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umbran6 · 3 years

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The Argument Against Caleo

Spoilers up to Blood of Olympus and beyond. Beware! (Or not, the book series has been out for a few years, get over it). I wrote this after seeing a user wondering why people didn’t like Caleo, or in some cases, hated it. Here, I want to explain the answer as much as possible while doling out my own points.

One of the main grievances I have as a fan of Leo Valdez would be the ship Caleo, or Leo x Calypso. It’s a complicated ship, to say the least, with multiple issues that make me question why people like the ship. And I admit it, they initially had some chemistry, but there’s multiple issues that Uncle Rick produced through making such a relationship that makes it extremely open to criticism, criticism which I will explain through this post.

One of my main points against them is that the ship was created on a very limited time scale. Although we aren’t given an exact date to date of when Leo and Calypso met to when they fell in love, we can safely estimate it to be a week at best. Such a limited amount of time from going through the multiple stages of a relationship already stresses the limits of the suspension of disbelief.

A counterexample would be Percabeth, or Percy x Annabeth. Throughout the series, we aren’t introduced to them being romantically involved until the Titan’s Curse, which was two years after they met. Specifically, this is brought up by Aphrodite, the goddess of love herself. Admittedly, Percy and Annabeth were twelve years old when they first met, when romance was definitely out of the picture, especially with a quest to get the Master Bolt.

However, from there we get to see multiple examples of their character depth, ranging from their respective fatal flaws to their ambitions, hopes and dreams, and their friendship. We get to see the slow build up of their chemistry, which was a really good writing move on Uncle Rick’s part. These characters took their sweet time to get to where they wanted to go, and despite the false romantic lead of Rachel, they still got together.

On the other hand, we don’t see enough of this between Leo and Calypso — we only see one book where they interacted with each other in The House of Hades, and that was only for a handful of chapters. While they are definitely older so they can jump straight to romance (some may say too old, but I’ll get to that) its still a pretty huge gap to jump through without making it stick. This makes it hard to root for a ship when it is built on a rather faulty foundation from the ‘they just met’ to ‘they get together’, especially when they don’t have a lot of events to show their chemistry.

Which brings me to Ogygia, which has raised a few red flags for me when looking at it from a retrospective point of view. Now, we know what the main issue of the island is that the hero who landed on said island can’t leave until Calypso falls in love with them. And we’ve seen this with Percy during the Battle of the Labyrinth, where he lands in the island and Calypso falls in love with him while tending to his wounds from, you know, being erupted from freaking Mt. St. Helens. Needless to say, this falling in love with each other montage happened quickly to the point of suspicion, which sets up the complication that Calypso and Leo might have fallen in love due to magical intervention.

And hear me out, because although this might be a pretty big pill to swallow, we have evidence for this through Percy. It only takes one chapter for Calypso and Percy to meet, and the next he’s willing to consider leaving Camp Half-Blood and Annabeth behind to live on the island when Hephaestus gives him the choice to leave Ogygia or stay. We don’t even get an explanation on why Percy considered giving it all up just so he can be with her. All we know is, girl meets boy, now they want to live on an isolated island forever. It’s especially absurd considering Percy’s hamartia (fatal flaw) is freaking loyalty to those he loves. Needless to say, It’s a huge YIKES, especially when we apply it to Leo and Calypso.

It also raises the possibility that the romantic relationship between them is doomed to failure. And if you guys want to fight me on this, let’s look at Jason and Piper, a couple whose relationship started with a similar foundation. Piper had romantic memories implanted into her brain by Hera through the use of the Mist, while Jason was reduced to a Tabula Rasa (a blank slate for those who lack culture) by said goddess. They broke up before the Trials of Apollo because it was clear that when the dust settled, Piper had been aware that their romance was a lie and that their intentions to stay together was a mix of delusion and pressure from freaking Aphrodite. Leo and Calypso get together under what is arguably a very similar set of conditions if Ogygia’s magic had any influence on their relationship, and that this magic could wear off if given enough time.

Third, and here’s a pretty big one for me, would be Calypso’s character, mainly because there are a lot of unfortunate implications attached to it. In The Blood of Olympus, she was turned into the divine equivalent of Princess Peach, with Leo being her Mario (except he saves her with a badass metal dragon). Its extremely unnecessary to make a character, especially as one such as Calypso, get turned into the typical reward of a B-Class action movie. It’s insulting and puts her up as a trophy, a narrative that is definitely not ok by any means necessary.

In another direction, Calypso is also really, really worrying when things don’t go get her way. First, let’s look at The Odyssey, the first myth she pops up. Calypso had imprisoned Odysseus for ten years on her island until Hermes said to let him go, and although it gives them plenty of time to fall in love, it also raises the implications of stockholm syndrome. Then we’ve got the fact that Calypso cursed Annabeth out of spite, implicitly saying that she wished the daughter of Athena would suffer the same isolation that she did, which came to reality when Percy and Annabeth met the Arai in Tartarus. And Annabeth wasn’t even aware that she was still in Ogygia, much less intentionally intervened in the matter. When Percy left Ogygia, rather than be angry at Percy, Calypso cursed Annabeth out of all people to suffer the same loneliness and misery she went through. That’s some Hera at her worst levels of spite.

Through such evidence we can see that Calypso is extremely wrathful towards those who break her heart even though they don’t want to. It certainly implies that Calypso isn’t in a good state of mind, and could easily repeat said actions if provoked. We could almost compare it to Medea and the original Jason, but at least in that case, Medea has every right to be pissed off at Jason and take her revenge. Calypso’s curse and how she handles things certainly implies a level of immaturity that would end in disaster if they broke up.

One issue that, I’ll admit is more from my personal point of view is that the ship took a lot of Leo’s character and threw it in the garbage in Blood of Olympus. Though we see him do a lot of stuff behind the scenes, the fact that its all for the goal of reaching Calypso just reduced him to someone who is more focused on love than, you know, fighting the evil goddess that was responsible for killing his mom and getting sweet sweet revenge. While the revenge plot can be cliched sometimes, it can be played well, while romance and the typical ‘always save the girl’ trope is just overdone. If Leo had been allowed to, you know, be more focused on other things rather than Calypso, we could have seen a lot more variety in his character.

For example as one of the possible character arcs he could’ve gone through, Leo has always been alone among the couples, often being isolated. Heck, Nemesis herself stated that he would always be the seventh wheel, and that he would never find a place among his brethren. Though some fellow tumblr users have taken this in multiple ways, either saying that he should learn to be happy by himself or that he is socially isolated in the Argo II because of these romantic relationships (I prefer a mix of both). Uncle Rick just giving him a girlfriend seems like taking the easy way out of solving such an issue and abandoning what could’ve been a rather interesting character arc. The relationship isn’t a bad thing if we remove some of the unfortunate implications, but it is a bad way to end what is a complex and realistic problem for a character and in some cases maybe possible in real life.

One more minor but still yikes worthy point is that there’s a huge age gap between them. We’re not talking about the ‘Hazel is 15 and Frank is 17 and in one year that’ll be a problem because then Hazel will be jailbait’ age gap. And even then, we can argue that Hazel is older since she is chronologically ninety-one years old. No, Calypso is older by millennia in terms of mindset and body due to the perks of being a goddess, while Leo is sixteen.

God-to-Mortal relationships are already complicated, even with emotionally and socially well-functioning adults. The fact that Leo is underage, inexperienced with romance (despite his flirting, Calypso was his first kiss), and has been through a freaking ton of trauma in his youth, does not make this okay. At best, they’re both mutually interested in each other but may have different expectations when it comes to a relationship. At worst, Calypso is taking advantage of a boy just so she can get out of Ogygia and possibly dumping him later on like the wrapping of a candy bar. Even though Calypso lost her immortality during The Trials of Apollo, that doesn’t even compensate for the immense age gap alongside Leo’s guilt at the possibility that he might’ve been responsible for her losing said immortality.

Oh, and about Leo... I’m a fan of him, but I can admit that he is in a bad spot both mentally and emotionally throughout the series. He’s lost his mom due to a mix of his own powers and Gaea’s trickery, and never had the chance to fully process that event and come to terms with it. The foster home system alongside his own trauma has forced him to hide his emotions through a façade of happiness and jokes when it’s quite clear to me he needs a therapist, stat. He's also run away from several foster homes, implying this means he was and still is being affected by the event. His mask is still on during The Blood of Olympus considering he hid a lot of things from Piper and Jason.

Speaking about them, not helping this matter is the fact that he’s rather isolated in terms of friendships since Jason and Piper, his supposed best friends are more interested in locking lip rather than, you know, actually hanging out with each other. He doesn’t have good friendships with the rest of the Seven, and the closest ones he does have is with Hazel and Frank. And even then they start off in the wrong spot since Frank is very insecure about possibly losing Hazel to him during Mark of Athena while Hazel in the meantime, is also dealing with the fact that he is the descendant of her possible boyfriend Sammy Valdez.

This could indirectly have made him desperate for affection since he has nobody else to confide in during the rest of the series, which is a bad mental state to be in when one lands on Ogygia, the island that we’ve seen could possibly force two people to fall in love with each other. A romantic relationship is not something that he needs or something that will help him in the future. He needs more than that, and having him in one that could end in disaster is the last thing he needs.

And that does not make him a bad person, much less a bad character. While some who are similarly emotionally and socially isolated may turn to violence or creepy behavior on those they want affection from, Leo does not do that to the other characters. It just means that he as a character needs more time to recover and develop before we go giving him romantic relationships, much less one with Calypso.

That’s not to say that they don’t have some things in common. Both are starved for love and affection, with Calypso being constantly rejected by heroes while Leo was rejected by foster homes and his own family. It’s a trait that they have in common, but it shouldn’t be the only thing that they have in common, especially since it is laced with a trauma that is clear they haven’t had help processing. They need to develop more as characters and as friends before they should be paired together.

So… yeah. The Caleo relationship is, in my eyes, doomed to failure, or at least heavily flawed after taking the above points into account. Uncle Rick, as if seemingly aware of these criticisms, has put the relationship in a rocky place by The Tower of Nero, giving them the possibility of overcoming the above criticisms and their own flaws, or giving fanfic writers an out and pairing Leo with another character or have him single, but happy. Either way, in my opinion Caleo is a bad ship when it comes to how it was created, alongside the flaws and unfortunate implications it has.

While I can see some of the chemistry the ship has, you can’t just use a couple of moments where they get along as evidence that they belong together, especially with the above reasons. That’s like using a band-aid to cover a bullet hole without removing the bullet, stopping the bleeding, and preventing infection. If both characters and their relationship had been given more time to develop, I would understand how they would get together.

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mypoisonedvine · 3 years

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Compromise | dark!Bucky Barnes x reader

summary: after weeks in bucky barnes’ basement, you continue to plot your escape. unfortunately for you, he’s been plotting something, too.

word count: 4.2k

warnings: smut (noncon), oral (m receiving), forced breeding, bargaining, kidnapping/imprisonment, yandere (slightly?), a little bit of lactation kink

The jingling of keys was almost too quiet to hear, but with no other sound in your rusty shack of a prison, it was deafening. Your heart raced with the realization that your captor was returning home, even though you had anticipated it since his daily schedule (and in turn, yours) operated like clockwork.

The door opening and slamming shut. The rustling of chains and sliding of metal— he’s locking the deadbolts again. You tried to count them to see if you could figure how many he had on the door upstairs, but you lost track of which sound was what after three or four. You needed to know that before you attempted your escape, so you could calculate the time you’d need to get out the front door.

But that was sort of a moot point when you couldn’t get to the front door. Your first obstacle was the door in front of you. Your first obstacle was getting out of this basement.

An issue for another day, though, because Bucky was home and he was coming down to see you. It was earlier than usual, as he normally spent time upstairs first and didn’t come down until he had to bring you your dinner. Even just that small disruption to your daily routine made you fear the worst.

The door creaked and groaned under its own weight as it swung open, your captor waiting on the other side, The orange light of the afternoon was only a sliver across the wall, since your only window was no more than a few inches tall and at right at the ground level (which, in your case, was just below the ceiling; if you stood on your bed you could see out, but it was just grass and trees as far as you could see). As he stepped down the concrete stairs and shut the door behind him, that sliver of light illuminated only his crystal-blue eyes.

The two of you stared at each other in silence for a moment; him broad and strong and glowering menacingly by the door, you cowering in the corner.

“You know why you’re here, don’t you?” he asked quietly.

“I’m here so I can have your baby,” you answered as calmly as you could manage. He had made it overwhelmingly clear over the past few weeks, and although he’d never touched you that way in your time here, every day was shrouded with the impending reality of his purpose for you.

“Good job,” he praised flatly. “I’ve been waiting a while, for the right time…”

So have I, you thought to yourself, reflecting on your plan but stopping yourself as if you thought he might somehow read your mind and find a way to stop you.

“Today’s the day,” he informed you plainly. “Get on the bed.”

You pressed yourself back against the cold brick, shaking your head. He sighed, stalking closer to you as his combat boots echoed across the room with each step.

“Don’t make this difficult. It’s inevitable— and if you behave, I’ll make it good for you, too.”

“No, please,” you begged, shrinking into a ball as he neared your corner, “please don’t—”

He grabbed your wrist and yanked you to your feet, ignoring your yelps of pain; with a growl, he shoved you against the wall. “I’ve waited long enough. I’ve given you time to accept it and prepare yourself. Now get. On. The bed.”

Your mind raced as it searched for how to get out of this, but it came up nearly blank. He was a super soldier, with a vibranium arm; fighting was not at all an option. Begging was a waste, because you’d done that so many times before and all it did was get you punished— he never beat or starved you, thankfully, because he said it would interfere with your fertility, but he was quick to take away your few chances for privacy. You shuddered at the memory of those times that he’d chained you up and refused to let you feed or bathe yourself, doing it all for you instead.

His eyes were burning into your skin and you knew he was going to take what he wanted from you. You knew you couldn’t stop him from getting what he’d been waiting for… but you wondered if you could negotiate with him still. Maybe if you appealed to his arousal, you could gamble your dignity but save yourself from getting pregnant. After all, sex with this psycho sounded like a nightmare, but a child with him was unthinkable.

“I… I can still pleasure you,” you offered weakly, your voice and hands trembling with fear as you looked up at him. His brows furrowed slightly as he looked back with an expression of confusion. “You can use my mouth instead. I’ll be so good,” you promised, swallowing nervously as his eyes scanned your face, “I’ll do anything you want, I just don’t want to get pregnant.”

“I don’t know…” he mumbled, and you smiled because he was considering it and that meant you had a shot.

“Please, please Bucky let me suck your cock,” you begged, feeling a little sick as you had to feign this sort of eagerness, “it’ll be so good, pleasepleaseplease—”

“Alright, don’t overexert yourself,” he sighed, like he was doing you a favor. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt… just this once. But it’d better be as good as you’re making it seem, or I’ll just fuck you instead.”

You beamed and fell to your knees. “Oh, thank you, thank you so much— I’m gonna make it good, I promise Bucky, I’ll do whatever you like.”

“Well, you need to get it out first.”

You nodded and reached up to his belt, swallowing nervously as you started to undo the buckle. It wasn’t too bright in the room but you could see the outline of his cock through his jeans— it was hard already, and you could tell it was big. You figured the fabric was making it seem thicker than it really was, because it couldn’t possibly be that thick, right?

You looked up at him through your lashes as you opened the belt all the way, using touch to navigate the button and fly as you maintained eye contact. His face was as unreadable as ever, stoic aside from a tightened jaw. You really hoped he was enjoying this, because your ability to avoid getting pregnant was riding on it.

You unzipped the jeans slowly, slightly afraid that teasing would get you in trouble but smiling up at him as if you had no fear at all. You needed to act like this blowjob was the best thing that ever happened to you. If it kept this psycho from knocking you up, maybe it would be.

As you pulled his jeans down his thighs, you gasped a little at the outline of his cock through his boxer-briefs. “Fuck,” you murmured, “it really is that big.”

Bucky’s stern exterior finally cracked as a small smirk crossed his face. “Think you can handle it?” he asked, a hint of playful challenge in his tone.

“I’ll try my best,” you answered as you rubbed it through the fabric. With a breath to stabilize yourself, you slipped your fingers under the elastic, pulled his underwear down his muscular thighs— slowly, thoughtfully— and set the beast free.

With it staring you in the face like this, the tip red and dotted with a pearl of pre-cum, you wondered how you ever thought this was a good idea.

You took a quick breath in and out to stabilize yourself and try to accept that this was really happening, before delicately wrapping your hand around it. Your fingers didn’t even reach your palm… you were so screwed.

“Waiting for something?” he asked you impatiently.

“It’s better if you build anticipation,” you explained, looking up at him again.

“I know,” he frowned. “What do you think I’ve been waiting all this time for?”

You were trying not to think about where you were, what this was, who he was. Of course he would remind you, just to make it even harder.

You leaned forward and licked the head with a long, slow lap, tasting the warmth and musk of his skin on your tongue. You met his gaze when you did it again, finishing the motion by wrapping your lips around the head. Your tongue swirled over the skin and tasted everywhere you could reach, paying extra attention to his slit, and you finally got the slightest reaction as his mouth fell slack.

Needing some relief for your jaw already, you pulled back and stroked him slowly with a smile. “You taste soooo good,” you purred, internally cringing at your own poor acting. “I bet your come’s gonna taste even better.”

Spreading the wetness from your mouth over the rest of his shaft, you were able to get a bit of a rhythm going with your hand before you swallowed the head again, bobbing up and down and taking him a little deeper each time. You tried to change it up and watch for what might get him going: teasing him with the tip of your tongue, moaning around him, reaching down to grab his balls and rub them— but he was slow to warm up. His first real sign of pleasure was when his fingers pushed your hair out of your face, then traced down your cheek where it was hollowed from sucking.

“You look so good with my cock in your mouth,” he groaned, grabbing your chin and guiding you to take him a little deeper. You moaned again and tried to relax your throat as his tip began to brush over the back of your tongue.

You got into a routine fairly quickly— suck, bob, stroke, gag, repeat. Your free hand fondled his balls a bit, and you would stop to lick and suck them from time to time, but it seemed like you needed to keep trying to get him in your throat if you had any chance at making him come soon.

“Fuck,” he whispered under his breath, putting his hand on the back of your neck and starting to buck his hips up against you. You almost reached up to put your hands on his thighs and slow him down, but stopped yourself; you couldn’t afford to say no to him right now.

“Choke on it,” he growled, holding you down and watching you gag as tears welled in your eyes. Just as you thought you might throw up or pass out, he let you go and you were able to pull back. You coughed a little but started stroking him in the meantime while your throat recovered. You knew he was getting closer to the edge, you just hoped he was getting a lot closer, for your sake.

When you couldn’t take gagging anymore, and when you started to really feel him flexing and throbbing against your tongue, you pulled off of him and stroked his cock eagerly. “Do you wanna come on my face, Bucky? Or do you want me to swallow it?” you moaned, trying to sound sultry in spite of how exhausted and fucked-out you must’ve looked.

“Neither,” he replied, throwing you off-guard again. “I’m gonna come in your mouth, but I don’t want you to swallow it until I tell you to. Is that clear?”

You nodded, even though the idea of having to keep his come in your mouth for any longer than a moment sounded wretched.

He slipped his cock back into your mouth, hitting your throat every time and ignoring when you gagged. His breaths got heavier as you could feel his cock begin to pulse again. “Gonna come,” he warned you with a deep moan, “fuck, you ready?”

You did your best attempt at a nod, looking up at him the whole time. He looked back at you, his teeth bared and eyes wild, and the way he glared at you made you throb between your legs.

His moans were shaky as he came, the taste of him coating your tongue and throat with every thrust. He came a lot, more than you’d expected, and you sucked lightly on the sensitive head before pulling off.

“Fuck,” he sighed, “that was good. You were right.”

You didn’t smile, because you were afraid to let any of it spill. You got the impression that if you got come on his boots, you’d get in serious trouble. He helped you stand up, examining your face for a moment.

“You’re not swallowing yet, right? I wanna see it in your mouth,” he purred. He held your chin gently between his forefinger and thumb and you opened your mouth for him, letting his spend gather on your tongue. “Good girl.”

You stayed still as his hands wandered over your body, settling on the knot that held your robe tied together. He didn’t let you dress in anything more than that, though he thankfully kept the temperature nice enough that you didn’t need a lot more. With one tug, he undid the knot and it fell open; another quick push off your shoulders and you were completely naked in front of him.

He hummed contentedly, running his fingertips over your skin until you shivered, goosebumps forming in the wake of his touch. “I’ve seen you before, but that was strictly business,” he explained, his voice dreamy like he wasn’t focusing that much on his words but rather on what he was seeing in front of him. “Now I can finally appreciate you the way you deserve.”

You were terrified of what this all meant— apparently this is how he relaxes after an orgasm, some sort of cryptic take on pillow talk?— but you stayed still and kept your mouth shut, literally and figuratively.

“Spit it out into my hand,” he instructed. Confused and a little disgusted, you obeyed as he cupped his palm beneath your mouth. You were still trying to process that when his other hand— the metal one— grabbed you by the neck and forced you down, expending almost no effort in order to bend you over the edge of the bed and pin you there.

It all happened so fast that you didn’t even have time to scream before he was wiping his come on your pussy, shoving it in with his fingers.

“No!” you cried when you realized what he’d done, but it was too late to beg because it had already happened. You could feel it dripping out of you, but he never let it get very far before two fingers dragged it back and pushed it in.

“You’re soaked,” he observed with a cruel laugh. “You love sucking cock, huh? Maybe I’ll let you do it again sometime.”

All you could do was sob, hoping he would be done soon and you could get back to preparing your escape plan; he’d already come, so what more could he do to you?

“I don’t know if it’s getting deep enough,” he frowned as he knelt down and examined between your legs. If his hand wasn’t already wrapped around your neck you would’ve considered trying to kick him in the face or something, but you felt so helpless already and didn’t want to anger him further. “Here’s what we’ll do,” he decided, standing up and leaning over you as he started to get on the bed with you. “I’m gonna fuck this come into you, as deep as I can go. How about that?”

You shook your head and continued your sobs as he grabbed you and tossed you on your back, grabbing your legs and placing them on his shoulders.

“Bucky, you can’t!” you begged weakly, reaching up to cover your face with your hands. He didn’t care for that, grabbing your arms and pinning them to either side of you.

“Look at me!” he demanded, and you blinked your eyes open even as you turned your face away slightly to hide that last little bit. “Yes I fucking can. I can fuck you five more times tonight if I want to. I don’t think I’ll be able to come any more after that, but I could still fuck you again just to be sure. So, do you want to spend all night full of my cock? Or just the next half hour?”

Clearly, you’d underestimated the ramifications of his ‘super’ status. You had assumed that finishing once would satiate him, but you saw now that he had a lot more in store for you.

“Make it quick, please,” you whispered, your last piece of negotiation for the night— hopefully. He grinned and you swallowed.

“Oh, I think you ruined any chance of that. I probably wouldn’t’ve lasted too long if we’d stuck to my original plans— what, with all the waiting for the past few weeks,” he chuckled. “But now that you got me off already, it might be awhile before I can come again.”

You closed your eyes and sighed in defeat. He pushed down on the backs of your knees, keeping your legs spread wide and your body all but folded in half.

“I think my fingers warmed you up enough, don’t you? You can take it,” he decided as he started to slide his cock over your folds; like he was going to play with his prey before he devoured it. “Beg me to fuck you.”

“No, no,” you whispered, shutting your eyes tighter.

His voice got closer as the weight on your legs shifted; he was leaning above you, looking right at you, and you were too terrified to open your eyes.

“Beg me to fuck you and get you pregnant.”

“Nonononono,” you sobbed, because maybe it was all a terrible dream and it would end soon.

“Sooner you do it, sooner I start, sooner I finish. And then it’ll all be over and I’ll leave you alone.”

It’ll only just be the beginning, some voice in your head told you, but did it even make any difference?

“Please… fuck me,” you whispered, so quiet that only a man with enhanced hearing could pick up on it— but he would rather pretend not to.

“Speak up, honey, I can’t hear ya,” he grinned, “and look at me with those pretty eyes.”

You blinked your eyes open, staring back at the man above you. “Please, Bucky…” you said, a little louder, “please fuck me… I want you to g-get me pregnant.”

And part of you was almost thankful when he finally slammed his cock into you, because at least he wasn’t going to make you beg any longer. Still, your back arched and your mouth fell into a silent scream as the pain of his forced entry shot through you.

“Fuuuuuuuck,” he growled, already pulling back to thrust deeper, “oh my god, you feel so fucking good.”

It was all too much, and the way he had you positioned made him go so deep in you that you could barely breathe. You knew you’d be sore for days from this, and he had only just started.

He fucked you relentlessly, looking down and watching in awe as his cock slid in and out of your dripping hole. “Taking me so well,” he praised you with a rough voice, “such a good girl for me.”

His attempt at praise felt like the most humiliating thing he could’ve said; you wanted anything but to be good for him— after so many tries to fight back, to stall, to resist, all you’d done was make everything worse for yourself, and now he was calling you his good girl. You felt disgusting as he leaned down and grabbed your jaw, forcing you to reciprocate his aggressive kiss.

He stayed close when he pulled back, watching your expression twist with pain. “Does it still hurt, doll? It should start feeling good soon.”

It had already started to feel good, but you hadn’t admitted that to yourself. Every thrust pushed the fat head of his cock right into some part of you that was so sensitive and it was all very overwhelming.

“It’ll be better if you come,” he explained. “I wanna make it good for you, and it helps our chances of conceiving.”

An hour ago, you would have objected to the use of ‘our’— it’s not ‘our’ plan, it’s not what ‘we’ want, you would’ve said, or at least thought. But you were so distracted that you didn’t even notice it, and in a way, you two did have the same goal: you both wanted this to end, just for different reasons.

“I bet you can come just from this,” he wagered, “but it’ll be easier for you if I touch you here, right?”

One hand moved down and suddenly his thumb was circling your clit. Instantly your hips were bucking up and your walls were clenching down on him. He began to praise you for how sensitive you were, but his words were lost in your mind as you put all your energy into not having an orgasm. You couldn’t come from this— you’d been kidnapped, held captive, molested, manipulated, and now this… you just couldn’t allow that to happen.

“Let go, baby, I know you’re so close,” he encouraged, “it’s okay— it’s good, my good little girl…”

The coil snapped, and at that moment, your last piece of dignity fell and shattered. It must have been that holding it back for so long only made it more intense when you gave in, because you’d never come so hard in your life. Your eyes went from wrenched shut to shot wide open, and your back arched as your nails clawed at the sheets beneath you. You couldn’t be sure what noises you made because your ears were starting to ring, and through all of that he was still fucking you.

“Fuck yes, just like that,” he grinned, “Jesus fucking Christ, you get so tight when you come.”

As the intensity of your orgasm faded, all your fight was gone with it, and you went limp as you resigned to letting him use your body this way. He leaned down and kissed your neck, sucking bitemarks into the delicate skin there— even venturing down to your collarbones. All of that meant he didn’t have to go very far to be able to whisper in your ear about how he was so close, how he was going to get you pregnant any second now, and how he couldn’t wait to see you round and swollen with his child.

“These’ll get bigger too,” he moaned as he reached up to grope your tits. “Our baby will get first serve, of course, but if there’s anything left over, I’ll help you take care of it.”

It could’ve been hours of that, for all you could tell. You came again and again— they started to blend together after a while— as he moaned the most terrifying, filthy things in your ear. You were afraid you’d go numb before he finished, his cock moving so fast and so deep that the friction nearly burned. It didn’t burn, though, because you were unendingly wet, which really just made it worse because you hated that you were, on some level, enjoying it. Every time he whispered praises to you, arousal tingled in your spine and you fluttered around him. It was obvious that his words, his body, and his cock were doing things to you that you hadn’t ever experienced before.

You were crying still, but you weren’t sobbing. No sound or heavy breathing, just tears streaming silently to the wet patch beneath your head.

“You’re so perfect,” he cooed, “and you’re gonna be a great mom. You’ll be a great wife, too… with a little more training.”

He was fucking you even faster, the lewd slapping of skin echoing through the room. You could hear how wet you were, and you could feel that it had begun to coat your inner thighs. His moans got louder, occasionally muffled as he kissed your neck some more.

“God, baby, I dunno if I can last much longer… need to fill you up, doll.”

Your legs were shaking, but the rest of you was still and silent, resigned to your fate.

“Fuck, I love you,” he groaned. “Is that strange to say? I hope it’s not too soon— but it’s true. I love you so fuckin’ much.” His sweetness dissipated instantly as he grabbed your jaw, hovering over your face again. “Say you love me, too,” he instructed. You weakly tried to shake your head. “Say it!”

“I love you too, Bucky,” you whispered, and you heard yourself say it but it didn’t sound like you at all. He smiled softly, looking down at you with gentle affection in his eyes.

“I know, sweet girl,” he hummed before he kissed you again. And as the kiss deepened, the way he moaned against your lips and his hips started to falter made it all too clear he was coming inside you. It went on for what felt like eternity, with him thrusting into you with every flex of his cock, each time slamming as deep as he could go.

He pulled you close, keeping his cock inside as he started to catch his breath and kiss your neck and shoulders slowly. Your kidnapper, after everything he’d done, actually had the audacity to cuddle with you… how bizarre.

“Might be able to go again soon,” he informed you with a sleepy mumble, “but I jus’ wanna hold ya first… I could fall asleep with you in my arms like this…”

You glanced over at the door, sadly seeing he’d locked it behind him— even locked from the inside, you couldn’t open it, due to the outrageously heavy metal bar that only he could lift. Meaning you couldn’t make your escape while he slept. With no hope of freedom in sight, and with your own eyelids getting heavy, you figured it couldn’t do any harm to fall asleep with him. You’d worry about your plan tomorrow— right now, you could just enjoy laying your head on his chest and being wrapped in his embrace.

#dark!bucky barnes smut #dark!bucky barnes x reader #dark!bucky barnes x you #dark!bucky barnes x y/n #dark!bucky smut

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julietwiskey1 · 2 years

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"S&S is such a mess on Azula’s character that you can’t really address it in a meaningful way without it becoming a tragedy." Could you please elaborate on when you say you can't meaningfully address S&S without it turning into a tragedy? Because while I do agree that fic was dark, Bryke has made comments that they will keep the comics canon. So does that mean you think Azula's canon story will end in a tragedy? Cause there is no way imo to have any FN stories w/o addressing S&S's cliffhanger.

Before I start I should make it clear that I have only consumed the "Avatar: The Last Airbender" TV show, so I have not read any of the comics. So my information is all second hand or from a few panels that I have seen online. And no, I don't intend to ever read them.

Azula is ultimately a tragic character to begin with. She was raised from a young age to be a child soldier like the rest of the main cast. But she also has been forced into a very unhealthy perfectionist mind set along with having no adults around to guide her. The best she got is Lo and Li, but their purpose is to mold her into a tool rather than to love her, and they are likely the instruments that Ozai uses to abuse Azula.

Therefore stories that focus on Azula and not her redemption or healing (or similar stories) end up ending tragically for her. And from the what I heard of the comics I can't think of a way to do service to what she did in them and give her a satisfying end.

In the comics they had Azula become a terrorist that kidnapped children for... reasons? The worst things you can be in modern media is a terrorist. Worse though is someone who attacks or harms children. So yea, Azula is pretty screwed. It takes a lot for an audience to actually think that a character who did either of those two things would actually be decent or worthwhile.

So I think if they do try to give Azula a redemption or healing or have us sympathize with her they would ignore what she has actually done (which is what a lot of fanfics that focus on Azula after S&S do). And ignoring what happened is not properly addressing her actions.

If they do focus on what she has done then she almost certainly will end up in jail or an asylum. And given what I know about the comics writers that will be poorly executed and likely imply direct abuse to Azula.

The writers can not be trusted to handle mental health issues in a responsible way. They went with trying to demonize Azula as much as possible and write her off as crazy because she is mentally ill in an extremely ablest way. Then in S&S they said that Azula is suddenly sane, because they needed her to be sane. They will need to address Azula's mental illness if they want to actually do justice to what they have written but they have shown no ability to do so.

So I think if they do try to address all of Azula's problems they will find themselves beyond their ability as writers and instead look for short cuts. So it will probably end with either Azula imprisoned with her bending removed, which I hate, or have her redeemed through death, which I also hate. Or they could ignore all of the bad she has done and make her a good person without putting the work in, which is just as if not more likely.

#azula #the comics suck #anti comics #i don't trust the writers to write mental illness #as such I don't trust them to write their version of azula #they have shown themselves to have an ablest mindset #i hope they just forget about azula

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ashesandhalefire · 3 years

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two weeks later and i'm still blindingly angry over all of this and it feels so unbelievably stupid to be This Upset about a television show about aliens that's on the god damned CW network but here i am!!!!

venting below the cut bc i need to get this shit out of my brain

this season has been so frustrating and seeing all of the "oh, but the hand holding scene was nice!" and the "i'm glad they finally mentioned the song!" reactions have just grated on me so much because for me it just wasn't remotely good enough. i know people want to talk about the stuff that makes them happy and not get bogged down in the bullshit, but i'm tired of having to find the silver lining, of having to give them the benefit of the doubt, of doing these mental gymnastics to put a positive spin of "well at least we got this."

compared to the previous seasons, the version of malex that we got in s3 feels entirely soulless to me.

like, we start with these characters having been apart for a year, and they don't even get a real reunion. max and liz get this whole extended Only People In the Universe moment outside the crashdown where it's all about the emotional impact of seeing each other again after so long while still harboring all these unresolved feelings for each other. the night we motherfucking met is playing. but malex get this stupid 'watch you make out with your non-boyfriend from afar' scene, and then they never talk about it! it's never addressed! what is that??? you set up this angsty moment to get vlamis to cry on camera but you didn't think it was important for the characters to follow up on that emotion at some point??

we never even find out what was happening in that year they spent apart. we get this vague explanation of alex 'handling' project shepherd, but we never find out what that means. what it actually means is that the writers were bored with it and had no idea what to do with it after making the Worst Possible Decision to kill jesse off in the s2 finale in the Dumbest Fucking Way, so they just fucking wrote it out. but they didn't take into consideration that a FULL YEAR is a long time to be working on DISMANTLING A SECRET DISBANDED GOVERNMENT OPERATION TO KIDNAP, IMPRISON, TORTURE, AND EXPERIMENT ON ALIEN LIFE FORMS. what the FUCK was alex doing??? how the fuck big was project shepherd?? and why was kyle not involved???

so alex is off doing whatever he's doing, and michael is in roswell, apparently learning to deflect questions in the mindscape and just waiting for alex to come back. have they spoken since michael left in the middle of the song? unknown. does he know that alex has apparently had this casual relationship with forrest going for the last year? apparently not!!!! so michael and alex presumably haven't spoken in a year, but michael has decided that the time is Now and that's just all there is to it. reason is not important.

so in the aftermath of The Non-Reunion michael gets to be the Sad Boy again but alex is also a Slightly Sad Boy now, and then we get the actual reunion three goddamn days later. and tbh i don't like how tyler and vlamis played the drive-in scene. it was too hostile and aggravated for a reunion scene. and tbh it wasn't written as a reunion because the writers couldn't be bothered to dedicate a scene to their relationship that clarified where they stood with each other like echo got. instead we got michael's trauma being dumped onto alex again and alex being ridiculously harsh about it in return, and we're supposed to say thank you because of the Supreme Character Growth that they didn't just immediately tell each other to fuck off and die. which tbh they probably SHOULD have been telling each other to fuck off because they hadn't spoken in a year and they were both being shitty.

and then we wait another few episodes and they're fighting again and there's even more of the same miscommunication that comes off as unbelievably cruel, and then we end on this cliffhanger note of michael being right outside the building where alex is being held at gunpoint, and it all amounts to nothing. they go their separate ways again without speaking.

and then they finally do work together, and michael's like FUCK YOU, YOU LIAR and alex is like everything i have done i have done for you [eyebrow wiggle] and i'm just supposed to be like yeah! yeah that random flirtatious energy fucking tracks! who gives a shit about the fact that season two ended with alex singing a love song dedicated to michael in a crowded bar and michael walked out in the middle and alex took that as signalling that whatever relationship they had was over and started making out with someone else in public and didn't speak to michael for a year! who cares that michael spent a year apparently believing that he and alex were going to be getting back together and had no idea that alex was actually dating forrest! who cares that these characters weren't remotely on the same page when we left them and weren't remotely on the same page when we picked them back up and we didn't remotely see them getting on the same page during the season! they're there!

and then not only are we suddenly getting this version of alex that is supremely confident in the direction of his relationship with michael, but we get alex saying "i'm doing what i'm doing because i'm doing it for our future" and michael just fucking stares at him. no fucking reaction. idk what vlamis was going for there, but it was flat as fuck. this is the first time all season - IN EPISODE MOTHERFUCKING EIGHT - that michael has had any clear indication that alex still wants to be with him. and there's NO REACTION.

so we romanticize alex's military service a little, hit a man with a truck, and we're back to making out! whoohoo! that really makes all of the shit from seasons one and two totally worth it! it's not like their issues have always been deeply rooted in communication and shared trauma and i was waiting for them to talk to each other about literally any of the things that have kept them apart for a decade! alex grabbed michael's hand and promised to tell him about a useless alien artifact! that's basically the same thing!

so now they're back together and alex works on the machine and almost dies and michael swoops in with the 'i've always got you!' and that's a nice line but it ultimately means nothing. that's not a thing for them because they're almost never around at the same time for michael to have to save alex from anything. there was the kidnapping (which was majorly fumbled) and this lockheart machine thing. that's it. 'always' my ass. again, all flash, no substance. and it doesn't even come back in the end! we don't even have alex in danger by the end of the season to say, see, he did save him again! haha! that's fun!

and now it's like 'oh look they have breakfast at alex's house!' okay, fine. 'oh look they have a talk in michael's bunker!' okay, fine. 'oh look they have a talk in alex's house.' OKAY FINE. but it's taken ten episodes in this season and they're barely saying anything real to each other. alex tells michael not to be afraid of his past, which is either hilariously un-self-aware or intentionally using himself as a reference point (neither being made implicit or explicit by the dialogue!) like, okay, fun role reversal, but this isn't the catharsis i've been waiting for from them. this may be surprising, but i haven't actually been waiting two and two-thirds seasons for michael and alex to unpack michael's secret biological parentage. and the show can't decide where michael's self-worth issues come from: is it from his time in foster care? is it because of his newly discovered parentage? is it because of the secret alien ability he's apparently had since he was eighteen but never mentioned and/or used? so i don't even know how to unpack all of that and/or how it has affected his relationship with alex because they keep saying "it's this. but he's working through this now <3. actually it's this, but he's working through this now <3. actually, we lied, it's actually this, which he's been hiding for a decade and is working through now <3."

and the conversation on the couch is nothing. it's just nothing. at the time, it was like, oh, great, they're saying things to each other! but i look at what they're actually saying, and it's fucking NOTHING.

first we get this weird "my actual family" line that throws me because michael and alex actually HAD a whole exchange about family in 1x12 that we have still not touched on again. so it's fine that they're trying to say that alex helped him find his tried, but it's careless and sloppy to word it in a way that makes me go, wait, what? alex stood in a building that was about to blow up and said michael was his family, and michael has never talked about that again, and now we're going to talk about dallas being his real family? not even max at least?

and the rest of the conversation is just more nothing.

michael says what amounts to "hey, last season sucked for us! felt bad, scoob! this version (which has not actually amounted to a whole lot thus far) feels better (for reasons we cannot and will not put into words). but it's also * ~ * ~ C O S M I C ~ * ~ * lest anyone think we're forgetting our motif.'

also they lean really heavily on this "we're not the same kids we were in high school" narrative, and i think it's weird because the problem wasn't really with those kids. those are the kids that fell in love. those are the kids that saw each other suffering and offered each other kindness even though the world had doled out an endless supply of cruelty to each of them. and yeah, they got fucked up at the end and made bad choices and didn't know how to cope, but i still think the phrasing was doing a lot less than they thought.

and then michael calls back to the song like that was a moment they would both be thinking of fondly and not like alex should be like "oh, you remember that? because you kinda WALKED OUT IN THE MIDDLE AND WE NEVER TALKED ABOUT IT" and then he does the hated full name direct address that haunts my nightmares.

(and this is a stupid thing because i like the kiss just fine but it's also filmed so strangely??? like the whole scene is this intense closeup of the two of them on the couch and just really pushed in, and then the kiss feels like they're both sitting straight on the couch and trying to turn their heads as far as they can to make out and it's like... why would you do it this way?)

and then the Scandalous S-rated eight seconds, half of which are blurry because of max. will his crimes never stop.

so the situation is currently that michael and alex are having sex on a couch while max is calling to tell them that liz, heath, and the racist sheriff nobody gives a shit about have been kidnapped. but the next time we see michael, he is at a tactical strategy planning session with EVERYONE EXCEPT HIS LITERAL WAR VETERAN BOYFRIEND. and there's no mention of alex, despite the fact that michael must have been with alex when he found out. alex just POOF disappears from the narrative for an episode, and then we wrap up with whatever the fuck those last two episodes were.

alex "i would burn the world down" manes doesn't go looking for michael when he's kidnapped, despite the fact that he already tracked jones once and in the very next episode isobel and rosa are like 'yeah we all use find my friends lol.' alex "i would burn the world down" manes is relegated to poking the outside of the lockheart machine with a screwdriver and giving max a pep talk during their MAYBE THIRD(???) scene together EVER while his boyfriend is bleeding out somewhere. michael 'i always got you' guerin doesn't have a single scene with alex after frantically having his stomach wound sealed up with office supplies because he's so worried that jones has gone after alex to get the lockheart machine. what the fuck is that.

and then we get more tinkering with a radio alone in the bunker because apparently it's all alex is good for. i don't know why he would innately be good at this in the first place, but apparently he's now Designated Radio Repair Guy. but this conversation at least gets closer to what i want with michael saying that he's afraid they're only getting the beginning of something. if they'd actually expanded on the fact that they've both wasted a lot of time, it would have been great!

but instead it comes back to this drama that tbh i struggled to understand the emotional weight of so late in the season. like, my problem is that i just don't understand why michael cares so much that jones is his dad. and maybe that's coming from a privileged place! but michael is thirty years old and jones is a literal supervillain and michael is like WILL I STILL LOVE MYSELF IF I HAVE TO KILL HIM (which wasn't even a thing. liz was going to kill him with The Science from The Spores from The Lab That Got Burned Down By Max or whatever.) and like... yes, you should still love yourself. you don't know this man AT ALL and he has literally murdered HUNDREDS IF NOT THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE and you are IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE WHO HAS AN EVIL FATHER and should GET THE POINT BY NOW. but maybe that's just me lacking empathy, idk.

then, in the crime of crimes, the i love you gets cut off! for no reason! why is this still not something they're saying to each other??

and then via the various means the teleportation that 3x12 and 3x13 regularly employ, alex is back at deep sky to tase max to save kyle but doesn't actually hitch a ride with max and kyle when they saddle up and ride out to the Big Battle. and then when literally everyone is hanging out at the bar, alex is still Off Tinkering With The Machine. and then we get this stupid fucking scene in front of the statue that AGAIN means NOTHING.

we have not unpacked michael's trauma about his hand in a meaningful way. they tore down the shed, but they haven't said two words about what happened inside. michael hasn't talked about max healing him without his consent. have they even talked about the bunker fight? i have such a headache that i honestly can't remember. but 3x13 is alex unwrapping the handana because it's time for the Beautiful Moment of walking hand in hand down an empty street with the massive specter of jesse's untarnished reputation looming over them forever. oh, sorry, i mean-- they beat him!

this is the so-called cosmic romance? this is the relationship that's being given equal weight to echo in the narrative? this is the journey i had to be patient for?

sorry but how many times do i have to kiss the ring before i can call bullshit

there was no equal treatment, no equal importance.

echo got shit this season but all of the characters were CONSTANTLY bringing it up. there is a CONSTANT awareness of the importance liz and max hold in each other's lives, and that is NOT true for michael and alex unless the character in question is a villain who is throwing the relationship back in their faces. michael and maria were constantly constantly together in group scenes, constantly being talked about by other characters. isobel and liz couldn't keep their goddamn opinions to themselves. alex and forrest kissed twice in public and went on like two or three on screen dates and had the 'we're sprawled out in bed' scene. meanwhile, we don't even know for sure which characters know that michael and alex are back together because almost every single one of their moments - romantic or otherwise - takes place totally isolated from everyone else.

so they barely have scenes, they have no real meaningful conversations about their relationship, their getting back together development is a speedrun from fighting to making out with no real emotional beats, and they don't even try to integrate their relationship into the overarching plot. why am i supposed to say thank you for any of that??

#wank for ts #michael x alex

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mxvladdy · 4 years

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Diavolo- True Form

Whoooooooo weeeee! ‘Pologies for the wait on these longer posts. I’ve been hit with a one two punch of house emergencies and sudden costly ass repairs, so my creative juices have been rightly squashed as of late.

Plus side I got my drawing tablet and drafting table back so I can neaten up my blog lay out now (yay!)

Anyway this one was a challenge in the best possible ways. I really like Diavolo because of how little we know about him so it gave me some wiggle room. Or at least what I know of him- im only on like chapter 23 of the stories. Idk if I did him justice as this is angsty af but I sure had a blast writing it!

Hope ya like! Next up: Beelzebub

Trigger warning: Mention of blood, and swearing.

Diavolo-

He'll never show you, so don't ask. His true form is god-like in its own right and such knowledge, such truly raw demonic power in its natural form is not for your mortal eyes.

No matter what your lineage, it would break you. And despite his roles and being the literal devil, he doesn’t want you suffering.

Sometimes when he thinks you wouldn't notice he relaxes his hold on reality, just a fraction. He wants to relieve some of the tension that is always building just below the surface. Like closing your eyes when you have a tension headache. The mental energy he has to exert to keep face is enormous. Regular glamour doesn’t work nearly as well as his own, or Barbato’s magic.

But you see hints during your downtime spent in his company. A ripple in his reflection on the window pane. Unexplainable shadows dancing across his exposed skin. Too many teeth in his mouth when he laughs. Sometimes when you stare into his eyes you see something indescribable staring back behind them. His usually warm and inviting gaze darkening. A barest flicker, a hulking bestial thing kept locked behind in his golden gaze. It's enough to freeze the blood in your veins.

On certain nights when you can slip away from the brothers you stay in his room. Lying awake, you watch his magic wane and shift as he slumbers. Sometimes you see runes, or at times letters. You are tempted to write them down and ask Solomon. But something stops you each time.

The worst images are the faces. Unknown souls trapped beneath his flesh clawing to be freed. Silent screams fading back into his body as he dreams. Your fragile fingers trace the patterns they leave as you wait for the next day wrapped in his embrace.

Only once have you seen more of his form then he would ever wish. The depths of his strength and mental fortitude were unknown to you so the slip up took you both by surprise. He masks the error well, but the sudden shift in energy in the room couldn’t be suppressed .

You are suddenly so aware of the oppressive weight of gravity on your frame. Your bones grinding together under the force of his aura. You panic, desperate by the need to breathe, but are unable to draw even the smallest bit of oxygen as it is robbed from the room. Time and reality wrapped too, distorting in ways only you thought only Barbatos could do. You knew in that moment the sudden dread of death, how mortally was but a rusty shackle tethering you down.

He collects himself, dispelling the energy and locking his glamour down tight to protect you. But that split second of fury felt like an eternity to you as you sink to the floor. You hiccup a shaky sob and shiver. Your fragile human mind bowing under the strain of what it cannot comprehend. Scolding hot tears fall from your cheeks, before splashing crimson the stone below you.

You didn't approach him again for over a month. No matter how strong you are, some things were better off unseen.

Mini Fic

He didn’t know. For once in his ancient pitiful existence, he had been unaware of his surroundings. It had been for just a moment, one tiny crack in his veneer. The foolishness of Mammon and Belphegor’s actions finally poked the right nerve. He wouldn’t hurt them, for Lucifer’s sake. That prideful demon would never forgive him if he did. But he could scare them. A quick look at his true self; a flash of the deepest bowels of hell. Enough to give them a reminder of their positions and standing in his court. He had expected their whimpers of fear, could taste the acidic tinge of it exuding from their pores. What he didn’t expect though was your blood curdling screams alongside.

Ironically, he would have to thank the second eldest later. His fast thinking is the only thing that saved you from complete damnation. His body shielded yours, taking the brunt of the stronger daemons hellish might for you. What little magic Mammon still had left used to protect you. Though, while your vision was blocked, you could still feel his oppressive presence. It racked your mortal flesh. Diavolo knew what affects his power had on humans. He spent years breaking and consuming damned souls with zeal after all.

The brothers had run from him after that, screaming for Simone. Barbatos following close behind, a look of consternation on his usually impassive face. You had been so limp in Mammon's arms. Diavolo could do nothing, shocked by his own weak will and realization that he might have ruined everything. You had been whisked away so quickly by his faithful servant and the brothers that he hadn’t had a chance to look you over himself. But the brief moment he saw will haunt him for years to come. Your eyes red from the sudden haemolacria, the blood staining your clothes and face. Your fingers digging away at your soft skin, black and purple blotches staining what he could see. Mouth opened wide on a silent scream. He knew what you must have seen. The souls of the damned trapped under his glamour breaking free to latch on to your unmarred soul trying to drag you back with them.

Against his butler's advice he stands at your door now days later trying to see you. He couldn’t sit around and just hear updates second hand. The brothers had been keeping guard most days in a valiant attempt to keep him away. But he could only be waylaid for so long before he used his rank against them.

He had arranged a full council meeting. Every one of the brothers knowing full well it was to get them out of his way. Yet, the order was absolute. This time none of the brothers could reject it. Barbatos would keep them in that room for eternity if he so wished for it. He hated using his age and power against them, but he saw no other way to get to you.

It was foolish now, standing as he was in front of your door. A part of him hoping you would turn the knob and let him in. Let him comfort you for once, instead of the asinine distractions the brothers offered. He could help too. Hells, he wanted to. He wanted to be closer to you. Power discrepancy be damned. The other part of him knowing it was for the best that you didn’t. Your guardian and tormentor all in one. He listens to your muffled sobs for a moment fighting with his feet to stay cemented to the floor instead of heading back in defeat.

"When my father was still around he took me down to the deepest depths of the kingdom. Where the worst of the traitors and sinners are imprisoned." His deep baritone rumbles through your door during a break in your crying. "It’s a place few seldom go; even now I have yet to return. Back then he told me ‘there will never be a human soul that is undeserving of punishment. Even the ones destined for the celestial realm are tethered to sin.’ At that time I believed him. The things I saw in your realm... " The prince chuckles wearily.

He remembers the ever present scowl on the old King's face. His dark eyes looking out at the sea of damned souls he controlled. Even as a young daemon, fresh into his wings and still sharpening his horns to impress others he could tell how much his father detested his position. How it had warped him, turning him bitter and cold, even to his mate and only child.

Diavolo never wanted to be like that. Not to the ones he supposedly cared for at the very least. "I think that is why he hated the other realms so much.” He continued. “Humans, for their ability to choose which realm they would eventually end up in after they pass. That even the worst sinners could find redemption enough at the last moment to get to the pearly gates. While daemons, no matter how well they served, or the duties they did for the good of their own would never be seen as equals to our celestial counterparts or yours. That this existence is all we'll ever be destined to have. Nightmares and monsters, stories to tell little human children to keep them in line.” He pauses, collecting himself. “I believed wholeheartedly that every human deserved the punishments only my kind could dowel out. But, in this past year I have spent with you, I find myself changing. You are so undeserving of such torment. Somehow you are understanding and forgiving beyond measure to us. You handle our ill tempers with such grace. For daemons such as us, it is staggering, and humbling. I regret that I have hurt you so deeply and have broken your trust. I swear it as the head of this realm I would never intentionally do so." He looks at the door handle willing it to open. " I am so sorry."

Your crying picks up again. Huge heaving sobs that rattle your chest. Great Father, he just keeps making it worse. Clearing his head Diavolo turns.

Rejection of this nature was new to him. No one had ever dared to ignore him, especially such as this. The royal in him- his father's blood- seethed that he would even stoop so low as to grovel to a short lived thing like yourself. Even deeper yet, it demanded another taste of your essences. You little soul kept safe behind your rib cage. He wanted it added to his collection, kept tucked away deep within his maws.

It was sick; it was wrong. He chokes on the idea. The intrusive thought burrowing deep. How deplorable was he? Perhaps the angels were right to keep him out of heaven.

You didn't show to class the following day, or the days after. Unsurprising to him and the seven of the inner council. He figured the other day wouldn’t change anything. But it was utter agony to him. These days trapped in his office only getting short and curt updates on your health from Lucifer. It had been a special kind of torment.

Today he sat once again at his desk staring at some godforsaken bitching of a royal cousin. He knew this whelp. Some backwater thrice removed eons ago. Yet he was demanding an audience? The gall. The ink of their eligible handwriting makes him cross eyed. Would this day ever cease? He looks to his hourglass, the sands within seemingly frozen in time.

"My Lord, perhaps you should take a moment to stretch your legs?" Barbatos moved from his corner. Gloved hand coming to rest on top of the same three lines he had been reading for the past two hours. "This work could wait another evening I’m certain ."

"Did I do the right thing my friend?" Diavolo doesn't even bother answering the question his servant posed. They both knew he wouldn't. "This program. Our human exchange students. Solomon is one thing, but-"

"Your will and path is absolute." Barbatos states. "There are no mistakes within you, merely stumblings onto different paths."

With a gentle push Barbatos moves the hulking demon out of his way to collect and organize the scrolls and letters scattered about the large desk. "You made the right choice bringing them here. Look at what they have done. They are entertainment to you are they not?"

The prince rose knocking his desk aside and descended on his butler. His true form out in all its unholy glory now. His highly condensed magic distorting the study as if he was a black hole. The axis of the room shifts. His priceless collection of books and toys disintegrating from the cold radiation he emits.

It was all for show really. There was nothing he could do to an ancient being such as Barbatos. So he lashed out, throwing a tantrum in the security of his office. The hopeless agitation he felt fueling the flames of his rage. His butler had only added holy water to his already festering wounds.

Barbatos had been by his side for time in memoriam. The crafty bastard had helped raise him. Had shaped him into the ruler he was today. If anyone could break and remold him it would be his oldest companion.

The dark haired daemon waited for the waves of agitation to dry up. Moving only when the prince was in his more presentable demonic form. Large barrel chest heaving as he reined himself in. “Are you back to your senses?” He asks coolly, already categorizing the items to replace and furniture to be mended.

"I had not meant for it to go like this." Diavolo croaks into his hands collapsing back on what remained of his desk. Building a bridge between realms, yes. That noble idea was the greater purpose of this program, but the rest of it. The classes, and dances. The parties where he threw his newest toys about to see how they would react to things other mortals worshiped? That had been for his own curiosity and amusement. Lesser beings navigating a foreign world blind to the dangers that were right under their very nose. Bring a mortal with no magic into his realm? Deep down he knew this was an inevitability. Especially with the freedoms he granted them. He just didn’t think he would get so attached.

“No one believes that you would hurt them on purpose.” His butler cuts off his downward spiral. “It would ruin the program. That is what you are so stressed about, right?” Barbatos eyes him skeptically. Diavolo, himself, and Lucifer had spent many sleepless weeks constructing and negotiating this program. If the Arch Angels heard a mortal was hurt down here it could very well end this little escapade. But the look in the prince’s eyes told a different story.

A warm glow emanated from his cheeks and he was unable to meet the old daemon’s gaze. Ah. "Or perhaps things have changed?" Barbatos smiles coyly up from beneath his bangs. "You are your mother's son after all. Neither of you were ever able to stem your bleeding hearts for long." Diavolo squawked indignantly but didn’t argue. Instead he merely turns a darker shade of red and curses under his breath.

He skipped out on court that evening. Not that he cared much. The other nobles would no doubt use the time to gossip about his whereabouts and uncouth behavior of late. Truth be told, he was avoiding the brothers more than anything else. They had made it expressly clear (some more then others) how they felt about him currently. He wouldn't doubt that Belphegor had a few more brothers on his side now.

Instead he stood at your door once more with a tea tray in hand. He had bumped into Simone on the way. The angel had come to bring you dinner and to check up on the last of your wounds. Celestial magic worked miracles on those who have been touched by the darker arts. Diavolo was grateful for his talents. And, by some miracle, Simone had made it abundantly clear he was not going to bring this to the higher ups on his end either.

Upon seeing the prince slinking up the house's stairwell the other man had simply smiled and offered him the tray. “I suddenly got a message from Luke. Could you perhaps drop this by our friend’s door?” Diavolo had accepted without preamble, large hands dwarfing the platter of little tea cakes and sandwiches. The young cherubs work no doubt. His cooking was a fine treat, and a great incentive to at least open the door.

“Hello again.” He knocks twice. “I just wanted to check in on you. I know I am the last person you wish to see but I was hoping to talk?” Silence greets him. Were you awake? He breathes deeply and focuses on picking up your vitals. You were up, your heart thumping steady somewhere in the room. That was good. “I also have dinner for you. Simone had an urgent matter to attend to so he- for better or worse- entrusted this to me.”

Diavolo searches hopelessly for something else to say. He couldn’t just leave the food and go. He needed to see you. “I don’t plan on staying long today. I understand when I am not wanted, but I cannot help myself but be worried for you. Perhaps this is just me contritioning, because I know I caused this. The amount of times I have been called a ‘ass’ by Solomon over this have been staggering.” He rambles. After another bout of silence from your end he coincides. “I see- I will leave the food by the door and let you rest.” Defeated he puts the food down and turns to leave.

The door clicks open slowly. One bloodshot eye peeking through the crack. “Oh mio piccolo mortale.” He loses his grip on your shared tongue at a loss. You looked- you must have been in the hall longer then he or the brothers had known. Such damage couldn’t be done in a few moments. Your skin was healing as nicely as Lucifer had said, but the deep purple scarring still remained on the surface. The burn pattern of it all was random. Twisting wounds that reflected an oily sheen from the light of the hallway. “I-.”

“I know-” You cut him off with a raised hand. “and I feel as though I owe you an apology too.” Your voice was so weak and shaky. A mockery of your normally strong and jovial tone. Hearing you laugh at school had brightened the dreary halls. He hadn’t realized it until you weren't there.

“You owe me nothing.” Diavolo says in earnest. He watches you contemplate your next words before throwing whatever you were going to say away.

“Would you like to come in?” Your eyes drop to the tray. “Luke always makes more than I can eat.”

“I don’t think that would be wise.” He backs out. All his plans crashing and burning around his feet. His actions had been irreparable.

“Perhaps not,” You open the door wider taking the tray and heading to your side table, leaving him no room to argue. “But then again, being a lamb among such wolves as yourself and the brothers isn’t smart either.” You meant it as a joke but he couldn’t even muster a chuckle. It was true. Gods. “Dia-” You approach him again but falter at the last second.

As much as you wanted to be close to him again the memories were still so fresh in your mind. The cold hell fire of his magic ensnaring you, searing your skin. The whispered words of sinners long since past still echoing in your head, all in languages you’ve never heard before. The worst though had to be the screaming. Lost souls begging for help. Some sounded so familiar…You shutter involuntarily.

You wanted to hate him for this. Curse him for putting you through this pain. But how much could you blame him? Or any of them? They were daemons. Whether he meant to hurt you or not, it truly had only been a matter of time before it happened. It would be hypocritical of you to fear or hate him forever over this. Six of the seven brothers have threatened your life before, and you have forgiven them. Hell, one of them actually killed you. What’s more was that Diavolo’s wrath hadn’t even been directed at you.

Wrong place at the right time; seemed to be your forte. “Please, come in.” You repeat again firmer than before mustering up either courage or sheer human stupidity to order him in. You couldn’t tell the difference anymore. “We need to talk.”

He enters, following at your heel like a lost puppy. All air of princedom gone as you clicked the door shut. Diavolo fiddles with his hands, old habits from childhood coming with his nerves. He didn’t know what to expect anymore. Yelling? Some kind of beratement? A plea to go home and never look back? He would let you.

You pass by him, giving him a large berth of space to get to your seat. “Tea?”

Diavolo jerks his head to you. He had forgotten momentarily the plate of food he had used to get access to you. You smile sheepishly pushing it and a plate of sweets towards him with your unbandaged knuckles. He doesn’t move till your hand retracts back to your lap. You jerk your head to the open seat waiting for him. You weren’t going to take no for an answer.

“I- thank you.” The daemon sits making himself as small as possible in the straight back chair. He takes the porcelain and drinks mindlessly. The scalding hot tea doing little to help the tightness of his throat, but it did thaw some of the ice in his mind.

“Are-how…” He fumbles so unsure of what to do next. “I see you’ve been keeping up with your school work.” Diavolo closes his eyes, wincing internally at his words. That’s what he comes up with? Idiotic.

You smile anyway, eyeing the massive pile of books and paperwork spewn about your bed. “Yeah. I’ve taken to doing my school work with Levi in his room. Mammon and Beel are nice enough to drop it off to the teachers when they are due.” He nods. He knew this of course. But it was nice to hear it from you. But yet, you don’t meet his eyes. Far too afraid to see what hid behind them.

The thought of being dragged back into those dark depths again makes your pulse quicken. You instead stare at your nail beds, finding them more interesting. They were purple now. The nails stained black by the contact with his magic. “Will- will that go away?” He asks. Demonic curses or taints were nigh impossible to remove fully. Disgustingly, he hoped they didn’t. Then your nails would match his. The darker depths of his soul coo at the idea, happy that in a small way every daemon would know your his. Not as good as a pact, but as close as he could get to being a part of your little mortal life.

“I’m not sure.” You reply honestly bringing your hands up to place them on the table. “Simone and Solomon have done what they could. But, it is as good as it’s going to get for now. They say it could fade with time.” You look up at him, eyes gazing to the left of his face. “Luke thinks I should see a stronger angel.” Diavolo winces, the thought stung, and terrified him. “I told him no.”

That surprised him. This was your chance. The celestial realm had been skeptical from the beginning. If they knew, it would be a perfect caveat for them to step in. “Why?” Finally you look at him. The fear was still there. Hesitation evident in your eyes. Yet you forced yourself to look at him, fighting through your trepidation.

“Did you mean what you said earlier? About your father and what you think of me?”

“Of course.” He replies without hesitation reaching for your cold hands. You flinch but don’t move away. It felt-nice. His warmth chasing away the perpetual chill that covered your fingertips. Idly you stroke his strong hands with your thumbs.

“Then, I think we can work on this privately.” Slowly but surely you felt like you could fix this. Not for the program, but for yourself.

#obey me #obey me diavolo #obey me headcanons #gods have mercy I wanna smooch him so bad

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queen--of--maggots · 3 years

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Did the SPK know that Near killed Mikami?

Matsuda stated at the end of the manga that Near might have killed Mikami with the Death Note. There are several hints that this is the case and barely anything, which speaks against it. If you are interested, check out the analyses by casuistor and mikami about this topic.

Let’s just say he did it. Killing Mikami is something Near could have done without involving the SPK. This raises the question, were they aware of it or not? Considering their behavior, they knew it. But before I come to this, I’ll start with the arguments which speak against it. There are two legit reasons why he wouldn’t have involved them.

First, they could have moral concerns and, in the worst case, stop the cooperation with Near. This is not very likely, though. Near would have chosen people who value the results over the means. It is clear from the beginning that solely clinging to the law will be impossible if he follows in L’s footsteps. Therefore, surrounding himself with people who have a problem with illegal actions seems contra-productive. We can also see in canon this was not an issue. Halle and Rester abducted Misa. They even admitted that they would have used the force of arms if she would have been uncooperative. They didn’t protest either when Near wanted to imprison Light in a private facility. (Near has the same right to do this, you have the right to kidnap someone and held them captive. None.) Also, Near’s defeat would mean they are all going to die. This and the fact that Mikami would face an execution anyway if convicted probably help to overlook the immorality of sacrificing his life. Morals in general are a good thing, but are they worth dying for? I guess moral concerns can be ruled out.

The second reason is the risk, which comes with involving more people. The more people know about the plan, the higher is the chance of someone slipping information, accidentally or not. If the Task Force finds out what Near has done, they would most likely quit their cooperation. It would also give Light the opportunity to make it look like a complot against him since Near could have used the Death Note and the manipulation ability to fake the evidence he needs. So this argument is legit. But wait. It is legit for Halle and Rester. Gevanni on the other hand... Gevanni was the one who made the fake Death Note. It is physical pretty much impossible to duplicate the book exactly in one day since it does not only involve writing names but copying the book itself. (I wrote something about the topic here.) The best he could possibly have done is a mediocre copy, which wouldn’t fool Mikami. Also, Gevanni must have been aware that Mikami would probably test the Death Note before going to the warehouse. He observed him for weeks and knew him well. Unless Gevanni is incredibly stupid, he can only come to the conclusion that Near’s plan is doomed to fail. So, informing him about the manipulation is less risky. Otherwise, facing potential death could make Gevanni’s behavior unpredictable, and Near doesn’t need something like this endangering his plan.

What about Rester and Halle? Rester helped with the Death Note copy, but it is unclear how much he knew about Mikami. Keeping certain information restricted to certain people is a better strategy than telling everyone everything, especially after the incident with the spy. Therefore, it is likely that Rester only had basic information about him. If this is enough to figure out that Mikami won’t fall for this trick can’t be said with certainty. What can be said is that Rester’s behavior in the warehouse indicates that he knew it too, regardless. The way Rester and the SPK in general handled Mikami is wrong on so many levels, which can’t be a coincidence. Let take a look at the mistakes.

After Mikami tried to kill them a minute ago, Gevanni and Rester handcuff him, but with his arms in front of his body.

While handcuffs in front of your body restrain the movement of your arms, you still have a good range and mobility with them. If you handle a potentially dangerous person, which applies to Mikami, you put their arms on the back first before handcuffing them. This makes the arms almost useless.

They do not search his long coat for Death Note pages or other weapons, like a knife, nor do they check outside for something like this. (His briefcase is still outside. It could contain a weapon or real Death Note pages.) Up to Kiyomi’s abduction, Mikami only showed Gevanni what he and Light wanted him to see. How can the SPK be sure that Light’s plan did not involve a plan B in case something goes wrong? How do they know that Mikami did not come up with a plan B on his own after realizing he lead Gevanni to the Death Note? Maybe it is not very likely that Mikami prepared a trap or that he had something in his coat, but how can they be sure without checking? They can’t. This situation could decide between life and death. Searching his coat and outside takes a few minutes, death is permanent.

They do not force Mikami in a position, which would give them more time to react in case he does something, neither do they force him to hold his hands in a position where they are visible. Mikami is standing for the most part. This is the worst possible position. It allows him to charge at someone or make a run for the door, giving the SPK almost no time to react. Usually (if the handcuffs are on the back), he should have been forced to lie on his stomach. Or, since it is not possible with the hands in front of him, they should at least have made him sit in a way, which allows seeing his hands at any time.

Rester doesn’t aim his gun at Mikami. In fact, he put it back into his holster. The only one with a gun is Gevanni, who doesn’t pay attention to Mikami.

If Mikami would do something, Rester and Halle have to draw their guns first, unlock them, aim, and shoot. Gevanni has to turn around, aim and shoot (if his gun is unlocked). This, plus the few seconds they need to realize what is going on, would take way too long in this situation.

When Mikami gets angry at Light, no one tries to intervene. Look at his face, look at his anger.

How do they know his aggression won’t result in an attack? He is potentially still dangerous. Yet they let him yell at Light without trying to calm him down or stop him otherwise, like threatening him with a gun, for example.

Now the biggest mistake, no one is paying attention to Mikami. Gevanni stands behind Near and only watches Light. After handcuffing him, Rester is the responsible one. He stays close at first, and it looks like he’s holding onto Mikami’s coat. Shortly after, he is only standing behind him, later he moves a bit away, and when Light tries to write their names down, he goes to Near, leaving Mikami completely unattended. (Why though? Standing close to Near won’t save him.) After Light is lying on the floor, Rester stays with Near instead of returning to Mikami.

During the whole time, even when he is still close to Mikami, Rester seems to be focused on Light. If Mikami wanted to do anything, the lack of attention would give him the opportunity.

Halle is just a bystander throughout the whole scene. But she would most likely notice the mistakes and point them out if she was unaware of Near's deeds. I mean, her life depends on it. She doesn’t do this, though, and like the other, it looks like she is only focused on Light.

The SPK members are ex-FBI and CIA agents. They are experienced in what they are doing and should know very well how to deal with dangerous people. All the mistakes cannot simply be explained as rookie mistakes. Unless they got suddenly struck hard by pure incompetence, it is more than likely that Rester, Gevanni, and Halle were aware that Mikami is now harmless. And the only way this is possible is that Near told them he used the Death Note.

I also want to give you some speculations about the possible consequences of the careless handling if Mikami’s was not manipulated.

First of all, his arrest pushed Mikami into a corner. Most people would experience some degree of panic in this situation. In this state, actions aren’t always logical. Relying on assumptions about what he is going to do would be insanely stupid. No one can predict his behavior here and exclude, for example, the possibility that if he is going to die anyway, he decides to take someone with him.

However, in the manga, he doesn’t seem to be in a complete state of panic, which allows him to think rationally about his options. While doing anything in Mikami’s position is risky, he has nothing to lose anymore. If he dies now or if he is executed later, the result is the same. But ensuring Light’s survival is also Mikami’s best chance of getting out of this.

I already mentioned it. In the best-case scenario, Mikami could have hidden Death Note pages in his coat. The SPK never checked this, and Mikami is also allowed to switches positions freely. He stands mostly, but shortly after he was arrested, he kneels on the ground. Then he stands up again, and after his outburst, he sits down. Partially, his body is hunched over.

This, the position of the handcuffs and the general lack of attention are perfect. If he kneels on the ground and bows his upper body down, he could write on a page while his head, hair, and coat obscuring his actions. As long as he moves slowly, without drawing attention, he could write all names on a page before anyone notices it.

Even without a page, Mikami still has options. During Near’s explanation about the fake Death Note, he realizes that he made a mistake and that Light was still able to kill Kiyomi, which means he had access to a Death Note page. Extrapolating from this fact that Light, even now, most likely has at least a piece of a page with him isn’t that difficult, and Mikami is intelligent. Now everything Light needs is time to write the names down. I would estimate he needs about one minute for the writing plus 40 seconds until everyone is dead, so roughly 1.5 to 2 minutes. Mikami could buy him the time. Everything he has to do is distracting everyone. Keep in mind, Mikami’s actions won’t necessarily ensure his own survival, but a, let’s say, 20% chance to survive is still better than 0%. Plus, his actions could at least save Kira and with him Mikami’s ideals of justice. Of course, this won’t work anymore when Light already lies bleeding on the ground, but there was plenty of time before that.

Mikami isn’t far away from the door, about one tile, which equals roughly 2 m, using Rester as measurement (see side note below regarding the positions). Two meters are two big steps, that’s it. The door opens sideways, which could slow him down slightly, but he still should be able to get outside. Running away would most likely cause some distraction. I assume Rester and Gevanni would follow him. The other ones stay behind. I could also see that Matsuda or Aizawa start an argument about the careless behavior of the SPK causing this in the first place. Some time would certainly pass until everyone calms down.

Another option is attacking someone. Near or Halle would be the best options, but Halle is too far away and Near sits in Gevanni’s line of fire. The next best option is probably Gevanni since he appears to be less muscular than Rester. Gevanni stands between Mikami and Near but slightly behind them. Mikami could try to tackle him to the ground. The best possible outcome would be that Gevanni drops his gun within Mikami’s reach while falling. Being armed would surely draw all attention toward him.

Mikami could also try to grab Gevanni after he fell and use him as a shield in case the gun is out of reach. If he manages to put his arms over Gevanni’s head, Mikami could possibly use the handcuffs to strangulate him. Potential injuries from the sudden fall and the oxygen deficit could make it harder for Gevanni to fight back (He had most likely combat training, which would give him otherwise an advantage). A human shield would prevent the others from shooting Mikami immediately since they don’t want to hit Gevanni. If Gevanni can fight back, staying close to him could still have the same effect. Ultimately, even if Mikami is too slow and gets shot, ending up injured or dead, Light would still get a bit of time to write due to the distraction.

With this being said, two questions still remain. First, if the mistakes are so obvious, why did the Task Force not intervene? They have good reasons not to do so. Mogi and Aizawa were on Near’s site. They trusted him to have a plan here. The way the SPK handled Mikami could have been part of it. Maybe Near wanted to provoke a certain reaction from Light or Mikami. They don’t know. Since interference could be problematic, Mogi and Aizawa wouldn’t do anything as long as it looks like Near is in control of the situation. Matsuda tried to stop Mikami from writing down names at the very beginning just to be threatened at gunpoint by the SPK.

Being put in his place once should be enough not to try it a second time and leave matters to the SPK. Ide either trusted Near as well or witnessing the reaction to Matsuda’s interference was enough to stay quiet, maybe both.

The second question is about Near’s intentions behind involving the SPK. As I said earlier, this comes with a risk. My best guess is based on their behavior. They are all focused on Light which makes sense. Mikami isn’t a threat here if manipulated Light is. If Near never informed Rester and Halle about Mikami’s condition (I assume it is necessary to inform Gevanni), they would have become wasted resources. Rester, who was responsible for Mikami in the warehouse, would only have an eye on him. Maybe Halle would switch her attention between Light and Mikami. But since Light is highly intelligent and could have a backup plan, it is better if all three SPK members observe him instead of only 1.5.

Overall, it seems very likely that the SPK knew about Near manipulating and therefore killing Mikami with the Death Note. Because otherwise, it would mean they are all incompetent, which is something I find hard to imagine. Near wouldn’t have chosen people who don’t know how to do their job properly, right?

Also, I think the alleged reckless behavior of the SPK adds further evidence to Matsuda’s theory.

Side note: Obata was very inconsistent while drawing Near’s and Mikami’s position in the warehouse. Near doesn’t move at all, and Mikami stays in one spot after he was handcuffed, yet the panels show them teleporting all over the place. You can see this here:

The panels are in chronological order. I did not include all panels, which show them. The distances between Near and Mikami change, as well as the distance between them and the door/wall. Also, the relative positions to each other vary a lot. Sometimes Mikami is slightly in front of Near, sometimes Near is in front of Mikami, sometimes they are at the same height.

The most realistic positions for them based on how often they were draw this way are:

Mikami: close to the door since he didn’t walk very far away from it (about 1 tile, 1 tile = ~ 2 m)

Near: about 1.5 tiles away from Mikami, which equals about 2.5 tiles away from the door

Both are more or less at the same height. Gevanni stands between but slightly behind them and closer to Near. Maybe he moves around a bit.

Even if the drawing shows otherwise, these are the positions I was referring to.

#death note #teru mikami #stephen gevanni #anthony rester #halle lidner #near #light yagami #meta #my meta

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otterskin · 3 years

Text

Dumb Details From the Loki Trailer I noticed but then got too serious about

First - apparently it’s not a trailer, so I guess we’ll get ‘Trailer 1′ later? ‘Exclusive Clip’ hardly seems accurate, but hey, I’m not Disney’s marketing division. I wouldn’t live in a shoebox if I was.

Dumb detail no. 1:

Owen Wilson’s jacket is...weird. Look closely.

And another shot:

Yeah...his jacket has a ‘reversed collar’. It’s a cut-out rather than cloth folding on top. Huh. What a strange design choice. What could it mean?

I’ve no idea, but that I watched the trailer enough times to notice this should concern you.

Detail No. 2

In this scene, we see what we can presume to be President Loki’s ‘Throne’. Notice the candy-canes. This is a Santa Claus throne, presumably from some mall Santa. This whole place might be in a mall, judging by the stuff in it.

But the Loki in this shot is not President Loki. Notice that he’s wearing brown pants, a thin brown tie, and the beige shirt he’s seen wearing in other parts of the trailer after he's apparently joined the TVA. President Loki wears black pants, a green vest and a wide green tie with a golden clip that resembles Loki’s little chevron he always has (more on that later).

So it would seem that Loki might meet President Loki here. President Loki might even be addressing him at the end of the trailer. It’s possible that his minions turn on him because there’s two Lokis and they don’t know which is the ‘imposter’.

Speaking of, there’s a minion with bicycle handlebars grafted to a football helmet here, likely meant to resemble Loki. I dig it. There’s also cans of food scattered among the rubbish here. Makes sense that food production is non-existent since everyone has resorted to wearing license plates and spoons. Love how tattered the whole aesthetic is.

This reminds me of the opening Michael Waldron’s script ‘Worst Guy of All Time’, which featured a similar post-apocalyptic setting after the ‘worst guy’ ruins everything and makes himself king of the ashes. That’s likely what’s happened here, but I hope that Loki isn’t anything like Logan Paul, who was the inspiration for that title character.

Ah, the mysterious female character watching a meteor shower WAY TOO CLOSE UP. But my eyes are drawn to one thing...

What is that oblong object with a shiny handle? Could it be...

A sword? I do love swords. Did you know there’s a bunch of pictures of me in the stock photos for ‘Fencing?’ That’s my cred for loving swords.

I suspect that this female character will be an amalgamation of Amora (shudder) and Sylvie and an alternate Loki of some kind. This sword is currently in her possession, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it or another timeline version of it becomes the Loki Show’s Loki′s weapon.

Loki has lacked a ‘weapon of his own’ in the MCU for quite some time. I mean, yes, he has his little knives, but they are many and disposable and something he chose for himself, rather than the two legendary weapons wielded by Odin and Thor, Gungnir and Mjolnir. In fact, throughout his appearances, Loki has seemed to want such a thing of his own - he briefly had Gungnir, and then the Gungnir-like scepter, and even tried to lift Mjolnir.

One might ask why Odin would’ve overlooked such an obvious show of favouritism. Why give Thor a storied weapon and leave Loki empty-handed? Heck, even Hela had the Necroblade.

In Thor 1, we might’ve assumed that the Casket of Ancient Winters was perhaps intended one day to be given to Loki, as it is shown with Mjolnir in the Vault and thus connected to it and the children who would inherit it. But in the comics, Odin did have another weapon of storied history put away for his second son: Gram the Sword.

It was locked for eons by Odin in a special vault which required five keys to be opened, and it was meant to be for Loki if he be worthy.[2] The five keys were infused by Odin with the powers of "journeys", "endurance", "secrets", "new beginnings", and "brotherhood", respectively.[3]

The sword, like everything else in comics, has a complicated history full of take-backs and twists, but let’s just leave it at ‘it’s a representation of Loki’s worthiness and belonging in the trifecta with Odin and Thor as a King of Asgard’. It gives him ‘equality’.

In the original mythology, it’s wielded by Sigurd to kill the dragon Fafnir, and the only relation it has to Loki is that Loki is partially responsible for Fafnir existing in the first place (my username is nod to this myth by the by. Sorry Ottär.) But hey, maybe that means we’re getting a dragon? The Fafnir would be very cool.

Or it could just be a bit of rebar in this mining quarry.

Then again...it appears somewhere else...

It’s easier to see in motion, but that’s a sword swinging on this person’s back.

So the hooded figure is this lady...shall we call her Amylkie? Does that mean she’s the antagonist of this show? Well...maybe, but I suspect the true antagonist is foreshadowed here -

So, what’s going on here? A young girl (Young Amylkie? Some other TVA prisoner that the guard is watching over? An oracle, A Norn, or a kid who wandered off from the tour group in a basilica somewhere?) She’s giving Mobius M. Mobius a...piece of chocolate. Maybe he saw a Dementor, I dunno. I suspect it’ll be a MacGuffin of some kind later. He looks pretty concerned here, which contrasts with his ‘another day at the office’ blaséness when dealing with Loki. But of course this is the eye-catcher:

So, Norse Mythology. It’s been Christiannized. You can thank Snorri Sturluson for that, but you can google all about him later. Let’s just say that he made many Norse figures into equivalents for Christian ones. Baldur is Jesus, pure and a sacrificial lamb who dies for a greater good. And the devil is...Loki. Something the Marvel comics and the MCU have continued.

Here we have a devil, dressed in green and with a distinct shape on his chest:

Hmmm...wait...I know that weird horny shape...

Ah. I’d say that cinches it. This is meant to be Loki. If you look at the devil’s hair, it also resembles Loki’s, being shoulder-length and black.

So, what’s devil-Loki doing? Laying an egg? Trying out a foot massager? For a second I thought it was a moon, but we see the moon over his left shoulder, amongst the stars. Which means this is - probably the Earth.

...Dammit; I live there.

So Earth is barren and being devoured by flames, likely caused by this Loki sitting atop of it (in a throne, no less). Aw gee, things look pretty bad, don’t they?

But wait - what’s that? Under the Earth (and, possibly, under the earth)?

It’s a plant. A shoot, to be exact.

Back to Ragnarok for a second. Ragnarok isn’t the apocalypse (something we see a lot of in this trailer - all of it seems to be exploring the end of days). Ragnarok is the fire meant to wipe out the old and fertilize the ground for the new. And after the gods have died, what happens? Well, Baldur emerges from Hel, one of the only surviving gods (hmm, seems him dying worked out, didn’t it?). He’s joined by Líf and Lífþrasir, who are the new first man and woman, who’s names mean ‘Life’ and who are pictured, usually, with plants and new life. It is they who are tasked who growing a new Yggdrasil after the destruction of the old. The previous first man and woman are Ask and Embla, meaning Ash Tree and Vine/Elm tree, so there’s a theme there.

So a new sprout, possibly a tree, growing out of the destruction of the old.

This fits with Loki’s role as understood in mythology. He checks the arrogance of the gods, including when they tried to achieve immortality (sorry, Baldur, nothing personal), and that keeps the gods at their best. After Loki is imprisoned, the gods become weak, unhelpful and foolish, and Yggdrasil starts to rot. Eventually Loki escapes and returns along with Surtur (who also resembles this figure) to burn it all to the ground. This is also referenced in Thor:Ragnarok, with Loki releasing Surtur in the Vault, a place of thematic importance to Loki and one that represents the hidden secrets and sins of Asgard). You could say Ragnarok continued into Infinity War, where Loki played an important part in aiding Thanos’ destruction, giving up the stone to protect his brother and essentially dooming the rest of the universe - but also ultimately leading to its salvation, even if, like Myth Loki, he wasn’t around to see it.

So, we see Amylkie literally start a fire in the trailer -

- in fact, this whole trailer is awash in flame -

It’s fire, fire everywhere and she’s setting them!

It’s possible Amylkie’s our big bad, but I think there’s a chance she’s either a red herring, or, much like how Loki ‘worked’ with Thanos in The Avengers, she is the pawn of a greater foe -

- a Loki bent on destruction, for some reason or other. The TVA is obviously aware that this is the case, and it seems like they might be trying to ‘fight fire with fire’ by enlisting one Loki to combat another. The villain could be President Loki, since there's evidence of 2 Lokis in that scene - or maybe that's one of many Lokis, and the Big Bad Loki is being played by Hugh Grant as Old Loki. In any case, it would appear that Loki will be coming face-to-face with the worst versions of himself, and many of them. And, if I’m right about this scene:

...Loki will likely eventually discover that even his ‘good’ timeline ended in the destruction of his people and home, plus his own gruesome and torturous death. Although I think the TVA will keep that from him, and just show him the happy parts in an effort to inspire ‘good behaviour’. Until Loki inevitably discovers the rest of how that timeline played out and realize he’s been lied to. I don’t imagine he’ll take that very well...

Damn, even our ‘hero’ Loki is burning stuff down! Does this mean that Loki is doomed, always meant to be an avatar of death and toasty destruction?

Well...let’s go back to that stained glass.

Hmmm...wait...I know that weird horny shape...

And there’s something else...the bottom of the Earth is being lit up, and not by fire. Light appears to be coming off this little plant.

What colour is this plant again? That’s right, green. Green is the colour of new life and growth and change and...hang on, I’ve heard that before, too...

Hang on hang on HANG ON... let me have a look at the shape again.

That’s...a letter. An L? For Loki? Like in the title sequence?

Wait...no, a different letter. An older letter. After all, Loki is old Norse. How do you spell his name in that again?

ᛚᛟᚲ ᛁ -

And ENHANCE on that third letter!

This, my friends, is a Kenaz/Kaunaz, or what would become 'K' in our alphabet. It is also known as the 'Loki Rune' (and the Ulcer Rune, for some reason. I suspect Odin understands why). It’s used to spell his name, but is also used on his own to represent him. Heck, it's even his Superman 'S' in the comics:

Runes are more than letters - they are symbols for concepts. So what else does it mean?

Primarly, it means ‘torch’.

And also ‘knowledge’ (ken). As well as ‘growth, change, the search for truth, decay, arrogance, elitism, feminine, kinship and creativity.’

...Okay, that’s a lot, but you have to admit it fits.

More specifically, it means ‘Mastery of the Fire’. As in, someone who has learned to tame fire so that it is helpful, not harmful. To bring light and, symbolically, knowledge.

There’s another way Loki’s been associated with fire - in the Wagner Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold, the opera that inspired much the Thor films’ aesthetic and certainly their helmets, Loki is called ‘Loge’, which means ‘Fire’. He’s usually dressed to match, too -

Many trickster figures are associated with fire. They are usually called ‘Fire-bringers’ - See: Raven, Lucifer, Prometheus, etc. They are often complex figures with a foot in different worlds, but who nonetheless help mankind with the gift of ‘fire’ - although they usually pay for it, and tend to be self-destructive.

(Side note. Lucifer means light-bringer, which is what luciferase is named after. Because it glows. Which is helpful in labs. In case someone needed to know that.)

Moving from a destructive fire-starter to a fire-bringer seems like a great character arc for Loki to take, especially given his rehabilitation in pop culture, the comics, and even wider culture. Loki has gone from being seen as an evil, deviant, destructive character to one who’s seen as a patron of the arts and creativity, of stories rather than lies. Heck, some scholars of Norse Mythology even posit that he’s the closet thing to a protagonist Norse Mythology has, so I guess that backfired, Snorri!). Being dressed in green and with the sprout clearly also being stylized after his Kaunaz, there’s foreshadowing that he’ll be capable of growing good things even out of ashes.

So, to sum up: Being ‘Satan’ sounds pretty bad, but with a little letter re-arranging like we see in the title sequence, you can be...

...practically a saint. Maybe even a saviour.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

#loki #trailer #details #meta #theories #theory #explanation #thor #tva #santa #devil #snorri sturluson whinging #christmas #fire #kaunaz #loki trailer

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floating-mid-air · 3 years

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The Princess of All Saiyans

Masterlist

Hey guys. I ended up taking a bit of a break from this fic, but I'm back now. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this chapter yet. I've been getting a bit impatient as of recent. I just have so many ideas for this story that I can't use yet. I also just wanted to take a second to thank everyone for their support. I never expected anyone to actually read this story, so it means a lot. Anyways on to the chapter.

Chapter 8

Quite some time has passed since your initial imprisonment in this dim cavern. And yes, you're still stuck with the half-breed. Though Zarbon left some time ago. Leaving an alarming number of foot-soldiers behind, who now surround the ruins of what was once a Namekian village. You could effortlessly eliminate those vermin, but you're not willing to take the chance. Not with a Dragon Ball in your possession.

All you can hear are the grating voices of Frieza's men from outside the cave. They're somehow significantly more irritating than the kid. You didn't even think that was possible. So you do the only thing you could think of to block out the obnoxious murmuring. You decide to actually interact with the brat. "Your mother can't be thrilled about your excursion to Namek. Considering she's human and all." Would this be classified as small talk? Or is it too heavy of a topic? You've never been good with this sort of thing.

He looks at you, his eyes wide in disbelief. From the little interaction the two of you have had, Gohan never believed you would be the one to initiate conversation. "Actually, my mom died when I was little." Well, this turned out to be the worst topic you could've possibly chosen. You observe him carefully. He doesn't seem upset, so at least you won't have to deal with him crying. "Y/N. What's having a mom like?"

You're positive that Saiyan mother's behaviors differ from what would be considered normal on Earth. At least, you think, you don't have much experience with motherly figures yourself. "I couldn't tell you, kid. My mother died when I was an infant." Gohan's face falls. He might never know how an average parent should behave. "I'd ask Raditz, though. He can talk your ear off about your grandmother."

"Was she---you know---like you?"

You chuckle, tilting your head backward. "What? You mean evil? No, from what I've heard, she was one of those weak Saiyans. She lacked the basic instinct--- kinda like your moronic father."

A grin spreads across the brat's lips as his eyes meet yours. "You know, you're not so bad after all."

Your expression instantly hardens at his words. "This doesn't mean we're allies now." You direct your attention outside. Those underlings must have gotten careless. You can't even detect a singular soldier that stayed behind. "Come on, it's safe to go."

You push the boulder out of the way, finally exiting the cave. The brat follows, holding the camouflaged orb in hand. "Now, let's solve this little Dragon Ball issue." You cut yourself off, directing your gaze toward Vegeta's power level. He's currently mid-battle with who you believe is Zarbon. Looks like the green-haired narcissist was able to track down your brother after all. You're not worried. Vegeta seems to be inflicting most of the damage.

Something else piques your interest, though, the three other power sources near your brother. One of them is definitely Raditz. Another is unfamiliar to you. It's almost insect-like that must be the Earth woman. And lastly, you believe that bald earthling is there as well. He's much more powerful than he was when you saw him earlier today. How peculiar. "Well, looks like we're heading to the same place after all." You float up into the air. "You coming or not?" He nods, trailing behind you as you both travel to the location of the battle.

You and Gohan strategically maneuver yourselves behind a hill, your eyes intently focused on the battle. You can clearly see Zarbon and Vegeta, as well as Raditz. You move your gaze to the two earthlings, who are both quivering in fear. You can't help but wonder who they're more terrified of, whether it's Zarbon's hideous transformation or your brother.

You turn back to the half-breed, who's about to blow your cover. Before he can fly into the chaos to "save" his friends, you grab onto the back of his shirt. "You don't want to get yourself tangled up with Zarbon. There's no quicker way to get yourself and your friends killed. As long as Zarbon is focused on Vegeta, your friends will be fine." You maintain a tight grip on the purple fabric. You don't trust the brat one bit. "Did that Namekain teach you nothing about self-control?"

He looks up at you, furrowing his brows. "How did you know I trained with Piccolo?"

A breathy sigh escapes your lips. "Well, since Kakarot was dead, I figure someone competent must have trained you. Plus, you're wearing the same attire as that Namekian. It doesn't take a brainiac to figure it out." You switch your attention back to the battlefield, letting go of your grip on Gohan.

While Vegeta is distracted with Zarbon, you can feel energy rapidly approaching their vicinity. Your brother has his back turned, so it must be a sneak attack on him. Before whatever it is can even strike, you teleport in front of Vegeta, grasping onto the foot soldier's fist, freezing the creature in place. "Too slow." A devilish smirk appears on your features.

"Y/N. I was wondering when you'd finally make an appearance." It seems this transformation doesn't just affect Zarbon's characteristics, but it distorts his voice as well.

"Zarbon. I see you've let yourself go." Taking shots at his looks should be the best way to throw Zarbon off his game.

You let go of the orange alien, pushing him backward. His eyes narrow at you, clenching his right hand, checking for any lasting damage. "How dare you speak to Zarbon in such a manner! He's your superior in every way."

"Shh." You bring a finger up to your lips. "The grown-ups are talking." As fun as patronizing this insect is, you know this encounter will have to escalate sooner rather than later.

Vegeta turns to you, a faint smirk ghosting his lips. "I hope your intentions were not to involve yourself in my battle."

"I know better than to get involved when you're out for blood, Vegeta." You chuckle. "I'll make do with this half-wit. I just have to figure out a way to draw out the battle." You rub your chin, contemplating the best way to decrease your efficiency. "I got it." You wrap your dominant hand behind your back. "I'll fight this weakling one-handed."

"You cocky Saiyan, bitch." The creature snarls, stepping closer to you. "I don't think I've ever seen you fight one of your own battles. You know what I think. You're only feared because of Vegeta." Everyone around you grows silent, well except, for Raditz. His laughter echoes around the rocky terrain. The Saiyan finds this humorous, not because of the alien's words, but because he knows the orange creature has just taken his last breath.

Your aloof gaze remains locked on the ugly creature, your head slightly tilted. "You know what. I was being quite generous before." You move your other arm behind your back, clasping your hands together. "I don't even need one."

Out of the corner of your eye, you can see the half-breed, who has now joined his friends. He's jumping up and down as Krillin stares at him in bewilderment. "I'm excited. We're finally going to get to see her fight."

"Gohan." Krillin's timid voice invades your ears. "I think you're starting to act a bit too much like your dad."

It becomes clear to you that your opponent won't make the first move, so you'll have to take charge of the situation. You turn to Vegeta, who has Zarbon in a headlock. "If you don't mind Vegeta. I'd like to go first."

He nods, chuckling to himself. "Oh, be my guest. The floor is all yours."

You descend to the ground, centering yourself on the terrain. "Alright, let's get going. I don't have all day. So show me the best you got." The alien shoots toward you, swinging his fists blindly. He doesn't even seem to have a proper strategy. Is this really the best the Frieza Force has to offer? A being who lacks basic combat abilities.

You dodge every single potential blow, speeding back and forth at a slow pace. An earthling could even evade these strikes. This is pitiful. It's clear that whoever's responsible for training these buffoons has been cutting corners.

"Stop dodging!" The creature shrieks in pure frustration.

A wolfish grin appears on your face. It's fitting you're the predator while he's the prey. "Well, if you insist." At light speed, you swing your leg upwards, kicking his chin. Blood rushes from the corners of his lips as the orange creature spits out multiple stray teeth. You continue your merciless assault, alternating between striking his face and torso. "Don't be mistaken. I don't fight because a woman of my status doesn't have to handle such demeaning tasks, like exterminating pathetic life forms. Beings similar to yourself, but don't get me wrong. I'm more than happy to make an example out of you."

You fling up into the air. Your boot effortlessly connects with his face. Sending the alien hurdling backward. As soon as he regains balance, you teleport behind him. You may not be able to use your hands to form a blast, but you think you'll be able to direct the energy to your lower body. "I like to call this the Dust Charge." Heavy winds form around the battlefield, dragging dirt particles into the air supply, causing numerous dust clouds to emerge. The Dust Charge is not an attack perse. It's more of a red herring, a simple distraction tactic for your actual move.

"What's this supposed to do?" He chuckles mockingly. "Take my eyes out?" You don't understand why everyone always underestimates you. It's frustrating to not be taken seriously by your opponent. Especially when you outrank them in all aspects of life.

You've navigated yourself into one of the many dust clouds. This should be effective in concealing your next move. You focus all of your energy on your lower body, causing a pink orb to appear right before your eyes. It lays motionless on the ground, almost resembling a soccer ball. It takes a few moments, but the pink ball of energy finally begins to swell. Now the orb compares in size to your pod.

Over the years, you've trained your eyesight to be unaffected by distraction tactics. So you can simply pinpoint the location of the alien. Once you do, you kick the orb in his direction. As soon as the creature absorbs the sphere, the dust clouds clear. Revealing your victory to the audience. You watch him crumble to the ground, screaming in agony. There is no visible damage to his body. Your nameless move is more of an internal attack. These sorts of attacks are much more sadistic in nature. Since they target your internal organs, resulting in complete organ failure.

You stride over to him, placing your boot on his head. Your aloof nature returns as you stomp on his head, crushing his skull. "Time to take out the trash." You unhook your hands, pointing them toward the limp body. You create a blast, vaporizing the corpse, successfully eliminating all remnants of the alien's existence.

"Alright. You've had your fun. Now it's time for the main event." There's no need to anger Vegeta. So you decide to comply. You fly over to the sidelines, landing next to Raditz.

The Earth woman turns to you, her eyes wide in terror. "Y- You squashed him."

You turn to meet her gaze. "That is how you kill insects, isn't it?"

"He was so weak. You didn't have to kill him!" Krillin interjects himself into your conversation.

"What the hell is wrong with your species?" You bring your hands to your temples, massaging them gently. "Let me put this in simple terms. If I let him live, he would've killed you, pathetic earthlings. Is that what you would've preferred? Because I can finish the job if you'd like."

The pair rapidly shakes their heads. "No. No. we're all good." Their voices shake, speaking simultaneously. Finally, you're getting the recognition you deserve. At least the earthlings take you seriously. That's better than nothing.

Raditz chuckles, shaking his head. "He challenged her pride. That's a death sentence itself." You don't think they have the brain capacity to understand the nature of a Saiyan. Being allies with the defect probably doesn't help either.

You look up at Raditz. "Is this what you've been dealing with?"

A breathy chuckle escaped his lips. "Oh, you have no idea."

You turn back to the fight, and it isn't that interesting. It's basically just Vegeta manhandling Zarbon. Your brother must have grown significantly stronger after getting the crap beat out of him so many times.

You suppress your laughter when Zarbon begs your brother for mercy. You're pretty sure that word no longer exists in Vegeta's vocabulary. Zarbon is one of the last beings in the entire universe, who your brother would even grant an inkling of sympathy. Similar to the other members of the Frieza Force, Zarbon offers to turn against his lord. It's apparent that none of Frieza's men are truly loyal to him. Bargaining with treason in return for you to spare their lives. Cui, Dedoria, and now Zarbon have all exhibited this same cowardly behavior. This is one of the many areas where you differ from those cowards. You'd never turn against Vegeta, even if it costs you your life.

Vegeta goes off on a tangent. The years of verbal abuse must have gotten to him too. "You want mercy? Oh, I'll show you mercy, all right." It's become transparent that Vegeta is going to show that narcissist the exact opposite of mercy. With a singular blast, your brother kills him. You watch Zarbon's corpse fling into the air, landing into the lake.

"Y-You call that mercy?" Krillin stutters. Well, apparently, your brother's intentions were not clear, to the earthlings after all. They really need to study the significance of tone.

"I'm disappointed." You huff. "I was expecting a bigger bang. Frankly, I would've been much crueler than that, Vegeta." You slowly stride over to Krillin. His comment from before did not sit well with you. So you intend to show him just how ruthless you can be. He also scares easily, so that's a bonus. He gulps nervously. As you tilt your head to become eye level with the human. "Firstly, I'd mutilate his face to destroy his vanity. Then I'd rip out his eyeballs and feed them to him. And then I'd kill Zarbon."

Vegeta chuckles. He knows how much you like intimidation. "Well, you have a much more sadistic imagination than I do, Y/N." He turns to Raditz, who's holding the one-star ball. "Now, a deal's a deal. Hand over your Dragon Ball." Clever, sparing their worthless lives for a possession of value. You wouldn't expect anything less from Vegeta.

Raditz looks from the humans to the half-breed. Before he can even calculate a plan, you sweep his legs out from under him. This successfully knocks the giant off balance, allowing you to catch the one-star orb. "Pleasure doing business with you."

You toss the ball to Vegeta. He looks down at the orb, smirking. "Now that we have all seven, immortality will be ours." You know for a fact that you only possess six Dragon Balls. Gohan has the four-star ball, and you don't care to let Vegeta know. Immortality isn't your desire. You want to die one day, at least hell, has your kind. An eternal life sounds more like a punishment than anything else.

Vegeta takes off first, and you shortly after him. It takes a while, but the two of you finally land in the ruins of that Namekian village. You're getting sick of constantly having to return to this horrid place. This better be the last time.

"So you didn't retrieve the Dragon Ball like I asked?"

"I couldn't find it." You flash him the best innocent smile that you can manage.

"Clearly, you didn't search hard enough." He sighs, running a hand through his spiky hair. "You know what they say. If you want something done right, you do it yourself." And with that, he jumps into the lake.

He's going to be furious when he figures out the Dragon Ball is gone. Vegeta hasn't wanted anything this much in a long time. This is where the two of you differ. As long as Frieza doesn't have the orbs, you're content. You don't care if the earthlings get them. And you care even less about what they desire to wish for. If they want to bring their loser friends back, so be it. You'll just have to kill them again. It shouldn't be difficult at all.

The splashes on the surface of the water become more erratic. Vegeta must be growing frustrated. He springs up from the water, shooting into the air. "That damn brat!" He takes off in the direction of the earthling's hideout. Looks like Vegeta figured out the truth all on his own, only you're not entirely sure how.

You chase after him, heading to the cave. But it's too late. They're already long gone. Vegeta murmurs various curse words under his breath, desperately trying to keep his temper in check. "Well, new plan. Y/N, you're going to babysit the Dragon Balls. While I have a play date to get to." He shoots back up into the air. "No one makes a mockery of me and gets to live to tell about it!"

"Wait! Vegeta!" You shout. "I don't know where you put them."

"That sounds like a you problem, little sister!" Vegeta takes off, escaping your view.

He's such an asshole. "This is going to take forever." You wine before taking off in your own pursuit. Only you're searching for several inanimate objects that lack a power level. If you wanna find those Dragon Balls, you'll have to think like Vegeta. So if you were Vegeta, you'd want to leave them somewhere secure, but where he'd be able to remember their location. With the land formations on Namek, the only place that makes sense is a cave system.

It was a shot in the dark, one that eventually paid off. You finally found those damn orbs. You sit down on one of the Dragon Balls. These orbs are much larger than the set on Earth. You sigh, placing your hands on the sides of your face. The reality of your situation has just set in. You could've very well run into Freiza, and that would've been game over for you. You could've died. You'll get back at Vegeta. Maybe you'll scare him half to death, make him think you did, in fact, die. The look on his face would be priceless.

Now you're bored. At times like this, you miss having Raditz to banter with or even having Nappa to mock. You have been wondering something for a while. Frieza must be running low on henchmen by now. Dodoria and Zarbon are dead, and you and Vegeta have taken out a fair share of his soldiers. You're also sure the earthlings have taken out a couple of those imbeciles as well. So isn't this about the time where Frieza will call for enforcements if he hasn't already?

You can sense a mass cluster of energy approaching Namek. The Ginyu Force, that's the only possible explanation. How didn't you come to this conclusion sooner? This is bad. This is really bad. From a glance, they appear to be a bunch of idiots, but they are far from that. Well, for the most part. Recoome may have suffered from some sort of brain damage.

This situation is far from ideal. You're all alone on Namek, and now the Ginyu force is running loose. Hopefully, they'll split up. If you encounter Jace, you'll probably be able to sweet-talk your way out, but if it's any of the other four, you're screwed.

You stop mid-panic. The perfect opportunity has just arisen. One that will make Vegeta eat his words, the perfect vengeance plan. He's probably going mad now. Filled with regret for leaving you alone now that the Ginyu Force is here. Oh, this will be good. You fly up, making a little burrow in a nearby hill. Hiding in the structure. This will give that dimwit brother of yours a good scare.

Meanwhile, with Bulma and Raditz:

Krillin and Gohan left a while ago, leaving the explosive pair alone in the ravine. This was poor thinking on Krillin's part. Raditz and Bulma had managed to avoid interaction while Bulma spruced up the hideout, making it more comfortable according to Earth standards. Instead of sitting at the table with Bulma, the Saiyan has placed himself on the stone floor with the Dragon Ball placed strategically beside him.

Bulma lets out an exaggerated sigh. It's taken all of Raiditz's energy not to kill that woman. He's honestly surprised with the extent of his own self-control. "I still can't believe Gohan and Krillin. They left me all alone. On an alien planet. With you." Is this how all Earth women behave? Do they just whine and complain all day? Raditz hopes that isn't the case. Maybe Bulma is just an irregularity.

Raditz shuts his eyes, taking a deep breath. "Do you ever stop complaining?"

"I'm a delicate flower Raditz. While you're a disgusting pig. I have the right to complain." Raditz snickers. If anyone's a disgusting pig, it's Bulma. She has the worst cleanliness he's ever seen. She never picks up after herself and then displaces her mess on others. She wouldn't last a day with Vegeta. One look at her uncleanly living quarters would cause the prince to throw a fit.

"A delicate flower that wanted to bang Zarbon."

"How was I supposed to know he'd turn all hideous? He was cute before."

Raditz cringes. Zarbon was a repulsive creature, no matter what form he possessed. "You must really love that boyfriend of yours, huh?" Yamcha may be dead, but from what Raditz has gathered, they're planning on reviving him. Unless do earthlings not mate for life as Saiyans do? That's a possibility Raditz hasn't considered yet.

Bulma's expression sours, her eyes narrowing at the taller man. "Yamcha was a stupid jerk who got himself killed." She crosses her arms. "I'm still mad at him."

Raditz furrows his brows, his mouth hung agape. "You know what. Remember how I said we did you a favor after we killed Yamcha. I've changed my mind now."

"Wow. Have you finally come to your senses?"

Raditz nods, a faint smirk ghosting his lips. "Oh, yes. Rather than you, I think we did Yamcha a massive favor."

Bulma proceeds to chew him out, which of course, the Saiyan ignores, rolling his eyes at the woman. Raditz holds up the orb, staring at it intently. If he were to bludgeon the Earth woman with this. How angry would the others be? It's a tough call for the Saiyan.

"Are you even listening to me?" Bulma shrieks as Raditz bangs his head against the rock. She's about to shout at him again, but three figures land in the ravine. Two of the creatures are Gohan and Krillin, while the third is unfamiliar.

Raditz stands up, looking up at the third silhouette. "Vegeta? What the hell are you doing here?"

"We need that Dragon Ball." Raditz picks up on Krillin's use of we. What could possibly be so dire to cause them to work together? Maybe hell has frozen over. Because that's the only explanation that Raditz could fathom.

"For what?"

"We don't have time for this, you imbecile!" Vegeta huffs. "The Ginyu Force is here!"

The larger Saiyan's eyes widen as he rabidly looks around. "Where's Y/N?"

"I left---" Vegeta's face drops, a twinkle of panic in his eyes. That's something Raditz has never seen from him in over twenty years. "God damn it!" Vegeta takes off, Raditz following him in pursuit.

Krillin sighs, picking up the Dragon Ball. "Thanks, Bulma. Let's go, Gohan." Gohan nods before they both take off.

"Hey! Wait!" Bulma shouts. "You guys can't just leave me here! Again!"

What is Y/N's true fate? Will Vegeta and the others find her in time? Or will it be too late? And where the hell is Goku? All will be revealed in the next chapter of The Princess of all Saiyans!

#goku #goku x reader #saiyan reader #vegeta #vegeta's sister #dbz fanfiction #dbz x reader #dragon ball x reader #dragon ball z #son goku x reader

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jacks-wylan · 3 years

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Follow me home

Here’s my @thewitchersecretsanta for @itsmajel. Sorry for the late, darling! I hope you like it, even if it’s not what I had in mind at first and rushed a bit at the end (life got in the way sobs). Still, i hope you appreciate geralt and jaskier being horse girls, the almost-not-fake-marriage and a little cameo of Valdo Marx that does nothing at all (but come on, everyone wants Valdo to be present at Jaskier’s wedding right?)

❀

The missive is delivered right in his hand one fine morning, at the start of spring. Geralt is minding his own business, sipping a piss–tasting ale in the darkest corner of a tavern in Oxenfurt, and he's waiting for his bard to deign him of his flamboyant presence as he has done for almost twenty years now.

Jaskier is late, though, and Geralt can't help but frown, worried, when a boy – a young boy, dressed in a rich uniform – bows to him and calls him Sir Witcher, handing him the letter. To be honest, the whole gesture scares him: no one ever bowed to him before.

When he opens the missive, Geralt sighs, recognizing immediately Jaskier's flourish handwriting.

“My dearest friend,” he reads, and that is not a good sign. “If I only try to write the real reason of my absence there by your side in Oxenfurt, a single parchment would not be enough, and I am quite sure you would not even read the whole ordeal, ignoring my request of aid. Once you reach for me here in my birthplace, I will explain everything. Please, my friend, I beg you to come here in Lettenhove as soon as possible. I don't have much time left.” Geralt blinks, “What the fuck.”

Geralt feels his heart dropping down in his stomach, dread pooling there as he scrambles up from the chair, grabs his swords, leaves some coins on the table, and runs outside. He doesn't even mind the next words written in the missive, the gentle, “Yours always, Jaskier.”

He just puts the already crumpled piece of parchment in Roach's saddlebag, hops on the horse, and heads towards Lettenhove – ignoring the shouts of the same boy that has delivered the missive. He knows the way, he doesn't fucking need company, and also, whoever he was he would just slow him down.

And Jaskier hasn't much time left.

He rides for a day and a half, avoiding inns and taverns, sleeping just when needed. He follows the seashore, remembering from conversation that Geralt pretended to ignore that Jaskier passed his childhood bathing in salty waters, breathing fish–smelling air. He remembers that whenever he played in Kerack courts, he always said that it felt like home.

Jaskier never once mentioned Lettenhove, though.

Geralt arrives in Lettenhove by twilight. It's a cheerful city, decorated for a festivity he has no knowledge of. There is a bonfire in the middle of the marketplace, already lit, with some people dancing and drinking wine around it, children laughing and screaming as they play catch. He watches around, in search of a familiar colorful figure, but he sees nothing of importance, so he heads toward the nearest tavern, set on asking every single soul if they know anything of Jaskier the Bard.

He growls at the stableboy, when he takes Roach's reins from his hands. “You know of a bard around here?” he asks the boy, helping him take the saddle off Roach.

The boy nods, guarded, “Well, yes! A bard is going to play tomorrow, for the wedding!”

“Wedding?”

“Don't you know, sir?” the boy cocks his head to the side, watching him from the other side of Roach. Another one that calls him sir, that's kind of creepy. “The long lost Viscount is finally going to marry tomorrow! That's why we are all celebrating.”

Geralt hums. Jaskier probably has been called to play at his birthplace court, and he needs assistance for this. Maybe one of the many ladies he loves is the future bride of the Viscount, who probably Jaskier hates for no reason at all, and for this Jaskier has brought misfortune upon his head: what if he's imprisoned? What if tomorrow, instead of his performance, Jaskier will be hanged beside the bonfire because he fucked the wrong maiden?

Damn him and his cock, “And this bard, you remember his name?”

“No, sir. I'm just a stableboy.” the boy shrugs, “Don't know who're the lord's hosts. But I got a glimpse of him when he came the other day, and he's really...” he scrunches his young face, “Excessive.”

Gods, yes. That's definitively Jaskier.

Geralt nods as a thanks, trying not to think about the the worst, and heads towards the inn. It's not the first time Geralt has to pay for Jaskier's debt in order to take him out of prison, and it's definitely not the first time he has to help Jaskier escape from imprisonment, and yet, now something seems... off. Geralt can't quite pinpoint what, though.

He eats soup, and drinks water. No one is looking at him feed himself alone at a table, too busy in the wedding's arrangements to pay attention to a lonely Witcher – as weird as it is. He takes a room, and the innkeeper doesn't grimace nor make him pay more while handing him the key, and it's probably the merry time around that makes all this people happy and all, but it still feels so damn strange.

“We will tell the Viscount of your arrival!” says the innkeeper, as he goes upstairs. Geralt just shrugs: he doesn't know why, and he doesn't care. If they have a job for him, he can ask Jaskier's freedom as a payment, at least.

For now, he just drops his belongings on the floor next to his bed, and lays on it to try gaining some sleep. Tomorrow, whatever happens, surely Geralt has to fight against something – be it a drowner or two, or a regiment of soldiers.

The next day, Geralt wakes up with someone stomping as they run up the stairs, stopping in front of his door and knocking loudly, too loudly. He groans, and glancing at the window he left open the night before, he notices that it's barely dawn – he has a half mind to just ignore the nuisance and go back to sleep, but he suddenly remember why he finds himself in Lettenhove in the first place and thinks better of it.

Slowly, he gets up, passing a hand on his eyes to wipe the sleep away, and the person on the other side of the door hasn't enough patience nor time, this morning, because they knock again and shout: “Geralt! Open up, I know you're awake, you oaf!”

Geralt blinks. That voice is definitely Jaskier's.

He walks to the door and unlocks it. Immediately, Jaskier pushes the handle, and if Geralt wasn't a fucking Witcher with quite good reflexes, the angle of the door would have definitely hit his forehead. Not a great start, for the day, it would be. “Geralt! My darling friend! You are here just in time!”

“Jaskier.” Geralt says, calmly. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“What does it mean, what the fuck I am doing here?” Jaskier passes under his raised arm to enter inside his room, in his hand a heavy bag from where a mouth–watering smell comes. “That was I that called you here, remember? I believe you got my letter. I brought breakfast!”

Geralt grits his teeth, following him as he makes himself at home. “Yes, that's why I don't understand why you aren't in prison.”

Jaskier frowns, as he puts fruits and sweet rolls out of the bag. “I totally have no idea why you think I should be in prison right now.”

“You little– here, look.” Geralt grabs his satchel and takes out Jaskier's letter, showing him the peculiar words he'd chosen. “Please, my friend, I beg you to come here in Lettenhove as soon as possible. I don't have much time left.” he reads with a growl. Gods, seeing him here safe and sound is a relief, but he feels like he's been mocked, and it irritates him. “I though you were in danger, Jaskier, so I came here– wait, why you signed it...? Yours always...?”

Jaskier tears the letter off his hands, a panicked expression twisting his face, “It was in the heat of the moment, alright? I though I was gonna die any day without you – I mean, without your help to take me out of this mess. Don't mind it!” he folds the letter and puts it in his silk trouser's pocket. “Anyway, I think that explanations are in order.”

“You think?”

Jaskier rolls his eyes. Then, he motions at the food he's served on the bed, “In the meantime, eat. The tale is long, and kinda boring.” Once Geralt is seated on the floor by the bed, a sweet roll in his mouth, Jaskier seems to be enough satisfied to start explaining. He does it with a huff, blowing a strand of hair away from his eyes – and Geralt no, he has totally not followed the motion with barely concealed awe, “My friend, before your arrival, I really thought this would have been the end for me. You are my only hope to make it out alive.”

“What have you done?” Geralt asks, flatly.

“Absolutely nothing – apart being born. You see, my darling Witcher, there are things that are... expected from me. My father actually pretends those things that I, no, I totally refuse to do. One of those things, is marring a completely unknown rich woman just for the sake of... you know, I really don't know why. Perhaps is because people will now stop spreading rumors about me, or worse yet because my father expects an, ugh, an heir. From me! My sister gave birth last summer, and he still expects me to have an heir! Isn't one enough, I wonder? How many heirs a Count needs, to be in peace with himself? It's really beyond my comprehension.”

“Jaskier, wait.” Geralt almost chokes on the sweet roll he is swallowing at Jaskier's words. Did he hear it right? Is he talking about marriage and children? Is he really Jaskier the man in front of him, or he's a doppler trying to fuck up with him? “The wedding is yours?” he asks, and that was really the last of his worries, but evidently all his mind and mouth were able to elaborate is just that.

“Unfortunately, yes. Thank all the Gods that you are here just in time, Geralt! One more day, and it would have been one day too late.” Jaskier walks towards the window, and looks down at the decorations with a dreadful grimace pulling his mouth. “Can you believe that hateful man how far is gone with this farce? With this charade? Hell, he even called the worst bard of the entire Continent to play during the banquet!” he sniffs, outraged. “But you're here! I shouldn't have doubted you! I have a plan to make all of this blown up, and you are the centerpiece of it.”

“The stableboy mentioned this bard. I thought it was you, by his description.”

Jaskier gapes, widening his big, blue eyes in a comical way, “Sad that he's gonna lose his job for this! Gods, how dares he compare me to that... that scoundrel–”

Geralt shakes his head, an amused smile tugging his lips. He's gonna admit it, he feels mostly confused by the stream of words coming out of Jaskier, as always. He just understands that he has an important role in his plan to not get married, and he guesses that he will help him regardless of his motives. Jaskier is... a free spirit. Geralt can't see him married off with someone, unless his wife–to–be is alright in never see him again because he'll be too busy walk the Path with him.

Hm. That is why the thought of Jaskier married is so foreign, so strange, so unbelievable? Because that would mean Geralt will never have him around again, in that case?

Geralt frowns, and raises his eyes to look how the bard is still muttering offenses against the young stableboy, “Isn't the Viscount the one who's gonna get married?”

“Yes, 'tis I, Julian Alfred Pankratz, the willingly estranged Viscount that has finally returned home to his so boring obligations and blah blah blah.” Jaskier motions in the air with his hand. Then, he blinks, looking down at Geralt, “I did never tell you this, didn't I?”

“That you were a fucking Viscount? No, Jaskier.” says Geralt, and he knows that he's able to conceal the bitterness in his voice – and yet, considering the guilty faces Jaskier is making, he probably didn't do it right this time.

“I beg for your forgiveness, my friend. I never told you this not because I don't trust you, because I do. You know that, and never doubt it again.” Jaskier sighs, and finally he walks away from the window to sit next to him on the floor, “It's just that... I always run away from this life, even in my mind it's always been like I've never lived here before, never borne here, that there weren't people waiting for me to stop being egoistical and take my responsibilities. This is the reason I never mentioned it before, you have nothing to do with that.”

Geralt can understands this, and he'd be too hypocritical of him to say that he doesn't do the same – he, too, runs away from unwanted, from scaring, responsibilities. So he just nods, and Jaskier smiles, relieved.

“I bet you are wondering why I am here, then. Why I don't run away from here once again.”

“I bet you're gonna tell me anyway.”

Jaskier gasps, a hand dramatically posed on his lips, “That I'll do! How did you know that?” he chuckles, then gets quiet. “Mhh, well, it's for another egoistical reason. I'm just tired to run away from... from what is my home, after all, I hate it or not, it still is. My mother died this summer, and I wasn't here to give her one last kiss. Actually, I don't ever remember the last time I've seen her, and now all I have is a grave.” he shrugs, as if he doesn't even care. Geralt can smell, though, in his scent, a touch of sadness, and regret. “My sister gave birth to the chubbiest baby I've ever met in my entire life, and I wasn't here for her. I wasn't here for her for her wedding either. What I'm trying to say, Geralt, is that I want too much to be free to also come here, just once in a while, to bring present to my nephew and lay flowers on my mother's tomb.”

Geralt clears his throat, slightly uncomfortable, “I'm sorry for your mother.”

“Don't be. Last time I've seen her, I was eighteen. My sister almost didn't remember my face, when I came here a couple of months ago.”

Geralt hums, and grabs an apple. “So, this plan?”

“Yes, the plan.” Jaskier claps his hands, and absentmindedly accepts the apple Geralt is handing him. “Today is the wedding day, and I'm going to meet the lovely lady my father has chosen for me, but! Listen this, because you will totally praise my brilliant mind this time.” he takes a bite at the apple, munching with fervor as he tries to gather the words to explain his so brilliant plan, and Geralt feels a smile tugging at his lips at the sight. He's ridiculous. Geralt is, too, obviously. “I organized a horse race.”

Geralt frowns, “Good.”

“It'll make sense, hear me out. I somehow convinced my father to accept this my... caprice. He thinks that it is just to entertain the guests, but I made very clear that it will be the winner who's gonna marry me! At this point, I guess my father doesn't really care who will be my bride, as long as I'll be married once and for all. And, and,” he stops Geralt before he could ask clarifications with a finger closing his lips, “I will participate. You will do in my behalf, of course, you know I can't ride a horse for shit, and I am so sure that Roach will make the other horses eat her dust! I will win the race, and I'm gonna marry myself.”

“That's...”

“Brilliant?”

“Stupid. It will never work.”

“Whaaat?” Jaskier pouts, crossing his arms against his chest, “Why? It has to work!”

Geralt knows that nobles gets embarrassingly excited by these kind of things – the scoops, the scandals, and whatever they comports – but he doesn't think that a scam like this will work. Not that Geralt knows his father at all, in what way he's going to react at Jaskier's, hm, trap, but if he really wants Jaskier married and soon–to–be–father, he won't surely accept the whole 'I won at a game so I will marry myself' thing.

Hence, this is stupid. But looking at the sad pout on Jaskier's face, Geralt can't find in himself the power to tell him that his plan has all kinds of holes in it. So, he mutters, “If... if you're sure about it.”

“I am! So, you're on?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course,” Jaskier rolls his eyes, fondly, as he does every time Geralt says something uncalled for. “You always have a choice, my dear. After all, there will be a lot of nobles, a lot of meaningless chatters, a lot of stabbing behind the backs, a lot of songs from a terribly bard. I wouldn't wish it even to my worst enemy. Well, sure, without your help I'd die within the day, slicing my own throat with a cutlery out of desperation and boredom, but this is not a forcing towards you by any means.”

Geralt smacks his shoulder, and Jaskier shrieks an amused ouch, massaging the hit spot. Put like this, he no, he really doesn't have a choice. How could he leave him be, when Jaskier is looking at him with those puppy eyes, with his lower lip slightly protruding, with those desperate words about his demise?

Well, he knew that he wouldn't have any choice since he received his letter back in Oxenfurt.

“Fine.” he sighs, then, “What do I have to do?”

“Nothing too complicated, darling. You just have to be faster than my... fiance's horse. Actually, I think Roach would do most the work. Never joined a horse race before?”

“Have you ever seen me in one?” he asks, rhetorically. No one would challenge him in anything, nor offer him to join a competition that, usually, is for noble's entertainment, so it's naive of Jaskier to ask something like this. But Geralt knows that Jaskier, most of the time, doesn't fully comprehend how people take Geralt at arm's length, and gets mad when he witnesses the – maybe deserved, maybe not – cruelty they have towards him.

“No, but maybe you have in my absence. Who knows what you do when I'm not around!”

“I do what I always do, Jaskier. I walk the Path, I fight, and I try to survive. I have no time for games.”

Jaskier scrunches his face, clearly discontent of his words, “So unfair.”

It doesn't matter if it's fair or unfair, it's still Geralt's life, and Jaskier needs to understand that nothing will ever change, no matter the fact that he doesn't like it and he deems it humanly wrong.

So Geralt doesn't respond, and a quiet silence falls on them whilst they finish their breakfast. Jaskier wipes away the apple juice from his mouth with the hem of his luxurious chemise, and the gesture is so little nobility that Geralt still doesn't believe the fact that in front of him there is a Viscount. That the bard that followed him for almost two decades is a Viscount – and he had no clue at all.

Jaskier winces and grimaces, when people start to shout and sing and claps from the roads outside. “We need to go. My wife–to–be is probably arrived.” he rolls his eyes, raising from the floor and reaching out to help him do the same. “I bet my precious lute that she is as unhappy as me about this arrangement. Gods, I don't even know her name! She probably doesn't know mine either! This is bullshit.”

Grabbing his stretched hand, Geralt prepares himself to what's about to happen.

He doesn't have a good feeling about this.

Jaskier's fiance is flawless, with a curved body and straight blond hair. She's not a teenager as Pavetta was during her wedding – the only banquet Geralt has ever participated, and he's for the first time in all his long life praying that this won't end like hers ended – and she walks with her chin held high, an expressionless stare pointed in front of her. Maybe it's her face, but Geralt thinks that Jaskier is probably right, and she's as unhappy as he is in this whole situation. After all, a lot of years passed since Jaskier was twenty and ready – for his father, at least – to get married: she has probably found someone else to love in Jaskier's absence, because her brown, stricken eyes resemble so much Pavetta's.

Well, Geralt thinks. Maybe Jaskier's plans will work, if he has his fiance's support.

Geralt watches as Jaskier and his fiance's meet for the first time in the farthest corner of the main square, with Roach neighing quietly next to him. Jaskier's eyes are full of pity, as he, with a sweet, small smile, kisses the back of her hand, so lightly that his lips doesn't even touch her sun–kissed skin. They don't exchange words apart for empty pleasantries, and Geralt feels an hollow inside of him at the sight.

He doesn't want a meaningless, unloved marriage for Jaskier.

He nudges Roach forward as the cheerful crowd follows the soon–to–be–wed couple to the magnificent palace at the end of the main road. He doesn't think Geralt will be welcomed there inside, no matter what Jaskier wants – he is too busy with his father and fiance, right now, to mind his comfort – but he thinks that, at least, he can go in the Pankratz's stables, considering that Roach will be one of the horses that will compete.

He is surprised, though, to find a servant in there that shows him the way inside the palace, indicating him where to go to the chambers allocated to him. He's too confused to try asking for explanations, and too stunned to growl at the stableman as he takes Roach's reins from his hands.

Maids prepare him a bath, and new, perfumed clothes are brought to him. Geralt doesn't feel enough relaxed to take off his armor and stay only with the clothes Jaskier – obviously – sent to him, so when he heads to the stables again, he tries to ignores the confused stares from servants and maids as he walks the corridors with frilly, clean clothes under his stained, clearly old armor.

In the stable, he finds himself to be surprised again, when he sees Jaskier nuzzling Roach's nose, hugging her neck from time to time as he murmurs sweet nothings in her flicking ears. “You will be my forever heroin, Roach, if you win this race. I know, I know, it's child's play for you, my horses – or, everyone's horses, don't get so offended, Gods – are snails compared to you, my girl. Still, you have to give all your might, regardless of the incompetence of others.”

Roach snorts, and tries to bite Jaskier's fingers. Geralt suffocates a laugh just to not interrupt whatever is going on between her and Jaskier.

Jaskier gasps, but the idiot doesn't take his hands off the horse, “You're so touchy! I didn't say that you are incompetent! Gods, sometimes you are worst than your owner. Ohw! I said sometimes!” his words are followed by a couple of kisses on her muzzle that she tries to shy away from – with not much force, though. Geralt knows that Roach is totally able to headbutt Jaskier out of her way, if she really wants to. “Anyway, what I meant, you prickly horse, is that mistakes are not allowed. Not if you still want me run after you throughout the Continent! And I know you want me. Who else is gonna give you this, if not me?” he asks, taking a small sugar cube from his pocket.

Roach stops stomping her foot on the ground, suddenly very docile.

“Yeah, I know. If you help me, dear girl, I will give you a whole bag full of your favorite treats. All for you, to eat all at once if you wish!”

“Are you done spoiling my horse?”

Jaskier jumps and a bunch of sugar cubes falls from his closed palm, “Holy shit, Geralt, do you perhaps want me to have a heart attack? You almost succeeded here!”

“Dramatic.”

“I'm serious, Gods.” Jaskier leans on Roach hugging her with an arm, and she doesn't mind at all, too busy eating all the treats fallen on the dusty ground. His other hands is posed against his chest, at the height of the heart. “That's why Roach is my favorite: she at least huffs and snorts to make her presence known.”

Geralt caresses Roach's neck, and her ears flick in acknowledgment. “Trying to bribe her won't work.”

Jaskier pouts, and frowns at the now clean ground where just second before the treats he brought for Roach laid, “It was working before you interrupted so rudely. By the way, did you rest? I see you changed with the clothes I had sent to you. They are really nice on you, I have to admit, but, dear, you don't need your armor in a horse race.”

“You will never know.”

Jaskier raises an eyebrow at him, “Aaand that's why you are the wise one between us. Uhm, I'm gonna buy you a new armor, though. This one is falling to pieces.”

“You don't have to buy me anything, Jaskier.” Geralt sighs, and drops his eyes off Jaskier to pay attention to Roach, distract himself in adjusting her saddle and controlling her shoes. If she has to race, she has to have all the needed comforts – in no way Geralt would ride her with a broken shoe or a loose saddle.

“But I want to! Whatever. You are saving my life, it's the least I can do. Money won't be a problem at all, on the contrary: for the first time, my father's money – also mine, I'd like to stress – would be finally used for something useful. He spends all our wealth in women and wine, the old fucker!”

Geralt almost says that put it like this, Jaskier isn't so different from his father, but he thinks better of it. So he just hums, letting him continue blabbing about the disgraceful ways his father lives even before his mother's death.

He really has a lot to say regarding this argument. Distractedly, Geralt wonders if Jaskier will remember that they have a horse race to win before it's too late, or if he'll be too preoccupied in blaming his father for all his bad habits to notice the hours pass. He will probably find himself already married the moment he'll finally stop talking.

Suddenly, Jaskier claps his hands, “Now, Geralt, we have to go, we wasted enough time in chitchats. I already talked to my father, and he knows that you will be the other participant. You are competing against the best knight serving my fiance's family – I didn't even bother learning his name.”

“Do you at least know your fiance's name, now?”

“Yes, but I want to forget, as she wants to forget mine. We want absolutely nothing do to with each other, and believe me, for the first time in my entire life, I'm relieved to know that someone hates me.” Jaskier shrugs, and takes his hand in his, tightening slightly his long fingers around his much larger palm. For a second, he gets distracted by the casual gesture: he will never comprehend how a man's touch can be so warm, how can it make his skin tingle so strangely and yet so pleasurably. “Let's go now, I want to show you where the racecourse is located. It's a circular racetrack, really, the horses have to run around the stands where my family and my fiance's family will be to watch the... the challenge, and the first one that reaches the starting point is the winner.” he sniffs, “I feel strange, Gods, I'm starting to feel anxious. Don't get me wrong, I know you are going to win without any doubt, but I can't get out of my mind the feeling that something will go irremediably wrong.”

Geralt has the same feeling since the very beginning, but he just follows Jaskier silently out of the stable after giving Roach a see–you–later kiss on her muzzle. He doesn't add anything more to Jaskier's worries, and he mostly ignores the townsfolk that stop them on their way to the racetrack, giving Jaskier gifts as small bouquets of wildflowers and flower crowns.

A young girl tries to give him one too, and Geralt almost panicked as he crouches before her and she puts the too small crown on his head. Her mother doesn't even try to snatch her away from him, and Geralt supposes that it's thanks to Jaskier's influence. The whole town is acting as he is just one of the many guests came here for the wedding.

Thankfully, Jaskier doesn't comment Geralt awkwardness.

Jaskier shows the racecourse when they finally reach it, situated in a dusty clearing just out of town. Geralt doesn't care as Jaskier starts telling him how the workers have built this in no more than a week time, but he is particularly aware of Jaskier's hand still closed tight around his.

Jaskier stops midsentence when a sudden strum of a lute echoes around the empty racecourse, and the disturbing scent of anger and disgust coming off Jaskier imbues his senses. They both raise they stares and up on the stands, seated there with no care at all with a lute posed on his lap, there is a bard, apparently.

“What the hell is he doing here?!” Jaskier fumes, and if only stares could kill, the bard would be dust on the ground. “Hey! What the hell are you doing here?!”

“Practicing for you wedding, Julian.” the bard answers, throwing them an amused grin, “There's chaos out there, and talent needs tranquility to reach its peak. Speaking of, why are you doing here? Shouldn't you be back in your chambers to get ready for your grand day?”

Jaskier stomps a foot on the ground, petulantly, “There will be no grand day! Get out of my way!”

“I won't be so sure of myself in your place, Julian. I am sure that someone has distorted your request about this race, and all of this is going to blow out in your funny face. But I am your servant today, so, as the lord commands.” the bard bows with a hand posed against his chest, then hops down the stands and disappears back towards town, as Jaskier's face becomes purple with anger.

Geralt asks, “Who is he?”

“My worst enemy, my recurrent nightmare, my crux and disgrace.” Jaskier passes a hand through his hair, “So, no one you needed to meet, no one important to know.” with a frown, he looks up the sky, a hand shadowing his eyes against the shining sun. “It's almost midday. It's a matter of time for the guests to start to arrive. Geralt, my friend.” Jaskier turns to him and, sadly, his hand leaves the grip on his. “I need to go. Win this race, and I'll be forever yours.”

Geralt raises an eyebrow.

“Forever in your debt, I meant!” Jaskier shrieks, red in face, as he runs away the same way the bard disappeared, a cloud of dust raising from his feet in the haste of it.

With a resigned snort, Geralt turns around to go to Roach and get her ready for the race.

But the bard's words keep swirling inside his head, amplifying the bad feeling about Jaskier's plan: I am sure that someone has distorted your request about this race, and all of this is going to blow out in your funny face.

Well.

The stands are full the moment Geralt comes back at the racecourse with Roach trotting happily next to him. Jaskier is there with his family, seated at the center of it, at one of his side an older man that is his spitting image if not for the gray hair and serious expression, the other his fiance.

A young lady with a chubby baby sits beside his father, and even if she doesn't resemble Jaskier a lot, Geralt thinks that she's the sister he talked about.

Geralt is welcomed with a grand applause, followed by another when a knight in a white armor, riding a equally white stallion – the irony – takes place next to him at the starting point. They give him a thumbs up as Jaskier's father is shouting the rules and the motives of this sudden, at his saying uncalled for, race from his position.

As he talks, Geralt looks at Jaskier. He has a stricken expression twisting the usually smooth lines of his face, a vein popping on his forehead as the same bard they met before sings and strums behind him. He's not relaxed at all, even though he said that he is not afraid of Geralt to lose the race. So, why so tense?

The bed feeling intensifies.

Geralt caresses Roach's neck as she snorts, a bit annoyed by the cheerful crowd around them. He murmurs words of comfort, not dissimilar to the ones Jaskier told her in the stables whilst trying to bribe her – that is, until Jaskier's father shouts to them to get ready and in position.

There is a short countdown, and Roach tenses.

When the “Go!” is shouted, Roach runs. It's blurry after that, all Geralt can see – even with his enhanced senses – is just the road in front of them, all his – theirs – attention is to win this competition and get over with all of this.

He hears the stallion behind him, and Roach cleverly, with his guidance, gets in front of it to block its way, so it can't go past her and it's forced to slow down like this.

Clever, clever girl. A wave of pride overwhelms him, and he's sure that also Jaskier, up where he is enjoying the show, is feeling the same way.

Obviously, he and Roach are the first to cross the finish line, and everyone around them shout and scream and cheer the winner – and considering that it's Geralt the winner, it feels so strange. He drops off Roach and she seems to balks at the praises the people are shouting at her and at her clever talent, stomping her feet at the ground and neighing happily. She even trots around herself, in a very funny dance. Somewhere behind him, Jaskier's laugh trills, louder than any cheer.

The knight drops down their stallion too and gets closer to him. They takes off their helmet and Geralt is surprised to see that his challenger is a beautiful woman, with cropped short hair and a satisfied grin on her sweaty face. She stretches an arm towards him to shake their hands, before going.

“Father!” Geralt hears Jaskier say out loud. Raising his eyes, Geralt sees him standing in front of his father, excitement written on his face. Next to him, his fiance has finally lost her stricken face, and she seems so relieved that she just stays seated there, with eyes closed, and a hand against her heart. “My challenger has won. So it means I won!”

“Yes, my son. The Witcher has won.” repeats his father, calmly.

“Exactly. So I can marry my–”

“Your Witcher. You can marry him. It's what you were after since the beginning, weren't you?”

Jaskier inhales sharply, dropping his mouth wide open. “W–Wh–w–whha–”

The bard bursts out laughing, almost falling down on his butt.

Geralt panics, and hopes he did hear wrong for the first time in his life. He looks at Jaskier, waiting for something, anything that would hint him their next move, but Jaskier seems to be turned into a stone, eyes growing distant.

“I won, father.” he says, in the end, with a thin voice. “I've got to chose, now.”

“No, the Witcher has won, Julian. And you did chose: it was you that organized all of this and let the Witcher participate.” his father says, candidly. Then, he turns towards Geralt, the blue eyes that so much resembles his son's looking down at him with no particular emotion hidden behind them, “So, Witcher. Will you merry my son?”

Geralt is still panicking, sadly. That's why he says, “Yes..?” right before biting his tongue.

Jaskier winces as if slapped. His ex–fiance is looking at the scene with a curious gaze.

The bard is still laughing his arse off somewhere on the ground.

When Jaskier's father claps his hands and orders his servant to take Geralt back to the palace so he can get ready for tonight ceremony, it all clicks in Geralt's mind.

He's fucked.

Three hours later, the sun is almost setting down over the horizon, and Geralt finds himself in his chambers, in front of a mirror, trying to close the white doublet the maids brought to him.

He's angry, and not just because the buttons have no intentions to stay put. He's angry because he doesn't like at all the situation he's finding himself in, and he's even banned from going to see Jaskier wherever he is right now, to ask for explanations, to at least know how is he supposed to do to take them both out of this mess.

He feels like relaxing a bit, though, when he hears familiar steps approaching his door. “Come in,” he says even before Jaskier tries to knock.

Geralt hears a sigh, then opens his door with the utmost care as if scared to make even the smallest of the noises. When the door clicks shut behind him, Jaskier finally raises his eyes to meet his stare on the mirror. “Geralt, I–” he blinks, “Wow. You are quite a sight in white.”

Geralt just snorts, fuming. He gives up trying to close the buttons of the doublet to turn toward Jaskier with a dark glare, arms crossed against his chest, and the strange twinkling inside Jaskier's eyes dim, walking closer to him with a subdued posture. “Geralt... uh, are you mad at me?”

Geralt sighs. And, as always happens, he can't stay mad at him for too long: especially if he looks at him with those puppy eyes, so expressive that they seem to beg more than his mouth could ever do. “No.”

“Oh thank the Gods. I am so, so sorry, Geralt, it wasn't supposed to go like this! I mean, I am actually really surprised that you said yes to my father when he asked you if you wanted to marry me, but–”

“I didn't know what to say!”

“I know, calm down! It's okay, really, I already made up a new plan.” Jaskier says, excited.

“This doesn't make me feel better.”

“Miscreant!” Jaskier huffs, the gets closer and starts ruffling with his clothes, closing the buttons of his doublet and straightening the wrinkles, “I understand that the simpler plan is the most effective. You just have to say I don't, when the Melitele's priestess will tell the vows and ask you again if you want to marry me. The ceremony will be very brief, you don't have to worry about this, considering the little time we had, so you don't even have to prepare a speech. Aren't you happy? All you have to say is I don't!”

“That's it?” Geralt doubts it very much.

“That's it!”

Geralt grunts, unconvinced. “And your father will leave you alone, even if you don't get married?”

“I talked to my sister before coming here. Apparently, being left at the altar is a scandal. No one wants a groom or a bride that another disavowed, no matter the reasons.” Jaskier shrugs, “Gods forbid if an abandoned person gets a second chance.” he adds, sarcastically.

“And you're okay with it?”

Jaskier looks at him incredulously, “You're kidding? I'm more than okay. I don't want to marry anybody, Geralt, not now, nor ever. My life is perfectly fine as it is.”

Geralt finds himself frowning at the ground, something akin at nervousness churning his stomach at Jaskier's words. He should not care, after all, what Jaskier wants to do with his life, it's nothing of his business – and yet, he doesn't like the thought that Jaskier will never want someone stable to love for the rest of his life.

Is he starting to think like Jaskier's father?

Shit.

Jaskier probably notices his face darkens, because he gets even closer and grabs one of his shoulders, tightening slightly his grip when no reaction comes from Geralt, “Are you fine, Geralt? Believe me, I am truly, truly sorry for throwing all my family's mess onto you. But fret not, my friend! This will be the end, at least I can assure you this.”

Geralt looks at him. He has a plain robe on, clearly he was also preparing for the ceremony before sneaking out to come here, to him; his face is blotched red, maybe for embarrassment, maybe nervousness, Geralt can't say; his scent is mostly covered by some sweet perfume he used while bathing. He still is making puppy eyes at him, hoping to soften him as he begs for forgiveness.

But in the end, there's no motive for him to ask for forgiveness: it was Geralt who panicked and said that yes, he wanted to marry him. Thank fuck that it's all going to end soon, because this whole situation is becoming ridiculous.

There's a lot of ridiculous things he's done for Jaskier, after all.

But this? This beats them all.

“Whatever, I have a little gift for you.” Jaskier says, searching inside the pocket of his robe and taking out of there a silk, blue hair ribbon. “I know that I've already broken traditions by coming here, because one should see the bride – in this case, the groom – right on the altar, not before. But,” he says, showing him the ribbon. Geralt touches it with a knuckle, and it's as smooth as it looks. “this one is nice. They say that we need something old, something new, and something blue. You are what we have of old,” he laughs at this, and Geralt just smiles at him, “and our clothes are relatively new. What we missed is something blue, and all I've found is this. May I comb your hair?”

Geralt looks at him, then at the ribbon. At last, he sighs, “Sure.”

Actually, he feels a bit in trepidation as Jaskier commands him to sit at the vanity and settles behind him. His long fingers starts, slowly, almost carefully, to separate the white strands in three parts. Geralt watches as he combs his hair with care and confidence – it's not the first time he does that after all – but somehow this time it feels... different. Sacred, he would say, if only he was a poet.

Jaskier's hums under his breath does help the moment, making it even more intimate. He makes a plain braid, not too complicated, but taking his time nonetheless. Geralt definitely doesn't shivers when Jaskier's fingers brush against the skin of his neck, and no, he's definitely not too aware of Jaskier's breath too close to his ear when he leans to catch loose strands of hair.

Definitely not.

“Here you go!” Jaskier concludes, as he makes a flourish bow with the ribbon at the end of the braid. “Perfection.”

Geralt tells himself that he doesn't notice Jaskier's fingers lingering a bit more than necessary on his hair.

“I should go, now. I hope no one notices my absence.”

Geralt nods, “Hm. Go then.”

“Yeah, I–” Jaskier bites his lower lip, as he poses his hands on his shoulder. Their eyes meet through the mirror, and Jaskier seems to almost be saying something, but then thinks better of it. He smiles at him, with an healthy glow on his cheeks. “Thank you again, Geralt. What you're doing really means a lot to me.”

Said that, Jaskier leans towards him and leaves a smooch on his cheek, loud and a bit wet.

Then, he literally runs. “Ta!” he shouts as the door closes behind him.

Geralt freezes on the spot, a hand pressed on his cheek, where the ghost of that brief kiss still lingers there. His head completely shuts down. What the fuck was that?!

His mind can't make a coherent thought for the rest of the evening, finding himself by the altar without knowing how and when it happened. Jaskier is slightly late – if he understood well, they were supposed to reach the altar together – but Geralt knows why he isn't here yet, and in his altered mind he still can't get over that kiss.

Not that Jaskier never touched him before, being so tactical and friendly even with complete strangers – but, but kisses were always off limits. Combing hair? Yes, sure. It happened plenty of times. Massages? Also okay. Geralt still remembers fondly when Jaskier helped with his very uncomfortable problem on his bottom. Sleeping together and finding their limbs tangled together the morning after? Nothing wrong with that at all, it always happens when friends sleep together.

Right?

Hm. Put it like this, the kiss – on the cheek, mind you – seems to be the less intimate thing they've ever shared.

Then why..? Why does it bother him so much?!

Jaskier appears next to him on thin air, apparently, because Geralt didn't acknowledge his arrival at all, not until his tense laughter trills beside him as he almost trips on the last step of the altar. When he motions at him to try and steady him, Geralt's mind shut down again as his eyes finally fall on him.

Jaskier is also dressed in white like him, with golden embroidery running through his doublet and trousers, and he has an ephemeral aura around him that almost blinds his eyes. Jaskier returns his gaze with a sheepish smile, a blush on his cheeks and a quick shrug, as if to say Sorry for the late. Even if it's all a farce, I had to be on top regardless.

And on top he is, fucking hell.

Geralt can't quite take his eyes off Jaskier, as the Melitele's priestess starts talking out loud for all the guests to hear. Every time Jaskier notices his gaze, Geralt lowers his eyes as if caught doing something prohibited. Gods, he feels like a teenager. He feels like a real groom on his real wedding day – maybe? He doesn't really know what a groom may feel during a wedding.

This exchange of stares happens three times more. At last, Jaskier chuckles and the priestess looks at him oddly.

Suddenly, Jaskier takes his hands in his, raising them at heart length. They both turn towards each other, staring into each other faces. Geralt panics slightly, having heard not a single word that came out of the priestess' mouth. Jaskier is biting his lips, red in faces – he's probably trying to suppress one of his usual loud laughs. He's laughing at him!

He doesn't matter that at the moment Jaskier is the most beautiful man he has ever seen in his pitiful long life, he's ridiculing him and now he's mad. Kinda.

“I do.” says Jaskier, solemnly.

Geralt frowns. What was the question?

The priestess nods, then turns her pretty face towards Geralt, “And you, Geralt of Rivia?”

Shit. Fuck. What was the question?!

“I...” he asks Jaskier for help with a begging look, but Jaskier just tilts his head to the side. “I... do.”

The priestess nods again, but Jaskier blinks, “What?” he mouths.

“Was that..?” Geralt panics, because oh Gods, he now understands that the question was the question, the only question he needed to answer, the question Jaskier clearly has told him to say I don't. “Shit, no. I don't. I... don't.” The priestess jerks as he tries to mend his terrible mistake, “I don't want to marry, you heard me? I don't.”

Chaos erupts around them as Jaskier's father shrieks a “What?!”; the bard laughs his arse off again somewhere, hidden in the middle of the crowd; Jaskier's sister has a hand on her lips, feigning a surprise she doesn't really feel.

Jaskier is, instead, looking at him with a curious expression. Their hands are still tangled together in a firm grip, and Jaskier tightens slightly the grip to bring his attention on him and him only – not that Geralt had attention on anyone or anything, or else this mess wouldn't have happened in the first place, but still. Jaskier's thumbs are caressing the back of his hands, and the gesture is making him so aware of him and totally not of their surrounding.

“You said...” Jaskier prompts, after a minute passed just looking at each other.

“I panicked.”

Jaskier chuckles, “I noticed. Why?”

Geralt pursues his lips. Fuck, Jaskier is mocking him again, “I was distracted, and I haven't heard what the priestess said, so–”

Jaskier says, “You were looking at me, I know this. I distracted you?” Jaskier gets closer, almost a breath away from Geralt's face. Geralt feels trapped. “Tell me, I distracted you? Were you enough inebriated by my presence that the thought of marry me crossed your mind, and you weren't against it at all?”

Geralt says nothing.

“Geralt?”

“Will you marry me?” he blurts out, regretting it the second after. Yes, alright? He was thinking since that blasted kiss in his chambers that he would mind being Jaskier's husband, and being kissed again, and maybe meet his nephew and accompany him to bring flowers to his mother's tomb. So? Sue him for living in a fantasy for once in his life.

“No, darling.”

Of course not. How could he? He didn't want to marry that beautiful lady, surely he has no intention to marry a blasted, stinky, grumpy Witcher. “Alright.” he swallows down the bitterness of rejection, even if he shouldn't really feel so bad. He knew the response the second he asked, so.

Jaskier rolls his eyes, though. He actually feels really surprised when Jaskier leans on him and kisses him. Not a smooch on his cheek, no, a kiss on his lips. His head, obviously, shuts down again so he doesn't reciprocate, just enjoys the soft lips moving on him, and finally his scent, under the layers of sweet perfume, reaching his nose. “Silly Witcher. No, I don't want to marry you, or anyone really. I believe that I needn't to demonstrate to no one my love: not to my father, and not to Melitele herself. So I needn't a frivolous ceremony and a signed contract, a white doublet and a hundreds of testimonies to love you 'til death do us part.”

“Okay.” says Geralt, even if nothing is okay, because surely he got something wrong? He doesn't think he fully understands what Jaskier means.

“You marvelous, silly, naive man.” Jaskier sighs, fondly, “Did you know that we can make love even without a marriage contract? Let's leave everyone to their scandal. My sister is having the time of her life, she'll take care of everything.”

“Make what?” Geralt's almost afraid to ask, but Jaskier's expression is soft and fond – he seems in love. More than he's ever been, that is.

Jaskier winks, “I'm gladly going to show you, love.”

What happens next is a blur, Geralt notices just Jaskier's kisses, hugs, and soft, naked skin under his fingertips.

This time he understands the whole situation very, very clear.

#geraskier #thewitchersecretsanta #the witcher secret santa #mine:fyccina

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disisphlebotinum · 2 years

Text

Meryem - Episode 2

I wonder how many typos I won't notice this time

Where we left off last time: Me mad at the world.

Basically Ayca is pretty and Husband looks good. Everything else is cruel and stupid and I hate it.

I like that Savas seems to have some kind of instincts about Douchebag.

Please tell me this enough to wake her up to the fact that he at the very least does not love her.

Shit! Did her father just die!?!?!?!!

I HATE THIS.

The last thing I need to see is that Douchebag having any kind of attention.

I HATE THIS.

Honestly, there ain’t really anything Savas is going to say or do right now that I would hold against him. The dude had everything for like a minute, everything he didn’t even know he had, for like a minute, and then it was all gone because some Dipshit couldn’t call an ambulance and turned his accident into a crime.

I really want nothing to do with Meryem in prison. I mean, those bitches are probably nicer to her than the outside world. Even with all the hitting and bullying for no reason.

So the prison bitch is being paid to be a bitch. I HATE EVERYTHING.

This looks like the same set from SCK. You know, in case I’m not experiencing enough trauma lets give me flashbacks to some of the worst storytelling possible. Oh shit, it literally is the same set.

I know this lady is being nice, but I trust nothing. Everything that is not Meryem and Savas are basically my enemy until proven otherwise.

THIS SON OF A BITCH DOES NOT GIVE A SHIT. STOP WASTING MY TIME WITH THE PRETENDING!

This guy can’t keep his dick in his pants but sure she should totally trust him to get her out of prison.

The violence I’m doing to this dude in my mind is a really compelling case for why I should probably start therapy.

Why would he bring his girlfriend to the prison to vision the girlfriend he falsely imprisoned?

Every time he tries to smile I want to stab him.

Baba needs to chill. I can’t handle him. I do think him and Azade would make the perfectly controlling couple of their dreams.

I HATE EVERYTHING

Ayca is very pretty and very good at acting. I need to see her do something other than cry. I need to Ayca play a character that just kicks everyone’s ass. Kind of like the potential Ariza gave me, but actually pays off.

Savas looks like he could eat Douchebag for breakfast.

Brother and I are cool so far I think. I feel like he is going to piss me off at some point… Ain’t everyone. Damn, look at brother proving me wrong while I’m typing. Someone asking logical questions, someone encouraging it, I think I might die.

I really can’t handle much more of this prison shit. Not in an exaggerated reaction way, but in a this is going to start fucking with me kind of way.

I literally forgot Darin existed. Much like the show. They have her set up like an old style hollywood villain. They give her the music cues and everything.

I DON’T WANT THIS BITCH ON MERYEM’S CASE!

Brother is the only thing good about this world!

I CAN’T HANDLE THIS!

I really don’t think I can smoke enough weed to make me stop shaking right now.

Savas gets hotter every time he speaks. Do they do that as a way of apologizing for torturing us.

He so close to being the smartest man in Turkey and then he got mad.

I should not have this reaction to him being aggressive to her.

I hate how much hatred he had when he looked at her. Good acting though.

Does Douchebag kill Meryem’s dad?!?!?!

I HATE THIS SHOW!

Nothing but violence in my head.

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW I don’t need to see the Douchebag and the chick.

They are playing with my emotions way too fucking hard right now. Yep. Random fucking prison violence is exactly what I needed. I hate everything.

I HAVE EVERYTHING!

I mean, at least Savas dragged her out of the building.

Douchebag just watching is another reason I should get to murder him! He looks like he is going to get off if Meryem dies in there. Meanwhile, Savas is having the most non-sexual post-nut clarity.

Can the bird not die please?!

#meryem #dizi #turkish dizi

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nav-arre · 3 years

Text

These Birds You Cannot Cage

A piece for FebuWhump 2021, day 3: Imprisonment. 3549 Words. Can also be read here on ao3! Rated T! Tags for violence, broken bones, vomiting, and Nilfgaard being the fuckin’ worst.

Sodden burns and Yennefer runs. Staggers, really, though it’s hard to tell the difference in her state. She can hear nothing but white noise like a distant blaze roaring. Occasionally her vision blacks out and when she comes to she’s somewhere completely different and has not stopped moving. She can’t. She tries to reach inside herself to draw from her well of power, but—

For the first time since learning of its existence, of putting a name to the fire inside her, her chaos is depleted. It’s worse than worn out, it’s so empty a part of her begins to assume it’s gone forever. If she had time to feel an emotion— dread, rage, fear, hopelessness— she might. But all she has is her body pushing her forward, strength and speed she didn’t know she could muster after this level of exertion, towards something shaped vaguely like freedom. Safety.

Honestly, she wasn’t really sure what freedom was anymore. Once, it had been a young man who watched her grow into herself, made her feel like anything was possible. Another time, it had been an academy that promised it could help her craft her chaos. Later, it had been proximity to wealth, riches, royalty. After that, it had been her, alone, making her own rules on her own terms.

And then, of course, freedom had come to her in the form of a world-weary witcher, amber eyes, and the unspoken promise to never tie one another down. Never clip the other’s wings.

Freedom was meant to be choice.

Freedom, Yennefer thought, was a beautiful, wretched lie.

When she finally stumbles, she crashes on the ground in an unceremonious heap. Her head swims and when she tries to rise up, push on, she finds her arms shake too fiercely and betray her. The white noise in her ears begins to fade and as she tries to focus on the ground in front of her she sees them. Boots, surrounding her. Shadows, looming.

They stand stock still. Someone is yelling, “Now is your chance, you idiots—” and then “She’s empty. Poor little mage used up her powers… but she’s still useful to us. Grab her, now.”

Freedom may have been a lie but actual imprisonment… that was something else entirely. Yennefer pushes herself away, bumping into what’s either a tree or somebody's legs, and hears laughter dribble out from the guards. She nearly wretches in disgust.

Next is the feeling of hands (she thinks it’s dozens, must be, but it may only be four,) gruff and far too tight. They wrench her off the ground and her vision is too blurred to make out any of their faces.

And just when she tries to steady her head and meet her captors face on, her vision swims again and consciousness slips away.

Yennefer wakes and immediately wretches what little she has in her stomach into a bucket next to her.

She’s cuffed in dimitrium, and everything feels so wrong. The floor is grimy, and as soon as she has a moment to breathe she heaves, pulls against her binds like she has even a chance of escaping.

“Thank fuck.”

Of all the voices she had to hear right now—

Yennefer lifts her head, tosses some hair out of her face to see better and there, directly across from her, is the continent’s most irritating bard. She groans.

“Mmmmm, yeah, not my choice of company either, but thank you for that,” he says. She gives him a stare. He looks… messy. Hair grown out a bit, stubble on his face, dark circles under his eyes. His shirt, which may have once been a cream color but was now a rather unfortunate motley of filth, is opened low enough to see a few dark bruises peeking out. There's a long scar on his neck, healed, but concerning nonetheless.

“But you were… really out there for a while. You alright? Relatively, I mean.”

Yennefer rolls her eyes.

“I’m in a prison cell. Actually, I’m in a prison cell with you, which is worse. There not much relatively to it.”

“Listen Yennefer, I don’t like you either but so long as we’re here together we might as well not be at each other’s throats. I love a good drama as much as the next bard but I don’t have the energy to fight both you and them.”

He’s not bouncing his leg as he so often does, and she wonders if there are bruises there too. Wonders how deep they run.

“Fine,” she says. “Only so long as we’re stuck. How long have you been here?”

Without the use of his hands, Jaskier’s taken to using his head to gesticulate. It looks absolutely nonsensical. “Oh,” he says after a few moments, “Three of four months?” Yennefer’s eyes bulge. “What month is it now?”

She tells him, and his head tips back in laughter. “Oh, okay, lovely. More like 6, then. Ah, how time flies when you’re being held against your will!”

Yennefer frowns. “And he hasn’t… come for you?”

Jaskier’s expression darkens, and he shakes his head. “Can you do that mind thing?” He whispers. She shakes her head.

“Not with dimitrium on me.”

Jaskier sighs. “I’m not saying anything about him, not out loud, not in here. Though, they said their mage will be seeing me next, so I don’t know how long that will matter for.”

Yennefer frowns, and thinks. They should be able to communicate this quietly without the guard's understanding. They’re not nearby, at least, and there are none likely smart enough to realize what they’re doing if they’re smart about it. “The mountain?”

“What? I— Oh, I see: Yes.” He catches on quickly.

“And then the two of you…?”

He shakes his head. “Just me.”

“Just you?” He'd left the mountain alone?

He hums in agreement. “And nothing since.” That'd been over a year ago now, and he hadn't seen Geralt in all that time?

“Idiot,” she mutters. “He tore his whole life to shreds.”

Jaskier shrugs, and looks… truly downtrodden, for the first time. She could see the months of wear against him. “I’m far from his whole life. That’s more of your specialty.”

Yennefer snorts. “Not really. And not by choice, apparently.”

“Would you be?” He asks and seems genuinely curious. There’s no bite to it. Like he really wants to hear her opinion. “If you had the choice?”

It’s an honest question, and she realizes she’s never stopped to think about an honest answer to it without being clouded by anger. She doesn’t like what this bard is doing to her already— what right did he have to make her feel important?

“Maybe if he’d given it,” Yennefer says after a second. She doesn’t like that it took even that long to consider it. “Taking away my choice takes away any goodwill we had, though.”

Jaskier nods. “Makes sense,” he says. “Can’t imagine an eagle likes its wings being clipped.” He sits back against the wall and closes his eyes. It strikes her that he doesn’t sound pleased. Of anyone, shouldn’t he be happy for her misfortune in love with the witcher? His witcher?

Well. Their witcher, she supposed. She hated the implications.

There’s silence. There’s silence, with Jaskier. As if things didn’t already feel dismal and strange enough. It was like a stream suddenly going silent. It was supposed to make noise. She stares at the scar on his neck and wonders.

It feels like the walls are going to fall down around her as she lets the reality sink in. There’s likely no getting out of this, she’s just here, they’re both just here, and unless someone on the outside does something, they’re likely to be there until her chaos eats her alive, or one of them is otherwise killed.

She wants to hear the steady stream of his voice. She wonders where his lute is. She tries to picture something to take her out of the place she’s stuck, the four walls that may end up as her casket.

“You’re not going to… sing something? Or whatever it is you do?” What had stopped the bird from singing? (Was that a worse fate than clipped wings, or the same?)

Jaskier opens his eyes to look at her and it feels like he’s seeing something she doesn’t even see in herself. It’s uncomfortable. He closes his eyes again.

“I haven’t sung,” he says softly, “in nearly 6 months.”

They’re there for weeks.

“Do you have any way to get out of here?” Jaskier asks late one evening when they both can’t sleep.

“Maybe, but only if I got these cuffs off me,” she admits. “Even then, it’d be a gamble. And if you’re still cuffed as well, I’m not sure I could do both. My chaos is… broken.”

There are a few beats of quiet. She wonders if he’s somehow fallen asleep. Then,

“I asked if you had a way out of here, Yennefer.”

Ah. She can hear his soft smile. Shit. That wasn’t what he’d meant? Was that not— did she really just assume him into her escape plans? Of all people?

“I assumed you meant—”

“Listen,” he says, “assume away. But when it comes time… don’t let me slow you down.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that, so she doesn’t.

She doesn’t sleep, that night.

“Do you hate him?” he asks another night.

“Yes,” she says, and everything aches. “Sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?”

She nods. “And you?”

He nods back. “Only sometimes.”

The days slip and fall together.

This is what it feels like to be in a cage:

Her bones feel like lead, her mind feels like lead. The dimitrium weighs down something inside her, too, and it’s even more difficult to stomach the gruel they serve day in and day out. The cell is dark and cavernous, large enough to fit fifteen more prisoners at least, but it seems to be reserved for the two of them. Small sounds echo for ages and threaten to drive her mad.

(It feels like a door locked from the outside, a handle too high to reach.)

This is what it feels like to have a cage inside of you:

Yennefer had a scream inside her, ripping at her insides, desperate to get out. Her chaos, budding slowly, had never felt so oppressive and unnatural before. She knows if she goes too long with these cuffs on her, it’ll explode outward, and she knows Nilfgaard is willing to play that game of chance.

(It feels like knowing you’ve already ruined everything.)

This is what it feels like to be in a cage with Jaskier:

The bard was quieter than normal, but when he talked it was a mile a minute— when they let themselves argue or hiss at each other, whenever they would banter or bitch. She could lose herself in his stupid, often unfairly funny, labyrinthian trains of thought. She often did. She suspected that was what he meant to happen. He still doesn’t sing.

(It feels like being handed a key.)

The guards are cruel. When they pull Jaskier away, he goes softly, sometimes throwing a quip at them but more often allowing it without a word. She tries to pull attention away, tries to make an ordeal of it, but they barely look at her, even when she screams bloody murder. And every time, he comes back bloody and bruised, sometimes with a bone broken, and every time he fights it in near silence. She complains about the meaningless drama of the powerful people in her circles to pass the time, and occasionally he smiles through his pain, or gives a laugh behind quiet sobs.

When they pull Yennefer away… it’s not nearly as often as they haul away the bard, but every time, he snaps at their heels like a dog. Now there was a bard she recognized, running his mouth and saying everything he ought not to. Once, a guard twists her sending her falling to the ground, and feels a bone in her hand snap. She expects Jaskier to make a fuss, but he’s quiet.

“I’ll kill you myself,” he says softly to the guard, and somehow she feels it’s a promise he’d do anything make good on.

“Yennefer,” Jaskier says one morning, low and careful. “Would you be able to do it today?”

She closes her eyes, concentrates. She can feel her chaos locked within her, scratching at her, desperate and hungry. But how much she has to burn, there’s no way of knowing. It’s something, though. She looks up at the bard, his gaze on her steadily.

“I could try.”

He nods. “You’re going to think I’m mad, but— I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you?”

They stare at each other. Somewhere, a door slams.

“Of course not, obviously not, have you met me? But it’s an idea, which means it’s got a better chance at working than all of our other nonexistent, well crafted and reliable ideas.”

Yennefer rolls her eyes, but she finds she’s… smiling again; he has a talent for that. When she glances back at him he’s got a small grin as well, but he’s biting it back. She wonders if he even realizes he’s doing it.

“Will you at least tell me what it is?”

“Nope! Actually, no; need to preserve the surprise, keep everything feeling authentic. Crucial to a major performance. Possibly my most major to date, considering the stakes."

“Fine. But if things go wrong, I’ll carve you open with a rusty nail and replace your liver with a salamander.”

“You know, I could also just take this back!” he says, “I could undo the idea! Idea gone, I like my liver where it is, it’s very hard to operate with a liver on the outside of one’s body, thank you.”

Their smiles are almost real now even in this false reality of a cell. She can really say anything to him, right now, and he won’t look at her like damaged goods. Then again, once they’re out, he could very well attempt to discard her. She’d beat him to the punch.

It hurt to think about. Wasn’t she above this, by now? Above her own heart?

She looks at the bard, disheveled, smiling, and with something that looks like excitement in his eyes, and sighs.

“Best of luck,” she says, and she doesn’t know who she’s talking to anymore.

The lone guard comes later than usual, and Jaskier is so full of anxious energy she thinks he might burst. He’s been making low humming noises all day, like he’s warming up for a performance— a bit dramatic, she thinks, but she’s not going to fault him his coping mechanisms while they were restrained in a Nilfgaardian prison. If they made it out, however, she made no promises.

(The thought of an After, where she saw this stupid, bumbling bard, spoke to him willingly and without malice for his general incompetence, disgusted her. She wanted it so, so badly.)

The regular soft thudding of boots down the corridor made both their heads snap up to the door. Jaskier took a breath in and closed his eyes.

“You ready for your pièce de résistance?” Yennefer jokes, straightening her back and lifting her chin. No sense in letting them see her any less dignified than she already was.

Jaskier doesn’t meet her eyes and reply until the boots are just outside the door. “I am,” he says, and it’s so deadly serious Yennefer reels for a moment.

The door opens, and the guard that comes in is the same that usually comes to drag them off; today the oaf saunters in and makes sure to wipe some grime of undetermined origin off the sole of his shoe and onto her already ruined dress. She rolls her eyes.

“Oh, gods,” she mutters sarcastically, “what will I do now with a stained dress.”

He bends forward to grip her chin, and she finds herself less than an inch away from his face— it looks like hatred. Warm breath from his nose hits her face and she can hear Jaskier’s chains rattling as he strains forward, wanting to rip the two apart.

“Better play nice, doll,” he says softly, a voice like cheaply cut gravel, “or I’ll make it so you can’t play at all.”

His breath smells like—she makes a face.

“If you let me out of these cuffs,” she says, sweetly as she can manage, giving a flutter of her lashes, “I could help you with your… dental hygiene?”

She expects the slap. What she does not expect, is Jaskier’s reaction.

“This is so fucking boring.”

Yennefer frowns and the guard frowns deeper before turning.

“Excuse me?”

If she hadn’t known to expect something from him today, she would have missed the quiet fire in his eyes. He sits back against the wall, looking otherwise nonchalant.

“You do this every other day! I want some real fucking entertainment.”

The guard snarls and turns back to Yennefer, reaching to undo her cuffs from the wall.

“Well, fine then. If you won’t provide any, I will.”

Oh, fuck. She knew exactly what this was.

“When a humble bard, graced a ride along…”

His voice is rough with disuse and lower than she’s used to hearing it. For a moment, she thinks it sounds like a million birds flying, like a key in a door, like the most beautiful sound in the world.

“CAN IT, bard. You know what happened last time you sung.”

“With Geralt of Rivia!” he shouts more than sings, “Along came this song!” His voice echoes throughout the complex, hitting them from a million directions. The guard yanks Yennefer to her feet and looks deeply, deeply angry.

“From when the White Wolf fought, a silver tongued devil—” The guard takes a few strides to loom over the bard, a wild look in his eyes, pulling Yennefer with him. The echoing was overwhelming already, Jaskier projecting with full force. The guard bent to get his face close to Jaskier’s. He’d been right— she thought he was mad, even now as she realized his move.

“His army of elves—”

“You’re done with, you fucking—”

“With his HOOVES—” Jaskier sang, and threw his foot up, hitting the guard squarely between the legs. He dropped the keyring to their cuffs and fell to the ground with a groan. “—did they revel,” Jaskier cackles as he lets the words flow out.

Yennefer seizes on the opportunity, twisting to grab up the keys even with her hands behind her. She takes delight in stomping on the same spot Jaskier had a moment before, watching the guard roll over in agony. The bard keeps singing, even louder now, and the guard’s cries are dwarfed easily.

She fiddles with the keys until finally, she unlocks herself. Her chaos ripples out, and already she hears footsteps thundering toward them. It feels like she’s grown wings, like her chest has opened, and she realizes after a moment she’s screaming in relief, arms thrown wide, head tipped back. She shakes it off, lets her power crackle through her. By now, Jaskier had gotten to the chorus.

“O’ Valley of Plenty, oh— RUN!” he shouts, and she smiles so wide she feels her lips crack. She reaches out a hand and prays she can still focus herself after all this time.

Jaskier’s cuffs explode.

She grabs at him, and throws out a portal just as the footsteps clattering to their door get close, and she turns to see a dozen guards and a mage— not Fringilla, thank the gods— rushing toward them. She’s still got something left, so with Jaskier still singing by her side, she caves in the ceiling above them and lets the bard pull them into the portal.

On the other side, it’s approaching evening. She can see a mountain, in the corner of her eye. The bard, looking frantic, takes up most of her field of vision. Breathing is difficult at best, and she feels him adjust her against a tree. She coughs, and breath returns to her slowly. He kneels beside her, and lays his head against her shoulder. It’s the first kind touch she’s felt in weeks; the first for him in over half a year. Yennefer leans her head against his and soon he's wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

Maybe, she thinks deliriously, freedom could just be a warm embrace at just the right moment.

“Not bad,” she says when her chest moves more easily, “for being out of practice nearly 7 months.”

He laughs. It’s wonderful.

“Not bad for someone with ‘broken’ chaos.” He leans back to look at her, and then at their surroundings. “I…” he frowns. “I know where we are.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I don’t.”

“It’s. Ah. We’re in Kaedwen. Near Ard Carraigh. It’s near Kaer Morhen,” he gives by way of explanation.

“Of course,” she groans.

“Let's... let's get to an inn, I'll find us a room. Rooms? We’ll figure out payment later, but you need rest. If you’re willing to extend the peace treaty a little further, that is?”

She looks at him and chooses to believe it's chaos that puts her heart in a viselike grip and squeezes, not something in his eyes.

“I can go a little further,” Yennefer says, and lets her eyes fall closed as a breeze kisses her cheek.

#Yennskier #Jaskier #Yennefer #Yenskier #There's no confessions of love or anything but there are. Emotions. Happening #Fuck Nilfgaard 4 real tho #Violence #Vomiting #Whump #(loosely)#From the Inkwell #witcher fanfiction #ButterBard's FebuWhump #FebuWhumpDay3

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