“You don’t want to be a hero, kid.”
“What? Why not?”
“I’ll tell you, but you have to promise to listen.”
“Yeah, alright.”
“Good, then listen closely.
“The hero’s journey, it’s a tough one. Maybe you dream of being a hero and work towards that, maybe you had no choice, either way it’s an uphill battle. But you work hard and survive and slowly you see change. And the higher you get, the more things you can change. The more people who will listen to you. Little by little, you do bigger and bigger things.
“And then one day you do it. The thing that tips the scale. You defeat the villain, you save the world. You’re the hero. But now you’re at the top, there’s nowhere left to go. Now instead of a far-off dream, or a worthy goal, it’s an expectation. Of course you save people, you’re the hero. Of course you’ll defeat the latest evil, you’re the hero. No one could have done it but you. No one will even try.
“And pretty soon you realize it’s not a mountain, it’s a pedestal. Far above those who you protect, unable to reach out as the distance grows further. No way down. But it’s alright, they say. You’re their hero. Everything they could want and more. They know who you are. They think they know who you are.
“And suddenly you are larger than life and that pedestal is just a bit too small. Every misstep crumbling another edge off as you fail to meet their expectations. Every truth destroys their image of you. And you cling to what little support you have left, what friends have stuck with you through all of it, but what are they against the tidal wave of public opinion.
“So you put on a show. Even though after all this time you know a losing battle when you see one. Surely if you just meet their expectations, if you just contort yourself to their image, they will love you once again. But it’s exhausting and impossible and soon your mask crumbles just as quickly as your fame.
“And then you realize there is a way down. But surely you would not risk the Fall, right? It would be a betrayal. To yourself, to the people who helped you here. The people who hold you here. But didn’t they betray you first? Don’t they ask too much of you? And you’re so very tired.
“It will hurt.
“But so does clinging to the last vestiges of your name.
“And it will only be for a bit. But you’ll heal, you’ve done it before. Pulled yourself up from nothing. And then you’ll be among your people once more. Just another one of the crowd that you fought so hard to leave and now sounds like the only sanctuary left.
“Maybe it’s worth it.
“But what you don’t know. What you can’t know until you take that leap. Is just how very far down it is. How you’ll never quite heal from the landing. And how everyone will see your scars and look on you in disgust. They cannot imagine how you could do that to yourself. How you could inflict your marred presence on them.
“Sure, you’re among them again, but you’ll never be one of them. And now you’re within reach.
“You can stop being a hero, but you can never stop being Other. And those who are so different, without the protection of being loved, can only be one thing in a story.
“The villain.”
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jack, new years day, the pond
The Pond, Jan. 1
Jack breathes in the freezing air as he laces up his skates and it feels like he’s home.
Two years ago he was in Montréal with his parents, a mere eight months from his overdose, still feeling like an open wound – a sharp-edged pain.
Last year he was four months into coaching the midget team, two months into waiting for Samwell’s early decision to come back, feeling like a scabbed-over wound – tender, but only when pressed directly.
This year, he’s at Samwell, back on campus part way through winter break because of hockey practice, feeling like a childhood scar – healed, pain lost in the passage of time.
He steps out onto the Pond and takes a few easy laps, warming up his legs, finding patches to avoid, tipping his head up to soak in the weak winter sun.
Hockey practice isn’t until tomorrow, but Jack couldn’t stop himself from getting out on the ice. He’d considered going to Faber – Johnson had shown him where the extra key was—
If he was home, he’d be outside on the ice rink his dad set up every year.
If he was home, he’d be getting the hot chocolate ready with his mom in the afternoon to watch the Winter Classic.
He’s not home, but he feels more settled with each lap of The Pond.
Jack does drill after drill, working up a sweat, creating his own footwork and spins to challenge himself. He’s just about to start another round of suicides when yelling from behind him makes him pause.
“Jack you beautiful Canadian moose, what the fuck are you doing?!”
His mouth quirks up at the corner at the sight of Shitty.
“What’s it look like?” he calls back.
“Pracky doesn’t start again till tomorrow! You should be doing literally anything else.” Shitty tries to sound stern and disapproving, but his mouth doesn’t work like that. Plus, he’s got his own skates on and is gliding out to meet Jack in the middle of the ice. He reaches Jack and almost sends them both toppling over with the force of his hug.
Jack steadies them with a small smile at Shitty’s enthusiasm.
“I just wanted to be—”
“On the ice, yeah, yeah,” Shitty completes with a faux-exasperated tone of voice.
“Can’t help it. Plus we always skate on New Year’s back home.”
“Twist my arm, why don’t you?” Shitty says. “Half an hour more and then we go get Jerry’s before heading to The Haus to watch the Winter Classic with the team, deal?”
“Deal.”
He’s not home, but Samwell feels like it could be.
_X_ _X_ _X_
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The Midnight Train (Going Anywhere) • [AO3]
Teen | 1.3K+ (WIP) | Malvil | Romantic Fluff, Humour, Dating, Travel
A/N: This was inspired by the travel vlogs from Solo Solo Travel (on Youtube) which I like watching a normal amount and a bounty of excellent conversations with my beloved @villainsnest, who is the primary audience for this fic, why lie... but I hope y'all like it, too. ;)
CW: The only thing of note thus far is Vil's anxious thought processes and implied self-worth issues.
Chapter One: Prologue
Tonight, the moon looks twice as full as it should be. Maybe it’s just that Vil’s mind is full to bursting and he feels so small in the face of the question of, Should I? Should I ask him? He holds tense, with his arms around him, knees to his chest as he lays on his bed, staring out through the glass doors to his empty, moonlit balcony—
There is no one there, but any minute now, there might be.
“Malleus,” he murmurs—says the name like practice, like the start to a question, but there is nothing else. How will he ask what he wants when he can’t even say it—not even here alone? He’s so choked up.
With a groan of frustration, he rolls onto his stomach and stretches his limbs out, pounding fists into his mattress in a silent tantrum.
His cat, white and long-furred, on the ledge of a window across the room, turns her head to regard him with a judgemental stare. Mrow, she remarks, and when that is not acknowledged, she stands with an arched back, fur fluffed in indignation, and leaps down onto the rug.
Vil lifts his head from where he had buried it amidst the folds of his duvet. He cracks a smile to see his cat there on the edge of the bed, posturing proudly but clearly seeking attention. He clicks his tongue for her to come and offers a hand, which she draws nearer to sniff at; finally, she relents and indulges her desire, pushing into Vil’s palm and purring loud with contentment—
“You’re beautiful,” Vil whispers as he strokes her down her spine.
They lay like that a while in the dark and quiet, peaceful enough to simply drift into dreams—if Vil were tired at all, or at least his mind were quiet, too. He might stand a chance, then, but not like this—
He is haunted by the question. That, and whether he’ll even ask.
Again, he buries his face into the folds of his duvet. He sighs in a way that seems to empty his lungs. Still, his fingers weave slowly through the silk of his cat’s fur and he finds comfort enough there that he doesn’t despair long. No, instead, an idea strikes him—
“Prada,” he whispers, looking up into his cat’s eye’s. They are slits when he finds them, but he repeats her name and she blinks them partly open, showing slivers of emerald. “I need your opinion on something.” His voice is soft but serious. “Will you be honest?”
Prada opens her mouth—then simply yawns.
Unfazed, Vil presses on: “Meow once if you agree to be honest.”
Mrow, comes the delicate answer, just as quiet as Vil is speaking.
He nods and pushes up onto his elbows, glancing out to the balcony beyond the glass doors before he leans down into Prada’s face, their noses touching, conspiratorially close now—
“I want to ask Malleus on a date,” Vil confesses to the cat, who slow blinks as she listens. “I mean, a real date, off campus—as far as we can go, just the two of us.” I hope. He won’t insist on it, of course.
“I was thinking…” He trails off, biting his lip before remembering himself against the impulse. It’s an ugly habit and he won’t excuse it, even alone in his room like this. “There’s a train with private cabins that goes down the coast. No one would bother us…”
He sounds wistful, even to himself, like it’s just a daydream and not a real possibility—not a trip that he’s researched and budgeted for, not a trip that he’s ready to pack for if Malleus will just say yes—
Well, but he has to ask first. That’s the problem.
And should he ask at all, or is this too much, too soon—too unreal to even consider that Malleus would want this, that he wouldn’t just…
“Ugh,” Vil groans, his frustration mounting along with his nerves.
He’s not one for divination, but this isn’t the same, he’s certain—
“Meow once if you think I should ask Malleus on this trip with me.”
Prada stares at him coolly, flicking her tail tip.
“No, you’re right, that was rude of me.” Vil scratches under the cat’s chin in apology. She purrs in response, closing her eyes contentedly. “Prada, please meow once if you think I should ask Malleus on—”
He’s interrupted by two meows in quick succession, at which he withdraws his hand with a scowl. “Now you’re being rude, miss.”
Prada bats at his hand on the bed, claws half-unsheathed.
“Listen, this is serious.” Vil moves to sit up, one hand braced against the mattress as he shifts into a relaxed, cross-legged position in front of Prada. “You like Malleus, don’t you?” Prada chirrups agreement and Vil smiles softly, reaching out to stroke her neck. “Well… I do, too,” he tells her, “so it’s important I make the right choice, princess. You understand, don’t you?” He looks searchingly into green eyes.
Prada chirrups again and bumps her head against Vil’s wrist, then rolls onto her back to expose her belly, blinking up at him sweetly.
Chuckling, Vil just shakes his head. “You know I’m not so foolish.”
A coy little mrow is aborted as Prada’s pupils go suddenly wider and her ears flick toward the balcony. She rolls quickly back around and leaps right off the bed, tail swishing madly once she hits the rug—
Vil straightens where he sits, heart thudding in his chest. Malleus is here—or will be in a minute. He fists at his duvet, holding tension all over. He needs to relax. He needs to make a decision. His thoughts are like wild birds locked up in a cage, all fluttering and screeching—
Breathe, he thinks, inhaling deeply and closing his eyes. Just breathe. He exhales and unclenches his fingers, moves his hands to his lap.
When he opens his eyes, there’s a figure on the balcony, silhouetted by the moonlight. Prada is pacing and frantically vocal. She looks to Vil, then outside, to Vil again, then back outside. Invite him in already.
The door is open, but he needs this. He needs to feel wanted.
Vil understands.
He slides one leg off toward the edge of the bed, moves slowly with a mind to grace. Not just that. He doesn’t want to look desperate, or like he was waiting. But of course he was. Of course he always does, every night.
Vil steps into his slippers and crosses over the rug, into the reach of moonlight streaming in through the glass doors. He takes the handle and turns it, still not sure what he’ll do—though he’s sure what he wants, yes. He’s always known what he’s wanted, especially since…
“Mal,” he greets, looking up into green eyes, faintly aglow.
Malleus seems to appraise him, taking in his dark blue leggings and oversized t-shirt. “Did I wake you, Schoenheit?” he asks with a faint smile. His face is in shadows with the moon just behind him, but Vil has known him long enough know to hear a smile in his words—
Not just any smile either. He’s teasing, the bastard.
Vil scowls and turns his nose up, placing one hand on his hip. He’s about to retort when a loud yowl at his feet has them both looking down.
“Oh,” says Malleus with a chuckle, low and rumbling in his throat.
It’s not so unlike a cat’s purr, Vil thinks not for the first time. He watches Malleus stoop and murmur greetings to Prada, easily coaxing out a purr and other happy vocalizations—
Vil’s not jealous of his cat, or the fact she likes Malleus better than him, but he does clear his throat and say, because it must be now, because he cannot waste this courage: “Mal, I was wondering…”
Thank you for reading! Reblogs are always appreciated. If you’d like to leave a kudos or comment on AO3, I’d really love that, as well! ♥
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a long ramble on my sasha wing au brainrot
there was a request and I am nothing if not eager for an excuse to ramble-
(Spoilers for all seasons of RQG, and I guess the fic if I ever write it, Idk, writing is hard)
sometimes people are born with animal features, such as wings, tails, unusual markings, etc. it’s rare and nobody really knows what causes it. Fey? Wild magic? Whatever it is, the Meritocrats don’t know, and they don’t like rampant magic things going around they can’t control, so for whatever reason (maybe them directly or maybe just subtly over time), these features are generally considered to be bad omens, and people who have them tend to hide or remove them.
Sasha was born with wings, but in Other London most of this info isn’t common knowledge, she just knew that there was no room to fly and wings made her too easily identifiable, so she always hid them under clothes (they fold up pretty small, it’s magic dw about it). She never learned to fly, she could use them to slow herself from falling a bit but that’s it.
she initially doesn’t like them much, for the above inconveniences, but she’s very protective about who gets to see them or know she has them. She keeps them covered from everyone in the party, after the channel crossing she lets Zolf and Hamid see them, Bertie never finds out about them (thank goodness for bad perception checks)
in Paris she’s comfortable enough around the gargoyles to let them out, and they give her a few pointers on how to fly, she also figures out a way to manipulate the magic leather jacket so she can extend her wings through the back of it if she wants to get them out quickly, because if magic clothes can fix themselves and resize to every wearer then why not be able to pop out wings through em?
this is where it goes even more canon divergent because I’ve decided to just put all the things in one au, so as the airship is ascending she second guesses abandoning Wilde, because they really did put a lot of work into him not dying and it would be really inconvenient and his illusions really were cool, so she tells Zolf she’ll meet them in Prague and flies back to the ground. she and Wilde escape Paris together, at one point she accidentally reveals her wings by reflexively covering both of them from debris, and he doesn’t make any puns or comments on them. (which does a lot for her trust)
so they end up on the way to Prague, probably by train so they end up spending a few days together traveling. she starts bleeding from her scars and loses some feathers, they don’t have any healers with them but she gets by on healing potions. this is also when Wilde stops sleeping and uses potions/coffee to get by, which she notices, but neither of them want to talk about their respective things so they ignore it, when they do talk it’s mostly light stuff like puns, she trusts him enough to offer him borrowing a dagger just in case something happens on the way, their friendship is just really important to me
they arrive in Prague at the start of The Day That All The Things Happened, Wilde goes to the meritocratic offices before knowing the situation, Zolf’s already gone, she doesn’t have time to process because there’s so much going on and also forgets to tell Wilde anything because of it so he still misses everything, she also doesn’t know about Bertie’s ring and ends up struggling to keep herself away from him all day, which finally culminates in the opera and having two magical compulsions dragging her towards the stage, powerful enough that against her will she lets her wings out so she can fly to them, and being forced to show them in front of all those people is very traumatic for her so she gets even more protective over them after that
(she’s too out of it to really pay attention to the plot the rest of that day because it’s only then she finds out she’s undead, probably misses Bertie’s will entirely, but Wilde bullies his way into the university before the cult of Mars shows up, and makes sure to help her hide wings before anyone else comes in. he’s still annoying to Grizzop but maybe gets a tiny bit more sympathy for defending Sasha)
(continues under the cut bc s3/4 spoilers)
I haven’t figured out everything in Cairo or Damascus, but in Rome it diverges big again, when she’s falling in the dimension shift she manages to throw/fly herself forward into Grizzop and send them both flying sideways, which hurts so much that she passes out but he catches her, and in my brain the direction of falling changes it so instead of going to wrong time it goes to wrong place, so they fall out very conveniently in Korea about three weeks travel from Okinoshima. (her scar from passing out again is her feathers go white at the ends, as well as developing chronic pain in her wings, so it’s much more difficult to use them)
they struggle with language barrier but manage to find out where they are and get there at just about the time the party is getting back from Shoin’s, since they don’t know where else to go aside from where Wilde had said to meet up before the timeskip, and they go through quarantine with everyone else at the inn.
from there I haven’t decided the entirety of how s4 goes, especially since Grizzop is really hard to write and should probably change the plot just from being there because of how he is? Maybe?? I also have multiple ideas of how certain plot points could go and it’s very hard to pick just one
(mainly 174 I have a lot of variable ideas for)
(and some for 206-208)
(the urge to write suffering vs the urge to have everybody live..)
(also the body swap, I have vague thoughts of Sasha and Wilde switching? because he did still seem to get magically put to sleep despite the cuffs so if there was someone to swap with maybe he would have been able to. If they did swap Wilde would be insufferable about being able to do magic again, but respect not using Sasha’s wings without permission, and Grizzop would be v ready to murder if he did anything at all, Sasha would mostly be uncomfortable with being so tall and so much slower)
generally she has a great time on the airship anyway, at some point is comfortable enough to let everyone see her wings, or at least most of them
I do want her to survive to the end of the series if nothing else (and possibly change how the finale went in certain ways but I haven’t figured out how—maybe her being there puts a fey/wild magic influence in that changes how magic works in some way? Persephone? Persephone related to fey magic?? hmmm)
also she and Cel get along great and she helps with building the airship (mainly in the carrying things to places they tell her to department but she’s interested in figuring out how it works), they show her how to make better bombs too, she also makes friends with the kobolds and absolutely gets in on Hide the Fang and y’know if she can start picking up Latin supernaturally fast why can’t she also pick up Draconic or Japanese to have kobold chats
also also Wilde was born with wings too, but his family had them removed when he was very young, he has no memory of having them but still has scarred ridges on his back where they should be. when he dies and comes back they’re also restored
lowkey decided that the resurrection doesn’t change wing colors either because if Sasha dies I still want her to have black wings, but it maybe makes them go white at the ends for Wilde too
Wilde and Zolf still have their thing somewhat in the background too of course, Wilde and Sasha are just also really important to each other
(I really didn’t start out intending for it to be so much of Wilde and Sasha but they are my favorite characters so I may be projecting)
Idk how to end this- thanks for reading if anyone got through all that XD I have no idea how to discuss things over tumblr but I would love to, or hear thoughts/criticisms/anything etc., genuinely I have done nothing but think about Sasha and wings for so long and am losing my mind
tl;dr sasha has wings and i guess it fixes some stuff and she is so loved
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