#while she puts herself back together. she helps where she can. thinks about how yarrow has mostly moved on from her death but those caverns | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sleepyowlwrites · 1 year

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find the word tag CCCLV

a some sort of kind of while ago @tc-doherty asked me to find five time words, and five words of choice, which is entirely too much freedom, how dare you entrust me with this

second (city story d0)

“You live around here?”

Rune shakes her head and it seems to knock her off balance for a second. She rights herself immediately, not showing concern at all. “Not right here. Not far, though. We can walk. Shake off the day.”

And then she puts a hand out and taps his arm briefly, as if she’s aware she’d be pushed off if she left it. Then she pivots and starts walking away. Or, limping, rather. She’s limping away.

Against Jet’s better judgment, he follows after, one hand coming up to catch her arm instead. “You okay?”

minute (city story d0)

“I had lunch with Rune yesterday.”

Jet has no idea where Copper is going with this, but he knows that he isn’t going to like it.

“I asked her a lot of personal questions and she dodged them all.” Copper hands him a bowl of soup. “And we both knew that I was being too invasive and she was perfectly within her rights to tell me off, but she didn’t. She just swerved around like answering truthfully was on the tip of her tongue. I think she wanted to strangle me at the end, so I paid for the food. And then she thanked me, and said “your brother is lucky to have you” in the saddest voice I’ve ever heard from someone with a bright smile on their face.”

Jet burns his tongue on purpose so he can go get himself a glass of cold water and breathe strongly through his nose. Copper allows him to take his time, not following him to continue the conversation, but Jet knows it isn’t over, so he eventually wanders back to the couch and sits in his customary spot in front of it.

Neither of them pick the conversation back up, and Jet reluctantly eats his soup while Copper eats his behind him. It’s uncomfortable not because Jet hates these discussions with his brother, not anymore, but because he is entirely certain that Copper will ask him things that he can’t answer.

He does, a minute later. “What is Rune dealing with?”

“I don’t know much more than you,” Jet says through his last mouthful of potato.

hour (guild story d0)

The Handmeet was moving slowly, as it always did when the decisions needed to be made quickly. All solutions to concerns were proposed at the Handmeet, actually discussed over many mugs of ale inside private studies and at large tables covered in maps in one lord’s hall or the other, and orders were given to the Swords before the next Handmeet where the lords confirmed their privately made decisions and drank wine to solidify their agreement on none of the issues they previously brought up.

Idrian traced his hand over a map in a pattern he’d been doing for an hour, answering Lord Santar’s questions about feasibility of quick-moving trade caravans. The sweat on his brow was partially due to the stale heat building in the room, but probably mostly due to his rapidly dwindling patience for lords with repetitive questions.

day (summon story supplemental)

"You pay for the choices you make. Remember that."

"I-, yes, I know that," Shae said, diligently scorching the layered arrays off the wooden floor. "Is that what happened to you? You don't have a body anymore because of a bad choice?"

Grimes hummed, a sound that made her ribs clack together. "If I weren't the person I am, it would've been a bad one. But I'm satisfied with it. It's an outcome I chose on purpose. I did pay for it, and I'm still paying, but it's one I'm willing to make."

Shae threw sand on the little fires before they really caught. The room was darker without their light. Outside, the sun had already set, and the streets echoed with much less sound than during the day.

hurt (city story d0)

“I need to burn something.”

“You could burn the paper waste,” Moss suggests, working on his books. “That would be helpful, actually.”

There’s a scrunching, shuffling sound that is likely Yarrow rolling over on the couch. “Yeah, but that’s a good kind of burning. I want to do the bad kind.”

“You want to hurt somebody?” Shadow’s tired skepticism is exactly is how Jet is feeling.

“No, of course not. My mom would never look at me the same. I want to destroy something that should be destroyed, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Shadow repeats, his sigh very audible. Not that it bothers Yarrow, who is just perpetually unbothered except for when Jet and the others persuade him not to act on his reckless urges.

smile (summon story d0)

“Hmm.” The woman tapped slender fingers on her thigh. “I don’t prefer having company on a case.”

Zan didn’t say anything. He was pretty sure he didn’t have to.

“Come on, then. Do you know anything I don’t?”

“You’re not from Sinderport, or you’d have come the same way I did, but you make good time, since you caught up with me soon enough.” Zan met her eyes for the first time. “I can at least help you get to our destination sooner. We can split the bounty and never see each other again, if you want.”

The woman’s mouth turned up just slightly at one side, a smile that was probably more amused than genuine. “Fine.”

“Great.” Zan slid out of the lamplight. “Follow me, then.”

blood (city story d0)

The bloodstain is obscuring the small print on the front of his shirt. Jet’s not the sort to care about ruined clothing, but today he lets it fill him with rage as he catches the next thrown punch and yanks down on the arm attached, bringing his elbow up to smash into the face that yaws closer to him.

“This is my favorite shirt,” he complains, kicking out one of the guy’s legs and driving his knee into the small of his back. The guy lands with a thud, face stuck in an expression of surprise while he tries to regain his breath.

Jet wipes at his nose with one hand, which does nothing except ensure that his blood is smeared all over the next opponent’s face when he grabs it to stop the body from falling on him. He yanks one of the shoulders back as the new guy goes down to keep him from grappling at Jet’s own face. Two of the fingers remained trapped in Jet’s and bend backwards just enough to strain, not enough to break. If whoever he’s fighting is trying to hurt him, fine, Jet will try to hurt them right back, but severe injuries will just come back to cause him trouble.

Bruises, bloody noses and aching joints are nothing anybody would make a fuss about. Not in this part of the city, anyway.

anger (city story d0)

“You should’ve seen me when I first met Hawk. Yarrow called me volatile, said I was dangerous to look at. He was right.” Jet looks at their hands because it’s easier. “I don’t always know how I’m going to react. I-, I shouldn’t love the anger, but I kind of do. It’s simpler, logical. I don’t want that to be what I react with forever, though.”

“You seem to be making steps in that direction,” Copper notes.

Jet huffs a little. “Yeah. Sure. I make steps and I take them back. I am volatile, Copper.”

“You were angry just now and you held yourself back.” Of course Copper would notice that.

“You’re my brother. I don’t ever want to hurt you.”

example, explain, exit, excite. BONUS: extreme, exalt. @faelanvance @author-a-holmes @ettawritesnstudies @thegreatobsesso @josephinegerardywriter @kaiusvnoir @deciphered-narrator OR ANYBODY

#find the word tag #searching circle #alliteration agency

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stuckwith-harry · 3 years

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cried out to you alone

“It becomes a part of who you are”, Harry says, some sort of clarity coming to him. “Death, I mean. Grief. It doesn’t have to swallow you whole, but there is a little bit of it in every part of you.”

Impossible, is the only thing Harry can stand to think. That there is still sunlight in the world after everything.

Still, it pours out over the Burrow’s kitchen table in bright, luminous yellow, warming the veined wood. Harry and the Weasleys watch it creep over the tabletop, sitting elbow-to-elbow. Molly and Arthur are touching shoulders and brushing through hair as they pass around steaming mugs of tea, as they pour milk and stir in spoonfuls of sugar, the bags under their eyes swollen and purple like figs.

When Harry tries to open his mouth, to offer help, Molly quickly shakes her head at him; pleading. Like she wouldn’t know what else to do with herself.

So Harry stays, cramped between George and Ginny, and lets her place her palm on his back as she places his tea in front of him. Through the open window, a sweet-smelling breeze comes pouring in, the smell of warm soil and flowers and summer rapidly approaching, which seems impossible, too.

Tomorrow morning, they’re going to get out of bed and make breakfast. They’re going to feed the chicken in the yard, do the dishes and read the newspaper. Still, the sun is going to come up.

For a moment, he catches Ron’s gaze; Ron, whose face is oddly contorted and whose eyes are glassy and bright red. Harry can’t bear the sight of it: he stares at the old mug in his hands, examining the faded red dots, hand-painted. Anything that soothes.

Poppies, he realises. On the inside, near a chip at the rim, he can make out the small letters spelling out Ottery St. Catchpole, and below that, half-drowning in sweet tea: Flea Market, 1988.

A memory, then. One he wasn’t a part of, but one he can envision, anyway, the bright red summer day, the bustling and shuffling of the little village, the shrieking of children, strawberry ice cream rapidly melting and dripping on bare knees; a younger, happier Ron –

The scraping of a chair yanks him back, as Ginny abruptly gets to her feet and walks out without a word. No one tries to stop her, and the small, pathetic sound of her bedroom door closing from atop the stairs sounds down to them as though she slammed it.

After that, only silence. No pots stir in the kitchen sink, no footsteps thunder from several floors above, and no chatter, no yelling, no laughter holds the walls of the house together. No explosions sound from the twins’ room.

Death is an awfully quiet affair.

One by one, as the stripes on the tabletop grow long and orange, the Weasleys crawl into their hiding places. Harry knows he’s intruding, so he wanders outside, following the soft clucking of the chicken pecking away at the dirt behind their wooden fence, the only things alive and making a sound.

The solitude is a relief: he has never wished to flee the walls of the Burrow so desperately, only stayed long enough to change out of the black funeral robes and into an old Quidditch jumper. Then he pushed Ron’s bedroom door open far enough to slip out and disappear, and mercifully, Ron didn’t try to stop him, either.

The jumper is Ron’s, technically. It feels like being held, Gryffindor red and worn and entirely too large for Harry. Somehow that only makes him feel worse.

The Weasleys did not hesitate to take him home with them after the battle, because that was their way. They put up the old camp bed in Ron’s violently orange bedroom like they always had, and Ron silently handed him a pile of hand-me-downs so Harry would have something to wear other than the clothes that still reeked of the tent, of sweat and of blood.

Harry props his elbows up on the weathered fence and buries his face in the soft sleeves, breathing deeply. For a while, he simply listens as the hens, who do not know or care about anything, cluck away happily, as the urge to slip under the invisibility cloak, to disappear and never make a sound again, keeps on rushing over him.

“Hi.”

His heart jumps painfully into his throat at the quiet greeting and the sound of footsteps on dry grass that preceded it, and when he turns around to face it, he’s looking at Ginny. She’s changed out of her black dress robes, too, back into worn-out denim dungarees and a striped t-shirt. Scarlet and yellow. Her hair has come out of the braid from earlier and falls wildly to her collarbones again, no longer to her belly button, like it used to.

“I couldn’t stand the silence anymore”, she says, voice oddly throaty.

Harry wants to say, you don’t have to explain, but before he can, she pushes out: “And then I was in my room and it was just as fucking quiet, and I just – I didn’t know what to do with myself.”

She looks older, Harry thinks wildly. He hasn’t let himself look at her, not really, doesn’t even know why, just that he’s been avoiding her most of all. Ever since May 2nd, the quiet between them has stretched and stretched over miles and oceans and continents of wasteland. Harry knows it’s his fault, that he should say something, but he has no words, no words at all.

The first morning after the battle, when he came stumbling into the common room and found her there, they just held each other, and he had no words then, either. There was sunlight there, too, he remembers suddenly, poking through the shattered windows and lighting up every particle of dust floating around the empty room.

“Can we go somewhere else?”, she asks, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Anywhere else?”

Harry nods, mouth dry. For a moment, her eyes seem to linger on him, but then she turns away without another word, and he follows her lead without question or objection. They don’t speak again until they reach the old broomshed, and Ginny suddenly turns to look at him again, face unreadable.

“Any chance you wanna go for a fly?”

“Wh-What?”

She shrugs. “Do you?”

It’s a strange time capsule, the shed. Ginny pushes the wooden door open and sends flurries of dust into the air, catching sunlight; Harry, who is standing behind her, catches a glimpse of Arthur’s old Muggle trinkets and the old brooms lined up against the wall. Ron and Ginny’s are closest to the door; the twins’ brooms are up on a shelf opposite the square window.

For a moment, Ginny is perfectly still, and Harry knows she is looking at them, too. Then she reaches for her broom and silently pushes past him. Harry grabs Ron’s and closes the door of the shed behind him, and together they wander away from the Burrow, over the hills that surround it, where wild poppies are peeking through the unkempt grass and weeds.

Harry thinks he knows where she’s going: their makeshift Quidditch pitch hidden between gnarly old trees from summers long lost, where they used to chuck apples and tennis balls at each other, during all those afternoons spent playing Quidditch two against two.

Tall, sweet-smelling yarrow brushes along their bare shins as they walk, and pink clover, the soft heads bending back to the earth under the weight of bumblebees passing by, thick dandelion leaves spread all across the ground amidst the weeds; and everywhere poppies, peeking through the tall grass, the paper-thin petals fluttering in the breeze.

Tucked behind another hill, Harry remembers, a few minutes on foot further north, is the lake where they whiled away happier summer afternoons than this. The image comes to his mind in bright, sunny colours, Ginny’s wide, toothy grin as she sneaks up on Ron, the thundering splash and Hermione’s piercing shriek, and Ron, emerging, spluttering and yelling, his sopping hair plastered to his face.

But that was centuries ago, and their full-bellied laughter seems miles and countries away already. Here, only silence. Harry wants to ask, are you okay?, or say, it’s going to be alright, but what good would it do?

The poppies are early: they’re not supposed to bloom for another month. There’s no end to them, no matter how far they walk, a sea of red stretching out all over the soft hills. Harry can’t tear his eyes away until the first beech trees they used to climb, black pines and yews throw cool shadows over their heads.

Strange, that it looks the same. The leaves up above their heads rustle softly as they mount their brooms, and Ginny shoots into the air, a quiet cannon. For the better part of an hour, they zoom in circles through the rapidly cooling air, chucking an old Quaffle back and forth at each other. Ginny’s throws are hard and unrelenting: they’re not keeping score, but she’s playing like it’s the last game of the season, like the House Cup depends on it, so Harry lets her exhaust herself. By the time they sink back to the ground, the sky over the meadow is dotted in shades of pink and red.

Ginny hits the ground with such force her knees buckle under the impact and hit the dry grass. Harry gasps, but she is already getting up again, brushing off the dirt without comment.

They find a spot at the outer edge of the pitch and slump into the tall grass with their backs leaning against an oak tree, where they can see the sunset falling on the soft hills and the Burrow in the distance, bright red like poppies. Ginny’s hands are uselessly holding her ribs, her warm eyes staring off into nothing.

“Feel any better?”, Harry asks after a while.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

She shifts next to him, tucking her scraped knees to her chest. They look like she’s spent all summer climbing trees and rolling down the grassy hills around the Burrow and crashing her broomstick into her brothers in a spectacular grab for the Quaffle.

“At least I feel a little less like I was buried with him”, she mutters.

I’m sorry, Harry wants to say, but that seems useless, too.

“I wanted to leave, too”, he says finally. “It was so quiet in there.”

“I hate it”, Ginny says softly. “It doesn’t feel anything like home when it’s like this.”

“I’m sorry”, he says despite himself, for what feels like the thousandth time since everything. “I shouldn’t be here.”

Ginny's brows furrow slightly, as if to say, yes, you should. “If you weren’t, I’d still be shut up in my room right now. Going mad, probably.”

After a short pause, she adds: “I wouldn’t know who to talk to.”

It strikes Harry like lightning: she was looking for him.

She looks over at him as though searching for something. Her brown eyes glow golden in the warm light, like honey, her whole face painted in reds and oranges and pinks.

“How do you do it?”, she asks finally, voice quiet, but steady, as the soft breeze continues to rush through the trees. “How do you lose everyone you’ve lost – and go on living? How do you live with the dead?”

Harry looks at her, the way she sits cross-legged and hunched over in the grass next to him, arms hugged to herself, and it sinks in, what she’s searching for, what she’s asking of him.

“It’s not the same”, he says softly.

She scoffs quietly. “How is that not the same?”

Harry looks around their hiding place. Maybe it’s the creaking of old branches around them, almost a murmur, the smell of the trees, that brings them back: his parents in the Forbidden Forest, walking towards him, Sirius’ bright grin, Dumbledore at King’s Cross Station.

The thought of them cuts through him, every beat of his heart sharp and stinging as they remain dead and he does not.

“Your speech”, he says finally, and watches her jaw clench. “I couldn’t have said anything like that about my parents – or Sirius …”

“I can’t believe I wrote him a fucking eulogy”, Ginny mutters, staring at the weeds to her feet, the patches of moss creeping across the earth under the wild, entangled grass. “It makes it feel so fucking final.”

“You did really well”, Harry says. “It was beautiful.”

She merely shrugs, and he doesn’t blame her.

“I’m glad I got to say something, I think”, she says after another stretch of silence. “But, Merlin, he was walking and talking and making jokes just a week ago, and now he’s six feet underground and I’ve written a double-sided page on how sorely he’ll be missed.”

She wipes her nose on the back of her sleeve.

“Up until today, I really thought he might jump up and laugh it off and make fun of us for falling for it.”

You made it feel like that today, he wants to say, but doesn’t.

“I’m so sorry, Ginny.”

She read it out with a completely steady voice, both fists clutching the slip of paper in her hand. She did not bother to find a silver lining this time, or to look for meaning at all; but every word seemed to bring Fred back to life a little, even earning a few teary chuckles from the other Weasleys. Every anecdote and every prank she recounted was a testament to the fact that Fred Weasley had been alive, that he had mattered, that he had left an impact on her, on all of them.

“You know my Mum had brothers”, Ginny says suddenly, looking over at Harry’s hands. “Fabian and Gideon Prewett.”

She points, and Harry realises what she’s really looking at: Fabian Prewett’s battered old watch on his arm.

“They died in the first war. Bill, Charlie and Percy say they remember them a little, but the rest of us just grew up hearing stories.”

She picks at the shallow wound on her knee, where droplets of bright red blood have pushed to the surface through the cracks in her freckled skin. “It’s why Fred and George are named after them. A little bit, anyway – you know, Fred and George … Fabian and Gideon … Mum was pregnant when they died.”

Harry swallows. “I didn’t know.”

Ginny smiles sadly. “I liked the idea that they got to live on in the twins a little. I never thought to ask Fred and George how they felt about it, actually. I can’t imagine … how Mum feels.”

Harry watches her wrap her arms around her legs, watches the strawberry blond hairs on her shins stand on end as the air cools around them. She looks tired, but her eyes are dry.

“I never made that connection”, he says softly.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you”, she says. “It seemed important.”

Even over the rustling of the trees, the chirping and creaking all around them, he can hear her clearly, her voice steady, unwavering.

“Do you miss him?”

“Yes.”

She looks around at him. “Do you not miss your parents?”

“I don’t know how”, Harry mutters. “Your speech … it was full of memories.”

She doesn’t respond, understanding silently. Then: “What about Sirius?”

Harry shrugs. “He never really got to be my godfather, did he? Not the way he was supposed to, anyway … there wasn’t time. And I don’t remember when my parents were alive – I’ve never known anything else.”

He looks at her, the way she’s quietly watching. “I’m sorry. I know that’s not what you were hoping to hear.”

Ginny dismisses it with a half-hearted gesture, lost in thoughts somewhere else.

“Do you think grieving someone is the same thing as missing them, then?”

“No … do you?”

She seems to consider it for a moment, then shakes her head.

“I just – I just want to talk to him and tell him what’s going on, and I think about how long it’s been since I’ve talked to him and how much I wish he were here and how I’m not gonna get to talk to him –”

She pauses mid-sentence, as though looking for words, and doesn’t find any.

“And then I think about the fact that he’s dead. That his life is over. And that I helped bury him today. And they’re both – awful, but it’s different, I guess.”

Harry nods, more to himself than to Ginny this time.

“And now, I just – I need to know what to do. So it doesn’t swallow me whole.”

Harry is still watching them walk towards him before his inner eye, his parents in the Forbidden Forest, his mother’s hungry face.

“I forget, sometimes”, he says. “For a moment, I think I forget they’re gone. Or I’m – I don’t know, distracted, and I’m not thinking about it – it slips away, and then it hits me again.”

Ginny’s teeth dig into her bottom lip. “I … honestly can’t fathom it right now.”

Harry looks over at her, the way she sits next to him, curled into herself, her hands still uselessly holding her ribs. Like it is physically hurting her.

“I dunno. Maybe forgetting is the wrong word. But when it happens, it always feels like it’s happening to someone else, like I am someone else.”

Ginny watches him intently as he stumbles to the end of his sentence: it feels pathetic already, having said it out loud like that.

“Like you are who you would’ve been if they hadn’t died?”, she asks, in that quietly remarkable way of hers, where she doesn’t treat him like something delicate, but she doesn’t ask for more than he can give, either.

“Yeah, I reckon. But I don’t recognise him at all.”

Ginny hums in understanding. She leans back against the bark of the tree and pulls her knees to herself again. “You would’ve been happier, anyway.”

Harry turns away at that, suddenly not trusting himself to speak.

“I know it doesn’t make sense or anything –”

“No, it does, Harry.”

“I mean, I know they couldn’t have lived. Everything would have to be different. We probably wouldn’t be here.”

Ginny sits in silence for a while.

“Do you ever wonder?”, she asks finally. “What you would’ve been like?”

“I guess … more like them. In ways I can recognise, anyway.”

He gestures helplessly at nothing, and Ginny takes that as a sign to push no further.

“I don’t recognise Ginny a week ago, either”, he hears her say, and the muffled sound of her voice tells him she’s wiping her nose on her sleeve again. “Every time something terrible happened, I guess I didn’t. It’s like remembering an old friend. One whose address you lost or something.”

“Cheery”, Ginny says in a hollow voice.

“It gets less all-consuming”, he says softly.

“Good”, she mutters. “Right now it’s pretty fucking all-consuming. It’s there when I wake up in the morning, and it’s – in my tea, and on all my clothes, and it’s in everyone I talk to and everything I say.”

Harry stares at the sky overhead, the red rapidly paling. Still, there is that whispering in the treetops, the feeling of being transported back into the Forbidden Forest. Still, his parents, reaching out for him.

“I’m sorry”, he says truthfully. “That’s all I’ve got.”

Ginny shakes her head. “It’s all I needed.”

He watches her tug at a poppy near her feet, struck by how long he’s managed to stay away from her, when her company is so comforting. The resolution comes to him all on its own, that he’s going to tell her everything. The Forbidden Forest. King’s Cross Station.

“Do you want to head back yet?”

Ginny looks at him, and she seems calmer somehow. For the first time since they got here, she doesn’t seem to be searching for anything – just looking.

“In a little while”, she says.

Harry looks back at her, really looks at her, and for a long time, neither of them speak, having arrived at some quiet understanding. Still, there’s a murmur in the trees around them, but they pay it no mind, and they don’t turn to look.

#i never posted it in obnoxious long text post form so :-)#here we are.#hinny #hp #fanfiction #cried out

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shealolz · 3 years

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"you're too memorable to forget" - Inosuke Hashibira

Warnings & Notes: descriptions of injury, this is more of a drabble than one shot

Inosuke Hashibira x Gender Neutral Medic Reader

genre: fluff

Summary: inosuke get's hurt on a mission and medic!reader helps him

Word Count: 1,172 words

You scratched at your ankle absentmindedly, you sat in the garden of the butterfly estate, watching the girls run around and play tag as Zenitsu and Tanjirou trained (not that Zenitsu wanted to). You giggled and stood up, stretching your arms over your head and walking back into the kitchen where you would start an easy yet healthy lunch. The boy's deserved it after all the training they've done.

Inosuke was on a mission at the moment, something about Tokyo (you didn't know the details), but he'd be here before lunch to enjoy a meal. You started to make some simple tonkatsu because it was one of your personal favorites and you knew Aoi liked it, especially when you made it.

Out of your varying talents from training under the Insect Hashira herself, your favorites were cooking and healing, then again everyone who studied under her learned it at some point. You weren't a demon slayer nor did you have extraordinary senses like the boys did but you were skilled with what you knew and that was good enough.

Speaking of the boys the front door slammed open to reveal Inosuke. "Inosuke!" you cheered, pausing in your cooking to run over. You lifted the boar mask from his head carefully, knowing underneath he was probably drenched in sweat. Inosuke grinned at you, his black and blue hair plastered against his forehead and neck. "(NAME)!" he shouted, ruffling your hair. Your name happened to be the only one he managed to not screw up.

What you took notice of though was the gash against his cheek and the several cuts littering his bare chest along with the slowly blossoming bruises. "your all scraped up." you sighed, grabbing his bicep to direct him to the infirmary all the while yelling for someone to finish the food.

"I can't get hurt! I'm invincible!" Inosuke screeched but complied nonetheless. You hummed non-committedly as you made him sit on a cot in the medical wing. You rummaged through the cabinets to find ointment and bandages.

You cleaned up the cheek cut first, wiping up the blood with a clot before applying a cream made from yarrow and calendula before placing gauze over it. "the great Inosuke doesn't need no medicine." Inosuke pouted, glaring at his feet. "yeah well even the mighty get hurt sometimes." you respond calmly as you apply the ointment to the cuts, not seeing the need to put bandages over them since they were that tiny. They'd close up quickly anyways.

"Is there anything else I should be concerned about?" you couldn't really do anything about the bruises except for having him use an ice pack before bed. "pfft- no I'm fine!" Inosuke smirks, trying to stand up before he ultimately collapsed into your arms. "you were saying?" you teased.

Inosuke huffed but sat back on the bed and reluctantly began to roll up his pant leg to show a deep cut that almost hit the bone. "you should've told me you idiot!" you screamed, smacking him gently on the head. "were you planning to bleed out all day?"

"I didn't think it was that bad..." he mumbled. You wanted to facepalm, even if he was raised by animals this was common knowledge. "you're gonna need it stitched you, bozo." all your insults were light-hearted, you swear.

Grumbling, you pulled out the stitching kit and held it in front of Inosuke's face. "this is gonna go through your skin, bud." you said slowly. "so don't scream, I'm not trying to fight you." he blinks before shrugging and rubbing at his ear.

Letting out a breath you slowly began to stitch the skin of Inosuke's leg back together. He bit down on his lip due to the lack of anesthesia, you would've given it to him if you had it but Lady Shinobu wasn't home and she had the key to the pill cabinet. After stitching it you cleaned it and wrapped a bandage around it tightly to make sure nothing came loose.

You lifted your head and blood rushed to your cheeks realizing the position you were in. you sat on your knees, between his legs as Inosuke stared down at you. "You're all red. Are you sick?"

"Inosuke n-no!" you yelped, your hands flying upwards as you stood.

"MANJIROU! BENITSU! (NAME) HAS A FEV-" he started to yell but you pushed your lips against his. When you pulled back he blinked at you multiple times. "what was that?" he asked. "a kiss." you responded, your face burning impossibly hotter. "why? don't couples and mates do that stuff?" his eyebrows creased as he titled his head.

How can someone so stupid be so cute?

"uh yeah. but I needed you to be quiet." you smiled awkwardly. "oh. so it was a one-time thing?" Inosuke sighed. "I-I mean it doesn't have to be if you want too of course! I wouldn't mind being in a relationship with you-"

Inosuke kissed you.

"and what was that for?" you muttered, hoping one answer over the other. "'cause I needed you to be quiet. and I don't think I'd mind being in a relationship with you if we can do that more often," he said, grinning at you with his head bowed.

"y-you wanna make it a regular thing?" you croaked. He laughed, not his maniacal one but a soft chuckle. "I do. but I assume you do as well?" you nod shakily at his proposal and kiss him again, this time long enough to actually acknowledge it.

It wasn't rough, hard, or bruising but instead surprisingly gentle like Inosuke was nervous to move his hand in the wrong place and accidentally break you. It was your first kiss (was it? you've technically kissed him three times now) and it certainly was a pleasurable one.

Your hand moved to rest against his cheek, your thumb rubbing over the gauze as his hands hovered over your hips. Your lips moved against each other's slowly, not in a heated way but more in anxiety to see where it would go away. Neither you nor Inosuke had been in a previous relationship and he could barely read social cues and you could barely keep a stable conversation with someone.

A soft coo came from the door and you and Inosuke pulled apart. Tanjirou stood at the door, smiling softly with his hands clasped as the younger girls crowded around him. Zenitsu laid on the floor and Kanao patted his back in a stiff apology. Your eyes widened and you pointed out the door. "out! now!" you screamed as Inosuke cackled in front of you.

Tanjirou winked jokingly and helped Kanao drag a defeated Zenitsu out the door, the younger girls following.

"wow (Name) you have them on a leash, dont'cha?" Inosuke hummed, patting your arm softly. "wait- I just realized you've never mispronounced my name. why's that?" you smile, turning to face him. He looks at you, his emerald eyes glowing with something you couldn't read.

"you're too memorable to forget."

#inosuke hashibira #inosuke imagines #inosuke x reader #kny x reader #demon slayer x reader #demon slayer #kny imagines #kimetsu no yaiba #anime #x reader

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fedeipox · 3 years

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The Way of Time (Rdr2 - fanfic) - Chapter 8 (1/3)

Previously on TWoT: Finally, Arthur went back to camp. On his way back he found Emily wandering around and decided to take her to Citadel Rock to get her lavender. On the way back they met some O’Driscoll and to help Arthur she ended up killing a man, her first man. He won’t be the last.

Chapter 8 (1/3) - Bounty Hunter

Words: 2k

Emily didn’t think her little runaway would be noticed by someone and only when she and Arthur dismounted the horse she understood how worried and angry people in camp were. Mary-Beth came running and screamed “where were you?”. Right after Miss Grimshaw showed up telling her how disappointed she was by her behavior.

In a few words: Miss Grimshaw thought her disappearance had something to do with the O’Driscoll thing and ran to tell Dutch and Hosea about it. Both of them weren’t pleased to know what she had done.

“Well, thank you very much. Really, thank you for your trust and for worrying about me” she murmured to the group of people who had gathered around her for the reproach. Then, moving Tilly aside, she walked away, with her head still full of all the recent events and especially the fact that she had just killed a man.

She spent the rest of the evening lying down and crying. No-one bothered to go ask her something, but instead they went to Arthur to ask him what had happened. He told the story at least five times that evening, to five different groups of people and so everybody knew about their little terrible adventure. Hosea thought about go and talk to her, but he knew that his apologies were worth nothing. Besides he couldn’t understand the others’s behavior: she had just made a mistake, it wasn’t such a big deal.

“A mistake that might have cost us our lives, Hosea. And hers first of all” Arthur told him.

“But it didn’t. History isn’t made of possibilities, but of facts.”

Arthur grunted and walked away, but he knew Hosea was right when he said everybody was being too tough with that girl.

The day after, Emily opened her eyes, still puffy because of the crying of the night before. It was still early in the morning and almost nobody was awake yet, so she sneaked among the tents and reached the kitchen where she took some canned peaches. Then, she reached the edge of the cliff and seated on the rock, her rock, to watch the sun rising in the sky.

“Good morning.”

Turning her head she exchanged a quick look with Dutch before she fixed her eyes on the landscape again.

“Quite a fuss you caused yesterday. I think I’ve never seen Miss Grimshaw in such a…”

“I don’t care about how Miss Grimshaw was because of me” she replied coldly.

Dutch signed and walked closer until he stopped right by her side, but still she didn’t look at him.

“Well, you should.”

“I have apologized.”

“I’m not talking about apologies. When Miss Grimshaw acts that way is because she is worried about one of her girls, and yesterday she was worried about you.” “She didn’t seem worried, she seemed angry.”

“Exactly. You’ll soon understand Susan has her own way to show feelings.”

Emily didn’t know what to think: if what Dutch was saying was true, then those people really cared about her and they were really worried, and Miss Grimshaw most of all. So she forced herself to get over it, trying not to think anymore about Kieran, the slap, the run and the reproaches.

She finished her peaches and walked to the kitchen. There, Abigail was sipping her coffee with Mrs. Adler and at Emily’s ‘good morning’ the former answered kindly while the latter moved her eyes away and pursed her lips in dislike. Was she still angry at her because of that story?

“Mr. Pearson you still have that oil for me, don’t you?” she asked as he reached the cook.

He gave her what she had asked for and then she took an empty jar and the mortar. She brought all the tools and ingredients to the round table, took the lavender she had picked up the day before and put herself to work.

The process was easy: she had to crush the lavender flowers with the mortar, let them dry in the sun for a couple of days, put them in the jar with the oil and make it cook in the boiling water for one hour.

She had just began when Hosea walked closer with a cup of coffee. He sat down opposite to her and looked at her as she was working, taking a sip of the dark liquid every now and then.

“I’ve seen you do it often too” she stated as she crushed the flowers in the mortar. “What do you prepare?”

“Mostly medical stuff. Like yarrow and ginseng, together they’re great for health.”

“That’s why you knew where to find the lavender, you have a great knowledge of plants.”

“I have a discreet knowledge of plants” he chuckled.

“You are too modest.”

For all the time they talked, Hosea didn’t mention once Kieran nor her disappearance and Emily was glad of that. All she wanted was to forget that story and she wished she wouldn’t make other mistakes of that kind in the future. She was feeling rather pacific, finally getting over everything that had happened, when something slipped inside her mind, something she hadn’t thought about until that moment and that made her panic.

...

Hosea felt the change in her state of mind and immediately asked a concerned “what’s wrong?”

“I-I haven’t told you what happened with Arthur” she murmured with a new strange trembling voice.

Hosea knew what she was talking about and immediately calmed down, took a deep breath and got ready for one of his speeches.

“He told me. Well, in truth, he told everyone.”

Her breathing was becoming irregular and that pushed Hosea to stand up and reach her side of the table.

“What’s wrong?” he asked again keeling down in front of her, but he didn’t need to ask, he knew what she was thinking about.

“I-I forgot. How could I forget?” she whispered with her eyes lost in the nothingness.

“About the O’Driscoll?”

Finally their eyes met. Arthur had told him about their encounter, about the aggression, about Emily shooting the man. It was her first killing, Hosea was aware of that, and she was pretty shocked, so shocked that her mind had erased that memory for a couple of hours.

“I killed him” she whispered.

“Yes, you did.”

There was no point in telling her not to worry, it wouldn’t have had any effect.

“You killed him, and you did it for a good reason.”

She frowned at his words, but they also had the desired effect to calm her down.

“What would have happened if you hadn’t shot him?” he asked.

She dipped in her thoughts for a second.

“P-probably he would have hurt me.”

“He would have killed you, and Arthur right after. You saved his life.”

“Saved his life” she echoed in another whisper.

It wasn’t true of course, Arthur would have found a way to get out of that situation. Hosea had seen him fight against four men, so two O’Driscoll were nothing to him, but he needed to make Emily believe that what she had done was necessary, to let her accept it, and he had succeeded.

He smiled and stood up returning to his chair. She didn’t know he was a perfect liar and had believed him right away, which made him feel a little ashamed, but that was a lie for a good cause. She nodded a couple of times, lost in her thoughts, and then gave him a tiny smile.

“Thank you, Hosea” she murmured.

“I just tell the truth” he replied.

“I think I’ll go to Charles for the riding lesson” she said standing up.

“Oh, Charles is in town with Javier and Bill.”

“Really? Well, I guess our lesson is delayed then. I’ll go find something else to do.”

...

Emily found a corner in the kitchen to leave her lavender flowers to sundry and started wandering around camp to find something to do. Hosea’s words had calmed her. She wasn’t proud nor happy of what she had done, but thinking about it, she had done it in order to defend herself and Arthur’s life. Besides, that man was a criminal, part of the gang that had killed Sadie’s husband, he probably deserved to die.

What about Kieran then? She asked herself. Does he deserve to be tied there in that way? Emily shook her head. It seemed that the more she wanted to send those thoughts away, the more those thoughts came back to her. She had to distract herself.

She headed to her tent hoping that there she would have found a distraction. Maybe the girls could help her. Only when she got there she found a Mary-Beth, a Tilly and a Karen with long faces, and the air over them was heavy with boredom.

“What could we do?” asked Emily sitting next to them and assuming their same expression.

“We might find a job, if we had the chance to go to Valentine” said Karen.

The said chance soon arrived, when Arthur woke up and decided to bother poor Uncle, busy with his thinking. The four girls listened quietly to their conversation, with a giggling every now and then, and after the two men were done arguing, Karen made them all sign to follow her and she asked Arthur if they could go with him and Uncle.

“Can Miss Grimshaw spare you?”

The girls complained about his question and after an exchange of looks Arthur decided to bring them in that rather useless expedition, and in case they had found something… well at least he could call it a day. They quickly got on the wagon and took the road to Valentine.

“Ladies, sing us a song.”

Uncle’s request was soon accepted and the three girls started a little tune with a lyric full of double meaning to which Emily could only clap her hands following the rhythm. They had almost reached the train trails when a carriage pulled by two horses had an accident. Uncle used the lumbago excuse and the responsibility to bring the horse that had got loose back to the owner fell on Arthur.

From their following conversation, Emily understood it wasn’t in their style to help people in need, at least it wasn’t Arthur’s style, who affirmed he had robbed the man if it wasn’t for the presence of four fine girls like them, and it was at that moment that Emily wondered what kind of man Arthur was.

She knew so little about him and in that little time they had spent together he hadn’t appeared to her as generous as Charles, nor as kind as Hosea. Maybe he was hiding those parts of his personality, or maybe he just wasn’t like Emily had imagined him.

They leaded the wagon across that town that they knew so well now and stopped it right in front of the stable.

“Uncle, what are we doing?” asked Arthur jumping down the wagon.

“Well, we’re gonna do what any self-respecting maniac does: put the women to work.”

“I didn’t know you were such a gentleman, Uncle” laughed Emily following the three girls down the wagon and on the muddy street.

“We’ll start at the saloon, ladies” said Karen with a nod to Tilly and Mary-Beth.

“Oh no, not the saloon, please” whined Emily. She didn’t want to put a foot inside that awful place, the memory of what had happened still fresh in her mind.

“Don’t you worry, everything like that happens again, I’ll deal with the son of a bitch” said Tilly.

Emily smiled gratefully, but she didn’t want to go to the saloon anyway.

“What happened exactly?” asked Arthur, but Emily ignored him. She hadn’t told anybody about that pig she had met and how Charles and Javier had protected her, and she didn’t want to tell it now.

“Uncle, do you mind if I stay with you?” she asked.

“Not at all, my dear. We’ll just go to the general store for now. I have to get something there.”

“Okay ladies. Just pretend we’re in Paris” said Karen walking away with Tilly and Mary-Beth right after her. The latter turned around for a second and waved to Emily who made the same gesture to her.

Arthur and Uncle headed to the store exchanging puns and provocations and Emily followed them, listening quietly and laughing to herself. Once inside the store the owner recognized Emily and asked her about the book. She replied with a few words but she didn’t want to start a debate with a man who wouldn’t have understood the social impact a book like that had had.

Uncle took something to drink and eat while they waited for the girls. Arthur took something too, but when he aimed for the counter to pay Emily stood in his way.

“I’ll pay for you” she said taking the purchases from his hands and leaving them in front of the owner together with a chocolate bar she had taken for herself. “I still owe you for the clothes” she added when Arthur frowned at her.

“I had forgot. You could have said nothing and get away with it” he chuckled.

“It wouldn’t be right” she simply said.

Arthur shook his head and followed her outside. Uncle needed some more time to decide what to buy.

“So, what do we do?” she asked.

“I have no idea. Where did you get that money?”

“I worked” she replied biting her chocolate.

Arthur raised his eyebrows asking her to explain herself. Emily chuckled and with a nod of her head told him to follow her. She showed him the back of the apothecary and told him about what she and Javier had found out, all the setup with Bill, and the money they had gained.

“My Lord, you’re becoming a real outlaw, aren’t you?” he laughed in the end as they walked back to the main road.

“All I’ve been doing is stealing to some criminals and shooting another one, the same things policemen do everyday” she replied as Hosea’s words about the necessity of her actions came back to her mind.

“So, that’s how you see yourself? As a policemen?” asked Arthur ironically.

Emily laughed and turned to look at him, but something else caught her attention.

“Good morning, sheriff” she said stretching out an arm to greet the man under the porch.

“Oh, morning to you, Miss. How you doing?”

“Very well, thank you. We’re looking for work.”

The sheriff frowned, moving his eyes from her to Arthur. He was obviously considering her words.

“I may have something for your friend, if he’s interested in bounties.”

Emily and Arthur exchanged a look.

“Yeah, why not? So I can play the policeman too” he added in a murmur and Emily laughed again at his words. The two of them followed the sheriff inside.

“George, show the man the poster” he ordered to the deputy getting behind his desk and sitting down.

The deputy moved his cold skeptic eyes from Arthur to Emily and his face relaxed all at once.

“Oh, Miss. Good to see you again. Not some other bar fight I hope.”

“No, don’t worry. Just looking for some work with my friend.”

“This is your friend?” he asked and looking at Arthur he raised an eyebrow.

The difference between the two was abysmal: she was tiny, clean, with a kind expression and sweet eyes. He was big, dirty, tough and mean. Their ‘friendship’ was pretty suspicious.

Emily couldn’t see Arthur’s face because she was right behind him, but she was sure he had glanced at the deputy in a terrible way, because the man immediately looked away in embarrassment and walked towards the wall pointing at a poster.

“That’s the man. Benedict Allbright” he said.

“He’s being poisoning folks with his miracle cure from here to Annesburg.”

“A doctor?” asked Emily walking past Arthur to look at the paper. “It makes no sense. Doctors are good, they are supposed to help people.”

The deputy chuckled at all that innocence.

“Things are not always as they should be” he replied.

“Where can I find him?” asked Arthur taking the poster from the wall.

“North of here, straight by the gorge. That’s where they saw him last time” the sheriff informed him.

“You think you can bring him in? The pay is good, but we need him alive, though. I have to make sure the women he widowed get compensated before he swings.”

Emily looked at the poster and then exchanged a look with Arthur. He didn’t seem convinced.

“It’s fifty dollars to bring a murderer to justice. It’s a double reward from my point of view” she said with an encouraging smile.

Arthur snorted and shook his head: she truly had some strange ideas.

“Well, I’ll see what I can do” he said heading to the door.

“Thank you, sheriff, for giving my friend this chance” said Emily. “I guess we’ll see each other again soon” she added to the deputy.

“Miss” he replied with a nod of his head.

#rdr2 #Red Dead Redemption #red dead redemption 2 #red dead redemption fanfiction #arthur morgan #arthur morgan x female oc #tilly jackson #karen jones #mary-beth gaskill #hosea matthews

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griffinsanddragons · 7 years

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Unexpected Developments [Part Three]

She knows she doesn’t need to, but Hawke continues to pursue this ‘Illusive Mage.’ While seeking aid in Darktown, she begins to question her own motive and suddenly retrieves another lead.

Read: Part One and Part Two on Tumblr!

Also on AO3!

I finally got the chance to write–happy reading!

Her Father was a good man; He set himself up as an apothecary in every village, town, and city they lived in.

No one accused the man who brought good fortune to their doorstep of being a mage𑁋but if they did ever grow suspicious, their lips remained sealed. They treasured their fortunes too greatly to sell him down the river.

He’d begin with smaller things: a bad back, an ailing brother, or a pregnant wife with aching feet𑁋small favors in trade of little luxuries like honeyed bread or strawberries.

‘Friends,’ he used to say, ‘help life run smoothly.’

With time and the passing of seasons, the ailments would turn into ridiculous pleads.

A young man would ask for a potion, hoping to find himself in the arms of Teffenia, a certain nobleman’s bright-eyed daughter. But Teffenia would have her eye on Jona, the younger sister of the man who ran the Inn but lacked the courage to communicate.

Her father would forewarn against it, but never failed to mention his passing knowledge of an ‘old Rivaini trade.’ Hawke, or Filia as she was better known back then, could never be sure if that were true, or if he’d simply hoped to be viewed more humbly.

Whatever the case he’d send the troubled party away, asking they return the next day.

Like potions, these charms cost nothing to make.

It was magic𑁋mostly. Small magic, he called it, persisting spells that didn’t bother with specific circumstance but attracted small fortunes anyway.

‘Nothing can be precise,’ He’d tell them, ‘but you will have what you need.’

So while the boy wouldn’t have Teffenia, he’d soon meet someone who’d return his fancy and Teffenia and Jona would come to share a timid kiss behind a crumbling barn and fall in love over the succeeding days.

Only once was he given trouble: the first time a curse made its way out their door.

[Keep Reading]

Filia was six years old when a man, a seafaring Merchant from the time they lived near Denerim, the capital city, asked for a charm to keep his shipments from sinking down into the depths of the Amaranthine Ocean or Waking Sea. He had sugar to trade in exchange for the gift, her father agreed, and, as always, instructed the man to leave.

But he refused, hoping to be the first to stay and watch her Father work his secret spells.

Filia stood behind her father quietly, clinging to the wood of the doorframe, her weight shifting down to buckle at her knees; she never took well to the strangers who came and went and demanded her father’s energy.

‘It isn’t the type of work you can see. It’s something that must be felt.’ He explained, his voice an impossible mix of stern and friendly.

Eventually, the man left, disappointed and probably angry (though he had no right to be.) But because of him, her father was troubled, then pensive, but soon appeared to resign himself to something.

The next day the seafaring merchant returned and that was the last she’d seen of him.

A new merchant settled into their village not too long after the adults began whispering, citing the story of the ship that sunk into the waters of the Waking Sea. The crew survived but the captain went missing. Some wondered if he ever made it to the ship in the first place.

Whatever the case, she couldn’t fault the man for wanting to stay. Her Father’s work was fascinating. And if she were good and minded her mother properly, he’d let her play the part of his assistant.

She’d bring him stones or feathers or a book from his trunk and, if she were lucky, help him gather plants outside.

She remembered trudging through the mud with her Father as he scoured the field for sprouts after a heavy rain.

‘Aha! Here we are!’ He’d grin, standing proudly as though he discovered a gold growing from the soil. She’d never forget the look on his face.

She could still see him in his favorite room, surrounded by books and clear colored vials. But most intriguing were the plants𑁋they were the only constant factor in the things he made: Myrtle for beauty, and prettying the skin, Wintergreen for easing pain, yarrow for stress relief…

Those were the best days. Filia would kick her feet on a stool or chair and watch him, always excited to learn a little more about everything.

She liked to think she had a talent for herbalism and that, some day when her family stopped running, she and her father could buy a shop together𑁋a big one𑁋and get Carver to call to the people walking by, bringing in their business and money.

But that was a dream that died with him. She simply didn’t have the time.

Still, keeping his plants gave her comfort and made her happy in those tough times.

So why, she wondered, couldn’t she have stayed happy?

Why, instead of tending to her plants, was Filia in the dark, subjecting herself to the awful stew of smells𑁋mold, bridge and something akin to bread burning𑁋that clung to the walls of Darktown and made her skin feel dirty? To tie a loose end? For the thrill of destroying something?

Was there something wrong with her? Was it so obvious even someone like Dirty Fingers could see it? She scowled at the very thought. Still, she replayed their encounter over again in her mind, looking on her actions and what he’d said.

There had to have been another way, but it was too late to change her mind.

And even if she could…well, he probably deserved it anyway.

Darktown, as always, managed to live up to its name; It was dark, the torches on the walls barely made a difference and a thick cloud of despair hung closely overhead, spreading like the leaves in a bad cup of tea.

Isabela hummed a song beside her, some manner of shanty Filia knew she’d heard her sing before, but she could hardly pay attention let alone remember the words (that and Isabela was hardly a songbird, she couldn’t be sure if she’d heard the lyrics correctly the first time anyway.)

In fact, she’d been so distracted by her thoughts, Filia hardly noticed the open door that marked their destination. So once they arrived, she hesitated for the briefest moment.

They’d gotten here too quickly𑁋she didn’t feel at all prepared.

But as she scanned the room, looking across the tables, cots, and chairs, everything began to feel lighter.

Anders had been standing near the back of the clinic, exchanging whispers with a man she didn’t know but thought she might have seen somewhere before.

He was handsome enough, with a sort of pinched-in face that squeezed his features into a sour look of disgust. And he certainly looked reclusive, with dark curly hair and a heavy black cape set around his narrow shoulders𑁋but he wasn’t tall; Anders had to look down to converse with him, and the thought put her sword arm at ease.

She didn’t need to kill him. There was no need to fight.

Instead, she smiled at Anders when he looked her way and watched his expression shift from surprise, then confusion, and finally joy, as though he’d found a warm pair of slippers or a handy set of swords in a place he didn’t quite expect them to be.

He spoke quietly with his friend for a moment longer, something about their conversation prompting him to glance her way. He looked she and Isabela over, an unreadable expression on his face, before pulling up his hood and walking away.

“Who was that?” Isabela asked, folding her arms as she watched the handsome stranger leave.

“A friend,” Anders told her, “Javier. He works for Lirene.”

“From the Ferelden Import Shop?” Confusion filled Filia’s voice as she filed through her memories.“The woman who said you had ‘nice eyes’?” She wasn’t sure why that particular detail stuck out in her mind or why she felt the need to bring it up, but it did her no favors to pretend she hadn’t said anything.

Isabela made a sound, a strange mixture of a snort, scoff, and giggle, as though she alone were privy to a special secret or something. Anders appeared to be out the loop as well.

“I’ve been meaning to come see you.” He confessed, taking a few strides closer till she could see the light reflecting in his eyes.

“And here I am! How lucky.”

“Did you have a run-in with one of the gangs?” He asked, shifting his attention from her to Isabela’s injuries. They were minor, but he sped the process of their healing with a simple wave.

“They were more like drunk fisherman really,” Isabela leaned back against the table where she found a towel to wipe the excess blood away. She tossed it somewhere and began picking through Anders’ things.

“Do I want to know?” He turned back to Filia, who, for all intents and purpose, agreed with Isabela’s assessment of their attacker’s failings.

“Probably not.” She shrugged. “We’re actually here to ask you something𑁋but you can go first since you obviously missed me.” And she wasn’t exactly sure how to breach the topic of what she wanted to say. ‘I’m searching for someone I need to kill, would you happen to know where he is?’ Didn’t seem appropriate.

Anders seemed hesitant at first but resolved himself to speak, guiding her away from Isabela’s prying ears and eyes.

“…I spoke with Aveline about you.” He confessed as though he’d done something dirty. “How are you feeling?”

“Hmm?” She wished he hadn’t asked.

Her day spent hunting for the mysterious sender of that letter, or ‘Illusive Mage,’ as Isabela named them, was meant to distract her from thinking of her little sister wasting away in a prison and angsting over thoughts of her little-broken family.

Part of her was grateful for the unexpected developments that lead to this mystery. It meant she could avoid that question, (that how are feeling?) for a little longer.

“Oh, I’m fine.” She leaned away, pushing the tip of her boot into the stone. “Peachy, really, when you consider my sister is trapped in an impenetrable prison thrusting up from the middle of the sea.”

“Hawke-”

“It’s alright Anders.” She stopped him. “That was a joke.” Mostly.

“…Bethany’s a special girl; She’ll do well for herself in The Circle.” He assured her anyway, his kind words pulling her attention back from the floor and to his eyes. They really were lovely. “I have a contact𑁋a friend of Karl’s. I’ve asked her to look after Bethany.”

“You did?” She could feel her own eyes growing wide and the fast-paced beating of her heart and wondered what one said when a simple ‘Thank You’ would never suffice.

So she stood there, staring at his eyes, lips parted in silence. She had no words to say.

Grateful for his friendship and more than overjoyed, Filia may have cried then𑁋wept even𑁋had it not been for the angry voice that swept the mood away.

“Anders!” It hissed, speaking his name through gritted teeth. The familiarity of it striking her like a butcher chopping meat.

Aveline entered the clinic like a storm on the raging sea, stopping only when she saw them all together, her brows furrowing down to make herself look mean.

“Well if it isn’t the ‘Captain of The Guard,’” Isabela smirked, her own brows rising to compliment the wily grin that eased its way across her face. “What did I tell you, Hawke. She’s come to oppress more free enterprise.”

“The three of you together I see. I should have known that would be the case.” She set her helmet down upon the table, ignoring Isabela to the best of her ability.

“Is there something wrong, Aveline?” Filia asked. She seemed to be in such a bad mood lately.

“Very. My guardsmen found another body. This time near the foundries.”

“I don’t recall hearing anything about a body,” She thought back. “I just left from there.”

“Hawke-”

“But I didn’t kill anyone today.” Or so she didn’t think. Filia waved her hand dismissively. “And Isabela’s been with me.”

“Except for when I was with Fenris,” Isabela added thoughtfully. They turned their glance to Anders who answered with a simple “No.”

“Well, there we have it. We’re not guilty.”

“I believe you𑁋Oh don’t look at me like that.” She scoffed at Filia’s wide-eyed look of disbelief.

“What happened to this man was…beyond any normal person’s capabilities.”

“Any normal person’s?” She tilted her head to the side, hoping Aveline would elaborate fully.

“We believe he was killed by magic.”

“Of course. You think the killer is a mage so you come to me.” Anders folded his arms and looked away.

“I came to you because I now have a lead. There was a witness,” Aveline explained, “She told us she saw a drunken man enter the alley, she heard screaming and suddenly…there was a body. He looked badly beaten just like the others but she hadn’t seen anyone else come leave. We suspect something similar may have happened with the others.”

“That was her thrilling testimony?” Isabela spoke with disbelief. “It isn’t much.”

“I never said it was a good lead. But due to the nature of the attacks…We may have a blood mage on the loose”

“Another blood mage, you mean.” Isabela corrected.

Anders muttered something under his breath with a clear look of exasperation drawn across his face.

“Do you think this is our ‘Illusive Mage?’”

“It may be.” Filia sighed, shifting her weight from one leg to the next. She had doubts. Given her history, Blood Magic was likely to blame. But Blood Mages had a talent for making bodies disappear in the darkness of the night. Why would they leave the body behind if they could help it? Why be that sloppy?

Anyone with stealth or light footsteps could make a daring escape, but not everyone could make a body disappear. Filia knew from experience that it could be quite grueling work, actually.

But what did that mean? Was Aveline’s killer and the person she wanted not one and the same?

“You’re what?” Aveline raised a brow but Isabela dismissed her worry.

“It’s a long story.”

“It doesn’t matter who it is, so long as they’re brought in to face justice.” Anders scoffed at her words.

“Do you know where they may be?”

“We have an idea. But I won’t ask my men to go in unprepared.”

“Isn’t that the point of the city guard?” Isabela chided, placing her hands on her hips for emphasis.

“I’d hoped to get more insight on what we might be up against.”

“Well, there’s no way of knowing until we get there.” Filia decided to speak. Helping Aveline was the right thing to do𑁋and there was still a chance she’d find this ‘Illusive Mage’ or whoever they’d turn out to be.

“Whoever it is may very well be more dangerous than we suspected, the guard will need help.” Blood mage or not, she didn’t come this far to let him be arrested by the city guard or, and this was more likely, escape.

The killer’s hideout was a warehouse near the channel not too far from the Hanged Man. The owner had been forced to shut its doors when a careless worker poisoned the fish and cut the fishing lines. Fortunately, no one died but the mishap stole the owner’s credibility.

“Why does it seem like we’re always walking?” Isabela spoke with an exasperated sigh, folding her arms as they followed Aveline’s lead.

“I’ll pay a few handsome men to massage your feet,” Filia promised.

Though they moved forward with caution, there was no sign of any of Lowtown’s ever present gangs lurking around the streets.

It seemed this particular area was neutral territory and the peace suited Filia fine; She didn’t feel like cleaning her sword any more than she had to this evening.

It wasn’t as large as the Foundry by the harbor nor was it as imposing, but the unrelenting Lowtown fog curled around it, shifting its edges like a sinister dream.

Aveline looked back over her shoulder, hoping the section of Guards she made follow were still, in fact, following.

“Let’s move in, she instructed but the door didn’t seem to agree. “There shouldn’t be a lock here.”

“Looks like someone knows we’re coming.” Despite the drawback to their plan, Filia’s lips curled up into the smuggest of grins. There were certain advantages of her name being whispered across the lower reaches of the city: no one but fools really bothered her and sometimes she’d get things for free. There was the occasional challenger, however, but she wasn’t just known for being dangerous𑁋she was.

And she wouldn’t let something as simple as a locked door stop her from reaching her target once and for all.

“Can you unlock it? Or should we try to break it down?” She turned to Isabela who met her smile with a sly beam of her own.

“I’m sure I can manage something.” Isabela kneeled down, but not before sliding a slender pouch of needles from the inside of her high leather boot.

She made quick work of the lock, (much to Aveline’s relief,) but the old hinges on the door made a loud, unpleasant screech as though to warn of intruders approaching.

Hawke and Aveline readied their shields, Isabela her daggers and Anders his stave, the four all ready for a frontal assault or clever attack by the enemy𑁋but nothing came.

The inside was quiet, unbelievably empty, and heavy with the scent of soap and lye as though someone had gone through great pains to wash something unpleasant away.

They all turned their eye’s to Aveline.

“Is this really where your lead said he’d be?” Anders lowered his stave.

“Yes.” She confirmed, “We need to search every room. If he’s here, there’s no telling where he may be.”

“And when we find him?” Isabela wondered, putting away her knives.

“We do what we must. But I want him alive for questioning.”

Filia frowned but didn’t raise her protest vocally.

Aveline might have wanted him alive, but she herself felt differently.

They split the search.

The warehouse was far too large for the group to stay together but they managed to play to their strengths perfectly.

Filia noticed narrow walkway above, so Isabela, who seemed to have a history with walking those types of things, would take the upper level to see what she could find alongside Aveline. Despite their mock and teasing, they’d keep one another safe.

Aveline and Anders had no easier of a friendship (in fact it was worse,) and it was clear Kirkwall’s Guardian had no clue how to fight beside a mage.

She was a soldier𑁋trained by her father to see the battle, find patterns and disrupt enemy lines. She was trained to lead troops who fought with honor and instinct, not men who’d set the room ablaze to make an escape.

Anders was powerful, but he had no combat training𑁋no real combat training besides what he learned fighting alongside his Warden Commander in Amaranthine.

His attacks were wide and flashy, better suited for slowing pursuits than facing down an enemy. He wanted to survive more than fight𑁋his skills were better suited to aid Filia who could adapt to change more easily.

So together they searched the ground floor𑁋though the task didn’t make itself easy.

The warehouse seemed to stretch on and on, it’s bland design and empty rooms all melting together in a seamless gray streak.

“I wonder if they’re faring better than we are.” He whispered.

“Well, I haven’t heard any fighting yet.” The warehouse seemed to be completely empty, yet she felt as though someone was there, watching.

‘It’s nothing,’ she told herself, ‘just a cruel trick of the mind,’ but it didn’t ease her in any way. There was something, something in the darkness, something as silent as a shadow on the wall.

She didn’t like this feeling. So she filled the space with quiet banter as she and Anders moved forward toward the next room.

“I didn’t get the chance to thank you.”

“Thank me?”

“For Bethany. Aveline interrupted me before so, um, Thank You.” She smiled awkwardly, knowing it could never be enough but needing to say it anyway.

She felt as though there was rope in her stomach, twisting itself into knots and braids.

She’d never felt this strange talking to him before. It was almost as though she were feeling butterflies.

“It’s the least I could do.” He smiled and her eyes darted away.

“I’m glad Bethany has someone to look after her.” Because she couldn’t. Not anymore.

They reached the next door.

Unlike the others, it had been locked from the inside. It took a great show of magic from Anders to force it from the hinges. But once it opened, Filia took a step back from the scene.

The room smelt as sterile as the others but was hardly bare. Its long tables were full of plants and flasks with metal apparatuses between them. One wall was devoted to supporting a towering pile of books and the other a small cot similar to the ones in Anders’ clinic.

It might have been a perfect workshop, had it not been for the body lying still in the center of the floor.

“Maker,” she squatted, eyes rolling over the shards of glass that were shattered around him on the floor. They glittered beneath the light cast by the moon and were dotted red with blood. Even so, the man wasn’t bleeding (or at least not anymore) but he was scarred.

One, in particular, was jarring: it extended from someplace beneath his blood-stained tunic and across the left side of his cheek, reaching out to his eye like the branches of a wayward tree. It spread beneath purple bruises and cuts that sparked something in her memory.

“Dirty Fingers?” She blinked a few times but the dead man did not respond to the calling of his name.

“You knew him?”

“I…I met him earlier this evening.” She hadn’t expected to see him again, not this soon anyway. What happened? How did he get this far away?

“It seems he’s been struck by lightning.”

“Was that before or after he’d been hit over the head?” She gestured to the glass scattered across the floor. What could have occurred here? There weren’t many signs of a struggle or fight but how could there have been? She was the one responsible for his battered body.

He screamed the first time she stabbed him; she remembered the tears that rolled from his eyes. But it hadn’t been enough.

There was a reason she sent Isabela away: such an unholy act that followed was not to be seen.

He begged for her to stop, to end his torment as early as his second finger breaking (or had it been his hand slicing ?) but she didn’t listen.

In fact, she smiled. And that seemed to be what frightened him most of all.

‘Enough of this,’ Filia told herself. There was no use dwelling.

She made her way toward the desk at the back of the room.

The candles were still lit on the table.

“Let’s see what we have,” Filia slid a heavy book into her arms, it’s binder worn by constant use “ ‘The Alchemist’s Encyclopedia, by Lord Cerastes of Marnas Pell.’ She read, squinting against the ever dimming candle light. “Well, that’s a lengthy title.” She flipped through pages, careful not to let her armored gauntlets tear the diagrams, pictures or their lengthy explanations.

“This looks like it should be banned by the chantry,” She mused, running her finger over an illustration of, what seemed to be, a rough outline of the human body. “Seems like our ‘Illusive Mage’ has been studying.” Turning her gaze, Filia glanced around the flowers and leaves scattered across the table.

One, in particular, caught her attention though it was more of a grass than a houseplant. She picked it up at though to observe its contents.

“What do you have there?”

“It’s a Vetiver, I think, and judging by everything else on the table someone seems to be brewing something to help them sleep.”

“I wasn’t aware you had a talent for herbalism.” He sounded surprised, but also somewhat amused by the revelation and she paused, unsure of what to say.

“I don’t.” She decided to dismiss him, setting the plant down on the table so she could walk away. “Not really, anyway.” Thinking back, those days felt as though they’d come from a dream, or perhaps a different life.

Those were the dreams of a girl who deserved to be happy. A girl very much different than the woman she’d become; a disappointment to her father and a failure to her sister.

“We can tell Aveline about that guy and let the guardsmen handle it from there.” She directed, leading Anders out the room, shutting the door and tearing her gaze from the deceased.

She needed to focus, to steady herself for the mission and aim solely for the goal at hand.

She curled her fingers tightly around the grip of blade sword as a reminder.

She had to tie up a loose end.

Because it didn’t matter what she did anymore𑁋she’d lost𑁋she’d never have the chance to be happy.

#its been 84 years #but i finally got it done #forgive me lol #filia art #things i write #anders*#the next chapter should be the last #I'm crawling out of my coffin here

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