#she sees how broken shiv is and she reaches out in the end

[doodoocumfart]

Cant stop thinking abt Marcia. about the wake and the funeral, how gross everyone treated her from start to bitter end. And she went out of her way to be kind to shiv in her very last scene, and while she is so WOW for taking the high road…..that would NOT have been me.

But I guess that hurt shiv the most lmao. she was fully braced for some cutting remark and Marcia doesn’t give it to her. Cuz Marcia is done. Shiv cannot comprehend why she chooses to be gentle and empathetic for once because she is so full of resentment and she assumes Marcia is the same. She expects Marcia to be an enemy, it’s easy. It’s something that’s safe and it’s that mentality her own father leans into to provide false loyalty in the episode vaulter. But Marcia only sees her as a broken sad child forever chasing a man whose approval was on a whim. She isn’t even worth contempt. And shiv doesn’t know if she should be angry sad or confused.

#Marcia the woman you are #she isn’t perfect but when ppl act like she was crazy for being hostile to shiv I’m blowing you up #shiv irreversibly and illegally violated her privacy and personhood by episode 3 it was never gonna be good between them #Mfw when hatecriming ur step mom kinda causes a rift lmao #and YET #she sees how broken shiv is and she reaches out in the end #Marcia being called cold blooded will never sit right w me #she is survivor sure #ruthless sure #but she has more empathy in her pinky than any roy has in every cell in their body combined #it’s so gross when ppl demand this endless grace from Marcia for a woman who literally wouldn’t care if she dropped dead tomorrow #go to actual hell #‘​‘actually shiv had every right to be suspisocous’’ no she didn’t the narrative quite literally constantly insists she doesn’t

[lethalchiralium]

Alejandro who’s S/O gets captured, and when he rescues her, she’s moments away from death, but everything turns out okay, because we like happy endings in this household. 😭

Back To You | Alejandro Vargas x Wife!Reader

a/n: you guys got me fucked up. how can i be more in love with alejandro??? shits crazy. alejandro is a sensitive man underneath his whole military facade. good men cry. if you don’t believe that or like it, get off my blog please 🤍

warnings: mentions of blood, injury, guns, kidnapping. vague mentions of torture.

summary: Alejandro lost himself when he found his home broken into, you were gone and the gun he gave you to protect yourself left on the floor of the living room.

This would be the last place Alejandro would be searching before settling Las Almas ablaze. The damn cartel had enough nerve to break into his home and take what he cared for the most - his wife.

He was nervous. Yes, you knew how to protect yourself for the most part, it was evident when Alejandro saw the pistol he had given you on the floor of your home, ten of the thirteen bullet fired. He was also nervous, seeing so much blood in his home.

The warehouse was quiet now, his team had killed most of the targets and now he was running through hallways. Kicking down doors, clearing cells that were empty to begin with - he was beginning to lose faith.

Mi sol, mi sol, ¿Dónde están?

He had knocked down twenty doors before he found the last one, his heart in his throat. He turned to Rodolfo behind him. The Sergeant Major nodded to him, keeping his rifle up as Alejandro looked back to the wooden door. He raised his leg, slamming his foot into it. The door splinted into pieces as it slammed into the wall, Alejandro moved forwards with his rifle in his hands. The flashlight on the gun shined around the room, another concrete room with just a metal chair in the middle. He stepped into the room, moving towards the chair.

Fresh blood.

“Pendejo!” A voice screeched before a weight was attached onto Alejandro’s back, forcing him to stumble forwards. He twisted while his hands went up and grabbed the arm around his throat, pulling it away.

“Y/N! Y/N, it’s us!” He heard Rudy shout, the weight on his back stopped moving. Alejandro felt the weight quickly slide off of him, he whipped around so fast to see you. His bleeding heart ruptured, and a tidal wave ensued as soon as he saw your bloody face, scared and tearful.

“Ale.” Your voice was nothing compared to your war cry only moments before, it was barely a whisper as you held your hands close to your chest. “Ale.” He watched as the small shiv in your hands dropped to the floor, mutely clattering against the concrete.

His arms reached for you, you dove into him. His hands dug into your hair and his other arm pulled you tight, but you loudly winced. He let go, still holding your head as he looked down to you. “Where are you hurt?” He wiped away blood from your forehead, but it kept coming. “Rudy.”

Rudy immediately marched over, handing the Colonel some alcohol wipes.

“Lo siento, mi sol. No te protegí lo suficiente.” He whispered, wiping away dried blood and tears from your face, his stomach twisted into knots. “I will do better to protect you.”

“Ale,” Rudy’s voice sounded with urgency, “tu esposa sangra mucho por la espalda. Necesitamos que la evacúen.”

His eyes widened, more tears came from your eyes.

“Is that true? You need to tell me how bad you’re hurt!” His voice raised a little, throwing the wipe away before moving away to inspect the t-shirt and long pants you were in. There was a large collection of gashes on your stomach, arms sliced up - you looked as if you were going to pass out.

Your tears fell faster and you barely got a word out before you collapsed into him, his entire body going into emergency mode. He immediately swung you into his arms, “Keep your eyes open, my love, c’mon.”

Your face rolled into his vest, eyes barely open as he shouted to his friend, “¡Vamos, Rudy! ¡Tenemos que irnos!”

Alejandro kept you close to him as Rudy led him back through the building, your head rolling back and forth as he ran.

“Ale.”

He glanced down to you, seeing your beautiful eyes gaze up at him. The eyes he had loved for years. “Yes, my love?”

“Os amo. Lo siento.”

Your eyes fluttered closed, and you wouldn’t hear your husband’s screams for you to wake, to look at him again. You wouldn’t hear his cries, begging for you to stay with him. Your body began to feel cold, blossoming from the stab wounds in your back - heartbeat in your ears as the feeling of your husband carrying you began to fade away into nothingness.

——

It wouldn’t be until you wake in your bed days later that you would see your husband again, his eyes on you as tears ran down his face. He held your hands up to his lips, placing kisses to them as he pressed his thankfulness to God for saving you.

“Ale, what…” You coughed a little, your whole body ached. “Happened?”

“You’re going to be okay, mi sol.”

Your husband had a flood of tears run down his face, holding your hands to his head and letting small sobs leave his body. You had fought your attackers hard to see Alejandro again, but it hurt to see him sobbing into your skin. You whispered to him, “No llores, estoy aquí.”

“I-I failed you.” His voice cracked, his eyes finally peering over your hands he held, his deep brown eyes growing red from irritation. “I didn’t protect you-“

“You didn’t know I was in danger.”

“Mi sol, you will always be in danger because of me.” Tears ran down his face, he pressed a kiss to your skin. “Forgive me.” Another kiss before he pressed his forehead into your hands, you could feel the sobs shuddering his whole body. “Forgive me, my love.”

You murmured to him, “Todavía me protegiste, me salvaste. Sé que siempre vendrás por mí.” The broken man squeezed your hands, sobs still erupting from his lips before you moved your hands away from his. He let them, his teary eyes looked and watched as you gently pet his hair, coming it away from his face. Guilt was written all over his face, you wished you could wipe it away like his warm tears. “You still came when I needed you.”

He let out a huff through his nose, his hands settled next to your side. “I broke my promise to you to keep you safe from harm. Te lo prometí y te lastimaste.”

Your hand rested on his cheek. “I don’t care about broken promises.” Your thumb swiped away the constant stream of tears. “Listen to me. Your job is dangerous, I know that. I know that people will do anything to hurt you, and that would include hurting me.” Your other hand gently brushed his dark hair from his face as you whispered, “I don’t ever have to question that you protect me the best you can, and I don’t have to question that you will always save me if something happens.”

His hands found purchase on your wrists, squeezing his eyes shut to try and stop his tears.

“Las Almas needs you, my love.” You muttered, your other hand settled on his other cheek so you held his face in your hands. “Look at me.” His eyes opened, he took in stuttering breaths and you wiped away his tears. “I’m alive because of you, Alejandro. Many other innocent people are alive because of you.”

“You almost died.” He shook his head. “Eres el amor de mi vida, I can’t live without you.”

“Alejandro Vargas, you haven’t been listening.” You shook his head a little, his eyebrows furrowed. “You protect me the best you can, I’m very grateful. You’re doing your best, my love. That’s all I ask for.”

He nodded, moving to the side to kiss your palm gently before leaning his face into your touch.

“You can’t break your other promise though, Ale.”

His dark eyes flickered to yours, a smile on your face.

“You promised to get me a dog.”

He laughed a little. “A big dog, no?”

“A big dog with spots, Ale. Your wife demands it.”

He kissed your palm again, thanking God again in his heart for keeping you alive so he could admire your smile.

“Anything to help me keep you safe, mi sol.”

#alejandro vargas #alejandro vargas x reader #alejandro vargas x wife!reader #alejandro vargas x fem!reader #alejandro vargas x f!reader #colonel alejandro vargas #alejandro vargas mw2 #alejandro vargas cod #alejandro vargas fanfic #lethalchiralium #lethal chiralium

[shivvroys]

Hi lia! #5 from the big swiss dialogue "but you? You, i loved" :) feel free to make it angsty i can take it <3

this, uhm…turned into something else. Nia i think you may have broken my angst compass i keep trying to make everything end nicely 😭

“But you? You, I loved.”

“Ok, I fucking get it.” she raises a hand, almost dropping her cigarette. “I don’t know why you agreed to come, since you hate it so much. You know, you won, mom—he’s fucking dead, I can’t see how much of upper hand you could possibly have to gain than that.”

Her mother sighs in the same disappointing manner she always has. Like she’s tired of the conversation before it’s even started, like talking to Shiv is always just such a dreadful bother.

“And if it’s not him you’re still pissed at, you can just admit it’s me you can’t stand to be around. I’m way past the point where that’s gonna bother me.”

Shiv supposes she should mostly be blaming herself. She was the one who’d decided inviting their mother to their father’s memorial party was the thing to do. She just hadn’t expected her to actually show up.

The sour mood and constant scoffing, she could handle that—welcome it as a surrogate for the motherly warmth she’d never felt growing up. But the divorce jokes, the thinly veiled allusions to what Roman had been calling her vanishing uterus act—that had felt intentional. Like her father’s absence left Caroline with no vessel to pour her bitterness into, so she’d chosen the one who reminded her the most of him.

Shiv busies herself with the cigarette, refusing to meet her mother’s eyes. She doesn’t know what she fears seeing most—hurt or confirmation.

As the sentence hangs in the air like a sliver of smoke, twisting and turning into a sharp dagger, Caroline takes a step towards her, almost reaching a hand towards her elbow, before pulling back.

“It isn’t you that I can’t stand, Siobhan.” She doesn’t force Shiv to look at her, but she speaks to her slowly, and gravelly, in the tone she usually reserves for when they’re both tipsy and aching to hurt each other with the truth. “It’s never been you.”

Shiv scoffs. “Right. I know, what with all that maternal love you’ve showered me with.”

She turns to face Caroline, though she only manages to maintain eye-contact for a brief moment, before turning her attention back to the cigarette in her hand.

“There are things about you that I couldn’t bear to see, yes.” Caroline sighs. “Things that drove me mad. Like the way your eyes would only follow him in every room, even as a baby. I hated the anger he planted into you, the way I could hear him each time you were upset. All of those little claw marks he’s left in you—Kendall, too.”

Shiv sweeps her eyes over the guests inside, over her father’s legacy reduced to mediocre wine and fucking fusion cuisine finger foods. Then her sight unfocuses, and all she can see is her own reflection. The problem is—her mother’s not wrong.

“But not Rome, right?” she finally meets her mother’s eyes, challenging her to lie.

Caroline shakes her head sadly. “Not really, I suppose. Though he desperately wished for it, the poor thing.”

The briefest mention of her petit prince is enough to get the waterworks going.

Snapping herself out of it, Caroline puts out her cigarette and lays both hands on Shiv’s arms, not squeezing, but lightly stroking the rough material of her blazer.

“But you, Siobhan. You, I loved. Love.”

It’s pathetic, really, how little it takes for tears to gather in Shiv’s eyes. How quickly her mother could slip through the cracks of any wall she’s tried to build. Brick by fucking brick, and all it took was a look from that woman and down came Shiv’s mighty fortress, like a house of cards.

“I’m your fucking onion, right?” she sniffs, averting her mother’s gaze.

She hears laughter coming from inside, though she doubts anyone’s sharing some hearwarming anecdote in her father’s memory.

Her mother laughs in quiet and heavy breaths. “Yes, you are, darling. My darling onion.”

Already exhausted by the millisecond of vulnerability, they both snap back to reality, the moment already forgotten.

Shiv turns back towards the railing, lighting another cigarette. She tells herself it’s because it’s too hot inside, and she can’t bear to hear Roman make another joke about Frank’s sweater vest.

“What’re the others, then? Is Rome your fucking parsley?”

She extends her lighter to Caroline, who lets her palm caress Shiv’s hand as she takes it.

“That’s an herb, dear, I think you mean parsnip.” she murmurs. “I’d say he’s more of a beetroot—remember how he used to get so red and splotchy in the face when your father yelled at him.” she almost chokes while inhaling. Shiv joins her, smirking as she takes a drag from her cigarette.

“And Ken?”

“Hmm…” her mother rests a slender finger against her chins, in mock contemplation.

“An eggplant? Like a sad, wilted one.” Shiv snorts.

“Oh, yes.” Caroline bursts into a pearl of laughter. Then, resting her back against the railing, she gestures towards the memorial party. “What about her? What’s her place in your garden?”

Shiv turns to see her mother’s eyes fixed on one person in particular. Karolina. She’s listening to something Connor is saying, nodding politely every so often, though Shiv knows she’d probably checked out of the conversation the moment Connor had started talking.

Shiv also knows the angle at which Karolina is facing the terrace door is intentional. She’s keeping Shiv in her peripheral vision, the way they always do when they have to attend some work function where they might need quick rescuing from some boring conversation.

“Oh, that’s—she’s not..” she stutters, flicking her cigarette so hard it almost breaks in the middle.

“Darling, please.” Caroline scoffs. “She’s been throwing daggers at me ever since you came out here. Does she think I might throw you off the balcony?”

“You wouldn’t?” Shiv tilts her head. “We’re just—she’s just being friendly. We work together, so yeah. We’re friends, I guess”

Caroline looks down, shaking her head. “Alright, Siobhan.”

“What? I can’t have any fucking friends?”

“Of course, darling.”

Caroline puts her cigarette out and ceremoniously shakes her shoulders, as if cleansing herself from the conversation. She starts walking towards the door, before turning over her shoulder to Shiv.

“You can also have more, Siobhan. He is dead. No need to look for his shadow under the door.”

“Uh huh.”

With that, Caroline goes back to the party, leaving Shiv alone with her half burnt cigarette. She turns back to the railing, watching the sun dip below the skyline, her eyes following a stray bird or plane every now and then.

She’s never been into gardening, so she doesn’t know that much about it. But she knows everything needs good soil to grow in. And she knows once the soil is poisoned there’s very little chance of anything surviving in it. What can she grow if all she has is mud?

She doesn’t hear the door open, only feels the lightest pressure on the small of her back and quiet voice that brings her back to the terrace.

“You okay?”

Shiv looks down at the burnt out cigarette dangling between her fingers. She throws the stub in the wine glass she’s been using as an ashtray, before turning to face Karolina.

“Yeah. Just, you know, weird day.” she sighs, her voice slightly shaking.

Karolina nods, throwing a glance towards the setting sun. “It’s almost over.”

“Thank god.”

Karolina keeps her eyes on the party inside and her voice low and soft. “You wanna come over tonight?”

“Wouldn’t it just be easier to stay here?”

She regrets the suggestion before it’s even left her lips. Though she’s had Karolina over many times before, it had never felt quite right. The walls of the apartment held too much, had trapped in every bad memory from the past few years like mould—silently rotting it from the inside out. She fears letting all of that cling to Karolina.

“It would.” Karolina nods. “Hey, how about we get a room somewhere?” she says, after some contemplation.

“What, like, we go down to the hotel bar and you pretend you’re a call girl?” Shiv smirks.

“No, Siobhan.” Karolina raises her glass to cover her face, attempting to hide her laughter. “Like—we just spend a night someplace neither us have ever felt bad in.”

A place with good soil. Like there’s still a chance something good could grow.

Karolina always says things like these like they’re part of the natural order, like the most obvious choice for her is to keep Shiv safe—to take the bad stuff away.

“Yeah, okay.”

For tonight, Shiv decides, she’ll let it happen. See if anything grows.

#shivlina #shiv x karolina #siobhan roy #karolina novotney #caroline collingwood #CAROLINE ALERT!!! #im not the proudest of this and i definitely made caroline too kind 😭 #im losing my sparkle i keep wanting to see them happy 😩 #my fics #prompt fill

[bluebellhairpin]

Favours

Mafia AU!Levi Ackerman X Fem!Reader

Part Two 

A/N: I had a vision today while watching ‘Oceans 8′, and Suz wasn’t helping so I’ve written this out. Enjoy. - Nemo

Summary: Some traditions need to be broken, and with your almost all-female mob, you intend to break them all. Your rising activity and status catches the eye of many - good and bad. 

Listening to: ‘7 rings’ by Ariana Grande - ‘Bought matching diamonds for six of my bitches, I’d rather spoil all my friends with my riches.’

Masterlist  

Work hard and stay out of trouble. That’s what your parents always told you. What you didn’t know was what that really meant. But you soon learnt. 

Work hard at working others hard, and never get caught making trouble. 

Of course, as you grew up you became more observant, and what exactly brought the money in so that your family could keep living their fancy, first-class lifestyle became more and more known to you. Your parents had blood on their hands, and you inherited that lifestyle like a diamond necklace that was passed through the generations. 

It sounds cruel, sociopathic, and sadistic - but you didn’t mind the dirty work that came with running the family business. Beats having to sit behind a corporate desk all day for the rest of your life. Indeed, this was much more fun. 

When you reached the crowning age of twenty-one, your father stepped aside and gave the reins to you. Immediately as family head you made changes. You loved your father - more than anything - but the people he left you to work with had too much testosterone. So you replaced them with women you hand-picked yourself. 

To date you had yet to regret it. 

Everyone you had around you were women you trusted. Strong, independent, stubborn. When you pieced them together, when you brought them in and made them a team, they became unstoppable. And so did you. 

Your decision made your family name stand out among all the others. You rose in the ranks and became a force to be reckoned with. No one thought that a group of women would be so successful in this line of ‘work’, and ironically that was a main reason why you became successful. No one thought that they’d get into so much trouble with you and your women that they’d need to beg for mercy - to beg for favors. 

And in your world, favors were more valuable than gold, and more unbreakable than an atom. 

With the mini empire your father left you, your years of observation, and your select team of women, you figured out exactly how to pull the strings of everyone around you. 

One of the many things you implemented was a monthly movie night. Team bonding is what you told them it was, even if you all just liked spending time together without an excuse. 

Sasha was in charge of the snacks, because she’d kick a fuss if she wasn’t. 

Yimr and Historia always snatched up that one couch in the corner, and you let them because you knew they were a little more than friends. 

Mikasa and Annie both looked like they’d rather be somewhere else, but whenever you put on a classic Disney movie like ‘Cinderella’ they wouldn’t keep their eyes off the screen.

Which left you, Hange and Nanaba draped across the biggest couch in the room, legs everywhere and popcorn lost between the blanket folds. 

It was wonderful. You’d only gotten this a couple times a year back when you were a kid, and now getting it every month was like a refreshing blast of relaxation. Less so when Hange fell asleep and started snoring on your shoulder. 

You were halfway through the second ‘Lady and the Tramp’ movie when Petra poked her head into the room, her eyes wide as saucers, and motioned for you to come out.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” You said, stepping outside as you looked over at the redhead. She shook her head.

“N-no. But there’s a call for you.” She said. “A man. He says Levi Ackerman wants to meet you.” 

“Finally.”

───────✱.｡:｡✱.:｡✧.｡✰✧.｡:✱───────

In the entire time you’d known the family business, you knew that the Ackerman’s were on top of the pile. The Royals in a world of royalty. Even when you were a child you knew their name held importance. 

Their people - even those that worked for them - wouldn’t even spare you a second glance unless you were important to the Ackermans, or a rival. The fact that one wanted to meet with you, that meant you’d gotten on their radar long enough for them to figure out if you were with or against them. 

You knew the power they - He - held as head of their family, and you knew everyone on both sides would benefit if you worked with them and struck a deal. You were becoming rather powerful too.

From the ancient foundations of your family your father worked on maintaining, you stepped it up and built a stronger fortress. Thicker walls, higher towers. You took the stonework and oak beams of your family's heritage and rebuilt it with glass and steel. 

You painted your future with gold, linen, and platinum diamonds. 

As you stepped out of your convoy of glossy black cars, you took a moment to adjust your pantsuit while your entourage of women flowed out of the cars and followed. 

The building was big, pristine, and - in every sense of the word - overwhelming. If you didn’t have Hange and Nanaba standing at your flanks when you stepped in you would’ve felt a lot worse than just the settling butterflies in your stomach. The place spoke power and you hadn’t even seen anyone except the underlings yet.

“You’re from the Shiv family, right? Which one of you is the boss?” a man said, turning into the room from the  doorway underneath the double staircase. He had a smile painted on his face, and his greyish hair was tostled. You noted how his eyes lingered behind you, right where you knew Mikasa was standing. Despite the two smaller men at his sides, he was not the man you were here for. 

He was too unkept, and his eyes wandered too far. 

You stepped forward. 

“I’m ‘the boss’.” you said, air quoting his words, “And I’m here to meet your ‘boss’, so your co-operation in pointing me in his direction would be greatly appreciated.” You finished with a smile, picking some lint off his shoulder. 

“O-oh, yes.” He said, flushing and casting a look back at the two others, “This way, ma’am.” He said. 

He led you further into the building, his two friends stepping aside to follow those with you who didn’t wait at the cars. 

“I’m Jean. Jean Kirstein, by the way.” He stuttered, looking over at you as he filed you all into an elevator. 

“Duly noted, Jean.” you said. You lulled your head to look back at the three you brought with you, then looked over at the other two with Jean. “So who are you both?”

“Connie Springer Ma’am.” the one with the buzzcut straightened up, seemingly now feeling like he needed to impress. The other had been acting stiffly since you all first walked in.

“I-I’m Flegel Reeves, ma’a-am.” he said.

“Reeves?” you asked, and he nodded. “My, my, you and Hange here know each other then, right? Hange, you never mentioned you worked with one of the Ackermans.” You said, turning to face her. She shrugged as the doors opened.

“You never asked.” Letting out a him at their answer, you turned on your heel and followed Jean out towards a set of dark wooden doors. He stopped just short, hand hovering over the door handle.

“Um, before you go in, you should know -” 

“- I’ll be fine. Thank you Jean.” You smiled at him, this time less condescendingly. He nodded at you, a glint in his eye, and opened the door. 

Behind the doors was something you’d hoped to never see again - a room chocked full of men.

“(y/n) Shiv.” The man at the end of the glass table stood, gesturing to the only empty seat right in front of you. “Sit, please.” 

One look across the room into his narrow, cold eyes and you knew. 

This might not be as easy of a meeting as you thought. 

#ew men right? #all but one lolololol #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman imagine #levi ackerman one shot #attack on titan x reader #attack on titan one shot #attack on titan imagine #mafia au

[lurkerwithcomputer]

WIP Wednesday

Lately I've been putting lots of time into my BNHA/Bloodborne crossover, and it's technically Wednesday as of posting this, so this'll be my WIP Wednesday contribution.

Time to get to our unlikely allies, Yagi Toshinori and Hatsume Mei! (And I took Midoriya Inko being a Mama Bear in a somewhat... literal direction.)

He didn't expect the beast that had leaped over the barricade keeping the workshop crew safe in their labors.

Or perhaps, not so safe, as shouting, shrieking and gunfire echo from behind him.

He whirls, only to see flames leap into the sky. It's as if his heart plunges to somewhere around his knees. He stands, and although his hands have picked up a faint shake, he makes certain his gun is loaded, and grips his sword-cane in a gaunt fist he knows is white-knuckled beneath the glove. He makes to start running when he hears hobnailed boots clattering on the road.

He grips his gun tighter, lifts his sword cane - in case this is one of those hunters who've lost themselves and started attacking anything that moves, anything that bleeds.

Instead he's met with the dirty, blood-streaked face of one of the workshop's young inventors. He takes a minute to recall her name, while she takes a minute to catch her breath and gather herself. Hatsume Mei. That is who he's looking at - and she looks rather worse for wear. He begins retrieving bandages and a vial of healing blood.

"No. Treat me later. We need to run. The gunpowder store is all set to explode."

A sigh escapes him. She's as abrupt as ever, as she hefts what looks to be a double-barreled shotgun, with an impressive bayonet attached. There's a sturdy pack on her back, no doubt filled with ammunition, and likely more of her inventions. He only hopes she can keep a good pace with it on. The Long Night is an endurance run, not a sprint, after all.

Sprint they must, though. Away and forwards. Through smoky, dank and dirty streets, made strange by the cover of darkness.

Forwards, passing bloodied, malformed corpses, fanged and clawed, ridden with sores and open wounds.

Forwards, until the scabs re-open on Mei's arms and face, and his scarred side throbs and aches.

He leans on his sword-cane and pants for breath, once again this night, as young Mei unlocks a heavy iron gate. She urges him onward as the distant light of flames against the night sky grows brighter. Their next rush stops at a spiked wooden barricade erected in the streets. There's nobody manning it, and she merely wriggles her way through a gap at one side.

If she can fit with her pack on, I should be able to.

It costs him a bit of his dignity and almost his hat, but he's through. Just in time, no less.

There's a distant roar and rumble, the cobblestones quake under his boots and a wave of hot, dirty air sweeps over them. He grips the nearest wall with one hand, sword-cane braced against the ground in the other. Mei is crouched with one hand on the grimy pavement to keep herself steady. The other still holds her shotgun-bayonet, pointed forward. She looks at him, and their eyes meet. There's one moment where lantern light gleams wetly in her eyes.

They share one last look behind them, where embers drift upwards, and a hazy plume of dust and smoke catches the orange glow that lights the sky. He hears her breath hitch as she turns away.

"Tears later, tears later, tears later," she mutters.

She wipes her eyes with a rag of dubious cleanliness. She takes a deep breath as she shoves it back under her vest.

"Onward," she says, voice hoarse but steady now.

The lamps out here are broken or unlit, for the most part. He leads, sword-cane held ready. So far, quiet and empty streets, all around them. They break into a light jog as they get further from the barricades - as though there's an unspoken agreement that they'd rather not linger anywhere exposed. To be honest with himself, he still thinks they ought to stop and treat her injuries, as minor as those now appear to be - the blood on her is clearly not all hers, if she's lively enough to keep up.

At the next fork in the streets, his damned luck makes the choice for him.

His only warning is a snarl and the scratch of claws on cobblestones. A lupine creature that may or may not have been human once charges at him, out of the steam rising from the storm drains. Reactions honed by long years have his sword-cane snapping out, raising a line of red across the creature's gut. It's not enough - the beast barely recoils before it's lashing out with jagged, ripping claws that drip with filth and gore.

It's as though the air beside him explodes. A scattering of ragged crimson spots burst across the beast's body as it reels back. Toshinori lets experience guide him, twisting his body for a full slash that cleaves fanged maw and blank eyes from corded neck.

There's the click-clack of a gun behind him, to his left. Young Hatsume has almost as much surprise on her face as he's quite certain he does - but she reloads her double-barreled shotgun with a craftswoman's steady hands. It snaps back to readiness with a distinct mechanical click.

A quick-loading mechanism of some sort? How brilliant - though now's not the time for speculation.

"Old Man!" she shouts, raising her gun again.

He whirls in a practiced move, drawing his own gun - too slowly. A dark shape backhands his gun arm, knocking his weapon aside. He leaps aside as a hairy, taloned hand carves through the air where he had stood. He pushes down the ache in his chest and side. He's without his gun now, but he hefts his sword-cane and sets his stance.

Aiming for my gun? It has some level of cunning, then.

He circles his foe - a beast taller than the one before, wiry but broad in the shoulders and crowned with a ram's curled horns. He leads it further, in an attempt to keep Hatsume out of the creature's line of sight. It matches him, holding itself crouched to spring.

It's him who must spring, as a gout of flame leaps from its claws and sears past him.

Fire?! A true monster - and a worthy foe! Only the rarest beasts have forces of nature at their claw-tips.

There's a flash out of the corner of his eye. The roar of both barrels and the shriek of buckshot.

It stumbles but doesn't reel - still, he'll take the chance to strike. His blade drives out in the stop-thrust every swordsman knows, even as the creature recovers - too late. He skewers into its chest, just below the shoulder. He's certain that's at least an artery severed.

Brutal as the bleeding injuries are, it heaves itself at him. Though one arm dangles, the other reaches for his face with flame-licked claws. It pushes his blade deeper into itself - but that matters little if the beast can get to his head or neck.

He can only brace his sword cane with one hand and wrestle its talons away from his throat with the other.

His side throbs and burns. His breathing is short and shallow. In part to avoid inhaling the beast's rank, foul breath, despite the scarf tied over his face to ward of the stench of gore and death, in part because of the mask, snug and cloying over his face. He's trapped too close for Hatsume to fire again, though he hears her boots thudding heavily across the stones. She doesn't make it before the beast's jaws push closer, opening in a waft of hot, rancid air, countless fangs dripping spittle.

Someone else does.

A dark figure drops onto the creature's shoulders. A bone double-armblade gleams in the light of the single gaslamp. A weapon he knows, and knows well.

Inko! Oh, a hundred blessings of the Good Blood on this woman!

He swears he sees green eyes glow in the smoke and shadows. His rescuer swipes one hand across the beast's throat, even as she rips her armblade out of its shoulder and drives into its back - for he can see the ends erupt from the beast's gut. She withdraws the blade again, and turns the dying beast over, to hold its gushing neck wound above her head.

She opens her mouth as the blood rains down, and he swears she has a beast's pointed canines. It occurs to him that the hand that tore out the beast's throat was her unarmed hand - and he saw no knife, not even the glint of a concealed shiv. She gulps eagerly under the crimson flow, until it tapers to a trickle.

His heart sinks to about his knees for the second time tonight.

I'm not sure Inko's still... human. Time to find out.

"Inko?"

He tries to keep his voice level and calm, as he would with someone injured. She turns to look at him, dropping the beast's body. This time the green glow is unmistakable. As she steps closer, he can see how her eyes don't stay focused on him, darting around from shadow to shadow. She does lift her head and scent the air, and steps towards him much faster. There's a spike of panic - before she smiles and gives him a wide, welcoming gesture.

And now, with Inko standing in the pool of light the gaslamp casts, he can see her clearly. He's reminded of berserkers out of ancient tales - her leather and pelts stained and crusted with half-dried, gruesome mess, her hands and face drenched with blood, covering the scar he knows runs from the side of her forehead, down one pudgy cheek. Stray locks of her hair are plastered to her skin by a layer of fresh crimson, and a second layer of rust-red.

She's almost unpleasantly close, filling his nose with the stench of gore and wet animal pelts, before she speaks.

"Ah... Toshinori. I don't smell your blood. Good. That's good."

Her voice is husky and deeper than it should be, closer to a growl. The scent of blood is thick on her breath. He hears Inko inhale deeply. She lets out a satisfied huff of air. Her head turns as she sniffs the air again. She walks with silence and grace, to squat in front of a pale-faced Hatsume - who stops dead, crouching on the ground, presumably in the middle of searching for Toshinori's lost sidearm.

Young Hatsume is more thoughtful than others give her due for.

"You... Metal and oil and gunpowder. Ah, Mei. The cheery little inventor. Where's your smile?"

Inko leans even closer and scents the air again, like a hunting hound. Toshinori can't help but feel a little sorry for young Hatsume as she flinches away slightly. He walks closer despite how much he usually trusts Inko - with his life and soul. He's never seen her so... affected by the Long Night before.

"Well, I suppose you wouldn't be smiling while you're bleeding," Inko says, voice softly rasping.

Toshinori suspects it's the best attempt Inko can make at sounding tender in her current state. She murmurs reassuringly as she pulls a vial of healing blood from beneath her pelts. Despite the crimson making her hands slick, she has no trouble with the cap. She pops the wax seal off, revealing the needle.

"Arm or thigh, dear?" she rasps, close enough that Hatsume makes a face.

"Arm, thank you."

Hatsume is visibly attempting to avoid breathing in, as Inko leans close and pushes the blood vial into Hatsume's arm. Though it sounds rather rude, Toshinori has to agree with young Hatsume's actions. He still has in mind Inko's hot, metallic breath, and the pungent odor of blood and wet fur.

#lurker writes #bnha #bloodborne #blood #gore #yagi toshinori #hatsume mei #midoriya inko #crossover

[atombombbagel]

How would a Romanced (or just a love interested) companion (+Maxson) react to accidentally hearing Sole moaning their name in their sleep?

A little nsfw but notreally. Let’s pretend Nick has a dick. If you don’t like this type of content don’t read it :)

Cait:  

Cait was working late,scrubbing the grime and ale stains from the bar she was standing behind. Shewas only doing it because Sole had specifically asked her to. The usualbartender ill, because he was swiping booze from behind the shelf and drinkingit on the job. Cait, completely done with cleaning for the night, threw thedirty, sticky rag onto the bar. She dragged her feet tiredly as she steppedinto the home she shared with her lover, her eyebrows creasing when she heard…moans. They were moans, weren’t they? Is that why she was working late? So Solecould… they better not be. Cait’s blood started to boil, her face turning acherry red as she stormed down the corridor to their shared room.

“Sole you better not be-”Cait stopped talking as she came face to face with Sole, who wasn’t cheating,but was in a deep sleep. Cait tilted her head as she watched Sole’s breath escapetheir parted lips.

“Mmm Cait,” Sole moanedout, shifting in their sleep as their head fell deeper into the pillow. Cait’seyes widened as she awkwardly shifted on the spot. She didn’t know how to reactto Sole moaning her name. It made her… hot and bothered to say the least. Caitpulled her shirt from her head and removed her trousers, slipping in bed nextto Sole. Something took over her in that moment and she ran her fingers over Sole’scollarbone, trailing down Sole’s body under the covers. Then she decided on it.She needed Sole, because hearing her name slip from her sleeping lover’s mouth,was too hot for her to sleep on.

Curie: Curie sat over Sole’s body, carefully examiningtheir vitals, adjusting the needle in their arm, making sure the blood pack wassecure. Sole was injured earlier in the day, and they lost a lot of blood.Curie obviously wanted to be the doctor to look over their partner and she wouldn’tleave their side.

“Curie…” Sole said quietly.Curie looked up at Sole. Still sound asleep. She smiled. “Mmm Curie please… youturn me on so much.” Sole’s breathing grew harder as they kept moaning Curie’sname. Curie gently nudged Sole awake.

“We need to keep yourbreathing stabilised,” Curie informed Sole as they came to. “Trust me if youwere better and we were at home… I would be all over you. But let’s focus ongetting you better, hm?”

Danse: Danse shifted under the covers again, tossing andturning as he tried to get comfortable in his and Sole’s new bed. And not newby news standard. It was pokey and slightly damp. Danse hated it and now he couldn’tsleep. He sighed moving onto his back and looking up at the stars through thegaps in the roof. That he had yet to fix. A few drops of water dripped onto hisforehead.

“That explains the dampness,”he muttered with another light sigh. It wasn’t quite like living in the securewalls of the citadel, but he’d been used to that by now. Its just this bed isjust - He groaned.

“Danse…” Sole mutteredand he immediately turned to face them. He expected to see Sole looking up athim with their beautiful eyes, but he was met with their closed ones. Sole wasasleep? He wished they were awake, how could they possibly sleep on thisterrible bed, he had no clue. “Yes… Danse… That feels so good…” Sole let out strewof moans.

Danse eyes widened as herealised what was happening. And boy was this an opportunity to wake Sole up, avery needed distraction and maybe at the end when Danse was worn out, he’d beable to fall asleep. Now he just needed to wake Sole up.  

Deacon: Still shocked he was sharing a bed with his newly romancedpartner, he would sleep on his back, right on the edge of the bed, every night,waiting for Sole to fall asleep first. He was nervous his in-bed habits would scareSole away, because he wasn’t exactly a restful sleeper, he was more of a cover-hogging,leg-jutting kind of sleeper. As usual he was silently watching, behind his darksunglasses (that he even wore in bed like - what the fuck) waiting for Sole tofall asleep, like every other night only this time something was different.

Sole kept moving and wrigglingaround in bed, their chest puffing out from under the covers, their hair messy,their breathing hitched. That’s what Sole was like when they were… but Sole wasasleep.

“Mmm Deacon… work it…”Sole mumbled, shuffling again, their cheeks a light shade of rose. Deacon awkwardlysat up, swinging his legs off the bed as he rubbed the back of his neck withhis hand. Had he seriously just heard, that right? Sole just moaned his name,he chuckled? Deacon saw ample opportunity to tease and wind up Sole for therest of time and Sole wouldn’t be living this down anytime soon.

Hancock: Hancock loved dreaming about Sole, he lovedvisioning their face and their laugh and their body as he slept peacefully nextto them, his arm tucked over their waist as he snuggled into the back of theirneck. But what Hancock loved more than that, was when they would both wake upand share last night’s dreams with each other over a small breakfast in bed. Hancockstirred awake to the sound of Sole’s heavy breathing and by the way they weremoving in their sleep, Hancock was sure Sole was having a nightmare. That wasuntil Sole shifted, pushing their butt into Hancock’s crotch. Although you couldn’tsee it through his calloused and broken skin, he blushed. Hard.

“Right there… Hancock,please…”

He raised his hairless eyebrows.Not a nightmare… but a sex dream? Yes please – he thought. He reached around Sole’sbody, moving his bony fingers down Sole’s stomach and between their legs. He wasabout to make their naughty dream a very naughty reality.

Nick: Nick was nose deep in a case file, one that hadbeen troubling him for a while now, he couldn’t wrap his head around the twistsand turns and the crime scenes he’d seen. Honestly, he needed a break. Sole hadtried to get him to come to bed earlier, trying to entice him with needy hands,a naughty words, but Nick convinced himself that he needed to get this done andso Sole went to bed alone.

“Niiiick,” Sole whimperedlightly but loud enough for Nick to stop reading and look up from the file. Helooked over to his and Sole’s bed, only occupied by his partner. He noticed theway Sole’s hands were placed on their chest and at first, he thought they weretrying to entice him to stop what he was doing. But on closer inspection hefound that Sole was in fact asleep. “I love you. Yes, keep going…” Sole continuedon, unaware that their sleepy groans were in fact turning Nick on. He put thecase file down and with heat between his legs he made his was over to Sole.Because he did need a break. So he woke his lover up.

MacCready: MacCready was needy, he needed Sole right now, hewas young, and he couldn’t control what Sole did to his body, but they’d fallenasleep on the couch waiting for MacCready to finish cleaning his sniper rifleafter a long day of hunting. MacCready reached down and picked Sole up in hisarms, and although he may look scrawny, he was stronger than you’d think. Hemoved down the corridor to their shared bedroom when Sole muttered something intheir sleep.

“It’s alright love, yousleep now I’ve got you.”

“MacCready… mmm Harder.”MacCready nearly tripped as the words slipped from Sole’s mouth in a hot moanthat definitely made the young man more needy than he already was. He lookeddown at Sole who from what he saw, was in a deep sleep. He wanted to wake them…so badly, but decided against it, they were tired, and plus, the morning wouldbe around soon enough and then he would give Sole, exactly what they werecraving.

Piper: Piper sat with her journal in her lap, jotting downa few notes and a few scribbles here and there as she desperately tried to comeup with a new headline for a story she’d been working on. She huffed nearlythrowing the journal when she was startled by a few loud-ish moans coming fromthe bed behind her. She peered over the back of the couch at Sole who wassleeping in their bed.

“Piper, stop being sucha tease…” Sole breathed before a moan followed and Piper couldn’t help butgiggle.

“Oh this is going to begreat,” She whispered to herself, turning a page in her journal to start a newentry. Sole may not find her new entry funny, but hearing them moaning for Piper,now that’s a story everyone would read.

Preston: Preston was on patrol, walking past his and Sole’shouse, laser musket tucked securely on his back. He would always be ready foran oncoming attack. His ears perked up as he heard movement coming from insidehis shared house. Quickly making his way inside he followed the noise to his andSole’s room. He quietly opened the door, peering inside and let out a breath ofrelief when he realised it was just Sole, moving around on the very squeakybed.

“Preston… I need you,”Sole moaned as Preston was about to shut the door. He peered back through, thinkingSole was awake but to his surprise they weren’t. He would have loved nothingmore than to get into bed with Sole, taking them in his arms but alas he had ajob to do. No matter now desperate he was in that moment, he needed to protectthe settlement… maybe tomorrow night… on his night off.

X6-88: X6 was still getting used to the fresh and newfeeling of falling in love, the emotion still completely new to him. Althoughhe would never show it, this new love, scared the living shit out of him. Yethere he lay next to a sleeping Sole and he’d never felt so peaceful, so relaxedin his entire life. He found himself smiling as he watched Sole’s chest riseand fall with every little breath. He leaned over and kissed Sole’s head beforesettling in to fall asleep himself. He was just beginning to fall off when Solemoved a hand to his bare chest, their fingers lightly grazing his skin, sendinga shiver through him at the touch.

“X6… I love that… mmm…more…” Sole’s moan was enough to wake the poor man up fully. He was sure how toprocess what he was hearing but he knew it felt good. He could tell by the bloodrushing through his body. He tried to shut his eyes and not think about it. Butits all he could think about until he fell asleep.

Maxson: Maxson removed his coat, carefully putting it onthe back of his chair before he climbed into bed next to a half-naked Sole. Hewished he could have gone to bed with them, but the Elders job is never done,and it was another late night for him and many other Brotherhood of steelrecruits. Sole turned to face him; their eyelashes fanned out across theircheeks as they rested their head on Maxson’s chest. He smiled briefly wrappinga strong arm around his partner. He just began to close his eyes when…

“Please Maxson…” Sole breathed out, “… Slap myass.” His eyes snapped open. Maxson couldn’t stop the tent rising in his pantsas he watched Sole mumbling and moaning in their sleep. Dreaming of… him. The ideaexcited him and definitely turned him on. He unknowingly slapped Sole’s ass,making them jolt awake. They looked at him surprised.

“Y-you asked for it,” Hestuttered. They both turned lobster red as they stared at each other, making itan awkward night for the two of them.

#Fallout 4 #fallout companions #fallout 4 companion reactions #fallout 4 companions react #fo4 companions react #fallout 4 cait #fallout 4 curie #fallout 4 piper wright #fallout 4 deacon #fallout 4 hancock #fallout 4 danse #fallout 4 paladin danse #fallout 4 x6-88 #fallout 4 nick valentine #fallout 4 preston garvey #fallout 4 elder maxson

[ask-chaos-kin]

Chaotic Adventures in Babysitting Chapter 2

Spoiler warning for another story I am in the works of, That story is the origin of the character Roseflame. You have been warned. (The only characters that belong to me are Chaos Kin, Wolves Bane, and Roseflame.) Co Written with @royalbabble​

This is the shortest Chapter, Expect long stuff from here on in.

Count Jester was flying through the base, Rose holding on tight to their back as they darted through the halls and weaved in and out of room after room. They zoomed through the rec room and nearly crashed into Spyper and Intelligent Heavy, just barely pulling out of their flight to dart up towards the ceiling instead.

Chaos was in another room putting together Roses bedroom. Now would come the hard part about watching over Rose; Night time. It was when most of the more dangerous freaks where active and it’s when she would want her mommy the most. The bad part being her mom was in another country at the moment.

As Chaos set the bed, Jester came flying through the door, just barely stopping themselves from flying straight into her. Their entire body visibly jarred for a moment upon stopping, before they dropped to the floor, Rose perched on their shoulders. Rose watched as Chaos put stuffed animals on her bed, pulling herself up onto Count Jesters hat to get a better view. 

“Alright. All set up for bed,” Chaos said. Rose yawned, signifying she was ready to sleep. Her day was certainly a long one, filled with strange new things, the strangest of which whose head she was currently sitting on. Count Jester reached up and took Rose down from their hat and whisked her over to the bed. Rose fell asleep not even a second after she selected a toy for cuddling that night. Chaos turned off the lights and led Jester out of the room. The room had a spinning night light that filled the room with stars. Perfect for children who were afraid of the dark.

“Thanks a lot for the help today Jester,” Chaos thanked them as soon as the door was closed.

“Ah it’s no problem! I love playing with kids!” Jester cheered, the bells on the ends of their hat jingling. The two joined the rest of the group in the living room of the base, settling down while a children's movie played on the TV. 

Jester almost immediately fell asleep themselves, their form dissolving into clouds and retreating into their artifact, which was resting on the coffee table. Spyper picked up the artifact and tucked it into the satchel hanging around his waist, putting it out of the way. 

“You heading out soon?” Chaos asked Spyper whilst looking over at the sleeping Intelligent Heavy.

“Nah, Jester just likes to be carried around in their artifact. It helps them sleep,” Spyper said, yawning.

“We have extra beds if you need to rest. Just not sure how well Intelligent Heavy is gonna feel when he wakes up from that position,” Ass pancakes had already taken one of the couches, which left Intelligent Heavy to sit on the chair. Spyper stretched for a moment, yawning.

“Nah, my vans parked outside, I’ll sleep there,” Spyper said, dreary.

“Need help walking out there? You look beat,” Chaos sounded concerned, he had part of the whole Dr. Grave ordeal after all. She felt bad for having left them right before their attack on the manor, but if she had not done that then she would have been killed by Team Killer for sure. And from what she had seen after everyone had finally returned from the battle, Dr. Grave had beaten them all within an inch of their lives. It was possible that the wounds they had all sustained from the fight still lingered, even after the three months since Graves defeat. Spyper waved his hand and stood up.

“No, I’m fine, I can get there on my own,” He said, stretching. Chaos watched him as he left the base, heading out to his van for the night. As he disappeared into his van, Chaos went to the barracks, knowing that Anthony would at least be there if the rest of the team wasn’t back already.

 Her team where all asleep in their own bunks, Anthony was barely hanging onto consciousness. 

“You can head off to bed, Everyone else is asleep. Even Spypers hitting the sack,” Chaos patted his shoulder. He nodded and walked off to his bed, passing out as he fell onto the mattress. Chaos herself did one last check and went to her own room underground. She flopped onto her bed and slowly drifted off to sleep.

***

Wolves Bane was focused on the main house of the base, amulet in hand. He slowly made his way closer to the base, ready to seep into all their dreams at once. He focused onto the amulet, ready to corrupt all their dreams and warp them into horrifying nightmares. He raised the amulet up and focused in on the base grinning.

Nothing happened.

“What?” He looked at the amulet, it was still charged. He peered into the window, everyone was asleep. Why couldn’t he give them all nightmares!?

“Well?” Knenus inquired.

“Damn thing ain’t working! You gave me another faulty one!” Wolves Bane growled in annoyance.

“I assure you it was supposed to work. I want Chaos Kin’s powers as much as you want her title,” The shadow tried to enter the house only to be repelled, there was another force keeping them all out.

“Great! Must be that weird jester guy I saw earlier setting off fireworks. They look like they have all kinds of weird powers,” Wolves Bane said, looking around to try to locate Count Jester in hopes of taking them out of the equation.

“Now what are you doin’ lurking around?” A gravely voice asked from just behind Wolves Bane. He jumped slightly before looking over his shoulder.

“Oh… shit,” He looked up to see none other than Christian Brutal Sniper standing behind him, his Tribalman's Shiv in his hand. There was no way he could get away with how close he where. Did not mean he wouldn’t try, spreading his wings and attempting to fly off as he noticed the blade.

“Not so fast wanker!” CBS cried, grabbing Wolves Banes leg and jerking him back down to the ground with all his might, slamming the other Freak into the dirt.

“GAH!” He landed with a thud onto his left wing, now cut off from flight. “Damn you! That was my favorite wing!” He whipped out his battleaxe, ready to go for Brutal’s neck, but Brutal was quicker, grabbing his wrist and breaking it with little effort. Wolves Bane hissed in pain, refusing the scream to show that he was weaker than Brutal, not that Knenus didn’t know this fact already.

“You may not be Grave, but you’ll do. I’ve been itching to break someones back for months,” Brutal sneered. He erized Wolves Bane by the throat and dragged him off to the forest, lightly humming to himself while Wolves Bane struggled to break free of his grip. 

“I’ll have you…. Sent to a world of nightmares!... If you don’t let go of me.. Right now!” Wolves bane shouted in demented anger, barely able to get it out do to the pressure on his throat. Brutal stopped abruptly and jerked his head down to look at Wolves Bane, his eyes flaring with anger. 

“Wait a fucking minute-YOU’RE THAT DAMN BLOKE THAT SENT ME AND EVERYONE ELSE TO THAT DAMN SLENDER DIMENSION!!” Brutal roared, hauling Wolves Bane up to look him in the eyes, his hands now grabbing the collar of his shirt to hold him up. 

“Yes, I am. You know damn well I can send you back at any moment! I’m feeling generous at the moment so you put me down and forget about-”

“Yo,” Wolves bane’s face turned from cockiness to fear, a light humming coming from behind him.  All of the commotion must have woken Roseflame up. Wolves Bane tried to wriggle free of Brutals grip again, his broken wing and arm making quite audible snaps. Brutal looked past Wolves Bane and at Roseflame, squinting to see in the darkness.

“Wait, aren’t you one of the blokes from the dimension that this wanker sent us to?” He asked, not letting go of Wolves Bane. She came into the light a bit more and hopped off her Winged Star.

“I’m the one you dragged with. I remember it being you because you grabbed me and Chaos after Slendy himself grabbed both our ankles. Thanks for that one by the way,” She looked at Wolves Bane himself, “Thanks to you doing that, no one from here can be sent to Slender Fortress until I go back myself and frankly, I never want to go back,” She readjusted her flying surfboard under her arm, it was currently off so it could be carried.

“You want me to deal with this bloke or do you want the honor of beating him into the ground?” Sniper offered. 

“I came to watch to be honest, I made a crater using him earlier. He’s all yours,” Her machine turned back on and she sat atop it to watch the show.

“Oh I’m gonna bloody enjoy this,” Brutal hissed, holding up his shiv to Wolves Banes throat, “Just be quiet will you? I don’t want to wake everyone else up,” He chuckled. He held Wolves Bane up and wound back the shiv, aiming for the Freaks throat, “A bit of the ol’ chop chop!”

#story post #Chaotic Adventures in Babysitting #Chaos Kin #Ass Pancakes #Roseflame #Wolves Bane #Christian Brutal Sniper #Count Jester #Spyper #Intelligent Heavy #Long post

[edream93]

WLTF Chapter 18 Sneak Peek

Haven’t really had any time to write because of school and stuff but I have one more big essay to finish and then I’ll be done with my first year of PhD (3 more to go). Anyway, here’s another sneak peek just because you all are awesome.

Harriet gasped suddenly, nearly cutting off a finger on the knife she had been sharpening. A few wary patrons glanced at her strangely before pretending like she wasn’t there lounging next to Uma’s throne in Ursula’s Chip Shoppe.

(Her brother’s little Wharf Rats had nearly drawn their knives and shivs and other assorted weapons that they had failed to leave in the weapon check when she had first attempted to sit in their precious Captain’s chair. Le Foux Deux, her current first mate with Sammy Smee gone, had almost had an aneurysm at the action but Harriet had merely rolled her eyes, dragging a plain but sturdy chair over to sit next to the throne before glaring at them all silently until they returned to whatever they were doing before.)

Harriet sucked thoughtfully on the cut she had made on her thumb. What she had just experienced felt like a sharp pull on her belly button before a restless thrum of energy filled her, buzzing beneath her her skin with a vague familiarity that caused dread to settle deep within her. She tapped her foot impatiently, her senses on high alert for a threat that she recognized but also didn’t. Like an itch she couldn’t reach, she almost felt consumed by it.

“You alright there, Harriet?” Jonas frowned, dirty pink frilly apron tied to his waist as he haphazardly slid dirty dishes from table into a bin to take back to the kitchen.

The Chip Shoppe was mostly empty at this point in the day, the majority of the shop’s customers preferring to sleep through the day. He could hear Gonzo gruffly grunting something undoubtedly snide under his breath to one of the younger crew members as they did something within the depths of the kitchen that would undoubtedly get them all a lashing from Ursula’s tentacles if they disturbed her from her damn soap opera. Bonnie and Desiree sat in a corner, counting the gold and jewels and other shiny bits and bobs they collected with the latest foods and supplies from Auradon. Jonas, somehow had gotten the short end of the stick and had been forced to deal with duties relating to the kitchen and apparently, as it seemed, keeping an eye on their substitute captain.

Harriet was close to snapping at him, restless energy building beneath her skin like a balloon about to pop. Perhaps Uma allowed her crew the freedom to question her decisions but Harriet refused to lead with anything other than one-hundred percent complete obedience, whether out of fear or loyalty was their only choice. However, Jonas was an idiot and had repeatedly dared to question her every command, even to the point of somehow persuading the remaining members of Harriet’s own crew sign up for shifts at the Chip Shop.

(Of course her brother’s crew would be just as much of a headache as he was.)

Ignoring Harriet’s glare, Jonas took a step closer to the fearsome pirate captain, head tilted to the side as he observed her.

“It ain’t your…uh...it isn’t your newest passenger, is it?” he said lowly, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one else was listening. When he turned back to Harriet, he only got to see her eyes quickly widen before she grabbed him by the back of his neck in a tight grip that caused him to drop the bin he was holding.

Already chipped dishes broke and scattered across the dusty floor, loud in the sudden silence of the room.

“Listen ye yellow bellied sack of shit,” Harriet hissed into his ears, her usually well hidden brogue making an appearance, the only clue that she was losing her cool. “I don’t know what the fucking seven seas ye think ye know but let’s make it one-hundred percent fucking clear, okay pet? Yer captain and first mate, the strongest and baddest of the bads that had been on this rotten rock in months, are gone. Ye understand what that means?”

Desiree and Bonnie had already gotten up from their seats, a butter knife in Desiree’s hand and a broken bottle probably from the brawl the night before in Bonnie’s. Gonzo was now leaning against the door frame of the kitchen, drying one of kitchen butcher knives against his pants legs. Jonas waved them off though. Like hell he was going to start a turf war the one time Uma put him in charge, especially not with Harriet fucking Hook. Harry may be crazy and unpredictable but Harriet was just plain ruthless. And scarily hot.

(Jonas hoped desperately no one could see how the pain of Harriet digging her nails into the back of his neck was so turning him on right now...The others would never let him live it down.)

Jonas nodded, form hunched over as he raised his hands up placatingly. “That the fearsome and cunning Captain Harriet Hook is the only thing keeping a turf war from happening,” he grunted out.

Harriet shoved him away, tugging up the collar of her Hook signature jacket, before placing her captain’s hat on her head. “And don’t ye forget that,” she hissed before stomping out of the shop.

The four senior members of Uma’s crew looked at each other.

“You think Harry knew?” Jonas asked, hissing when he touched one of the small crescent shaped marks on the back of his neck before Bonnie and Gonzo tugged him back onto his feet.

Desiree snorted, running her hand through her long hair. “Ya see a certain pompous bastard hanging from the ceiling, hooked by his toes with his goods cut off in here?”

Jonas glanced up.

Gonzo rolled his eyes before returning back to the kitchen and Bonnie pinched the bridge of her nose. “You’re an idiot, Jonas.”

“Hey!”

#disney descendants #harriet hook #jonas descendants #gonzo descendnats #bonnie descendants #desiree descendants #uma's crew #wharf rats #we'll light the fuse #wltf sneak peek #edream93 fanfic #edream93 fanfiction

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

Episode 103: Bubbled

“If I could begin to be half of what you think of me, I could do about anything.”

In the middle of Act I of Steven Universe, Steven saves the Atlantic Ocean, and in the middle of Act II, he saves Earth. These are large-scale victories that show his growing capabilities as a Crystal Gem in the global sense: he’s a defender of the world and all its inhabitants, and has two major accomplishments to show for it.

The end of Act I is more of a personal fight. The only lives at stake are those of the Crystal Gems as they’re brought into space, and Steven takes a more passive role in the finale, helping here and there but ultimately having the day saved by Garnet (and, arguably, Lapis). And it turns out the pattern of a more extreme sequel in Act II continues: in Bubbled, the only life at stake is his own, and despite being far more competent than he was in Jailbreak, he needs to be saved by others once again, because he’s been shattered.

As with Jailbreak, Steven spends a good part of Bubbled with another ornery ruby who gripes “Great! This is just perfect!” and barely gives him the time of day at first. In both episodes he tries and fails to help this ruby: our Ruby runs off on her own in impatience, and Eyeball tries to shank him and must be ejected from his bubble. But something interesting happens when you compare these rubies further, because beyond their opposing loyalties, there’s one major difference between the two of them: Ruby has such a low opinion of herself that she doesn’t think it matters whether or not she gets hurt, while Eyeball has such a high opinion of herself that she dreams of being the hero who defeats Rose Quartz, complete with glory from the Diamonds (and her own pearl). And really, this is one of the things the show is all about.

The flaws of practically every character in Steven Universe come down to the dichotomy between insecurity and overconfidence. At a glance, we can read our heroes as insecure and our villains as overconfident (Pearl and Amethyst good, Jasper and Kevin bad), but the actual lesson is that everyone has insecurities, and overconfidence is more often than not a reaction to it. As we learn more about our smug villains, we see the shortcomings that drive that smugness, and only then can Steven bridge the gap towards friendship. Heck, Garnet is the only truly confident Crystal Gem, and while I wouldn’t quite call her smug, at her worst she evokes the ice cold certainty of Sapphire more than the exposed nerve of Ruby. Like our villains, she begins as a mysterious figure, and her arc in Act II involves letting her Ruby out to become more balanced: she better understands her insecure family by embracing the uncertainty within, and uses this growth to reach out and help an insecure enemy understand her in Log Date 7 15 2.  

Garnet might seem to have her act together compared to the other Crystal Gems, but let’s not forget that the emotionally healthiest character in the series is Greg Universe. He’s overconfident in flashbacks, but in the present is at peace with his shortcomings and happy with what he has without needing to compensate. He mourns Rose, but converts this grief into a celebration of his son’s life. Greg isn’t as dynamic a character as the rest because he’s already figured the important things out; he has his missteps, but his core is consistent and largely unchanging, even when he stumbles upon life-changing wealth. Steven tries to be like Rose throughout the series, but it’s not for nothing that Change Your Mind ties self-acceptance to sitting on the beach with a guitar.

I know I’m talking big picture here in terms of the characters and the series, but there’s not much to discuss about Bubbled at the surface level: it’s the misadventure of two enemies that sours to a breaking point, followed by a rescue. It’s actually a pretty slow bottle episode, consisting of a few long conversations broken up by two action sequences, and ending with another conversation. It’s similar in structure to Open Book and Gem Hunt, but far starker than either.

So the big picture is what matters when discussing Bubbled, because it’s a story about how Steven’s inner demons manifest, and will continue to manifest for the rest of the series. After all, Steven himself began as an overconfident kid, rushing into situations he wasn’t ready for and annoyed with not being considered a peer. He becomes far more tolerable after Steven and the Stevens, when he takes this attitude down a few notches and starts trying in earnest to catch up instead of looking for shortcuts or assuming he’s already there whenever anything goes right. But his insecurity is also clear, and now we get to really dig into the unique way this affects his character after examining how other insecurities affect other characters. 

Amethyst’s insecurity raises her defenses like a pufferfish. Pearl’s insecurity makes her insensitive to the needs of others. Ruby’s insecurity compels her to verbalize her own worthlessness (while Sapphire radiates confidence and is only insecure when her signature ability to be secure in the future is disrupted). Connie’s insecurity drives her to prove her worth to others. Peridot’s insecurity causes her to belittle others to make herself seem bigger. Lapis’s insecurity magnifies her suffering and minimizes the good. Bismuth’s insecurity inspires her to overcommit to a righteous cause. Sadie’s insecurity lets people walk all over her until she snaps. Lars’s insecurity makes him a huge jerk. And Steven’s insecurity fuels a martyr complex that’s cranked up to life-threatening heights in Act III.

The most important choice Steven makes in Bubbled is a mind-numbingly stupid one: to tell Eyeball that he’s Rose Quartz, and to then do everything in his power to convince her. Eyeball is the reason he learned Rose shattered Pink Diamond, and she has given every indication that she despises Rose for this, and she’s an especially aggressive member of an aggressive team made of Gems designed to be aggressive. Steven’s reveal comes after Eyeball has made it explicit that her lingering hatred of Rose is the reason she even came to Earth. He’s alone in space with someone who will try to hurt him if she thought he was Rose (and who already wants to hurt him), and he has proven throughout Act II that he’s neither dumb nor naive enough to not understand the likely outcome here. But he says he’s Rose anyway, because he’s so obsessed with helping people that he's willing to put his own safety at risk just to cheer up an enemy. 

There are other reasons I think it makes sense for him to make such an obvious mistake. He’s definitely in shock, but he’s also grumpy and takes Eyeball’s disbelief as a challenge. This is an irrational decision made by someone who isn’t in a rational state of mind. But this only makes it more compelling that his gut instinct, the essence of Steven that emerges from this emotional turmoil, is to help someone else. We’ve already had a whole episode about balancing the needs of others with the needs of yourself in Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service, but remember, that episode ends with Steven falling asleep standing up, because he ignored his own health to help Kiki learn that lesson.

Steven’s greatest strength creates his greatest weakness. He’s empathetic and sensitive, and can do amazing things because of it, but he needs to value himself as much as he values everyone around him. Act III sees him stumble and scramble through more trying times than ever, and until Connie finally calls him out on it, he compounds his troubles with his self-sacrificial mindset. He’s not suicidal by any stretch, but he decides his own needs are irrelevant when others need help, which ironically makes him more selfish than ever as he determines that he and he alone can save the day and stop his friends from getting hurt. And even when the cosmic scale fades away, his obsession with helping others to distract from himself becomes the driving conflict of Steven Universe Future.

Eyeball works wonders as a foil: she opposes Steven, but isn’t savvy enough to manipulate him on purpose, so his error is both obvious and unforced. Telling her that he’s Rose Quartz needs to say more about him than about the person he’s telling, and Eyeball is just flat enough of a character that she doesn’t steal his spotlight.

Charlyne Yi once again kills it, and little moments do personalize Eyeball further, even if it’s nothing groundbreaking. The biggest, in my mind, is commanding Steven to “find cover, soldier!” as asteroids approach, despite their antagonistic relationship: her instinct to act as a team trumps her personal disdain for Steven, and while he assumes later that the two are bonding, this is as close as I think she actually gets to reciprocating. We see her get annoyed at being called Eyeball, which is a nice and reasonable gripe from a character whose gripes we tend to disagree with. And I love that her weapon is less of a knife and more of a shiv, with a squared edge that implies she’s got a really strong stabbing arm.

Like I said, she’s still flat—we may see her quirks here, but she doesn’t change at all over the course of the episode and we already knew she was a proud warrior Gem with a stubborn streak—but it works. It’s weird to use “flat” as a compliment, but I do mean it as such. She isn’t the real villain here, and “defeating” her feels more like failure than victory: Mindful Education hammers home that this is the third enemy Gem in a row that Steven couldn’t help, no matter how hard he tried.

While Bubbled feels pretty slow, it helps that the whole thing is beautiful to look at. The opening shot of Steven tumbling through space from his own point of view gets us right into the game, and the loneliness and sheer terror of his situation is highlighted with gorgeous, silent shots of space. Steven is processing a huge shift in perspective, and the setting reflects the magnitude of his new reality.

And then, to add an auditory counterpart to the visual story, his rescue is punctuated by Rebecca Sugar finally finishing Love Like You.

The song has played over the closing credits since the beginning of the series, using a variety of instruments before the lyrics trickled in. An acoustic version accompanies the end of Ocean Gem, as Steven celebrates with the humans and the Gems discuss what Lapis’s escape means for the future. A haunting reprise, unrecognizable at first while Steven struggles to find himself, joins the end credits for Act III. And wouldn’t you know, it’s a song about insecurity.

When I first heard Love Like You, and for years after, I was convinced that it was sung by Rose. Rebecca Sugar herself said that it wasn’t written with a particular character in mind, but nope, for me it was definitely about Rose. She’s singing to Greg about how she wants to capable of loving the way humans can, and Steven is the result of the conversation. And I still think that reading stands, and that it matters, but songs can be about more than one thing.

This is the third of four songs that encapsulate the two big lessons I take from Steven Universe. Strong in the Real Way reconstructs the notion of what true strength is, and alongside Stronger Than You, we’re told that what matters most is doing the right thing and being a good person, even when it’s hard, and that healthy relationships (romantic, familial, platonic, whatever) help make this possible. 

Love Like You and our fourth big song, Change Your Mind, similarly work as a duo: where the Strong Songs are about the importance of relationships to emotional strength, Love Like You and Change Your Mind address how we as individuals can be strong in the real way. It’s important to have healthy relationships, but it’s also important to love yourself, and Love Like You is about that second part: the most loving network in the world can’t fix your insecurity if you’re unable to see yourself the way your loved ones do. 

As Love Like You plays in the background, with the first non-diegetic lyrics we’ve heard in the series, Steven is finally told the truth. Garnet is right that Steven’s mother would have done anything for Earth, and while the details of her misdeeds are hazy at this point, the result is the same. Steven can no longer look to his mother as a paragon of virtue, and even though the Crystal Gems love him, they can’t fix this new problem, especially if their secrecy is part of the problem. They think the world of Steven, and now it’s up to him to see that he can do about anything. He could even learn how to love.

Future Vision!

Eyeball knows Rose Quartz not by her shield, but her sword. And we know Eyeball witnessed the “shattering” of Pink Diamond. And we know that Rose’s sword was built to not harm a Gem’s gem. Hints abound.

The chase around the bubble ends because Steven stops and wonders aloud what would happen if his gem was taken. It’s the first time the subject is broached on the show. It isn’t the last.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

Bubbled touches on major themes of the series, but in a bubble on its own, the glacial pace hinders the storytelling. This is a great finale, but it’s not that great of a solitary episode. I like it fine, there are a lot of great things about it (the art in particular), but I don’t rank this one very high by itself.

Top Twenty

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

When It Rains

Catch and Release

Chille Tid

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

No Thanks!

     5. Horror Club      4. Fusion Cuisine      3. House Guest      2. Sadie’s Song      1. Island Adventure

#bubbled #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

[horrible-on-main]

He’s skittish, everyone knows. You can see it just by looking at him. Paying attention, his reputation backs it up. He’s gone the moment things heat up. Backs out at the first sign of trouble. Won’t let anyone within arm’s length. But he has another reputation, amongst the violent and the well-informed. Threaten him and he’ll run. Corner him though, and expect two inches of steel between the ribs.

(Cut for length)

So she takes four of the boys along to track him down. It’s far more muscle than she should need to pull down a starveling like him. But she hasn’t survived this long by bringing not enough muscle.

He takes off, of course. Before they even reach the flophouse - now who warned the little rat, I wonder? No matter. She’s prepared. They corner him in a blind end. Perhaps he thought he could hide.

He lifts his hands in a gesture of surrender with the grunts still a good ten paces off. “There’s no use shak-king me down,” he tells them tonelessly. “I’ve g-got nothing to take.” “Shame, that,” she tells him. “Because you owe me.” “I’d pay you back if I c-could, I swear.” She believes him. Conflict-averse, this one. It doesn’t matter though.

A couple of steps forwards, and his tone rises a few notches with fear. “I was desperate, it won’t happen ag-gain...” He sounds desperate now too. She doesn’t get the impression that he’s optimistic. “Yes it will.” He doesn’t answer at once, so she keeps talking. “You might think it won’t now, but if I let you go you’ll remember this when you’re desperate next and you’ll try your luck again.” “I swear, you’ve sca-” “Uh uh,” she cuts him off. “And even if you don’t, others will see and get cocky. You know I can’t let you off, my reputation’s on the line.”

A little closer still. The boys are close beside her. “I’ll pay you back!” he insists, shoulders bumping the wall behind him. “Just g-give me time I’ll find a way I swear-!” “No you won’t, you’ll skip districts.” “N-no, I-” “Sure you don’t think you will now. But when you run up against deadlines and you don’t have my money, you’ll run.”

He is quiet. Something goes out of him. He can’t argue against her logic. His wrist moves, sliding the shiv from his sleeve into his hand. Watching his eyes, she recognises the look of someone who is ready to kill.

Which is not to say that there is only one such look. She could name at least a dozen variants. She considers herself something of an expert on spotting when the floor is about to drop out, and how badly The grim determination of the asshole that thinks he’s in the right,  the bright fanaticism of the zealot. The cold analysis of those who’ve killed enough that it stops feeling remarkable - she knows she must wear that one sometimes. The regret of a good person about to do a bad thing. Savage loathing. Rage. The glee of the truly psycho about to let their impulses out at last.

She has to admit, it’s that last one she’s expecting. She’s learned to think the worst of people. But he surprises her. It’s none of those. Just the quiet, animal desperation you see in the starving beggar who strangles her peers for a crust. The cornered dog that bites back. An honest thing, that. He seems honest all over. It’s a shame, really.

She nods the lads forwards, and it’s settled in a heartbeat. He fights like an animal, but without strength or skill. Soon the boys have his little knife and both of his arms, rendering his twisting and kicking futile. She steps in close, ignoring the weak impacts of his boots against her shinpads. “I’ll go easy on you,” she offers. “If I give you some pretty bruises and a limp, you won’t breathe a word that we were gentle, will you?” She pats the side of his face - a condescending gesture certainly, but not she thought an unfriendly one. He meets her eyes, and there’s pure terror there. His knees give way and he dangles limply where he is held.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpers, “I’ll t-tell no one, I swear, I swear, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” There’s something in his tone that puts her hackles up, something broken. He holds her gaze still, and there’s a weird intensity to it but also an uncomfortable vacancy. She hesitates. “You’ve been hurt before.” It’s not a question. He’s been hurt badly. Possibilities flick through her mind and she feels dirty. “Yes sir. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry....” She glances at his hands. The palms are wrapped with rags, but she could swear... yes, the fingers are scarred. Looking closer, he’s missing several nails.

She exhales. “Put him down.” Without his shiv, she doesn’t think he could hurt her if he tried. And he doesn’t try. He drops to the floor like a rag doll, folding up over his knees to shiver at her feet, head down. She crouches and carefully takes one of his hands. He whimpers in the back of his throat, but he doesn’t resist.

She unties the wraps gently, feeling him trembling in her grip. “Throne,” she whispers as the skin is laid bare. What hasn’t been done to this poor bastard? There’s almost more scar than not-scar - cuts and burns and puncture marks, clean wounds and messy ones. And his wrist.... did someone flay a ring round it? There are more scars on the forearm, and they look to continue up under the sleeve. She reassesses the marks on his face in a new light, too. “Please,” he is whimpering. “Please, please, I’ll g-get your m-money, I’ll work for you any k-k-kind of work I swear just please I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...” “Hush,” she tells him, appalled. “It’s alright. I changed my mind, I’m not gonna hurt you. No one’s gonna hurt you.” “Thank you sir, thank you,” he snivels. And then he’s quiet, aside from occasional quiet hiccups of half-suppressed sobs.

Soft it might be to let him off. But she can’t do it. Not with him pleading like that in the dirt. Not in the face of that earnest, broken panic. She might be a bad person, but she’s not a monster. “Up you get,” she tells him as she lifts him back to his feet. “I guess you’d better come back with us then, huh? So we can figure out how you’re gonna pay that debt.” He shudders in her arms and she is quick to reassure. “Not in pain and blood, I promise. I’ll find you honest work, alright? You’re gonna be alright.”

#survivor #survivor drabble #drabble #mention of torture #mention of abuse

[ketchupsupreme]

A Rose By Any Other Name

A/N: So I finally decided to post one of my short stories on here. Enjoy reading and if you like it, how about a like or a reblog? Ha look at me, shamelessly promoting myself. Anyways, enjoy and all critiques are welcome!                         

                                                 Phillip

He hated this room. He hated the purple lights. He hated the soft glow they emitted and how they made everything seem washed out and dead. He hated the window and the city that he could see burning outside, smoke and fire turning the sky into an angry red hue. He hated the screaming that he could hear from the streets even though the room was on the topmost floor. He hated the scrabbling and the whirring of the machines that roamed outside, the ones that had turned his existence into a living hell. Most of all, he hated himself. Hated himself for not being able to walk outside that apartment and forget about everything. Forget about the machines. Forget about that other world. Forget about her. He almost hated her. Almost. It was his devotion to her, his obsession with trying to break her free from the world that they had constructed that kept him from leaving and forgetting all about her. Every time he said this lie out loud, he almost believed it. He loved her and she loved him. It was his fault that she was trapped, stuck in a world that she believed was real. He walked over to the chair, the purple lights making her look like a corpse. Her long black hair, greasy and snarled from months of not showering, still looked beautiful to him. It was the first thing that he had noticed all those years ago before the machines came. Then he had noticed her eyes, that startling shade of blue that bordered on neon that for years after they started dating, still fascinated him. Now he couldn’t see them, not when they were covered by the black visor that transported her to the other world. His skin pimpled with disgust as he stared at the wires that were connected to the visor, to her forehead, to her chest. He stared at the heart monitor, the machine beeping. He touched her arm, his fingers tracing over her cool skin. He missed her smile, her laughter, her eyes sparking as if electricity ran through them. He wanted to tear that visor off, to hear her laugh, to see her eyes open and to feel her heart race again. He wanted to tear those wires off her face, to smash the visor to the ground, to have her awake again. He wanted to hug her, to kiss her, to apologize for what he did to her. He knew that there was only one way to awaken her. He kissed her gently, wishing with all his might that that would be enough to wake her. It wasn’t. It never was. There was only one way. He would have to go into the other world and guide her through it until the end. That was how he had woken up. That was how he would wake her. Then they could escape this room and try to live a life away from machines. He grabbed the second visor, the one that lay next to her. He slipped it on, his breathing becoming erratic, fingers trembling as he thumbed the right switches, pressed the appropriate buttons. He settled down next to her in the other chair, his entire body screaming at him to tear visor off, that he could get trapped again, that he wouldn’t be able to come out. He silenced them and he pressed the final button, his vision tunneling as his brain and his consciousness were transported to another world. His body slumped as the purple lights in the room flashed and then dimmed again, the quiet humming noise drowning out the screams that flowed up from the street.

                                                 Talia

“One more game and you owe me all the money in your purse Lyle,” I said, chuckling as I shuffled the cards, making sure that I slipped a few choice cards into my sleeve. I placed the deck on the table, dealing them and squashing a grin when I saw the hand that I had been dealt. I placed a few coins on the table, all of them gold.

“Listen to me, girl, I have never lost a game of cards in this tavern and I don’t plan on losing now,” the old man said, grinning as he placed a winning hand down on the table. Well, a winning hand in almost any situation… except this one.

“I’ll expect my gold tomorrow at the latest,” I said, pretending to stifle a yawn as I placed my cards down. I stood up, cracking my back and working out the kinks in my neck. Lyle stared at the cards in disbelief, his face changing from an interesting shade of red to a horrified white.

“You cheated,” he said, his voice cracking as he stared at the cards. “You must have cheated! No one can draw cards that good on just luck!”

I laughed again, tying my long black hair back in one quick fluid motion. In that motion however, the cards that I had put into my sleeve fell out. They fluttered down to the table, Lyle’s bulbous, watery grey eyes following the cards descent to the table. A weak chuckle escaped my lips.

“Listen, Lyle, you know what never mind about you owing me your gold, let’s call it even and say our goodbyes now,” I said, backing away from the table.

“CHEAT!” he roared, throwing a glass full of ale directly at my head. I ducked, scrambling for the stairs as he flipped the table over. With that simple flip, the entire tavern exploded into chaos. Men began swinging at each other, ale and wine flying everywhere. It didn’t matter what the fight was about. Once a glass had been thrown, everyone in the tavern was fair game. Women smashed bottles into the sides of random heads, and windows were broken, glass showering onto the wooden floor. A thud sounded from one of the bedrooms upstairs and I wondered if some playful couple had fallen out of the bed. As I laughed silently at the mental image, Lyle grabbed me by my hair, snapping me out of my fantasy, and pulled me back into the fray, letting go when I slammed an elbow into his face, his nose breaking instantly. Sandra, Lyle’s wife, screeched and attempted to rake her nails down my face. I batted her hand aside, laughing when the barmaid slammed a glass onto her head. She crumpled to the ground, next to her husband who was sporting a bloody and broken nose. He glared up at me and pulled out a small knife. Shit. Seemed like someone had not listened to the “No Weapons” rule within the tavern. To be fair, I hadn’t either, but that was neither here nor there. I pulled out my own small dagger, the red crystal embedded on the pommel glinting in the candlelight of the tavern. I wasn’t going to kill him of course; I was just going to make sure that he knew never to cross me. As I got into position for a knife fight, I felt the entire bar freeze. Everyone froze where they were, including me, and it wasn’t a voluntary action. We were all quite literally frozen in place. I was lucky enough to be facing the stairs when my body froze so I knew exactly who would be coming down those stairs. That was what that thud had been. He must be awake already.

“What in the hell is this?” he asked, his hand outstretched as he worked his magic on the bar. Phillip walked down the stairs, releasing us all with a twist of his hand. As the spell broke, the occupants and I collapsed to the floor, the spell having stopped all momentum in our bodies. Phillip walked over to me and extended a hand. I reached up and grabbed it, letting him pull me up. He tossed a couple of coins onto Lyle’s prone from with a whispered apology and motioned for me to follow him outside. As he walked out the door of the tavern, I walked over to Lyle, crouching down in front of him.

“You still owe me Lyle,” I said, swiping the coins off of his chest and depositing them into my own purse. “Consider this my payment.” I flicked his nose and ran out the building.

                                                         ////

Phillip was outside the bar, waiting for me to emerge. The minute I did, he began scolding me.

“Are you stupid? What if you had gotten yourself killed? What then? I can’t heal the dead, Talia! You have to be more careful” He paused, taking a deep breath as he calmed himself.

“I’m sorry,” I said, hanging my head in mock regret. After a few seconds of not saying anything, I peeked up at him. What I saw in his eyes startled me. It was almost like grief. I hugged him, feeling his body stiffen, and then after one long second, hugging me back. “I’ll be more careful, I promise. Besides, it’ll take someone stronger and faster than Lyle Skane to take me down. Don’t worry so much.”

He chuckled and disengaged from the hug. He began walking down the road towards the outskirt of the village and the forest beyond, motioning for me to follow him. I felt excited. After two days in this dreary village, we were finally moving on.

“So what’s next?” I asked, falling into step next to him. “We’ve already cleared out the bandits in the Aloon Settlement, we’ve purged the werewolves from the forests of Kessig, and we’ve reunited a lost princess with her family. What else do we have left?”

Phillip stayed quiet for a second, pushing open the gates that lead to the outside of the village.

“I couldn’t see,” he said, his voice growing quiet as he headed towards the forest where we had hidden our weapons. Just like the tavern, the entire village had a ban on any weapons, physical or magical. If some type of law enforcement had found me with that dagger, I would have spent a few weeks in a cell.

“You couldn’t see?” I asked, surprise making my voice go high. It was rare for Phillip to be blind to the future. In all the years that I had known him, he always had a plan, a move that would set us one foot closer to a goal. We had met a few years ago when I, almost out of money and food, had taken to robbing a carriage as it passed through some woods that I used to live in long ago. As I was planning my robbery, he had emerged from the woods unbeknownst to me. I had no idea I wasn’t alone until I felt a hand on my shoulder. I flipped him over, scrabbling on top of the stranger that dared touch me, a small shiv of wood in my hand.

“Who are you?” I had snarled. I was angrier than I should have been, but at that time in my life, I was used to doing everything for myself and for someone to sneak up on me like that left me feeling vulnerable, especially since he caught me as I was humming a small tune to myself.

“My-my name’s Phillip,” he had said, choking off every syllable as I continued to crush his windpipe. “I came to stop you from robbing that carriage Talia!”

“How do you know my name?” I said, jamming my arm further into his throat. His face turned purple, the lack of oxygen leaving him weak as he tried pathetically to move my arm. I relented at the last second, allowing him a sniff of air before I tightened my grip on his neck, being careful to not almost kill him this time.

“I saw you in a dream,” he said, voice growing hoarse and desperate. “I’m supposed to help you! I’m here to make sure you don’t rob that carriage and that you reach your destiny!”

“That carriage is a one way ticket to a better life for myself! You, with your silk robes and your jeweled necklace no nothing of the hunger that I face!”

“If you rob that carriage you will die!” he yelled, throwing me off of him. I scrambled up, crouching into a fighter stance as he dusted himself off.

“If I don’t rob that carriage, I’ll die anyways.”

“That carriage belongs to a powerful necromancer.” Of all the forbidden magics, necromancy, the art of raising and controlling the dead, was the most feared. “If you attempt to rob that carriage, she will kill you and add you to her army of the dead. I’m just trying to help you!”

“How do you know this?” I asked. Some stranger that I had never met was trying to convince me that it was because of his good heart that he was trying to help me. No. From my experiences, this world was full of liars and cheaters. What did one good deed matter when five others would spit on you for the color of your eyes? Devil eyes. Monster. The monster with electric blue eyes. That’s what they called me. My own parents had thrown me out, afraid of both me and the anger of the other villagers in the village that I had grown up in.

“I’m telling you, I dreamt it! I saw you in my dream, dying and becoming a walking corpse!”

I didn’t believe him. Maybe that’s why I slammed the rock into his head. Maybe that was why I attempted to rob the carriage. Maybe that was why I was so shocked when I faced the full fury of a necromancer. He had told me the truth. I had accepted my death, closing my eyes and hoping that my spirit would find a good afterlife, when I felt what I would soon recognize as the feeling of his magic. When I eventually opened my eyes, all that was left of the necromancer was a burning husk. The stranger-Phillip-was crouched in front of me, and what I saw in his eyes that day still rocked me to my core. I saw worry. I saw things that I never felt even when I lived with my family or when I was alone for all those years. As he grabbed my hand to heal a small cut, I knew that I could trust him. Because of that failed robbery, because of all the time we spent together after, I was here, surprised at the fact that his dreams had failed him.

“I saw flashes. Nothing concrete. Purple flames. A cavern. Darkness. That was it,” he said, his frown marring his good looks. “I couldn’t see the enemy. All I could see was a road that would lead us to the cavern where he or she is. It’s near this village.”

I led the way to the clearing where we had hidden our weapons. To anyone else’s eye, the clearing would look empty. It would look like a picturesque forest, bright crocuses sticking out of the ground, puffy white clouds rolling gently across the azure blue sky. The smell of the pine trees permeated everything, and if you listened closely, you could hear the babbling of a far off creek. One word from Phillip however, and the supposedly empty clearing would flicker and our small encampment would appear. Our two tents, a small fire pit, and best of all, our weapons chest. Well, more like my weapons chest. All Phillip had in there were a few books. I walked over to it, feeling the rich supple leather under my fingers. I opened it, and pulled out my sword and shield. The sword, a fine long blade, had a briar design on the blade and handle, ending with a simple rose on the pommel. My shield, a simple kite shield, bore a simple design of a cross surrounded by brambles of thorns. I placed these to the side and deep inside the chest lay two of my most treasured weapons. The third was in the holster on the side of my leg. I pulled out the two small daggers and added the third one to the dagger belt that held them. The three daggers looked identical, with one small difference. They each had a different stone on the pommel: a ruby, a sapphire, and an emerald. My Fairy Blades.

As I pulled on the armor that was on the side of my tent I reminisced about how I had gotten the fairy blades. Last year, three small forest fairies were being chased by a pixie, a notorious eater of their kind. After killing it, they granted me these blades, saying that they would never fail me. Sure enough, these blades never missed their marks, finding each and every vital point whenever I threw them.

“Talia.”

I turned around, jumping back when I saw a huge, white stallion in front of me. For one second I seriously thought that the horse had spoken to me, until I saw Phillip shaking with suppressed laughter. I tried being angry with him, I swear. In the end I ended up laughing as I always do whenever I saw Phillip laughing.

“Talia, I’m going to go to sleep again.”

“What? No, you just woke up! Don’t we have to go to this cave and defeat the thing inside?”

“Yes we do, which is why I summoned this horse. The cave is one day’s ride from here. I plan to sleep and try to see if I could collect anymore clues about whatever’s in there. I’ll be awake before we get to the cave I promise. I’ll be tied to the horse and you’ll lead him towards the cave.” He placed the tips of his finger on my temples. I instantly knew where to find the cave. “I will be back.”

As he settled himself on the horse and drifted off to sleep, I stared the horse straight in his eyes.

“Oh sure he gets to sleep while I do all the work. Typical. Anyways do you have a name Mr. Horse?”

The horse neighed in reply.

“Well, how about Samson? Yeah I like that. Samson the Horse.”

                                                   Phillip

He woke up with a start, ripping the visor off of his face. How could he be blind now, now when it was so crucial that he keep her alive? How could he not know what they were going to face in that cave? He paced around the small room, wanting to smash the bulbs of the purple lights. The screams down on the street had stopped. He wished they hadn’t. The screams at least kept him from being alone with his thoughts, because even though she was in the room with him, he was alone. He would be alone until he woke her. This was his final chance. He wasted her lives in the game before, trying to break her free from her prison. When they had built the machine, they both agreed on a maximum five lives before the game would kick you out and force you to start over. It would serve as a break from the horror that their lives had descended into. What they had not planned on was the game trapping them in there with no recollection of how to get out or who they were. He had not even known that he was passing the game when he killed that final boss. But kill it he had and woken up he had, alone and without her. He tried all he could to wake her, eventually recoding his visor so he would remember who he was and be able to get out whenever his character fell asleep. He jammed it on, finding her in the world that they had built. He wanted to tell her the truth that the world she was in wasn’t real, that they had created it but he couldn’t. It would shatter her mind and he would never do that to her. So instead he helped her. He tried to stop her from taking on enemies before she was ready. The Necromancer. She didn’t believe him and because of that, she lost one of her precious lives. She didn’t know it of course. She thought that she had just closed her eyes. He took care of the beast, and from that moment on, took on the role of a prophet, leading her past certain doom, and making her stronger. No matter how hard he tried though, sometimes it wasn’t enough. The Aloon Settlement, the wolves of Kessig, the traitorous brother of the princess… She was on her final life, and he didn’t know what would happen if she lost that final life. The game hadn’t worked the way it was supposed to in the beginning, why should he trust it to work at the end? She would need all of his help this time. He knew why he couldn’t see the next boss. It was the final one. He didn’t remember what the final boss had been; he just remembered the fire and the cave. That would have to be enough. He slipped the visor on. The lights flashed, his body slumped, and the room was empty once again.

                                                 Talia

I was pulling my sword out of the wolf that had attacked me when I heard Phillip waking up.

“I told you, you have to be careful!” he said, voice cracking from frustration.

“Well I’m sorry that I had to defend both of us while you took a damn nap!” The barb hit home, and the look of anger was replaced with a look of guilt as his face reddened from embarrassment. I felt guilty for throwing that in his face, but I also wasn’t about to be scolded for defending both of our lives. “Look, we each have important abilities that we contribute to our little group. You dream. I fight. That’s how it’s been since we met and I don’t plan on changing now.”

He was quiet for a minute. He knew I was right. Yes he had magic, but I was the one who risked my life in order to protect us. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking me square in the eyes. “You’re right. I just—I worry about you alright.”

“You don’t have to. I took care of myself long before you showed up. Don’t underestimate me.”

I extended my hand, leaving it up to him if whether or not he was willing to let bygones be bygones. He gripped my hand instantly and I knew that we would be alright.

“So where are we?” he said in a jovial tone, peering into the dark woods around us. I knew that he wanted to forget about what just happened so I decided to follow his lead.

“We’re just outside the cave mouth. I was going to go explore inside, see if I could find any clues about what lay inside, but all I found were these shiny scales.” I lifted them up, the dull purple scales glittering in the fire light.

“Hmmmm… could be some type of bug creature in there. These scales don’t look familiar,” he said, examining one with his finger.

I shivered. I hated bugs. I had fought giant spiders before, in the Aloon Settlement, and that was an experience I did not want to repeat. I still had nightmares about the giant furry body that had sprang at me. If Phillip hadn’t thrown a fireball at it, I would have been a goner. I gathered my courage and turned toward the cave.

“Let’s go.”

                                                       ////

It was dark. Well obviously it was dark, but it was a darkness that was absolute. I waved my hand in front of my face and I swear for one second I thought that I had closed my eyes even though I knew that they were open.

“Um, Phillip?”

“I got it.” A seed of light bloomed in his hand, getting bigger and bigger till it was the size of my fist. The cave was thrown into sharp relief. “That’s better.”

I fanned myself with my hand. “It’s hot as all hell in here.”

We looked at each other. The heat and the unfamiliar scales that I had found and his dreams of purple flames were forming a terrifying picture.

“It can’t be,” I said, voice hitching in fear. “They all went extinct centuries ago.”

“It appears one survived,” he said, voice trembling. “And it’s in here.” A faint roar echoed throughout the cave.

There was a dragon in this cave.

“We can do this,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “We’ve trained for this. This is what all of those battles have been for. We can do this.”

We smiled at each other. As I turned around to walk farther onto the cave, Phillip hugged me from behind.

“Be careful,” he whispered. “I can’t lose you.”

I grasped his hand, squeezing it affectionately. This was neither the time nor the place to speak of the underlying feelings that I felt. There would be time after.

As we walked, I prayed that each corner we turned wouldn’t lead us straight to the dragon. We had to fight it yes, but that also did not mean that I was looking forward to it. Despite my past actions, I didn’t have a death wish. I really really wanted to live into my old age.

As we walked, I noticed small purple crystals jutting from the top of the cave.

“Wow, those are really pretty,” I said, reaching out to touch one. They were almost hypnotic. I could swear they were calling out to me. As my hand neared the closest one, Philip grabbed my hand, a look of disgust crossing his face.

“Don’t touch them,” he said, pulling me forward. “We have no idea what they are or if they could be used to alert the dragon.”

I stared at the crystals, allowing myself to be dragged away, the crystal’s song fading the farther we got away from them. “That was odd,” I said, feeling more like myself the farther we got from the crystals. “What were they?”

“Probably sensing crystals,” Phillip said, peering around the next turn in the cavern. “The dragon probably has them everywhere to warn him of intruders.” He didn’t sound convinced though, his hand trembling as he pulled me forward.

“Well—,” I began saying, when the cavern began shaking. My first thought was that the dragon had found us, but when I heard the song in my head, I knew what was coming. I saw the first purple point poke through the earth, the point becoming fine like a needle, extending towards me. More and more crystals exploded from all around the cavern, crystals jutting forth from the ground, the walls, the ceiling. The song became overwhelming, driving me to my knees as the crystals reached towards me. I gripped my head, trying to block out the cacophony as images flashed through my head. I saw myself, strapped in a chair. I looked dirty. I saw a city on fire, people dying on a strange looking street. I closed my eyes, trying to process these images. I could hear Phillip calling to me, trying to reach me as the crystals separated us. Suddenly the music stopped. I opened my eyes, and I saw Phillip trapped behind a wall of crystals. He was shouting something, but I couldn’t hear him. Once again, I noticed a crystal that was as sharp as a needle, and I could hear it calling to me, beckoning me to touch it. I reached towards it, the crystal filling my vision as my finger neared the point. The minute my finger touched it, it pricked me, drawing blood.

The second my blood spilled on the crystal, my brain exploded with images. I saw myself with Phillip, building the machine. I saw me getting trapped in the game, Phillip and me forgetting who we were. Us reaching this same cavern and fighting the dragon. Phillip abandoning me as he ran for the exit. The dragon killing me. The necromancer killing me. The wolf, the spider, the Prince… all succeeding in cutting me down. And Phillip. Always Phillip. The mastermind. The man who said he would never abandon me even when those monsters attacked in the other world.

I opened my eyes, surprised to see all of the crystals suddenly gone. Phillip was kneeling next to me, feeling for a pulse. My heart filled with anger as I saw him, acting as if he truly cared about me. If he cared about me, he would have never have abandoned me. I slammed my fist into his face, catching him by surprise as he tumbled to the ground.

“You bastard,” I said through gritted teeth. I swiped away the tears that had suddenly began falling. I drew my sword, pressing the tip lightly into chest. “How could you? How could you do this to me?”

“Talia, what are you talking about?” he wheezed, trying to squirm out from underneath the blade. “It’s me, Phillip!”

“I remember. Everything.”

“His face drained of blood. He stopped moving, mouth moving soundlessly. “You remember? Even…about the other world.”

I threw the blade aside, grabbing him by the neck of his robe. “Yes. But especially, I remember the last time we were here.”

His eyebrows snapped together in confusion. “What do you mean? Last time we were here?”

“Oh you don’t remember?” A sarcastic chuckle escaped my lips. “You left me here. That’s why you remember everything. You’re dreams aren’t visions of the future. You’ve done this before. And when we reached this place together, you left me to fight the dragon while you escaped and woke up.”

“Talia, please. I—I was scared. I thought that maybe if I passed the game, we would both wake up. I thought I was saving both of us!”

“You left me here to die!”

“No! That’s why as soon as I could, I came back! I tried to make sure that you could pass the game so you could wake up! I’m trying, please—“

A roar echoed throughout the cave, shaking me to my very bones. The dragon was near.

I could kill Phillip now, or have him help me wake up. He had already proven to be a coward. Could I trust him to not abandon me again? My instincts screamed at me to kill him now, to end this miserable coward’s life. But I couldn’t take on this dragon alone. I would need his help. My mind made up, I threw him onto the ground.

“After this, you and I are over. When I wake up, I don’t care, but you and I are done.”

“Talia, please I’m—“

“If you apologize to me, I will beat you to death.”

With that I turned my back to him, leading us through the cavern, the heat getting more and more unbearable. Phillip trailed quietly behind me, and every now and then I could hear him sniffling quietly. I ignored him, not in the mood to console him. He knew what he had done. I wasn’t going to coddle him and absolve him of this. I had a dragon to kill and a game to wake up from.

The tunnel widened, eventually leading to a stone bridge that led to a giant stone dais. I peered over the edge, seeing nothing but blackness. How long would someone fall if they fell over the edge? I glanced over at Phillip, my mind jokingly toying with the idea of throwing him over. I quelled the idea, and walked onto the dais.

“Where’s the dragon?” I asked, not looking at him. “The cave doesn’t go any further so it should be here.” I glanced around, seeing more of those dull scales that I had found near the mouth of the cave.

A roar from above answered my question. My head snapped upwards, and I saw the beast on an outcropping of stone high above the dais, examining us with toxic green eyes. Its body was coiled, black and purple body rippling with powerful muscles. Curving horns extended from its head, giving it another form of attack. A pale yellow tongue slithered out, tasting the air. Its eyes were so huge that I saw its pupil pinpoint and I knew it was going to attack.

“Move!” I bellowed as the dragon’s wings burst out of its body. It flew into the air, gouts of purple and green flame exploding from its mouth. Phillip and I dove behind a rock, the rock beginning to melt under the heat of the flames.

“We need a plan!” I said, peeking over the rock. The dragon was on the ground now, its long, red nails raking the ground. It left behind long furrows and I knew that my armor would be as useful as leaves in defending myself.

“A head on attack won’t work,” Phillip said. “It has scales meant for defending against any attack, physical or magical. I doubt my magic would even work on it.”

Another earsplitting roar shook the cave, and I knew the dragon was getting bored with this game of hide and seek. I pulled one of my Fairy Blades from its sheath and I looked at Phillip.

“We are going to defeat this thing and I am going to wake up. No matter what, I am escaping this world.”

I sprinted out from behind the rock, throwing my dagger. The green jewel glinted as it sped fast and true right into the beast’s neck. It embedded itself into it, hot blood pouring out and melting the rocks underneath. Sadly, the dragon was still very much alive as it breathed more fire onto the ground below. I lifted my shield, the blessed metal holding against the dragon fire. Once I had the chance, I dove behind another rock, examining the wound I had left on the dragon. As it spewed more fire, I noticed flames also emitting from the wound my dagger had created. The dragon began smashing rocks as if it was hoping to drive Phillip and me out of hiding. I was tired of hiding.

I leapt out, brandishing my sword as I let out my own roar. The dragon sped towards me, flames exploding from its nostrils as its giant mouth opened. I dodged, slamming my sword down on its face. Nothing. It swiped at me with its claws. I rolled beneath the claws, knowing that if I miscalculated a roll, the claws would kill me. Lift my shield at the wrong moment and the flames would cook me alive. Do even one wrong movement, and the teeth would tear me to shreds. Every time it missed me, it would strike the dais we were on and more and more would crumble away into the everlasting darkness below us.

“Talia! Aim for the neck!” I heard Phillip cry. I looked at him for one second, and in that second the dragon slammed its claw down on me. Blood exploded from my mouth, a sure sign of internal damage. The dragon let loose a shriek of victory, bringing its face down to examine me. This was it. I was going to die. It opened its mouth, revealing thousands of needle fine teeth. I closed my eyes, waiting for that bite that would end me. When it didn’t come I opened my eyes. The dragon was frozen. I saw it straining against the spell, trying with all its might to break free.

“Talia! Do it now!” Phillip walked towards the dragon, arm outstretched and sweat pouring down his face. “This spell won’t hold for long!”

Already the dragon was snapping its jaws, body breaking free of the spell bit by bit. I squirmed out from beneath the red claws and stood up. I ripped my dagger belt off of me, tying it to my sword in one quick fluid motion. I tossed my shield aside, praying that I was correct in my theory. Phillip collapsed, the spell breaking, freeing the dragon. It reared its head, poised to kill Phillip.

“HEY!”

The dragon turned to face me. I launched the sword above my head, my two remaining Fairy Blades guiding the sword straight into the wound I had made earlier. As the sword entered the monster’s body, it shrieked in pain as the fire it had inside began exploding out from it. It fell, the whole cavern shaking as the monster died. The dais we were on, crumbled as it was, began falling apart huge chunks falling into the fathoms below.

“Talia! Come on!” I heard Phillip scream as chunks of rock began falling from above. The body of the dragon fell as well, taking my sword and Blades along with it, a red, blue, and green twinkle the last I saw of them. I began running for stable ground too late, the stone beneath me falling. As I fell, Phillip jumped and tried to grab me, missing by the tips of his fingers. I fell down into the darkness.

                                            Phillip/Talia

His consciousness roared back into his body. He screamed in anguish as he ripped the visor from his eyes, throwing it aside. The game had thrown him out and that could only mean one thing. He looked at her motionless body, sorrow knifing his heart as he broke down, sobbing and apologizing to her lifeless corpse. He had failed her and finally for the first time, he could see her as what she was—a corpse. He knew that she wasn’t coming back. Yet he couldn’t leave her. He had sworn that he would if he couldn’t wake her, but now that it was time to act, he couldn’t. He knew what to do. The game was surely rebooting, erasing Talia, but he could save the game’s memory of her. He could live with how the game remembered Talia; it wouldn’t be the same but he would still be with her.

I was falling. I don’t know for how long but when I finally hit the floor, it didn’t hurt. It welcomed me, soft and enveloping. Is this what dying felt like? An eternity in darkness? Alone? I began crying softly, afraid of truly being alone. I cried because to be truthful, I didn’t blame Phillip for what had happened to me. I had been angry; I didn’t hate him. I had just been so angry…

He was close. He just had to rewrite a bit more of the code and he would be with her, wherever she was…

I don’t know how long I floated in the darkness. It could have been seconds or eternities. All I know is that when I saw that sparking purple light, I thought it was a trick. Then I saw the red, blue, and green lights join and they began sparking and fizzing, creating a perfect circle.

He rewrote the piece of code that erased his memory. He wouldn’t need it anymore, just enough to find Talia…

The lights called to me. I walked or floated or swam to it. I couldn’t tell you which. The closer I got to it, the more I could see fuzzy images. When I was right in front of it, I gasped. I could see Phillip in the other world.

He destroyed the purple lights for good measure. If he was leaving this world for good, at least he could do one final thing that brought him pleasure. He grinned as the broken glass showered the floor.

I knew that if I touched the light it would awaken me. I would be back in my body, back in the real world. I would be with Phillip. All I had to do was touch it.

He placed the visor over his eyes. He would see her soon.

I touched the light.

He flipped the switches.

I’m coming. Wait for me Phillip.

I’m coming. Wait for me Talia.

The End

Any and all critiques are welcome!

#writing #fiction #sleeping beauty #short story

[meshugana1]

I know it's kinda early for Halloween asks (by about 2 days until October) but here's a kinda Halloween themed ask for ya. It involves Kijo and though I kinda find her as my favourite I'll get to the point... It's Hallows' Eve and maybe for this one night a year Kijo could turn a nerdy 5 foot 11 guy with a 9 inch penis dressed up as a wizard or knight gets turned into a slutty short curvy goblin girl with big curves on the rear, hips, ass, breasts and lips.

   There was a scream, then a crash. The knife tumbled into a patch of weeds, and the assailant ran. The boy and the woman dusted each other off and stood, alone in the park.   “Good thing you came along when you did, Kid. That crazy guy was going to shiv me,” Kijo said. It wasn’t wholly uncommon. Her…particular brand of massage tended to make people a little miffed. She wasn’t unprepared for such encounters however, she was very well practiced in Karate. There were no belts when she finished her training, but she was far above red belt status. Still, she had to appreciate the humor in the situation. A betitted former customer holder her at knifepoint, then a brave young knight rescued her. “I’m sorry about your costume, you seemed to put in quite a bit of effort on it.”   “It’s no problem at all, I mean I did but it’s okay. Honestly, I can’t believe I just did that. I’ve never done anything like that before. Just barreling into somebody? I guess the costume is rubbing off on me,” Melvin said. It was the time of year for escapism, for fantasies to run wild and for all reservations to disappear. Melvin certainly had a lot of them, but none involved actually stopping an assault in progress. He was barely an adult, barely out of high school, bullying and isolation still fresh in his mind. He loved Halloween, the one time of year he didn’t have to be himself. But even with that freedom, he still couldn’t bring himself to be who he really wanted to be.   “I’m sorry, my problems ended up ruining your holiday,” Kijo said.   “It’s ok, really! I was just planning on a dumb party. It would’ve been a disaster anyway, I’m not the party type, as I’m sure you can tell,” Melvin said. Kijo took a good look at the boy. Pasty, scrawny, comely enough. His plastic and foam knight armor was fragmented and broken beyond repair. But her eyes could see much more than that. Her profession afforded her countless opportunities to see the human form. There were few she wouldn’t call beautiful. This boy’s wasn’t all he seemed. His hips were more prominent than most his age, and it wasn’t from fat. That came from exercise, but the rest of his lithe body was forsaken in that regard. His waist was tiny, adherence to a strict diet. This boy had potential.   “I don’t have much in the way of money, but I’d love to repay you. How about a massage?”

   “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, I don’t need a reward or anything,” a stripped Melvin said. He wasn’t sure just how he’d let himself be dragged here. He hated it, but he had never been touched by a woman before. Too many nerves, too much self-doubt. But now he was half-naked and a woman was offering to touch him everywhere. His hands worked furiously to cover his pitched tent.   “I want to, young man. I’m not in the habit of leaving debts unpaid. Besides, I have a good feeling that you’re going to find this to be transformative,” Kijo said. Her hands lathered in a very rarely used blend of lotions. Her red painted nail turned on a playlist of smooth jazz music. “Just relax, let me repay your kindness,” Kijo said. She placed her hands on his chest, gently guiding him to her table. The lights were low, candles were lit, and the music moved Melvin to Kijo’s rhythm.

   Melvin’s breath was erratic and tense as Kijo’s hands tread along his skin. His eyes were pinched shut, a part of him terrified that this was all a dream and at any moment would become a nightmare. His hands still covered the front of his trousers, his aching cock harder than its ever been. But Kijo grabbed his arms, smiling. “Don’t worry, I’ve seen a barrel of pickles in my day kid.” She pulled the hands away, and a sound of true shock escaped her lips. “Goodness! I had no idea you were…well, so well endowed,” Kijo said. Melvin’s cheeks shifted to crimson. He didn’t hate his cock, but to him, it always seemed so out of place on his skinny frame. Kijo grabbed his pants, and in a single practiced motion tugged them free. Kijo smirked, Melvin seemed to prefer going commando in his costume. “This may warrant some special attention later,” she said. Melvin turned even redder, in more than one place. He had to keep his eyes closed, no matter what. This was already the closest to sex he had ever imagined he’d get. It didn’t help at all that the dress she wore was incredibly low cut and hugger her hips so tightly he could see the lining of her thong. As long as he kept his eyes closed, this wouldn’t end in humiliation and a stained dress.

   Her hands were incredible, Melvin thought. So soft, so tender. They wandered over every inch of his body, save his cock. He indeed was grateful for this. He was always so nervous and filled with tension. As Kijo’s hands moved about him all that disappeared. He felt lighter, calmer, even somehow happier. Melvin lost all sense of time under Kijo’s care. For all he knew it was Christman time. She also worked his face and ears into a state of total relaxation. Then when she lowered her hands to his ass, and pressed her lips to his, he had no idea how he managed to hold back.   “Almost done, but I think one more part of you needs a little attention,” Kijo said, breaking the kiss. Even as her hands slid down his sides they continued their manipulations. Kijo’s hand gripped Melvin’s puffed-up cock, then for the first time in his life, Melvin felt the moist tongue of a woman wrapped around his dick. Melvin gasped cutely, but he held his tongue. He wasn’t going to lose an opportunity like this. He wasn’t much for bragging, but he was still impressed that Kijo was able to take his full length into her mouth. The pleasure he felt was so intense he could feel it tingle in his fingertips. He began to squirm on the table, his movements feeling different that he thought they should. He dragged in some places where he shouldn’t have, and didn’t even touch the table in others.  But the mouth working his cock begged all his attention and he gripped the table with arms shorter than he remembered as a thunderous climax began growing inside him.

   Kijo continued to sink down on Melvin’s cock. Each drag felt shorter and shorter to Melvin, but the nuke of pleasure descending inside him was obliterating his senses. Then his mind and body went over the edge when he felt Kijo’s tongue penetrate his body. His back arched and his eyes flew open, only to be obscured by silver hairs. His scream of ecstasy was high and unquestioningly adorable. “OH MY GOD!!” Melvin screamed. He panted, finally feeling more weight on his chest than ever before. Kijo lifted her head and licked the sweet nectar from her lips. “Not bad, a little outside my usual tastes, but it is the season after all. Would you like to see?” Kijo said. Melvin rubbed his throat as Kijo washed her hands and fetched an ornate hand mirror and handed it to him. Melvin reached out and saw his hand through silver strands, his green-skinned hand. He lunged for the mirror, upsetting his seat on the table. His motion tumbled him off, and he fell a foot further than he was used to. He landed on his hands and knees, and an enormous weight on his chest pulled him further to the ground. He saw breasts dangling from his chest, pale green tits, big ones. He looked up and met the mirror, and the face inside.

   He was beautiful. Really beautiful. He had a cute, sexy face with pointed ears. His teeth were a little bit sharper, and jutted from the bottom of his mouth. His hair was long enough to brush his shoulders, but wild and unkempt. He abandoned the mirror and explored himself. His hips were outrageous, his waist was tiny, and he was so short he was barely above Kijo’s belt line. His fingernails were short but pointed. Somehow, he became some kind of orc, or a troll or—   “A goblin, in case you were wondering.”   “What?” Melvin said.   “A goblin, I turned you into a goblin-girl. You’re welcome.”   “But, I didn’t ask for this.”   “Most people don’t. But it was because of me your costume was ruined, so I gave you another one.”   “But—”   “Listen, I have been a masseuse a long time. And you aren’t the first person to have a wild time under my care. I could tell there was something in you, even if you didn’t know it yet. But I think you do. I’m a good judge of character after all. Now you can go to that party of yours and really live it up for the first time in your life. And when you’re finished, just come back to the parlor and I’ll fix your ears and your teeth and that lovely skin of yours. I’ll even turn you back into a boy, if that’s what you really want, of course.” Melvin grabbed the mirror again and looked at his face. It was nothing like his old one. It didn’t have his acne, or the scar from his boy-scout days by his chin. He didn’t need his glasses to see anymore, and everything was cute looking. But as he looked, all he could see was him. Rubbing a solitary tear from his eye, he said: “I’d like that very much, thank you.” He tried to embrace Kijo, but his chest made that a problem. They separated and shared a friendly chuckle. Kijo located a uniform that a former new employ had…damaged after an argument with the Madam. It was in tatters, but Melvin said that the tattered look helped fit the primitive motif. Kijo waved as Melvina made her way into the world, strutting her hips as she always practiced in secret.

The End. Hope Y’all like it!

#Halloween #male to female #MTF #extraspecies tf #goblin tf #breast expansion #ass expansion #request #Kijo

[theplayersxp]

i’m done finishing the game of “the last of us” (remastered version).

Its a story between joel and ellie eventually meet each other in the story of the game im playing. And i also learned that, its a adaptation from a novel and turn it into a game in ps4 (remastered version) In the beginning of the game, joel tried to save her daughter, together with joel’s brother tommy. from unknown creatures attacked their city. Its a living dead like zombie. Called runners. Because of virus spreading in their country. But tommy left behind to block the door for the runners who run after them.Unfortunately, his daughter accidentally killed by the police tried to capture them while they are running away from runners. In the prologue of the game. And then after that, joel and one of his comrades named tess is inside the quarantine zone and she is a member of firefly. And joel become smugglers. Who smuggling things like fire arms using secret passage going in and going out of quarantine zone. But its not his main mission in the game. Because eventually, he will meet one of the firefly member and entrusted him the little girl named ellie. And they will found out that ellie is already two weeks infected and bitten by the runners. Until tess will become bitten also and left also behind to fight the police arrived in their location to make them to escape. They also meet other survivors in their way like billy. Who is adept in making traps to defend his city from runners. And also save them from runners and flickers. Flickers is another kind of infected living dead that you will encounter when you get far in the game. And you can use stealth moves and then grab it and use shiv to immediately killed it. Billy joined joel and ellie to find the battery for a car, but billy’s battery is gone when they reach the car where the battery is placed. And they run away because flickers and runners are coming. Until they reach a house where billy’s friend is hanging and dead by committing suicide. And billy found his missing battery. I also read a letter wrote by billy’s bestfriend frank before he commit suicide. He said all what he want to say including his anger against billy. And then, joel, billy, and ellie tried to jump start the car. But some flickers and runners are on their way. That is why, they take a hard time to start the engine of the car while they pushing it and killing runners and flickers on their way. Until they slide the car in down hill of the road and successfully jump started it. Ellie drove the car while joel and billy ride in the back of the pick up. And they drop billy outside of his house and billy told to joel that they are equal now. By helping each other. And before ellie and joel leave billy. Joel give symphaty to billy. Maybe he knows the feeling of losing a friend. And then after that, joel drive the car while ellie is on the back seat. And ellie told him, she stolen some comics in the house of billy and one porn magazine. And she throw it away. And then ellie move to passenger seat and turn up the volume because she also stolen a casette tape for their trip. And then after a while, ellie fall asleep and when she wake up. One of the looters acting in the middle of the road and tried to fool them by showing he is bleeding. Joel put his seat belt on and also ellie. And drive fast the car and bump in the person in front of them blocking their way. Unfortunately, their car crashed by the bus. And they crashed in a house. Ellie almost captured by the bad guys, and joel almost killed. But they manage to escape and kill all those bad guys on their way. Until they meet a two black brothers, henry and sam and team up with joel and ellie. To fight the bad guys and they head to radio tower. But on their way, the little brother of henry bitten by the runners and when sam turned and become runners. He tried to eat ellie. And joel act immediately and search his gun inside of his bag. But henry stop him by firing a warning shot to joel. Ellie is nearly bitten by sam. But henry fired his gun to sam and also to himself. And they both killed before they reach the radio tower.

Sometime in the middle of their way to radio tower, joel lost his trust to henry, because they leave them when the ladder got broken and the military vehicle is coming. But ellie stayed beside joel and find another way to get out. When ellie and joel reach the dead end of the bridge. Ellie jump in the water and joel save ellie by jumping in the water too. Because he knows ellie don’t know how to swim. Unfortunately, joel lost his conciousness because he brag in something like rock in the water and the two of them drown. And when they wake up. The two black brothers saved them from drowning.

When the two black brother is dead, joel and ellie continue their way to radio tower. Unti they reach it. They go to a water dam and make way to get inside of it, and joel thinks its an abandoned quarantine zone, not knowing its a firefly camp. Joel and tommy meet each other again. And hug each other. And talked about ellie privately in a room. And joel told to tommy that ellie is infected and immune to virus. And they argue to each other and joel asked his brother to rearm him and give him some fire arm and ammuninations to save ellie by bringing her to the hospital of fire fly. But tommy answer joel that they need to asked maria, the wife of tommy. Also a member of fire fly. But their camp is attacked by the bad guys. And killed some tommy’s men while they are trying to re-operate and re-run the water dam. Until they killed all the bad guys inside their camp. And tommy asked his wife about ellie. And when ellie heard what tommy’s wife said. He grab a horse and run away from them. But joel and tommy run after to ellie and search for her. On their way, there is some bad guys and armed by fire arms. Until they found ellie on the second floor of the house and reading comics. The three united and go to the university and ellie gave back firefly horse to tommy. And tommy go back to their camp. When joel and ellie was inside the university, they still riding a horse. Unfortunately, joel has been badly wounded and they tried to escape from the bad guys using the horse that they got from joel’s brother. Since joel got wounded because he fall from second floor and got stabbed in his back by an iron standing on the ground. Ellie hunt for their food, and that’s the time she meet david. Ellie successfully hunt a deer and run away not so far from her, And david and one of his men saw ellie. And asked ellie for trade. Ellie asked david for some medicine for the exchange of deer meat. Then david asked his men along with him to get what ellie’s need. But before that happened, runners and flickers appeared. And they both run away. Until they killed them all and david men returned and gave the medicine to ellie. Ellie found out that david is the leader of the bad guys and searching also for the both of them. When ellie is returned to joel, she inject the medicine to joel and heard davids men is searching for them and tracked her foot prints. Ellie run away from them using the horse of fire fly. Unfortunately, the horse got shot and killed and ellie still run away from them and exchanging fire from them. Until she captured by david. And lost her conciousnes. When she wake up, she found herself inside the cage. And david asked him to cooperate with him so they can give a valid reason because david sees ellies as young and innocent. But ellie disagree by breaking david’s finger. Until she lost her conciousness again because david brag him inside the cage. And then, when she wake up. She saw david and one of his men chopping a hand of a human, and i think they eating human flesh and meat. Ellie got scared in what she saw. And they took ellie inside the cage and put in the table and tried to chop her also. But ellie told them she is infected but immune. David saw ellies arm and he believed, but ellie manage to reach the butcher knife and attacked david men holding her. And ellie successfully escape david and get out of the butcher house. When ellie get outside she also searching by david’s men. Until she got inside of a bar and then david arrived and they killed each other. Ellie stab david while david tried to stab him by david sword. And when both exhausted in their fight. They fall asleep and ellie wake up first and crawl to reach david sword under of something. But before ellie reach david sword called machete, david caught him. And pinned down her. And then david turn ellie face to him and choke ellie, while david trying to kill ellie by choking.. ellie manage to reach the machete of david and slash david by his own sword. And ellie sit in the top of david and then stab and slash david’s face by his own sword called machete until..

She successfully killed david, and then joel came and arrived in the scene while ellie is killing david inside the bar. And stopping ellie and telling ellie its him, joel. Until the both nothing more to do but to hug each other.

After that, they reach the outside of fire fly hospital, and they think they are near to their hope. The cure for the mankind, a vaccine for everyone. And they saw some giraffes in the vicity of the fire fly hospital and eating some higher grass or grass from the higher ground. Ellie and joel captured by the fire fly, and then joel speak to one of the fire fly member, and told him that ellie willingly to undergo the operation and she will die to make a vaccine for humanity. But joel disagree, and he managed to escaped from the hands of one of the firefly soldiers by killing it and he asked the firefly soldier where is ellie before he finally killed it. Joel moves fast going to the top floor of the hospital where ellie wounds is trying to disect and removed from her. To make a vaccine. But the exchanged she will become zombie and died. Joel managed to save ellie and killed the three doctors examining the body of ellie. And run away from incoming firefly soldier and used the elevator to go down to the bottom of the building, i guess.. its parking lot 2, lower than the basement of parking lot 1. And joel meet a black girl a firefly member, while he lifting ellie to escape from them. The firefly member asked joel that he can still changed his mind but joel have hidden gun and shoot the girl firefly member.

And they managed to escape from fire fly hospital, and joel told ellie that she is not alone, there is a lot of immune from virus. A dozen of people. That is why, firefly or doctors stop searching for medicine. Im not sure, Because i don’t understand it clearly. But one thing is for sure, not only ellie is immune to virus. They are a lot of them. And then ellie asked joel if what he said regarding to firefly is true. Because she has a friend got bitten also with her and waiting their time to become runners. I guess her name is riley. And joel answer him its true.

And that’s the end of the last of us remastered.

July 15, 2020 at 9:07 AM

#games #anime #ps4 #the last of us

[renrutnnej]

I never wanted to be a mother

Oh boy, the miracle of birth and whatnot!

I’m really bad at absolutes. For example, as long as I can remember I’ve told people I never wanted to be a wife or a mother. As a little girl I remember looking at both jobs and being like, “Nah.”

My daughter was not my first pregnancy. The first time I was en-wombed was in university and I was a freshman who in the short span of six months time was sexually assaulted, and entered into a volatile physically and emotionally abusive relationship. Because of some mental health problems and a total lack of self esteem, I didn’t see either of these things in their correct light, I just thought my first year away from home was a real education in female adulthood.

Fortunately my first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. Is it weird or wrong to say that? I don’t think so. I was 19 and had already chipped a front tooth from being punched in the face by my boyfriend. So when I think about that time in my life, I don’t feel any guilt. Also I didn’t know I was pregnant until it was too late and what I thought was the worst period of my life was actually a miscarriage.

This gave me the impression that my physical person was a hostile environment to children. It proved that I knew I could and would not be a mother, ever.

—

To talk about my daughter’s birth, I have to set the stage, which in retrospect I’ve always described as an unfortunate series of events, but now I realize fully how incomplete and lacking in good substance my life would have been without her. I have to look at these events as exactly the way things were supposed to happen.

First, I could not find a writing job out of college (I graduated with a degree in English literature, lucrative I know). All of my self esteem issues came to a head and I resigned myself to the fact that I had been posing in college as a person with ambition when really I was going to end up staying a small town person working retail or as another’s administrative assistant or something.

Second, my sister graduated from college the following year and decided to move to Las Vegas. Through zero seconds of trying to convince me I decided to come along. Also our parents were already living there (they had moved while we were both in university).

This new start inspired me and I decided to do something completely different with my life. I was going to change the world by joining the Peace Corps. Whoa, except that stipend does NOT even come close to covering my credit card bills and student loans. Umm, backup plan, I was going to change the world by teaching English in South America, somewhere like Argentina or something. In the meantime I had to save up for this adventure so I took the first job I could, in retail.

Third, sexism has pissed me off for a long time. Growing up tomboy really instilled an (arguably ignorant) type of jealous competitiveness in me. Anything they can do, I can do better, or in the very least I can do it too. So when my male peers (retail managers) were having relationships with younger employees, I decided to too. I’m a modern woman, and cougars were like definitely a thing by then. I started hooking up with a very hot, barely legal (but also very legal), sales associate.

Next, in a few months time my sister moved to Seattle and my parents moved back to Washington state. They moved me into my own apartment on Warm Springs and back home to Richland in the same weekend. Finally I was a modern woman living in Las Vegas, with her lifelong companion cat (i.e., cat I picked out when I was 6 years old) Beauty, making it happen.

Just kidding, I got pregnant.

—

Getting pregnant a second time was a complete shock. And by that I mean, I thought it was impossible. As in, not even within the realm of possibility.

I’d been having some lady troubles for sometime and since my sister had had Exorcist level kidney stone problems I went to the doctor right away for fear. The doctor confirmed what I had known since I was 19. Well, almost. She said it appeared that my symptoms might be an indication that I was infertile. Twenty-four year old me: duh. But they still had to run the tests.

Getting pregnant brought intricate complexity and mind-numbing simplicity to my life. Having to tell the parents of my 18 year old (now boyfriend, ugh) that I was pregnant was terrifying. Having to tell my parents, worse.

No more changing the world.

No more Argentina.

No more writing.

No more freedom.

I had just fast tracked my path to wife and mother by being a “modern woman” making things happen.

No more infertility, what the hell?

And since this was clearly a miracle baby, getting rid of her never once entered my mind. This was obviously a baby Jesus type situation.

We moved from Vegas to Kansas City with his family. To say it politely, my parents weren’t pleased by my condition and the distance did us both a lot of good (I told myself). His family, on the other hand, were very happy and excited by the baby’s coming. At least they always gave the very genuine appearance of being so. I was less excited.

Actually I was the most depressed I’d been in my life at that point. I knew my body was a hostile place to fetuses so what the heck!?

I absolutely could not imagine the whole exit strategy of my situation. Instead I imagined death.

I took lots of time to myself and wrote pages and pages of tear-stained journals I can’t bear to read now. I slept as much as I could. I was mourning my death while I was still alive, growing a life inside of me.

Also I had to get rid of my cat, what the fuck.

—

I knew I was never meant to be anyone’s mother and so I was positive I would carry this baby to term and die during labor, and she would be cared for by this warm and loving family. And I would die young like I’d always predicted. Well, youngish.

My OBGYN became worried by my morbid questions about death rates.

I refused to have a baby shower or anything resembling a baby shower because I couldn’t imagine celebrating the event that was going to kill me.

My lamaze class teacher asked me stop asking questions about worst case scenarios because I was scaring the other mothers.

—

Working in retail brought about what I felt to be appropriate levels of shame and self-hatred.

Strangers, assuming me to be much younger than I was, made completely hideous comments about me and my baby, and my education (lol, right). I was constantly touched and given advice by strangers, interrogated regularly.

My retail district was close to a particularly violent one regarding shoplifters. Other managers in my store had been maced or stabbed with the tools shoplifters brought into stores to break off the security tags. One day I found the equivalent of a shiv in the front room of my store and went into the stockroom and had a complete mental and emotional break down imagining approaching the wrong customer just one time.

I felt I deserved this, though it enraged me. This was my penance.

My hormones surged. I snuck as many drinks of wine at family dinners as I could. (Sorry baby, but red wine is delicious). I had nightmares about delivering babies with heads shaped like deflated basketballs, or delivering piles of bloody guts. I obsessed over my single friends awesome lives (aka highlight reels) on Facebook.

It made me bitter that I had to die. I became resentful of my baby’s father, even though he tried his best with me. He wanted to marry me and have more kids, be a dad. I knew she’d be okay. Hopefully he’d marry someone who wasn’t anything like me or that evil stepmom bitch in Cinderella.

I’d end up letting him name her. I chose her middle name, Violet.

—

It began one Sunday night, after a large steak dinner (with red wine) at his parents. I kept feeling like I had to poop really bad every twenty minutes. It was so bad that I couldn’t sleep. By 1am I was on the toilet trying to push steak out and when I saw drops of blood, I freaked out. IT’S TIME! I screamed.

He sprung into action. What do we bring? Spoiler alert, I hadn’t even packed a “go” bag because I never planned on coming back.

We listened to Jason Mraz on the short drive to the hospital. God, this is the last song I’m ever going to hear. I focused on the words and tried to clear my mind of pushing all of my guts out.

When we got to the hospital, they did some tests and I wasn’t far enough along. Maybe this is a fake out, and I can go home and go to bed. No, the nurse told me, you’ll progress it just takes a little time.

Another nurse came in and did a quick ultrasound to see the baby’s position. Her tone worried me, looks like this one’s a breach baby. You’ll have to adjust your birthing plan. Just knock me out, I sighed. Oh oops, those are the baby’s shoulders. I thought it was her butt. She was low and engaged, and I was fine. That fucking nurse.

So he walked me around the hospital corridors while I had the worst cramps of my life. I tried not to cry.

This is how it ends, me alone in the hospital, out in the midwest, without any of my friends or family, with this kid, and this other kid inside me.

Around 4am I finally reached a point where I could get pain meds and this other drug that would help my labor progress while I was medicated, but first they had to break my water. I was terrified of any more pain. They showed me what looked like a knitting needle that they’d insert to break the membrane. The nurse assured me, her name was Bridget by the way, that it was painless. I sobbed. Couldn’t they just knock me out. My knees clamped shut and I couldn’t keep from trembling.

But it was painless and suddenly I was sitting in a puddle of what just felt like warm pee. That was it, water broken. I felt like an idiot. The drugs came quickly after that and by 5am I had progressed to the point that I could get the one thing that was keeping me going through this whole ordeal: an epidural.

The anesthesiologist came in and sat me perpendicular to the gurney. He told me to sit still because he was putting a needle the length of a ruler down my spine. But the painkillers really got to me and I had to crack jokes about how the only thing separating my naked body from the doctors and nurses in that room was a piece of paper gown. My boyfriend looked white. I was already stoned.

Afterward, I was finally comfortable, and I drifted off to sleep quickly. Bridget came in once an hour on the hour and put her whole hand in my vagina to see how far down the head was. I didn’t like being woken up but I couldn’t really feel anything and Bridget was my best friend at that point.

Around 10:45am things picked up. My baby’s dad was downstairs eating breakfast with his family when Bridget told me I’d need to call him, I was almost at 10 centimeters. He came back with his mom and Bridget told me now when I felt the urge to push to do it.

I didn’t want to poop on the table and I couldn’t get up to like clear things out before I labored a baby so I gave some weak ass pushes. Bridget could tell.

I gave one hard push and she exclaimed, JUST LIKE THAT! But I saw his face and I knew I had pooped. The shame. But again, I was stoned so meh.

Strangely I had turned down the floor length mirror at the foot of the bed because I didn’t want to see myself die, but if the end was coming I really didn’t want to see it.

“Bridget can you take off your glasses? With the lights and everything I can see my vagina and I really just can’t right now.”

She did.

With his mom video recording the monumental eruption and destruction of my vagina, my first child was born at 11:25 am. The doctor, I don’t know when she showed up (?), put the blue, guts covered baby on my chest.

She was out. I had tried not to picture her before because I never wanted to let myself go down that road in my mind.

I looked at her. She looked at me. She was gross. But she was an alive thing with eyes who looked at me. She looked like she’d been freezing (she was blue) in bloody Cream of Wheat. Also she had pooped in utero and that was everywhere, super great.

I had nothing profound to say, so I said, “Oh my god, a baby.”

Then they whisked her away to clean her up and do all the baby tests. Everyone else left too.

My body got overtaken with waves of pregnancy hormones coursing through me while I delivered the placenta and my whole body convulsed as the pregnancy hormones left me. NO, I DO NOT WANT TO SEE THE PLACENTA. Jesus.

The doctor began to clean up the volcanic eruption where my lower lady parts used to live. I knew I had felt a slight burning sensation during the birth, but I didn’t know it was a tear. I simply thought it was the slight onset of death.

It didn’t make sense to me that I was alive.

I had no plan for this. I didn’t even bring a nightgown.

Now what?

—

As of the time of my pregnancy, I can’t recall seeing any birth or pregnancy narratives that highlighted feelings like fear, depression, or general reservations without framing them them as fleeting blue aspects of an otherwise golden soft lit scenario. That’s not real life. I’m sharing my story, because even though I was certainly depressed, I don’t know that my feelings of doubt at the sudden onset of potential motherhood are all that uncommon.

When I share my true feelings and experience with friends, I often hear that other women are relieved by my candor. Dutiful, knowing mother is a trope to which I do not subscribe, and frankly, doesn’t reflect my experience at all. So I’m offering my story as just one against the many almost romantic Disney-esque birth and pregnancy stories. My daughter and I did not live happily ever after, and our relationship, just like any other, is one that has required hard work and patience (a lot of patience) but we’re both better for it.

This story originally appeared on Medium, April 3, 2016.

[howlerofthegray-blog]

canon: If They Run

I find her near the Black Lanes, where merchants and thieves do business. Anything is for sale. Everything is stolen. I could kill them all.

Do they think the shadows hide their misdeeds? The gleam of their knives? The deals they make, shrouded in darkness? I can smell the shimmerwine on a beggar’s breath from across this wretched city.

I know their crimes. I can taste them.

Then I see her. She’s taking a message from one of Baron Spindlow’s men—the lump-faced one, all scars and scowl—and placing it into a pneuma-tube. He mutters instructions to her.

Who knew the dob could even speak, let alone write a message? I’ve only heard him scream. The last time we met, I took his leg. Its replacement is already rusted.

The cogs clink as they pass from the thug’s meaty hand into the girl’s. I can smell the blood on the gear-shaped coins. The pain that passes from person to person. If you want something in this city, it doesn’t matter how many cogs you have. Pain is the true currency.

I remember a man who knew this—the blood and cogs on his hands—but that man is gone.

I growl, and the two figures flinch in surprise. Even the shadows seem to draw back as my augments cast a sickly, green glow. The girl takes one look and flees, but not deeper into the alley. She’s a pneuma-tube runner. She clambers up, into the darkness, taking a path few can follow.

Afraid. Fast, but vulnerable. Carrying a pneuma-tube with a chem-baron’s seal. The gangers will come for her.

She’s perfect…

I begin the hunt.

We move so quickly, the city is a blur—my claws cutting through the smoke, scrabbling for purchase as I leap across rooftops, following the pneuma-tube runner. Carving a path so deep through the city, it seems to bleed chemtech, toxic puddles gathering in the alleys.

She tries to double back, skittering beneath a cart full of tinctures. She knows the city almost as well as I do. She knows where I’m driving her. Away from sanctuary, toward a place all the runners fear, where only the Zaun Gray escapes.

I need to remind her to be more afraid of me than what lies in the darkness. I land ahead of her, roaring with rage, my claws tearing a chunk out of a steam conduit. She hesitates, but only for a moment, before turning back into the depths. Where I need her to run.

I can hear the gasps of effort as she scrambles up walls and slides down railings. She’s praying to the wind goddess to save her. Perhaps I should do the same. The animal inside me wants more than murder. It wants meat.

I could kill her right now. It would be so easy. I feel my claws emerging, greedy for flesh. I forget why I should spare her, until I draw closer. Close enough to see my reflection in her eyes, as she stumbles on a ledge and looks back.

Her eyes brim with tears.

It’s all so... familiar.

I pull back and howl into the darkness, driving the girl forward. She drops down into a maze of pipes built for the ancient pneuma system. I follow behind her, hanging back as she reaches the dead end.

The girl thinks I’m going to kill her. That her pale throat is the reason I bare my teeth. But she is only the bait. This is where she’ll lure out my true prey.

Those who’d prey on her.

“Well, well. Look what fell outta the Gray,” says a ganger emerging from the darkness. He and his friends surround the girl, their blades catching what little light survives in these depths. I recognize their tattered rags. The Gray Nails. A dead man once had dealings with them.

There was another girl...

I shake away the memories. I don’t want them.

“I know you,” says one of the Nails, her face ringed by piercings. “You run for Boggin, eh? One ’a Spindlow’s mugs. What’s that krovin’ psycho got to say that he don’t want us to hear?” She pokes the pneuma-tube with her dagger and smiles.

“Please, you don’t understand!” the girl sobs, scanning the gray darkness behind her and trying to rush past.

“Neither do you,” the first ganger says. “We’re gonna have some fun.”

I hesitate as the thug knocks the pneuma-tube from the girl’s hands. It’s worth more cogs than their own lives. It’s their ticket out of this miserable pit, to a slightly less miserable one.

I thought the pneuma-tube would distract them for the moment I needed. It cracks against the alley stones, Spindlow’s seal broken.

What have I done?

The runner cries out as a Nail grabs her roughly. There’s a struggle, a flash of steel, and then...blood.

Its scent enrages me.

The chamber on my back pumps, and I am lost.

A roar fills the darkness.

“It’s him! The Howler!” a Gray Nail cries out as I race into the clearing, trying to focus on the punk. I slash into him, and the alley wall steams with red mist. He crumples to the stones.

Where is the girl? I’ve lost track in the mayhem. Surrounded. Blades stabbing like clumsy teeth. Claws a metal blur. Jaws clamp down, and bones crack along with armor.

I taste blood. And still there’s more.

I see her now. One of the Nails hovers above the girl, his shiv raised. I can stop him.

But the machine pumps again, and my limbs surge with power.

The red haze fills my mind. Everything is a blur. Everything is forgotten.

Everything is blood.

I don’t know if I saved the girl. I don’t know if I killed her. I’m still biting through flesh when the surviving Nails flee into the darkness.

I turn, following them into the night. I have no choice.

They are the monsters I hunt. And I am one of them.

#canon