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sempersirens · 9 months

Text

a bird in your teeth, III

masterlist

summary: joel deals with the aftermath of a traumatic experience

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

warnings: 18+, mdni, neighbour!joel, age gap: reader is early-mid 20s, joel early 30s. no break-out. reference to past SA, trauma, nightmares, general symptoms of PTSD. eventual smut

a/n: hello lovelies! slightly longer part ahead. i've decided to make the next part the final installment of this mini-series, i wanted to explore some more intimate aspects between joel and reader that didn't quite fit here. i hope you enjoy! <3

word count: 3.5k

The sweet chirping of birdsong felt like Mother Nature was playing a cruel joke on you as you stood on the side of the street, arms hugged tightly around yourself. You felt as though the birds were laughing down at you, cackling at your wretched state, sharing an inside joke at your expense. As dawn drew in, her rosy fingers pulled at the remnants of the night's sky. The beauty of the orange and pink hues was wasted on you. To you, it served as a reminder that even as a new day rolled in, the memories swarming your mind wouldn't fade quite as swiftly.

When Joel's truck came hurtling towards you, all notion of time had faded away. You couldn't tell if seconds, hours, or even days had passed since you had lowered your phone from your face. Fifty dawns and dusks could've gone by for all you cared.

The heat from your pumping heart manifested into a blush that crept up your cheeks, and the consequence of your damsel-in-distress phone call settled in your gut.

Joel was here. You had called him, and he had come.

"What happened?" His expression was stern, hair disheveled, and flannel shirt almost comically misbuttoned. You would've laughed if you could remember how.

He grazed your bloody lip with this thumb.

"Sweetheart, what happened?"

"This was a mistake..." You became aware of his hands now on your arms. "Please, don't touch me."

The words tumbling out of your mouth must've sounded as limp and pathetic as you felt. Joel's eyes softened into confusion, and then concern. You didn't have the energy to pull away, but you couldn't bring yourself to look him in the eye anymore. You feared his gaze would open every locked door inside of you and allow the mess to collapse onto him.

He said your name, softly, removing you from his grip and opening the passenger door.

"Let me take you home."

As you had done all night, you silently obliged. Joel guided you into the truck, his hand hovering over the crown of your head. He closed the door gently and made his way into the driver's seat, starting the ignition in silence. Was he angry? You couldn't work it out. His knuckles were wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel they had turned white.

"Joel, please don't be angry with me."

"I'm not angry. I'm taking you back to my place, gonna get you cleaned up, and then when you're ready..."

"Is Sarah okay?" You interrupted.

"Sound asleep. I gotta take her to school in a coupl'a hours, but I'll come straight back to you."

This wasn't right. You shook your head in soft defiance, staring at your lap where your hands sat, fingers interlocked. As you thought of all the trouble you had caused him, you noticed your thumbnails digging into your hands so sharply that you had drawn blood. You turned your palms shakily onto your bare thighs to hide the fresh droplets.

"Honey, where are your shoes?"

Joel's soft inquiry snapped you out of your trance; you hadn't even realized you'd left those fucking cowboy boots on the bedroom floor in your rush out of the front door.

"I left them... I-I didn't think to..." Your breathing became erratic again, chest heaving with each rise and fall feeling like a weight was crushing into your ribcage.

"Hey, hey hey. Breathe. You're with me. You're safe with me, you know that." He reached across your lap and squeezed your still interlocked hands, filling his lungs with air and then exhaling slowly through his mouth like he was a midwife guiding you through childbirth.

You copied his rhythmic breaths, focusing on the emerging purple colors now littering the sky. It was cruel for the sky above you to be so warm and inviting.

You wished for an English February; for thick layers of ice coating the ground with black ice hidden underneath. You wanted it to be the cold that had caused your muscles to freeze, or the harshness of a dry wind to be clawing down your throat. You wished you could blame the weather for the way your body was reacting.

Of all people, you didn't want Joel to see you as weak. You internally reprimanded yourself for pulling him out of his home, away from his daughter to come and save you. Your body and soul had never taken to relying on others easily. Who had you become? You were supposed to be strong. You moved across the world all by yourself, for god's sake.

"What's goin' on in that head of yours?"

"Everything."

The remainder of the journey was silent.

Joel pulled into his driveway, soon exiting the truck and jogging to your side to help you out.

"Easy, darlin'."

He carried your handbag on one arm and looped the other to support your waist. With his free hand, he unlocked the door and closed it quietly behind him.

"Sarah's not gonna be up for another couple hours, you go make yourself comfortable in my bedroom, I'll bring everything y'need."

You gave him a pathetic nod before traipsing up the stairs you had watched Sarah scurrying up only six hours ago. Despite your years of friendship with the Millers, you had never actually gone into Joel's bedroom. You had snuck a peek or two inside whenever the door was left ajar if you passed on your way to the bathroom, but had never set foot inside.

His bedsheets were haphazardly thrown back, half dangling onto the carpeted floor. The fan on his dresser was still humming, sending ripples through his pillowcases. You were reluctant to make yourself at home as he had instructed, so perched on the edge of his bed eyeing the posters dotted on his walls. His bedroom looked like it hadn't changed since his 20s, reminding you of how young he must've been when he started a new life to bring up Sarah in a home he could call his own.

Joel appeared at the door, shutting it softly behind him. He was balancing a steaming mug and a first aid kit in one hand, and some pillows from the sofa under his other arm. He set the mug down on the nightstand beside his bed. Tears swelled in the corner of your eyes at what you recognized as the Yorkshire Tea he kept stocked in the cupboard, especially for you.

"Want you to sit back and get real comfy, alright?"

"Okay."

You hesitantly lifted your legs to rest on the bed, shuffling backward towards the headboard. Joel set the first aid kit at the foot of the bed and leaned over to place the pillows behind your back.

"That okay?"

You nodded your head without looking directly at him.

Wordlessly, Joel walked around to the other side of the bed, setting himself down with a barely audible groan. He brought the first aid kit into his lap and started sifting through the contents.

"You mind if I take a look at your lip?"

"No. I mean - that's fine."

You parted your lips slightly, Joel's fingers lifting your chin up towards him.

"Washed m'hands, promise."

He pulled your bottom lip down to inspect the wound, cleaning the now-dried blood from your chin. The silence in his bedroom made his touch even more intense. You'd felt his hand on your waist, or accidentally brush past your bare skin now and then, but this... You had never been touched by anybody like this before. His eyebrows were furrowed tightly as he put all of his focus into handling you with care.

You had been with your fair share of guys before; boyfriends, one-night-stands, whatever. But the way you felt under Joel's gaze in this moment, holding your chin between his thumb and index finger, made you feel like nobody had ever truly touched you before. Like you were brand new. It made you want to sob. You had to start regulating your breathing again to prevent your lip from wobbling, shattering your impenetrable exterior.

"M'I hurtin' you?"

Finding courage hidden somewhere deep inside of you, you leveled your gaze with his. This close to his face, you could've sworn you saw his pupils dilate.

"No. It's fine, thank you."

"You're doin' so well, honey. Keep breathin' for me." He moved his thumb to stroke your jaw as he spoke.

"I'm sorry, Joel."

"Don't say that. This ain't your fault."

"How can you say that? You don't even know what happened."

"Don't need to. But, I'd be grateful if you'd be so kind as t'fill me in."

You sucked a breath in and brought your knees up to your chest. The birds outside the window began mocking you with their song again.

"You get in a fight? W'that friend of yours who picked you up earlier?"

Oh god. He really had no clue.

"No, nothing like that."

"Somethin' while you were out? Sweetheart, someone had t'have busted your lip like that?"

"I said no."

"So what, you don't remember? You taken somethin'? You're scarin' me, darlin'."

He was pleading. It was dripping all over his face, this deep despair searching your features for the answers your voice couldn't quite give him.

"No, I do. I mean- I said it, I said no. To a guy. O-one second I was falling asleep and then... he was just there, Joel. He appeared out of nowhere. I thought he had gone home. And I was saying no but he was all over me. He was everywhere."

Hot tears were streaming down your cheeks, a dichotomy of relief and anguish flooding through your veins so intensely that any hope of maintaining a stoic facade had long washed away.

You didn't make a sound as you sobbed. Your entire body jerked with each breath, snot ungraciously dripping onto your upper lip. It didn't matter. Joel wrapped you into him without hesitation, your face nestled against his shoulder. He rocked you in his arms, back and forth, back and forth. Your sobs intensified into his t-shirt, eyes squeezed shut. You could feel the tears clinging onto the material, but all he did was hold you tighter.

"Oh, baby girl. It's okay, I got you. I got you now."

"I'm so sorry, Joel." You choked the words out.

"Don't you dare apologize. You let everythin' go. Give all that hurt t'me. I'll take it for you."

Joel pulled you into his lap, your legs collapsed underneath you. He placed a hand on either side of your face, holding you inches away from his own. He had never seen you like this. It shattered his damn heart. He had to keep blinking to fend off his own tears.

“You did the right thing, callin’ me.”

Every inch of him wanted to go back in time to you lingering in the doorway and ask you to stay the night. Hell, he would've gone back to that first time he saw you and taken you in his arms like a sailor returning home from years at sea. The only reason he'd even had the courage to turn up at your front door, mumbling something about burgers, was because Sarah had caught him peeking at you through the curtains for the first few days of you moving in. If you like her so much, why don't you ask her on a date? She had asked so innocently. But she was right; it was that simple. He fired up the grill before straightening himself up and jogging across the street. A Glenn Campbell record had been echoing through your house, something he found even more endearing when he was struck by that accent of yours.

He wanted to tell you that the reason none of his first dates made it to a second was because none of them were you. He was setting these poor women up to fail; how could they ever compete with you?

But right now, you were here. Safe in his arms. He was going to do everything in his power to bring that light back into your eyes.

An hour or so passed like that. You pressed against his chest, falling in and out of a dreamless sleep, Joel's fingers grazing soothing patterns on your arm.

The sound of Sarah's bedroom door closing jolted you awake.

"Ssh, it's okay. S'just Sarah getting ready t'head out. Gimme a minute to go say good mornin'."

You nodded in response, mustering a small smile.

You felt tiny alone in his bed, the absence of his body leaving you feeling hollow. You pulled the covers up to your chin and drew you knees up to your chest, dreading to think what Joel would tell Sarah. She called me in the middle of the damn night, what was I s'posed to do? Maybe she'll get the hint and leave. Imagined narratives swarmed your mind.

Why was it so hard for you to accept his help?

"Oh my god," you gasped, sitting up. "Daisy."

In your state, you had left her there all alone. Mark seemed like a nice enough guy, but didn't they all?

You reached for your handbag hanging off of Joel's door handle and searched for your phone.

14 missed calls. You tapped your foot against the floor anxiously as the dialing tone sounded.

"Moooornin' Ms. Cocktease. How's ya head?" She chirped, the relief that engulfed you allowed your body to slack back onto the bed.

"I am so glad to hear your voice." You breathed.

"That's romantic. You gonna tell me what had you scurrying off in such a hurry at 3am? Y'left your damn boots behind."

"I was... really worried about missing my 9am. It's with my thesis supervisor."

"Sweetheart, a love you but you gotta learn to relax once in a while. Let off some steam! Unclench your jaw, woman."

"I know, I know. I'll work on it."

"How'd you get home, anyway?"

"Oh, um. I called a cab."

"I feel like you're lyin', and I intend to find out what's goin' on. I swear to god if you're fuckin' that old man I'm not gonna know whether to be proud or-"

"Listen, babe, I'm glad you had a good night. Give me all the gritty details over coffee tomorrow?"

"Oh fine. Enjoy your meeting."

The line disconnected as Joel re-entered the room.

"Hey, sweetheart. I'm gonna drop Sarah to school, but I'll be right back. Need me to pick you anythin' up from your place?"

"No, that's okay. I should get out of your hair-"

"I'll be right back."

He walked over and placed a kiss on the top of your head.

---

Joel couldn't concentrate for the entire drive back to his place. He had to pass the street he had picked you up from hours prior to get to and from Sarah's school. The image of you standing there so broken, now knowing exactly why, filled him with grief for the version of you he knew and adored. He wished he had known there and then what you had endured. He knew how strong and capable you were of looking after yourself, so he had to fight every urge to raid each block of flats along the street to find the guy who had done this to you.

He flexed his knuckles back and forth over the steering wheel, forcing himself to go straight home. Back to you. However you decided to deal with this, whether it be today or in five years' time, he would be behind you.

What he would do to find that pathetic excuse for a man, that boy, and slowly take each finger off that he had dared to touch you with. He would make him hurt in ways he didn't even know he could feel pain.

Joel's mind flicked back to the image of you breaking down in his arms and he sucked a breath in to steady himself. He wished he could take all of your pain away and alter the course of the last six hours to have you waking up in his arms unscathed.

He returned home to find you curled up asleep in his bed sheets. He crept under the cover next to you, about to pull you back into his arms when you started thrashing your arms and legs.

"No, stop!" You murmured, still fast asleep.

"Sweetheart, it's me. Hey, hey, hey. It's me. It's Joel." He spoke, holding your face between his hands to try to coax you out of your nightmare.

"Wake up, darlin'. You gotta wake up. It's me, you're safe."

Your eyes finally widened, consumed with fear and confusion. You searched your surroundings and backed away from Joel's grip, still calculating where you were and what the threat was.

"You're okay. Nothing's gonna hurt you, baby."

"Joel... I'm sorry, I-"

"Stop apologizing, I'm sorry. I didn't mean t'scare you, honey."

You sat in silence for a few minutes, slowing your breathing back down and ridding the sound of blood pumping in your ears.

"Do you mind if I have a bath, please?"

"Anything. I'll run you one now. Sarah has some o'that fancy girl soap if you want?"

You smiled softly.

"Sure, that sounds nice. Thank you, Joel."

Before heading to the bathroom, he placed a small kiss on your forehead, lingering with his lips on your skin for longer than he had before. Your eyes fluttered closed as you listened to his footsteps out of the bedroom.

Part of you was desperate to scrub away Elijah's touch until your skin was raw. But, another part of you didn't want Joel's smell to fade from you. In his arms his scent had consumed you, replacing the smell of your laundry detergent with his.

You squeezed your eyes tightly and shook your head.

Stop this. You're projecting onto him. He's looking out for you out of the kindness of his heart and you're taking advantage of it.

You tried to distract yourself from the fixating on the feeling of Joel's lips against your skin by shedding last night's clothes and replacing them with his dressing gown. Which of course also stunk of him. Great.

"S'ready." He called.

Catching sight of you in his dressing gown, Joel had to remind himself to close his mouth.

"Suits you." He smiled.

The bathwater was obscenely pink, bubbles almost escaping over the side of the tub.

Joel stood uneasily as you smiled at the domesticity of the scene.

"I'll give ya some privacy. Make myself busy downstairs. You just holler if y'need me, alright?"

"Joel, wait. Would you... it's stupid."

"What is it, sweetheart?"

"Would you sit with me? I really don't want to be alone."

Joel’s response came so quickly you didn’t even have time to feel bad for being so forward.

"Of course I will. You get yourself comfortable, I'll wait outside the door."

You discarded his dressing gown onto the floor, sinking into the warm tub. You ran some more hot water, feeling unsatisfied until the water was hot enough to leave your skin red wherever it touched.

"Come in." You called, your torso submerged underneath the bubbles with just your collarbones and toes poking out of the pink waters.

Under any other circumstance, he would've dropped to his knees by the side of the tub and told you that he had never seen someone look so perfect before. Your flushed cheeks and hair bundled behind your head against the tiles made Joel feel like he was staring at an oil painting in a gallery.

He adored you. Fuck it, he was in love with you. From the very beginning.

Joel lowered himself onto the closed toilet seat, arms resting on his knees.

"Temperature okay?" Was all he could muster.

"I added a bit more hot, I hope that's okay."

"You women and your damn hot water." He teased. "S'absolutely fine, honey."

Neither of you spoke for a little while, you rested your head back and soaked in Joel's protective presence.

"Can I ask you somethin'?"

"Of course, Joel."

"Did he..."

"No. It's funny actually, he couldn't get it up." You said dryly.

"But he tried?"

"Yeah, he tried."

"I'll kill him."

Joel's protectiveness overwhelmed you, feeling for the first time in your life that you had someone unconditionally in your corner. You lifted your arms from the water to cover your face in embarrassment, revealing finger-shaped bruises that had formed on both of your upper arms.

"Fuck," he breathed when he caught sight of the way you had been mistreated.

He knelt down beside the bathtub, gently pulling your hands away from your face.

"What can I do, honey?" He searched your face for an answer. "Tell me how to take all this away for you."

"Joel, you've done so much already. More than I could ever ask from you."

"I just wanna fix it."

By nature, Joel was a fixer. He patched up Sarah's knees and elbows after soccer games. He bailed Tommy out of jail more times than he would admit. Hell, he even fixed things for work. It was what he did.

"I want you to take me back there." You exhaled a breath you didn't realize you had been holding. "To the apartment. I need to go back."

"Y'sure that's a good idea?"

"I am. But I need to go in alone. I just want to know you'll be waiting outside for me if I need you."

"Sweetheart, I'll always come when you call."

#joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x reader #joel tlou #my fic #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal fanfic #pedrostories #the last of us #the last of us hbo #tlou fanfiction #tlou hbo #a bird in your teeth #a bird in your teeth fic #breakfastatjoels

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dissonantharmony · 4 months

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@ceretweek day 3: connect/companion

(yes i know ceret week ended in july. yes im still posting this 5 months late anyway)

how could i not do heartduo my beloved this year...eret and tommy have a great dynamic in the few times they've properly interacted, and their similar experiences with dream make them perfect for talks about the Horrors together <3

this comic also comes as a fic!! you can read the fic version under the cut :D

“He knew how to make you feel all… small, ‘n shit.”

Tommy’s voice cuts through the quiet sounds of the garden. Puffy had apparently told him connecting with nature was good for him, and he’d barged into Eret’s castle practically demanding to use their garden for the “low, low price of this weed.” Eret holds it in their hands now, the texture of the kelp flat and smooth against their fingertips, all while wondering why on earth Tommy had chosen to drag them down with him as he sprawled out in the grass and started rambling about things they didn’t quite follow.

“Pardon?” she mumbles.

Tommy tosses her a side-eyed look. “You know. He’d…He’d always be happiest when you’re alone. Like he’s the only thing you’ve got, and you’ve gotta depend on him for shit. Like a—like a bug or somethin’.”

“Parasite,” Eret finds herself supplying.

“Yeah!” That look again. Like he knows something Eret’s not quite in on. Or maybe she is.

There’s a rustling on Tommy’s side, a gentle lull in the rambling, and Eret finds herself speaking to fill the silence.

“He always—He always wanted to be the most important thing in the world to you. Like you’d live or die without him. Everything you say is just his words, everything you do and every choice you make is just what he wants. Like—like to him you’re just a p—”

She cuts herself off, throat tight. The noise of Tommy turning to look at her reaches her ears.

“Prey?”

“Pet.” She doesn’t turn to meet his gaze. “Puppet, maybe.”

“Entertainment.”

Something strikes in Eret’s stomach, cold and heavy. “...Yeah.”

Silence falls over them once again.

“I think,” Tommy announces after a while, “he was only there to watch.”

“Sit there, look pretty,” Eret recites in reply.

“Jee-sus Christ…” Violent twisting sounds and a loud, drawn-out sigh. “What a fucking dickhead.”

Eret doesn’t reply. His hands toy with the kelp, twisting it into knots over and over with minutely-shaking hands.

“Stop thinking so damn loud.”

“Wh—Ow!” A force hits the side of Eret’s face, wide and coarse. He sits up in indignation to stare at Tommy, who threw…Oh. He threw a flower crown at him.

Dandelions. Eret has weeds in his garden, apparently.

“Put it on, bitch.”

Eret puts it on. It fits perfectly, better than the crown Dream gave him ever did. His gaze turns to Tommy and the dirt around him, torn up and littered with the roots of dandelions.

“Did you get all the roots?”

Tommy glances at the mess around him. “Maybe? They’re strong fuckers, though. They’ll bounce back. Better than ever.”

Eret meets his eyes, uncovered white staring into icy blue, and they think they get it. They offer a wry smile and start tugging up the dandelions on their own side, recalling Tommy’s lessons on making flower crowns from so, so long ago.

“Yeah. We will.”

#ceretweek2023 #dream smp #eret #eret fanart #tommyinnit #heartduo my beloved #my art #my writing

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welcomingdisaster · 18 days

Text

revenant

maedhros & nerdanel | t | ao3

The first sound he remembers is a woman’s voice. It is soft—there is sadness in it, at first, before it is overshadowed by an artist’s precision, sentiment giving way to craft.

“Yes,” she says, “quite right, for the shade of his hair; only it has been finer, and curled less. He was not quite so tall—his memory betrays you there. I would have him brought down perhaps half an inch. His eyes—”

The first touch he remembers is a calloused hand on the side of his face, a caress along his cheek. Fingers gently pulling back his eyelid. A glimpse of a marbled ceiling, columns decorated with sculpted stone flowers, all white. He can feel her lean over him. Can see her hair. Fine and brown, very slightly curled. Almost red.

“The shape is right,” she says, “and the eyelashes. But I do not remember them so pale.”

The first scent he remembers is hyacinths, and then rock dust. Wind tickles his skin. He turns his head and sees her, bending over him. Her face is unwrinkled, her lips pale, cheeks a little pudgy, eyebrows and eyelashes a chestnut brown.

“Are you awake, Maitimo?” she asks.

He nods.

Some cloud flits over her features at that, some grief, some doubt. Old hurts hang in the air between them. Then she quashes it. Speaks, now, to him. “Say something.”

“Something,” he echoes.

She smiles. Her voice carries the same dispassionate notes of a craftsman. “He would answer me so,” she says, “yes, quite right on the sense of humor. But his voice had not been so raspy.”

He swallows. Reaches to feel at his own throat. “I smoke,” he says, “it’s a bad habit.”

The woman turns away from him. He cannot see whom she speaks to. “I do not remember him smoking,” she says.

They change his height, and the texture and curl of his hair, and the glint of his eye. But itch for tobacco never leaves him.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

The woman is his mother. It is not usual, he is told, that she had been there at his rebirth. But he had not been able himself to speak for any adjustments that need be made to his body, for he does not remember what it had been like before

He walks with her through the white city, made of marble clean as bone. Low domed cathedrals, tall gleaming towers—statues, all white, of elves and not-elves. Here is one of an elvish woman hewing stone; here is another, of a star-crowned king. The inhabitants of the city are a stark contrast to the buildings, dressed in silks so bright in color they seem to be distilled light. To his eyes there is something a little comical to them.

A child’s drawing, he thinks. The background left untended to, but the principal characters colored in.

(It swims before his vision then, briefly; dark inch lines drawn onto parchment, sketches of lairs and fortresses, filled in by a child’s hand with cheerful watercolor. He leans towards the memory, but cannot touch it.)

“You made me too tall,” he tells his mother, half-laughing, “look, no one is as tall as I am. Everyone is staring.”

“None of that,” she tells him, “you are just how you were meant to be, Maitimo.”

He does not feel made-right, made-well. He feels huge, ungainly, his limbs too long and his shoulders too wide.

They walk along the dirt road. Grass begins to cover it, here and there. Plainly horses and carts rarely come this way; only single sets of footprints, so light they barely leave behind a path.

His mother’s house is carved out of the side side of a hill some ways away from the city. One big room in the center, tall domed ceiling, skylight carved into the very top of it, where the peak of the hill must be. Under that light there is a block of white marble, chipped in four places but indistinct. A chisel lays atop it.

Little coal-stove, in the corner. Scattered dishes, clean but disorderly. Half loaf of bread and a little jam, black currant. Hard cheese.

One wall unfinished. Three walls of wood, and one of dirt.

Seven chests in the corner by the dirt wall, stacked atop each other. Seals on the latches of the chests, like eight-pointed stars with one point broken off.

Two rooms branching off, dug-out and reinforced with oak-wood. They are dark, and he cannot tell what they are without stepping inside.

“This is yours,” his mother tells him, of the right. He hesitates a moment, then goes. Sees the bed in the corner, wide and soft, hanging tapestries. There are four robes for him, in same bright silks everyone else had worn. Green as the first leaves of spring. Lilac, shimmering slightly even in the darkness. Bright, pretty coral-pink, decorated with embroidered leaves in yellow and purple, slightly raised and pleasant to the touch. Sky-blue, with patchwork clouds.

“They were yours once,” his mother tells him. “Long ago.”

His own robes, he notices, are a mottled grey. The color of a spider-web, he thinks, of dust. “How long?” he asks.

His mother shuts her eyes, as though counting. “Seven thousand years.”

He has some vague notion that in the damp clothes spoil, especially in so long a time. That moths eat holes in sleeves. That seams come apart. But when he asks she looks at him oddly.

“Nothing spoils, here,” she says, “do not be silly.”

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

They eat. There is one chair at the wooden table in the corner, so his mother brings a stool from the workshop to sit on. The jam is sweet and sour, just how he likes it. The bread is perfectly soft.

“Why do I not remember this?” he asks, pulling at the sleeve of his new, blue robe. “Why do I not remember you?”

His mother hesitates.

“You burned,” she says, “you burned and there was not enough left of you to put such memories together. You’re right handed, dear.”

He switches his knife to his right hand.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

She leaves him to rest and to gather himself. He wishes for smoke. Walks around the perimeter of the bedroom she’s given him and looks over every item.

A writing desk, prettily carved from dark oak, scratched with use. Pleasant, beneath his fingers. Familiar. Atop it—

A crystal ball, cold and heavy in his hand. A little light trapped within it, iridescent purple-red. He brings it up to his face and blows hot breath onto its surface. Sees age-old fingerprints on the smooth surface, there and then gone again.

Parchment, most of it blank. A few notes, scattered here or there on the papers, in beautiful, looping script, though he can make no sense of them. A snatch of a poem, rhyming turning eyes with burning skies, a note to procure radish-seed. Starred, and underlined—write to Elemmíre, Káno cannot play at the lilac-bloom festival—exile. A half-written apology, unaddressed, for a slight he cannot even begin to guess at.

He picks up the quill, and dips it into the inkwell. Feels scratch of the parchment under his touch as he writes:

Káno cannot play. Káno cannot play. Káno cannot play.

Three lines, neatly underneath the first. His hand is nothing like the hand of the first writer, his letters sharp and distinct and lonely where they ought to touch, ought to loop, ought to overlap. Maybe this is his mother’s writing, he thinks.

Though she had not seemed one for poetry, nor for ambling, awkward apologies.

Shelves. Books on history, on poetry. He runs his fingers along the spines and knows he has read them—can summon even the memories of the opening stanzas and chapter-headings. How odd, to remember these but not his mother. A flute, silver and black. Candles.

The bed is certainly his, for it is over-long. There is one blanket on it, a light thing of shimmering purple silk, and—he laughs to see it, then thinks he might weep—a little stuffed lamb, with cotton sewn onto its back to make fluff. He lifts it to his face, and breathes deeply.

It smells of sleep, of rose-soap, of tears. Its name dances somewhere just out of reach. It is not mine, he thinks, I gave it to…

But he cannot finish the thought. He sits, holding the little sheep in his lap. His fingers twitch.

Káno cannot play. Káno cannot play. Káno cannot play.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

He does not mean to sleep. He is not sure he does, truly. Only that he is waking. With his left hand he is holding the little sheep to his chest. His right hand is bound, above his head. His shoulders are stiff and ache.

He sinks his fingers spasmodically into the lamb’s fur. Shakes.

Yanks his hand down, expecting to feel the chain bite at his wrist. There is nothing, because his hand is gone, because—

Because.

Sits. Stares at two hands, clenched around the stuffed lamb. Too tight. Strangling it, poor thing. Poor thing.

He breathes in deeply, smelling again the rose-soap, the tears. Outgrew it, he thinks. Gave it away, gave it to—

There is a longing in his chest, like half of him missing. The burned half, he thinks. He shuts his eyes and tries to picture it, but nothing comes. Somewhere in the other room he can hear a faint clinking, a shuffling, steps. An image swims in his mind, an elf; dark-eyed, dark-braided, pouring liquor, mixing herbs and honey.

For some while he lies and holds the lamb, listening to the movements outside. Then the soft light of the crystal ball becomes oppressive, and he rolls out of bed. Feels the cool wooden floor under his feet. Slips outside.

If he is disappointed to see his mother in the main room, standing by the little oak table and mixing tea, he knows better than to show it.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

They breakfast outside. Pomegranate, a day past ripe and a little soft with it. Honey. Crumbling cottage cheese.

He notices for the first time how far they are from the city through which they had passed. There is a dirt road, half-covered in grass and little-tread. No one passes by them.

In the light of day he can see how their blood runs together. The sun freckles them the same. Bleaches his mother’s hair into a shade resembling his. He sees the square angles of his body in her big, calloused hands, in the set of her shoulders. But that is to be expected, he supposes. She made him. Shaped him, out of whatever he had been before this.

He expects she might speak of who he had been, but she does not. She sits and eats, sits and watches him. He cannot think of something to say, and follows her example.

“You want something to do,” she says, as they stack their plates.

“Yes,” he says. In that she knows him. Already he feels too idle, too stagnant, caught without a purpose.

She takes his plates. She gives him a shovel. A hammer. A chisel. She brings him back inside, and bids him dig.

“Here?” he asks, running his fingers over the dirt wall.

“Yes,” she says, “there is a lot of work to do, Maitimo. We will have a hall, and five more rooms. The hill ought fit them.”

He drives his spade into the dirt. Mostly clay, he thinks. It’ll hold well.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

They work in shifts; first he digs and his mother takes the pile of dirt and carries it out. Then she digs, and he lugs dirt.

After some time his shoulders begin to ache, new muscles responding to unfamiliar work. It is a pleasant ache, the shape of it familiar. It is almost odder, he thinks, for his back not to hurt.

The work is mediative. They do not talk during it, beyond the exchanges necessary to the work—“give me that” and “rock, I think,” and “steer leftwards.”

When the sun falls pink-orange through the skylight they cease their work. She hands him a broom to sweep the last of the dirt off the wooden floor. Gathers up the spade and the chisel, and washes them.

They walk together out of the hill, and bathe in the river. The water is warm. When it sprays out onto his face he opens his lips and tastes it, almost sweet with its clarity. When he dives it whips his braid around his face.

They return.

She goes to ship at the square of marble. He goes to his room. Shoves down the ever-present craving for tobacco. Sits at the desk. Reads by the light of the crystal ball, old books of poetry.

He is not surprised he knows every line.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Neither of them sleeps. In the morning they resume they work again, digging the tunnel. He starts to leave the door open, when he goes to empty the pile of dirt, knowing he shall return to it soon. She closes it, each time. He does not ask why.

The rhythmic movement of the shovel becomes second nature. Around it all thoughts cease. All that is left is the motion, the sound, the heft. He does not notice at first he is putting words to it.

Thumpthump. Thump-thump. Thumpthump.

Káno can-not play. Káno can-not play. Káno can-not play.

It is odd. He has read better poetry.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

On the fourth night he sleeps again, and dreams of the scent of burning tree-sap and screams, of dark soot staining his hands, of a woman that falls and screams, and screams, and screams. Wakes clutching the lamb to him and calls out for a name he cannot recall again.

For breakfast she poaches eggs. Cracks them each onto upturned plates with suns painted on. Swirls the water around the pot to as twisters turned inside out. Clink of the teaspoon against the black edge of the pot. Then the eggs go on, one by one, and turn around.

“Your father used to do this,” she says, “I never cooked. Only the bread.”

He holds out a hand. “Let me,” he says, and she steps aside. He picks up the spoon. Swirls eggs.

“Good eggs,” she says later, when they sit and breakfast on the grass.

He tears off a chunk of his bread-crust with his teeth. Chews. “Good bread,” he says.

The patterns of leaves dance over her arm. Shadows, in the sun.

“Right hand, Maitimo,” she reminds him.

He moves his fork. Takes a bite of egg, and feels the yolk on his tongue. “Are you angry with me?”

“I do not mean to be,” she says, which is answer enough. She must see it on his face, because she puts down her fork and looks at him. “It was all very long ago.”

He nods.

She reaches over to lay a hand on the side of his face. She has not touched him, since the first day, and now she strokes his cheekbone. “I wanted you,” she says, “I begged for you.”

He shuts his eyes. There is soot on his hands. The ocean is angry, horribly angry with him. “Did I burn,” he says, “aboard a ship?”

She stares at him.

“I cannot say,” she says. Then, more forcefully: “my Maitimo might have, I think.”

He leans into her touch. It does not last long.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

He expects the summer to pass, but it never does. The sun rises at the same time each day, and does not go down for a long time time. They eat sliced peaches and flaky pastries and spinach-wraps and perfect fall apples, goat milk and sour bread, carrot stew, eggs made in a startling variety of ways, candied flowers. He learns where the food comes from; once every twelve days a young elven girl comes, carrying covered baskets on her head, and his mother takes them from her and tucks them into the dug-out place beneath the hill, where the earth and the ground-water keep them cool.

(He wonders why it matters. Nothings seems to spoil here. She could leave them in the heat, he thinks, and they would be fine.)

Sometimes the girl brings them letters. Some seem formal, rolled into official-looking tubes and sealed with wax. Others are clearly hastily written, scrawled on one scrap of parchment or another, sometimes with sketches on the back.

Usually she will open them at the table, and name the relation who had written to her but not the contents. “My sister in law,” she will say, or sometimes, “my father,” or, once or twice, “your cousins.” Sometimes it is a patron in Tirion that writes.

One morning a letter arrives sealed with dark blue wax, an address scrawled along the edge she reads but does not voice aloud. She tucks it into her inside pocket and does not speak its sender, ignoring his curious eyes.

They dig.

As they go further they must pull up more and more rocks, must navigate around sandy areas that fall when touched. His shoulders no longer ache with the work. Indeed he grows so used to it that it is odd not to do it, that it begins to pull at him to spend time idle.

During the nights she chisels away at the marble slab, working by moonlight, and he reads, or else goes to swim in the river. At first she is wary to let him go alone, but after the third time he returns unwavering at dawn she stops tracking him.

The marble begins to take shape. An animal, he thinks. A four-legged thing, bent low to the ground.

“Did you make the statues in the white city?” he asks her. It is night, then, or perhaps the first note of morning. The moonlight is gone. He has stopped reading, but she has not finished her carving.

“Only the good ones,” she says, half-laughing. It is not a joke.

He picks up the pan. Stokes the fire, to make breakfast. Picks up the knife, unthinking, with his right hand. In the faint light his own hand is pale as marble. Carefully carved.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

After some time he begins to call the little lamb Káno. The odd nights when he comes to sleep he holds it to his chest. Through his nightmares the scent of rose soap never fades from its cotton sewn fur, and he begins to tell reality apart by it.

There are the snatches of his dreams, the screams, the song, the slow grinding of war-axes and the rattling of fortress doors. There is the icy forest, the kind that doesn’t truly exist in real life because winter does not exist, and snow does not exist, and one does not dash madly between ice-covered pines chasing the prints of bare-footed children. Then there is the smell of rose soap, and the softness of the cotton under his cheek.

(Sometimes he thinks Káno is in the next room, clinking around, humming under his breath. But that is an odd thought, because Káno is a stuffed lamb.)

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

“We are done digging, for now,” she says. The state of done digging should naturally follow the state of digging, but he has somehow failed to realize it is possible. But there it is, the tunnel. Five rooms branching off. “We must now go for wood.”

She gives him an axe. He looks down at it, and sees the dusting of red clay on the head first as blood, then as rust.

(Nothing rusts, he reminds himself. Rust is an idea in his mind with no real-world equivalent, like rot and ice and decapitation.)

They walk together along the overgrown dirt road, pulling an ass-drawn cart behind them. Not towards the city, this time, but away from it. The path fades, and fades, and fades, until there is nothing left but her intuition.

The wood is ancient, and untouched, pines tall and dark, their trunks many times the width of their shoulders. He reaches out and lays his hands on the bark, feeling its dark, deep ridges.

“The tree will bleed,” he says, “when we cut it down.”

“Yes,” she says, “so it will.”

She takes his hand, and draws it up to touch the deep green needles on a lower branch. When she begins to pray he knows the words, and echoes her. Together they ask for leave from Yavanna; together they promise to take no more than their due, and to pry the seeds from the pinecones of the fallen tree and plant them.

Then she makes the mark, and he begins to chop.

Some part of him expects soft yielding flesh under the axe-swing, expects gore, expects blood spray over his upturned face. Instead his axe hits hard wood, and only yellowish pine sap springs up around the cut.

It is long work, to reduce a living thing into material. First the tree must fall. Then it is cut again, to be rid of the thin branches for which they have no use; then again, to fit on the cart. Then they collect pinecones and twist them open, shake the seeds out and bury them in the dark soil, beneath the layers of dry pine-needles. Carry water from the river to drown them.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

It is dark when they make their return. His body aches in new ways with new work. Pine-sap clings sticky to his hands, his green robes. He wants to chase the dew gathering in his lungs away with smoke.

“The river,” his mother says, and he nods. But the water cannot wash the sap from him, and he goes to bed with his hands still stained.

He will not touch the stuffed lamb, except with the back of his wrist, to knock it from the bed. It stares at him plaintively from the floor, and he pities it.

“I am sorry, Káno,” he says, “but if I touch you you will be ruined. You are made of soft things, and shall not be washed clean.”

In his dreams there is a little boy, bright eyed and loud. He plays the flute, the same silver flute on the shelves, and laughs, high and bird-like, twirls in pretty mother-of-pearl court robes. When he reaches out to touch this child he sees his hands are covered in blood, that he has stained everything; the boy and the flute and the mother-of-pearl, and nothing is merry.

Then he stirs, half-wakes. Slips back down into his dreams. Now there is a figure above him, amber-eyed, more fair than any elf he can remember laying his eyes on. He has an axe in his hand, stained with red clay, and he raises it and hews off his right hand.

Oh, he says, unbothered, well, don't worry about it. I've still got my left.

But tree-sap keeps pouring out of the cut on his wrist, spewing in messy, sticky arcs, staining the other elf’s gold-beaded hair and his cheeks and his lips and his eyelashes, and he will drown, he will drown.

When he wakes there is no smell of rose-soap to cling to. He curls up on himself and thinks he must have come from a different world, a worse world; that he is a stained and broken thing forced into a clean body. He does not belong here, he knows.

He wonders what it would be, to go back. Wonders if he’s scared of it.

Then he slips outside, and bids his mother good morning, and sits trying to clean his hands. Chops spinach into fine little slivers; beats it with cheese and with eggs, pours it into the pan to cook. Watches the edges crisp up, fine bubbles forming on the surface.

His mother stirs sugar into tea. He misses someone so fiercely he feels his chest a hollow, empty thing. They slip outside to breakfast. The sun greets them, cheerful and warm.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

They chop the wood into boards, long to accommodate the hallway, wide. His mother has a better hand for it, at first, but he is quick to learn. The first days they speak of nothing but craft.

When they sit polishing the wood the sap has nearly come off his hands. Perhaps he has grown new skin, and the sap has flaked off with the old.

“Who will live there,” he says, “in the new rooms?”

She looks up at him. Her sleeves are hiked up, the board in front of her gleaming bright in the sun. “Your brothers.”

He has thought so, though he could not have voiced it.

“There are five,” he says, and knows it to be a question. He thinks she nods. “Who is next, after me?”

For a moment she hesitates. “Tyelkormo,” she says, “if he is granted to me.”

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

He touches the edges of the eight-pointed star on the sealed chest. The broken point. She sits behind him and reads one of her letters. He can see another still-sealed underneath, the one she had not announced to him.

I have five brothers, he thinks. I am one of six.

It does not fit. Shoes too small in the toe, pinching uncomfortably.

For the first time he can remember he feels angry, truly and properly. Kicks at the lowest of the chests, then yelps in pain at his foot. Tyelkormo, he thinks, Tyelkormo, Tyelkormo. Who can need you? Who can want you?

The woman who is not his mother looks up from her carving, but says nothing. He will tell her, he thinks, when their work is done.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

But he breaks. The secret is too heavy on him; he cannot take it. They sit, and polish boards. It is an endless task.

“Maitimo,” the woman who is not his mother says, “hand me the sponge.”

He hands her the sponge. “I am not he,” he says, quite casually, “they brought the wrong soul back, and put it in your son’s body. I am another creature, and I think an evil one.”

“Oh,” she says, “and why is that?”

“There are evil things,” he says, “in my mind. I know not this land, but another. I dream of ice and bloodied hands and scared children.”

For some time she turns from him. He is sure she weeps. He would touch her, but it is not his right. He looks down at the board, working his brush in random patterns.

“Against the grain, Maitimo,” she says.

He turns his brush against the grain. They do not speak of it again.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

He likes to run his hands along the polished wood. Likes to press wood-braces into the soil. Likes the neat sharpness that they give the tunnel, the way it begins to take the shape of the house.

“Did you do the same for me?” he asks, as they hang up curtain-doors.

“Yes,” she says.

“There was a different home,” he says, “where the chest is from. The bed is from. K—the lamb.”

“Yes,” she says.

For some time they work in silence. He braces the doorframe, and she hammers in the nails. Then they switch.

“What are you carving?” he asks. “I thought it a sheep.”

“No,” she says, “only an elf hiding under the wool.”

He nods. She nudges him, to step aside. There is a little window on the other side of the room, the sloping end of the hollow hill. She measures it, for a frame. Writes numbers on the inside of her arm in charcoal.

She taps him on the elbow as she passes him, beckoning him to follow. Outside they trim the wood into shapes to fit. He holds, she saws. Then she has them switch, so he may get the practice.

“I have gown too used to solitude,” she says, as they brace the corners of the window-frame with metal. “I have no words left. I thought it would be easier, to speak to you.”

He looks up. For the first he sees the weight of her own neurosis on her, the weight of her pain, her fear, her loneliness. For the first time he thinks she might touch him, if she remembered how.

“How long has it been?” he asks.

“Six thousand years,” she says. “You spend dead nearly twice the time you spent living. But I lost you sooner, of course.”

They carry the window frame inside. They fit it.

It will have a good sill, he thinks. Perhaps Tyelkormo will like to sit on it, and watch the birds.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

It looks like a proper house, with the last of the boards fitted to the floor, to the walls. The woman who could be his mother tells him that there is not so much left to do; only to make make the bed frames and the shelves, fitted to each of them. Only to open the chests and lay out what she had saved, of them.

“Saved from what?” he asks.

She looks up at him, as though surprised he does not know. “The building was torn down,” she says, “the king’s body was inside.”

She makes a gesture with her hands, first twisted together then falling. Tower. Splat.

Do people die here, he wonders, or had the king been simply waiting to be born?

“Tyelkormo will want hounds,” she says, “on his bed frame. Likely in the house, too.”

So he sits, and whittles hounds. They turn out crooked, their noses too long. She has him try again, and that is better.

Káno cannot play, he thinks, the repetition of a song stuck in his head, Káno cannot play. Káno cannot play.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

“I cannot tell,” he says, setting a book of insect sketches next to a fox-skull on his brother’s shelves, “if I know him.”

His maybe-mother turns to look at him. Her face is drawn.

He touches the bone. It is familiar, at least. Smooth. Oddly delicate, for what it is. In places the smooth surface has peeled off, and it is porous. He could hold it in his hands and squeeze the barest bit and watch it crumble.

“Sometimes I think I am your son,” he says, “but that something wrong has clung to me, as the tree sap has. Some other world I saw, in death, that lingers upon waking.”

She takes his hands. Holds, around the fox skull. Her fingers do not touch the bone.

“Do not leave me,” she says, “do not go there. Promise me, Maitimo.”

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

He tosses dumplings into broth, one after the other. She sits across the table from him. Her eyes follow their fall.

“I have not told you everything,” she says.

You haven’t told me anything, he thinks. But that is unjust. She has told him how to chisel stone and chop wood, how to polish floorboards, how to whittle hunting-hounds, how poach eggs.

She reaches past him, across the table. Picks up the parchment sealed with blue wax.

“I didn’t want to give you this,” she says. For a moment she holds it close to her chest, so that he cannot help but suppose the ending of the sentence will be so I won’t. Then she holds it out to him. “It is for you. You were betrothed.”

“Oh.” He reaches for the paper. He cannot tell if that seems right. If it is true of him. “Perhaps I was.”

“I am not sure,” she says, “how serious you were about it.”

An old instinct almost calls him to argue. To cry, I will, I will, after—

But after what?

He breaks the blue seal. Twirls open the paper.

The handwriting hits him with a note of such intense familiarity he cannot see the meaning of the words. His head swims.

The first time he remembers weeping is in the kitchen, holding a piece of parchment to his chest, and it is over the slopes of his lover’s letters. Behind him the fire crackles. He feels his chest cave in.

Maedhros, his lover writes, I grow tired of waiting for you to call to me. If you have gotten it into your head that it is your righteous duty to crawl into a ditch and die, speaking to none, we shall have words...

Maedhros does not make it past that opening line. He shakes with the clarity of the voice in his mind, its low, musical quality, its sardonic lilt. How well he can sense the desperation behind it. I know you, he thinks, I love you.

The woman in the room with him steps closer. She looks at the letter, but her eyes do not move to read the words.

“I never learned it,” she says, “some last defiance of your father. As though if I did not speak it it could not touch me.” There her voice breaks, her pale face flushing. "What do you think of that, Maitimo? Me lobbing one last insult at a long-dead man, and hurting myself by it?"

Of course, Maedhros thinks. It is Sindarin. He knows it, though he cannot say how. He’s thought in it, now and then, without noticing. Perhaps if he had spoken more he would have used it.

He lowers the letter, and looks at the woman who had once been his mother. In the shadows here she seems as white as marble. How odd, to think of her, all alone, beating the shape of sheep’s wool out of stone with a chisel. To think of her hollowing out the hill to make room for him. To think of her clawing him back from the dead. To think of her carving herself out of loneliness and defiance and love and anger.

Well-made, she called him.

#my fic #maedhros #nerdanel

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quest-draws · 6 months

Text

[ID: A four page black and white Critical Role fan comic titled "Adventures in Re-Veth-ification: Next Gen. Full transcript under the cut for length. End ID]

Getting this out at the literal last minute before it's immediately jossed.

Transcript:

Page 1

Panel 1

Jester and Fjord burst through a door way in a panic.

Jester: We're here, we're here! Are we too late!?

Panel 2

A wide shot of Veth and Yeza's bedroom. The room is filled with members of the Nein; Kingsley sits in the open window as it lets soft light spill into the room, Caduceus is sleeping on a stool, Essek is perusing the bookshelf, Veth is tucked into the bed with a bundle in her arms, Yeza beside and Caleb sitting on the end, Beau is squatting on a small rocking chair, Yasha leaning over the back.

Kingsley: Yeah. Lucky you.

Veth, weakly: Hey.

Beau: You're just in time for her to stop crying.

Panel 3

Jester carefully comes up to Veth's side

Jester: But, you're all right, right?

Veth: How could I not be?

Panel 4

Veth looks down at the bundle she's cradling- a baby halfling with little curls of black hair.

Veth: She's perfect.

Page 2

Panel 1

Fjord leans against the foot board, looking visibly relieved. Caleb let's Jester take his place at the foot of the bed as she holds the baby.

Jester: Ah! Veth! She's so beautiful! Have you decided on a name yet?

Yeza: Actually we wanted to talk to you about that...

Panel 2

Veth and Yeza look at each other, somewhat nervously.

Veth: So, it's usually bad luck to name a child after someone still living-

Panel 3

Jester listens to Veth, looking a little confused.

Veth, cont: - But you have a name you don't use anymore, so...

Panel 4

A wide shot of the room, but the rest of the Nein are rendered indistinctly, putting the focus on Jester, the baby, Veth, and Yeza.

Veth: Would you let us name her Genevieve?

Page 3

Panel 1

Jester stares, shocked-

Panel 2

-Then starts crying

Panel 3

Jester flops onto the thin slice of Bed beside Veth, cuddling her friend and the new baby.

Jester: Yes! yes, yes, of course you can! Aw, Veth, that really is perfect!

Panel 4

Jester wipes a tear out of her eye, smiling.

Jester: god, I'm so glad she's okay.

Panel 5

Veth looks confused.

Veth: Why wouldn't she be?

Page 4

Panel 1

Flashback to earlier on the ship, Jester is receiving a sending reply from Isharnai, the hag who once cursed Veth to be a goblin.

Isharnai: Oh, and give my love to your little halfling friend. i'm so excited about the new edition to her precious family!

Panel 2

Jester looks extremely nervous. Behind her, Fjord is also clearly freaking out.

Jester: Ha ha! No reason at all!

Panel 3

Later, Luc is holding Genevieve, looking at her in confusion. Small, spiky sticks seem to be sticking out of her temples. In the corner of the panel, there is a screenshot of the description for the Hexblood feature Heir of Hags. It reads;

One way hags create more of their kind is through the creation of hexbloods. Every hexblood exhibits features suggestive of the hag whose magic inspires their powers. This includes an unusual crown, often called an eldercross or a witch’s turn. This living, garland-like part of a hexblood’s body extends from their temples and wraps behind the head, serving as a visible mark of the bargain between hag and hexblood, a debt owed, or a change to come.

Yeza: Luc! Did you put sticks in Gen's hair?

Luc: No! They just kinda... showed up?

Transcript ends.

#critical role #mighty nein #veth brenatto #yeza brenatto #jester lavorre #tm9 #cr #cr fanart #cr comic #I might go back and tag everyone later but aagh it's literally 10 to #adventures in re-veth-ification

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catholic-character-tournament · 11 months

Text

Catholic Character Tournament

Current Bracket

All polls here (tagged #cct polls)

Round 5 (16 nominees) is Wednesday July 5 12 PST

Character Submission List:

(Note, not in the order in the bracket. They were randomized for the bracket) (crossed out means dead-dead)

*707/Luciel Choi (Mystic Messenger)

*Abuela Alma Madrigal (Encanto)

*Akane Kurashiki (Zero Escape)

*Amon from (Tokyo Ghoul)

*Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series)

*Asia Argento (High School DxD)

Aslan from (Chronicles of Narnia)

*Aymeric de Borel (Final Fantasy 14)

*Aziraphale (Good Omens) (Disqualified) The Volturi

*Belizabeth Brassica (Dimension 20's A Crown of Candy)

*Bishop Raphaniel Charlock (Dimension 20 - the Ravening War)

*Blake Langermann (Outlast 2)

*Brother Cellanus (The Completely Unerotic Adventures of Brother Cellanus)

*Caesar Zeppeli (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure)

*Carlos Reyes (911 Lone Star)

*Carrie White (Carrie)

*Catherine of Aragon (SIX: the Musical)

*CC (Code Geass)

*Chrollo Lucilfer (Hunter x Hunter)

*Chuck E. Cheese

*Claude Frollo(The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

*Crowley (Good Omens) (Disqualified) Vanessa Ives replacement (Penny Dreadful)

Dana Scully (the X files)

Doomguy (Doom)

*Double (Skullgirls)

Doug Jones (The VelociPastor)

*Dracule Mihawk (One Piece)

*Duo Maxwell (Gundam Wing)

*Eddie Brock (Venom)

*Emilio Santoz from The Sparrow

Enrico Pucci (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure)

*Farnese de Vandimion (Berserk)

*Father Alexander Anderson (Hellsing)

*Father Brown (Father Brown)

Father John Mulcahy (MASH)

Father Paul (Midnight Mass)

*Felicia Hardy/Black Cat (Spiderman)

Firestar (Warrior Cats)

*Flayn (Fire Emblem Three Houses)

*Frank Castle (Marvel)

Friar Tuck (Robin Hood)

*Gabriel (Ultrakill)

*Galahad (The Mechanisms)

*Gerard (Unholyverse)

Gloria Maria Ramirez Delgado-Pritchett (Modern Family)

Harrowhark Nonagesimus (The Locked Tomb)

*Helena Bertinlli (DC comics)

Hell boy (HellBoy)

Homura Akemi (Madoka Magica)

*Hot Pants (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure)

*Ibara Shiozaki (My Hero Academia)

*Inori Yamabuki/Cure Pine (Fresh Precure)

Jason Todd (DC Comics)

*Javert (Les Miserables)

Jean Valjean (Les Misérables)

*Jeanne d'Arc (Alter) (Fate/Grand Order)

*Jesus (Jesus Christ Superstar)

*John "Soap" MacTavish (Call of Duty)

*John Gaius (The Locked Tomb)

*John Ward (FAITH)

*Johnathan (Shin Megami Tensei IV)

*Junk Rat (Overwatch)

*Justin Law (Soul eater)

*Kawabuchi Sentarou (Kids on the Slope)

Kaworu Nagisa (Neon Genesis Evangelion)

*Kirei Kotomine (Fate franchise)

Knuckes the Echidna (Sonic)

*Kristen Applebees (Dimension 20's Fantasy High)

*Kuroe (Magia Record)

Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler (X-Men)

*Ky Kiske (Guilty Gear)

*Kyoko Sakura (Puella Magi Madoka Magica)

*Lady Rhea (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)

*Leliana (Dragon Age)

*Leon (8:11)

*Lestat de Lioncourt (The Vampire Chronicles)

*Libra (Fire Emblem: Awakening)

*Link (The Legend of Zelda)

*Louis de Pointe du Lac (Interview with the Vampire/The Vampire Chronicles)

*Luis Serra Navarro (Resident Evil)

Mac McDonald (It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia)

Maddie Fitzpatrick (Suite Life of Zack and Cody)

*Marcy Park (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee)

*Mark Heathcliff (The Mandela Catalogue)

Matt Murdock/Daredevil (Marvel)

*Mello (Death Note)

*Mercedes (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)

*Michael Carpenter (Dresden Files)

*Michael Corleone (The Godfather)

Miles Morales/Spider-Man

*Nate Ford (Leverage)

Nicholas D. Wolfwood (Trigun)

*Nico di Angelo (Percy Jackson)

*Ocean O'Connell Rosenberg (Ride the Cyclone)

*Pastry Cookie (Cookie Run Kingdom)

*Patton Sanders (Sanders Sides (Web Series))

Pope Pinion IV (Cars)

Puss in Boots (Shrek)

Quasimodo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

Remy LeBeau/Gambit (X-Men)

*Rin Okumura (Blue Exorcist)

*RoboCop (RoboCop)

Ronan Lynch (The Raven Cycle)

*Ryker (Roleslaying With Roman)

*Saint Citrina Rocks (Dimension 20's A Crown of Candy)

*Sasuke (Naruto)

*SCP-166 (Just a Teenage Gaia)

*Seeley Booth (Bones)

Shadow the Hedgehog (Sonic)

*Shiro Fujimoto (Blue Exorcist)

Simon Belmont (Castlevania)

*Sir Keradin Deeproot (Dimension 20's A Crown of Candy)

*Sister Mary (The Young Pope)

Sister Michael (Derry Girls)

*Steve Rogers/Captain America (Marvel)

*Tammy Edwards (Legoland by Jacob Richmond)

*Tatsumi Kazehaya (Ensemble Stars)

*Temenos Mistral (Octopath Traveler 2)

The Derry Girls (Derry Girls)

*The Penitent One (Blasphemous)

*Tobias Schneien (Ghost Eyes)

*Valeria Garaz (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 reboot)

*Valery Michailov (Goncharov - 1973)

*Vector the Crocodile (Sonic the Hedgehog)

*Vito Corleone (The Godfather)

*Wesley Hailoh (Rhyme and Reason)

*William Murdoch (Murdoch Mysteries)

*Zakuro Fujiwara (Tokyo Mew Mew)

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fushiglow · 1 month

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sooooo @thisisallaikiss posted some star wars au art that altered my brain chemistry over on twitter and this was the result... so... i think i'm writing a star wars au now 💫

people underestimated the force (lol) of my star wars nerdery but they STILL BULLIED ME INTO THIS so please blame them if i'm slow to update my idol au now 😃 enjoy the wip!!

i'm running away now 🏃

Darkness clung to the man like a great shadow, rolling off the Force user in noxious waves that were almost stifling. He was strong — by far the strongest darksider Megumi had ever encountered. His presence alone felt like despair and the young Padawan thought he would have drowned in it, if not for the light pouring off the Jedi Master at his side. Master Gojō was always a beacon in the Force, but he burned impossibly brighter then, cutting through the shadow that surrounded them like a warm knife through Bantha butter. When those tendrils of hopelessness brushed up against his consciousness, Megumi felt the need to meditate — to cling to the light with everything he was — but Master Gojō was seemingly impervious to the affliction that ailed his Padawan. There were rumours of darkness in Master Gojō. There were rumours that he was sentimental in a way that was dangerous for a Force user of his stature. There were rumours that some members of the Jedi Council considered him a threat to the Order. Looking at his Master then, Megumi thought they were simply afraid of him, because the man was ablaze with light. Not for the first time, the Padawan wondered why Gojō Satoru had chosen Megumi as his apprentice. The Jedi was simply radiant — so radiant that the dark couldn’t even get close to him; bright and brilliant like the grin on his lips. It didn’t stop Megumi’s heart from sinking— —because why the kriff was Master Gojō grinning? ‘Well, well, well!’ came the Jedi Master’s voice, as if in answer. ‘Would you look what the Lesser Lantillian spat out!’ The man’s shoulders tensed a little, but rather than seeming petrified by the prospect of facing down the greatest Jedi in galactic history, he simply looked pained by the pitch and volume of Master Gojō’s voice. Against all the odds, Megumi found he could relate to the guy. The darksider inclined his head in their direction, more a jerk than a nod, and some of the silky black hair that wasn’t secured in a knot at the crown of his head fell forward over his broad shoulders. It was somewhat mesmerising to watch, the way those onyx locks danced around his features like the shadows that danced at his back. Glancing at the shock of stark white hair atop his Master’s head, Megumi almost laughed — would have laughed if his vocal cords weren’t seized with fear. It was just that the pair of them made for such emphatic embodiments of their respective polarities in the Force that it was actually comical. It seemed unimaginative, somehow. ’Master Gojō,’ the man said stiffly. Unlike Megumi, his Master had no trouble summoning a laugh — a loud, grating thing that bounced off the temple walls. It was unbecoming on a Jedi and, though he should have been used to it, Megumi found himself wincing in synchronisation with the darksider standing before them. ‘Master Gojō now, is it?’ At the Jedi Master’s taunt, the man’s eyes flickered across to Megumi. The Padawan froze under the malevolent weight of that gaze, but he saw no violent red staining those golden irises. Not a Sith then. Huh. ‘Well then, Lord Getō.’ Master Gojō dragged out the sounds, sarcasm dripping from every single syllable. ‘Why don’t you hand over the holocron so we can all go on our merry way?’

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #satosugu #jjk fanfic #jujutsu kaisen fanfic #gojo satoru #geto suguru #fushiguro megumi #stsg #sugusato #sgst #star wars #wip #my writing #fushiglow

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kaifanjc-the-one-and-only · 3 months

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Cult of the Lamb TWC Side comics

Wrinkles

#cult of the lamb #lamb #memes #the white crown #comics #the white crown au #heket #kallamar #the white crown side comics

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jadenoryuu · 4 months

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Phandom Holiday Truce Time!

(For maximum experience, please turn the light mode on.)

Sorry for keeping you waiting, @raaorqtpbpdy here's your @phandomholidaytruce gift!

When I saw the prompts "Danny-Wes Role Swap", comboed with the No One Knows AU, Creepy Cryptid Danny and your mention about the Ghost King Danny trope only used in a significant way, the gif "I have a MIGHTY need!" started playing in a loop, so here's the bg for this mini-comic.

Before the Portal Accident, Wes and Danny were friends. Not as close as Danny and Tucker, but they sometimes hung out when the Fentons were too busy to entertain Wes' interest in the occult.

My boy Wes Weston has also a side hobby/obsession with basket and it all started since he watched for the first time Space Jam. (It doesn't help that I headcanon Amity Park in Illinois, which means Chicago Bulls.)

(So he plays basket because His Airness does so and because MJ was involved and interacted with the embodiment of a visual novel. Talk about supernatural!)

(Yes, I'm saying that crossovers between animated and physical world can count as a supernatural and ghost-related event.)

All of this premise was to introduce the personalized jumpsuit that the Fentons made for Wes with the colors and accessories of the Chicago Bulls.

(Jack made a mistake with the number and stitched only the "2", so once Wes became a halfa, he added the "3" with marker and later learned to shapeshift enough to change some of the inverted colors of the jumpsuit. Originally it was white with red inserts, the accident made it black with blue inserts, then the shapeshift finally made it black with red inserts.)

Since it's a No One Knows AU, Wes was alone when the accident happened, but being the smart bean he is, no one discovered that he's a halfa until Danny, much like Jazz in canon, discovers Wes' double nature after stalking investigating him.

Like sister, like brother, Danny doesn't say anything to Wes about knowing, but here and then he assists (in the shadows) Wes in ghost wrangling.

Due to living above the active portal and Maddie experimenting with ectoplasm while pregnant, Jazz and Danny are liminal, the latter more than the former. (Thus, Danny becomes the creepy cryptid of Amity Park.)

Even if Danny isn't a halfa, Vlad still tries his scheme of stealing the Crown of Fire and the Ring of Rage to obtain enough power to defeat Wes' hero persona (who Vlad believes is a full ghost).

Much akin the Reign Storm episode, Amity ends in the Ghost Zone, but Wes gets stuck fighting "alone" the army (the Fentons and a reluctant Plasmius do the same on another front after the Ecto-suit is deemed a failure).

While his parents are out fighting, Danny sneaks in the lab and fixes the Ecto-suit (my boy is as much as a genius as his family, after all), then goes to challenge Pariah.

Due to his liminality, after the victory, Danny IS eligible for the Throne, so he becomes the King. (He doesn't discover this immediately, but when the Observants start bothering him, he gets the explanation.)

So, after declaring Amity Park Wes' (and his) Haunt and a No Fight Zone, the ghost attacks practically stop, leaving Wes on edge, because he doesn't know about the Law.

Thus, we're back to this mini-comic! Danny decides to finally reveal both that he knows Wes is a halfa and that he's the Ghost King, but where would be the fun if he didn't mess with Wes a bit? So he amps his creepy factor and plays a Yandere act (he isn't, he's doing so just for the prank. As a matter of fact, 3-5 seconds after the last declaration, he bursts out cackling at Wes appropriate horrified face, then after moving to a more private place -a roof-, Danny explains everything.)

Does this became a UFS? I like to think so, but you're free to decide.

I'm adding the non transparent versions under for those without the light mode:

#the dragon draws #danny phantom #phandom holiday truce 2023 #danny fenton #wes weston #halfa Wes #liminal Danny #ghost king danny #no one knows au #transparency trick #comic #mini comic #sorry for the delay #the transparency was hard to design

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sometimes-love-is-enough · 1 year

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[image description: six colorful masks in the style of Commedia Dell’arte. The first is red with golden swirls, a red ribbon and spikes reminiscent of a crown, and is labelled ‘IL PRINCIPE’. The second is light blue with a rainbow string, upquirked eyes, and a single tear running down the side of the face, labelled ‘PADRE’. The third, blue and blocky with simple geometric designs, labelled ‘INSEGNANTE’. The fourth, black with a spiked birdlike nose, shading beneath the eye holes, and patchwork violet details, labelled ‘INQUIETO’. The fifth is a yellow halfmask with snakelike decals and a crack that runs across the bottom, lavelled ‘IL SERPENTE’. The final mask is green and grotesque, with a large nose, huge eyes, and a moustache, and spiky wires emerging from the top - labelled ‘IL DUCA’. End image description]

A continuation of the thoughts from my post about AU fanfiction as modern Commedia Dell'arte - here's the sides as vaguely Commedia-esque masks. Presenting: the archetypal cast of Commedia dell'lati!

IL PRINCIPE, the prince, a more thoughtful descendant of the swaggering Il Capitano archetype. He's often seen with his distinctive red sash, and occasionally a bladed weapon. Il Principe is prideful, sometimes to a fault, and deeply romantic.

PADRE, the father, representing family values and an apparent moral compass. Often played as somewhat naive or foolish - sometimes portrayed at hiding something more devious beneath that, depending on the show and situation. He's recognizable by his fondness for wordplay, and his cheerful attitude.

INSEGNANTE, the teacher, the unlistened-to voice of reason, the provider of exposition. His misunderstandings of common metaphorical phrases are frequently the source of comic relief. It's a common plot point for him to be pushed to his limit and snap, revealing genuine emotion behind his mask of impenetrable reason.

INQUIETO, the restless one - the devil's advocate, quick to voice the negatives of a situation and recommend doing something, anything else. Often takes the role of 'jerk with a heart of gold' - frequently is the recipient of misfortune. A key part of his character is his sharp wit and sarcasm against every other member of the cast.

IL SERPENTE, the snake, is cunning and deceptive by nature. He will often emerge onto the stage in the guise of another character, having stolen their mask offstage. The inevitable reveal where he produces his true mask and slots it onto his face is always met with delighted applause. Il Serpente was originally often depicted as the villain of many productions and still sometimes is, although many recent shows have taken to treating him in a much more sympathetic light.

Finally, IL DUCO, the duke - the brother and mirrored counterpart of Il Principe. Some shows choose to tone down his original conception as a graphic and grotesque provider of foul language in order to make him easier to portray, or easier to sympathize with. Other shows turn up the crassness all the way, and make him downright villainous in nature. Il Duco is, chronologically, the most recent addition to the archetypes, but has quickly found his way into being a beloved and fascinating part of many performances.

One of the things separating the more modern Commedia dell'lati from its predecessor, Commedia dell'arte, is its willingness to play with character dynamics. The plots and settings are never certain from one show to the next, and neither are the relationships between the characters. Il Serpente and Inquieto could be in a committed relationship on one stage, and at each other's throats fighting to the death on another - although, it should be noted, the two are never mutually exclusive. Sometimes the morality of characters are black-and-white, sometimes it's all in strokes of grey, but it's all in the name of exploring new aspects of these beloved familiar archetypes.

Everything's fluid when it comes to Commedia dell'lati - but always recognizable, however distant.

#my art #long post #sanders sides #commedia dell'arte #i'm just... VERY delighted by how commedia group dynamics mirror side group dynamics #also apologies if i got any italian stuff wrong! i double-checked as best i could but internet translations ain't perfect #i would have done the other common fanon characters (like Remy and Picani and the rest) but i couldn't think of good enough mask designs #....and of course Character!Thomas isn't common enough in AUs to get a mask of his own #if he ever shows up on stage he's recognizable by the lack of mask or a flower tucked behind the ear

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whysojiminimnida · 1 year

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WELL I SEE IT'S TIME TO TALK TATTOOS AGAIN

Holy cats, hoes mad:

I just adore Black&White KM, don't you? Honestly, never yells at me no matter how often I steal their pics, they give out freebies at concerts, they're respectful -- if you're gonna make a living off photographing famous people, do it like they do. Honestly. So they're in Qatar doing their whole job and hoes losing their shit all over the internet, apparently, all because a certain JM is darker. STILL.

This is not a brand new development.

Y'ALL HE DID THIS MONTHS AGO WHY ARE WE JUST NOW FREAKING OUT ABOUT IT?

This is at LAST YEAR'S GRAMMYS Y'ALL:

And completely unedited, unretouched, the JM was darker enough then that I did a whole post about it.

I MEAN DAMN have we not gone over this, like, several times? (In case you're new to this house elf situation we have here, yes. YES WE HAVE.) We have talked about Jungkook's tattoos at GREAT LENGTH. Well, I have, as far back as a while ago, most recently along about here but also here and here and here and several other places. There is zero tag organization in this house, I don't know what else to tell you.

Anywho Jungkook's tats do not, as nearly as I can tell, mean this:

Because, like the nice graphic above says that I just edited, THIS IS FAN-MADE BULLSHIT. I dunno who made it but I suspect the addition of the J upset some folk enough to need to make JeiKei's motivation anything OTHER than Jimin. Because, as we know, he started out with his ink like this:

Yes, that is a pic someone ripped off. I don't like using it. But it's what we have, and it's years later, and it's been out there for a long time, don't shoot. But I have expounded more than once on why it makes NO SENSE to GO BACK LATER to add one letter to a near-complete hand piece. It doesn't. And that A is not, never has been, a V. In Korea you can go literally anywhere and see Samsung logos, Shilla hotel logos, and of course Jimin's dad's cafe' all using that stylized A with no crossbar.

And I think it's pretty clear what JK thinks the JM means. It means Jimin. Ji Min. JM. DUH. And just like his "rather be dead than cool / make hay while the sun shines" crossword ON HIS ARM, he has a crossword on his hand. A very obvious crossword. Who he loves is written for all of us to see: ARMY, and JM. And lest I forget about that crown:

It's THE SAME CROWN. Wanna go one better but likely utter fanfiction, you could even go heart-arrow-crown like so: 💜 > 👑... ... and make that story work. It actually makes more sense than one J for four people and four letters for three. But we're not here for that. Occam's Razor tells us that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one, and the simplest explanation is the one that's got bitches tearing their hair out. Because THEY KNOW. They KNOW that JM means Jimin, and they HATE IT. (And so what, to quote JeiKei directly. We're gonna talk about fan hate today, too, just... not in this post).

MEANWHILE JUNGKOOK is always showing us his hand, too, have you noticed? Ever since he got the tattoos, but I think more in the last year. It's gotten really pronounced since the PTD dates.

Jeon Jungkook does what Jeon Jungkook wants, and what he wants is for us to pick up what he's been throwing down since, oh, FOREVER but even more recently. Like, it's NOTICEABLE, the way he gets that tattoo in frame at every opportunity. I'll run out of image space before he runs out of ways to show us his touched-up hand.

Yeah. I think the fanmade bullshit has been exposed for what it is. Some of us have known it all along, but even if you're baby Army and you accidentally got stuck watching a lot of comic sans rainbow font youtube garbage (or got up on the wrong side of stan twt), there's no shame in that. I ain't even mad. I'm just happy you're here. Jeon-Park house elves, how we doin'?

#jungkook tattoo #jungkook tattoos #jeikei's tattoos #those damn hand tattoos again #here we go #jikook just jikooking nbd #must be 2022 in the jeon park house #hand tattoos #hand tattoos and ring placement #we didn't even talk about ring placement #jkjm #jmjk #kookmin #minggukie supremacy #jimin #jungkook #jeikei #jk #must be 2022 in qatar

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local-diavolo-anon · 2 months

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Ok i give up, here is the au i thought about in the post about my D&D character

So basically, its a ✨️Gods and Mortals✨️ kind of au (it also has nothing to do with my actual dnd character lmao)

At first i had a very different idea for this au tbh, but now i have a clearer view on where and how i want this to work

Eclipse is a preschool teacher and a daycare robot, his job is to care for the roudies children and take some weight off of the teacher's shoulders

One day, everything was normal, he gets his ass isekai'd into another world. Why? Because i say so

Jk he probably died somehow like in all isekai stories

To save him are the god of the stars, and the god of planets, those being Sun and Moon, who take a liking on this funny looking mortal and send him on an adventure with them as patrons

Sun and moon are two weirdos and being gods they do not really. Percieve. Eclipse as its own thinking being

This is not a plot point, actually, it's just to specify that Sun sees Eclipse as how you'd see a cute pet, while Moon as how you'd see a toddler of someone you barely know

They also have wildly different approaches when they talk with Eclipse, Sun does babyvoices at him, while Moon is the incarnation of the babysitter who tapes the baby to the wall and asks them if they want a beer

Sun is Eclipse's patron during the day and companion during the night, Moon is the other way around

Eclipse slowly loses his patience and gets progressively sassier and less keen to take shit from anyone he sees

Picture Gertrude from 'I Hate Fairyland', Eclipse is stuck in that world since months and has ho idea how to go back to his own, his "patrons" are not helping and anyone he meets is either a normal person or the worst weirdo he has ever run into

So he goes slowly from "ok now lets calm down and talk this out ok? We don't want anyone getting hurt ^^" to "i cast fuck you and your family!"

This is a sandbox au, so there is no real story, just some beasts to put in situations

If you want to know what they look like, Eclipse is the same eclipse from my 'sun and moonless' au/fic

Sun and Moon on the other hand appear as these titanic and imposing beings when they are in their real form, and as regular sun and moon when they take the 'shape of eclipse' (as they call it)

Sun wears a white tunic and a red scarf both as a god and as a "mortal", in his god form the tunic fades into clouds! his head is a half sphere and from behind rays and light come out, it looks like he is wearing a floating crown but you can't really tell because he is too bright. Also je probably has like, a few tens of eyes, but uses only between 2 and 5 at the same time usually

Moon on the other hand does not even have a real head as a god! His head is a clpud of space dust and darkness with a thousand stars inside, you can also see the moon where his head would be, and it always shows the same side no matter where you look at him from (it also shows the current lunar phase); he has eyes tho!

Moon wears a dark cape, and the cloud from his head forms a train behind him that looks like a night sky (similar to a nun's headwear in appearence)

When i draw anything good for this au i will post it because i keep imagining it with walt disney old comic books artstyle but I CAN'T REPLICATE IT

#not an ask #fnaf #fnaf moon #fnaf sun #fnaf sb #fnaf eclipse #fnaf au #five nights at freddy's #fnaf dca #fnaf daycare attendant #gods and mortals au #someone please help eclipse he is TRYING

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ruru0803 · 3 months

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Unknown Territory: Five x Fem Reader

Chapter 2- we only see each other at weddings and funerals part 3

Five is aged up here.

I moved some moments from the other episode to here because it was already pretty long. Also I'm adding a scene from the second comic into this chapter.

Anyway...

Characters talking...

Five Hargreeves

You

Allison Hargreeves

Klaus Hargreeves

Diego Hargreeves

Vanya Hargreeves

Ben Hargreeves

Pogo

Grace

Luther Hargreeves

Comic Hazel - C.H.

Hazel

Cha Cha

Comic Cha Cha - C.C.

Everyone else is in white.

"Five what do you think?"

A younger you smiles at the boy holding up a flower crown you had made from the few remaining plants in the world.

"It's nice. Brings out your eyes."

You frown at him as you watch him put one of your dresses you found on Delores.

"You're not even looking..."

Five turns towards you looking at your flower crown before returning his attention back to what he was doing.

"It's nice. Brings out your eyes."

You shake your head with a smile on your face, rolling your eyes at his statement.

"What am I going to do with you?"

Five shrugs as you walk and sit next to him, placing the crown on his head. He side eyes you and you give a smile in return.

You two sit in silence for a moment, you study his face as he starts to fix your Delores' dress. You move a strand of hair from in front of his eyes, your hand lingers and Five lets your hand rest near his ear for a moment before removing it.

"Tell me a story, Five."

Five's brows scrunch together.

"About?"

"Anything."

You lay down on the ground placing your head into your hands, giving him your full attention.

"Once upon a time there lived a mermaid princess."

You glare at him, raising your hand to stop him from continuing.

"Stop. That's not what I meant."

"Then what do you want."

You roll your eyes at him in frustration, he glares at you in return. You might be able to peel in his mind when he has his guard down but he sure as hell couldn't read yours.

"Tell me something about you."

"Like what?"

"Anything!!"

You open your arms in a big gesture which causes Five to roll his eyes.

"Fine. About a few years ago when I turned 13..."

"Nietzsche once said, Man is as a rope stretched between the animal and the superhuman."

Our dad had us lined up against the wall, something he would do everyday always reading us a page from his book. Well he would tell us to wait under the stairs but Number 1 and 2 deemed it fair for everyone to start at the wall.

"A rope over the abyss. It is a dangerous crossing, a dangerous looking back, a dangerous trembling and halting."

He would always have Number 7 with him watching us. Something twisted he did to remind her that she was nothing like us. She would stand at his side as he wrote down information in his book about us as if we were his test subjects than his children.

That day was like any other, Number 7 blew her whistle and we all raced up the stairs.

"As much as you must strive for individual greatness, and strive you must, for it won't come to you of its own accord..."

Number 1 and 2 fought for first place like they always did, usually I would stay behind and chat with my brothers Number 4 and 6 but I had been working on my jumps and wanted to prove that I had gotten better.

"That there is no individual stronger than the collective."

I jumped in front of them instantly gaining the lead much to the annoyance of 1 and 2. I didn't care how upset they were I wanted to prove I was better. I don't know why, maybe it was the fact that our father put us in competition every day.

"That's not fair, Five's cheating!"

"He adapted."

It was nice to finally get some words of accomplishment from him even if it wasn't directly said to me. I won that day, though not all of my siblings were happy for me.

"The ties that bind you together make you stronger than you are alone."

That was the day I also got my tattoo. My siblings and I were nervous about it.

"They will make you impervious to the pain and hardship the world will thrust upon you."

It was a painful process though none of us wanted to show it. Number 2 basically pushed our Mom away to prove to Dad that he could handle it. Number 3 cried after, our brother Number 4 tried to comfort her.

What about Number 7? Well she drew hers on.

"And believe me when I tell you, life will be hard. It will be painful."

"Give me your best impression of your father."

You laugh as Five uses one hand to make a circle around his eye, he sends you a playful smile before making the most over the top frown on his face. He clears his throat before speaking the most proper accent.

"You might be born with powers but there's a difference between special and extraordinary. And you are neither."

"That accent."

Five eyes you mischievously before lying down next to you.

"It's obnoxious, I know."

You send him a sympathetic smile as he looks at the darkening sky.

"Did he really say that to you?"

He shrugs with a blank face trying to hide any emotion from seeping through.

"Number 7 had it worse than any of us. He made her a special example because she was the only one without powers. She had to hear that statement everyday. And from the looks of it things didn't get better according to her book."

You thought Five's impression was funny, the words though not so much. And by the look in his eyes you could see that in some capacity he might have actually believed those words his father told them.

You turn your body in the direction of Five before placing your hand on his cheek and turning his face towards you.

"I think you're extraordinary, Five Hargreeves."

Five looks into your eyes, looking for any signs of deceit but he couldn't find any. He smiles at you before grabbing your hand that was laid on his cheek..

⌛⌛⌛⌛ Violence in 321⌛⌛⌛⌛

Back at Griddy's,

Five knocks on the glass gaining the attention of the one of the Temps, he teleports as their finger pushes down on the trigger causing them to shoot at the glass. Five watches from the shadows and breaks a mop that sat beside him before teleporting next to the agent at the door and stabbing them in the side.

Five teleports behind another agent; who was distracted by the death of his coworker, Five uses his tie to choke the man to death. Another agent tries to sneak up on him only to get stabbed with a pencil in the dick, Five throws a plate at another agent with enough force that makes him crash into a wall before turning his attention back to the one in front of him and using the same pencil to stab the agent in the eye.

Five watches as two other agents turn towards him with their guns raised. He teleports out of the way causing the two to shoot each other to death.

Five looks down at the bloody and bruised bodies around him with a sadistic smile on his face, his uniform drenched in their blood, he walks up to the agent he choked out and grabs his tie, tying it around his neck. He turned his head to where he heard breathing and slowly walked up to the now maskless agent before snapping his neck.

He felt proud, like he somehow gave you a little bit of justice, He knew he couldn't save you; he didn't have a way back to the commission office but at least he felt like he could do this for you.

Five lets out a breathe before walking up to the counter and using a knife to cut into his skin not noticing cars pulling up in the parking lot behind him. He pulls out the tracker before walking outside and tosses it into the sewer.

Agents come out of their cars and surround him again.

Five sighs before taking his tie from around his neck and tying it around his wounded arm.

"Give me a fucking break."

One of the agents walks forward while the rest backup, taking cover behind their cars.

"It isn't standard protocol of the Temps Aeternalis to make such a spectacle."

Five crosses his arms, a dark glare making its way on his face.

"All of your corpses scattered in the store and around the parking lot isn't going to be 'discrete'.

The agent removes his mask.

"We don't want any trouble, Number 5. We just want you to come back and finish the job."

"That's unfortunate, because I am no longer in the practice of doing anything anyone wants me to do."

Five turns to walk away but the agent points his gun into the back of Five's head.

"Most unfortunate. Because my supervisors see you as a valuable asset to the commission."

The agent's hand shakes a little at the thought of taking the life of the person who they were explicitly told not to kill under in circumstances but if he wouldn't come willingly...

"An expensive acquisition, and a prize worth hunting until it has been captured..."

The agent lets out a breath before straightening their poster.

"Or killed."

"Well aren't you a bunch of tigers..."

The agent looks at him, confused.

"So hungry, so poised... All sharp teeth and swagger."

Five studies his surroundings as he speaks to the agent.

"A tiger shows a hundred stripes, but I know it has more than that. A tiger hides them. Do you know where it keeps them?"

"No-"

"Here's a hint."

Five teleports onto his shoulders and sticks his thumbs into his eyes, so deep that his blood comes out.

"Forget about the mission, Kill him!!"

Another agent yells out causing the others to shoot at the direction of the two men however Five already teleported by then causing them to shoot at the cars instead making them catch fire.

Five grabs a gun from the one of the car trunks as the cars start to blow up one by one killing the agents beside them.

"Get to cover!!"

Five's blood covered finger pushes down on the trigger, shooting some of the agents that tried to run.

He continues to teleport around gaining more agents attention and laughing as they keep blowing up more and more cars, killing their own members.

"Fast. Too Fast."

Five lands on the ground with the gun in his hand, burning bodies and cars surrounded the outside of Griddy's.

"I am in the jungle and I am too fast for you."

Five watches as one of the agents tries to crawl away.

"You have teeth and stripes and things that tear."

Five reloads the gun.

"But I am much too fast. You want my flesh, but you don't know where the jungle is...only I know where the jungle is...only I know."

Five shoots the agent in the head.

"I am a gazelle. I will always be faster than you."

Five lets out a satisfied laugh but that soon stops at the sound of static.

"W-we need them now...T-target confirmed in this area..."

Five teleports to where the voice was coming from.

"P-please send help..."

Five shoots the guy dead and let's out a sigh before static fills his ears again.

"Mission control dispatching Hazel and ChaCha..."

Five's eyes widened in fear.

"God dammit.."

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"Handler, Handler!!"

The Handler looked up from her desk in the direction of the panicked Agent that walked into the room.

"Unless this is about the two traitors, I don't want to hear it."

"It is ma'am. Five was last located at Griddy's, a call came in confirming the location before the line went dead. But it seems Five has somehow taken his tracking device out."

The Handler squeezes her fist tightly at the agent's words.

"Yes, Yes. I am aware. Any Idea where he is now?"

The agent shakes their head with a slight frown on their face.

"No Ma'am. Nothing recent."

"So he's missing..."

The agent nods.

"Yes Ma'am."

"And the other one?"

The agent looks down at the clipboard in their hands.

"Looks like she's in a different timeline. I've already made preparations to send agents after her."

"I've already sent the Hazels and ChaChas on this mission."

The agent's face paled at her words. The Hazels and ChaChas were good at their jobs, great even but three of the four were sick. They'd do anything to complete a mission. Anything.

"B-But I thought you wanted them back alive..."

The Handler stands up looking the agent dead in the eye.

"I told them to beat Five up a little if they have to but I need him alive. Do what they will with the other one."

The agent lets out a little gulp and nods nervously before leaving the room.

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You ducked into a theater with your hands covering your ears as the sounds of gunfire sounded in the air.

As soon as you left the commission building, you used the suitcase to bring you to the past. You remembered Five mentioning the day the apocalypse happened from some newspaper he found. You weren't there when it happened since you were dealing with your own issues under water but you took his word for it.

Not even an hour into leaving the commission office, did you encounter the sound of maniacal laughter. Hazel and ChaCha.

Luckily from the quick glance you got of them before ducking behind a seat, it seemed like it was only two of them which relieved you a little bit until you realized you had the blood thirsty ones on your trail.

"Y/N come out, come out, wherever you are."

"Fuck me...."

You whispered to yourself as you looked over the seats to see how far they were. Their pink and blue masks seemed like they were mocking you as they got closer and closer to your area.

"How'd they even..."

Duck back down and looked at your arm.

"Shit..."

The gun shots stopped for a second and you looked up to see what they were doing. The two men in masks were looking down at the tracking device in Chacha's hand before looking in the direction of where you hid. You quickly ducked back down, since the other people that were around started shooting in your direction. Catching the attention of Hazel and ChaCha.

You couldn't see them but in that moment you felt extreme terror. How were you going to get out of this?

You closed your eyes trying to think of a way to get yourself out of this situation.

You could use your siren voice but there was no way of knowing if they were wearing headphones under those masks.

Not to mention there was already so much going on in that moment. Bullets rain in the air, trying to hit whatever they could make contact with while a blinding white light burned your eyes as you tried to take a look at the commotion that was also happening behind you.

You pulled out a pocket knife that Johnny had slipped into your pocket. You winced as you cut deep into your arm before sticking your fingers in to pull out the tracker that was in there.

"Fuck!"

You didn't have too much time to worry about your wound because a voice started to yell above the commotion. You turned in the direction of the entrance to find a guy dressed in a red and white shirt, dark jeans and a green vest hopping over the stairs case. His hair was messy and he had dark makeup around his eyes, he looked about your age well... younger.

You started to panic as the agents turned their guns towards him. You rushed over; suitcase in hand, without even thinking and pulled the guy down and covered him with your arms as the guns fired off again.

You looked at the dude and checked for any injuries before looking over the seats again after finding none. Your eyes widened as you found the familiar face of a twenty year old Five hopping on the back of one of the agents and moving his gun to where he ended up shooting his own partners that were close by.

You're blinded again as the guy beside you, hands start to glow a similar shade of blue to Five's. Then you realize who this could be, a small smile makes its way on your face. One of Five's brothers that he'd always talk about. You were finally able to meet one though you wished it was under better circumstances.

He stands up and spreads his hands, the next thing you know all the agents are being thrown around or killed. You looked at him in amazement, this could only be Klaus. Five told you about his siblings powers but to actually see it in action.

"Wow. You're amazing."

The guy you assumed was Klaus smiled at your reaction and gave you a bashful look.

"Thank you. It was nothing."

Unknowingly to you, his ghost brother beside him let out a sigh as he continues to tear the other agents apart.

"Really Klaus?"

Your attention is pulled again ChaCha walks in, This was the female ChaCha, unlike her counterpart who was now making eye contact with her, she didn't have her mask.

She looks taken back at the sight of the other two before recognition filled her eyes.

"She's here?"

ChaCha nods at her.

"She is."

Five takes cover in the seats closest to watching as his brother uses his powers to conjure the other. His attention quickly shifts to you and his eyes filled with happiness and relief.

He teleports behind you and you jump as he places his hands on your shoulders taking your attention away from the brother in front of you.

Your eyes start to water as you face him, he sends you a small grin before pulling you into a hug. For you it might have only been two or three days but Five had eight long days without you. Tears fill his eyes at the warmth of your body against his, yours had already started to fall as you pulled him against you tighter. If it was one thing you two could admit, it's that being without the other was like hell.

You breathe in his scent before pulling back and placing your hands on his cheeks. You watch as his grin turns into a wide smile, one that showed off his dimples, tears of relief falling down his face. You pull his face closer to yours before giving him a lot of kisses around his face getting a genuine laugh from him. After you finish, he places his forehead against yours.

"I missed you."

He looks deep into your eyes.

"So m-much."

You pull him into another hug which causes him to whimper.

"But you can't stay here."

You pull your head back to look at him with questioning eyes.

"I need you to go back a few days.''

"Back?"

Five nods.

"I need you to find me and tell me it's Vanya."

Your eyes squint in confusion not processing what he meant.

"Do you understand?"

You shake your head.

"I just found you."

Five messes with the suitcase before handing it to you.

"I need you to understand."

You shake your head, not wanting to say goodbye.

"Please..."

You looked into his eyes and knew he wasn't going to change his mind on this one. You nodded with a sad look in your eye.

"Don't look at me like that."

Five frowns as he rubs your cheek with his thumb.

"You'll find me again."

You take a deep breath before giving him a nod of assurance.

"I won't let you down."

"I know you won't."

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Vanya walks down the hall to her apartment with a look of disgust on her face. The meeting she went to was distrubing to say the least. She had gone to the theatre where the person on the phone said he would be and discovered an orchestra there though the atmosphere didn't feel right. It felt more like a cult and at the head of it was the conductor.

He had forced her to play a song to show off her skill before telling her of a piece he wrote. He called it, 'The Apocalypse Suite.'

Vanya thought it was a waste of time and turned to leave with him taunting her as she did. It all felt like some type of sick joke.

Vanya took a breath to calm her nerves before unlocking her door and stepping inside. She jumped in fright when the lamp on the other side of the room lit up to reveal Five sitting on the couch, one leg crossed over the other.

"Jesus!"

"You should really have locks on your windows."

Vanya looked at him confused as she placed her keys down and turned to lock the door.

"I live on the second floor."

He gave her the most blank stare.

"Rapists can climb."

There was a beat of silence.

"You are so weird."

Five studies her as she sits on the couch. Vanya nervously rubs her hands against her pants before giving him a concerned look.

"Is that blood?"

Five slightly glances at his collar and soothes himself by rubbing his fingers together.

"It's nothing."

Vanya looks at him like she doesn't buy it but there was no use trying to get any answers from him, she learnt that from her father.

"Why are you here?"

Five pauses a moment to think about what he wanted to say.

"I've decided you're the only one I can trust."

"Why me?"

"Because you're ordinary."

Five watches as a crestfallen look befalls her face. He backtracks after he realizes that was the wrong thing to say.

"Because you'll listen."

Vanya gets up and goes into the bathroom to get things to help heal his self inflicted wound. She winces as he reveals it before cleaning it.

Five talks to her about the future, he eyes glaze over as he remembers the wreckage he found, the flames that surrounded the city, the lifeless bodies. Everything a thirteen year old boy shouldn't have witnessed.

As Five opens up to her about what he saw and how he felt, Vanya begins to look at him sceptically.

Next⌛🫧

#five x y/n #five hargreaves x reader #five hargreeves x reader #five hargreeves #five x reader #umbrella academy tv series #the umbrella academy comics #umbrella academy comic #the umbrella academy #vanya #ben hargreeves #allison hargreeves #luther hargreeves #reginald hargreeves #hazel #chacha #klaus hargreeves

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