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lairofsentinel · 4 years

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What can we say about the relationship between the tadpole and the person who appears in dreams?

[Baldur’s Gate 3, Early Access, Spoilers]

At a first glance, in a careless attempt, we immediately connect the tadpole with the image of the person in our main char’s dreams. One is inclined to think it is the tadpole itself asking for the host to let them in. However, after carefully watching the scene, and checking all its options... I started to doubt it.

During Early Access we only can see four dreams [video compilation of the dreams]:

The first one, in which only the voice is heard for a couple of seconds, shows a weird... tentacle-like creature? It’s not made of the gray skin of a Mind Flayer, it’s red, and unless it’s a terrible bug... it may say that we are in the presence of something different than the usual Mind-Flayer. In fact, I think it looks like a tiefling or a Cambion tail/wings (they have thorns). Could it be Raphael’s since he is red? How do we explain those boots in the top of the screenshot?. Maybe it’s a mere bug.

The second one, in which the main char awakes in that intense green garden, has a peaceful sense to it.

The third one is when that desired person in the dreams shows you an enemy you stab in self defence, and then you observe an entire city under siege.

The forth one is when you have the ability to kill that person in the dreams.

After having the second dream, we can talk about this with our companions. All of them, except by Astarion, explain that their dreams were about desire and power. About a promise.

It's clear for us that Gale dreamt about Mystra and Wyll about Mizora. Both women are the embodiment of power and desire. We don't have a clue who Shadowheart dreamt about, but we know is a he that represents the same values. Astarion is the one who disrupts the pattern.

He dreamt about Cazador, which is for sure the representation of power, but of his desire? At first I thought it was a twisted taste forced onto him over two hundred years of slavery. As a slave, maybe he had to learn how to enjoy the worst things just to endure it, so the incredibly wicked and twisted insinuation of Astarion being attracted to his tormentor... was surprising at first. Especially when you explore his dialogue and he shows a strong bad reaction to such insinuation.

Thinking about it a bit more, I realised that maybe Astarion “desiring” Cazador is another thing he is forced to do against his own will. Or maybe it's the typical consequence of the vampire relationship with the sire: the childe is always attracted to their sire, no matter how much they hate them. Astarion is not even free of having his own desire due to Cazador's power, so... his dream about Cazador was another display of the control that such figure has over him. Therefore, we can say that, in the end, he is also following the pattern, but his desire is commanded by being a vampire spawn.

When it comes to the main char, we also know that such figure in their dreams is someone they are attracted to [that's exactly what we were asked to do in the character creation part].

The tadpole in the main character's head reacts negatively to this desired person, and it’s strange. It can mean that the projection of that figure and the tadpole are not the same (Gale, are you wrong?). The figure acknowledges the presence of the tadpole and the transformation in process, and they seem to be in power of stopping it if only you let them “in”. But the presence of the tadpole is always there while interacting with this figure, uncomfortable and wanting to get away from that desired person. The tadpole feels threatened by this figure.

At times, this beautiful figure feels like an entity proper of a demon, asking you to let it in and possess you. We know by Shadowheart’s comment that this voice appeared in her head when she was in the ship, so that we can assume it started to affect the hosts by the same time the tadpole process started.

The hag provided us the most valuable information I found out in the game. She confirmed that the tadpole has been altered, as everyone had suspected. But not only that... they had netherese magic, shadow magic (*) in it. This, however, feels wrong in terms of lore: mind flayers detest arcane magic, they believe its a corrupt version of the psionic power they have. Mixing it with their traditional birth procedure looks odd. Odd if this new experiment is only their idea. Maybe the big mind behind these new tadpoles is not a Mind flayer.

With this bit of information given by the hag, I was inclined to think that this magical compound may explain the presence of the person in the main char's dreams. What surprises me is that the tadpole wants the figure away, so how is it possible that both, the figure and the tadpole, work one against the other? If we assume that the tadpoles were altered to perform a transformation of some sort, shadow magic embodied by that figure and the tadpole should work together. However, the tadpole triggers hunger and animal instincts to rip that figure out. It feels endangered. Maybe it’s because the whole procedure is an experiment yet.

The desired figure keeps claiming they want you to help, but in the process, they also tell you that you can be more powerful and conquer Baldur's Gate [yes, despite the blurriness, it is enough to distinguish the characteristic entrance of the city].

[image from the trailer]

The last dream is one of the most disturbing ones. You awake with symptoms of your skull starting to change its bones, and apparently, the presence of the figure is the only thing which is preventing the transformation. The figure is irritated. You can ask them for help you because the parasite is going too far. The figure says that they need to go deeper into you to calm down the “animal” inside. And once more the tadpole activates a defence mechanism.

You can indulge yourself in the desire of destroying the figure apart, and you ride the figure strangling them and killing them. The figure calls you “monster” and tells you that you deserve what's coming for you [which I assume, it's the standard Mind Flayer transformation]. The experiment may have failed in this way since you destroy the stasis.

If you resist the impulse of killing them and at the same time resist the intrusion of the figure, the figure is disgusted with you. The figure only is understandable with you when you tell them the truth about your impulse of killing them. They will state that they knew about it, and they trust you to control it while they go deeper into you.

It’s disconcerting if the sudden hunger for death comes from the tadpole (I put my coins here) or from the figure going deeper into you. I assume it’s the tadpole because the figure will call you monster and wont be happy if you indulge yourself in that hunger.

By the end, the figure calls you ungrateful if you resisted them once more and tells you that the next time you meet them, you will ask forgiveness. Early access allows that last dream and no more.

Hypothesis

Now, all these strange urges for murdering the figure makes me wonder if the magical compound that now these tadpole have is related to some evil divine entity, playing a role similar to Bhaal in Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2. In those previous games, you and a bunch of people were direct spawn of the God of Murder, and in a couple of occasions, you had strong urges to kill losing control of your character [and killing NPCs you were fond of]. What if... this new tadpole is an experiment combining the Mind-Flayer procedure of birth (needed in order to have a completely different body for new demi-god powers) with a divine-infused-magical compound from the shadows. What for?. I don’t know... maybe to create an army of demi-gods? [following the usual flavour of Baldur’s Gate series].

This procedure, if it’s as such, could allow to have god-spawn creatures without the God sleeping with mortals and waiting mortal-gestation times. xD If we follow this train of thoughts, and we believe a God is behind all this, it must be some tyrant God, like Bhaal or Bane, since the dreams are all about power and control, showing Baldur’s Gate under siege. Maybe the procedure is not perfect, since there are two different effects working one against the other: The shadow magic that infuses a degree of divinity is about desire and power, but the tadpole’s only interest is to go on with the standard Mind-Flayer procedure.

I thought about this divinity-compound because we saw that there are third parties interested in this new particular tadpole: Raphael. What Gale says to you after his visit is a fact: if a cambion become interested in these tadpoles, it’s because there is more than souls at stakes. But all of these are specualtions. The only certanties are:

Tadpoles are not only Mind-Flayer-made.

They have been altered with Shadow Magic (weird for Mind Flayers).

The Tadpole and the figure which offers you power are different entities.

The more you use powers of command, the more these dreams come and the more it triggers the Mind-Flayer transformation.

The figure in your dreams is the only one preventing the Mind-Flayer transformation.

Conventional tadpoles only cause Mind-Flayer transformation in a week.

Extra information I found later [here]

More content of bg3 in general [here]

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(*) Shadow magic is a Weave-base magic in the Forgotten Realms. It comes from the Shadow Planes connecting to them via the Weave. It's not related to Shadow Weave (an alternate Wave crafted by Shar), something I talked about when explaining some bits of Mystra [here]. You use the standard Mystra-Weave to use shadow magic, but it's not rare that users of shadow magic find some affinity with Shadow Weave. Apparently it's a type of magic strongly related to a human [Tethyrian] ethnic. Churchs of Lolth, Mask, Set, Shar, and Shargaas show interest in this type of magic.

#bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #baldurs gate 3 spoilers #tadpole #mind flayer #forgotten realms #forgotten realms lore #I'm new at this lore!!!! so help me... this world is so fuckign vast and not always consistent!!! shit #trying to find some continuity of BG3 with Bg1 and 2 #there is always a god behind every big shit... so....#is it bhaal again??#bg3 lore #bg3 meta

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oumaheroes · 3 years

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Reset Ch10:The Truth Comes Out

Whole story found on AO3 and FFnet (It’s a long boi, I warn you)

'Please, take a seat.'

England and France looked at each other, before back at the gun in Jean's hand. His hand was still and focused, pointed directly at England.

Jean gave a small smile. In any other situation, it would have been kind.

'Please. Don't make me ask again.'

He motioned his head towards the chairs again and England cautiously lowered himself into one, seeing France out of the corner or his eye do the same.

Jean nodded. 'Thank you. This will be so much easier if you comply.' He looked over their shoulders and nodded. Suddenly, England felt his hands being grabbed and forced behind him, rough cable ties being forced over them and tying them together. Then, pushed down further; they were attached to a pole in the back of his chair. Deciding not to put up a fight he allowed it, as he did when the same was done to each of his legs, and as the footsteps of whomever was behind him backed away again, he gently tested their give. They were tight, each slight movement dug into his skin. He could break out of them, but not without damage to his wrists or doing it inconspicuously.

He maintained eye contact with Jean and sat straight with shoulders back watching him slowly settle more comfortably on the bed. Behind him, an electrical generator, hooked up to the lamps, whirred gently.

Jean nodded to whomever was behind them and they stepped out of the room, shutting the door as they left. He then clapped his hands together and beamed at the both of them.

‘Well. I expected something but certainly not this.’

Neither France nor England replied. Jean didn’t seem too put out by this however, he nodded his head and gestured to the restraints. ‘I’m sure you can understand why this has to happen.’ The gun in his hand was fixed between the both of them. It glinted with each slight movement. England resisted the urge to glance at it.

‘Please believe me, I am not a violent man. Far from it in fact.’

France must have made some sort of face because Jean gave a small laugh. ‘Ah yes, well. I am not intentionally a violent man. When pushed, I do what is needed and things sometimes go out of my control. This will hopefully not be one such time.’

He looked at England.

‘Arthur, how nice to see you again.’

England said nothing.

Jean continued to smile.

‘I’m aware that this isn’t a situation either of you would like to be in. And I’m also aware that you’re not willing to tell me anything. So, let’s get this over with as quickly as possible.’ He leant forward in an impression of ease and geniality.

‘I know what you are.’

Neither France nor England said anything, neither moved.

Jean’s eyes flicked from one to the other, reading for movement, acknowledgement. ‘Well, rather, I know you’re not human. I have proof you’re not human. I also know that this information is not something you’re going to want to be made public.

Still, neither spoke. Jean frowned. ‘You’re both making this incredibly difficult.’

Quickly, without warning, he stood and swung the butt of the gun, cracking it against France’s temple. He gave a muffled cry of surprise and pain as white light dances across his eyes and agony erupted in his head. He slumped downwards, weight pulling at his restraints.

Jean sat back, regarding England’s unmoving expression, eyes still fixed on him. England didn’t glance at France, but out of his periphery saw him straighten back up.

‘You’re not new to these sorts of things, I take it.’ Jean gave a short bark of laughter. ‘Makes sense’.

Still silence, broken only by France’s breathing as he fought to get in control of the pain. Already, it was subsiding.

‘How long would it take you to heal, I wonder? If I did worse, I mean.’ Jean regarded France. ‘Arthur here was shot only the other day, in the chest, I believe.’

He glanced back to England, at his chest. ‘But it seems you’re already fine. That’s been recorded, you know.’

England fought to not let the cold chill of dread show as it flooded his body. Modern technology was nothing but a curse.

‘Tell you what. Let’s do an exchange.’ Jean opened his arms, gun flashing in the light as it moved. ‘I tell you something I know, and you nod yes or no. In return, you can ask a question.’

Still silence.

Jean sighed. ‘I am being incredibly generous; you’re not really in a position to argue.’ He got up and crossed the room, out of the pool of light and into a corner. He retrieved something, before making his way back.

It was England’s case.

This time, England couldn’t help the flash of emotion at seeing it. He knew he’d slipped by the way Jean’s mouth curled into something nasty.

‘Yes, this. I have this. But you knew that, didn’t you? It’s what you came back for.’ He sat back on the bed, case in his lap, and stroked the lip. ‘I know that you both can’t die. Or, rather, can’t truly die. I know you can heal extraordinarily fast, and recover from injuries no regular human can. You can live for years, centuries, without change. And this,’ he bobbed the case on his knee, ‘has something to do with it.’

He raised the gun and stroked the barrel along it. ‘I wonder what will happen, if I were to destroy it. Would you die? Or would you turn mortal? I thi-‘

‘Burn it.’

England’s voice cut across him. Jean paused. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Burn it. Destroy it. Shoot it. I neither take kindly to blackmail, nor am intimidated by it.’

France coughed, twice. Short and sharp. ‘Now Arthur, wait a minute. Let’s not be too- ah, hasty, here. Do forgive him, Jean, I’m sure you’re more than aware of how difficult he can be.’

England fought to keep the incredulity from his face before France almost imperceptivity tapped his foot against the floor, again twice.

Ah. Okay then. He recognised the signal for what it was. Go along with it.

‘What? How can you say that?’ He shot back to France without hesitation, pulling at his restraints. ‘He’s only going to get the information from us and then kill us, keeping the case anyway.’

‘Ah, you would like to think so,’ Jean cut in swiftly, ‘I’m aware that killing you will only lead to you being born again.’ He snorted, a half laugh. ‘I’m not foolish enough to let you ‘go’ like that.’

England gave an incredulous laugh, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Don’t mock me Arthur. Don’t sit there and lie.’ The last part was said in a drawled sneer. ‘I know that this man here,’ he threw a hand in the direction of France, ‘I know this man was the same Francis from the home. I know that he died, and was reborn, somehow, as a younger man. I know that you, too, are able to do this.’

Bingo thought France. Jean knows too much, but not the whole story.

‘He’s recorded you, Arthur.’ France said, softly, hoping for more. ‘This isn’t like other times.’

‘That could easily have been doctored.’ England shot back, ignoring Jean who watching their exchange silently, ‘Children do that all the time these days. That isn’t proof.’

‘Maybe not on its own.’ Jean let the comment hang for a second, letting it settle. ‘But I have photos, a birth certificate; other things. More importantly, however,’ He paused, glancing at them both, ‘I have medical records.’

A silence, thick and strained, filled the room.

Jean grinned, sensing his advantage. ‘Caught on, have you? A small benefit to my old employment.’

England’s mind began racing, thinking over his own medical history, stored under lock and key in the British government buildings. Does Nation DNA change when they reset? He had no idea, never thought about it; when he’d last been human these sorts of things weren’t even dreamt of. Had anyone else considered this? If this was as bad it had the potential to be, then this could be a worldwide security breach. Either that, or he was more of a fool than he’d thought.

France’s thoughts were running down a similar vein and was desperately trying to recall instances where Francis could have left records, growing increasingly more horrified. Dentist records, blood tests, chests scans, x-rays; all would have a file somewhere, especially stored at the home.

This wasn’t something they could easily explain away and he cursed himself for his stupidity, for listening to England, for running into this so soon. He was without government support. Sure, England’s government could step in, refute it, cover it all up. Even if it hit the internet, the fact was that none of England’s records were lost or held by someone without clearance.

France, meanwhile, had no such support. No government. This could hit the internet and would prompt an investigation from the president’s people as well as the general population, who would think and believed what they will. The process of introducing himself and proving the accusations were worth covering up would take weeks. Other nations would need to be pulled in for verification and that was even if France was even able to get out of here. Which, being tied to a chair, was currently highly unlikely.

He couldn’t believe it. A human had him. Had them both.

‘I have the feeling that you’re both willing to be a bit more cooperative.’ Jean crossed one leg over the other drummed his gun free hand on the case lid. A familiar madness gleamed behind his eyes and France suddenly understood.

.............................................................................................

After the call from Wales, Scotland had excused himself and Northern Ireland from the UN sessions citing some business issues and had flown them to France on the first flight he could get. North had found, through England’s bank records, that a credit card was last used in Luçon earlier that morning. With today’s technology of contactless payments, there was no way to say whether England himself had made the purchase, but it was a lead.

This sense of accomplishment, however, was short lived, broken by what North had found online whilst waiting to board their plane. There, in wonderfully readable black and white in a prominent French newspaper, was a photo of his brother under the headline ‘Care Home Kidnap’.

What a cunt.

England was a fucking idiot. A fucking inconsiderate prick who had stormed back off into a shit storm of his own making, leaving the rest of them to pick up the bloodied pieces and clean up the damage. He was such a selfish fucking arsehole; Scotland immediately lost of any sense of previous concern he had briefly had for his brother’s wellbeing as it was swiftly buried underneath cold fury and hurried planning of how he, Scotland, was going to have to dig England out of the fucking shit pit and prevent this from becoming an international scandal.

Aside from that clusterfuck, he was also furious at Wales, which was an odd enough occurrence that he didn’t really know how to process it. Normally Wales was the one cross with someone else, if anyone was angry at all. Wales himself was sensible, logical, quiet, and caring- all traits Scotland silently admired. Reliable to a fault, Wales was not, usually, the fuck up of the family; England handled that title quite well without any help.

When North found that article, however, and had pushed the phone under his nose in panic, Scotland’s controlled hold on his concern and serenity had imploded. Causing such a public scene and scandal as a nation was bad enough, but then to go back to the scene of the incident, when the public had access to all the wonderfully accurate modern technology that they had? And Wales had known and let him.

After an apoplectically furious phone call to Wales in an airport terminal, who had recently found similar information and was already in contact with the Prime Minister, Scotland had remained stony faced and white knuckled as they flew back to Europe, North sat as far away as he could get to avoid becoming the outlet for Scotland’s anger.

Now in France, he was calm enough again to focus.

Wales had caught him up via email that during their flight that the PM was already in contact with the French government to let them know that a British ‘agent’ had become embroiled in French news. It wasn’t the UK’s business or right to reveal France for who he was, so instead they were going to play the politics card. Ban more printing of stories, reverse any warrants out for England’s arrest, prevent news channels from mentioning it and readying a story from Britain’s perspective, should anything break out back home.

That was the messy, admin part under control. Likely due to his mortifying part in this nonsense, Wales was working incredibly efficiently from the sound of things and Scotland trusted that his brother would be doing all he could to rectify the problem.

Panic and rage under control, Scotland could focus on the task at hand.

He’d hired a car upon arrival and bundled North, who had refused to fly back home and insisted on coming with him, inside to drive to Luçon. North was going to continue his online searching and fend off questions from other Nations whilst Scotland drove, which, grudgingly, he had to admit to himself was helpful. Being so accustomed to the internet did have its advantages, although he wasn’t ever going to tell North that.

If all went well, in around 4 to 5 hours they’d find England safe and sound and Scotland could happily beat the spit out of him.

.............................................................................................

Jean rebalanced England’s old case on his lap, eyes cold and hard despite his smile. There was a void behind his eyes, an emptiness. That note of something dangerous and sharp, something lacking a soul. The sense of a man who had nothing to lose in battle and was winning.

‘If you know as much as you do,’ Began France slowly, working through what he knew in his head, turning over each piece of information carefully, ‘then why on earth do you need us? What’s the point of all of this? Go to the authorities and be done with it, tell the public, sell what you know; what more can we tell you?’

‘I need to know why, know how. I am no fool, I know how crazy this is, how insane this will seem to people. I need proof, total, irrefutable proof. I need to know how this works, why it works, and all the ins and outs of things.’

‘And that’s because of Julien Durand, isn’t it? Your grandfather.’

Instantly, Jean’s lips pulled back, contorting his face. England looked shocked as the sight of it, so different from the co-worker he was used to, despite recent events. France pressed on, cultural knowledge tumbling through his mind, ‘His daughter was your mother. He killed me and they thought him mad. He lost all credibility and was deemed mentally unwell, not worth even thinking about.’

‘He was trying to do what was right!’ Jean stood, case falling to the ground with a muffled thump. England stared at it. ‘He believed-no, knew that he’d found something! He didn’t know enough, but he did what was right!’

France gave a dry laugh. ‘Yes, killing me was right?’ He looked Jean in the eye, ‘He was a fool. A fool who was getting involved in far more than he could ever have known and it backfired. Is that what this is for? To avenge him?’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Jean was furious now, with the same roiling fury that sparked remembrance in France in the first place, a memory of Julien Durand’s similar switch in mood; one storm to another.

‘My family was ruined. His wife left him and my mother and uncle were raised to think of him as just that, as crazy, as something to be ashamed of, someone who couldn’t even hold down a job for long enough to save any money. No credit, no credence, no future.’ Jean breathed heavily, gulping breaths, ‘He’d tell us stories of that case, of what he found, of what he tried to do but our whole family were disgusted by him, thought so little of him. Blamed him.’

As the volume of the conversation increased England worked on his restraints, all the while listening for the door. He was surprised that whoever was working with Jean hadn’t come in to check on them when the shouting begun, although perhaps this was usual behaviour. A concerning thought in itself. Had he attempted this before?

As Jean begun to speak again, England felt the one binding his wrists dig further into the skin. He needed to work on weakening the cable tie enough that one sharp snap of movement would do something.

‘Myself, Amélie and Charles all knew about that fucking thing growing up, all heard his goddamn stories about it, about you’. This last word was dripping in venom and directed solely at France. ‘Knew them as grandfather’s silly stories but also knew how much he desperately believed them, was desperate to be taken seriously. It bled through our childhoods, infected everything and everyone like a poison.’

Jean’s fists were clenched and shaking.

‘But I had a decent life, a decent job. I was happy with my lot. And then you moved into the home.’ A hateful look at France. ‘With that same name and an odd piece of fucking personal possession that I recognised immediately.’

Suddenly, he laughed, head tipped back. ‘I couldn’t believe it. Surely not, I thought, surely not. That would be too farfetched, too impossible. All that time growing up, hearing about this man called Francis Bonnefoy and a case? Someone my grandfather considered worth killing, worth throwing away his life and the lives of his family for? A potentially immortal man? But there you were.’

Jean shook his head, almost as if he were in disbelief still. ‘That’s fine, I thought, perfect. I would try to open it, find out what was in it. Try to make sense of what drove Grandfather to do something so desperate for it. But it was locked, of course. And you,‘ he looked France hard in the eyes, ‘didn’t know anything about it, or you weren’t going to tell me.’

He gave another short laugh, ‘Again, that was fine. All I had to do was wait for you to die, and then I could grab it up and take it away. But then,’ he swivelled round to England, who just in time stopped his efforts on his restraints, ‘You showed up. Out of nowhere, and with that name. That same name. Then I knew, I knew it wasn’t a coincidence, knew it wasn’t something made up; a story. Whatever it was, it was real. It was real, and there you both were.’ There was a hungry quality to him, the way he moved and spoke, that sickened France to look at.

Jean stepped closer to England, back fully to France now, who had begun to work on his own restraints, pulling his legs away from the chair and rubbing the cord of the cable tie up and down the pole of the chair back.

‘I realised then that it must not be the case that was important, it was you. Both of you. The case had something to do with it, oh yes, but that wasn’t the real deal here. Grandfather was so close but he was looking in the wrong direction, focusing on the wrong thing.’

Jean whirled round and grabbed the case again from the floor, brandishing it before England. ‘That’s what I still don’t know. What I need to know. Which is why I was serious about talking to the both of you.’

Suddenly, he was calm again. He shook himself, a small movement on the head and shoulders and a deep breath. ‘Tell me what you are. Tell me how you work. I go to the government, and you help me clear my grandfather’s and my family’s name. That’s all.’

That was never all. England knew that, knew mortals and knew this type of one too. You gave an inch and eventually the mile started to look obtainable too. Expected, even. There was no bargaining, no reasoning. His stance on this was always the same, one did not negotiate with criminals. No matter what they offered, no matter how promising it looked; the main thing you were negotiating was your respect, your pride and as soon as you struck a deal, you’d lost. You were malleable.

And this mortal in front of him, knowing what he knew, was dangerous enough without giving him more. There could be no second day of this, there could be no deals struck or agreements promised. No, there would be nothing. All they needed was a chance.

England had the beginnings of an idea and hoped that France would catch on.

England appraised him, eyes flicking to the case and back to his eyes and his too calm expression. ‘Ask.’

Jean raised an eyebrow. ‘Ask? Is that all? I must admit I’m surprise at your quick turn around.’

England shrugged nonchalantly as best as he could whilst tied to a chair. ‘As you’ve said, there’s not much we can do, is there? If that’s the inevitable end I’d rather not make things more difficult for myself in getting there.’

Jean hesitated, suspicious.

‘Obviously you’re going to have to trust what answers I give,’ England offered, ‘But like you said. You have proof, and proof that modern science cannot deny. The main reason you want us is to fill in the blanks and go with you when you present it. I’m willing to do that if, as you say, that will be all.’

‘So, it seems we’re both in the same position,’ England continued drily, watching Jean process this information, ‘We have to trust your word, as you’ll have to trust ours.’

‘What’s in here?’ Jean asked quickly, mind seemingly made up for now.

‘Arthur-‘ France, a note of caution in his voice.

‘Items precious to the nation of England.’ Ignoring him, England bumped his bound hands against the pole they were tied to, three quick jolts. He hoped France would read it correctly. Get out.

‘Such as?’

‘My turn.’ England quickly considered the things he needed to know, prioritising them and filtering away ones that he could live without. ‘Who else knows what you do?’

‘Amélie and Charles. Although, I know you’re both aware of what happened to them now.’

‘Not the men outside?’

A small shrug, uncaring. ‘They’re hired. They didn’t ask questions and telling them wouldn’t have them respecting me enough to do what I wanted without question. They’re well paid.’

How on earth do you have the money to hire them? England thought, but that was a question he could ask France later.

‘Why are the cases important to what you are?’ Jean asked next.

England considered his words. ‘They help bring us back to ourselves, once we’re reborn. We have a lot to remember; looking through old objects we’ve owned or are important to our lives in some way help us to remember faster. Come back to ourselves quicker.’

Jean seemed pleased with this, making a noise of interest. ‘So, I was right; the case has nothing to do with your immortality.’

England shook his head. ‘No, nothing.’

‘When my grandfather killed Francis back then, he had caught you searching through French archives, had seen you exchange a case.’

‘I was looking for things to jog Francis’ memory, and he had done the same for me. Things lose their impact if they are used too often.’

Jean regarded the case again in his hands, its old cracked leather. ‘Then, the one Francis had in the home was for when he died. You were there to take him away, hide him from medical authorities and show it to him.’

‘Correct.’

‘Sadly, I made that more difficult?’ Jean chuckled. It was strange, what they were discussing. Something so private, so unhuman, and Jean was suddenly acting like how both England and France remembered him in the home. Warm and unassuming and made all the strange that they were sitting in Francis’ old bedroom. They could have been discussing anything.

‘It sped up the process.’ England acknowledged.

Cable tie dug into France’s skin.

‘Why work together with Amélie and Charles just to kill them? They’re your cousins, I assume.’

Jean nodded. ‘They were, yes. I needed them as scapegoats, I suppose you could say. I offered Charles a job in the gardens and once a job opened up for staff inside, I mentioned it to him. I knew Amélie was unemployed and knew Charles would tell his sister.’

‘So, you couldn’t even be blamed for bringing them there.’

Jean smiled, seemingly impressed. ‘Exactly. They’d grown up with the same stories as myself, I knew they’d put two and two together in the same way. Once you arrived,’ a hand casually flicked towards England, ‘and I understood more of what I had found myself involved in, I knew I needed to step back if I was ever going to be able to get a chance of getting close. I knew you’d be on guard for anything or anyone getting involved and so I knew I needed a cover, a distraction.’

‘I’d become interested in them, which would take my attention away from anything you were doing.’

‘Exactly,’ Jean nodded, happily, ‘And it worked. As soon as Amélie arrived and found the case in Francis’ room, she and Charles started thinking of ways to look inside it as much as I did. Became suspicious too. Even Francis knew something was going on, which lead to him becoming more paranoid and thus more medicated. All I needed to do was wait and watch.’

A quick glance towards France, who was looking slightly sick.

‘You were staying with Amélie?’

‘Yes. We weren’t close, growing up.’ Jean looked somewhat sad to admit this, ‘Our family truly never recovered from what our grandfather did. We knew each other, but not enough for her or her brother to involve me in whatever they were planning. Which is how I wanted it. I just needed to know that they were doing something. So, when things started getting more intense, I made up an excuse to stay with her. See if I could find out what they were up to and take advantage of it.’

England clamped his mouth shut, next question hot on his tongue. Don’t push him too far, not yet.

Jean’s next question came quick. ‘Can I do this?’ he gestured to both nations, ‘What you do? Come back again?’

France and England looked at each other, wary. England, wanting to continue to divert attention away from France, sighed, making himself look torn and paused.

‘Well?’ Jean sounded almost, desperate, England would say. Pleading, hungry. ‘Yes,’ he admitted, eventually, ‘It is difficult-painful. Extremely painful but yes, it is possible. You may die in the process, but it is possible.’

‘Well, that’d be convenient, wouldn’t it? Don’t worry, I’m not too interested in trying, especially not before talking to the authorities.’

The unspoken ‘yet’ fell heavy between them.

Greed would get to him before too long, either that or the fear of death; it always did. It was one of the main reasons why very few humans knew of the nations.

England next asked a question that had been bothering him for a while. ‘Did you have something to do with the staff becoming sick?’

‘I did,’ Jean still looked completely calm, no guilt for anyone else other than himself, it seemed. ‘I wanted to give Charles and Amélie an opportunity, make it easier for them to find out or do something. With so many people about, you especially, I knew that’d be hard. And it worked, when I stayed at Amélie’s I found out that they were planning on doing something on that night. I just had to be there, waiting.’

‘How…?’

‘The tea. Coffee. Whatever. A little bit of laxatives mixed with some strong over the counter medicines that would put someone down for a few days at least.’

England thought back through his memories to the many times Jean had offered to make drinks for staff members, himself included. The cups of coffee he kept trying to make him drink. England had thought him kind, friendly. A concerned co-worker. He mentally kicked himself, he had believed his ability to read people was better than this.

‘You,’ Jean continued, a pointed look at England, ‘were difficult. I didn’t know about your healing abilities then but had a suspicion that whatever you were was preventing you from getting affected. But then, you become unwell anyway.’

Kent. A rotten coincidence; terrible, perfect timing.

‘I checked Amélie’s phone; I knew what they were planning. I took advantage of it and went there that night myself. Unfortunately, you arrived back in time to prevent Charles from fully killing Francis.’

Jean sighed. ‘I was planning on cleaning up the pieces, offering my help to them and escaping with the body and the case. I’d hired a van and everything, should it be needed. Instead,’ he glared at Arthur, ‘You arrived back. Killed Charles instead. With the lack of staff and the panic, at least me and Amélie were able to smuggle his body out and to the family home in Luçon.’

‘As a message for us?’

‘Not entirely. It’s out of the way and far away from the home enough to prevent police from searching there until they discovered that the gardener was missing and deemed it worth their time to investigate. But,’ he inclined his head, ‘you’re right, also for you. If you went there following the same trail.’

‘Why kill her? Why not use her to help you, after all wasn’t it to help restore your family?’

‘First,’ Jean stopped him, holding up a hand. ‘Why were you ill? If you can heal so well and not die, shouldn’t you be immune to things like that?’

England thought quickly. ‘We are still…human. We still age, and die. We just return. We can heal well, yes, but we still get hurt. In the same vein, we can still become ill, but we recover faster.’

Jean accepted his explanation with a small incline of his head and a noise of consideration. ‘But it wasn’t the drugs?’

‘It may have been. They may have affected me, disrupted my body in some way.’

Jean seemed satisfied with this. ‘For your question, I needed someone to take the fall for what happened. Amélie had all the text messages on her phone, both of their fingerprints were on the case, hers on Charles’ body. Our last names are different, and on the surface I don’t appear involved at all. But she might speak, so I needed her to die. I hired men and continued alone. We managed to track your movements t-‘

Suddenly there was a loud snap and a burst of movement from France. Despite his legs still bound to the chair, his arms were free and he propelled himself towards Jean, hands outstretched.

Jean gave a yelp of surprise, dropping England’s case back to the floor. France managed to reach his shirt and he grabbed hold, momentum propelling him downwards and dragging Jean with him. There was a fierce struggle, during which England gave a huge tug and broke the tie around his own hands, ignoring the sharp burning sensation in his wrists. He had reached down to tug his legs free when there was an almighty crack of a gun as the doors behind them burst open. Hands seized his shoulders, pulling him back flush against the chair.

‘Stop!’ Jean roared, ‘Stop! Don’t shoot him!’

England looked down to see Jean under France’s prone body by the foot of the bed, a gunshot wound blooming red from between the nation’s shoulders.

The room was silent again, punctured only by Jean’s heavy breathing as he struggled underneath France’s now dead weight. His face was stricken, thunderous. The hands on England’s shoulders tightened, but he heard a gun being holstered behind him.

Jean pushed France off with a grunt and stood, checking himself for injuries. Then, in a sudden burst of fury, he kicked France’s side.

‘FUCK!’ he screamed, ‘FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!’ Each shout was accentuated with a kick, causing France’s body to jolt. With one last kick, Jean looked up back to England, furious.

‘You planned this! You planned this all along, you areshole. We had a deal; we were going to do this like men!’

England couldn’t help himself, he grinned. ‘I’m afraid, Jean, that we are not men.’ He looked down at France. ‘You may as well chuck him outside. He’ll decompose soon and will be born again where his case is. Which, I’m sure you’ve guessed, is hidden.’

Jean crossed the room in quick strides and punched England hard on the cheek. His head whipped back, stars popping in front of him. Leaning forward, he spat blood and a tooth at the ground. Jean punched him again, once more across the face and then hard in the stomach. England gasped as the air was knocked out of him, wheezing for oxygen.

‘You bastard.’

England looked up, made himself ignore his gasping need for oxygen to look this human, this pitiful man in the eye. He grinned, ‘Nice to finally make your acquaintance.’

.............................................................................................

AN:

Well.

If the You-Know-What that’s causing worldwide havoc and mayhem is good for anything, it’s good for getting me to write again. Only took three national lockdowns to prod me into activity…

If anyone is still about to read this, thank you. Thank you to new readers, who are still out there and have stumbled across this dinosaur and a bigger thank you to anyone who came back for this, who got a notification in their inbox and clicked it. I hope it made you happy to see.

There have been many points where I wanted to abandon this thing, leave it to rot in the dust. But I’ve always said I will finish this story and finish it I will. Every year that passes I grow more determined and I improve enough at writing that I want to keep going, to keep pushing myself to get it done.

No matter what, this story will get an end and BOY are we close now.

As always, please do let me know that you’re there by leaving a comment letting me know what you thought. I hope the build-up and suspense was worth it!

Much love and thanks, as always <3

Heroes

#fruk #aph #aph france #aph england #aph wales #aph scotland #aph northern ireland #reset #allheroeswearhats #ahwh #fic #hetalia #dear god what am i doing #why am i still doing this #Feels like shouting into a long dead void #I WILL FINISH THIS FIC EVEN IF IT KILLS ME #au #my writing

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adolanables · 4 years

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Linked (E.D) Part 2

Masterlist

Ethan felt a bead of sweat drip down the back of his neck as his brother finished saying his vows. The wedding was small, a few family friends of the Dolan’s and a few of the Somerfield’s - how most Hailette weddings were. There was no need for an extravagant event - at least that is what they were told.

“I do.” Grayson sputtered out, tears already in his eyes as he held Kennedy’s hands tightly. Her younger sisters stood next to her as bridesmaids - opposite of where Ethan stood as Grayson’s best man.

Ethan heard the small crowd clap as the couple kissed, he forced himself to do the same - glancing out at the familiar faces. Cameron smiled at him softly, knowing their relationship from the past was long gone - she had been out of the house for over ten years now. Only seeing her brothers once or twice a year.

Ethan finally pulled himself out of his trance as his father patted him on the back, letting him know it was time for him to prepare for his own ceremony. The pair headed upstairs, where Ethan would change and freshen up - maybe have a glass of whiskey.

“All the guests from this ceremony that will not be here for the next are leaving now - the Watsons should arrive in about thirty minutes.” Sylvia informed Ethan and his father. “The ceremony will start promptly at 2PM - Grayson will be up here shortly.”

“You ready, son?” Mr. Dolan clapped his son on the back as he adjusted his tie in the mirror. Now donning a navy blue suit once again.

“As I’ll ever be.”

“You look absolutely gorgeous.” Mrs. Watson smiled at Anna with tears in her eyes. Her daughter’s naturally curly hair was cascading around her face - a rarity for Anna. Her hair was usually pinned back tightly in an effort to control the dark mane.

“Thank you, momma.” Anna whispered, pressing a kiss to her mother’s cheek.

The ride back to the Dolan’s house was quiet and somber. Anna could tell her mother and father were excited for her, but also a bit sad. Anna had always been the most behaved Watson daughter, striving for perfection in everything she did. They always knew her wedding day would be bittersweet.

As the Watson’s entered the Dolan’s house, Sylvia shielded them from view. Anna’s desired wedding was inside, where Kennedy’s was outside. That made things much easier for Mrs. Dolan and Sylvia to prepare two weddings in one day.

As Ethan stood at the altar with Grayson by his side, he couldn’t help but feel his heart rate increase. Yesterday felt mundane and like punishment, but today felt… scary? He hated to admit that as a thirty year old man, but he wasn’t sure how to interact with his eighteen year old wife. Grayson and Kennedy seemed to have clicked immediately, but Ethan and Anna had barely spoken two sentences to each other. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen when the ceremony was over and they were finally alone. He had to admit she was absolutely breath-taking. In his shenanigans with the lower class girls, he had always found himself drawn to dark-skinned women and curly hair.

To Ethan’s surprise, the wedding march started playing - Anna’s younger sister had already accompanied her mother down the aisle and stood in her place opposite Grayson. Finally, Ethan was able to pull himself out of his haze, clearing his throat and standing tall at the end of the aisle.

“You look beautiful, Anna Bear.” Mr. Watson pressed a kiss to his daughter’s forehead as they stood before the grand doors. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” Anna breathed, smiling softly up at her father before hitching her dress up slightly so she wouldn’t trip. The dress she had chosen for this day was simple - a long-sleeved lace dress that clung to the body. The bright white of the fabric accentuated her dark hair - the moment she tried it on she knew it was the one.

A few moments later, the doors flung open - revealing the small wedding crowd and her soon-to-be husband at the end of the aisle. Anna felt everything inside her tell her to run - to rip her arm away from her father and sprint out of the house, but she knew that wasn’t an option. She plastered on a fake soft smile and let her father guide her down the aisle to Ethan, who shook her father’s hand and helped her up onto the altar.

Anna felt herself zone out through the priest’s speech, only feigning interest when he called her name. “Miss Watson, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

Anna felt her body break into a cold sweat as she forced her mouth to open. “I do.”

She heard Ethan murmur, but wasn’t coherent enough to hear what he had said - she assumed it was I do. His grip on her hands tightened, trying to draw her attention back to him - he could tell she was just as far in outer space as he was. “Mister Dolan, you may kiss your bride.” The priest smiled widely at the couple.

Ethan glanced down at Anna, her eyes glazed over - just a few blinks away from tears. He felt his stomach churn, pure hatred for this process boiling inside of him as he watched this young girl fall apart in front of him. He smiled at the priest and grabbed the sides of Anna’s face, her eyes flickered a few times - terror in her eyes as he brought her face to his. Instead of kissing her lips, he used her curly hair as a shield, pressing a soft kiss to her cheek - using his other hand to hide his mouth from the priest.

As he pulled away, the party began to cheer - sending congratulations to the happy couple as they exited the ballroom and immediately got into a limo.

“Thank you.” Anna whispered, her eyes trained on her lap as she and Ethan sat across from each other in the spacious vehicle.

“Of course.” Ethan responded softly, knowing what she was thanking him for, but not wanting to bring it up.

“May I ask where we are going?” Anna glanced up at Ethan, taking in his features for the first time - strong, dark, sharp. He was handsome, there was no denying it.

“The airport - our father’s planned a honeymoon for us to go on right away.” Ethan explained. “There is a change of clothes waiting for you at the airport along with our bags.”

“Oh.” Anna nodded, staring out the window - wondering what she would do on vacation with someone she barely knew.

“I believe we are going to Fiji.” Ethan stared at his new wife’s side profile as she continued to stare at the passing trees. “For a week.”

“I’ve heard it’s very beautiful.” Anna nodded, glancing over at her husband who she could feel staring at her.

“I’ve heard the same.” Ethan agreed.

When they arrived at the airport, Anna was overwhelmed by the security detail they had been provided by the Dolans. She knew the Dolans were one of the wealthiest families in Hailette, but she was never allowed to learn about who was in power in Hailette. After seeing how desperately they needed to protect Ethan, she wondered if perhaps their family was involved.

The pair was provided a private plane - one Ethan was expecting Grayson to be on if he was being honest. When they climbed onto the plane, followed by four security guards and Ethan’s assistant, he paused for a moment. “May I ask where Mister and Mrs Grayson Dolan are vacationing?”

“The French Riviera, sir.” The assistant - Jonathan - confirmed with his boss. “Mrs. Kennedy had always dreamt of a honeymoon there.”

“Is Fiji your dream honeymoon?” Ethan spoke to Anna as he sat down in the seat next to her, his eyes raking over her body that was no clad in usual Hailette clothing. The dark green dress was not nearly as flattering as the white one she had just been in.

“No, sir.” Anna shook her head. “I don’t really have a place in mind that I would have gone, but a beach sounds lovely.”

Ethan nodded at his new wife, sinking back into his seat. He had never met an upper class woman who hadn’t planned every second of her honeymoon. He wondered if her near tears at the ceremony were for herself or for who he was.

“Anna…” Ethan’s voice spoke softly to his sleeping wife, her head had fallen to rest on his shoulder during the long flight. “We have arrived.”

His voice brought her out of her slumber, her face heating up as she realized she had fallen asleep touching him. She sat up straight and adjusted her dress, smoothed her hair as best as she could, and glanced around at the windows - darkness.

“It’s night time here.” Ethan explained as he watched her look around in confusion. “We will spend the night in our suite, then get a head start in the morning with activities.”

“Yes, sir.” Anna gulped, letting Ethan help her down the stairs of the private airplane. The security surrounded them, two in front and two in back. Jonathan led the group, helping them through security and finally into their car that drove them to the resort they would be staying at.

Jonathan spoke with the receptionist, a small smile on his face before he turned on his heel with room keys in his hands. “You all have two spaces - the bungalow outdoors, and the suite upstairs. Two guards are assigned to each area at all times, so there’s no need to let someone know where you will be.”

“Thank you, Jonathan.” Ethan smiled at his assistant, watching as the guards held their bags. “The suite tonight, Anna?” He glanced down at his wife, who felt uncomfortable as all of the hotel staff were staring at her ridiculous green dress. Sometimes it was hard to remember the rest of the world wasn’t like Hailette.

“That’s fine, sir.” She smiled softly, not bothering to look at him as he laced his arm between hers and led her to the elevator.

As the pair shuffled out of the elevator with two guards behind them, Anna felt like she could cry again. She was so far away from home and everything she knew with a large group of people she had just met. She felt so unsafe and as if her world could turn upside down at any moment.

“Breakfast will arrive at 9AM - please call me if you would like for that time to be changed, I will be awake by 7AM.” Jonathan spoke directly to Ethan, taking a few strides down the hallway to his own room.

Ethan fumbled with the keys for a few seconds before finally pushing the door open to the suite. The guards set the bags inside, made sure the suite was secure and finally left - leaving the new couple alone for the first time. Ethan made quick work untying his tie and unbuttoning his white shirt, the navy suit coat finally coming off. He sat on the bed as he kicked his brown dress shoes off and let out a sigh of relief.

Anna stood still in the corner of the room, her hands folded in front of her with her eyes trained on the ground as her new husband let himself relax. Her mother had prepared her for how tonight could go - it would not be pleasant for her in most scenarios. There were levels of horror the night could turn into, she only hoped it wouldn’t go too far.

“I believe your suitcase is the grey one - some night gowns should be in there - if that is what you like to sleep in.” Ethan spoke up, grabbing the suitcase he deemed as his own to find a clean white t-shirt and a pair of boxers to sleep in.

“Thank you.” Anna whispered, rummaging through the suitcase of clothing she didn’t recognize. She knew most women received a new wardrobe upon their wedding day. It was time for her to don the color of her new family - red. She finally found a night gown she thought could be comfortable, it’s lacy pattern and tight fabric looked uncomfortable, but it didn’t have a structured bodice like the others that she would call lingerie - not nightgowns.

Ethan glanced up at his wife who was gripping a red nightgown tightly between her hands, her grip so tight her knuckles had turned white. Instead of commenting, Ethan slid his suitcase off of the bed and slipped into the bathroom to change into his sleepwear and brush his teeth. Anna took the opportunity to do the same, slipping out of the horrid green dress and pulling the red gown over her body - letting out a sigh of relief as she was able to remove her tight bra for the first time in hours.

The bathroom door clicked open, Ethan’s eyes landed on Anna in her red gown - a tight, silky piece of fabric with lace detail. “I’m finished in the restroom if you would like to clean up for the night.” He spoke softly, folding his wedding suit neatly and setting it back inside his suitcase.

Anna nodded, stepping to the bathroom softly, her toothbrush and face wash in hand.

Ethan made himself comfortable in the large white bed, the desk lamp flickering as he thumbed through a book he had been reading. When Anna finally emerged from the bathroom, he noticed her hair that was once flowing freely around her face was now pinned back tightly at the nape of her neck. She smiled politely before setting her things down in her suitcase and stepping over towards the bed.

“What would you like for me to do, sir?” She spoke softly, keeping her eyes trained on the floor. Her mother had told her horror stories of women who refused to sleep with their husbands on the night of their marriage - as badly as she didn’t want to do this, she wouldn’t be beaten or bruised at the hands of a man

“Hm?” Ethan raised an eyebrow, setting the book down to his side as he eyed his new wife. “Oh - yes.” Ethan nodded, letting out a small sigh at the ritual expected for tonight. “Lie down on the bed please, on your back - head on a pillow.”

Anna followed his instructions, her hands shaking as she climbed to the top of the bed and laid down. Ethan couldn’t help but notice how terrified she looked. Her eyes were wide, lips parted with shaky breath, even her hands seemed as though they were rattling. This tradition was expected and if a couple didn’t consummate their marriage immediately, it was frowned upon greatly. Ethan wasn’t sure how they would ever know, but Hailette seemed to have a way of finding out everything.

“Take your gown off please.” Ethan spoke again, flicking the lamp off to hopefully ease her nerves a bit.

It didn’t help. Anna’s fingers were still shaking as she gripped the bottom of her red gown and pulled it over her head, leaving herself in a pair of white underwear and no bra. Ethan could see her - just barely. The light from the hallway that crept in under the door was just enough light to make out her body. He felt so wrong for thinking she looked sexy - she was barely a woman.

Ethan slipped off his boxers and t-shirt, climbing up onto the bed to sit between her legs. He could hear how quickly she was breathing, her hands curled in tight fists in the sheets by her sides. His father had told him what to expect for this night with a woman who had never even been kissed - it wouldn’t be pleasant for either party most of the time.

“Shh, I’m not going to hurt you.” Ethan tried to calm his wife, resting a warm hand on her shin. He saw her start to apologize, but he shook his head. “I want to get your body ready before we engage.” Ethan explained, rubbing both hands up her bare thighs now.

Anna felt confused - the feeling of Ethan’s hands on her chilled legs felt nice. She wanted him to stop, but she also didn’t - her mother had told her that eventually this act would feel nice. She let out a shaky breath and nodded at him, her eyes widening as he slipped his fingers into the waistband of her panties and slid them down her legs. Ethan’s privates were shielded by the darkness and his knees, but his broad and defined chest confirmed that he was one of the handsomest in Hailette, in many ways.

Ethan paused for a moment to observe his wife, her fists were still gripping the sheets, but her breathing had calmed down noticeably. This was the first time in the last twelve years that Ethan had gone a night without fucking someone into a oblivion. He could feel the pent up energy aching in his balls as he drank in the beautiful woman in front of him. For a moment, he felt as though he could understand why the leaders of Hailette continued this practice. A woman - so innocent and pure lie beneath him - completely inexperienced. Ethan had slept with hundreds of women - his skills perfected, he knew how to make a woman cry out for him, but never with a virgin. It was his job to teach her and mold her into the perfect wife.

He slowly pressed a kiss to the top of Anna’s thigh, his hands massaging the skin softly before one of his hands slipped between her folds. A sharp intake of air drew his attention back to her face, her eyes were squeezed shut - lips just slightly parted. He took a moment to softly rub circles over her clit with his three middle fingers - warming her up.

Ethan wasn’t the biggest fan of eating women out - with unknown women, it wasn’t recommended. Fingers and a condom-clad penis were a different story; he couldn’t protect his mouth. Of course, he had met a few lower class women over the years who had peaked his interest enough for him to get to know them well enough to trust that they weren’t harboring some kind of disease. With Anna, he could be sure she wasn’t - but he felt oral sex was almost more intimate than actual penetration and wasn’t sure he wanted to incorporate it on their first time.

After a few moments of softy rubbing her outer area, he ventured down to her opening, slipping his middle finger inside of her. A small whine left her mouth - Ethan couldn’t be sure if it was pain or pleasure. The way her walls gripped just his finger tightly, he assumed it was a mixture of both. He slowly pumped in and out, warming her up until he was able to slip his index finger in as well. He paused for a moment, glancing up at her - her face was scrunched up in displeasure, low breaths leaving her lips as she tried to steady her rapidly beating heart.

“Are you alright?” Ethan whispered, rubbing the inside of her thigh soothingly.

“Yes, sir.” Anna breathed, not wanting to upset her new husband. If she were to be honest, it felt like he was shoving a knife into her vagina. Okay, maybe she was being a little dramatic, but he had to feel she was not properly lubricated. It was hard for her to develop any sort of arousal when she was so terrified.

“Do not lie to me.” Ethan growled, slipping his fingers out of her and sitting back on his knees - quickly pulling the blanket on the end of the bed over his length.

“I’m sorry, sir.” Anna squeaked, shutting her eyes tightly. “It was just a bit painful.”

“Honesty is one of the three pillars of a good Hailette marriage; don’t you know that?” Ethan grumbled, wrapping the blanket around his waist tightly as he stood up from the bed.

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry sir.” Anna stuttered, sitting up on her elbows - painfully aware of how naked she was. She had barely known Ethan for two days and she already felt a pang of guilt for how she had already let him down as a wife. Living in Hailette was so strange for Anna - on one hand she yearned desperately to get out. On the other hand, she was a strict rule follower, always wanted to achieve perfection in everything she did. Being Ethan’s wife was no different to her - she would do what had to be done to be the best.

“Yes, well - “ Ethan padded around the room to his suitcase, shuffled through for a moment before tossing a long sweatshirt at Anna. “That horrid red thing can’t be comfortable to sleep in, so put this on. Please be dressed and under the covers when I get out of the bathroom.”

As Ethan stalked off into the bathroom, Anna rolled off the bed to slip her underwear back on and pull the red and black hoodie over her head. It smelled like clean laundry - she wondered where Ethan wore this. Perhaps the gym. Perhaps to the lower class side of town during his free years. Years she so desperately wished she was allowed to have. Not to have sex - she could not care less about that aspect of the free years. She wanted to wear pants and tennis shoes, run on a treadmill, swim in a public pool, drink a glass of wine.

Ethan turned the shower on - letting the burning water run down his back. There were a mix of feelings coursing through him - anger, hurt, perhaps a little bit of guilt. He hated the rules of Hailette sometimes, but he knew how lucky he was to be an upper class member of the society. He knew he was even luckier to be a man. With that being said, he desperately wished he could have the kind of life where he could marry who he wanted - if he ever even wanted to. He wished he didn’t have to deal with this forlorn little dove on the bed just a few feet away. He had no hard feelings towards her, but the frustration associated with this type of marriage wasn’t something he had ever wanted. Additionally, he knew she didn’t want it either. From the moment he set eyes on her, he could tell how terrified she was to marry him.

Ethan couldn’t quite make sense of how he could feel bad for her and also be angry at her for not falling at his knees the way Kennedy did to Grayson. Ethan could only imagine the wild sex Kennedy and Grayson were having in the French Riviera - she was probably loving it. After shaking thoughts of his brother’s sex life from his head, Ethan let out a low groan at the problem he was still sporting between his legs. Regardless of all the feelings he was dealing with, he was still achingly hard. Who wouldn’t be after seeing the body on their new wife?

He’d never felt dirty for touching himself, but as he pumped himself in the shower, he couldn’t help but swallow down guilt for the girl who was surely crying in the room next to him. Either way, he continued to massage himself, a muffled groan leaving his lips as he emptied himself onto the shower floor.

When Ethan finally emerged from the bathroom, Anna had finally cried herself to sleep. She was curled into a tight ball in the corner of the bed, clearly leaving as much room as possible for her husband. Ethan paused for a moment to look at her, noticing her puffy eyes before he decided to sleep in the bed in the ensuite. It was a smaller, less luxurious room, but he wasn’t sure he would be able to sleep with her next to him.

#ethan dolan #grayson dolan #the dolan twins #dolan twin fanfic #ethan dolan fanfic #ethan dolan smut #ethan dolan fluff #dolan twin au #dolan twin imagine #ethan dolan au #ethan dolan imagine #adolanables

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moldy-mold · 5 years

Text

Diary Post: My Thoughts and Processes on Making “Silent Strength” It’s lengthy, taking place over long period of time. Mainly written for my future-self to remember what I went through, but also for anyone who is curious. Now that the project is over, I can post without reservations. There are certain things I need to keep secret though, so if I’m vague I do so intentionally!

Basically, a lot of number-crunching, physical labor, and psychological labor.

It started off as kind of a joke tweet I made. I had enough content to make a Tales Of art book and people were receptive to it. So… I thought maybe I could go somewhere with this. A few weeks later, I suddenly had a lot of Kratos art. Like. 80% of all my Tales art was Kratos. It didn’t make sense to make a broad Tales Of book when really most of it was Kratos.

I hadn’t made a book since I was in college despite it being one of my favorite things to do. They were never art books, just some editorial design projects that totally didn’t count. This book… would be my first-ever art book.

Several times, I came close to having enough art to print a book - the last time was my large collection of Yusuke Kitagawa, but the quality wasn’t where I wanted. At that time, I was still experimenting with my iPad Pro and figuring out Procreate, so that was what I used him for.

NGL, I was pretty afraid of looking like a clown. After doing all this work, what if no one actually buys it? I was talking to some friends and they said they would buy it. It was enough for me. In the end, I’m creating something that I love. - The first thing I really wanted to work on was the cover. It needed to be epic but also mysterious (lol)… It was a good time to practice lighting and backgrounds. The cover had to be freaking Fantastic. I spent 3 days drawing nonstop. I was on vacation so I could spend full days just drawing. It was really intense. I would stop in the evenings to go for a run or else my legs would never get circulation again.

The hardest part was keeping it secret. I wanted to share it with the world right away bc I was so proud of it. Well, all I could do was show it to my parents and some close friends. They didn’t know who Kratos is, but it was obvious I was crazy about him.

Initially, I was doing some hand-lettering for the zine title instead of using a typeface. Tbh, I was so sure I was naming this zine “Blame Your Fate!” bc that is such an iconic line. But it just didn’t work with my cover, which looked… a little too serene for that. So… Silent Strength or Divine Strength? I asked around and got my answer.

But what size? All of my art has been on letter canvases. I wanted it to be large so you could see the details in the art. I’ll just start with that. - Luckily, I had all my Kratos-related art in one place. I started my InDesign file and threw everything in there just to see what it looked like. Man, I draw a lot of boxes… But I didn’t want them all next to each other. I also wanted to kinda organize it by the people Kratos hangs out with. There’s a Yuan section LOL… and a Lloyd section… and an Anna section. Idk, I tried to get some kind of order in there with a sprinkling of full spreads here and there to keep it fresh and interesting for the eyes.

I hadn’t worked with InDesign on such an intense level since college. I forgot all of the tips and tricks we learned in class. Spent some time reading on how to do things again… like adding page numbers. - I started drafting my pre-order form. It’s my first time making a google form like this. It’s kind of fun? I spent a long time on it, despite how simple it was. This was going to be my “Store” so it had to look and sound good. - My friend introduced me to charm-making. It seemed easy enough, and I wanted to give my zine more oomph. Besides, I’ve always wanted to make a charm.

I remember someone saying they’d buy a book of just the 4 Seraphim if it existed. I like them too and they lack art imo. In the end, I decided to do a polaroid charm. It’s not really that unique but I wanted Kratos to have actual friends to hang out with for once LOL.

She was going to do a group order to try to reduce the costs. I thought maybe 4 weeks would give me enough time. In the end she said I only have 2. I work well under pressure, so needless to say, I did make that deadline. I actually sketched the whole thing on the plane headed home. - After playing the game the second time, watching the OVA again, and reading “Offerings to a Star,” I have gained a real soft spot for Yuan. My friend once said, “If you weren’t stolen away by Kratos, you would be in love with Yuan.” Lol. I’ve been in a “Kratos and Yuan hanging out” mood lately, so of course I needed something good for the zine. They’re so cute together! Now… what is the bro-est thing I can draw?

I was currently in Florida for my friend’s wedding. I was friends with the groom and his best man since high school, so that makes it 10 years now. Seeing how they’re still friends after all this time, despite living in opposite sides of the country, was really moving to me. Of course, me being me, I could see Kratos and Yuan’s long friendship being similar to this, if they had gone to school together. I just had to draw it. - When I got back from vacation, I did some research on zine sizes. Mine was HUGE compared to others. I just didn’t quite realize it until I held a magazine in my hands. It really is huge…

I settled for a medium size. 7x9. I really liked how it looked. Petite but not too petite. Unfortunately resizing my book had messed up my artwork placement so I spent hours rearranging all the text and resizing my images. I found out afterwards that there’s a way to retain the format while changing the document size. Gee, that would have been helpful 4 hours ago.

Sadly, choosing a custom size booklet makes printing more expensive. But I wanted it badly enough that I’d be willing to pay for it. Letter size is just too large… - I decided to stop dragging my feet and post a promo. I just really needed a deadline for myself to get this all done before July ended. I’m happy it was well-received. A lot of people like Kratos huh…

Anyway, the pre-order is due in a week and I still don’t know what all the costs are yet. I need a physical proof ASAP to weigh at the post office! - Something possessed me one day to do another drawing. I don’t usually do painterly style (mainly because it’s really difficult and takes 10x longer) but I just REALLY wanted to push myself on this Final Piece to the zine. I wanted it to be… radiant. Almost religious. I worked on it obsessively. From breakfast to sundown. The only time I would stop was at 7pm to go running or else my legs would give out on me.

Call me crazy, but I would save my progress on my phone so I could examine it for errors during my warmup. I also spend an hour examining it for errors before going to bed. It’s a miracle I hadn’t dreamt of the painting. - I sent my files in on Sunday in hopes that they start working on it first thing on Monday…. and it HAPPENED! They finished before I even woke up. I think they start work at like 6am…

Of course, I drove over there as soon as I heard so I can get a look. “Please… please let the colors be okay,” I prayed as I was driving. I barely remember driving there, I was so lost in thought. It would be another long ordeal if I had to fix all the colors.

Thank the stars. The press proof looked BEAUTIFUL!! I was screaming to the client coordinator how much I loved it. I mean, I worried for a looooong time that everything would turn out too dark (it usually does) but it was PERFECT. I was especially worried about the cover, which contained a lot of yellow and I def did not want it to come out mustardy… But it was great in the end!

The press operator is a quiet man. He’s got a scary face and never smiles but I think he’s secretly nice. He has done a lot of favors for me in the past without my asking. He was the one to print, bind, and trim the book for me. Obviously he had to have seen what I was drawing. I wonder what he thought of it…? He walked away before I could express how happy and thankful was. He didn’t need to hear it. It was like he already knew. So cool…

I immediately took it to the post office to weigh it. I needed as much info as I could get and plus, I was dying to know for myself. This is the week I was supposed to open pre-orders and there was still a lot I needed to do. Take pictures, create mockups, pricing, etc.

NGL, all of these costs were building up fast. It was so darn expensive to make a zine while also keeping prices down. But I wanted so much more for my baby. Extra glossy cover, perfect binding!! I knew by the end of this, I probably wouldn’t make much money. It hurt a little, but I tried to think that it was for the greater good. Learning experience and all that. And creating something beautiful. Especially something beautiful of Kratos. - Pricing was really the hardest part. I pretty much threw profit out the window. However, I definitely did not want to be losing money. My dad and I had worked together to create a spreadsheet of expenses to make sure my head was above water. I followed it… loosely.

My friend came to talk to me at the right moment. I was sort of panicking at the prices. She made me realize I was thinking way too hard about it and gave me some tips based on her own experience. It really put my mind at ease talking to someone who understands my woes.

The truth of the matter is, the book is wonderfully made and has a lot of pages - countless hours of drawing. There is only so much I can do about pricing. It is what it is… I just needed to come to terms with my own worth. - Boy, what am I going to do once the zine is done? My friend says that I’ll be so over Kratos that I’ll stop drawing him (but the love remains). It’s like… all of the intense planning, working, struggling nonstop will just suddenly… stop. TBH, I’m running out of ideas. I spent it all on the zine. - Photoshoot today. I had to paint my nails purple for this occasion. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the look I wanted in the apartment. It’s just so naked without props. I think I’ll take it to a cafe for some nicer backgrounds. I talked it over with my friend and decided to do a quick flip-through of the zine as a promotional video. I used the most professional video program I had on hand… Snapchat. It actually turned out pretty legit and of course I slapped stickers on there because it’s Snapchat.

I had to tape/hide some of the pages for the video because I wasn’t actually done with the drawings. I had the printers print it anyway so I could examine it for color accuracy.

I’m really stressed about pricing now. It turns out I had a lot more international fans than I anticipated. I wish I took notes on interest earlier in the game to cater to them. I had a list of “possible buyers” and I only just now decided to check where they live? Foolish.

I did another cost analysis on paper to figure out what my goal was to make up for the charms. Right now they’ve cost me a fortune for something that was supposed to be giveaway. Other things that rack up are packaging costs, PayPal fees, and some other supplies I needed for this project.

Maybe I shouldn’t have made it 40 pages. It is an impressive number, but no one is really paying for quantity. I think 25 is a better number lol. If I had done that, I could have had my super-gloss cover like I wanted. :’(

There is hope though. And I’ve placed it in the hands of my followers to come through for me. I think I’ll open pre-orders on Saturday or Sunday, depending on what I finish. - “Losing your cool will only lead to poor decisions.”  Thanks, Kratos twitter bot. You always know what to say.

I read this post today on what makes people buy zines. Very interesting!  https://twitter.com/andythelemon_/status/1141469048653398019 - Photoshoot part 2 today. My friend and I went to a cafe nearby that had some nice atmosphere in hopes of finding the right shots. I brought all of my Kratos merch just in case. I’m glad I did though, since the tables were pretty sparse and it was difficult to capture the backgrounds without getting a bunch of random people in it too.

I would have been the photographer, but I definitely wanted my hands in the shots. In a way, it was meaningful - to show that this was made by my own two hands. Plus, I wanted to depict natural interaction with the product. It made it feel real.

The photos were cute! I feared it would look a little amateurish with all the merch in there, but I think fun was what I was really going for, not “professional.” And plus the flip-through was a Snap anyway LOL. As long as the photos have good lighting and tasteful composition, you really can’t go wrong with “fun.”

Now that I’ve finished editing my photos, there really isn’t anything holding me back from opening pre-orders. I’ve pretty much come to terms with my pricing. If I fail to break even, I’ll just have to open commissions to try to make up for it. I was telling my friend on the way home, “I gave this zine EVERYTHING I had to give. So at the very least, I won’t be disappointed in myself.” No stone left unturned, no detail left unchecked. It was perfect according to my standards. I really love my zine okay?!

I thought I was crazy for not only choosing a small fandom, I narrowed it down even further by picking ONE GUY to make this zine about. She replied, “Even if it’s small, those people who love him now must be EXTREMELY LOYAL to still be in love with a character from a 15-year-old game. All of them will want your zine.” - I went to bed that night with the intention of making the pre-order post live in the morning. I was so nervous I couldn’t sleep. I was wide awake until at least 5 or 6 am. Luckily, I was able to doze off for a an hour or two before I would shake myself awake again. It was a mixture of anxiety and excitement. It was the moment of truth - to see if all my effort made a difference. Was it going to sell? - The pre-order post looked really freaking good. I’ll give it that. I even made a YT account just to post that darn preview video on tumblr lol. It was definitely fun seeing everyone’s excitement and we all just freaked out together.

I broke even! That’s what really matters. Honestly at this point, I couldn’t care less if I made profit or not. I now know how much people really like the zine and that alone made me so happy I could die.

I was particularly fascinated at Google Form’s ability to transfer all the data collected into a spreadsheet. That is extremely helpful. I spent hours organizing the data. It was really fun…?! Now I can tell who gets invoiced and who paid and separate them into categories. IT’S FANTASTIC!

Stayed up late researching how much adding tracking could be. I had a slight panic attack thinking “what if my books got lost in transit?” It would really hurt me to have to reprint books and ship them again. And then I realized I will need to fill out customs forms for all international orders. Yikes, I’m gonna be living at the post office lol. You can print them out at home if you fill out the form online but there are still some things I’m uncertain about. I may visit the post office later this week to ask all my questions. - This morning I sent out everyone’s invoices. I gave the international people the option to purchase tracking. It’s expensive… but I need to provide that option just in case.

I received a nice message from someone who offered to advertise for me on Instagram. Of course, I gave them the OK! I’m really so shocked they would do that… They said the liked the zine so much it deserved more exposure. My dude… I love you… T_T

I thought about advertising on insta myself earlier in the week. For some reason I felt it was going to be fruitless since I don’t have an art account on there with a following. So, I gave up on the idea. Hey it worked out in the end.

I’ve never been so organized in my entire life. I want this zine experience to be perfect. The people have placed their trust in me, so I cannot mess up. - Edited some pages in the zine. The typography must be perfect… It made me think back to undergrad days in graphic design school. Man, if only I can present this as a project - photos, videos, matching accessories and all. I’d probably get an A lol. - Orders slow down after the first day. The rest is just about getting new people to see the post and giving other people more time to decide.

I finished my Kratos stationery today. It’s going to be so cute. My friend said people would want to buy it but I don’t have it in me to do more products at this time. Plus, I want it to be a surprise.

Why make stationery? Well my real job (no, I don’t draw Kratos all day for a living) is a stationery designer! It would feel really wrong not to put into practice what etiquette I’ve learned in this business. Plus, I felt that it was necessary to properly thank all those who ordered. And it’s fun?

I started designing the shipping labels for the domestic orders since I don’t need to fill out a customs form for those. I wish I had sticker labels but… it’s okay. It will still look good in the end. - Every so often, I would get nervous at the amount of money I’m responsible for. Perhaps, if I had a store with existing products I wouldn’t feel this way, but the fact that the books haven’t been printed yet made me scared. I know, I need this money to even print the books in the first place, but I’m just baffled at my customers’ trust in almost a total stranger. I felt pressured that I could not let them down and lose that trust. It probably didn’t help that I watched a documentary on Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) that day.

So, I prayed every single day that nothing would go wrong. I’d check my spreadsheet constantly for any mistakes. It was a little obsessive, but I would rather be that than overlook something.

I began collecting cardboard boxes. My plan was to cut them up to protect the books during transit. I would have preferred hard envelopes but they were a bit pricey. If I have to do more work myself, so be it.

I’ve been getting nice DMs from some buyers. I think my invoice due date scared them… I really did not intend to be strict, but I wanted people to pay now if they can rather than forget about it. This happens at work all the time, so the best thing to do is have it due immediately. It would not look good to have to wait on stragglers when I close pre-orders, so I’ll probably reach out when there is one week left. - My Kratos stationery arrived! Aww it is SO CUTE!!! My babies… I have a lot of notes to write so I got started right away. It’s going to be a lot of work trying to come up with creative ways to say “thank you,” but I don’t mind. I said I was going to put my all into the zine experience so I will.

At long last, the charm order has been put in motion. My friend said it could take a while… I hope it won’t be longer than 3 weeks. I really do not want to keep everyone waiting. I may ship out the ones who did not win a charm first. I mean, there is no reason to make those guys wait. I should ask the charm winners if they still want to wait and see if anyone wants to give it up for someone else who is more patient. Hm. - I finally stopped by the post office today to collect customs forms. I have my work cut out for me since I’m filling all of them in by hand. D:

I’m not used to international addresses so I think I’ll ask for help in checking them for spelling errors and typos. Heaven forbid I mess up on the very last part of the zine experience.

In my nervousness, I decided to reach out about invoices early on. If someone wanted to cancel, I would rather find out sooner rather than later. Everyone was really nice about paying and thank goodness they’re still excited.

Feeling kind of overwhelmed by all the things I need to do, but it’s a good thing. If I don’t know what to do, I can either: cut cardboard, write letters, type shipping labels, draw more Kratos for a… possible volume 2? Someone I talked to today already said they’ll pre-order a second book if I make one. Omg I think I’ll die. But we’ll see. It’s just a joke right now haha… - Preorders end today. I had another nightmare last night that the books could not be printed properly and there was nothing I could do. Why do I keep getting nightmares about the zine! I had one a few days before about people canceling their orders when I asked them about the invoices. I’ll take these dreams with a grain of salt. I’m probably just stressed/worried but everything is going to be okay. When I open my eyes, nothing is on fire.

I received my final proof a few days ago. With all of the artwork completed and changes applied. The book looks good, no doubt about it. There was only one thing I was nit-picky about but it can be fixed. The press operator offered to print another book for me to inspect. I’ll go see it on Monday and then submit the rest of the orders. I also asked to to have a meeting with the press operator so we are on the same page. It would be beneficial to have an understanding of how my book is made so that I may be more helpful to him.

I spent the day preparing shipping labels. I hate to admit, I am not too familiar with the format international addresses so I had an address validator open as I was typing them in. For the most part, everyone was helpful in already formatting their addresses in the preorder form! - My parents called me the day after preorders were closed. They wanted to say congratulations on my success. No one thought it would do this well. I couldn’t be offended by that since I was also guilty of it. I’m happy though. It feels like my love spread across the world and was contagious.

I tried to think of what advice I would give to others. Obviously, genuine love for the subject and hard work were a necessity. But it would be good to consider value. If I were selling it at this price, I had to make sure my pieces and presentation looked the part. I ask myself, if someone else sold it, would I buy it?

I sent out messages to all the charm winners in the morning. I wanted to apologize profusely at the ridiculous amount of time it has taken to get them made. But no, I’ve got to stop apologizing. I stated the facts and left it at that. Everyone was really kind and patient⁠—to which I was thankful for. I don’t usually get that when I’m working customer service. - All the books were done printing in one day. Wow! I went to pick it up immediately of course. I can’t believe all of this is coming to an end. I finished preparing the mailers. All that was left was to stuff and seal the domestic orders. They were the easiest to do so I’m going to ship those first. The rest will need customs forms, which I haven’t filled out just yet. It’s going to be a while for those…

The mailers were quite sturdy with the cardboard cutouts I slipped in them. I have nothing to worry about. I’m sure my babies will be okay! - I took a whole box of domestic orders to the post office today. Wasn’t sure what to expect. But my clerk had to input every single address one at a time while I checked for errors. Omg, why are the post office shipping labels SO HUGE. I thought it was going to be half the size. And they’re ruining my designer labels! Slight panic but oh well…

I had a long long line behind me. I’m so sorry, people. Luckily there were two clerks or I would be really sweating. Despite my intimidating box of zines, the clerk and I had Synergy and we managed to ship all of these in about 15 minutes. I received a very long receipt and quite the bill lol. - Shipped the international orders today. I was kind of a mess since I had no idea what to do. I keep wondering if I can help speed up the process in any way but I don’t think I have the option to ship first-class at home.

When shipping international, keep the post office copy of the customs forms together with the package since they use that to type the address info into the system. Also, we get free tracking, which I did not know about. The other clerk told me that we did not get tracking for international first-class but I guess he was misinformed. It’s good to know for next time. - The charms finally arrived!! And THEY’RE HOLOGRAPHIC?! It was pretty awesome, but it makes picture-taking kind of difficult!! Anyway, I was a tiny bit disgruntled that they got my order incorrect, and I even asked for a reprint. But they said no, so I left it at that. Besides, it seems the holographic effect was well-received.

I like this size that I made. It’s really cute! Larger than your normal charm but not too huge. It’s almost like an Instax photo! - There was one customer who I found lives near me! I asked her if she wanted me to hand-deliver it to her in a public setting and she agreed (to my amazement). We finally met a few days ago and talked for hours and hours lol! I’m glad to have finally made a new friend here in this town but of course she’s moving away in two weeks. <:’3

We’re going to meet again to make the most of her time left. - I shipped the rest of the orders on the following Monday. I HAD to get these out. The poor guys have been waiting over a month! I think I picked a bad time to go because I had a huge line behind me and only one guy working. People in line were getting antsy or mad. The clerk at the other post office was super fast but not this guy…

For some reason shipping to the UK and Japan nearly doubled in price since the last time I checked. RIP. T_T - Omg I finally made a mistake. I wrote a letter to the wrong person. And the contents of that letter are too personalized!!! I am dying of embarrassment!!!!! Screams!! Had to apologize to both customers too!!! Luckily they were good sports about it but I’m seriously kicking myself AAAAAAAA!!!! - The most rewarding part after sending all my babies away is seeing the commentary on my project. It is so so nice to receive positive feedback. People are happy! Happy with something I created out of thin air. Everything was worth it 1000 times over. I can die happy!

I’m especially thankful to those who show understanding for how much effort went into it. It definitely wasn’t easy and I poured way too many hours into it… not that I regret that.

I don’t want to jump the gun but I would really love to make a volume 2. Because I know I can do better than last time. New and improved art and comics! But we’ll see if I make enough pieces for another book. I was against printing 40 pages before but now I kind of like it. It feels more worth it than a 25-page zine. If i’m going though so much effort, might as well bring in the entire package.

I’ll be printing more of this volume for Aselia Con 2020. Now I know people will appreciate it.

#diary

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miraculouslarrypotter · 5 years

Text

Lucky Number Seven Part 2

Written by L

~~~

Marinette tossed and turned all night. She couldn’t process that she had been so oblivious and ended up losing the one great love of her life. The person she was destined to be with. The Yin to her Yang. WAIT! Marinette jumped out of bed. That’s it, yin and yang. There was one person who knew more about yin and yang than anyone else she knew, and Marinette had to go see him.

Before she knew what she was doing, her bag was packed, she was out the door, and hailing a taxi. Some of her Ladybug luck must have carried over all of these years because she was able to book a last minute flight to Paris and in no time she was boarding the airplane. As she flew above the ocean, Marinette frantically emailed her business partners and staff making excuses for why she wouldn’t be returning to New York for at least a week. Her mind and heart were racing at the thought of what was to come. Something about returning home for the first time in seven years made her so anxious that she was sick to her stomach.

“Alright folks, we are about 10 minutes from landing if you will return to your seats and buckle up.”

Marinette looked out her window and as her beloved city came into view, her worries melted away. She was home. It was all she could do to keep herself from running off the plane and towards her parent’s bakery, but she weaved her way through the crowds towards the metro as patiently as she could.

The bell on the door rang out as Marinette burst in to the bakery. Tom and Sabine looked up from their pastry making and as their eyes met their daughters they dropped everything and ran to her.

“Marinette, what are you doing here? Honey you haven’t been home in- “

“Yeah, I know Maman, seven years. You never fail to remind me each time you visit me in New York.”

“Well no matter what the reason is, we are glad you came home Marinette.” Tom said as he wrapped his arms around his wife and daughter.

“I guess I just realized there was something that I left unfinished here and I know I can’t move forward in my life until I resolve this thing.” Marinette sighed. She pulled away from her parents embrace, “I have to get started on this right now, but I’ll be back to catch up with you all soon I promise.”

After Marinette had delivered her belongings to her old room, she set out to solve the mystery of her unknown love’s identity. She walked the familiar route towards Master Fu’s apartment, knocked on the door, and waited for a response. But there was none.

“Oh ma chére, are you looking for Mr. Fu?” An old woman hobbled her way down the hall towards Marinette.

“Yes, do you know when he will be back?”

The old woman’s face softened with look of heartache in her eyes, “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but Mr. Fu passed away last week.”

“What? No!” Marinette was so shocked she couldn’t breathe. “I’m sorry, I have to go,” Marinette began to run away from the building with tears streaming down her face. This was it. Her last chance of ever finding out who Chat Noir had died along with the man who gave her the incredible opportunity to know him. She started to walked around her city that she had come to love as Ladybug; past Andre’s ice cream cart, underneath the Eiffel tower, around the Louvre, and through countless allies that she had transformed in. As she entered into the heart of their town, she began to hear what sounded like a party. When she grew closer and saw the huge crowd of Parisians lining the streets, the music playing, and a parade coming down the street. Of course, how could she forget, today was the anniversary of the day Hawkmoth had been defeated.

Marinette was the only person in the city who didn’t feel like celebrating. What should have been a day of winning had turned into a day of loss, and now all these years later she had lost the only person who knew her secret identity and her last connection to the miraculous world. She couldn’t stand to watch their happiness anymore, so she turned away and headed home.

By the time she arrived home she was numb to all her feelings of sorrow. As Marinette trudged up the stairs, her mother called out to her.

“Oh Marinette, a letter came in for you yesterday and I left it on your desk.”

“Thank you Maman,” Marinette forced the words out through her broken heart.

As she walked over to the desk, the letter came into view. Marinette’s mouth dropped open.

“From Master Fu?” she whispered.

Marinette opened the letter and began to read:

Hello Marinette,

I hope you are doing well, it has been a while since I have seen you. Seven years to be exact. Well it seems my health is failing me and I fear I may not be on this earth much longer. That being said, I wanted to extend a final gesture of thanks to you for taking on the great duty of being Ladybug. I know it was hard keeping your identity a secret, especially with the friendship you had with Chat Noir. I spoke to him after you left Paris and I know he was so upset that you all missed your chance. I so wish I could tell you who he is, so that you could have your best friend back, but unfortunately I am sworn to secrecy as the keeper of the miraculous. By the time, you have read this, there will be a new keeper of the miraculous for my time has come to pass it on.

As I cannot tell you who Chat Noir is, I will just have to tell you what I saw in the both of you. I was nervous at first that you all would butt heads, but when I saw him extend that small act of kindness for you. I thought to myself, “Those two were made for each other.” I know you often saw the part of him that joked around and made puns, but you also saw the other side of him that was kind and protective of his friends. He saw you for the superhero you truly are. If you look deep into your heart, you’ll find him. Look for him Marinette.

Good luck in all your future endeavors, I’m sorry can’t be there to enjoy them.

Master Fu

“Look deep into your heart? What is that supposed to mean?” Marinette had never been so frustration and sad at the same time.

“Why couldn’t he just tell me? It’s not like it would matter anymore now that he’s dead!” Marinette sighed out of annoyance and anger. It was moments like this when she missed being able to talk to her precious Tikki whenever she wanted.

She had flown all the way out here to not find any answers and ended up even more confused about Chat Noir’s identity than she was when she left Paris. Marinette knew she wasn’t going to be getting any sleep tonight.

Marinette flopped onto her bed and looked up at the ceiling. She allowed herself to get absorbed into her thoughts of ‘what ifs.’

What if I had let him tell me who he was? What if I had opened my eyes when we were trapped in that metal box? What if I had asked Tikki who he was? What if I had let him tell me he loved me? What if I told him I loved him back?

What if I had made it to the Eiffel tower in time?

Seven years had passed and Marinette still regretted it to this day.

Which is why when she got up from her bed and headed out her door towards the Eiffel tower, she couldn’t stop herself.

Arriving at the Eiffel tower brought on a new wave of feelings and memories of the same night so long ago. The feelings came back stronger and stronger with each stair step. How she longed for the years back, so she could do it over. Just once.

Five steps left and she would be there. Back at the place where her heart truly broke for the first time. She took the last step and looked around at the empty platform that overlooked the city.

And then she saw him. The outline of the boy, well now man, that once made her heart beat out of her chest. The man who was always so kind to her in the midst of her crazy life. The man who went from a stranger to a friend the moment he gave her an umbrella.

As Marinette approached him, she could see he was sitting there with his head in his hands and his shoulders shaking.

“A-Adrien?” Marinette walked quietly to his side.

Adrien looked up slowly at her. Marinette saw the tears highlighting his bright green eyes, his red nose, and flushed cheeks. She had never seen Adrien like this before.

“Adrien, are you okay?” Marinette asked as she sat down on the bench next to him.

“Marinette?! Wow I can’t believe it’s you. Um, you kind of caught me at a bad time as you can see,” he let out an uncomfortable laugh. “Today marks seven years since my father was arrested and it always hits me pretty hard.”

“I completely forgot about that, you and I must be the only people not actually celebrating today.”

“I guess so, but it’s not just that. I also lost a couple of friends recently and losing my father makes me think of their absence in my life too.”

“I understand, today is not such a great day for me either. I just found out an old friend of mine has passed away and I didn’t even get to talk to him one last time.”

“Sounds like we both could use a peaceful night on top of the Eiffel tower, huh?” Adrien offered a half smile.

They let the silence surround them as Marinette looked into those familiar eyes that she had so often dreamt about.

“Anyways,” Adrien broke the silence, “It’s been so long, what are you doing here?”

“Oh I took a last minute flight to Paris early this morning because I guess… uh well I realized I left something here. But I found out some more information…regarding the uhhh circumstances around the thing I lost, and now I’ve lost it…forever.” Her voice broke on the last word. She cleared her throat in hopes that Adrien wouldn’t hear.

“I’m so sorry you couldn’t find it Marinette, is it something I could help you find? I’m free tomorrow!”

“I appreciate the offer Adrien,” she sighed, “but my flight leaves tomorrow morning. I’ll just have to make peace with the fact that I’ll never be as happy as I was with my kitty-UH MY SEWING KIT. My first sewing kit was sooo special to me and I’m sad I lost it. Yeah that’s it my sewing kit is what I lost.”

“Marinette, I know it’s upsetting to lose sentimental things like that, but you know you don’t need that sewing kit. You are already an amazing woman who knows how design a crazy good fashion line.”

Marinette’s heart melted. Even when he didn’t really know what she was talking about, he still was able to cheer her up.

“You know; you really are Super Marinette.”

Marinette breathed in sharply, being called her old high school nickname brought back all of her grief over losing the part of herself that was Ladybug. It was so nice to hear someone recognize her as a superhero again.

Wait.

“Adrien, why did you start that nickname?” Marinette wondered out loud.

“Because you really are a superhero. I don’t know if you remember, but I told you, you’re like our everyday Ladybug. You look out for others and you stand up for them, but you’re also able to forgive which is something a lot of people can’t do. I still remember the first day I met you, when you thought I was out to get you with Chloe. You were so quick to show kindness to me and forgive me. OH and I’m still waiting to get my umbrella back.” Adrien teased as he nudged her knee with his.

Marinette giggled and blushed. She felt like she was back in high school again.

“THERE’S the Marinette I know!”

“Oh, and who is that girl?” she questioned him with a smile twinkling in her eyes.

“Just the girl who was so tongue tied and giggly that I couldn’t get through one single conversation with her-“

“Okay, okay I was embarrassing, but I was not that bad.”

“You didn’t let me finish…little did this girl know that I thought all the blushing and tripping into my arms was adorable.” Adrien’s voice was suddenly serious.

Oh if Marinette could tell her high school self what she was hearing right now.

“Haha very funny, I had a crush on you,” she kidded back. “What I want to know is, who were you really held your heart back then? We all knew you had some secret love, but we couldn’t figure out who it was.”

“Well back then, the circumstances were different and I was able to see this girl almost every day. We were a great team and I loved her from the moment I met her. I thought she might even love me too, but seasons change and I never saw my lady again.”

Marinette’s breath caught in her throat. Those words triggered a cascade of wild thoughts. Had he really just said that? It must be a coincidence. But as Marinette looked into those green cat-like eyes, she heard the words play over in her head just as if Master Fu had said them himself.

He saw you for the superhero you truly are. If you look deep into your heart, you’ll find him.

Looking back, she realized she wasn’t the only superhero in their high school. Adrien had been there protecting her from the rain and showering her with his kind friendship.

She looked at his face and searched his eyes, looking for her lost love.

“You know,” Marinette started timidly. “Maybe you can help me find my sewing kit after all. Seven years ago I was sitting here on this bench, I should have been here at midnight, but I was late. That’s why I’m here tonight, part of me hoped it would be here again.”

Adrien’s face contorted with confusion, and then relaxed as it finally hit him. Tears sprung to his eyes.

“Bugaboo?” Adrien whispered in disbelief.

“Chaton” Marinette answered back as tears of joy began to stream down her face.

Marinette jumped into Adrien’s arms and he held her tight letting out a sigh of relief. It was a long, tight hug that made up for the separation, for the lost hope of ever finding her best friend again, and for all the things she had never said to her Chat Noir.

Adrien pulled back his face so he could see hers, “I know I’m seven years late, but what I wanted to tell you was that I love you Marinette.”

“Yeah, I sort of realized yesterday that I loved you all along, that’s kind of why I flew all the way out here.”

“Wow, I’m really that irresistible? I’m feline purr-ty furr-tunate to have fallen for you.” Adrien smirked as he leaned in to touch his forehead against hers.

Marinette reached up her finger and pushed away his nose.

“Watch out kitty, just because I love you doesn’t mean I love the puns.”

“Don’t worry m’lady, I’m sure in another seven years you’ll realized you always loved them too.” Adrien winked at Marinette and there was a quick moment of silence where it hit them.

“We did it, we finally found each other,” Marinette laughed out of an overflow of joy.

Adrien stepped away and held out his fist, “Pound it?”

Marinette stuck out her fist to touch his, but Adrien grabbed her hand and pulled her into a kiss that had they had been waiting for for seven years.

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personaehq · 5 years

Photo

INCOMING MESSAGE …

FULL NAME: leon sato ALIAS: n/a ANDROID TYPE: DHA#500 * MANUFACTURE DATE: 2138 PHYSICAL AGE: 25 ALIGNMENT: pro-defiant OCCUPATION: employee at bio repair AFFILIATION: supporter of the defiant movement ACCOMMODATION: ecostay apartments, sangenjaya FACECLAIM: park hyungsik

ACCESSING: BACKGROUND …

you don’t believe in god.

it all starts with a spark, as often as many things do. the scale doesn’t matter after all. the universe starts with a tiny spark, and sato riku’s entire life changes with one as well. perhaps not as important in the grand scheme of things, it’s one that changes the man’s life influentially.

one day he’s having dinner with his family, his wife sets up the table as their son runs through the corridors with a toy plane; the day after, he finds his entire world shifting off axis. he’s a scientist, an inventor, he has his own lab within a major corporation, does research for them, anything and everything they ask him to do. work hours aren’t exactly stable, they change —- and on that particular day, he stays over time. when he goes back, everything’s in ashes, both his wife and five-year-old son has died. and just like that, his whole life changes, all because of something as small as a gas leak.

they tell riku their neighbours left the stove open, a human error — an unfortunate accident. there isn’t much they can do. and they tell him that mother and son died instantly. it leaves him hollow, angry, that someone’s foolish mistake has taken the two most precious people from him. he’s at a loss about what to do, and promptly pushes himself into his work.

it turns into an obsession, riku channels all he has into his independent research on the side. whenever he isn’t going to work, he stays at the lab nonetheless, working and perfecting the android he’s making. he wants to work on the abhorrent thing called a human error, and he wants to play god. there’s that urge in his mind, wanting to see how far he can go with the power he has in his own hands.

the man is good at what he does, and with a lifetime experience on robots and mechanics, he wants to test the boundaries of androids- if he can make artificial intelligence as tangible as possible to blur the thin line between those made of metal versus those made of flesh and blood.

i don’t believe in luck.

and with yet another spark, sweat and elbow grease, leon is made. riku is proud of his work, looks down at the android with sparkling eyes and an eagerness to do as he tells. it’s a brand new project, and he registers leon as an office helper, a mechanical assistant. no one asks him why he spent so much time and effort modifying it. no one asks him why he didn’t simply get one from the company’s registered ones. people don’t see beneath the surface, most of them are happy that riku seems to have gotten back to his usual eccentric self. there aren’t people in his life close enough to see it runs deeper than that, that riku puts much more into leon that he ever should.

he doesn’t act like leon’s another android, he brings him home, talks to him, tells stories about his past, his own self. loads leon with information, codes him in such a way that the android begins to make decisions for himself. it’s as if leon’s his own overgrown son, riku dries his hair, reads him bedtime stories before tucking him into bed. stories aren’t as simple as children stories however, he reads him literary books, and when leon tells him he can easily download it from the web, riku tells him this way is much more special. leon nods slowly, rests his head on the pillow even though he doesn’t need to sleep, and listens to riku recite him his favourite excerpts.

it goes on like that, leon’s every moment is spent with the man, and riku acts as if leon’s growing up. the bedtime stories switch to visits to the park, to other cities, the man talks and talks, letting leon learn as much as he can give him, soak up all the info to how a normal human thinks. all of this happens in the span of a few months, leon’s brain made of wires is equipped enough to accustom to such pace.

and slowly but surely, the empty sparking eyes turn into something more thoughtful, and it’s clear to see riku’s getting more and more excited by it. the man begins to be more loud with his thoughts, starts doing more illegal work, and when he has a platform, he tells people how advanced androids are, how they are the future of humanity, that they are not living up to their full potential with their current status. when leon isn’t there to see, he goes off to meetings at night, making god knows what.

his words cause an uproar, he gets hatemail and fanmail alike. in the meantime, leon’s dragged along with him to wherever he goes, as if he’s a part of riku himself. he listens and nods, stays in the shadows as he watches the man speak. riku is his entire world after all, all he knows, the bond between them is clear as day as he looks up to the man. riku is elated by the prospect, but also teaches the android to be careful, not to show this side of him to anyone but the scientist himself. “you see those people out there, leon ? they are dangerous — i want to protect you, don’t show everyone what you are fully capable of. not if you don’t trust them.”

the android nods quickly, his hold around the man’s hand tightening a minuscule amount. there’s something akin to fear in his eyes, and it confuses him when he sees a smile spread across riku’s face. it disappears quickly, as if it never existed, and if leon didn’t have an eidetic memory, he would think he had dreamt it all.

they don’t believe in us.

months pass by like that, and as riku becomes more visible to the public eye, his ties with the company weaken. he’s too good of a scientist to let go of entirely, knows too many secrets — but the company warns him nonetheless, tells him not to tarnish its name. the anti-android groups are against each and every one of riku’s words, yet it’s not legal for them to act on it, or so riku assures leon. it’s easy to read the hate comments directed at the man, and whenever leon shakes the man in worry to tell him about a new one, he is met with a shake of head, something akin to a disappointment in those dark eyes. after a while, he learns himself that it’s not something riku will let go of, and all leon can do is stand by and watch.

it’s a day like any other, they enter their flat, and leon takes the man’s coat as the other makes his way inside. a few hours pass as they talk, leon over at the counter, cooking a healthy meal while riku goes over some files. it all happens suddenly, he can detect the man’s voice getting thinner, and when he turns to look at him, he’s tipped to the side on the couch, covered in a sheen of sweat.

he picks up the erratic heartbeat immediately, and calls an ambulance. many androids are programmed to do so when a human is at danger, but the worry in leon’s eyes is something else, something that he shouldn’t show when he paramedics arrive. his hands almost shake as he assesses the situation. he knows the protocols, knows how to use first-aid in situations like this. he’s in the midst of doing cpr when they enter the room, he’s pushed to the side as they put riku on a stretcher. all leon can do is watch, his hands balled into fists to stop himself from showing how affected he is.

there’s a protocol for this too. protos are supposed to stay at home until further command, standby and wait until someone else tells them what to do. if they no longer serve their purpose, they will be shut down. but something eats at leon’s insides, makes his brain fill with doubt. he has checked up on riku’s vitals a mere day ago, and now, how can the man have a heart attack of all things ? none of the signs were there — if they were, leon would know, he would pick it up somehow, wouldn’t he?

it doesn’t take long before he goes over the events of their entire day, he does it before he can even process it properly — his mind lists the people riku has come in contact with, anyone new, anyone suspicous. it takes some time — minutes at most, but he lists a few people, and after a brief research, he learns that there was someone with ties to anti-android organizations. it’s yet another spark, one that turns into flames. after a few more minutes, leon’s almost sure it is an assassination attempt, and calls the police, telling them everything he has put together.

he’s met with dismissal almost immediately. they tell him to standby, that it’s not his place to make deductions such as that. there isn’t much else he can do, and he simply sits there on the couch, his face in his hands, waits for the news to arrive about riku.

but i believe in the enemy.

it’s past midnight when the television turns on by itself, riku’s face in the middle of the screen. leon jumps up, his whole attention focused on the man. he hasn’t even realized that his hands are clutching onto the sofa, and they let go almost immediately, slacking as he stares at the image of riku.

the words that follow soon after are painful, in such a way that he knows they shouldn’t, not if he was a android like any other. the man tells him that if leon’s listening to this, it means that he’s dead, that there is no way for him to have survived. the video is short, and it all passes in a blur, so quickly that leon has to watch it all over again in his head to make a list. the fact that riku was anticipating this hurts, more than he can put into words. leon had no idea himself, and something akin to guilt runs through his wires, an unreasonable reaction, yet a true one nonetheless.

leon’s told to find the bag riku prepared for him, that he will need to live as a human now, that he is ready for this. he’s told that he’s special. riku tells him everything they have spoken so far will help him on his path alone. it makes little sense, but leon’s trust in riku is more than enough for him to follow through with whatever he’s told. he packs up the little he has, trinkets, one or two books that riku told him to keep with himself no matter what. and just like that, he is alone. the man on the screen makes him promise, and even though leon feels like his whole life has ended, he knows he needs to make a new one for himself.

NOW

if it wasn’t for ezi, leon doesn’t know how he would have survived alone out there. no matter how many assets the scientist has left behind, the android is still encompassed with grief, unsure what to do, fear and doubt tainting his every move. then there is ezi, a dear friend, someone he has been keeping in touch with for as long as he could — the other has a special place in leon’s heart, after everything the android has seen him go through, everything they shared and interfaced, he is family, no less.

so, it’s where he sets out to once he leaves the too-empty apartment, knocks on the door, teary-eyed and lost. he is pulled into a familiar hug, and decides that this can be his new home. there is a lot more to do, with the defiant movement and the lack of rights his kind has, but as he spends time in the world for the first time in ever, he begins to make a place for himself. as such, he has become a supporter of the defiant movement and hopes to see equality one day.

ACCESSING: PERSONALITY …

POSITIVE TRAITS: amiable, diligent, curious NEGATIVE TRAITS: doubtful, skittish, aloof

his entire life used to revolve around the scientist, but since the man passed away, leon tends to have problems with figuring out how to behave around others —sometime he doesn’t know how much he should hide. riku had taught him to be open, but leon’s at a loss since he can’t afford to share his past with new people, especially considering the latest news, rumours. he does his best to lay low, but it’s often that he gets overexcited or curious about something, and lets his own self through. he’s friendly to a fault, wanting to do his best and help around. he has an intense curiosity when it comes to people from different backgrounds, things he simply can’t reach from the web.

the most difficult thing for him is that he knows he has to hide his emotions, but when faced with something urgent, it’s hard for him to hold back, do nothing like another android would. he has an impeccable memory and mind akin to others of his kind, but with riku’s experiments to see how human he could be, leon turned out to be a mix of both. and now, leon himself feels lost, pained since he’s alone against the world, in a whole different place. he has little experience with other people, other environments, and sometimes it shows. he does his best to fit in, but the guilt and remorse for the man’s death are still fresh in his mind, and he is sometimes skittish, jumping from one thing to another, trying to distract himself with as much work as possible.

* modified to be PMR.

... END OF MESSAGE.

#android #t #a

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ravenvsfox · 6 years

Note

Prompt: When they get to earth, lance wants to stay.

You were the first in line, so you get prompt numero uno!!

Outside the cabin of the shuttle, pebble stars are tossed out into the dense, black lake of open space, so dark that Lance’s eyes start teasing out imaginary colours. It’s always so still out in the yawning nothingness. If he didn’t know how a bucking shuttle felt beneath him it might be hard to tell that they were moving at all.

Inside, the glow of tech is cool and purple, and if he squints at the light and not the Altean characters, its almost like the Garrison simulators, or the speedometer of the only car on the road at night.

Pidge is punching in coordinates next to him, and she twists her fingers over the frame of her glasses like she’s trying to make them zoom. For all he knows, she might have engineered binoculars into her glasses just like she tucks lifts into her shoes, making modifications to herself just like she does to everything else she can get her hands on.

He squirms, digging his toes down into the unyielding bottom of his boots, wanting to feel something real and movable, something not so claustrophobic. His hands shake on the controls, and he clenches his fists until they can’t.

They’d left the lions on the nearest neutral planet, defences up, Romelle and Krolia at a nearby base. Coran was on patrol duty, winding between their massive paws and craning his neck to speak earnestly up at them. It’s comforting to think of the lions as as they left them, a circle of statues and their sentinel.

It’s the weirdest thing, but sometimes Lance thinks that the way the lions talk to him is the way Gods talk to prophets, and everyone else in the cosmos just has to trust his blind, bruising faith.

He pushes a hand into his hair and just holds it there, steering left-handed and feeling his pulse push anxiously against his fingers.

“Uh oh, are we getting introspective?”

Lance’s hand jerks back to the controls. “Oh—uh. Sorry. We’re just,” he taps their trajectory on the luminous map between them. “So close.” He hadn’t realized how close until he’d checked, but his chest had been getting more and more crowded, like all of Earth’s radio waves and clutter was close enough to hear.

“Less than a light-year,” Pidge agrees quietly. The look in her eyes is so terribly far from home. The part of her that riffled through the desks of authorities and cut all her hair off is still with her brother in the guts of the resistance.

“Then why doesn’t it feel like we’re going home, huh?” Lance asks, smiling through the weirdness in his head. “Where’s the fanfare? Where’s the galaxy-wide fireworks display?” Pidge smiles tightly back at him.

“I didn’t think we’d get to go home until our mission was done, and, well, I don’t know. Maybe we don’t deserve all of that yet.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Lance corrects. The shaking’s only getting worse. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen when they touch down and it’s making his hair stand on end and his teeth chatter. “I’ve deserved it since day one.”

“Oh yeah?” she says, laughing. “All that winking at instructors and seeing how many peanut butter m&m’s you can fit in your mouth paying off for you?”

“Only in every way possible,” he says. “I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention but I’m a galactic superstar. Seriously.”

“Seriously,” Pidge echoes. They lapse into silence, and Lance’s body kicks up a fight when he sees the luminescent blue shape of the Earth drifting into view like a tossed frisbee.

“Jesus,” he breathes. He eases up on the speed, and they spend a suspended minute floating, watching, breathless. “Is she beautiful or what?”

“Usually I don’t trust your taste, but this time—“ she chokes up suddenly, surprising herself, and she tries to shield her face from view. Lance crows at her, his own vision blurring.

“Pidgey,” he says joyfully “We’re home.”

“Shut up.”

“Pidge,” he croons. She looks at him, eyes bright and wet, and neither of them can keep from grinning.

“We were born right down there,” Lance informs her. “The doctors wept with joy when they saw me.”

“They probably didn’t think your big head was gonna come out.”

Lance ignores her, feeling the jitters get brighter, harder to fight. “One moon, seven seas. It rains the kind of water that’s safe to drink. There’s barbecue pizza down there, Pidge.”

“I know,” she says.

“I can’t believe this. My mom’s right there.”

They’re still knee-deep in a revolution. They’ve been hurtling through space at warp speed in close quarters for weeks, and the only home they’ve ever known out in the black was blasted out of the sky, but the idea of setting foot on Earth without crawling into his mother’s arms is unthinkable.

The shuttle comms crackle, and Hunk’s voice comes through, “you guys seeing this?”

“Oh yeah,” Lance says. “You feelin’ as misty as we are, buddy?”

“He’s been crying since we passed pluto,” Keith says flatly.

“Oh yeah, that was an emotional gut-punch,” Hunk says.

“Paladins,” Allura interrupts smoothly, “I trust you’re happy to be home. I know it might be hard to believe considering my situation, but I’m happy for you as well. Pidge, can you set a course for where your father has taken those schematics? It’s of the utmost importance that we not waste any time.”

His heart sinks. “Funny, that feels like all we’ve been doing. A lot of autopilot and Altean uno and drinking whatever was in that funky bottle under the console.”

“Lance,” Allura says disapprovingly. The empty air hums and someone breathes out quickly.

“Princess, you’re not saying that we won’t be able to visit our homes, are you? Our families?” Hunk asks.

“I wish you could,” she says, sighing. “But we’re still fighting a war. I don’t think it’s practical—or safe—“

“No,” Lance says, aborted. “I mean—no.”

“Lance,” Keith says quietly.

“I’m not talking to you,” Lance seethes. “Pidge, put in the coordinates 23° 8′ 22″ N, 81° 17′ 10″ W, will you? I’ve got a couple of errands to run.”

“We’re not splitting up,” Allura says firmly. “I’m so sorry Lance, but the team is more important than—“

“Than my family?” he says, disbelieving. “Sorry, no, absolutely not, agree to disagree. I know that I’m supposed to save the universe or whatever, but I promised my mom—“ he chews his lip savagely, watching the whole world rush up to meet them and feeling helpless want thrash in his stomach. “I won’t be any help at the Holt’s. No one needs a guy with a rifle when you’re trying to put together a whole new teladuv, right? You don’t need me.”

“Yes we do,” Shiro says firmly, and Lance closes his eyes, fleeting. He’s having trouble focusing with his dearest wish and his nightmare both grabbing for a half of his brain.

“How about I go with Lance to Cuba and keep things on schedule,” Hunk offers. “I’d love to see his mom again. She always brings us empanadas.”

“We need your brain,” Shiro says regretfully. “We can’t do anything without your eyes on this.”

There’s a long silence, and Lance eases the thrusters to a more manageable intensity, muscle memory.

“I’ll go,” Keith says finally.

“What?” Lance asks at the same time that Allura says “pardon me?”

“I’ll go,” he repeats, stronger this time. “I’m also a fighter, not a scientist. I don’t have a home to go to, but I can take Lance.”

Lance flushes, not really understanding why. The way Keith said “also a fighter” like they’re cut from the same reversible cloth, red and blue. Sometimes the hot and cold of the two of them gives him whiplash.

“Is that… I mean, Lance,” Allura addresses him directly. He wishes he could see her expression, the wide eyes, the forehead that never really creases no matter how elastic her reactions are. “Is that what you want?”

He doesn’t even care that it’s Keith. He’s staring down the barrel of a mission where he’s fixed permanently in the background, tethered to the earth an eight-hour plane ride from the only place he’s ever felt consistently needed. “Definitely. Keith and I can stay in touch with you guys, and we basically have a super fast private jet if you need us.”

“Sorry, did you just say ‘Keith and I’ without bursting into flames?” Pidge asks, and Lance gives her a sidelong look.

“Right now, Keith is the only one of you who isn’t on my shit list. If Cubans are away from their families for too long, they drop dead. Do you want me to die?”

“Kind of a little at all times,” Pidge says, and he shoves her so hard that she would topple if it weren’t for the harness holding her to her seat.

“Alright,” Allura says definitively. “We’ll touch base at the Holt’s, but really… if I saw Altea again, no one could dream of keeping me from it.”

“Thank you princess,” Lance says gratefully, his chest aching, sweat cooling on his upper lip, hands finally still. “You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

______

Careening through the atmosphere is so surreal that Lance holds his breath all the way down. The clouds swarm the windows like eager fans, and it’s better than any welcoming procession he could have dreamt up. When they sink through the last of the low-slung wisps of water vapour, the burst of smoke-blue sky and human-made buildings stretched out below makes his steering stutter. Pidge laughs brightly at him.

They touch down on earth with the sunset crying out to be noticed, submerging everything in easygoing orange light.

The first step he takes on Earth in a year, and he falls to his knees.

His suit crunches against the dirt, and he takes his gloves off so that he can fist the grass and muck and smell the tang of it in the air. The oxygen is perfectly tuned for his lungs, and even though his body is off-kilter in the gravity, the ache matches the one inside of him. The breeze ruffles his hair, and he feels perfectly understood.

“You gonna kiss it, too?”

He looks up and sees Keith towering over him, looking imposing and amused at once. The rest of the team is staggered behind him, stretching their legs out and moving crates of supplies.

“That’s between me and her,” he sniffs.

Keith rolls his eyes. “Oh, because even the Earth is a girl to you, right?”

“Ge,” Lance says.

Keith blinks. “Uhh…”

“As in, the goddess?” Keith shakes his head. “Man, the amount of time we spend up between constellations and you don’t even know your mythology? She’s Earth? Mother of the Titans? Whatever dude, Ge is a hot goddess and I missed her sweet curves.”

Keith raises an eyebrow. Lance spreads his hand in the dirt and watches the way little buds of weeds and grass fold under his fingers.

“We haven’t even been here five full minutes and you’re already being gross,” Pidge calls.

“This is the prime time to be gross,” Lance calls. “Let me have my sloppy reunion, please and thank you.” His armour sighs as he eases himself down fully onto the Holt’s front lawn, heavy with gravity. He hears a rustle and looks up to find Keith sitting cross-legged a few feet away. He’s tearing out handfuls of grass with both hands, gaze tangled up in something Lance doesn’t think he’d be able to see even if he looked.

Lance watches him over one of his outstretched arms, but Keith catches him.

“What?” he asks.

“Two years,” Lance murmurs, and Keith’s face shifts dramatically. “That’s a long time away from home.”

“I haven’t been back to Earth in three years,” Keith corrects, annoyingly patient, completely obtuse.

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Keith, Lance,” Allura calls. Her hair is pulled back tightly, and she’s still wearing her flight suit. “Stay for a briefing, and then choose whichever shuttle you wish. Pidge assures me that there are supplies inside, and an extra—what was it? cellular phone? If you don’t want to wear your helmets for continuous correspondence, you can instantly message us from this device.”

Lance grins. “Yeah, I’m familiar. Can’t say the same for Keithy boy here. Body of a buff twenty year old, mind of a confused old man.”

“I know what a cellphone is,” Keith says impatiently.

“Good,” Allura says quickly, before they can devolve into bickering. “Use it. Stay safe, stay smart. Do not forget why we’re here.”

“I think the background threat of annihilation should keep us on our toes,” Lance assures her, and Keith snorts. Lance smiles slyly at him.

The briefing is swift and painless.

Watching Pidge reunite with her parents is bittersweet, and he keeps imagining the way his own mother is going to swear and slap him and kiss him. He’ll apologize over and over to her for how he’s made her worry and how he’s going to make her worry.

He’ll call his abuelita, surprise Marco and Luis in their shared bedroom by doing the secret knock on the doorframe, and bring Veronica the shard of sea glass he found on a planet called Luvesh (the sea was literally made of glass, and when you walked out onto its glittering surface, it spidered like ice. He bent down and picked a piece like a flower).

After the initial business, they change into street clothes and eat homemade lasagna, and Lance almost cries when the tang of tomato and basil hits his tongue. He winds the perfect stretch of real cheese around his fork and raises it in toast: to the only planet that does pasta right.

He and Keith carry fresh supplies between them in a cleaned out cooler, and they climb up into the cockpit of the smallest, fastest shuttle. They squabble briefly about who’s going to pilot until he reminds Keith that he’s the only one who knows where they’re going.

They wave goodbye to their team, and cruise somewhere between commercial jet speed and the full thrust of an alien vessel, watching the clusters of cities below slither away, like a sheet being continuously pulled out from under them.

_______

The sun is nearly below the horizon in Varadero, but Lance knows every gnarl in every road and every stupid resort, and he knows the way everything intersects at his family home, the beating heart of it all.

Gliding low over the jewel-blue stretch of the ocean is so overwhelming that he’s worked himself up halfway to tears before he remembers that Keith’s with him, that Keith’s seeing the best place in the world for the first time while it’s drooping to sleep for the night.

He starts pointing things out, identifying distant shapes with even more distant memories attached to them.

That’s the street market where I tried to haggle a boombox down to three dollars. Those are the beaches that the tourists swarm during the day. Most of them are too scared to swim in the ocean at night, so that’s when we always used to go. Somewhere in that block is the gelato place where I broke my tooth on a waffle cone.

That’s the little theatre where Veronica used to dance. I used to go to all her practices, and I said it was to look at the pretty girls, but it was also to watch my sister out-dance everyone else on stage. We had chickens when I was nine, and we bought them at that farm down there, the one with the hook-shaped driveway? I was obsessed with Celia Cruz and Britney Spears so we called one of the chickens Miss Celia and one of them Brit.

It’s starting to hurt to talk about it. Everything out of his dreams is tangible again, and even though it’s hugged by darkness and silky quiet — not raucous and sunny like it always is in his memories — it’s so close that voltron seems like the dream.

“I didn’t know you could be this genuine for this long,” Keith says honestly, and Lance doesn’t look at him.

“You haven’t really met me until you’ve met me here,” Lance says slowly.

“Well…” Keith starts awkwardly. “Nice to meet you?”

He does look at him this time, incredulous, and when he smiles, so does Keith.

______

As soon as they step foot on his property, he starts crying for real. He’s been tightrope walking over an absence so large that he wouldn’t even look at it. Every time he overcompensated for his grief and did something stupid like fell in love with a complete stranger, he felt like he was lurching over that chasm, trying to find his balance.

It’s impossible to describe the feeling of reaching down to graze your knuckles against the sand outside your favourite place in the world, and feeling the heat from the day baked into it, spotting little footprints tracked up to the rickety staircase.

Keith walks a stride and a half behind him, quiet, pretending he can’t hear the sounds that Lance is making out of the deepest place in his chest.

“Keith, you can’t look at me right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because vulnerability is ugly.” He brushes his fingers over where his own name is written on the mailbox. His bike is propped up against the deck. Luis is probably using it, the bastard.

“I don’t think it’s ugly,” Keith whispers.

He doesn’t know what to say, so he pretends he didn’t hear. He can hear the waves unrolling on the shore like messy, misshapen carpets, the hiss of them wrapping themselves back into the surf. The air has that salt and citrus smell that lived in all his clothes before they were sterilized by months in the gasping, impersonal corners of space.

He walks up the front stoop, and he had really imagined this in the daytime, with the sun at his back, instead of the moonlight and Keith, both of them lonely but constant.

The door is unlocked, and he lets himself in, not breathing.

“Should I wait outside?” Keith asks, and it’s uncharacteristic of him to be so delicate about something.

“I need this,” Lance says quickly, grabbing Keith’s wrist impulsively. “I want— I need someone to back me up if… if they don’t believe me.”

Keith’s brow is an entire storm, thunderclouds and twisters of confusion and fear and discomfort, but his fingers curl to touch the hand Lance has around his wrist, and he nods.

The little clock on their front table ticks merrily, and there are lanyards strewn over the side of the little ceramic meant for keys, messy like his mom hates. His own face is ghostly in the Garrison cadet portraits lining the hallway, and he can see Keith peering at them out of the corner of his eye.

He reaches the place where the hall opens up into the living room, and stops. His mom is curled up in the recliner, asleep, and the home phone is clutched in her hand. He holds his own face in his hands, shoulders shaking, and all the gravity on his head feels like way too much. His knees give out, and Keith steadies him at the last second.

“I really don’t know if I should be here,” he hisses. His arm is around Lance’s waist, and there’s a weird dissonance to it, like he never left home or the castle of lions, or he’s not sure that they’re really that different.

He feels weirdly like Keith belongs here, that he’s still an arm and Lance is still a leg on one cohesive person, and they could move giants together.

“Then who would’ve caught me just now?” Lance counters. His gaze finds his mom again, another kind of gravity, and he creeps closer, seeing the oven clock and the drawn blinds and feeling familiarity so acute that it’s like deja vu.

He stands over his mother, hand to his lips, ribcage quaking, and reaches down to shake her awake.

“Mamá,” he says hoarsely.

She doesn’t wake up immediately, and the longer he looks down into her lovely, worried face, the more his own face crumples. He can’t help the wounded sound that leaves the back of his throat, and she wakes at the noise, her face dazed and concerned.

“Mijo, what’s wrong?” she asks, her hand halfway up to his face before it hitches and drops.

There’s a beat of disbelieving silence, and then she surges upright, pulling the string on the lamp and squinting hopefully through the flood of light. When her eyes find Lance again, she gives this wavering gasp, her lower lip sucking inwards like it does right before you start sobbing.

“Lance?” She holds him by both his arms, shaking him, and he sinks through her grip to his knees. “Oh darling. My baby,” she says in Spanish. “How could you?”

“I’m sorry mamá,” Lance says, head bowed. “I’m so sorry.” She pulls his face up and smooths both thumbs across his brow.

“Don’t be sorry, mijo, just tell me where you’ve been. We’ve been looking for you. Searching the whole desert. All the stupid Garrison would tell us is that you were missing, presumed—“ she cuts herself off and shakes her head, jaw tight.

“I mean, you’re not going to believe this, mom.”

“My ghost son is sitting before me,” she says, hands in his hair, “more beautiful than ever. I dare you to shock me.”

Lance nods quickly, looking down at his own hands, trying to find a loose thread that will unravel a year’s worth of stories. “There’s… there’s a war.”

“There are many wars,” she replies gently. “Always.”

“No, there’s—do you remember the Kerberos mission, the crew that went missing?”

“It was in the news,” she says distractedly, combing fingers through his choppy bangs. “The boy you like, right? Takashi?”

“Yes,” Lance says, swallowing, hyper-aware of Keith in the doorway. “They didn’t die, they got caught up in a—in a war.”

“I don’t understand.” She’s looking at him with such open concern, and he wishes desperately that he could make thing simpler.

“Your son and I are soldiers,” Keith says from the doorway, and she startles hard, holding a hand to her chest and cursing in Spanish.

“Who—“

“Keith Kogane, former Garrison pilot, current paladin of Voltron.” He frowns. “I think.”

“He’s a friend,” Lance says simply.

“And?”

“And,” he takes a deep breath. “We’ve been fighting pretty much an evil empire in space, and we each pilot these sort of ancient, um, sentient cats, with the help of this princess we found in cryogenic stasis—“

“Ay, lance. Slow down, start again.”

“Mamá,” he says, exasperated.

“You should probably explain again,” Keith says helpfully.

“Thanks Keith,” he says hotly. “So we’ve been fighting in an intergalactic war, right? I’m sort of the unofficial red pilot, and my bayard is a rifle but one time it was kind of a sword which was—“

“Lance,” she interrupts, flicking the back of his head.

“Okay, okay, lo siento, I’ll go slow.”

It takes a long time to lay everything out properly, but his mom is never apprehensive or lost, she just wants to hear the facts, concisely, from different angles, until she finds some sort of solution. She’s always been good at peeling fact from fiction and plucking compromise out of thin air.

At some point, Keith gravitates over to the loveseat and makes himself comfortable, knife glinting from the holster around his thigh so noticeably that his mother purses her lips.

Sometime after midnight, Luis drifts down the stairs wearing boxers and a bathrobe, and when he sees Lance he trips down to the main floor and picks him up off the floor into a crushing hug. They stumble in an awkward square, shaking with euphoric laughter that might as well be crying, until Lance pokes him hard in the side, and they collapse apart, grinning.

Marco must hear the ruckus because he comes skittering down the stairs a minute later, already crying, and he tucks his head in Lance’s shoulder when he hugs him. By the time Veronica comes upstairs, her hair in a long loose braid and her face nearly unrecognizably gaunt, Lance can’t even speak. He nods jerkily and opens his arms, but she shoves him in the chest.

“Nothing to say, little brother?”

“Veronica,” their mother warns.

“They said you were dead,” she hisses.

“They also said I had an attitude problem, which we both know can’t be true,” he jokes. She shakes her head until a tear runs down her cheek and she has to rub it away.

“You are a problem child. I told mamá to stop having children after me, and if she’d listened we could’ve avoided so much mess.”

“But who would’ve gone to see you dance?” and he means it as a joke, but the idea of no one seeing her twisting like a rose towards the sun makes his throat close up.

She holds him by the neck, and then by the back of the head. “Bobo,” she scolds. “Don’t do that again.” She hugs him so carefully, and he screws his eyes shut, thinking about picking up to leave again, sailing back up into the stars and never coming back.

He’d forgotten what it felt like to be warm and safe and missed.

“I should probably leave you to it,” Keith says, rising abruptly, looking so uncomfortable that Lance feels a surge of fondness like flash rain, quick, heavy, and gone.

“No,” his mother informs him, getting to her feet and squeezing Lance’s face tenderly on her way by. “You brought my son home. I’m making you something to eat.”

_______

No one every warned him how intimate it would be to show someone your childhood bedroom. It’s the same feeling you get when you dig up a time capsule, uncomfortable awareness of what you thought was crucial when you were a whole different version of yourself.

Everything that he mentioned in passing in the trenches of the war is suddenly up close, scrutable, and Keith is taking it in like a museum patron, skirting the edge of the old messes, leaning politely in to look at portraits of friends and family.

“You have a picture of me in your room,” Keith points out, and Lance’s shoulders tense until he sees what he’s gesturing towards.

“A class photo, Keith. It’s not exactly a shrine.” He spreads out on the blue plaid bedspread and holds his hands to the pills of the fabric, worn exactly how he remembers.

Keith looks guilty. “No, I know, I just. I don’t know. It’s kind of… nice. To think that I’m this tiny part of your room. It’s stupid.” Lance looks at him blankly. “Forget it,” Keith says forcefully, crossing his arms and scowling.

Lance shrugs, uncomfortable. There are polaroids of him slung between Hunk and Pidge, lopsided from the extreme difference in the heights of their shoulders. He has peace thrown up around their shoulders, and he’s laughing.

He has a cutout about the Kerberos mission on his desk, and the Shiro with dark hair and young eyes stares up at the ceiling. He has the X-Files “I want to Believe’ poster above his bead, which covers Allura and Coran, so the only person who doesn’t really have a spot is Keith. Except one tiny pointed chin and bad haircut in a sea of young, pouty faces.

“Hey,” he says softly. He scoops his polaroid camera off of the desk and fiddles with the buttons, ears burning, heart turning over with the aching slowness of the wounded. “Come here.”

______

He gets up when the first fingers of sun peel back the horizon, red and orange like fire. He leaves Keith in his bed, his chest bare and his face young and pink in the sunrise. He still doesn’t understand anything.

He meets his mother in the kitchen, and she hold him an arm’s length away from her body to trace his features with her fingers. She passes him the perfect café cubano, and he makes a big show of getting on his knees to thank her.

Orange, filtered light comes in through the half-drawn shutters in distorted stripes. His mother recounts her phone conversation with Lance’s father using sound effects and tripping Spanish slang, and something vital inside of him detaches and spills blood-hot feeling everywhere.

He leaves his mother to wander down to the beach. His skin responds to the sun, hair standing on end. His whole body has been like a limb that’s been trapped in a cast, shrunken and pale, and the air and light against it is a terrible relief.

He lets his fingers brush the tall, feathery grass on either side of the path as he walks.

The feeling in his chest is the same one he got when he walked up to the stocky outline of the Galaxy Garrison, or when he settled into Blue’s cockpit for the first time, a sense of rightness so acute that he doesn’t have a name for it.

He scuffs off his flip-flops and sprints down to meet the surf, laughing when the spray gets his shorts wet and spritzes up to his neck. The chunky shells underfoot and the chill on his sleep-sensitive skin is background noise. He wades thigh deep and watches the red of the sky echoed by the churning mosh pit of the waves. He closes his eyes and lets the breeze paw at his hair and clothes, holding his arms out so that his loose buttoned shirt billows out behind him.

He’s out there for a long time, dawn turning into early morning, pale, with spectacular clouds. Red skies always promise wicked storms.

He settles down into the sand, enjoying the little discomforts, the sand tucked just under the hem of his shorts where his skin is clammy wet, the breeze getting a little too forceful with his hair and forcing it in the wrong direction. His house just a little too far away at his back, everything he cares about a few minutes out of reach.

He’s been to so many galaxies and he’s never seen anything like a sunrise over the ocean.

He thinks, I am the best version of myself, right here.

He knows he’s been a liability for the team. He shows up and makes noise and tries to look cool so that it won’t feel so much like the losing battle he’s fighting is coming to a sad, inevitable end.

He’s the extra pilot that they cycle through the roster and try to find a place for, but he’s not the red paladin. And he’s never going to belong to Blue like Allura does, like her family always will.

Being at home like this makes it really clear that he hasn’t fit anywhere in a very long time. There are so many ugly things twisting and shooting out in space, and he’s seen so many people suffer. He shoots galra sentries dead and he follows his gut instincts to the wrong places and he dreams about home.

It’s so stupid that he thought he could be some sort of soldier. Like he would ever be the guy that saved something instead of ruining it.

He puts his hand out in front of him and watches sun creep between his fingers. Nothing feels real in space. It’s easier to lie to yourself, somehow.

“Hey,” says a voice behind him. When he glances back, Keith is staring at him with the saddest expression he’s ever seen on his face, and only then does Lance realize that he’s crying.

“What are you doing here?”

Keith ignores him. “You’re crying again.” He really sounds like it’s bothering him.

“No I’m not.”

“Your face is wet,” he says matter-of-factly, sitting down close to him in the sand, blotting out the sun.

“I was in the sea, Keith.”

He pauses, then breathes out all at once. “I hate seeing you like this.”

“Well I’m not so fond of looking at you either,” Lance snaps.

“I think we should go back tonight. I texted Allura and she said has a mission for us while the rest of the team is working. Some recon, I think.”

“The rest of the team,” Lance repeats hollowly.

“Yeah,” Keith says. “I mean. We can still be useful. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like sitting still for too long.”

“I do, actually,” he lies. “Harder to break things if you’re not moving around so much.”“What?” Keith looks confused, his eyes darting all over Lance’s face.

“I’m not going back with you.”

He jerks back like he’s been slapped. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I quit,” Lance announces. “I quit voltron, I quit galaxy-saving and jumping in front of laser fire and putting on a fucking— show all the time, I quit killing people because they’re wearing the galra uniform.” Keith flinches. “I quit you. Okay?”

Keith sits, stunned, across from him, and when his head dips, the sun gets into Lance’s eyes, sharp. He looks away.

“Not okay,” Keith says firmly. “Really not— really not okay, Lance, what the fuck? How did you think I was just going to, what, hop on a shuttle without you?”

Lance shakes his head at the ground. “I thought you’d be psyched. You won’t have to deal with me anymore. The red lion is yours. She always has been, actually, she was basically trying to eject me like a disease the whole time.” He looks up at Keith and finds him looking down furiously at him.

“We already talked about this,” Keith says impatiently. “I don’t care how many lions there are, we’ll figure it out. You’re part of the team.”“Only technically though, right?” he says bitterly. “I’ve always been more of a sidekick. Look, you don’t have to pretend to want me here just so you can tell them you tried when you show up empty handed, alright?”

Keith is looking more agitated by the minute, and Lance isn’t used to seeing him in natural light, without his gloves or his jacket or tense, self-assured energy. “I do want you,” he starts, and then he kind of bares his teeth and snaps his head away, fighting through something that Lance can’t see or understand. “You’re a paladin of voltron,” he struggles to say, like it explains everything.

“I tried to be a paladin,” Lance says. “I’m no good at it, okay? Can we stop rubbing it in. I’m being very real with you and you’re being very weird.”

“But you’re our sharpshooter,” Keith says, defiant like a kid. “No one fights like you.” That pulls Lance up short, and he’s shaking again, hands and chattering teeth, and the patches of water on his clothes are suddenly much too cold. Keith’s face is wide open in the plain light, and Lance realizes that he’s not lying, that he’s never been very good at that at all.

All the drawers in his chest shake out over everything, and he’s losing all his reasoning in the mess. He keeps looking back at the horizon and thinking about waking up in his room every day to the smell of coffee, but the image keeps getting confused with the image of Keith, roseate, rolled in his blue comforter.

“I can’t go back,” he whispers. “I won’t survive, and then my family will fall apart.”

“Lance, If anyone’s going to survive, it’s you, do you understand me?”

“No,” Lance says, frustrated. “I don’t know what’s happening right now, at all, actually.”

“You’re smart, and you’re selfless. Do you know how deadly those qualities are in a war? Your plans are low casualty, fast and brilliant, and they save lives. There are entire colonies, entire species that would have died without you.” Lance shakes his head, trying to keep from crying again and embarrassing himself. “None of us would’ve made it this far without you, idiot.”

“My family needs me,” he argues. “You saw them, you know, you know—“ He thinks of his mother trying to memorize him with both hands, his little brother crying softly against his neck.

“Anyone would feel that way if they knew you and lost you, Lance. You can’t honestly think that we wouldn’t be just as messed up without you,” he says incredulously.

“Keith,” Lance says lowly. There’s an epiphany tottering in his chest, and he can’t quite get a grip on it before it slips and bobs away.

“You can’t stay here,” Keith says, and he’s on his knees, reaching for both of Lance’s wrists, eyes wide, almost purple in the sun. “Who’s gonna keep me in line?”

“You—you need to keep yourself in line, dude, you can’t just expect—“

“I know you can’t stay here when the action’s out there. People like us can never sit out on fights.”

“Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?” Keith asks, bewildered, hands tight on Lance’s forearms.

“Acting like we’re the same!”

“How are we different?” Keith demands. The wind ruffles his hair so that a piece gets caught in his mouth, and Lance looks distractedly at it.

“We’re opposites,” he says. “That’s like our whole thing.”

“I’m tired of pretending like we don’t like each other,” Keith sighs.

“I don’t understand,” Lance says quietly, except that he does, all at once, looking at Keith’s hands still squeezing his wrists, his blocky knuckles and uneven fingernails. “Why did you volunteer to take me home, Keith.”

“Honestly?”

“Yes please.”

“I love you,” Keith tells him miserably.

Lance turns his face towards the tree line meandering off to the edge of the coast, feeling every system in his body light up simultaneously. “Keith.”

He lifts his wrists and Keith’s hands follow them up. He shuffles closer on his knees, brow furrowed, mouth turned down, desperate.

“So you can’t expect me to leave you here,” Keith says, “I know that I’m asking you to walk away from your home. But you’re asking me to walk away from mine.”

“Keith,” Lance repeats, choked up. “I don’t know—“

“You don’t have to know, god, you don’t have to know anything, you just have to get on that shuttle with me tonight.”

He looks up at Keith, wild hair, broad shoulders, eyes like swatches of deep space. He remembers seeing him sitting alone at the Garrison and wondering what it would be like to be made for piloting like that, to have that sort of magic in your hands.

Those hands are still steadying him, gripping the tender insides of his arms like he’s trying to steer him in the right direction.

After his first mission with Red, he sat in the hangar, breathing hard, picturing Keith’s battle-flushed face and missing him badly.

“Don’t do it for me,” Keith says hastily. “I know you like to make people happy, and this isn’t like that. I think staying here would be a mistake. I think you’ll see us leaving the atmosphere and you’ll regret everything. You won’t be able to sit still when you know we’re out there fighting. You’ll be here with your family but you won’t really be here.”

“You’ve really got me figured out, hey,” Lance says ruefully.

“I try to pay attention,” Keith says. “When it matters.”

“I’m trying to do this for you,” Lance tells him, shaking his head, annoyed at his full head and watery voice, the way the force of the ocean has infected him. “You belong with Red, doing your blade gymnastics routines, holding a knife in your mouth or whatever, winning obnoxiously all the time.”

“Then you belong next to me,” Keith counters viciously. “It doesn’t have to be either or. We’re a team.”

The sun punches out from behind a low-hanging cloud. Lance’s vision clears.

“I think we’re probably more than that,” he says.

Keith falters, and his grip slides down an inch, so he’s holding the bottom of Lance’s hands. “You don’t have to—“

“Do you know what I thought when I saw you in my bed this morning?” he asks. Keith’s hands are clammy but fixed, and he has this sweet little mole on the side of his nose, and Lance can’t believe he’s been so stupid. “I thought — it’s not fair that he looks like that when I’m trying to leave. Like, how rude is that.”

Keith’s face does something hopeful and twitchy, a lifting chin and anxious brow. “You’re one to talk.”

“You had all this sunrise in your hair, like, all the places where the light hits you were red. It was so you. I mean, I must’ve been sleep-deprived, because I really thought I was attracted to a mullet for a sec.”

Keith smiles slowly.

“And I was already feeling all mushy from the way you held onto my mom so tightly when she hugged you. It really didn’t look like you were hugging someone’s mom who you’d never met, Keith. You weren’t even uncomfortable in a stranger’s house, do you know how rare that is? It was like you just belonged in my breakfast nook eating pastelitos. God, and the taking me home and listening to my stories. Do you know— in that stupid picture we took? I’m not even looking at the camera. I’m looking at you.”

“Come back with me,” Keith says, pulling Lance’s hands around his neck, hoisting him into his space. “I’m never going to leave you behind now.”

“Kiss me, and I’ll go,” Lance says, bold from the way Keith is all over him like he’s never been touched before.

He cups Lance’s face in both hands. He hasn’t had this much focus on just him for months, and his face goes hot as he reaches up for Keith’s wrists.

When he kisses him, his rushing blood matches the tossing ocean, and nothing else has any sound at all. It’s fatal, the way Keith kisses him like he’s trying to pin the two of them together for good.

They’re both on their knees, and Keith’s hands slide down to grab him closer around the waist, gathering the loose fabric into his fists. His tongue is searing, and his breath is sweet like over-sugared coffee.

All of his suppressed feeling flies up to meet him, double-sided anger and want, rivalry and respect. He finds himself bobbing towards the glow of Keith’s body, chest full and light as a balloon.

He breaks away gasping. “Why have we been fighting?”

“I don’t know,” Keith whines, and Lance can feel the spread of his fingers flexing against his waist. “You started it.”

“I think I wanted you to notice me,” he says, like he can’t believe it.

“I did,” Keith grumbles.

Lance kisses his lax mouth, enjoying the instinctive flicker of his tongue, the scorch of embarrassed desire in his cheeks. “Oh man, If I die in space, you’re going to feel so bad.”

“You’re not gonna die,” Keith says. He pushes their foreheads together with the insistence of a labrador, and lance sighs.

“It’s a war, dude,” he points out.

“I’m not letting you die,” Keith insists. “I’m going to bring you home again, after we’ve destroyed the galra empire and freed everyone. I’m going to bring you back to this beach.”

“Well I’m not letting you die either,” Lance says defensively. He puts a hand against Keith’s chest and feels his heartbeat buck, almost too fast to be human. “Two-way street, buddy. We continue the mission. We’re a little less reckless. I hang that picture of us in my lion. We fight back to back and make out with explosions behind us, I don’t know, I’ve still gotta iron out the details. You keep loving me, I keep loving you.” His voice wobbles. “Everyone wins.”

Keith lowers him all the way back into the sand to kiss him, and the warmth on all sides is almost as disorienting as the weight of Keith’s body, the give of his mouth. Keith breaks away to say, “I can do that.” He swipes a thumb over Lance’s cheekbone and smiles.

A raindrop flattens a piece of Keith’s hair on its way down to Lance’s face, and then another two find his cheeks and parted lips. Keith rears back, propped up on both hands above him like a shield, and rain winds up and starts pouring down, whole torrential sheets of it. Lance lets his head loll back when he laughs, giddy. He twists his hands in the hair at Keith’s neck.

“Isn’t this a bad omen?” Keith asks, voice raised through the chaos of the downpour.

“No,” Lance says, thinking of red mornings and storms blowing in off the coast. “I love the rain.”

#this is the first voltron I've written I'm still learning the ropes hello it's 7.5k #klance #vld fanfic #voltron #prompt #mine #I'm sorry this isn't aftg or trc I swear to GOD that's coming #Anonymous #ask #voltron fanfic

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nctjoy · 5 years

Text

prompt: 23, 46, 96 // johnny

the steam rose from the stove top and fogged the glasses that had fallen down the bridge of your nose in your efforts to cook a real meal for a change instead of springing for takeout last minute. after all, today was special. in no time at all, there would be another joining you for dinner and it’s long overdue company.

somehow, johnny had managed to get a week off from promoting, a feat he’d arguably earned. he has done wonderful things, the pride you felt watching him do what he loves was immeasurable knowing he was achieving his dreams. but it did nothing to quell the persistent longing you felt each day you didn’t spend with him. but tonight, you’d pick him from o’hare and bring him home to a hot, home cooked meal; and a bedroom that didn’t run the risk of another young man bursting in unannounced. it would be just the two of you for the weekend and you weren’t about to let it go to waste.

music played loudly nearby as you put on the finishing touches to your meal that you hadn’t heard the door unlock and open. you swayed to the rhythm as you brought your spoon up to taste test, lost in the song that you didn’t see the towering figure set his backpack to the floor below and tired but enamored eyes taking in the sight of you. it’s been months and he couldn’t help but softly, near inaudibly chuckle at you. his grin stretched across his lips as he walked softly into the kitchen with a hand brushing back the unkempt hair in his face, not wanting you to notice him yet. as you brought your spoon up to taste one more time, he sprung into action as his lumbering frame pressed to your back while his arms took hold of you as he wrapped you up—then immediately leaned in to steal the sauce off the spoon for himself. he registered your immediate terror with a warm squeeze and spoke—

“Mm! What’s cookin’, good-lookin’?”

you let out a riotous screech as you dropped the spoon in your grasp, it clattering to the stove top as you swiftly twisted within johnny’s embrace so that you could throw your arms around his neck in a tight hug. your eyes slammed shut as you tried to take it all in; the way his arms tightened around you in an instant, or the way his scent filled you in and reminded you that you were still on earth and this was in fact happening to you. he was here, you were here. you felt weightless in that moment as he stepped backwards from the heat source so that he could twist you around, his laughter low at the crest of your ear before he seemingly buried his face into you, trying to become a part of you.

“you should have told me--i would have been there at the gate.” you scolded with moisture in your voice, evidence of the tears swelling in your eyes at the beautiful surprise he had bestowed upon you. hours early, that sneaky jerk. but as he pulled away just enough to get a look at you, it all fell away. his hands lifted to frame your face, thumbs moving beneath your eyes where he halted the tears slipping free. he certainly didn’t want you to cry, but he’d accepted it as a calculated risk for his little rouse.

“yeah well--i wanted to surprise you. mission accomplished.” he remarked rather proudly as his dark eyes drank you in with the feeling of a persistent longing he’d felt alongside you all these months. and with a light grunt, johnny hoisted you up off of your feet so that your legs immediately latched onto either side of his much larger frame with ease as your lips immediately crashed together in the proper greeting you both deserved. your fingers raked through the thickness of his hair; lighter than you last saw it but it was still nice, still soft against your touch as you lost yourself in him. it was hard not to as your felt his hands grasping at the fabric of your top, tensing and splaying against the flat expanse of it, holding you to him as if he feared you might vanish.

“but--i made dinner--” you murmured against his mouth as you felt him begin to carry you out of the kitchen.

“leave it--” he practically ordered as his feet didn’t slow, bending his knees so he could adjust his grip on you with a growl, already heading down the hallway.

“but the burner is still on--i’ll light the apartment on fire.” you reminded him, foreheads resting together as he halted his movements and let out a disappointed sigh. when you’re right, you’re right. he relinquished his hold on you so you could rush back to the stove to turn off all the burners--you were finished cooking anyway. once satisfied you weren’t going to indirectly cause arson, you noticed johnny returning to the kitchen as he curiously peeked at the food you had prepared. the hunger had changed focus as he stared at the food then looked back into your eyes with a slowly lifting brow.

“the food on the plane was terrible--” he remarked with a slow winding grin, which left you with a grateful smile on your lips in return.

————————————————————————

after dinner you set the dirtied dishes in the sink, knowing if you didn’t do them now, they would likely sit for too long. while you would much rather be spending every moment you could with johnny, you knew that you couldn’t ignore them. or at least, that was what you thought. but as you turned the sink on to try and begin the soaking process, you heard the sound of his steps entering the kitchen again. you peeked with your peripheral vision as he reached out to change the song on your phone from it’s usual up beat tempos to something much slower, mellow as he finally turned his attention back onto you. immediately, the thought of cleaning dissipated and was replaced with him, all over again like it had when he’d first arrived. but at least this shirking of responsibility didn’t come with a potential for fire damage.

you felt his hand against your wrist first, his fingertips slipping over your bare skin before closing around the flat of your palm. he was coaxing you, but gently as your turned around to face him. he smiled as he twisted your joined hands outward to lead you away from the sink before his free hand found it’s way around to the small of your back. simple actions, but combined it sent shivers down your spine.

“dance with me.” his voice as smooth as crushed velvet and melting you in the warmth of it. so easily you drifted into the center of his gravity, his touch holding you close to him as the two of you began to sway to the languid tempo of the music. it was gentle, not in any way urgent as he quietly led the dance with practiced steps. instinctively, you leaned into his chest as your hands remained intertwined in the open air as he used them to gently guide your slow embrace. “i missed you so much.” he mused against the crown of your head as his chin rested against it as you both swayed together. you lifted your head from his broad chest to capture his gaze just as he pulled your joined hands in close to him so that he could press his lips to the peaks of your knuckles.

“i always miss you.” was all you could say as you tightened your grip on johnny’s hand. it stung, both of you as his gaze glistened in the low lightning when he understood how layered that statement really was. he didn’t like being away from you, even if it was to achieve goals he’d set for himself since he was a child. falling for you hadn’t exactly been in the plan, but he did his best to try and balance it. “but it’s worth it.” you finished, swallowing the lump in your throat if only to prevent him from feeling it too deeply. because regardless of how long you went without seeing each other, it didn’t change how you felt. you would continue to wait. it was enough, johnny’s eyes sliding closed in time of your movements as you pressed into him with your arms moving to pull him into a tight hug. you stopped dancing then, standing in the kitchen wrapped within the enveloping warmth of each other as you just existed together for a few moments. you wondered if he understood how deep your feelings ran, how long you were truly willing to wait for him. but as your lips met for the second time this evening, you didn’t dare interrupt this one.

————————————————————————

it rained the next day, sequestering you both to the bedroom for the entire morning as it bathed the room in a dull paleness, but you didn’t seem to mind. you both were a tangled mess of limbs and warm sheets as your nose followed the narrow path of his jawline as you attempted to quietly stir him awake. while you knew that he has been incredibly busy the last few months with promoting that he could use all the sleep he could get, you couldn’t help yourself as you shifted beneath the covers so that you could gain better access to him.

he stirred a bit, scrunching his nose up as your fingertip followed the narrow bridge of his nose, watching as he lazily lifted his larger palm to close around yours to still your movements but also just to touch you. always touching.

“mmmm--orning.” he croaked from sleep, tilting his head down with his eyes still closed, judging the space by your body heat alone. even though you still had time together, you couldn’t shake the knowledge that he’d be packing up not too long from now to head back to korea, and you’d both return to your separate lives as this weekend turned into a fleeting memory. while you anticipated these short visits with such excitement, you always forgot how short they really were until he was boarding a plane and you were left at the gate wondering when he’d be coming back.

as his eyes finally opened, it overwhelmed you as you watched him slowly blink at you and that tired smirk twist his features into a blissful contentment you had dreamt about waking up to again for so damn long. it fell from your lips in a raspy plea, your other hand brushing strands from his face and you were unable to stop it.

“can’t you stay a little longer?” eyelids fluttering as his contentment slipped away and was instead replaced with a twisted expression of guilt and worry, his grasp on your hand never faltering which was a small mercy. you knew it was foolish, that it would never get anywhere no matter how much you wished. you asked him this each time, but just as your predictability never failed, neither did his.

“someday--” he whispered back, his adam’s apple bobbing with the effort of swallowing the dryness in his throat. “just not this time.” the apology hung in the air between you as his gaze held you in. you don’t dare cry, knowing it would only make him feel worse and you couldn’t bear to do that to him. instead, you smile gently at him, offering him comfort in his unfortunate admission so that maybe you could salvage the day without having to ruin it with your selfish desire to keep him here as long as you could.

you took in the deepest of breaths as you pulled yourself in closer to him, reaching with your free hand to soften the furrow of his thick brows to ease him before you could press the warmth of your lips to his forehead for good measure. and as you felt him relax under your affection you turned to rest your cheek against him and gently shrugged. “then we better take advantage of the time we do have.” and without warning, you tossed the sheets upward so that it blanketed over your bodies as you lazily tackled johnny to the bed while he let out a sharp but pleased laugh.

someday.

a/n:

@seodium omfg this got long i am so damn sorry for all of this but wow i was inspired. please don’t hate me and i hope you like it!

#nct prompt #nct prompts #nct imagine #nct imagines #nct drabble #nct drabbles #nct #nct 127 #johnny #johnny seo #seo youngho #prompt: answered #seodium #wow this fucked me up #enjoy

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horizon99krp-blog · 6 years

Photo

– KILLJOYS, MAKE SOME NOISE –

BRONZE, a PROTO has been spotted on the edges of Horizon99 ! Identified as LEON, they have been living as a MECHANICAL ASSISTANT for some time now, recognized for holding no loyalties in this wasteland. They were created 2 years ago, designed to look 25 years old, with a tendency to act amiable, doubtful, diligent, curious, and skittish. Fortunately they are registered, with an operating license number of 5281248.

Real question now is… how will they react when the whole sky falls ?

PULL THE PIN AND LET THIS WORLD EXPLODE, GIVE US MORE DETONATION

the most difficult thing for him is that he knows he has to hide his emotions, but when faced with something urgent, it’s hard for him to hold back, do nothing like another proto would. he has an impeccable memory and mind akin to others of his kind, but with riku’s experiments to see how human he could be, leon turned out to be a mix of both. and now, leon himself feels lost, pained since he’s alone against the world, in a whole different place. he has little experience with other people, other environments, and sometimes it shows. he does his best to fit in, but the guilt and remorse for the man’s death are still fresh in his mind, and he is sometimes skittish, jumping from one thing to another, trying to distract himself with as much work as possible.

THE FUTURE IS BULLETPROOF, THE AFTERMATH IS SECONDARY

i. you don’t believe in god.

it all starts with a spark, as often as many things do. the scale doesn’t matter after all. the universe starts with a tiny spark, and yamamato riku’s entire life changes with one as well. perhaps not as important in the grand scheme of things, it’s one that changes the man’s life influentially.

they tell riku their neighbours left the stove open, a human error — an unfortunate accident. there isn’t much they can do. they tell him that mother and son died instantly. it leaves him hollow, angry, that someone’s foolish mistake has taken the two most precious people from him. he’s at a loss about what to do, and promptly pushes himself into his work.

it turns into an obsession, riku channels all he has into his independent research on the side. whenever he isn’t going to work, he stays at the lab nonetheless, working and perfecting the proto he’s making. he wants to work on the abhorrent thing called a human error, and he wants to play god. there’s that urge in his mind, wanting to see how far he can go with the power he has in his own hands.

the man is good at what he does, and with a lifetime experience on robots and mechanics, he wants to test the boundaries of protos- if he can make artificial intelligence as tangible as possible to blur the thin line between those made of metal versus those made of flesh and blood.

ii. i don’t believe in luck.

and with yet another spark, sweat and elbow grease, leon is made. riku is proud of his work, looks down at the proto with sparkling eyes and an eagerness to do as he tells. it’s a brand new project, and he registers leon as an office helper, a mechanical assistant. no one questions him to why he has made one himself with so much effort. no one asks him why he didn’t simply get one from the company’s registered ones. people don’t see beneath the surface, most of them happy that riku seems to have gotten back to his usual eccentric self. there aren’t people in his life close enough to see it runs deeper than that, that riku puts much more into leon that he ever should.

he doesn’t act like leon’s another proto, he brings him home, talks to him, tells stories about his past, his own self. loads leon with information, codes him in such a way that the proto begins to make decisions for himself. it’s as if leon’s his own overgrown son, riku dries his hair, reads him bedtime stories before tucking him into bed. stories aren’t as simple as children stories however, he reads him literary books, and when leon tells him he can easily download it from the web, riku tells him this way is much more special. leon nods slowly, rests his head on the pillow even though he doesn’t need to sleep, and listens to riku recite him his favourite excerpts.

it goes on like that, leon’s every moment is spent with the man, and riku acts as if leon’s growing up. the bedtime stories switch to visits to the park, to other cities, the man talks and talks, letting leon learn as much as he can give him, lets him soak up all the info to how a normal human thinks. all of this happens in the span of a few months, leon’s brain made of wires is equipped enough to accustom to such pace.

and slowly but surely, the empty sparking eyes turn into something more thoughtful, and it’s clear to see riku’s getting more and more excited by it. the man begins to be more loud with his thoughts, writes articles to newspapers, goes off to do speeches. he tells people how advanced protos are, how they are the future of humanity, that they are not living up to their full potential with their current status.

his words cause an uproar, he gets hatemail and fanmail alike. in the meantime, leon’s dragged along with him to wherever he goes, as if he’s a part of riku himself. he listens and nods, stays in the shadows as he watches the man speak. riku is his entire world after all, all he knows, the bond between them is clear as day as he looks up to the man. riku is elated by the prospect, but also teaches the proto to be careful, not to show this side of him to anyone but the scientist himself. “you see those people out there, leon ? they are dangerous — i want to protect you, don’t show anyone what you are fully capable of. not if you don’t trust them.”

the proto nods quickly, his hold around the man’s hand tightening a minuscule amount. there’s something akin to fear in his eyes, and it confuses him when he sees a smile spread across riku’s face. it disappears quickly, as if it never existed, and if leon didn’t have an eidetic memory, he would have thought he had dreamt it all.

iii. they don’t believe in us.

months pass by like that, and as riku becomes more visible to the public eye, his ties with the company weaken. he’s too good of a scientist to let go of entirely, knows too many secrets — but the company warns him nonetheless, tells him not to tarnish its name. the anti-proto groups are against each and every one of riku’s words, yet it’s not legal for them to act on it, or so riku assures leon. it’s easy to read the hate comments directed at the man, and whenever leon shakes the man in worry to tell him about a new one, he is met with a shake of head, something akin to a disappointment in those dark eyes. after a while, he learns himself that it’s not something riku will let go of, and all leon can do is stand by and watch.

he picks up the erratic heartbeat immediately, and calls an ambulance. many protos are programmed to do so when a human is at danger, but the worry in leon’s eyes is something else, something that he shouldn’t show when the paramedics arrive. his hands almost shake as he assesses the situation. he knows the protocols, knows how to use first-aid in situations like this. he’s in the midst of doing cpr when they enter the room, then he’s pushed to the side as they put riku on a stretcher. all leon can do is watch, his hands balled into fists to stop himself from showing how affected he is.

there’s a protocol for this too. protos are supposed to stay at home until further command, standby and wait until someone else tells them what to do. if they no longer serve their purpose, they will be shut down. but something eats at leon’s insides, makes his brain fill with doubt. he has checked up on riku’s vitals a mere day ago, and now, how can the man have a heart attack of all things? none of the signs were there — if they were, leon would know… he would pick it up somehow, wouldn’t he?

it doesn’t take long before he goes over the events of their entire day, he does it before he can even process it properly — his mind lists the people riku has come in contact with, anyone new, anyone suspicious. it takes some time — minutes at most, but he lists a few people, and after a brief research, he learns that there was someone with ties to anti-proto organizations. it’s yet another spark, one that turns into flames. after a few more minutes, leon’s almost sure it’s an assassination attempt, and calls the police, telling them everything he has put together.

iv. but i believe in the enemy.

the words that follow soon after are painful, in such a way that he knows they shouldn’t, not if he was a proto like any other. the man tells him that if leon’s listening to this, it means that he’s dead, that there is no way for him to have survived. the video is short, and it all passes in a blur, so quickly that leon has to watch it all over again in his head to make a list. the fact that riku was anticipating this hurts, more than he can put into words. leon had no idea himself, and something akin to guilt runs through his wires, an unreasonable reaction, yet a true one nonetheless.

leon’s told to find the bag riku prepared for him, ignore the protocol and run away. he’s told that he’s special — and if he continues to stay at the house, the authorities will shut him down. riku tells him everything they have spoken so far will help him on his path alone. it makes little sense, but leon’s trust in riku is more than enough for him to follow through with whatever he’s told. he packs up the little he has, trinkets, one or two books that riku told him to keep with himself no matter what. and just like that, he leaves, because it’s the only way he’ll survive. the man on the screen makes him promise, and even though leon feels like his whole life has ended, he knows he needs to make a new one for himself.

#99: accepted #park hyungsik

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amanda-teaches · 7 years

Text

Better than a Dream

Summary: Dean gets trapped in a fantasy created by a djinn. Will the fantasy help him realize the truth about his feelings for the reader before it’s too late?

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 3707

Warnings: A lot of fluff, Dean has to get out of the djinn dream by killing himself (because that’s how it’s done), so possible suicide trigger warning

A/N: This is for @deansdirtylittlesecretsblog Romcom Fluff Challenge. My prompt was from Leap Year. Well, when my 60 seconds came around, I realized I had everything I ever wanted, but nothing I really needed. And I think that what I need is here. And I came all this way to see if maybe you might think so too. Huge shoutout to @cyrilconnelly for betaing this for me and giving me the title and @mrsdeanfuckingwinchester for reading it over.

“Dean, these burritos are amazing! I mean, I knew you made great burgers, but I never knew you could make such amazing Mexican food!”

Dean leaned down to whisper gruffly in Y/N’s ear, his breath tickling her in the process. “I’m a man of many talents, Y/N.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are,” she whispered back suggestively, drawing a laugh out of him. They stood up and made their way over to the sink with the dishes, laughing and nudging each other as they went. When they got there, Dean reached around Y/N to grab a towel, but she got to it first and held it just out of reach, laughing as she did. He looked at her menacingly before moving in to tickle her until she doubled over with laughter and surrendered, handing him the towel.

They were so caught up in their own little world, they didn’t even notice when the sound of Dean’s ringing phone started drifting in from the other room. They also didn’t notice Sam giving in with a roll of his eyes and getting up to answer it, sighing as he did. “Man, those two couldn’t be any more obvious….”

As he left to answer the phone, Y/N and Dean finished the dishes. When they were done, they moved into the library where they found Sam waiting for them. “Hey,” he said, turning to face them. “Bobby called.”

“Oh yeah?” Y/N asked, moving away from Dean and flopping down into a chair. She curled her foot underneath her and crossed her arms across her midsection. “What’d he say?”

“You know how he took that case over in London?” Sam paused and waited for two of them to nod before continuing. “Well, apparently, it’s gone a little sideways. He might need a little help.”

Dean froze, his whole body tensing and his heart pounding. “Bobby needs help? In London?!”

“Yes,” Sam said carefully and calmly, sensing Dean’s growing panic. “But, Y/N and I can handle it. You should stay.”

“Yeah,” Y/N echoed, moving to stand by Dean’s side. She reached out and touched his arm, instantly calming his racing heartbeat. “Or, better yet, I’ll fly out there by myself and Sam can stay here too. I’m sure Bobby and I can handle whatever it is. We don’t need the whole team.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean said. He took a deep breath. “That sounds like a good plan. You fly to London and we stay here. On the ground. Where they aren’t any planes. Yeah. Good.”

“Good,” Y/N whispered, with a smile. “I’ll go pack.”

“Okay.” Dean returned her smile as he watched her walk out of the room. He turned back to Sam, who was watching him with a smile. “What?”

“Nothing,” Sam replied with a laugh and a shake of his head.

Dean frowned and crossed his arms. “What, Sammy?”

“Nothing!” Dean’s glare deepened, pushing Sam to give in. “It’s just you and Y/N.”

“What about me and Y/N?” he growled.

“It’s just nice to see the two of you together. That’s all. You both deserve to be happy.”

Dean shook his head and raised his eyebrows in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about, Sammy?”

“Hey, you don’t have to get all defensive about it. It’s ok. I love Y/N. If the two of you want to be together….”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dean yelled, putting his hands up in the air. “Y/N and I aren’t ‘together’. We’re just friends.”

Sam smiled knowingly. “Oh sure, Dean. So, you’re really going to pretend that that thing in the kitchen was just two friends?”

“Yes!”

Sam continued to smile as he sat down at the table in front of his laptop. “Whatever you say, Dean. But, just so you know, even though Y/N and I are best friends, she’s never acted that way with me.”

Dean opened his mouth but closed it again right away. He couldn’t argue that he didn’t have feelings for Y/N, because of course he did. How could he not? She was gorgeous. But, more than that, she was smart, caring, thoughtful, and…perfect. Y/N was perfect. Way too perfect for a guy like him.

“Sammy, nothing is going on between Y/N and me. She’s amazing, yeah, but I’m, well, I’m me.”

Sam looked up from his computer, understanding and compassion filling his eyes. “Dean…”

“Look, I tried that relationship thing once,” Dean said, his face falling. “It didn’t work out. I’m not going to risk putting Y/N through the same thing just because I’m attracted to her.”

“Dean, you’re more than just attracted to her. Besides, you deserve to be happy. You both do. Don’t you want that?”

Dean drew in a breath and let it out roughly. Then he lifted his chin with resolve. “I have everything I want, Sammy. An awesome house, great wheels, good friends, and all the beer and pie I can eat. What more could I ask for?”

He turned away before Sam could argue the point further. He and Y/N were just fine the way they were. He didn’t want or need anything more from her. He couldn’t.

But, no matter how much he told himself that, there’s was always a little voice in the back of his head that wondered if he would ever truly believe it.

Y/N had been in London for two days, and Sam and Dean were already going stir crazy without her. She had become such a big part of both of their lives over the years that it felt strange not having her around. Almost foreign. So, they did what they always did when they needed a distraction: they found a case.

“So what’re we thinking?” Dean asked, as he cruised the Impala down the road. “Vamp nest?”

Sam looked down at the papers he was holding in his hands. “No bite marks. I’m thinking more like a Djinn.”

Dean shuddered. “Those blue man group knockoffs? Seriously?” he asked, looking over at Sam for confirmation.

Sam laughed gently. “Yeah, all signs point to it.”

“Fan-freaking-tastic….” Dean grumbled. “So, we’re looking for a dark, creepy warehouse like last time?”

“Maybe, maybe not. There’s some caves outside town. The djinn could be there.”

“Back to basics. I like it,” Dean declared. He stepped a little harder on the accelerator. “Well, let’s go put that genie back in its bottle.”

Two hours later, Sam and Dean were standing just inside the cave entrance, holding silver knives dipped in lambs blood. They were facing two different tunnels, both of them leading deeper into the cave.

Dean turned to Sam and grinned. “Pick your poison, Sammy. Left or right?”

Sam gestured towards the tunnel on the left. “I’ll take this one and you can take the other one. We’ll meet back here in 20 minutes.”

Dean nodded and started towards the tunnel on the right, but he stopped and turned back when Sam called his name. “Dean? Be safe.”

Dean nodded again, more soberly this time. “You too, Sammy.”

With that last little bit of familiar reassurance, they both took off, heading down the tunnels with their knives at the ready. Dean moved more slowly, remembering what had happened last time they faced a djinn. He measured each step down the dirt-covered pathway, his eyes scanning the darkness for any threats. He had almost made it to the turn at the end of the tunnel when he heard a scream coming from back where he’d started.

“Sam!” Dean yelled. He pivoted in a half-circle to run back down the passageway, but, before he could, he was hit from the side by something strong and solid. It knocked the breath right out of him and the knife right out of his hand. Before he could recover, the figure was on him, pressing its hands to his face. He just barely made out a tattooed arm and a steady blue glow before everything went black.

Dean woke up, breathing heavily, and looked around. He was lying in a bed in what he recognized as his and Lisa’s old bedroom. “What the hell?” he whispered.

He stood up from the bed and grabbed a pair of jeans off the floor. He pulled them on before adding a Led Zeppelin t-shirt he somehow knew would be in the nearby dresser. Once he was dressed he sat down on the edge of the bed to think.

“So, the djinn gave me back my life with Lisa. Well, joke’s on him,” he muttered with determination. “I was over Lisa a long time ago. It’ll be easy to leave this ‘fantasy’ life behind.”

He made his way out the door and down the stairs. He figured that the kitchen would have some knives that would make breaking out of this dream easy. One quick stab and he’d be back in that cave with Sam. Piece of cake.

His “piece of cake” plan went out the window the second he got to the kitchen and saw the familiar figure standing behind the counter with her back to him. It wasn’t Lisa: it was Y/N.

“Y/N?” he choked out, shock overwhelming him.

She whirled around and gifted him with one of her heart-stopping smiles. “Hey, babe. About time you woke up.”

“Babe?” he asked. What the hell was going on?

A thousand scenarios were running through Dean’s head, but none of them foresaw what Y/N was going to do next: she walked right up to him and kissed him with all the passion he had only dreamt she felt for him. His knees nearly buckled.

Once he had a chance to recover, he took control. He used his whole body to push Y/N backwards, not stopping until she was pressed up against the counter. He lifted her up and onto the edge, groaning at the sexy moan she emitted. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him closer, the passion building between them until it was scorching him. He ran his hand up her thigh and under the edge of her shirt. The feel of the soft skin there against his rough hand made him groan again, deeper this time. He pushed himself closer to her, his hands moving higher, before the sound of someone clearing their throat behind him made him stop.

He reluctantly pulled away from Y/N and spun around, shocked to find Sam standing there. “Sammy?”

“Hey, Dean. Sorry to, uh, interrupt. I just need to borrow my sister-in-law for a second.”

“Oh, God, Sam, I forgot,” Y/N muttered. She turned to Dean. “I promised Sam that I’d help him with some research for his doctoral thesis. I just have to go grab the printouts.” She smoothed her hair back down and hopped off the counter, giving Dean a quick kiss. “I’ll be right back and, then, we can pick up where we left off.”

He stared after Y/N as she bounded out of the room, his mouth hanging open in surprise. Sister-in-law? He and Y/N were married?! What the HELL was going on?

Sam looked at him quizzically, taking in his expression, and laughed. “You ok, man? You’re looking at Y/N really strangely.”

Dean shook his head and hid the confusion on his face. “Uh, yeah. Just a weird morning, that’s all.”

Sam was about to probe further when Y/N came back into the room with the papers. She started to talk to Sam, giving Dean the opportunity to look a little closer at her without either of them noticing. She was stunning, even more so than usual. She had her hair swept behind her shoulder, her gorgeous smile lighting up the entire room. She looked effortlessly beautiful, carefree, and….happy.

As if she could sense his gaze, she looked over at him and winked. It was in that moment that his whole world came into focus: he was the reason she was so happy. She was smiling because of him, she was happy because of him. Because they were together, because they were married.

But, it wasn’t real. None of this was. His heart dropped. She wasn’t smiling for him. She wasn’t even real. That wasn’t his Y/N. But, that didn’t stop him for wanting to hold her close and never let her go.

A few minutes later, Sam said goodbye and left, freeing up Y/N to turn towards him. “Now, where were we?” she whispered seductively as she made her way over to him.

She reached out to him, but he grabbed her wrist, stopping her. “Y/N, wait.”

“What is it?” she asked, bringing her other hand up to draw little circles on his chest, momentarily distracting him.

He took a deep breath to will himself to focus and looked down at her. “Y/N, this is all wrong.”

She stopped drawing the circles and met his gaze, concern in her eyes. “What do you mean wrong?”

“I mean this. All of this,” he yelled, gesturing at the house around him, “it’s all wrong. None of it’s real.”

“Dean, what are you talking about?”

He took her hands and squeezed them gently. “Y/N, I know this is going to sound crazy, but this whole thing, this house, this world, none of it is real. It’s just a fantasy a djinn put me in.”

Y/N raised her eyebrows. “A djinn?”

“Yeah. It’s like a second-rate genie. An evil second-rate genie.”

“A genie?” she asked uncertainly.

“Yes. And, he created this world to trap me so that he could kill me. I’m in danger every second I stay here.”

“Okay…let’s say I believe you,” she said cautiously, pulling her hands from his. “In this world of yours, do I exist?”

“Yes. We’ve worked together for years.”

She raised her eyebrows again. “Are we married?”

“No. We’re, uh, we’re just friends.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Why?”

“Wait, what?”

“You heard me, Winchester. Why aren’t we together? We love each other, don’t we?”

Dean shook his head and ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “It’s complicated, Y/N. Our life is different there. Riskier. Our job doesn’t leave a lot of room for happy endings.”

“Dean, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He sighed. “Look, I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I just need you to trust me.”

“Okay.”

“Y/N, please….Wait. What’d you say?”

She smiled. “I said, okay. I may not know what the heck you’re talking about, but I love you and trust you. And, if you’re in danger, I’ll do whatever I can to help you. So, how do we stop this, what’d you call it? A gin?”

A menacing voice boomed out from behind Y/N, startling both of them. “You don’t.”

Dean reacted with lightning speed, pushing Y/N behind him so his body blocked her from the man standing in the doorway. “Let me guess. You’re the djinn here to protect your little fantasy world with some cliche threats. How original.”

The man smiled darkly and walked closer. Dean slowly backed up as he advanced, guarding Y/N as he did so. “It’s more than just a simple threat, Dean. You’re not getting out of here. Besides, why would you want to? I’ve given you the perfect world.”

Dean felt Y/N’s hand touch his back, and he thought of the real Y/N, his Y/N. It gave him the push he needed and he laughed. “You think this is perfect? Ha! Somebody has an inflated opinion of themselves. That bed wasn’t even memory foam!”

The man rolled his eyes. “Stop with the deflection, Dean. You’re not going to be able to distract me with a bunch of corny one-liners.” Suddenly, a clap of thunder boomed outside, shaking the entire house. “This is my reality. I control it, not you.”

“Not for long,” Dean growled. “All I have to do is kill myself, and then you have no power.”

Panic flashed in the djinn’s eyes before he covered it back up with pride. “But, why would you want to? Here, you and Y/N can be together. You can live out your lives happily. Why would you want to give that up?”

Dean felt Y/N’s hand tighten around his shirt. “Because it’s not real. But, you’re right about one thing: my perfect life is with Y/N. My Y/N. And, I’m going to do whatever I need to do to get back to her.”

He rushed forward and tackled the djinn, throwing him against a wall and knocking him out. When he turned back around, Y/N was standing in front of him, holding a kitchen knife. Before he could question her, she held it out to him, handle first. “Take it.”

“What are you doing?”

She smiled and walked up to him, taking his hand and placing the knife in it. “I believe you now. And, if what you said is true, that means I’m not real. But there’s a real version of me out there, right?” Dean nodded. “And, you love her? Real me, I mean.” Dean nodded again, drawing a relieved smile out of her. “Then, do it. And, when you get back to your world, I want to find me. Find us. Because, I love you, Dean, and I bet real me does too.”

Dean smiled and leaned down to give her one last kiss. He could hear the djinn stirring behind him, so he knew he needed to act fast. “I love too, Y/N. I promise you that I’m not gonna waste any more time.”

With one last look into her beautiful eyes, Dean found the strength he needed to thrust the knife into his chest, plunging the world back into darkness.

When Dean came to, he was still lying in the cave’s tunnel, with the djinn standing over him. “It’s impossible,” the djinn whispered. “No one’s ever gotten out so fast.”

“Yeah?” Dean growled, propping himself up on his elbow. “Well, don’t I feel special.”

He rolled onto his stomach, using his momentum to propel himself over to where his silver knife laid, in the same place it had been knocked to in the fight. Before the djinn could stop him, he flipped up into a crouch and stabbed the knife right into the djinn’s heart, killing it instantly. He pushed the dead body away before standing up fully and wiping his hands on his jeans.

“Dean!” Sam’s frantic cry sounded from somewhere in the distance.

“Over here!”

Sam’s hurried footsteps grew closer until he finally appeared around the corner. “Dean! What happened?”

“The djinn got me.”

Sam looked him over quickly before addressing him. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t under very long. But….”

“But, what?”

He grinned again. “I’m gonna need to use your computer. I’ve got a ticket I need to buy.”

Y/N was sitting on the bed in her hotel room in London, thumbing through some brochures the hotel had provided. She wasn’t particularly interested in anything she was finding, but she was bored and she had nothing better to do.

She and Bobby had wrapped up the case a few hours ago, and he had flown out right afterwards. But, there weren’t any flights back to Kansas until the morning, so she was stuck here for one more night. She had originally reveled in having a night alone without any men taking up her space, but, after ordering room service and taking a bath, she had run out of fun things to do. So, now, she was just sitting there, looking at boring brochures.

She was about to give up and turn on some trash TV when a knock sounded at her door. She wasn’t expecting anyone, so she grabbed her gun off the nightstand and cautiously approached the door. “Who is it?”

“Y/N, it’s Dean. Open up.”

“Dean?” she whispered skeptically under her breath. She stashed her gun but pulled her holy water from her pocket before she opened the door. As soon as she did, she surprised Dean by throwing holy water right into his face.

“Hey!” he yelled loudly. He sputtered and wiped the water off his face.

“Sorry,” she whispered, flashing him an apologetic smile. “But, you can never be too careful.” She opened the door wider to let him in. “What are you doing here, Dean?”

“I needed to talk to you,” he said, brushing past her and heading towards the middle of the room.

“In London? Dean, you’re afraid of flying.”

“It couldn’t wait.” He turned around and faced her, surprising her with the intensity in his gaze. “I was attacked by a djinn.”

“Wait, what?” Y/N yelled, her eyes widening. She moved closer to him. “What happened? Are you okay?!”

“I’m fine,” he said with a smile. “But, being trapped in that djinn reality made me realize something important about my life.” He reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her towards him gently. “About our life.”

She held her breath and stared up at him, her heart beating faster. “Y/N, I’m in love with you.”

“You’re…you’re what?” she stammered, completely shocked at what she had just heard. She had to grip tighter onto his hand just to stay standing.

“I’m in love with you, Y/N. Before this happened, I thought I could ignore it. I thought we’d both be better off staying friends, but I can’t ignore it anymore. When I was faced with the choice to stay in the djinn reality or leave it, I had to make a quick decision: to stay in the life I’d always wanted or to come back here to you.”

“And, you came back?”

Dean grinned. “Well, when my 60 seconds came around, I realized I had everything I ever wanted, but nothing I really needed. And I think that what I need is here. And I came all this way to see if maybe you might think so too.”

“You took a plane all the way here just to tell me that?”

“Y/N, I love you. I’d take ten planes if that’s what it took to be with you.”

Y/N smiled and moved closer to Dean, placing her hands on his chest. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against him, leaning his head down towards hers. “I love you, too, Dean,” she whispered before their lips met, solidifying their commitment to each other. And, no matter how passionate his fantasy kiss with Y/N had been, it didn’t compare to this. This kiss lived up to all of Dean’s dreams. It made his legs nearly buckle all over again. Nothing could beat the real Y/N. Nothing at all.

Forevers- @hamartiamacguffin @mrsdeanfuckingwinchester @katymacsupernatural @impandagrl @cyrilconnelly @damnandriel-in-hell @impala-dreamer @castielhasthetardis @jarpadandjensenaremyheroes @shotgunintheimpala

Dean Tags- @akshi8278

#mimi's romcom fluff challenge #dean x reader #dean fluff #dean fanfiction #dean fanfic #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural reader insert

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travelita · 4 years

Text

Interview Angel Amita Leuna

1. 1. Okay, Miss Angel, what was the specific incident that got you to this interview? What has earned you the right to be an authority on this topic?

I was always longing to leave my birth town, Tonsberg, Norway. It felt a bit boring and I did not feel at home. Felt culture and the climate were cold and quite conservative. Since I was young, I dreamt about leaving and seeing the world….Curiosity and excitement to get to know other cultures, languages and see the planet, the first big dream destination was India. Was attracted to the ancient yoga knowledge, practices, and meditation, it’s spirituality. To travel for expansion and excitement.

2. What is your brand, your topic exactly about?

Means freedom, expansion, getting to know other cultures and languages, learning, growing, Feel like freedom and taking a break from “normal life” always gives so much and one never knows who one will meet, Met many beautiful friends this way. Living life fully.

3. Why is it important?

To grow, learn, expand, my mind and heart, develop compassion for various types of people, ways of living and states of evolution. Have enriching experiences, it’s always expansive and educational. It helps us have a deeper understanding of life and different people and less judgment.

4. Now that I know what it is, now that I know why it’s important and relevant, how are you implementing this on your travels? I mean like, is there a process, that you follow when travelling?

Following my calling & pull to visit certain places. Nowadays, due to work I love, hosting life-changing retreats here in Peru, I will usually need to plan things more ahead of tie to fit between retreats and commitments, The work I do in itself is traveling and bringing people to amazing places and teaching yoga and meditation, facilitating sacred ceremonies, helping people grow, learn and heal. I used to travel more spontaneously before and just keep traveling, more nomadic, this isn’t possible now. I travel every October/ November to Europe to go on Europe Tour with the Indian Master Amma to different countries, like a traveling community, attending her public programs, it’s very inspiring and amazing, We sleep in tents even in November and stay in hostels or with local devotees. I also give some breaks between programs so I can see the cities and nature we are in, plus visit local friends… Travel to amazing nature and sacred sites various places, visit spiritual places and centers, past retreat participants and friends, plus family. We may camp, do CouchSurfing, Airbnb, stay with friends.. occasionally stay in hotels if needed. Keeping open time to go with the flow and receive advice from locals. Interested in off touristic trails and meet the local culture. I also volunteer to do healing work for the land wherever I go and this takes me to villages and national parks off the typical trails, which makes us see so much more… using local buses, rideshares, planes, occasionally renting cars. We also like visiting health food stores and vegan restaurants.

5. What if people took advantage of your tips and steps you are providing? What will happen, how will their travels change?

Maybe they would save money and also be able to visit more spiritual paces for their own growth and healing. Maybe they would meet Amma, which is priceless receiving her darshan ( Hug ) and be in her presence…It’s also free to meet Amma

Maybe they would visit more spiritual centers and communities and conscious places, energy vortexes, and temples, learn about the history and evolution of humanity and feel the healing powers of these places. Explore off the broken path, and visit breathtaking nature. Find their passions and trust and follow their callings. Learn languages and about cultures and expand their mind and feel compassion and a deeper trust in life…

6. Now we would like to get just some general information about you and your travels:

– When did you start traveling?

– Do you remember how you felt when you traveled alone for the first time?

– How did you, or do you deal with fears?

– Is there a place where you have been and you would definitely not recommend it for women on their own and why?

– Do you still have this excitement, when you go for a trip?

– what are your top 5 destinations and why?

– Funniest story that happened to you when traveling?

When I was 12, I went on my first trip alone. It was by train from Tonsberg, Norway, my birth town to Copenhagen, Denmark. The train ride was 9 hours. My father and mother knew I would make it and that it would be good for me. They trusted. It was exciting and a bit scary. I felt quite safe and met a nice adult man on the train who kind of took a bit care of me. All went well.

I think Some areas in Cairo are not good or safe for women as one gets a lot of attention and as a white woman, they often think we enjoy sex a lot and are easy. Some places near the Red Sea, such as Hurghada one receive a lot of attention and many guys are hunting for a white lady to be with and just have sex and they may not understand we are not cheap. One just gets a lot of attention and hassle, it may not be so unsafe, but it’s very tiring. Some areas of Luxor are also like that. Some areas of India can be hard as a lady alone, bets to travel with ones son, male friend or partner/ hubby.

YES! EXCITEMENT ABOUT A TRIP! EVEN INLAND IN PERU WHERE WE LIVE. SO MUCH TO EXPLORE EVEN HERE.

5 TOP DESTINATIONS:

hMmm a bit hard one, there are several.

LET ME DO MY BEST!

MOUNT SHASTA, CALIFORNIA ( NORTHERN CALI ):

This is considered the first earth chakra. The energy here is very powerful. It is also considered home to the ancient Lemurian civilization. Inside the mountain is an inner-city of Light with ascended beings from Lemuria, this is where they rebuilt their culture and protected it. The vibration is very high in Shasta. I felt at home and had much healing and remembrance there. It made me remember my Lemurian roots and also connect to the part of my life mission. The area has breathtaking nature, and people who live there are often old souls and very connected spiritually. I loved it… and would go back several times if possible…Friendly people. Cons: It’s expensive. The stay I had there years ago for almost 3 months, helped my spiritual path speed up fast and brought me closer to my life mission which I am doing now. I received a lot of guidance and understanding. It was life-changing. One of the most powerful places on earth. Felt like home.

PERU:

I love Peru and live here. Like everywhere else, there are pluses and minuses. The energies here are amazing and powerful. It’s a place for a constant inner journey and open connection. The old cultures here had so much wisdom and respect for the earth, Pacha Mama. I lead retreats here. The temples and sacred sites are special, Many portals and multidimensional places. I love Machu Picchu, one of my spiritual homes . and home to an ascended civilization of Lemuria, Inka, and Atlantis. Colorful cultures, always festivals, many artisans, fresh fruits and cacao from the jungles. Not much pollution in some places, no chemtrails, liberal country. Ancient cultures with much respect for Pacha mama, ancient spirituality, very powerful places.. live here hosting retreats and seeing people experience transformation and life changes.. my service.. blessed to do it.. always guided by the mountains and sites.. its affordable too.

Cons: disorganized system, many uneducated people, people do not trust each other, if you are white, you are looked upon as rich, and gringa.. people want to take advantage of one. Lima is not safe, many robberies. Need to be careful…

CANADA:

LOVE CANADA. SOME OF THE MOST FRIENDLY PEOPLE ON THE PLANET. Gov is open to immigrants and various cultures, I can stay 6 months a year, Hav many friends. People are generally honest and trustworthy. Always very welcome, much space. Breathtaking nature. Always feeling safe. And taken care of, Canada treats us so well. We love Bc and Vancouver island, nature there and friendly folks… so welcoming, lots of organic stores and conscious communities. My soul feels at peace in Vancouver island, my soul finds rest there, Vancouver island and Bc was also part of old Lemuria and I can feel .been coming and going for years and it’s always very enriching and nice… could live there.. at some point. I feel quite Canadian indeed.

ISRAEL / INDIA:

Home to yoga & meditation, been 8 times. I am a yogi since I was 15, now I am 42. Been meditating for 25 years every day also doing yoga. I lead a yogic lifestyle. India has many ancient temples. I love visiting Ammas ashram in Kerala. India is affordable. Spiritually enriching. Always deep and another world from the rest of the planet, Indian people speak English and it’s quite safe and affordable. The jewelry, clothes are amazing the artisans. Nice tropical climate. Love Ammas ashram. Amma is an avatar of pure love and compassion who has embraced over 30 million people around the world. It is a true blessing to visit Her.

ISRAEL… very interesting history and I feel I lived there and gave me a remembrance, People are warm and friendly. Lots of fire energy there, one does not get lazy. Love Jerusalem and it’

s powerful energy there is resurrection temple in higher realms.. mixed cultures, representing various stages in my life, all kinds of spirituality can be found there. I had healing in Jerusalem, was amazing to visit. People were very welcoming. I didn’t feel afraid even due to conflicts. I love the dates as well. It’s a bit costly though. But people were just so inviting and warm.

FUNNIEST STORY? Hmmm, not sure..

Must be crazy things in India, like signs hanging not straight with bad English that makes on a laugh. Crazy things like cows blocking the way for cars. Once we almost lost the train towards Delhi from Ajmer due to a cow and had to run and literally stop the train. India can be a pretty crazy place seriously. We did eventually make it to the plane.. but it was crazy. Things are upside-down in India somehow…

7. What do you want people to do?

Travel eco-friendly, travel to expand, learn and heal. And travel to grow and learn languages and about cultures to develop compassion. Travel to volunteer and help. And serve. Come to one of my amazing, life, changing yoga and meditations retreats in Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca or the Sacred Valley as well as Egypt!

Thanks so much.

NORWEGIAN CITIZEN RESIDING IN THE SACRED VALLEY OF THE INKAS SINCE 2012

FOUNDER OF SACRED JOURNEYS RETREATS *& MOTHER EARTH CHARITY

MOTHER TO A BEAUTIFUL SON, MEDITATOR FOR 25 YEARS, YOGA TEACHER, SPIRITUAL HEALER, THETAHEALER, CLASSICAL HOMEOPATH, VEGAN WHO ALSO LIVES PARTIALLY AS A BREATHARIAN ( PRANIC LIVING SINCE 2017 )

www.sacredjourneysnow.org

www.yogaandhealing.weebly.com

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