#who had fallen ill due to a mysterious sickness | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

muzzleroars · 7 months

Note

Hi!

So, more angst.

What would happen if Michael were to suddenly die?, maybe it was an accident, or just a straight up mystery.

How would the rest of siblings and v2 grieve?

Honestly i can see this scenario being a VERY vivid nightmare Raphael had once, that or it's a common ocurrence for him.

it's definitely something that's there for all of them, the fear that michael will just rapidly decline or be killed with how much he's working a body he no longer knows the limits of. and that anxiety is kept strong because the scares actually do keep happening, with michael suffering bouts of illness due to his overworking or seemingly for no reason at all - the latter are far more frightening, his unexplainable lapses into severe symptoms always carrying with them the fear that this is his body finally shutting down, unable to cope. so their grief teeters, hanging on every rattling breath and the foul ichor that leaks from his mouth, waiting to see if it will be needed, knowing it will be needed but just when. so his death would never exactly come as a surprise, but there is a unique bereavement that comes after watching someone be so ill for so long

gabriel, being the only fallen angel in the bunch, is very open about cursing god for this outcome, that everything he forced onto michael is what ultimately made this happen. his grief is consuming as an angel of treachery, and he is furious that after all of michael's dedication and loyalty to the point of his own detriment, it only earned him this end. this is what the extreme end of a love for god does, this is what happens when one cleaves to him and has no other anchor. he would apologize to michael, telling him how sorry he is that he wasn't there to save him when he was so far from home and taken in by his own desperation for a god who left them. he's sorry. he didn't deserve to rot like this, to end his life in pain and fear and crushing grief and hatred of the self. gabriel should have been there for him, he should have found him when he never came back because he knew only he could regulate michael's unchecked adherence to his faith. but he didn't. he stayed behind while michael tore apart his own body and soul for a god who can no longer hear him, and now he's dead because of it.

raphael wants peace for michael, weeping endlessly for him but just hoping that wherever he is, there is no suffering. that's supposed to be heaven, that's supposed to be what they were born into, but michael never found it. and truthfully, in a way, raphael is glad he finally passed, as ugly and awful as it sounds in his own mind - he watched him suffer through death, day after day, even when he wasn't actively ill or bedridden. his body was consumed by death, he watched as michael rotted away and he saw how he spent so much time in prayer, his endless recitation of psalms of contrition and sickness, his constant readings of job to seek any comfort apart from his decaying body. he implored god over and over and over, to save him and restore him, until he was so exhausted he had no choice but to sit with himself. and raphael tried to heal him, he watched michael attempting to adhere back flesh as it sloughed off, and he knew his anguish was becoming unbearable. so he's finally gone from it. even if there is no life for an angel after death, raphael almost doesn't care. just let michael be at peace, even if it means he's become nothing.

uriel had become especially close with mike in his last days, as they both greatly enjoyed silence in each other's company. in fact, uriel had sought michael out as a source of comfort, still viewing him very much as a protective big brother that kept his anxiety at bay because that had always been michael's job. and that trust meant more than michael could express, so happy he could continue to give uriel that same sense of security despite his appearance now and he greatly appreciated his company every time he sat with him in the garden. so for uriel, that comfort goes with michael. he can't leave his body, doesn't want to walk away and know that he won't see him again, so he stays beside him almost stubbornly. he cries sporadically, but often just sits by his side in silence until they have to forcefully take him away so michael can be buried in the garden he so loved. the garden they spent all that time in together. and uriel follows him out there, now just keeping by his grave. he talks to him more than he probably does anyone else for awhile, occasionally asking him for a sign that he's still listening...but it never really comes.

v2, like gabriel, reacts outwardly with a lot of anger though its reasons differ - how could michael come and love it right at the end of his life, and how could it let him? the grief is so different for v2, only ever knowing him sick with all his venerated images presenting an abstract it never met. it knew its attachment was foolish, it knew it should have shoved him off when things started to get too personal, but it was in awe of what he had gone through and survived, finding a beauty in him and a rare connection it failed to make with so many others. it wanted to save him, it told him it would, and michael began to say that he believed it. god had answered his prayers. but he was wrong, he died thinking v2 could do anything for him. and so that anger is at first misdirected at michael, demanding to know why he gave up, why he fought so hard and had promised v2 that he would live as long as it was willing to find a cure. he quit on it and left it behind even though v2 had told him over and over each time he got sick that he scared the shit out of it. didn't that mean anything to him? didn't he care? but soon it all collapses inward, v2 apologizing for letting him down, for blaming him for his own death when it saw how hard he fought with his own body every day. he had even told it how much this body wanted to die. but v2 is stuck with how it failed him like it had failed humanity. it can only really cope by fully cultivating the samples it took from him, all his plants and fungi and insects, into the same little ecosystem he once had. it keeps michael alive in some way to it, with the garden and all its generations started from those that had once lived with him. it also keeps the icon he gave it to call on him if it ever needed his help, but it hasn't spoken to it since - he never failed to come when it asked, and it doesn't ever want him to.

#v2 probably stays close to gabriel and v1 for awhile afterward #it helps both it and gabe having someone to grieve with #as v1 is very outside of this loss and it understands that #so it's good they have each other even if they find it hard to talk about openly at first #but soon they're telling each other stories about a mike neither of them knew #cake answers #michael #fallen gabriel #raphael #uriel #v2 #death cw #illness cw

20 notes · View notes

byoldervine · 5 months

Text

Intro/Masterpost

Hiya, welcome! This blog is about my current writing WIP, a queer superhero fantasy novel called Byoldervine, and is basically a space for me to share things with others who are interested and to engage with other writers who have such amazing ideas and themes that can inspire me to keep writing. I'll be sure to add more things as I go along if I think they'll fit here or if I get asked a lot, and as I go along I'll also use this as a master post for links to character sheet posts and other things like that. If you have any further questions about my writing, always feel free to ask, I love answering your questions!

What is Byoldervine about?

The Byoldervine Sickness got its name twenty-five years ago, when the human realm's goddess Byoldervine became the first Celestial to die. Now, another god has fallen ill with the same disease, causing his powers to uncontrollably open portals between his realm and the human realm and thus sending through monsters and myths into a world not prepared for such creatures

Two heroes rise to the challenge; Persephone Foster, an immortal human intent on protecting these otherworldly visitors, and arrogant illusionist Angelus with every plan to bully Persephone off the job. But when the two vigilantes learn of a way to cure the dying god, they must set aside their differences and work alongside new allies as they venture into a realm of fables and fantasy, discovering devious plots and the shocking truths within the conspiracies of their pasts along the way

What are the four realms and who are their gods?

In Byoldervine, there are four realms, each ruled over by a Celestial god;

Aegis rules over Tyrion, a realm filled with angelic beings

Corrus rules over Nexus, which is essentially the afterlife and filled with dead souls and demonic beings

Nordsvark rules over Paracosm, the fantasy realm filled with all things mythical and magical (picture your typical DnD world)

Byoldervine used to rule over Terran, the human realm that's separated from the other three

Basically they're just heaven, hell, fantasy world and human world, if that's an easier way to think about it

Where and when did this project originate?

The concepts that make up Byoldervine have been floating around in my head for an ungodly amount of time, haha. The furthest back I can think for actually getting down to write them would've been around the start of lockdown, when I started writing a silly Wattpad fanfiction of all things (I will not be sharing what fandom it was for, fortunately I never published it)

The plot of the fic revolved around two immortal superheroes that would fight crime in their town, but slowly caught on to much bigger events that they learned were connected to their mysterious pasts and the powers they held. I eventually realised that all I needed to do was change a few names around and I'd more or less have a whole standalone novel, so I decided to write it for real, combining it with other ideas as I went down the line until I had Byoldervine. I'm not using the fic for reference, just the general idea, a character or two and a few plot lines that could be easily separated from the source material. Due to how niche I was working even when I was only writing the fic, I can't imagine there's any real overlap with the source material

Is this a series or a standalone novel? What are 'Unholy War' and 'The Heir and the Cure'?

I originally planned for this project to be a duology, a Byoldervine series featuring Unholy War (the superhero fic turned original story) and The Heir and the Cure (the fantasy realm aspect of the current story, focusing more on the adventure across the fantasy realm to cure a dying god)

The intention was to have them both take place in the same universe, with both stories dealing with different sides of the problem; the fantasy party would work to stop the problem at its source by curing the god of his illness while the superheroes managed the clean-up of safely returning the creatures to their home and handling the collateral damage on the human realm. There would be some overlap, but largely it would remain two separate sides of the same story

I later realised I could get more out of the two stories if I combined them fully; it would reduce character clutter, it would solve several plot-based problems, it would give me more to work with in terms of side quests, etc. Overall I'm very happy with the decision to combine it all into one book - though there will definitely be room to turn this into a series again in future if I want to reuse the universe, and I've already got multiple concept ideas for it that I'm holding back on using until I'm at least done with my first draft of Byoldervine

Master Lists

Character Sheets:

Persephone Foster

Angelus

Kennedy

Byoldervine

Alicia Foster

Ellegaarde

General Harkrow

Queen Wink

Princess Kynne

10 notes · View notes

universestreasures · 2 years

Text

@enterpainment Sent:

Zarc sits himself down at Ray's bedside, smoothing his coattails down as he did so, just as he's seen Yuya do on numerous occasions now. He was beginning to pick up on all small things, at Ray's suggestion. It didn't come to him as naturally as it did for the others, to maintain this air of nobleness to match their disguises, but that was solely due to his initial stubbornness at their situation.

But the situation had developed for the worse the moment Ray had fallen ill under his care. It had Zarc bury that stubbornness in favor of his instinctual protectiveness over his newfound treasure: being Ray, herself. So here he sat; with a silver-adorned tray with a single teacup of dragon-scale tea, believed to be rich with healing properties. Bandages peeked out from under his sleeve as he offered her the cup, hinting at just where he had gotten the scales from for this concoction of his. ❝ Drink. I believe this will aid in your recovery, my lady. ❞

If there was one thing Ray hated, it was being stuck in bed. It was something pretty much her entire family hated. They were all very active individuals with their own varied interests and goals. So, when any of them had to be halted from doing that for any reason, it was not a pleasant time. Ray had certainly not been the best patient, the woman continuing to insist that she didn’t need to be stuck in bed for a silly cold and a slightly warm forehead.

But...when it came to her father’s decisions, even as an adult, she couldn’t go against them. What an annoyance...

Thankfully, she doesn’t have to suffer boredom in her lavish gilded cage alone. Zarc is there, his attitude seeming to have really changed since that talk they had the other day. She could tell he was taking in everything more, absorbing all he could and noticing really what was going on around him. It made her proud in a sense, feeling good she was able to help him. Though, even with all his steps forward, she worries that this might not last. After all, he was a very stubborn man who could easily fall back into bad habits.

“What...What is that concoction, Zarc?” It looks like tea, especially served in a cup like that, but it’s smell was so putrid and unusual that it was causing her nostrils to burn. A hand moves to pinch her nose while her eyes scan the mysterious liquid she was just handed. “It smells absolutely putrid. Furthermore, what is floating around in there? Are those...”

The eldest of the Akaba children moves the cup closer to her face, baring the smell so she can investigate the drink. Lavender hues widen suddenly as she realizes just what’s going on here, eyes quickly darting to the cup and then back to the sleeve she noticed had been bandaged.

“Your scales?! You used your dirty scales to make tea?!” The woman nearly drops the cup, thankfully maintaining her composure enough to put it down on the tray before getting up in her retainer’s face. Her face is red from the fever, her nose runny, and her breathing heavy. However, she doesn’t care. She pushes through it to make sure her words had the same necessary power as they always had.

“Are you...are you trying to make me more sick?! Is this revenge for me not giving you orders?! For showing you kindness?!”

#💎 The Supreme Dragon King Of Self Destruction (Enterpainment: Zarc)#💎 Nature Treasure (Ray Akaba)#💎 Nature Answers (Ray Asks)#💎 Nature's Home Of Magical Nobility (Ray Nobles Of Nature AU)#(RAY YOUR SERENA IS SHOWING #(RAY HE'S ACTUALLY TRYING TO HELP YOU ;;;;;;#(BUT ALL THESE AKABAS EXCEPT RURI AND REIRA HAVE QUICK TEMPERS #(REIJI CAN ALSO BE COMPOSED BUT YOU KNOW #(HE'S REIJI #(LMFAO #(BUT ZARC WILL HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO HER AND SHE'LL BE SUPER EMBARASED #(HE'S PROBABLY NEVER SEEN HER SO ANGRY BEFORE

5 notes · View notes

shyrose57 · 3 years

Text

(Tubbo falls ill. Ranboo sets out to find a cure)

It had started off innocently enough. A little scuffle with an endermen, resulting in a scratch. They couldn’t figure out why it had attacked him, but eventually they decided Tubbo must have unknowingly made eye contact, and that was that.

Next, came the fever. Again, they brushed it off. He lived in Snowchester, a cold wasn’t all that odd. But it only kept getting worse, and soon the once comfortable cheer in the air changed to hacking coughs and gasps.

On Monday, he collapsed face first in the snow. If Michael hadn’t been with him and made enough of a racket for a passing Charlie to find him, he might have been there for hours before he was discovered.

Three days after he was bedridden, black markings had spread over his body, originating from the scratch over his heart.

And there wasn’t a person who knew what to do. Neither Puffy or Jack had ever seen anything like it. Ranboo couldn’t find anything on it, in any of the books he devoured like a desperate man.

(Wasn’t he?)

They had considered moving him somewhere warmer, in hopes that the lack of cold would do some good, but Foolish had advised against it, saying it was be better if Tubbo stayed in town.

(”There is a certain sort of magic to places like these.” He had said, gazing over the pale boy, face twisted painfully even in his slumber.

“He’s poured his soul into this town, and spilled his blood into it’s veins. It lives by his hands, and it knows. When he can no longer make his heart beat, it will do it for him.”

“Keep him here. Keep him here, and Snowchester will keep him alive.” He had said, locking gazes with Jack, solemn and serious)

Two days ago, Ranboo had found something. The barest mention of it. A single line of an illness born of an Endermen’s claws, and a throwaway note about a place called The End.

He had latched onto it with everything he had and ripped into the books for everything he could find on the fabled dimension. Eventually, he had found what he needed.

An eye of ender in his hands, Ranboo clutched the straps of his backpack, taking a moment to take in Snowchester, possibly for the last time. From what he’d read, the journey was not one to be taken lightly....

...But it was also the only hope he had. The only hope Tubbo had.

Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself for what lied ahead, and threw the eye forward.

He had to try.

#dream smp #ranboo #tubbo #oh to set off on a journey of self-discovery to another dimension #which has possible connections to your mysterious past #for the sake of your platonic(??) husband #who had fallen ill due to a mysterious sickness #and now lies in bed with your son at his side #not understanding why his father can no longer play in the snow with him #you all deserve to know #I made this purely for those tags #michael the zombie pigchild #captain puffy #foolish gamers #jack manifold #dream smp au #kinda #mini fic

202 notes · View notes

avengershumanresources · 3 years

Text

blood 7 - Strange/Stark!Reader

Relationship: Dr. Strange/Princess!Stark!Reader

Rating: M

Warnings: Adult Themes, eventual smut, adult language, implied sexual violence, general violence

Synopsis: Reader is the daughter of the legendary King Anthony Stark, Uniter of Lands, The Iron Defender, and leader of the realm. When the king disappears during battle, hope is lost and he is presumed dead.

When the late king’s uncle, Obadiah, takes the throne until your brother Peter is of age, he quickly arranges a marriage for you with a wicked king in a neighboring kingdom.

With the realms politics in question, and rumors of an upcoming siege to overthrow Peter’s rule before it starts, you quickly learn who is loyal to the crown and who is not.

part 6 - part 8 (coming April 13th)

Masterlist

Chapter Playlist

CHAPTER WARNING: Yee-har, thar be smut afoot in this here chapter. 18+

7- a king

Anthony Stark hadn’t expected all of this to come of his death. He foresaw of some of it.

Of Obadiah’s imminent betrayal and Brock’s general ambition, but when Wanda had approached him with her vision all those years ago, he couldn’t have understood what it all meant.

Now, however, he realized the violence that was soon to arrive at his kingdom’s doorstep. It was an uneasy feeling; the responsibility bestowed upon him to put men’s lives at risk. To make widows and orphans because of inter family squabbles.

But Tony knew that Obadiah and Brock both presented far larger threats in the long term.

A king who is hungry for power will never stop to consider the least fortunate in his rule.

It was a mantra Tony had created for himself after his father had let entire villages fall to win back some petty golden toy during the War of the Giants. In the end, the lives lost had been worthless and the giants returned to their mountains with more spoils than they’d started.

It had made him sick.

That was the moment Tony decided to be a better man. A better king. He took pride in his unselfish rule and lack of war among those who shared the boundary with his kingdom. By a miracle he’d gotten Brock into line, but Obadiah had gotten a taste of power from his position in the Giant’s War and wanted more.

Rumors turned to plots, and all at once Tony knew his family and legacy was in danger. He had a troubled relationship with the Wakandans after one of his own barons killed their king in a quest for vengeance after the Giant’s War. Steve had volunteered as ambassador with the shadowy James Barnes (who’d long had a positive relationship with T’Challa) and they’d managed to broker a deal benefiting both nations.

And Asgard.

That was a whole other bag of complications.

Odin had long been distrustful of Tony’s first wife, the late Queen Alexandra due to her Vanir lineage. The Asgardians had fought for centuries trying to eradicate what they’d seen as a dangerous race of uncontrollable magic users.

Odin had been a step in the right direction, after replacing his late father, but the prejudices still remained and Tony’s marriage to one of the few remaining Vanir royals had soured what little relations they’d had.

Still, in the end, they’d protected you when he so desperately needed help the Asgardians could only provide. To that, he’d offered her hand to the princes, and Odin took the offer into consideration, only backing off when an agreement was made between the two boys and yourself that affections lay elsewhere.

Which brought him to his latest challenge. Your engagement to the monster king, Brock Rumlow.

The popular story was that he’d had his late wife killed when she hadn’t produced a male heir. Every female baby prior had been fed to the dogs and at last, when her fifth pregnancy had yielded yet another female, she fell mysteriously ill and died a few nights later. Some say a villager found the baby’s water logged corpse shortly after.

From a strategic perspective, it made sense. You hadn’t been called upon by any serious suitors, often running around the kingdom with a begrudging Stephen on your coattails, and you were still young enough to bare a child or two.

Brock needed a means of securing trust in the kingdom, and marrying one of its beloved daughters was the way to do it. Not to mention, Obadiah got his army, Peter would be overthrown when he attempted to take his birthright, and both men would share in the mutual benefits of being involved in one of the strongest economies in history.

It was a clear cut plan for control of the kingdom, and it would have been more than enough for Tony to take action.

Except for one small caveat.

You.

You’d been born of the same Vanir blood as your mother and even as a days old infant, you had shown the Master Sorceress at the time an insurmountable measure of power.

It was an old and finicky magic, the woman had warned before your mother’s body had even cooled in bed. You would need trining, but there was no one left to provide.

The Asgardians had been thorough in destroying the ancient texts and any remaining Vanir had long fallen into hiding, often using enchanted amulets and trinkets to conceal their seidr from those with wicked intentions.

Your mother had been a victim of such vicious greed. She’d been open with her abilities, sharing a close bond with Orin’s own wife and his young son, Loki. The pair had conspired to learn all the forbidden secrets of the Vanir, and she’d begun to accumulate quite the library of resources from old temples and Asgardian burial tombs.

Frigga helped her translate and in turn, the relationship with the royal families had warmed considerably until a few days before your birth.

Things had fallen apart so quickly. The Northern Kree empire had infiltrated the castle after hearing rumors of the queen’s power. Someone had once written that a single drop of Vanir blood was worth thousands in gold pieces. A bandit had gotten through the gates while she labored, he had ambushed her in the birthing chambers and despite putting up an admirable fight- died with a dagger stabbed through her heart.

The beast had tried to cut it free in front of the midwives.

The Master Sorceress had only stepped from the room a moment to freshen up her herbal remedies. By the time anyone had made it to her side, she had died, and you’d been cut free of her with that same knife.

“Your majesty?” Wanda inquired, approaching where he sat by the fire of the rebellion campsite.

“Yes?” He blinked up, returning to the present at hand. The men who were preparing for battle around him. The women sharpening weapons and sewing leather.

The people he had asked to rise up for the betterment of the kingdom. The people who were prepared to die by his side for a secure future.

“Master Strange is to meet at my cottage in the hour,” she explained.

“And what would you advise Master Sorceress?” he asked, an amused expression on his face. “Shall we let him in on our secret?”

“With less than seven days to the wedding, it might be wise,” she reasoned sardonically. “Natalia has her own mission in securing the support from within. Master Strange is working with Peter and Loki on securing the vulnerable.”

“Do you think he told him?” Tony looked down at the fire pensively.

“Who?”

“Loki,” he clarified. “He and Master Mordo were among the few who knew. They had to have mentioned something to him. He’s- well- I’m not entirely sure what he is to her now, but he’s certainly one of the closest lines of protection to her.”

“Assuming the rune hasn’t already faded, I would think he either told him or Stephen found out for himself, my liege,” Wanda sat down on the log next to time, her gaze following his into the flames. “Her power is what Amora desires. It needs to be concealed until the princess is in safe hands.”

“Then he knows,” Tony decided, nodding to himself. “Amora would have done something stupid if the seidr had broken through completely. Someone is keeping it under control.”

“I’ll find out,” Wanda promised. “Would you like to speak to him?”

Tony made a disgruntled noise at the thought of approaching the sorcerer. House Strange had long served under the Stark banner, proudly riding at the front of the line when called upon for battle. When they sent their oldest to train at Kamar-Taj, Tony had been surprised.

The boy had a knack for strategy and was sharp as a needle point. Tony could have seen the young man easily rise in leadership in the house, ruling his own militiamen and managing the family affairs.

But apparently he had no interest in it, and in an unorthodox fashion, the assets had been passed to their eldest daughter.

Granted, in the end, none of that mattered- as the entire family estate had been stricken by a particularly nasty plague. The sole survivor was Stephen, who’d been away at Kamar-Taj when he’d gotten the news.

He’d rushed home, and in the process gotten sick himself, but with the help of his fellow sorcerers, recovered with the only remnants of the illness remaining in his hands. He often told others it had been a riding accident. Only a select few knew the truth and devastation of his loss.

Tony had met with the young man on his sickbed, assuring him the assets would remain in the family. That the castle would maintain the property while he fulfilled his obligations to Kamar-Taj. After all, there was no greater calling than to a life of service and compassion. It was the least Tony could do.

Well, until you had scared off every Master to cross the castle threshold and he’d gotten desperate and asked the boy for a favor.

He should have known better. You were close in age. Equally as ambitious and cunning. For years you’d been sneaking through passages and around the villages at night, often with Natalia at your side.

Stephen just made it easier, and helped Tony rest a little easier knowing the man would give his life for you, if need be.

Tony wasn’t dumb. He’d seen it the first night the you had met.

The sneaking smiles, the conspiratorial whispers in the corners of the ballroom, and when Peter’s cat turned into a lion almost identical to the Stark sigil, Tony knew that one day he might allow that young man to break the oaths he’d made for a single exception.

“Your highness?” Wanda pried gently for a clearer answer.

“Yes, I’ll speak to him,” he pinched the bridge of his nose. About a great many things.

(—)

“I somehow don’t believe you just found out about this,” you stated, sitting cross legged on one of the strewn about cushions, a teapot floating delicately from the palm of your hand.

“I’ve learned a number of thing recently,” he replied dryly. “Like Mordo is alive, and Brock wants to kill Obadiah once you’re wed.”

You lost your focus and the cup shattered on the ground.

“He what?” you gaped at Stephen while he repaired the ceramic cup with a wave of his hand.

“It ties into the whole secret magic thing, but it really isn’t an ideal situation,” he explained, setting the cup aside and dropping to the cushion across from you.

“I guess it’s good I’ve pestered you for your books over the years,” you mused, flexing your fingers in the air in front of you.

“It isn’t the same,” he sighed, watching while you lifted a few other stray objects and paused them between the two of you. “Seidr is... there isn’t documentation. The books were destroyed. Kamar-Taj had a few tomes but the Vanir language is nearly impossible to translate at this point.”

“What about Loki? Or Frigga?” you asked, moving both your hands at once and dropping a feather into his lap with a grin.

“Believe it or not, I’ve been focused on other issues,” he muttered dryly. “We’re going to have to seal this before you leave.”

“But you said it’s what preventing Amora from taking over my head,” you reminded him pointedly, summoning a small flame from an incantation you’d studied the day before. Extinguishing it between your palms, you looked up at him for a better excuse.

“But it is also the reason Brock is forcing you into a marriage and so she can control you, and in turn, your power better than you can,” he explained tersely. “She can’t know you’ve gotten partial control over it. Let her underestimate you, but until you can learn to conceal the energy yourself, you can’t risk exposure.”

“So am I being sealed or not?” you asked impatiently, floating a candle from you to him. He took it with an amused half-smile, extinguishing the light with a quick puff of air. “Can you do a... half seal? Hide the energy, keep some of the good parts?”

“Gods, I don’t know,” he groaned, shaking his head while he seat the canclde aside. “This is entirely new territory that I was not trained for.”

“That must mean you’re a terrible Sorcerer Supreme. What fool put you in charge?” you teased, reaching forward and tapping the top of his nose playfully.

“It’s not my fault you’re a freakish anomaly that’s supposed to be extinct,” he mumbled, pulling a frown while you laughed. “Give me your wrist.”

“Fine, but when this over I demand you help me train properly,” you stated and though he continued grumbling under his breath about being too old for your games, he agreed. “And Loki helps too.”

“Not part of the deal,” Stephen scowled.

“Fine, I’ll marry him then,” you smirked back at him. “You still haven’t asked, so I guess when my wedding tragically falls through, I’ll have to find respite with him.”

He pulled you forward, a glint in his eyes that sent a shiver through your entire body.

“I’m not going to chase after a betrothed woman, it’s bad taste,” he hummed, fingers crawling up your wrist and intertwining with your fingers. “I have a reputation to uphold, even if you feel comfortable hiding away with strange men in dark places.”

“Is that supposed to be a joke?” you whispered, sitting up on your knees and tilting your head.

“Do you not think I’m funny?” he murmured, reaching with his free head and tilting back your chin. A smile played on the corners of your mouth, both of you sizing the other up and daring the other to make the first move.

“I can think of many things you are,” you lifted his hand and pressed a tender kiss to his palm. “But funny?”

“You laugh at all of my clever wit, don’t try to deceive me princess, I know the truth,” Stephen sharply pulled your hand forward, forcing you to fall into his chest. He held your lower back, gazing down at you adoringly. “You’re trying to hide it, but I see it in your eyes.”

“Do you know what I see in your eyes?” your voice cracked ever so slightly, your hand cradling his cheek, your thumb lightly tracing the sharp features.

“What do you see?”

“Strength,” you murmured, transfixed by his opalescent gaze. All at once, it was like you were seeing him for the first time. You could feel the energy radiating off of him, seeing the waves of magic as they ripples through his body. “Devotion to... Stephen you’re beautiful.”

“Or so the stars whisper to the earth below,” his voice was soft, gentle, while his hand guided itself up your arm to your cheek. “But, what the stars do not see is their own radiance, their own ethereal light shimmering across the velvet heavens above. The stars do not know how the Earth worships the very flicker of their existence, tells stories of their magnificence and beauty. The do not know how the Earth finds its meaning in what little time it steals away to them in the night.”

It all happened very quickly after that.

You peeled at his robes, he worked at your corset, a frenzy of hands and mouths tasting one another in a way neither had ever imagined.

Discarding the corset, he worked his hands up your blouse, fingers lightly teasing the tip of your nipple until you let out a satisfied moan. Robes loose, you pushed him back against a nearby pile of cushions, climbing between his legs and peppering hungry kisses up and down his neck until he growled, clawing at your hips.

“If you’re-,” he tired protesting while you pulled away more clothing, pressing his leg between yours and letting out a whimper of pleasure when he shifted in just the right way.

That seemed to set something off in him.

He was over you, flipping you to the ground and pulling what little clothing remained between you, your naked bodies now flush. Stephen moved down to your breast, drawing a nipple between his teeth and watching you squirm under him at the incredible sensation.

“Please,” you mewed, an absolute wreck under him.

He took his time, moving to the other nipple and repeating his actions until you were begging for any kind of release.

“Needy are we?” he murmured in your ear, his voice low and so controlled, you couldn’t understand how he could stand it. Goosebumps erupted over your body, and he just smirked, continuing his exploration.

Teasing a finger at your entrance, he looked to you for final approval before easing the digit into you.

“Gods,” he hissed, moving the finger at an agonizingly slow speed. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes upon.”

He caught you in a kiss, speeding up his hand below, his thumb searching for the sensitive nub of nerves. When he grazed over the tender area, you nearly shot out of yourself, the sensation feeling downright sinful.

Pulling his finger out, you let out another whimper, this one of protest at the emptiness inside of you.

“Are you certain-?” he asked again, eyes scanning your face for any sign of hesitation or doubt.

“I’ve never been more certain of anything,” you replied honestly. It wasn’t an exaggeration. You’d been a make up to this point, untouched and with no interest in engaging in such outrageous behavior.

Yet with him, you wished you could give more. Your body. Your soul. Your love. What did it matter anymore? He was yours, sitting before you and showing you through his loving car assess and sensations you’d never known before this moment.

He eased himself in, giving you time to adjust to his length, the member much larger than his single finger. But Gods, did he feel incredible.

You’d never thought so much emotion and pleasure could occur in a single moment. For this tiny hidden corner of the universe, you felt like your souls had collided and merged.

It was a far cry from how Nat had told you it was.

This was- you anticipated each of his movements, raising your hips to meet his as he crashed inside of you. Your brain couldn’t form coherent thoughts and when he started to coax something feral from within your core, you let him lead you through it.

Pumping in time with strokes to your clit, you clenched your walls around him, pulling a hissed curse from the sorcerer.

A few more pumps and a final circle around the sensitive area and you felt your orgasm crash over you.

At first, you thought you’d done something wrong. Did you break something? How did this feel so incredible and overwhelming all at once?

While you rode out your bliss, you felt his hips tighten, finishing with a final grunt.

You both stated at one another, eyes wide, trying to catch your breath.

“Have you-,” you started but paused. “Like that before-?”

It was no secret Stephen wasn’t exactly a virgin. He had his vows but they were against attachment, not sex, and sometimes, as he put it, the spirit needed to be revitalized.

You’d called him a creep and moved on, but Gods did you understand now.

“I don’t know what happened,” he blinked, looking thoroughly bewildered. “That’s... I’ve never- my gods, you’re incredible.”

He pulled out, dropping to the ground next to you with a huff.

“I have a potion,” he muttered, pointing to the table above them. “Prevents pregnancy.”

“And here I thought you were devoted to me,” you poked him in the rib and he just laughed.

“I am,” he insisted. “However, I’m not devoted enough to end up in the gallows for deflowering a princess who is betrothed to a ruthless king. My apologies, my grace.”

“Hm, I’m sure I can find someone willing to make that sacrifice for me,” you hummed.

“And a fool he will be,” he leaned up on his elbow. “I still win the day. He would be hanged and I still get my princess.”

“Your princess?”

“Has it been any other way?” he asked, quirking a brow. “Truly, if I’m mistaken, tell me. I don’t want to sound too over ambitious.”

You considered it briefly. Had it?

No, you knew from the moment you spied those eyes at the ball welcoming him to the castle that he was your future. You just hadn’t realized what that meant at the time.

There was no world, no life, where you could live without him by your side.

The thought sobered you quickly, your upcoming nuptials springing to mind, the spell locking you in your private world, now lifted.

“Would you have asked my father?” you asked.

“In another life, we would have been married by now,” he answered earnestly. “I’m a fool for having hesitated and nearly missed my chance at an eternity by your side.”

“And Brock?” you asked, the name leaving a sour taste in your mouth. Stephen’s expression darkened at mention of the man.

“I’ll kill him before he touches you,” he vowed. “I will not yield your heart to such a monster, and I will stop this. I cannot risk you leaving my side. Not again, my love.”

You leaned forward and kissed him, soft, intimate, and gentle. Stephen wasn’t a fighter.

Certainly he could fight, but you knew him well enough to know that violence was a last option after all other options had been tried. And here he was preparing to declare a one man war on your betrothed.

Truly, the heavens were smiling upon you in this life.

(—)

Later that evening, when Stephen had returned you safely to your quarters, he met with Wanda at her cottage at the edge of the woods to discuss the next steps in the plan.

When she caught sight of him, her expression shifted from confused to elated to-

“What is it?” he asked, knowing she’d gotten a read of what he’d been up to previously.

“Do well to conceal your thoughts,” she warned, leading him inside.

“Conceal what-?” he asked after her, stopping in his tracks when he saw Anthony sitting at her table, sipping at a large horn of water.

Tony stood up, giving the man a once over, brows raised as he took him in.

“You couldn’t wait until the wedding night?” he grumbled, dropping back down in his chair with a long sigh.

(—)

8- a secret

TAG LIST (message to be added!):

@ayamenimthiriel @ladynothing

@im-a-bi-disaster-help @idkwhatthisislol

64 notes · View notes

plathski · 3 years

Text

Blue

A/N: this is for the @queendomsecretsanta and @thenicestnonbinary. happy holidays!

Word count: 1,988

TWs: Death.

Cathy could vividly recall the exact moment she heard that her husband had passed away.

She had just put her foot into the palace after taking a half hour long stroll around the palace’s garden. It was a beautiful day, with no clouds in the beautiful light blue sky, and she had been feeling a bit erratic lately due to the stress that was caused by the king being sick, so she decided that was the best thing she could do to take everything off her mind, even if the relaxation only lasted for a few fleeting moments.

“Catherine!”

Before she could even blink, Anne Herbert, her lady in waiting, was directly in front of her, her petrified dark brown eyes piercing her soul.

“..what? What’s wrong?” The queen had inquired, her mind racing with possibilities what could have gotten her friend so scared.

The explanation hit her like a ton of bricks.

“King Henry’s dead!”

Most of the day after that moment was a complete blur to her. She was whisked into her and the king’s bedroom, where she was surrounded by many important members of the court.

She found a chair right at his bedside and sat herself down in it.

She truly didn’t know how she felt as she stared at Henry’s cold, lifeless face. The sounds of quiet sobbing from all the familar faces in the room were interrupting her thoughts.

The guilt she had from it was immense, but the word she thought best described her feelings was relief.

Of course, her husband’s death was surely a tragedy, just like the death of every english royal. But he wasn’t like all the royals before him. He was an angry, miserable, violent lunatic who only cared for himself. If it was possible, she would have him burned at the stake for all the wicked things he’d done throughout his life.

She’d do it for Catherine of Aragon, the woman he kicked to the curb without a second thought. She’d do it for Anne Boleyn, the one he bastardized and beheaded all because she couldn’t give him a son. She’d do it for Jane Seymour, who was dead because Henry valued the idea of having a son more than her life. She’d do it for Anna of Cleves, who he humilated and ostracized. And she’d do it for Katherine Howard, who got her childhood ripped away from her.

But she could never do that, for although she was the queen of England, she was powerless compared to him.

Oh well, he was dead now, it didn’t matter anymore. At least he would never hurt anyone ever again.

“I...I have to go.” She murmured to Anne, standing up slowly with a emotionless expression on her face.

“Of course, Catherine.”

The queen left the bedroom, contemplating on where she was to go from here.

What use was there for the widow of a king, anyway?

The funeral was held just under a month later.

Catherine wore a stunning black dress that was designed by the country’s finest tailors. It was costumized with a dark blue sapphire embroidered right under the collar, with matching beeds hanging from the hem.

Even after her husband’s passing, she still had to look her best.

For hours, she sat in the oriel window of the former queen Catherine of Aragon, watching speeches be given by court members, listening to the sobs of the mourning citizens, forcing herself to hear people praising the king...

It all almost drove her mad.

Henry didn’t deserve to be remembered with affection and grace. He was a tyrant, for christ’s sake! He shouldn’t be given sympathy, he should be shamed and looked down upon, just like all villains are. He took everything for himself, he didn’t care about his children, and he hurt all his wives...

...he didn't hurt her, though.

Throughout his entire life, Henry had been nothing but ruthless to the ones he married. He left Catherine of Aragon behind when he found a woman that he loved more, he beheaded Anne Boleyn all because she couldn't bore him a son, Jane Seymour had to give away her life so he could have a heir to the throne, he had Anna of Cleves come to England from German only to degrade her for her appearance, and he sentenced Katherine Howard to death when she was only 19.

And she had merely outlived him.

She was the only one to have come out unscathed, a surviving soldier upon his fallen friends, and she would have to live with the crushing weight of that for the rest of her live.

“Catherine?”

“What is it, Anne?”

“There’s someone waiting for you at the palace door.”

The former queen sighed, letting her shoulders slump. Today had been exhausting, and she had an extremely busy day tomorrow. Who could possibly be wanting to see her now?

“Is something wrong, your majesty?”

“No, I’m fine.” Cathy answered, waving a dismissive hand at her lady in waiting. “I’ll go attend to my visitor right now.”

Anne nodded, and walked out of the doorframe and down the hallway, the clicking of her heels echoing throughout the area.

Catherine swiftly rummaged through her closet until her she found her midnight blue cloak. Then, she threw it on over her white nightgown and pulled the hood over her curly dark brown hair before scurrying out of her bedroom.

As she dashed down the halls of the palace, she couldn’t help feel a sense of nostalgia. As dreadful as the time she had lived there had been, she had called it home for nearly four years, and tomorrow, she was moving out. Where? She didn’t know yet, as her servants had set a place up for her, but were keeping it a secret, so it must’ve been just right for her.

As she strolled down the marble staircase and entered the main hall, she thought about what her future could look like. She wanted to live in a cottage somewhere in the outskirts of Berkshire, away from the public eye. Though she was sure her servants had different plans, it was still a comforting thought. After all that she had been through, she just wanted to live out the rest of her days in peace.

At last, after what felt like an eon of reminiscing as she walked, she finally reached the two large, mahogany doors that led to the garden. The mysterious guest was awaiting her arrival on the other side, whoever they were.

She wrapped her fingers around the two golden handles on them, and pushed them open.

She then walked outside, and felt her heart soar when she saw who her visitor was.

There, standing a few feet ahead of her, his face illuminated by the bright moon shining thousands of feet above, wearing a shy smile, was-

“...Thomas?”

“You didn’t think I’d leave you behind, did you?”

Catherine rushed into her former husband’s arms, joyous tears filling her eyes as she let out a joyous laugh.

She truly was coming home.

The last months of Catherine’s life were the happiest ones.

Four months after she moved out of the palace and into a tiny house in downtown London, she had a secret, private wedding, in which she married her one true love, Thomas Seymour. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t tell anyone besides her close family members, as a marriage so soon after Henry’s death would surely cause a scandal. But as long as she could live with Thomas, she was happy.

Since she wasn’t the queen of England anymore, she had a lot of time on her hands, and she used most of that time to write. She sat in her study for hours, scribbling out little words in ink onto her paper. Words that spoke of love, wisdom, liberation, among hundreds and hundreds of other topics. There was practically nothing that could stop her from writing.

Except for one thing.

August 30th, 1548, was the happiest day of her life. That day was the day that she met her beautiful little girl, Mary Seymour. She’ll never forget how happy she felt when she was handed little Mae, how the little bundle of joy that was sitting on her chest reached her tiny arms out to her and giggled...

She took care of Mae for as long as she could, which was unfortunately only a mere four months. After all, nothing lasts forever.

“I’m sorry, my love...” “For what?” “For not doing anything.” “Don’t apologize, Thomas. Things like this are in the hands of fate...”

Catherine laid in what she knew was her soon to be deathbed, Thomas at her side. In his arms was Mae, her innocent brown eyes staring right at her mother.

No one knows for sure what happened, but sometime after her daugther’s birth, the former queen fell ill. She brushed it off, assuming that it was just a cold that would fade away in the coming weeks.

Weeks turned into months, and now she was here, barely able to raise her voice above a whisper.

This was so unfair. She was supposed to live a happy, mostly private life with her husband and her daugther. She was supposed to get her writings published and prove herself to be one of the greatest writers of the century. She was supposed to watch Mae grow up and become a strong, beautiful woman.

Her life wasn’t supposed to end like this.

Then, just as she could feel the energy start to drain away from her body, an idea struck her.

“T-thomas.”

“Yes, dear?” The man in question asked, his voice filled with remorse.

“....p-publish my writings for me.” She uttered, using the last bit of strength she had to squeeze Thomas’ hand.

He nodded, smiling as tears spilled down his cheeks. “Of course.”

He knew just as well as her that it was time.

She was exhausted, and the room seemed to be getting quite dark.

“...farewell...”

Her dark brown eyes closed, and her hand fell, hitting the royal blue carpet.

She was at peace at last.

Well, for five hundred years, at least.

Cathy sat in the kitchen of the queen’s flat, typing out an email to her publisher. Computers were such a pain to use, she was lucky if she made a full sentence with no spelling errors.

It was just one of the many things that she had to get accustumed to in the modern world.

That didn’t mean modern life was bad. In fact, she much preferred it over her former life. No more wearing several hundred coats of makeup, easy and fast transportation, quicker ways of communication such as texting and calling, no risk of getting beheaded by the goverment...

And of course, there was Six.

Six was the best thing that had ever happened to her. It meant feminism, love, strength, all the things that she thought were essential. Though Six, she had connected with her fellow queens and bonded with them over the struggles of living in a man’s world. They could finally tell their stories and find happiness and peace within themselves.

All she needed was Six.

And of course, she didn’t go a day without thinking about Mae and Thomas. The grief of losing them loomed over her, like a pesky raven that just wouldn’t leave her alone. But they were still there with her, through the laughter and the tears, through the singing and the dancing, through the living and the loving.

They were there with her in her heart, and that was just enough for her.

She clicked the ‘send’ button on the email, and stood up from the dark blue chair as she fiddled with the hem of her navy blue t-shirt, and walked out of the kitchen, making sure to grab her sky blue water bottle.

Why did everything always seem so blue?

30 notes · View notes

lovestrucked-again · 4 years

Text

Days Of Eminence | L. Jeno

Summary: There’s only a small amount of cities that still exist, the city of Eminence being the next most likely to perish. It’s not the city that dies, but the people - guided by an Angel. He says Y/N is his saviour, the one who can guide him to Heaven, but how can she when she’s the one meant to kill him. Genre: angst, smut,

Pairing: angel! Jeno x agent! female reader (ft Jaemin) Word count: 5k

Warning: corruption of Angelic themes, smut, death

a/n: Something very different as part of the summer collaboration by @neo-cult-ure. My chosen summer-titled song is “Summer” by Keshi. Thank you for hosting this!! <3

“3 months is all we’ve got.” _____

They asked you to write everything you could remember. A hard thing since there’s only so much sorrow in the telling. Your mind shies away from it, looping between the past and present in time.

Jaemin squeezed your arm, his face stern. “Stay only long enough to find out what goes on, Y/N. 3 months is all we’ve got.”

You nodded, believing it would be that easy; truly imagining that you were prepared for what was coming.

***

First Month Eminence was cool and muted as the mountain city of summer. As in summer, most constructions of the city covered in a shadowed glow, soft stone in the dark; seemingly clean, bare, bonelike whiteness. You knew the ceremonies conducted by the Angel occurred during sunset, hence your entry at that time. Walking through the main street you started to see how the people of this place looked ill and frail. Many bore savage burn scars, though they looked content.

“We know there is a place called the Chantry where the people meet to hear the Angel speak every day. I will guide you there.”

Passing from the pink stained dusty street and into the shadowy interior of the Chantry, you could hear the murmurs of the hundreds of voices that echoed. People were pressed in close and stood staring up at a raised stage. A plain wooden seat set atop the stage and sitting on it, was the Angel.

Dressed in a white shirt, barefoot; his feet not quite touching the floor, fingers clasped loosely on his lap, like a child sitting at his lessons. Though he wore no crown, his hair was white and rose up floating about his head, catching the sunlight in a nimbus.

Behind him, the shocking contrast. The outermost wall of the city lay open and presented a black continuous land. Eminence was the edge of the frontier beyond which no one could walk and live for long.

Jaemin had told you the Angel was young, but the light glowing behind him made it impossible to tell. You felt uneasy at the face of shadows crowned by light, surround darkness. You told yourself, that it was a deliberate effect, that the angel had aimed to make himself binding awe and mystery.

Then the angel shifted and light fell onto his features.

You gasped, but the sound drifted and lost its way into the cries of people pressed around you. Your breath was kicked out of you; the Angel was beautiful.

Even as you recall these memories, your seeking for another word, but are defeated, for there is no word made that can describe the solemn beauty of the Angel’s features. You were stunned.

Surely the others tasked with your mission would have mentioned this. And if so, why didn't they tell you? Then a second later you realise that the appearance of the Angel would not be thought important to adult agents searching for power and corruption. They would not see such incandescent beauty as power, for anyone seeing truly must know no corruption had ever touched that face. Here was goodness personified. Here was an Angel.

It made sense now, why they had chosen to send you instead. An adult would see a child in the Angel’s face and search for a manipulator. Indeed, you had been warned to search for the boy’s controlled. But you only saw beauty, so pure it could inflame those who looked upon it with a kind of madness of adoration; and in its midst, eyes with the sad wisdom of emotion.

You missed quite a lot of what he was saying that day due to your shock at his appearance, but you visited the Chantry every day from then on, with the rest of the citizens, listening to him say the same words over and over again. Before long, you knew them well enough to chant with him, as the rest did.

“There was a sickening of the spirit of heaven.” He began without preamble, voice sweet and low pitched, shaped to the story, so that his words became a sort of wind that breathed itself into you.

“Therefore, heaven separated this sickening spirit, lest it infect the rest, imprisoning it in a cage of flesh. Sent it upon the earth, the flesh which calls itself human-kind, multiplied, as is its nature. Far from what heaven had hoped, the spirit became further corrupted, wholly absorbed by its physical prison.”

His voice shaded into an implacable subtone. “In grace and infinite mercy, heaven sought to undo this binding of flesh to spirit. I am that spirit and that flesh sent to rid Plethora – to end the overmuch of flesh and spirit that clings to it and worships it.”

“These are the days of Plethora; the days of Eminence which you may prepare for the end of flesh. That the spirit in you will perish with the flesh in which you chose not to rise above. This is the judgement of heaven. I am the Angel, offering to those who seek it, a high path offering the choice to loosen your spirit from flesh so that when Plethora comes, it may fly.”

He asked who aspired to take the High path and a lot of people lifted their arms, streamed through doors to left and right at the front of the Chantry. After a few visits, you had learned those who were more sick and ailing and scared, stood right. The others gathered on the left.

You watched them go curiously, thinking to yourself that this High Path and the whole story of being an Angel, was a mixed belief of old religions. Your superiors had predicted it.

“The angel is using tried and true beliefs, but the it doesn't explain how he has amassed his power. Nor does it explain the weapons he has his followers collect. If it was only weapons, we could disarm them and let them be, but there is more to it than that and this Angel is the centre. That is where you come in, it seems the Angel is searching for someone to restore his condition.”

They meant this literally. The Angel lived amongst people who adored him, who devoted their entire life towards him, yet, he could not find someone to share his warmth and in turn grew colder each day. You were told he would play with the Children of Eminence. You learned how easy it was to get to him the first day you woke in the city, attendants of his asking who would like to visit the Angel. Ten were selected. It was a simple process, proving no difficulty, but that wasn't your goal. Initially you had planned to learn a little more about the High Path, advocated by the Angel.

You learnt that the meaning behind separating the spirit from flesh was literally that; people letting themselves be physically tortured. You learnt it the hard way, choosing to follow those people who ushered you to the left door in the Chantry. You knew there was a physical torture of some sort behind the door, having seen those who went in healthy come out battered and thin and pale, but still alive.

They are a nightmare to remember. Only glimpses can still be recalled through the erased memories. They were not able to wipe out everything, and the strongest details of pain remained; where you were swimming and swimming desperately in a vast of water, pushed by people prodding sticks to keep you from reaching the surface, until you could swim no more. You would sink, screaming for the end to come, breathing in the thickness of liquid. There would be agony, then unconsciousness. Then you would be revived and be tortured to undergo the same thing all over again.

Some died in this first process of the High Path, and the Angel praised them, claiming heaven had accepted their spirit before Plethora had fallen. Many went mad, the pain of drowning and reviving repetitively unable to keep the sane. You were on the verge of falling victim to the second stage; thinking it could not be any worse, when you were selected to visit the Angel.

Second Month Unable to refuse, you went with caution and a little excited flock of children, expecting rituals and brainwashing, or maybe some sort of sexual interference disguised as play, but all the Angel did was play with them. The children squealed and giggled, running in circles as he tickled them, crawled after them, growling and pretending to gobble them up. He laughed and told them stories of heaven, singing melodies and songs he had learnt. You hovered at the back, wondering how one who so obviously adored children could allow them to be tortured and guide them to their deaths.

As if he felt the intensity of your scrutiny, the Angel looked over the children’s heads, towards you. And in that moment, you learnt the truth behind love at first sight: a mingling of souls that surpass all sense, all words, all life. The first single look you exchanged left you weakened in a voracious longing. But the most shattering thing, was the awareness the Angel experienced the same amount of recognition and emotion.

You watched his lips part in the shape to form a word, perhaps a curse or prayer, then he beckoned you. The children parted, letting you pass as you moved to him as quickly as you could, unable to contain the string that seemed to be tugging from his direction.

“Welcome, my dearest love,” he whispered, taking your hand, “I was waiting for you.”

You were completely bewildered. You tried to open your mouth but nothing came out; the phrases you had prepared in order to fit in, could not form. Dearest love.

“I am Y/N.”

He smiled and it seemed to you there was something new in his face. “Yes.” He released one of your hands and reached out to stroke a finger along your cheek. “I am Jeno, and as an Angel, I am beyond saving. Yet how else shall my spirit transcend flesh at the end, except by its grace? Thus heaven swore that I would find Plethora in the face and flesh of a girl called Y/N. My name was given to me – Jeno – as I was told I would know its truest meaning only when I saw you, and with that pain that it would bring, my soul can be released.”

You swallowed hard, unable to process the stream of words amongst your panicking madness of gibberish about love and death. “I…I don't understand. Did you know I would come?”

“I knew you would come to stand before me today. I left you to freely wander through the city of Eminence where other agents before you were discarded of at once.”

“I…other agents?” you questioned, feeling your spine turn cold.

He sighed. “You are not the first to be sent from your city in fear of attack and conversion to Angel worshipping. The man who led you here still stands outside these walls, where even now, waits for you outside Eminence, his fear of losing you gnawing at him.”

You blinked, remembering the look on Jaemin’s face as he placed the gun in your hand.

“You have undergone the start to the High Path,” Jeno goes on. “You have seen all the city in your wanderings. You asked questions and received true answers. You know my name, my face, my voice. I know that you have yet to be touched by the Highest Path – but we shall find that path in one another, for only by love can the soul find its highest pain.”

You gave up your act of confusion. You were trained to accept and prepare for the inevitable death when the time would come. The fear of death mingled with his words of terrifying madness claimed of love. You let your emotions fuse into a shield, waiting for it to form a barrier that could not be broken.

“An opportunity will come, in that split second when you can act and alter the course of events. Miss it and you die.” Jaemin had warned you, showing you how to remain calm and watchful.

“What are you going to do with me?” you asked the Angel.

“First, I will show you what you have not been allowed to find,” he said, and with that, he led you out of the enclosed garden. The children trailed behind in a train as he brought you through the city to the silos where the weapons were kept. Ancient missiles which, when activated, would rain acid chemicals to poison the earth and sear the flesh.

“H-How did you find them?” you asked, frozen at the sight. There was enough to destroy all cities – Plethora.

“Heaven guided me,” Jeno said, his fingers lightly caressing your arm.

“Why?” you hesitated, but you knew. Had you not heard the words a dozen times? Watched him form the sentences from his lips? As if reading your mind, he said them once again.

“These are the Plethora days - the end days - in which the spirit will be guided to abandon the flesh in judgement of heaven.” He touched the missile gently as if it was an animal that may run. “In a sense, I am also an agent, sent from Heaven. Just as your Jaemin had given you that gun to summon aid, I have you. My one chance for redemption.”

He smiled and led you back to the garden. Strange though it seemed, the two of you sat and he held you, stroked your hair and whispered words of love into your ears. He went for a while to deliver his morning speech, but he returned immediately after. You didn’t bother to run or hide, because he was an Angel and you knew you were captured by love.

“Come with me,” he murmured, grasping your hand in his as he guided you down an empty street. The sun was setting now, glowing from behind your figures and casting a shadow over you.

Jeno led you to a small but neatly structured building. His place was far from your imagination. For some unknown reason, you had pictured a place full of light of both natural and artificial. A room full of white, perhaps a few paintings of what he claimed was heaven. So to come into a small building shrouded with colours of grey and black surprised you. He left the curtains drawn during the day, allowing no light to shine through and liven his home.

“Is this where you live?” you asked quietly, swaying the curtains slightly as you peeked through to see outside.

“Yes,” he replied, “Do you like it?”

It bought a strange comfort knowing that his place was different from what you expected, a strange sense of relief. The Angel was a being himself, not controlled, not programmed, but with his own thoughts, likes and dislikes.

“I do, it’s nice.” It wasn't something that could be explained; the thought process that ran through your mind when it occurred. You bought your hand to his arm, sliding it down to hold his hand. He turned to look at you, startled at your touch.

You squeezed his hand softly, feeling his fingers intertwine with yours. He doesn't seem to realise what his doing, focused only on your eyes, caught in them yet again, out of his depth.

Jeno blinked; suddenly he knew. He leaned in towards you, just a little. And you watched as his soft dark eyes close, bringing his lips in to touch yours. He leaned in further, sweeping your lips with his tongue and he felt his heart leap when you opened for him.

His hand cupped your chin and you let your face be guided. That too was right, as was the sudden tautness in your nipples. And his long fingers leaving your face, softly sweeping over your shoulder to enfold your breast - that was right, too, as it should be. And so was Jeno’s emphatic manhood, now thrusting upwards; that too was appropriate, perfect.

His breath caught at the feeling of soft fingers on his knee, tracing their way up his thigh. His hand swept over to your other breast, squeezed tenderly. His uncertainty vanished when you reopened your eyes. The look in them was ageless, assured. He could see yearning in them, too, a need not just for him, but for his approval, his acceptance of you as you. His breath caught again as you hand moved further, as if in confirmation, grasped at his cock. Your tongue met his, teased and played as your fingers rolled his balls between them.

He began to turn towards you, but the you were faster and he found himself pushed onto his back on the couch with you lying half on top of him. Your lips crushed his, your tongue probing deeper into his mouth. His hesitancy gone, he kissed back, his own hunger now open and clear.

Your fingers trailed lightly up and down the length of his manhood before returning to the tip, pulling it gently away from his body. You held it there for a moment, released it, began to roll his balls again. He had never been so hard, so aroused. His eyes closed as he focused on your light, deft touch.

You smiled to yourself, happy at his obvious pleasure.

You in her turn gasped softly as Jeno’s hand squeezed first one breast, then the other, lifting, weighing them, mounding them. His hands drifted, began to roll and pull your long nipples; you sighed at the sweet sensation flooding through your body. It was clear that the Angel, too, knew what pleased a partner. His patient, loving working of your nipples continued even as you shifted, moving to lie on your side, facing him. You shuddered, gave a slight cry as he lightly pinched a swollen nub, leaned down and began to tease it with the tip of his tongue. You felt your labia swell, sensed your dew on them, felt your clitoris ease out from under its hood, hard now, expectant.

Your hand moved from his balls to his cock. You slid a hand over it, up and down, thumbing its swollen head at the top of each stroke, giggled as it twitched in your hand. Squeezing harder, you began to drag the velvety skin back and forth over its iron core, slowly at first, then faster and still faster.

You gave a low moan as his hand moved down your body, caught along your pubic hair, pulled it gently. You could feel the air on your wet sex, moaned again as a long finger traced the length of your entrance.

You moaned again as the finger probed your opening up to the first knuckle, began to turn and twist within you. You could feel an orgasm building within you as his foreplay fanned a fire unfed for far too long.

You sensed that he too was very close.

You gave a strong push, rolling the Angel onto his back, his engorged organ swaying for a moment. With a soft chuckle, you straddled him, reached down and slowly guided yourself down onto his length. You paused for a moment, sitting upright, your eyes closed, allowing yourself to enjoy the feeling of being filled, happily stretched by Jeno’s manhood.

He layed still, his eyes sweeping back and forth between your eyes and your breasts. His hands rose up over your waist, fell to seize the tops of your hips. He smiled at the sight of your figure beginning to sway and rock on his cock.

Your eyes were closed and there was a happy smile on your face, one of pleasant concentration perhaps. The sun shone through your hair, rays reflecting against the bedsheets. With each roll of your hips, your soft breasts swayed, the ends of your hair drifting across his face and chest.

He slid his hands lightly over your thighs, came to rest on your bum. Your weight was on him and he couldn't move his hips. He found himself longing to pull you down, to crush your lips on his. His hands rose, hesitated.

Instead, he settled them on your waist, squeezed, pulling your body against his. Your skin was warm, soft, with toned, firm flesh underneath. His hands swept up to recapture your breasts, took your swollen nipples between thumb and forefinger, pulled gently, twisted.

You drifted in a wave of sensation as you rolled up and down on his cock. The taut rim of its crown pushing back and forth across your velvet lining fanned your arousal, each millimeter of motion like gasoline on a fire.

For the first time since you arrived, you were allowing yourself to be happy, to enjoy yourself without guilt. You began to give short cries as Jeno’s fingers gripped your nipples more firmly, pulled them and turned them.

You shifted, grabbed his wrists and leaned forward, pinning them to the armrest over his head. You could feel your nipples brush across his chest every time your hips drove torso down.

Jeno, for the first time in his experience, was not controlling anything. It was a strange thing for him -- exciting, but very different. Looking up at you, he could see that you’d caught your lower lip between your teeth. Your eyes were closed as you focused on the happy lust blooming within you.

His hands held against the sheet, he could do little but enjoy the sensation of you working yourself over and along his cock. After a moment, he bent his legs, pushing you further up his body. You opened your eyes, smiled at him briefly before changing your rolling to more of a plunging motion.

Your boobs swayed and swung as you bounced up and down; your soft buttocks slid up and down along his thighs.

He found that he could lean his head forward and almost reach... He pulled his feet in closer, raising his knees, pulling her closer still... and found his mouth could now reach your nipples when you came close enough. You gasped in surprise the first time and, still biting your lip, moaned in appreciation.

Jeno’s cock felt enormous to you. He could feel a fiery pressure building behind his balls.

You dropped all of your weight letting the intrusion into your pussy, letting yourself grind your pelvis against his. You went rigid for a moment, crying out at the explosion of joy, your orgasm possessing you, controlling you.

***

“Will you kill me so easily?” you whispered, unable to fall asleep with the silky sheets tucked around you.

And then you turned in your position, shifting to stare at him carefully in the dark – the only light provided by the natural moonlight shining between the gap of the open slit in the curtain. His expression lost as it seemed reality set back in. And then he wept, and you wept too. He reached out a pulled you into his arms. Surprised at the strength of his arm under your soft flesh. His hands trembled as they rested on your bare arms, and he leaned towards you and put his lips on yours.

“Flesh keeps our spirits apart,” he said, without taking his mouth away from you. “When Plethora comes, we will never be parted, not in all eternity.”

“But we won’t be ourselves in your heaven,” you shivered, the desire for him to kiss you again so powerful it felt like a knife poking at the edges of your heart.

“You’ll see.” he murmured bleakly, and you noticed the shadow of longing, the pain of parting, mirrored in his eyes, “it’ll be okay,” he said. And he kissed you again.

The two of you laid awake all night, he told you his coming to Plethora and the years of his rising to power. He explained to you the deaths of the agents - all self chosen as they challenged the road to the High Path. They had been converted he explained. You knew he was trying to convert you, and that in convincing you to accept death, he was fighting his love. In turn, you sought to win from his duty to heaven. Every minute that passed together seemed to make love seem brighter and more dangerously alluring.

Third Month The next day, or perhaps it was many days later, he showed you the maps that indicated the piles of missiles which had been set under all the cities; under yours. To destroy Plethora wasn’t enough for him. He showed you the room on the perimeter of Plethora, where the explosions and weapons would simultaneously be set off.

“This time, everything will go.”

“You’d kill all of those thousands of people after they survived the madness of world wars?” you asked, standing in the small machine dominated room

“I would free the souls left behind,” he said gently, “free them from fear and death and pain and sorrow,”

“And from love and beauty of the sort that only flesh would know?”

Again there was a flash of pain in his eye, and he stroked your cheek, then pointed to the back of your pants – the gun hidden underneath your clothing. “Why not summon him then? He will come here to save you will he not? He could kill me and save you.”

You thought there was a flare of hope in his eyes.

“Would you let him kill you?” you asked, knowing that there was an answer already known. The thought of Jeno dying bought heavy pains to your heart.

***

“You believed he was an Angel?” Jaemin asks, taking a moment to read through the words you had just written down. His eyes are filled with pain, disbelief and lack the warmth they held moments ago. He does not try to hide it anymore, unable to care if he knows how you feel.

“He was,” you say, “He came to bring Plethora. He fell in love, he trusted me.”

“Y-You loved him?” He turns around, letting himself stare out at the window as he braces himself

“I-I did.” you hesitate, wondering how many forms of pain your heart could go through without breaking for good.

“You killed him,” Jaemin states blankly, “You had to. He would have killed himself, killed you, and all of us. All the children and killed humanity out of love. You killed him so that we would survive.”

The flashes of pain and memory well up and spill out of you. Again you see his face, fused with radiance, for he would have walked the Highest Path of all in the moment of his death, knowing he failed because of his love for you. Again you feel the wind blow past your body, the explosion and flaring heat of flames as they coiled around you. The sound of Eminence dying was the sound of your undeniable regrets.

***

“Could you explain what happened?” The man asks, “I know its written here but…”

He stops talking, not wanting to force you into explaining something so visibly emotionally exhausting but desperate for the information.

“He showed me the control room, and when I had the chance, I went back to destroy it. I rewired it so that it would be blown up. I didnt realise the city would go with it. I thought it’d be only the room.”

“He might have lied when he said the control room was the only centre. The weapons could have been triggered some other way.”

You look at the wall, and when he realises it’s the end of the conversation, he leaves. He doesn’t believe Jeno was an Angel, convinced you had perhaps been manipulated – gone mad. He could not understand than an Angel is truth. Unfortunately you could not tell him any different. People see what they want to see. Jeno had said that.

“It was foreseen that it would come to this moment of balance,” Jeno had said, standing in the doorway of the control room. His eyes were on the weapon you held. Jaemin had handmade it, the handgun that had been carved with your initials, attached with a blooming light. Your hand trembled.

“You love me,” Jeno said.

You nodded weeping, “I do, but I have to stop you. I can’t let you destroy everything.”

“Only flesh, my love. Only the material world would die. I would never hurt you.” He was smiling because he was an Angel. And Angels are love and only know of love. He loved you, but he did not understand the nature of flesh, the need for it to survive - to love. “Come with me.” he said, his face exalted, “It’s not too late, even with all you have done. We can end it together.”

He reached for the lever which would bring destruction to the world before the control room could explode and sever Eminence from the other cities. But before he could, you triggered first. The gun that you had not once ever used finally triggered and a red flower landed on the Angel’s heart. He fell like a snowflake, as the city around you shook. His head landed in your lap and he smiled, lifting his fingers to your face.

“Too late,” he whispered, his hand falling back. “I failed heaven. I failed you, my love. We must part.”

“No,” you cried, but he was gone, flesh and spirit.

***

Survival is a disturbing topic. You were meant to follow him, for the journey of the High Path was started together. Yet you live and suffer. Perhaps the path is longer for you, a punishment for your betrayal.

The meaning behind his name only occurred to you long after your recovery. Jeno was an Angel, a King to his city. He was the strength of life, binding the souls and spirits of the citizens and guiding them to Heaven. And he was also strength in its scariest form – forcing you to put an end to the life of someone you cherished in the short 3 months you had.

#nct imagines #nct sceanrios #nct smut #nct dream #nct jeno #nct fanfics #nct dream imagines #nct dream scenarios #summer collab #nct #lee jeno #jeno imagines

96 notes · View notes

itstimetotheorize · 4 years

Text

Little nightmares: the first lady of the maw, the sin of gluttony, the true value of the children. Part 3: the new sixes fate (update, due to the events of little nightmares 2 I no longer believe in the seven deadly sins theory, that shadow six is a demonic entity, that the mirror exercised the ladys body or that the girl in the yellow raincoat was named “six”, the name “six” is a mystery to us but we believe it is meant to describe something about six no other child has, after all, none of the kids have real names, the names we know them by only describe them )

link to part 1:

https://itstimetotheorize.tumblr.com/post/627840095747276801/little-nightmares-the-first-lady-of-the-maw-the?is_related_post=1

link to part 2:

https://itstimetotheorize.tumblr.com/post/627840226274033665/little-nightmares-the-original-lady-of-the-maw?is_related_post=1

well, many of us have come to theorize that perhaps the answer to sixes connection to the lady might actually be explained in the “very little nightmares game”. In the game we play as a little girl in a yellow raincoat,

its here that many of us are lead to believe that this girl is six. At a certain point in the game, the girl in yellow bumps into another girl in white, who is also attempting to escape the estate of the pretender.

sadly near the end of the game when the girl in yellow is confronted by the pretender

she falls into the ocean and is immediately disintegrated by the pretender once they meet under water,

the only thing left of her is her little yellow raincoat floating on the ocean water.

at the very end of the game we see that the girl in white is making her way down to the ocean to retrieve the fallen girls raincoat,

its in this moment that many of us realize that the girl in white is actually six from the little nightmares game!. What's even more surreal is that later on, many of us begin to piece together the idea that the girl in the yellow raincoat from very little nightmares might in fact be the real daughter of the lady of the maw !!

so, what doe this all mean?! and who is six ? well, let me start off by saying that maybe, the six we have all come to know and love...was never six to begin with!

what makes me say this? well, what if years before the events of little nightmares and very little nightmares, the new lady of the maw was instructed by the demon inside her to adopt a daughter and raise her under the teachings of the geishas.

out of all the children that were brought to her, the lady chose 1 and killed the rest. She then appropriately named this child six as a way of marking her as the sixth child to be taken under the ladys teachings (the fifth being of course herself). The lady however, remained oblivious to the demons plan, never knowing that the sin planned to kill her once Six was a suitable host for it.

the little girl however, caught onto the ladys way of life and decided she wanted to have nothing to do with it so she decided to runaway through the only way possible when stuck in the middle of the ocean, a blimp!

the blimp , however only managed to make it a certain distance before falling and crash landing her in the roof of the pretenders estate.

knowing that she was nowhere near safe, six now attempts to leave the pretenders estate before encountering someone or something dangerous. Its here in this mansion that the girl comes across another girl in white who is also attempting to escape,

this girl however, has no name. Just like the rest of the children, she is an imprisoned child, born without one. The two meet each other every now and then and help each other escape. That is until, six is killed by the pretender. With six now dead, the girl in white rushes to retrieve sixes yellow raincoat from the ocean and decides to keep it as a memento from the only person that she felt a connection to in her dire situation.

it was this yellow raincoat however, that ultimately sealed her fate in being sent to the maw. Many of us have theorized that perhaps the pretender and the lady of the maw knew each other to some extend and that shortly after the pretenders death, word got out that the lady was looking for her runaway daughter six. Unfortunately the only clue to her appearance was the yellow raincoat she was last seen in. At some point or another the girl in white (now wearing sixes yellow raincoat) was caught and mistaken for the ladys daughter, then immediately sent to the maw. Once the girl in white met the lady of the maw, the lady broke out in a fit of rage and attempted to kill the girl with her powers once she realized that this girl was not her real daughter six.

the ladys attempts to kill the girl in white failed as she escaped into the ducts and tunnels of the maw. The girl in white, albeit confused by the events that had transpired is able to piece together the fact that the girl in the yellow raincoat she met back at the pretenders estate was the daughter of the geisha and that her name was “Six”. The girl in white ultimately decides to adopt the name “Six” and make it her own, the girl has now become the Six we all have come to know in the little nightmares game.

in the maw, we see a picture of the little girl in a bright yellow dress with her face painted over, if what we can gather is true then perhaps this girl with her eyes painted over really was the previous six, she was the original girl in the yellow raincoat that died in very little nightmares.

these pictures might have been laid out to not only tell the audience more info on the lady and the maw but to also give the current six that we play as a better detailed explanation as to what kind of life the previous six came from.

after realizing who the previous six was and just what kind of place the maw is, there was only one thing left to do, escape.

unfortunately, sixes attempt to avoid capture from the lady was not something that she could easily avoid, why? because, aside from the guests, the staff and the lady, six now had a demonic entity following her around in the form of shadow six.

despite the fact that the wrong child was sent back to the maw, the demon really didn't care and instead decided to follow the new child around and determine if it was a better vessel for it to take.

it stayed close to her waiting for the moment that this new six would become a proper vessel as it influenced her hunger more and more. And as we all clearly saw near the end of the little nightmares game, that moment finally arrived when six defeated the lady and was influenced by the sin of gluttony to bite the ladys neck.

back when the lady betrayed the granny and receiving the demons powers, I can imagine that the scene happened similarly to how six received those same powers... it swarmed her in a cloud of little black specks, almost like flies. Which ironically enough, if you look up what demon represents the sin of gluttony you would come to find that it is Beelzebub, otherwise known as “the lord of the flies”! which is what appeared to be swarming around six, making a loud buzzing! sound...its a swarm of flies!.

But its not like six believed that she was scott free now that she left the maw. Soon after that, six must have realized the horrifying truth to her newly acquired powers, just like the previous ladys of the maw did. In the end, six still lost, she still wasn't free! and the only victor in the end was the demon, the sin of gluttony, residing inside her. So , whats going to happen to six now?

In the announcement of the little nightmares 2 game, a small figure was revealed to the audience .

this figure revealed six as giant and deformed, while mono, the newest character and lead protagonist of little nightmares 2, is small in comparison. If six really did discover the horrifying truth to her bizarre hunger pains and spontaneous power then she must know that the sin of gluttony is inside her... and she for one does not want it!

she wants the demon out of her, but six clearly has no idea how to get rid of it, and with the possibility of the sin of gluttony having to deal with a resisting host, it must be attempting to take control of six by turning her into a mindless monster like the rest of the people in the world. So how will six be able to fight off this entity inside her? why, with Monos help of course.

not much is known about mono but one thing is certain, mono is believed to be the only one with a solution to help six in her particular predicament, but more on him in another theory. In terms of what could help six I believe that the solution could be hinted in the one thing that the lady of the maw had shown the most emotion to... the mirrors.

in the game, before six fights the current lady, she finds a small mirror on a pillow sealed away in a room that has been boarded up.

But why?, aside from the one mirror that the lady keeps to check up on herself, why would she still keep this one small mirror when she could have easily just broken it like the rest...unless she couldn't. Through a little research it can be discovered that mirrors have a variety of superstitions tied to them, most commonly its said that mirrors have the ability to trap a persons soul. One other such superstition that can be discovered will tell us that mirrors were once used for something called Catoptromancy

Catoptromancy: a process used in ancient Greece that involved a sick person praying to the appropriate god or goddess, then lowering a mirror by a string into a fountain or well and examining the person'sface. Whether the person's reflection was ghastly or healthy marked the individual's death or recovery from their illness.

its possible that the mirror six found was once a mirror used for such a process, or was just in general, a blessed mirror!

judging by how old and dusty the room where the little mirror was, its clear that it had been there for a very long time, maybe even long enough to have belonged to the first lady of the maw!. Its unlikely that the first lady obtained this blessed mirror by herself, so perhaps a concerned relative or friend gave her the mirror in hopes of removing the demon inside her, but the lady wanted nothing to do with it. She couldn't’ break the mirror either since she couldn't touch blessed items now that she had a demon inside her. None of her staff could go near it either since they had all been influenced by the sin as well. In the end, the first lady had it placed on a pillow and locked it up in the darkest room she could find...never performing the final act of staring at her reflection.

that is until six found it... now supposedly this little mirror would need to be in water for such a process to work , well were are the current lady and six fighting? in the maw UNDER WATER!. When six used the mirror the mirror is only able to work in the light to properly reveal a reflection and seemingly “blast” the lady. Whats odd about this situation is that as six uses the the mirror, the mirror doesn't appear to be killing the lady!.

But if the mirror wasn't killing her, what was it doing? well, what if it was doing something far more painful... an exorcism!. What if the little mirror was actually separating the ladys soul from the clutches of the demon!, and when the mirror finally did finish its job, it broke,

leaving the lady exhausted on the floor, alive... the demon having finally been exercised from her body!

in the end though, none of this mattered, because the demon (aka the sin of gluttony) inside her had no plans to stick around her regardless of being exercised. In the final moment between six, the current lady and the sin of gluttony, the sin finally forced six to succumb to one last hunger pain and forced her to chomp on the ladys neck, and when she did the demon helped her finish the kill and ended the life of the lady it no longer had interest in staying in. Finally the sin of gluttony, the demon responsible for all the suffering and mayhem seen in the maw, possessed six.

but despite everything that had happened, if we think about the fact that magic exists in this world and the possibility that the mirror six used really did exercise the demon from the ladys body, then its likely that there may be other things in the world that have the ability to exercise a demon as well!

all six needs to do is find something that could remove the dark entity from her own body!

unfortunately, this also brings up a number of other questions, if the sin of gluttony really is out in the world causing all kinds of mayhem does that mean that the remaining 6 sins are also doing their fair share of things only through other people? who exactly is mono and how would he know how to help six, can six still use her powers in the second game? what of the other children in the world?, are there any normal adults? and most importantly, what in the heck is happening to the rest of the world in this game?!, but these are questions I will address in another theory, after all, its just a theory, a little nightmares theory !

#little nightmares #little nightmares 2 #little nightmares II #little nightmares six #little nightmares mono #little nightmares the lady #little nightmares 2 mono #little nightmares 2 six #six #mono #the lady #mono and six #little nightmares theories #little nightmares theory #very little nightmares #little nightmares secrets of the maw

76 notes · View notes

ayamari-no-goshi · 3 years

Text

Verboten 8 | (T)

ff.net | AO3

Fandom: Danny Phantom (DP)

Summary: AU. When Danny was five years old, he went missing for 2 weeks. In the years that follow, his family tried to make sense of what happened, only for the truth to be discovered years later.

Warnings: rated T for violence, mentions of death, language. Be prepared for some very weird things

Chapter warning: some gets physically sick, discussions of death

Parings: Danny/Sam

Notes: originally uploaded to Ff.net. Cross-posted to AO3 and tumblr. This fic is very heavily inspired by folklore surrounding mysterious wilderness disappearances

Chapter 8

"Hey, is it just me, or is the floor moving?" Danny questioned as he stared at the moving stone.

"No, it's not just you," Sam confirmed as she glanced at her friend. Although he was sitting rod straight as he watched, his coloration was still flickering, and there now seemed to be a green tinge to his cheeks.

"Don't you think we should run?" Tucker's question nearly made Sam snort. With Danny getting worse, there was no way he'd be able to escape with them.

Before anyone had a change to respond, the stone completely lifted and shifted to the side, exposing a hole. Seconds later, a furry head popped out. They watched in silent horror as it flicked one of its ears as if hear them and turned to face them.

The face that greeted them was terrifying. If Sam had to describe it, the appearance was like an angry polar bear who happened to have icy horns. Maybe calling it a yeti would be more accurate, but she could argue with herself about the semantics once she was out of this mess.

They just stared at the thing in the floor until it smiled at them. Whatever spell its sudden appearance held over them was broken, and they yelled in terror. There where several seconds of confusion as the three of them tried to escape. Tucker was halfway to the door while Sam tried to help Danny, who had fallen off the table, when the thing spoke.

"Children, please do not be alarmed," it gently requested as it raised itself up from the floor. Its entire body was covered in that same white fur, save for its one arm, which appeared to be made from ice. In an almost bemused afterthought, Sam noted it wore a blue clothing article which may have been a kilt. "We don't have much time before Plasmius returns."

When they didn't respond of move, the creature continued to speak as it tried to look as non-threatening as possible. "I am call Frostbite, the leader of the Far Frozen. I am lucky to have found out about you when I did. Plasmius has killed many humans in his experiments. If you allow me, I will help you return to your home."

"Why should we trust you? How do we know you won't take us somewhere and eat us?" Tucker demanded as he inched closer to Danny and Sam.

It laughed heartily at Tucker's question. "Myself as well as my clan do not eat people. We have made it the goal of our afterlives to try to assist as many wayward humans as we possibly can." Frostbite's smile faded. "However, I acknowledge your concern. This is the first time we have met, and if Plasmius has been your first encounter with the those of us from this realm, then you most likely do not think highly of us." It, possibly he, glanced at Danny as his coloration cycled again. "You are ill, and if you do not leave this place soon, you may not be able to return to the land of the living."

There was a tense moment as Sam and the boys stared at Frostbite. It… no, he… seemed genuine. Although his face was frightening, his eyes were sincere and almost seemed to plead with them.

"Alright," Danny eventually stated as he slowly stood, "but, you have to swear you won't hurt them!"

"I swear it on my honor, young one."

"Psst, Danny, what are you doing?" Tucker angrily whispered as he tugged on Danny's sleeve. "Are you trying to get us killed?"

"Call me crazy, but I think it's much less risky to go with him then it is to stay here and wait for Plasmius," Danny responded as he tested his footing. "He's a lot more honest than Plasmius, that's for sure."

"You noticed it too?" Sam was impressed he picked up on it. Although, Danny was often clueless when it came to certain social cues, particularly flirting, he did have an amazing talent for picking up on whether someone was being honest.

Tucker looked at both of them for a disbelieving moment before he shook his head. "Alright. I'll follow your lead on this, but if we get eaten, I'm blaming you."

"Young one, do you require assistance?" Frostbite asked as he eyed Danny, who appeared to be somewhat lightheaded as he tried to walk.

"It's Danny, and no, I can handle it."

A frown crossed Frostbite's face for a moment before he scurried forward and scooped Danny into his arms. "I understand your desire to escape on your own, but you are not well, and time is of the essence." Frostbite then instructed Sam and Tucker to enter the hole in the floor first. Once they were safely inside which was revealed to be a tunnel, he handed Danny to them. He then entered the tunnel and carefully replaced the floor's stone.

There was little light in the tunnel save for the slight glow Frostbite and occasionally Danny produced. As if sensing their concern, Frostbite held up his hand (or was it more of a paw?) and created a soft blue light. "This way, children," he instructed as he began to walk. "I am sorry I cannot produce a better light source, but if I generate much more energy, Plasmius may discover our location."

"I was wondering why we were doing things so old school," Tucker whispered.

As Sam rolled her eyes at him. If it wasn't for the fact she and Tucker were both supporting Danny as they walked, she probably would have smacked him for being rude. But, his statement did bring up an interesting point. "So, you could have gotten us out in an easier way, but Plasmius would have caught us?"

"Correct. Most sentient ghosts can easily phase through walls, unless the object is something native to this world or is coated in something that disrupts our powers or repels us. Plasmius' palace is unusual as much of it is created from materials taken from the human realm, but his reputation and the barrier he uses is able to keep most ghosts away. He is very unkind to trespassers." Frostbite glanced back at them. "I know young Danny's name, but I have yet to learn yours."

As weird as it sounded, Sam was embarrassed by that lapse in courtesy. She quickly introduced herself, and Tucker followed suit.

"Sam and Tucker! Such fitting names!" The strange ghost seemed pleased, but after a moment, he stopped walking, so he could turn and look at them. "Please alert me immediately if you notice you are not feeling well or notice something strange about yourself." After they promised, Frostbite nodded and continued forward. "This world can do strange things to those who unintentionally enter it, and there are many ways the changes can occur."

"Can… can I ask a question?" Once Frostbite agreed, Danny continued, "I'm sorry if this is a bit rude, but were you human?"

"That I was." The ghost didn't appear bothered by the question. "While many of my human memories have faded over time, I do remember that I was once an explorer. As for how I came this this realm, I am uncertain, but I do know that by the time I once again found a way back to the world of the living, I appeared much how you see me now. Many of my clan seem were also explorers or those who spent a great deal of time in the woods or mountains. We are not sure why we have taken this form, but we use it to our advantage. We often patrol areas where portal formation is common and try to scare humans away from them. However, more recently we have been finding more and more humans who seem to be looking for us." He seemed absolutely puzzled by the concept.

Sam shared a look with her friends. Did that mean that he and his clan were what people considered Bigfoot? Maybe she was reading too much into it, but that's what it seemed like.

"So, does that happen to everyone who dies? Cuz I don't know if I can handle the fact I might not keep these good looks when I die," Tucker whined.

The soft blue light flickered as Frostbite chuckled. "I don't believe you have to worry. While it is possible, you are unlikely to become a ghost if you expire outside of this realm. However, I am no expert regarding the mysteries of life and death."

"But what happens if you die here?" It was Sam's turn to ask a question.

"It seems to vary. Some die, but their souls do not remain here. For others, their body and soul mingle and change, creating a ghost."

"That almost sounds like a zombie," Sam mumbled to herself.

Frostbite chuckled again. "I understand why you would think as such. However, zombies can only exist in your world. They are corpses reanimated, often through magic, but lack a soul. For us, our earthly bodies are somehow a catalyst for the new form our soul takes, but even though I have seen it happen, I do not understand the process."

His explanation somewhat made sense, Sam mused. It also lined up with what Plasmius mentioned about how his experiments didn't always work. Although, it posed a more troubling question. What exactly would happen to Danny? If he really did die and become a ghost, did that mean there would be no body for his family to bury? It was a troubling thought that wouldn't go away no matter how much Sam tried to think of something else.

However, something Sam also noted was that Danny was avoiding asking questions regarding what was happening to him. Other than when his hands flickered in and out of visibility in the lab, he hadn't brought up the subject. It was possible he was focusing on escaping. However, with the new knowledge Frostbite had given them, he was probably in some sort of denial. She wasn't certain if she'd be able to be as calm if she was the one affected.

What seemed like an hour later, although her sense of time could have been altered due to the darkness, they finally reached the end of the tunnel. It wasn't a moment too soon as Danny had fainted when they had first caught sight of the exit. Once outside, she and Tucker carefully sat Danny down, so they could take a quick break. Once she was certain Danny was settled, she took the chance to look around.

In front of them was a think yet somewhat dead looking forest, like what they first found themselves in when they fled from the first ghost. Behind her was the tunnel which had been cut into what appeared to be a rock outcropping. If it wasn't for the strange coloration, it could have looked like something found in the forests back home.

She started when Frostbite gave a quick whistle. Moments later, four more ghosts who had similar appearances to Frostbite appeared from within the forest. They had to be part of the clan the ghost had mentioned while they were escaping. The group exchanged a few words before Frostbite beckoned to the humans behind him.

"Children, do not be alarmed. These are members of my clan, and they will be assisting us in your escape. However, we need to stop at our realm first as we have an object that will help us locate when and where a portal will open. I would also like to assess Danny's health." The ghost frowned at the form of the unconscious teenager. "You have probably guessed this realm has a grip on him, but he is resisting the change more intensely than I have ever seen."

"That means he'll be able to come home with us, right?" Tucker's question was full of a wary hope.

"I am… uncertain. We may have to seek the wisdom of an older entity to know for sure."

…

The world wouldn't stop spinning when Danny finally came to. After rolling over and relieving the contents of his stomach, he finally was able to think clearly enough to take stock of his surroundings. He was in what appeared to be some type of medical room. Although the walls appeared to be made of ice, there was a light and almost friendly atmosphere about the place.

A sound caught his attention, and he turned just in time to see white creature duck out of the room. Puzzled at the reaction, it wasn't until it returned to the room with Frostbite that he realized it was simply retrieving the other ghost.

"You've wakened, young one!" Frostbite seemed exuberant as he examined him. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I got spun around in one of those centrifuges at space camp way too many times," Danny replied as he rubbed his head. Although the dizziness had subsided, he still felt somewhat ill. "Where are Sam and Tucker?"

"They are resting in another room. They've been eagerly waiting for news of your awakening."

Danny sighed in relief at the news. "Will I be able to see them?"

"Absolutely, but first I would like to discuss something with you," Frostbite sat down at a chair near the bed Danny was using. Somewhat unnerved by how serious Frostbite seemed to be, he carefully sat up and gestured for him to continue. "Your circumstance is nothing like what any of us have ever seen before."

"My circumstance?" That didn't sound good. Did it have to do with something Plasmius did to him?

"Yes. Before I explain, I need to ask if you've eaten anything while you were here?"

Danny shook his head. "Unless Plasmius fed me something when I was unconscious, then no. Wait," he paused for a moment as he tried to remember what Plasmius had told him, "maybe? Plasmius said something about taking care of me when I got lost when I was six."

"How odd, but as you must have returned home afterwards, it might have something to do with the unexpected results. Did Plasmius explain what he wanted from you?"

"He wanted me as his heir? I think?" Before he or Frostbite could say anything else, Danny felt something clench in his navel. Immediately afterwards, what seemed to be a flash of light momentarily blinded him. Terrified, he yelped and tried to move away. "What-what just happened?"

"This is what I have need to discuss with you." The ghost then rose and picked Danny off the bed before carefully setting him down in front of a mirror at the far end of the room.

It was the first time since he had come to this world that he had a chance to take stock of himself. However, the image looking back at him wasn't what he was expecting. His eyes weren't his usual blue but were instead an unnatural green. His skin had tanned, but the color somehow seemed unhealthy. His hair was now a silvery white instead of his black, and if he wasn't imaging it, he was admitting a slight glow. "What's wrong with me?" he asked in a horrified whisper.

Before he could get his answer, he felt the clench in his navel again. When the light subsided, he was greeted with the reflection of how he originally looked. Uncertain if his mind was playing tricks on him, he checked his hands and what he could of his bangs. Everything appeared normal.

"Usually," Frostbite started, which caused Danny to pause his examination and look at the ghost," when this world claims someone, they can no longer return to their human form. If they do, they often end up dead. You are somehow able to keep your human form, yet you produce a ghost form. In all my years, I have never seen such a thing."

"What exactly does that mean? What am I?"

"Unfortunately, I do no know. From what our tests showed, you have both a functioning human heart and a ghostly core, which is our equivalent of a heart. You've been switching back and forth between forms for some time."

======================================

Notes:

1) So… the Bigfoot mention. This is something that I've heard before. There are 2 major lines of thought regarding the famous cryptid. 1) Bigfoot is a flesh and blood creature, and 2) Bigfoot is an interdimensional, extraterrestrial, or spiritual entity (I seriously had a professor who believed Bigfoot could travel through dimensions. He even wrote papers about it). For this story, I'm going with the concept that people are catching brief glimpses of Frostbite and his people as they patrol areas known for spontaneous portal openings.

Interdimensional aspects are popping up more and more when it comes to paranormal topics, and they're a major theory when it comes to unexplained disappearances and weird creatures. Personally, I find the concept intriguing, but it's not something that can currently be proven. Though… there are a lot of rumors about how CERN is trying to do that. I know that group is just supposed to be studying particles and quantum physics, but there are sooooo many weird rumors about CERN.

2) For this story, I'm borrowing the type of idea where a ghost can't be created unless its former vessel (body) is used as a medium. You see things like this for Revenants, Strigoi Mort (Romanian ghost/zombie/vampire thing), and Gjenganger (Scandinavian ghost/zombie thing similar to a Dragur), and others. For those stories, the only way to get rid of them is to damage/destroy the body in specific ways which vary from region to region.

3) human centrifuges are real things. They are used by to help test the effects of G-forces on people, and astronauts receive training to handle said forces in them. They do, at least used to have, a version of it at space camp.

13 notes · View notes

bcrsenthor · 3 years

Text

LORE | MUSINGS | ABOUT | AESTHETIC

JESSICA CHASTAIN // have you met THE BARSEN’THOR / OUTLANDER yet? SHE is a THIRTY-THREE year old DEMIGIRL TWI’LEK. they’re originally from BALMORRA and now show loyalty to THE NEUTRAL. they are best known for being an ALLIANCE COMMANDER, and i hear they’re pretty DILIGENT yet also STUBBORN at times; i hope they survive the clone wars. (YELLOW, 22, GMT, SHE/THEY/HE)

THE PAST

The Barsen’thor, given name Melyn Nos, become a Jedi Initiate at three years old, found on a ransacked ship leaving Balmorra by Jedi Knights Syo Bakarn and Satele Shan.

As a youngling, she was present for the Sacking of Coruscant, and attack by the Empire that destroyed the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. This attack inspired her to dedicate her life to healing.

As a Padawan, she was sent to Tython to train under Jedi Master Yuon Parr.

Yuon Parr fell sick with a mysterious illness, and along with the Trandoshan Qyzen Fess Melyn travelled to Coruscant to find a cure.

Melyn learnt a powerful shielding ritual from the Noetikon of Secrets that allowed her to protect others from the illness at the cost of her own strength.

Melyn travelled the galaxy to cure other Jedi Masters who had fallen sick, taking on Tharan Cedrax and Holiday along with her as allies.

After confronting and saving the source of the illness, former Jedi Parkanas Tark, Melyn was granted the title Barsen’thor as recognition of her sacrifice and dediction.

As a representative of the Jedi Order, Melyn was sent to mend relations with the Rift Alliance, an alliance of Republic planets that threatened to secede due to fading faith in the Republic.

Here, Melyn met Nadia Grell, a Force-sensitive Sarkhai who would soon become her Padawan.

While assisting the Rift Alliance, Melyn became aware of the Children of the Emperor, Imperial Sleeper Agents programmed with alternate personalities to keep their true identities hidden from even themselves.

The War between the Empire and the Republic was renewed. Melyn and the Rift Alliance were given a new task of hunting down the Children of the Emperor, forming alliances with those who could support the Republic War Effort along the way.

Eventually, on Corellia, Melyn was able to confront and save the First Son, the leader of the Children of the Emperor. As recognition of her skill in mending the rift and saving the First Son, Melyn was granted a position upon the Jedi Council.

Over the following year, Melyn assisted the Republic War Effort wherever possible, eventually taking part in the Korriban Incursion and meeting SIS Agent Theron Shan, son of the then-Grandmaster of the Jedi Order.

Theron voiced suspicion of his superior motives in ordering the Korriban Incursion and looked to Melyn as an ally, calling her to Manaan to investigate his findings.

On Manaan, Melyn met Sith Lord Lana Beniko, a contact of Theron’s who had similar suspicions of her own superiors.

Together, Lana, Theron and Melyn discovered that their superiors were not loyal to the Republic or the Empire, but rather to the Revanites, a group of fanatical cultists who claimed to follow the teachings of Darth Revan.

The Revanites planned to assist the reborn Revan in his plan to resurrect the Emperor of the Sith. The Coalition was formed of forces from both the Republic and the Empire, under the command of Satele Shan and Darth Marr respectfully, to stop the Revanites plans, however, they were unsuccessful.

The Reborn Emperor attacked Ziost. Despite efforts made by Lana, Theron and Melyn, the Emperor destroyed all life on the planet to fuel himself.

A new faction known as the Eternal Empire made itself known, based on the planet Zakuul and ruled by the former Sith Emperor, Valkorion, and his children Arcann and Vaylin.

Melyn and Darth Marr were captured by the Eternal Empire, with Marr being killed when he refused to bow to Valkorion.

Arcann betrayed his father, killing Valkorion’s body. However, Valkorion’s spirit attached itself to Melyn’s. Fearing his father’s wrath, Arcann accused Melyn of killing Valkorion, entrapping her in carbonite as punishment for ‘her’ crime.

Five years passed, and Melyn was rescued by Lana Beniko, the droids T3-M4 and HK-55 and a former member of the Zakuul military Koth Vortena, who hoped she could use her skills to save the galaxy from the Eternal Empire, which had ravaged the galaxy while Melyn was trapped.

While escaping Zakuul, they were assisted by Senya Tirall, a former Knight of Zakuul, who Melyn later discovered was the former wife of Valkorion and mother to Vaylin and Arcann.

Valkorion’s spirit remained in Melyn’s body, sending her nightmares, occasionally speaking to her and offering her his power. She accepted his power only once, to protect Lana from a supposedly deadly attack.

The group travelled to Asylum, where they were attacked by Arcann. HK-55 sacrificed himself to protect Melyn, but despite this she was gravely injured, saved only by Valkorion’s power sustaining herself.

After the encounter on Asylum, the group travelled to Odessen, where Lana and Theron had built an Alliance of individuals from Republic, Imperial and neutral backgrounds joined together by their desire to defeat Zakuul.

Due to her history leading alliances, open-minded nature and strength as a former Jedi, Melyn was unanimously chosen as the Commander of the Alliance.

The Alliance began its war against Zakuul, finding allies where it could and aiming to defeat Arcann.

During this time, Melyn entered into a relationship with Lana, trusting her completely despite their warring factions.

After Melyn’s supposedly final confrontation with Arcann she believed that he had perished, however, he had been saved and spared by his mother Senya. Melyn chose to allow Senya to leave with Arcann, trusting in her ability to redeem her son.

Vaylin took control of Zakuul’s Eternal Empire, and their attacks became even more ruthless, and the Alliance struggled to defend against her.

Vaylin discovered the Alliance’s base of operations and launched an attack on Odessen. During this attack, Melyn was forced to choose between saving the twi’lek Vette or the Mandalorian Torian Cadera.

Melyn chose to save Torian, and Vette was killed in front of her by Vaylin. In retaliation, Melyn killed Vaylin, which is a choice she lived to regret.

Finally, Melyn’s last task was to travel to Zakuul and claim the Eternal Throne, which would allow her to end Zakuuls reign.

After claiming the Eternal Throne, Valkorion attempted to take total control over Melyn’s body, intending to use her as his new vessel and return to power.

With assistance from Senya, Arcann and Vaylin’s spirit, Melyn was able to fight against Valkorion and regain control of her body.

Melyn renamed the Alliance the Eternal Alliance, and handed control of Zakuul back to its politicians. The Eternal Alliance remained to maintain the peace between Zakuul and the rest of the galaxy, and to help the damaged Republic and Imperial territories that were suffering after Zakuul’s conquest.

Despite the political pressure, Melyn refused to return to the Jedi Order or ally the Eternal Alliance with the Republic. Melyn wished for the Eternal Alliance to remain a neutral faction, as she saw beauty in the act of the Republic and Empire working as one.

THE PRESENT

Melyn awoke on Odessen, which wasn’t that surprising for her until she discovered that the planet that had previously been populated by her Eternal Alliance now seemed to be populated by no one.

Her confusion and curiosity warred. She found herself considering many different possibilities, but remains unsure of what’s happening.

Stranded and with no other option, she’s left reaching out in the Force for help, hoping that an ally picks up on her message eventually.

PERSONALITY

Melyn used to be considered a model Jedi. Nowadays, she’d give most Jedi a heart attack.

Above all else, Melyn prioritises personal choice. If you make poor decisions because you felt you had no other choice, she will do whatever it takes to give your choice back to you. If you take away the choice of others she will hate you.

She loves learning about other cultures, no matter how different they are to her own - for example, she considers herself to be quite knowledgable of Trandoshan culture thanks to her friend Qyzen.

Debate her about the Force and you will never get her to shut up. She thinks it’s fascinating and loves to hear new perspectives, even if those perspectives are a bit on the darker side.

She’s an idealist, and struggles when put into situations where her ideals aren’t possible. She thinks often of times where she has had to compromise her ideals and feels a lot of guilt for them.

She’s very self-sacrificing and doesn’t prioritise her own safety - except for when her safety is necessary for the safety of others. The concept of fighting for herself is foreign to her.

She’s powerful in the Force, and as a result always carries herself with confidence. She knows that there isn’t much that could harm her. At times, this can make her arrogant and can result in her under-estimating her opponents.

Since becoming Commander of the Eternal Alliance, working alongside Lana Beniko and listening to the teachings of Satele Shan and Darth Marr, her idea of the Force has changed. She claims that the Force isn’t a thing of Dark or Light, though even in her own time such claims were... rarely humoured. Her alignment is mostly Light, for what it’s worth, though she also sometimes utilises her emotions and passions while fighting. She would have a lot to say about this topic.

#galactics.intro #[ this is long #i tried to condense 10 years of an mmo into one post #i skipped over some things so if anyones interested in more info on anything feel free to hmu!#the stuff i talk abt in her personality section also all has backing in canon i just. didnt want to make this much longer fsdhdfsh ]

3 notes · View notes

queerchoicesblog · 4 years

Text

Paris, Paris

Hiya, folks! So, as previously announced, the wlw writing project continues after a break with a miniseries set back in the City of Lights - & Love - at the time of the Belle Epoque, at the turn of the century.

The story begins with an introductory chapter dedicated to our main character, Léa, a young seamstress from a provincial town with a lust for life. And a ticket to “The First Palace of Women”, the Moulin Rouge.

Hope you enjoy it: if you do, please consider spreading the word!

Next chapter out on Monday...

Tagging: @scottishqueer

_______________________

I can hardly remember my life back in Roscoff. The only things that come to my mind are the thick midst and the omnipresent smell of tar that never leave you no matter how hard you try to wash it away. Father was a fisherman and his local fishing trophies are the greatest achievement my family has accomplished through the years. A big deal and a matter of pride in sad old Roscoff where nothing ever happens. Apparently, the only way to make the passage of time more bearable is sailing off to the sea and making your family grow. By the number of brothers and sisters I left back there, Mother spent most of her life pregnant and looking after children, I guess. She never complained though: she believes it's what a good wife must do, God's will. She goes to church every Sunday and slapped whoever of us refused to go or pretended to be sick to get more sleep. She used to say we were slapping God in His face being so childish and selfish: didn't God sacrifice His son for us all? Enough with stupid ungratefulness, mass was approaching fast and she didn't want to be late.

When uncle Yves visited and mentioned that one of his clients -he was a merchant in a bigger town on the coast- was moving to Paris and was looking for a maid, I didn't have to think twice. I was barely sixteen, the only daughter old enough to aspire to job to avoid a certain fate: being married off to one of the young lads helping Father. The lustful smirk he used to throw me crossed my mind and I practically begged my uncle to put a good word for me: I was a hard worker, they would have never heard a complain from me, ever. Thank God, it worked. I don't know what my uncle said him but the client hired me and Father agreed too. One stomach less to feed, he shrugged silencing Mother's protest before adding "but you will send some money back home. Never forget who raised you, little girl, your beloved parents, your siblings". I kept the promise but soon forgot them: the only one I will never forget is little Ludvine, who pulled at my skirt and cried desperate tears during my last night at home. She begged me to stay or to bring her with me. The only promise I could offer her was to write her, she could ask one of our siblings to read her my letters: we weren't exactly erudite but the local priest taught us the basics. That calmed her down a little. So on a cloudy wintry morning at dawn I bid my farewell to Roscoff and walked away without looking back. Pretending not to hear Ludvine sobs was the hardest part. If only I had known I would have never seen her again, I would have run back and held her in my arms a bit longer. A couple of years later I received a letter from Mother: my little sister had fallen badly ill and never recovered, the physician said tubercolosis. I couldn't even attend the funeral due to work. That was the only time I regretted leaving. It didn't last long though. I still grieve her loss but Paris is a whole new world, a world I like way more than my old village. Paris is the centre of the world: I saw it written in capitals letters on a newspaper one day. I am not wealthy enough to have an informed opinion on the topic but after five years, I can say it's true. At least for me: I haven't seen the rest of the world but here everything changes so fast, the life runs in a relentless intoxicating rhythm that leaves you breathless and dizzy. My first times here weren't that great to be honest. Working as a maid made me feel quite lonely: I couldn't explore around, the rest of the staff and I didn't get on well for some reason I have never fully understood. I worked three years there though then I found a job as a seamstress. I moved in a shared flat with a colleague that eventually became my first real friend in Paris, lovely chatty Marie from Argenteuil. "There, how does this one look?" She turns towards me expectantly, showing off the second hat option for the evening. I apply rouge on my lips and turns towards her. "This one is better" I smile before resuming my makeup. "And will surely sweep our good Alain off his feet" I tease. It's no secret that Alain, the charming carpenter we met at a ballroom one night is falling for Marie. He's not even that subtle about it and I'm positive his feelings are requited. Well, if the big smiles my roommate flashes him every time he's around and the extra attention she puts in choosing her outfit when we go out are any indication. We're waiting for him and his friend Marcel, who works in the boulangerie down the street, for a night out. We've grown a solid friendship through the years: we're young, the boys are funny and well behaved as far as we can tell, and most importantly we want to live Paris to its fullest, have fun in these crazy times we live in. "You sure?" Marie asks, materialising behind me to check her outfit in the only cracked mirror of the room. "Wanna bet? He will have eyes for you only, sweetness" I wink at her reflection. As if on cue, a tiny rock hits our window and a long whistle from the street announces that the boys are here at last. Late as usual but we're used to it by now. After one last minute check to our makeup and outfits, I grab our coats and playfully push Marie out of the room. "Hurry, we're late!" We run down the stairs laughing, thrilled by the mysterious surprise Marcel mentioned the other day. He's the one greeting us first with his signature smirk. "Ready for the night of your life, ladies?" He offers me his arm while Marie runs straight into Alain's arms. We already know how this is gonna end. And we're not wrong: it's a matters of what? Minutes before Alain and Marie are lost in conversation a few steps behind us, all smiles and whispers. Two fools lost to young love. I shake my head and turn towards Marcel who mimics my gesture. Awfully predictable. After a little small talk, I'm unable to refrain my curiosity about his announcement any longer. So as he lights his cigarette, I ask: "Hey, didn't you mention a surprise for tonight?" "Oh right!" he blows off the smoke and searches his pocket. Then, with a winning smirk he produces a bunch of tickets and rises them over his head, turning back to our friends. "Hey lovebirds, wanna hear about the surprise I have store for the night?" No answer comes, they didn't even hear him. He meets my gaze again and we burst into a laughter. "The hell with them, Léa, they would follow us straight into the city jail if we were silly enough to put on such prank" he chuckles before showing me the tickets in his hand. "Voila and now tell me your dear Marcel is a good for nothing!" he exclaims with great pride. I take a look at them and I gape at the name typed on top of a windmill sketch. It cannot be happening! "The Moulin Rouge? 'The First Palace of Women' that opened last month-" "Precisement, ma chére" I can hardly believe to my ears. A cheer leaves my lips and I press a kiss on his cheeks out of excitement, making him laugh again. "You're not kidding, right?" Getting tickets for the dance shows is almost impossible as far as I now: the Moulin Rouge is the talk of the town and everybody with enough money to afford a ticket is there at night. To be fair, the tickets aren't that expensive, surprisingly, but we're not paid good enough to be so lucky to be there all the time. But I keep hearing wonders about it. It sells the finest champagne and wildest dreams, the advertisement says. Marcel shakes his head beaming. "How did you do it?" He leans closer and whispers, his voice low as if his confession was a secret: "I have friends in high places" At my confused look, he adds: "By high places I mean in the orchestra. Lucien plays the drums and snitched the tickets for us" I give a playful shove to his shoulder and he throws a look at the little clock at his wrist. "Shit!" he curses underneath his breath. "The show's about to start, we must hurry" "But Pigalle is a few blocks away!" He grabs my hand and looks at me: "Then we'll run"

#wlw writing #wlw writing project #original work #wlw miniseries #lgbtq #belle epoque #paris

11 notes · View notes

sharinluna · 4 years

Text

Chapter 16 Analysis - The Greatest of These is Love

I try to stick to the canon English version text as much as possible. But in this analysis I had to take some liberties and merge my own translation, because sometimes Elex translation just doesn’t fit with the purpose of my analysis. So please excuse me.

1. Hades’s Reset Plan

A Black Swan member called Hades is trying to put his Reset Plan to action.

Hades: Complete slaughter is the highest respect one can pay to a civilization. Not everyone is fit to become an Evolver. This world belongs to us, and those low-level creatures that do nothing but breed had lived too long.

The rest of Black Swan is skeptical about this plan however, calling it “a powerless clown’s ridiculous trick.” However, Hades thinks the Reset Plan should be carried out because “the previous operations were too slow.”

We can speculate here that what Hades’s trying to do is considered unreasonably aggressive and nonsensically radical even to Black Swan. Hades wants Ares to work with him, but Ares maintains a “Let’s see how well you do on your own first” attitude.

2. Flu Investigation

The news on the TV was talking about a new, mysterious flu that was sweeping the city. The presenting symptoms were the same as regular flu: cold, fever, weakness. They’re calling it a flu, but none of the current antibiotics or cold medications are effective against it. There haven’t been any deaths, but the number of infected has been steadily increasing. The national laboratories have all been working to find a pathogen, but to no result. The virus is spreading faster than anything, and lack of information is making people more worried.

Perry from chapter 15 had this flu. It seems that this strange influenza is spreading. When Yōurán arrives at her office, she overhears the security guards talking and gets suspicious.

Guard A: Did you hear? Smitty got sick. His wife said he couldn’t remember her.

He didn’t even remember his own wife… How is that a symptom of a flu?

Gavin is away and Victor is in the future. Lucien turned Ares on her and Kiro is missing. Yōurán consults the only Evolver she knows: Dr. Song(the Evolver doctor from chapter 13). They figure out the truth of this flu.

Yōurán: Demographics typically vulnerable to diseases like the elderly and small children only make up a small percentage of the infected. Most are in their primes.

Usually, the elderly and small children who have weaker immune systems are the likely target for the flu. But this time, it’s the opposite. Healthy, young people are getting infected by this new flu instead.

Dr. Song: That’s right. Aside from that, I’ve found that out of all the infected, not one is an Evolver. My guess is that the virus is selecting based on genetics.

As the both women figure out, the virus is intentionally infecting healthy, strong, ordinary non-Evolvers.

Later, Yōurán goes to visit a flu patient.

His file said he’d been in a coma for about 10 days, during which he got up once as if sleep walking and tried to assault bystanders with a blunt object. His symptoms were the same as Perry.

She uses her powers to see the man’s future to get the next clue.

I saw him fallen on the ground, his face pale, his eyes about to bulge out of his head, his entire body shaking.

Pretty familiar with Perry at the end of chapter 15, right?

Let’s link their findings with Hades’s Reset Plan. I’m going to guess what Hade’s Reset Plan is in four steps.

Step 1: Hades spreads the virus.

Step 2: The virus infects healthy non-Evolvers who are likely to survive the symptoms.

Step 3: Some people manage to overcome the virus by “evolving”, aka attaining Evol genes and becoming Evolvers. Those who cannot form Evol genes or cannot handle the process die.

Step 4: All non-Evolvers are dead and only Evolvers are left on this earth.

3. Two Conflicting Feelings.

News: Lucien Bioscience Research Center announced a press conference for tomorrow regarding a new reagent targeting the recent flu outbreak.

It had been a long while since I’d heard that name. Ever since that day he disappeared from my life. I asked myself once, did I hate him? But the answer was no. This world is not black and white, and I won’t judge people using just one perspective of right and wrong.

Even though Lucien “betrayed” Yōurán in chapter 13, she can’t hate him. Still, it hurts so much that she doesn’t want to think about him ever again. But that alone tells us that she has lingering feelings for him yet.

I didn’t know what I was running away from. Was I scared to hear those doubts I’d already heard straight from his mouth? Did I want to avoid confirming that this virus was connected to him, so that my rational mind wouldn’t be able to connect the dots? Or was it… that I just didn’t want to face him?

She has two conflicting feelings. She wants to go to the conference and see Lucien again, but at the same time, she wants to stay far away from him to avoid dealing with all this.

In flight or fight, Yōurán has never chosen the former. She decides to go to the press conference regardless of what the consequences might be.

4. The Press Conference

The press conference is my favorite scene in chapter 16 nay, the entire End of Abyss arc. Sadly, I saw a lot of translation errors in this part and some word choices were just not adequate. So please excuse me if some of the quotes are not exactly word-for-word of the Elex version text.

Lucien: I wish that more people would be test subjects. The advance of science is a continuous sacrifice. And deaths and injury along the way due to mistakes are inevitable.

I couldn’t help but worry for him. What was Lucien trying to do speaking cruel truths so frankly? For him, this was all perfectly reasonable. An unpleasant feeling welled up inside me. I wanted to get out of here.

Notice here that Yōurán doesn’t exactly think that Lucien is wrong. She just thinks that he is being cruel. She said earlier that she doesn’t hate Lucien based on the fact that there’s no one correct principle of right and wrong. However, his nonchalant attitude of accepting inevitable deaths as “reasonable” is what upsets her.

Yōurán: I want to ask Professor Lucien a question. What is this “sacrifice” you speak of?

Lucien: Physiological death.

Yōurán: That is to say, it’s normal to sacrifice the minority for the whole of society?

Lucien: Yes. I personally wholeheartedly agree with this statement.

It’s easy to misunderstand her stance on this because Yōurán is against sacrifice in general. But she doesn’t say that sacrifice should be forbidden at all costs. However, a society that demands individual sacrifice to maintain itself is problematic.

Lucien: Like the classic Trolley Problem. Choosing left or right will both land you in a moral quandary. But in reality, whether it’s for societal advancement or not, many people will be eliminated for a variety of reasons, by death or other means. So whether we want to face it or not, survival of the fittest is an eternal principle of existence. It’s what keeps humanity going.

Yōurán: In your eyes, is life so capricious? All life forms should be respected. Every one of us is doing their best to survive. It’s what every person desires and deserves. Their will to keep on living is their right. And you can’t deprive people of this.

Lucien talks that the survival of the fittest is the principle, while Yōurán talks about the natural rights that all people are inherently born with. Every individual on earth have a right to live. She is asking Lucien: Are you so readily throwing that out the window for the continuation of the rest of society?

Yōurán: Maybe you didn’t notice, but there are hospitals full of critically ill people. They may be comatose, but their consciousness still cling to life. Kids in foster care, the broke and homeless, they’re all struggling to survive.

I was confused at first when she said this, but now I understand what she is saying. There may be some volunteers for Lucien’s research, but believing that all test subjects will be willing participants is naïve.

Realistically, homeless people, those who can’t afford continued medical care, or people who have little to no financial support will be the ones who’ll be so-called “volunteers” for this experiment. While the rich sit back and wait for the cure to come out that’s based on the lives of these unfortunate sacrifices. Sacrificing these people with low socioeconomic status to sustain the rest in the name of “survival of the fittest” is a form of discrimination.

Lucien: You have a point. But you speak from the point of view of the minority, and therein arises the paradox. People cannot think in purely logical terms. That is a property of the divine. From primitive society to today, humanity has been sacrificed in political struggle, and died on the battlefields of war. But for some of these people, that sacrifice has been pointless. Fairness is not the only principle. As a cornerstone of civilization, survival stands above all. If it can bring incredible progress, then that sacrifice shouldn’t even require their permission.

But to Lucien, all of that throughout the history of wars and political struggle can be justified in the name of survival. He goes further and says that for survival, people should be sacrificed even against their will.

Sidenote: My thoughts.

Figuring out what’s right and wrong is always difficult and there’s no one right answer. But I lean more on Yōurán’s side. Historically, researches like Lucien’s have always been unethical. We should outgrow the necessary evil of human subject research.

“Sacrifice the few for the whole” is a touchy subject. In reality, many people in position of power or the majority have used that logic to justify their oppression of the minority. And many times humanity chose to sacrifice a small part of their society instead of looking for an alternate solution because it’s more efficient or faster.

Even if sacrifices are unavoidable, the attitude of how you treat people to be sacrificed is important. Do you respect them and feel guilty? Are you careful not to treat them as mere tools for a goal? Did you try your very best to minimize the sacrifice? Did you keep looking for other options until there was absolutely no choice left? I’m afraid that Lucien’s answers for these questions would be all negatives. He is too practical. He doesn’t care about sentiment. If it’s a way to solve problems efficiently he just does it with no emotional attachments, because they are a hindrance to achieving what has to be done.

But when it comes to these matters, maybe we need some hindrances that come from our conscience. Maybe feeling regret is the courtesy we owe to the people we killed so that we could live. Being indifferent to sacrifices is worse than the sacrifice itself. Reluctance and hesitance should always be accompanied when deciding whether we should sacrifice or not. Because when sacrificing a part of us becomes too easy, we will keep chucking out bits and pieces until there is none of us left.

5. Trying to Sever Ties (and Failing)

The conversation between the two becomes more personal at this point.

Yōurán: If… the person to be sacrificed was you, would you be willing?

Lucien: I would. If it meant allowing humanity to take a great stride forward, I would happily do so.

Yōurán: And what if it was someone important to you?

But Lucien just looks at her, not answering the question. Thinking that the unspoken answer is “Yes”, Yōurán falls into despair. At this point, she gives up on him.

Yōurán: Thank you for your answer, and good luck with your research, but I could never support your beliefs. Because in my heart there’s something that will always be more important than survival.

In chapter 16, Yōurán tries to sever all ties with Lucien, but she still has lingering attachments. I already said this in my chapter 15 analysis. The importance of “bonds” is a key element in her nature. No matter how hard she tries, her connection to Lucien can never be cut. Even if it pains her, she cannot bring herself to discard it.

Yōurán: My relationship with Professor Lucien is purely for business, and in the future Miracle Finder will have a new program consultant. I ask that everyone focus on the press conference. Excuse me.

Later she founds out that she left behind the pen Lucien gave her. She can’t abandon it and goes back for it, but when she’s found it she gives it back to Lucien.

Lucien gave her the pen as a way of giving his heart and she is giving it back to him. But because of what happened in chapter 13 he understands and accepts it back.

However, he’s not so accepting that he’s losing yet another connection with her: an excuse to approach her again. Probably the last one left.

Lucien: I just learned I’ve been let go from Miracle Finder. Is it out of line to ask for an explanation?

Yōurán: You’ve strayed from the principles that Miracle Finder strives to uphold. In my mind, the Miracle Finder is about justice and tolerance.

Lucien: Very understandable. I accept your explanation.

Yōurán refuses him because their principles are complete opposite. Lucien accepts her decision but this time she’s the one who’s hesitant to let him go.

Yōurán: Wait! Are you connected with this recent flu?

Please, oh please let your answer be no.

She is just desperately clutching at straws here. She knows what the answer is.

Lucien: Yes.

Hearing those words, something came crashing down in my heart.

Confirmation that she and Lucien are walking different paths.

6. Even if I Had the Gift of Prophesy

Lucien: The justice and goodness you uphold, has it gotten you the results you want? Is that what you think is more important than survival? I’d also like to know, in the face of what you value, would you sacrifice someone important to you?

In the press conference, Yōurán asked Lucien if he would sacrifice someone important for his survival of the fittest belief. Here Lucien is asking her the same thing. Would she abandon someone important to her to uphold her belief of what’s right?

Before she can answer, she is attacked (by Hades) and Lucien instantly pulls her into his arms protecting her.

An instant worry and fear flashed in his eyes, as if… he was afraid of losing something precious. But that look vanished instantly.

Time seemed to have jumped back to a month ago, when he was still Lucien. At that time he was also holding me tight like this… protecting me.

Yōurán: Are you alright? Thanks for saving me.

Lucien: I was just ensuring your safety.

Yōurán: My safety…. is needed in your plan, right?

Lucien: Of course. I don’t engage in worthless endeavors.

The last time we faced off, the people dressed in black also said to make sure I was alive. It was always like that. So all those times he protected me before was also like that.

To Yōurán, it seems like Lucien is saving her just because he needs her alive to use in his scheme. That his feelings for her were not real.

Lucien: Now, answer my question.

Lucien was still blocking my path. I couldn’t see his face clearly through the haze. Maybe this haziness was for the better.

To Yōurán, Lucien’s true intentions has always been vague since chapter 13. Does he care for her? Or was all that a lie? Him giving mixed signals in chapter 16 certainly doesn’t help.

In the end, she decides to go along with this vagueness. She cannot abandon her principles nor can she abandon her ties with Lucien. Without the haze, she would have to face the fact that Lucien is blocking her “path” her belief. In ambiguity, she doesn’t have to choose one for the other.

Yōurán: I wouldn’t. If I had the gift of prophesy and knew all kinds of secrets and knowledge… If I had faith to move mountains, but didn’t have love, then none of it would count for anything. The truth of this world unfolds itself for people only through disappointment and suffering. Even if the light’s source is put out, I’d still try to keep my own shining. No matter how difficult, or how dark it gets. Or how foolish or ridiculous. Someone very important to me once taught me that, and I’ll never forget it.

Lucien first quoted The Corinthians in chapter 13 “For now we see through a glass, darkly.”

Now, Yōurán is quoting lines from The Corinthians too. “If I had the gift of prophesy and knew all kinds of secrets and knowledge… If I had faith to move mountains, but didn’t have love, then none of it would count for anything.”

It’s delicious irony that Lucien is the one who taught her to keep following her own principle when he himself is against it.

In this scene, Yōurán’s greatest strength shines in her words. She may not have powers to move mountains, she may not have all secrets and knowledge. But she has faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. Against all odds, she will never stop pursuing the light.

7. Despite Everything, My Heart Still Goes out to You

In a flash, an unlikely person popped into my head. Why would I think of him? The next image in my mind was the anxious way he looked at me during that danger just now. I closed my eye and decided to take a chance. That he’d save me, that what I’d seen in his eyes was really there.

After their confrontation, Yōurán faces danger in a deserted alley. She remembers the fleeting moment when she thought she saw genuine fear in Lucien’s eyes and decides to gamble on that to ensure her safety.

Also, even with her multiple tries to sever Lucien from her heart, in times of danger, her thoughts automatically go to him. At the least, Ares said that he needed her alive for his scheme.

And she won in this gamble. Because he did come for her.

Yōurán: Did you really come to save me?

Lucien: I am a man of my word.

Yōurán: Is that also for your goal too?

Lucien: Yes.

Although I had guessed it, hearing it from his own mouth made my heart sink.

Lucien is only telling the half-truth here. His heart truly yearns for her and wants her to be safe. But he doesn’t tell her that, letting Yōurán think that she is just a means to his end.

Meanwhile, Yōurán is still wavering between seeing him as Lucien and seeing him as Ares. Her head tells her that he is her enemy Ares, but her heart keeps pining after Lucien, the gentle scholar who asked her to teach him how to love in New Light Date.

But we already know what her answer will be. She subconsciously keeps reaching out for him.

Lucien: Why aren’t you asking me about what just happened?

Yōurán: But you’re bleeding…

She just saw Lucien kill a man in cold blood(well, it turns out later that this was just a dream and not real but still) but instead of being scared she is worried that he is injured.

Hades thinks that Yōurán is Ares’s weak spot and tries to use her to threaten Ares into working with him.

Lucien: You think the weak spots I let you see, are really weak spots?

But Lucien is one step of Hades. He already knew that Hades would try to get to Yōurán and devised a way to get back at him.

Lucien: Remember the exit I told you about. Cross over. Don’t hesitate.

My heart sunk like lead, and a sudden, intense feeling of dread welled up, almost to my throat.

Lucien: Now, leave my side.

Yōurán: No! You…

Lucien: Do as I say. I will find you.

He spoke in that familiar old tender tone, and then the next second, he shoved me away.

Yōurán: Lucien!

Lucien turned his head and gazed into my eyes. His eyes were as before, tender as the falling tide. There was even a hint of a warm, crisp smile, the likes of which I never saw before.

This smile is probably the most earnest expression he made to her. Pure and sincere with no hidden sides.

I’d never imagined I’d face a situation like this with Lucien. I ran on, and the sound of fighting in the distance grew more intense, along with my tears. I kept telling myself, Lucien would be fine. He was clearly my enemy, only saving me for his own purposes. I had resolved to be done with him… So why does it hurt so much?

I stopped, my trembling body simply unable to take the next step. My heart felt like it was being ripped apart. I couldn’t breathe as if someone was gripping my heart tightly.

As she is running towards the exit that Lucien told her, Yōurán keeps telling herself, Ares is my enemy. I shouldn’t be connected to him anymore. But her heart, her reasons for going on in life, are based on the bonds she’d formed with others, including Lucien. How can she cut that lose when he’s a part of herself?

8. Will You Sacrifice Someone Important to You?

Hades: Ares, I’ll give you one last chance, join me. I will create a world different from today’s, for Evolvers’ only. Advanced, free, beautiful. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted to see?

Ares: Fool. That world will never exist. An advanced civilization can never be created. It can only be reached by selection and evolution. Your so-called creation is just an excuse to hide your incompetence.

At the risk of oversimplifying things, Ares is telling Hades that he thinks the Reset Plan is stupid. Eliminating non-Evolvers won’t stop the struggle of survival of the fittest.

Yōurán: Lucien!

All in an instant, looks of shock, doubt and disbelief came over him, as well as a joy that he hadn’t shown before, mixed with the others.

Lucien is showing many emotions here. Shock that she still hadn’t left the dream. Doubt whether he is seeing her for real. Disbelief that she would abandon her safety again. And Joy. Pure, primitive delight that she still cares for him enough to throw her life out for him.

Lucien: Why didn’t you listen? Don’t you even care for your own life?!

This is the first time that Lucien ever yelled at Yōurán. (erase the True Love Date from your memory) This is one of the scarce times that Lucien loses his cool and reveals his true emotions raw and bare.

I yelled back at Lucien in a tone I never knew I had.

Yōurán: Liar! You had no intention of coming to find me, did you?! You deceived me every time! This time I’m not falling for it!

(By the way, I would put Yōurán’s words in capitals if I were the translator, to emphasize the yelling when she’s usually soft-spoken.)

I love that Yōurán didn’t put up with his I’m-only-saving-you-for-my-goal nonsense. I love that she saw through Lucien acting like Ares and forced out the truth that he truly loves her. I love that she was more upset that he lied about him being safe than the fact that he lied about him being part of Black Swan.

I’m sorry, but if I just go and let you take all the danger, I’ll never be able to forgive myself. Even if we are enemies. I still want to prove to you that even in the darkness, I’ll persist in my faith.

In the end, the question is he Lucien or is he Ares didn’t matter. That he was her enemy and have opposing beliefs from her didn’t matter. All that mattered in the end was that Lucien was the one who taught her to keep pursuing her light, and she was the one who taught him how to love. The unbreakable bond between them.

Lucien: Yōurán, Do you want to know my answer from the press conference?

Finally, finally, Lucien answers truthfully to her questions in the press conference. The first time he didn’t evade her questions regarding his feelings with silence.

Lucien: I won’t. I won’t sacrifice someone important to me. That is my answer.

I am infinitely glad that Lucien said this to her, and also infinitely mad that she forgot this in the end.

Lucien grabs her hand, and Yōurán sees a vision of Lucien’s past memories.

A white moonbeam appeared instantly before my eyes, solidifying into a blade, striking at me. A split second later there was a rupture, and a black liquid flowed from my pupil. For a moment, color was restored to my vision. I saw a pair of bloody eyes flicker past me. Then it was all black-and-white scenes of the TV tower, the park, the research center… As well as, a black-and-white me.

This makes me think that Lucien lost his ability to see Yōurán in color when he stabbed his eye in chapter 13. If he could still see her in color, he would have noticed her coming back for him earlier. He lost his only color in the world for her.

9. Hazy Like a Fog

Yōurán: Lucien, you’re hurt!

Lucien: You knew it was dangerous. Why did you come back?

Yōurán: Because you saved me. I couldn’t just abandon you.

She came back because Lucien is part of her. When he gets hurt, she gets hurt too. When he dies, the part of Yōurán that belongs to Lucien dies too. She cannot break the tie that pulls her towards him.

Lucien: I saved you because it’s better for me if you’re alive.

He seemed to always be stressing this point.

Yōurán: So why did you tell me the direction of the exit and make me leave by myself… Why didn’t you go with me? Didn’t you consider your own safety?

(Yōurán: Don’t play dumb with me, mister. I know you love me.)

Then she learns that all of this was part of Lucien’s plan. That her coming back for him had no influence in it.

Had he planned all of this?! And he didn’t tell me! All the while I cried like a fool, agonized over decisions, and left myself be vulnerable again and again! Liar!

KR translation is a bit different here.

I cried endlessly like a fool, I kept making choices endlessly, and I endlessly took out and looked at my feelings(heart) and agonized over them! Liar!

Notice the repetition of “endlessly” is used to describe the depth of what she felt before she made her decision to come back for Lucien. I would love to know what JP and CN translations are.

But still this liar hadn’t hurt me once the whole way though… My heart overflowed with loss, grief, doubt… a complex wave of emotions.

Again, her emotions regarding Lucien becomes a complicated mess.

A large hand suddenly covered my eyes, feeling slightly cold.

Yōurán: And I’ll forget everything that’s happened here too?

There was a long pause, and then I heard Lucien’s soft voice.

Lucien: yes.

Then I felt his finger tremble a bit, and my heart trembled with it.

Yōurán: Lucien… what kind of person are you really… Why even though we are enemies, do you always save me risking everything? Why do you always push me away again after saving me… Why can I see the futures of other people, but not yours…

Whenever she tries to discern Lucien, she is met with a vague fog. She got his answer to the question: Would he sacrifice someone important for his goal? But more questions came up that would never get answers. Even the one answer she got is about to be taken away from her.

10. Back to the Real Owner

Lucien carefully took out a pen from his pocket and placed it in the girl’s hand.

I said before that Lucien’s pen means Lucien’s heart. Yōurán tried to give it back to Lucien.

Then he leaned over and whispered into her ear:

Lucien: Next time, don’t rush into danger by yourself. Especially, on my account.

This scene reminds me of the end of chapter 15 when Gavin whispers to unconscious Yōurán to wait for him to come back. It hurts that she doesn’t receive the final messages they send to her before they leave her.

11. Again, Alone with Only a Memento

Just like in the end of chapter 15, Yōurán wakes up in her room alone. But this time, she forgot what has happened to her.

Large beads of sweat fell from my forehead. I opened my eyes to a pitch black ceiling. Black-and-white images were scrolling through my head. Too bad those images were like photo negatives and too blurred to make out.

I remembered I was being followed on a street. How was I waking up in my house all of a sudden? There seemed to be a chuck missing, but I couldn’t put a finger on it.

Although she doesn’t remember it, everything she felt still remains in her heart.

When I thought of Lucien’s name again, an intense feeling of grief and longing washed over me.

Because you can’t erase feelings even when you erase memories. PTSD patients sometimes forget what they went through that caused their trauma, but they can still feel the pain and suffering they felt. But they don’t know why they are hurting.

This was when I seriously began to worry about Yōurán. In real life, she needs professional help.

In chapter 16 she tries to put a distance between Lucien but fails utterly and admits to herself that she can never stop caring for Lucien. But after all they went through, her memories, her decisions, her revelations are gone. She feels empty, and sad.

She is only left with Lucien’s “Iridescent” pen. Just like with Gavin and his ginkgo bracelet.

12. Conclusion – This Love Hurts Like Hell, but It will be Worth It.

The press conference and chapter 16 in general depicted what I love the most about Lucien X Yōurán relationship. Their love goes very deep. Enough for Lucien to not hand her over to Black Swan and enough for Yōurán to trust him despite suspecting that he has hidden agenda.

Still, their ideas about humanity and morals are different and they clash. I like that none of them is abandoning their principles for the sake of love. I like that a female character has enough agency to have her own opinions that contradicts that of the male love interest. Instead of passively accepting the thoughts of her lover.

Their continued war of words. This is how the thoughts of great philosophies are made. They both stand firm in their ground. They’re on opposing sides and will battle each other ferociously. However, they still love each other and would go to great lengths to keep each other safe. Can you imagine the euphoria when despite all hurdles their love triumphs all in the end?

“No degree in love’s progress was left untried by our passion, and if love itself could imagine any wonder as yet unknown, we discovered it.” – Historia Calamitatum

#mlqc #mlqc analysis #mlqc lucien #mlqc chapter 16

219 notes · View notes

ljfeed-spn-j2-bigbang · 4 years

Text

2020 Master List

Here is the 2020 masterlist. If you see any errors, please let me know.

Extreme thanks to

firesign10 for coding the list again this year! We all owe them a huge debt of gratitude!

Jared/Jensen

Stacks of Green Paper in His Red Right Hand

Link to Art: Here

Author: zara_zee

Artist: bluefire986

Pairing(s): Jared/Jensen

Genre: SPN RPF - Slash, Dark Romance, Action-thriller. Crime.

Word Count: 30K

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: References to child abuse. Organized crime. BDSM. Kink. Violence. Part of the Hellspawn 'verse

Summary: Life has never been better for Jared and Jensen. Business is booming. The challenges for control of the Californian underworld appear to have stopped. They have an awesome new house and an ever growing family of misfits and outlaws. Jensen’s even trying to quit smoking.

And then Jensen’s father drops a bombshell that makes Jared bench Jensen from everything but their ‘honest’ earnings. Jensen hates his new restrictions, but with so much on the line, he can’t argue with them—not until a friend of the Club is in danger and Jensen’s the only one who can help. And then he can’t just sit it out. Right?

Headstrong

Link to Art:Here

Author: fufuraw

Artist: yanyan

Pairing(s): Jared and Jensen

Genre: Gen

Word Count: 21,228

Rating: PG

Warnings: Were transformations

Summary: Jared learns about his family and his background. Jensen and the Bell Creek Pack are there to support him as he learns to navigate a world he never expected to have to live in.

On Your Way

Link to Art: Here

Author: zubeneschamali

Artist: quickreaver

Pairing(s): Jared/Jensen

Genre: SPN RPS

Word Count: 47,391

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: none

Summary: Jared's got a YouTube channel where he chronicles his attempt to run a half marathon in every U.S. state and all of the sights he sees along the way. Jensen's got a YouTube channel where he records his adventures in minimalist backpacking, taking to the most scenic places he can find with the least equipment he can carry. When both of them enter a competition for the best travel video blog—where the winner gets their own Netflix show—they'll have to decide if the growing attraction between them is more important than who wins the competition…

The Prophecy

Link to Art: Here

Author: tammyrenh

Artist: tx_dora

Pairing(s): Jared/Jensen

Genre: SPN RPS

Word Count: 25174

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: none

Summary: There is an old prophecy that involves an omega with magic ability far greater than has ever been seen before. Jared, a royal omega about to be given away to a very not-nice prince, decides to choose one thing for himself - who to give his virginity to. This act results in major consequences for both Jared and Jensen - including a pregnancy that shouldn’t be possible, magic that saves them and places them in danger, a voyage across the sea, sword fights, an evil prince, and, above all, the fierce love that binds Jared, Jensen and their unborn child together.

Freedom

Link to Art: Here

Author: sanshal

Artist: cherie_morte

Pairing(s): Jared/Jensen

Genre: SPN RPS

Word Count: 30,853

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: Dystopian AU, Slave!Jared, Master!Jensen, Nudity, Collar, Sexual training- (prostate milking, object insertion, chastity, Punishment/spanking etc.), Brain-washing, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Kids, Divorce, Mentions of depression, Crying, Alcohol abuse. Protective Jensen. The story is not as dark as the warning make it appear, however, please do read them carefully (as there are instances of them in the fic) and if you feel that you may be triggered, please be careful.

Summary: A new law comes into play which calculates an individual’s income and expenditure and if one fails to meet a particular ‘standard’, they are indentured till they can work off the difference by working for ‘sponsors’.

Jared fails to meet the ‘standard’.

Metaphysical Inc

Link to Art: Here

Author: blackrabbit42

Artist: beelikej

Pairing(s): Jared/Jensen

Genre: SPN RPF AU

Word Count: 21K

Rating: R

Warnings:

Summary: Loosely inspired by Monsters, Inc. Jensen works for the Life Department, Jared works for the Death Division. When they accidentally bring a live human baby into the metaphysical world, they need to work against the forces of Time and Fate, as well as that little shit from Chaos, Misha, to return baby Bee to her rightful place in the human world. Doing so might involve sacrifices and changes neither of them ever imagined.

The Rose Hidden Among the Thorns

Link to Art: Here

Author: backrose_17

Artist: 2blueshoes

Pairing(s): Jared/Jensen

Genre: SPN RPF AU

Word Count: 22,110

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: A/B/O, mpreg and cheating

Summary: Mob Boss Jensen Ackles is done with the thorn in his side FBI Agent Stephen Amell and he goes after Stephen's one true weakness, his loyal boyfriend Jared Padalecki. Jared has always known that Stephen's life is a dangerous one but he never expected to be drawn into a web of seduction and danger or learn secrets that Stephen has been keeping from him.

Master, Be My Slave

Link to Art: jdl71 Here

Link to Art: dun Here

Author: wincestwhore (Hunter King)

Artist: jdl71 and dun

Pairing(s): Jared/Jensen

Genre: SPF AU

meus_venator

phoenix1966

paleogymnast

aggiedoll

cherie_morte

bostonleigh (velvet-impala)

tcs1121

bluefire986

dwimpala21

candygramme and

spoonlessone

emmatheslayer

jdl71

dwimpala21

anniespinkhouse

amberdreams

junkerin

emmatheslayer

tsuki_no_bara

beelikej

dugindeep

cassiopeia7

kelleigh

blondebitz

nerdypastrychef

kaelysta

merenwen76

m14mouse

annie46

mangacat201

roxymissrose

phoenix1966

amypond45

siennavie

firesign10

a_dean_girl

smalltrolven

kaelysta

runedgirl

amberdreams

nyxocity

swan_song21

jalu2

paperbackwriter

kelios

tx_devilorangel

ameraleigh

amberdreams

whiskygalore

liliaeth

raving_liberal

m14mouse

#supernatural #J2 #big bang #spn-j2-bigbang #livejournal #fanworks

18 notes · View notes

norhimorovine · 4 years

Text

The Crux of The Paths

Prompt 1: Crux

Norhi was walking through the forest with her younger siblings, one early autumn morning. The fog had not yet burned off and the path was still damp with dew. As they walked along the path, Norhi stepped to the right and pointed at a mushroom. “Watch the ring,” she murmured softly.

Dischaus looked at the mushroom and stepped to the right as expected. But he scrunched his nose, asking, “Why do we gotta watch for mushroom rings anyway?”

Lhissa snorted at her brother. “Because the elementals say so!”

Norhi smiled and looked back at the twins. “Well… That’s one reason. But the elementals have a reason for it. There’s an old story passed down among the tribes.”

Lhis lit up and bounced along the trail, behind her brother. “Tell us!”

Dis also bounced in place, mirroring his twin. “Yes! Story story!”

Norhi laughed and then nodded. “Alright alright. Watch your volume. We’re still on a wild path here.”

She then sighed and looked around, spotting a little glade with a fallen log. Norhi moved to sit on the log, settling so that her siblings could box in around her. “Alright. This story is called The Crux of The Path.”

Long before the padjal, before the pact made with the elementals on the behalf of our city-state, there was Gelmorrah. And there were the tribes. We followed the paths of balance. We were careful to punish those that would cause harm, lest the elementals take exception to us. Everyone knew of the Wildlings, and how they were the hands that followed the will of the elementals. But also whispered about among the tribes and the Gelmorrans, were The Paths.

The trail-paths of the Black Shroud are often mutable, shifting with the whim of the forest. But there were also the Paths of the Life Stream, of magic and mystery. There was a time when one could choose to enter these paths, and come out somewhere else. Another place in Eorzea. Or just the other side of the forest.

But the shifting will of the forest was also known to open The Paths to those who’d caused offense. And such people were often never seen again. Though, there was one young cockerel of a man who’d barely survived one such adventure.

He’d grown among his tribe, and later followed his father out into the forest, to learn the wandering ways of the Moon. And his father taught him how to watch for the shifting trails, and the signs of The Path. He would point out the mushroom circles, saying to his son, “These are portals to a world we do not control. Only mages of untold strength willingly walk into these and return with their sanity intact.”The son scoffed at his father’s warnings. But he did not dare step into the mushroom circles, if only to avoid having his ear boxed.

The youth grew into a fine man, his company sought after by every tribe he visited. He was strong, skilled as a hunter, sang like the most prized songbirds, and was as charming as he was handsome. He was, however, devastatingly arrogant and unspeakably vain. For all that he was sought for his visits, no one mourned when he was due to leave.

It was this lack of enduring affection, that finally drove him to frustration. He’d just left one tribe, where he’d been rushed through his exit, without so much more than a simple thank you for coming. He stomped along the trail, grumbling and muttering to himself. He waved his fist at the tree canopy above, griping about how short his stays were becoming at each tribe.

It was at this point that he saw a mushroom circle ahead. He scowled and cursed his father’s name, before promptly crushing one mushroom underfoot and striding right on through the circle. With a great flash of light and a crack of thunder in his ears, he found himself afloat in a river of crystalline stars.

He flailed and shouted in alarm, tried to swim. Or fly. Or walk. But he was merely swept along. Rushed down the stream until he saw the great crossing. Streams from all directions flowed to this point, at which a great crystal floated. The man began to cry and beg. He wanted to live.

He didn’t want to cross over the lifestream yet. And then the great crystal glimmered and flashed. Scenes floated by the young man, shown in the surfaces of crystalline mirrors that flew by him. One scene showed him refusing to help raise a younger brother, declaring that he did not need to give back to the forest. Another showed him laughing at plain faced woman, with chipped ears and a ragged tail. And yet another showed him knocking an elder into the mud, so that he himself could avoid the muck on his own boots.

And then the mirrors changed. It showed the younger brother in danger and being rescued by their elderly father, who barely survived with great injury. It showed the plain woman crying herself to sleep, and enduring the scorn of her sisters. And it showed the elder coming down ill with a great racking cough.

The great crystal flashed and glimmered once more. And a voice said, “What reason should you live for if you are only going to cause grief and harm?”

The young man, now no longer flailing or shouting, floated limply along the stream. “My actions reach so far?”

And the crystal answered, “Everyone’s actions reach farther than they know.”

The man frowned. “Send me back. Let me go to them. I have much to make up for.”

The crystal was silent and did not answer.

The man saw himself floating closer to the crossing and cried out, “Send me back! Take from them the harm I caused and give it to me!”

And then the crystal answered, “I will send you back. You will be lame in one leg, so that your father may walk again. You will lose half of one ear, so that the woman may have her dignity restored. And you will forever be weak to the cold and the damp, so that the elder may once again breath and live. And then you will take your brother into the forest and teach him the ways of your people.”

The thunder came again and the young man found himself standing in the mushroom circle he’d broken. He took one step and nearly crumpled to the ground, feeling pain shoot from his knee to his hip. He limped out of the circle and turned to weakly kneel. He gently propped the broken mushroom back up, pushing moss around its stem. He moved to stand, coughing and feeling a thickness in his lungs.

He turned and started down the path, slowly returning to the tribes. Along the way, he found herbs that helped with sickness. He harvested a small amount and wrapped them up. He next found menphina lilies, blooming in a grove. He carefully dug them up, roots and all, and bundled them in burlap for travel. He found a fallen branch, perfect for a walking stick. He gathered it up and began sanding it down as he traveled. And then he found a fallen antler, from an antelope stag’s shedding. He took that up and began carving it into a knife.

He first reached the elder’s tribe. He gave them the herbs and bowed low, apologizing for his unkind disdain. The elder saw the change in the young man and said, “You have seen the Crux of The Paths. Go with the lessons you’ve learned. You will be welcome here again, when you’ve completed your trial.”

The young man next came to the woman’s tribe. He gave her the bundled, living lilies, proffering his regret and apologies. The woman accepted her gift, hearing the shocked whispers of her sisters behind her. She nodded then and said, “When next you come, I will offer you a drink once more. But not today.”

Soon after this, the young man found his father’s camp. He gave him the walking stick, telling him of how he’d disobeyed his father’s teachings, and how he learned of the harm he’d caused. His father placed a hand on his head and said, “My son, you will be a wise elder when your time comes, for the lessons you’ve learned. Mayhaps the tribes will prosper for your humbling.”

After this, the young man gave the new knife to his younger brother. He took the boy into the forest and began to teach him. He showed him the mushroom circles and talked of the Crux of The Path. And his brother listened attentively.

And when the younger brother was grown, he taught this story to his children. And they to theirs. As I learned this story from my own father. And as you’ve now learned it from me.

#FFxivWrite2020 #FFxivWrite #Miqo'te Tales

9 notes · View notes

heartbreak-of-a-marauder · 4 years

Text

Forever and Always My Little One (1)

Title: The Second Moonrise

Pairing: Kol Mikaelson x OC

Summary: Fayne is a vampire created during the first 100 years of the Originals immortal lives. Just as the end is approachings a chance encounter with the youngest original changes her life forever, and always.

Words: 1,927

1 ->

~*~*~*~*~

1348 – St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, England.

I laid on the unforgiving mattress of the hospital bed, gazing up at the ageing paint that decorated the ceiling. Every now and again a shiver would pass through my body causing my hands to grip the blanket a little tighter. The coating of sweat that covered me from head to toe had long since soaked through my shift causing it to stick uncomfortably to my skin. It is an indescribable feeling to have your skin burning with heat but have a chill in your bones. An endless hunger seemed to be developing in my stomach as my natural instincts pleaded to be obeyed, and the ever-increasing number of people fillings the hospital made things more difficult.

The silvery rays of the moon that managed to break past the clouds, crept through the window panes adding a little more light to the candlelit room. The sounds of raspy breathing and soft coughing were two of the few things that could be heard across the wide expanse of rooms. Scenes of the vivid past that had poisoned my dreams would soon spill into my waking moments as the days went on and to fight them would cause painful aches in my head.

Slowly I pushed myself up into a sitting position, the bed frame creaked slightly due to the changing positions of pressure. The calm of the room was soon disturbed by my own coughing when the dryness could no longer be ignored. The coughing became more violent to the point of wrenching. Removing my hand from my mouth I instantly zeroed in on the red splodges that mingled with mucus. A single tear slid down my cheek, I was still greedy for life despite having taken more time than I was originally dealt. But the evidence in my hand made it plain that I would not last much longer.

A shadow in the corner of my eye catches my attention, it moves swiftly with an inhuman likeness, it lurks around the cots at the far end of the room; hovering almost. It leans over one of the cots seemingly surveying the individual that lay in it. I shift slightly to get a better view, even in the poor light I can see how its back stiffens like a creature caught in the act. In the same quiet yet elegant manner he moves away from his previous point of interest and begins his journey towards my bed.

“Are you well miss?” A distinct British accent can be heard as he lowered the hood of the cloak.

“As well as I am able to be sir.” I offer politely in return.

“I hope circumstances could be better for you.” Cocking his head to the side.

“Many have said that it is God’s will, a punishment of sorts.” I offered some of the fatalistic babble given to me by a now-deceased person.

The corners of his mouth turned upwards a little after hearing my comment, he seemed to like the façade I had constructed. A breathy chuckle escapes his lips as he lowers himself to sit on the edge of my cot.

“The fragility of human life…” He muses to himself while an outstretched hand toys with a lock of hair that has fallen over my shoulder. He pulls his attention away from the strands in his fingers to look me directly in the eye.

“I can only imagine your wildest fantasies and the adventure you thought you may have had.” He voices his thought, without waiting for a reply he continues. “What if I could give you the means to travel the world and see its wonders?"

"Money is of no use to a person doomed to die my Lord..." I mused lowly.

The stranger lets out a hearty chuckle, allowing a grin to grace his face. He looks away from me for a moment before he brings his gaze back to mine.

"Money is not what I offer dear girl, I can give you so much more." He boasts while leaning a little closer, when he is a hair's breadth away from my ear he whispers, "I can give you eternal life." He stays there for a moment inhaling deeply capturing my scent.

When he draws back the grin he previously wore is gone, instead, his brows have pulled together and his mouth is in a straight line. The amusement that had occupied his eyes has iced over, and he sits very still observing me.

He knows why I am dying.

"Eternal life has been good for me up until now," I sigh while peeling back the sleeve of my shift, smiling sourly when I hear his sharp intake of breath. "And I admit that I lust for more, but this is a death sentence, not even a vampire can escape." I break my eyes away from his brown ones to focus on the putrid bite.

"I can still give you eternal life" He speaks after a while, determination lacing his words.

A wry smile forms on my face. "Then I would encourage you to let go of those follies, a bite from a werewolf is final, no one survives."

"Were you not told to look a gift horse in the mouth girl?" He copies my expression.

I narrow my eyes at his tone, hunger mixed with a fevers rage proves to be a volatile mix. "I am no child sir, my name is Fayne and you shall address me as such."

"Then you shall address me as Kol Mikaelson, little one." He fires back, I huff harshly at his use of the pet name.

He stands abruptly and straightens out his clothing, all the while his eyes never leaving mine. "Then I propose a wager of sorts, should I save you by the second moon rise then you shall accompany me in my travels" He declares.

"And if you do not?" I ask with morbid curiosity.

He smirks. "I am sure you can work that out for yourself little one, goodbye for now." In the blink of an eye, he is gone.

_ _ _ _ _ _

The sun was beginning to set on the eve of the second moonrise, vast orange beams forced their way into the crowded room. I had not laid all my faith in Kol and his abilities to save me, but time was running out on his wager, and I was growing less lucid with every minute. I wanted to be cured but it was surely something of a fantasy. I was fighting to stay in the uncomfortable cot. My gums burned as my fangs fought to be free, the scent of blood was everywhere, the thread of humanity I clung to was beginning to fray.

In an instant, the thread had broken, and the animal inside came barrelling to the forefront. I didn’t feel the thick veins appear on my face nor the elongation of my fangs, I simply gave in to nature and it took me to a place I would be grateful for.

I loomed over my unsuspecting victim, they were here for injury, not illness, and it smelled so good. Quietly I hike up the shift unit it allows me to comfortable straddle his stomach. I crouch over him dragging the tip of my nose across his exposed skin before settling by his neck, I do not waste time or thought before biting down hard. I feel the way he fights weakly beneath me, not quite ready to die but I show no mercy and quickly drain him dry.

I attach myself to every victim like a newly born babe suckling from its mother. I break free from the current poor soul who serves as my dinner, breathing deeply I tip my head back. Never has it felt so good. Once again, I lower my head in preparation to finish my meal, but I don’t get near her delicate skin as hand fists itself in my hair dragging me away.

I buck and thrash like a wild animal, but the mysterious assailant further restrains me. The scent of sickness invades my nose informing me we have returned to my cot. They throw me harshly towards it, I whirl around preparing to attack but stop when I see Kol has returned with a stranger.

"She has got fight brother." He smirks at me.

“Come now brother, we don’t have all night.” Kol hurries, earning a sigh from the other man.

"I struggle to see why I should help a diluted bloodline but as you can see my brother insists." He teases, I look in Kol's direction for an indication that this is a jest, but his face is emotionless.

"Get on with it Niklaus." His nonchalant tone shocks me.

Niklaus takes a few steps towards me but I cannot escape the feeling that he is a predator and I his prey.

"Come now love, it will be painless; I promise." He chuckles before biting his wrist, my eyes switch between his wrist and face in disbelief. After seeing my hesitation, he uses his abilities to force his wrist into my mouth. The blood trickles down my throat for a few moments before he removes it.

He gives a curt nod towards Kol before disappearing.

"Vampire blood? You think that it will magically cure me?" I scoff at Kol, his face hardens.

"A 'thank you' is customary for when someone helps you." He retorts.

"Thank you?!" I cried incredulously, in a moment I appear before him. "You have not helped."

Roughly he grabs onto my right elbow drawing me closer to him, but also bringing my arm into view, he wastes no time in ripping the fabric of the sleeve back to reveal that the wound is indeed healing. The inflammation and discolouration had receded considerably and the bite had shrunk. I stared in disbelief, it had worked. Swallowing my pride and looked up at Kol.

"Thank you." It would be barely audible to human ears, but I knew he had heard me.

He smirks, liking that I had given in. "Now we must depart." He states while walking towards the entrance to the ward.

"Depart?" I ask, still stood near the cot.

He casts a glance over his shoulder before stopping. "I won the wager little one, you are now my travelling companion." He seems to think better of a previous decision and begins to walk back towards me, or rather past me.

"And where will we go?" I ask curiously as he peers out of the now open window.

He beckons me to him with a flick of his wrist, and slowly I come to join him by the window. He uses the inside of his dark cloak to wipe around my mouth and down my neck. Once satisfied he unbuckles it from his neck and sweeps it over my shoulders before securing it.

"There is no rush in having ready-made plans, that is the beauty of eternity."

"So, when are we to leave?" I ask not following.

"Now." He replies simply while smirking.

He pulls me into him, fixing us together by holding me around my waist, heat travels up my neck at his closeness but the cool air of the night soon takes over. I didn’t pay attention as to where we were going because the blackness of the night morphed the surroundings but, I was grateful when we got into a carriage and the sight of Saint Bartholomew’s disappeared into the distance.

#nate buzz #nate buzolic #nathaniel buzolic #kol #oc #kol x oc #kol mikaelson #kol mikaelson imagine #the vampire diaries #the originals #fanfic #wattpad

45 notes · View notes

nanowrimo · 4 years

Text

20th Anniversary Interviews - Part 3: Writing with Disabilities and Chronic Illness

In this interview, we talked to participant Jessi Smith about what it’s like to write with disabilities and chronic illness.

Q: What is your most memorable NaNoWriMo moment?

A: I got really sick in 2015/16 and have been battling chronic conditions that have threatened to take my ability to read and write. This year I've had many close encounters with death that have made me reprioritize my energy to focus on things that are important to me. NaNoWriMo is one of those things! Over the past few years I have been learning new ways to adapt my writing to fit my disabilities. Over the course of October I've gathered together a group of chronically ill and disabled writers from all over the country who thought that their writing years were forever in the past to support each other in our NaNoWriMo journey. Many of us were published authors before chronic illness degraded our fine motor skills, memories, and cognitive abilities. This year we are working together to recapture our strong creative voices and lift each other up to achieve our writing dream of completing NaNoWriMo 2019! Finding this group of talented and driven writers has been my favorite NaNoWriMo memory. Without NaNoWriMo we would never have risked such a dangerous and exhausting journey to reclaim the words that have been stolen by our chronic illnesses. NaNoWriMo has offered us the structure, support, and community we need to find the strength to tell our stories.

Q: How did you go about finding other disabled writers for this project?

A: The disabled and chronically ill communities are super active on social media as many of us are too sick to leave the house. I have a large following on Instagram (@disablednotdefeated) and when I started talking about my desire to return to writing for NaNoWriMo on my story the messages started pouring in. I was blown away by how many of my chronically ill and disabled followers have been forced to set aside careers in writing and creative passion projects when they became sick. Many of them were afraid they would never be able to write again because of the ways in which their disabilities affected their memory, fine motor skills, and stamina. All of them shared the same dream but needed direction, ideas about how to adapt their approach to fit their new limitations, and encouragement to follow through. So I started the Chronic Illness Writing Club on Instagram with a goal to support each other through NaNoWriMo and beyond!

Q: What are some of the ways you've learned to adapt to your disabilities?

A: We’re a little over half way through the month and this Nanowrimo has been one of the hardest writing experiences of my life. While I’ve participated and won Nanowrimo 9 times as a teenager, adapting to writing with chronic illnesses had been a whole new beast. Now the hurdles I face aren’t just about finding time to fit noveling in with my busy schedule, it’s also about coaxing my hands to type when they’re shaking too hard to control, it’s about timing my writing sessions around my pain medications so that I have more energy to thing creatively, it’s about picking myself back up after I pushed too hard and still finding the energy to write again. It’s about navigating medical emergencies, doctors appointments, and hospitalizations. It’s about refusing to give up on my story and myself.

I am bed bound which means I have a lot of time alone with my computer. This is both a blessing and a curse. I have very little energy and it is easy for me to blow it all by writing early in the day which leaves no energy for doctors visits, working with my service dog Atlas, and everyday care. Knowing when to work and when to rest has been a challenge and my caregiver has had to take my computer away more than once to force me to rest.

Q: Did you encounter any particularly noteworthy challenges?

A: One of the (12) conditions I’ve been diagnosed with over the past 7 years (I’m an overachiever) is a seizure condition which causes neurological issues that make memory a HUGE hurdle in my writing. I’ve always been a pantser but that has made this NaNoWriMo an extra challenge.

I have adapted by writing in shorter chunks 1,000-3,000 words. I also keep a running notes tab where I add new settings, character traits, descriptions, ideas for the plot as it progresses, inconsistencies I need to go back and fix during revision, and anything mysterious that I’ve left unanswered. It has saved me hours of combing through my story to remember a characters name or what color I made their hair.

A lot of my conditions cause severe exhaustion and cognitive processing issues. I have a condition called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome which effects my blood pressure and heart rate. I’ve learned to help jump start my brain when things are moving sluggishly by sitting up which causes my heart rate to spike giving me a burst of energy and clearing my mind. While it is exhausting in the long run it can definitely help give me a boost. This is where NanoSprints twitter comes in handy to get my word count jumpstarted!

I knew when I started Nano that I was due for an infusion of low dose chemotherapy at the end of November. The closer I get to my infusion date the more sick I become. Knowing that the last few weeks would be the hardest I raced to pad my word count to give myself time to recover. While I have fallen a few days behind this week as my body grows weaker I feel so proud of all I’ve been able to accomplish. Whether I win or not, participating in NaNoWriMo this year has been life changing. I have built a stronger community, found my creative voice, and learned that even with the challenges of my chronic illnesses and disability I am capable of incredible things.

Jessi Smith is a full-time composer, actor, writer and musician. She’s been participating in NaNoWriMo since 2003.

Follow her on Instagram!

#nanowrimo #writing #disability #chronic illness #20th anniversary #participant interviews

53 notes · View notes