#until Frostbite explained

[nelkcats]

Ice Crystal

When Clark was exploring the fortress of solitude he found murals of a teenage boy on the ice walls. He frowned and followed the drawings to a room he had never visited.

That was odd, so he approached cautiously; it turned out, the room was empty beyond the drawings adorning the walls, which oddly looked like constellations. In the center was an ice table with a crystal glowing toxic green hovering over it.

At first, the Kryptonian thought it was Kryptonite but the crystal hadn't made him feel weak. In general, it didn't make him feel anything. He frowned and took the crystal in his hands, beyond causing him to feel cold nothing happened. He decided to put the crystal back where it was, determined to investigate it later.

Unbeknownst to Clark, a few minutes after he left the room the crystal began to flicker. A "Hello?" was heard around the room as a confused hologram flashed, Danny looked around the place with a frown before cutting the call.

Of course, Clark forgot about it rather quickly, and it wasn't until years later when Jon and Kon were exploring the place (clearly without telling Clark) that they found the strange room. Though contrary to Superman, they stayed and could hear the voice clearly.

#dpxdc #The Kryptonians were allies of the Yetis long ago #They shared the Legend of the Great One #Though at the time none of them knew it was referencing someone in the afterlife #They thought it was some kind of god #The ice crystal is a way of communicating with the great one #The Kryptonians developed it #It hadn't worked before because Danny didn't exist at that time #But the Kryptonians left it as a legacy anyway #Clark was supposed to communicate with him and make a great ally #but he forgot about the room #So instead his kids got a friend #dp x dc #dc x dp #ghost king danny #Danny was confused at first #until Frostbite explained #at the end he decided to be the superboy's secret friend #they stole the crystal #think of the ice crystal as a glorified phone

[bet-on-me-13]

The New Gotham Rogue, Keeper Pt.1

So! When Danny was killed by the Portal, he was tossed into the Realms and the Portal collapsed behind him. All that was left was a small Spiral shaped Crack in Reality hanging in the Air, and a crater where the Portal had originally opened.

His Family and Friends assumed he was vaporized by the malfunctioning Portal and mourned his death, and Danny himself thought he was just Flat Out Killed by the Portal and became a normal Ghost.

Danny was stuck in the Ghost Zone for over a Month, coming to terms with his own Death, before something happened. The Portal Re-opened itself temporarily.

When Danny found it Open, he was Elated! He could finally go back home, explain what had happened to his Parents, maybe even find a way to live in the Human World as a Ghost!

Unfortunately, he wasn't the first one to find the Portal. Lunch Lady had reached it about an Hour before he did, and had begun attacking the students at his old school for changing the Lunch Menu she had concocted in her life.

Danny rushed to stop her, and eventually managed to beat her. Unfortunately, his Parents showed up and started attacking him too. Even after he explained that he was Danny, that he was their Son, they didn't stop. In fact, they got even more aggressive, saying that their son was dead and that he was just another Spook.

In the end, Danny had to run back into the Ghost Zone to escape his parents, dragging Lunch Lady with him.

After that, he decided that he had to become a Guardian of the Portal whenever it randomly Opened, to keep both the Humans and the Ghosts safe.

For over a year, he stopped almost every Ghost that attempted to pass through the Portal, fighting them back or stalling them until the Portal closed again. There were a few incidents where they managed to get passed him, like when Undergrowth mind controlled his old friend Sam, or when Hotep-Ra reawakened Tuckers memories from his pasts lives, but most of the time he had it under control.

Of course not all of them had to get past him, Natural Portals still existed after all, but every time they got to the Human Realm he would find them and drag them back.

Unfortunately, being the one thing standing between the Ghosts and the opportunity to fulfill their Obsessions earned him a lot of resentment.

Everybody he met hated him. He was seen as a Villain in the Zone, the one who prevented everybody from fulfilling their Purpose at every pass.

Danny was not in a good head space about it.

His mind was buckling under the pressure of it all. His duties as the Guardian of the Portal, the hatred the Denizens of the Realms held for him, the lonliness eating away at his Sanity, it was all too much. He felt his psyche cracking ever so slightly every day that passed like this.

It got better for a time in the 2nd year of his Afterlife. He had managed to befriend a few Ghosts, mainly the Leaders of certain Kingdoms who saw the necessity of his action, as well as a few others.

Frostbite, Pandora, and Dorathea were the Pillars upholding his sanity for that period of time. He finally had friends (or at least people who didn't harbor nothing but distain for him). But unfortunately, it couldn't last forever. They had Kingdoms to run, People to Lead, and they couldn't spend all their free time entertaining his selfish whims his need to talk to someone, anyone at all, so he forced himself to stop bothering them so much (they didn't think any of that)

And Guarding the Portal took most of his time as well. His Rouges had started attacking him between it's Openings, hoping to gain control of the Portal while it was inactive so they had first dibs when it did open. Danny was getting run ragged trying to keep them all away.

Eventually, he reached his second Death Day. It didn't really feel like 2 years had passed, in fact it felt like much, much longer than that, but he knew in his Core that it was his 2nd Death Day. Also, whenever he peeked through the Portal, it seemed like 2 years ago passed in the Living World, so he just went with that.

On that day, he discovered something. During a battle with Plasmius, (who was still enraged at him for blowing up his own, stable Portal), he felt something strange. A familiarity that he had never noticed before, which happened when Plasmius briefly turned Human to avoid his attacks.

After the Battle, Danny decided to investigate that feeling. It was a weird sensation, like pressure built up in his Chest that he had never noticed until that moment with Plasmius, the first time he had ever seen him Transform in person.

After focusing on it for a while, Danny felt it getting stronger and stronger until it Burst with a flash of light. And suddenly he was Human again. He was Alive again.

It was another few minutes of testing this ability out before he finally stopped and took it all in. He was a Human. even if he was half Ghost.

He was Human.

He was Alive.

A thought struck him. Did this mean he could go back home? Back to his Family? His friends? Mom and Dad? Jazz? Sam and Tucker?

In an instant he was up and running to the still Open Portal. It hadn't closed since he had beaten Plasmius, as it it felt his desire to return to the Human World.

It actually might have, considering it was a part of him. Clockwork had explained it after the whole, Dan situation. When he had first formed, a piece of his newly formed Core had broken off and become the Core of the Portal instead. It gave him a connection that allowed him to better Guard the Portal, knowing when it was Open or if somebody had used it.

Stopping at the edge of the Opening, Danny thought about all the things he would be able to do again. Hug his Parents, eat Human Food, talk to his friends. Oh God, it had been so long since he had actually talked to another person. None of his Rouges had bothered reciprocating his Quips in almost a year now, so he barely ever had anybody to talk to. Even somebody proclaiming their eternal hatred for him would be better than the endless silence.

Taking a deep breath, he stepped through the Portal with Hope in his Heart.

On the other side, he found un unfamiliar room.

It was much cleaner than his Parents Lab, with all the different Inventions placed perfectly in neat workstations. Multiple work stations. Had his parents hired some neat freak assistants? Why were there so many Work Stations?

Honestly that wasn't even the most eye catching detail he noticed. There was something else, something more noticeable.

It was the fact that everything in the entire Lab was White.

He heard a series of footsteps approaching the Lab, and before he knew it, the room was filled with GIW Agents and Scientists, all pointing their Weapons at him.

He tried to call out to them, to tell them that it was okay, that he was Human. But all that came out was the static sound of Ghost Speak. Why did that happen? He wanted to use Human Language! Why was he only using Ghost Speak? Had he...had be really forgotten how to speak?

Did he really forget the one thing basic for almost every human? How? Sure it had been a while since he spoke it, but were 2 years of not speaking English really enough for him to forget everything?

But, it hadn't been just 2 years, had it? Time moved strangely in the Ghost Zone, and it definitely felt like longer. How long had it actually been? How long had he been Dead?

Stuck in his own mind, he never saw the barage of attacks coming his way.

...

Danny was stuck in that Lab for over 6 months.

He was kept in that same room he was captured in, constantly being cut open and pulled apart before being left overnight to heal himself.

He tried to explain that he was human in any way possible, but without being able to talk it was hard. He tried writing out in his own blood at once point, but they just cut him opened even more after that, trying to figure out how the "Mindless Ghost" had managed to imitate human writing.

They never listened to him screaming in pain. In their eyes it was just a random Ghost trying to trick them into thinking he could Feel.

Every time he screamed in pain, they would berate him. "You can't feel, shut up!" "You aren't human, stop taking that form!" "You are a Ghost! You can't feel scared, get up!" "You are just a mindless blob of Ectoplasm!" "You would kill everybody here if given the chance!" "You aren't Human!" "You aren't real!" "You're just a Monster!"

"You aren't Alive!"

Even through all that Torment, he didn't stop fighting. He knew he was Human, that he was alive. There was nothing that would ever change that. Or so he thought.

Then they brought his Parents in.

They had previously mentioned them, praising them for their technical skills and cheering the fact that they had sold them the Portal, even if it had not turned back in since he came through. Then, they decided to bring them in to study the Ghost who kept imitating their dead son.

When they first walked in, Danny felt a spark of hope. Maybe they would save him, maybe they would see that he was alive, that he was real.

But they didn't. They just kept on with the same experiments as before, yelling the same things, but it hurt so much more coming from them.

He didn't last long under their study. He broke, and he didn't think he would ever put himself back together again.

...

It was at the 6 Month Mark that something new happened. As it turns out neither his, nor the Portal's absense had gone unnoticed in the Zone.

In his time trapped in that Lab, he had used his connection to the Portal to keep it from opening, using every ounce of his Willpower to force it to stay closed, no matter how much it struggled under his control.

When he was finally Broken by his Parents, he lost his grip on the Portal, and that night it opened for the first time in Months.

The first one to find him was, coincidentally, the Lunch Lady. The first ever Ghost he guarded the Portal from.

What she saw when she floated into that Room would forever Scar her memories. Danny in his Ghost Form laying strapped to an Operation Table, his organs out in the Air, his ribs spread out like an Eagle. At the center of his Chest sat his Core, exposed for the whole world to see, showing off all the damage it had received since the Scientists first found it all those months ago.

He looked up at her, and his eyes told her all she needed to know. Run.

She fled back through the Portal, horror stricken across her face. Danny managed to shut it down again after that.

Apparently news of what she had seen seen had spread around the Realms. Even when the Portal was active, nobody came through. The few times anybody did poke their head through, they saw him and left screaming in Terror.

Danny knew they would never save him. He was their Enemy, the Villain in their story, they would never risk themselves trying to help him.

And honestly he didn't know if he wanted to he helped. This was all his Fault. He was the one to open the Portal, he was the one who Guarded it for all that time, he was the one who got himself into this mess.

One time, he felt the Familiar Aura of Pandora approaching the Portal, and forced it closed before she could reach it. Her head managed to get through for a moment, but when she looked at him with those pleading eyes, begging to let her help him, he closed them as tight as he could and shut the Portal Closed, pushing her Back into the Realms.

She was trying to save him. But she didn't deserve to get hurt trying to help a waste of space like him.

He needed to get the Portal away from the Lab. It was only a matter of time before he lost any ability to close the Portal at all, before the Scientists managed to find a way to keep it open and invade the Realms. He needed to get it away from them, if only to protect the Ghosts on the other side.

He needed to do his Job, to guard the Portal. From either Side.

...

It took another month of conserving his strength before he managed to break out of his Shackles. It took a bit if trial and error, but eventually he found a way to draw the Portal into himself to transport it away.

It was technically a piece of his Core after all, he just had to slot it back into Place.

After that, he had to find a way out of the Lab. The Scientist he found wandering outside his room didn't have any Overshadowing Protection at the time, so he managed to get halfway to the Exits before the alarms sounded.

Then it was a mad dash of fighting off Guards and dodging the Security System to get to the Door. He dropped the Body when he reached the Doors.

It didn't get any easier after escaping the Building, but after several hours of chasing he eventually lost them.

He kept running though. He couldn't keep the Portal within him forever, and he needed a safe place to let it out. Hours of running eventually led him to somewhere that might work.

Gotham City.

...

Cass wasn't entirely sure that she was making the right call in this, but Croc's Body Language seemed to suggest that he was being genuine in his intentions, so she kept on following him.

In the past few Months, there had been a string of incidents where Government Agents in White Suits had incited fights and shootouts while "investigating" a supposed escaped Superpowered Prisoner. They had justified themselves by saying that the civilians they were attacking were actually Extra Dimensional Monsters known as Ecto-Entities, also known as Ghosts.

Of course a simple blood test always disproved them, but they were relentless in their "investigation". She used air quotes because they were some of the most Incompetent and Dimwitted morons the team had ever encountered, which was saying something. The only semi-competent ones where the pair of Scientists who commanded them, but even they were borderline insane, constantly ranting about how Evil Ghosts were and how they wanted to pull them apart molecule by molecule.

Unfortunately, there was nothing her Dad could do about them. They were a legitimate Government Agency, no matter how incompetent, and they hadn't been lucky enough to actually do any damage in their multitude of fights, so her Dad couldn't really force them to leave.

He had however started looking into the missing Ghost Prisoner they were chasing. If he could just find it, they could get the GIW out of the City and be done with them.

Her Dad and Tim's investigation had led him to a few short reports from a couple of months ago, describing a Humanoid figure covering in a glowing green liquid stalking the streets one night before disappearing all of a sudden. There wasn't much to work with, but the Team kept on the investigation in the hopes that they could get rid of the GIW sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately Cass, Damian, and Jason were exempt from the investigation, because for whatever reason whenever they came anywhere near the GIW, they started attacking them.

They had argued that they could take care of themselves, but Bruce had been adamant that they stay out of it. Damian had eventually relented, trusting the orders of his Father. Jason had flat out refused, but said that he would stay out of it just as long as the GIW stayed out of Crime Alley.

Cass however? She didn't want to be left out! She had more than proven that she could take care of herself, but her Dad was still too paranoid to even let her out of the House. She decided that she would undergo her own Investigation, and prove to her Dad that he shouldn't have ousted her from the Case like that.

She decided to take a different approach to the Investigation. Her Family was still combing through reports from the previous few months to see if there were any more mentions of the Figure, but she thought of something else.

After looking at the randomly reported sightings of the Entity that her family had collected, she noticed something. They were all set near Farners Markets, Grocery Stores, Restaurants.

The Entity was looking for Food.

She didn't think extra-dimensional Entities would be eating the same food as other Humans, but then again these things are supposedly impressions of Human Emotion that remain after death. Maybe it held onto the same Habits?

She decided to follow that potential lead.

Tracking stolen food across Gotham was tricky, because so many people were stealing food to survive. But eventually she got down a Pattern. It would strike at nighttime, stealing only Canned Food, and the Camera's would be covered in static for his duration in the store. Curiously, it would also take a few containers of Fudge whenever the store had it.

It was very steady for a while, and eventually she found that her list of locations matched up to the sightings the others had gathered had from the past few months.

On the day she was about to reveal the results of her investigation to her Dad, something changed.

The GIW had a major shootout, where they reported that they had found and injured the Prisoner, but it had Escaped.

The reports of stolen food matching it's M.O. stopped coming in after that. She thought that her Lead had been lost, and was mentally cursing the GIW in her head for days, before an offhand comment from one of her brother's caught her attention.

"Croc was seen stealing Canned Food recently. Didn't think he ate anything but Meat, but I guess he got a taste for Chocolate Fudge."

So, she investigated the Lead and found that Croc had taken up stealing the same type of food as the Entity did.

Quickly, she looked up the maps of every store that had been hit, as well as the Sewer Systems, and looked at them side by side. They matched up. At every single location where the Entity had stolen it's food, there was a Major Sewer Line.

And each of those Sewer Lines were in Killer Croc's territory. Killer Croc was harboring the Entity, he was feeding it.

She had solved it! The Ghost Entity was living in the Sewers!

She almost got up and ran to tell her father the news right then and there, but she paused. There were still unanswered questions, questions she wanted to figure out before telling her Dad.

Why was Croc feeding the Entity?

What connection did they have?

Why was the Entity in the City in the first place if the GIW was there as well, looking for it?

She needed all the answers before presenting it to her dad. She wanted to cover all of her Bases if she was going to admit that she went against her Dad's orders, not wanting to anger him. (She knew he wouldn't be mad at her, but old fears die hard.)

It took a while to find a way to sneak out of the House, but she managed it eventually. She roped Alfred into covering for her, saying she just needed some fresh air after being stuck in the house for almost a Month. Which was actually true.

After that it was just a matter of scoping out the spot where she had predicted Croc would be first, and waited.

It took a few tries to get the right location, but eventually she managed to find him. Croc was wary of her at first, and when she mentioned the food matching the MO of somebody else she was tracking, he flipped out!

He wouldn't let her get a word in, not that he was speaking very much, but still.

He calmed down after a few minutes of her not fighting back. She convinced him that she just wanted to talk to the one she was Tracking, whoever he was, so she could ask them for help in getting the GIW out of the City. Which was technically the truth.

After a bit more convincing, he caved and told her to follow him, before descending into the Sewers.

She was thankful that Croc was one of the more reasonable of the Rouges, and that she had a good enough reputation that he managed to trust her.

So here she was, following Croc through his Territory under Gotham, about to meet this Ghost Entity she had been tracking for over a Month now.

After a long walk, they emerged into a relatively large Room. It seemed to be an abandoned Sewer Reservoir, one of those large Rooms you see on TV that's like a giant Whirpool that characters are always getting sucked into (she hadn't had much to do while stuck in the house okay? She had been watching a lot of TV recently), except it was completely Dry.

There were a few places around that were obviously set up like different rooms in a house. A bedroom, a kitchen, an old couch and a box TV set up in front of it, and so on. This seemed to be one of Crocs more lived-in homes, which spoke to the trust he was placing in her not revealing this place to the other Bats. She felt slightly honored at that thought.

He led her to a section of the Base slightly off to the side, a room that wasn't entirely visible from the Enterance.

He stopped her at the door and called into it. "Hey Keeper, there's someone here to see you."

Without waiting for a reply, he turned around and ushered her into the Room.

It looked like a typical Bedroom, an old wardrobe was set off to the side, one of the door having fallen off. Inside there weren't that many items, just a few shirts and some pants. Closer to the center of the room, there was a Table covered with various empty cans and utensils. On three walls there were various posters and drawing featuring stars and constellations, seemingly placed haphazardly around the room with no real pattern. Most importantly, there was a Bed in the Corner.

And on that bed, was the Entity she had been tracking. And he was just a Kid.

He looked just like a normal teenager, about the same age as her, but he had White Hair and Green Eyes. He was sitting in an upright position, probably having sat up to get a better look at his visitor, and she could see the mess of bandages on his body.

The freshest ones were obviously for the wounds that had gotten him put on bed rest, a strip of clean bandages covering his stomach, with a bulge above his lower left stomach showing where he had gotten shot by the GIW.

But the rest of them, the older ones, they covered his entire main body. The bandages where old and slightly dirty, but it was obvious they had been placed in a hurry.

She was so busy studying his wounds that she almost missed Croc introducing her.

"Orphan, this is Keeper. Keeper, this is Orphan." He told the boy, "She says she wants to help get rid of the GIW."

The boy merely glanced at her before directing his gaze to Croc. A static-like sound seemed to Emit from his form, like a Trill, but against all logic she seemed to understand what it meant.

Discontent. Wariness.

Croc seemed to understand it too, and said, "Keeper, she can help get rid of the GIW. Don't you want them gone?"

Another Static Trill. Uninterest. Indifferent. Resigned.

"You can't just give up like that! If you won't fight back for yourself, at least fight back for the sake of protecting the P-", he was cut off by a wave of Static.

Anger. Displeasure. Stop.

Croc stuttered a bit. "I-sorry Keeper, I didn't mean to- I-" He was cut off again.

Displeasure. Leave.

They got the hint. Leaving the room, and walking to the exit.

Cass made one final glance behind her, meeting his eyes through the open doorway. They were cold and lifeless voids, as if he had cut himself off from all emotion.

"Sorry 'bout this Orphan. Keeper needs help, but he doesn't think he deserves it." He told her as they walked back to the surface. "He's not in a good head space right now, hasn't been since me n' Grundy found him wandering the Sewers all those months ago."

She made a questioning sound, and he picked up her meaning quickly. "Grundy is out finding more space themed stuff for his Room. Said somethin' about needing to fill an Obsession, but can't really explain it more than that."

She nodded in understanding as they reached the Sewer Drain where they had first decended into his Territory. She climbed out, but gave a final goodbye to Croc as she left.

She pointed at herself, and said, "I. Come. Back. Soon."

He gave her a slight Nod, and she leaped away.

By the time she got back to her Room in the Manor, her mind was a raving.

She was dumbfounded. Cass had originally tracked him down to make sure her theory was right before reporting it to her Dad, so that the GIW would take him before leaving and not coming back. She was dead set on getting the GIW out of the City by turning whatever entity they were chasing in.

But every intention of reporting him had left her the moment she had seem him in person. He was just a kid, a teenager like her. He was so hurt he couldn't get out of his Bed, his body was covered in bandages from presumably previous encounters with the GIW, and he was resigned to his fate.

He didn't care if he lived or died. He was just fine with letting the GIW capture him and injure him again, but there was something he was protecting that made him keep going on.

She wanted to help him.

But it wasn't because she pitied him. It was because Keeper had such a familair expression on his face when she left. One she had seen in the mirror a thousand times before her Dad had taken her in. And she swore she wouldn't let another kid keep that same expression as long as she could help it.

But there was also something else. When he was talking to Croc, and Croc mentioned that she wanted to help get rid of the GIW, she saw something flicker in his eyes. Just for a moment.

And she might be wrong, but she thought she saw a flicker of Hope.

#Dpxdc #Dp x dc #Dcxdp #Dc x dp #Danny Phantom #Dc #Dcu #Guys in White #Giw #He acts as the Guardian of the Portal and prevents anybody from passing though to protect the people of Amity Park #Danny doesn't know that he's a Halfa for years and just thinks that he is the Ghost of Danny Fenton #He kind of distanced himself from his old identity as Danny Fenton because he believed that his parents were right and that he wasn't real #When he finds out that he is a Halfa he is extatic and acts before he can fully think through the consequences #Danny gets Captured by the GIW #The Portal is a piece of his Core that was broken off when he formed so he had some level of control over it #He keeps the Portal closed forcefully for months on end so the GIW can't invade the Ghost Zone #When he escapes the takes the Portal itself with him and runs away to Gotham #The GIW follow him #Cass Jason and Damian are too Liminal so the GIW can track them #Many citizens of Gotham are Liminal as well but those 3 are so Liminal that they are detected as Full On Ghosts (because of the Lazarus Pit #They are put on House Arrest for a bit and Cass does not like this so she does her own investigation #At first she wants to find the Entity that the GIW is Hunting and turn him in so they can finally leave #After she meets him she wants to wrap him up in a blanket and hug the trauma out of him #Cass can understand Ghost Speak #Just the basics but she can get the general idea of what they are saying #Danny is taken in by Croc and Grundy #Grundy gets Danny some Space Themed Objects so he can heal faster by fueling his Obsession

[fangirlingpuggle]

Eldritch Danny/Eldritch Ancients reveal idea.

Danny starting to vaguely realize he's different form the type of halfa Vlad is, that he's getting powers so much faster and that he's not really aging, that he's getting different traits not normal ghost ones.

Frostbite kinda hinting this is different but not really saying anything, Clockwork assuring him this is fine but not explaining stuff telling him that knowing is not dangerous but undoable.

Danny wanting to press but getting odd sense that getting an answer would change things and a sense of foreboding when he asks so had been sort of ignoring it. When stuff gets to weird for ghost stuff sort of hiding it and going to frostbite or CW for answers.

He tried showing Sam, Tucker one time but they got really bad headaches and it seemed to mess with them a bit so he noped out of there. Sam and Tucker deciding just weirder then normal ghost stuff, though they can tell that's a bit off. Jazz knowing somethings up but also ghost stuff is weird... though she's suspecting that ghost stuff isn't really the right term, but if what she suspects is a thing is a thing she's not to sure what that would even mean.

So Danny's trying not to thin about to much, none of them are... until they're in English class and the topic is horror Mr Lancer announces syllabus is changing because classic horror and ghosts don't seem like a great topic to do and instead they're going to do cosmic horror.

Danny just sitting and listening about cosmic horror and eldritch entities and slow realizing creeping in, reading the pieces and just sitting in English class when he realizes he's not half ghost or half human, not even full ghost he's beyond that.

That Frostbite calling him great one is the same as ancient one.

That the ancients are more than ghosts... that he is to.

Just sitting in English class as the fabric of reality breaks a little as he realizes and fully becomes what he has been without knowing.

#danny phantom #dp #eldritch danny #au #fic prompt #the ancients are eldrtich beings #dp au #danny fenton #clockwork #dp lost time #frostbite

[faeriekit]

Snowdrift Sanctuary

a phic phight fill for sapphireshield (who isn't on tumblr)

“Is this alright?” Phantom asked quietly, blunt human face pressed into the ruff of his new coat.

There was nothing wrong, but that wasn’t the issue; the human needed reassurance, and reassurance Frostbite could provide.

“Of course,” Frostbite agreed easily, if gently. “Neuschnee made it for you. It was always intended to be yours.”

Humans tended to be sensory-seeking. With no fur of their own, and sensitive skin and hands, they had the ability to physically feel more through touch than his people could. The paw of Frostbite’s remaining arm was tough, callused from work and combat; but the human could swab his face across the ruff and sleeves of his coat and receive textural information that was entirely alien to the yeti mind.

Frostbite would have to ensure that the boy had gloves. It would be a shame if his hypersensitive hands were made damaged by the cold.

“...But,” the boy tried, and to his credit, his concern was sympathetic. “Wouldn’t someone else need the fur? Like, even if you have your own fur…wouldn’ it make a good blanket? Or…something…?”

Petting, for humans, thankfully, seemed to work exactly as it did for his kin. Sure, Frostbite had to be more gentle with his claws, but combing through and smoothing down the human’s black spot of hair was more than enough for the endorphins to kick in. Oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin would require further study, but the base understanding of hormones were easy to understand: skin on skin contact equalled a well-adjusted human adolescent.

Phantom’s eyes drooped. Frostbite smiled to himself. The sight was identical to Salju’s cubs settling down before a nap.

“We are not low on resources,” Frostbite soothed, half-purring. It was an immature noise, but conducive to soothing distressed young. “We are not hungry. We are prosperous, and require little; as an adept living with our people, we would be remiss not to provide for you.”

…The human’s nose crinkled.

“It is our job to give you things so that you do not fade,” Frostbite clarified.

Phantom’s face flushed a warm red. The adolescent’s half-human biology was fascinating.

And, true, it would probably be easier to care for Phantom if he remained in his ghostly form all the time, but it would be unfair and dangerous for his long-term development to force him to do so. Phantom was a half-human, and deserved to spend time adjusting to all of his forms. Neuschnee had already begun working on the human’s boots; soon he would no longer be confined only to Frostbite’s warmed residence. With a thick hood and gloves to cover his extremities, Frostbite had little doubt that the human would soon be wrestling with (gentle) age-mates, practicing his English with his sister’s pilfered human texts, and learning how to control his snow.

Phantom was very small. He was very delicate, and there was an instinct in Frostbite that continued to worry that handling him wrong might snap the human in half. A yeti at Phantom’s height would still be a very young cub, and yet twice as sturdy and twice as broad.

Still, he was a bright, kind being, and… Frostbite sighed. And he had no understanding of why the human’s parents had rejected him for his current state.

And, certainly, his human sister had tried to explain it to him, bundled in three coats and her red nose weeping in the cold as she begged for his sanctuary. The prospect was merely mind-boggling to him. Young were rare and precious. Their natures were never guaranteed. What was the use of rejecting a cub you had spent a decade raising?

…Frostbite exhaled carefully out his nose. It was not his job to understand their attitude. It was only his role to act in their place until the half-human came of age.

“You don’t have to,” Phantom muttered, face a curious shade of red. Having red internal fluids made for interesting displays of emotion. “I…I can work it off, or…”

Frostbite continued petting the human. The human did not continue speaking.

“Or,” Frostbite continued kindly, “You may join Pritla, Nieve and I, and assist us in devouring a nice, cold, glacier shark. We buried it last season, so it is no longer toxic to digest outright.”

Phantom snorted out a laugh. Yes, there would be human-appropriate food available for him, but Frostbite was not joking about the shark. Now that the toxins had drained into the soil for months, he was happy to take his turn ripping huge chunks of flesh with his teeth for an evening meal. And, who knows; perhaps the enrichment value of consuming a fermented shark with one's bare hand would pique Phantom’s interest in other traditional foods?

“Will there be silverware?” Phantom asked, teasing. He accepted Frostbite’s proffered hug, engaging in sensory-seeking activity in the same way he had with his new coat. Frostbite was ecstatic.

“Of course not,” Frostbite rumbled, more than pleased. “Use of weaponry during mealtimes is explicitly cheating. Now, are you comfortable defending your plate from younger cubs, or should I shield you with my body?”

Frostbite might not have felt prepared to care for Phantom, but raising a half-human would undoubtedly be a fascinating experience.

Besides; unlike mortal parents, the burden of keeping Phantom alive was already largely moot.

#y'all have no idea how much I wanna eat the fermented shark (real thing you can eat) #danny phantom #YES the timeline is weird but I didn't want to have him call Danny a title the whole time #this is a WHOLESOME FOSTER PARENT MOMENT OKAY #every yeti: ah. I am an uncle/auntie/elder now. acceptable #Phic phight 2024 #phic phight #frostbite #Danny Fenton #faer fic #all the yetis are named after different words for snow because I am SO creative

[deus-lapidis]

Thinking about Zhongli dating a mortal that doesn’t know that he’s rex lapis. They just think he’s kinda peculiar and go with it, cause they themselves are kind of peculiar as well.

And then after a bit of dating, when his courteous and modest affections grow into more intimate advances, Zhongli decides that he’d like to show them his bare arms for the first time.

“My dearest.”

“Yes?”

“I must share something of utmost importance.”

He pulls them closer with his covered hands, not breaking eye contact.

“I’d like you to see why I hide away my hands with gloves, my love.”

He pulls them off, revealing golden hands that gently blend into the rest of his dark arms. It looked like a more fabulous form of frostbite, if frostbite didn’t start from the fingertips and was gold.

Much to his surprise, his lover’s face contorted into an expression of pure horror…and then…worry?

His partner threw themselves into his arms in concern.

“Zhongli! Are you alright? How could you have hidden this from me for so long? Why would you hide that you are ill? I’ve never seen that before!”

He was a bit overwhelmed with their sudden change of emotion. Until his brain caught up with the questions.

‘did they say ill?’

He grinned to himself as he looked at his worried love’s eyes, touched by how their first instinct was to be concerned about his well-being.

How exceptionally cute.

“What’s there to smirk about?”

He just chuckled, stroking their hair soothingly and kissing their forehead, before ultimately explaining everything about his life as rex lapis.

They were left gaping like a fish, while he was very much enjoying their enraged expressions and reactions of disbelief, denial and acceptance.

#zhongli fluff #illunis’ scribbles #zhongli x reader #genshin impact

[andypantsx3]

ON ICE : TODOROKI SHOUTO x READER

summary: your pro hero boyfriend ices you to the counter and has his way with you. content warnings: shameless unedited smut, fem/afab reader, aged-up characters, established relationship, misuse of shouto’s quirk (aka ice restraints), nipple play, vaginal fingering, vaginal sex word count: 2.6k

It happened right in the middle of lunch prep.

You’d just taken the vegetables out of the oven and you’d been peering thoughtfully into the sauce, wondering what else it needed, when there was a crackling, crystalline sound, almost like glass shattering. There was the freezing touch of ice at your ankles, curling up around your foot, locking you to the floor.

You yelped, catching yourself on the counter, and whipped around to stare at your pro hero boyfriend as he lounged in the doorway.

“Shouto, that’s fucking freezing!” you yipped, clutching the countertop for balance as you tried to yank your house slippers out from the block that had encased them. The thickness of your socks and the material of the slipper protected you from the worst of Shouto’s quirk, something you thought he’d probably banked on, but you could still feel the icy chill beyond them.

“What the hell?” you demanded.

Shouto, for his part, looked extremely unconcerned with what he’d just done. Today was his off-duty day, and he’d clearly just awoken from the nap he’d been taking, face down in the bed when you’d left him. The right side of his hair was mussed, fluffed up and out of its usual silky perfection, and he still looked sleep-soft in a dark tee shirt and sweatpants. A tiny, mischievous smile turned up the corner of his perfect mouth.

“Caught you, love,” he said in his low, gentle tone. Which was extremely sexy but also explained absolutely nothing.

You peered at him suspiciously over your shoulder. “I’m making lunch—there’s nothing to catch.”

You watched your boyfriend’s mismatched eyes slide over you in a cool assessment, icy grey and fiery blue, flickering down the lines of your body. Instead of answering, he pushed off the doorway, padding slowly over to you. You lost sight of him as he moved closer, unable to twist your head at that angle, so you were surprised by the sight of a long fingered hand reaching out by your hip, tugging the pair of oven mitts hanging off the side of the stove.

“Uh, what are you doing?” you wondered as his hand retracted, only to shiver as he stepped up behind you, his chest warm against your back.

“Hold out your arms, love,” Shouto said, catching you under your left elbow. You watched, mystified, as he pulled your hand back, gently guiding an oven mitt down over your arm. “I don’t want you to get frostbite.”

“Frostbite?” you echoed as he pulled on the second one. Shouto carefully guided your hands back to the counter, encouraging you to take hold. You had your answer, then, as a lick of ice formed under his hands, pressing yours down to the counter. It crackled up and over the fabric of the oven mitts and clamping down tightly until you were encased in ice up to your forearm, a solid, unmovable mass, locking you against the counter.

You could feel a vague sense of the cold through the mitts, but it was abstract, distant—cool more than cold.

You stared, blinking down at the ice block in bemusement. “Sho—what the hell?”

Shouto’s chest pressed more firmly against your back, and his hands skimmed up the skin of your arms to your shoulders, holding you as his mouth pressed to the side of your neck. You shivered in his grip, feeling lost and confused and also weirdly, strangely turned on.

“You asked, love,” Shouto said into your shoulder, those long fingers playing with the straps of your dress, pulling one aside so his mouth could reach the skin under it. Your brain went a little bit fuzzy with the feeling of his soft lips on your skin.

“I think I would remember asking you to turn me into a giant ice cube,” you told him, wracking your brain for what he possibly could have interpreted as a request for this.

“When we watched that movie last week,” Shouto said, his hands sliding down your back to grasp your waist. His front pressed all along your back, and you thought you could feel the slight stirring of his interest, pressed just above your ass.

You tore your focus away from the feeling of him, a long, hot line along your back, trying to dredge up the memory of whatever movie he was referencing. “The—the super old All Might one? With the frost villain?” you asked incredulously, suddenly recalling.

There had been a classic damsel in distress, frosted to the side of a building set to implode—and All Might, aka an actor in a horrendously blimped-up bodysuit and yellow wig, had come charging in to free her. She’d been all dark eyes and heaving bosom as she’d called out to him, and when he’d pressed an enthusiastic kiss to her waiting mouth, you’d unthinkingly given voice to your doubts.

“Shouto, I said that there was no way that situation was as sexy as they tried to make it look!” you said, your mouth dropping open. “There can’t be anything hot about being ice cubed!”

Shouto hummed into your skin, a low vibration you felt all the way down your spine. “We’ll see about that, love,” he said, pressing a slow, languorous line of kisses up the column of your throat.

You tried your ice restraints again, aching to reach up and pinch him, but there was absolutely no give. “And you took that personally?” you asked.

“I did,” Shouto replied, his hands bunching up the waistline of your dress. You realized he was slowly gathering up the folds of your skirt, his fingers skimming the skin of your thighs as they were bared.

“Okay well my bosom won’t be heaving,” you promised him. Shouto’s mouth quirked against the back of your neck and he hummed again, low and full of promise.

“We’ll see,” he said again, as his hands slipped beneath your dress, sliding up your stomach to cup the aforementioned bosom. You couldn’t help but laugh, and you could feel Shouto smiling into your shoulder too, even as he grew harder against your back, pressing himself into you with intent.

“I’ve got plans for the state of your bosom,” he told you, making you laugh again. Long fingers fiddled with the cup of your bra, occasionally teasing the skin underneath, until he pulled it away from your chest, rolling it up and over your breasts.

His hands replaced the cups, warm and gentle, and you shivered again as he bit a careful kiss into the lobe of your left ear, just as his thumbs came up to brush slowly over your nipples.

“Feels good, love?” he murmured, doing it again, his thumbs flickering back and forth again in slow little circles. You could feel your nipples growing stiffer in his palms, incontrovertible evidence that it did feel good.

“Y–yes,” you said, letting out a slow breath. You felt your thighs squeeze together in the open kitchen air, your legs and your entire front bared with the way Shouto had your dress rucked up over his forearms.

Coupled with the immovable pressure at your arms, the vulnerability was unusual, and a little bit nerve-wracking. But there was no better pair of hands you trusted yourself in than Shouto’s.

Shouto kissed up the back of your neck, slowly, as his fingers worked your nipples, gently pinching and plucking, exactly how he knew you liked. Despite your earlier promise, you felt yourself growing wet, your breath coming heavy, your chest almost heaving. You realized your hips were moving, grinding in little circles against Shouto’s front.

“O–oh,” you said, when Shouto rolled your nipple just so between those elegant fingers, in a way that made the edges of your vision go a little bit blurry. "Ah—yes—"

“Mmm,” Shouto intoned against your ear. One of his hands released your breast, sliding back down over your stomach, dipping with intent into your panties. “That’s it, love,” he said, over the bitten off moan you choked out, as his fingers found their way between your folds.

His middle finger sank into you easily, his thumb brushing gently over your clit.

You grasped the counter tighter between your fingers, barely able to adjust in the minute space his ice had given you.

“It’s not so bad, is it, pet?” Shouto murmured, both his thumbs stroking over your sensitive areas in unison. His index finger joined the first, pressing up into you with purpose. "Could it be good?"

Something about the guiding question in that low, indulgent tone made you shudder, pressing harder back into him, clenching around his fingers. You felt him adjust himself against your back, his cock pressing against your ass through the fabric of his sweats, dragging up the cleft in a rocking motion.

He let out an appreciative huff, kissing below your ear, adding another finger. The heel of palm pressed firmly to your clit as his other hand plucked at your nipple again.

You turned your head, seeking his mouth. You could feel the tiny smile on his mouth as he met you halfway, licking across the seam of your lips. You moaned into his mouth as his heel pressed harder against you, pinning you back against him. You were slowly rocked between his hand and his hips, your vision sparking and fizzing, then dimming completely as your eyes fluttered closed, lost in the feeling of his hands on you.

“I’m going to take you, love,” Shouto said between kisses, licking slowly and unexpectedly filthily into your mouth, continuing that insistent rocking of his palm, the press and curl of his fingers within you. “Do you want that? Right over this counter, pet? Trapped in the ice?”

You nodded quickly, squirming in his hands. Fuck, you didn’t even care that this meant he’d been right about how sexy the ice thing could be. His fingers were so clever, so good inside you, but you wanted him more—wanted to be bent right over the edge of the counter and filled with him, wanted him weighing you down to the countertops, all those kilos of pro hero muscle curled possessively over you.

“Shouto, please,” you managed, and Shouto’s hands left you instantly. You felt him pull down the waistband of his sweats, and those fingers were teasing your panties aside, and then he was guiding himself into you, long and thick and full and utterly delicious.

You were so wet already he slid into you easily, and you realized he’d melted the ice at your feet as he walked you forward to press you right over the counter, fisting a hand in the back of your dress.

“Fuck, love,” he said, his voice tight. Hearing the inflection in his normally impassive tone heated your blood until it was simmering. “Ah, you feel so good. So sweet for me.”

He felt so good, especially when he slid back out and into you again, his hips slapping the flesh of your ass. He bucked into you slowly, groaning his approval, one strong arm curling around your waist, pulling you back into him.

“Oh my god, okay—Shouto, please—please—” you said again, uncaring that your voice had risen into a high, shaky whine.

His hips slapped into you again as his fingers found your clit once more, his palm pressing down against you. The slide of him within you and the tease of his fingers without had you moaning into your dress, bunched up over the top of the ice. You could feel the sharp bite of the ice block against the underside of one of your breasts where your dress didn’t quite cover it, shockingly cold against your overheated skin.

Shouto worked you up with the maddening skill and precision of long familiarity. He knew just how you liked it, murmuring praise into your hair, his hands roaming over every inch of you, plucking, pulling, teasing. He fucked into you with long, hard strokes, all that pro hero athleticism turned on you, maintaining a pace that had you slumping bonelessly into the counter, heat licking through all your veins.

You wanted to clutch at him, but you could only flex your fingers uselessly within your stupid oven mitts as that pressure in your lower belly started swirling out of control. When his hand lowered to your cunt again you found yourself unable to get away, every slap of his hips driving your clit more firmly into his fingers.

His other hand found your right breast and carefully teased your nipple again, rolling it between fingers that were suddenly slightly too hot, then slightly too cold.

You realized you were babbling something, but you couldn’t hear yourself over Shouto’s warm murmurs against your temple. “That’s it. That’s it, love. So perfect for me. So lovely, so tight—so good. Come for me, pet—come on. Can’t you do it?”

You were delirious with the sound of his voice, the feeling of his fingers, the slide of him inside of you. With only a few more slaps of his hips, you found yourself twisting desperately in his grip, every muscle in your body drawing taut, like a string about to snap—everything inside you hot and tense and tight—

And then you were thrown out over the edge, crying out Shouto’s name, twisting and squirming and writhing out your pleasure between his hand and his cock. Shouto fucked you through it, his low, soft moans in your ear, the rapid huff of his breath stirring your hair.

Even as you relaxed against him, feeling pliant and shivery like gelatin, he kept going, seeking his own release. You pressed your cheek against the cool ice through your dress, Shouto still fiery-hot against your back, sweat sticking you together. Shouto’s hands both clutched your waist, and it was the tightening of his grip that signaled his orgasm, as his thrusts grew more hurried, more irregular.

He groaned out your name into your shoulder as he came, his voice thick and low and warm and pleased.

His weight trapped you against the counter, even more firmly than his ice, and a feeling of deep contentment and satisfaction pooled in your veins.

So...he had been right, you could admit. The ice thing could be sexy, or whatever. Given the right pro hero in the mix.

“I thought so,” Shouto said when you admitted this aloud to him, sounding a little too pleased with himself. “I suspected you would be interested.”

You turned your head to look at him, catching sight of one blue eye, his scarlet bangs falling across his brow. “I am pretty certain I said I thought it wouldn’t be sexy though,” you said, squinting at him suspiciously.

In the corner of your eye, you saw his mouth quirk. “Ah but that means you thought about it,” he said, with the terrible perceptiveness of a partner you’d had for years.

Your whole body went suddenly hot with embarrassment.

“Okay but I say a lot of stuff during movie scenes,” you said defensively, as Shouto’s hands came up to smooth over your waist again, clutching you almost possessively. You were occasionally kind of a talker during movies, you could admit it. It wasn’t like this scene in particular had been special.

“Which means we have several other scenes to explore, love,” Shouto said, shifting over you with intent, still buried within you. “I seem to recall two others from this last week.”

You suddenly realized he was making no move to free you from the ice, even as his hands slid over you again. And you recalled with a startling clarity just which scenes you had remarked on this last week—

You could feel your boyfriend’s smirk against your skin, and you shivered with delight, as he slid down your body and began his work anew.

#todoroki x reader #todoroki shouto x reader #todoroki shoto x reader #todoroki smut #bnha x reader #shoto x reader #character: todoroki shouto #nsft #andie's writing

[disillusioneddanny]

Remember Me (Avenge Me)

Danny Fenton had no idea what it was, but there was something in the Infinite Realms that felt off. He had felt it for a few days now but he hadn’t been able to pinpoint what exactly that feeling was except that something was in the Realms, something that didn’t belong here. He just needed to find what it was and send it back to where it belonged. But before he could do that, he had to pinpoint the feeling. 

The way Danny was connected to the Infinite Realms was weird, he didn’t know how to explain it. Despite the fact that he had turned down the crown and title of King, the connection grew stronger. Clockwork had informed him that the connection was because he was the balance. Despite his desire to live a normal life and not become royalty in the Realms; the Infinite Realms claimed him regardless. Clockwork had told him that it was because he was the balance, that the Realms had claimed him as such. He was the only true halfa in existence, Vlad was starting to turn more ghostly every day, and his body was slowly dying, Ellie was created she hadn’t been born alive and then half died so it wasn’t the same. 

But Danny? He had died halfway, he had become half living and half dead and had become basically a Schrodinger’s cat because of it. And since he had this perfect balance to him, he was the one to rule the balance, to keep up with if things in either the land of the living or the land of the dead were out of balance. This resulted in his getting his ass thrown onto the newly created Council of Ancients that ran the Infinite Realms as a fucking junior member because apparently, his connection to the Infinite Realms meant that he was on his way to becoming an ancient. And now he had been stuck with a position of power despite his refusal.

So, because of this, he was immediately alerted by the Infinite Realms themselves that something was wrong. Someone was here that wasn’t meant to be and he had to get them out of here before it threw everything out of wack. 

The problem was that the Infinite Realms didn’t tell him where this thing was, all it told him was that something that didn’t belong was there and he needed to find a way to get it out. Which was how he was brought to his current location. He stood in the castle of the Infinite Realms searching through the archives for that Ancient’s damned infini-map because he swore he left it here but where?

“What are you doing?” An annoying, irritating voice asked angrily and Danny turned to find Ghost Writer glaring at him, his arms crossed over his chest. “You are destroying my library.”

“I’m looking for something,” Danny said with a huff before he turned back to the pile of books he was tearing apart to find that stupid fucking map. 

“What are you looking for!? I have a system Daniel, a system and you are destroying my library!”

“I’m looking for the stupid map! There’s something in the Infinite Realms that shouldn’t be here but I can’t fucking find it without the map. Where did you put it?” Danny exclaimed, turning on a heel to glare at his enemy. 

Ghost Writer scoffed, pressing a hand to his chest in offense. “I didn’t do anything to it except put it in its rightful spot,” he said before summoning the map and holding it out for Danny. “You will be cleaning this up once you finish your blasted mission or else I will be having another conversation with FrostbiteFrosbite regarding your behavior.”

Danny rolled his eyes and snatched the stupid map from him and stormed out of the library, muttering about hateful librarians. Frostbite was the one in charge of Danny until he had actually become an Ancient, had said that he would be responsible for any of the child’s actions until he was old enough to conduct himself. Despite the fact that Danny was twenty-two in living years, he was considered a baby ghost until his hundredth year of existence, he would be considered an ancient upon his five hundredth year of existence. Until then, he was just a baby who couldn’t control himself, according to the other ghosts. It was why he got along so well with Ember, Johnny, Kitty, and Youngblood, they were all still considered baby ghosts as well. 

The halfa grumbled to himself as he looked over the map of the Infinite Realms and tried to relax as Clockwork had instructed him, letting his shoulders drop down, letting the tension leave his body. He let out a soft hum as he focused on the pull he felt in his core, the very thing telling him that there was something wrong in the InfiniteInfinte Realms that he needed to fix. Slowly the information on the map started to change and morph and then it appeared. 

He let out a groan as the dot appeared in the ghostly version of Gotham, his least favorite part of the Infinite Realms. With an annoyed huff, Danny rolled up the map and stuck it in his chest, and took off out of the castle and through the realms to the worst part of the Infinite Realms. 

It wasn’t the ruler of the area that was bad, actually, he adored Lady Gotham, she was a member of the council and the sweetest ghost he had ever met. It was the souls who drove him up the wall. Each one demanded that he solve their murder, demanded that he help them get revenge on this villain or that one and basically drive him insane. 

Martha and Thomas Wayne in particular drove him up the wall. The two had approached Danny numerous times begging for him to protect their son, to try and get him to stop whatever it was that he was doing and each time Danny said no. If it didn’t go against the balance of the realms, he didn’t step in. The fact that their son decided to not get help after their murders and become a vigilante in a furry costume to fight crime was not a reason for Danny to intervene. Now if he had summoned his parents and tied their ghosts to him, then Danny would step in. 

His job was to make sure that the ghosts passed over and that they stayed in the Infinite Realms rather than cause mayhem in the living realms. Just as he made sure that humans didn’t stay within the Infinite Realms if they ever appeared here. The only one he ever had to deal with was usually John Constantine but at this point, it seemed like he finally got the message. 

Danny flew through the Infinite Realms and his feet slowly landed on the ground of Gotham City. He looked around and wrinkled his nose as the tug to his core grew stronger. Yup, whatever was wrong was here. He pulled the map out of his chest and looked at it once more. 

“Oh good, you’re here,” a woman said, her voice laced with a strong Jersey Accent. 

Danny glanced up and smiled at Lady Gotham who stood before him, her form that of a nineteen-twenties Black woman. She dressed as most women who had been a part of the Harlem Renaissance, or well in the Lady’s case, Gotham RenaissanceReneissance as a lot of the same things that had occurred in Harlem had trickled into Gotham at the time. Her hair sat coifed up in a beautiful afro upon her head, large hoop earrings hug from her lobes and a beautiful flapper-style dress and simple black heels covered her. She was gorgeous beyond words and Danny felt his core flutter at the ghost before him. 

“Hi Lady Gotham,” he said with a small smile on his face. 

“Hi Danny,” she said before grabbing his wrist and pulling him through the streets of what looked like Upper Gotham. “I’m glad you’re here, I need you to figure out what we should do, he’s not a ghost but he isn’t alive either. I know him but he doesn’t know who he is, he also doesn't know that he’s dead and it’s not right? As in he’s not dead correctly?”

Danny frowned and followed the ancient down the street quickly. “What do you mean he isn’t dead?”

“He’s like you, but not?” Lady Gotham said, screwing her nose up as she frowned. 

At that, the halfa let out a soft hum, maybe that was why the Infinite Realms had been bothering him so much to fix this. The two hurried down the streets of Gotham until they approached Wayne Manor and Danny let out a whine. 

“Please don’t tell me that Martha and Thomas are here?” He complained. 

Lady Gotham just gave him an amused smile and opened the doors to the manor and led him inside. “Alright, Lord Phantom has arrived, we shall let him look at the boy and decide what we should do now.”

Danny sighed and looked over the room to find both Waynes in the sitting room as well as a young boy around the age of fourteen sitting slumped down on the couch, his arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing a ripped-up and destroyed Robin suit, his lips curled up in a scowl. 

He looked at the boy and then at the Waynes. “I still don’t understand what I’m doing here,” he said, feeling even more confused. Then his core tugged at the boy roughly and he nearly stumbled at the weight. 

He looked at the boy again. “You’re not dead. But you are dead,” he murmured, stepping towards the kid and walking around him slowly as he took him in. He was definitely in a ghost form, the snow-white hair, red eyes, and greenish skin were the giveaway. But there was a strand of black hair at the front of his head, not only that but there was something obviously different about him, something not quite dead. 

“Yeah, that’s what they said too,” he grumbled. “Look do you know who the fuck I am? Because these assholes know but they won’t tell me shit.”

Danny frowned, his brow furrowed in concern as he looked the kid over once again and took a seat on the couch with him. “What do you know? Do you remember anything?” he asked, taking the kid’s hand in his and pressing his fingers to the pulse point on his wrist and feeling the dull beats of a heart. It was far too slow, even slower than Danny’s in his human form which only beat five times per minute. This kid’s heart was still beating once per minute. 

Robin shrugged his shoulders. “Not much. I woke up wearing these ripped-up clothes and had a major headache, I’m kinda hungry and something feels wrong. I don’t think I’m supposed to be here but I don’t know where I’m supposed to be either.”

Danny hummed and looked him over. “You want answers?” He asked. 

“Phantom, you don’t know if it would be more harm than good,” Thomas warned, stepping forward. Danny held a hand up, ignoring the man as he looked down at Jason Todd, a boy who was completely and totally out of balance, who had died before his time and not only that, he didn’t die right.

“You were very scared when you died, but not only that, you were very angry,” Danny said softly, looking Jason in the eyes, ignoring the complaints from the Waynes as Lady Gotham ushered them out of the room. “You went to find your mother, desperate to have her love. But what you got was betrayal, betrayal, and a crazy ass clown who murdered you in cold blood and your dad didn’t make it in time.”

Jason let out a snarl. “He didn’t come, he was supposed to be there, he was supposed to save me.”

“And he didn’t, and you were murdered. You’re angry, aren’t you?” Danny asked, tilting his head to the side as he summoned a small portal that showed a version of Jason Todd clawing himself out of his grave and stumbling out mindlessly, like a zombie almost. Danny looked back at Jason. 

“Your name is Jason Todd, you are best known as Robin, Batman’s sidekick, his right-hand man. You were murdered by the Joker and you want revenge, you want to avenge your death,” he said, staring dead into those red eyes of an angry revenant who let out a snarl. 

“I want more than revenge, I want the Joker destroyed and I want my dad to be the one to do it. He should have been there,” Jason snarled out, his eyes glowing bright, ectoplasmic green as the anger grew more and more. “And I’ll get him to do it one way or another.”

“Phantom,” Lady Gotham said softly, worry lacing her voice as she watched the scene in front of her in concern. 

“A revenant, Lady Gotham, Jason Todd died and became a revenant. He’s so angry with his own murder that he is forcing himself to come back to life to get revenge, even if he didn’t realize it himself. His human form has already dug itself out of the grave, now Jason needs to find a conduit to send him from our world to the human world once again.”

“And how are you going to do that?” The ghost asked, looking down at Jason who was now stewing in his own anger. 

Danny quirked up his lips in a small smile and looked over at the small portal showing him what was happening in the world of the living. “Nothing, look,” he said as Talia al Ghul approached Jason’s zombie-like body and pulled him into a nondescript car. “The League of Assassins have found him. He will likely be dipped into the Lazarus pits and reconnected with his body.”

“So we just leave him like this until they do that?” Lady Gotham asked incredulously. 

Danny looked back at Jason and shook his head. “No, we’ll make sure they pull him through. But we won’t be able to stop the rage he is going to feel, he’s angry and he wants revenge. And that anger isn’t going to go away until he finds that revenge.”

“Revenants die after they get their revenge, Phantom. He’s going to live a half-life up there, one full of anger and heartbreak and then he’s going to die again,” she said sadly, looking at one of her wards. 

At that, the Lord of Balance let out a hum and took Jason’s hand in his. “No, he won’t. Jason Todd is going to live a very long life,” he declared as he collected a handful of ectoplasm and slowly pressed it into the revenant’s chest. “The ecto will keep him alive well into his eighties unless he somehow dies on the job or something else. Jason Todd, upon getting revenge for your death, you have my blessing as Phantom, Lord of Balance to continue living until your time has truly come. Do not waste this second shot at life,” he advised softly. 

Jason tore his eyes away from the hole he had been burning into the ground and looked at Danny. “I can go back?” He whispered softly. 

Danny just nodded and gave him a small smile. “Go back, get your revenge, and then live a very long and happy life. I don’t want to see you again for a very long time, do you understand?”

He swallowed and nodded his head. “Yes, yeah I can do that.”

The halfa gave him a small, secretive smile. “The rage you are going to feel is not a bad thing, it’s what’s going to keep you going, what’s going to keep you alive. Learn how to use it for more than just anger, okay? Learn to live with the rage and learn to live again.”

“How do I use it for more than just anger?” Jason whispered. “I’m so angry I want to kill I want to destroy everything.”

“You’ll remind yourself that not everyone gets a second chance, you’ll remind yourself that you are very lucky to be able to live again, many ghosts would kill for that chance. So you won’t waste it, right? You won’t waste my gift in allowing you to live after you’ve gotten your revenge.”

Jason shook his head and shot forward, hugging Danny tight. “Thank you.”

Danny just smiled and hugged him back as a portal opened behind Jason. He pulled away from the revenant and shoved him through the portal roughly.

“Are you sure this is a wise decision?” Lady Gotham asked softly watching through Danny’s portal as Jason came through the Lazarus Pits with a gasp. 

Danny nodded his head. “Yup. He’s not meant for our world, not yet. But he’s going to be a very strong ghost one day. But until then, he deserves life.”

“What are you going to do about the Observants?”

Danny smiled and picked up a small green post-it note from where Jason had just been sitting. “I think we will find that they won’t put up that much of a fight,” he said, showing the note to Lady Gotham. 

Send Jason Todd Back. - CW

@dpxdcdisneyau

#dpxdc #DPxDCDisneyAU2023

[sludgewolf]

It's so Fucking Cold - Various x Reader

Part 2

Characters": Raiden Shogun, Kaveh, Kuki Shinobu, Wriothesley

Disclaimer: do not copy, repost, take or feed to AI or NFTs anything I post

Masterlist

Raiden Shogun

She's cold, cold as ice

that is, until she uses electro to warm herself up

then she turns into a human furnace

Despite how bony her hands are they fit perfectly with yours, thawing your frozen digits and getting rid of the painful bit of the wind on you rskin

On colder days she will constantly use her element to keep herself warm, making your skin feel tingly against her

Kaveh

Babygirl IS the one complainign about the cold and seeks you in order to steal your warmth

Growing up in Sumeru definitely didn't prepare him for the cold

He covers himself from head to toe and brings a blanket to throw over you too so he can cuddle to your side

He doesn't care if you're not cold, you will cuddle with him under the fucking blanket, there's no discussion on the matter

Kuki Shinobu

Also not the warmest of people

but what she lacks in the body heat department she makes up with knowing of ways to keep both of you warm during Inazuma's harst winters

Closes you in her room at the gang's hideout, in there Shinobu has already set out warm clothes, blankets, candles and strangely an empty clay planter set on top of two bricks

she lets you get settled while she brings you warm beverages

Once she's back you ask about the planter, Shinobu explains that she read of some cultures that live in extremely cold regions using it as a space heater

as she talks she lights one candle and puts right inder the planter and a few minutes later it starts heating up the room

you fall asleep next to the ninja as she quietly reads one of her books

Wriothesley

FINALLY someone warm

bitch is built like a brick wall, no shit he's warm

that and due to his cryo vision he tends to dress to keep himself warm to avoid frostbite so he always has a jacket to lend you

if his jacket isn't enough he's more than happy to have you on his lap while he works

Wolf Boy knows the fort is even colder than Fountaine City, especially when the natural humidity of the region mixes with the cold of the winter

so he always makes sure to keep warm tea in his ofice for you to share

#genshin impact #raiden shogun x reader #kaveh x reader #kuki shinobu x reader #wriothesley x reader

[five-rivers]

Baroque

AO3

@echoghost1 @sorari

Sorry about the length.

“Ah,” said Frostbite, shielding his eyes as he looked up into the sky.  “I hadn’t realized we were so close to the turning of the age.”

Danny followed his gaze up, then froze.  The normally pure green Ghost Zone sky had a crack in it.  A long, jagged stripe of deep red, brighter at the edges than the middle, stretching from horizon to horizon.  It hadn’t been there when he’d arrived in the Far Frozen.  

“What is that?” he squeaked.

“It’s, ah.  I’m not entirely sure English has a proper word for it.  It’s a…  A change in the general ectoplasmic energy.  Perhaps the best comparison is flavor or spin in quantum particles, although you don’t have a background in that…  It’s…  It's caused by a shift in the character of the Realms.  A paradigm shift, if you will.  It will grow over time, until it’s the dominant ectoplasmic color and mood.  Although,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “it may not stay this color.  I am rather hoping for blue this time, or perhaps yellow, but I must confess to frequent disappointment on that count.”

Danny looked back and forth between Frostbite and the red crack.  Frostbite’s easy acceptance of the phenomenon put him more at ease, but, still, it was disturbing.  “So… it just means that the Ghost Zone won’t be green anymore?  It’ll be red?  Will my ectoplasm turn red?”

“It usually doesn’t affect the ectoplasm color of individuals,” said Frostbite.  His nose scrunched up.  “But it would be incorrect to say that changing the color of the Realms is all it does.  He patted Danny on the shoulder.  “Why don’t we wrap up our sparring session, now, and I can tell you about it over a cup of chocolate?”

“Frozen chocolate?” asked Danny, knowing that was the default in the Far Frozen.  

“Slushy,” said Frostbite.  “Just the way you like it.”

Danny gave the news a little fist pump… but his eyes trailed back up to the crack.  It didn’t look like it was getting wider yet.

Getting the chocolate was a matter of minutes, and soon enough they were seated inside, next to a heatless fire.  

“So,” said Danny, stirring his chocolate with a ghost ice spoon, “that crack in the sky…”

“Yes,” said Frostbite.  “It is disconcerting the first few times.  But how to explain…”  He drummed icy claws against the sides of his oversized mug.  “Ah.  Yes.  You are aware that the human world has many different conceptions of the afterlife?”

“Yeah,” said Danny.  “But I thought that they were just looking at different Realms.”

“To some degree,” agreed Frostbite.  “But they were often also looking at the Realms at different times.  For example, at different points in the past, there has been little distinction between, say, fairies and ghosts, or angels and ghosts, or, even, deities and ghosts.  The turning of the age is an aesthetic shift, one that affects almost all ghosts to some degree or another.  Red ectoplasm, for example–” Frostbite sighed, heavily, “--is typically the indicator of a more ‘monstrous,’ or ‘demonic’ appearance and general aesthetic.”

Danny continued to stir his chocolate.  “Are you saying that the Ghost Zone has, what, artistic movements?”

“Something like that, yes,” said Frostbite.  

“Then what aesthetic are we in right now?”

Frostbite tapped his chin.  “Green is… not entirely neutral, but tends not to be terribly forceful and allows ghosts like you to remain almost as you were in life.”

“And… the other colors?”

“Generally,” stressed Frostbite, “blue is suggestive of a more heavenly or divine mien.  Yellow, orange, and earth tones are, as their name indicates, more Earthly.  Purple tends to evoke fairies and their like.  But those are generalities.”

“And red is for hell?”

“Yes.” 

“And ghosts are changed by this?  Not just the way things work?”

“Oh, yes,” said Frostbite.  “After all, your form interacts with your environment.  There’s feedback.  I believe your human form should be unaffected, however, much as it is unaffected by the changes to your form that you initiate, such as… duplication.”

Danny made a face.  He didn’t like that pause.  So he was still trying to get the hang of duplication.  So what?

“And… how would my ghost form change?”

“I do not know,” said Frostbite.  “The changes are not easily predictable, and sometimes they stick.”  He gestured at himself.  “If it makes you feel better, we can monitor you?”

“No, that’s fine,” said Danny.  He put his mostly untouched chocolate to one side.  “I should go home.  Lots of things to freak out about.”

.

“You’re going to turn into a demon?”

“That’s not what I said!” protested Danny, looking up from his stack of syllabi to glare at them.  They were too busy playing foosball to notice.  “I might wind up looking like a demon.  There’s a difference.”

“Still pretty cool,” said Sam.  

“Uh, no it isn’t.  I have enough trouble getting people to like me without showing up looking like a demon.  I can’t believe this.”

“I wonder if this will change any of your parents’ theories?”

“They’ll probably decide that every culture’s traditional depiction of demons was one hundred percent accurate and that it’s proof that ghosts are evil.”  He shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I’m not my parents.”

“Something we thank the universe for every day.”  Sam bumped his shoulder and continued to dominate Tucker at foosball.  “Think of it like a makeover.  It doesn’t have to be bad.  It could be cool.”

“But I might wind up looking like Vlad,” said Danny.  

“Then steal his look,” said Tucker.  “Make it yours.”

“I don’t think anything works that way.”

“Personal fashion does,” said Tucker.  

“You won’t look like Vlad,” said Sam.  “Vlad looks old.  You don’t.  Easy.  No one will mistake you for him.  Not even if you gained about fifty pounds.”

“No, I mean, like we’re related.”  If that rumor started up again, he might just die for real this time.  

“You could wear a mask?” asked Sam.  

“I don’t think that will help with my popularity problem.”

“I’m just trying to give you ideas.  Who knows, maybe it’ll just give you some cute little horns or fangs.  Animal ears.  A tail.”

“I guess,” said Danny.  He still didn’t like the idea of it.  “As long as it doesn’t give me horns like Vlad’s.”

Sam squinted at him.  “Aren’t those horn things just his hair?”

“Ew, no, who would wear their hair like that?”

“Spectra does.”

“As far as I’m concerned, Spectra’s already a demon.”

Tucker cheered!  “I won!”

.

The crack in the Zone sky grew wider over the next few weeks.  Red flecks and fuzzies hung in the air, making good bait for blob ghosts, or rained down from far above.  Apparently, red ectoplasm was more energetic that green ectoplasm, which made a lot of Vlad’s creepy apprenticeship offers make more sense. Mostly.

Animal ghosts started being larger, with overlong sharp claws and red eyes.  Yes, even the herbivores.  It was unsettling to almost be dismembered by a rabbit or a squirrel.  

Jack and Maddie rebuilt the entire ecto-filtration system after a long thread of red found its way into the filter.  Something about it operating under different energy constraints, and how they should probably modify some of their weapons to work on red ectoplasm.  

Some of Danny’s enemies started to show up… different.  Skulker’s armor gained patterns more associated with traditional armor.  The blob ghosts started turning brown or red.  Johnny’s pupils changed to match Kitty’s cat-like ones.  Technus grew antennae-like horns.  Everything seemed bigger, hairier, and more vicious.  

It didn’t seem to be affecting Danny, but Danny knew he could trust his instincts on this sort of thing about as far as he could throw them.  

"There are always outliers," said Frostbite, who had nearly doubled in size.  He and the other yetis hadn't just grown, though.  Their fangs, claws, tails, fur, and horns had all lengthened.  Their spines had bent.  Their voices had deepened to something so gravelly it was almost inaudible.  "We are almost always somewhat bestial, regardless of the overall mood of the Realms.  Perhaps you will remain largely the same.  Perhaps your human half resists the change.”

“Or?” prompted Danny.  

“Or,” said Frostbite, shrugging his enormous shoulders, “it might come upon you all at once.”

.

By winter, the blob ghosts started to change shape.  They’d already changed color, all of them various shades of red, orange, and brown, but now they began to become defined in ways that Danny found downright disturbing… and also strangely alluring.  He couldn’t stop watching them, whether they had little grasping hands or leathery bat-like wings or even grotesque little faces, like goblins.  

“It’s really weird seeing them like that,” said Tucker, as Danny sucked a flock of them into a thermos.  “It’s like they’re turning into little imps or something.”

“They’re not cute anymore,” agreed Sam.  “But I think it’ll be kind of cool to see what they turn into.  What do you think, Danny?”

“I don’t know.  It’s… People are more afraid of them now.”

Sam and Tucker exchanged a look.  

“You know we’re not going to be afraid of you, right?” asked Sam.  

“I mean, if you turn into a balor or something all of a sudden, we’ll be surprised, but–”

“We won’t be afraid of you.  Also, don’t you think it’ll be cool?  Everything looks so much cooler with spikes and fangs and horns.  I might kill for horns.”

“Well, you’d have to die for them, at le–”

Sam threw her gloves at him.  

.

Vlad’s horns were undeniably horns.  Danny could recognize that they hadn’t been before.  That they really had been hair… and, actually, didn’t that make them antlers or something?  He hadn’t been paying attention in class the last time that had been brought up.  

“Wow,” said Danny, “I guess you got tired of using the old pomade, huh?”

Vlad growled at him, which was just a bit out of character for him so early in the fight.

“Gotta use your words, V-man.”

“You make light of this, boy,” snarled Vlad, slamming him into a wall.  “Do you know how long this will last?  Do you have any idea?”

“I didn’t think you cared about your appearance that–”

Danny was slammed into the wall again.  

“It isn’t about appearance.  Do you know how much more funding fools like the GIW will get to exterminate us now that we look like this?  Now that our behavior has changed, just a hair?  Do you?  It is no laughing matter."

He held Danny down, pinning him with hands that had more in common with talons than anything human.  Then he sighed, some of his usual attitude bleeding back into his bearing.  

"Daniel.  I apologize.  The current state of affairs is simply rather upsetting to me.  You will understand when you start to change."  He leaned closer. "I am asking you again to join me."

"As if–"

"This is not a joke, Daniel," said Vlad, as if it had ever been a joke to Danny.  "No doubt you are ignorant of this, but when the mien of the Ghost Zone takes on a demonic bent, it changes socially as well.  It becomes the battlefield of demon princes leading armies of conquest, and even those places that play at peace become Baroque and Byzantine.  Your hero act is reaching its natural end.  You will not be able to protect this place without an army on your side.  You will not even be able to protect yourself."

Vlad released Danny and lifted off, hovering menacingly in the air.  "Think about it, Daniel."

"Yeah," muttered Danny after Vlad had left.  "Sure.  I'm definitely going to think about your offer to become a child soldier.  What a loser."

Danny's ghost sense went off and he groaned.  

"Not another one!"

.

Danny nursed a black eye and other injuries in Tucker’s bedroom.  

“Do you think I’m acting any differently lately?”

“I don’t know,” said Tucker, opening up the first aid kit.  “I don’t think so.  You might be a little hungrier than usual, but that’s about it.  Could be a growth spurt thing.  Do you want to start with the big stitches or the little ones?”

“What about the black eye?”

“No, man.  That can wait.”

“But it’s the part everyone can see.”

“Dude.  You’re bleeding.”

“Only a little!”

.

Now that Danny knew he was eating more, he couldn’t help noticing.  He was eating an awful lot, and he never felt quite full.  

“Do you think it’s related?” asked Danny, nervously.  He was perched on an icy boulder near Frostbite's head.  It seemed more polite than flying the whole time.  

The Far Frozen itself had also changed with the age.  The snow was streaked with red and ashy gray from the new ectoplasm, and the structures had twisted and grown with their inhabitants.  Even the medical equipment had darkened, become cruder, although the yetis all insisted that was in appearance only, and the function was the same.  

It really accentuated how much he, unchanged, stood out.  

Frostbite rumbled deeply.  He and the other yetis were becoming… not quite quadrupedal, but their body structure was much more gorilla or bear like than it had been.  “It might be,” said Frostbite.  “It might not be.  It’s too soon to tell.”

“What about the scans you did?”

“They do seem to show that you are changing internally.  Some of your organs seem to have split in half.”

Danny felt his whole face scrunch up in consternation.  “In half?” 

Frostbite’s head dipped up and down.  “It does not seem to impact their functions, such as they are.”

“Oh, I guess that’s… good,” said Danny, trying not to show any hysteria.  In half.  

Frostbite shrugged, which was a production, considering how huge he was.  “It is neither good nor bad.  When the turning of the age comes, we must accept it for what it is.”

“Roll with the punches, huh?”

“An apt idiom.”

“And what– How long does an ‘age’ usually last?”

“Hm.  Let’s see… I believe the shortest age I’ve ever experienced lasted only a year.  The longest was…  Oh, it was centuries.”

“This could be centuries, too?”

“Certainly.  It could also end tomorrow.  There’s no point trying to predict it, I’m afraid.”

Danny nodded.  “Okay,” he said, dejectedly.  

Frostbite lifted a great paw and patted Danny’s head with a single digit.  “Don’t worry.  I’m sure it will all work out in the end."  They sat together like that for a while.  "I do not think those were your only questions."

"Yeah, but it's–"

"You don't need to fear being rude, Great One.  As I have said, you are young, and you are new."

"Okay," said Danny.  He rubbed his hands over his thighs.  "Vlad said people would build armies.  That there will be wars."

Frostbite scoffed.  "In an attempt to frighten you into aligning yourself with him.  Never fear that you will lack allies, Great One.  Why, even beyond us, Princess Dora and Queen Pandora are gathering their forces, and I understand that Lord Clockwork is fond of you."

That wasn't untrue, and yet…  "So, there will be war?"

Frostbite hummed deep in his chest, the sound vibrating up through the soles of Danny's feet.  "It… is true that general social structures change somewhat when the Realms are in this mood.  Groups become… more cohesive as the changes sort previously unaligned ghosts into, well, castes."  He paused, possibly aware of the negative connotations of the word in the human world.  "Even the landscape changes.  If this age lasts for long enough, it might evolve so that you could walk from your portal to here.  Even now, we are on a collision course with the Mountains of the Snow Maidens.  These changes cause tensions, and tensions lead into conflict.  On the other hand, personal, individual conflicts tend to lessen.  There is a balance to these things."

"Do you have a caste?" asked Danny. 

"Not as such, no," said Frostbite.  "We of the Far Frozen maintain our own hierarchy across ages.  It is one of the reasons we all change together."

"Oh," said Danny, feeling oddly left out.  "Will I have a caste?"

Frostbite gave him something that might have been a worried look.  It was hard to tell, with how much his face had changed.  

"Great One, the castes I speak of… they are not immutable law.  They have their basis in the changes the Realms impress upon our bodies and base instincts, yes, but those things do not override our choices."

And what if he wanted to choose to fit in? whispered a traitorous voice in his head.  He shook himself.  He couldn't say he didn't want to be accepted by the people around him, but chasing things like that only hurt him and the people he cared about.  And being part of a 'caste' didn't sound especially great, either.  

Still.

He formed a small ball of ice between his fingers and rolled it back and forth.  “Okay,” he said.  Then he looked up.  “You know, um, if there’s anything I can do for you…”  He was always making Frostbite and the other yetis deal with his problems.  “I’d like to help…”

Danny's stomach chose that moment to grumble.   

Frostbite chuckled, the sound like a small earthquake.  Icequake.  Something like that, anyway.  “Speaking of hunger, I believe mealtime is upon us.  Come, eat with us, and consider any debt repaid."

"Okay," said Danny, sliding off the boulder to follow Frostbite.  

The yetis were eating.  They had brought in a huge ice-worm and were stripping meat off it methodically and dumping it into a huge cauldron.  There was a chunk of ice underneath that radiated a cold even Danny could feel.  

Frostbite went to the cauldron and selected from a stack of dishes a bowl that looked comically small in his hand.  He used a ladle to scoop some of the soup into the bowl and handed it to Danny.  

The bowl was bigger than his head.  

"No spoons, I'm afraid," said Frostbite, humor in his voice.  

“That’s okay,” said Danny, raising the bowl to his lips.  The soup was frigid and creamy, rich with the ruddy ecto-blood of the ice-worm.  It was good.  Although Danny was sure it was something that Sam would view with horror.  

In the back of his head, something told him that, in the past, he wouldn’t have eaten something like this so willingly, politeness aside.  That, even, Frostbite would have hesitated before serving it to him, hospitality aside.  But he was so very hungry, and it wasn’t like Frostbite would give him anything dangerous to eat.  

He didn’t know how, but he finished the bowl.  For the first time in a while, he went home to sleep satiated.  

.

It happened suddenly, after all.  

Danny blinked down at hands that were much too large and much too sharp.  Each finger came to a needle-like white point, and his gloves…  They’d always been fairly tight to his skin, but now it felt like they were skin, except for the shiny little scales that covered the backs of his hands and went up his arms.  His whole suit felt like that, and since it was the only thing he was wearing–

Something swished past his ankles, and he twisted his body only to see that he had grown a tufted tail.  He twitched it, incredulously.  

And then a fiery ectoblast shot past his head, reminding him that he was fighting Ember, who had gone full, music-themed succubus over the last couple of months.  

But when he beat her the next thing he did was dive through the school walls into Casper High’s ‘haunted’ bathroom and stare into the mirror.  

His irises were huge, big enough that if he squinted it would be hard to see his sclera.  His pupils were slitted, like a cat’s.  

The collar of his suit had similarly merged with his skin.  There was no longer a sharp distinction between fabric and flesh.  The white color had creeped up to his jawline along with more little scales.  He would have run his fingers over them, but he was a bit wary of his newly sharp fingers.  

He bared his teeth at the mirror.  They were sharp, too, but not overly so.  

He sighed.  This wasn’t too bad.  This, he could deal with.  

.

Except, it turned out to not be that sudden.  That change wasn’t the last one.  His very next transformation into ghost form showed him that.  

“Danny, dude,” said Tucker.  “You didn’t tell me that your skin had turned white.”

“I’ve always been white,” said Danny.  

“Not paper white.”

“What?” said Danny.  His tongue felt oddly clumsy in his mouth.  Was it the fangs?  “Paper white?”

“Yeah,” said Sam.  She took his wrist and dragged him into the basement bathroom.  “Was it not before, or…?”

Danny peered at himself in the mirror for the second time today.  His face was paper white, and those little scales had crept up his cheeks, forming an almost decorative pattern near the edges of his eyes.  His ears had become long and triangular.  His teeth– Yes, they were longer and…  He swept back hair that definitely hadn’t been so long or fluffy before.  He had little horn nubs at his hairline.  

“Oh, no,” he said.  And he definitely wasn’t imagining his tongue being weird.  He stuck it out.  It was easily half an inch longer.  He turned back to human, relieved that his human form wasn’t affected.  As far as he could tell.  “It’s still going.  I thought it was done!”

Tucker patted his back, awkwardly.  “Congrats on the cool tail, at least?  And the scales are sort of cool?”

Danny groaned.  “It feels like I’m not wearing anything,” he complained.  

“Well,” said Sam, “that I can fix.  We’ll just wait a bit to make sure you aren’t going to turn into a giant, too, and then I’ll get you something appropriate.  In the meantime…”  She left, almost skipping up the stairs.

“What’s she doing?” asked Danny, somewhat fearfully.  

“Getting clothes?” hazarded Tucker.  He shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I don’t understand her on a good day.”

“Here!” exclaimed Sam, somewhat out of breath.  She threw a pile of clothes at Danny.  

He shook them out.

“Oh my gosh, is that the anime sleeveless turtleneck?” asked Tucker.  

“I got it for a reason,” said Sam, smugly.  

Tucker started laughing.  

“I hate you guys,” said Danny, transforming again.  He paused.  The white scales were definitely higher on his arms than he had been before.  

“I think your ears got longer,” said Tucker, reaching out to touch one.  Danny flicked it away, instinctively.  Tucker’s eyes sparkled.  “I think I’m jealous.”

Danny made a face at him and pulled the turtleneck on, followed by the black jeans.  

“I think I’ll need to make a hole for the tail,” he said.  

“That’s fine,” said Sam.  “I don’t wear these anymore, anyway.”

“Didn’t fit?”

“Jeans didn’t fit my style.”  Sam shrugged.  “Do you need scissors?”

“No, I think I–” he punctured a hole with one of his claws.  “Yeah.  That works.”

Sam nodded approvingly.  “See?  You’re going to be fine.”

Danny put on a smile - one that didn’t show too many teeth, and nodded back.  

.

“You don’t look bad,” said Jazz when he came home.  “Just… different.”

“I look like a monster,” countered Danny.  “I have scales.”  

“The scales are fine,” said Jazz.  “They’re a little translucent, aren’t they?”

“What does that matter?”

“I don’t know,” said Jazz.  “It’s something… something to mention?  Like I said, you don’t look bad, just less human.  And if people can’t look past your appearance to see the good you do, their opinion isn’t worth anything, anyway.”

“Except that they can still decide to put a bounty on my head, or vote for Vlad, or call the GIW if they decide they don’t like the way I look.”

The twist of Jazz’s face told Danny his point had struck home.  “We’ll think of something,” she said, unconvincingly.  “But you can be sure that, in the meantime, I don’t think you’re a monster, and neither do Sam and Tucker.”

Danny bobbed his head.  

"... That's not the only thing bothering you, is it?  Is there something else going on in the Zone?  With Mom and Dad?"

"I'm worried about Dani," he admitted.  "I know what's happening, but she doesn't have a Frostbite to explain it to her.  She doesn't have anybody."

From the expression on Jazz's face, that hadn't occurred to her, which was reasonable.  She didn't know Dani well.  

"She'll come back here if something is wrong, though, won't she?"

"I hope so," said Danny.  

.

Weekend breakfast was delayed in favor of finding out what else had changed overnight, despite Danny’s almost ravenous hunger.  The white parts of his ‘suit’ were getting bigger, leaving the black as intermittent patterns.  Without Sam’s clothes, he was almost entirely white, except for his eyes, which were as green as ever.  

For the most part, everything was just more this morning.  His hands were bigger and sharper, so were his horns, so were his teeth, so were his ears…  He was half convinced his eyes were bigger, too, but that might have just been the black lining, like natural eyeliner, he’d gotten overnight.  The tuft on his tail was fluffier, and his tail longer.  

But there were new things, too.  His feet seemed… off.  Too long, too big.  Whenever he landed, he felt the need to stand on the balls of his feet, and he got the sinking feeling that he was going to wind up with paws by the end of this.  

More mysteriously, there was a strange divot running from his lower lip, down his chin and throat…   He took off his turtleneck, and saw it when all the way down his front, all the way to just above his groin.  In placement, it almost resembled a zipper, except for the two branches that split off at his breastbone.  Those made it resemble something else.  Something that haunted his nightmares.  The divot continued on the inside of his mouth, passing between his lower front teeth and running over his whole overly-long tongue, down into his throat.  He prodded it with his fingertips, sharp as they were, which felt weird, but didn’t give him any more information.  

Between that and the fangs, Danny wondered how much of a lisp he’d have.  Well, no time like the present to test it out.  

He opened his mouth to speak.  No sound came out.  Not even a squeak.  He tried again, and again.  Everything from whispers to shouts.  

Nothing.  He couldn’t even feel the muscles working, or hurting, like he sometimes could when he’d lost his voice during a cold.  He rubbed his neck with the backs of his knuckles and tried again.  Still nothing.  

He flew up, through the roof.  Whatever had changed this time to make him unable to talk, maybe it didn’t work on his wail.  He had to know.  It was his ace in the hole, his last resort against the nastiest of his enemies.  

Once he was far enough above the city to be safe, he opened his mouth and–

And kept opening his mouth.  As he prepared to wail, the divot in his lip turned into a gap and his lower jaw split sideways, his chest blooming like a four-petaled flower full of teeth.  Some were flat.  Some were sharp.  Some looked like his ribs.  

He closed his mouth.  

He closed his mouth, and patted along its length and width to make sure it stayed that way.  

Then, he flew down and landed on the nearest building.  He felt dizzy.  He felt nauseous.  He was, despite everything, still extremely and inappropriately hungry.  

A blob ghost - no, this one was entirely imp-like, no hint of blob left in it - that had made its nest nearby chittered angrily at him.  Danny hissed at it, not in the mood.  At least that was a sound he could still make.  

The little demon-thing bit him.  

Reflexively, without even thinking about it, Danny opened his mouth and.  

Ate. 

The.  

Imp.  

.

“Ah, Great One!” said Frostbite, his voice deep enough that Danny doubted humans would be able to hear it at all.  “I see the change has taken you.  How is it?”

Danny wavered.  Then, he tilted his head back and started to cry.  

.

It took a while for Danny to communicate what was actually wrong to Frostbite and the others.  Just telling them was right off the table, as long as he was in ghost form, and he was too keyed up to just change back.  Having his fingers turned into knives had turned his handwriting into an atrocity - or maybe that was more a result of the stress.  He wasn’t sure.  

Then there was the size difference.  Some of the yetis were over two stories tall.  Danny, developing digitigrade feet or not, was tiny compared to them.  

Eventually, though, he remembered that he could turn human.  And he did. 

“It does explain your earlier scans,” rumbled Frostbite.  “I imagine that it was in preparation for your new mouth.  That would also explain your difficulty speaking.  It cut right through your voicebox.”

“Great,��� said Danny.  “Can you fix it?”

“Fix it?”

“I can’t talk,” said Danny.  “There has to be something.”

“There are ways of speaking that do not rely on vocal chords, as many ghosts do not have them.  I believe we have some books on the subject.  But I cannot fix it in the way you mean.  If there was an injury, then I could make an attempt.  But there is nothing broken.”

“It feels like there is,” said Danny.  

“I know,” said Frostbite.  “I could sew the lower portions of your mouth together, if it gives you such distress, but creating a voice for you from nothing is beyond me.”

Danny hunched his shoulders.  That whole image– eugh.  “So, you don’t think it’s bad that I ate that imp?” he asked.  

“That you ate it so reflexively, possibly,” said Frostbite, “but you’re young, for all your deeds, Great One.  Many ghosts eat one another.  It is not unusual, or immoral.”  Frostbite grinned, showing off many fangs.  “It’s no different than eating ice-worms or beef.  Just make sure you eat when you feel hungry, and to try ectoplasm when consuming human food doesn't help.  You will be fine.  Those imps don’t even have cores.”

“Okay,” said Danny, quietly.  

Frostbite cleared his throat, which sounded like icebergs crashing into one another.  “Now, if you will turn back, we can give your ghost half a checkup as well, and ensure everything is proceeding in a healthy way.”

Danny made a face.  He wouldn’t call any of this healthy.  But he complied nonetheless.  

He was immediately aware that the layout of his mouth had changed even more.  He felt around with his tongue to find four fangs behind his normal set of teeth that somehow folded back into his mouth.  

Something for Frostbite to investigate, he supposed.  Danny was still too busy being hung up on eating the imp.  

But, also…

"Do you think the same things might be happening to Dani?" he asked.  

"Whom?"

"My clone," said Danny.  He'd only introduced her to Frostbite the once, he couldn't fault him for not recognizing her name.  

"Most likely, yes.  Siblings tend to be in the same caste."

"Do you…" he trailed off, hating to ask Frostbite for even more help.  "Can you keep an eye out for her?  Just in case?"

"Of course, Great One!  Now, that checkup!"

.

It turned out his new folding fangs functioned like a snake’s, and he was venomous now, if only mildly so.  Joy.  

But Frostbite fed him again before he left, so that really was a joy.  

.

After he left the Far Frozen, something else occurred to him.  Someone else who might be facing changes without knowing why.  

Valerie.  

“So, you want to drop hints to her?” asked Sam.  “While you’re human?”

“I can’t really do it as a ghost,” said Danny.  He hadn’t seen her all that often around fights for a while now.  “At least while I’m human I can say something.  I just have to play it off as coming from my parents.  I just need you guys to set me up for it when she’s in earshot.”

“Sure,” said Tucker.  “Always down to be your wingman.”

Sam scoffed.  “That’s not what’s happening.”

“It could be.”

“It’s not.”

“It’s really not,” confirmed Danny.

But although he did keep an eye on Valerie, and he was sure she overheard them talking about the red ectoplasm and the changes it brought at least once, she didn’t seem to be experiencing any changes, and she never came to talk to them. He hoped she wasn’t getting all her information from Vlad… but she probably was.  

.

Days of incremental changes passed for Danny, small alterations accumulating bit by bit, transformation by transformation.  Every time he went ghost, something had changed, whether that something was truly minor, like more black being replace with white, or something more significant, like his feet legitimately turning into paws, complete with paw pads.  And claws.  

But nothing completely new had been added for a while, and Danny took comfort in that.  He could, somehow, deal with problems getting worse better than he could handle getting entirely new problems.  

He was learning to cope with it all.  Tucker helped a lot, surprisingly.  He was good at pointing out the positives to things like ridiculously huge ears and a tail.  Even the horns, he said, could be useful in an emergency.  Or if he really wanted to headbut Skulker.  

(Danny got the sense that Tucker was just a little jealous, to be honest.)

It was… not as bad as he’d thought it would be.  His friends were great.  

Mostly.  

“Hey,” said Sam, pausing the movie and turning to face Danny.  “That reminds me, have you been Phantom at all today?”

Danny shrugged, and stole another handful of popcorn from the bucket.  He was trying not to eat it all, but…  He was hungry.  “No ghosts have shown up.  Why?”

“You should go ghost,” she said.  “So you can see if there were any changes.”

Danny squirmed.  

“Come on,” she said, poking him.  “You want to keep an eye on things, and if there’s anything new, you want to see it while it’s still small.”

“She’s right,” said Tucker.  

“Oh, fine,” said Danny, getting up, because sitting on his tail tended to be uncomfortable.  He raised his arms, transformed, and unbalanced backwards so badly he had to tap into his flight powers to stay upright.

Feathery white wings lurked at the edges of his vision.  

Oh, no, he thought, discovering he could move them.  Wings?  He spread them out to either side, as far as they could go, and raised his arms.  He found that they reached just past the last knuckle on his middle digit.    

Why wings?  He could already fly!

But then, so could the blob ghosts, and the imps had grown wings, anyway.  Which didn't stop Danny from eating them, incidentally.  Somehow, despite regular raids of his parents' purified ectoplasm supplies, he still got awfully hungry sometimes.  

He craned his neck to get a better look at the wings.  They weren’t pure white.  Many of the longer, trailing feathers had eyespots on them that looked disturbingly like his own eyes, both ice blue and ghost green.  

"Okay," said Sam, her voice squeaking a little.  "I didn't expect that.  But aren't you glad you looked before they, um.  Got bigger?"

Danny nodded, aware he was shaking a little.  He didn’t like this.  

“They’re pretty?” said Sam.  “At least?”

“Oh, hey,” said Tucker.  “Danny, can I see your hand for a sec?”

Danny held out his hand, keeping the claws pointed away from Tucker, just in case.  Tucker took his wrist and turned Danny’s hand this way and that.  “These scales are different,” he said, pointing.  

Danny looked closer.  They were.  Instead of the translucent white of the other scales, a few on the back of his hands were green, blue, or clear, putting him in mind of crystalized ectoplasm or ghost ice.  He tapped one with the tip of a claw.  Actually, they might be ghost ice.  He tried to dispel it, with no avail.  

Well.  The wings were the main problem.  

“You know,” said Tucker, whose eyes were on the wings again, “this is going to be an obstacle to your shirt-wearing goals.”

Danny plucked a pillow from the couch and threw it at him.  

“I think your hair is getting longer, too.  Want to try a haircut?”

At that, Danny returned to human form.  

“My hair’s never grown in ghost form,” he said.  

“Well, it has, now.”  Sam shrugged.  “Consider it for science.”

“If you turn me bald, I’m going to haunt you,” said Danny, suspiciously.  

“As if you don’t already.  Come on, Tucker, can you grab that old ratty sheet from the– Thanks, that’s good.  Danny go sit– Actually, with the wings, you’ll probably want to turn around–  Great.  Let me go get my scissors and comb.”

With a great show of reluctance, Danny slunk to the chair and sat on it backwards.  Tucker, with an equally great show of pomp, tied the blanket around Danny’s shoulders, working very hard to cover the wings, too.  Danny tucked them in, and they seemed to take up far less room than they should, but that was just what ghost physics were like, most of the time.  

Sam returned with a pair of scissors and a comb.  “Just checking, but you don’t have lice, do you?”

Danny sent her a vaguely rude gesture.  She snickered.  

“Just checking,” she repeated in a sing-song voice.  Then, she got to work.  

About halfway through, she wrapped her off hand around one of his horns, casually, to adjust the angle of his head.  It felt surprisingly nice.  Satisfying, almost.  Or maybe secure was a better word.

“Oops,” she said, letting go. “Didn’t mean to manhandle you like that.”

Danny transformed back.  “No,” he said.  “That actually– It felt good.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, rubbing his forehead about where his horns were while he was in ghost form.  “It did.”

“Okay, then,” said Sam.  “If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t,” insisted Danny.  

“I still have a haircut to finish, by the way,” said Sam, using the scissors to describe a circle in the air.  “You want to…?”

“Oh, right,” said Danny, going ghost again.  Long strands of hair fell around his jaw and tickled the back of his neck.  

“Uh,” said Sam.  “Nevermind.  Looks like the hair is part of the package.”

“Yep,” agreed Tucker.  “There’s a lot more of it now.”

Danny buried his face in his hands.  His stomach grumbled.  

.

Long after everyone else was asleep, Danny stood in front of the bathroom mirror.  It felt like he did that a lot, these days, and yet every time he had a harder time recognizing himself.  The whiteness, the wings, the eyes, the horns, the ears, the teeth…  He wasn’t really worried about being recognized as Phantom in human form anymore because he was just so different.  

He leaned closer to the mirror, making note of how fine blue and green scales had gathered near his eyes to accentuate the ‘natural makeup’ look that had started with the black ones.  Raised silver lines curled around the gemlike scales and up his horns, like filigree.  There were a few lines like that on his arms and hands as well, and he suspected he’d get more of them, all over.  

If one discounted the mouth– if he kept his mouth closed– he almost looked pretty, in a distinctly monstrous way.  He was certainly far more delicate in appearance than any other ghost he’d encountered since the turning of the age, including the imps.  In fact, although he hadn’t brought it up to his friends, despite standing on his toes all the time while on the ground in ghost form, he wasn’t any taller than he had been before, and that height, according to Frostbite’s measurements, had been taken out of his torso.  

It was weird to think about.  

But he was stalling, now.  Between everything else and this…  He was afraid he would just keep not looking.  That he would get distracted by new things, new problems, and just let this one lie.  He couldn’t do that.  He had to face this.  It was part of his body, like it or not.  

Slowly, bit by bit, he opened his mouth, all the way down.  

Apart from the fangs, which were getting long enough that he suspected he’d have trouble speaking even if he did have a voice to speak with, the top of his mouth looked normal.  Ish.  Alright, it really didn’t, but he could lie to himself about it.  His lower jaw, just as fanged, was harder to look at, with his tongue hanging off of it and twitching whenever he thought about it too hard.  The tongue led back to, presumably, what remained of his esophagus, a smooth, deep, lining that spasmed every so often.  

To either side of that, in his throat, were two little holes that flexed as he breathed.  Wind tickled the flesh around them.  They must be his windpipe, split in two to go to either lung. 

A little further down, there were teeth again, rows and rows of them on flesh that had been peeled back from his chest like flower petals.  The movement of his lungs could be seen clearly beneath them.  

The teeth were sharpest on the outside edges, structured to pierce or tear.  The longest were rib-like, curving, and hollow tipped, each of them weeping something clear.  Deeper, the teeth became blunter, more suited for grinding.  

In the very deepest part of his mouth was an octopus-like mass of tongues, each undulating gently.  One stretched itself out to lick at one of his teeth, and Danny shuddered.  He could feel it.  

A line of drool ran down his cheek.  Ancients, he was hungry.  

He closed his mouth, and, almost on autopilot, drifted down to the kitchen.  The fridge light bathed him, and he floated there for a long moment, staring.  Then, his lips parted.  

.

He woke up to his parents ranting about ghosts stealing all the food in the house.  

Danny rolled over and groaned.  He had a problem.  

.

Danny flew through the ghost zone, falling motes of red and ashy ectoplasm staining his wings.  It made his feathers feel weird and sticky, and he wanted to stop and clean them off immediately, but he had to go to the Far Frozen. 

When Frostbite saw Danny, his whole face lit up, his yellow eyes practically sparkling.  “Oh!” he said in a voice that was definitely too deep for humans to hear.  “I know what caste you are in, now!  I had wondered–  But, now, seeing your wings!  Wonderful!”  

Danny blinked up at him, hoping he would explain.  He didn’t feel like going back and forth between human and ghost right now.  

“Yes,” said Frostbite.  “The lack of wings confused me.  But, now, I see.  You are a Mouth.”

For obvious reasons, Danny crossed his arms and glared at Frostbite.  

Frostbite didn’t seem to notice.  “Mouths are messengers - or they were the last time the Realms turned red.  They would speak with others’ voices, carrying messages across the Realms.”

Danny tilted his head.  He couldn’t speak at all.  What was Frostbite talking about?

“Ah, yes.  I can see how that might be hard to believe.  If I can show you?”

Danny nodded, cautiously, and Frostbite knelt down.  He brought his head, bigger than Danny’s whole body, to Danny’s level, and, with exceeding care and gentleness, touched his horns to Danny’s.  

Sam holding onto his horns had felt good.  So did this.  This contact, though, had a vibrational quality that Sam’s lacked.  It was like energy was being pushed into them and flowing down, down, through his skull, down his spine, into his stomach.  He leaned into it, eyes fluttering closed.  If he’d had any voice at all, he’d probably be purring.  

Frostbite withdrew, but the sensation of energy in his stomach remained.  

“There,” said Frostbite.  “I’ve filled you with a message.  Now, try to speak.”

It wasn’t like Danny hadn’t tried to speak to no avail before, but he opened his mouth and Frostbite’s voice came out, his feathers vibrating with it.  

“Hello, Great One, I see you’ve received my message.  May I invite you to come eat with us again?”

He snapped his mouth closed as soon as the second sentence was over, acutely aware that he hadn’t been able to do that until the whole message was over, no matter how startled he’d been.

An odd, tingly sense of mild euphoria came over him.  Distantly, he acknowledged that what had just happened had been disturbing.  He also acknowledged that this feeling must be related to those ‘caste instincts’ Frostbite had talked to him about before.  

With his regular tongue, he licked his lips.  

“Well?” prompted Frostbite, an eye ridge raised.  “Will you?”

Danny realized, belatedly, that Frostbite was waiting for an answer.  From him.  He nodded.  With the message gone, he felt oddly hollow inside.  

Once again furnished with a bowl of soup larger than his head, Danny sat down next to Frostbite.  

“Now,” said Frostbite.  “There are many things I do not know about Mouths.  It was not a terribly common grouping.  However, I do believe I saw a book on the subject in Princess Dora’s library some time before the turn.  You could go to her and ask to borrow it.”

Danny nodded even as he greedily slurped the soup.  He was trying to have manners, but not opening his mouth all the way was the best he could do right now.  

“If you do, I would ask you to carry a message to her, and return with her answer as well.  I have learned a few troubling things about her nearest neighbors that she should know, and I have a proposal for her.”

Danny nodded again.  Of course he would do that.  Frostbite hardly needed to ask.  

“Excellent!” said Frostbite.  “It is always useful to have a messenger who is already friends with an ally!”

Danny preened– Well.  Not literally.  He didn’t really know how to take care of his wings, yet, and he was a bit too busy with the soup, anyway.  

.

The Time Locked lands had changed a lot.  Once many scattered islands, they had coalesced into a new whole many miles across in each direction.  As he watched, pebbles and minor, asteroid-like islands added themselves to the outskirts.  Dora’s castle towered sharp and black in the center, bristling with ballistas.  Ghosts in segmented, thorny plate armor patrolled the streets.  In the distance, Danny could see Poindexter’s Casper High morphing into something out of nightmares.  

In a wild fit of prudence, Danny decided not to fly directly to the tower, but instead landed at the city gates.  

“A Mouth?” asked one of the guards, slitted eyes wide.  “Do you have a message for Princess Dorathea?”

Danny nodded.  The guard called for more guards, and he was escorted to the castle by six ghosts in various stages of transformation, all armed.  They brought him through the receiving hall and several other public corridors before they were finally directed to Dora.  

“Sir Phantom,” said Dora, her voice soft with wonder.  She raised her hand to brush his cheek.  “Your new appearance suits you.”

Danny could say the same about Dora as she reclined regally in her tall-backed chair, maps of the Zone laid on the table beside her.  She looked fierce, her dragon horns and wings on full display, her nails long and sharp, her skin even more scaled than his was.  

“I understand you have a message for me?”

Danny nodded, suddenly feeling shy about the whole situation, and opened his mouth.  Frostbite’s words poured from him, but he didn’t understand them.  They were in a rumbly, lilting ghost language that Danny didn’t know.  

When the message finished playing out, Danny sat down on the ground, spent and… Distracted.  He was going to call this distracted.  He felt all noodly and worn, but also satisfied and happy, like he’d just helped someone with something big.  

“The Observants and the Medicis.  Of course they would get along.”

Dora gestured at the guards, directing them to bring Danny closer, resting his head on her knee and spreading his wings out to their full extent on either side.  

They were getting bigger, darn it.  

Dora put a pointed nail under his chin and tilted his head up, so he was looking her in the eye.  “I know you aren’t likely to give me your first loyalty,” she said.  “Assuming, of course, that you give it to any one person.  But I would like you to remember this… fondly.”  She lowered his head back to her knee and began to stroke his hair.  “Go fetch the falconers.  Tell them to bring their grooming supplies.”

At least one of the guards left.  Danny couldn’t tell if more than that went just from the sound.  

“Frostbite said you were looking for a book on Mouths,” she said.  “I’m afraid I no longer have it.  I had borrowed it from Ghost Writer and returned it some time ago.  I know you pledged to return to Frostbite with a message from me.  I will give you one momentarily.  I know you do not have a very positive relationship with Ghost Writer.  If you would, kindly, return here after bringing my message to Frostbite, I will give you a message to Ghost Writer as a sort of… peace offering.  There are certain volumes I wish to borrow from him, regardless, and it would be very useful not to need another messenger.”

Danny, vaguely aware a response was needed, nodded. 

“Thank you, Sir Phantom.”  There were footsteps behind Danny.  “Ah, the falconers, very good.  I noticed you were picking at your wings earlier.  I believe they can help you with that.”

That was the only warning Danny got before hands descended on his wings and he ascended into a state of bliss.  Getting the gunk off his wings felt so good a few tears escaped from his eyes.  

“There, there,” said Dora.  “I will give you my message, and you can rest before you go back, yes?”

Danny nodded again, and Dora bent her head to touch her horns to his.  

The sensation of the message settling inside him and that of the falconers tending his wings worked together to overwhelm him completely, but it only lasted a few minutes.  When Dora straightened, she looked to her guards.  “Please take him to one of the messenger rooms,” she said.  “You know the ones.”

The guard picked Danny up, first like a kitten, then like a baby, which was distantly embarrassing.  He couldn’t hold on to that feeling for long, though.  Not when he was so tired.  He fell asleep before they got where they were going.  

.

Danny woke up starving and smelling food.  He hardly noticed the nest-like bed he was in, the hypnotic patterns painted on the walls of the room, or even that he’d been sleeping in ghost form as he followed his nose out.  Before he knew it, he was sitting at a great banquet table, piled high with food and eating, struggling to limit himself to his regular mouth as Dora watched indulgently from the other side of the table.  

He wondered if he should turn human and start a conversation, but he didn’t know what that would do to the message he currently carried inside himself.  He stayed in ghost form.  

.

“As long as you are visiting the Ghost Writer, I would like you to take a message to him for us as well– Yes, before you ask, Mouths can hold more than one message,” said Frostbite, forestalling Danny from turning human to ask.  “Well-trained ones can even choose which of multiple messages to play back, which is useful, but I don’t think you’re there, quite yet.  But before you visit him, I need to clarify a few things with Princess Dora.”

Danny nodded and continued to gnaw on the odd, fist-sized nuts Frostbite had given him as a ‘snack.’  He had to go back there, anyway.  

.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” said Dora.  “Not on my own.  You will need to go to Queen Pandora.  Do you know the way to her kingdom?”

Danny did.  

“Good, good,” said Dora.  “I will send you to her with a message explaining everything.  After you eat, of course.”

.

On the way to Pandora’s kingdom, Danny passed by a lot of violence, from small bands of ghosts fighting one another to groups that might very well be classified as armies.  In a few cases, where he knew one side or another, and the groups were small, he intervened, but for the most part he avoided everyone.  He wasn’t a stranger to fights, or even wars, considering what had happened with Pariah Dark, but the scale was new to him, and unsettling. 

Not to mention how everyone else seemed to be getting bigger and tougher while he only felt more and more delicate.  

He glanced at his feathers.  They and his wings seemed to be the only part of him getting bigger other than his hair.  Beneath the red ectoplasm stains, he could see traces of that silver filigree winding down into them as well.  It was all over his body, now, raised lines wrapping around the scattered gem-like scales.  It made him look decorated, or decorative, like a weird kind of statue.  Except for the whole horror mouth, horns, tail, claws, ears combination.  That sort of broke the illusion.  

It still set him apart from the other ghosts, and he didn’t like that, even if he didn’t want to be like that.  It had to be some weird human pack instinct…  

He reached the spot Pandora’s kingdom usually stood, and looked around, confused.  There was nothing there except for blasted black and red pseudo-volcanic rock.  Nothing… except for a hole in the ground, a tunnel leading down.

No.  It couldn’t be.  But the other option was that Pandora’s kingdom had been destroyed, and Danny couldn’t consider that, not yet.  

He flew down.  The tunnel was just large enough for Danny to enter while standing upright, but the sense of uncertainty about the size gave Danny the impression that would be the case no matter who approached it.  The edge was carved with crude Greek letters.  TARTARUS, they said.  

Okay, then.  Danny entered.  

Inside was dark and claustrophobic.  Within ten paces of the entrance, the tunnel curved sharply, blocking off the light from the entrance.  Danny, not wanting to navigate by his glow alone, lit an ectoblast in his hand.  Then it thinned and twisted again, forcing Danny to tuck his wings in and shimmy sideways.  Thankfully, it opened back up, but then the sides of the tunnel became thorned and spiky.  Danny strongly considered going human and just phasing through everything, but he once again forced himself to remember that doing that might make him lose the message.  He didn’t really want to do this twice.  

The tunnel split.

It was a labyrinth.  Of course it was.  Danny had preferred the hedges.  

Danny decided to go right.  He was immediately attacked.  

He didn’t get a good look at his assailant, beyond a long muzzle and flashing teeth.  A few good ectoblasts and claw swipes drove it off.  Danny absently licked the blood from his fingers and continued on.  

It wasn’t the last time Danny was attacked, and by the time he emerged into a vast cavern packed with Greek-style buildings carved from the cave walls and stalactites and stalagmites, he was grimy, bruised, and tired.  At once, he was accosted by a group of spear-carrying warriors.  They dragged him inside a building surrounded by stone carvings of fruit trees, then to a pool inside it.  Pandora was lounging near it, her feet dangling in the water.  

Danny opened his mouth and let the message - in Dora’s voice - spill out.  Then his legs folded underneath him and he laid down.  

“I will, of course, return you with an answer,” said Pandora, He turned his head just enough to look up at her.  She was about the same size as she had been before, but her skin color had deepened to a rich purple-red.  Four long bull-like horns extended from her head.  “But I think you might appreciate a bath, first?”  She gestured to the pool, and he saw, now, that it was only one part of what appeared to be a larger bathing complex.  One that was full of bathers.

Danny blushed, but nodded.  After the labyrinth, he wanted to be clean.  

A group of bath attendants chivvied him into one of the pools and, somehow, stole the jeans he’d borrowed from Sam.  In ghost form… demon form, whatever, he didn’t really have anything down there, not since he’d changed, but still.  Naked.  

He sank deeper in the water, spreading his wings out over the surface and letting the grime wash away.  The warmth of the water was both soothing and uncomfortable, making his ice core feel loose and melty.  The temperature eased higher.  His muscles were completely relaxed, but his core was uneasy.  

“Don’t fall asleep,” said a bath attendant, prodding him.  “Queen Pandora wants us to show you how to take care of your own wings.”  

Danny didn’t want to move, but with all the prodding, and the knowledge that dozing off probably wouldn’t be good for him, he made an attempt.  But his attempt was clumsy, half asleep, and it didn’t please the attendants.  

“Ah!  I give up!” said the attendant.  “I should have known a Mouth like you would be too useless and lazy even to take care of themselves!”  They finished rinsing him off perfunctorily before dragging him from the pool and throwing a chiton over his shoulder.  He was ushered quickly through the bathhouse, stumbling under the weight of his waterlogged wings.  They shoved him through the doors and he collapsed, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.  

“Oh, dear,” said Pandora, gesturing him closer to where she laid on a couch sized for her huge frame.  “What’s the matter?”

Danny, his wings still wet with water, crawled closer to Pandora until she picked him up and set him down on the couch, next to her hip.  He curled in on himself, burying his face in his knees even as he kept his long ears oriented towards Pandora.  He couldn’t say anything.  

“Are you hurt?”

Danny shook his head.  His injuries from the maze were mild enough that he didn’t want to bother anyone about them.  

“Are you sick?”

No, Danny didn’t think so, although he certainly didn’t feel right.  

“Was someone unpleasant to you?”

Danny nodded.  He wasn’t even sure why this was bothering him so much.  Normally, it wouldn’t.  They weren’t really mean to him, just…  He wiped tears out of his eyes again.  

“There are many people in this world who will not like you, simply for who and what you are.  That’s only more reason to cherish those who do like you, isn’t it?”

Yes, that was true, that was right.  

“You will cherish them, won’t you?  Your friends and allies?”

Danny nodded.  Pandora smiled and handed him a crystalline orange.  Danny’s brain must still be fried, because he began to gnaw on it.  To his surprise, his teeth cracked the surface before too long had passed, and he crunched the shards into gem dust before swallowing and licking his lips.  Pandora patted him on the head, smiling.  

“You will cherish them.  Now, go to sleep.”

He was out like a light.  

.

In the morning, Danny was too embarrassed to even look at Pandora, although he kept his ears pricked and still nodded or shook his head when she asked him questions, and generally did not resist when she adjusted his position or patted his head.  

“... and this will keep you from getting attacked in the labyrinth,” she said, fastening a bracelet around his wrist.  “Although, you will still need to find your own way through the maze.”

Danny perked up and examined it.  It was simple bronze impressed with the Greek key, a golden thread wrapped around it, and it fit perfectly around his wrist.  Danny looked up at Pandora, hoping to convey his gratitude.  Going through the labyrinth like that, although far from the worst thing he had ever done, had been awful.

“It’s the least I can do, when you are so likely to have to come back.  Frostbite’s proposal will require quite a bit of back and forth.  Pandora patted his head again.  “And you still have the message?”

Danny nodded.  He wasn’t sure how he could lose it.  It was inside him.  

“Then it’s time for you to be off.”

.

Danny emerged from the labyrinth and shook out his wings.  He was happy to be above ground where he could fly again and–

Wait.  

He twisted and reached back.  Below his first two wings were two smaller wings.  When– When had that happened?

He shook himself.  He was on his way back to Frostbite anyway.  He would get a checkup to make sure everything was okay then.  

.

As Pandora predicted, many more messages had to be delivered before she, Frostbite, and Dora worked out… whatever they were talking about.  Danny still didn’t know, because the messages were all in languages he couldn’t speak.  He thought it would be better if they just met up with each other and talked face-to-face, but he could acknowledge that he wasn’t exactly up on current Zone politics.  More pertinently, he was always carrying messages he didn’t want to lose, and he still hadn’t been able to take a moment to determine whether or not changing form got rid of them. 

That was at least partially Danny’s fault, though.  Unless he was completely spent, he always wanted to deliver his messages right away.  Delivering messages was tiring, especially since they just seemed to get longer and longer.  And there were so many distractions.  Like food.  Holding the messages made him… somewhat less hungry, but whenever he was given anything to eat, he just couldn’t say no.  Not that he could say anything, anyway.

Then there were things like the baths in Pandora’s kingdom, which he always needed badly after a trip through the labyrinth but which also always left him feeling melted and emotionally inept, or the painted walls in Dora’s ‘messenger rooms’ which were so entrancing that he was sure he’d lost hours staring at them, the medical checkups Frostbite insisted Danny go through regularly and which got weirder as both Danny and the yetis changed more and more, and the fights between the Realms that got more and more vicious as time went on.  

More than once, Danny had been chased by soldiers with nets.  

But Danny was getting used to it.  Just like he was getting used to how his body was changing slowly even without turning back and forth from human form to ghost form, or how tiny he was compared to literally everyone else.  Even Sidney Poindexter towered over him when they passed each other in Dora’s castle.  Apparently, Poindexter was part of something called the ‘Knight’ caste.  

Although, one thing he wasn’t getting used to was not being able to ask questions.  The Zone was changing so much around him and everything seemed infinitely interesting, so new, so strange, and he couldn’t ask questions.  Not even the most basic ones about what he was, although he knew Frostbite was trying to get him the information he craved by telling him about that book.  Otherwise, the best Danny could do was watch and listen.  He was getting good at that, though, and according to Frostbite’s checkups, Danny’s eyes and ears were getting bigger.  Even so, there were limits to observation when so often he was barely capable of thinking.  

It helped that Frostbite, Pandora, and Dora were all being so… so soft with him, so gentle.  They were really putting a lot of work into taking care of him when the only thing he could do was deliver messages and then fall over.  It made him feel sort of guilty.

But just as his little mail route started to feel routine, the three of them resolved the issue and sent him off to Ghost Writer stuffed full of messages.  

Ghost Writer’s library had always been imposing.  It had also been sort of comical.  The front of the building had been sculpted to resemble a shelf of books for goodness’ sake.  

It was no longer comical.  Now it was gothic, full of wrought iron spikes, roses that looked a little too like blood blossoms for comfort wending up the sides.  

Nothing for it.  Danny went and knocked on the oversized door.  He knocked again.  He started knocking and kept knocking until Ghost Writer himself yanked the door open with a sharp “What?”  Then he froze, looking down at Danny.  “Phantom?”

Spitefully, Danny opened his mouth and let the messages play. 

At the beginning, Ghost Writer’s posture was hostile and sharp, but it slumped into something defeated about halfway through before resolving into resignation.  “I don’t have the book.”

Danny frowned at him.  

“Clockwork bought it from me,” said Ghost Writer in a highly aggrieved tone.  “Just before the aesthetic changed.  He gave me–  Oh!  It doesn’t matter!  I can see that he got the better part of the deal, the old cheater.  Well.  Come in.”  He pushed back, away from the doorframe.  “I’ll give you what the Princess, Queen Pandora, and Chief Frostbite want.”

Danny flew after Ghost Writer, a little wary of entering the library.  He was also a little confused.  The messages, altogether, had been shorter than usual, and he didn’t feel nearly so tired as he usually did after delivery.  Maybe there was some correlation between length and fatigue…?

Inside, the library was just as gothic as it was outside.  The bookshelves were ebony.  All the books were bound in shades of blood or rose red.  

“Don’t touch anything.”  He lugged a metal box from under his desk, then two more just like it.  “You don’t know what these are, do you?”

Danny shook his head.  

“Typical,” muttered Ghost Writer.  “These are messenger boxes, for Mouths.”  He smiled, some malice in the expression.  “They’re made of special materials, too tough for you to drive your little teeth through.  I fill them up with their books and you take them back.  In your mouth.”

Danny blinked as Ghost Writer started to fill the boxes with books and twisted his head to try and read the titles.  Wouldn’t it be better to carry them in his hands, even if they were bulky…?

“Keeps thieves from taking the packages or something.”

Oh, that was okay, then.  If this was how it was done, he’d at least try.  

Ghost Writer finished filling the boxes, then latched them closed and stepped away.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said when Danny continued to gaze at him.  “I’m not putting my hands anywhere near your mouth.  You can do that yourself.”

Danny approached the boxes dubiously.  All of them were at least two feet long.  He wasn't sure they'd fit.  But he opened his mouth and, well.  Grabbing something with his mouth was pretty reflexive, he was sorry to say.  

It felt… Well, it felt like holding something in his mouth.  But also like something was just shy of triggering his gag reflex.  He kept trying to reflexively chew on the boxes, but there was no give to them, which was unfair. 

… Did he really just think that?  Was he so hungry these days that he really wanted to eat the library books his friends were checking out?

He hoped it was just a reflex.  Just… Yeah.  

But the strangest part of this was that although the boxes definitely were large enough to bulge through his skin, large enough they shouldn't fit all together, they weren’t visible at all on the outside of his body.  Another point for weird ghost physics.  

“You have them.  Good.  Now get out.”

Danny looked up at Ghost Writer, startled.  

“You heard me,” he said.  “Get out of here.”

.

“It’s alright, Great One.  You can do it.”

Danny was… not quite sweating.  He didn’t sweat in ghost form.  Demon form.  Whatever he should call it, now that he had animal ears and a tail, long, curling horns, and a disturbing fixation on eating things.  He was, however, becoming progressively more stressed and angry with himself as he continued to try and fail to drop the message box labeled for Frostbite.  

Every time he got close to finally doing it, either his tongues or his teeth reflexively clenched around the box, forcing him to start all over again.  

“Perhaps you could try to drop all the boxes,” said another yeti who had been talking to Frostbite before Danny found him.  

Danny looked at him askance.  No, he couldn’t.  Those boxes were for Dora and Pandora.  

“Perhaps we should take a break,” suggested Frostbite.  “Give you some time to rest.”

Danny shook his head.  He couldn’t give up just because something was hard.  

“You know you won’t be able to safely eat anything else until you let go of those.”

That was certainly an additional and very powerful motivation.  

Slowly, stooped over and his hands holding back the petals of his mouth, Danny relaxed his tongues enough that the Box slipped free and hit the floor with a clang.  He leaned back, letting most of his mouth close.  His upper mouth remained open, his split tongue lolling out as he panted.  

"Very good," said Frostbite, stroking Danny's head with the very tip of his smallest claw.  From a distance, it looked sharp, but from Danny's perspective it was blunt and rounded, the diameter just barely smaller than that of his head.  "Now, all you have to do is bring Dora and Pandora theirs."  He continued to pet Danny, but shifted so that he was sort of looming over him.  Not that Frostbite could do anything but loom over Danny.  Snowflakes drifted down from his mane and settled unmelting on Danny's skin.  Danny wondered if the yetis knew they each had their own weather system.  "Once you have done that, come back here.  We have messages for Clockwork, too.”

.

Dora and Pandora had messages for Clockwork, too, long ones, so it was a very bloated-feeling Danny who landed in front of the shiny brass doors of Clockwork’s lair, Long Now.  He paused before knocking, examining himself in their mirrored surface.  It had been a while since he had really looked at himself.  

His ears and horns completed for real estate on his head.  His hair hung halfway down his neck, almost to his shoulders.  His wings were larger than he’d thought, and the secondary pair was almost as long as the first.  His hands and feet were hugely oversized, giving him a kitten-like appearance.  His eyes were big enough that his default expression could be read as innocent curiosity… which was fair enough.  That did seem to be the main thing he tried to emote these days.  

Experimentally, he started making other expressions.  To his distaste, almost all of them parted his upper lips enough to see the fangs in his regular, upper mouth.  He put his neutral, curious expression back on.  Much better.  His mouth should only be open when he was eating, or delivering a message.  

Except… except, maybe, when he was in human form.  Then, it should be… acceptable to open his mouth to talk.  Yes.  That was the right word.  Acceptable.  

Danny raised his hand to knock on the doors, but they swung inwards.  At the clear invitation, Danny flew inside.  

Some things had remained the same about Long Now.  It was still full of ticking.  There were still gears set in the walls.  Weights, chains, and bells still hung from the ceilings.  But it had changed.  Gone were the statues, gone was the stone masonry, gone was the verdigris and dust.  All the walls were brass, wood, glass, or pale porcelain.  Everything was polished to an aggressive, gleaming, brightness that contrasted sharply with the outside world and somehow felt more threatening than all of the spears of Dora’s Knights.  

But, perhaps, the most unsettling change was the floor.  The last time Danny had been here, it had been normal, unremarkable.  Now it consisted entirely of enormous gears, each of them turning at a different speed, and on top of the gears and threaded into them were layers and layers of shifting, twitching chains.  He stayed a healthy distance above them.  

“Hello, Daniel.  I have been expecting you.”

Danny whirled at the sound of the voice.  He hadn’t seen Clockwork.  He still didn’t see him.  All he saw was a giant clock draped in purple… oh…

Like everyone else, Clockwork had changed.  Danny supposed his new appearance only surprised Danny because Danny hadn’t been around to see it happen.  

Clockwork was taller, obviously.  About the same size Frostbite had been when the Zone first began to shift.  But that was far from the most notable change.  Clockwork’s face had widened and flattened, becoming pale and circular, his mouth and nose disappearing.  Brass decorations crept around its edges.  His eyes had multiplied and spread, so that there were twelve of them, evenly spaced around the rim of face and glowing bright.  From behind the bronze rim spiraled two long, bronze horns, both polished to the same shine as all the other metal in this place.  

Danny could still see the clock that had always been in Clockwork’s chest, but the numbers on it had been replaced with something spikier, and the rhythm of it had changed - not enough for Danny to identify the change, but enough for him to know it was there, enough to know that if he listened to it for long enough, it was all other clocks that would seem off.  He could also see Clockwork’s ungloved hands, segmented and porcelain like a doll’s, and the brass mechanics underneath them.  

“I understand you have messages for me,” said Clockwork.  

Oh, right.  He opened his mouth and let the messages play.  When he was finished, he sank down to the ground, careless of the gears and chains.  That really had been a lot.  Maybe Clockwork would have a place for him to rest before sending him back out?

“I do,” said Clockwork, picking Danny up, “but I think you should eat first.  You are hungry.”

Danny blinked blearily at Clockwork, unsure if that had been a question or a statement.  The chains ran into and out of Clockwork’s robes, and they moved more when he moved.  Danny gazed at them, trying to determine how that worked.  

“In many ages,” said Clockwork, “I am integrated with Long Now.  Bound to it, if you would.  Although, I am bound to it regardless, sometimes the forces keeping me here have more… slack to them.”

He sat Danny down at one end of a long brass and wood table that spanned the diameter of a slowly turning gear.  It and the chairs around it were bolted to the gear.  From above, chains lowered… objects to the table.  They were shiny geometric shapes.  

“Eat,” said Clockwork, inclining his head.  “They are quite edible for demons like us.”

Okay, then.  Danny wasn’t the kind of person to reject food.  Or, at least, he wasn’t any longer.  Still, he was tired enough that he ate slowly, watching as the room rotated slowly around them.  Everything was so bright and shiny it was beginning to hurt his eyes, but closing them would be rude, he was sure, and he didn’t want to be rude to someone who was feeding him.  Eventually, his eyes landed on Clockwork’s face as the least shiny thing, and he watched as Clockwork’s eyes blinked open and closed, mimicking the movement of hour, minute, and second hands.  

Clockwork began to speak, voice low and regular, rising and falling in time with the ticking of the clocks.  

Next thing he knew, he was done eating.  He shook himself, blinking hard.  He felt like–  He–  He opened his eyes.  Something had happened there.  He didn’t know what.  Already, his certainty that something had happened was softening.  Nothing looked out of place.  With how drained he had felt, he probably was just zoning out, daydreaming.

“All done?” asked Clockwork.  

Danny nodded.  He could eat more… but, then, he could almost always eat more.  He had other things to worry about, like whether or not Clockwork would want Danny to take a message back to one of the other three.  Or all of them.  But Danny couldn’t repeat messages multiple times, yet.  He would, he hoped, be able to do that eventually.

“The messages you brought me mentioned, among other things, a book regarding Mouths,” said Clockwork, rising and moving around to Danny’s side of the table.  “I do have the book, but I do not believe it would do you much good.”

Danny frowned at him.  What did he mean?

“See for yourself,” said Clockwork, taking a red and black bound book out from inside his robes.  He set it on the table in front of Danny.  

The symbols on the cover were unfamiliar to him.  Careful not to let his claws damage the book, he picked it up and let it fall open to a random page.  There were black and white illustrations on it of a series of people who looked remarkably like he currently did.  Wings, horns, horribly extended mouths…  Not all quite in the same arrangement as Danny’s, no.  One unfortunate had eight wings.  Another’s mouth was extended down from the corners, not from the center, like Danny’s.  None of them seemed to have skin or scales quite like his, either.  Even so, they were all definitely the same kind of thing.  

All of the words on the page were in a language he didn’t know.  He couldn’t even recognize the script.  

“It’s formal court Demonic,” said Clockwork.  

Oh, that’s what–  Wait.  How–?

“How am I doing that?” asked Clockwork out loud, echoing Danny’s thought.  “So long as you are not carrying a message, if you become frustrated enough, you return to human form to ask your question.  I do believe that looking ahead is more efficient.  Also, your ears and tail tend to give you away.  They are very expressive.”  He ran a porcelain finger along the velvety back of one of Danny’s ears, making all of Danny’s hair stand on end even as he immediately began to plot to get Clockwork to do it again.  

But back on topic…  Was there an English translation of the book, somewhere?

“There is not,” said Clockwork.  “This is the only extant copy.”

Maybe he could get Frostbite - No, his eyes were big enough now that even this book, massive as it was, would be too small for him to read.  Dora or Pandora, then?  But they were so busy…  Clockwork?  He looked up hopefully.

“As it turns out, there is a simple technique for teaching Mouths other languages.”  He pulled another book from within his robes.  “This is a textbook designed to teach the Demonic language.  A Mouth may learn a language by digesting several of these, one after another.”

Digest as in…?

“Yes, I do mean eat.  I will have one prepared for you every time you return.”

Return?  Not that Danny didn’t want to, of course.  He reached for the book, which Clockwork relinquished easily.

“My correspondence with Dora, Pandora, and Frostbite will take some time, and likely several exchanges.”

Oh.  Of course.  Danny had known that.  He examined the textbook a little longer.  Well.  If Clockwork said it was okay… and he was still hungry.  He shoved the book in his mouth before Clockwork could change his mind.  

Clockwork chuckled, tick tick tick, and stroked the back of Danny’s ear again.  Danny practically melted.  So good.  

“I shall record my messages and show you the place I have set aside for you to sleep.”

Danny nodded, his eyes still on Clockwork’s hands.  Up close, his finger-segments had a similar filigree pattern to the one on Danny’s skin.  Even though in everything else other than color, his and Clockwork’s hands were completely different, the sight still made something settle inside him.  He didn’t think about it for very long, though, because Clockwork was touching his horns to Danny’s, and receiving a message was always a bit… consuming.  

Clockwork’s message wasn’t too long, though.  “There we go,” said Clockwork.  “Bedtime.”  He slid away from the table.  

Danny tried to follow him but he found his legs were bound to the legs of the chair.  He twisted to look down.  Fine brass chains had wound around his legs up to his knees.  

“My apologies,” said Clockwork.  The chains begrudgingly unwrapped themselves.  “I do not have as much control over them as I would like.  Perhaps in the future, I will improve.”

Danny knew what that felt like, so he shrugged.  Being stuck for a moment wasn’t a problem.  

This got Danny another ear stroke, this time on the other side.  He was going to get spoiled.  

Then, Clockwork flew upwards, towards all the bells and weights dangling from the ceiling.  Danny followed him, avoiding a few taut chains that stretched across the empty space to feed into gears on either side of the tower.  There, nestled amidst the bells, was a birdcage.  

The cage was big enough for Clockwork to fit in it, and the bars were close enough together that Danny would not be able to worm his way out.  Inside were amenities such as a bed, a bedside table, a bird swing the same scale as the cage, and a vanity with brushes and wing-picks.  Towards the top of the cage were rolled lengths of fabric which were clearly intended to roll down to cover the cage.  

Danny balked.

“I know it is not, perhaps, ideal,” said Clockwork, “but it is the only way to keep the chains out.”

Well.  Danny didn’t want to wake up wrapped in chains, and that bed did look comfortable, birdcage or not.  It had lots of pillows.  Still…

He watched as Clockwork demonstrated that the cage door did not lock and then held the door open for him.  His eyes trailed up to the top of the cage and the curtains.  

“I imagine it will be hard for you to sleep without them,” said Clockwork.

That was a good point.  It was very bright in here.  And, despite his brief rest with the meal, the day's activities were catching up to him and it was becoming harder and harder to stay airborne.  

"Daniel, I am not usually so direct, but if you fall out of the air, not only will I tuck you into that bed myself, I will also find a lock to put on this door, so you don't get it into your head to leave before you are rested."

Chastised, Danny slunk past Clockwork.  But, feeling just a little contrary, he didn’t go to the bed.  Instead he sat at the vanity and gave Clockwork a challenging look.  

“That is what it is there for,” said Clockwork.  “Rest well, Daniel.”  He closed the cage door and left.  

Well.  Okay then.  He picked up one of the brushes.  He did need to get some of the red ectoplasm and ash gunk out of his wings.  It felt gross, as always, and he had picked up some things between the falconers and Pandora’s bath attendants.  

But he couldn’t keep it up for long, and soon he was dozing off between brushstrokes and, oh!  The blinds were on automatic, run by one of Clockwork’s chains.  He’d wondered.  

He put the brush down and crawled into the bed.  The backs of the blinds, he saw as they reached the bottom of the cage, were painted in the same pattern as the messenger room in Dora’s castle.  Maybe they were a gift from her to Clockwork?

.

Long Now became a new, comfortable stop on Danny’s route.  Clockwork, like Frostbite, tried to explain things in ways that Danny could understand, but unlike with Frostbite, Danny felt like he was really having conversations with Clockwork, thanks to his ability to look ahead and see what Danny wanted to ask.  

Flying started to feel different as the pieces of land in the Zone started to clump together more and more.  Volcanoes were getting common, for one thing. Probably all the ash in the air was from more distant ones.  Seeing flying ghosts was getting rarer.  These days, the only people Danny saw flying were ones with wings.  Everyone else marched on the ground.  

“As we shift from being ghosts to being demons,” said Clockwork, offering Danny another textbook to eat, “our abilities shift as well.  You will probably notice many people losing their auras soon, although you are likely to keep yours.”

But Danny had thought the shift was only aesthetic.  And why would he be an exception?

“Are our abilities not part of our aesthetic?” asked Clockwork.  “And you are not exactly an exception, per-se.  Your caste is designed to be flashy, visible.  You notice, do you not, how easily you stand out against most natural landscapes.”  He lifted the edge of Danny’s wing, showing off its white feathers.  

So, did that mean he couldn’t turn invisible anymore?  Or go through walls?  Not that he could test that second one while he was in the Zone.  

“Well,” said Clockwork, “when was the last time you tried?”

Putting it that way…  Danny went invisible.  He could still do it, but it was definitely harder.  He let himself fade back into visibility.  

“There are, as always, outliers,” said Clockwork, amused.  “It would be useful if you could keep that ability.”

Useful.  Clockwork and the others were using that word as a compliment a lot, lately.  He was useful, his messages were useful…  It was becoming sort of attention-grabbing for him.  A positive trigger.  On the other hand, being called useless…  

“If those fools of Pandora’s are giving you a hard time, I can mention it in my next message.”

Danny shook his head.  He didn’t want to get anyone in trouble.  He got the impression they were just jealous.  

“If that is your preference.  It is time for you to sleep, now.”

Obediently, Danny flew himself to his birdcage and shut the door behind him.  

.

Danny listened to a group of yetis argue.  An argument between yetis sounded like an apocalypse, and shook the snow from nearby mountains.  Danny was avoiding the avalanches by hiding in Frostbite’s mane.  

His latest message from Clockwork had set this argument off.  Something about nearby demon princes and the Observants.  Or, the Observants counting as a demon prince.  Or about the groups that held the land between the Time Locked Lands and the Far Frozen becoming more aggressive.  Or about them being conquered.  Danny got the impression that the topic had shifted a few times, and he lacked a great deal of context.

He sort of wanted to ask Clockwork to give him books about whatever language everyone was using for messages, too, so he could understand better.  Although, on the other hand, he got the feeling that a lot of what he carried was military secrets, so…  He might just be better off not knowing.  

The argument eventually wound down, and Frostbite plucked him from his mane.  “I am sorry you had to hear that, Great One.”

Danny shrugged as best he could in Frostbite’s grip.  

“Are you ready to eat?” asked Frostbite.  

Danny nodded vigorously.  He hadn’t been as hungry lately, with all the messages he was carrying in his stomach, but there was no way he’d ever turn down food.  

.

One morning… or, well.  It wasn’t really morning in the Zone.  But when he woke up, he stretched and looked at himself in the birdcage’s vanity mirror.  Ugh.  He’d thought his lower back had been weirdly itchy last night.  Turns out he’d been growing another set of wings.  Fun.  At least nothing else had changed in a while.  Chitons worked fine for him, but, wow, was Sam going to have trouble designing anything modern that would work with all this.  

He went through his morning routine and flew down to where Clockwork waited by the long table.  He was holding a book.  The book, Danny now realized.  

“I think you should be ready, now,” said Clockwork, pleasantly.  He put the book on the table in front of Danny.

He could read it!

The book was titled The Training and Use of Mouths, a Complete Primer for the Rising Demon Prince.  Danny opened the cover, and turned pages carefully with a bent knuckle until he reached a table of contents.  

Chapter 1: Qualities of Mouths

Chapter 2: The Training of Mouths

Section 1: Initial Training

Section 2: Messengers

Section 3: Songbirds

Section 4: Training for Other Specialties

Chapter 3: The Uses of Mouths

Section 1: Traditional Uses

Section 2: Taking Advantage of Loyalty

Section 3: Mouths as Weapons

Section 4: Mouths as Status Symbols

Chapter 4: The Care of Mouths

Section 1: Physical Care

Section 2: Social Care

Chapter 5: Incorporating Mouths into a Typical Court

Appendix A: Materials

Appendix B: Other Modifications

That was… hm.  This seemed oriented more towards people who were in positions of authority over Mouths rather than Mouths themselves, but he was sure it would still be useful to him.  At least, if he knew the traditional uses of Mouths, he might be able to do them better, if he was asked.  

Danny flipped pages back and forth, reading a passage here and a passage there, not quite ready to tackle the whole thing in order.  

Mouths are voracious, even ravenous, omnivores, especially when they are not carrying messages.  However, they rarely gain weight, unless they are recovering from malnourishment.  It is unclear where the things they eat go.  Their hunger is a great benefit to those wishing to impress one to their service, or those wishing to train one, as they are highly food-motivated.  

Among other castes, Mouths have a reputation for being vain and lazy.  In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.  This stereotype arises from their atypical docility, lack of territoriality and ambition, and sensitivity regarding their feathered wings.  Mouths will rarely start fights.  However, this should not lead to the assumption that they are weak.  Recall that Prince Morningstar used legions of Mouths in his armies, and they were terribly effective.  

For those concerned about their Mouth’s food needs, it is important to note both that they are true omnivores and that their food intake drops drastically when they are regularly carrying messages.  

Even more than the Knight caste, Mouths are loyal.  They rarely alter their allegiance after their first moon-cycle of existence, and changes of allegiance after a sun-cycle are unheard of except in cases of extreme coercive force.  Even the waters of the Lethe are not effective on their own.  

On occasion, Princes especially concerned with the loyalty and discretion of their Mouth - or perhaps wary of the resourcefulness of their enemies - would fit the Mouth with a carcanet, or collar.  This carcanet would prevent the Mouth from opening and repeating the message unless it was first unlocked and removed.  Generally, only the Mouth’s master and those they regularly corresponded with would have keys.  In some cases, where the Prince only used the Mouth as a medium to receive messages with, only the Prince themselves would possess a key.

It is important to note that only ghosts of a certain strength can properly impart a message to a Mouth.  A Mouth that is too much stronger than the one giving the message will not be able to receive it.  

There are two subsets of Mouths.  Messengers and songbirds.  Messengers are in a more natural state, and are the type most discussed in this book.  Songbirds are created by repeatedly filling Mouths to their limit with messages consisting of musical compositions and preventing them from discharging those messages, typically either through excellent discipline training or a carcanet, until the messages are digested.  Through this process, the songbird will eventually develop a ‘voice’ consisting of the musical compositions used in this process.  However, this should not be mistaken for a true voice, as the songbird has little control over what they are ‘saying.’

A less common use for Mouths is as a disposal for cursed or inconvenient magical artifacts.  Even very powerful artifacts can be digested by a Mouth in a matter of cycles.  This does not come without side effects, however, and the wise Prince would do well to expect the Mouth to be unusable for the duration.  

Danny, disquieted, returned to the table of contents, and found the section titled Initial Training.  

Training of Mouths should begin as soon as their wings and feathers grow in.  Assuming the Mouth is not already familiar with and positively inclined towards the prospective trainer, their cooperation may be easily secured with a promise of food.  Then, a short message, no more than two sentences, should be recorded on the Mouth.  The prince may accomplish this by touching their horns to the Mouth's and focusing on "pushing" the desired message into them.  This should feel similar to sharing energy with Knights or imparting instructions to Hands, but less taxing.  The message should then be delivered by instructing the Mouth to attempt to speak. 

Some difficulty can occur if the Mouth was mute prior to becoming a Mouth.  If this is the case, the author humbly suggests that the prince reading this guide consider training the Mouth as a songbird (see section 3 of this chapter for more details).  

The Realms in Their wisdom create Mouths in such a way that they find both the receipt and delivery of messages pleasant, and many Mouths also have Obsessions that align with these ingrained instincts, which increases the effect.  However, if the message delivered is as the prince intended, the Mouth ought to be fed regardless of whether or not food was promised to it.  This not only associates reward with the acts of receiving and delivering messages, but also with the prince themselves.  

If the message was not correctly recorded, the prince may try again.  If the recording continues to fail, the Mouth may be defective (see chapter 4, Care, for more details).  

While the Mouth is eating, and therefore receptive, they should then be asked to deliver a message elsewhere.  The receiver should either be one of the prince’s own retainers or a close ally, to prevent the Mouth from being stolen by enemies.  This message should be as long as it is possible for the Mouth to hold.  The prince will be able to sense when this limit is reached by a feeling of heightened resistance when recording the message.  

Delivering a message of this length will exhaust the Mouth, allowing the receiver to care for the Mouth by giving it food, grooming, and a place to rest (see chapter 4, Care, for more details, and Appendix A: Materials for grooming tools).  During this time, the receiver can then ask the Mouth to carry a message in return.  

This pattern of exhausting the Mouth, caring for it and rewarding it, and making a further request should be continued with small alterations each time.  Alterations may include things like changing locations or kind of reward, slowly changing requests to expectations and orders, and package training.  

One new to the training of Mouths might be surprised to find package training to be part of initial training, however this author finds that–

"They are using you to cement their alliance," said Clockwork, leaning over Danny's shoulder.  "They are all quite fond of you, personally, and your utility is high.  I believe the alliance will be successful."  He leaned back and started carding his fingers through Danny's hair.  “Why does it matter that they like you?  You have read that Mouths are loyal.  For those he owes that loyalty to to break with one another…  It would be very damaging to you, Daniel, even now, and they do not want to hurt you.  This alliance is very important, but given the pressures of these forms…  The aggressions engendered by red ectoplasm…”

Danny could understand it.  An alliance between the Far Frozen, the Time Locked Lands, and Pandora’s Tartarus would keep the peoples of those lands far safer than they would have been on their own.  Danny was flattered, honored, that he had been able to help, that they trusted him so much, that they liked him so much that they considered hurting him to be a strong disincentive to betrayal, but he would have liked to have been asked before being made a lynchpin.

“I would like to join them.  In this aesthetic, the chains that bind me to Long Now are both stronger and… more literal.  As you might imagine, having the Observants as my sole contact with the outside world is distasteful to me."  Clockwork began to twist Danny’s hair into a braid.  "I would ask you to help me."

See?  Clockwork got it.  Danny nodded.  Of course he would help.  If he was already delivering messages for Frostbite, Dora, and Pandora, it wasn't like it was an imposition.  And he'd always asked these guys if he could help them, and the answer had always been no for so long.  

Clockwork chuckled, the sound clicking and mechanical.  "You do not need to decide just yet.  I am perfectly happy to give you all the time you need to consider your options."

That just prompted Danny to nod more vigorously.  He wanted to help.  He wanted to be useful.  

Which, maybe, he shouldn’t, considering what he had just read.  The instructions in that book laid out how to manipulate someone like him, and his friends, his allies, had followed the steps perfectly.  They’d done it for a good reason, sure, but…  It should have shaken him to the core, and it did.  But he didn’t exactly dislike what he had been doing.  He could have stopped at any time.  He’d enjoyed it.  Carrying the messages had been oddly fulfilling, he’d enjoyed the positive attention, he was well fed, well rested, clean, useful, and he hadn’t gotten into a fight since– since–

A flush of panic spread from Danny’s heart to his extremities.  How long had he spent running messages?  How long had he been away from home?

Clockwork wrapped his hands around Danny’s horns, grounding him.  He hadn’t known holding his horns could do that, but of course Clockwork would.  He’d read the book.  

“It has only been a season,” said Clockwork, calmly, despite the not at all soothing content of his words.  “When you leave here, immediately return to the human world and only transform to your human form when you are near a hospital.”  He lowered his hands to Danny’s wings and began to clean them methodically.  “You have not been human for some time, and there are consequences to that.  Tell them that you were kidnapped and drugged, and do not remember where you were.  Your body will corroborate your story, as it will be somewhat malnourished, although not dangerously so.  I would like to borrow seven of your eye-feathers.”

One of Danny’s ears rotated back towards Clockwork, questioning.  

“It is to make something for you, and us.  There is a section about it in that book.”  Clockwork leaned over Danny’s shoulder and turned to a page in the appendices.  It was labeled Sympathetic Summoning Rings and included an illustration of a Mouth wearing two shiny metal rings around the bases of their horns.  “Two for your horns, one for me, one for Princess Dorathea, one for Queen Pandora, one for Chief Frostbite, and one for your sister.  So you know when you are needed by one of us, and when you are needed at home.”

Yes.  Jazz would like something like that.  Especially considering how badly he had lost track of time.  He nodded his agreement and Clockwork plucked the feathers so quickly he barely felt it.  

“I also think that you may be able to do more than act as a simple messenger.  After all, you are not only a demon,” he continued, answering Danny’s unspoken question.  “Do you not think that a truly loyal ambassador might be useful?  One who might negotiate, not merely repeat messages?  That even in this troubled age of demons, you might help broker peace?”

Oh.  Oh.  No, he hadn’t considered that, but now he wanted it, and he wanted it with an intensity that left him rather… bemused.  He hadn’t been this passionate about things like this before, had he?

“That is because protecting your town took up most of your time and attention.  You have been… reoriented and redirected.  Before, you acted against your ghostly nature in many ways, in your obedience to the authority figures of your hometown and your desire to conform.  Now, you act in accordance with your demonic nature with that same obedience.  But even if you could act as a scout, would that not be helpful?  Would that not be useful?”

No longer at all upset, Danny nodded.  Yes, he would be useful.  He still felt… bad… that he’d been away from home so long, though, and he couldn’t help but wonder if someone had gotten hurt.  

“Amity Park is safe,” said Clockwork.  “For the most part, the princes are turning their attention towards enemies closer to home.  It is unusual for a demon prince to conquer enough of the Realms to feel secure in attempting to invade the Earth.  Pariah was, as you have correctly concluded, the last one to do so, and he was betrayed quite handily by his subordinates for his pride.  Besides, your rival, Vladimir, is territorial enough to defend it in your absence.”

That was a relief.  

Clockwork finished Danny’s wings and patted his shoulders.  “One more thing you should know, before you leave,” he said.  “The Observants have started to work to occlude my vision of nearby events.  I have been timing your departures to help you avoid enemies, but until whatever tool they are using is stolen or destroyed…”  He shrugged, indicating his inability to see.  

Danny wondered if this was why Clockwork had shown Danny the book today, rather than waiting for another time.  

“It did affect my decision,” admitted Clockwork.  “You can stay here until you are ready to go, of course.  Perhaps someone will destroy their tools for us, and I will be able to send you on with a clear conscience.”

That would be nice.  But Sam and Tucker had to be worried out of their minds, not to mention Jazz.  Danny wasn’t sure what a ‘season’ meant to Clockwork, but thinking back… Yeah.  It could have been months.  

What had he been thinking?  How did he lose track of time so badly?  How could anyone?  Why didn’t it occur to him that he should go home?  It’s not like he’d forgotten about his friends and family.  

“During these shifts, our new instincts can grip us quite strongly.  It isn’t a moral failing to fall into them.”

Alright.  He was just going to chalk it up to ghost… to demon weirdness and let it go.  

But he also had to go.  Now that he’d noticed, he couldn’t delay.  

.

Danny flew high over the battlefields, occasionally snatching imps out of the air with his tongues if they passed too close to him.  It had been a while since he traveled without a message or at least a package, and he felt both light and empty.  

The landscape had changed so much…  There wasn’t a hint of green anywhere, except on his wings and in the spilled blood-ectoplasm of a few unfortunate demons. 

As Danny got further from Long Now, he had to dodge more random attacks.  No one was really flying after him, but ectoblasts fired from the ground were still annoying, and once he passed a group with siege engines, and that had been more annoying.  It kept him on high alert.  

About a quarter of the way back to the portal, he started to feel like he was being watched.  The feeling kept increasing.  He turned himself invisible, and changed directions.  This might lose a casual follower, but if he was getting followed by something really nasty that could see through his ruse, he’d rather face it in the Time Locked Lands with Dora’s armies at his back.  Or, preferably, at his front.  

Not having to fight all that much for ‘a season’ really had spoiled him.  

But he’d miscalculated.  The density of the rain of ectoblasts that came down at him made invisibility a moot point.  

Danny called up an ice shield and twisted as he fell, trying to stay airborne despite the burns on his wings.  He built another shield beneath his first, and let that one fly outwards as a hundred tiny knives of ice.  He was rewarded with grunts of pain as Observants fell from the sky around him, apparently too distracted by their injuries to stay flying.  

Observants.  Of course.  And of course they managed to keep some ghost powers, too, even as they mutated into horrible gargoyle-like creatures with eyeballs instead of faces and stony wings.  

They were above him in the air, for the most part.  That was dangerous.  If he wanted to escape them, he needed a superior altitude.

He dove, trying to gain distance, and then banked sharply up, dodging ectoblasts as best he was able.  Even so, he could hear his shield cracking with impacts.  The density of fire they could achieve when they all were shooting at once was just too high.  

Another group cut off his escape, forcing him to swerve, and then, with a well-placed hit, drop further into a kind of gully that deepened further into a canyon cut by a slow-moving river of sludge.  

… Actually, from the stink, this might be the River of Revulsion.  Ick.  

Even beyond the River of Revulsion being disgusting, this was very bad.  He had to punch a hole out, now.  

He swung to the side of the canyon, clung to rock with the talon-like claws on his feet, and called up an enormous ice field that spiked up from the ground.  The Observants who had been lining that lip of the canyon scattered, and Danny flew up and out, winding his way between his ice spikes.  

Come to think of it, this is what he and Frostbite had been practicing, when the age first began to change.  

He shot off, as fast as he could go, staying close to the ground.  When among the Observants, he’d wanted to get higher, but now the goal was to make himself as small a target as possible.  Ectoblasts impacted the ground just behind him, and to either side, but he felt sure he was outpacing the Observants.  

Then, the net.  

The thing hit him hard, and, in turn, he hit the ground hard, rolling for who knows how long before he came to a stop and the thing immediately shocked him.  Repeatedly.  This wasn’t his first encounter with shock-happy jerks, though, and being shocked just gave him more of a reason to struggle, not less.  

But the net was weighted, and the more he fought, the tighter it got.  Even ice didn’t seem to have any effect on the net.  

And then another net was dropped over him.  And he was kicked so he rolled over and the second net tangled around him, too.  

“I told you, you wouldn’t be able to catch him with your regular techniques,” said a familiar voice.  Danny glared up at the faceplate of Skulker’s new armor.  “Nothing personal, Phantom, but if I want to stay an independent bounty hunter, I have to deliver bounties.”

“Which you still haven’t,” wheezed an Observant.  “Your contract was for his safe delivery to the Panopticon.”

Skulker sneered.  “Fine.”  He jabbed something sharp through the nets and into Danny’s arm.  

.

Danny woke to the sensation of someone putting something around his neck.  He lunged forward, claws out, or tried to.  His hands and feet were chained securely to the surface of a table, where several Observants worked to file down his claws, in itself a horrible feeling.  

He tried to open his mouth and attack with tooth and tongue, but he could only part his lips to the place where the underside of his jaw met his neck.  That is, the upper edge of the collar, the carcanet, he had just been fitted with.  

“Don’t look so surprised,” said what looked like a higher-ranked Observant, standing on a platform above Danny.  “This is standard treatment for songbirds, which is all you’re good for.”

Danny did his best to ignore that chilling statement, and licked the back of his teeth.  They hadn’t muzzled him.  Their mistake.  He spat his venom directly at the ranking Observant.  It hit his cloak and ice began to spread over it rapidly.  He continued to spit, sowing chaos throughout the room until someone thought to sedate him again.  

.

He woke in a cage suspended in the center of a huge atrium.  Observants scurried around, in the air, on the walls, and on the floor.  Occasionally, a few of them would stop and… look at Danny, their gaze almost admiring, like they were looking at a work of art.  

Danny didn’t like that.  

Worse, several of his feathers, ones he thought were important, had been either pulled or cut out.  He didn’t know how that would affect his ability to fly, but he didn’t imagine it would be good.  

His lower legs and arms had been encased, from claw-tip to heel and claw-tip to elbow, in… in some sort of decorative covering.  The material was heavy and didn’t bend, and was inscribed with the same motifs that decorated the walls and the Observants robes.  The casings also trailed chains that led into tubes on the sides of the cage.  Experimentally, he froze the material, but, paradoxically, it heated up, symbols glowing, and he stopped before he could give himself nasty burns.

And there was a muzzle, now.  One that hooked onto his horns and put tension on them that felt, weirdly, both good and bad.  Like there was supposed to be tension on his horns, just not like this.  

Other than that, the cage was bare.  Nothing on the floor, no comforts, no bed except for the bars.  Not even any clothing for Danny.  Someone had stolen his chiton.  Jerks.  

A group of Observants broke off from a larger gathering and flew to Danny’s cage.  With a great deal of pomp, they opened the door.  

Whatever mechanism operated the door must have been connected to the chains attached to his arms and legs, because those chains went taut, pulling him into a starfish position suspended in the middle of the cage.  An Observant wearing fine, jeweled robes strode in, stony claws clicking over the bars of the cage.  

“Ah,” it said, “our new little songbird.”

Danny glared.  This seemed to amuse the Observant.  

“You understand that although a prince might try to rescue a messenger, they won’t raise a hand to help a songbird.  In only a few more cycles, you’ll only be useful as decoration.”  The Observant circled him.  “No one is coming to save you.  You’re never leaving this cage again.”  Its eyes crinkled in pleasure.  “Yes, that frightens you, doesn’t it?  And we haven’t even gotten started.”

Wow.  Not even started, huh.  Danny sure considered them kidnapping him to be starting.  

“Oh, even if we’ll never have your loyalty, we can train you up, yes, yes, and punish the little clock, that wind-up toy for daring to go against us.”  It wrinkled its eye further, and patted Danny’s cheek with a three-fingered hand.  “You doubt, now, don’t you?  But you’re already hungry, aren’t you?  Eventually, we will at least have your…”  It lowered its voice to something deep and ominous, “cooperation.  Hm?  And if not, well…  You’ll sing very prettily, regardless, and remind all our… vassals of what we can do.”  

Danny doubted that.  

“Well.  Well.  We need to start on our first session, don’t we?  I will begin with my favorite composers.”  It touched its horns to Danny’s.  

Before this, Danny hadn’t appreciated that his friends hadn’t filled him to his limit.  No.  They must have stopped when they felt him approaching it.  This Observant had no such scruples.  He filled Danny, then kept pushing until it hurt.  Only then did it step away.  

“I will return,” it said, cheerfully.  

The chains dropped Danny to the bottom of the cage as the Observant left, closing the door behind it.  Danny trembled, his jaw twitching to open and release the immense pressure of the message inside him.  He felt he could almost hear the music, something howling and operatic, inside his head.  

He had to get out of here.  Fast.  But if he tried to escape haphazardly, under these circumstances, he would fail.  

The Observants had, seemingly, overlooked an enormous hole in their security.  Danny could turn human.  He could phase cleanly through most Zone materials… unless that, too, had changed with the age.  

But, his human form was, in Clockwork’s words, malnourished.  Enough that he’d thought Danny should go to a hospital, first thing.  And this cage was at least a couple of stories up.  A fall could be… bad.  Especially since he was pretty sure his wings had been clipped and he therefore couldn’t rely on a transformation to keep him from hitting the ground.

Then there were all the Observants.  He’d gotten lucky, that time with Walker.  Most of the time, ghosts were able to adjust more quickly to humans in their midst, and these weren’t ghosts.  These were demons.  

But even so…

He pulled himself into a sitting position, grimacing at his inability to move his feet or wrists.  A place like this had to operate on some sort of schedule.  If he could figure out what the quiet times were, he would have a better chance.  And maybe he could somehow use the chains to climb down…  Or he could climb up.  This cage had to be attached to something up there.  

That was a good idea.  He’d climb up and then… go from there.  He had no idea what the rest of this place looked like, so planning beyond get out and general strategies wasn’t going to be very useful.  

He squinted at the Observants below him.  Maybe he could steal a robe or a cloak from one of them and sneak around?  It worked in enough movies…  He probably shouldn’t bet his life and freedom on something from a movie working, though.  

He continued to sort through options as he tried to find a pattern to the Observants’ movements.  For a while, that served to keep his mind off… things.  

Not forever, though.  

He hadn’t read a lot about songbirds in the book, but he’d read enough to know that he really would be useless if the Observants succeeded in making him one, and he had no idea how long that process would take.  He couldn’t, at least, serve as a messenger anymore, and the implication that he wouldn’t have any choice about ‘singing’ was clear.  He didn’t want to be some kind of demonic iPod.  

If that happened, he wouldn’t blame anyone for abandoning him.  

.

The next 'session' left Danny clawing at his neck and face in a futile attempt to remove the carcanet and muzzle.  But with the coverings, he couldn't even scratch his face, let alone metal.  

The internal pressure was enormous.  

He managed to stop himself after only a few minutes of writhing.  He wanted to pant, but had to settle for breathing heavily through his nose.  

Maybe he should just take his chances at escaping now, rather than wait for a good time.  He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take, especially if they weren't going to feed him.  

His stomach turned uneasily against the sensation of being both too full and too empty.  

But, no.  Planning.  Planning was what was going to get him out.  

But what if he just got weaker and weaker until he couldn't escape?

He flexed his knees and elbows, and the joints of his wings, trying to distract himself.  If two more 'sessions' passed without him being able to find a good time, he would just take his chances.  

.

A pair of Observants in plain robes flew up to his cage.  One of them held two bowls, one full of cut fruit, the other full of seeds.  The other unlocked the door, pulling Danny into the same splayed, vulnerable position as before.  

Danny's stomach rumbled loudly, and he felt drool drip off his chin.  He was starving, and he didn't doubt the Observants knew it.

"If we take off the muzzle, will you cooperate and eat like a good little songbird?"

Danny made his eyes as wide and innocent as possible and nodded, projecting serenity.  As soon as the muzzle came off, he yanked on his chains and twisted, biting the Observant.  It yoweled as its flesh froze beneath Danny's fangs, and Danny spit it out, disgusted.  Even as hungry as he was, he didn't want to eat that.  

That's what demons with cores taste like, supplied the itchy, instinctive part of his brain as he did his best to raise more chaos.

The muzzle went back on.  

The door, however, stayed open.  They left the food, too.  He wondered if this was another carefully-constructed torture, waving both food and freedom in his face like this when he was even more immobilized.  

He tried to comfort himself by thinking it didn't really matter.  The food was probably drugged, anyway, and he could still get out of this by turning human.  

But he was so hungry.  He was tempted to turn human just so he could eat.  He still had enough willpower to refrain from that, even though his body periodically twitched towards the food.  

His question about whether or not leaving the door open and the food present was intentional was answered moments later.  Another plain Observant flew towards the cage and started to adjust something near the door.  

The tension on the chains holding Danny in place increased.  

Crap.  

A few minutes later, just as Danny had gotten used to the new stress on his limbs, the tension was increased again, to the accompanying giggle of the Observant. 

It kept on like that for… it must have been hours.  At irregular intervals, the Observant would either tighten or loosen the chains.  Never enough to give Danny any real relief, no, but enough to make him wonder if they were finally closing the door.  

All thoughts about planning an escape were put on hold in favor of anticipating whether or not the next change would be an increase in tension or a release.  Between that and the increasingly delicious smell of the fruit and seed, he had no room in his head for anything else.  

"I've come to see our little songbird."

Danny jerked his head up.  A small group of Observants floated at the door.  He hadn't noticed them coming.  The two best dressed were a large Observant with jewels set in its stony skin and a smaller one with a clipboard.

The Observant who'd been operating the chains giggled.  "I don't think you'll like the look of it, my lord."

"I'll be the judge of that."  

The Observant got up close to Danny, poking and prodding, pushing back his eyelids and looking in his ears.

"You were right," said the jeweled Observant.  "I don't like the way it's looking at us.  Schedule an appointment with the enucleator."  

The Observant with the clipboard scoffed.  "The stupid thing probably doesn't even know what that is."

"No, it doesn't.  Maybe we'll tell it, eventually.  In the meantime, have him fitted with a blindfold."

Danny… did not panic.  It was a near thing, but he didn't.  Even when a large portion of his mind was screaming he had to go now now now because there was no way he'd be able to spot a pattern in the Observants' movements while blindfolded, he didn't panic.   

Panicking would lose him the few advantages he did have here.  

So he breathed slowly, deliberately, as one of the Observants held lengths of cloth up to his eyes for the jeweled Observant's approval and another ducked behind him to clean his wings. He resisted, of course, moving as much as he could, pulling his wings away.  He didn't think he'd be able to stop himself from at least doing that.  

"If you don't stop moving, little songbird, we will have your ears stopped up with wax as well."

Danny went as still as stone.  

"Good songbird," said the Observant.  

The Observant eventually chose an embroidered length of cloth with an eye motif on it.  Danny might have thought it pretty if it wasn't associated with the Observants.  This was then sewn, in front of Danny, onto a stiff, shaped leather body that was clearly intended to attach to the muzzle Danny was wearing.  Which indicated to Danny that the whole thing was a farce, and they were always going to blindfold him. 

Before they put the blindfold on, they painted his eyes over with something stinging and sticky.  It started to harden as soon as the blindfold was pressed in place.  He was not going to be able to get it to slip. 

Then, of course, the Observant 'filled' him.

Forget going through this again.  As soon as they left and shut the door, he was going to start his escape, good timing or not.  

Or, at least he’d start as soon as his head stopped ringing with hallucinatory music.  

The door did not close.  The tension on his limbs was not released.  In fact, a moment after he thought that, the tension increased again.  That one stupid Observant was still here.  

At least that one stupid Observant was still there.

Fine.  Fine.  Danny would just have to… to listen.  To focus on what he could hear to find out if they were really gone.  

Danny’s hearing seemed intent on making up for Danny’s inability to see.  Danny was becoming less and less sure that the music was hallucinatory.  It was distant and faint, maddeningly so, but it was also very regular.  On top of that were the rising and ebbing sounds of the Observants going about their business.  Also, his ears felt like they were growing, and he hated the fact that they might be.  

But his hearing wasn’t the only sense Danny still had access to.  His bare skin felt every breeze.  He could feel the coverings on his arms and feet cutting into his skin.  He could feel the glue over his eyes drying, itching.  He could feel the carcanet as his neck strove to open.  He felt the muzzle pressing in on his jaw.  

He could smell.  

The food was still in his cage, and it smelled delicious.  

The idea of food grew larger and larger in Danny’s mind, not that it had exactly been small before.  Drool dripped down his front.  

And then it smelled close.  The chains loosened just a little, and he unconsciously leaned forward.  They listened a little more.  He was getting closer.  Bit by bit, until he was eeling along the barred floor, his joints stressed too much to work right.  

He strained towards what he knew was food…  And then he was yanked back up, pulled away.  

The laughter was uproarious.  He flinched away, but it was coming from all sides and he couldn’t move.  

Then it started again.  He knew, he knew he was going to be yanked backwards again, but he couldn’t help being hungry, and, maybe, just maybe, there was a chance.  

There wasn’t.  He was jerked back again.  

A third time, he was slowly released.  

He reached the food.  Finally.  

He still had the muzzle on.  He pushed it against the fruits in the bowl, well, fuitlessly.  

“Aw,” said a voice much closer than Danny had expected.  “Is the little songbird hungry?”

Danny nodded, tearfully.  

“But the little songbird misbehaved.  Has the little songbird learned its lesson?”

Danny nodded.

“Next time,” said the Observant, sing-song and taunting, “if the little songbird is naughty, it won’t eat again until it can sing for its food.”

The muzzle was stripped from his face and he immediately dove at the bowls.  He didn’t care, in the moment, if they were drugged or not.  He didn’t care that the fruits were filled with unsatisfying paper.  All he cared about was being a little less hungry.  

Or, rather, those things did matter to him.  It was just that eating superseded other concerns.  

“Little songbird’s favorite food is music,” said the Observant, giggling.  “Bye bye, little songbird.  Until next time.”

The door clanged shut.  Oh.  Oh, thank goodness.  They’d left him alone.  

Something drowsy came over him.  Of course the food had been drugged.  Of course.  But if he fell asleep now…  His imagination conjured a horrible cycle where he woke up starving, was ‘filled,’ and then fed and drugged again and again and again.  Probably with some added torture to amuse the Observants, who had definitely picked up a sadistic streak.  

But he could feel himself slipping, slipping, slipping–

He called on his ice powers, and the coverings burned hot.  Hot enough to wake him.  

Okay.  Alright.  He could do this.  He could stay awake, and listen, and keep his ice powers going, and escape.  

Yes.  

He listened.  The sounds the Observants made increased and decreased like a tide.  There was a pattern.  There was.  Even beyond the music playing in his head, there was.  There had to be.  

Please.  

There was a dip.  A deeper dip.  

Good enough.  He turned human.  

The music he’d been holding inside him burst outward with destructive force.  Half the cage bars exploded outward, and what was left of the structure spun dizzily.  Danny clung to the chains that had held him in place earlier, his human hands small and shaking, his sneakers unfamiliar as they scrabbled against the bars.  

The atrium, he saw, had not been emptier.  In fact, there had been several jeweled observants close to his cage, no doubt coming to torment him.  

They were now embedded in the nearest walls.  

Well.  

Well!

It was no ghostly wail, but Danny was glad he had something.  Let them just try to turn him into a songbird again!

Well.  Actually, no.  They’d probably come up with some way to keep him from transforming.  

He had to get out of here.  

It would be a lot easier if his human form didn’t feel just as horrible and shaky as his ghost form.  Malnutrition sucked and he never wanted to do it again.  

Something landed on his shoulder.  Reflexively, Danny turned and bit.  Observants tasted just as gross in human form as they did in demon form, but this time, he didn’t let go.  He wrapped his arms around the hapless Observant as it flew to and fro, trying to dislodge him.  Danny tried to use his weight to steer it lower.  

It did get lower.  It also ran headfirst into a pillar.  They dropped.

But Danny, at least, didn’t drop far.  He grabbed on to a tasseled rope and slid several meters down, friction wearing burns into his hands.  More cautiously, but still quickly, before the Observants gathered themselves enough to really look around themselves, he let himself slide down the rest of the way.  He hit the Observant he’d caught a ride on in the head with both feet just as it was getting up.  

Ooh!  Free robe!  

Maneuvering the Observant so he could strip the robe off it was difficult, but, wow, adrenaline was great, wasn’t it?  He flipped the hood up over his head and disappeared.  Literally.

Going invisible in human form was always a bit harder than it was in ghost form, but now it was harder still.  He didn’t know if it was because he was slowly losing the ability, or if it was just because of how… how… He didn’t know how to describe his physical and mental state at the moment.  Bad, he supposed.  

He ducked down a corridor that led out of the atrium and walked until he was almost falling over.  He peeked into rooms until he found something that looked like a storeroom and tucked himself behind the crates there.  Then he passed out.

.

"Even if they have found another Mouth, Clockwork is useless to their alliance without his predictions.  As long as the oracle has the Mist of Ages, we will crush them."

Danny blinked himself awake.  Oh, that sounded interesting.  Mist of Ages, huh?  That sounded like something important.  That sounded like the thing ‘occluding’ Clockwork’s vision.  

"And the songbird's escape?"

"It won't stay escaped."

Screw them.  He would stay escaped.  

“The oracle is having a hard time seeing it.  Its turned human.”

“That won’t last forever.  I would never stay human for so long.”

“Songbirds have no standards.”

“They must have some pride.  Even they are demons.  In fact, its probably turned back and the oracle can see it now.”

“I doubt it.”

“You doubt me?  Your senior?  Very well.  Let’s go back and check.”

Danny carefully extricated himself from the boxes he’d fallen asleep among, and crept out of the store room, drawing on invisibility as much as he could.  Down the hall walked a pair of Observants.  He followed them.  

Maybe that was stupid.  He was trying to escape, after all, but if the oracle had the thing keeping Clockwork from seeing, even if he got caught, it might be worth it if he could destroy it.  Plus, he had no idea which way was the way out.  

The Observants reached a set of stairs and climbed up and up.  Danny, shaking, followed.  

The stairs were topped by a set of double doors guarded by Observants in armor.  They confronted the two Observants Danny had been following, and spoke to them for a while.  Then, they opened the doors.  

Danny hurried to follow them, slipping in just before the doors shut again.  

In the center of the room sat a huge, bloated Observant.  Despite its size, its eye was more than twice the size of the rest of its boxy.  Tiny, stubby horns poked up from its head.  It lounged among eye-embroidered cushions and in its clawed hand was a bottle that spilled fog into the room like there was a miniature fog machine in there.  

Or maybe not so miniature, Danny realized as he grew closer.  The bottle was as big as his torso, at least.  

His invisibility flickered, and he latched onto it with mental claws.  Not.  Now.  His eyes unfocused and his ears filled with static.  

Heck.  He really felt bad.  

“Oh, great oracle,” said one of the Observants.  “Prince of Seers!  Tell us, where is the songbird once called Phantom?”

The oracle’s great eye turned towards Danny.  Danny lunged forward, clawing and biting and scratching and basically doing everything his worn body was capable of.  This did not seem to be something the oracle expected.

Danny was beginning to doubt their credentials, vis a vis the whole ‘Prince of Seers’ bit.  

He got the bottle in his hands and smashed it on the ground.  This had the effect of filling the room with opaque smoke.  It also had the effect of giving Danny a very large weapon of very pointy glass.  

Uncaring of the smoke, he stabbed around himself wildly.  Everyone in here was an enemy.  Well, except for himself, and, mentally, he was relaxing in Tartarus, the Far Frozen, Long Now, or the Time Locked Lands, so there.  From the screams of pain, he was hitting targets.  

Then, he hit something big that burst like a balloon, the remains of the bottle serving to channel a lot of moist, bloody gel directly at Danny.  Oh.  Oh, gross.  He must have popped the oracle’s eye.  And now its eye goop was on him!  In his clothes!  On his skin!

Ew!

Not that all the Observants didn’t deserve to have their eyes popped, but.  Gross.  Very gross.  

All the lights in the room went out.  

Except… there was a skylight.  

In human form, he’d never make it up there, but in demon form…  He transformed.  The blindfold came back, but the claw coverings had, thankfully, been left behind.  Too attached to the chains, he guessed.  He licked them.  They felt raw and blunted, but they’d do.  He covered them with sharp ice and began his way up the wall.  

He remembered, more or less, where the window was, and when he thought he’d gotten close enough, he let ice spread out from his hands.  A sharp enough temperature change–

Something splintered, and he felt small pieces of glass rain down on him, accompanied by a breese.  There were shouts from below.  He ignored them.  

He was on the roof.  

How far up he was, he had no idea.  None at all.  But he had no choice.  He threw himself forward and flared his wings.  

He faltered, falling, the feathers that the Observants had cut from his wings enough to sabotage him after all, but then he remembered what it was like to fly as a ghost, and he pulled up.  

This was fine.  Fine!  Bats flew blind all the time, didn’t they?  Surely his hearing was at least as good as a bat’s!

Bats also could make echolocation sounds.  Danny was mute.  

He hit the ground and rolled, going human halfway through.  He lay sprawled on his back for several minutes, watching with pleasure as the Observants’ stupid building caught on fire.  He hadn’t thought his escape would cause so much chaos, but he hoped it hurt when they burned.  

… That was a kind of sadistic thought for him, wasn’t it?  

Maybe, but he’d never been tortured before, either, had he?

He kind of had, though.  

Not for that long.

Wasn’t talking to himself sort of a bad sign?

He pulled himself to his feet.  Now, all he had to do was get back to the Far Frozen, the Time Locked Lands, Long Now, or Tartarus.  Easy.  

Another way of putting that was to say all he had to do was travel an unknown distance in almost-literal hell, in an unknown direction, while avoiding an unknown number of demons, while literally and actively starving, and also human.  Probably by walking.  Less easy.  

Better than staying here.  He stumbled forward.  

.

He saw the yetis long before they saw him.  It was hard to imagine it happening otherwise.  The yetis were a range of ice-mountains, moving slowly across the volcanic plains, white and stately.  They looked, from this distance, like a cross between polar bears and lions.  

Danny walked towards them, pausing to wave every few minutes in case they saw him.  It seemed like forever before they did.  But when they turned towards him…  Oh, that was the best he’d felt in forever.  

He sat down and started to cry, just a bit.  

When they reached him, his earlier thought that their voices were too deep for humans proved true.  He could feel them speaking, the words vibrating in his bones, but he couldn’t understand any of it.  They seemed to understand that, though.  They gave him tasty jerky to chew on.  Definitely an understanding.  

Frostbite crouched in front of him.  There was a box hanging around his neck, like the little cask around the neck of a St. Bernard.  He took it off and put it on the ground next to Danny.  Compared to Danny, it wasn’t so little.  It was easily the size of a good sized room.  Frostbite took the lid off the box, and picked Danny up, carefully, telegraphing the movement far in advance.  

Within the box was a hammock, a great number of pillows and blankets, and a small lamp.

Before he could be tucked into the box, no matter how inviting it looked with all the soft, cozy pillows and the comfortable hammock, he grabbed a handful of Frostbite’s fur.

“Did you mean it?” asked Danny, hoarsely.  “When you said I had a choice?”  He switched to demon form so he could hear the answer.  

“Of course!” said Frostbite.  “But choosing to follow one's instincts is also a choice.  You could have refused to carry any of our messages, after all, but you did not.  I would hesitate to do so, under the current circumstances, but some would consider you quite fortunate that your new instincts align so well with your personal values.  Even before you became a Mouth, you desired to be helpful, to be useful, to be valued, did you not?  And now you can be, simply by playing the role you have been adapted for.  Some would consider it fate.”

Danny would… not discount fate, exactly.  He flipped back human.  “Where are you taking me?” he asked, before going back to demon form.  Switching back and forth was starting to give him a headache.  

“To Long Now.  We may still retain our medical knowledge, but the physical practice of it… Even before you were taken, it was beginning to slip from us.  Clockwork will be able to help you.  Now, you must go in.”  Frostbite pushed him down a bit more firmly, and Danny let go.  The lid of the box clicked closed above him.  

He went human.  He wanted to see.  

The inside of the box was painted with the same pattern as the inside of the messenger room in Dora’s castle.  There had to be a meaning to that, there had to…

The pattern lit up, little lights moving this way and that.  Danny felt his pupils go wide and his muscles relax.  Oh, he thought, oh.  This is what it was for.  He felt the rough edges of his mind… they didn’t disappear.  It was more like they were put on mute.  

He cuddled down into the blankets and pillows.  So comfy.  So nice, watching the little lights.  

The lid of the box opened, and the little lights went out.  He made a muffled noise of protest as he was lifted from the box not by Frostbite, but by Clockwork.  

“Hello, Daniel,” said Clockwork, carrying him deeper into Long Now.  “I am sorry this happened to you.  I know this is something that makes you anxious, so rest assured that you would have been rescued even if those fools had succeeded in making you a songbird.  If nothing else, you would have always had a place here.”  Clockwork gestured up at Danny’s cage. 

Danny blinked at him, at first feeling nothing but gratitude, but…  “Did you… mean for this to happen?”

“Daniel, if I wanted you made into a songbird, I would have merely needed to lock the door behind you that first night, and it would have been beyond easy to take care of the rest of the steps myself.  I know you are not in a state to be interested in the details, but the Observants did a horribly sloppy, rushed job in their hurry to throw you back in our faces.  If I were making you into a songbird, I would start with letting you help me pick out the music.”

That was… weirdly comforting.  

“In any case, if I were to make you into anything but a messenger, I would make you into a scribe.  You would be much more suited for that role, even if their rarity surpassed even that of songbirds.”

Still comforting.  Somehow.  

“But I would never do that without talking to you about it.”  He sat Danny down on a stool.  “I will begin with an IV and food for your human form,” he said.  “I want it to be strengthened before we start on your demon form, so it is not forgotten again.”

Danny nodded and offered up his arm.  Clockwork, somehow, seemed to pluck an IV from thin air and carefully placed it in Danny’s arm.  Food, human food, or at least human-looking food, similarly appeared from nowhere.

“Eat,” said Clockwork, “but slowly.”

.

“Clockwork,” said Danny, after he had made his way through several tiny, well-spaced meals, “can’t I just… fix my human half when I go home?  I mean, you told me to go to a hospital, so…”

“Ah,” said Clockwork.  “I’m afraid that’s no longer possible.”

Danny frowned.  “Why not?”

“My powers have also shifted.  I can no longer make temporal or physical portals.”  He snapped his fingers, as if to demonstrate.  “If I could, I would have sent you home straight from here all those weeks ago.  This means that you would have to fly there yourself.”

Danny frowned.  “Yeah?  So?”

“When our allies discovered the Observants had captured you, they turned the majority of their forces towards them.”

Danny hadn’t realized that.  Hadn’t dreamed of being that important to them.  

“This, in turn, meant abandoning some other projects.”  He sighed.  “We had hoped to conquer the lands around the portal, both for the benefits access to the human world would bring, and for your ease, but it is no longer possible.  The alliance of Vladimir, Fright Knight, and Technus is formidable.  I do not believe they would let you pass without trying to keep you.”

“Oh,” said Danny.  

“Do not worry,” said Clockwork.  “The age is yet young, the balance of power unstable.  Alliances like theirs fall apart all the time.  You may yet return.  For now, put your effort into recovering, so you may help us.”

“You think I’ll still be useful?”

“As I said, even as a songbird, you would be useful, and, according to Frostbite, you had yet to undergo any of the physical changes that herald the transition from messenger to songbird.”

“I could hear the music, though, in my head.”

“Not ideal,” said Clockwork, “but you will recover.  I can see the future, you know.”

“Promise?”

.

Danny examined himself in the vanity mirror.  It was strange, perhaps, but despite what had happened with the Observants, his birdcage didn’t bother him at all.  It felt like home, now, nice and secure.  The only person who could lock him in this cage was Clockwork, and Clockwork would only do that if he was trying to do something stupid, like fly on broken wings, or if it were very expedient indeed.  

Speaking of things not bothering him…  He looked just as he had before the Observants caught him.  Even his filed-down claws had recovered.  The only scars the encounter had left were mental.  

Hopefully, Clockwork would let him start working again soon.  He was getting a little jittery from being cooped up in Long Now.  Not that Long Now wasn’t interesting, or that Clockwork wasn’t taking wonderful care of him, giving him as much food as he could eat!  It was just that he’d been in for a long time.  

“Daniel,” called Clockwork from below.  “Come down.  I have something for you.”

Danny didn’t need to be told twice.  He leapt from his cage and flew down to hover in front of Clockwork.

“Do you remember what we talked about before you left?” asked Clockwork, smiling and leading Danny to a piece of wall that consisted of a mirror-polished gear.  “The summoning rings?”

Danny nodded.  

“They are done,” said Clockwork, pulling a set of five rings from inside the sleeve of his robes.  They were silver, the same color as Danny’s filigree.  “They resize to fit the wearer,” he explained as he slipped one over his own wrist.  He handed the remaining four to Danny, then pulled two more from his other sleeve.  “May I?”

Danny bounced eagerly, wings fluttering.  Clockwork’s stance took on an indulgent tint.  

“Turn around,” he said.

Clockwork slid one of the two rings over Danny’s left horn, all the way to the base, where it touched his skin, and the second ring over his right.  They sat there, dense and cool, but they didn’t quite feel right.  He tilted his head one way, then the other.  

“Stay still,” chastised Clockwork, and Danny stopped, obediently.  

Clockwork placed each of his index fingers on Danny’s horns, right above the rings, which felt nice, then slowly drew them back, all the way to the tips of the horn.  The horns grew, and Danny gasped at the sensation.  The silver rings resisted the growth, tightening.  This, he realized, was what the muzzle hooked to his horns had almost achieved.  Any more, and it would have been painful, any less and it wouldn’t have felt secure.  

Clockwork tugged gently on the rings, making sure they were firmly in place.  “They will stretch, somewhat, with your horns as they grow,” said Clockwork, “but your horns should not grow much more.  Would you like me to show you how they work?”

Danny nodded, happiness bubbling inside him.  

Clockwork raised the wrist his ring was on.  “All one of us has to do,” he said, “is touch the ring and think strongly of you coming to us.”  

The rings around Danny’s horns started to impart a sort of vibrating, pulling energy to him.  Involuntarily, he took a step towards Clockwork.  

“Of course, if we are wearing them, we are already touching them.  I would like you to deliver the other three to our allies.  Along with a few messages from myself.”

Danny hugged Clockwork.  Yes!  Not only was this a great gift by itself, but he got to start working again!  He could be useful again!  But Clockwork had said three allies, not four.  Who was the fourth ring for?  Not Jazz, anymore, with how inaccessible the human realm was.

“Ah,” said Clockwork, “just in time.”  

Danny looked up, then at the doors.  Was Clockwork predicting a visitor?

“A friend, back from delivering a message to the Kingdom of Gluttony.”  

The doors of Long Now swung open, and a demon flew in.  They… looked exactly like Danny.  Identical, down to the color of their eyes and the rings around their horns.

He stared.  They stared.  Then, they started to smile, and Danny knew.  Knew.  

Dani!

He opened his arms wide and so did she.  They ran towards one another and embraced, touching their horns together.  They couldn’t transmit messages themselves, but they could share the feeling that came with the touch.  Danny was so relieved she was alright!

“As I said,” said Clockwork, all twelve of his eyes glittering, “I thought you would like one to give to your sister.  And, Danielle, I believe you have one to give to your brother?”  

Shyly, Dani slipped a ring off her wrist and offered it to Danny, who exchanged it with one of his own.  

“Excellent,” said Clockwork.  He patted them both on their heads.  “Now, Danielle, I believe you have a message for me?”

Dani opened her mouth and Danny couldn’t help but keep smiling.  This was such a wonderful day!

#danny phantom #phic phight #phic phight 2023 #i can technically say this is a fantasy au right? #right? #I'll count it for dannymay anyway #dannymay 2023

[sourcherryandsprinkles]

Mother dearest | Xavier Thorpe x Addams!Reader

Advent calendar day four: Winter Solstice

Summary: Xavier spends winter break at the Addams manor and celebrates Winter Solstice for the first time. When night comes, the two of you take advantage of the timing to conduct a séance and call someone special

I got most of my Winter Solstice and Yule knowledge from the Chilling adventures of Sabrina…and picked some other lore around the internet/from the Krampus movie. I apologize if some things are wrong, please don’t come at me

my taglists are here + you can send requests here at any time

—

Snow was falling outside the living room window as you helped your mother decorating the tree, dusting the Addams manor’s property ground with a light coat of white. It was pretty to look at, but all winter reminded you of was the frostbites you got on your hands as a child. 

‘’We're delighted to have you with us for the Winter Solstice, Xavier,’’ Granny Frump said, a little too fond of your boyfriend. 

It was very kind of your parents to invite Xavier over for winter break. His father was too busy to take some time from his schedule to spend time with his son, which would have left him spending the holidays alone at the academy. 

‘’Faustine would be so proud of the young man you became. She was a psychic too. Predicted many famous deaths…even her own!’’ 

Xavier smiled at the gray haired woman, uncertain how to respond. His memories of his godmother were hazy, having only seen her three times in his life — one of them being in her casket at her funeral.

‘’Children, Mother, gather here,’’ your mother invited after you placed the last ornament, saving Xavier from an endless uncomfortable conversation with Granny Frump. ‘’It’s time to light the yule log.’’

Your father brought a box of matches and handed them to your mother as Pugsley and Wednesday came down the stairs, joining you all before the fireplace. 

‘’Have you ever celebrated the Winter Solstice, Xavier?’’ Morticia asked, a box of matches in hand.

He shook his head. Holidays were not really a thing at home. ‘’No, Mrs. Addams.’’ 

Your mother lit the match with a crack, and as the flame flickered, she elaborated on the basics of winter solstice and significance of the Yule log. ‘’Remember, the Yule log is not a decoration. It’s a protection. It must burn continuously from now through the shortest day through the longest night until dawn. Otherwise, Satan knows what malevolent forces might come down our chimney.’’

‘’Like Krampus!’’ Pugsley interjected, a shiver of terror crossing his face. 

You and Wednesday had read him the tale of Krampus a few years ago, which gave him nightmares for months. Thinking back, it hadn’t been very nice of you, but only you and Wednesday were allowed to torment Pugsley. 

‘’Krampus?’’ Xavier echoed, his eyebrows furrowed with confusion. He glanced at you, silently asking for an explanation, but before you could respond, your twin sister took the lead.

‘’He is a hairy creature with cloven hooves and horns like goats. His long, pointed tongue lolls out and he has fangs...to eat the children he captures on his night out. During the Winter Solstice, he walks around the streets with chains, looking for badly behaved children to tie to them and take to his den,’’ Wednesday explained, concluding her explanation with a dark toward Pugsley. 

Xavier's eyes widened with a mix of curiosity and unease at Wednesday's vivid description of Krampus. ‘’Sounds like quite the character,’’ he said, trying to lighten the mood.

You wrapped a hand around his upper arm. ‘’Worry not, mon amour, if the fire is burning, he cannot come in,’’ you added in reassurance, providing a detail that Wednesday had conveniently omitted. 

‘’Children, that’s enough,’’ your mother intervened, her voice cutting through the tension. She stepped closer to the fireplace and successfully ignited the Yule log, the flames casted a warm glow across the living room. ‘’And now, the Solstice blessing.’’ 

Once the house was quiet and asleep, Xavier met you in your bedroom. The manor’s creaking wood floors were an easy betrayal so he had to be careful to not step on the wrong floor board. If your parents knew what you were up to, they would be livid.

‘’Did you bring it?’’ you whispered in the dimly lit space. 

Xavier reached through the collar of his shirt and retrieved a silver chain with a dainty ring looped through it: his mother’s ring. 

During the Winter Solstice, the veil between this world and the next is at its thinnest, making it the perfect time to conduct a séance. But beware, the thinness of this veil carried its own danger, which was why it was very important to keep the Yule log burning throughout the whole séance. If the fire were to die, any malicious spirits could seize the opportunity to slip through the transient gap and come to this world, to your chimney. 

You sat around the table you had prepared before Xavier’s arrival with an array of candles, a chalk-drawn pentagram and matches. ‘’You seem nervous, mon amour?’’ 

‘’I’m about to speak to my mother…who died seven years ago,’’ he said, his fingers fidgeting with the silver chain. ‘’This is surreal.’’ 

Despite your many shopping trips to Jericho, you had been unsuccessful to find something to give him. Nothing material felt right. He could buy himself anything he wanted with his father’s money. So you decided to give Xavier something that had no price to his eyes — a chance to speak to his mom again.  

‘’Are you sure it's safe?’’ Xavier asked, watching you light the lasts of the candles. 

‘’My mother’s side of the family has been doing this for generations, witchcraft is in our blood. I’ve been assisting my mother during her séances since I was three years old. I know what I’m doing.’’ You glanced at him over the candles. ‘’As long as Thing is keeping the Yule log burning, everything should be fine. Hand me the ring?’’ 

Xavier slipped the ring off the chain and placed it in the palm of your open hand, your fingers brushing against his. With care, you placed it in the middle of the table and began. 

‘’Hands facing down the table, pinkies touching,’’ you instructed, closing your eyes. ‘’Focus your energy. Send it to the table. If your mother is here, she may speak herself or through me or some combination.’’

Xavier nodded although you couldn’t see him.  

‘’Spirits below and above. Spirits in between, causing in the fabric betwixt worlds. We ask that the veil be lifted and you send forth the spirit of Delphine Thorpe. Delphine, you are welcome to this house, to the circle. If you’re here we ask that you make your presence known.’’

A sudden gust of wind blew into the room although no windows were open, sending a chill down your spine. 

Having felt it too, Xavier looked at you, his green eyes both excited and nervous. He looked around, careful to not rupture your pinkies on the table. 

A soft smile drew on your lips, the whisper of a woman’s voice echoing in your head. ‘’She said she’s here.’’ 

—

All and more taglist: @spiokybirdstarfish @kenqki @liidiaaag @hawkegfs  @gillybear17  @areaderinlove @acornacreacure @black-rose-29 @fudge13 @cece05 @rosie-cameron @Caxddce @laylasbunbunny @gemofthenight @beautyb1ade  @hi-bored-as-fcuk-rn  @lovelyy-moonlight @mellabella101 @vxnity713  @marzipaanz  @bisexualgirlsblog @queenofslytherin889 @thatbxtchesblog @softb-tterfly @ethanlandrycanbreakmyheart  @xyzstar  @graceberman3  @Heartsforneteyamsully  @aerangi  @hallecarey1  @bxbyyyjocelyn @mikeyspinkcup @jackierose902109 @daisydark @laurasdrey @mischieftom @fanatic4niall @peterholland04 @idkwhattonamethisblogs @grxnde-dwt @lexasaurs634 @teeeree13 @notasadgirlipromise @zoeynicolas @thejuleshypothesis @multi-fandom-bi-bitch @lexasaurs634 @teeeree13 @notasadgirlipromise @thejuleshypothesis@Shasta89 @sierraluvz @specialk6802 @CZARINERA @katherinejess

#xavier thorpe #xavier thorpe x reader #xavier thorpe imagine #netflix wednesday #wednesday imagine

[nelkcats]

Yetis to the rescue

After becoming a halfa Danny didn't realize how much he needed a medical checkup until he went to see Frostbite. It turns out that being a hybrid of two species leaves you vulnerable to both types of diseases.

Frostbite was shocked when Danny commented that he didn't have any of the ghost vaccines, but in his defense how was he supposed know that it was a necessity and that ghosts could get sick? Nobody informed him!

Despite following all medical advice and undergoing the process of multiple vaccinations in the same day; months later Danny was infected by a case of Ghost flu, this kind of flu was a little different: in ghosts it just destabilized their ectoplasm, but in his half normal human body it was causing a severe pulmonary obstructive reaction, he was just lucky he didn't need to breath.

Danny was severely ill for a couple of days, and without noticing it, the Ghost flu mutated inside his body; when he finally recovered by becoming immune, the entire city was infected with a severe case of flu, a very intense flu that sent people to the hospital and was extremely difficult to detect.

At first Danny was confused when Frostbite told him that the signs the Amity Parkers were showing was a Ghost flu infection because, wasn't it supposed to be a ghost disease? Frostbite explained worriedly that sometimes virus could evolve to infect other organisms if they have the chance.

At the end Danny and Frostbite had to do an emergency quarantine in Amity before the virus mutated from affecting liminals to becoming compatible with humans, while the Amity Parkers were reluctant to accept help at first, they realized their liminal status along with the small amount of ectoplasm they hold inside their body could save them with the help of a Yeti from Far Frozen.

When Danny heard reports of a concerned Amity Parker about an infection starting in Gotham he realized it might be too late, maybe it was time to unleash the Ghost yetis medic squad.

On the other side, Red Hood had been sick for a couple of days with an extremely persistent flu, to the point where he swore to hallucinate a Yeti outside his door.

#danny phantom #dp x dc #danny fenton #dc x dp #jason todd #frostbite #The ghost flu evolved because of the halfa body #So basically is Danny's fault but no at the same time #An infected Amity Parker visited Gotham and encountered Red Hood #He didn't notice at that time but he infected him #First infected were ghosts #second halfas #from halfas to liminals #and from liminals to revenants #Jason is the last step before an human infection #they need to find him fast #poor Danny is feeling extremely guilty #batfam is concerned about Jason #Jason just want to rest for a couple of months #Frostbite is creating an artifact to identify sick people #just in case they need it #At least it was just a flu and nothing worse but is still extremely dangerous for the alive #if Jason see Danny while he is still sick he could think is an angel #Phantom's white hair would not help with that

[doorp]

What started out as theories abt when the main cast died but got silly

Annabel + Lenore ✨

This one is pretty straightforward, there’s these Barbie movie redraws flynn did that shows Annabel and Lenore being caught by “NMPD nevermore police department” , with the year 1901 in the corner, implying that’s when they died and got sent to nevermore

This little 1901 in the corner is interesting on like a meta level to me bc 1. in the original Barbie meme theres no date on the slate thingies, so flynn decided to add that piece of info on her own, and 2. this was just after episode 67 came out (on fp I think) and uh little tidbit, before that episode there was a theory that Theo died in like the 1860s or something based on the logo in the newspaper abt his death, the ny daily tribune, and after episode 67 came out and ira mentioned a ship that wasn’t available for public use until 1899 on the discord we were trying to do mental gymnastics to make the 2 dates work but then red came on like “please we accidentally grabbed the wrong logo it’s meant to read new York tribune not New York daily tribune its fixed now we fixed it please” and then a few days later they streamed doing this piece

Anyway, ira talks about the oceanic, which was “the finest ocean liner in the world” the *largest ocean liner in the world* until 1901

The RMS oceanic had its maiden voyage in September of 1899, at the beginning of fall. Annabel says she arrived in New York a fortnight before meeting Lenore, presumably during the spring. Annabel arrives at lenores house in april/may of 1900, spends six months there, and then leaves around the fall, probably somewhere around September or October. Lenore then spends a few months doing her thing and then arrives at her family’s home in either December 1900 or January 1901, during the winter. HERES where it gets interesting. We can assume that Annabel died in the cold, from her spectres chilling atmosphere and all together appearance of corpse in a freezer. She even has frostbite on her fingers and toes, as well as snowflake like glitter in her veil. We can also assume she died on her wedding day, the way she wears her rings on different hands and her wedding dress in spectre form. So if she died in the cold and on her wedding day, then when was her wedding, and how could it be in winter?

heres my 2 theories

1. Lenore beats Annabel at chess just for funsies fairly quickly after arriving, then they try to elope and get caught by their dads

2. Lenore courts Annabel, wins her hand, and they get engaged. Since engagements usually lasted around 6 months to 2 years, their engagement could have been anywhere from however long it takes Lenore to win at chess to December 1901. If their wedding day was in November/December, that means Lenore got away with pretending to be a man for a whole YEAR and they spent that year just being gay and shit/doing schemes.

I personally like option 2 more bc its just sadder that they did get away w it for a while then ultimately got caught - it would also explain why Annabel is just SO into Lenore, if all she remembers is that year they spent being all sneaky and gay and shit, it would explain how she’s just used to flirting and holding onto Lenore in secret. It would also explain why Annabel assumes Lenore is up to scheming at nevermore. if they eloped a few weeks after they reunited it would still be like yeah that makes sense they are such u haul lesbians, but them becoming sneaky codependent gays ripped from each other on their wedding day just hurts more and makes more sense time/character wise

Duke - 1912, maybe even 1912 specifically, idk

Duke has a coin that’s dated to 1912, and Eulalie says it looks brand new. There’s been arguments about wether or not the coin is actually newly minted, but I don’t think we can say for sure. It might not matter either way- I have a theory that the suit cases the students carry aren’t actually random personal items of interest, but a suitcase they packed right before a pivotal event in their lives. Perhaps Duke does have newly minted coins in his suitcase, but he didn’t actually die in 1912. Also! Duke is implied to be a Houdini like figure, so I imagine he’s not later than the 20s.

Pluto - 1914 ish

Plutos spectre wears a British ww1 military uniform, its debated wether or not the jacket was his dads or his, but regardless he couldn’t have died earlier than 1914. Pluto is named after the cat in the short story called The Black Cat by Edgar Allan poe. In the story a cat named Pluto gets its eye slashed out by its drunken owner, eventually getting hung from a tree by the man. Theres obvious references to the story in Plutos design and shit overall, when he manifests a belt snaps around his neck implying he died from strangulation, his spectre has like, a pluming collar/leash of smoke around its neck, his spectre looks like it’s made of ash kinda (someone described him as a burnt rabbit to me once) which is probably a reference to the part in the story where the man’s house burns down, only 1 wall remaining erect, with the image of a black cat scorched into it. Plutos eye is covered by his hair, he walks into a door frame, he’s got spectre abilities called “blink” and “evil eye” so w Pluto until we get more info it’s no earlier than 1914 if you subscribe to the Pluto went to war theory or no earlier than like, say the 20s? if you subscribe to the Plutos dad was a vet theory

Berenice - 1920s

Shes a flapper, cmon. shes from the 1920s. Look at her. We already know she was run over by a cop car after running from some guy, and I tried to look into where the cop car was from but i didn’t have much luck. mostly just confirmed the era, when I searched cop cars of the 1920s pretty similar images to the one that killed bee show up. A few others I think have looked into it more? but im not completely sure. There’s been a lot of theories about where Berenice is from, I’ve seen Louisiana, Chicago, Harlem (Harlem renaissance specifically) but there’s not a lot of conclusive info about Berenice. we know her pearls were real, in the way they scattered, so she had so have some means of affording them. Pearls are held together on a string, but only real pearls have pieces of metal between the pearls to keep them from rubbing against each other. Bees pearls scatter in long strings, not completely all over the place like fake pearls without that structure would.

Eulalie - 1935

The song Eula sings in her death flashback is a Japanese lullaby that was rediscovered in 1935. Its a popular theory that Eulalies death was a hate crime, a fire started because of hate towards Japanese Americans during ww2. She probably died in the forties in america, I don’t think she died in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, the fire that killed her isnt how atomic bombs would have killed her. The kid she sings to asks if someone started the fire on purpose, so imo it was likely a hate crime.

Morella - 1950s - 70s??

Okay so, Morella. we know the least about her. with will we can guess that he was lower class and stuff, but all we know abt Morella is that she’s Irish. Shepards pie and Guinness is pretty timeless. The reason I say 50s to 70s is bc according to Remigoesinsane the clasp to her locket started to be used around that time! that’s all I have on her tbh, a theory of mine is that she died in a factory accident trying to save someone when the machinery went crazy, but that’s mostly it.

Ada - 1930s

Ada’s clothes in her death flashback match those worn by maids in the 1930s, and the lingerie she wears in the manor also matches lingerie worn in the 30s. It would also make sense for Ada’s character to be from the 30s. That decade was called the “somber thirties” bc of how fucked up the economy was after the stock market crash. It was a major time of economic disparity, and Ada’s obsession with trying to seem upper class elite could stem from not having much when she died. She probably sees nevermore as a blank slate, a place where people will see her as more than just “the help” would also make sense that the man that killed her was a rich guy using his power to take advantage of her and get away with the crime. Especially since the poem, Tamerlane, was from the pov of a rich guy lamenting a relationship he had with a lower class girl named Ada.

Prospero ✨

PROSPERO! prospero drinks espresso with his chosen last meal, which was invented in 1901. I think he died from tuberculosis. For a long time a major cause of death has been tuberculosis. So much so that Victorians made it a beauty standard. A major inspiration of Poe himself was tuberculosis, in the masque of red death, along with the grief he was left with after his wife died from it. It rots your lungs, makes you cough up your bloodied respiratory system until you suffocate in it. In the maze, prospero says he felt queasy, like something was crawling under his skin when he died. When prospero cuts his hand, he says he’s going to be sick, and tells Annabel that he’s afraid of blood. (Probably specifically his own blood bc u know he was feeding people to rats like minutes before that) This, coupled with the imagery of blood pouring out from his plague mask when he says the “queasy, like something was crawling under my skin” line, makes me think his death involved a lot of blood! And as I said before tuberculosis was like really gross and bloody and gory. Furthermore, this quote from the writer is SO interesting

In the poem prosperos namesake is in, the masque of red death, the prince prospero, hiding and ignoring a sickness ravaging his country, decides to host a huge party! Everyone’s having a grand old time, the festivities only pausing when the clock strikes, leaving everyone in a dread filled silence, the party picking up almost immediately after and brushing it off. Eventually the plague does get in though and kill them all because they ignored the feeling of dread.

The prince and the party goers die because the prince is blissfully and willfully ignorant of the disease. Bc their hubris didn’t allow them to see the threat of it. Nevermores prospero, however, is obsessed with staying healthy/hygienic as possible. He wears his gloves even when he eats, hates being touched, almost throws up when he cuts his hand. He hallucinates a thousand dirty hands grabbing him and trying to perform an operation on him with disgusting germy tools. He sees the hand he cut amputated, imagining that the wound got so infected that it had to be removed. He stares in horror at his hand before Ada even makes eye contact with him. My theory is Prospero grew up hearing terrible stories of people dying from infection, disease. He heard of people slowly drowning in their own blood. He decided to take every precaution, he simply wouldn’t allow that to be his fate. After Ada attacks him he tells Annabel “you must think me neurotic” for being so upset over the blood on his hand. This feels, so specific and intentional to me. Not just because Annabel dealt with her anxiety and her dad treating her panic attacks like he did, and this is a whole “omg look they’re bonding” moment, but bc, immediately after he tries to assure her that “im not, you know, im perfectly sane” like shit like this has happened before, where ppl called him neurotic for being that sick at the sight of his own blood, or that obsessed with hygiene. The irony being that, he spent his life obsessing over staying healthy, so much so that people called him neurotic, only to die that slow gory death anyway.

That whole, prospero dying from tb tangent aside tho, how it correlates to the time of his death. He probably died in the early 1900s, the earliest being 1901-1906ish, bc again, that’s when espresso started gaining popularity. My guess is he died around the 20s, ik the tb vaccine came out around the 20s, but people still died of it after and are still dying/contracting it today, and in the 20s there were a lot of Italians emigrating to America, and prospero is so aggressively Italian American (eating espresso and cannoli with chocolate chips for his last meal) that it’d make sense. So woo!

Monty - 1910s

Monty is a cowwwwboyyyyyy. The Wild West pretty much tapered out around the early 1900s. He can’t be that recent. He also mentions calamity Jane so that definitely puts him past the 1800s. He seemed to have a pretty wild life, kicked in the head by a horse, tooth knocked out by a human, tied to train tracks and left for dead after calling the pastors daughter loose. crazy guy crazy time

Will ???

Will is so plain i cannot get a read on where hes from im sorry

obligatory thank you for making it to the end, I barely made it myself, this was sitting in my drafts for weeks before I decided to just get it over with. <<333

#nevermore webtoon #lenore nevermore #annabel lee nevermore #white raven #ada nevermore #duke nevermore #morella nevermore #prospero nevermore #berenice nevermore #will nevermore #pluto nevermore #eulalie nevermore

[newtthetranswriter]

Snow and Cuddels.

Word count:1333

Paring: Zora Ideale x reader

Summary: Snow day turned into cuddles with the best prankster who is allergic to wearing a shirt.

Warnings: Not much, cursing, mentions of colds and frostbite, maybe ooc Zora

A/n: Hello everyone, I hope you enjoy this. I am aware some of the bulls are not mentioned, i just couldn’t think of what to have them doing. Also this is my first time writing for Zora so it may be a little off, I’m hoping with this event to write for more fandoms and maybe get some requests in as well, but who knows. Anyway, have fun, enjoy and remember to Hydrate or Diedrate.

      Winter has finally arrived in the Clover Kingdom, and I couldn’t be happier. Playing in the snow with friends and family, baking cookies and making candy, and drinking hot chocolate, just some of the many fun things to do when winter hits. And of course today was the first day that there was a decent amount of snow, and Captain Yami kindly gave all of us at the Black Bulls hideout the day off.

      Charmy decided she’s going to be baking and cooking all day, Vanessa is already passed out drunk, Magna and Luck are fighting over whatever one of them did this time, Gouache is well being Gouche, Gordon is trying to hang with gouache but is just being creepy, and Gray is hiding from everything. The more rambunctious and childish of the group were outside in the snow, this included Asta trying to get Noelle to participate in a snowball fight, Finral has made a snow person he’s practicing his flirting with. That just leaves Me and my grumpy boyfriend who just wants to go inside because ‘shit it’s cold out here’, I’m trying to get him to enjoy the chilly weather but Zora being well himself refuses to, I don't know, put on a shirt and try to enjoy this free time.

     “Come on, Y/n why do you want to be out here it’s freezing. Why don’t we go lay down and cuddle? Or steal whatever Charmy has made for the day, we could also mess up Gouche’s creepy sister shrine again.” I turned to the red head slouched against the wall, rolling my eyes at him in response. “What are you even doing over there? It’s just snow, what can you possibly be doing with it?” He asked, pushing off the wall, moving to look over my shoulder.

     I lend further over my creation to hide it from him. “You don’t get to see it until it’s done. If you don’t want to be out here, you can go in if you want. If you really want to mess with the others, have fun, I’m enjoying it out here.” I tried to tell him he didn’t have to stay out here.

     “You know it’s not as fun if you’re not helping, plus you know where Vanessa hides her booze. Plus you could get sick if you stay out here too long.” Zora said, still trying to see the snow creation I was working on.

     “Why do you want Vanessa’s booze? You know what nevermind with that, but seriously if you want to go inside you can, I won’t blame you. I just hoped we could do something fun out here, instead of staying cooped up all day. And I won’t get sick, I’ll be fine.” I said, leaning back to show him what I had finished making.

     Zora paused processing the drawing I had carved in the patch of flat snow in front of me. It was a crescent moon along the side of one of his trap spells, to represent both of our magics, in the center was our initials. “I know it’s cheesy and won’t last long out here cause it will melt eventually, but it just popped into my head and I need to physically see it and show you. I was thinking we could maybe get it made into necklaces or something?” I explained my thinking. I hoped he understood what I was saying.

     “It’s amazing. But why draw it out here in the snow, if you want to get it made into necklaces or something you’re gonna have to draw it again on paper, why not wait till you go inside?” He asked, looking at me quizzically.

     I thought for a second before answering. “I just didn’t want to forget it plus, I want to stay out here as long as possible. Since I finished, would you want to pummel Asta with some snow balls?” I asked knowing he would want to cause some kind of trouble.

     He just groaned at the thought of being in the cold any longer. “Fine but after we bury him in the snow we are going inside and cuddling.” He answered standing up straight and offering me his hand to help me up.

     “Deal as long as we get Hot cocoa before cuddles.” I started moving behind a tree close to where Asta was now trying (and failing) to build a snowman. “Let’s hide from him here and make some snowballs, before we launch our attack.” I said bending down and beginning to make some roughly ball shaped clumps of snow to throw at the young boy.

     After about ten minutes of making and throwing snowballs at a screaming Asta, and him running over Finral. Zora and I decided it was time to go inside for the rest of the day and finally get some hot chocolate, mostly because Zora’s chest was now bright red from being in the cold for so long while shirtless.

     We made our way inside, snagging some cocoa and cookies from Charmy, before heading up to our shared room. I couldn’t help but laugh as the normally grumpy and closed off Zora dropped onto the bed sighing while thanking whoever assigned our room for it having walls without cracks so the cold couldn’t be felt inside it. 

     “You know if you put on a shirt you wouldn’t be so cold in the winter right?” I asked, raising an eyebrow as I took a sip of my hot cocoa.

     He just rolled his eyes standing up and taking his mask off, walking over to me. “If I wore a shirt, you would be robbed of the second best sight known to man. The first being your face after I do this.” I was confused for a moment before he lent in, placing a kiss on my lips, before pulling away with a smirk. “See that’s the face, all shocked and confused.” He said turning back to the bed to pull the covers down. “Stop gaping like a fish and come lay down, I’m still fucking freezing and need your body heat so get over here.” He complained, laying down on his side of the bed having taken off the rest of his flashy clothes opting for a pair of sweatpants, he’s still shirtless but at least he’s under the blankets.

     I rolled my eyes moving to kick off my boots while hanging up my coat. Crawling under the covers I was met with very little warmth as Zora’s ice cube off a body sapped all the heat from the bed. “Holy fuck Zora you’re so fuckling cold.” I said moving to cuddle up to him. “I wouldn’t be shocked if you get frostbite or something, damn.” He just chuckled but pulled me closer, sighing at the fact that I was at least a little bit warmer than he was. “Next time we go out in the cold, will you at least wear a coat, it doesn't have to be zipped just enough to keep your arms warmer.” I tried to bargain with him.

     He paused before responding. “Fine, but I better get cuddles anyway.” I just nodded, now focused on warming him up while also trying not to fall asleep. “Go ahead and sleep. I'll be fine with you snuggled up to me being a space heater.” He said, rubbing my head. Letting out a yawn, I mumbled a quick I love you before falling asleep. The last thing I heard was Zora’s quiet response. “I love you, too, today was fun even if it was freezing.” He quickly followed suit in sleeping.

     The next day when  we woke up it became apparent that Zora was right about getting sick staying in the cold. But finally the jokes on him, cause he’s the one to wake up the sniffles and a slight fever. His pouting and grumbling could be heard throughout the hideout as he complained about it the rest of the day.

#x reader #black clover x reader #zora ideale x reader #zora ideale #black clover #Newt's Winter Fic Event #fluff #x gn reader

[eepyuii]

frostbite — pt. 7

pairing ; childe x gender neutral!reader

content ; childhood friends to “rivals” to lovers, slowburn-ish

cw ; none

notes ; happy new year!! it’s story quest time which meaaans- its teucer town. a lot of the reader and teucer being besties and *some* tiny particles of romantic feelings (if u catch them). also just a really lighthearted and humorous chapter :3

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three knocks.

“sergeant?”

“hm? yes, ekaterina? come in.”

the secretary steps up to your desk, where you sit pitifully, head resting on your hands. it’s been some months since osial’s attack and you’ve mysteriously remained stationed at liyue, not that you mind, of course. the traveler and paimon have long since been on their way to inazuma and, according to news you heard from all around, seem like they successfully solved the crises surrounding the electro archon and the vision hunt decree. not only has there been word on the streets of their feats but you’ve also noticed a noticeable increase in inazuman immigrants by the harbor.

but- back to the matter at hand, today you find yourself incredibly more fatigued than usual, perhaps due to your struggles with getting even a good wink of sleep the night before. the sunlight creeping through the windows seems to sting your eyes harsher than normal for early morning but you still try your best to open them and read the letter ekaterina has just placed in front of you.

noticing the strain in your efforts to, well, be awake at the moment, ekaterina clears her throat.

“it’s a mandate from the doctor himself.”

now that gets you up, though not in a good way. the sheer reminder of that man’s existence is enough to shoot an icy burn into your spine, one that makes you flinch into full consciousness.

skimming more effectively through the lines, you find that the mandate talks about a ruin guard research lab here in liyue under his guise, obviously, that he is requiring you to briefly oversee in his absence. not as bad as you thought but also not entirely good. the doctor has never presently explained his affinity for ruin guard robotics to you- because truly, why would he? but it’s no less than apparent how big his interest in them is, in your experience.

with a long, heavy sigh, you nod.

“i see. thank you, ekaterina, you may go.”

she bows politely and turns to leave while you reread the letter to gather the full details of the research lab. once ekaterina is by the door to your office, you take note of the sound of as her heels stop abruptly as she yelps in surprise, muttering a small ‘hello, master childe’ and carrying on her way. the next moment, they very devil she spoke of is bursting into the room.

“good morning, doc!” he chirps with surprising energy for how early it is and places a closed cup on your desk.

“here! i got you some coffee, thought it might help wake you up.”

“thanks a lot… wait, how did you know i was tired-“

“and with that act of courtesy, i would like to propose my own favor to be granted by yours truly. and that is for us to sp-“

“childe, i cannot spar with you today.”

with that, the harbinger slumps into himself like a fussing child, ironic, and groans softly. he’s about to try his very persuasive best to convince you anyway when he spots the letter in your hands and raises an eyebrow curiously.

“what’s that?”

you sigh again, pinching the bridge of your nose. “a mandate from dottore asking me to check up on one of his ruin guard research facilities, here in liyue.”

childe seems to empathize with your disdain for the request and scoffs, mumbling about ‘that lunatic and his little toy robots…’.

“hm, well i wish you luck with that. i’ve also got myself some less than stellar debts to collect today, might as well busy myself somehow even if ekaterina thinks i shouldn’t.”

“good luck with that too.”

childe turns to leave, slightly less chipper than he was when he walked in, until he stops by the door to turn around. “you’re still owing me a spar for that coffee!”

“whatever!”

grassy mountains, building ruins, ginkgo trees- minlin was just like any other area of liyue, though you’d never steal any merit from the relaxing scenery of the entire region. every new place you visited took your breath away with its beauty all the same.

it’s become an unspoken habit to deal with ruin guards at this point and you knew their patterned behaviors and limits like no other, maybe only the doctor himself. several of them sat inactivated in the ruins around you, as expected, and you took note of each one for your report diligently. as you’re approaching the entrance of the lab itself, you spot another ruin guard sat against a crumbled tower- except it was not the only thing there, there were people too. it’s not hard to decipher that it turns out to be the traveler and paimon and… someone else.

wait… surely it’s not him.

“teucer?”

all three of them immediately turn around, except teucer lights up at the sight of you and jumps from his crouching position to run at you with full speed. despite being perplexed at his presence, you still kneel to welcome him with open arms.

“big sibling y/n!! you’re here!!” he yells out, elated.

you chuckle fondly and stand up with teucer clung onto your torso.

“it’s good to see you too, teuce’, but… what in the heavens are you doing all the way here?”

looking over teucer’s shoulder, you turn to the other two, who look just as confused about the entire situation as you do.

“and you two as well, weren’t you supposed to be in inazuma still?”

“mm-yeah, we were taking a bit of a break! we’re on our way to sumeru next and liyue’s the shortest way there so… might as well take some leisurely time off.”

paimon elaborates, until she and the traveler share a look and the two of them sigh.

“unfortunately, the millelith asked us to check out these rui- ahem, i mean mr. cyclops showing up around this area. and as we were doing that, we ran into teucer over here!”

you breathe out a laugh, pitying the pair’s lack of… well- time to take a break without any tasks given to them. ‘talk about leisurely…’ you mutter, quiet enough so teucer doesn’t hear. speaking of him…

“that still doesn’t explain how you were here at all, mister.” you poke the boy’s side with the hand that isn’t holding him up against you and he giggles uncontrollably, attempting to dodge your finger.

“ahahahahah! s-stop! hahah… i’m here to see big brother at the institute for toy research! you work there too, right?”

what.

oh- is that what he thinks childe does? dear gods, that’s too funny. however you do understand why childe would lie about your jobs, you think you’d do much the same. still it takes everything within you to not burst out laughing at the revelation, even the traveler seems to notice so, somewhat understanding the reason but also somewhat not. you huff out a breath to calm the urge to cackle and turn to the two once again.

“listen, you guys don’t need to worry about this one anymore, i’ll take care of him. oh! and don’t worry about the- err, mr cyclops replicas, i’ll sort them out too. go take your break, you deserve it.”

“but- they’re my friends! they like toys like i do! a-and they made the pinky promise!” teucer retaliates.

gods damn the snezhnayan pinky swear.

“plus, he did give us this big bag of mora to take care of him…” paimon eyes the traveler, who returns the glance with a nod as if they’re silently communicating.

“and yeah- we’d much rather go see this ‘toy institute’ than deal with mr. cyclops right now.”

you nod in agreement and gesture for all of you to head back to the harbor, partially to avoid seeing the millelith soldiers patrolling the area.

“so- just out of curiosity, teuce’, what exactly did your brother say about me working with toys?”

“he said you’re a toy doctor! you take care of the toys who get hurt or sick.”

“yeah, that checks out.”

—

arriving back at northland bank, the first thing you spot is childe and ekaterina discussing something at the center of the room, oblivious to your presence for the moment. that is, until teucer bursts from your tired arms to run to his older brother.

paimon, somehow, remains oblivious enough to what is right in front of her enough to whisper. “huh? what’s he doing here…”

“yay, my brother! i found you!” exclaims teucer and childe immediately perks up, ceasing any doubts that paimon might’ve had.

“i know that voice… why, if it isn’t my little brother teucer! my goodness!”

the harbinger takes his younger brother into his arms, much like you did before, except he wraps him in a nearly bone crushing hug before setting him back down.

“haha.. what a nice surprise, teucer! i thought i would have to wait till i return home before seeing you again. how are the others, tonia and anthon? is everybody keeping well?”

“they miss you a lot! tonia prays for you every day at dinner.” it seems that only after teucer’s response is when the realization of the sheer absurdity that is teucer’s presence sets within childe, his face morphing into confusion.

“wait a second… what are you doing here in liyue, teucer? how have i not heard anything about this?”

that entire interaction, you remained merely watching from behind with an irrepressible fond smile on your face- you were so lost in their reunion that you almost miss the incredulous glare childe throws to you, like he’s silently asking if you had anything to do with this. you jump slightly once noticing it and quickly shrug, shaking your head to signify that you’re just as clueless as him.

“well, what happened was- i saw a boat that looked like it was selling toys, so obviously i thought you were on board. and then when i got off i just kept walking and walking… and then, i found a mr. cyclops!”

unbelievable.

“mr cyclops scared off a bad guy, and then i found this nice lady and-and then y/n found us! so we came looking for you.”

childe seems to have another moment of realization, where another fleeting glance comes your way and he sighs, facing off to the side to mouth to himself ‘of course, the research lab…’.

“teucer…” he starts off and you seem to understand what he’s about to say right away, leaving teucer’s side to be right in front of him, beside childe. you kneel to teucer’s height and hold out your hands for him to hold, to make him feel less like he’s being scolded. his tiny hands are dwarfed by yours in a way that makes your heart swell.

“…teuce’, what you did was really dangerous. we’re both happy to see you, really, but please promise you won’t do anything like this ever again.”

childe nods in agreement and teucer sighs, letting go of your hands to put them behind his back sheepishly.

“okay, i promise… please don’t be mad at me.”

“we’re not mad at you. we just care about your safety, that’s all.” childe reassures.

“if you hadn’t met these nice people, and even more if y/n hadn’t found you, things could’ve been a lot more dangerous for you, teucer. i hope you said a big thank-you to all of them?”

“yep! i always remember my please’s and thank-you’s!

“oohh so you did notice we were here… you were just ignoring us, gotcha.” paimon adds sarcastically as she and the traveler look at childe through a sassy glare.

“haha… forgive me, it’s always family first where i’m from. don’t take it personally. i know we’ve had our differences up to now but.. a few minor quibbles aside, we get on quite well, don’t you think?”

the traveler’s incredulous reaction tells you that perhaps teucer shouldn’t listen to the conversation while they sort out their, erm, quibbles- so you gently take him by the hand and lead him off ever so slightly to the side, where you know he’ll be at least distracted enough to not listen. kneeling down, you once again take his impossibly adorable hands into yours and fiddle with them playfully, he only grins in oblivious amusement.

“so, teuce’, tell me more- how’re things back home? you’re not too bored without us there, are you?”

“mm-no, i’m just fine! anthon still plays with me a bunch and tonia always reads me the letters big brother sends us, she always tells such cool stories!”

“yeah? like what?”

the young boy thinks for a moment, rubbing his chin like he’s mentally paging through the deepest, most riveting tales he can recall.

“hmm.. oh! one time she told me the story of how big brother discovered a new version of mr. cyclops! he’s bigger and.. and stronger and he’s got huge horns, like a deer! he’s like mr. cyclops' big brother.”

well, at least childe is keeping his lies somewhat accurate. but the way teucer beams and hops excitedly as he talks about the bigger mr. cyclops, or a ruin grader as you know it, seems to justify keeping him in the dark. the way his big blue eyes shine with wonder is in itself a treasure worth protecting. you’ve practically long forgotten that you’re supposed to be stalling out a conversation to distract him.

“that’s so awesome, teucer!” you grin back at him. “what other stories does your brother tell?”

“hm..- oh yeah! he also talks about you in his letters.”

oh?

“does he?” you’re unsure if you should feel good or bad about the revelation, gods know what childe says to his siblings about you.

“yeah he does! he talks about how you take such good care of the toys when they get hurt and how smart you are and how…”

suddenly, teucer trails off as he turns to the trio still conversing near you, like he’s heard something that’s caught his attention. he entirely abandons the sentence he’d left unfinished to join their side again and you find yourself feeling the smidgenmost bit disappointed that he didn’t finish speaking. you only sigh to yourself and smooth your clothes down from the crouching position you were in, joining back in as well.

“that’s right, my brother’s the greatest! he’s mr. cyclops’ bestest friend!”

childe chuckles in somewhat faux delight, to satisfy teucer and make it seem like he approves of his brother’s message, before leaning over to the traveler and whisper, as you hear it,- ‘just humor me in front of teucer, if you’d be so kind…’

“ahem- ah yes! ekaterina, i will deal with the issue of the outstanding payment right away.”

“hey! slinking off, are we?” paimon accuses.

“but, master childe, would it not be improper to ask you to deal with… debt collection?”

“a bet is a bet, isn’t it? and if you lose a bet with an agent.. well, you might as well get some exercise out of it.”

“are you going off to sell toys now?” teucer interjects, partially with admiration for his brother and partially with disappointment that he has to leave.

“that’s right. as much as i’d like to catch up a little longer, teucer, duty calls! i’m sure y/n and ms. nice lady will keep you company while i’m out, though.”

childe implies with a pleading glance thrown to you and the traveler. you nod gladly while the traveler puts her hand to her forehead momentarily and paimon mumbles a complaint about having to babysit for childe.

“sure!” teucer confirms as well. “i really like y/n and this lady already! and anyway, the nice lady made a pinky promise to take good care of me.”

the harbinger ends up leaving the four of you with a hefty bag of mora to spend out in the city while he’s working and you firstly decide to take him to an elderly lady’s kite shop. she patiently explains how to use the kites and teucer asks for a mr. cyclops shaped kite, because why wouldn’t he- you manage to convince the lady to make a custom build for it with a shining pile of mora. next, you take him to wanmin restaurant, where chef mao graciously offers to make a special dish for teucer, who can’t eat spicy food. you don’t blame him, personally- snezhnayan dishes tend to steer away from spice specifically and lean more towards warm, filling meals to endure the cold temperatures. however, the food teucer asks for turns out sickeningly sweet and even paimon, the awarded food enthusiast, feels nauseated at the end. finally, he asks you to give the wharf a better look than when he was stepping off his boat. paimon proceeds to give a mouthful of an explanation about liyue’s trade port, which ends up too confusing for teucer to even care. instead, his attention is caught by a ship anchor left in the wharf.

“teucer, don’t run off!” you urge as he takes off to see the anchor.

“that metal hook is huge! and it gets bigger the closer we get!”

“this is an anchor. docked ships use it to hold themselves in position, to stop wind and waves from blowing them away.” paimon explains.

“hmm, an anchor… got it. but i think i might get it mixed up with commodore hook.”

“commodore hook..? is that another one of your weird toy names?”

“my brother always sends me a really big toy for my birthday- commodore hook, blacksteel jack, iron tony… we keep them all in your backyard!”

“are they as big as the anchor?” the traveler asks.

“yeah, and that’s why i can’t bring them with me all the time. it’s a shame…”

you choke on your breath at a realization. “i-is that what your father was keeping under a tarp in the backyard..?”

teucer nods cluelessly. you’ve seen tarped objects behind childe’s family house that had some absurd silhouettes hidden by the protective fabric and the snow, but you’ve only ever assumed they were left over building materials- not gigantic fucking robots because why would you ever assume that’s what he’d send a child for his birthday. you’ll have to have a talk with him about gift giving at a later time.

“but my favorite is mr. cyclops. even though i mostly came here to see my brother, the other big thing i wanted to do was play with mr. cyclops! oh- are they selling fish over there, let’s have a look!”

and just like that, teucer is gone again. paimon stomps her foot in the air as she heaves frustratedly.

“quit! running! off!”

you briefly go to see the fish on display as teucer tells you of the time when childe caught him an impossibly large fish just because he asked for it. somewhere in the back of your head, you find it endearing that childe has kept up the habit of fishing just like when his father would take you on his trips to ice fish as well. maybe you could get him to go fishing in liyue, just the two of you when you have some free ti- wait, what are you saying? you’re supposed to be watching out for teucer, who conveniently has gone off to see the boats and seems to have his entire good mood flipped around.

“teuce’, you look upset, what’s wrong? are you tired?” you coo.

he sighs melancholically and covers his face behind his hands. “i miss my brother…”

“what? but we were just with him!” argues paimon.

“yea, but for such a short time that it doesn’t even count! take me to see my brother, i don’t wanna play anymore!”

you sigh and look to the other designated babysitters. they look back with defeated shrugs- seems like you’ve done what you can to entertain him for the moment. turning back to teucer, you offer to carry him in your hold as you leave for qingxu pool, where childe said he would be, and he gladly accepts. from behind you, a low gurgle can be heard.

“urgh… paimon may never recover from that dish.”

taglist ; @kentply @osaemu @rain-and-a-nice-nap

#childe genshin x reader #childe imagines #childe x reader #childe x y/n #childe x you #genshin impact #genshin impact fic #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #tartaglia x y/n #tartaglia x you #tartaglia x reader #childe tartaglia ajax #tartagalia genshin impact #childe fic #childe tartaglia #childe genshin #childe genshin impact

[tanglepelt]

Im... um.. the ambassador? 1

I did it. Its a fic now. Based off this idea I had.  A03 Next

Ellie misses her monthly check in with Danny. He finds her in the basement.

The first time Ellie destabilized Danny got panicky. Granted so was she. It was only thanks to the Red Huntress change in heart that she got out alive. A quick little jab of an experimental ecto-dejecto was all it took. She was off on yet another worldwide adventure. Unlike Danny, she didn’t want to go amongst the stars she wanted to sightsee. Find her own path in life. Freshly stabilized with some new equipment she was off. Her first stop was going to be Hong Kong. Now equipped with a phone and translation app Sam downloaded it. Danny wanted her to have at least one call a month to ensure she was safe.

Danny was just being overly protective.

Until he wasn’t. Week three hit and it starts all over again. Her powers being stripped, slowly turning into goop with prolonged use. She had barely explored Hong Kong. Ellie never got to figure out if the mysterious black bat even existed. She’d heard about it in some alley. The same one she was currently having her conundrum in. She wouldn’t make it to Danny on her own. Making the dreaded phone call she pretended not to notice the feeling of being watched.

The phone was a good call. Not that she’d ever admit that to Danny. Danny answered on the first ring and opened a portal the moment she explained. Showing up in full regal attire cursing as he walked through. Whoops. He had been in one of those council meetings.

Danny had just been pacing in the medical ward in the far frozen. A constant back and forth as frostbite began performing tests. Connecting her to tubes she was even in a clear tube at one point. It was as frostbite said a worst-case scenario. The reason Vlad had been so unsuccessful wasn’t due to a lack of DNA as he thought. Those of the infinite realm needed a core to maintain their powers. In Danny’s case, the Ice core is what allowed his powers to safely flow through him. Without it he would either fully die or just never have maintained a ghost form. The core is what allowed the balance between life and death.

She was not made with a core. Hence the destabilizing when using her powers. A core could not form over time without steady ectoplasma. They only grew. When Danny died in the portal accident it was the ectoplasma from the realm that created his core. Or the start of one. Frostbite was a tad bit confusing. Apparently, the core over time gets more mature as the ghost comes into their powers. She was made with DNA and ectoplasma. The powers the ectoplasma gave her would kill her. Vlad had the time for the ecto acne to create a core. Had his powers shown immediately after his college accident it was a one-way trip. No half-life included.

Frostbite found a way to temporarily as in maybe 24 hours max keep her staple as is. Meaning she could keep using her powers for the next 24 hours. His only solution was to attach her to one of his vats of pure ectoplasma. She’d be stuck in the far-frozen medical ward on an IV, with no powers nothing for at least a year. Frostbite says three would be his guess. Her having powers prior to the core was a setback.

Danny did something that seemed to surprise Frostbite. You could see the shock on his face. The way his eyes showed concern. Frostbite had looked at her and then at Danny.

Frostbite then pulled Danny out of the room. Ellie should have been concerned by that, but one of the yetis asked if she wanted to learn some fighting stances. That was much more fun than waiting in worry. If she was going to end up stuck for a couple of years, she was going to make these 24 hours the best she’s had. If it came to it, she’d stay in the medical ward. No more turning into goo for her.

When Danny came back, they had a solution. Ellie could receive a portion of Dany’s Core.

Those in the room seemed to be still at the admission. When she asked if it was safe for her the response was simply that there are cases where a parent ghost gave up a part to save their child when the core was injured or destroyed. As she was Danny’s clone it should be perfectly harmless for her. She would have no problems in the future.

After the procedure was done it wasn’t Danny who took her back to the human realm. Jazz had shown looking concerned telling her that Danny had kingly duties to attend to. Paperwork to handle the boring stuff. Jazz was happy to spend the next week coming to Sam’s to hang out with her. She wasn’t going to just leave before properly saying goodbye to Danny. Especially since Jazz was going to be heading off to Gotham U the following month. She had a full-ride scholarship. Jazz had refused any help from her parents.

Ellie had some new guidelines for the next year or two. Besides monthly in-person visits, a weekly call, and a minimum of a text a day she was back to exploring the world.

The first three home visits with Danny were some of the most exciting times she’s had. Danny’s rouges were super fun to help take down. Danny just told her she could go feral on them. It only took two home visits for them to flee from her.

His parents were a whole different breed. He’s warned her about the whole tear him apart molecule by molecule thing. But man, this was something else. The two even managed to get a hit on her.

On her next visit, only the box ghost was in town. Danny just let her deal with him. She made it last it would. Danny tended to keep their visit calm when he could. Go get food at the nasty burger, mini golf, and jazz-approved events. Jazz wanted them to have a healthy bond. Not one based on bashing in enemies.

It was that time of the month. Her visit day. She had stories to tell him. Ellie had met actual Heroes while she had been out and about. They tried to ask her a bunch of questions, but she honestly didn’t want to answer. Ellie would just turn invisible and stop breathing. If that didn’t help, she just traveled under the ground. Not in caves just underneath the ground. She had intangibility for a reason. Even figuring out how to maintain her temperature with the core. She could match the temperature of the air around her if it was cooler than 75 degrees. Danny’s ice core only allowed her to go lower than her standing body temp. She was super excited about the new use of his powers and one of the heroes was even an alien. Danny was going to flip out.

Ellie was so caught up in grabbing her phone to tell Danny she was here to notice the Fenton parents watching her fly in. Her quick look around revealed nothing. The flash of white happened, slowly transforming back into her human half.

Something hit her. It forced her to the ground. It was worse than when she was destabilizing. Her eyes began to shut. The last thing she saw was the blue and orange lab suits.

**

It had been three hours since Ellie and he was meant to meet up. Danny had a day planned at Sam’s house. It was her 7th visit. The gang was going to have a movie marathon. All four of them. Now Ellie isn’t the best at showing up on time. Normally she’s only an hour or so late and always gives a heads-up.

No, he is not overbearing despite Ellies claims. Its bad enough to let a twelve-year-old be on her own. She’s nearly turned to goo in front of him twice. He has every right to be concerned with her well-being. Especially since she now had a part of his core. While there were no physical effects it did put her at risk. Ellie could be a target to anyone who wanted to get one up on the Ghost King. If it was possible, he would keep her in Amity with them. There were two problems with that. Ellie herself and then his parents. Ellie would never want to be stuck in Amity, she’s a free spirit. A small town would never be enough for her.

Then there were his parents. It was bad enough they managed to shoot her once. Now they were hellbent on getting the ghost girl as well.  Overall, their whole ghost-hunting thing had spiraled. They were desperate to get their hand on a specimen. Danny’s been doing a lot of damage control.

The council was getting antsy. The whole situation was spiraling. The anti-ecto acts were in Congress now. All he can do is hope they don’t pass. Seeing how the GIW has been moving it seemed to be guaranteed. The group had no issues acting early. The last 3 months had been a disaster. Balancing being king, high school, his parent's babysitter, and stopping the GIW's attempts have not left time for much.

Today was not a day to worry about what his parents or the stupid ghost council wanted. He was going to get Ellie and start the movie night. Jazz was even willing to pop in via the web from her dorm room.

There were no responses to any of his messages. Now was a time to be concerned. It's almost hour four. Drastic times meant drastic measures. Did he have Tucker put a tracker in the phone they gave her? Yes. It was finally going to get used. He didn’t abuse the fact it was done. He did trust her.

He found the phone but not his little sister.

The phone was cracked.

On the ground.

Without her.

All he could do was hope this was some prank. It's not uncommon but, this would not be a good one. Ellie did lack a lot of social development. Vlad really didn’t program that in. Better to manipulate those who wouldn’t be able to tell and read him. That’s what this had to be right. Just some stupid prank to mess with him.

That’s it.

He’d go back to Sam’s, and she’d be there. Ready to laugh at him.

But she wasn’t.

The trio was on full alert now. Tucker was checking the tracker's history, pulling up cameras. The first place he was going to check was the GIW. They got a bug in their system a while back that makes rescues a breeze. Sam was taken a hands-on approach and would search Amity. Danny was going to go to Frostbite.

Danny promised he’d never take the infa-map again. Nothing was stopping him from asking. He’d beg if he had to. If they wanted him decked out in full regalia, he’d do it. Announce her as the princess that’s fine with him. Ellie won’t be pleased. She didn't even know.

The council wanted an announcement as it was such a big deal. A royal family was not common. There was only one other king who had one. Kingship was taken by the victor of a fight. The core of whoever took won then morphed. The ghost core slowly takes power from the previous king until the new core forms. Danny became king not as he was the sole combatant, but Pariah's Core after being resealed destabilized. It only latched on to him because he was the closest. It was a first.

He received all the Pariahs core at once. On top of his still-forming core. Danny giving up a piece of it before both melded could would lead to problems in the future.

Giving Ellie a part of the “kings” core, it made her part of the royal family. Becoming king meant taking power. Those after power in the afterlife didn’t typically have kids. She was the first official princess of the realm.

Danny refused to push any of the responsibilities on her. No official announcement had been made. If he had his way, there never would be. Once her core formed around his, Ellie would get to choose.

Danny didn’t notice his and Ellies phone next to Tucker as he left.

In record time he was outside Fentonworks. The ghost shield was on. Something wrong. He noticed the GAV was gone as well. Turning back human he headed in. Inside there wasn’t a note. Ever since Jazz was off at Gotham U his parents always left a note saying where they were. Booking it to the lab he got to the door. It was locked and the security system told him he was unauthorized to enter.

The shield was on. There was nothing to keep out. The lab was on lockdown.

They wouldn’t have.

Tucker had a built-in override to the lab. Activating it not only turned off the security system but the ghost shield as well.

Rushing to the lab he saw his worst fears come true.

There his little sister was. Strapped to a table, arms, and legs cuffed down. The cuffs glowing green had to be blocking her powers. Machines were connected to her. The beeps only taunted him.  The worst part was the fact she was fighting the restraints her mouth gagged.

Jack and Maddie had strapped and gagged a little human girl down.

His sister.

Tag list.. well some. It wont let me tag a few people. 

@imgonnaeatthatglitter @victoria-has-no-secret

@thewondersoflebanon @darkstarsapocalypse

@gin2212 @akikkobara

@apointlessbox 

@valiantsuitcaseskellington

There is three separate chapters (potentially 4). I’m finishing the last one now. If you want to be tagged again let me know. I will not auto retag people unless they ask.

#dcxdp #dp x dc #dp dc crossover #dc dp crossover #phanfic #fanfic #danny is overprotective #shared core au

[tillthelandslide]

Insufferable Arsehole Part 8: When We Are Together - Matty Healy Series

A/N: sooo you may have seen my poll, you may not have, but I've come to the decision to post what I have written for this series and then take a little break from it... I love this series but recently have been feeling a bit stuck with it, I have so many ideas but I'm sure where they fit and whether there even is an end to this story. My goal is to eventually finish it so don't worry! I hope you guys are okay with that. The support has been amazing so thank you all so much.

In other news (for my Ross girlies) I will be posting the first chapter to my new series, entitled Pressure, very soon!

Warnings: bit long, probably spelling mistakes

Series Masterlist

Part 7

Lou's phone ringing on her bedside table is what stirs her from her peaceful slumber. The dozing man next to her awakens with a groan as she awkwardly untangles her limbs from him, apologising for the loud interference as she removes herself from the bed. His soft features find hers and he smiles before his eyes are drifting shut once more. She quickly throws on his shirt which rests on the ground amongst the rest of their clothes.

She stubs her toe on the bedside table as she grabs her phone, the name "Rose" lights up her screen, a picture of her and the drummer of her band can be seen.

"Fuck" she says attempting to shake of the pain, Matty mumbles a "you alright love?" His face now buried in his pillow.

"Yeah go back to sleep" she says, answering the phone, covering up the speaker until she's on their balcony. The morning breeze is far too cold and considering she's just wearing Matty's Tshirt, she'd be surprised if she didn't get frostbite.

"Lou, are you there?" She hears her friend say.

"Yes I'm here sorry" she looks at her phone seeing the clock said 5am, she puts the phone back to her ear 

"Rose I love you but it's 5 in the morning, what time is it there?" She asks, not keeping a track of what time it is in her home town like she usually would.

"That doesn't matter, what matters is that I've just seen pictures of you and Matty holding hands and cuddling. Last time we spoke you said you're seeing how things go" she explains. Shit  they did get caught she thinks , it's fine Matty said we will deal with the consequences together.

"That's exactly what I'm doing, Rose. Seeing how things go, I'm not filtering myself for anyone, I'll do what I want and that's exactly what Im doing" she explains. Rose chuckles on the other end of the line, Lou's words perfectly described herself, never one to filter herself for the sake of others.

"We respect that, you know we do. One of the things we love most about you... We're just worried you're going to get hurt" Rose explains, Rose was one of the most genuine people she had ever met, she was similar to Hann in the fact she would say it how it is although perhaps a little more carelessly and sometimes brutally than Hann.

"We? So you've spoken to Mia and Cami too... Great'' she says, eyes rolling. Mia was the band's bassist (and her sister) and Cami was their lead guitarist.

"I mean... Mia is blindly happy for you, you know what she's like" Rose says.

Mia is around 5 years younger than Lou (having joined the band reasonably late, a fact that Ross and Lou had jokingly argued about as the band didn't have a bassist for a while), they had always been close but one thing they loved about their relationship was they weren't dependent on each other. Despite spending all her time with the 1975 in her childhood, only George had met her band members, they weren't very interested in becoming friends with them, far too happy in doing their own thing.

Mia lived in London for almost all of their childhood, they'd only see each other during holidays or special occasions, something about that dynamic made them closer (which most people found odd). Mia had played bass since she was around 8 and she had joined the band 5 years after they got famous.

"I love her... She's my sister and all but she'd be happy if I found a penny on the floor" Lou says making Rose chuckle, knowing it was true. Despite having different Mum's, their families always encouraged the sisters to appreciate life intricacies, the small things.

"We're just looking out for you L" she says, the nickname only her band members gave her. She remembers the first time George visited the band on tour during one of the 75s breaks, he practically cringed at the nickname, she was and always would be his "Lou" and the fact others had different nicknames for her didn't sit too well at first.

"I know" she says, knowing they never did anything with less than pure intentions. "but listen... We're a family here, if anything happens they'll protect me" she says, not that she needed protecting. Rose finds her heart sinking slightly at her friend's words, as if their own band weren't a family. But she saw the way Lou was with the 75, how undoubtedly happy she was and she knew to push the selfish thought down.

"You seem really happy" Rose finally says and Lou smiles at that.

"I am..." She can't help but smile widely. She could easily go on to tell Rose how she's having the time of her life, how she's never felt this happy, how something feels different with the guys (something she has been struggling to explain), how Matty makes her feel seen and loved (something no guy has come close to before). But she doesn't, wanting it to be her secret for now.

"I'm also really fucking cold right now" she laughs, goosebumps rising to her skin as the wind makes Matty's shirt blow around her.

"Why?" Rose is laughing at her then.

"I'm on a balcony"

"why?" She's asking again, the two of them laughing.

"Matty's asleep... Like I said it's 5am" she says and she hears her friend sigh on the other end of the line, a happy sigh.

"Matty aye? Sharing a room are you?"

"Shut up" she chuckles. Her voice lowers and she whispers her next words "he told me he loved me Rose".

"Wow. That's big" she says and Lou's nodding even though Rose can't see her.

"Do you love him?" Rose asks, already suspecting the answer.

"Yeah"

"Well shit... Guess we're coming to the next show then. Got to see what Matthew Healy is like nowadays. Can't be the same old Ratty you used to kick about with" she says making Lou laugh loudly.

"I miss you guys" she says, the 1975 were her family, everything was intense. But with her own band she had fun (not that she didn't with the boys) but it was different.

"Is George still as fit as the good old days?" She asks and Lou can't help but laugh again.

"Pack it in, you know he's in a happy, healthy relationship" Lou explains.

"Too bad, don't know how you didn't jump his bones every time you were with him"

"Ew... Just ew. He's like my brother"

"And that Ross.... Damn. And I hear hanns going to be a daddy? That's hot."

"Okay Rose I'm hanging up now" Lou says and with two I love yous, she's slipping back into their room, seeing Matty awake and scrolling through his phone, smiling down at the screen.

"You know we look quite cute in these pictures" he says, eyes meeting hers. She's quick to jump on the bed, chin hooking onto his shoulder to peek at his screen. They did look cute and more importantly they looked happy. She smiles as Matty screenshots the photos.

"Deal with the consequences together, yeah?" Matty says, Lou nods at him, smiling as his lips press against hers.

"The first of which will be a very angry Jamie... And probably Gregg too" she says, Matty scrunching up his nose in agreement.

"Yeah...." His voice trails off making her giggle.

"I don't care... I'm happy"

"Me too love" he says, another kiss being delivered to her mouth.

"Rose called, think her and the girls want to come to the next show" she explains and Matty nods, typing something on his phone to Jamie, asking him to sort out their travel and to save them three tickets.

"Thank you" she says.

"If I remember correctly... They don't like me all that much do they?" He says and she's the one furrowing her nose at him, shaking her head.

"Guess I'll have to prove them wrong" and she almost dies at those words, lips harshly pressing against his. He groans as he pushes against her, her back hitting the bed.

"You're insatiable" he says, making her nod as her hands pull him in by the hips, forcing them to come into contact with hers in a sharp grind. She quickly finds him hard and resting against his abdomen and it doesn't take long before he's inside her.

"Jesus Christ" he groans, throwing his head back as her hands interweave into his curls. He's never going to get used to this.

----------------------------------------------------------

"You're supposed to tell me shit like this before you just decide to do it" Jamie says, his voice raised slightly, not shouting but firm and pointed.

Matty was standing in the centre of the room. George, Hann, Ross, John, and Jamie were all watching from the opposite side of the room, each of their arms crossed, ready to defend the pair if they needed to.

Carly (who had arrived this morning) and Polly were seated next to Lou on a large leather sofa.

"Come on man! It's not that big of a deal, we were holding hands, not making out" Matty says and Lou can't help but smirk.

"You know we have rules" Jamie says, making Matty (and all the boys scoff)

"I mean he's done worse" George says and Jamie whips around to see him, his finger pointing at the large man. Lou can't help but chuckle.

"Don't you start" and then he's turning to her now and her smile drops "and you"

"How am I supposed to explain this to your manager huh? How are we supposed to explain this to the fans?" Jamie asks. He was never really one to worry about these kinds of things, things were usually very chilled with him, it was one of the reasons the guys loved having him as their manager.

"Is it really that big of a deal?" Lou asks, Matty's eyes find hers and soften.

"Jamie listen" Lou says and the boy's manager finds her eyes and then soften, he had grown to have a soft spot for her "ignore Matty for a second" she says making everyone including the curly haired man laugh.

"When have I ever done anything problematic?" She asks and Jamie can't think of a single time, she was a saint (in the eyes of their fans anyway, Matty knew what she was truly like behind closed doors).

"We will do whatever you and Gregg want us to do... We just got caught up in the moment, okay?" Lou says and Jamie smiles at that, appreciating her words.

"You know what... Do whatever... We will deal with it" Jamie then says, almost completely giving in. The whole group smiled at that, the spirits lifted almost immediately. He goes to leave the room, turning back at the last minute.

"You're both serious about this right? This isn't some fuck around?" Jamie asks, already knowing the answer but wanting to confirm. They both share a look before looking at him again. They nod and he smiles.

"Well... Good" he says before leaving.

George hugs Matty as Lou is hugged by both Carly and Polly. She hadn't gotten much time to spend with the girls so when Matty's eyes found hers, although he wants nothing more than to spend time with her, he lets her have her own time with them.

"Look at you, you're glowing" Lou says, smiling at her friend. Carly smiles back at her thinking the same thing about Lou.

"How are you feeling? Can I get you anything?" Her words are rushed and Carly laughs, as does Poly.

"Lou calm down, I'm fine. Thank you though" she says sweetly. They continue talking and at some point Poly leaves them and soon after Hann joins, hooking a protective arm around his wife as his other hand toys with his wedding band. Lou always cries at the sight, feeling awfully sentimental today.

The couple stare at each other for a few seconds, smiles resting on their lips before they're both turning to look at her.

"Why are you both looking at me like that?" Lou asks, making them laugh.

"We've been meaning to ask you something" Adam says, words quiet so only the three of them could hear.

"We were wondering," Carly says, looking at her husband before looking at Lou again.

"When the baby is born... If you'd be godmother" Carly says and as skin as the words come out, tears are springing to Lou's eyes.

"Wh-what?" She stutters, completely unsure why they'd ask her of all people, she appreciates it nonetheless but is very confused.

"Truth is we wouldn't even be married if it wasn't for you" Adam says.

"That's not true" Lou says and Carly raises her eyebrows at her.

"Regardless... You've always been so welcoming of me, and so so supportive. And whenever I'm here, you're always the first to check up on me and the baby" Carly speaks, hands resting over her bunk as Adam nods next to her.

"You don't have to say yes. We'd just love it if you did.  You know what you mean to us" Hann says and Lou is pulling them both into a tight hug, careful of the bump resting between them.

"I'd be honoured"

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The next evening Lou is pacing backstage at another venue, anxiously awaiting the arrival of her band of which included her baby sister (definitely not a baby but oh well). They had planned something special for this show, seeing as her bandmates were going to be there, the boys asked her to sing a song on her own, any song she liked.

"Lou you're making me anxious, stop pacing" George says, leisurely chilling on one of the sofas, Matty sitting next to him, a smirk resting on his face.

"Why are you smirking?" She quips at the man, who's curls have been tamed by an obscene amount of hair gel.

"Like seeing you like this, it's cute" he says, pulling her into his lap as she walks past them, stopping her pacing altogether.

"That's better" Matty says, making Lou giggle as he swarms her neck with light pecks.

"Absolutely disgusting" George says, standing to leave the pair of them.

"He's just jealous," Lou says, making Matty nod.

"Why are you anxious darling?" Matty says, nudging his nose lightly against hers.

"I haven't seen them in a while, I've missed them like crazy and I'm just.... I'm worried they're going to see what I'm like with you guys... And like hate me or something" Lou admits.

"You're crazy" Matty says, laughing at her "I don't know how many times I have to tell you love, but no one could hate you" he says, his words so simple but completely easing her thoughts.

"I love you" she says freely now, the man smiles widely down at her, pressing his mouth to hers sweetly.

"I love you more"

They hear a door open behind them, Lou jumping from her place in his lap, turning around to see three women standing in the hallway with Jamie. One of which runs towards her, screaming loudly, she jumps and Lou catches her as she laughs.

"Oh my god Mia you're not a child, I can't carry you anymore" Lou says, struggling to hold her sister up.

"I have fucking missed you bro" Mia says as she's placed back down, punching her older sister in the arm.

"Ouch" Lou says, all of the boys watch with their mouths open. Lou was talking to someone who looked almost identical to her, although her sister's hair was much lighter than hers and shorter too, her skin slightly paler, far less tattoos covering her body.

Rose and Cami are pulling her into a tight hug next, the four of them nattering like a bunch of mothers waiting to pick up their kids.

"Oh shit. Sorry" Lou turns to the guys who are still watching, mouth agape at the four of them. George is quick to stand up, pulling them all into hugs, muttering "long them no sees" to each of them.

"Of course you know George..." Lou says as she begins to introduce the guys. Every single one of them fawns over the man, making her roll her eyes, pointing her fingers at them, telling them to stop which makes George laugh. He knew they did it on purpose, to get under Lou's skin but he can't help but let it get to his ego too.

George wraps up Mia in a hug "how's my favourite sister doing?" He asks just to annoy Lou.

"Ha ha very funny" Lou says, pushing her best friend lightly as he wraps his arm around her too.

"This is Ross, Adam but we call him Hann, Carly: Adam's wife and mother of his unborn child" she says pointing to each of them, making everyone laugh at her words about Carly. She doesn't mention that she's going to be the child's godmother, wanting to savour that fact for a while.

"Penny, Jamie, John and... Matty" she's smiling at them and all the girls smile at everyone introduced, waving at them. The girls can't help but notice how Matty stares at her, his eyes set on no one else but her, a huge smile resting on his mouth. One look and they could see he was smitten.

"This is Rose our drummer, Cami our lead guitarist and my little sister Mia, who's our bassist" she smiles as she speaks, hooking her arm around Mia at the last instance.

"How did I not know you had a sister?" It's Matty who's speaking, almost all of the girls scowling at him, apart from Mia. He shares a look with the other guys, all of them shrugging, all of them knew she had a sister (although only George had met her) , how the fact had escaped the attention of Matty they did not know. He feels awful that he doesn't know, and wonders why he hadn't told her.

"Don't talk about me then sis? Oh how you wound me" her sister says, making her laugh and nudge her.

"Na, just kidding, it's all good. I lived in London, same dad, different mum" Mia explains, coming to pull Matty into a hug to properly introduce herself. Lou stands there watching them, finger in-between teeth as she watches how Matty freezes up awkwardly, the scene makes her chuckle.

"Mia stop being weird" she says, pulling her sister back from Matty.

The rest of them talk then, the girls talking to various people at scattered times. Mia stands with Matty and Lou, catching up about all sorts of things. Rose and Cami talk to Ross, Hann and Carly.

"Who's the one with the bun again?" Mia asks and Lou rolls her eyes as Matty smirks, knowing exactly why she's asking.

"That would be Ross, OUR bassist' ' Matty says, smirk clear on his face. His arm was wrapped tightly around Lou's waist, holding him to her. Mia thought they looked cute together and she couldn't help but smile at the huge smile resting on her older sister's face. She had never seen her this happy before.

"That's Ross?!" Mia almost shouts, catching the attention of the tall bearded man.

"Shut up" Lou says, Mia and her share a look, confusing Matty slightly. Mia was one of the only people that knew Lou and Ross shared a kiss when they were teenagers for they told each other everything.

"He's gotten a lot fitter than when you knocked about with them" Mia says, her London accent a lot more prominent as she speaks.

"You need to stop" Lou says, Matty and her laughing at the slightly smaller girl. Matty's eyes flick between them, eyebrows raising.

"Sorry I can't get over how similar you look, you seriously have different mum's? " Matty says, making them both groan.

"Oh god don't say that"  they say in unison, Matty holds his hands up in surrender at the daggers they shoot.

"Forget I mentioned it" he's being pulled away by someone else then. Leaving the two sisters alone.

"I mean... I like him" Mia says, grasping her sister by the shoulders. Rose joins their conversation.

"That's because you didn't see how completely unbearable he was when we were kids" Rose says, beer in hand that Lou is completely unsure how she got.

"Alright Rose we get it. Give the poor guy a chance, people change" Cami speaks and Lou is thankful to her.

"So tell us, are the rumours true?" Rose then asks.

"What rumours?" Lou asks, eyebrows furrowing at her bandmate.

"The rumours when we were kids.... That he's a good shag" rose says, always one to be forefront with her questions, something which often got them into trouble.

"You know what, you carry on mingling, I need a fag" Lou chuckles before finding her way out of one of the side doors, she hears them all laughing behind her.

The cigarette quickly finds its place in-between her lips, lighter sparking, the end burning as she breathes it in. She hears the door open and then shut behind her but she doesn't turn. She doesn't need to, she can smell two familiar scents: one of the man she loved and one of her life long best friend.

There's a silence for a few seconds as they light their own cigarettes, Matty's arm hooking around her waist when he sees her shiver.

"Sorry Lou but your sister is fitter than the last time I saw her" George says, making her cringe and making Matty chuckle.

"Ew. Just ew. And you have a girlfriend" Lou says simply, she doesn't miss how Matty leans in whispering a "you're fitter" into her ear. It's kind of a weird compliment, she never once compared herself to her sister, but she can't deny the way his words make her thighs tighten. She suppose it's because he's the one saying it and she's the one he wants when there's plenty of other beautiful girls, including the ones back inside, who he could easily get.

"They seem nice" Matty then says, loud enough for them both to hear.

"They are. But they're fucking mental though. Sorry if Rose is a bitch to you, her heart is in the right place" Lou explains, talking to Matty now, ignoring her best friend.

"It's okay, I get it. I was a dick remember?" Matty asks and Lou and George nod at him, all three of them laughing at his words.

"Cami is an absolute sweetheart so you don't have to worry about anything with her... Maybe just" she turns to Matty, placing a hand on her chest "watch what you say" this makes George laugh.

"And Mia... Keep her away from Ross will you? She's small but she will break that man" Lou says, her words shocking the two men, making them laugh anyway.

"Really?" George says, raising his eyebrows "maybe he needs to be broken" and Lou is groaning at his words.

"Don't you even try George" she says, the man flicking his fag to the floor, running back inside, giggling like an absolute child.

"George!" She shouts, giving in when the door swings back. She turns back to Matty then, who is smiling widely at her. His curls have once again been tamed by an unruly amount of hair gel, she almost frowns at the fact she can't run her fingers through the strands.

"Remind me why you didn't tell me you had a sister?" He asks and she frowns at him, thinking of an answer, not really having a definite one.

"Hmmm... I dunno. Guess I never thought to tell you before... And now... Think I was too wrapped up in you to tell you" she says, feeling a bit bad that she hadn't mentioned her own sister.

"As much as I love that... Told you I wanted to know everything about you" he says and she nods.

"I know... You'll get to know her now though, she loves you already so you definitely don't have to worry about her" she seals her words with a brief kiss.

"You seem different around them" Matty admits, making her eyebrows furrow, not knowing whether the meaning behind his words was a good or bad difference.

"How?" She asks, he smooths his hands over her waist, pulling her closer as his back leans against the concrete of the wall.

"You're like the leader of their pack, they all look to you, you shine" he admits and his eyes sparkle as he speaks "like seeing you shine". She doesn't quite know what to say but opts for the truth.

"I've actually been enjoying not being the frontman for a bit... Happy to be in the background and bask in your light" she says, his heart flutters at her words.

"Oh honey..." His fingers tucking a piece of hair behind her ear that had fallen, choosing to gently grip her chin instead of dropping back to his side.

"You've got your own light, even at the back... Everyone's looking at you" he says and she doesn't believe his words. She had a few of her own fans come to their gigs but the majority were there to see the boys and Matty, of course because it was their show, she was just there to help. She shakes her head at him, making him chuckle.

"Wish you could see yourself the way I see you... The way thousands of people see you. Trust me darling... You shine" he seals his lips against hers now, not letting her utter another word. His words had some truth to them that she didn't see, the guys often found themselves watching her even on that stage, she radiated something more than any of them could give.

And Matty especially couldn't take his eyes off her, she was everything, up on that stage, in a coffee shop, amongst friends, under the covers in their room: she shined.

Their lips move passionately against each other, neither able to get enough of each other. He's pulling her as she pulls him, trying to get closer even though it wasn't possible.

Neither of them had spoken about the fact that in two days they would be at the end of the first leg of their tour. They'd been setting off on a three week break, every single person had made plans except the two of them, too wrapped up in each other to have spoken about it.

The door creaks open next to them and they hear someone cough. They pull apart, both looking to see sweet Cami standing there.

"They're calling you on stage" Lou appreciates that she makes no crude comments, and doesn't groan at the sight of them.

They leave to play then, the crowd like no other tonight. She doesn't know if it's because she has her bandmates and her sister here or maybe because things are going so well with Matty, but the smile on her face never leaves. They play song after song, each one better than the last and when the second half rolls round and Matty introduces them, he surprises her.

"So we have two more shows after this one... And then we're on a three week break" he mentions it now and suddenly it dawns on her.

" I haven't made any plans... I've been a little distracted..." He says, looking over to her, making the crowd go mental "the truth is I've been having the time of my life with someone truly truly amazing and I'm the happiest I've ever been" he says. She thinks that his words are good enough for her for now, that's all the fans really need to know.

"This tour... We had someone amazing join us... I wasn't overjoyed at first, everyone on this stage right now would tell you that... Including her, especially her" he says and they all chuckle to themselves, Lou's eyes never wavering from his.

"But my god... George" he says turning around to face his best mate "thank you" he says, hands flat against each other, raising them to his chin as he tilts his head.

"Thank you to these boys right here" he says, pointing to Hann, George and then Ross "for making the best decision ever and bringing this wonderful person on tour with us" Matty says, finally pointing to her. Some fans may think he's just being sentimental, thanking her for joining them this far. Some will know the true meaning to his words, all but confirming what they were.

"Our wonderful Lou, would you come here for a second please?" He asks, and exactly as they planned she walks over to him, smiling as he pulls her into a tight hug before they pull back, his hand resting on her shoulder.

"Now you've got an absolute treat tonight" Matty says and someone passes her, her acoustic guitar. Matty moves from his stool and lets her sit there.

"The amazing Lou everyone" he says before he's leaving, everyone leaves the stage then, joining the girls backstage and watching from the sidelines.

"God this is daunting" she says into the microphone, making the crowd laugh "Yeah I know this is my job but I haven't been up here on my own for a hot minute" they laugh again.

She's shining again Matty thinks, god he loved how she shines.

"Boys please come back" she says, everyone laughing again.

"Okay okay" she says, shaking her nerves off as she begins checking if the guitar is in tune.

"I need to say a couple of things before I start, unplanned I know" she says, saying her last words to the guys on the side of the stage.

"Can't let Matty say all that without me saying anything" she laughs and she sees him smile at her.

"My band is here tonight" the crowd screams "my little sister"

"And I can't remember a time where I felt as happy as I do now. We're a family here at the 1975... I know that more than anything else" she says her words making the boy's eyes fill with tears.

"I guess I just want to say thank you to the whole team... And to my four boys, you know I'm not the best with words so I've been wanting to do something to show you guys how much you mean to me instead. So I thought I'd sing you a beautiful song. One which you wrote. This is for you" she says, beginning to play the beginning chords to "When We Are Together".

She plays a stripped back version of the song, somehow making it more sentimental, the boys find themselves hugging each other backstage.

Matty stares at her intently as she sings, the voice he loves so much filling the entire arena, he's in awe that the entire audience is silent, simply listening to her sing.

"You ask about the cows, wearin' my sweater

It's somethin' 'bout the weather that makes them lie down

The only time I feel I might get better is when we are together" she sings, her voice soft and sweet, undeniably beautiful.

She sings the song to the end, only then looking up at the audience. Her own eyes glisten with tears that are yet to fall but they do when she sees everyone holding up their phone, a few people crying their own tears. The boys are quick to join her on stage, hugging her tightly in a group hug before they return to their places on the stage.

"I love you" Matty mouths to her making her smile and mouth an "I love you too" back. Neither caring that thousands of people were watching them.

----------------------------------------------------------

George somehow ropes them all into a night out. Explaining that they hadn't had one yet despite being nearly at the end of their first leg. It was a rare occurrence for the band not to have had one, but they had all agreed that until they were all settled they wouldn't have a crazy night out.

But as the first leg was coming to an end, they had all agreed it was much needed and well deserved. Plus, the addition of Lou's bandmates had them all in high spirits.

"Got to give the newbies a proper 75 welcome" Ross says, wrapping an arm around Lou, pulling her into his side.

"Hey I'm not a newbie anymore" she argues back, jokingly shoving the man above her, shrugging away from his grip.

"But you haven't been out with us losers since we were teenagers" he quips back and she can't argue with that.

So they all rushed back to their hotel, the girls taking up Lou's room which was yet to be touched. Matty frowns as she disappears between the doors, leaving him to get ready on his own. Lou quickly showers, slicks back her hair into a high pony and applies some make up, not too much on her face but a dark eye, before joining the girls back in her room, wrapped up in a white robe.

"Feel like seeing how much that man has the hots for you?" Cami says, making Lou laugh as she searches through her suitcase. The girls seemed to have come prepared, suspecting that a night out would be on the agenda.

"We're not going anywhere fancy Cami, George knows some dj at this club and they've got us a booth" she explains, failing to mention that it was in the VIP section, something she didn't like to brag about. Cami holds up a silk dress with a deep v and a high slit, Lou shakes her head "too fancy".

Cami mutters an "okay okay" before she proceeds to throw more things from her suitcase, a mischievous look on her face as she puts together a few items.

One of which is a skirt that is far too short even for Lou, she had thrown all sorts of items in there, some of which she hadn't worn in ages.

"Cami that skirt it so fucking short" Lou says, unsure about it, and the slit that revealed half her thigh. Cami proceeds to throw the skirt at her, along with a deep v lace bodysuit and a cropped blazer.

"Just try it on" she says, the other girls nodding. Lou sighs deeply.

"Don't encourage her" she says, pointing to the other girls.

She makes her way to the en-suite bathroom, removing her robe before putting on the assortment of clothes Cami had selected. She finds herself smirking at her reflection, her ego was far from big but she knew that one look from Matty and he'd be on his knees.

She makes her way back into the room, her bandmates gasping at her.

"That's it. That's the one. I'm a genius" Cami says, placing a kiss on each of her cheeks.

"I'd do you" Rose says, making them all laugh, her fingertips pluck the "M" necklace that rests against the centre of her chest, just falling in-between her boobs. Rose smiles and lifts an eyebrow.

"Can't lie... That's undeniably cute" she says and Lou smiles.

"I know I give him shit... And I will continue to until I see fit" rose says making Lou laugh "but it's obvious he's madly in love with you... And you seem really happy" she says and Lou nods at her.

"I am... I don't even remember what it was like before... I hated him because I thought he hated me... As soon as I found out he didn't, everything kind of just fell in to place" Lou explains, mia standing up to hug her sister.

The other girls get ready after that, Lou helping them do their hair and make up, hearing the guys laughing from outside.

Rose wears a simple black dress that sits tightly on her body, Cami settles for a black pair of skinny jeans and a lace bralette, whilst Mia adorns leather trousers and black one shoulder bodysuit.

"You guys are going to give them heart attacks," Lou says, making all the girls laugh.

They then make their way into the main room, Lou the last to leave, before she does she hears George say "Was wondering why you took so long but now I understand. Look lovely girls" he says, his words fairly tame in comparison to what she'd thought he'd say.

"Where's the woman of the hour?" He jokes before she steps into the threshold. Her eyes find Mattys almost instantly and she can't help but smirk at him.

He was sitting on one of the sofas, legs spread wide almost as if he's ready for her to take her place in them. He shoots up as soon as he sees her, tugging at the shirt that rests almost uncomfortably around his neck now.

He's dressed in black suit trousers, a plain white T Shirt tucked in with a black shirt thrown over the top, the buttons almost all undone except two at the bottom, the shirt is sheer and she holds back moan as she sees him. His hair isn't tamed by gel now, unruly curls sat atop his head, ready to be tugged.

"Damnnn" George says, hand reaching for hers and getting his best friend to do a twirl, which makes her laugh. She didn't notice Matty coming over to her but she sure as hell notices the look he gives George, one in which she had never seen before.

His eyes warned his best friend to watch his mouth and George instantly stepped away, he was being territorial and she was surprised with how much she liked the feeling.

"Baby..." He practically whispers, hands coming to find her waist, gently pulling her body to his, his touch is unsure, as if he thought he wasn't deserving of it. Behind them, everyone begins talking to each other, letting the couple be.

"You look..." He swallows deeply and the sight kills her. She's glad her outfit had the outcome she had desired but as his dark eyes find hers she finds herself lost for words. Her eyebrows raise up at him, begging him to finish his sentence.

"Devine..." He says, as if she's a meal to devour. She couldn't care in the slightest, she loved how he much he wanted her and how little he tried to hide it.

"Hmm" she says, hands flat against his chest, she doesn't even beginning to describe how good he looks before George is interrupting them.

"We should probably leave before these two start fucking" George says, making everyone chuckle.

The club is loud and George disappears the minute they arrive, talking to the DJ of the night who lets George take rein of the music for a bit. The others find themselves at their booth, drinks already waiting for them.

Matty's hand is firmly clasped on her thigh as his other arm hooks around the back of her. His hand comes to fit at the back of her neck and she finds herself loving the feel of it. His grasp wasn't too tight but wasn't exactly soft and she has to stop herself from pressing her lips against his.

Ross is sat opposite them talking to Mia, her hand rests on his knee as they talk over the loud music. Cami and Rose are already on the dance floor, laughing with each other as they danced and drank.

He leans into speak to her, having to place his mouth directly next to her ear for her to hear "saw about 6 different guys stare at you as we walked in love" he says, almost proud of the fact.

"Yeah?" She asks and he smirks.

"Don't blame them, you look fucking hot" he says, making her chuckle and lean into him.

"Bet it must feel nice knowing I'm yours huh?" She asks and his smirk falls, mouth agape for a beat before his lips find hers for a firm peck.

"You're not mine yet love, not really. You could go over to any one of them right now and do what you wanted" he speaks and she smiles at him, shaking her head at his words. His words which were just to test her. He wanted nothing more than for her to say his words weren't true.

"Its shame for them then isn't it?" She says making his eyebrows furrow, not knowing what she meant.

"Shame I want you and not them" she says, standing from the booth, hand finding his as she stands.

"Besides" she says, leaning down to him until her mouth grazes his ear, making him shiver "if I'm not yours... you should do something about that" she says before looking at Mia.

"Want to dance?" She asks and Mia smiles widely, standing almost instantly. Lou notices the clear frown on Ross' lips and she smiles, raising her eyebrows at the bearded man.

The two girls quickly make their way to the dance floor positioning themselves so they can be seen by the guys (who's eyes never leave them).

Ross and Cami are quick to find them, the four of them dancing with each other, laughing and drinking.

Lou feels a tap to her shoulder so she turns, looking up at a guy who she doesn't recognise, a 6 ft something guy who, if she wasnt completely smitten with Matty she would find attractive, he had curls too but they weren't the same as Matty's, he looks sweet, a we'll put together man who no doubt has a large sum to his name. She stands there awkwardly waiting for the man to speak.

"Sorry I saw you across the room and just had to say hi" he speaks the cliche line and she chuckles.

"Does that line usually work for you?" She shouts over the loud song that's playing, the girls behind her laughing.

"I don't know, it's the first time I'm using it, you tell me" he says smoothly and Lou chuckles again.

"Ah come on Lou, let him buy you a drink" Rose says and she knows she just wants to see Matty's reaction.

"Lou? Is that your name? A pretty name for a pretty girl" he says and she can't help but cringe a little.

"I'm actually here with-" she begins to say she's here with someone but is interrupted by rose again.

"No she's not, she's just being modest, buy her a drink, a martini" she says and Lou chuckles as they man smiles before leaving.

"I hate martinis" Lou says and rose smirks.

"I know, but I love them" she says leaning in to speak into her ear "turn around, it worked" rose says.

Lou turns and is suddenly flushed against Matty's chest, she stumbles but his hand quickly finds her waist, holding her against him.

"Hi" she smiles.

"Hi" he smiles back, looking down at her. His eyes flick to the bar where he sees the guy he was all but ready to pounce on if he made a single move. Lou turns her head to see who he's looking at and she smiles upon turnjng around to face him again.

Her hands rest against his shoulders as a slow beat plays, she steps towards him so they're closer.

"You don't have to worry about him" she whispers into his ear. His hands grip her hips as she begins to move against him.

"Hmm why's that?" He mumbles into her ear, lips finding their way to her neck.

"Think you already know Matty" she says, pulling back to look at him. Her eyes plead with him, begging him to just kiss her already.

"Because you're mine yeah?" He shouts smiling down at her. She simply nods and his eyes leave her for a second, flicking to someone behind her again.

"Sorry mate" he speaks to whoever is behind her, probably the guy from a minute ago, but Lou's eyes are training on the curly man holding her "she's my missus" the words leave his mouth before he even processes them.

She hears a grumble behind her and then Matty's eyes are on hers again.

"Your missus huh? Like the sound of that" she pulls his mouth to hers then, lips pressing against one another with fervour. Him using that word so casually awakens something in her (and seemingly him too).

He tries to speak through their kiss, eventually having to break away.

"Be my girlfriend? Like proper girlfriend" he asks, it was not the way he had intended on asking her but he was desperate now, not wanting to go another minute without asking her.

"Wanted to ask you in a better setting than this love but-" her lips are on his again, shutting him up. She goes to say yes but suddenly a lanky man is pulling the pair into a tight hug.

"Fucking love you guys" George says, making the two of them laugh loudly.

"How much have you had to drink?" She laughs and he smears a kiss to her cheek before doing the same to Matty.

"Question is... Why haven't you?" His words make no sense but they allow him to pull them back to the booth and allow him to make the whole group (save for Matty) do a few shots. Lou doesn't drink as much as the rest of the group, wanting to support Matty but also wanting to remember the night, for it was already an amazing one.

As the night progresses, Ross and Mia are dancing together, her hands flat against his chest as their bodies moved against one another.

Matty and Lou were flush against the wall in the corner of the room, hiding from everyone else, needing some time to be alone.

"You never answered my question" he says as his head tucks into her neck, lips pressing against the skin.

"Kind of got interrupted" she sighs, hands threading through the curls at the nape of his neck.

"Yeah George keeps fucking doing that tonight" He pulls back to look at her and she smiles.

"Yes I'll be your girlfriend" she says and he mirrors her, wide smiles adorning both of their faces.

"Yeah? Don't care that I asked you in the middle of some sweaty club" he asks and she shakes her head.

"No, because it's you. I'd of said yes no matter what Matty" and the confession has him blushing deeply, pulling her into him to place a loving kiss to her mouth.

"Didn't get to finish what you were saying to me earlier either... Some best friend g is" Matty says, needing to hear what she wanted to say.

"Yeah... Was going to say how good you looked" she says, smoothing her hands down his white Tshirt, fingertips pulling the shirt that rests either side of his frame, until their mouths meet again.

They break away a few moments later and his eyes wander to the centre of the dancefloor where Ross and Mia can be seen.

"Told George to keep her away from that man, she'll break his heart" Lou groans eyes finding where Matty was looking and he laughs at her words.

"You know I know about that night right" Matty says as his eyes snap back to hers, looking down at her as she frowns up at him, not knowing what she was talking about.

"What happened between you and Ross" Matty says, a smirk resting against his lips as Lou's mouth falls open.

"What- how?" She asks, mouth agape, lost for words.

"He's my best friend love, told me as soon as he knew I had feelings for you" he says, thumb drifting along her cheek.

"And? What do you think about it?" She asks, searching his face for any signs of him being annoyed at her.

"Well that depends..." He asks, a darkness to his words, lips pressing against hers, confusing her.

"Depends on what?" She murmurs against his mouth, pulling at his shirt, needing him closer to her.

"What was it like?" He asks, pressing his mouth to hers the moment he finished talking.

"Want the truth?" She asks and he nods against her mouth as his tongue finds hers. She allows them to fight for a moment until she lets his push harshly against hers, making her core flutter and letting him lead the kiss.

She pulls away from him for a second, dark eyes finding his and she smirks.

"It was hot... At the time" she says and she smirks down at her.

"Ross said the same thing" he says and Lou's eyebrows raise.

"Yeah?" Mattys hand drifts along her waist, landing against her hip, pulling her flush against him, moving their bodies to the beat of the music. Her arm hooks over his shoulder, clinging onto him as his hips ground down against hers.

He nods down at her and she finds herself confused as to why he's smirking still.

"If he told you that... Why are you smirking?" She asks, moaning into his mouth as his lips press against hers again.

"Because... It was a childhood makeout, doesn't mean anything... Fizzled out anyway" Matty says, repeating what Ross had explained to him. His lips find her neck again and she sighs.

"Hmm.. what if I said otherwise?" She says, purely teasing him. His head snaps away from her neck, finding her eyes, seriousness now covering his features.

"That's just mean love" he says, and she smirks up at him now, he doesn't find it funny and she's quick to drop the act. Softly playing with his hair as anger clouds his eyes.

"Baby I'm joking" she says, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek, drifting them down to his neck and up to the shell of his ear.

"Doesn't mean anything... You're the one I want. My boyfriend" her last words are what gets him to snap back to how he was moments prior. It's what makes him press his mouth back to hers and grind his hips down to hers.

"Say it again" he murmurs into her mouth.

"My boyfriend"

"Fuck" his tongue roughly presses against hers and her hold on him tightens as pleasure increases throughout her body as she feels his hardened length pressing against her core.

"Want to get out of here?" He asks as he pulls away from her. She's quickly nodding up at him making him smirk.

"Good. Can't wait to get you out of this fucking skirt" he says, hand running along the hem of it, caressing her thigh. They quickly weave themselves out of the club, leaving their friends, leaving Lou's sister who is likely still with Ross.

----------------------------------------------------------

Their naked bodies are sprawled out on the bed of their hotel room, Matty is lying on his front as Lou is at his side. Her fingers drift along the expanse of his back, the muscles contracting under her touch before she presses light kisses to the skin.

"We have a break in two days" he says, his voice quiet, looking over his shoulder to find his girlfriend, who's arms were resting against his back.

"Want to spend it with you" Matty says, turning onto his back, she allows him and then lies back down onto his stomach now.

"Id like that" she smiles, pressing a kiss against his stomach.

"Think we should go away for a bit... Just us" he says and she nods again.

"Need to go home too though, need to see my family... And G's" she says and Matty nods.

"My mum's been wanting to see you again. Hasnt seen you since we were kids" he says. A man of many confessions tonight it seems

"Id love that. She always loved me" she says and Matty nods.

"Yeah I know... Used to give me so much shit for treating you the way I did. Said I was a cruel boy" he admits, his words holding a certain sadness to them.

"It's okay, made up for it now" she says and she smiles slightly.

"I'm so sorry"

"Baby no. You don't have to apologise anymore. I forgive you" she says, lips pressing softly against his stomach again, moving upwards until pressing against his lips.

"I know... Just needed to say it" he says and she nods.

"Can't believe you're my girlfriend" he says, hands moving her hair from her face, wanting to truly see her.

"You know... I never really said sorry for how I was to you" she admits and he looks down at her.

"You weren't nearly as bad as me love"

"That's not the point though... I'm sorry Matty, truly I am. Things were so different back then, it's kind of crazy" she says and he nods.

"Why did you hate me?" He asks, looking down at her, she didn't mind being asked it, they hadn't actually spoken about it yet.

"Suppose at first I hated you because you hated me... I tried to get you to like me... But after a while I gave in... Hated you because despite everything the guys said about you, about you being this lovely guy who would do anything for his mates... You weren't that person with me and I desperately wanted you to be... So I hated you because you didn't allow me to have you that way" she admits, something she had never admitted aloud before.

"I never knew that" he says, frowning at her. She knows he's about to apologise again so she presses her mouth to his.

"I often saw the way you were with them, when you thought I wasn't looking and I felt jealous... You told me the guys got to have me in a way you didn't and it was the same for me" she says.

"God we really made a mess of things didn't we?" He says, chuckling at the whole messy situation. She smiles at him and nods.

"Think we've made up for it now don't you think?" She asks and he nods, kissing her sweetly.

"My girlfriend"

"Your girlfriend" she smiles.

"Think I'm ready to make it obvious were dating" he says and she nods.

"That sounds like a wonderful idea" she says lying down on his chest and listening to his heart beat until she falls asleep.

"I love you" he murmurs although she's asleep on his arms now.

"I've always loved you" he says before he feels himself drifting to sleep too.

Part 9

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