#thinking about how many horde soldiers she could kill with that rattle

[lesetoilesfous]

Sending you a prompt from the Bad Things Happen Bingo! I'd be interested to see what you do with "Defeated and Trophified", for either a negative Handers OR an Evil M!Hawke. Thank you! <3

Oooh thank you so much, I hope you enjoy!

(If you’d like me to write you a dragon age fic, send me a prompt from here!)

@dadrunkwriting @badthingshappenbingo

Fandom: Dragon Age 2

Pairing: dark, abusive Handers

Characters: Garrett Hawke, Anders, Alistair Theirin

Tags: post da2, evil Hawke, implied abusive relationship

Rating: Mature

The new viscount of Kirkwall has made changes at the Keep, and indeed in the city in general. No longer are there any mages to be found anywhere, not even in the city-state’s infamous Gallows. Alistair had been struck by how few staves he’d seen anywhere as a result. He realises that he’d just sort of got used to apostates and presumably-legal Circle mages wandering throughout Fereldan. The absence of them here in Kirkwall is, well, stark. But Alistair is a king, and visiting his new trading partner is not the most burdensome of his many, many responsibilities, so he takes a deep breath and tries not to think about Kelton Amell, and climbs the stairs towards the viscount’s personal offices.

A servant who looks pale and frightened and flinches far too easily for Alistair’s comfort dips him a low, low bow and swings the door open on perfectly oiled hinges. Everywhere, the Amell family crest bleeds in red lines beside the emblem of the city of chains. Everything is spotless and silent, and even the air tastes clean, somehow - perfumed with what tastes to Alistair like elfroot and spindleweed. He’s led, with his retainers, into a large room with a long, beautiful dark wooden table. Behind it the Viscount of Kirkwall: muscular, broad, handsome Garrett Hawke, sits in state wearing an iron crown. Behind him, standing demurely with his hands folded and his head lowered, is the apostate who blew up the Chantry.

The first thing Alistair can find to think is that he recognises this man. He remembers gently encouraging Kelton to recruit him, almost a decade ago in Amaranthine. A young, frightened man whose brave face warred with his real horror at what the Templar order wished to do with him.

The second thing Alistair notices is the collar. It’s not ostentatious - of course not, if there’s one thing Alistair has learned from the immaculate Keep and the deathly silent streets, it’s that the man sitting in front of him does not go in for the obvious. But it’s a collar all the same: a thin, beautiful bar of rolled gold which hangs like a necklace around the apostate’s neck, darkened with dozens and dozens of finely engraved runes that makes it look stained black like an antique. Thin gold chains dip below the apostate’s neckline, under the loose, beautiful deep green silk tunic he’s wearing. There are matching, thick gold cuffs wrapped around each of his wrists. Alistair can’t see his feet from where he’s standing, but he doesn’t doubt there are cuffs there too. He swallows his bile, and refocuses his attention.

Hawke doesn’t bother to stand, which is technically a formal insult, but Alistair suspects it won’t be the last thing he tolerates today in the name of preventing open war. Instead he inclines his head, and waves at the frightened servant to pull out a chair. The servant does so, and Alistair thanks them softly, not missing the way Hawke’s mouth turns down in a sneer. The apostate behind the viscount, (the grey warden), says nothing. Alistair can barely believe he’s breathing, for how silent he’s being.

Hawke leans forward. “King Theirin. Such a pleasure to have your company so soon after our...troubles.” Behind Hawke, the apostate flinches, so subtly Alistair can hardly believe he noticed it. But Hawke’s jaw clenches, and the apostate’s already pale skin pales further.

Alistair thinks about facing down a broodmother and sits a little straighter in his chair. “Of course, Viscount. I was sorry to hear the news of your predecessor, and,” Alistair pauses, picking his words as carefully as stepping between landmines, “...confused by Knight-Commander Meredith’s interim occupation.”

Hawke laughs, and again, the apostate flinches. “Yes, well, Stannard always did have delusions of grandeur. But she wasn’t wrong about the mage problem. Worse than a nest of plague-ridden rats in this city and just as rotten. It was poisoning us from the inside out.”

Alistair lets the comment past him, and keeps his features neutral. He’d gotten good at this, as a child, under Isolde’s harassment. He asks, neutrally, as politely as he can, “Is it true, then? That you took part in the annulment personally?”

Again, Hawke laughs. Alistair feels a thorny kind of heat coiling in his chest. Hawke says, “Damned right I did. I was the only one left in the Blighted city with the fucking guts. Got every apostate too - all the criminals and infected children. I lanced the boil that this city had become and I burned out every bit of rot. Except this one,” Hawke gestures to the apostate behind him, then looks back at Alistair with a wide smile of perfect teeth, “But he’s pretty.”

Alistair fantasises about breaking his nose. Instead, he follows Hawke’s gesture to look up at the tall, broad man beside him. He’s older than he was, when Alistair had met him, lines printed across his face in deep crevasses. But he’s clean shaven, and his hair is brushed and soft around his head. Alistair listens to his own racing heartbeat for a moment before he speaks. “I heard he was a Grey Warden.”

Hawke’s eyes narrow, and there’s a flash of something there in the brown and gold of his irises that reminds Alistair terribly of the bird after which his family took its name. Something bloodthirsty, and cruel. “Like you? I told Vael, and the blighted Divine, Anders stays here. He’s mine.”

Alistair raises his hands in surrender and wonders whether Hawke can see that his palms are sweating. “Of course! Wouldn’t dream of separating you. It was only innocent curiosity. Now, I believe you have a Fereldan apostate to deliver to me?”

The blatant threat on Hawke’s face melts into a smirk, and he leans back in his chair. Behind him, Anders, the apostate’s shoulders lower, fractionally. Hawke clicks his fingers at the servant, and a few minutes later there’s the clatter of armour as a pair of templars bring in a wounded, starved looking elvhen girl.

Alistair thinks hard about exactly how much worse war would be for all his people and truly, deeply hates being king. Hawke gets up, circling the table to lift the girl’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. She glares at him, and Alistair hates that he’s heartened by this remaining spirit.

But then Hawke looks at the apostate in the corner and lifts his hand. The gold ring on his wedding finger, similarly blackened with runes, burns red, and Anders flinches as the jewellery on his wrists and neck glow, too. All Hawke says is, “Anders.”

The apostate moves faster than Alistair thinks he could have followed even if he were prepared for it. His hand flicks, and a silent bolt of lightning crosses the space of Hawke’s private quarters and connects with the girl’s skull. Her body slumps almost immediately, shuddering in a death rattle that is all too familiar to Alistair. He makes an effort to close his open mouth, and for the first time gives up the poker face.

“What is the meaning of this?”

Hawke smiles at him, close lipped and shrewd. “A lesson, your majesty. We won’t tolerate apostates in Kirkwall. Try to keep them on your side of the ocean.”

Alistair looks up at the apostate, Anders, but his hands are already folded in front of him again, his head bowed. Alistair swallows past the dryness of his mouth and the thick lump in his throat, and gets to his feet with an agonisingly loud screech of the wooden chair legs on stone.”Well, Viscount. It’s certainly been...educational.”

Alistair turns and tries not to imagine the entire darkspawn horde at his heels. Hawke doesn’t stand, and his pet apostate doesn’t move. But when Alistair gets to the door, Hawke speaks again. “Come back any time, your majesty. Anders can do wonderful things with his hands.”

Alistair doesn’t turn around. The doors swing shut behind them, and both the Keep’s guards and two servants usher them forward. But Alistair hesitates, listening for a moment.

Through the wooden doors, there’s a crack of skin on skin, and a soft cry of pain. Softly, deadly, Alistair hears the Viscount whisper, “Killed her quickly, didn’t you? Any suffering you spared her I’ll deal you, later.”

Alistair doesn’t realised he’s curled his fingers into a fist until one of his guard’s touches his forearm, her eyes wide with either fear or concern. Slowly, Alistair uncurls his hand, listening to the crunch of metal, and follows the soldiers and servants out of the Keep. He makes a mental note to write Zevran, later.

There’s a warden in need, and a state leader in desperate want of assassination.

#dadwc #bad things happen bingo #hawke #anders #handers #da2 #evil hawke #my fic #alistair theirin #hollyand-writes #dragon age 2

[kdtheghostwriter]

SNK 4-Pack

Just to avoid any confusion, yup, it’s just what it says on the tin. I’ve gathered my thoughts on four chapters here. A combination of IRL obligations, lifestyle and equipment changes all of which has been more or less rectified. For now lol. To those who reached in the past months, I appreciate the thought. Apologies for keeping you waiting. Accept this humble offering and enjoy the new chapter release.

123 - Turn Me Loose

We’re in a very distressing place both in-story and IRL. So here:

It’s Mikasa’s first taste of ice cream. Feel better? Cool. Now let’s talk about the end of the world, pls.

 I’ll get the obvious out of the way first. Just what did you think The Usurper meant when he said [checks notes] “I’m going to put an end to this world?” This isn’t Sword Art Online. He wasn’t talking about a virtual world. It’s closer to the SpongeBob bit where Squidward runs into his place of work to exclaim that robots have taken over the world, before he clarifies “Our world!” Paradis was merely a blip on the radar before the Royal Family lost the Coordinate. It was fun at first to rattle their cage and watch them war with eachother. Now the war is about to leave the shores of the Island and no one is laughing.

I don’t have much to say about this development in particular because I predicted it nearly one year ago. No one wanted to hear it, but I said to any ear that listened: if Eren is going to play the Bad Guy, he needs to be the Bad Guy. You can go back and read it. I said Eren Jaeger will be the new villain of the story. Well, there’s a word we use for the person who wants to exterminate all life on Earth and it’s not Samaritan.

But for every villain, a foil must rise. Reiner is the easy choice here. Not the wrong one, but easy and predictable. Eren and Reiner have been intersecting since the 104th squad’s first expedition. When Eren could have hidden during Marley’s 11th hour raid of Paradis, he chose to confront Reiner and expose himself for the sake of a fight he knew he would not lose. This is why I don’t have Reiner in this role. Reiner’s role is what we all thought Eren’s was up until Chapter 120 or so. He is Lady Fate’s whipping boy. Beating him down again and again while calling him and dummy for trying to resist against his lot in life. If Reiner steps to Eren this time, it will be more than just humiliation awaiting him. Yes, it’s still Mikasa. I doubt Eren’s plan (whatever the full scope of it is) can even be stopped but if it can she is the one to do it. It can only help that she has the God of Destruction on her side.

 Getting ahead of myself, though. We have the famous confrontation to speak on. You know the one.

I understand the sentiment by Eren here but he was never going to get an accurate answer. At least not immediately. The poor girl is shocked. She’s been interrogated time and again about her loyalty to Eren and what exactly it means. The one person who has never questioned her further is the man himself. One can imagine how long he’s sat on this inquiry. He knew what he had to do. No answer she gave would have diverted his path, but maybe he wanted one last thing to feel good about before he doomed the world.

Either way, the team runs in to interrupt them like some teen movie and they all proceed to get drunk with the family of the Middle Eastern boy they aided earlier. Ever since this type of story analysis was popularized online (and especially on YouTube) people have fallen into the habit of using the word “filler” without knowing what the word means.

 Because we are consuming this series week by week and because Eren’s descent into arch-villainy has lasted well over a year at this point this current disaster really does feel like it would in real life. A long, brutal decline with only one outcome and no way to stop it. This chapter was a palette cleanser after months of endless despair. If you can remember there was indeed a time where everyone was friends and Eren wasn’t trying to KILL THE WORLD. This chapter was a reminder of that. The faintest light shines brightest in total darkness. That light is what Mikasa is doing her best to hold onto.

  124 - All Falls Down

The most interesting part of this chapter, which is largely set-up, is Jean’s assessment of the situation from his perch on a rooftop. It’s muted and resolute. The usual emotion is missing entirely. The fire is gone as he accepts the world’s creeping fate. The story’s most morally consistent character is seen trying to work out the thought process behind ending the world. They’re our enemies. They were going to attack us eventually. We were sitting ducks. Maybe this was always going to happen. His last observation is less rhetorical. In order to protect his friends, Eren has sacrificed the entire world. This includes the Subjects of Ymir who all received Eren’s message from the last chapter.

No time to contemplate that horror with the fresh hell of Zeke’s titanized victims running wild in Shiganshina which sounds mighty familiar. There’s a poignant scene that follows of the 104th cutting down their fellow soldiers, many of whom helped train them. It shows how far they’ve come and the overall affect their adventures have had on them that they are able to destroy their comrades without hesitation.

Ah! But this is SnK after all. The horrors are often double stacked. The time has come to decide which titan Falco gets fed to. Before anyone can note what terrible timing this is with a horde of Titans destroying the village around them, Connie makes an executive decision to nab the unconscious boy and feed him to his stranded Titan mother in his hometown.

Of course, no one believed at the time that Connie would be able to go through with such and act especially on someone as sweet and naïve as Falco, but it really drives home the not-so-quiet desperation of these characters and how each of them reacts to it. Mikasa and Jean are both trying to keep a level head. Armin isn’t in hysterics by any means but is missing his usual confidence. Connie, having already lost his best friend and half his squad is the first to let the despair of the situation get to him. It’s the same reason Armin volunteers to go after him. No it won’t solve any of their macro problems but reconciling with young Gabi and feeling like a hero again can at least make you feel useful in the face of your best friend trampling the world underfoot.

 The reveal of Annie at the very end of this chapter after more than half a decade gone is classic Isayama melodrama and it’s one of the reasons that, despite monthly leaks, Shingeki no Kyojin is still a worldwide best-selling phenomenon. I don’t have much else to say about it other than having her gasping for air like a fish out of water after being encased in a Disney Princess Prison was a nice choice. One would have to think that seeing Annie again would have some sort of affect on Eren even in his current Kaiju state. Eh, I’m getting ahead of myself though.

 Stray Thoughts

- Jean continues to be my favorite character in the story. With Pixis gone and Hange out of action, he’s the easy choice as acting Commander. Leading his own squad and the neighboring soldiers into battle against the rampaging Titans is heroism that stands out even more after sitting through months of the Jaeger Brothers’ power play.

- Shadis returning to aid the cadets that beat him down at Floch’s behest is all you need to know about his character. He’s a gruff man and his stint as the Survey Corps Commander left him emotionally busted. However, he never once forgot why he started doing this in the first place. He can’t save the world but he can save these kids, dammit.

- All Titan hardening has been rendered inert by Founder Ymir throwing off her chains. This includes Reiner who reveals to Gabi that his Titan’s armor fell off as the walls came down. Nothing in SnK happens on accident so we’ll put a pin by this and see where it goes.

- Reiner explains to a distraught Gabi, who is looking for Falco, that Eren is extra unstoppable because with full control of the Founder he now has full control of all Eldians. One has to wonder if the Ackerman Loophole is still in effect.

- Gabi used the same gun that started The Rumbling to save Kaya from a 2m Titan. Alright, jokes aside, I can put on my critical hat and say that this callback to Sasha was a bit ham-fisted and you could have found a less visceral way for Gabi to realize the error of her ways. (Avatar: The Last Airbender will always hold the title for this trope.) All that can be true and I still like Gabi showing some agency here. Being insistent on finding Falco and helping him is pretty key development imo. He’s the main reason she’s still alive.

125 - The Next Step

Annie is me when I write exposition. I know you think it’s “boring” and “filler” or whatever but I don’t care! Shut up and learn something for once, eh?

Anyway.

Annie and Hitch have catching up to do. I was about to say they were former roommates but as noted above, Hitch spent four years watching over the captive soldier. Now that she’s free and the world is ending she sees no reason to hold on to her backstory any longer. Annie was adopted and the man who trained her was also the man who raised her. It wasn’t until she was about to set sail for Paradis that he showed any remorse for her indoctrination. Even still, Annie never forgot his words and has been trying to get back to him as soon as she can by any means she can.

Taking off my critic hat I have to wonder what her mindset was locking herself away in that crystal. Obviously if she hadn’t the outcome is almost certainly being devoured by Eren or someone else as they were but a few short months away from learning the truth behind Titan Succession. Still, there’s no guarantee that she ever escapes at all. I was half convinced that Isayama was working toward the biggest troll job in the history of fiction by ending the story with Annie still in captivity. He didn’t though, so we have the rest of the narrative to work out what that means.

Sorta like these two.

Eh, he’s not wrong but his frustration is misdirected here. Mikasa asked a very valid question about what to do about the World Killer that happens to be their (former?) best friend. Mikasa is the only one in the group asking this question because she’s the only one that no longer id’s Eren as the hero of Stohess. Connie is a minor distraction especially compared to the army of Colossals; Armin knows this too but Connie is a distraction from the creeping dread that Eren is now unstoppable.

And Mikasa’s face here…oof. That’s two of her soon-dead Titan Bros who have yelled at her today. Should it hurt more? Probably but she is so far past hurt feelings at this point. She’s a soldier and she has work to do. Asking for a directive isn’t something to get triggered by but Armin is at his breaking point here. The little things that add up to make your shit sandwich 12 feet high. And so we hope that his side quest brings him peace.

I love this character.

He never once falters in his moral fiber. The depression keeps him from recognizing this but he is indeed special in his own way. After all is said and done that’s really all that can be expected of us. Shadis, ever the mentor tells his kids not to be heroes. Really, this quote can be transplanted to our current political situation IRL. There’s a lot of things wrong with the current system and we’d all like to make it better but we still have work and school and various other obligations to deal with and those don’t go away because we want to “make a difference.” The time will come to make your voice heard. Be ready when it happens, not before.

I do like how Shadis basically accepts his fate as a sacrifice to Floch’s faction as his only other option with the other heads of military dead are going on the run like Solid Snake and he is not about that life. He would rather take the rest of his lumps and be done with it.

This Fucking Guy

This is peak Lord of the Flies shit. Society has dissolved and the chain of command has been broken so just do whatever, dude! Think about what Armin said before. History always repeats itself without the proper prevention. The best prevention, of course, being education. Floch is the best example of why eliminating one side does not truly extinguish conflict. Even at the start we see various Shiganshina residents rightfully blaming Eren for his role in the destruction caused by the walls coming down.

The only way to reach consensus is with terror. We got a mere preview when Zackley got TNT’d so many moons ago. Now we see Floch Forster doing his best Neegan impression, splattering a volunteer’s brains across the floor. I won’t repost it but that panel is probably up there with Ymir’s cannibalization for most visceral of the story. Brutal in its suddenness, it almost becomes a smash cut. After so much death and destruction this act of violence isn’t lost in the pages because of how much grislier the executions are rendered. The intimacy of a human ending another’s life without the aid of a fleshy mech. I digress, though. Floch must be stopped or the future of Paradis is sealed, Rumbling or not.

 Stray Thoughts

- “I’ll tell Connie! That even as a Titan overturned on her back, his mom is fine as she is!” My goodness this story is dark.

- I have been mercifully absent from fandom developments, so I have no idea if people are still as turnt about the Gabi character as they were when I left. With that said, it’s fun to see some good logical development, just like every adult fan of this series predicted there would be.

- Again, is Kaya being saved by Gabi in a direct parallel to Sasha doing the same a bit on the nose? Quite so. It isn’t good or bad and, honestly, judging by some meta I’ve seen in the past I don’t blame any author for erring on the side of the obvious.

- Have I said this next one before? Who knows? Reviving Erwin on that rooftop instead of Armin wouldn’t have changed much besides short-term strategy. Once the Usurper started down the Dark Path even Commander Handsome would be powerless to stop him.

  126 - Hold the Line

Levi and Hange are on the lamb in the Forest of Big Ass Trees and the set up for this detour is a solid string of pages with Hange building shelter, tending to Levi’s wounds and picking off the new Survey Corps members that have been sent by Floch to find them be cause War is Hell.

This opening stanza is good because it highlights one of my favorite aspects of this character: their resourcefulness. First impressions being what they are lead people to take a throwaway joke about Hange keeping a pet Titan and let it inform one-note headcanons of their entire character. It shouldn’t be said but I will anyway. Hange is a clinical genius with a sharp wit in compliment. Their best skill is problem solving which would explain partially why they work so well with Armin. However, their particular thought process makes the kind of executive planning required from a Commander extremely challenging. Hange is better at devising a plan then receiving the instructions necessary to carry it out, if that makes sense.

Isayama, per usual, doesn’t spend the whole chapter on backtracking. He could have maybe but we do still have a story to get through. Isayama is a good author to study for improving your exposition. He conveys so much information with so little real estate. I still struggle and I’ve been at this for years.

I digress, though. Now we have Theo Magath lifting his gun to a crippled Levi in order to cope with the fact that he is A) stranded and B) not even slightly in control of this hopeless situation. So he listens and it turns out all four of these folk want the same thing, which is Zeke’s head on a platter. A very popular menu item to be fair.

For the uninformed here I am a fan of good dark comedy. This panel right here had me howling. As predicted by [checks notes] everybody, Connie did not have the gumption to callously lead this innocent child to their death. In one last effort to preserve his own conscience he explains that his Titanized mother who has been stranded for four years needs to be cleaned. Like you do. Every little detail eight down to his face when he thinks Falco has him made is so well done.

Of course, Armin and Gabi show up just in time. Armin, still haunted by Levi’s choice to save him, makes a bet on Connie’s bond with his squad that he did not seem overly confident in being correct on. Can’t truly call yourself a 104th alum until you’ve accepted your own untimely death.

 Skipping ahead a bit now. Floch is very busy being The Worst and if there hasn’t been a better collection of panels to illustrate the moral of the story. Yelena and Onyankapon have been lined up and are set to be publicly executed for their “crimes” against Eldia. The notable bit here for me is the way Isayama depicted the spectators. The have gnarled, twisted visages, some of them literally frothing at the mouth. You see, because extremist nationalism is bad and racism makes you ugly in every sense of the word.

Jean is tasked with gunning down Onyankapon but fires four rounds into the ground instead. This begins a series of Hashtag Machinations that will no doubt become clearer as the story unfolds. Jean and the two POWs escape in the Cart Titan’s mouth and the rest of the 104th leaves to collect Reiner and try to (somehow) stop Eren.

They had to try. Even at the cost of their own security it is difficult to agree with mass genocide. Having Annie on the team will be interesting as she and Eren were close. What’s left for me to wonder is how they plan to reach Eren, physically or otherwise, while he’s like…that. Every month more questions for each answer but after a decade you get used to it.

 Stray Thoughts

- Pieck’s surname is Finger? Or is this some Hange headcanon?

- We know Isayama is a big GoT fan. Apologies if this take has appeared elsewhere but an Ackerman keeping their promise seems to be his version of a Lannister paying their debt.

- Years after his death, the spirit of Erwin lives on in these characters. For some, it inspires strength; for others, only guilt.

- I’ve gone back to the interaction between Mikasa and Louise several times to try and get between the lines. Mikasa asking for her scarf back seems self-explanatory since it’s hers but Eren telling the girl to “throw it away” intrigues me. Seems to me that of all the things he had to give up to walk this path that his relationship with Mikasa is what he mourned the most in that cell.

- Always a good time to see Jean being a clever boy.

- Hange/Pieck banter is not something I knew I needed until I read this chapter.

- Hange’s fierce protectiveness of Levi makes more sense when you realize that these two are the only ones left of their original squad. The veterans of the military have all been cleared out, some more violently than others.

- It’s all but stated outright that Ackermans are part Titan. Goes a long way to explain their freakish strength and athleticism and their durability. Evidenced by the fact that Levi was apparently further from death than Zeke after the latter blew them both up.

#snk meta #snk 123 #snk 124 #snk 125 #snk 126 #eren jaeger #mikasa ackerman #armin arlert #jean kirschstein #floch forster #yelena #onyankopon #pieck #theo magath #hange zoe #levi ackerman #annie leonhardt #hitch dreyse #keith shadis #louise #floch is in the bag

[silversiren1101]

Test Your Mettle - Haurchefant & (Clueless!)WoL

A request by @chrysalispen / @frostmantle regarding my Xaela WoL, Sanga, having to deal with Haurchefant’s “chaotic, horny self”. I actually got super carried away with this one! Here’s almost 1.4k words on the blessed Elezen boy pining over one rather clueless Xaela beserker! I stopped it where I did because I like the idea so much I’m probably going to incorprate it into my main story, so thanks for the inspiration!

Test Your Mettle

Words: 1387

Shards of ice spray into the air as the Warrior’s heavy axe slams into the cobblestones of the sparring ring.

Or what’s left of it anyway.

She’s been steadily hewing away hunks of the already meager circle for the past few bells, sparring with his men.

Though ‘sparring’ may be a bit disingenuous choice of word. She hasn’t been sparring with his men so much as utterly thrashing them.

He’s watched some fair number of them ejected from the ring in all many of ways, arses thoroughly handed to them by a woman half their size. The looks of amusement that’d previously been on their faces, the lot of them thinking her an easy target, a mere girl attempting to punch upward at giants, have since fallen away to open-mouth gawking in awe-stricken horror.

This current man of the minute, one of his older soldiers, a Hyur gentlemen of some forty summers and just as many Dravanian heads, gets a rather… undignified exit. For as soon as the Warrior’s axe haft stands upright, a salute to Halone herself, she braces herself against it with a firm push off the ground.

And promptly mule kicks the man halfway across Camp Dragonhead.

He goes flying with a pained yelp, limbs flailing in the air like a child tossed before crashing into a heap just adjacent the keep door. The impact rattles the Fortemps’ crest emblazoned shield just above him, and for a second the unicorn seems to stare down at the poor man with mocking disapproval.

A scathing “Hah!” echoes across the now dead silent camp, all onlookers having fallen silent at the spectacle before them.

A spectacle known as Sanga Dotharl, the Warrior of Light.

“Is there anyone of any real strength here?” The Xaela woman’s thick accent cuts through the crisp Coerthan air as subtly as her axe has been chipping away at the stone floor. “I thought you all dragon slayers? Or do you mean to kill them with upset bellies after being eaten?”

“Oh-oh my.” A small voice whispers from his right, accompanied by a rather distinct, metallic rattling that his keen, Elezen ears pick up on immediately. The sound of a man shaking in his armor.

Hauchefant turns, finding that his youngest brother, accompanied by his adopted attendant, has finally joined them outside. A surprise. The young man’s more… temperate… disposition has him indoors more often than not, leading him to be the more sheepish of the Fortemps sons. It must’ve been the racket from Sanga’s sparring that’s drawn them outside.

And from his reaction, this must be the first time he’s seen the Warrior of Light in action.

Haurchefant chuckles then, that delighted grin at home on his face as always. He shakes his head at his brother’s reaction. ‘Oh my, indeed, Emmanellain. Oh my, indeed.’

Though he can’t exactly blame him for the awe-struck look on his face, Haurchefant has had one on his face himself for the past hour or so, watching Sanga beat his men like they’re no more than boys yet untested against the horrors found here in the Coerthan wastes.

But the awe beating beneath Haurchefant’s breast is of an entirely different beast. He can tell Emmanellains is born from a sense of fear, almost. Like when a recruit first beholds the might of a Dravanian tearing through their comrades. But Haurchefant’s?

That sharp, boisterous laughter cuts through the crisp air, one he’s somehow grown so used to hearing now that he and his family have taken her and the other exiled Scions in, and yet it strikes the chord in his chest every time.

“Really? Is there no one that will stand against me?” Sanga turns then, looking over her shoulder with her head cocked, a lopsided grin pulling at those pixie plum lips revealing those fangs he’d toss himself on as many times as she’d ask. Her blazing crimson eyes narrow from the force of her grin. “Or have I truly dealt with all you have to offer, my lord?”

Oh! How that look hits him so. How he has to resist falling to his knees, hand pawing at his stuttering heart. And the mocking bite of his title! Never has he been the type to lord his birth over any other, being a bastard or no, but something about her sheer disregard and scorn for this foolish hierarchy his nation calls a system of government just does something to him!

Her moxie! Her bravery!

Her… everything!

Does she even know this effect he has on him? A dragon woman enchanting a loyal son of the Holy See? Scandalous!

He remembers the day she first strolled into Camp calling to see “the preening lord in charge”. How innocent she’d been, a scaled, horned woman walking into an armed keep full of men who’ve spent their whole lives at war with dragons. The concept of an Au Ra seemed a sick joke at the time. Really, a whole race with Dravanian features living across the sea on the continent of Othard, completely distinct from the Horde fighting his people tooth and nail for centuries now?

And yet, here she stands.

Those bewitching eyes hold his pale-blues as if hand-in-hand, practically glowing from their contrast against the dreary piles of snow and ice all about them. Her dusky blue-grey skin, just like how the clouds darken before snowball, glisten with sweat despite the frigid temperature here in the heart of the Coerthan Highlands. Even her breath billows from her lips like smoke, only making her seem ever more like the dragons he and his men have spent their whole life-fighting.

Though he couldn’t exactly fault anyone for thinking that. Not with the scales accentuating parts of her body, swathes of midnight sky that even twinkle as the stars do when freshly polished. And certainly not with the fierce horns jutting from her head and from beneath her silver-blue locks, so sharp she could gore a man should she choose.

From her stories, regaled to him over those mugs of chocolate he so loves to whip up for her after a long day in the brutal Coerthan cold, he has plenty reason to believe she has.

“Sweet, brown… liquid? This is... this is like chocolates! How did you do this? Magic?!” She had been so amazed at the time, impressed by something as humble as his homemade hot chocolate. Was it then he’d started to see her in a different light? She’d always been a wonder to him. From the minute he first saw her- standing arms crossed, an unimpressed look on her face as his men welcomed her into camp at spear point with hands shaking in fear at this dragon-turned-woman -he’d been terribly curious about her. But then? Seeing her eyes go wide in wonder at a simple Coerthan treat?

His heart had thudded against his sternum like a behemoth attempting to break free.

Just as it’s doing right this instant.

“Well?” He distantly hears the clanking of her axe. A metallic sound as it’s wrenched from the cobblestones she’d embedded it between. She swings it in an arc before holding it aloft, pointed it straight in his direction. “Would you like to test you mettle against ‘the dragon’, Harche?”

‘Oh, would I ever.’ His face flushes at her challenge, thoughts going to a different type of sparring he can only he’ll ever be blessed enough to experience. And, Fury, that nickname she’s come up for him. Why does it tickle his belly so? She has one for most of the Ishgardians she’s met with more… traditional… names, the silent letters coming as a struggle to her foreign tongue.

‘Arr-she.’ He sounds it out on the tongue in his mind, this delightful pet name she’s assigned to him, until it dances in his mind as she herself does on the battlefield, brutal yet beautiful all at once. ‘Harche, Harche, Harche, Harche, Harche!’

It strikes him then that he still hasn’t answered her request, and he’s thankful that the pregnant pause between them hangs more like tension than him being so lost in the torrent of fluffy, lewd thoughts in his mind.

He breaks back into that grin, and brings his hands together in that signature gesture of his. “Test my mettle, eh? I don’t see why not!”

#FFXIV #haurchefant #sanga dotharl #emmanellain #fanfiction #warrior of light #do we burn bright

[wrathion]

Hia! Hope you're doing well c: as another Anduin lover, I'm curious: what do you like about the current Holy King of Stormwind?

ahh i’m doing alright right now, thank you! 

as a general answer? everything, he’s the king who has had a coming-of-age story and carries a strong love of life itself. he’s the boy who grew up in a war-torn world who craves a peaceful end to the fighting. he runs on his gut feeling on what is right above all else, putting himself at risk if he thinks it’ll benefit someone else. he’s the one who agonizes so much about others that he neglects his own needs. he’s anduin wrynn, not just a trope or two in a suit with tied back blond hair.

as a current bfa-centric answer? i really love that they’re not ignoring his anxiety and depression and are actually letting him struggle (albeit subtly) and will hopefully slowly work through it! 

this is big meta and theory territory but hear me out:

varian’s death absolutely ruined anduin. sure, it was something that he was preparing for his entire life, but can you really ever be prepared for something like that? especially in anduin’s situation where he also happened to inherit an entire kingdom. after varian died anduin was in shock, doing his job but not putting the heart he typically would into it. then the champion brings the compass to him and he breaks. velen even says that he “refuses to eat and sleep” which is token self harm. 

of course he has that little moment with varian in the vision of stormwind, and he’s told to do “what a king must do.” varian probably intended this as a message of caring for his people, but just as importantly, himself. but anduin interpreted it as caring primarily for his people, that his role as king was more important than the person behind it. 

it’s evident that he thinks this way because of how he acts, not acknowledging his needs as he commands his own people to fight and die in a war he does not want to fight. a war that he thinks is for the greater good. as i said above, anduin has a need to keep as many people as he can safe, but he’s lost that drive and keeps sending people out hoping for the best. in the beginning of lost honor, genn says that they’re out of soldiers in stormwind and will need to begin drafting farmers. 

he’s also thoroughly inexperienced with war-related strategy, which just adds to the bonfire of his deteriorating mental health and confidence. he sends out a small special team to kill rastakhan and to try and break the alliance between the zandalari and horde. it’s kind of obvious that it would only push them closer, but when you’re fed up with yourself, burnt out from life and desperately need to tick things off the to-do list, thinking rationally doesn’t come naturally. 

and that’s not to say he doesn’t care about the lives he’s losing, he very obviously does. to the point where it’s destroying him.

i think the most obvious example, though, is in before the storm. at the very end, after the gathering (where shit in the anduin planning department starts going wrong). anduin’s looking out on the graves of all who were lost. i’m just going to put the full excerpt here because they’re honestly my favorite in any wow book.

Anduin shook his head in sorrow and disbelief. “I can’t blot out the images of the Desolate Council running as fast as they could to what they thought was a future with their loved ones. I feel responsible. For them. And for them,” he said, gesturing to the living still moving on the field. 

“Sylvanas killed her own people, Anduin,” Genn reminded him. “Not you.” 

“Rationally, of course I know that. But it doesn’t matter. Not in my bones. And not here.” Anduin placed a hand on his chest for a moment, then let it fall. “Those who fell on this field did so because King Anduin Wrynn of Stormwind had promised them they would be safe as they reunited with their loved ones. And they died because of that promise. Because of me.” 

The bitterness in his voice was like acid. Genn, who had never heard it from him before, fell silent. After a time, Anduin spoke.

“You’ve come to lecture me, obviously. Go ahead. I deserve every word.” Genn sniffed and rubbed his beard for a moment, his eyes on the horizon. “Actually, I’ve come to apologize.”

Anduin’s head whipped around, and he didn’t bother to hide his shock. “Apologize? What for? All you did was warn me against this.”

…

Genn took a deep breath. “But he was right. You were right. I still think what was done to the Forsaken against their will was horrifying. But it’s clear to me now that some of them haven’t been broken by it. Some of them are still the people they once were. So I was wrong, and I apologize.” 

Anduin nodded. A smile crossed his face fleetingly, then was gone. It was clear he was still burdened with guilt and stubbornly wouldn’t relinquish the pain of it. Not yet. 

“You were right about Sylvanas,” Anduin said, that cold bitterness lingering in his voice. “Light knows, I wish I’d listened.” 

“I wasn’t right about her, either,” Genn said, startling Anduin for the second time in as many minutes. “Not entirely. I knew she couldn’t let this go by without doing something. I thought she’d attack us. Not her own people.” 

Anduin winced and turned away. “She may have killed them, but I promised the Desolate Council safe passage. Those deaths are on my conscience. They will haunt me.” 

…

Anduin took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded at Genn. 

“Nonetheless, it is a tragedy, and it’s done any chance of peace great harm. It’s destroyed the prospect of working together with the Horde to heal the world. Azerite will continue to threaten the balance of power. It’s hurt the Alliance, too. Sylvanas used a moment that could have been a true turning point as a chance to eliminate people whom she viewed as her enemies. And she did it so smoothly, so well, that I can’t even call her on it. She didn’t break her word. Calia was a would-be usurper. I can’t ask Stormwind to go to war because the warchief of the Horde chose to execute individuals she will now paint as traitors. So she gets away with it. She’s won. She eliminated the opposition, killed the rightful heir to Lordaeron, and did it all while looking like a noble leader for not attacking the Alliance and starting a war.” 

Genn said nothing. He didn’t need to. He simply stood next to Anduin andlet the young king sort it out on his own. 

The minutes passed, and then, finally, Anduin spoke. “I will never, ever stop hoping for peace,” he said. His voice trembled with leashed emotion. “I have seen too much good in too many people to paint them all as evil and worthy of slaughter. And I will also never stop believing that people can change. But I realize now that I’ve been like a farmer expecting to harvest crops from a poisoned field. It’s simply not possible.”

Greymane tensed. The boy was leading to something. 

“People can change,” Anduin repeated. “But some people will never —never—desire to do so. Sylvanas Windrunner is one of those.” 

He took a deep breath. Sorrow and grim resolve made him look older. Genn had seen similar expressions on the faces of those who had been tasked with a heartbreaking duty. 

When the boy spoke, Genn was glad of the words but saddened by his need to say them. 

“I believe,” said Anduin Llane Wrynn, “that Sylvanas Windrunner is well and truly lost.”

anduin admitting sylvanas is incapable of changing is huge, and i honestly missed the whole point of it the first time reading through the book. 

this is the same anduin who took the time to talk to garrosh, and even saved his life because he thought he was capable of changing. the same anduin that believed in garrosh even after the horrible things garrosh did to him and all that he cares for. and now he’s saying he was wrong, with a bitterness in his voice when speaking about his own failure, and what he has to do next.

even genn’s a bit rattled by how self-deprecating and almost hateful anduin’s being, which is kind of telling.

i guess overall i feel like they have something really good building with anduin, and i’m especially hoping they either have his mental illness peak in a moment of desperation where he falls to some certain old-gody forces. 

this might be a bit fanfictiony but having an arc where he works himself out of a depressive episode in the form of old god corruption by using the lessons he’s learned about self-discipline and love in pandaria would be amazing. 

alternatively to fit in with the subtle route they’ve been taking so far, they could push the alliance infighting arc they’ve been building up and have anduin prove his ability as king by handling what he does best, a diplomatic situation. there he could realize that he’s not as inept as he thinks (and acts like) he is, and can start working to care for himself.

tl;dr yeah man i just like anduin a little bit. i think he’s neat is all.

#i have no idea what this is. the word count is above 1.5k. my family is starving. please send help. #shoutout to wolf for listening to me go on a tangent about this a couple days ago because i based a lot of whatever this is off those dms #world of warcraft #asks #cat screams about anduin #lothirielswan #ask to tag

[odditycollector]

[ @nightpool asked: Agatha and the gang (or some subset of the characters thereof) hijack a Justice]

I originally answered this ask properly but the readmore broke so maybe this will work.

The bodies were strewn over the corridor in a variety of entertainingly awkward poses. They still smelled alive – mostly – but the entire swarming army had collapsed the instant Agatha shut down the mind of the airship.

Yeah, yeah, okay. So it wasn’t an airship, what with there being no air on the outside of it. But acknowledging the idea of a Nothing-ship set his temples throbbing, and Dimo was NOT going to think about it until events inevitably set that up to be the only way to stop everyone from dying.

Agatha killed the ship several hours ago, and none of the bodies had moved since. So they were nothing but puppets, but if they worked like humans as much as they looked like humans they were going to have problems pretty quick, being all bent over with elbows under their asses or heads tangled up in their knees. The blood was going to get stopped up in there.

That was fine with him. Damn creepy empty-eyed puppet things. They were tough to kill, yes, but no fun to fight even so. There wasn’t enough personality in them.

But… as soon as Agatha got the ship in her control, they’d be HER creepy puppet soldiers. And Dimo could really use some properly functioning fighting guys as as backup. Not so many that he couldn’t tear them apart one-and-a-half handed – just in case something new was waiting to go wrong on him – but at least a few seconds’ worth of cannon fodder that wouldn’t just fall over first thing because their feet stopped working.

From the room to his side, there was a clang, a shuffle like dominoes falling, and the first few threads of soft humming that could still, at this early stage, have been mistaken for music. The sound folded, twisting over itself into a chorusing atonal braid: that low, familiar vibration that raised the fur under his collar and rattled in the space between his fingertips and claws.

An enemy army slept at his feet, and he yearned that it would awaken so he could put it down properly, not clean Spark magic but fangs in throat and the Horde around him and the blood-slimed spoils of battle dragged back for the Masters….

But there were no other Jaegers here, and the most memorable moment of today’s battle had been Agatha firing a death ray through the ship and getting herself blown out into – as it turned out – Nothing, and Dimo jumping after her because what else was he supposed to do about that.

No. Wanting more fighting was stupid, and he didn’t get to be stupid anymore.

But PLANNING for more fighting, whether he wanted it or not…

The closest of the ship’s puppet soldiers was resting mid-somersault a few feet from the doorway. Dimo gently kicked it over, so that its limbs were sprawling in more or less reasonable directions. There. One down.

He was working on number three when Agatha’s cat stalked into view. “Hoy dere, kitty cat,” Dimo said.

Instead of returning the greeting, Krosp frowned at where Dimo was untangling a boot and an elbow. But you couldn’t take that sort of thing personally with cats.

“What happened to your hand?” Krosp said.

“Ho, dis ting?” Dimo examined his mechanical prosthetic, as if only just now noticing he was down two fingers and a good portion of the wrist and palm. “Ah, vell, hyu know.” He swung the thumb of his good hand at the doorway behind him. “De Mistress, she vos needink some parts.”

Dimo didn’t elaborate, therefore leaving it ambiguous whether Agatha had politely asked him if he had any extra fingers that he wasn’t particularly using at the moment and that, perchance, she might borrow if Dimo found himself so inclined; or whether Dimo had taken his attention off of her for five damn seconds to deal with a flailing tube that was starting to catch on fire, and when he had glanced down half his hand had apparently detached from his arm and walked across the room and hopped up onto her workbench all by itself.

“Uh huh,” said Krosp, who had been around enough Sparks in his short feline life that he certainly did ‘know’. “That explains why you finally let her out of your sight, anyway.”

“Hrmph. She iz a big gurl, und hy iz schtill in screaming distance,” Dimo said reasonably, and resisted the urge to immediately spin around and check on her again. “But vhere iz Miz Zeetha? Hy vos expecting her to come back vit hyu.”

“Do you remember that one section Agatha said was probably still powered on, just isolated from the rest of the ship?”

“Yah, sure.”

“Yeah. We looked into it after talking to the prisoners. Most of it was a training room, with moving targets and armoured clank arms, but it was all going haywire without the main brain to control it. Zeetha stayed to,” Krosp rolled his eyes up, as if reading her words from the air above Dimo’s hat, “manually shut them off. For good.”

Dimo nodded at this. “So Miz Zeetha iz fighting clenks, und hyu iz running interrogations,” he mused, “und hy iz tucking dese guys verra nicely into sleepytime.” He kicked over the next soldier maybe a little less carefully than he could have.

“Right,” Krosp said. “About that. Shouldn’t you be finishing them off, not fixing them? They’re practically revenants.”

“Hy dunno,” Dimo said. “Dey’ve got a sheep for brainz, but it depends how it got in dere, yah? Besides,” he added with alarming cheerfulness, “dey’s Miz Agatha’s revenants now, so ve gots to ask her first bout shtuff like dot!”

Krosp’s his tail swished unhappily back and forth. There were implications in Dimo’s last statement that Krosp liked even less than Dimo did, but he was too smart to be baited into an argument.

And what the hell was Dimo doing, trying to start one?

Agatha’s humming was still growing in complexity, and Dimo could now hear the subtle way it changed with every noise he and the cat made. Reflecting their words or nullifying them. Dimo was growling slightly, under his breath, and he recognized the vibrations through Agatha’s voice before he noticed them in his own throat.

“Hokay.” Dimo scrubbed his flesh hand over his face, like that would scrape away all the stupid hiding under there. Maybe it was hard to wait here, alone, and do nothing. But he’d done harder things. “So did dey say anytink useful?”

“What?”

“De prisoners. Dot hyu interrogated?”

The cat’s tail swished again. “I have no idea. Maybe they were giving me the personal address of the Celestial Milkman, but they don’t speak any language I’ve ever heard of.”

“Or mebbe dey do, and dey iz pretendink?”

“No,” Krosp said. “They wanted to talk to me. I’m sure of it.”

“Hoy, hy know dis one. Iz it cuz hyu iz a cute kitty?”

“Yes, exactly! I’m adorable! And Zeetha is terrifying! But here’s what I did get. This place is called ‘Radch’.”

Dimo rolled that one around his memories. He’d been a lot of places but: “Neffer heard ov it.”

“Neither have I. Just like they’ve never heard of Europa. Or England. Or Africa. Or even America.”

“Dem,” Dimo said. “Ve IZ far away. Dis von’t be an easy one.”

Krosp said, “But there’s one more thing they managed to communicate. Apparently these people have an alliance of some kind with someone called the ‘Presger’.”

“Neffer heard ov dem eiffer.”

“I know,” said Krosp, “but they really, REALLY wanted us to know that. I don’t understand it, and I don’t like it.”

“Vell, tink ov de bright side, hey? Mebbe dese Presgers iz more fun to punch den de puppet guys.” For illustration, Dimo nudged another limp body until its head rolled out of its armpit.

“Sometimes,” Krosp said, “I honestly can’t tell if you’re serious or not.”

Dimo had a short bit of clowning he was tempted to launch into - Ho, ho, I iz not serious, I iz Dimo! - but Agatha spared him.

Her humming was interrupted by a loud banging and a short surprised “hah!”. Krosp’s ears flicked. “Aren’t you going to make sure she didn’t start another fire?”

“No, iz hokay,” Dimo said. He still heard Agatha’s movement and smelled only cold blood from some of the puppet soldiers.

There was another prolonged crashing, this one followed by maniacal laughter and a 'ZAAAPPP’.

Dimo sniffed again. “Dere hyu go,” he said to the cat. “NOW dere iz a fire.”

And then Agatha ran out of the doorway, with flushed cheeks and a full madgirl grin, and Dimo saw exactly WHAT she had set on fire.

Agatha’s gaze darted around the hallway, and seemed to land on him only by chance. “Dimo! Do you KNOW what electricity is?”

“YEZ!” Dimo grabbed the jacket from a puppet soldier and tore it free, sending the body flying. “It iz de bright blue ting wot goes ZAP and den hyu iz on fire!”

“WRONG!” Agatha roared in triumph. “Electricity is not a THING! It is merely movement, but of what? OF WHAT? Of NOTHING! Merely a mathematical analog of what we have so naively called probabilistic– WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! HOW **DARE** YOU ATTACK ME!!!!!”

“I iz not attacking hyu!” Dimo snarled plaintively. “I iz attacking DE FIRE.”

“FIRE? HAH! BUT THERE IS NO SUCH THING” - She grabbed Dimo by the collar and slammed him into the wall. - “AS FIRE!!”

Dimo was out of the practice of cringing, at least in any sort of satisfying manner, but he probably did a fair approximation as he tried to simultaneously angle his hat away from the flames crawling down Agatha’s jacket arm, and his face from the device she was clutching in her other hand. It had recently been his pinkie finger, but Dimo assumed it had been turned into a death ray by now.

“Fire is only a word for the sufficiently rapid chemical oxidative process, but there are layers of reality beneath the chemical, beneath the energetic – AHAHAHAHA! As if those were in truth different things! – and I have seen once more what I have seen and forgotten. There are layers and levels and layers of fundamental forces we have scarcely dared to imagine and FIRE is merely a REORDERING OF INFORMATION!”

A terrible, but belatedly obvious possibility was blooming in Dimo’s brain like one of the Red Heterodyne’s flesh eating fungus bombs.

“Ah, Mistress,” he started carefully. “Does hyu VANT to be on fire?”

Agatha blinked. The question had thrown off the rhythm of her ranting. “I– What?”

“Vot?”

Her eyes drifted away from his face. She had broken from the madness place enough to notice the flames reaching up her jacket, and was staring at them like they were distantly reminding her of something or other.

Then her eyes went suddenly wide. “Ahh!” She dropped Dimo and swung her flaming arm away from him. “Ow! Ow!”

“Hokay!” Now THIS was a problem he was set up to solve. Dimo grabbed the jacket’s burning sleeve and ripped it off at the shoulder.

Not too many moments later, Zeetha jogged into view. She had a bar of jointed metal swung over her back as an impromptu souvenir.

“Hello then, what are we up to?” she offered in happy greeting. “I smell barbeque!”

Krosp swept his arm across the hallway. Dimo was jumping up and down on a smoldering piece of once-white cloth while Agatha, wearing the other half of the labcoat, frowned at a suspiciously familiar metal finger sticking out of a shifting pyramidal block.

“Good news,” Krosp intoned. “Agatha disproved fire.”

#girl genius #ramble #nightpool #ancillary justice

[altherei]

No Good Deed

To those of the Darkwind name,

This is a formal notice that one Eldwin A. Darkwind stands accused of crimes of insubordination, abandoning a post, treason, and collusion with enemy forces. He is summoned for General Court-Martial, with the date of trial being set to begin on the 12th of next month. You have been called upon as character witnesses for the Defendant, please prepare for an initial meeting on the 24th of this month.

Regards,

Adjudicator Aereneth S. Sunscorch

Three days earlier….

“Push forward!” Came the cry of the High Dreadguard, his voice raspy more by virtue of undeath than by his hours spent shouting orders at his unit. While the war for Azeroth was still young, already so many parts of the world had become bloodied battlefields where Horde and Alliance forces clashed violently, hoping to gain or regain control. Already both factions had traveled to distant lands to bolster their own forces, but now the fighting returned to the mainlands with the same ruthless ferocity as before.

Arathi Highlands was one such place. Still an old Alliance holdout of sorts, Stromgarde was a necessary outpost for them to retain if they wished to keep hold of such a wide swath of the Eastern Kingdoms. This made it a perfect first target. Soldiers of the Horde were summoned from all across Azeroth, and among them, Eldwin Darkwind: Altherei’s oldest brother.

He was a soldier through and through; a decorated Farstrider who had served his land and his people proudly. A man who, while he didn’t enjoy war, was the type to easily give his life in defense of those behind the walls he protected. And as Altherei’s oldest sibling, he was one of the dearest to her.

He had helped teach her how to throw a punch when she was little- or at least, he’d tried. He helped provide for their family even though it wasn’t necessary for him to. Many years ago he’d married a wonderful woman, and together they had a son, and being a father quickly overtook his love of the bow as his greatest joy. And he was an excellent father- everything one wants a father to be, and his wife and son treasured him for it.

Ultimately, perhaps it was his becoming a father that undid him, without him ever realizing it.

The days had been brutal; a constant back and forth of spells and mortars and arrows. Every time the Horde gained ground, the soldiers of Stromgarde seemed to push them back. But today the High Dreadguard was confident, and his confidence paid off; they were making headway.

The High Dreadguard was a brutal man, as one might expect of anyone raised into undeath. He cared not at all for the lives of those on the other side of the wall. Some could argue he didn’t care much for the lives of those in his unit unless they were Forsaken. In the end, all he truly cared about was their mission. Win Stromgarde for the Horde- for Sylvanas. Assert the dominance of the red and black and push the Alliance dogs into hiding.

He was the tattered remains of a man without mercy.

As morning progressed to midday, Eldwin’s unit could see the turrets of Stromgarde get ever nearer. Within a few hours, they’d be storming the doors of the Keep and taking it for the Horde. It wasn’t an idea Eldwin was particularly fond of: after all, this was a city just as much as it was a military outpost. And there were families here who would no doubt be trapped. But it was a nagging doubt he pushed to the back of his mind, lest he end up distracted and shot dead like the elf next to him.

This is why you don’t think about home in the middle of a fight, he couldn’t help but think to himself as they pressed on.

Once the armies of the Horde stormed the massive gates of Stromgarde, he could hear the calls for retreat. To get the women and children, the sick and elderly, to safety. They had few ways of escape, and Eldwin could see the other commanders quickly making for those exits to cut them off.

“We take this Keep in the name of the Banshee Queen, for the Horde!” The Dreadguard rattled, rallying his troops.

“Scour the city streets- slaughter any who stand in your path. Burn their houses to the ground! Leave NONE alive. NO MERCY!” His orders were met with a surprising number of cheers. Mostly from Forsaken, and the occasional orc. And with their new orders, the unit dispersed and began carrying out the purge of Stromgarde.

Eldwin followed, but with a growing sense of unease. He watched in slowly-growing horror as his comrades torched homes and cut down fleeing families. He did his best to look busy as he found himself struggling for the first time with the orders he’d been given. It was one thing to meet a fellow armed enemy on the battlefield- to give them a fair fight and a fair death. But this?

This was senseless slaughter. In truth, all of it had been. From the first civilians slaughtered at Astranaar to those burned alive in Teldrassil.. to Sylvanas blighting her own troops and now this. Where was the honor in this? The valor? What good did it truly do to cut down those who only wanted to escape, live another day, and wash the memory of war from their minds?

Leave NONE alive! The words echoed in his head- or perhaps the Dreadguard was still shouting them as a means of intimidating the public. At this point, he didn’t know. And as he rounded a street corner, he came face to face with the sight that changed his mind forever.

Huddled into a dingy alleyway was a mother and her two children- no.. three. He could barely make out the infant the human woman clutched against her breast with the smoke that was slowly spilling into the city streets. Her two older children couldn’t have been more than three and five, and in their eyes he saw exactly what he was to them:

He was a terror. A monster. The end of the world made manifest.

The woman grabbed her children closer to her as if holding them close would somehow make their inevitable end quicker. But that end didn’t come- only the sound of a bow being dropped on the cobblestone and a hushed, quiet voice.

“I won’t hurt you- I won’t- I promise,” He spoke in Common, causing the woman’s eyes to widen. She didn’t believe him, and began swatting at him in self-defense. He couldn’t blame her.

“Please- please.. I’m a father myself. My boy- he’s.. he’s no older than yours,” He gestured to the oldest child, his eyes pleading with the mother. “Please let me help you. I can get you to safety. Please. I won’t let you die here.”

Something about his last sentence seemed to shake her to her senses, and he helped the woman to her feet. With plenty of furtive glances thrown around, his mostly being over their shoulders, he started ushering them to an exit that hadn’t yet been cut off. All the while, he kept offering the woman hushed reassurances in Common.

When they reached a back gate, he hurriedly bid them farewell, offering them a parting goodbye in Thalassian that was ultimately cut short by a guttural growl.

“What do you think you’re doing, Darkwind?!” It was the High Dreadguard, stalking around the corner of a burning house.

He looked over his shoulder at the terrified family and mouthed the only word he could think of: run.

And that’s when his armored fist met the Dreadguard’s helm. It was an act of pure instinct- the instinct of a father, who had probably taken many fathers away from their own families now. Something that had never bothered him the way it ought to have until now. He didn’t throw the second or third punches to keep the fight going. He only did it to provide a distraction so the Dreadguard couldn’t kill the family himself. With every punch thrown, every hit landed, he only saw that human woman.

In that woman, he’d seen his wife. In her children, he saw his own. In their wide, fearful eyes, he saw the price that was being paid to keep this war afloat: it was not a price being paid by soldiers and armies, but by those who wouldn’t raise arms- who couldn’t. It was a price being paid by the world Herself.

It was a price being paid in innocent blood.

It was a short-lived fight, and Eldwin suffered for it. His punches were returned with those twice as brutal, and in ten times the ferocity. When all was said and done, he was on the ground- caked in mud and ash and blood- and his wrists were bound behind him. He was dragged back to the outpost they kept outside Stromgarde, to be held until the morning when he’d be taken to a more proper location for a court martial.

And on the ride there the following dawn, all Eldwin could think about was that he never knew if that mother and her children made it out alive.

*****

Altherei read the letter wide increasingly wide eyes, her knuckles going white as she tried to process what she was seeing. Her throat was so dry she feared speaking, and as she began the walk through Dalaran back to her rented room, every step was her own battle. Her legs threatened to give out underneath her on the smooth cobblestone, and she finally had to let herself collapse into a bench, clutching the letter to her chest.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to vomit. But more than anything else, she wanted to protect her brother the way he’d always protected her.

And odds be damned, it was what she would do.

#battle for azeroth #story

[green-eyeddragonfanfiction]

Time: Chapter 1

Summary: Soulmate!AU/Reincarnation!AU. Female!Reader lives in a world where alien invasions and hordes of death robots occur and past lives and soulmates are very real. Like most people, she gets brief glimpses of her past. although a person’s past lives and their current life may have little to nothing in common, soul mates tend to transfer between lives, the core of a person staying the same throughout the eons. Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader, Steve Rogers x Female!Reader Warnings: Language, violence, death, guns Word Count: 2,301 A/N: I’m back, friends. I hope you enjoy! Things I never thought I’d be doing at 5 am: looking up gun models and how to shoot them. Also, Steve’s middle name is Grant.

Masterlist // Next Chapter

2012, New York City

You’d thought about moving many times. New York was nice, but way expensive. You owned a small coffee shop in The Village. The property had been in your family for generations. It was stable enough now, after five years of hard work, that you weren’t worried about it falling apart if you weren’t physically there to look after it. You’d looked at some places a little farther north, and even a couple places on the west coast near Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. A change of scenery was something you needed after living in the Big City your whole life. Now, you’d wished you had.

Debris rained down around you as you ran away from Midtown Manhattan. To where, you weren’t entirely sure. Away from the murderous aliens on speeding hovercar contraptions was a good first step. It was the end of the world, you were sure. Unlike everyone else, who’d gawked dumbly at the sky when a giant beam of light shot up from Stark Tower and ripped a whole in reality, you had run. You’d seen enough horror and sci-fi films to know when shit was about to hit the fan. Some people might have once you thought silly for putting stock into the fantasy world of comic books and movies, but you argued that you practically did live in one with men like Tony Stark and Captain America around. Hell, the Captain even had trading cards.

You weren’t sure how much of a head start you got, but it didn’t feel like much of one. Within two minutes of the portal opening in the sky, the aliens had come pouring through the streets. People ducked behind cars and upturned patio tables in an attempt to survive the barrage of energy blasts coming from the aliens’ guns. Your lungs burned as you ran through the streets of Greenwich Village.

You ducked into your coffee shop, narrowly avoiding the blast of an alien’s gun. A few patrons were cowering under the tables, bags clutched in their hands in front of them like shields.

“May! Get everyone into the back,” you yelled, locking the door behind you. You were thankful you’d sprung for nice, stylish, sturdy metal doors. As much as you missed the beautiful old oak ones, these would hold much better against energy blasts... or so you’d hoped. May and Dean’s heads popped up from behind the marble counter, eyes wide with fear.

“Boss, what’s happen-” May began.

“Now, May! Dean, you start closing the shutters. It’ll be harder for them to get in if there’re metal bars in the way,” you barked. They didn’t move. “Now!” you growled. “Unless you don’t like living anymore!”

That seemed to return the feeling to their legs. May hopped up, urging the customers to follow her into the back room, which led to a sturdy cellar that might hold out if they started dropping heavier artillery. Thank god for World War Two architecture. Dean reluctantly left his spot behind the counter but ran speedily towards the front of the shop and began closing the metal shutters on the two large front windows.

“Turn the tables on their sides once you’re done- they’ll give us some cover and turn into obstacles for those ugly bastards,” you direct him. You pushed past petrified customers and ran into the back room. You silently thanked your Papi for being way too paranoid and a little bit of a hick as you opened the large safe hidden behind some of your store’s merchandise. You punched in the last number and wrenched the door open, eyes scanning the guns inside.

Before he’d died, he’d shown you how to load and shoot all five of the guns. He’d kept a small army’s worth of ammunition inside the safe with them, and as much anxiety as that had caused you once upon a time, you were grateful for it now. You loaded the Glock 26 Gen 3 and placed it on top of the safe as you loaded one of the shotguns- a Remington 870. A hand on your shoulder startled you and you swiveled, ready to fight for your life.

May flinched, arms coming up to defend herself. You breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Sorry, Boss,” she said, eyes wide, dark curly hair messier than usual, obscuring her pretty face.

“It’s alright, May. You know how to shoot a gun?” you asked, picking up the Glock.

“No, ma’am,” she asked, paling.

“Alright, it’s pretty simple. Hold it with both hands, keep your arms straight, aim, pull the trigger,” you said, handing her the gun carefully. “That Glock has no safety. Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot,” you said, giving her a reassuring pat on the shoulder as she stared at you, horrified.

“Dean, get in here!” you yelled through the doorway. He appeared a moment later, cheeks flushed from the exertion of turning the cafe on its head.

“Do you know how to shoot a gun?” you asked him, picking up the Remington.

“My dad took me shooting once when I was ten,” he asked, looking from you to the shotgun in confusion.

“Alright, do you remember what you used?”

“A handgun, I think?” he said, doubtful.

You sighed. “Alright. This isn’t anything like a handgun except in that it also succeeds at killing things with metal and gunpowder. You see this?“ You asked, pointing to the lower tube. He nodded. “This is the magazine. I have four shots loaded,” A terrifying, loud explosion rattled the floor beneath you. May and Dean’s eyes widened in fear, heads swiveling for the source of the noise. “Focus!” you barked. Their gazes snapped back to you. “Four shots loaded. There are eight more on the butt of the gun here,” you said, pointing to the shells strapped to the side. “Keep count of your shots. When you run out or get a minute, you can reload here,” you explained, flipping the gun over to show where one could load it. You popped another shell into the magazine, demonstrating for him so he would hopefully remember. “Five shots, now. Here.” you said, handing it to him. He stared at you blankly, not taking the gun, face pale. You groaned, shoulders sagging. 

“I know, Dean. Shit’s fucked six ways to Sunday, but you need to focus. I’m terrified, too. But if you think those alien bastards are going to take me down without a fight, you’re mistaken,” you said, shoving the gun to his chest. “Fight. For. Your. Life,” you said forcefully, staring him down. He gulped and nodded, taking the gun from you. “Good man. Brace the gun to your right shoulder. Stare down it to aim. Pull the pump back to load a shell into the chamber. Push it back forward into place to finish loading it. Pull the trigger to fire. Rinse and repeat,” you said, turning back to the safe to finish loading the last of the guns. You loaded the Colt Python revolver for yourself, jamming it in the back of your pant’s waistband, internally cringing at the breach of gun safety. You loaded the other Glock, placing it on top of the safe. At last, all that was left was the Ruger 10/22  Semi-automatic. You threw its strap over your head and onto your shoulder, gun on your back, and handed May and Dean boxes of ammunition.

“I pray to whoever might be listening that they don’t make it through those doors, but if they do, we have to be as ready as possible,” You said, grabbing ammunition for your three guns. May and Dean nodded. You could see it on their faces; They were determined but afraid. You internally cursed at the travesty of gun safety as your jammed the Glock into the front of your waistband. Desperate times and all that. You peeked into the store. Whatever had caused the explosion hadn’t seemed to affect your store. You took up a defensive position behind the counter. “May, you’re going to be shooting whatever comes through the windows or door, with me. If it gets closer, let Dean take care of it. The shotgun is better at close range- tiny death pellets’ll rain hell down upon ‘em from that thing. You just focus on trying to make sure they don’t make it that far. Keep your head down as much as possible. Try not to pop up in the same spot- they’ll expect it. Got that?” you said, glancing at the two of them next to you, sitting beside each other. They nodded, unconsciously reaching for each other’s hands. Huh. You wondered when that had happened. “Don’t get dead, guys,” you said, standing to rest your arms on the counter to help steady your aim. “If we survive this we’re going out to a fancy restaurant for dinner- I’m buying,” you said winking down at them. They both gave you a brave smile. You turned your attention back to the door, trying to ignore the fear in the back of your mind. You wondered if you had been a soldier in one of your past lives- it might explain why you were able to stay calm even though every nerve in your body was screaming at you to run. But you had a shop full of customers downstairs. People with friends, family. Who had no hope of defending themselves. You refused to stand by and let yourself and others be killed.

The aliens that had been clambering over their dead companions suddenly dropped, lifeless. You stared at them in disbelief, waiting for them to move again. You hadn’t shot them. After a minute, when they didn’t so much as twitch, you rose up from behind the counter slowly. You raised your revolver and fired a round straight into the chest of the one closest to you that had been alive a moment ago.

Not so much as an eyelid flutter or gasp of breath. No hiss of pain.

Next to you, Dean was sobbing, clutching May’s lifeless body to his chest, gun forgotten at his side. His hand grasped hers, his lips placing tender kisses to her umber knuckles and forehead, begging her to wake up. His fingers tangled into her messy mop of curly black hair. Her dark, glassy eyes stared up at the ceiling, seeing nothing.

You sunk down to the floor next to them, adrenaline leaving your body now that there wasn’t an immediate threat in front of you. “She’s gone, Dean,” you whispered, tears filling your eyes.

“No, no! She can’t be- She-” he broke off, sobbing as he rocked back and forth, clutching her to his chest. It was like he didn’t see that a sizeable chunk of her chest was missing, vaporized by a shot with one of the alien’s guns. “She was my soul mate,” he whispered in a choked voice.

“Oh hell, Dean... I had no idea. You never told me,” you said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“We only just found out recently... asked to see each other’s soul brand... We both thought it might be each other, y’know?” He smiled faintly at the thought. It slid off his face as he returned the present. “Sure enough, our initials were on each other’s brand. When I saw D.A.H. there on her skin... I was the happiest man on earth. She saw her own initials and-” he sobbed and tears dripped down onto May’s face. “-I’ll never forget her smile. She-” he broke off, unable to stop the sobs as they wracked his body. You wrapped your arms around them both, ignoring the acrid scent of burning flesh coming from May’s body and rubbed circles into his back. There were no words of comfort you could give him. Losing one’s soulmate was nearly worse than dying. And he had watched it happen in front of him. He’d been unable to protect he and she’d died helping defend him. The only comfort they had was that they might meet again in their next lives. But that wouldn’t be very comforting to him. They were both young, fresh out of high school, working at your cafe to save money for college. He would have to go through the rest of his life without her.

You held him as he cried out everything he had, clutching his dead soul mate to his chest. Something in the corner caught your eye. The TV had turned back on, broadcasts returning to inform everyone of the situation. Apparently a group called The Avengers had closed the portal and stopped a nuke from destroying the city. Allegedly, as soon as the portal closed, all of the aliens had dropped dead. If you hadn’t seen it happen with your own two eyes, you wouldn’t have believed a word of it. Whatever The Avengers did stopped them, though. You felt your breathing stop as a choppy, grainy video of a man and woman fighting in the streets of New York came on. She wore a suit made entirely of black leather and was expertly killing aliens with one of their own weapons.

The man was who truly caught your attention, though. Even though the outfit had changed a bit, you recognized him immediately. You’d heard rumors he was back, found preserved like some sort of human popsicle in a huge iceberg near Greenland or something. You hadn’t dared to believe. But there he was, fighting aliens on New York streets. Your heart ached, one of your past lives recognizing him as the love of its life. You sighed, melancholy. You glanced down at your wrist. In your mind’s eye, you could see the initials S.G.R written there beneath the scrap of fabric you kept it hidden with.

Chapter 2

This series is finished, but if you want to be tagged in my other fics, check out  this post! Sorry, but responses to this post asking to be tagged will be ignored, so send me an ask or like one of the taglist posts!

☕ Buy Me a Coffee! ☕

#marvel fanfiction #Bucky x Reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #captain america #winter soldier #soulmate!au

[delightfulnerdinfluencer-blog]

Misunderstandering Chapter 3 A Mystic Messenger Fanfic

Trigger warning: graphic imagery!

    The scenery blurred into a smear of differing shades of grays, browns, and white as the tiny sports car drove passed. Weaving in and out of traffic at speeds that some might seem dangerous. The sun trying to peer through clouds was blinding at times. With the thump of the subwoofers rattling in his chest; Saeyong ran through his plan for the 100th time. He was doing his best to get into the mindset that use to be so easy to fall into. That of the cold and calculated agent, because right now Saeyong wanted to go home.

 He forced himself not to look at Sky University or Jumin’s building as he passed. Agent 707 had no family or friends. The man in his ear was not his brother but a handler much like Vanderwood. He was going into a war zone. He had been in many over his years as a hacker. That was the mindset he needed to be in. The man who walked into war zones with guns echoing in the air while he worked in the darkness. Saeyong needed to be the man who crossed into North Korea to steal information. Back then it was so easy to put everything out of his mind. The man who no plans on living long. Sure as hell having no plans to pass on his DNA. Trying to resurrecting this man was harder than he had thought leaving the bunker.

 Wipe. Thump. Wipe. Thump. Wipe. Thump.

 At some point in time, the music had turned itself off leaving the sounds of the salt-covered road and the windshield wipers filling the small vehicle.

  Wipe. Thump. Wipe. Thump. Wipe. Thump.

 As his mind cleared a wash of cold came over him. Back straightening from its usual slouch. Slight pops from each vertebra as he adjusted into the straighten pose. Golden eyes becoming narrower and glazed over. Mind racing with tactics and probabilities that were ingrained in him. As his body went into auto pilot navigating the highway.

 Finding a parking deck three blocks down from the prime minister’s building, Saeyoung set to the streets. The sidewalks were filled with a mix of men and women in business suits going on their lunch break. College students going to and from classes, backpacks loaded down with what they were going to need for the day. Couples walked hand in hand under the array of lit up hearts welcoming the upcoming valentine’s day. U.S soldiers in groups enjoying their free time from the base that was nearby. The streets packs with yellow taxis and sleek black cars. The restaurants and cafes had delicious smells wafts out into the crowd. Luring people in like sirens luring fishermen to death untimely deaths.

 It was not that cold walking around in the crowd of people. He could barely feel the breeze as it raced through the street. His scarf and the thick green bomber jacket kept him warm enough for sweat to start forming down his back. The falling snow that was present on the drive into the city now was nowhere to be found. Even the snow that had made it to the ground from the night before was already cleared away in dirty piles on the curb. The crunch of the salt that was on the sideway and road was all that was left behind to tell that there was a hard freeze going on. There were even people walking around without coats on. With the mass of people and cars in the city it was understandable to forget it was below freezing.

 Saeyoung stopped at a familiar sound. It was Zen’s singing coming out of the theater he worked at. He did not realize that he would be crossing this close to someone he knew. A small horde of fangirls around the large wood doors of the theater squealed at the sound of his singing. Zen’s face plastered across the side of the building announcing the next performance that would be showing, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, Zen would be playing the Beast. When he had told the group, there was much teasing about it. Saeyoung would have to make sure before his other trips around the building that Zen was not out for a break or anything. He had to try to keep his cover.

 “So, I have realized something. I never want to be an office worker.” Saeran’s voice came in through Saeyoung’s ear piece. This comment got a chuckle out of the older twin as he placed his headphones over his ears.

 “Why is that?” Saeyoung asked as he waited to cross the street that was in front of the ministries building. The building itself was a white and red brick structure that was about fifty stories tall. Some low hanging clouds obscured the upper floor. Even with that, the building loomed ominously as a testament to the power to the internal government. The windows of the building were blacked out that hid the people behind them. So if he wanted to go to another building and watch there would have been no way for him to know where the prime minister was or who he was really looking at. Flags of the different nations in the front circled around a large fountain. Four security guards standing still at the door. Making a mental note of everything before looking down at his phone to look at the blueprints that Saeran had sent him with a red dot telling him where he was. If anyone looked at his phone it looked like he was playing one of those mobile games that had the player walking around to get things. The little red dot moved when he moved and the map angled their self to match.

 “It just seems boring. Also, the prime minister only left his office once to talk to a woman in the front. I guess to tell her you were coming. Then he went back into his office and made a phone call on his cell. I couldn’t tell you who it was to, though, but it was very short. Maybe a minute or two. The rest of the time he has been filling out paperwork.” Saeyoung nodded as if his brother could see him.

 The line went silent as he walked the streets flipping his attention back and forth between his phone and the building. Taking in every little detail he could. There were very few escape routes from the building that he noticed. Most of the building was behind an iron fence that only left the entrance open for the public to walk on as they pleased.

 “Where are you now?” Saeran’s voice once again buzzed in his ear.

 “In the back. Looks like a loading dock.” Saeyoung uttered under his breath as he went by the entrance gate. The back lot of the building had tall thick bushes hiding it. Every so often there would be a missing patch that a person could look through.  

 “The loading dock has no guards.” Saeran stated through the sound of a flurry of keystrokes. “One of the legal twins has come in and handed him more paperwork… Now she’s gone.”

 Saeyoung made three more passes around the building. Differing his pattern each time. Going one way then to backtrack in the opposite direction on the other side of the road. On the last pass, a chime let Saeyoung know that there were people in the chat. He took a quick look, it was Zen and Jaehee. Possibly talking about his new performance. If he was on break Saeyoung would have to be careful when he walked by.

 Passing by the theater, Zen was out on a smoke break, dressed in his track suit he used for practice. He was not paying any attention to life around him as Saeyoung walked by. The actor was too busy on the messenger app to notice anything. This was a blessing but deep down Saeyoung wanted to know if the man he had known for years. A man that he thought of as family, a brother even, would notice him. If his disguise would work on him it would work on anyone. Maybe that was the agent wanting to know. He had heard of other agents doing the same with people they knew. Even though they were not supposed to have friends or things of that nature, it still happened.

 Saeyoung went back to his car to change into a black button-down shirt and black slacks. The parking deck was dark with the overhead lights the only source of light. He could change in his car without the worry of someone seeing him. Removing the black box that was clipped to his belt, Saeyoung began the task of untangling himself from the wires of his microphone.

 “I’m only going to have the ear piece in. So, I can’t speak to you nor can you hear me.”

 “Do you think that’s safe?” Saeran’s voice was soft in his ear. Caution was the forefront of his mind and the older twin knew this. No one wanted to explain to the rest of the RFA what had happened if it did go south.

 “Yeah, as long as you watch the cameras I should be good. I should always be on the screen.” Saeyoung tried to sound hopeful. Even if it sounded weak to his ears. “The earpiece looks like a hearing aid so no one would think it was anything else. The mic is a different story.”

 “Then rig the mic to something else.” Saeran quick shot back.

 “I will make something when I get home.” He tried to calm his brother down.

 “Fine, just get in there and come home.”

 “That was my plan. I’m going dark now. I will talk to you when I get home.” With that, he turned off the mic and placed it in the dash.

 There was no such thing as too careful in this mission. Everything had to go off without a hitch for him to return home. There was no room for emotions, for emotions on missions gets you killed. This was how it always was and always will be long after his death. Jumin was correct about getting rid of his emotions, but he would never tell him that. There was a difference between signing a contract on a big deal and facing a certain death if one messes up. That did not mean that he was a robot. He knew how to handle his emotions and push them away. To bottle them up and put on a persona that was not who he was. He did it for years with the RFA.

 Reaching out to open the car door he stopped. His body was shaking, not from the cold. The car was warm enough but from something else. The unknown about what was going to happen as soon as he walked through those glass doors. He took a moment to breathe. Closing his eyes. Inhale. Wait. Exhale. He repeated this until his hands listen to him and opened the door.  

 Saeyoung rested his head back, “God, let me go home today. That is all. Amen.”

 It was the first time in a while that he had prayed. He knew that if was to get out of there he would need some divine intervention. For the longest time, all he had was his trust in God. That no matter what God would bring him salvation.

 Before leaving the car, he made sure to have the pack of cigarettes on him and to check on the gun under the seat. Getting out of the car he put back on the bomber jacket and made his way to the building. Another rush came over him, the rush of the mission. An adrenaline high that he knew all too well.

 Once more he walked up to the building, as he neared the security guards bowed and one of them opened the door. The building was warm and the front part where everyone checked in was round. The walls looking out on the street were made of glass. Giving the people inside an almost 360-degree view of the center city. The back half of the circle was in wood paneling with a large desk with four women offering help. Pictures of previous Prime Ministers in a line behind the desk looking out to the people who entered. The floor was a bright with gold flakes embedded in. Making the lights from overhead dance as the person moved around the room.

 The metal detectors were the walk-through kind. A person had to empty their pockets before entering, nothing Saeyoung hadn’t seen before. Although one would have assumed that there would be a higher degree of safety if they were to protect not only the Prime Minister but some members of the congress and some foreign dignitaries.

 Saeyoung did as the people in front of him did. First emptying out his pockets then stepping through the detector. The feedback from the ear piece screamed in his ear. Making Saeran educate him on the creative uses of the word ‘fuck’ before turning off the mic. One of the guards waved him aside to run the wand over him. As the wand reached his head Saeyoung tilted his head to show the modified hearing aid.

 “Sorry if this was what set it off.” Trying to give a sheepish smile to a very annoyed looking guard. With a grunt, he was set free to collect his things.

 The ladies at the reception desk were much happier. All four looked to be in their twenties. Vests over a white button down and a black skirt. Each one had their hair tied back.

 “Yes, how can I help you, sir?” One of the women beamed as he neared the desk.

 “My name is Choi and I have an appointment with the Prime Minister at noon. I know I’m early. If I have to wait that’s fine.” Saeyoung smiled back. The women tapped at her computer and wrote something down on a piece of paper.

 “Yes, sir, we were told to send you straight up as soon as you came. So, what you’re going to do is go to the elevators. Go to the 6th floor. There will be another desk. Talk to the person behind it and they will take you there. I will call ahead and let them know you’re coming.” She handed him the paper and bowed. He, in turn, gave a light bow.

 When he entered the elevator, he looked at what she had written.

 CHOI

Prime minister 12 pm appointment

Send straight to P.M.

No waiting

 The paper was like a hall pass if anyone stopped him he could just show it. Another woman waited in front of the elevator as he stepped off. She was an older woman than the ones downstairs. Her gray hair tied in a bun on the top of her head. She wore something much like the women downstairs. A skirt with a white button-down top. Unlike the sunny demeanor of the ladies downstairs, this one was stern looking. Much like a headmistress at an all-girls prep school or something.

 “Mr. Choi, I am here to guide you to Prime Minister Chon.” Her voice was stern making Saeyoung stand a bit straighter. Almost expecting her to tell him to stand straight or he’d be smacked with a ruler.

 He was led down a brightly lit corridor. A badge opened the doors to go in, on the other side, it seemed as if one could walk out without a badge. This was something he did not notice on the security cameras. Neither of them spoke, so the click of her heels on the tile filled the void. Dusty framed art hung on the walls. The pictures looked as if they were found at a second-hand store. Old and faded, nothing newer than at least ten years.

 Prime Minister Chon’s office was the last in the hall. A large wooden door with the Korean flag on either side, let Saeyoung know he had arrived.

 Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here…

 The next room had five more people at their desks typing away at their computers. The room was rather large. On one side, there was a sitting area; the other was where the desks were. The smell of fresh coffee filled the office space. Looking around He could not see either one of the legal twins. He was sure that he had heard that one of them worked for their father. Saeran even said that he saw one walk in. If they were not here at the moment, then it would be for the better. It would have been obvious if the two of them stood near to one another that they were related in some way. The woman at the desk closest to the door in the back stood. She looked more like the women on the first floor than the headmistress that he was currently following. The older woman walked up to her with Saeyoung trailing behind. He was busy taking notes on the space of the room. If there was a spot where he could get out if needed.

 “Mr. Choi to see Prime Minister Chon.” With a bow, the older woman left. The woman, who must have been the chief assistant, laughed as soon as the door closed.

 “She scares me too!” This got a small chuckle out of her colleagues. “Here Mr. Choi, Mr. Chon has been expecting you.”  Walking around her desk, she knocked on the door twice before opening it.

 “Mr. Chon, Mr. Choi is here.” The door opened wide onto the room. With an uneven step and a shaky breath, Saeyoung stood before the Prime Minister.

 Prime Minister Chon stood behind his large wooden desk as the door closed behind Saeyoung. Much like the lobby, the entire back wall was a window looking out onto the city. Expensive rugs, that would have made Jumin look cheap in comparison, laid across the wood flooring. Book shelves stacks high with books on his right. On the far side of the room was a sitting area with large overstuffed chairs with a coffee table in the middle. That was where many of the photo ops were taken.

 Saeyoung knew about the Prime Minister’s life. Studying law in university was natural for him since his family was powerful lawyers. What some might call his grandparents most likely wanted him to take over the law firm that they had. But he had chosen to enter the political field after leaving law school. Starting out in local government in his home province. Moving up from there to the national political stage quickly. His wife was a lawyer as well, now she was trying to change the public-school system. The legal twins were a year older than Saeran and him. Both went to Harvard the same time he did. Thankfully, the school was a big enough school that they had never met. One was an elementary school teacher and the other worked for their father. Neither of them was married and still lived with their family.

 Now, Saeyoung stood before the man. His golden eyes mirrored back at him. There was never any wonder where he and Saeran had gotten their looks from. Their golden eyes and red hair came from their father. As well as many of his facial features came from this man. The man was about as tall as he was maybe a bit taller. His hair slicked back; his hair was a reddish brown with gray mixed in. Still, Saeyoung figured that this was what he was going to look like when he was in his 50’s.

 “Please, come in Choi! Is there anything I can get you? Water, tea, coffee?” Prime Minister Chon’s voice was laced with excitement. His golden eyes shown with the same wonder and happiness that a child’s did on Christmas. The older man moved quickly to stand in front of Saeyoung. Examining him closely, making Saeyoung take a step back.

 “No thank you.” Saeyoung said as politely as possible. One of the first rules an agent learns is to never accept anything to eat or drink when in contact with a target.

 Saeyoung had watched enough of Zen’s performances to know that the way to draw a person into one’s act was body language. To make the audience believe that the actor is the character was in the movements and well-rehearsed lines. Much like actors, politician did the same thing. This man was nothing more than an actor on stage. Trying to pull in his audience of one into his performance to make Saeyoung believe that what he said was sincere.

 “Please, over here.” The Prime minister motioned to the sitting area. “The chairs are much more comfortable than the ones at my desk.”

 The chairs of the sitting area were facing the door unlike the two at his desk. This would give a good advantage if someone rushed the door. Saeyoung only nodded and let his father take the led to the area. Just before sitting he removed his coat and rolled up the sleeves of his black button down. His father did not sit until Saeyoung had, lingering for a moment looking over him. The excitement still in his eyes.

 “Don’t worry I can still see you. Everything is clear.” Saeran’s voice was a whisper in his ear.

 A moment of silence fell over the men as they stared at each other.

 “Please, I understand this might be uncomfortable for you, but thank you for humoring an old man.” Prime minister Chon smiled again. The younger man could only nod.

 Every question that he had as a child came back, and this man offered the answers to him. Even if these answers might just be lies. They were answers none the less. Even though he wanted to speak, his mouth did not let him. The hacker could not take his eyes off the older man. It was a waiting game for him. Waiting to see the bodyguards pop out and take him. He should have been taking in the surroundings, not focusing solely on the man in front of him.

 “I am happy to see you have grown to be a fine young man, Choi.” Chon smile was sad as he spoke.

 A fine young man was not something Saeyoung would describe himself as. He was a hacker wanted in at least five different counties, including this one. At least a dozen bounties on him by different organizations throughout the world.

 “How did you find us?” Saeyoung’s mouth finally opened to ask what had been burning inside of him since the phone call this morning.

 “I’ve been watching you two since you were small. I have had private investigators follow you and your brother. That was until both of you went missing.” Chon’s voice trailed off. Saeyoung knew this, it was hard to miss the men in suits following him when he went out. “When I had heard of your mother’s death I went undercover to see if I could meet the two of you. I asked about you both and someone told me that both of you were missing. They said that your mother might have killed you before taking her own life. I had a track put on your names. I knew it might have been in vain but I wanted to believe you were alive and well somewhere out there. A couple of months ago, I got a hit on Saeran’s name when he enrolled in Sky university and last week I found out that Saeyoung had gotten married. I knew that I this was my chance to finally meet you. I found the contact information from those two documents.”

 He had mistaken the application that they had to file to get the marriage license for the real thing. Saeyoung sat back into the chair a moment. He knew about Yeoja, this was worse than he thought. He could use her. Although, if he was looking for Yeoja Choi, she did not exist yet, at least for a few more weeks. Another long awkward silence came over the two as he pondered the outcome for this man knowing about Yeoja.

 “How much did you look into us?” Saeyoung’s eyes narrowed. This was something he needed to know for the safety of his family. If there were any tell-tell signs of this man lying with his next breath, he was going to get up and leave.

 “That’s all I know. I was just happy to see your names in front of me. It was like God was giving me another chance.” The sad smile settled across the elder’s face. His hands gripped at each other hard enough to make his knuckles white as his nails dug into flesh. Chon lowered his head to Saeyoung. “I wanted… No… I am being selfish. I have no right to have these feeling towards you and your brother. This is our first meeting and I already have dreams of us being like father and sons.” A light chuckle escaped passing his thin lips. Tears threatened at the man’s eyes. “I do not know what your mother told you about me. I do not even know if this is the first time hearing about me. I am sorry.”

 “She told us who you were. That’s why I came. We have questions of our own.” Saeyoung’s voice dropped lower as Chon raised his head.

 “I understand that is why you are here. I will answer them truthfully.”

 Bull shit.

 “When you found out about Saeran’s enrollment. Is that why you held that press conference at the school?” If he thought the application was the real thing he might have thought that Saeran was already taking classes. Saeran would not be there until the summer semester but still. If he was trying to make contact like that, then he was a threat.

 The Prime Minister laughed, “No, I would not have been able to pick either one of you out of a crowd. Last time I saw you, you were a few months old. It was planned before I got the notification on Saeran’s name. It was a nice thought that we could run into one another on the off chance.”

 “Why now?” Saeyoung asked watching the man as he took a drink from his coffee.

 “I have always wanted to be a part of your life. Your mother did not let me. As I said before I tried to contact you but either your mother would stop me.” His voice trailed off, “Or I thought you had died.”

 Saeyoung shifted in his seat watching the man. The ticking grandfather clock in the corner was the only thing telling him haw fast was moving. If it was not for that clock he would have guessed years went by.

 “Why did you try to kidnap and kill us as children?” The question slipped. Saeyoung’s shot to the man waiting for his reaction. He could not let on that the question was a mistake. Chon's eyes went wide in shock as he sat back in his chair. His lips formed a hard thin line across his face.

 “Is that what your mother told you?” Saeyoung nodded, “I never did anything illegal towards you or your brother. I loved you both as a father would. It was a year after you were born that I saw your mother for who she really was. I offered to adopt both of you and bring you to live with me. She refused and upped my child support.” Adoption was the new term for kidnapping. Maybe surprise adoption if anything. While hush money was child support. “That is why I hired the PIs to follow you. If anything were to happen to the two of you and I did not know. All I wanted to do was protect the two of you… I never forgave myself for thinking that I let you die after the funeral. That I should have pressed harder to get custody of both of you. Your mother was not like that when I first met her. She changed almost overnight.” Chon looked down again.

 Saeyoung adjusted himself as a rage rushed through him. Protect was a funny thing coming from him. A man that wanted to have him and his brother killed. Yet, now, the same man sat before him with his head bowed in hopes to get some kind of forgiveness from him. The only reason he was sitting there was because of this man not being able to keep his dick out of places where is should not have been. Then again without this man, he would not have met the RFA or Yeoja. There were some redeeming factors in living.

 “Does your family know?”

 “My wife does. My wife has known this entire time. Your sisters, I mean, my daughters do not.” Chon once again sat fully up.

 “How did you and my mother meet?” An emotion that Saeyoung could not place spread across the older man’s face. He knew that in some respects he was emotionally stunted, but he could at least name most of the emotions. Not this one.

 Prime minister Chon’s eyes soften and looked pass Saeyoung to the ground. His lips were still pressed into a thin line but the corners were slightly upturned. It was still enough to cause the corners of his eyes to wrinkle in lines that looked like sun rays. There was no tension in his face as he let a small puff of air come out of his nose; his shoulder’s relaxed downward at the same time. Lowering his head a bit, but still focused on that one spot just pass Saeyoung. The muted light coming through the massive window cast soft shadows across his face. Hiding the wrinkles in his eyes and along, his mouth. Chon seemed to de-age in front of his eyes. He was not the fifty-something but in his twenties.

 “I was not living with my wife at the time. After The girls were born we had hit a rough patch. My wife quit her job to raise the girls and I had just started to work in congress. I met her when she was working in the bookstore nearby the building I lived in. I fell in love with your mother very quickly and I had wished to marry her someday. With Korea being as conservative as it is, I left your mother and went back to my wife so I could move with my career. Your mother had just had you two when I went back.”

 Saeyoung had never heard how they had met. He had always assumed that they had met in a bar somewhere. That he and Saeran were products of a one night stand. No shit she changed overnight. It went from him telling her that ‘they were going to be together forever’ to ‘never mind I’m going back to my wife now’. With all that happening right after she had given birth to boot. Any woman would have reacted badly.

 “I was young and stupid at the time. I did love your mother and I love you and your brother. I wish to get to know the two of you more. Not as a father and sons, I’m not foolish in thinking that could happen. Just a friendly relationship.”

 “It’s been a lot to take in. I will have to talk with my other half and see what he says. We will get back in contact with you if it is something we wish to continue.” A chuckle came from the older man.

 “My girls call each other the same thing. I’m sorry. I understand I do hope we can continue this relationship.”

 Saeyoung nodded, “Please, respect our lives. Do not look into us any further. We live quiet lives and wish to keep it that way. We will contact you.” Saeyoung raised out of the chair. He had to get out of there before he let any more slip.

 “I am a man of my word, Choi. You will be left alone.” The older man stood and offered his hand out. “Can you answer a question of mine?”

 Nodding Saeyoung took the man’s hand, “It depends.”

 “I understand. Can you tell me how both of you are? What are your lives like?” Chon smiled releasing the shake.

 “We are happy now. We live in peace, and that’s all we want.” Saeyoung started for the door. As his hand reached for the door the man stopped him. He had placed a hand on his shoulder, making Saeyoung turnaround. As he did he was wrapped in Chon’s arms and pulled into a hug. Saeyoung’s body stiffened, even as he was released from the embrace he could not move.

 “I’m sorry for acting foolish. Thank you for today. I hope that I can speak with you again.” Saeyoung nodded and opened the door.

 On the other side was one of the legal twins. She was shorter than him but not by much. Her bright red hair tied back in a ponytail behind her. Her arms loaded down with papers and files to give to her father. She froze as he walked out then quickly bowing almost spilling the papers. Saeyoung noticed something about her. She gave off the same feel as Yeoja after becoming pregnant. The way she walked towards him gave the tell-tell signs that her hips were widening as her gate had not adjusted to the new life in her. A small smile cracked across his face as she placed the paperwork on the desk next to the door and brushed her stomach. Her hand went across her stomach to outstretched in a greeting. He moved pass her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

 “Congrats.” He whispered in her ear as he left.

 He had to clear his mind and process the information that was given to him. The trip back to his car was the fastest trip yet. Even while checking behind him for followers.

 His mind wondered as he drove. It was not until he saw the school that he snapped back with a beep from the messenger. It was Yoosung.

 Yoosung: Where are you Yeoja!!!

 Yoosung: YEOJA!!!!

 Saeyoung’s mind went haywire thinking that his father could have kidnapped Yeoja while he was in the meeting.

 Yeoja has entered the chat

 Yeoja: You’ve passed me like 3 times now…

 Saeyoung was in the middle of pulling a u-turn to go back to the school.

 Yeoja: Hey babe!

 Saeyoung: hiya baby! How are you?

 Yoosung: Where are you! You weren’t in your last class?

 Yeoja sent a picture of Yoosung stand right in front of her

 Yoosung: Oh!

 Yeoja: Sorry I got sick before I got to class so I took a nap in the car.

 Yeoja: What are you doing Saeyoung?

 Saeyoung smiled as a minivan passed him. He had to pick on her. That would hopefully make him feel a bit better.

 Saeyoung: Looking at a van.

 Yeoja: No!

 Yeoja: No vams

 Yoosung: wow you two sound like u’re already married!

 Yeoja: I will divorce you if I come home and there’s a van there!

 Yoosung: Soo fierce

 Yeoja: just expressing how I feel

 Yeoja: Fine you can get a van but you have to trade in Elly.

 Saeyoung: NO!!!

 Saeyoung sent a wave of crying emojis

 Yeoja: The little white sports car or the van!

 Saeran has entered the chat

 Saeran: Well I know where you are now

 Saeyoung: Yup after the drs app I went to go look at cars.

 Yeoja: drs app

 Yoosung: Are you okay Saeyoung.

 Saeyoung smiled and laughed as he typed his next message.

 Saeyoung: Yeah I was so sleepy this morning drank some food coloring and went to the drs after you left.

 Yoosung: You okay man?

 Saeyoung: The dr said I was fine.

 Saeyoung: But I feel like I’ve dyed a little inside

 Saeran: I will kill him went he gets home.

 Yeoja: Please clean up after. Blood is hard to get out once it’s dried.

 Yeoja: Oh look at the time… I am out. I’ll see you two went I get home… or at least one of you.

 Yoosung: I’m out too

 Yeoja and Yoosung have left the chat.

 Saeran: I’ll see you when you get home too

 Saeran has left the chat.

 With that, he was left alone with his thoughts again. It was nice to have a little distraction while so much was going on.

 The drive home went painfully slow. There were good and bad merits about living so far out. This was one of the bad ones. It was if like he could not put enough pressure on the gas to get him home sooner. His eyes ached and itched with his contacts. It did not help that he was sure he was about to fall asleep behind the wheel. His mind was still racing with the conversation with that man, but his body had other ideas.

 He nearly cheered as he saw the brick fence of his house come into view. The gate opened as his car neared and let him in the compound. He was greeted in the garage by a very stern looking Saeran. A bare foot tapped as he parked. He wanted to tease his brother and take his time but he was sure that Saeran would drag him out his car if he did.

 “Well?” was all Saeran said as Saeyoung closed the door.  

 Saeyoung told him everything that had happened. There was no use in hiding anything from him now. He needed to know what he knew.

 “I don’t believe him.” Saeran said lighting up another cigarette. Saeyoung did not either, but this was the information that he was given.

 “I’m going to go take a shower and go to sleep. I think you should as well.” Saeyoung walked into the house and did as he said.

 Before stepping in the shower, he took a good look at himself naked in the full-length mirror. His body was littered with scars from old fights, a living tapestry of near misses. Most of these came from his mother. His life with her was more of a war zone than the ones that he had entered in his years as an agent. Where the wrong move would have him tending to a new wound on his body or his brother’s. The woman often used the weaker of the Choi twins as leverage against him. If he did wrong, then is was Saeran who suffered more times than not. But the women never did miss a chance to beat him with whatever she could get her hands on.

 After getting out of the shower the bunker was dark and quiet. Saeran must have gone to his room. Saeyoung could hear his bed calling him as well. It had been more than 24 hours since he woke up. While he had gone longer in the past, his body told him that it was not going to happen.

 The bed felt amazing as if it was a cloud. He fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

 A dip in the bed awoke him as another body cuddled up against his side. A lightweight came to rest on his chest. A soft chuckle came from his throat. He did not open his eyes, laying like that. The woman he loved pressed up against him, her head on his chest listening to his heart. These were things that he did not dare dream about before. Now, a little over a year later, it still felt like a dream. That if he opened his eyes now he would be back where he was before. Alone and would not have his brother or the woman he loved in his life.

 “Sorry, I woke you up.” Yeoja’s voice was just above a whisper. She’d brought one of her hands to rest on his chest as she sat up. The sudden lack of her body heat made him shiver.

 “Don’t!” His voice cracked, “Don’t leave.” He reached out for her arm to keep her close to him. A small laugh escaped her.

 “I was just going to go to the living room and study.” Saeyoung’s thumb drew lazy circles on her arm.

 “Stay.” Was all he could say, pulling her closer to him. She followed his lead for her head to come to rest back on his chest.

 “I’ll stay until you go back to sleep.”

 “Stay with me for the rest of my life.” This got another laugh from her. She shifted to sit up and moved to straddle his hips. Yeoja brought both of his hands up to her chest. He could feel her heart beneath his fingers.

 “I don’t know what is going on with work, but I have already promised you that I was going to spend the rest of my life with you. If something were to happen to one of us. Maybe in old age or sooner due to a freak accident,” Yeoja moved his hands lower to her stomach, “We are still together. Living in them. I’m not going anywhere, you’re stuck with me.”

 This made him open his eyes. The glow of the lava lamp behind her. It lit her hair in a soft warm halo. She was truly an angel. An angel he did not deserve. What did he do in a previous life to even earn the right to have her?

 Yeoja smiled as she bent down and kissed him. He responded, setting the pace slow. Slipping a hand into her hair. While his other wrapped around her back. Saeyoung was too sleepy to get aroused but he needed to feel her against him. Her body heat proved that she was real. That their life together was not part of a dream. Their tongues danced with one another to the melody of their moans. They broke apart, the need for air was getting to be important. She shifted again to lay beside him as he closed his eyes again. The weight on his chest and the patterns that her thumb drew on his torso were enough of a lullaby to lull him back to the arms of sleep.

 Yeoja waited until Saeyoung’s breathing evened out to move again. The hallway was dark as she made her way into the living room where she had turned on the lights. Her laptop was running waiting on her, midterms were coming up. With both of the twins sleeping, she knew that this was the best time to get some studying done. Putting on some classical music and bringing up the midterm study questions another need arose in her. Hunger. With a sigh, she pulled herself off the sofa and went to check the fridge.

 There was not much in there. Making a mental note of what she might have to get at the store after her meeting with Jumin tomorrow. The left-over pot roast was the only thing it seemed to catch her eye, or what she was sure her children’s attention. She pulled out the dish.  When she turned around a figure with wild red hair stood behind her. Yeoja shrieked as mint green eyes still hazed over with sleep looked at her.

 Saeran mumbled something along the lines of ‘food’ or ‘hungry’ as he staggered to stand next to her.

 “All I am doing is warming some leftovers up. You want some?” She showed the red-haired zombie the pot roast. It nodded and once more mumbled something this time in another language or what sounded like another language. Saeran moved towards the plates and fumbled as he pulled two paper plates out. They dropped to the floor and he just stood there staring at them. As if he could not process what had happened. She giggled as she bent down to pick them up. Then dished out the roast and potatoes for the two of them.

 After the ding of the microwave, she placed the first plate in front of the zombie. It grumbled a ‘thank you’ as he began to stab at the meat. She took her plate and sat at the island in the kitchen. Saeran stumbled to sit next to her. He began to stab at the meat again.

 “Yeoja, how would you handle if you were told something… something that you were told as a kid. Then you… were told something different later on. What would you believe?” Saeran was still looking at the plate with its untouched food other than him stabbing at it as if it were still alive.

 “It depends on who said what?” Yeoja watched the younger Choi twin. “Who would you believe?”

 He sat there this time stirring his food. His mind wondering over what she had said. Nodding to unspoken words between them or a conversation that only he could hear.

 “What if you can’t believe either?” He finally said after a long moment.

 “I guess you would have to go with what feels right.”

 “What if neither feels right?” This time he was looking at her. The haze of sleep was gone in his eyes. Mint eyes that almost glowed in the low light of the kitchen looked into her soul.

 “I dunno what to tell you. I just think you should go with your gut.” Yeoja turned to her own plate but she could still feel his eyes on her.

                                                              ********

 The smell of pancakes and bacon filled the air and what sounded like a tiny herd of rhinos storming the door to his room was what he woke up too. He did not open his eyes as tiny giggles mixed in with shushing sounds rounded the bed. Sticky fingers grabbed at his hands and face and shook.

 “Daddy wake up!” Two tiny voices that had the same melody of a bird’s song rang in his ears. As they shook him they giggled while intermingling ‘Daddy’ and ‘wake up’.

 He stayed as he was, playing like he was still sleeping. He wanted to see what they would do.

 “What if Daddy is dead?” One little bird asked.

 “Remember the book mommy read us? He’ll wake up with a kiss!” the other little bird chimed.

 “Daddy isn’t a princess… Will it still work?” The first little bird asked.

 “It doesn’t matter if Daddy is or isn’t a princess! Just like it doesn’t matter if we aren’t a prince or princess!” The second one cheered. He felt a pair of hands leave him.

 Then as if on cue two little bodies dived on him. Covering his face with kisses and sticky fingers.

 As Saeyoung went to wrap his arms around the little ones, his arms were jerked back as cold metal wrapped around his wrists. Even with his eyes open, he saw nothing in front of him. The sharp smell of metallic overwhelmed his senses. It was a smell he knew all too well. Blood. Saeyoung could taste it on his tongue. Straining against the cuffs but he did not get that far before his hands were swung back onto the cold stone behind him.

 The scrape of a wooden door on stone with creaky hinges echoed off the walls as it opened. Then footsteps coming towards him. The sobs of Yeoja and his little birds followed the steps getting louder with each footfall. The footsteps stopped in front of him. With the slide of rough material and the pull of some of his hair, Saeyoung could see. It was a small stone room that he was in, something out of a medieval movie. Out of the side of his eye was Saeran. Hanging by his arms like he was with his head down. The small rise and fall of his chest was the only indication that his twin was still alive.

 Something jerked at his hair making him look forward. The thing that stood in front of him was his father. He had a smile that slit his face from ear to ear. His head was tilted at an angle to look Saeyoung in his eyes. The honey golden color of his father’s eyes darken as the smile got wider.

 “Did you really think you could get away from me?” His voice was a low hiss as he shook Saeyoung’s head. “Did you really think you could hide from me?”

 “Why?” Saeyoung’s voice was hoarse and cracked as he spoke.

 “Why? Why? Why, my dear boy… Why indeed…” His father let go of Saeyoung’s hair making his neck snap forward with a pop. “You two are the only things that have ever held me back.”

 Saeyoung could still hear the sobs of his family as his father spoke. His little birds called out for him. Saeyoung’s arms ached to hold them and tell them that it would be okay. He wanted to dry their tears and make them smile. The cuffs around his wrists did not let him move. His arms were stretched out so far that his shoulders were almost dislocated.

 As he struggled his father continued to speak, when he noticed that Saeyoung was not paying attention, he lunged for Saeyoung. His father’s hands around his throat crushing his windpipe. Then as quickly as he began his father backed off muttering something to himself. Another sinister grin cracked across the old man’s face.

 “You were a mistake that never should have happened!” The old man shrieked. “You and your brother both should not be alive.”

 His father moved so that Saeyoung could see through the open door. There was a large metal table like the ones used in a morgue in the next room. Saeyoung could see the tops of Yeoja head and the bright red hair of his little birds’ in a line on the table. He lunged forward quickly to get to them. His shoulders popped as the joints left their sockets. His wrists buckled with the full force of his weight on them. A jolt of pain surged through him. Even still he pressed harder to get to his family. Hot tears ran down his face as he begged through his sobs to spare them.

 “You should have never been. Therefore, they should not be here.” His father turned and went out of the room. The large door closed quickly behind him leaving the room in darkness.

 “Please!.. No!...” He begged through his tears. Screaming as loud as he could.

 The slide of metal on metal. Then the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking. Click.

 Bang.

 One of the little bird’s cries stopped.

 Click.

 Bang.

 The second little bird’s sobs stopped.

 Yeoja sobbed harder. Her cries for her children. His children. Their children. Children that did not get a chance at life because who they were born to.

 “Daddy’s sorry, my little ones. Please forgive Daddy. Daddy couldn’t protect you.” Saeyoung had thrown his voice. Now it would not go beyond a whisper.

 Slide.

 Click.

 Bang.

 Yeoja’s sobs stopped as the spent shell fell and skittered across the floor. She was now with their children. Saeyoung’s tears would not stop. The family that he had made was gone. Saeran was the only thing he had left.

 The door opened again, his father walked to Saeran. He jerked his head up by his hair. Saeran’s mouth fell open. Saeyoung fought against the cuffs to get to his brother. He could not speak but he was going to do his damnedest to get to him. His father placed the gun in Saeran’s mouth then turned to watch Saeyoung.

 Horror was the only thing he felt as the man smiled and pulled back the trigger. He never taking his eyes off Saeyoung. At some point, Saeyoung had stopped fighting and all he could do was watch as he saw the flash of the gun in his brother’s mouth. Followed by a deafening bang.

 Blood spattered with bits of bone and brain matter across the wall behind Saeran.

 Saeyoung felt nothing but cold as he watched as the man let go of his other half and he fell limply against his restraints. Blood followed from the exit wound pooling on the floor below. There was nothing left for him to live for. His family was gone and there was not a damn thing he could do about it. His tears were gone along with his voice.

 His father walked over to Saeyoung and gripped his hair.

 “This is the end.”

 With his other hand, he forced Saeyoung’s mouth open and stuck the barrel of the gun in Saeyoung’s mouth. It was hot. Saeyoung could feel the heat burning his lips and the inside of his mouth. The taste of smoke filled his senses.

 Bang.

 Saeyoung shot up in bed. Cold sweat dripped down his body. His heart thundered in his chest trying to get out. He wheezed with each gasp of air trying to fill his lungs. It was a long moment before his fuzzy world came into focus. That it was all just a dream, that everyone was safe. Saeyoung could only stare at the blurry outline of the dresser at the end of the bed while he pieced his world back together.

 Once his breathing became normalized, Saeyoung lied back down. An arm covering his eyes as he could still taste the hot metal in his mouth. It felt so real. The loss of his family that he could do nothing for. The sights and sounds of their deaths still echoed in him. Yet, they were fine. His brother, his future wife, and his unborn children, all were fine, it was just a dream. Nothing more.  

 A shift in the bed beside him, made him look. It was a person sized blanket burrito curled up on the edge of the bed. He moved closer to the burrito and slipped an arm under it with his other coming to rest along the hip.

 “Hey, baby, mornin’.” Saeyoung pressed kisses along what felt like the neck and head of the person wrapped safely in the blanket. It smelled like the body oil Yeoja used, eucalyptus and spearmint. Her entire side of her bed smelled of it and he loved it. Even when she was away from home it still felt like she was there.

 His hand slid from the hip to come to rest on the stomach a strangled cry came from the burrito as it flung itself off the bed. Saeran’s head popped out of the top.

 “No! Just no!” Saeran pulled the blanket tighter around him as if to protect him from his brother. “Dude, this is not how you wake your brother up!”

 Saeyoung chuckled, “Why are you sleeping next to me then?” he tried to play it off but the blush on his younger twin’s face told him the story. He had another nightmare. It was becoming very uncommon for him to have them. Still, every now and again they popped up. “Where’s Yeoja?”

 “If you remember, she told us the other day she had a meeting with Jumin. So, I am guessing that is where she is.” Saeran stood up and shed the blanket covering.

 Yeoja walked up to the receptionist and told her, her name and that she was there to see Jumin. The woman behind the desk smiled and made the call. What Yeoja did not notice was the man behind the corner. He was not really paying attention to her at first until Jaehee came out and hugged her.

 “Oh? Saeyoung and Saeran aren't with you?” Jaehee smiled pulling away.

 Those names made his ears perk up and made him listen to their conversion. Those names were not very common, and he had a feeling about who the two young women were talking about. This was when he turned to fully face the two. She was dressed in black pants and dress shirt. A large worn out jacket over one bent arm. Her hair was a chestnut brown a little pass her shoulders. The man could not see her eyes. From the way the two women looked, they could have been related in some way. Maybe, sisters, they were friendly enough with one another.  

 “They aren’t feeling well. So, I didn’t wake them when I left. I doubt they’ll be up when I get home. Besides I told them where I would be a few days ago, at least one of them should remember.” Yeoja laughed.

 “I’m sure your over protective husband would just blow up the messenger if he was looking for you.” Jaehee laughed as well. She emphasized the word husband in the most overdramatic way she could. While still remaining professional. Most of the RFA already thought of the two as married. So, it was not uncommon that he was referred to her husband. “How are things? I mean you haven’t been living there long.”

 “Oh, it’s great! I just don’t like the drive to and from school every day. Although I feel weird not helping to pay for things. He said my money is for me and the kids. Still, he’s the one that has bought most of the stuff for them.”

 “It’s because he is the man, and he feels that he needs to take care of you.” Jumin’s deep voice made the two women jump. “Zen, myself, and Saeyoung talked about it shortly after V and Rika’s engagement.”

 Yeoja giggled at the thought of Zen, Jumin, and Saeyoung having a serious conversation. She could almost imagine what it came to. After about two minutes of serious talk. Zen and Jumin most likely started fighting. While Saeyoung egged it on in some way for the shits and giggles of it.

 The man watched as Jumin smiled at the woman named Yeoja. The man had known Jumin for many years but he had never seen Jumin with as gentle of a smile that he wore now. Stepping from around the corner to greet the trio. Jumin stiffened making the women turn to see who was walking their way. It was the Prime Minister.

 “Good afternoon Mr. Han. Going out on a lunch date?” Jumin bit the inside of his lip.

 “Good afternoon, Mr. Chon. No, this is Yeoja Choi. She and her husband are members of the RFA with me.” Jumin said in his most professional voice.

 “Oh, I went to one party a few years ago, I missed the last one you had.” The prime minister smiled as his wife joined him. After they exchanged pleasantries Chon finished his statement, “We are here to have lunch with your father.”

 Jumin only nodded, feeling sorry for the prime minister. His father and his new girlfriend were having a hard time keeping their hands off one another. Barely acknowledging the people around them as they petted each other. Deep down Jumin was happy he was not going to be there for the embarrassing event.

 “Well, we are having another one here in a few weeks. Here is my contact information. Send me an email and I will get you on the guest list.” Yeoja smiled as she handed him a card. Chon smiled and took one of his own out. She smiled and placed the card in her wallet.

 “Now if you excuse us we should be leaving. Please have a good afternoon.” Jumin’s corporate heir was coming through with each word. With a bow, Jumin led the two women to pass the prime minister and his wife.

 Chon listened as they walked away. It was about their daily lives and other things until they were far enough away from him hearing them.

 Jumin sighed, “With the Choi twins not here, do we have to pick up something for them?”

 Yeoja smiled and shook her head, “Not today. I have to go to the store after this. So, I will pick them up some burgers on the way home.”

 Another sigh came from the man. She knew what the corporate heir thought about burgers. The group walked out into the frozen air. Even in the oversized hoodie, Yeoja shivered. All the way to the restaurant there was very little talking. Jaehee was pouring over some documents, trying to get in some last-minute work. Jumin was sending out emails. While Yeoja was reading a book she had downloaded to her phone.

 The restaurant was extremely nice. Even leaving her jacket in the car Yeoja felt underdressed. Sticking next to Jaehee and following her lead was the only way she was going to get out of this without making herself and Jumin look bad. The trio was set off to the back overlooking the river. Jaehee was still mulling over her phone. Whoever she was emailing was giving her a hard time. Yeoja felt bad for the older woman.

 Her eyes went from her friend to the white marble floor. Up a white Roman-style column to opal colored drapes that hung between the pillars. The sound of the fountain in the center of the massive room overshadowed the piano player somewhere off in a corner. She was almost scared to see the prices of this place. She was already in nasty enough debt with school. It was thankful that Jumin said he would pay for lunch today. Yeoja could almost hear Zen’s and Saeyoung’s voice cheering her to spend all of Jumin’s money.

 “How is school going?” Jumin’s voice brought Yeoja back to face him.  

 “Oh, good. It’s sad to think that when I go back in January that some of my friends won’t be there.” Yeoja chirped.

 “So, you do plan to go back.” This was not a question from the older man.

 “Yeah, I mean I have already spent the last almost five years to get my two degrees. I mean what’s four more.” She joked. This brought a smile to Jumin’s face.

 “That’s good. Well, I was thinking. Maybe you could come work for me.” Jaehee stopped what she was doing and put down her phone. Yeoja could hear her friend screaming a ‘no’ to her.

 “I mean I wouldn’t be good with whatever you do.” Yeoja gestured with her hands the outline of the man in front of her. “I mean unless you really need someone to ask your clients how they are doing. I mean, I do know how to brainwash someone but I doubt it’d be of any help.”

 “What do they teach you in school.” Jaehee spoke before Jumin could.

 “Oh, it was for abnormal psychology. I still have the book and my notes from the class.” Jaehee sat back in her chair unsure about the new information she was just given about her friend.

 “Well, that would help out.” Jumin chuckled. “Actually, with the HR department has a psychologist on staff. I thought it would be a good opportunity for you.”

 Yeoja sat there a moment, “It’ll be a while before I can shadow someone. I will keep it in mind.”

 “Also, I was going to ask Saeyoung if he would come work for me as well. I figured I would ask you to see if the request would be a good one to make.” Jumin took a sip of his wine.

 “I mean as far as I known him and Saeran are a joint package. I am not sure, though. It’d be better to ask him.”

 The rest of lunch went quietly. The occasional brief conversation broke through. When a chat room message beeped on their three phones. Yeoja joked after she saw who was in the chat, Yoosung and Zen, that they should send a selfie with their meals to them. As tempting as it was they did not. After they were done, the trio left from the restaurant and drove back to Jumin’s office. From there Yeoja waved as she left her two friends and went back to her car. As she walked to the parking deck she was playing with her phone, not really paying attention to what was in front of her. When she bumped into something making her look up. There were a handful of bodyguards blocking the entrance. The one she bumped into looked down at her, his hand going for something on his belt. The others made a semi-circle around her until the prime minister came up behind them. They backed off as soon as they saw the man.

 “I’m sorry about that. Mrs. Choi, was it?” His voice was soft as he spoke to her.

 “Oh, no, it’s okay.” She waved her hands in front of her. “They were just doing their job.”

 “Would you like me to drive you to your car?” Chon asked. The question made Yeoja drop the note she was working on her phone. He could see her background, it was a selfie of her between two red heads. He recognized the golden eyed man in the picture as the man he saw yesterday. He guessed right earlier when he had heard those names.

 “No, I’m parked on a higher level. Thank you, though. Have a good afternoon.” Yeoja did her best not to stutter her words. As if on cue a meowing was heard making the two look at her phone.

 The was a picture of the man he currently knew as Choi smiling back at him with the name, Saeyoung.

 “Sorry, I have to take this.” With that, she went by him.

 “Hey, baby.” Was the last thing he heard coming from her as he watched her go into the stairwell.

#fanfiction #fanfic #m rating #707 #mystic messenger 707 #MC #Spoilers