#who left the life of a Canary behind

[tofixtheshadows]

So I've been thinking lately about how Mithrun is Kabru's dark mirror (more on that another time- it needs its own post), and I thought it interesting that one of their parallels is that they were both cared for by Milsiril, but in opposite directions. She took Kabru in as her foster after he was orphaned and tried to convince him not to become an adventurer. On the flip side, she helped rehabilitate Mithrun specifically so that he could rejoin the Canaries.

And I kept wondering: why?

For Kabru, obviously she loves him a whole lot- despite any other shortcomings in their relationship, I do believe that.

So I get why she tries to convince him not to go dungeoning, and, failing that, at least prepares him as thoroughly as she can.

But why help Mithrun? She used to hate Mithrun, but after realizing what a secretly twisted person he was, she actually thought of him more positively (oh, Milsiril). So it wasn't as if she held the kind of grudge that might motivate her to make his already-depleted life even more miserable by sending him back to the dungeons. And it wasn't that she felt bad for him either, since she didn't visit Mithrun for the first ~20 years of his recovery.

The Adventurer's Bible says that Utaya was the impetus for Mithrun returning to the Canaries, but Milsiril is the one who made the trip to see him and tell him about it.

Why would Milsiril work so hard to get her old coworker back into fighting fit? Why encourage him to return to such a dangerous lifestyle, when she was the one who chose not to mercy-kill him?

That last panel is such a crazy thing to hint at and then never elaborate on. Without it we could have just thought that Milsiril wanted the Canaries' work to continue without her, even if it seemed out of character. I think some people even assume she's just a natural caretaker as a foster mom and handwave it to include nursing Mithrun too. What could Milsiril's suspicious motives be? What does she gain from Mithrun joining the Canaries that isn't an altruistic desire to see dungeons safely sealed? Feeling a sense of responsibility for the work she left behind isn't an ulterior motive.

My theory is: Milsiril, knowing that Mithrun was empty save for the burning desire to face the demon again, wound him up like a clockwork doll and pointed him back at the dungeons.

Hoping that he'd eliminate the biggest threat to Kabru's life, before it was too late for him.

Milsiril the puppetmaster.

#Dungeon Meshi #Dungeon Meshi meta #Mithrun #Milsiril #Kabru #btw I'm working with the only translations I could find sorry #so keep that in mind #like it just seemed WEIRD to me #that gloomy introverted Milsiril #who left the life of a Canary behind #decided to do this Canary-adjacent work of helping this guy #maybe the queen made her do it because so many people died and they needed more Canaries idk! #but why would anyone pick Milsiril as a life coach? I really think it was her own choice #it's so interesting how we get these hints of a downright sinster Milsiril #I really like the complicated relationship she and Kabru have #struggling to fully humanize him from her elven perspective #but still taking him seriously wrt: his fears over being a monster or his desire to go to a party! #crazy stuff there #everything about Kabru and adjacent to Kabru is insane what a character #musings with Dea

[vagabond-umlaut]

INVERSE FUNCTION (1)

yandere sukuna x fem!reader; stalking; insp: this song [pls listen to this after reading]

divider by @benkeibear; jjk isn't mine; pls don't plagiarise/translate/repost this ❤️❤️

Sukuna is hooked on you.

He has no idea since when, why or how– but he has a very good idea of the degree he is hooked on you— each and every small bit of you–

Your sleepy face, first thing in the morning as you open the windows to your room, and stare at the sky then the empty street below. Your peppy walk out the apartment, not even an hour later as you head to your classes, always so punctual– so neatly, cutely dressed.

The warm smiles you offer everyone you come across— be it the kids waiting for their bus, the florist, the barista who serves you coffee, or the many classmates you've whenever you step into the class, words of greeting leaving you and brightening the room, more than the sun.

And not to mention the endearing look of concentration your pretty features wear, when the classes start.

Sukuna swears he has to actively, very painfully, restrain himself from walking right up to you and kissing your face off, each and every time your eyebrows gather together and your lips pucker into a pout– only for your teeth to sink into your lower lip not a moment later, the flesh there growing angry red, deliciously so, as you continue taking notes of the lecture.

Although... the man thinks his favourite look on you has got to be the one you wear in the evening: when the classes are over, when all your friends have finally left, when you're by yourself, no longer smiling as brightly as you do. Seeming so tired, so very fragile, as you trudge on the darkening streets back to your flat...

It makes something weird, but not wholly unpleasant, curl up within his chest. So strong that it makes him want to pick up into his arms, and keep you there forever, safe and sound and well-rested. Forever with him, tucked in the safety of his embrace—

Sukuna is not too sure, but he thinks this feeling might be why he has suddenly decided to break into your house today, instead of watching you from afar like he has always done. Or maybe, just maybe...

Watching you from a distance is no longer enough for him.

He has to enter the place you call 'home'.

He has to soak up every drop, memorise every fleck of your life here.

Starting from the random tiny doodles scribbled on the canary yellow walls— to the thick hardcover books and notebooks in neat stacks on the sofa, the table, the floor— to the pressure cooker kept on the oval burner of your gas stove— to the queen-size bed in a floral bed sheet, visible if he walks past the translucent screen between your bedroom and living room— to the sketchbook lying on the bed– its pages filled with– filled with–

Sketches Of Him!?!?

Him working in the garage on a car. Him smoking at the bus stop you travel from. Him dozing in class, head propped up on a fist. Him busy eating sandwiches, binoculars on the bench beside as his gaze stays somewhere above—

The sketchbook is filled with drawings of him, him, and only him—

Something stirs and stutters and stomps on his sternum; albeit he is unsure why. Is it the fact that he finally realises he is standing right in the middle of your bedroom– the most intimate place in your life? Or is it because he is staring at these many sketches your dainty fingers have made of him– so beautiful, so careful, so unlike him?

Can it be the unease clawing at him, stemming from your knowledge of him being in places close to you, where and when he should never be? Or– maybe or– is it the thrill tingling his fingers, when he realises, you too have been at places close to him, where and when you must never ever be...

A door opens and shuts behind him.

Sukuna swerves back to find you standing outside your bathroom, in nothing but a flimsy nightgown, hair still soaking wet whilst the towel hangs off your bare shoulders.

Your eyes jump from him to the sketchbook in his hand then to him— before crinkling into two pretty half-crescents as you smile... Sort of–

"Tea or coffee, stranger?"

follow the series here 🥰🥰 // masterlist

#kit writes: Inverse Function #ryomen sukuna x reader #ryomen sukuna x you #sukuna x reader #sukuna x you #ryomen x reader #ryomen x you #jjk x reader #jjk x you #sukuna fluff #sukuna angst #jjk fluff #jjk angst #tw yandere #kit posts 📝

[cat3ch1sm]

hii! could i request hcs about illumi's fiancé meeting the zoldycks? something along the lines of her being expected to be the next lady of the house and getting used to the mansion's lifestyle (having butlers, being secluded on a mountain, having the entire family living together)? it would also be nice to see her getting along with the little siblings (killua, kalluto, and alluka)

sorry if i left out any necessary details in this request :(

~✰♡✰♡✰~ hellooo! thanks for ur request :)) haven’t written for hxh in a little while so im happy to write this for you and our favorite bug-eyed assassin :3 if you’re ever unsure about what info to put in a request, just visit the pinned post! ily 💚

fem!reader

𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐢’𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐜é 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐳𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐲𝐜𝐤𝐬

illumi isn’t close with his family in the same sense that normal people are close with their families, but nonetheless he feels the need to inform them of major developments in his life. through a letter he tells his family of his engagement, and says that he is going to bring you to his home to see them all.

silva is indifferent, and zeno couldn’t care less, but kikyo is ecstatic that her illumi is finally going to marry someone- and that it isn’t that awful clown hisoka. she’d been seriously concerned for a second there. but she rounds up all the members of her family to be present on the day of your arrival (using excessive force because nobody really wanted to come besides alluka, who was only allowed to meet you because killua threatened to not show up unless alluka was permitted as well).

when you and illumi first arrive after the lengthy trip up the mountain, you are greeted by butlers gotoh and canary, whose presence startles you. you were aware of illumi’s great wealth and status, but it was certainly different from how you’d grown up. just getting inside the actual home is a process- illumi’s strength slightly freaking you out when he pushes open four of the doors to the entrance of the mansion without breaking a sweat and then encountering Mike, the Zoldycks’ monstrous dog. illumi does notice your apprehension, though, and plainly assures you that the dog won’t harm anybody it isn’t supposed to. you’re still visibly nervous, though, so illumi has you come closer to him and hold on to his arm. regardless, you realize it may be tougher to settle in than you thought.

at last, though, illumi brings you to his family. nobody reacts much outwardly to your presence, but you notice a white-haired boy with catlike eyes observing you closely, his expression a mixture of suspicion and confusion. standing beside the boy are two other black haired children- one with short black hair standing somberly with his hands folded in front of him, and the other an eager blue-eyed girl whose gaze sparkles as she looks at you. the white haired boy stands right behind the blue-eyed child. the tall, blonde man with a large frame illumi tells you is Silva, his father, and the slightly shorter man with white hair beside him is illumi’s grandfather, zeno.

without warning, you feel thin arms thrown around you in an embrace, and you almost jump out of your skin. but when you are released, you see the woman that can only be your fiancés mother, the only member of the family illumi had warned told you about prior to the visit. kikyo wears a large dress with an ostentatious petticoat and hat, and most notably a visor over where her eyes would be with one red glowing dot. her appearance is unsettling, and you find it a little difficult to force a smile when she greets you. illumi watches you from the side of his eye, his face unreadable.

just as kikyo is pulling away, something gleaming and silver and large is thrown right at your head, whizzing right by kikyo’s hat and slicing off a single hair from the feather on her hat. you don’t hesitate to lift your hand to your face and catch the sword immediately, the blade slicing your hand- but you don’t flinch as the blood seeps onto the blade and down your arm. you tilt your head to the side to see your assailant is silva, his arm still poised in throwing position. his expression grows less stony once he sees you’ve caught his weapon.

there’s a moment of icy silence, you lowering the weapon to your side, and silva watches you even more intently before uttering a flat “welcome to the family.” with that, he and his father turn and disappear elsewhere inside the mansion. kikyo, though, takes this as her cue to immediately grab you so you two can walk by yourselves throughout the mansion. illumi doesn’t look super pleased to see his mother take you, but he knows better than to try and stop her.

you two are navigating the long, hollow corridors of the zoldyck home. you pass many unsettling family pictures and paintings as well as various weapons like swords and arrows on the walls, and several human sculptures that seem a little too realistic. you’re also sure that you pass at least two torture chambers. it’s an eerie atmosphere, which was what you’d expected, but it doesn’t help your nerves.

kikyo either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care about your apprehension, and instead starts talking about how much she’s wanted a daughter and how thrilled she is to finally have a “daughter” to take in. but then she grows eerily serious. she talks about how you’ll be expected to be the next lady of the house and, since you’re becoming a zoldyck, how you’ll have to follow the same codes they do as a family and exhibit the same values- which makes you antsy. the woman clearly seems a bit unhinged. you’re relieved when the walk ends and you’re returned to your fiancé, who gestures for you to take his arm again. illumi’s mother’s mood changes drastically yet again and she storms off, shrieking to her husband that it’s rude for him to walk off after hardly having said anything.

now you and illumi are left with the four other children- the white-haired boy, the girl with long hair, the boy with short hair and purple-pink eyes, and a homely fat boy behind the three younger ones. he holds a small console in front of his face and doesn’t even seem to acknowledge your presence. illumi introduces them to you.

“y/n, i’d like you to meet my siblings,” illumi states in his usual manner, walking slowly towards them. gesturing to the white-haired boy, he says, “this is my brother, killua. i call him kil.” he looks down at his brother with an eerie smile and black eyes like pits, but killua keeps his stony gaze straight ahead. his hand rests on the shoulder of the girl in front of him.

“this is my youngest brother, kalluto,” illumi continues, placing a large hand on top of the boy’s head. his hands remain folded in front of him, and he gives you a polite nod. looking toward the fat boy behind kalluto, his expression slightly curling into one of disdain, illumi tells you, “and this is the second oldest, milluki.” milluki doesn’t acknowledge you at all, which seems to visibly irritate illumi, but he doesn’t reprimand the boy.

you’re confused when illumi doesn’t introduce the girl, and you glance up at him in confusion. “illumi, what about her?” you look down at the girl in front of killua, who looks surprised for a second, and so does killua behind her. “you forgot to tell me her name. she’s a beautiful little girl.” you manage a small smile, leaning down slightly to stroke the girl’s hair. her blue eyes sparkle with joy, and killua looks up at you as well, looking a little confused but also very relieved. “your mother said she had no daughters.”

illumi’s eyes lower ever so slightly, giving him a dismissive look. “she doesn’t,” he answers flatly, and his tone makes you feel like that’s the end of the discussion. you’re definitely lost- but you suppose it’s something illumi will have to fill you in on later. you glance sideways at illumi, hand still resting in the girl’s hair. she definitely doesn’t seem to mind you, and killua appears to have warmed up to you as well. milluki’s vanished elsewhere and kalluto watches the whole exchange from the corner of his eye.

suddenly you all hear kikyo call for illumi, who immediately stands up upon hearing his name. “you will remain here until i return.” he tells you, his tone no-nonsense, and heels clicking he makes his way down the dark hallway, leaving you alone with the kids.

the second illumi is out of earshot, the girl brightens up. “hi!” she chirps, bouncing on her feet excitedly. “my name is alluka!”

you’re slightly startled, but you smile at the girl anyway and tell her hi, still wondering why illumi seems so detached from this girl in particular.

killua seems to read your mind. “i know what you’re thinking,” he tells you, not unkindly. “listen, my family doesn’t like alluka much- and they refer to her with male pronouns. just go along with it in front of them. it’s safer for you.” he pauses, then looks down. “but thanks for being nice to her.”

you frown and nod, deciding not to ask any more questions about it. kalluto still hasn’t said anything, but somehow you don’t feel like this boy will be anything to worry about.

with alluka and killua having warmed up to you, you get into a conversation, and kalluto eventually offers a few words after awhile- although never acknowledging alluka directly. most of it is basically killua wondering how the hell you managed to get engaged to someone like illumi.

“No way he didn’t force you to go out with him.”

“What the hell do you even see in that guy? He’s batshit crazy- and he’s definitely not a model.”

“How’d he propose? Did he try to kill you and you survived?”

“‘Man, you really gotta be messed up for Illumi to like you.”

“What even made him wanna get married to you? What even made you wanna get married to him?”

“You gotta be kidding me.”

“And you said yes? You’re crazy!”

that’s all i got :3 hope u enjoyed <33

#anime #hxh headcanons #hxh memes #chrollo x reader #hunter x hunter #hisoka x reader #illumi x reader #illumi zolydck x reader smut #reader x illumi zoldyck #reader x illumi #illumi zoldyck x you #illumi zoldyck x reader #illumi zoldyck headcanons #hunter x hunter illumi #illumi hxh #hxh imagines

[homiu-l]

Some thoughts I came up with about the secret books while drawing This:

When a player is out, the only thing left behind will be their secret book.

Pages scorched and torn by the thunder, not a single word left behind in the book. All secrets will eventually follow their owner, lost through their demise.

After session 6, Joel returns from the end portal without saying a word, holding so dearly on the fairy pink book that no one else will ever look for.

After session 6, Martyn manages to sneak in and grab the canary yellow book in the midst of the disaster, knowing even though their last exchange did not end well, the book still serves as the sole memorial of his companion during their damned red lifes.

After session 6, The remaining Mounders find it difficult to decide how to deal with the steel black book in their hands, the book of their close ally who turned against them to satisfy his own bloodlust, whom they failed to make peace with.

Then the bystander in red sweater caught their attention. He tries to stay quiet, yet the eyes fixed on the book and the hand clutching on the burnt suit jacket exposes his unspoken intent.

The three of them will miss their lost Mounder for sure, but maybe someone else needs the book more than them right now, someone so broken inside for witnessing the fall of his dearest friend.

#this is the moment I realize: I should design secret books for fun someday #secret life #joel smallishbeans #lizzie ldshadowlady #martyn inthelittlewood #jimmy solidarity #mumbo jumbo #grian

[little-etho-everywhere]

Almost three years ago, my dad managed to sponsor me for entry into the Gaza Strip, he told me:

"When I was your age, your grandfather left me the family home under my name in his will. The home that was built by his great-grandfather, and its walls stood strong, keeping the mothers, the fathers, the children, the cousins, the nieces, and nephews, all of the uncles and the aunts; all of the grandparents and every aspect of life- from the olive and loquat trees to the canary birds and cats they raised, people were born and people died inside these walls. And once I meet my time, you will uphold this home under your care, and you will step foot into Ghaza for the first time, know that a home lived and loved by generations before you, awaits for you; doors that creak your name will welcome you as if you have left for a day and a night."

He never showed me a picture, told me that I must wait, I must be patient for the closest thing I would have had to connect to my heritage and deceased family. This year I turned 18 and the only thing I could think about with fond memories of a place that I'd never been to. Today, a missile hit the house opposite the street. Tomorrow, at 8 am, my remaining family members from my father's side who live in the Gaza Strip need to abandon the home and evacuate with their arms and white banners raised. Along a road of thousands and thousands of Palestinians, the old, the sick, and the hungry. The mortar of their homes calls out, pleading for its loving family to come back home, to cradle the broken stones and the scorched doors. To take it with them, to not leave them behind.

Today, I live in the diaspora, I have never seen my home or my homeland, and I fear I never will.

How much do we have to bleed for you to realize we are alive like you?

DEMAND CEASEFIRE TODAY

#not an etho #فلسطين حرة #free palestine #palestinian genocide #gaza under attack #free gaza #save the palestinian children #genocide in gaza #ethnic cleansing #occupation #ceasefire #free palestine 🇵🇸 #palestinians #gaza #genocide in palestine #save palestine #stand with palestine

[yandere-writer-momo]

Finally wrote part ii to pinky promise. Took forever but I’ll have to split it into three parts. Mehhhh

Yandere Short Stories: Pinky Promise II

Yandere Lesbian x Afab Reader x Yandere Genderfluid Noble

Pink Promises (1)

(Your name) nervously fiddled with the skirts of her dress. Her eyes flit over to Cressida, who greeted each of her esteemed guests with soft, fake smiles. It was strange to see the blonde so stiff.

“This is my closest friend, Lady (your name).” Cressida introduced (your name) to the noble ladies. Her blue eyes admired (your name) who looked so beautiful all dolled up. Cressida wondered if (your name) would want to look like this nearly everyday… Cressida simply wanted to spoil (your name) until the day she took her last breath.

The salon went by swimmingly, there wasn’t anything the women really talked about other than gossip. (Your name) remained silent for the entire evening as she sat beside Cressida. The blonde snuck glances at (your name) here and there, unsure if she should make a move.

And that’s when Cressida grabbed (your name)’s hand in hers from under the table. Her pale thumb ran over the soft skin of (your name)’s knuckles to soothe her. Cressida now had a genuine smile on her face, her thick golden lashes fluttered at (your name). Her cerulean eyes filled with emotion.

The ladies of the party noticed the look Cressida gave (your name) in confusion. Cressida has never looked at anyone like that or has even given anyone her undivided attention. But rather than finding the look cute, the noblewomen were unnerved. Cressida looked obsessed with (your name) and they felt awful for the poor young woman.

Cressida’s temper was known all over the land. And heaven have mercy if (your name) were to fall from Cressida’s graces. The poor girl would probably end up with the other hanged heads on her rumored walls.

“You seem awfully close with each other.” One of the ladies quietly brought up, which made Cressida beam.

“Yes. (Your name) is my best friend. I’m so happy to have her in my life.” Cressida gave (your name)‘s hand a squeeze. A blush now on her face. “I’m so lucky to have found her… I was so lonely for a long time.”

The ladies furrowed their brows in confusion. Lonely? Cressida was the most popular socialite despite her ill manners due to her doll like beauty. People flocked to her like flies to honey. Yet this was the first time Cressida has ever flocked to someone. And call someone so informally.

(Your name) gave a stiff smile to everyone. She was nervous now that she was put on the spot like this. She didn’t know what to say or what to do… luckily, Cressida did all of the talking.

“I’m happy you ladies have been so kind to her. It means a lot to me.” The noblewomen all gave smiles, it seemed they had been trying to get into Cressida’s good graces for awhile now. Just how powerful was Cressida?

(Your name) nodded her head and cast her gaze to the floor. Even though she was now being swarmed with compliments, she felt so out of place…

She had left this noble life behind and she had no interest in being a part of it again.

.

.

.

“Did you like the salon, (your name)?” Cressida asked with stars in her eyes. She wanted to know if (your name) loved wearing pretty dresses and drinking foreign teas. Were the macarons to her liking? Cressida hoped so. She’d go all out next time if (your name) wasn’t satisfied. Cressida merely wanted to give her future wife the best. “I picked out subtle sweet treats so the flavors weren’t too overwhelming and I wanted you to try one of my favorite teas.”

“I had a nice time, Cressida.” (Your name) smiled softly at the blonde. “But I just don’t think this life is for me-“

“Nonsense! I think you deserve to wear beautiful dresses and to enjoy nice treats everyday.” Cressida’s cheeks were a furious shade of cherry as she began to get worked up. Her blonde flyaways stuck straight up like a canary’s feathers. “Were they mean to you? I can personally talk to them-“

Cressida gasped when (your name) gently took her hands in hers. (Your name) smiled at Cressida with so much kindness, she swore she’d melt.

“I’m truly grateful for you being so considerate of me but I don’t really like large groups of people all that much.” (Your name) gave Cressida’s hands a squeeze. “I appreciate our friendship, Cressida. But you don’t have to do so much for me. I just enjoy spending time with you-“

Cressida suddenly pulled (your name) into a tight hug. The taller girl burying her face into (your name)’s shoulder. Her arms felt like the coils of an anaconda from their unyielding grip.

“I appreciate you! We can just spend time together with just the two of us then!” Cressida pulled away, a few tears of joy falling down her rosy cheeks. The cherry color made her porcelain skin even more doll like. “I love being with you.”

(Your name) gave Cressida a smile so bright, Cressida swore she was momentarily blinded. The blonde felt her heart flutter out of her chest and try to crawl into (your name)‘s.

“I love you…” Cressida muttered under her breath in a voice so soft, (your name) couldn’t hear her. “I love you so much.”

And this was only the beginning of Cressida’s lifelong obsession.

.

.

.

(Your name) didn’t come back until it was nearly dark out. Cressida had spent the entire day pampering her with meals and a large bouquet of roses. The sweet fragrance from the delicate flowers reminded (your name) of her blonde friend to a tee.

“Can we do this again soon? I’ll share that secret with you next time!” Cressida blushed, the blonde shyly glanced away. “I’d love to gift you more roses.”

“Thank you, Cressida. I’ll see you around.”

“Please don’t be scared to write to me! I’d love to hear from you more.”

Cressida helped (your name) out from the carriage. The two girls bid each other farewell before Cressida took off. Her cerulean eyes watched (your name) until the smaller girl was no longer in her line of sight from her carriage window.

“I love you. I love you. I love you.” Cressida chanted while her heart pounded against her rib cage. “And now I know you love me too.”

.

.

.

“What the hell are those?” Marisa glowered with jealousy at the bright red roses. That stupid porcelain doll bought (your name) those, didn’t she? Marisa couldn’t stand that noble wench. “Can you even eat them?”

“I mean, roses are edible but they’re a gift. I think I might put them in a vase- what are you doing?!” (Your name) could only gasp in horror when Marisa began to rip apart the roses with her sharp teeth like a hungry wolf.

The red head tore the flowers to shreds with her sharp canines in seconds. The redhead’s wild cinnamon eyes glanced up at (your name) as she swallowed down the last bits. Red petals stuck to her lips and parts of her cheeks from the absolute slaughter she committed against the flowers.

“There. It was much better as a meal than decor.” Marisa grumbled while she crossed her muscular arms over her chest. “Don’t take gifts from weirdos.”

“Cressida is my friend-“ Marisa closed the distance between them until she towered over (your name). Her large body trembled with overwhelming emotions. Why was (your name) defending that haunted porcelain doll? Did she… did (your name) love Cressida?

“Are you saying Cressida is as important to you as I am?” Marisa asked in a hushed tone. She had no idea why the thought of (your name) being with someone else, another woman, drove her insane. Marisa had the strongest desire to tear her flesh off herself at the thought of (your name) caring about someone as much as they care about her. It made her sick to her stomach.

“No, that’s not it at all!” (Your name) frowned at how panicked Marisa seemed to be. “You’re my most important person, Marisa.”

Marisa melted when (your name) pulled her into a hug. Her arms quickly wrapped around (your name) into a tight hug as her heart began to flutter. Yes… this felt so right. Being with (your name) felt so right. She wondered how (your name)’s lips would feel against hers…

They may have only been on the edge of eighteen, but Marisa knew it in her heart that she wanted to be (your name)‘s one and only for the rest of their days together on this planet.

“I hope you don’t get an upset stomach from eating so many flowers.” (Your name) used her thumbs to brush off some petals from Marisa’s face. “I still cannot believe you did that…”

“If it makes you feel any better, they tasted awful anyways.” The two shared a laugh as they held each other. (Your name) could never be mad at Marisa. Never.

“(Your name)?”

“Yes?” (Your name) looked up to look at Marisa who had a conflicted expression on her face.

“Swear to me you’ll never leave me- no. Pinky promise me that we’ll be together forever.” Marisa held out her pinky to (your name). “No matter what happens, we will be together.”

“Mari, we’re not children-“

“What’s the matter? Scared of a childish oath?” Marisa teased which made (your name) hook her pinky around Marisa’s. (Your name) chuckled and shook her head.

“Alright, alright. I pinky promise.”

“You’re going to be by my side until the day I die.” Marisa told (your name). “Because even in this lifetime, I could never get enough of you.”

.

.

.

“We’re going to be moving to the north.” Orik told the two women with a smile. “It’s time for a change in scenery and for Marisa to learn the way of the sword. We’ll be leaving in a week’s time.”

(Your name) frowned at Orik. “But isn’t the north dangerous? It’s a frozen wasteland.”

“I’ll be there to protect you of course.” Marisa teased (your name) with a bright grin. “I’ll be stronger and then I’ll truly be the knight to your princess.”

(Your name) gave Marisa a soft smile. She knew her childhood friend would never let anything happen to her, it’s been that way since they were children. It was just…

“I should tell Cressida I’m leaving-“

“Nonesense, you can send her a letter once we’re there.” Orik butted into the conversation with an awkward smile. The old wizard did not want that blonde haired menace to know of their whereabouts. There was something incredibly off about the marquesses. And Orik has never been wrong about his gut feelings. “Is that okay?”

(Your name) frowned but nodded her head at her teacher. She felt as if she was in the dark about this whole matter but she didn’t want to address the elephant in the room quite yet. She needed to figure out what Orik knew in private.

“I’ll help you pack.” Marisa offered with a giddy smile. They were about to start a new chapter together… maybe once Marisa became stronger, they could move in together?

(Your name) nodded her head and followed along. The young woman gave one last look to the door before she dipped around the bend.

Hopefully Cressida would understand…

.

.

.

Marisa wrapped another cloak around (your name) when she noticed the smaller girl shiver. A loving smile on her lips as she took (your name)‘s hands in hers.

“Your hands are so cold… want me to warm them up?” Marisa took (your name)‘s hands and pressed tender kisses all over the soft skin. A shudder left her scarred lips from the contact. This felt so right… Marisa was meant to kiss (your name)’s palms and fingers. She was meant to have the delicate digits in her mouth to suckle on. Marisa wanted to drag her tongue over every finger so she could taste how seeet (your name) was- what was that? What kind of demon possessed Marisa that made her mind wander to such obscene thoughts of her best friend?

“Mari?” (Your name) quirked a brow at her best friend in concern. Her friend has never kissed her hands like this before and she seemed so lost in thought. “Are you alright?”

Marisa shook her head and gave (your name) a reassuring smile. “I’m okay. I just had some thoughts on my mind was all.”

(Your name) gave Marisa a big smile. “You’ve been having a lot on your mind recently. I’m starting to believe you’re a scholar now since you’re so full of thoughts.”

The two shared a laugh before they fell into a comfortable silence. (Your name) rested her head on Marisa’s shoulder with a big smile, which made the red head’s face exploded with color. Marisa swore her heart leapt to the stars from the simple gesture. Her shoulder felt as if it was on fire. Marisa was being boiled alive with desire- desire?

Marisa felt her head swim with more thoughts of her friend. Her reactions felt natural and yet… would it be possible for two women to be together- together? What was wrong with her… Marisa shouldn’t think of such things. They were friends, nothing more… right?

(Your name) was none the wiser of Marisa’s muddled feelings for her nor was she aware of just how upset Cressida would be once she found out of her disappearance.

.

.

.

Cressida threw her vanity chair across the room with such force, it splintered into thousands of pieces. A loud scream escaped her chest as she sobbed uncontrollably.

Bits of silk and velvet from expensive dresses laid torn across her bedroom floor. Cressida’s body shifted in and out of her male and female form from how unstable she was.

“My lord, you must collect yourself-“ Gerald barely dodged a hand mirror that was chucked at his head. A sigh left his lips. There was no way his lord was going to ever be royalty at this rate… he was too unstable.

“She’s gone! They took her from me!” Chrysanthos screamed, his face a beet shade of red and his golden hair frazzled. He looked like a maniac. “Why would they take her to the north?! I want her back immediately-“

Gerald slapped him across the face with his white glove, Crysanthos’s head thrown to the side. A red welt formed on his porcelain skin but the slap successfully silenced the marquis. The butler glared at the noble with disdain.

“You are acting like a fool.” Gerald hissed, the butler had had enough. “If you don’t get yourself together, you’ll never be able to sit on the throne.”

Gerald clicked his tongue at the mess in the room. “I’ll send a maid to clean this up while you collect your feelings. You’re done acting like a spoiled child. You cannot forget your purpose, my lord.”

Gerald then left Chrysanthos alone in his room . The door slammed shut behind the butler, which snapped Chrysanthos back to reality.

The blonde’s knees collapsed from under him as he began to sob. His darling would never hit him… she would have consoled him and let him cry his heart out on her shoulder. How was he going to cope without her by his side?

Crysanthos admired his ethereal reflection in the large body mirror in the corner of the room. There was no denying he was a man of exquisite beauty, but it didn’t matter if his darling wasn’t here to see him. If she didn’t love him.

“We’ll be reunited again…” Chrysanthos’s tenor voice rung out in the emptiness in his room. “We will see each other soon and I’ll never let you go again.”

.

.

.

Half a year went by living in the north and it wasn’t horrible. (Your name) spent a lot of her time indoors where it was warm to practice her healing abilities while Marisa took up sword fighting.

Orik had given (your name) permission to heal people for money now so she could be more independent. The young woman was ecstatic to finally use her abilities more often and she began to meet the locals… especially a young knight named Joshua.

It was shocking to learn that most people in the north had blood red hair just like Marisa. It turns out Marisa may have originally been a northerner before she became a slave and eventually ended up in the orphanage… she had lived such a hard life but it seems she found her place… or so (your name) thought.

(Your name) had no idea that Marisa considered (your name) herself as her true home.

Marisa would put her all into training so she could head back to their home to be with (your name). She even began to earn money by her big game she hunted and sold. It wasn’t uncommon for her to hunt for boars or deer after her training session. Marisa now legally bought her beloved princess presents.

Today was no exception. Marisa had decided to buy (your name) a stuffed snow rabbit. It was something small and simple, but she was sure (your name) would love the cute stuffy…

And that’s when Marisa came home a bit early to find a man with (your name). The two talked and laughed while (your name) healed his wounds and Marisa knew that (your name) was just doing her job but she couldn’t help the jealousy that consumed her. Especially when he had such a prominent blush on his face when he looked at (your name).

The scene instantly soured Marisa’s mood. Who did this man think he was? How dare he bask in (your name)‘s presence for this long… he didn’t deserve to be in the same room as her. No man did…

“I noticed your hair is shorter, Joshua.” (Your name) smiled at the young knight who only blushed in response. “It looks really nice on you.”

“O-oh… you noticed my hair cut?” Joshua ran an olive hand through his red locks. “Thank you, (your name)… actually I-I have something to ask you-“

Joshua froze when he saw Marisa in the corner of his eye. He quickly sprung up and collected himself. “Sorry, it seems I overstayed my welcome.”

(Your name) frowned but then she saw Marisa in the door way. Her cinnamon eyes glared holes into Joshua. Oh my… it seems Marisa was upset about something.

“It’s perfectly okay, Joshua. Please refrain from hurting yourself.” (Your name) smiled warmly at the knight who blushed once more. He shyly gave her a nod and scurried out the door before Marisa’s wrath was inflicted on him. He made sure not to look the giant woman in the eyes.

Once he shut the door behind him, Marisa opened her mouth to speak. “I didn’t think you were acquainted with any men around here…”

“Oh I’m not, just Joshua.” (Your name) smiled warmly at Marisa, who took Joshua’s seat beside her. “He is so clumsy-“

“He’s probably injuring himself to see you.” Marisa mumbled under her breath before she dug the stuffed rabbit out of her pocket. “Here, I bought you something.”

(Your name) smiled at the white rabbit plush. She couldn’t believe Marisa had bought her something so cute…

“Thank you so much, Mari.” (Your name) smiled at Marisa who blushed a bit. Marisa felt her breath hitch when (your name) held her hand in hers. “I love it.”

“It was nothing…” Marisa couldn’t quite explain the feeling that she felt towards her best friend. Her stomach swarmed with butterflies, and her face felt hot. What was going on with her? Why did she have such muddled feelings around (your name)?

.

.

.

Marisa stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her hand ran through her long red locks in thought. (Your name) really liked Joshua’s short hair…

Marisa glanced at the dagger that rested on the bathroom cabinet, the young woman brought it up to her face to admire it. Would (your name) like her hair short as well?

Marisa grabbed a fist full of her hair up into a ponytail and sucked in a deep breath. Her hand shook as she held the dagger so tightly, her knuckles turned white.

And with the flick of her wrist, handfuls of blood red hair laid on the bathroom floor. Marisa smiled at her reflection in awe.

Short hair suited her much better. She looked more like a man than Joshua now.

Marisa ran her hand through her neck length locks in contemplation. Perhaps she could trim it up a bit more? Keep it a bit longer in the back to tug on while she shoved her face between (your name)’s legs- where on earth were these impure thoughts coming from?

Marisa shook her head to try to clear it. Her hands held her hot cheeks in shame.

“What on earth is wrong with me?”

.

.

.

“Wow, Mari! Did you get a haircut?” (Your name) beamed at her friend whose cheeks flushed at the compliment. Marisa shyly ran her palm through her short wolf cut. “You look so handsome, Mari. It suits your face.”

She was thrilled that (your name) loved her new cut. It made butterflies explode in her stomach to a nearly overwhelming degree. Marisa had never felt so flattered in her life.

Marisa bent down to (your name)‘s height and took her hands in hers. “Do you mean it?”

“Mean what, Mari?”

“That I’m handsome?” Marisa’s voice was barely above a whisper, her body trembled. She needed to know… she needed to know if (your name) truly thought she was attractive.

“Of course I do.” (Your name) smiled at Marisa. She moved her hand to cup Marisa’s face, her fingers traced over the unsightly scars on the left side of the redhead’s face. “You have such a strong jawline and I love your Roman nose…”

Marisa leaned forward into (your name)’s touch. She wanted more… she needed more. Marisa wanted to open up her ribcage so (your name) could crawl inside but even then, Marisa wouldn’t be satiated with the close proximity. They needed to fuse together into one, living being- she was thinking of bizarre ideas again.

(Your name) traced her fingers over the slit scar on Marisa’s thin lips. She wasn’t lying about Marisa being handsome… if (your name) didn’t know the truth, she’d think Marisa was a man.

Marisa suddenly scooped (your name) up in her arms and lead her to her room. The red head collapsing on the bed with her best friend with a big smile.

“Mari!” (Your name) giggled when Marisa buried her face into (your name)’s stomach.

“I want your eyes on me forever.” Marisa whispered into (your name)’s skin. “I don’t ever want you to go to a far away place where I can’t see you.”

“Then we’ll stay together till we’re old.” (Your name) giggled with a big smile. “At least until I get a husband.”

And that’s when it hit Marisa. The reason why she loved being near (your name) so much, the reason she wished to provide for her and protect the small girl from harm was because Marisa was in love with her. Marisa was in love with (your name)… and she’d be damned if she let some man take her away.

.

.

.

As the years went by, (Your name) did her best to send Cressida a weekly letter despite the her busy schedule in the north. The blonde would always send back letters spritzed with perfume or small flowers tucked into the envelopes. Cressida was so cute sometimes. (Your name) could not wait to be back in the west to see Cressida. It’s been so long… she wondered if the blonde was still so doll like…

A large, veiny hand was placed on her shoulder which drew her from her thoughts. (Your name) turned to see her best friend, Marisa.

The redhead now was nearly seven feet tall and more massive than any man around. The unsightly scars on the left side of her face made her presence even more intimidating, but it didn’t affect (your name) who beamed warmly at her friend.

“You still send letters to that doll?” Marisa scoffed as she bent down to scoop one up to snoop through it. “I don’t know what you see in that girl. She’s corny.”

(Your name) tried to take the letter from Marisa but Marisa merely held it up high above her head.

“Mari, give it back!” Marisa’s chest shook with a laugh before she gave (your name) a smirk.

“I will if you give me a kiss.” Marisa’s cinnamon eyes glinted with mischievousness. Over the last few years, she’s been pushing the boundaries of their friendship in pursuit of turning it into a relationship… a shame (your name) was so dense since Marisa ruined any romantic endeavors for the smaller woman.

“You wild woman!” (Your name) huffed and then pouted in defeat. “Fine.”

Marisa bent down in a millisecond, the large woman turned her cheek to the side for (your name) to kiss. The smaller woman giggled and rolled her eyes before she planted a tender kiss on one of Marisa’s scars.

“Perfect, here’s your love letter.” Marisa sarcastically mumbled. She was a woman of her word despite her disdain for the blonde.

“I’m amazed Cressida isn’t engaged. We’re almost to our mid-twenties now.” (Your name) chuckled at the image of Cressida that played in her head. She wondered if the blonde still threw tantrums… her dear friend was so fickle it was comical. (Your name) swore she was the only one in the world Cressida enjoyed being around…

It took everything in Marisa not to shout on the top of her longs that Cressida was a weirdo. Cressida gave her the chills… there was something unsettling about the blonde and not just due to her doll like appearance. Yet Marisa couldn’t voice her disdain when all she had was a hunch. Marisa would need proof to keep the blonde away so she could finally keep (your name) all for herself…

“Joshua is going on a hunt today.” Marisa did her best not to gag at the man’s name. She didn’t like that string bean either. Joshua was a nice guy, don’t get Marisa wrong, but Marisa did not want (your name) to be with anyone other than her.

Was it awful for Marisa to just want to keep her friend all to herself? To keep her safe from the danger of the world in her large arms? Marisa was jealous that she wasn’t born a man.

“Joshua actually asked me out on a date-“

(Your name) squealed when Marisa suddenly pulled her into an embrace. The red head buried her face in the crook of (your name)’s neck, her hot breath made (your name) squeal at the sensation. Marisa could take this torment no longer, she had to make a move,

“Mari! Stop teasing me!” Marisa merely hummed before she scooped (your name) up and carried her to her bed. The red head flopped over so that her muscular body pinned (your name) down on the mattress in a compromising position. “Mari-“

Marisa hungrily pressed her lips against (your name)’s in a dominant kiss. (Your name)’s eyes blew wide when Marisa shoved her tongue in her mouth, her large hands held (your name) in place. There was no escape from her friend but maybe… this wasn’t so bad?

(Your name) leaned into the kiss that soon turned into a full make out session. The strong taste of cinnamon overwhelmed her senses but Marisa’s hands made her mind melt. All (your name) could smell was Marisa. All she could taste was Marisa.

Marisa suddenly pulled away, a string of saliva connected the two from their make out session.

“I’m in love with you.” Marisa whispered as she pressed her forehead against (your name)‘s. “And I know I’m not man. I know I’m not conventionally attractive either but I could treat you well…”

(Your name)’s hands were scooped up in Marisa’s large, calloused palms. The redhead trembled as her deep voice became soft like a breeze. “But we could run away and live in a cabin somewhere. Where no one can find us. Just us. No Cressida. No Joshua. Just you and me and the pinky promise we made.”

(Your name) smiled at Marisa. A simple life with her best friend? One where she could truly leave her past life of nobility behind and shed no longer have to heal the citizens of this ungrateful frozen wasteland? It sounded as unbelievable as a story in a child’s fairytale book but she didn’t know unless she gave it a shot.

“Well you find us that cabin and I might take you up on that.” (Your name) smiled at Marisa who instantly pulled her into a flurry of kisses. “Hey. Stop that.”

“You didn’t fight back earlier when I shoved my tongue down your throat, what’s the difference now?” Marisa teased (your name), which made the smaller woman furiously blush. “We’re lovers now. And I won’t ever let anyone else have you.”

“It’s your world, I’m just living in it.” (Your name) and Marisa shared a laugh before they cuddled together on the bed.

Although this may have seemed like a happy ending for the pair, the story was far from over. No. It had only just begun.

#female reader #yandere fic #yandere imagine #yandere #yandere x darling #yandere x willing reader #yandere x y/n #yandere x you #yandere x reader #yandere wlw #yandere lesbian #yandere obsession #yandere best friend #yandere original character #yandere oc #yandere love #yandere lovers #yandere fantasy #fantasy #fantasy au #original work

[candyphone]

SPOILERS FOR SESSION 6 OF SECRET LIFE!!!

The Canary Curse is broken. Jimmy is now free. Why? Why did the Watchers have mercy this time? Simple answer, they didnt.

The Watchers feed off of negative emotion, and an unpredicted death just tastes so much sweeter than a predicted one.

The problem with the Canary Curse is that it did exactly what it was supposed to until recently. They tasted exactly how much pain everyone was in when Jimmy died first the first few games. Now the players hope for it.

The curse was always a game to the Watchers, they didnt expect it to become a game to the players too.

So they made a new plan, kill someone else. Kill Lizzie. Sure only Joel seems to be the only one seriously affected, but when he feels an emotion he FEELS it.

But its not enough. This game has been too nice, too friendly, they hate it. Kill Jimmy. Kill Mumbo. Now theres an abundance of negative emotions.

Martyn just lost his Big Dog. He didnt expect him to die just yet because the curse was broken. Now Mumbo is also dead. 3 allies all gone. Joel is heartbroken that Lizzie is gone, and angry that he seems to be the only one who cares. The Mounders lost a teammate completely in the span of a few hours. And poor Jimmy, who is left to spectate the world after believing he had a shot at winning.

All of this was also enough to make Martyn snap. Hes angry. How dare everyone laugh when HIS FRIENDS are dead. They will all pay. The hound from Hell has been unleashed. Martyn is once again The Watchers pawn.

Leaving the Canary Curse behind was the best idea The Watchers have had, since creating it in the first place.

#life series #third life #last life #double life #limited life #secret life #inthelittlewood #martyn itlw #mumbo jumbo #ldshadowlady #smallishbeans #jimmy solidarity #solidaritygaming #canary curse #evo smp #watchers

[rainecreatesstuff]

AS A HUGE FAN OF BOTH FITPAC+HADESTOWN UR AU IS MAKING ME FEEL <3 NORMAL <3333 who would be orpheus / who'd be euridyce?

okokokokok hear me out here

fit as eurydice, disillusioned with the world and taught to always have your own back, take things as they are, if something’s too good to be true then it’s not.

pac as orpheus, bright-eyed and determined, sees the world for what it could be and wants to make that real.

You know how the song goes.

Fit falling in love with Pac in the spring, things are warm and good and food comes easy. Watching his son play carelessly and laugh and sing. Listening to Pac’s visions of the future and hearing his song, and believing in him full heartedly. They wed in summer, laughter and wine falling from their lips during their first kiss as husbands.

Summer leaves early and faster than ever. Pac focuses harder on writing his song. Ramón is starting to complain about the hunger. It’s cold. Fit loves Pac more than anything. He can handle the hunger, he can handle the cold, he can handle being alone. He can’t handle his baby boy going hungry.

He leaves one day to buy, to find, to steal some food, some firewood, anything to keep his boy warm. He gets caught in a storm. Death approaches him and offers to keep him and Ramón safe and warm and fed. If it had been just him, maybe… but Death’s voice is deep and warm, and the coal mine calls with promises of heat, and the canary follows.

You know how the song goes.

A lot can happen behind closed doors. Fit is not naive. He is hungry. He is cold, and he is lonely. But he is not naive. He signs his life away. Ramón, his baby, is safe. Has no stake to his name.

Pac descends from his office, and the fire is out. Blankets lay on the couch untouched, no coats hang from the coatrack. There is a lonely pair of shoes at the door.

He searches and searches and yells and screams for his husband and filho. The Traveller finally comes to him when he has screamed his throat raw. Rattlesnakes are meant to hibernate during winter. Regardless, he sees his love with the twin wounds left by fangs.

He asks to join them. The Traveller offers a different route. He takes it. He plays his song, he plays it loudly and clearly and with his lyrics he calls to his amô and his filho. He calls to Death and Spring and he cries his sorrows to them. His pain brings Spring to tears and his regret brings Death to movement.

Ramón runs to him the moment they see each other. They cry and hug and Pac will never let his boy go again.

Fit, his love, his muse, is held back by the chains of Death. Pac pleads again with Death. Fit crumbles and cries. Pac twitches as he tries to reach out but can’t.

Death loosens his grip on the chains and Fit collapses into Pac. There is a moment of pure relief and joy and clarity. Fit and Pac are together with their boy between them again. They make each other promises, fix the ones they made as their vows, and begin to rebuild what fell apart so fast the first time. It is warm and safe and it is love.

The moment is short-lived. Death’s voice calls out. The canary flinches towards it.

You know how the song goes.

Ramón is allowed to hold his hand as he leads them out. There is no claim on his life. He never should have been there in the first place.

Fit is not so lucky.

They are steps away. The cold breeze hits Pac’s face from the end of their ascent.

You know how the song ends.

#fitpac #hideduo #qsmp fitmc #qsmp pactw #fitmc #pactw #qsmp #qsmp au #qsmp fanart #raine rambles #raine creates #raine writes #raine draws #qsmp ramón

[pixiemage]

Do You Believe In Magic?

[Part of the Magebound Universe]

23,458 words Fandom: 3rd Life | Last Life SMP Series, Hermitcraft SMP Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Relationships: Jimmy | Solidarity/TangoTek Additional Tags: Past Jimmy | Solidarity/Scott Major | Smajor1995, Mage AU, Witch and Familiar AU, Witch TangoTek, Familiar Jimmy Solidarity, Canary Jimmy | Solidarity, Blaze Hybrid TangoTek (Video Blogging RPF), Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Injury, First Meetings, Soulmates, Witch/Familiar Bonds, Magebonds, Baby Ravagers :3, Hermitshipping Big Bang 2023

[A/N: Hey all! This has been in the works for quite a while by now. For anyone who read the mini Ethubs fic I posted most recently, this story takes place in the same universe (though later in the timeline). I've been itching to share the Ranchers' origin story with you for ages!

Much love to the HSBB server for their inspiration and friendship and support, and even MORE love to the handful of spectacular artists who created artwork for this story! Links to their creations can be found here, as well as in the endnotes.]

@fantasykiri5 [Trapped] [Jimmy] [Tango] @joifee [Feathers] @aviomons [Magic] @setacin [Campire]

{This work can also be found on Archive Of Our Own}

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The late afternoon sun filtered down through the trees, the ever-shifting leaves and branches high overhead casting scattered, evolving shadows across the forest floor below. Every so often a stray sunbeam would cross Jimmy’s face…but for how deep in the forest he was, it didn’t happen often. Below the canopy the forest was cool, what little heat from the day that still lingered in the shadows already beginning to lessen with each minute that ticked by.

Jimmy was grateful for the shade, and the breeze, and the barely-there smell of petrichor that still hung around from the rain that had come through earlier that afternoon. It left his walk in the woods with a peaceful sort of feeling hanging over it. He was beginning to think he might have picked the perfect day to attune with his avian side. It had been a while since he’d had the chance, really…not that it was entirely his fault.

(He couldn’t help but think his own actions took more than a little of the blame.)

Jimmy let out a breath, hiking his satchel higher onto his shoulder and doing his best to focus on where he was going.

The Southlands Coven had been a nice escape, after everything. It had been a chaotic whirlwind of magical malpractice and experimentation, a place to just let loose and not worry too much about where he had been before. It helped him to forget about Sc– his former bond, and about whatever he had left behind at that cottage. The Southlanders helped him remember himself, and forget himself, and remember to have fun again.

Not - not that he hadn’t had fun with - with him, and them, but there had been a tension Jimmy hadn’t been willing to endure, and a past that wasn’t his own that needed facing. Jimmy was helping no one by sticking around.

Jimmy’s jaw tensed and he huffed out a breath, pushing the thought aside. He was meant to be focussing on nature, on the natural magic in the earth, and on his familiar form. He was meant to be finding the right place to attune, like Grian and Martyn had both suggested. Not…not agonizing over broken magebonds. It was in the past.

In truth, Jimmy conceded as he clambered over a massive protruding root, he had been with the Southlanders for over a year by the time they disbanded, but even then it wasn’t that long of a span of time in the grand scheme of things. The lingering ache of a severed bond had only fully faded around the seven-month mark, so perhaps he could be forgiven for still missing the feeling of someone else’s magic humming alongside his own.

Sc– his magic had been smooth and graceful and almost cool to the touch, often carefully controlled in a way that Jimmy’s almost never was. Jimmy’s magic was an energetic thing, always moving and buzzing and sparkling at him for attention at the slightest thing. He’d had to reign it in more times than he cared to count, so finding a witch like - like him, a witch who maintained such careful discipline over the way his own magic behaved and who naturally extended that control down the bond to include Jimmy as well? It was - well, it was something. It was stifling, but comforting all the same. It was nice to not feel so scattered all the time…but it wasn’t quite freeing enough for someone like Jimmy whose familiar form was a bird.

Perhaps that was why Jimmy had known from the start that their magic wasn’t meant to be bound forever, and he would have known even without the contract for a temporary bond that he had signed when he’d been hired. The relationship they’d forged in the time they’d been bound, though? Now that was something Jimmy had hoped would last a little longer. But once Jimmy had helped him with his task, once his former magebound was back from wherever she’d been lost to, and his focus shifted to helping to nurse his true familiar back to health - well.

It became all too awkward for Jimmy to hang around when his priorities were no longer on romantic relationships.

And Jimmy understood, he did. He understood the importance of magebonds as well as anyone. He wasn’t surprised that he immediately prioritized her when she needed him most, and he wasn’t surprised that he, Jimmy, got forgotten in the process. Perhaps worse still, it didn’t seem to surprise him when Jimmy said he’d be leaving.

Perhaps it was only ever meant to be short and sweet. Perhaps one day he’d be able to remember it fondly. But at the moment, he just wanted to forget.

Jimmy paused in a small clearing, closing his eyes and using his magic to reach out with delicate tendrils, sensing the natural magic of the forest and trying to follow where it wanted to lead him. He was close. He was very, very close. He took careful steps with his eyes closed, the damp spring grass shushing softly against his shoes. A little…a little left…ah.

A warm vibration of pure, gentle energy danced at his peripherals, making his magic buzz, making his core resonate with a low, silent tune. Slowly, he let his satchel drop to the grass, and he sank down beside it. He pulled off his shoes and shrugged off his overshirt, leaving them piled on his bag and leaving him unencumbered. He listened and he felt and he breathed.

A full familiar transformation was meant to feel as natural as breathing. Once you managed it the first time it was meant to become second nature, as easy to repeat as your own name.

Lately, for Jimmy, that hadn’t been the case. He could summon up a handful of reasons why if asked. There was one he blamed more than the others. But no matter the reason behind it, it was because of this disconnect from his avian side that Grian had all but demanded for Jimmy to take the time to find a peaceful connection point and attune.

He had been absolutely appalled that Jimmy hadn’t attempted to do so sooner, and Martyn had been equally irate about it. So…off Jimmy went.

That had been a week ago.

Now, Jimmy took a slow breath and let his magic sink. He let it melt out of his core and to the very tips of his fingers, to the ends of his hair…let it sit just below the skin. He let it fill him completely, let it greet the natural magic in the air around him, and he let his avian side come to life bit by tiny bit. Tiny golden down feathers prickled at his hairline and down his neck, scattered across his cheeks, soft patterns racing down his spine. A few fanned out around his ears and he listened, the quiet breeze and distant chirping and nearby rustling of crickets and critters meeting him more clearly than before. He rolled his shoulders and bone and muscle shifted seamlessly, painlessly, beneath his shirt, the fabric seemingly unbothered as massive sunglow-dusted wings appeared at his back. He shook them out with the smallest of grimaces, momentarily distracted by some dust and misplaced feathers that were making him itch.

He’d have to have a preening session once this was over.

For now, though, Jimmy just focussed as best he could on the balance between his avian and human halves, letting them merge together to as perfect a point of equilibrium as he could manage. For a few long, quiet minutes, Jimmy just let everything hover at that balance. He let himself exist in silence as both for as long as he was patient enough to endure, and as long as the forest was willing to indulge him. This part was easier. Jimmy wasn’t the best at sitting still or meditating, never had been, but the weight of wings at his back and the tickle of down against his skin was a familiar comfort that felt more natural than his fully human form ever had. It was easy to melt into, like pouring just the right amount of water into a glass. It was a perfect fit.

Time seemed to still, to warp, seconds and minutes ticking by as the mix of magics whispered at the edge of Jimmy’s awareness, as he slowly focussed inward toward the point where his avian side resided.

…it was taking it a step further that was giving Jimmy trouble, was the thing.

He took a slow breath, letting his wings go lax and drape out across the grass behind him. His magic was still swirling just below the surface and he reached for it, drew upon it, let it soak into his skin and settle in his bones.

There was a pull, normally, when Jimmy wanted to shift fully. There was a tug in his gut and a sudden, small inward force and a feeling almost like a startled inward breath - and then he was suddenly a fraction of his size. Normally. Normally, it happened in an instant, so simple to grasp and even easier to maintain.

Right now, Jimmy was having trouble getting to that point. He could feel that tugging sensation lingering just out of reach, a tension just below his ribs, a surge of energy balancing on a precipice and barely threatening to tumble over the edge. He was close, closer to that tipping point than he’d been in over a year. And yet–

An itch cropped up at the base of his right wing, something between his feathers irritating him, making him grimace. He rolled his shoulders, trying to dissipate it without digging through the down to find what was bothering him. It didn’t do much.

Jimmy sighed and scrunched up his nose in discomfort. Yeah, he was definitely preening later, probably before bed if he had the energy. He couldn’t fathom how his wings had become so unkempt. So…neglected.

…no, that was a lie. He knew. He knew full well that he had become lax in taking care of himself after he had left the cottage. He knew that Grian and Martyn - even Impulse and Mumbo - had needed to remind him to eat sometimes during the first few weeks with them, and even after that–

No. No, he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about that. He was meant to be focusing on…on…

…crap.

The swirling haze of flowing magic had begun dissipating drastically once Jimmy’s thoughts had strayed, and at this point he knew it would be exhausting to return to the level of concentration he was at before. With a heavy sigh, Jimmy let his eyes flutter open and he flopped backward against the grass. He ground the heels of his palms against his eyes hard enough for stars to pop up in the darkness behind his eyelids and he huffed in mild annoyance.

He’d always struggled with meditation, and any magical practices that required it. His mind was just too…busy, too distractible, and something always inevitably drew his attention away from what he was meant to be focussing on. At least in this instance his distraction was well-warranted. Unpreened and itchy wings were a nightmare and impossible to ignore no matter how well-trained one’s patience was.

Maybe he ought to try again tomorrow once he’d dealt with whatever grit was causing him so much irritation.

It wouldn’t be too hard for Jimmy to find the clearing again. Even if he hadn’t had a fairly good sense of direction thanks to his avian nature, the lingering residual tendrils of magical energy his attunement had left behind were recognizable. It was his magic, after all. He’d know it anywhere. The forest would lead him here again.

The sun was beginning to dip low behind the treeline now, casting an orange tinge across the sky, and when Jimmy sat up to grab for his satchel he could see the way the shadows had already begun to stretch under the canopy of the trees. The glimmer of magic still fading from his skin illuminated the nearby grass, a low but noticeable light that further cemented the fact that it was getting late.

It wasn’t as if Jimmy had anywhere to be, but any forest this dense could become a danger when one was alone in the middle of the night, magical abilities or not. He cast a stray glance around as he shoved his feet back into his sneakers. He hadn’t exactly expected to see anyone, so finding his surroundings quiet and empty wasn’t much of a surprise…but something about it left him feeling wary. The few stray downy feathers at the nape of his neck tickled from a passing breeze, making him shiver, and a quiet anxiety began to pool in his gut.

Maybe he ought to fly back to the inn. He should have enough time to walk back from here - the nearby town wasn’t too far away, and he would probably arrive just before nightfall if he left immediately - but he wasn’t sure he felt as confident in that method of travel now as he had been when he’d left the inn that morning. Jimmy finished tugging on his overshirt - letting his wings phase through with practiced ease - and stood slowly, his satchel strap clutched tightly in one hand.

…yeah. Yeah, maybe he’d fly, just in case.

He tossed the bag’s strap across his body, rolling his shoulders and flexing his wings. He shook them out once, twice, still irked by the itchiness beneath his feathers…but he’d just have to deal with it later. His paranoia was increasing with every second, and he’d rather get out of here before–

Jimmy turned to prepare for a takeoff and went stiff as a statue, coming face to horrifying face with a massive beast. It was staring at him from across the clearing, its beady eyes fixed on him with an intelligent sort of focus that made Jimmy’s skin crawl. The creature was a giant, hulking thing, reminding him of a rather hairy bull but with a wider snout and a stockier build. It was a dark, brownish-gray and a pair of ivory-colored horns curved out from its skull…and those things looked like a quick way to a very painful death. It took Jimmy an embarrassingly long time to remember what it was called - a ravager - and an even longer time to remember that he needed to breathe. He swallowed thickly and took a slow, shaking, measured breath. Right. Right, okay. Right. He took a slow step backward, then another. The ravager was tracking his every move, audible snorting huffs leaving it as it stared him down.

Jimmy could hear his own heart pounding in his ears, could hear the ravager’s breath, could hear his own shaking attempts at regulating his breathing. The eerie silence from before suddenly made much more sense now. If a beast of this size was in the vicinity, why would any creature be making noise that would draw its attention?

It still hadn’t moved yet, Jimmy noticed. He had been creeping ever closer to the trees behind him in an attempt to escape its piercing stare, and all the while it hadn’t moved. Jimmy wanted to count it as a blessing, a small bout of luck that he wasn’t about to take for granted. Maybe if he was quiet enough, maybe if he moved slowly enough, maybe if he just stayed calm, then the ravager would have no reason to run him down. So he stayed steady and he kept his wings pulled close and his breath carefully schooled.

…and then he tripped.

Jimmy went down in a whirlwind of feathers and limbs with a loud yelp and a chirp and an oof…and apparently, it was the sign the ravager had been waiting for, because within moments of him hitting the grass, it tossed its head and stomped at the ground and let out a deep, bellowing roar.

Jimmy scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could, darting off between the trees and shoving off of trunks as he dodged them. He could feel the ravager’s footfalls pounding against the earth behind him, sending vibrations through the forest floor. All the while he let his eyes dart skyward as often as he dared, trying to spot a breach in the canopy where he might be able to take to the sky. For not the first time, he was cursing his inability to perform a full shift to his avian form. If he wasn’t such an incapable mage he could have gotten high above the trees before the beast behind him even reached him - if he was quick enough. But even then, he supposed his bag would have posed a problem anyway, because he wouldn’t dare to leave behind the books and potions and crystals that he had packed into his satchel for the trip.

And besides, even if he managed to use a spell to put his bag out of harm’s way, that “if” would have been enough to keep him grounded regardless of his ability to shift forms. If he was fast enough. If he had time to transform and get out of the way before the ravager trampled him into the ground.

If he could have shifted fully in the first place.

Jimmy gritted his teeth. Arguing over what-if’s in his head was a moot point when he wasn’t even capable of the most important part of the equation. He’d just have to find an opening and fly as he was when he had the chance.

Branches whipped past, some catching on his clothes, some leaving scratches against his skin, skirted shrubs and thorny flowers lashing at his ankles and a few vines threatening to trip him up.

Vines.

On an inspired whim and with a prayer to the heavens, Jimmy skirted a tree and slammed his palm against its trunk, focussing on his fading connection to the forest to fuel his spell. As his fingers separated from the bark a flurry of vines sprang forth, curling up from the ground around the roots of the tree and tangling through the undergrowth. He didn’t look back to see if it had helped, but he did hear the ravager let out a growling cry of some kind, and the thundering at his back faded with each new stride he took.

Jimmy’s eyes darted to the sky again, searching for an opening, any opening. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon–

When it seemed as though the monster behind him really had been lost in the foliage, Jimmy let himself slow. He cast a furtive glance behind him before collapsing sideways against the trunk of a massive gnarled oak. His chest heaved and he gulped down precious, precious oxygen, his lungs aching and his limbs threatening to give out. At his back, he let his wings hang limp to brush against the forest floor…but thank goodness running didn’t tend to wear them out too quickly, or he might not have felt up to flying home after the harrowing chase he’d just barely managed to escape from.

“Oh gosh…” Jimmy choked out, his legs shaking. He dragged both hands back through his now-sweaty hair and let out a distressed trill, a chirp catching in his throat as he slid down the trunk to sit on a massive twisted root protruding from the soil. His fingers tangled tightly in the blond strands. “Ohhh my gosh…oh my gods…”

A ravager. A ravager. What was a ravager even doing in this forest? Jimmy might not be quite as much of an expert on magical beasts as Impulse was, but he was fairly certain they were more likely to appear in colder climates. They were built for the snow. The forest Jimmy had chosen for his attunement was rarely even chilly this time of year, let alone prone to snow or ice. Where in the world had–

A low rumbling growl and a sudden thundering sound broke through Jimmy’s mind a little too late, and by the time his head was snapping up - by the time he was scrambling to his feet - the ravager he thought he’d managed to evade was already upon him. It rammed him backward, thoroughly winding him, pinning him to the massive trunk of the gnarled oak he’d been using as a resting place, its head bowed to be on his level and its horns caging him in on either side. The sound of shattering glass rent the air, the distinct sound of one of the potion bottles in his satchel breaking. Jimmy didn’t even have words anymore, the panicked sounds leaving him reduced to twittering avian screeches and wheezing, shrill, desperate chirps. He shoved at the beast’s snout frantically, feebly, trying and failing to push it away. Its huffed, snarling breath was hot and overwhelming. It made it harder to breathe, harder than it already was with the way he was being crushed against the tree trunk and the way he was panicking too much to catch his breath.

The ravager was relentless too, because though its horns against the tree kept it at just enough of a distance to leave Jimmy some minute level of safety, it refused to let that keep it from its prey. (Because Jimmy was prey right now, wasn’t he? He certainly felt like it.) It jerked its head sharply, carving into the bark, closing that gap bit by bit with each jolting movement.

A spell, a spell - he couldn’t think of a spell. Jimmy’s thoughts were whirling desperately, but nothing was sticking, nothing - nothing he could–

“G-Glacius!” he stammered, choking out the first thing that came to mind, and he shivered as a swath of freezing blue ice magic was dispelled from his fingertips. But it wasn’t strong. It was a wisp of a thing, magic that didn’t come naturally to Jimmy. It did very little to dissuade the ravager. The creature did flinch back though, for a moment, and for a fraction of a fraction of a second Jimmy was tempted to make a break for it. There was a gap to his left, a possible escape - but was there even time?

Before he had a chance to decide, the ravager had let out a furious roar and charged forward again, and Jimmy flinched, and his wings jerked, and–

Jimmy let out a shrill, pained avian screech when one of the beast’s horns slammed against his left wing and pinned it to the tree, something snapping and an unbearable pain blinding him. He keened and his wing jerked frantically where it was trapped, the sharp, hot agony that radiated from the injury making the world spin on its axis. Shit. Shit. Fu–

A sharp whistle pierced the air, though Jimmy wasn’t quite aware enough to even bother trying to figure out where it had come from. It repeated, a warbling lilt to it this time, and - much to Jimmy’s utter disbelief - the ravager actually retreated. It stomped backward, still huffing and rearing its head occasionally, but it gave Jimmy just enough space to slump against the tree. He gulped down desperate breaths, his chest heaving, and a moment later his legs - shaking and exhausted - gave out below him. He crumpled, one hand scrabbling at the bark behind him for support. The wing that the ravager had injured absolutely screamed as it shifted to the ground and Jimmy let out a sharp, choked chirp, wheezing twitters coinciding with each breath he took.

Gods that hurt. It was - it felt - he curled in on himself, his uninjured wing coming up to shield him from the world, the rest of him too fuzzy to focus on much else besides the pain to his left and the slowly growing awareness of a voice somewhere to his right.

“...whoa, whoa - hey there, big guy. C’mon - gahk! NO! No, hold. Hold it, skippy. Stay still…that’s it–” There was a shifting of soft material and the jingle of metal, maybe keys or chains. A soft snort arose from the ravager, one that made Jimmy flinch. “–easy. Easy. Just…wait…a second - hah!” Another jingle, then the voice let out a victorious laugh. “HAH! Gotcha! Now - ngh - now c’mere, get away from that thing…”

More chinking - definitely chains - then a disgruntled huff from the ravager, some grumbling from the voice. The heavy footfalls of the beast retreated from where Jimmy was still hiding away in the safety of his feathers and he shivered. He clutched at the strap of the bag still slung across his chest, his focus honing in on the nearby sounds, not quite ready to look at his ruined wing. There was the drag of metal on wood, more chinking and jingling, then the voice he’d been hearing sighed.

“What’d you catch now?” he muttered, his much more human-sounding footsteps a balm on Jimmy’s nerves. “What poor critter am I gonna have to patch up, huh? …geez, it’s a big fella this time…”

The voice had come close, so close, and Jimmy flinched back when he felt a gloved hand brush at his feathers.

“Shhh, sorry,” the stranger murmured quietly. “Sorry bud. I’m not gonna hurt you. Okay? I just wanna help…”

It was at this point that Jimmy slowly lowered his wing, peering out over shivering golden feathers to try and get a look at whoever had saved him. The guy was a bit shorter than Jimmy, or at least he seemed to be at this angle, with a little less height and a bit more bulk to him than what Jimmy had. His skin was lightly tanned and his black leather hide gloves and vest and boots made Jimmy think he must spend a lot of time outdoors. The man was also clearly inhuman - even without his pointed ears or the sight of his tuft-ended tail, his red irises and sclera would have been more than enough proof of that. There was a glowing tinge to his blond hair as well that seemed to illuminate the air around him with a low, subtle, warm incandescence, the dim light of the setting sun making it more noticeable than it would have been in broad daylight.

He also looked slightly stunned, his eyes widening as Jimmy appeared from behind his wing and a gobsmacked expression overtaking his face.

“Wha- oh! Hi! Wow, okay, human. Ish. Human-ish. A person. You’re a person. Yup. Uh–” His eyes darted over Jimmy’s form, what little of it was visible at the moment, and he cleared his throat. “How - How badly did he hurt you?”

Jimmy grimaced at the question. He tried, briefly, to ease himself into a more upright position to check the damage, but with how harshly it sent a shock of sharp pain through his left wing and his chest, it was an attempt that only ended with the air being punched from his lungs and him collapsing roughly against the tree trunk again. He let out an avian hiss and a shrill chirp and a whimpered curse, and the stranger jolted forward to grab his shoulders and help hold him steady against the tree.

“Whoa, whoa!” the guy said quickly, anxiously. “Let’s - how about we put a pin in the standing-up action for a hot second. Okay? Just - crap. Uh–”

Jimmy eased his eyes open again - when had he closed them? - to squint, wincing, at the face hovering above his. There was a worried crease in the man’s brow and a twitch in one of his pointed ears, and every so often small licking flames came to life in his hair or around the tiny ember-colored sticks hovering around his head that Jimmy somehow hadn’t noticed before now.

He felt like there was a word for those, wasn’t there? A name he couldn’t quite remember right now…

“...are you with me, man?” the guy was prompting him now, worry coming to life in his expression. “What’s your name?”

Jimmy took a slow breath to ensure his chest would be willing to cooperate before attempting to answer.

“Jimmy,” he said finally, the word coming out a bit unsteadily. “Name’s Jimmy.”

The guy’s worried frown curled into a half-smile.

“Well hey there Jimmy,” he murmured. “I’m Tango. D’you know where you are?”

Jimmy managed a jerky sort of nod and he clutched at the bag strap across his chest with the hand that wasn’t digging fingers into the soil and moss beneath him.

“F…Forest–” He sucked in a sharp breath when the slightest of movements made some part of his injured wing shift, jostling something that obviously didn’t want to be jostled. He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Con - ngh - Concordia Forest.”

“Good. Good.” Tango nodded. “Great. Uh–” He squeezed Jimmy’s shoulders slightly, and an inhuman warmth sank through Jimmy’s shirt layers to the skin below. It was a balm, a comfort, a small spot of cozy stability that helped him settle some of the tension in his aching shoulders. He let out a soft breath and did his best to stay still, like Tango had suggested.

“How badly did the big guy hurt you?” Tango asked again, and Jimmy grimaced.

“I…think my wing might be broken?” he offered weakly, sheepishly, and Tango’s expression took on a guilt-ridden unease, his pointed ears pinning back against his head and the glowing sticks around his head dimming.

“Crap. Crap, I’m so sorry, I didn’t - that’s my fault, it really is. Man, if I’d just–”

“What?” Jimmy blinked up at him, confused. “How’s that your fault? You saved me, didn’t you?”

“Well yeah,” Tango drawled with a wince, “but I also - like–” His tail lashed at the air behind him and he jerked his head back over his shoulder. “That’s my ravager.”

What.

Jimmy gaped at him, waiting for Tango to grin and say he was joking…but the man remained as serious as before.

“You - why?” he said, perplexed. “Why do you have a ravager? Why would you want a ravager?”

Tango shrugged lopsidedly.

“I handle magical creatures and monsters for a living,” he said. “Ravagers - I mean they aren’t that bad–”

“Not that bad,” Jimmy repeated weakly. He let out a whimpering laugh and let his head thunk back against the tree. “It slammed me against a tree, but ravagers are not that bad.”

“Well, yeah. It’s just about learning how to communicate. They can be super cuddly once you know how to handle ‘em–”

“Cuddly, he says–”

“They can be!” Tango insisted. “They’re like - ya know - big dumb cows who don’t know their own strength!”

Jimmy let out a birdlike twitter of protest.

“Well your big dumb cow just broke my wing!”

Tango flinched, going immediately silent and remorseful, his ears pinning back again and his tail going still behind him. His shoulders hunched up to his ears and his eyes drifted over to the feathered limb that wasn’t quite sitting at the right angle.

“...he did,” he agreed softly. “You’re right.” Tango eyed Jimmy’s broken wing for a moment or two longer before speaking again. “I’ve uh - I’ve never worked with bird hybrids before, but I’ve helped magical creatures with feathers ‘n’ wings. I bet I could whip up a good old-fashioned splint for you for now, if you want?”

Jimmy blinked at him. Ah…so he thought Jimmy was just a hybrid. In truth, in his current form, that was close to true. The wings, the feathered features, the avian calls. Except for his current lack of talons, he supposed he could pass for an ordinary avian to someone who didn’t know many avian hybrids themselves.

Seeing as he couldn’t exactly shift again until his wing was healed, he was as good as a hybrid for the time being for as long as it took for his injuries to mend.

“A splint might not be necessary,” he murmured thoughtfully. The hand still clutching at his bag’s strap slipped down the leather, groping at the satchel that was lumped on the ground next to him. “I brought some potions, just in case I–” His hand met wet fabric and Jimmy’s heart sank. The bottle. The glass he’d heard shatter in the midst of the ravager’s attack. The potion bottle.

He scrambled to open his pack, flipping back the flap and digging past the surface items until he found - ah. Glass. Broken glass, more than he’d anticipated, the pieces chinking against each other as Jimmy shifted the bag. It hadn’t been just one bottle that had been broken in the fight, but multiple, all but one not managing to survive the encounter. And the one that did survive - well. Unless Tango turned out to be a not-so-friendly stranger, fire resistance wasn’t going to do Jimmy much good right now.

Jimmy grimaced and let out a frustrated huff, one hand dropping from his bag to punch at the moss bed below him. Of course. Of course his bad luck had reared its ugly head once again. He’d only just made those potions too, ingredients purchased not too long ago from a market he’d stumbled upon halfway to the village…the village and the inn he was no longer sure if he’d be able to return to tonight. What little money he’d scrounged up for the trip, all going to waste.

Tango let out a soft “oh” and Jimmy looked up to see him eyeing Jimmy’s bag with a dawning saddened understanding. He must have seen the damp stain in the half-darkness, or heard the pieces of glass.

“So, uh…splint?” Tango offered again, sheepish. “It won’t be anything fancy, but it’ll be functional. It’ll do the job.”

What could Jimmy say? It wasn’t like he had another option, and Tango did seem like the type to know his way around wings better than the average stranger. So he nodded, a weak but grateful smile coming to life on his face.

“If you think you know what you’re doing,” Jimmy said. He was only somewhat anxious at the prospect. “I don’t think I’ll get very far otherwise.”

Tango immediately brightened, his smile wide and eyes aglow in the ever-dimming light. He let go of Jimmy’s shoulders and sat back on his heels, quickly digging through the bag he’d brought with him with newfound enthusiasm. The sticks around his head - blaze rods, they reminded Jimmy of blaze rods - bobbed in the air.

“You’re in good hands!” Tango assured, setting aside a roll of bandages before darting off toward a nearby tree. “Like I said, I know wings. Not all wings, of course, but - hey, I’m a smart guy. I can - ya know - apply my existing knowledge to the problem, or whatever they call it.”

He stood on his toes to reach a thin, low-hanging branch, his tail curling out for balance as he drew a short blade from a sheath at his waist. He hacked at the branch and broke it free, stumbling back a step from the force of his former handhold being cut loose.

By now, the hour of the day was causing Tango’s form to be bathed in shadow, little more than his silhouette half-lit by the moonlight reaching Jimmy’s eyes. The subtle glow around the man’s head only helped fractionally. From this distance Jimmy could see him moving quickly but cautiously around the clearing, occasionally stumbling and shooting out his hand, as if he wasn’t quite trusting of his surroundings. He’d managed to grab a few branches by now and had come to a sort of standstill on the far side of the clearing, his head cocked to the side and one ear perked up and his glowing eyes squinting through the dark.

Jimmy frowned, curious and a little concerned. Was there something lurking nearby that Jimmy couldn’t hear, even with his avian senses?

“Tango?” he spoke up, and Tango snapped his head toward him, immediately starting in his direction. Jimmy shifted anxiously, trying to sit up a little taller to see the treeline better. “Was there something out there, or - ah!”

He hissed, pain shooting up his wing, across his shoulder blade, through the muscles on the left half of his upper body. He’d forgotten. He’d forgotten, foolishly, that he really shouldn’t be moving at all lest he worsen his injuries. Jimmy crumpled shakily back against the gnarled oak that still stood as his main form of support, his eyes squeezed shut and his breath coming out sharp and gasping. It was awful. Wings were sensitive as it was, and this - he grimaced and whimpered, a pitiful wheezing chirp escaping him - this was horrible. For all the various careless injuries Jimmy had managed to sustain over the years, this had to be the worst of them.

Jimmy was only vaguely aware of movement nearby, of footsteps and the shuffling of clothing and the shift of branches and warmth. There was a warmth in the air, and Jimmy swallowed back a whine and forced his eyes open again to blink blearily at who he could only assume was Tango returning with his collection of branches.

The space was brighter than before. There was a flicker of firelight coming from somewhere nearby, and the soft shifting light illuminated Tango’s face in a warm glow. He was watching Jimmy worriedly, one hand outstretched - though he hadn’t quite closed the gap to touch Jimmy’s shoulder the way he had earlier.

“You okay?” Tango asked, his brow furrowed, and Jimmy groaned.

“No.”

Tango stifled a snorting laugh, coughed, and did a very poor job of schooling his features.

“Eh - right. Yeah. Stupid question.” He shifted from a crouch to a kneel, reaching for the deposited pile of branches he’d scavenged. He picked them up one by one and ran his gloved hands down them, quickly snapping off any stray leaves and twigs before moving on to the next. “...I know you just met me, so you probably don’t trust me yet, but - uh.” He smiled weakly. “It might be a good idea for you to hunker down at my campsite for the night. If you want. I’ve got food, and blankets, and a fire…” He shrugged lopsidedly. “It ain’t anything fancy, but it’s safer ‘n out here, I bet. I don’t have much in the way of healing supplies, but I might have a potion to help with the pain.”

Tango finished off the last of the branches and brushed his gloves off on his pants, tugging at the fingers one by one to start taking them off completely. He tossed one aside on his bag and started in on the other, meeting Jimmy’s eyes and chuckling sheepishly.

“It’s my fault you’re not gonna be flying home anytime soon. Giving you a safe place to sleep tonight is the least I can do.”

Jimmy gaped at him, a warm gratitude arising unbidden in his chest. He let out a breath, slightly shaky from the still-lingering pain from his wing, and watched as Tango began rolling up his sleeves, his red eyes occasionally flicking back to check on Jimmy.

“...are you sure?” he asked weakly, surprised that a stranger would be so willing to offer such a thing to someone he’d just met. True, Tango seemed friendlier than most, but all the same - it was a pleasant surprise to be sure. He took a slow, strained breath “You don’t know me either. I could be a…a thief, or something, for all you know.”

Tango snorted, amused, and shook his head.

“You?” He laughed softly, a warm yet hoarse sort of sound. His eyes crinkled at the corners with his grin. “Nah. I know thieves. You don’t give me that vibe.”

“You know thieves?” Jimmy repeated. “Are you a thief?”

At that, Tango’s laughter became fuller, brighter, amusement making his shoulders shake as he fussed with the bandage roll he’d pulled from his bag earlier.

“Oh heck no,” he denied. “I think I’d get caught immediately if I tried. I can handle critters no problem, but my sneakification skills could use some work.” He shrugged and his grin grew crooked. “Or that might just be the company I keep. My friends know me too well.”

Tango chuckled to himself, then after a moment his expression softened, something more genuine coming over his features. The blaze rod look-alikes hovered in the air, casting light over his smile.

“That offer still stands,” he said, his tone softer, warmer. “My campsite’s not far. It’s safer than trying to walk home in the forest in the dark.”

Jimmy couldn’t deny that Tango had a point. And really, what reason had he been given to distrust Tango thus far? If the man tried anything, Jimmy had some spells under his belt that could protect him, weak magic or not. But even as that thought crossed his mind, Jimmy doubted he’d even need them. Tango was the kind of person who was ready and willing to help injured animals no matter the situation, and had been even more willing to help Jimmy once he realized he was more than just a creature in the woods. He had a kind heart to him.

Jimmy could trust him, at least for one night.

“Okay,” he murmured, nodding jerkily. “Yeah, that - yes. Thank you.”

Tango brightened and nodded.

“Happy to help.” Then he glanced toward Jimmy’s wing, his face becoming shadowed with worry and his eyes growing tense and thoughtful. He let out a slow, measured breath and shifted closer, mindful of where he was crouching and careful of the feathers draped over the ground. “I’m gonna have to touch your wing, okay? It’s not gonna be pleasant, but I’ve gotta figure out what’s broken.”

Almost immediately, Jimmy choked on his breath and he felt his face go very warm.

…oh. Oh, right. Right. Okay. His wing. Tango had to - okay. Okay.

“Okay,” Jimmy murmured weakly, even though most of him was insisting that it very much was not. Avian familiars and avian hybrids had their differences, but many cultural practices carried over between the two. Wings were sacred for one, protected, and the idea of allowing a perfect stranger to have his hands on Jimmy’s was - well. He swallowed thickly and took a slow breath, trying not to tense up too much.

It was necessary, he knew that. This wasn’t the same as a casual uninvited touch. His wing was broken, and Tango was just trying to help fix it. That was all. It was an emergency situation, an exception to the rule. Jimmy would just have to give this one a pass. Just this once. He could forgive himself for that, surely.

Tango nodded once, smiling apologetically, and Jimmy had to clench his jaw and look away when Tango reached out toward his broken wing.

Jimmy anticipated pain. He anticipated the same sharp agony that had overtaken him the last two times he had tried to move on his own…but that wasn’t quite what happened. Gentle fingers brushed against his uppermost feathers, following the joints and bones, prodding softly at points here and there and feeling along the edge of the limb for anything that felt out of place. But it was soft. It was delicate and careful, a practiced sort of gentleness that Jimmy could only assume came from years of handling other injured creatures, years of tending to animals that couldn’t communicate enough to tell him when he was about to hurt them.

For all of Tango’s gentleness though, he couldn’t avoid the pain forever. A dull ache started up the closer Tango got to the point of injury, and Jimmy hissed when Tango’s hands brushed over a particularly painful spot just this side of the wrist joint…but the moment he did Tango was muttering murmured apologies and pulling away.

Jimmy’s wheezing chirps were muffled against the fist he pressed to his mouth. It took everything he had not to jerk away, his shoulders pressed firmly against the tree behind him in an attempt to keep himself still. There was a knot on the trunk digging into his spine that was decidedly uncomfortable, but seeing as moving had been a much worse experience, Jimmy would take the discomfort over the pain any day of the week. It was a few more quiet, strained seconds before Jimmy felt hands on his wing again, and after a moment or two of much more painful prodding - and Jimmy stifling more pained sounds - Tango sat back with a sigh.

“Fractured radius, I think,” he said, and Jimmy heard him move slightly, the sound of shuffling sticks meeting his ears. “Maybe a partial fracture on the ulna? Hard to tell, and I don’t really wanna go poking too much when I’m not really an expert on birds.”

“A-Avians,” Jimmy corrected weakly, his eyes still closed and his head resting back against the oak tree. “Different.”

“Right. Yeah, ‘course. Avians. Got it.”

Jimmy pried one weary eye open to see Tango eyeing his wing calculatingly, a single branch held aloft and one sharp finger scraping a mark into the bark. He chewed on his lip thoughtfully before making a second line, a deeper one, an inch or so along from the first. That seemed to satisfy him because he nodded to himself and dug out his knife, sawing away at the mark he’d made. Shortening it maybe? Jimmy could only assume.

“...do you need my help with anything?” he asked in a murmur, and Tango glanced in his direction with a small smile. He shrugged.

“Not really, man,” he said. “You’ll have to sit up at some point, and you might wanna get your shirt off so I can wrap stuff properly. But I can handle the rest no problem.”

Jimmy blanched at the prospect of having to move again (ignoring, for the moment, that he’d have to do so eventually anyway when he followed Tango back to his camp), but he forced a jerky nod all the same.

He could do this. Definitely.

  Or perhaps, he conceded once Tango got started, it was less of a “definitely” and more of “maybe”. Tango hadn’t even done much yet and Jimmy was already biting down hard on the strap of his satchel like Tango had suggested, sweat beading at his brow and his other wing shaking against his back since it wasn’t being held still by Tango’s hands. Sitting up had been an ordeal on his own, helped somewhat by Tango making sure his injured wing remained stable, and now - everything was just aching. He had his arms around his knees with his fingers digging into the denim of his jeans, and everything just hurt. His back muscles were pissed, his chest felt tight, and the area around the actual break–

“Breathe in for me?” Tango muttered, and Jimmy only had a moment or two to comply before something shifted beneath Tango’s hands and pain exploded like fire beneath his feathers, a strangled sob and a pained avian screech escaping past the leather clenched between his teeth.

“I’m sorry,” Tango said quickly, already rushing to collect one of the prepared branches from his lap. “I’m sorry man, I’m sorry, it sucks. I know. But that’s the worst of it.”

That, despite Jimmy being skeptical to believe it, turned out to be true. While Jimmy buried choked-off twitters and whines against his knees, Tango made quick work of bandaging his wing, his hands as careful as ever now that the bone had been set. Jimmy was only barely aware of what was being done, too focused on not focusing on the pain. By the time Tango’s voice broke through to him again his wing had been carefully folded into a natural position against his back, bandages and a few wrapped branches helping to hold it that way.

“...Jimmy? Buddy? You with me?”

Jimmy shifted his head against his arms and turned slightly to peer out at Tango, who was much closer than he had been a minute ago. He had already been close, of course, but now that he was carefully holding Jimmy’s bandaged wing in place against his back, Jimmy could feel the netherlike warmth radiating off of him from his proximity. It was comforting, cozy, especially in comparison to the ache throbbing through his back.

“Jimmy? ”

Jimmy finally registered Tango’s worried expression and he nodded, small and jerky, against his arms.

“M’ here.”

“Hey. Hey, man. D’you think you can sit up a bit? I’ve gotta wrap this around your chest to keep everything from moving.”

Oh. Right. Yeah. Okay.

It took him a moment to get his limbs to comply, but after a few slow breaths and a quiet, wheezing chirp, Jimmy did as he was told. He tugged the satchel strap out of his mouth and warily uncurled himself from his tense position. It was a good sign when he didn’t feel any burning agony in the process. He raised his arms somewhat so Tango could get beneath them, and when Tango finally sat back and eyed his handiwork, Jimmy could confidently say he felt a bit more stable than he’d been before. Despite the ever-lingering ache from his injury and the mild discomfort of a few feathers being ruffled beneath their bandages, his wing no longer screamed when he moved. It was the first time since being attacked by that ravager that he actually felt like he could get back on his feet.

Tango hovered beside him for a few long, quiet moments, eyeing him with a notable amount of concern.

“...how’s it feel?” he asked, and Jimmy cautiously rolled his shoulders. He took a few deep breaths, the bandages around his chest adding just a little bit of resistance, and he flexed his right wing just to be sure - then he nodded.

“Better,” he landed on, exhaustion in his words. “Good.”

Tension rolled off of Tango’s shoulders at that, a notable sigh of relief making his chest rise and fall. He dragged a hand over his face and used the other to grope out blindly toward his discarded bag.

“Thank the void.” He sat back on his feet and shoved his now-dwindled roll of bandages away where it belonged, swapping it for his gloves and tugging them on one after the other. “I’m not a doctor. I’ve just picked up a lot o’ stuff in my line of work. At worst, I was worried I’d make it too tight and you’d just end up hurtin’ all over again, but–” He shrugged and tossed a lopsided smile in Jimmy’s direction. “Looks like I was worried for nothing, huh?”

Jimmy, exhausted as he was, couldn’t do much more than manage a soft smile in return. But it was something. He took a moment to carefully put his satchel back over his shoulder, the strap falling neatly between his wings and managing to not irritate his injured one, much to his relief. He rolled his shoulders again, wincing slightly at the tiny spark of pain it caused…but it was minimal. It was a relief.

A gloved hand entered his line of vision and he raised his eyes, following it up to its owner. To Tango. Tango, who was grinning softly in the low firelight and already on his feet.

“Let’s get you back to camp, huh?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The journey through the trees to Tango’s campsite was a quiet one, much calmer than the chaos that had occurred back in the clearing. Tango had insisted on making sure Jimmy was okay to walk on his own before they started out into the forest - which was kind of him to do, but unnecessary really. He was a little lightheaded and the ache in his back slowed his pace slightly, but he was capable enough to manage on his own.

(All the same, Jimmy couldn’t remember the last time someone had actively and determinedly put Jimmy’s needs ahead of their own. It left his chest feeling warm and aching all at once, an odd combination that he decided not to think too much on.)

Much to Jimmy’s unspoken dismay, the trip back also involved Tango herding his ravager back along with them, nothing but the chain on its neck and Tango’s supposed strength keeping it tethered. Jimmy had, at first, been more than a little wary of the beast - rightfully so - and even now being in such close proximity to the thing left him feeling horribly on edge. But it hadn’t so much as looked in his direction more than once or twice since they’d started on their path. It seemed entirely disinterested in him, and Jimmy wasn’t sure if that was Tango’s doing or if it had simply lost interest in Jimmy of its own accord.

He wasn’t sure what had caused it to want to chase him down earlier. He was only glad Tango was there to stop it if it decided to do so again.

According to Tango, it would only be a ten minute walk back to where he’d set up camp. It wasn’t a long journey by any means, but if it had been any longer Jimmy was sure he would’ve had to take a break to rest. It was made easier as well by the conversation being traded between himself and his savior, stories Tango was telling of the troublesome ravager he’d had to save Jimmy from in the first place. This was, apparently, not the first time it had escaped from him.

“It doesn’t happen as much anymore,” he was explaining as he helped Jimmy over a fallen tree, mindful of his bandaged wing as he did so. “The guy’s not fully grown so he’s just a bit feistier than his parents. The rest of ‘em listen to me pretty well, but skippy over here is a stubborn one.” He chuckled, tossing an amused and annoyed look back over his shoulder, eyeing the ravager behind them with the same look one would give an adorable yet misbehaving puppy. “Downright menace, I tell ya - HEY! No! Watch the light!”

Jimmy turned back to see Tango bopping the ravager on its large snout, flicking its nose once and making it snort at him. Tango made some kind of twirling hand movement through the air and the light source that had been illuminating their way thus far moved, gravitating towards Tango’s palm from wherever it had been hovering, and–

Jimmy blinked owlishly, watching as Tango’s suddenly-gloveless hand was engulfed in flames. He eyed the brilliant glow curiously, the energy coming off of it making the edges of his awareness tingle slightly. That…that was magic. That was witch’s magic. Or - well, it felt close to it, traces of something foreign making it feel just slightly distinguished from what Jimmy was used to, but - all the same. His eyes drifted past the fire to Tango, who had turned to him amidst his scolding and whose expression softened into a sheepish little smile, and Jimmy found himself turning thoughtful.

Tango was a witch.

Tango was a witch, but back in the clearing, he had called Jimmy an avian hybrid instead of a familiar.

Did Tango not know what a familiar’s magic felt like, or what a familiar was? Tango was some species of hybrid that Jimmy wasn’t yet acquainted with, but the red eyes and sharp teeth and his seeming penchant for flames had already given Jimmy the impression that Tango was from the nether or something. The glowing sticks encircling his head reminded Jimmy so strongly of blaze rods that he was beginning to wonder if that’s what they were. The nether was a different dimension entirely. Did witches work differently there? Did magic work differently there? Is that why this magic felt a hair’s breadth away from what Jimmy was used to…?

Or maybe Tango hadn’t wanted to call out what Jimmy was so plainly. It wasn’t as if all witches who openly recognized a familiar for what they were did it with kind intent. (Memories of what had happened with the Watcher Coven were proof enough of that.) Maybe this was Tango trying to prove himself a friendly stranger. Maybe–

“You alright there Jimbo?”

“Have you been using flames this whole time?” The question left him without much thought, his own curiosity getting the best of him, and Tango blinked. “Even back in the clearing, just before sundown…there was light. And I didn’t even think about it.”

Tango chuckled sheepishly and glanced at the flames in his hand. He shrugged and seemed to curl in around the fire.

“Well…yeah. I just can’t, uh. I just can’t see too well in the dark,” he said, his ears pressed halfway back against his head. “Like, I really can’t, so I need light. And fire’s easy.” There was a kind of uneasy silence that passed between them, though for the life of him Jimmy couldn’t fathom why. Tango shifted awkwardly, his blaze rods dimming. “...I can control it, if that’s what you’re worried about. No burnification happening here.”

Jimmy blinked at him, processing the words, and - oh. Oh. Oh, no, he–

“No, nonono, you’re fine!” he assured quickly, his hands placating. “No, sorry, that’s not - I didn’t–” He cut himself off before he had a chance to put his foot in his mouth and he laughed weakly, flustered and sheepish. “Oh my gosh, I’m so oblivious. I didn’t notice, is all. This whole time and I didn’t even notice you’d made fire.”

Tango seemed to open up a bit, his head cocking to the side and his uneasy smile turning more genuine.

“You don’t mind?”

Jimmy snorted out a giggle.

“Do I - no, of course not!” He’d be hypocritical if he did, being a mage himself. “I spent ages with someone who had strong ice magic. Fire’s just another element, innit?”

That seemed to be what Tango was hoping to hear because the relief that swept through him was palpable, his expression glowing and his grin wide and bright. He huffed out a half chuckle and nodded, tossing the flames upward again so they could light the way once more.

“Yeah,” he agreed, falling into step beside Jimmy again, the ravager following not far behind. His voice was low and warm, a little bit soft in a way Jimmy couldn’t quite name. “Yeah. Just another element.”

Something had lightened between them. It wasn’t significant, not all too palpable, but there was a level of ease to their conversations that hadn’t been there before. Familiarity, maybe, or…something. Something else. It was nice, whatever it was. Friendly and comfortable, something Jimmy got the feeling they’d both been needing for a while.

Tango was easy to get along with. They weren’t even talking about anything important, just - talking. Just being friendly. And it was cozy. Cozy, yeah, that was a good word for it. It was cozy and it was comfortable, and easy.

Their friendly chatter carried them all the way back to Tango’s campsite, at which point Jimmy came to an abrupt halt and couldn’t help but stare.

He had known Tango worked with magical creatures. He’d known this, and he’d seen the ravager he was herding, and he’d heard Tango say something about its parents and “the rest”. But despite all that he somehow he hadn’t quite put two and two together, and he now found himself staring at an entire herd of ravagers of varying sizes, most of them - that Jimmy could see - tethered to nearby trees with chains that were near identical to the one Tango had been toting all evening. There had to be half a dozen in all, though with how they were slowly shifting about, it was hard for Jimmy to count. All he knew was he was looking at more ravagers in one place right at that moment than all the ravagers he’d seen in his life before now put together.

Tango hadn’t been wrong in saying the one that had chased Jimmy down wasn’t fully grown. Two of the herd were larger than the rest, their statures even more intimidating than Jimmy’s attacker…and Jimmy’s breath caught at the mere idea of being cornered by one of them.

Tango seemed entirely unfazed by their size. He led the wayward miscreant back toward the rest of the herd with practiced ease, muttering more scolding berations as he went. He was greeted by the largest beast the moment he was close enough, its massive snout nosing at his hair and making him laugh.

“Yeah, hi, hello! I’m back, I’m back! Knock it off, will ya…?”

Despite his protests, Tango didn’t seem to mind its proximity one bit. He finished chaining up the runaway and turned around, patting a gloved hand against the muzzle of the big guy and chuckling with each huffed breath against his hair. A small smile began to grow, unbidden, on Jimmy’s face, the tension slowly draining from his shoulders as he watched on.

Tango looked at home here. He looked so natural and at ease among his creatures, as though he understood what they were trying to say, as if he spoke their language. He wasn’t even a little bit scared, not like Jimmy would be in his shoes. Another ravager ambled up to him, this one much much smaller, its small-horned head butting up against Tango’s legs and nearly knocking him over. As it stood, Tango barely managed to stay standing, and the look on his face had Jimmy biting back a laugh.

Tango’s eyes raised to meet his. There was a sparkle to them, a joy in them and a crinkle at their corners, and Jimmy’s grin only brightened at the sight.

Then Tango was waving him over.

Oh, gosh. Okay then. He…he could trust Tango. Right? The man was perhaps a bit mad to be herding ravagers of all things by himself, but he obviously knew what he was doing. And after all the kindness he’d shown Jimmy tonight, he wouldn’t steer him wrong.

Jimmy took a few tentative steps forward, ever mindful of the large beasts that were meandering in that corner of the campsite’s clearing. He wasn’t sure if he could trust them. Tango may have known how to communicate with them, but Jimmy surely didn’t, and something he had done earlier must have told the ravager he’d met that he was worth chasing. He kept his wing tucked close to his back, his steps slow and unsure. The grip on his satchel strap tightened incrementally whenever one of them snorted or huffed a little too loudly. But then he was all of eight feet away from Tango and Tango was detangling himself from the rest of the herd.

“Here, c’mere!” Tango grabbed him by the hand and tugged him forward, not even questioning it when Jimmy ended up half-tucking himself behind the other man’s body like it was a shield. “You’ll like this little guy, I promise. He’s a bit shy so we’re gonna go slow.”

Shy…?

Jimmy frowned at Tango, confused, but then he looked to where Tango was leading him. There, in the shadows of one of the larger trees at the edge of the clearing, was perhaps the smallest of the herd. He was tucked close to one of the bigger ravagers and watching Tango and Jimmy warily, taking a step back the moment they grew too close. It was then that Tango came to a stop, his tail dancing lazily behind him and a soft smile on his face.

“Here,” Tango murmured, tugging on Jimmy’s hand again. He maneuvered him around until his hand was outstretched, palm toward the tiny creature…and then he let go. He took a step back so he was just behind Jimmy’s right wing, so Jimmy was the one in front, and - oh. Oh no. Oh, Jimmy didn’t like this. He didn’t like this one bit–

“Relax,” Tango murmured, his voice low and close to Jimmy’s ear. “He’s more scared of you than you are of him. Just breathe, okay? C’mon man, you’ve got this. It’s just a baby.”

Just a baby. Just a baby, right. Okay. Yeah. He could - yeah.

Jimmy swallowed past the anxious lump in his throat and took a slow breath, just like Tango had told him. He stayed still, his hand shaking slightly, and he waited. And waited. Was…was he meant to be doing anything else? Was he meant to get closer, or say something, or…?

After what felt like ages, Jimmy began to turn his head to ask Tango one of those very questions, and it was then that the little ravager finally moved. He shuffled forward, snuffing at the air with his head raised curiously, his green eyes watching Jimmy oh-so-carefully. His stubby feet padded unsteadily against the trampled grass as he went. Then - when he was close enough for Jimmy to feel his puffed breaths against his hand - it seemed to gain a bit more confidence. It jolted forward and Jimmy flinched back, unable to move far with Tango behind him, and he closed his eyes on impulse alone–

Something warm and soft met his palm. Very soft, softer than Jimmy had been anticipating. A quiet snickering laugh sounded near his ear.

“Open your eyes, buddy.”

Jimmy did as Tango asked and squinted one eye open, his face and shoulders tense all the while, and - oh. The ravager was nuzzling up against his hand, sniffing at the underside of his wrist curiously. His tail flicked back and forth behind him, and it was only now that the little guy was closer that Jimmy noticed the differing shade of gray in the younger ravager’s coat compared to the older ones. It was just a little lighter with white flecked through it and darker patches across his shoulders and back. And it was soft. Jimmy let out a breath of wonder and his expression softened, his eyes going slightly wide as he gently ran his hand up the ravager’s snout. The little thing leaned into it, snorting quietly and taking another step closer, seemingly chasing after what affection Jimmy was willing to give.

Something about him was familiar, and it didn’t take long for Jimmy to figure out why. He reminded Jimmy startling of a baby cow, of one of the calves he had taken care of at the cottage. Despite the stockier build and the broader shoulders and deeper vocal patterns, the mannerisms and the ways they communicated were so, so similar. It was like comparing a wild wolf to a domesticated dog. They were different, certainly, but at the end of the day they were part of the same family. Perhaps ravagers were just an offshoot of a different species that lived centuries ago, one that the modern cows and bulls also descended from. Maybe.

Wide, green, cowlike eyes blinked up at Jimmy, drooping little gray ears flicking a little bit alongside, and as Jimmy let his hand shift to gently stroke the side of the calf’s neck, he all but melted in the face of such a sweet creature. Forget what he’d said about ravagers earlier. This one was adorable, and he clearly wasn’t going to hurt anyone. He was just a little friend.

The young ravager let out a honking sort of mewl, one that had Tango chuckling over Jimmy’s shoulder. In truth, Jimmy had been so wrapped up in the small creature before him he’d forgotten Tango was still there.

“You’re not hungry,” Tango told the calf, his tone almost teasing. “I watched you eat. Quit begging, you little stinker.”

“Are you sure?” Jimmy asked, fighting back a smile as the ravager nosed at Jimmy’s satchel. He tugged it gently out of the way so no leaking potions could touch the little guy’s snout. “He’s very insistent, Tango.”

“No. Nuh-uh.” Tango reached around Jimmy to scritch around the nubs of the calf’s tiny horns, shaking his head just barely out of the corner of Jimmy’s eye. “I like giving ‘em treats, but I’ve only got so much to last the trip. He’ll do just fine until breakfast tomorrow.”

Jimmy finally dragged his attention away from the ravager to eye Tango curiously.

“Why’re you herding these guys anyway? You never said.”

“Well,” Tango stepped out from behind Jimmy to better give attention to the calf, rubbing the bridge of its snout with his knuckles and smiling lopsidedly when it let out another honking whine for food, “I think I said I work with magical creatures for a living. Beasts, critters, monsters, wayward pets - all of it. I prefer working with the big guys, but–” He shrugged and his smile was turned toward Jimmy instead. “–I like wee beasties just as much.”

The little ravager pressed its head more insistently against Tango’s stomach and Tango sighed dramatically, seemingly caving and digging through the bag still slung across his shoulder.

“Okay, okay!” he drawled, pulling a leather pouch free and holding it high above his head where the calf couldn’t reach it. “Hold your horses!”

It was another few moments of Tango juggling the pouch in one hand and holding back a wiggling baby ravager with the other, and it was only when Jimmy stepped in to distract the little guy with scratches around his horn nubs - just like he’d seen Tango do - that Tango finally had a chance to pour some of the pouch’s contents out onto his gloved palm. Jimmy barely caught a glance of something small and bright red before Tango offered it to the ravager, and the little snack vanished quickly amid small snuffs and tiny muted grunts. Berries, if he had to guess.

“Hungry little goofball,” Tango muttered, shaking his head in warm amusement. He let the ravager finish off his treat and wiped his hand on his pants, scratching the top of the little guy’s head one more time for good measure. “Anyway…like I said, I work with creatures.”

Jimmy perked up, tuning back into the story and watching as Tango stowed the little snack pouch away. He plucked deftly at the fingertips of his goves, tugging them both off and tucking them away alongside the pouch.

“I got a job - oh, ‘bout two weeks back?” Tango shrugged and fastened the closure on his bag. “Some guy a little further to the west had some complaints about some big buggers that were uprooting his field and eating his fresh sprouts.” He nodded toward the herd with a small grin. “These guys.”

The little ravager slowly returned to where he’d been hiding, tucking up close to the larger ravager from before and nuzzling in close. Tango watched him for a moment before turning away. His path carried him back to the other end of camp where Jimmy could now make out the rest of Tango’s setup. A small stone-edged firepit had been dug into the earth with a kettle hanging over it, and just beyond that was a small cave entrance Jimmy hadn’t noticed before. The whole campsite had been tucked up against a cliff face, probably safer from the elements than it would have been to set up camp in another more open clearing, and though it was too dark to see inside, Jimmy had a sneaking suspicion the cave probably extended far enough into the rock to allow someone to bunk there for the night if need be.

All the while, the glowing flames Tango had been using to illuminate the night followed them overhead, and it was only now as they approached the fire pit that he summoned them downward to his bare palm again. The blaze rods burned brighter around his head as if to make up for the shift in lighting.

“So anyway, I show up at his place,” Tango went on, crouching on the balls of his feet to fuss with the pit’s kindling, drawing fresh wood over from a pile not far off, “and he’s this grumpy old jerk. He’s spewing all these complaints about ‘miserable creatures’ and ‘they’re a menace I tell you!’ and I’m just nodding along, all friendly-like, like “Yes sir, of course sir”. And I tell him I’ll take a look - oh, sorry Jimmy, uh. There’s a blanket over there if you wanna sit on something other than the ground.”

Jimmy’s eyes followed Tango’s gesturing hand to a small wooden cart, one tucked away in the trees, and he murmured a friendly thanks as he went to fetch the blanket Tango had mentioned. He carefully shouldered off his bag as he went, the broken glass inside tinkling beneath the leather and making him wince. He’d have to clean that out later.

He set it aside to look for the blanket, and Tango’s story continued on in the background.

“So I tell him I’ll take a look, right? And I go out there - and it’s this tiny herd of ravagers. Two big ones, two adolescents, and a handful of calves. I’m talkin’ just born calves, absolutely tiny things.”

“Like the one I just met?” Jimmy asked, understanding, and Tango nodded vigorously.

“Exactly! That little guy’s only a few weeks old.” He shifted one last log, made a twisting motion with his hand, and the campfire came to life with warmth and light. He grinned, victorious, and clapped his hands a few times to get rid of bits of bark and debris. Then he squinted over at Jimmy through the semi-darkness “Uh - yeah, that one. Plop it down and we can take a breather.”

Jimmy, who had been holding a thick blue blanket aloft in question, let out a little sigh of relief and did as he was asked. He started to unfold it across the ground near the fire and Tango reached over to help lay it out. Jimmy smiled at him in gratitude.

“So basically, there were a bunch of ravagers on some guy’s property, and he just asked you to take them off his hands?”

Tango’s expression darkened. For a moment, Jimmy wondered if he’d said something wrong.

“No.” Tango let out a short, wheezing huff, his hair suddenly crackling with sparks, and Jimmy eyed the tiny flickering flames with concern. “Nah. The guy - he wasn’t friendly, like I said.” Tango tugged at one corner of the blanket forcefully, smoothing it out with a little more sharpness than was necessary. “I told him what was back there, and he wanted me to–” Tango’s jaw clenched and his eyes flashed, smoke leaking into the air from somewhere Jimmy couldn’t place. From somewhere on Tango. “He said to deal with them, and he didn’t mean it in the casual sense.”

Jimmy, who had been carefully settling down onto the blanket in an attempt to avoid jostling his bound wing, took longer than he should have to register what Tango meant.

“Wh - wait, like–”

“He wanted them gone,” Tango muttered sharply, irately, his tail lashing at the air behind him as he dropped onto the blanket himself. “Didn’t matter that some of ‘em were just babies.”

Jimmy’s expression fell, his eyes trailing to the far corner of the clearing where the smallest of the ravagers was still hiding in the shadows, shy and sweet and wanting nothing but affection and food.

“I told him there were bitties over there too, but he just–” Tango scoffed, raking back his hair with both hands, a snarl curling his lips. Then he yanked off his bag, dropping it in his lap and sorting through it jerkily, harshly. The remaining branches he hadn’t used were tossed toward the collection of firewood and the pouch of berries was dropped by Tango’s side. The blaze rods around his head spun rapidly with his irritation, aglow with internal flames. “They only wanted food! They were hungry, and they had their calves out of season, so they didn’t migrate north with the rest of the herd–”

Then Tango yanked a tangle of rope from his bag a little too harshly, elbowing Jimmy in the process, and Jimmy sucked down a sharp breath with a shocked chirp at the jolt of pain it sent sparking through his wing. Tango’s attention instantly snapped to him and his anger dissipated in a heartbeat, wide red eyes and a startled expression coming to life on his face.

“Shit, sorry!” he stammered out quickly, scrambling to his knees and creating a small distance between them. “I’m sorry man, that–” He glanced toward Jimmy’s bound wing, eyeing the way Jimmy was clutching at his shoulder with a wince. Jimmy’s attempt at a strained smile went unseen. “I’ll grab that potion for you. Hold tight.”

Then he was scampering off, ducking into the cave’s entrance and vanishing into the shadows. Jimmy stared after him as the momentary pain faded back to a dull throbbing ache.

Tango was, perhaps, one of the strangest people Jimmy had ever met. Not the strangest by far - Pearl could be much stranger in comparison - but he certainly wouldn’t be someone Jimmy would be forgetting anytime soon. He had this aura of unending, boundless energy to him, and an air of easy joy and excitement. Despite the crisis of a situation that had brought them together today, Jimmy was sure he’d seen Tango smiling more than frowning since they’d met. There was also his fiery nature - physically and metaphorically - that still had Jimmy wondering what, exactly, he was and where he came from…but only for his own curiosity rather than for judgment’s sake. It was unique, it was definitely unique in Jimmy’s experience, and Jimmy wasn’t sure he could picture Tango any other way than with his ruby eyes and fiery hair and animated tail and flames.

He was also warmth, Jimmy noted. Warmth and kindness and compassion. Zealous compassion, from what Jimmy had seen, but also gentleness when needed. Tango carefully splinting Jimmy’s wing with as much care as he could muster. Tango easing Jimmy into meeting a young ravager, going slow so neither Jimmy nor the ravager would get spooked in the process. He was kind. He was a good person, one who grew irate at the thought of creatures being killed for no reason, and one who offered Jimmy his hospitality for the night to ensure he’d get home safely the next day.

Jimmy smiled softly to himself, his unbound wing going lax and comfortable against his back. It was rare to find kind strangers, but Tango was proving to be the exception. A kind stranger and pleasant company to boot. For all that Jimmy often thought himself unlucky, he seemed to have run into a wondrous stroke of good luck, despite the injury he’d sustained in the process. It was a welcome change.

The feathers around Jimmy’s ears perked up at the sound of approaching footsteps. He turned to see Tango finally returning, his arms ladened with a few more things than Jimmy had been expecting to see. He frowned curiously, his head cocking to the side and his feathers flaring.

“Did you not find the potion?”

Tango ducked below a low branch and settled onto the blanket beside Jimmy again, the firelight illuminating one side of his sheepishly smiling face. He let his haul tumble to the ground beside him, retaining his hold on a stoppered glass bottle as he did so.

“Nah, I found it,” he said. “Like I said, I don’t have a healing potion, but this’ll help with the pain.”

He handed it over and Jimmy took it with grateful hands, letting out a breath and carefully tugging out the stopper. The lingering smell of nether wart and sweet fruit met his nose and he sighed, the semi-familiarity a balm on his senses. He sipped at it slowly, the fizzy coolness of it tickling at his throat. He felt his magic rush up to meet it, the cool soothe shifting to a cozy sort of warmth as it settled in his very being, his aching shoulder and back the first to be alleviated. By the time the effects reached his wing, Jimmy felt like putty, a pleasant buzz just beneath his skin that was far more welcome than the ache and sharp jolting pains that he’d been doing his best to ignore before.

“Better?”

Tango sounded amused, and when Jimmy blinked sluggishly up at him, he caught sight of a cheeky sort of grin on the other man’s face. He nodded and smiled, more than a little grateful.

“Immensely. Thank you.” He restoppered the bottle and held it out for Tango to take, but Tango just pushed it back in Jimmy’s direction.

“Dude, keep it,” he insisted. “I don’t know how long of a trip you’ve got to get back home, but you’ll need it even if it’s short. Trust me.”

Jimmy had half a mind to insist right back, but - well. Tango looked quite determined, and he was already turning back to his pile of acquisitions before Jimmy could even attempt to get a word in edge-wise. So Jimmy let it lie.

“What is all that?” he asked instead, setting the potion bottle aside for later and trying to see past Tango to the items he’d brought back with him.

Tango flashed a grin over his shoulder before turning to face him, presenting a foil-made bowl of sorts with a mix of ingredients inside it.

“Food!” He announced proudly. “It’s not much, just some chicken and veggies and red pepper action. Couple spices. I normally like my food super spiced, but I kinda figured you’d want something a bit more on the normal scale.”

Jimmy eyed the mix hungrily, eagerly, already nodding along to whatever Tango was describing.

“Please,” he agreed. “Thank you. Oh my gosh, I didn’t even think to bring anything with me, you’re a lifesaver.”

He hadn’t eaten a thing since leaving the inn that morning. He wasn’t planning on eating lunch because it sometimes threw him off when he was trying to attune or meditate, but he’d also assumed he’d be back in town before sundown. Whatever meal he would have eaten was sitting back in his room in the ice box.

Tango shrugged and waved him off with a lopsided grin.

“Naaah, it’s just campout food. It’s nothin’ special. I put a bunch of stuff in a stasis chest for the trip. Potatoes and chicken and stuff is easy.” He shifted forward and crouched on the balls of his feet beside the fire, wrapping the food up into a tinfoil ball and plunging his entire fist into the flames.

Jimmy almost yelped to warn him away from burning himself before remembering that Tango was, in fact, a being of fire himself. As it stood, the strangled twittering sound that escaped him was just as humiliating and Jimmy ended up flushing under Tango’s shit-eating grin all the same.

It reminded him of Grian, but with far less malice.

“What, worried over little ol’ me?” Tango teased cheekily.

Jimmy took the mature route and stuck his tongue out at him. Tango only laughed.

In the comfortable quiet that followed, broken only by the crackling of the fire, the distant sound of ravagers, and the sizzle of cooking food, Jimmy scooted closer to the front edge of the blanket to bask in the warmth of the flames. He uncurled his unbound wing and stretched it leisurely, letting the fire warm his feathers for a moment or two. His eyes drifted over toward the shifting herd tethered across the clearing.

“...do you normally handle big creatures like this by yourself?” he asked, curious, and Tango turned his head slightly to give Jimmy a momentary glance.

“Nowadays, yeah,” he said, returning his focus to the food. “I didn’t used to. I had a team I used to work with - bunch of friends, really. Four of us. Me, Skizz, Etho, and Bdubs. We were the best.” He snorted, chuckling lightly at a joke of some kind that Jimmy must’ve not been privy to.

“Not anymore?” Jimmy asked. Tango merely shrugged, his grin still lingering, though Jimmy could see the way it grew more melancholy at the edges.

“Nah,” said Tango. “The team kinda busted up. Little over a year ago, there was this…” He turned the foil over in the flames, pondering for a moment. “...well, I guess I’d call it an incident. Explosion? Something like that. Nobody was seriously hurt, but the whole damn building went sky-high.”

Jimmy gaped at him

“Holy moly - are you serious?!”

“Dead serious.” Tango smirked. “You ever heard of a wither?”

At the mention of its name, Jimmy paled, his eyes widening slightly. A wither? They were demonic wraiths, powerful ones. They usually only ever appeared in the overworld if summoned by hand, and they were extremely difficult to take down once summoned. They breathed death and left unease and lifelessness in their wake.

“Yeah,” he murmured, and Tango grinned sharply.

“Well, Etho and Bdubs managed to summon one by accident. Took all of us to take the damn thing out, and Bdubs got hit with some major witherfication in the process. The guy was bedridden for a whole day afterward.”

Jimmy stared. By…by accident? How–

“Etho and Bdubs ended up going their separate ways after that, and my buddy Skizz heard news that another friend of ours was headin’ home for a month before taking a gig with a coven of some kind, so he went off to spend some time with the guy.” Tango pulled the foil from the fire with a sniff, shrugging one shoulder as he peeled back the outermost layer to take a look inside. “Which left me without backup. I liked the job too much to just stop, so I kept on going without ‘em.”

“By accident?” Jimmy blurted out, still staring at Tango, gobsmacked. Tango, who was rewrapping the foil to shove it back into the fire, flicked one ear in his direction.

“Hm?”

“The wither,” he said. “They summoned it by accident.”

“Uh - oh! Yeah,” Tango snorted and chuckled. “Yeah, they did.”

“How??”

“Oh, you know…” Tango made a swirling motion in the air with one hand, his tail dancing lazily behind him. “...Etho’s a pretty strong witch, and Bdubs was his familiar. Perfect fit, they always said, and - I mean from what I could tell they were insanely powerful together. Their spells were friggin’ nuts. They ended up breaking their bond or whatever after the wither shindig happened, for safety they said, and - I dunno.” He shrugged, picking at the foil again to check the cooking food. “I asked Etho after Bdubs had already left, and he just said they were too compatible. It’s why he went looking for another familiar.” He sat back on his heels and reached for a wayward tin plate with his free hand, toting it close and dropping the half-wrapped and now sizzling, steaming food onto it. “He said something about a…I don’t know, magical overload? Too much fuel for the fire? Hels if I know, I don’t know a lick about magic. That was more Impy’s area of expertise…”

For what seemed like the umpteenth time since meeting Tango that night, Jimmy found himself staring gobsmacked at the semi-stranger in front of him. He didn’t know much about magic…? What in the world was Tango even–

“But you’re a witch,” he said bluntly, and Tango paused, shooting him an incredulous, amused look. He let out a confused giggle, his brow furrowing with his smile.

“What?” He tilted his head. “What, you mean the flameification? The fire? That’s just netherborn stuff. I’m a blaze hybrid, it’s what we do.”

“No - no, that–” Jimmy shook his head. He was only half paying attention as Tango separated half of the meat and vegetables onto a second plate and pressed it into Jimmy’s hands. The tin plate only survived gravity thanks to some sort of muscle memory on Jimmy’s part to automatically grab what he’d been handed. “I felt the magic in your flames. That’s witch magic. It’s a bit different, but it’s definitely a witch’s magic.”

Tango plopped onto the blanket beside Jimmy with a disbelieving laugh, plate in hand and smile as incredulous as before.

“Uh - no, it’s nether magic,” he corrected, though he sounded a bit less sure of himself. “My best friend is a witch. He would’ve known if - wait you felt my magic?” he cut himself off abruptly, eyes locking sharply on Jimmy. He gave the avian a once-over, his eyebrows flying high. “Are you a witch?”

Jimmy spluttered.

“I - no! I’m not a–” He set his untouched plate aside, spinning to face Tango more fully on the blanket. No wonder Tango had thought he was an avian hybrid before. “I’m a familiar. A canary.” He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder toward his wings, which Tango was now taking in with a dawning spark of understanding in his eyes. “I’ve been bound to a witch before, I know what a witch’s magic feels like. And you’ve got it.”

Tango was quiet in the aftermath of that statement, his own food just as untouched as Jimmy’s and a still, puzzled expression on his face. His tail had curled close around him at some point during Jimmy’s insistent declaration and one of his ears flicked every so often in the following silence, his hair and blaze rods sparking slightly in the fire-lit darkness of the night.

Then Tango’s gaze dropped, one hand coming up to summon a few tiny, swirling flames above his palm.

“...you…this?” He held the flames out toward Jimmy. “This feels like witch stuff?”

He sounded quiet, curious. Unsure.

Jimmy took an even breath and reached forward, his hand hovering above Tango’s and basking in the tiny warmth. He closed his eyes, his magical core reaching out in a similar manner to how it had when he’d attempted to attune early that afternoon. This time, rather than emanating from his entire being, it centered around his extended hand, dancing around his fingers and swirling out into the air around his palm. Just as before, Tango’s fire - his magic - was easy to sense, the warmth of it and the familiar traces of witchcraft resonating in Jimmy’s peripherals. Now that he was actively seeking it out, though, he was able to read it so much clearer than before. It was a bit chaotic, constantly moving and dancing around Jimmy’s magic, curious and uncontrolled and almost new. It wasn’t quite a fledgling core - Tango was too old for that - but it was undeveloped. Untried, untrained. It was warm and welcoming too, reaching out and drawing Jimmy in with an open sort of innocent curiosity that was usually trained out of most mages at a young age.

But Tango hadn’t been trained, Jimmy realized.

Tango hadn’t even known he was a witch to begin with.

Tango didn’t have a clue what he was doing, hadn’t even realized the untapped potential singing just below his chest until…until Jimmy. And maybe he wouldn’t have known for a long while after, if Jimmy had never come along.

Tango sucked down a sharp, gasped breath and Jimmy pulled back, his eyes flying open and his magic reigning itself in quickly.

“What - what?” he stammered out, his unbound wing puffing up in concern. “What’d I do?”

Tango’s other hand was pressed to his chest and his eyes were wide, awestruck, his hair aglow seemingly from within. He blinked a few times before meeting Jimmy’s eyes.

“I…felt that,” he whispered. “Whatever that was. I felt - what the heck was that?”

Jimmy frowned, concerned.

“I just…reached out?” he offered with a one-shouldered shrug. “Your magic reached back a bit, but that’s all. I didn’t do much. Why, did it hurt?”

“No, it–” Tango rubbed his knuckles over his sternum, looking thoughtful. Then he chuckled, a watery, nervous smile tugging at his lips. “It was just weird. And warm. And, uh - I dunno. Sparkly.”

“Sparkly?” Jimmy repeated. His worry melted away and he smiled softly. Magic. Tango was sensing magic, maybe for the first time. “Did it feel familiar, or completely new?”

“A bit familiar, yeah,” Tango nodded slowly. “Kinda like…” He huffed out a laugh and shook his head. “This sounds nuts, but it kinda felt like–” He eyed his palm, where the flames he had summoned had long since gone out. “–well, you know when you meet someone on the street, and you know you know them, but you can’t remember why? Or they just - look different than the last time you saw them, so you can’t figure out where you know ‘em from until like an hour later? It’s like that.”

“Like someone you used to know?” Jimmy offered, his head tilting to the side and his ear feathers flaring. Tango nodded more vigorously.

“Yeah, that! Exactly.” A brilliant grin had come to life on his face, giddy almost, and he poked his own chest. “Like - right here, I could feel that. And–” He broke off, recognition dawning, and he stared wide-eyed at Jimmy. “Oh my god, I’m a witch.”

Jimmy grinned brightly.

“You are!” he agreed, his unbound wing fluttering in his excitement. “That’s what I was saying!”

Tango laughed, a bit giddy and hysterical at first, then it grew brighter. Bright and loud and full-bodied, his amusement and excitement and joy palpable in the rasping laughter resonating in the clearing.

“Oh my gods, Impy’s never gonna believe this!” he crowed, seemingly overjoyed. “The guy’s been the only witch in our friend group for years, and now here I am - some sorta incognito witch-in-hiding. Like a sleeper agent.” He bounced a bit where he sat, grinning brilliantly at Jimmy. “I feel like I should be asking you what my code word was, man. This is - this is unreal.”

Jimmy warmed at the sight of Tango’s excitement, his energy infectious and his grin ever-present. The space beneath his ribs felt so full of joy for this zany stranger that he was sure he’d pop. Tango had never known. His whole life, and he’d never known, and now that he knew - it was like watching a kid on Christmas the way he seemed to be lighting up from the inside. This whole piece of himself that he hadn’t even realized he’d been missing out on, and now it was like they’d suddenly been reunited. Jimmy couldn’t even imagine.

“Wait - you know magic,” Tango said suddenly, and Jimmy straightened.

“I - yeah?”

“Can you teach me?”

Oh - oh, gosh.

“I - well…” Jimmy’s smile turned a bit strained and his ear feathers flattened against his head, his wing drooping against the blanket. “...I’m not very good.”

“I doubt that,” Tango scoffed. “I bet you know loads of stuff.”

And he did, to a point, Tango wasn’t wrong. But knowing magic and being skilled in magic were two vastly different things. Jimmy opened his mouth, closed it, and chewed on his lip, trying to explain that he really wasn’t the person Tango should be turning to for magical training.

Tango, fortunately, managed to come up with a solid distraction before Jimmy even needed to say a word.

“Oh - food. We didn’t even eat yet, I completely forgot–”

Tango was reaching across to grab Jimmy’s meal before he even noticed Tango had gotten close, a tin plate balanced in each hand. For a moment, Jimmy wasn’t sure what Tango was doing - and then a low heat began to resonate off of the plates and the food they held. Oh - fire, of course. Warmth. Tango’s specialty. After a few long moments Tango set both plates down between them, grinning proudly.

“Magic,” he declared, waggling his eyebrows, and Jimmy couldn’t really stifle the small laugh it drew from him as a result. “C’mon, let’s eat before it gets cold again. I wanna learn some more about this witch stuff before I get too tired to focus.”

Ah. Or perhaps Jimmy wasn’t quite as off the hook as he’d hoped.

Tango had been kind enough (and willing enough) to fill the quiet between bites of their meal. He had plenty of stories to tell about past jobs he’d taken, it seemed - though Jimmy hadn’t a clue what a sniffer was or why it was so rare. He just reveled in how excited Tango seemed to be to have encountered one in the first place.

But at some point, when Jimmy was following Tango down to a nearby stream to rinse their dishes, the conversation turned to Jimmy instead. It wasn’t that Jimmy had been avoiding talking about himself necessarily, but - well. With how sore certain events in his recent past still were, it wasn’t as if Jimmy had been chomping at the bit to tell his own dramatic tale.

“I never asked - what’re you even doing out here in the forest?” Tango had asked. “It’s a bit deep in to just be going for a stroll.”

And Jimmy - well, Jimmy simply didn’t have the heart to lie to him after Tango had shared so much of his own story tonight.

“Er…attuning,” he murmured, leaning his shoulder against a tree as he watched Tango’s crouched form at the river’s edge. “I’ve had a bit of trouble with my familiar transformations lately, so my brothers said I ought to find a place to attune.” At the puzzled look Tango shot over his shoulder - ah, right, Tango wouldn’t know the terminology - Jimmy elaborated. “Attuning’s like - magical meditation? Sort of? It…well, for familiars, you’re basically trying to find harmony between your human side and your familiar side. To make it easier to shift back and forth, to be able to tap into certain abilities - that sort of thing. So, for me, it’s me and my inner canary.”

“Ahhh.” Tango nodded in understanding. He tapped the second tin plate lightly against his knee to dislodge some of the loose water still lingering on it. “So - what, you and your inner birdy aren’t getting along?”

Jimmy snorted.

“No, not–” He huffed out a half laugh. “Not like that. It’s more like things just aren’t syncing up, is all.” And I’m not strong enough, a small, traitorous voice in the back of his head murmured, one he shoved away forcefully with a barely restrained grimace.

“Did it help?”

“Hm?”

Tango, who had stood and approached him by now, made a vague gesture in the direction of Jimmy’s wings.

“The whole - attunification thing,” he wiggled his fingers as if to mimic magic of some kind. “Did it help?”

Jimmy winced.

“Not yet,” he admitted. “I’m not great at meditation anyway, and my wings were too itchy. I kept getting distracted.”

“Oof. That sucks.”

Jimmy shrugged, trailing after Tango back to camp, the now-familiar flames hovering along overhead. With the way a cool air had settled over the forest, Jimmy was grateful for the small warmth they provided. He shoved his fists into his pockets and drew his unbound wing close, curling it around himself to stave off the chill. Then he sighed.

“If I can get my hands on another healing potion, then I can just try again tomorrow.”

The campsite came into view and Tango made a temporary beeline toward the cave, dropping the dishes and cutlery at the entrance without bothering to go inside. He was back by the campfire soon enough, dragging another log over to keep it going. Jimmy huddled close to the fire at the blanket’s edge once more, soaking in whatever warmth he could before he’d inevitably ask if Tango had another blanket to spare.

He could wait. He’d rather be polite than needy.

“You mentioned brothers?” Tango asked, shifting a log with his bare hands, a sight that Jimmy was still getting used to. “So you’ve got family waiting for you when you’re done here, huh?”

“Brothers, yes. Waiting, no.” Jimmy drew his knees to his chest and folded his arms on top of them, his chin resting on his sleeves. “Sort of. They - I mean. Grian’s my older brother by blood. He’s an avian familiar like me, just a different breed. And we grew up with Martyn living right next door. A witch. The whole little community was magical in some way or another. Witches, familiars, magical hybrids, people with other abilities - that was home. I didn’t know there were people who grew up without magic until I was into my early teens at least.”

Tango had gone quiet, and when Jimmy flicked his eyes in the other man’s direction, he was listening to Jimmy with his full attention. There was a small smile on his face and his tail was flicking back and forth along the ground behind him.

“That sounds really nice,” he said, and Jimmy ducked his head with a sheepish smile of his own.

“Yeah…it was,” he agreed. For a while, anyway. But that wasn’t a story he brought up easily. He took a breath. “Anyway, I’ve been with this coven for about a year now. Grian, Martyn, another witch, and a friend of Grian’s who’s - well he’s not a witch. But he’s into science and studying magic.”

Tango let out a huffed little laugh.

“Heh, yeah…I know one o’ them. Got a friend like that.”

Jimmy’s cheek pressed into his shirt sleeve with his grin.

“Is he friendly, curious, a bit mad? Possibly a danger to himself?”

“Yup!” Tango snickered, shifting away from the fire to sprawl back on the blanket. He propped himself up on his side, grinning at Jimmy all the while. “Got it in one. Your science guy wouldn’t happen to be named Zedaph, would he?”

“Nah, not even close,” Jimmy returned. Tango sighed in mock disappointment. “I imagine they’d be fast friends if they met though.”

“Oh, for sure!” Tango flashed him a cheeky grin. “So what about this coven of yours?”

“Right! Right, yeah.” Jimmy shrugged. “My story sounds a bit like yours, actually. The keep we lived in met a bit of an explosive end. A healing crystal experiment gone very very wrong.”

“Oh nooo,” Tango groaned, looking apologetic. “That sucks man. Was everyone okay?”

“Yeah, ‘course!” Jimmy nodded against his arms. “Mostly alright. But - well I hadn’t exactly told Grian I’d been having trouble transforming, an’ then I got stuck under rubble and couldn’t get out because I couldn’t shrink down to get between the gaps in the stone, and…well.” He gestured to himself, then to the canopy overhead. “He and Martyn sent me off into the forest to fix the problem.”

“Oof, harsh.”

“More like necessary.”

“Maybe.” Tango’s smile stretched to a grin and he reached over to poke Jimmy’s shoulder. “Well hey, you met me, didn’t you?” he said brightly. “That’s gotta be an upside!”

Jimmy smirked.

“Yeah. Except the part where you broke my wing.”

Tango squawked, spluttering, his blaze rods swirling.

“Wh- hey! The ravager broke your wing!” he protested, affronted. “I’m the guy who tried to help fix it!”

Jimmy giggled against his arm, enjoying the faces Tango was making across the blanket. He was probably more animated than most people Jimmy had met. It suited him.

“You did,” he agreed. “I can’t remember if I ever said thank you for that. So…you know. Thank you.”

Tango’s indignant pout made way for another one of his bright smiles in an instant as he waved Jimmy’s words away.

“It’s nothing, really,” he shrugged it off. “I’m just glad I could help.”

Jimmy traced patterns against the blanket for a few quiet seconds, watching the way the fire reflected in the red of Tango’s eyes. He turned thoughtful. Whether it was his ravager or not, Tango really had helped him immensely in the long run. He could have left Jimmy there to fend for himself, but instead, he’d scrounged supplies together for a splint. He’d invited Jimmy back to his campsite for safety and given him a meal and treated him as a friend. He didn’t have to do all that, but he had…and he had expected nothing for it in return.

Maybe…maybe Jimmy ought to return the favor, even if it was in a small way. Maybe he could work past his hangups to give Tango the only thing he’d requested all night. He uncurled himself and turned to face Tango cross-legged, extending a hand to him.

“Would you like to learn a spell?”

Tango perked up immediately, his smile bright and eager as he scrambled to sit up the same way Jimmy was.

“Yeah,” he breathed, excitement in his eyes. “Oh my gosh, yes. Please.”

Jimmy didn’t bother trying to hide the pleased smile Tango’s reaction caused.

“Alright, well - we can start with something small and useful. Okay? A tiny healing spell.” Tango nodded readily. “Right. Okay. So - here, hold your hands out in front of you, palm up - sort of. Relax your fingers…” Jimmy reached out to trace along the back of Tango’s hands, guiding him so his fingers were curling ever-so-slightly upward, as if holding an invisible weight. “...yeah, like that. Exactly.” He shook out his own hands and rested them face-down on top of Tango’s, his middle fingertips pressed gently to the pulse point on each of Tango’s wrists.

Jimmy took a slow, shuddering breath. Gods. The last time he’d even done this with someone one-on-one was back with - Scott. With Scott. They usually did group spellcasting in the Southlands. And even when they didn’t, Grian was always willing to step in when Impulse or Martyn needed to cast a solo spell, so Jimmy hadn’t assisted a witch individually like this in almost a year. Not since the cottage. His jaw tensed and he clenched his teeth, forcing himself to focus.

This wasn’t Scott. It was Tango, and Tango was a new witch who needed his guidance…for as much guidance as a less powerful familiar like him could even offer, anyhow.

“What do I do now?” Tango asked in a hoarse stage whisper, and Jimmy nearly choked on a startled laugh.

“Sorry. Right, um–” Jimmy took a quick breath. “Okay. Most magic is just…intent. Feelings, sort of. Some more complex stuff requires sigils and runes and long incantations and certain - er - extra ingredients, I guess? Stuff that can help you channel certain kinds of magic. But minor healing like this doesn’t need anything extra. It’s like levitation an’ kinetic stuff, it’s more instinctual. So, um.”

He chewed his lip, trying to figure out how to explain. He’d never needed to put what spellcasting felt like into words before. Jimmy had grown up around mages that already knew what that felt like, or had been told by their parents. And then by the time he’d left Evo behind, he was old enough that most mages he met were just as trained as he was, if not moreso. This was entirely new territory for him.

But for Tango, he’d try his best.

“You said you felt your magic before, yeah?” he asked instead, his ear feathers flaring curiously, and Tango gave a stuttering sort of nod. “That warm spot right in the middle of your chest - that’s your magical core. That’s where your power comes from.” Tango nodded more decisively. “‘Kay. Do you think you can find it again?”

“Mmmmaybeee?” Tango hazarded slowly, squinting in thought. “I mean, if you do that glowy-mojo-thing you did before, I can probably figure it out again…?”

Okay. Good first step.

“We can try that,” Jimmy agreed. “But let’s start with our goal. Do you have - I dunno, a bruise? Papercut? Something like that?”

Tango shrugged.

“Not that I know of.” Then he shot Jimmy a cheeky grin. “What, I’m not advanced enough to try an’ fix up your wing, bird boy?”

Jimmy’s unbound wing twitched agitatedly at his back and he rolled his eyes.

“Absolutely not,” he said, the sharpness in his denial coming through as humorous. “Trust me, not even I would attempt that without a magebond.”

Tango snickered to himself.

“Eh, worth a shot.” Then he gave Jimmy a quick once-over, his grin softening to a hopeful smile. “Maybe something smaller? Did you get scuffed up anywhere else? I can fix that instead.”

Jimmy blinked, slightly surprised. He - he hadn’t even thought of using the spell on himself. He just wanted Tango to learn something that would keep him safer on his journey. Tango’s offer was-

It was sweet.

“I - guess?” he managed on a breath. “My, um. My hands got scrapped up on bark, when I was tackled. That would be easy enough.”

“Yeah, that!” Tango grinned. “Let’s do that.”

Oh, gosh - okay. Yeah, alright.

“Good. Great.” Jimmy cleared his throat and straightened his back. “Okay. I can start the spell, if you like, and I’ll let you try and follow along. And if you don’t get it the first time I can stop and we can try again. Alright?”

Tango nodded, schooling his expression.

“Totally. I got this.”

Jimmy just smiled. He closed his eyes, focussing inward and drawing on his magic, just as he normally did for any other spell. Curious, antsy, a little distractible but ultimately comfortable - it felt the same as ever. In a repeat of the last time they’d been sitting like this, Jimmy reached out with his magic, the energy of it buzzing just below his skin. He pushed it gently outward, seeking, reaching - and he wasn’t even a little surprised this time when he felt Tango’s magic dancing forward to meet him in the middle.

Across from him, Tango’s breath caught, and then he chuckled giddily.

“I feel that,” he breathed, his words all smiles, and Jimmy grinned to himself.

“Yeah?” He kept his energy steady, wanting to let Tango find his way on his own. “D’you think you can make your magic listen to you?”

“Listen - what, listen to me? What are you, Yoda? Use the force or whatever?”

Jimmy snorted, prying open one eye to see Tango’s face screwed up in close-eyed concentration.

“Basically.” He let his eye fall shut. “Your fire comes from the same place. Right? So - maybe think about what that feels like. Yeah? Try an’ reach for that. Just - without the fire, please.”

“No burnification. Got it.”

Jimmy bit back another laugh, his shoulders silently shaking. Gods, he’d never had to fight back giggles like this when casting a spell. This was ridiculous.

It was fun.

Something in the mingling mixture of their magic jolted, and Jimmy heard Tango let out a victorious little laugh.

“Hah! That! That was good, right?? I did - well I think I did something!”

“Yeah, you did!” Jimmy agreed. “D’you think you can maintain it? Like - hold that connection?”

“I think so, yeah–”

And he could. He could, and Jimmy could sense it, the way some of the eager chaos in Tango’s untamed magic lessened to a degree, became more focused. More sure. It wasn’t perfect by any means, and Tango definitely had a long way to go, but it was a start. Jimmy hadn’t expected him to pick it up so quickly, in truth. He had expected it to take longer to ease into the basics. But he seemed to be doing better than Jimmy had hoped…a natural talent, perhaps.

So Jimmy began to guide him, waiting to see how well Tango would follow. He wove his own magic in concentrated spirals around their joined hands, and Tango did his best to keep up. Small jolts and stutters interrupted his movements, uncertainty making his magic lose form a few times, but he was still following all the same. It was something. It was a start.

A numb, tingling chill danced across Jimmy’s palms where the scrapes and scratches sat, tickling at his skin and making him shiver. But it felt right, how a healing spell was meant to feel. It was slow, to be sure, but it was right.

“You’re doing amazing, Tango,” he grinned, peeking one eye open again to see the way Tango’s face reddened under the praise. His hair was aglow again the way it had been earlier, illuminated from within by something other than flames.

“I’m trying,” he muttered. He seemed too focused for many other words.

“Just a little more, then we can stop.”

Just a little more.

Just a little–

Tango’s magic leapt, excitable and unpracticed, and Jimmy heard him let out a frustrated snarl. He was quick to let his own energy flow forward to help, soothing sparking edges and coaxing him back on track. At this point, the cool healing tingle in his palms had crept up his wrists, up his arms, and it was only now that Jimmy was paying attention that he noticed just how far the spell had migrated. Either Tango was stronger than he knew, or he was pushing himself too hard.

“D’you think you can ease up a bit?” Jimmy asked, and Tango’s hands twitched against Jimmy’s.

“I - maybe?”

“Do you want me to help?”

“...yeah. Yeah, please. Sorry man, I’m not–”

“No worries! You’re new. ‘S okay.”

He did as he’d offered, taking a breath and doing his best to reign in the runaway magic. He’d done things like this before, to an extent, when cursed objects or magical artifacts went a bit haywire. It was a bit different when trying to do the same for a living mage.

Tango’s magic was wiley, unpredictable - but it wasn’t malicious. Where Jimmy reached out with his own magic to try and control the situation, Tango’s would rush up to meet him, curious and eager and excitable, just like its caster. It would move with him, trail after him, almost looking for attention the way Jimmy’s magic sometimes did when he hadn’t used it in a while. It was actually becoming a little difficult to differentiate between what was his own magic and what was Tango’s, the energies mixing and melding and blending and–

A burst of magical energy rushed through Jimmy quicker than he could contain it, sending him reeling, knocking the wind from him. It coursed through his veins and sparked behind his eyes and sent tingles to the ends of his limbs and a warmth through his chest, his back, his wings, aches soothing before he could remember they were there, soothing the bruise at the edge of his core that had been bothering him since–

What?

No.

No, this was - this couldn’t - they hadn’t even–

STOP.

Jimmy gasped sharply and yanked his hands away from Tango’s, scrambling back across the blanket and gulping down air like a man starved, his chest heaving and his pulse racing and his wings -

…his wings…healed. Healed. Tango had - unless he was crazy, unless…unless he wasn’t…

“Jimmy-?”

Jimmy tugged weakly at the bandages still wound around his chest, too tight, too tight now that he was struggling to breathe. And there was a burning feeling, burning but not painful, right in the center of his chest, like fire, like hearth, like familiarity, like home, like–

Hands were on him in an instant and the burn subsided as quickly as it had come, suddenly calmed like the eye of a storm.

“What’d I do?” a panicked voice was asking, pleading, almost desperate, right above him. “Shit, shit, I didn’t - Jimmy? Jimmy, are you okay?”

Jimmy dragged himself to some sense of awareness, trying to orient himself, becoming a little more aware of the glowing form above him. Tango’s panicking face swam into view and Jimmy latched onto that, trying to keep himself focussed on the red of his eyes, on the glow of his freckles, on - on something, on details, on–

“T-Tight,” he choked out, wheezing, tugging at the bandages again. “Help–”

“You want - Jimmy, wait, no, your wing, remember? You can’t–”

Jimmy let out a frustrated, wheezed chirp, digging his fingers into the material, tugging despite his current lack of coordination. Tango grabbed at his wrist to catch him before he could do much else.

“Woah, okay, okay! Hold on…”

Tango scrambled for something at his waist - the knife, Jimmy realized - and he took rapid care in digging the blade into the wrapped cotton, slicing through it without catching Jimmy’s clothes. The second he was free, Jimmy’s chest heaved, air rushing into his lungs more easily than before. His “broken” wing - still bound to itself, though no longer to his chest - wasn’t even the slightest bit bothered by the sudden movement, and he was beginning to suspect more and more that he and Tango had managed to do something extraordinary without even trying to.

More than one extraordinary thing, perhaps, though he wasn’t quite ready to focus on that yet.

For now, Jimmy curled forward and rubbed the heels of his palms against his eyes hard enough to see stars beneath his eyelids, and he breathed, and he forced his magic to settle. It proved to be a more difficult feat than he wished it was, magical energy still buzzing away just below the surface of his skin, refusing to quiet and refusing to calm. He was also acutely aware of the warm hand gripping his shoulder, the comfort of it grounding and distracting all at once.

“...better?” Tango asked, sounding nervous, and Jimmy nodded against his hands.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah. ‘Course.”

There was quiet, awkward quiet, for a beat or two. There was a tension in the air that hadn’t been there before, and Jimmy almost wanted to blame himself for it. He should have picked a different spell.

Tango cleared his throat and pulled away, leaving space between them that Jimmy could feel, and the moment Tango’s hand left his shoulder something inside him seized. That burn in his chest was back, all-encompassing, unignorable, distracting and alien and familiar and–

Jimmy reached out before he could stop himself, grabbing Tango’s wrist without needing to see it and letting out a shaking sigh of relief when his core settled again upon contact.

Shit.

Shit.

Void below, they were screwed.

“What was that?” Tango asked shakily, and Jimmy was finally able to focus on him properly.

Tango looked properly spooked, his face pale and his brows furrowed in confusion and his ears pinned back and his eyes wide. His other hand was clutching at his chest, and Jimmy couldn’t blame him, not if he’d felt the same thing Jimmy had, not when Tango was so new to all of this.

Jimmy swallowed past the lump in his throat, past the building panic that was welling in his lungs.

“That,” he said on a hoarse breath, “would be a fresh magebond.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

If Jimmy had a choice, he’d be pacing right now. He wanted to keep moving, to work out the antsy anxiety in his veins, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t, because every time he let go of Tango, that feeling in his chest would come back tenfold and he couldn’t think straight. So instead, he was sitting in front of the fire again with his knees drawn to his chest and Tango behind him, one hand resting on Tango’s outstretched leg while warm, nimble fingers slowly unwrapped the bandages from Jimmy’s wing.

It had healed after all, it seemed. A task Jimmy had deemed “difficult” and “impossible”...and they’d managed to do it anyway.

And even more impossibly, they’d formed a magebond on top of it all.

“I’m sorry,” Tango had tried to say, as if any of the blame was his, but Jimmy had been quick to banish the thought.

“It’s not your fault,” he’d insisted. “You’re a novice. Even a trained witch couldn’t’ve done this by mistake.”

Tango hadn’t looked fully convinced, but Jimmy’s sincerity and quiet confidence in Tango’s blamelessness seemed to help diminish his fears well enough.

(Though Jimmy had half a mind to believe Tango’s gentle care in unwrapping his wing was meant to act as the apology Jimmy had refused to accept. Apology or not, he was grateful for Tango’s help.)

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Jimmy was saying now, trying to explain to Tango what had happened but finding himself somewhat unable. “Magebonds don’t form this way. There’s a ritual. It takes effort to find the right balance between two people’s magic for a more permanent connection to form, not - not just–”

“Silly magic fun times in the woods?”

Jimmy choked on a laugh, his wings fluffing up and his face flushing, and Tango snickered behind him.

“Yeah. Yes. Sure. That.” He took a breath, burying his face against his knees. “This isn’t how it’s meant to work. I’ve had bonds before. I took odd jobs for witches when I was younger, and those…”

They hadn’t been like this. They were purely for work, with a low level of magical compatibility and very little emotional investment. Forming those bonds hadn’t left much of an aftereffect, and when they broke at the end of their respective contracts, Jimmy had only ever needed a day or two for his core to get used to being untethered again. And then he’d taken the job with Scott, and - well. Scott was different.

“Who’s Scott?”

Jimmy jolted, his wing jerking in Tango’s hands, and he shot a wide-eyed look back over his shoulder at the startled-looking netherborn.

“What?”

“You said ‘Scott was different’,” Tango told him. “Who’s Scott?”

Oh. Had he? Gods. He had. He could feel it on his tongue. Jimmy dragged his eyes back around to stare unseeingly into the fire, chewing on his lip. He hadn’t so much as said Scott’s name more than a handful of times since leaving the cottage, not after that first month back with Grian and Martyn, anyhow. Saying it now felt hollow, slightly aching, just a little bit sore and a little bit familiar. He licked his lips, knowing Tango was awaiting an answer.

“Scott was, er…” He cleared his throat. “He was my last magebound witch. We - um. We were together. For a while.”

“Bad history?” Tango guessed, and when Jimmy managed a jerky nod, Tango hissed in sympathy. “Ouch. Sorry. You don’t have to talk about it.”

Jimmy let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. For all that Tango had been kind to him tonight, he wasn’t sure he was quite ready to broach that subject just yet. Especially not with a stranger.

A stranger who you’re now bound to, he reminded himself, and he had to bite his lip to stop himself from reacting.

“Thanks,” he managed instead, “I’d rather not.”

“Totally.”

Jimmy rolled his shoulders and let his unencumbered wing stretch leisurely toward the fire, watching the way the light reflected off his not-quite-pristine feathers. Preening didn’t feel like quite as big of an issue now as it had that afternoon.

“...the bond felt different, is all,” he ended up carrying on in a murmur. “With…him. The ones I took on for jobs didn’t feel like much of anything, but with him we were, ah - a good match. Magically,” he quickly specified. “Compatible energy. So after our bond formed, we had a hard time staying separated for too long.”

“Like this?” Tango asked, curious. “Like what we’ve got goin’ on?”

“Yes.” A beat. “No. Sort of. It’s not–” Jimmy huffed.

He felt Tango pull the last of his bandages away so he stretched out his wings, letting the cramped muscles on the left one get a nice break before tucking them close again and turning on the spot to face Tango. They were closer than Jimmy had realized, the red freckles across Tango’s cheeks suddenly very noticeable with their proximity. Jimmy went a bit pink and inched backwards, doing his best to keep a point of casual contact all the while. Eventually, Tango reached out and grabbed his hand, holding on tight now that his own hands were no longer occupied by feathers and bandage wraps.

“Erm.” Jimmy cleared his throat. “Well. It’s stronger.”

“Stronger?” Tango asked, seemingly unbothered by how close they’d been for however briefly it lasted.

“Yes.” Jimmy tucked his legs under him, cross-legged, as he carried on. “It was only a bit of a pull, last time. Like I really wanted to be close, and my magic wanted to be close, but I could handle being away from him. This time, it’s–” Jimmy felt his face warm, his feathers puffing behind his shoulders and his hand tightening in Tango’s. “When we separate, it’s horribly distracting. Like the only thing that can help is getting my magical energy as close to yours as possible.”

Tango blinked at him.

“Is that not, uh…normal?”

“Not for me.” Jimmy dropped his eyes to their joined hands, his brow furrowed and his thoughts whirling. “We bonded by accident. It was too easy. We didn’t need a ritual, or an incantation, or a - a channeling artifact, or anything. And it’s so strong that I can’t let go of you without getting lightheaded. I’ve never–” He let out a twittering sigh. “I’ve only ever heard of this kind of thing in fairy tales. It’s ridiculous.”

“Fairy tales, huh?” Tango prodded, and when Jimmy dragged his worried eyes upward, Tango was grinning that cheeky grin of his. “So - what, does that make me your Prince Charming?” He waggled his eyebrows and Jimmy spluttered out a laugh, ducking away from Tango’s smile and shaking his head.

“Oh my gosh - Tango!” he stifled a giggle with his hand. “No, I meant - old mage fairy tales. Stories about that perfect match. The one person in the world whose magic was a twin to yours. You know, soulmates.”

Tango’s eyes went wide and wonder-filled, curiosity making his grin brighten and his ears perk up.

“Wait, soulmates?” he repeated. “Is that a real thing?”

“Well I don’t know!” Jimmy let out another little hysterical laugh. “They’re stories, aren’t they?” His giggling subsided but his smile still lingered, his eyes dropping to their joined hands again. Soulmates. He shook his head, trailing his thumb over the back of Tango’s hand absentmindedly. “...I used to hope soulmates were real,” he said after a moment. “A part of me still wants to. It sounds so nice, being able to find someone who can be your perfect magical balance. It’s hard to find a good bond match, let alone a great one.”

And yet, here’s you.

Jimmy felt eyes on him. When he looked up, Tango was watching him with a soft expression on his face, something undefined in his eyes that blinked away the moment Jimmy caught him watching. Tango sniffed and squeezed Jimmy’s hand, his tail flicking across the ground behind him.

“What do we do about this?” he asked, shaking their joined hands lightly. “Do you want to undo it?”

Something in Jimmy’s heart screamed NO! at the simple question, though he couldn’t quite fathom why. He barely knew Tango as it was. Outwardly he merely shook his head.

“We can’t yet,” he said softly. “It’s too fresh, and too strong. If we tried to break it so soon we’d both end up hurt.”

“Ah.” Tango winced. He cast a glance back over his shoulder, then raised their hands up to eye level. “Well how long d’you think we need to stick together like this?”

Oh, gods. And this was the part Jimmy hadn’t yet allowed himself to focus on. He smiled weakly.

“Constant contact? Overnight, I’d bet.” He scratched at his jaw awkwardly. “Sorry. Er - if it helps, it shouldn’t be as bad tomorrow?”

Tango let their hands fall with a cheerful sort of shrug, not a hint of irritation in sight.

“It’s all good,” he grinned. “I don’t exactly have anywhere I need to be tomorrow, do you?”

And - well. No. Jimmy really, really didn’t. He shook his head slowly.

“I’ve got a room at the inn back in town for the next week,” he said. “Not that I’m going back tonight at this point, mind you, but I’d planned to be out here a while.”

“Well that’s settled then!”

Tango clambered to his feet, still holding tight to Jimmy’s hand, and Jimmy let out a startled chirp as he was hauled bodily off the ground. Tango was stronger than he looked, a fact that was still settling in his thoughts as Tango tugged him intently toward the cave entrance.

“Uhhhh - what’s settled?” Jimmy asked, tucking his wings in close so they wouldn’t catch on a passing tree.

“You can stick around here for as long as you want to!” Tango declared, a grin in his words that Jimmy didn’t need to see to hear. “I’ve got plenty of blankets an’ food, and I can grab some more supplies from town in a few days–” He paused and shot Jimmy a sheepish smile. “If that’s okay with you, of course.”

Something beneath Jimmy’s ribcage fluttered at the offer, something warm and pleased and content.

“More than okay,” he nodded quickly. “That sounds amazing. You’re too nice, Tango, honestly–”

“Nah,” Tango waved him off, ducking just inside the cave and smirking toward the darkness. “It’s a fair trade-off for some pleasant company. Uh - here, hang on–”

There was a brush of something soft and warm against Jimmy’s wrist and he blinked, realizing belatedly what Tango was doing. The blazeborn’s tail had come up to coil comfortably around Jimmy’s wrist as a means to free his hands, the blond tuft of fluff at the end tickling against Jimmy’s skin. He huffed out a soft, amused chuckle, shaking his head at Tango’s silly ingenuity. Flickering flames illuminated the darkened space - flames fueled by Tango’s magic, which left Jimmy shivering at the familiar sensation of a spell through the bond - and when Tango turned around, a lantern in his hand, the light it cast caused Jimmy to stop short.

The cave was more expansive than Jimmy had first assumed. It wasn’t unending by any means, but the space inside was roomier than the small entrance would have implied. A cozy-looking cot piled high with blankets was pushed up against one wall, a large travel pack was dropped against another, and a small and slightly messy heap of clothing had been shoved toward the back of the cave. It was warm too, a lovely change from the chill of the evening air outside, and Jimmy’s wings relaxed against his back as the warmth seeped into his feathers.

“Welcome to Casa de la Tek!” Tango announced with exaggerated grandeur, grinning all the while. “It ain’t much but it’s home, for now. I was gonna move on in a few days now that the ravager kiddos are a bit stronger, but - hey, I don’t mind stickin’ around a little longer.”

“It’s cozy,” Jimmy said brightly. “How’d you find this place?”

“I’ve been around these woods before,” Tango said. He waved it off, beckoning Jimmy closer was a tug of his tail so he could fuss with the blankets on the cot. His blaze rods hovered nearby as though attempting to offer him some additional light to see by. “My old crew used to get jobs in the area all the time. I still do. There’s a larger cave about - oh, half a day’s walk to the north?” He gestured vaguely in that direction. “That’s my next stop, since it takes longer to get there when I’m herding the big fellas.”

“And what if there’s no caves nearby?”

Tango flashed Jimmy a grin.

“Well then I get to camp out under the stars.” He straightened, planting his hands on his hips. “Okay! I think I’ve got us sorted. Do you get cold easily?”

“Uh–” Jimmy blinked at the quick segue, then shook his head. “Not really. If I don’t have my wings out I can get chilly, but I like keeping them out. I’ll be alright with whatever blankets you don’t need.”

“With whatever - what?” Tango snorted. “No, I was gonna–” He jerked his thumb back at the cot with a sheepish grin. “I don’t mind cuddling if you don’t. We’ve gotta stay in contact anyway, right?”

Jimmy, who had mentally been planning on tying their wrists together between the cot and the floor for the night, gaped at the man who - until that afternoon - had been nothing but a stranger to him. Since that point, Tango had not only become more of a friend than Jimmy had anticipated, but had also been kind enough to be gentle when Jimmy had trusted him with his wing, provided a meal and safety without any prompting, and had forged a (surprisingly strong) magebond with him as well. All in one day.

And now he was offering to share his bed.

For all that Jimmy was a bit flustered at the prospect of sharing a bed with a perfect stranger, he also couldn’t deny that the offer was tempting. It would be warmer and more comfortable than the floor by far. And Tango had been a perfect gentleman the entire night. Hadn’t he?

He also wasn’t wrong. They did have to stay in constant contact, and Tango’s idea was an easy solution. Jimmy took a slow breath and made his decision.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his face feeling warm. “It’s your bed.”

“Uh-huh,” Tango smirked. “And I’m okay with sharing.”

Okay. Well. Alright then.

“I - yeah. Yes. I’m okay with that.”

“Awesome!”

As Tango had said, that settled that.

  It wasn’t nearly as awkward as Jimmy had suspected it would be either. There was a little jostling and maneuvering while they tried to accommodate Jimmy’s wings, but once they found a comfortable position, it all just sort of…clicked, and settled into place. Tango was sprawled on his back as close to the cave wall as he could get, his boots and vest abandoned on the floor, and Jimmy had done the same with his shoes and overshirt before getting comfortable on his side. One of his wings was trailing loosely off the bed, brushing the cool stone below, and the other had found its place draped over the both of them.

(Being a netherborn, apparently, meant Tango got cold easily, so he was grateful for the added warmth. No wonder there were so many blankets on the cot.)

At first, Jimmy had tried to keep as much of himself to his side of the bed as he could manage…but that hadn’t lasted long. It felt so natural to be curled close to Tango - a fact that he couldn’t be sure was related to the fresh bond or not - and soon enough their legs had become overlapped beneath the covers and Jimmy had a hand lingering over Tango’s heart.

Over his pulse, where Jimmy could feel it synchronizing with his own.

Magebonds this strong weren’t a thing to be taken lightly. He couldn’t help wondering if he’d have the strength to break it down the line.

(He couldn’t help wondering if he’d even want to anymore by then.)

“Hey, Jimmy?”

Tango’s whisper in the dark caught Jimmy’s ears and the feathers there flared. His eyes eased open to see Tango’s face turned toward his. They were so very close.

“Yeah?”

Tango grinned, a sleepy sort of thing.

“I’m kinda glad my ravager found you,” he said, quiet and teasing yet wholly genuine. “This magic stuff’s kinda nuts, but I’m glad you’re here anyway. It’s been a bit lonely the last few months. You’re–” Tango yawned, his eyes crinkling and warm barely-there sparks fizzling across his hair. The glow from the blaze rods hovering dimly above them rose and fell with a wave of gentle warmth. “...you’re…good people. Thanks for stickin’ around.”

Technically, Jimmy thought sleepily, he didn’t have much choice in the matter…but he knew what Tango meant. For some reason he had a feeling he would’ve lingered even if the bond hadn’t been forged. A sleepy warbling coo slipped past his lips and he sighed.

“I think I’m glad your ravager found me too.”

Tango’s grin widened, dopey and bright, and Jimmy let his eyes drift shut.

Like a fairy tale, his sleepy mind supplied. Soulmates, huh? Maybe he should ask Grian about that when he got home…whenever that ended up being.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As barely-awake awareness drew him to the land of the living, Tango crinkled his nose at having been woken up at all. He had never been a morning person, in truth. And for some reason he was even more disgruntled this morning in particular. The cot was colder than it had been during the night, and something in his chest was tugging at him to go - to go - do something. Go be…somewhere. Find something.

Tango grumbled and rolled over, burying his face in his pillows and letting his tail droop off the side of the bed.

He didn’t wanna do anything most mornings, so having some unnamed urge to do just that was…odd. It was strange. It was this curling, fuzzy little feeling in his chest, fluttering and almost feathery, right where Jimmy had said his core–

Jimmy. Jimmy!

Tango bolted upright at the sudden influx of memories from the day before and he scrambled to his feet - or he tried to. Instead, his legs became tangled in the mountain of blankets he’d been sleeping under and he ended up sprawling gracelessly and unceremoniously to the floor with a distinctly inhuman, strangled shout of alarm.

“...ouch.”

Well, good morning to you too, floor.

It didn’t do much to stop him, because it was only moments later that he was half-hopping to the cave’s entrance, fighting to get his boots on as he did so. He couldn’t see Jimmy. Tango squinted across the clearing, his ears flicking around to catch whatever sounds he could…but the massive golden wings that would’ve been so easy to spot were nowhere to be seen.

Weird. Jimmy had said he’d be sticking around, so why–

A twittering trill from overhead caught Tango’s eye, and he watched curiously as a tiny golden bird soared into the clearing, gracefully fluttering down to land on the blanket he and Jimmy hadn’t put away the night before. Tango eyed the little guy curiously for only a moment as it ruffled its feathers back into place. He was just about to look away to keep searching for his temporary camping buddy when a sudden golden glow began to emanate from the bird. The light grew, shifted, changed in shape - and between one blink and the next, the bird had been replaced by Jimmy, wings and all, with a windswept ruffle to his hair. He laughed brightly in the morning sunlight, a sort of immeasurable joy lighting up his face…and Tango couldn’t help but watch. He looked so happy, so free.

“I’ve had a bit of trouble with my familiar transformations lately,” Jimmy had said, only the night before. And yet…

“Well whaddaya know,” Tango murmured, leaning back against the cliff face beside the cave’s entrance with a soft smile. He watched Jimmy get to his feet and go over to the firewood, dragging some back to the pit and arranging it into the messiest campfire setup Tango had probably ever seen. He snorted. Oh, this guy was not a camper, was he? Tango cupped his hands around his mouth and raised his voice. “Hey, Feathers!”

Jimmy jolted, his wings puffing up in alarm - which Tango was beginning to find endlessly endearing the more it happened - and he turned around, his expression brightening when his eyes fell on his magebound.

(That was the terminology, right? Magebound…? It sounded right.)

“Tango!” He greeted, waving slightly. “Morning! I was just–” He gestured to the fire pit, then the log pile, then the kettle sitting off to the side, then brought a hand up to rub at the back of his neck. “...I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Tango laughed, bright and raspy.

“Need a hand?” he offered, his eyes crinkling with his smile, and the look of relief that swept over Jimmy at the offer was palpable.

“Please.” His smile grew lopsided. “Maybe you can teach me something this time.”

Tango’s smile brightened to a grin and that spot in his chest he was beginning to associate with Jimmy warmed ever-so-slightly. Yeah. Yeah, he could do that. And if Jimmy was willing to stick around for even longer, then maybe Tango could learn a bit more about this whole magebond thing in return, before they broke it.

If they broke it.

As he crouched down beside Jimmy, straightening logs and branches and guiding him through building a proper fire, watching as Jimmy stuck his tongue out to focus, Tango quietly hoped that maybe they wouldn’t have to break it so soon. Or maybe, if Jimmy was willing, maybe they wouldn’t have to break it at all.

Yeah. Yeah, that sounded pretty nice to him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

[A/N: I can't tell you how much fun I had bringing this story to life! Magic systems have always been a fascination of mine, and the one for this universe - hah. If anyone is curious I'd be willing to go into a deeper explanation about how magebonds work and what the witch/familiar dynamic normally is, but at this point it's more important to know that it's a stand-in for the Double Life soulbond with a more by-choice twist. This whole AU concept started with Ren and Martyn, believe it or not, and one day I'd like to tell their story too. But we'll see where it goes! I have a lot of scattered and intricate ideas for this universe, and I think I'll play it by ear to see where my inspiration takes me.

As for our ranchers, I feel like their first meeting would've felt out of character if it hadn't involved a bit of chaos and a bit of clumsiness lol. Where in canon Tango was the one to bring them together by losing them their first life, I thought it would only be fitting for him to be the reason he and Jimmy meet here too in some similarly accident-prone way…though I do feel a bit bad that it was Jimmy who got the brunt of it instead of Tango this time. 😋 It's okay! Everything turned out for the better anyway! Many MANY thanks to Hybbat, Lemon_bread, and Automaticnerdbread for being my lovely betas over the past few months (especially Hybs, you know how many times I've popped into your inbox for Rancher insight lmao) - y'all have been amazing!

Oh! We also had a pair of really cool character sheets from Fantasykiri that didn't really have a place in the fic proper, so I feel like I should share them here in the endnotes instead! Be sure the check out all the artists who contributed their skills and talents to this story, and thanks so much for reading! Comments and critiques (and spelling corrections asjkbas) are always accepted!]

[The artists: @fantasykiri5 [Trapped] [Jimmy] [Tango], @joifee [Feathers], @aviomons [Magic], and @setacin [Campire]

#Pixiemage Writes #Team Rancher #Solidaritek #TangoTek #Jimmy Solidarity #SolidarityGaming #Trafficshipping #Hermitshipping #Magebound AU #Pixie's Magebound AU #Witch and Familiar #Witch!TangoTek #Familiar!Jimmy #Canary!Jimmy #Hermitshipping Big Bang 2023 #HSBB 2023

[legally-allowed-to-slime]

Everyone’s forgotten about Lizzie.

She’s sure of it. They must think she’s dead, and if they didn’t, they wouldn’t help her anyway, because they hate her.

That’s what she tells herself. That it’s deliberate ill intent, and not that any memory of her has just completely slipped from everybody’s mind.

It’s less painful that way.

And Lizzie’s been left on her own, falling through the void, darkness all around her.

She isn’t even sure if she’s falling. She might just be floating, untethered. There’s no wind here, and everything is just black.

The worst part are the whispers.

Lizzie didn’t know who they are. She’d tried asking them, but when she opens her mouth no voice comes out, which terrifies her. She might be deaf, she doesn’t know. She can’t see or hear or feel anything.

It means that if she cries for help no one would hear it. The whispers seemed to have been behind that.

The whispers.

A soft, steady pattering into her head 24/7 (if she could know the date) that would probably drive her insane if she hadn’t already and is just hallucinating.

She wants it to stop, so bad.

The communicator pings over and over. She watches the other players going on with their lives and deaths, the playful bickering, the serious reports, and so many, so many deaths.

She keeps wondering. Imagining scenarios whenever she sees a message. Etho dying to Scar’s hands. The Heart Foundation rambling about gifts and favours. Life continues, without her.

It’s as if she was never there at all. When Jimmy dies she hears the whispers discussing the players’ grief, of their shouts of anguish.

When she died there was just silence.

It’s no use. She’ll never know the circumstances, never know about the world going on above her while she falls.

She can’t send messages, blocked by solid code, only receive them. She concludes that it’s a cruel joke on the part of the whispers.

One day the whispers stop.

Lizzie is hopeful that this means a change in her situation, in which she’s completely helpless.

But then she checks the chat, and realises there’s no one else left on the server but Scar. The whispers have grown bored.

The ghosts leave the game, one by one.

Days pass. Could be months, or hours. Lizzie sees the last sign of life leaving the server when Scar’s death message pops up in chat, and she instinctively yells, “No!” and instead of the silence that would come before when she tried to speak, her voice emerges instead, hoarse from days of neglect.

Ironic.

She can only speak when there’s no one to hear her.

She knows Scar will happily respawn in Hermitcraft, congratulated on a stunning win. If it was stunning. She hasn’t seen anything but black for who knows how long, and she can’t even tell if her eyes are open.

She doesn’t say anything again, left in complete silence as she falls through the void, wiped from history.

-

people trying to justify canary curse with the “lizzie is still alive” theory are focusing on the wrong person in that hypothetical

i’ll write a happy ending if at least one person tells me to, which i don’t think will happen so i get to kick up my feet in the meantime

#lizzie ldshadowlady #ldshadowlady #life series fanfic #life series #life smp #secret life #secret life smp #secret life fanfic #traffic series #trafficblr #traffic life #traffic life smp #traffic light smp #traffic smp #traffic life series #life series smp

[warrenposts]

Certain Sensitivities

Certain Sensitivities Lockwood x Reader

Summary: You come to discover that sight isn’t Lockwood’s only sensitivity

A/N: I wrote this one kind of romantic since I hadn’t yet posted my requesting guide when I receive this. I had a great time writing it although it’s not my first preference so any new readers please check out my requesting guide :D

Requesting Guide Here

Word Count: 1.7K

“Glad to see you're finally back,” you admitted as you met Lockwood at the front door. He smirked and shook his head, fully anticipating a lecture. “It’s almost curfew, you know?” You asked, crossing your arms.

He shrugged off his jacket and hung it up on the hook in the hall before taking a few more cocky steps towards you. “Worried about me, were you?” He asked, stopping right in front of you.

“Of course,” you admitted, mirroring his smirk. “Without you, I don’t get paid.” You reached to loosen his tie, then kept it in your hands as you slowly brought them down the material. Once you reached the bottom you let it drop from your hands and gently rested them on the front of his sides. Only for a moment and with barely any pressure at all but it was enough to make him flinch and hitch his breath.

He pushed his tongue to his cheek and bit down, forcing his smile away, only letting himself laugh through his nose.

You waited a moment before doing it again, a little harder this time, scribbling your fingertips into his torso. He flinched harder and once he realized you were completely intentional in your actions; he locked his eyes with yours. “Cheeky,” he scolded, scrunching up his nose.

You couldn’t help but laugh at his bashful face that tried so desperately to keep his ‘Cool Guy Persona’ going. “What was that, Locky?” You asked, tilting your head as you tried and failed to bite back your giggles. 

He broke eye contact and rolled his eyes, forcing his attention to anything but you. Scoffing, he took a step to the side but as he did you reached out and tazed his sides. This time he jumped away from you and a desperate plea fell from his lips.

“No no no no no,” he scolded, quickly pulling away to grab your hands and force them away from his sides. 

You’re sure you’d never seen him move that fast in his life, it was amusing to say the least to watch him crack like this.

Sighing, he held your wrists at his chest, one in each hand to ensure you couldn’t move them. This only resulted in him pulling you closer as you laughed at him. “God, you look like the cat who ate the canary,” he scoffed.

“Anthony Lockwood, I had no idea you were-” He dropped your hands and pushed himself gently away from you, making his way to the living room.

“Don’t say it,” he interrupted you. If it wasn’t for the smile he was trying to repel, you would have thought he was angry with the speed in which he left the room.

“Now hang on a minute!” You called and turned heel to follow him. “You can’t expect me to just leave this alone.”

“Oh, you don’t have a choice,” he challenged, fiddling with various things on the coffee table. It seemed he was doing almost anything to avoid your eyeline.

“Don’t be embarrassed-” 

“I’m not embarrassed!” He insisted, cutting you off and continuing his business.

“It’s adorable,” you defended, casually moving closer.

“I-” He cut himself off, doing a double take and questioned in the most dramatically offended tone “Adorable?” He snapped around to face you, only to find you had silently moved closer now almost chest to chest. “Bloo-dy hell!” He dropped the magazine in his hand and jumped away from you, quickly moving behind the couch.

You couldn’t help but burst into laughter at his fright. He sighed out his nose as he glared at your fit, putting his hands on his hips and frowning as his face burned red. 

Once you calmed down you crossed your arms and asked, “So, iron repels ghosts and you’re scared off by the threat of tick-”

“Oh don’t be egomaniacal,” he discouraged. “It doesn’t suit you.”

“No,” you agreed. “Really more of your thing isn’t it?” You asked as you began to walk around the couch.

At your movement, Lockwood mirrored you and moved around the couch. “A-alright, enough!” He held out a hand to warn you off but it didn’t stop you from running after him, chasing him as he turned to run up the stairs.

“Prestigious, Champion Ghost Hunter and you’re really afraid of me?” You called out, laughing at the ridiculous situation.

He ran into his room but before he could shut the door he turned and saw you hot on his tail, practically crashing into him and tackling him onto the bed. “Oh come of it!” He exclaimed, shuffling back but having very little success as you trapped him onto the bed.

As you climbed on top of him, you wasted no time in digging your hands into his waist. He wrestled his hands with yours as best he could before throwing his head back in laughter, unable to ward off the sensation. “Plehehehehease!” He quickly gave in and began laughing like you'd never heard before.

It was endearing to say the least, so out-of-character for him. Regardless, you couldn't deny how much you liked seeing him so carefree and happy. But naturally that wasn't enough to stop you from teasing the ever loving hell out of him.

“Quick to beg,” you observed. “I think I like you like this,” you teased, pausing slightly to bring your face closer to his.

“Oho, plehease,” he scoffed. “You always like me,” his charming smile seemed so much sweeter in this state.

Scoffing at his haughty behaviour, you responded by digging your fingers into his ribs. “That’s right, cling to your pride,” you teased, watching him dissolve into laughter once again. “It’s all you’ve got now.”

He pulled his arms in and fought to cover his ribs since his movement was restricted by the torment being inflicted on him. His cheeks burned red at every gasp or giggle that fell from his mouth and it wasn’t until you finally let up that he calmed down slightly.

As fond as he was of the physical affection, it was a maddening sensation and he couldn’t make sense of how he felt. He wanted you to stop but he didn’t necessarily want you to stop.

After a few more agonizing moments you let up and let him catch his breath. “Are you okay there?” You asked, poking his nose, mesmerised by the smile plastered on his face

He scrunched his nose and groaned, turning his face away from you, relaxing slightly. That only lasted a moment before you dropped your hands to where your lap would be, just above his belt.

He jerked aggressively in panic, grabbing your hands in defense before exhaling and dropping his head back onto the cushions. “Oh,” he breathed in relief, releasing your hands. “I thought you were going for my stomach.”

“Hmm?” You hummed, causing him to open his eyes.

“No, no, no,” he went right back to wrestling off your hands the moment he saw the evil glint in your eyes.

“Why would that matter?” you teased, voice dripping in faux kindness. “Huh? Why would that matter?”

“Dohohon’t behehe CRUHUHUHULE-AHAHAHAA!” He arched up and threw his head back yet again, hands tightening around your wrist, giving up all efforts in fighting you off.

After a moment you took mercy and let up, giggling to yourself as he caught his breath. Lockwood kept his hold on your wrist and brought them up to his shoulders, forcing you to flop on top of him in an almost hugging position. 

Following his lead, you made yourself comfortable; half hovering and half leaning against his chest. Laughing as you did, you let your head fall to his chest, “I can’t believe this.”

He exhaled the excess laughter and replied, “believe me, neither can I.”

“I told you it was adorable,” you mumbled from his chest.

He scoffed and you felt his hands wrap around you, hugging you close. One rested on the back of your head and the other held firmly around your waist. “Oh, dohon’t start,” he growled.

“Me? I just wanted you to start coming home before it’s gets dangerous outside,” you defended. He only groaned in response to which you laughed and responded. “Ahand I think I know how to do it from now on.”

He practically flinched from the insinuation, “Oho you think so, do you?”

You snapped your head up to meet his eyes. “Yohou’re damn right I do-”

“So you were worried about me?” He asked, straining his neck to look you in the eye. Although you found he kept glancing at your lips.

Narrowing your eyes, you stared him down and grumbled, “Do you really wanna take this full circle?” He smiled and again, broke eye contact while his cheeks turned red. You leaned into his ear and whispered in warning, “Because I will.”

He flinched away from the feeling of your breath on his neck. “Alright! Alright, you win, i’ll wear a watch.” You smiled in victory, feeling quite proud of the evening so far. “Now would you be so kind as to release me? I’m sure George will be calling for dinner soon.”

You raised your eyebrows and scoffed, “Release you?” You jostled yourself as you spoke, “You’re the one with an iron grip on me!”

He hummed and swayed you back and forth slightly, making no moves to let you go. “You’re right, I do.” He smiled, showing off his perfect smile you were practically drunk on right now.

Neither of you moved for a second until you heard George call from downstairs. “If you two are finished, I'm plating now!”

Lockwood interrupted any thoughts you began to have. “Now do not go down gossiping about this,” he warned, loosening his grip enough for you to sit up.

“Oh, of course not,” you laughed and crawled off his bed, grabbing his hand to pull him up and walk him out of his room. “Wouldn’t want to damper your reputation with blushes and giggles.”

“I do not- Oh forget it,” he shook his head and cleared his throat, desperate to regain his composure.

He kept his eyes forwards, not ready to meet your eyes again in fear of blushing madly. When you arrived at the kitchen you immediately ran around the table to spill the information to George. He only shrugged and seemed surprised that the information was new to you.

“Oh, for God sake,” Lockwood cursed, dropping down into a chair where he rubbed a hand down his face to hide his shy smile.

You laughed at his change in demeanor and dropped it for the rest of the dinner. Verbally, at least, as you and George spend some time writing down his other spots on the thinking cloth. 

Lockwood knew something was off when he saw the two of you biting back laughter. He’d later read these notes and vandalism them himself in his defense. If one thing was for sure, it's that he wouldn’t miss curfew anytime in the near future.

#anthony lockwood #anthony lockwood x reader #lockwood and co #lockwood & co #lockwood and co netflix #ticklish!Lockwood

[madeintheniamh]

you don't have to be sorry

waiting at the school gates, a dad you've never seen picking up his daughter appears at the time in your life that you might just need him most....

a/n: this one's quite sweet ngl. i fucking love dadrry with my whole heart.

“There you are, my gorgeous girl!” you watched him smile, as he held his arms wide open before a tiny figure ran towards him, who practically jumped on top of him. He lifted her up, holding her on the side of his hip, whilst tucking a strand of long brunette hair behind her ear. “Did you have fun at nursery?”

A little voice began to chatter on about all the activities she could possibly remember that had occurred doing the day.

“Sounds like you had a lot more fun than Daddy,” he sighed. “Can I see your drawings when we get home?”

She nodded, burrowing her head into his chest. “Oh, I missed you, Tilly Gem,” he smiled whilst trying to balance everything he was now holding between his hands. “Where’s your book bag gone?”

You were mesmerised. Even the back of him looked good, as he walked back towards the building, now in search of his daughter’s lost possessions. Shiny, flowing strands of brown hair which framed his chiselled face. He turned back to look in your direction, green eyes glistening in the autumn sun. You nearly gasped as his eyes met yours for a second, and his lips raised slightly at the edges.

You looked in front of you and quickly remembered your daughter, who was now rocking back and forwards in her buggy in front of you. Things hadn’t been quite the same after the break up with your husband a few months back. Despite the concern that you were now going to be raising her as a single mother, living in a flat you could barely afford in North London, you couldn’t help but also worry about the impact on her emotionally, no longer having a father figure. Although it had been a toxic relationship, she had always been a Daddy’s girl, but didn’t yet have the vocabulary to describe what it felt like for her father to suddenly walk out one day, with no intention of coming back. He was a businessman who worked in Canary Wharf, who was barely around during the week, but had always made time for her on his days off- at least before he decided to have an affair with the young receptionist who worked in his building and leave one night for Australia with her. Promising to pay her tuition fees at a posh private preparatory school was simply not enough. He had left his three-year old daughter fatherless, and you helpless and alone.

You exhaled slowly, before realising that the same tall figure you had seen a few minutes ago was now leaving the blue double doors, and walking straight in your direction. You knew you only had one chance, and made a split-second decision to wave in his direction. He smiled back at you, revealing bright white teeth, creases forming around his bright green eyes.

“Hi, you must be Matilda’s dad!” you explained, heart beating rapidly trying to keep your gaze focused on him. “I think my daughter is in the same class as her,”

He extended his hand towards you, revealing nails painted a glossy shade of white.

“Lovely to meet you, yes this is my Tilly,” he smiled, looking down at her in adoration, his hand now clasped around hers. “I’m Harry, by the way,���

Harry. He could have either been eighteen or thirty, it was difficult to tell. You noticed how a layer of stubble sat around his lips, and how the light reflected off the front of his perfect smile. His daughter had the exact same eyes as him, a beautiful olive colour with hazel rings around her pupils. In-fact, she was the complete spitting image of him, only much smaller with longer hair.

“I haven’t seen you here before,” you noted.

“Ah well, I’m on daddy duties today,” he smirked. “I’m a musician, so I’m away quite a lot. Feels good to be able to spend some time with my little, though,”

The little girl stood next to him nodded whilst shuffling around on the spot, clearly bored by your conversation. Your own daughter was also becoming restless in her buggy, kicking her legs around aimlessly as though all she could think about was an escape plan. You lifted her up and out of the padded seat, placing her gently on the concrete playground next to her.

“Girls, why don’t you go and play for a bit?” Harry smiled at both of them before turning back towards you.  

You soon found yourself sitting on a bench next to him, explaining your entire life story to a man you had never met.

“That sounds absolutely awful, I’m so sorry,” he sympathised. “No man deserves a woman like you. I can tell you are an amazing mum,”

“You too. I wish my daughter looked at me the way that Matilda looks at you,” you explained.

“Oh, don’t say that. I feel so guilty,” he sighed. “I have to leave her constantly, and it breaks me. I feel like such a shit dad every-time. I have to pry her off of me every-time I go out through the front door, and I fucking hate it,”

You were surprised at his honesty, and even he sounded shocked at his own words, as if this was the first time he had ever said them out loud.

“Well, at least you’ll be there when she grows up,” you said, tears starting to form in your eyes. “Not like my little,”

“Hey, don’t say that,” he says whilst placing his hand on top of yours, his gentle touch making you jump slightly. “I only had my mum for a couple of years growing up, and I did okay,” he smiled. “Plus, you’re gorgeous. You can find someone better than him, for sure,”

Your eyes lit up in response. “Do you really think so?”

“Yes, of course I do, and I wouldn’t lie to you, I promise,” he confirmed. “Look, maybe we could organise something sometime? Considering that our daughters will probably end up being close, being in the same class and all,”

You looked up at him, his green pools of light staring you dead in the face, nothing but kindness in his expression.

“That would be amazing, I’ll give you my number,” you chimed.

You spent a few more minutes chatting, before he passed his phone over to you. You put your number into his contacts list before he rested his hand on his shoulder.

“Tilly, it’s time to go home now,” he bellowed sweetly in her direction. “It was so lovely meeting you, hopefully we will see you both soon,” he chuckled, once again trying to balance all of his daughter’s possessions in one hand, whilst holding her hand in the other. You grinned at him in an attempt to prevent yourself from letting the tears that had formed behind your eyes from beginning to flow.

He came up beside you and whispered in your ear.

“And remember, if you ever want to go for a coffee or anything, my number is always there,” he said slowly, and you could feel his warm, sweet breath on the side of your neck. “I’d really love that,”

As he walked away, you looked down at your daughter, who was now fast asleep in her buggy.

“Lovey, I think mummy may have just found you a new step-daddy,” you giggled at her, whilst walking out of the school gates. 

#harry styles one shot #harry styles fic #harry styles fluff #harry styles x you #harry styles x reader #harry styles imagine #stmf

[neverchecking]

Does it count as a marriage if only one of them is aware?

AN: Is this a Sage and Aaliyah piece? Yeah. Am I proud of it? A lil. I don't know if it falls into their 'canon' timeline, but I think it's funny. Shoutout to the tweet that I got from pinterest that inspired this. May I hopefully find you one day.

He was going to commit a murder. An atrocity. A war crime so heinous they would carve it into stone tablets as a warning to future generations. She already was a thorn in his fucking side and then she pulls this shit? 

Un-fucking-believable. 

Slamming open the door, he remains ignorant to the lab assistant’s yelp, practically snarling as he spots Purah. She boredly looks at him over her shoulder, snapping her fan closed with a huff. “And a good morning to you-”

“Where the hell is she?” 

Purah grins. It’s something big and bright and he hates it. Asshole was probably in on it now that he thinks about it. Sheikah unity and all of that other bullshit. “Whoever do you mean?”

“You know who I mean, now you tell me where she is or I’m lighting Lookout Landing on fire.” He hissed low and dangerous, a firebulb already burning a hole in his pocket (not literally). He was going to get the information he wanted, whether they wanted to give it to him or not. He’d find her somehow, even if he had to scour this entire, goddess-forsaken fucking land. 

He’d find her and then he’d kill her for the shit she pulled. 

“Tick tock,” He mocked, reaching for the tablet on his hip. Purah scoffed with a grumpy furrow in her brows. “She’s in the depths, where she always is lately.” 

He took that for what it was, leaving and slamming the door behind him. 

When they couldn’t hear his angry cursings any longer, Purah turned to Josha with a grin. The girl looked positively frightened, as she often did when Link came around ranting and raving, but Purah paid it little mind. “He’s looking for his wife.” 

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware he was married?”

“Neither was he.” 

<><><><>

He should’ve checked here first. He was a fool to think she’d be anywhere otherwise, but yet? There she was. Sitting on a throne made of rock and marble with a devious grin on her face. She looked like the cat that caught the canary. In her left ear was the cursed piercing, still red and fresh, but holding a golden hoop. 

A part of him was thankful she didn’t get the idea to pierce his ears in his sleep. Another part of him was angry enough he could blow her up here and now and walk away, not a care in the world to be had. 

“What did you do?” He snapped, baring his teeth in her direction as Rauru’s arm flared to life. He had no intention of using any of the powers bestowed upon him, but it seemed to be a good deterrent for making her talk. Should she be feeling merciful enough.

Alas, however, it didn’t seem so as she leaned her chin on one of her hands. Her nails, long and sharp, glinted in the light of the torches around her. She looked like a vengeful queen tasked with the punishment of a traitorous soul. A cruel, wicked tyrant of a ruler. 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

He’d destroy her kingdom yet.

With a tense breath in, he ran a hand through his hair, trying to plaster on a well-mannered grin. “Well,” He let out a bark of ironic laughter. “You see, I was going on my way to visit the Sage of Water,  just to check up on him and you wanna know what he told me?” 

“You know I do.” She smirked. 

It took every bit of his patience to not wipe that fucking smirk off her damn face himself. Instead his fingers clenched into fists as that same anger bubbled up into a livid inferno that lapped at his insides and scorched his tongue. “He congratulated me for my recent marriage to the Sage of Spirits!” He spat, feeling comparable to the way he did after Ganon first returned. Angry and pissed and so blinded by red he didn’t care what happened. 

The woman paused, brows raised, and for the slightest hair of a heartbeat, Link almost thought she didn’t know what he was talking about (which just made him even more pissed). But then she snorted. The snort then turned into a giggle, which turned into several, which she tried to hide behind her hand before she was tossing her head back in an uproar of laughter. It rang in his ears, harmonic and heavy, but he couldn’t find himself to care. 

What a bitch. 

“Oh,” She breathed out at last, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye with a thumb. The rings on her fingers glinted and he noticed a suspicious lack of a gold band on her left ring finger. She did, however, have the earring so it was understandable. “Priceless. I was wondering when it would get back to you. I was almost getting bored. Feared I’d have to ruin the fun and tell you myself.” 

He grit his teeth so hard he was half surprised they didn’t turn to dust. “What do you mean-” 

“Glad Sidon did it for me though. He’s always had a big heart.” She waved him off before uncrossing her legs and standing. “It’s been fun though. Glad we could have this talk-”

“I’m not-” 

“But there’s shit to do. Little time, lots of work or however that saying goes.” A grin spread on her face. It wasn’t kind and it wasn’t nice. It was the equivalent of a wolf snarling at its prey. To show the nasty teeth often hidden in a warning. 

He was so distracted by her dumb face he didn’t even notice her taking out her own Purah pad. 

“See you later, hubby.” And then she was gone. 

Link blew up her throne before leaving, the only remainder being a selection of pebbles and small rocks. 

It didn’t make him feel better. 

<><><><>

Everywhere he went it was the same fucking thing. 

“How’s the wife?”

“Oh, you haven’t gotten your piercing yet? I bet you’re aching to do that!” 

“Must be preparing for the honeymoon, hey Link?”

And his personal least favorite. “Your wife had just stopped by! She said to expect you!” 

Like Aaliyah had any idea of what he did. She didn’t know his schedule. She didn’t know him at all! And he was just…what? Expected to roll with this? Go to the first fucking Gerudo vendor he saw and ask for a piercing? 

Not on his fucking life. 

He’d tear that piercing out of her ear yet and leave it bloody right in front of her dumb face. 

The matter was just getting close enough. 

It was true he was, admittedly, following her. He needed to get that fucking piercing. Word travels like wildfire in Hyrule and he knew she had some sort of ulterior motive. He just knew it. And he would either find out what it was or he’d make sure she wouldn’t be able to claim she was married to anyone else ever again. Win-win if you ask him. He’d either get in on whatever scam she was planning, take over and leave her with nothing, or he’d get the revenge he yearned for for sullying his infamous name. 

Now it was just a matter of tracking her down, which was easy enough. Aaliyah, if nothing else, was competitive. She liked a good game between them. She’d leave little tricks and clues for him to find in the most convoluted game of hide and seek he’d ever played. Maybe a certain berry was left lying around-- one he knew didn’t grow in that region-- or maybe there was a stray arrow, singed by the remnants of a bomb flower, lying broken on the path. 

She knew he was after her, and she probably knew what he’d do when he found her, but that was all this was to her. A game. This was one big giant game and he was the challenger. 

Or, contrarily, this was one big fucking joke to the Sheikah and Link was yet another punchline in this comedy act of a life.

<><><><>

“Looks like the dove finally got snared?” 

He watched, amused, as she pulled against the ropes wrapped around her. It was sneaky and underhanded, but at some point (and he’d rather fight the King Gleeok all over again before admitting it), he grew desperate. So, he rigged up a monster camp with muddle buds. Lots and lots of muddle buds. Every Bokoblin had at least four on their body, every Moblin six and even the TNT barrels were covered in them. 

Of course, when in the depths, if there’s an active monster camp, there’s a good chance Aaliyah wasn’t far behind. So, despite all odds, she took them out. The Bokoblins were taken out with the barrels, an arrow setting them all off, however she got cocky. The bow was put away and she sauntered into the camp, eyes on the chest prize in the middle.

A Moblin saw his chance, reared up and slammed his muddle bud lined head down. The Sheikah had dodged, but Link knew he’d won. He saw the expanse in her pupils, how the black seemed to swallow the gold irises and her cheeks became almost instantaneously flushed. She was dazed, but still finished off the disgusting beast with a practiced ease. 

Link, of course, saw his opportunity and took it. And now, here she was. Writhing about under him like the fucking worm she was and glaring up at him. Her eyes never focused, like she couldn’t make heads or tails on what she was seeing, just that she knew she didn’t like it. 

He nudged her with his boot and nearly got bit in the process. 

“Ooh, feisty little dove.” He teased, crouching to her level as he hauled her into a sitting position. She let out a low growl before trying to bite his face-- not that she got far with him holding her shirt the way he was. 

“Muddle buds? Really? That’s cheap, even for you.” 

“Even for me?” He feigned a pout. “That’s a little harsh. I was tryna have a decent conversation with you.” 

“I will fucking skin you and hang your ratty pelt like drapery.” 

He clicked his tongue with a shake of his head. “So violent. Shouldn’t women like you be more docile?” 

He nearly didn’t avoid the third snap of her sharp teeth. 

“What do you want? In case you haven’t noticed, some of us actually do our fucking duties. I have-”

“Shit you need to do, yeah I’ve heard.” Link rolled his eyes before returning them to the dazed Sheikah. “What’s your angle?”

“My fucking what-”

“Why tell people we’re married? What do you get out of it? Explain it to me.”

Aaliyah blinked slowly, brows furrowed as the information loaded in her brain, processed and she came up with a response. 

“Make me.” 

Was what said brain came up with. He’d kill her yet, he swears. With a scoff, he glared at her, watching as something akin to amusement brushed over her features. “I am. You think I’d drug you and tie you up for tea?”

“I don’t know, maybe you’re lonely.”

“Aaliyah-” What was the goddess thinking when making her? What part of the divine plan looked at him and went ‘Yeah, let’s make his life twelve times harder than it needs to be’? Because he had a complaint. Lots of complaints. Maybe there was a suggestion box where he could put in his very reasonable request of having her smited so he wouldn’t have to deal with her. “How’d you do it?” He settled on.

She hummed distractedly, head lolling about before she raised it to look at him. “You see, I went to Gerudo. They have these things called needles, and those needles pierced my ear, gave me the second hoop and then-” 

“I know how fucking piercings are done!” 

“Then it was just a matter of telling people we got hitched.” She grinned lopsidedly before pausing. “It’s very rude to interrupt by the way.” 

He grabbed her chin with a rough pinch of his fingers. “Yeah, well, it’s also not very nice to just decide you’re married to someone because you wanted another piercing.”

“Hey! I’ll have you know lots of people have liked my piercings in the past.” Aaliyah gave a salacious smirk, eyes darting down to her own chest before back up to him. 

What nipple piercings had to do with this, he wouldn’t know. “Name one person who liked your piercings.” 

“Your mom-”

He let out a war-hungry screech as she flitted away into blue. 

<><><><>

“Is it for tax purposes?” He called out, sliding to take cover behind a tree. An arrow pierced itself right where his head would’ve been and he quickly pulled it out and loaded it into his own bow. 

“You think I pay taxes?” Aaliyah called back, waiting for him to pop out and aim before letting a bomb arrow fly. It forced Link to roll out of the way, the edges of his shirt singed with ash. 

“I don’t think you do anything except make my life harder.” He snipped, shaking his hair out before letting a keese-eye arrow loose. It followed the Sheikah even as she darted behind a tree. It stabbed too deep into the trunk as she ducked for it to be reused, and she cursed, grabbing one of her own. 

“It’s a hobby.” She grinned. She didn’t have very many bombs left, less Keese eyes (This trip was supposed to be a restock trip before her loving husband showed his ugly face), and was running out of options just short of things that could cause serious injury. 

The quip she was waiting for didn’t come and she almost dared to poke her head out. Instead she laid low, watching the branches above her. 

Which did her no fucking good as a hand wrapped around her throat, pinning her to the trunk. Fucking Sheikah armor. 

“Then why?”

That’s all he’s ever been asking and it was starting to get on her nerves. No- how did you come up with such a great idea? No-Wow, you are so incredible and smart and what would I do without you? No- Wow Aaliyah, how did I get so lucky you decided to marry me?

Ungrateful fucking ass. 

“I mean, you’ll get to claim me on your taxes and people will stop hitting on you- not that I can imagine many do with your ugly mug.”

Link got up in her face, nose to nose and she could feel his sweaty breath on her chin. He should go away. 

“You could work with me, you know. Instead of against me. We could tear down this rotten fucking kingdom and build it anew.” He spoke at last, soft and hoarse. His eyes shined with vindication and valor and she wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

So she scoffed. “But I’m having so much fun. Learning what makes that little brain of yours just tick in agony and annoyance.” 

A beat passed between them. 

Then she raised a foot and kicked him square in the chest. Along the horizon the light dragon let out a strangled roar as it swooped close enough one could paraglide their way to its back. The whole reason Link was here, she’d bet. 

“Send her my regards.” Aaliyah gave a salute, letting shrine travel take her away yet again. 

<><><><>

The fire flickered underneath the metal pot steadily, licking up the sides and heating up the meat inside. He watched it blankly, mentally counting in his head before scooting over on the log he sat on. Predictably, there was a weight that sat right beside him, slumping with a clank as their gear was discarded beside them. 

Stables were neutral. Neither wanted to piss the horse god off, so they’d behave themselves here. 

Even if his skin itched with her sitting right there. There was nothing he could do, would do, unless she started something first. 

“How’s the lizard girlfriend?” 

“The fucking what-”

Early he had guessed this to be a game or a joke, but now he was certain she had just lost her mind at long last. Hurrah! He figured it out and eventually she’d be taken out back and put down. Something quick and merciful so she didn’t fall torment to her decaying mind. 

He did glance over to where she was watching the sky, golden eyes trained on something or another. He followed her line of sight and nearly lost his shit subsequently. 

“Are you-...Are you talking about Zelda?” 

“Zelda, lizard girlfriend, same thing.” She rolled her neck before stretching her arms out above her. “Weren’t you two supposed to get married before this whole Ganon thing?”

And the gears started turning. They turned and creaked and groaned, but they were moving in sync before it hit him. “Golden goddess above-”

“You look like you’re about to pass out-”

“You are a special kind of wicked.” 

“Flattery will get you everywhere-”

He turned to her and she suddenly clamped her mouth shut, like she could see what he was thinking. He was sure to an extent she could and she didn’t like what she was seeing. “That’s why you did it?!” 

“Did what-” 

“You started this whole campaign so you could say you married me before Zelda?! I was never gonna fucking marry her! Why do you think she’s still up there in the first place?!”  

The color drained impressively fast from the Sheikah’s face before she stood with a start. “This has been… something. Let’s talk again soon-” 

“Nuh-uh-” Link grabbed her wrist before she could disappear again. “Tell me that’s not the reason.” 

Aaliyah blinked, stared at him, and opened her mouth. Only to then let out a shrill whistle. Somewhere behind her, her horse came galloping up, its dark eyes locking on her as she grabbed its saddle on the way by. 

“Talk to you soon, hubby!”

<><><><>

Months later, he’s trekking in fuck-knows where, grumpy and grouchy. He hated the group of men he was with and he hated working for that fraud Hylia yet again. The boys around him never shut up and they never knew how to mind their own fucking business.

“Awful lot of jewelry.” One of them drawled with a lazy smirk on his features. Sage, as he had been proclaimed, scoffed. “I’m taking this from you? Your scarf looks like a fucking royal curtain.” 

The man sputtered before righting his features with an indignant scoff. Sage snickered before running his hand through his hair. “It’s not all decorative.”

“It’s not?” The youngest whirled around to look at him. “I thought you just like getting your ears pierced.” 

“I don’t. The first ones I got in the military. But this one?” Sage’s finger brushed against a second golden hoop hanging in his left ear. “This one means something.”

“Oh yeah, like what?” Blue scarf barked, probably still offended Sage didn’t immediately lie down and take the teasing.

“Means you need to shut your trap and keep walking.” He threw back, stomping forward. “I have a wife to get home to.”

#yandere linked universe #legend of zelda #yandere legend of zelda #linkeduniverse #linked universe #loz #aaliyah <3 #aaliyah x sage #that's not a tag yet? #omg? #honestly fair #Sage #Lu Sage #its sage #cinder writes

[crooked-wasteland]

Hazbin Hotel Liveblog: Dad Beat Dad

We are back to finish this. Real life got a bit in the way, but I do seek to write something rather big about this series and media literacy in general, but before i really can, i need to finish. Additionally, there are no more Vivienne Medrano-written episodes from here on out, which I am interested to see. I am watching these alone from this point, and sober, so I do apologize that they may not be as entertaining, or maybe they will be more so since you will see the active participation of my brain this time around.

Vaggie is sleeping like she is sitting at a desk. The way she wakes up is going from a slouched position to sitting upright like she’s the anime protagonist by the window at the back of the classroom. I immediately had to pause and laugh.

I didn’t even recognize Vaggie’s voice when she asks if Charlie is good. Goodness, After Angel Dust’s voice was so out of character last episode, I legitimately thought Roman just stopped trying for the rest of the series there for a minute. I actually had to start the scene over just to physically see who was talking.

I’m fascinated by the writing for Charlie this episode because instead of talking about things happening that were actually important, we focus on the things she did. It feels selfish of her to really only attribute the things she personally has done, all of which didn’t help at the time or were actively harmful to those around her. Additionally the idea that the hotel “isn’t working” is confusing. In what way is it not working? What is it Charlie thinks is supposed to show it working? There is entirely no clear idea of what “working” would be to Charlie. And instead of actually expanding on the idea of what this very nonspecific idea of failure is, they immediately use the situation to lazily introduce another character in Lucifer. It just reminds me of Carmella and how Sir Pentious’ out of character paranoia was just a segue to her being introduced through her arms dealing.

Side note, but this episode is written by Rachel Kaplan who wrote two episodes for Bojack Horseman. Specifically Season 5’s Ancient History and season 6’s A Little Uneven, Is All. I definitely feel Kaplan has solid comedy chops in her writing, but both of her episodes in particular really thrive in regards to her female characters. In Ancient History, for example, the story heavily focuses on Hollyhock and Princess Carolyn with sprinkles of Todd and Emily. The way Kaplan writes women in Ancient History is refreshing in media. She embraces HollyHock’s fragile mental and emotional state and how trauma has attached itself to Bojack in her mind. Despite Bojack not being the one to have harmed her, things that are fundamentally associated with Bojack are triggering. And you see how having such a sheltered and loving upbringing as HollyHock made her less resilient to the dysfunction that Bojack has horrifically normalized in his life.

Kaplan really does excel in writing for her female characters and I’m curious to see how she handles this episode. I see the similarities in writing such as Mr. Peanut butter asking for the rights to a happy birthday gift card that happens to be made by Ralph’s company to instigate their engagement for the episode. However, Bojack continued forward with Birthday Dad as a legitimate outcome and subplot within the series from that point forward. The point being that utilitarian writing is a necessary form of writing, but due to how little Medrano as a director focuses on the specifics of the story it results in the writers hired onto the team to struggle with very little to actually work with. How well this episode goes definitely feels like a canary in the coal mine for how much behind the scenes work was actually put into the female cast and series as a whole. If there is some strong foundations at least in the planning, Kaplan can probably make this episode one of the best ones, whereas if she is being left to build on sand, I believe the episode will feel hollow at its core.

While Kaplan is the writer for the episode, Medrano has self-identified as having written portions as a director, and it shows. On twitter she identified herself as having written the interaction between Lucifer and Alastor, and it completely broke the flow of the scene. I was starting to get into the feel of the episode for a second, Charlie was starting to feel like a person and her and Lucifer had a back and forth dynamic that was detached but affectionate and rather sweet. The visual direction also had improvements with more interesting compositions to tell the story and the silence felt less robotic. It started to get a flow only for Alastor to act as a massive pothole. I hypothesize that Medrano is highly protective of Alastor as a character and thus monopolizes his writing. Ironically it works well alongside her own personality she has displayed. Alastor is a very self-absorbed individual with entitlement who uses bravado and abuses to project this sense of power while being extremely insecure. It must be comforting to write what she actually knows for once.

Lucifer becoming an insecure manchild ruined any goodwill I was starting to build towards him. He went from being insecure in himself to suddenly projecting that insecurity outward onto Alastor and it immediately hollowed him as a character. The sudden screaming that wasn’t a part of his mannerisms until he’s demanding attention is a Medrano staple of what she thinks comedy is. It sounds like Medrano herself screaming for attention when threatened by someone with legitimate accomplishments and talent taking control of her show.

The issue with the large time skips and much ado about nothing going on in the actual episodes is why Alastor’s behavior is so confusing. Him being endeared to Charlie both seems in character when place in context with the pilot, and grossly out of character when it is not anything we have seen since. In fact, the series has made a point to emphasize this malicious side of him to, I guess, make him appear more “cool” and it disrupts any coherent idea of actually who he is.

So Alastor has not a single line for about two minutes after Lucifer requests to get to know the other members of the Hotel, and then this song. I’m so disappointed in this song. Lucifer distanced himself from Alastor and is introduced to the other sinners, and instead of having this song be what it clearly should have been: Lucifer singing about how he feels about Sinners and how foolish he finds Charlie’s quest because, you now, look at them. Lucifer has a first hand experience in Heaven and it would be reinforcing his character by reminding the audience that he himself is also in Hell to be punished. And his punishment is the very Sinners that Charlie loves. Like, there is so much interesting content to be pulled out of this ad explored. Instead, out of nowhere, Lucifer is just hyperfixated on this one sinner for no reason. That one second scene of Alastor doting on Charlie being grounds for this song-battle just makes Lucifer look insecure, petty and pathetic, which is also how Alastor looks. These two now are the same exact character and it is soul sucking. This episode was genuinely the best one yet, but Medrano is so infatuated with her own tumblr sexy man that it resulted in both of these characters becoming less interesting almost instantly. And I genuinely enjoy Lucifer’s singing and personality, and there was so much you could have done to really make this work. It almost worked. It’s so unfortunate that no one involved higher up had the experience or desire necessary to pull this together by keeping a tight control on an amateur and weak director.

I was informed that this is an unpopular take, but as a character I like Mimzy. Granted I’m only in so far as her being introduced to Lucifer, but she seems fun. Not really digging the idea of her backstory or her accent however. The issue is she has a very New England accent but was supposed to run in the same circles as Alastor when he was alive. So it would negate Alastor’s supposed Louisiana roots and life-long heritage because its very clear that Mimzy is from the North East. Flappers were primarily located in modern liberal areas like that of New York and Chicago with its money and socialite society providing them their primary source of income. The south, even in places like New Orleans, was still heavily segregated which resulted in stark social and economic expectations between social circles that Alastor and her never out have been able to bridge in 1920s Deep South. While there was a flapper movement in the 1920s, the society of the south was far more rigid and oppressive. And Mimzy's design flies in the face of historical context as the Flapper style and much of the 1920s was about being slender and boyish, the flapper style hinged on this androgynous look with shapeless and less restrictive clothing. Trying to make Mimzy sexy through tight clothing is the antithesis of Flapper culture. Taking into account Alastor’s supposed black American ethnicity, her line “Mixed company” comes off overtly racist, even if appropriate to her time period.

Mimzy’s animation on the bar. I had to pause and laugh again. There isn’t even any animation, she just slides across the screen as a static image with only her face being animated. Anyone who claims there was no rigging used in the animation process is a liar.

Niffty’s mouth movement in her line “Not for long” does not, at all, match the dialogue and I am curious what the original line was supposed to be.

This feels like an ego trip or Medrano. She really thinks Alastor is an interesting character and pushes this idea of how “badass” we are supposed to find him. Instead it reads like. Severely insecure OC (TM) and she really wants everyone else in the roleplay to be obsessed with him.

It shows how little Medrano understands the use of music in musicals. Typically speaking, you want the emotional heights to be the content of the songs, so by not having Lucifer’s song be about how much Sinners suck (which, again, would have made way more sense for the lead up and context of where the song was placed. In the script) it reduces his opinions about sinners to be unimportant compared to his own ego. It isn’t even about Alastor’s relationship to Charlie as the comparison to them both being “father figures” only appears in the middle of said song. This whole reminder about how he sees Sinners being an afterthought undercuts the idea that he even cares about Charlie at all. It has muddled the entire concept because you have one writer who knows where the emotional beats should be, and the other overly obsessed with her own wish fulfillment and ego. It is fascinating to watch this tug of war where one person is genuinely trying to make the characters their own people and build into them human connection and feelings while the other is so fixated on spectacle and her own identity being the focus of the show that any character groundwork is bulldozed in favor of aesthetics and attention. It’s actually almost heartbreaking to watch. It shows how, on every level, Medano has ideas that could work, but neither the ability nor desire to follow through, and the pitiful lack of security to allow others to really bring these ideas to fruition. It highlights how little the existence of this show is about telling a story and how it really is just all about Vivienne Medrano having a show.

The writing around Alastor is grossly unfocused and amateur. Husk warns him about the damage Mimzy brings with her, Alastor tells him to mind his business. Then he fixes her issues and tells her she needs to seek redemption or leave. And just like how the song is clearly played as a show to make Alastor appear like he cares, his interaction with Mimzy is (I think) also meant as a show. He doesn’t mean anything of what he says, but it is to just reinforce this facade for Charlie, right? Here’s the thing, I don’t know for sure. Based on the writing, it just feels like odd whiplash. It is a direct contradiction to what he said not minute before and it seems like Medrano wanted it played deceptive, but it lacks all feeling and buildup that it is just flat. If you read duplicity into the scene, your only evidence and reasoning is that nothing makes sense. When the clues to the direction of the story is that nothing is adding up, it’s a child’s concept of deception. It feels like a child telling themselves what they think is clever to some fictional idea of an audience in their head. It feels like a child brainstorming their story and how they will trick their viewers without understanding how human interaction works. And in regards to the idea of it being intentionally meant to be confusing, I can only paraphrase HBomberguy on his video covering the BBC Sherlock: If you don’t give the audience the tools to solve the mystery, you didn’t make a mystery. You are more in love with the character than the story and everything else, including quality, be damned.

The issue with Lucifer saying how Heaven never listened to him makes no sense to his character and story. If anything, he should be on the side of Heaven. HE is the one who didn’t listen, gave humans fee will and now he sees how much they suck. This whole stance he has doesn’t even line up to his own character. The way this should go is “Heaven didn’t listen to me, AND I WAS WRONG.” Like, Heaven and their rules, they were right. Lucifer’s hatred for Sinners is because Heaven was right. He thought they would be creative and loving when free, but he was wrong. They are sadistic, selfish, and cruel. Even in their altruism, they constantly put themselves first. This scene could have redeemed Loser Baby and show how Husk enabled Angel and not actually sought to help. How Husk’s empathy comes from a selfish place of superimposing himself over another person by making any sort of comparison between him and Angel before he shows even a sliver of care. There was so much here you could have fixed if you just had any idea of what story it was you were telling, if any story at all. Is Kaplan still even involved with the script at this point?

I think this episode gave me depression. This song could have been so powerful, but Charlie’s portion is jarring and doesn’t have any context to really comprehend what I am supposed to feel or understand. “Wishing it was me”, Wishing what was you? Wishing what? - Okay mid-typing i think i understood the context and this sucks. She means Lucifer was literally telling he stories and Charlie had an imagination. Like, not stories about his life or heaven, I mean fairytales. And she is literally singing about how, as a kid, she had an imagination. Like that is somehow special? And the reason this is so confusing and poorly placed is because Lucifer is singing about how much he wants to protect her from Heaven. But none of it adds up. He says he did this himself, which alludes to him also trying to redeem sinners and Heaven beat him down for that, when everything else suggests that this idea Charlie has is legitimately new. But the way it tries to combine these ideas completely loses the plot, the character relationships, the motivation, the world building. Angels in the Vivziepop universe have free will. Lucifer had to have free will to gift free will, and it is seen that the other angels choose to conform over stepping outside of that box. So Charlie being Lucifer’s child is not taught imagination, that’s a given and inherent trait of angels. And her whole “you inspired me” portion of this song falls face first flat because… imagination is inherent. It also means that free will is, in fact, just having an imagination. And heaven shows that angels can very much just choose to conform and how free will is a choice, but an imagination isn’t a choice. This just brought the whole suspension of disbelief crashing down. There is so much here to talk about in terms of media literacy and messaging and what is the meaning Medrano is trying to convey, but none of it works and it would be way too long for a live blog. As it is, this one episode has lasted me 2 hours.

Let’s talk credits a moment: Anyone else notice how Stephanie Beatriz is first to be credited? She is the highest paid actor in the show. She charged a lot of money for her very minor role and it shows in order of credits who is credited first. Right after her is Alex Brightman who had three, maybe four, lines throughout the episode. Then Keith David who had about as many lines as Stephanie. Kimiko Glenn is even paid more than the main actress Erika Henningsen, and now you know why she only has about 3 lines per episode. This cast drains the financials of this show and the evidence is front and center at the credits.

I am just so disappointed. Before Lucifer enters the hotel 5/10. After Alastor: 0/10

#vivziepop critical #vivienne medrano #vivziepop #spindlehorse critical #vivziepop criticism #hazbin critique #hazbin hotel liveblog #hazbin hotel critical #hazbin hotel criticism #hazbin hotel critique

[smartycvnt]

Night Life

Title: Night Life Pairing: Sara Lance x Reader Summary: Sara and Y/n run into each other on the streets, accidentally revealing both of their secret identities to the other. NR WC: 926

Sara had done a good job of staying out of Star City for nearly a decade. It had been easier whenever she still had Ava, but no good thing ever stayed in Sara Lance's life. She gave up time travel and vigilantism for a family, and she'd never regret that, even if it didn't work out. Sara had given it her best, but that kind of life wasn't right for her. She had gotten bored too easily, which was when the trouble started. Still, there were lines that Sara had never crossed. She was grateful for that bit of self-restraint that led to an easy divorce, even if it had ultimately put her back in Star City.

Technically, it was only for a weekend. It was a stop off on her new place, located about halfway between Central City and Star City. She was sick of listening to her parents trying to convince her to go to one place or the other. She didn't want to be that close to either of them, not if it meant the other would feel slighted for being left alone. Both of her parents had their own lives to worry about anyway. Her mother had a busy few months ahead of her wedding planning, and Quentin was working to repair his relationship with Felicity's mother, something that would never not absolutely shock Sara to think about.

It had nearly been a perfect weekend with her father until he got called into work. Sara had promised him to stay out of trouble, but that didn't mean she couldn't go on a patrol of her own. Quentin had tried to talk her into becoming a cop or working with the police wherever she ended up, but Sara didn't want that. She wanted to just let herself get used to being on her own for a little while. Ava had given her a couple of months to work things out before they finished drafting their custody agreement. Sara decided that this was truly her last little bout as the Canary, and she'd even torch the outfit to make sure of it.

"Hold it right there." Sara froze at the sound of a voice behind her. There was something familiar about the voice that excited Sara, even more than the click of the gun being cocked. Sara recognized the voice, even if she didn't know it yet. It had to be someone from her past, but Sara couldn't focus on it long enough to figure it out. "Turn around and face me."

"You know, if you'd ask nicely, you wouldn't need that gun," Sara said as she turned around. She kept her head down to try and conceal her identity, but the woman with the gun tilted it up. Sara expected the woman to say something, but instead, she just stared from underneath her hood. "What? Is something wrong?"

"Sara Lance, I'm pretty sure that I heard you died." The woman pulled the hood back and revealed her face to Sara. It was somewhat obscured by face paint that Sara recognized as an emerging gang in Star City, but behind that Sara knew the woman.

"Y/n, you're in a gang? I thought you were gonna be a cop," Sara said, unable to hide her shock.

"Turns out that inciting an investigation on Internal Affairs is a bit of a career killer, and those guys don't fuck around. They shot me, got me medically retired, and then I lost everything. It's a long and tedious story, but I've found my place. Now, I'd hate to have to kill you, but can you keep my secret?" Y/n casually waved the gun around as she spoke. Sara watched her closely and noticed that Y/n kept her fingers away from the trigger. "I'm not really hurting anybody who doesn't already deserve it."

"I was like you once, and this isn't the way." Sara knew that her words wouldn't change a thing, but she had to at least give it a shot. She had always known that Star City would eventually fall down the path it had before with crime and violence, despite Oliver's best intentions.

"It's not permanent, nobody's party phase ever is. Maybe when it's all said and done, we can work together. The city has been hurting since all its heroes went away. We could use a Canary again, but I'd change the color. Blood stains are a bitch to get out," Y/n said. Sara smiled to herself as she thought about coming back to this. She hadn't wanted to, but she knew that Y/n had to have a point. The city needed vigilantes. Star City at its most peaceful was still much more dangerous than most cities.

"We'll see. I told myself I was done a long time ago," Sara said. Y/n nodded as she clicked the safety on and holstered her weapons.

"Either way, I hope to see more of you Lance. Hopefully in a more official manner than when we were in school. How long are you in town for?" Y/n asked.

"I'm leaving tomorrow, but I'd definitely like to see you before I go. Meet me at the coffee shop on Harker Street tomorrow around 11?" Sara asked. Y/n nodded in agreement and placed a card in Sara's hand before she ran and baseball slid off of the rooftop. Sara shook her head as she glanced down at the card, which was a number for a private investigation service, most likely Y/n's.

#my writing #one shot #legends of tomorrow x reader #legends of tomorrow #sara lance x reader #sara lance #arrowverse x reader #arrowverse

[bre4yd]

"A life for a task"

that was it was.

But I guess the contract never specified whose life would be taken.

As I fall through void, whispers fill my head.

It was a soft, steady pattering that i could just barely understand.

"Shes not supposed to be here.."

"There must've been a mistake.."

"Shall we bring her back?"

"No no the damage has been done."

"The canary's already rejoicing he's not the first one gone."

That was all I could make out from these unknown sounds. It went quiet after that, until... the thunder roared loud.

[SolidarityGaming has run out of LIVES]

"All fixed. Now let the games, BEGIN!"

One by one, I saw my friends go down in chat, and I couldn't do anything but watch as the events unfolded.

The moment Jimmy died, all hell broke loose. Mumbo followed suit, and then Gem brought back the boogeyman curse.

Every time someone died, the whispers would grow louder. It was like they were cheering us on. No.. it was like they were betting on us. Betting on who would die and who would kill and who would win.

It felt like our lives were just a game to them. All our suffering was just for their entertainment. And yet, I couldn't do anything about it. I could only hear their whispers, unable to respond, and unable to relay this to my friends.

Eventually, the whispers stopped. As there is only one person left in the world. Eventually, that person left as well, leaving me behind. Not like they knew they were leaving me behind.

It's scary being all alone. Up until this time, I had the whispers to keep me company. Even if they drived me crazy. The silence is killing me, and i hope it does. I dont understand why they just left me here, i dont understand why they didn't just let me die the moment I fell off the island? Why did they leave me here to watch as my friends all killed each other for their amusement?! I just want this all to end!

Death seems like a better path than falling through here for an eternity.

Inspired by a post by @legally-allowed-to-slime

#is she just falling forever..? #traffic life #trafficblr #secret life #ldshadowlady #lizzie ldshadowlady #i have severely missed the life series hype but I'll still post this cause it has me on a chokehold #woah did i just write a fanfic??? #traffic life series #ldshadowlady fanart #life series fanart #bre4yd art