#should beauty and the beast used real talking furniture like

[thevirgincherry]

BOILING POINT !

ft. kishibe x fem!reader

tags. he puts his cigarette out on ur tits, degradation, public sex, a little voyeurism, idk he uses you as furniture, painal duh, reader is a dummy ngl, cockwarming

note. COMM FOR @d10nyx LOVE U NYX MWAH!!! love u sm sorry I didn’t get to post this for ur bday and that I took so fucking long but omg I hope u like it and i didn’t go too far with it :3 ignore any mistakes :3 feedback n rbs always appreciated .. praying this gets put in the tags :3

The thing is, Kishibe is fond of women. All women are beautiful unless they come in the form of carnivorous beasts. He likes a classic red lip, soft thighs, nylon stockings and heels. He likes Quanxi because she’s strong and it’s as simple as that. She wouldn’t go dying on him. Kishibe dislikes girls who play pretend. For example, the intern, a sad pillowcase of a girl who lacks savoir-faire. What a joke, and to place her in his division, under his care— It’s just offensive.

You put on an act, put on that ugly suit - it drapes over your form as if you’re more of a clothing hanger than a human. Shapeless and inelegant like you’ve gone and dug out your father's suit. The Public Safety uniform does you no justice, a skirt would be better. One that violates the dress code by an inch, but you slip past the radar ‘cause you’re so plain.

You’re of no use to Kishibe, he has no qualms saying it to your face. To your credit, you beg real pretty, beg like you’re begging for your life. That you’ll do anything. Anything, sir! Anything to keep down this shitty job!

Women are sluts when you force them to be sluts, but you don’t even need the slightest push. He knows your type. Show a girl like you a nice dick and you’re all over it. Not cut out for work, not cut out for anything exerting, not Public Safety of all things in this piece-of-shit world. You’d make a nice footstool, or better yet, an ashtray.

So he makes you exactly that.

Aki deposits a pile of paperwork onto his desk, didn’t have the courtesy to knock, just entered. Politeness is null and void it seems.

“What’s wrong with you?” He asks flatly.

“New intern.” Kishibe makes an abstract gesture to where you’re standing at his side trembling and draped in only his trench coat. Organic coat rack. Cute, right? “Thought I’d make use of her.”

“You’re messed up,” Aki says, expression-wise he's indifferent.

He stubs his cigarette out on your tit. Look at that. Built-in ashtray. You whimper, of course you whimper, it hurts. Skin charing off in flakes, blistering in grotesque bubbles when he tosses the butt into your awaiting palms. His mark is indelible, one of searing discomfort that settles in the depths of your being, it crawls beneath your rattling bones to wear your skin.

“Huh, that’s funny, I must be hearing things.” Kishibe lights another, the flame glows yellow like tiger eyes. “Even the walls talk in this place.”

Aki’s delicate distaste is thinly veiled, a shudder courses through his frame, starting with the jerk of his head and ending with his clenched fists. He turns swiftly, the door thudding behind him, absence suspending the room in a momentary vacuum. The silence is profound.

“Friendly guy.” Kishibe’s getting too old, talking to coat stands. He’s not much of a chain smoker, but today he is. No particular reason. Just felt like it.

The ember is rounded and tiny, the flame licks at the edges of your consciousness until you see black. It’s a uniquely insidious pain, one that consumes your body in a sweeping inferno, the ache will linger - a testament to your time with Kishibe. Lucky you. By the fourth, the floodgates of restraint collapse, you could only hold on for so long. Your body surrenders to gravity, stumbling forward as you clutch at the sturdiness of his mahogany desk. Crumpled neatly like you’ve been put through a waste compactor.

Kishibe sighs. “What a shame.” His gaze is vacant as he gives you a once-over. “I should kick your teeth in for that.”

It’s as if the sparks from his cigarettes have gone to your head. The whites of your eyes barely visible as they widen like two shiny buttons, struck with a sudden clearheadedness.

“You can do that, sir.” It’s not an offer to accept or deny, but an open-handed invitation signed off with an RSVP that reeks of desperation.

“You’d like it too much.” His hand passes over the back of his rumpled jacket, it slips from your shoulders and falls with a muted thud. Truly, you’re useless. Nothing more, nothing less. There’s nothing less than useless.

“No, sir, I wouldn’t.” You shake your head so fast his vision blurs. Starts seeing double. The prospect of more than one you has him reeling. What a nightmare.

“No?” Kishibe cocks his head to the side. “I don’t think you could handle it.” He waves his hand dismissively as if you’re a cloud of smoke or a hallucination, a bad dream he’d like to get rid of.

“I could, I can, sir, please.” Your hands are clasped together in a prayer. “I can take it, promise.”

“Either way, I don’t think you deserve it.” He eyes the rawness of your burns, otherwise smooth skin raised in nasty bumps. You reach out to touch him, fingers outstretched as you trace the column of his neck. He doesn’t know what you’re so enamoured by. “Down, girl.”

“Sorry, sir.” You’re not sorry, chapped lips pressed together to hide a giddy smile.

The paperwork is set to the side, desk cleared as he sits you down. It’s not urgent, but then again, neither are you. Pussy is always a nice treat though. Kishibe thumbs the seam of your cunt and your puffy lips part. You sure know how to make a guy feel special. God, you’ve got him feeling like Moses down here. Parting the Red Sea or some shit. He’s clinical about it. Inspecting your pussy like he’s getting paid for this.

A pleased sigh is let out from above, your jaw slackens as he brushes over your swollen clit. “I like you, sir—“ you say between stuttered breaths, “I think y-you’re real— really handsome.”

That’s a new one. Grizzled and weathered and scarred. Nothing handsome about that. It doesn’t exactly bother him. It’s just objective. “Right.”

“It’s true.” You gasp when he flicks your clit, toes curling in your black socks. “And you smell nice.” Indecent fingers wriggle and curl around his wrist, trying to get him to dig deeper. “I want you in me.” Then as if clarity hits you, a feeble Please, sir.

He snorts. “Fat chance.” Kishibe draws his hand back, your slick webbed between his fingers.

“Why?” You whine, trembling at the loss of his touch. “Sir, I’ll be quiet, I won’t say a word, I promise.” Your voice is grating on him. “Pinky promise.”

“Stop that.” Kishibe wipes his fingers on your pout. “Looks stupid.”

“Just my face.” Your frown deepens.

“Well, you should fix your face, kid. Why don’t you try smiling.” A command, not a question. “Much better,” Kishibe hums, “keep smiling and you might get something out of me.”

(You really won’t. Kishibe just gets off on this. It’s kinda funny how willing you are to bend to his every need, not quite needs but wants.)

More cigarettes. Circular intrusions left on the flesh of your thighs, he’d like to put one out on your clit. You’d feel hot-white, see hot-white, taste hot-white. Might meet God. Or a devil as he cauterises your weeping cunt. Maybe he’s going to meet both the Genital Mutilation Devil and his timely end.

Lunchtime rolls around, he empties a flask of whiskey into his coffee to beat the sluggish midday heat. You’re tucked beneath his desk now, pressing your nose between his thighs, sniffing around like a police dog on the right track. Kishibe lets you because it’s not much of a bother. “Might as well put that mouth to work.”

“Really, sir?” You ask, eyes like twin beacons.

“Yeah, go on then.” He pats your head. “No hands,” Kishibe adds, and they drop to your side instantly, teeth clasping onto his zipper and tugging it downwards in a jagged procession.

This is the most lackadaisical approach to cocksucking Kishibe has ever seen. And trust him, he has thirty-odd years of experience— This takes the cake for the worst. What you lack in technique you do not make up for in enthusiasm. It might just be ‘cause he’s soft, his mind detaches from the notion of anything inherently sexual. He’s thinking about what he should have for dinner tonight. If there’s anything in the fridge. That fat cat he has to feed.

There’s gagging, spluttering, a lewd pop! A sad and sorry end to a sloppy blowjob. You cough. A wet rattle deep in your chest.

“Not your strong suit,” he muses.

“I need your help, sir.” Your lips are swollen, spit-slicked. “Can’t do it on my own.” It begs the question, what are you good at? What can you do on your own?

He sighs for the nth time, takes his shaft in his hand and guides it past your parted lips, a messy ordeal, teeth scraping over the velvety skin of his cock, spit pooling in your mouth and dribbling down your chin when his cock rests weighty on your tongue.

It’s big, your cheek bulges when the tip nudges the inside of your mouth. Kishibe shifts course, pushes his cock so deep it hits the back of your throat, and your nails ziiip against the leather of his office chair.

“Is that too much?” He asks, making no move to ease up on the windpipe abuse. Your lips have stretched so far the corners of your mouth might split, you let out a noise of discomfort. Kishibe pays it no mind, his dick only gets heavier the moment it begins to harden. He places a hand on the back of your head, forces you to take his cock right to the base by pinning you into place. You swallow around him, and it’s the only good thing you’ve done since you got here.

There’s the garbled complaint of your jaw aching. “I don’t know what you’re saying,” Kishibe tells you, the derisive curl of his lip draws a soft whine from the back of your shredded throat. On his terms, you’ll last until the end of the workday. That’s what you’re here for, right? A job. He’s given you one and you’re not even doing it well. Sucking dick is second nature to women. Evidently not you.

You last till the end of his shift— Barely. Hanging on by a thread. Most of your lipstick has rubbed off on his dick, splotches of red deep in the creases of your dry lips. The fatigue of being cramped beneath his desk for so long weighs your body down, languidly shrugging on your jacket, your white shirt gaps when you button it up. He hadn’t noticed that before, but he does now.

“I’ll be better tomorrow,” you promise.

“Alright,” he says, noncommittal.

“Not tomorrow— I’m not in tomorrow actually so on Wednesday. I’ll be better on Wednesday.” You take hold of his arm and for some reason, he lets you. Human connection is not something he values especially, but sometimes it’s nice.

“Sure.” Kishibe shrugs. “I’ll hold you to your word.”

The commute to and from work is endless. This time it’s particularly endless, the outside world blurring into monochromatic plains as the train follows its usual path.

Sometimes you wish for it to derail and throw your body into the atmosphere. Just for fun. Anything to break up the mundanity of slate-coloured metropolitan life.

The confined space in the carriage has Kishibe’s front curved into your back, his hands in his pockets. An attempt at small talk fails to bridge the gap between the two of you. He’s so disinterested. Aren’t old men meant to like young girls? Are you really that ordinary? That even men one orgasm away from a heart attack are totally unbothered by the swell of your ass pressing up against their clothed dicks? Like, um, hello!

“You’re pushing it, you know that?” His breath is hot on your skin, he’s tall enough to obscure you from the view of any onlookers as you grip the metal pole. A few briefcases click shut, patent leather dress shoes scuffing across the flat floors as the train nears the next station.

Empty seats outnumber occupants by this point, there’s no need for Kishibe to be so close, but he is and that makes you happy. Makes your pussy happy too. Throbs like crazy. If you’re going to work alongside him, you’ll need to bring a change of panties in your handbag. ‘Cause you’ve been wet since he first entered the room.

He’s more rugged than handsome, but that’s what makes him hot. You see the start of a pretty face under the thickness of his worn and torn skin, it’s undercut by his square jaw, the skin under his eyes seems to burrow back into his face with how deep those bags are. God, you need him. Stat. Now if you don’t mind, sir.

When you exit, you don’t expect to hear heavy footfall right behind you. For a moment you think it’s the echo of your shoes in the derelict station, it’s like a gaping cavern, but you’re light on your feet - learnt to make yourself scarce.

Taking a peek over your shoulder would ruin the surprise. If it’s not Kishibe you might throw a fit. Unless whoever’s following you is, like, Kimura Takuya. You wouldn’t mind that at all. What a dreamboat. Still, there’s not even a 0.001% chance it’s him (you don’t exactly remember seeing him on the commute). There is a 99.99% chance it’s Kishibe. So you’ll go with the latter.

You duck into a nearby alleyway and he does too. Well, it’s an assumed he. If it’s a she you hope it’s the busty chick with the eyepatch that made eyes at you in the hallway as you tried to match Miss Makima’s brisk pace.

“I told you not to push it.” It’s Kishibe.

Yay! You internally cheer as he pushes you into the crumbling brick wall, your handbag drops onto the ground as your fist unfurls. Palms flat on the burnt clay, your breath hitches when he makes quick work of your pants, thick fingers forcing their way beneath the tight waistband. They’re perfectly fitted so there’s not even an inch of space, no room for lunch when you’re wearing these. The button pops and you mourn the loss of your nicest piece of clothing. Nothing a big dick can’t fix.

(Dick can’t fix the pants though. Duh.)

“I should teach you how to keep your hands to yourself,” Kishibe says lowly. His apathy is unfortunately really fucking hot. And it has to be front. It has to be. Or he wouldn’t have gone through the effort of disrupting his usual route home. You must’ve gotten him hot and bothered. His dick is hard. So there’s that.

He spits on your ass, it trickles down your crack and does a shitty job at lubing anything up. Your pussy is so wet you could take two or three dicks with ease. Kishibe doesn’t have to waste precious, precious spit that should be dripped down your throat like ambrosia. He spreads you wide, big hands grabbing handfuls of your soft ass. When you close your eyes, you see his cock, it’s tattooed on your eyelids. Seriously. His shit is big, and you wouldn’t expect anything less from a man of his size. The tip is dark, uncut on the fat, his balls hang low— Oh, he’s putting it in your ass, you realise a moment too late.

Suppressing a soft cry, your head drops forward as the pain splinters through your body with each agonising inch of his fat cock in your tighter hole. “Daddy,” you whimper, nails fighting to stay on your nail beds as you scratch at the wall.

“Don’t call me that,” Kishibe says, and his dick gives one last punishing push as he sinks into you fully.

“Sorry, sir.” Your sniffling is cut short by him shoving his fingers into your warm mouth. His dick is mean. You’re all like uh, uh, unfff, uh! You sound pretty fucking stupid, but he is practically punching all those noises out of you. It feels nice to be split in half. When you ignore the sickening spark of raw pain in your gut that is. He’s whisking your guts into a mixture of acid and bloody chunks.

Kishibe’s fairly quiet, the occasional grunt when he draws his hips back so the tip is in your fluttering hole, only to slam back in and knock you forward ‘cause you’re a klutz and dick in your dry ass is sorta disorientating.

“I love it, sir,” you tell him anyway. You’ve always been a bit of a bootlicker. Relying on flattery to get you into people's good books. It’s worked up until now. Kishibe is a nut you can’t even crack with a nutcracker, or a paring knife, not even with a goddamn hammer. “I love it so much, I love—“ His fingers run over your gums, pulling on your tongue for only a second before he takes them out to wipe on the back of your white blouse.

When he cums, you smell the whiskey on his breath as he rests his head on your shoulder. “Thank you, sir, thank you so much—“ You turn your head in search of his lips, he taps your cheek sharply and zips his slacks up in typical Kishibe fashion. Unhurried, slow, doesn’t really care about being caught with his pants down. A cigarette is lit, the glow of the ember reflects in his charcoal eyes like liquid gold.

Put that out on my clit, sir. Obviously, you don’t say that in fear of your clit never ever working again, and you quite like your clit to be honest. She’s gotten you through a lot of stressful situations. 

His load has started to leak out of you, drying on your skin. Thick and sticky and heavy like his dick. Your cunt still throbs when you hold your ruined pants in place, they’ll be slipping down for the remainder of the walk home. Kishibe didn’t let you cum. He hasn’t let you cum all day. How selfish. You’ll rub one out when you get to your place. Christ, you think you love him.

#csm smut #chainsaw man smut #kishibe smut #kishibe x reader #kishibe x y/n #kishibe x you #csm x reader #chainsaw man x reader

[mrs-hyperfixed-writes]

Are You Single - 2

Tag List: @becomeunsolved @ambiguous-g @favorite-slytherin-weirdo @a-weirdperson @artist-bby

The reader makes their way through Castle Dimitrescu, encountering the Lady and her daughters. Heisenberg might just have to re-evaluate his opinion of you when you're the unexpected victor of the battles with them.

You had ran through the glorified saw trap, avoiding Lycans and giants alike as you listened to Heisenberg’s taunting. Evidently he was an asshole, but that didn’t seem to be stopping the butterflies in your stomach going mad at the way he spoke to you. Fear had briefly crawled up your spine when he had dropped the spinning log of spikes, blocking your exit and apparently sealing your fate. Thankfully there had been a crevice in the wall, big enough to drop your backpack down by your side and protect yourself. The only thing that took damage was the handcuffs. It had briefly occurred to you that it seemed a very convenient hiding space in an otherwise foolproof killing room.

You ended up back at the gate that you had been captured at, looking over your shoulder this time as you pulled the lever up. Not that you could do anything if Heisenberg or his overgrown sister decided to double check. It seemed unlikely that either of them would treat you to a meal, but you could hope. If you were being honest with yourself though, Heisenberg hardly screamed refined dining.

No, he seemed more like a man who would order a McDonalds or a Burgerking after he’d been working tirelessly all day on a machine in a tank top. All sweaty. . . you smacked yourself in the face, snapping yourself out of your fantasy. You needed to get a grip. Preferably around his throat or his-

You slapped yourself again.

You left through the gate, coming out to an unpleasant looking vineyard. Of course, Dimitrescu was far too high and mighty to get her hands dirty doing manual labour, and any staff that she may of had to maintain the vineyard were probably dead. You shuddered at the thought of so many deaths. You didn’t know any of those people, didn’t know anyone in this godforsaken village that had been put in the middle of nowhere except for the few that had just survived long enough to be brutally killed in front of you. No one would remember any of the dead. It was as if they never existed. And if you died here - which you likely would - you would likely not be remembered. Not with fondness anyway.

You were brought out of your dark thoughts by the sound of a man groaning and wood creaking. You looked up, and to your surprise found an old-fashioned wagon settled in front of the entrance to Castle Dimitrescu. The doors swung open, and someone all but rolled out. The man was massive, both in height and weight.

“I’ve been waiting for you, my friend,” he said with the attitude of someone who was excited to get down to business.

You stopped a couple of metres away, taking it all in. How was this man even alive? Then again, Dimitrescu was nine feet tall and she seemed like she was functioning better than most people. Especially given that the tallest man in history was nearly nine foot and died super young. You could come to terms with this mans existence in no time.

“Who are you? How do you know me?” You let the uncertainty show in your voice.

“Me? I am but a humble merchant,” he said as he rubbed his hands together. “And you’ve been the talk of the town recently! An unknown human outsider making their way through hordes of creatures with nothing but an axe and some second hand guns? Remarkable.”

You hated yourself for the light blush that crept up your neck at the compliment. You never blushed.

“What can I call you?”

“Ah, forgive my manners. You can call me the Duke. Your name please?”

You raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, I already know it, but some people prefer to tell others their name rather than have the introduction stolen from them.”

You chuckled, deciding to bridge the few metres of distance. “(Y/n).”

“Pleasure. Now, would you like to purchase anything for the journey ahead? Medicine? Ammunition?”

“Can you tell me what’s happened here?”

“Ah, information. All I can tell you now is that Mother Miranda has seemingly abandoned the village she has spent a century ruling. Slaughtered the villagers.” He took a long drag of a cigar he had lit before releasing the smoke into the air. “It seems she’s done it for her daughter.”

“Her daughter? Dimitrescu? Or the woman in the veil?”

“Ah, Lady Donna. But no, neither of those are her real daughters. It’s doubtful she even considers them such. The same for her sons.”

Your thoughts drifted back to Heisenberg. Did he hate her for that? For not considering him her child? Questions for later.

“Then who?”

The Duke regarded you for a second. “Sell me those crystal skulls you’ve collected, make a purchase and find me in the castle, and perhaps I’ll know more.”

You blinked in surprise, briefly wondering how he knew that you had been collecting the crystallised remains of those Lycans. Truthfully you just thought they were pretty.

After selling the remains and buying yourself some extra ammo, as well as some of the strange medicine the Duke advertised that was supposed to encourage cell division, you nodded to him in thanks and turned to face the castle.

“Although I must say,” The Duke called out before you could make much progress, “why do you wish to go into that castle? You are a stranger. There is no stake in this for you.”

You took a deep breath. Why were you doing this? That beast under your skin wanted to answer. To find and tear them apart. For revenge for all the dead. To satisfy my own need for blood and pain.

Instead you said, “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

You walked towards the doors.

***

The inside of the castle was. . . beautiful. Definitely a place a lady would live. Perhaps a place you would live in another life. It seemed as though everything was trimmed with gold, including the beautiful waist high vases decorated with beautiful women. The furniture was of the highest quality, the rugs and carpets plush enough to sleep comfortably on. They looked expensive enough to cost more money than you’d ever had in your entire life. You wiped your muddy boot on the rug you were standing on, leaving a dark smear.

The thing that drew your attention most of all was the portrait that dominated the opposite wall. Three women, admittedly indistinguishable from one another, sat in big dresses. The plaque identified them as the three daughters. Three daughters that loved entertaining foreigners.

A bad feeling overcame you, and you decided to tuck your handgun into your boot, regardless of the discomfort. You covered it with your jeans.

You pressed on until you came to a main chamber that had another set of double doors decorating the walls. A scream rang out, clear as day and stopping you in your tracks. The scream of a woman in terrible pain. Part of you thought that maybe you should try to find her, but something in you knew that it had been a death scream. The agonised scream of someone who wanted to live and was denied.

You swallowed, instead making your way to the double doors, wondering where they lead.

“Well, who’s this then?” an upbeat female voice asked.

You turned to look, and only found three swarms of flies buzzing closer. And right before your eyes, they materialised into three beautiful young women. The daughters. The first thought in your head was how the painting didn’t do any of them justice.

You didn’t even have time to take your gun out of your backpack before the woman on the left - a tall blonde with blood on her mouth - grabbed you by the throat and lifted you clean off the floor, slamming you against the door. She pressed her face closer to your shoulder and took a deep sniff. You shuddered against the feeling of her nose tickling your neck.

“Fresh blood,” she said, voice dripping with a desire that put you on edge.

“Mother says you have to share, sister,” said the redhead with a childish delight, the brunette nodding in agreement with a sadistic grin on her face.

That scream echoed through your head again. The blonde stared into your face, looking for the traces of fear that likely coated their usual victims. She was going to come up empty. You cleared your throat, looking down into beautiful but evil eyes that had probably been the last thing that so many had seen, and spit right in her face.

The grin on her face froze as the glob made contact with her cheek, and then dropped off altogether when her sisters roared in laughter, one of them doubling at the waist and clutching her stomach.

She threw you to the floor, tossing your backpack aside and growling at her sisters to silence them. You leaped towards it with the intention of pulling your shotgun out, deciding to keep the handgun a secret. But she grabbed a fistful of your hair, most of her materialising back into that swarm as she did so. She dragged you through the halls, her sisters flanking you. You clawed at her hand, but to no avail.

Another swarm got too close, a face materialising. The brunette. She ripped one of your arms off of where it was clawing at the hand that felt as if it was going to rip your scalp off. She held it up to her mouth and grinned. You didn’t even have the chance to scream as she sank her teeth into the side of your forearm, digging in deep. Then she pulled back, laughing. She hadn’t done it to feed, only to hurt you. The other sister came forward, her face materialising as well to lick up the blood that was leaking down your arm. She left little bites of her own up your arm. But these were more like love bites.

Suddenly they stopped, and the oldest released the grip on your hair, using her momentum to throw you into a wall.

“Mother,” she started, “I bring you fresh prey.”

Oh no.

You turned, out of breath from the hurt your body had suffered.

“You are so kind to me, daughters.” She took a deep drink of wine and rose from her chair. “Now, let's take a look at them.”

You didn’t get up from the floor, not having the energy or the stupidity to make a scene right now. Not as she fully turned and looked down at you.

“Well, well. A nobody with no name worth knowing or manners to speak of makes their way to my castle do they? Well, you escaped my little brother's idiot games did you? Let’s see how special you are.”

She beckoned to the blonde and the redhead. They each grabbed an arm, forcefully hoisting you to your feet. You squirmed a little, but their grip was like iron as they held up the arm with the bleeding bite mark. Lady Dimitrescu raised a brow and looked back at the remaining daughter.

“Cassandra? What did I say about waiting?”

Cassandra looked down at her feet, almost seeming to be ashamed. “Apologies Mother.”

Dimitrescu gripped you by the wrist and lifted you off the ground. You gritted your teeth. She closed her mouth over the wound and sucked. If you were being honest with yourself most of your blood at this point had either transferred to your face or. . .

It wasn’t important. But apparently you needed therapy.

She dropped you suddenly, and you couldn’t help the shout that escaped your lips when your knees made impact with the floor.

“Just as I thought, nothing special.”

“May we devour their flesh now Mother-”

“But I am the one who captured them-”

“Now, now girls. First I must inform Mother Miranda of Heisenberg’s failure. But soon there will be enough for everyone.” She turned to the blonde daughter. “Bela, take them to the dungeons and shove them in a cell.”

Bela grinned at you, seizing your hair again as she dragged you along, leaving the laughter of her mother and her sisters behind.

***

Heisenberg was fuming. Not that you had escaped his trap. To be perfectly honest there were several design flaws that he wasn’t going to admit to and he really couldn’t have cared less if you had exploited them to get away. If you were running through the village, then something was bound to get you eventually. That was what he had figured anyway.

No, Heisenberg was angry because that overgrown, egocentric, glorified vampire bitch had ratted him out to Mother Miranda. He could just imagine the smug way she had said it over the phone. That grin she would have. He wished he could have buried his hammer into her face.

Miranda had expressed her disappointment in him, not that he gave a shit. But it would likely mean that she would watch him for a while, at least while she had time to spare. Preparing that stupid ceremony would take her a few days at the very least. And in that time she could do anything.

He slammed his fist down on the table. With you in Castle Dimitrescu he couldn’t even entertain himself watching you scramble around the village. Couldn’t taunt you. And he didn’t want to risk working on his army, just on the off chance that Miranda caught wind.

He hadn’t even seen you before that confrontation in front of the castle gate, and he just assumed it was blind luck you’d made it that far.

He’d probably never know how you got on in the Castle, because there was no way you were leaving that place alive.

He looked at the yellow jar on his desk, tempted to just throw it and it’s contents into a pit of molten metal. It would be kinder to the kid than whatever Miranda had planned.

***

You had been shoved in the most stereotypical dungeon in the world. It was something straight out of some Frankenstein-ish novel. Bela had left, promising that she would come back soon to retrieve you for dinner. You had given her your most hate filled look, your eyes promising nothing but violence.

That must have been ten minutes ago, and you were furiously searching the cell. You had found a gap in the wall, and in it a crumpled sheet of paper. You straightened it out, beginning to read.

To whomever is trying to escape this place,

I hope this note will be of some assistance. You don’t know me but you will have to trust me if you want to survive.

First, you need to get out of this cell. Look around for the way, get on your hands and knees if you must.

Then, search for the thing you’ll need to

escape. It will be hidden where they’ll

least suspect, soaked in blood.

The rest of the note was illegible, at some point being soaked with dry blood. You hoped that whoever had written it had gotten out.

You took the notes' advice, getting on your hands and knees. There! Under the wooden board attached to the wall there was a hole that you could crawl through. You got on your belly and went through, ending up in the next cell. You tried the door, and to your relief it opened.

You took your gun out of your boot, preparing to go into the dungeon deeper for your way out.

***

Monsters had patrolled the dungeon. Horrible emaciated monsters that held swords. The first one you had encountered held a sword, and you shot it with glee, picking the sword up. A perfect chance to conserve ammo. It was in good condition too. You sliced and hacked your way through, making it to the second part of the dungeon. You could see the stairwell at the end. Your heart soared. At least until you had to wave a fly out of your face.

“I can’t believe Cassandra caused all this mess.”

Bela. Part of you wanted to turn around and fight her, but you were sadistic not stupid. Bullets against a swarm would be pointless. Instead you ran for the stairs, shooting up them until you came to an entrance that was boarded up. Because of course it was. You attempted to hack at the boards with the sword, but it was already too late.

“Where are you going little one?”

“Oh for fucks-”

You turned to be confronted by Bela, her white teeth stark against the drying blood coating the lower half of her face. She picked you up by the neck again, throwing you through the wooden boards. You lost the sword to the far wall, instead bringing out your handgun as she mounted you, desperately trying to inflict some damage on her even when you knew the bullets would be useless. She just laughed at you.

“Bullets cannot harm-”

CRACK.

You both looked off to the side, just in time to see a window shatter and let in all the cold air. She jumped off and you skittered back, getting to your feet. She was. . . solidifying, only a few lone flies breaking away from her before the cold killed them.

And she was angry.

“You stupid-”

You shot her.

She reeled back in pain, screeching. You smiled, and shot her again.

She charged at you, raising her sickle over her head to slice at you. You ducked away from her and grabbed your sword, swinging it to block her next swing. You kicked her in the stomach, putting some distance between the two of you. Then you shot her again. And again. You could tell that she was almost done. One more bullet or swing of the sword and she’d probably shatter.

You put your gun down on a table, the sword following it.

She was doubled over in agony for the moment, but she still managed to look at you with eyes filled with hatred. The perfect mirror of the look you had given her when she had tossed you in a cell. You laughed at her again, the sound ringing right through the room. You didn’t care if it could even be heard throughout the castle. The daughters had a weakness, and if they wanted to fuck around and find out how you could exploit it then that was their problem.

“It’s funny how things just switch around isn’t it?” You asked her between manic bursts of laughter.

You charged at her suddenly, tackling her to the ground. She wasn’t nearly as strong as she had been. She clawed desperately at your thighs, screaming again as the force she was using caused them to begin to crumble. It was childish, but you got a grip on her hair and pulled as hard as you could, laughing at the screams she made as cracks spiderwebbed down from her hairline down to her eyes. Then you reeled your fist back, gave her one final smirk, and punched her in the face. Her head practically exploded into pieces. You felt yourself drop to the floor as most of her crumbled. Except for one thing. The upper half of her torso had crystallized into something beautiful. You picked it up, wondering if the Duke would buy it.

***

As it turned out, the Duke had his own special room in the castle, and he did buy the torso and the sword. You also managed to retrieve your backpack. It turned out that that medicine was bordering on magical, as the only thing left of the horrible bite Cassandra had left was a scar. Even Daniela’s hickeys were gone.

To your chagrin, if you wanted to open those double doors in the hall you were going to need four masks. The Duke provided the first one, The Mask of Sorrow. He had winked at you, telling you that this would avoid another encounter with the Lady. But when you had asked for his explanation about the events in the village, he simply told you he didn’t have it all yet, but he would at your next encounter. You thought that was bullshit. But you gave him the benefit of the doubt.

And now here you were, reaching for the animal's skull off the wall, hoping that maybe it would have the solution to opening that grate without having to replace the mask.

“I was worried my sisters had gotten to you first.”

Fuck. You froze. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She was by the door. You looked around the room, desperate to find a solution. You had only narrowly escaped her getting into the room. Trying to get past her while stuck in here would be impossible. Then you felt it. A draft. There was a gap in the wall being concealed by a bookshelf. You moved it, looking around for Cassandra. She was still by the door, taking her sweet time getting to you. You examined the gap. There was no way this was going to be enough to petrify Cassandra. Then you remembered the weight in your pocket. You had picked it up in the dungeon. A pipe bomb.

You felt the air shift, and had just enough time to duck as Cassandra swung at you. Taking cover on the other side of the room, you threw the bomb and covered your ears. Cassandra screamed at the bite of the cold air, somehow being louder than the initial boom the bomb had made.

“You’ve ruined the hunt!”

“I wouldn’t say that,” you said happily. “I’m having tons of fun.”

You pointed the shotgun at her as she charged, unloading it into her face. She stumbled back. And you did it again, not giving her time to recover. The shotgun was much more powerful than the pistol had been taking care of Bela, so it wasn’t long before Cassandra was at the same stage Bela had been before you had killed her.

“I take it back. That was kind of disappointing. I thought you’d have more in ya.”

And you don’t know if she just realised she was dying, or if she just wanted to kill you so bad that she threw common sense out of the window, but she charged at you with her weapon raised. You didn’t even move out of the way, just caught he raised wrist and squeezed. It crumbled beneath your hands. She tried to hit you with her other wrist only for you to do the same thing.

“Mother!” She cried out with all the emotion of a scared little girl. “Mother!”

You grabbed her by the front of her dress, letting her see into your eyes. Letting her see the toothy grin you were giving her that was more like a snarl. The irony of the situation struck you. Whereas it would have been her eyes brimming with cruelty and madness before, now it was yours. But you had never been afraid. Not for one second. But she was. And it made you grin even wider.

She called out for her mother again as you dragged her to the wall. You kissed her on the nose, giving her a smile that someone might give a lover, and used all your innate anger and cruelty to shove the bitch against the wall.

She shattered, leaving behind only that crystallised torso.

***

His sister had said she would call Miranda when the outsider had been killed. Well, her words were dealt with properly. Emphasis on the properly apparently. Miranda was supposed to let the rest of them know when the outsider had decided to stop being a nuisance and finally bit the dust.

But no call came. From either of them. Hell, Heisenberg hadn’t heard a goddamn thing from anyone. So. . . was the outsider still alive?

He had to admit, he didn’t expect that.

Maybe he needed to change up his expectations.

***

“So you finally came to see me?”

The final daughter. Daniela. You would have preferred not to deal with her right now, given that her mother had just surprised you and evading her through her music hall had been no small task. She had been angry and seething with bloodlust. You supposed she had learned about the deaths of her older daughters. The fact that she had sent Daniela up against you after you had proved that they were practically useless against you wasn’t scoring Dimitrescu any good mother points.

You shot at the window above. But it refused to break, and the swarms had blocked the doors. You looked around, noting that on the other side, on one of the pillars was a handle.

“Everyone always falls for me.”

You ran around her, gripping the handle and swinging it down with all your might. She screamed in agony, running to get out of the direct frozen wind. To your dismay the handle slowly turned up. Who designed this?

She was running through the bookshelves, trying to hide from you. So deranged, but slightly smarter than her sisters it seemed.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Why am I- Why are you doing this?!” you retorted.

You pumped the handle down again before chasing her, shooting her in the back. She darted around a bookcase, circling around you and trying to get the jump on you. But you were ready, giving her another one. You were beginning to get bored of these sisters.

“You three don’t really put up much of a fight do you?”

“I thought you loved me,” she snarled.

“What the fuck has that got to do with anything I just said?”

You shot her again. Then once more for good measure. You got up close and used the butt of your shotgun wo hit her in the stomach, forcing her back.

“I don’t wanna die,” she cried out, almost begging you not to go any further with the tone she was using.

“Well you know, neither did anyone in this village or this castle but shit happens I guess.”

You threw the gun down and got a grip on her throat, dragging her to the handle where you pumped it down again. Her attempts to get away from you and out of the cold were desperate, but you maintained that grip on her neck. Slowly, your grip tightened, and you thought you could see the beginning of tears in her eyes as cracks started to multiply on her throat. You did it slowly, savouring the way her throat gave under your hand. The window was nearly shut now. You blew her a kiss, then you balled your fist, crushing her throat completely.

The window shut.

***

“The entire bloodline of House Dimitrescu is done in by the likes of you?”

You smiled at her, even as she stalked you with her claws out. She had caught you while you were figuring out which mask went where. Luckily, being so big meant she was slow.

“Damn right it is.”

“Have much blood and sweat do you think it took to raise those daughter?” She swiped. “You have incurred an impossible debt!”

The genuine sadness and pain in her voice was something that might have swayed someone else, but not you. Not after the Duke had explained what those monsters in the dungeon had really been. Not when you knew the secret ingredient of that wine. Not when that scream rattled around inside your skull.

“What? You want me to feel sorry for you? Want me to get on my knees and beg for forgiveness while you slice me apart? How many daughters have you murdered and turned to slaves?” You slotted the third mask in before darting just out of her reach. “You didn’t consider how many fathers and husbands you bled dry in your dungeons. Your daughters deserved to die! You deserve to die! None of you get a free pass just because I’d have sex with you!”

She made a noise of disgust and sliced downwards, narrowly missing you. You darted to the last statue, putting the mask in. The door opened and you bolted.

***

You pushed open the coffin, finding an old corpse clutching a beautiful knife. You picked it up, testing the weight. That is, before you were spun around and lifted by the neck again. Evidently this family had a choking kink.

“You ruined everything!” She screamed.

She got ready to plunge her claws deep into your stomach, but you were faster, instead driving the knife into her chest. She screamed, throwing you through the window behind you. You accidentally let go of the knife, and it tumbled off the side of the building.

You looked back at Dimitrescu. She was in pain, and obviously weakening. But large, fleshy wings sprouted out from her back, a tail soon following.

And then she was crashing through the wall, nothing but a female torso and head on the back of what looked like a dragon straight out of one of your nightmares.

“Flesh! Bones! I will devour all of you!”

“Bring it on, bitch!”

***

“Curse you.”

And those were her last words. It hadn’t been easy, but you had done it. And you smiled at her as you did so. Given that same demented smile you’d given her daughters. You still wore it.

You looked around, still half mad from the bloodlust. The only thing of note was a yellow flask, so you snatched it up, grinning even wider as the wall opened into the outside.

***

Dimitrescu was dead. Heisenberg grinned. Well, he certainly didn’t expect to watch you walk out of the castle through the camera he’d placed in the area. He hadn’t even expected you to have lasted five minutes, but evidently you were made of sterner stuff. He was impressed.

You were covered in the dust of her dead daughters, as well as Dimitrescu's own blood. It made your damaged clothes cling to your form, and as you got closer he could see the grin you were wearing, could see that deranged look in your eye. And then you looked up at him. Not just at his camera, but at him. As if you knew he was watching. Your grin turned into something else, and you brought your palm to your mouth, kissed it, and then blew the kiss at him.

He didn’t expect that to get his blood pumping. Didn’t expect watching you walk away coated in blood get it pumping even harder. What was this feeling? It wasn’t fear. It was almost like adrenaline. Almost like-

He looked down at his lap. “Fuck.”

He needed to talk to you. He would talk to you.

Hopefully he could lick the blood off of you after.

#resident evil #resident evil village #resident evil 8 #karl heisenberg #karl heisenberg x reader #heisenberg x reader #lady dimitrescu #bela dimitrescu #cassandra dimitrescu #daniela dimitrescu #Mother Miranda #Reader has a crush #reader is unstable #cw: violence #Cw: some torture #cw: blood #cw: blood kink

[theyanderespecialist]

Body For Rent? (One Shot) Don X Mark OC (Your Boyfriend) (Yandere)

[Hello My Sexy Readers and welcome back to another one shot this another Your boyfriend one, with Mark as a sissy paying for rent with Romance? Who knows how this will end anyways I hope you all enjoy!]

(Mark's POV)

Don is over and I was on the phone with Lucy begging her to come back with her part of the rent. She said she would when she got to it. I knew that means never. Oh I wanted to smash my phone! But that would cost me more money so instead I look at Don. He was fixing a light bulb and how could I tell him not only could Lucy not pay her half but neither could I? My grandma had to have surgery and helping pay for the after car I had no extra money not to mention the dinner won't give me any extra hours and I already have to jobs. God what do I do?!?

But it's probably best to just tell him. So I take a deep breath as I walk over.

"U-Uh..Don..?"

"Yeah kid?"

"....uh I..I need to talk to you it's important.."

"I'm all ears." He said as he was still fixing the bulb.

"Well...Lucy hasn't paid her half of the rent for like six months, and I'm running out of money..I'm short about 100 dollars..I'm wondering, should I give you some of my jewelry or furniture so that it's not a total loss or do I move out? I can be packed next week.."

He looked down at me and stepped off the ladder. "Mark I cannot take anything from you. I care to much to do that but I can't throw you out either. You said I am a dilf right? Well do you really want to fuck me? Like giving a chance would you?" He asks

I blinked. I don't understand why he was asking that..he said he wouldn't bring up that embarrassing moment again..

"U-Uh..I don't know why you're asking..." I said softly as I looked down. "B-But..I-I mean yeah I-I would..you're a sweet guy.."

He falter a bit. Then took a deep breath. "It is hard getting back in the dating game and a man grows lonely. Would you like to stay at my place tonight?" He asks and I stare. "I will wave your rent for the month."

I stared at him was he asking if I would have sex as rent payment!? Then I thought of my grandmother I could take next weekend off and go see her with the money I have.

"Yes okay." I say and he nodded picking up the latter.

Oh shit what did I get myself into?

-Time Skip-

I sat down as I expected to come in and get fucked..but I was instead treated to a lovely dinner.

"Sorry I uh- I normally only cooked when my kids were hungry and everything, I'm not a house husband." He gave an awkward laugh.

Then after he did dishes we went to the bedroom he helps me into bed then climbs in as well turn off the lights and- spooned me? I looked at him and he almost fell asleep instantly? I grab a pillow and hit him.

"I'm awake!" He says half asleep.

"You fell asleep on me..." I whisper.

"Well that is the point how else are we supposed to sleep together." He says

Then it hit me he did not want sex... but why?

I looked away .was..I not attractive? Was I too feminine? Did he just not want sex?

(Timeskip)

Over the last two weeks I've phased out of wearing my feminine clothes, and wore masculine clothes as Don looked over at.me.

"Okay Mark, whats with the change in style?" He asked as I stood up.."well why won't you have sex with me Don?! You haven't done anything that shows you're even romantically attracted much less sexually attracted to me!" I snapped as I go to the room. I really liked don. These last two weeks confirmed it but it hurt...knowing he wasn't into me like that.

He probably saw me as some stupid kid..

I hear a knock on my door. "I am not having sex with you because your not an object! You are a person a beautiful sexy person! And I want you to want to be with me! Not use your rent as an excuse to be with you! Damnit I am in love with you Mar!" I hear him say through the door

I stopped at that. I was shocked..beyond shocked. I walked over to the door as I opened it.

"....you're not messing with me?" I asked. "No! God damn it kid, you think this is the first time.you been late on rent, if I didn't care I'd et you and that fucking dead beat figure it out on your own on the street--" I cut him off as I jumped at him as he has to catch me as I kiss his face before hesitating and kissing his lips.

He gasped but then smiled and kissed me. He walked me into my room and closes and locks my bedroom door. Then pulls away as we both pant.

"Your mind now~" He says possessively and throws me on the bed stripping his belt and tying my hands to the bed. Ass in air and him ripping down my jeans.

)Marie Has unleashed the beast XD)

I did not get time to think as he spread my cheeks spits on my anus and starts to eat my ass it. I gasped and moaned and leaned into him taking more of his tongue~ Oh god I never done this before and lord it is gooood~~~

(Don's POV)

(Don has the green light XD)

I looked down at Mark as he was seemingly already in heaven, like this was his first time getting such treatment.

I didn't think Mark had wanted me in that way but now that I know, now that I'm certain- I'm going to have him as mine. He would make a wonderful new wife and stepmom to my boys.

I shove my tongue on the way in and start tongue fucking his cute boy pussy I think the kids would call it

(hah the boy pussy I mean he isn't wrong)

(XD)

I could see him grabbing and releasing the pillow as his cock twitched, I already knew these sheets would have to be cleaned, but knowing we were the ones to mess them up so much~

I think his ass is ready and I look at him, "Front or back?" I ask.

"huh?" He asks.

"Do you want to be on your front or back?" I ask. "I want our first time special."

"I don't..."

"Just which is your favorite?"

"I-- uh that's the thing Mr.Williams uh...I've never had sex..you took my first kiss.."

I smile and kiss him flipping him onto his back and line up and kiss his chest.

"I love you.." I muttered as I remove that stupid shirt.

"I loved the way you dressed..because you liked it."

(Thank you, it's more so he loves seeing mark comfortable. I'm normally uncomfortable in men clothing unless I'm feeling more masculine, so that's why mark is like that. It's not a trans fetish, I could care less about your gender. I just have issues with my body. And those are my issues and so they are on mark as well.)

(Yes cause my co author is gender fluid and mark is her if she was a man and cross dresses for comfort not to sexalize the transgenders or anything like that)

"Really?" He asks.

"Yes you always seemed more happy and comfortable in female clothes, what ever makes you happy makes me happy"

(like I fuck in crossdressing cause I'm comfortable.)

He looked at me as he then gave a smiled.

"Aw isn't that sweet. Mr.Williams loves me." He said as I look at him. Was he mocking.me?

(Yeah! Power to my co author!)

She smiles and plays with my hand. "Have I been a bad tennat Mr. Williams? If I have you better fuck the bad out of me~"

I blush she is role playing.

And like I said before. I wasn't interested in fucking her to give her a place to stay....

Bit role play, that's a whole different story.

"You've been real bad, but I'll let it slide-Just be a good girl for me~" I purr as she smirked and was about to say something...until I thrust into her as her voice got caught in her throat, turning into more of a desperate whimper.

I smirked and and started to thrust in and out of her feeling her clench on my cock.

"No so tight~" I moan. "You need to relax baby~"

She let out a moan as she was already drooling. "I-I'm trying! I-I'm as relaxed as I can be!~" she cried out as her legs wrapped around my hips.

"Oh your just that tight you naughty thing~" I say with smirked.

She moaned as she thrust back onto my cock.

"I don't hear you complaining~" she moaned out as I could.hear the wet slap of our skin.

I was not I loved him and I could not wait to stretch his pussy out then to let it tighten again~ I love him so much. I pull him back into a kiss, not even caring that they slipped out of my belt and were running his nails across my back. I loved it and could tell she was close as I start to hit her gspot and she cums hard on my cock moaning loudly. I came inside of her as well as I collapse on her as she smiled. "I love you.."

I smile and kiss her deeply. I love her so so much and she is mine.

#yandere #yandere don #yandere your boyfriend #yandere one shot #one shot #your boyfriend #don #don your boyfriend #don x oc #don x mark #mark #oc mark #epicnessqueen

[alhamdulillah10]

This Life of Deception

This worldly life is like an unchaste woman, who is not satisfied with one husband. So, be satisfied with whatever Allah grants you from this worldly life.

Walking thereon is like walking in a land that is filled with beasts, and water that teams with crocodiles. That which causes delight, turns to be the source of grief. Pain is found in the midst of pleasures, and delights are derived from its sorrows.

Lusts were granted in abundance to humans, but those who believed in the unseen turned away from them, while those who follow their lusts were caused to regret.

The first category, are those, in which Allah says, “They are on (true) guidance from their Lord, and they are the successful.” (Al-Baqarah, 2:5)

However, the other category, are those to whom Allah says, “(O you disbelievers)! Eat and enjoy yourselves (in this worldly life) for a little while. Verily, you are the Mujrimun (polytheists, disbelievers, sinners, criminals, etc.).” (Al-Mursalat, 77:46)

When the successful ones are aware of the reality of this worldly life being sure of the inferiority of its degree, they overcame their vain desires for the sake of the Hereafter. They have been awakened from their heedlessness to remember what their enemies took from them during their period of idleness.

Whenever they perceive the distant journey they must undertake, they remember their aim, so it appears easy for them. Whenever life becomes bitter, they remember this verse in which Allah says, “This is your Day which you were promised ” (AI-Anbiya’, 21:103)

Surah Al-Hadid (its title meaning, ‘the iron’) talks about the reality of the transient life of this world. Several descriptive words are used to reveal to us its true reality. After that, Allah warns us to remember that the life of this world is nothing but a “deceptive enjoyment”

In order to see the real meanings being described by our Creator as He details to us the reality of the life of this world, it would be beneficial to ponder on the root meanings of the several Arabic words Allah has used in the above verse. All the meanings have been taken from Edward William Lane’s online Arabic-to-English Lexicon:

لَعِبٌ

(i) Play, sport, game, fun, joke, prank, or jest.

لَهْوٌ

(ii) Diversion, pastime, sport, or play; especially that which is frivolous or vain; that which occupies a person so as to divert him or her from that which should render him sad or solicitous/anxious/concerned.

زِينَةٌ

(iii) Decoration, finery, show, pomp, or gaeity.

تَفَاخُرٌ

(iv) Glorifying or boasting (viz. to each other), praising or commending own selves for certain properties or qualities, such as enumerating or recounting the particulars of their own ancestral nobility or eminence; or their honorable deeds. Contending for superiority by reason of honors arising from memorable deeds or qualities, or from parentage or relationship, and other things relating to themselves or their ancestors; also: boasting of qualities extrinsic to themselves such as wealth, rank or station.

تَكَاثُرٌ فِى الاٌّمْوَلِ وَالاٌّوْلْـد

(v) Contending, one with another, for superiority in number of (different types of) wealth and children.

مَتَـاعُ الْغُرُور

(vi) The word مَتَـاعُ means anything useful or advantageous viz. utensils, furniture, or food, and the word الْغُرُور means that by which one is deceived; something false and vain. In other words, the life of this world is a provision that is deceptive. It can be used to achieve the best end i.e. Allah’s pleasure and an abode in Paradise in the Hereafter, but is very deceptive in and of itself.

Allah has used a total of five terms and phrases to describe to us the reality of the life of this world in the Quran. Analysis of their meanings clearly reveals that indeed, the life of this world is such that it makes a believer lose focus of the Hereafter.

Consider this – games are fun to play. They cause us to get really involved in them, whether as participants, or as onlookers. The aspect of winning versus losing, or earning more points by achieving a target, enthuses the more keen ones among us to a state of physical and mental euphoria.

When anyone is involved in a game as a participant, whether he is playing outside, or playing a computer game indoors, he is distracted perhaps from more pending matters that require his attention. For some sports enthusiasts, tearing themselves away from a game to answer a call of nature, eat a meal, or pray an obligatory prayer also becomes difficult.

Now, with this picture in mind, we can see why Allah has called the life of this world “a game.” We get so involved in the “game” itself, in its short-term goals and enjoyments, that we tend to lose focus on the importance of the Hereafter. As an example, someone might postpone performing Hajj if important events related to his career are scheduled to take place at the same time in the calendar.

Allah has next called the life of this world “لَهْوٌ” – a “diversion.” It has the potency to make a person lose focus of the goals of the Hereafter. Imagine a person driving  a car; if he or she spots something interesting on the side of the road that will “divert” him or her from driving, he or she will definitely lose focus of the road, resulting in a possible collision.

تَفَاخُرٌ بَيْنَكُم

These words imply boasting to others, and being boasted to, as the above explanation has stated, about intangible assets of prestige and value, such as honorable lineage, awards and achievements, or righteous deeds. Anything that can cause a person to become proud in and of themselves, can be boasted about. It is important to note here, that a person’s intention makes the difference. Several people display their, awards and plaques in their drawing rooms or offices, where they receive guests. This, too, if done to establish one’s credibility in one’s profession, for example, as a practicing doctor whose patients want reassurance that they are coming to a reliable person, would not be blameworthy. However, if it is done to make oneself appear better than others, than it would be تَفَاخُرٌ بَيْنَكُم.

It is interesting how Allah has combined two of the words He has used in this verse of Surah Al-Hadid to describe the life of this world, in another verse in the Quran: the first verse of Surah Al-Takaathur:

أَلْهَاكُمُ التَّكَاثُرُ

“The mutual rivalry for piling up (the good things of this world) diverts you (from the more serious things)“. [102:1]

Since تَّكَاثُرُ means contending to increase in numbers of tangible blessings, it is clear from this verse too, that human beings are “diverted” in this life by this, from their primary goal – which should be success in the Hereafter.

The word زِينَةٌ means beauty and decoration; anything that is instictively pleasing to look at, or beautified to attract our attention. This could include everything that falls under the umbrella of beauty e.g. scenic landscapes, lush vegetation, flowers, and waterfalls, to those things that are made beautiful; which the human heart enjoys.

Bring to mind jewelry, interior decor, architecture, branded/stylish couture, fashion, luxuries, accessories and diverse cuisines. Human beings love to create, experiment and play around with every conceivable kind of raw material provided by Allah, to transform it into something beautiful for their adornment or consumption. Yes, the life of this world definitely revolves a lot around زِينَةٌ !

Allah goes on after this, in the above verse, to elaborate the simile of this world’s life: of it being like the vegetation or herbage that grows on earth, and pleases its tiller/farmer when it reaches its lustrous, colorful peak viz. the plants or crops become strong and fully grown, bearing fruit or grain. However, after a short period of this lustre, color and vibrance, the plants eventually wither, become dry, lifeless straw, and die. The same earth that was alive with crops a while ago becomes empty and plain again; the color, leaves, fruit, grains or flowers are nowhere to be seen, as if they never existed!

That is, in reality, the same thing that happens to everyone and everything during the life of this world. The young, beautiful face becomes wrinkled and haggard; the lustrous hair becomes limp and grey; the strong bones become brittle, and strong muscles give way to weakness; the eyes lose their sight; the erect spine becomes bent. Moreover, every inanimate thing also goes into decline: the architecturally sound mansion becomes depleted and worn over the years, erosion causing its dilapidation and ruin; the clothes lose their newness, shine and glory, withering away; ‘new’ technology loses its value and becomes obsolete and unwanted; the flashy vehicle goes out of vogue and ends up in a junk yard as rubble. The list is endless.

Now that our eyes have been opened to the truth about the life of this world; about how its adornments and distractions are alluring but deceptive in nature, because they divert our attention from the Hereafter and make us think that all this ‘glitter’ will last forever; when in fact, everything on this earth will turn to dust as Allah has promised, we should remember the importance of consistently reciting and reading the Quran as a daily routine, so that we are reminded of this important fact about this transitory life. That way, the reminders such as this verse, that tells us in the end about the two options we have before us – either painful torment, or the forgiveness of Allah and His pleasure – will help keep us focused on those deeds that will enable us to enjoy the truly enjoyable, beautiful, desirable, and eternal life, in shaa’ Allah — the one in the Hereafter.

Please share.

#islam #allah #sunnah #islamquotes #revert islam #hadith #islampost #allahuakbar #muhammad ﷺ #dawah #quoteoftheday #daily life #life quote #life #life quotes #real life #akhirah #dunya #deenoverdunya #deen #ramadan #islamicreminder #islamicquotes #beautiful quote #qur'an #quran #haqq #quranquotes #islamic reminders #islamic books

[diegoalvesisgod]

I was tagged by @ibarbourou​ to do this... writing self-analysis, I guess.

Can you think of three images that are recurring elements in your writing? Are they symbolic of something? What do these images mean to you? Do you have any memories/connotations tied to them?

Long post ahead.

fire and warmth

This was the only one I didn’t have to think about, the one I consciously know is a recurring theme.

The image or fire, or anything that represents warmth or creates warmth, or the warmth in itself.

Paulo takes a deep breath and walks inside. The interior looks very different from the outside. It’s not scary at all. It reminds Paulo of a museum a little bit, but it’s warmer and cozier. There is a thick carpet on the floor in the large hallway, and patterned wallpaper on the walls. Fire is crackling somewhere.

(My Love Will Never Die)

He crosses the hall carefully, trying not to trip over anything. The storm outside intensifies, rain beating at the windows and lightnings illuminating the empty hall at least thrice before he reaches the door. The room he finds behind it is much smaller, and somehow also feels warmer. Whoever covered the furniture and took down the paintings before leaving this place most likely forgot about this room. The armchair in front of the large fireplace isn’t covered, there’s even a pelt in front of it, like whoever used to sit there liked to keep their feet warm. A small table to the side to put a glass of wine or a book on, a candleholder near the window, chairs in the corners. There’s still a pile of wood neatly lined up next to the fireplace, and he finds a tinderbox on the mantelpiece.

(let the darkness lead us into the light)

My grandfather was a concentration camp survivor. I was little when he died, but there are some things I remember him talking about to me, and this is one of them. Warmth means life. There is nothing if there’s not warmth, because if you’re cold, the only thing you can think of is warmth, the need to get warm, the lack of warmth. I deeply believe in the third generation trauma theory, and this may be one of the ways it manifests. I am able to cope with cold much better than most of my friends and family - what is cold for them isn’t cold for me, but I also subconsciously focus on things that represent warmth. I love blankets and candles and hot tea and fireplaces, I hoard sweaters, and when I was a little girl, I never wanted jackets, I wanted fur coats. 

For me, warmth, or the lack thereof, sets the vibe and the atmosphere of the story. It determines if the story has potential to have a happy ending, if the characters are even able to experience something positive.

There’s fire burning in the giant fireplace, started by someone from their small entourage, but the stone has been cold for too long, and it only slowly lets the flames warm up the salty air. The shadows in the hall are long and tall, making everything seem monstrous.

“It doesn’t feel like home,” Viktor says, just because the words are burning on his tongue and he needs to spit them out, even if it means another bruise.

(Stars)

The vibe of the entire story is cold and crude, and for me, at the mention of fire, it changes for the better, it starts to get hopeful. It’s what starts the change, and it’s slow and perhaps an impossible task to completely warm it up, but it’s already less dark and desperate.

flowers/plants

I don’t use flowers or plants that often, but when I do, it’s always with intention.

Denis lingers for a while. He takes off the rye wreath and runs a hand through his hair.

“I just… wanted to say that I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

“Sorry for what?” Vasek asks.

“Just… you know… being… generally disappointing.”

(all hail the underdogs)

I picked rye as the symbol of love and fidelity, because that’s what their relationship is about. But for the scene between Denis and Taylor later on in the fic, I picked cattail:

Denis nods, and then realizes that he doesn’t have to look for anything. He’s already got it. He pulls out the cattail he had picked earlier, and puts some of the pollen on the wound.

“Here,” Taylor says, handing him a piece of cloth in which Denis recognizes the silvery fabric of the small parachutes that transport sponsors’ gifts to the arena. “Do you need help?”

Denis nods and holds his hand up to him. Taylor wraps the fabric around his palm a bit clumsily, and ties it firmly.

(all hail the underdogs)

Cattail symbolizes peace, mainly between two people who are fighting. It’s literally a symbol of this temporary treaty between them, and of a friendship that could be if it weren’t for the circumstances.

I used the comparison of two different flowers again in Where my dreams are made of gold. 

Alessandro sits at the table and looks at the pile of leaves and blossoms. “What do you need all these flowers for?”

“The leaves. Green pigment,” Riccardo explains and tears another leaf off.

“Lily of the valley,” Alessandro smiles. “My favorite.”

Riccardo just stares at him. Are men even supposed to have favorite flowers? Does he have his favorite flower?

“Simple, innocent, fragile… but also deadly,” Alessandro says, picking up a flower and smelling it. “It’s said it sprang from Eve’s tears when she was leaving the Garden of Eden.”

Riccardo wants to say something about this flower not suiting Alessandro, since he knows from Giampaolo that it symbolizes humility in religious paintings, but holds his tongue. After all, who is he to tell anyone what flower they should like?

(Where my dreams are made of gold) 

Alessandro’s favorite flower is lily of the valley - actually a very feminine flower, associated with purity, humility, chastity and sweetness. It’s not representing him as he is, but the values that he is looking for, the way he wishes he were.

Alessandro nods and looks at the paper in Riccardo’s lap, the sketches of blooms and branches.

“Magnolias,” Riccardo says. “My favorite flowers. They look beautiful up in the tree, but you can’t really take them down. They wither and rot if you do. Beautiful and delicate as long as you just look. If you touch them, they turn to death.”

(Where my dreams are made of gold)

On the same note, Riccardo likes magnolias - exactly for the reason he gives. They are beautiful up in the tree, but if you touch them, they turn ugly and die. They symbolize dignity and nobility - which are qualities that he is seeking. Just before he states this, he says about himself: “A kiss for money or a favor? Not like I haven’t done it myself, although I didn’t call it trade. But see, I’m no one to judge you.” 

In this one, roses are kind of obvious, because it’s a Beauty and the Beast retelling, but here they also play into the whole crucifixion allegory, thorn crown and all that I created - which to this day I can’t believe I did in a piece I didn’t even intend as entirely serious.

The guards apparently didn’t keep the story to themselves, because among the jeers and laughter of the crowd slowly gathering on the square, he hears mentions of roses and the Beast almost as often as he hears himself being called a fool.

Someone pushes a flower crown made of roses on his head. He feels the thorns sink in his forehead, but the pain never reaches where it should. He can’t quite feel his body, nor see where he’s going, and he doesn’t think that he would be able to walk on his own, if it weren’t for the guards’ grip on his arms.  

He stops when they tell him to, looks up to the wooden post and sniffles. This is the thing he feared the most all his life, and now he feels nothing. He raises his hands obediently and lets the guards close the iron rings around them, and he looks down at the crowd like they mean nothing. He doesn’t even feel like explaining anything to them, even if it could stop the jeering and curses and an occasional rose being thrown at him like it’s worth nothing. They would never understand.

(let the darkness lead us into the light)

In let's be winners by mistake, I used roses, but paper roses. On purpose - while they should symbolize love, they are not real. Andrey repeatedly gives Sascha paper roses, but he’s aware of his feelings not being reciprocated, and in this scene, where he already knows that Sascha is in love with someone else, he burns the rose to show him that love like that, with an “outsider”, cannot last and be real.

Sascha lifts his eyes to him for a moment, and when he lowers them again, Andrey is holding a red paper rose.

“We all have dreams,” he says and hands it to him. “But like everything that happens under the Big Top, they are not real.”

He runs his palm over the paper flower, and out of nowhere, it catches fire. Sascha drops it quickly, and watches the flames swallow the crepe paper.

“What… how do you do the things?” he breathes out.

“If I told you, it would no longer be magic,” Andrey smiles.

(let's be winners by mistake)

For me, flowers are a great way to establish a character, or a relationship. When I look at a person, I can usually associate a flower with them. I love flowers, and I’m very picky about them. There are flowers I can’t stand and would never bring them home, and then flowers I am attracted to. So I generally think of flowers just like I think of people. 

liminal spaces

“The spatial dimension of liminality can include specific places, larger zones or areas, or entire countries and larger regions.Liminal places can range from borders and frontiers to no man's lands and disputed territories, to crossroads to perhaps airports, hotels, and bathrooms which are spaces people pass through but do not live in.”

I feel like I oscillate between establishing homes for the characters, and using liminal spaces a lot. I think I used these mainly in my old fics, but sometimes I still like to reach for them. 

The motel he stops at is far from the city, and looks like it could be accidentally demolished any day, as it seems to be completely abandoned. But Paulo knows it’s still open, and barely anyone there cares who rents the rooms.

The room is far from nice, but as long as it has a bed and running water, it’s all they need.    

Álvaro hasn’t said anything since Paulo picked him off the ground and cut the zip tie on his wrists. Paulo suspects that he concentrates on staying conscious. At least whenever he peeked at him from the driver’s seat, Álvaro’s lips and hands were shaking, and by the time they get into the tiny bathroom, he is barely able to stand. Paulo peels off his shirt and the torn jeans, and almost gasps. Álvaro’s body is colored in bruises, none of them dangerous, but all with the purpose of hurting. But Álvaro doesn’t complain, save for an occasional hiss, almost like he takes it as his penance.

Paulo helps him into the bathtub and lets him sit down. Then he reaches for the shower, an old thing that sprays water everywhere, and starts to wash him, not really touching him, just letting the hot streams run over his body. He then scrubs the dirt and blood out of Álvaro’s hair with the hotel soap and tries to dry him as gently as possible with the scratchy towels.

(No Rest For The Wicked)

I am big about the vibe of buildings. As much as I don’t think of myself as of a spiritual person, sensitive to whatever supernatural may exist in this world, and I have trouble perceiving human emotions, I can feel buildings. That’s my quirk. I have a whole theory of buildings, and my own terminology - for example, I know that old houses built of stone are grounded - they have a stable energy, and if I spend some time inside, I just feel very calm, relaxed and at peace. 

I often go to liminal spaces when there’s a transition in the story.

The sky is pale pink interwoven with blue veins, and they both shake from cold and fatigue. They can see the border from here. Ander leans over the car, soaking in the warmth from the engine.

A car’s headlights blink from somewhere behind the border. Andoni grabs his bag. Ander watches him silently.

You could go with me, Andoni says then.

Ander shakes his head slightly. He can’t go anywhere. Your war is over. I still have a lot of battles to fight.

(Hold My Hand When This Ends)

Same here:

He looks like a ghost.

Not that Simon believes in ghosts, but at night the road becomes a strange place, almost like he can cross the line between this world and some alternate space anytime. Sometimes, when he stops for a cup of coffee at a gas station this late, and he’s the only one sitting there, he feels like he’s all alone in the world, like the whole population was wiped out during some catastrophe or epidemics and he’s the only miraculous survivor.

But although he knows that the person he’s seeing is real, has to be real, what is he supposed to think of a boy walking down the side of the road dressed only in jeans and a white sweatshirt when Simon is sure - and the red digits on his car stereo temperature display confirm it - it’s freezing cold outside?

(like all good kids from broken homes)

The whole fic is basically about liminal spaces - it’s about that moment of transition, and there’s basically no plot needed, the liminal spaces do all the magic.

The room is small and simple, with the obligatory double bed, because paradoxically one’s not expected to sleep alone in a place like this, but it’s at least warm and relatively clean. Viktor looks around like a trapped animal, and it takes him some time to relax at least enough to let go of his backpack and kick off the wet trainers.

“I think a hot shower will do you good,” Simon says, nodding towards the tiny bathroom.

For the first time, Viktor’s lips curl in a smile. “Will you feed me, too, and tuck me in bed?”

(like all good kids from broken homes)

Liminal spaces are something I personally love, because they have a special energy, time is very altered there, and they feel like a half-step, like a portal to something new. (The best liminal spaces are the F1 and Ibis budget hotels in France. Their lobby at about 1 AM can take your mind to very interesting places. Gas stations in the middle of the night come closely second.)

#writing

[jbbuckybarnes]

Stranded in Manhattan

Description: You are stranded inside of the building your publishing agency is housed in. A snowstorm hit New York without warnings and you can’t leave for a few hours. What sounds like a boring afternoon ends up being quite the ride. Prompt: Stranded somewhere due to inclement weather (Seb x Reader) Length: 2,6k+ Warnings: Reader is written as someone with a skin tone that makes blushing visible. Just shoot me an ask if you want me to write something specific with a WoC reader. Always open for that.

M A S T E R L I S T

You had just finished your meeting for the next magazine. Writing articles for a lifestyle magazine was your favorite part of being a freelance writer. Well, not completely freelance. You were kind of part of the main team but not with a permanent contract. A look outside of the window had you roll your eyes and grumble. “You shouldn’t go outside for the next 2-3 hours. There is a warning out.” a female colleague outside of the meeting room looked at you. “Great. I’m just gonna draft my article in the foyer then,” you muttered before saying goodbye with a few kind words.

In the lobby of the building, there already were a lot of people waiting for the storm to calm down. There was only one couch left that wasn’t already occupied by at least one person and you let yourself fall onto the soft furniture with a small sigh. Laptop opened, the document opened and there you went writing the magazine article for next week already. At least you had WiFi in here and could research for your draft. Every ten minutes one or two new people came down in the elevator and sat down beside someone else. After an hour there were only 5 seats left in the entire lobby and you would probably be one of the next ones.

“Excuse me? Could I sit here?” you heard an oddly familiar voice and looked up. “Sure.” you smiled and pushed your bag to the side. There was a long moment of silence and you staring at your screen before you finally said something. “What were you here for?” you asked with a little smile and got one back. “My acting agency is here. Meeting.” he shrugged, “You?” “Publisher meeting with the magazine I write for,” you answered. “Sebastian.” he held out his hand. “I know. Y/N.” you smiled back at him. Contrary to your belief he didn’t change much after you told him you knew him. “Which magazine do you write for?” he asked curiously. “Flow magazine. Lifestyle, personal development, mindfulness. That kinda thing.” you blushed a little. It always made you nervous to talk about your job with people that weren’t writers. His natural cuteness didn’t help. “That’s cool. And what are you currently writing about?” he looked at your hands on the laptop that was half-closed. “Mindful Dating. It’s pretty weird to research and hard to not make it sound hippie.” you opened the laptop again to show that you had written half a page for your 2-3 page spread on the topic. “I assume it starts with mindfully picking the right person to ask out.” he chuckled and picked his water bottle from his backpack. “Actually starts with finding out what you even want and where to find it but that’s definitely a part of it.” you smiled a bit awkwardly. “This sounds so cool compared to my few pages of script that I currently have to get into.” he sent a shy smile back. “Does it become less fun to get into a character when you do it longer and professionally?” you ask to steer the conversation away from you. “Sometimes. Especially when I don’t have a lot of backstory for my character to get into.” he shrugged his shoulders. “I always loved doing plays in high school.” you looked away in thought about your high school years. “What did you have?” his head dipped to the side a little in curiosity. “Romeo & Juliette, Beauty & the Beast, some play local college students wrote and the last one was...Cinderella.” you counted them. “Any big roles?” he smiled with shimmering eyes. “I had the main role in the college student one.” you giggled. It was a really dumb play and your memories of it are really chaotic. “God, I’d love to see videos of that. You definitely seem like you could pull off a lot of different characters. I mean, the appearance.” he got a bit unsure at the end if he worded it right.  You couldn’t help but giggle a little, “Yeah, could pull that black wig off better nowadays tho.” “Um, what plans did that blizzard ruin for you? Never asked,” he said with a one-sided smile while scratching his neck. “Not much. Wanted to go write in the library or meet a friend but that clearly won’t happen,” you shook your head looking outside of the window before your head went back to him, “You?” He played with the strings on his hoodie, “Technically the rest of my day was finally a free day. So only ruined my Netflix marathon.” He saw you smile when he looked up from the strings again, “Well, I have WiFi and this building probably has a more chill area. We technically COULD watch Netflix.” Another unsure smirk from him with an almost apologizing smile coming back from you made the short silence weirder than it needed to be. “Sure.” he shrugged. If somebody would’ve told you, that you would be in an empty meeting room with one of your Top 20 favorite actors, watching Netflix because you were snowed in, you would’ve flipped them off. You were both sitting on the table beside each other and had spread out the food and water you had with you. Weird circumstances called for weirder actions in response. The Netflix logo popped up, then your name with a Jessica Jones icon staring at you and after that the list of movies on your big list. “What do you wanna watch?” you looked up at him and he was already looking at you. “You can choose whatever you want. It’s your account.” he held his hands up. “Brooklyn 99 it is.” you nodded and clicked on the next episode you needed to watch. You were a few episodes in when you just needed to let go of the thought, that you had held prisoner in your head for two episodes. “You're the perfect mixture between Jake & Boyle,” you mumbled. “Definitely more Jake,” he mumbled back, his eyes darting to look at the smile that had formed on your lips. You didn’t notice. And then Jake came in with his legendary guitar scene full of screaming. “Jep, definitely more Jake.” you laughed. He lightly nudged you with a small laugh. You weren’t wrong. Another 2 episodes went by and you checked your phone for the time. It’s been 2 hours now. Maybe you could go soon. “Another one?” he asked with a big smile on his face. “Of course.” you put your phone away and jumped over the outro to the next episode.

“It’s been over two hours. Let me check the warnings in Manhattan.” you took your phone after another two episodes and stopped the show with the other hand. Your weather app was showing an orange warning instead of a red one. “Well, orange should be enough to get home, right?” you looked up at him. “Depends where you live.” he smiled one of those half smirk, half innocent smiles. “Queens,” you muttered. “That’s quite a long ride in that weather.” his right brow went up. “I definitely don’t wanna stay in this uncomfortable and way too air-conditioned building,” you said neutrally. “I live 4 blocks away and there is a café on the ground floor we could stay in.” now the smirk turned into a real smirk. “Are you flirting with me?” you raised your eyebrow. “Been trying for almost three hours. Thanks for noticing.” he laughed lightly and saw you get a little flustered. “Umm.” with a shy expression on your face you put the laptop into your bag. “Don’t leave me hanging here after I asked you for a date.” he pouted playfully. You opened your mouth at the mention of a date but closed it again after no sentence your brain formed came out. “Sure,” you said with the biggest blush on your face after a few seconds. With a smile on his face and you biting your lip you both stood up and slowly left the building through the lobby that was much emptier now. An arm found its way around you, making you flinch a little. “Did you always live in New York?” his voice was harder to hear with the big jacket on. “No, moved here from Y/C.” you answered and got a soft smile in response while you held the hood of your jacket to stay on in the wind. “God, I hate this weather.” you stomped in the snow on the sidewalk like a child having a tantrum. “You kinda look like you enjoy it though.” he laughed at your attempt at kicking the snow. “I love winter. I hate that it gets so ugly and depressing so fast. I’m just here for the snow.” you pointed your tongue at him. If he had voiced his feelings at that moment, he would’ve probably told you that he wanted to pick you up and carry you the rest of the way for you to stop complaining about the wind. “Do that again and you have that snow flying at you,” he said trying to pinch you. “Don’t you DARE!” you played into it. “Watch me do it.” he smiled picking up snow and you started running. “He’s fast, strong, had snowballs.” you quoted laughing and a snowball hit your back. “The Winter Soldier is coming for you.” he made himself bigger but had a snowball landing on his chest after a few seconds. You looked at him innocently and he blinked before running for you and catching you with a growl that made you squeak. “Help!” you said giggling at this absolute dork moment you just had. “Target acquired. Bringing it to drop off location,” he said near your ear and started giggling like an idiot with you. The bell of the café door had the waiter in the almost empty room look up at the both of you. “Hello, Sebastian.” the man smiled at the tall brunette beside you. “Hey, can you make us two hot chocolates and two pieces of the chocolate cake, please?” came back at the waiter. Having someone help you out with getting out of a jacket felt weird. You weren’t used to gestures like that anymore and mumbled a small “Thank you.” You sat down on one of the tables and he leaned forward with a, “I won.” “There never was a competition, Stan,” you said putting down your bag.

“Didn’t mean the snowball fight.” he winked and watched you blush. Before you could say anything mugs and plates were set down in front of you. “Tell me about yourself.” he gave you an encouraging smile and you started talking. About your creative roots, what else you wanted to become when you were younger and how you felt about the things you did now. Some sentences had a vague political orientation in it and your stances on social issues. “Sorry, I’m talking a lot.” you noticed yourself rambling and looked down at the half-eaten cake. “No, I like listening to you.” he picked up the mug. “I’d like to know more about you too.” you smiled with some confidence from what he just said. He started talking about what he was currently doing, his mother, a bit about his roots and what his future plans were. He was good at this whole talking on a date thing. “You like astronomy?” he asked out of the blue with his fork pointing at you. “Yeah.” you grinned. “What’s the coolest thing about it?” he asked. “Nebulas. And I recently learned about hot Jupiters. Super interesting.” you mentioned the article you recently found while researching for a personal project. “A woman of class, I see.” he chuckled before taking his last bite of the chocolate cake. “No, a woman of space,” you smirked and got warm laughter back. You checked the phone again. The warning was on red again and a look outside of the window checked out with it. He noticed your look outside, “You can stay at my apartment. If you...want.” he said a bit unsure himself. “Uuuh.” you didn’t really know how to answer this. “Not in a weird way.” he distanced himself a bit from the table into his seat. “I guess I wouldn’t have another choice, even if I wanted to say no.” your soft expression had him visibly relax. You stood up, he gave the waiter on the counter the money and then you both made your way to a pair of elevators. “This feels mildly awkward.” you spoke out what both of you felt. “Doesn’t have to.” he smiled, snapping out of it. The moment the elevator opened you snapped out of it too. You knew there wasn’t anything to be afraid of. Yes, this was weird because you just met him but the circumstances were not in your hand. He was respectful, and if he wasn’t you knew how to kick his ass. Everything was fine. Even with both of you not talking in the elevator there was still a comfortable silence. That was until fingers started searching for yours and capturing your hand in a gentle manner. It’s not that you didn’t want this but it was very unusual and sudden. Like everything else today. Sure, you didn’t mind holding hands with pretty much anyone you knew but this wasn’t just anybody. This was someone you just had a proper date with and that kinda had your brain go in circles. “Relax, I’m not trying to get you into my bed.” he gently nudged you and locked down at you with a soft smile. “Sorry, I’m just not used to this...normality.” you tried to find a word for it, immediately shaking your head a little at choosing this particular word for it. “Welcome. Make yourself comfortable.” he said while you walked past him holding the door open. “Nice couch.” you pointed at it. It was one of those expensive, big, soft ones that everybody secretly wanted. You let yourself fall on it. He let himself fall next to you after throwing his jacket and yours over a chair. “Almost too conveniently placed.” you squinted at him beside you. “Hey! Don’t judge!” he laughed. “Too late. I judged.” you giggled before noticing his stare. “What?” your brow went up. “Nothing.” his eyes went away from your eyes and lips and looked at the ceiling again. “What are we going to do the rest of the evening now?” you asked. “More Netflix?” he returned a question. “Fine. But I only accept documentaries.” you grinned. Of course, the documentary he put on was about space and you both just absorbed the information you got. You didn’t even notice the arm around you after a while or the gentle pull towards him that had you cuddled up by the end of the documentary. “You’re a sneaky little asshole.” you said sleepy. “Only with pretty women.” his hand went through your hair. You looked up at him “Thank you for making this day much less boring.” you smiled and caught him staring again. “Can I kiss you?” he whispered so close to your face, his hand going from your hair to your jaw. With rosy cheeks, you nodded and had soft lips on yours a moment later. A normal thing to happen after a date but you still weren’t used to it. The thumb going over your cheek got you out of the overthinking again. Right now, all you wanted to concentrate on was those soft lips and that slightly scratchy skin. The hand cupping your face, the arm pulling you closer and the tongue brushing against your lower lip. Everything is perfect right now, no need to overthink it.

#sebastian stan #sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan x y/n #sebastian stan fanfiction #sebastian x you #sebastian x reader #sebastian stan imagine #bucky barnes #tj hammond #chris beck #dayton white #james buchanan barnes #the winter soldier #marvel actor #actor #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky x you #marvel cinematic universe #mcu #avengers endgame #manhattan #new york city #sebedit #marvel fanfic #sebastian stan fluff

[nataliedanovelist]

GF - Beauty Within the Fallen ch.IV

Summary: Two misfit twins come across an enchanted castle, home of a mysterious beast, and slowly begin to form a strong bond that just might survive through anything. Even evil demons.

AU and artwork belong to the beautiful and very talented @artsycrapfromsai​. Go give her some love, guys!!!

ch.III - ch.V

~~~~~~~~~~

A loud bang scared the kids awake. Mabel pushed her messy brown hair out of her eyes and Dipper had to take a moment to remember where he was and why he was here. They looked at the door to find Stan the beast standing there with a scowl on his face. “OY! Rise and shine, runts! Hurry up and do your chores, and maybe I'll think about giving you breakfast. Food tastes better after you work for it, anyway.”

Mabel quickly tied her hair back with her pink handkerchief. “Oui, Monsieur Stan.” she said as she jumped down. Dipper frowned at the beast as he left the kids alone to get up; he suspected this kind of behavior, but it didn’t mean he liked it. The twins quickly got dressed and they found Wendy at the bottom of the stairs. “Good, you’re up.” She led the way through and said, “Before breakfast, you two need to dust and sweep the front door. After breakfast, you’ll move to the ballroom and clean the whole thing, even climb up to the chandeliers and get the cobwebs out. Cleaning that whole mess’ll take all day. You got it?” “Don’t you worry, Madame Wendy!” Mabel said as she grabbed a broom and handed a duster to her brother, both tools waiting for them by the exit. “Eyes on the prize!” Dipper and Mabel went outside and met chilly air with a bright sun. On the stony entrance, they warmed up like lizards on rocks and got to work, sweeping fallen leaves away and dusting the lamps so they shined brighter. Dipper paused his work at the handle of one lantern and awed. “Wow, Mabel, come look at this. The way the metal swirls… the colors… This place really is beautiful.” Mabel looked at what her brother was looking at and smiled. “You’re right, Dip-Dip. All this place needs is a little love.” And she swept a pile of leaves off onto the ground to further prove her point, showing a shiny, pretty entrance. Dipper looked up at the tall towers and the enormous castle. He remembered what Soos said yesterday and he speculated out-loud, “I wonder what kind of mysteries are in this place. I have so many questions. Like, how is this even possible? Who exactly is Stan? Did he just come across this place and made it his home? And what about the talking furniture and tools and stuff?” Mabel leaned against the broom. “Those are great questions. Maybe after chores we can explore!” “Maybe…” “BREAKFAST!” The grandfather clock by the door screamed. “Great!” Mabel cheered and hurried inside. Once again, when the kids saw that Stan was nowhere to be seen, Mabel led the way up to his room. Dipper was more hesitant, but he did agree with his twin that Stan should eat. Maybe he just wasn’t a breakfast person. At the first door on the stairwell, advised not to go farther by Soos last night, Mabel knocked cheerfully. “Monsieur Stan, breakfast’s ready! Wanna eat with us?” Dipper crossed his arms over his chest. It took a few moments for the doors to open but when they did Mabel was grinning. Stan shrugged casually. “Sure. I could use some more coffee.” After eggs with toast and hot tea for the kids and black coffee for the beast, Dipper and Mabel went off to clean the ballroom. They gasped at the vast room with the huge balcony and even Dipper had to admit he was looking forward to making this place sparkle and shine. The ceiling was at least forty feet high and the room was a beautiful circle with a thirty-feet long diameter. By the wall, on their left, stood a grand piano. Mabel dropped her bucket of cleaning supplies and rushed to the musical instrument and found, oddly enough, that it was the only thing not dusty. Someone must come in often to play it. “Dipper, look! A real piano to play! I haven’t seen one since our last playdate with Gideon.” “Me, neither.” Dipper joined his sister and silently ran his fingers over the keys. The piano opened her eyes by the music-sheet stand and giggled. “Oh! That tickles!” Dipper’s face turned red and he pulled away his hand with a yell of shock. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” “Hi, I’m Mabel!” The girl greeted. “This is Dipper!” “Bonjour! I’m Melody! Want some music while you work?” “Yes, yes! Fiddleford says cleaning is fun with music. Here, do you know this song?” She pressed a key to find a note and began to sing before playing the piano. “Every task you undertake, becomes a piece of cake! A lark! A spree! It's very clear to see that…” The girl dragged on, and Melody the piano picked it up. “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, the medicine go down-wown, medicine go down! Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down in a most delightful way!” Mabel picked up a duster and she and Dipper quickly got to work, the piano playing songs and singing beautifully, whether the kids sang along or not. ~~~~~~~~~~ Stan waited for some words to form on the page after spilling about everything. Bits and pieces were suddenly making sense, leaving the other half of the conversation shocked. Stanley, It took a moment for more words to form after that. Stan could almost hear his brother’s desperate, low tone. Have you considered the idea that these children may help us break the curse? “I may be an idiot, Sixer, but I’m not stupid.” Stan growled. The journal was still once more for a few moments. I know it is dangerous to hope, but they could help. Stan didn’t respond. He looked away. The journal waited for a response, but soon the beast slowly rose his head, his ears flicking with faint sound. “Hold up.” Stan stood from his armchair. “Is that… music?” Stan opened the door, now only one corridor blocking the sound, and he growled. “What are those kids up to now?” Stanley, Luckily the beast caught the sudden appearance of words out of the corner of his eye. Let it play. I haven’t heard music in so long. Stan looked at that sentence sorrowfully, sighed, and sat back in his chair, letting the music barely seep into the West Wing. ~~~~~~~~~~ He almost requested to be moved out of the West Wing and down to meet the children, but that was out of the question. He knew there was no way Stanley would let him leave the safety of this room. It was suffocating. ~~~~~~~~~~ Mabel and Dipper accepted the glasses of water from Candy in the afternoon, sweaty and dirty from the dust, but they were happy with their work. The room was just too big for two kids to get it all done in one day, but they got a lot done and though Dipper’s arms ached and Mabel was sneezing from the dust, they were proud. The door opened wider and the beast was there. He looked over the room and down at the kids. Dipper readied himself to be scolded for not getting it all done, but Stan snorted a smile. “That’s impressive, kids. Good job. Still got your work cut out for you, though.” Mabel saluted like they were in the army. “We’ll get it done, Monsieur Stan!” Stan waved her promise away nonchalantly. “Well, dinner’ll be ready by the time you two have a bath. You two need it.” Mabel sneezed and giggled, admitted that Stan was right, and he left them alone again. At dinner, Dipper decided to test his luck and ask a question. “Monsieur Stan, can we go find Fiddleford?” Stan raised an eyebrow. “That your friend?” “Yes.” Dipper nodded. “Please, what if he’s hurt or he can’t find us. I bet together we could find him.” “Yeah!” Mabel said encouragingly. “Please, please, please Monsieur Stan!” “No.” Stan said firmly and then spoke in a calmer tone. “It’s too dangerous out there. You kids were almost killed. You’re staying here.” “But what if Fiddleford is in danger?” Dipper asked; he didn’t want to bring up the possibility or worry Mabel, but he had to be realistic. Mabel’s smile dropped and she looked devastated at the idea. “I said no, kid.” Stan growled. “It’s best if you stay here and let this guy find you. Didn’t your parents ever teach you to do that when you get lost? You stay still and don’t move until someone finds you.” Mabel bit her lip and looked down at her plate. Dipper scowled at the beast for hurting his sister, even if unintentionally, and he muttered bitterly, “Our parents are dead.” Stan looked down at the children sympathetically and a compassionate sound rumbled in his chest, but was very quiet. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” “It’s okay.” Mabel said at once, picking up the regret in his voice. “We were only babies. That’s why Fiddleford takes care of us.” Stan gave it some thought. He watched as Dipper took one of Mabel’s hands and squeezed it. She smiled at him and held his hand even tighter. Stan smiled a little at that, reminded of another set of twins, and he said, “Well, I don’t know much about good parenting, but I’d bet this Fiddlebucket guy would want you safe in a castle instead of out looking for him in the woods. I’m sure he’ll find this place soon and take you home.” “Merci, Monsieur Stan,” Mabel said, smiling at him. “For letting us stay here.” Stan stood and headed towards the exit. “Heck, I should be thanking you knuckleheads for being willing to stay with a monster and not cut off his head.” Mabel’s heart dropped. She opened her mouth to correct him, but the door was closed and he was gone. Two more days passed, each just the same as the last, except the beast and the children were becoming more comfortable with each other. Telling stories and jokes, getting to know each other more than just sad, lost children and a lonely, scary beast. Still, every night, Dipper and Mabel begged to look for Fiddleford, and every time they asked Stan got angrier. Dipper was bold enough to try his luck again, and when he did, Stan slammed his claws on the table so hard it broke several dishes and made the kids still as stone. “FINE!” He roared and he stood up. “Fine, here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna go look for him and bring him here. You two, STAY HERE! DO NOT leave this castle! Understand?” Dipper just scowled at the beast. Mabel found it in here to nod. Stan left quickly, too angry to admit that he was losing his temper, but he managed to catch a tiny voice saying “merci” before he was out of the room. Dipper gave his sister a look and shook his head. He wasn’t going to thank the beast until they were reunited with Fiddleford again. The twins settled in the living room, by the fire. Mabel was bored, antsy, and wanted to do something fun. She wished she had some knitting with her. The last few days they told stories with Stan or jokes or played games, but with him gone and the uncertainty of him coming back with Fiddleford hanging over their heads, the kids were silent for awhile. “Hey, Dipper? Wanna read a book? I bet Soos or Wendy could find us one.” “No thanks.” “How about we play music in the ballroom.” “I’m sick of the ballroom right now.” Dipper sat up straighter on the couch (before being slouched over with his chin on his fist) and he suggested, “Let’s go exploring. No one ever told us we couldn’t.” Mabel smiled and hopped down from the couch. “Okay!” The kids had already seen their bedroom, the washroom, the dining hall, the ballroom, and the living room. So where to explore next? They wandered up the stairs, looking at old paintings and decoration. They were heading towards the door they usually knocked on for Stan and decided to venture on, agreeing that if it looked like they were reaching his bedroom, they would stop and turn around. “This castle is like a dream.” Mabel said as she twirled on the spot. Dipper pulled the door open and gasped. “Or a nightmare.” Mabel looked at what her twin was looking at and gasped, too. A corridor, trashed and ruined, laid before them, the carpet ripped, scratches on the walls, furniture and paintings destroyed. The kids slowly entered, curiosity getting the better of them, and observed their surroundings carefully. Ahead, a set of double-doors stood, so they approached it and worked together to open the door, pulling hard and letting an eerie creak ring. They found a large room that was just as torn, if not worse, than the corridor. Drapes dangled, vases were shattered, dust covered every surface. Hesitantly, the twins entered, looking around. Mabel caught sight of a messy bed and held onto Dipper’s arm. She looked around and saw a huge portrait that caught her attention. Parts were in shreds, like the face of the father and the eldest child and the mother was hidden by a curtain, but two twin boys stood in their nicest clothes, smiling. One had his arm wrapped around the other’s neck, and the other brother had his hands behind his back. The painting seemed to be so real, like it had purpose, like it wasn’t just a nice decoration. Mabel was uncomfortable, feeling like she was invading. “L-Let’s go.” She quivered, tugging on Dipper’s arm. Dipper was about to agree with her, but he saw something else and his eyes sparkled with interest. “Mabel, look.” There was one thing in the room perfectly intact. By the balcony, in a glass case, stood a book. A maroon book with golden trim and a six-fingered hand on the front stood on a little end table. So much care had been put into preserving it, it must be for a reason. Why would the beast take such good care of a book? Predicting that it had valuable information, Dipper slowly approached. Mabel allowed herself to be pulled gently towards the book, still holding onto her brother’s arm. Dipper looked at the book. Never before had he seen such a beautiful book in all his life, all the ones in the Valentino library old and worn. His thirst for knowledge and his love for books had him slowly lift the glass cover off of the book and set it on the floor. He picked up the book carefully, finding it as big as his arms, and he opened it. He was crestfallen to find it blank. Dipper flipped through a few pages and said, “It’s a journal. With nothing in it.” “Maybe it was a gift.” Mabel guessed. She ran a hand over a page and smiled at how soft it was. “It’s beautiful.” She breathed softly. Dipper thought his eyes were playing tricks on him in the darkness, but no. Slowly, ink soaked into the pages, coming from nowhere, and read Thank you. Greetings. Dipper, in shock, accidentally dropped the journal on it’s spine and forced himself and Mabel back. A page fell out of the journal and it laid open, nothing changing. Mabel was about to scold Dipper, but then more words appeared on the page. Ouch. “Dipper!” Mabel punched him on the shoulder and scooped up the journal. “I’m sorry, Monsieur Journal. Here, I’ll fix you up.” She picked up the page, kissed it, and placed it in the book, hoping something magical would happen, like the binding would take the page back, but the page fell onto the floor like a leaf from a tree. It’s alright, my dear. That happens sometimes. Though falling on my spine is rare. Mabel smiled sympathetically, detecting a joke, but maybe she was misinterpreting a harsh comment for sarcasm. Maybe not. Dipper rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m really sorry for dropping you, Monsieur Journal.” Apology accepted, but please call me Ford. “Sure. Sorry, Monsieur Ford.” Dipper said. “I’m Dipper and this is my sister, Mabel.” Bonjour. It’s lovely to make your acquaintance. What brings you here? Dipper and Mabel blushed a little in their cheeks. “We… we were exploring.” Dipper answered. Ah, I see. My brother and I used to explore all the time as children. The trouble we would get into drove the staff mad. “The staff?” Dipper repeated. “You mean, you grew up here?” He looked back at the painting of the two boys. Yes, a long time ago. “Neat-o!” Mabel complimented, still cradling the book ever so gently. “You must have a lot of stories!” As a matter of fact, I do. “Well, we love books!” Mabel sat on her knees, and Dipper peered down, interested. “Fire away, Monsieur Ford!” The whole journal quivered, as if chuckling, and sure enough, small letters appeared on a page, making hmmm, suggesting maybe a warm chuckle. I love your energy. Well, there was one time when we… “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Mabel closed the journal and held it close to her chest, protecting it. Dipper stood in front of his sister with his arms outstretched. The beast ran towards them on all fours and stopped just inches from the kids, growling with fire in his eyes. Dipper stood strong in front of his sister, determined to keep her safe, meanwhile she couldn’t understand how someone so nice could be so… so scary. Stan, with a shaking claw and heavy breaths, reached towards them. “Give him to me.” He growled in such a low, cold, scary voice, that Mabel’s eyes filled with tears. She was flooded with the sense that she had done something very wrong. She scooted an inch to the side, better out from behind Dipper, and held out the journal. Stan carefully took the book and hunched over slightly, keeping it close to his chest and against his fur. Dipper pulled Mabel away from the beast, still on her knees, but Dipper was ready to scoop her up and run if needed. The beast moved it’s furious eyes back on them and Dipper felt a shiver go down his spine, but he refused to be seen as weak. “Why did you come here?” The beast growled dangerously. “W-We’re sorry, M-Monsieur Stan.” Mabel piped, quiet as a mouse. “W-W-We were just exploring and… and…” “You BRATS! After everything I’ve done for you, you’re NOTHING BUT TROUBLE! GET OUT! GET OUT!!!” Dipper pulled Mabel up and they ran as fast as they could. Mabel was grateful that Dipper was pulling her, because her eyes were full of tears and it was hard to see. The second the twins were gone, Stan felt like he was sinking. He had allowed his monstrous temper to get out of hand. Again. He took in a few deep breaths to calm down and he opened the journal. “Stanford, are you okay? Did those kids hurt you?” No, Stanley. I’m fine. Those children would never harm me. The beast’s eyes found the page on the floor. Seeing this, the journal made new words on the page. You and I both know that happens randomly. Stan sighed languidly, the whole world on his shoulders. “We’re running out of time.” That may be so, but with the little time I have left I wish to spend it outside a glass container and among good people. Like you. Stan could hear his brother’s lecturing tone. “I’m not a good person, Sixer. I proved that just now.” He said darkly as guilt overwhelmed him, a feeling he was far too used to. So go apologize. Then when you come back, bring the children with you. I wish to tell them embarrassing stories about my brother. Stan somehow managed an anemic smile. He only heard half the conversation with his excellent hearing on the way here from the woods (more like a fourth of the conversation, since he had no way of knowing what his brother had written), but from what he could tell the kids and Ford were having a good time together. He knew it was paranoid and selfish for Stan to keep Ford locked away like this, but what if something happened to him? He was already losing him slowly. He just couldn’t lose him, but he wanted Ford to be happy just as much as he wanted him to be safe. “Okay, Sixer.” Stan closed the journal, laid him on the table, and left. Meanwhile, in the freezing cold, wrapped in black cloaks, the twins were running in the woods, Dipper leading the way, gripping Mabel’s hand. They swatted past branches and trees, running farther away from the castle as fast as they could. “If that beast won’t help us we’ll just have to find Fiddleford ourselves.” Dipper sneered. “Dipper, how will we find him?” Mabel asked. They began to slow down. Scared and angry and hurt, the kids had acted irrationally, leaving without supplies or even a lantern. Still, pride and stubbornness clouded the boy’s mind, so he said, “We’ll just have to look carefully. Come on. Fiddleford! Fiddleford!” The kids walked in the woods, holding hands, and called out his name. Dark clouds rolled over the full moon, their only light course, and so they moved carefully through the dark forest in order to avoid being hurt again. Mabel squeezed Dipper’s hand and stopped them all of a sudden. “Wait, did you hear that?” Dipper listened through the howling wind and he thought he heard a small noise through the bushes. He peered in the same direction as his sister and they gasped to find a pig scurrying towards them. “WADDLES!” Mabel cheered with glee and let go of Dipper to run to her pet pig and pick him up, hugging him tightly. “Oh, my Waddles! Have you been looking for us since no one came home? Good pig! Good pig!” Dipper smiled and rubbed the pig’s head, who oinked happily. “It’s good to see you too, buddy.” The happy reunion was ruined when they heard a low growl. Dipper hugged Mabel tightly and her grip on Waddles grew stronger, who trembled in her arms. They could hear howling, so Dipper grabbed one of Mabel’s arms and she put the pig down. “Come on!” They ran through the woods, hoping to get far away from the wolves and to live to see the sun rise. Waddles ran right behind the twins as they went up and down a hill, tripping on tree roots but coming up okay. Just as they were at the bottom of the hill, a wolf jumped in front of them gray-blue fur covering it’s skinny body and it’s razor sharp teeth unmasked by a snarling muzzle. This wolf was not going to leave without some food. Mabel screamed. Dipper picked up a fallen branch and was ready to attack the wolf with it. Waddles scampered in front of the kids and oinked warningly at the wolf, but the savage animal roared and the pig was so scared it squealed and ran to be behind Mabel. Dipper swung the branch at the wolf and hit it over the head, dazing it. Mabel acted quickly, grabbing a rock, and threw it. The wolf stumbled, whined, and ran off over the hill and was gone. Dipper breathed heavily, his heart racing and he smiled at his sister. “G-G-Good… job.” He panted. “You too, bro-bro.” Mabel hugged him, relieved and proud, and then got on her knees to pet a shaken Waddles. “Poor Waddles, you were so brave.” Dipper smiled down at his family, but his eyes and ears caught something else. At the top of the hill, a bigger, meaner, scarier wolf appeared. He howled out into the night air and more of his pack joined. It appeared that the wolf the twins had fought off was the weakest one, the runt, and they will pay for bullying him. Mabel picked up Waddles and another rock; Dipper tightened his hold on his branch, ready to fight and protect his sister. The wolves came running down, circling their dinner. Dipper swung his branch like a club, keeping the wolves at bay, but one grabbed the stick with his teeth and snapped it in two. Dipper threw the sad remains of his weapon at it and hit it on the head. One wolf behind Mabel ambushed and bit her dress, dragging her and Waddles. She screamed bloody murder, terrified, and Dipper cried out and reached out for her hand. Suddenly, something cloaked in red pounced on the wolf that had a hold of the little girl and threw it against a tree. The wolf staggered up, roaring, but a beast stood in front of the children on all four and roared more horribly. Mabel stared as Dipper hugged his sister close. “Stan?” She whispered in shock. The wolves circled them, sizing Stan up. Should they work together to try to earn enough food to keep them full for a month, or should they retreat and not take the risk. The alpha seemed to have decided to engage in combat, for it snapped at Stan and the beast retaliated viciously. As the wolves piled on Stan, attacking together as one threat, Dipper held Mabel against his chest, shielding her eyes from the fight in case it turned ugly. She allowed it, squeezing her eyes shut and petting Waddles, her ears forced to hear the growling or wolves and Stan’s painful roars. Dipper watched as the beast worked tirelessly to keep any wolves away from them; one almost jumped on Dipper, but Stan grabbed it’s tail and threw it away in the fight like it was a stuffed toy. Dipper almost didn’t dare to believe the strength Stan had, but the beast was tackling the whole pack of wolves singlehandedly and despite the bites to the necks and his ribs, he was winning. At one point Stan roared so loudly the whole woods trembled and the wolves whined like dogs and ran off, admitting defeat and fleeing up the hill. As they left, with his back to the children, Stan slowly rose to his back paws like a man. A breeze ruffled his gray fur and red cape, exposing a bleeding arm that he held with his opposite paw. He panted for breath, his head spinning, but ignored it all and turned to look at Dipper and Mabel. Stan’s eyes were soft and lost the fire they held earlier. “Knuckleheads… I meant get outta the room… not the…” His strength left him and he fell onto the dead grass. Surprising Mabel, Dipper was the one to run to him and fall on his knees by his side. His little hands hover over the beast, unsure of what to do or how to help, but there was no way he wasn’t going to do something. Mabel put Waddles down and joined Dipper. The twins exchanged looks and nodded, their twin telepathy in play. Mabel moved to Stan’s left side and Dipper kept to his right and used his black cloak to cover his bleeding arm; a wolf had scratched it pretty bad in the fight. Waddles nudged his head gently and he started to come back. “You gotta help us, man.” Dipper said. “Can you stand up?” Stan growled in his throat, powering through his pain, and with Mabel and Dipper under his arms for support, he soon stood on his back paws again. Slowly, with Waddles leading the way, the kids helped Stan limp towards the castle. Under his breath, coming and going from his daze, Stan huffed, “Thanks.” Dipper looked up at him and swallowed. “Thank you, for saving our lives.” Mabel gave his uninjured arm a comforting squeeze. To help them all feel better, she hummed a tune quietly. All of them were so distracted that they didn’t notice that a few snowflakes had fallen from the dark clouds above.

~~~~~~~~~~

Author’s Note: Phew! The next few chapters are longer than the first three, FYI. Now, since Dipper and Mabel are sharing the role of Belle, I decided to have fun with Dipper being hesitant to trust Stan, also to parallel the episode Dreamscapers and how Dipper was all for pressing the button and Mabel was the one to trust him in Not What He Seems.

I couldn't help myself and just HAD to make Melody a piano. One thing I really liked about the live-action BatB movie was the addiction of the piano, a possible homage of the huge evil piano dude in the Christmas movie. And come on, what Disney-referenced-filled story would it be without some Mary Poppins, huh? Also, consider Stan telling the kids they’re nothing but trouble a reference to Ducktales 2017, specifically when Scrooge calls his kids that in the season one finale.

Just gonna go ahead and say that working with Ford here and SO much fun! The ANGST! So much angst!!! The scene where he meets Dipper and Mabel was one I was really looking forward to writing (it should be noted that @artsycrapfromsai​’s idea for Journal-Ford came from Tom Riddle’s diary in Harry Potter, so there’s that).

As far as Waddles is concerned… I’ll talk more about him next chapter.

#GF #gravity falls #beauty within the fallen #mabel pines #dipper pines #ford pines #stan pines #fanfiction #gotta love some stan twins angst #thank you so so much to every who's been following and leaving nice comments

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the 100 diaries S3 E4

quarantine dairies: june 28 2020

season 3 episode 4: “watch the thrones”

why is the title telling me to watch the thrones? are they going somewhere? or like are they like the furniture in beauty and the beast? tell me the thrones talk in this world.

look lexa gave clarke her own little throne and right next to her

ice queen does not look epic at all. i was expecting katara and they give me this. this is my own fault for setting to high expectations

there’s so many coups in this show that they’re not surprising anymore

agni kai they said

lexa said no one fights for me. she be like im my own champion. ok lexa i respect that

woow its mister tall tan and beautiful. was bellamy just standing there waiting for the meeting to be over?

look at those teary tears. awww sad boi bellamy activated

monty my boy and jasper. still trouble in paradise i see

when you’re the only healer of your nation but there’s too many patients so you need to go to another nation for help. poor nyko

ooo a monty-jasper one-on-one adventure yes please.

I really dont like clarkes hair rn and what the heck is she wearing

look at lexa being smart having a backup plan if she dies

ronan is wannabe jon snow especially with that hairstyle and the fact that theyre also ice nation aka essentially the north. ronan even uses with a giant sword like jon snow. bitch this is guy is a watered down jon snow and you cant convince me otherwise

who let clarke out of the tower?? and literally what was with that stupidass hood clarke?

roan as king? bitch this better not happen

back onto clarkes hair: are those blood highlights? 

is that millers boyfriend or nah? cuz its kinda unclear

the writers said mass funeral/memorial

aww bellamy but he really said cheesy ass line “gina was real” was she tho? like we didnt get any proof of this

noooo he did not just stone Lincoln. that piece of shit. lincolns been through enough. yeah bellamy go help lincoln. bellamy is a loyal king and i love him for that. but also lincoln has a strong head like he be headbutting people

monty should you be snooping around in jaspers stuff? but also ashes...a tooth. is that maya? tell me he did not. wash your hands monty. also please dont tell me that jasper has one of those strange addictions in which he eats his dead girlfriends ashes

no charges bitch lincoln you should press all the charges but lincoln be the bigger man like that

sidenote/question: does lincoln shave his head everyday? 

seriously tho who is doing octavia’s hair??

ooo clarke you thought you could pull off killing the ice queen that one bitch sensed the murderous vibez 

lol they really had clarke’s actress just lay there and take the drops of fake blood on her face. i wonder how many takes this took

really clarke you couldnt have wiped your face a little bit now you have dry crusty blood on your face. 

ooo clarke talking about how she doesnt want lexa to fight...looks like someone caught feelings

so arkadia has a bar. glad to know that the ark has its priorities straight you not worried about putting people under abby to learn how to become a healer.

i gotta know does lexa does her own makeup does baldy do it for her? but also who did roan’s face?

clarke what is with that sad excuse of a hood. also talking off the hood was not a big reveal like we could clearly see her face under the hood

ugh this lexa vs. roan fight is weak honestly medial times has much better fighting sequences than this. like these blades dont even look sharp. is this the shows attempt to make lexa look cool bc sure she’s cool but ANYA i miss anya that was a badass bitch

clarke with that blinking..she is turned on. 

lexa was that allowed?! what a shot tho. i also gotta this ice queen is weak to die this way bc jasper survived worse that. but maybe its just because jasper has that super radiation blood he has crazy vitality.

“i have always done what is best for us”...i dont know about that bellamy remember the radio but i guess we can pretend that that didnt happen because hey bellamy had good intentions we cant expect him to be tall tan beautiful and smart

also since when did lincoln talk to harper or monroe like i know that they were there for his little training session but they didnt seem buddy buddy

sidenote: how the heck do no one notice bellamy just taking out these guns and handing them out? and if they did why did no one stop him?

kane really didnt tell his people about the mocking. i gotta say that pike bring up the branding and it being something they do to live stock was a pretty compelling argument

PIKE FOR CHANCELLOR?! “pike. pike. pike” nice chant bellamy. aah i miss the good old days when it was just the 100 on the ground and bellamy led all those chants.

FINN!!!! jasper stole finn’s ashes?! idk if thats better or worse than them ashes being maya’s

monty said im not fine. aww monty :( i like how they actually address this in the show tho i thought they were just gonna let it fly by like they did charlottes suicide

“float you” said monty...let these kids say 

“i miss my best friend” “he died that day too” my heart cant handle their bromance breaking up. nope i refuse this. the writers better remedy this soon.

welp there goes finn. what did jasper trip on tho like the ground was relatively flat

sooo uhh is clarke not gonna get with lexa or not cuz the tension was there doing that let me fix your wound scene

I love how pike looks at bellamy right after kane tells him that he won the election like he was looking for bellamy’s affirmation. pike be taking a lot of offical actions all at once. he does not quit 

ok kane but thats pretty bold of you to assume that you’re on the right side cuz youve done some questionable stuff yourself buddy.

#the 100 #the 100 diaries #t100

[beauty-of-sins]

Fierce(Triss/Yennefer)

Gif Credit: @0ut-of-my-head​

Prompt Request by @gayllamafromspace​:  Triss finds a baby dragon and has decided it is her child now. Yennefer has to deal with the crushing reality that she is no longer Triss's favorite. 

A/N: Went overboard yet again. I put my own twist on it as usual. 

Contains: Jealously, Kidnapping, Burnt Cabins, and Gayness

Yennefer walked back inside their cabin excited to see her wife after a week of being gone. She walked into the kitchen pausing when she saw the scene in front of her. 

“Why is there a dragon on our table?”

“I found him in the garden,” Triss gushed, resuming cleaning the black dragon’s scales. “Isn’t he adorable.”

Yennefer opened her mouth but nothing came out. Only managing to stare down at the beast who was now rolling around on their kitchen table. She had only been gone for a week and somehow her wife had found a dragon. Although she had to admit he was strikingly beautiful with his pure black scales shining in the sunlight. His sea blue eyes gazing up at her, observing the new human in his habitat.  Triss used her shock to pick up the dragon, who began to curl around in her arms like a little housepet. 

“I’m going to call him Charcoal.”

“Charcoal?!”Oh no. No. She would not let this intelligent beast be named Charcoal. Wait. What is she saying? She has to get this dragon out of here. Forget the name.  

“Triss we are not keeping this dragon.” She said eyes narrowing down at the little beast. The dragon’s blue eyes responding back in kind. “It’s safer with its own kind.” 

The dragon turned snarling at Yennefer for even mentioning the idea, puffing itself up in Triss’s arms. She supposed that was supposed to be intimidating. She rolled her eyes at the dragon. 

Triss’s face fell, not even thinking about that since she had been so busy taking care of him. It would be selfish to keep the dragon. 

-

“It’s useless to take him now.” Was all that said Borch said when she talked to him about it. “He’s already imprinted.” 

Needless to say Triss was delighted, Yennefer less so. She’s stuck with the little troublemaker who loved to set small fires all around the house and chew on the furniture. Yennefer would just wave a hand extinguishing them while Triss scolded him for all the mess he was making. He had the decency to look ashamed at the very least. However, it was not his teething or his little fires that bothered her. It was the competition.  She got comfortable being the one that Triss doted on but this little nuisance has changed everything. 

Yennefer would wake up in the morning, rolling over to pull Triss closer to her and be met with an empty bed. Triss would be snuggling up to that little winged rat, who liked sticking his tongue out at her over Triss’s shoulder. She always carried the dragon with her around in the house, whenever she gave Yennefer a hug he “accidentally” set her clothes on fire.  The most unforgivable of these moments was when Triss came home and instead of running straight to Yennefer went to Charcoal who leaped into her arms. This dragon had to go. 

One of the mornings when he was snuggling with Triss, Yennefer smirked at him, raising her hand. His eyes got comically wide as an itchy sensation ran under his scales. He leaped from Triss’s arms and began to run throughout the house, squeaking running into some bookcases and chairs. 

Triss blinked, watching the little demon run around, Yennefer came up behind her, pressing kisses to her neck. 

“I’m sure he’ll be fine. Borch told me that its normal for his age.” Triss’s eyebrows were still furrowed, confused by his sudden change in behavior, but she gave in, shrugging her shoulders.

“If you say so.” She didn’t see the devilish grin on Yennefer’s face as she led her back to bed. That’ll show him.

Triss pinned Yennefer against the wall before heatedly kissing her. She had just came home from shopping in the market and Yennefer didn’t know what riled her up but she wasn’t complaining. Then a shrill squeak came from the garden. Triss left in an instant, living a very riled up Yennefer by herself. It took every ounce of Yennefer’s strength not to fall to the ground and start screaming. She followed Triss with much less enthusiasm and found her holding Charcoal who was whimpering pitifully and holding up one of his legs. 

“I told you not to climb into the tree.” Triss scolding him while wagging her finger, although her eyes were filled with worry. “Don’t worry I’m going to take care of you.” 

Yennefer rolled her eyes, beginning to prepare some healing magic, when he looked at her. Was that a smirk on his face? He cried out burrowing his head in Triss’s shoulder who followed his gaze.

“He’s afraid of magic.” Triss said, “It’s okay we can heal you in a different way.” 

“Oh how convenient.” she scoffed, he would choose the method that would take longer to heal. Triss turned to her and glared. 

“He’s just a baby.” Triss said, picking up a few herbs from her garden to prepare a potion. “It’s natural for them to be afraid we just have to slowly get him used to it.” 

Yennefer was about to lose it. She was about to make love to her wife and this little bastard choose just the perfect time to injure himself. Wait. She watched them leave out of the garden, and blue eyes met purple. He stretched out his “injured” leg towards her. 

“You little-”

Triss closed the door behind her before she could finish the statement.

They had kept this game up for weeks now vying for Triss’s attention.  That was until the women had caught on and gave them both a chewing out once she caught the cabin half on fire one day after coming home during one of there “disagreements”. They both had the decency to make a truce as to not upset her but they were still wary of each other. Until one day she hadn’t come home from Foltest’s court.

The dragon was crying and whimpering at the front door. Yennefer patted his head, although reluctantly, reassuring him that Triss would be back soon. That was hours ago. If Triss was going to be out this late she would have already told her.  She conjured a portal to the castle before she felt something tugging on her pants leg. The little dragon was glaring up at her, before he flapped up to her shoulder. He would not be left behind. She wouldn’t be able to stop him if she tried. Yennefer said nothing but shifted to carry him better on her shoulder before going through the portal right to the front gates. 

The guards froze up as furious Yennefer yelled at them, demanding to know where Triss was. She was met with confused looks, they had told her that she had left hours ago. Yennefer turned quickly heading towards the forest path, the dragon looking back at the castle. He hissed at it, this was the reason why his mother had to leave him every day.

Yennefer called out to her, as she walked on the path, getting worried each time she felt no response. Someone or something had to have Triss. She felt a weight leave her shoulder. Charcoal fluttered down, sniffing at the ground before he growled, turning his eyes back to hers. Follow, they seemed to say.

He took off into the woods with Yennefer running behind him, his all-black body making it difficult to see at some points but he always checked periodically to make sure she was still keeping up.

He suddenly stopped, revealing all his fangs with a snarl, as he lowered to the ground, his tail lashing like a whip. She followed his gaze and saw Triss, slumped over next to a tree, her eyes half-lidded as a woman was pacing in front of her, ranting like a madwoman. It appeared that she had been drugged, unable to respond to Yennefer’s calls. Behind her several guards stood, weapons hanging at their side.

“I told Foltest not to trust a witch! But no he didn’t want to listen to me.” the women raved, her blond hair sticking up wildly. 

“You got me kicked out the court, Triss Merigold.” She sneered, looking down at the mage with pure hatred in her eyes. “You will pay.”

Yennefer knew who this woman was. A noblewoman whose greed started to cause corruption within Foltest’s court. Triss advised the king to get rid of her and after the Striga incident, her word became gospel to him at this point. He did so almost immediately. Yennefer swore, she should have known to follow up on this. No matter. She’ll kill them all. Yennefer turned to Charcoal, “Heres the pl-”

He wasn’t there. She looked up at the clearing, seeing him charge at the knights, giving a little war cry as he did so. The men blinked, looking down at the little animal before they started to laugh. 

“We’ll kill you next and sell your hide to the highest bidder.” One sneered, drawing his sword. To focused on Charcoal he was unable to see Yennefer coming up behind him putting a dagger to his neck. The others pulled out their swords getting ready to dispatch the mage, but she sent a wave of magic, pushing them into a tree, hearing their necks snap as they hit the hard bark. 

“Not so fast.” Yennefer turned towards the noblewoman. A blade being held to Triss’s neck, the woman holding her weary frame up in front of her. “Or I kill this wretch.” 

Yennefer narrowed her eyes, thinking of ways to disarm her. The women saw her fingers twitch and she pressed the knife further into Triss’s skin who let out a pained grunt at the sensation. A little bit of blood trickling down onto the knife. 

“Now be a nice little girl and open a portal for me,” she said, smile too tight to be real. “I would have her do it but she’s a little indisposed at the moment.”

There was no way in hell this woman was going anywhere with Triss. She had to decide her next move. The woman had a quick reaction time and would notice her trying to conjure a spell, probably learned through watching Triss. She felt dread begin to creep in. Then, an earthshattering roar came from above them. The two women looked up seeing a black spot fly from the tree, tackling the women away from Triss, his eyes and scales glowing a slight blue, from the flames coursing underneath them.

She rushed towards Triss, taking her in her arms. She was just drugged but otherwise unharmed aside from the small nick in her neck. She turned back to the dragon who was keeping the noblewoman at bay. He looked back at Yennefer who nodded at him. His jaw opening, as he prepared to put every ounce of fire he could into his breath. Then, he pushed it forward, her screams filling the night air, traveling all the way back to the castle, warning anybody else to not mess with Triss Merigold. She could feel his searing fire, behind her as she carried Triss home. He chirped at her feet, nipping gently at them as they walked home. 

Triss woke up with Charcoal curled up in her arms and Yennefer holding onto her, enveloping both of them in her arms. Triss smiled, this was the first time she had seen them so close. She loved both of her babies. She wouldn’t want it any other way. Yennefer waited for her to go back to sleep before looking down at the two. Maybe she could tolerate this little dragon who was just as fierce as her and maybe a tad bit braver.

Their Charcoal. 

#the witcher #trissefer #triss merigold #yennefer of vengerberg #yes i named him charcoal cause its cute #they will change the name later but he likes it #did i base it off toothless maybe a lil

[waveridden]

FIC: there’s a red mark where my mouth should be

A Beauty and the Beast AU. Hadrian/Samot, Hadrian & Hella, 4.7k. Content warnings apply for semi-graphic violence, but nothing more dramatic than canon.

AUcember || read on Ao3

#

Hella says, “There’s a beast in the woods.”

Hadrian exchanges a skeptical look with Rosana - he doesn’t mean for it to be so openly dubious, but he can’t help himself. Hella isn’t normally prone to this particular kind of dramatics. When he looks back at her, she’s scowling at him. “A beast,” he says, just to be sure.

“Yes, a beast,” Hella says impatiently. “A lot of people have been saying it, way too many for it to be a coincidence.”

“Coincidences happen.”

“Not people talking about a giant wolf.”

“A giant wolf?” Hadrian repeats. “And you’re, what, going to kill it?”

“No,” Hella says, “we’re going to kill it. You’re my backup.”

“I’m retired.”

“I’m asking you to come out of retirement.”

Hadrian glances at Rosana. “I don’t-”

“We’ll talk about it,” Rosana says, voice so even and measured that Hadrian knows that she’s upset. “Thank you, Hella.”

“I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t serious,” Hella says, voice low. It’s as close as they’re going to get to an apology from her, Hadrian knows.

Rosana just nods. “Thank you,” she says again, and waits for Hella to leave.

Hadrian swallows. He doesn’t want to go. He’s retired. But he doesn’t want Hella to go alone.

Rosana looks at him as soon as Hella’s gone. “I won’t stop you,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean I want you to go.”

“I know,” Hadrian sighs. “I know. But I think I have to.”

“Okay,” Rosana says, voice soft. “Be careful.”

He takes her hand, squeezes it, lifts it to his mouth to brush his lips against it. “I will.”

  #

  He doesn’t hear what happens. Hella doesn’t even so much as scream. All he knows is that they split up for a matter of minutes and when he comes back to camp there’s blood in the snow, and a trail.

Hadrian follows the trail, because it’s Hella and he doesn’t have another choice. It’s not terribly long, maybe half a mile, and he can see footsteps in the snow alongside the pawprints. It doesn’t look like she was dragged or anything, and it doesn’t look like she’s bleeding out.

The trail ends at a dilapidated mansion, with countless claw marks gouged in the outside walls. Hadrian doesn’t know what kind of a wolf lives in a mansion, but he pushes the door open anyways. It creaks loudly, loudly enough that he figures any subtlety is gone, so he calls out, “Hella?”

“Hadrian,” Hella shouts, from far away. Something about her voice is too strained, too distressed, and it makes his heart clench.

Hadrian moves slowly through the mansion. It definitely looks like a wolf lives here: scratches on the walls and furniture, fur everywhere. Everything seems old, like it hasn’t been used in decades. It was clearly a home once, but it clearly hasn’t been in a long time.

“Hella!” he shouts again, and this time when she answers it’s easy to tell which room she’s in. He starts running, and he finds her in a bedroom, slumped against the wall. “Hella-”

“You shouldn’t have come here,” she gasps, but she hugs him fiercely when he drops to his knees in front of her. There’s what looks like a bite in her arm, not so bad that she can’t move it but bad enough that Hadrian can feel blood seeping into his clothing, warm against his neck. “You should’ve-”

“I absolutely shouldn’t have.”

“It won’t let me leave.”

“We need to bandage your arm.”

“Hadrian,” she says pleadingly, and then stills. Hadrian turns around slowly.

The wolf is massive. Hadrian’s only seen a couple of wolves before, but either they were small or this one is exceptionally large. It towers over both him and Hella, kneeling on the floor.

“Let me help her,” Hadrian says. His voice shakes, and Hella grabs one of his hands. He squeezes it tight, clutching it close to his chest. “Please, let me fix her.”

The wolf growls loudly, warningly.

“It won’t let me leave,” Hella repeats, a strange note of despair in her voice.

Hadrian looks the wolf in its eyes. It looks back, steady and not nearly as animal as he would expect.

“If I stay,” Hadrian says, “will you let her leave?”

The wolf steps out of the doorway.

“Hadrian,” Hella says urgently. “Hadrian, you can’t, Rosana and Benjamin-”

“They’ll trust you to come find me, and so do I.”

“But-”

“You need medicine. You can’t stay here.”

“Can’t you help me and leave?”

“I can’t leave you here,” Hadrian says. “I can’t, Hella-”

She throws her arms around him again and exhales into his neck, and Hadrian understands. Hella doesn’t want to die here. He can’t say he wants to either, but he’s pretty sure he’ll be better off than her.

“I’ll come back,” she says. “I will.”

“I know,” Hadrian says.

  #

  The wolf brings him food. Animals it hunts and kills, mostly, but occasionally it comes back with things like loaves of bread and crates of vegetables.

“Are you stealing these?” Hadrian demands, the second or third time a crate shows up. The wolf just stares at him, and he shakes his head. “We can’t just take food for people. I can hunt and forage for myself-”

The wolf growls. Hadrian glares at it, even though that’s undoubtedly a foolish thing to do. “I’m not going to leave. I’ll just come with you or something. I’m not going to let you keep scaring people.”

And the strangest thing of all is: then he does. He gets to go with the wolf on a hunting trip, sword in hand, and bring back things that he foraged for himself. He doesn’t know what to make of that, of this strange, intelligent wolf. But he thinks that it might trust him.

  #

  The first dream happens a week after he gets to the mansion.

He’s in a version of the mansion, but this one hasn’t been ravaged by the wolf. In fact, it looks much newer than the real mansion. All of the furniture is brightly colored and whole, and the counters are unbroken and polished. He runs a hand along one of the walls, which is newly painted in an almost blinding shade of white.

“It’s beautiful,” says a voice behind him.

Hadrian whirls around. “Who-” he says, before his voice dies in his throat.

The man standing behind him is not tall, but he’s elegant, carrying himself with the posture of someone important. He has long blond hair past his shoulders that ripples when he tilts his head, a strange and analytical gesture. “You’re the newest one the wolf has brought,” he says.

Hadrian swallows. “I am.”

“Not injured, I hope.”

“Not at all.”

“Why have you stayed?”

“It won’t let me leave.”

“Hm,” the man says. “I suppose.”

“I haven’t seen you before,” Hadrian says cautiously.

The man smiles, there and gone in an instant. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t have. You’re dreaming right now. I don’t exist outside of these dreams.”

“Oh,” Hadrian says. “That’s… I’m sorry. That must be difficult.”

“It is,” he says. “I’m happy to have company again.”

“Has the wolf brought people before?”

“Not often. Not recently.”

Hadrian nods slowly. “My name is Hadrian,” he says. “I don’t know how long I’m going to be here. My friend is looking for me. She’s going to be back soon.”

“The mansion can be hard to find,” the man warns. “You shouldn’t expect her to be back soon.”

“I don’t. But I still expect her to come back.”

“You have that much faith in your friend?”

“Of course,” Hadrian says, surprised despite himself. This man doesn’t know Hella. He has no way of knowing her life with Hadrian, full of sparring sessions and quiet adventures and trying to find peace after they were done with violence. “Always.”

“Good,” the man says. The dream is beginning to blur around the edges. “You’re lucky to have that kind of faith in someone, Hadrian.”

“Wait,” Hadrian says desperately. The mansion is fading, but the man isn’t. “You didn’t say your name.”

He smiles. “I am Samot,” he says. “I hope to see you again soon.”

He wakes up with a gasp, reaching for his sword out of instinct. It’s there, albeit sheathed, and he ends up clutching at the hilt for a moment, trying to let the weight of it ground him. But it’s still hard to focus, because when he closes his eyes, he can see Samot’s smile behind his eyelids.

  #

  His days fall into a strange routine. He spends his mornings wandering the mansion, going everywhere except the places that the wolf tries to prevent him from going. He spends his afternoons with the wolf, sometimes on the mansion grounds and sometimes hunting. He’s getting really sick of simple meals, but he’s never been good at anything more complicated than he can make over a campfire. The mansion has a kitchen, but it’s dirty and out of use, and he never bothers cleaning it.

And his nights belong to Samot. It’s a strange situation, the pair of them. He doesn’t answer everyone of Hadrian’s questions, but he answers most of them. He’s an inventor who fancies himself a poet - or perhaps it’s the other way around, he says laughingly. He was married, although he doesn’t truly remember his husband or his son. He prefers red wine to white, and part of that is because he thinks the color of red wine is more romantic.

He asks about Hadrian, too, and Hadrian tells him about Rosana and Benjamin, about Hella, about living as a chaplain in a city with no real need for a chaplain. He talks about trying to learn to cook and almost burning the kitchen down, earning him a lifetime ban from Rosana. He talks about missing his son’s formative years during his time as an adventurer.

“Hadrian,” Samot says one day. “I have a question that I hope you don’t think is foolish.”

“I’ve asked you plenty of foolish questions,” Hadrian points out. The two of them are in the drawing room of the mansion. Samot doesn’t like it here; he thinks the decor is tasteless. Hadrian likes it because it’s the only place with room enough for both of them to sit together comfortably. “What is it?”

Samot sighs. “Why haven’t you just killed the wolf?”

Hadrian leans back, stunned. “What?”

“Think about it,” Samot says impatiently. “You’re waiting for Hella, who sounds like quite a daring woman, but you’re quite a daring man. It’s large and intelligent, but you seem like a capable man. You have your sword, you’ve told me the wolf hasn’t taken it.” He pauses, takes a breath.

There’s something he’s not saying. “What else,” Hadrian says, not quite a question.

Samot shakes his head. “I think the wolf is what is keeping me trapped here,” he says, with a strange, bitter rage in his voice. “I don’t know how, or why, or what magic it’s using. I don’t remember coming here. But it must be. And I am tired of being here, Hadrian. You must be too.”

“I am,” Hadrian says, and it’s not quite a lie. He misses his wife, his son, his life. “It… I’ll think about it.”

Samot snorts, a soft and familiar noise. “I understand your hesitation, but forgive me if I don’t excuse it.”

“I don’t need you to excuse it,” Hadrian says, more sharply than he intended. “I’ll make my decision in my time, on my terms.”

“As you wish,” Samot says, and Hadrian wakes up just like that, without so much as a chance to say goodbye.

  #

  There’s a room on the south side of the mansion that the wolf has never let Hadrian into. It’s a strange, arbitrary border, one that Hadrian is surprised that the wolf guards as zealously as it does, but he’s always respected it.

The morning after Samot asks him to kill the wolf, he goes to that room. The wolf doesn’t stop him; maybe it’s asleep, or maybe it doesn’t care. Either way, Hadrian pushes his way into the room, holding his breath every step of the way.

It’s a master bedroom, he can tell right away. It’s huge, and there’s a massive window letting sunlight in. It looks old, of course, but newer than the rest of the mansion. There are hardly many scratch marks, hardly as many rips in the upholstery.

There are photographs, too, which Hadrian notices with some surprise. They’re old and faded, but he picks one up to squint at it. It’s a picture of a boy, light brown skin and curly hair and a gap-toothed smile. It makes him miss Benjamin fiercely, so he forces himself to put it down.

The next one he picks up is a picture of a family, clearly taken for some kind of holiday. That same boy is there, a couple years older and teeth slightly straighter, a sardonic edge to his smile now, but still a smile. There are two men standing behind him, one hand on each of his shoulders. One of them is dark-skinned and broad-shouldered, with a warmth to his smile that Hadrian is fascinated by.

The other man in the photograph is Samot.

His hair is longer, and he looks so small next to the other man that Hadrian almost doesn’t recognize him. But it has to be him. He has the same eyes, and the same wicked tilt to his mouth.

There’s a rustling behind Hadrian. He’s not at all surprised to see the wolf standing there, looking at him. It whines, a strange and plaintive noise that he hasn’t heard before.

Hadrian swallows. “Samot used to live here,” he says, heart pounding. “He doesn’t even remember it. Why didn’t you want me to know?”

The wolf pushes forward, bending its head to push its nose into Hadrian’s hand. He runs his hand up its snout absently, resting it on top of its head. “Do you know him?” he asks tentatively, and the wolf makes a noise, almost like a snort. Almost like the noise that Samot makes when Hadrian says something foolish.

“Oh, fuck,” Hadrian says. “Oh, shit, Samot? ”

The wolf draws itself up to full height. Hadrian stares it directly in the eye, trying to make any of this make sense. “He asked me to kill you,” he says dumbly, and the wolf growls. “I mean, I’m not going to. Especially not now. Why doesn’t he remember in the dreams that he’s the wolf?”

The wolf makes a noise that Hadrian, frankly, can’t even begin to parse.

“Sure,” he says, because what the hell else is there to say? Samot is the wolf, Samot doesn’t know he’s the wolf, Samot was here and can’t come back. “Well… I have some things to think about.”

The wolf makes another noise and presses its nose against Hadrian’s other hand, where he’s still holding the family photo.

“That’s your husband and son,” he murmurs, and it’s not a question. Carefully, he sets the photo on the floor. “I’m going to… leave you to this.”

The wolf doesn’t respond. Hadrian leaves quietly, mind still racing.

  #

  “Have you thought about what I’ve asked?” Samot says as soon as Hadrian appears. The two of them are in the dining room today, glasses of wine already on the table.

Hadrian swallows. He’s been trying to decide all day if he wants to tell Samot about the wolf, if he wants to lie and say he’ll kill the wolf and make a run for it, if there’s a right answer to this at all. He’s beginning to think there’s not.

Samot arches an eyebrow at him. “Well?”

“I can’t,” Hadrian forces himself to say.

“Can’t?” Samot repeats incredulously. “And why’s that?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You can’t tell me?” He snorts, but it sounds like the wolf, and Hadrian flinches despite meaning to. Samot frowns. “What was that?”

“It’s nothing,” Hadrian says, too quickly, but that can’t be helped. “It’s - I need you to trust me.”

“You won’t tell me what’s happening.”

“Samot,” he pleads. “I can fix this.”

Samot looks at him. For the first time since they’ve met, it makes Hadrian feel cold.

“You had better have a good reason,” he says at last, and the mansion vanishes, and Hadrian is alone in his dreams for the first time in weeks.

  #

  The wolf is nowhere to be seen the next morning. Hadrian looks everywhere, even the bedroom on the south side of the mansion, but there’s nothing, not even a trail leading away from the house for him to follow.

So he leaves.

It is, he tells himself, for the best. He can’t help Samot from the mansion, neither the wolf nor the man. There’s something magical going on here, and he doesn’t know enough to break this curse. If he can get home, he can find Sunder and bring her here, or find someone else. But he can’t do anything himself.

He doesn’t have time to say wait around and goodbye to the wolf, so he leaves his sword instead. It’s a foolish move, probably, but he means it as a reminder. As a piece of himself. As a promise that he will come back.

He’s never had the best sense of direction, so he squints and figures out which way south is and starts moving. In the worst case, he’ll find a road to another village and make his way home.

The best case goes as follows:

“Hadrian?” Hella says, full of disbelief.

Hadrian whirls around. He hasn’t been paying as much attention as he should’ve been, instead thinking about wolves and beautiful men and trying to find a trail. So he didn’t notice that he was wandering towards a campsite. But he surely is, and it’s Hella there, staring at him, like she’s seeing a ghost.

He swallows. “Is your arm okay?”

“My arm? ” Hella shouts, and the next thing he knows she’s flying at him, squeezing him in the tightest hug she’s ever given him. “You asshole, I thought I left you to be eaten by a giant wolf, nobody’s seen you in a month-”

“A month?” Hadrian repeats. He supposes that makes sense, but it doesn’t feel like a month. “Hella, it- I need your help.”

She huffs loudly. “My help,” she repeats. “With what?”

And so Hadrian tells her. About the wolf, and the photographs, and the man in his dreams. She listens to him, brows furrowed, head tilted suspiciously.

“We have to save him,” he finishes, and then looks at her. She looks guilty. “Why do you look like that?”

“Like what,” Hella says, but she’s stalling, he can tell.

Hadrian frowns and looks behind her. It’s definitely a campsite. In fact, it looks like a campsite far too big for one person. It looks like the kind of things soldiers would set up.

“Hella,” he says, dread building in his stomach. “What did you do?”

She looks at him fiercely. “I thought you were dead,” she says, soft and vicious. “I thought I left you to die. I thought this was going to be a mission for vengeance.”

“Oh, Hella,” Hadrian murmurs. He feels sick. “How many?”

“Only a dozen.”

“We have to help him.”

“Are you sure I can’t talk you out of that?”

“He was kind to me,” Hadrian says, and he’s not sure if he means the wolf robbing random people so he could eat or the man listening to him in his dreams. “He was good to me.”

Hella shakes her head. “Okay,” she says, and Hadrian feels warmed through. “Let’s go save the fucking beast, I guess.”

  #

  Most of the soldiers are already dead when they get back to the mansion. Hadrian doesn’t look too closely at the bodies, stepping past them towards the mansion. He can hear shouting.

“Stay behind me,” Hella snaps. She’d already laid into Hadrian for leaving his sword behind, and she was right. He misses the weight of it in his hand, and also the security of being able to defend himself.

They make their way into the mansion, slowly. It’s as dilapidated as ever, except for the fresh blood splashed on the walls and floor. It makes Hadrian feel sick. The mansion isn’t home, but it is Samot’s home, and it looks awful like this.

“Varal,” someone shouts, and Hella whirls, sword raised. It’s one of the soldiers, and he’s facing off against the wolf - against Samot. “Lend me a hand.”

“We were wrong,” Hella says, voice clear with conviction, and Hadrian’s heart aches with love for her. “Let him go.”

“He killed our men!”

“He killed your men. I think that means I get my deposit back.”

The soldier shouts wordlessly and charges at them. Hadrian bends down and picks up the sword from a dead man’s body - lighter than he prefers, but it’ll do - and shifts to a ready stance.

“Get the wolf out of here,” Hella says to him, and rushes forward.

Hadrian runs over to Samot. “Are you hurt?” he demands. Samot just whines at him, which isn’t a terribly helpful answer, but Hadrian can’t see any wounds. Only blood on his muzzle and in his teeth. “We have to get out of here.”

Samot starts towards the back door, and Hadrian follows him, sword at the ready. “Hella and I set a rendezvous,” he says, and he’s about to lead Samot away when suddenly the wolf begins growling next to him, looking at the shadows off to one side.

Hadrian whirls around and lifts his sword just in time to block a swing from another soldier. “Shit,” he gasps, but the soldier attacks again, and again. Samot leaps at them, but he can’t get too close; the sword flashes dangerously close to Samot’s underbelly, and that’s all it takes for him to back off.

Unfortunately, it’s also all that it takes for the soldier’s attention to shift. Hadrian can feel it immediately: the slide of attention from him to the giant wolf beside him. The soldier begins advancing towards Samot, and none of Hadrian’s desperate attacks seem to divert them.

From inside, Hella shouts something triumphant. Hadrian takes a deep breath and redoubles his efforts. “You can’t kill him,” he says, and it’s enough for the soldier to turn away. “You can’t.”

“Can’t I?” says the soldier, and charges. Hadrian lifts his sword, but it’s too slow, he knows it’s too slow. He takes a moment to be thankful that Hella won’t see this as it happens, and then the sword stabs into his abdomen.

Hadrian falls to his knees and claps his hands over his side, a weak attempt to staunch the blood flow. Distantly he hears the wolf howl, a vicious, mournful sound he’s never heard. He must close his eyes, because when he opens them he’s lying on the ground, and the soldier is gone.

“Hella,” he rasps, and then coughs. Everything tastes like blood. That’s not a good sign. “Fuck. Hella-”

“Hadrian,” a voice gasps. It’s not Hella’s.

There are dark spots at the edges of Hadrian’s vision, but he forces himself to turn towards the voice. It hurts so badly to move even that much that he gasps. He’s going to be unconscious soon, he can tell.

The last thing he sees is a man reaching toward him, a man with blond hair and blood on his mouth.

  #

  Samot is not in any of Hadrian’s dreams. He doesn’t know what to make of that.

  #

  Rosana says, “Next time, the answer is no.”

“Next time I’m not arguing,” Hadrian mumbles. Everything is hazy, and his side still hurts, but it seems like he must’ve been healed, at least partially. “M’I home?”

“We’re at Sunder’s.”

“Okay,” Hadrian says. “I’m sorry. I’m gonna live, right?”

Rosana’s face crumples, but she leans forward and rests her hand on Hadrian’s chest, over his beating heart. “Yes,” she says quietly. “Yes, love, you’re going to live. And I’m happy you’re home.”

“Me too,” Hadrian says, and closes his eyes. “Is Hella okay?”

“She’s fine. She and that man brought you all the way back here.”

Hadrian cracks one eye open. “Man?”

“Said his name was Samot.” Rosana arches an eyebrow at him. “He seemed very concerned about you.”

“Yeah, he used to be the beast,” says Hadrian. “I think he’s a little possessive.”

“Ah,” Rosana says wisely. He gets the impression that she’s laughing at him. “Well, I’m sure the two of you can talk after you get more rest.”

“I’ve spent so much time asleep,” Hadrian complains, but he’s already falling back asleep. “Rosana?”

“Yes, Hadrian?”

“I love you.”

Her palm presses down on his chest, firm and warm. “I love you too.”

  #

  When he’s healed enough to sit up, Hella comes to see him. She brings his sword and says “Never use this again, but also don’t leave home without it.”

“Thanks,” Hadrian says. “You made it out okay?”

She smiles. She looks exhausted. “Yeah, I did. You’re lucky your wolf-man knows how to dress wounds.”

“Rosana said he was a man again.”

“He is. I came outside and saw him trying to wrap your chest.”

“How?”

Hella shrugs. “I mean, magic is fickle bullshit, right?”

It’s such a comfortingly Hella thing to say that it makes Hadrian laugh. “Yeah, it is.”

“But it saved you, so I’ll put up with it for today.”

“Yeah,” Hadrian says. “Me too. Thank you for coming for me.”

“Always,” Hella says, and then pauses. “But don’t… do that again.”

“I won’t,” Hadrian says. He means it.

  #

  The last time Hadrian sees Samot is the first day he’s healed enough to be back on his feet. He’s walking outside Sunder’s house and finds Samot in the backyard, sitting on a lawn chair. “Hi,” he says, although it doesn’t feel like enough.

Samot smiles wanly. “Bed rest doesn’t suit you. It seems unnatural.” His tone is glib, but he sounds shaken, underneath everything.

Hadrian slowly lowers himself into the chair next to Samot. “You’re back.”

“I’m back,” Samot agrees. “It appears that my request that you kill the wolf was… hasty.”

“You made a guess based on what you knew.”

“I guessed wrong.”

“Did the wolf remember the dreams?” Hadrian asks, suddenly curious. “Did you know?”

Samot smiles, sad and gentle. “I remembered everything when I could not say it, and nothing when I could speak. You brought me back to myself.”

“I think you came back to yourself on your own.” Hadrian pauses. “I might’ve given you the push you needed, though.”

Samot doesn’t laugh at that. His eyes flick from Hadrian’s bandaged side to his own hands back to Hadrian’s face. “I would’ve liked to come back sooner,” he says, and Hadrian can hear the apology lying underneath.

He nods slowly. “I understand,” he says. “You’re not going to stay, are you?”

“No, I’m not.” Samot leans back in his chair. “Now that I have the memory and the means to travel again, I’d like to find my husband. It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen him.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“I hear you won’t be travelling anymore.”

“I won’t.”

“A shame,” Samot muses. “He would like you. But I understand.”

Hadrian shifts to face Samot more fully. “Be careful out there,” he says. He doesn’t quite mean it to come out as a plea but it does, plaintive and low. “It’s not safe.”

Samot lifts both of his hands, slowly, to rest on both sides of Hadrian’s face. Hadrian closes his eyes. When Samot’s lips brush against him it’s gentle, barely a kiss at all, but it’s still there. His lips are warm, and soft, and Hadrian can feel Samot’s breath against his mouth as he says, “I know, Hadrian. My brave knight.”

“I’m not a knight.”

“Well, you’re my knight.”

Hadrian smiles and opens his eyes. Samot’s face is very close to his own, and his eyes are beautiful and sad and steady. He leans forward, just for a second, to kiss Samot more firmly. He knows, even now, that he will never have this again. So he might as well have it once.

Samot smiles and sits back in his chair, hands slipping down to fold in his lap. “Stay with me for a while,” he says. It’s an invitation, but it’s mostly a goodbye.

“I will,” Hadrian says, and he does.

#hadrian x samot #friends at the table #hieron #fatt fic #aucember19 #waveridden.fic #i was going to write like... the long-winded 30k version of this #this is really just a sketch of an old idea but i still like how it turned out #also this breaks the record for longest piece written in one day EVER! including years one and two! that's bonkers

[raendown]

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 5032 Chapter: 2/9 Rated: T+ Summary: When his brother disappears coming home from town Madara goes looking for him only for both to end up taken prisoner in a castle hidden by magic generations ago. The candelabras talk, the furniture sleeps, and a great white beast hides himself away in the eastern wing. As he uncovers the story behind this place and gets to know the last small group of ‘survivors’ Madara gradually makes a new home here in the least likely of places.

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Chapter 2

In the wake of the monster’s departure a deep silence stretched out for a long time. Izuna rested his head between Madara's shoulder blades knowing there were no words that could help either of them feel better at the moment. Neither of them said anything until his body began to shake with coughs and Madara spun to gather the other in his arms, helping him sit and patting his back gently until the fit passed.

“You’ll die in here,” he whispered, horrified. “I failed. I…”

“There’s nothing you could have done, Aniki. It’s not your fault.”

Madara shook his head. Logically he understood that the chain of events had not started with him but if he could not blame Izuna then there was simply no one else to carry that burden. How could he ever blame his sibling for running towards the only visible beacon of safety if he were being chased by wolves? In all the years Madara had lived he’d never heard of wolves actively attacking humans, generally they stayed away as most other wildlife did, so he could understand why someone might panic in that situation.

“We made our best attempts to stop him!” a voice cried from nearby. Madara lifted his head to look around but despite the candelabra still sitting just outside the barred door he couldn’t see anyone there.

“Show yourself! Who’s there?”

“I am here in front of you!”

The light before them flickered but the dancing shadows revealed no new faces even when he squinted.

“Quit hiding,” he growled. “I don’t see anyone.” He rubbed Izuna’s back soothingly as they both craned their necks side to side in search of whoever was talking to them. That was definitely not the creature’s voice.

“Down here, good sir!” the voice tried once more and this time when the light wavered Madara noticed the candelabra was moving.

He also noticed there was no one there to move it.

The candelabra was waving at him. And the longer he stared the longer it continued to wave, some of the filigree near the top of the main post shifting as if to form what looked like an honest to god smile. When both he and Izuna failed to so much as move, staring with equally wide eyes and frozen bodies, eventually the candelabra stopped waving and bent both of its secondary arms down in a mockery of the way a human might set both hands on their hips.

“Well I must say, how rude,” it seemed to scold them. “Not even allowing for a proper greeting. Where are your manners?”

“Izuna can you hear that?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it…is it talking to us?”

“Yeah.”

“Are we dreaming?”

Without warning the entire candlestick holder bent as though to toss its head back and began to laugh. “Oh, how rude of me! I’m so terribly sorry. It’s been so long, I quite forgot how strange I must appear to you! I assure you that we are all quite real!”

“Merciful gods above, Aniki, are there more of them!?” Izuna moaned with despair and Madara reached back to pat him on whatever he could reach, possibly a leg.

“It must be something in the magic of this place driving us mad. Maybe we should play along?”

He jerked when his brother struck him weakly. “Are you nuts? It’s a talking stick of wax! What are you going to do, talk back?”

“There doesn’t seem to be anyone else in this entire castle to talk to. Did you notice all the dust? It’s like no human has been in here for centuries.” Madara shrugged. “I’ll take a candlestick delivering my meals over whatever the hell that beast is!”

“Simply no manners at all; continuing to ignore me.” They looked over to see, of all things, that the candelabra had crouched down on to the floor and curled in to itself. As they watched it began to shake with dramatic sobs. Madara considered just waiting to see what would happen but the damn thing just sounded so pathetic and he had to admit he was curious. This place was full of strange magics. If he could ask a few questions and understand even a small bit of his own situation he would appreciate it.

“Uh…sorry about that. It’s…I’ve never talked to a candle before.” Even Izuna cringed over his awkwardness.

The candelabra, however, popped back to its ‘feet’ as though it had never been sad in the first place. “Quite alright! You may call me Hashirama! May I know your names, good sirs?”

“I’m Madara. This is Izuna. What…is this place?”

“Ah, it would be hard to explain here. Come, come, come along. I will gather the others!” With ringing plinks and plonks he began to hop away down the hall, the metal of his body echoing on the stone floor.

He didn’t get very far before Madara called after him in a dry tone, “Thanks but I think I’ll stay here. Doesn’t matter how much weight I’ve lost this past year, I still don’t think I’m going to fit through these bars!”

With a startled exclamation Hashirama turned and hopped back in their direction, leaping up to pop the latch and then backing away to gesture for them to come out in to the hallways with him. Still they both hesitated. If seeking shelter was the only crime that got Izuna locked up and trying to find his ill brother got Madara locked up as well then who knew what that crazy animal would do to them if he discovered they were wandering around freely? Seeing their hesitation, Hashirama shook what might have counted as his head.

“I beg of you to believe me, he is not a terrible person. Circumstances have made him distant and wary but inside he is a good man. If only he believed it of himself.”

“You’ll forgive us if we don’t believe that,” Izuna grumbled.

“Please, come along! He is possessed of quite a temper at times but rest assured he would never hurt me. I will convince him to see sense about locking the two of you away in this drafty tower, don’t you worry.”

Still smiling cheerfully he began to plink away down the hall again, pausing every few hops to beckon them along. The two brothers traded long dubious looks before finally Madara muttered under his breath that they might as well. If the monster was unpredictable enough to lock them away then he probably wouldn’t hesitate to eat them or something for making his magic candle thing cry twice. Either way they were going to catch hell so why not explore a little bit and get their answers before death found them?

Hashirama was an incredibly enthusiastic guide unhampered by his tiny size. The sounds of his incessant hopping were thankfully muted as soon as they exited that particular tower and returned to carpeted hallways but it hadn’t mattered much anyway as he chattered incessantly about the history of the castle and how long ago it had been built. Madara and Izuna shared a doubtful look, both of them knowing such massive grounds as it would take to house a castle this size would definitely have been noticed by at least one villager in the past few hundred years, but neither said anything. With a terrifying monster in charge of things there was obviously some kind of magic at work here, they could have deduced that much even without being told.

And to think Madara hadn’t even truly believed in magic until tonight.

Their chipper guide being the only source of light, they were sort of beholden to his long-winded tour but from the sheer amount of words spilling out of him it seemed like he hadn’t had anyone to talk to in a very long time. Madara found he didn’t quite have the heart to interrupt such earnest happiness. At least the history of the castle was quite interesting; on the rare occasion he found time for himself Madara had always enjoyed slipping in to their village’s very small library and reading up on the history of the land around them. He was proud to say he’d read at least half of the books in the library. His favorite were always the lurid battle descriptions and the long explanations of tactics or favored weapons.

“Oh but you must be weary after such a fraught evening! Allow me to show you gentlemen to your room, of course!” Hashirama paused at yet another juncture in the endless hallways and beckoned for them to come along before hurrying off in another direction.

“Room?” Izuna muttered quietly in Madara's ear. “He’s not sticking us back in the cell?”

Madara could only shrug. He was hardly going to complain about being offered more comfortable accommodations. For a fleeting moment he considered waiting until they were unsupervised and making a break for it. There didn’t seem to be any sort of guard rotation or security posted. He would bet that two able bodied men could escape if they could find their way out – as long as Izuna didn’t have any coughing fits and draw attention to them.

The moment he began to think about such things, however, he felt a twisting down deep in his soul that cried out with a sense of wrongness that he understood immediately, though he could not have said how. He was still recovering from how oddly winded the feeling had left him when Hashirama finally came to a stop in front of a door carved with the same simple design many other doors had been. Madara was startled to realize it was the same symbol burnt in to the monster’s chest across his collar bones.

“Here we are! You need only ask and I will see to your every comfort! Oh, we will have such fun together, I am so sure! Wonderful to have guests again! Come, come!” With a double hop Hashirama leapt straight up off the floor to grasp the door handle with both hands, wriggling his entire metal body back and forth.

“Do you…want help with that?” Madara asked hesitantly.

“I am most capable, fear not!”

And so he was. The door unlatched with a soft slick and swung open, carrying Hashirama's light away so they couldn’t see the inside until their guide dropped down to the floor and hustled inside ahead of them. There he went around and bent his head to light a few candles so they could get a first glimpse of their massive room.

Both of their jaws fell open as they stared in open wonder at the opulence around them. Thick carpet at their feet led the way to matching beds, each with their own heavy canopies and bedding so decorated Madara would have expected to find them being displayed as wall hangings in the mayor’s home. A matching wardrobe and vanity set stood between the two beds, all four pieces shaped from the same dark wood and intricately carved, any one of them more expensive on their own than the entire contents of the Uchiha household back home. Dust covered every inch of the room and still it was not enough to stop the two brothers from thinking it was a room fit for two princes to stay.

Yet Hashirama hemmed and hawed, tapping at his chin with one arm candle and wondering out loud if this was truly fit accommodations for them. Madara wondered silently how there could be anything better.

“If you would prefer separate rooms we could move to the apartments in the southern wing,” he offered.

“No, this is…fine. This is great.” Madara swallowed thickly. “We can really stay here?”

“This is incredible,” Izuna declared without reservation, daring to step forward and brush his fingers over the intricate patterns stitched in to the bedding. Hashirama tutted at them.

“Serviceable at best. However, if it pleases you then I shan’t keep you awake any longer than necessary. Oh we really should shake out the dust at least – but you do so look tired. I simply cannot decide!”

The metal idiot looked so distraught Madara could only lift an eyebrow in bemusement. “We can shake out our own bedding.”

“Are you certain?”

“It’s just dust. Dust never killed anyone. Except you, Izuna, just sit down or something and let me get yours.”

While Izuna rolled his eyes and Hashirama continued to fret, Madara stripped the duvet off both beds and snapped them in the air a few times each, cringing for having to be so rough with such beautifully crafted pieces of art. After they were both tucked back over to the beds again he turned and flopped backwards on to the one he arbitrarily decided would be his own.

Then he moaned like a cheap lady of the night.

“Oh sweet flame…I’m floating on a cloud…”

Silence followed his statement for a single heartbeat. Then he heard Izuna scramble towards the other bed and the muffled thump of another body sinking in to layers of luxurious bedding. His brother immediately let out a moan just as he had.

“Is this what heaven feels like?” Izuna asked in a dreamy voice.

“Nnn…”

“Ah ha ha ha!” Hashirama's tinny little voice somehow managed to boom all throughout their massive room when he laughed. “I shall leave the two of you until morning then, shall I? Rest well! Tomorrow the tour continues!”

Madara gave very little thought to any sort of response. He managed to crack one eye open to see that Izuna had slipped under the blankets and disappeared, no more than a slight lump among so much fluff, then his eyes slid closed and the comfort of a real mattress under his body carried him down in to slumber as quickly as the snuffing out of Hashirama's candles.

He slept so deeply he did not dream. Or he thought he didn’t. Unless the impression of endless hours in the darkness, cool and comforting, counting as a dream.

Waking came slowly, a gradual drift from one darkness to another, and it took a long time for him to realize he couldn’t see anything because he had rolled over in his sleep and buried his face in what felt like a cloud of happiness. Upon lifting his head he determined it to be just a pillow, albeit the softest pillow he had ever encountered in his life. Which, to be fair, was a very limited number.

Slowly pushing himself in to a sitting position, Madara looked around and took a few minutes to let it sink in that everything from the night before had not been some fancy of his own imagination. He really was in a far too opulent room fit for kings and queens with Izuna just barely struggling his way up out of sleep on the far side of the room. With sunlight spilling in through the open drapes he saw beautiful details that he hadn’t been able to in the dark. Each wall was hung with incredibly delicate artwork and the edges of the ceiling looked as though they had been painted by hand. Underneath the dust he could tell that the carpet was woven with a repeating pattern of rich red and golds.

“This place is insane,” were the first words out of Izuna’s mouth as he too took in the spectacle of such grandeur in the light of day.

“Yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever slept so well in my life. Which is weird since, you know, prisoners and all that.”

Izuna sat up a little straighter and coughed a few times, settling his face in a serious expression. “I mean, it’s nice and everything. This is cool. But we can’t stay. We have to get the hell out of here, you know? There’s no telling why that thing wants to keep us!”

Running a hand through his hair, Madara hesitated.

“Look, I didn’t want you to worry last night. It’s been a long time since you slept well through the night and I just wanted…anyway. Here’s the thing. I can’t leave.” When Izuna opened his mouth Madara interrupted him. “I don’t know how to explain it but I can’t. You remember that creature made me swear that I would stay here and not try to leave? He said I was bound here. And…I think he meant that more literally than we knew.”

“Bullshit! Come on, we can just slip out while that candle thing isn’t here!”

“Hashirama has nothing to do with it. Look, the creature said that ancient magics were listening when I swore not to leave and now whenever I think about escaping I get this twist inside me that- I can’t go. It makes me feel wrong to think about it. I can’t say how I know but I don’t think I would survive leaving.”

Izuna slumped back down when he had been about to stand up. His entire body looked wilted with defeat and Madara could not have felt more terrible.

“You’re not the one who is bound,” he tried to offer. “I don’t think he meant anything bad would happen if you were the one that left.”

“Like hell I’m leaving without you!”

“Great. Wonderful. I knew you’d say something dumb.” Madara rolled his eyes.

“The only dumb thing here is this stupid castle!”

It was all too likely the two of them would have taken out their infamous tempers on each other if left to their own devices for much longer, something that happened all too frequently at home. Luckily they were interrupted by a knocking at the door and treated to the sight of Hashirama's metal smile as he popped his head in to the room.

“Best of mornings to you both, I trust you slept well?”

“Decent,” Madara grunted.

Hashirama tittered, unoffended. “I’ve come to fetch you for a morning meal!”

Afraid that if he refused he would have to stay here and listen to Izuna have a meltdown over the fact that he couldn’t leave, Madara hopped off the bed and gave a sharp nod. He waited until Izuna followed along and then allowed himself to be trudged off down twisting hallways that looked so different now after the shadows had been chased away by the sun.

Last night the castle had given the impression of being forgotten by time, a gloomy space caught between worlds, but now it resembled more of an abandoned mausoleum. Suits of armor and statues and expensive pottery provided decoration to keep them busy gawking in every direction until they were led down to the first floor by the same sweeping grand staircase Madara had climbed on his own in the dark. What he had taken for an empty atrium looked more like a grand receiving room well suited for social gatherings and the like. A strange place, for sure.

The kitchens, at least, had a modicum of normalcy. Madara supposed it didn’t matter how much money was involved, kitchens the world over were bound to look at least slightly similar. It didn’t matter that there were a dozen stoves instead of one or that the counter for preparations ran several times as long as his own handcrafted wooden counter at home. What mattered was that he felt some of the gathering tension drain away to know that here was a place he belonged to more than the fancy frippery covering the rest of the castle.

“My dearest, my darling,” Hashirama called in to the cavernous room. “Oh love of my life!”

“If you think to flatter me in to some favor you are sorely mistaken,” a new voice answered.

Madara almost thought his eyes might fall out when a tessen fan drifted around the corner with no hand to guide it, gliding along several inches above the floor seemingly of its own volition. When it stopped in midair he was startled to see the ribs snap open to their fullest extension, giving him a direct view of the pattern inked in to lacquered paper, and he very nearly fainted dead away when the pattern shifted across the paper to form a face with pinched lips and narrow eyes.

“Our guests, I presume,” the fan declared. It was a woman’s voice and not very warm.

“Yes my sweetest.” Hashirama blew the fan an ostentatious kiss which lit one of his candles and then gestured to the two men with him. “This here is Madara and there beside him is Izuna. Brothers from the nearby village.”

“I suppose you wish me to cook for them.”

“Would that I had any other to ask,” Hashirama responded softly.

Amazingly, the pattern-woman unpinched her lips until her expression had relaxed in to something more pensive than irritated. Dipping in the air like she was nodding, the tessen fan drifted away without another word to stoke the embers back to life under a nearby stove. Madara watched her go with his brows up near his hairline. When he looked back Hashirama was wearing a besotted expression.

“My wife Mito” he explained. “A braver woman could never be found in any kingdom.”

“How exactly does a talking candlestick end up married to an animated war fan?” Madara blurted, immediately dropping his face in to one hand at his own lack of tact. He felt a fist impact his shoulder but couldn’t bring himself to scold Izuna; he did sort of deserve it.

Luckily Hashirama took no offense, though he did fall somber once more.

“We were not always this way,” Mito said as she slid her body under a loaf of bread and bore it over to the closest countertop.

“It is a curse laid upon the castle. Once we were as human as you are.” Hashirama leapt up to the counter and looked up at them with arms folded behind his back. “I trust you know of the Sannin, the Great Three who guard the ancient magics of the lands?”

“Yeah,” Izuna drew out the word with curiosity. Every child in their village had grown up on such fairy tales.

“The strongest of the Three was once a patron to this kingdom–”

Madara interrupted without thinking to point out, “This isn’t a kingdom.”  

He did not expect Hashirama to tilt his head back and let out a laugh more bitter than one as cheerful as he should be capable of.

“It was and is, no matter that the people have forgotten their lord. There were…two brothers. As is custom, the duty of ruling these lands was meant to fall to the oldest. Unfortunately illness had laid him low in the prime of his life and the throne fell instead to the younger brother who promised to hold it only until his sibling recovered. However…” Hashirama trailed off with pain in his voice.

“However, instead of recovering the illness spread,” Mito took up her husband’s tale, pausing a moment to spin through the air and remove several perfect slices of bread from the loaf. “All across the kingdom people fell ill, dying faster than messengers could seek help from the younger brother. Though he did what he could there was no stopping what nature itself can never stop.”

Feeling a chill run down his spine, Madara shuddered. “The plague.”

“Yes,” Mito agreed. “The black plague, a nightmare to behold and hellish to contain. When the death toll rose to its heights the younger brother was forced to drive all of the ill together and abandon them lest they continue their spread of death.”

“Really the only way to deal with that,” Madara nodded in sad approval.

“Yet he did not see his own actions that way. Tasked with ruling a kingdom that should never have been his own, cursed to make decisions while his people fell around him, the younger brother took responsibility onto his own shoulders and he himself held the torch when they burned the quarantine zone. It is impossible to say if any inside were still alive. Though he understood the necessity still he could never forgive himself for what he had been forced to do.”

Hashirama shook his head. “A monster he called himself and locked himself within his rooms, emerging only when it was necessary to perform the duties he owed to the kingdom he had sworn to watch over. The elder brother recovered, as some with the plague do, but it did nothing to ease his guilt. Nothing could be done to console him.”

“Sounds whiny,” Izuna muttered. Thankfully it seemed like neither Hashirama nor Mito heard him.

“We worried. That was all. We were worried for the state of his mind after what he had done.” Hashirama looked away. It was hard to tell in a face made of metal filigree but his expression took on a distant quality. “We appealed to the Sannin who watched over our kingdom and beseeched her to intervene. Forgetting, of course, her wicked temper and her utter lack of patience for fools. She revealed that she had indeed already intervened, saving the life of the eldest brother and all within the castle when the plague began, and she did not appreciate having more asked of her. It was never our intention- We could never have predicted- I believe that I will always regret, though not for my own sake.”

He closed his eyes and Mito drifted across the kitchen to hover at his size. She danced out of reach when he held out an arm to embrace her, wary of the flames, and Madara wondered if it was maybe too intimate a moment for him to watch the sadness in both of their gazes to be denied a simple touch. Finally Hashirama went on to finish his story.

“She cursed him out of temper. If he felt so strongly a beast, she said, then a beast he would be. His form changed to that which you witnessed last night and the residents present here in the castle were changed to whatever form suited her whim. Many became furniture, some became animals, a few became clothes or drapery. In a fit of pique for the lord’s self-pity the great Sannin removed us from memory across the Kingdom and hid us away from curious wanderers in the forest, trapping us in time. And so here we have been ever since, alone and lonelier by the year as one by one our numbers dwindle.”

“You’re not dying as furniture?” Madara cried out, shocked.

“Not dying, no. They simply give in. I will show you.”

Hashirama murmured to his wife and she dipped her blades, returning to whatever simple meal she was preparing for breakfast. With a wave he turned and beckoned them to the hallway they had come in from. Madara expected to be taken on a journey but he found Hashirama stopped just outside of the kitchen where he stood on the floor staring up at a massive portrait hung to face inside the kitchens.

The woman portrayed was beautiful, though severe. Her hair was long and caught up on the top of her head in a simple style. Both hands folded across her lap, eyes closed, her shoulders remained straight and stiff in a way that spoke of royal blood.

“My cousin,” Hashirama told them with regret heavy in his words. “Our beloved Touka. She was always the strongest among us and yet even she grew tired of this endless existence, closing her eyes and going to sleep the way so many others have. Now you wouldn’t know them from true furniture.”

“Well…shit.” Madara couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Incredibly, that seemed like the right thing. After a moment of incredulous blinking Hashirama began to laugh that impossible booming laugh until it echoed up and down the hall, filling one small part of this massive castle with happiness once again.

“Very well put, my good man.”

“Just…call me Madara.”

“Indeed. Well, Madara. Izuna. Shall we dine? It’s been a long time since any of us have prepared a meal. You will let us know, I hope, if there is any part you find undesirable and we will hasten to remedy that for you!”

“Right. Sure.”

Despite Hashirama's mood swinging back up as hopped away to check on his wife Madara found himself feeling saddened as he stood out in the hall and stared up at the portrait hanging before him. To know that this was a real person trapped in the oil and the canvas, a woman who despaired of her own state so strongly that she had chosen to fall asleep indefinitely rather than go on and wait for an end, he couldn’t imagine living like that. He was grateful for the hand that slid on to his shoulder and squeezed gently.

“You know he’s not telling us everything,” Izuna said in a low voice and Madara nodded.

“Hearing what we have though…do we really want the full story?”

Izuna shook his head with an expression just as sad as Madara felt. Together they looked up at the painting and Madara wondered if maybe the beast had taken them prisoner not out of cruelty but to be kind to those left awake. He supposed he would be pretty lonely too after so many years watching everyone he knew go quiet and still.

Whatever the case, there was obviously more going on here than he had originally assumed even after discovering the place was run by a horrific man-beast and a talking candelabra. Madara tore his eyes away from the portrait and spun his brother around by force to march them both back in to the kitchen. If someone wanted to tell them more about what was happening he had to admit he was curious enough to listen but until then the best thing to do would be to keep their heads down as much as possible. It had kept them both alive this long. Hopefully it would keep them safe long enough for him to figure out how the hell he was going to get Izuna to a doctor for the cough that started up again as soon as they left the hallway.

#rae writes #madatobi #madara #tobirama #hashirama #izuna #mito #fanfiction

[four-loose-screws]

FE4 Suzuki Novelization Translation - Chapter 5 Part 4

If you would like to start from the beginning, read a missed part, etc., click here!

FE Game Script Translations - FE Novel Translations - Original FE Support Conversations - Ko-fi

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Chapter 5 - The Battle in Verdane

Part 4

Aideen was taken to Marpha Castle, which Gandolf was the lord of.

He really was intent on going to Verdane Castle and asking for his father’s permission to marry her. However, once word of Genoa Castle's fall reached them, doing so became impossible.

Between repairing the castle and training the soldiers, there was a mountain of work to do, and they could not leave.

While Aideen and her maids were forbidden from leaving the castle, in the afternoons, they were free to do as they wished. The maids stayed in their bedroom, but Aideen would walk around the castle and chat with those inside.

Among the maids was a young woman who Aideen guessed to be from another country, as her was purple, a very unusual shade not commonly seen in Verdane nor Grannvale.

Aideen talked to her, and learned that her name was Deirdre. She was the maiden of the deep forest between Marpha and Verdane Castles. 

Ten days ago, she'd been found by a unit traveling towards Marpha Castle, who’d kidnapped her and brought her there.

Aideen gasped. “How terrible! Did they do anything to you?”

“If by that you mean whether or not they hurt me, they didn’t.”

“That’s a relief to hear! Ugh, Verdanian men have no shame!”

"They really don’t. But when they tried to touch me, I put them to sleep."

"Oh, you can use magic? So, how did it work? Did they sleep for a long time?"

"Yes, they seemed to be having nice dreams. When they woke up about an hour later, I pretended to cry. That seemed to satisfy them, as they went away after that.”

Aideen scrunched up her face, but then burst out laughing. "Ugh, men are such simple creatures! But you know what, Deirdre? I’m in the same boat.”

"What? You were forced to come here too, Lady Aideen?"

"Yes. And you don't have to be formal with me. I've simply been calling you Deirdre, after all."

Aideen told Deirdre about how she’d been taken from Jungby.

“Oh no! Did they do anything to you?”

“If by that you mean whether or not they hurt me, they didn’t.”

“Thank goodness.” 

Aideen explained how she defended herself.

This time, Deirdre was the one to laugh. "Your magic is stronger than mine."

The two got along so well that they began to chat regularly in their free time.

When evening came and everyone had eaten dinner, Aideen and her maids weren't allowed to leave their room. After the dishes were returned to the kitchen, someone always locked the door from the outside.

But if they moved furniture in front of the door or stuck a pole through the handles, then no one could get in, either.

Gandolf once tried to enter the room, and their blockade kept him from doing so.

"It's me! Open up! I'm the lord of this castle, so you gotta listen to me!" His slurred speech gave away that he was very drunk.

"A princess of Jungby would never let a man other than her husband into her room at night!"

"I'm the man who's gonna be your husband!"

"But you aren't my husband yet. A prince must keep his promises. If you wish to marry me, then take me to King Batu!"

"Damn you woman!" Gandolf screamed before giving up and walking off.

-

Reinforcements from Verdane gradually came to the castle. Among them was King Batu's third son, Prince Jamke.

Unlike King Batu's other sons, Jamke wielded bows.

One day, Aideen noticed him shooting arrows in the courtyard, and she was shocked. He could easily hit small objects from thirty meters away. 'Even Jungby's knights cannot hit a target from so far away!'

When she tried to approach him, she overheard him talking to one of the soldiers. "That was amazing, Prince Jamke! Keep it up, and you'll have no trouble taking out the Grannvalians when they get here!"

'So Jamke is the great archer they've been talking about?'

He looked completely different from his brothers. While they had square, fierce faces, Jamke's was slender. His features were sharp, but he looked very kind.

'Perhaps he has a different mother?' Aideen wondered.

She looked around to make sure that Gandolf wasn't around, then went up to him. "You're skills are simply breathtaking! Even the knights in my homeland, Jungby, cannot compare to you!"

Jamke turned around and saw a beautiful noblewoman. Her eyes shone as she praised him.

"N-Now surely, there's no way someone who's self taught can compare to the knights of Jungby…" He blushed.

'His manner of speaking is totally different, too!’

"I am Princess Aideen of Jungby. And you are?"

"I-I am Jamke, the third son of King Batu."

"Jamke… it has such a nice ring to it! It makes me think of the late-autumn sky. You said you were self-taught, right? So what kind of training did you do?"

"I hunted birds and small beasts."

"Can you hit them every time?"

"No, of course not! They move too quickly! Though my accuracy has gotten much better lately."

"That's amazing!" Aideen smiled, but then sighed.

"What's wrong?"

"I just realized that the Grannvalian soldiers are going to fight against you. It makes me so sad. If they go after you, then surely you'll be killed."

"But we're at war! It's kill or be killed!"

"Oh war this, war that! It's always about war with you men! Do you know how many women you've made cry!?"

"I understand that. But…" His face twisted with anger. "You're the ones who started this!"

"No, we weren't! Verdane attacked Jungby first! That's why I'm imprisoned here!"

"But wasn't Grannvale plotting to attack Verdane? My father approved of the attack because he had no other choice!"

"Who told you that?"

"..."

"Grannvale is currently fighting with Isaach, because they attacked Darna, one of our allied cities!"

"..."

"When Verdane attacked my duchy, we hardly had any soldiers there! Do you really think we would do that if we were preparing for battle?

"But Grannvale just invaded Verdane!"

"To take me back!" She shouted at him, then quickly walked away without waiting for a response. 'I don't know what's going to happen next, but that's enough for one day.'

-

The next day, Aideen spent the morning staring out into the courtyard from her room. Jamke never came out, but just before noon, she saw a boy being locked into the pillory.

She walked out of her room and went up to him. "What crime did you commit?"

The boy looked up to see where her voice had come from. "I didn't do anything, but the mean, nasty soldiers put me in here anyway!"

"He's a thief! You can't believe a word he says!" One of the nearby soldiers shouted over to her.

Aideen looked at him. She guessed he was either thirteen or fourteen, and had a round, cute face with big eyes. He didn't look like a thief at all.

"Won't you help me, Princess? Please! I'll do whatever you say!"

"Are you from around here?"

It took him a moment to answer. "Yeah, if you need to know anything about this area, then just ask, and I’ll tell you! So please, get me outta here!"

'He paused to think about what be should say. If he really hadn't done anything, then he would have replied right away.' Aideen thought. "I'll have a word with Gandolf, but I'm no more than a prisoner here myself. And besides, everyone knows that you can't trust a thief's promises."

"No, I swear it! It's true that you can't trust a thief's promise, but a thief's vow is the real deal. Please!"

"What's your name?"

"Dew."

"It has a very interesting ring to it. It's short, but feels full of lies."

"Forget about that, just help me…!"

"I'll think about it." She said, then began to saunter away.

She thought that he would shower her with obscenities, but he didn't.

"I swear it. I swear it on my life!"

'He just might be useful.' She thought.

-

When afternoon rolled around, Jamke still hadn't come out to the courtyard, so Aideen decided to walk around the main building.

She had a feeling that something was up, as he wasn’t out in the open.

She continued further inside, and saw Jamke standing standing inside a room with the door open, his back facing her.

'I knew it!' She entered the room and called out to him.

"Oh, that was you?"

"I wanted to apologize to you, and I just so happened to see you in here… I went too far yesterday. Please forgive me."

"I don't think you said too much…"

"Were you thinking about something? If I'm bothering you, then I'll leave you alone…"

"No, you're not a bother… but I have been thinking since our talk. I've been wondering who said that Grannvale was preparing to attack us…"

"And do you have a lead?"

"Yes. It was a mage named Sandima."

"A mage?" Aideen raised an eyebrow. "I don't trust anyone who calls themself a mage."

"Me neither. But Sandima has very strange powers, so my father trusted him completely."

"Then you must go clear up any misunderstandings your father has!"

"That's my plan, to go home to Verdane and talk to him. I'm happy that I was able to see you before I left…"

"So am I. But you won't end the war through talking to your father alone, Prince Jamke. So I have a request for you."

"What is it?"

"Please set me free, so I can convince Grannvale to stop fighting. If we work together, we can do it!"

"But how can I get you out of here safely?"

"At nightfall, our room on the second floor is locked from the outside, but no one stands guard in front of the door. So if you unlocked it, my maids and I could get out of the castle… Are there any emergency exits?"

"Yes, there are! But what will you do once you're out of the castle? You don't know this area."

"Please let the boy being kept prisoner in the courtyard free. He can guide us."

Jamke stared straight at her. "Alright. You're stronger than I thought. Can we meet again once the war is over?"

"Of course, Prince Jamke." Aideen said, staring straight back into his eyes.

-

The emergency exit was behind the castle. Since it was made to evacuate people if the castle was ever attacked, one had to jump off a two meter ledge to get out. Meaning that they could exit through it, but not reenter.

Aideen and the others escaped from the castle in the middle of the night.

First, Jamke jumped down and made sure that the ground was safe. Then, he held out his arms and waited for Aideen. She turned towards him, and jumped.

The moment he caught her, an intoxicating scent filled his nose.

Next, the two maids jumped, and Dew was the final one to make it out.

Guided by the moonlight, they traveled for about one hour across the plains and made it out of the castle town.

"This is where I must say goodbye. I will pray for your safety, Princess Aideen."

"And I will do the same for you, Prince Jamke."

"Dew, was it? I'm leaving the rest to you."

"You can count on me! I made a thief's vow with Lady Aideen! I'll get her out of here!"

Jamke saw them off, and didn't move until long after their shadows disappeared into the darkness.

'I pray that we'll meet again someday, Aideen. We may have only known each other for two days, but you've already stolen my heart.'

#fire emblem #genealogy of the holy war #fe4 #fe #nintendo #super nintendo #snes #famicom #super famicom #japan #japanese #translation #light novel #fe4 suzuki novelization translation

[traumahound]

[INTERVIEW] A CASUAL CHAT WITH JONATHAN JACQUES-BELLETÊTE

The art director for Deus Ex: Human Revolution shares insight on cyberpunk and texturing furniture. Originally published April 1, 2011 on Totalplaystation.com

In early March, PAX East attendees were given a live gameplay demonstration of Deus Ex: Human Revolution by Eidos Montreal personnel, including Game Director Jean-François Dugas, Art Director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête, and Community Manager Kyle Stallock. The demonstration consisted of around 20 minutes of an early level in which the protagonist, Adam Jensen, infiltrated a warehouse using a combination of stealth, computer hacking, sharp implements, and bullets. Following the demonstration, I had the opportunity to sit down with J.J.B. and ask a few questions.

Though footage of the demonstration is not officially available, there is a walkthrough of the same portion of the game floating around on YouTube.

So, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. First of all, tell me what you do.

I’m the art director, so I’m trying to make it look pretty.

All right—

Really hard.

Managing a lot of people?

Yeah, I am managing a lot of people, definitely. I mean, there’s a structure. There are artists; there are leads on everything that have their units and whatnot. Overall, we must have close to 60 artists on this game, not counting outsourcing; we’ve had some people doing concept art and modeling outside, but in the studio, we must have a good 60 artists.

Speaking of outsourcing, the pre-rendered cutscenes are, I assume, done by another—

Yeah, all the trailers—in the game, it’s all in-game cutscenes, but the marketing stuff, all the big CGI, the E3 trailer, the extended trailer that you guys saw, that was all done by Visual Works, which is the cinematics department at Square Enix. You can’t ask for better than this. It’s like, “What!?” It’s so weird: one day, you wake up and suddenly your company is owned by Square Enix, and then two months later, you learn that you’re going to work with them on a trailer.

Is it a little intimidating knowing that now people have that in their minds, the look in those trailers, and now you have to sort of, in real-time, try to meet those expectations in the game?

Totally a legitimate question, and you’re absolutely right, but the way that it happened is that we had already set the style of the game’s visuals before we did those CGI trailers. At the same time, as an art director, I’m highly influenced by—I love anime and Japanese video games; we concede, and I say openly that there’s a strong Metal Gear influence on the game, and stuff like that. When Square Enix took our material to do the trailer, it was like we already spoke the same language. The way that I treat the textures in the game, there is no photographic material, just like the Japanese also almost never do that. Everything is done by hand or procedurally, so everything already seemed well-prepared for them to deal with it. So, yeah, you watch the trailers, and then you watch the in-game, and obviously there’s a huge gap, but it still seems to be a part of the same style; the aesthetic essence is exactly the same. I’m actually quite proud of that, really.

How did you arrive at the game’s particular style? It has a unique look: the color palette, I notice a lot of hexagons—

A lot of triangles.

Did you go through other styles on the way to find what you ended up with?

Yes and no. I knew straight from the get-go that I wanted to have a stylized game, that I wanted to have something that has its own signature. As an art director, I’m not into photorealism; it’s really not something that interests me all that much, because I find that credibility—photorealism and credibility are two different things. You can have a game where they put all their efforts into trying to make it photorealistic, but the game doesn’t feel credible at all. I’m not even talking about the “uncanny valley,” I don’t want to get into that, but the credibility of the game itself is not even there. You can have a Disney Movie, like The Beauty and the Beast, where you have a teapot and a cup talking to one another, and it’s totally credible, right? So there’s something there: why is it that when we strive for photorealism it doesn’t work, and something as low-fi as that works? So, anyway, let’s just say that I knew that I wanted to go stylized; I knew that I wanted a specific signature, and now, the hard thing was to figure out what that recipe would be. I knew that I wanted low—not low intensity, but (what is it, fuck,) often I find that in games, textures are too noisy, there’s just too much shit everywhere.

Right, as we gain the technology to add more and more detail to everything—

Right, it becomes a fest of just “pile some more stuff.”

—bump-mapping and making everything gritty.

[Points to nearby black leather couch four feet away.] If I just look at that couch from here, I don’t see texture in that couch. If I get closer I’ll see it, but not from here. In games, a lot of the Unreal 3 Engine games, from here it would look like it was grated or something, so that’s what I wanted to get away from. It looks maybe slicker, in that sense, but then we have fairly advanced shaders, so when you get close to an object, it’ll have really precise detail still. Yeah, the hard thing was mostly to figure out what the recipe was.

Is it intimidating at all working on this franchise? We’ve already seen what happens when someone makes a sequel to Deus Ex and it doesn’t meet expectations. Fans are going to hold it to a very high standard, maybe unrealistically high. If you go back and play Deus Ex now—

They almost have a distorted memory of it, yes.

It was kind of weird, because we also had to start a studio at the same time. Most of the early people, we all came from Ubisoft Montreal, and there were two things: to do a new Deus Ex, and it was also to put the studio together. We were renting offices, at first; we had nothing, barely any equipment, there was no team, the technology wasn’t chosen yet, there was no art bank. You know, for example, when we were at Ubisoft, we start a new project and for the first six months, just to get your thing going, you’ll be taking stuff from other games.

Like for placeholders?

Right, and we had no such things—I don’t know, maybe somehow because of that, it dampened the fear we should have had from having to make a new Deus Ex, you know what I mean?

Because you had so much stuff to deal with, you just had to get to work.

There we go, I couldn’t have said it better. Obviously, we knew how big it was, and we were all big fans ourselves. We knew about the pedigree, we knew about the fans, but we had to do it; we wanted to do it; it’s kind of like this make or break thing. You know, it’s the studio’s first game... maybe it wasn’t such a good idea! No no no, it was a great idea to attract people, actually. We just jumped in head-first, and put all of our eggs in the same basket. I think it’s looking alright; it’s not up to me to say how good it is.

The original game has some celebrity developers attached to it: Harvey Smith, Warren Spector; have they seen the game that you know of? Did you get any reactions from them?

Yeah, Harvey hasn’t seen it, but Warren has seen it, and he likes what he saw. I don’t want to hype it too much or under-hype it, because I don’t want to get into trouble, but I will say that he liked it.

This is kind of a small thing, but can you talk about the “item glint” system that you’re using? [The walkthrough demonstrated a yellow outlining effect to highlight interactive objects.] It seems like it would be hard to find a balance between making it obvious what you can interact with and avoiding something overly obtrusive.

It’s not so bad. One of my main art direction pillars was clutter. I wanted to have lots of props, lots of shit piled on top of everything. We realized was that, going through playtesting, it was a little confusing. That’s when we decided to go with that outline stuff, and like J.F. was explaining in the questions, I think it’s properly managed. It’s not like you open the door to a big room and everything lights up; you need to get into a proper distance, and there’s a rather small threshold in which it becomes highlighted, and it disappears as soon as you move away. Some people, it might not be their cup of tea, but in today’s market, if you make it too subtle, some people will just get discouraged. It has to be accessible.

Hey, you’re an augmented guy with crazy vision implants, so—

That’s our rationale behind it.

Speaking of which, cyberpunk as a genre has kind of fallen out of fashion, with the Internet becoming a mundane, everyday thing—

My feeling is that cyberpunk is what we live today.

How do you try to make it feel relevant today?

The way that we thought about it starting mostly, for me—we asked ourselves the question as artists: can we reproduce the visuals of Blade Runner on today’s consoles? The answer would probably be yes. But then, what would it say about the studio’s capacity for creativity? So, we wanted to bring something new. As you say, it’s not that fashionable; it’s kind of dormant, so that’s when this whole idea of the cyber-renaissance thing, which is not something that you saw much of in today’s demo, but it’s such a big game with so many areas that sometimes you feel it, sometimes you don’t, sometimes it’s omnipresent. That’s part of the idea to bring back cyberpunk, but with a twist to it.

The other thing is, when we started the first focus group for the game, kind of early on, maybe within the first year, testing out the early ideas and everything, we realized that here in the States, and in Europe, because we tested in both continents: kids nowadays? They don’t even know what cyberpunk is. Really, we could not believe it. You never would have thought, if you take a random chunk of 20 kids who all play games—even the hardcore ones—they’re like “Cyberwhat?” We thought, we cannot use that word! Nobody knows what it is. And, you know, we’re using it, but it really was a huge eye-opener for us.

[Gesturing to J.J.B.’s prominent tattoos] I can see that you’re a fan of Warhammer, you know, tabletop games. Have you played roleplaying games at all?

I played when I was younger.

Ever play Cyberpunk 2020?

The only roleplaying game I really played was Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

An awesome game; lots of limbs getting chopped off.

Lots of limbs getting chopped off, yeah, inverting those numbers [a reference to the operation of the critical hit tables]. Yeah, as someone who was creative and wanting to make games, I would buy tons of roleplaying rulebooks, just to read them, and so I had all the Cyberpunk and all those things, and it was the same thing for Warhammer. Warhammer 40,000 is probably my most favorite universe ever, but I own all the rulebooks and all the codices, and I’ve never played the game. Never fucking played the game. I’ve painted the figurines. I haven’t painted in, maybe, six or seven years, because I just don’t have time, but I got to a really high level, where maybe I could start doing those competitions, like the Golden Daemon and shit, but then I just started running out of time. So, I got really into painting the figurines, really into the universe, to the point that—these tattoos are old; I was eighteen when I got them, but still, my passion for that universe hasn’t gone away ever. It’s just kind of weird that I’ve never played the game.

I have a bunch of miniatures, I’ve painted a lot, and I have a ton of the books, and I’ve never played it—

I have all the novels, all the rulebooks, and I love reading them, love the computer games. Alright, cool man, you’re like the first guy I’ve ever met who’s like me. I love to get into that universe, but I don’t really feel like playing the game that much.

Tell me about designing Adam Jensen.

It was tough. It was rough. It took a good two years to nail him down. We kinda knew the overarching design straight from the beginning. We wanted, obviously, not a big brute, there are enough of those in this cycle of consoles. We wanted him to have hair.

You’re crazy. Nobody is going to buy that.

There was this sentence that we coined at the beginning: “He can kick your ass, then he goes home and reads a good book.” We had this idea of, you know the French actor, Vincent Cassel?

No.

Have you seen Black Swan?

No.

He’s French, but he does a lot of movies here. Anyway, he’s a regular build, but there’s just something about his face, about his attitude. You think, “I would never fuck with that guy.” It’s just something that he emanates. And that’s kinda what we wanted. But, because we wanted the mechanical augmentations to be at the forefront of the game and of the visuals—that’s why often you see Adam from third-person, so you can see his arms—J.F. wanted his arms to be visible at all times. And, you know, he’s the creative director, so he’s my boss, but also, we wanted him to look like an agent who could be sent behind enemy lines, and at the same time walk into a high-end restaurant to interrogate someone.

It was a really hard equation to solve: he has to look like Solid Snake, and he has to look like James Bond, and you need to see his mechanical arms all at the same time. So we gave him a vest, and he looked like a douchebag all the time, like a biker or something. Every one of my concept artists had a go at it, where they would pool their energy to try to improve him, and it never quite worked. One day, Jim Murray, one of my concept artists, approached me, and—as simple as it sounds—says, “Let’s just make him two outfits.” One is kind of his battle gear, where you see his arms, and one is kind of his urban gear, because such a big part of the game is being in the city hubs, investigating and talking to people, going into rich places, inserting yourself into an apartment or whatever, and that’s when he’s gonna have his cyberpunky trench coat, and you’re not going to see his arms.

Again, as simple as it sounds, like holy shit. But then, we still had to run it by J.F. and the writer. Often, people don’t realize how a simple choice can be very complex to implement in the game, so we had a few meetings about it, and we decided to go with it. After that, within two months, Jim had nailed them; we had the jacket, which I loved. Also, the challenge was that when he has the jacket, he still has to be able to use the same augmentations. So, he has the claymore, the typhoon, where all those beads eject from his arms, so how do you do this when you have a jacket? Or when your blade extends backward? So we designed those slits in his jacket, and he has ports on it that kind of magnetize to the holes on his arms to let go of the beads and everything, so we kind of worked out how it works.

Yeah, so two months later, Adam was born, and the little pointy beard was kind of the Don Quixote thing, kind of the renaissance/baroque thing.

In the Icarus dream sequence in the trailer, you can see that the facial hair works in both settings. [This sequence features Adam surrounded by men in Renaissance-era garb.]

The Icarus thing was such a great find, in the sense that it was such a great metaphor for augmentations, because that’s what happens, right? Daedalus, his dad, gives him the wings so he can escape the maze, basically having wings is augmenting yourself. The feathers are glued with wax, so he says, “Don’t fly too close to the sun, or the wings will melt,” but he has so much fun with the wings that that’s what he does, and then he dies. That’s a bit like what it is with augmentation; if you overdo it, like with anything in life, you might burn yourself. We though it was such a great analogy for that.

Do you personally have a strong opinion on transhumanism?

Strong? Not necessarily, I wouldn’t say strong. I’m not intensely passionate about the pros and cons, but I think it’s inevitable. I think it’s one of those things that we’ll need to have laws, and we’ll need to have ways to control what will happen. There are going to be big mistakes, like with everything. There are mistakes made all the time in medicine, the military makes mistakes all the time, but I think it’s inevitable. If we try to stop it, there will be underground, illegal shit, and stuff like that. I’m quite convinced that in the next, maybe, 40 years, we’ll be immensely transformed. From all the stuff I’ve read, the specialists we’ve met, I think we’re going to see some crazy shit in the next 30 years.

Globe-trotting was a big component of the first Deus Ex; you cover a lot of mileage. Do you do that a lot in this one?

Yes, there’s definitely a lot of variety, yup.

One thing that the first game kind of failed at was giving the impression that you’re in a larger world. The city areas felt a bit constrained. How did you approach that problem?

It’s funny, as the cycles of consoles and technologies evolve, the constraints somehow always remain the same. OK, Grand Theft Auto, it’s immense or whatever; it never seems to end, but, for example, what you do with the NPCs is very limited compared to Deus Ex. Anyway, you add all this stuff that you can do in Deus Ex, and suddenly you don’t have the power to do a city that big, so we had the same constraints. Don’t get me wrong, the city hubs are quite big; many, many streets; tons of alleyways and buildings to get into, sewers to get into, rooftops... all that shit. At the same time—at some point you can’t go further, and you need to find tricks to convey that there’s a sprawling city around you, and why that path is blocked when it seems like it should be open. It’s a very common game design problem.

I remember on Splinter Cell at Ubisoft, it was the same thing. “This street is blocked, why?” And I would be, like, “Maybe some guy is moving out,” so there’s a big truck, and stuff like that blocking the street. It’s very common. But honestly, I think we manage rather well in Deus Ex. And then, there are compounds that you go into, like office buildings and secret laboratories where those limitations aren’t as important anymore, because you are in a confined area, but for the city hubs, I think we get away with it quite well.

A big feature of the game is having multiple approaches to every situation. Is that frustrating, especially being involved in the art side, because there may be significant chunks of the game that a lot of players won’t see?

Frustrating? No. I wouldn’t say it’s frustrating, because, obviously, we try to make the coolest stuff in the critical path. Now, that being said, it doesn’t mean that side-quests or whatever don’t have their own things, but you can manage; you just try to make everything look cool. I don’t know if we succeeded. I have a really hard time saying, “Oh, this doesn’t need to look as cool,” or whatever; I try to put just as much energy into everything.

I guess your question is more—if some people don’t see some of the cool stuff we’ve made... It is going to happen, but to some degree it’s kind of cool. They’ll be talking to their friends and they will have seen it, even if you haven’t, and I think it’s all part of the trip, really. But it’s cool, because I’ve worked at companies before where they never would have allowed us to do that.

It seems like a waste of resources.

Exactly. Some companies are so into every penny you spend, the player has to see it. Which is very rational when you think about it; it makes total sense, but sometimes making a game that gives you a specific feeling, that gives you that flavor so that once you’ve turned off your computer and when you go to bed you’re still thinking about it, it’s also a game that has all these things that are not just thrown in your face like that. But, that is quite expensive to do.

So, I’m guessing you can’t say anything about Thief 4.

No.

I figured.

That would be the death of me. No, it’s gonna rock your socks off; there we go.

Just how awesome is it?

Super awesome. Super-duper awesome.

No, it’s a great team honestly; tons of my friends are there. The art director is a great friend of mine, and uh... I’m not even sure I’m allowed to say that, so I’ll stop there.

It seems like a similarly ambitious sequel to make. Like with Deus Ex, fan expectations are off the charts.

It’s the same thing, exactly. I think it was really... that’s what we wanted to do with that studio. If we open another goddamn studio in that city? We do it strong or we don’t do it.

**In the first game, J.C. Denton is kind of inept in the beginning. It’s surprising that he’s supposed to be this super-spy, but he can barely fire a gun straight. I assume that Adam Jensen is a bit more capable right off the bat. **

Big time, yeah. Also, the shooting is something that right from the get-go, me and J.F. agreed that the shooting skill of Adam Jensen is going to be the player’s shooting skills. In terms of that, it’s a full-fledged first-person shooter. You know the crosshairs there? That’s where the bullet’s gonna go. You can still augment him in some ways to be a better shooter, like for recoil, or stuff like that. All the weapons are fully upgradeable, so that aspect of RPGness is still there, but where you shoot is where you shoot.

I’ll admit that I cheated to max out my skills in Deus Ex and found it a lot more fun that way.

The skills—that system was quite punitive.

You do have an upgrade system in this, where you earn your Praxis Points and unlock augmentations—are those scarce enough that you can’t get every upgrade by the end of the game?

You can’t max everything in a play-through. You can become the jack of all trades if you want, but you won’t be an expert at everything, or you can really invest in a branch.

If somebody specializes very much in, say, stealth, and therefore tends to use that to get through every encounter, do you think that can become monotonous and discourage people from experimenting with the other techniques?

Hmm, that’s a good question. It’s never been asked to me that way, specifically. I hope not. I don’t think it is—the way we’ve designed the challenges is that they’re never molded for one style of gameplay. It’s not like you get to an environment where it’s like, “Here you have to play stealth.” We’ve shown a quick example of that in the demo: if you wouldn’t have been able to disable the turret, there was that passage on the side. Usually most challenges are set up that way, but not as obvious as that; it’s built quite like the first one in that regard.

Are you absolutely sure there are no blue laser swords in the game? [A reference to a question asked during audience Q&A]

As of right now, this time, today: absolutely sure.

Thank you very much, I really appreciate it.

It was awesome, man. Great questions, thanks.

#deus ex #deus ex human revolution

[rogersstevie]

why are people complaining that the lion king isn’t really live action like did you want them to use real lions

#should beauty and the beast used real talking furniture like #what do y’all want

[obviouslyelementary]

Disney

The Connor siblings belong to @thebunnyartist check them out! they are really cool!

This is just a little fanfic about my headcanon on how the boys would like their Disney movies hahaha. Disney is the best.

--------

Obviously that Hank would show Connor and his brothers the movies from Disney.

Everyone deserved to watch it, everyone should watch it, Disney was great. Specially the classics.

God, he remembered the times when he went to the cinema with his family to watch Tarzan. The little mermaid. Hercules. All classics now.

He was really old.

But in any case, he decided to gather all of them for a family weekend, telling Fowler they would only come back on Monday, and rented a few of his favorite Disney movies so he could watch with the boys.

He bought popcorn, snacks, soda, juice, blue blood and all of those things, all that they needed for a good family time together.

"Okay boys. Here is the deal" he told them as they came back from their respective works that Friday afternoon. "I called your bosses and told them that this weekend, you four are free to spend some time with me"

"Okay" the four of them answered together, each one in their own way, but still, their coordination creeped Hank out sometimes.

"So, I rented some movies I used to watch when I was a kid, like you-"

"We are not-"

"-And we are going to watch them" Hank said, firmly, and the four androids looked at the each other, with Connor and Colton smiling and Conan and Colin shrugging. "I bought snacks, drinks, and rented the movies, because I am nostalgic as fuck and I love animated movies"

"We are not going to watch... Shrek again right?" Connor asked, furrowing his eyebrows a bit out of what Hank could only guess was disgust, making the man raise his hand, pointing to him.

"Don't you dare do that expression when talking about the best movie ever made" he said firmly, and Connor immediately relaxed his facial muscles, looking down ashamed. "That's right. Shrek deserves respect. But no. It's not that. It's the real classics"

"Like Disney?" Colton asked, eyes wide and shining. Hank hummed, smiling at him. He really liked that kid.

"yes. Like Disney. Now go get comfortable, get off those uniforms and join your dad in the living room. We don't have all day long"

"We have an entire weekend" Conan said, and Hank waved him off.

"Go!"

 They began with what seemed to be Colton's favorites: the classic princesses. Snow White, Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty, and then some other classics, like Bambi and Robin Hood.

He seemed to like those the best.

Somehow, Colton knew all the songs (only after a long time Hank realized they could just look up the lyrics in their big brains), and sang them out loud to his heart's content. He even pulled Connor for a dance eventually, singing as they swayed around the living room, almost destroying all furniture and stepping on Sumo.

Eventually, by the fourth movie, Colin poked Hank on the arm and nodded towards Conan, and all of them turned to the youngest android, only to find him deeply asleep.

(he would never admit it later, that the animations Hank was so found of made him go in sleep mode, but Hank couldn't care less. He was adorable when he slept, and that was a rare occurrence)

Then, they kept going. Hank decided to focus the next segment on animal movies, so they watched 101 dalmatians, The Fox and the Hound, Aristocats, Mogli, the Lady and the Tramp. Those movies seemed to call Colin's attention the most, his eyes fixated on every scene, his hand 'accidentally' holding onto hank's blanket when something tense was happening.

But they were all surprised when they heard a sob coming from the quietest android as Colin hid behind his hands when the old woman left the fox in the forest in Fox and the Hound. Honestly, Hank himself didn't remember how upsetting that movie was, but he never knew it would make any of them so upset.

Specially Colin.

"S-she left hi-him!" Colin sobbed as they froze the movie, all androids and Hank looking worriedly at the middle brother. "Wh-why?!"

"She had to. He was an wild animal, she couldn't keep him inside forever" Conan said, as warmly as he could, which wasn't much, and only caused Colin to groan and hit him in the chest.

"Fuck that!" he said loudly, before hitting his own lap and wiping his eyes. "I want him happy!"

"Watch the end of the movie kid" hank chuckled, tilting his head. Colin frowned, eyes still teary.

"Will he be happy?"

"Yes"

Colin huffed and wiped his eyes some more before unfreezing the movie and curling up against himself, hugging his legs like a petulant child.

Gladly, the movie actually ended with the fox being happy with his girlfriend fox, which was a relief because Hank had totally bluffed. God, he needed to watch those movies again.

They moved on to the ones Hank had actually watched in the cinema. Hercules, Little mermaid, Lion King, Tarzan, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas.

Those were Connor's favorites. He really liked the ideas behind them, and made constant comments on it. He talked about costumes about the different places that they showed like China and Africa, he talked about the myths about mermaids, and about beasts and monsters and genies.

He was really into the whole fun.

At least, until they watched Tarzan, and his eyes widened at a certain song, something clicking inside his head.

"relate"

Hank furrowed his eyebrows and turned his face towards Connor while the others did the same.

"What?"

"Isn't that the expression? Relate? Relatable?" connor asked, looking back at Hank and making him chuckle.

"you mean you relate to the movie?"

"To the song, Hank" Connor explained, looking back at the TV. "Strangers like me. That was what I felt when I first met Markus. When I first saw all of those deviants."

"Oh. That's sweet" Hank said, smiling fondly, and Connor frowned, looking at him.

"it is intelligent, a really profound song Hank. It is not 'sweet'"

"I think he means you are sweet" Colton suggested, and Connor hummed, smiling a bit.

"Oh thanks" he mumbled, grabbing his pillow and hugging it as he looked back at the television.

But not before he leaned closer to hank and laid his head against his leg, while quietly mouthing the song to himself.

At last, they reached the movies from the 2000s. Since the android creator was born in 2002, he guessed they would know enough about those movies, and gladly, he wouldn't have to show many more from beyond 2020.

They didn’t even have that time anyway. It was already Sunday, after lunch.

He began with the ones he despised the least. Because yes, after he grew up, the movies began to suck. So they watched Atlantis, Brother Bear, The Emperors new Groove, Treasure Planet, Lilo and Stitch, Big Hero Six and some others. They finished it off with Coco, one of Hank's favorites. That movie was really good.

The only one he actually liked from the 2010s.

And, as he was guessing, those should be Conan's favorites. At least, he hadn't shown any particular interest in any of them, so he hoped he would like at least one to do something else other than raise an eyebrow or sleep.

But then again, maybe animations weren’t for him. And if that was the case, Hank needed to find out what was.

In any case, as the new movies played, Conan watched them attentively. Perhaps a bit more than the rest, seeming to really be analyzing them. However, unlike the other three, he remained quiet until the last one finished.

Hank couldn't really stand the silence, turning to Conan and humming.

"So. Conan. Did you like any?"

"yeah, you said nothing throughout the entire weekend" Colton asked, frowning curiously, and both Connor and Colin looked over at him, waiting.

Conan was still staring at the Tv, and his focused glance slowly turned to a frown.

"They were all... bad" he said, coldly, but clearly trying to say it in a way that wouldn’t hurt anyone.

"Conan!" Colton whined. "They are beautiful!"

"I enjoyed them quite a lot" Connor admitted.

"I wish they weren't so sad" Colin mumbled, crossing his arms.

"They are obnoxious, predictable, the voice acting could be better with the lip-syncing, the animations were reused many times throughout many movies, simply overlaid with different characters. The songs were weak, catchy and designed to be sung by children, there were morals to every single one of them and most of them ended up in the same complex. There were barely no morally grey characters, leaving the entire art as something very black and white and boring" Conan said, coldly, clearly irritated, and all others widened their eyes at his complains. "I'm sorry Hank. I did not enjoy it"

"... kid, you are the best" Hank chuckled, and Conan looked at him surprised. "Next time, we will find something you will like. Don't worry" he tapped his shoulder and shook his head, standing up. "Time to sleep boys"

"Already?" Colton complained, and Hank smiled at him.

"you four don't have to sleep" he chuckled, rolling his eyes. "Goodnight"

"Night!"

"Goodnight Hank"

"Sleep well!"

"Until tomorrow"

The silence remained for a while, as Hank changed. But as he laid down on the bed, the discussions began.

"I can't believe you didn't like Mulan"

"She was just crossdressing, Colton"

"Colin, you have no feelings"

"Do you think I should try it one day?"

"try what Connor?"

"crossdressing"

"... yeah!"

"Colton, be silent. Father is sleeping"

"Conan, you know he doesn’t sleep so quick"

"Does not mean you can be loud"

"Can we watch Lion King again?"

"Colin... why do you want to watch that?"

"I... like the songs"

"Fine with me"

"I agree"

"..."

"Conan?"

"... fine"

"Yay!"

Less then five minutes later, Hank could hear the opening song through his wall, and smiled lightly to himself.

He had the best kids.

#siblings au #my fanfic #thebunnyartist #thebunnyartist au #dbh #Detroit become human #hank #connor #conan #colin #colton #connor 60 #rk900 #oc

[kpop4ever-17-blog]

Beauty and the Beast? || Vernon

Author: Jade Taylor Group: Seventeen Member: Vernon Type: Fluff Words: 2,325 POV: 1st A/N: This will be my last post in 1st person. I will be going on to 2nd person that way readers can insert their name and I can write for everyone! +++      Have you ever had that feeling of loving someone, no matter how much you wish you didn't? Like they were completely and utterly rude and obnoxious most of the time, but in rare moments that person changed and they became this beautiful person wounded by the world around them, and they confined in you. It became like you two were the only ones that existed, and nothing else mattered but you two being together. Have you ever felt that way?      Well I have...      It all started because of my adventurous spirit. I had a habit of thinking the big city of Seol wasn't for me, and I'd take any chance I could to sneak out to the untouched dirt roads and woods to see what I could find. You'd be surprised how many valuable things I found discarded on the side of the road or buried under layers of dead leaves, left by either careless people or people from past centuries no longer remembered by this world. That's also where I stumbled across the mansion... And them. (FLASHBACK)      I pushed through some branches trying not to let my clothes or hair get caught on the sharp edges. I had expected there to be more trees and plants past the thick treeline separating the forest from the road, but what I found shocked me. A huge house stood in a huge clearing. It was white and beautiful, looking to be from the Victorian era, and there were beautiful flowers planted all around. I also noticed vegetables and fruits planted along the right side of the house, and they looked well taken care of, but it didn't make any sense to me. The house looked abandoned...      Slowly, and cautiously I crept across the yard, up the steps of the porch, and to the door. Reaching out and twisting the knob, I expected it to be locked, but I was surprised when it opened smoothly. Thinking that this was wrong, and that if someone did live here I was technically breaking in even if the door was unlocked. I knew that I should've left, but it's like something was calling me inside, so I stepped in and closed the door behind me...      The inside wasn't nearly as beautiful as the outside. Wallpaper was peeling from the walls, the wooden floors were rotting, the furniture was dusty and most of it was broken, and it looked completely deserted. It looked like no one had lived here in decades, which only made me more confused. How were those plants outside still alive?      An unexplainable pull made me push my questions away and continue walking. I was taken upstairs, passed the second, third, and fourth floors, all the way to the attic. There I found a circular window with a single ray of light coming through it, falling onto a table that held a glass dome. Inside that dome was a rose, just like the one from Beauty and the Beast, the movie I had watched at least a hundred times as a kid.      Now, knowing what happened when Belle got too close to the Rose in that movie, I should have stayed a way right? Exactly... But that movie was pure fiction, and this was real life, so I inched closer, and closer, until I was millimeters away from touching the glass... "I wouldn't do that if I were you," I low voice spoke from behind me. I jumped and turned around coming face to face... Well, more like face to faces... With thirteen boys all packed into the small attic. "I-I'm sorry I didn't know anyone lives here... The door was unlocked," I tried to find an excuse for being in the house. "That still doesn't give you a right to enter without permission," The same boy who spoke the first time said. He had brown hair, brown eyes that glared at me, and he looked younger than most of them, almost boyish. "I'm truly sorry," I rushed, feeling fear rise in my throat. I was one girl alone with thirteen male strangers, and I had broken into their home, "I don't want any trouble, I was just out wandering around the woods and I stumbled across this place. I didn't know anyone lived here, hell it looks like it's falling apart. I'll just leave and I won't come back." "Fine by me," The boy shrugged, "Leave."      I nodded, training my eyes to the floor. I shuffled over to them as they parted ways for me to get past. As I went from floor to floor, I noticed it looked like the house had been made over in the time I was in the attic. The floors were pristine, the wallpaper was beautiful, and the furniture was elegant. What the hell is going on here?      As I stepped out of the house and rushed down the stairs, I heard multiple pairs of rushed footsteps coming after me. I guessed they wanted to make sure I left... But as I reached the tree line, ready to push my way out of there and never return, it was like an invisible wall held me back. No matter how hard I pushed it wouldn't budge, no matter how hard I hit, it wouldn't break. "Well, this isn't good," I heard one of the boys behind me say. He was shorter than the rest. "It actually is good. You know what this means," Another boy spoke, who seemed to be a giant. "What do you mean 'what this means!?'" I asked, panic starting to take over. "Hey, hey... It's okay, calm down," A boy with black hair spoke softly, holding his hands out as if to get me to relax. He took a few steps closer, "I'm Jun. I'll explain everything, because unfortunately for you, it looks like you're stuck with us for a while."      I once again started to panic, wondering why I'd be stuck here for a while. It took all of them except the one who kept glaring at me to calm me down. I learned all their names and I told them mine... My name is Aria. "Okay, Aria. I'm sure you've heard the story of Beauty and the Beast? Right?" Jun asked me. I nodded. "Yes, of course she's heard it. She's a girl after all," Vernon spoke, making me internally roll my eyes. He wasn't a very pleasant person. "Well," Jun just ignored the younger boy, "That story isn't all fairytale. It was a true story, and it happened centuries ago, but its not the only time the enchantress cursed someone... We were famous, and we used that to our advantage. We were surrounded by people who gave us endless attention, and we used people for our own benefit, so she trapped us out in this mansion. We can't leave until someone can see us being selfless, and if we can't do that by the time the last petal falls from that rose, we cease to exist. She told us that if ever anyone stepped onto this land and wasn't able to leave, then they were the key, but none of us know how. We don't know what to do to prove selflessness, but we need your help to do that. You're the key, that's why you can't leave." (FLASHBACK OVER)      That's how I found myself staying with thirteen boys in a beautiful and magical mansion, with a magical rose withering more each day. I knew that if the last petal fell, I'd be free as I wasn't cursed, but I had grown close to twelve of the boys, and Vernon... He was rude most of the time toward me, but there were times when we were alone where he was a completely different person. He was kind and sweet, and we shared secrets we couldn't tell anyone else. I slowly fell in love with him...      It took months and slowly I found each boy, except for Vernon, to be selfless. They had all changed after years of being locked away in that house with only each other. However, no matter how much I wanted to see Vernon complete a selfless act, he never did. And more time passed, and soon came the time where there was only one rose petal left on the flower. All the boys were depressed, because even though most of them had done what was required of them, all of them had to be proven selfless for the curse to break.      We were all together in the living room, where the rose had been moved to sit on the coffee table. Everyone's eyes were trained on the flower, waiting... Dreading. I felt like I was going to cry. I had been sad, and I had missed my family and friends the first month I was trapped in this mansion, but none of them really cared about me. I had learned that these boys cared about me more than my own family ever did, and I was about to lose them... "Aria?" I heard Vernon call my name. "Yeah?" My voice cracked. "Can I talk to you outside for a minute?" His eyes we're pleading. I nodded and we let the others know we'd be back soon, before walking outside standing over by the flowers. "What's up?" I asked, I'm sure he could hear the sadness in my voice. "Well, since we're almost out of time, I see no reason in keeping it from you any longer," He sighed,  "At least I can die knowing I told you." "Told me what?" I questioned, confused. "I know that most of the time I'm completely rude to you and I act like you don't exist, but I'm sure from the time that we spend alone together you know I care about you, right?" He asked, shifting from one foot to the other. "Yeah..?" I was confused, wondering where this conversation was going. "Well I care about you more than what I show you Aria," He looked into my eyes with his chocolate brown orbs, "At first I hated you, and I thought you were going to ruin everything by giving us false hope that we would survive, but as time passed and I got to know you I found it impossible to hate you... Even if your presence gave us false hope. You're beautiful, smart, sweet, and you're selfless. You're so amazing and I found myself falling in love with you, but I couldn't tell you. If I did, and you decided to stay around me more than you already did... When that rose petal fell, even if I wouldn't be around to see it, I couldn't stand the thought of you being hurt by me being gone. I couldn't do it, no matter how much I wanted you to be in my arms in my last days... I love you and I want you, but I can't hurt you just to get what I want."      He turned away from me then, so he didn't see the smile that spread across my face. His words made my heart race, knowing that he felt the same way about me that I did about him, but what really made me smile was that they were so... Selfless. "Vernon!" I tried getting his attention, eager to share the news. "Yeah, I know. It just dawned on me that I'm about to die and leave this burden on your shoulders. I shouldn't have said anything," He looked at the ground. "No! Vernon! Look at me!" He did as told, frowning in confusion when he saw my smile, "That was the most selfless thing I've ever heard you say, and for the record... I love you too..." "You do!?" His eyes lit up for a second and then widened, "Wait... Did you say that I was selfless?" "Yes!" I nodded vigorously. "Does that mean..?" He trailed off with a small smile. "Yes! That means the curse is-" I didn't get to say 'broken,' because all of a sudden he was in front of me, snaking his arms around my waist, and smashing his lips to mine.      We moved slowly and sweetly in sync. I smiled into the kiss and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer to me. He to smiled, and I felt like I was on cloud nine. The curse was broken, Vernon said he loved me, and here we were outside locked in each other's arms, showing each other the feelings we kept hidden for so long. "Aria! Vernon!" We heard multiple voices calling us and many footsteps sounding across the porch. We pulled away from the kiss, but stayed in each other's arms as the boys made their way over to us. "The last petal fell, but we're still here! The curse is broken!" Minghao yelled, smiling from ear to ear. "I know," I smiled back at him. "But how?" Joshua questioned. "Our Vernon isn't as selfish as we all thought," I said looking up into said boy's eyes. He smiled at me and kissed my forehead, making all the others suddenly notice us in an embrace. "Are you two together..?" Jun asked, furrowing his eyebrows. Vernon looked at the older boy, then back into my eyes. "If she'll have me?" He said it like it was a question. "Always," I told him. It was true. I was sure my heart would always belong to him. "And forever?" He questioned with a playful smirk. "Yes," I nodded then pushed myself up, capturing his lips in another kiss.      As Vernon kissed me back, we earned loud groans of protest from the twelve onlookers, but neither of us cared. We stayed there together as the others retreated into the house. The curse was broken, and we no longer had to stay in this house together, but I knew we would... Because we were a family, and we were all happy together. For now... And forever...

#Seventeen #svt #seventeen imagines #svt imagines seventeen fanfiction #svt fanfiction #Vernon imagines #Vernon fanfiction #seventeen fluff #svt fluff #Vernon fluff