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misstef · 4 years

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Movie Night

Based on this post of some great headcanons of @blake-belladonna-defence-force and @styx-writes. Thanks for letting me steal your ideas! 😁

I just had to write some cute Beacon bees and team bonding time. Hope y’all enjoy this! ^^

----

“So now,” the leader of team RWBY announced, “we only need to decide on a movie.”

The whole team groaned at the thought. This was the hardest part of their weekly movie night, since they were for the love of the two brothers not able to diminish a single one, they would all like to see.

Yang tried to lighten up the mood again, “Oh, come on, guys! This can’t be so hard.”, as she started to skip through the available pieces on the bigger hard light dust screen their scrolls projected into the air.

“Really? One time we didn’t start until midnight because we debated it for so long.” Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose while remembering that particular night. “Not to forget, that if we choose something remotely uninteresting for Blake, she will fall asleep against Yang in the first ten minutes of the movie!”

“I don’t mind.” That shot out of Yang’s mouth almost instantly, only for a blush to appear on her cheeks because that came out way happier than it had sounded in her head.

Blake chuckled beside her, putting a hand in front of her mouth.

“Yes,” Weiss deadpanned at Yang, “we noticed.”

With the growing heat on her cheeks Yang continued to switch through their options.

They all sat on the self-made sofa put together with their mattresses, pillows and blankets and stabilized against Blake’s bed frame. It was extremely comfortable, so how could Yang blame Blake for falling asleep on it (and against her).

“How about this one?”, she asked to the group, once she found something that looked rather interesting.

Blake read the title out loud, “The boy who fell from the sky? Is that an adaptation of the book I read?”

“The cover looks fine. Do you want to watch it?” Weiss sounded very hopeful thinking they already found something.

“If I’d like to see yet another good book butchered by the movie adaptation, sure.”

Yang quirked an eyebrow at her, “I can hear your sarcasm from a mile away. We can watch something else, if you’d like.”

As Blake smiled appreciative at her partner, she caught the pleading faces of both Ruby and Weiss behind her. “No, it’s fine.”, she said after a moment of consideration, trying to sound hopeful, “Maybe it isn’t all that bad.

----

She was wrong. So utterly wrong.

Though she tried to contain her anger as best as she could at everything the movie cut out or rewrote terribly, at one point she just couldn’t take it anymore and cried out load, “This makes no sense now! They cut out the essential part of his character development. Not to mention how they wrote the conversation between the protagonist and antagonist. This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen!” She put her head on Yang’s shoulder in agony.

After a short moment of surprise Yang’s first reflex was to put her arm around Blake, drawing soothing circles on her shoulder and whispering, “You almost made it through. It’s gonna be over soon.”

And somehow, she did. Maybe it was the little rant that calmed her down, or maybe it was the fact, that her head still rested against her partner’s shoulder, who pulled her closer with the arm she had put around her. Blake would have to lie, if she said, that she didn’t feel warm and secure right now. If the movie wasn’t so terrible infuriating, she for sure would’ve fallen asleep like this.

Sadly, as soon as the credits rolled, Yang put her arm back and stretched with a loud yawn. Then she looked at Blake, excited and smiling, “So, how bad was it?”

Blake had so many thoughts on it while watching the movie, none of them good. With it being over now, she had made her peace with most of it. But such a question lit up a whole new fire within her.

“You. Have. No. Idea.”, she punctuated. “They like...” she motioned her hands like she was holding something other than air with them, “took the idea behind the book and the characters and just through it out the window! I don’t understand how you can misinterpret something so BADLY!”

Yang was struggling not to laugh at how cute Blake looked, when she was angry and gesturing her arms wildly to make her points clear.

“I mean,” Blake continued her rant, “in the book it made total sense that the boy tried to approach the antagonist multiple times. He hoped to talk some sense into him, since they knew each other before all the bad stuff happened. Here, they just rewrote their entire relationship, so it makes NO SENSE, like AT ALL, that the boy tries to save him.”

Yang just kept staring at her in awe. She knew already that she loved it, when Blake went off about how the faunus were being mistreated and the rights they deserved. Her ranting about a bad adaptation would have to go on the list of things she loved about Blake, too. That list grew bigger constantly anyway.

I don’t have a crush on Blake, she had said a few weeks ago to Ruby, after a movie night where the faunus had fallen asleep in Yang’s lap. At that moment her concentration was fixated on Blake for the rest of the movie. Weiss had sided with Ruby back then, saying she was just in denial and would soon realize that they were right all along. Yang had simply rolled her eyes at the two.

“The whole point of the book was, that even when you’re trying your best, things don’t always go the way you want them to. And how you shouldn’t beat yourself up over that. How does that even work if the antagonist GETS REDEEMED IN THE END? DID THEY EVEN READ THE FUCKING BOOK, BEFORE WRITING THAT MESS OF A SCRIPT?”

Weiss and Ruby got up during the last bit of the rant and excused themselves to get some drinks. Blake’s whole demeanor changed as they left the room. She just now realized how loud she had gotten and immediately felt guilty, faunus ears pressing against her skull. “Sorry, if I ranted too much.”, she said apologetic to Yang, while keeping her eyes trained on the floor.

Of course, Yang noticed her changing body language and small, insecure voice. “No! No, please don’t be!”, she said as she put a reassuring hand on Blake’s shoulder and smiled at her warmly, trying her best to not let the faunus feel bad for something so minor. “I meant it, when I said that I love it when you’re feisty. It doesn’t matter, if it’s in a fight or you ranting about something. I adore that side of you.”

Blake’s ears peaked up at her sincere and soft tone again, as she found Yang’s eyes with her own. “Really?” She still sounded like she couldn’t believe the words Yang just told her and it broke Yang’s heart, that Blake sometimes thought so little about herself.

“Of course. You going off about something you’re passionate about, is great! I could listen to it all day.”

When Blake worked up a little smile, Yang smirked back as an idea came to her mind. “So, you wanna tell me how the book did everything better?”

The faunus’ eyes began to glow at that thought, like the gold in them was heated-up with passion and happiness. And at that sight Yang wished so badly, that her eyes would never go back to being dull due to sadness and regret again.

As Blake told her about the events in the book, being all excited and making sure her partner was able to follow everything, Yang knew that Ruby and Weiss had been right. Now she wasn’t in denial of her feelings anymore.

#yang started being in love with blake during their beacon days and you can't tell me otherwise!#that's when her pining started too #and suffering weiss #bumbleby #rwby #rwby fanfic #bumbleby fanfic #yang xiao long #blake bellodona

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dracox-serdriel · 5 years

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Lament of the Asphodels - Chapter 38: Hyperion's Shadow

Lament of the Asphodels

Title: Hyperion's Shadow Author: Dracox Serdriel Artist: @liamjcnes Artwork: Post 1 | Post 2 Word count: ~2,500 Rating: NC-17/Explicit (except on FF) Warnings: Graphic descriptions of violence, Graphic sexual content, Declaration/threats of sexual violence, Minor character death, Social stigmatization/abuse, Detailed descriptions of hopelessness/depression/inner turmoil, Descriptions of the effects of extreme phobias/social anxiety, including anthropophobia, thalassophobia/hydrophobia, and hylophobia/dendrophobia, Descriptions of shipwrecks and storms at sea

Read Lament of the Asphodels on FF, AO3, LJ, or start at the beginning on Tumblr. Written as part of @captainswanbigbang.

Chapter 38: Hyperion's Shadow

The next day came in so usual a fashion that Emma and Killian fell into a routine not unlike their mornings at Stagrock Light, albeit with many stops and starts for want of basic necessities. An impasse manifested when they realized that the only clothing they had in this realm had been tossed carelessly about the loft during their cascade of passion, leaving the fabrics woefully wrinkled and musky, and they had neither basin nor soap for remedy.

No doubt a salvage mission - given enough time - could provide some unsoiled garments, but despite Killian's playful banter to the contrary, neither was willing to scavenge in barely a stitch, no matter how deserted Storybrooke appeared. Lacking any other recourse, Emma called upon her in-born magic, which was distant and fraught, like a rabbit trembling at the sight of a hawk. When she drew upon it, it came in ungainly waves of thin and thick, sluggish and awkward. She could sense her magic's full potential lingering just out of reach, stuck behind a bottleneck, vying to burst free and answer her summons.

What could be holding it back? She hadn't encountered resistance of this kind before, not since she had first learned to control her abilities, and that was a very, very long time ago. Perhaps a Land without Magic had some kind of tithe on those who would use abilities that were - by virtue of the realm's name - not meant to exist.

Or perhaps returning to this realm to discover their home desolate and besieged by at least one monster had taken a greater toll on her than she knew. She expected Storybrooke to be different, yes, but not abandoned... never abandoned.

"Emma?" Killian asked. "Are you all right, love?"

He was at her elbow. She hadn't noticed his return from the bathroom, focused as she was on her magic. But no amount of stubborn determination could distract her from the deep undercurrent of true concern deftly shrouded in his charm, and her instincts clambered for her to quash his apprehensions by proving the voracity of her constitution.

And then the better part of her nature whispered a kindness. None knew her so well as Killian Jones. He could catalog her abilities and vulnerabilities alike, and beyond that, he possessed a faith in her that never wavered - not in fear, not in failure, not even in death.

Ignoring the urge to raise her walls, she melted into him as his arms enveloped her.

A rush of belonging and security washed over her... and her magic burst from her fingertips, whirling around the soiled garments and restoring them to the moment they first were crafted.

"I'm great," she finally replied to his question. "Looks like we have something to wear after all."

"A pity," he whispered before swooping down and capturing her lips.

The kiss deepened and quickly pulled them back to the night previous, but before either could so much as shift their weight back towards the bed, their stomachs roared in unison, calling after a hunger of a different kind.

-----

Emma summoned a hearty breakfast of fruits, cheese, and bread, yet no amount of concentration, strength, nor sensation brought forth axe, longsword, or gun, leaving her to disclose her failure over a variable feast from her success.

Killian took her hand in a show of support and reminded her of his cutlass and her magic, which had both slain more than one dangerous monster; indeed, which both had overcome beasts even in the Underworld itself.

"Besides," he continued. "We need only lay eyes on the creature today. Once we identify what manner of beast it is, we'll know its weaknesses."

"It's a dragon," she replied. "A giant flying thing that breathes fire? Definitely dragon."

"A dragon is as good a guess as any," he conceded.

They delighted in a debate about the identity of this monster, each voicing increasingly outlandish suggestions onto Killian's flying kraken and Emma's alien spaceship with an attached blow torch. When their meal was complete, they decided the best place to start was the south forest.

They departed on foot. Arm in arm, they traversed Main Street, not bothering with sidewalks to mark their way. Without a calendar, they could only guess as to the season, but the day possessed all the makings of a fine spring morn.

Not long after they set off, Pegasus appeared, dropping straight down from above without warning. He galloped around them, lapping them in playful, ever-widening circles before cantering hither and tither and back again, his buoyant joy echoing with the clatter of his hooves, filling the thoroughfare with a wild thunder, rolling up, up, up into the clear blue sky, where soon followed the great stallion, vanishing as quickly as he emerged.

As they neared the library, memories surfaced like spawning fish, cascading over Killian and Emma alike. How oft had they sought wisdom - be it from Belle or her books - from this place? How many times had they taken shelter in this building or sought treasures (and whatever might guard them) in the catacombs beneath? Surely, their adventures here could not be numbered.

For a moment, Emma lived her old life, the one that she'd had before North Edge and the Midlands. She felt as if those days in Storybrooke were yet newly wrought; as if she had escorted Henry to this very spot for a school project - or had it been to best the Wicked Witch? - mere weeks previous.

Then the long, long shadow of the clock tower fell, cloaking the sun as it blotted out the fondness - the nearness - of those memories. Emma faltered in her step, weary and wary in equal measure.

"Swan?" Killian asked.

She spake not, but two souls with a singular heart have no true need of words passing between them, not for those matters that drum from deep within. Ergo, without a syllable uttered, Killian Jones understood that a dark and hollow dread held fast to Emma Swan, though he knew not why nor from whence it came so suddenly.

He tightened his grip on her arm and led her past the grand doors of the library, where the rays of the morning yet gathered in strength, and as if a spell abated, Emma became herself once more.

"Swan?" he repeated.

Something inside her flinched at the concern in his voice, and an old, bitter part of her rose up, thirsting for the fount of control she once trusted for nourishment, to stave off insecurity and heartbreak alike. What had started this morning as an act of curiosity and duty quickened into a dark need, a desperate desire to have power over something, to attain an uncontested victory.

She knew this feeling well; she'd drawn strength from her anger all her life. And today, she had more enough to slay a dragon.

"I'm fine," she replied with a calmness she didn't possess. "Really, I'm fine."

Killian wanted to inquire further, but she waited not for his next query. With newfound determination, she pressed toward the concealed pathway that would take them into the depths of the south forest.

And, as he would do for the rest of this life and all those ever after, he followed her.

-----

They spent the rest of the morning in amenable silence as they combed through the woods, searching for any sign of a magical beast. Since last they were here, the paths had overgrown, and the entire forest had changed - or, perhaps better to say returned - to something wilder, untouched by civilization, leaving some areas precarious to cross and others utterly impassable.

Their persistence led them to a clearing fashioned from crushed trees and brush, filled with enormous tracks, and adjacent to a freshly laid path of destruction.

"These tracks... they seem feline, but huge. Ten times the size of a house cat," Emma commented as she ran her fingers over one of the imprints, the dirt giving way with the gentlest touch. "But apparently whatever made them wasn't very heavy."

"Perhaps because the monster which imparted them is light enough to fly?" he suggested.

"I was just thinking the same thing."

They followed the trail of felled trees and crushed greenery thorough increasingly rocky terrain that ended at the mouth of a great cavern that would make the perfect abode for a part-cat, part-dragon to sleep out the daylight.

Before they set foot inside the cave, a bellowing whiney met their ears, drawing them to the next clearing, where Pegasus stood, his countenance all the more angelic for the rays of sunlight cascading around him.

"Glad you can join us, Old Boy!" Killian said with delight as he approached. "Thought you might be out exploring this new realm of yours."

Though Emma experienced his joy in the literal sense, she didn't share it. A giant, winged horse couldn't fit inside the cave, and even if he could, his hooves would announce their approach and rob them of whatever surprise they yet retained. If they were to glimpse the (hopefully sleeping) creature, Pegasus could not attend them, and they had lost enough daylight searching the beast's lair.

She made to voice her concerns only to find the world upturned. Something enormous, shaggy, and moving at a fantastic speed crashed into her and threw her to spinning to the ground. The wind deserted her lungs, as did her own senses, which surely deceived her.

A spiky stinger - its size rivaling her father's broadsword - whipped across the sky as its attached hulking mass - the color of pure molten gold - charged toward Killian, all fur and fury and leathered wings.

"Killian!" Emma shouted.

Pegasus stepped fast, knocking Killian away before wings met wings in a tumultuous crash.

She stumbled on her hands and knees to where her True Love had fallen, surrounded by roots and rocks, bruised, perhaps, but otherwise unharmed.

"Bloody hell, Swan," he said as they embraced each other in mutual relief.

The single-hearted pair returned their focus to the ongoing fray betwixt Pegasus and the monster, who were head to head -

Nuzzling one another?

"Are they...?" Emma prompted.

"Quite friendly," Killian completed.

Killian shrugged as he clambered to his feet. He extended his hand to Emma, and she took hold to rise alongside him.

Together they looked over the creature that had been the sole focus of their second day in this realm.

It was a thing of incongruous parts, and all the more intimidating for it. Its dark wings were of taut membrane, like those of a bat, and a tufted mane of dark brown adorned its head like a crown, surrounding its somewhat human face.

"Not a dragon," Emma whispered.

"A manticore," Killian replied. "Though in all the stories I've heard, they neither flew nor expelled fire."

"Great, a super-manticore," she said.

Still, Emma could not bring herself to strike an animal - even a monster of mythic legend - that provoked no violence.

"What do we do?" she asked. "Just because Pegasus likes this manticore thing doesn't mean its not dangerous."

As if called by her question, the manticore approached them, its golden eyes fixed upon them and nothing else. They both went rigid, as if the slightest movement might incite its ferocity.

Then it breathed deeply, distinguish friend from foe by scent.

Emma's mind churned furiously with their options. She considered her magic - perhaps she could muster a blast powerful enough to throw it back and earn them a running start... but what if she couldn't draw enough power for such a spell? Then what?

Before either could rightly react, the manticore's head was next to hers, and its horrifying maw opened mere inches from Emma's face. She flinched away, but it did no good, for the sandpaper of its tongue connected with the side of her face, resulting in a long - and very wet - lick.

Her shock was only doubled by Killian's erupting laughter.

"I think it likes you, Swan."

They returned to Storybrooke proper on the back of Pegasus, and - much to Emma's chagrin - the manticore followed closely behind, hardly allowing them a few paces of distance after they had landed on Main Street.

"So, it's just going to follow us around forever?" Emma inquired in a hushed yet grumpy voice.

"He," Killian corrected gently. "Going by the lion's mane, the manticore is male, love."

"Way to dodge my question," she quipped.

"He and Pegasus get on," he said. "How dangerous can he really be?"

"Well, there's one place that could tell us," Emma said as she nodded her head toward the library. "Assuming it hasn't been emptied... and that books are still things people use."

-----

Neither Emma Swan nor Killian Jones retained any recollection of events betwixt meeting the ferryman and awakening, alive and whole, in Storybrooke; thus, neither possessed any memories by which to gauge the passage of time or to supply even the most tenuous of guesses as to its duration. Truth be told, such knowledge would've proven quite useless, for Time has always been a wily, unpredictable thing, diverging from realm to realm and, within each realm, even movement to moment. Every realm has conjured myriad methodologies and mechanisms by which to measure Time's presence and passage, with exceptions, of course, for those realms where Time existed only as a thing of fairy stories.

This was why Emma and Killian were blissfully unaware that their return took far longer than a blink of an eye or a tense and turbulent boat ride. It was also why neither knew that heralds of nature had gone before their arrival like riders trumpeting their pronouncements for those who knew the composition and circumstances of such signs.

To the present day, there persists a quite unfortunate - albeit, entirely natural - tendency wherein the most dangerous and precious knowledge becomes vaulted in the minds of those individuals with the most ill of intensions.

So, while the recent residents of Storybrooke failed to see hope in the raging tempests that threatened every living thing and standing structure, many an unsavory eye turned to the small town with malicious curiosity.

Likewise, the abrupt appearance of a monstrous hybrid like the manticore gave no insight to the townsfolk that the arrival of a gift was in the offing. Neither did the outbreak of foxfires nor the new - and universally unsettling - vocalizations of the wind.

As the town banded together to outlast the chaos, they sought unlikely accidents, vile perpetrators, and colossal curses alike for a cause. Not one person suspected that a blessing was responsible for these calamities and many more besides.

Well, exactly one person suspected, but life had so jaded him that he dismissed even the faintest whisper of hope, which let his suspicions fade long before confiding them in another living soul.

Thus, the town of Storybrooke took drastic measures against an unknown and formidable foe rather than a grand welcoming party.

-----

Killian and Emma approached the library, and, as it happened that morning, its shadow inspired a numbing dread of a life lost long ago. Unlike earlier, however, the darkness only reached a few inches beyond the front door, leaving her in close quarter of to the door.

"It's you?" spoke the door.

No, not the door. Someone - a woman - behind it. A woman with a familiar voice.

A rush of sounds - nearly inaudible to Killian and Emma - fluttered just beyond their reach, though an occasional phase made itself known, it wasn't enough to make sense of the commotion.

"It's them!"

"No, them!"

" - the barrier, go - "

"Sure? It could be - "

"Hurry!"

Suddenly, a radiating pulse echoed out from the library, rippling out across the town.

"That was magic," Emma mumbled as the shadow's spell abated yet gain. "That - "

She reached for the handle, but the door burst open from within, revealing a handful people who'd gathered behind it, waiting for the barrier spell to fall.

And every single face was achingly familiar.

"Emma?!"

"Mom? Dad?"

"Mom? Hook?"

"Henry!"

The young man - and he had grown a few inches, but he couldn't be more than a year older, surely - grabbed hold of Emma and Killian alike, pulling them into a three-way hug.

Everyone else vied to join him, resulting in a slow trickle of new arms encasing the ever-growing hug accompanied by the cacophony of celebration falling from their lips.

Yet somehow everyone heard David when he said, "I don't know if anyone else noticed the giant winged lion, but..."

"Oh, uh, yeah," Emma replied.

Killian turned toward the manticore ready to make a formal introduction, but as soon as he exposed his cheek, the manticore leaned down and licked, leaving a laughing Emma and a fair amount of slobber in its wake.

"He's okay," Emma continued.

"What is he?" Henry asked.

"Ugh, manticore slobber," Killian mumbled as he tried to wipe his face. "Henry, meet the manticore. He's taken a shine to your mother."

"Apparently, I'm not the only one," Emma said.

Henry, both relieved and amused, added, "Cool! Pet manticore!"

Snow and Charming pulled their daughter closer, desperate for a few moments to reconnect.

"You found him," Snow whispered to Emma. "We knew you would find him."

"And we knew you'd be back," David said. "Maybe we didn't know you'd have a flying lion with you, but we knew."

"Aye," Killian said. "This family always finds one another."

End-of-chapter notes: Hyperion was the Titan of wisdom, watchfulness, and heavenly light in Greek mythology. His children were the lights of heaven: Selene, the moon; Eos, the dawn; and Helios, the sun.

For next and previous chapters, proceed to the Lament of the Asphodels main Tumblr page.

#lament of the asphodels #captain swan big bang #csbb #csbb 2016 #captain swan fanfic #once upon a time #ouat #once upon a time fanfic #ouat ff #captain swan #fanfic #killian jones #emma swan

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