, that was beyond the point.

If not the fear of death, then what? Maybe, just maybe... one of these days, one of Cabbage's revolutionary inventions would actually be successful. That for all of the craziness that's going on inside the mad scientist's head, it would finally pay off.

If only he knew when.

Mark reached for the handle and twisted it, pulling the door open and nearly coughing when a whole cloud of mist and vapour rushed at him. "Jeez, Cabbage, what are you doing this time?" Mark coughed into his arm as he took a step into the laboratory. He actually couldn't see the scientist at first, waving his hand around in hopes that he'd be able to swat away the mist and vapour. The space around him eventually did clear, though, revealing...

Nothing?

Instead of the usual grand machine that looked like it was taped together, Mark was greeted with... a clear space. The scientist was over at his desk just up a set of stairs that led to a second floor within the big room. "Cabbage!" Mark called after him, waving his hands to get his attention.

Whatever the scientist was busy doing, it was important enough to leave Mark ignored for a good five seconds. It left him pouting, though the scientist eventually did glance over at the boy, his eyes widening behind his circular glasses. "Mark, boy, there you are!" Cabbage sprang out of his seat, quickly rushing down to the boy he had called over. He held some sort of watch in his hands, like it was the most precious thing in the world. Jeez, since when did Cabbage wear Rolex? "Took you long enough! I was bouncing in my seat waiting for you to come over! But in the meantime, I was able to complete another one after confirming my calculations for the twenty-seventh time..."

One thing that nobody wanted to do was sit through Cabbage's rambling, prompting Mark to speak up. "Whoa, calm down, Cabbage. What's going on? Where's your invention?"

"Oh Mark, you're looking at it." Cabbage held out the watch and Mark raised an eyebrow.

"That small thing?" Mark narrowed his eyes at the watch in the scientist's hand. "Are you sure? Last time I came in for one of your creations, it was twice my size and almost killed me." But knowing the kind of person Cabbage was, Mark wouldn't be too surprised if this little watch managed to wreck havoc as well. How ironic it would be, for something so small to cause so much chaos.

Cabbage shook his head, meeting Mark's gaze with oddly serious eyes. "Mark, the creation I hold in my hand can - and will - change the world. If left in the wrong hands, everything could collapse. Society will crumble, the universe will be left in a never-ending stream of terror, reality will no longer exist, the concept of time will-"

"Okay, okay," Mark was left, once again, trying to calm down the frantic scientist, "Cabbage, deep breaths. Tell me, what did you create?" It couldn't be that bad that it left the older man going on some admittedly fear-inducing rant.

"A time travel machine."

One Mississippi, two Mississippi...

"Alright, I'll see you next time then, Cabbage." And almost immediately, Mark turned on his heel, prepared to just dip out of there.

"Wait, no, Mark!" The scientist called after the boy, grabbing a hold of his sleeve, "Please, hear me out!"

"Time travel, Cabbage!" Mark whirled around, disbelief painted in his features. "Do you even hear yourself right now? That's impossible! This is impossible! Listen, I'm fine with being your test subject but even I have to put my foot down somewhere when things get a bit too crazy!"

Despite Mark's reasonable concerns, Cabbage really didn't feel like letting his lab assistant slip away from the tip of his fingers, especially now of all times. "Come on, Mark! Twenty-seven times! I checked my calculations twenty-seven times! Don't let my hard work go down the drain!"

"Then do it yourself! Time travel yourself!" Mark exclaimed.

"I can't! I need you to go so I can stay behind and collect all the data while making sure you don't get stuck in the future or something!" Cabbage explained.

Unfortunately, Mark's face still showed utter disbelief. "You know, this really doesn't help your case, Cabbage!"

"Fine! We'll do this the fair way then!" Cabbage shouted, holding his fist out.

"Are you serious? Rock, paper, scissors?!" Mark cried out, covering his eyes. If there was one thing he couldn't say no to, it was rock, paper, scissors. Why? Maybe because he boasts a seven-hundred-fifty-two win record, with a mere twenty-one losses in the game. As you could probably assume, Mark was the undisputed rock, paper, scissors king in Uicheon, and only two kinds of people would dare challenge him in the game when it came to bets. Those who were bold and those who were desperate.

"I mean it, Mark! If you win, you can walk right out that door and never look back. I won't force this onto you. But if I win..." If Cabbage won, "you have to at least give this experiment a thought."

"Wait, that's it?" Mark uncovered his eyes, surprise in his voice. But hey, it wasn't a bad deal at all - in fact, the opposite. If Mark won - which he was pretty much guaranteed to - he could leave. If he didn't, he could pretend he thought it over and just say no in the end. "Well shit, say no more, Cabbage." And out Mark's fist went. “On shoot?”

"On shoot." The scientist confirmed, the two men placing their fists behind their backs.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

Rock for Mark, and... rock for Cabbage.

"You got lucky." Mark rolled his shoulders back. "But this is it." And back their fists went behind them.

"Rock, paper, scissors... shoot!!"

Scissors for Mark, and... rock for Cabbage.

"I won..." Cabbage glanced down at his fist, mouth left agape, "I-I won! Against you!"

Yikes, better make that record seven-hundred-fifty-two wins to twenty-two losses now.

"I-I..." Mark was still in disbelief, for a totally different reason now, however. "I... I lost?" Under such circumstances too... but seriously! Time travel was a bit too much! "H-Hey, that doesn't mean I'm going to be going through with this! Remember, you said if you won, you'd let me think about it!" Mark reminded.

"Yeah, but only because I didn't think I'd actually win!" Cabbage snorted, shaking his head as he tucked the watch safely in the pocket of his white lab coat. "But I am a man of my word, so I'll give you some time to think about it. How about until the end of the day?" He suggested.

"That's a bit too soon, don't you think?" Mark frowned, not really liking the idea of being forced into a decision so quickly.

"Sorry, is that loser talk?" God, that damn Cabbage always knew how to get under Mark's skin.

"Fine, by the end of the day. But don't be surprised if my answer doesn't change." Mark warned. "Now if that's it, I'll be going." Mark huffed, turning around and heading to the door once more. This time, the scientist let him go, but not without some parting words.

"See you soon, Mark."

(Y/N) doesn't know where her life went wrong.

Okay, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration and a dramatic one as well, but it didn't change the fact that instead of living out in the city and pursuing her dream as a world renown film director, she was stuck in her small hometown, working full-time at a film-rental store.

What was even the point of this store anyway? Everything was online nowadays anyway - who did the owner think he was, trying to compete with Netflix?

"One Mississippi, two Mississippi..." (Y/N) mumbled to herself from behind the counter, staring dully at the analog clock hung just above the front doors. An analog clock - what year was this again?

"(Y/N)," the voice of the store's owner, Mr. Yoon, was a less than welcoming disruption to her daily "clock-watching" (as she termed it herself), but at least it was a good way to remind her that the day was almost over, "did the kids all go home already?"

(Y/N) nodded, reaching below into the counter for a piece of paper with names and times. "Yup, Jungwoo and Sungchan just finished their shifts half an hour ago." She pointed to their names on the paper, "Signed out here."

"Great. You're in charge of closing up for today then, I have business in the city." Mr. Yoon informed, proudly readjusting his grip on the handles of his briefcase.

"Godspeed, Mr. Yoon." (Y/N) nodded, watching as the man left with a nod. And as the doors closed behind him, the female found herself alone in the store. All alone... which actually wasn't even that uncommon.

(Y/N); twenty-four years old, graduated from a local college two years ago with a degree in Film Studies with hopes of eventually entering the field of film-making and directing. She had high hopes, especially when she graduated. "To the city and A-list I go!" She could remember cheering that day in her car, diploma in hand and graduation gown still on.

But somebody must have forgotten to tell her that the university you went to mattered - and just how competitive the job market was for... pretty much every job.

Now this wasn't to say the college she attended was bad or anything, it just wasn't... one of the SKY universities. And before she knew it, when it came time for job hunting, the positions were constantly being filled out by "better candidates" and after a certain amount of "we regret to inform you"s, (Y/N) decided to go back home.

Home, in the beautiful yet small town of Uicheon. All she wanted was to make it big, live in a nice condo in Seoul and shop at luxury brands. Yet now, she found herself wearing what was possibly a ten-year-old uniform from the back storage with a name tag that was always tilted at a forty-five degree angle no matter how many times she tried to fix it.

But don't get her wrong! She hadn't given up yet - she absolutely would not! Her films might not be playing in theatres or at the Busan International Film Festival, but she still enjoyed writing up ideas and getting some of her co-workers to act out some scenes for her while she filmed eagerly with her trusty camcorder.

The Sony HDR-CX675; this bad boy cost her a good two months of saving up but God, was it worth it. Jungwoo in a wig and Sungchan throwing pens like they were daggers had never looked so good in HD until (Y/N) had gotten her hands on that beloved camcorder of hers.

"Should I film the clock or something?" She sighed, eyes wandering back over to the analog clock. At least she only had an hour left before the store closed, and she usually spent most of that time cleaning up anyway.

And so that hour began, dreadfully long until with only ten minutes to spare, the front door had opened, prompting (Y/N) to rush back to the counter from the storage room, though not without grumbling to herself quietly about what asshole comes into a store ten minutes before they close.

But it wasn't just anybody who came in - it was Mark, the boy who always complimented her hair no matter how lazy she had been to brush it that day. Still, flattery always earned some brownie points in (Y/N)’s books. So she wasn't hesitant at all when she had greeted Mark. "Hey, it's nice to see you here! Renting a movie?" She asked, resting her arms on the counter top.

"Yeah, looking for some Christian-friendly Halloween movie. For the kids at church this Sunday, since Halloween is tomorrow." Mark chuckled shaking his head.

"Let me see what I can find," (Y/N) grinned as she slipped away from the counter and to one of the shelves, "I'll be honest though, you're probably better off showing the kids some cartoon from Netflix or something."

As if Mark was going to tell her that he insisted to his dad on renting a movie, for he wanted to see and talk to the girl of his dreams who currently had her back turned to him. "Well you know us, terrible with technology." Instead, that was all he could muster up.

"I'll bet." She snickered jokingly, turning back to him with a movie now in her hand, "Toy Story of Terror sound good to you?"

"Better than showing them Scream." Mark shrugged before heading back to the counter with her. "I'll pay with debit."

"Mhm," (Y/N) nodded, taking his card and swiping it for him through the machine, "you know the usual, watch within thirty days and return it after those thirty days." She reminded him with a yawn. God forbid Mr. Yoon ever see that.

"Busy day?" Mark offered a small sympathetic smile as he took his card back as well as the movie. "I kind of get it. Cabbage called me in for one of his inventions today."

"Today?" She asked, watching as the boy across from her nodded. "What was it this time?" Everybody in town felt bad for Mark since he was the one always testing out Cabbage's inventions, but at the same time, at least it wasn't them?

"Gosh, you wouldn't believe me if I said it." He shook his head with a heavy sigh. "A time travel machine - or like, a time travel watch, I guess."

"Time travel?" The gasp from the female was expected; anybody would be surprised. "I always knew Cabbage was ambitious but definitely not to the extent of time travel!"

"Yeah, needless to say, I said no. Or like, I told him I would think about it, you know?" Mark frowned. "I just can't believe... time travel of all things."

"I'll be honest," there was a smile spreading on (Y/N)’s face, to the slight surprise of Mark, "the idea of time travel sounds so cool though. I'd love to try it out." When Mark had brought up what had happened at Cabbage's house, he didn't think (Y/N) would actually be... interested in the scientist's invention. Definitely not when it was so absurd. But she looked so cute, the way she stood up straighter and her attentive eyes as he talked about it. Gosh, he wished he could tell her that it wasn't worth the time. But her interest was clear, that much he couldn't ignore.

"Then... why don't you try it in my place?" Mark suggested hesitantly. He didn't want (Y/N) and her pretty little self anywhere near those dangerous creations, for concern of her safety. But she really seemed to be interested in this, and this... it was the least he could do.

"Alone? No thanks." She giggled softly, to the relief of the boy who had suggested it in the first place. "Maybe if someone else was with me though. Like a time travel duo!" Hold up - someone else?

"This is your chance, Mark!" His inner voice practically screamed at him. Anything for (Y/N), right? "But it's so dangerous!" His other inner voice tried deterring him from going through with what he was about to suggest. But for (Y/N)! "Then," Mark felt his heartbeat quicken, excitement and hope visible in his eyes, "you wouldn't mind if we did it together, would you?"

If his friends Johnny and Donghyuck were here, they'd definitely be cheering and slapping him on the back. It felt like he was asking her out, something he always dreamed of doing but never really having the guts to do so. Rejection was a scary thought, but as he watched the wide smile that spread onto (Y/N)’s face, he knew he had something to look forward to, even if through... this.

"Of course! it'll be fun!" Score! "Too bad only one person can go though, I assume." She frowned.

And for a second, Mark's hopes had shattered once again. But then he remembered something back at Cabbage's house, and maybe, just maybe, it wasn't over yet. "Actually, I think Cabbage mentioned making two watches." After confirming his calculations twenty-seven times. "Why don't we go together?"

"Seriously? You wouldn't mind?" Oh, what Mark wouldn't given just to see that wide smile on (Y/N)’s face every single second of the day.

And with a smile of his own, he nodded. "Of course not, noona."

Love has always been a motivation for man, ever since the beginning of humans. And as time continued on and advanced, a variety of factors had been added to that list of motivation, such as money and power. But one constant above all was always going to be love - something that had always been interpersonal.

So that was why Cabbage wasn't too particularly surprised to see Mark come back to his house later in the evening, this time, with a female companion. And judging by the look of awe on her face, it didn't take much for the scientist to connect the dots. "Mark, you came back!" Cabbage smiled down at the boy from the second floor of his basement lab. "With a friend this time?"

"Right," Mark cleared his throat, gesturing to the scientist, "(Y/N), this is Cabbage as you already know, and Cabbage, this is (Y/N), my friend."

"Hi! It's great to be here! Like, really great." (Y/N) was still enamoured by the many... things going on in the lab, though Mark couldn't blame her.

"Anyway Mark, have you given my invention a thought?" Cabbage inquired, standing up from his seat by his computer and leaning against the railing. "I assume that's why you're here, after all."

Mark nodded. "I have." He confirmed, biting down on his lip. "And I'll do it."

"You will?" The scientist's eyes widened, grin spreading on his face. "That's great!"

"But," Mark began, gaze falling over onto (Y/N) for a short second before back onto the scientist, "with conditions."

"Conditions?" Cabbage raised an eyebrow, pleasantly intrigued.

"Conditions!" (Y/N) suddenly spoke up with a grin, earning a look from the two. "Sorry, it just felt kind of intense so I wanted to ease tensions a bit." She coughed, glancing back and forth between the two. "Please, continue." She urged.

"A-Anyway yes, conditions." Mark cleared his throat before turning to the scientist once more. "I want (Y/N) to come with me. You have two watches, don't you?"

"I do." Cabbage nodded, fishing his hand into the pocket of his lab coat and bringing out two identical watches. "So far, they're the only two I have so I need to make sure that your friend will be extra careful with this."

"She will." Mark reassured without any hesitation. "I know she will, because she's (Y/N)." A man who was claiming everybody's hearts left and right - except for (Y/N)’s though, unfortunately.

Cabbage looked as if he was pondering on the thought for a bit before eventually nodding and making his way down the stairs. "Well, if Mark is vouching for you, I guess it should be okay." Cabbage nodded before gesturing for the two to follow him to the back of the lab, where large screen rested on the wall and multiple smaller monitors on both it's sides, resting on a glass desk. Below it were multiple keyboards, a few touch pads here and there with clearly different functions. It was like something straight out of a sci-fi movie. "This is where I'll be monitoring and communicating with you two while you're in whatever time period you land in." He explained, gesturing to his set up.

"What about the watches?" (Y/N) asked.

"I'm just getting to that." Cabbage nodded, reaching for the two watches once again. "Gather around, you two." He motioned for them to come closer. "It looks like a regular analog watch at first, but if you tap the clock face," he did what he had just said, the other two watching in awe as a small digital hologram had appeared in the air, just above the clock face, "it has information such as your battery life on the right hand corner, the date and time you're in, the option to video call me, and the option to switch time periods." He pointed out each detail on the hologram. "Now the problem with the switching time periods is that once you arrive somewhere, you're stuck there for, at a minimum, twenty-four hours before the voltage and particle energies recharge and allow you to travel elsewhere."

"Wait, so you're staying we might be stuck in a different time for a whole day?" Mark asked, a bit of alarm evident in his voice.

"Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find out the proper calculations to make the recharging process quicker but for the meantime... yes." The scientist sighed. "But hey, at least it's not twenty-five hours...?"

"Cabbage!" Mark groaned, running his hand down his face.

"I mean, twenty-four hours doesn't sound that bad." (Y/N) hummed. "I'd love to explore a different time period, really get to know what it was like!"

"See, at least someone's optimistic." Cabbage sent a not-so-subtle look over at Mark. "But anyway, I actually have a quest for you two."

"Ooh, a quest! I feel like I'm in a video game." (Y/N) giggled, and if it weren't for the fact that she was totally digging this right now, Mark would have just straight up left out of fear for his own safety.

"Exactly!" Cabbage nodded eagerly. "Since you two will be going to different time periods, I want you to bring back a memento of some sort from each time period."

"Anything specific?" Mark asked, wanting to make sure he was going into this with full details.

"Yes, for the purpose of analytic purposes due to their high amount of energy." Cabbage turned to the two, a suddenly serious look on his face. "A meaningful item to at least one person you encounter."

The two waited for him to say more, but nope, all he did was stare back at them. Mark ended up being the first to speak up. "Hm, I think you're missing the part where you, oh I don't know, tell us what you mean by ‘meaningful item’??"

"That will vary from person to person, Mark boy." Cabbage sighed, giving an empathetic pat on the boy's shoulder. "One person's 'meaningful item' might be a necklace that their mother gifted them, or maybe a letter from a lover for a soldier - everything in life is a variable anyway."

"Wait, then how do we know something is a meaningful item?" (Y/N) asked.

"That's where this last function of the watches come in," Cabbage turned his attention back to the watches, "this icon," he pointed to one of the icons on the hologram screen that resembled a heart, "will allow you to scan a person once you've talked to them. This only works one person at a time though, and it does drain a lot of energy from the watch battery. It'll allow you to see particles coming from objects, like sparkles. The more vivid, bigger and brighter the particles, chances are that's your person's meaningful item. So be careful with who you choose to use it on - once you scan that person, you'll have to find their meaningful item before you can use it again. Not to mention that the longer it takes for you to find the meaningful item, the more energy it drains." He warned.

"Talk about ominous, gosh." Mark sighed, shaking his head. "I can't believe I'm doing this."

"It'll be exciting though, Mark." (Y/N) glanced over at the boy beside her, a grin spreading on her face. "We're in this together, after all!"

"Noona..." A shade of red coated Mark's cheeks as he stared down at her, eyes sparkling with adoration.

"Ahem, and me too." Cabbage interrupted, "Just, I'll be back here handling everything."

"Yes, of course, because where would we be without you, Cabbage?" Mark sighed, feeling a bit salty over the scientist's interruption during his and (Y/N)’s "moment".

"Love you too, Mark." Cabbage blew a kiss his way before handing a watch to Mark and (Y/N) each. "Are you two ready?"

"Wait, we're doing this so soon?" Mark's eyes widened, staring down at the watch in his hands with a bit of fear.

"Better sooner than later." Cabbage shrugged, helping attach the watch onto Mark's wrist and then to (Y/N)’s. "You guys will be fine, don't worry. I'm here, after all!"

"So reassuring, Cabbage." Mark grumbled, about to protest over the quick timing and suddenness of all of this if not for the sudden feeling of warmth in one of his hands. He glanced down at said hand, eyes lingering on the smaller hand that had clasped his own. And as his eyes wandered up to the hand's owner, he swore she was going to be the death of him.

"It'll be okay, Mark." (Y/N) squeezed his hand softly with a reassuring smile. "We're in this together." She repeated.

"Right..." Mark trailed off before taking a deep breath and nodding. "Together." He then glanced over at the scientist. "We're ready, Cabbage."

With an excited smile, the older man nodded before turning to his set up and taking a seat down in the chair. The sounds of his quick tapping against the keyboard keys had Mark worrying with every passing second, but as (Y/N) held his hand, he figured this wouldn't be a terrible way to die. "Adios, you two!" Cabbage called out before hitting one last button. Click!

And as a bright and large flash of light illuminated within the lab, Mark knew it had begun, especially with the way his limbs practically burned and his consciousness struggling to stay intact.

The things he'd do for love, huh?

#nct fluff #mark lee fluff #mark lee #nct mark fluff #nct 127 #nct u #nct dream #mark lee x reader #nct #nct 2020 #nct fics #nct x reader #nct angst #mark lee angst

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fanfic-collection · 4 years

Text

Loki x Reader: October 16 - Offering

man I dn’t know

You pushed off from the dock with the long rod, the skiff easily cutting through the water. Standing firmly on the back of the boat you made your way through the misty lake. Seaweed and algae grew high around you, dotting the surface and coloring the water a deep green in many areas. The whole place held a vaguely grey color, your clothes quickly soaked through.

You steered the skiff with ease, the rod-like paddle digging deep into the mud and propelling you out into open water until finally the ground gave way and you arrived at open sea.

Bursting forth from the reeds and brush, you looked out at the water, the fog was no less thick out here but you knew you would not be alone for long, if you even were alone now.

You stepped down from your perch, pulling up the long paddle and set it in the boat, sitting down and catching your breath. The humid air was slick on your lungs.

A short distance away, a small head poked out of the water. Black hair dripping with saltwater and gazing at you curiously through bright green eyes, face half submerged, appeared something seemingly as a person.

You smiled, raising your hand in greeting as you pulled your thick rubber boots off and set them down beside you, removing your socks and tucking them in the boots carefully. Looking for a low hanging branch, you tossed your rope lasso to it and managed to secure your skiff, making sure it wouldn't float away.

The man, for he was a man, moved closer, his head rising further out of the water. You glanced over your shoulder as his face became more visible. With a chuckle, you shook your head as you continued to secure your skiff. His head was fully above water, tall sharp cheek bones, a tall pale forehead, thin nose, thin lips and a sharp angular jaw.

“Well hello.” You finally said, turning around and breaking the silence. “Are you going to greet me?”

“It is not usual to speak in this tongue.” The man admitted.

“And yet you do it for me.”

A smile half quirked at the corner of his mouth, “Yes.”

You crossed to the edge of the skiff and sank down, rolling up your pantaloons and sat slipped your feet in the water. Kicking them gently, you looked at him as he gazed at your feet intently.

“How's home?” You asked.

He looked away with a sigh.

“That bad?” Even though he seemed unused to using your language, he had mastered it artfully and his voice was deep and articulate, musical to your ears. You imagined him writing poetry like the bards that visited your village.

“I'm not like the other, what do you call them?”

“Merfolk.”

He chuckled, leaning back in the water and flipping up his smooth black tail, shark-like at the base. For indeed, he seemed to have the upper half of a human and the lower half of some sort of fish like creature, though not scaly, perhaps a dolphin or an orca. He lowered his tail back in the water and raised his vaguely clawed hands with fins on the wrists, further able to propel him through water and picked idly at his claws.

“Loki...” You said slowly, a chill going down your spine at the name. It was strange and exotic, you rarely let yourself say it, let alone think it. Honestly, the fact that you were even talking to a merman was still hard to fathom.

Loki looked up at you, staring at you intently.

You swallowed hard, “I was wondering, what if, what if I swam with you today?”

A slow grin spread across his face, “You trust me to be in the water with me? I know the stories your people tell about us.”

You bit your lip and nodded, “An offering of good faith. We've known each other for so long now, I've been visiting you for so many days. I think it's fair.”

Loki chuckled, “Yes you have seen my tail and seen that my lower body is not a skeleton, ready to carry your corpse to sea.”

You blanched as you turned away, “Just don't look, I still don't want you to watch me undress, it's not proper for a gentleman to watch a lady change.” You tried to shake the image of a the handsome man with skeletal legs waiting to drag you down to the depths.

Slowly you lowered your pantaloons, leaving on a pair of long white swim shorts. Then you undid your bulky coat and slipped off your large shirt underneath, all more function than fashion. Underneath that you wore a white swim top keeping you modest, though quite a bit of skin and much of your stomach was now exposed.

You turned back around. “Very well.” You crossed your hands over your chest and stared down at him.

Loki uncovered his eyes from his clawed hands and peeked up at you. Slowly he lowered his hands and stared mouth slightly agape. “I was beginning to think those garments you wore were a part of you.”

“Surely you've seen other people in less clothes?”

“I know what my people look like, but not humans.” His gaze trailed up and down your legs, spending a long time looking at the apex of your thighs before trailing back to your knees. Loki swam around the skiff and stared at you from other angles.

“You're making me feel self conscious!” You squeaked, a deep blush spreading across your body.

Loki laughed softly, “That was not my intention.”

“Fine, just, don't eat me.” You sat down on the edge once more, and slowly, very slowly, sank into the water.

To your surprise, the water was comfortably warm. You expected to have your teeth chattering instantly but you found that you were reasonably comfortable.

Loki swam over next to you, a respectful distance away and waited, looking at you expectantly. “So?”

“This is nice.” You said, kicking your legs a bit to stay afloat and waving your hands in slow gentle circles.

“And have I not eaten you?”

“... No.”

Loki nodded curtly.

“I'm sorry for my assumptions.”

“Good.” He crossed his arms, “Beside, your people hunt my people far more because of your nasty tales and as sport than we ever could, and your nets tangling us up.”

“I had never realized...” Your face softened as you reached your hand out to him.

“It matters not, you are not to blame.” Loki looked away forlornly. There was a long silence between the two of you, both of you just treading water.

Suddenly Loki seemed to remember something.

“Oh! I made this for you!” Loki reached down to his waist and tugged at a string of pearls, pulling it up and handing it to you. “You can hang it in your window and perhaps it will make noise? I have seen them on your shipwrecks around lady's necks, perhaps you can put it around your neck?”

Your mouth fell open as you stared at the size and quality of the pearls, this would be worth a fortune if you sold it. “Loki... I can't, this... surely your people could receive an equal pay for this?”

Loki raised his eyebrow, “What would we do with human currency? After all, they think we eat them and they try and kill us. Sell it if you don't want it around your neck, use it to get whatever you need. I've never really found pearls to be that pretty, I found the green rocks more appealing but I couldn't collect enough to make one and I don't know how to set them in gold. Also sea glass is so abundant I didn't think that really counted as a thoughtful gift.”

You swam forward and hugged him, holding the pearls in your hand and burying your face in his shoulder. “Thank you, it's wonderful. I don't think I'm good enough for such fancy jewelry so I'll keep one pearl to honor you and the rest to feed and house myself.”

Loki's cheeks flushed at your contact, he slowly reached up and hugged you back. His clawlike hands stroking along your skin and sliding into the hug.

For a moment you made to pull away but he seemed fascinated by your touch. Loki held you against him, his tail entwined around your legs, the fin brushing between your calves and sliding down to your feet. With his face he nuzzled slightly against your cheek, breathing you in, as though he could get some scent other than the salty sea air or the muggy swamp. With one free hand he slid his hand down your side, hand brushing against your stomach and tentatively feeling at your skin while the other slid up into your hair, feeling at your scalp.

You gasped and struggled to unentwine yourself, “Alright, I think, I think that's enough.”

Loki blinked at you, his eyes dark green and dilated. “Are all humans alike?”

“We have similar bits and bobs generally. But there's differences.”

Loki nodded thoughtfully, “I like your bits and bobs.” He grinned.

“What about merfolk, are you all alike?”

“Generally, but as you say, other than a few differences our, bits and bobs, tend to be similar.”

You felt your voice catch in your throat, as you nodded back, “I like your bits and bobs too.” You flushed. Turning and swimming back to the skiff you scrabbled up, water dripping from you and scrabbled to redress. “See you tomorrow, same time, yea?”

#Loki x reader #october 2020 #ficbit #one shot

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jennsmischievousmind · 4 years

Text

Fucks not Found

Die Hard

“I’m not mean, I’m brutally honest. Five you got any band-aids?”

“Here we go sarcasm, can’t you communicate like a normal person.” One turned to you

“He’s kidding me, right? you look at the others - You’re kidding me, you’re the master of sarcasm, prendila in culo da un ciuccio imbizzarrito!”

“And Italian now, see, no communication skills,”

“Stop bickering like an old couple!” Five argued

“How many times do we have left?” Two asked Seven in the cockpit “About 3 hours.” She rolled her eyes.

“Green lantern sucks that’s all I’m saying,” You sat back, hands up defensively.

“Seven hold me back!” One feigned to stood up

“Ok you two, TIME OUT!” Five threatened you with her index, you mimed zipping your lips.

Two hours later you were finally on solid earth, you met up in a market to eat something and review details about the extraction.

Three and Two were acting weird, when Seven implied something happened between them in Vegas, you carefully looked at Four. One intervened, you gulped, he could kick you out the team in a second. He asked them if it was a matter of love, or just sex. Two insisted it was only sex. One approved her answered. Four gently kicked your foot under the table in a reassuring gesture.

The night fell slowly on Asia's World City, you geared up for Murat’s extraction. The plan was to use the sky’s crane to go from building to building, gas masks for a grand entry on the main hall, and a zip line for extraction. You look at yourself in the mirror, wearing all black and suit up like a spy, you kinda liked it, damn you were far from Italy and your barista job.

Before that you met Four in his room.

“You be careful up there, okay!”

“Yes m’am,” he cockily smiled, while packing his abseiling equipment. “By the way .. about what One asked Two and Three...,” you let the question hanging.

Four’s lips closed in a thin line, his green eyes searching yours “We…,“ loud knocks on the door scared the shit out of you two, followed by Three’s voice telling Four to move his ass.

Your post was at the end of the zip line, laptop on top of a barrel, One was supposed to meet you there later to pick up the target.

Four and Seven on the cranes, Five in the lobby, Two and Three waiting for their go-to.

“Team set – Target set – it’s your call One.” You announced on the comm. You felt like a fucking MI:6 agent or something.

“Hit it, guys!” One spoke.

Five launched the laughing gas, Two and Three entered the lobby a minute later, heading for the lift.

“Five, I got a transmission, someone is calling the police from the security post!” you heard her groaned preceded by a loud bang.

“We’ve got 13 minutes from now!” She cursed , you launched a chrono on your laptop.

Four secured the zip line on his side, One arrived to secure it not far from you. Murat’s bodyguards became agitated because of the crane overhanging the penthouse.

Two and Three were on their way up. While Four decided to take a dip to avoid the bodyguards. One ran to the other side of the building.

“Skinny dipping” you let out snorting.

Focusing on the chrono you realized 60 seconds had passed and Four was still underwater.

“One … have you ever seen Le Grand Bleu? Four ain’t the main role!” you stated with a warning tone.

“That’s a good movie.” Two intervened shortly

Seven insisted Four was going to drown, but One stayed radio silent. Biting your lip, you became agitated; until Seven took over and shoot in the pool glass near Four, allowing him to breathe through the bullet hole. You let out the breath you were holding; shit One what the fuck man, you thought!

Police Sirens were being heard in the distance, the bodyguards left the pool area, you gave Four the go-to.

“How you doing over there? You having fun yet?” One asked Four on the comm, whom was abseiling and installing high intensity speakers on the windows’ penthouse. “Anyone ever asked you dumb questions when you’re ninety stories up?”

You sighed “Don’t distract him please, he has already lost time,”

“Yeah mom” One sighed “You care way too much for the boy, Eight,”

“Mate, Four cut One, you’re really ruining my flow right now, you know that?”

Neither of you came up with a smart answer, fortunately One moved on pretty quickly.

Time came for the second hit. One launched the audio in the speakers, the THX synthesized crescendo, you saw the glass shattered because of the high frequency. And then it was the 4th of July without the pretty colors. Gunshots were fired from the entire penthouse. At some point you wondered if from where you stood you could receive a bullet, so you curled up a bit behind your laptop and the barrel.

Apart from Three being under nitrous, everything was going as planned. Four had the target in no time.

“Bad news, I got a lift with 3-armed douchebags coming up. And more guys that were on the floor below, coming up the stairs, also armed .. for whatever that’s worth.” Switching the view cams, you saw Two and Three stuck at the stairs.

“15 minutes, time’s out” Five called out.

“Shit, police are crowding in the lobby,” You look around for One for direct advice, but he was nowhere to be seen until you look above “One, what the hell are you doing on the crane!?” you asked over the comm. “That’s ..that’s high,” was all he said.

They were surrounded and Seven for the second time tonight ended up saving their ass, maybe he wasn’t that bad after all you thought. They obviously got so mad at Seven for exploding the pool and drowning the all penthouse, almost killing Two.

You heard some screaming, looking above your screen like a meerkat you saw Murat Alimov sliding down the zip line. You detached him at his arrival, but he started running away, leaving you wondering but seeing Three hot on his tail you understood, this latter tackled the target to the ground. You groaned flinging your arms up “And now you’re hitting him, really!?!” Two landed next to you, followed by One.

“Your toy boy is stupid” you grabbed Two’s carabiner

“Tell me about it.” She sighed, reloading her gun

“Can’t one of you stop this dumbass!?!” One pointed at Three still beating up Rovach’s brother

You both shrugged.

“You've picked this dumbass.” Two said

One excused Three’s behavior to Murat Alimov, he asked you to take him quickly to the elevator.

“Sir, this way” you held his arm urging him forward the lift.

“Come on Four. We’re moving,” One came running behind

“Just go, I can’t get across. They cut the zip line,”

You stop dead in your tracks, still holding Murat.

“Four ...,” your voice was low even though everyone could hear you in the comm.

You heard gun shots and Four cursed.

One stopped behind, talking to Four, you were processing your next move. Shoving Murat to Two, you grabbed the pearl handle-gun Three stole and ran the opposite direction.

“Hey that's mine chiquita!”

One swirled on himself seeing you run “We're not waiting for you just so you know.” One voice echoed; you heard the elevator’s door closing.

“Four what’s your location?” you asked while running.

“Eight, go!”

“Where the fuck are you?!”

He sighed “I’m going for the crane!”

“Meet you there,”

You arrived at the crane’s feet, hardly breathing, “Shit I need to work on my cardio,”

“Eight!” you heard from above, Four jumped down next to you.

“See, you got out!” you slapped his chest for worrying you. Voices from the crane distracted you.

“Run!”

Four started running followed by you, but it wasn’t just a run, it was full parkour shit and you had no choice but to follow him.

Soon your charger was empty, 2 guys were down, 1 got thrown over the edge by Four, meaning only 3 left.

“Why are we climbing!?” You yelled at Four as he started running up the ledge.

One of the assholes started throwing grenades at you, like it wasn’t enough. Then you look ahead, Four jumped on 4 pylons and turned to you.

“Shit, Shit, Shit!!”

“COME ON!” The adrenaline took over, your legs jumped, feet joining on the 5 square foot platforms on top of the pylons. Four got a hold on you when you reached him.

“Shit!” you let out nervous laugh. “I’m a newbie in parkour remember?” But immediately you felt trapped, the douchebags were shooting at you. Suddenly a loud explosion had you two look up, your eyes widened as a bunch of I-beams fell from the sky crane.

“WHOA!!” Four yelled, shoving you inside the pylons corner, shielding you with his body, you grabbed onto him as hard as you could, trying to shield him as well. You tried focusing on something else than the heavy metallic sound the I-beams were making. Directing your attention on Four’s deep voice cursing and breathing loudly.

Screwing your eyes shot, you felt Four’s arms tightening at each thunder like sound. All of sudden the rattles sounded far away, a white silence filling your ears except for your heavy breathing. Locking eyes with Four, he pressed his forehead on yours. “Let’s go,”.

You resumed your escape, climbing down the pylons, without being seen, calling out the squad to give your position. Four was leading the way, but a shadow caught your eye. Before you could say anything, Four had been ran into by the biggest bodyguard, propelling the both of them into the empty. You froze, an image of your brother dead at the wheel flashed in your mind - not again - Until you heard a loud bang and Four cried out, he was alive, you ran to the edge, and saw them like 6 stories under, on a net, fighting.

"No, no, no" you look around, trying to come up with something until you saw a rolled fire hose.

"Big Mclane energy" grabbing the hose you tied it up to your waist, not thinking any longer in fear your brain you’d stop you, you jumped. Screaming like hell on your down, until the hose came to an abrupt stop, the knot immediately untying under the pressure letting you free fall 2 meters. Slamming on the metal net, the shocked knocked your airway for a second.

You groaned "..Never again!" propelling yourself up with difficulty. The adrenaline kicking in you ran to the big guy, jumping on his back and tightening his neck. It didn’t last long till he threw you off him with one arm, going on with punching Four. Between Four’s grunts breaking your heart, you heard the team arguing on the comm’. Seven yelling he’ll not let the both of you behind. Crawling back to Four, the big guy pushed him over the edge, himself falling a bit backward, a gasp escaped your dry throat. Fortunately, Four’s foot got stuck in the orange plastic net, you no longer cared that the big guy was still there, you had to go for Four. The big guy was determined to catch Four to crush him himself.

“GRAB MY HAND!” you extended your arm over the edge, facing the void, his left hand grazed yours, but a foreign hand slide around your neck.

“NO!!” Four yelled, writhing trying to reach the ledge.

The fall had already knock out your lungs so it didn’t take long before your vision became fuzzy. As the guy chocked you, your eyes rolled to the back of your head. Your mind drifted to your brother, his warm hug before he got on that green car, his cheeky smile never leaving his face, his hand in yours at your mother’s grave.

“It’s only the two of us now.” A tear rolled down your face.

Sixth chapter White Flag

A/N: don’t forget to double tap if you liked it 🙏

#billy x reader #four x reader #four imagine #6 underground four x reader #6 underground imagine #ben hardy #Fucks not Found

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musicfeedsmysoul12 · 4 years

Note

Welp, I have now contributed monetary value to your livelihood (an insignificant amount but still). And would like to request/suggest even more kitten mari content.

Dude, I am like so thrilled someone would think my stuff is worth anything. So of course!!!!

Marinette smirked, reclining on the top of the roof as Robin glared at her.

“What’s wrong little bird? Cat got your tongue?” she teased.

“Batman is currently doing research on any time portals that may have been the reason you’ve been taken from the time stream and brought to this time,” Robin replied stiffly. “I am currently on duty to watch you not mess with the timeline.”

“Awww, Daddy sends you to babysit me?” Marinette said. “Well... catch me if you can.” Marinette took off like a shot, using her staff to propel her across the sky. Robin followed her, running behind her and trying to grab her. She continued to evade him dodging and rolling away from him, heading to the docks. The two began laughing somewhere around the clock tower. They just wouldn’t stop. When they reached the docks all they did was sit down on the tower and continue to laugh at one another.

“I needed that,” Robin admitted to Marinette who chuckled.

“Same. I miss running around Paris with Mister Bug.” She sighed. Robin frowned.

“Hang on. Mister Bug? Isn’t he that... wait a minute.” Marinette began cackling loudly while Robin stared at her open mouth. “You little... you’re trolling Batman!”

“I am. How much has he been freaking out?” Marinette asked, laughing even harder while Robin spluttered.

“...I don’t know if I should high five your or push you off this roof.” Robin said after a moment. “I vote the high five. Hey, wanna help me?” Robin didn’t speak for a few minutes before a grin crossed his face.

“Hell yeah.”

The two began to plot exactly how to freak out Batman and convince him she was his kid. They would have to be subtle after all. Subtle and smart in how they could mess with him. Marinette did know who they were as Selina had long ago figured it out and it wouldn’t be too hard for Batman to figure out who she was given she was living with Selina.

And going to galas with her. Which was where their first idea took place.

Martha Wayne had been well known for having her hair up in a high bun and pearls around her neck at galas. After Robin- Tim after he learned Marinette knew and after she gave her name- asked Alfred if it would be okay, Marinette pulled her hair into a bun and added pearls.

Selina found the whole thing hilarious as did Alfred. Dick was not in the know though he was aware that Lady Noire was claiming to be Batman’s future daughter. He also thought time travel though.

Heading to the gala with Selina, Marinette felt glee at the look she was given from Bruce who looked pale. Dick also looked shocked while Tim looked like he was trying not to break down laughing at seeing their faces. She smiled at them and Tim had to leave because otherwise, he’d burst out laughing even harder.

The next prank was with Tim teaching her some moves that weren’t too vital to their fighting style. Next time she was robbing a jewelry store- and really, she needed that piece for her next outfit. It pulled the whole thing together- she used the move on Batman who actually stopped in shock.

The pranks continued until all fun came to an end. “Marinette Dupain-Cheng was adopted at a young age after Selina gave her up when Selina was seventeen,” Batman growled at her.

“Rude, secret identities much?”

“You lied.”

“I didn’t lie Bats.” She told him. “I am your future daughter… when you marry my mother!”

She took off laughing while Batman and Catwoman began spluttering, Robin dying of laughter on the rooftop.

Ah, what fun to be a cat.

#miraculous ladybug #ml au #maribat #bio mom au #marinette the kitten

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snowflake-of-destruction · 4 years

Text

Lost in Translation

I can’t write a quick, few line caption to save my life Part 3/8. Based off of the third picture of THIS POST and the idea that Sora just yells in dolphin when getting frustrated at his human’s slow learning curve. Read more for length again. Italics are mermish. This is dumb but so are these boys.

@shaky-mayhemm

Part 4/? of Mermaid AU that needs a name

"Hello," Sora enunciated slowly and clearly.

"Sea Urchin," the sailor chittered back uncertainly.

Sora shook his head and repeated, "Hello."

"Hello," the sailor mimicked.

Sora resisted the urge to slap his fin against the surface of the water in triumph. There was a delicate balance at play. His human had proved more skittish than the red one, even though the handsome silver sailor had technically sought him out first, if falling out of his boat could be counted. Sora would have thought pulling him back to surface and clearing his lungs of water--after a brief confusion where he'd tried to coax the human to swallow more sea to make him feel better enough to wake up--would have proven his intentions were good. He'd even brought the human a fish to eat and get his strength up, though he supposed the sailor must have been too worn out by almost drowning to be hungry because he'd batted the still flopping fish away from his mouth quite forcefully when Sora had tried to feed him. Maybe he just didn't like to eat when he first woke up.

Even with these good first impressions though, the sailor had made a loud screech when he'd first noticed Sora's tail and had dug his hands into the ground and propelled himself backward as far away as he could with the limited room he was allowed on the tiny rock island jutting out of the water Sora had brought him to. He'd scrubbed his eyes with his hands and spouted a series of incomprehensible but almost angry sounding mouth noises, making Sora wish he hadn't kept quite so far a distance when he'd followed Roxas to see where he kept disappearing to (Sora had known for awhile Xion was just making up stories to cover for his twin. The day she ran out of plausible excuses like trying to fill the trench so the ocean floor was even or cleaning the shells of geriatric turtles as community service, and flat out claimed Roxas had been eaten by a whale had cinched it. Granted, Kairi had said Roxas was sneaking to the surface weeks ago, but Kairi hadn't been around when Roxas and Sora had last tried to move sand to the trenches to fill them so she didn't know how convincing that excuse sounded). If he'd been better a better spy when he'd observed Roxas meeting with the red maned sailor then maybe he'd have an idea of what mouth sounds would soothe this human.

He'd done well enough without human words so far though, even if pantomime was tough. There had been a major setback when Sora had swum quick circles around the rock to ask if the human felt well enough to swim with him back to proper land or try to find his boat now that the storm had passed, and the sailor had seemed to interpret this as "I am a shark about to eat you," but they'd gotten back on track and Sora had coaxed the sailor to at least trust him enough to keep to the edge of the rock instead of the middle. He almost ruined it when the silver-haired human had first felt confident enough to dip his feet in the water--to prove to himself Sora wouldn't pull him right in--and Sora had immediately swum up between his legs, but this, like the other setbacks, was eventually remedied and they were now back in that position, human sitting on the edge of the rock and Sora bracketed between his legs, arms resting above the sailor's knees, face tilted up as he tried to teach him to talk properly. If he stayed as still and calm as he could, he was sure he could avoid startling the sailor again. He'd already been tested when a hand had reached out and combed softly through his hair. He hadn't been able to help a contented sigh when he'd been petted--grateful that the human was realizing he was friendly and was being friendly back, that was the only reason--but it hadn't scared the human. just made him go pink for a moment.

"Sora," Sora pointed at his chest, then tilted his head to the side like a question.

"Sora?" the human reached out again and tentatively brushed his fingers against the smattering of scales on Sora's shoulder, like he wasn't sure if they were shells or attached to the merman since most of the rest of his upper body didn't show signs of being part fish.

Sora nodded vigorously. "Sora," he kept a hand pressed against his chest for a moment and then patted the front of the human's weird baggy detached skin over his heart.

"Riku," the sailor supplied.

" Reee-coo? Riku! Riku, Riku Riku." Sora tested out the name, smiling at the bubbling feeling the sounds caused in his chest.

"Sora." Riku was smiling too. Fingers gently combed through Sora's hair once more.

Sora leaned his head against the side of Riku's knee, humming the name one last time, "Riku," and debating what should come next. Something useful. Something that would help him get Riku back to where he belonged or signal him to wait while Sora went and found Roxas to help. He looked up at Riku's face to see if the human had any ideas. The sun on the surface of the water, making it sparkle and dance like it didn't below and bringing out warmth in the blue-green had nothing on Riku's eyes. "Pretty."

"Pretty," Riku agreed, while continuing to pet through Sora's hair, and the merman turned his face to the side, burying it against Riku's leg in embarrassment. The human couldn't know what he was saying.

"You weren't supposed to repeat that one. I'm not...you know. I'm just me. Even Kairi was disappointed. She didn't say it but I know she had to be. She came all the way from the Radiant Seas to see this prince she's supposed to marry...and ohh let me tell you that's awkward...or not really that awkward because I'm not sure she wants to get married either....not right away at least...What was I saying? Kairi makes me feel small because she's a pearl and I'm just like grit stuck in a clam...which also becomes a pearl I guess, but that's not the point because she also somehow makes me feel strong? Like I can do anything? Like save you. I think my whole life was leading up to saving you from drowning. Is that stupid to say since we just met?" Sora paused to gulp in air, even if the dryness of it made his throat burn a bit, and risked a glance to see how Riku was taking his rambling. He'd felt the absence of the hand in his hair and now he saw it was because Riku was covering his ears. "Sorry, you're right. That was coming on way too strong, and you probably don't care about the Kairi stuff, though I bet you would care about Kairi if you met her. You can't help it. Kairi's amazing."

Riku pushed a single finger against Sora's lips, leaning in close enough as he did that Sora was slightly concerned he'd topple into the water. "Shh" Sora went slightly cross-eyed looking at the digit and had to resist the nonsensical urge to lick it. "You need to go slow, Sora."

"I don't know what you're saying," Sora confessed.

"Pretty?" Riku tried to reorient the conversation.

"Forget that," Sora ordered.

"Pretty?" Riku tried again, thinking his pronunciation was off.

Sora yelled a noise of wordless frustration and Riku imitated him.

"You need to stop fixating on that word. Let's pick another word. Sky. Boat. Octopus! Algae!"

"Pretty?" Riku tugged on his weird second skin as he asked the question. "Pretty?" He pulled a lock of his hair. "Pretty?" He gently bopped Sora's nose.

"Yes, you're really pretty. You're the prettiest thing I've ever seen. No! Not me. I already told you that I'm not pretty! Technically you're not pretty either. I should have said handsome but....you are so pretty, but you really need to focus."

"Too loud," Riku frowned for emphasis. "Too fast. Slow down."

"I don't know what you're saying!" Sora found himself speaking more loudly as he repeated his earlier words.

"I wish I knew what you were saying," Riku sighed.

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE SAYING!" Sora made large hand gestures, waving by his mouth, to help the conversation.

"Too loud," Riku just spoke more insistently and mimed covering his ears.

"THOSE ARE EARS. EARS!" Once Sora started yelling, it was hard to stop.

"Too loud."

"EARS! WHAT YOU ARE SAYING SOUNDS NOTHING LIKE EARS!"

"Too loud!"

"EEEEEEEEEAR!" He'd been pretty loud, but maybe Riku was still losing the nuance.

"How do I get you to stop screeching? That's too high a pitch for me, Sora."

"YES, I'M SORA! GOOD JOB RIKU. NOW SAY EAR!"

"Pretty Sora?"

"NOT THIS AGAIN. NO, SORA NOT PRETTY. RIKU PRETTY. PRETTY RIKU. SAY EAR FOR ME, PRETTY RIKU!"

"Too loud!" Riku was bending down again so their foreheads almost touched.

"TOO LOUD? DO YOU WANT ME TO COPY YOU? TOO LOUD! WHAT IS THAT?" Sora switched between English and mermish.

Riku sighed heavily and leaned back. "Sora, please stop screaming at me. I can hear you perfectly fine. How can I make you understand?"

"IT'S OKAY. I STILL LIKE YOU, RIKU, EVEN IF YOU CAN'T SAY EAR," Sora encouraged.

There was a long moment of silence as both boys tried to think of the best way to be understood. Sora wracked his brain for any human words he'd overheard Roxas say.

"Kiss?"

That was the wrong word. The human's chest was as still as it had been when Sora needed to press the water out of it. Come to think of it, his color was retreating too, leaving him the same sickly pale as when he'd been waterlogged.

"DO YOU NEED MORE AIR AGAIN?" Sora tried to push himself out of the water, intent on blowing air into Riku's mouth like he had while he'd been unconscious.

Riku scrambled backward to the center of the rock.

Great. Another setback. They'd figure out this communication thing sooner or later.

#mermay #soriku #sora #riku #kingdom hearts #mermaid au that needs a name #my sokai shows a bit #mermaid au stories

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thebibliomancer · 3 years

Text

Song of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 24

Song of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee because time to go back into a claustrophobic tunnel, oh boy!

Last times on book: On the way to Ha’rar after failing to retrieve the firca of Gyr the Song Teller from the Tomb of Relics (because it was broken), Kylan discovered that Tavra was a spider-imposter. He, Naia, and Amri managed to outsmart and trap angry Spider-Tavra and in the confrontation Kylan accidentally saved Tavra’s life by dream-stitching her mind into the spider’s body. So she’s a spider now but she’s being very chill about it. On her advice, the group returns to the Caves of Grot to try to save the Grottan from MILLIONS OF ANGRY SPIDERS and to try to create a new magical firca. Slight complication, the only way to get there in time is through a mostly flooded tunnel.

Chapter 24

The group travels through the harrowing Tide Pass, Kylan meets a Satirist

Amri finds the Tide Pass right as the morning sky is beginning to lighten. Kylan is sad because he wanted to be above ground to see a sunrise. Alas poor Kylan. When’s the last time these poor goobers got any sleep anyway?

Actually I feel like the sunrise/sets are pretty well documented. You could figure out exactly how much time this has all taken so far. I’d bet less than it has felt for the characters.

The group makes a decision to leave all their supplies and excess clothes outside the tunnel rather than make traveling in an underwater tunnel more difficult by adding in the possibility of getting tangled on something. He’s hesitant to leave Tavra’s pearl amulet or Raunip’s book but better safe than drowned.

Amri sniffs the tunnel draft to deduce some tunnel things. I guess he can do that.

“The tide will stay low for a few more days, and there are no currents here, so as long as we keep calm, there’s no danger of being washed away. I’ll lead. Naia should be at the rear in case of… Well, just in case. If we could walk it, the path would not take long, but crawling it will take longer. Remain calm, and your body will thank you for it.”

“Ready?” Naia asked. It was to the group, but specifically for Kylan. He took what he hoped would not be his last breath of open air.

“After you, Amri.”

The Tide Pass…. Is one of those places that drunk college students would keep drowning in until they had to put a metal fence over the entrance. There’s no bioluminescent plants or cave fish here so its so dark that Kylan might as well be blindfolded. The tunnel floor drops away so instead of walking, they have to propel themselves by handholds on the cave wall. The water is so high and ceiling so low at points that Kylan has to tilt his head up to breath, dunking his ears in the water. And also, Tavra makes matters worse by riding on his head and tickling him with her spider feets.

Hashtag, my friend turned into a spider problems.

Even with Naia occasionally touching his back to let him know she’s there, its really rough going.

AND GETTING ROUGHER!

They reach a section that’s entirely underwater!

Amri and Naia have to go ahead to scout to make sure there’s a clear way through, leaving Kylan alone in the dark with only a Tavra-spider for company. And he has to lie and says that's fine because there’s no real alternative!

Kylan is having a bad time.

But at least he has a Tavra-spider sitting on his head to talk to. That’s something.

“We are close. I can hear the voices of the other spiders. When Naia and Amri return, we will pass through this tunnel and enter the Sanctuary… but I fear we are too late to warn the Grottan that fled Domrak.”

Oh and Tavra-spider’s voice is so small that Kylan feels like he’s basically just talking to his own conscience.

Tavra, ever the spider pragmatist, says that even if its too late to save the Grottan, they can still get a bell-bird bone and make a firca to warn everyone. That’d be a victory too.

“This is the beginning of war with the Skeksis… Lives will be lost, and sacrifices made. To endure, we must focus on the greatest good.”

It’s an interesting take on the pragmatist, really. Tavra was the one that first brought up that they should return to help the Grottan so she’s not like ‘sometimes sacrifices have to be made’ type pragmatist. She’s just a realist. She’ll do whatever she can (which is less now) to save lives but will focus on the bigger picture. ‘We have to focus on the ends’ not ‘the ends justify the means.’

Probably why she’s just rolled with being a spider now. ‘Well this sucks but I gotta focus on the greatest good.’

Kylan couldn’t help but think Tavra was speaking to herself. Her brand of optimism was that of a seasoned soldier, a sort of bitter take on the constant bright hope Kylan had tried to commit himself to for so long. Even Naia’s optimism came from a place of wishing for the best; Tavra’s words, though not exactly comforting, were nonetheless realistic.

But she is optimistic about the firca, even while Kylan doubts. Since she’s a spider now she has spider-sense and she senses her spider senses are sensitive to sound. And since the spiders are close to the heart of Thra, if the bell-bird’s song can’t make them submit, she can’t think of anything that would.

SO! Good premise for the quest. Find the bone, toot on a flute, save the Grottan.

Kylan realizes that its been a while and Naia and Amri haven’t returned yet. He’s not sure whether they should have or not but the absence makes him nervous and he decides that if they got into trouble, he has to go ahead through the terrifying underwater passage without their guidance.

Because, I mean, if they did get into trouble, they’re never going to return to let him know that they did and he can’t backtrack out of the tunnel on his own.

“Can you see in this dark?” he asked.

“Yes. Are you going after them?”

Her question was mostly neutral, though it had a hint of what Kylan hoped was pride, or respect, or something like that. He didn’t want to. Every nerve in his body was ringing in alarm and fear, but it didn’t matter. He was here, and if he was going to get out of this place, there was only one way to do it.

“Try to tell me if I’m about to die,” he said.

Tavra gave a very dry chuckle.

“I will do my best.”

Aww, frens.

Also, AAHHHHH UNDERWATER TUNNEL

Pros: there’s no branching paths so no chance of losing his way. And Tavra can stab him with her stabby spider feets to warn him when he’s nearing sharp rocks or sudden turns.

Cons: Its so dark that he can’t tell whether his eyes are open or shut. He bangs into rocks with his head a lot despite Tavra’s help. HE HAS TO DO IT IN ONE BREATH.

But he does do.

His lungs are burning by the end but Tavra spider pokes him to tell him to swim up toward a light and he finally finds air again.

Eesh tense tense tense. Do not like. Lets use another exit when its time to leave again. Surely there’s a tunnel that isn’t underwater or where you have to squeeze through a cave-in. Surely.

“Be careful,” Tavra hissed into his ear, in an even tinier voice than usual. “The enemy is all around us.”

Kylan can’t be careful initially because all he can do is gasp for breath.

But when he recovers… Ooof. I am once again warning arachnophobes.

... all around him, the rocks, walls, nooks, and crannies were coated in spiderwebs. Some of the webs were elegant, glistening like silver thread, while some were so thick and gauzy, they looked like fleece laid upon the rocks. Crawling on every surface of the cave and along every web were spiders of every shape, every size, and every color. Some had long thin legs like Tavra. Some were large, squat, and furry. Some were small, like blast dust, and others much larger. One spider, reclining on its hammock of netted webbing, had legs the size of Kylan’s arms.

Well, that’s like. Out of one phobia frying pan and into the phobia fire.

But, hey, I was wrong. THERE ARE GIANT SPIDERS.

Although, I have to wonder if there’s even enough crawlies in these caves to support this kind of spider population. There were crawlies in the caves by previous descriptions but not like so many that they can support this kind of spider mass. I think the bats were eating them all. I guess the bigger spiders can eat the hollerbats and then the bug population will jump up.

Kylan is fretting about how he’ll get to the Sanctuary and where Naia and Amri are when he has to duck down into the water because a Skeksis in a black and red cloak and carrying a crystal topped staff comes striding into the room.

… skekSil?

“skekLi,” Tavra whispered in Kylan’s ear. “The Satirist… The Skeksis’ entertainer. Krychk’s master. Be careful!”

Oh. I guess the Chamberlain wouldn’t come out to a cave if he could help it.

And I guess a Satirist could be the opposite of a Storyteller?? Weird that the Skeksis’ favorite form of entertainment is speaking truth to power although maybe its more like the ‘don’t you get satire’ / ‘it was a joke’ style of “satire.”

I sort of imagine insult comedy is the Skeksis’ style.

Hm. I know that probably most people didn’t read the books vs the show and that all the Original Skeksis buzz was taken up by skekSa FOR GOOD REASON but I feel like I haven’t seen a lot of fanstuff about skekLi.

I mean, part of it could be that he’s showing up in person on page 212 out of 261. That’s not nothing but that’s not a lot of time to make a lasting impression. skekMal showed up pretty late in the book too but his menace was built up. He was Kylan’s motivation, he showed up in that story, Naia mistook the Archer for the Hunter. They have two separate encounters with skekMal in the woods AND one in the castle. Also, to be fair, he could lean on his show appearances too, at least for me. But skekLi is showing up as the man behind the man style villainy when it already felt like Spider-Tavra was the final boss. I hope he gets to do something memorable because I like having more interesting characters. And also something satire-based. You can’t just call a guy the Satirist and have him be a generic Skeksis.

Said Satirist spots Kylan hiding in the water, plunks a hand in the drink and just fishes him up.

“You!” he crowed again. “So you took the Spriton after all! We thought you would fail us. Yes, we did. But here we are.”

What was he saying? Took the Spriton?

He thinks you are the spider, Kylan answered himself.

What a hilarious mixup! What a hilarious, exploitable mixup!

For reasons of ‘no duh’ Kylan plays along and hopes Tavra-spider does too. In-character as Krychk, Kylan tries to subtly find out where Naia and Amri are.

The Skeksis set him down with surprising care, though the carnivorous sneer still cut beneath his pointed beak. He was thinner than the other Skeksis that Kylan had seen, with a long neck and sinewy fingers. On each finger he wore a ring, and each ring was connected with a web of silver chain, decorated with dangling charms. The same chain-and-charm decorations cascaded from a three-pointed fascinator, pinned to the Skeksis’ head with a pair of long narrow feathers.

OKAY whatever else, skekLi knows how to Aesthetic. Shame the illustrator didn’t include this rad hat on the picture a couple pages later. Or his finger bling.

skekLi tells Kylan-pretending-to-be-Krychk that the Grottan and the Drenchen are being kept in the Sanctuary, commenting that two Drenchen would have been better. Not naming any names, of course, but that was Krychk’s fault.

The Skeksis whirled, flourishing with his staff, and strutted out of the cavern.

Aesthetic.

Kylan immediately becomes spider paranoid because all of the spiders seem to be watching him and he frets that they know that he’s not Krychk.

He didn’t want to wait to find out, and pulled his chin up as he had seen Krychk do when in control of Tavra’s body. With a forced sense of self-importance, he marched after the Skeksis toward the Sanctuary, heart fluttering with worry at what he might find there.

My wild guess is that its going to be just a ruinous amount of spiders. I think its going to be an excess of spiders for the rest of the book. This is Kylan’s life now. Spiders.

#dark crystal #the dark crystal #Song of the Dark Crystal #liveblog #Kylan #Naia #Amri #Tavra #but she's a spider now #skekLi #the Satirist

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