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zuppizup · 1 year

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Little Moments 3.0

Previous ficlet

She whimpers, struggling to keep control of her anxiety. Another rolling wave, the boat listing frighteningly to the side, then suddenly correcting. Gasping, she clutches at the rough wood of the hull, pushing backward to try and stop herself sliding around. She glimpses at the churning ocean as the ship corrects, the water almost black and terrifyingly opaque.

“How you feeling?”

Looking up, she finds Callum wincing at her from the top of the stairs. He’s holding on tight too but not with the white knuckle desperation she’s utilising in a vain bid to remain in place.

“Oh you know…” She closes her eyes as the boat pitches and heaves again, her stomach following suit. “Living the dream.”

He snorts softly, sitting on the lower steps beside her. “It’s a pity Zubeia couldn’t fly us across.”

“Who’d had thought being Queen of Xadia would make you busy, eh?” Leaning her head back against the hull, she smiles softly at him, appreciating his attempts at distraction.

It reminds her of their first boat trip together. Back when they barely knew each other. He’d tried to comfort her then too. Looking back, she now knows that was the beginning of the stirring of feelings for him.

It’s almost embarrassing how quickly she developed a crush on him, but as he watches her now, his concern once again obvious she feels the familiar flutters, despite the increasingly distracting sea sickness.

And she feels another wave of nausea that has nothing to do with the pitching ship. This sickness is mixed with shame and the bitter sting of regret. It’s been a familiar companion of hers these past two years. A physical manifestation of the guilt for lying to him, for staying away for so long... returning with nothing but empty hands.

“Yeah.” His eyes wander around the ship and she assumes he’s getting ready to move on.

She tries not to take it personally. She’s not exactly great company right now and while things are getting steadily less weird between them, he still hasn’t really being seeking her out during their infrequent down time.

And, for once, she thinks she'd prefer he left her alone. She’s not exactly excited at the idea of him seeing her throw up, as petty as that feels.

Sighing, she wipes her brow. “Zubeia should really take a leaf out of Ez’s book. Go on more adventures.” She leaves her comments closed. Allowing him to nod and continue on his way to wherever he was going when he happened upon the pathetic mess she is, hiding from everyone else.

Callum laughs quietly at her and her stomach does a flip that has nothing to do with the rocking ship... and then it lurches in a way that has everything to do with it. Scrambling, she gets to her feet, heaving over the side.

She cringes with embarrassment, wishing so much Callum wasn’t here to see her like this. The salty breeze whips around her, and coupled with her violent retching, her hair comes loose of her bun, adding to her discomfort. She attempts to catch the hair swirling around her face, but the boat pitches again and she grabs the rail to stop herself from falling over board.

Before she can react, Callum is by her side. He gathers her hair, pulling it back from her face. She glances at him briefly, then turns back to the side as her stomach lurches again. It takes a few minutes for her nausea to subside and Callum holds her hair the entire time. His other hand is rubbing gentle circles across her back, giving her butterflies in her stomach that are really not helping with how unsteady she feels.

Yet she has no intention to ask him to stop.

After a few minutes, she takes a deep breath, glancing at him to indicate she’s ready to sit down.

Gently, Callum lets her hair go, stepping back a little. “You okay?”

She pouts, slumping down the side and rubbing her hands over her face. “I guess.” Looking at him from between her fingers, she sighs. “Sorry. I know it’s gross. You don’t need to hang around. I’ll be okay.”

Callum shrugs, sitting beside her this time. “You want water or anything?”

“I’ve got some.” She pulls her water skin from beside her and takes a small sip.

“When did you last eat?”

She turns up her nose, the idea of food almost enough to turn her stomach again. “I’m okay.”

“You should have something.” He insists. “Here.” He pulls a piece of fruit from his backpack and offers it to her.

“I can’t.” She can barely look at it, the very thought of food almost enough to set her off again.

Callum begins to peal the fruit, and she finds herself watching him, not having anything else to do. He selects a segment and draws a rune on it, then whispers a trigger word. “Aspiro Frigis.” Exhaling quickly and sharply on the segment, he inspects it for a moment, then presents it to her. “Try it.” He insists when she grimaces at his offering.

She frowns, really not wanting anything but not wanting to disappoint him. Taking the frozen fruit from him she reluctantly pops it in her mouth, sighing a moment later. It does feel good. Icy cold and subtly flavoured. Soothing on her upset stomach. “Oh.” She sighs, leaning her head back against the ship.

Callum flushes a little, continuing to peal the fruit. “Soren had some bad cheese at the mid-summer festival last year. This was the only thing that got him through it.”

“Gross.” She snorts, continuing to suck on the piece of fruit.

“Yeah, I wasn’t quite this excited to nurse him.” He says seemingly without thinking but appears to realise what he said a moment later when his cheeks go bright red.

She feels herself flush too, heart skipping a beat at the prospect he wants to help her feel better, even though she’s disgusting and throwing up. Watching him out of the corner of her eye, she sucks on the frozen fruit, relaxing a little despite the constantly shifting boat.

“Thanks Callum.” She smiles at him, hoping she doesn’t look as awful as she feels.

He smiles softly at her, nodding in acknowledgement. “No problem, Rayla.”

Continued: Little Moments 4.0

Also on AO3: Little Moments 3.0

#rayllum #rayllum fanfic #rayla #callum #rayla x callum #callum x ralya #the dragon prince #tdp #the dragon prince fanfic #zuppi fanfic #fic: little moments #tdp fanfic #tw: emetophobia #mild reference to sea sickness/nausea

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arcadianmoonshadowjedi · 1 year

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I know we’re all super excited to have Nyx back so that she can play love doctor and bring Rayllum back together again, but one of the biggest questions I have is how will Zym react to seeing her again?

Here’s a screenshot of sleepy Rayllum and one feral baby 🤣

#tdp zym #azymondias #tdp nyx #rayllum tdp #tdp rayllum #the dragon prince rayllum #rayla tdp #tdp rayla #tdp callum #callum tdp #callum x ralya #the dragon prince #tdp #the dragon prince spoilers #tdp spoilers #the dragon prince mystery of aaravos #the dragon prince season 5 #tdp s5

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lovelysheree · 4 years

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Baby Callum comforting baby Rayla

#rayllum #tdp #the dragon prince #rayla #callum #rayla x callum #callum x ralya #baby!callum #baby!rayla #comfort #comforting #baby #toddler

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voicesofforgottenghosts · 5 years

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soren and rayla when claudia flirts with callum. can’t tell me those ships are not real.

#the dragon prince #soren x callum #calren #callum x ralya

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krysanthii · 5 years

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Hey guys, sorry to bring this up but Aaravos is the absolute villain of this story and here's my half-assed explanation why. Looking back at the narration that revealed to be Aaravos when we first see his hands

He is the one telling the narration of the opening theme

Then later we see his face

Yeah... This struck me pretty hard because it got me remembering another character who was also the narrator of the story and revealed to be the villain

youtube

This is from one of my favorite anime Berserk 1997! The narration also follows the same format only revealing the hands and not the speaker until the very end...

IT’S VOID!!!!! He is the most powerful the evilest, frightening, diabolical character in the entire series. Void is omnipotent all powerful interdimensional demonic god who basically obliterates everyone in the end and if Aaravos is anything like him and TDP writers based his character off Void’s, oh boy we are in for a ride!!!

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whatusernamex3000 · 4 years

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If you think about it, Ralya x Callum are just Dr. Doppler x Capt. Amelia.

Tell me you can't picture Callum and Ralya in a bind and Callum casts a spell without looking and it hits a tree branch or something and takes out all the bad guys.

Rayla just asks "Did you mean to do that?"

While Callum looks awestruck at his hand responding, "Oddly enough I did."

Same vibes.

Not to mention when Amelia is hurt and says Doppler has beautiful eyes and he shouts "She's lost her mind"

But for rayllum Rayla would say "You have the cutest ears" in which case Callum would yell that she's losing it.

#rayllum #Amelia x Doppler #treasure planet #tdp #the dragon prince #rayla x callum

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sol1056 · 5 years

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Something I don't understand. According to those stats you posted, VLD has got more or less similar traffic rates as other shows like Castlevania and The Dragon Prince. So why is its Twitter and Tumblr presence so massively higher? For example the trailer for S8 on Twitter has 12k likes, but the trailer of S2 of Castlevania has only got 3.6k, almost just 1/4 of Voltron. I know you said Fandom can't be used to detect actual traffic, but I thought different Fandoms could be compared to each other.

You can compare fandoms, yes, but what you’re comparing in twitter stats vs the stats I listed is the difference between engagement and viewership.

We can determine engagement by looking at traffic on twitter, tumblr, facebook, instagram, and google searches. As google is the only one of those five that has a reach beyond 20% of the internet-using public, I find it’s the best for a blunt-force measurement of audience engagement, which really boils down to “how much people are talking about it.”

Wikipedia’s page views are an extrapolation of viewership. That’s a massive segment of the population who don’t get on twitter, use facebook for family stuff, aren’t into instagram, and have never heard of tumblr (yes, lots of those people exist).

Remember, a controversial show can get people talking but that doesn’t translate automatically to them watching. If you go by twitter stats, S7 should’ve been THE most watched season of VLD ever, ‘cause boy was it blowing up the charts in terms of engagement. Thing is, its viewership stats were just fractionally higher than S6, and still nowhere near S1/S2 levels. It didn’t bring in that many more eyeballs; it just got talked about. A lot.

The other thing to keep in mind is that you’re comparing one show’s seventh season to another show’s first season and a third show’s second season. VLD has had 2 more years to build up its audience than tDP, and a year more than Castlevania (which also doesn’t come with the massive marketing push that DW puts into even its half-assed-marketed shows).

On top of that, Castlevania’s audience skews older, and those of us with jobs don’t have the time to spend all day on various platforms, so our engagement may be as strong but it’s rarely as noisy. (in other words, we’ll miss stuff ‘cause we don’t have the time to go back and see everything in our feed that happened while we were busy elsewhere.) Meanwhile, tDP’s audience skews slightly younger, and twitter is much more a 18-30 kind of platform. So tDP’s audience is either slightly too young for twitter, while its other audience (parents) are just a little older than twitter’s core audience.

So, comparison graphs. Colors for each show in each graph are:

blue: Voltron (VLD)green: She-Ra (SPOP)red: The Dragon Prince (tDP)orange: Castlevaniapurple: Trollhunters (TH)

Viewership stats (via Wiki)

Stats run from 6/1/2016 to 11/17/2018.

VLD’s S1 viewership peaked at about 38K; TH’s S1 peaked at about 21K, same as SPOP over on the far right. Castlevania hit about 72K in its first season, so its S2 drop to around 48K is about standard. tDP managed almost 50K in its first season.

Viewership drops by 30-40% with each subsequent season for the average show; a drop of less than 20% means you have a major hit on your hands. The last season almost always shows a spike, as people come back to see how it ends. If a show ends without that spike, consider it dying a quiet death.

That reality of each subsequent season losing viewers means SPOP is in a really bad place right now, unless it can do a turn-around like TH and have a powerful ending. If SPOP has more than three seasons, by the time it gets to its final season (and that resurgent viewership for the finale), it might barely be a blip on the scale. The longer the show, the higher you want the S1 levels, to offset that expected decline over the seasons.

Engagement stats (via Google)

Here’s the chatter, of people searching for each show (or related topics like toys, merch, news, fic, art, etc). Same colors as above, for each show, for the same time period.

Unfortunately, Castlevania drowns everyone else out by such a degree that we can’t really see much until we get that out of the way. So this second one, I narrowed it down to ‘Castlevania netflix’ to temporarily quiet it, a little.

Compare this to the viewership, and you can see some interesting behaviors. People talked about TH a lot more than VLD, despite TH having such lower viewership stats. There was a major spike when SPOP released its character designs, and kerfluffles get people talking. For VLD, its S3 viewership dropped as in standard but the chatter went up; S3 and S7 came close to matching S1 levels of engagement (for not always good reasons, natch).

Notably, tDP may be somewhat quiet (comparatively) over on twitter, but it’s got people talking, too. If you’re wondering, the most common related search terms are for the cast overall, then ‘avatar the last airbender’ and then Ralya, Callum, Amaya, and Claudia. Going by frequency, Rayla is the most popular character by a large margin.

The dotted line in green, at the far right, is Google’s prediction based on the past few days’ traffic, as we haven’t quite completed the first week. (A query for a year+ gets compressed to a weekly Sun-Sat view.)

Speaking of which, let’s take it down to just the past 90 days, and remove the narrowing filter on Castlevania. This graph has a bumpier view because it’s back to a daily value for each.

tDP and SPOP look very close, and there’s really only a few points difference: tDP maxed out at 43%; SPOP maxed at 37%. (Basically, take Castlevania’s highest-rated day as x, and tDP’s highpoint is 43% of x.) If I narrow Castlevania down again, we can see tDP vs SPOP chatter.

People are talking about SPOP but still not quite to the degree of engagement as tDP. Then again, SPOP also hamstrung itself by releasing three days early without a lot of warning, so it’s possible we may see another spike similar to tDP’s once word gets out that the series is actually released. Or, once early adopters create buzz and lure more people into watching.

bottom line

What people talk about isn’t always what they’re watching. And people will watch and not have the place, time, or energy to chat about it online. All of these shows are on Netflix, too, so no advertising income as a comparison point. That makes engagement a more useful data point, because the income doesn’t change based on viewership.

By that measure, TH is probably DW’s most successful series of these, followed by VLD, and then SPOP. TH is the only one inside shouting distance of what tDP managed it its first season, and none of them come close to competing with Castlevania’s numbers.

Hell, if I were DW, right now I might be having serious regrets of making VLD a Y7 property, considering Castlevania’s M rating. By platform and viewership, Netflix might be the best home for adult-oriented series where stories can explore darker themes. Of all the franchises DW has right now, VLD was possibly the best candidate for taking advantage of the platform. That M rating hasn’t hurt Castlevania in the least, and in fact may’ve been part of what propelled it so high.

#vld #voltron #castlevania #the dragon prince #she-ra #trollhunters #doing the data cronch #sol thinks about stuff

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zakamore1 · 5 years

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My little ship ember I had at the end of last season is now a BURNING INFERNO OWO

Yeah Callum x Ralya is kinda etched into my soul now and I’m not sorry about it

Especially now that it seems next season is gonna have a LOT of alone time for em~ X3

#rambling #the dragon prince

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zuppizup · 1 year

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Rayla still loving Callum drooling in his sleep. 🥺

#rayllum #rayla #callum #the dragon prince #tdp #tdp season 4 spoilers #tdp spoilers #rayla x callum #callum x ralya

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zuppizup · 1 year

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Little Moments 4.0

Previous ficlet

Rayla sits on the beach, sighing contentedly. The sun is setting over the vast ocean and she is finally starting to feel normal again. For the past day or so it has felt like she is still on that damn boat, dry land pitching and rolling even as she knows it is solid.

Her stomach still doesn’t really feel up to too much and the strong, salty food preferred by Tidebounds is a bit too strong for her, but Ezran has found her some fruit which she has been happily nibbling on.

The giggle from behind her makes her laugh, realising she isn’t alone. A gaggle of Tidebound kids have been following her from a distance all day. She knows there is a whole thing between Tidebounds and Moonshadows, the importance of the moon in both their cultures giving them a sort of kinship, but she hadn’t really expected for anyone to find her particularly interesting.

Glancing over her shoulder, she catches a little boy approaching her. He screams in happy fright, turning and running back to his friends not far behind. Rolling her eyes, she laughs to herself as she turns back to the sea. The sun is low now, a bright orange disc slowly sinking below the horizon. Instinctively she can feel the moon rising behind her, steadily growing in power and prominence. It is still a few days until full moon, but she can already feel the familiar buzz that comes with a waxing moon.

She hears footsteps approach and elects to keep her eyes straight ahead, rather than ‘scare’ the kids off again. They clearly have questions and she has nothing else to do but indulge them.

“It’s still a few days before I can turn all Moonshadow-y, you know.” She grins, looking up and expecting to find one of her little followers.

Instead she finds Callum approaching her, looking confused at her apparently random comment.

“Oh… hi.” She feels herself flush and is grateful for the dim light. “I, eh, thought it was one of them.” She nods in the direction of the group of barely disguised children hiding behind a large palm tree.

Callum stops short, looking between her and the children and shuffling awkwardly. “Oh, eh, sorry. I just had some free time so I thought… I didn’t realise you were busy.”

“I’m not.” She answers quickly, not wanting him to leave. He was so kind and attentive during the boat journey here but his time has been monopolised by Tidebound mages since they made land and she’s seen less of him then even Ezran. “It just… the whole moon thing.” Her eyes flicker to the children watching them. “Tidebound kids always want to see moon magic apparently.”

Callum looks between her and the kids briefly, then walks a little closer to her and takes a seat in the sand a respectable distance away. “Moon thing?”

“Yeah,” Rayla hopes the tremble isn’t obvious in her voice. It seems so long since she’s explained anything magical to him, that all part of a simpler time. “Tidebound magic is strongest at high tide, so it’s all moon related.”

Callum furrows his brow, thinking about this for a moment. “Makes sense, I guess.”

“We should come back here at Spring tide.” She waffles on, wanting desperately to engage him in discussion. “This whole place goes crazy apparently.”

Callum laughs, eyes moving around the landscape, beautiful even in the dim twilight. “We should.” He looks back at her, eyes soft. “Maybe as a vacation once all this is over.”

Rayla smiles at him, pushing the scary and morbid thoughts from her mind in favour of envisioning a more pleasant future.

“Miss?”

Rayla jumps a little as a small voice pipes up from to her left. “Yeah?”

“Can you do some moon magic, miss?” A little Tidebound girl is looking at her, all large eyes and amazement.

Rayla sighs, not sure she could resist such a look. The other children hang back and she suspects they sent in the cutest with this request.

“Well… I can try,” She winces, shrugging her shoulders. “But I’m not much of a Moon mage.”

The little elf claps and looks over at her friends, who rush to join them.

Taking a deep breath, Rayla glances at the moon. It is low on the horizon, looking impossibly huge and she hopes the illusion is enough to help her make this spell work. Taking a deep breath, she draws a simple rune and speaks the trigger word. “Mystica Aurora”

Opening her eyes, she sees shimmering lights dancing before her. The children squeal in delight as she blows the gentle illusion closer to them. It dances on the breeze, like it has sentience, and begins to float away.

The children squeal in excitement, chasing after the illusion and pay her no more mind. She laughs, rolling her eyes before glancing over at Callum.

He’s watching the children or the illusion, she can’t tell which. His eyes suddenly move to hers and she thinks she sees him smile in the low light.

“You never mentioned you were a mage.” He speaks softly, and by the way he’s looking at her, she feels like those words have perhaps more meaning to him than they have to her.

He did confess to her that she was the first person to call him a mage… and how perfectly he felt that title fit him. How he’d felt… useless before that. Like a failure of a prince.

Were those her exact words to him? She can’t remember, the moment not nearly having the same level of importance to her at the time. All she remembered from that exchange was him yelling into the tunnels and her inexplicable urge to shush him with a finger on his lips.

She flushes at the memory, the whole thing imbued with such importance now so many years later.

“I’m not.” She states plainly. “I can just do a few dumb tricks.” She’d never had the talent for magic that she had for physical pursuits and she’d always felt embarrassed by her fumbling attempts. Even mentioning the illusion that disguised Zym had seemed silly at the time.

Callum ponders this, looking like he’s perhaps going to argue before he sighs softly. “How come you never showed me before?” He moves a little closer to her, eyes imploring.

Her heart races in her chest. This feels like an important moment but she doesn’t know what he wants to hear and she’s terrified of messing things up. She bites her lip, eyes instinctively seeking the moon for a moment before she looks back at him. She sighs, electing to simply be honest, even if it makes her sound stupid. “I dunno. Magic was your thing.”

His face softens as he looks at her and she forces herself to look away because she’s getting all those oasis happy feels and she’s definitely going to do something stupid like kiss him if he keeps gazing at her with his big green eyes.

“I like seeing you do magic.” He admits, smiling a little wider.

“Really?” She responds without thinking. Her magic is clumsy, ill-practiced. Nothing that ever impressed anyone back home.

Back when she had a home.

“Yeah.” He nods earnestly, clearly wanting her to believe him. “It’s beautiful.”

Continued: Little Moments 5.0

Also on AO3: Little Moments 4.0

#rayllum #rayllum fanfic #rayla #callum #the dragon prince #tdp #tdp fanfic #the dragon prince fanfic #rayla x callum #callum x ralya #zuppi fanfic #fic: little moments

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zuppizup · 2 years

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Return

He tries to keep awake, he really does. To relish every moment that they are back together but it’s almost dawn and they’ve talked for hours and he’s exhausted both mentally and physically.

And oh, it’s so comforting to be here, with her in his arms impossibly close on the large sofa he keeps in is study. He knows things still aren’t right between them. She’s… off, not quite herself.

Or maybe some new self that he still needs to get to know.

He wants to though. So much.

And maybe he should be more wary of her. Maybe he’s an idiot for just accepting her after she suddenly turned up, looking stunning and otherworldly in his window, the full moon illuminating her like a spirit from another world.

But he just misses her so much. Wants her back so, so much.

They at least have tomorrow and every day after now. They can move forward together.

His eyes feel so heavy as the dawn light begins to soften the room and he pulls her closer still. “I missed you so much, Rayla.”

“I missed you too, Callum.” She whispers into his embrace, her voice shaky.

Taking a deep breath, he presses his lips to her temple as he feels himself drift off to sleep. “I love you.”

~~~

When he wakes it so much later than normal, the room full of light and sounds of the castle outside his heavy oak door. He’s fallen asleep in his study again, which isn’t exactly unusual but his mind is muddled… struggling to catch up before the events of the night previous come rushing back to him.

Rayla, appearing suddenly on his balcony. Apologies and confessions, tales of where she’s been and why she didn’t send word.

He sits up, looking around the room for her… but she’s vanished.

Again.

He gets to his feet and runs to the balcony in case she’s out there enjoying the view but it’s deserted apart from the pigeons he startles into flight.

His breathing begins to come in shallow pants as he races back into his study, his mind racing. Why would she suddenly turn up only to disappear again? What could she possibly have to gain from that?

Did she miss him as desperately as he misses her? Did she just want to see him for a brief period before leaving again? Did she leave him another letter this time?

He races to his desk in search of anything of the like but it’s just his usual assortment of papers and scrolls, unfinished sketches and little experiments.

No letter.

But… something seems off. He blinks, looking around the room before he realises.

The Cube is gone.

#tdp season 4 spoilers #tdp spoilers #rayllum #rayllum fanfic #rayla #callum #the dragon prince #tdp #tdp fanfic #the dragon prince fanfic #rayla x callum #callum x Ralya #I could have gone more angsty… but I need sleep #perhaps tomorrow…#zuppi fanfic #series: speculation pre season 4 musings #zup tumblr ficlets

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zuppizup · 1 year

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And They Were Zoom-Mates… Chapter 46: Wedding

Summary: Callum thought being a graphic designer for a large, multi-national company would be a boring, if safe, career choice Callum thought wrong.

Threatened with a lawsuit over copyright infringement, he has no choice but to rely on renowned ‘Ice Queen’ Rayla from legal to get him out of a nightmare scenario.

This is really the last thing he needs in isolation.

Pairing: Rayla/Callum

Rating: Mature

Chapter: 46/49

AO3 Link: And They Were Zoom-mates

“Can you help me with my tie?”

Rayla glanced at the bathroom door as she continued to pin her hair in place. “I guess? I don’t really know how to tie a tie though.” Securing a small braid around her bun, she checked her reflection at various angles before walking to the bedroom to help Callum, hitching the towel wrapped around her chest as she did so.

He was frowning at his own reflection in the mirror, a tie in each hand and another two slung across his chair. He glanced at her as she approached him, his frown melting immediately. “I didn’t mean help me tie it, I meant help me pick it.”

Read More On AO3: And They Were Zoom-mates Chapter 46: Wedding

#rayllum #rayllum fanfic #rayla #callum #the dragon prince #tdp #tdp fanfic #the dragon prince fanfic #rayla x callum #callum x ralya #zuppi fanfic #fic: and they were zoom mates #sorry it’s late 😅

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zuppizup · 1 year

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In Search of Sleep

Summary: Rayla still gets nightmares about everything.

She’s not the only one.

AO3 Link: In Search Of Sleep

Pairing: Rayla/Callum

Words: ~3k

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

She startles awake, the blankets of her large bed twisted and twined around her legs. As always when she has a nightmare, she is drenched in cold sweat, her heart racing. Wiping her face, she’s unsurprised to find it wet with tears.

Taking a deep breath, she closes her eyes and attempts to push the pain away. The emotions. Push it all deep down and hidden. She had been doing pretty well at that for so long. The nightmares still haunt her but she hasn’t woken this distressed in quite some time. She has fresh fodder, to be fair. New nightmares to add to the repertoire.