Prompt 102
Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath. In for ten seconds, out for eight. Alright. Okay. “Let me get this straight,” he didn’t motion to the three teens- or not teens even if two apparently looked like they were- but it was a close thing. “You-”
Phantom perked up, white hair flickering with what he was pretty sure were stars as they turned away from the window looking out into space. “-are two years old.” The fae-esque being who looked more like a fourteen year old gave a half-distracted nod. Which, for a toddler, they were paying attention pretty well.
“You-” Klarion looked up from where he was fiddling with the cuffs that had been on him, cat sprawled on his shoulder now that it was out of the carrier. “-are six?” Another distracted nod, the apparently-child seemingly enamored with the sounds the cuffs made when they clinked together.
“And you-” He turned towards Marvel, who shrank back before seemingly steeling themself. “-are in fact ten.” The… well they had thought demigod but apparently all three were some sort of realms-being, which had apparently made Constantine pale and start cursing before stomping out of the Watchtower. Another nod and shaky thumbs up.
Alright. Okay. They had in fact let a ten-year old join the league, which wouldn’t have been so bad if they had known. Especially the fact that apparently Marvel was only half-human, which suddenly explained so much about how he didn’t know so many things about a human life. Which-
“You,” he turned towards Phantom again to make sure he was listening before returning his attention to Marvel. “And you have both lived at least a year in the human realm with human companions, but your-” He turned his gaze towards the ravenette in the center. The six year old apparently. “-experience with the human realm is literally just with the Light.”
Yet another distracted nod. Okay. Bruce was tempted to scream in a room for the entire situation that had cropped up from the single action of taking Klarion’s familiar and then the boy himself into custody. Then again, it was honestly a much better thing they had apparently caught this.
“Alright,” he sighed, suddenly feeling incredibly exhausted. “To make sure I have all of this correct-” Because it was already a shitshow and the amount of shouting had absolutely spooked the child. To the point he’d- according to Marvel- made what was apparently some sort of very distressed noise that had made both him and Phantom running. Or rather flying and portaling.
“-in the realms, people there make friends through fighting,” Bruce pauses to make sure he got that part correct. The origin of this entire misunderstanding with the chaos-lord. Lordling?
All three nodded, Klarion losing interest in the cuffs and starting to pet his cat. Familiar. Everyone had referred to it as a familiar and Marvel had appeared utterly horrified that they had taken said familiar away. Somehow he was the one the trio were currently trusting and weren’t doing the same towards any of the other league members.
“And you have been trying to make friends with the Jr team, which they have been taking as an attack due to this miscommunication.” Honestly they should have gotten more information, though he couldn’t exactly blame any of the teens, what with everything they were currently dealing with.
“... is there any sort of guardian or something you might have, that can be contacted? Or anyone that could help prevent a situation like this from happening again?” All three avoided his eyes, suddenly finding things like the table and walls very interesting.
Oh. Hm. This could be a problem.
3K notes
·
View notes
Dumb SVSSS thought of the day is Xuan Su being one breakthrough away from cultivating a human form and making its (his?) newfound ability to speak aloud to other people everybody's problem.
Unity of the Sword cultivators give more of themselves to their bonded blades than people cultivating other paths, because they have to cultivate together with the sword, as partners. It's both a blessing and a curse, making their swords more... aware. It's not unusual for Unity swords to ascend with their masters or to cultivate humanoid forms to become something like a platonic life partner.
Xuan Su is an old blade. A powerful one, expertly if eccentrically crafted (what kind of cultivator would choose a zhanmadao when a jian is so much more ethereal and versatile?) and wielded by dozens of prodigiously talented cultivators before.
Each one of them set it aside, finding it too heavy and unwieldy for their ambitions. Each and every one of them died for it. It could feel through the bond as they each fell, the lighter, sleeker blades they replaced it with crumbling like paper under the weight of the destinies they all bore.
If it stopped calling out to young prodigies after its history of losses things would have been... much the same, probably, because Yue Qi has heard about the power of Xuan Su before he stepped foot in the sword hall, but there might have been a chance that he might have heard the call of a sword more suited to his level of cultivation, one that could have grown organically along with him.
The problem is, Xuan Su keeps calling out to new wielders and no amount of warning from Wan Jian's masters could convince the ambitious prodigies to give up on the chance to be the one who carried the famed Xuan Su to ascension.
After losing too many of its people, however, Xuan Su no longer knows how to bond normally. It clings too hard, hooks its metaphorical claws into its cultivator's soul, crawls through their meridians until there's no boundary left between them.
The last three people who tried to take it up didn't live long enough to unsheathe it.
For good or ill, Yue Qingyuan will be the last one to ever wield Xuan Su. It will either ascend with him, die with him or Wei Qingwei will throw it in the Wan Jian forge where the cursed thing deserves to be if it manages to outlive zhangmen-shixiong.
The thing is, however, that an old sword doesn't necessarily mean a mature one. Xuan Su wasn't wielded enough for its spirit to have matured fully. The only cultivator who even entertained it past the first few months of realizing that fighting with a zhanmadao is an unwieldy affair, that they could never become the picture of divine grace hauling around a blade that gave some polearms a run for their money, has been Yue Qingyuan, so most of Xuan Su's personality comes from him.
A thousand years worth of guilt and abandonment issues mixed with whatever traits it borrowed from semi-feral ex-slave teenager Yue Qi when they bonded does not make for a pleasant personality. It would remind Yue Qingyuan of a young Xiao-Jiu, expect Xuan Su has a brand of unashamed bloodthirstiness that can't be replicated by anything that's not made of 5 feet of sharp-edged murder.
It's not all bad. Xuan Su mourned with him when they though Shen Jiu was dead and rejoiced when they found him again. It has been trying its best to help Yue Qingyuan fight his heart demons so he could confess to Shen Qingqiu, even when it has heart demons of its own. They are beyond compatible in the physical and spiritual sense, granting Yue Qi the almost inhuman strength he became famous for. The mental component of their cultivation stagnates, however, because they are trying to split their attention between dealing with Yue Qingyuan's guilt and Xuan Su's abandonment issues and they are getting nowhere.
It's Shang Qinghua who accidentally gives them the push to pick one or the other. ("All right, enough!" Shang Qinghua claps his hands and freezes the dozen frantic An Ding disciples almost coming to blows about which one of their three separate crises should get the most resources. "You," he points at a kid with a missing front tooth. "All resources to your problem. And when that's done, then to his,-" Points at another child. "- and then hers. This way all of them will get solved on time and they will get solved better because you don't spread yourself thin trying to do three different things requiring full focus at once.") They decide to address Xuan Su's bottleneck because it's easier: Yue Qingyuan has already proved that he would not abandon it. They will ascend or die together.
They don't expect the backlash from its breakthrough to knock Yue Qingyuan out for several weeks (it's the bond stabilizing, finally, but his body and core need time to grow accustomed to only having his qi and his life force, all contained neatly within him as it should have been all these years). Weeks while Xuan Su is left alone on the peaks, unsupervised and without anybody knowing that it currently wears the form of a fourteen-year-old boy.
So of course the first thing it (he?) does is slip away before anyone could identify him and goes to Shen Qingqiu. The plan is simple: chew the man out for making Yue Qi sad all these years and then tell him what went down in the caves so he forgives Xuan Su's human and they can all be a happy family together! (A lot of its previous wielders sought fame to be allowed to wed various people they would not be able to marry otherwise, so Xuan Su might have acquired a passing interest in romance. Xuan Su approves of Yue Qi's choice, Shen Qingqiu is a sharp, very sword-like human and Xiu Ya is a very nice, well-balanced sword, but they really keep dragging things out way too long.)
Except Shen Qingqiu doesn't believe that the suddenly appearing feral teenager on his peak is actually a sword spirit. Swords cultivating human form are the stuff of legends and Yue Qi is far too down-to-earth for any of that nonsense. So clearly this Xiao-Su is an orphan his idiot Qi-ge has adopted; he's certainly feral enough to be one. No idea where Yue Qingquan has hidden this child before, but he's not quite presentable enough to be among the Qiong Ding disciples, despite the wonderfully elaborate clothes he's wearing. He enjoys food like he's tasting decent cooking for the first time, so he must not have been here long. Shen Qingqiu remembers being much the same when he first got to eat regularly, but hiding it much better, thank you very much.
Shen Qingqiu decides that he's going to keep an eye on his shixiong's charge until the man wakes up, because it's obvious that the kid can't be allowed to wander the peaks unsupervised. This decision has obviously nothing to do with Xiao-Su's instant hatred towards the little beast. Nope. Nothing at all.
Xuan Su eventually does manage to tell Shen Qingqiu that Qi-ge came back for him. Yue Qingyuan wakes up and confirms that yes, that bratty rascal is the great and powerful Xuan Su. They eventually learn about Binghe's demonic heritage and go investigating how the hell that has happened. But not before a few weeks of shenanigans and Luo Binghe accidentally winning Xuan Su (and by proxy Shen Qingqiu, much to the man's annoyance) over by the wonders of his godly cooking skills.
242 notes
·
View notes
[ID: a digital drawing of Dr. Carmilla holding a bloody knife, with hands forming a broken halo around her head. Dr. Carmilla is a vampire, a woman of color with short red hair, wearing a white kimono with pink flowers, and a black vest. She is looking at the viewer with intense glare, and half her face is dark. In one hand she holds a bloodied tantō knife, defensively, and in the other hand she holds a silver cane. Around her head there is a broken golden halo, held by the Mechanisms' hands. Clockwise, the hands are: Ivy Alexandria, Ashes O'Reilly, the Toy Soldier, Nastya Rasputina, and Drumbot Brian. Some hands hold the halo with a flat palm, while others appear to be reaching to Carmilla. There is another hand grasping Carmilla by the sleeve of her kimono, Jonny D'Ville's. The grasp is aggressive, but there is golden light of the halo shining from his fist. The background is dark, the halo casts golden light on Carmilla. End ID]
Dr. Carmilla the love of my life <3
Wanted to finish this for the last day of @drcarmillaappreciationweek but alas I was struck by the demons. This piece was originally part of the "mechs with swords" series that never saw the light of day, but this one specifically I loved a lot, so I'm happy I had an excuse to finish it.
554 notes
·
View notes