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perpetuelledaydreaming · 2 years

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cruel intentions | chapter nineteenth

summary: honestly, fuck it.

warnings: smut (minors dni)

listen to: You get me so high - The Neighbourhood | Afterglow - Taylor Swift (playlist here)

Please go look at the playlist, I revamped it all so you can read the chapters with the new songs and also maybe give your guesses of what's coming next given the songs?

word count: 3.3 k

series masterlist + read the next chapter early on my ko-fi!!

You didn’t sleep that night either. It had been over a week or so since you’d gotten to sleep more than a couple of hours; the growing pain in your chest didn’t allow you to -a longing and deep ache that you’d only felt once before in your life-, to the point that it was starting to worry you. It was hard to breathe, as usual, inhaling and exhaling attempting to calm yourself down.

It failed because the only thing you could see was Peter’s pained face.

It was around five a.m. when you were tired of turning and tossing on your bed all night that you decided to do something about it. You woke up when the sun was just starting to come up, realizing you needed to hurry up you walked silently to your lab still in your oversize pajama and without any shoes.

The initiation of your lab was kept the same, the same code, the same routine of snapping your fingers and the whole place would light up. You walked around it, still able to see your last notes on the desk with the tools sprawled on the lab, just like you’d left it. Part of you wondered if Tony had left it like this because it hurt too much for him to go back, just like it hurt you.

You walked to the small platform and stayed still while you looked around, you pressed something on your watch before you finally spoke.

“HAPPY?” you asked softly.

“Yes, Mrs. Stark?” The AI answered you, a bit of trepidation in his voice which you found funny.

“Can you check my vitals?” you asked nervously, feeling cold sweat running down your back.

“On it, Mrs. Stark,”

The sensors began to trace your body as you stayed still, trying to regulate your breath while your feet tapped furiously on the platform.

“It’s my heart? Or my brain?” you asked, holding your hands in closed fists so hard that you knew crescent moons would appear on your palms.

The AI remained silent for other seconds. “No sign of cardiac anomaly or unusual brain activity,” HAPPY answered sternly as you nodded your head furiously.

“That’s good, so it’s the alcohol? Any side-effects from whatever I had over those days?” you asked while you turned around, pacing around the platform and letting out a sigh while passing a hand through your hair.

“My diagnosis is that you’ve experienced severe anxiety during the last few days,”

The words made you stop dead in your tracks while you turned around to the screen. There it was, the diagnosis was right there. It was all in your fucking brain, you cursed silently as you walked out of the lab, the sun was already up as you hurried down the hallways back into your room. You closed the door, as best as you could with Peter’s dent on it before going to the bathroom and closing the door quickly.

Your eyes fell into the mirror in front of you, there were already tears threatening to fall from your eyes while you were panting.

“Get your shit together,” you growled to yourself, as you tried to wipe the tears away while you glared at you furiously.

Angry filled your chest as you looked at yourself, wondering where the hell the strong Stark had gone and had left a pathetic whiny girl instead. It wasn’t you, it wasn’t supposed to be you.

Your vexation was broken though, as you heard some noise coming from the hallway outside of your room. You took a deep breath before opening the door to the bathroom and peeking through the main door.

There he was. Closing the door softly while he carried some bags in his hands. Peter didn’t want to wake anyone up, instead, he wanted to be as silent as he could. He hadn’t slept that night either, none of the nights since you’d fought for that matter, even less when he’d seen his social media filled with pictures of you in multiple bars.

He’d gone to the compound since Tony had asked him to, not because he wanted to be away but because you still seemed to be running away from your feelings, from him. Peter had decided that he was done chasing you around three a.m., he wondered if he was a coward for running away from you but he concluded that it was the same that you’d done before to him.

You couldn’t open up to him, you just couldn’t and it pained Peter too much to stay there.

Even more when he turned around and saw you, staring at him with a pained expression. He watched you silently for a moment, he watched as you silently walked forward to him but Peter refused, he refused to be dropped a whole new layer of hurt onto him. He began to walk away, wondering if you would let him be, passing right in front of you without a word.

He doesn’t know for a moment if it would’ve hurt more if you’d talked to him rather than watched him walk away silently.

You consider it for a moment as well, part of you wants to run back to your room but you linger in the doorway.

Were you would actually let him leave?

You’re running behind him before you even notice it yourself. In only an oversize shirt and no shoes, you all through the compound until you reached the main door. He’s still there thankfully, packing his bags into a car.

“Peter,” you said softly as he finished placing the bags in the trunk, he turned around for you, surprise that you’d gone downstairs. “What are you doing?”

Peter huffed. “I’m going home,”

You shook your head. “You were supposed to stay here, you can’t just leave!” you explained to him while you looked back at the compound.

He looked at you with widened eyes. He wanted to believe that you would say whatever you were feeling for him, he wanted to believe that you would just talk to him so he could do something about it. He waited for it, but after a few seconds, he sighed as he placed the heel of his hand on his eye, already tired as the sun was coming up.

“But I am,” Peter sighed. You stared at him, he could feel your heartbeat from where it was, it was hammering so hard that Peter got worried for a second, and he frowned. “Tell me the truth, do you want me here?”

Yes, you thought but your mouth didn’t seem to formulate it.

“I…”

Peter felt another pang of hurt in his chest. He closed the trunk softly as he gave you one last look before he walked to the passenger's door and closed the door, the car drove away as you were still there, watching him leave.

He’d given up on you. It hit you like a ton of bricks as you took shallow breaths but instead of tears attempting to fall from your eyes, you could only feel a hot burning rumble running through your chest.

“Fuck it,” you muttered silently while you walked towards your room again.

Fuck the wager, fuck trying to avoid your feelings, fuck feeling fucking weak. Fuck everything that had been attempting to hold you down.

You ignored the curious glances of people, you could only think about one thing and one thing only. When you reached the room, you tore the oversize shirt from your body as you jumped in the shower as quickly as you could. You barely dried your body as you began to dress again while you

“HAPPY, find the address to Peter Parker’s place,” you grumbled while dressing with the first things you could find.

“Mrs. Stark, Mr. Stark ordered a complete lockdown of this information, it’s even deleted from the internet.” HAPPY to inform you.

“Override Karen’s system and give me the address,” you hounded again at the AI as you placed some make-up over to your face.

“Mrs. Stark I-”

“HAPPY, I’m not going to say it again,” you replied with a deep breath. “Please,” you insisted.

By the time Peter arrived at his apartment, the sun was already up but there weren’t many people in the streets so early on a Sunday morning, he was just entering his bags to his apartment as he tried to forget how gorgeous but also hurt you looked as he left.

Peter wonder if he was being a coward by letting you go, he wondered if he should be back at the compound knocking down on your door and simply asking for one more chance with you. He suspected there was something that you weren’t telling him. At least if you reject him then, he wouldn’t be dealing with the guilt of not trying one more time to eat him alive like at that moment.

Peter groans as he realizes, the only thing he’d wanted to do was to be with you, he messed up by leaving. He knows he shouldn’t have left, his body moves before he notices it himself.

He walked determinedly towards the door of his apartment but just as he opened it, you were there.

You hoped that you didn’t look insane, you were practically wearing the first things you’d found in your closet, your hair was damp from the shower that you’d taken and you had barely any make-up on. You were also panting, part of it was just the anxiety of facing Peter but the other was for the fact that you’d flown to Peter’s place and you were hoping that no one in the sky had detected you.

But it didn't matter to you now, not with how pretty he looked in the golden sunshine that was entering his apartment, not by the way his eyes filled with awe as he took you in.

“How did you-” he asked, the hint of a smile on his lips before you cut him off.

You launched forward and pressed your lips against his while you wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled yourself tightly against him.

Peter got the hint quickly as he wrapped his arms around your torso and pulled you tightly against him while he kissed you. He quickly used his web shooters to close the door to his place before he lifted you up and you secured your legs around his waist as he carried you to his room. You moaned loudly as he settled you on the bed. His lips were hot and your breathing was already uneven as his hands roamed your body, he unbuttoned the cardigan that you’d chosen to wear while you tugged his shirt upward, he got the hint as he tore his shirt over his head. Your eyes widened slightly as you stare at him with flushed cheeks, your nails raking down his abs as he looked at how you bit your lip when you reached the edge of his pants.

Peter stared at you for a second while you simply nodded, giving him all the confirmation he’d ever need it. You began to work with the loops of his belt as both of you kneeled on his bed while he pressed soft kisses on your collarbone.

You loved how Peter Parker felt about you. You loved how he kissed you softly and passionately, you loved how his fingertips felt on you as he skimmed his fingers along your sides to your breasts, you loved how his eyes felt on you like he was drinking you in like you were more the perfect thing in the world for him.

You’re thoughts break away as Peter lifted you up easily and moved you delicately onto your back, covering your body with his; as if he was reminding you of his strength. He kisses you deeply, more purposefully than before he rolled his hips against yours, and you moaned loudly as you feel his length against your core, now only the thin layer of your underwear keeping you apart.

The heat was radiating off from his boy and you couldn’t get enough of him as his kisses became fierce and your breathing remained shallow, you suddenly felt your hands shaking as you cupped his face with your hands while wrapping your legs tighter around his hips. You wanted him so badly, you wanted only to feel him.

Peter kissed your neck as he moved your jaw with his nose while his hands began to play with your breasts while he rocked his hips against your core, you couldn’t hold back the gasp that escaped your lips as he pressed against yours. Before you realize it, he lowered his head and kissed your chest, he cups around his hand on one, rolling one nipple between his thumb and index finger before taking the other one to his mouth, he attached his lips to your right nipple, slowly starting to suck on it.

“Peter,” you gasped softly as your fingers tugged onto his curls as peter continued sucking on your nipples.

Peter loved how his name sounded on your lips. He looks up at you through lust-filled eyes, his cheeks tinged pink as his eyes were looking at you bright and shiny, lust-filled but with the same adoration, he usually had for you. You squirmed under his touch as he began to kiss his way down your body, leaving hot opened mouth kisses on your stomach, then on your hipbone until he reached your navel.

You quickly pushed your hips up and Peter pulled your panties down before settling them in his bed as he kneeled. His eyes raked your body unashamedly and for the first time with any guy you felt the urge of covering yourself, he was looking at you as if you were a precious thing that only he could look at. Peter smiled as he looked at you, breathing heavily, your legs wrapped around his torso, puffy lips flushed chest heaving directly in his vision.

Peter realized that he would never understand how he was so lucky to have you. He leaned down and pressed his lips softly to yours. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured affectionately.

You’d never felt your chest pound like that in your entire life as Peter began to lower himself again, grabbing your thighs and putting them on his shoulders as he settle between your legs. He kissed your inner thighs first before he dived in. His tongue, flat on your pussy before he kissed your tongue while he teased your entrance with his fingers, igniting a fire in your body as you moan loudly.

He continued to administer careful attention to your pussy as you began to move your hips into his face, crying out for him.

“More,” you whined as you feel Peter’s grip on your ribs get stronger as his tongue wet and warm felt perfect on your clit before it started to work you open.

You moaned loudly as you watched how his shoulder muscles flexed as he used his strength to keep you in place, preventing you from squirming. You cried out loudly after a certain movement of his tongue and you were sure he was smirking against your pussy. You loved seeing a cocky side of him but you were too high in lust to actually think coherently as Peter brought you to the edge.

A wave of pleasure washes over you as you tugged on his curls harder causing Peter to grunt, the sound sending vibrations across your pussy, making you fall apart at seams. Peter holds you tight as you arch your back, pushing against his mouth, legs trembling as he helps you ride your orgasms with his mouth.

“You were so good,” Peter praised as he pushes himself back up and kissed you hard.

You part your legs for him to settle between as you taste yourself in his mouth, hissing as he pressed his length against yours, all too sensitive for that. Part of you wonders if you came back too fast but your thoughts fly out the window as you push down the waistband of his boxers, wrapping your hand around the base of his length.

Peter hisses back as he plants his forearm beside your head, his head on the crook of your neck as you work on him softly but Peter quickly stopped you, grabbing your wrist and placing it on the other side of your head.

“I want to be inside of you,” he whispered and you nodded frantically.

And then, you were kissing again, a kiss filled with moans and gasps, aggressive and vital as you dug your nails into Peter’s back to bring him closer to you, while Peter quickly settled completely between your legs and guides his cock between your folds, kissing your lips hard as you take him.

You whimpered, softly, adjusting to him. You could feel him throbbing inside of you and you felt full as you breathed heavily, nearly hyperventilating as your eyes met. He moved slightly and you hissed, clenching around him as you adjusted to his side.

“Okay?”

“Yeah,”

He leaned down and kissed you as he began to rock his hips into yours and met him halfway, moving your hips to his rhythm as Peter looked at you carefully. He was suddenly struck with your beauty as your eyes met, your rosy cheeks and glossy eyes while you looked at him as if he was the only person on this earth.

He leaned down and kissed you softly, while you mewled loudly, feeling every inch of himself grinding and stroking against your walls. With a sharp moan, you could feel the pressure inside of your building once more as he snapped his hops a bit harder than before. His tempo increased and you began to feel as if your body was on fire once more.

Sex was almost always good, but, this was like an out-of-body experience. Being held by Peter’s arms as he hovered over you, his head on your neck as he grunted and moaned, his skin glistening and his abs clenching over and over as he continued to thrust into you, it was everything, everything you could’ve wished for.

Peter shifted both of you suddenly, he was on his knees as he easily pushed you upwards with him, your legs intertwined with his as you placed your hand on his neck and watched him softly.

“Fuck,” Peter grunted, his voice raspy, while you let out a particularly breathy moan into his ear. “You’re so perfect, I never want to lose you,” he admitted before thrusting hard into you.

“I love, oh,”

Your head snapped up and your bottom lip wobbled slightly, it was perfect. He thrust up harder, causing you to wine loudly as he picked up his pace even more and you began to match up his thrusts, moving up and down while your breath bounced and your thighs began to shake while you took him so well. The intense, tremendous pressure starts to build up and both of your motions began to become erratic. You kissed him hard, feeling his fingertips on your wrist and on your back, you were so close that you don’t know where he ends and you begin.

“Yes,” you moaned, throwing your head back again as Peter gripped your hips tighter and plunged harder and deeper inside of you.

With a low, animalistic growl Peter thrust one more time for you and a strangled noise slipped your lips as you drape your arms around his shoulders, breathing haggard and choked as you begin to tremble, digging your nails into his shoulders as you fall apart. Your body shakes as Peter continues to fuck you through your orgasm.

He grunted and moaned, chasing his release as he holds your hips down and you whimper as he rutted himself deep into you. The unbelievable way that you clench around him, the heat from deep inside you sucked him in that his muscles contract sharply as he comes, letting out a groan into your neck, his cock twitching as shivers run through both of your bodies.

“I love you,” you finally whispered.

You finally slept well that day, with Peter holding you tightly in his bed.

author's note: ok fucking finally chapter 19th is here and im so excited for this one. Things are going to go downhill from here lol so welcome to the rollercoaster of the next few chapters! as always thank you so much if you decide to support me on my ko-fi and leaving any comments or a like or a reblog truly makes me the happiest.

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taglist: @walkintheprk @jeonzll @hoetel-manager @pbeckn26 @novaspietro @s-we-e-t-t-ea @spideys-world @3louisee @lnmp89 @coffeeandcrimeshows @dreamsarecloserwithyou @danslamer-eternelle @mayleenicole5676 @teamspideyman @ang3liclov3ly @hannahferru @nctma15 @happypopcornprincess @msperfectrocks @poseylove

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toyybox · 1 month

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Spiderwebs #30: Preparation

Masterlist

content: no warnings :)

• —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

It was a lot like planning for a vacation, but more stressful. For Heather, at least. Her packing had the frantic, frenzied pace of a burrowing shrew. She came up with a list of things to bring: clothes, food, money, a weapon—better safe than sorry, she told him—coats, water, more food? Toothbrushes, soap, sedatives—she wouldn’t offer an explanation for this one—buy gas, gloves, boots, and so on.

Jackie certainly wasn’t taking this any more seriously than a vacation. He hadn’t gone outside in a while, and besides that, he hadn’t left the vicinity of Heather's house for several months now. He found himself curious as to what it’d be like. Had the world changed at all while he was gone? No longer was he privy to the knowledge free men took for granted. News never reached his secluded life. He wouldn't know if there was high water coming or if the Swedes landed on the sun.

Like Heather, he also packed a few things. Nothing impressive. A new book from Heather’s shelf—something by Oscar Wilde about a portrait—alongside his clothes, a pencil and paper, the dollar bill he'd taken from Matthew, and one of Heather’s old backpacks to carry it all.

On the second day, she also handed him a heavy, black wool coat. It went a few inches below his hips, and was studded by brass buttons all along the front.

“I think it looks good,” she offered.

It did look very intimidating in the mirror. He pulled the coat off and shrugged. Petty things like vanity no longer appealed to him. There was no time for such luxuries. He could remember being invested in his appearance, long ago. He missed being able to care about stupid things. He missed buying his own clothes. Heather’s fashion sense was okay, but it wasn’t the same.

There was also the matter of the cop, with his warning of returning in two weeks or so. Evidence was key, and they needed it gone. With a gallon of gasoline and an old firepit in the yard, Heather burned the tapes, the cassette recorder, the polaroids of Jackie’s open chest and exposed organs, hell, even the ropes. It all went up in flames, went black and curled around the edges, until there was only a pile of ash and char. She cleaned the blood off her tools and gutted the house of stains from the inside-out.

The third day arrived with a flurry of snow outside. The intensity of the sun was wholly unfamiliar to Jackie, and it took a minute for his eyes to adjust. They shoved their luggage into the back of the car. Jackie was happy to learn that he could sit in the front.

“What?” she said when he let out a sigh of relief. “Did you think I’d keep you in the trunk?”

He laughed at this, but it was an uneasy smile he wore. It was hard to tell with her. What sorts of things she found ridiculous, and what lines she wasn’t opposed to crossing.

Still, things were generally okay. He was safe. He was out of the silence, out of the isolation, and he felt okay. He felt happy. Before this, his happiness was brief and based on whatever small luxury could distract him. Maybe a painkiller, maybe a break from the tests. But his happiness now was more of a pervading contentment. It was a constant, heavy high in his heart, felt in the far edges of his soul.

Although he had found it redundant, Heather had an idea with strings of thread. Before they left, she taped up a string near the front door, and also to the hallway’s entrance. This, she informed him, would reveal if anybody had come in and searched the house. The thread would snap easily when someone walked through it. It wasn’t clear what the benefit of this knowledge was, if she would go to jail either way, but it seemed to calm Heather down a bit.

The wind scratched at Jackie’s face when he stuck his head out the window. The flecks of falling snow pierced his skin. The cold stung his eyes, making them water. He didn’t care. The feeling of movement and freedom was exhilarating. Heather started the car with a jerk of the gear shift. And off they went, out of the house, into whatever lay behind the highways and empty roads.

He rolled the window up after a while, then turned to her. “How long are we leaving for?”

“Three weeks.” Her grip on the steering wheel was tight enough to nearly bruise. “Longer, if we need to.”

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know. Stop asking me questions, I’m going to be sick.”

Indeed, her expression had not shifted from dull panic. There were dark circles under her eyes. Something played on the radio, but the melody was too quiet to recognize. She turned it off with a small, barely noticeable frown.

Jackie left the subject alone and leaned his face against the window. This was the best day of his life, he thought.

The sky was starting to turn black. They left the house late, to draw as little suspicion as possible. Streetlights shone like cat’s eyes on the sides of the road, streaky and long with motion. He thought he saw a few people, passing by, their faces blurry and indistinct. There were trees, pines with bristling needles, bare birches, old oaks. Snow stained the sidewalks in shades of dirty white. There were one or two other cars, but not many. Maybe it was a holiday. Maybe it was Christmas.

“What’s the date?” he asked.

“I told you, stop asking—” The tension eased from her shoulders, but only slightly. “Sorry. I’m tired. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

Well, he could wait. He was good at waiting. Jackie wondered how long he had been waiting, locked down there—it could have been weeks or years, and he would never know. But that was behind him, now. That was in the past. He could file it away with all his other bad memories. There was no point in dwelling on it. He had lived, and he would continue to live, and that was all. It was nothing to worry about.

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Taglist:

@theelvishcowgirl

@lthrboy

@whumpy-wyrms

@yassifiedinformation

@creppersfunpalooza

#whump #whump writing #my writing #Spiderwebs toyybox #this one's just a short plot-relevant chapter #Road trip yay!!!#best part of a road trip is listening to a FIRE MIXTAPE!!!! 🔥🔥🔥💯💯💯 unfortunately Heather is a LOSER!!!!!!!!! 💥💥💥#There's no music but at least Jackie can stare silently out of a window for 5 hours #Look the bar is really low at this point he's having the time of his life #Since the gang will be out and about I should mention I don't live in Washington State so I am using a map #This trip would technically only be half an hour #but Heather takes a bunch of detours because she doesn't know anything about travelling (or where she's going for that matter)#so it's going to be a long drive after all...

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curioussubjects · 3 years

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“Probably think you’re overcompensating:” Perception, Masculinity & Queer!Dean

So I’ve been wanting to write about my particular take on Dean, queerness, and masculinity because all the time I see takes, and I get into discussions, and I keep having to repeat myself. Not exactly an issue except peddling takes via hyperlink is much easier. This post is a bit of a journey, as anything I write tends to be, but the central thread here is fairly straightforward: emotional vulnerability. Most of my understanding of Dean circles around issues of emotional vulnerability and perception, which is not wholly unconnected to my reading of Cas and happiness -- that is, allowing yourself to be open and vulnerable, and accepting your worth is crucial to accurate perceptions of reality.

In the beginning, we had John Winchester: after Mary died, John “was just a shell.” He became entirely closed off and focused on one thing, and one thing only: finding YED and killing monsters. John actively suppressed his grief over Mary by immersing himself in hunting, a new found mission meant to avenge and protect. The change in John is so marked that in our encounters with younger John lead to his own disgust at the parenting Dean describes, without knowing it’s himself he is censoring. Furthermore, in the Winchester motto being “saving people, hunting things, the family business,” we can see into what drove John in his mission: his guilt in not being able to save Mary, hunting as an outlet for that guilt, the imposition of that mission onto his sons. When Mary died, John’s entire philosophy and modeling of how to be Father and Husband (and Man, really) rested on his ability to be a sword and shield. A protector, unflappable, steady, focused. Someone who should always put the mission first, with little to no distractions.

Dean, as eldest son and the natural second in command, inherited John’s mission and philosophy. While John was away, Dean was in charge of protecting the family (Sam), and was expected to that steady, unflappable protector. Someone who was in control of their vulnerability and never open to weakness. If John’s mission was to avenge Mary, Dean’s mission was to look out for Sam. Anything that caused Dean to deviate from that was a failure. It meant that Dean failed as A Father (and Husband mirror, not that he was a spouse proxy, but that John projected his own image onto Dean). Crucially, when we see Dean “fail” in the mission of looking out for Sam, they're due to Dean doing something for himself, or even doing something for Sam -- hence how he ended up at Sonny's for shoplifting. because apparently theft is wrong if it's not credit cards scams, thanks John. And in looking out for Sam, we find the first fault line in Dean being able to uphold John’s maxim of being invulnerable because to protecting Sam also meant, to Dean, to shield him from John’s abuse and expectations, it meant that Sam was nurtured, as best Dean could manage. Beyond protecting Sam, however, Dean would also inherit John’s mission should he die in the line of duty. And so Dean did. He was tasked to kill the YED and even Sam if Sam became a threat. Anything that would make Dean deviate from that single minded mission was to be purged. Or shoved so far down that the mission would not be affected.

In short, the baseline of duty Dean was operating on was: look out for Sam, look out for the Family, obey orders from the Father, carry out the Mission, avenge mom, kill monsters (noble and good, sure, but still immersed in the revenge mission). Whatever tool you use to carry on another day is acceptable, so long as it is ephemeral and utilitarian. If you need to drink, fuck, etc, in order to keep going so be it, but whatever you do must never impact the mission. College, relationships, picket fences, and dogs, are distractions. They are things that would necessarily take you from The Life. They can only ever be the rewards for completing the Mission. Paradise, if you will.

Emotional vulnerability, then, that which allows the world to thing touch you that deeply is a distraction. You have to be a shell. You fight, but you also fight because the hunter life is not for others. All in the hopes that one day the mission will be done, and there’s an end of the tunnel with peace and a normal life, which is a lie. Not a lie because hunting is antithetical to happiness, but a lie because the mode of operation created and imposed by John makes it impossible for one to ever reach happiness. Happiness needs a way in.

But what’s all this have to do with Dean being queer? Well, this has everything to do with how Dean experiences his queerness. A lot of the time I see people thinking of Dean as someone who suppresses, or, even worse, represses his sexuality when neither of those things are true (someone suppresses or represses their queerness doesn’t go around loving queer film, gushing over crushes, and making queer cultural references). Personally, I don’t think Dean represses as his go to coping mechanism (though he does repress, sometimes, like how John wasn’t a good father, actually). Dean is much more likely to suppress his feelings and his trauma: those are his to handle, and his to stow so he can Get the Job Done. But if Dean ever suppressed his bisexuality, which at some point he might have, I’d argue had much more to do unnecessary risks, than something like self-hatred.

Nevertheless, the issue when it comes to queerness, then, wouldn’t be Dean fucking men or being attracted to multiple genders. It wouldn’t wholly be an issue with masculinity either because the Masculine Values™ the Winchesters operate under a very specific to their situation, as I described above. It’s less about manly posturing, and more about being the perfect soldier (and, eventually, commanding officer). However, queerness brings with it queer & homophobia. As such, one’s sexuality could be leveraged as a weakness. It's something that can be exploited, if one allows it to hurt them. It’s also something that could draw attention to oneself, which is a bit dangerous for a hunter. So, for me, if John ever knew about Dean being bi (and with his neglect, he very well might not), his main problem would be with it being unnecessarily dangerous. Taking these issues into account, it makes sense to me that Dean would be uneasy with being perceived as queer because of it being a tactical disadvantage rather than him having an actual problem with being queer. So when we see posturing and overcompensation, when we see Dean lean particularly hard on the more overtly macho sides of his personality, it’s a mask. Incidentally, if Dean ever found himself in queer spaces he wouldn’t be so uneasy to the point of having to lean into the overcompensating mask -- which, of course, is influenced by cultural heteronormativity and all that mess.

Ultimately, Dean wants to control how he is perceived because it gives him the upper hand. He had to learn to be a chameleon to survive, and he had to develop a thick skin because to show weakness is to fail the mission, and weakness means that you die, or, worse, the one you are meant to protect dies. It’s no wonder that Dean’s character development had little to do with him accepting his queerness (which canon, refreshingly, presents as just a fact of who he is, no fuss), but learning to be emotionally vulnerable. To let love and happiness in. To be who he is completely, without fear, without guilt, without shame, and without self-doubt. That letting himself be happy isn’t a sign of weakness or leading to failure, that it isn’t a gateway for hurt. And none of that, none of it, is about some internalized hatred of his own queerness. Finally, Dean’s freedom and lesson is that the true steadfastness is self-actualization, and really, to quote Cas:

I know. I know how you see yourself, Dean. You see yourself the same way our enemies see you. You're destructive, and you're angry, and you're broken. You're “daddy's blunt instrument.” And you think that hate and anger, that's... That's what drives you, that's who you are. It's not. And everyone who knows you see it. Everything you have ever done, the good and the bad, you have done for love. You raised your little brother for love. You fought for this whole world for love. That is who you are.

#dean winchester #supernatural #spn #john winchester's a+ parenting #spn meta #my writing #polol #dean is bi

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pastelsandpining · 3 years

Text

we’ll meet again

a rewriting to the ending of Ocarina of Time

words: 2347

warnings: angst. a lot of angst. read with caution

Masterlist

When the mangled body of the hog-like monster finally grows still, the sacred sword still hilt-deep in the crumpled corpse, Link knows then that it’s over. The years of sorrow, the loneliness of travel, everything that came with the heavy weight of pulling the world from the clutches of evil, is over. He withdraws the sword, but it takes an effort he didn’t think he had left. It’s heavier--or maybe it’s his limbs that are heavy, too exhausted to carry on any further. Adrenaline is a thing of the past and he takes two steps forward before his foot catches on a bit of loose debris. The Master Sword, his tool of time and of protection, slips to the soiled ground with a clang, and he’s following it. Part of him, the part too used to victories never meaning an end, expected the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

The only thing that wraps around him, catching him from hitting the rocky ground still levitating above the chasm of chaos, is a sea of gentle pink and purple tones. The touch is feather soft and strong enough to ground him all at once, and no longer is the world spinning, or burning in a sea of despair. It’s a comfort he hasn’t known since Saria—over seven years ago, but it feels like so much longer that he’s been craving it.

“Princess,” he greets in a hoarse, broken whisper. It’s swallowed by the fabric of her dress.

“Oh, Link,” she says, and it’s enough to make him lean his head against her chest. When her face finds his shoulder and he feels the warmth of her exhale on his neck, he chokes out a sob and digs his filthy, glove-covered fingers into the satin of the dress covering her back. He isn’t worthy of her touch or her comfort, but he’s too brokenly grateful to let her go.

Seven years of nothing and a mere two of shadow, of death and destruction and desolation, comes to an end, a result of nothing more than a man given too much power to handle, and Link does not feel the relief or the lifted weight that one would expect. All he feels is the suffocating fear that the body would move again, or that the crystal would encase her, and he would find himself stuck in a never ending cycle of heroic trauma.

But the arms of the princess are steady and she whispers another phrase, two of the simplest words that bear a heavy importance: “Thank you.”

He wonders what bit of her magic is responsible for how she still smells so good after running down several swirling cliffs and through burning, stuffy rooms. A vague realization hit him that he must smell awful, but he supposes it doesn’t matter when the world has been ending for the past nine years. His fingers are stiff when he tries to move them. He doesn't realize just how tightly he’s been holding onto her, or how hard they’re both shaking. He flattens his hands against her back, inhales her scent, loosens his arms, and relaxes his shoulders. His leg still stings from where Ganon’s blade had caught him, but it’s dull and doesn’t matter right now.

When he finds the strength to lift his head, everything around him is blue.

It’s a stark contrast to the dark skies that plagued Hyrule for months. It’s so different from the moody interior of blackstone walls and towering mirrors with grotesque mosaics of thirst and power. It’s too bright for his eyes, even if all he wants to look at is her. They’re still kneeling on the ground, except there’s nothing visible beneath them. Blue skies and cotton clouds stretch as far as he can see. The Master Sword is still there, telling him whatever’s holding them up is solid enough, and he reaches blindly for it when he finally retracts his arms. He drives the tip into the transparent (or maybe, reflective) ground and hauls himself up with a wince. It takes a minute for the spinning to stop. When he’s steady again, he extends a hand to her.

She takes it, gentle and promising, and Link helps Princess Zelda to her feet.

“Where…” he tries to ask, but her eyes soften and he no longer has a voice.

“Nowhere,” she replies. He feels her hold on his hand tighten. “We’re in a moment between time, a space away from Hyrule. I figured you, of all people, deserve an explanation.”

For all of his senseless meddling with time, he understood none of what she’d said. Thinking about it gave him a headache, so he didn’t. But why would he need an explanation?

“There’s no explanation worth saying,” he says, shaking his head.

“People go to great lengths when they have been wronged. You are one of them. I was so young, too naive to know what would happen. It was my plan that put you through so much and for that, I’m sorry.”

She looks so sad. It claws into his heart and tries to pull it out. Link shakes his head again, more desperately, and covers her hand with his.

“It’s an honor to help you, Princess,” he argues, as if he could make her forgive herself through the sheer force of will. “I would do it again and again.”

“Because you are kind and courageous. It’s in your blood, to be a hero.”

To be her hero, which was something he couldn’t say aloud.

“I feel empty,” he admits into the stretch of silence. “What happens now that it’s over?”

Because stories are not real. Stories that end with a suddenly happy life, like there was never any threat at all, never sit right with him. What’s a hero’s purpose once the villain is defeated? Princess Zelda, in all of her wisdom and power, is the only person who could answer that.

“What do you want to happen?” she asks.

Link frowns. If he’s honest, he’s never expected an ending. Logically, he knows he couldn’t go on forever. Either he would succeed or he would die trying, but it lasted for so long that the idea of a life after the war was nothing more than a fantasy. Now, with the prospect in front of him and just out of reach, he doesn’t know what he wants. He thinks of the forest, of Saria and of his friends, and knows that having it back is not an option. Even if it was, he knows it wouldn’t be the same.

He thinks about the contrast between the past and the present. He thinks about the lively people and colors and animals that once filled Castle Town to the brim, and the ghost town inhabited only by reanimated corpses that it’d become. He thinks of the civilizations he’s met—the Gorons, the Zora, and how devastated they were destined to be. He thinks of the woman in front of him, the princess with which this all started, and believes that she does not deserve to bear the burden of destruction alone.

He also doesn’t think he’s been asked that before. It’s always been, you must do this, and so he doesn’t know what it is that he wants.

“Is peace an option?” he asks, because he isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to quiet the chaos in his head.

“That’s a complicated question,” Princess Zelda replies. Her hands slip from his and he aches with the urge to take them again. “Can you have peace without conflict? Are they really so easy to seperate? Hyrule was peaceful because a civil war brought about chaos. This moment in time is peaceful because you’ve laid to rest a terrible evil. I wish I could grant you what you seek.”

He wants to shrug, brush off her words like there was nothing profound or truthful behind them, but for all his courage, not even he could disrespect the princess. She does not deserve that. Instead, he asks,

“What do you want, Princess?”

Her reply comes fast, with a small and pained smile, “I’m afraid what I want isn’t something you can give me, Hero.”

He doesn’t like that title, Hero. Why can’t he be Link, nothing more, nothing less? For the same reason she can’t simply be Zelda, he supposes, and leaves it there with a frown.

“Is it that bad?” he asks. She shakes her head.

“I want, more than anything, for my people to be spared the suffering that Ganondorf-- that I have put them through. I want to undo my mistake, take back my meddling in something I was too young to understand. I want to restore everything that was, before the world ended.”

It’s a bold desire. Link understands where she’s coming from, because it was easier before the world ended. Back when his only struggle was wondering why he didn’t have a fairy like the rest of the Kokiri children. With all the power that Princess Zelda had, surely it was not impossible.

“You could go back to before,” he suggests, gripping the sword a little tighter.

“I could,” she agrees, “but I would leave so much behind.”

Link furrows his brows and takes a look at their surroundings. What would she be leaving behind? Did she not lose her entire kingdom? There must’ve been something he was missing, something he couldn’t see.

“I don’t understand,” he admits at last, turning his gaze to the Master Sword. “What’s left to lose?”

When he looks back up, Princess Zelda’s eyes are wet. He frowns again, wishing there was any sort of comfort he could offer her.

“I would lose you,” she says, and he feels his heart stop in his chest, “and the friendship we’ve built, and the lessons I’ve learned. Neither are worth giving up. It’s a difficult decision I don’t know how to make.”

Link doesn’t know what to say, so he extends a hand to her in a gesture he can only hope will provide some sort of comfort. When she takes it, he averts his eyes and busies himself looking around at what he could see of the ruined kingdom. He can’t pretend to know how she feels. Right now, he has nothing but her to keep him going. He’s outgrown his friends, his purpose has been fulfilled, what more is there for him to do? He could support Princess Zelda in whatever decision she makes, but even so, what could he do for her, really? Perhaps if there was any remnant of the kingdom that wasn’t fractured, they could rebuild, but at what cost? The expense of exhaustion and of the resources they didn’t have was too great. He knows nothing about governing, or anything else he might be required to do if he stayed with her--and gods, did he want to stay.

For her, he doesn’t think it’s much of a sacrifice at all. A kingdom of thousands of people is worth more than one lowly man. He does not know how to read. It was a silly thing, to be as old as him and not know how to do one of the simplest things. Navi’s done it for him for as long as she’s been around, and he doesn’t think someone who can’t read or write would make for a good companion in a time of need. He can be taught, but the time it would take simply wasn’t worth it.

He brings her gloved hand to his mouth, offers a kiss to her knuckles, and before he knows it, he’s pressing the Ocarina of Time into her hands.

“Your kingdom,” he says, “it needs you.”

“Link,” and she shakes her head and sounds broken but he presses further.

“You’re brilliant and just, and you deserve your fair reign over your people. Please, Princess, you deserve something for yourself.”

“Is a lifelong companion not good enough?” she asks. He feels her grip on the instrument tighten beneath his fingers.

“No. You have the chance to undo it all. Why settle with the cards you’ve been given?”

“I..”

She doesn’t look sure. Link has to admit that the idea is scary. Resetting the timeline was… difficult. It would undo everything he’s done up until now, reducing it to nothing more than a few years of bad dreams, and that idea made him feel sick. The possibility of never knowing her scared him more.

“We can get back what we lost,” he tries to convince her anyway. “You didn’t get to be a child.”

“Neither did you,” she argues, stepping closer. “Why should I get what you never had?”

“Then make it so we both get it.”

Her blue eyes narrow as she looks up at him. He doesn’t back down. The silence is pregnant and her gaze is intense, but he knows what he wants and it’s for her to get the chance she deserves. Backing down is not an option, no matter how much he wants to tell her that she can have whatever she wants from him.

“Link,” she says at last, freeing her hands so she could hold the ocarina to her chest. He thinks she wants to say something else, but she settles for, “Are you sure?” and he nods quickly, despite the tears he can feel stinging in his eyes.

“Go home,” he insists, lifting a hand to gently hold her face, “and I promise I’ll come find you.”

She smiles up at him, mumbling something about keeping the promise, and all he can do is smile back. When she lifts the ocarina to her mouth, Link decides simply to watch her until the arms of time take him back, away from her again but not for long.

When he comes to, in the Temple of Time, with the sword in the pedestal and his hands too small to hold it properly, that’s when Navi takes her leave. Link, renewed with the vigor of youth, turns around and runs towards the castle, as fast as his little legs can carry him.

#zelink #oot zelink #ocarina of time #ocarina of time zelink #my writing

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bitterlavenderwritings · 4 years

Text

lovely little thing

a/n: i haven’t written for hawks for a long time then this scenario settled in my head for some reason. what was supposed to be a drabble turned into a fic of sorts lol.

(take note that the reader acts aloof and doesn’t express herself often than most people, so if you feel like you can’t relate it’s alright for you to not read this.)

pairing/s: yan!hawks x reader

wc: 1 688

tags: kidnapping, yandere themes (obv), stalking, manipulation, implied drug use.

Any sane person would panic right now.

Waking up in an unfamiliar room should already set off alarms in your head that most people would immediately heed to. How did you get here? Were you taken by force? Where was your phone-

You moved to grasp anything, a headboard or whatever solid thing that’s closest to you. But there is nothing but silk sheets and pillows scattered around. Your eyes struggle to lift open,for some reason they feel heavier than usual. After a few blinks you open your eyes to see yourself in a huge cage-?

With shaking arms, you get up on your knees to survey your surroundings. It’s then you realize your wrists are bound with individual cuffs with long, thin chains locked in two small hooks at the very back of the cage. You give them light tugs, testing how heavy and durable they are. Despite it’s light weight, it would still be impossible for you to break them without any heavy tools.

But that wasn’t the most peculiar thing you were seeing right now, what puzzled you is the cage you were currently in.

It was huge, and had a lot of space. It wasn’t a box or any cage that resembled that of a dog’s. it was shaped like a bird’s cage, long gold thin bars encasing you in that stretched to the ceiling. It had intricate designs that made it look elegant and beautiful, something you would’ve appreciated if it weren’t for the fact that it held you captive.

You spot a small door, locked shut with a padlock that looks brand new. You give it a few shakes, rattling it a bit to test how tight it is. After a minute you give up, opting to observe everything else in hopes of finding a way out.

It’s odd how everything seems to be staged just for you. The room the cage is in is a lavish bedroom, the type you see on television. A four poster bed in the middle, a dainty dresser complete with a wide mirror on the opposite wall, and a walk in closet that seems to be closed as of the moment.

You look down at yourself, taking notice of the nightgown you’re wearing. It doesn’t seem to be one of yours, an expensive material that’s soft to the touch with pretty lace trimmings.

You feel so out of place, estranged to the unfamiliar room that speaks nothing of someone like you. You’re here for a reason, but you can’t put a finger on it.

Your inquiring thoughts were interrupted by the sound of an opening door. You stiffen in fear as you hear the door close again with the nearing footsteps of an unknown person. They take their time approaching you, light steps that seem to have a bit of a pep in them as they make their way to you.

You feel a gust of wind that billowed on your bare back, causing you to shiver for a moment. You desperately want to see them, your captor, the person responsible for your captivity. But you don’t move, choosing to stare at the blurry window that shines a glowing light to your meek frame that feels oh so small in the cage.

“Once again you’re not saying anything. Quiet as always, aren’t you baby bird?” That nickname...

Slowly, you turn behind you, eyes meeting a familiar pair of honey gold irises. He smiles, a soft curve that speaks of quiet triumph and glee. His gloved hands are grasping the bars softly, sending a message of possession and dominance.

You know him, hell, everybody does. Being a number two hero was no joke, especially for someone as young as him. His wings, a deep shade of red that spreads out at his back, flutter in light flaps as he takes his time looking at you.

He seems to be pleased, barely containing his excitement as he caresses the bars fondly. There’s a soft look in his eyes, the type a person would give to a dear lover of theirs.

But you’re not his lover, at least you think so.

There’s no mistaking the dark gleam in his eyes, something too hidden and cryptic for you to decipher. It’s sends an unpleasant feeling in your chest but you keep shut about it. Who knows what he might do if he’s displeased.

You remember how sharp and deadly those feathers can be, despite how soft and pretty they can look at first glance.

Fear settles in the pit of your stomach, but you ignore it. You had to know, why were you here and why you of all people. You only managed to utter one word.

“Why?” His eyes widens just for a tiny fraction, surprised at your newfound courage. His lips curl into a smirk, seemingly satisfied that you’re not screaming your lungs out or protesting like he’d expect any person would.

But of course you weren’t like most people, which is why he had chosen you in the first place.

“Do I really need a reason?” His smirk widens even wider at your raised eyebrow. To think you can still hold your own at a time like this, how interesting...

He reaches out through the small gaps of the cage, just wide enough for his right arm to fit and enter your rightful place. He preens at the thought, your new home, just where he is.

He holds a strand of hair in his fingers, playing with it as he looks at you endearingly. A spread of warmth fills his chest as he sees your usually blank face fluster at his touch.

“You’re mine, isn’t that easy to understand? Ever since that day I saved you, I’ve already claimed what’s rightfully mine.” Your brows furrow, taking in his words. He doesn’t hear a word of objection, but he knows you disagree despite your silence.

“Don’t you think I’m right, little birdie? I saved you from a painful death after all, that building would have crushed your frail body when that villain struck it’s concrete walls. Rescue wouldn’t have made it in time, so it was all my efforts that kept you alive and breathing ‘til this day.”

It’s then he sees it, a crack in your argument that you hold between your lips. He knows just how he can convince you to stay, and he won’t stop until you believe it completely yourself.

You’re a stubborn person, something he observed after keeping track of you ever since seeing you that day. You haven’t met him personally at the time, but he saw you first.

You looked blissfully in peace tending to your row of lilies, smiling softly to yourself unaware of the prying golden eyes of a hawk latched onto its prey.

He thought the flowers fit you perfectly, sweet innocence that blossomed beneath the loud, massive noises that dominated the crowd.

He’s kept watch of you since then, trailing behind you up in the skies where you couldn’t see him. He even went as far as to disguise himself, hiding his identity to speak a few words to you as a stranger.

He wasn’t even disappointed when you limited your interactions, choosing to utter a few words then cut off the conversation entirely. You disliked talking to people, especially strangers. So you made sure to make it obvious that you weren’t an open person anybody could just approach.

He liked that about you, something that set you apart from the rest. He thought it couldn’t get any better, but you surprised him again once more when he saved you that day.

You were grateful of course, despite your cold nature, you still had feelings and manners like any other person. But you didn’t gawk at him, or praised him endlessly like a god like his fan girls did.

You even refused when he offered to fly you home! Not wanting to abuse his generosity as you put it. You were blunt and wanted nothing more from him. He was instantly hooked.

He couldn’t possibly just let you go now, could he?

So when the time finally came, he didn’t hesitate to use your vulnerability to his advantage. You always left your windows wide open at night, preferring to sleep with the moonlight lighting up your dark room softly.

He found that habit of yours adorable, but also too dangerous. What if there was someone else like him who could reach your floor and possibly harm you? He couldn’t have that, no no. All the more reason to keep you safe and sound, he reasoned. But on his own terms.

It wasn’t that hard if he was being honest, you were already tired when you got home to begin with. So when he held the dampened cloth to your nose, your struggles weren’t that strong to budge him the slightest.

Within a few minutes you grew limp in his arms, making it easy for him to carry you up in the night sky, taking you home right where you belonged to.

Seeing you calm and collected on that cage nearly sent him to a frenzy. You sat like you belonged there, ignoring the way your eyes darted from you to him apprehensively.

“It’s okay now sweetie, I’ll take real good care of you.” He cooed as he held your face in his hands. Your skin was smooth and delicate to his touch, something he noted while admiring your beauty.

“You’ll see, sooner or later you won’t have to worry about a single thing.” He’ll make sure of it. He can already see it, you craving him as much as he does with yours. But first he has to be patient, he’s not deluded enough into thinking you won’t go down without your own defenses after all.

He’ll have to take his time breaking down each and every one of the walls you’ve built around yourself to finally lay a hand on how you truly feel. He grinned in anticipation.

You were an interesting, lovely little thing after all, and he’s gonna have so much fun with you.

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paversandplatters · 3 years

Text

||𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙱𝚎𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚛 𝚘𝚏 𝚂𝚑𝚎𝚎𝚙|| (5/20)

Apocalypse! Au (TW! Minor gore and cussing)

Reader x multiple

Chapter 5: A Flock Found

They pack a wheel barrow to the brim with the newly acquired supplies they find not botheringing to leave behind much of anything, making sure to cop the twenty five gallon container of gasoline from the tool shed out back behind the building... Lord knows they'll need for the grand task ahead of them. By the time the light in the south western sky began to fade from a light gray to pink over the backwaters of the panhandle they're ready. They slip outside through the rectory's side door and creep single file along the edge of the property. Y/n takes the lead, periodically glancing over her shoulder for any sign of the herd that had crossed the highway or any sign of the group that occupied this space all too recently. She carries a glock with a full magazine just in case. The dusky air gets clammy and cool on the back of the stranger's neck as he follows them to the car. They climb in hurriedly, stowing their provisions in the rear cargo bay. Y/n kicks the engine on as the newcomer clambers into the passenger seat next to her- much to the dismay of the other two- unfolding an old dogeared map.

"They usually stick pretty close to the ocean." He says almost to himself, silently calculating the mileage between them and the gulf. "Probably should start down by Perry or Carwfordville." He senses movement ahead of them through the windshield and glances up in time to see a couple of jagged shadows emerging from the woods about a hundred yards away, drawn to the sound of their engine. Garbled growls can be heard over the drone of crickets. The trace smell of garbage on the breeze, the light and space of the outdoors is almost overwhelming to him. He feels like he's been asleep for a hundred years, locked away in that dank and dirty church- he starts to feel dizzy.

Y/n gooses the accelerator and the SUV lurches away. He sinks into his seat as they roar down the road, swerving to avoid the half dozen or so biters now skulking out of the woods blocking their path. They sideswipe one the creatures, ripping a chunk of its shoulder, splattering fresh gore across the glass of his side window.

"You get used to it." she states after he flinches in disgust. He just stares at the splatter, flecks of bone chips, and a long trail of black bile.

"I don't think anyone can get used to that ..." Nick mutters from the back seat.

Night falls and the darkness deepens behind the trees on either side of the road. Most of the streetlights in this part of the country have gone the same way as the internet or cable TV, so the road only gets darker and darker as they head south towards the steaming thickets and festering swamps of the coastal lowlands. The going is slow, most of the two lanes are crowded with rusted out wreckages ,the carcasses of cars and trucks so old now that the weeds and switchgrass have begun to grow up from their metal endoskeletons. The two young men in the rear breathe heavily, thickly, half asleep while Y/n drives and softly hums some forgotten tune. They had passed the jerky and water around a few minutes ago- their standard fare of supper- and now their bellies growl and their eyelids droop with exhaustion.

"You never gave your name..." His hushed voices rings out from the shotgun seat.

"Hadn't crossed my mind at the time, sorry about that... It's Y/n" She chuckles softly. "The one with the headband is Nick but goes by Sapnap, don't ask i don't know- the other one with the accent is George." he just simply hums in reply.

"What about you big guy? What do they call you?"

He takes a moment to regard the woman seated next to him; his head still trying to wrap itself around this complete stranger who's shown him nothing but kindness. On the one hand, she seems trustworthy enough, friendly, a good listener, courteous and capable of single handedly taking out an entire chapel full of reanimated corpses... On the other hand she seems like a walking time bomb. He'd seen her type before- they type that's too kind until something or someone breaks that trust. A hairline trigger. The sad fact is he doesn't have a large array of options. Staying in that hellhole of a church with those enslavers, listening to the groans of the dead, waiting for whatever those bastards would do next quickly loses its charm... Seeing the aftermath of her cleaning house with that knife had given him an odd charge- a cathartic release. He's also aware that he'd never be able to find the caravan on his own given the sorry state he's in. He really has no choice but to go along with her and her scruffy ass men and hope for the best.

"I don't have a name.. that is, one that I can remember.."

She desperately wants to pry, how could he not remember his own name? But the thousand yard stare and glassy gaze is enough to stop her from inquiring any further. "Well we've gotta call you something big guy." She's met with silence in response. "Alright, I guess Big Guy it is then." He offers only a meek hum in response. In an attempt to silence his own raging thoughts his eyes landed on the red bandanna tied to the rearview mirror for what was probably the hundredth time since he started on this way too long car ride.

"... What's that about?" He points to the red scarf.

"It belonged to a friend of mine a long while back, before Sapnap and George were a thing." Her hands tighten their hold on the wheel. "I was caught by 'traders' and he was stuck in the same hole as me... Couldn't have been any older than fourteen at the time. One night the compound was under attack, their front gate was breached- luckily we were kept at the very back end, so when the opportunity came we managed to escape our holding cell and I hoisted him over the wall. Told him to keep running, to not look back. He got away but I was caught again," She takes in a deep breath before resuming her story.

"I was quickly sold off to some asshole who had these two chained up for breaking into their stores... one thing led to another and we snuck out and snagged this ride... we've been moving around since." It was obvious by her tone there was a lot she was leaving out and probably for a good reason. Notably the two in the back seat were dead silent, so much so that it made the air feel heavy and dense enough to cut with a sharp enough knife. Suddenly he was wishing he hadn't bothered to ask in the first place

"That sign back there," He manages, desprate to break the heavy air "Said 'Cross city 12 miles" He glances up from the map in his lap, gazing out the side window at the stewing darkness of Dixie County Florida. "Got a feeling we're getting close."

The vast patchwork of wetlands passes in a blur on either side of them. The land oozing a low blanket of methane as gray as mold, clinging to the shadows of pine thickets and gullies like dirty lace. The air smells briny and rotten with dead fish. Every few minutes they pass the ruins of a small town or wreckage strewn trailer parks. No sign of survivors in these parts, though only the occasional silhouette of an upright corpse shambling by, it's eyes like twin yellow reflectors in the darkness.

"We can't just keep burning gas all night." Sapnap says from his place in the rear, his voice all cranked up with pain and panic "and we can't just go off of what you overheard those traders talking about- Much less go off of feelings.." Big guy just keeps a neural face.

"We're in the ballpark" He persists "Believe me they'll be hard to miss." Y/n grips the steering wheel, her jaw working overtime on a piece of gum, snapping and chewing complusively as she drives.

"How many vehicles do they have in this convoy?" George questions between wheezy breaths.

"No idea... but it's quite a few ."

"That's pretty general."

"They'll be easy to spot." He replies once more, gazing back out at the darkness. "Our best bet is to follow the coast, they like to keep close to the water.."

"Why's that?"

He shrugs. "According to those 'traders' they keep their eyes peeled for ships or any possible way they might get their asses the hell out of here. Most of the bigger boats around here have been destroyed by the hurricane that hit a couple years ago, so it's a long shot that they'll find anything..."

They're about to give up the search when they start to climb the gentle slope- at first so gradual it's almost unnoticeable - up the side of a vast malodorous landfill- the barren trash-strewn scrubland to their left reaches across miles of sandy berms, all the way down to the deserted ghostly boardwalks that wind their way along the beaches. The sky has begun to bruise pink with predawn light and Y/n has just started to say something when the Big Guy sees the first faint streaks of red dots in the distant haze.

"LOOK!" He points his large gnarled hand down at the far dunes of ashen white sand winding along the coast. The surface is so pocked and windswept it resembles the dark side of the moon.

"Where?" She cranes her neck, slowing the vehicle down to a crawl.

"I don't see anything."

"About Half a mile up there... Look at the tail lights!"

She takes a deep cleansing breath as she finally sees the caravan chugging along the coastal road in the predawn light, it looks like embers throwing up puffs of smoke in their wake.

"Holy shit, I see it." A big smile washes over her face, Glad she decided to follow through with this insane plan.

"What do you think of those boys?" The two young men in the rear lean forward, transfixed by the sight, each of them rapt and silent as they gaze at the convoy.

"What are you doing?! Blaster your horn at them," George stutters anxiously. "Don't let them get away !"

Y/n smiles to herself, in her former life she used to be fascinated by the wildlife shows, often catching them in the late night showings after work before she turning in for the night. She remembers one episode in particular, on the behavior of sheep vs the behavior of wolves. She remembers the flock mentality; the sheep moving almost as one, easily managed by a single sheepdog. She remembers the instinct of the Wolf, stealthy, patient as it and its pack creep up on the flock. She shoots a glance across the dark interior at the larger man sat next to her before turning her head to face the two sat behind them.

"I have a better idea."

Taglist

@the-wandering-pan-ace @hvrcruxes

#dsmp x reader #dream x y/n #dsmp tubbo #ranboo #sapnap x y/n #techno x reader #tommyinnit #dream smp x reader #dsmp #dsmp techno #georgenotfound #georgenotfound x y/n #philza x reader #the behavior of sheep

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i-donot-forget · 3 years

Text

First Conversation - Leiftan

Eldarya New Era Words 1531

An awkward conversation with my beloved Daemon, oh Leiftan, when will you return to my arms?

I really want to see that "magic connection" in action.

First Conversation - Lance

Second Conversation - Lance

Giggles and whispers perfumed the air of the Guard of Eel, its inhabitants had spent the afternoon curiously observing the comings and goings of the last Aengel, assisting the giant of the Light Guard, Jamon had spent the whole day with a serious expression, letting out an occasional soft growl when someone approached with the intention of interrupting his assistant's work, even though inside he was enjoying Erika's simple company a lot.

When the armory was impeccable and every weapon and tool in place, Erika gave the giant a wide smile full of emotion that he returned, it was time to receive her reward. She almost hopped around Jamon, while he carried a heavy wooden tub over his shoulder in the direction of the young woman's room.

After spending more than three-quarters of an hour moving buckets of hot water and adding the contents of a few small jars Huang Chu gave her, Erika finally relaxed.

She stripped off her clothes in the privacy of her room and looked at herself in the mirror, inspecting every corner of her skin. Since she left the Crystal, everything had been travel and emotions, not a single moment of respite or distraction, not even to assimilate everything she had experienced, she simply had not had time but she could no longer continue to neglect herself, after her awakening she felt different. She knew that she was no longer the same, and yet she had no idea of the extent of this change in her mind and body.

Tracing the surface of her skin with the tips of her fingers as she followed them with her eyes through the mirror, she noticed something that disturbing her, all her scars had disappeared. The "L" -shaped mark on her knee from when her father taught her to ride a bike. The oval burn on her forearm from when her mother tried to teach her how to make caramel. The almost lightning on her thigh, from when she escaped from the institute jumping a wall with her best friend ... And others more than her conflicting emotions did not allow her to remember. Even the dozens of injuries she had suffered since she came to Eldarya. She searched her back, near her kidneys. Naytili's stab had also disappeared, that which almost cost her her life. She pressed the place where the wound was hard as the flashes of that fight surfaced from her memory, she felt a familiar pain, the wound was still there, only it was no longer written on her skin.

She pushed those thoughts out of her mind, not wanting to embitter her evening. She sighed deeply and slid into the hot bath, leaned back slowly allowing the water to embrace her nakedness, threw her head back and struggled to blank her mind. She rambled between emotions and familiar sensations, she felt that her body wanted to talk to her so she gave in when the need to fully immerse herself arose in her. In the fetal position, almost floating to the bottom of the tub, she let that pleasant warmth cradle her.

She felt happy, safe and protected, far from the outside world, as if she were returning to her mother's womb, she forgot everything, she abandoned herself to that familiar warmth. She couldn't remember images, but she had certainly felt that way before, she just couldn't remember when or where, but sooner rather than later she came to her, the Crystal, that's how she felt while inside the Crystal, discovering this. little mystery. She smiled and returned to her pleasant trance. Suddenly she stretched out her arm and her hand searched for something that she felt should be there but that she did not find, that absence of this caused her great emptiness and anguish, she felt desperate and her soul cried out for him.

She got out of the water, she had had enough, too many sensations went through her head so fast that she did not realize how long she had held her breath, she took a deep breath until she stabilized and put on a light robe, even being completely soaked, she sat on her bed staring at nothing.

A tingling in her hand brought her out of her coma, she looked at her fingers curiously for long minutes until another stimulus caught her attention, she walked slowly towards the door, without conscience and at the same time with a strange knowledge of the cause. In front of the door she hesitated a moment before extending her arm to the surface, she stretched out her fingers and her entire palm pressing softly and almost fearfully against the wood. It was cold, hard and immovable, she waited impatiently until a subtle burning caressed her skin causing a slight start in her. She moved her hand from the surface to the doorknob and in one slow motion opened it.

Leiftan was outside her room with his hand floating where the door was and with the same confused and certain look as Erika. They stared at each other until she took a step back and he entered the room without saying anything, closing the door behind him. The young woman was sitting on her bed, with her hands on her thighs, she hesitantly she did not know if look at him. An unpleasant sensation began to grow in her stomach, a strange and abnormal discomfort in her. She clenched her fists on the thin fabric of the robe over her legs.

- You are ok? -

His voice breaking through the tense atmosphere only increased her discomfort. She turned her head from side to side, stood up, and walked doubtfully around the room, looking at him helplessly from time to time for help.

- I ... took a bath and ... -

Rubbing her hands that were beginning to feel damp and shaking, Leiftan crossed the roo to the window, looked at her, and nodded, encouraging her to continue.

- T-the water. It's feel like to be back in the Crystal, but I-I ...-

She could not continue speaking, a blockage in her throat prevented her from uttering a word, it almost hurt, Leiftan approached her cautiously, waiting for her approval with every step he approached.

- I-I feel strange ... And every second more ... -

Hearing her words, he took a step back and sighed, she didn't know it but they both had the same heaviness in their hearts. Leiftan also had problems with his hands, tangled the threads of his clothing between his fingers uneasily.

- I have been practicing my meditation, I remember not long ago you asked me to find a solution for ... our situation. -

Erika tried to process the information and her feelings, she understood then that discomfort, that horrible anguish ... that unbearably unpleasant feeling was not hers, it was what Leiftan was feeling right now. That fact made her cheeks flush with shame, she felt humiliated ... She had called him and he didn’t want to be there.

- Could you please not do that. -

The young woman's tone sounded even more aggressive than she had planned, like a low, subtle growl. He looked at her in surprise and bewilderment, he didn't expect that reaction from her at all.

- I thought it was what you wanted. -

- I want to get rid of this that ... unites us, but your meditation is definitely useless. -

- I do not understand. -

- I didn't think that I would go through this again, that you would make me feel that way again. -

- What are you talking about. -

- Stop lying Leiftan! -

The man was shocked, completely paralyzed by Erika's violent reaction, he stepped back, he was in her territory, cornered.

- I-I really do not understand. -

- I can feel your discomfort Leiftan, whatever you are trying to hide… I can feel it. If you don't want to be here, go away, but stop pretending and liying, it's disgusting ... -

- Sorry. -

Leiftan couldn't keep holding her gaze, he needed to get out of there as quickly as possible, he felt a stab in the chest. He flinched when he passed her, she looked hyperventilated, shaking and glassy-eyed, but she wasn't done.

- And if ... I call you again, I don't want you to come, I'll learn to control it. -

Those words had been like a gunshot, Erika felt her heart so tight that she couldn't breathe. Leiftan's expression winced and she exploded at her pent-up emotions.

- So you can leave me your cynicism now! We no longer have to see or be together! Was not that what you wanted !? Am I not just a part of your evil plan ?! -

- Erika! Things are not like that, I always made it very clear that you are all that matters to me. -

- SHUT UP! Shut up Leiftan! Don't you understand that I'm beyond your deceptions? Haven't you lied to me enough? I DON'T KNOW YOU AND YOU STILL KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT ME! You can read me and feel me! I'M NAKED IN FRONT OF YOU. And you? I do not even know who you are… -

Erika hadn't noticed when Leiftan had turned his back on her, but without turning to her, he walked to the door and said goodbye to her before leaving.

- Good night Erika… -

#eldarya #eldarya new era #eldarya leiftan #eldarya conversaciones #eldarya conversations #eldarya fanfic

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omniswords · 4 years

Text

Seeing Scarlet [Lila Rossi; Marinette Dupain-Cheng]

Adrien is with Kagami. Gabriel has a new agenda. Marinette's back in school, and everyone adores her.

And Lila? Well.

Lila is just about ready to snap.

Mentions of end-of-S3 events, but not too spoilery. Vent piece. Also, please let me know if I should tag this as Lila salt? I’m not 100% sure, but I’ll defer to other people’s judgment, and if it has the potential to be hurtful, then I can certainly go back and fix that up.

Gabriel Agreste doesn’t need Lila anymore.

He told her so yesterday afternoon, the way he always speaks—spoke—to her: at the Place des Vosges, from the comfort of his car, while she listened in from a nearby bench. She didn’t turn to look at him, no matter how much being supposedly relieved of her duties meant she could break every bit of their agreement as much as she wanted. All she said was, “I don’t follow. I thought you only wanted good influences around Adrien. He even said we’re friends. Isn’t that what— “

“What we agreed on, Miss Rossi”—he cut her off rather coldly then—“was that you would do your utmost to keep certain bad influences away from my son. To date, I have failed to see you do so.”

She stayed quiet, but only for a spell. She liked to think she was above begging for chances. No need, when she had every tool in her pocket that turned those chances over to her so willingly. “So you think I’m a bad influence, too,” she said. Final. Sour. It always worked.

“I have my own agenda,” he said. “I’ll let you see to yours.”

Lila had no idea what that was supposed to mean—and she prided herself on knowing what adults meant most of the time. But before she could ask, Gabriel Agreste had already rolled up the window and driven away.

She could have screamed, but really, that was the other thing she was proud of: quietly biding her time to exact the worst revenge. That always worked, too. Besides, adults had taught her how to play the manipulating game. Some of them had even lost to her. He would just be another one. Eventually.

It was supposed to be that easy, anyway. Except she spent the whole train ride home stunned with a silent and otherwise indescribable rage. Except she woke up the next morning to nothing but an apple on the table and a sticky note on the fridge, again. Except she took herself to school and got an eyeful of Chloé goddamn Bourgeois gloating about something or other, and another eyeful of Adrien and that fencing girl holding hands of all things, before she’d even made it to the front steps. And then, as if the universe had decided she just hadn’t had enough to ruin her life, there was Marinette talking to that blue-haired boy again, the one who always carried his guitar around like some stupid security blanket. And they were smiling, and he had his hand on her shoulder, and what right did any of them have, getting to be so happy?

Lila composed herself just in time for Guitar Boy to salute and pedal away on that cheap bike of his, and she pushed into the school building before she had to endure any more of that nauseating expression Marinette had on her face. Anything to get away from her stupid friends, and her stupid smile, and her stupid happiness. Anything to get away from her.

She found herself in the empty, echoing silence of the restroom just down the hall from her class before the bell rang. Found herself staring down every hard line in her face, the grit in her teeth so firm they might break, knuckles white from gripping the edges of the sink. The hate in her eyes. The hate everywhere.

Don’t break, she told her reflection in the daggers she glared at it. Don’t you dare break.

Her teeth didn’t break, but she did, in spite of herself. Her cheeks flared, and her jaw stayed tight, and her heart twisted on itself so many times that it was almost unbearable. she hated it, hated them, hated her, right from the first angry, poisonous tear. And the next, and all the ones that came after that.

Her name was Lila Rossi, and she was not supposed to drown. She would stare herself down to death if she had to. And if she took anyone down with her, well. That would only be for the better. If she had to hurt, then so did everyone else.

She was so focused on crushing the growing weight in her chest that she almost didn’t notice the creak and swing of the restroom door. Half-wildly, she jerked her head toward the door with no time or chance to compose herself, nearly ready to scream because no one would believe it if it got around the school—she would make sure they didn’t believe it.

Apparently, the universe wasn’t done with her just yet. Because of course it was Marinette standing there, her expression caught somewhere between sour and exhausted and... concerned. Not even a hint of glee at the corners of her eyes. It made Lila sick all over again.

“Miss Bustier’s taking attendance,” Marinette said simply, her words echoing hollow off the tile. “She’s looking for you.”

Lila steeled herself, turned back to the mirror. The angry wrinkles in her mouth. The hair in her eyes. “Get. Away. From me.”

“For the most part, I’d love to, trust me.” Out of the corner of her eye, Marinette folded her arms, hip cocked. “But I can’t. It’s kind of my responsibility. Class representative?” A pause. A sigh. “Look, do you need me to—”

“Do you want to know what your problem is, Marinette?” God, Lila even hated saying her name. Tasted like sour milk. Like plaque. It took everything in her to tear away from the sink and stare her down. Maybe if she did it long enough, Marinette would finally screw off.

But Marinette stood unfazed; even the quirk in her brow barely budged. “I’m sure you’re gonna tell me anyway.”

The air went cold, and Lila counted the steps she took toward the other girl. She wouldn’t dare get so close that the tear streaks would be obvious, but her limbs locked with every threatening click of her shoes. “Everyone just fucking adores you. All you have to do is walk in a room—you don’t even have to lift a goddamn finger—and eeeeeveryone wants to be around you. I bet you don’t ever have to think about it. You just get to be so popular, and so loved. You just get to be a goddamn blessing to everyone, don’t you?”

Her voice was rising even though it didn’t need to, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care. She was beyond it. She’d scream if she could get away with it. Somehow, backing her into a corner was starting to be enough. “And I bet you don’t even care, do you, Marinette? You don’t even care how much everybody loves you, because you’re just basking in it. You probably don’t even hear it. But I do. I hear it all the time, because it’s like no one can stop talking about how great you are for two seconds. Don’t you get how sick you make me? Don’t you get how much I can’t fucking stand you?!”

Take it, she wants to scream. Take every last goddamn word, because if I have to deal with it, then so do you. Because if I have to destroy myself, then I’m taking you with me. Because if I can’t have control, then neither can you. Because if I can’t be happy, then neither can you. You don’t have the right. You did this to me. You did this to me, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, do you hear me? You did this, you did this, you—

Marinette was tense, standing in the corner with her arms still folded. Lila would take even that as a victory. But her eyes were searching her face, looking for all the unsaid things, and if she found any of them, she made no sign of it. Eventually, all she said was, “Are you finished?”

At first, Lila was too stunned to do anything but look at her incredulously. “Excuse me?”

Marinette shrugged; it was just barely visible. “Did you get it all out?” she said none too sweetly. “Do you feel better now, taking that all out on me?”

Of course she didn’t. She wouldn’t feel better until she never had to see Marinette’s sorry face again. That, or until she finally crushed her under her heel. She didn’t say anything. She only glared.

“Because if you’re not,” Marinette went on, “I’ll just tell Miss Bustier you’ve got some weird, totally-not-contagious stomach bug or whatever, and you had to leave school early. That’s right up your alley, isn’t it?”

Lila still said nothing. There was nothing to say. There was no reason for Marinette to do something like that for her. If anything, it only made her more furious. “Didn’t I tell you to get away from me?” she spat.

“You approached me,” Marinette said. “And you’re mad that I’m right.”

“You’re a liar too.” It was the first thing Lila could think of, and maybe it would hurt enough to make Marinette go away for good. “You tell her that, and you’ll be just as bad as I am. Don’t you hate liars, Marinette? Do you hate yourself now?”

The only little victory was that Marinette actually paused for a moment. And that her arms loosened, and she seemed to go… disgustingly soft around the edges. “No,” she said. It didn’t matter how quiet it was; it still rang through the bathroom and scurried into the stalls, hauntingly matter-of-fact. “I don’t hate myself. And I don’t lie because I want people to like me.”

“Of course not.” Lila narrowed her eyes. “You don’t have to.”

“Neither do you,” Marinette said. “No one does. And for what it’s worth to you, not everybody loves me.”

“Good.” Lila said it without thinking, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Why should she? “It’s about time someone didn’t.”

Marinette winced, either because she was hurt or because she was holding back what she really wanted to say, and Lila loved every nanosecond of it. But otherwise, she kept her composure, and turned on her heel. “I’ll just go tell her—”

And then she paused, and Lila saw exactly why.

A butterfly.

Hawk Moth’s butterfly. Phasing through the bathroom door, all royal black and purple, and fluttering towards her.

Perfect. She’d show him. She’d show all of them how much they needed her—

“Get down!” Marinette yelled, and Lila saw and heard her tackling her to the bathroom floor before she actually felt the impact. When she sat up, Marinette was already standing up, arms spread out, firm from head to toe. Shielding her.

Lila scrambled to her feet. “What is your problem?” she nearly screeched, reaching out for the butterfly.

Marinette swatted her hand away before she could touch it. “Don’t.”

“What do you care?”

For a moment, the butterfly hesitated, and Marinette turned back to look at her. “I’m not gonna let you use your feelings to hurt other people,” she said. “And I’m not gonna let you use your feelings to hurt yourself.”

Lila rolled her eyes. “Oh, forget it—” But she’d barely taken a step before Marinette shoved her back again—surprisingly, she was stronger than she looked—and she stumbled backwards, slamming into the wall with nearly all the wind knocked out of her. Her head throbbed, and she stumbled to find her balance again, and Marinette was still standing there, still protecting her as though she could actually do anything about it.

“What? She gripped the edge of the sink, didn’t bother to look at her reflection again. “You think you’re Ladybug now or something? What are you, her best friend? Don’t tell me you’re doing this because you pity me all of a sudden.”

“I don’t.” It was… almost exhilarating, hearing Marinette talk through her teeth like that. “I don’t pity you. Not for how you’ve strung people along, and not for how you’ve treated me. And I don’t have to be Ladybug to know what she values. But when Ladybug says that everyone deserves to be protected, she means you, too. I don’t care how much you hate her. I don’t care how much you hate me. But I’m not gonna just stand here and be okay with you making choices that hurt people.”

“People?” Lila sneered. “Or Adrien?”

Marinette didn’t give her an answer. Instead, she turned to face the butterfly again, stood stock still. Its wings were still fluttering, though slower now. She took a few deep breaths, mumbled something to herself. Numbers, it sounded like. Over and over, she said them, and eventually the butterfly balked and flew backwards, through the door, away again.

She went lax, sighed in what sounded like relief, and turned toward Lila again. She looked… almost exhausted. “Your move, Lila,” she said. “I’m going back to class. As far as Miss Bustier is concerned, you went home sick.”

Finally, Lila spared herself a glance. Well. At least she looked the part. “Why?”

Marinette looked her up and down. Not a hint of judgment in her eyes. It was almost sickening. Almost. “Because you’re hurting,” she said, voice shaky as she made for the door. “And I was hurting once, too. And if someone being nice to me helped, then maybe someone being nice to you will help, too.”

The bathroom door swung open and shut behind her, and Lila was still left by the stalls, the echo of the words still taunting her. And when she was sure no one else was coming in or out again, she cried. With her back to the mirror and her fist pounding the edge of the sink, with every emotion and none she could actually name. She drowned. She’d go home, and that sticky note would still be on the kitchen counter. Adrien would still have that fencing girl, and Marinette would still be his friend, and have that guitar boy to boot. And Gabriel Agreste wouldn’t actually need her. Gabriel Agreste didn’t need her anymore.

By the time she wiped her eyes and walked out of the school building, she had already decided to prove him right.

And if Marinette Dupain-Cheng thought that some empty words and seventy seconds of shielding was going to do her any good, then she had another think coming.

#miraculous ladybug #lila rossi #marinette dupain cheng #gabriel agreste #mentions of adrigami and lukanette #post-miracle queen

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starswornoaths · 3 years

Text

Our Noble Legacy - Commission!

A commission for the delightful @faerflowerkid, featuring her oc: Faer wir Galvus, Warrior of Light, great-granddaughter to Solus zos Galvus.

Emet-Selch knew he would have to confront the Warrior of Light directly, at some point. It was as inevitable as the tide. That she was his family would not, could not, matter.

5.0 spoilers, canon divergent!

Word count: 10,752

~*~

Seeing the shattered little fragments of souls congregating, collaborating in tandem to achieve the impossible was…almost inspiring. Granted, very little in these fragmented worlds made Emet-Selch feel anything but tired indifference, so mayhap he was just surprised that he felt aught positive at all, watching the Warrior of Light rally them to a hopeless cause. Watching her inspire people who had, only hours before, been content to sit in their own misery, idle under the ever burning light, and wait to die, well…it was hard not to be roused in some way.

Even knowing it was impractical, Emet-Selch still often found himself studying the Warrior of Light that he was now in an uneasy alliance with, searching for some sign that he could cling to that could possibly cast doubt on her lineage.

His lineage, for that matter, and really, that was the crux of the issue.

It was harder not to see a bit of himself in Faer than it had ever been, in that moment. There had been, of course, the obvious signs of their relation, from the shock of silver-grey bangs against deep chestnut (in another shorter hairstyle she had begun growing out again, he noticed,) to the golden, hawkish eyes that mirrored his own, but if there had been any doubt before that she was of his blood, her cleverness, and her knack for rousing people in common cause made it undeniable to him. From the instant he realized that she was his great granddaughter, one he had held as a babe, in the twilight years of Solus’ life, he couldn’t help but notice, more and more, that Faer seemed a shining example of what his lineage would have been, perhaps, had fate been different.

Whatever pride he may have felt was inevitably tarnished by her status as his enemy—his greatest yet, certainly, of all the fool heroes that had dashed themselves against his might. The greatest of his enemies in both the threat she posed to their designs on the world, and in that even at this juncture, even knowing that she could yet prove him wrong and show him the error of his ways…this would be the hardest one for him to kill.

Should it come to that, Dark Lord guide me, he thought grimly.

Mayhap Zodiark had always known better than to trust that Emet-Selch wouldn’t care, and had intended to see if he would be willing to slay his kin in the name of their most noble designs. A waste, if that were the case; whatever blood he may have passed down in this life, in this body, that was not the family that he fought so hard for. The Galvus family was not the one that he mourned—mostly.

He tried not to think of his son. Always, did he try not to think of his son. And always, did he fail.

Zodiark was ever present, a persistent, low murmur in the back of his mind. As familiar to him as his own heartbeat, after so many eons, but ever since he’d laid eyes on the Warrior of Light herself and realized that it was his great-granddaughter, it had felt as though he could hear the Dark Lord laughing at his expense. What an apt reward, for toiling in the shadow of his God: a test of faith, at a critical crossroads.

Such maudlin thoughts, while commonplace under the ever burning sun, felt ill-fitting such an occasion as this, watching people mill about with good cheer and throw their entire, frail beings into the work before them. When he refocused and realized that Faer couldn’t be found among the workers anymore, he scanned the immediate vicinity. For a blessing, he wasn’t searching far: taking yet another page from his book, she stood out of the way of those using their tools, those inherited, hawkish eyes surveying the work before her.

He was walking toward her before he had even consciously chosen to do so. Even through the constant reminders that she was his enemy, that he should keep barriers between them, it seemed the pride he felt for her accomplishment, even knowing that their deal could— and in all likelihood, would— end in failure. Perhaps it was those very reminders that made his words drip with sarcasm, once he had moved close enough to his great granddaughter to speak.

“Would you look at that? The citizens of Eulmore engaging in what can only be described as “manual labor.” Who would have thought it possible?” He mused aloud.

Though they were still some distance away from one another in the entryway to the ladder, his voice carried enough that Faer still turned her head to face him. Even knowing that he had gotten her attention, Emet-Selch made no effort to quicken his pace to her; he was old, and weary, and she had good ears.

“Do you know the most reliable way to deal with those who stubbornly refuse to see reason?” He asked without losing his stride, eyes never moving from hers.

Faer was ever an intuitive soul: sensing the weight of the conversation, if not necessarily the mood of it quite yet, she turned her body fully to face him.

It was only a few more steps until they were within reaching distance of one another, but they seemed to take an age longer than all the rest. It was less that he particularly cared whether or not they were overheard, but it would make his already strained relationship with the other Scions all the more so, if they heard his answer, and the indifference in his tone as he spoke,

“You conquer them— crush them under heel.”

He might have put more effort into sounding less cavalier about that if he had anticipated the faint wince she couldn’t quite hold back. Of course she would somehow feel responsible for all the steps of the great plan that he had overseen. Of course she would.

Hero types, really.

“Such was the trusted method of the Allag, and one still favored by Garlemald,” he continued in that same tone, and pretended that he hadn’t noticed her reaction in the first place.

With a wave of his hand, he shifted into a lesson— a windup to an admittedly fumbled compliment he was still half forming. Zodiark was getting in the way of all the words, and it was hard to form them. Exposition was always an easy fallback in theatre, and it saved him now as he explained, “But conquest is the easy part. The true challenge begins once the dust has settled— quenching the glowing embers of animosity and maintaining a semblance of peace. This requires the conqueror to treat the conquered with dignity, and the conquered to let bygones be bygones. A difficult feat to achieve.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d almost say you were trying to train me to be your successor,” Faer bristled. “You sound like my old tutors back home.”

It was Emet-Selch’s turn to wince, even through his smile. It was always hard not to think of the life that could have been— in particular, how things could have been, had he been allowed to love his first son, and all the family that might have come after. All the things that might have been accomplished.

“In another life, I might well have.” He admitted.

That thought seemed to settle differently on the both of them. Where Emet-Selch, already susceptible to dreaming of what was lost and what could have been, could readily see a brighter, happier world for him where he had been allowed to learn to love the Galvus family, Faer looked as though the thought of her participating further in the machinations of the empire would cost her sleep.

Not that he could blame her, really. Hero type, and all.

“But you have achieved just that...to my considerable surprise.” He added when she continued to say nothing.

At the way she narrowed her eyes at him, he couldn’t help but roll his. “It’s a compliment.” He sighed sardonically. “Take it.”

Faer blinked owlishly up at him.

“Oh, I— thank you.” She murmured, and even if her tone was sheepish, he could tell it was sincere. “I guess I just wasn’t necessarily expecting it to be a compliment that wasn’t backhanded.”

Another wince, this time from both of them— he supposed she had a point. She hadn’t even necessarily done anything to him, to earn that. Apart from the death of his kin, though he couldn’t put the fault of their centuries old struggle solely on her; he’d been through this dance a thousand times before. Doubtless, he would continue to do so long after her, too.

They lapsed into silence for a few moments, and watched some few dozen paces off, as Urianger and Y’Shtola maneuvered around toward the idle Talos, cheered on and guided by Dulia and Chai Nuzz respectively. With outstretched hands, they filled the machinery with the thrumming, brilliant blue of their aether, powering the cores within. The sight inspired in Emet-Selch thoughts of the Bureau of Concepts, back when time hardly mattered, where death and tragedy were naught but bad dreams and the punishments of villains in all the stories.

“Ahh, the vibrant energy that fills the air when like-minded souls gather. To think back on that time before time fair brings a tear to my eye.”

She seemed mildly surprised he was capable of it at all. Something in him bristled at that.

“What? You thought ancient beings like us incapable of crying?”

Even he could concede that he sounded defensive. He could stand to leave himself less open, blast it all.

“N-no, it’s just—” She cut herself off, chewing on her bottom lip. “I never could picture you being happy, but I also just...couldn’t fathom you crying, when I was a child.”

She seemed to catch herself in the moment, and gave him an apologetic smile as she said, “Sorry, I shouldn’t keep comparing you to my great-grandfather. You were playing a role back then.”

“It was—” He tamped down on the words, frowning as they tangled on his tongue. Swallowing, he tried again, “While I might have been...doing my part, in our noble work, it would be almost impossible, to not live an entire lifetime and not feel something other than boredom, from time to time.”

Not entirely an admission of affection that most certainly did not exist, though an acknowledgement of his humanity. It seemed a diplomatic enough response.

“I...hadn’t thought of it that way before.” Faer admitted slowly.

Emet-Selch harrumphed. “Well, rest assured that if your heart can be broken, then so can mine!”

“...You’re right.” Faer said, surprising him. “For all our disagreements, I shouldn’t deny the humanity that Ascians possess. Certainly not my own great grandfather’s.”

As painfully formal as it sounded, her apology was a balm on a sore nerve. Enough to let his thoughts wander, as were their wont. Before he could think better of it, he started to give voice to them, and let the dead be among him for a little while through his words.

“Back when the world was whole, we had family, friends, loves…” He began hesitantly.

When she didn’t interrupt him, he turned his gaze toward the ever burning heavens, contemplative, as he continued, “Men knew peace and contentment, and with our adamant souls, we could live for an age. There was no conflict born of want or disparity. Our differences paled into insignificance next to all we had in common.”

The ladder itself was still in his periphery, even when looking at the sky. So, it was only natural that, when he finally looked at the structure proper, that he compared it to the towering landmarks he was so accustomed to back when all he had known was happiness.

“And then, there was Amaurot...never was a city more magnificent. From the humblest streets to the highest spires, she fairly gleamed…”

When at last he brought himself— and his focus— back to the earth, he spared his great-granddaughter a plain look from the corner of his eye. “Not that you would remember any of this,” he said, infinitely and eternally bitter.

“Remember…?” Faer asked, understandably, with a ponderous frown and a tilt of her head.

He had already said too much. Frankly, he was shocked Zodiark permitted him to say as much as he had. Shaking his head, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Never mind.”

Faer pressed her lips together thinly, hands faintly fidgeting in front of her. After a few long moments of silence, Emet-Selch cleared his throat.

“You are staring.” He noted when he could see her start to lose herself to thoughts. “Dare I ask why?”

Her eyes refocused with a blink. “Sorry, you were talking about families, and I was just...thinking back on home. I know you held me as a babe, but the only clear picture I had in my mind of you was when you were older than you look now. I wouldn’t have even recognized you when you showed up if it weren’t for all the murals and the history books, I don’t think.”

He hadn’t even thought of that, when he had first taken up residence in the first clone that Varis had made— or when he had kept the form when he had taken a body for his own in this world, for that matter.

“Would it have been a comfort to you, had I been the elderly and frail grandfather you knew?” He asked, only able to muster half of his usual snark. Something about the thought upset him in a way he couldn’t describe.

“I don’t honestly believe so. The shock was what kept me from killing you outright, when you showed up.” Faer admitted with a shrug. “I had yet to have a pleasant run-in with an Ascian, I’ll remind you.” When he didn’t have a response to her comment, she shifted on her feet, awkward that her comment had not landed with him. She crinkled her nose, and admitted hesitantly,“I didn’t think the paintings were right, if I’m being honest.”

Paintings. And she had mentioned murals before—

“Ah, the royal gallery.” Emet-Selch nodded at the recollection, ample excuse to avert his eyes from her. “I’d nearly forgotten; I had to pose for so many portraits, even before I was crowned Emperor, I learned how to nap with my eyes open to make it even a little bearable.”

She let out a little snort on the inhale of her chuckle, and promptly smothered it behind her hand. It seemed Garlean etiquette had not been entirely beaten out of her. He remembered the tutors that had been in the employ of the royal family: to be frank, the thing that impressed him the most was how little her knuckles had scarred from their yalmsticks. They were likely responsible for her resilience in the face of constant sneering; her good cheer would have run out malms ago otherwise, the same as her newly reunited companions.

In spite of their uncertain alliance, he joined her in laughter when she looked up at him again, face faintly flushed from holding in her giggling. In truth, his comment wasn’t necessarily funny, but it was just human enough to startle the both of them into unexpected chuckling.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized again— and really, she did it far too often, in his opinion. “I interrupted you. What were you saying?”

The lingering smirk on his lips from laughing faded. It was a bit of a shame, to have their mood shift so suddenly as he knew it would.

Nevertheless. She did ask.

“The point is: the world of old was a far better place than what we have now. I believe you would like it, having witnessed the things you have.”

Would that he could give it all to her. Her true inheritance: a world without conflict, a world where no one suffered and all were equal in the eyes of one another. A world where jobs like hers were absolutely redundant but for the sake of exploration and learning.

A world fitting for his great-granddaughter.

Capitalizing on her surprise at his comment, he pressed, “Remember, you are of the Source. Unlike the halfmen here, you stand only to gain. Should you survive the remaining calamities, you will become our equal. A complete existence in a complete world.”

Pressed too far, it seemed: a look of pain flashed over Faer’s face. Of guilt. Was that what she wanted, too, he wondered. A chance to put her weapon down and simply be. Surely that was not too awful a thought for her to have? Too soon, he reasoned. She isn’t ready to stop playing the hero.

So he could be supportive, in his own, twisted way. Could nudge her, as a villain, could inspire her to the greatness he knew, in his heart of hearts, that she could achieve.

With another shrug, he chided, “But such talk is a pleasure for later. Back to work, hero.”

He turned to leave when a thought occurred to him. Pausing mid step, he angled his head back toward her and said over his shoulder, “Ah, there was one thing I had meant to ask: how well do you know the Exarch? Has he ever deigned to show you what hides beneath that cowl?”

In part to play his role as the villain, in part to service his role in the grand plan, he played both to perfection, just to see what would happen. Even still, Faer shaking her head “no” came as a surprise; he didn’t get the sense that she was lying.

“What, never? Not even to you? How very interesting…I shall enjoy working out what it means. Until next time.”

Faer called after him when he began to leave in earnest. Much as he might have found another reason to linger, he would rather be with his thoughts. With a dismissive wave, he pressed on, and hoped the distance he put between them was well beyond any chance of her words reaching him.

Despite everything, they still had.

It had been a point of pride, how much Emet-Selch had kept his distance from watching Faer in action, for more than had been a necessity. For a blessing, such occurrences had been infrequent; before now, it had largely fallen to the more...hands on of his peers. He was among the last, now— most ironically of all, the most hands on of the surviving Unsundered.

But those words he had been running from had caught up to him, sunk their teeth into him, and bled him of his will to stay away. He was too old to run from such things, these days. He had been for a very long time, he supposed. To save himself from being drained of all he had scraped together the last eon, rather than try to thrash and tighten the vice of those fangs, he relaxed, and let go.

And so, Emet-Selch did what he did best: he clung to the shadows, and watched. He bore witness to his great-granddaughter’s struggles, in the moment, far more closely— in attentiveness and distance both— than he ever had before. If living in the dark was a comfort, then he could still peer into the light, that he might try to see.

What he saw should have terrified him— and, in a distant sort of way, he supposed that it did. It should have angered him, nauseated him, to see the ferocity with which Faer took down her foes. Meek and mild though she may be in those interpersonal moments, this was him truly beholding the Warrior of Light, in her element, and all her glory, both.

It was a peculiar thing: to look at her directly was almost too much, as if she took after her namesake too well. Mayhap, that was the Light that she had absorbed, burning beneath her skin, and naught more. He hadn’t looked closely enough before now to know for certain.

He might have been too old to run from the things that he couldn’t face, but as he worked to keep up with the pace that Faer had set for her crew, every one of those years fell away. In the moment, as he darted from shadow to shadow, and peered through every portal he popped out of when his current, dark roost could no longer track her movements, he felt young again, in a way he had forgotten.

There was so much of himself that Emet-Selch saw in her, even before witnessing what she was capable of on the battlefield. He had been far from a spry youth, then he began to build the Garlean Empire, but he recalled the years before he took the crown, how he had unleashed Hell itself unto his enemies, to ensure that he achieved the accolades that would make him a fitting Emperor, and couldn’t help but see much of the same tenacity, ferocity, and unrelenting strength that he had once employed, now passed down to his great-granddaughter.

Faer was hardly the first hero that he had ever witnessed in combat. In truth, she wasn’t even the first hero that he had been moved by.

But she was the first hero that he had such a direct connection to. A connection that forced him to look, with both eyes open, upon the path that she walked— and, by proxy, that he walked.

Maybe it was the Light, radiating off of her, but Zodiark’s veil felt unusually thin, as they climbed, higher and higher, from towering Talos to the perilous peak of Mt. Gulg. Thin enough that he could see, for the first time, that Faer was his equal in fervor, in dedication to her goal. Equal also, in the belief that hers was the just cause.

Perhaps that was why, when Vauthry descended upon Faer with twofold forms and fury alike, Emet-Selch celebrated her victory over the last of the Lightwardens.

He’d often been told that the air itself felt heavier, on the precipice of great change. Even before the Sundering, such a philosophical discussion had been brought to the Forum of Debate. It had been something he had understood only in the most joyous of occasions— death was such a rarity, outside of accidents, he had practically only known the air to grow saturated with satisfaction, or heady with happiness.

The air here, at the summit of Mt. Gulg, already scorching, stale, and still for the eternal Light, shifted around him as he emerged from the shadows, one last time. It was noticeably harder to breathe, for the lingering particulates of Vauthry’s remains hung in that unnatural stasis, glimmering in the gilded light.

Haunting, had he cared enough to look anywhere, save for his great-granddaughter.

The lingering, shimmering ashes of the Lightwarden had a faintly dusty, saccharine scent. Cloying, much like the makeup powders that Emet-Selch so enjoyed to dabble with. However, it was several heartbeats before he realized that, as he held his breath, watching Faer absorb the Light.

The eternal, beaming rays above split, and tore open as a gaping wound, through which the night itself bled. It was a gasp of air amongst the drowning stillness, a breach in the surface, but it was fleeting— it sewed itself back up, just as the Warrior of Darkness collapsed to her knees.

There were voices, not far from him, but they sounded as distant as rolling thunder. There was a blue ring of light— contrasting to the all encompassing luminescence above. It was enough to distract him, though only enough for Zodiark to remind him of his task.

Emet-Selch breathed in that heavier air of change, as he craned his neck to look up again. The momentary glimpse of the night sky was long gone, and any trace it had ever been there taken with it. She failed, she failed, just as we knew she would, Zodiark urged him.

The gun he’d kept on his person as Solus zos Galvus was in his hand before he realized he had summoned it. There was someone opposite his descendant, speaking with her kindly— ah, the Exarch—

The secretive man’s hood fell away with another pulse of that blue, blinding light. Emet-Selch didn’t know the man— he didn’t need to. He didn’t care.

He recognized those red eyes anywhere.

So, it was just as he suspected, then. Somehow, that didn’t surprise him; he had never been able to truly stamp out the Allagan Empire in its entirety without over meddling. It should almost be expected, that its echoes would dog him all the way here.

The bullet Zodiark had loaded in the chamber for Faer was instead lodged into the scarlet sorcerer. It struck him in the abdomen— nothing fatal, he did need the man alive for his Allagan eye, after all.

Well. That, and his great-granddaughter had failed to keep her end of the bargain. It was only meet that he take his consolation prize, and be on his way.

At least, that was what he told himself, staring down at the barely conscious form of the man that had tried to spare Faer her fate. A strange sort of anger welled up in his chest at that; here this, this Exarch was, posturing as the secretive, scheming villain, all to spare Faer her precious little feelings, so no one would miss him as he went to make a star of himself.

Emet-Selch couldn’t bite back a cruel quirk of his lips. The Exarch wanted to play a villain? He could watch the Architect put on a real show.

“Only those who possess the Royal Eye of the Allagan imperial line are capable of controlling the Crystal Tower.” He raised his voice loud enough to be heard. “Such individuals do not exist in the First.”

He lowered his gun as he spoke, unperturbed by the veneer of civility being shorn so thoroughly in Faer’s presence; she was barely keeping herself kneeling, her entire body quivering with the effort of holding in every onze of light that she had absorbed.

“Therefore, in all likelihood, the Exarch arrived here with the tower. This much I had surmised, yet I could not discern his grand scheme. To think, he went through all this trouble for the sake of a single hero. It’s almost admirable in its absurdity.”

He stepped up to the crumpled sorcerer, peering down at him. There was a strange sense of pitiable understanding that welled up in him, thinking on his own words; in a sense, they were not so different. After all, he, too, had gone to great lengths to make an exception to the rule, all for the sake of a single hero.

“Alas, it is not your grand scheme that will succeed, but ours.”

One of the little mortals was squabbling at him again. Really, he had thought they had learned by now.

When that same mortal— Thancred, he distantly recalled the name— reached for his gunblade, Emet-Selch warned, “Stay put. Your friend is still alive, but whether he remains so depends on you.”

Though the brute bared his teeth, he did not make another advance. Once it was clear that he would not be attacked, Emet-Selch turned his attention to his great-granddaughter.

It didn’t matter what he felt, watching her writhe in agony so. They had an agreement, and now...now, he had his part to play. And she, hers.

His final test of faith.

“What a disappointment you turned out to be.” Said the Architect— softly, as if to himself. As if his remorse was genuine.

Perhaps it was. It couldn’t matter regardless.

That anger that the Exarch had sparked swelled in his chest, the longer he looked down upon Faer. To think that for a fleeting instant, she had dared to chase away the shadows from his eyes. To think, he had dared to see.

“I placed my faith in you. Let myself believe that you could contain the Light.” He spat accusingly.

His temples throbbed in time with his heart for how hot the anger in his breast ran. The longer he stared down at her, pale and trembling and bleached out for the Light inside her, the brighter his fury blazed. To think, he had dared, once again, like the fool that he was, to hope. And once more, he was reminded of why such notions are folly.

“But look at you now,” He sneered, “halfway to becoming a monster. You are unworthy of my patronage.”

For some reason, Faer’s refusal to look away only served to anger him further. What did she hope to gain from such useless posturing? She had lost.

And yet, he supposed, she couldn’t have possibly gotten half as far as she had, if she had ever lied down and accepted her fate. Even through the anger, he couldn’t help but respect her effort; few understood how hard it was to simply try.

“What...what happens now, then, great-grandfather?” Faer managed to snarl between gasping heaves.

Before Emet-Selch could respond, she buckled under a fit of productive coughing. So productive, in fact, that the very light that she had absorbed was now being spat onto the gilded ground. She slipped, as she tried to stagger to her feet, and folded back onto her knees, panting from the exertion.

His frown deepened; something about her pitiful struggles agitated him, enough that he felt like his skin itched from the inside. To hide the depth of his rage— and genuine disappointment, he realized with belated shock— he took a moment to let out a noise of disgust.

Emet-Selch was still in character, after all.

He reminded her, tutting, “I am an Ascian. My heart’s sole desire is to usher in the Great Rejoining.”

Spitting once more, she looked back up at him, eyes blazing with fury, tears, and the light that glimmered off of them.

It was too much, in particular, knowing precisely how he was about to hurt her next; he looked away, toward her Scion accomplices, and struck: “A hundred years ago, I entrusted my comrade, Loghriff, with the task of increasing Light’s sway over this world. This, we sought to do by manipulating heroes.”

A wet, gasping sob tore itself from Faer’s throat. Emet-Selch hid his wince from her. He had struck true.

Continuing his onslaught, he kept his eyes locked on those lesser servants of Hydaelyn, as he spoke, “When that failed to achieve the desired result, I created Vauthry. But thanks to your meddling, that, too, has ended in failure.”

“What was your true purpose in approaching us?” One of the matching pair demanded.

“By your Twelve, boy, have I not told you before, that everything I said was the truth?” He countered. “You were specimens by which I might gauge man’s potential as it stands.”

As if he had ever lied. As if he had ever pretended. As if he had ever had a choice.

Strangely incensed, Emet-Selch pressed, “I genuinely had an interest in you. Genuinely considered taking you on as allies! Provided that she—”

He spared a sneering glance out of the corner of his eye, over his shoulder, at his kneeling great-granddaughter. What he could see of her, through the light that was seeping through the metaphorical cracks, at least.

“—Could contain the light.”

He managed to pretend at disappointed boredom. The mask was always easier. Always, always easier.

Leaning into his assigned role in Zodiark’s most noble design, he turned to face his failing, fading family.

“If not, then she— and by extension, you— would be of no use to me. ‘Twas as simple as that.”

He couldn’t even muster the strength to straighten his posture; he could distantly hear his old vizier, in simpler times, huffing about how unlike an Emperor it was to slouch. When the yappy one with the gunblade snorted indignantly, he faced the noise, half expecting someone to attempt something stupid.

For a blessing and a curse, the Scions seemed to yet possess their senses, and did not attack him.

Thancred, instead, drolled, “So we’ve been found wanting. How disheartening. But even had we fulfilled your conditions, there was no guarantee that we would cooperate. What then?”

As if it had not been obvious. They took advantage of his good grace, and thought him docile for the trouble? He would remind them of their folly.

“Then I simply kill you all.” Emet-Selch replied plainly, and shrugged. “At the very least, it would restore the world to the way it was before you went about trouncing Lightwardens willy-nilly.”

He shot a glare at the troublesome, unconscious Exarch. The creaky little mischief maker. All the magic of the Allagan Empire, stolen out from rightful fingers, and yet, here he was! Laid low by a bullet. As any murdered king, as any defeated tyrant: they bled, all the same.

“Suffice to say it would be most inconvenient to have all that Light taken away— and I would be lying if I were to claim his actions didn’t have me worried.”

Another bout of Faer’s gasping coughs brough another wet splatter of ectoplasmic light scattering across the broquet. Her back arched with the might of her heaving, as her body tried to force air into her lungs, any way that it could.

It did not bother him. He did not look away again. This was his test, after all. He could not falter here.

The Architect stalked over to where his great-granddaughter of Light knelt there, in all her broken glory. There was a ringing in his ears— it made the dull, purposeful thunk of his boots sound especially loud to him. Nevertheless, he did not stop, not until he was close enough to observe her, and knelt to her level.

It should have been easy, to look at her. It shouldn’t have hurt, to see how she had been twisted, her features bleached out in harsh light, how she seemed almost swallowed by the luminescence that clung to her skin, that radiated from her. It should have even given him some sort of grim glee, seeing his greatest enemy laid low.

It didn’t. He couldn’t look away.

Solus watched his little great-granddaughter, the same one he’d bounced on his knee and read to, his family, his lineage, all that he had left that he could even begin to consider family, and he was killing her.

But Emet-Selch...he had a role to play.

“Hm,” he hummed, seeming unaffected. “You still retain your form, and your senses...but you have all but become a sin eater.”

Faer’s head hung, at the words, “sin eater.” For a moment, she looked defeated. She did not lift it again, until he next spoke.

He should have triumphed, in the moment. Should have taken that defeat and solidified it, right then and there, and made good on his word to kill them all and just be done with it.

Instead, Solus could only softly explain, in a voice he’d heard one of his hospice chirurgeons use with him, toward the end of his life, “Whether you will it or no, your mere existence will serve to engulf the world in Light.” He only half remembered to put a villain’s cruel twist to that kindness, “Those in your company will likewise turn into sin eaters, and, in time, you will succumb to your base instincts, and hunt innocents to feast on their sweet, sweet aether.”

Faer’s head swayed, as she struggled to keep it upright, to watch him as he emphasized, venting some of his anger with bitter delight, “Those few with the will left to fight may rise up against you. But before your absolute might, they will quickly know despair. “There is no hope! We are finished! Mankind is finished!” Ahhh, the irony. What Vauthry achieved through bliss, you will achieve through despair.”

He had taken all he could of watching Faer struggle; watching any longer than this would only bring harm to him, and would gain him nothing in exchange. Ignoring the popping of his knees, he stood.

“But I have overstayed my welcome. I shall look forward to seeing you bring the world to its knees, hero.”

Emet-Selch granted himself reprieve when he turned fully away from the Warrior of Light, and focused on the Exarch, as he snapped his fingers. In an instant, the Allagan pretender was whisked away, in that void between realms carved out for the Unsundered.

Ignoring the whinging of the Warrior of Light’s accomplices crying out after the Exarch, demanding justice, and all of the usual trappings of a squawking hero that he paid no heed, he reasoned, “I have naught to show for all the time and effort I invested in you. He is a small token for my troubles. I did not expect that I could learn aught from man, but I may yet learn something from all the knowledge he had hoarded for his precious hero.”

Emet-Selch had always been above them— figuratively, and literally. He opted for an exit befitting that stature— only the best would to, before their intercession, after all— and with nary a half onze of effort, he lifted himself high above their heads, well beyond their reach—

Or at least, he had intended to; the Warrior of Light lunged at him suddenly, and before he could properly react, clutched at the front of his coat to keep herself upright on quivering legs. With an effort that looked herculean in effort, she pulled herself up by his lapels, trying to draw on her full height. Her eyes blazed with an intensity that threatened to blind him, and she bared her teeth at him in a heaving snarl.

A hero, to the last. A familiar habit, of a familiar, familial hero.

“I pity you, I do.” Emet-Selch drawled, sparing an emphasizing glance at her Scions. “Your friends are now your foes. If you do not kill them, they will kill you.”

He caught her hands, intending to rip them off of him, but he froze at the way her knuckles tightened around the fabric, enough that he couldn’t tell where the creaking of her gloves ended, and that of her knuckles began.

Emet-Selch tried to be angry at that. Tried to be indignant, that she would dare try while she was at death and sanity’s door. He should have thrown her off of him, should have given in to that quiet, almost inaudible whispering in his head, scrabbling about like fingers dancing along his spine, playing him like a puppet, and just finished it already—

Instead, Solus could only ask, in a private, terrified whisper, “Why are you still fighting?”

“Because I have to.” Faer whispered back, just as brave, and no less scared. “I have to.”

His great-granddaughter. Would that he could give her the world. Perhaps, a shadowbox of it that he had made would do.

“Then...seek me out at my abode, in the dark depths of the Tempest.” He commanded. “You’re my great-granddaughter. Act like it. Prove me wrong.”

“I’ll be there.” Faer warned, in a low voice. As if she were in a place to warn him of anything but when she was about to be sick. “And when I get there...I’ll make you see.”

Lacking the strength to respond, to retaliate, to do aught more than tremble with her, Solus let Zodiark take him away. He melted through her fingertips, and even long after he had rematerialized in the shade of his home, he could not reconfigure himself in such a way that made him feel whole.

So Emet-Selch waited. He waited long enough that he had begun to wonder if the Warrior of Light would miss her cue. Long enough that, eventually, he began to question whether or not he had nodded off, at some point, and a whole new buggering age had rolled in, while he wasn’t looking. Again.

But then, there she was, his family, walking the paths of Amaurot. From a distance, he might have pretended that all was as it once was—

Except that, while Faer had, in fact, arrived at his humble abode— she had not done so alone.

There was something about her arriving, accompanied by people that claimed to be her family, rather than him, that rankled Solus. Sure, he had been the one to put them all on this path to begin with, but that didn’t mean he stopped being her real family—

Even as she wasn’t his real family, Emet-Selch reminded himself. He wasn’t even sure why it fanned the flames in his chest.

“This really is unacceptable. I gave you very specific instructions.” He reminded her snidely, to hide how affected he was at the sight of her so withered.

Ignoring the squawking of one of the younger scions, Emet-Selch took a moment to force his expression to match his tone; it wouldn’t do for him to try and convince his captive audience of his indifference with a pitying grimace, after all.

“My invitation was for an abomination, ripe with the power to bring about the world’s annihilation. Not this half-broken...thing.”

A glance at Faer’s face, even paled as it was from the Light, he could tell she wasn’t buying that he didn’t care. In truth, nor was he, at this point. But the show must go on, after all.

“What ever am I going to do with you?” He couldn’t help but ask, with almost fond exasperation and a maimed, maiming smile. Helpless to stop himself, he further barbed, “And I see you insist on keeping the same, familiar company. Are you so lost without them?”

“It is not she who is lost without the familiar.” Quipped the sorceress.

A wince cracked Emet-Selch’s mask in twain— he was well and truly surrounded by the evidence against him, should he try to rebuke that. Not the least of which was, of course, his own flesh and blood, standing beside that same witch.

“I may have gotten a little carried away, in my attention to detail. Added a few unnecessary flourishes…” His petty attempt at a defense died half formed on his tongue. Zodiark did not prevent him from feeling the loneliness, the loss, from the absence of his fellow Ancients. Nor, did He prevent the truth of his plan from being brought to the light bearers. “Weeell, there’s no point in trying to deny it. Yes.

“Once the rejoining of worlds is complete, Zodiark will regain His full strength, and shatter His prison. Then, we shall offer up the Source’s remaining inhabitants in sacrifice, that we might resurrect our brethren who died to bring Zodiark into existence.”

“We don’t have to fight.” Faer replied, dancing around the subject. “You could join us. You could help so many people—“

“Those pale imitations are not people.” Emet-Selch rankled, bristling.

“They don’t stop being people just because you don’t like them!” She shouted, standing straighter, as if her indignation gave her a new well of strength to tap into. “If you won’t stop this, then we have come here to stop you!”

She wanted to continue to champion these lesser beings, in favor of embracing Zodiark’s unavoidable truth, did she? So be it.

“Did you now? One last do-or-die attempt to foil my plans, then? How very, very...heroic of you.”

This was the best he could have possibly hoped for, from humanity. His very own creation, sired and carefully monitored to see how she developed, and this was the best that they could do. He wanted to spit curses at her until her mind had succumbed to the madness. He wanted to scream until his voice fled him. He felt nauseated. This was his family, he was fighting—

This is but another hero. You have been here before, Lord Zodiark reminded him, ever a gentle, guiding hand.

Those distant fingers pulled at the back of his mind, as if to straighten out his thoughts. Rather than think of the great-granddaughter standing before him, he thought back on those who had stood there before. The more he thought on it, the more their armor blurred, in his mind, until he couldn’t discern one from the other; they were all but obstacles in his way. What did it matter, who they were? They were nothing to him. Thank the Dark Lord, for showing him the error of his straying thoughts.

“In every single age, there is always someone who wants to stand up to the evil Ascians,” he echoed Zodiark’s sentiments spitefully. “Always the same arrogance, the same insistence that the world belongs to them. As if theirs were the only rightful claim, theirs the only existence worthy of preservation!”

“Do you not hear yourself?” Faer demanded. “I could criticize your number for those very same thoughts!”

The implication that they were of equal value shifted Emet-Selch’s anger into something frigid as space, and just as dangerous, where these mortals were concerned.

“Even now, after everything, you refuse to see reason.” He said with an unaffected shrug, the calmness in his voice startling even him. “You think it unfair that you are subject to suffering? That your lives will be sacrificed for the ancients?”

That white hot anger, a molten volcano that had rumbled low in the pit of Emet-Selch’s gut for centuries, erupted forth, frothing and flaming and furious.

“Look at me!” He demanded, smacking the flat of his palm against his scorching chest as though it were a hammer on a red-hot iron. He spat out the sparks, “I have lived a thousand, thousand of your lives! I have broken bread with you, fought with you, grown ill, grown old! Sired children and yes, welcomed death’s sweet embrace. For eons, have I measured your worth, and found you wanting! Too weak and feeble-minded to serve as stewards of any star!”

He flung his hand away from himself; his chest had grown too hot, even through his robes, to comfortably touch. Magicks ancient and roiling rose to the surface, needled against his skin, itching to bleed the life out of his enemies. Distantly, he was aware that his chest was heaving with the weight of his breathing.

It startled all in the room, the depth of even a taste of that long-aged anger. Himself, most of all. With more effort than it should have taken, he took a shuddering breath to attempt to calm himself.

Inevitably, it did not work. Their debate would only circle, and circle, and circle, and while he might have enjoyed partaking of that, back when the world was whole, he had no patience for it, while he tried to piece it back together again.

Hero types were always so eager to try and prove themselves, after all— would a test of her strength not be a more satisfactory exam, versus a pointless argument?

With that justification, he visited upon the Warrior of Light the darkest hour of his life. He rained the fall of Amaurot down upon her, bearing the full brunt of those horrific memories, all for the sole purpose of hurting her, of destroying her. She was his opposition: he had to stop her, at all costs.

She was too bright to look at directly; he did not watch her progress, apart from knowing when to elaborate on what forms his trauma took. To make her see, this time. If he had bathed in her light ascending that miserable mountain, then he would drown her in his darkness, descending into his deepest horrors.

Infuriatingly, she persisted, survived, and stood before him again.

Lashing out in a fit of pique, he sneered as he tore down, one by one, the Scions that attempted to close the distance, to cover the Warrior of Light’s last, pitiful hobble toward him, as the Light threatened to consume her.

Eventually, he flung her backward, too, and waited for it all to end. Waited for the Light to take her away, so he never had to think about her and everything that could have been, ever again.

When it finally did, he watched, waiting, praying, for relief. Instead, all he got for his trouble was a momentary glimpse, of the soul that his great-granddaughter used to be. Azem.

In the blink of an eye, that flickering recollection vanished. And all that stood was Faer. Fully restored, ready to fight. In another, the Exarch, clinging to staff and life with equal desperation.

“This ends this day, great-grandfather.” She called, voice calm despite the tears that poured from her eyes. “One way or another, it ends.”

One last do-or-die for the both of them, then. For them all, if he were feeling poetic. He was not; he fought like the lives of everyone he loved depended on it. Because they did.

“Very well.” He said, and began to let the arcane glamours that kept his form human fall away. “Let us proceed to your final judgement. The victor shall write the tale and the vanquished become its villain!”

She did not move. So, he began to stalk toward her. Goading her.

“But come!” He called as he drew near. “Let us cast aside titles and pretense, Faer, and reveal our true faces to one another!”

The symbol of his seat blazed brightly in front of his eyes. Once more, he was a sorcerer of eld, in appearance and power alike. Still constricted by his mortal trappings, he still towered over those who opposed him all the same. His voice reverberated through his ribs as he bellowed,

“I am Hades! He who shall awaken our brethren from their dark slumber!”

He did not claim himself a hero, not just yet. It remained to be seen, which of them were the villain, after all. And so, Hades did not hold back.

Nor did his opponent. Just as he expected.

Somehow, somehow, she still attempted to reason with him, as they traded slashes and spells, staff and shield.

“We can still stop this!” Faer sobbed from behind her shield.

He dipped into the wellspring of eternal darkness that Zodiark bled into their veins, his hands reaching, reaching out with claws dipped in darkness. They scrambled against her shield. He felt it tremble beneath his onslaught, felt her quaking with the effort to keep him at bay.

Hades persisted; he was inevitable.

“Have you not heard a word of what I’ve said? You are not worthy to be successors of this star! You are worthy only of death, at my hands!”

Even casting aside the mortal flesh that constricted his power seemed to be insufficient to snuff out Faer’s light— she burned all the brighter, the darker the force he brought to bear upon her.

Immortal as he was, time had little concept to him already, but the battle between he and Faer, Hades against the Warrior of Light, seemed to stretch out for an eternity before them. He waited, waited for the moment that she would slip, the moment that her strength would falter, the moment she would buckle beneath his onslaught. Just one moment, that was all it would take for either of them to catch the upper hand.

In the fixation on his primary opponent, and the desperation that drove his every attack to snuff out her light, he had left himself open to be struck by one of those damnable Scions— who had prepared ahead of time with that thrice damned auracite—

Hades had heard, in a thousand different voices, in as many tongues, say that the air at a crossroads was always heavier. It was a strange truth, one he had always forgotten to put much stock in, until he found himself standing where those paths intersected.

Now, he found the comparison more apt to crosshairs, watching the Warrior of Light bear down upon him as he struggled, prone, against the shards of auracite that had pierced him.

It should have made him feel fear. Perhaps anger, outrage, hatred, for the fabricated family that destroyed him, and any chance that he might have had had restoring his true family to their former glory.

All he could feel was relief—this fight was no longer his. He had done his part. For good or ill, he had played his role. The failure was, while certainly on his shoulders, no longer his concern.

The Light pierced Hades, and, just as he knew that it would, everything stopped.

Lahabrea had been the scientist of the lot of them, but he had been no slouch in his studies, back at Academia Anyder; he knew what should happen to him, suffused with Light as he now was. He knew what his fate was, the moment his arcane shields failed him.

And so he waited. He waited to lose feeling in his limbs—from the furthest nerve points, inward, he recalled. Waited to feel enfeebled and cold. Waited to feel too tired to keep his eyes open, and to drift off, for the last time, into that quiet dark.

Hades had died before, after all.

Those restful stretches had always played with time strangely, as he awaited his awakening, so he had anticipated the concept to cease to have all meaning, when he was sleeping forever. Even still, when the light faded, and he still felt himself very much breathing, very much alive, a ponderous frown creased his brow.

Well. That was new.

With caution, he opened his eyes— the light in front of him was still brighter than he had been expecting, and he had to blink several times before his sight adjusted.

It shouldn’t have been as hard as it was, to process the dawn cresting over the horizon, shining upon the desiccated, dilapidated remains of his Amaurot—

No, that wasn’t quite right, was it? Amaurot had fallen eons ago—ah, and there was his brain, at last waking up with the rest of him.

His thoughts were alarmingly quiet, for how his mind raced with them. Belatedly, with an awe that dawned on him as the sun rose before him, he realized that he felt strangely empty—but where that would have given him a sense of anxiety, once, he could only breathe a sigh of relief at hearing no one else in his head but himself. The strings that had pulled his thoughts in different directions had been cut: Zodiark’s hold over him, was at last, somehow, no more. A distant pondering on whether he had lived longer tempered or not flitted through his mind, but it dragged his heart up, into his throat, on its way out.

Everyone he had loved, and lost, and mourned, now so many eons passed that not even their stardust remained. Those he had convinced himself, through sheer stubbornness and the magnitude of his lies to himself, that he could save. In the heart of his grief, when he couldn’t see another way to go on, he’d clung to the delusion of “what if,” and tried to manufacture a tomorrow for the dead, stealing it from the living, time and again, and justifying it all the while because they weren’t his people.

In the strange stasis of realizing that he was neither dead, nor tempered, there was a numbness to all that he had done. There was, at least, until his sight focused on more than the sprawling, dilapidated remains of his memories.

For there, standing before him, restored to her true glory, gleaming sword of pure Light in her trembling hand, and looking at him as though she were terrified for him with wide eyes that swam with tears, was the Warrior of Light. Faer: his great-granddaughter. His family.

The family that he had betrayed, a thousand, thousand different ways, until it had shattered in his grip, and the fragmented pieces that remained had to make do with what was left in the wreckage of his rampage. Hades felt as though he couldn’t breathe, as the weight of all he had done, over the eons, bore down upon his unclouded mind.

“Faer…?” He whispered.

The blade in her hand rattled, quietly, from the strength of her trembling grip. For all the ferocity that they had both brought into the fight mere moments ago, it felt like neither of them could find the strength to move. The strength, or perhaps, not knowing how to move in this eerie stillness.

“...Great-grandpa?” She called back, sounding just as shocked as he felt.

“I...my eyes, at last, unclouded...to think that I…” He rasped, his throat feeling as a desert, even when he tried to force it to work, and swallowed thickly.

The vision of her swam before him. Tears, he realized distantly, as they began to flood his eyes, stinging with a distantly familiar saltiness, made new again for its centuries long absence. Zodiark had dulled the senses that were compromising; the anger, the bitterness, He allowed to flourish. The love, too, if only to serve as kindling for the former. But all the inconvenient facets of grief, the paralyzing sense of emptiness, the yawning chasms in long tracts of land in his soul, filled only with a sea of sorrow, Zodiark had walled off from the Unsundered.

If he experienced sadness, it had been a gray, tiring thing; he would sleep, and dream, and awake freshly embittered and ready to enact the will of his Dark Lord. Without that dam to keep the flow of that complicated mass of emotions from flooding him, they spilled out of him, and he could only helplessly shudder to try and keep himself still. He was only as successful as he would be trying to stand in defiance of a flooding river in a hurricane.

Horrified at all that he had done, and the breakdown that was in progress before Faer and her Scions, he sank down to his knees. He could feel the rattle of his voice against his chest; he was speaking, he was saying something— likely pitiful, mourning mewls. He could scarcely believe himself; the depths he had sunk to, the shame that his Ancient loved ones would feel, knowing what he had done to try and bring them back—

Hades wanted to laugh. Resurrection, in direct defiance of everything that the Lifestream stood for? What hubris they had harbored, to think that they could construct a simple solution to the consequences of their own irresponsibility.

They had been poor shepherds of their star. He had been a poor shepherd, and a poorer hero. But he could begin to make right, if he were given the chance.

He felt as though he could scarcely articulate himself, through the aeons of grief catching up to him, at long last. The hands that he wept into were wrenched away from him— Faer had knelt before him, to level with him, without him even knowing she had moved at all.

Squeezing his hands, she gave him a watery smile. “You’re not making any sense. But that’s alright. Breathe. You’re alive. You’re free.”

“How—?” Hades managed to gasp, through the tears that choked him.

“I...I don’t know. I wanted to save you, so, so desperately. I think...I think I just...forced it to happen, is all.” She shrugged, around the shuddering of her shoulders. “I couldn’t bear killing you. I couldn’t. I’ve already been forced to kill my own brother, once. I’ll likely have to kill my father. Please...please don’t make me kill you, too—”

Gathering her to him, he promised, over and over again, through his tears, that he wouldn’t. He couldn’t— given the royal mess he had made his family, under Zodiark’s guidance, she was likely the only family he would be left with. He had already lost so much—

For a few long moments, they knelt together, and just let themselves mourn everything that had brought them to that moment. Every tragedy that had forced them to their knees, together, clinging desperately in the dawn of a new day.

As Hades finally felt like he could breathe again, for the first time since time forgot him altogether, he let that awakening wash over him again: he could take what he had left, and help his family rebuild. He need not truly lose everything. That revelation was enough for those tears that had flooded his eyes to be stemmed; they yet fell, and he yet grieved, but he could at last taste tangible, true hope, beyond that harrowing sorrow. There was a light that, at long last, did not burn him.

“He gets one chance.” One of her friends— Thancred, Hades remembered that he had been corrected on that— said, from a respectable distance. “Surrender, or we’ll spare her our duty.”

“I surrender.” Hades replied, looking up at them. “We lost our home, and everyone we loved, and our grief made monsters of us. I am among the last of them. Let me teach you the ways of our successes, and our stumbles alike. Learn from me, and let me help.”

Hand on his gunblade, Thancred wavered. “I’m not sure that’s enough—”

“Make that enough, or you might as well have struck me down, too, Thancred.” Faer warned, standing and facing him. “Don’t make me lose more family. Please, I’m so tired.”

If Hades’ plea wasn’t enough to satisfy him, Faer’s was; they were the truest sense of family, she and her Scions. Observing them with eyes unclouded, that much was obvious.

Some distance from both the Scions, as well as himself, the Exarch watched, fidgeting. Doubtless, he had his own reckoning with Faer awaiting, for all his secrecy and subterfuge throughout their adventures through Norvrandt. As their eyes met, they shared a sort of understanding that could only come with living a lifetime beyond what most mortals could conceive of, even through the trauma, and all that Hades had put him through, the Exarch could find it in him to empathize with his warden.

To think, he had thought these specimens of mankind insufficient, when they so desperately reminded him of the very people he had loved and lost.

“Lest you have lingering concerns: I can neither see Zodiark’s hand around Hades’ heart, nor sense His touch upon him. Hades is tempered no longer.”

It had been more than enough, for Y’Shtola to make that declaration, for the Scions to accept that he was not the same man that was capable of the things that he had accomplished under Zodiark, but hearing it had been something Hades had not realized he had needed, until it had settled gently over his raw, healing heart.

“Given that, I see no reason I should not immediately start with those lessons— and I know precisely where to begin.” Hades said, finding the strength and steadiness to stand once more.

With a snap of his fingers and a faint, effortless pull from the newly purified fire in his soul, the ruined remains of his home were once more restored to a reflection of their former glory.

“Come: it is high past time I show you the full depth of your inheritance, Faer.” Hades offered, sweeping his hand out, toward the door. “Let me show you my yesterday, that we might better our tomorrow.”

For a few agonizing moments, stillness reigned once more. He feared that he would appear false, now, at the height of their victory, that they would not believe him. For the second time in his life, he feared not being permitted to live.

And then, Faer was beside him, her smile beaming brighter than the morning light that haloed her. When he looked behind them, the Scions, and the Exarch, had all begun to follow behind, though their distance was understandable.

“Shall we, then?” His great-granddaughter asked, hesitantly.

They were far from recovered, from the blood price they had both taken from one another. They would not be for quite some time, he imagined. There would doubtless be confrontations over ugly truths, and rebreaking of emotional wounds that had healed improperly the first time.

But Hades would walk that path, with eyes open and unclouded. Every step of that journey would be worthwhile, to begin to truly rebuild from what was left, for the first time since the Sundering.

“We shall, my dear.” He agreed, and fell into step beside her, into their tomorrow. “We shall.”

#ffxiv #5.0 spoilers #5.3 spoilers #Emet-Selch #faerflowerkid #commissioned writing #tagging just in case for that one reference #thank you again for your patience and patronage!!!#this was such a fun idea to work with that I kind of ran with it akjdgfhsdjglgkdfs

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xxgoblin-dumplingxx · 3 years

Text

All The Way Down: Two

Thor watched in silence for a long time, as you labored over whatever it was you were making. It was a long slender blade. Longer than your forearm and taping down to a needle-thin point. He wondered what purpose it served.

You rarely wasted time and effort creating decorative pieces. Weapons were not toys. They needed to be useful. Beautiful, yes. Well crafted, yes. But. There was never a blade, no matter how beautiful and delicate that couldn’t slice off a man’s arm. He wanted to ask. But. In his mind, all he cared about was the warmth.

The familiarity of sweating his ass off on a stool in the corner while you stoked up fires and banged away. There was a certain sensuality to it. To watching your lean, lithe, tightly packed muscle ripple and sweat run. All the while your breath remained steady and even.

It reminded him of before. In the dark. The muscles rippling under his hand. The smell of star metal that clung to your skiing. The soot on your cheek that he’d wiped away with a chuckle. And in the present, Thor swallowed hard and shifted on the stool. He had always carried fond memories of his time with you. But he also knew better than to try and pull you from your forge. For conversation or anything else. At least not until you were ready to leave it.

Eventually, you stepped away from the fire and went to take a drink of water, leaning on the work table. It was clear, at least to Thor, that you’d been thinking as you hammered away.

“What brought you back, really?” you ask, taking a long drink of water.

And Thor took a deep breath. It was true, he’d missed you. It was true he wanted guidance. But the longer he sat, watching the goings on just out the door the more it seemed that the manor, and it’s surrounding farms and shore line was… somewhere he could put his people. Maybe.

“I well-” Thor paused, considering carefully what he was going to say. He knew better than to lie, but he also knew he should probably tread lightly. He’d hurt you when he left. And he knew he couldn’t just… ask you. “I- it’s true I missed you,” he said. “But I- Asgard is gone… It’s just gone. Destroyed.”

You tilt your head slightly, “And-”

“And I want- At least for a while… can I bring my people here? To protect them.”

You pause, water skin halfway to your mouth. “Is anyone cursed?”

“Not that I know of,” Thor answered.

“Possessed?”

“No.”

“Psychotic?”

“Only Loki- Sometimes,” Thor answered, hoping you’d realize it was a joke.”

You nod. Lapsing back into silence as you look out the window of your shop. And Thor squirmed. He wasn’t sure when you had perfected the ability to do that. To keep him questioning what you were thinking. But. He remembered Trebuchet doing it to him many times.

“They may take residence along the coast,” you say finally. “Most of my people are… Uncomfortable being that close to humanity. But. Having Asgardians so close to them may be a good deterrent.”

Thor nodded, his face relaxing into a smile. “You won’t regret this, Y/N,” he said, leaning forward and kissing your cheek, “I promise.”

“I hope,” you answer, “That for your sake, I do not.”

You stretch and turn to shut down the forge for the day, banking fires and locking away tools. Thor hefts himself off of the stool he’d been occupying and went to help. Careful not to make you change your decision.

“Are you hungry?” you ask.

“Yes,” Thor said nodding. The food here was always delicious. Simple, but. Always delicious.

“Come on then,” You tell him, walking out of the shop. He wasn’t sure if it was all of your kind, or simply your father’s influence, but he appreciated the lack of ceremony. People who came for help were helped. Fed and clothed. He followed you. And now that he was out of the forge, he could smell something cooking. It smelled of bacon and onion and garlic. And Thor’s mouth watered. “Green beans?” he asked.

And you nod, making Thor grin. Somethings hadn’t changed. He knew that that was a particular favorite of yours. What he didn’t know is if you had specifically requested it. Or if Cook still made fresh bread daily.

You let yourself in through the kitchen door and murmur a quiet word to a maid, who whisks Thor up to a comfortable chamber, complete with a place to bathe. And Thor feels a moment of disappointment when he realized this was not your chamber. It was true, he’d never made love to you in the house. But. He’d hoped for some sort of… resurgence of feelings. Something to mirror how he felt.

But then. 200 years was a long time. And he had left you. That had probably emboldened you to take other lovers. To demand pleasure. And… Thor couldn’t consider that maybe you had loved them. Or still loved them. Perhaps more than you had loved him.

Still. He took the hint and made use of the facilities, grateful that you hadn’t just murdered him. Or made him sleep in the barn as Trebuchet had once done.

Thinking of the day he’d first arrive here, he felt a sting of shame. You had found him, naked, streaked in blood and dirt where he lay in the ditch. A destroyed sheep carcass not 50ft from him and blood slathered on his jaw. He did not remember how he had come to this sorry state, who had cursed him or why. But he remembered you. Back lit by the sun as it rose. That cast you in a glow like seraphim’s fire. At first, he had thought you a Morrigan. Come to carry him away. But then… You hadn’t. He supposed, in the strictest sense, you had, but it was not Valhalla he found himself in when he next woke. It was a narrow cot. With rough blankets. And an earthenware pitcher of water and a cup. A small fire heated the room. And he was clean. His wounds had been dressed. And rough, simple clothes lay folded carefully on a three legged stool.

“At least the bed is wider,” Thor sighed, sinking into the hot bath that the maid had drawn for him.

#Thor x reader #King!thor #what is cannon?#Blacksmith!reader

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jjkpls · 4 years

Text

crayons ‘dul’ (PG)

> genre : fluffy fluff, angst, comedy

> pairing : kim namjoon x reader

> words : 3.7k

> warnings : none (except a rusty quill)

>Y/N, a primary school teacher, is way too soft for the quiet, timid new child in her class. Little did she know, the adult version, who engendered this cutie, is even more charming.

> prior

> next

It doesn't take Mr Kim too long to find a way to meet you.

A week or so later, Adrianne is handing you a little post-it where her curvy cursive spells his name, with his phone number and a time. He says he'll bring Jimmy early to school in two days, to contact him if it doesn't work for you and that he cannot wait to talk to you again. This last part you wouldn't bet on the accuracy. Adrianne says he stuttered his way through a mumbo jumbo of English and another language she didn't recognize, apologizing because he didn't know how to express what he meant but from what she could gather, he was excited to have this meeting about Jimmy.

He arrives two days later, right on time. Not a minute early nor late, perfectly on time and if you don't point it out loud, you still notice it with a discreet smile.

They both look perfectly relaxed, smiling for the man and rather calm for the boy. It's funny to see him now. Mr Kim looks pretty much nothing like the first time you saw him, with the worry, the low-key panicked, agitated state he came bursting in your classroom. He looks a few years younger, with an easy grin stretching full rosy lips, dimples digging deep in his roundish honey cheeks -almost the same as his son's, you notice with delight- wearing a straight maroon coat, this time well adjusted, that's making him even taller and more elongated if possible and of which the shade compliments his complexion endearingly so.

"Hi. It's really nice to see you." You end up greeting him first, as warmly as you can.

You've been pondering over this meeting for so long, time feeling like it never ceased to stretch out and felt dreading, dreading, dreading. It was never coming soon enough and you were terrified, even if you had no reason to doubt Mr Kim's honesty, that he'd bail on you for whatever reason.

But here he is, seemingly so open to discuss and after installing Jimmy at his desk with the same tools as last time (a pile of white sheets waiting to be filled and your set of crayons) you join him a few tables away (far enough for Jimmy not to be exposed to the conversation but close enough to keep an eye on him, or more accurately, for him to keep an eye on his guardian), pressing your hands together and against your bosom to try to contain my excitement.

"As I told you last time, Jimmy is a very sweet boy. He's not doing bad with the exercises and activities, it's quite surprising -in a great way!- since from my understanding English is not his first language, right?"

"Yeah, no, it's uh- it's Korean. We just moved from Korea a few months ago, well, right before he started school. But we- my- her mother and I would try to talk to him a bit of English at home to have him pick up on the basis..."

"Oh, that's nice! Children that young do learn languages particularly easily, it's definitely beneficial for him. I can already tell."

Namjoon sends a glance his way, a fond, dad's proud one lingering on his tiny figure hunched over the desk. You can't quite tell from where you sit but it does look like he's started drawing.

"Had you planned moving here for a long time? I mean, was it the plan from the start, that's why you wanted to teach him English?"

"No, not really." The mood feels different. It switches from rather tranquil and cheerful into a very heavy, uneasy silence his deep voice hardly disturbs. There's a glint in his eyes. It's not an easy one to look at and your heart stings as the glint takes over his whole gaze hovering over his son. You understand it's something sad. Probably painful and hard to carry even for such a strong-looking, shoulder-broad grown man.

You don't want to push it. You're curious, as one gets, but too decent and you know yourself to be too soft-hearted and sensitive, for you to be snooping through sad people's luggage. But you think back about Jimmy, whose curious eyes, beautiful but wide with something reflecting like a perfect mirror what you can now find in his dad's, and you're certain that his odd behaviour must come from that.

"Mr Kim, the reason I wanted to see you," You start, voice quieter. He's startled for a second, redirecting his attention back on you, and he looks a bit guilty. As if he highly suspects, if not already know full well, where this is going. "I do meet all the parents of my students, as I told you. But in the case of Jimmy, if I was so insistent, it's that I'm really concerned about him."

His eyes draw downwards, staring at his hands. Long slender fingers fidgeting with one another, pinching and twisting a bit. I wonder if like his son, he might start crying.

"He's lovely but he cannot- he has had a really hard time uh- how could I put it?" You don't want to sound too alarmist. You know parents have the tendency to freak the fuck out for the misinterpretation of one single word. Sometimes an onomatopoeia, misplaced, send them into a raging spiral of anxiety over what terrible condition their kid might be dealing with. Not all parents are insane or simply too quick to jump to conclusions -or plain stupid. Some understand, whatever words you use. The father sitting in front of you seems worried and pained enough you wish you could protect him but you need him to understand that his situation is serious, and how important it is for Jimmy to have the tools to change now, while he still can, before he gets too old and start to take all those unfortunate coping mechanisms as lifelong terrible habits. "He's had a hard time simply being a kid." Namjoon sighs deeply. "He doesn't speak to anyone, not even me. Hardly looks at his classmates, never approaches them. I've noticed also that talking is not the only issue, any form of expression, if not made to do because it's in the course and all the other children are doing it too, he simply won't do." Mr Kim has raised his head enough for you to see him. He's troubled, upset, worried. But he seems to want to show himself more involved and you can tell he is, you can tell he cares as he listens so carefully as you explain in great details the odd incident with the papers and the crayons he refused to play with, even without a soul to watch over his shoulder.

"I feel it's a bit more than simple timidity. Or that at least, there's something significant behind this timidity. I can understand that it might be sensitive to you," You do, his eyes are screaming at you and you can't ignore them. Sort of begging for something, you're not quite sure what, you're not quite sure they, themselves, know either. It's a terrible case of a grown adult, an apparent composed grown man with a mighty balanced life, not a child anymore, actually, a dad, appearing so vulnerable and broken. It's a horrid vision. You've never been able to handle those.

"But it's in Jimmy's interest that I know a bit more. It's quite concerning. He's at an age where he's supposed to develop those skills. If we just let him be, leave him in this... unease, whatever it is, he might adopt it for a very long time until the time comes when it's become an exhausting challenge, almost impossible, to overcome.”

"I understand what you're saying." Mr Kim starts, voice low and tiny I can hardly pick up on the words. "I noticed- I mean, he's not changed that much with me. He's never been a very loud, boisterous boy, you know? But lately, he's been a bit quieter. I can see it at home, he's a bit stoic, less... expressive." You lose the man for a second. He's staring at his son longly and you don't want to abruptly bring him back to the conversation. Eventually, he does come back on his own, clearing his throat and scratching his neck. "That's- ridiculous but I even told myself the other day that I miss his tantrums. He didn't use to throw a lot of fits but sometimes he would, for more candies or something stupid like that. But he hasn't in a while."

You can't count how many times you heard overwhelmed parents jokingly wish that their kid would just turn off, stop causing scenes, stop demanding, screaming and crying out ridiculous tantrums. You remember Adrienne, saying more than once, to chastise the behaviour of one too agitated child to take a look at Jimmy, learn to be more like him, and why can't they be like him.

The thing is, a child is not supposed to be quiet.

A child should be problematic, testing, challenging. Loud and cheerful and agitated because children are like that. They are little humans just starting this whole insane experience that is Life, trying to figure themselves out, trying to figure out the people around them and the whole world along with it. They're meant to be a mess.

They're not meant to be quiet and tranquil, and bathing in a sort of slow, stoic haze. They're certainly not meant to have this expression on their face. The one Jimmy is wearing. Of deep, deep sadness. Like he's been somewhere, he's felt something, he's lost something that has left him misplaced forever. As if he's not really part of this world, this Life, or doesn't care or know why he's in it. Just letting himself float about. Embarrassed and denying all impulse that could potentially shape him and his existence.

He's only five.

"Do you have any inclination as to why his behaviour has turned into this?"

You see the gears going into labour in his head. He looks pensive, lost in a pit of thoughts he doesn't know if he can nor should share. There's a tremble to his lips, to his fingers, a telling frown to his eyebrows as his eyes very obviously decide to avoid you. The question seems to seize him like an earthquake but somehow, it's a good one. A disturbing but potentially lucky one. One that would invite him to experience something hard but liberating, something that he really needs.

Not long after you've asked the question to which you already know half of the answer, he pauses to think it over and then decides to talk. You notice the way his body slump over himself instantly, along with an abyssal years-old sigh and he starts to talk.

"5 months ago, my- his mom passed away." You hate yourself for the way you gasp, eyes wide and already blurry as if it's appropriate, as if you're allowed when you can't even imagine the beginning of their pain. It all starts making sense and you're heartbroken. You wish you didn't show yourself so reckless, sensitive but somehow naive and unhelpful.

You mouth a silent apology and condolence you notice he accepts from the way he nods, not wanting to cut him off. He's already breathless and you wonder how many more words he has in stock before the resources shut down, right before he loses it and breaks the strong persona he has to keep straight and steady for his son. How exhausting it must be. "It was hard already in Korea but I thought -naively- that if we moved here, close to her family, maybe, being around them would ease- everything out a bit. I don't know. It was stupid." He shakes his head from left to right, scoffing to himself, a hand raised to his forehead, hiding his eyes.

"It wasn't, Mr Kim. It's very honorable of you to quit everything for your son." Your words have no effect whatsoever. Unfortunately, it's blatantly obvious, he's made up his mind already. He's guilty, he messed up, and he holds a grudge against himself for this decision and nothing a dumb teacher, sensitive and half-weeping, would say could change that opinion, as destructive and inaccurate as it may be.

"It really was. It's so different here, I thought after some time it would be worth it but I think he hates it. I think he's very confused and I don't know if he's too young to feel like that, I'm not sure, but he looks like he's embarrassed about being a foreigner. Like not speaking properly. I can't even tell if he understands well or if he doesn't get it at all when people speak to him in English since he just- he can't really communicate. Even with his cousins, it's-"

Oh.

"Oh." Now that you hear him say that, it lights a small bulb hidden at the back of your head. It shines upon a whole roof-tall shelf holding all of those awkward, disagreeable memories you tend to forget actively because even reflecting on them decades later still sends a thrill of disgust the length of your spin.

It's those moments of pure embarrassment, of horrid dreading feelings that you used to be overwhelmed with as a child and this until you were not much more of a child anymore, and those memories paired with their emotions simply faded into shadows of scenes that you can only wonder if they ever were real.

You used to be filled with stupid insecurities based on very confused, distant, impossible to decipher pretend truths, sometimes, you would just feel stupid. Completely idiotic, ignorant, and unlovable. In those moments, you just couldn't dare open your mouth to pronounce a word that would give you away. Because if you did, somehow, you would end up messing up and people would laugh and make fun of you and hate you because there are so many reasons to and of course you deserved it.

Images of the little boy, hiding obviously in a corner but longingly observing his peers. Obviously terrified but curious, and most definitely desiring.

Because of course, he'd want to. Talk to them, be with them but how could he when he's not even sure he could speak the way they do.

"Mr Kim, I can tell he wants to. Even if he can't let anyone approach him, I can tell he'd like to be part of the group. That being said his fears or as you said, maybe his insecurities, don't allow him to."

"Should I- Should I seek for a therapist? He had one in Korea but I don't think he was ready for it. He just reacts very badly to strangers, especially when they try to, you know, sink into your brain and- now that we're here, I can hardly picture how that would go."

"Well, therapy is never a bad idea. It can only be beneficial for him... for anyone." You're not sure how appropriate it is for you to add this but you owe to say it. Sometimes, parents don't realize, but a child's deepest wounds are born from seeing and feeling their guardians'.

"I'd seen someone already." He explains without needing you to insist further. Seems like you're not as subtle as you thought yourself to be. "I did because- I had to. His mom and I had been separated for a while before her passing, it'd always been complicated between us and I can't lie, I did feel terribly guilty... I thought it might hurt him somehow. Maybe he could feel it and experience it too. I had to for the both of us. It fixed me but not him, so I suppose, it didn't come from that."

"Grief is... It's very complex. It comes along with a plethora of confusing, untamed emotions as an adult but for a child... It must manifest in a way we can't even imagine. I'm sorry, you don't need me to tell you that." You're a mess of stutters. Words are running away from you, the smart ones are even flying, making sure there's no way you'd catch them by the tip of the tail. You just want to ease this father's struggles, somehow. You don't know him much but you know his son, a little, and you, for reasons you don't care much to look into, deeper than simply you having a saviour complex, need to help it all resolve. They don't deserve any of it all. No one does.

It might be silly. But the thought of Jimmy, that sweet, lovely child, sensitive and precious as he is, must have a father quite special himself to have been brought up this way.

"No, it's fine. You're right." A heavy silence settles in between you. In the background, faintly, you can hear the soft rustling of the tip of a crayon against paper. You open your mouth, the fantastic memory of the other day, when he arrived late to pick Jimmy up and something you still, a week later, recalling itself back to you. He opens his at the exact same time and before you're able to utter any word, he's the one starting, "Actually, I really appreciate it. Being able to talk about it like that with someone. Since my therapist, I don't think I was able to. People only have enough tolerance for other's pain. Which I understand, it's just- hard and well, I'm thankful for you."

He stammers saying that, seemingly scrambling with his own words. The compliment is so heartfelt, like a shot from his heart directly into yours. Most of the emotions it rises probably coming from his choice of wording, maybe an error of translation, a lack of exactitude that doesn’t come smoothly. You've never heard anyone said those words to you and somehow, so unprepared for it, you can hardly handle the overwhelming burst of gratitude.

With the greatest pleasure, you jump on the occasion to bring something good to him, what you meant to say when he started first, the story about last time and how confident you are that better days are yet to come.

It brings an evident brush of light to his expression. The youthful sense he gave off when he just walked in, made of warm colours and smiles, is back. As if a weight has been lifted. As if he trusts you with his son, now wearing his hopefulness and trust and appreciation on this soft face of his, and you feel yourself blush in delight.

It’s precisely why you do what you do. Most of the times, those moments come in more subtle, almost dubious manifestations. It’s a drawing made ‘only for you, Miss’ or a kid you haven’t seen in a few years recognising you from across a hallway and beaming all his teeth your way; or maybe a present too nicely picked out and wrapped up too well to be the product of a kid’s, handed to you at the end of the year.

It's a wonderful feeling you're experiencing.

Until it turns sort of awkward. You mean, from a third party, maybe from Jimmy's eyes, it’s definitely awkward. It doesn’t exactly feel this way for you though. You're just kind of staring at each other, grinning obnoxiously. Delighted by the turns of events -even more so with the start of the conversation, which brought difficult painful shocks to an already sensitive soul, the benevolence and mutual understanding feel all the more pleasant.

Conquered by each other in a way you probably won’t be able to express very well with words if any of you tried. You see in him an ally -which is always such a wonderful feeling because as curious as it is, all parents are not always reliable allies to you, teachers- and you think he does too.

It’s just that it lasts for quite a bit. Probably too long. Until finally, the rummage going on outside brings you back to earth and school that is about to start in a few reminds itself to you.

Quickly he thanks me again, in between the bursting in of a loud, chatty-feeling Riley Donovan, and a Charlotte dragging her feet in discontent. He says something about meeting again before he’s rushing to Jimmy, whose calm demeanour has wavered when his classmates starting walking in.

It’s as heartwarming as last time. The way Mr Kim just has to lean forward to wrap his arms around Jimmy to have him melt onto his chest, face burying in his neck and tiny hands squeezing, squeezing, squeezing until the chubby fingers turn white against his dad’s neck. There’s an exchange of secret words and of gazes, special ones that wouldn’t mean much to anyone else, you believe on the moment, until Mr Kim needs to depart and does so.

The gaze Jimmy had for his dad doesn’t disappear right as the later leaves. It remains and is directed solely on you in a very peculiar way, so notable that your heart starts racing when you notice.

Jimmy who usually avoids eye contact, sometimes would look at you, if you're addressing directly to him for example and those looks are systematically made of bewilderment, maybe fear, definite insecurity. Like a prey caught in a predator's radar.

But now those eyes, the round, dark wonders are lingering with something utterly different. A stillness that hits so differently. You're not sure if you are seeing things, if it’s wishful thinking. If it’s you now watching through the lens of someone beyond enchanted, purely content from the newfound trust and confidence and inspiration.

When you free your class for recess, you have confirmation that something has changed. You have no idea how he did it without you noticing but as you turn your back to the door to face your desk -and your chair, which your legs are dreading to have you throw yourself on- you see the perfect tidy pile of your crayons laid carefully on top of it. A few papers are sitting next to it, less than you gave him.

It’s ridiculous, embarrassing to an extent you would never tell that moment out loud but you end up jumping on the balls of your feet, clapping your hands together like a stupid seal, squealing before grabbing the stack of crayons and pressing it to your heart.

A/N : thanks so much for having waited for me so patiently; as always, lots of love send your way, thanks so much for reading, i hope you enjoy it :)

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