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potassium-pilot · 3 years

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Prompt 14: Commend

“Uh…hey there, Haurchefant. You’re not mad, right?”

The Lord Commander told her how it took six knights to wrestle him back to his post, keep him from rushing to her side in the face of Shiva. He certainly looked as though he fought off a small militia, what with the ragged hair and the small bruises on his cheeks.

His arms were folded. A stern look fell over his face. This was not a happy man.

“What were you thinking, Dia?!” he exclaimed. This took her aback. For as long as she’d known him, he’d been quite polite, always using a gentle tone of voice with her. To hear him scold her so was…different, to say the least.

“Wagering your very being on a dubious theory which might allow you to enter Iceheart’s lair- knowing full well that she could have sufficient forewarning to complete her ritual to summon Shiva, anyway…? And then- And then- engaging the abomination in mortal combat?!”

“…Chief, that’s a morning warm-up for me.”

“By the Fury, Dia!” He was in no mood for her cavalier attitude towards her heroic actions. “‘Tis the stuff of ballads! A battle for the ages!” He slammed a fist on his desk and continued, “Would that I could have been there to fight by your side!”

“Haurchefant, you would have been tempered!”

“Yet, here I was, forced to wait- condemned to wonder at the fate of a dear friend for a veritable eternity! I would not wish such torture on my most hated enemy…”

The tension on his shoulders started to release, the fire in his words began to dim, and whatever appearance of civility he could muster returned. He let out a long sigh as if to release the anger through his breath, and said while attempting to sound calm, “…but you are here now, and that is what truly matters…”

“Chief…do you need a hug?”

He shot a devastating glare at her, making Alphinaud leave the room before the tempers would flare. “I’m serious!” she assured, “I wish I could have told you that I was going, but the moment sort of just…came together perfectly. Time was of the essence.” He shook his head. “I know. But truly, no reinforcements, Dia?! None whatsoever?!”

“Unless you have another fighter who can resist tempering, it’s hard to ask that of someone.”

“Ser Aymeric couldn’t even think of a contingency plan, should you have fallen?!”

Dia felt the crease of the missive from him in her pocket. She took it from the Temple Knight, who attempted to read it aloud for her, after pointing out to him, “I can read, you know”, and read it through silently before entering the amphitheatre.

“That’s the Scions’ job.”

“Well, what is their contingency plan should you have been mortally wounded? Is there a batallion of blessed champions that secretly lies in wait in the Rising Stones?” he questioned sarcastically.

“No, there isn’t.”

“Then how do they ensure your safety? Surely, they understand that if you go, so too does the future of the realm.”

She hesitated, feeling incredibly obstinate in the face of his challenges, but was ultimately forced to concede to that one with an “I don’t know.”

“There’s nothing that they do to make sure that the Savior of Eorzea can continue to save Eorzea?”

“There’s nothing they can do, I just go in and do what needs to be done.”

“But why?” he asked incredulously, “What good does it do for anyone to leave you as the only one capable of defeating these monstrosities?”

“I don’t know, Haurchefant! Okay?! I don’t know! But I am the only one, and there’s nothing that can be done to change that!” She reached the end of her rope with an argument that should have ended before it even began when she opened her mouth. It was his turn to express shock, his eyes widened and his eyebrows raised. His usually calm and collected dear friend, quick with a joke and happy to help, has put in place an impenetrable defense. She revealed a crack, however, when she took a breath and admitted, “A break would be nice.”

The two of them took a deep breath together to release the tension at the same time.

“What do you acquire from doing this, my friend?” he asked calmly, carefully tiptoeing about the topic to ensure they don’t fall back into hostility. She kept her cool and answered with a soft smile, “Adventure.” She let out a dharp breath from her nose. “I wish I knew why, but…there was always something about exploration that drew me. I love journeying into the unknown, I love seeking new paths…but sometimes, it’s nice to rest and know my surroundings.”

Haurchefant hummed in a tone that indicated both satisfaction and curiosity. “‘Tis interesting to hear your prerogative, Dia. Many take adventurers to be self-serving, glory-seeking ignoramuses.”

“That’s because a solid majority of them are just that.” She shook her head at the notion. “Glory feels rather hollow when you’ve seen just where it lands you. No, I’m an adventurer because there’s much to see and do…but I think I’ve seen enough for a while.”

He flashed his winning smile and assured, “None deserve respite more than you, my friend. Take heart, and enjoy what you have accomplished for now. I apologize if my venting of my anxieties have dampened your victory.”

She returned the smile and replied, “No, it didn’t. Call me weird, but…there’s something refreshing about someone close reminding me that what I do could kill me. Everyone always seems so sure that I’ll emerge victorious.”

‘Was there every any doubt that the Warrior of Light would succeed’, Alphinaud’s words rang in her head.

“There is never a guarantee in battle. I feel young Alphinaud should learn such a concept if he is to lead men.” Haurchefant shook his head and sat back in his chair. “You are indeed blessed as Hydaelyn’s champion, but you remain mortal, with limits. You have escaped the impossible on more than one occasion, but nothing that you’ve survived was incapable of killing you. I would much rather know that if you were in danger, that someone, preferably myself, would be there to do everything they could to protect you.”

She stared to the floor. “You very much are a knight, Chief. You couldn’t have protected me from Shiva.”

“Perhaps not, but it would be remiss of me not to try.” Haurchefant snapped back into reality when he reminded himself of orders he received. “Ah, Ser Aymeric wished to have words with you and Master Alphinaud in private. He awaits us in the Intercessory.”

“Ughhhh, do I have to?”

Haurchefant replied to her groans with laughter in his voice, “Is there something wrong with the notion?”

“I already had to accompany him back to Camp Dragonhead. If he needed to exchange words with me, he could have done so from Whitebrim, but we barely said a word to each other. We didn’t even look at each other. I don’t get it- I saved his people from a primal. Did I do something wrong here?”

Haurchefant knew exactly why the Lord Commander would do such a thing. A conference with the Warrior of Light was one thing, but a personal interaction? No work or other business to buffer? And with such a stoic hero (or so she pretends to be), seemingly larger than life? The man was probably a puddle.

“Perhaps he just wanted Master Alphinaud there to say these words to as well. Pray, go on ahead without me, Dia. Another matter requires my attention, but I shall join you anon.”

“Fine, but hurry up. I don’t want another awkward silence, especially if Alphinaud tries to harangue him into joining the Alliance again.”

“Halone be good, you must stop him if he tries again.”

“The kid’s tongue has a mind of it’s own, I swear. If he tries, maybe I’ll cast Repose on him.” Haurchefant laughed at what he hoped was a joke as she left the office to see for just what he requested privacy.

*************

Would Minfilia yell at me if I kicked Alphinaud in the head, Dia thought. For whatever genius he proclaims to be blessed with, subtlety consistently managed to escape his grasp. That in mind, she was more than a little relieved to understand fully the intention of their dealmakers. All they hid was a desire to keep the Garleans away, a desire she shared personally.

With that done, she followed the young Brave’s Commander out of the intercessory.

“Er, Dia, if I may have a moment…”

Or she would have, had Ser Aymeric not stopped her from doing so.

“I have no idea if there will ever be enough thanks for what you’ve done, but… I would like once more to say it: Thank you, Dia. Your risk was unimaginable, and that you were so willing to do it for a country you barely know… it’s astounding. While we owe the Scions much, to whom we’ll begin to repay by delivering supplies to Revenant’s Toll, I would also like to find some way to repay you personally. Mere words feel insufficient.”

Dia felt unsure what to make of the Lord Commander, but she appreciated the thought.

“Don’t worry about it”, she replied with a soft smile. She nodded to him and turned around to finally return to Revenant’s Toll.

Once she was out of the building, she retrieved the missive from her pocket, and re-read it once more to herself.

Inside the intercessory, Aymeric turned to Haurchefant with a question in mind that the lord of Camp Dragonhead could read with ease with the expression he wore on his face.

“Haurchefant, you’ve grown rather close with her, have you not?”

“As one should expect with one’s dear friends, yes. Why do you ask?” Haurchefant attempted to bury any hint of amusement.

“Have I insulted her? Has she said anything to you?”

He failed to hide it and released a closed-mouth chuckle.

“Ser Aymeric, she asked the same of you!”

His eyes widened in mortification, and his jaw dropped slightly. That he should be perceived as being insulted by someone like her, as if he had the nerve, felt unsettling.

“I…”

“She mentioned the return trip to Camp Dragonhead was… not the most pleasant of exchanges, to put it nicely. Now, Dia tends to do more than say, so it can be hard to interact; I cannot fault you for struggling to communicate. She does take some time to warm up, but with all due respect, Ser Aymeric, you must offer the hearth. I did so, and now, I couldn’t ask for a better friend and ally. You might find the same results, and clear up any misunderstandings, an important step if you truly wish to express personal gratitude.”

Aymeric kept his gaze to the floor. “Thank you for your candor, Haurchefant.” Soon after, he turned and exited the Intercessory alongside Lucia.

Haurchefant stayed behind to think. Perhaps it would be best to refrain from further intercession; ‘tis so amusing to watch Aymeric like this, he mused.

#ffxivwrite2021 #ffxivwrite #ffxiv #haurchefant greystone #female wol #aymeric de borel #fanfiction #two of my three favorite ishgardians #anyways in this canon they’re besties

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eleanore-delphinium · 4 years

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The Demon’s Head

Damian Al Ghul for a moment was a hero. And in that time that he was a hero, naturally he would meet other heroes.

That was how he met her.

His Raven.

He would describe her as a very graceful woman. She was quiet, kind, generous and lovely. Despite her name sounding as if it should belong to a lonely person or an unkind being, she was none of these. But her name did befit her origins. In the sense that she is the daughter of a being synonymous to satan; and of intergalactic alien origin, the conqueror of worlds. Therefore, the name Raven as ominous as it was, befit her well, and yet also-- not so well.

But that was the thing, he was only a hero for only a moment. That moment was all that mattered, since—after all, that was how he met her. As she continued on her heroic path, he returned to what he knew to be right as a child, the path of darkness.

He took upon himself, the name Al Ghul, a name synonymous to a demon, and he used it well. And thus, Damian Al Ghul was reborn anew, he became the Demon’s Head. The name became associated to a cruel, cruel man. But he changed the ways of his organization, and tread very, very strictly on a grey line. And in doing so, he keeps his Raven. And remember it well and do not forget, he only stays on that grey line to keep her by his side.

And if anything were to happen to his beloved Raven, he will cross to the darkness before one could even blink his own eyes, and will burn everything and anything in his path with his bare hands.

So, make no mistake by taking his Raven away or you will live a life even more painful than death. For Damian Al Ghul has a league of assassin as his army, who are extremely loyal to him. And him alone.

Killing for him was as easy as dropping a needle on a hay stack.

Damian Al Ghul, the leader of the league of assassins, stood inside his throne room made of beautiful marble in ivory and gold. The sun high up in the sky, its light entering the space so blindingly. The sunlight weaves through the pillars and mashrabiya* leaving beautiful intricate patterns on the marble floors. The sunlight helped give an illusion of brightness and happiness and warmth to the chamber.

Damian was facing his throne, his back against the door as he read the papers he was holding with his right hand. His left hand resting against his back, atop his green cape. He was wearing his black with gold uniform and armor with a green cape in contrast to the almost white room. And with his cold facial expression one would be reminded, that all the sunlight was giving after all, was just an illusion of warmth.

Damian Al Ghul was not kind at all. But of course, there is an exception to the rule.

The door suddenly opened with a burst and a loud bang, and Damian’s eyebrow twitched in annoyance. He had strictly told them that he shouldn’t be disturbed unless necessary. He coaxed himself thinking that it had to be an emergency. With narrowed eyes he tilts his head a bit to the left to acknowledge the presence of the intruder.

“My Lord!” A man in an all-black suit says hurriedly as he kneels on the floor with a thud. His left leg against the floor while the other propped up to let his right arm rest on top. His head bent toward the floor.

“What is it that you have to report?” His enunciation of every word unhurried and heavy. Damian could hear the gulp from his poor frightened little underling. Even if said underling was twenty meters away.

“It’s—it’s the Lady.” The poor man could barely say. And even though the sun was high up in the sky, and that it’s light shone brightly in the room, making the chamber look as if it was glittering, it became cold. So cold, that both people seemed frozen in place, but the poor underling was the one fighting his shivers.

“What about the Lady?” Damian asked a little too clearly, that the poor subordinate could only kneel on both knees, bend his body and rested his forehead against his hands that was now on the floor. At this point, Damian turned slowly, as his green eyes landed on the man in black.

“What about the Lady?” He repeated even more slowly than the last. And Damian saw his assassin shiver in fear.

“She-she has been missing for a few days, and we searched for her—but—but—she is nowhere to be found.” He reported as calmly as he could. The subordinate thought the room couldn’t possibly get any colder than it already was, but he was wrong. The moment he finished his report, he was kneeling there in pure horror, he was sure he will die today.

“It seems that my league of assassin who are supposed to be like a shadow, cannot protect their lady in the shadow.” It was spoken slowly that it was certain: that this was the calm before the storm. “It seems that my league of assassins lack training.” He concluded.

“You cannot even track down your lost lady, why do I even keep any of you!” Damian’s voice echoed through the chambers; his fury clear. And yet, anyone who knew their lord, would know that was not the full extent of his anger.

No, it really wasn’t.

“Lady Shiva!” He summoned and instantly a woman with black hair up to her neck in red appeared beside the kneeling assassin.

“It seems that you have been lax in training the league.” He tells her and as she bends her torso to bow. Before she could start with her apologies, he continued on. “Prepare the top ten men in the league, and have them follow me. We will look for the lady.” He started walking down his throne.

“No, in fact, I will be looking for her. And if you so choose to have people follow me then so be it.” He said when his eyes landed on Lady Shiva as he approached them, the assassin up on his feet, his head bent low as to be respectful to their Lord.

“When I find Raven, I hope my league’s errors would be corrected. But that would be wishful thinking, won’t it, Lady Shiva? I will personally see to their training when I return.” Lady Shiva and the assassin gave way to their Lord.

“Of course, my Lord.” She mutters as he completely disappears.

~.~.~.~.~

Damian held a woman in blood stained and dirt-filled white robes on his arms. Her face had cuts and bruises and she looked so weak and small against his shoulder. When he looks down at her injured face, there was a softness in his glance. A gentleness unbefitting of the Demon’s Head.

But as gentle as he was as he held her, the scene behind him was not. Orange flames flickered as he walks out from the heat and the building calmly.

“I want anyone who is even remotely related to this tracked down, and I want them tortured.” He said so calmly as he held the woman he loves in his arms. His gentle glance has become cold as he looks at his subordinates in front of him. The crunch of green grass under his feet as he continued on into the night that was illuminated by the orange flames behind him.

“If done well enough, then maybe I won’t be so strict when I train you all. Prove that you all aren’t so useless after all.” His tone stone cold.

The gentleness from before must have been an illusion. Because this was the Damian Al Ghul, they all love, respected and oh-so-feared.

“Of course, my Lord.” One replied with a bow.

“No.” They pause as they wait for Damian’s final instructions. “Keep the master mind alone, I would love to capture and torture them myself.” And the shadows that was surrounding him disappeared. Raven stirred in his arms, against his chest.

“Damian?” She called out weakly. And he stood frozen as he took a peek eagerly at the woman in his arms. “They didn’t know.” She mumbles and he couldn’t help but narrow his eyes on her. She means that it wasn’t the Justice League’s fault.

“They didn’t know it was going to be a trap.” She tried to keep her head a float.

“And look at the price you had to pay.” He said bitterly as he sneered a little and continued walking to the jet.

“I—” She couldn’t even say anything to defend the Justice League, because she felt the turmoil in Damian. How could she defend the Justice League knowing what he was feeling?

“I didn’t mind that you wanted to continue being a hero. I would not take that from you.” He sets her down inside the jet. “And I know that you know this to be true, I only stay in between good and bad for you. If you are taken out of the equation, I have no qualms in being the Demon’s Head, in its truest sense. But you choose to love me, despite of who I am. And I will not have any one harm you. Less others think that the Demon’s head is weak.”

“You are not a bad person, my love.” She replied, as she cups his cheek. He closes his eye and places a hand over hers. He opens his eyes and meets her violets irises.

“But I can be, if I am without you.” He whispered so gently as his forehead laid against hers. The words completely true. They stay like that for a minute in silence, and he pulls away.

“You shall stay in Nanda Parbat as you recuperate. I will inform the Justice League.” He stares at her sternly but she does not refuse him and he turns away from her.

The Justice League has been quite cautious about Raven. They knew of her relationship with the leader of the League of Assassins. And what the risk of putting her in imminent danger would mean considering Damian’s nature. Therefore, Raven was treated as if she was glass and yet, also fire.

“I begged them to give me the mission.” She said softly, she took note of Damian’s body twitching but she had to continue on. “After you left, and made a name for yourself as the new Demon’s Head, they were uncertain of where my loyalties lie.” She found it difficult to talk due to her injuries, but she had enough strength to heal herself a bit, to keep herself conscious and stop internal bleeding. And so Raven did, as she continued on.

“And then you made a point to show that you were not like your predecessor. And yet, you also made it clear you could be far worst. And I, your beloved, was someone who they could not risk in the forefront anymore.” She moved in her seat, as she felt her insides return back to how it should be. “I just wanted to do one more mission, where I wasn’t treated like a bomb, and after that, I will be done.”

He turned to look at her with a shocked expression. Her voice was calm as her face was gentle. Despite her battered appearance, she looked like a saint to him. The words he couldn’t seem to say aloud, she felt, and she responded as she closed her eyes.

“Yes, I was going to leave the Titans, and be with you. Commit fully to you.” Her voice was soft but his thoughts were a mess. And it was clear to Raven, all of his thoughts, as if they were all written on the air for her to read.

“The Justice League thought it was a harmless mission; therefore, they could let me go. It was supposed to be a reconnaissance mission, nothing more. But we were ambushed, and I was captured.” She sighs and opens her eyes to look up at Damian. The water in his eyes finally gave way as he blinked when their met, and she inhaled a breath.

“You could have died.” He said it lightly, that Raven’s heart started beating fast in her ears. His cold eyes that had never been directed at her, has finally landed on her. “You could have died, if I was just a minute too late.” And like his eyes that could no longer contain his tears. Raven could not ignore his emotions. And she broke into a sob, as she covered her lips with her fingers. He knelt beside her, as he put a hand on her cheek.

And his face was not cold nor was it warm. The eyes she had seen him use with his fellow assassins had disappeared. She didn’t expect that the day he would look at her, the way he did his subordinates, would happen.

“Are you crying for me?” He whispered and she sniffed as she looks at him. But still, even if his cold stare was frightening. She could never be afraid of Damian Al Ghul, even if he was an Al Ghul, and the current Demon’s Head.

“I’m sorry.” She tried to contain the emotions. And she could feel the apology he was about to say. And before he could, she leans her forehead against his. Places her right thumb over his lips as her palm rested on his jaw. “But I swear to you, I am done with being a hero. I want to walk that grey line with you.”

And his lips turned up into a smile. A smile that was only ever directed at her. His gentleness and kindness only exclusive to her. His warmth only reserved for her. And she could feel it all in her chest, and in her very bones.

The love he has for his beloved Raven.

And the danger, if he loses his bird.

(FIN)

Notes:

*Mashrabiya = those wooden windows with intricate design; (wiki says: is an architectural element which is characteristic of traditional architecture in the Islamic world and is a type of projecting oriel window enclosed with carved wood latticework).

#damirae #Damian Wayne #raven #Damian al Ghul #damian x raven #damian al ghul as the anti hero demon head of the league of assassins #Robin x Raven #raven as the love of his life even if she is a hero #drabble #romance love #alternate universe #alternate reality story #alternate timeline #evil damian #teen titans justice league leaving the team kidnapped captured male lead to the rescue

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phis-corner · 4 years

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demon’s daughter

I decided to re-open the taglist for this fic because I am sometimes a pushover, so now you can either ask or comment to be on the fic’s taglist or the permanent taglist!

Additionally, I have no consistent update schedule. My first draft is written by hand- I always like to stay two chapters ahead, so I posted this chapter when I finished copying chapter 5 into a Google Doc and proofreading.

Also, fun fact: I hate chocolate. My senses just do not like it at all. I also have a very sensitive tongue and can taste the barest hint of spiciness in foods, which also means I have zero spice tolerance whatsoever. As a Chinese-American with family in Sichuan, this means I get force-fed a lot of extremely spicy foods anyway.

Masterlist Chapter 1 Chapter 2 [Chapter 3] Chapter 4

“Why are you letting them stay? He tried to kill Dick!” Timothy points at Damian, who glowers at him from across the cave as Alfred stitches Richard’s cuts.

Marinette sighs. “Akhi was not trying to murder Richard. If you paid more attention, you would notice that all of Richard’s wounds are carefully placed in non-lethal areas meant to slow him down instead of severely injuring him.”

Batman does not say a word. He hasn’t spoken since Richard called him to verify their claims.

“They were raised as assassins, Timmy. It’s normal that they’d feel threatened a lot, and act accordingly. They’re family now. Give them a chance.” Richard replies, and Marinette blinks. She did not expect to have Richard defend them so easily.

“Pardon me,” She pipes up. “But ‘they’ are currently present.”

“Right. Sorry.” Richard has the sense to look guilty. Timothy just glares.

Damian squeezes her hand three times, their signal for I would like to leave. Marinette sighs as she exits the Batcave. Being accepted into the family is… a work in progress.

.o0o.

Slade is put into Blackgate not long after with the information Ubu gave after being interrogated by the Bats. Damian and Marinette were not allowed to go.

Too young, Richard had said. They had interpreted that as You cannot be trusted to keep him alive. He did make the right call though. Damian would have tried extremely hard had he gotten the chance.

Of course, the League did dispose of him not long after anyway, but it was the thought that counted.

Damian and Marinette spent their days in the Manor sparring, reading, or practicing their instruments. Richard, who seemed determined to bond with them, bought them both new sketchbooks, for Damian’s drawings and Marinette’s designs. She had discovered an affinity for clothing design while undercover on a mission, and had been designing ever since.

Cass (she insisted that they call her that instead of Cassandra,) was always happy to spar when asked, and although nobody ever defeated her, it was a welcomed challenge to fight someone who knew your every move, sometimes even before you did. Damian grudgingly admits she is a worthy sister, which makes Marinette smile and Cass beam.

Jason had his own home and only visited every once in a while, and Timothy was rarely seen. It didn’t help that Damian continued to make snarky comments whenever they did see him, but if Timothy was scarce, Father was practically nonexistent.

Since they came to the Manor, their father has said a total of two words to the both of them, and that was just their names when he exited his study as they passed by.

Marinette is determined to make her new family work, and so when she finds Timothy completely by accident, typing away on a laptop in one of the less-used rooms in the Manor, she takes a chance.

“You do know we are not trying to replace you, right?” She asks softly, sitting down in an armchair and deliberately not making eye contact with him.

Timothy snorts. “But is that not what you’re doing? Bruce chose to take in everyone else. I had to blackmail him into letting me be Robin. And then the biological kids show up, born and raised like fucking royalty, so who would care about Tim Drake? The little kid whose parents didn’t even want him and his neighbor only adopted him because he knew his most well-kept secret.”

“We have more in common than you think.” Marinette says quietly.

“Yeah, right.” Timothy laughs bitterly. “The Princess of the League-”

“I wasn’t.” Marinette interrupts.

“Huh? But-”

“I wasn’t the Princess.” Marinette keeps her voice calm with considerable effort. “As soon as I was born, Ra’s gave me over to Lady Shiva. He declared me unworthy because I was a girl, and I was raised as the lowest-ranked assassin. I may have been Shiva’s protege, but that just meant she went even harder on me. I did not know even my last name until after my first death when I was five. I did not properly meet my brother until last year. Ra’s decided that I could be acknowledged, but maintained his stance on feminine inferiority.”

She chuckles hollowly. “You fear being replaced by your father figure’s biological children, Timothy. But your fear is unwarranted. Bruce Wayne chose to adopt you, because he is a good man with copious amounts of generosity. However, it evidently does not extend to his biological children. Talia dumped us at Batman’s feet and left without another word, without looking back. And Father? We may have been a complete surprise, but he has said two words in total to us since that first night- our names. You need not worry, Timothy. You shall not be replaced.”

Marinette stands, her message conveyed, and pauses in the doorway of the room.

“Have a good afternoon, Timothy.”

The next day, Marinette and Damian watch on live television as their father is killed by Darkseid.

.o0o.

The funeral for Batman is somber. Everyone cries except for Marinette and Damian.

She thinks they should be crying, but Marinette simply didn’t know her father well enough to really mourn him. Damian squeezes her hand, and she squeezes back. The twins stand, faces carefully blank, shoulders straight and unmoving, like rocks in an ocean of tears.

Crime in Gotham runs rampant when they think Batman is gone, and so Richard becomes Batman out of necessity- and chooses her twin brother as his Robin.

Nobody else sees how it crushes Timothy, because Cass has left for Hong Kong, abandoning Batgirl and making her own identity as Black Bat. Jason is holed up in a safehouse somewhere, Richard and Damian are in their own little world as they prepare for their first patrol together, and Alfred needs time to mourn too.

So she finds herself knocking on the door to Timothy’s room, one hand holding a plate of sandwiches and a freshly brewed coffee because he hasn’t left his room since the funeral. Marinette quietly enters upon his muffled “Come in” and sets the plate down next to Timothy, whose eyes are red-rimmed and have even larger bags than normal, and yet he continues to work.

“I… noticed you have not come out to eat, so I brought some food and fresh coffee. Black.” She adds, after a moment of hesitation.

“Thanks.” Timothy mumbles, immediately going for the coffee. “Why are you doing this?”

Marinette shrugs. “Everyone else was caught up in their own situation and had issues to work through too. I am relatively unaffected by the circumstances and therefore my observation skills have not declined.” She says simply. “You should also eat. I will not stop you from drinking the coffee, but you cannot work on an empty stomach, either.”

He begrudgingly eats a sandwich, still typing away at his laptop all the while. Marinette notes the tension in his frame.

“Would you like to talk about it? I have read that venting is significantly better for one’s mental health than keeping it bottled up.” She offers.

Timothy suddenly slams the laptop shut, hard, but Marinette doesn’t flinch. The reaction was trained out of her a long time ago.

“It’s not- it’s- my entire life, I’ve been trying to prove myself. Robin was- Robin was special. I wasn’t the first Robin, but it was a reminder that I was worth something to someone, that I could do good and be useful. And then Bruce dies, Dick becomes Batman, and he just names Damian as his Robin like my opinion on the matter meant nothing, booting me out of the position, without any semblance of an explanation and-” He breaks off into sobs.

The sight of somebody crying makes Marinette more than a little awkward, because what is she doing? She doesn’t know how to comfort a crying person, but she does know that Timothy was touch-starved as a child. However, she isn’t the most touchy-feely person on the planet either, so she just settles for rubbing his back as he lets it all out.

Once he’s run out of tears, she silently hands him the tissue box she plucked from his desk.

“Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne, you are not worthless.” Marinette says sternly. “Nobody is worthless, and you are far from being anywhere near so. You are the cleverest and most intelligent of us all, a capable, quick-thinking strategist, and you have detective skills that rivaled Father’s. I believe Richard chose Damian as Robin because Robin is always supposed to be Batman’s sidekick. He is always taken under Batman’s wing because there are things he hasn’t learned, that Batman can teach him. Richard sees you as an equal, and therefore cannot keep you as his Robin because you have graduated the mantle. It is time you created a new identity and moved on. Do you have anything in mind?”

Timothy sniffs once. “Thank you. I really needed that. And as for the ideas,” He reaches over and pulls out a sketchbook, a smile spreading across his face. “I’ve got a few.”

.o0o.

They brainstorm ideas for almost three hours before Timothy falls asleep. Marinette easily carries his light frame to his bed and drapes a blanket over his shoulders before quietly exiting his room.

Thankfully, she managed to convince Timothy that the cowl was a terrible idea. Marinette returns to her own room for her sketchbook. Batman and Robin will have each other’s backs. But Red Hood works alone, leaving Red Robin with nobody to watch his back.

Timothy is Marinette’s brother too, and everyone else is headed into the field anyway. She, like Damian, also had the phrase ‘justice, not vengeance’ drilled into her head, and Richard had made sure to remind them daily to aim for non-lethal spots. Not that she planned on taking a life ever again anyway.

Marinette flips open her sketchbook to a bookmarked page and smiles. It seems that Starling would be making an appearance very soon.

.o0o.

It is almost time for Richard and Damian’s first patrol as Batman and Robin. Marinette heads downstairs to wish them well, but freezes at the sight of her twin in Timothy’s old suit.

“This is unacceptable!” She screeches, hurrying forward and looking pleadingly at Richard. “You cannot let akhi out into Gotham looking like a traffic light!”

Richard frowns, as does Damian. “But you never had a problem with Tim wearing it.”

“Tt. Timothy had little to no prior experience in combat before being trained as Robin. Damian has been trained to utilize the shadows in combat since birth. Wearing those bright colors will make him stand out and put him at a disadvantage.” Marinette tuts, already scribbling out a new design in her sketchbook.

“Then what do you suggest, ukhti?” Damian asks.

“I have a design in mind. The colors will stay, but the yellow and green will have to be significantly darker, and the red should be dulled as well. Sadly, you will have to wear that monstrosity tonight, but I can have the suit finished in time for patrol tomorrow, as will mine and Timothy’s new suits.” She replies, not glancing up from her book.

“What do you mean, Marinette?” Richard questions, and Marinette feels a tiny twinge of annoyance at how he handled telling Timothy about Robin.

“I mean that Timothy and I have crafted new identities as well. You did not expect him to just stop fighting crime, or for me to just sit at home while everyone else carried out Father’s mission, did you?”

Damian nods, a small smile pulling at his lips. “It will be nice to see you in the field too, ukhti.”

“What will your names be?” Richard prods curiously.

“I will not tell you just yet.” Marinette smirks. She shows her twin the finished design. “Does this look alright, akhi?”

“It looks wonderful, ukhti.” Damian replies. “Thank you.”

She sniffs. “Well, somebody had to fix the lack of fashion sense in this household eventually.”

.o0o.

Everyone else in the family may use capes, but Marinette decided that Richard’s Nightwing suit was by far the best because of its lack of one. Capes were long, heavy, a waste of fabric, and overall useless.

The Starling suit was primarily black, with a dark emerald mask covering the lower half of her face (because why carry a gas mask and rebreather when it can be built in?) with gloves and boots in the same color. A single silver star with curved sides was splayed on her chest, and a dark green utility belt rested on her waist. Her steel war fans had holsters strapped to her thighs.

All in all, the suit was built for the shadows. Marinette had learned to master slipping through the dark, unseen, and Gotham was the perfect place to utilize that. Starling would be nothing more than a ghost, a legend, if she had her way. After all, the less citizens knew, the less likely the information would hit the underworld, and that way, the vigilantes wouldn’t have all their cards out in the open.

Damian looks much better in his new suit as well, and Timothy is also grinning when he steps out of the male’s changing room. (A/N: the new 52 suit. I’m not letting him out of the Cave with that ugly cowl, or the traffic light costume with an extra R. Don’t even get me started on the Drake one.)

Richard, cowl still down, smiles as bright as the sun itself. “Good to see you, Robin. Tim, Marinette, can I ask your names?”

Timothy fastens his domino. “Red Robin.”

Marinette pulls her face mask up and curtsies with perfect posture. “Starling. I wish to work in the shadows, if that is alright.”

Richard puts on the cowl and becomes Batman. “You guys all look amazing.” He grins, and it is unsettling to see Batman smile. Oracle logs into the comms from the Clocktower.

“You all ready?”

They split the city in half. Red Robin and Starling take the North while Batman & Robin will cover the South.

Starling trails Red Robin from afar, leaping from building to building and only using her grappling hook when the distance is too great to close by foot. They stop four muggings and two attempted assaults, all without Starling being spotted. The criminals think they hit their head on the alley walls or each other instead of her fist from behind.

It’s almost three in the morning when Batman calls it quits and they return to the Cave, changing out of their suits and showering. They are somehow all unharmed, so Alfred sends them up to bed.

Damian and Marinette brush their teeth before climbing into bed and flipping off the lights.

“Tonight was actually quite enjoyable.” Marinette remarks. “It is a nice feeling, to know that you are helping people.”

Damian hums sleepily. “It is good to know that we are continuing Father’s legacy.”

Marinette smiles. “Yes, I suppose so.” She burrows deeper into her blankets. “Sleep well, akhi.”

“The same goes for you, ukhti.”

For once, Marinette doesn’t have a nightmare.

Previous ◈ Next

Taglist (re-opened and will stay open): @moonlightstar64 @dast218 @our-preciousss @novicevoice @pawsitivelymiraculous @trippingovermyfeet @miyla-lokidottir @consumeconstantly @mochegato @i-wanna-be-a-ninja @azuremayscarlet @iloveitwhen @bran-thecreeper-stark @no-username2544 @susiej1118 @kking13

Permanent taglist (always open): @wannajointhecrabcult @marinettepotterandplagg

Unspecified (you asked to be tagged and did not specify which one): @momothefemur @indecisive-mess-named-me

Note: some of them didn’t work. I am terrible with technology and have no clue how to fix this.

#maribat #mlb x dc #demon's daughter au #my writing

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cornelianlute · 2 years

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"you know you can talk to me about anything, right?" eiko says softly, noticing the way her friend's eyes dim a little upon the summoner mentioning the passing of her grandpa. maybe her friend also lost someone too? maybe the mention of a person passing away had struck a nerve by accident? — so, eiko tries to amend her mistake by adding, "b-but of course, if you don't want, that's fine too! i just want you to feel better, sarah." ( fabullisnova; eiko // IDK IF THIS IS ANGSTY ENOUGH FOR U )

Truthfully she had not wanted to tell Eiko - and so soon. It was enough that she had to suffer so on her own , but share something so painful with a young one? It was a fate Sarah wanted to spare her friend even though she had told the princess of losing her grandfather. But , in a way , was it not better to know the fate of your loved one than to wonder if they were truly still alive or if they were dead? Though she supposed an answer would come to her some day from Hauyn and Tama , the years had gone by without her ever having one and even just being at the edge of an answer would drive her mad if she did not write to her sister every day.

On the balcony of Castle Cornelia, they looked out onto the Watchplains. It was where the Warrior of Light had awakened to his role as a Medium and it was where it was said that Garland and his men had disappeared - forever. Sometimes she would visit his grave and the others that they had lost , that they could not save from the rift. On Garland's grave , she left a garland of roses every time she went.

Taking a long deep sigh , she told Eiko everything - or at least everything that she knew. Of the tear in reality , the rumor of powerful mirages (even more powerful than Shiva), of how the finest of Cornelia's knights including her own knight, Garland, had left to protect Cornelia from these intruders, and how they had never come back. It was a long time ago (only three but it felt like a lifetime to her soul) , but the pain of losing them still hurt. In a way, she was envious of those that lost loved ones to death. At least they knew that those loved ones would be welcomed with warm , open arms in heaven. She and the others who had lost loves ones to the rift would never know the fate of the those that they had lost. They would never know if they were alive or if they were dead.

The graves served as reminders of the ones they'd lost and many had chosen to accept that they had lost them forever. Sarah wasn't even sure if Garland was really gone. One of her lady's maids had told her it was as if she had moved on from him , accepted his fate that he was really gone. All Sarah had for her in response was a frown though her eyes probably hide more of what she was feeling. Her eyes always seemed to give away her every thought , her every feeling. She wondered if her maid had known then how her words had wounded the princess even if they were true. She had moved on. She had too and ... wouldn't he want her to move on? To find new love and new happiness?

But she didn't tell Eiko's these things - only what had happened to Garland and his men , but surely her eyes would give her away , no? The sadness she felt and the longing to know of his fate. She was happy now it was true. Maybe she should give Hauyn and Tama a call.

"So that is what happened. I hope you can forgive me for not telling you sooner, Eiko."

@fabullisnova || eiko

#replies #v; woff #fabullisnova #me : *trying to put an icon into this post* tumblr: *deletes my entire reply and then some*#thank god i write everything in wordpad now #ur other ask i s gonna take me 8090 years to get to btw

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andimack-crack · 3 years

Text

A christ-mack story: Andi Mack

read part one here

Part 2: Memories and Menorahs

[Word count: 1631]

T.J's POV

I was stressing out ripping through my cupboard I had never been to a Hanukkah celebration before I've only ever been to Cyrus's Bar and his Grandmother's Shiva. Those were easy enough go dress for but I wasn't sure what outfit said 'I'm here for Hanukkah but I'm also here to help your gay son come out to you' luckily I called for some back up.

"I'm here the dating expert is here" Jonah said bursting into my room

"Pipe down Jonah we all know how your relationships ended" Marty said trailing behind.

"Well if I have such bad relationships how come I easily get back into them?" He said smirking

"Guys big picture I need help"

"Okay, okay let me dig into your closet Marty get the make up kit" Jonah said going inside my mess

"Th-the what?" I said nervously

"Hey Jo do we need the razor for his hair?" Marty said from the hallway

"Um yeah" Jonah said his voice suddenly a little high pitch.

"What no not the hair!" I said frantically they both started laughing coming to stand next to me.

"You big idiot we're joking" Marty said patting my back

"Dude you're over thinking this Cyrus likes you because you're you and it seems cliche but if you be yourself in front of his parents you'll do fine" Jonah said smiling encouragingly

"Thank you Jonah"

"Yeah man your a great person we all know that now the Goodmans have met you before anyways you just need to have confidence Cyrus is probably just as nervous" Marty reassured

"But I can still pick a decent outfit because you know don't wanna look you don't care" Jonah said digging into my closest

******

Bex's POV

I had been avoiding talking about Gabriel changing the subject whenever Bowie tried bringing him up I'm thankful he never spoke about it in front of Andi even though she knew more than he did. I just wasn't ready to re-live those memories again. But Bowie wasn't having any of it he kept pressing on and on now I couldn't avoid it since Andi had gone out with Buffy.

"Bex please just tell me who he is" he pressed

"W-who" I pretended play dumb

"Gabriel"

Whenever I was with Gabriel, my self-esteem always took a hit. He would jokingly criticise what I wore or the way I did my hair and makeup, saying things like, ‘Were you still asleep when you got dressed this morning?’ and ‘Your eye shadow and lipstick colours make you look super-old – maybe you need some makeup lessons’. Looking back now, I can say that his comments were hurtful and unnecessary, but at the time I just passed them off as him trying to be funny. Whenever he made such belittling jokes, I would force a smile but on the inside I’d be crying.

"He's nobody don't worry" I said to Bowie smiling but also freaking out on the inside. How did he even find my number? What could he possibly want to tell me?

"You're sure he's nobody? you seem on edge by the mention of his name" he said putting a hand on my arm

"I'm sure h-he supplied me with new chairs for cloud ten last week"

"Oh well alright then I'm gonna make some lunch hungry?"

"Always" I threw a small smile which felt more like a grimace but I saw his phone number still on there I quickly wrote it down and deleted the message.

Occasionally, however, Gabriel would compliment me or say something supportive – in those moments, I would reassure myself that our relationship was okay and that I ought to stay with him. At the time, I couldn’t see that that was just his way of controlling me and to keep me hooked so that I wouldn’t leave him.

I shuddered thinking of all those memories. I had a lot other important things to think about. Something really big in particular I didn't have a lot of time to worry about Gabriel.

But I should at least hear what he has to say.

Cyrus's POV

"I-I'm gay but this doesn't change a thing I'm still me"

I had given the same speech to myself in front of the mirror for the past half hour I still didn't feel as if I could go out there and do it. I hardly believed in the words I was saying. A tear slid down my cheek I wiped it away I had to compose myself. I read somewhere that it's difficult coming out to the ones you love because you've known them forever you don't want things to change. That's probably why it hurt so much. I washed and dried my face straightening the kippah on my head taking a deep breath. I jumped when there was a knock on the bathroom door.

"Cyrus your friend T.J's here" I heard my mom say from the outside

"Okay" I opened the door and went downstairs T.J was talking to my aunt Ruthie

Oh no.

"So T.J are you Jewish?" She had a scary look in her eye

"No I'm just here for Cyrus" he smiled coolly

"Oh are there any girls in school that are interested in him or do you know of any he could go out with?" T.J looked a little confused so I went in to save him

"Hey aunt Ruthie chag sameach" (happy holiday)

"Oh Hanukkah sameach dear" (happy hanukkah)

She left me and T.J alone and no one could see us from the halls so I went in for a quick hug and he smiled kissing my forehead

"Sorry about her she's very well..." I trailed off looking for the right words

"I get it my relatives are like that too" he took my hand making light circles on the back.

"Are you okay?" He asked concerned

"Y-yeah I'm just really nervous since most of my family is here" he squeezed my hand

"You'll be alright I promise" I smiled at him gratefully. We entered the living room my mom putting up a picture of Bubbe Rose I realised it's my first Hanukkah without her.

We all stood around the Menorah as all eight candles were lit as it was the final day my family's rabbi recited a prayer that everybody followed along with T.J attempted but without much success since it was in hebrew but it was sweet he tried. I subtly wrapped a pinky around his we did the same linking them together without drawing too much attention.

"Cyrus" Rabbi Hurwitz suddenly spoke making my pinky move away from T.J's "I'm going to lead a prayer for your Bubbe Rose would you like to join?"

I wanted to but I wasn't sure I'd be able to get through it I've been missing her so much recently.

"N-no thank you sorry" he nodded understanding I wasn't ready he said the prayer I hung my head low fighting the tears in my eyes. Once it was over I was about to go help my mom in the kitchen but T.J quickly put a hand on my shoulder.

"Are you okay underdog?" He said softly I just shrugged

"I will be as soon as this is over with" I said reassuring him.

I brought the food to the table and set it down pointing out to T.J what food is good and what isn't good this year I made sure gefilte fish wasn't on the menu nobody likes it any ways.

"Cyrus um... I was just speaking with Rabbi Hurwitz and I just wanted to let you know that it's okay" my dad reassured

"I don't understand" I said confused

"It's just he said he saw you... hold hands with T.J over here" oh shit.

"What" my mom interrupted coming over "Cyrus honey are you gay?"

"Well I-i" I stuttered

"Gay what is that?" My aunt Ruthie intruded. That's the last thing I needed

"I can shed some light on this" T.J began with my other family members beginning to listen "Yeah um me and Cyrus we... we are dating"

"Yes T.J is my boyfriend" I said smiling proudly taking his hand "we're both gay... I'm gay" I breathed out

"You... You're both boys" my aunt Ruthie objected

"Yeah good catch but gay means you're a boy that's only romantically attracted to boys that's way I haven't had any girlfriends since Iris I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was scared" T.J squeezed my hand tightly.

"Plus after Bubbe...p-passed away I felt so guilty for not telling her when I knew I could of" my breath got caught in my throat.

"Honey don't worry she knew" my eyes went wide at what my mom said

"How?"

"When me and Norman last spoke to her she told us to never disrespect you just because you're different from us she said we should treat you the same as we always have I didn't understand at the time but now I do"

I was in shock I have no idea how she could of known but at least she did know.

"T.J we are glad it's you Cyrus has found" my dad said putting a hand on T.J's shoulder he smiled thankfully.

"Well I guess I'm happy for you Cyrus he seems like a very nice boy and if Rose was okay with it then so am I" Aunt Ruthie squeezed my face

"Well then all that's left to do is... eat I mean now I feel the need to celebrate" I smiled my family sat down at the table me and T.J had been holding hands the whole time.

And I wasn't planning on ever letting go.

#andi mack #jonah beck #cyrus goodman #buffy driscoll #good hair crew #tyrus #andi mack meme #tj kippen #amber andi mack #christmas #fanfiction #tyrus fanfic #hanukkah

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pof203 · 4 years

Text

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT Quotes Kingdom Heats Edition (Sora)

Before I begin, I just thought I’d let you know that this could be some great fanfiction material. Like somehow, Sora found his way from the Final World to World B. He was actually summoned there to a fighter for Materia just as Young Xehanort is summoned to fight for Spiritus. Sora’s friends (except for Mickey, Donald, and Goofy) were summoned by Materia as well in hopes that fighting for her will help them find a way for them to bring Sora back home. She would send him home herself, but the power of waking is unknown to her as well as Spiritus. Well, without further ado, here are Sora’s quotes.

To other characters:

Warrior of Light: “Aren’t we on the same side?”

Garland: “It’s not all about destruction, you know!”

Firion: “I have a lot of Keyblade. Does that mean I’m like you?”

The Emperor: “Unless you have big round ears, you’re no ruler of mine.”

Onion Knight: “I started my journey at a young age, too.”

Cloud of Darkness: “Sorry, one being from the Darkness at a time.”

Cecil Harvey: “You’re a king? Are you friends with Mickey?”

Kain Highwind: “Hey, your last name reminds me of our ship.”

Golbez: “You’d be surprised how far hope can get you.”

Bartz Klauser: “Hey, my blade changes, too!”

Exdeath: “Even your name doesn’t seem right.”

Gilgamesh: “I think you and I will be good friends.”

Terra Branford: “If you don’t want to fight, I won’t make you.”

Kefka Palazzo: “Clowns. Why’d it have to be clowns?”

Locke Cole: “I have a promise to keep, too.”

Cloud Strife: “Don’t hold back, Cloud, give it all you got!”

Tifa Lockhart: “Are you still looking for Cloud?”

Sephiroth: “Not you again!”

Squall Leonhart: “You won’t get me this time, Leon!”

Rinoa Heartilly: “Nice dog. Can I pet him?”

Ultimecia: “Oh great, a Maleficent wannabe.”

Laguna Loire: “If I win, will you write something about me?”

Zindane Tribal: “It’s showtime!”

Kuja: “I know mermaid songs more cheerful than yours.”

Tidus: “How long was I away from home?”

Yuna: “I thought you were in Radiant Garden.”

Jecht: “Our next match should be in Blitz Ball.”

Shantotto: “You and Donald should talk.”

Prishe: “Fighting me barehanded? You must be tough.”

Vaan: “You may fly the skies, but I fly the stars.”

Gabranth: “I know I can win this trial.”

Vayne Carudas Solidor: “No fair, you’re not even using Drive Form!”

Lightning: “My friends are my power, too.”

Snow Villiers: “You’re not related to Riku, by any chance.”

Y’shtola Rhul: “I was trained by Merlin himself.”

Zenos yae Galvus: “How do you walk in that thing?”

Noctis Lucis Caelum: “I see, you have someone you wish to find, too.”

Ardyn Izunia: “And I thought Master Xehanort was cooky.”

Ramza Beoulve: “Let’s see who’s the better swordsman.”

Ace: “Cards? Do you know someone named Luxord?”

Sora: “It was funny the first time, but now this is getting ridiculous!”

Riku: “In the end, I guess it will always be between us.”

Kairi: “Of all people, why’d it have to be you?”

Roxas: “Time to show me... who you really are!”

Lea: “Good thing I have plenty of burn paste.”

Xion: “Xion... Just who are you, really?”

Terra: “This time, no amour.”

Aqua: “Aqua, I kept my promise.”

Ventus: “I guess our hearts meet once more.”

Young Xehanort: “It’s time to settle this!”

Shinryu: “I’ve faced worse Heartless than you.”

To Sora:

Warrior of Light: “Your Keyblade also draws on the Light.”

Garland: “Your heart is no match for my power!”

Firion: “I look forward to our hearts clashing.”

The Emperor: “Once I defeat you, your blade will serve me.”

Onion Knight: “I’ve never been a Keyblade Wielder before.”

Cloud of Darkness: “There’s more than Heartless hiding in the Darkness.”

Cecil Harvey: “I use Light as much as you do.”

Kain Highwind: “Can you throw you Keyblade as far as I can fly?”

Golbez: “You have much energy for one person.”

Bartz Klauser: “I wonder if I can copy your Keyblade.”

Exdeath: “I will use your key to open the Void!”

Gilgamesh: “Which shall win? You heart or my muscles?”

Terra Branford: “Does your Keyblade also have destructive powers?”

Kefka Palazzo: “You look like someone I can mess with.”

Locke Cole: “Don’t lose that positivity of yours.”

Cloud Strife: “Where have I seen this kid before?”

Tifa Lockhart: “Are you sure you’re okay with us fighting?”

Sephiroth: “I wonder if the Keyblade will change its mind once I defeat you.”

Squall Leonhart: “Leon? Actually, I like it.”

Rinoa Heartilly: “I hope you and this girl from your island will be happy together.”

Ultimecia: “Even the Light fades with time, my dear.”

Laguna Loire: “You brought a key to a gunfight?”

Zindane Tribal: “Some hearts were meant to be stolen.”

Kuja: “What symphony is your heart playing?”

Tidus: “Why do I feel like we’re already friends?”

Yuna: “You really see me as some fairy?”

Jecht: “Just don’t cry when you lose.”

Shantotto: “Who will fade? My stave or your blade?”

Prishe: “My Light came be as bright as yours.”

Vaan: “Your airship can go into space? Sweet!”

Gabranth: “I shall judge if your key is worthy of being a blade.”

Vayne Carudas Solidor: “Not even your light can save you from my power.”

Lightning: “Who’s idea was it make a sword shaped like a key?”

Snow Villiers: “Think you can light the darkness within me?”

Y’shtola Rhul: “I can’t wait to see what magics you have with you.”

Zenos yae Galvus: “How can you call yourself a warrior with a misshapen sword?”

Noctis Lucis Caelum: “I wonder if one of my ancestors had a Keyblade.”

Ardyn Izunia: “Let’s match the Power of the Lucii with Kingdom Hearts.”

Ramza Beoulve: “Your hair is such a cliché.”

Ace: “You’ve been lucky so far. Let’s see how far it goes.”

Riku: “I want to see how much you’ve grown since I last saw you.”

Kairi: “Don’t hold back, Sora. I’ll show you how strong I’ve become.”

Roxas: “My summer vacation is far from over.”

Lea: “I hope you’ll have the fight memorized.”

Xion: “I hope Kairi’s feeling won’t too much of a problem.”

Terra: “I can see why you and Riku are good friends.”

Aqua: “Show me the true strength of your heart.”

Ventus: “I can throw the Keyblade better than you can!”

Young Xehanort: “Even after all this, you still understand nothing.”

About Summons

Ifrit: “It’s Jafar with horns!”

Shiva: “I’m not used to the cold.”

Ramuh: “Is this what they mean by “spark of brilliance”?”

Odin: “En gard!”

Leviathan: “I live on an island. Swimming’s no problem.”

Alexander: “Cool! I can have my own castle!”

Bahamut: “I think I almost summoned you once.”

Summoning

Ifrit: “Set this world ablaze!”

Shiva: “Send them into a deeper freeze!”

Ramuh: “Bring on the storm!”

Odin: “Cut us down a path!”

Leviathan: “Suck them in the surf!”

Alexander: “Let the judging begin!”

Bahamut: “Give me strength!”

#dissidia final fantasy #quotes #kingdom hearts #sora

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drelmurn · 3 years

Text

kinda tagged by @sixth-light. “ Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line. Then tag 10 of your favorite authors! “

1. Who Stole Away The Moon (Star Wars, Tatooine Slave Culture): “ One day Ekkreth was walking/They found a crowd with fear/Grandmother’s shape did they take/To ask what scared them here”

2. Unexpectedly (Katekyo Hitman Reborn): “Aa! Dame-Tsuna? You’re still alive-ugh!”/“Tsuna!” Takeshi says excitedly, not looking back at the pair of second-years he ran over to get to Tsuna. “Your mom finally let you come back?”

3. (I have loved the stars too fondly) to be fearful of the night (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Step by Step): “I don't remember Kore./Kore. He is - was - my twin.”

4. Get Up Eight: Toph Beifong (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Step by Step): “ I’m . . . not at all surprised when we pick up another person. Zuko seems to be surprised, but then he didn’t figure out that Nuan and Samir and I wanted to help him fight the Fire Nation and defend people.”

5. An Idea That Is Not Dangerous: Zuko of Honoiro (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Step by Step): “ “Earth soldiers,” Kuzon murmurs suddenly, and I echo him, hissing it to the others. There’s a brief scrambling - we’d been kitted out to fight firebenders in as many layers of thick, red cloth as we’d been able to reasonably buy on our very meagre budget. Luckily we’d left our normal green robes on underneath all the red. “

6. The Trouble With Retreating (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Step by Step): ““Hey,” Hotaru says as she steps up to rest her hands on the rail next to me./Kaede says nothing as he settles down on my other side.”

7. Narcissa (Harry Potter): “ Narcissa. Sweet little Marcy, youngest of three, little Narcissa Black who is not really a Black at all. Sweet little Marcy, youngest daughter of Druella Black of Druella Rosier who is not really Cygnus Black’s daughter, whose father is unknown, not in the sense that he is not talked about but in the sense that everyone knew that Druella had not been in so much as the same building for at least three years when Narcissa Black was born.“

8. A Storm is Brewing (Star Wars, Tatooine Slave Culture): “ When Ebra was a little thing/Before their mom could start to sing/The song that called a child's birth/The Depur stole them from that earth”

9. Just Before You Start: Rei of Nishiyama (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Step by Step): “ I'm doing inventory of the herbs in my pack, the dog curled like a big lump at my back, acting as a backrest. Sometimes they'll shift, their attention following a bird as it hops along the ground or a sneeze at the more pungent herbs.”

10. Elder Sister, run away (Star Wars, Tatooine Slave Culture):”Elder Sister, run away/The cats have sent the mice to play/Our ikkalda(1), clad in white/You distract our Depur’s might”

11. God of Destruction (make way for the new world) (Doctor Who, Shiva): “I stumble as the floor drops out from beneath me, and I land a couple of inches down. I close my eyes as I lean forward to brace myself on my knees, and nausea curls in my gut.”

12. This is a lie (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Step by Step): “Tena she grows, Tena, Tena/Tena she gives, Tena, Tena”

13. Don't Give Me Nothing you Don't Want to Loose: Akane of Suzaku Izland (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Step by Step): “ I cross my arms and watch Rei examine Samir through the doorway of the tent, one of her hands dropping down to twine in the dog's fur. I shouldn't be surprised. They say be careful what you ask for, and I always thought I was.“

14. Look for Broken Bars (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Step by Step): “Fact: My first memory is the sight of some boy’s back as he walks away from me - chin up, back straight, steps as steady as a heartbeat./Memory: Beat beat. Beat beat. Beat-”

15. Down This Unfamiliar Road: Kiran of Baoshan (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Step by Step): "Are you sure you want to bring me back with you?" I ask as I follow Gopan through the crowded streets. "You haven't gone home in a month, and they don't know me-"

16. It's a revolution, I suppose: Hikari of Honoiro Island (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Step by Step): “I sit across from Saito with Azula to my left, and Kouki Oshiro to my right. The tea seeping in the pot on the table between us is black tea, the tea Saito had told me was Kouki's favorite. It probably isn't.”

17. Sparks At My Fingertips (Harry Potter): " Before you read this - there’s something you have to understand. It wasn’t about the power. I don’t care about the power, no matter what you hear those oh-so-righteous purebloods mutter.”

18. Faith Walks on Broken Glass: Minato of Kyoshi Island (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Step by Step): “ I'm already awake, laying there and thinking about children (my-children-not-my-children, their-children, but they are my-children because that is who they are, that is all I've ever known them as, but they aren't-my-children because I've-never-met-them, I was the-one-who-gave-birth to them, but I'm a guy, I can't give birth-) when Vasuman goes still, and the quiet sounds of his breathing cut off. I hesitate for a moment, then roll over so that I can see his silhouette in the darkness.”

19. Warriors of a Different Kind (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Step by Step): “Kyoshi Island has long been considered odd, and to tell the truth, I can see why. I’ve only ever heard of one place like it before, and the people of the Foggy Swamp are considered even odder than we are.“

20. Drowned in Fire (Heralds of Valdemar, Friends Across Borders): “ My lord, for you, young children have been burned,/Heart brother nearly drowned in fire bright.”

Thoughts: Wow I really need to get that compiled version of Step by Step back up, why did I decided to make it separate parts again? Also, nice to see so much of my poetry.

For the rest of it, I really do like starting off by hitting you in the face with first person. So many of the actual fics start off with “I” doing something, and like sixth-light, a lot of that’s in media rez. Other times I’m just going off on some tangent that’ll be important, which is nice.

Of the poems, I think my favorite first is Drowned in Fire? I don’t know, I just kind of feel that the first lines of the others aren’t as strong.

Of the stories, I think Unexpectedly or An Idea That Is Not Dangerous. Unexpectedly immediately establishes a connection to cannon, before showing that something’s different as Takeshi comes over. It creates an interesting tone, which I think carries through the rest of the work from comments I’ve gotten, establishing connections to canon, then twisting it in an unexpected way.

An Idea That Is Not Dangerous is actually from the middle of a series, coming back to a group of characters after a while away, and while I’m honestly not that happy with the work as a whole and especially the work immediately after it, the energy of the first couple lines is very much what I wanted to go for for the group.

@browncoatparadox? You wanna go?

#ask thing #step by step #unexpectedly #Shiva

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razorblade180 · 4 years

Text

Twin Snowflakes pt12: A Guest

“Nicholas? Niiiick? Nicky, wake up sweetie.” Said a voice called out through a void of darkness. It felt...familiar. He knew that voice. Where was he?

“Nick, open your eyes”

‘My...eyes were closed? How’d that happen? Last thing I remember was the exa-‘ the haze started to clear. ‘The exam! Val! Summer!’

The darkness slowly faded into light. Intense, blistering light. Nick felt his body began to move as if he was sitting up until a thump hit his head and felt himself fall back down on something soft. “Ow…” the hit felt like walking into a door. Nick’s vision finally cleared up and the first thing he saw was bright green eyes and orange hair right above him.

Nick:Penny?

Penny:Hello Nick. Your head okay? If I knew you were going to sit up so fast I would’ve made sure to move.

Nick:Talk about hard headed. Wait, if you’re here then am I in a lab?

Penny:No silly.

The girl helped Nick sit up; this time moving out the way. He was still in his clothes from earlier and the bed looked like it should be in a hospital. As well did the curtains around him. “Wait a second. I’m…” he pulled them away to see identical beds and a little office desk across the room. Each bed was empty but the one right next to him which held his sister. Summer looked at him a bit tired. Pillows propped her up and made leaning against the wall comfortable. A cup of half eaten yogurt was in her hands.

Nick:.....

Summer:What? Not used to being in the Nurse’s office? Count your lucky stars. That bed you’re in is the comfiest one.

Nick:I….you….what’s going on?

Penny:Simple! You passed out! Been that way for almost two hours.

Nick:Two hours!?

Summer:Why are you saying that like it’s a problem? That’s short, like incredibly short.

Nick:Not as short as yours apparently.

Summer:Well….Shiva has her benefits.

Just saying that made Summer a bit annoyed. She slumped down a little in her bed and stirred her yogurt.

Penny:Between genetics, aura, and some other factors, I’m not surprised you both are already awake from your triumphant battle!

Summer:(Wouldn’t be how I described it.)

Nick: Triumphant? We passed!?

Penny:With flying colors! I heard from Harriet as soon as she called me to treat the three of you. Needless to say, she was very impressed.

Nick:Speaking of three, where is Val?

Summer:She wasn’t as drained as us and bounced back pretty quick. She left as soon as she could move.

Nick:Aww, it would’ve been nice to celebrate together. I need to tell her thanks again since I begged her to help. Just like now I have to learn whatever song you have in store for me.

He gave a smile that made Summer a bit happy. A duet with him was something she was looking forward to, but it didn’t help her bruised self esteem. Summer gave Nick a fake smile to him before choosing to lay down. Her hair slightly hiding her face.

Nick didn’t fall for that cheap smile for a second, but he also knew now wasn’t the time to pressure her about it. If she was in a mood like this then he could only imagine what Val might be feeling. Hopefully she was fine.

Penny:Uhhh Nicholas? There’s something I’d like to ask you about. *pulls out scroll* Your match was recorded by multiple people and I saw something I found pretty interesting.

Nick:We got recorded? Honestly that shouldn’t surprise me.

Penny:The crowd was very energetic from the sound of it. Take a look.

A projection of the recording springs out of the scroll for a fuller view. Nick watched the playback of him and his team flipping around like some sort of acrobatic performance. The crowd seemed to love it though. Then came the part where Summer got hit. He looked at his sister who didn’t say anything about it. Then came Valerie’s defeat shortly after. His eyes studying the glyph he had made in order to summon the Gigas.

‘How’d I do that?’ He pondered quietly. Figuring out what he did differently this time from the others was going to be tough. The video continued until Penny paused it right where he was controlling ice blades that seemed to spin around him and obey his movements. A slight blush showing on his face appeared as Penny grinned happily at him.

Penny:They say imitation is the best form of flattery. Most of your moves are undeniably learned by your parents but I can’t help but think you had another inspiration in mind.

Nick:Hehe, I was panicking a bit in the end and all I could think about was overwhelming it with swords. Looks like I was influenced by you.

Penny:It has been quite some time since I’ve done any real fighting so I’m glad I left a strong impression from what you’ve seen. I would love to teach you some basics whenever you want.

Nick:Really? You’d train me a bit!?

Penny:Why of course! Lab work is important but it does get a little tedious and repetitive unfortunately. Teaching sounds like a splendid way to change up my routine.

Nick:I might take you up on that offer. Thanks Penny!

Penny:It is my pleasure! I enjoy supporting the two of you where I can. Oscar feels the same. I’m almost a little jealous about how much he praises your strength and conviction Summer.

Summer:He….thinks I’m strong?

Penny:He’s not the only one. Truly you are quite exceptional.

Nick:Yeah she is! She’s my sister after all. I can’t tell you how many times she’s kicked my butt.

Summer:....May we please have the room to ourselves Penny?

Penny:Huh? O...kay. Let me just-

Suddenly the nurse door flew open and hit the wall. “There you are Nicholas!” Everyone immediately turned around and saw Eliza standing with her hands on her hips and her eyes beaming angrily at her school president.

Nick:Why hello Mrs. Marigold. T-

Eliza:Cut the crap. You get the information for the play or what?

Summer:Play?

Nick:....Are you not aware I’ve been doing an exam?

Eliza:I’m aware that you got rag dolled by choice because of how impatient you are.

Penny:(But isn’t she acting the same?)

Nick:Listen it doesn’t even matter. I just told you all that stuff to get you off my back.

Eliza:You what!? But-

Nick:Relax. Have faith in your president. Isn’t that part of your job as secretary? Scrap the whole play idea; Summer agreed to a concert.

Summer:H-Hello…

Eliza:Wait, you’re actually going through with it? No flaking or half assing this time?

Summer:I wouldn’t do that for something so important. You...you have my word!

Eliza:Hmmmm

Nick:Can we have this discussion another time please?

Eliza:By another time do you mean doing what you want while the rest of us adapt? Fat chance! You do realize by not accurately informing me of your plan I’ve wasted precious time making a list of proper things we’ll need for nothing! What am I supposed to tell the other members!?

Summer:She has a point.

Penny:Indeed, you have possibly wasted resources.

Nick:This meeting was the other day. How much work could you have possibly-

Eliza chucks a scroll right at his face. Nick flinches in pain as the device hits his nose. He picks it up and to see a list of concepts Eliza had worked on. Then he scrolled down, and down, and down…..

He kept going for minutes until he eventually gave up on reaching the bottom. Nick could feel her stare on him.

Eliza:That much. That much work. Unlike you, I don’t get a slap on the rest or the luxury to slack of. I’m not a Schnee.

Nick:....

Summer:That’s..not fair. Nick does a lot for this-

Eliza:Your money and name does a lot for this school. Yes the two of you have gained achievements on your own right but out of fun or convenience. Not because you acted in the interest of the school. If you bothered to school let alone a meeting then you might notice these things; sending in your treasury report via Nicholas shows just how much you actually care.

Summer:I care...honestly.

Eliza:Then start acting like it!

Nick:Hey, don’t yell at my sister. I promise we will-

Eliza:To hell with your promises! Prove me wrong by keeping me in the loop. From here on out. The quality of your work is never the problem. I’m sure this concert idea will be amazing, but if you expect me to even show up to help set up or catch any mistake then you two will personally ask me. Because I’m not going to be proactively crossing your t’s or dotting your I’s. My time can be spent doing other things. Like making sure I get enough practice in to knock that royal bum of yours right out of the ring dear president.

The room fell silent with that declaration of war. Penny watched Nick stand from his bed then hand his challenger back her scroll. He didn’t look upset or exactly thrilled either as he stared up into Eliza’s golden eyes. He could tell that all that anger was mostly frustration and mostly exhaustion from the dark rings under her eyes. Even her signature pigtails were undone. ‘I’ve put you through the ringer huh?’ He thought, slightly guilty.

Nick:You got yourself a deal. Good luck with training. The jump from third place to second is steeper than you think.

Eliza:Guess I’ll overshoot and try getting to first. Be sure to protect that pretty face of yours. I might feel bad scaring it. I’m going home. *walking away*

Nick:Why were you even after school? You always get your work done.

Eliza:I thought that would be obvious. I heard an idiot in my grade had tried talking the expedited exam with two more idiots. Someone had to make sure their parents were informed in case of an emergency. Now go home and get some rest. Your sorry state is bad for morale. *leaves*

Penny:I probably shouldn’t say anything but by the time I’ve gotten here, Eliza had gathered whatever medical supplies I might’ve needed. As well as given me the recording. I think she might’ve been rooting for you three. Or at the very least wanted you to learn from this experience.

Nick:She wants no doubt in her mind if she manages to beat me. Or that’s what I think. She benefits from this tournament even more than us. It’s no mystery why she wants it perfect.

Summer:Then that lecture she gave makes her look like a hypocrite. So much for the pride of the school.

Nick:This school is probably more of a home than her actual home. Mr. Marigold never struck me as the nurturing type. I suppose that’s more reason why she’s so uptight.

Penny:You could stand to be more….aware. Spreading yourself then and tunnel visioning on problems not necessarily your concern tends to make you oblivious to simple solutions.

Nick:What? Not sure I quite understand.

Summer:(Of course you don’t…) Hey Nick…?

Nick:Yeah?

Summer:(Tell him...tell him the truth. He’s your twin for crying out loud. Just…) let’s go home. It’s only going to get colder and I wanna walk.

Nick:Alright. Let me just get my things.

Summer watches him gather his things quickly; ignoring any soreness he might have. A glance in Penny’s direction shows a similar expression of concern and sadness. She couldn’t tell who it was directed towards though.

Summer:(I’m so….)

Pathetic….

xxxx

“Maybe….if I told you then. Things would not have gotten so dire. My dear brother who would stop the world for me if need be. I should’ve let you into mine. Why didn’t I let you in?”

xxxx

It was the afternoon, the roads a little backed up from workers going home. Valerie looked at the busy traffic lights through the passenger window. Stewing in her thoughts.

Ren:You okay? Haven’t heard a peep from you since you got into the car.

Valerie:I’m fine.

Ren:Try again.

Valerie:I’m extremely upset.

Ren:There you go.

Valerie:Did you see the video?

Ren:I did. It looked intense.

Valerie:Then you saw how poorly I did?

Ren:I saw how much effort you put into it. That’s something to be proud of.

Valerie:I was a burden.

Ren:Without you then the battle would’ve been lost. Summer and Nicholas couldn’t have shined without you.

Valerie:We barely passed and the only one shining at the end was Nick while I played victim.

Ren:So are you mad about your performance or the fact Nick was the one who bailed you out? Not that there’s nothing wrong in basking in a bit of limelight.

Valerie:You know I don’t care about that sort of thing.

Ren:I know, winning is your motivation. So are friends, but your friend winning for you all has you upset?

Valerie:You make it sound so strange.

Ren:It is when you are a sports player that always plays support. Didn’t matter if it was soccer, hockey, or football. You took pride in defending your team so they can score. Even your semblance is remarkable for keeping any team you are on as strong as possible.

Valerie:This is different though.

Ren:Would you be saying that if Summer landed the final blow, or was the one saving you?

That struck a nerve. One she couldn’t deny but refused to admit. Valerie opted to ignore her father. A tactic that only proved him to be on the right track.

Ren:He’s gotten stronger, that Nicholas. These days you two seem more equal than ever besides height. I remember when-

Valerie:Dad, what are you doing? Just shoot straight with me please?

Ren:Don’t let whatever people might be saying at school tarnish your relationship with him. You should be happy seeing him get stronger and independent; willing to return any help you gave.

Valerie:People think he’s great enough as he is and always tell me how lucky I am to have him but it’s never the other way around. Him saving me is only going to make people talk more.

Ren:So you would rather get injured and be of no help to anyone than let Nick save you? Also, are you saying that you don’t feel lucky to have such a person in your life.

Valerie:Of course I’m lucky to have him! Nicholas is so kind and sweet. Not to mention grateful! Just before the exam he told me how lucky he was to have me in his life. There is no one else besides Summer, no, even Summer agrees that he should get nothing but the best in life. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s annoying how people see me as an accessory whenever we are together.

Ren:....

Valerie:*red* But not together, together.

Ren:I didn’t say anything. So, what you’re saying is you’re upset that him getting stronger would make you feel like what everyone says about you needing him true?

Valerie:Exactly. Which is why I can’t lose that tournament. Staying on top is too important.

Ren:If you say so.

Valerie:.....Why do I have a feeling you’re disappointed in me?

Ren:I’m not disappointed in you. I just hope you take more time to really evaluate what you’re implying and what it actually means. You owe that not just to yourself, but Summer and Nicholas as well.

Valerie:You can’t just tell me?

Ren:If I did then it wouldn’t stick. Just know Nicholas cares about from the bottom of his heart and sees your accomplishments as that, yours. I think that means more than what any gossip floating around your school means.

Valerie still didn’t get what exactly her father was trying to get at. Even so, she could feel her cheeks getting warm from his words. Nicholas caring about her wasn’t new information. It was what everyone knew since forever. Another piece of the problem. She would say it was terrible but it wasn’t. It was simply confusing, and she felt weird? That’s what it always came back to in the end. Thinking of him felt weird and confusing

Ren glanced over and saw his daughter in a clear state of not being at odds with herself. Making similar expressions that his wife did countless times thinking about him.

Ren:(You’ll figure it out. Hopefully)

xxxx

Summer and Nick didn’t speak much on the way home. The twins were too busy processing today’s events. They had accomplished their goal but the ending had soured their experience. Nick found himself with more work while Summer was sulking.

It wasn’t too long before they made it to the manor gate

Nick:Phew! I don’t know about you but I could use a hot shower.

Summer:Go right ahead. I might skip one tonight: not feeling up to it.

Nick:....Weren’t you going to tell me something before Eliza showed up? Now is the perfect time. I doubt mom and dad will just let us sneak to our rooms.

Summer:It’s alright. It wasn’t too important.

Nick:Summer you’re not, mad at me are you?

Summer:Huh? What makes you say that?

Nick:I don’t know. You’ve just felt distant lately. I figured I did something wrong.

Summer:No, just a little burnt out. It’s pretty frustrating to see you perform a full summoning. I'll admit that. It seems like I’m always just missing people’s expectations. If only I could’ve done just a bit more.

Nick:You know that win would’ve been impossible with you right? I used the ice you made and the arm you managed to cut off.

Summer:Capitalizing off my effort and actually pulling my weight are two different things Nick. If I won a match because you tossed me your sword, would you say you really helped?

Nick:Point taken. Still, it’s not like I knew exactly what I was doing. It sort of happened. I doubt I could do it again without training. Adrenaline won that match honestly. Like I said earlier, you’ve kicked me butt before. You’re stronger than you look.

Summer:Yeah well, I’m glad one of us thinks that.

Nick:Don’t be like that. I bet even Veronica would- uhhh Summer?

Summer:Did you realize you were about to say something incredibly wrong?

Nick:No, well a little. That’s not what stopped me though. Yang’s motorcycle is parked in front of the house.

He pointed through the gates and there it was, clear as day. Along with two helmets. One yellow, and the other black with yellow stripes. Summer felt a headache coming on.

Summer:Son of a-

Nick:It could be Blake!? Then again, she always grabs the purple hand black helmet. Also Vee did mention about aiding in tournament setup if she could.

Summer:You’re not helping. I’m sneaking through the back. Keep her distracted.

Nick:Don’t be like that. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen her. Besides, I bet she’s tired from her trip.

xxxx

Summer:.....

Nick:Well I’ve been wrong before. Heheheh..

The two stood in the living room and saw Veronica stretched out on their couch, watching the fight recording. Specifically the part when Summer gets sent flying. The two hear a subtle snort followed by chuckling and what sounds like a pencil scribbling away.

Veronica’s ears perk up and she turns around to see Nick who’s face palming and Summer clenching her fist.

Veronica:Well look who’s back? Hello Nicholas! *swaying tail*

Nick:Hey Vee.

Veronica:I see you’re looking just swell after an eventful day. *turns head* Summer….

Summer:Veronica…..

…..

Veronica:You ate shit today huh?

Nick:Sigh...

Summer:Couldn’t help yourself huh? Then again, self control isn’t really your style.

Veronica:I’m just not afraid to be direct unlike a certain pop star.

Summer:I also do alternative rock, some acoustic. I’m multi-talented like that.

Veronica:If you say so.

Summer:What’s that supposed to mean?

Three minutes in and already testing boundaries. Worst yet, Summer had folded her arms and took a stance that Ruby has once described to Nick as the “OG Weiss” mom was apparently a lot to deal with when Ruby first met her. The attitude Summer got around Veronica was pretty uncanny. Yang and Ruby’s words, not his.

He was thinking about nipping this in the bud but they both seemed to be too tired to actually get into it. Maybe the trip had wore Veronica down because she went back to playing the rest of the video and laying down and Summer walked off.

Summer:I’m going to shower.

Nick:I thought-

Summer:I’m going to shower Nicholas.

Nick:Take your time. I’ll wait.

Veronica:Aren’t there like five showers here?

Nick:They share water pressure. Did you really have to antagonize her like that? We’re having a bit of a rough day. A calm welcome would’ve been nice for once.

Veronica:*folds ears* My bad. I’ll hold my tongue next time, for you.

Nick:Will you?

Veronica:Do I ever lie to you?

Nick:Not that I know of. Wouldn’t see why you would though.

Veronica:Then you have your answer.

Nick:Good to see you’re still coy as ever. I’m gonna change into something comfy. Please have something different on the tv when I get back.

Veronica:Oookay. *smiles*

Nick:Nice outfit by the way. Purple looks good on you. *leaves*

Veronica:*red* Huh….guess mom was right. Geez, now I really have to be on my best behavior.

Part 11

#rwby #rwby twin snowflakes #nicholas schnee #summer schnee #veronica belladonna #eliza marigold #penny polendina #lie ren #val valkyrie #rwby whiteknight #rwby au

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amarabliss · 4 years

Text

Galahdian Dreams - 5 (Nyx Ulric/Reader)

Synopsis: Your father was the king of Insomnia. He was good and just. You never thought you’d meet anyone like him after he was taken from the world. Your Uncle Regis, has taken the throne and followed through on your father’s plans. It was good to see the city in capable hands.

Enter Nyx Ulric, refugee, Glaive, fighter…how is it he can see all your secrets? He knows how to set you off and he’s promised to not let you go…(AU for sure, Regis wasn’t supposed to take the throne, and our lovely Nyx has more of a past then we thought…)

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four

Nyx felt his mouth drop open slightly…

You looked divine dressed in gold from head to toe. The dress was sheer on one side with a swirling patter exposing your leg. The same pattern went across your chest leading up to clasp on the Lucian crest. It held in place a flowing gold train that shimmered down your back.

“What…” You looked down at yourself before looking back to him touching your hair, “Does it look awful?”

He picked his mouth off the floor shaking his head, “No…no ma’am, you look quite nice.”

“Nice…alright…” You smiled a little watching him carefully before you pointed out, “I see a few extra braids tonight…”

“Yeah…I figured I should try and keep the mane a little more under control.” He offered his arm to you as you giggled a little taking his arm.

“I’m surprised you found the time between harassing me and all the briefings you had over the last couple days.” You walked with him down the hall.

“Oh, I’m harassing you still…some would say I take pride in my job.” He smirked glancing at you. He was finding hard to not just stare at you right now, “Maybe I just want to ensure your night goes smoothly with your potential betrothals…”

He laughed as you made a disgusted noise, “I have no interest in this party. If I wasn’t directly requested by my uncle, I would abstain from going.”

He cleared his throat a little as he began to feel hot, “A party is a party though…it can’t all be just suitors walking up to you asking for your hand, can it?”

“No…I’m sure my uncle has some sort of ulterior motive and is just adding my cousin and I to the check list.” You sighed before shaking your head slowing down until you stopped. Nyx looked at you as your arm seemed to tighten around his, “Nyx…”

“What is it?” He frowned putting his other hand on top of the one holding his arm.

“…this…this is the first time I’ve been in a big crowd like this since that night…” You looked down as your nose got red, “I didn’t even go out to my family’s funeral because I was still…still hurt so badly. I’m uh…a little…apprehensive…”

“Well…no crying first off…Anita will no doubt kill us if you makeup smears.” He smiled as you started to laugh, “There…that’s a good start. As for everything else…if at any time you need help, I’ll be right there. You just look at me and I’ll know what it means, and I’ll act.”

You smiled leaning over kissing his cheek, “Thank you for understanding…I hope one day I can repay you.”

“No need…it’s my job.” He smiled as his ears began to burn, he was certain a fire spell had caught the back of his neck on fire too. Shiva…did someone crank the heat up in this part of the wing?

An hour later he was standing on the outskirts of the ballroom watching you carefully. So far, so good, but that could change at any moment. You’d reluctantly danced with several gentleman so far, all seemed decent folk…as decent as you could tell by looks that is. He glanced to his right at Drautos came up next to him, “Sir…”

“Your charge looks quite lovely tonight.” Drautos took an at ease position next to him, “Do you for see any problems?”

“As long as everyone keeps their hands to themselves…shouldn’t be any, sir.” Nyx tilted his head a little watching you currently making small talk with your cousin. He was pretty sure you both were making fun of the lady in the pink obnoxious dress…it was definitely…pink.

“I hear that this her first event back in the light, since the trials.” Drautos looked at Nyx raising his eyebrows slightly.

“Yes…I am aware of what the council put her through.” Nyx smirked a little glancing at him again, “You act like I don’t know how to do this job. I watched you do it for years.”

“Watching someone do this job and doing it…two different things.” Drautos looked back out over the crowd, “You never stop doing it…”

“Titus…” Nyx shook his head as he started to frown, “you gotta let it go…”

“I can’t do that.” Drautos took in a deep breath, “Every day I work towards our goal…hearth and home…I don’t intend on forgetting that until I’m in the grave and no longer able to serve.”

Nyx looked at him taking in a deep breath before he spoke, “I can’t talk to you about this right now…”

Drautos put a hand on his shoulder giving it a squeeze, “I hope one day you can…I hope it’s soon for everyone’s sake.”

Nyx rolled his eyes a little as he felt his teeth grind together. Old man wouldn’t let it go…he’d eventually have to talk to him about everything later. Right now, he needed to focus on you.

His eyes scanned the room finding you being led to the floor by a tall skinny guy with glasses. You seemed to know him because you smiled as you talked to him. It made his chest burn for some reason.

He moved around the edge of the room as you danced. As he did, he caught Gladio’s attention. The young Crownsguard didn’t waste any time heading over to Nyx shaking his hand, “You look good in an actual uniform.”

“I make anything look good.” Gladio smirked taking a position next him scanning the room, “Everything fell right into place tonight.”

“Thanks to you.” Nyx smirked a little, “We really owe you. If you hadn’t taken me out for that beer, our unit would not have been up to procedure.”

“Yeah, dad told me some councilmember didn’t fax the memo over…” Gladio glanced at him, “What a dumbass…”

“Yeah…that’s the story.” Nyx said quietly under his breath watching you still twirl around the floor with the same guy, “So who’s prince charming with my charge?”

“Prince…nah…” Gladio smiled, “That’s Iggy…he’s Noct’s attendant and right-hand man.”

“Iggy?” Nyx looked at him making a face getting Gladio to laugh.

“Ignis Scientia.” Gladio told him still chuckling, “Don’t let his small frame fool you…Y/N’s in good hands right now.”

“No hands are better than mine.” Nyx retorted quickly.

“Whoa now…” Gladio looked at him again, “I get taking the job seriously…but Ignis isn’t a threat. I’ll vouch for him.”

“Right…” Nyx nodded slowly watching another young gentleman dressed in all white approaching tapping Ignis out, “And this guy?”

“Ravus Nox Fluret, Prince of Tenebrae.” Gladio crossed his arms defensively, “This guy…I do not vouch for.”

“No?” Nyx glanced at him before his eyes narrowed back to you and your new partner. You did not wear the same happy expression as before.

“Can’t say I know him personally, but apparently he and Y/N had differences of opinions a long time ago and it got ugly…that was enough for me to not like him when I was her shield.” Gladio whispered to him as a couple passed by.

Nyx had to agree with Gladio on this one. You always seemed to be a good judge of character, “Know what it was about?”

“Rumor was…he didn’t like how she didn’t ‘fall in line’, if you catch my drift.” He did and he didn’t like it, “But…Y/N will tell you it was an unfortunate misunderstanding.”

“Yeah…always playing the peacekeeper.” From that moment on he did not remove his eyes from you for more than a few seconds.

As he completed a scan of the whole area his eyes came back to you and he felt his muscles tighten. You were staring straight at him nose getting red, eyes glassing over with suppressed tears. He felt his knuckles crunch as he balled up his fist.

“Excuse me, Gladio…” Nyx stepped forward with purpose knowing full well that this could end very badly if he didn’t play his cards right. He had about twenty seconds to work it all out.

As he approached, he could hear the prince speaking, “I would love to get the chance to see it. Not every day you get to meet someone who’s survived such an experience. What do you say we sneak away?”

Nyx clenched his jaw tightly reminding himself to be the bigger man as he cleared throat. You both stopped looking at him, “Ma’am…you’ve been requested elsewhere.”

You only nodded as you began to remove yourself from Ravus’ clutches, “Thank you for the dance…”

“Who on earth would tear you away from me?” Ravus questioned him keeping hold of your hand.

Nyx made eye contact with him as he stood his ground, “Another gentleman…he seemed shy, but earnest. It’s her ladyship’s duty to ensure she meets with everyone tonight, by King Regis’ request.”

Ravus looked back to you glaring before he spoke, “You were to be queen…don’t waste your pedigree on something lower...”

When he let you go Nyx stepped up to you placing your arm around his and quickly guided you off the floor to the balcony. Once he made sure they were alone he turned to you, “Are you alright?”

You leaned against the railing shaking your head, “No…”

“What happened? What did he say?” Nyx stepped to you taking your hands in his.

You took a moment squeezing his hands before looking into eyes, “He acted as if it was already arranged…spoke of how we would run this country and decimate the Empire. Then he just…he started saying things about my father and how soft his ruling was and how fortunate I was to have been shot. How I was better off without my family…”

Tears slipped down your cheeks as his heart began to ache. How cold did a person have to be to say something like that. Taking in a deep breath he squeezed your hands fearing that if someone reach for your face it would be taken out of context, “You know that’s not true…”

“But it’s what people think…” You shook your head pulling your hands away from him as you turned looking out at the city, “No one knows what my father did to protect this city. What he sacrificed daily to ensure everyone was safe…yet everyone at this party thought him to be weak and soft. They’re more interested in seeing the scars of a failed assassination attempt then to listen and seek change.”

“That’s what he wanted…” Nyx looked back to the people milling about the ballroom, “Son of a…”

“He’s not worth your anger…” You told him quietly, “He’s just a scared little boy who unfortunately was overlooked. He just wants to be in the spotlight, to be special…”

“Insulting you is not the way to do it. He was raised better…” Nyx growled before he looked back to you, “It’s not how a prince should act…”

“And you would know how a prince should act?” You looked at him smirking a little.

“I know what common decency is…” Nyx flushed a little, “I know Queen Selena didn’t let her children act like such fools. If they said something like that, she wouldn’t have hesitated to bend them over her knee in front of everyone at this party.”

He smiled hearing your laugh, “She sounds wonderful and similar to my mother.”

“Oh…were you a brat as a child?” Nyx leaned against the railing looking at you.

“The worst!” You stood up straight smile bursting forth lighting up the area, “You could not keep anything fragile around…I was like a cat. I just knocked everything over. My mother looked me dead in the eyes and told me ‘Don’t do it.’ I apparently just smiled at her before knocking some small statue of a counter…”

He laughed a little, “and she…”

“Oh, she beat my ass right there in the foyer.” You laughed again looking at him before the light faded a little, “She would always say, ‘Just because you’re a princess Y/N, doesn’t make you impervious to the world’s consequences.’”

“My mother said the same thing.” Nyx froze slightly before standing up straight, “Like you I was a little shit…but all I wanted to do was play in the mud.”

He looked at you, seeing that you were staring at him with those big beautiful eyes of yours. He shifted a little looking away, “Nyx…you haven’t ever spoke of you family before…”

“Well…it’s not really important to the job…” He swallowed as he patted the railing with is gloved hands, “I’m supposed to protect you, not the other way around.”

“Yes…but I hope you know me well enough now that you know you can talk to me…” You placed your hand atop of his and smiled at him, “I get the feeling we’re in the same boat when it comes to family.”

“Your feeling is correct.” He whispered looking down to your hand as it curled around his, “It’s hard to bring them up…a lot of other stuff comes with it. You know how it goes…”

“I do.” You nodded squeezing his hand. He watched as you went to say more but was cut off as someone came out looking for you. In the brief moment he tore his hand from you staring out at the city. When you acknowledged that you would be right there, he looked at you again.

“Thank you…” You looked at him when he said it. Surprise was a beautiful look on you, “for the offer…I promise I will take you up on if I need it.”

“Likewise.” You nodded to him, “Thank you for the rescue.”

“No need…” He began as you spoke with him.

“…it’s your job…I know. But I have had a lot of guards in my lifetime…” You stepped closely to him speaking quietly, “None have been quite as princely as you.”

He felt himself tensing as you stepped away going back inside. He watched you move with grace and dignity through the crowd. Happily smiling and shaking people’s hands. When you glanced back at him you gave him a knowing smile and he now knew he had a lot more then Drautos to deal with.

The rest of the night went off without anymore instances. However, the nagging pull of the conversation he was sure he was going to have with you made his stomach roll over. He kept trying to find a way to back track. Something he knew you’d hate him for…all the trust he’d built with you would be gone…

Maybe he could say you misunderstood…it wouldn’t be too hard to convince you. Every mother thought their little boy was a prince, right?

Nyx stepped inside your room clearing everything like he did every day. He stepped to the side letting you enter, “Is there anything else you need?”

You turned to him narrowing your eyes onto his face, “Nyx, is there something wrong?”

“No…” He shook his head slowly, “Should there be?”

“Well…you’ve been awfully quiet since we left.” You clasped your hands together in front of yourself.

“It’s been a rough couple of days…I’m a little tired.” He looked away from you for a moment.

“Alright…Fine…” You took in a deep breath, “Have a good night.”

He looked at you a small frown on your face made his heart sink, “Y/N…I…”

“Nyx…” You looked away from him for a second taking in a deep breath, “I can’t imagine having to leave Insomnia the way you left Galahd. Having to literally uproot everything, never knowing if you’ll go back…but I do understand being in a position where everyone knows who you are…and you just want to be normal…and not important. I wish for that daily…”

He hung his head a little, “Yeah…I know you do. That’s why I like being around you…you get it…”

“Hm…well, one day I hope you’ll tell me your story.” He looked at you as you smiled a little as you crossed your arms over you chest, “I’m sorry you don’t trust me enough with it right now.”

Right for the gut. Take no prisoners. Damn…you were good at this…

Segue…

“…you wanna be normal for a night?” He stared at you eyes bright with mischief.

#galahdian dreams #NYX #nyx ulric #nyx ulric reader #nyx ulric/reader #nyx ulric imagine #ffxv imagine #ffxv #final fantasy xv #final fantasy xv imagine #Noctis Lucis Caelum #noctis #gladiolus amiticia #titus drautos #slow burn #hurt #hurt/comfort #comfort #eventual smut

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miss-tc-nova · 4 years

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The Last of The Real Ones - Noel Kreiss x Fem!Reader Pt 8

DRAMAAAAAA!

~~~~~

Part 8: The Last of the Real Ones

“My Angel.”

“Bhunivelze…” I mumble, fighting the headache pressing against my skull. “I…I couldn’t complete the Soulsong.”

“Worry not, my Angel. Come to me.”

My arms quiver as I sit up. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Come to me. Serve as my Angel. And I will save your friends.”

Those magic words are all I need. Against the screaming of my muscles and the sickness I feel, I stagger to my feet. I start for the door on the other side of the room when I see a familiar, floating, white creature.

“Mog?”

“Wah! You’re alright, kupo!” He flutters towards me, running into my chest.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to help Lightning, kupo! You look like you were hurt pretty badly, kupo.” Before I can say anything, Mog produces a bottle and shoves it into my hands. “Take this and help save everyone, kupo!”

Guilt fills my chest but Mog may have just handed me my saving grace. “Thank you, Mog.” I place a kiss on the moogle’s cheek and head through the door. The potion does its magic, relieving my pain as I hurry along the path. At the end, I can see lights off in the distance. I can sense all my friends, but I can also sense God. I see the Eidolons engulf themselves in light and fly at Bhunivelze. I race for them, determined, desperate, and using every power that God has given me. The attack gets deflected, blowing the Eidolons back at their summoners.

“What?!” Snow exclaims.

I look at each and every person, preparing myself for the fight of my life, but my eyes catch on the brunette—he survived. I begin to think it better that he didn’t. I don’t know if I can take him on again.

Vanille cries out, “Please stop! We were wrong!”

I take a deep breath, a pair of glowing, golden khopesh leaping into my hands. My old allies tense.

“It’s over,” snarls Fang.

Hope moves closer. “Please. You don’t want to do this.”

I raise a weapon to halt his advance and they seem convinced of my stance now. Snow is the first to break and attack. When I throw him back, the rest join in. All of them have always been strong so I become overwhelmed. I start taking in oxygen at a faster rate and heat blooms across my back. Snow’s blow to the cheek reignites my headache, but is also the final attack to bring me to the edge.

Using a trick I had learned from Caius, the fire erupts around me and the humans shrink beneath me as I become one with my Eidolon, Ifrit. Baring rows of teeth in my new form, I stare down at them. Snow and the Shiva sisters kick up the fight again. The eidolons make the fight significantly more difficult, but having used my body to summon Ifrit, I’m stronger than all of them.

Fang quickly follows Bahamut across the space. Not a single one of them was prepared for me here, not in this state. The rose-haired woman kneels before me, exhausted. My hand engulfs her, raising her in front of me. A deep-rooted guilt fills my chest but this is for their own good.

“Why are you doing this?” grimaces Snow. A low rumble leaves my throat. My silence is not enough of an answer for him. “Dammit! Answer me!”

“For you.”

Hope regains his stability. “What do you mean? How is this for us?!”

“Don’t you understand what he’s doing?! What he wants?!” Fang shouts.

Vanille adds, “He wants to destroy all the souls of the dead! They won’t be reborn in the new world if he gets his way!”

“They don’t matter.” They gasp and look to each other. I look to the brunette who seems furious with me. “Only you.”

“You have done well, my Angel. Now end this so everyone can live in blissful paradise.”

“And Serah? Yeul?” I ask, making clear eye contact with the Savior.

“Of course.” A pair of lights flickers between me and my opponents, taking form as the lost girls.

“Serah?!” Snow exclaims.

My heart quivers at Noel rushing for the second girl. “Yeul!”

“See. Everyone is here. Now end this. Fulfill your duty and attain your happy ending.” My grip on the rose-haired woman tightens and she grimaces.

“That’s not Serah or Yeul!” My eyes snap to Hope. “They’re lies!”

“It’s true,” Lightning chokes.

Hope announces, “Bhunivelze can’t pull souls from the Chaos. He can’t truly bring people back from the dead. That’s why he created other gods, to find the door into the unseen world where the dead wait in the Chaos to be reborn.”

“No…” I say in disbelief. “No! I was promised safe passage for all my friends!”

“Do not listen to them. Remember your focus.”

“He’s trying to destroy those souls with the Soulsong because he has no control over them. All he can do is create illusions to fool you.” My grasp on the woman loosens.

“Are two little girls, who were not strong enough to have survived, worth losing the rest of them?” The two girls vanish. “Are those two worth these six? Besides, with the seeress gone, you’re free to charm the hunter yourself.” Noel’s eyes narrow and the guilt only rises in my chest. “Isn’t his companionship what you’ve always truly wanted?”

“We can save them,” Fang interrupts. “If we stop Bhunivelze, we can bring the souls of the dead with us, including Serah and Yeul!”

“You know this is wrong! I know you don’t want to do this!” Noel shouts.

A hand rests against mine and I look to the woman in my hand. “We can all go together, but only as long as Bhunivelze doesn’t win.”

Fighting the hot tears threatening to well up, I let out a heavy breath. I release my captive before turning to the god, releasing a roar. “YOU LIED!”

His surprise turns to anger. “Do you forget who your master is?!” A blinding pain starts at my left eye, forcing a pained howl from me. “Do you forget what happens if you do not complete your focus for me?!”

Fighting through the pain, I look him in the eye. “You truly don’t understand human hearts do you? If you did, then you’d know that there is nothing I wouldn’t do for my friends. You’d know that I would do anything to make them happy! YOU’D KNOW THAT I’D BECOME A MONSTER TO SAVE THEM!”

“As you wish.”

The pain suddenly spikes and I double over. I hear my name from my friends but my grip on my control is staggering. A crystalline parasite creeps across my skin. No matter what I do to fight it, I am being consumed. This is my failure to complete my focus and my fall to a Cie’th.

~~~~~

It feels like I’m underwater, floating in a void of my remorse. This is my end; whether the world ends or my friends finish me off, it’s over for me. The darkness begins to envelope me, gnawing away at my consciousness. The last of me begins fading even from this abyss; I’ll cease to exist soon. I can only pray Noel will be happy with Yeul.

A muffled sound amplifies the underwater effect.

Is someone there? There isn’t; just emptiness all around. But I hear it again, a little clearer.

“-to me!”

Noel? He’s definitely not here but that’s definitely his voice.

“I know you’re in there! You have to fight this!”

“Noel?! Noel, where are you?!” The panic is slowly setting in.

“If anyone can break out of this, it’s you!” A spark of light ignites in the distance. That’s where his voice is. I start struggling against the darkness. “COME ON! Are you gonna let that liar win?!”

“I’m trying!”

“Are you gonna let some pathetic god destroy everything you’ve been fighting for?!”

I manage to break into a run. “I…I can’t give up now!”

“Are you gonna leave after all the shit you put me through?!” The light grows closer but I don’t let up my sprint. “ARE YOU GONNA LEAVE ME HERE ALONE WITHOUT GIVING ME THE CHANCE TO SAY I LOVE YOU BACK?! ANSWER ME!”

“NO!”

The battlefield returns to me. The others are watching, waiting for me to make a move, but the weight around my neck draws my attention downward. Clinging to me is the only person who could have brought me back.

“I didn’t think so,” he breathes. It may be marred by tears, but there’s a smile there—a smile for me.

The destructive instinct of the Cie’th threatens to take over and I stumble back, fighting against it.

“Woah! Hey!”

“End this.”

“What?!”

A roar of pain tears from my throat. “END THIS NOW!”

Noel’s hand, warm and comforting, rests against my arm. “It’ll be over soon.”

�� These attacks are different from before, full of mercy rather than desperate conflict, but that doesn’t make them hurt any less. The Cie’th inside attempts to lash out but I make it endure this destruction with me.

The javelin is pulled from my chest and I collapse, all pain and even the Cie’th will dissipating. The crystal encasing me begins flaking away, dissolving into nothing. Finally, all the shame and the burden of my focus hit me along with the relief of having failed.

A hand rests against my face and I see Noel coming in and out of focus.

“I just wanted to save you.”

“I know. But it’s okay now.” His face clears up just in time for me to see him say it. “I love you.”

Those words break my heart. I spent so long denying myself, but here, in the end, I just can’t. I love him; I really do and I always have. And perhaps, if I had admitted that sooner, it could’ve saved us all so much heartache. At least here, in the end, I finally tell him. “I love you too.”

Noel leans, pressing his lips to my cheek. “I’ll see you again soon.”

I cling to my consciousness until the last moment; I want to be with him, to keep him in my thoughts until the very end, to love him until my dying breath. And I do.

#noel kreiss #noel kreiss x reader #lightning returns #lightning returns final fantasy 13 #lightning returns final fantasy xiii #ff noel #ff noel kreiss #ffxiii noel #ff13 noel #ff13 noel kreiss #ffxiii noel kreiss #ffxiii-2 #ffxiii-2 noel #ff13-2 #ff13-2 noel #fem!reader

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cruellae · 4 years

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Sephiroth Week, Day 7

Last day! This was so much fun~ thank you to the organizers and all the other awesome people who participated.

Each of my Sephiroth Week entries are fragments of a love story told in 7 parts. As such, it’s a good idea to read all of them in order. You can find them [here on AO3].

Day 1 - Innocence

Day 2 - Wish

Day 3 - Fate

Day 4 - Haunted (Free Day)

Day 5 - Shapeshifter

Day 6 - Darkness

Day 7 - Remake

Cloud hesitates just inside the doorway to his kitchen, startled and wary.

There is a gift sitting on his kitchen table. It’s small and rectangular, wrapped in white paper and tied with a black ribbon.

He wonders how whoever it was got into his house, and why they left the gift instead of giving it in person. He wonders if it’s a trap, and if he should really open it.

But eventually his curiosity wins out, and he approaches the package.

As soon as he touches the ribbon he can feel its magical potency. It’s a rare sort of trinket, the type he’s only seen twice before. Enchanted with a protective magic, it will keep him from being poisoned, petrified, or hit with any other nasty status effect.

He ties it around his wrist in case the box itself is designed to inflict any such thing. Just in case.

The box is made of simple polished rosewood, and inside…

His breath catches. They’re so beautiful. Three orbs of rare materia, with the shine that tells him they’re completely mastered.

There’s no note, and nothing at all that might identify the sender.

He wonders and worries about it--who could it be and what do they want--but that doesn’t stop him from using the materia.

The next gift comes almost a month later, and he pauses in his doorway, taking in the sight of the large sword sitting on his kitchen table.

He approaches the sword, his mouth slightly open. Even without touching it he can tell it’s the finest he’s ever laid eyes on. When he picks it up, the balance is perfect, like it was made for him.

He wishes he knew who was behind it and where it came from. It’s a little weird for a sword to just appear in his apartment, but that doesn’t stop him from using it.

Yuffie calls it the Ultima Weapon. ”Because it’s so ultimate, Cloud!”

It’s as good a name as any for the best blade he’s ever wielded.

The third gift is almost certainly a trap.

It’s a key, sitting on the table, gleaming silver in the light. Beside it is a map leading to somewhere in the hills just beyond Kalm.

Weird.

But Cloud follows the trail anyway.

It leads him off the beaten path and down a dirt road towards a corral where a young man is guiding a chocobo through the dust, clucking softly.

The man hops the fence between them as Cloud slows his bike and looks him up and down appraisingly. “You gotta be Cloud Strife or my name’s not Chocobo Billy,” he says.

Cloud nods cautiously. “That’s me.”

“Howdy.” Billy holds out his hand for Cloud to shake. “Welcome home, sir.”

Cloud stares at him in stunned silence as Billy explains that this ranch is a gift from a mysterious benefactor. “It’s yours, free and clear,” Billy says. “I’m here to help ya out, gettin it started, keepin it runnin.”

“Uh-huh…” Cloud says. This is going to take a while to process.

He would think Sephiroth is behind all of this, but Sephiroth is dead, gone for good this time. He has the Masamune to prove it, hidden away in his storage closet for the last year. It’s buried under a lot of junk because he doesn’t like to look at it. It makes him feel a lot of things he’d really rather ignore.

Billy won’t say one word about who bought the ranch or hired him. Cloud gives up trying.

He keeps the ranch, though.

AVALANCHE is celebrating. President Shinra is dead, assassinated in his own office, and while Barret is upset that he didn’t get to do it himself, the entire team is in pretty high spirits.

They all get drunk and Cloud, slightly tipsy, leaves them to it. He wants to be home at his ranch, with his chocobos and the quiet he’s gotten used to. After spending time there, Midgar seems loud and dirty, crammed with people.

But for tonight, he’ll settle for crashing at his apartment in Sector 6.

He steps through the door and freezes, staring at the gift that has been left on his table.

Golden cufflinks, stamped with the Shinra logo and splattered with blood.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who they belonged to.

He runs into the next room and yanks open the door to the storage closet, jerking aside the junk piled in there and letting it carelessly fall to the floor.

It’s gone. The Masamune is gone.

He stares for a long time into the empty space the sword used to occupy, his fists clenched.

“You bastard,” he whispers.

Rufus Shinra is never unguarded. Since his father’s untimely death, he has spent every moment--sleeping and waking--accompanied by at least three Second Class SOLDIERs and one First Class.

Sephiroth intends to destroy Shinra as thoroughly as he can, but he would prefer not to slay any of his old comrades. Therefore, Rufus’s assassination must be done strategically and thoughtfully.

He’s perched on the barrel of Junon cannon, watching the festivities below as Rufus gives a bombastic speech to the assembled crowd, accompanied by utterly terrible brass band music. SOLDIERs and Shinra infantry march in formation, while two First Class SOLDIERs stand just behind Rufus, scanning the crowd for threats. Another is flanking the crowd, keeping watch on who comes and goes.

None of them have spotted Sephiroth, hidden in shadow above them. But they could, if they knew where to look. The encounter with Jenova restored Sephiroth fully, so that Cloud is no longer the only one who can see him.

With his focus on the scene below, the ridiculous music blaring in his ears, he doesn’t notice the man approaching him until it’s almost too late. He whirls, the Masamune flashing in the golden glow of late afternoon as it comes to rest gently against Cloud Strife’s throat.

Immediately, he lowers his weapon, his eyes lingering on the face he has missed so dearly. Of course he has been watching Cloud from a distance ever since they parted ways, but it’s different to see him up close, and to be seen in return.

“I figured you’d be following Rufus,” Cloud says.

“Shinra is a many-headed beast,” Sephiroth says. “I am only one man. It stands to reason that I will take them out one by one.”

“You should work with us,” Cloud says. “AVALANCHE, I mean. We’d get more done together.”

Sephiroth nods. “It would be my pleasure.”

Cloud studies him, brows drawn together in unhappiness. It makes Sephiroth realize he has never apologized for his moment of weakness--a moment which almost meant Cloud’s death.

“Jenova was…” He hesitates, wondering how he can possibly explain it. “All of my life, I wished to know what I was and where I came from. To have...a mother. She didn’t control my mind, Cloud. She simply offered me her love. I don’t believe that you should forgive me for what I did in Nibelheim or what I did in the Northern Crater. But know that I deeply regret it.”

“And leaving me?” Cloud asks, his voice oddly rough. “Are you gonna apologize for that?”

Sephiroth studies him, puzzled. He left for Cloud’s sake, and severed the connection between them because he thought it would be what Cloud wanted. Who could possibly want to be tied to the monstrous spawn of Jenova, a man whose heart held so much hate and anger? Cloud had given himself to Sephiroth because he thought it would stop Sephiroth from doing Jenova’s bidding. It had nothing to do with love or his own desires.

By leaving, Sephiroth released him from that fool’s bargain. He thought Cloud would be relieved, and maybe even grateful. But instead he looks devastated, like he’s been deeply betrayed. Like Sephiroth has the power to wound him.

“Gods, this is so fuckin stupid,” Cloud says, running a hand through his hair in agitation. “I...I don’t even know what to say. What’s with the gifts, if you don’t give a fuck about me?”

“Of course I care about you,” Sephiroth says. How could Cloud doubt it?

“Then why?” Cloud asks. “I...Shiva, I’ve been such a fuckin idiot. Thinking of you all the time. Missing you like nothing else. And you’ve just been avoiding me.”

The thought that Cloud might have missed him, that Cloud had been desperate for his presence, makes Sephiroth’s heart ache in his chest.

“I thought you’d be glad to be rid of me,” he explains. “That you’d be happy you didn’t have to keep your promise.”

Cloud steps closer, watching him with eyes the blue of the sky over the mountains. “I guess it’s a little much to promise to be yours forever when we’re just starting. How about you ask me on a date?”

Sephiroth isn’t sure how to respond. He feels like his meager capacity for emotion is overflowing with elation and desire and anxiety. It would be so easy to fuck this up. But if he can do it right...there is the promise of so much more.

“Your next gift was going to be a very useful piece of armor stolen from Shinra’s secret research lab,” Sephiroth says. “I have it on good authority it’s on the crashed remains of the Gelnika, which happens to be full of very dangerous monsters.”

Cloud gives him a hint of a smile. “Are you asking me to go monster hunting with you?”

“Will you?” Sephiroth asks, and holds his breath until Cloud answers him with a kiss.

It may only be their second real date--a fancy restaurant in Midgar where Cloud squinted at the menu and complained about the lack of chicken sticks--but Cloud lets Sephiroth come home with him, to the apartment where Sephiroth has been leaving gifts for the past year. The materia he mastered himself, fighting monsters near Mideel. The sword was a greater challenge--he had to slay one of the WEAPONs released when Shinra attempted to tap the lifestream in Northern Crater. The chocobo ranch took some time to arrange, but when he lingered in the trees near the corrals and watched Cloud riding the birds, he knew it was worth it.

Now, lying on his back beside Cloud and staring up into the darkness, it’s hard not to be stunned by the sheer good fortune he’s been granted.

“Stay tonight,” Cloud says, curling up against his side. “Please?”

“Of course,” Sephiroth says, pressing a kiss to Cloud’s forehead. He reaches for the blankets on the floor beside him, which he had thoughtlessly thrown aside somewhere in between passionate kisses.

His hand catches on supple leather, inky black in the darkness. He sits up to examine it. “This is my coat,” he says, bemused.

“Yeah.” Cloud clears his throat and looks away sheepishly. “I guess I sometimes slept with it. Just cause. I kinda missed you.”

Startled by the admission and the depth of Cloud’s feelings, Sephiroth is quiet for a moment, feeling the familiar texture of the leather beneath his fingers.

Is this what it’s like to have someone who loves me?

It feels good, warm and sweet with an unexpected depth to it. But also frightening, because he’s not sure he knows how to return it. “I’m not good for you, Cloud,” he says.

Cloud snorts, sitting up and pressing himself against Sephiroth’s back. “You think I don’t know that? I know who you are. I haven’t forgotten anything.”

“Yet you’re still here.”

“Yeah. Cause I love you.” Cloud tugs Sephiroth back down onto the bed. “C’mon, it’s getting cold.”

Sephiroth pulls a blanket over them both. Cloud snuggles against him, his breathing evening out and his limbs relaxing into sleep.

Sephiroth lays awake, holding both hope and fear in his heart.

#sephirothweek #sephcloud #sephiroth #sefikura #cloud strife #ffvii fanfic

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stillthewordgirl · 5 years

Text

LOT/CC fic: All Stories, in the End

Mick knows that stories can't really fix things. They can't bring people back, and they can't mend broken hearts. Or can they? (Captain Canary and platonic Coldwave)

So, today is my three-year ficaversary for Legends! This fandom has been so wonderful to me and brought me so many new friends-and got me back into writing fiction, which has had excellent repercussions in many ways-even professionally. In honor of the anniversary, here's a little tribute to stories and their power. Hope you enjoy it!

So many thanks, as usual, to LarielRomeniel for the beta and to Pir8grl for being a great sounding board!

Can also be read be here at AO3 and here at FF.net. Please be aware that it’s divided into two parts on those websites, but both are posted.

We're all made of stories. When they finally put us underground, the stories are what will go on. Not forever, perhaps, but for a time. It's a kind of immortality, I suppose, bounded by limits, it's true, but then so's everything.”

― Charles de Lint

Once, Rick had resented the pirate queen who’d drawn his partner, his friend, his blood brother, into this mad quest.

To be honest, she hadn’t been a pirate queen at the time. And she hadn’t been trying to lure him, either. She’d been a pretty face and an untold story when she’d joined the rest of the old captain’s motley crew of hand-picked losers. But Rick had seen the light of curiosity in Sean’s eyes when he looked at her, and he should have known then.

This wasn’t going to go the way he thought it was going to go.

Mick sighed and put down the papers he’d taken from their locked box in his room on the Waverider. There was a reason he’d put this story away unfinished. More than one reason, really.

But today, Haircut had actually brought up Snart while they were all sitting in the galley, telling his new squeeze Spooky Girl about the lost Legends—one of the lost Legends—and it’d stirred up all sorts of memories.

Not for just Mick, either. He’d been looking at Blondie when Haircut had dropped the name “Snart,” and he’d seen the stillness in her that was more telling than even a flinch. It was what Blondie did when she was holding back a flinch, really. Mick had seen the lines of pain around her eyes, and he saw her look away quickly, rising to her feet when it became apparent the oblivious Ray wasn’t going to leave off his story.

He’d thought about stopping her as she swiftly left the room, then thought about following her. But Sara had been a bit—touchy? probably wasn’t very healthy to be calling a former assassin ‘touchy,’ even in his own thoughts—since she’d split with Bureau Chick, and maybe she needed the space. Mick let her go.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t think about it. And when he’d returned to his room, he’d pulled out this story, rereading it with the usual feeling of somewhat awkward regret.

Sean Lance had a reputation some might call cold. Icy, even. He’d built that reputation very carefully over his lifetime. Being cold and careful kept you safe. He was even cold with Rick Mor, his partner in crime and the closest thing he had to a best friend. Rick had led the same sort of life he had. He was pretty sure the other man understood.

But. Lara.

The blond badass hadn’t been anything he’d planned on. Certainly, he hadn’t planned on falling for her. That was stupid. That kind of shit didn’t happen in real life.

But ….she’d worked her way under his skin somehow. Made him want to be a better person—and wasn’t that a riot?

Mick sighed again. It’s not like he’d known for a fact that Snart had that kind of…feelings…about Blondie. But he’d put the pieces together, from both before and after Snart had…after the Oculus, and goddamned if it didn’t all fit. Snart deciding to go all hero-like (which probably had a good bit to do with Allen, too), choosing the team over Mick (who was willing to admit, now, that his actions on the Acheron had been pretty damned stupid) and then…and then…

And Blondie’s reaction, afterward. It wasn’t like Mick really wanted to…oh, sit shiva, for Len and everything that entailed. But especially after Savage was toast (literally, a thought which still gave him some satisfaction), he might have liked to sit down with a drink and a friend…someone else who’d known Snart…and remembered, just a little.

But Sara had avoided the topic like the fuckin’ plague, and she’d also gone from someone who seemed kinda uncertain about hooking up with anyone to flinging herself at any woman who seemed the least bit interested. Never guys, although Mick knew she liked guys too, and that was maybe a little telling in its own right.

Just because Mick never liked to talk about feelings didn’t mean he didn’t understand them in his own way. In others, anyway.

Lara Sahfer knew she was the deadliest person on this ship. That went without question. Far deadlier than the priestess and her boytoy. Deadlier than the alchemist and his apprentice. Deadlier than the eager crusader or their hapless captain.

And deadlier than the clever thief and his partner.

The partner was dangerous, but she knew the type. He was content to let his friend be the brains of their team. But the intriguing Sean Lance…

She didn’t know what to make of him.

Though she did know he kept watching her ass given the merest opportunity.

If Mick was being honest with himself (and he tried to be, these days), he’d started putting this thing down on paper first because he could see Blondie struggling and couldn’t figure out how to manage the words to talk to her about Snart—even if she’d let him.

And in stories, you could give someone—more than one someone—the happy ending they didn’t get in real life. Maybe someday, Sara would even be ready to read it.

Then all sorts of shit had happened, and Mick had stopped writing again. He’d been stuck at the bottom of the ocean for years, even if it didn’t seem like so long. And then Ghost Snart—who hadn’t been real, but who had seemed real at the time—had showed up and snarked off about even the hint of the feelings Mick was starting to acknowledge.

And then, that asshole in the Legion (well, more of an asshole than real Snart—he was still convinced that Legion Snart hadn’t been real Snart) had showed up. And Mick decided, painfully, that he wasn’t ready to write about even fictionalized Len for a while.

He locked the pages away, taking the lockbox with him when Rip had taken the Waverider back—and bringing it back with him when they’d stolen the ship in return. He added a few more bits and pieces here and there—especially, with a certain grumpy annoyance, when he sensed Sara’s interest in Bureau Chick, who really couldn’t be more different from Len. (It’d felt like a betrayal in a way, though he’d never tell her that. Snart was gone.)

And then there was Leo. Leo, who merrily flirted with Sara (and just about everyone else). Leo, who everyone seemed to like. Personable Leo, the hugger, who was the only Snart the newbies had ever met. And it seemed like everyone but him forgot about real Snart just a little bit more.

He quietly tucked the pages away and hadn’t taken them out since. Until today.

The voyage had lots of ups and downs. Rick knew that; hell, he’d caused a lot of them. He’d committed mutiny against the captain himself when the man had thrown his own lack of status on the ship and elsewhere back in his face. And he’d paid for that, paid more than a lot of those fools would ever know.

But the thing he regretted most was that it’d cost him Sean’s friendship.

Oh, he’d been angry first. Enraged, even. That bastard had hauled him out of the pirate haven where they could have been kings, just because the captain and Lara were in trouble. And then he’d chosen the crew instead of Rick in the mutiny. Because of Lara, Rick thought. And then Sean had marooned him on that desert island and left him behind.

It’d taken time and distance to see things clearly again.

By then, it was too late.

Snart had definitely had a thing for Sara—Mick had known the man long enough and well enough to have seen him show interest in men, women, and folks who mighta been either or both, though Len had always been real quiet about any lovers he took. Still, he knew the signs.

But that hadn’t gone how Mick thought, either. He'd figured the two of them would have a fling. Get it outta their systems. Snart didn’t have a heart any more than Mick did, and it wasn’t like he and Sara were gonna fall for each other or something. That was story shit.

Mick looked down at the pages in front of him and sighed yet again.

Instead, Snart had circled around Blondie like he was planning a heist, careful and curious, and Blondie had reacted much the same way. They’d started spending time together, playing cards, and while Mick had wondered what was going on there a few times, he hadn’t asked. Even when Snart had gone back to get Sara in Russia, even when he’d insisted on saving her and Rip in Star City, and, yeah, even when he’d iced Mick in the engine room.

A few days back, Mick had overheard Zari and Charlie talking about Sara and Bureau Chick, about how (they thought) Sara’s tendency to happily break rules and apologize later, if at all, had finally taken a toll on the two and led to the breakup, along with Sara’s resistance to becoming more…domesticated.

Snart wouldn’t have tried to change her. Snart had liked her just the way she was.

Sean couldn’t help being fascinated by the assassin the captain had recruited. OK, she was gorgeous, attractive in a way that seemed designed to appeal to his sense of danger, and he wouldn’t have minded having some sort of a fling with her. But flings were all he did, these days, and dipping a toe (so to speak) into those particularly dangerous waters while on this ship seemed like a bad idea.

But that didn’t keep him from watching. Or them from playing cards. Or talking. Or watching each other’s back. Or...

Oh, hell.

There were a lot of reasons Mick himself wasn’t fond of Bureau Chick. (He knew perfectly well what her name was, he just liked to pretend otherwise.) But her attempts at changing who Blondie was…well, Mick had had too many people trying to change him to what they wanted him to be over the years. People who generally didn’t get what’d made him who he was. He didn’t take kindly to it.

And he didn’t take kindly to it happening to his friends, either.

Oh, sure, he’d changed, by this point. But he’d chosen to change, himself. It was different.

Now that Bureau Chick was out of the picture…

Mick sighed, putting a hand down on the partially written story. Snart was still dead. Nothing would change that. Ever.

No matter how much he tried to fix things in a stupid story.

Lara had been through a lot in the past few years. She wasn’t looking for a lover, or even a fling. She hadn’t been down that particular road since before she’d died and come back, and she wasn’t ready for it now. Maybe she never would be.

But. Sean.

The thief didn’t seem to care that she’d killed for hire. Didn’t seem scared of her bloodlust or intimidated by her history. He just seemed intrigued. And, somehow, he had an uncanny sense of why she wanted to be...better. She got the feeling that he did, too.

She wasn’t scared of anything. But...

She thought maybe she should be scared of this. Not because it was bad.

Because it could be all too good.

Mick had just pulled out the pages of another story, his latest sci-fi epic, the one he’d asked New Girl to read sometime soon, when Gideon’s voice echoed through the ship.

“Captain Lance would like everyone on the bridge,” she announced, sounding just a little harried. That wasn’t good. “Immediately.”

Then the ship shook. That definitely wasn’t good. Mick cursed, dropping the pages on the desk and turning for the door.

He didn’t even consider that he’d left the other story out, too.

It was quite a bit later when Zari wandered into the room, smiling a bit as the door slid open to admit her, per Mick’s orders. She was glad he’d come to trust her that much. She didn’t think Mick trusted many, and it felt like a rare and rather precious accolade.

Even if it was mostly so she could play editor.

The unexplained temporal storm earlier still had the ship in disarray, but there wasn’t really anything she could do about that at the moment. Mick and Sara and Ray were going over temporal data that was nonsense to her and the others were dealing with some variety of seasickness. Time sickness. Whatever. It’d been caused by the ship’s motion through the storm, so close enough. Zari had tried, but poor Charlie, who’d had a really bad reaction to it, had refused any help at all, locking herself in her room and snarling through the door.

Zari hummed to herself as she looked over Mick’s desk and the old typewriter he still insisted on using. There were a few different piles of papers, but they’d been knocked around a bit by the turbulence. Looked like one had slid to the side, and another toward the front of the desk. Which one had Mick had in mind?

The one at the front caught her eye, so she picked it up, gathering the pages into a pile, turning to find a seat amidst the clutter of the room and settling in to read.

Once, Rick had resented the pirate queen...

The cult that’d started this whole damned thing had them again, even after all the crew’s plans and attempts to change things. They had Rick, minions strapping him down into a chair while one of the cult leaders—the one who’d broken him the first time—stared at him thoughtfully. Rick stared back, determined not to show any fear.

Maybe, he thought, even as the manacles closed around his wrists, Sean and Lara had gotten away. They’d been holed up again, like they did sometimes. Neither of them was stupid. They might have gotten away.

Gods, he hoped they’d gotten away.

Zari had completely lost track of time when Mick came through the door and stopped, acknowledging her presence with a grunt. She blinked, slowly coming back to reality as he ambled toward the desk and gave it a cursory look—before suddenly freezing and then spinning to stare at her. And the pages she was reading.

“You can’t read that,” Mick told her abruptly, something odd in his tone, even as Zari tightened her grip on the papers involuntarily. He sounded almost...upset. Embarrassed? Mick?

“It was right on your desk. I thought it was what you wanted me to read.” She studied him, then looked back down at the story, letting out a long breath. She liked Mick’s writing, but she’d really been caught up in this one.

“Mick, this is great,” she told him, lifting her eyes again and giving the pages a shake for emphasis. “You’ve got this...this incredible romance going on between these awesome, real, flawed characters, the thief and the assassin, and this amazing...platonic soulmates thing with the male protagonist and his friend at the same time.” She shook her head, impressed. “And you don’t see enough of that in fiction, especially in cases where the romantic relationship doesn’t eclipse the platonic one and they’re both good stories on their own. It’s great.”

Mick stared at her, expression still opaque. Zari stared back a moment, then rifled through the papers. Now that she was near the end, she didn’t think there was enough...yes, it just left off there, right in the middle of a scene.

“You need to finish it,” she insisted. “And there are a few places you just fade to black...and I want to see how it ends!”

But he turned away then, toward the desk, shoulders set.

“I can’t,” he said, tossing the words back over his shoulder at her. “He died.” A pause. “The end.”

Zari blinked again. “Who? Rick? Sean? You can’t...”

But her voice trailed off as she saw Mick leaning on his desk, hands gripping the wood and knuckles white, staring at his typewriter like it’d hurt him. But it hadn’t; she had, somehow, by sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong, even though she hadn’t meant to. So, after another minute, she got to her feet, quietly putting the pages down where she’d been sitting and taking a step toward the door.

Mick didn’t move.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. And left.

The others had decided to destroy the cult, and possibly the island it claimed as its base as well. Sean couldn’t say he was surprised. He wasn’t fond at all of how much power the group claimed, far more than they’d originally suspected. And now that they knew the cult was supporting the warlord they’d vowed to stop, it was necessary if they ever wanted to complete that mission.

Still, he could see Lara watching him out of the corner of her eye as all the others chimed in, agreeing to this plan. Even Rick was in—though, of course, he had more reason than most to hate the cult.

“We set out on this mission to stop Vindictus and save the world. To become legends and change our fates,” the crusader, Edmund, said earnestly. “That mission hasn't changed.”

Sean made a scoffing noise. “This is madness,” he said, glancing around at all of them before letting his gaze light on Lara—and an almost-smile touch his mouth. “I like it.”

She smiled back at him.

Behind her, Rick rolled his eyes. But the other man was smiling too.

He died.

Zari frowned to herself as she strolled the corridors of the ship, pondering Mick’s reaction and his words. Given that no main character had died yet in that story, it was apparent that the tale must have been based on a true one. But...

She stopped dead in her tracks.

Lara, assassin turned (at some point) pirate queen. Sean, the thief. Rick, his friend and partner.

Oh.

It seemed to fit. She only knew the sketchiest bits of what the Legends had been up to when their original captain had first recruited them, but she should have figured this out sooner. The power of Mick’s tale had obfuscated the reality behind it. And she knew almost nothing about Leonard, Mick’s former partner, just that Mick missed him and that he’d died, doing something that had saved the world.

Had he and Sara really been a thing? Almost a thing? Zari nibbled her lip, thinking. She didn’t think she’d heard Sara so much as mention his name. Ever. Which...actually did point more toward some powerful feelings there rather than the opposite.

Zari thought for a few more minutes. Then she turned toward the bridge.

Lara knew that Rick had taken refuge in one of his hidey holes in a cargo bay, probably drinking his way through more of the captain’s rum. She’d figured Sean was with him.

Which was fine. Really. After the thief pulled a gun on her after the cult members had taken their friends, she wasn’t sure she really wanted to talk to him. Oh, she could have had that gun away from him in a heartbeat, and he’d backed down awfully quickly, given how stubborn she knew he was, but it was the principle of the thing.

She’d been furious. And heartbroken, though she wasn’t ready to tell anyone that and probably never would be. She’d thought they were friends, at least. Maybe...maybe skirting around something more?

But he wasn’t in the cargo bay with Rick, after all, as it turned out. He was here. At her cabin door. Now. Looking at her with eyes that had a veneer of his habitual attitude over even more uncertainty. It probably said something, too, that she recognized that.

Sean cleared his throat. “Hi,” he managed. “Can I come in?”

Lara leaned on the doorway and glared at him. “What do you want?”

“To talk.” A look from under lowered lashes. Damn him. “And apologize.”

“You could do that right here.”

“Mmm.” He glanced away. “Maybe I want to say more than that.”

She shouldn’t let him in. She should shut the door in his handsome face. She should...

Lara stepped back, letting him in.

Sara was sitting in the captain’s chair. Oh, there was no particular flying to be done right now, but she wasn’t in the mood to go back to her quarters. Her empty quarters, with no sign of Ava in them. More evidence that she’d fucked up for real this time.

Or not. Frankly, Sara kept waffling between anger and annoyance at the other woman’s conviction that Sara needed to change and grief over the loss of someone else she'd cared for. OK, loved. Sure, Ava was back in the Bureau offices, healthy and fine compared to some of the people Sara had lost, but Sara had lost her regardless.

Or maybe she’d never really had her to begin with. Had they both been operating under false pretenses? Ava, thinking Sara would settle and become a good little soldier, or wife, or both? Sara, thinking that Ava would stop wanting her to? Would stop wanting to make her over in a different image?

Sara wasn’t sure how long she’d been there, slumped in the chair with her jaw in her hand, eyes closed, thoughts and feelings circling in her head, when she heard the footstep. Closer than she’d usually let someone get, but she’d let her guard down, knowing that Gideon would warn her if it wasn’t a friend.

“What’s up, Z?” she asked, seeing Zari there, watching her with a rather enigmatic expression. “Everything OK?”

The other woman shrugged, moving closer and studying Sara as if seeing her in a new light. Sara was just about to ask again when Zari glanced away, nodded to herself, and looked back.

“Who was Leonard Snart?” she asked, point blank.

Sara was pretty sure she didn’t move, but for a moment, she almost felt like she’d reeled. “What?”

“Mick’s old partner.” Z tilted her head. “One of the original members of the Legends, right? But no one ever talks about him. Why is that?”

Get him out of here.

No.

Just do it.

Sara swallowed. “He died,” she said abruptly, knowing her voice sounded harsh. “What’s there to talk about?”

“Other people have too, died or left, and the team talks about them.”

“Why are you asking this now?” Sara’s hands tightened on the arms of the chair. “Mick...”

Zari seemed to consider. She looked a little like she regretted bringing this up, but she was too stubborn to back down now. Sara knew that well. “He wrote something about him. Snart. Well, you and Snart.”

“Me and...Snart.” She should say there was no “her and Snart.” She should.

“I wasn’t meant to read it, but I didn’t know that. And the story just...ended. And when I asked, Mick said he died.”

What on earth could Mick have written? How would he even have known...?

...what the future might hold for me...and you...and me and you.

Zari’s eyes are direct. “Did you love him?”

I might have.

“I don’t want to talk about this now.” Her broken edges and Leonard’s, they’d somehow fit together.

“Sara...”

“Don’t push it, Z.”

The bomb in the center of the island wasn’t working right. Someone needed to hold the button down for the connection to be made, for it to blow the whole thing to kingdom come.

The crusader had been going to do it. But he was the sort of guy the world needed, one able and willing to help people, to fix things that needed fixing. Not like Rick, with all his damages. It’d been an easy decision to knock the other man out and take his place. And the captain—pragmatic, despite all his fine talk—hadn’t hesitated to take Edmund and leave Rick there, hand on the bomb, considering his fate.

But then:

“Rick!”

After Zari left, Mick had stayed in his room for a while, stewing, discontented and angry at the memories. He didn’t blame her—he'd left the damned story out, after all, and she didn’t know enough about what had happened to connect the dots right away. But, still, it’d been a stupid thing to write down in the first place.

With most books, anyway, writing things didn’t make them come true.

After a while, he left the room, trying to pretend nothing had happened. He had dinner with Haircut in the galley. He worked out a bit in the training room. He watched an episode of “The X-Files" with Charlie, who’d laughed so hard at the show’s version of shapeshifters that she’d nearly gotten sick again.

Then he’d slowly sauntered back to his room, wondering if he should go find New Girl and apologize.

But there was someone else in his room.

Blondie was sitting in one of the chairs, knees pulled up to her chin, a posture that looked more vulnerable than nearly anything he’d seen from her in a long time. She looked up as he entered, and he was startled to see red-rimmed eyes—and a sheaf of papers in her hand.

Damnit. He’d left that locked up again. Honest, he had.

Mick looked back at Sara, who smiled a little at him.

“I did learn how to pick locks,” she murmured. “It wasn’t hard to find.”

“New Girl.”

“Sort of. She said you wrote something about...about Leonard. And me. I didn’t realize what it was. And I shouldn’t have gone into your things, but I. Well.” She looked down at the pages. “I wasn’t at my best. I’m sorry, Mick.”

Mick dragged in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. They’ve been through too much together to let this get to him, especially since it’s so unusual. “S’OK.” He took a seat himself, watching her.

Sara met his eyes, then glanced away. She looked at the pages again and the quiet drew out.

Then: “This is really how you saw...it? Us?”

Her and Snart, she meant. Mick hesitated.

“Saw what could have been,” he said finally. “Was I wrong?”

A long silence.

“No,” Sara admitted. “No. I think...I think we could have been something...something really good. If we’d had more time. Isn’t that how it goes?” Her fingers contracted, wrinkling the papers, but then she smoothed them out, handing them back to him. “And you knew Leonard longer than I did, better than I did. If this is what you saw...”

“Eh. In some ways, I knew him better. People change.”

“True.” Sara sighed, getting up from the chair. “I’m sorry, Mick,” she said again. “I shouldn’t have just come in here and rummaging around. That was beyond rude. I just...needed to see...”

She shook her head, as if trying to get a grip, then gave him an arch look. “No sex scenes though, I noticed.”

Mick could actually feel his face heat. “That woulda been way too weird.”

Sara laughed a bit evilly—and a bit sadly, which was an odd mix. But still, she just patted his arm again, sighed, and hurried out the door.

Mick watched her go. He looked down at the pages in his hands, then put them down on the desk and studied them for a long moment.

Then he fed a clean piece of paper into his typewriter, nodded to himself, and started to type.

Time to give those losers—all of them—a happy ending.

You could do that, in stories.

About three months later, Waverider time

“Heard you been writing again. Since I...well.”

The words were casually said, in the usual drawl, but Mick could hear a number of things in them. Regret, for having been gone. A pleased attention, because Snart had always accepted his writing in a way others hadn’t. Amusement, probably because New Girl had almost certainly been the one to tell him that. And guilt, he thought, for so many reasons.

Snart stood in the doorway to Mick's room and looked around, his expression still and not real informative. But he hadn’t commented on the clutter or anything else, focusing after a moment on the typewriter still sitting on the desk.

Mick nodded, watching his long-lost friend. “I’m doing the final edits on a manuscript that’s goin’ to a publisher,” he volunteered. “Got two other books out, too. Sold pretty well.”

The other man actually smiled.

The temporal storms that had started that day about three months ago had gotten worse and worse, while both the Legends and the Time Bureau had tried to figure out what was causing them and were kept busy trying to clean up their aftermath.

Finally, they’d figured out the storms had been touched off by the deepest part of the time stream trying to rid itself of an irritant, something that shouldn’t be there.

And that irritant had turned out to be Leonard Snart.

The real one. Now back on the Waverider, confirmed by Gideon, whole and healthy—albeit with an uncanny sense for temporal disturbances and a weird ability to reset time a few seconds here and there. They hadn’t quite fully sorted through the repercussions of that power yet.

Snart was...different, now. Apparently, he’d been at least somewhat aware of the passage of time while he was stuck in the...well, Haircut called it a time pearl, a barrier the time stream had formed between itself and the annoyance. It hadn’t felt like three years to him—more of an odd, lengthy waking dream—but it had given him lots of time, he said, to think.

His personality was a step closer to Leo now, in a way, though he was still extremely capable of pointed snark and sass, as Haircut had already found out. But he was also a little less cold, and a great deal more thoughtful in a way that didn’t seem to have much to do with heists. (As far as Mick knew, anyway. Could be both.)

Now, Snart was looking at the manuscript on the desk with a definite glint of curiosity in his eyes. “Yeah?” His hand hovered over the neat stack of papers. “Can I…”

Mick hesitated. And Snart curled his fingers again and withdrew his hand in that smooth way he had, tucking it behind his back and acting like he’d never reached out to begin with.

Classic Snart.

Well, Mick was done with that old dynamic. He’d lost too much, and he’d been so lucky to get some of it back. Abruptly, he reached out too, scooping up the papers and extending them to Snart, who took them with a blink of surprise.

Mick waved a hand at them a bit awkwardly. “Uh,” he said, “that one wasn’t originally for publication. New Girl…Zari…talked me into finishing it and sending it out. And Blondie gave me…permission. Even wrote some bits.”

Snart had frowned, just a little. “Why would Sara have to…”

But he stopped, fingers tightening on the papers. And Mick sighed inwardly.

When they’d pulled Snart from the time stream…time pearl, whatever…there’d been more than one person who’d been intently watching the groggy, dazed crook when he first came face to face with Sara, who’d been staring at him like she was seeing a ghost.

But all they’d gotten was a breathed, barely audible “Sara” from Snart before the man had crumpled and Mick had carried him off to the medbay. Once he’d woken and gotten a clean bill of health, well, it seemed they were rarely in the same place at the same time. In fact, Mick was pretty sure they were avoiding each other.

Which made no sense at all. New Girl agreed.

Well, maybe this will get them to pull their heads out of their asses. Worth the embarrassment for the chance of that.

“You nearly died, you jackass,” Lara whispered to Sean, standing there on the boat with her hands wrapped in his coat, holding him close. Not as close as she’d like, but...even after everything, she knew he still had his lines that were tough to cross, still had his damages, his own rocky shores. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”

“I couldn’t just let him die.” Sean didn’t seem to mind that she was holding him. In fact, his hands slipped up and around her shoulders, pulling her closer too. His blue eyes looked seriously down into hers, making it hard to breathe.

“Of course you couldn’t.” Lara took a deep breath. “But...”

But then Sean was kissing her, right out on the deck in the open, a kiss that was everything their desperate kiss while he was holding the bomb hadn’t been. A promise, not a farewell; an invitation and a dare. Lara tightened her hold on him and kissed him back, the rest of the world fading around them, focused for once on the here and the now...and just maybe, a little bit on the future.

And if there were a couple of wolf whistles from Rick and the others...well, they just ignored them.

Mick had tried to be unobtrusive about watching the door to Snart’s new room. Fortunately, since it was right down the hall from the galley, he could just lurk in there and listen, occasionally peek outside. He’d been nursing the same beer for a while when New Girl slipped in, too, eyes brightening as she saw him.

“Snart’s reading it?” she whispered. He’d passed on the message through Gideon.

“Yeah.” Mick shifted a bit uncomfortably.

Maybe he shouldn’t have let Sara add the sexier bits. But there was no way in hell he was doin’ it, not with this book, and his publisher expected a certain amount of that. Sara, at least, had seemed to get a kick out of it—just how much of a kick, he’d decided he really didn’t want to know.

He also didn’t think he wanted to know how much of it had really happened—though he suspected, at least, that the kiss at the Oculus/bomb had.

New Girl looked pleased. “This has to be the kick in the ass they both need,” she said.

“ ‘Less we were all wrong.”

“We weren’t. Sara said so. Right?”

“That was before Snart came back.” He thought about it a minute. “Easier to say that when it was just a ‘mighta been’ and not a ‘could really be.’”

New Girl got an odd, considering expression on her face. Mick wondered what—maybe who—she was thinking about. “Yeah,” she acknowledged after a minute. “That’s true. But...”

There was a sound. A door opening. Mick and New Girl—he really should start calling her Zari, he supposed, or Z—exchanged a look, waited a moment, and then peeked out the door.

Snart was headed down the corridor. Toward Sara’s quarters.

Z made a happy sort of humming noise, waiting until Snart turned the corner before stepping out of the galley. Mick followed her as they both slunk down the hall, pausing just before the corner. Close enough to Sara’s doorway.

They heard it slide open.

“Len.” Sara sounded a little surprised. Not unhappy. Thoughtful. Waiting.

“Sara.” Had he really said her name like that before? Ugh. Mick couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed that tone. That was get-a-room territory all on its own.

Another pause. They heard Snart step inside, heard the door close...mostly. It was cracked, just enough to hear what was being said, as long as they snuck a bit closer and the occupant used normal voices. Mick heard Z whisper a “thank you” to Gideon—who, in her usual way, knew perfectly well what was going on around her ship.

“Mick apparently thinks we had some sort of great torrid romance going on,” they heard Snart say to Sara. There was amusement in his voice and Mick breathed out a sigh of relief. So, he wasn’t mad or too embarrassed.

There was amusement in Sara’s voice, too, as she responded. “You read it.”

“Yeah.” A pause. A long one. “He said you did too.” A shorter pause. “Said you even added...a few things.”

Sara’s laugh was low and rippling. Z elbowed Mick, who ignored her.

“Wishful thinking,” the captain said quietly. “I thought you were gone.”

“Hmmmm. I’m back now.” Pause. “Can’t change the earlier story. But maybe could...start a new one?”

Z clapped a hand over her mouth, her grin obvious. She darted a glance at Mick, eyes shining.

“What sort of story, though?” Sara’s tone was teasing...but not without a hint of real question. “Comedy? Adventure?” Pause. “Torrid romance?”

“Well. Kinda partial to the idea of that last, at the moment.” Snart’s own tone was low, a bit rough. “Not too late?”

Z stepped forward, listening intently.

And Gideon firmly slid the door shut the rest of the way.

“Hey!”

“What happens next, Ms. Tomaz, you certainly do not need to be privy to.” Gideon sounded just a little prissy.

“I most certainly do!”

But Mick grinned, reaching out to put a hand on her arm and pull her back toward the galley. He knew Snart, and he knew Sara. And he figured they’d be just fine.

“They gotta write their own story now,” he told her. “Let’s leave ‘em to it.”

“We’re all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?”

— The Doctor

#CaptainCanary #legends of tomorrow #platonic coldwave #ficaversary

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darkspellmaster · 5 years

Text

YJ Theory: Prince Brion, Princess Tara and the Judas Contract...

Lot’s to unpack here so hang on to your horses. Given recent events in Episodes 4 to 6 we now have more information at least regarding what may have happened to Tera Markov, and what that could mean for Brion, his brother, and the other factors involved, namely Tera Markov and her brother Gregor.

So let’s start with what we know for sure from Young Justice that between the end of Season 2 and the start of Season 3, Tera Markov, daughter of the King and Queen was kidnapped, along with other kids that were considered viable for the Metahuman Project that is going on in the show.

We know that at the Start of Season 2 she’s been missing now for two years. Assuming that she’s about Steph’s age in the photo or maybe about 13 years old.

We know that her brother Brion is older than her, and he’s 17 at this date and time.

We also know that according to Dr. Jace she doesn’t know where she is. We also know that Dr. Jace did help with the experiments, so we know that she’s at least complicit in what happened to Tera as of this time.

According to Dick we know that Tera was last seen with the League of Shadows.

We also know that Black Spider was working with someone to attack a dude as part of an assassination and he was crushed by a bolder.

gif art credit goes to artemis-crock

We also know for sure that Biron and his Uncle (Baron Bedlam) both control geological structure (Rocks, lava, etc) and like all good geomancers they can make things float and fly and the like.

We also know that according to Ra’s he’s no longer part of the League of Assassins, nor part of the Light.

This is actually rather interesting because we later get both Jason and Damian Wayne in the moment. It seems that, for whatever reason, Ra’s has been removed from that seat of power, but who’s been placed in there? Well the answer should be quiet obvious by this point.

Slade Wilson, aka, Deathstroke the terminator.

So why is good old Slade important in this case, other than he was a key player in the story of the Judas Contract? Well there’s a few things we need to get out of the way about about Slade first.

According to his profile he’s not listed as affiliated with the LoA, and regarding his personality, it seems like he’s a very cool individual only showing emotions when he needs to, namely when challenged, or annoyed by something or some one. On top of that we know he’s a man that wants to move up in the world, as he states about his ambition with the Light, “take a seat at the table” and probably become their leader.

Given that Talia is with her father there’s only a few people that could take on the role as Head of the LoA, and outside of Talia’s younger sister, and possibly Lady Shiva or David Cain, Slade Wilson is the man.

But how would he have beat Ra’s in a fair fight to take it over, and why? He’s not a member of them so what does he get out of it?

Well for a few reasons: First and foremost, the LoA is a boon to whomever controls it. They are assassins who have no fear of death and when it comes to take overs you want a team on your side that can cause the most damage without causing the most stir. Secondly by taking them over he shows his ambition to the other members of the Light and thus moves closer to his goal of becoming the head of the Light. Third is likely that he did so on the behest of someone like Lex whom he’s worked with before in comics and is willing to do dirty deeds to get what he wants. Ra’s has a noble streak, and one that deals with the earth. While he can care less about humanity as a whole, he’s against the planet being wrecked, and if Darkseid get’s his way that will happen.

(Remember folks Ra’s and Vandal are the oldest in the Light, and would see Darkseid as both someone to work with but also someone to not trust and Ra’s would jump ship way before Vandal would to protect things that he deems worthy, like his grandson.)

Lastly there may be a more personal reason for this action. We know that previously in comics Slade lost his son Grant to the Teen Titans. He sees this as a personal blow and wants to get revenge. We haven’t seen this Slade show anything of family, but given it’s Deathstroke and the time jump, I’m pretty sure between the time that we first saw him in season one, into season 2 and the time skip, there may have been a case where Grant, his son, died.

This would give him ample reason to set up Terra as a mole inside YJ and use her to probably get him as the Leader of the Light. After all, how many people would suspect a girl like her to be a trained killer.

So how does Terra and Brion fit into all of this?

With this revel we know we’re dealing with someone with Rock Powers. Also it’s clear that her stance and body shape is that of a teen girl. So how did she end up with the LoA and working for them?

Simplest answer is that she was saved by them.

Wait, how could that be? Why would the LoA save Tera?

Option 1: The answer is kind of interesting if you theorize about it. We don’t know how long the LoA has been without Ra’s, but I can guess that he probably went against the Light after he concluded that Darkseid was a danger to the earth and just so happened to free Tera. While with Ra’s Slade came and beat him. leading her to want to protect him and be with him for reasons of thinking he’s hot.

Option 2 is more likely though. While Ra’s probably did leave the Light at this time, Deathstroke saw a chance to get in with the Light. However he would need some major stuff to back him up to be promoted to sit at the table. So what does he do? More than likely, with the help of others that work with him (maybe Cheshire, maybe some other people who knows?) they found out about the Kidnapped Princess and found her before she was transported and saved her.

Because of this, and probably because Deathstroke may be a dad, he knew how to calm her down with her new powers and Tera, falls for him. Now the question is exactly how far does this go, but we’ll get to that later. In this case though Deathstroke uses her to confront Ra’s, which would explain why Sensei knows about her in the first place, and her actions warping the earth, may have lead to Ra’s being beaten by Slade. Slade then took the group and lead them away from the Island to his own location, and used them to show the power that he held to the Light, who offered him a seat at the table.

Tera, now probably going by Terra, in turn is trained with the LoA to become a ruthless killer. Namely as a means of getting back at people who have wronged her, as well as Slade fueling a desire for revenge and power. Given that Terra in the comics was far more of a selfish, power hungry, narcissistic person, it’s not hard to see him appealing to her desire to not be a princess. There could be more there too.

While fighting with Sensei, the older man unleashed a rather interesting comment about Brion. Brion in his anger was shouting about where Tera was, and in turn Sensei noted that if he were her he would stay away from him too.

Now I’m not sure if the words were run away, or stay away, but in either case the implication is that Tera doesn’t want to be found because she may feel he doesn’t understand her. And that too is very true of his character.

We see Brion over and over lose his temper and ignore the feelings of others around him and just plow into a situation because he think’s he’s right. He may have, like Gregor, not been listening to Tera and making her feel like her ambitions, dreams or goals didn’t count. Thus making her a hell of an easy mark for Slade to come in and act like a father figure to her.

So we know he’s trying to find her, the thing is, will he be happy with what he finds?

Given the story of the Comic Judas Contract, I would say that Brion may be taking Beast Boy’s part in this some what. In the original story, Terra played on Garfield’s emotions and eventually broke his heart when she was revealed to be a traitor to the Teen Titans.

However, given that Gar is right now with Perdita, I’m not sure that story will go forward that way. Rather I can see by the end of Part 1 the team finding and saving Terra from Deathstroke, and Brion getting her to join the “team” only for her to betray them to the Light at some point in part 2 of season 3.

Honestly if I was to take a guess on it. I would say that Terra will be the one to kill Gregor, ending his life so that she could take over or for Slade to gain control of the nation, or possibly for the express purpose of making him pay for her not making it out alive. It’s not that hard a guess that Terra turning on the team will be heart breaking for her brother who tries to reason with her but can’t.

There is also the option that she kills Count Vertigo’s niece for him as a favor from Deathstroke. This would set up Gar along side Brion to help bring her down. As I see it they (Brion and Terra) are going to have to fight, since Gar is possibly not going to be the one that will deal with her directly.

In the end I feel like Tera’s going to be a rather emotional problem for Brion, one that could lead to possibly him fighting against Slade and possibly getting the crap beat out of him for trying to get his sister away. Or more than likely she’s going to wind up allying herself with Slade and acting as a mole for him leading into Part 2 having some damning consequences in the show.

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mandala--moons · 5 years

Text

Rabbit Fur

So, I wrote this little indulgent smut fic with Noctis and my OC Solia who appears in my fic Semper Fidelis. I write a lot of little drabbles like this that branch off from my main fic, and include more tidbits of the religious culture which is somewhat glossed over in the main game. This particular tidbit takes place after the Ten Year time skip. Also, special thanks to @blindedstarlight for listening to me babble about my OCs ;-; It is much appreciated!

Rabbit Fur

It's not unusual for Solia to become melancholy, even in happiest of occasions. The party has died down, a celebration of the first year of renewed daylight, and he notes the streamers and plates of food a few of the servants are cleaning away under Ignis' watchful eagle gaze.

She's out on the balcony, where Noctis thought she might be, overlooking the city and shoreline. There's still much to be done, but Noctis can see that things are slowly getting better, more people and lights dotting the horizon as Insomnian's new and old resume their lives.

The dress is lovely, sheer and black, leaving the delicate ridges of Solia's spine exposed, and for a moment, he aches to remove his formal gloves and caress the smooth warm skin, lay soft kisses there and watch as goosebumps rise up to greet his lips.

But he doesn't, only hanging to gaze out the glass double doors to watch her, frowning slightly. He can feel a hulking figure shift their weight just slightly behind him but Noctis only sighs.

"Gladio if you've got something to say don't hang back."

Gladio chuckles and claps the king on his shoulder, "Feelin' lovesick?"

In the past, Noctis would have shrugged off such a suggestion, flushing furiously and sharply denying any such emotion. But, he's different now, older, a little wiser, though not always in the most obvious of ways.

"A little. More worried than anything." he admits.

"Why, wedding jitters?" his friend teases gruffly, motioning to the glittering ring on his fiancé's finger as she takes a sip of wine.

Noctis shakes his head, "I don't think she's happy."

Gladio falls silent, watching the princess along with the king. Their relationship had been unexpected, but welcome. A force for good. Something to give Noctis a reason to keep going after Insomnia's fall and Lunafreya's death.

"She loves you." his shield says defiantly.

Noctis sighs, "Oh, yeah, I know she does. I just..."

He falters. It's a personal problem, one that Noctis wouldn't normally bring up, even to his retainers and he shakes his head, leading Gladio to nudge him. He knows him too well.

"She compares herself to Luna. I think...she feels...guilty."

"About Lady Lunafreya's death? She knows she's not responsible for that." Gladio murmurs, deep in thought.

However, Noctis shakes his head. "No. You remember...when we first met her...or when you first met her. And we went on that hunt with her to that abandoned tomb, and she and I got lost for that day."

Gladio chuckles, "Sure do, Ignis was beside himself with panic."

"We camped out...and I got absolutely wasted." Noctis shakes his head, running a hand through his hair. "I wasn't happy about the wedding to Lunafreya, I tried to hide it, but I never...thought of her like that. She was my friend. I just blew it off, and it didn't seem real.

Gladiolus frowns, looking quizzically at Noctis. He'd always assumed Noctis wasn't too into the idea of marrying Lunafreya, but he'd always just chalked it up to nerves, and the boy's rampant immaturity.

"I had a huge fight with my dad over it." Noctis admits, shame burning his chest. "After the death of the Altissian royal family, and the whole takeover of Tenebrae, I'd have dreams of Solia and I as children. Sometimes I was older than her. She'd reach out to me, and I'd pick her up to take her out of a desert with no water. I didn't know what it meant. But I refused to believe she had died."

Noctis sighs, fiddling with his cufflinks. "I held onto it for years, to her. I knew she was alive somehow, but I couldn't get anyone but her Valarian to believe it. I mean...thinking back on it now...of course he knew, he knew she'd escaped."

Gladio hummed quietly, watching his charge work through his feelings. "Did you know it was her, that night at camp?"

Noctis watches Solia through the glass, memorizing her features as he speaks. "I think I may have, in a way. We started talking about stuff, fishing and sailing mostly, and she was just so easy to talk to. I never felt that kind of connection with a girl before, not really. I'd had a few beers, and then all of a sudden I was telling her about who I was, about the wedding and how I felt forced into all of it. I talked about how it was easy to be with her, how I wished how I could pick someone like her. We kissed."

"So, you liked somebody." Gladio says softly, "It happens." It's not like he needs to make the King feel any guilt over the issue, though Noctis' confession surprises him. And yet all at once, he's reminded that deep down at the time, the King had barely been twenty years old.

"We kept talking...even after that. I was...I don't know man, I was falling for her." Noctis says, his tone pained. "But, when I told her I was going to Altissia, she cut all contact. I didn't realize she was there already...I think she saw the wedding dress and it hit her. She and Ravus had already connected, and she realized Luna was still alive."

Noctis falls silent, a pang in his chest at the thought of Luna, glancing up at Solia, and for a moment, he longs to forgo the conversation entirely. He could go outside to join her, wrap her in his arms and forget. But, he can feel Gladio's hand on his shoulder, urging him to continue.

"After I found out who Solia was, after Iggy disappeared, I just made up my mind. I wasn't going to lose her, or anyone else ever again. She gave me…someone to come home to… She helped me defy them. I think...if she hadn't interfered, things would have gone much differently. I think she feels...guilty, because she and I weren't destined by some prophecy or whatever."

Gladio sighs, glancing out to the balcony. The Altissian princess carries her own form of burdens, from the gods and from mere mortals.

"How do you feel about it?" he says finally. "I mean, do you think it's wrong?"

"No." Noctis says flatly, "I just want...I don't want her to feel like she's second to someone else, because she never was to me."

"Well, tell her that." Gladiolus murmurs, gesturing to the glass. "I mean...I don't know if the guilt will fade but, it might..help her if she knew."

“The thing was, it would have always been her, if the fall of the Altissian royal family never happened, if Dad had just listened to me…I think we could have avoided, well a lot.

Gladio watches the king carefully, listens to the sudden sharpness in his voice as he speaks about his late father, there’s still anger there, and maybe a bit of blame.

“She’s here now though, still going to be your wife. It counts, doesn’t it?”

“Does it?” he asks the Shield. “She’s not been raised as a royal child, she’s rough around the edges and…I’m worried for her. I’m worried that the people’s reception of her will be less than kind. I mean, you know her, she’s not at all some dignified public type.”

Then Noctis sighs, hard. “Gladio…don’t…don’t take this the wrong way but…I’m thinking of leaving with her, taking her away and just living as hunters.”

His friend’s ill-hidden snort makes Noctis turn, his eyes narrowing sharply, but Gladio waves a big hand noncommittally. “You Noct? Living just completely on your own in the middle of nowhere with Solia? You’d both be living on cup noodles for days, not that I’d complain but I think you don’t have the taste for it.”

Then, he smiles, a little more kindly than Noctis is anticipating, “Look, I get it though, I was like that with Sania a lot when you were gone, constantly trying to protect her. But she proved herself, and I think Solia will too. She’s very driven and dedicated, maybe less regal than Lunafreya was, but think about the stories of the Six. My dad used to tell them to us. How Bahamut’s wife wasn’t demure gentle Shiva, but the Leviathan. I never got it as a kid, but watching you two sometimes, I think I kind of get it now. Just talk to her, you’re about to get married, get her to tell you how she’s feeling and then help her through it, she might fight at first, but I think it’s what she needs.”

Before Noctis can respond, Gladio is gone, disappeared to speak to some member of the Kingsguard, and the King sucks in a sharp breath, his hand trembling on the ornate doorknob that separates him from her.

The air outside is cool and achingly fragrant, carrying Solia's perfume on the wind as he moves towards her. Gently, he wraps his arms about her waist, and she jumps sharply, turning to him. He smiles at her, and she heaves out a breath, leaning her head back on his chest.

"Noctis, you scared me."

"Sorry baby." he whispers mildly, "What are you doing out here? Party got to be too much huh?"

"A little," she admits. "I'm not used to all this, people bowing to me, talking so respectfully. It's weird."

He sways delicately with her in his arms. She reaches forward to take a sip of the wine, offering him the remains of her glass. He ponders his friend’s words for a moment but then shakes his head, preferring to kiss her temple. He might as well give it a chance.“We could step down." Noctis offers softly, "Six knows we've done enough work already. Go live somewhere together quietly, be hunters."

He means it too, he'd do it in a heartbeat if it would ease her conscious in any way. She's ill-prepared to be a Queen and Noctis knows it. Had everything played out like their parents had planned, she would be the Empress Consort and such duties would not fall to her as they had now.

His hands trace patterns down her bare shoulders, leaning down to kiss them. He peppers her shoulders with kisses, and she sighs, turning so that she can tuck her head under his chin.

"We can't."

"Why not?"

"I can't...tempt the fates any longer. The stories have to play out this time. If not Shiva's, Leviathan's must."

Noctis hums, "What's Leviathan's story?"

"She and Bahamut keep the balance together...the balance must be maintained in some form or another.”

Like Gladio had said Leviathan had been the loyal wife of Bahamut, the God of War and the Patron deity of his own household. She upheld all of his secrets, the only one of the Six he truly trusted. But sometimes as the Goddess of Death, she would be forced to act in his stead. It's this role they must play now. A balancing act of leadership and justice, however harsh it could be.

"So Leviathan and Bahamut can't keep the balance as hunters?" he asks teasingly, but Solia shakes her head, somber and serious. Though she often liked to pretend she didn't give a damn about faith, Noctis knows better.

They fall silent, and Noctis dolefully offers up a silent prayer to the two gods for her happiness. There's a faint splash of water heard in the background and Noctis isn't sure if it's the TideMother's blessing, or a mild request to go fuck himself.

"Are you happy?" Noctis questions.

"Are you?"

It's so like her to be infuriatingly avoidant of his questions at times, and he frowns down at her, a childish irritation evident in his gaze. However, the sight of it makes her giggle. Little minx that she is, he can't help but smile in spite of himself.

"I am if you are. So are you?"

She looks thoughtful, her gaze turning to the moon and Noctis knows what he'd just discussed with Gladio is on her mind.

"I love you." Noctis says suddenly, curling a hand over her cheek, as if somehow that might protect her from such guilt. "Solia...I...no matter what was supposed to happen...I love you okay? I loved Luna too, but she was my friend. No matter what it seems like, especially with the Gods or the TideMother, you didn't come between her and I. I chose you...I always chose you."

He can feel dampness spread on his gloved fingers, and he leans down to kiss her forehead. Gladio was right. She needed this.

"Why are you so damn good?" she says, voice trembling, "You really are the King of Light you know...you always know."

"Stop it." he says not unkindly, all that King of Light stuff Noctis could live without hearing from her lips. She'd always been one of the few people, especially now who didn't see him as some messiah, and he hoped she wasn't about to start.

He feels her forehead press against his cheek as she closes her eyes against him. She's almost uncharacteristically vulnerable in this moment, and Noctis curls around her even more tightly, lest she pull back from him behind that wall she'd never really been able to get over.

"I'm glad you're letting me comfort you for once." Noctis murmurs hesitantly.

Solia falls silent now, her damp warm breath on his neck as he casts his gaze downwards towards her. Her breathing is rhythmic and slow, and he's grateful that she hasn't pulled away from his grasp, though he supposes his vice grip on her might be playing a role in that.

"She's been telling me to." she says, her voice carrying the shyness of girlhood that Noctis thinks will forever make his heart skip a beat.

"The Tidemother?"

She nods against his shoulder and he presses another kiss to the crown of her head, chest nearly fit to burst at the swell of affection he feels towards her.

“What does she say?” he probes gently.

“Lots of stuff.” Solia says, her fingertips trailing lazily on his waist, “Mostly in dreams she comes to me now. It’s less intense than before. She’s trying to teach me to be...trusting…and to follow your lead more.”

Noctis blinks, startled at the statement. “Follow me?”

“Yeah,” she says timidly, “Like…I think I just got super used to being on my own, and handling things alone, pretty much all the time. Then, when we met and started hanging out more, and talking, I just wanted to be with you all the time, it really freaked me out, since I was so used to just being on my own. I felt like I could just…lose myself in you sometimes. Then, in Altissia when I met up with Ravus and Aranea I was just...”

She falters, shaking her head, but keeping Gladio’s words in mind Noctis urges her on, “What?”

“Ravus was just…he really wanted to tell Lunafreya about me. I think he thought I would keep her from pursuing the Gods as much as she had, but I overheard a conversation they had, and she was just…so in love with you. You were her whole hope, and I didn’t want to take that away. I thought that maybe if I cut it off with you…you both could be happy, and I couldn’t take someone’s happiness like that. You didn’t realize who I was, and I thought I could just disappear and it would be fine.”

She’s gnawing at her lip now, and her eyes are suddenly glassy. Reaching over to the balcony, she downs the remainder of the wine she’d offered to him earlier. He runs the back of his knuckles over the ridges of her spine, attempting in vain to soothe her.

“When Lunafreya summoned the TideMother, I knew.” Solia says, sucking in a breath. “I think…she could sense that my energy was close, and she was so angry that Lady Lunafreya was calling for her when it was my duty. I felt it.”

“Solia,” Noctis says firmly, his tone not unlike that of the one that he’d used with Talcott a year prior. “You couldn’t have known how things were going to go down. Luna, she knew the risks. She was the Oracle.”

The thought of Luna is painful, achingly so, but the sight of Solia so distraught pushes him towards urgency. The dam she’s been holding back is breaking, and when she pulls away from him he doesn’t allow it.

“No. Come here.” He says. She refuses to look at him, and he can see tears sliding off the edge of her nose. He pulls her head up, and her eyes dart back down, frantic and shamed.

“I’m so sorry, Noctis.” She whispers, her voice breaking. “I should have done more. It should be her here, not me. I spent so long running away from all of it, and I can’t…I can’t let you let me off the hook anymore. I have to make up for all of it somehow, don’t I?”

But, before he can even speak, she angers, wiping furiously at her eyes like a frustrated child. “I promised I wouldn’t do this tonight. It’s the anniversary of your victory, and I’m ruining it.”

The chill in the air makes her shiver, and wordlessly he pulls off his cloak and places it over her shoulders. He removes his gloves too, tucking them into his pocket before reaching for the black handkerchief tucked away in his breast pocket.

“Ignis insisted on this dumb thing, can you believe it?” he says gently, “He swore up and down that I might need it, and that it was gentlemanly or something.”

Delicately as he can, he wipes at the smudged mascara on her cheeks, being careful not to ruin her makeup.

“You look great tonight.” He says mildly, “You don’t have to wear black though, I know it’s the Insomnian color and all that, but if you’d rather wear Altissian colors, that’s totally fine too. When we were kids, my dad was so strict about me following Altissian customs, because he said our marriage was to be a union of two kingdoms.”

Noctis doesn’t know why he’s sharing all this with her, but he feels that an easy flow of conversation will soothe her. The past six months have been an adjustment for them both, and though time has flowed seamlessly for him, there have been ten years of separation for her.

“There!” he says gently, pulling away the handkerchief, “Good as new.”

She laughs thickly, and Noctis is relieved to hear it. “My mom and sister were the same way. Insisted on the black whenever you came to see us. With Ravus, my sister kind of threw herself into Tenebrae customs and clothes and started following them even when he wasn’t around. I think it’s just kind of…an affection thing. I just picked black because I thought it would please you.”

“You know what really pleases your king?” he says, eyes twinkling mischievously as he tilts his head down to lap at her neck. Willingly she moves to give him easier access, hands trembling against his chest as she moves closer.

“Having you all to myself,” he continues, nipping at her jaw, “That ridiculous councilmember for Accordo at dinner tonight was unbearably close. Kept leaning in to whisper in your ear. It took everything I had not to say something.

“I knew you didn’t like that.” She says throatily, her hands moving up to tangle in his hair. “I felt your hand…hmm, like that.”

Noctis’ hand trails down to the base of her spine, fingers tucking just below the dip of her dress to feel the bare skin there.

“I don’t want you to feel like it should have been anyone else here tonight but you,” he says sharply, “I chose you.”

Her mouth finds his own, she tastes of wine and something needy. It’s no matter though, because Noctis knows he can fulfill that need. Desire pools in his belly, and he pulls away, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

"Come on, it's bedtime." he says cheekily, "It's getting chilly out here, and I want to warm you up.“

He guides her gently back into the citadel, a few streamers clinging to his heels which Ignis hurries forward to help him with, though Noctis can't keep from rolling his eyes.

"Can't all the cleaning wait? It's bedtime and tomorrow we can actually sleep in for once. Go sleep in for once in your life."

Ignis however, sighs, pushing his glasses up his nose firmly, "Majesties, please. It's my responsibility and-"

"Ignis," Solia says suddenly, her tone sweet and good-natured, "Relax, please? Even you should take a break sometimes."

Ignis smiles fondly at her, and tilts his head downwards in acceptance. He has the softest spot for Solia of all Noctis' friends, in part because she means so much to Noctis.

"Very well, my lady." he says finally, taking the small streamer that's been clinging to Noctis' heel and folding it neatly to put in his breast pocket. "I suppose the rest can wait until morning."

He bids them goodnight and they move towards the elevators, passing a sleepy Prompto who claps Noctis' shoulder wearily.

"Thought Ignis was never gonna stop making us pick up streamers."

Once in the elevator, Noctis quietly presses the buttons to navigate them to what they called the living quarters were. Solia's arms slowly wind around his own. He taps his foot impatiently, longing nothing more than to climb into a plush bed.

"Elevators." Solia murmurs, watching him, her eyes masked with lust. "In your own house, so damn weird."

He chuckles softly, "Sol, you'll get used to it, I promise."

Already her eager fingers find the buttons on his shirt, opening his shirt just a little. The air makes goosebumps rise on his chest and her fingertips graze over the scars there, planting kisses on each one, and he hums.

“Wait baby. We’re almost home free.”

The elevator doors slide open and she slides out, moving gracefully along the hallway into their shared quarters, Noctis following her at a brisk pace of his own.

Their quarters are practically a small apartment, a lavish sitting area bathed in black and gold before a large marble fireplace, a television above it, and in a slightly larger nook, there is the four-poster monstrosity of a bed that they've shared for almost six months now.

As they enter the door, Noctis is already kicking off the confines of his dress shoes and undoing the clasps of his jacket, and tossing it onto the small black sofa. Solia is at their nightstand, removing her earrings and bracelets.

"Want me to light the fireplace?" he offers, "It's pretty cold in here."

“Please,” she says.

Noctis tugs off his shirt before turning on the gas fireplace and lighting it. The fire crackles cheerfully and casts the room in a warm glow.

“Come here,” he says, watching her remove the Altissian crown and place it in the velvet lined box on her vanity. “Let me help you out of your dress.”

He gazes at her naked back, grateful to have the gloves off as he strokes the ridges of her spine before finding the hidden zipper near the small of her back and tugging it downwards. The billowy material slides off her, pooling at the floor near her feet and she shivers.

“I love this.” He says softly, mouth moving down to kiss and nip her shoulders, “So much better than us sneaking off into Crows Nest bathrooms and in the Regalia late at night.”

She laughs softly, her hands threading in his raven hair, “Don’t forget the boats.”

“How could I forget that, sneaking out to go sail, the early mornings in your tent? Aranea would let me in, pry Ravus away so that we could have a few moments together.”

Solia’s nimble fingertips are sliding in his pants, stroking him and he groans softly. Her breath is hitching in her throat and his thumb skates over a hardened nipple, before he leans down to kiss her again, heady with desire.

His hips buck playfully into her hand, and she whimpers needily.

The sound fills him with a sudden, primal possessiveness, and he shoves her back against the wall, nearly knocking down one of the paintings hanging there. His mouth is on hers, and he snaps at her bottom lip, hands fumbling with her panties before tossing them aside.

“Noctis,” she mewls, and he shivers.

“I love how you get when we do this.” He says softly, slipping a hand between her folds to stroke her aroused little bud. “You get so sweet and vulnerable.

Her eyes are lidded and her face is flushed as she watches him. The blush sinks prettily into her chest and she lets out a quiet moan, her hips slowly moving against the ministrations of his fingers.

“That’s it princess,” he praises, “let go.”

Bracing his other hand on the wall, Noctis pushes himself closer to her. “What do you want? Tell me.”

She cries out again when he slowly slides a few digits inside of her. Her slick walls grip him tightly and he licks his lips, watching her through hooded eyes.

“Want me to take charge?” he questions, “Fast, or do you want it slow and easy?”

Her head lolls back, exposing the soft skin of her neck. Her hand slides up to fist in her hair and for a moment Noctis wishes he could take her picture, savor the moment. Had the Draconian done this for the Tide Mother? Had someone so powerful so completely bent to his will?

“Answer me, baby.” He says, breath tickling her ear as he rocks his fingers against her.

She whimpers again, swallowing hard, “Gods Noct, just give me anything.” Her hand grips his wrist, attempting to steady herself and he withdraws his fingers from her, lapping at them hungrily.

He fumbles with the buttons on his slacks for a moment, tugging them down halfway so that he can lift her up against the wall and drive himself into her. They both cry out, and he can feel her nails digging into his shoulder blades.

She clings to him, and he feels her head dip to rest against his shoulders, her breath hot on his skin as he thrusts in and out of her, finding a suitable rhythm. The thrusts are punctuated with her tiny gasps, and he groans, guttural.

“Sol…you feel so good.”

His name falls from her lips again, and he shudders, the thought that her voice might carry through the walls is both embarrassing and arousing, and he picks up speed, trying to coax more from her.

He’s rewarded with an escalating moan, shifting upwards in pitch, and he can’t help but laugh, praising her beneath soft panting. “You like that princess?”

He bites down on her neck, hard enough to bruise, and laps at the mark to soothe her when she cries out, surprised. It almost pushes her to the edge, and he feels her tighten around him, slowing down his pace slightly.

“Noctis, faster.” She begs, her legs tightening around his waist. Bracing her with a hand under her hip, he begins to pick up speed again. Pleasure slides down his spine and he moans softly into her hair, lost in the feeling of her, the sweet, perfumed air around them. He doesn’t want anything but her warm delicate skin on his own.

Her back slips just a fraction down the wall, and Noctis adjusts his grip to hoist her upwards again. She curls into him, and he knows she’s close.

“Let go,” he coaxes again, voice hoarse, “I’m here, let go.”

It only takes a few more strokes and she releases, her entire body stiffening as she lets out a sharp, keening cry that’s almost a sob. He mumbles soothing words to her, incoherent and rushed as her orgasm triggers his own, sex twitching inside of her as he curses sharply.

Sleepiness instantly hits him and he shakes his head, setting her to her feet as gently as he can. Her knees are shaking and she braces herself on his arms, still trying to come down from the height of her own orgasm.

He can’t help but chuckle at her flushed face and messy hair, and he leans down to kiss her, slow and full.

“Come on princess,” he says, “Let's get in bed.”

He guides her a few feet away to the bed, and laughs softly when she pulls him down beside her, the plush fabric welcoming them.

“Oh man,” he mumbles, face half covered by the silken fabric of the duvet. “We are not leaving this bed tomorrow until lunchtime.”

Solia laughs, squirming closer to him as she rubs a soothing pattern against his back. “I’m fine with that, maybe going out for lunch would be nice.” But before he can grab her to pull her into his arms, she’s moving off the bed.

"One of my t-shirts is over there somewhere," he says, gesturing noncommittally in the direction of the chaise near the fireplace.

Noctis could swear that he hears her laugh, and he's pleased when she finally crawls beside him in the bed, smelling of him as she tucks herself into the duvet to breathe a sigh of relief. The fire crackles softly and Noctis pulls her against him, feeling the rounded curve of her hips as he does so.

Again he feels that familiar swell of affection for her, and as she begins to drift off, he speaks.

“You’re way too hard on yourself,” he mumbles sleepily, attempting to force his eyes open, if only to see Solia's expression. He can feel her calloused fingertips tracing his collarbone, hesitant and shy.

“Don’t question my judgment so much.“ he says, “I know it’s different now, and I know we missed out on a lot of the regular stuff, the standard courting traditions and whatever. But, we can do all that now in our own way. What’s that one fable? The Fur Socks or something like that?”

At this, Solia laughs softly. “Cloak. The Fur Cloak.“

He can feel her smile into his chest, and she hums musically.

“Yeah, yeah that one.” Noctis mumbles quietly, “I used to think that story was so boring. The one where Bahamut is sitting and drinking with the other Gods, and he and Ifrit were debating over who was the best warlord. And Ifrit told him of his fights with the mountains and the blizzard, then Bahamut comes and he talks about slaying a rabbit.”

Noctis hands tangle lazily in her hair, “You always smell like the sea and flowers, no matter where you are.” He murmurs. “But, anyway, I started to understand that story more recently. How the win wasn’t really the kill, or his accomplishments…but how he managed to win over the TideMother, when she’d been considered unwinnable by anyone after she was burned by Ifrit in the first place.”

“Nights like this win me over Noct, you’re not wrong there.” She says, laughing quietly.

“You’ve been burned too though,” Noctis says more seriously and Solia can feel his arms wrap tightly about her. “That burn, it only goes away once she lets someone in. You gotta do that too, let me in. Talk to me, tell me what you think about things. If something’s happening that you don’t like, or don’t agree with, speak up. I know you don’t feel like you’ve ever really been a princess, or royalty, but…you have every right to make choices. This is your home too.”

“Noctis,” she says sleepily, “You’re my home, I’m happiest with you, wherever we are, hunters, or royalty. I’d follow you to the end of Eos, had you asked.”

Solia's eyelashes flutter against his chest like the delicate wings of a butterfly and he can tell she's starting to fall asleep.

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“My sleepy little huntress,” Noctis purrs quietly, “Rest and dream of rabbit fur..”

#noctis lucis caelum #Noctis x OC #Fanfic #FFXV #Gladio #Ignis #Prompto

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