#otherwise again- up to you! she is quite the survivor. I think even the Hunter wanted to keep her alive ... as a trophy of sorts | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

surveillance-0011 · 1 month

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Every HOL 2 + Comic prediction I have

Possible spoilers ahead. Some of these I'm very much convinced about, others are more general statements or spitballing/guesstimates.

In general:

We find out where the hell Lizzie and Kenny are

We see what remains of the G3+ more of how they've impacted space

Funny mission control in the form of Clug's kids + Gene. He was literally gonna blow us up to keep the house.

Maybe seeing Krimothy or Gene's nephew

More stuff abt Gene + whatever he's got going on, too

More Torgs maybe?

Bounty Hunter will probably remain a very self insert-y character and therefore be more of a blank slate while the Gatlians get center stage but we might get more on them... maybe something abt their parents

And. Lezduit. Did you fuck my mom Lezduit?

The Comic

Takes place pre-High on Knife

Follows (at least partially) the bounties that have been done pre DLC (the ones on the screen)

Gurgula plays more of a role or shows up as some sorta easter egg in the bg

Actually shows what's up with Creature

"Redemption" We are totally getting stuff about Kenny

and maybe similar themes with Harper? if the Task Force led to her doing some fucked up shit

And ofc who knows maybe. applies to creature lore. If not that then maybe the "lost love" in the blurb is referring to this... hm...

Though it's not following the G3 I'm going to assume we'll be seeing Merkaloids and other G3 grunts doing other odd jobs and the remnants of the Cartel + power struggles before it crumbles for good

Uh. Maybe bonus G3 chapter at the end? Or at least mentioning them + filling more in for sake of worldbuilding. maybe this is copium but i want moar... moar G3. please. waughh

HOL 2

Lez might come back late game once the parents get back from their road trip. Maybe he'd be used for a challenge mode/bonus gauntlet instead of the final boss.

If we don't see what's going on with Lizzie in the comics we'll certainly know by 2.

Maybe Gurgula got a hold of her or Gene or the BH's parents as a way to play on Garmantuous trying to hurt who the BH "loves most" but it's not a celebrity cameo this time

Either Kenny-Harper dual wielding or Kenny gets an upgrade that's not quite Lezduit level but makes him a more advanced gun.

Alternatively maybe the perspectives switch between BH and Lizzie? BH keeps their guns and there's chapters or otherwise ways to switch perspective to continue to the story with Lizzie, Kenny, and her own group of Gatliens. This would eventually lead to the two reuniting and being able to choose who to play as and what combo of Gatliens you like to complete the game. This is pretty ambitious and most likely too clunky but something like this could be on the table.

And if you don't get to play as them I do like the idea of Lizzie turning up ok with Kenny in tow

May or may not be accompanied by a joke w/ Kenny saying he's got a frog in his throat or some other meta commentary. Then again given the circumstances to why the change would be made this might be in poor taste. We will see.

I mean really after what she did to Tweeg if you follow that path then I'm sure she's gonna end up getting in on the bloodshed. Really thinking she'll fight along side you or maybe against you at some point if she gets brainwashed or something (maybe unlikely but as a splatoon fan I'm Used To This Happening by now)

And by now Gene's legs r probably gonna grow back or be just about enough to walk with?

Knifey keeps the chainsaw obviously. maybe another modification or two to switch out?

Flamethrower + Sniper Rifle Gatliens, sticky + smoke bomb trick hole or mechanism

Being able to meet + save more Gatlien survivors even if they aren't playable

Maybe a shooting range/training room to hone techniques

More standalone bounties while the Bounty Hunter tries to track down Gurgula on their own terms

Gurgula is from Australia III or IV or. yeah just another Australia. Maybe the original first Australia planet... hm...

More Australia in general

More Gurgula also :3c this is a given but I am very much excited 2 see him. I think unlike Garmantuous he's probably not going to try to check in on us or anything and it's more cat-and-mouse-y.

The game will probably be a bit more grim, esp when the focus is on Gurgula. Not too gritty, but certainly more in line with the secret ending and HOK's more morbid/scary moments.

that being said I need to see him lose his mind as he gradually gets totally tired of everyone else's bullshit and comes to the conclusion that he's in a game chock full of nerdy stoner comedy.

There will probably be a joke about/reference to CWC it'd be funny if Gurgula was actually super wowed by all of that. Not disgusted like actually just. wow. the depths of the human mind.

I've said it before but I am certainly thinking they may kill off Gene or Lizzie. Knowing how calculated and cutthroat Gurgs is I'm pretty sure he'll be targeting them eventually and even if he doesn't with some of the themes of redemption we've been seeing here I'm thinking we're gonna see some people we like go.

In general i hope the game does not shy away from more emotional moments and allows shit 2 get real grim. After being thrown for a total loop in the secret ending and the pretty well done bits of horror around the reveal of Mux in HOK i do hope we get some real gut wrenching bits where we see the real depths of depravity with Gurgula :3c and just knowing that. shit is fucked.

#high on life #high on life game

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razieltwelve · 3 years

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Late (Final Rose)

Yang said nothing as Ruby stumbled off to the side and emptied her stomach. Weiss staggered off to do the same, and Yang glanced at Blake. The Faunus nodded back and went off to hold the heiress’s hair, so she wouldn’t make too big a mess of herself. Yang, meanwhile, went to Ruby.

“Ruby...” Yang murmured. “Get up. We have to secure the area.”

Ruby shuddered, and Yang tried not to wince as her sister’s stomach convulsed again despite already being empty. Finally, Ruby got to her feet. Wordlessly, Yang handed her a bottle of water to wash her mouth out. Scrubbing furiously at her cheeks, Ruby pointedly looked at the ground.

“Yeah... yeah, I guess we do.”

“We also need to search for survivors.” Yang kept her voice gentle. Ruby was... well, not as experienced as her when it came to things like this. Before attending the Senior Academy, Yang had gone on quite a few missions with Averia, Claire, and some of the others in their age group. They weren’t always in the right place at the right time. “As well as secure a perimeter.”

Ruby swallowed thickly. “Yeah. You’re right.” She finally looked up, silver gaze wandering over the utter devastation around them. “What happened? This was supposed to be a weeding mission. There weren’t supposed to be any strong Grimm here.”

“Some Grimm are smarter than others,” Yang said. Bodies littered the area around them. They’d bury them if it was safe. Otherwise, they’d just have to retreat and wait until reinforcements arrived before seeing to the bodies. “Sometimes, what look like attacks by small groups of random Grimm are actually just probing moves by something stronger.” She nodded at the massive hole in the settlement’s walls. “I’m guessing that’s what happened here.”

Ruby sniffled. “Can... can you call it in? And... maybe... maybe we can have Blake use some of her clones to look around and stuff. I don’t think we should separate until we know what’s going on.”

“That’s a good plan.” Yang squeezed Ruby’s shoulder. “Chin up, sis. This is horrible, but we’ve got to stay sharp.”

“Right.” Ruby looked around. “I... I guess I can set up in that burnt out building over there. It still looks pretty sturdy, and it’s got a good view of everything. If anything tries to sneak up on us, I should be able to spot it.”

X X X

“First time seeing a ruined settlement?” Blake asked as she helped Weiss sit on the edge of the ruined fountain in the middle of the settlement. She’d seen far too many such settlements in her time with the White Fang. Life on the frontier was harsh, especially in the most recently settled areas where battles with Grimm were a constant fixture of life.

Weiss shivered. “Yes. Well, I mean, I’ve seen pictures and footage, but...”

“Seeing it... smelling it... yourself is different.” Blake shook her head. “I still remember the first time I saw one.”

“Oh?”

Blake’s lips twitched. “It was a little smaller than this, maybe forty or fifty people. We got there, and... well... there wasn’t anyone left alive. There might have been if we’d gotten there half an hour earlier, though.” It had been a Faunus settlement, just people trying to make a living away from the people who’d persecuted them. It was one of the only times she’d ever seen Adam cry. He might have been a bastard in many ways, but she’d cried right there next to him. Seeing the bodies all laid out like that - the children, especially - would have made anyone with a heart cry. “I still wonder if maybe we could have gotten there fast enough if we hadn’t stopped to deal with Grimm along the way.”

It was a logical move. Leaving Grimm at their rear was just begging to be ambushed. Besides, they hadn’t known anything was wrong. They’d simply been dropping by to see how the Faunus were doing. It was likely they’d been overrun before they could even call for help.

“What... what did you do after that?” Weiss asked.

“Killed every last Grimm I could find,” Blake said bluntly. “It didn’t make me feel any better, though.”

“Oh.”

Blake helped Weiss stand. “Come on. Ruby wants me to use clones to scout around, see if there are any survivors or Grimm.” She pointed. “She’ll be setting up in the building over there, so it would be good if you could use your Glyphs and lay down some traps, just in case we’re not alone here.”

X X X

“Well, shit.” Fang pursed her lips. Yang had called in bad news. “Scout the area, make sure that it’s safe and then sit tight. If whatever led the attack is out there, I don’t want you guys picking a fight on its turf. I know it’s going to be rough, but the settlement should still be safer than the forest.”

“Understood.” Yang took a deep breath. “Any idea of what we’re up against?”

Fang studied the footage Yang had sent her. “I’m going to guess it’s probably a hydra-type. See the damage on the walls? The edges of the hole are mostly smooth. That suggests something corroded the wall rather than just breaking through it. There are similar marks on some of the remaining buildings too, not to mention the damaged weapons Blake found.”

Blake had sent through images of weapons that appeared to be half-melted. Fang had fought enough hydra-types to distinguish between fire damage and the effect their acid, venom, or blood could have.

“How big?” Yang was calm, which was good. She was the most experienced member of the team when it came to fighting Grimm.

“Based on the footage...? I’d say maybe thirty feet.”

“Thirty feet?” Yang grimaced. “That’ll be tough, especially if it’s got friends.”

“Which is why you four are going to hole up in the settlement until reinforcements arrive. I’ve already contact a profession team. They’re about half a day out from your position. Do not engage unless you have to. Wait for them to get there. In the meantime, fortify your location.”

“Already doing it,” Yang said. “Weiss has laid down multiple traps, and we’ve rigged up some more traps using more Dust and the munitions we were able to salvage from the settlement. If the Grimm come back, we’ll be ready.”

“Remember, hydra-types are regenerators. Don’t waste your time with little stuff. You’re going to have to hit it hard enough to either keep it occupied with regeneration, or so hard that it stays down.”

“Yeah. I know.” Yang ran one hand through her hair. “Ruby and Weiss have been working on their combination attacks. Do you think a fire Dust augmented round amplified by some of Weiss’s Glyphs could do enough damage?”

“What sort of augmentation?” Fang asked.

“Multiple augmentations. Basically, Weiss triples the speed of the round and magnifies the effect of the Dust about three times over too. Ruby put together some special rounds too, armour piercing but with a impact-triggered detonation function, so they explode inside the target after piercing through the outside of it.”

“Payload?”

“Fire Dust, enough to slag a tank before you factor in what Weiss does.” Yang smiled faintly. “Ruby was so proud about getting the rounds to work since they were really finicky to make. She’s only got half dozen, but they pack a punch.”

“Hmm...” Fang did a quick mental calculation in her head. “Tell Ruby to put those rounds centre mass, and it will probably work. I doubt the first shot will kill it, but it should slow it down enough for Ruby to hit it with a few more. Put the rest of the shots in the same place. If you can burn out the torso badly enough, it won’t matter if it’s still got its heads. It’ll be so focused on regeneration that it won’t be able to fight back. Once you’ve got it slowed down, burn it or crush it. That’s the easiest way.”

“Will do.” Yang bit her lip. “Can you maybe talk to Ruby when we get back?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll talk to her, and I’ll let your parents know too, so they can call her later.”

“Thanks.”

X X X

Author’s Notes

Unfortunately, hunters don’t always get there in time. One of the other reasons that Yang suspects it’s a big Grimm is because the Grimm aren’t still there. The weaker, lesser Grimm tend to be a bit stupider than the older and stronger ones. The smarter ones have learned that hanging around afterward is pointless unless you’ve got something else in mind. Instead, it’s better to obliterate a settlement and then retreat. It makes it easier to ambush potential rescuers, and it makes it harder for the military or hunters to retaliate. Sadly, though, this is an experience that most students will go through.

Fortifying is also Team RWBY’s best bet. It is entirely possible that they will be ambushed if they try to leave. It’s better to secure their position and wait for reinforcements than to go wandering around in an area than Grimm know better than they do.

If you’re interested in my thoughts on writing and other topics, you can find those here.

I also write original fiction, which you can find on Amazon here or on Audible here.

#final rose #fanfiction #ruby rose #yang xiao long #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #team rwby #oerba yun fang

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famouskittychild · 3 years

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Cheeky Mandos - ...and we're off

(Sorry I had a terrible writer’s block in the past 6-ish weeks - I went from reading fanfiction and being inspired by other’s visions to “I’ll never be able to write anything like these and I’m useless” in a single day :( I’m getting back into the groove finally, so I’m hoping to post more soon.)

There will be 18+ content (in the coming chapters soon) so if you are a minor, please don't read further.

Also the characters will be quite open and relaxed about things like gender, attraction, sexual activities, relationships etc, so if you prefer your Din (and their partner) possessive and/or monogamous , this won’t be a good read for you!

***

This pairing is Din Djarin x gn reader / tall reader. I’m short (and cis and woman). There’s so many short (and female) reader stuff out there, I wanted to write for people on the other end of the “why is your height not normal” / "definitely female" spectrum. If I make mistakes or you have advice, or ideas you'd like to see, please tell me!

Word count: 4267

Summary: You’re an armourer and some shiny guy just showed up.

First full piece/chapter/course! In which people seem to catch things. Thoughts? Viruses? Dropped facts? Who knows!?? Also contains a dilettante’s attempt at space electronics and some barely-canon-reminiscent Mando world-building. Still no spiciness sorry, marinating is a long process :P

Rating: T for some mentions of heavier topics.

CW: Mentions of mandalorian history, playing somewhat loose with canon lore (as in, my SW knowledge is patchy. sorry.)

Author’s note: I tried to find more info but it seems like the mandalorian alphabet doesn’t have names for the individual letters so I used aurebesh (also I liked the little Dorn(e) meta in there). And sorry for the bad puns. They’ll keep coming.

Prologue

One - ...and we're off

***

You aren’t worried about taking a stranger on board, you’ve done that plenty of times before. You hope he’s willing to put in the effort himself, too, just as he promised at the assembly.

The stranger leaves behind his ship, saying a friend will come to pick it up together with whoever might want to join the cause. You spot him from the cockpit as he walks over with a repulsor pallet in tow. He stops for a moment when your droids surge past him, busy at their pre-flight tasks, before moving on towards the ramp.

All his baggage is a satchel at his hip and a small bag on his shoulder, and two large crates of weaponry. You put him up in the spare cabin, the one that had been Sal’ee’s, your former apprentice, before she went on to be a journeyman. He stands in the middle of the room, staring at the two cots on opposite sides of the room, the lockers, the fresher in the corner.

“All mine? Where will you sleep?”

You don’t understand the surprise in his voice.

“Over there” you show him, pointing at the cabin opposite from his. It’s much more lived in, some of the blankets and trinkets and pillows visible through it’s open door. “There’s a third cabin that I mostly use for storage but has more fold-up bunks in case I need to transport more people. That’s rare though.”

“Ohh.” He nods, then turns to look around his room again. “Okay. I thought all of these rooms were cargo space.”

You smile, and quickly think through your to-do list. You’ll have to rearrange your schedule somewhat but it’s not that big of a bother.

“Come on, I’ll show you around the ship.” Before he gets lost in its cavernous interiors, you might add - but you don’t. If his reaction to a separate cabin and his current ship - an old ARC170 - is any indication, he must be used to very cramped quarters.

***

Your trusty Brick, a beat-up YV 929, is armed to the teeth and ugly, just as you like it. The ship is a scavenged one, gutted from most of its original factory issue armaments, engines, and even wiring. It was perfect for your former master when she found it at a scrap heap: she wanted to rebuild it herself, deliberately piecemeal; panels sourced form here, engines from there, concealments added. She modified the inner workings of the engines so that the power lines could be redirected to a concealed forge.

That forge is your pride and the main reason you haven’t settled at a permanent place yourself. When your master retired from travelling, the ship passed to you, and you continued her mission of offering your knowledge and expertise to those of your people who otherwise had no access to an armourer.

…

The next standard month is spent with adjusting, both for yourself after getting used travelling alone again since Sal’ee left, and for the stranger who found himself a passenger on someone else’s ship. Apparently he used to live a very similar life to yours, with the exception that he was a hunter not a craftsman.

You travel together, share meals, research the places you are directed to. He joins in the effort that is maintaining the ship. Still - he is very taciturn at the beginning, keeping his words to the bare minimum. The first few days it feels as if you are still on your own aside of your droids. By the middle of the month, he progresses from short answers, through sharing information, to willingly starting to tell stories; but you know that chatting will never be his defining feature.

His armour seems to fill the spaces of the Brick’s corridors. You feel as if it’s not him who has the presence, but that set of glinting, perfectly made handwork of an armourer you already admire. Some of the pieces were sourced elsewhere, you can tell by the different shapes and designs; they seem haphazard and mismatched compared to the rest. Most of the set is the work of a single person. On those, there’s not a single uneven line, a broken curve, an edge at the wrong place. The angle of the panes of the metal, the ridges, the simplicity and elegance of them all - you have to hold yourself back from touching them, to admire them. You would give a lot to hold those pieces in your hand, to study them, to analyse them with your eyes and hands and with your tools.

You’re a master, yes. But so much knowledge was lost. So many masters gone, with their knowledge and their workshops. Apprentices became heads of Forges in the absence of the more skilled. The survivors still to this day have to piece together half-remembered lessons and forgotten details, experiment with techniques that were known before but the methods got lost as decades of civil war and occupation and murder kept eroding your heritage.

Sometimes a set of armour comes along that is just made in a way you never had an opportunity to learn. Often the person who forged them is long gone. Not the stranger’s armourer though. As far you can tell, she’s alive. Or at least was, when he last saw her. Not too long ago; though your usual method for guessing forging dates is mostly useless as it is based on the condition of the suit’s paintwork. Which he doesn’t have, so you can only guess from the small amount of scratches. You try to ask once, but whilst he’s forthcoming with general stories, he doesn’t go into details.

It’s a common theme with him. He talks about people and planets and events, and leaves out a lot - and you don’t even notice it first. Only when you try to glean information about his armour do you realize how well he fuzzes over those facts and nuances. It’s only up to the peculiarities of Basic and its use of gendered pronouns that you know his Armourer is a woman, or at least he considers them so. He doesn’t even tells you his own name, and when you ask your Elder in one of your communications, she tells you he didn’t gave it to them either. You keep introducing him as a friend, and that is the end of it for a while.

***

The visits to this first few coverts with him are… interesting. You can see him fidgeting from the corner of your eye. He always follows half a step behind and off to a side, as if not wanting to be in your way. He keeps quiet and doesn’t mix much, and around small children and droids, he is positively withdrawn. He only comes alive when he talks about his mission.

You had learned early on during your apprenticeship that keeping the helmet on is a safe bet when meeting with unfamiliar mandalorians. That led to later getting in contact with his type of believers too, despite their notorious secrecy even from the rest of the People. When you tell the stranger about that, he immediately showers you with questions, but you can’t give an answer to most of them. You never met with anyone from his particular covert, or heard of it. No name, no description seems familiar. It’s painful to watch his shoulders slump after daring to hope.

During the course of the month spent travelling, he gradually comes to be more social. He starts to stand and walk beside you. He doesn’t withdraw to the background anymore; he can actually be quite chatty if approached the right way. Droids still make him stop, though he warms up to kids in his own way. He’s good with them, at least in your opinion, though you know some would still call him aloof and distant. He isn’t a cuddler, nor does he crouch down to ask cutesy questions. He juts sits nearby them, and in that way of children having a good sense about adults, they know he’s trustworthy. They go up to him to chatter, to hand him a toy to hold, to ask him to fix a latch on their boots; than they go back to play.

He teaches you too, inadvertently at first during everyday conversations and later by his own volition, about his Way. About his Creed. It keeps throwing you off how much it differs from most that you had met before. Not even meeting briefly with people who followed the same Way as him could prepare you for the details that he does share. The degree of strictness, the loyalty, the barest bones Old Tradition beliefs and their willingness to follow them is very rare amongst the People as far as you can tell. Their devotion earns your respect.

At other times, your jaw hangs open and you can’t believe you are talking to an adult roughly around the same age as yourself, who by his own admission had spent three decades living as a follower of the Creed - not knowing about things children are thought through plays and songtime. His ignorance is so staggering, your admiration towards his unknown Armourer wavers. How could she keep so many things hidden from them? Why not talk about your own history? Your greats? Your artefacts?

About the many other who would call them vod’e, siblings?

You are an armourer, a craftsman, a person who makes a living by making things with your hand. You’re not a leader, or a scholar, or someone who decides what to tell your people. You do have a status within the community, but that is a status of service. From what the stranger says, their Armourer was a leader in every aspect: elder and lorekeeper and moral guide and more. All in one. It is something you can see developing from the old songs and histories amongst groups who take tradition more literally.

You are good at observing people, even at copying their habits to make them feel more comfortable with you, but less good at determining their underlying motives. The reason you think of him as “the stranger” even after travelling with him is because it’s so hard to figure out what drives him. There’s a melancholy to him that overrides the more typical mandalorian fight-readiness or aggression. You see how he gazes off to the distance sometimes, turning his head to the side and freezing. How he keeps to himself when he can. But you can’t tell why. Grief? Regrets? Determination to change? Planning something greater and being preoccupied with that?

He doesn’t pick fights to test you. He spars with you when you invite him to, he helps when you ask, and often even without it. He’s polite and considerate; he keeps conversation to practicalities and interesting stories, and doesn’t bother you with anecdotes or insistent questions about trivialities or your private life. He even does the dishes.

He’s deadly boring in his reliableness.

You are used to being on your toes around people all the time. When you meet a new group, it’s all unknown people. With ones you had already visited, the problem is having to remember them. They remember you of course, the ‘wandering armourer’; and surely you remember them too.

What is worse, when people stay the same but you don’t remember them, or when they change and you just can’t place them?

He becomes a good excuse after you’ve been to several coverts together. It’s interesting to notice how your dynamics change even further once you two get into a comfortable routine. You start to retreat to your forge and tools, and let him take all the attention. And he doesn’t just talk about his mission anymore, or lets little ones play around him whilst he’s quiet. He converses with people about news, about their children, about weaponry. You have more time to focus on your work.

Sometimes, people ask you what do you think of his mission. You tell them that you will follow what your clan decides, and that’s mostly true. It is something people don’t often debate, at least.

He quickly becomes a part of your everyday life. You are content with your usually solitary travels. You know that your family, your clan and your friends wait for you at home. They message you and you can find the time that suits you to message back. You don’t miss the constant hubbub of the covert most of the time. But now that you have someone that is not a droid, someone who is your equal in every aspect, on board again, it’s not even lonely anymore.

***

“So what’s up with you and droids?” you ask one day, after you got back from a covert and are safely in hyperspace to the next destination. You tinker with your astromech’s navigational systems. Poor 2-T keeps bumping into walls and crates. Again.

The stranger looks at you and your droid, than over at Mouse who for a change isn’t zooming around at foot level.

“Bad memories.”

“Gunk sat on you?” You tease. You hope it’s just something silly and not him having some sort of snobbish organics-are-better philosophy. He is quiet, and you focus on your work. He’ll talk if he wants to, that much you know already about him.

Inside the body of your astromech, a rivet from stars knows where is stuck between two circuit boards and blocks the access to a short-circuited piece of wire.

“Kriff. Toots, this will take a while, sweetie. Can’t access that kriffing panel.” He chirps back something and you read the translation on the small display. “No, it’s not that. My hand can’t fit in that small space. Let me find those pliers… should be in that other drawer somewhere.”

You search in the chest of tools, and despite your usually good organization, you can’t find them amongst the droids’ tools where their place is.

“Let me help.” The stranger’s voice beside you makes you jump. He can be awfully quiet. “Sorry. I think I might’ve put them back into the wrong drawer. I used them the other day when I fine-tuned that scope.”

He points at another drawer, where you keep your fine electronics stuff. No wonder he mixed them up. He stands beside Tootee a bit awkwardly until you find the tool.

“Here! No problem by the way. “ You turn back to him and to the droid, than have an idea. “Do you mind a bit more help? You can say no if you don’t want to work with the droid, I’ll understand.”

He doesn’t object yet, so you go back to 2-T and show the stranger the area you’re working on. You see him lean closer in your peripheral vision.

“That’s where I need to get that burned piece of wire out and install a new one, but first, I need to get that rivet out of the way.” You point at the root of the problem, than explain your plan, pointing out each part in turn. ”If you could hold those using this, than I could get here, remove this, with that tool, than have to get those bundles out of the way too, so than that wire there could come out. Easy.”

You look up at him, and his helmet is way closer than you expected. You can almost see your reflection in that black visor as it stares back at you for a second, and you almost apologize again, when the stranger starts to speak.

“Just have to hold the wires to the casing, or pull them like…” he moves his hand in the air, showing what he means.

“Hold them to that panel, there, with the pliers, so I have room to access the rest.”

He thinks for a moment, than he starts to tug one of his gloves off.

“You don’t need to take that off, just hold the pliers” you tell him, but he shakes his head.

“No, I can fit my hand in there, I’m pretty sure. If not we can try it with the tool.”

You realize that this is the first time you see his skin. Than it occurs to you that he might very well misunderstand this whole situation. You just asked him to hang his hand inches from yours in an enclosed space; inside a droid nonetheless, just after you basically told him you noticed he has a problem with them. It would be so easy to get caught up in there, to touch his hand, and hush it up as coincidence. Especially now that he took his glove off as well. He might even think that it was a careful plan of yours: have an area to work with were your slightly larger hands don’t fit but his might.

Your fingertips already tingle from knowing you can’t make mistakes. Which means you’ll probably do. He reaches between the panels and gets to the part where you got stuck. He wiggles his fingers a bit and scrapes around.

“Ha, found some wires. Are these the ones you need out of the way?”

You peer down into the quagmire of electronics, trying to find the best angle to see everything.

“Yes, those are the ones. Just hold them like that.” You try to focus on what you are doing, but after those earlier thoughts, your hands are jittery. You somehow manage to remove the obstructing rivet, than find the burned out part and replace it without accident, the stranger patiently holding things out of your way. You direct him here and there, occasionally stumbling as it’s a lot of instructions, or at least a lot of “could you please” and “thank you”. It gets particularly awkward when you stumble over the lack of name spectacularly.

“Could you pull those the other way, so they aren't that taut, please? Thank you, you. I mean thank you.”

“Din. Din Djarin.” Your head snaps up while the rest of your body freezes. “I should have told you my name sooner, but I’m so used to not telling it… and it just became more awkward to bring it up as time passed. I apologize.”

You close your mouth that of course was hanging open in surprise, than shake your head.

“I thought at first that I missed it when you said it so I was ashamed that I didn’t remember.” That did happen before, and it was one of your greatest worries about meeting new people. “I actually asked my elder. Sent her a comm. So when she told me you went nameless, I didn’t wanted to demand it.”

He doesn't answer right away. His voice is softer when he speaks a bit later.

“Thank you. For being considerate.”

You smile and try to wave it off. Which results in your hand slipping and pawing at his, still motionless and stuck in the inside of the astromech.

“Oh shucks, I’m sorry… didn’t meant to.” You withdraw your hand quickly, and start to look for your tools to cover your mistake.

He doesn’t seem bothered, luckily. You calm down, reminding yourself not to behave like you drank one too many glasses of your cousin Ree’s home-made tihaar, and finish the repair.

“You can let those go now, I’ll finish from here. Thanks for your help.”

“You’re welcome, any time.”

He sits back on a nearby crate and watches you work for a while, ignoring Mouse zooming around the room. You’re surprised a bit: you didn't expected him to stick around. And than he starts to ask about 2-T. How long you had him, is he temperamental, can you install a vocoder on astromechs, and why not. His tone is somewhat cautious, his voice stiff, like someone asking about a dangerous predator. You remember how you asked him about his distance with droids, but don’t want to push that question. He already told you his name today.

…

By the time you finish with the rest of the repairs, clean Tootee up and tidy around your workplace, interrupted by having to leave hyperspace and land at a spaceport, it’s the middle of the night in local time. You planned to have a nap and search out the local covert just before dawn.

You go to the galley to have a bite before turning in, and the stranger - Din, you remember, although his last name is less clear - is cleaning up some dishes. There’s another bowl in the middle of the small table, covered by a plate.

“That’s for you, if you’d like to have it. Used up the last of that spice mix we got” he tells you as you enter. You sit down and stretch your legs out one side. As you take the plate off from the steaming bowl, you think about how nice it is to find warm food on the table and not having to cook your own all the time.

“Thank you.” You pull the bowl close and take the spoon that he put beside it. You swirl the soup - it looks very good: clear broth with lots of veggies and other fillers in it - and gather your thoughts. “So ummm… I want to ask something before it gets awkward again.“

He finishes piling the bowls and cups and sits down on the seat opposite. You blurt the question out before you might change your mind.

“What was your name again? Din, that was clear, but the rest… sorry but it sounded something like “jarring”?”

He chuckles, and it’s a clear sound even with a vocoder, no snort or sigh to distort it.

“It’s Djarin. Dorn-jenth-aurek-resh-isk-nern. Djarin.” You nod, a bit embarrassed, and he continues. “Don’t worry, you aren't the first to ask. Probably not the last either.”

“Thanks for being patient. I’m not the best with names, to be honest.”

He tilts his head.

“Is that why you are always so focused when someone introduces themselves? I can ask them to repeat their names for me too if you want to, than both of us can try to remember them.”

You blink at him.

“That’d be…” Unnecessary, and don’t bother, and it’s not your job, you think - but stop yourself. That would actually help. No shame in accepting it. ”That would be nice. Thanks.” You are good at a few things, like making things with your own two hands. Not gaping when something surprises you, or remembering faces or names, any names, not just people? Nah.

You tuck into your soup, and the two of you sit in companionable silence. You wander if Djarin sits there because he wants to, or if he’s waiting for more questions from you. You asked a lot from him during the last few hours, and he was really kind with all his help and telling you his name and not being bothered when you misremembered it.

You are halfway done with your meal when he stirs. He leans forward with his lower arms on the table, and takes a deep breath. You wonder what his question will be - you commit to answer whatever it might be. He deserves that after today.

“So you asked earlier about me and… droids, right?”

Your hand with the spoon stops in the air. You weren’t expecting this question, at all.

“Yes…” You want to say he didn’t have to answer. But you already told him that. You’re sure he remembers that too - since he brought the topic up again. “Yes, I did.”

He shuffles on his seat a bit, and looks out to the side like he sometimes does. You lower your spoon and eat, letting him gather his thoughts.

“When I was a kid… I don’t know how old you were then, but during the war. The Clone wars.” You nod, understanding what he’s getting at, and he continues. “We were… the place I lived came under attack. Some separatist battle droids. Mandalorians saved me.”

You swallow your soup. That was the shortest possible description of someone having their entire life and probably everyone they knew ripped away from them and finding a new way of life for the decades to come.

“I’m sorry” you say, because really, what else is there to say. He nods, and gazes off again. Than he shrugs his shoulders, as if he wants to shake the weight of the past from them.

He gets up, and walks around the table on his way out. He stops beside you for a moment and hesitates, and you almost turn towards him to ask what he needs when you feel him squeeze your shoulder. Than he straightens and steps away.

It’s warm where he squeezed it, and you remember how long ago it was that someone touched you.

You need to talk to your friends asap, and hug at least some of them. He turns back from the door.

“Get some sleep before dawn, all right? Have to be sharp to remember all those new names.” You don’t see him wink but you’d bet he does behind his visor. You scrunch your nose at him and pout before smiling, and he dips out of the galley.

Your hand is still hovering in the air, holding the spoon, while you listen to his footsteps getting more distant as he walks down the corridor to his cabin.

It’s just your luck that you don’t need your wits the next place. It’s only two people with the same, simple name and you met both of them before.

#din djarin x reader #din djarin x tall reader #din djarin x gn!reader #post season 2 #mandalorian oc #armourer oc #cheeky mandos #my writing

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i-do-trash-fanfictions · 3 years

Text

Thera's Journal Entry #61

(This one isn't as good as the others, but at least I posted something.)

I flipped a dagger of light in my hand. I sat at the base of a tree, under the shade, as Crow stood in the clearing in front of me, showing off by shooting the painted targets on the trees.

It was nice, being in the sunlight again.

Crow finished. He had hit a few bulls eyes, but a few did not quite make it. They were close though, so I had to give him some credit.

"Alright. Your turn." He said, walking back to me as he tucked his gun into his holster.

I stood up and unsheathed the Ace of Spades. I didn't bring it out to the field a whole lot, but I still brought it out to practice every now and then. I spun quickly, shooting each target. Every bullet hit its mark, the red circle in the center, in just a quick minute.

"Show off," Crow muttered.

I only shrugged and went over to him, my hand held out.

Crow sighed and deposited thirty glimmer, which I put away into my pocket. We had been going for quite some time and had a bet over who would hit the most bullseyes.

"Come on. Let's go for a walk." I suggested as I slid my gun into my holster and nodded into the forest.

Crow caught up to me and we walked side by side. Eventually, he reached over and took my hand. He seemed nervous, though I could tell he was trying to hide it.

"No one's out here if that's what you're worried about," I told him.

"I feel like someone is out here." He said. "I know it sounds crazy when you say it aloud, but it's just that feeling that I'm being watched. That we're being watched."

"No one ever really goes out here. I think we're alright."

"I sure hope so."

We walked for a while after that, until suddenly Crow stopped. Glint appeared after sensing his Guardian's worry.

"What? What is it?" I asked, looking around as one hand reached to my hand canon.

Crow was staring off into a part of the forest. Finally, he said something. "There." He pointed. "Someone's over there, sitting on that rock."

"A Guardian?" I asked.

"They have a cloak, so maybe it's a hunter."

"Do you have your mask?"

"No. I left it on your ship."

"Stay here."

I let go of his hand and walked over to the person. They never once turned around when I approached.

"Hello. I'm a Guardian from the Last City. Who are you and what are you doing out here?"

"I call myself the Ranger nowadays. And as you can see, I'm sitting on a rock."

The person Rouge had told me about.

"Why are you sitting on a rock?"

"It's a nice rock. High up too. And if you stare out there," They pointed. "You can watch a few squirrels while they get their breakfast. Or lunch. Or maybe brunch."

I stared at them. They had a helmet on so I couldn't make out any features.

"I hope I'm not being annoying. I don't mean to be. Just here to enjoy the view."

"One of my friends. They saw you out here before."

"Ah, right. Rouge, I think her name was. I don't think she liked me very much, with me being on her terrain and all. I left pretty quickly after she went off. She was a bit scary."

"Rouge can be sometimes. But what are you really doing out here? And are you a Guardian? If so, why aren't you going to the Last City?"

"I'm only out here to enjoy some scenery, as I was saying before. And I do still consider myself to be a hunter."

"You didn't answer my last question."

"I don't want to."

"Alright then," I said with a sigh.

"Hey, aren't the people working with the Fallen now? Mithraks and his gang?" The Ranger asked.

"Yes. How did you know that?"

"Just do. Hey, found a skiff way back there. Crashed." They told me, standing up and gesturing to another part in the forest. "Down below a cliff. You and your buddy might wanna check it out. I best get goin. Ain't gonna do me much good to stick around here. Whatever shot down that skiff might still be lurkin around." They jumped off their rock.

I looked towards where they had pointed, and sure enough, I could make out a bit of smoke coming from that area. I went to turn towards the Ranger again, but they were gone. I ran back to get Crow.

"It was this person called the Ranger. They said there's a Fallen skiff back there. We should check it out."

"Can we trust them?"

"Not sure, but I know a friend who's met them before, and they seemed friendly enough."

We began our way towards the smoke from the skiff, then leapt down the cliff, doing another jump just before we hit the ground as to not break our legs. Crow started to run towards it and knelt down. I walked up behind him. Many dead Fallen littered the ground around us. A few were burned from where the fire from the ship had enveloped them.

But many, many were around the area, as if they had begun to run. They had not died from the crash, but something else.

I went to one and rolled it onto its back. I gasped as tears welled in my eyes. Clutched in its arms was a child, also dead. Both were from bullets in their heads.

I didn't realize Crow was behind me until I heard him mutter a curse, and then stomp off. We both knew it had been Guardians who did this. He was going off to say more choice words, and he didn't want me to hear.

"Sometimes I wonder if the Guardians are even good guys, Scout," I said to my Ghost.

He gave a sad whirr. "I can't believe it was Guardians who did this. If I could, I would say anything to give us the benefit of the doubt, but it is far too obvious. No one else would be around here to attack them except maybe other fallen, but I highly doubt they would attack their own kind. Many Guardians do fly their jumpships out here from time to time. That is probably how they shot the skiff down." He spoke solemnly.

"Thera? Thera come here!" I heard Crow say with a sense of urgency in his voice.

I ran over to him. He stood, holding something in his arms.

"Look." He turned it over to me and I peered at it.

Four tiny eyes peered right back.

"Oh," I looked around and spotted two dead Eliksni, very close to each other. "Oh, no. The poor thing."

"What will we do? We can't leave it out here." He stated, staring at me as he waited for an answer.

"No, of course not. Here, let me see it." Crow handed the hatchling to me and I held it in my arms.

"I have a friend. An Eliksni of House Light who already had a child of her own. Trildir. We can go to her."

Crow scouted around for a bit, with the hope there may be other survivors. I went to the ship, and he came soon after. I handed him the child as I took control of the Queen of Hearts. In no time, we had returned to the Last City, covered still in darkness.

We transmitted to the Annex and (after Crow put on his mask, just in case) then went to the hidden area of the City where the Eliksni stayed. I walked past many Fallen and went straight to Trildir's home. It had changed since I had last been there. We had visited many times in the past few days.

A banner with the House Light symbol hung on the wall, and there was a nice carpet on the floor. It was only a single room, and a cot was in one corner, with a nest of blankets on a crate. For Ralis, I was guessing.

Trildir was in there, luckily, and was startled when we arrived.

She took a single glance at the child in Crow's arms and motioned to the futon in the room. Trildir then pulled a curtain to close of the doorway from prying eyes.

"Where did you find her?" She asked immediately. Crow passed the hatchling to me.

"You- you wouldn't want to know."

"I do. Yes, I do."

I sighed. "A skiff, shot down from the sky. All the other Eliksni were dead. She's the only survivor."

"I do not mean to seem... oh, what is the word?" She clicked for a moment. "Rude. But, was it light-bearers?"

I sadly nodded. "It could be no one else. And I have no idea which ones did it either, otherwise, I would be going after them right about now."

"I want to believe that someday we Eliksni and you can live in peace, but Guardians such as those make it so hard to do. Here, let me see the child." Trildir held out her top two arms and I put the child in them.

"Yes, definitely a girl." The hatchling clicked at her. "And most likely hungry."

Trildir went over to a shelf and produced what looked like a meat scrap. The child ate it quickly and Trildir gave her a few more.

"I will take care of her." Said Trildir with a few clicks.

"It won't be a problem? You already have one child-"

"I know of mateless mothers like myself who have six hatchlings. I believe I can handle two."

Trildir's mate had been one of the Fallen to die when their skiff crashed.

"Thank you," I said to her.

Trildir began to give the hatchling a liquid I could not name.

"She will need a name. Would you like to pick one?" She asked, looking at Crow and I.

"Um, I don't know of any Eliksni names," I told her. I didn't want to pick out a name that would seem silly to the other Eliksni.

"You can choose human names. Misraakell's daughter was named after an old friend of his, an awoken."

I thought for a moment. I looked at Crow to see if he would suggest anything but he only shrugged. I turned back to Trildir.

"Would Sora be a good name?" I asked.

"Yes, I think it would suit her well."

Sora had fallen asleep in Trildir's arms, so she laid her in the crib of blankets to rest. Then she went back to Crow and I.

"I hope you don't mind me asking, but where is Ralis?" I asked her.

"Oh, she is with a sister of mine. She does not have a mate of her own but loves hatchlings. She will gladly take care of any if it is needed." Trildir explained. Her gaze shifted to Crow. "You have not introduced me to your friend." She stated. "I am Trildir, but I am sure Thera has already told you this."

"My name is Crow." He introduced himself.

"It is very nice to meet you."

A dreg suddenly pulled back the curtain and chattered something in Eliksni. Trildir spoke back, and the dreg left. She then turned her attention back to the two of us.

"Sora will be in good hands. Because of your visit, I have forgotten what I was doing. I must return to my job, and I will leave Sora with my sister and Ralis. Thank you for coming to see me."

Trildir took Sora in her arms and went out of her home.

"I know she'll be safe," I told Crow as we stood up.

"I like her." He stated.

"She's very kind, and not like the rest of the Eliksni. She isn't afraid of Guardians."

"Crow, Crow where are you? Why are you not in the H.E.L.M?" Came from Crow's comlink.

"Is that Osiris? Oh sh-" I exclaimed.

"You're with Thera aren't you? Get back to the H.E.L.M, now."

"Yes, I'm headed there now," Crow responded, giving me a look. We both knew we were in for it.

"And bring Thera too. If she keeps sneaking you out-"

Crow shut off his coms.

"You're going to get in more trouble for that," I said with a laugh.

"We both are. Now let's go so we can get that lecture over with."

#destiny the game #destiny #destiny 2 #d2 #crow x young wolf #young wolf x crow #crow #crow destiny #destiny crow #young wolf #baby eliksni #eliksni #house light #season of the splicer

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mystical-flute · 3 years

Text

Uncharted Waters (ch. 11)

AO3 || Ko-fi

“My Pharaoh, there was something you needed of me?” Azila asked, breezing into the throne room, her brow knitted in worry. “Are you ill? In pain?” It wasn’t like him to summon her to him outside of any sort of official priest meeting. Or perhaps he had decided that he hadn’t actually liked her standing up to him in the weeks following his predecessor’s death. Maybe this was to be a delayed execution.

Seto was standing at the window, as he always seemed to be. “Did we have any unusual deaths last night?”

Oh.

Azila swallowed thickly. “We have received word of three, my Pharaoh.”

“And you went to check yourself as I have instructed?”

“Of course. There was magic there, but it was not the shadow magic we use. Mana is trying to identify it now. I tried my healing powers, but they had no effect. Whatever is causing these deaths… it is not from Egypt.”

“What about Eturn?”

“I have a message out to an associate in Eturn. I am waiting to hear back.”

Seto cursed under his breath, resting his fist against the wall beside him. “I don’t understand why this keeps happening. What more must we do to appease the gods?”

“I wish I had an answer for you, Pharaoh.”

“So we’re back to 'Pharaoh' now? You seemed so comfortable calling me Seto the other week.”

Azila stuttered. “You were in need of a shock to your system. It is my job to make sure you are healthy and together, is it not? Unless you chose me as your Chief Physician simply because we are friends.”

“Nonsense. Your talent speaks for itself. I just fear that Egypt will crumble under whatever is causing these deaths… it will fall back on me.”

“Whatever is happening is not your fault. The people know this.”

“But how long until they stop believing it isn’t my fault?”

Azila didn’t have an answer to that.

“Pharaoh! I’ve found something!”

Mana rushed into the room, something glowing in her hand.

“What is that?” Seto asked with a frown.

“I don’t know, but it contains the same magical properties that Azila felt last night,” Mana explained, opening her hand.

A stone, glowing a greenish color, laid in her palm.

“I’ve never seen such a thing, nor have I heard of it,” Azila said softly.

“You two, work together to figure out what it is and how to stop it,” Seto said. “We cannot let our people suffer anymore.”

“We won’t let you down, Pharaoh.”

She hated working overnights.

I.D.R.A headquarters was quiet, the only sound was the new-age music coming from Aiko’s speaker to give the impression of the women being in a spa.

Which Reika was desperately beginning to wish she was in, given how chaotic the day had already been, and the phone call she was currently in with Yugi was not helping matters at all.

“No, I’m sorry, you what?”

“Joey got kidnapped and possessed by Marik and we had to duel. There was a timer and we had to beat it in order to win. But we both ended up in the water.”

Reika slammed her hand against the table harder than she’d meant to. “Yugi, what the hell? Are you okay?! Where are you now?”

“We’re fine, we’re fine. Mai’s driving us to the finals now. I’m sorry you won’t be able to make it.”

“It’s fine. I mean, who would turn down a chance to go to a spa for their birthday with their best friend?” she asked, swiveling her eyes to stare down Aiko. “At least I’m away from the Rare Hunters. That’s gotta count for something, right?”

Aiko grimaced, sipping at the water in front of her.

“Right. You should be safe there since you’re not in Domino.”

“And you could be walking right into their trap. I’m worried, Yugi. If Marik could possess your friends so easily once before, what’s stopping him from doing it while you guys are at the finals? What if he’s in the finals?”

“The knowledge that we’ve stopped him once before? And I believe in the Heart of the Cards and my friends.”

“From what I’ve seen, belief usually doesn’t stop bad guys. That’s why they keep going until someone physically crushes them.”

“Why have you seen that?”

She blanched, scrambling for an answer. “I watched a lot of TV when I was in E - school,” she replied, twirling a strand of hair around one of her fingers. “Anyway, I’ll let you go. I’m sure you guys are almost at the stadium, right?”

“Yeah, see you when we get back.”

“Hey, is that Jean-Claud -”

Whatever Joey had started to say, she didn’t get to finish hearing as she ended the call and tossed the phone down on the desk in front of her with a long groan.

“I think you need to get some air,” Aiko said as she looked over a map of the North Blue. “We’ve been stuck in here all day and you hardly paid attention to the latest intel that came in.”

“Garrison managed to topple -”

Aiko raised a brow. “Garrison? His name is Karasu, Reika. You know that.”

Reika paused. “Karasu managed to gain control of the Vroven Kingdom and deposed their corrupt queen. The residents are quite relieved, according to the report, and it’s a major North Blue trading port.”

“You also almost said you were in Eturn to Yugi on the phone.” Aiko continued to squint at her until Reika put her hands up in defeat.

“Okay, okay, I’ll grab my cloaking device out of my locker and go for a walk. Do you want me to get you anything? Burger World’s down the street.”

Aiko was already sliding money across the table. “Get me the number three with no onions and a soda. Please.”

“Yeah yeah, no problem.”

“Reika, are you alright?” Azila asked as she made her way toward the elevator to the downstairs locker room.

“It’s just been a long day, Azila. There was a rebellion that didn’t end well in the South Blue, and when I checked on the Straw Hats, I was having trouble getting a read on where they were. And then Yugi called and said his friends were kidnapped which led to him almost dying and I couldn’t do anything about any of it!”

Azila stared at her with concern. “I think your friend is right. A walk will be good for you.”

Reika exhaled slowly through her nose, stepping inside the elevator. “I know. I’m just starting to feel trapped here, that’s all.”

“Trapped? In the building?”

“No, in Domino. It’s been almost two months since I’ve been in Eturn. Who knows how many islands I’ve missed that might have information on where my parents are?” she questioned. “And as much as I love my family here, it’s just not the same without the crew.” When the elevator reached the first floor, she stepped out of it with a sigh. “Did you remember anything about that energy we read the other day?”

Azila looked down. “I remember doing research on it after a strange series of deaths in Egypt. There were several in Eturn as well.”

“Well, what is it?” Reika asked, tossing a hoodie over her shirt and tying her hair back before sliding the cloaking device in her hair and hearing it switch itself on.

“We - we failed to conclude. The deaths stopped after two weeks when we got rain. It was like Egypt was purified,” Azila paused, looking at her. “You look strange with the brown hair again.”

“Heh. I’m sure I - ”

The alarm began to chime overhead, and she rushed from the locker room to the nearest computer to track it.

“Oh, god.”

“What is wrong?”

“It ripped here. Someone from Eturn is in our building,” Reika gasped, activating the lockdown protocols for the I.D.R.A’s area of the building. The staircases would be a pain to check, but at least the elevator would be clear.

Reika grabbed her gun from the holster still strapped to her hip and began the process of checking rooms.

“Aiko, check in. Where are you?” she asked.

Something thudded from the conference room and she tensed, slowly approaching. “Hello?”

“Where am I? Who are you?”

Reika almost froze at the voice.

Aiko’s voice was muffled.

“Miss All-Sunday, I strongly suggest you let Aiko go,” she said. “And put all your hands up.”

“Who are you?”

“Aw, c’mon, don’t tell me you forgot about me already. We had such fun together at the casino…” Reika hummed, stepping into the room, her gun still drawn. “Especially the part where you threw me out a window and said all my friends were going to die.”

Miss All-Sunday stared at her, horrified as she let Aiko go. “You’re - from the Straw Hats…”

“Indeed I am.”

“Why weren’t you on the ship when it left Alabasta?”

“Why do you know I wasn’t on the ship when it left Alabasta?”

“I joined the crew. Luffy saved my life, so I joined his crew. I snuck on-board the ship after Crocodile was defeated.”

Reika stared at her, but slowly put her gun away. She wanted to say the woman was lying, but this was Luffy they were talking about. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for him to do such a thing.

“Hold on, I recognize you now. You’re Nico Robin, the last survivor of Ohara!” Aiko suddenly said.

She couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped her as Robin nodded confirmation.

“I am. Please, where am I?”

Reika ran her tongue over her teeth and looked at Aiko. She was from Ohara. She likely knew what the Veil was, so…

“You’re in Japan. Earth.”

“Earth…” Robin’s voice was barely a whisper. “So - so the scholars… they weren’t just spinning wild folktales when they talked about a sister world? All of those books about it were real?”

“Very real,” Aiko said, putting a hand on Robin’s shoulder. “We were in contact with the scholars of Ohara up until the Buster Call. “We tried to find you but… you were good at keeping yourself hidden from the Marines.”

“I thought I was, but today proved otherwise…” Robin shivered, and it was then Reika realized just how pale the woman looked.

“What happened? Is the crew okay?” Reika asked sharply.

Robin sighed. “We encountered a Marine Admiral.”

“An admiral?!”

“Aokiji. I’m not… completely sure what happened after the initial encounter. He froze me solid and I woke up on the Merry. That’s when I saw the light that led me here,” Robin explained.

God, could the crew even deal with an admiral right now? Luffy was strong, but Devil Fruit wielded by an admiral strong? She didn’t know. “Okay. We’ll get you back to the ship and the crew. Aiko, can you get the teleporter ready?”

Aiko nodded, rushing from the room.

“Robin, do you want to take a look at Earth?”

“I never even dared to dream about Earth,” Robin whispered.

Reika grinned, raising the blinds. “Welcome to Domino.”

“What is that?” Robin asked, pointing at the KaibaCorp blimp that was hovering over the city, and Reika was suddenly very glad she had her disguise on.

“A blimp. There’s a tournament going on right now, and that’s where the finals are taking place,” she explained. “It’s being broadcast all over the world.”

“How?”

Reika shrugged. “Our technology seems to be more advanced than in Eturn.”

Robin looked a little overwhelmed as she continued to look out the window, her eyes darting every which way. “I’ve never seen anything like this. To think that another world was hiding from us this whole time. Why were the worlds separated?”

“That’s what our organization is trying to figure out,” Reika said. “All we know for sure is that it happened around the same time as the Void Century. Before that, the Veil between worlds was open. Trade, travel, anything you can think of, was common in ancient times.”

“And then nothing.”

“Essentially. Sixty years ago, strange tablets were found in boxes around the world. They’d been buried for centuries, or passed down from holy man to holy man. Aiko’s grandfather was the one to crack the code, the International Dimensional Research Agency was founded, and here we are,” Reika said. “C’mon, let’s get you back to the Merry before Luffy loses his mind over you being gone.”

Robin frowned at her as they made their way upstairs. “Why would you join something like this? I mean, going between this place and Eturn? It must not be easy.”

“It’s not,” Reika agreed. “But my parents went missing in Eturn when I was eight. Somewhere in the Grand Line. I want to find out what happened to them. If for nothing else, for my grandfather. He deserves to know what happened to his elder son.”

“Your grandfather? The one who fell into a coma?”

She laughed softly. “They told you about that, huh?”

“Nami did. How is he doing?”

Reika hesitated for a moment. “Getting stronger every day,” she decided on, pushing the door open to the teleportation room.

“Whoa…” Robin gasped. “What is that?”

“This is one of the official Veil-points between Earth and Eturn. I just put in the coordinates to the Going Merry,” Aiko said, glancing at Reika and handing her one of the emergency transporters. “You’ll have an hour in Eturn before it drags you back.”

Reika frowned. “What do you mean an hour?”

“I told you to go for a walk, didn’t I? Go have fun with the crew. You’ll be back before the first duel starts.”

“Thank you, AIko. I owe you.”

“You can still go to Burger World when you come back here.”

“Deal.”

Aiko opened the portal and Reika stepped forward. “After you, Robin.”

Reika practically felt herself vibrating with excitement as she followed Robin through the portal, blinking as they arrived back on the Merry, in the midst of some sort of argument between Chopper and Nami, neither of whom seemed to notice the portal that had opened behind them.

“Luffy’s frozen and Robin’s gone! What are we gonna do?!” Chopper wailed.

“A-hem.”

The duo froze, slowly turning around.

“Did you guys lose someone?” Reika said, jabbing a thumb in Robin’s direction.

“REIKA!”

“ROBIN!”

Reika was almost knocked off her feet by the force of Nami’s hug. “Nami, Chopper - hi! I missed you too. What happened to Luffy?”

“He got frozen by Aokiji!” Chopper cried. “Usopp’s with him now trying to thaw him.”

“I hope I’ll get the chance to see him before I have to go,” Reika said softly.

Nami frowned. “Go? Go where? You just got back!”

“I know, I know. But things aren’t completely settled in Oxram. Aiko was kind enough to send me along with Robin when we realized she was part of the crew, but I’ve only got an hour before I have to go back.”

“But when are you gonna be back for good?” Chopper asked, his eyes wet with tears.

“Aw, Chopper, it’s okay!” she soothed with a smile. “Nami, you have a map, right? I’ll - ”

“I’M GONNA KICK THAT ICE GUY’S ASS!” Luffy suddenly shouted.

Reika chuckled. “Bring the map to the galley, Nami. I’ll figure something out. Oi! Luffy!” she called, stepping into the hallway. “Luffy? Usopp?”

“Reika’s back!” Usopp shouted.

“Reika!”

There was a terrible grunting noise, and then Luffy made his grand appearance, almost knocking the bathroom door off its hinges. Chunks of ice were still stuck to his body and hat, but he was grinning all the same.

“Luffy, you should be careful!” she gasped, not even flinching as Luffy’s rubber limbs wrapped around her torso and he flung himself at her. She found herself thudding to the ground, laughing all the same. “Hey, Usopp, get Zoro, Vivi, and Sanji and meet me in the galley, yeah?”

“Vivi stayed in Alabasta, but I’ll get the others,” Usopp replied.

She wasn’t surprised.

“Only an hour?” Luffy whined when the entire crew was gathered. “Why can’t you stay for good?”

“My grandfather’s recovery is slow. He woke up but he’s still re-learning stuff and can’t be left alone yet,” she explained, looking at the map in front of her. “In three weeks, you’ll reach an island called Water 7. It’s a major trade port with Oxram. I’ll meet you there. I promise.”

“Aiko can get you there?” Zoro asked with a frown.

Reika nodded. “With her fruit, as long as she remembers what a place looks like, she can get there. She was here, so she can get me back here.”

Luffy had that unusually serious look on his face again, glancing between the map and her. “Okay. Three weeks.”

He held out his hand, and they shook on it.

She wasn’t sure why she had said it. She’d had a return date of August, not July, but something in her soul told her she would be needed in Eturn earlier.

“I’ll have time to prepare for three beautiful ladies on the ship. Excellent!” Sanji sighed.

“I still have a boyfriend,” she laughed. “But I’d love a quick snack before I go? I’ve missed your cooking.”

Sanji zipped over to the fridge. “Of course, Reika dear!”

“Have you been keeping up with your training?” Zoro asked.

“Obviously. I’ll be training even harder now that I know we’re on an admiral’s radar.”

“Well, with my tech from Skypiea, I’ll be able to protect the crew!” Usopp declared with a grin.

“Skypiea?”

“We went to an island in the sky, Reika!” Luffy said, slamming his hands against the table as Sanji set down some sort of fruit and yogurt dip. “And I fought against God!”

Reika nearly choked on a berry. “I’m sorry, God?”

That was how Reika spent her hour in Eturn listening to the tale of Skypiea - of Sky People and Sky Fish and Octopus Balloons, and of the golden bell at the top of a beanstalk (her life was a soap opera and now there were fairy tales mixed in?). It was all making her head spin, but she knew this would be important information for the agency to learn.

Reika rose to her feet after glancing at her watch. Less than a minute left. “I’ll meet you at Water 7.”

“Three weeks.”

“Three weeks,” she echoed, feeling the yank as the portal opened, dropping her back in Domino.

Aiko was grinning at her from a nearby computer. “How was it?”

“Surprisingly informative. Get a pen and a map of Eturn. We have some geography to add.”

Burger World went forgotten that night as the duo imported the information into their database before settling down to watch the finals on the conference room screen.

“This game is insane!” Aiko shouted as the last duel of the evening concluded. “I mean, three people landed in the hospital because of cards?”

“Well, don’t come to a tournament when you’re already injured, don’t piss off a lightning god, and well, well, yeah, the third one’s bullshit,” Reika said, rubbing the back of her neck. “Mai had him on the ropes. She would have won if it wasn’t for her not being able to read the text on Ra’s card.”

“You do see how that’s worse, right? That evil shadow magic bullshit shouldn’t even be a thing,” Aiko groaned, running her fingers through her hair. “You’re sure you’re okay taking the first shift?”

“Yeah, I just want to make sure Yugi’s not going to call me. Get some sleep, Aiko. I’ll wake you up at three.”

The downside to these shifts was being alone in the early morning hours, providing there wasn’t an emergency with an undercover operative. To give herself some distraction, Reika switched on some music, and soon, soft jazz filled the surveillance room.

It was a quiet night - no frantic calls from other field agents, or important updates from Dragon. The jazz music had started to lull her to sleep, until it suddenly stopped as a call came in.

One-thirty in the morning only meant one person.

“You should be sleeping,” she greeted, rubbing at her tired eyes.

“So should you.”

“I was, until you called. What’s up?”

“If I stare at this computer anymore, my eyes are going to fall out of my head. These damned god cards…”

“Let me guess- Ra, right? The one that killed Mai?”

“Valentine is unconscious, not dead.”

“You do understand that’s only marginally better, right?”

“Tch. Whatever.”

A strange silence settled over the call.

“I get the feeling you didn’t just call me because your eyes are burning.”

(She wasn’t sure that happened to him anymore)

“We’ll be landing at Alcatraz in a few hours.”

“Alca - shit,” she slid her hand down her face. Of course she knew what Alcatraz was - the old testing grounds for KaibaCorp. She had never been there herself, but she’d heard enough rants out of Seto to know there was a high chance Alcatraz wouldn’t be standing in the next fourteen hours. “Seto, I’m so sorry I had to ditch the finals.”

“It’s fine.”

It wasn’t - she could hear it in his voice.

“Listen… when you get home, I’m yours the rest of the week. Anything you want to do.”

“You play a dangerous game, Reika.”

“But with you, it’s always so much fun.”

“Hmph. I’ll let you know later, then.”

“Get some rest, Seto. You’ve got a tournament to win, right?”

The call ended, and she ran her fingers through her hair.

Alcatraz.

She was the worst girlfriend on the planet.

#uncharted waters #yugioh #one piece #fanfiction

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moderate-brainrot · 3 years

Text

the new killer is hot but wtf 🤨

In my newest essay I will address many many things that have to do with Ji-Woon, DBD’s new killer !

A lot of people don’t like this new killer, and I understand why. HOWEVER, I feel like most of the reasons people don’t like him are for reasons that literally shouldn’t determine anything about your opinion regarding him.

For example, I understand when people say that he is exactly like legion, at least the first release of legion. If you weren’t around let me sum it up.

Legion used to work like this:

You stab a survivor once, and you can stab them again and again while still in frenzy until the deep wound bar is empty and they go down. It was very broken if you carried duration addons. Deep Wound doesn’t work like this anymore, if the survivor is already deeply wounded, you could stab them 30 times in the frenzy and they still wouldn’t go down, that way you at least give them a chance to mend.

The Trickster works similarly. So I completely agree that the mechanic is unoriginal. But I don’t think that warrants the kinds of things people say about him. Other people also think his weapon is too flashy, and I have to agree. It feels like the projectiles idea was last second or rushed. It’s just sort of thrown into his story, and also they are just... too neon and kinda really ugly. But! I still like him! I think he has potential! I imagine it is also going to be similar to legion where they will definitely have to change a lot of things about Ji-Woon around until there is something that’s more polished.

To be honest I only have a couple complaints about him. my only gripes are that he has an actual voice that speaks words which no other hunter gets :( ,, in his running animation he leans too far forward, and it’s.. uncomfortable to look at....... if you were to run like that in real life you would actually fall on your face, last complaint is that his projectiles and the way they work is kinda.....ringing familiar bells. The legion bell! and that’s not good, But that’s really it.

I’m going to talk about the other kind of bullshit now. I’ll just put things I’ve heard and then why it’s stupid asf

“The weebs are drooling!1!1”

I lose years off of my life when I hear people say this. He is quite literally not Japanese so this is stupid to say. It makes me so mad when they say this shit it’s so annoying.

“They put anime in dbd!1!1!”“They put K-Pop in dbd!11!1”

Again! He is not Japanese. I also say people say this when Rin and Yui were first put in the game which... I’m glad i wasn’t around for that. Just because an Asian person is included doesn’t mean they are fucking anime. It’s literally just racism !

The K-Pop thing makes me mad as well. Don’t call him a BTS member??? PLEASE???? He hated K-pop, literally killed his group because it( as in, the other members’ shallow nature made them more likable to the audience than him which made him envious enough to leave them to burn in the fire) , and until his fame was declining, he strictly made literal anti-pop, outlandish songs that were dark in nature, and produced with the screams of his murder victims hidden in the music, HAS BTS DONE THAT SHIT????? I’m pretty sure it’s just people generalizing because they’re racist and think that any Korean person IS K-pop but? It doesn’t even make sense with his story. Ji-Woon is LITERALLY the opposite of K-Pop so please PLEASE :( STOP IT

*uses they/them pronouns for him even though he is only ever referred to with he/him*

I know exactly why they do this shit too, it’s because they think he’s not masculine enough to be a man!1!1!1 (he/him) but he doesn’t have boobies so they can’t say he’s a woman1!1!1 (she/her) so they fucking put him in the middle ! Bro ! He literally is only ever referred to with he/him . There is no reason to do this shit . Just say you don’t think he’s manly enough and go

“He looks like a survivor”/ “He looks like a normal dude, not a killer”

Well, yeah. Of course he’s going to look human, because he is still human. Every single killer WAS a person before meeting the entity. It’s why they vary in height and personality, they too were human(or still are depending on how you feel about that). I mean, some of the killers (not many) retained a humanistic form when entering the realm of the entity, for example, Huntress (marry me), Trapper, Legion, and Clown remained relatively human like. I don’t know if they pick their form, I doubt it, but if they did, OF COURSE THE SUPER SELF OBSESSED, VAIN, EGOTISTICAL IDOL WOULD FUCKING HAVE HIS IMAGE PRESERVED IN THE REALM!!!!!! I notice that when people say this, what they mean to say is that he looks out of place. Which is a whole tangent that I will not go on.

Saying that any one of the killers is out of place is really dumb. You have to keep in mind that the entity is simply gathering evil potential for its game, a cat to chase the mice. If it were looking for evil from every corner of the world, don’t you think they would stumble upon an idol at one point or another? Hell, in an actual fleshed out dbd lore there would probably be some killer who just looks like a guy.. wearing a blue shirt and jeans with a small beard that looks like a survivor because GUESS WHAT??? EVIL DOESNT HAVE A LOOK! There’s a chance you’ve met murderers in real life and didn’t even know because how would you? They look like normal ass people. The entity looks over the whole globe, from different points in time, looking for any hint of malice. Eventually there would have to be some idol from Korea. Besides, if all the killers looked similar or of the same nature that would be hella boring

“He isn’t scary enough”

A lot of people say that he isn’t scary and he doesn’t necessarily have to be. A lot of the killers in dbd, if not most of them, aren’t scary AT ALL. Trapper isn’t scary, Huntress isn’t scary, Blight isn’t scary, I mean, NONE OF THEM ARE REALLY SCARY? People will say “it’s supposed to be a horror game” but ? Not really. It’s an action survival game with horrific elements which is why it has the survival horror genre on steam. Otherwise, how so is it a horror game? It hasn’t been, it never really was. It has funny accessories and outfits you can collect, LEGION CAN LITERALLY WEAR A BUNNY COSTUME AND CLOWN CAN WEAR AN ELEPHANT ONE, WITH FUCKING GOOGLY EYES. I DONT THINK ITS REALLY A HORROR GAME.

Okay end of rant! let me summarize!

I like the new killer, the concept is super cool with his backstory and all. I think his perks and design are cool, I only have a couple of complaints, but overall I think he’s neat! However, people need to fuckimg chill with the lowkey racism and lowkey gender roles !!!!!!!

that will be all !

*curtsies and then bows and does a backflip off the stage, AND THEN breaks my neck*

end note: HE WIMKS AT YOU IN THE LOBBY :D HEART SO HAPPY!!!!!!!

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haberdashing · 4 years

Text

Eyes Wide Open

Gerard Keay finds out that there’s more to the afterlife than being painfully bound to a book for all eternity, featuring one Timothy Stoker.

(Props to @divorcedmilfaddict for betaing this and helping me reign in my inner comma gremlin!)

on AO3

Gerard Keay wasn’t sure what he was, or why he was, or how he was, or even for that matter where and when he was, exactly.

But then again, that Gerard was was enough of a surprise in and of itself.

He hadn’t entirely trusted that... Jon, was it? Sure, Jon had torn Gerard’s page out of the book when he’d asked, but Gerard knew better than to assume that was the end of the story. He didn’t put it past Jon to keep the page as a sick sort of prize or to shove it into the Institute’s Artefact Storage or to do something else that wasn’t getting rid of the bloody thing already.

But this... this felt different. It didn’t hurt to exist now, not like it did in the book where life and death mingled unnaturally, where he both was and was not dead and that contradiction ate at everything in his being. It wasn’t quite like being alive, though, either. It was... still. Still and calm and quiet.

All things considered, Gerard wouldn’t object to a bit of quiet.

Gerard didn’t see Jon or the Hunters that had kept him imprisoned for so long or anyone else he recognized for that matter, but he saw his surroundings just the same, though he couldn’t place the area around him at a glance. A handful of cars plodded along driving on the left, so he wasn’t in America at least. Hotels, businesses, and homes mingled together oddly--some sort of vacation destination? A resort town perhaps, or a tourist trap of another variety?

Gerard thought he could make out the smell of sea salt in the air, but he wasn’t even sure which ocean he was near.

Then he heard what sounded like a calliope playing in the distance, what sounded like a circus just beginning to open its doors, and Gerard still didn’t know where he was or how long it had been since he had spoken to Jon but he had a sick feeling he knew exactly what that music meant.

Gerard followed the music, hurried to find its source, and evidently the true meaning of that music wasn’t known to the general public yet because while he was hurtling towards instead of away from certain danger the handful of people he encountered on nearby sidewalks, walking unhurriedly towards destinations of their own, didn’t give him so much as a first glance, let alone a second one. They just went about their business as if he wasn’t even there, as if the end of the world wasn’t in progress a few blocks away, remaining blissfully ignorant to everything that didn’t fit nicely into the small circle of their own lives.

He wondered what it felt like to have a pedestrian life like theirs must be, to go about your business unaware that there were eldritch powers scheming at all times to bring about terrible new worlds of fear and horror. Living a life like that had never really been an option for him, after all. He’d been in the thick of it since the day he was born. Since his mother set her eyes on him for the first time.

Gerard had managed to pin down the source of the calliope music to a large, dilapidated building and approached said building just in time to see it collapse in front of him, a series of sizable explosions turning what had apparently once been some sort of museum into a pile of rubble and debris.

The music stopped when the building fell, which Gerard supposed was a good sign. While he hadn’t cared about it terribly much when he was bound to the book, stuck in a half-life of torment for the foreseeable future, now that he could explore the world more freely again he’d prefer it not end or get apocalyptically transformed to the point where it couldn’t truly be considered the same world anymore.

Still, it seemed oddly anticlimactic for something as grand and strange as the Unknowing to be stopped by a building collapsing around it. Gertrude’s plan would probably have been a bit subtler, but then, Gertrude wasn’t around to carry it out anymore, so explosions it was, apparently. Jon’s handiwork there, Gerard assumed. Apparently the little he knew about the Unknowing, and how Gertrude had been preparing to prevent it, had been enough in the end. Good to know their agreement hadn’t been entirely one-sided.

He looked for survivors, human or otherwise, a task that’d been ingrained in him for some time now. He was no Gertrude Robinson, wasn’t the type to stop grand rituals threatening all of humanity all by himself, but he did his part to save a few people at least, spare those that could still escape from the horrors that haunted this world.

Gerard’s eyes fell on a woman whose blue hijab had been tattered and torn in the explosion, a few stray bits of debris clinging to her back and legs as she lay on the ground near the periphery of the destruction, clearly breathing but also clearly not getting up in a hurry.

He edged closer to the woman, trying not to look too closely at the loose strands of hair that had escaped her hijab. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

No response, which wasn’t entirely unanticipated, but still wasn’t a good sign.

Gerard reached out to grab the woman’s arm and check her pulse--even if the Unknowing was over now, a building collapsing around you could easily lead to more mundane injuries that needed tending to sooner rather than later--but his own arm never made contact with hers, instead reaching through her flesh as easily as if he were moving through thin air, and now that he got a closer look at himself, Gerard could see that his body was ever so slightly translucent.

In hindsight it made sense, it was logical enough that one form of undeath where he couldn’t fully interact with the living world would give way only to another, but the realization still came as a rather unpleasant jolt.

Gerard could hear the sound of an ambulance siren ringing out somewhere in the distance as he backed away from the woman, who remained seemingly unconscious and definitely unaware of his attempt at contact.

Alright, so he’d been dead, and he was still dead, and being able to interact with the living only under certain circumstances wasn’t entirely new... now he just needed to figure out what the new set of circumstances for that were. And whether he was going to stay like this for the long term, or whether he was going to get shunted into some other form of undeath before he had the time to examine things properly. And whether this was just regular death now, the End in its final form, or whether there was something more going on here. And perhaps whether this all meant Jon had actually burned his page from the book like he’d promised.

Christ, he could use a cigarette... but he still wasn’t getting one any time soon, was he? Figured.

As Gerard stood by the remains of what had been the staging area for the Unknowing, he saw a lone figure making its way towards him from out of the rubble.

The man approaching Gerard was tall and fairly muscular, with a short-sleeve shirt that showed off dark tattoos on his arms and hair that was clearly a natural inky black, the kind that Gerard had tried and failed to emulate with brand after brand of cheap hair dye over the years. His eyes were wide, his skin tawny, his body tense, and honestly, he was pretty good-looking despite (or perhaps because of) his unassuming and casual clothing, though that was one opinion Gerard figured he would keep to himself for the time being.

Perhaps most importantly, though, the man’s body was the same sort of translucent as Gerard’s own, and he stepped through the debris around him as though it wasn’t even there.

As the man drew closer, Gerard could see a deep fire in his eyes.

“Who the hell are you?”

Gerard resisted the urge to flinch, to back away, instead standing his ground and looking coolly at the other man. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“Yeah, sure, but I asked first, and I was here first, and if it came down to it I’m pretty sure I could punch your lights out first, so...”

The other man probably wasn’t wrong, when it came to that. Gerard Keay was many things, but especially skilled at hand-to-hand combat was not one of them, and his would-be opponent had the advantage when it came to both build and stature.

Though he wasn’t sure if they even could get into a fistfight now, given the state they were both in... still, probably better not to find out the hard way.

Gerard raised his hands in the air, open palms facing the other man in a clear gesture of peace. “Alright, I’m-”

But before he could finish his sentence, the other man’s eyes widened further and he cut off Gerard’s speech. “Hang on, I think I’ve heard about you. Are you Gerard Keay?”

Gerard wasn’t sure what to make of this other man apparently being able to recognize him on sight (admittedly, his eye tattoos were fairly distinctive) while he couldn’t say the same the other way around, but it didn’t seem like a good sign.

Still, no use hiding from it. “Yeah, that’s me. You’ve heard of me, then?”

“Oh yeah. Christ, they weren’t kidding about the bad dye job, were they... but wait, aren’t you dead?”

“Sure. So are you.”

In the seconds that followed, Gerard realized that his words had probably been a fair bit more blunt than necessary, and he half-expected the man to start freaking out about being so straightforwardly informed that he was almost certainly no longer among the living, but instead the man just shook his head and shot Gerard a strange smile.

“Suppose you’ve got me there.” The man snorted in a way that was clearly meant to convey humor and just as clearly was entirely devoid of any before adding, “I had a lot of ideas about what death would be like... wasn’t banking on it being quite like this.”

“That makes two of us.”

“No insider scoop on the whole afterlife front, then? Haven’t you been dead for years already?”

Gerard considered his response for a long moment, trying to decide how much he was willing to share with this stranger before deciding that, hell, he was already dead (twice over, even), so what did he have left to lose? “Yeah, and I spent most of that being stuck in a bloody book. This?” Gerard made a broad, sweeping hand gesture that encompassed himself, the stranger, and the collapsed building next to them. “This is new.”

“Damn. No use having a ghost buddy without getting some handy intel out of the deal.”

Gerard shook his head and let out a soft sigh. “Look, I’m not your ghost buddy, I don’t even know your name!”

“Oh, of course, where are my manners? Lost them with everything else, I suppose... Tim Stoker here.”

Tim extended a hand, which Gerard eyed warily. If the name was supposed to mean something to him... well, it didn’t, but Tim also didn’t seem to be keen on explaining himself any further, giving up who he was beyond a meaningless name, elaborating about why he was hanging around dead at the scene of the attempted Unknowing with knowledge enough to recognize Gerard’s appearance at a glance.

He seemed nice enough, though, and Gerard was curious as to whether his inability to contact others, as demonstrated when he’d tried to help the woman with the hijab, would still apply to somebody else stuck in the same state of being as himself.

After a bit of hesitation, Gerard reached out and reciprocated Tim’s gesture, engaging him in a brief but firm handshake. There was no warmth in Tim’s grip, no residual body heat seeping out at the point of contact, but there was strength in it, and Gerard could feel a slight roughness to the other man’s fingers.

“Now, this might sound awkward-”

“’m sure I’ve heard worse.” Tim muttered in a voice just low enough that Gerard wasn’t sure if it was meant for his ears.

“-but you seem awfully chipper for someone who just died.”

The thin smile on Tim’s face that Gerard had suspected wasn’t entirely genuine faded away entirely, replaced by a thoughtful frown. “Yeah, well... it was cancer that got you, right?”

Gerard nodded silently, unsure where Tim was going with this. It was surreal, to just quietly nod as a stranger casually and correctly references your cause of death, but then, this was a surreal conversation to begin with.

“But you must not have known for long, ‘cause you were traipsing all around the world before that... maybe... maybe it’s different when you see it coming. When you know it’ll happen, and you’re ready for it.”

As Gerard processed the implications there, he nodded again, trying to make the gesture more somber than before.

“Reminds me, how’d you even get here, anyway? Didn’t you die in America?”

Gerard shrugged. “Beats me. I don’t even know where ‘here’ is.”

“Great Yarmouth. That-” Tim pointed to the pile of rubble. “-used to be a creepy old wax museum. Current state’s an improvement, if you ask me.”

Gerard let out a short laugh, though he wasn’t entirely sure that the comment was solely meant as a joke. “Good to know.”

Tim shot Gerard a weak smile as he added, “Suppose I’m a bit biased, though, given that I’m the one who blew the place up.”

“You-?” Gerard looked back at what had apparently once been a wax museum and was now well and truly exploded. “I- I thought Jon did that?”

“Oh hell no. He and the others helped, sure, but I held the detonator, I made the call, I get the credit here.”

Tim was still smiling as he said this, smiling as he admitted to blowing a building up--and, given his current state, doing so almost certainly while he was still inside of it. Maybe he thought that joking about it would stop Gerard from examining his words too closely, from realizing what he was really confessing to, but Gerard caught it all.

Before Gerard could think of a proper response to that, though, Tim kept on speaking.

“How d’you even know Jon? Is there some spooky monster groupchat I should know about or something?”

Gerard sighed and pressed one hand to his temple. “First off, not a monster, thanks.”

Tim made a show of looking Gerard up and down before saying “Sure.” with what must have been all the sarcastic uncertainty he could muster at a moment’s notice.

“Look, whatever else has happened along the way, I think we’re on an even platform now, so unless you meant to call yourself a monster-”

Tim’s gaze went from focusing on Gerard to on Tim’s own hands, and a bit of that thin smile slipped away. “Shit. Okay. Let’s- let’s table that bit for now, then, yeah?”

“Sure.” Gerard tried to force his frustration and suspicion into his pronouncement of the word, but most of it didn’t manage to stick. “Second, he tore my page out of the book back in America; I told him what I knew about the Unknowing. Given... everything...” Gerard gestured vaguely to their surroundings once more. “I’m guessing he used my info to help stop it, and my page got destroyed in the process.”

“Right, yeah, that makes sense, because nobody tells me fucking anything around here-” Tim tried to kick a piece of rubble away, but couldn’t make contact, his leg instead arcing up into the air uninhibited before he began to pace. “Didn’t tell me about the circus, didn’t tell me about meeting Gerard Keay, what else is that bastard hiding from me?”

The question was probably meant to be rhetorical, but Gerard couldn’t help but respond just the same, if only because he wanted to see the reaction on Tim’s face if his guess was right. “Did he tell you about the Hunters?”

“...what hunters?”

“He was with two Hunters back in America, that’s how he got my page in the first place-”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

Tim looked exactly as outraged as Gerard had imagined he would, and Gerard couldn’t help but burst into laughter at the sight of it.

“That funny to you, is it?”

Gerard calmed his laughter, but he couldn’t seem to wipe the smile off his face. “Kind of, yeah. I mean, I dunno how you even knew Jon, but the two of us got on well enough...”

“He was my asshole boss. Told him as much a few minutes ago, actually.” Tim paused for a moment before raising one finger in the air and amending, “Asshole ex-boss. Like hell I’m doing any work for him now.”

“Oh, so you were an archival assistant... Gertrude’s assistants didn’t last long either, from what I heard-”

“That’s not what this is.”

Gerard raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“This isn’t some cycle, some magic bullshit, something that was bound to happen no matter what--I made a choice. And nobody forced my hand in it, either. Hell, Elias didn’t even want me there, but fuck him-”

“Or don’t.”

Tim clearly wasn’t expecting Gerard to interrupt him, because he stopped mid-rant, looking over at Gerard with a strange look on his face.

“Have you seen that man? That would not be a good time! And he’d probably have that smug little smirk on his face the entire time, too.”

Tim hesitated for a moment before bursting out into loud, raucous laughter and pressing a hand against his eyes (which probably didn’t actually impair his vision much, given that Gerard could see Tim’s eyes almost as clearly as before). “Oh, I like you.”

“Really? Could’ve fooled me.”

“Shut up.”

Gerard rolled his eyes theatrically, fighting the urge to respond with a “Make me” and see how far Tim would actually go in trying. Instead, Gerard settled on a response that changed the topic of conversation less confrontationally.

“Actually, you having been an archival assistant fits one of my theories for, well, how we can talk in the first place. Working in the Institute’s archives makes you Eye-touched, and as for me...” Gerard looked down, pointedly, at one of his knuckles, at one of the many eye tattoos scattered across his body. “I’m right there with you. It’s fitting, too, as an afterlife for those connected to the Eye--being here but unable to interact with the living world, only getting to watch...”

Tim’s eyes turned from fire to cold steel in an instant.

“No. No, that can’t be right. Those bastards already ruined my life, they can’t have taken the afterlife from me too, taken...” Tim’s speech trailed off abruptly, but as his form started shaking and the slightest hint of tears started welling up in his eyes, he forced out another bitter “No.”

“It’s just one idea, but it’d explain why it’s just us here--I’m sure we’re not the first ones to die in Great Yarmouth, after all. Unless... you know the old trope about ghosts having unfinished business on earth, I’ve got loads of my own that’d probably qualify...”

Tim shook his head emphatically. “No, no, that’s not it, either. That-” He pointed at the pile of rubble that was only a few short minutes ago the site of an attempted world-changing ritual. “That was my unfinished business right there, and it’s sure as hell finished now, isn’t it?”

Gerard looked over at the rubble, though it wasn’t terribly changed from before; an ambulance had made it to the scene, and a first responder was helping that woman with the hijab that Gerard had seen earlier, but what remained of the building itself was more or less untouched. “Looks like, yeah.”

Tim snorted with mild amusement.

“Only other thing I can think of is it’s something to do with the Unknowing itself-”

The fire returned to Tim’s eyes, but what it burned with now was not laughter.

“A parting gift from the circus?”

“Maybe. Dunno. All I’ve got is a bunch of theories with no way to test them.”

“Actually, I’ve got an idea about that bit.”

“Oh?”

“There was a... a colleague of mine-” The way Tim said “colleague” left Gerard very certain that there was another, more fitting term he could be using in its place, that his connection to this “colleague” went deeper than a shared workplace, though he didn’t have a clue as to the details. “-we worked in the archives together, but she died in the Institute about a year ago.”

Gerard let out a low whistle. “Jon really is following in Gertrude’s footsteps there, huh?”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Maybe if you take me on a couple dates first.”

Tim ran his hand across his eyes again and down his face, then elbowed Gerard in the ribs for that one; it ached a little, but he supposed he deserved it.

“So we can go try and find her, since she’d be--how’d you phrase it? ‘Eye-touched?’” Tim made air quotes around the word, and for some reason that brought a smile to Gerard’s face. “Same as us.”

“That... yeah, that’d probably work, actually.”

“You don’t have to sound so surprised.”

Gerard rolled his eyes again. “So we’re heading to London, then?”

Gerard’s memories of London were decidedly... mixed. He’d lived there with his mother, though they’d done more than their fair share of traveling along the way, and that was still what came to mind first when he thought of the city, though Gertrude and the Magnus Institute were different at least, if not necessarily much better. But he wasn’t going to object to the only thing they had that vaguely resembled a plan just because he didn’t much care for London as a city.

“Suppose so. Do you know the way there?”

Gerard blinked a few times in confusion. “I figured you would, I was just in America, and didn’t you just come from London?”

“Well, we stopped at a bed and breakfast for the night first. And I wasn’t the one driving.”

Gerard let out a long, somewhat exaggerated sigh. “So the plan is a road trip from here to London, but with no car and no directions. This sounds like a great plan.”

“Fuck you too.”

“Only if you ask nicely.”

The look on Tim’s face was priceless.

“Hey, Gerard-”

“Gerry.”

And that priceless look was gone in a moment’s time, replaced with one of blank befuddlement.

“What?”

Gerard scratched the back of his neck nervously. “Gerard was what my mum called me. I always-” He let out a soft laugh, one born more of embarrassment and awkwardness than actual amusement, as he remembered telling Jon this same thing--except that with Jon he’d said that he wanted his friends to call him Gerry, while his feelings for Tim were... well, he was going to phrase things slightly differently this time, at any rate. “I always wanted someone special to call me Gerry.”

“A-alright then. Gerry. As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted.” Tim’s words were harsh, but the tone was playful rather than biting, and Tim chewed on his lip absentmindedly for a moment before continuing. “If it’s just you and me here in whatever afterlife this is, at least until we find someone else... well, honestly, you wouldn’t be my first choice of people to be stuck with, not gonna lie. But you’re not on the bottom of the list, either.”

Gerard wasn’t sure who would be at the top of his list for such a thing, but he knew who would be at the very bottom of the list for him, and it definitely wasn’t one Tim Stoker. “Well, the feeling’s mutual.”

“So. To London?”

Gerry reached out with one hand, brushing against one of Tim’s, and if he had a heartbeat still it would have sped up when Tim’s hand took hold of his own, his grip loose but firm.

“To London. Provided you have at least some idea how to get there. Cardinal directions, maybe?”

Tim stared off into nothingness for a moment as he thought. “Southwest, I think?”

“Christ, we’re doomed.”

“Fuck off.”

They both burst out laughing, their grip on one another’s hands unyielding, as they prepared to make what was sure to be a long and winding journey together.

#gerard keay #gerry keay #tma #tma fic #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #the magnus archives fic #the magnus archives fanfic #personal #my writing

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billie-ford · 4 years

Text

Days Gone By

Houston. The biggest city in the state of Texas and the second largest in the country. But more intimately, it was the home of Billie Ford. She was known well throughout the countryside of Houston and even into the inner city as the kid that went the extra mile. A star runner on the high school track team, destined to make state. The friendly mechanic that willingly made house trips and sometimes took a hot meal as payment. The devoted wife and mother, the lively younger sister known for her exuberant energy. The street she lived on for more than half a decade was once known for it’s exuberant energy too; music bumping from almost every open window and a potluck every other week. It was now a decrepit wasteland. One of the first cities to fall when the virus broke and when it fell, it fell hard.

Every inch of public road was cluttered with debris, abandoned cars, streaks of blood and dead bodies - roaming or not. Music would not be heard on these streets ever again - unless you chose to count the mindless humming from Billie every now and again. Despite how sparse supplies had grown, Billie couldn’t bring herself to leave. Having already abandoned her once warm, loving home, she was now holed up in a strangers house on the other side of the city. Boarded up, furniture pushed against windows and a makeshift bed of sheets and couch cushions positioned messily in the center of the living room. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to call it quits, no matter how ghostly it had gotten in the last few months. Something was keeping her here, and she just couldn’t describe what it was.

(six months since the fall)

“How long will you be?”

Despite his name, Hunter Hammond was no scavenger. He was a meek man, all five-foot-nine of him. Abraham used to tease him when their families got together for a dinner, joking that Billie had managed to fuse her bisexuality and marry both a man and woman all in one. Hunter never liked Abraham too much.

“I’ll be as quick as I can but who knows what those streets look like now.” Billie tightened the laces of her boots before standing and slinging a backpack over her shoulder. Just behind Hunter, their son Devin played with plastic cars in their couch cushion bed. His smile and bubbly laugh was a constant reminder of what the world had been once, and for both Billie and Hunter it gave them hope.

Billie cupped her husband’s cheek, pressing a tender kiss to his lips. “Back before sundown. I promise. C’mere sweet boy,” she kneeled down and kissed her toddler on the head, breathing in the scent of his cloud-like curls. “You take care of your ol’ man for me, m’kay?” The boy smiled and nodded.

“Board this right back up.” She gave Hunter a stern look as she moved the furniture from the back door, their backyard a quiet enough escape to the road behind them. “I mean it. The second I’m out.”

“Don’t worry, I got you. Come back to me safe, Bill. I mean that.”

Hunter had shut the door before she could give him a second look, the sound of the couch scraping on the other side signaling she was now trapped on the back porch. She took off down the patio stairs, through the neighboring backyards and through the small line of trees that shielded the house from from the main road.

Billie liked to call them walkers. They reminded her of how her dad used to walk when he had knee surgery and ended up with a walking frame for a few weeks; hunched over, slow, lazy. Her father was an intimidating man - strong and stern, a frequent yeller who, just by cracking the buckle of his belt, had Billie stood straight and ready to accomplish any command. But even Abraham Sr. didn’t scare her as much as those things did. Her father could be reasoned with if you showed him enough respect; they could not. The howls of sorrow trapped inside distant memory disturbed her more than when they ran her way, jaws chomping and drooling for a taste of human flesh. Something she had only seen in her brother’s horror movies, and even those couldn’t prepare her for the sights she had seen. It was the humanity lost somewhere within them - that’s what terrified her. She remembered the first time she caught wind of the pandemic beginning to break across the globe; her ear just barely picking up the sound of the radio over power drills and welders.

She hadn’t been able to find Abraham since things really went to shit.

The military did what they could when things started to get out of control, but even they had families to protect and sticking around to maintain order just seemed foolish. Multiple trips were made to the Ford residence with no luck; Cupboards were barren, clothes strewn about and that picture he had on the mantle of the two of them one Christmas was busted out of its frame. Despite her excuses - he didn’t have time to come for me. they were in trouble. he did come by but I was already gone. he’s still around, we just keep missing each other. - she couldn’t kill the eating thought that he just left her. His baby sister, abandoned. He broke his promise. Subconsciously, that was the biggest reason she kept one foot in Houston - he was still coming back for her. But with every day that passed with no sign of life, the hope that he was still close - and breathing - faded further and further away...

The camp was far beyond the rest of civilization. And good for it. The tops of buildings looked like shoe boxes interwoven with visibly abandoned streets in the far distance, gray in comparison to what it once used to be. This flat plot of land had barely been touched by human hands when it was found; turned up dirt and rock accompanied by machinery and port-a-potties. A construction sight soon to be turned into a number of vacation homes, that much they gathered from the weathered sign stuck in the ground at the base of the hill.

Breakfast ended an hour ago; watery eggs with sparse salt and bitter potatoes. Everyone was busy now, in the full swing of their day; taking buckets of dishes to the river to be washed while another group returned with wet laundry to hang dry.

“You should let these grow so I can push them to the side. You don’t really want all this hair in your eyes do ya, hun?”

Jane Ford, forty-two, a high school swim coach in what now seemed to be another life now sat in her husband’s tattered flannel and blue jeans tucked into yellow hospital socks. With her eldest between her knees, she snipped away at the atrocious bob the child had given herself a year prior. Her bangs stuck out every which way and no amount of water, time, or prayer would set the needle straight hairs into place. Jane huffed in defeat and dropped the comb and fabric scissors into a cup at her foot.

“I like it like this, momma.” The ten year old stated while playing with the torn ear of her stuffed bunny, given to Jane as a baby shower gift from her aunt. The dirty old thing brought her comfort more now than ever, a reminder of her favorite - well, her only - aunt.

‘You hug this little guy every single night. And wherever I am I’ll be sure to feel it.’

“Leave her hair alone, darlin’. If she likes it than she likes it.” Abraham watched his girls while sipping a black coffee, occasionally looking out into the horizon to scan for survivors or otherwise. “We Fords have the tendency to look good in whatever hairstyle we’re rockin’.” He winked at his daughter who grinned.

“Tell that to your tenth grade mullet.” “You still had a crush on me didn’t ya sweetheart?” “Oh, stick it!” “Last time I did we ended up with the twins..” “Ew, dad!”

He howled with laughter and beckoned his child to come towards him. She jumped up into his lap and he tussled her wet hair, the act earning him a curse from his wife. He pressed a kiss to the side of her head and took that moment to thank God. His family, all five of them, were together and secure. But every thankful thought was followed by the sudden sorrow he felt for his first family; his baby sister. Big Bad Bill.

He was a military sergeant and when he was called to duty the only thing on his mind was getting this issue under control. He only evacuated the quarantine camps when he had absolutely no choice and by the time he reached his home in the suburbs it was too late to go the inner city. She was just too far away from him. He couldn’t count on all fingers and toes how many times he’d been down in that area since then, practically swatting her home the second he could. Empty. She had taken the photo of them from his high school graduation on her fireplace.

Despite the “no man left behind” attitude instilled in him during boot camp, he just couldn’t bring himself to believe that his sister was still alive. She was tough, but she wasn’t survive-life-or-death-situations-tough. She was just a mechanic.

A familiar shrill voice followed by marching steps in the gravel snapped him out of his pity party. With a groan, he shooed his daughter away to play with the other kids before standing to meet the five-foot-two hurricane that was Marizol Espinosa. “Dios mio Abraham! My Rosita should have been home days ago!” The group he had sent out nearly three days ago had yet to return and despite the majorities silence, everyone was a little worried about their return. Marizol was not one of the silent ones.

“Te quiero fuera. Out there. Searching for them.” A manicured hand rested on a jutted hip, the other pointing a bullet like index into the ginger brutes face. Jane’s eyes flickered between the two cautiously as she busied herself with cleaning chunks of dark hair from her lap.

“Mary, I wouldn’t have sent the group that I sent if I didn’t think they could handle their hides. Give em the day darlin’, I’ll radio in from time to time and if nothin’ still I’ll send a crew after em.”

“Oh dios- get more people lost! Or killed! You listen to me jengibre...” As she opened her mouth to grill him with undoubtedly ruthless insults, the radio on his belt crackled with life. A female voice just barely came through. Abraham gave Marizol a smug grin.

“I’ve always loved you, and made you happy...and nothing else could come between...but now you’ve left me, to love another...you have shattered..all..of my dreams..” Breathless, Billie trudged along the side of the road as the afternoon heat caused beads of sweat to rolled down her jaw. With daylight running low she was worried this would be another unsuccessful supply run, having already searching multiple stores and homes throughout town. “You are my sunshine. My only sunshine..you make me happy when skies are gray..you’ll never know dear- fuckin’ hell it’s hot.”

She came to a stop outside of a gas station. A run down shack of a business that she had been to multiple times for a cigarette and a beer during her commute back home after work. But with its busted out windows and disregarded hoses it looked to be a completely foreign shop.

In and out quickly was the plan, and smooth enough it went. She packed what she could; in her months of scavenging she learned quickly that if you looked for things where those things weren’t meant to be, you could find what you needed. With a bowie knife in one hand and a half melted snickers from the cash register in the other she wandered the aisles freely, skimming underneath shelves for stray cans and water bottles. As she was preparing to leave, check today off as a successful enough day, one too many walkers began crowding the door from which she came, falling through busted windows and disemboweling themselves on shards of glass. She took down what she could with her bowie, hoping to clear a way to the road but for every one she killed two more crowded in its place. “Fuck.”

Searching hastily with a newfound feeling of vertigo, she spotted the employee exit behind the counter. A pipe had been lodged into the handle and bent outwards, trapping it shut. She cleared the counter, shivering at the feeling of rotting hands skimming the back of her arms before forcing the pipe out of place and slamming the door shut behind her. Her footsteps echoed off the walls as she searched her bag for a flashlight, her knife wielding hand still raised defensively.

“Grab them!”

Billie felt the sharp pain of a shoulder in her spine as she was tackled to the ground, her cheek crashing into the cold pavement and the wind escaping her lungs as her knife slid feet away from her grasp. She was frisked for her weapons, her bag tore violently from her shoulder as a knee remained snug between her shoulder blades.

“You one of the bitches that jumped us?” “Huh!? No!”

The cool metal of a gun barrel met her temple and she stuttered, “I ain’t here to hurt no one! I’m just stuck! On the bible, man!”

“What do you mean stuck?”

“There’s an ocean of them dead fools out that door behind me- gotta be packed to capacity by now. Man can you get off my back you’re hurting me!”

She was hoisted to her feet as a lamp clicked on. The room lit up in a small yellow glow, revealing a number of people surrounding her. To her left, brunette hair was pulled back under a military cap and tan hands secured in fingerless gloves held a glock steady to her head. Latina. Her glare was strong, eyebrows knitted as she trained her sights on Billie.

“There was a group in here yesterday. They locked us in.” In front of her, a young asian boy sat on a railing. They were in a garage. “Think you can help us out of here?” The man previously kneeling on her spine asked. He was the stockiest of the group; dark skinned, a gap tooth, and a flat cap concealing a bald head.

She didn’t have much of a choice. Either they all got out or none of them got out. “I can try once your friend gets that barrel off my cheek.” She huffed. A delivery truck sat begging to be used in the middle of the garage. A full tank but no keys, they say. Luckily for them, Billie didn’t need keys. She looked towards the latina, and only after the asian boys pleas did she lower her weapon.

After she jimmied the lock for a while, Billie got the door open and jumped into the driver seat, the latina following her every move as she popped off the connector to the ignition. She looked down to the only other woman and quirked a smile, “you wouldn’t happen to have a bobby pin would ya, hun?” Deadpanned, she dug into her hair and retrieved two bobby pins, slapping them into Billie’s hand who muttered a thank you. In seconds she had the pins poked into each hole of the connector and the truck growled with life. First the lights, brightening the room even more but she refrained from turning the engine, alas, suffocating them all with toxic fumes. Billie turned to the woman below, already used to the bitter gaze she sent her way. “You get the door open and you’re home free.”

“You should come with us.” Once stepping out of the truck she was greeted by the man that had tackled her to the ground, now smiling at her apologetically while extending a hand to shake, “call me T-Dog.” The latina huffed in protest. “She’s useful, Rosita.” Rosita.

“I would love to but uh..I got people waiting on me.” “They can come too.” “There’s no way you’re getting this truck up that road.” “We’ll wait.” “We can’t wait for some stranger, we’ve got people worried about us.”

“I could go with you!” It was the asian boy again, short black hair now covered with a baseball cap. He approached Billie with a smile that rivaled T-Dog’s. These weren’t people that Billie would coin as survivors - all but Rosita maybe - but here they were anyways. “I know my way around the city. We can pick up whoever you’re with and head back to camp.”

“So there’s more of y’all..?” “Loads.”

Rosita shook her head again. “No, no. That’s too many more mouths to feed and we’re already low on supplies.”

“Actually, Rosita, I don’t think supplies will be an issue...”

A voice echoed from within the newly unlocked truck, the sliding door disconnecting the storage space from the front seat now wide open. They followed the sounds of his footsteps to the back door where it was then unlocked from inside, flew open with a loud clang, and revealed stacks upon stacks of unopened cans, bags of chips, and soda. The man - the eldest of the group - smiled down at them, particularly Billie. “That solves that problem young lady.”

“Look at that,” the asian quipped, “we’ve got food for a few more mouths, someone who knows their way around a sticky situation, and you got us to watch your back. Sounds like wins all around to me!”

Everyone seemed to be in agreement of letting this squirrely stranger and her mystery companions join the group, all but Rosita, who had Billie wondering if she had cut her off in traffic one time.

“She helped us when we needed it, Ro,” he reasoned, “she didn’t have to.” He seemed keen on having Billie join them but she just shrugged; made no difference to her. Even the older man, who looked to have been on a fishing trip before they got locked in here, threw in his two cents. “Always room for a survivor.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Rosita squared up to Billie with folded arms. “You get that door open and you get to come back with us. Bring your boyfriend or whatever. Bien?”

“Gracias, a-mee-go.”

If you looked for things where those things weren’t meant to be, you could find what you needed. - Billie’s Law.

Billie knew garages like the back of her hand, and she knew of the spare clicker that came with every garage system. It was a shot in the dark, hoping the door would even work if she found it, but she searched high and low despite it. Even despite Rosita’s smug bark of ‘we looked for it already’. Like a dog on a scent she overturned garbage cans and tools boxes all while she watched impassively. No clicker. But underneath a uniform coat, beneath a stack of scrap metal, was a car jack, and Billie knew more than a few ways to use one of those.

With a loud bang and a rustic whine, Billie managed to jam the jack underneath the door enough to bend it and gave the handle a few pumps to lift it all while T-Dog and Rosita readied themselves to bash the skulls of any unwanted stragglers. She managed enough space to roll under and the asian boy quickly followed, keeping an eye out for her while she finished the job. Eyes stinging with sweat, Billie picked away at the lock while disembodied moans approached her, silenced by the lead pipe her new comrade armed himself with. The door was finally freed in minutes; they were free and she had a new home for her baby boy.

“Looks like you’re ours now.” The boy smiled again. “Glenn.”

She shook his hand, her grip firmer than his. “Billie.”

#days gone by #chapter two #writing #fanfiction #twd #oc #billie ford #hunter hammond #devin hammond #abraham ford #jane ford #millie ford #marizol espinosa #rosita espinosa #glenn rhee #t-dog #dale horvath

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the-awkward-outlaw · 4 years

Text

Second Chances - Ch. 32

Stand Unshaken

Warnings: swearing, blood, a lot of heartache

Word count: ~4500

Masterlist

Read on AO3

You stand near the river, watching the sun rising, your heart feels as though it’s gone. Not even broken, just gone. John calls your attention.

“Y/N, let’s go! We gotta keep moving.”

You blink, tears cascading down your cheeks. “John, I…”

Without warning, your knees give out. When you land, your injured knee screams in agony. John runs to you.

“Y/N, please. We gotta do this.”

You look up at him, silhouetted in sunlight. His dark eyes glisten with unspilled tears.

“Please, Y/N.”

It takes all your strength and will to get up, but you do. John pats your right shoulder, glancing at your left which is still bleeding freely from where one of the Pinkertons shot you. You nod to him, signalling you’re ready.

He runs ahead again, skirting alongside the Kamassa River. You follow to your best abilities, but it doesn’t take long before you have to stop again. John stops and glares at you as you’re hunched down, trying to catch your breath.

“Come on, Y/N. We’ll steal some horses soon, get there faster.”

You straighten up and look at him, feeling like you’re about to fall to pieces again. You look to your right and there, in a clearing bathed in golden sunlight, stands a stag. His head is bowed as he grazes, but when your eyes land on him, he lifts his head, showing huge proud antlers. Your mind automatically goes to Arthur and how you just left him on the mountain to die.

The stag gazes at you for what feels like an eternity. Finally, it blinks and turns, walking slowly and calmly into the trees back in the direction you came from. From somewhere in the corners of your subconscious, a voice echoes. It’s the voice of the blind man you met a couple of weeks back.

“When the golden stag lifts his head, that is when you must go backwards rather than forward,” the voice says. Understanding rushes through you. It finally makes sense what he was saying. You have to go back. You’re meant to go to Arthur.

“Y/N!” John hollers.

You look at him, your face set in determination. “Go, John. Find your family. I have to go back.”

“You gonna let yourself get killed? Y/N, come on! Arthur didn’t want that for you.”

You sigh, trying to keep yourself together. You straighten up as much as you can, Arthur’s hat shading you from the bright light.

“I know what I’m doing, John. Now go. Go and watch Jack grow up, try and make Abigail happy. She loves you more than you know.”

John looks at you pleadingly. “Y/N-”

“Just go! They need you more than I do, and to be honest, you have more to live for than I ever did. Just please, for me, go and live a good life, okay?”

“You wanna go back and get killed, fine. But all it will mean is that Arthur died for nothing.”

“No, John. He… he died for you. And so am I.”

Before he has the opportunity to say another word, you run off as quick as your exhausted body will allow, back towards the forest. John calls your name, but you ignore him and eventually he stops calling. As you reach the trees, you look back and find he’s gone. You sigh, resolved to what you’re heading into.

The trees provide ample shade and cover as you run, retracing your steps. You never should have left that goddamn mountain, no matter what Arthur said. If you don’t end up dying today, you’ll never forgive yourself for leaving him there. You just pray that by some power or force, he hasn’t died yet. Could it be possible he’s still breathing?

As you think about the circumstances in which you parted, tears begin pouring down your cheeks again. You don’t let it stop you though. You have to keep going. You push your injured and tired body on, tripping occasionally. Every time you do, it gets harder and harder to get back to your feet, but the thought of finding Arthur alive pushes you on.

A shot suddenly rings out, a thin oak you’d just passed exploding. It brings you to a stop. From out of the bushes comes Micah, pointing his pistols at you, his face heavily bruised and bleeding.

“Ah, hello Mrs. Morgan. Or should I say, Morgan’s widow? I was hoping I’d see you again.”

“Micah, you son of a bitch.”

He chuckles. “Always did have a mouth on you, miss. I gotta say, I admire that in a woman.” He holsters one of the pistols, sneering at you.

“You sold us out,” you snarl, your hand brushing against the butt of your revolver. “You killed Mac, Davey, Jenny, Lenny and Hosea.”

He laughs again. “You left one more name out, miss.”

You pause, unsure of who he means. You look behind him, expecting to see Dutch. Instead, Cleet and Joe are there, pointing their rifles at you.

“Dutch-” you begin.

“Oh, Dutch is fine, far as I know. Last time I saw him was right before I shot Arthur in the head.”

Your heart drops and you suddenly feel cold. He laughs again.

“That’s right, miss. To be honest, I didn’t think it’d be that hard to kill him. I’ve been trying for some time. I knew quite a bit about Dutch and his boys before I even met him. I must admit, I was jealous. The man has talent at being a notorious outlaw. Has a certain level of charisma few can achieve. Colm told me all about him.”

“Colm? Colm’s been dead a while.”

He laughs again, slowly pacing in a large circle around you. “Now come on, Y/N. Thought you was smart. I was one of Colm’s boys long before I met Dutch. But he didn’t have the drive or the talent of ol’ Dutch, so I got out before he had the chance to cut me off. That was when I met Dutch.”

You keep a firm eye on Micah, trying to think of a way to kill him. Your best bets right now are to keep him talking, keep him distracted. He obviously doesn’t find you as much of a threat, otherwise you’d already be dead.

“I’m guessing you kept in touch with some of Colm’s boys though?”

“Well of course. Cleet and Joe were part of his gang too, until Colm was hung and his gang fell apart. But I was able to leak info on both Dutch and Colm through them. Gotta say, it was entertaining for a while to see them running in circles like that.”

Micah adjusts his hold on his pistol. “I knew right when I met Dutch he’d be easy to manipulate. He saw my talents, what I could do. Knew I could be an asset. But when he introduced me to Arthur and Hosea, I knew they’d have to go before I could do anything to Dutch. They were his voices of reason, the one thing that kept him from falling over the edge.”

“So you were planning for them to die all along?”

“Never did like either of them much, to be honest. Hosea never had any spine, and Arthur, well, he always thought he was better than everyone else, always too big for his britches. But Dutch trusted his advice, so I knew he’d have to go. I tried to take care of him clear back after he busted me out of the Strawberry prison. I met one of my old buddies from Colm’s gang up there, and he was in my cell. He thought I was still close to Colm, never was very bright, so he spilled all about a stage robbery.

“After Arthur busted me out, I got word to Cleet and Joe that Arthur and I would rob the stage and have Colm set up his own trap. Thought killing Arthur would be easy, but of course he survived. Like a cockroach.”

Micah begins a new circle around you, Cleet and Joe slowly getting closer to you. He continues, “I knew I’d have to be more clever to take Arthur out, so I came up with the plan for Colm to snag him and turn him in to the Blackwater bounty hunters. I was sure Dutch would go rescue him and either he or Colm would end up dead. It went perfectly to plan too until you had to go and rescue him. After that, I knew I’d have to come up with something really good to take Arthur out.”

“But you were in the Pinkertons pockets?”

He smiles again. “That’s how you choose to see it. They offered me my freedom and even quite a bit of money if I brought them Dutch or Hosea, so I told them about the Blackwater ferry job. Only Dutch and Hosea got away and the Pinkertons refused to give me what they promised. Said Dutch either had to be shot or hung before they’d keep their end. I spent a lot of time thinking of a new trap.

“Then Dutch met Bronte and got fooled by him. When I saw how angry he was, I could see the cracks. The only thing keeping him together was Hosea. Arthur had a hand in it too, but Hosea truly was the one thing guiding Dutch. So I told the Pinkertons about the bank robbery and what Hosea’s plan was. And that trap was sprung perfectly, I couldn’t have planned it better.”

You’re shaking by this point. How dare he do this to Hosea, to Arthur, everyone? Micah laughs again as he sees how you take the news.

“But you ended up in Guarma,” you say. “Something tells me that wasn’t planned.”

He licks his lips. “No, that wasn’t. But I played my part, pretended to be a good boy. When we got back though, Milton found me and offered me double the cash. Oh, the money, Y/N. If you were offered that amount in exchange for leaving Arthur, you’d do it.”

“No I wouldn’t. Arthur is one of the few people in this world you can’t put a price on.”

Micah smiles again. “How hard it must be for you, knowing he’s dead. Ah, he truly was a good man. How hard he tried to keep Dutch’s head from spinning. How he loved you. But when he announced that you two were getting married, I knew the only way to take him down was through you.”

“What are you talking about?”

Joe shifts nervously behind Micah.

“I set the trap that ended with you getting that pretty little cut across your face. Must admit, it didn’t end the way it was supposed to. Joe messed up, he and George were supposed to kill you. I figured if you were dead, Arthur would be so hurt and turned around by your sudden absence, he’d be easy to get rid of. Turns out you’re just as stubborn when it comes to dying as he was.”

“You goddamn traitor,” you say, your eyes tearing in anger. “After all the gang has done for you. After Dutch took you in, fed you, paid you and this is how you repay him?”

“I’m a survivor, Y/N. Ain’t no one out there looking after me except my damn self, so I’m gonna do whatever I can for me.”

You can feel the tension rising in the air, the inevitable ending coming. You flex your hands, preparing yourself.

“Oh, Y/N. You can’t imagine my delight in this. Morgan was a huge pain in my ass for far too long. Even though he was on the verge of death when I found him, he gave me quite a beating. Maybe, as a final gesture of how I appreciated him, I’ll take you before killing you.”

Your heart races faster as you realize what he intends to do to you.

“I’d like to see you try, Micah,” you snarl, trying to sound braver than you feel.

You predict what he’s going to do and just as he aims down at your leg to take you down, you roll and dodge to the side. As he aims again, you charge him, slamming your body into his, forcing him down. The pistol flies from his hand. Cleet and Joe are about to fire when Micah yells to them.

“Do nothing! She’s mine!”

He punches you in the face hard, throwing you off. Slightly dazed, you try to get up but he crawls on top of you, wrapping his hands around your throat and squeezing. One hand releases you briefly so he can remove your revolver from its holster and tosses it to the base of a tree. You grapple with his hands, but it’s fruitless, so you shove your fingers into his eyes and he lets you go, crying out in pain. You then ram your uninjured knee into his groin, which allows you to toss him off. You get up and dart towards the pistol, but Cleet’s foot comes out of nowhere, connecting with your cheek. Stars erupt in your eyes and you fall down again. A heavy weight slams down on your back, keeping you pinned.

“Oh, you’re a fighter, Y/N. It’s gonna make this all the much more satisfying.” Micah reaches down and grabs you by the throat again, but you pull out your knife and rake it across his arm, forcing him to release you. The weight on your back disappears, allowing you to get to your feet.

Micah slams into you, pinning you against the tree. He wrestles the knife from your hand, throwing it into a bush. Then, his bruised face enraged, he places a hand over the wound on your upper left arm and squeezes, causing you to cry out in pain as your arm feels like it’s about to fall off.

“You little bitch,” he growls. With his free hand, he grabs you by the throat again. You raise your right hand, trying to prod his eyes again but he releases your left arm momentarily to slap it away, still squeezing your throat. The sides of your vision are beginning to fade to black.

Suddenly, the sound of a pistol firing rings out and blood explodes from Micah’s side. He releases you, stepping back in shock and you slide down to the bottom of the tree, trying to remember how to breathe.

From behind a boulder, Dutch walks out, aiming his pistols at Micah.

“You shot me, Dutch. You-”

“You betrayed me, Micah, betrayed us,” Dutch growls. He must have heard everything.

Even though your vision is blurry, you look down and see your revolver’s gold barrel peaking through the leaf litter. You pick it up and shoot Micah in the chest until the barrel’s empty. His throat makes a gurgling sound as he steps back again, blood spilling from his chest. He looks at Dutch and then falls, his body twitching. Cleet and Joe run off as Dutch fires at them, but they get away.

You lower the gun, your entire body flooding with pain. Dutch turns slowly to look at you and then he holsters his pistols. He glances at Arthur’s hat, still on your head.

“Mrs. Morgan, I-”

“Shut the fuck up, Dutch, and help me up.”

He sighs and approaches you, grabbing your extended hand. You get to your feet, groaning in pain. Dutch looks as though he’s about to take you in his arms to help you walk but you slap him away, Micah’s words burning in your ears.

“Arthur,” you gasp, glaring at him. “Is he…?”

“I… I don’t know. I… he…”

“Micah says you were there when he...”

Dutch swallows. “I didn’t see him die. He was on his way out, no doubt and I… I walked away.”

You take a few steps back from him, wanting nothing more than to rip his throat out. However, you know you’d be dead at this moment if it weren’t for him.

“Get out of here, Dutch. But just know that if I see you again, I’ll be there to kill you.”

He looks at you sadly for a brief moment and then walks away. You watch him go to be sure he won’t turn on you until he disappears through the trees.

You’re alone again, and the weight of everything and the physical excursions slam into you, forcing you to bend down again. You don’t take a moment though before you’re picking up your revolver and knife. You have to find Arthur. Micah was lying. He didn’t shoot him, he couldn’t have. You won’t believe it until you see him.

You continue walking on, running when you can stand it. It’s late morning by the time the mountain comes into view. Your body screams at you, begging for you to stop and rest, but you don’t. You can’t.

You climb up the mountainside again, just as you did before when the Pinkertons were chasing you. After what feels like a monumental effort, you find the ledge where Arthur said good-bye. After inspecting the rocks and grass growing on it, there’s definitely signs of a struggle. On the rock wall, there’s a spot of blood. Then you see the impression of a body lying in the dirt. Leading away from it and up alongside the ledge, which winds up the mountainside, is a trail of blood. You follow it, curving around the bend and then you see him.

Arthur’s propped up in a sitting position against the ledge wall. Did Micah drag him there? You run the last few steps and then fall to your knees, ignoring the pain from your left knee, as tears overtake you.

He’s covered in blood from the wound on his hip and his face is badly bruised and cut, but there’s no bullet. You sigh, a little relieved that Micah was at least lying about that part. His eyes are closed and his lips are dry. You grab his shoulders and shake them, crying out his name.

“Please,” you beg. “Arthur, honey it’s me. I’m here. You can’t die!”

He doesn’t respond, so you press a finger to his throat. To your surprise, you feel a pulse. It’s weaker than it should be, but it’s there.

“Arthur!” you cry out. Then, you reach into your satchel and pull out an almost empty bottle of rum. You uncork it and turn the bottle over above his face so the liquid splashes him. He suddenly gasps and his eyes flick open.

“You’re alive!” you cry out, throwing the bottle. He sucks in a pained breath, his eyes staring up into the sky. It’s almost like he can’t see you. Trying to keep yourself in one piece, you press a hand to his cheek.

“Arthur, it’s me. Can you see me?”

He takes in a few more deep breaths and then his eyes finally move, landing right on you. He opens his mouth to speak but only a small croak comes out. Realizing he must be thirsty, you take out another bottle of alcohol, pouring a small amount into his open mouth. He winces as it goes down his throat, but then he licks his lips and closes his eyes, still breathing heavily.

“Arthur?”

He looks at you again. “I told you to get out of here,” he says with a deep groan.

With a loud sob, you touch his face with your hand. “I know, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t live with myself knowing you died here alone.”

He lifts his hand to brush your face. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Thank you for coming back.”

He winces in pain again, dropping his hand. You study his face more, realizing there’s a red tint to his skin. The sun is burning him.

“We need to get you off this mountain,” you say, looking around as if the answer of where and how you’ll move him will be there.

“Where?” he asks in a weak voice.

You think for a moment. “Hamish. Hamish isn’t too far away. Arthur, we’ll go to Hamish.”

Arthur closes his eyes again. “I can’t walk, darlin’. My… my hip.”

“No, you can’t. But I can. I’ll get him and we’ll come back for you. Arthur, can you at least keep yourself hydrated?”

He nods, opening his eyes again. You touch his face briefly before getting to your feet again. You reach into your satchel and pull out more bottles of whiskey. “I’ll be right back, gonna get something before I fetch Hamish.”

Before he has the chance to ask what you’re doing, you run down the ledge and down the mountain and back to where Artemis and Rannoch died. When you see their bodies, your heart breaks. But you can’t allow yourself to mourn, not now, not yet. Arthur needs you. You slide their saddle bags off and sling them over your shoulder, struggling a bit with their combined weight. Somehow though, you manage to make it back to where Arthur is.

He watches you intently as you take out his tent from Artemis’s saddlebag and position it over him, shading him from the sun. You make sure to keep the opening free so it doesn’t get too hot. When it’s done, you kneel beside him and unbuckle his pants, to which he questions. You tell him to relax and open his jeans and his union suit to reveal the wound above his hip. It looks awful, but it doesn’t look infected yet. You pour some whiskey onto it, making Arthur cry out. You apologize profusely and then place a strip of cloth to soak up what bleeding there still is. You rebuckle his pants in order to hold the fabric in place and keep pressure on the wound.

Just as you finish and are about to announce you’re going to get Hamish, Arthur grabs your leg.

“Sweetheart, come here.”

You look at him, worried. “What is it?”

He slides a hand behind your neck and pulls you down, kissing your lips. His lips are hot, too hot and after a moment you pull away.

“Arthur, I’ll be back. Hamish and I, we’ll come get you, okay? I promise, I’ll be back.”

He nods and you take off his hat, about to give it to him when he grabs it and puts it back on your head. “You need it more than I do right now.”

You nod and kiss him again. “Don’t die on me now, you hear?”

His lips stretch into a small smile. “I ain’t gonna die. I got you by my side.”

You blink, a few more tears escaping, and stroke his face again. Then, with another enormous effort, you get to your feet and leave the tent. You throw Arthur another glance and promise him you’ll come back. He nods in acknowledgement but says nothing. He closes his eyes again and rests his left hand over the wound.

You turn and head down the mountainside again. Your body is so tired and hurt that even your scar from when the Murfree shot you in the leg burns. It causes you to limp even more, but you keep going. Finally, you hit the road, but of course no one’s there. Sighing heavily, you turn down the path and begin heading down the path toward O’Creagh’s Run.

After only taking a few steps, you hear the sound of a horse coming down the path towards you. Looking behind, you see a man trotting on a small liver chestnut morgan.

“You there, can you help me out?” you call out.

“I don’t need or want your company, now get lost.”

Without hesitating, you pull out your revolver and shoot him in the back of the head as he passes. He falls off and his horse stops. You’re surprised it didn’t spook and run off, but you approach it, glaring down at the man’s corpse.

“Coulda been nice, buddy, but whatever. This is easier.”

With some difficulty, you drag his body into a cluster of bushes and then go to the horse. He fumbles with his bit but doesn’t react otherwise, just looks at you with a steady eye.

“Good boy,” you say, patting his neck and then climbing into the saddle. The effort is tremendously painful, but you get settled soon after and then kick the morgan into a canter. You silently acknowledge your luck when the lake comes into view. What would have taken you an hour to do on foot takes you a matter of minutes.

Buell stands outside the small cabin and he rumbles in greeting when he sees you. Patting the morgan’s neck, you dismount but your foot gets caught in the stirrup due to your exhaustion and you fall, pain coursing through your entire body.

The sound of uneven footsteps comes from the cabin and then Hamish’s voice calls out.

“Y/N, what are you doing here? What’s going on?”

You look up, tears leaking from your eyes again. “Arthur… needs help. Please. I…”

“Hey, take it easy.” He kneels down next to you and helps you sit up. “Where is he?”

You take a few deep breaths and tell him. He nods. “Okay. Can you ride a little more? It’ll be faster for me to get to him if you can show me where he is.”

You nod and try to get up, but you can’t do it on your own. Hamish grips you under your arms with surprising strength and lifts you up, then he helps you back into the morgan’s saddle. He mounts Buell and grabs the reins.

“Alright, Y/N. Come on, show me where he is.”

Without a word, you guide the morgan into a steady trot back the way you came. A few moments later, the mountain comes into view.

“I heard gunfire coming from this direction. You two have anything to do with it?” Hamish asks.

“I’ll explain later,” you croak as you guide him up the mountainside on the morgan. When you reach the ledge, you stop, hoping Arthur’s still breathing. Hamish helps you get off and then you limp painfully around the edge of the mountain until the tent comes into view.

“There,” you point. Hamish pats your back and goes to the tent opening, peering in. “Well, Mr. Morgan, you got yourself quite a girl. Looks like she’s been through hell and back. Course, you don’t look much better.”

A small groan comes from inside the tent. Hamish enters it and you hobble to the opening, grateful to find Arthur’s responsive to Hamish. His eyes immediately find you and you start taking a few steps towards him when your legs finally give out and you collapse. The last thing you see is an eagle soaring above as Arthur calls your name.

#red dead redemption 2 #red dead fanfic #rdr2 #arthur morgan #arthur morgan x reader #arthur x female reader #arthur morgan x female #arthur morgan x female reader #Van Der Linde Gang #R* Games #rockstar games #I'm awkward #second chances #i'm literally crying

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lost-kinn · 4 years

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so your tags on this post: post/183013875752/hey-i-absolutely-100-agree-with-the-idea-that I know this is pretty old but if you might still be willing to expand on how the infection is tied to the Pale King's idea of knighthood that would be cool?? or direct me to where you did if I missed it? thank you!!

oh!!! thank u for asking!! no i don’t think that i ever didwrite that meta, mostly because it’s a Very Big Meta and even when i tried to write it in response to this ask, i wasn’t able to because it was Too Big. haha. but i did my best here, so i hope this answers your question, mostly.

the original tag was “i have other thoughts on how theinfection works but that banks on a weird theory of the radiance specificallytelling the pale king fuck you and fuck your cultural concept of knighthood”which is—technically right, but rephrased now that i’m expanding on itproperly, it goes more like:

The Radiance’s infection is a method of controlling the waysthat people think in the same way that the Pale King seems to beobsessed with controlling the ways that people think. The Pale King primarilyruled through propaganda and manufacturing ways of thinking among thepopulace, which then accordingly influenced the way his citizenship behaved ina way that benefitted him and his rule over them.

Knighthood is the most obvious example in the game of theways that the Pale King wanted to control the ways that people thought in orderto control the way that people behaved by extension—literally, if a knightbelieves they have to die for a cause, then this makes them much more amenableto the Pale King’s agenda as a ruler than if the Pale King had to manuallyforce the knight to do as he wanted.

In the same way, the Radiance’s infection quite literallychanges the way that the Pale King’s citizenry think in her attempt to reclaimthe people that the Pale King stole from her using his very own methods.

(Slightly more expanded train of logic under the cut.)

1) All governance/rule requires a) “consent of the governed”and b) physical force to enforce that rule. The population has to agree to havesomeone rule over them, and demonstrates their agreement with theircooperation. (Without sufficient consent, governments require physical force tostay in power.)

2) Consent can be manufactured. Despite the fact thatconsent is supposed to be something that one gives freely of their own accord, consentcan also be created through propaganda, cultural norms, education andeducational institutions (Yes I Am Salty Why Do You Ask), religion (see: TheRadiance’s Whole Deal, the entirety of the Godmaster/Grimm Troupe DLCs),“reformation programs,” therapy, medicalization of undesirable behaviors, andother methods of modifying the way that people think.

3) Real “power,” in Hollow Knight, lies less in thephysical force to enforce a rule and more in one’s ability to manufactureconsent and modify the way people think. Taken another way, you can forcesomeone to behave in a certain way through force, but if you modify the waythey think, then they’ll behave in those ways of their own “free will.” Inother words, real “power” lies in one’s ability to modify the way that peoplethink, and accordingly then how they act.

4) The Pale King is an absolute fucking pro at manufacturingconsent, and stole the Radiance’s followers from her via this exact method (promisingsomething that the moths wanted in exchange for them ditching the Radiance andjoining his kingdom). Exhibit A is Hallownest, which is practically anabandoned laboratory of the tools he used to manufacture consent. Most of thePale King’s “depiction” over the course of the game are abandoned propaganda(King’s Idols, the wishing well, the mystique of the White Palace) he used toencourage people to revere him, adore him, and otherwise “willingly” hand overtheir free will to him (e.g. those court dudes in the White Palace who donothing but bow to the player when they pass). Exhibit B is the fact that manyof Hallownest’s survivors still seem to think the Pale King is the bee’s knees,despite never having ever seen the guy in person and the fact that he seems tohave left everyone in Hallownest to die.

5) Knighthood, as an entire cultural concept that seems tounderpin a lot of Hallownest, is: “A knight defends and even dies for the sakeof someone else, and the knight says thank you for it.” Which is fucking bonkersfor yonkers when you think about it. From this standpoint, all knights actupon their own free will, but their “free will” has been specificallyconstructed through manufactured consent—they are being “controlled” from theinside. That is to say, in Hollow Knight as a game and story, allknights are hollow, and even actively aspire to hollow themselves out to betterchannel their lord’s will (The Hollow Knight being The prime example of this, in that the Pale King took this entire line of thought of manufactured consent and tried to make it very literal with a Science Child that was completely empty so that he could fill it with his will and his will alone).

6) Knighthood as a manifestation of manufactured consent isbad because it leads to whack shit like The Hollow Knight, and other knightfigures, who still continue to think (and accordingly behave) in the ways thatthe Pale King taught them to, even though Hallownest has fallen. This goes upto and including several instances of knights passively or actively harmingthemselves for causes that no longer exist (e.g. Ogrim, Hive Knight, The HollowKnight, Quirrel, etc).

7) The Radiance’sinfection is a very literal, manual version of “manufactured consent”(literally, the infection is inside their minds and bodies and make Hallownest’sold citizens behave in a way that benefit the Radiance, and not the Pale King).The warfare between the Pale King and the Radiance throughout the course of HollowKnight is a war for not just physical land and real estate, but the mentalreal estate of the citizens that live in that land. She’s using the samemethods that the Pale King used, but more physically manifested via the literalbody horror of people having their bodies ruined and minds broken. Again,that’s what the Pale King was doing, really, but the Radiance’s version ifgrosser, more aggressive, more overt, and also her version is literally hermethod of taking back her own land from the Pale King who stole it from her viamanufactured consent in the first place. AKA, “@ The Pale King: Fuck you andFuck your cultural concept of knighthood.”

UHHHHH that was the very fast version!!! I tried to write the entire thing out in an official meta and it didn’t work!!! It kept expanding and I was getting into the 6k mark and I was rapidly realizing that trying to write about this particular topic would lead me to talk about Godmaster, the Grimm Troupe DLC, Mr Mushroom, Unn, basically any other depiction of gods, the moss prophet, the seer, Dryya, Ogrim–literally any knight figure you can think of–for god’s sake, there’s an entire novel to be written about the Hunter as a rejection of all of these ideas and embracing nihilism over a false pursuit of glory and everlasting legacy.

I hope this extremely fast version made sense. I can try and finish the longer version if you’d like, but I know you’ve been waiting for a while for a response already, haha.

#lore #talk #protectorprincess #im like super mega impressed that ur so deep in the lore tag that u saw that post

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theangelwrites · 4 years

Text

Voidwalker - A work in progress

Genre: Adult Fantasy

POV: Third Person Limited, multiple perspectives (Six, to be exact.)

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Finally, I think it’s time to make an introduction post on here for my current story, Voidwalker. A working title, likely to change some point in the future. I’m working on the first draft after starting this maddening thing for NaNoWriMo 2019, and it’s become the biggest story I’ve written. So, here goes!

Synopsis: (also a work in progress, something I barfed out one night when telling my friends what I was writing.)

A civil war is brewing in Esharis between the queen and her older brother. One year ago, after building an army of his own, the ruthless traitor prince wiped out the wardens, a warning and a promise of his power.

Along with the wardens, the rarest elementalists known as Voidwalkers and Fatebringers were tracked down and murdered, hope broken within the country. With the threat of this power over their heads, many of those not in tune to the elements turn to his side, joining the ranks of the anti-elementalist order standing at his command.

Ren Vishar was the sole survivor of the massacre, and now lives as one of just three wardens set to replace those lost. Ren is the last Voidwalker. The Fatebringers were wiped out, the great clerics and holy warriors that came with their powers of time and light snuffed out in a pool of crimson.

A vengeance stirs within Ren as tensions grow, the coming of Winter’s Call masking the start of dark dealings in the city of Fane. With the help of his fellow wardens, the royal spymaster, and a cocky bounty hunter with a mysterious connection to the elements, he must try to stop the war before it begins, or prepare for a battle.

If Ren is to stop more blood from being spilled, he must trust in those close to him, and form bonds he never dreamed he’d be able to find again. With the Void at his fingertips, he hopes it will be enough.

World and character introductions below!

World:

I’ve been writing in this fantasy world of mine, Zestra, for so many years. It’s been a labour of love, and it’s ever growing. Voidwalker is set in a country named Esharis, in a city named Fane.

Esharis is cut off from the likes of arcane magic that rules the world, rather a hub for elemental magic, where the veil between the waking world and the elemental planes is thinnest. This lead to its inhabitants being versed in elemental magic, the gods of Void and Fate a common guide of worship.

Fane is Esharis’ capital city, home to many elementalists in and out of the city walls. The castle overlooks the whole city, its tall towers to be seen for miles around, surrounded by rolling hills and dense forests. The story is set within the city, the characters running amok through the districts and the slums, exploring the secrets the old city has to give.

Perspective Characters:

Ren Vishar The last Voidwalker, a warden who’s powerful disposition and obsession with elementals gained him a plush station as the queen’s personal guard, to which he soon gave up in favour of becoming a warden and helping his city. After losing the rest of the wardens, along with the most powerful elementalists in the country, Ren must now carry that weight on his scarred shoulders.

Sterling Thorne A bounty hunter with powerful elemental magic that she can’t use, running from a past she’d rather forget about, that is until she runs into some of the most powerful people in the country, and suddenly finds herself thrust into a world of magic and war, her past catching up to her.

General Aloysius Farrington The Fire Warden and the country’s general, standing at the side of Queen Auradea since she was crowned. A man who never sleeps, his work is his life, the vow he made to protect his queen and his country hanging over his head like a banner of pride. He will keep that vow, even if it means mastering forbidden magic to do so.

Isa Dethaine Soon to begin her warden training, Isa grew up in the shadow of a man who hated everything she represented. Her father, Dorian Dethaine, is the traitor prince, and for good reason. After fleeing his hands and finding her way to her aunt in the capital city, Isa hopes to finally be who she truly is, and is determined to become a warden to protect people like her from the likes of her father.

Jiya ‘Shade’ Kimura The royal spymaster, a loyal friend to the queen and wrangler of wardens. In what free time she can catch, Shade runs a fighting arena in the city, a guild of bounty hunters at her beck and call. Seemingly the only person in the castle without elemental powers, she relies on her wit and her revolvers to do her job, as well as a love for poisons - lethal or otherwise.

Caliana Anastas The Arcane Warden, the first of her kind. Esharis has very few ties to arcane magic, but after many years of keeping arcanists in its capital, Caliana was instated as a warden due to her vast work with bringing arcane magic to the island, developing enchantments for the crown. With her family in the distant country of Gescen, she had found a second family in the castle, but try as she must, she begins to realize that she cannot keep them all safe.

Other Notable Characters:

Keis Buchanan A young man of many talents, Keis works as a bounty hunter and a fighter in Shade’s arena, as well as a blacksmith’s apprentice. Growing up on a farm in the outer slums of the city was always a challenge, but one he rose to, honing his fighting skills and his thievery before making his way to the city. As much as Shade tries to entice him into her guild of spies, he knows his mother would end him, though that doesn’t stop him from accompanying her on the occasional job.

Auradea Victoria Dethaine Young queen of Esharis, the pride and joy of her late father. Aura was bestowed the crown shortly after his death, the title passing her older brother, a traitor to their country. Her coronation caused quite a stir within the city, grumbles of tradition beneath the city’s breaths. Even becoming queen at a young age, Aura has spent her years proving her worth, relying on her wardens and her demanding yet loyal council to build her country higher than ever before, making new ties with the surrounding kingdoms and bringing new magic to the land. She hopes to keep her promises to her country, and to her father.

Dorian Dethaine The Traitor Prince, they called him, the only one in the Dethaine bloodline with no ties to the elements, who lashed out by becoming a drunkard, besmirching the Dethaine name up until the day his father announced that his sister would take the crown upon his death. With the Order of Grace at his side, he’ll take back what is his, and be rid of anyone in his way.

That’s about it, for now! Just a little introduction post for the story that has its hold over my heart right now. It’s my first kind of post like this, so please be kind, I’m usually a big lurker. Thank you!

#writer #writeblr #wip intro #wip introduction #writing community #writing #am writing #fantasy #fantasy writing #writers on tumblr #creative writing #new wip #writeblr wip #angel writes #voidwalker intro #wip: voidwalker

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 5 years

Note

So just for something fun, supernatural AU/crossover?

[Dear Anon, I’m not sure if you meant “supernatural” in the general sense or “supernatural” as in Supernatural the TV series, but I went with the latter.]

Their van belongs to Tobias. The title’s in his name, anyway, even if Rachel does most of the driving. It’s Marco, however, who paints the thing to look like the Mystery Machine.

Rachel blanches at the sight of the turquoise horror that greets her when she walks out of the motel room the next morning. Jake grumbles about it the whole day, complaining that he’s been betrayed by Tobias’s willingness to help Marco with this monstrosity. Now no one will take them seriously.

…which is, Marco says, the whole point.

The cops who investigate grave desecrations and destruction of property have no reason to suspect the six dumb college kids driving the garish performance piece. The otherwise-suspicious locals tend to break their narrow-eyed glares to smile in spite of themselves when they see that van pull up outside. The demons don’t know to be afraid — not until it’s already too late.

Anyway, it’s their home. They stop by Marco’s parents’ roadhouse as often as they can, and they’ll spend the night at Toby’s any time they swing through Indiana. If one of them is injured in a way impossible to explain to a civilian doc — striga claw marks, holy water burns, hex bag brands — that’s when Cassie’s mom will stitch them up with no questions asked. But there are six sleeping bags bundled into the back of their van, and six duffels that rarely leave its trunk. Their van has 900,000 miles on it and counting, worn places where Rachel rests her favorite rifle on the dash as Ax drives and a window seat that sags perpetually from Jake’s too-long legs jamming up against the support springs. It’s been with them since Tobias first came to collect them, one by one (“my dad’s on a hunting trip and hasn’t been home in a few days,” he’d said, so casual, as if they didn’t all know what that meant), and it’ll probably outlive every single one of them.

Rachel is fond of pointing out that they are, none of them, suited for desk jobs or apple-pie life. They’re hunters, she says, and they’re better off this way. Jake wonders, sometimes, who she’s trying to fool.

Cassie crouches to close the little girl’s eyes, fingers trembling. The striga was done eating by the time they arrived, too late to be of any help. M-O-L-L-Y, says the hand-painted line of flowers on the wall. Cassie looks for a long time, before she can straighten up and move on.

Marco arches off the bed sometimes, gasping hard like it’s him the kelpie dragged under the waves. Like he’s the one who went down, sailboat and all, to drown in the cold depths of the Pacific. He becomes too bright and too loud and a little too mean, any time they find themselves dealing with a water demon or a ghostly possession.

Jake enters the first four, first five, sometimes the first nine digits of his aunt’s phone number, on burners and payphones and Michelle’s secure lines. He never gets all the way, never actually asks anyone to let Rachel come home, and he’s never even tempted where his own parents are concerned.

“What’d you get for it?” Cassie’s voice is hard-edged with anger in a way that Marco has never heard before. He doesn’t bother to ask how she knows. That tiny touch of psychic, mostly on her father’s side, means that she was always going to figure it out.

“Three years,” he says, offering her his smoothest smile.

Cassie stares at Marco. Both of her hands are fisted in the hem of her flannel, trembling slightly. Her lips are pressed into a tight line.

“You know what?” Marco laughs, the sound more desperate than he means it to be. “That was far more than the demon wanted to offer, even for a top-shelf soul like this one. I drive a hard bargain.”

Cassie continues to look at him, until he feels himself shrinking in his seat. “What did you get for it?” she asks again, still not asking about the time.

Peter called today. For nearly an hour he chattered so much — about the roadhouse, about the new dog, about the wedding in July — that Marco could barely get a word in edgewise. Marco’s not sure about this Nora person, or he wasn’t at first, but Peter smiles every time he sees her or even says her name. The first smiles Marco’s seen, the first complete sentences he’s heard, since the Coast Guard knocked on their door and asked them to sit down.

What’s dead should stay dead. After five years in the business, Marco knows that much. His mother is gone. But happiness… even a lifetime’s worth… that doesn’t have to be out of reach. Not for Peter. Even if it does come with a toy poodle and an excess of algebra.

Marco pushes to his feet. “None of your business,” he says. “It’s my soul, and I’ll do what I want with it.”

He honestly doesn’t know what Cassie has in mind when she stands and crosses over to him. Not until she grabs him in a hug so fierce it hurts, squeezing her whole body around him. “I’m getting you out of this,” she promises. “I don’t care what it takes, I’m not letting them collect.”

Ax was never even supposed to be on the mission to retrieve Marco’s soul from hell. He tells them that a lot, that he was the only cherub included in the entire garrison of seraphim on what was supposed to be a milk run, an easy first mission just to get his wingtips wet.

He wasn’t supposed to be the only survivor. He certainly wasn’t supposed to rebel mere months later when ordered to cut out Tobias’s heart to complete a cosmic ritual.

But then, lots of things that weren’t supposed to happen have happened anyway. Marco was never supposed to die facedown in the half-frozen mud of a South Dakota ghost town. No righteous man was ever supposed to reach the gates of hell, breaking the first seal as Taylor’s claws broke the surface of his soul.

Aftran is supposed to be helping her overlords do their best to destroy the earth right now, not assisting humanity’s rebellion against angels and demons alike. Jake is supposed to be at home with his parents, not wanted by the FBI for his brother’s murder and a dozen corpse mutilations.

For that matter, “hasn’t been home in a few days” was supposed to mean that Tobias’s dad was “dead or worse,” not “forcibly called back to heaven to help set up the apocalypse, ‘cause turns out he left out a few crucial fucking details when explaining my family history.”

“…draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica, adiuramus te!” Rachel recites. And then waits, arms crossed, holy water at the ready.

Jake’s mouth curls. “Okay, we’ve got the Catholic bullshit out of the way. Now do you believe me?” Two fingertips drum against the arm of the chair to which he’s tied.

Tobias looks over at Rachel. Neither of them makes a move to break the devil’s trap. “What the fuck are you?” Rachel demands at last, feeling her patience fray.

Jake’s shoulder lifts in a half-shrug. “A high school dropout with six bucks to his name?”

“And severe cataracts?” Rachel flicks more holy water at Jake; it continues to do nothing. “We saw your eyes flash white. Cut the crap.”

“Or what?” Something subtle shifts in Jake’s voice, becoming rough and cold. “You’ve killed enough of your cousins for a lifetime, don’t you think? And Tobias…” The thing under Jake’s skin runs his tongue over his teeth. “I know what you and this one get up to in the dark. Either way, I’m guessing neither one of you is ready to hurt this precious meat—”

Wham! The chair back slams to the floor. Rachel’s knee is pressed into Jake’s chest. Her knife blade digs into his throat. “Guess again,” she snarls.

“Rachel!” Tobias’s warning comes too late. Partway loose now, the demon gestures, flinging Rachel across the room. Jake’s body pulls free from the broken chair, motions not quite human. Turning, the demon spots Tobias. It draws itself up. And up.

Jake’s eyes go white with shock when the thing inside him realizes it has lifted clear off the floor. That it cannot move his arms or legs. His mouth opens; there’s an abortive motion as it struggles to escape the meatsuit that now entraps it.

Tobias’s right hand is raised. His eyes shine with a radiance entirely different from the sickly, jaundiced shield over Jake’s. The light surrounding Tobias seems to come from everywhere at once, and yet it all shines on him, throwing the wings of his silhouette into sharp relief against the far wall.

“What are you?” the thing inside Jake asks, half-strangled.

“Been asking that question for twenty-three years, pal,” Tobias says. Blood trickles from his nose. His hand trembles slightly. His eyes are steady. “Guess we’re in the same boat, because I’ve never seen anything like you either.”

Jake’s lips pull back from his teeth, grimace or smile. “I am what happens when a demon eats an angel. Swallowed him up, grace and all, and now I’m a Knight of Hell. And now I’m starting to think that before that happened, Elfangor might’ve got busy while he was here on Earth.” It leers. “So naughty, that one.”

Tobias squeezes his hand inward. Jake’s body convulses, yellow-white flashing under his skin.

“Wait, wait—” The thing gasps air. “I can give you power, information, revenge, I can give you—”

“I want my father back, you son of a bitch.” Tobias closes his hand. Light flares, sharp enough to blind. With it comes the unearthly scream of angelic power.

When their vision clears, Rachel and Tobias find Jake — just Jake — kneeling on the floor. He’s swaying in shock where he stares up at Tobias. “Did we know you could do that?” Jake asks, voice sandpaper-raw.

“I’m gonna vote ‘no,’” Rachel says, looking at Tobias’s flabbergasted expression.

“Okay, cool, still badass.” Jake slumps sideways; Tobias lunges to catch him before he hits the floor. “I’mma take a nap… for the next eighteen hours or so… then we can figure this all out later.”

“It’ll scar, won’t it,” Rachel says, watching Cassie’s neat row of stitches press into her leg as if it belongs to someone else. She’s not bothered, she doesn’t think. It’s not that she thinks scars are cool, or that they’ll impress anyone. Marco will flutter his eyelashes and swoon when he sees it, of course, but that’s about all the reaction she’ll get, all the reaction she’ll want. She doesn’t think scars make her tough, or that they make her ugly. They’re proof, and that’s what she hates and loves about them. Proof that she’s still alive. Proof of what she’s been through and yet survived. Proof that you should see the other guy, only of course there’s no seeing him, because he — it — is always ashes on the ground.

“Tobias?” Mr. Feyroyan says, and Tobias stops at the door. He’s pleasantly surprised to be remembered, given that he attended this high school for a few months at most. “Did you ever get out?” Mr. Feyroyan asks. “Make your own life, the way you said wanted to do?”

Tobias considers talking about the five semesters of college he managed before the same things that’ve been chasing him his entire life caught up to him. Considers explaining that he understands, now, why they had to move so often and why his dad had to be away so much of the time. Considers admitting that the family business pulled him in, the way it was always going to do.

Considers the traces of ectoplasm still embedded under his nails from the ghost possession this morning.

“I help people where I can,” Tobias says, because at least that much is true. “And this life isn’t so bad. Not as long as you’ve got people willing to live it with you.”

Ax wasn’t raised to doubt. He was raised to be a warrior. The right hand of God. Absolute. Unquestioning. Wrathful. He was raised to fight and die in the war against the demons and forces of darkness. Not to make decisions on his own, with no one to guide him.

“Is it a sin,” Cassie asked him once, “to want to know the truth?”

She believes in him, the way that she’s meant to. The way that he’s meant to believe in Jake, in God, in the righteousness of heaven. That doesn’t stop her from asking questions of them all.

Humans are pitiful, evanescent beings. Earthly and evil. Half-clay, half-spirit, and the clay half usually wins. Aximili is supposed to demand their respect, to tell them be not afraid as they quail before him. He is not supposed to let them shorten his name and feed him pecan pie and show him soap opera marathons.

It’s hard to remember that, sometimes, when he and Rachel exchange a bumping of fists over an annihilated vampire nest. When Marco lifts yet another bottle down from the bar, wait’ll you try this one. When he watches his nephew curl an invisible-intangible wing around Jake’s body where they sit at the edge of a reservoir, as if Michael’s sword is not a mere empty vessel but a precious and unique soul, worthy of being treasured.

“An angel, a demon, a nephilim, and their pet humans walk into a bar!” Marco announces loudly. It has the desired effect, which is to say that Nora lowers the shotgun she grabbed the instant Euclid started barking at their approach.

Still in the front entrance of the roadhouse, Marco and Euclid exchange their usual greetings of polite mutual loathing. Even Marco can’t deny that the little monster has his uses, when it comes to smelling unclean things.

Aftran seems solid enough, mostly. But Marco thinks sometimes he can detect a hint of what Euclid smells coming off her: sulfur, smoke, the occasional unsavory whiff of little Karen’s body rotting around the corpse-animating creature within.

Nora thunks half a dozen shot glasses on the bar, pouring holy water-laced whiskey as she goes. That’s for the humans, and Tobias.

“What’ll it be for you, Precious Moments?” Nora asks, using Marco’s nickname for Ax.

Ax refrains from pointing out for the four millionth time that being a fallen cherub doesn’t mean that his true form bears any resemblance to porcelain figurines, and instead sits at the bar. “I would like the usual, if you please,” he intones.

Chuckling, Nora reaches down a bottle of Cinnabon Pinnacle.

Jake swallows his shot quickly, grimacing at the taste of the silver-lined glass. “Does Peter have anything for us yet?”

“It’s nice to see you, too, Jake,” Nora says. “I’m doing well, thanks for asking. Have you killed any monsters since we last spoke?”

Chastised, Jake settles over his second drink.

“There are new omens, of course.” Nora slides a plate of fries and a glass of whiskey — sans holy water — toward Aftran. “All up and down the U.S. The pattern isn’t holding anymore, or it’s just gotten so dense it can’t be detected. Almost like…”

“It’s the end of the world?” Marco suggests.

She smiles grimly. “Almost. Funny, you noticed that too?”

Marco likes Nora, mostly because she doesn’t try to mother him.

“Let’s get to it, if that’s all right with you.” Jake sets his glass on the bar. “World’s not gonna save itself, after all.”

Marco runs off row after row of glossy badges, engraved name tags, exquisitely forged shields. Only to have Ax present them upside-down, wide-eyed and utterly clueless. Only to have Cassie drop the act and start telling the truth the millisecond she thinks a witness or victim has half a chance of believing them. He’s not even sure why he hangs around with these numbskulls. Probably because they’d be lost without him.

“Would you have made a good lawyer, you think?” Jake asks.

He and Tobias are sitting at the lip of an open grave, splitting a beer as they wait for the bones to burn down enough to fill the dirt back in. Their shoulders touch, which is the most affection they ever show, really, living out of each other’s pockets as much as the six of them do.

That’s probably why Jake thought to ask. Because this is the closest they ever come to having a real date: watching bones burn. Jake’s already on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, and Tobias is wanted by forces a hell of a lot scarier than mere law enforcement, so they tend to be the ones to risk racking up an entirely moot number of grave desecration charges while the others clean up the rest of the hunt.

“Probably not, no,” Tobias says. “You’re always telling me I see too many sides of every story. That would’ve made me a crap lawyer, even if…”

Even if he wasn’t a walking grimoire of spare parts. He’s gone through the lore in Cassie’s family’s bunker, enough to know what all those demons and angels are after. A vial of his blood can grant a few hours of invulnerability to harm. A drop of his grace can open an interdimensional rift. Cut his heart out and you can close heaven itself. Stuff an angel inside him, and the resultant being could create and destroy universes with a wave of the hand.

“You could get out, you know,” Jake says. “Now that you can protect yourself.”

Laughing, Tobias shakes his head. “Cassie,” he counters. “Cassie could get out.”

“Cassie will get out. Just as soon as she figures out a different way to help, one that involves less hurting.” Jake’s confidence probably isn’t even misplaced. Cassie’s the one with the clean record, the sane outlook, the skills she can actually put on a résumé. She’s not like the rest of them, dragged into this life because of one tragedy or another. “I have hope for Rachel too.”

Tobias hmmms. That one, he’s not so sure. Rachel’s record is clean, yes, if only because everyone from the cops to the surviving Berensons believes that it was Jake who pulled the trigger on Tom. “Rachel thrives in this life,” he says.

“If she would just freaking call her mom, get a little help getting set up…” Jake makes a gesture of frustration. He went to prison to protect his cousin, only to have her break him out and them both end up living full-time to hunt things like the one that took Tom.

“Marco’s headed for semi-retirement already, you watch.” Tobias changes the subject, because he’s a coward.

That one catches Jake by surprise, causing him to twist around. “You sure about that?”

“Semi-retirement.” Tobias takes a long pull of the beer, passing it back. Their fingers overlap, then lace together, as they talk. “Like what my mom had.”

“She was a hunter?”

“She was the director of the FBI,” Tobias says, smiling at the memory. “On the phone, anyway. She went blind some time before I was born — got a few guesses, now, as to how that happened.”

Jake grimaces. He’s seen for himself what happens when a human looks at the unshielded grace of an angel as powerful as Elfangor.

“So that took her out of field work, and she switched to working the phones full-time.” Tobias tilts his head back, remembering the long row of landlines and cells, the raised bumps of the Braille labels for insurance investigators, Homeland Security, even MI5. “Did that until I was seven, which is when…” When someone came looking for spare nephilim parts. Tore her to pieces instead.

“I stand corrected,” Jake says at last. “Marco would make an excellent full-time bullshit artist.”

Tobias chuckles. “And Ax? Now that he’s all… locked out of heaven?”

“Your taste in music is a crime, you know that?” Jake doesn’t answer the question, which is an answer in itself.

Tobias knew he shouldn’t have asked. There’s no future for fallen angels or freak-of-nature nephilim or alleged career criminals. Not in the private sector anyway.

“So. You, me, and Ax-Man, huh?” Tobias says. “‘til the end of the world?”

Jake levers himself to his feet with a grunt of effort. “That doesn’t sound so bad.” He pulls Tobias up; they lean into each other against the cold graveyard air.

“No.” Tobias takes a breath. Lets himself feel Jake: fragile, human, warm. “Doesn’t sound bad at all.”

#animorphs #animorphs au #au #supernatural #supernatural au #supernatural spoilers #(minor)#jake/tobias #i must be out of my mind #violence #gore #nephilim #long post #anonymous #asks #jake berenson #tobias fangor

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i-am-the-entertainer · 5 years

Text

The Power of Ambiguity: When Some of RWBY’s Questions Are Better Left Unanswered

So, full disclosure: Volume 6, Chapter 9 “Lost” is one I have mixed feelings about. I think it fails to deliver on some major story threads this volume has introduced, and thus it stands out as a disappointing installment in what has otherwise been a stellar volume (I go into more depth about that in my full review).

But, paradoxically, I also think it contains the best scene in the volume, potentially in the show as a whole. And that scene is the one with Jaune and the Red-Haired Woman.

If upon her appearance you assumed that she was Pyrrha’s mother, you may have been left confused by her sudden disappearance and her credit as merely the “Red-Haired Woman.” I certainly was among that party, and there are still people who are unsure what to think: I’ve seen comments on the video from people who legitimately cannot figure out why the scene is framed so mysteriously.

It took me a little bit of time to realize the implications that there was more to the woman than you’d think at first glance. First up was that an autumn leaf just like the one Pyrrha saw in Volume 3′s “Destiny” was the thing that led Jaune to her statue; how does a leaf like that just magically turn up in the middle of the winter? Then there was her sudden appearance, right when Jaune was tempted to just walk away. Then we have her not introducing herself to Jaune despite clearly recognizing he knew Pyrrha, and then inexplicably disappearing right when Nora and Ren showed up with no apparent time to have left the flowers and walked away liked that. All in all, there were a lot of things about the woman that just didn’t make sense if we accepted her as Pyrrha’s mother or some kind of relative, unless she didn’t have a reason to introduce herself to Jaune: unless, and this seems almost unbelievable, she was Pyrrha herself, paying Jaune a visit from beyond the grave (or, well, dust).

Of course, you could also argue the opposite: if she’s Pyrrha’s mother then she absolutely already knows who Jaune is from watching the tournaments and presumably from Pyrrha’s communications, and she figures Jaune could probably put two-and-two together to figure out who she is. Additionally, we do hear her walking up to the statue, implying she didn’t necessarily just appear from thin air. Then you have the fact that she left the flowers on the statue, which is physical evidence that she had been there. But honestly it really could go either way. There’s nothing definitive going on here where you could say “She was Pyrrha’s mother” or “She was something supernatural.”

The thing is, it looks like some viewers are having trouble accepting this ambiguity. When I explained to one of the commenters that it was framed mysteriously to imply the Red-Haired Woman may have been Pyrrha’s spirit, the person flipped out. They claimed that having a ghost appear on a show where paranormal occurrences aren’t part of the established mythology opens a whole can of worms that would just complicate everything. In their view, the way the scene was framed implied Miles and Kerry couldn’t decide on who the woman was, so they decided to be lazy and not make a firm decision either way. That the ambiguity was an unintentional result of the writers’ indecision.

Although I understand why this commenter thinks this, they’re wrong. According to Jen Brown (the voice of Pyrrha and this mysterious woman) on her Twitch stream there is, in fact, a definitive answer as to who the woman is but she cannot give the answer and doesn’t know when or even if the writers plan to reveal it. Hero Hei speculates based on Brown’s phrasing that at least in the script, the woman is not intended to be Pyrrha’s spirit and is probably a separate character, and I would concur it does appear that Jen Brown does not agree with the “She was a ghost” camp. In their minds as the series’ writers, Miles and Kerry made a specific choice as to who the woman is.

But the thing is, on some level you do have to divorce the thoughts of the writer from the work, especially in something like visual media where changes may come in the actual scripting and direction of a scene. This sort of follows the “Death of the Author” concept of separating the writer and their thoughts from what they put down in the actual text: think JK Rowling stating all these “canon” facts about the Potter series despite not following through in the actual text she published (more info on this and the term “Death of the Author” in general in this excellent Lindsay Ellis video). Miles and Kerry know exactly who this woman is, yet they chose to write this scene in a way where her identity is not clear as written. Likewise, in film and television directors will make specific choices in how a scene is framed: Kerry and Connor chose to frame this scene in a way where the viewer cannot tell just from watching who the woman is. The woman having an answerable identity is a specific choice, but so is choosing not to give the viewer that answer.

So, you may ask, why did they do this? Well, to put it simply...it’s complicated.

It’s worth explaining that toying with the supernatural is actually quite common on television shows that don’t actively depict paranormal occurrences. It’s a trope called “Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane,” where an event is framed in a way that could lead the viewer to believe it is out of the ordinary or that it is a coincidence, and things are left just as that.

There was an episode of Bones called “The Hero in the Hold” where Booth escapes from a booby-trapped ship with the help of what he believes to be the ghost of an old army buddy who died on a mission years before: later in the season the incident is referenced when it turns out Booth has a brain tumor that is causing vivid hallucinations, and Booth’s belief that it was a ghost appears to become moot. Except in the case of this episode, this hallucination actually helps him out with escape methods that Booth could not have achieved by himself, like diffusing a bomb or retrieving a weapon that Booth cannot get to. Even Bones sees the deceased army buddy at the end of the episode without realizing who he is.

Bones has a couple of episodes where some happenings are implied to be paranormal, but the series remained to the end a procedural drama about forensic investigators––they didn’t become ghost hunters, they didn’t consult psychics on cases, absolutely none of that. And that’s the thing: writers don’t do this trope because they want to add a paranormal element. There are two things going on here:

1. It’s a narrative device designed to service the character more than it is a contribution to the series mythology

Basically, “It doesn’t matter whether or not it was magic or mundane.” With the Bones episode “The Hero in the Hold,” the fact that a ghost is haunting Booth is a framing device more than it is a plot device. Booth is kidnapped by a serial killer the team has been chasing for some time, and is left without their help. The episode is mostly about the team trying to outsmart the killer and Booth relying on his wits and resourcefulness to escape, while also dealing with the survivor’s guilt from watching his friend die years before. The ghost is there to give Booth the courage to continue, and to help him confront his past. Booth’s character development from this episode would have happened regardless of whether it was a ghost or a hallucination that spoke to him, because what happened felt real enough to him.

2. It gives the viewer something fun to think about

Think theory fodder. The writers are specifically leaving the decision in your hands––you have been granted power over a question they’ve left unanswered. How much fanfiction have you read or written about an unanswered question a show or movie or book or webcomic didn’t specifically tell you, like what happens after the story ends or where this character was when they weren’t the focus of the story? The ambiguity is trusting you to come up with your own answer. Your opinion is now an integral part of the story. Even The Twilight Zone, a show where paranormal occurrences were basically a regular thing, had one episode called “The Grave” with an ambiguously framed death which Rod Serling flat out asks the viewer to decide for themselves whether it was a normal death or caused by a vengeful ghost.

Let’s take a look at the scene of Jaune and the Red-Haired Woman again. What exactly did Jaune need in this moment?

Jaune never got any closure from Pyrrha’s death. She prevented him from helping her by forcing him to leave, and he ultimately did not witness it. He was told during Volume 4 that a choice was made for her that ultimately led her to confront Cinder. He was so torn about how she went down that he personally attempted to avenge her murder at Haven in Volume 5. Literally last episode he was told to his face that her death and everything that had led her to make the decision to fight Cinder had completely been for nothing. Seeing her statue in the park at a low moment, he is only reminded that she is not standing with the rest of her team, that she was killed in the line of battle for a hopeless cause. It’s an idea that viewers themselves have realized all volume, having learned Salem can’t be killed months ago from our perspective.

Yet the Red-Haired Woman suggests, without even needing to know everything about Jinn and Ozma, that this wasn’t really the case. “She understood that she had a responsibility to try. I don’t think she would regret her choice, because a huntress would understand that there really wasn’t a choice to make. And a huntress is what she always wanted to be.” Hearing this, Jaune adds to it: “Pyrrha never got the chance to graduate...but she was a huntress.” The woman, having needed to hear that, tearfully thanks Jaune for the words.

Now consider it: heedless of any debate of who the Red-Haired Woman is, through their conversation Jaune comes to accept that Pyrrha’s death doesn’t have to be thought of as in vain: she died as someone she had always wanted to be, a huntress who without question would fight to protect everyone, no matter the costs. When Ren and Nora arrive he shares with them this realization, and they all accept that Pyrrha’s choices were her sticking to her true self, and that they should continue their journey as she would by sticking to their devotion to be hunters and huntresses.

But now we’re back to square one. Was this woman really Pyrrha’s mother or Pyrrha’s spirit? Well, I’ll answer that question with a question: What interpretation makes this scene more powerful to you? That Pyrrha’s mother helped give Jaune closure and Jaune reassured her that her daughter was a hero? Or that Pyrrha’s spirit helped give Jaune closure and Jaune told her she died a hero? Which interpretation is the more interesting one to you?

Which brings us to a third variation of “Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane”

3. It’s both a narrative device and something fun to think about

Not only are you being provided a framework for a character’s development, you are also being given a choice to decide how you think the scene works. Whatever decision you make as to whether something is paranormal or not, it is your interpretation that maximizes the scene’s impact on you. The writer’s aren’t the ones who decide the answer, you are. And somehow, that kind of makes you part of the story.

This is why I consider this the best scene in all of Volume 6. Its main power is giving Jaune and the viewer some definitive closure over Pyrrha’s death, answers questions and conflicts over something that people have pondered about since the finale of Volume 3. And yet there’s an even bigger question posed over who the woman is. A question that the show has not answered and will not answer for sure. A question the writers have made the conscious decision to leave out of their hands.

The only person who can answer the question is you. Whatever answer satisfies you the most, that is your truth. And whatever your truth is, well, then let it be canon.

#crtq #rwby6 #rwby #pyrrha nikos #jaune arc #rwby6 spoilers #rwby spoilers #reviewby

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stillthewordgirl · 5 years

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LOT/CC fic: Somewhere on Your Road Tonight (ch. 13)

Sara and Leonard made a life for themselves, together in 1958, after the Waverider left them, Ray and Kendra behind. But now they're back on the ship, Mick has been twisted into Chronos, Kendra is pregnant, and Savage is still out there. They'll deal--together. (Sequel to "Chances Are.")

And now we start the "Destiny" chapters! There will be four of them. I've been planning these a long time, and there are many changes coming to fruition. Thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta!

Can also be read here at AO3 or here at FF.net.

The space beneath the Waverider’s floor is deep but narrow. Sara, her face buried in Leonard’s collarbone, tightens her arms around him as they lean into each other, trying to keep each other upright despite the strain on legs and backs. Leonard’s forced to stoop just a little, and Sara’s willing to bet it must be hell on his back, but his breathing is nearly silent as he holds her there and the Time Masters’ lackeys stomp back and forth above.

It’s a good thing, she thinks again, that they’re together and used to being in each other’s space at this point. If they were still just friends, revolving around each other and keeping their distance with flirting and innuendo, this could be pretty damned awkward.

It’s an interminable amount of time later, but eventually the sound of footsteps fades. They wait longer. Finally, Sara feels Leonard lift his head, listening. Then she feels him sigh and pull away.

She lets him go with faint reluctance, watching as he climbs up onto the slightly raised platform where they’d entered this hidden area. He pushes up the floor panel, glancing around, and then clambers out. Sara moves toward him, accepting his hand to climb out, letting out a long breath as she glances around the silent bridge.

“How did you even know that was down there?” she asks Leonard, who’s looking around restlessly.

“When Rip first recruited us, I made it my business to case every square inch of this tub in the event there was something worth stealing,” he tells her, looking around, then glance back. “There wasn't.”

He pauses, and Sara lets a smile tug at her lips, at odds with the position in which they find themselves. “I hope,” she says delicately, “that there were other worthwhile things.”

The corner of his mouth ticks upward too, but only momentarily. Leonard’s expression goes serious, deadly serious, and there’s something in his eyes Sara doesn’t think she’s ever seen before. Not when they were first stuck in Harmony Falls. Not even when they found out about Mick as Chronos.

“Should we get out of here?” he asks quietly, his tone a bit…

Yes. That’s it. He sounds…broken.

Sara stares back at him. “Wait,” she says cautiously, “what about the team?”

Leonard’s eyes, she thinks, are tormented. And he’s acting far more hesitant than she’d expected. “I…” He pauses. “I…after what Mick said. About the Time Masters. Do you think…is there even anything we can do for them?”

Sara, taken aback, shakes her head in disbelief. “Leonard,” she says carefully, “I…would you just leave Mick? The others?”

Her lover glances away, mouth tight. “If the Time Masters are half as twisted as Mick said, there's an excellent chance Mick is no longer Mick.” He lets out a long breath and appears about to say more, then stops, watching her.

Sara’s struck by the thought that he wants her to convince him otherwise, the better angels of his nature warring against a lifetime of being a survivor. The Leonard she’d met in the beginning, icy and cynical, might have run with barely a backward glance.

This is not that Leonard.

But he’s terrified, she can see it in the tightness around his eyes, the stiffness of his movements as he looks around the bridge. Sara frowns, stepping closer. He’s one of the bravest men she knows, and this is uncharacteristic, now, in more ways than one.

What’s going on?

It feels like a panic attack again. And while that’s probably even pretty justified, given their circumstances, Leonard’s having a particularly hard time getting a grip—and it’s not like he can go somewhere quiet now for a bit, to try to get his breathing and his racing heart under control.

And Sara’s staring at him with an odd mix of understanding and dismay at his words, clearly wondering what’s going on.

“I'm not going anywhere,” she says firmly, then waves a hand. “And even if we wanted to, we're in a hangar surrounded by an entire armada of timeships.”

Getouttahere-getouttahere-getherouttahere...

Leonard tries to take a deep breath. He’s not entirely successful. “It's the Waverider,” he points out, hearing the ragged sound of his own voice. “We've got guns. We could blast our way out.”

Sara’s chin goes up. “This isn't 'Bonnie and Clyde,'” she informs him, disappointment thick in her voice. “And I'm not going anywhere without the rest of the team.” A pause. “What about Kendra and Ray? Their son...”

He can’t let that kid grow up without his parents. He can’t. But...

“Sara...” he says, hearing his own voice as if it’s miles away.

And right over the top of it, a snarl, also in his own voice, if a vastly different tone. Maybe I didn't make myself clear.

The fingers of his right hand twitch, as they’ve been doing since it was rebuilt. Toward his cold gun, still holstered at his side.

You idiot! A voice, suddenly clear as day in his head, hisses. It’s also his voice. But also…different.

Sara’s eyes widen, but Leonard only sees that for a second before he folds into one of the jump seats, eyes squeezed shut, shaking his head. He puts his hands on his knees, fingers contracted and nails digging into his jeans, and takes a deep breath.

“What. The. Fuck,” he mutters.

He hears Sara step closer. “Are you OK?” she asks quietly.

“Don’t know.” Leonard waits another moment, then opens his eyes. "I think so.”

Somehow, things seem clearer now, without the sort of weird echoes he was getting before. After a moment, he gets back to his feet, shaking his new hand roughly, cursing its recalcitrant nature.

Then he looks at Sara, whose expression is very carefully blank.

Would he, in different circumstances, have pulled his gun on her, to try to force her to get them both out of here safely? He’s not pleased to admit that he probably would have. Between the things Mick has told him about the Time Masters and his strong conviction that this whole thing is going bad, Alexa bad, fast, all the traits that make him a survivor might have led him to do something he’d later regret, just because at least he'd be alive to regret it.

He’s a survivor.

Just like Vandal Savage said.

But he’s also a survivor who loves Sara Lance, and he’s trying to be a better man.

“Sorry,” he says quietly. And Sara nods.

Then the old-fashioned phone in Rip’s office rings.

Sara’s so grateful to hear Gideon’s voice that she feels tears prickle at her eyes. So, she closes them, taking a deep breath, listening to the AI’s calm voice as Gideon explains their plight and that of the others in more detail.

She can also hear Leonard’s still slightly uneven breathing, the panic he’s still fighting to control. Sara hadn’t missed how his hand had twitched toward his gun, a survivor’s reflex she’s sure wasn’t fully within his control.

She’s positive, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Leonard wouldn’t hurt her. But she also remembers the terror in his eyes, the tightly pent-in fear and the lifetime of doing what it takes to survive. And there’s more going on, too. His conviction that their strings are being pulled. His odd reactions to various occurrences. His surety that something, someone, else is messing with him.

By the time Gideon’s speaking over the ship’s comms again, he looks a little better, moving closer to Sara, who’s glad for his presence despite the lingering tension. She leans into his shoulder a little as he stops by her side, hearing and feeling his faint sigh as he relaxes a fraction himself.

“Ms. Lance is correct,” the AI is telling them. “We’re surrounded by timeships. However…” She pauses. “I…and Captain Hunter, of course…may have come up with measures that could eliminate them, if needed. For a time.”

“Why, Gideon,” Leonard drawls, sounding far more like himself. “Are you suggesting…sabotage?”

The pause is just lengthy enough that it’s clear that’s precisely what the AI is suggesting. And she never does answer that question in so many words. “There are enough devices in the armory, in the container labeled ‘experimental overrides,’ to adequately derail every timeship in the armada for a time,” she announces. “Captain Hunter thought they might be useful one day. You will simply have to retrieve and set them before placing them on the ships.”

“The ships,” Sara repeats. “The ones all around us.”

“The ones that could blow us up if we twitch,” Leonard adds sardonically. “Oh. Easy.”

“You will simply have to be your sneaky self and watch Ms. Lance’s back, Mr. Snart.” Sara hides a smile as Leonard blinks at Gideon’s comeback, which is a bit more openly snide than the AI usually gets. “No one is on these ships, however, and no one is looking for you here. As no one could find you on this ship, they will have presumed you have already fled and are at large, probably looking for your teammates. And they presume that I, as you said, am no longer…‘alive.’”

There’s no self-pity in the AI’s voice, but in a way, that just makes her matter-of-fact statement even more poignant. Sara glances at Leonard, seeing the same mix of sympathy and concentration, but he doesn’t speak. Not yet.

So Sara does.

“But, Gideon,” she says slowly, “we don’t want to leave the team, even if we can get that breathing room. You can’t want us to abandon Captain Hunter. We…”

“I don’t want you to abandon anyone, Ms. Lance,” Gideon says crisply, cutting in. “But once you get enough breathing room, for lack of a better term, to make a time jump, you can, as they say…fake them out.”

Sara considers that as Leonard hums thoughtfully.

“Not quite following,” she admits. “Help me here, Gideon. It’s been a rough day.”

“You don’t have to jump forward,” the AI tells her. “Nor backward. You…”

It clicks. “…can just go somewhere else in the same time.” Sara grins, getting it. “Like out of this hangar, elsewhere in the Vanishing Point, before they notice.”

“Indeed.”

“Gideon,” Leonard cuts in now. “Where are these devices?”

The AI tells him succinctly, and Leonard departs, as Sara studies the diagram of the Vanishing Point that Gideon has pulled up for them, pinpointing the location of the cellblock where the others are being held. By the time Leonard has returned, hefting the crate and placing it carefully on the holotable, they have at least a working plan.

They open the crate, and Sara pulls out one of the disks within, considering it. “We just need to stick one of these to each ship?” she asks Gideon. “Really?”

“Yes, Ms. Lance. They use adapted sound waves,” Gideon tells them, then pauses. “You can, should you wish, pick a song. That might be even more distracting that simply random noise.”

Sara looks at the disk, then lifts an eyebrow, looking at Leonard. He smirks a little, regarding her in return.

“I could we could pick something with adequate profanity,” he drawls, shrugging, “or…”

“Or,” Sara tells him in return, grinning. “I think I have the perfect idea.”

Gideon is right. No one seems to notice as Sara and Leonard—Sara placing the disks, Leonard watching her back—skulk across the floor of the hangar, carefully making sure that every ship has one of the overrides.

“This is a bad plan,” Leonard mutters uneasily, turning from side to side, pointing his cold gun everywhere, watching everything.

“It's Gideon's,” Sara shoots back, slapping another disk down against the side of a ship. She makes sure it’s set, then moves on, carefully, Leonard keeping pace.

“You're not helping your argument,” he mutters. But he doesn’t fool Sara, who smiles to herself as she glances around, setting her course.

“We need to finish putting these on the ships and get back to the Waverider,” she says quietly.

“Well,” Leonard motions with his gun, a Snart smirk hovering at his lips despite everything. “Carry on.”

And she does.

Leonard, despite his earlier conviction (unreasonable, he’d admit) that they’d be able to “Bonnie-and-Clyde” their way out of the Vanishing Point, is skeptical as they return to the Waverider. However, his pessimism is conflicting with Sara’s confidence, and gradually, she starts to infect him with it, too.

Is it really possible they might pull this off? Sprawled on the floor and watching her with hooded eyes, Leonard actually feels a faint stir of hope. If they can just get the team back…if Mick is still Mick…if…if…if…

He doesn’t realize he’s been tapping his ring restlessly against a metal beam until Sara sighs, drawing his attention to where she sits across from him.

“Can you stop doing that?” she asks wearily, then gets up and heading onto the bridge proper as he pulls his hand away from the beam. “Why did you start wearing that thing, anyways?”

She knows the ring’s story already—she’d been there when, while moving his things into her room, he’d found the small piece of silver in a pocket. He’d told her about the warehouse in Freeport, the first job he’d ever planned with Mick, both of them still in their teens. Leonard had only recently dropped out of school, giving up on reintegrating back into so-called normal society after his stints in juvie, and Mick was already unapologetically a criminal; still, Len’s experience had been limited to jobs with Lewis and Mick’s to basic smash-and-grabs.

Leonard had known that he was a better planner than Lewis, even at that age. This had been his first chance to prove to himself that he could strike out on his own and do better than his father ever had.

Except that, for all his planning, everything had gone sideways.

He holds up his hand, studying the ring, thinking about how they’d just gotten into the warehouse between the shift changes, through a rarely used door. It wasn’t so long after a big delivery from a jewelry wholesaler—nothing that would make them rich, but Mick knew someone who’d buy even good costume jewelry at decent prices.

Leonard had just cracked one crate, though, double-checking its contents, when Mick had tripped the shiny new security system that hadn’t there even a day or two before. Len had grabbed a box and bolted, and while at least the two of them had made it out safely, all they’d come away with were a few necklaces (which Leonard had let Mick take to his fence) and the silver ring.

At the time, Leonard was still so slight and scrawny that the ring had been big on even his ring finger. He’d wound some string around the back of it and worn it anyway, as a…

“It's a reminder,” he says, hoisting himself off the floor and ambling toward her, turning his hand and watching the light catch the silver surface. “That even the best laid plans can go sideways.”

Sara made a thoughtful noise and reaches out, gently taking his hand. It’s the sort of casual touch he’s still really not used to, but it’s OK with her. Nice, even. Her hands are small, strong, and calloused, familiar in so many different ways at this point, and the touch is steadying.

“You thinking this is going to go sideways?” she asks, glancing up at him.

Leonard lets his fingers fold around hers. “Don’t know. The best chance we got, but…I still have a weird feeling there’s more going than we know. And I don’t like it.” He gives her a wry smile. “Not real keen on the idea of trading my life for nothing.”

At least Sara’s going to be the one who stays on the ship in this plan, he thinks, though he doesn’t say it aloud. If the worst happens, she could get out of here.

He doesn’t say it, but he’s pretty sure she hears it anyway. Sara gives him a faint smile in return, leaning closer.

“Well,” she says firmly, “you better not. You’ve got better things to do with that life.”

“With you?”

It’s meant as a quip, but the question comes out quieter and more solemn than he plans. Sara’s eyes go more serious too, and she studies him a moment. They’ve avoided talking about the future, not until Savage is defeated, but that doesn’t mean neither of them have thought of it, and…

“The Time Drive is back online,” Gideon cuts in neatly. And it’s probably just as well; this isn’t the time or the place, but Leonard sighs as he straightens from his lean. Sara squeezes his hand before they move apart, her to the captain’s chair and him to a jump seat.

The Waverider lifts smoothly into the air and rockets out of the hangar. Leonard watches Sara take a deep breath, nod to herself, and then lift her voice and order, “Gideon….now!”

And the ship jumps--to the other side of the Vanishing Point, close to the cell block where the others are being held. Sara brings it down fast and quiet, and Leonard’s already out of his seat, checking his gun and throwing one more look her way.

“I’ve activated the overrides,” Gideon announces. “And they are working quite well, if I do say so myself.” She pauses. “Would you like to hear?”

Leonard pauses as Sara glances at him. “Sure.”

“…singing a song. Don't mess around, you just got to be strong Just stop…”

Sara laughs, but Leonard can’t resist, despite the time constraints. He takes a few steps to the captain’s chair and leans over, kissing her firmly as the Captain and Tennille sing. Sara laughs again, against his lips, and curves a hand around the back of his head to hold him there.

“ ‘Cause I really love you. Stop! I'll be thinking of you.”

“Be careful,” she tells him breathlessly as they break the kiss, and Leonard turns for the hatch.

“You know it.”

“Look in my heart…And let love…keep us together…”

As soon as Leonard’s off the ship, the Waverider rises again, looping around and rising into the air. He’s not watching, though, immediately heading for the door Gideon’s schematics had told them would be nearby.

It’s locked, but application of a cold gun blast and then a firm boot to the center send the door crashing inward. The guard inside only gets off one shot, which Leonard dodges, before a punch lays him out on the floor. Then Leonard bolts up the stairs, gun primed and ready, taking out a few more startled guards before he reaches the level he’s looking for.

As he turns into the hallway that should lead him to the cell block, he hears voices ahead.

“…we've calculated when the Waverider is headed.”

“Past or future?”

“The present.”

Leonard smirks as he hears the Waverider’s guns fire outside, shaking the building as Sara gives him a particularly violent distraction. Striding forward, he fires his cold gun at the soldier who turns toward him, then slams the weapon into the head of the robed older man, stepping aside as he falls to the floor.

“Somebody order up a rescue?” he drawls, glancing around at his teammates in their cells, frowning as he realizes that someone…two someones are missing.

Stein sighs, relief and pain in the sound. “Mr. Snart, your timing is impeccable.”

Leonard, though, sees Raymond’s eyes widen as the scientist looks past him. “Or not!”

He spins, aiming the cold gun, just as Chronos…no, it’s Mick, it’s always Mick, even in that armor…pauses in the doorway. Then the armored figure starts forward, slowly, gun aimed at Leonard, inexorably.

“Put the gun down, Mick,” he says. An order and a plea, both. Can his friend hear it?

But Mick doesn’t listen, moving until his gun is nearly right in Leonard’s face, and another man in robes moves quickly into the room behind him, circling to the right, barely tossing Leonard a quick glance before focusing on Mick.

“Chronos,” he orders. “Fire!”

A pause. And then: “Sure thing,” Chronos rumbles in a tone that’s all Mick, whipping his gun around and firing at the Time Master, who’s so startled that he doesn’t even try to get out of the way. The energy bolt crashes into him, and he topples to the floor as Mick pulls off his helmet, advancing toward him.

“If I recall, I made you a certain promise,” he informs the fallen man.

“No, I beg of you. No!”

Leonard makes himself watch, but then turns away before Mick can see the look on his face. He hits the panel at the side of Rip’s cell before spinning toward Raymond’s. “Where’s Kendra?” he asks as he opens the door, heart sinking at the look on the scientist’s face.

“They took her. They gave her to Savage!” Raymond’s voice is both furious and heartbroken as he stumbles out the door. “She fought, but there were too many. I…”

“We’ll get her back,” Leonard tells him, watching Mick open Stein’s door and help the man inside out. “And where is our least-favorite psychopath?”

“On his way to kill my family,” Rip says dully, approaching them. “You were right, Mr. Snart. The Time Masters are the ones who put Savage in power. And everything we’ve done has been helping them.” He shakes his head. “They’ve been doing more than pulling our strings. They’ve been setting our course. All along. Perhaps our entire lives.”

Leonard freezes, staring at him. For all his cynicism and suspicion of the Time Masters, there’s still a part of him that’s stunned to hear all those suspicions confirmed. “What?”

Another volley of fire from the Waverider shakes the walls, then, and Rip shakes his head roughly.

“Back to the ship, first,” he says. “We have a lot to talk about…but first we need to get out of here.”

#somewhere on your road tonight #captain canary #legends of tomorrow

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curiousobsession101 · 6 years

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@ichthus95 and a few other people and me are in a Starfinder campaign DMed by one of my two best friends (not @littleblackdragonbayard , one who doesn’t have a tumblr). Originally the party was my character Ressa (a true neutral damaya lashunta), ichthus’ character Sim (a chaotic good ysoki), and Bolt (a true neutral android). Here are some highlights from our campaign so far:

Session 1:

Sim: They did shoot me. Ressa: You wouldn’t have been shot if you hadn’t run out in front of them. Sim: That’s victim blaming! A few sessions later our assignment by the Starfinder society had led to us exploring a derelict ship with a mysteriously missing crew. On the ship we quickly found a lone survivor, a true neutral vesk named Gomorod (technically an npc) who immediately joined out party. It turned out the ship was attacked by monsters that were weak to water, and after the crew was killed some goblins had arrived to collect scrap and had been killed by the monsters too, with only two survivors. Later, same session: Ressa: I give the goblins each a flask of water. DM: They seem slightly disappointed these won’t set anything on fire. Ressa: You can set the ship on fire after we’re done investigating it. Goblins: We can we can?! Ressa (OOC): *laughing* I like them. Can we keep them? Sim (OOC): *also laughing* Yeah!!

(We didn’t set the ship on fire.)

End of that session:

DM: I didn’t expect them to actually survive! Now I have to come up with names and classes for them!! The goblins are called Stinky and Smelly and they’re our unofficial party mascots now. After exploring the ship we went to this asteroid where an android bounty hunter shot at us. We fought and won but didn’t kill him, and he joined our party (Thrynn, a chaotic neutral android played by someone who had joined the campaign late.) Eventually we ended up in a situation that required formalwear and this happened: Sim: Does a lab coat count as formal clothing? Thrynn: Do you have a tie to go with it? Sim: That is a GREAT idea!

Then we were doing some research in a library and Thrynn picked up a book on Aucturn. This whole conversation was OOC: Ressa: Wait you’re interested in Aucturn? Thrynn: Yes. Ressa: And we’ve confirmed you speak Infernal? Thrynn: Yes. Ressa: What’s your alignment again? Thrynn: Chaotic Neutral. This is just professional curiosity. Ressa: Oh yeah, being a bounty hunter means you need to know as much as possible about Nyarlathotep and them. Thrynn: Of course. Ressa: Wait, was it someone on Aucturn who hired you to kill us?” Android 2: “I told you, I don’t know who hired me. Ressa: Maybe it was a shell company on Aucturn! (later, same conversation, still OOC, also Ressa is a priestess of Lao Shu Po): Ressa: Well Ressa wouldn’t question your alignment based on your interest in Aucturn. She’d just find it interesting. Thrynn: Your character worships a death rat. Ressa: Exactly! Much later we’re in a forest surrounded by creatures colloquially called “stingbats”. We’ve killed all but one. DM: The last stingbat looks like it doesn’t really want to fight anymore. Ressa: We should let it go. Bolt: Yeah, no point wasting charges if it’s not even gonna fight otherwise. Later, same campaign after a much tougher fight: DM: The stingbat from earlier shows up and holds out a mark one serum of healing to you. Ressa: Awesome. Can we keep it? Sim: Yeah it can be our new pet! DM: Ugh, NO! Bolt: Aw, why not?

(the stingbat stayed with us for several sessions after that perched on a party member’s shoulder) Thrynn’s player has missed a few sessions for various reasons. Whenever we have a session and he’s not there we joke that Thrynn is updating and the reason it takes so long to update is because he was made by Apple. At one point he was gone for several sessions in a row and we made frequent jokes about how long it was taking him to update. This was during that time:

DM: The fungal spores are no longer dangerous, but they cover the ground in drifts about three feet deep and they stain anything that touches them pink. Sim: That’s almost as tall as I am. Um, I stay behind Gomorod and walk in the path he clears out. DM: Actually, Gomorod picks up Thrynn and basically uses him as a snowplow through the spores. He’s pink all over now. Bolt: A sporeplow! Ressa (OOC): Oh my god, he upgraded to the rose gold version!

A couple sessions later:

DM: Ressa, roll charisma. Ressa (OOC): Um why? DM: Just roll it. Ressa (OOC): Nat 20. My first decent roll today. DM: This creature [shows a picture of a sky fisher] appears in front of you and shoots sticky threads at you. You are now entangled. That roll was to look like the most delicious party member. (a round or two later, having established the sky fisher is a very strong opponent) Ressa: I try to communicate with it telepathically and tell it that whoever’s been shooting at us from on top of that statue must be way more delicious than someone as scrawny as me. DM: It considers for a moment, and then you feel it touch your minds again and say “I will help you.” Later, same session, the sky fisher has eaten the npc on top of the statue. (This conversation is all OOC): DM: Wow, they really didn’t plan for you guys to have telepathy. Ressa: What? But there’s two main playble races with telepathy! DM: I know but they apparently really didn’t expect you to convince the sky fisher the shirren would be delicious. They have TONS of information on what you could have found out from interrogating them. Ressa: Well that sky fisher was super helpful. Could we persuade it to join our party? DM: NO!! Bolt: Oh come on, it’s really good in a fight! DM: OK if you go back to civilization in Castrovel with a sky fisher following you, you’ll be shot on sight. They really don’t like sky fishers there. Thrynn: Why not? DM: THEY EAT PEOPLE! Thrynn and Ressa: So? Sim: But it can turn invisible. Can’t we just have it turn invisible when we get back to the city? DM: If they pass a check they’ll notice it. Thrynn: OK so we just need to get it to fly high enough that it’s too far away for them to notice it if it’s invisible. Sim: How tall are the buildings here? *cue a ten minute long discussion of how to get the sky fisher on our spaceship without being noticed* DM: Well if you ask it to join your party it will tell you it doesn’t like enclosed spaces like a spaceship. Whole party: Aw..

There have been a few jokes during the campaign that instead of a stereotypical “seduce ALL the things!” party we’re an “adopt ALL the things!” party. Also our stingbat ran away before we could take it to the ship with us and we all miss it terribly. Today we had the last session of the second segment of our campaign. Here are the highlights. (Sim’s backstory is that he has been a college student pretty much his entire adult life but he’s decided to take a gap year and gain some real-world experience by temporarily joining the Starfinder Society.)

(this conversation is all OOC, also keep in mind Thrynn and Ressa are the most money-hungry characters in the party) DM: After you get back to the university of Castrovel, you’re offered two options of payment. Either each of you can take a 1000 credit “research grant” or you can take up to three years free tuition at the university. Sim: I’ll take the research grant. Thrynn: Do they have online classes? DM: No. Thrynn: I might just leave the party to get my degree here. DM: It’s only for three years. Thrynn: I’ll take some extra classes, it’ll be fine. Ressa: Yeah honestly, can Ressa ask for a moment to think about it. After what’s happened, she’s discovered an interest in learning about history and other religions. Bolt: Yeah, free classes! Thrynn: We can go back to the Starfinder Society in three years! DM: You do this, you go back three years later and the universe has ended. Thrynn: Not my problem. Ressa: Ressa wouldn’t care. DM: Yes Ressa would care! That’s where she keeps all her stuff! Ressa: But HISTORY! DM: And [our direct superior in the Starfinder Society] is mad at you. Sim: Wait, why’s he mad at us? Ressa: He means he’d be mad at us if we quit the Starfinder Society to go to college. DM: Yeah because you’re well aware that even if what you found out turns out to be wrong, all the Devourer cultists would rally around it and try to destroy the entire universe and you didn’t stop them! Thrynn: OK then just let us take online classes. Bolt: We have a system-wide comm unit now. *several minutes of arguing later* DM: OK! You can take online classes! Jeez! Bolt: Great! Now whenever [Thrynn’s player] isn’t here we can just say Thrynn is doing homework! Sim: Sorry, got a term paper coming up. Thrynn: Look mom! I’m getting smart! DM: Oh god no... (Sim ended up being the only one to take the money and the rest of us are now officially enrolled at the university.) (During this conversation Ressa opens telepathic communications with the other party members so they can talk without Aria hearing.)

DM: OK as you approach your ship you see a cloaked figure approach. She introduces herself as Aria and offers to pay you to take her to Akiton because she has a shipment of cargo to sell. Bolt (OOC): I can’t tell from the picture, what species is she? DM: That’s a life science check. *one of our party rolled high* DM: She’s an elf. *after a little bit of discussion where we talked about how smuggling stuff to Akiton was EXTREMELY SUSPICIOUS and we didn’t want to get in potential danger but also most of the party are greedy fucks* DM: She offers to pay you 10,000 credits to take her to Akiton. Ressa (via telepathy): OK her cargo is DEFINITELY illegal. Thrynn (via telepathy): But that’s a lot of money. Ressa (via telepathy): I’m just concerned it might be slaves. Otherwise, it’s fine. Sim: Will your cargo require any food or water during the trip? Aria: With any luck, no. After a little bit of conversation, we discovered we’d misunderstood and the DM didn’t mean she was smuggling cargo TO Akiton, she was smuggling cargo OFF of Akiton and didn’t much care where we brought her and her cargo to as long as there was a population she could sell to and it wasn’t Castrovel.

Sim (via telepathy): OK if she taking cargo from Akiton I’m slightly less suspicious. Ressa, who grew up on Akiton, (via telepathy): You know how I was a drug dealer on Akiton? Sim (via telepathy): Yeah... Ressa (via telepathy): YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE IS ON AKITON OTHER THAN DRUG DEALERS, SIM? GANGS, CRIMINALS, CEOS DOING ILLEGAL SHIT, SLAVERS! Her cargo coming FROM Akiton rather than going TO Akiton makes it MORE suspicious, not less! DM: She offers to pay you double if you take her somewhere she can sell her cargo. Ressa (via telepathy): Oh man, that’s so much money... Thrynn (via telepathy): Well if we won’t be in danger we can just drop her off somewhere it’ll be their problem. Ressa (OOC): [DM] you said she doesn’t care where we take her? DM: Nope. Ressa (OOC): Can we take her to the Diaspora? DM: It has to be somewhere she can breathe. Ressa (OOC): What about Aballon? Bolt (OOC): She can breathe there as long as she stays underground. DM: You need to take her somewhere there are people who will buy her stuff. Ressa: I know it’s not a planet but if we take her to the kasatha ship- DM: They wouldn’t let her on. Ressa: Darn. Thrynn: What’s on the other side of the Diaspora? DM: Eox. Thrynn: We could take her to Eox. DM: She doesn’t look too happy about it but she accepts your offer to take her to Eox. Ressa: OK if we let her on the ship I think we need to keep her under watch at all times. We can each take turns watching her but I think Gomorod should go first. DM: Gomorod watches her for a day and a night and then tells you he’s refusing to watch her any more. Sim (OOC): Why? DM: She’s creepy. Ressa (OOC): SHE creeps GOMOROD out?? Bolt (OOC): Well elves are generally described as being either ethereally beautiful or kinda creepy. I guess she’s the creepy kind. Ressa (OOC) (I’ve never done a pathfinder-style campaign before this): Pathfinder elves are weird. Either way, if Gomorod is creeped out that’s VERY suspicious. But we can rotate who keeps watch so each of us watches for a day and a night at a time and he doesn’t have to watch her for more than that at a time. Bolt, Sim, and Thrynn (OOC): OK sure. DM: Gomorod refuses to watch her at night. Ressa (OOC): Oh. Well we can rotate day and night shifts so he only watches her during the day. DM: He agrees to that.

Pretty much the whole time Aria is on board and Ressa is awake, Ressa keeps telepathic communications open with Thrynn, Bolt, Sim, and Gomorod.

Sim: I’ll take the next night watch. DM: *sends Sim a private message of what he observes* Sim (OOC): Well now I know why Gomorod was creeped out. The rest of us (OOC): What is it? Won’t you tell us? Sim (OOC): Yeah, I’ll tell the others. DM: She never blinks, and at night her eyes glitter like diamonds. Bolt (OOC): So do we know if this is a normal elven thing? DM: No, you know that elf eyes don’t do that.

Later, we’ve long since picked up her cargo and we’re almost at Verces where we intend to drop off another passenger. This is Sim’s home planet and he plans to use family connections to help her find a job.

Sim (OOC): So how many siblings should I have? DM: About a hundred. Ressa (OOC): So what you’re saying is they breed like rats? DM and Sim (OOC): Yes. Ressa (OOC): So can I roll Diplomacy to try to get [Aria] to answer more questions about herself? Sim (OOC): Is it Ressa’s turn to watch her? Ressa (OOC): She can volunteer to take this shift even if it’s not her turn. [DM] can I roll Diplomacy to ask her questions? DM: You can ask her questions, but don’t bother to roll. Just roleplay this part. Ressa: *asks general questions about the cargo* Aria: *reaffirms that the cargo is not alive but otherwise deflects the questions* DM: You notice that at the back of her head, something seems to be moving under her hood. Aria: *a couple more questions later she excuses herself to the bathroom* Ressa: *follows at a distance and stands in the hallway leading to the bathrooms while Aria is in there* Thrynn (via telepathy): I’m gonna sneak in and try to look at one of the crates. Ressa (via telepathy): I’ll tell you if she comes out of the bathroom. Thrynn: *a few successful rolls later, manages to look in one of the crates* DM: You can see that it’s a statue, but you can’t make out details through the packing peanuts. Ressa (OOC): They still use packing peanuts? DM: Yes, but they’re magic packing peanuts. Bolt (OOC): Are they edible? DM: No, but the ones that fall out of the crate disappear instead of getting everywhere. Later, after Thrynn has made it look like he never opened the crate and left, Ressa and Aria are back in the room, and Ressa’s made a bit more idle chitchat with her: Aria: I’m a bit bored in here with my cargo. Ressa: Would you like me to get you a deck of cards? Aria: I guess. Or maybe I could see more of the ship? Thrynn (via telepathy): If we get her into the holodeck we could set up a game of poker and at some point one of us could “trip” and pull her cloak off. Ressa: We have a holodeck. *smiles* Thrynn just said he’d like to play cards with you. Aria: Ah, right, telepathy. Ressa: *laughs slightly and waves her antennae* That’s a common reaction. *inwardly makes a mental note because even if Aria isn’t an elf we picked her up from Castrovel where almost every sentient native species is telepathic so it seems odd at best for Aria to react that way*

(OOC Thrynn made it very clear one of his plans was to try to seduce Aria into either admitting what she was or taking off her cloak.)

Thrynn (OOC): Wow, Ressa’s doing really well at poker. Ressa (OOC): Yeah, see, I can roll high when the rolls don’t actually matter! Thrynn (OOC): We’re almost at Verces, right? DM: Yeah. Thrynn (OOC): Can we slow down so we don’t get there just yet? Bolt, who is in another room, (OOC): I’m part of the telepathic skype call right? Ressa (OOC): Yeah, with this psychic booster we got Ressa can communicate telepathically almost all the way across the ship. Sim (OOC): But I’m the pilot! I’ll do it. Just give me an excuse to leave. Thrynn: I’m parched. Sim, do you think you could get us some drinks? Sim: What kind of drinks? Thrynn: Pan-galactic gargle blaster. Ressa (OOC): NO we need to not be incapacitated. Thrynn (OOC): Virgin pan-galactic gargle blaster! Ressa (OOC): Every single ingredient is a strong intoxicant and some of them are fatal! Thrynn (OOC): A virgin pan-galactic gargle blaster is just water.

Eventually we settled for Starfinder equivalents of vodka, tequila, and whiskey. It quickly became clear that Aria either isn’t affected by alcohol or has an insanely high tolerance. Also we weren’t getting to Verces until this whole thing reached some kind of conclusion.

Thrynn (OOC): So now we won’t get there until after nightfall right? Ressa (OOC): Yep so you get to tell her her eyes sparkle.

Ressa: *to Aria* I have some really good hyperleaf if you want some. Aria: Alcohol is the only drug I do. Ressa: *nods* *says via telepathy* She doesn’t know what she’s passing up. I NEVER give my drugs away for free.

Thrynn: Let’s make things a little more interesting. The winner drinks one shot, and the loser drinks two. Ressa (via telepathy): I deal drugs. I don’t do drugs! Thrynn (via telepathy): You can drink shots of water it’s fine. Ressa (via telepathy): No I’m doing this. I just won’t be drinking much. Ressa (OOC): She’s probably a super lightweight. Sim (OOC): Well she’s very light weight. Ressa (OOC): Exactly! Plus she’s never gotten drunk in her life.

Ressa (OOC): Wait you’re drinking booze in real life?? Thrynn (OOC): I’m a method actor!

Thrynn: So you’re from Castrovel right? Aria: Yes. Thrynn: *starts making small talk in Castrovellian which we all speak* Aria: *responding in Castrovellian but no more talkative than before* Ressa: *looking at Aria’s empty glass* *speaking in Elven* Want another drink? Aria: Y-yes? DM: Aria is hesitant, like she’s not sure she’s responding correctly. Ressa: *in Castrovellian because most of the party doesn’t speak Elven* Sim could you get Aria a refill? Sim: Sure. Ressa: *to Aria, in Elven again* Don’t you speak Elven? Aria: *turns to Thrynn and speaks in either Common or Castrovellian it wasn’t specified* Want to play another round? Ressa (via telepathy): She doesn’t speak Elven!

DM: Gomorod’s getting tipsy. Aria doesn’t look affected at all. Party: Seriously??

Ressa (up to this point hasn’t had anything to drink): I shoot Thrynn a dirty look and down the two shots. Thrynn (via telepathy): You could just drink water. Ressa (via telepathy): I’m hoping if I’m theatrical about this I’ll amuse her.

Thrynn: Let’s make this more interesting. *takes a flower out of his bag that had previously been employed as a sort of magical lure that almost got Ressa and Bolt killed and even now is remarkably well preserved* If you win, I give you this flower. If I win, you drink that entire bottle of booze. Aria: Are you flirting with me?? Thrynn: Are you declining the challenge? Aria: Fine. Thrynn lost his flower but the round after that Aria lost. DM: After downing the whole bottle, you notice Aria starting to act slightly tipsy. Party: FINALLY! Ressa: *loses again* I guess I have to pay up. If you don’t want my drugs, I don’t have much... Aria: I don’t think you have anything I want. Ressa: Are you sure there’s nothing I could give you that you might want? Sim: That sounded very suggestive. Ressa (OOC): Oh thank god. In real life I’m super aro ace. I don’t know how to flirt!

Thrynn: Well I don’t really have anything else to wager. Let’s make this more interesting. How about strip poker? Thrynn (OOC): OK what does Ressa take off? Ressa (OOC): *almost says she takes of her shirt but then realizes something* Is casual clothing in the Starfinder universe equivalent to clothing in real life? DM: Yeah. Ressa (OOC): OK then- DM: She can take off her jacket. Ressa (OOC): Would she even be wearing a jacket? Oh whatever, she takes off her jacket. DM: Aria takes off the jacket she wears under her cloak. Thrynn can briefly see her forearms before she hides them under the table. They’re scaly. DM: Aria takes off her vest. Ressa (OOC): How many layers is she wearing?! DM: It’s in the picture. Sim (OOC): A lot.

Aria: I know what you’re trying to do. *gets up and walks to the door* Ressa: I follow her. Wait. It’s just that we know you’re lying to us. I’m not usually such a stickler for the truth but we need to be absolutely sure you’re not a danger to us. We weren’t trying to antagonize you. Aria: *sighs* I guess you’re going to pull this out of me no matter what. *reaches for her hood* Ressa: *hurriedly* Just don’t attack us and we don’t have a problem. DM: She pulls back her hood. She’s a medusa.

Thrynn (OOC): This makes me nervous about the statues. Bolt (OOC): Can flesh to stone be reversed? Sim (OOC): Yeah, flesh to stone can be reversed by a strong enough mystic.

Long story short, our characters questioned her and it turns out she’s spent her life making a living by turning “perverted” criminals into statues and selling them to rich people around the system as art pieces. She hid her identity because most races are pretty prejudiced against medusas because of the whole turning people to stone thing. Our characters immediately relaxed when we found this out.

Sim: We’re almost at Verces. Would you like to sell your cargo here instead of waiting for us to get to Eox? DM: She very much prefers selling on Verces than Eox. Necromancers and scavengers really don’t like medusas.

Once she realized we weren’t going to treat her badly because of her race, Aria asked to join our crew.

Ressa: Well we work for the Starfinder Society. You wouldn’t get much chance to do the kind of work you’ve been doing. Bolt: Plus there’s lots of firefights. Ressa: Is that OK with you? Bolt: All the bullets... Aria: A life of investigation and adventure? Count me in.

Aria: Plus I prefer to live somewhere people don’t want to stone me. Ressa: Is that why you refused the hyperleaf?

Sim: So I’ll ask my hundred or so siblings. Actually, we slowed down going to Verces, right? So it’s probably more now. Ressa: It’s only been a few hours! Also, your parents really need a hobby. Bolt: They have one! Thrynn: And they’re very good at it.

Sim: I hope nobody here is lactose intolerant because EVERYTHING in this dinner is gonna have cheese in it. Ressa: Even though Ressa has a clear spindle she’s gonna try a little bit of everything because she’s never had such good food in her life. She’s had Akiton-whatever-she-could-scrounge-up food and tasteless protein wafers and that’s it. And she’s going to compliment the chef. Aria: Aria too. She’s never had a home-cooked meal in her life.

Sim (OOC): Wait. [DM] I think my mom’s gonna have a SEIZURE when she sees Ressa. Ressa (OOC): Um she’ll try to placate her and explain that yes, she grew up starving on Akiton but she has a clear spindle now and doesn’t actually need food or water so she’s fine. DM: Will she have an issue with Aria keeping her face covered? She won’t want them to see her glittering eyes. Sim (OOC): She’ll be fine with that. She’ll just be upset I’m letting my friend go around malnourished.

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