#it’s supposed to be the save point in ruins with the leaf pile

[puppyeared]

Happy birthday undertale!!

#it’s supposed to be the save point in ruins with the leaf pile #my art #myart #undertale #undertale 6th anniversary #undertale fanart #ut #utdr #undertale frisk #frisk undertale #frisk #annoying dog #ut annoying dog #fanart #fan art #deltarune #Toby fox

[winterknight1087]

Flower from the Fae (ch 47)

Chapter Title: Happiness or Lack of Energy? Does It Matter? (Ending & Epilogue)

Summary: Virgil likes plants, but when he goes to investigate a plant his friend, Remy, tells him about, he doesn’t exactly check out the plant. Little does he know that the handsome man he meets there is a fairy who is about to challenge the world Virgil knows.

Word Count: 3159

Chapter Warnings: Sympathetic Deceit, sympathetic Remus, cursing, kissing, mention of previous deaths

Chapter Pairings: Romantic LAMP, Demus, Sleep/Picani

AO3 Link      My Writing

A/N: this is chapter 47, so read the first chapter here! 

Well, this is it. Our anxious bean, friends, and fairies are safe and living happily ever after. It's been a journey for the gang and for us. I want to thank everyone who commented, left kudos, or even if you just popped on and read the chapter. You all are amazing! Writing this story and interacting with you all has made my day for the past couple months and once again reminded me what I love about this fandom 💜 I love all of you in this Sand Fam!!

The king was pacing while his two advisors watched. They’d given all the comfort they could and reminded him that the plan had gone well. Magic was not only saved but strengthened beyond what any fairy alive remembered it ever being. Scouts were telling the advisors that the humans believed there had been a meteor or something that caused all the ruckus that morning. There was a message from a witch, who agreed to stay behind, saying they saw the prince and his partners flying. None of that mattered to the king though. Not until a small bolt of lightning struck the mysterious black patch on his floor, leaving a small plant.

Thomas dove for it, while Joan and Talyn jumped. He picked it up, hoping. The flower was missing but honestly, the flower wasn’t as important as the leaves. He counted the four leaves showing that the plan was successful. He let out a weak laugh as he hugged the four-leaf clover to his chest. They were alright.

 ****

 Virgil woke up to immediately be dotted on by the seven beings. At some point, Virgil watched as Remy sprinkled sand on Dee and Remus, commenting that they still had a nice long drive home as Roman ran his fingers through Virgil’s hair. Once they were sure he was alright, they forced him to explain everything. His voice started to crack as he talked about the memories, planning with Thomas, and preparing for the spell.

“Wait, what was the flower supposed to be, if it wasn’t a signal for some rescue attempt?” Remy asked.

“It was a signal, but we hid what it was signaling. The flower was a Trifolium dubium or lesser clover. It’s the most common plant-associated with four-leaf clovers. Depending on the number of leaves, Thomas succeeded in getting the ruins carved, herbs scattered, and potion poured in the circles. Four meant success. Three meant that I was screwed and to hope something happened.” Virgil answered.

“You and plants, seriously.” Dee groaned.

“So, you had literally started the spell before coming down to the lab.”

“Now do you understand that I wasn’t just winging it? Was it really so hard to believe that one oblivious dumbass witch could come up with his own plan and stick to it?” Virgil looked serious as he stared at the sand being.

Remy awkwardly rubbed their neck. “OK, I guess I really do need to learn to trust your judgment a bit more. I’m not saying completely as you are still a dumbass who goes and gets into middle of the night fights with random fairy princes and take advise from random floating voices.”

“Magic, it was magic, so I was supposed to follow it,” Virgil stated, snuggling in closer to his pile of partners. “But, I can take that compromise, so long as you trust the things that I know.”

The rest of the drive back home was spent working some cover story together as Roman insisted some people saw them kidnapped. Which, turned out to be accurate as they ended up having to spend a couple of hours explaining who took them, where they were taken, and how they got away. Both Logan and Roman struggled to not smile when they heard that Karen Smith was taken in as an accessory to kidnapping. Virgil really wasn’t capable of caring about that stuff. He just wanted to go back to sleep.

“Alright, we need to go show a certain father that his misfit is alright before we head home and ignore all the trauma until tomorrow by watching movies,” Remy commented once the eight of them were released.

“Wait, can we do something mildly ridiculous?” Patton asked. “I think we can all use the laugh.”

So, that was how Thomas ended up appearing in a fairy circle with Patton loudly saying bad things about himself to Emile; Roman, Dee, and Remus holding a pizza while loudly singing along to Hamilton and; Logan, Virgil, and Remy ominously chanting his name over a rainbow flag with a tiny black kitten trying to eat the flag for taking her well-earned attention. The Fairy King was very confused, to say the least. The group had a good laugh, at least until Dee suddenly grabbed Roman, glaring at the king. No one was really worried about Roman as the shifter was holding a twig to the prince, but it did surprise them.

“Tell me what you did to my father, pest.”

Remus glanced at Virgil. “I wish I were so confident to call the fairy king a pest.”

Still, Thomas answered the man, already wincing as the tears filled the shifter’s eyes. Remus pulled Dee into a hug and informed the group that they would head back to town and pick up some dinner before they all arrived at Remy and Emile’s house for a movie night. With that, the green man picked his husband up bridal style and started back to town.

“Grubby little peasant,” Roman muttered rolling his shoulders.

“Well, I guess I now know what happened to him…” Thomas muttered to himself before moving over to his son and pulling the man into a hug. “Don’t you do that to me again, young man. I’m not getting younger. I can’t keep having these heart-stopping panics over your disappearances.”

Roman immediately hugged his father back. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’ll try not to. No promises though.”

Logan weakly cleared his throat. “I… This is probably the best time to do this, I guess.”

The fairy handed over a paper to the king and prince. Virgil glanced at Patton, wondering when the fairy had time to write something. Roman went to take the paper from his father, but Thomas immediately pulled it out of his reach.

“I hate to say this to you, but…” Thomas crumpled the paper. “Your request has been denied, Logan. You claim that your relationship with Roman is what caused this entire thing. Yet, have you not considered the fact that you are better at getting this dork to work on anything? To keep him following the majority of protocols so as not to stress you out even more? Yeah, no, sorry. You are not turning in any resignations for this. Now, stop trying to quit your dream job and give me a hug, boy.”

Logan went bright red but gave the king a hug. Patton giggled and tackled Thomas, asking if they surprised him with their summoning. The king laughed and told the medic that it was amusing and that he needed it. Next to get yanked into the king’s arms was Virgil who rolled his eyes, but let the king tighten his hug, thanking the witch for bringing his son home.

Thomas finally turned to Remy and Emile. Emile was awkward and not sure what to do, but Thomas opened his arms and Emile moved to hug the uncle he hasn’t seen in fourteen long years.

“It’s good to see you, Emile. Been a while, huh?” Thomas said, smiling at his nephew.

“I… yeah… Good to see you again, Uncle Thomas.” Emile answered, gulping. “I… well… thank you. I never got a chance when mom was throwing you guys out of the house, but thank you. You… you guys really saved me.”

Thomas’s eyes went wide as he yanked the man back into another hug. “Hey, shoosh, it’s alright.”

Virgil turned to his partners as Thomas softly spoke with Emile. “So, you three going to return home and rest?”

The three fairies glanced at each other before Patton answered. “I think we’re actually going to join you guys in the movie marathon.”

“Wait, Virgil!” Thomas suddenly moved over to the witch. “What happened to your… to him?”

“Dead.” Virgil suddenly felt sick, but the fairy deserved to know. “His own traps killed him.”

Thomas let out a soft huff. “Died the same way he killed Jon. I… I think that’s a fair way to go.”

Roman’s eyes went wide. “Wait, Jon? Jon as in Pa? As in my parents saved you, Virge?”

The anxious man shifted awkwardly as Thomas answered. “Roman, do not blame Virgil for our decision. I… I know it is hard but…”

Roman tuned his dad’s rambling out, looking over the anxious man next to him. He lost his pa at eight years old. Sure, he was proud his pa went out a hero, but that didn’t stop the pain or the wish that he would come home. Years of his dad telling him that pa died saving a kid taken by a mean hunter cemented both the pride and longing in Roman. Now, he knew the kid who his pa died saving was a man he had fallen hard for.

Then Roman thought about how Dee has spent years hating fairies just because he saw some fairy while in the hospital. Could he really do that to himself? To place the blame of his pa’s death on someone his pa saved? Plus, he saw that lab. He couldn’t imagine growing up in something as terrifying as that with only a badly made rabbit as a companion. It didn’t matter who the child had been; that was no place for a child. Roman couldn’t blame them for his fathers’ decisions.

The prince pulled the king and the witch into a tight hug. He tried to put all of his love into the hug, telling the two of them what his voice refused to say. The two immediately hugged back, understanding the silent words.

Remy was ignoring the emotional turmoil as they wandered around. They found that their car was still at the bottom of the hill and they found a pair of glasses. Logan eagerly accepted his pair back and switched his glasses. They kept an eye on the area while their friends and partner talked with the fairy king. It took 5ever, but finally, they left the hill to go home after waving off the fairy king with his pizza.

Remy hadn’t even managed to take a deep breath in of their home before something slammed into them. It was wet, cold, and smelt bad. Virgil started laughing as horror filled Remy’s face as they realized what had happened. Remus was already running away cackling as Remy screeched and started after him, tripping over the fish, before scrambling back up to chase the cackling man.

“Great, now we can start using ‘Remus slapped you with a fish’ expression for disbelief and horror now,” Emile commented, as he made a face while picking the fish off the floor.

“Oh man, I wish I saw that,” Dee said from the hall he just came from, noticing the fish.

“Well, you can always get a good look while you separate the rat and sandman,” Roman said with an evil little smirk. “Be careful of teeth.”

Dee gave the fairy an unamused look, but there was a concerning screech so Dee did run off to separate Remy and Remus. Virgil glanced at Emile, who offered the witch an uncertain shrug, both worried about how pale their friend was. Still, the group went to work, getting everything ready for a long night of movies and relaxing.

Virgil found himself squished between Logan and Patton with Roman sprawled out in their laps. Remy set up Tangled before moving to cuddle their partner. Virgil glanced over and saw Dee already wrapped up in almost all the blankets in the house, half asleep again a humming Remus. Remus gave the witch a wink as he wrapped an arm around the pile of blankets.

The witch watched as the flower was taken and was struck by how much had changed from the day that Remy had sent him to the hill for a simple flower. A smile touched the witch’s lips as his mind reminded him of all the amazing memories he’s made in the past year.

“I had intended to show you the plant I believe you to be looking for, but I became enthralled in your knowledge.”

“I thought you were planning on fighting me?” “I am. I’m fighting hate with love. Is it working?” “Yeah, Pat. It’s working.”

Tiny kitten purred as Virgil warmed up the kitten milk for her. Her eyes were looking around as if she were taking everything in.

Virgil returned to the greenhouse to see Remy grinning as they taunted Roman about his fairy costume. Roman threw a taunt back while his partners rolled their eyes at Remy and Roman’s banter about costumes of all things. They’ll make great friends Virgil thought as he spoke up finally.

His first time in the Realm of the Fae.

The night he came back after running away to clear his head and saw how much his friends had worried about him.

The deal followed by dinner celebrating their new relationship.

Dancing with his partners at the dinner dance thing.

Laughing with his friends over Dee’s reaction to Remus’s glowing green hair.

“You OK, mi amor?” Roman asked, gently taking Virgil’s hand and kissing it, unknowingly pulling the anxious man out of his sweet memories.

Virgil smiled as he leaned forward and planted a real kiss on the prince’s lips. “Yeah. I’m good.”

And for once, he didn’t have to mentally justify that answer, even to himself. He kissed Logan and Patton, hearing Remy yell at them to keep that ‘allo shit to yourselves’. Virgil snuggled in as Logan and Patton squished in tighter, being lulled to sleep, surrounded by his family.

 ****

 Epilogue: 

Years later on the morning of Nov 1st

 “So this is where you spend half of your time,” Remy commented, looking around the stone castle.

“Yes, I spend all that time standing here in the entryway to the Realm of the Fae. Now, come on you lot. I don’t need Logan or Roman accidentally stumbling upon us during the no-seeing each other time.”

The four friends followed the witch down several halls, chatting, and joking about the day finally being here. They arrived at Virgil’s study, a.k.a. his little home away from wedding madness. They entered and got comfortable, discussing the day’s celebrations and events and everything else, while still making fun of the last in the group to finally tie the knot.

Remy worked their magic on the man, making sure he would be the talk of fashionistas everywhere. Emile smiled at the anxious man and his spouse as he gave the red, light blue, navy blue, and purple Ixia on Virgil’s desk some water before giving Gala a scratch behind her ear, careful not to mess up her little flower crown or lavender dress. He glanced at Dee and Remus, who were looking over all the books that Virgil had before his eyes fell on the picture of the polyam’s sunrise proposal, surrounded by an entire hill full of the four different Ixia.

Knock. Knock.

“What’s up?” Virgil called out.

Thomas opened the door and smiled at the five friends. “Just checking on you lot.”

“Roman and Logan still being groomzillas?” the witch asked, laughing.

“Oh, you know it. Roman wants everything to be perfect and Logan wants to ensure you four aren’t breaking any wedding traditions while claiming he isn’t superstitious. Just the same.” He answered, also laughing. “Oh, and Patton wanted me to deliver your flower crown.”

Remy snatched the flower crown from the king before carefully adding it to Virgil’s styled hair, making minute changes, as if the crown would stay exactly as they wanted throughout the day.

“So, how are you four enjoying the Realm of the Fae on this joyous Samhain?” Thomas asked, grinning at his soon to be son-in-law.

“Better as soon as we aren’t limited on where we can go by the groomzillas,” Remy answered. “I do have to say it is odd actually being here over just hearing about it though.”

“Your majesty, it’s time!”

Virgil paled, but stood up and offered an arm to Gala. The cat happily climbed up and curled around his neck, purring loudly in his ear. The king wished the witch luck before heading off to be with his son. The friends followed Virgil to the garden where the witch was convinced half of the kingdom sat in attendance.

“Alright, off with you lot,” Virgil stated, shooing his friends.

Dee, Remus, and Emile went to the front row and took their seats while Remy straightened the witch’s suit again. They were probably just as nervous about this entire wedding as the witch who was getting married. An official came over and started barking orders at them about where they were supposed to stand and stuff Virgil wasn’t really caring about.

“You ready, Vee?” Remy asked, scratching Gala’s ear from where she was perched.

“Well, too late now. Actually, it was probably too late when I asked my partners to join me for a picnic at sunrise on a hill I’d spent months carefully tending to flowers on for the sole purpose of a nice blooming sunrise as I sang them all a cute song about everything we went through and like all the things I hoped for our future and then asked them all to marry me…”

Remy chuckled. “And I’m just glad you weirdos decided to hold the wedding on Samhain so we could come watch.”

“Yeah, well I can’t hold my wedding without my soul-sibling attending and doing the dumb traditional part of giving their little brother to a bunch of fae…” Virgil laughed.

“You said it! You finally said it! I have been waiting for is day for years!” Remy looked close to sobbing in joy.

Before Virgil could answer, the two of them were being sent up the aisle and forced to wait for the three fairies. Patton came next arm linked with his dad. He was in a very soft blue A-line wedding gown, with his wings excitedly fluttering behind him. Then Logan in a dark navy suit with Talyn and Joan on either side of him. Finally, the prince in a pink ball gown walked with the king down the aisle, smiling at his three partners.

Virgil wouldn’t remember much about the ceremony other than feeling his poor heart pound, standing with his three amazing and handsome partners. He would recall King Thomas muttering about ‘don’t let there be wasps’ as the officiary asked people to speak against their marriage or to forever hold their peace. He definitely would remember sweeping the prince off his feet and kissing him, laughing at Roman’s shock that someone had pulled his normal stunt against him on his wedding day no less. He would remember the butterfly kisses on Patton’s cheeks and forehead before placing a real kiss on giggling lips. He would remember Logan suddenly sweep him off his feet to give him the movie-worthy dramatic kiss.

“I love you. All three of you with all my heart.” Virgil whispered as they huddled together in a tight hug.

The End

Taglist: @that-one-nb-kid, @hufflepuffxfox

#Flower from the Fae #sympathetic deceit #sympathetic remus #tw cursing #tw death mention #kissing #Sage writes

[clansayeed]

Bound by Choice ― III.i. A Funeral and a Pyre

PAIRING: OC x OC x OC (Valdas x Isseya x Cynbel) RATING: Mature (reader discretion advised)

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Choice ⥽

Before there were Clans and Councils, before the fate of the world rested in certain hands, before the rise and fall of a Shadow King ― there was the Trinity. Three souls intertwined in the early hands of the universe who came to define the concept of eternity together. Because that was how they began and how they hoped to end; together. For over 2,000 years Valdas, Cynbel, and Isseya have walked through histories both mortal and supernatural. But in the early years of the 20th century something happened―something terrible. Their story has a beginning, and this is the end.

Bound by Choice and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the Bloodbound series. Find out more [HERE].

Note: Choice is the only book in the series not based on an existing Choices story. It is set in the Bloodbound universe and features many canon characters.

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Choice/series tag list!

⥼ PART III ⥽

— Virginia, 1857. It was supposed to be their chance at freedom — their Shadow Kingdom. Instead it has become a battlefield. Tensions rise as the nation whispers of civil war and humans and vampires alike learn even freedom demands blood. No more will they pray to be saved. Not when the Shadow eclipses the Dawn.

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

The Trinity will always be fighting for their freedom. The Godmaker has made sure of that.

WARNING: this chapter contains mature sexual content

[READ IT ON AO3]

Virginia, 1857

They get a fair distance from camp before it dawns on them both. They aren’t far enough.

Perhaps they have been spending too much time around mortal-kind. Not that either man would admit it.

So a fair distance goes just a little but further. Until their ears cannot pick up the din of tin flatware and the crackle of the fire. If they cannot hear their companions then they, too, cannot be heard.

The canopy is thin this time of year — summer long-gone and autumn welcomed in its place in falling leaves and nights that leave bitter fingertips come morning light.

Fingertips that, now and finally blissfully alone, come together in barely-there touches. They know the other’s touch as well as—if not better than—their own. Proven as much in the surety of their actions. In the wordless way their foreheads come together and share the things that should repulse them; the dirt and sweat and gunpowder clinging in vain.

But they know better; know one another better know themselves better than to think something as temporary as the earth beneath their boots could lessen their inevitable desires.

The rugged palm of his forever comes up to hold Cynbel’s cheek — to capture this moment in time and bring it to the reverent place where they keep every other.

Distraught are the souls who are unknown of such rapture, he thinks — and pities them, that they may try to take their god into themselves in words and scripture, but know flesh is beyond them.

He’ll never know what blind faith feels like. He walked in to his faith with eyes wide open and led by a divine hand.

Supplies are low—have been for some time though that is a thought for any time but now—but they make due. Use blood and spit and take their precious time while grass tickles their bare skin. At one point a dead leaf crumbles under Valdas’ palm and the pair laugh at the sight. Find joy in the little moments even after all these years.

And oh, how many years there have been. How is it that each time is as familiar and as new as their first had been? How is he so lucky?

Valdas stills inside of him; eclipses the sliver of the moon overhead as if he was not already Cynbel’s sky and stars. “Does my lovemaking bore you?”

What a ridiculous question. “Never.”

“Then what has you both beneath me and so very far away?”

Ah. He nods, feels the catch of twigs in his hair absently. Runs long fingers up the canvas of Valdas’ outer thigh before gripping it tight to hold them together as only lovers know.

“Do you know something I hate about this continent?”

Valdas barks a laugh. “I know many things you hate about America, my darling. You never waste an opportunity to make that abundantly clear.”

“Fair point.”

“But for the sake of the vice-grip you have on my cock, what do you hate about this continent, Cynbel?”

As amusing as it would be to torture them both for hours upon hours… They just don’t have that kind of time here.

“There are no ruins. No crumbled temples or ill-kept shrines. Well… none that have not been bastardized by invaders but —” but he, too, would seek release at least thrice tonight, “— and somehow the lack of such things makes me miss them all the more. It makes me miss your altar all the more, my Holy One.”

He smiles as recognition can be found in the dark eyes overhead. In the curve of Valdas’ smirk and the way he rolls his hips and brings them together near-seamlessly.

“While I too find myself reminiscing on such glory days —” the man beneath him keens in pleasure, body scrambling desperately to keep him inside but unable to deny him, “— I don’t let them take priority over the now. Especially when now is equally glorious.”

Valdas punctuates the word with a jerk of his hand, stroking Cynbel in something akin to haste. A direct opposition to his leisurely fucking. And while the contrast is good enough to bring his devoted progeny back with him to the present something unfamiliar lingers.

Hesitation. Doubt?

“It… is found equally so Cynbel… right?”

Perhaps before he would have taken such a question as insult. Would have disparaged his god for believing him to be anything other than in a constant state of growing love for him. Before all of this.

Before the war.

Thankfully for them both Valdas knows better than to take his lover’s silence as an answer he may not wish to hear. Resumes his pace and lets it build — lets them build. But his patience has a limit. Cynbel would know… he’s been the test of it for millennia now. He will have his answer before the night is through.

And he does — his golden son’s spite showing through in that he withholds it until Valdas falls atop the length of him, utterly spent and not in the least bit sated. Sweat and orgasm smeared between the places they long to knit together. To become one.

“It is not.”

The body above his tenses, readies to pull away. But it is only in things like this that Cynbel can refuse his Lord and Light. Only in the ways that ensure they are kept close; that they are kept whole and together.

Valdas pulls his head back enough to look up with guarded eyes. Sees mirth reflected back in dim pools of blue and the frustration he feels isn’t unknown to either of them. Though it is usually reserved for their beloved third.

Cynbel cards his fingers through Valdas’ dark hair and continues, “It can never be equally so, never in all our years. Because, my petulant divinity, each time with you is made ripe with age, seasoned with our years and the things we have done together, done with Isseya.

“It is never the same. It is always better.”

It is how they came to start and how they will end.

Though, he thinks — and lets himself fall back into the embrace of the earth with his religion hovering atop him, enveloping him; keeping him safe and giving him purpose in this endless labyrinth of eternity, if they are truly so blessed it will not be for many years to come.

Cynbel always makes sure he is the last of their regiment to enter the mines. Not only to ensure the safety of his beloveds but because it gives him the chance to see the barest ridges of sunrise over the steep Virginia hills. He waits until his eyes burn and send tears tracking hot down his cheeks — and then just a moment more.

He is never more glad of having no need to breathe than he is here. The newest among them still cover their mouths with scraps of cloth as though it is the coal around them they must fear, not the circumstances in which they have found themselves.

Especially to those such as the Trinity. To have wandered the freedom of the undiscovered world only now to cower under piles of stone.

One way in, one way out.

One more thing stacked against their favor in this their war for survival.

The hard-packed dirt makes it impossible for him to settle comfortable. Cynbel tries his best to find distraction in something—anything. And would be lost if he did not have the beauty of Isseya to gaze upon in the black.

She removes her hat and goes about the same routine she always does come morning light. Removes each of the fastenings that pin up her hair with the same care she used to give to the finest silks and fastenings of pure gold. The uniform she wears now does not do her justice — rather the opposite. She makes the ill-fitting coat look worthy of royalty even now.

“You’re staring.”

His smile is biological; instinctual. “Can you blame me? You know I have a weakness for pretty things.”

“Indeed…” she cards through her hair; lets the waves rest and he couldn’t possibly find her anything other than ethereal, “as I know they will be your undoing. You linger too long, Cynbel.”

Yet even as she says it she leans against him. Emotions are beyond the touch of flesh, now. And in this dirty hole no better than the coffins they have avoided for two thousand years… he cannot imagine doing it without her comfort.

“Yes yes — save it. I’ve heard it all before.”

“When you were feeding regularly. And I don’t chide you for stealing a moment away with our beloved—really I don’t. But you’re both fools for choosing not to conserve your strength.”

Their eyes meet in the dark. Held in a gaze of mutual longing… before he throws an arm around her shoulders and pulls her tighter against him. “Careful, Iss’. You almost sound responsible.”

“Someone has to be, what with you two wandering the woods like incubi.”

“What happened to the fun Isseya? I miss her.”

“Piss off…”

Their words may sting but all is soothed in a kiss. Long enough to make the vampires trying to sleep on the other side of the tunnel shift in discomfort — because she still is his darling minx at heart. But without her clear head they might not have lasted this long.

“Where is Valdas?”

Cynbel rests their foreheads close. “First watch.” Immediately he feels Isseya’s anger — holds her ever-tighter to ensure she doesn’t do anything brash. Not much for them to do stuck in here as they are, but he understands. “This is why he did not tell you. Relax, my love, please. We would not be here if it was not a secure place to hide from the daylight.”

The day watch is something they all must endure at one point or another. Such is their duty to the regiment; a task that discriminates on nothing and asks only that you do your part. As they all are doing their parts in this war.

And, as he is quite sure Isseya will agree, he rests easier knowing the one on the front line, the first defense between a den of sleeping vampires and the onslaught of the Order, is someone he would (and has) trusted with his life for thousands of years before.

For example — the scraggly boy who sits across, whose head keeps lolling around from slumber only to wake himself back up — Cynbel would rather place his fate in the hands of, say, Kamilah Sayeed. That boy looks like he can defend nothing.

But surely he looks no better. Starving as he is and now with a night of rough passion to further sap his strength.

One more day of this and they will reach Charlottesville. Hopefully with enough moonlight left in the night to sate their hunger. Even the thought of a neck, warm and not-necessarily-willing, underneath his mouth leaves him craven.

Isseya sees the needless torture in his eyes and at the very least it helps to know he isn’t alone.

Falling asleep is the hardest part. While Cynbel hasn’t slept alone in over a thousand years he isn’t exactly accustomed to sharing quarters with more than his lovers. With more than those he know intimately. Now he is expected to share the daylight hours meant for rest with complete strangers; their faces and stories ever-changing, one swapped out for another with every battle and every loss. More losses than he cares to think about — even if the dead have no one to blame but themselves for their fate.

But like all things it is made easier with her presence. Her touch, her breath on his neck. The Children of Valdemaras cling to one another among the rest and know that they are together.

And together they are made immortal.

It is rare to find a church in disrepair in these times. Faith seems to have an endless strength with which to carry humanity. And with which to draft them for battle, he thinks, and knows he isn’t the only one who finds a twisted sense of satisfaction as they pass the church’s boarded-up front doors.

Charlottesville. The last safe place left for their kind in the colonies — though even those were but a sliver of the developing nation that called itself America. While most cities and towns would be found with barren midnight streets it is the opposite here. Cynbel’s roaming eyes take in clusters of evening gatherers, are taken in themselves by the very same, and they simply know.

They were all summoned by the same man after all.

Even in the midst of a war for their very survival Cynbel finds it hard to believe the Godmaker has even the slightest capacity for compassion. Once upon a time it was simply fact that Augustine cared for naught but his ambitions. But over time all facts from the Old World were becoming irrelevant; laughable superstition even.

He would amend his beliefs, then. Allow for the same leniency Augustine had shown them no more than a decade ago — the wolves let back among the rest of the pack to ensure their species would continue. Would have a chance to continue.

The lists of names in smudge-free care that hang in the foyer, however, would challenge those beliefs further.

Near a dozen frames hang on either side of the corridor stretching back into the heart of Augustine’s Manor. He recognizes the handwriting to be the same from the missive which drew them all to Virginia in the first place. Takes in each name as passively as he does the faces of the flock.

What good does it do him to idolize the fallen? No longer will they accomplish anything worth being honored for.

Isseya’s hand brushes against his; a subtle comfort in unfamiliar territory. One he returns in kind.

“Remember,” she says to him, says to Valdas half a step ahead of them both, “all of this will be worth it in the end. Our freedom will be sweeter than the spoils of this war.”

Still, Cynbel’s upper lip curls in distaste. “I haven’t forgotten.”

“Then look it, perhaps?”

The last page must be a recent addition. The lacquered frame shiny and new and without dust, the wall around it smelling of fresh paint. And inside — a memorial not-yet finished, the last name still an aching distance away from the bottom of the page.

Hung in effigy and removed when the time comes to grow the collection of the dead.

“It’s these names…” Cynbel catches his reflection and stops; takes in the gaunt hollowness of his eternal youth in the protective glass, “they mock me — they mock us all.”

Valdas watches him with an unreadable expression. “They are the fallen.”

“They are the weak.” He corrects, in that moment made no more than men on equal standing.

“Weak enough to fail; to die. There is no honor in only being remembered after you’re dead. Honor me in life—demand more of me than I have already achieved. Instead of… idolizing me in my failure.”

Battles bring out in him the thrilled hunter. Wars, however, have made him old and temperamental.

Valdas’ hand finds his, laces their fingers together sure and strong. Isseya’s soft hand on his cheek is the only thing that drags Cynbel’s eyes from his contempt and to them — he could never look at them in such a way and they know it.

“We are fortunate then to never have to worry about such things.” She reminds him. And it is enough.

Together the Trinity is led onward. Passed what must have been built as a polished office but instead serves better purpose as a war room. Papers and maps strewn on every available surface and then some. The toll war takes on even those as seasoned as the Godmaker brought to life.

One map is hammered into the wall obscuring a painting of some kind. Knowing Augustine — one of his many portraits sacrificed for the ‘greater good.’ He recognizes landmarks and the border territories of Virginia’s surrounding states all hidden underneath spools’ worth of colored yarn acting as… as…

Ah, he understands after the office and map are several paces abandoned. Dark wax seals acting as markers for battles Cynbel himself had participated in… had fled from against everything gnawing hungry at his gut…

Far more losses than victories. Their supply routes bottlenecked — then extinguished. Fewer and fewer safe places to hold down fort through the long summering days to come. Battle after battle has blinded him to the truth now laid bare; unavoidable.

The Order is winning.

The air in the dining room, when they arrive, is a stifling heat. The smell of gas lingering high towards the ceiling. Antique candelabras—remnants from the Old World—stand vigil over a feast of kings. Sweet breads still steaming and the ashy aroma of well-bred meats. Vegetables no doubt from the fields they had just passed through on their journey. All decadent — all utterly wasteful.

All no better than a table of writhing maggots and soured mold in the face of the real hunger that consumes them.

“Valdemaras — how kind of you to finally grace us with your presence.”

Of course the Godmaker’s first words are a snide remark. Cynbel expects nothing less. But to bite the hand that feeds now would be suicide. He bites his tongue instead.

The King and Queen of Vampires take up either end of the long oak table. Guests — an unexpected and certainly unwelcome surprise — litter across the length of it. He can smell the blood in their wine glasses. Reaches out to cut his nail into Isseya’s palm to keep himself in check.

Cynbel doesn’t have to look up to know Augustine is looking upon the pair of them, Valdas’ only children, with disdain.

“I believe I told the messenger boy the nature of this meeting.”

Valdas nods; his chin raised among his lessers but eyes downcast in the face of his Maker. “A meeting of officers, yes. The message was relayed in full.”

“Then explain yourself.” Why are they with you, the question unasked. That he still has to ask in some form or another after all these years…

“Where I go they will follow. Always.”

Always.

But this war has changed more than the Trinity — it has changed the so-called ruler of their people. Gaius’ noise of discontent is only brief; stifled with supper. He waves to an empty seat on his right. “Enough time has been wasted in anticipation of your arrival. Join us and send your ilk elsewhere.”

“I would see them fed after the long journey.”

“Very well.”

Though their devotion is like a brand upon their shared skins — their love as famous as their cruelty, as infamous as the bodies left in their wake — Cynbel and Isseya don’t allow themselves the pettiness that might come with the way Valdas takes his leave of them. They must play their role as their Lord and Light plays his. All of it an act; dancing around a carnival faire for the Godmaker’s amusement.

When the curtain closes they will be free of him. Valdas ensures it with every placating act. He is willing to sacrifice for them — how could they do anything less but the same?

They wait until he is seated. A young boy approaches with a pitcher and pours their beloved his fresh meal. Their eyes meet over the head of a bearded officer and Cynbel knows his beloved will not consume in front of them. In solidarity.

“Leave!” Augustine barks; they do not give him chance to do so twice.

They arrive at the end of a funeral. Isseya recognizes the sight of ashes catching on the breeze; carrying whoever they once were far off and to a better life than the one that failed them.

How very… human. The sight of it nearly ruins his appetite.

In front of a dozen or so gathered stands a lone man. In his hands rests a plain box bearing no carvings or paint. The dead as nameless as the living.

Together they have no intention of stopping — when Cynbel feels resistance in their held hands he even looks at her as though she’s gone a touch mad.

But his beloved girl’s focus is cast over the field of grass to the ceremony. A furrow he does not like crinkles restless on her brow. They keep their distance but, for all intents and purposes, join in.

The leader’s voice carries rich and sweet over them all.

“It is from Her blood we are made anew; given strength and life where there was none to be found. But with each life born another must depart, for only She may live forever. And in that eternity we must believe She will be there to welcome our fallen friend, that She will accept the gift he now gives — Her strength no longer needed in this life.

“In these ill times, my brothers and sisters, the journey seems an unending path. But with each departed Her power grows… And I believe that by the end of this war it will be enough to see Her risen again, to bring Her to us in our darkest hour. Have faith beside me and She will see it rewarded.”

Cynbel would recognize such a reverence anywhere — bastardized by the New World though it may be. Of course the Godmaker had taken upon himself an opportunity that could not be passed up. The First Son of Valdemaras can’t say he wouldn’t have done the same in Augustine’s shoes.

Everyone needed something to believe in. Someone in which to rest their faith when they believed their destiny out of their own hands.

Not all were as lucky as Cynbel and Isseya. Not all were able to see the living face of their god and know the surety that came with it.

Not all yet understood that none could make their path but themselves. Divine intervention would not come unless one took it by the reins.

Or… in Valdas’ case, anyway, the fangs.

“Must we really house ourselves among these fanatics?” Whispers his darling, and Cynbel’s nod is a reluctant one.

“Better than a mine shaft.”

“And not with our heart.”

“He will join us soon enough. Rather in this life than in the home that Augustine would no doubt set aflame if we even tried.”

The look he gives her is rueful enough. Presses a solid kiss to her frown because he hates the sight of it, truly, and they leave the mourners to their invisible Goddess and Her empty promises for the promise of temporary peace.

Inside the barn has been converted into barracks for their like. Windows covered in layers of cloth and boarded up for good measure. Anything to keep the numbers of Augustine’s army. The Trinity exchange looks and know they are of the same mind; that to stay in such squalor is, as he said, “better than a mine shaft” but not by much.

They used to rest their heads under endless skies. After that with headboards of marble, of gold. Sheets beneath bare flesh woven by expert hands until they bled… and then more. Certainly more than the thin cots of stuffed hay and threadbare blankets they take up in this hellish space.

The blood is fresh enough to still be liquid in the bowls they take but only just. It curdles on the back of Cynbel’s tongue to the point where he has to hold Isseya’s hand near-breaking to stomach it. And on an empty stomach it refuses to settle — makes him feel sluggish and not at all satisfied.

Isseya coaxes Cynbel to sit on the edge of a bunk near the back of their quarters. Lets him hang his head while she comes up from behind and eases his uniform from his shoulders. That her touch does not immediately excite him is a testament to how hungry he truly is — but she knows him well enough by now not to take offense.

She’s seen him in the heat of the slaughter after all. Let her nakedness be a canvas of blood of which he was a master on par with the greats of the Renaissance.

They have before and they will again. Together. A trinity.

Though the closed-off space makes it impossible to know for certain Cynbel is sure he can feel morning dogging at the heels of the vampires who finally join them. Their things already resting by besides, some sharing a bucket of well-water to wash old blood from their bowls; they have called this place home for longer than the lovers.

The contentment of their routine disgusts him. The ageless thumbs pressing into the base of his spine eases that hatred only just.

She works him as she always has — down to the bone and further still. His muscles gone pliant under her touch, craven for it to continue. Desperate for the solace only she can provide.

Hands that once slaughtered her own family in the name of the Made-God and his Firstborn… that would have soaked endless stretches of land in blood if it meant appeasing them.

They pretend to sleep before they really are. He pulls Isseya on top of him and she doesn’t resist in the least. Here at least they can sleep comfortable even if it only ends up being the barest definition of the word.

Cynbel hears a whisper that might sound something like “They’ll break the cot that way,” but he’s hungry, he’s exhausted, and damnable hells he’s horny too and Isseya’s no prude but neither of them are in any fit state to be working themselves up right now.

So he lets it slide. This time. But his generosity has its limits.

They’ve gotten so used to the darkness of the mines during their slumbering hours that seeing sunlight stream through one uncovered sliver in the barn thatching is jarring to say the least.

But it reminds Cynbel of better times. Some happier — some not. But all of them better. Better than this hell he cannot even find contentment in. If it were a hell of his own making, perhaps… but it is not even that!

“What are you thinking about?”

The bunk they’ve taken is several cots away from the last of the vampires. And Isseya — his darling girl knows exactly how to whisper so their better ears cannot hear. Usually used for things of a far more seductive and sultry nature… but it works, too, in this.

“What would you wish me to think of?” She smacks his chest none-too-lightly and his laughter isn’t without a cough or two.

“You know that’s not how this works.”

“Fine, fine —” he relents and her heart leaps against his chest in victory, “— but you of all people know my thoughts are rarely so simple.”

He laces their fingers together, would rather she simply find what she wishes inside of his mind. A memory or dream that could take them far away from here and, ideally, with their beloved Lord.

They’re both too hungry, too weak for that. And without Valdas wrapped somewhere around or between them it just isn’t worth the energy.

“You like to think yourself so complicated… but I know otherwise.”

“Oh do you now?”

Her touch slithers downward, grasps him cheeky and knows even weak he can still get it up for her. “I do.”

He can have all of the silent moments he wishes… but she won’t rest until she has an answer — and that means neither will he.

“Oddly enough I was thinking to when we met you, Valdas and I.”

Such a fussy subject when it comes to his darling girl. Some days she enjoys thinking of the last act of her humanity to be anything but. Others… well there’s a growing concern for where exactly she’s grabbing… and how long healing might take in their current state.

So he can’t help but sigh in relief when she finally speaks.

“What brought that on?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Cyn…”

“What does it matter? It’s not as if we could go back to those times. Free of war… of pollution in blood and land. Before the forsaken fucking Order took a fucking continent for their own.”

And there it is. Cynbel raises his chin enough to see the sparkle of knowing, of understanding in her eyes. He may not be as skilled as they in the psychic arts but what he lacks there he makes up for in his memory. In all the things he’s learned and practiced… and one thing he can never forget—will never forget—is the happier times. The simpler times.

“You could not have known their intention to sail to the New World. None could.”

“No… I know that.”

“Then why do you linger on it?”

“I caused the actions that led to this, did I not? Paris, my love, Paris. It put them on the Godmaker’s heels and moreover put him on those of the Colonies.”

It’s a rare kind of talk from him and Isseya knows it better than any. Has her propping herself up on splayed palms and a dark concern in her eyes still like stars…

“Remorse is not like you, Cynbel.” Her curls tickle at his cheeks.

“Think of what we could have been doing these last years. The gifts we could have given you — the ones you and I could have bestowed upon him. The wonders of the other side of the world where all this… nonsensical fighting is beyond us.”

In Valdemaras’ name… what is that look in her eyes? Frustration but… pity? Psychic though he may not be he knows her. She’s angry at him. Why the fuck is she angry at him?

“You spend one breath taking the blame and the next calling it all ‘nonsensical.’ You contradict yourself, my bloodsoaked lover.”

“You know I’m better with actions than words.”

“Yet words show your true colors. Not just red… spare me the guilt, Cynbel. You feel nothing for this conflict but what it has cost us.”

Through his furrowed brow… he relents. “Yes. Yes that’s… that’s true.”

“Only it isn’t enough for you to say it. You must mean it, too.”

He doesn’t have to push her further. Knows exactly what she means… But what they both know is that certain things are just out of their control.

“I will,” he swears; and like pack animals they butt heads, nuzzle their noses, the intimacy of the moment temporarily granting their wish to live outside of time… outside of the things that keep them bound to all this madness, “just as I will spend the decades to come making it up to you—to Valdas—to you both.”

“Swear it.”

“I swear on my life.”

Then Isseya’s hand is in his hair, golden bright on her olive skin. She forces him to meet the same eyes that have served as the doors of death for legions. “Swear on something that matters to you.”

Cynbel hesitates only in that he would loathe for her hold on him to end.

“I swear on your lives. Yours, and His.”

“Again.”

“I swear on your lives.”

She leans down and licks the outer shell of his ear. Immediately takes it back with a sharp pain… Cynbel watches in rapture at the sight of her pulling back to swallow the cartilage whole.

“Again.” The Priestess of Valdemaras demands through bloodstained teeth.

As if he could ever deny her looking like that.

“I swear on your lives.”

“Hey, hey here he is! Over here!”

“Cynbel! CYNBEL!”

“Help me lift this —”

“— HEAVE!”

Laying there choking on ash—ash from hay, from old rotting wood, from his dead kind but not his kin—gives Cynbel a strange kind of perspective on immortality.

He’s never been a fan of self-reflection.

Relief hardens into confusion, into anger at the sight that filters through burning eyes and tears. Not the face of his beloveds but someone else. Cynbel recoils because the mere possibility of death, even a terrible death such as this, is better than what seeing a strange face as his rescuer implies.

Perhaps I am already dead, Cynbel thinks as the face laughs above him, because none other than the Devil himself would separate them, would laugh and revel in his misery. I deserve Hell — for that I could not kiss them one final time…

“What disappointing rumors, Old Blood!” The Devil says through pearly fangs, “that the infamous Golden Son would need rescuing by one such as I!”

The words force Cynbel to stir. Yet… why would he? Why should he? Surely they are each in their own separate voids, to be cut off from one another their eternal damnation…

“Hey—hey! Come on now!” A few harsh smacks to his cheek, stinging offsetting the burn of flames under his heels. Hadn’t he worn stockings to bed…?

“You really gonna let your grave be a damp barn in Charlottesville, Old Blood?”

Unfortunately the Devil has a point. Always knows how best to tempt the vices of sinners.

“My… my bb-beloveds…”

“— would have my head if I walked outta this barn without you.”

Begone, tempter. Please.

Though Cynbel can’t help but wonder where the Devil truly lies this day. Is he the face above shrouded in smoke and flame, the one that hauls the smoldering remnants of a rafter off of him? Or is he the ones who tells him to turn away from the choked-out light of day and slumber deep?

No… no he has seen Hell before—

Hell was watching them swept in a manic crowd and to an uncertain fate.

Hell was screaming, begging through skin splitting open watching her lips whisper a silent “I love you, goodbye.”

Hell was the broken will of a God who would sacrifice every ounce of his pride for his first and only loves.

No. He is Cynbel of the Riedones and he has seen Hell every time they have been beaten and broken against the hard edges of the world. He has walked through those flames and been made molten; hammered into something stronger. This fire, too, will strengthen him.

It has to. For them.

When he reaches out there’s a hand to grab him. To help pull him and the smoldering husk of the rafter up and bat it aside.

The face of the Devil isn’t what he’d expect. But Cynbel doesn’t give himself time to linger on it — some things are a bit more pressing.

They make their way through the chaos; the air like burned molasses. When the Golden Son realizes he is the one slowing them down he only pushes himself that much harder — refuses to be left to die in this… this madness.

Everything is supposed to feel better once he’s left the burning barn behind, so why does he still feel alight? Cynbel looks up and has his answer — eyes stinging the same way they did in the last moments before the mines swallowed them all up.

Daylight.

And if he had hoped for salvation once they were clear of it, he’s sorely mistaken. It isn’t just the barn but the entire field; everything scorched as far as his watery eyes can see.

“What—” gasping for air like he needs it, but what he needs is blood, “—happened?!”

The other vampire scans the smoky horizon with dark eyes narrowed.

“I don’t know. We woke up, everything aflame… the lands reeked of oil. We couldn’t even find cover in the nearby forest — whatever this was it was planned.”

He knows the rage that laces the man’s words. He’s felt that kind of rage — been it incarnate — and were he able to he would feed from it, let it seep into his pores beautiful and righteous.

But even the thought of raising his hand to a sword saps energy from him. His rescuer will have to do.

And if he is as weak as he is…

But Fate doesn’t let him entertain the thought. Perhaps they know the chaos he will reign should such a thought come to pass… should it be true.

“CYNBEL!”

The very sound of her voice pulls him forward on a tether. He breaks away from the man, learns a little too late he doesn’t even have the strength to stand alone—

But she’s never let him fall before. She doesn’t now.

“Iss’…”

Isseya pushes the ash-covered hair from his eyes and the fire that prickles on the edges of his vision is nothing like the fire he just left behind. Cynbel’s lungs are raw but give him the blessed ability to sob in relief. They will burn out here, exposed.

And as they pull back from a kiss of peeling lips and dry tongues they share the same thought. As they always have.

They will not burn without him.

“How did you—”

“I couldn’t —” her voice chokes in her throat, she chokes on the air, “— I was too weak. Too—too weak and…”

She’d fled for help. Even now, especially now, it pains her to admit weakness. His unbreakable darling girl… And she thinks she has to look away, to shed her tears alone?

Their second kiss is harder; more a demand of her. They have demanded so much of one another. To die, to live… to be…

“We must find him.”

“We cannot— not alone.”

But the vampires at her back, stragglers relying on luck as a means to an end? They aren’t worth the time to waste.

Isseya looks over Cynbel’s shoulder, barks an unfamiliar name like an order—like the General she should have been. “Ambrose!”

Cynbel watches as his rescuer turns with a grim face. He recognizes the man, then. How the smoke reminds him of the ash from earlier that night. The leader of the ceremony.

Ambrose waves away a scout and approaches. “You should find shelter before you take to the sun, the both of you.”

“We will do nothing without our own.”

“Not even die, apparently.” Before he can continue there’s a whistle; through the haze they can see the swish of horse tails, the creatures riled and desperate to escape the oncoming blaze but held tight by the vampires clutching at their reins.

Ambrose shakes his head; makes to leave them to their own devices. “Your choices are your own. I have no time to argue with Old Blood! Not when there are others who need me.”

“Ambrose, quickly!” calls one, heaving himself on one of the load-bearing steeds, “The fire’s took up the main house and the well is emptied! We’re wastin’ time!”

The Trinity reach as one — weak as they are but still stronger than the likes of these. Grasp with the weight of ages and bear down on the man before he can take flight.

“What are you—let go of me!”

Cynbel snarls with bared fangs.

“What house?!”

But they already know, don’t they? They already know.

#bloodbound #gaius augustine #kamilah sayeed #playchoices fanfiction #bloodbound fanfiction #oc: cynbel #oc: valdas #oc: isseya #oc: ambrose #oblv: bound by choice #oblv: new chapter #; my fics

[krystalreverb]

Something Human (Fic Preview #2)

A sudden, very violent thought struck Hubert at that moment. Oh, no.

“Besides.... we.... haven't exactly been safe about making love, have we? If you fall pregnant before the war is over, you'll be forced onto the sidelines, and I know you don't want that. We can't afford that. We need you as much as we need all of our fighters, and if the higher-ranking nobles find out, there will be a revolution and likely a bid for my head. Dear Gods, what have we done?”

“You're right, Hubert. We should be more careful in the future. It's been riotously fun, but extremely dangerous at such a perilous time for the Empire. We let our feelings get ahead of our better judgment, and that was a stupid idea when we're so close to reaching our goal.” Edelgard relented. “Though... I'm not entirely sure I even can fall pregnant. Those Who Slither in the Dark....”

“We can get you medically evaluated later to confirm whether or not it's even possible for you to bear children, but for the moment, let's proceed as though you have full reproductive functionality, and take all necessary precautions to avoid a political shitshow.” Hubert cut her off. He didn't like talking about that time. That long, regrettable time, so long ago, when she was tortured, experimented on, cut open, sewn back together in wicked ways.... and Hubert could do nothing. Unable to act, at only ten years old, he could not save her, could not even find her, and he considered it his most regrettable personal failure as her retainer. It was a time that would haunt him deep in his core until the day he died.

“As it stands, as a warlock, I have knowledge of a specific potion that will prevent you from falling pregnant this time around. Honestly, I probably should have looked it up the first time we had sex, but I was in too good a mood to think about it. That's on me; that's my own fault. However, it's been less than 72 hours, so the potion should still be effective, given that I can look it up in what's left of the library after we blew half the monastery to high hell.” Hubert mused. Edelgard nodded. “And, that's assuming we have the ingredients on hand, and have enough time to brew the potion.” Hubert finished, and Edelgard's face fell.

“I'll help you look. Two sets of eyes are better than one. Just tell me what entry to look for.” She said. “We should do that as soon as the Professor's seminar is over.”

“My lady, time is of the essence. We should go now. The longer we wait, the more we risk the potion not working. It's meant to prevent pregnancy; it won't work if you've already conceived.” Hubert stressed. “Obviously by now the Professor knows what we've been up to. Linhardt made that perfectly clear. If I explain the situation, perhaps we'll be let off this once. I'll meet you in the library.” Hubert bustled off, cheeks pink with the embarrassment of having to admit his crime to the Professor's face with his own mouth.

Edelgard went to the library, and found it thankfully still relatively intact after the assault five years ago. She probably should have figured, given that Linhardt spent most of his admittedly limited waking hours here, but Edelgard hadn't really needed to come up here for any reason since they started using Garreg Mach as a base. She went around lighting a few torches and opening a few dusty, tattered curtains to let in the sunlight. She went around straightening book piles and dusting off a few chairs and tables so they'd have a clean place to sit. Hubert quickly joined, his cheeks still burning. The Professor had laughed at him for a solid two minutes, then simply nodded and waved their hand dismissively, still snickering under their breath.

“It would be a purple tome about Potions, my lady. Look for any books on herbal medicine as well.”

“It would help if I knew what the title was, Hubert.”

“My lady, do you really believe that if I knew the title, I would be resorting to a vague description of what it looks like?” Hubert deadpanned. “It's been five and a half years since we were in the Academy. I don't remember what any of these books are called. And that's assuming that bastard Seteth didn't find it and get rid of it one day while we weren't looking. Plus half of these books have been destroyed, either through the flames of the assault or damage from the crumbling ramparts. There's no guarantee the book is even here, let alone we'll be able to make the potion correctly and on time. We can only hope at this point.” He didn't sound too confident, but surely they'd come up with something, right?

Edelgard couldn't contest Hubert's logic. She continued her search. Hubert opened each book and flipped through it frantically, tossing each one over his shoulder into a pile that wasn't what he was looking for.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, in the very back of the dustiest far corner of the library, with the rest of the restricted, forbidden, and forgotten books that hadn't yet been discarded by Garreg Mach's staff over the years, Hubert came across the entry he was looking for, in a 4th century ancient tome with dusty pages and a cracked and crumbling leather cover. The spine of the book was clearly... well-loved, falling apart in chunks in Hubert's hands. Advanced Potion-Making, the title glared up at him in gold leaf on the crumbling spine. Hubert opened the front cover; apparently this book had been owned by a student in the past, as the inside cover was signed in fading, ancient ink by someone named... Henry? Henry Poller? The ink was too faded to read clearly, though Hubert could make out a signature above the faded one that read Property of the Half-Blood Prince. And inside, about halfway through the book, was an entry titled Nightwalker Potion. It was a potion meant to prevent a “promiscuous” unwed woman from falling pregnant and “ruining her family's reputation”. Ah, the fourth century. Hubert nodded.

“Here it is. Oh, good, it looks like we should have most of these ingredients either in the kitchens or the marketplace.” Hubert breathed a sigh of relief. “I might even have several of these ingredients in my personal stores. Fortune smiles on us. How long does it take to brew? Oh, thank any deity that may exist, it only takes an hour. I suppose it was designed to be brewed quickly in case of an emergency such as this.” Hubert took up the book in his arms and gestured for Edelgard to follow him.

She would do so, trotting along behind him while he traveled to an underused supply closet deep within the monastery's many hallways. Once the door was opened, it became clear that this was no ordinary supply closet, but a pantry stocked with potion ingredients. Hubert's personal stores. He opened the book to the page he needed and began plucking various things in jars off the shelves, handing them to Edelgard to hold. Soon she had an armful of jars, all unlabeled but containing various strange and frankly icky things that she was glad to only be touching via a glass barrier. Eyeballs of various creatures, a vial of a red liquid that looked suspiciously like blood, fur of unknown origin that seemed to be riddled with dandruff, and what appeared to be small green pustules that were oozing a strange white fluid.

“The greenhouse should have the rest of what we need. Just carry those for now.”

Edelgard continued to carry the jars as they bustled into the greenhouse.

Hubert began muttering to himself as he plucked up plants and tossed the useless ones away. “No, no, no... there's one.... No, no, no, who let the Professor plant vegetables in the flower bed? Somebody ought to keep an eye on them.... I swear, they're absolutely a lunatic....” He muttered, taking the ingredients he needed and leaving behind a pile of pulled-up roots that the greenhouse keeper would have to either discard or re-plant later. Hubert bustled past Edelgard, who was simply watching calmly, arms full of icky jars. She trotted along behind him while he pulled out a small pewter cauldron from an old closet, brushed the dust off of it, and shot a fireball from his hand beneath it to start it heating up while he read the recipe right there in the hallway, dropping to sit cross-legged on the floor to work, levitating the book with magic near his face where he could read it.

“Shouldn't we move to a better location than this?” Edelgard asked. “What if somebody needs to come down this hallway?”

“We're on the third floor of the monastery, nobody ever comes up here besides the Professor, my lady. Besides, time is of the essence, remember. We're extremely fortunate already that the book and ingredients were all here.” Hubert replied. “It takes an hour and we have a very small window of time. There's no time to set up all my equipment anywhere else.”

“This is true. And I said you were in charge. Brew where you will.” Edelgard acquiesced, simply sitting cross-legged on the floor to watch him, putting the jars down next to his feet for ease of access.

Hubert stirred the potion clockwise several times, counting his strokes under his breath, and muttered incantations over the cauldron. It boiled and bubbled and stank in strange colors and iridescence throughout the entire process, and Edelgard couldn't quite ascertain how it was going by the increasingly stressed expression on Hubert's face. Finally, the pinched skin between Hubert's eyebrows softened, and he breathed a sigh of relief, pouring the finished potion (turned an iridescent, pearly emerald green) into a glass vial and handing it to Edelgard. “Now drink that and we pray it works.” Hubert said, and without question, Edelgard popped the cork out of the vial and downed it. She made a face at the taste; certainly none of those ingredients tasted good, and certainly not together. Hubert chuckled. “I should have warned you about the taste, but I wanted to see the look on your face. Mm, foul, isn't it? Potions generally are. The only good-tasting 'potion' out there is likely Amortentia, the supposed 'love potion'.” Hubert made sarcastic air quotes around the sides of his head with his fingers around 'potion' and 'love potion', rolling his eyes, “It's a crock of shit peddled by conmen, which is probably why it actually tastes decent. Apparently it's supposed to taste different to each person who drinks it, but most people report that it basically tastes like whiskey and mint.”

“How do we know if this potion works?” Edelgard asked.

“You'll start menstruating within the next couple of days. It kind of kick-starts the process. Once that happens, you're decidedly not pregnant. It's a safe remedy, all natural ingredients, don't worry. We just can't use it too often or it loses its effectiveness.” He sighed. “Boy, we were fools. That was a close call.” He said blatantly.

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #edelbert #hubelgard #hubert #edelgard #hubert X edelgard #i am black eagles trash #hubert is still my garbage son #something human

[lisatelramor]

Lay In the Atmosphere Ch1

So as I was writing Not Left To Stand Alone, the idea for this fic, with Kaito's history with the Kudos, was nagging at the back of my brain and the second I was done writing the bulk of NLTSA, I was writing this fic. ^_^;;; Which... emotional whiplash as NLTSA ends on happy notes and this is ANGST-DEPRESSION-TEARS for Kaito. >_> I mean it's not 100% angst, but let's be real, most of this is a grief and anxiety spiral mixed with shit life choices that Kaito eventually manages to drag himself out of.  That said, if you haven't read NLTSA this should stand well enough on its own as a separate story.

I was listening to Panic at the Disco almost nonstop when I was writing this so the title comes from “A Casual Affair” which is kind of ironic since Kaito, Shinichi and Ran don’t do casual anything. ^_^;; A more fitting piece of music for this fic is “Smoke and Mirrors” by Imagine Dragons, but that could just be my current music binge talking. :P Hop on the angst train, guys, hope you enjoy sadness catharsis and bittersweet ends since this fic is Kaito at a very low point in his life.

Chapter 1

Kaito shuffled a deck of cards absently as he and Jii leaned over a map. It was covered with Kaito’s notes and annotations about guard shifts, traps, and escape routes. “I think that about covers it,” Kaito said. “It’s only a small role you’ll be playing this time, Jii-chan.” He flashed his assistant a grin, “You shouldn’t have to worry about anything tripping up those bad knees of yours.”

“My knees are perfectly fine, Kaito-sama,” Jii said with a sniff. He was older, much older than when Kaito first met him, and he’d looked old then. His gray hair was going mostly white now, what little he still had left of it, his glasses that much thicker and his hands a bit more gnarled than before. He was still a capable magician in his own right though, keeping up with Kaito like he was half his actual age.

Still, Jii wasn’t getting any younger, and sometimes Kaito worried that he was asking too much. Ever since the divorce with Aoko, Kaito had been holding more heists again, and it was taking a toll on both of them. Kaito sat back with a sigh. “I think we’ll take a break after this one,” he said. “Rest a bit and do some research. Leave the police guessing. Work on some new gadgets to keep them on their toes.”

“Active resting,” Jii commented, amused.

“You know me, always doing something.” It was a joke, but it wasn’t; Kaito hadn’t rested much at all since Takumi was born, not even before then with school and Kid work, but especially not after Takumi. “Buuut, you should actually rest. You’ve been saying you wanted to go on vacation. Why not close up shop for a bit? Go to Okinawa and get that time on the beach, or heck, go to France for a few weeks.”

“I don’t know...” Jii gathered papers together, conflicted. “I couldn’t leave all the work to you to do. You should take a proper vacation too, Bocchama.”

Kaito was hardly as young as he used to be, but he couldn’t help a lopsided smile. He’d always be the ‘young master’ to Jii. “It’s fine. I’m not planning on doing much. Just scouring webpages. I promise that I won’t do any legwork until you’re back.”

Jii returned the smile. “Well, if you insist...perhaps a short vacation would be nice.”

“Of course it would. You’ve earned it.” The deck of cards fanned from one hand to another and vanished up Kaito’s sleeve. “We’ve earned it,” he corrected at Jii’s pointed glance. “I promise to do actual resting.”

“Perhaps take a real vacation of your own?” Jii said pointedly.

Kaito considered. How long had it been since he went somewhere just to relax? Since he didn’t have work or school or Kid or child-rearing? He drew a blank. That was probably Jii’s point. “If I take a vacation I don’t think I’d go anywhere, or not far. I don’t want to miss spending time with Takumi.”

“Then take him with you. A family vacation.”

“That could be fun.” Takumi camping or taking him to visit a zoo or to see the sights in Kyoto. Kaito could show him how to do coin tricks and do every fun thing he could think of that a child might enjoy for a week. Aoko would never go for it though, so it would never happen. Not a weeklong trip like he desperately wanted. Kaito shook his head. Maybe he’d just settle for taking Takumi to an amusement park sometime soon. Take Takumi and Momoi’s kid, Shiemi, since they got along so well, let them get hyped on sugar and run it all off between rides. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good,” Jii said. He smiled, the sort of proud, doting smile that always made Kaito wonder if this was what having a grandparent felt like. Probably not. Grandparents didn’t defer to you.

Kaito stretched. “Get some rest, Jii-chan, we’ll have a lot of work tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Kaito-bocchama.” Jii collected the notes into a neat pile to stash away in his office like so many other heist prep days before.

“Night, Jii-chan.” Another late night, another early morning, but nothing out of the norm for either of them. Kaito fixed tomorrow’s plans in his head one last time as he left. It had been a while since he pulled a supposed teleportation trick. They got harder every time he had to think up a new way to make one work. Thank goodness Jii was still quick as ever. The usual firm resolve solidified around the plan’s concept. He’d get it done. He always did.

***

The jewel-inset mirror in his hands felt abnormally heavy as Kaito raced through prepared retreat paths. His heart pounded overtime with adrenaline and the steely satisfaction of leaving Nakamori-keibu in the dust, cuffed with his own cuffs to a guard rail. “Jii, I have the mirror,” Kaito said, curt as he saved most of his breath for running. “Get yourself out.”

Ideally, Jii would already be on his escape since his role in the teleportation trick had ended, but knowing Jii he’d stuck around. He had the habit of doing it to make sure Kaito had someone watching his back, and it had helped Kaito more than once out of some bad scrapes over the years. There was an affirmative through the earpiece; Jii would take the north route while Kaito kept attention his way a little longer before he pulled his final vanishing act. Good.

Kaito dived down a stairwell leaving a smoke bomb bubbling thick blue smoke behind him. A slap of a hand on a trap trigger, and somewhere his dummy should be taking off, one more diversion.

The number of diversions he needed were ever increasing. There had been no gunshots during the heist proper this time, nor the time before that or the one before that either, and the gap had him feeling twitchy. It was usually every couple heists that there was some sign of the crows he attracted with his shiny displays. Nothing.

A face switch, clothes switch, quick change and makeup in record time for a young woman to emerge around a building and watch for a moment as the task force scrambled by a few minutes later, going straight in the direction Kaito had been headed.

There was a burst of static on the com. “Jii?” Kaito checked the mirror. The gem was dull in the moonlight and the faint neon light a short ways outside the alley Kaito hid in. Not Pandora. He slid it away again. There was another burst of static. Kaito glanced up just in time to see his dummy going down, perfectly silhouetted against the moon. The false glider made a V as it tipped straight down.

The crows or Nakamori? Kaito shivered. “Jii-chan?” Kaito tried again.

Nothing.

That didn’t necessarily mean something was wrong. Jii could be somewhere he couldn’t answer for fear of being caught. Or maybe he hadn’t heard—he was a bit hard of hearing in one ear...the ear that didn’t have the earpiece... Or maybe he’d been forced to drop the earpiece altogether for some reason.

Kaito clenched and unclenched his hands, staring back toward the route Jii would have taken.

He turned back.

No one paid any attention to a young woman dashing down the street—she wasn’t running away from the scene of the crime but toward it after all; Kid wouldn’t run back toward it and ruin his escape. Kaito was glad for the anonymity as he slipped past a few stray groups of officers doing rounds and circled around to Jii’s escape route. The north route had less bolt holes and twists than the path Kaito took, but Jii should have been plainclothes, back to being a seemingly frail old man. Even if the police stopped him, it wasn’t like they’d hold him. He wouldn’t have a mask and Kid was well known to be a young adult.

“Come on, Jii, where are you?” Kaito murmured under his breath. If Kaito was Jii and sure that he wasn’t needed anymore for the heist where would he...? Kaito ducked down an alley. Jii had a stiff knee and a lot lower stamina than Kaito. He wouldn’t have climbed, but he’d probably run until he found a good place to stop. This alley came out on a side street and there was another even narrower alley up ahead with a fence that was easy enough to put between him and a pursuer...

Kaito rounded the corner, inching past an over-full garbage can and froze. “...Jii...chan?” A shape was huddled at the end of the alley near the fence, on its side in almost a fetal position. Kaito took a step forward. “Jii—” He saw the blood. Too much blood. One more step and Kaito recognized the scarf, had given that scarf to Jii a month ago for his birthday, had joked about the four leaf clovers woven into it marked him as a Kuroba in all but blood. The clovers hadn’t brought Jii any luck as part of his face was missing where the bullet must have exited. Kaito’s stomach clenched.

Jii. Jii was on the ground, broken, bleeding. Dimly, Kaito guessed he’d been climbing the fence. When he was hit. The earpiece had fallen out, blood-soaked now. The shot and the fall the bursts of static? Or had Jii realized...? Kaito reached for him—to check what he already knew, move him, cover his face, Kaito wasn’t sure—but as he bent a shot cracked just past his head into the concrete wall beside them.

He dropped on instinct. Jii three feet away, but bullets. But Jii. Kaito bit his lip hard enough to bleed. Another shot made the choice for him, sending him back out of the alley and its deadly narrow confines. Each footfall was a reverberation in him, ache spreading out from his chest like he’d been the one to get shot, throbbing like a bruise. Beat-beat-beat and Jii left behind him.

The alleys and roads were a blur, indistinct and unreal compared to the scene by the fence and yet so sharp in focus Kaito could remember the glint of broken glass on the pavement like dozens of knives and the cold press of metal searing into his palm when he ducked past a fire escape to get to another bolt hole and change identity again.

Nothing from the earpiece, broken, nothing to receive.

Kaito was a middle aged business man when he got back to his neighborhood, inconspicuous. Another person walking home. Another person possibly drunk. He didn’t need to affect his stagger. Each step was heavier the closer he got to his own door.

Change to himself, go home, hide the mirror, check the phone for messages on automatic because maybe Kaa-san or Jii—

Feed the doves. Sit in his childhood bedroom come home again.

Kaito sat and stared at the same walls he’d stared at the night after meeting Jii years ago. On his desk was a note about looking into vacation spots. If Kaito stared at them long enough, maybe it would all prove to be a bad dream and Jii would still be planning a trip south and Kaito would call Aoko and make a bargain to get Takumi an extra night so they could have an adventure.

The moon was still bright and silver out the window. Light enough that it could reveal anything, even what you didn’t want to know.

Kaito wanted to believe Jii was okay. That he’d walk around the corner any moment and apologize for making Kaito worry. But death was a lesson learned young.

—Kaa-san with her hand across his eyes, “Don’t look, Kaito, don’t look,” the impression of a fireball burned into his retinas as tears dripped down his face without him knowing why, yet, just that something was terribly wrong—

Kaito touched his cheek. It was dry. Funny. It felt like he was crying inside.

On the desk, his phone buzzed. He didn’t remember putting it there, but the body would follow routine when on automatic. It showed Aoko’s number. Kaito watched it ring, the phone buzzing and buzzing before it rolled over into voicemail. A minute later it buzzed again with an incoming text message.

The thought of talking to Aoko right now was too much. Kaito left the phone buzzing and headed to the bathroom, stripping out of his clothes and stepping under water as hot as he could bear it. Its sting left his skin red and aching.

If he’d been faster...no, Jii would still be dead. If he’d pressed Jii to go on vacation sooner... If he hadn’t gone with a doppelganger teleportation plan. If Jii had been safe at home tonight. If, if, if. He looked like he had a full body sunburn by the time he shut off the water. It gurgled down the drain, chased by drips and drops as he stayed hunched over the shower knob. He hurt all over, inside and out now, and it wasn’t quite enough still.

Kaito left a trail of wet footprints back to his room, not bothering with a towel. Kaa-san was away. No one would care if he was naked because there was no one there to care. His phone showed several missed calls from Aoko and four texts.

Kaito, what the fuck. They just ID’d a body as Jii. What’s going on? Kaito closed his eyes. Jii... to be found be some unknown person like that... Kaito wished he could have taken him from that alley. But then what? He looked at the next message. Kaito? then, Pick up your phone dammit. The phone started ringing again as he held it. Kaito read the last message with a squirming feeling of guilt inside the numb grief and horror: You’d better not be dead too. The caller was Aoko again of course. He answered.

“Aoko.” There was a long silence on the other end. Kaito wasn’t sure what tone his voice had had.

Aoko let out a breath. “You’re not dead.”

“No.” That was Jii. Kaito wasn’t hurt at all for once.

“What happened?” Aoko demanded.

“I don’t know. He didn’t answer and I found him like that. Had to leave when someone shot at me.”

“...fuck.” There were goosebumps all over his arm and legs now. He ignored the cold, listening numbly for Aoko’s voice. “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but they’re reviewing this as a mugging because Jii didn’t have a wallet on him. The only reason he was ID’d is because one of the officers that found him remembered him from seeing him around us over the years.”

“A mugging? With that angle of a shot? And high caliber rifle bullets?” Kaito said, disbelief leaking through the shock that had followed him from the scene of the crime. “Anyone with eyes could see he was climbing the fence when he was shot.”

“Look, I didn’t see the details, that’s just what I’ve heard.” Aoko was tense, upset. She had been close to Jii once too, even if since the divorce they cut contact.

“A cover up,” Kaito said. He could almost laugh because of course. Of course it would be covered up, swept under the rug and dismissed as quickly as possible. Kaito was willing to bet the case wouldn’t even last a month. Old anger curled through him at the unfairness. They took his father and now they took Jii and both of their deaths would be seen as chance happenings instead of the premeditated murder they were. “Dammit.”

“Was Jii at the heist tonight, Kaito?” Aoko asked. There was the cold, judging tone he had come to expect from her. The one that laid blame on his shoulders every time she spoke to him or looked his direction.

Kaito didn’t answer that question. Answer or no answer, it would damn him either way.

“Damn it Kaito,” Aoko said. “It’s not enough to just be you, but Jii?”

Kaito didn’t answer that either and for a while there was just Aoko’s ragged breaths over the line and Kaito’s controlled ones. The world was falling out from under him but he still had control over his body. He could walk out of here and in the path of a bus and die smiling if he felt like it, a convincing smile even as he couldn’t cry. Not tears that were his own anyway.

He licked his lips, mouth feeling dry, swallowing past the lump in his chest. “How soon do you think the body will be released?” It was Kaito who would arrange a funeral. Kaito who was the officiator of Jii’s will. Kaito who had been everything to Jii once he stepped up into his father’s shoes. It felt a bit like betraying Jii, worse than failure, that he was in this position now, stuck fulfilling these roles long before either of them thought he’d need to.

“I don’t know,” Aoko said. “Until they close the case. If they don’t find any leads or if someone is framed...”

“Okay.” He could handle this. He was an adult. Almost twenty-six. He could handle this and Jii’s loss. “Okay, thanks.”

“Kaito—” Aoko’s voice low and sharp with anger or a threat, he wasn’t sure, but he hung up on her anyway. She’d take that out on him some way later, probably when she dropped of Takumi on the weekend. If she dropped off Takumi on the weekend. Fuck.

Kaito scrubbed at his eyes.

Just...fuck.

Jii was dead and it was Kaito’s fault. There was no going back from this.

***

Jii left him everything. His business, his collection of magician paraphernalia, his house, his savings—everything. Kaito wasn’t sure what to think or feel about that. Jii’s body had been released only two weeks after his death when a supposed mugger turned himself in, pled guilty, and got a life sentence. Kaito looked into the mugger, but whatever they had on the guy to make him be a scapegoat, Kaito didn’t find it.

And now here he was, holding a memorial in Jii’s bar for him because his body was already cremated and he hadn’t left any specifications for his burial. There were frequent patrons drinking to Jii’s memory and old magician friends. Not Chikage. Kaito hadn’t been able to get ahold of his mother in the last few weeks. Of all the times for her to pull one of her radio silences, this was the worst moment for it. She should have been here. As Toichi’s wife, one of Jii’s older friends, she should have been here but she wasn’t and might not have even seen any of Kaito’s messages to know Jii was dead yet.

Alcohol burned down his throat. He’d poured himself a glass of Jii’s favorite whiskey to drink for him and hadn’t stopped drinking since the memorial started. It was a bad idea but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

There were two regulars—Ryousuke and Yuuta, both people Jii had been on first name basis with—in front of Jii’s memorial photo at the moment. They had offerings of alcohol and the mochi from a shop a few miles away Jii had loved.

There was something restless rising in Kaito, had been rising for the last few weeks since Jii’s death. He wanted to take a pool stick and shatter it.  Jump off a building and wait until last moment to deploy his glider. Bait the police and the organization on his tail until there was no room for thinking beyond what was needed for survival. There were two dozen half-planned heists on his desk in the hidden room at home. Kaito hadn’t slept much lately. The only time the restless feeling was quiet was when he was pushing his body in the small hours of the night, seeking out what he needed for the next heist, the next, the next, however many he had to do.

There’d been a moment where he wondered if it wasn’t better to quit. It got Oyaji killed, got Jii killed. It’d probably kill Kaito too. But that moment had passed quickly and it felt like there was even less reason to stop. They kept taking and taking and he’d have to be the one to stop them somehow. He had to.

The whiskey tasted like nothing. One more liquid swallowed down. At the door, Aoko and Takumi entered, dressed for a proper funeral instead of...this. Kaito swallowed again, though there was nothing in his mouth. “Hey.”

“Kaito,” Aoko said. She looked around the room and the people at various stages of drunkenness with a small frown. “This is...lively.”

“Yeah, well...” Kaito shrugged. He had let whoever showed up, show up. Some of them might only be there for the alcohol. He crouched down beside Takumi to give him a hug. Small arms hugged back. Takumi was six now, already so big, and getting bigger every time Kaito saw him. Aoko who lived with him every day probably didn’t notice little things like how Takumi’s hair was just shy of needing a haircut or how he’d gained a centimeter that month alone. “Hey. You doing okay?”

“Yeah.” Takumi settled back on his feet, glancing at the rest of the room. He’d been here before. Jii had a holiday party most years, and he’d babysat Takumi a lot, especially in the first few years. “Kaa-san said Jii-chan died.”

“Jii-chan did die,” Kaito said, heart heavy. Takumi was old enough to understand death, had been for a while. This was just his first encounter with it being someone he knew.

“Is he like Yuki?” Takumi asked, referring to one of Kaito’s doves that had died a few months ago. She’d died of old age and they had found her body in the dovecote when they went to feed the birds one morning. It had been a chance to talk about life and death. Kaito was glad they’d had that talk because Takumi was glancing around like he expected a body to roll off one of the pool tables.

“Not quite like Yuki,” Kaito said, “but he’s passed on like she did. There isn’t a body because it’s already been cremated—burned up.”

“Oh.” Takumi bit his lip and Kaito gave him another careful hug. He hadn’t drunk so much that he’d lost control of himself, but he’d had enough that Takumi needed his full concentration. “That doesn’t hurt right?”

“No, he was already dead.” Kaito glanced at Aoko, and from her expression, he guessed that this was something Takumi’d asked already and he was getting a second opinion on. “You can’t hurt anymore if you’re dead.”

“Oh,” Takumi said again.

“There’s a memorial if you want to say goodbye to Jii-chan,” Kaito said. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear from you. Ok?”

“Ok. I’m going to tell him I’ll miss him and I hope he’s happy wherever he is.”

Kaito forced a smile for Takumi and patted him on the head before Takumi marched toward the memorial with a determined look in his eye. That left Kaito with Aoko.

“He cried when he heard,” Aoko said.

“He loved Jii-chan,” Kaito said. Takumi was in front of the memorial, hands clapped together and his face screwed up like he was trying to will his prayer to reach Jii through sheer determination. It was uncomfortably similar to how Kaito used to stand in front of his father’s memorial as a kid, face screwed up as he promised he was working hard to be a magician.

“You’re drunk,” Aoko said, and Kaito realized she’d been studying him. Sober, he would have noticed immediately.

“I had a few drinks in Jii-chan’s memory,” Kaito said. “He ran a bar, Aoko, it’s how he’d have wanted it.”

“That doesn’t mean you should go get drunk.”

“Maybe you need a drink.”

Aoko glared at him.

Kaito held up his hands. “Fine. Stay sober.”

Aoko crossed her arms, clamped tight around her middle like she was holding herself together. “This shouldn’t have happened,” she muttered.

“No, it shouldn’t.”

“I know he was helping you,” she said, not looking at Kaito at all. “He’s the only one who could have been all these years.”

“I never denied it,” Kaito said tightly. His hands itched to fiddle with his cards or perhaps pour another drink. He settled for rolling the buttons on his cuffs between his fingers. Takumi’s serious expression had softened into something sadder. A bittersweet expression better fitting on an older face than a six year old’s.

“They killed him for it.”

“I know.”

“Like your father.”

“I know.”

“Like they’re trying to kill you.” Aoko gave him a pointed look.

Kaito hissed out a breath between clenched teeth. “I know, Aoko.”

“Hasn’t stopped you from throwing yourself head first into danger.”

“Who the hell else is going to do anything, Aoko? The police? You? The police just arrested a man for mugging Jii when anyone with eyes could see that wasn’t what happened. The police can’t stop a damn sniper from showing up at heists. The police have done jack shit in getting rid of any of the crows.”

“Oh, because committing crimes is vigilantism and everyone knows how effective that is,” Aoko said, scathing.

Kaito’s hands clenched into fists. He didn’t want to have this argument. Not again, and not here. “Drop it.”

“Kaito, Jii’s dead. How many more people are going to die before you’re satisfied?”

“Aoko, shut up,” Kaito said, teeth gritted.

“No. You’re out there on a grudge mission and who the hell is benefitting? Jii-chan was like a grandfather to you and he died for your damned selfishness. Who’s next Kaito? You? Me? My dad?”

“Dammit Aoko, not now!” Kaito’s throat hurt and he realized he’d just shouted. Everyone in the room was looking at them and he couldn’t grip his control at all in that moment. “This is a funeral,” he said, still loud, but not quite shouting, anger burning through him because couldn’t they just...just feel sad about losing Jii together for one moment? “If you’re going to get mad at me, you can leave.”

Aoko stared at him, and he realized this was one of the only times he’d raised his voice at her. Aoko yelled. Aoko was flashfire anger, outbursts that burned quick and died when she let that anger out. Kaito didn’t yell. Kaito tried not to ever yell at all even if he was angry, and he’d screwed up this time. In the mass of faces looking at them was Takumi, eyes wide with something a lot like fear. It hit like one of Aoko’s mop swings to the gut.

“Please,” Kaito tacked on, quiet again. “Not today.”

Aoko’s lips formed a tight line. “I’ll say what I need to say to Jii-chan and we’ll go.” She was across the room in a handful of strides and Takumi was still staring at Kaito like he’d never seen him before.

The other people in the room looked away, trying to pretend they hadn’t been staring and Kaito sat heavily in the closest chair.

It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before Aoko was marching back toward the door. Takumi trailed after her, hesitant.

“We’ll talk later, Kaito,” Aoko said to him before she left. When Kaito offered Takumi a hug, he held on to Aoko’s hand and didn’t accept it.

That was another blow to Kaito’s heart. He’d messed up bad. When the door closed, Kaito buried his face in his hands for a moment. “Fuck.” Years of trying to at least look like he and Aoko didn’t fight in front of Takumi, years of keeping his voice down and not escalating things and he’d fucked it all up in one moment.

Was it the alcohol or his own emotions betraying him? Both? His patience finally reaching a limit? Why didn’t matter, it had happened either way. “What am I supposed to do with this mess, Jii-chan?” he mumbled to himself. Around him the funeral was continuing, people moving on from his family’s outburst and returning to celebrating Jii’s life.

Well, Kaito had already fucked up and he was already halfway to drunk. He might as well bury himself deeper. Kaito poured himself a new glass and forced himself to mingle with the other people. Jii would want to be celebrated so Kaito was damn well going to try.

***

Kaito gripped the toilet as his body did its best to physically remove his stomach via his esophagus. The alcohol burned twice as bad coming up as it had going down and left an even worse taste on his tongue. Ugh. He hadn’t had this bad of a hangover since... since maybe forever. Kaito hadn’t even drank that much at his own wedding. Ugh. Never again. He wasn’t touching alcohol ever again. Sorry, Jii, all of it went to paying customers only. Kaito would leave a bottle on his memorial instead of drinking a glass in his memory...

Ugh.

It would be bad enough to be glued to the toilet with his insides roiling, but Kaito’s conscience was nagging at him too. He’d been drunk when he argued with Aoko last night, but not so drunk that he didn’t remember Takumi’s fear or rejection. Fuck. Kaito was the worst father. He’d scared his kid and lost his temper and for what? Getting shitfaced in an ill-advised moment of trying to forget he existed? He deserved each and every moment of agony he was experiencing.

What had he been thinking?

Kaito had work in an hour. Work and then he had to take Jii’s ashes to his family grave. Kaito wiped his mouth as his stomach twisted again. No vomiting this time. Just a steady nauseated ache that filled his whole body. Tomorrow he was supposed to have Takumi for the day. He’d planned to take the day off work and spend it with his son at the zoo or something, following Jii’s advice to take a break back when they were planning a vacation. Kaito had put in the request for the day off and everything, but it was kind of hollow now. There was still the opportunity to make up for scaring Takumi. Put on his happy mask and do fun things and make Takumi laugh because hearing his laughter always made Kaito feel lighter inside.

He could fix this screw up even if—

Kaito shoved away from the toilet, flushing its contents like it would erase the last half hour from happening. Move, he had to move, get dressed, drink water and get out the door. Don’t linger in the kitchen with its unwashed dishes and the table where he’d laid out dozens of heist plans over the years. Don’t linger on the urn in his bedroom. Don’t linger on the new set of keys or paperwork to be filled out or any of the other official odds and ends that had been dumped on him. Definitely don’t linger on the photo hanging in the hall of Jii and Kaito and Aoko at Kaito’s wedding.

Somehow Kaito made it out the door and to work without being late. The glass of water had had middling success of staying down and the pill he took to counteract the headache only soured his stomach more, but he made it. Another day at work, another day his coworkers couldn’t see him hanging on to his sanity by the skin of his teeth.

He forgot to pack a lunch, but then he wasn’t really hungry anyway.

***

There were three heist plans spread across the table, all of them for the next month. He’d planned to have a break, but now it felt like if he stopped even for a moment, life would shatter apart at the edges. Takumi hadn’t come over on the weekend—Aoko said he didn’t want to come that week, and Takumi had agreed when Kaito asked to talk to him, and this wasn’t the first time this had ever happened, but for it to happen now... So no Takumi and still no Kaa-san around the house and too much time and space to himself just like in high school, Kaito had to fill it with something.

All of the heists were ones he’d started compiling information on a while ago, things Jii had gathered preliminary information on. Now Kaito would have to do all the legwork and research himself. This was fine. This was fine, he could handle it. The first was at the museum and he knew it so well by now that he could plan an exit at any point in the building in his sleep at this point. And the other two were owned by collectors and he’d been chipping away at figuring out the defenses on those for a while. There hadn’t been any callouts from Jiroukichi in a while so he should keep an eye out for challenges soon as that would be on schedule any time now...

Kaito lost himself in minutia, going over things with a fine toothed comb and composing the first of his heist notes bit by bit.

It was easy to lose track of time in Kid’s hidden room. Especially when there was no one there to drag him away from work.

Kaito wasn’t getting much sleep these days.

***

He’d said he wasn’t going to touch alcohol again, but that was a lie. Funny thing about being left a bar; there sure was a lot of alcohol in it. Jii’s whiskey glinted golden in the light, one light in the back because the bar was closed. Just Kaito and a bottle of imported whiskey and a heist note.

He needed to hire someone to run the bar. For now it made a nice place to be when he didn’t want to go home. The back room smelled like Jii—cigars and cologne and a particular brand of aftershave all mixed into one scent that lingered. Jii’d lived out of that back room. The bar was a home and a business and the back room was testament to it with its shelves of collector items and Jii’s futon folded away in the closet and his scent seeped into the tatami. The bar was Western, but the back room was Japanese. Jii’d served them tea under a kotatsu in the corner, peeling tangerines and plotting new magic tricks.

The room spun a bit as Kaito sat up from the floor. He didn’t remember lying down, but he must have at some point. There was the heist note. The note he meant to do something with tonight. Send it?

He used a children’s substitution cipher, worked it into a poetic format that read like a nonsense poem until you pieced its clues together. It mentioned blackbirds. Would anyone notice the significance? Would anyone care if they did? The police didn’t catch his watchers often. They were like literal shadows sometimes, more slippery than Kaito as Kid when they sent out the snipers, the professionals, the assassins, not just the run of the mill thugs.

The golden whiskey—no, it was amber, wasn’t whiskey always amber? Kaito couldn’t decide if that mattered or not—caught the light one last time before it slid down his throat. Gone. (More in the bottle, but—) Kaito set the glass down hard enough to smack over the bottle. It had its cap on though, nothing spilled, wow didn’t want to spill Jii’s whiskey. The room went a bit hazy on the edges, tilting as Kaito stood, or no, that was him tilting and he had better muscle control than that.

Steady. In control. His hands didn’t shake, his body didn’t waver. Deliver the note.

To who? Nakamori—no, too loud, bad choice. Not Aoko. Couldn’t be Aoko, Kaito couldn’t be around Aoko that would hurt worse and if he hurt worse—not Aoko. The owner? Too far, trains weren’t running this late. Maybe the paper, but the paper was last note and there was such a thing as too predictable and maybe he should choose a police member... Kudo! Kaito grinned, wavered in place a moment. Kudo hadn’t been to the last few heists and that wasn’t right, Kudo saw things better and he noticed the shadows even if Nakamori didn’t and Kudo still owed him for helping take out the crime organization a few years back. Give Kudo a note and he had to come and that would make the heist harder, but that just meant Kaito would have to work harder and working harder meant less time feeling and Kaito wanted that even if it was too hazy right now to pinpoint why—

Jii.

Kaito frowned. The room was empty, just a light and a bottle and a glass and Kaito. It smelled like Jii and whiskey where Kaito spilled a bit pouring, though that was his sleeve not the room. Jii wasn’t there and Kaito was alone. His throat went tight and his hands went clammy and the room spun in a way that wasn’t from the alcoholic haze in his head.

Note. Note to Kudo and then home, sleep, work, heist.

Jii’s bar was closer to Beika than Kaito’s home. It was closer, but by the time he reached the Kudo manor, his head was a bit clearer, enough to wonder what the hell he was doing, but not so clear as to change his mind and back out.

Even drunk it wasn’t hard to avoid Kudo’s surveillance cameras. Kaito had visited before, a few times, all the way back in high school, and while the security was better than back then, it wasn’t that much better. A light’s on in the study, and another upstairs. Kaito perched outside a second-floor window, glimpsing Kudo Ran in a night-light lit hallway pacing back and forth with a child in her arms.

Kudo had a daughter. Kaito’d forgotten that, but there she was, still a toddler, so little that it hurt to look at her because it brought up all sorts of memories. That had been Kaito once. Kaito, pacing with a crying Takumi, woken up by nightmares and Aoko living in the police dorms during her training so there had only been Kaito to hold him. Whispered words and hummed songs, little silly stories and soft reassurances in the dark until Takumi had calmed and slept again. Long, achingly exhausting nights that Kaito sometimes wished he could live again because for all that it had been hellishly difficult, it had been happier too. Simpler. Ran’s lips moved and Kaito could make out syllables of a lullaby.

He tore himself away, moving to the next window and the next with a clumsiness he blamed on the alcohol, then back down toward the glow of the study.

Kudo sat at a large wooden desk, paperwork strewn in front of him. Not that anything was getting done. Kudo kept starting to write then stopping and glancing at the door. If he wanted to check on his daughter, he should just check on his daughter.

Kaito fiddled with a pen in his pocket, filled with the urge to add a personal note to the heist note. Kudo should know not to waste what he had. If it was Kaito he’d—

Kaito flattened himself to the wall as Kudo glanced up at the window. The light inside would make it hard to see anything outside, but the mirror effect meant nothing if Kaito was all but pressing his face against the glass.

Kudo stared for a minute before shaking his head. He rubbed at his eyes with the weariness of a man that didn’t get near enough sleep as he should. Kaito knew the feeling well.

Go, Kaito thought. Go to Ran-san. Lo and behold, Kudo did, giving his work a last look of distaste.

The light in the study went dark. It took a matter of seconds to get the window open and land amidst Kudo’s stacks of papers. Kaito staggered a bit on the landing, the room spinning a bit. Still drunk. The papers on the desk were gibberish until Kaito’s brain clicked and the writing resolved itself into English. English case files? He could pick out the words, but the meaning wasn’t forming a whole. Kaito gave up snooping and set the heist notice in the middle of Kudo’s desk where he’d be sure to find it when he went to do paperwork tomorrow morning.

Kaito always thought Kudo would be neater than this. Files, files everywhere, with an organization system only Kudo would know. They’d tell him what Kudo was up to now, but it wouldn’t give Kaito any information he could use. He tiptoed around them, back out the window and into the dark. He should leave now. Instead, Kaito climbed upward again.

Ran was still in the hall with the night light, but Kudo was there too, arms around her and gently running a hand over his daughter’s hair. Kaito ached inside alongside a bitter twist of jealousy. Stupid brain, he had no right to be jealous when he ruined things himself. But Ran forgave Kudo. Why couldn’t Aoko forgive me?

His hands hurt, clenched tight on the window frame. No wonder Kudo hadn’t been to many heists lately. He had this to come home to. This to protect. He didn’t need the distraction of Kid heists like he did once. Didn’t need the danger they could bring either.

Kaito could climb back down and take his note back, plant it somewhere else.

But Kudo dealt with murderers and Kid’s heists were no more dangerous than Kudo’s daily life most of the time.

If Kaito opened the window, waited for Kudo to let Ran put their daughter to bed, waited for him to turn and walk down the hall and find Kaito there, how would he react? With fear? Block off his wife and child and stand defensive in the hallway? Or would it be like in years past, when Kaito had time to bother him more? Would he roll his eyes and complain after that first tense moment of anticipation? Kaito’s hands itched to open the window, to see if Kudo saw Kaito as a threat or not. To see what would happen simply for the sake of curiosity.

He shifted in his perch and—slipped. He was falling before the sensation registered as falling, a beat too late to stop. Only muscle memory had his arm flinging out and catching a thin tree branch to slow the fall. It broke with a sharp crack, wrenching his arm and leaving him to smack face first into Kudo’s azalea bushes.

“Owww....” He hadn’t done something that clumsy since high school when he was constantly flying by the seat of his pants.

Upstairs, the window opened. Kaito flattened himself against the wall.

“...No, I don’t see anything. Maybe a tanuki?” Kudo’s voice said.

Adrenaline pushed the last of the alcohol haze away. Wait...wait... The window closed. Kaito dashed for the walls and was over them in record time. He was two blocks away before he realized he’d taken the tree branch with him. He left it at the next trash site he ran across.

Yet again, Kaito vowed not to drink that much anymore.

***

Normally Kaito felt at least a bit of a rush from heists. Even the ones he was least excited about brought on the adrenaline rush of a performance, the thrill of having eyes on him that would always happen because he was a performer at heart. Since Aoko joined the grunts in the Kid task force, though, that rush hadn’t been as sharp. Since Jii’s death, well, Kaito wasn’t feeling much of a rush at all.

There was still a flow of emotions animating his movements under his skin, but it wasn’t a performer’s high where everything came together in the moment. No, it was closer to desperation and the chilling certainty that he was always dancing on a knife’s edge these days. With Aoko, with Kid’s goals, with his own sanity.

His cape billowed white around him, snapping in the wind. Rooftops felt a bit like freedom. Jumping from them felt a bit like absolution.

Kudo stared him down, there before Nakamori or Aoko, one step ahead as always. That, at least, Kaito could rely on. He’d take what little slices of normality his life could get.

“I see you accepted my invitation,” Kaito said, pulling his hat at a better angle to shade his face.

“Considering you broke into my home to leave it...” Kudo said, trailing off as he narrowed his eyes. “What’s your game this time, Kid?”

“Game?” Kaito smiled. It was easier to smile with Kudo right there, easier to play the part when he had a foil to work against. “Can’t I just miss having you chase me? It’s been, what? Over half a year? You’d think I wasn’t your favorite thief anymore.”

Kudo huffed. “Kid, I work homicides.”

“Then this is like a vacation. With less bodies. Your vacations always end up bloody.”

For a moment Kaito thought he would get a smile from Kudo, but he got an eye roll instead. Pity. Kudo had a sense of humor unlike some other detectives Kaito knew. “Give the gem back, Kid,” Kudo said, one hand held out like he thought Kaito would comply. Oh such optimism. There was open air behind Kaito’s back and even with the search lights combing the wrong direction, there was nothing stopping him from jumping.

“Has that ever worked in all the time you’ve known me?” Kaito said.

“Mm, if you feel threatened enough.”

“You’re not chibi Inspector Gadget anymore; somehow you were more threatening a meter high with a soccer ball.”

That did get a flicker of a smile. Good. Good, something bright to spark a bit more life into the hollow thrill. Kudo had a gun. He didn’t aim it in Kaito’s direction though. Instead he...pointed? “Who says I don’t have any more gadgets, Kid?”

Kaito’s eyes widened as there was a flicker of something— He fell backward off the roof before whatever it was could hit, activating the glider. That had been too easy. What was the catch? The air caught, jerking him from a plummet into a glide. Kudo was left standing on the edge of the roof, watching. No further attacks, no gunshot-cracks or stinging pain from a glancing blow. Far below police lights flashed blue and red in little clusters, lost to his misdirection. Their lights didn’t touch him here, and the bit of him wound tight since the start of the heist uncoiled. Kaito exhaled slowly, letting lingering tension leave his body.

Exhaustion creeped at the edges of his consciousness, but for now it was ignorable. Just fly a bit more, change to something less noticeable, and get home.

Halfway to his rest point, Kaito noticed a small white object on his sleeve, almost unnoticeable except that it was a shade too bright compared to his suit. A tracker, tiny and intricately made, and something that had to be Agasa’s work. Ha. Kudo almost had him there... Kaito made sure to slip it onto a neighborhood cat collar when he changed clothes; they liked to linger near a convenience store a block away and would lead Kudo on a frustrating chase.

***

Aoko was up late again, nursing a cup of coffee from what Kaito could tell from his vantage point. Doing paperwork, writing reports, some of them probably relating to the third heist he’d pulled this month. Kaito could almost feel the beat-up wooden kitchen table under his fingertips and smell the sour scent of coffee brewed too dark too long. Aoko would have her hair pulled back and the tired frown between her eyes and her free hand tapping away as she tried to put things into objective, unemotional accounts. Kaito used to sit across from her and see her get closer and closer to boiling over before doing something little, like a shoulder rub or refreshing her coffee with something better for her to get the persistent frown to melt away into a tired smile. There was no one to do that now.

Takumi slept upstairs, had been asleep for several hours now. He came over to Kaito’s home over the weekend, but he had spent most of his time with Kaito’s birds and none of Kaito’s attempts to engage him in things that would normally brighten his day had worked.

This wasn’t the first time this sort of thing had happened. Kaito knew that it was hard on Takumi whenever Aoko and Kaito were more at odds than usual but... It still hurt.

It felt like he was missing all the important things in Takumi’s life. He was in first grade, and his best friends were Momoi Shiemi and Fujitaka Gen, and right now Takumi loved frogs and sentai shows and anything he could learn on animal origami. Last year it had been kites and things that flew and Kaito had helped him make a giant kite in the shape of a penguin because Takumi had insisted that penguins should get to fly.  But Kaito didn’t see the day to day. He didn’t see Takumi get excited on the first day of school or when he made a new friend. He didn’t see him come home every day and hear what he thought about each new thing he learned. Kaito heard it after the fact, on weekends when Takumi would rather draw pictures or go to the park or practice simple magic tricks than talk about things like school.

It was Kaito’s own fault he didn’t have that and life never stopped shoving it back in his face.

At the kitchen table, Aoko made an unhappy face at the taste of cold coffee. That was Kaito’s cue to leave. He could only get away with looking so long. Somehow, eventually, Aoko would notice and she’d be mad.

Sometimes Kaito needed to see them breathing to know what was real though.

***

“I’m so sorry about Jii, Kaito. He was a good man...”

“He was so much more than that,” Kaito said into the phone cradled in his hands. A phone call, not even a video call, but a phone call. He couldn’t even see her face to see how much she meant it, though she had to mean it. Jii was important to Kaa-san too. “Where were you? Where are you, it’s been weeks—” He caught himself before his voice broke.

“I’m so so sorry, Kai-chan,” his mother said, voice soft like it was when he was little. It was too little too late to soothe him now though. “I should have called... My suitcase got lost and I only just got it back. I didn’t know. I didn’t know...”

Kaito stared up at him father’s painting, the side with Toichi, not Kid, and Kaito was almost as old as his father had been when he had Kaito.  A few more years and he’d have outlived him age wise. A small, unfair part of him wondered if she would notice if he was the one that died tomorrow, not Jii. Chikage had been globe-trotting for years now, this wasn’t anything new, just a bit longer than they usually were out of touch for, just... He wanted to cry, but there weren’t tears to do so, just a clogged up feeling in his throat and a tight chest like when he’d broken a rib and he’d been wrapped in bandages for weeks. He breathed and it didn’t show at all.

“...How are you holding up? Do you need me to come home?”

Yes, Kaito thought. Yes and Please and I need someone so much right now, but what came out of his mouth was, “No.” Kaito marveled at how calm it came out. “No, I’m fine. I’ll be fine. You’re busy doing...” She hadn’t said what she’d been doing this time, or where she’d been going that led to losing her suitcase. “You’re busy. I can handle things. I’ve been handling them. Jii left me the bar and I hired someone to run it. I was thinking about hiring Momoi Keiko—you remember Keiko?—to keep track of stock and finances...” In his spare time—ha—Kaito was looking into what it took to run a business and what he’d need to know to make sure the bar was running properly. He’d moved anything Kid related far from Jii’s place and he’d managed most of the other trying details that death left behind. Paperwork. Emotional weight. Kaito managed for the last twelve years well enough without his mother to turn to at all times, he could do this now. “I’m fine.”

Part of him hoped she’d insist on coming home anyway.

The rest of him wasn’t really surprised that by the end of the call he still didn’t know when she would be back home.

***

Blueprints and messily handwritten notes laid spread about the table. Kaito’s pencil tapped at an increasingly rapid tempo as he scowled at the executive office diagram. “It’s like they designed the room to be as restricted to get to as possible. Not only is it the top floor, it only has one window of bulletproof glass, and can only be accessed by a private elevator.” The CEO had recently obtained an ornate antique clock set with large gemstones at four quarters of the clock face, and of course he’d chosen to have it displayed in his office. An office that was ridiculously secure. The man had to be paranoid. Maybe justifiably paranoid if he’d risen to his position under suspicious means, but that wasn’t Kaito’s main concern.

“Ugh...” Tap-tap-taptap-taptaptap. “I could probably impersonate an employee to get in there, but that’s the first thing they’d be looking for. Maybe if I climbed the elevator shaft...? Jii, what do you—” The tapping died as Kaito froze, realizing his mistake. He stared blankly at the papers in front of him for a moment. “Shit. Right,” he said. “Right.”

The silence he’d momentarily forgotten felt too loud. The house was too big, the rooms too empty. There were photos of dead men on the walls in the hallway and all the decorations were chosen by a woman that spent less than a full month a year in the house. The pencil lead snapped under the pressure of Kaito’s hand.

“Right,” he repeated under his breath.

He clicked out a new length of lead.

It was harder to get back to work now that he’d remembered he was alone.

***

It felt a bit like when Takumi was a toddler; Aoko at the police dorms and Kaito juggling school, a baby, and Kid all at once. Only now it was Kaito juggling work, attempts at bonding with his son, and filling every spare hour he had with Kid until it felt like he was more Kid than Kaito. Kaito had loss and family struggles hanging over his head. Kid had targets and research and traps to funnel energy into and Kaito was funneling more energy into them than he had in the last five years.

If he held still too long, the world would catch up to him, so he kept going. Delved into gem trade records and museum collection records. Scrounged through rumors and imports and legends. He ran through blueprints and pieced together traps and smoke bombs and a new knock out gas. He constructed new tricks and practiced them until he saw them in his sleep. Mirrors, wires, speakers, training doves to go to new places and carry new things.

Kaito sent his attention in a dozen directions and felt each new task stretch him a little bit thinner. He was caught in the arc of shuffled cards but he didn’t know who held the deck or what card would come out on top.

He’d learned how to balance things, once. He knew how to take breaks and appreciate little moments and build relationships with coworkers and informants and what not. Kaito had learned to enjoy early mornings with cups of coffee and the sound of doves waking up in their roosts and the orange glow of the sun peeking over the horizon. There weren’t any of those moments now. He slept when his body gave out and he woke to the shrill of his phone alarm with enough time to get to work. The ate a lot of take away and instant meals when he remembered to eat at all, and it was only in the moments Takumi was there that time seemed to slow into anything resembling the calm he’d found.

It was better this way though. It was better because Kaito would rather keep busy, burn himself out, than find out what would happen if he stopped moving.

#detective conan #magic kaito #minor character death #fanfiction #lay in the atmosphere #my writing #all aboard the angst train guys

[noonmutter]

Awkwardness Pt. 12

Subtitle: “Well, Crap”

Previous part can be found here!

      He's grinning. "Sure. Lead th'way."

    It's a lot more difficult, with memories having been blurred by adrenaline, fear, and being shaken like a dogtoy. Once she spots the break in the mayapples where they've been trampled by hurried feet, though, it's smooth sailing. Retracing your own footsteps is far easier than finding your way back from the end. She points out the tree she mentioned when they get close, and starts searching through the undergrowth for the gun. "You're on your own for the boots, though. Probably should have encouraged you to look for those instead of discouraging looking for your shirt..."

    "You would, perverted thing." He chuckles to himself and sets to searching, although he won't shed much of a tear if he can't find them. Soldiers' boots were not made with comfort or style as the top priority, after all.

    It takes over a quarter of an hour, but she finally finds the tranq gun and holster. It's been dragged quite a bit, and the straps have been heavily gnawed. As Shedwyn kneels down and sighs over the destroyed belt, Terry suddenly realises There Is A Worgen Here. Just about the time it leaps at Shedwyn. Problem is, two more are leaping at Terry from behind.

    Time slows down as Terry's brain kicks into high gear. His woman is being attacked, there's a noise behind him, and he has none of his weapons, not even his bowie. He has time to shout "DOWN!" before the world starts moving again. The first strike into his back knocks the wind out of him, and he can only gasp when claws ruin his shirt and spill his blood. The problem now is that there are four worgen here.

    Shedwyn has spent enough time adventuring and working in magical laboratories that "down" and "shield" are synonymous when shouted. It is the only reason she survives the first strike. Unfortunately, the worgen attacking her does get a nice big hunk of her hair, so he  has a ball on a string. An angry, angry ball on a string.

    Angry, or terrified? Because the last count was a bit premature, and Terry's screaming is not solely for the pain of transformation.

    ...Terror. Mostly terror and pain and screaming. Shedwyn's buddy swings her around, slamming her shield into things and rattling her quite a bit harder than is strictly safe. Her second instinctive defensive move isn't the best, but it could be worse. The worgen playing with her suddenly finds himself encased in a block of ice. Sadly, so is a big chunk of Shedwyn's hair.

    Terry's new friends are momentarily distracted by the block of ice that used to be their packmate, but tearing chunks out of Terry will definitely make them feel better.

    Sadly for them, they cannot tear quite enough chunks out of the man before the wolf, bloody and frothing, is tearing chunks out of them right back. The first one has to contend with having a pointy wrecking ball swinging straight up into its gut, the second with that langolier mouth going straight for its throat. And the lower half of its face. It is, after all, a huge mouth.

    These three are together because they are, frankly, terrible at fighting anything bigger than they are. The one barely manages a startled yelp before he's a  chewtoy for the monster he's conjured. The other manages much more of a yelp and attempts to run the fuck away. These were supposed to be two stupid, tired, unarmed humans, not a magic-user and a walking wrecking ball. Speaking of the magic-user, she flings an angry little ball of arcane at the fleeing worgen, but misses by a mile. Swinging by her hair is bad for her aim, it seems.

    The fleeing one has made a terrible mistake in trying to kill him and not having the decency to take the punishment he deserved for failure. The punishment? I'LL BEAT A MOTHERFUCKER WITH ANOTHER MOTHERFUCKER!!

    A giant wolf swinging a much smaller wolf into another wolf until both wolves stop moving is much funnier to imagine than to watch. "MY SKY! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE!" is repeated until he can no longer maintain enough of a grip on his chosen bludgeon to swing.

    Shedwyn has Seen Some Shit in her time, but she's still happy she barely ate anything that morning. Around the time Terry is about done with those two, she develops the frame of mind to summon up a knife and try to cut herself free.

    Seeming almost disappointed that both his weapon and his target are now dead, he grunts and drops the nearly severed leg onto the pile and turns to face Shedwyn. "Sky." That word sounds... downright ominous, even though he's trying to pull the worried puppy face. The blood caking his fur and dribbling from his jaws probably has something to do with that.

    Shedwyn grunts, "Jes', gimme a sec..." as she tries to hack at her hair without losing all of it or ripping out any more chunks than mister iceblock already managed.

    "Move hand." He's creeping closer, eyeballing that chunk of ice and her trapped hair.

    She was holding her hair near her skull, and hacking with the other hand, but when he moves closer like that... "Ah..." She holds the knife out to the side by the tip of the blade, and drops it. "You alright?" Stupid question. He's covered in blood, and at least half of it is his own.

    Saying nothing, the behemoth sits down on what passes for his haunches beside the block, eyeing it and clearly sizing it up. After a minute, he nods, backs up a tiny bit, and aims a fucking haymaker straight down on it.

    Dwyn instinctually curls up as soon as he aims a blow anywhere near her. Fortunately, it protects her somewhat from the flying shards of ice and frozen gore. But hey, she's free! Sort of. There's still a frozen arm stuck to her hair. "Agh, fucking..." She holds the arm up to him. "Would you, love?"

    That one requires a touch more delicacy than he's entirely capable of, but at least he doesn't slam those cinderblock fists down on her head. It's still a bit messier than she'd probably like, though.

    She closes her eyes and sighs. "I kind of thought you could just crush it in your hand, but I suppose that's what I get for not being explicit." Rubbing at her scalp, she looks him over more closely. "Seriously, love. Are you alright?"

    He just kinda stares at her for a bit, then looks down at himself. One massive hand delicately pokes into what turns out to be an alarmingly large hole just under his ribs, then he goes thud.

    Sigh. "Of course." She grabs the stun-gun, and the knife, and starts scratching out a portal circle in the leaf litter as fast as she can. "I swear by all the gods we've saved or killed if you die like this I will never forgive you." 

    It's not him she won't forgive. She was the one who insisted they come out here. No weapons, not even a single protective spell in place. So much stupid in such a teeny tiny body. As carefully as she can, she scoops a shield under him and moves him into the circle. Then she pulls the portal up over them both. If nothing goes wrong because he's a hulking behemoth who fucks with magic, they appear in front of the cabin. Not much of a trip, but how else was she going to get him there?

    Aside from bleeding heavily on the grass of the lawn instead of well within the forest now, all is well! He's making sad husky noises, now.

    She immediately bolts inside and screams for Lucien. "TERRY'S HURT AND WE ARE LEAVING RIGHT. NOW." She grabs her shoes and pulls them on while she waits for Lucien, snagging him before he goes out. 

    "Cover your eyes." 

    "What? Why?" 

    "Because it's terrifying. Cover your eyes. And STOP MOVING TERRY YOU'RE ONLY MAKING IT WORSE." There is only a slight tinge of panic. She's holding it together surprisingly well. Hustling the kids outside, she closes and seals the door, sets Lucien next to Terry, and stomps on the ground. And look! The Temple of the Moon! Priestesses! 

    Healers. 

    "HEAL HIM."

( @shedwyn )

#and so arrives terry #shedwyn #terwyn #modified chatlogs #collab #awkwardness #I got impatient and this one was easy to edit

[coffeemaenad]

Toto and Stompy save the world

@ravenwald I have no clue what the fuck just happened, but I had to sit there and write this and now you have to sit there and read this.

Refs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_85Vvqes3o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7D-1RG-VRk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEQuDyuQFKE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6uwIj_S_pQ

“Tweet tweet. What are you up to?” Stompy asked his friend.

“Tweet tweet,” Toto said. “Just scrolling through everyone’s New Years wishes on Twitter. There’s a dog who hopes for a new skateboard, and look, a slug who wants a new grappling hook. Very strange. “I Like To Move It Move It Bird wants to open an academy to teach baby birds to dance, and Elvis Bird’s friend is hoping for some stick on ears that he can then stick earplugs into.  What do you hope the new year will bring?”

“I don’t know,” Stompy replied, gazing over his warm, secure cage laden with quality newspaper, (zero tabloids), and finally over the snowy feathers of his best friend. “I’ve got everything I need,” he said, his eyes brimming with happiness.

“”I’ve got everything I need,”Toto mimicked Stompy’s words with a burst of impatience. “That’s just the bullshit answer people give when they don’t want to think about it. What’s your real answer?”

“Well that was a bit needlessly aggressive,” Stompy said, clicking his beak. “I suppose I hope that you will take up those anger management classes.”

“I tried to, but they pissed me off too much,” Toto said with an apologetic tone. “I’m sorry for snapping Toto.”

Stompy wrapped a reassuring wing around his friend, who beamed and pulled in closer and they rested against each other for a few wordless seconds. Stompy hummed for a bit, and then perked his head up. “Stomping away sadness is my very favourite thing,” he said.

“You’re good at it too!” Toto trilled encouragingly.

“I hope so,” Stompy said, blushing furiously. Luckily, nobody noticed because he’s a bird. Maybe ornithologists can tell but for the purposes of this, his cheekbone feathers or whatever they’re called covered it up. “It makes me so happy to crush unhappiness mercilessly underfoot, to destroy it to its very core, to leave it a crumpled up pile of debris on the floor, to strike it down and cry “No more, scoundrel!”.”

Toto blinked.

“But,” Stompy continued. “There is a lot of sadness out there. It means that I will never run out of people to help, but it also means that there will always be people who need help.  It’s my fondest hope that someday, the world won’t need me anymore. I don’t think that’s coming this year. I don’t think it’s coming for a long, long time if I’m honest. But I do hope that perhaps a very special person, maybe some person out there, seeing an account of these words that have been recorded on some great world-spanning network of information that is accessible to all of the hearts and minds of the humans and the birds and the hippos and the samoyeds, and everyone, will take my message to heart. And they will be inspired to have hope. To have hope that despite all of the awful things in the world, there are still ordinary people who want a better world, and who will do their bit, bit by bit to add a little kindness where before there was none, or smile at someone who is alone, or collapse an evil system, or y'know, anything. And I hope that if a lot of people take it on themselves to perform one little good deed, maybe just one a day, that all of those little good deeds will add up. And one day, far in the future the good deeds will drown out the bad deeds, and the world will become a good and happy place for everyone. And sadness will be a memory. I hope that this is the year everyone decides to do it. A little good deed can save the whole world.”

“And I hope I get a really cool racecar,” Toto said.

“And also that Toto gets a really cool racecar,” Stompy sighed. “I mean, that’s fine. I wouldn’t lead with it, but it’s fine.”

They both basked in the quiet for a while.

“Are you annoyed with me?” Toto said.

Stompy fondly nuzzled his head against Toto’s. “Stop worrying. And lets get some sleep,” he said. So they both settled down, dreaming of what New Years Eve would bring them.

But the next morning, they awoke to a terrible sight. The shiny things were in disarray. The alcoholic birdseed was scattered around the cage. And where was the kale? There was no trace of it anywhere. Toto sank to the floor and screamed. With no kale, there could be no New Years Party. Everyone would scoff and go “Dude, where’s all the kale?” It was the absolute worst thing that could possibly have happened, and it was reality. The kale was all gone.

“The cage door isn’t broken,” Stompy said. And he was right. It had been expertly broken into, and left closed. But then why make such a terrible mess? Was the thief in a hurry? It was also very strange that the thief hadn’t taken any of the jewellery or treasure that Stompy and Toto had collected over the years. Only their kale. It was very strange. “It’s as if someone wanted to create a scene,” Stompy said. “They wanted to create a scene without causing any actual damage.”

“Without causing actual damage?” Toto screamed. “We can’t have a party without kale, everyone will laugh at us! Pumkin loves kale! He’ll leave. And if he leaves, Tuba will definitely leave! And if Tuba leaves, everyone will leave. Our New Year is ruined!”

Stompy scrunched his face up. Toto could be very shrill when he was upset. But Stompy was also an expert at stomping away sadness, and now was his moment. He pushed down his own anxieties about this absolute disaster that had unfolded, and trilled nonchalantly. “The kale is just an item, Toto. Our friends don’t care about possessions or treats or what wonderful things we can give them. They simply want to spend this time of year with us, to go over our memories and our hopes, to enjoy our company, and laugh and smile and while away the hours basking in the glow of companionship. That’s what’s important.”

“No it isn’t!” Toto said with a stamp of his foot. “I’m going to the shop to buy some more!”

“Thank god for keeping retail workers away from their families during the seasonal period,” Stompy said.

Toto nodded in agreement. “Thank god,” he said with a relieved chirp.

Toto hopped merrily along the street. He was thinking about New Year, and about Stompy’s speech, where he had hoped for a better world. Stompy had been making a lot of speeches lately. That was probably because God finds it easier to get their point across if they just inspire someone to outright say the moral instead of weaving it more carefully into the events of fate, Toto reasoned. Toto then started wondering if we are truly masters of our own destiny.  Perhaps our entire lives are planned for us by a drunken asshole deity who doesn’t really think things through properly because they hope against hope that their friend will find it sort of funny, a bit. Toto shivered. Such thoughts were too vast and scary for such a lovely New Years Eve. There were bands playing in the square, and early revelers singing very badly. Toto thought about all of the friends he had made this year, and smiled to himself. He loved them all very much, and hoped they knew how much he loved them.

But Toto stopped in his tracks. There was a stray kale leaf on the ground, a black footprint showing that it had been here for some time. Interesting. He studied it intently. The kale leaf seemed familiar. But it couldn’t be. It must be coincidence.

Like a bolt from the blue, he realised that there was yet another kale leaf further down. Toto decided to investigate. There was a trail of leaves leading into the distance. It looked like it would go on forever. But Toto wasn’t afraid. He hopped along, determined to reach the end of the trail and uncover the identity of the wicked kale thief. Not distance, nor snow, nor a ridiculous and illogical string of events would prevent him from achieving his goal. When Toto set his mind to it, nothing could stop him.

Toto was immediately caught in a net.

Back at the cage, the doorbell rang. Stompy began to wonder aloud in what sense his house was a cage if it had a doorbell, before realising with sadness that Toto wasn’t present to hear his musings. He drooped a little and hoped it was Toto at the door. It was just strange when the two were parted.

He opened the cage door. It wasn’t Toto. It was a slug in a neon pink superhero costume.

“Nice costume,” Stompy said.

“Thanks,” the slug replied. “The skintight latex really shows off my butt nicely.”

“Oh yes,” Stompy said. “Yes it certainly does. I hadn’t noticed.”

“Can I come in?” the slug said.

“It’s New Years Eve,” Stompy began to say, but then felt very ashamed of himself. He’d made a commitment to help everyone in need. Who was he to turn this little cosplayer away? “Of course you can, little slug. Make yourself at home.”

“Thanks,” the slug said, leaving a slime trail on the ground. “The name’s Wilson. I heard through the grapevine that you were the victim of a cruel and horrible kale thief. And I am sworn to bring the perpetrator to justice.”

“Oh,” Stompy said. “I mean, thats okay. My friend’s just gone to get more, it’s no big deal.”

The slug glowered angrily at those words. “I thought the same,” he said. “But you have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

Stompy sighed. “Are you about to tell me an overly long dramatic backsto-”

“It began just three nights ago,” the slug said. “Back then, I was just a normal slug. My name was Will. I enjoyed playing in the rain and making pedestrians trip over. Life was full of simple pleasures. It was dull, easy. But I knew in my heart that there was a greater destiny in store for me. An overwhelming, amazing destiny. I didn’t know how soon it would come and find me.”

“Would you like some tea?” Stompy said.

“Not in the middle of my story,” the slug said. “We were having a party. A little family get-together ahead of New Years. Y'know, because of peoples’ schedules and such. But the party was not to be.”

Stompy’s eyes widened. “I think I can guess what happened.”

The slug slumped sadly. “No kale to be found anywhere. Everyone was really disappointed. I knew I had to leave my old life behind. I had to throw off the shackles of Will, and begin anew. I had to face danger and best evil wherever I see it. I became Wilson. Only then could I stop this terrible thing! For it seems he’s upping his game. We’re not talking about a little get-together. This time there’s going to be no kale in the whole wide world! You have to help me stop him.”

Stompy sighed. “We can have another New Year Party another time. But if I don’t help you, there won’t be a world by the time of next New Year. Well, okay, that’s a little melodramatic. There will be a world, but peoples’ salads won’t pop like they should, and it’ll be a bit disappointing.”

Wilson smiled gratefully. “Thank you,” he said as Stompy suddenly stood upright with great force and raced to the cage door, knocking over bird furniture and straw. “Wow, you’re really keen, aren’t you?” he said.

“No,” Stompy said before correcting himself. “Well yes, but, no. I have to go. I think Toto’s in trouble!

Back to the other plot thread, Toto blinked from behind his net. He chjrped indignantly. “This is, this is just bloody well rude,” he screeched. “And when I find you, I’m going to-”

Shush,” a little voice said. “Please don’t be so loud.”

“Is it you?” Toto said. “Are you the one who put me in the net?” And then he hurled a barrage of expletives and threats far too violent and gruesome to reproduce here.

“Ew,” the voice said shakily. “I’m sorry about the net, okay? It’s just, I haven’t done an evil scheme before and I panicked. I mean, I had it down exactly how this was going to go, and, why did you have to poke your nose in?”

“So why did you have the net? Toto said.

“Look, I, because,” the voice said. “I don’t know. Okay? I admit it. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“So it is you,” Toto said. “The foul beast who has been hoarding all of the kale. Show yourself, wretch!”

A tiny cockroach in a little purple supervillain costume scuttled out from behind a box. “Hi,” he said weakly, raising a tarsus in greeting before awkwardly putting it down again..

Toto was a bit taken aback. “You don’t seem very scary,” he said. “What’s all this nonsense about breaking into cages and putting me in a net then?”

The cockroach sighed. “You wouldn’t understand,” he said. “This was not meant to go this far. I’m sorry about stealing your kale. I’m sorry for dragging you into all of this. It’s got nothing to do with you.”

“I think I understand,” Toto said. This cockroach was a lost and lonely soul, and needed some comfort. And net or no net, Toto had principles. And he took in a deep breath, looked through his net up at the starry night sky and began to sing the score from My Neighbour Totoro. The villain watched with a scowl, but Toto spied the odd break in his expression. He continued his song, gracefully and beautifully dancing vocally through the notes of the song, giving the most soulful and awe-inspiring rendition of the score from My Neighbour Totoro that had ever been. By the end of the song, the villain was sobbing great big  tears.

“We used to watch that as children,” the cockroach said wistfully.

Toto nodded. “It’s surprising how many situations the score of My Neighbour Totoro applies to. Now, are you going to stop being silly and tell me what the problem is?”

The cockroach nodded, and took in a deep, cleansing breath. “Let me let you out of that net first,” he said.

But Toto had already thrown it off. “Oh look,” he said. “It wasn’t attached to anything.”

Back in the other storyline, Stompy and Wilson were running. Well, Stompy was running, Wilson was slithering along the ground as fast as he could possibly go. “He was a good roach, once,” Wilson exposited. “He was the kindest, nicest bug in the whole world. He was my friend,” he added with a wistful sigh. “But something happened to him, something changed him. Turned him down this dark road. I don’t want to kill him, Stompy. Or imprison him if I can help it. I want to save him. I want him to understand that doing good things feels better than doing bad things.”

“If he hurts my Toto,” Stompy yelled, and then he didn’t know how to follow it up. Stompy had always believed in seeing the good in everyone. His goal was to help people. The only thing he stomped was sadness. But if this nonsense cost him Toto, cost him the most precious part of his life, he really didn’t know what he was going to do about it. Most likely dark shit. Messed up shit. Nobody hurt Toto. No ‘nobody hurt Toto or else’, just straight up, nobody hurt Toto. Or else.“If he hurts my Toto, you won’t have to worry about this supervillain,” Stompy hissed. “You’ll have to worry about me.”

Wilson twitched an antennae. “You have wings,” he said. “Why are we running?” Stompy stopped, skidded a bit as he steadied himself, and then picked up Wilson and they flew away.

“That was when I was ten-” the supervillain cockroach sniffled. “And then when I was eleven, I got a new bike, and the bullies at bug school stole it, and Wilson was the one who went back and got it for me. And I never thanked him. And when I was twelve-”

“It sounds like you and Wilson are very close,” Toto said. “I’m sure he’ll understand if you just give back all of the kale and apologise. We all make mistakes, and a friendship like that is too important to throw away.”

“You don’t understand,” the roach said sadly. “I can’t do that. He needs me.”

“What do you-” Toto began, but he was interrupted by a loud crashing. Stompy burst in, clutching Wilson in his feet. Wilson had a look of determination on his face. Probably. “Unhand that bird, Billson!” Wilson cried.

“Is your name Billson?” Toto said incredulously.

“Silence!,” the supervillain, whose name definitely was Billson, said to Toto. “Too bad for you, Wilson! My plans are already in motion!”

“Toto,” Stompy cried. “Are you okay? If you’re hurt, I’m going to fucking eat both of these little fuckers right fucking now-”

“Stompy!” Toto squealed. “I knew you’d come.”

“I’m afraid you’re too late, heroes!” Billson scoffed. “Do you seriously think I’d allow you into my hideout if there were the slightest chance of any of the kale being retrieved? I scoffed it all thirty-five minutes ago! And, do you seriously think you can go and buy more? The shops all closed thirty-five minutes ago! And do you seriously think you’re going to have a fun night at the bonfire watching the New Years fireworks? They stopped letting people in thirty-five minutes ago. And do you - Ouch, watch where you’re going!”

Toto had shoved him aside as he raced into Stompy’s wings. Stompy flung himself around his friend, his eyes dewy with relief. They spun around laughing with joy at being reunited.

“I was so terrified,” Stompy cried. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you!”

“I can take care of myself,” Toto laughed. “How did you know where I was? This is such a masterfully hidden hideout.”

Stompy blushed again as he gazed into his friend’s eyes. “I always know when you need me,” he said. Toto smiled and they pressed their foreheads together, as the strains of Auld Lang Syne began to ring out over the night. The clock had struck midnight.

“How touching!” Billson sneered. “But I must be off! There are other schemes I shall unleash upon the world.” And then he just sort of walked out. Wilson tried to catch up with him, but as he was a slug, he couldn’t go very fast.

“No!,” Wilson cried. “We shouldn’t have let him escape!”

“We had to,” Toto said. “Don’t you see, Wilson? You’ve done so much for him over the years. He just wanted to give you the one thing every truly great adventurer needs.”

“And what’s that?” Wilson said.

“An adversary!” Toto said. “Sherlock Holmes has Moriarty. Batman has the Joker. A third example. If an adventurer doesn’t have a nemesis, they just aren’t cool. Billson believes in you so much that he’s prepared to dedicate his life to proving just how much! So let him have his New Year. You can go and kick the shit out of him tomorrow.” Wilson’s antennae flicked back and forth as he realised the truth and smiled.

“Now I’m a real adventurer!” he said. “How wonderful! Happy New Year everyone!”

Stompy and Toto hopped back on the way home, wing in wing, talking at length about the adventure they had had. A band was playing in the town square, and crowds of people had come outside into the night to wish each other happy new year, and share their hopes for the future. They stood and watched the happy scene.

“I meant what I said,” Toto said. “About the racecar. I mean, I would really really like one. But it’s not my fondest hope.”

“Then what is your fondest hope?” Stompy said.

“I hope that things don’t change too much. I mean, with us. I hope we’re still this close next year, and every year. Every year from now until forever. Stompy, I love you.”

Stompy beamed. “You didn’t need to say that. I already knew. But thank you. Come on. Lets dance.”

“I can’t dance!” Toto laughed. “Two left feet.”

“It’s easy, Stompy said. You simply lift this foot… aaaand-”

They were interrupted as “I Like to Move It Move It” started blasting into the night. I Like To Move It Move It bird had arrived to get the party started. Toto and Stompy laughed, excited for the arrival of their old friend. They swayed together, the rest of the world fading away, and danced. They danced until the sky was tinged with pink and a new day began. The New Year had arrived. And Stompy and Toto realised that they had forgotten to go to their own New Years party. But it was okay because Tuba had a key, and everyone else just had the party without them. It was an awesome party. Nobody present even liked kale.

In the years that follow this tale, it hardly seems necessary to describe the numerous adventures of Wilson the Slug and his trials against his arch-nemesis Billson, famous and beloved as those thrilling tales are. Billson continued encouraging Wilson to believe in himself as an adventurer and Wilson was able to help so many more people in turn. Perhaps if, in the New Year and every year, we all try to be a little kinder and wiser to each other, one day Stompy’s dream of a better tomorrow will come true. And he and Toto, safe in the knowledge that they are no longer needed, will retire, get a collection of racecars and go round and round and round in the racecars until they get dizzy and stop and get ice cream.

The end.

#my writing #is fucking excellent #i just #i wrote it and i don't know what it is #also i assume i effed up the formatting so soz again

[ruetheend]

BITTERBLOSSOMS - CHAPTER 6: SNOWDIN FOREST, FELLOW APPRENTICES.

The story so far: Frisk came face-to-face with Sans. A tall, grim-looking Sans who seems unhinged and dangerous. After facing her demise at his hands, she respawns to find a new person stalking her in the woods...

Click to read the chapter below.

Chapter 6

Author’s Note: Best read on AO3. For original readers of this fic who are wondering where all the chapters have gone, check out my update.

"How curious..." The voice from behind the rabbit mask seemed feminine, but Frisk couldn't be certain. "Have you heard of me? It seems you may well have. I do not know you, however, stranger. My apologies."

"Ugh... it's you." Flowey rolled his eyes at the figure. "You scared us half to death, you dumb kid!"

"Hmm... I don't seem to recall you either, flower stranger." The red hooded person tilted their head and lifted a black, gloved hand to their mask. They touched a big X where lips would usually be. The mask reminded Frisk of someone with a perpetual sour face. "Also, I am not a 'dumb kid.' I am a 'dumb' teen..."

"Um, what is going on here? Who are you? Where's Sans- er, the skeleton?" Frisk asked, her voice drenched in confusion at this entire scenario. She felt incredibly alarmed. Even more alarmed than she felt when dealing with Sans a moment ago. Who was this person? Was it one of her other, former friends in some sort of disguise? This person... their white mask and this red robe...

"So... you don't know my identity?" The masked one asked.

"SIGH," Flowey said aloud rather than sighing. "Frisk, this is Hel. She is... just a weird person. It would be best to ignore her. Er... Frisk?" Flowey gave Frisk a solid poke with a leaf.

"Huh???" Frisk nearly dropped Flowey to the ground, but he saved himself by grabbing onto her with a 'hey!' She had been so transfixed on the Hel person's color scheme that she was almost completely lost in her own world. "Who are you, exactly?"

"I am Hel. Just Hel," she replied. "Who I exactly am does not concern you... or maybe it does, I am not quite sure."

"Oooo-kay," Frisk gave a nervous smile. Hel? She rattled the name around in her brain, but couldn't make any connections. "So, Hel, about my previous question-"

"Ah, yes, the skeleton. You are referring to master, I suppose," Hel tilted her head the other way and hummed. "You could tell he was a skeleton? Did you see his face?"

"Oh, um, yeah," Frisk nodded. "He has a big head." Flowey nearly chuckled at that line.

"Yeah, he has a HUUUGE head, that guy. I've never seen a head so big!" Flowey piled on. "Also, he sucks!"

"Hmm, the master does suck sometimes, yes," Hel nodded. "I find it quite interesting you were able to perceive his visage. Most cannot remember his features that well. This must mean... you must be my fellow apprentices!"

"Uhh, apprentices?" Flowey deadpanned.

"Yes," Hel walked past the two of them and took a step onto the bridge. "The fact that you have both seen the master and remember his features... you are certainly his apprentices. The same as I!"

"Just play along, for now, Frisk," Flowey muttered to her. "I've run into Hel a few times, and she is mostly harmless."

"Sure," Frisk whispered back to her flower friend. She called out to Hel, "Definitely. That is us... his other apprentices."

Hel stood with her back turned to the pair and hummed contemplatively for a moment. Then she turned and suddenly announced, "This makes me an elder apprentice! I have leveled up!" Frisk and Flowey exchanged looks like they already regretted their life choices. "What are your names, my fellow apprentices?"

"Frisk."

"Flowey."

"Frisk and Flowey!" Hel rubbed the bottom of her rabbit mask like it was her own chin. "Very well, you must be properly initiated." Hel dropped her hand and it disappeared into her red robes. "Frisk, you look very much like a human. It is quite uncanny."

"It sure is," Flowey blurted out with a laugh. "Frisk is all fleshy with hair mostly on her head, just like a human would be!"

"... hmm, that is an interesting take," Hel tilted her head. "I was referring to her appearance juxtaposed to those images found in the human histories. However..." Hel scurried up, bringing her mask right up to Frisk's face. Frisk could practically smell Hel's breakfast... which seemed to be very sugary smelling. "Your eyes, Frisk, aren't quite as large as a human. But... MK doesn't know that." Frisk couldn't see it, but she could hear a large smile in that last phrase.

Hel pulled back and nodded at Flowey and Frisk. "Let us proceed with the initiation. Follow me."

The trio walked over the bridge and reached Sans' sentry point. The sentry point was there and so was Sans! His head rested in his arms, his whole head obscured by his hood and fluffy looking sleeves. Frisk thought he looked incredibly comfortable and had a sudden urge to cuddle up with him.

"Behold, our infamous ice-human," Hel gestured at an ice sculpture that seemed to have taken the place of the convenient lamp. Frisk gasped for a moment, as it reminded her of this universe's Chara. Flowey, too, looked unsettled. "This is our reminder of what a human looks like... it has been a long time since one fell down, you see." Hel nodded along with her explanation. "Anyway, just stand behind it. Flowey... be a flower!"

Frisk obliged Hel's request, placing Flowey down on the ground next to Ice-Chara. Flowey pretended to be a normal flower. Hel clapped her hands together, exclaiming, "Perfect! It is amazing how easily you seem to be obscured behind this ice-human..." Hel sounded delighted and malicious all at once. "Now... I see my friend coming toward us. On cue, please step out from behind that ice-human."

Frisk could see through the convenient Ice-Chara well enough. She could see Monster Kid running up to greet Hel.

"Yo, duuuude!" MK shouted excitedly as they ran up to Hel. "Guess what! I totally snuck into the Grimly Ghoulies concert last night!"

"Truly?" Hel sounded incredibly amused. She must have one of the worst poker faces behind that mask. "Did you have a fantastic time?"

"I sure did! I managed to get so close up, dude," MK hopped up and down. They seemed like a soda pop ready to explode. "Raghast even LOOKED at me, dude!!! I think some of his spittle landed on my face! I haven't bathed at all yet!"

"Hmmm, I'm pretty sure that was probably motor oil," Hel giggled. "That explains that black splotch on your face..."

"Anyway, you called me last night and said you had a total premonition, right?" MK beamed at Hel. "Something really cool was gonna happen as long as I came here, to this spot, at the exact time... which is pretty soon, right dude?"

"Oh, yes," Hel nodded eagerly. "I had a dream that a prophecy would be realized soon and that it would all... begin... right... now!"

That was her cue, Frisk was certain of it. She stepped out from behind the Ice-Chara. Flowey regrew his face but otherwise didn't do anything.

"AHHH! A HUMAN!!!" MK shouted, then jumped in front of Hel. "D-Don't worry, dude! I-I'll protect you!!!"

"Oh my stars~!" Hel gave one of the fakest performances Frisk had ever seen. "Whatever shall we do~? A human has fallen at last, but at what cost~?"

"Dude, let's go and warn everyone!!!" MK looked over at the sleeping Sans and their face faulted. "Er, the boss is here! Whatever happens, he can handle it! Let's beat it!" With that, MK ran away.

Hel laughed and laughed. Something about the laugh sounded familiar, but Frisk couldn't quite place it. "Um... so, was that good?"

"Yes! You are officially an apprentice of the master of Snowdin," Hel nodded repeatedly. "We got MK quite good... let's keep this jape afloat, yes?" Hel sounded a bit pleading. "I'll see you up ahead." With that, Hel turned and left with a skip in her step.

"What the hell was that about?" Frisk picked up Flowey once Hel was completely out of view. As she said the words, she heard Sans utter a chuckle. Flowey and Frisk both quickly turned to look at the sleeping skeleton, but he seemed to still be conked out. They both breathed a sigh of relief. "If he is anything like the one from my time... he will be out for quite a while."

"Are you sure?" Flowey cast a suspicious glance at him. "That crazy trashbag," Flowey shook his head. "I thought Snowdin would be the safest place on this trip, but it looks like it might've ended up more dangerous than we bargained for... You know..." Flowey looked up at Frisk with an apologetic look. "You can just... hard reset and go back to the ruins."

"About that," Frisk eyed Sans one last time, then whispered to Flowey, "I can't... I'm actually without those... extended options."

"That's great," Flowey said in a chipper voice. "Fantastic!"

"Shh! This guy is not exactly like the other one," Frisk hid somewhat behind the convenient Ice-Chara. "Try not to make loud noises or tell any jokes."

"Oh, that will be really hard for me to do."

Frisk investigated the Ice-Chara. It had a remarkable resemblance to him, but upon closer inspection, his face was different. He had huge, bishounen eyes and a wide, toothless grin. "Wow, this just... it looks like him, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, it does." Flowey replied simply. "Except that stupid face."

The temptation in her rose as her curiosity grew. Frisk simply had to inspect Sans and his sanstry station. She chuckled along with the sleeping Sans. Wait? Can he read my thoughts!? Nothing happened. It must have just been a coincidence. The human approached him carefully, and she could feel Flowey grow tense as they neared him. He didn't dare say a word, however, so close to the sleeping monster. Scattered around on the inside were various objects. Ketchup bottles, a few, small, thin clear cases with what looked like black tape wound up inside of them, and a set of playing cards- wait, no. A set of tarot cards? The one showing at the top was of two small figures being thrown from an exploding tower. That looked a bit metal.

Frisk looked down at the sleeping Sans. His face covered by that dark hood. She raised her hand and reached for it. Frisk really wanted to see his face again. Flowey lashed out a viney whip and restrained her grasp. Their eyes met, and Flowey simply shook his head at her. She sighed and realized Flowey was right. She walked away.

In the next area, Frisk saved at the usual save point. It was located there along with the strange, interdimensional box.

"Why did you try to touch that guy?" Flowey asked simply as Frisk opened the box. "You aren't stupid... You know he is totally dangerous, right?"

"I guess... I missed his face?" Frisk stated as evenly as she could. Her face turned a bit pink as she pulled out a pair of gloves from the box and inspected them very closely. They were worn, pink leather gloves. Same as usual. She wondered why it was still here... in the same box. With a shrug, she placed them back into the box, along with the human items she found from the ruins.

"You missed his face?" Flowey frowned as he noticed the pink creeping on Frisk's face. "You kind of broke down while talking to him earlier, you know, when you started to say whatever it was that made him start flipping out."

"The word has to do with his name, which I guess no one can say or even hear?" Frisk pondered aloud. "This kind of seems familiar to me... I feel like I heard about this happening before, in that other universe... but I also just can't seem to remember it either."

"Did you date him in that other universe?" Flowey asked abruptly. "Is he like your boyfriend or something???"

"W-What! N-No..." Frisk protested a bit too hard. "We never dated or anything..."

"Sure." Flowey sounded as hurt as he was curt. "I just think the way you are acting is kind of weird."

"Fine... I had a crush on him, okay?" Frisk admitted as she moved forward toward Snowdin town. "It was weird, just, growing up in the Underground, but then resetting everytime I reached the end."

"Resetting every time? I guess you didn't free everyone in one go, huh," Flowey whistled for a straight 5 seconds. "That's rough..."

"Hah hah, no thanks to you, buddy," Frisk clucked at her flower friend as they traveled.

"What do you mean! I wasn't there."

"Yeah, but the other you was... the yellow one," Frisk nodded matteroffactly as she explained. "You see, the other Flowey, he was kind of... incredibly awful. I used to reach King Asgore and hope that Flowey would give up and let me just... stay in the Underground. In the beginning, I wasn't really looking to save everyone actually..." Frisk admitted. This was the first time she could ever talk to someone about this. It felt strange.

"Really? What were you trying to do?" Flowey asked.

"Well... I just wanted to go home." Flowey stopped walking and looked up to the cavern ceiling. She never noticed how low it seemed until then. It felt like they were standing in a giant dome, but even so, the sky above ground didn't have a ceiling. "I was really scared. I thought Toriel was trying to eat me the first time through, Undyne and Mettaton genuinely tried to kill me a ton of times, and Asgore would never listen to me until it was too late. But..." Frisk looked down at Flowey. "I guess the two skeletons in Snowdin... they were always nice to me. One of them is your King Papyrus here, and the other is his brother-"

"The guy whose name can't be said?" Flowey guessed.

"Yeah, that same guy." Frisk nodded. "I know it sounds strange to you, but they are related in my universe. I guess they might not be in this one..."

"I don't think so... the king is such a cool guy," Flowey nodded back. "Sometimes he would come around and play with me when my parents were too busy doing their jobs... I guess being a king has a clear schedule."

"I don't know if that sounds right," Frisk gave him a small smile. "But the first time I ended up in the middle of nowhere, after fighting the big scary version of you, I got a phone call from Sans."

"Just call him Skeleton Guy or something," Flowey waved his leaf at her. "Hear you say whatever you are saying kind of makes my head hurt."

"Anyway, yes, I got a call from the Skeleton without a Name," Frisk rolled her eyes. She wondered how quickly she would get annoyed when it came to talking about Sans to other people in this universe. "He called me, and told me not to give up. Papyrus butted in and told me he was doing fine and not to worry about him."

"That does sound like something the king would say."

"Papyrus was always very kind..." Frisk looked off in the distance. "He was loud and obnoxious as heck... Even in that first run, I wasn't scared of him at all. He was always bragging about how cool he was... but I believed it. I still believe it, you know?"

"That definitely sounds like him!" Flowey chimed. "The king would always declare fun holidays randomly. Like, 'Snowy bologna day.'"

"I guess our Papyrus' are the same..." Frisk looked away from Flowey as she wiped at her eyes with a free hand. "T-That's good..."

"Did you have a crush on him too!?" Flowey exclaimed at her gesture.

"N-No!" Frisk blushed an even deeper shade of red.

"Sure..." Flowey sighed.

"Look, I had limited options, okay!" Frisk rolled her eyes at him, flustered. "Anyway, once I was on the surface, my small crush on he who cannot be mentioned by name got pretty heavy. He was funny, he was always nice to me, and I just kind of grew a thing for him."

"I guess it helps that he is tall, huh..." Flowey said grimly as he eyed his own body.

"Huh? Oh no," Frisk waved away the issue. "It had nothing to do with looks... he is short in my universe."

"What? He's short?" Flowey raised a brow. "How short?"

"Um... about this tall?" Frisk held a hand up to her collarbone. "He's probably only 4 foot tall..."

Flowey turned a bit purple. "I-I see... cool, cool."

"Anyway... I think I see MK and Hel ahead... Guess we should be prepared for whatever they have in store for us." Flowey nodded at Frisk's words as they entered the next area.

#undertale fanfiction #undertale au #bitterblossoms #bitterblossomsAU #flowey #frisk #sans #hel #monster kid #papyrus #frans

[persorene]

in the festival of bonds dlc (that never got localized -sob sob-) dwyer says that jakob talks his ears off about how happy he is to be married to be corrin and nobody loves her more than he does, to the point where he's just become immune to it. do you think you could write about that?

“Dwyer…” Jakob sighed as he took in the sight of the disheveled manor. As per usual, his son had left the house to fall to ruin. Jakob cleaned it every time he visited but the point seemed rather moot.

“What? I like it this way.” Dwyer grumbled, shoving a crate out of his way with his foot as he walked into the foyer.

Jakob pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting back the urge to gripe at his son. Corrin hadn’t been able to come along for their visit today, if she found out he’d snapped at their boy again…

“Let’s get this over with.” The teenager mumbled as he bent over to scoop up a pile of papers he’d left lying on the floor.

“No, just- just leave it alone.”

Dwyer’s eyes widened “What’s wrong pop, you sick?” he teased, laying the back of his hand across his father’s forehead as if to feel for the warmth of a fever.

“I just think you and I could do something fun instead.”

“Do you- do you know what fun is? I assumed you were like allergic to it or something.”

“Oh ha ha. Are you certain you haven’t been wasting your time on comedy lessons?” Jakob taunted “Besides, I can be fun. Have I ever told you about the time your mother and I-”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve told me every story about mom.” Dwyer grumbled. He knew he should appreciate how much his parents loved one another, the fact that he was a product of such an intense love should’ve been a point he was proud of, but his father had a tendency to speak only of his mother and little else. It could become quite tiresome, especially for an apathetic teenager.

“I doubt it, but clearly you aren’t interested in hearing this one.” Jakob folded his arms, rolling his eyes at his child in process.

“Alright, oh Captain of Fun Times, what are we doing today?”

Jakob exhaled deeply, placing his hands on his hips in a bold pose “Well. We… we can take a walk!”

“Really? That’s your fun idea?”

“Would you rather I go back to cleaning your messes?” The butler snapped.

“No.” The boy sighed.

“Good, I never get to see much of your realm anyway. Let’s go.”

_______________________________________

“You know, I really am positive that you don’t know what fun means.” Dwyer panted as he dropped down onto the ground. The pair had stopped at the top of a hill, perched high above a crystalline lake and hedged by thick forests on all sides.

“You aren’t really that tired are you?” Jakob teased as he fell back onto the grass beside his son “Must I insist on more walks to prevent you from becoming sedentary?”

“Dad!”

Jakob’s laughter filled the air. His laughed quickly proved infectious as his son began to cackle along with him, laughing even harder as his father flung a pile of leaves at him in an uncharacteristically playful display of affection. Dwyer fervently reached for another pile, chucking them at his father who still lay on the ground howling with laughter. The exchange quickly devolved into a small war, each one rushing to pile more of the dying foliage on the other.  Jakob began to wheeze, his chest heaving as he flopped back down onto the ground, a bright orange leaf clinging to his hair as the white locks fell loose from their usually pristine pony tail.

“I guess you are capable of having fun.” Dwyer taunted as he fell back into place at his father’s side.

“I told you I was.”

“Yes, well, it was hard to believe until I saw it. That answers one question I’ve always had.”

“And what question is that?” Jakob muttered, he had let his eyes drift closed as he lay in the warm autumn sun.

“Don’t get your feelings hurt, but, what mom saw in you.”

There was a pause, Jakob’s eyes drifted open and scanned the sky, his chest rose and fell in heavy succession as he worked on an answer “I’ll be honest Dwyer, I don’t know what she sees in me.”

“Dad, I didn’t mean to-”

“No, it’s already out in the open, we should talk about it. My feelings aren’t hurt, I’ve wondered the same thing for years. I know I talk your ear off about how much I love your mum and how lucky I am to have her, but, I do that because it’s true. I love her with every ounce of my being and I am so, so very lucky that she chose to love me back… but I don’t know why she did. I’m not worthy of her, I never was. I am the penniless bastard of an awful nobleman, her servant, a man with an awful temper and no happiness besides that which she has brought me… so what on Earth made her love me?” his voice was soft and distant as he thought over his insecurities once again.

He lay in silence again, relieving his moments with the princess “I know you insist I’ve told you every story about your mother, but did I ever tell you about the time we tried to run away?”

Dwyer shook his head in response. His father had never mentioned it before and it came as quite a shock to the boy. Jakob was as straight laced and proper as a butler could be, his father was obedient to fault and certainly didn’t seem like the type of man who’d run away with a princess in tow.

“Well.” Jakob smirked, a soft laugh leaving his lips “Guess I haven’t told you everything then. Your mother hated being a prisoner, she hated being trapped with no access to the outside world. She yearned to explore and travel. I had taken her outside on occasion, but never far and always with permission. As we grew, she became more and more depressed about her confinement, to the point that I was concerned for her. Of course, I was always concerned for her, I loved her. And because I loved her, I agreed to accompany her when she told me she was going to leave.

We waited until after dinner, Gunter would be off working and the staff would be cleaning the mess from dinner. We packed a few belongings and slipped out unnoticed, I was honestly surprised how easy it was. She laughed as she ran, the wind rushing through her hair, her feet dancing across the cool grass. She was free and so, so lovely. I knew  how mad this plan was, but I would have done anything for her.

We made it into the next village over by nightfall, the streets were empty, the street lamps were lit and the fountain in the town center was bubbling. Your mother grabbed my hands and pulled me into the circle, in an instant she was holding my hands and spinning me around in an erratic pattern that somewhat resembled a dance. We were laughing and I was felt my stomach fluttering, she and I had done it, we were free and together and all of my dreams were within reach.

Then we heard the guards. And we ran. We didn’t know where to go, so we fled into the forest hoping to avoid capture. But they had hounds with them, it didn’t take long for them to locate us. We were pulled from the brush and separated, your mother was thrown onto a horse and carried back home before we could make sense of what had happened. I was left alone, I stood calm and still but inside I was a disaster. What I had done was treason and I could, and likely would, be tried and executed for it.

Gunter stepped forward, glaring at me… I was prepared for him to unleash hell, but he shocked me and called off the guards. He sent them home and swore them to silence, then he and I remained. His eyes never left me and I wasn’t stupid enough to look away. ‘Where have you been?’ he asked me. I told him we’d run away because she couldn’t take this life anymore. He told me what I had done was the stupidest thing he’d ever seen. However, he admired me and my devotion to her. I dare not tell him my reason was a stupid and senseless love for her, though I’m sure he knew. We walked back to the castle, I was lectured the entire way but he assured me Corrin was in just as much trouble, however, it would stay our secret and no one would ever know it.

That stood true, until just now. You are the first person I’ve ever shared that story with.”

“… That’s incredible.” Dwyer whispered “Grandpa really saved you guys didn’t he?”

“He isn’t as awful as I act like he is.”

“Dad… Do you have any more stories?”

“I thought you were sick of my old stories?” Jakob teased.

“Well, maybe if you’d tell more interesting ones sometimes.”

“Okay, okay…” The butler laughed heartily “I suppose if you’re interested I can tell a few more.”

[shadcwempress-blog]

a moment to breathe;

A gift drabble for @ominousdeer, based on her post here because when it comes to me and writing about food...I’m too much of a weird foodie not to jump at the chance. 

Bonus note: the two NPCs that appear are actually mentioned in one of my other fics; I needed NPCs in Batista and these two volunteered.

It had been a very, very long day. A long, strange day at that. As if her mark weren’t still hard to wrap her head around to begin with, today had escalated very quickly to traveling through time itself and being far too casually informed of the origins of The Outsider himself. Not to mention the fact that she’d changed the future, her present.

It was staggering, really. The Dust District was...so different. Cleaner, friendlier, calmer. There were no guards, just civilians going about their day. No turf war between the Overseers and the Howlers. Aramis Stilton was well and whole, and a force for good in Karnaca. So much had changed for the better, and no one would ever know of the place the Dust District had been before Emily Kaldwin had arrived. And all it had taken was a single sleep dart to Stilton’s shoulder.

The thought made her have to stop and stifle a laugh, but it’s a tired one, and her head drooped slightly. She found her feet hard to lift, and even though there were no guards in sight, she still felt paranoid, nervous -- her shoulders hunched and fingers curled slightly as if ready to pull herself away or shadow walk to safety. It was all adding up; slowly, steadily, the weeks away and the weeks as a fugitive were piling stress upon her shoulders, stress and exhaustion.

“Hey!” The voice startled her, making her spin on her heels and nearly stumble. It was an older woman, perhaps Corvo’s age, with her hair pulled into a braided bun and a flour-stained apron tied around her waist. “You. Yes, you,” she says, her Serkonan accent thick. “Ragazza with the scarf. You look like a whole herd of blood ox just trampled you underfoot. Come here, come in.”

Emily blinked. “I, um,” she tried. “Is it really--?”

“Sì, davvero,” the woman said in Serkonan, her voice lowering. “Come in, sua Maestà.” Emily didn’t know that much Serkonan, but thanks to Corvo, she knew enough -- knew enough to know exactly what she’d been called, and that coupled with the genuine smile on the woman’s face prompted her feet to approach and follow her into the building.

“Aldo, get the kitchen running again,” the woman called into the back of what Emily now realized was a restaurant. “We have a guest!” She turned to Emily with a smile and waved her to a booth. “It’s alright, mia cara,” she said. “We are no friends to Delilah or the duke here. None in Batista are, given the miners, but we two are...well,” she said, smiling. “We know your father.”

Emily’s eyes widened. “You know m-- you know Corvo?” She asked, tugging her scarf down around her neck. The woman grinned, and she heard some clattering from the kitchen -- a huge, burly Serkonan man came in from the back, dark muttonchops and moustache going grey with age and arms scattered with tattoos.

“Know him?” The man, Aldo, said with a grin, putting his arm around the woman’s shoulders. “Cara, we were his friends back in the day. Ran together in the streets as children. The two of us, our hard-headed Lucia Pastor, few others...Void, Aramis Stilton was part of our little group. We all were sad to see Corvo go, our Verbena champion, but he’s done a damn sight better for himself than most people that grew up in Batista.” He reached out to ruffle Emil’s hair, and her smile grew slightly watery. “Royal Protector to two empresses, and father to one of them. You tell that man he’d better come to visit us when this is over, you hear? It’s been far too long.”

Emily nodded. “I-I will,” she said. “When it’s over, I…” Her voice cracked, even though he didn’t mean for it to, and the woman knelt, putting her hand on Emily’s knee.

“Shh, sorellina,” she said. “You’ve Serkonan blood in your veins. You’re a stubborn girl, and strong. Your mother was a good Empress, and you’re hers and you’re our Corvo’s. Don’t lose hope. You’ve come to us like a whirlwind, freeing Dr. Hypatia, disappearing Jindosh, ruining Ashworth -- we’ve heard it all on the loudspeakers. We know it’s you, those of us that are rooting for you. And we’ll keep on doing that, too, until the arse on the throne is yours again.”

It took a great deal of willpower for Emily not to dissolve into tears on the spot, or hug the woman, but she smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “Grazie.”

Aldo laughed. “Look at that, Giada, the old crow’s taught her the tongue after all. Good to know he had time for that in between whatever endless duties he must have.”

The three of them laughed, and Emily felt a weight off her shoulders -- even if it was only for a moment, she was among friends. She could relax.

“Now,” Giada stood. “You look beat half to the Void, sorellina, and famished besides, so if you’ll indulge us, i’d like to get some good Serkonan food into you before you scamper off to take down that vecchio e brutto cagna di una strega sitting in your tower.”

Emily stifled an undignified snort once she parsed the insult, and nodded. “Well, it’ll have to be the duke first, but the point still stands, I suppose.” She smiled. “I’d love to. Corvo always told me how good food in Serkonos was, and I haven’t had a chance to try any. I’ve been so busy…”

“‘Course you have,” Giada said with a snort. “But you have to sit down and breathe, sorellina, or you’ll break. Every miner knows that. So here’s your chance to breathe.” She patted Emily’s shoulder. “I’ll get you something to drink -- and trust me, you’ll have some good memories of Karnaca to share with our Corvo when you get home. We put our heart into our cooking, you know.”

Emily smiled at that and rested her head on her hands as the two disappeared into the back-- she could see steam from the small window that separated the dining area from the kitchen, and it already smelled incredible. She glanced around curiously -- it was small, perhaps seating maybe thirty or forty people at most, though some of the middle tables could be removed for a party, and the furniture was all old and wooden, some of the cushions patched and the tables covered in scratches. The walls had paintings and silvergraphs, shelves with flowers sitting in coffee mugs and champagne flutes and other tableware sitting next to odds and ends like old umberwood statues and things like that. The lights on the ceiling were dim, but not enough to mak the place look gloomy; just enough to make it cozy.

The window had faded curtains hanging on either side, and though it took a little squinting, she could read the peeling paint on the window -- Trattoria Abbate. Was that their name, then? Aldo and Giada Abbate. Huh. She’ll have to tell Corvo all about this when it’s over. She hadn’t known...he’d told her some stories of his youth, but hardly any compared to his stories of Dunwall before she was born. She hadn’t known any of the names of his friends...and Stilton, too? That made her even more glad she’d saved the baron’s life and sanity; she’d been saving a friend of her father’s.

“Sorellina,” Giada called, and Emily was startled out of her thoughts. She turned to smile at the woman, who was setting down a plate and a glass of red wine. “Here,” she said with a smile. “Something to keep you busy while my old man and I finish lunch.”

Emily was more than appreciative of the wine, especially since the glass was very big and very full -- she sure needed it after today, she thought with some bemusement, taking a long drink. The plate caught her attention next, and she studied it curiously. There were two separate things on the plate, and she only recognized one. One dish, the one she knew, was a few small slices of hard bread with tomatoes, grated cheese, and olive oil on it; the other was some kind of leaf, she thought, wrapped around something. She picked one of them up and bit into it, surprised to find the filling was garlicky, spiced rice. It was delicious, though, and between that and the bread, she cleaned the plate in what felt like seconds.

It must have been longer than that, though, because Giada and Aldo came out of the kitchen bearing plates, sliding them onto the table and sitting down across from Emily. “We don’t start getting real busy ‘til dinner,” Aldo explained. “When all the miners get off for the day. So we’ve got time to sit and share some stories with you over lunch, sorellina.”

“That sounds amazing,” Emily said with a smile, looking over the plates. Each of them had a bowl of pasta that smelled spicy and warm, something that made her think of her father, and a plate of grilled fish and some sort of fruit or vegetable in a dark sauce, as well as a smaller plate of the funniest looking salad she’d seen - tomatoes, greens, and round white...somethings, all drizzled with olive oil. “What is all this?”

Giada chuckled. “Figured you’d ask,” she said with a grin. “Pasta all’arrabbiata is what that’s called; it’s a bit spicy, but you can handle it, I’m sure.” Emily wasn’t quite as sure, but Void, her father could handle it, so, why not. “That’s swordfish ‘n plantains, you’ll like it. The sauce is something Aldo came up with. And that’s, well, salad, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Emily agreed with a laugh. “What’s the white stuff, though?”

“Cheese,” Aldo said with a grin. “Go on, try it.”

The next hour or so was spent eating, Emily barely speaking a word -- not that she wanted to, far more interested in devouring the meal in front of her with barely restrained ferocity and listening to the older couple -- while Giada and Aldo took turns telling her stories about the Batista of their youth, and the misadventures their group of children got into. She’d never heard these stories from Corvo, and after the first few, it wasn’t hard to see why. He’d probably be beet red with embarrassment, with some of the things she got to hear about.

It was good, really, having this moment of peace. Sharing it with her father’s friends, in her father’s homeland, in the part of the city he grew up in. Even if he wasn’t here, even if he was trapped in stone hundreds of miles away...for a moment, it almost felt like he was. His warmth and the smell of spices on him, his soft, sad smile. This whole district was Corvo, in a way -- warm and weathered, old and dusty and battered, but surviving through the worst with a sense of quiet pride and determination.

Lunch ended eventually, and Aldo stood, winking at Giada as he gathered the plates and empty wine glasses. “Don’t go anywhere, now. We made you something special,” he said. “How do you like your coffee?”

“Sweet,” Emily said with a smile. “Very sweet.”

Aldo laughed. “You get that from tua mamma, sorellina,” he teased, heading to the back. “Your father drinks his black as the Void.”

“Oh, I know,” Emily said with a laugh. “I don’t understand how he can have like five or six of those tiny little cups -- I tried one once and was awake for way too long.”

Giada laughed. “Corvo could slam down espresso doppio better than any one of us,” she said. “We were all shocked he could ever sleep with the amount of it he’d drink.” She laughed. “He put that to good use in drinking contests, too. Never saw anyone pound down mugs of Batista moonshine like Attano.”

“Oh, wow,” Emily said with a laugh. “I don’t even think I want to know what that’s made of.”

Giada snorted. “You don’t, sorellina, trust me,” she said with a wry grin, and then glanced up as Aldo returned from the kitchen, standing to help him with the trio of mugs.

“Espresso nero for Aldo,” she said, putting his mug down. “Cortado for me, and a caffè latte for you, mia cara.” Emily smiled and picked up her mug, full of espresso and milk, and took a long sip. It was good, a lot better than any coffee she could get in Dunwall. She wondered if Corvo thought the same.

She gasped, then, as with a flourish Aldo placed a plate in front of her. “Ohhh,” she murmured. It was a dessert, layers of soft pastry alternating with layers of soft cream, topped with chocolate, sugar, and some Morley raspberries. “It looks amazing.”

“Tiramisu,” Giada said with a smile. “It’s our specialty -- we figured you could need a last bit of pick me up, so I whipped you up some authentic Serkonan dessert.”

Emily smiled tearily again. “Thank you so much,” she said. “I-- you’re right, I really needed this, even if I didn’t realize it.” She picked up her fork and took a huge bite, making small delighted noises at how delicious it was, chocolaty and sweet with a hint of coffee and Orbon rum. It was so good -- she’d have to see if she couldn’t find someone to make it properly once she was back home and it was all over. If not, then she’d just have to bring Wyman, Jameson, and Corvo here to have this again. And again. Repeatedly, if possible. She was very close to just declaring herself allowed two holidays a month just so she could come back to Batista and eat here.

The thought made her smile, and with the coffee warming her up -- and the dessert warming her in a different way -- she stood. Giada and Aldo stood as well, the big man enfolding her in a hug that nearly made her cry again with how similar to her father’s it was. Giada kissed her on both cheeks and hugged her as well, smiling.

“Take care of yourself, sorellina,” she said fondly. “And we hope to see you back on your throne soon. We’ll be rooting for you.”

Aldo nodded, crossing his arms. “And when you get him back, tell that bastardo Corvo he should visit more often, eh? We hope to see him here soon.”

“I will,” Emily promised. “And don’t worry, we’ll be back. I won’t let anything like this, with Luca...I won’t let it happen again. I let Serkonos down, I know that now, and I promise I’ll fix it.”

Aldo ruffled her hair and Giada smiled. “We know you will, mio caro imperatrice. We trust you,” she said. “You’re young, you make mistakes. You’re learning. But you’re getting back up and fighting to give it another go -- and that’s why you’re our Empress. Not just Gristol’s, but Serkonos’ too. You belong to both isles, never forget that.”

“I won’t,” Emily said with a smile, and stepped forward to give both of them a hug. “And thank you again, you two. Grazie mille. I really needed this, and-- thank you. I promise things will be better soon.”

The older couple smiled, nodded, and waved her out of the restaurant with matching grins. Emily grinned back, tugging her scarf back over her face and slipping out of the building, glancing back to memorize where it was before heading back down to where the skiff and her friends were waiting.

Maybe she’d made them wait a little overlong, but she’d taken a break she’d needed desperately, a chance to breathe. She knew she wouldn’t regret it.

#;telling stories (writing) #;v: walk the shadows (dh2) #ominousdeer

[goldenalteration]

Tantamount to Perfection: Chapter 3

Crap...

Madjick bobbed in front of me in all their disputable glory, shining, etched orbs rotating quietly at either shoulder, the occasional mad cackle escaping them.

It had been a while since I'd last played Undertale, and my current panic wasn't helping matters. How are you supposed to spare Madjick again? I seemed to recall something about glaring at those orbs it had floating next to it...

Give it a shot, encouraged the voice in my head. What's the matter, got stage fright?

I was beginning to guess who this voice in my head was, but the current subject was a bit more pressing. As such, I turned to the orb floating above Madjick's left shoulder and gave it a withering glare.

You glared at the Chaser Orb. That'll confuse it for long enough. Good work, darling.

The orb suddenly shot forward, splitting repeatedly until ten of them filled the area in front of me, and abruptly they all rushed forth. I was never the most athletic, and as such I only dodged the attack by tripping and falling on my face, letting the orbs rush over my head. With a slight grunt, I shoved myself back to my feet.

Form needs work, but you got the job done, which is what matters in the end. I couldn't tell whether the voice which I was now reasonably confident was Mettaton was being snarky or not. I'd advise you duck again. They're coming behind you now.

I obeyed, dropping to the ground a little more skillfully this time, and heard the rough whoosh over me again.

"Alright, that's enough." Sans spoke behind me, and as I turned I could see that his eyelights had gone out. "You've had your fun, Madjick, now leave!"

"Tá an duine seo le feiceáil roimhe seo," responded the sorcerer, disappearing back into its own hat with a sound like a whip crack. The hat fell to the ground and disintegrated, leaving nothing behind.

"He seemed like a nice enough guy," I commented dryly. "Not much for conversation, though."

Sans laughed, but it sounded somewhat forced. "Let's keep going, eh, kid?" He seemed to have forgotten about interrogating me about why I was here, at least. As we left the room, he raised a bony hand to his chin and muttered something, but I couldn't hear what it was.

Moving on to the next room, I realized that it was very much like the room in original Undertale where you had a save point after that redundant, long hallway. The only difference, aside from the obvious color scheme, was that the leaf piles were replaced by tattered cyan bath mats, and Sans promptly walked up to the nearest one and flopped onto it, closing his bony eyelids. "I'm just gonna take a quick nap, kiddo. Wake me up if anything interesting happens."

What.

I'd question it, too, my narrator noted, but given his nature, you really shouldn't be surprised.

I strode over to where the save point glittered brightly just next to where Sans was lying and again tried to slide my hand over the top. Again, my hand slipped through the phantasmagorial yellow star, and the voice spoke. Knowing that Sans feels secure enough to sleep here makes you feel safe by default. You're filled with determination.

File saved.

Something, almost like a vine, tapped against my ankle, and I swung around to see a familiar droopy plant behind me.

"Golden?" I furrowed my brow. "What're you doing here?"

"Oh... well... I need to talk to you while he's still sleeping... there's some stuff I want to ask you... and I figured you might have some questions too..." the flower listed. "So... I thought... why not give it a try?"

I did, in fact, and so I crossed my legs and sat down next to the save point and Sans's sleeping form. "Okay. Let's talk."

"Well, uh, first..." The flower hesitated briefly. "What do you remem- I mean, what's the last thing you remember before falling onto those flowers?"

It took me only a brief second to recall. "As I was about to jump into the hole, I flipped off a news helicopter that was hovering above the mountain. That's the last thing I remember from the Surface."

Golden raised a cartoonish eyebrow. The voice was seemingly struck dumb by this. After a moment of silence, I tried a question of my own. "How do you know my name?"

"Huh?" Golden flinched slightly. "What are you talking about?"

"Just before you left, you said something like 'Take care, Jason. I'll be watching.'" I recalled. "How do you know my name?"

"Huh? I didn't say 'Jason,' I said 'Dasan.'" Golden fidgeted slightly. "There, uh, there was a human who fell before you, named 'Dasan,' and you look like him, so it just slipped out. Sorry."

I didn't really believe that, but before I could dispute their claim they interrupted with, "So why did you come here? Why did you come prepared?"

I could have told the truth. In fact, looking ahead for the long term and considering that these monsters would be on the Surface soon if everything went right, it would have been the smartest thing to do back then. They were going to find out eventually, so why not tell them about the franchise the game they were in had created?

But I didn't. Instead, I looked Golden square in the eyes, and I said, "It's not every day you see a mountain just pop up out of the ground in front of you, so I decided to investigate."

Golden's eyes widened, and they let out a startled noise. "What? It just appeared out of nowhere?"

In hindsight, that's where I should have told the flower that I was just joking and made up an excuse. But instead, I persisted. "Yeah, there was this weird rumbling and the mountain just sprouted out of the ground. I figured that if I investigated, then I might find something cool, but I wasn't about to come unprepared."

With a stalled snore and a brief shake of his head, Sans started to push himself up off the mat, and Golden quickly vanished back into the ground. "Ya alright, kid?" he queried.

"No." I deadpanned. "I got assaulted by thirty mercenaries and bled out on the ground while you were sleeping. You're talking to my ghost now." I raised my arms and wiggled my fingers, making spooky noises briefly before feeling childish and lowering my arms to my sides again.

"Well, sorry I couldn't help. Even if I'd been awake, I doubt I'd have been much help. I'm too much of a lazybones." Sans snorted, getting to his feet.

"Really?" I raised an eyebrow, struck by sudden inspiration. "You deserve at least a few years in the pun-itentiary for that one."

The skeleton chuckled, unaware that I'd stolen the pun from an Undertale comic. "Good one. I can see we're gonna get along like a house on fire. Alright, let's keep moving. I don't think that-"

With a sudden vibration, a black box hanging from Sans's belt burst to life, pinging frantically, and with a sigh Sans retrieved it and held it in front of his face. "Ugh, what's-" His expression contorted, and his eyelights dilated. "Ah, hell's bells... Yeah, that could be a problem. Listen," he turned to me, speaking much more quickly, "I've gotta run back and fix... some stuff. You have a cell phone?"

"Yeah." I pulled mine from my pocket expectantly.

"Alright, give me your number and I'll call you once I'm done."

As I recited my phone number and Sans input it into a sleek, shiny flip phone, I couldn't help but wonder what needed to be fixed so badly. Before I could ask, however, Sans jabbed a finger at me. "I shouldn't be gone for long. Don't move from this spot, you hear me? These Ruins are crawling with mercenaries despite how many times I've threatened Furokahn about bringing them in here, so keep low and you'll be alright."

"That's... going to get a little boring..." I noted. I was also wondering who this Furokahn was, but that could wait for later.

Sans gritted his teeth, before a sudden burst of inspiration seemed to come over him and his expression brightened. "Hey, I know. I've got an intern of sorts that pops in now and then to get me to help her with science stuff- trying to impress her crush or something, from what I gather. I dunno if she'll be here today, but if she is I'll send her down here to make sure the mercenaries don't kill you. Furokahn might have a few screws loose, but he does respect her. Just stay here and wait for her, alright? I'll call you once I've fixed this up." He turned and sprinted off, clearly having more important things to do.

With a tired sigh, I returned to the save point, just in case. Time to sit here and wait for this intern, I guess.

The voice clearly sensed that I wasn't in the mood for a lengthy description, and so merely stated, You're filled with determination.

File saved.

#undertale #undertale au #golden alteration #golden alteration au #part one #chapter three #tantamount to perfection #oc #jason #sans #undertale sans #golden #mettaton

[my-fidel-dreemurr]

Hybridtale Chapter 4

Chapter 4.

Fidel and Frisk walked into another room, one of the frogs, similar to before, stood there. Before they could react, the phone rang.

"Hello? This is Toriel.". Toriel greets.

"Hi"! Both Fidel and Frisk greet.

"You have not yet left the room...have you"? Toriel asks.

The two hesitated to answer, but before they could respond, Toriel continued.

"There are a few puzzles ahead that I have yet to explain, it would be dangerous to try and solve them by yourselves". Toriel says.

"Is there anything like the spiked puzzle back then"? Fidel asks.

"No...but there are a couple of pitfalls". Toriel answered.

Toriel seemed to hesitate. "Well, if you do leave, please promise to be safe". Toriel asks.

"We promise". Fidel and Frisk promise.

"Be good, alright"? Toriel asks. Before hanging up.

The two blinked before nodding, Frisk putting the phone away.

Frisk turned and took a step forward, a crinkle following. She looked and saw a huge pile of leaves. The two glanced at each other, before jumping in with a loud "GERONIMO"!

The frog watched the two, a small smile on its face.

After the two played in the leaves for a while, they got out and waved to the frog, which nodded. They walked down to the other side of the room, only for the area to turn black and white again, their SOULS appearing once more.

In front of them was a small fairy like thing. It looked terrified of them.

"Hey...are you alright"? Fidel asked in concern.

The thing screamed and ran off.

Fidel and Frisk both felt bad, as the fight ended.

"I didn't mean to scare it". Fidel said, feeling bad, he just wanted to make sure it was ok.

"I guess its really scared of people". Frisk suggested.

They both went into the other room, a straight hall. Fidel took a step forward and fell as the floor opened up a hole underneath him.

"Fidel"! Frisk shouted in fear.

A couple of seconds passed, before Fidel's voice rang out. "I'm alright! The leaves broke my fall! Come on down"! Fidel shouts. "But watch out for that first step! It's a real doozy!" 

Frisk gave a small chuckle as he heard Fidel's attempt at a joke. Frisk took a deep breath before jumping down, landing in a huge pile of leaves.

"A door leads to the other side". Fidel said, pointing to a door.

Frisk nodded and the two entered it, before yelping as they were yanked up by something and spat out onto the other side of the hall.

"I've heard of off the walls but never out if them". Fidel said with a cheeky grin.

Frisk giggled at his joke, and the two entered into another room. Frisk yelped when the phone rang again, she picked it up and Toriel's voice answered again.

"Hello, this is Toriel". Toriel greets.

"Hello, Toriel". Fidel and Frisk greet in return.

"For no reason in particular, which do you prefer? Cinnamon or Butterscotch"? Toriel asked.

The two glanced at each other in thought. "I don't mind either or really". Fidel answered.

Before frisk could answer Toriel cut him off. ".... Wait frisk don't tell me, is it butterscotch?"

This surprised Fidel wondering why toriel would ask what frisk liked better seeing as how he had no idea what he would like. 

"Yes, I like butterscotch". Frisk answered.

"Hee hee, I had a feeling. When humans fall down here, strangely....I...I often feel like I already know them". Toriel answered. "Truthfully when I fist saw you....it was like I was seeing an old friend for the first time. Strange is it not?" 

Fidel nodded his head in agreement, frisk in the other hand had to hold back a grimace. 'Just how much does she remember?' He thought as he knew some monsters felt a sense of Deja vu do to the constant number of Reset's he had done. 

"Well, thank you for your selection." Toriel thanked before hanging up.

The two blinked before Fidel shrugged, and see a switch, with a rock. "Hey frisk." Started Fidel as they started to solve the puzzle. 

"Yeah?" Answered frisk.

Fidel started to open his mouth before closing it. "It's nothing never mind."

Frisk frowned but nodded.

Fidel hummed as he walked over to a sign and read it aloud. "Three out of four rocks, recommend you push them". Fidel said with a confused look.

Frisk turned to the rock in front of a switch, he poked it briefly, wondering if it would talk, before pushing it onto the switch, lowering the spike wall. The two went into another room, it looked like the hallway.

"Wait here". Fidel said before walking forward, yelping when he fell down again.

Frisk snickered, finding it funny now.

"I heard that!" Fidel snapped at the other boy. He looked around underneath, noticing a path through it, he walked over to a sign and read it. "Please do not step on the leaves". Fidel said, thinking it through, before looking at the path. "Aha!" Fidel shouted, Frisk hearing it.

"Fidel! Are you ok? Is something wrong?!" 

"I'm fine. But Frisk! I need you to follow my voice, and walk with me"! Fidel shouted.

"O-Okay". Frisk said, hearing Fidel walk over.

Ready"? He asked.

"Yes". Frisk replied.

Fidel walked down the non leafed path, Frisk following him.

"Now turn right"! Fidel ordered.

"My right? Or your right?!"

"To your right!"

Frisk did so, turning right again when Fidel told him.

"Almost there". Fidel said.

Frisk walked one step, yelping when Fidel shouted.

"Turn left"! Fidel shouted.

"Your left or-" 

"Your left frisk!"

He couldn't turn in time and yelped when he fell down.

"Whoa" Fidel shouted as Frisk landed on him.

"Ow." Fidel groaned.

"Fidel! Are you alright?!" Frisk asked in worry, getting off of Fidel.

"Yeah...just a bit hurt". Fidel responded.

Frisk grimaced.

Fidel looked, and very briefly, Frisk was replaced with an identical person, his shirt green and yellow, with red eyes that had a black sclera was pitch black, and from the child's eyes and mouth trails of black liquid dripped down from them. The child was staring down at him and gave him a grin as blood red knife appeared in their hand and they lunged at Fidel causing him to flinch backwards and fall to the ground in shock, before it returned to normal.

"What..." Fidel muttered, before shaking his head.

"Are you alright Fidel?" Frisk asked.

"Yeah, just stunned". Fidel answered before getting up. "I suppose we'll both go up". Fidel said before they head to the door and head back to the top.

"Hold my hand". Frisk said, holding his hand out.

Fidel nodded and took his hand, the two walking hand in hand through the puzzle and into another room with three rocks.

Fidel and Frisk moved the first two. Fidel attempted to move the third one, before it spoke.

"Whoa there partner! Who said you could push me around?" The rock asked.

"Whoa"! Fidel shouted, jumping back in shock.

Frisk walked forward to the rock. "Excuse me mister rock, could you please move to that switch?" Frisk asked politely.

"Sure thing kid, thanks for asking". The rock thanked before scooting over to the switch, lowering the wall.

The two walked over, only to yelp when it came back up. They turned, realizing the rock moved.

"Could...you please stay there until we cross?" Frisk asked.

"Oh! Sorry". The rock apologized, before getting on the switch.

The two crossed, the wall rising afterward. They entered a hall with a table with a piece of cheese on it, a mouse hole on the other side of the room.

"I guess Toriel left it out for it". Fidel guessed.

"Should we move it?" Fidel asked.

"Nah, I think it has it". Frisk assured.

Fidel nodded and the two went into the next room.

They saw a ghost sleeping on a pile of leaves, they walked forward.

"Hey...you there?" Frisk asked.

"Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz". The Ghost said, saying the word z over and over, pretending to sleep.

"Hey!" Fidel shouted getting impatient. 

*Undertale OST- Ghost Fight*

They yelped when the world went into the Fight mode. The ghost getting up, looking very sad.

Fidel cringed, realizing he may have upset the ghost. "Sorry, I didn't mean to upset you". Fidel apologized.

Yeah, cheer up!" Frisk said with a smile.

The ghost smiled a bit. "Heh". He chuckled, looking a bit better. He suddenly cried, they saw the tears come towards them, and dodged them, knowing that they could hurt them.

Fidel grinned. "What's your name?" Fidel asked.

"Napstablook". The ghost Napstablook introduced.

"Nice...so you like to nap, stab, then look?" Frisk joked.

Napstablook chuckled at the joke. "Hehe". He chuckled, the tears coming at a much lower rate this time.

"Hey...I want to show you something". Napstablook said, before his tears suddenly formed into a top hat. "I call it...Dapper Blook". He said, waiting for their reaction.

They both looked at him in awe, sparkles in their eyes. "Wow! That's so cool!" They both cheered.

"Wow..." Napstablook said, the fight ending. "I came to the ruins to be alone...and I met two new friends...oh...I'm rambling again, I'll get out of your way". Napstablook said before disappearing.

"Bye". They both waved as he vanished.

*End OST*

They moved into another room, finding two spider webs with a sign in front of them.

"A spider bake sale?" Fidel asked a little grossed out.

Frisk walked over to a spider web, which has a small sign, deposit 5 gold.

He reached into her pocket, where she had picked up a couple of gold along their travels, she deposited the gold in, some spiders went down and gave him a donut. The spiders waved to him and climbed up. Frisk smiled and split the donut in two, handing one half to Fidel.

"Thanks". Fidel said a bit bothered by eating for prepared by spiders, before eating into it, both nodding in agreement. "I will admit. This is pretty good". Fidel said, before handing some more gold into the web, the spiders giving him another donut. "I'm saving this". He said before putting it in his pocket.

The two headed into a room and saw 3 frogs.

"Hey". Fidel greets, waving. The three frogs hopping in front of them to greet them.

"Hello, nice to meet you two". The frogs greet.

"So...is there anything we should know about the Underground"? Frisk asked.

"Hmm...you both seem to have a handle on this...no, there is nothing more we can say, except good luck". The frogs answered.

"Thanks!" They thanked with smiles on her face. Heading to the end of the hall, only to hear the phone ring.

"Toriel?" Fidel asked.

"Toriel". Frisk responded with a smile, answering the call.

"Hello, I realized it has been a while since I have cleaned up. I was not expecting to have company so soon". Toriel apologized. "There are probably a lot of things lying about here and there, you can pick them up, but do not carry anymore than you need". Toriel says, the two nodding. "Some day you might find something you really like, and will want to leave room in your pockets for it". Toriel reminds.

Fidel nodded. "That's a good point". Fidel says with a smile.

The two head into another room with six holes. Fidel walked over to a sign on the wall. "There is just one switch". Fidel mumbled. He looked around. "Alright, I'll go top, and you go bottom". Fidel said, Frisk nodding.

Fidel gulped and took a step, going down a hole with a loud yelp. He landed on some leaves and looked around. "Nothing". He said before getting out. He turned and saw Frisk get out, messing with something. He hummed and stepped into another hole, this one having a switch. "Aha!" He cheered, flipping it. He left and went out, before looking at the last one. "Why not?" He asked, heading down the last one. He looked and saw a plant. "Hmm". He walked over to it and poked it, the world going black and white as his SOUL appeared once more. "Great". He muttered, the plant came out and showed a giant turnip with a face.

"Eat Healthy". It said, despite its sinister look.

Fidel hummed. "I am a bit hungry". He said in thought.

"Eat your greens!" The turnip said, throwing multiple white vegetables, and one green.

Fidel caught the green and ate it, just in time as a white one hit him and caused his SOUL to quiver in pain. "Ack!" He grunted in pain.

"Sorry...I'll leave now". The plant apologized before leaving.

Fidel got up and headed up, seeing Frisk shuffle, a bow in her hair.

"Frisk? Where did you get the bow?" Fidel asked.

"I found it...why what's wrong with it?" Frisk asked.

"Oh, nothing,nothing I think it's real manly!" Fidel said with a grin.

Frisk grinned and they headed into another room. Where 3 switched lied. Fidel looked and saw the door was open. "Alright...oh look a sign!" Fidel said before looking at the sign. "The far door is not an exit, it simply marks a rotation in perspective". He said.

“guess we're supposed to memorize the switches?" Frisk asks.

"Good, let's remember them". Fidel assures as they went into another room. It was a near reflection of the previous room.

"Hmm, what's missing?" Fidel muttered, looking around the room.

"The blue one!" Frisk realized, walking behind a pillar and flicking the switch.

Fidel saw a sign and read it. "Of you can read this...press the blue switch, oh guess I must have missed it." Fidel said with a bit of embarrassment.

Frisk giggled a bit at his face. They headed into the next room.

"If you can read this, press the...RED SWITCH!" Fidel shouted, running over and pressing the switch. "Ha!" Fidel shouted in victory.

Frisk giggled wildly at his joy. They went into the next room and saw another sign.

Frisk read through it mentally, while Fidel walked over.

"Green!" Frisk said and flipped the switch.

"Dang It!" Fidel complained. They went into the next room and saw two paths, one had leaves across it.

Fidel walked forward and felt a voice whisper in his head, a presence on his shoulder. "Where are the knives?" It asked, seemingly pointing Fidel in the other direction.

"F-Frisk, d-did you hear that?" Fidel asked looking around.

Frisk looked at him confused. "Heard what Fidel?" He asked confused.

Fidel bit his lip, he didn't know why but he felt.....a presence with in the room, and he didn't like it, not at all. I'll be right back". Fidel said, walking to the path.

*Undertale OST- But Nobody Came*

Frisk blinked, a worried expression on his face, before nodding, waiting for Fidel. As he watched Fidel frisk looked around his eyes narrowed. "C-Chara?" He called out. There was no answer, instead an unnatural wind seem to blow through the room sending chills down frisk spine at how eerily quiet it was. 

"Chara....I know your here you don't scare me!" Frisk called out again putting on a brave face. There was still no answer, and nobody came. "You won't stop me chara! I won't kill anyone! I won't continue the genocide route!" Shouted frisk into the empty room, As his hands clenched into fist.

Frisk eyes burned with....... Determination!

"I will get everyone including Asriel to the surface! I won't let a single monster be dusted! Not a single monster will die and I will make sure of it!"

Frisk was panting heavily at the end of his speech, he looked around the room nothing that the shadows seem to be getting bigger in certain corners, and he swore in one he could see a pair of gleaming red eyes and a smile. A smile he had seen before one too many times.

"NO!" 

Frisk tore his eyes away from the corner hearing a scream coming from the room where. "Fidel!" He yelled as he turned back to the corner to see the glow was gone, biting his lip frisk turned away and ran towards where he had heard the sound of his friends scream.

Had frisk stayed he would have seen the same pair of red orbs return and the smile as well. "Oh, dear frisk~" purred a voice from the darkness. "You have no idea, just how different things are this time round." Said the voice. "Ha ah ah! Ha ha ha ha HA!" mad disorder crackle echoed through the room, causing a small pile of dust to blow through the room.

With Fidel a few moments before.

Fidel walked into another room and saw a knife, he felt the presence urge him to it, and he didn't like it. He felt like some sort of.....not a person or a monster, but something was watching him and for whatever reason it was Fidel didn't like it as the hair on his tail stood up on end. This presence sent goosebumps up his arms and caused his skin to crawl.

As he walked over to the knife he felt the presence thicken as he bent down, he picked it up and saw it was plastic, he admired his reflection in the plastic blade, for some reason he gave it a few test swings, as he did he found himself wondering how would this cut, how much damage could it do, yes...yet it had a bit of a-

'No, this..this isn't right I shouldn't be thinking that!'

'Oh but why not~' purred a dark voice from right by Fidel making him freeze, he felt a pair of arms wrap around his neck and the presence was almost choking him. He couldn't move a single muscle at all.

'All you have to do is go and kill off a few monster~' the voice whispered. 'Get as much L.O.V.E and then when you have enough you can go home, and even more so get you memories back.' 

'B-but the monsters have been nothing but kind! Toriel she's so nice and sweet! I could never kill her!' 

'Don't be fucking ridiculous! Kill her, all the monsters and frisk! Kill them all!' 

'No! Go away! Leave alone!'

'You can't resist me! Kill them!'Â

'No! Stop it''

'Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill KILL KILL KILL!'

"NO"! Fidel roared, throwing the knife away. He ran out of the room and into Frisk.

End OST

"Fidel! Are you alright? I heard you shout". Frisk asked in concern as he hugged Fidel, who was shaking in fear.

"Oh god...frisk I-it was terrible!" Sobbed the boy as his fox tail came unbound and wrapped around him. "There was this voice and the knife! Oh god it-t want me to." He got chocked up again and frisk just held him through his crying, while looking around for any sign that chara could still be near.

"Fidel come on we need to get moving." He said as he helped Fidel to his feet, and they started to walk away moving away from the room they were in.

"B-but what about what happened?" Asked Fidel. "Who or what was that frisk?" 

"I...don't want to talk about it". Frisk muttered, heading down the other path.

They entered and saw a huge tree in front of them. "Oh dear, that took longer than I thought it would". Toriel's voice rang.

They saw her walk beside it and hold her phone up, their phone ringing briefly, she looked and heard it. Looking surprised as she walked to them.

"How did you get here, Fidel, Frisk? Are you hurt?" She asked, looking them over, she saw Fidel's bruise on his back and used some healing magic, healing Fidel's back. "Are you alright Fidel?" Toriel asks. 

"Yeah, I'm fine. Nothing I can't handle." Fidel smiles softly despite still being shaken up.

Toriel smiled a bit. "Well, I suppose I can't keep it hidden any longer, come you two". She said before heading to a house, the two following. 

*Undertale OST- Home*

They entered and smelled a scent, it was warm comforting and inviting. 

"Do you smell that? It's a butterscotch and cinnamon pie!"  She cheered. "I thought we might celebrate your arrival!" She said with a grin. "I'll hold off the snail pie for now". She said sheepishly. "I also have another surprise for you!" She said, gesturing to the other hall. She walked down it and the two followed. She led them to a hallway and to a certain door. "A room of your own for you two! I hope you like it!" She said with a smile.

Her smile dissapeared when she smelled something. "Is something burning...um...make yourselves at home!" She said before running off.

Fidel looked at the room before chuckling. "A room of our very own huh?" He asked.

Frisk grinned.

"Well...I'm beat! Want to hit the hay"? Frisk asked.

"Yeah". Fidel agreed.

They headed inside, and saw two beds, they turned out the light and got into their own.

"Goodnight Frisk." Fidel said.

"Goodnight Fidel." Frisk replied, before both went to sleep.

#undertale #frisk (undertale) #AU

[monster-massage-blog]

Dreams of a Happier Time (16)

It took about half an hour before he’d hopped down and saw that Eurus looked normal for the most part...besides laying on the floor with a tiny white marble left to him and looking somewhat dazed. Aura was mostly together, but some of his parts were in the wrong place and he just couldn’t figure himself out. He decided to check on Eurus first. “Are you okay?” He asked, kneeling down beside him.

“...I am at last.” He groaned. “I expelled the marble, but it bounded so much, and shot back into me, so I expelled it again, and it bounced again, off the walls and ceiling, but it came back inside...how many times have I shot it back out of me? Finally, it didn’t make it back after I did my damnedest to dodge it. I am...so tired.”

Saga reached over and started to pet his head. “There there...you’re okay now.” He did however reach over and grabbed the marble in case it did somehow roll back into Eurus and begin the tragedy all over again. “I’m gonna go help Aura now, you take your breather.” Eurus didn’t respond but he assumed he’d gotten his approval and stood up, walking over to the jumbled Light Elemental. “Hello! Are you...having some trouble?”

“...My dignity demands I say no, but in truth, I cannot piece myself together. Please help me.” Aura pleased and did his best to bow.

“Sure. I think I remember how you were...please hold still.” Saga started by examining all the pieces that he had left and started removing the crystal pieces from Aura that didn’t look entirely correct. It was actually not as bad as he thought it might be, he’s simply forgotten some of the pieces in between other pieces. Soon he’d gotten him sorted out. “There we go! All better.”

“Thank you evoker.” He said with a sigh of relief. “This is significantly better. I hope to never be in pieces like that ever again.”

“We all endured and recovered.” Eurus said as he lazily floated over to the two. “Let’s just simply...move on from this. Evoker, do you know what is past this room?”

Saga shook his head. “This is as far as I had gotten before I turned around to get Eurus...and now we’re back.”

“Well then, let us press onward.” Aura declared. The group got ready and resumed their travels. The next room wasn’t too remarkable, save some dust on the ground and piles of red leafs. There were two exits in the room, and the prince wandered through the closest, coming to a small room with a candy dish inside of it on a pedestal. There was a small note next to the bowl saying ‘Take one’. Saga didn’t even think twice, reaching up to take one of the candies in a colorful wrapping, unwrapping it, and popping it into his mouth.

“Evoker!” Eurus cried out. “What have we agreed upon when you put things into your mouth?”

“But...ish candy.” The prince said, pointing to the candy dish as he rolled it into his cheek so he could speak a little better. It had a pleasing taste. He couldn’t quite place it but something in his mind assured him this was NOT Licorice flavored, whatever that might taste like.

Eurus eyed the candy bowl suspiciously but after a check, taking one of the candies himself and examining its contents, he surprised that it was harmless, rewrapping it and putting it back. “Alright, this is infact just candy. What are you going to do with the wrapper?”

“It’s a nice blue, so I wanted to keep it.” The prince said, pocketing the candy wrapper.

“Will you take more?” Aura asked.

“No, the note just said take one. Maybe if we find the owner we can ask for more.” The prince stated. “Let’s get going unless you want one?”

“Sorry but eating isn’t something we’re able to do. Candy for us is pointless.” Eurus explained.

“Oh...right.” The prince nodded and decided to press on. Past the room with the two piles of red crinkly leaves on the floor, and entered a narrower room, with two vents along the left wall, but in the middle of the room, the floor was cracked. “Hold on. That doesn’t look too safe.”

“Decidedly not! What a silly thing to leave unattended...do we just jump across?” Aura asked, crossing his arms. “I’m not that athletic!”

“Actually, this shouldn’t be a problem for me.” Saga said. “Here, hold onto me, I’m going to show you something cool!” Eurus and Aura seemed a little surprised by this declaration but made contact with him, Eurus loosely coiling around his waist while Aura just held onto his shoulder. Saga hadn’t much practice with this…specially not short distance. Maybe he didn’t have to close his eyes if he could just see where he wanted to be. He sucked in air and tried to imagine himself across the gap, and within an instant, everything just seemed to rush forward and he was on the other side.

“What...what just happened?” Aura said, both he and Eurus seemed alarmed to be in a different place so suddenly.

“I believe we teleported.” Eurus said. “...Interesting! I could have just flown over but this was quite interesting as well.”

“Oh yeah...well, I mean, I’ve got some things I can do also!” Saga insisted.

Aura was the only one to pick up on what the prince had wanted and reached over to gently pat his head. “It was very impressive Evoker. You have your own set of gifts that can help us.” This got a smile from the prince as he leaned into the petting. “However let’s try not to reply on it too much. There might have been some way around it. This place seems overall simple and safe so why don’t we practice teamwork?”

“Yeah...okay! Just please don’t coddle me too much.” Saga said happily, pleased with Aura’s practical and fair offer. “I know you’re supposed to protect me but I can help when there’s trouble also. And I’ve still got a white marble I can use...since I don’t think I can put them away.”

“Well, we’ll leave you to decide when to use it.” Eurus said. The trio ventured forth and the rest of this ‘ruins’ were remarkably easy...Aura eventually volunteered to try going onto the cracked floor, and as expected, it gave way, but the surprising part was that there were piles of leafs to cushion his fall and prevent any damage. In fact, some falling seemed almost required to solve some puzzles. However, after a series of pillars with switches behind them, they eventually came across a small, tidy house with a leafless tree infront of it, likely the source of all those red leafs. However there was something that made Saga...uncomfortable. “...Evoker, is something the matter?” Eurus asked.

“Something...there’s something bad in that house.” Saga muttered, taking a step back and taking Aura’s hand in his own and squeezing it.

“It’s quite alright. If it’s something hostile, we shall handle it.” Aura said confidently. “If it’s too much, we leave. You wanted to explore for answers, right? We have encountered nothing but puzzles and dust this entire time. Finding something or someone to interact with will be a most welcome change of pace.”

“I...I suppose you’re right.” Saga nodded slowly and stepped forward, knocking on the door, and waiting. Something was approaching the door and slowly began to open it...

#Saga #Eurus #Aura #dreams #Past Memories