#like she does not have to be a foreign correspondent but i want her in that realm | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

theplanetofthesnapes · 2 years

Text

Under the Weather

Summary: You’re in the order, staying at 13 Grimmauld place and manage to catch wizard flu. Snape ends up taking care of you.

Warning: mentions of sickness and throwing up so if that affects you don’t read.

I wake up with a pounding head and a sore throat. Oh great this is just what I need right now, to get sick.

I’d been working with the order for a few months now ever since I got suspicions that there was something a miss going on in the ministry. I worked in the foreign correspondence department and I’d heard Fudge mention that there were a group of rogue wizards that believed Harry Potter and they were making a plan to defeat Voldemort. He laughed at the idea but I felt I needed to join them. I managed to find out Kingsley Shacklebolt was part of this group of rogues and I approached him offering my services.

The order welcomed me with open arms and I was happy to be a part of it, so now I spend all my waking time (and sleeping time) here too. Today I was supposed to go to Hungary with Sirius to seek out some werewolves living there and convince them to join us but my body has other ideas. I move to get up and everything aches, I’m going to have to tell him I can’t go.

I trudge downstairs and into the kitchen Remus, Sirius and Severus are in there chatting and look up at me as I walk in. “Oh wow you look terrible lass” Sirius said concerned.

“I feel terrible, I think I caught that wizarding flu from Umbridge in that meeting on Tuesday. She sat right next to me and was coughing and sneezing the whole time. I wish she’d stuck to the rules she gives the students at hogwarts and kept her distance from me like she wants the students to from each other” I laughed weakly.

“Why don’t you go back to bed y/n, I will go to Hungary with Sirius I have just come back from my own mission so I don’t have anything else I need to be doing right now. You get some rest and maybe you can join me in Scotland next week.” Lupin said kindly.

I opened my mouth to argue but honestly all I wanted to do is curl up in bed with a cup of tea. “Okay” I agreed and go to put the kettle on.

“Let me do that Y/L/N, I’ll bring it up to your room” I turn around shocked by who that voiced belonged to, it couldn’t be Severus Snape could it. To my surprise that’s just who it was, looking at me with that same emotionless expression he always does. I must not have heard him correctly surely he must have said something else.

“You don’t have to..” I start, looking to Sirius and Remus who looked equally shocked by Severus’ kind offer.

“Hush now, get some rest. Let me make the tea, go on upstairs.” He dismissed me like I was one of his students after class.

I left the kitchen grateful but confused. Me and Severus Snape have not really had much communication the time I’ve been here, he only stays here for meetings and generally doesn’t stick around to socialise. I mean I always smile and say hi when I see him and make small talk about the weather or something but the only real conversation I’d had with him was when we’d argued in the last meeting about how to handle the giant situation. Oh well, I’m not gonna complain I really did feel like hell right now.

I got in to bed and closed my eyes. After a few minutes I heard a small knock at the door “come in” I croak.

Snape walks in with a tray that contains tea and a strange green potion vial that I’ve never seen before. “Here, I brought you a potion that should make you feel better, it’s a concoction of a flu remedy and a sleeping draft. It’s perfectly safe don’t worry.” He states as he places the tray next to me on the bedside table.

“Thank you” I say weakly as I sit up. I take the tea and start to drink it.

“Let me know if you need anything else, I will be in the study.” He says as he quietly leaves.

I wake up to a quiet rap at the door, I check the time I’ve been asleep for 5 hours. I sit up and immediately regret it, I feel worse than before it really must be the flu, my head is spinning. Snape opens the door a crack then sees that I’m awake and opens it wider and walks in. “ I just wanted to see how you were doing”.

I can’t focus on what he’s saying the room just keeps spinning. I jumped up and run to the bathroom, he follows me and just in time I reach the toilet to throw up. I groan thinking about how I probably just got sick in my hair then realise there’s someone behind me holding it back.

“Are you done or are you going to vomit again?” Severus says gently. My words don’t answer his question as another wave of nausea washes over me. I should be embarrassed he’s here and tell him to leave but I can’t find the strength to.

After what seemed like an eternity the uneasy feeling in my stomach settled and I stood up carefully. I walked over to the sink and cleaned my teeth. I looked at myself in the mirror, I looked terrible, my hair all over the place and my face was pale.

“I’m sorry you had to see that” I chuckle weakly. “You shouldn’t have followed me in here”.

“I’m a professor at hogwarts, I have to have a strong stomach to work around children all the time. They often take those puking pastilles created by the Weasley twins to get out of my class, compared to some of them that was nothing. Besides anything I can do to help I will”.

“I need to go and lie down” I say starting to feel a little dizzy. He said nothing and just helped me to my room in silence.

Once I was in bed he said “I’ll be back in a moment, I’ll get you something that should help with the sickness” and he walks out the room.

I close my eyes hoping it’ll help but it doesn’t and I open them again once he comes back in. He hands me a yellow vial which I drink without questioning it because if it kills me then at least it’ll put me out of my misery. “Why are you being so nice to me, you never have before?”

He chuckles “I’m not nice to anyone, that doesn’t mean I don’t care. You’re probably the only person around here that actually treats me like a human being and not something they’ve wiped off the bottom of their shoe.”

“Oh” I say, I didn’t know what to say because thinking about it no one does treat Snape with any kind of respect in the order. “I’m sorry they don’t treat you with respect. If you want I can say something to them” I try to smile at him but I feel too crappy I think I end up just grimacing.

“No I’m used to it, it’s been the same since we were all in Hogwarts. But anyway let’s not talk about me, you need to get some rest to feel better. Is there anything else you need, do you need anything to reduce a fever?” He says but doesn’t wait for my answer he presses the back of his hand to my forehead “you seem to feel like an okay temperature. Do you feel hot or cold?”.

I shake my head to answer his last question “I don’t need anything” I reply, he nods and goes to leave “wait” I say a bit too loudly because it hurts my head, I wince.

“What is it, do you need be sick again I can…”

“No” I interrupt him. “It’s nothing like that just would you mind if. I mean it’s okay if you don’t want to I just, can you…”

“What is it, come on you can ask me anything” he says in concern.

“Would you stay with me? I’m just feeling a bit sorry for myself so don’t want to be alone” I say weakly.

“Oh, of course.” he goes to sit on the other side of the bed. If I didn’t feel so rubbish I might laugh at the way he’s comically perched right on the edge almost falling off.

“You can get closer you know, I don’t bite” then regret what I’d said because I realise that he’s probably sitting so far away because I’m contagious. I’m an idiot. “Oh wait yeah it’s probably best you don’t get too close, I wouldn’t want you getting ill too. I mean I would take care of you but my potion making skills aren’t as good as yours so I’d probably end up making you worse” I try to make a joke to hide my embarrassment from my earlier stupidity.

He scoots closer and goes to press a kiss to the top of my head. “I’m not worried about getting sick, I assume you have the same flu that is sweeping its way around the ministry and took a viral prevention potion before I came in here, the ministry has just given the recipe to all teachers and hospital staff to ensure that students and patients can be properly looked after if they get sick. I just didn’t want to make you uncomfortable by sitting too close” he says matter of factly.

“You couldn’t ever make me uncomfortable Severus.” I slur the last part of that sentence and close my eyes, man I’m tired all of a sudden. I try and open them to stay awake.

“Oh sorry I forgot to mention I added some more sleeping vial to the anti sickness medication to help you sleep. If you want me to leave I can go” he says sounding genuinely apologetic for not warning me.

“It’s okay” I say my voice barely legible. “Please stay at least until I fall asleep” I move to cuddle up against him, enjoying the body heat because I’m suddenly feeling very cold. It must be the fever setting in, I was wondering when that would hit.

He hugs me back. “Always.” he replies and I drift off to sleep not knowing whether I imagined that last word from him or not.

_______________________________________

I wake up, groggy and realise that it’s the next day. I realise I’m alone in the room. Maybe Snape being here taking care of me was just a hallucination thought up by my fever driven mind. Then I turn over in the bed and see a piece of parchment on the other pillow.

“Dearest Y/N,

I have had to go away on business of the order for a few hours. Please forgive me for leaving you I did however administer you some anti fever potion and your fever appeared to break not long after that so I do hope by the time you are seeing this you are feeling much better.

I will check on you once I return but I have left you some headache potion on the side as my research suggests the usual progression of this illness that is most likely what you will be suffering with when you wake up.

Yours,

Severus Snape”

Oh so it wasn’t a hallucination or dream after all, he was really here. I smile to myself especially at the word yours. “If only” I mutter. I realise he was right I did feel a lot better, still a bit of a headache and my throat hurts but there’s no nausea and general aches have all gone. Also I realise my appetite must be back because I’m starving.

I go to the bathroom and brush my teeth and shower this icky feeling of illness away and then make my way to the kitchen to see what I can find and decide to make a sandwich. As I’m buttering the bread someone walks in.

“Feeling better I assume” Snape says hopefully.

“A lot, thank you for taking care of me Severus, it means a lot. I promise if you ever get sick I will be your number one nurse” I smile.

“If that’s the case maybe I shouldn’t have taken the protection potion after all” he makes a joke. I’m surprised by this, what’s he trying to say? My brow furrows. He seems to notice this and says. “If it meant I’d get to spend more time with you, then I’d do whatever it takes.”

I laugh. “Be careful what you wish for. But seriously I wouldn’t wish how I felt yesterday on anyone, if you want to spend more time with me just ask.” I say hopefully.

He picks up the headache potion I was about to take with my sandwich and hands it to me. “How about once you are fully recovered, you let me take you out to Hogsmeade for dinner.”

“I’d like that a lot” I say before I drink the potion and kiss him on the cheek. He looks into my eyes for a second and I don’t know what comes over me, maybe I’m still slightly delirious from the fever but I get the strong urge to kiss him so I press my lips to his and for a second he kisses me back. Before I can take it any further though he pulls away, sighs and goes to carry on finishing making the sandwich I started. I stare at him, tears forming in my eyes slightly from the rejection.

He looks at me and notices my tears he lifts his hand to wipe them away before they can fall “You need to eat, and rest and if by some miracle once you’re feeling completely better you want to do that again, I will be more than happy to oblige.” He says reassuringly. “You were saying some very odd things in your sleep and I need to know that your consent is truly valid and not a result of some sort of delirium before I even so much as kiss you.” He looks sad for a moment. “It’s just I can hardly believe you would want to kiss someone like me anyway.”

“Oh Severus” I say. “I barely even feel sick anymore I swear, but it’s admirable that you’re waiting until you know for sure I can consent. You’re such a gentleman and I promise you once I’m better I’m definitely going to want to do that some more” I wink at him.

He smiles, then thrusts the plate containing the sandwich towards me. “Then I will look forward to it greatly but for now please eat”.

I take the plate and sit down, he sits next to me and we sit in silence while I eat. For the first time since Harry had announced Voldemort was back I felt hopeful for the future. Maybe getting sick isn’t so bad after all.

#harry potter #imagine #hogwarts #severus snape #slytherin #tw sick mention #fluff #snape fluff #snape x reader #sick reader #snape

155 notes · View notes

xenokattz · 1 year

Text

The remaining letters from the draft of "The Pearl I Carry in my Heart." While I enjoyed writing Big Brother M'Baku, the tone didn't fit the story as it developed. Also, I ended up disliking how the letters made it seem like Shuri & Namor were both dragged into falling in love when my goal was for them to do it all by themselves like grown-ups.

~*~

King M'Baku of the Jabari,

I am unused to correspondence with a friendly nation. Wakanda will be Talokan's first official ally and we will be yours. Henceforth, our communication will reflect this new relationship. However, threaten me again and I will ensure there is nothing left of the Jabari to bury you.

Now, let us begin anew.

I have consulted my advisors regarding a summit but they are not in agreement about the necessity, length, or wisdom of meeting at the surface for a prolonged period of time.

I have attached their requirements and goals for this meeting. If they are met, my advisors may be moved to change their mind. I can, of course, simply order a contingent to go to Wakanda but as I understand it, forced alliances are weak. Talokan will not be made weak.

I also suggest a more neutral meeting place such as the [westcoast of Africa/some sort of island] that is foreign to us both and thus a disadvantage to us both. I understand this will delay the summit but that is a risk I am willing to take for the sake of success.

I would like clarification on an item in your initial correspondence: marriage between myself and the Black Panther. Is this a literal marriage or a figurative one? While it would strengthen the alliance in the eyes of my people, I find it difficult to believe you could enforce such a thing on Princess Shuri. I do not force myself on the unwilling. I would like to hear from her regarding this matter.

Ajaw K'uk'ulkan

~*~

Ajaw K'uk'ulkan,

I regret to inform you that the Black Panther is unavailable for the foreseeable future. I will, of course, inform her of your response. It is up to her whether or not she will contact you.

M'Baku of the Jabari, King of Wakanda

~*~

K'uk'ulkan,

The marriage was my idea. If you do not desire it, it does not need to happen.

Shuri

~*~

[UNSENT]

Princess

It is good to hear —

I hope this message finds you—

I am sorry for your—

Nevermind, erase everything. Do not send it.

Begin a new message for King M'Baku

~*~

King M'Baku of the Jabari

The most recent iteration of the summit is acceptable. We will meet at the dates outlined in Wakanda. Our representatives are free to correspond until then. I look forward to the greatness our two nations will achieve.

Ajaw K'uk'ulkan

~*~

Ajaw K'uk'ulkan

Since this marriage might actually happen, Hanuman help us all, I feel it is both my duty and obligation as a king and a friend to tell you to be soft with Shuri. I say this not because I doubt her abilities or her strength; she is one of the strongest, most capable people I have met. In another fight between the two of you, I have no doubt of the outcome. She will win and you will die. But killing you will kill something in her that is as precious and rare as vibranium itself.

Shuri is, at heart, a creator but lately, because the world is cruel, she has had very little to do with the former and far too much of the latter. I would have her create again. I would have her happy. You will see when Shuri is joyful, she is strongest. You will want that strength when you must inevitably deal with the rest of the world.

Therefore, regardless of the certainty of this marriage, you will court her, God-King of Talokan. You will shower her with gifts, ones that she actually wants. You will dance with her. You will give her biosensitive energy cells, walks on the beach with ice cream, and whatever else she desires from a suitor. Use your supposed extensive spy network to research what that means these days. You owe her that much.

M'Baku of the Jabari, King of Wakanda

PS: To be clear, I meant that I am Shuri's friend.

~*~

[UNSENT]

King M'Baku of the Jabari,

I thank you for your wisdom. I admire Princess Shuri for all the reasons you have written. She is a powerful opponent, a brilliant scientist, and kinder than anyone I have met in five hundred years. Talokan is blessed to have her as a queen.

It is unfortunate that the spectre of our battle and the losses incurred will never leave us. Nor should it, for the lessons we have all learned from it are sacred. Despite this, I swear on the lives of my people that I will treat Princess Shuri with honour and respect. Had things been different, I would have her enveloped in softness and wanting for nothing. I would have ensured she knew only joy. While I have no way of knowing whether she will find this joy in our union, I will do everything in my power to make certain she will not know any more sorrow.

Ajaw K'uk'ulkan

#nashuri #namor x shuri #shuri x namor #seaprincess #black panther wakanda forever

11 notes · View notes

psablog · 1 year

Text

PSA: Be conscious of biased algorithms!

By: SUMMER

I recently read “A Sea of Data: Apophenia and Pattern (Mis-)Recognition”, a chapter in the book Duty Free Art by Hito Steyerl. She discusses the growing issue that data analysts face in a world where there is an overwhelming amount of data to go through - how to differentiate between signal and noise. She argues, “Vision loses importance and is replaced by filtering, decrypting, and pattern recognition”.

I thought that her idea applied to us as media consumers and social media users on an everyday scale in a similar way. We’re being hit with so much information at all times that our brains sometimes go on autopilot, constantly deciding what’s worth paying attention to and what has to go. On social media, we end up curating a stream of content that perfectly caters to our interests and shows us what we believe is important - that’s us separating signal from noise.

Who does social media actually care about? Steyerl references a mythical Ancient Greek story in which “affluent male locals” produced actual speech, while “women, children, slaves, and foreigners” were just noise - annoying and irrelevant. I thought of our last Digital Humanities class, where we talked about how social media platforms function and whose interests they prioritize. While we do have some control over what we want to see on our feeds, we concluded that biased algorithms maintain feeds that are dominated by people who are white, able-bodied, conventionally attractive, etc. Some of my classmates noted how marginalized communities, like LGBTQ+ folks, are being censored and shadow-banned on social media. It sounds an awful lot like a modern-day equivalent of that Ancient Greek story.

TikTok users speak out about their posts being wrongly shadowbanned and flagged for violating Community Guidelines.

Not to burst your bubble... “Dirty data” is a term that Steyerl uses, which can mean inaccurate and inconsistent data, but should also be understood as “real data” that “documents the struggle of real people with a bureaucracy that exploits the uneven distribution and implementation of digital technology”. What she means by this is that entire groups of people are ignored - “not taken into account” - because these digital and social structures simply do not work in their favor. We're at fault here, too - the downside of having that control over curating our feeds is that we tend to trap ourselves in a bubble. We make connections that reinforce our existing worldviews and cry “dirty data!” at the stuff that doesn’t fit the mold that we’re comfortable with. Organizations like Logic are recognizing this issue and making plans to use their platform to amplify the voices of typically silenced groups of people, like trans and Indigenous writers. Action like this is important in broadening our perspectives and making room for content outside of the bubbles that we and our biased algorithms have worked together to create.

Data vs. reality What are the dangers of relying too heavily on these algorithms to analyze data? To what extent do the patterns they find correspond to actual reality? In the chapter, Steyerl talks about automated apophenia: computers perceiving connections in data where there aren’t any. She prompts us to consider the real-life consequences of making decisions based on these phantom patterns. In recent years, tenant screening technology used in selling and renting homes has been threatening housing equality due to its programmed bias. This article from Curbed explains how the problem boils down to tech experts designing these systems “in a vacuum”, without any knowledge on civil rights or social implications. The NSA’s SKYNET program that Steyerl references in his chapter is the same type of issue on a larger, deadlier scale.

I won’t deny how important technology is for our everyday functioning, but it isn’t perfect or limitless by any means. Supposedly objective and fact-based algorithms often become reflections of our own human biases. But if we’re the ones who wrote them, then we can be the ones to recognize their flaws and work towards fixing them!

11 notes · View notes

rarepears · 2 years

Note

First of all thank you so much for supplying that good mxtx crossover drabble content I am so so thankful beyond words; second of all could I perhaps interest you in my Yu Ziyuan mdzs and Qi Qingqi svsss forbidden sort of exes concept wherein they met when they were both disciples and developed mutual crushes. Qqq wanted yzy to join cang qiong with her but yzy was already engaged to jfm and wanted to uphold her family's expectations- hence they were never fully able to realize their relationship tho they never truly forgot about each other even as their responsibilities began to pile up and they fell out of contact.

*Sips tea*

This further adds into the reasons why Yu Ziyuan is so upset at Jiang Fengmian. She keeps using Qi Qingqi as a measuring stick of what a good partner is and Jiang Fengmian is... nothing like Qi Qingqi. :/

She'll admit that she's a bit hypocritical to be so upset that Jiang Fengmian can't get over Cangse Sanren considering how she's not over Qi Qingqi, but here's the thing: she's trying to actually build a relationship with the person that she's married to. He... isn't. Not even one iota of effort can she see him attempting.

Yu Ziyuan has stopped her correspondence with her old lover; she hasn't even attempted to visit or see Qi Qingqi again even though it would be so easy to. Establishing an alliance with one of Cang Qiong's peaks would boost the Jiang sect up so much, if not by trade than by influence. It would help keep the Jiang sect's power from being overly dependent on its main ally, the Jin, who was much too closely tied to the Wen for Yu Ziyuan's comfort, no matter the fact that her childhood friend is married to the Jin Sect Leader.

What's the saying again? It's not good to have all her eggs in one basket.

Yep.

But Jiang Fengmian won't even discuss sect politics with her. He won't treat her like a proper sect leader's wife, introducing her to the key people that she should know or instructing her on how the Jiang Sect does things - she has to wrestle for every duty, every inch of respect from the sect's people. She knows she's trampled on many toes, offended many people (which only hinders her efforts), but it's the best she can do with what she's got.

She's so besieged fighting the Jiang internal politics to even think about proposing any foreign relationships for the Jiang sect. There's no point in even thinking about "blowing pillow wind" with Jiang Fengmian either. He won't even do his duty of broaching the subject of when they would create sect heir.

Like always, she has to demand him to do the bare minimal.

And even then, he fails to deliver.

She sees her children and as much as she loves them, she still can't help but be disappointed.

This is the best that Jiang Fengmian's descendants can do, her mind whispers in derision. She can see no traits of similarities with Qi Qingqi in them. They duck their heads about and waffle when they are called to make decisions; Qi Qingqi knew what she wanted immediately and got even a bit too tunnel-visioned in her quest to achieve her goals. They struggle with their coursework - of course, they did well in comparison to the rest of the Jiang disciples, but they were the Jiang heirs and were supposed to be held to a higher standard. Qi Qingqi was a cultivation genius and fought with her own unique weaponry and forms.

But no matter what happens or how much life continues to disappoint her, Yu Ziyuan refuses to wonder what her life would have been like if she didn't refuse Qi Qingqi's offer and abandoned her duty to run to Cang Qiong.

#jiang fengmian #Yu Ziyuan #madame yu #unreliable narrator Yu Ziyuan #qi qingqi #qi qingqi x Yu Ziyuan #svsss #svsss au #svsss ideas #scumbag self saving system #mdzs ideas #mdzs #mao dao zu shi #mxtx #Yu Ziyuan and Qi Qingqi were lovers before Yu Ziyuan became engaged to Jiang Fengmian au

56 notes · View notes

thursdayisbetterthanfriday · 3 days

Text

youtube

CIVIL WAR - Spectacle and Responsibility

THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS, GRAPHIC WAR TIME PHOTOGRAPHY AND THEMES/IMAGES OF TERRIBLE SUFFERING AND SUICIDE - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Civil War is a film by Alex Gardiner, writer/director of Ex Machina 28 Days Later and Annihilation. It covers a group of war photographers travelling from New York to Washington D.C. during a new American civil war. Aiming to get an interview with the Authoritarian president on his third term, the group takes a road trip across a divided nation.

This has, in part, been hyped as more of an action-heavy film. It isn't. This is very much a love letter to war photographers, and correspondents, with a serious message on the divisions occurring across the West.

Watching it, I'm left with a certain impression, which can be summed up as a question. What does it mean to be a war reporter?

BELIEVE IT

"Dave Scherman and I took off from Dachau to go look for the war front which seemed a mirage of cleanliness and humanity. The sight of the blue and white striped tatters shrouding the bestial death of the hundreds of starved and maimed men and women had left us gulping for air and for violence, and if Munich, the birthplace of this horror was falling we’d like to help." - Lee Miller

Lee Miller was a photographer for a women's magazine in the 1930s and 1940s. She originally started as a model for Vogue magazine, but was able to get herself a position as a photographer as the Second World War progressed and Miller's male colleagues were shipped off to the the armed services. The magazine worked closely with the government to put out information, and content, that could help women during the war - and Miller was eventually drafted as one of four war official correspondents in the US army during the Normandy invasion during 1944. Miller's photographs focused on many aspects of the war, such as women who were German collaborators, but some of her most impactful were from the liberation of camps such as Buchenwald and Dachau. Images that reportedly haunted her for the rest of her life.

By documenting the atrocities in newspapers, and dispatches, ordinary citizens across the world were able to discover atrocities and pressure their representatives to ensure such acts could never occur again. The subsequent Nuremberg Trials, and creation of the Geneva Conventions, were a direct result of the atrocities committed during the war.

In Civil War, Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst) is the grizzled war photographer, having covered conflicts across Africa and the Middle East. She wants to use her photography as a way to inform the world of conflicts, and help prevent them, but has ultimately failed in her own home, the United States of America. When we meet her in Civil War, she is a distant and terse figure. A disillusioned figure whose dreams of preventing conflict have died, now haunted by the images of her foreign assignments transplanted into her own country as the protections brought in at the end of the second world war eroded away.

What's in an image?

“I cried when I saw her running... If I don’t help her — if something happened and she died — I think I’d kill myself after that.” - Huỳnh Công Út The Terror of War is a photograph by Huỳnh Công Út in 1972, during the Vietnam War. During the war, a South Vietnamese napalm attack hit Trảng Bàng village. Many villagers were forced to flee, with Phan Thị Kim Phúc having to strip to avoid burning alive in Napalm jelly. The fleeing children were caught on camera by Út, against the backdrop of their destroyed home and the indifference of the soldiers around them. Út had to fight Associated Press to get the photo published, given the full frontal nudity, but when it was pushed through it became a defining image for a generation. The Vietnam war was one of the first televised conflict, with war photographers, and film crews, providing an important on-the-ground perspective that was often lacking from more tightly controlled press outfits in both World Wars. It was also widely unpopular with the US public, who were being drafted to fight in another overseas war, which they had little stake in. Many of the popular protest movements across the US, in universities, in music and popular culture were based around the Vietnam War - with images such as The Terror of War acting as a lightning rod to ignite popular public opposition to the war inside the US and beyond. After taking his photo, Út was able to get Kim Phúc, and others, to the safety of a hospital. When doctors refused to treat her due to the severity of her burns, Út flashed his press pass at them and threatened to name their hospital as the hospital that let her die. Kim Phúc was treated, and has remained lifelong friends with Út ever since - leading international efforts to provide medical and psychological aid to children from warzones. She has an affectionate nickname for Út - Uncle.

In Civil War, Lee Smith is matched by Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a veteran New York Times reporter and her mentor - joining their trip on his own path but providing her with a warmer, emotional support. Sammy is the heart of the old-school of journalism. He is the kind of journalist that would get the story, and do what he could to save those in need. He's older, wiser, and has a sense of responsibility towards Lee - seeing how her job, and attitude, has made her miserable and has caused her to repress her accumulated trauma.

Post-War Postmodernism

"Death and grief knock on the door of almost every house in Gaza... I thought this picture may reach all decision makers and the world and I hoped it would be a reason to stop the killing, strikes and destruction Gaza has seen." - Mohammed Jad Salem

The conflict in Gaza has been raging since last October, with no true end in sight. Palestinian photojournalists, such as Mohammed Jad Salem, have been on the receiving end of the violence. Not just in the images that have been captured, but physically targeted by the IDF. Under international law, journalists are protected by Article 79 of the Geneva Convention of 1949, established after the Second World War and updated with this Article in a 1977 revision: 1. Journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict shall be considered as civilians within the meaning of Article 50, paragraph 1 2. They shall be protected as such under the Conventions and this Protocol, provided that they take no action adversely affecting their status as civilians, and without prejudice to the right of war correspondents accredited to the armed forces to the status provided for in Article 4 A (4) of the Third Convention.

The Gazan war has claimed the lives of 105 journalists and support workers. Some photographs you will have seen are taken by now deceased photojournalists. With the exception of journalists embedded into IDF units, Israel does not let foreign reporters into Gaza. It does not let surviving reporters out either, unless in a body bag.

As many in South America already know, some countries are more equal than others when it comes to international law. The gamification of international law. Treating conventions as problems to be solved, puzzles to be reduced to components, to justify atrocities. This is the state of many of the world's countries have come to in the 21st century - a Post-War Postmodernism for the information age. A jaded, cynical, approach to the world which reflects the initial state of many of the Civil War characters.

Old World Blues

In Civil War, there is a parallel drawn between characters who represent the old world of photojournalism and the new. Sammy is representative of the older school of journalism. The attitude of using images to help change the world for the better. He has previously acted as mentor for Lee but, as we meet them, Lee's attitude has shifted to a more jaded mindset. Lee's work hasn't been able to stop the actions destroying the nation. "Once you start asking yourself those questions, you can’t stop. So we don’t ask. We record so other people ask. Want to be a journalist, that’s the job." - Lee Jessie Cullen is young and impressionable, but has a specific attitude towards her work - seeing it almost in a reductive means to get the perfect photo. Cullen makes a fumbling admission to Lee about two of her heroes having the same name, Lee Miller and Lee Smith, which is quickly brushed aside by Smith. Cullen is green. She's new, very hungry, and she slowly gains more experience during their road trip. She has a strong technical knowledge of her film kit, impressing even Lee. She is engrossed in the technical side of getting the perfect shot instead of thinking that there's a bigger picture to her work, like using photography to change the world. Something that Lee, underneath the cynicism, is hiding. "Every time I survived a war-zone, I thought I was sending a warning home, “Don’t do this.” But here we are." - Lee This is reflected in the downtime interactions with Lee, where Cullen acts to remind Lee of the joys in life, and is a counterpoint to Lee's hidden idealistic nature. Cullen has no pretention on changing the world through her work, she just needs the best shot. Cullen is growing up in a world turned upside down. To her, risking literally everything to be the best at her craft is the dream. As Lee influences Lee in perfecting the craft, Cullen is influencing Lee on the effective meaningless of her ideals. This comes to a head in the middle, to end, of the film where an encounter with soldiers disposing of corpses leads to the death of Sammy. This is the dying of the old, empathetic, journalism of old that Lee has aspired to. The soldiers are effectively white nationalists who proceed to quiz the group on where they're from - killing the foreign reporters and dumping them into the mass grave filled with civilians. There is a scene earlier in the film where Cullen asks if Lee will take a photo if Cullen dies. Lee blows it off with a "what do you think?". As Lee looks at a photo she's taken of Sammy's corpse, she decides to delete what is a newspaper-worthy shot. Rejecting the photo, she holds her ideals closer than before, the ideals that Sammy strived for. The humanity behind the image. As the remaining crew move towards the White House, and the defeat of the President to the Western Forces, Cullen becomes ever more brazen in her attempts to get more photos. She has gained a gung-ho confidence, having to be pulled back behind cover by soldiers to avoid her getting shot. Lee struggles in this section of the film. She clearly sees the inhumanity of what is going on. No longer the confident, cool, operator she is fully embracing her suppressed trauma - struggling under the pressure. As the soldiers sweep the White House, Cullen makes a bold attempt at a shot, only to be pushed away be Lee who takes several bullets to the chest. As the soldiers race to capture the President, Cullen takes a look back at Lee and, instead of helping her, turns back to her task and joins the soldiers with the newly captured President. As the Western Forces soldiers shoot the President, there is no empathy present. Just Cullen getting her perfect shots. Her baptism of fire ending in the death of her old mentors and their ideals.

Cullen isn't burdened by the idea that a photograph can change the world. To her that's just an ideal from a quaint bygone age. An age where a photograph can be used as a positive force for social good no longer exists for her. Instead it's just a trophy. There's little difference between her and the soldier - they're both shooting their prize. It's just that one is holding a gun, and one is holding a camera. "There is no version of this that is a mistake. I know, because I’m it. Joel and Sammy are it." - Lee "It’s my choice." - Jessie

The Cost of Capturing an Image

Civil War isn't a film about a hyper-realistic conflict. Alex Garland has explicitly set that out himself in interviews. Any critique on "California and Texas wouldn't align" is a waste of time arguing against - it's not the focus of Garland's attention. Instead Civil War asks questions of what we expect from photojournalism, and the corrosive polarisation of politics that has lead to the destruction of post-war protections, and attitudes.

What is photojournalism for? Is it to warn of the dangers of conflict, to help leaders prevent them in future and to better humanity? The Lee Miller and Huỳnh Công Út approach to inform, educate and entertain humanity?

Is it just to reach the peak of technical perfection - to get the best shot for the bragging rights, and the glory? The Paparazzi, pay-per-click, Public Relations approach? A means to promote your brand, and display the trophy of "my team is winning"?

What is the cost of each image? In financial, and human, terms - when you choose the action of recording instead of intervening?

In an age of blink-and-miss-it news articles, where graphic images of dead children on beaches and bombed hospitals are plastered front-and-centre, is the image being taken to inform and educate, or a reductive means to draw the most attention in a landscape of click-bait articles that require newspapers to have the most attention grabbing stories to even survive. In a world of us vs them, can you still connect to each other with a universal common humanity? How is the post-war consensus being dismantled? Modern conflicts, such as in Gaza, have seen a significant number of journalists killed by the IDF. Reporters, attempting to bring to light brutality against those desperately in need, are murdered and claimed to be part of the "other team". Meanwhile the real perpetrator is allowed to continue running the country in the Knesset, despite deliberately allowing the very organisation which conducted the October 7th attacks money and resources to stymie the cause of Palestinian independence. The atrocities documented by Lee Miller and other brave reporters in the 1940s were the crucible which forged the Geneva Conventions, and helped secure the protection of journalists in future wars across the globe. It is concerning that in Israel, in Gaza, that those that fought to secure those protections are letting clear violations slide. The United States continues to supply the Israelis with weapons and billions of US taxpayers dollars, despite claiming to abhor violence. Actions speak louder than words. Now, as then, students are now standing up for the rights of those affected by US backed wars in foreign lands. Against the hypocrisy of their elders who claim to uphold a post-war system of international relations, but who are actively undermining that freedom with their actions.

If we allow our democratic institutions to ignore the values, and ideals, which glue society and our international relations together then we too will end up like Cullen. Willing participants in a red team blue team game that only exists because we give it legitimacy.

The message of Civil War therefore is clear: If we cannot relate to each other through a common humanity and come together to resolve our issues, then we are doomed to see the world through a conflict of false binaries that are designed to divide us.

Sources:

Lee Miller Archive - https://images.leemiller.co.uk/

Lee Miller: Witness to the Concentration Camps and the Fall of the Third Reich | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans (nationalww2museum.org) Photographer Lee Miller's Second World War | Imperial War Museums (iwm.org.uk) 'Napalm Girl' photographer Nick Ut looks back at a career that included war's carnage and Hollywood's red carpets - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

‘Accidental Napalm’ turns 50: the generation-defining image capturing the futility of the Vietnam war (theconversation.com)

Palestinian Photojournalists Document Gaza’s Carnage (rollingstone.com)

IHL Treaties - Additional Protocol (I) to the Geneva Conventions, 1977 - Article 79 (icrc.org)

More than 100 journalists killed in six months in Gaza – where is the international community? | RSF

#civil war #alex garland civil war #alex garland #vietnam war #war photography #journalism #photography #what makes a photograph #Youtube

0 notes

min-jpg · 3 years

Note

Hi!! Can you do they boys getting kidnapped but its Diluc, Childe, and Kazuha? Thank you!!💗💗

Note: I just want to point out that there's no actual reason on how I choose for the reader to beat up the kidnappers since part 1,, it's totally random as long as I'm trying out different ideas whatever fits ehe. Enjoy! 💖

---

Kidnapped Genshin Boys x Fem Rich!reader pt.2

Part 1 (Kaeya, Zhongli, Xiao)

Characters: Childe, Diluc, Kazuha

Genre: fluff, established relationship, some woman kicking ass action, (TW: mentions of blood and violence)

---

CHILDE

Your boyfriend would definitely try to go head-to-head against the shady group of people who abducted him. The gang accountable must be living under the rock for even considering one of the most dangerous Harbingers as their prey to carry out their schemes.

However, Childe learned that there would be ramifications if he tries to be rash without gathering solid intel first. Having no knowledge of your current circumstances and whereabouts troubled him to the core. They could have already sent out a corresponding group towards you and endanger you if he failed to listen.

Being wealthy is not a foreign concept to Childe as he is also a wealthy man himself. That said, the premonition of being a target for a ransom would not be unrealistic to him. For now, he is glad that he is the victim here instead of having to witness you kidnapped.

"You know, you could've asked me nicely for some money. I might just give it to you, instead of doing all this for my girlfriend's money." Despite being in a position far from desirable, Childe leisurely sat on the chair that he was bound to, crossing his legs. He was making small talks to push away the worst scenarios happening to you. Are you safe? Are you crying? Did they hurt you?

"I don't know who you are to be running your mouth, but you should value your life a little more." Their leader emerged from the group.

Childe's ocean eyes squinted as menace casts upon his pupils, his voice lowered, "Is that so? Ironic, because you guys seem to value money more than your lives."

The head stepped back slightly, "Enough with your empty threats! You should be aware of the current situation you're in. We're not fooling around here."

"I'm not fooling around either."

As sparks were thrown back and forth, you made your way in through the main entrance. Tapping the shoulder that belongs to one of the men, "Excuse me, I need to get to my boyfriend." Your fist sunk into the side of his face when he turned towards you. He collapsed on the ground with a few broken teeth and blood spewing out of his mouth. Moving on to the next adversary in your path, you fought with full faith in your abilities no matter how intimidating they were.

Soon, the leader and people further ahead finally took notice of it. You pave your way towards your boyfriend and eventually, both your eyes meet each other. Childe puffed out a breath of relief when he finally saw you, but also registering the fact that you just took down most of the men with your bare hands.

Kicking away the men who tried to grab you, you then waved enthusiastically at Childe, "Hey girlie, hold still." Rushing right ahead to the leader, you brought your arm near your face, elbow pointing outwards. The sharp edge from your elbow jabbed his throat, causing him to choke and lose balance.

As his reaction dulled, it was your chance to strike again. Thus, you gallantly overthrew their leader and the entire gang by yourself.

After helping Childe, he stood up abruptly and placed his hands on your shoulder with eagerness written all over the face, "I never knew you could fight so well! How about a spar with me right now?" Expect your boyfriend to continuously bug you to indulge in his rampant itch to fight anyone that comes across as a worthy opponent. Though, the real takeaway from this experience was the way your hair clings to your face with sweat as the adhesive and the triumph look in your eyes. It was a rather attractive sight to relish in his taste.

DILUC

Your boyfriend would be infuriated that crooked people like these exist, much less target him to extort money from you. Just another validation to add up on how incompetent the Knights of Favonious is, he thought. Someone will have to clean up their mess, that someone being him. What better way to do that than to follow them to their hideout to seek out the whole organization?

Diluc is renowned for being one of the richest men in Teyvat. Naturally, the group thought they hit the jackpot on not only holding him for ransom, but potentially garnering some money from him as well.

The only concern he carries is your wellbeing. Diluc fears that this incident will affect you mentally. His head started filling up with formulations on ways to resolve this matter without causing any uproar to guarantee your safety.

When the head was introduced to him, he gritted his teeth to suppress every ounce of his might to not reach for his claymore. Diluc still has to prioritize gathering information first regarding the gang. His patrons at Angel's Share are usually the ones providing him with promising intel of any evildoers, but some things are just meant to be obtained by himself.

"Is this the only hideout you have? Quite in a shambles, don't you think?" Diluc's eyes shifted around the dilapidated building, observing the surroundings to know his enemies better.

The leader rolled his eyes, "It wouldn't be so bad once we get some funding from you and your girlfriend." Diluc hummed. Judging from his answer, it is safe to assume that the organization is rather a small scaling one. Defeating them right now will result in uprooting the source once and for all.

As Diluc was about to do so, a lackey of the gang ran frantically towards them, panting labored when he reached and trying to catch his breath. "What is it?" The leader question.

"T-there's... there's someone." He pointed towards a direction with fear layering his voice.

"What? Why are you so scared?" They all glanced towards the spot.

"I swear there was a woman! I don't know who it is, but she took out some of our guys on guard outside."

In disbelief that a woman could have done anything so reckless, the leader trudged to said location. As it is a spot lacking light, the darkness and shadow made it challenging for him to pinpoint if anyone is there. When he moved closer, you crept out behind from his blind spot and kicked the back of his head, causing his head to spin. Your arm lunged forward, gaining a tight hold onto his nape. You put everything into pushing him, his forehead hammered down to the floor. Creating a loud thud, it gave him a concussion.

"Looking for me?" Your foot stamped onto his back, just making sure he stays down.

Everyone, including your boyfriend, had their pupils dilated at the scene. You sighed at the silence, "All of you just messed with the wrong couple." Lifting your foot away, you stomped forward without giving them a second thought. Your arms and legs are all warmed up for many rounds against your foes.

Diluc watched you from afar as you drove your way towards victory. Although he could step in to help, he admits silently to himself that he would like to observe you a little longer. Putting his trust in your calibers to carry you far, his eyes never left your brave figure.

Once you cleared the group, the next thing to do is checking on Diluc. Already unfastening the restrains himself, he walked to you, "That was well executed. Your abilities shouldn't be underestimated. Don't join the Knights though." He stressed the last remark, scoffing. You chuckled and held his hand to guide him out of here, "Thanks. Glad to impress you, Master Diluc. Let's go home."

KAZUHA

Your boyfriend is a rather hard target to impose on for their plans of kidnapping him. His senses are just too refined for an ordinary person to challenge. Basic tactics, such as overthrowing him with the element of surprise have proven to be futile. Thus, Kazuha will always be able to evade falling prey into their hands.

The only way Kazuha could have been kidnapped is through falsifying evidence of you being in a life-threatening situation. Although he has successfully saved his own skin, not the same could be applied to you. Feeling his resolve shaken, what other choices could he have? Prioritizing your safety is the most important thing right now.

Kazuha may have faced similar situations in the past when out in the sea, encountering pirates of other crew aiming for the Crux Fleet's fortune. Being in the position as a captive for ransom is new. He actually found it amusing, rather than having thoughts of blaming you. It is not your fault that you are blessed with wealth. It is the fault of the criminals.

"Ain't you that the kid who's with Beidou? You're part of her crew." The leader questioned his target, to which he was greeted by Kazuha's silence. "Tell you what. You're just like the rest of us. We want to be rich. How about you ask your girlfriend to bring some more money and we'll give you a share as well?"

Kazuha's face darkened, "I don't know what you've heard, but it must be really valiant of you to assume to worst out of the Crux Fleet and myself. I'd appreciate it if you cease lumping me together with criminals like you."

The Crux Fleet does put up with an infamous reputation amongst the Qixing. Perhaps the abductors concluded that Kazuha has a negative conscience just like them, as in upholding a relationship with you to have a taste of your assets. Still, if he tried to talk his way out of it, barbarians like them will never reach a mutual understanding with him. Kazuha shut his eyes, ignoring any further confrontations to preserve his energy as he contemplates a plan.

He was interrupted when he thought he heard your voice nearby, carried by the wind. The others around him did not hear it since it was just something only Kazuha could pick up. Applying full concentration, he managed to form what he heard, "Get out of my way, please, while I'm asking nicely."

Opening his eyes, he turned to stare at the entrance. As if on cue, the door swung open when you kicked it down, announcing your presence. Some men fainted below your feet.

The others instantly reacted by storming towards your direction to stop your advancement. You stood still in your position, taking a mindful deep breath. One thing you learned from Kazuha is to always remain cold-headed before engaging in a fight.

Kazuha wanted to get out of the restraints to rescue you, but instead, you started dishing out few moves against the men.

When you thought you finished with the remaining numbers, their leader was about to declare his victory, "I got you!" Encircling his arm around your neck in an attempt to strangle you, you huffed and grinned towards Kazuha to signal him you have it under control.

You elbowed his stomach and felt him loosen his grip when he winced. Making enough gap between his arm and your neck, you slipped away and swiftly kicked in between his groins. The color drained from his face and tumbled to the ground, passing out in pain, "Hmph, this is what happens when you touch a lady without her permission." You brushed away the hair from your face after an arduous fight.

Jogging towards your boyfriend, "Kazuha!" He brisked towards you as well and held you in his embrace, softly rubbed your nape, "You're giving me plenty of inspirations for a haiku after such a wonderful performance." Kazuha would appreciate you refraining from such a heedless approach next time. He was comforted to see you safe and knowing the threats were nothing more than to use you, his weakness, against him. After witnessing that, Kazuha will be slightly ashamed he even doubted you in the first place, so he trusts that you can watch out for yourself next time.

#childe x reader #childe genshin impact #diluc x reader #diluc genshin impact #kazuha x reader #kazuha genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact headcanons

292 notes · View notes

autumnslance · 3 years

Text

FFXIV Write 2021 #15: Thunderous

((A longer one. Violence, blood, and fire. Not safe for heretics or dragoons as we step back to last week and the aftermath of “Heady”...))

“There they are!” X’rhun exclaimed. “Thank the gods!”

Alberic only puffed a breath in agreement as they ran across and down the ravine to where Aeryn was tending to an ashen-faced Heustienne.

“The cavalry has arrived,” the injured dragoon said dryly, her damaged chainmail removed to allow Aeryn access to the wound. Not the worst Heustienne had ever taken, but more than bad enough.

“Thank Halone you’re safe,” Alberic said as X’rhun dropped to his knees next to the women to lend his own aid if needed. “We heard from Kal Myhk you’d tangled with a group of heretics—”

“They took us to Avengret,” Aeryn’s voice cut him off; quiet, too steady, too calm.

For a moment the world paused, until X’rhun’s tail lashed as he turned to look up at Alberic.

Aeryn wasn’t looking at him, her hands resting on her knees now, feet tucked under her. Heustienne’s gaze flicked between Aeryn and Alberic, her own questions barely held back.

“Let’s get Heustienne upright,” X’rhun said gently. “And then get back to—”

“Anyx Trine?” Aeryn interrupted. “Will they tell me the truth if I ask? They must know. If what she said is true.” She turned her head slightly toward Alberic without raising her face, looking at his boots. “She said I should ask you.”

“Aeryn…” His mouth was dry.

She looked up finally, lips parting to say more, but instead she drew in a sharp breath, eyes wide and shining silver, not seeing Alberic or anything else around her now.

He groaned, whether in fear or agony or relief, he wasn’t certain.

——

Alberic followed Corran Striker into the house. It was a pleasant little place, clean and airy. The edges of the walls were lined with brightly painted flower and vine designs, and small pieces of colored glass bordered the custom-framed windows to allow some of the light to also reflect rainbows into the rooms--that couldn’t have been cheap, Alberic thought.

“Please, leave your helm and lance by the door. I think my wife will forgive the boots this time.”

“I keep the lance close to hand, you understand,” Alberic replied as he at least set down his helm on the table by the door.

There was evidence of children; their house slippers by the door, a doll on a chair, a set of tin knights cluttering the low table in the sitting room. His heart ached. “What a lovely home,” he said. “Will the missus and children be joining us?”

Corran shook his head. “Emelia’s running some of her crafts all the way to Fallgourd in the Shroud, and took Zaine and Aeryn with her for the fun. They’ve been cooped up too long, she thought.” He smiled fondly. “It’s a way she deals with her homesickness, and shares that part of herself with our children; she grew up traveling part of the year selling wares as a girl in Thavnair.”

Relief, but also renewed wariness prickled along Alberic’s spine as he followed Corran to the kitchen, leaning his lance on the wall right behind his chair as he took the offered seat at the dining table. “Thavnair? That’s a ways away. Explains the colors though.”

“I got rather lucky,” Corran replied, his tone warm and genuine. “She misses it, but is somehow willing to stay with me.”

“Ever think of visiting?” Alberic asked casually as Corran went about the motions of preparing the lunch he had offered the tired dragoon when they had accidentally met in the treacherous priest’s chapel. Corran had seemed surprised to learn of Comfraire’s heresy, but had offered hospitality despite his own shaken state.

“If there wasn’t always so much work to do, perhaps someday we could,” Corran said quietly.

“I think I’d take the chance, perhaps even move permanently, were I a common man with a family. Get the children far from the war, among the wife’s people.”

“I won’t lie; the thought has occurred to me,” Corran said. “Though I’m surprised, Ser Azure; I’d think one like you would want to keep promising future soldiers for the war in Ishgard.”

Alberic shrugged. “As I said; were I a common man, with a foreign wife who misses her home and children with futures to think of.”

The chronometer in the hall ticked steadily as Corran worked. “Perhaps. Though much as she misses Thavnair, I’d miss Coerthas. I love my home, Ser Azure. There’s little I wouldn't do to see our homeland prosper.”

Alberic did not reply, not trusting his tongue to respond to the man’s gall.

As Corran came to the table with sandwiches and a decent-looking ale, Alberic smiled. “Then perhaps you can aid me in protecting our homeland,” he said. He hoped he was wrong about Corran. “I am tracking a dangerous creature I believe the false priest Comfraire was working with, coordinating an imminent attack from the Horde.”

Corran raised an eyebrow. “I’m but a simple farmer, Ser. I don’t know what help I could be.” He glanced down at his plate.

The chronometer in the hall continued to tick.

“Know you of anyone Comfraire spent time with, when not pretending to holy duties? Places the priest liked to go when not tending the church? I hear you were among those who escorted the fellow on his daily walks.”

“A duty many of us in the community shared,” Corran replied, tone growing strident. “Do you accuse me of heresy merely for minding an old man on his daily constitutional?”

“No of course not,” Alberic answered. He pulled the correspondence he had found in Comfraire’s hidden desk drawer from his pack. “These letters however do indicate guilt.”

“Well that is another story, isn’t it?” Corran asked, leaning back in his chair. The humble farmer demeanor fell away as he crossed his arms. “Why play along?”

“I wanted to be wrong. You seemed like a decent man with a family you love.”

“I do love them,” Corran replied, voice low and cold. “You’re very unlucky you came this day.”

“She doesn’t know what you really do, does she?”

“And once we’re rid of you, she never will,” Corran said bluntly. “Our war doesn’t concern her.”

“And the children?”

Corran’s grey eyes clouded like thunderstorms, his lips drawn into a snarl. “You’ll never touch them.”

They both leapt, chairs clattering to the ground. Alberic reached for his lance while Corran moved with preternatural speed to the sideboard, pulling a hidden blade he managed to raise in time to block Alberic’s swing.

The house was torn and broken as they fought, Alberic barely able to acknowledge the damage as they threw each other against walls and through furnishings. Corran had an advantage with his shorter blade in the cramped space, but Alberic was a far more practiced fighter. If he could get hold of a sword--or better disarm Corran of his--then the heretic would soon be at his mercy.

He finally saw his moment, spinning his lance to baffle Corran’s blade before using his more heavily armored frame to knock the taller man through a door and into what had to be the master bedroom.

The sword went sliding the opposite way down the hall, and Corran laughed bitterly.

“Give it up, Striker,” Alberic said, pointing his lance. He could see Corran’s waist and legs, but the broken door obscured his head. “Tell me about the coming attack!”

Corran's laugh only continued, growing deeper and more growling. Alberic’s eyes widened as he saw Corran’s body jerk, bones cracking and skin tearing, swelling as scales overtook skin.

He swung to drive his lance down through the man as a roar shook the windows, and through the back wall an aevis tore its way inside, the colorfully bordered window panes shattering across the bedding. The dragon leapt at Alberic, and he swung up, barely blocking the creature’s jaws from clamping onto his still helm-less head as they skid down the hall from the momentum of its impact.

Alberic managed to roll out of the way as the aevis let loose a gout of flame, the fire catching on broken furniture. It came for him again but he had made it to his feet, dashing back toward the kitchen for room to move. The aevis lunged at him as Alberic braced himself, a heel against the base of the sink.

His lance caught the beast’s chest and with a roar of his own from his Inner Dragon surging forth, he used the dragon’s momentum to pierce it deeper, throwing it over his shoulder and halfway through the large window, more bright glass breaking as the thing flailed, screaming flames across the yard as it bled out around the lance through it.

Alberic had no time to retrieve his weapon as Corran came for him, tearing apart the walls to fit his new bulk through them to get to the dragoon. He was larger than most transformations Alberic had seen, a heavy red wyvern, powerful and burning, his eyes filled with the same intelligence they had held as a man.

Alberic swore and dove out of the way of claws longer than his own hands. He managed to duck and roll under and past Corran and back into the hallway, needing the smaller space to disadvantage the dragon. Assuming said dragon didn’t just shoulder the walls out of his way, his fiery head rearing back to blast Alberic.

He barely managed to dodge, the heat unbearable as the walls with their pretty flower paint warped, melted, and crisped in the heat, flames now filling the house. He couldn’t last in here much longer, but also couldn’t let this fight further endanger the rest of the village, the commotion surely drawing attention, though any other knights would be too far away while Corran likely had more allies nearby.

His feet hit more metal that clattered, and he remembered Corran’s sword. As the beast came for him again, Alberic ducked to retrieve it, rolling in low as Corran leaped at him. With another shout, Alberic swung up, sliding along the floor on his knees as Corran passed overhead, the sword slicing down the wyvern’s side.

Corran screeched, landing heavily against the door in a tangle, blood flowing freely, wings and talons unable to get purchase in the too small space.

Alberic breathed heavily as he stood and hurried into the kitchen. The aevis was still jerking through its death throes, making a pathetic, pained cry as he yanked his lance from it, more blood pumping onto the sink and floor.

Alberic returned to the hall. Corran watched him, panting himself, lifesblood pooling around him as smoke filled the air.

“Finish me,” the dragon rumbled, in something resembling Corran’s voice. “But I want a promise first.”

“A promise?” Alberic asked. “Why should I pledge aught to a heretic?”

A weary claw gestured, holding a limp, blood-covered ragdoll. Alberic went cold. “For...them. They’re innocent. But we both know...Inquisitors….”

Alberic coughed as he shivered. They wouldn’t care that the children were only children. They wouldn’t care if Mistress Striker was Thavnairian--if anything, that would make it worse for her, no matter if she truly was unaware of her husband’s sins.

“Maybe...she’ll take them home,” Corran said. “She misses it. They could have…Not this.” His eyes met Alberic’s.

They were the grey eyes of a man.

Alberic nodded. “I promise,” he answered, as he pushed his lance through the wyvern’s heart. “Your family won’t pay for your sins.”

When he opened his smoke-stung eyes again, the dragon was gone, Corran Striker’s lifeless form before him, eyes colorless glass, smiling in relief.

Alberic considered for a moment, then drug Corran’s body toward the heaviest flames devouring the house, throwing him into the fire. With luck it would be so burned as to obscure how he had truly died, if Alberic was to keep his reckless promise.

The aevis in the kitchen was dead finally. Alberic retrieved the correspondence knocked to the floor during the scuffle, and gritting his teeth, threw all but one sheet into the flame as well; there was mention of a tower. If nothing else he could salvage something from this mess.

The heat and smoke were too much now, and people outside were shouting and trying to put out the flames, a woman screaming as she glimpsed the dragon half-hanging from the kitchen.

Alberic stumbled outside, battered and bloodied, and fell unconscious at the feet of the Strikers’ neighbors.

—————

It took only a few eye blinks before Aeryn’s groan echoed Alberic’s from a moment before. X’rhun tried to call to her, but she was on her feet in the next eye blink. She whirled in Alberic’s direction, braid whipping so quickly the end came back around to strike her cheek, unnoticed. Her eyes were a storm, lightning crackling in them.

Alberic did not move. He distantly realized that there was nothing any of the three of them could do to stop her of all people.

She flung herself forward and he took the weight of her body slamming into his, her hands gripping at his coat.

That was all.

Alberic didn’t dare move as she trembled against him, head down. X’rhun and Heustienne watched, breath held. Perhaps they had realized the same thing he had.

"I'd forgotten the windows,” Aeryn said hoarsely. “They were almost new; a Starlight gift from him, for Mama."

Alberic said nothing. What could he say?

“You didn’t tell me.”

He sighed. It took a moment to make sound. “By the time I’d realized who you were, why you were so familiar...Well, we had that mess with Estinien and neither of us were in any shape for more terrible revelations. Not the easiest thing to tell a girl you’re the man that killed her father, regardless of the why. And...If the Inquisition, the Ward, if any of them had found out…”

“I’d have handled them,” she said. Neutral, a matter of fact. She wasn’t one to boast.

“Perhaps,” he said. “I thought...Your mother took you to Thavnair. You would have a life there, away from the war. I never expected you to return. To be...this.”

“You should have told me.”

“I know. And you know I’m a sentimental, craven fool.”

She laughed, a wild, bitter noise, finally looking up. Her eyes locked with his, and he thought for as much as she looked like her mother, her eyes were too much like her father’s.

“X’rhun, can you make sure Heustienne gets back to Anyx Trine?” She said, not breaking her gaze with Alberic. The storm still rumbled in her eyes, but all he could see was old smoke.

“Of course,” the Seeker answered. “Aeryn—”

“I’m going home,” she said, shoving Alberic away. He staggered, barely managing to keep his footing. She was stronger than she looked. “I need time to think and rest.”

“You mean Revenant’s Toll, yes?” X’rhun demanded, tail still lashing.

Aeryn only nodded once as she retrieved her pack from next to Heustienne.

“Call me via ‘pearl when you arrive,” X’rhun insisted.

She paused for a moment, then nodded again, shouldering her pack and walking away.

“What the seven hells am I missing?” Heustienne asked after they watched Aeryn’s red coat vanish among the hills. “What did she see? What did you do?”

“Later,” X’rhun said, helping her to her feet. “Let’s get back to something resembling civilization first; Avengret’s heretics may still be on the trail.”

Alberic said nothing, simply following along as they made their way across the wilderness.

#FFXIVWrite2021 #Final Fantasy XIV #Lyn Writing #Backstory #Dragonsong War #Alberic Bale #X'hrun Tia #Heustienne de Vimaroix #Corran Striker #Aeryn Striker

51 notes · View notes

breitzbachbea · 3 years

Text

The Hetalia "Cell Block Tango" AU/Scenario

This idea left my brain last saturday and, as usual, has already completely spun out of control two days later. Much thanks to Riva (@fireandiceland) for their open ear and grandiose input, all of the following bullshit would not have been possible without them.

This is essentially an update to this post about a "Cell Block Tango" Performance for Hetalia ships that at some point could be construed as partner exercising foreign rule over the other. We've talked about it as a show that the countries put on for fun, so it's not really an AU. We're here to be horny and have fun, not to be dramatic and edgy, okay. (Or at least not "actual murder" dramatic).

Here's the list of the couples and their corresponding parts that we settled on. (I'll use the names of the characters from "Chicago" & their iconic little cue).

Liz/Pop - SuFin, with Tino as Liz. The ship was Riva's suggestion and I like them for this part not only because the triviality of the murder motive suits their domestic vibe, but the violent solution fits Tino's wilder/more darker side that sleeps under that friendly exterior.

Annie/Six - Spamano, with Lovino as Annie. Look, Riva agreed that loose lover Antonio seems plausible, I think poisoning is a good way to murder for Lovino and I also. Really. Just love the image of the "deathkiss" and then Lovino kicking Antonio two meters across the stage. And I am sure that Antonio feels the same way as I do.

June/Squish - DenNor, with Lukas as June. I mostly settled on them because I can see Matthias be somewhat possessive and I can see him thoroughly excited for the choreography. (Maybe also for the fact that he gets to wear no shirt). Riva also said that the scenario itself and the ambiguity about whether or not June actually cheated meshes well with Lukas' more elusive nature.

Hunyak/Uh-Uh - LietBel, with Natalya as Hunyak. (Natalya? Natasha? I'm sorry if I misremembered her name, use whatever floats your boat). We both agreed that we needed Natalya in this, but I couldn't quite find a ship with her quickly that worked well with my original definition of Empire/Territory. Giving her Hunyak's innocent part solves that problem, subverts her often arguably pretty meh canon/fanon interpretations and she gets to have a beautiful dance number with Toris. Toris, who is just really happy for his girlfriend and resigned between the hotblooded, horny chaos that is the rest :).

Velma/Cicero - TurGre, with Herakles as Velma. I thought the cheating situation suited them, as I have a weakness for Herakles being Sadık's favourite, but certainly not only bedfellow at all times and the intensity of the rage is one Herakles well-deserves (if only for show these days). Plus, their performance required a third person and lemme tell you, they do not lack options in my brain. I considered Mohammed (Egypt) at first, but then thought he'd probably politely decline but would surely love to watch the show for "moral support". So instead I went for my Sicily OC Michele as Veronica, because mom said it's my turn on the self-indulgence machine.

Mona/Lipschitz - AusHun, with Erzsébet as Mona. I was sold at the "a real artistic guy, sensitive" part (even though Roderich is rather a musician than a painter) and Riva pointed out that the cheating also could be a great reference to the Habsburg marriage politics.

Further Thoughts (& Thots) for this under the cut, because I knew if I had this post uncut on my dash, I'd murder someone too:

- Mads is really excited about the choreography until he realizes that he has to basically throw half a bridge and hold it for most of Natalya's part. Mads: "Oh. So I gotta keep this up for the whole number now?" Lukas: "Quit whining ..." One of the others: "What, is the viking already folding?" Mads: "Pfft, as if, no problem for me!" He looks up at Lukas. "Besides, the view from down here isn't that bad either." Lukas threateningly lifts his foot with dangerously high-heeled boot. Mads: 'Don't say Step on me, don't say Step on me, don't say - Ah crap, I already did, didn't I?' Practice has to be paused and Natalya chews them out for ruining her practice!

- As Riva put it and I then expanded upon:

How we imagine Hetalia Cell Block Tango: Intriguing, dark, erotic.

How it actually is: Antonio, Mathias, Berwald, Sadık about to cream their pants while Lovino, Lukas, Tino, Herakles live their dreams. Natalya fighting everyone who makes a single wrong step during her part of the performance, Toris trying to calm her down. Erzsébet pulling Roderich off stage to do a private tango. Ex-Imperial dick measuring contests between Antonio, Sadık and Roderich, although the latter of course tries to not to get dragged into any thing so undignified. However, there are still ties with Antonio and also, a bitch (Roderich) may not start a fight, but a bitch is sure going to end one! Or at least attempt to do so. Endless South Italian Bickering, because Lovino and Michele may get on marginally better than Lovino does with Feliciano, but unlike Feli, Michè pays back in kind.

- Here's my two cents on the nature of the horniness of the "murdered lovers": Antonio and Sadık are unapologetically gawking and can't imagine anything better than being 'mistreated' by their darling. Being kicked across, shoved nearly off the stage is part of the fun and they don't hide it. Rest in rip everyone else who has to witness this. Matthias tries to half-heartedly hide how turned on he his, but as we saw above, he isn't very good at it. Maybe it also just looks like he's trying to hide it because he is North European after all, so it looks tame next to the two other horndogs. Berwald's extremely flustered, which is either clear as daylight to everyone around him or he tries so hard to stay 'professional' that his hands shake and he can barely talk. (Which I'd personally find hilarious when contrasted with Antonio one number over). Roderich acts as if he isn't as affected, but his façade also cracks often enough. He's got it just as bad as everyone else for his Erzsì, but he doesn't want to show it in front of other people.

- I also wrote a Minific yesterday, mostly concerned with Michele being asked to participate & some bitching between him and Lovino. If I find the time, I'll clean it up tonight and post it some time.

That's it! Thank you for reading and if you any additions, I would love to hear it (and I am sure Riva would love so, too!). I'd also love it if you wanted to share any fanart, fanfic or anything else based on this - even if you just take the basic premise and change things from how I described them because you think something else works better for you.

56 notes · View notes

savagenutella46 · 3 years

Text

Standing Here With You

A valentine’s day gift for @thecaptainhelm lm. (By the way, I love you so much and you’re amazing) I hope YOU have an awesome eventful day filled with lots of love because you’re such an amazing writer and I love you!!!!!!

Also, @eat0crow , who is moderating the gift exchange! Thank you for all you’ve done!

Everyone has a soulmate.

It's not a notable deal. Though it's something many people cherish and look forward to, it's just as much an ordinary fact as primary color mixing: that's just how the world works.

Blue and yellow mix correspond with each other to produce green; soulmate A and soulmate B each have tattoos to correspond with one another, completing either tattoo on the skin of their other half.

Marinette will be damned if she finds anyone to match her tattoo. She'd loved it as a child, sitting through boring classes with a pout and jittery knees so she could rush home and admire the strange tattoo that covered the length of her inner forearm.

But now, she couldn't find a single thing to be more ashamed about.

Even as she moves halfway across the world from taunting bullies and mind-controlling sociopaths, the damage is done.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng does not want a soulmate.

She does not want to disappoint, to never live up to her soulmates expectations, because, "Your soulmate wouldn't like those pigtails, Marinette." and, "How could someone want a bully like you?"

Marinette does not want to relive her lycée experience, covering her mark every chance she could get so that Lila Rossi wouldn't antagonize whoever was on the other end of her soul line.

She’d watch as other people’s—normal—soul marks started to glow, indicating the one thing soulmarks are responsible for. Marinette witnessed on the sidelines as everyone she knew and had learned to love and lose found their other half, and left her in the dark. Watching, seeing, but never to experience what it was like. To find your soulmate.

Her mark. A white rose hanging upside down at the epiphysis of her radius, petals spread wide against each other, some looked as though they were flowing freely in the air, and some looked as though they were stuck to one another.

A deep red liquid spurting out of the center, running down the limp rose and glazing its petals as it oozes from the center bottom and down the sides of her arm, creating for a unique, yet concerning mosaic upon her forearm.

"Is that blood?" They'd asked, some looking curious, and some looking downright disgusted at the mere sight of her mark. Something that was supposed to be naturally celebrated, not hated and sneered upon. They were convinced she'd be a menace to her soulmate, like soulmates were anything other than fate.

Marinette did not know if it was blood, obviously. There was no superior entity whispering to her at night, informing her of every single petal's weight in grams. Instead, it was easier to have a friend pick apart the dubious meaning of such a cryptic mark, unlike so many others, hers was not so simple.

Kagami, especially, had a great eye for these things. The meticulous thought that girl compartmentalizes for the sole topic is unbelievable at first glance. It's only when you see much more of her, do you understand why she even bothers with soulmarks.

"You wouldn't believe the meaning behind such marks, Marinette. It's only when you start to break the first barrier, do you know." Okay, so, Marinette had no such way with words as the world-class fencer, but she was pretty sure the girl was saying that marks represent people the way names represent their spices.

Salt, for example. You can just tell the flavor of salt by it’s damn name.

“You’re the epitome of innocence, Marinette,—“ Marinette begs to differ, she’s read fanfiction. “But it seems you’ve been hurt, aged more than what a white rose will represent for you. That’s where the blood paints over you, like a parasite.” Marinette furrows her eyebrows at Kagami, a reoccurring gesture that will give her wrinkles by the end of the year, she knows, but it’s Kagami.

They’re sitting in their apartment, high above the Gotham smog and litter they’ve learned to acquaint themselves with, and looking out over the city from their ratty second-hand couch.

—Because Marinette wants to live with someone who will break her finger and then call her stupid and put a cast on it for whatever reason, you feel?

Another twig, green leaves still growing out of it—though, probably not since the severance—blows by their window, spurred on by a lone gust and back down to the ground, plummeting to an unfortunately placed puddle on the pavement.

“Stop moping.” Marinette makes a face.

“I was not moping.”

“You were making that sad face you make when you see a puppy walking by itself on the street. You’re moping. Why?” Marinette huffs in annoyance, and turns to look at her friend, who’s already staring with an exasperated quirked eyebrow.

She flounders for words, making exuberant gestures with her hands as she tries not to look Kagami in the eye.

An audible exhale from the woman. “You’re worried about, what, your soulmate, for whatever reason?”

Marinette looks down at her mark, it’s entrancing rose petals glowing brightly against her skin, almost alike to the glittery sheen of highlighter she so often brushes onto her cheekbones.

“It started glowing last night, Kagami.” Marinette worries her lip and continues to stare at the now pulsing, almost obnoxious glow of her rose, the red liquid that spurts from its center taking on a glamorous shine.

“That’s wonderful. Right?” Kagami adds, when she fails to find a response.

It should be. She knows that. She should be joyous right now, jumping ecstatically and rejoicing at the fact that she might find her soulmate sooner than later, but the ever-impending doom of, ‘what if’ continuously pops up in her brain, muddling any chance of happiness she might’ve had.

Marinette’s psyche is aged. She’s been through things. A lot of things that most people haven’t been through. Deaths, loss of loved ones, reoccurring terrorist attacks, and so much more that puts a haunted look in her eye and a deep hunch in her shoulders. She couldn’t bear to see the look on her soulmate’s face.

Kagami seems to read her mind and makes a low noise in the back of her throat. “Let’s go to the zoo.” So spontaneous, it almost makes Marinette do a double take.

“You? Want to go to the zoo?” She stares at Kagami, the latter unwavering with a borderline determined look on her face that says, ‘Nope. No fighting me on this one.’

“Distraction.” Is all she says, and for once, Marinette agrees that, yes, maybe a distraction is in order.

The Gotham City Zoo proves to be a great distraction, in between the hippo exhibit and the jungle-themed building just for showcasing snakes, Marinette finds a rather warmth in her heart.

Marinette grins widely at the crocodiles lounging across various rocks, seemingly not a care in the world is thrown around in between her and the fenced crocodiles, and she harbors a sort of piece standing alone. (Kagami had ditched her at the zebras for the lions.)

Distantly, she hears what sounds like two people fighting—or, bickering.

“—over here, got bit by a crocodile.” An erupt of laughter from two different voices, one distinct with a low raspy laugh, and the other, who starts hacking nastily in the middle of it.

“Those cigarettes do not benefit you, Todd. This is not a laughable event.” A third voice juts in, and she has to turn her head, locate the source of whoever said that.

Three men, one looking younger than the other two, stand slightly to the right of her in front of the crocodile exhibit, the two older men seem to be laughing at the younger’s expense—how do you even get bitten by a crocodile? She decides to not judge. This is Gotham, after all.

And, oh.

The guy they seem to be laughing at has the brightest green eyes she’s ever seen. Ink black hair frames his face beautifully, as he sneers down at the other two. The stranger doesn’t seem to notice her stare, but it’s cut short anyway by the sudden immense throbbing of her forearm.

Marinette winces, and slowly pulls down her sleeve to see her soul mark is—

Finished. It’s glowing, glowing far more than it had been over the course of the past two days, glowing so much she can barely squint to see that buried deep in the middle of her rose, a pristine dagger.

Marinette’s eyes widen, and she can’t help but make an incoherent sound that fights its way up her throat.

A tap on her shoulder, and she turns around to see the boy she was shamelessly staring at is right in front of her, and, woah, he’s tall. Marinette cranes her head up to look at the boy who so quickly grabbed her attention.

He also has the prettiest blush on his face, his eyes darting in between her and his companions, who seem to be laughing even harder, and in the distance, she hears a crude nickname being thrown at him.

“Holy shit, Demon Brat actually has a soulmate—“ a sentence cut off by more wheezing laughter, so she turns her gaze back to the boy in front of her.

“I’m Damian, you’re...soulmate.” The last word comes out wonky, like he couldn’t believe his own words, but she understands. He’s staring at Marinette now, bright green gaze fixed so intently on her, and she can’t help but blush, herself.

“Marinette. I figured, actually, when my arm started to sting like a bitch.” She says, once her mouth finally aligns with her brain and she gets the courage to say something relevant to smart.

Damian cracks a small smile, and she finds herself following the gesture with her eyes. It’s a beautiful movement, one she can tell is foreign to him, a shame.

And she doesn’t feel jittery. More at peace, looking at the equally aged look deep in his eyes, and the mark right in the middle of her forearm, she can guess he’s been through a hell of a lot, maybe more than she has.

Marinette will spend a lifetime learning what lies behind his exterior, looking at him now.

She supposes this soulmate thing won’t be too hard, after all, even as the two men behind them keep bickering and laughing at their predicament in front of the crocodile exhibit.

#maribatdrabbleexchange #maribat #daminette #mlb x dc #damian x marinette #marinette dupain cheng #damian

215 notes · View notes

villainousshakespeare · 3 years

Text

Stalking the King Chapter 3

Chapter 1, Chapter 2

Henry V/OFC

Multi-Chapter

Historical AU, Historical Romance, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, Angst, Sexual Tension, Bathing

Lisabet is a high born Lady of Oleans, France. When King Henry V conquers her city, taking her brother hostage along with other nobles, she vows to be revenged upon the foreign invader and rescue her brother. Dressed in boys clothing she hopes to escape notice in Henry’s camp, but the English King has a much more perceptive eye than she anticipated.

A bit of a plot heavy chapter, but I hope you like it nonetheless!

Lisabeta had seen no more than a glimpse of Henry’s sun kissed locks as he strode away that morning. Not, of course, that she wanted to see the King. She had seen enough of him last night. More than enough, she added, as the image of him in all his naked splendor slipped its way into her mind.

That vexing image seemed to be branded into her brain, so often did she find herself thinking of it when she let her mind drift. His skin, dotted with freckles and crossed with scars that somehow failed to detract from his masculine beauty. The breadth of his shoulders that tapered slowly, over a long distance, to his narrow hips. How could one so unquestionably awful be so unquestionably awe arousing? It was simply not fair!

She had barely slept last night, so active had been her mind. Her body also seemed more alive than usual. There was a curious heat within her, to the point that she wondered if she was feverish. Her skin tingled, and her stomach felt unsettled. Most distracting of all was the odd ache she felt in her womanly organs. She was not due for her courses for weeks, why was she feeling so out of sorts there? She didn’t know, but she was more than willing to blame the English King.

She hated him, more than she had ever hated anyone. He had toyed with her, she knew it! And yet, how could that be when to him she was simply one of his pages. The fact that he had treated her with such disinterest and disregard only meant her disguise was working, for no well born man, even an Englishman, would ever behave so in front of gently bread lady. And yet it maddened her to no end that he had been so with her. She wanted more than ever to find him and run him through with her sword. If she had to wait on him again, no doubt she would do so.

And yet, it was even more insufferable that he did not send for her. Lisabeta was not a woman used to being overlooked, particularly by men. She commanded attention the moment she arrived in a room by virtue of both her looks and her natural spirit. To be forced to sit idly waiting for Henry to call on her was not to be endured.

Around midday of the day following the tent incident she had been sent for, but it was not the King who had called her. She was beginning to wonder what pages were expected to do in a royal camp, and how she was to maintain her anonymity. The night before she had simply found a place on the ground near a fire, using her saddle roll as a pillow and her cloak as a blanket. It was a long night, with only restless sleeping on the hard ground, but she had endured it. In the morning she had snuck between a tent and a wagon towards the tree line and relieved herself, frantic lest someone should see her. It could not go on like this for long, and she knew it.

When summons had come, she assumed it was from the King. After all, who else knew she was there? Instead, she had been brought to a smaller tent not far from where the Royal Standard flew. A desk took up most of the space, somehow both neat and cluttered with papers and ink. Sitting behind it was a thin, balding man who looked less like a soldier that Lisabet herself. She guessed him to be her father’s age, and dark circles ringed his eyes.

“You are Phillipe Cavot, the King’s new page?” the man asked in a voice as tired as his eyes.

“I am, my Lord, what would you have with me?” Lisabeta struggled to make her voice sound more like an anxious page and less like a confident lady.

“King Henry thought I might make use of you,” the man sounded uncertain as he looked her over.

What! The King was handing her off like so much unwanted baggage to one of his underlings? Lisabeta seethed internally. How dare he be so high handed?

“Did he indeed, how generous of him,” she bit off.

“I thought it so, if what he says is true,” the man’s voice was mild and slightly perplexed at her answer. “Your hand, I take it, is decipherable? If so, you will be better than the last. I am Laurence, Henry’s secretary. I have a stack of documents to write, and time is not a friend to me of late. You will assist me here with all my work. I know it is less exciting task to aid a secretary than knight. But here at least some comfort does exist. There is a cot for you to sleep upon, and there behind the screen a chamber pot. Perhaps it is no luxury for you, but when one reaches my age, one will find such niceties are of a great import.”

Lisabeta was at first inclined to be outraged, if only because outrage seemed to be her reaction to all that Henry said or did. To be stuck in this tent with a reedy man with a reedy voice all day was not the reason why she had come here. On the other hand, it did neatly solve both of her core problems. It was as if providence had given her a way to stay until she figured out the next step in her plan.

In addition to all of this, it occurred to Lisabeta that this could be just the place she needed to be. If this man was King Henry’s secretary, then the documents scattered about his desk took on an entirely new interest to her. It was possible that hidden among the mounds of papers that looked to be mostly correspondences could be maps, perhaps even battle plans, detailing the English forces’ intentions. If she could put her hands on those documents, it could be a turning point in this war.

In her mind, Lisabeta pushed away the picture of Henry mercilessly and in its place forced in what must be seen as a happier view. She would wait until the secretary had left, of perhaps gone to sleep as it looked like he must soon do. Once he was out of the way, she would find the betraying documents, copy them down, and slip from the camp. How easy would it be then to send them via courier, or maybe even bring them herself, to the French King and his constable in Paris? Lisabeta could singlehandedly win this wretched war for France!

It was a plan, and she would see it done. She need never cross paths with the arrogant King Henry again. Let him preen around his camp in the mud for another day or two, she would not be there to wash it from his body. And all the better for that, she insisted to herself, even as she fought back regret.

***

“Your Majesty, what brings you to our tents?” Sir Stephen Boyd asked, beginning to drop to one knee in the mud before Henry waved away the need.

“My restless legs that needed room to stretched,” Henry laughed good naturedly. “How goes it with our enforced visitors?”

“Well, my Lord, when all is said and done. One little lad no more than three years old did give us all some trouble at the start.”

“Precocious lad! How did he manage that?”

“With screaming morn and night, to wake the dead. I tell you Sire, I’ve seen my share of war. I’ve fought in wars whose blood would fill a lake, and thought my life was ended more than once. But never have I known a greater fear than when the cub did last drift off to sleep and any noise did threaten our brief peace.”

Henry could not but laugh at the thought of the bluff old knight fearing a lad of three. The very sight of him proclaimed the battles he spoke of. Still, there lived inside the blustery warrior a soft heart. Henry remembered being found out by Sir Stephen after his first taste of battle. An overwhelmed squire, Henry had been horrified by the carnage he had witnessed. Ashamed of himself, he had hidden behind a wagon to empty his stomach before crouching down trembling from the shock, terrified lest someone should see him so unmanned.

But when Sir Stephen had discovered him, the older knight had not mocked or scolded him. Instead, he had hunched down next to him and handed over a flask of water for Henry to rinse his mouth. After Henry had stopped shaking, Sir Stephen had spoken to him in a matter of fact voice, telling him that all men of intellect were shaken by the reality of war. It was only the dull or the cruel who escaped unscathed. Any man worth following would react as Henry had, he opined, and he was proud that his future lord was such a one. With a nod, he had risen and walked away, leaving behind the water and a more thoughtful Henry.

It was because of this innate compassion that Henry had chosen him to have custody of the hostages. Other, higher ranked men had chafed, wanting the potentially lucrative position where they could extort money from anxiety ridden parents. Henry had thwarted them all, placing in stead an honorable man who would do his best to keep the young hostages safe and well looked after.

“A mighty terror indeed, how solved you it?” he asked now with a shudder.

“I handed off the boy to Mistress Mead,” Sir Stephen replied, face reddening. “She’s wife to Seargent Mead, a doughty man, and raised a brood of children of her own. I know your Grace did put him in my charge, but at his age he needs a woman’s care. I hope you know I meant no harm by it. I’d trust the goodwife my very life.”

“As I trust you with mine, my blustery friend,” Henry assured him. “I should have thought to do so from the start. I thank you, Sir, for seeing to it now.”

They stood in companionable silence for a while, watching a pair of lads in oversized helmets batter at each other. Henry wasn’t entirely sure why he had come here. He had been at his desk going over the papers his secretary had left for him, but his mind was not really focused. He needed to walk, to exercise. To get away from his tent where his eyes and mind kept drifting over to the large tub where the Gascoigne lass had bathed him two nights before. He had not been able to stop thinking of her since.

It was only because he had been celibate, he assured himself. That was the reason why he had responded so strongly to the chit. She was completely lacking skill in her ministrations. Her touch had been hesitant, shy, barely skimming over his skin. And yet, that had changed as she proceeded. She had grown bolder, pulling slightly on his hair, rubbing his aching shoulders and back. He had been loud in his appreciation, moaning as he felt the tension and stiffness melt out of him.

Well, it had melted out of his upper body, his lower body had been an entirely different story. As her hands drifted lower, his erection had become painful in its insistence. She was just inches away, all it would take was a small dip down for her soft hand to be wrapped around his length. He had wanted it with an intensity that left him throbbing. If he had not sent her away at that point, he would have dragged her into the tub with him.

It was a thought that kept occurring to him through the night and all the next day.

He thought he had hit on the perfect solution by handing her off to Laurence. The man could use an extra hand, and he could only imagine the girl’s education had included penmanship. He could not have her running about his camp, just waiting for someone to realize she was a woman, for god’s sake. She was a scandal just waiting to happen, in no small part because she seemed incapable of staying unobtrusive.

Laurance, on the other hand, could be trusted implicitly with her. The man was discreet to a fault, as one who preferences were as his had to be in their society. As Henry suspected, he had sussed out her true nature the first day, but rather than confront her with it had quietly brought it to his King’s attention. When Henry indicated that he knew her identity, but wished to do nothing for present, his secretary had sighed but nodded, mumbling that at least she had a passable hand a quick mind, if an even quicker tongue. She would be safe with him until he decided how to proceed.

He just needed to find out more about her, which brought him to his current location.

“Tell me, Sir, how does the young Gascoigne?” he asked, attempting nonchalance.

“Little Phillipe? He does right well, my Lord,” Stephen answered, slight curiosity in his voice. “That be him over there, the one in blue. He’ll make a proper Knight if ‘ere he grows. A bit to clever, like to one I know. But taking to account his lineage and vast side of the force he’ll one day lead, that is no bad thing, as I think you know.”

Henry watched the boy as he traded blows with another a head taller than him. He saw what Sir Stephen alluded to. The larger boy clearly had strength and reach on his side, but Phillipe easily side stepped the attacks launched on him. He had an excellent eye for what his opponent was about to do next. If only he had a better control of his own weapon. Acting on instinct, Henry strode forward, grabbing a practice sword from the wrack as he did.

“Your grip is wrong, if I may intercede?”

He didn’t raise his voice, he seldom did, but the two boys drew back, instantly lowering their blades. Phillipe dropped to one knee, and after a slight pause the other boy did the same, removing their borrowed helms.

“Rise up, Phillipe, I’ll show you how it’s done,” he offered, along with his hand to help the boy to rise.

He was a handsome lad, Henry observed. Very much the boyish version of his sister. Henry was continually amused at how everyone else took her for a boy. Her hips were obviously those of a woman, and the combination of padding and binding did not completely hide her other curves. On top of that, the planes of her face were more feminine, if older and sharper than the boy before him.

He spent the next hour happily helping Phillipe improve his grip. The boy had stamina, and after the first few moments lost his stiffness with the King. Henry enjoyed physical activity of all sorts and had been unhappy with the idleness. The lesson was just what he had needed to restore his good humor.

“Well done, my lad, I think you have the trick,” he said at last, setting aside his sword and ruffling the boy’s hair.

“I thank you, Sire, for sparing me your time,” Phillipe said shyly, panting a bit. “I father doth despair of my poor skill. Why even my own sister Lisabet can best me when it cometh to the blade.”

“Ah, Lisabet! That is your sister’s name!” Henry said, remembering now that he had heard the lovely moniker before.

“Why yes, my Lord, but know you Lisabet?”

Henry cursed silently, damning his tongue for saying the name out loud. A lovely name, he thought, although perhaps too soft for the sassy brat who had infiltrated his camp.

“By reputation only, to my woe,” he said with an easy smile to, “I hear she is the jewel of all of France.”

“So all do say, though I do see it not,” the boy made a face all brothers of sisters would recognize before continuing to ramble. “A willful fury, with a biting tongue is more the face that she does show to me. But those who know the fashion of the world have dubbed her oft an incomparable. My parents seek to make for her a match with every single gentleman of name.”

“And is there any one she most prefers?” Henry asked, irritated at the idea that the innocent vixen in his tent last night might be promised to another.

“No, not when last I spoke to her, my Lord. Papa would wed her to Lord Constable, I heard him say the match was all but made. But Lisabet just curled her lip at that. I think she fancies more to be a queen, or empress who could manage one and all. She certainly does like to get her way. But do not, please, mistake me good my Lord. Though she can be a right pain in my side, she is at heart a loving sister still. She wept when I did leave to be our pledge.”

“Belike she thought I meant to use you ill. I hope, Phillip, that has not been the case?”

“Why no, my Lord, though I should say it not, the days that I have spent here in your camp seem almost as a holiday to me!”

“Then I am glad to give you such a treat. You must inform your sister of the truth.

“I will when I am back at home with her. She will just roll her eyes and scoff at me and tell me that I do betray our house. She would have had us fight till all were dead, or ere she ever flew the flag of truce.”

“She sounds a truly formidable foe. How glad I am I had to fight her naught.”

“As you should be, she wields a blade with skill!”

“Gascoigne, will you talk the good king mad? Come over here and help to clean the blades!”

Chastised by the should from Sir Stephen, the boy ducked his head and bowed to Henry before running over to assist in the work. Henry smiled in reply, but him mind was elsewhere. So, his fiery, would be page was set to marry the Constable of France? And, moreover, she was a fierce opponent of the peace with England. That would not bode well for Henry or for Fance. He hoped to settle the matter of his sovereignty, and the good Constable was a stumbling block in his way. If the man were wed to a woman of passion who stood against Henry’s claim, he would be only more likely to dig in and voice his dissent. No, Henry did not think he could allow such a union to take place.

It had nothing at all, of course, to do with his own attraction to the woman.

@yespolkadotkitty @just-the-hiddles @hopelessromanticspoonie @wine-and-whines @arch-venus25 @caffiend-queen @devilish–doll @enchantedbyhiddles @hiddlesholic @i-do-not-fangirl-i-fanwoman @kellatron55 @ladyoftheteaandblood @latent-thoughts @yespolkadotkitty@maryxglz @myoxisbroken @nuggsmum @nildespirandum @pedeka @redfoxwritesstuff @sinfully-lustful-darling @vodka-and-some-sass @wrathkitty @kingtwhiddleston @wolfsmom1 @poetic-fiasco @shiningloki @dangertoozmanykids101 @bookworm-christina @amwolowicz @delightfulheartdream @frostbitten-written @what-a-flammable-heart @tom-hlover @nonsensicalobsessions @myraiswack @loki-yoursaviourishere @ghostypau @justthehiddleswrites @ms-cellanies @colorfulfreakstudentpizza

#The Hollow Crown #The Hollow Crown Fic #Henry V #Henry V Fic #Tom Hiddleston #Tom Hiddleston as Henry V #Romance #Historical AU #Historical Romance #Eventual Smut #Slow Burn #Mutual Pining #Enemies to Lovers #Angst

52 notes · View notes

distinguishedhoundflapauthor · 3 years

Text

The Remarried Empress Navier and Rashta.

Reading the Remarried Empress has been interesting however I find that Navier is really a boring white feminist like protagonist with questionable morals regarding slavery. She lives the perfect royal privileged life until her beta male husband cheats on her with a runaway slave girl and it was so obvious from the start that he was going to use and eventually at some point discard that girl for reasons that involved Navier. She then meets a man and wants to marry a man from a neighboring Kingdom who screams suspicious person alert.

It is very hard to sympathize with Navier considering she goes from one trash man to scheming warmonger considering that Heinley is responsible for the magic being stolen from her Kingdom in the first place and had plans on conquering her kingdom. Look I do not like Sovieshu at all but he was right in calling Navier out regards to letting a strange bird with notes directed to her in her room and responding back. She is the empress and this could be seen as her corresponding with an unknown party and allowing foreign correspondance considering heinley intended on kidnapping her when he took over during his conquest. In addition she inadvertently aided him in colonizing her birth country by her quick marriage and giving birth to twins one of who will be the future ruler but will rule by their fathers country’s customs. Thus Sovieshu and Navier did Heinley’s plan and he did not need to send one troop or spill one drop of blood on the battlefield.

While Rashta is neither a saint nor is she fool considering how she played Sovieshu and the atrocious actions she did at court and she became to ambitious which eventually led to her downfall, she is justified in hating Navier considering Navier is quite fine with having a slave holding empire and Rashta is only a slave due to unknown reasons. A person can sympathize to a degree with Rashta and her being manipulated by the nobles and used by Sovieshu, however it becomes more difficult when she gets greedier and more ruthless in order to stay empress. Had the story been written different Rashta probably would probably been the more interesting protagonist because we would have seen what life is like for the commoners( considering Rasta’s rightful contempt of Commoners we could see how they act when someone was in a lower and poorer position than them regardless of innocence of a crime) and slaves in Navier’s empire not just the rich priviledge life of the nobles. How can anyone sympathize with her when she has noble women that always come to her defense for the minor of insults, a foreign royal that came to her rescue when he barely knew her, a brother that would murder an unborn child for the arrogance of its mother, a palace of luxury and comfort and the finest of everything, and while an idiot a husband that will always put her above his mistress in anything regarding the Imperial family and the damn Empire!!! Navier never had to worry about sexual abuse from other slaves or the masters,Rashta did! Navier never had sleep on the flea infested straw while Rashta did!Navier grew up in a loving and very privileged home with a guarantee of her future while Rashta probably worried every second of everyday whether she was going to live or die on a whim and no one would care!! Does anyone not have a drop of compassion for a young woman who was made a slave and the slave master tricked her into thinking she gave birth to a stillborn child while literally kidnapping her child to sell as slave possibly somewhere else to teach her a lesson about meddling with nobility!!

#anti navier #the remarried empress #rashta #anti sovieshu #anti heinley

46 notes · View notes

philliamwrites · 3 years

Text

The Dawn Will Come [Chpt.1]

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Pairing: Dimitri x Reader, Claude x Reader, Edelgard x Reader, Yuri x Reader, Edelgard x Byleth, lots of minor pairings

Tags: #gn reader, # platonic love byleth & reader, #reader is a tactical unit, #angst, #slow burn, #subplots, #unreliable narrator, #pining, #remporary amnesia, #reluctant herp, #canon divergence, #lost twin au, #many chapters, #original content

Words: 5.2k

Summary: Waking up in a forest without any knowledge of your past and who you are, you join the house leaders of the Officers Academy to search for a way to return your memories. Unfortunately, the church has different plans for you, and Fate places you in the centre of a cruel game with deadly stakes. It certainly doesn't help to fall in love with a house leader who is doomed to be your demise.

Notes: Chapter 2 There’s also a playlist for this story that you can find here and here.

Chapter 01: A High Destiny

A high destiny seemed to bear me on until I fell, never, never again to rise.

[Mary W. Shelley, Frankenstein]

It starts as it will end: in darkness.

Black dots dance in front of your eyes, merging into dark shadows clawing at your consciousness. A dull throb pounds in your temple, a steady rhythm that speaks of life but isn’t enough to allow awareness of your surroundings. Memory is a foreign word you can’t explain, and trying to think of the past 24 hours is an unachievable task. Every glimpse slips through your fingers like sand, and the only steady reference point is the solid ground pressing into your hands and back.

Slowly, you open your eyes. Treetops dance in the wind, towering above you like silent guardians of ancient times. The sun winks at you through thick branchesa and dancing green crowns, indicating it’s long past daybreak—but how do you know? Your memory is still a vast pool with no bottom and no means to dive into, and yet you think there’s a voice calling out to you, a heart-wrenching young, boyish voice—no, those are real voices ringing through the woods, appearing close to you. Alarmingly close.

“You’re awake,” a woman’s voice starts, moments later followed by a corresponding face. Round, lavender eyes surrounded by thick, white lashes peak from above at you, blinking curiously. It’s an expression far from friendly, but not exactly hostile either, and of all the things you can think of at this moment, it is how strikingly beautiful she is. But before you can say anything, another person joins, leaning too close in for comfort.

“You got us worried there, stranger,” a young man chimes in, squatting down beside you. His uniform isn’t exactly what you’d call fit for travelling through the woods. A heavy yellow cape falls over his shoulder, more fanciful display than practical use. But something in his posture seems very attentive, his broad shoulders taut like a drawn bowstring that won’t miss its target. “Weird place to take a nap, but hey, I’m not judging.”

“I wasn’t—” you start, immediately struck by a throbbing pain behind your right eye that reverberates through your skull and wretches a groan from you.

“Take it easy,” another voice joins, and panic spreads through you because of the amount of people surrounding you. Where the first man is a picture of warm colours—gold and sun kissed skin nourished on warm summer days, the other man observing you with a worried expression is clad in blue and black, blond hair falling into a pale face that carries the most striking blue eyes you’ve ever seen. Or so you think, because surely a colour like this, a blue stolen right out of the sky, wouldn’t be easily forgotten.

More movement and rustling of fabric, and a chill settles in your bones as you begin to fear that you’ve run into a bunch of ruffians who’ve only kept you alive for so long because they’re hoping for valuable information. More people emerge from the underbrush, carrying large sacks and backpacks with billycans dangling at their sides. Among them, a tall man with a beard, clad in robust mercenary’s gear, steps forward, concealing another young woman with sharp features and unusual greenish blue hair.

The sight of her strikes you like a bolt. It tastes like familiarity and the relief of being reunited with a long lost friend. But that is impossible. This is the first time you meet her.

Is it?

“You brats, I told you not to head off too far,” the older man bellows, crossing logs for arms in front of his broad chest. The first three take one big, polite step away from you, but don’t look apologetic at all.

“I’m sorry for our hastiness, Captain Jeralt,” the girl says, her eyes darting from you still sitting on the ground to him towering in his full height above them. “But it seems we would have otherwise not found this person.”

“This person who wasn’t really much conscious a couple of minutes ago,” the boy in yellow adds with a crooked grin. “How bad would it have been if someone else would have beaten us to it?”

“No need to make me look like the bad guy,” Captain Jeralt interrupts with a raised hand before the boy in blue can join his friends' justifications. Instead, he turns to you and regards you with a scrutinising look.

“What are you doing out here?” he demands. “Where’s your family? Friends?”

“Uhm, they’re—” you start, but nothing comes to your mind. Not only that. You don’t know why you’re out here, where you are exactly … and basically anything that should come to you about your own person remains shrouded in darkness. “I don’t know.”

Jeralt nods like that explains the very reason you’re still sitting on the ground like a misplaced cargo of cabbage. He kneads the nape of his neck, his face softening the tiniest bit. “And what’s your name?”

Unable to hold his piercing eyes, you drop your gaze to the ground, curling your trembling fingers into the fabric of your wool jacket. “I, uh… don’t know.”

If you thought you didn’t have their attention before, now their eyes are glued on your face in different levels of shock and disbelief.

“A case of amnesia?” the blond male says, not quite managing to achieve the right balance between blatant curiosity and polite worry. “Does this mean you have nowhere to go? Don’tknow where to go?”

“Goddess help you, Dimitri,” the other boy groans, running a hand through his short, brown hair. “Be any more tactless, will ya?”

“He isn’t wrong,” the girl says, observing you like you’re a fascinating new specimen in her collection of strange things. “You need a place to stay. And help until your memories return.”

If they return, you don’t dare to say because despite all things, hope still clings to you in the deepest corner of your heart, not allowing you to follow that train of thought and what it will mean for your future.

“Then by all means, if you want to join,” Jeralt says, waving a dismissive hand in your direction. “I don’t think you kids accept a No, so I’m going to save my breath.” He turns around with a grunt. “Get them your horse, Byleth. We’re late as it is, and another night of Alois talking my ears off will make me do something I’ll regret.”

The woman called Byleth keeps staring at you even as Jeralt walks past her and gives her shoulder a solid clap. You can’t say if she’s mute or just speechless because she’s filled with the same strange overflowing sensation like you: like a basin filling with water but unable to drain off. It appears you’re the same age, a couple of years older than the other three but still much younger than Jeralt, and yet the moment your eyes lock, it feels like there is something far older than any of you together passing between you. Something ancient.

“Well, first off, on your feet, little one.” Strong hands curl around your elbows, hoisting you up in one swift movement. A wave of dizziness hits you like an unavoidable spell, and the pounding from before settles back behind your right eye.

“Amazing, Claude,” the girl hisses, and quickly steps forward to steady you, pressing one hand against the small of your back where her strong fingers curl against the curve of your spine. Her other hand gently holds yours as she helps you regain your balance. “Excuse his manners. I promise not everyone from the Officers Academy behaves like a brute.”

“The what now?” you ask, hit by another wave of dizziness that might originate more from the girl’s soft lavender fragrance rather than the world spinning around you.

“The Officers Academy at Garreg Mach Monastery,” Dimitri provides this time. His posture is straight like an arrow, the stance of a soldier speaking to his officer. “That is where we attend as students and hence are going right now.”

“And you want me to come with you?” you ask like you have the option to refuse and go somewhere else. Strangely, the thought of joining a group of armed knights and mercenaries doesn’t fill you with fear or anxiety. You’re about to tread into foreign waters, and yet your heart is calm like a still compass guiding you in the right direction.

Claude clasps his hands behind his head like he’s got nothing to do with you feeling unwell at the moment. “Unless you have another place to be?”

Luckily, your head does come clear and breathing becomes a little easier. You nod to the girl and she holds you a second longer before she nods back and lets go. “I guess not,” you mumble, looking at each one of them. Byleth still hasn’t moved. By now you can’t really tell if she’s looking at you or through you. Surely, she would have said something by now if she thought you were familiar, right?

“Then it’s settled.” The girl nods solemnly, throwing her silky, white hair over her shoulder. “We welcome you in our company. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Edelgard von Hresvelg, heir to the Adrestian Empire.” Edelgard gives you a tight-lipped smile that quickly thins into a white line when the other two introduce themselves as Claude von Riegan, grandson of the Sovereign Duke of the Leicester Alliance and Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, future king to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. None of these names ring a bell to you, but you nod, pretending to know exactly what they're talking about.

“Okay, we need a name for you as well,” Claude proposes, tapping a slender finger against his chin. He has a strikingly sharp jaw that looks fit to cut stone. “Can’t have everyone call you stranger or little one now, can we?”

“No,” you say. “Especially since we’re about the same height.”

Claude laughs like you just told him the best joke he’s heard in years. “Soo, since we found you here … how about Glade? Or Woody?”

“How about no,” you say with furrowed eyebrows.

“Apologies.” Edeglard sighs and shakes her head, her expression a mix between disappointment and annoyance. “Claude isn’t much accustomed to the notion of consideration.”

Claude rolls his eyes. “Then you come up with something, princess. Or is it impossible because you can’t take out the stick up your—”

“Claude,” Dimitri half shrieks, his pale cheeks splotched with red dots. As he stumbles over his own words trying to apologise for Claude’s behaviour, Edelgard simply deadpans, “Bold words for someone in stabbing range.”

The fourth in this round of strange people considers you with a blank expression, her steady gaze like a solid touch on your skin. Before a greater argument can break free between the students, Byleth says a name with a surety like she’s never said anything else in her life, and hearing it, this barely whispered word immediately lost to the wind, you just know it’s your name.

“Yes, much better than what Claude proposed.” Dimitri nods, regaining his composure even though he’s still staring daggers at Claude. “It sounds more civilised as well.”

“You didn’t even suggest anything,” Claude remarks, but the huff of annoyance quickly dissipates from his voice when he jerks a thumb towards Byleth. “That’s Byleth, by the way. Funny story is, we met her just a couple of hours ago as well.”

“Fate must have brought us together here today,” Dimitri agrees with a solemn nod. “I swear on my honour as a noble knight from the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus that I will see you safe to the Monastery. Lady Rhea will surely be able to help you there.”

“Okay. Thank you,” you manage, unable to connect a face to this name in your head that feels like it’s about to burst any second anyway. The only course of action lies within those strangers who are so willingly offering help that you can’t stop worrying it’s a ruse. But without anything to offer them except your life, there’s little coming to your mind that they can anticipate in taking you with them. Tthe fact that Byleth knew your name doesn’t sit right with you as well. There’s something waiting to be grasped at the tips of your fingers, and yet you lack the strength to embrace it.

Following the little group of soldiers and students through the woods, you remain silent on the journey, only answering questions with approving or denying hums. How did you end up in this particular forest? According to Jeralt, you’re currently moving away from a village called Remire and towards the mountains to the northeast where the monastery lies tucked away between two mountains. Judging from the clothes you’re wearing, you’re a commoner, and when Edelgard pushed a slim dagger in your hand, nothing rung in intuitive knowledge about how to handle a weapon. Your mind remained silent, like an untouched chord.

There’s little you can say about the first impression those people left on you. There seems to be a unanimous dispute between the three students, hanging palpable in the air whenever an argument starts that’s pregnant with implied insults or passive-aggressive comments. From that you gather there’s tension between the governing fractions in Fódlan, something else you’ve learnt from listening to them squabbling.

Byleth and Jeralt acknowledge their bickering as if it was flies buzzing around their heads. They keep more to themselves and their mercenary comrades, indicating they’re really as much of strangers to the students as you. Their conversations are a lot quieter as well, their heads leaning close together for the illusion of privacy. More than once you notice Byleth sneaking glances in your direction, and every time you lock eyes, there’s something close to comprehension when she looks at you. The further you march through the woods, the less you try to meet her gaze. Reaching the monastery is the first step to regain who you are, or so you hope, because the opposite would mean you’ll continue stumbling through the darkness with no lead to your past or why you’re in this particular part of Fódlan, and you can only hope that this Rhea person really will be able to help you.

A sound from the underbrush cuts through your thoughts.

Thinking it might be an animal, you don’t let it bother you too much. No one else seems to have heard it, so maybe it was just your imagination. But your brain refuses to let it rest, and fails to push it away from your mind because something about the sound doesn’t seem to be right. The more you try to focus on it though, the blurrier it gets; the less you understand its origin.

Then, you hear a voice from within the woods. It sounds like a slurred whisper.

“What was that?” You stop in the middle of the road, looking around the thick trees. Claude barely manages to avoid walking into you. “What was what?”

“There’s something here.” Unable to explain further, you wave your hand around for emphasis. He looks at your hand, incomprehension written all over his face. “And that something is what exactly?” he asks.

“I don’t know.” You wave your hand wilder. “But I don’t have a good feeling venturing further.”

“You may be still tired,” Edelgard offers, not hiding her irritation that the journey stopped. “It won’t be long until we reach Garreg Mach. You can rest however long you need inside the monastery’s infirmary.”

“I’m not tired,” you hiss, hand falling back to your side where it clenches into a fist. “I just really don’t think we should go further for now.”

“And why is that?” Dimitri inquirers. He raises a hand and the soldiers following them come to a halt, a murmur of unrest breathing through their lines, and it’s just enough that you question if it would be better to play if off and admit your mind is playing tricks on you due to exhaustion.

But whenever you blink, a red veil falls over your right eye, blurring your surroundings. Little red dots move slowly in the distance through the forest. If you didn’t know better, you’d say it’s some sort of life form far away, slowly advancing on your position. “Because someone is coming,” you finally manage, scratching the thin skin below your irritated eye that’s started twitching slightly. “Someone is coming towards us from southwest. And I can’t say if they’re friendly or not.”

Three pairs of eyes consider you like you’ve grown a second head. Only Byleth stares into the woods like she might find the strangers you’re talking about waiting behind the trees if she just looks hard enough.

“Little one, are you sure this isn’t just an aftereffect from you hitting your head?” Claude offers, squinting into the woods. You’re pretty sure he’s staring directly at the moving dots but for whatever reason can’t see them.

“Unless amnesia is suddenly another term for going crazy, I don’t think so,” you snap, unable to hold back the irritation raising to the surface.

A whistle echoes through the tree crowns. Byleth snaps her head in the direction of the sound, growing all tense. She raises her hand into a tight fist, and all movement stills behind you. When you turn around, you see the mercenaries waiting in the underbrush like a flock of crows ready to swipe down on their prey. Jeralt breaks away from them and approaches Byleth, a frown cutting a deep wrinkle into his forehead.

“Bandits,” he says, and quickly signs a hand gesture to the nearest bowman. He nods and disappears between trees. “Another mile away. If we stay on this road, we’ll walk right into them.”

“Seven hundred feet, actually,” you blurt. Jeralt looks at you like you’re a cockroach under his boot. Another whistle cuts through the woods, one long followed quickly by two short. Byleth exhales audibly, and only now you notice she’s moved to stand beside you. “Seven hundred feet,” she mutters, her eyes fixed on you.

Jeralt tenses. “How do you know, kid?”

“I don’t know,” you mumble towards your boots. “I just see.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence falling around you, and you’re too afraid to look up and read distrust in their eyes.

“Does it matter?” Claude finally breaks the silence, sliding his bow from his shoulder. “They won’t be a problem with the knights and mercenaries on our side.” He jerks his chin towards Byleth, already plugging an arrow from his quiver. “You should really see her fight.”

“Wait,” you say, reflexively reaching for the hem of his cape. “Don’t engage them yet.”

Claude stops, one eyebrow arched up in a curve. “Beg your pardon?”

“They come from the woods. Which means this is their hunting ground and they have the advantage. They have dozens of archers. I think they’re waiting until you reach a glade. And then open fire.”

“Which means we’ll end up as skewers.” Claude scratches his chin and twirls the arrow between his slender fingers. “I can think of better ways to shuffle off this mortal coil.”

Dimitri perks up. “You’ve read the Tale of Hamelot I gave you?”

“I’ll give it a six out of ten. His soliloquies were awful.”

“Boys.” Edelgard snaps her fingers impatiently as Dimitri opens his mouth to protest. “Not the time.” She takes your wrist and pulls it away from Claude’s cape, her hard gaze like a sharp knife. “Are we simply ignoring the fact that we have someone in our midst knowing the enemies’ movement and deployment?” she cuts in harshly. “Is this a plan to lure us into an ambush?”

“You think someone would give away their comrades’ position just like that?” Claude eyes her wearily. “Don’t be so suspicious of everyone.”

She glares at him. “I rather be suspicious than dead.”

Which is a valid point and a trait you willingly admit to share with her, but that doesn’t really solve the problem at hand. Luckily, Dimitri seems to think the same. He doesn’t unfasten the spear on his back yet, but his fingers dance swiftly over the handle, immediately resting on where he can easily pull it from the straps if needed to strike down an enemy. “Fact is enemies are approaching,” he concludes, looking at his fellow students in search for a consensual ceasefire. “We must put an end to them before they target defenceless travellers on their way out of the forest.”

“Spoken like a true crowd-pleaser,” Claude says, either unable or not caring to hide the mock in his voice. “We can resolve our new friend’s condition after we take down the enemy.”

“I don’t agree with this,” Edelgard declares, but nonetheless unclasps the double-bit axe from her back and swings it on her shoulder like it weighs nothing. “But I accept that this is a more pressing issue.” The easiness in the movement robs your lungs of air, and even though there are more important matters to focus on, you wonder how her muscles play under her black uniform swinging around a thing like that. Your admiration comes to a quick end when Jeralt and Byleth close the circle. Her hand rests on the hilt of a short blade as she scans the underbrush, her body rigid with battle anticipation.

“Let them come to us,” Jeralt announces. “Let them think they have the advantage.”

“Your knigths over there move slow through the woods,” you say, gesturing at the waiting man clad in heavy armour and armed with shields. “But their amour can resist some stray arrows coming down on us. It’s the rearguard that will take them by surprise from another direction and—”

“And charge their flank or rear to finish them off,” Jeralt ends with a crude nod. “Indirect approach. I thought of that as well.”

Your mouth goes dry. The idea plopped seemingly out of nowhere in your mind, but yes, now that you think about it, that is the indirect approach tactic, first recorded after the Battle of Nicaea in … Faerghus? Or was it Adrestia? The picture in your mind is still blurry, but now you can make out definite lines of objects: Books with drawn pictures of pointing arrows and coloured lines, each lettered with a name or an approach in a neat handwriting that isn’t yours. The picture triggers another wave of dizziness, disappearing as fast as it appeared.

“They’re going to faint in three, two, one…” Claude’s voice rips you back to the present. You glare at him and raise a fist to show how close to fainting you really are. He only laughs at the tiny fist in front of his face.

“Enough brats, get into position,” Jeralt bellows, and the students scatter with a bouncing step in all their strides as they take the lead of a small unit.

You’re about to retreat to the furthest point away from battle when Jeralt blocks the way. “Not you. You’re going with Byleth.”

“I’m what?”

“Byleth,” Jeralt nods to the young woman ahead of you, “will be the commanding unit and you’ll help her.”

The world tilts a little as panic takes hold of you. “I can’t. I don’t know how to fight.”

“You seem to know enough to plan a counterattack.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.” Your voice sounds horribly piercing even to your own ears. “It was just a lucky guess.”

“I don’t know what’s the deal with you,” Jeralt says with a finality to his voice that doesn’t allow objection, and this time you clearly see the head of a mercenary guild, one that gives commands with every breath. “But that wasn’t a lucky guess. You see what it needs to win a battle. So you guide them.”

He turns around sharply and leaves, not bothering to check if you plan to abandon them. It’s madness. You should abandon these people, should flee from the fight that will demand blood and death. One, two, three … six steps and you’re standing beside Byleth, taking deep breaths. It doesn’t help. She eyes you sideways with a raised brow, and you flinch at the metallic rasping sound as she draws her sword.

“I shouldn’t be here,” you mumble, staring into the woods. The red dots are approaching faster, forming into more recognisable features of humans. “I’m going to die. Without knowing who I am or why I’m here. This is the worst day of my life. I think. I don’t know. It has to be.”

Byleth hums beside you. You can’t tell if it’s a thoughtful or an affirmative hum. “This might sound crazy, but I do trust you.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” you say, struck by a sudden fear that this all is a fever dream and you're about to lead them into ruin. It’s enough that you don’t even notice this is the first time you two are talking to each other since your meeting.

Byleth studies you out of the corner of her eyes, then says, “A very persistent voice inside me tells me I shouldn’t.”

“That’s your survival instinct. Listen to it.”

“Yeah,” Byleth says, and there’s something like a faint smile tugging at the corners of her lips. You blink and it's gone. “I might do that.”

You don’t really understand what’s there to smile about, but the moment quickly disappears as silence settles, only occasionally disturbed by a bird sitting in the trees above you.

“So what exactly do you see?” Byleth whispers after a moment, barely shifting in her crouching position. You on the other hand really want to move your legs before they go numb.

“I don’t know why you guys even believe me,” you mumble, and pinch the bridge of your nose with your fingers, trying to stave off another rush of dizziness. “And I don’t understand it myself. It’s the opponent, in a way. I see their strengths and weaknesses, their amour and weapons. It’s like … it’s like the flow of battle is displayed in front of me.”

Byleth hesitates a moment, then nods like everything is pretty much self-explanatory. You wonder if to her it really does sound plausible, as she is someone who is practically born in battle, a daughter to a mercenary who breathes battle and fighting. Before you can explain anything further, she ducks more into the bushes and silences you with a sharp hush, her body tensed. The first bandits approach the glade, their bows and arrows ready to strike as the Academy’s knights engage them. Swords and axes clash against each other, battle cries ring through the woods. Byleth gestures you to follow her, and out of the corner of your eyes you see the students do the same, moving around the bandits. From the distance, you notice Claude gesturing wildly. It’s a mix between pointing at himself and then at the space a couple of feet away from his unit, and though you’re unable to fully comprehend it, you shake your head. He gives a thumbs up and slows down until he halts inside the thick cover of ferns.

Just when you reach the right angle, Byleth looks back at you, waiting for your approval, and after briefly hesitating, you signal with a short nod to attack. Edelgard is the first to emerge from the underbrush. She has a dancer’s grace and a seemingly unerring instinct for what her opponent will do next. Her axe cuts through the first bandits who are too surprised to regroup in time. Dimitri and Claude are quickly to follow her. The crown prince of Faerghus wields his weapon of choice like he’s never done anything else in his entire life. The spear is the instrument to a deadly song they know by heart, and whoever stands in the way of their melody is cut down swiftly. Claude doesn’t disappoint with his steady aim either, his eyes sharper than an eagle’s. He nocks his bow, draws and impales a bandit that’s been running toward a mercenary with a crooked nose and eye patch. The mercenary gives him an offhand salute and goes back to fighting a thug twice his size.

And then there’s Byleth. At first you don’t see her as the battle’s chaos swallows her and she disappears between moving bodies. But once your eyes catch up to her again, it’s hard to look away. Byleth moves through the enemies’ lines like an avenging angel on a mission. Her sword arm causes havoc as it conducts the tact of death’s complicated choreography and one by one the bandits fall to her deadly dance. Strangely, what describes it the best, you think, is divine.

The battle is almost over. The last bandits fall or flee back into the woods as they abandon their comrades who lay down their weapons and yield. A miserable sound of relief escapes you when you see the end nearing with little casualties on your side, thanking whoever watches over you and guides your weapons in victory.

That is until you see something, and at first you aren’t really sure you see it. Veiled by a red haze, a gruesome scene unfolds before you: As Byleth is focused on helping a soldier back up on his feet, a bandit strikes her from behind, wedging a dagger through her spine and into her heart. When you blink, the scene is gone and with it the red veil covering your surroundings.

You don’t think twice. Jumping out of your hiding spot, you quickly recognise what will be Byleth’s murderer. Only he never gets the chance to approach her. With everything you’ve got, you charge into him and send him flying on the ground, you on top of him. The bandit groans, groggily turning on his back to see what struck him, and before you can start to fear for your own dear life, Byleth is beside you and rams her sword into his throat, silencing him forever.

She looks down at you and you feel like she knows what just happened. Why you jumped in. It’s in those keen, piercing eyes that speak of a unimaginable wisdom. She reaches a hand out to help you up, and when you stand, the last bandits have been secured and the chaos finally settles. That is when the throbbing pain in your right eye doubles you ever, the pain akin to a pinprick of ice hammering into your skull. The pain makes you sick as stars explode behind your closed eyes, and the more they dance in feverish circles, the harder you press your hands against your eyelids, trying to smother the pain by pressure. It doesn’t work.

Unable to breathe properly, your stumble, and when you move your hands, your fingers smear something warm and wet across your cheeks.

Someone takes in a sharp breath. “Your eye,” Byleth breathes, a hand raised but remaining hanging in the air like she’s unsure if it’s okay to touch you. In the background you hear someone calling out you’re bleeding, and it takes a few seconds to understand where you’re bleeding from. Your right eye cries blood when the pain finally knocks you out, darkness falling onto everything.

129 notes · View notes

pallasperilous · 3 years

Text

Occursus

Castiel/Dean Winchester Gen/Teen, 4341 words 15x20 coda AO3 version “The natural environment of the human soul is a human body,” Cas says. “Humans have yet to meet a foreign substrate that they don’t immediately attempt to colonize. My form in Hell was not an exception.”

Then he shuts his mouth very deliberately and gestures back to Dean like his mic is going live in three, two. “Or the bit where my soul gave you some kind of STD?” Dean finishes. “It was a poor analogy. I apologize.” “So what’s a better one?” Castiel drums his fingers for a second. “It’s more like…the way a parasitic jewel wasp injects a cockroach with venom, and transforms it into a willing host for wasp larvae.” “Holy shit are you ever bad at this,” Dean says, with that signature brand of fond horror he special-orders just for Castiel, Angel of the Gourd.

It’s half past midnight by the time Dean gets another run at Cas.

Granted, what the fuck does half past midnight even mean here, where time is as free as tap water? Why does anybody even bother? For all it matters, Dean could set his watch to eleventy minutes past twenty o’ nope and still never miss last call.

Then again, somebody felt it necessary to invent the idea of Tuesday in the first place, and Dean’s not gonna volunteer himself for the task of replacing it with something better. What’s important is that he’s survived (or rather, he hasn’t survived) a battery of poignant moments and tearful reunions. He and Sam hugged out burdens registering in the triple digits. They even had a little fight, pretty much for the fun of it, while Ellen fucking Harvelle watched them over the bar with her eyes shining. She still charged them, though.

Right at the beginning of the party Dean and Castiel had their eyes-across-the-room thing, followed by the same magnetic, exhausted embrace they’ve shared on just about every plane of reality now. Dean supposes he could ask Cas for a nickel tour of the Empty just so they could hit for the cycle, but he’d really rather not. Sam let them eke out a few gruff, tear-choked monosyllables before diving in, sweeping Cas up in a bear hug and laughing like a fucking kid. Dean doesn’t push it, because it’s been longer for Sam, after all. Or something.

And now it’s quiet, just the jukebox and the clink of glasses back in the kitchen, a few folks murmuring in booths. It might be dark outside, it might not; it’s waiting on Dean’s opinion before it commits to anything. And so is Cas, who is standing in the warm glow of the jukebox, hands in his pockets.

Dean walks up, leans against it, bottle still dangling from one hand.

“C’mon, sunshine. I’ll show you yours, you show me mine.”

Cas looks up and into Dean’s eyes with the wary, elegant patience of a deer. “What is it that you would be showing me, Dean?”

Dean gives him a long, languid blink and bites his lip, and Castiel lags for half a second before rolling his own eyes. “I see death hasn’t refined your sense of humor.”

“Nope. Guess the billionth time aint the charm.”

Cas remains stonefaced, which means a corresponding you dumbass blush starts crawling up the sides of Dean’s neck. The jukebox switches records like it’s making a suggestion.

“I’m gonna sit down outside,” Dean says. “C’mon and sit down with me. There’s a patio somewhere, right? Ellen was always talking about adding one out back. No way she hasn’t bossed somebody into buildin’ it.”

“There’s a patio,” Cas says, taking his hands out of his pockets.

Heaven’s patio is pretty nice; twenty square feet, some scattered picnic tables, fences covered in ivy and string lights. It still smells like fresh pine boards. There’s even a fire pit, which seems kinda bougie for the Roadhouse, but hell with it, it’s warm and pretty, and since when did pretentious people get to lay claim to “a hole with a fire in it”? There’s no moon overhead, and so the Milky Way is giving them the full monty — the runnelled spine of it, the ribcage packed with galaxies.

“Are they all alive?” Dean asks. The warmth from inside leaks out of his collar, wisps away.

“Who?”

Dean points up. “The stars. They always make a big deal about how most of the stars you can see from Earth have been dead for millions of years by the time we get the light from ‘em. That still true here? Or is everything on auto-renewal?”

“That’s a very complicated question,” Cas says, not looking up, only at Dean. He does that a lot, Dean knows, but it turns out to mean something different than what Dean had always assumed, which was ironically pretty similar to what it actually meant, but was reassuringly unactionable and therefore unfuckupable.

“I’m a very complicated guy,” Dean says.

Castiel smiles at that. “I don’t actually know the answer,” he admits. “And it would take an extremely long time to investigate. There are some other things I’d rather do first.”

“What, you can’t just call the kid for directory assistance?”

Castiel lets a good-humored sigh. “Like many young people these days, Jack prefers to avoid the phone.”

This is a solid riff, and Dean respects it. He picks the table closest to the fire and takes a bench and Cas sits next to him, instead of opposite. Dean thought he managed to break him of this habit a few years ago, but here all things are made whole again.

“So what,” Cas says, without a single molecule of playfulness or seduction, “is it that you want us to show each other?”

“Yeah, I was…it was a dumb joke. But I mean it, just not in a ‘playing doctor’ way.”

Castiel frowns, tightens his lips; the firelight throws a fluttering shadow across his face.

“I mean…Christ.” Dean takes a medicinal slug of his dwindling beer. “I don’t really look like this anymore either, right?” And he gestures at his usual shitshow personal presentation, which death has also noticeably failed to refine.

Castiel frowns, smoothes his hand across the surface of the table. “This is a corporeal world, Dean. It operates on a different set of rules, but your body here is no more of an illusion than it was on earth.”

“Seriously?” Dean ponders a second, squints through the dim light at his fingernails, at the high-resolution grime contained therein. “Jesus, that sounds like a lot of work. At least compared to Holodeck Heaven.”

“It is. But we didn’t build this place to be a...a…doorprize. It’s a real world,” Castiel enthuses, looming forward. “It’s the one that should have been created for all of you in the first place.” He pauses, glances down. “For all of us.”

Dean shrugs. “Okay, so no holograms. I’ll keep all that in mind next time Charlie tries to convince me to go skydiving.”

Castiel snorts, but not in pure aggravation, so Dean feels like he’s finally got a point on the board. “What I’m sayin’ is…physical or not, this place has different rules, right? So could I look at you without my eyeballs exploding? The…you know, the angel parts of you. Not just your vessel,” and Dean fwippies his hand at Cas to indicate that true beauty is contained within and Dean is completely indifferent to the fact this dork-ass alien managed to bodysnatch a guy who’s never dipped below an 8.5.

“It isn’t a vessel anymore. We can create our own bodies, now.”

“Peachy,” Dean clips, because that shit is a little late coming off the line.

Castiel sighs. “You could see me in that form without coming to harm. But you should know that I don’t consider it any more a reflection who I am than this form. Not anymore.”

Dean rolls the bottle towards him, nudges a knuckle. “You’re a real boy now, huh?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Castiel says, and smiles a smile so small that Dean would need a microscope to figure out if it’s pleased or pained.

So Dean thwacks the bottle down on the totally-real table and claps his totally-real hands. “Well then let’s go. Hit me with that angel weirdness. If we’re gonna do this, I gotta taste all thirty-one flavors.”

Castiel smiles a little more convincingly, but it still doesn’t reach his eyes. “There are really only the two,” he says, and holds his palms out to the warmth of the fire.

“Great, then we’ll be done in time to catch Letterman. Then if you’re good maybe you can help me shimmy out of this thing.”

Cas cocks his head. “Out of which thing?”

“This super real heavenly meat-suit, dude. It’s not fair if only one of us gets naked. Peep show has to go both ways. I see your angel-face, you see my soul.”

Cas looks stricken, like Dean is asking to suck on his toes next to a playground. “I mean, unless that’d fuck you up,” Dean adds.

“No,” Castiel replies, a little absently. “It wouldn’t fuck me up. But it…wouldn’t really accomplish anything, either.”

“What, no soul kink? That’s bullshit and you know it. You love this crap.”

Castiel replies, “Your soul is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” with the easy confidence of a regular latte order. With the same uncanny, 2 Blessed 2 B Stressed face he had when Dean plowed Ruby’s knife hilt-deep into Jimmy Novak’s sternum, that he had when the Empty collapsed him like a carcass in an acid bath.

That face shuts Dean right the fuck up, because it sends him skipping backwards into that fucking basement, where his phone is buzzing and the gritty concrete chill of the floor is seeping through his jeans into the useless meat of his legs and leeching into the hot, wet channels of his piece of shit heart.

Turns out you can work up a good little panic attack in heaven, which seems like a significant oversight.

From a million miles away he feels Cas’s warm, dry palm slide over the back of his hand –– there’s a ring there now that Dean lost down a motel sink drain ages ago, is nobody spotting continuity errors here?—then Cas’s hand tightens on his and it feels like a Xanax kicking in. (The good kind, direct from the hot nurse with the little paper cup, not the kind you get in a from a shady burnout at a truckstop, that’s been ground up with baking soda or benadryl and carefully remolded, as if you could possibly give that much of a shit when you’re freaking out bad enough to buy Xanax at a truckstop.)

Point being, he calms the fuck down.

Cas has good hands. They can do a lot of impressive shit, and they look nice doing it. They don’t look like –– they’ve never looked like –– they belong to somebody whose main job is destroying people, places, or things. They’re hands that how to play the cello, or make tables from reclaimed wood, or give soapy, encompassing handjobs in the shower on cold evenings.

“It’s been years, though,” Dean rasps, not looking up yet. “I was a kid when you got me out of Hell, Cas. I’ve done a lot of shit since then. Maybe souls get stretch marks.”

Castiel’s hand tightens on his, clamps it down on the table. “I’ve always been able to see it.”

“Okay,” Dean mumbles, but Cas keeps on going –

“The only time I couldn’t see any part of your soul was when I was without grace, and I promise you that was one of the greatest deprivations imaginable.”

Dean snorts, looks away, but his hand is still on lockdown. “Worse than going hungry, huh?”

“Much.”

“Hey, what about Sam? Or, hell, fucking Donatello. They both were both walking around minus their creamy filling, and you didn’t say boo.”

Cas shrugs. “I can’t see their souls under ordinary circumstances.”

“So what, mine’s just extra loud, or day-glo, or what?”

“It’s both of those things, but that isn’t why,” Cas answers, and the boy is downright wry.

Dean tugs his hand out, raps his knuckles against the wood. “Okay, so stop bein’ coy and tell me before I get a complex. And if you say it’s because of love or some shit, I’m bailing to Rowena’s.”

“You infected me,” Cas says.

“Uh,” says Dean.

The fire pops and a log shifts; Cas glances over at the kerfuffle, absently lifts his fingers to his chin like he’s looking for an old scar. “In Hell, when I retrieved you…I had to grip your raw soul. I was meant to wear a gauntlet, so I wouldn’t be burned.”

Dean snickers. “You’re telling me you were supposed to be wearing a soul condom. What happened, you get too excited and forget to suit up? It’s okay, I know I’m a lot to take in.”

Castiel purses his lips. “No, I was properly armored. But my arm was torn off in combat shortly before I reached you.”

“Ouch.”

“Ouch,” Cas agrees. “I didn’t have time to retrieve the arm or its protection from the pit, so I had to grow a new one very quickly.”

Dean really should’ve switched to whiskey before starting this. “What, you didn’t pack a spare?” He wheezes.

“Ordinarily, yes, I would have had the resources, but I was equipped very lightly for that mission. It was a raid, not a siege. You understand the difference.”

“Sure, yeah, you left your emergency arms in the trunk. So you just popped out a new one. No big.”

“It was a big. Your soul was close enough that it forced me to grow a human arm, instead of a much quicker and more powerful extensor.”

“Okay, uh,” Dean pinches at the bridge of his nose, “there’s a lot to unpack there.”

“What part of it confuses you?”

“I dunno, the bit where apparently angels are I guess heavenly octopuses,”

“The plural in the Greek is octopodes,” Cas interjects, not without pleasure.

Dean glowers. “Or the part where you can apparently swap in different drill bits,” Dean continues,

“Mm,” Cas notes, careful not to open his mouth,

“Or that I, like, accidentally bullied you into growing a person arm,” and Dean pauses for breath here, which Cas evidently takes as permission to dive in with more Planet Earth commentary.

“The natural environment of the human soul is a human body,” he says. “Humans have yet to meet a foreign substrate that they don’t immediately attempt to colonize. My form in Hell was not an exception.” Then he shuts his mouth very deliberately and gestures back to Dean like his mic is going live in three, two.

“Or the bit where my soul gave you some kind of STD?” Dean finishes.

“It was a poor analogy. I apologize.”

“So what’s a better one?”

Castiel drums his fingers for a second, listens to the fire pop in its little cage. “It’s more like…the way a parasitic jewel wasp injects a cockroach with venom, and transforms it into a willing host for wasp larvae.”

“Holy shit are you ever bad at this,” Dean says, with that signature brand of fond horror he special-orders just for Castiel, Angel of the Gourd.

“What I’m trying to avoid saying,” Castiel sighs, “is that you rubbed off on me.”

Dean nods. “Yeah. That’s fair. I wouldn’t be dumb enough to say that around me, either.” He lays a couple little pats on Cas’s hand. “Lookit you, though, seeing around that corner. I’m proud of you, man. That would’ve totally flipped your breaker back in the day.”

“Just one of the many ways you have reshaped me, Dean,” Cas says, with warm sarcasm.

“Alright, so you rawdogged me, I whammied you. Chocolate, peanut butter, peanut butter, chocolate.”

Cas’s forehead wrinkles in skepticism. “I still prefer the cockroach. But some part of your soul injected itself into one of my more exposed frequencies. Under different circumstances, I would’ve stopped and excised the affected area before it spread, but. I was being pursued, and the mission had taken much longer than any of us anticipated.”

“Us? Thought it was just you down there.”

Cas looks vaguely offended, straightens and folds his arms like he just remembered he’s giving a deposition. “No, of course not. Michael assigned sixty-six angels in eleven groups of six, each escorted to the field by a seraph. We struck simultaneously at six different areas in perdition. From there we dispersed to individual targets –– to cause as much chaos as possible in order to help obscure the object of our mission, and to increase the odds that one of us would actually find you.”

“And you were the lucky winner.” Dean pushes down a touch of sick shame at the thought of it — he’d been coiled up like a snake around somebody else’s torment, anesthetized by it. It was one of the random rags of infernal time where his own pain decreased in proportion to how much he dealt out, and that was the closest thing Hell had to a Friday night.

“I was,” Castiel nods. “I took some liberties with my assignment,” he adds, squinting. “I flattered myself that I shared a special affinity with The Righteous Man.”

“That guy always sounded like kind of a cunt to me,” Dean notes. “You know, not withstanding the fact that I’m him.”

Castiel shrugs. “I found you, and I did what was necessary to save you, and my siblings did what was necessary to save me.” A little falter enters his voice. “Only twelve of us returned from that mission.” Cas looks up, out, away. A dove coos somewhere nearby of the Roadhouse; did it have a run-in with the windshield of an eighteen wheeler one day and show up here, Dean wonders, or does heaven make its own birds from scratch? That’s gotta be a softball compared to whether Betelgeuse is still open for business.

Castiel waits until the bird shuts up, then says, “Of those twelve surviving angels, I personally murdered nine, in everything that followed.”

After a moment Dean says “Yeah,” with practiced neutrality. He’s got some similar tallies, written in Sharpie on the back of his eyelids.

Cas sighs and his attention comes back down to the table. “By the time I received the authority to restore your soul to your body, the infection had spread almost past the point of containment. That’s why I resisted taking a vessel at first. I worried that occupying a human form would speed up the process.”

“Hey now. I thought you showed up naked because you thought I’d be one of those special people,” Dean quips, “Who can handle angel stuff without going all kibbles ’n bits.”

“That was only a partial truth.”

Dean tips the beer bottle in salute. “You’re a real special flavor of asshole, Cas.”

“So I’ve been told. I was right, though. When I took Jimmy as a vessel, I contracted — condensed — myself very severely. The infection had a much shorter distance to travel to reach all of my extremities, and a human form was the most hospitable environment possible.”

“You got a raging case of the Deans.”

Cas’s head kicks back in a laugh that kinda surprises them both. “Yes,” he says, grinning. “I did. I was very displeased, and very concerned I’d be found out and judged unfit for duty. And I very much was. Unfit, that is. Though I was not found out.”

“C’mon, never? You went rogue on the company.”

“Uriel suspected. Naomi certainly detected it later, as did Metatron. But in the moment, no. The Host’s attention was focused on the Apocalypse ahead, not on debriefing a mission that was considered a success. After the Cage was closed, I had too much influence to come under that level of scrutiny.”

“Hmh.” Dean realizes he’s been systematically picking down the label on the beer bottle, so he sets it on the ground before he gets sticky little shreds everywhere. “So I gotta ask. My little souvenir, the handprint. That’s where you grabbed me, with your lil…Mister Potato Head human arm?”

“It is.”

“If I’m the one who infected you, how come I’m the one who got burned?”

“My hand didn’t burn you.”

“Well, it ain’t fingerpaint.”

“Your own soul burned it, as it flowed out of your flesh and into mine. It burned until the moment when I finally released you from my grip. My hand healed itself; your arm did not.” Castiel gives a thin scoff. “I hadn’t planned to leave you interred.”

“Oh, no? Well that’s nice to hear, you know, a decade after the fact. I still have nightmares about that shit.”

Castiel winces. “It’s no excuse, but I was in a great deal of…the equivalent of pain. It took an immense effort to break off the inflow of your soul, and when I did manage it, I was thrown quite a ways by the recoil. By the time I recovered enough to return, you were already looting a gas station,” He finishes, dryly.

“Yeah, well, Dad didn’t think much of leisure as a virtue. Also I was thirsty, because I’d just crawled out of my own grave.”

“And I was distracted, because I’d just fought my way out of the inferno while being digested by a demented human soul.”

“You wanna call it even?”

Cas lifts his brows. “If you don’t mind.”

There is a long, dark breath, during which their little smiles fade.

“So, all that,” Dean says, because he’s a fucking coward.

“All that,” says Cas, because he isn’t.

Dean clears his throat. “That means you can see my soul-stuff 24/7, huh?”

Castiel slides one leg up onto the bench, shifts to sit astride it, like he’s maybe about to deliver an after-school PSA on the Real Deal About Drugs. “I can always see myself, and extensions of my self. And since your soul made itself into an integral part of me…I can see you.”

“I take it that’s not exactly in the manual.”

“No. I didn’t entirely understand it at first — for a long time, I convinced myself it was because you were designed to be a celestial vessel, and that I had been destined to save you from Hell.”

That thin, acidic feelings starts to rise up in Dean’s chest again. “Do you…” A dry swallow reflex grabs his throat. “Hm. Fuck.”

“What?” Cas asks, scooting forward. An angel. Scooting. What a world. “You can ask me anything, Dean. I hope we’re both past being offended.”

“Have you ever thought that. This whole deal. Our…thing.” Dean lets out a breath. “The way you feel about me. The way I feel about you.”

“Do I worry that its only basis is our shared material?”

Dean licks his lips, works a jaw muscle, forces out a nod.

Cas frowns, sets one elbow up against the table, then lets his head tip to the side. “Why do you love Sam?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I get it, he’s my brother. We got shared material, too. But we’re not talking genetics.”

“Genes were the initial basis of your love for Sam. But you share half as much material with Adam. Do you love him fifty percent as much as you do Sam?”

“One, love doesn’t work that way and you know it, and two, fucking of course not. I barely know the guy, and what I’ve seen didn’t exactly blow me away.” Not that the poor dumb kid ever really had a chance. “Sam’s Sam, he’s earned it a million times over just by bein’ him.”

“Then you understand.”

“But Cas, man…I…” Dean laughs, which is an abbreviated form of screaming, “I treated you like shit.”

Cas nods. “You did.”

“Okay, the rules say you’re not supposed to agree with me.”

“But the balance remains in your favor. Dean, are you genuinely afraid that you — care for me…” and Dean can hear the FCC live-bleep in that one, like does his total cowardice have a special color Cas can see with his soul-o-vision? “Only out of some compulsion?”

“No,” Dean says, to the great surprise of his frontal cortex, which was busy kicking the shit out of itself. “No,” he says again, just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, that that answer actually came out of him and entered the living air between them.

Then the wave is rolling towards him and he enters that slim moment of body-physics where you either take a lungful and commit to diving under the break, or you kick out against the undertow, arch your back to meet the blow, and let yourself be flown all the way up to the waiting shore––

“No,” Dean says, “I love you.” And he chokes up a little, first at the release of saying it, then at how much of exactly jack-shit it changes anything so what was he even scared of, and then at the look on Cas’s face: how he’s frozen. Like that dog from that video, the one that loved tennis balls so goddamn much that his owner bought him a thousand fucking tennis balls and dumps them out all at once and the dog absolutely stalls the fuck out, just seconds on end of underspecced dog-brain hang time before he finally snaps back to reality and loses his absolute shit scrabbling all over the porch.

Castiel comes back online with a little choking noise of his own, and a kind of awkward scrabble for Dean’s hand.

“I have for a long time,” Dean continues, because apparently he’s continuing, “I’ve loved you for fucking ages, Cas. In people years, anyway, I’m sure that mean’s fuckall to somebody who’s a zillion––”

“I don’t,” Cas says thickly, “really give a damn about the age difference, Dean,” and cracks into a chuckle.

“So how come you never knew it?” Dean asks, feeling freedom turn into a hunger or something like vertigo. “If you can see my soul, how could you not know?”

Cas shrugs, a bit helplessly.

“Seriously,” Dean laughs, “how did I manage to hide that shit so well? Sammy found every nudie mag I ever shoplifted.”

Cas shakes his head. “You’ve never actually been able to hide anything from me.”

Dean scoffs. “C’mon, man. I snowed you plenty, or else we woulda had this conversation dirtside a long time ago.”

“Whatever I missed, Dean…it wasn’t because you succeeded at hiding it,” Castiel says, softly. He takes a slow, shaky breath, and meets Dean’s eyes with a smile. He lifts a hand to Dean’s face, bone and flesh on flesh and bone. “I just loved you enough to look away.”

It’s a long time before they go back inside. By any measure. {AO3}

#spn fanfiction #spn 15x20 #destiel #deancas #dean winchester #castiel #bless you all for your sexy and angsty coda fics please enjoy this massive wodge of angel lore wankery dating back 11 seasons

108 notes · View notes