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starlightments · 3 years

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PREVIEW: part one

The Galra, a hostile nation of magic-wielders, have finally been banished from the kingdom’s borders. The war is over, once and for all. The Crown City is more determined than ever to re-establish peace to its people when a mysterious boy is discovered in the outlands. Keith is taken under the wing of the Royal Guard, where he is to be groomed for knighthood, but his inherent and untamed magical abilities have branded him a threat, alienating him from the only family he’s ever known — until he meets Lance, a rambunctious young prince in search of a playmate. But as the boys grow older and feelings grow stronger, their days of childhood whimsy evolve into a deeply unshakeable bond; one that is soon tested by rumors of a Galra counterattack and perhaps even a state-mandated betrothal to assuage political tension. Now, with both hearts and lives on the line, the two lovers find themselves at a complicated crossroads: duty or desire?

Language: English | Rating: TBD | Art Credit: here

FANDOM: Voltron: Legendary Defender

GENRE: Royal AU, childhood friends-to-lovers

PAIRING(S): Keith/Lance

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A flash of light comes blazing through the half-parted curtains, followed by a violent clap of thunder that rattles the floorboards and, consequently, startles the young prince awake.

Lance sits up with a gasp, clutching at the elaborately embroidered duvet, keeping it tucked under his chin for protection. The bedroom goes pitch black again, save for the bluish glow of a star-shaped nightlight in the corner, but the storm continues to rage outside. He can hear rain beating behind his window and the blustery sway of tree branches as they scrape up against the glass like fingernails.

“Marco,” Lance whispers into the darkness. His brother remains fast asleep, snoring softly, on the other side of the room. “Marco.”

Still no response. Lance spends a moment rooting around under the covers for his raggedy stuffed lion, then squeezes it close to his chest as he scuttles over to his brother’s bed and shakes him urgently by the shoulder.

“Go away,” Marco grumbles into his pillow.

“But the noises!” insists Lance. “What if it’s a—”

“It’s not a monster, it’s just a storm. Quit being such a baby.”

Lance puffs up at that, bottom lip jutting out with defiance. He’s fully prepared to remind his brother that he turned seven last month — and is, therefore, no longer a baby by any means, thank you very much — when another loud noise cries out in the dead of night; except this time it’s unlike the rumbling thunder and howling winds. It’s a mighty whoosh of the front doors being flung open downstairs. Wet footsteps slapping against the marbled foyer. Low, angry-sounding voices.

“Marco,” says Lance, shaking him again. “I mean it, I think there’s something—”

“Cut it out, Lance,” Marco says, and then swats at the younger boy’s hand with an agitated grunt before rolling away to face the wall.

But the noises persist. If anything, they’re only getting louder, more conspicuous, and Lance’s curiosity is not so easily brushed aside. So, bracing himself, with his trusty lion in tow, he pads across the room and pokes his tiny head through the door.

Across from him, Lance’s older sister is doing the exact same thing, peering furtively down the dimly-lit corridor in a satin nightgown, her hair done up in curlers.

“Ronnie—”

“Shh!” she hisses at him, a finger pressed to her lips in warning. “It’s Papa.”

Lance’s mouth parts into a bewildered little ‘o’ shape as Veronica proceeds to slink out of her room and toward the staircase. At the opposite end of the hall, he spots Coran, the royal family advisor, where he appears to have dozed off in the middle of watch duty again, slumped over in a chair, his big orange mustache wiggling with every exhale, and so Lance decides to tiptoe after his sister.

The Citadel’s east wing is a winding labyrinth of passageways and gilded alcoves, but the further they creep into its bowels, the clearer the commotion becomes. One of the many chamber doors has been left slightly ajar, a strip of lamplight pouring out from the gap, along with their father’s voice, hushed and stern.

“—What on earth were you thinking, Takashi?”

They both scamper up to the door, peeking inside. It’s a thin opening, just barely enough space to make out glimpses of shifting bodies: their father paces around a large wooden conference table, his brow drawn tight, while Shiro, in contrast, stands perfectly still like the soldier he was born to be. There’s a small boy hovering at his side in tattered clothes, similar to Lance in size, and his face is obscured by a curtain of damp fringe.

“I found him in the outlands, alone, with nowhere to go and no way to survive,” Shiro answers firmly. “That’s what I was thinking, your Majesty.”

“You should know better,” the king fires back. “After everything that’s happened, you, of all people, should know better than to invite danger into this household.”

“He’s not dangerous,” says Shiro. “He’s a child.”

“No, he’s Galra.”

At that, Veronica inhales a sharp breath, then immediately clamps a hand over her mouth. Lance is startled, too, but only because he knows he should be. Only because he’s heard grown-ups murmur that word when they think no one is listening, like it’s something terrible and blasphemous. This boy right here looks like neither of those things.

Through the crack, Lance can see Shiro lift his arm; the mechanical one. “And so am I, now,” he states. “The very magic that this kingdom fears, the very magic that’s now a part of me, is what saved my life.”

A pause. “That’s different,” the king growls. “It was our only option.”

“Well, pardon me, your Majesty, but then what is his only option?” argues Shiro, pointing at the boy. “Death?”

“Death,” Lance echoes, scandalized, his grip on his stuffed lion tightening. He reaches for his sister’s ruffled sleeve and tugs. “Ronnie, did you hear that, he just said—”

“Lance,” she shushes, “be quiet or they’ll hear—”

The sudden halting of footsteps lets them know they’ve been caught. But before either of them can think to run, the chamber doors are being swung open wide and their father’s long shadow is looming from above. His expression, however, has been transformed into one that Lance recognizes; gentle and warm.

“Aha,” he chuckles. “I thought I heard some little mice scurrying around these halls.” Swiftly, the king scoops Lance up into his arm and takes Veronica’s hand with the other. “Back to bed, you two. What would your mother have to say if she knew you were up this late, hm?”

Shiro, in the background, says, “Your Majesty, I—”

“We will finish this discussion in the morning, Captain Shirogane,” the king replies tersely. He doesn’t even turn halfway to meet the other man’s eyes. “Right now, I have a family to take care of.”

“Yes,” mutters Shiro, nodding. “Understood.”

As Lance clings to his father, peering curiously over the top of his shoulder, he discovers that the strange Galra boy is staring at him with the darkest, saddest eyes that Lance has ever seen in his life. It makes Lance’s skin tickle, being looked at like that.

So, he waves.

The boy freezes in place for a moment, but eventually waves back, looking a bit ashamed, as if he’s not sure whether he should be doing it. When he does, though, Lance notices that the skin of the boy’s palm is covered in black calluses, almost charred straight through to the bone.

It’s the last thing Lance sees — and the only thing he’ll think about, later, tucked away in bed — before his father rounds the corner and carries him out of sight.

#klance #klance fic #star writes #fic: heartbound #i've been chipping away at this one for months so i thought i'd share the first scene :)

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meigh-day · 4 years

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Obligation (Tendou x Reader)

I seriously didn’t think I would be back writing a brand new story already (I can feel the looks of betrayal from the 6 other fics I was writing previously.). It’s been like a day since I finished Breathing Lilies, but here I am with a great need to get this story out of my brain. So please enjoy yet another Tendou centric fic.

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Title: Obligation

Pairing: Mafia AU Tendou x F!Reader

Characters: Includes characters from both Shiratorizawa and Seijoh/Some OC background characters

Includes: Swearing, Mentions of Guns/Knives and Violence

Status: Complete

Word Count: 1.8k

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"Is this really necessary?" You mumble out in irritation.

"Watch your tone." Kimura warned, emphasized by the look he directed at you. He’d been taking care of you since you were twelve, playing both guardian and bodyguard when the need arose. Your parents had been special to the family and when they had both been taken out during a job, you were left to Kimura to look after. Over the years, you had tried to weasel your way into some kind of work within the family, anything would have done. You'd have been happy even just guarding a door but that meant you'd need a gun and Kimura had made it clear you weren't permitted to even hold a gun, let alone learn to use one. You'd even tried to get in on the boring office work but for whatever reason any and all attempts were thwarted and thus you were left to your own devices within the confines of the house.

With a sigh you force yourself to sit upright in the chair. You had been slouching like a moody teenager and he deserved more respect than that.

"I apologize, Sensei. Please continue."

The older man let out a sigh before continuing. It's not like he was a big fan of this idea either but they needed to ensure the relationship with the Shiratorizawa group remained intact and this seemed to be the preferred method the rest of the family had agreed upon.

"It's going to take place in about a month but they want you to go stay with them before-hand so you can get to know him and get familiar with how they do things."

You chew thoughtfully at the inside of your lip as you ponder this new development. It wasn't uncommon to arrange a marriage between families to secure a new alliance or to further strengthen an old one. Now, it was your turn. For years you had complained about not being able to do something for the family that had continued to take care of you in the absence of your parents but, now that your time had come, you couldn't help but feel a little hesitant. Marrying someone you had never met wasn't your idea of romance but that didn't matter. You nod a little bit as you steel yourself, mentally preparing as you come to terms with the decision that had been made on your behalf.

"Do, do you know who it is?" Kimura nods at your question, crossing his arms as he takes a few paces across the room.

"Tendou Satori." That name, it sounded so familiar but you couldn't quite seem to bring up his image in your mind.

"You actually met him once a few years ago."

"Oh?"

"Mhm. He helped tie-up some loose ends in connection to the gang who..." He faltered for a moment, even though it had been so many years, he could still see the sadness in your eyes over the loss of your parents. It had taken several years to track down and wipe out every single rat that had had a hand in your parent's death. The family had lost a number of valuable people that day, and they made sure everyone involved paid for it dearly. You glanced up and over at him, already knowing the words before he said it, and with that brought a vision of crimson hair.

"Oh." You nodded and your sensei understood you knew the person he was referencing.

"I'm sorry. I know he's not the nicest looking person. Red hair and eyes like a demon and a personality to match."

To that you said nothing. That was not the person you remembered. In your memories you saw a smile with kind eyes to match and the loveliest red hair. Honestly, even after all these years, he was still the most beautiful person you had ever seen. Tendou had only stayed at this house for a short time but each day the two of you managed to find one another. Maybe you unconscientiously sought him out, maybe he did the same, or maybe it was just fate or a coincidence. Talking with him had been a treat and you sorely missed him when he'd finally had to return home.

"When am I expected?"

"Tomorrow."

With a nod, you offer the older man a bow before leaving. He watched you leave and let out a little sigh before retrieving his phone.

"It's me. Yea. She's gone to pack. Hm? No she understands." He listened to the voice on the other end of the phone, pacing across the room to stare out the window. You had taken this so casually that it made him a little nervous. Not that you were the type to argue but he was so sure as soon as he’d told you who it was you were being forced to marry you would at least try talk to him into getting you out of it. Instead, you were on your way to your room to pack. He was less that excited to know you were going to be married to the monster of the Shiratorizawa group. Tendou was good at what he did, it was absurd how good he was actually. Kimura had seen the aftermath of the red-head's work and it had left even a veteran like him feeling uneasy. Now he had to send you off into that creatures clutches tomorrow and there was a good chance he might never see your precious face again. There was nothing to be done for it though, in the end you had a purpose to fulfill and he would make sure you got there. After that it was up to you to decide how you would handle the rest.

...

Presently, you found yourself standing in a rather large vestibule, your luggage sitting off to the side. As your eyes roam the room, you find yourself nervously toying with the hem of your shirt. An assortment of emotions plagued you as you stood waiting. You were scared, you'd had zero interactions with the people in this house and had no idea what to expect. You felt sad, you'd had less than 24 hours to say goodbye to everyone who had been a part of your life until this point. However, mixed into the sadness and the fear of the unknown, was excitement. You were genuinely looking forward to seeing Tendou once again. There was sure to be a bit of awkwardness, you were, for lack of a better term, being forced to marry each other. You wondered if he would even remember you. It had been a few years since then and it was such a short time, you couldn't imagine you had made any kind of real impression on him.

That's where you were wrong. Satori, like you, didn't remember your name right away but when reminded of that job a few years ago, your pretty face came rushing back to him. That had been the happiest series of weeks he could recall in a long time. Everyday the two of you would inevitable run into each other and spend the following minutes..sometimes hours...chatting and joking. The sound of your laugh had become his favorite song for those few weeks and he'd have given anything to hear it once more. So, when the time came for him to leave, his only qualm was that he'd had to leave you behind. At first when he'd been told they were marrying him off to a perfect stranger, he'd been ready to spill blood. His tune changed completely when they'd told him it was you. He was so thoroughly happy, for a little while anyway. Sure you hadn't know each other for long but at least you had met and every memory of you was bliss. He felt like the luckiest guy in the world but he could only imagine how you were feeling right now. The prospect of being forced to marry him, it must have been so terrifying.

Tendou was all to familiar with what people said about him, he'd used those rumors to his advantage. They helped him built up a fairly fearsome persona, though it wasn't all bullshit. He really, truly, was a terrifying being to behold when it came to completing his work. He wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty, dripping with someone else's blood. But that wasn't all there was to him, he was still just a person, just a human being. He loved to laugh and share jokes, though they went fairly unappreciated around here. He happily devoured Shonen Jump each week, the shelves in his room practically sagged with the weight of the collected issues. He was the demon, the monster, of the Shiratorizawa Group, but he was still just a human and part of him desperately wanted to feel something akin to love. Even so, he knew there was no way someone as wonderful as you, someone so charming, so beautiful inside and out, could really truly fall for a beast like him. He knew you would do your duty and you would do it well but that's all it was, a duty, a job, a burden.

So with a sigh, he made his way through the house to collect you. He wore black from top to bottom, the only pop of color on his entire person was his dazzling red hair. You had to grit your teeth to refrain from gasping when he entered the room. He cut an impressive figure, leaning casually against the door frame, his calculating red eyes on you. You remembered he was handsome, but had he always been THAT good looking. It wasn't fair. Suddenly you felt very plain and underdressed in comparison to him. The knee-length jacket he wore on top of his outfit fluttered behind him as he crossed the threshold into the vestibule.

"It's been awhile, Y/N." He offered up a grin as he drew closer to you. Had you always been this pretty? The expression on his face did little to betray the thoughts racing around his mind as he took in your appearance. His memory of you couldn't compare to the vision before him now. You were looking up at him with wide eyes but he couldn't tell if it was in fear or awe. Though, assuming it was the former he let the grin on his lips fade until his mouth was pressed into a line.

"It's nice to see you again, Tendou." You smiled up at him, truly happy to see him again and feeling somehow lucky. Honestly, arranged marriages often ended up in extremely unfortunate pairings. Somehow you had hit the jackpot.

He hummed in response, the negative thoughts prickling in his mind wouldn't allow him a moment to just consider perhaps you meant it. Instead he noted how well you were already performing under this obligation. He hefted your two suitcases up and started back towards the door he came in.

"Wait! Let me help you with those." He glanced over his shoulder, a smirk on his lips.

"Don't worry your pretty little head. It's the least I can do as your future husband."

#tendou x reader #tendou #tendou satori #haikyuu #haikyuu mafia #tendou mafia #mafia au #shiratorizawa #shiratorizawa mafia

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chaoswillfallrpg · 3 years

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LARKIN MULCIBER is TWENTY-THREE YEARS OLD and a SOLIDER in THE DARK LORDS ARMY at THE DEATH EATER’S HEADQUARTERS. He looks remarkably like WOO DO-HWAN and considers himself aligned with THE DEATH EATERS. He is currently OPEN.

→ OVERVIEW:

tw: abuse, blood, death, animal death

The king of shadows and gold, Larkin Mulciber is the chilled shiver running down the back of necks, the ominous dread held in unwelcome prying eyes and a manipulative puppeteer toying with his unwilling victims strings. While deemed psychotic by most, he was never always so twisted. Born to KYUNG MULCIBER, a man as hateful as he was cunning, Kyung single handedly raised his youngest in disgrace. Bred a tormented soul, Larkin was branded the Grim Reaper. YEONG YANG, his mother and the light of Kyung’s life, took her last breath at Larkin’s first, casting bitterness into the family's hearts. Without a single word of kindness, Larkin was resented by those supposed to grace him with care. Interactions were met with hostility and volatile anger; even from the likes of the house elves who once idealised their mistress. Growing in the fall of his mother’s glory, hidden in the secluded mountains of the Lake District enchanted barriers kept the Mulciber manor secluded from unwelcome guests. Isolated and with a severe lack of love, Larkin’s youth was spent whispering secrets to spiders dangling off chandeliers; while his father secluded himself to the west wing never to be disturbed. With his father absent and cold, Larkin tried earnestly to grasp onto pieces of a parent. Hours spent by candle light in the family library, from archives detailed in gold and towering family portraits, he formed a fragmented image. A woman once powerful, resilient and beautiful, illuminated in piercing emeralds that matched her eyes; his late mother. Someone he thought could have loved him, if only Morgana had been kind.

With wealth and a line as Pure-Blooded as those belonging to The Sacred-Twenty Eight, the family reveled in a deep rooted sense of entitlement. Renowned for possessing an aptitude for the dark arts, purist rhetoric was laced in their lives from dusk till dawn. Breeding chaos, while Kyung praised ERIS and JAE in glory, Larkin was cursed into darkness and strife. Companion only to those who too grew in neglect, spiders, bats and screeching owls looked upon the bruised boy of woe with sorrow, offering comfort. Just like his siblings Larkin was taught not what beauty magic held, but what power. Growling voices with a tone as sharp as poison scorned him, disapproving glares reflected in the shattered mirrored walls of the Mulciber ballroom turned training arena, distorted and manic as his father’s teachings turned cruel. Harnessing darkness, unregistered Gregorovitch wands concealed their illegal activities from the Ministry of Magic, enabling them to continue their legacy of turmoil and devastation all while slipping through the grasps of the law. The eldest Eris, named after the goddess of chaos and strife herself, channeled internalised anger into the cruel art of the Cruciatus curse. Second born, Jae’s handsome features acted as the perfect deception for the master of death; with Avarda Kavarda being his speciality. Leaving Larkin to master the complexity of the mind and the Imperius curse. Divine and divisive, the family were notorious for playing Merlin himself as they manipulated powers beyond their control. Together, the trio made a master of sin and torment.

Desperate for gratification and to be seen in the same glory as his siblings, Larkin’s sensibility grew cruel in a plight to prove his worth. Cursing the house elves with a flick of his finger, he left them dangling on the ceiling with a twisted grin all for a glimmer of respect to flicker in his fathers eyes. The more souls he puppertered, the more praise he received. Forging himself into a sinner in a plea to gain what he could only dream of; acceptance from his father. While his siblings attended Dumstrung, Kyung expressed that Larkin's talents would be better suited to that of Hogwarts. Speaking tales of a heroic wizard whom he had once schooled with know as THE DARK LORD, Kyung spoke of a new world where those inferior would finally know their place. Entrusted on a quest to befriend like minded sorcerers, Larkin vowed to find those as equally wicked. Cunning as the devil, the sorting hat barely graced his head before announcing his rightful place in Slytherin. Strong willed and determined, he basked in the notorious nature of his family's legacy. Gaining respect from the likes of PERSEPHONE, NEPHTHYS and RABASTAN for his damming schemes and competent hexes; Larkin was renowned as the king of chaos. Joint in arms, JASPAR AVERY was from a reputable family, though entitled he held little promise in Larkin’s eyes of matching his wits; but made a reputable ally. Second in their ranks was SEVERUS SNAPE, an odd wizard with an aptitude for potions, despite his scorned Half-Blood status, his intellect was more akin to his own. Donned in their Slytherin uniform, the trio quickly became notoriously known for their vile pranks on those they deemed unworthy to study magic.

Basking in others misfortune and consumed with desire to appease his family, Larkin fell into a suffocating kingdom of darkness. That was, until he met them. MARY MACDONALD was everything he wasn’t. Kind hearted with a warm disposition, if Larkin was the king of the underworld, Mary was the beautiful wix dancing in golden fields above. A Muggle-Born and adored friend of annoyances JAMES, SIRIUS, REMUS and PETER, Jaspar dared him to bring the sweet creature to ruin in their cruelest scheme yet. What had started as a ploy to break the wix’s heart, turned into a secret relationship hidden in the shadows of the clocktower. Despite himself, he fell in love with Mary. Intoxicated by their light and the only person to ever bring warmth to his cold heart, Larkin grew desperate in his attempts to keep their love a secret. Anonymous letters and aloof passings, despite efforts to conceal their passion Nephthys caught a stolen glimpse between the pair one cold December night. Outraged that he’d betrayed the sanctity of magic, she deemed him a blood-traitor for his evident adoration for a filthy mudblood. Threatening to expose his fraternization with her wand pointed to his throat, Larkin became agonisingly aware that even the rumor of affection would leave Mary dead by dawn. Never knowing a monster that they were unable to love, Larkin knew Mary would be obstinate in their belief that love conquered all. But with Nepthys threats lingering over his head, logically he knew the only way to guarantee their safety was to make an example of them.

Plotting in an aid to set them free and comforted in the knowledge it would merely put Mary into a dreamlike state; Larkin encapsulated them in his arms and stole one last kiss before uttering ‘Imperio’. Instantly Mary’s love faded to a vacant expression; leaving them completely at his disposal. Encouraged by Jasper’s twisted grin, they left torment in their wake. Killing Flinch’s cat, Mary’s hands covered in blood, they set to their final destination of The Black Lake. Floating like Ophelia with their lace dress billowing around them, Larkin was moments from sinking Mary briefly into the water’s dark depths when LILY EVANS made her presence known. Concentration broken, Mary’s piercing screams of terror echoed around the grounds cutting Larkin’s heart like a knife. Quickly expelled, he left Hogwarts donned a hero by purists alike. But for once, he didn’t feel pride in his actions, instead, remorsed in sorrow of the consequences. Finishing his final years of education at Durmstrung, Larkin’s dove into his studies with cruel intent. Donned a lone wolf by peers such as MEI-LING FALKOV and JUDAH ILLIOTT, while the school harboured those residing in darkness; none held Larkin’s unique sense of chaos. Wandless magic for unforgivable curses was rare and known by few, including the Muclibers who left many pleading for mercy with a mere curl of their hand. Seeking power in destruction, those that feared him donned him a monster. Stalking dark alleys in his black jacket embossed with scales, Larkin sunk his teeth into the pits of hell daring it to fight back. Gone were the flowers Mary had once laid, left only an empty chasm of a man; unhinged and dangerous with little left to lose.

While his relatives prided their superiority through status, Larkin’s renowned talents made him a vital recruit into The Dark Lord’s army. Graduating, Larkin has become an esteemed member in the fight for the new world. Settling on the outer banks of London with a heart rotted black, darkness swarms like a whirlpool in his chest. His free time spent lingering in the shadows playing with the minds of the undeserving, tarantula resting on his shoulder. Under the orders of CASTOR and BELLATRIX, Larkin is gathering information on those who could cause complications to The Dark Lord’s plans. Sniffing out Blood-Traitors, Larkin is playing the unsuspected in a plight to move up in the ranks. GILFRED ABBOTT, was the perfect victim for his scheme. Suspecting little when questions from Larkin’s lips instead left the young Gryffindor’s; his sweet demeanour acts as the perfect mask to torment. Though as charmed as his antics are, he has his sights set on bigger fish; DOUGAL, COINNEACH, NATHAIR and MARLENE MCKINNON, a family seeking to devalue Pure-Blood legacy by allowing a Muggle-Born into their ranks was the perfect target to finally bring him to glory. Fueled by underlying jealousy at their free love, Larkin is scheming to ruin the family from the inside. Word from REGINA ROWLE, reveals Nathair as the wizard who reported the recent prophecy to the Ministry. While the other McKinnon siblings shout for equality, Larkin has his eyes set on the brother that prefers the shadows than the light. Calculating his plans, he knows Nathair will be the undoing of the family, if only he pulls on the right set of strings.

→ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Blood Status → Pure-Blood

Pronouns → He/Him

Identification → Cis Male

Sexuality → Pansexual

Relationship Status → Single

Previous Education → Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Slytherin) & Durmstrang Institute

Family → Kyung Mulciber (father), Yeong Mulciber (mother), Eris Mulciber (sister), Jae Mulciber (brother), Jieun Mulciber (aunt)

Connections → Jaspar Avery (best friend), Severus Snape (best friend), Castor Wilkes (mentor), Bellatrix Black (friend/colleague), Persephone Wilkes (close friend), Nephthys Nott (close friend/adversary), Rabastan Lestrange (friend) Mary MacDonald (ex-partner/potential love interest/adversary), Mei-Ling Falkov (aquaintance/classmate), Judah Illiott (adversary/classmate), Regina Rowle (informant), Sirius Black (adversary), James Potter (adversary), Remus Lupin (adversary), Peter Pettigrew (adversary), Dougal McKinnon (person of interest), Coinneach McKinnon (person of interest), Nathair McKinnon (aquaintance/person of interest), Marlene McKinnon (adversary/person of interest), Lily Evans (adversary), Dorcas Meadows (adversary),

Future Information → N/A

LARKIN MULCIBER IS A LEVEL 7 WIZARD.

#larkin mulciber #woo do-hwan #marauders rp #marauders rpg #harry potter rp #wizard #magic #death eater #dark #tw: abuse #tw: death #tw: blood #tw: animal death #open #open death eater #open wizard #open lgbtqia+

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illshowyourhurricanes · 4 years

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Rewind, Restart (Prequel)

Instead of a part 2 this time, y’all are getting a little look at pre-Part One. Here’s Billy Russo, a few days’ time since his escape, all tortured mind and finding himself in the middle of a dangerous situation.

Trigger warning: weaponry, mentions of death, fighting

Rating: PG-13/R

Word count: 2066

Hope you all enjoy! If you want to be added to or removed from my tag list, just shoot me an ask!

Taglist: @dylanobrusso @obscurilicious @the-blind-assassin-12 @something-tofightfor @ms-delos @madamrogers @lexxierave @agent-bossypants @yannii04 @gollyderek @carlaangel86 @bicevans @maydayfigment @thisisparadisemylove @ladyofnaps @malionnes @thesandbeneathmytoes

He was haunted with images of skulls and blood.

Every night, it was the same. Whenever Billy managed to fall asleep, to quiet the torment and torture that burned and branded his mind, even his restful moments were stained with terror-- terror that Billy couldn't make sense of. And every single night, his reaction was the same: a scream, guttural, from a place so deeply rooted inside him, he sounded foreign to his own ears. His eyes, black as coal, flew open, wide and wild, his gaze darting back and forth in the darkness. Damp with sweat, shivering in fear, he was deafened save for the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his chest, yet the part that Billy despised more than the repetitive night terror itself was, night after night, the last realization that hit him. His face-- ugly, disfigured, permanently slashed with scars-- was streaked with tears.

There was a hammering in his head, a rush of adrenaline that had his chest heaving. Paranoid and delusional, his eyes searched the parameters of the room once more as Billy pushed himself up into a semi-upright position. His back was rod-straight, his ragged breathing the only sound in the otherwise stark silent room. Collapsing back onto his pillows propped against the headboard, Billy struggled to steady himself momentarily, inhaling deeply, jaw flexing. He ran a hand over his face, fingertips brushing across thick, numbing scar tissue. It was a reminder; a realization; a reawakening of anger and self-loathing, anguish and absence, abandonment of his severed mind-- any trace of an answer condemned.

A sneer of contempt contorted his mangled face. Dropping his head into his hands, Billy cried without abandon, his body shaking, ransacked with sobs. Howling with torment and wretched in his agony, he abandoned his one perfected apathetic demeanor. He was an animal, a monster, a beast-- a vulgar, raging, impetuous abomination. Billy had lost everything he'd built from nothing and his stomach churned in disgust. He had returned to his birthright, had fallen to his roots. Billy Russo was a grunt, a gutter rat. He was cracking apart, shattering into splinters.

*** *** *** . ***

It was as if Billy was on autopilot. He walked purposefully along the streets of Brooklyn, his surroundings becoming more familiar with each block. Hands stuffed in the pockets of a worn coat, head covered by the hoodie he wore underneath, Billy found himself standing outside of the closest place he could ever call "home"- and it was gone. The Ray of Light Group Home had been bulldozed down. Apartments stood where housing had been, concrete poured and hardened over a lot that had served as a baseball diamond for generations of orphaned children.

There was little that he remembered, and less than a handful of his few, scrambled memories were tangible, concrete. One of those had a big part of Billy’s life that he didn’t necessarily want to remember, yet clung to in an effort to have some sense of self-- no matter how demeaning and lonely. And it no longer existed. It was a surprise, but when he laid eyes on what had been constructed, memory of the complex came back to him in a rush. It was familiar; he’d known before that Ray of Light was gone. There was an importance to the apartments, a reason he remembered them instead of things that were paramount: the company Anvil that he’d founded, his knowledge that Frank’s family would be killed staying tucked away without so much as a warning… what had happened to his face. But he remembered this structure, and he stared across the street at the rows of windows built into the brick exterior.

Time was a feeble thing, and Billy had no estimate of how long he stood still, just staring at his surroundings, his breath puffing out in small white clouds of smoke. Shoes scuffing over pavement caught his attention, his eyes searching through the darkness. Across the street, just outside of the housing development, Billy found the source of the sound. A dull, dim glow from the closest streetlight did just enough to illuminate two figures. The shorter of the two turned to leave and was roughly grabbed by the arm. The street lamp glinted off the blade of a knife.

Agile and silent, Billy darted across the street. His hand wrapped around the barrel of the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

"Hey!" he called out, coming to a stop no more than a foot from what seemed to be a confrontation. "Is there a problem here?"

He was unfazed by the knife gripped in the male's hand, but with one quick glance at you- the one person the blade was threatening- it was obvious the woman in question was affected. She was frozen in terror. A bitter laugh dripped from the mouth of the male as he sized up Billy. Contempt darkened his gaze as he looked back at the assailant, silently daring him to make a move.

"I don't know. Is there a problem, freak?"

Freak. In one quick motion, Billy drew his gun, cocking the hammer as he pointed it toward the knife-wielding asshole. Billy looked at him, wild-eyed and silently begging him to antagonize either himself or the woman, who had slowly crept behind him further. Seconds later, the aggressor withdrew his knife, jogging in the opposite direction.

Pocketing his gun, Billy turned to face her. "Please," she begged, voice shaking, "Don't hurt me."

He shook his head slightly, most of his face shadowed by his hoodie and with help from the angle of the streetlight. "Are you hurt?" He looked over the stranger with a quick sweep of his eyes, a quick check for any signs of blood or other signs of foul play.

She was visibly shaking, still struggling with the previous situation as well as with the knowledge that this man that appeared to care about her well-being had a gun and seemed quick to use it. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, dry like sandpaper. Taking a few deep breaths, she tried to steady herself, yet felt as if she could crumple to the ground at any given moment.

"N..no," she managed finally. "No, he didn't have the time to hurt me. He asked me for the time, and I stopped to check and..." She trailed off, looking across the parking lot, toward the general direction Billy had come from. "And you appeared." Finally, she peered up at his face, seeing not much more than the dark shadow of scruff over his chin. "Thank you."

Standing still for a moment, Billy nodded in response. Instinct told him not to leave her alone just yet; that asshole could be hiding around the corner and neither of you would know the difference. He'd be much more keen to violence after being threatened and humiliated.

"You live nearby?" Before she could answer, he cleared his throat and quickly scanned the premises. "You should let me walk you the rest of the way," he suggested, glancing back down at her. Without a beat of consideration, she nodded her head vehemently. This stranger had just saved her from another stranger, one who had pulled a knife on her. Somehow, she had faith that his motives were not ill-intentioned.

He took a couple steps, slowing as she began to walk by his side. "I'm Billy," he volunteered, attempting to put her at ease. There hadn't been a shadow of recognition in her eyes at any point since Billy and his gun came to her rescue, and he was fully aware of that; it was the only reason he'd thought to offer his name. He'd seen the news. He knew he was a wanted man. He also knew that he looked nothing like the wanted man in the photo the media was using for identification.

"Hi, Billy," she said with a trace of a smile over her lips. "I'm Caroline... I live in this complex, so I won't be wasting too much more of your time."

Billy's jaw flexed. He had mixed feelings about his former group home; he recalled the deep-seated knowledge that his mother didn't want him, the fucked-up things he'd had to endure as a child in the system. But, Ray of Light had provided him with a place to stay, food on the table, childhood friends he'd made until he was out on his own. It was no coincidence that he didn’t keep in touch; in the end, it was always everyone for themselves. Yet, throughout the years-- save for his time in Kandahar and seemingly endless torturous bullshit months he'd spent in the Sacred Saints-- it was Ray of Light that he'd come to when he needed to find some kind of fucking solace--to breathe. Had he visited in the past three years? Nothing came to mind: it was just another small, insignificant memory that he couldn’t recall. There was a hole in his life, a hole of the last three years, that plagued him more than the myriad of terrible things that had certainly happened to him. At least with those, no matter how much they stung, he was aware.

"It's not a waste," Billy replied with a shrug, turning his attention to Caroline as the pair walked side-by-side. "I lived in this area as a kid. Couldn't sleep and ended up out here.”

Caroline nodded politely, her pace slowing as the two of you reached your building. "This is it," she said, pulling her keys from her bag. She hesitated for a moment, glancing down at her boot-clad feet before attempting to meet Billy's eyes. From what she could see, they were unnaturally dark. It was as if they were all pupil.

"Thank you, Billy." Her voice was earnest, and she made a conscious effort to not allow herself to be overcome by emotion. The night had been quite overwhelming. "I wish I could find a way to repay you, but there's nothing that matches the value of not being tossed in a dumpster down an otherwise unoccupied alleyway." She forced a smile that didn’t reach her eyes; she didn’t have the energy. The knowledge that she very well could have ended up in that very situation-- instead of safely at home-- sent a shiver down her spine.

Billy flashed a hint of a smile, gesturing toward the door. His feet stayed planted where he stood.

"Go ahead inside," he suggested. Seeing this woman disappear inside safely would give him the go-ahead to leave with a clear conscience. A sudden flash of anger sliced through him. If he ever ran into the asshole that had tried to hurt her, he'd kill him.

"Caroline?" Billy called out. She stopped and turned just after opening the door. "Take care of yourself." Eyes lingering on her until she disappeared inside, Billy turned and walked away from that apartment complex, one he was all too familiar with, as clear as crystal in his mostly foggy mind. He’d spent a nice amount of time there… time with you. He continued to walk through the gridlocked streets, remembering your apartment number, the layout of your place, your name and your laugh and the way you bit your lip to try to stifle your moans and how it never worked… the way he’d walked out of your life without so much as a word.

He needed to see you. Maybe you could help him fit some of those jigsaw puzzle pieces back together, jog his memory, sort things into the right order, a timeline that he could eventually use to think in a more linear fashion. Billy needed his life back, years of his life that he’d spent doing terrible things, unspeakable things he couldn’t imagine himself doing. He thought about the disfigurement of his face, upper lip curling in disgust as the mental image of his scars glared ugly in his mind. He knew he didn’t deserve to be allowed inside, much less any type of assistance in anything where you were concerned. But you were the only thing he had once, and for the only time since he could remember, you had wanted him too. Billy had grown to accept the fact that he himself was the one person he needed. But now, after all that had happened, he was a wanted man, a fugitive, a name, a fractured mind, and a hideous face. Now, Billy Russo needed someone other than himself, and that person was you.

#rewind restart #prequel #s2 billy russo x reader #my writing

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somstory · 4 years

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Chapter 32 of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

There was the day, during our first trip—our first circle of paradise—when in order to enjoy my phantasms in peace I firmly decided to ignore what I could not help perceiving, the fact that I was to her not a boy friend, not a glamour man, not a pal, not even a person at all, but just two eyes and a foot of engorged brawn—to mention only mentionable matters. There was the day when having withdrawn the functional promise I had made her on the eve (whatever she had set her funny little heart on—a roller rink with some special plastic floor or a movie matinee to which she wanted to go alone), I happened to glimpse from the bathroom, through a chance combination of mirror aslant and door ajar, a look on her face . . . that look I cannot exactly describe . . . an expression of helplessness so perfect that it seemed to grade into one of rather comfortable inanity just because this was the very limit of injustice and frustration—and every limit presupposes something beyond it—hence the neutral illumination. And when you bear in mind that these were the raised eyebrows and parted lips of a child, you may better appreciate what depths of calculated carnality, what reflected despair, restrained me from falling at her dear feet and dissolving in human tears, and sacrificing my jealousy to whatever pleasure Lolita might hope to derive from mixing with dirty and dangerous children in an outside world that was real to her.

And I have still other smothered memories, now unfolding themselves into limbless monsters of pain. Once, on a sunset-ending street of Beardsley, she turned to little Eva Rosen (I was taking both nymphets to a concert and walking behind them so close as almost to touch them with my person), she turned to Eva, and so very serenely and seriously, in answer to something the other had said about its being better to die than hear Milton Pinski, some local schoolboy she knew, talk about music, my Lolita remarked:

“You know, what’s so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own”; and it struck me, as my automaton knees went up and down, that I simply did not know a thing about my darling’s mind and that quite possibly, behind the awful juvenile clichés, there was in her a garden and a twilight, and a palace gate—cim and adorable regions which happened to be lucidly and absolutely forbidden to me, in my polluted rags and miserable convulsion; for I often noticed that living as we did, she and I, in a world of total evil, we would become strangely embarrassed whenever I tried to discuss something she and an older friend, she and a parent, she and a real healthy sweetheart, I and Annabel, Lolita and a sublime, purified, analyzed, defied Harold Haze, might have discussed—an abstract idea, a painting, stippled Hopkins or shorn Baudelaire, God or Shakespeare, anything of a genuine kind. Good will! She would mail her vulnerability in trite bashness and boredom, whereas I, using for my desperately detached comments an artificial tone of voice that set my own last teeth on edge, provoked my audience to such outbursts of rudeness as made any further conversation impossible, oh my poor, bruised child.

I loved you. i was a pentapod monster, but I loved you. I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! And there were times when I knew how you felt, and it was hell to know it, my little one. Lolita girl, brave Dolly Schiller.

I recall certain moments, let us call them icebergs in paradise, when after having had my fill of her—after fabulous, insane exertions that left me limp and azure-barred—I would gather her in my arms with, at last, a mute moan of human tenderness (her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her grave gray eyes more vacant than ever—for all the world a little patient still in the confusion of a drug after a major operation)—and the tenderness would deepen to shame and despair, and I would lull and rock my lone light Lolita in my marble arms, and moan in her warm hair, and caress her at random and mutely ask her blessing, and at the peak of this human agonized selfless tenderness (with my soul actually hanging around her naked body and ready to repent), all at once, ironically, horribly, lust would swell again—and “oh, no” Lolita would say with a sigh to heaven, and the next moment the tenderness and the azure—all would be shattered.

Mid-twentieth century ideas concerning child-parent relationship have been considerably tainted by the scholastic rigmarole and standardized symbols of the psychoanalytic racket, but I have hope I am addressing myself to unbiased readers. Once when Avis’s father had honked outside to signal papa had come to take his pet home, I felt obliged to invite him to the parlor, and he sat down for a minute, and while we conversed, Avis, a heavy, unattractive, affectionate child, drew up to him and eventually perched plumply on his knee. Now, I do not remember if I have mentioned that Lolita always had an absolutely enchanting smile for strangers, a tender furry slitting of the eyes, a dreamy sweet radiance of all her features which did not mean a thing of course, but was so beautiful, so endearing that one found it hard to reduce such sweetness to but a magic gene automatically lighting up her face in atavistic token of some ancient rite of welcome—hospitable prostitution, the coarse reader may say. Well, there she stood while Mr. Byrd twirled his hat and talked, and—yes, look at how stupid of me, I have left out the main characteristic of the famous Lolita smile, namely: while the tender, nectared, dimpled brightness played, it was never directed at the stranger in the room but hung in its own remote flowered void, so to speak, or wandered with myopic softness over chance objects—and this is what was happening now: while fat Avis sidled up to her papa, Lolita gently beamed at a fruit knife that she fingered on the edge of the table, whereon she leaned, many miles away from me. Suddenly, as Avis clung to her father’s neck and ear while, with a casual arm, the man enveloped his lumpy and large offspring, I saw Lolita’s smile lose all its light and become a frozen little shadow of itself, and the fruit knife slipped off the table and struck her with its silver handle a freak blow on the ankle which made her gasp, and crouch head forward, and then, jumping on one leg, her face awful with the preparatory grimace which children hold till the tears gush, she was gone—to be followed at once and consoled in the kitchen by Avis who had such a wonderful fat pink dad and a small chubby brother, and a brand-new baby sister, and a home, and two grinning dogs, and Lolita had nothing. And I have a neat pendant to that little scene—also in a Beardsley setting. Lolita, who had been reading near the fire, stretched herself, and then inquired, her elbow up, with a grunt: “Where is she buried anyway?” “Who?” “Oh, you know, my murdered mummy.” “And you know where her grave is,” I said controlling myself, whereupon I named the cemetery—just outside Ramsdale, between the railway tracks and Lakeview Hill. “Moreover,” I added, “the tragedy of such an accident is somewhat cheapened by the epithet you saw fit to apply to it. If you really wish to triumph in your mind over the idea of death—” “Ray,” said Lo for hurray, and languidly left the room, and for a long while I stared with smarting eyes into the fire. Then I picked up her book. It was some trash for young people. There was a gloomy girl Marion, and there was her stepmother who turned out to be, against all expectations, a young, gay, understanding redhead who explained to Marion that Marion’s dead mother had really been a heroic woman since she had deliberately dissimulated her great love for Marion because she was dying, and did not want her child to miss her. I did not rush up to her room with cries. I always preferred the mental hygiene of noninterference. Now, squirming and pleading with my own memory, I recall that on this and similar occasions, it was always my habit and method to ignore Lolita’s states of mind while comforting my own base self. When my mother, in a livid wet dress, under the tumbling mist (so I vividly imagined her), had run panting ecstatically up that ridge above Moulinet to be felled there by a thunderbolt, I was but an infant, and in retrospect no yearnings of the accepted kind could I ever graft upon any moment of my youth, no matter how savagely psychotherapists heckled me in my later periods of depression. But I admit that a man of my power of imagination cannot plead personal ignorance of universal emotions. I may also have relied too much on the abnormally chill relations between Charlotte and her daughter. But the awful point of the whole argument is this. It had become gradually clear to my conventional Lolita during our singular and bestial cohabitation that even the most miserable of family lives was better than the parody of incest, which, in the long run, was the best I could offer the waif.

#lolita #nabokov

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lotusheirs · 5 years

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timeline!

aka what the hap is fuckening with the twins

they’re born to the pack alpha of the fushimi inari shrine in kyoto, but twins were considered a bad omen, and the parents were ordered to either kill one, or leave

the father, ren, decided to leave with the firstborn, shinjou, thinking his mate, chou, and the younger son, shinzou, deserved to stay with the pack they considered family

the twins are separated too young, they don’t remember one another, nor do they know the other exist until their parents mention it when they’re older

they’re identical at this point, the only way to tell them apart is to look for shinzou’s birth deficiency in the form of a floppy ear

shinzou

shinzou basically gets treated like a prince, brought up as the next alpha, despite some of the other kitsune still scoffing at him

devoted to his mother, stubborn and determined to make her proud

asks too many questions about dad

learns he has a twin, cue even more questions

develops the mentality of being the unwanted child, that his life doesn’t matter, and all the world needs is his brother; he covers it up, but it plagues him for his entire life

learned how to pretend because of this from a very young age, deals with his issues alone

his mother starts to get sick, and she knows it’s the beginning of her heartbreak due to prolonged separation from her mate. she doesn’t tell shinzou this

he gets desperate, and one night goes to beseech inari for a blessing

gets caught in a blast from a field test of the early prototype biological weapons containing the angel gene; his right hand, chest, neck, and face get badly burned

thinks it’s a curse from inari, and turns againist his clan, saying they’re serving and woshipping a ‘false god’

gets exiled, is ordered to take his mother with him. she’s weakened and cannot fight this, and shinzou is too young to really stand up againist everyone, but he tries

not that he succeeds

cue his lifelong hatred of gods and anything divine

he, nor his kin in general, has ever been around humans, so has troubles adapting. knows basic glamours at least, though

his life revolves around saving his mother

they live in a small forested area at the outskirts of the city

when his burns heal at least a little bit, he starts job hunting, eventually landing something in one of kyoto’s strip clubs, where he goes under the work name ‘kessho’

works as both a stripper and an escort

his fur and hair that had been damaged in the fire grew back black, so now half his hair is black, along with his right ear. also, his right eye turned red, half of his right eyebrow never grew back, nor did his eyelashes. rocked the undercut haircut for a while, as his hair grew back

one night after his shift, he’s approached by a stranger claiming to know he’s not human, and pressures him into joining their organization

he only agrees out of desperation and under the promise that they can cure his mother

it’s revealed to him that they’re an angel hunting organization, and that if he helps them, they could easily develop a cure for chou. shinzou has no clue what this is all about, but he’d do anything for his mother

so they take them from kyoto to maebashi, the city where the phenomen originated from

as it turns out, the hunters couldn’t quite trust a youkai, and so he’s ensnared and branded againist his will, with a spell placed upon him that effectively makes him their slave

the brand is the kanji for the number four ( 四 ) in a circle on his left inner wrist. its symbolism represents that this contract is for life ( read as shi, same as 死, meaning death )

they do that, along with taking his star orb, which is essentially his soul taken physical form, and use it as means to keep him in check

hides the brand with a thick leather bracelet

his job is hunting down angels around the city and it’s neighborhood, though sometimes he’d receive an order to go even further afield

his free time is limited, so he strikes a part-time job at a local strip club once more, to have some cash of his own, given the hunters don’t really give him anything

he’s not aware that his mother is used as just another test subject for the angel experiments, and she keeps quiet about it aswell, not wanting her son to worry

what’s worse, her natural eye color is red, so as the mutation takes effect, shinzou doesn’t notice the difference

one day meets a boy, kaede, shy and softspoken, who approaches him when he sees shinzou getting harassed by some stranger who most probably knew him from the strip club, given he was asking for a freebie

they start hanging out together, pretty much all the time when shinzou has the time

never tells him he’s an angel hunter, given that the boy has angel eyes himself, doesn’t want to put him in dager

as it turns out, he’s the first angel ever created; he suffered from a terminal blood disease, but this new ‘cure’ helped him live. this gives him more hope for his mother to survive, too

things get gAY, they even mate

somewhere along the way he fucks up, and the organization he works for discovers he knows the identity of the first angel, and is ordered to hunt him down and bring him in, alive

is faced with a dilemma, but in the end chooses his family over his love life

so things get angsty, but shinzou eventually does return with the first angel, only to find his mother dead

he never learns how it happened, never really has it confirmed that they’ve been experimenting on her, but the thing is that supernatural creatures don’t handle the angel gene well, and with her already being weak and bed-ridden, she eventually succumbed to it. he has his suspicions that that’s what happened, but still

also, neither does he learn that she was dying of heartbreak

anyway, he gets mad, forgets his orders, turns into a big bad fox and burns everything

going againist his owners means extreme pain, given the brand, but he endures. ends up limping and not being able to use his left arm for quite some time

retrieves his star orb along the way, but it doesn’t fully free him from this slavery, since the brand persists ( more on that later )

his mate survives the destruction, but no one else does. they rendezvous outside the burning facility, where shinzou bids him goodbye as he feels the need to bring his mother’s body back to kyoto for burial + he needs to deal with his grief

promises he’ll be back tho

shinjou

compared to his brother, shinjou and his father got into a more direct contact with the angel phenomen. they’re dragged into the more underground business, the criminal side of all this. they remain in kyoto, though

they’re just as inexperienced around humans, which ends up in the current yakuza head taking their star orbs to have them under their command

they’re manipulated, given the illusion of power, of being in the lead while they’re really not

the yakuza progresses to be one of the most successful groups in the whole angel business, eventually going as far as actually conducting their own experiments, and starting their reign of terror, as they spread the stigma of angels being lesser than humans, that they’re monsters to be contained

the human trafficking begins

ren and shinjou become the first of the yakuza to be infected with the virus voluntarily, their morals and world views so skewed at this point that they’ve become power hungry --- ren especially, and shinjou is brought up in his example

shinjou is raised with the regime of all work, no play. he becomes detached from society, from other people around him, all that matters is that he successfully walks in his father’s footsteps and makes him proud

shinjou’s mutation is cultivated in such a way that it surpasses what the first angel is --- he’s mostly a myth as of right now, but they know little tidbits here and there, and believe him to be the greatest specimen, and want shinjou to revolutionize this

he sees this as an honor really

develops a twisted mentality of angels being beautiful, rather than monsters, and thinks the world would be better off if everyone became one

he still goes all wrong about this. i mean, constant torture and terrorism really isn’t going to make the world feel the same smh

eventually, his father succumbs to the angel genes, much like his mate. this is what triggers the chain reactions of both parents dying, and when shinzou goes to destroy the facility he was ( is ) chained to

shinjou becomes the next boss abruptly, and still relies on his advisors ( aka the people owning his star orb at the moment, and the ones actively manipulating him as their pawn )

his father’s death drives him into more aggressive experiments with himself, this is also the time when he starts becoming more interested in the scientific side of all this; aka where his mad scientist label comes from

he goes too far, so much so that it starts affecting his brain even more than the poor parenting already had, and he starts hearing voices, becomes unable to sleep --- and when he does, he always has to deal with sleep paralysis --- and even starts coughing up blood every now and then

ofc doesn’t stop SMH

he renames the yakuza to ‘order of the lotus’ in his father’s honor, and their new insignia becomes the lotus flower

he’s the reason japan no longer views the lotus as a symbol of something good and pure, nor do they use the word ‘angel’ as a term of endearment anymore

many have attempted to stop him, but to no avail

eventually gets a new cop, ciro, on his tail, who turns out to be an angel himself, with a very unique mutation --- the ability to see the past and future, to see through lies and illusions

thanks to this, he’s always a step ahead of shinjou and naturally he gets furious

game of cat and mouse begins but then it also gets gay along the way??

their relationship starts out as just friends with benefits, and only gets more toxic as time goes on

he learns that his new ‘friend’ was actually originally trying to stop his own father, who was revealed to be shinjou’s current biggest rival in the angel business, someone who actually actively tried breeding angels for better results

shinjou kind of persuades the man to side with him, and their union eventually end in his rival’s demise

so shinjou basically gets the whole country for himself, gg

they end up mating aswell which ends up being a horrible mistake lmao

still, ciro also helps shinjou to free himself from his ‘advisors’ influence, showing him that they were pulling the strings behind the scenes, gaining more benefits from what shinjou’s been doing that he did, himself

so shinjou gets his star orb back aswell, and is now in full control of his yakuza; and all of kyoto, really

reunited

the twins find each other at the grove near their old home at the fushimi shrine. as it turns out, it’s where shinjou had buried their father, and where shinzou went to bury their mother aswell

big feels time™

admittedly shinzou is a little unsettled by how unstable his brother is

shinjou tells him more in detail about the angel genes, and that he is an angel aswell, rather than it being ‘inari’s curse’

it’s hard for shinzou to accept, but he does... doesn’t change his opinion on the gods, though

so then he also struggles when he realizes his brother has a god complex

the happiness of finding what remained of his family was better than worrying, though, so he turned a blind eye to basically everything

shinjou gets shinzou to be the yakuza head with him, so shinzou gets a matching lotus tattoo on his spine

he doesn’t actively participate in the angel hunts and experiments his brother conducts, but he does act as a regular hitman and infiltrator, and all that angel-unrelated crime stuff

he meets ciro, and they hate each other. constant fights and bickering

this has him trying to convince shinjou he’s not good for him, but he doesn’t listen

at one point, the twins agree to exact revenge on their clan, exacting the genocide during the full moon in july that year. thanks to this, locals start to avoid the oldest of inari’s shrine, believing it to be haunted

the violence helps shinzou get over his grief, even if that had nothing to do with his mother’s death really

he leaves kyoto again to return to maebashi to find his mate

spends some time with him there, but some of the allies of the organization he originally worked for have tracked him down and tried to get him under their command again ( thanks to the brand and the spell persisting ) and get the first angel

cornered, shinzou cuts off his own arm with his illusory weapons to rid himself of that link. a price most people wouldn’t pay

he’s now truly free, but has to deal with getting himself a prosthetic and also his wounded pride; doesn’t allow anyone to see him without the prosthetic, compensates for his ego by working out more, just basically trying to prove the world he’s not weak

shinzou and kaede decide they should move away from maebashi, given it’s not safe for either for them, so they move to kobe rather than kyoto, because shinzou worries about what his brother might do to his mate who is the long-sought-after first angel

still comes to visit every now and then, though, only to long for leaving again given the constant disputes with his brother’s mate

still ends up hating the fact that he keeps having to choose between his brother and his mate, so he ends up talking kaede into actually moving in to kyoto with him

kaede, being the soft boy that he is, discovers shinjou has a little angel girl in his custody, and adopts her... steals her, really

shinjou lets him have her, in exchange for his blood sample

shinzou however, disagrees on having children and makes kaede put her to orphanage

time passes, and sans the constant terror the elder twin brings, life seems good

eventually shinzou changes his mind and surprises his mate by actually adopting the little girl, papers and all

they name her chou in the memory of his mother

nothing good lasts forever, though, and shinzou and kaede end up fighting a lot, especially because shinjou’s mate ends up making sexual advances towards the fox out of spite, and it eventually ends in their break up, and --- given the angel’s weak psyche --- him taking his own life

shinzou is now left being a single mother ( his daughter refers to him as ‘mama’ because he encouraged her to view him as her mother figure, because other kids teased her for having two dads )

ciro doesn’t stop with his harassment, just further proving what a piece of shit he is, but shinzou is still unable to change his brother’s mind

frankly, the angel treats both twins differently, but is still a rather toxic presence in both their lives

it leads to ciro actually raping shinzou, though unfortunately for him, it involved touching the kitsune’s tails without his permission, resulting in a curse being laid upon the man that ends up eventually killing him

so essentially, shinzou’s killed his brother’s mate, something he never tells him

he becomes withdrawn from the trauma, and kind of doesn’t ever want to get in another relationship again. goes back to stripping to deal with this, because it was about the only thing that ever made him feel good and he genuinely enjoyed it; made him forget things, etc.

with the death of both the twins’ mates, they start feeling the heartbreak settling in, toxic relationships or not

ciro’s death also basically brings shinjou to the brink of insanity, and if he can’t have anything good, then neither can the world

cue the lowkey apocalypse

japan’s end

shinjou’s rage consumes japan; he kills and destroys without a reason, his obsession with his mate showing

he, unlike his brother, was aware of the whole heartbreak thing

decided to have them both undergo more drastical adjustments to the angel genes in their body, forcing the parasite to keep them alive

the destruction was raw and imminent, though only in kyoto’s near vicinity. it took years, centuries even, for the young kitsune brothers to overtake all of japan --- frankly, it was all mostly shinjou’s doing, but shinzou helped so he’s also guilty gnfjdkg

both shinjou’s mental and physical condition doesn’t get better, given that he accelerated the parasite’s growth

shinzou can do only so much to help him, though. oftentimes, he’d disguise himself with a glamour of his past mate to help him deal with his loss ( no matter how gross he felt doing it ) usually when shinjou was so sleep deprived that he believed it to just be a dream, but it was good enough to keep him at least a little sane

japan eventually becomes a prison country, where angels from all around the world are brought in, for shinjou to do whatever he pleases with themhe’s still extremely fascinated by the mutation, so really, most of them end up being lab rats as he tries various new experiments with their dna

angels may have prolonged lifespans, but they are not immortal. and so, shinzou has to deal with the death of his daughter aswell

they’re alone, have no one but each other, they’re sick, both mentally and physically, they’re withdrawn, dangerous, and unpredictable

despite all that, technology thrives. the surviving angels form a resistance, and where shinjou focuses on the biological, they focus on the technological

lots of current angels have various cybernetic implants and microchips to enhance them further to actually stand a chance in this war

what shinjou does, is to actively shut down more and more power plants to make the country fully dependant on him, given he commands the element of lightning, it’s easy for him to provide electricity to his surroundings. ofc, this is limited by his age, but it’s a gradual process

#( aight i had to put the individual twins branches under the cut bcuz :') )#( its fucking long )#( i think u can pinpoint the exact moment when i started to get a little bored/annoyed bcUZ IT JUST KEPT ON GOING )#&&. —( SHINZOU :: headcanon. )#&&. —( SHINJOU :: headcanon. )#suicide mention /#rape mention /#slavery mention /#human trafficking mention /#( I HOPE I TAGGED EVERYTHING???? AND I ALSO HOPE I DIDN'T FORGET ANYTHING IN GENERAL )#( LMAO )#( WATCH ME EDIT THIS 235367432 TIMES )

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wo-the-wolf · 6 years

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The Revenant’s Shield and Sword, Part 3

“When they burned my world. . . I looked up at the stars that night from the ship we lay imprisoned in. Shackled like a beast and gripping the hand of my beloved as we mourned our little one. . . They told us we were at fault for hiding insurgents, yet across our now ashen home laid the propaganda they fed us, the drink we so greedily swallowed. I served time and time again in doing the unthinkable for my people. For every great leader preaches what they do, for every organization preaches that they give justice, for every great person preaches they are moral and wise, yet they all have hands that do their dirty work. It’s easy, to watch as atrocities are committed and say they shouldn’t, yet I responded to them. I saved lives just as I took them, I built homes and tore them apart, I created a family and have sundered others. Throughout it I claimed to my old Gods that I was honor-bound, that I served with conviction and was a tool of justice and hope. Yet when I slept that night behind cell bars with my wife, when I looked out the glass at my stars leaving me . . . I felt cold. An illusion of a man stared back at me, but his eyes were that of a Demon seeing itself for the first time. My eyes watched the fires of the planet continue, and they have not stopped seeing that again every night. They burned my world. . . They burned my home. Now that our enemies are gone . . . I will simply travel.” -Journal entry Dated 2268, August 12th. Taken from Derrick Jormun Ishmael’s personal logs. Regarding the beginning of his transfer to Project Black Monarch.

Investigation status: ...... Pending.

Status of Witnesses: ....... Unknwon

Status of Criminal in question: ..... Deceased

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Emma’s breathing was shallow, her armor breached as multiple bullet holes were showing themselves from her legs to her torso, and even a few on her arms. There she lay against a cave wall, surrounded by near total darkness. Derrick hastily caught his breath as he shifted through their supplies and attempted to patch her wounds. “I suppose,” he coughed before breaking out the medical kit, “That now is a bad time to say I was right?”

Emma glared and gritted her teeth, “You . . . You shot Kyle you bastard.”

“Yes, yes, I shot Kyle, let’s ignore the fact he shot you and then shot me first. After of course the fact that he brutally killed his Monarch who tried to defend us. Silvia was such a beauty too, oh,” he looked off to the side and clicked his tongue in disappointment, “Such a terrible way to go.”He continued to tend to her wounds, getting the bullets out and stopping the bleeding. After an hour or so of work, she was finally stabilized, but in oh such terrible condition. “There we are, see? Good as new!” She glared at him. “Well.... New in the sense of it was only manhandled by a toddler with a machine gun.”

“You . . . Why do they want you?” She struggled to sit up and gasped for breathe, struggling still as he gave her his canteen. “Why,” she grumbled as she took the water.

“Because of my dashing good looks and hidden vault of virgins and riches,” he waved his hand about as he spoke sarcastically.

“Answer me,” she growled, “Or I’ll put you in a shallow grave.”

“I stole something from Director Wolf.”

“What could be so important it was worth our lives?!” She growled louder.

“Calm yourself. . . Speak any louder and they’ll surely find us. . . I stole everything. His plans for the future, his records of every bad deal, the war crimes he had us commit in our own personal lives before this program. I stole everything . . . With this,” he tapped his head. “Project Monarch . . . Surgically implanted AI into our heads. If anything, we are AI’s ourselves now, still ourselves. We were made to be the perfect killing think tank. The morality of man, mixed with the processing power of AI. It has it’s own little personality we were. . . Matched with you could say. We became one being, and were field tested here and anywhere else to slaughter, steal, and now assist our partnered Sentinels in their own wars. Who do you think he tested us on? Every other species. . . Everyone else. He tore our minds apart and forced us to fight. But if you don’t believe me,” he handed her helmet back to her, “See for yourself.”

Emma was distrustful, she spat at his feet before taking his helmet, “You’ve got nothing. . . You can try to prove your point,” he scoffed as she put her helmet back on. What transpired next took her breathe away. The Director and her Sargent, watching the torture of the candidates for Black Monarch. Forcing them to execute prisoners, forcing them to fight each other, forcing them to solve complex puzzles and algorithms or face more torture. Documents, security cam footage, everything was there. “What . . . What is this?” She stuttered as she saw the next file. Project Horsemen.

“Project Horsemen. . . You Sentinels and us Monarchs would be forced to fight to the death, the last standing of us would further be twisted and made monsters. Monsters shackled in the mind and given no free will. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, his Apocalypse. It’s all there.” Derrick gestured as all was shown in her HUD. “It’s all there. . . If you don’t believe me then so be it. I’ll patch you up and head off on my own. They’ve no reason to think you’ve done anything than be taken my prisoner.” He shrugged.

“This,” Emma took it all in. The experiments, the footage, the plans and written documents from the Director’s inner circle. Everything pointed towards the most vile of intentions. “This could cripple any diplomacy we have with any other race in the galaxy. The Venra alone would love to use this as an excuse to start yet another war.” She was stricken, utterly baffled at the sheer ferocity of these experiments. “I guess I see why other races fear us . . . We disregard even our own people by claiming it’s for our version of the greater good.” She blinked, still processing everything before something glowed on her HUD. “How did you get into Black Monarch?” She asked as her eyes caught sight of files named after all of the Monarchs and Sentinels.

“The file says it all, I’m a walking document of how best to be branded a monster in the Terran Republic.” He folded his arms as he leaned back.

“So it’s true?”

“No. . . No,” he closed his eyes, the screams he had always heard softened for but a moment. “A long time ago I was a solider, an infiltrator if you will. I wanted to be an actor, but I got the calling. My people needed me, and I enlisted. Rose up through the ranks and the special units all over. Finally when I had returned for some much needed rest and connect with my beloved wife again . . . The Republic came in private military ships, and scorched my home world. They took the survivors hostage, but not before gunning down my little one.” There was age in his voice. As if a thousand years of pain had settled not hundreds of years past. Now it was only an echo. A memory. His eyes become foggy as his mind filled with the sound of children laughing, the warmth of his beloved near him as he remembered the feeling of holding her. “They took everything . . . I was so lost I simply wandered. Black Monarch gave me a chance to start over. When it was done I searched everywhere, only to discover she died in their torture solely to feed this research. My friends, my family, all but burned so they could make things like you and I, Emma.” He looked up at her. There was no mischief in his eyes. No lying, no tales spooling in his head like fine thread. There was only memory.

“All those people they had us kill during Operations . . . Terrorists . . . Smugglers, arms dealers, drug lords, rebels. . . They were just,” she felt sick to her stomach reading the reports.

“Director Wolf’s rivals for his own arms dealings. The peace protesters who stood against him . . . Against the war. Everyone that stood in their way has burned by our hands.”

“You . . . You tried to warn us,” she stared down at her hand again. In her eyes there was so much blood. . . So much blood that she felt the weight of it crushing her lungs. She butchered innocents. Their screams were not that of traitors. . . They were people. Her mind became sickened. “What. . . What have I done?” She stuttered.

Derrick went and sat next to her, reaching up to place a hand on her shoulder, “Hush . . . You’ve done nothing. You followed your path and went the wrong way, no matter how far your walk or run or crawl, it’s never too late to break off and make a new trail.” He gazed outside the cave mouth at the beautiful sky before them on this xeno-world. “My path branches towards killing Director Wolf, and letting my beloved rest easy. . . Then . . . Then I’m not sure.”

“I . . . I want to leave.” She stated as she gripped her head safely tucked in her helmet. “I don’t want to kill anymore . . . Please, help me.”

“Help? Ha,” he chuckled weakly, “No one in their right mind would dare try to stop you if they saw you. You can easily leave this world, steal our old comrade’s ship and go far, far, far away.”

“No, no more killing. . . Director Wolf did terrible things. . . But for now I don’t want to kill him . . . I want you to come with me . . . Help me do good in the galaxy. Help me, and I will help you.”

“Oh? Help me?” He raised his brow tiredly.

“I . . . I mean,” she sighed as she collected her thoughts, “Just . . . No more needless violence, please,” she shook her head in her hands, terrified of what she had done.

Derrick was about to speak, when something flicked in his head. ‘Your days as a killer are finally over?’ asked a sweet and warm voice. The smell of Mint filled the air as he saw the fiery red hair flash in his mind. He promised. He swore, that his days of going out of his way for bloodshed was over. No more gang violence as a teenager, no more executions as a soldier, no more assassinations of innocents as a Special Operations unit, no more needless killing. Only when needed, to protect people. He swore, swore to her when he came home, and swore to her as he held her corpse for three days and three nights. For once, he was unable to speak. Emma looked down towards him, as even sitting she was still much larger. “I,” he paused. The eyes of the Demon looked back at him through her reflective visor. They were eyes of hunger, they begged for more carnage, as it was all he knew.

“Derrick?” Emma inquired curiously, as she was so use to his quick tongue.

Derrick sighed, “You . . . Reminded me of some words I need to follow. . . Very well. I cannot stop killing, but I can at least only kill when we need to protect ourselves or others. Agreed?”

Emma thought for a minute and nodded, “I guess that’s ok . . . But I don’t want to kill anymore. . . I can’t do it anymore,” she shook her head.

“Good. . . Now when you hear the sound of gunfire and screaming get up and move down the mountain to that clearing below us.” Derrick smiled as he rose to his feet.

“What now?” She shook her head and looked slightly up at him.

“I’m gonna go steal their shuttle and get us the hell out of here.” He grinned.

“Are you mad?! They’ll kill you!”

“I was an infiltrator remember? Best on the job, I can sneak by anyone and anything, but once I get moving they’ll open fire for sure. So be ready.” He grinned before heading off.

“H-Hey! Wait!” Emma gripped her side painfully as it was still quite soar. “Damn it,” she grumbled.

It was several hours, but soon the shuttle did come. They escaped, true to his word none of her squad had perished. Together Derrick and Emma went into hiding all across the galaxy, traveling and using their respective skills to earn a living. Derrick never knew if vengeance would come his way, but he thought that maybe his new promise was misplaced. Perhaps his ghosts were laying at rest, and he was the only one digging them back up. Who knows? Maybe Director Wolf would face justice at the end of a gun barrel.

But that . . . Is a story for another time. END --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HEY YOU! How’s it going? It was a pleasure to work on this arch of the short stories I’m doing this to pass time during my last year of university. Once again don’t forget, if you have any prompts you want me to work on just send me them, tag me in them, anything at all! I will put them in the que if I like em! All my stories are connected so never fear, old characters will always come back! Until next time, Fly safe fellow Explorer’s of the unknown. On an extra note, your comments, messages, and asks are always appreciated and read, plus almost always answered ^w^ thanks again!

#HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans in space #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #Sci-Fi & Fantasy

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dotshiiki · 6 years

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FIC: The Silent Goddess (Secret Santa Fic for @sashencat)

Written for @sashencat @sashencat for the @pjosecretsanta2k17 @pjosecretsanta2k17 exchange. I tried to deliver on as many of your requested characters and OTPs as possible. This didn't end up very shippy, but hopefully there were hints of all OTPs—except Nico/Jason, which I just couldn't find a way to work in. A big thank you to @rinarraven @rinarraven for beta-reading and the secret santa mods for running the exchange!

Merry Christmas, @sashencat @sashencat, and hope you like this!

Summary: When weird things start happening on Camp Jupiter, Reyna gets pulled into a mystery that has her re-visiting her haunted past | 5893 words | Reyna, Frank, Nico, Hazel, Jason, Piper | Jeyna, Frazel, Jasiper if you squint.

The Silent Goddess

Reyna didn't believe in superstition. Her neighbours in San Juan, where she'd grown up, had been full of them—black cats and ladders and thirteenth floors and silly things like that. It was all just paranoia, an overblown belief that bad spirits were out to get you. And Reyna knew first-hand what it was like when that got out of control.

So when her legionnaires started muttering about seeing signs around Camp Jupiter, she didn't take it too seriously. They were children of the gods living in a magical enclave, training to fight monsters, for Mars's sake. You'd think everyone would know not to panic when weird things happened. She had enough to do without worrying about kids freaking out over onyx gemstones appearing in the wall capstones, or the shower of white petals that had blown in from Berkeley.

Okay, so it had been weird when their new augur, Ophelia, had gutted her first stuffed animal (a black cat) to find another one inside, and another, like one of those creepy Russian dolls. But the Mercury kids had pulled off more elaborate pranks than that before (and they had seemed a little too amused). And yes, she had to admit that the black fog that had settled last Friday on Temple Hill had an ominous feel. But ever since Jason had started that 'no god left behind' project of his, minor gods had been stopping by out of nowhere to check out their brand new shrines. It was probably just one of them doing something weird.

Her logic couldn't quash the growing rumours, though. The legionnaires whispered about harbingers of doom and traded stories about death omens. The latest one to spread had been the legend of a mysterious, vengeful Underworld goddess.

'They called her Dea Tacita,' Ophelia announced at the senate meeting. 'The Silent One. She can only speak through signs and portents … when she's coming to snatch someone.'

'Snatch someone?' Reyna raised an eyebrow. It sounded like a B-rated horror movie.

Ophelia nodded emphatically. 'She'll steal into your house—or the barracks, I guess—and snatch your soul for the Underworld.'

Frank frowned. 'I've never heard of this Dea Tacita.' He spoke hesitantly, like he was still feeling his way around his new role as Reyna's fellow praetor. 'Isn't Thanatos—or Letum, if we're talking Roman forms—the god of death? Why would we need another one?'

'Dea Tacita doesn't deliver death precisely. Once she marks you, you disappear slowly. Like, you'll fade away, bit by bit, become more ghost-like, until no one can see you any more.'

Against her will, a shiver ran down Reyna's spine. Everything Ophelia had just described …

She'd seen it before.

'And that's not even the end of it,' Ophelia continued. 'Once you're gone, the memory of you will fade into obscurity as well. It will be like you've never existed.'

'This is ridiculous,' Reyna said, quashing down her thrill of fear. 'Logically, if everyone who's ever been snatched—' she made little air quotes with her fingers, 'has been forgotten, we wouldn't even know about her. Isn't it possible someone just made up the whole story and passed it down?'

'But the signs!' Ophelia protested. 'The opals, the asphodel petals, the cats … all symbols of—'

'Death,' Hazel finished. As the daughter of Pluto, she probably knew what she was talking about. Reyna was relieved when Hazel added, 'But I don't see how it points to some unknown death goddess.'

'They're signs that she has her sights set on someone.'

Reyna crossed her arms. 'Hazel's right. We can't jump to far-fetched conclusions. Stop spreading the rumour, Ophelia. There's a logical explanation for this. No one's going to disappear. Or become a …'

Mania, her mind filled in for her.

'Or become a forgotten ghost,' she said firmly. 'We need to stop fear-mongering.'

That should have been the end of it. But then, right after that senate meeting, her nightmares started up.

Reyna didn't make much of them at first. Nightmares were part and parcel of every demigod's life, and they had just been through a war. After everything she'd seen in the past few months, it was to be expected that nightmares would plague her for a while.

But these … it was always the same sequence. She'd be on the balcony of her family's old hacienda, looking out over the colourful rooftops of San Juan. The night would be peaceful, quiet. And then the clouds would gather, blotting out the moon and the stars. In the darkness, they would come.

The ghosts of her ancestors would flood over the balustrades, hungry hands reaching out for her, smoky faces filled with insatiable need. They would press in closer, wailing her name, demanding … well, Reyna wasn't sure exactly what they wanted from her, but she was terrified that if they got hold of her, they would drag her down, eat away at her until she became one of them: a faded spirit filled with nothing but fear and desire.

And then, just as they were about to close in on her, she would appear.

Unlike the other ghosts, her appearance was more solid. Or maybe it was because she was covered in black from head to toe in robes made from a darkness so intense they drowned out the night. She had long ebony fingers that put Reyna in mind of the black keys on a piano. They were folded across her stomach, clasped around a single white blossom.

An asphodel. Just like the petals that had snowed on Camp Jupiter.

This woman never said a word. Reyna never even saw her face, obscured as it was by a rippling veil. But Reyna got the sense that she wanted something from her, too. Her need was softer than the other ghosts, gentle and muted, but powerful in its own way. Maybe even more so. It seemed to restrain the clamour of the others, creating a small space between them, a sliver of breathing room for Reyna.

'Who are you?' Reyna would say, but the woman remained mute and hidden, as though waiting for Reyna to answer her own question.

A mysterious Underworld goddess …

Reyna didn't want to believe it, but she would wake from her nightmares in a cold sweat, afraid that she'd become an empty shell, invisible to the world but for the remains of her ghostly energy.

Just like Julian Ramírez-Arellano.

No. It wasn't possible. She wasn't like her father. She couldn't be …

But she couldn't help wondering if this was how he had begun his descent into madness after his return from Iraq.

She had just been through a war, too.

'Reyna?'

She forced herself to stop ruminating and pay attention to Frank, who was staring at her with worry in his eyes.

'Sorry, what?'

'I just asked if you wanted to go over the plans for tonight's war games, but never mind that now. What's wrong?'

'Nothing.'

Frank crossed his arms over his chest. Despite his muscular build, he rarely looked threatening, thanks to his usual placid expression, but now he had a stern, don't give me that bullshit look on his face that made his resemblance to his god of war father more striking. He didn't say anything, but like the veiled woman in her dream, he was clearly waiting for an answer.

'Just nightmares.' Reyna tried to keep her voice light. 'You know.'

Frank's face softened—nightmares were something they all understood—but his brows remained drawn in a deep furrow. 'It's got something to do with the Underworld goddess thing, hasn't it? You're worried about her.'

Slowly, Reyna traced the bars on her forearm, her marks of service to New Rome. It had been a lot easier to hide stuff like this from Jason. As much as Reyna had liked him, Jason had never picked up on her feelings very well. Frank … well, they hadn't been working together for very long, but he was proving to be quite perceptive.

'I get it,' Frank said softly. 'You're worried that everyone will freak out even more if you show that you're scared. But we're partners, right? You can tell me. Maybe I can help.'

Reyna swallowed. She'd never have guessed that Frank would grow into such an impressive leader. After Jason had been MIA for months and Percy had skipped out right after being crowned praetor, she'd carried the position on her own for so long. It was hard to get used to the idea that she actually had a fellow praetor she could work with. Someone she could trust.

She sighed. 'Okay.'

The furrow in Frank's forehead deepened as she told him about the mysterious woman in her vision. She left out the parts about her family history—that wasn't something she liked to share with anyone, fellow praetor or not—but she described the veiled woman as carefully as she could.

'Do you think it's her? Dea Tacita?' Frank said when she finished.

'Honestly? I have no idea.' Reyna rubbed the back of her neck tiredly. 'I don't even want to believe that she exists. But if she does … what am I going to do about her?'

Frank cleared his throat. 'What are we going to do about her, you mean. I'm going to help, and so will Hazel, and all our friends. You don't have to handle this on your own.'

His display of support made her feel more solid. But there was one issue that no one would be able to help her with. 'The problem is, she's found me. And if Ophelia's right about what that means …'

'You're not going to disappear,' Frank said firmly. 'Reyna … when Jason handed me the praetorship and suddenly I had to make the calls when we were fighting Gaia—it was hard. And you've been doing it for years. You're a real leader. And I can't imagine that any mystery goddess could manage to make you fade away.'

'You think I should confront her, then?'

'If anyone could, it'd be you. But before you try, I've got an idea. I think we need to talk to Hazel and Nico.'

+++

A few months ago, Temple Hill had been a lonely place, with only three major temples at the crest—dedicated to Rome's holy trinity of Jupiter, Juno, and Mars—surrounded by a half-circle of dusty altars for the remaining VIP gods. Now, it was a centre of activity, with new shrines going up by the day. A skeleton construction crew, courtesy of Nico di Angelo, had been working on the project for weeks, ever since Jason had brought the idea over from Camp Half-Blood. He and Annabeth had apparently started designing a grand temple over there to honour all the gods, major and minor. Now he was on a mission to track down their Roman counterparts and give them proper representation at Camp Jupiter. Within a month, Temple Hill had become dotted with shrines, altars, and mini-temples. Jupiter's temple still stood in pride of place, but nearly every god had at least an altar to their name, too, even some Reyna hadn't known existed, like Mutinus and Pax. Jason had certainly done some thorough research. It was one of the things she'd always liked about him.

Right now, Jason and Nico stood at the base of the hill, overseeing the construction of their latest shrine. Jason had the design plans on a scroll in front of him, while Nico ordered his skeleton workers around. Both boys looked up when Reyna and Frank approached.

'Who's this one for?' Frank asked, as two skeletons hammered an arch across two pillars.

'Angerona,' Jason said. 'Goddess of pain and sorrow. Oh, not that kind,' he added quickly, seeing their worried expressions. 'Her job's to relieve pain and sorrow.'

'Good to know,' Reyna murmured. Hearing Jason talk about relieving pain and sorrow reminded her of Venus's promise a few years ago—no demigod shall heal your heart. Not that she was pining over Jason or anything, but it still made her insides twist a little.

Jason rolled up his design scroll. 'So, er, what brings you here?'

'Well, we're kind of looking for Nico,' Frank nodded to the son of Hades, 'and Hazel.'

Nico held up his hand in a T-shape to the skeleton workers, who promptly collapsed into a pile of bones by the new shrine's pillars. Probably that was their version of a break. 'You found me,' he said. 'And Hazel's inside.'

Jason nodded and winked. 'Step into my office, my friends.'

The 'office' was a glorified name for the little shack at the bottom of the hill from which Jason ran operations. Actually, it had a fancier name—the Domus Publica—but it wore that name much in the same way that Jason bore his fancy new title of Pontifex Maximus. Which was to say, carelessly, with scant regard for the honour of the position. There were no framed certificates or medals, no laurels or accolades to be found anywhere in the room. Colourful drawings were pinned to every wall, with a single corkboard for whatever project Jason had his attention on at the moment. One rickety wooden table took up half the room. Lying on it was the bulk of Jason's research: at one end were several heavy tomes Reyna recognised as originating from the senate library. Each was opened to a page on a different Roman deity.

Perched on the other end was Jason's girlfriend Piper, carefully painting what looked like an action figure. A whole line of them made a row along the edge of the table opposite Hazel, who sat sketching a motherly-looking woman with coronet braids. Next to her was a pile of completed drawings that looked like the blueprints for the figures on the table.

Frank picked up one of the figures. 'Are these Mythomagic figurines?'

Piper nodded. 'Jason promised he'd make all the gods action figures, but Nico thought these made more sense.'

'Minor gods expansion deck,' Nico explained. 'And we get to invent their power stats, too.' He nodded towards the figurine in Frank's hand. 'That's Palaemon. Or Portunes, in Roman. He's an enabler—he can unlock other gods' powers of up to 2,000 attack points, and that doubles if your opponent attacks first.'

'Nice,' Frank said. There was an excited gleam in his eyes. Then he seemed to remember why they had come. 'Er, we need to talk to Hazel and Nico.'

Piper frowned. 'Should we leave?'

Frank looked to Reyna. She considered it for a moment, then she thought of what Frank had said: You don't have to handle this on your own. She shook her head. 'Maybe you can help me—help us—figure this out, too.'

She and Frank told the others the story of Dea Tacita, and Reyna's dreams.

Piper shivered. 'Please tell me we're not talking about another evil earth goddess who wants to kill us all.'

'She might be an earth goddess,' Hazel said. Everyone stared at her. She wound her little finger around one of her curls, pulling it straight and letting it go again. 'I did some research after Ophelia brought her up. I tried to find someone who might fit. There aren't that many Roman Underworld goddesses, after all. I found one named Larenta, but there was so little recorded about her. I wonder how many minor gods faded out of existence because people stopped believing in them.'

'Well, that's what this project is about,' Jason said, touching one of the minor god figurines on the head.

'But back to Reyna's dream,' Frank said. 'I was thinking … well, Hazel, you have experience with—okay, maybe not dreams, but blackouts and flashbacks. I thought maybe you could try and follow Reyna into hers—meet this goddess with her.'

Hazel tugged on another curl. 'Sure, I've taken you into my flashback before, but I don't know if I could do it with someone else's.'

'You don't need to,' Nico said. He shook his head at Reyna. 'Dreams and death—that's my domain. I could navigate to you.' He twisted the skull ring he wore on his finger. 'But I won't do it unless you want me to.'

Gratitude washed over Reyna. She'd had a moment of consternation when Frank suggested that Hazel visit her dream. She hadn't told her friends everything about the nightmares, after all. But Nico knew her secret. He had a better idea than the rest what ghosts lurked in her past. And he was still offering to help … while also respecting her privacy.

'You don't always have to be the one giving others your strength, Reyna,' Jason said. 'Let Nico help.'

Reyna touched the sword and torch tattoo on her forearm—the symbol of Bellona, reminding her of her mother's blessing, her power to radiate her own strength and courage to those around her. Jason was right. She was so used to being the one giving aid to others that when it came to asking for it … she hardly knew how to. She turned to Nico. 'Will you help me?'

Nico held out his hand to her in a rare display of solidarity. 'Of course I will.'

+++

Reyna didn't really know what to expect that night. It wasn't exactly like setting out on a quest with her friends. Nico had promised that he'd find her, but he hadn't been able to explain how.

'It's sort of like shadow travel, but not exactly,' he'd said.

The nightmare started the same way, on her balcony in San Juan, under the starry sky. But this time, when the clouds gathered and the ghosts came, the one she feared most was at their front.

He was in his army fatigues, glowing brighter than the others, just like he had on the night she'd killed him. The hilt of the Pirate Confresi's sabre stuck out of his chest.

'Reyna Avila,' Julian Ramírez-Arellano rasped. 'Daughter.'

He held out his hands like he meant to hug her, but his face was crazed and angry, his eyes glowing with murderous rage. Reyna would have stumbled back if she could, but she couldn't find her feet. Her body felt wispy and insubstantial, as if she had already become a ghost, like her ancestors, like her father, the mania.

And this time, no veiled goddess appeared to barricade her from them.

Her father's hands closed around her wrist, so cold that they burned against her skin. He glowed even brighter, as if her essence was pouring out into him. She would fade, and he would return.

'Reyna!' Nico's voice rang out across the rooftops. The ghosts of her ancestors parted and she saw him waving his Stygian iron sword to cut a path through them. He was too far away to stop her father, but the sight of him gave her a boost of courage.

No one could make her fade. She would not become her father.

And with this thought, something burned in her chest, a brilliant warmth that filled her with shape and form. Reyna had never known what it felt like for those to whom she'd imparted her strength, but maybe it was something like this.

Her father's hands were still around hers, but his eyes lost the vicious anger that consumed him. They were just sad and haunted now.

'I need peace,' he whispered. 'Daughter …'

'Reyna!' Nico shouted again. His sword sliced through the last of the ghosts separating them. Julian vaporised at the touch of the Stygian iron, releasing Reyna.

'Are you okay?' Nico demanded.

Reyna nodded, not trusting her voice. She was shivering uncontrollably despite the strength that had just poured through her. Nico tried to grip her shoulder, but his hand passed right through. Reyna couldn't tell which of them had lost their form.

'Where's …' Nico's question faded as she appeared at last, standing serenely before them with her hands clasped around her white asphodel. Her smoky veil still obscured her face.

'That's her,' Reyna said.

Nico raised his sword, but the goddess was unfazed by the Stygian blade. She raised her flower above her head and let it drift from her long, slender fingers. It floated over to Reyna and Nico, leaving a trail of white petals behind it, exactly like the ones that had showered Camp Jupiter the previous week. They clung to Nico's sword, turning its black blade snowy white.

'Who are you?' Reyna asked.

Slowly, the goddess lifted her veil.

Her face was a shock. Reyna had expected it to be as dark as her hands—and indeed, one half of it was: a deep, midnight black that made Reyna think of galaxies and deep space. But the left half was chalk-white, which made her look as if she were wearing one of those Phantom of the Opera masks, except the two halves met seamlessly. Reyna couldn't well where one colour ended and the other began.

Nico gasped. 'I know you,' he said. 'I've seen you before, haven't I?'

Glowing amber eyes, reflective like a cat's, peered out of her paradoxical face, assessing them. She raised her hand, her ebony fingers uncurling towards Reyna as if inviting her to approach.

Reyna didn't take her up on it. 'Who is she?' she asked Nico.

'She's …' Nico screwed up his face. 'I'm not sure. She looks like … but that would make her Greek. And she didn't look exactly like this when I saw her before.' He turned to the goddess. 'Are you Melinoë?'

The goddess pursed her lips. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. She closed her eyes briefly, and Reyna felt the air ripple around them like a sigh. She pointed at Reyna and touched her own throat.

She couldn't speak.

'D-Dea Tacita?' Reyna stammered.

The corners of the goddess's lips quirked upwards. It might have been a smile, a mischievous one that didn't really set Reyna's mind at ease. At the same time, she shook her head slightly, a gesture that might be disconfirming Reyna's statement. Her cat-like eyes remained firmly fixed on Reyna as she extended her hand again.

'I … I think I should take her hand,' Reyna said.

'Are you sure?'

She wasn't. She was terrified that the moment she touched the goddess, the same fading feeling that had seized her with her father's ghost would overcome her again, and this time she wouldn't be able to fight back.

But something in the goddess's eyes tugged at her heart. What must it be like to spend all eternity voiceless, unable to ask for help?

Something Nico had said to her before floated to the top of her mind: Your voice is your identity. If you don't use it, you're halfway to Asphodel.

Reyna looked at the asphodel petals piled about their feet and took a deep breath.

She reached out and met the goddess's hand.

She felt the goddess's hesitation through the touch of their skin. Reyna's sword and torch tattoo tingled. She could tell that the goddess sensed her power, wanted to use it. There was a magnetic pull, like her strength wanted to flow out to this being who craved it, but was barely holding back, like a weak dam against the tide. It was this hesitation, this tiny sign that the goddess would not just take, that reassured Reyna.

She imagined herself addressing her legion, her voice projecting across an assembly, and fed that image to the goddess.

The goddess's amber eyes widened. Her lips parted. 'Eυχαριστώ,' she said in a hoarse whisper.

'What?' Reyna said, bewildered. It sounded like Aphrodite's bistro or something equally nonsensical.

'She's thanking you,' Nico said. 'In Greek.' He frowned at the goddess. 'You're Greek.'

The goddess blinked and cocked her head to one side as though trying his comment on for size. Reyna squeezed her hand encouragingly, still letting her strength, her voice, flow out to her.

'Can you ask her to tell us who she is?' she asked Nico.

Nico translated.

The goddess closed her eyes briefly, then switched languages. 'I—' She formed her words slowly, as if each one were completely new. Which they probably were, if she hadn't spoken since the age of Greece. 'It has been a long time. I have not been named in eons. I … may have forgotten.' Her voice, hollow at first, mellowed with each sentence, becoming richer, more melodious.

Reyna considered this. 'Do you remember what was your domain?'

The goddess raised her free hand to her heart. 'Death,' she said solemnly. 'Blessed death. I brought peace to those who passed.' From her chest, she extended her hand, palm facing up, like a gift. Asphodel petals rained down on them again. She frowned at Reyna. 'There are restless spirits about you, spirits that seek peace.'

Reyna winced. The ghosts of her ancestors, her father the mania, were gone for now, but she could still sense them lurking. 'Have they—have you come for me?'

The goddess shook her head. 'I did not come to take. My role was always to give. But I have been forgotten for too long. If I am to return, I need …' Her finger trailed down her dark throat, as though what she was searching for had been lost in her years of voicelessness.

'You need help,' Nico said, giving Reyna a significant look. 'You're asking Reyna for help.'

'I …' The goddess clasped both her hands around Reyna's. 'Perhaps.'

Reyna swallowed. 'Why me, though? You're a Greek goddess—why choose a Roman demigod? And I didn't even believe in you when I saw your first signs.'

The goddess shrugged. 'But you responded to my silent call.' She walked her fingers up Reyna's forearm, to her SPQR tattoo, her bars of service, and the symbol of her mother. 'Daughter of Bellona. Praetor of Rome.' Her hand drifted to Reyna's shoulder and traced a line from it, as though lifting an invisible cape. 'Yet you bear the blessing and protection of a Greek goddess.'

'The Aegis of Athena,' Reyna whispered.

'This is not the first time you have been called upon to bridge two worlds. Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano.' There was something powerful about the way she named Reyna. 'You have already lent me your strength. Find a way to bring my voice back to your world. And in return … I can bring peace to your spirits.'

The goddess released her and stepped away. The entire scene dissolved. Reyna felt herself falling along with the goddess's asphodel blossoms, drifting slowly through a black fog.

+++

They met back in Jason's shack the next morning, where Reyna tried to explain the charge the silent goddess had laid upon her.

'She wants you to bring her voice to the world,' Jason said dubiously. 'But she could only talk when you held her hand.

Piper massaged her throat. 'It's figurative, duh. Unless you think she wants to do some fishy Little Mermaid thing. Er, no pun intended.'

'What?' Nico and Hazel said in unison.

'The Little Mermaid? Disney? Gave up her voice to a sea witch?'

'It was before their time,' Frank reminded her. 'But maybe you're on to something. The voice thing, I mean. What if she gave up her voice before, and that's why she faded away? Maybe we just have to find it and give it back.'

'I don't think that's it,' Nico said. He walked one of the Mythomagic figures up and down the edge of the desk. 'Bring my voice back, she said. I don't think she lost it. I think we did.'

Your voice is your identity, Reyna thought. Maybe that worked in reverse as well. The goddess's identity … was her voice. 'We need to figure out who she is,' she said. 'And then …' She gestured to the row of Mythomagic figures. 'We need to honour her, too.'

'Well,' Jason said, looking out at the new shrines popping up all over Temple Hill, 'she came to the right place.'

They got to work immediately. Hazel created a sketch of the goddess from Reyna and Nico's description, and she and Frank went through Jason's history books, comparing her to every picture or written description in the hope of finding a match. Jason and Piper researched the signs that had descended on Camp Jupiter, looking for goddesses who were related to them. That left Reyna and Nico to assess each possibility the others threw their way.

'I feel like the answer's closer than we think,' Nico said.

'You thought you knew her,' Reyna recalled. 'You called her Melinoë.'

Nico toyed absently with his Mythomagic figurine. 'Melinoë is the goddess of ghosts,' he said. 'She—well, she's not very nice. Even the Underworld daemons are scared of her. She would release them into the mortal world at night—ghosts, mania …'

At the word, Jason looked up, his face pale.

'What's wrong?' Reyna asked.

He shook his head. 'Nothing—just … nothing.'

Piper squeezed his arm. 'We ran into a mania in Ithaca.'

Jason nodded. He took off his glasses and cleaned them slowly on the edge of his shirt. 'My—my mother.'

Something seemed to explode in the pit of Reyna's stomach. 'Your mother? But I thought …'

'I never really knew her,' Jason said. 'I mean, she abandoned me when I was a kid. When I found Thalia, she told me our mom had gone crazy and she'd died eventually in a car crash. But I guess that wasn't all of it. She … she's still a restless spirit. I warded her off in Ithaca—I sent her away. But I still wish … I wish I could've helped her.'

Reyna gaped at him. Every word he said reminded her of her own troubled relationship with her father. The secret she'd guarded so carefully all these years she'd been at Camp Jupiter. To learn now that Jason shared a similar experience …

Maybe if she'd opened up earlier, he might have understood.

Jason set his glasses back on his face. They magnified his electric-blue eyes, intensifying his serious gaze. 'What you said, about the goddess bringing peace to spirits … I was hoping she meant my mom.'

'Maybe she did,' Reyna said. 'Maybe she can help both of us.' And with an encouraging nod from Nico, she told them about the ghosts in her dreams, and the restless, wandering spirit of her father.

There was no judgement. In fact, the others all had stories to share as well. It was like they had unlocked the door of ghosts Nico had spoken of and let the spirits that haunted them pour forth into their midst. But shared among the six of them, the restless, attention-seeking spirits lost some of their power. Their mutual acceptance was like a blessing, embracing and protecting them from the greedy clutches of the dead.

A blessing …

Reyna wasn't sure who it hit first. Maybe they all reached the same conclusion simultaneously.

'That's her name,' she said. 'In Greek.'

Nico slapped a palm to his head. 'Makaria. Literally—that's Greek for "blessed." She told us who she was all along.'

Hazel scribbled the name under her drawing of the goddess and placed it in the centre of their circle. Nico touched the black and white contours of her face. 'She's Melinoë in reverse. If Melinoë fuels mania, maybe Makaria can reverse it.'

Reyna looked at Jason. The concern, the hope they still had for their wretched parents, passed between them.

'She knew we needed her,' Jason said. 'That's why she reached out to you.'

Reyna put her hand to her throat, mimicking the goddess—brave, silent Makaria. 'Let's give her back her voice.'

+++

The temple was made of black stone, flanked by pillars of onyx with spiral carvings running up and down that revealed the white bands in the stone. It was guarded by a pair of marble cats with amber eyes. Whenever someone in New Rome lost a loved one, a dark fog would creep up over the temple, dissipating once they placed a sprig of asphodel upon the altar. There was usually a full bouquet of the white flower sitting in a vase on a shelf above the altar anyway, under a carved inscription in Greek and Latin: Makaria | Benedictus.

Today, there was someone sitting on the altar, cross-legged with her long, ebony fingers meeting on her knees, like she was meditating, or maybe doing yoga. An enigmatic smile played about her lips as she watched Reyna through half-closed eyes.

'My dreams have stopped,' Reyna said. 'I guess that means my dad …'

Makaria placed one finger to her lips and Reyna fell silent. The asphodel blossoms she had just laid before the altar incinerated in a plume of black smoke. When it dissipated, the white bands in the onyx pillars grew silvery, like a mirror, reflecting Reyna's face. Then her features changed, her cheeks hollowing, lines deepening in her forehead, her jaw thickening. Julian Ramírez-Arellano smiled at her gently.

Makaria reached out and took Reyna by the hand. The moment her skin touched the goddess's, she heard her father speak.

'I am at peace, daughter. Remember me as I was—not as I became.'

Reyna held the new image of her father in her mind, even after his reflection disappeared and the stone went back to normal.

'Thank you,' she whispered when Makaria released her.

'So that's her.' Jason and Hazel stepped across the threshold, their arms full of fresh asphodel. Piper and Frank hovered just behind, eyes wide with awe.

Makaria inclined her head.

Jason's jaw clenched. 'Is my mother …?'

Makaria extended her hands. With a nervous glance at Reyna, Jason stepped forward. Makaria cocked her head towards Hazel, who bit her lip before taking the goddess's other hand.

Reyna watched her friends' faces change as Makaria showed them the answer to their unspoken questions. A tear trickled down Hazel's cheek, but her lips curved into a smile. Behind his glasses, Jason's eyes were misty.

'Hold on to the good memories,' Makaria said. 'Even when you move on.'

Frank shifted his weight awkwardly from one foot to another and cleared his throat. 'I just have one question,' he said. 'About Dea Tacita.'

'Ah.' Makaria's mysterious smile returned. 'You wish to know if we are one and the same.'

'Well, yes.'

She interlocked her fingers and brought them to her chin as if in prayer. 'I do not know,' she said finally. 'Maybe Dea Tacita was in all of us who lacked a voice. She represents all the goddesses who have been silenced and forgotten, and who need your help to find our voices.'

'We're working on it,' Jason promised. 'The Greeks and the Romans.'

Makaria spread her hands again. 'Or maybe she is still waiting to be found.' She winked one cat-like eye and just like that, she disappeared in a shower of asphodel petals.

'Huh,' Piper said. 'That clears things up.'

'I guess we'll never know if Ophelia's myth is true after all,' Hazel sighed.

'Maybe not,' Reyna said. 'But I guess there's only one way to find out.' She waved towards the new population of shrines on the hill. 'Come on. Let's go give back more voices.'

A/N: Not much is actually recorded about the goddess Dea Tacita or the possible identities Reyna and the others discuss for her, so I embellished a lot. My basic research comes from this list of Roman deities. Likewise, the Greek goddess Makaria doesn't have a lot written about her either (though she does get a mention in Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods!)

#pjosecretsanta2k17 #reyna ramírez-arellano #percy jackson fanfic #hoo fanfic #jason grace #frank zhang #nico di angelo #hazel levesque #piper mclean #jeyna #frazel #jasiper #giftfic #fic exchange #gift exchange #roman pantheon #greek pantheon #makaria #oc

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letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked · 7 years

Text

Coming Down

Avengers X Reader, Natasha X Reader, Steve X Reader

A/N: I got a few different requests for a part 2 of Holding on For Dear Life, and thought the idea was awesome! So here it is! Part 2! Be careful, because it got really freaking dark!

Song: Coming Down by Five Finger Death Punch

Warnings: Angst, Drugs, Alcohol, Self-Harm, Possible Suicide (?), Swears, etc.

(DO NOT READ IF THESE SUBJECTS TRIGGER YOU! PLEASE! I’M SERIOUS!)

Word Count: 3,200ish (Holy crap!)

Part 1 // Part 3// Masterlist

It's caving in around me / What I thought was solid ground / I tried to look the other way / But I couldn't turn around…

It’s been a few months since my run-in with my old team. I thought that telling them how I felt would make me feel better, but I was wrong.

I felt worse.

I’d been kicked out of my roommate’s apartment, because I couldn’t pay the rent. I’d been banned from most bars. I was living in the homeless shelter that I used to volunteer at, or sleeping at the park. I had nobody, anymore. The drugs were getting worse, and so was the alcohol consumption.

Worst of all: I couldn’t numb my emotions anymore - and my abilities were starting to surface, again.

Using wasn’t cutting it. My abilities would surface every time I was feeling too emotional, and I kept leaving burnt handprints everywhere. I felt like a fucking kid – trying to hide my abilities, again. I was starting to spiral, and terrified of the person I had become. I’d stare in the mirror and see the shell of the woman that I used to be. The dead look in my y/e/c eyes, my uncut y/h/c hair, and my – once coveted – skin was paler than it used to be. I looked sick. I felt sick. I felt lonely. I felt…

I didn’t know what I was feeling. There were too many fucking emotions. It was like everything was building. I felt like a dam that was about to break from the pressure of the water building behind it. My walls were wearing thin, and I couldn’t escape it…

“Y/n.” I heard a familiar woman’s voice behind me, as I spent my last couple dollars on a hot dog stand that I used to frequent. It was Natasha. She looked good. Healthy, red hair blowing in the fall New York breeze. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to find you.”

“You’re a spy, Nat.” I took a bite of my hot dog, turning away from her and walking towards the shelter, “You know how to fucking find me. You just didn’t look hard enough.”

“Y/n, please.” Nat fell into step with me, “Come sit down with me. I’ll buy you some food.”

I looked at the hot dog I had spent my last few dollars on, and my stomach growled. This had been my first meal in the last 26 hours. Who knew when I would get to eat a good meal, again? “Fine, but I swear to god, if this turns into the shit that happened last time, I’m leaving.” I shoved my empty hand in the pocket of my coat, grasping my flask in comfort. “And I will take the food with me.” I added, finishing my hot dog.

She smiled, leading me to a small diner. I remember this place. The team used to frequent this place after long missions, because Tony knew the owners. I’ve never been here, before.

It's OK for you to hate me / For all the things I've done / I've made a few mistakes / But I'm not the only one…

“So,” She started once the waitress took our drink orders, “What the hell happened? The team told me that you left, but when we saw you at the club, you said they kicked you out?”

I’d forgotten that they told her that.

“Yup.” The waitress set my coffee in front of me, and I took my flask out of my pocket, pouring a little whiskey in it, “Figures that they tried to fucking blame me. I mean, it’s not like anybody else has ever made a mistake on the team.” I took a long pull from my flask, before screwing the cap back on and shoving it in my pocket. I’m too sober for this. “When we came back to the tower, after you had been shot, I tried to see you. I tried to apologize for being so stupid and falling for that trap. Nobody would let me see you, and nobody would let me apologize. They immediately shut me out.” I took a deep breath, a deep feeling of resentment rising along with the temperature of my hands.

Taking a sip from my spiked coffee, I continued, “It only took a few days before Steve came into my room and told me I had fifteen minutes to pack a bag and leave. I had a bag of clothes, a handful of dollars, and nowhere to go. I couldn’t get a proper job or place to live because SHIELD erased all of my public files. I, technically, don’t exist. I had a place to stay for a while, but I couldn’t pay rent so they kicked me out.”

Natasha’s eyes were wide. She looked shocked, and disappointed. “Wh-what? Where are you living? How do you have any money?”

“Do you really want to know the answers to these questions?” I looked her dead in the eye, hoping that I didn’t have to say it aloud. “I’m not a prostitute, or anything – not that I haven’t been close to giving in – but you won’t like the answer.” She just stared at me waiting to continue. “I live in the homeless shelter I used to volunteer at, and I sell drugs. Is that what you wanted to hear?” I was getting irate, at this point. “Poor Y/n: kicked out of the Avengers and is now New York slum!”

“Y/n, calm down.”

Was there ever any question / On how much I could take? / You kept feeding me your bullshit / Hoping I would break…

“Don’t tell me to calm down.” I growled, hands starting to shake. “I have every right to be fucking livid.” I chugged the rest of the coffee and grabbed the flask from my pocket, again – chugging the rest of that, as well. “You may not have contributed to my being kicked out, but you’re not so saintly, either. It’s not like you have ever shown any concern about me before trying to save me from a trap.” I gulped in a breath, tears pricking at my eyes. “That was why I was so heart-broken. The first time somebody actually gives a real shit about me, and you get sent into a coma.”

“We cared… care about you.” She pleaded, leaning forward. “I know we didn’t show it as well as we should have, but we did… we do.”

I shook my head, “You didn’t care until you all realized how fucked up I was.” I sniffled, using a napkin to wipe under my nose. “Especially, Steve. He didn’t give two shits about me unless he was horny and wanted to relieve some stress. Funny that he feels guilty about it, now.” I laughed darkly, feeling my hands start to heat up, again. “I was the sad, little girl looking for any form of human affection. I knew that nothing would ever come from it, but it was sort of humiliating getting ignored by him afterwards.”

“I didn’t know.” She shook her head. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

I stared at her. Is she for real? “Natasha. Are you fucking serious? I did tell you. You flat out ignored me.” I smelt smoke and looked down at my glowing hands. “Shit…” I took a deep breath, trying not to touch anything. “I fucking asked you if I could talk to you about something, and you looked so… uninterested in what I had to say. I poured my heart out, and you know what you did? You put your headphones in and asked me to go somewhere else. You said I was ‘bugging you with my childish drama’!”

Her eyebrows pulled together in confusion, “I didn’t know you were talking about Steve.”

I slammed my hand down on the table, branding my hot hand-print in the wood. “Did it fucking matter? I tried to fucking open up, and you shot me the fuck down.” The whole café stopped, staring at me. I couldn’t control my powers, anymore. The white-hot temperature of my hands started to move to my arms. “No. No. No.” I closed my eyes, trying to control my breathing.

Is there anybody out there? Is there anyone who cares? Is there anybody listening? Will they hear my final prayers?

“Y/n, you need to calm down. You’re scaring people.” Natasha hissed, fear in her voice.

My eyes shot open, tears falling, “I can’t fucking control it. I need to leave. I need-” The shrieking of the fire alarm caused me to jump up. My jacket had started to smoke. I ripped it off of me, throwing it on the floor and stomping on it. “Shit!”

People ran out of the building, recording on their phones as they ran out. My hands burst into flames. “Natasha, get out!” I didn’t want her to leave. I needed someone to help me. I needed someone to really care.

She ran out of the café, pulling her phone out of her pocket as she did so.

I fell to my knees as the fire spread over my body. It wasn’t uncomfortable. It was soothing. I didn’t realize how cold I had felt since I left. I had needed warmth. The flames started spreading around me, filling the café with smoke. I could hear the sounds of sirens. I could hear the people screaming to get back.

I’m a monster.

I watched as the clothes burned off my body, adding to the growing piles of ash on the floor. The whole building was in flames. The walls were staining black as the décor melted. I had completely destroyed the place. Somebody’s life was dedicated to this café. I destroyed it, the same way I had destroyed my family.

I let out a loud sob, lungs unable to fill with air. This is all my fault. I couldn’t control my emotions. I needed help.

I stood up, stumbling towards the front doors of the building. I need to get out of here. Tripping over the door frame, I fell onto the pavement, still completely engulfed in fire. “Help.” I couldn’t breathe. Is this an anxiety attack? I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. The weight of the world was crushing me.

People were screaming, backing away from me in fear.

Suddenly, I was drowning. I sputtered, water filling my mouth and nose. What the fuck? The water was so powerful that it flipped me onto my back. I threw my hands up in fear, and the water suddenly stopped.

Opening my eyes, I saw the New York Fire Department, the NYPD, and the Avengers all standing there with a look of horror on their face. You’re a monster, their eyes screamed.

“Y/n?” Steve’s voice broke the silence. The flames still crackling behind me as the building burned down.

I looked down at my state of undress, covering myself with my arms. One of the officers immediately threw a blanket at me, so I could wrap it around my naked body. I muttered a small thanks, standing up.

Run.

I tried, but Steve lunged forward, pulling me back, “You can’t leave.”

I attempted to push him off of me, but he had super soldier strength. “Let go! Stop!” Tears streamed down my face. “Just let me go! Please!”

“I can’t do that, Y/n.” Steve’s voice was right next to my ear, “You burned down a building. You need to be contained.”

They want to lock me up?!

I stopped struggling, sagging in defeat. I deserved to be locked up. “Okay.” A surge of cold went through me, causing me to feel numb. Finally. Numb. “Let’s go.”

When he was sure I wasn’t going to run, he put me down. He kept one hand attached to my arm, leading me to a black SUV and pushing me in. Clint, Natasha, Steve, and Wanda rode with me. I was in the middle of the back seat like a prisoner. I stared straight ahead, mentally preparing myself to be back in the tower. I knew that was where we were headed, because it was the only facility with a cell block that could hold enhanced people.

When the tower came into view, my heart was beating faster and faster - as the anxiety of what was to come gripped me tighter.

Step away from the ledge / I'm coming down…

When we arrived in the garage of the tower, I looked over to Natasha. She was the only one of the group who hadn’t looked at me like I committed a felony. Yet. “Do you think I can clean myself up and get some clothes, before you all lock me up?”

She nodded, jumping out of the SUV and walking ahead of us.

“She can clean up and change in my bathroom.” Tony said, appearing in front of us as we walked into the building. “Shower, change, and someone will come and fetch you.” He quickly turned and strode away.

We rode the elevator in silence. That was, until Steve opened his fucking mouth. “Why did you burn down that building, Y/n? Was it for attention? Because you got it.”

I whipped my head around to face him. “For attention? Are you fucking kidding me?”

He shrugged, “We don’t really know, at this point. You keep doing all of this self-destructive behavior for attention, so why would this be any different?”

Anger was practically radiating off me in waves of heat, “You really want to piss off the ‘attention-seeking’ girl who just burned a building to the ground while stuck in an elevator, Steve?”

He rolled his eyes, “Whatever.”

I was seething. How dare he think I was trying to be ‘attention-seeking’? I was trying to mind my own fucking business, today! “Fuck you, Steve.” I rolled my eyes. “Wait… I already did. Wasn’t that great, to be honest.” I was trying anything to insult him, at that point.

“Wait, what?” Clint turned and looked at Steve in shock. “You guys slept together?”

The doors to the elevator opened to Tony’s floor and I stomped out of the elevator. “I’m sure he will tell you all about how I probably was attention seeking and desperate.” I turned, glaring at Steve, “I mean, that’s what you told Bucky, anyways. I heard you fucking talk about it to him. You forgot to mention, though, how you knocked on my door. Every time.”

His face was red with embarrassment and anger, and he turned and walked back into the elevator. “Go get cleaned up and dressed so we can finally arrest your sorry ass.”

I practically ran to Tony’s bathroom, slamming the door. That asshole… I flipped on the shower, throwing the blanket in the corner of the room. I put my hands on the counter-top where his sinks were, trying to calm myself. I looked up, barely recognizing myself. I had soot all over my face, my hair was tangled and dirty, and I was getting too skinny. I looked well on my way to death.

The anger that was rushing through me diminished – an aching in my chest was all that was left. They were about to lock me up. Who knows when they would let me out, because they probably saw me as a monster. Just like I see myself. I slumped, staring at the sink as the tears falling from my eyes dripped down into the little drops of condensation collecting from the shower being on.

My head was pounding, so I looked in the medicine cabinet behind the mirror for pain reliever. What’s this? I looked at the random pill bottle with Tony’s name on it. Oxy? Oh, thank god. At least I don’t have to be sober where I’m going. I opened the bottle with shaky hands, but dropped the pills all over the floor. “Shit.” I muttered, kneeling on the ground to pick them up, piling them in my hands.

When I had them all in my hand, I sat with my back against the shower door – staring at the pills.

A small voice in the back of my head was whispering, you could do it… I could do what? What was that voice telling me to do? It would stop the hurt. What would? Did the whispering in my head want me to take more?

It's caving in around me / It's tearing me apart / It's all coming down around me / Does anyone. Anyone. Care at all?

I could do it. I could listen to the voice. It wasn’t like there was anybody who really gave a shit. The Avengers all kicked me out like I was garbage. What about Natasha? She thought you left. She tried to talk to you today! Yeah, she did. Was that out of real concern, though? She never gave a shit before. None of them did. They didn’t care about me, until they knew they fucked up my life.

Should you really blame them for your life getting fucked up, though? After all, you’re the unlikable one. You are the one that has the problem. They would be totally fine without you. They won’t care. They’re going to lock you away, anyways, and probably keep you in there. Might as well die on your terms.

Die? Could I do that? Could I really kill myself?

Just do it. Do it. DO IT! JUST FUCKING DO IT, YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT!

“Okay!” I let out a terrified sob. The sinister voice was right. I was worthless. I should just end the misery.

I cupped my hand, opened my mouth, and shoved the handful of Oxy in my mouth.

The taste was immediately bitter. The little, dry pills stuck to my mouth and back of my throat – causing me to gag. I crawled into the shower, tears in my eyes mixing with the scalding water, and used the stream to swallow down the pills.

I sat down in the corner of the shower, waiting. The shaking in my hands started to get worse as my anxiety rose.

Will this hurt? Should I really be doing this?

After a while, I felt cold. My body temperature felt like it was fluctuating from hot to cold, too quickly. It started in the tips of my fingers and toes, spreading to the rest of my body. My head felt like I was floating, but I started to feel an intense heat in my stomach and throat. It was like my stomach was starting to spasm. I gagged, and the bile shot out across my legs and into the drain.

Oh, god. What have I done?

I couldn’t breathe, because the vomit just wouldn’t stop. My head was starting to feel fuzzy, and I slid sideways. The cool of the tiles soothing my hot cheek.

What did I do?!

“Miss Y/L/N, I see a fluctuation in your vital signs? Shall I notify Med Bay?” FRIDAY’s voice came from somewhere.

I couldn’t answer.

I couldn’t feel.

I couldn’t breathe.

“Y/N!” Someone shouted from the doorway, voice filled with terror. “Somebody, help!”

I felt hands on my body, probably pulling my vomit covered form from the shower. I didn’t know.

Am I going to live? Am I going to die?

The black spots in my blurred vision grew and grew.

Then, the darkness overtook me.

I could never be / What you want me to / You pulled me under / To save yourself / You will never see / What's inside of me / I pulled you under just to save myself…

________________________________________

(It’s mean to leave you like this, so there might possibly be a part 3! *wink*)

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@luckynumber1213

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tcdwardtonks · 7 years

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DATE: june 24th LOCATION: muggle cafe -- rochester STATUS: completed with @dromvda

Newspaper clutched in her hand and the hood of her cloaked pulled over her head, Andromeda's disguise was simply precautionary. She had agreed to meet in the muggle town particularly for the anonymity, risking this meeting anywhere she could be recognized would have been foolish. The ink and paper crushed in her hand were evidence enough that control had begun slipping out of her grasp, there had never been cause for an accusatory article of her to come out before. Despite being warned, Andromeda had been shocked at what had been printed about her. There were no doubts about how her family felt about blood purity, but they managed to keep themselves far from any radical action — at least publicly. The article had implied that she was some callous and villainous monster. Though, the real thorn in her side had been the person who planted the seed, at least the one she suspected. Edward Tonks, gone was the charming boy she had enjoyed bantering with during prefect rounds, the man she had spoken to had left her unsettled. She was a puppet now, gone was a momentary freedom Hogwarts had offered, and she found herself choking under the pressure. He had been the last straw.

Each step towards the coffee shop had left her angrier than she had initially been, only coming to a halt as entered the place, spotting Ted right away. Inhale, exhale, she would need her wits about her, if this was anything like their last meeting. As she slide into the seat across him, she let the article slide out of her grasp and onto the table. "What sort of a personal vendetta are you trying to exact? I might be a lot of things, but I'm not a potential psycho murderer."

Blame it on his curiosity, but against his better judgement, Ted was off to see Andromeda. For professional reasons of course --- The Prophet's deployment of every available writer to carry out the Ministry's interrogation under the guise of an interview. It's clever of them, but hardly anything that Ted approves of. He still can't believe that the Ministry went over his head to strike a deal with his Editor-in-Chief. Once word of the interview had gone out to the public, Andromeda Black kindly sent him an owl wanting to apologize for her conduct at the fair and requesting that he interview her personally. And per her instructions, he discreetly arranged a meeting for them to meet in a small Muggle cafe in Rochester. Selecting a quiet table in the back corner, he ordered two coffees and a scone; the only thing left to do was wait.

Ever prompt, ( as she was in school ) Andromeda didn't leave Ted waiting very long. As soon as she walked in she made a beeline for him, her face twisted in a scowl, the sudden realization that he wasn't going to get an apology from her dawning on him. He sat back in his seat as she took a seat across from him, bracing at her hissing words and the slap of the newspaper hitting the table. Ted took a look at the editorial in front of him, written by a relatively close acquaintance of his. At the time he had been short with the fact that his piece got pushed for a baseless accusatory editorial, but he had to admit, it was still very well written. He just wished now that it didn't cause the uproar in Andromeda. ' Personal vendetta ? ' he repeated, confused. ' I apologize, but I didn't write this. '

"I suppose I'm just to take your word for it? Seemed to fit the person you've become, the cold-hearted reporter, seeing things from your singular perspective, making anyone you hate to be the enemy." She had suggested suing the paper, but her father had quickly put an end to that idea. Someone was always writing something about her family, but this one had specifically targeted her, being branded a potential murderer didn't sit well.

Of all the people at Hogwarts, it was someone she rarely surrounded herself with, that she found a twisted sense of friendship in. Almost friendship. He had nothing to gain from her, other than his potential doom if the wrong people were to find out. It's what made all this worse, her life might have been simpler if he had remained a footnote in her chapter at Hogwarts. "I was fighting for my life, just like everyone else there. It's ludicrous for anyone to think otherwise, especially if I'm to be blamed for having a hand in this. I think I would have made arrangements to stay far from the danger."

Now who was making wild accusations, he thought, raising an eyebrow at her. ' Pardon, but when in my professional --- or personal --- history have I ever targeted a single person so scathingly ? ' Ted assumes she doesn't particularly remember the boy he was at Hogwarts, but he wasn't going to stand by and let even Andromeda Black sully his reputation by questioning his integrity. He's a cold-hearted reporter --- sure --- but he would never write something without facts. She ACTUALLY offended him.

' To assume that I would sink so low is an insult, ' he told her firmly. ' Not only to me, but also to yourself. ' He wishes he could tell her off; that he actually thought she was different than the rest. That, of course, was what made her so appealing to him in the first place. She was gentler than her sister, hard to pin down and complex with a tongue that was so quick-witted. Now it seemed like he was wrong, and that she was this paranoid, shrill, shell of a girl that only cares about what other people think of her.

"How presumptuous of you to think I keep tabs on your personal or professional history." Technically she didn't. The house elves of Black Manor had grown accustomed to leaving a Prophet along with her breakfast, she had never felt the need to request otherwise. There was no point checking up on someone that had no future, she just happened to glance over his articles. With his focus being the Ministry and her fiancé being in the Ministry, it was only natural she be curious about the outsiders perspective.

"And insult to me? This entire article is an insult to me. Regardless of how you feel about me now, you know this isn't who I am." Every word out of her mouth was potentially dangerous. Andromeda denying that she was anything like the legacy her family name promised would be treated as blasphemy, especially if he chose to expose her the moment he walked out of here. "How could you let this go through? Maybe I'm out of turn and I don't really know you as well as I thought, but the Ted I remember wouldn't have let that go through. Not for the sake of some past-time friendship, but because it was the right thing to do."

He nearly barked out a laugh. ' But do we know each other ? Truthfully ? ' He was sailing in very dangerous waters. ' This is the longest conversation that we have ever had, and what are we talking about ? ' He didn't give her any time to answer before getting into it, ' We are talking --- nay --- ARGUING about an article that I did not write or approve of just so you can point a finger at someone. ' It was probably in poor taste that he was near yelling across the table. His eyes darted toward the other patrons of the cafe, most of them averting their eyes at what they would think was a lovers quarrel.

Ted ran a hand through his hair, trying to calm his frustrations down. ' And maybe I am speaking out of turn, but the Andromeda I went to school with wouldn't throw a hissyfit over a simple RUMOR. You turned out to be a lot like what people always expected you to be. ' He sat back in his seat and crossed his arms, eyes hardening as he looked over at her, ' I always thought you would hate it, but it looks like you're just fine. ' He slipped a £5 bill under his cup and stood up, leaving Andromeda and the coffee shop without another word.

Shock followed by anger, as he walked out, leaving her to seethe. Her hands clenched in her lap, as the fingernails dug into the palms of her hand. She needed to breathe. The entire plan had been stupid, what had she expected? An apology? A promise to redact? He wasn't the bloody editor or the reporter that wrote it, but she had expected something.

Andromeda wanted to go after him, but to what end? Another screaming match? Expectations were closing in on her from every side, choking the life out of her. She wanted to leave, but the thought being apart from her sisters seemed a fate worse than death. They were her only support system. She couldn't tell him that. She couldn't tell anyone. Hatred was better than being vulnerable, especially in front of someone that had turned out so different from what she remembered.

#andromeda | 002.#entry | jun 24.#//i love andromed #also lulz this was gonna be the task but then it just turned into an angry baby

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hadesburns · 5 years

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kana takeda, high priestess

she stands on the cliffs with the winds at her back, the air tugging and pulling at her clothes like a begging lover, the uncharacteristically frayed robe and nightgown whipping at her body tightly, loud and wailing, the roar filling her ears despite the silence that infects her. the storm above her is some comfort at least, knowing that the sometimes the sky cries as well, knowing that sometimes the weight of water becomes too much even for mother nature, until eventually the dam cracks and rain must fall, tears must fall.

kana has been weeping for weeks straight now, the sorrow sinking in marrow-deep until it is all she knows, until it’s all she’s sure she’ll ever know; her hands empty, her life empty, the grey of the world whirling and surrounding her, infecting her. it hadn’t taken long after the absence of their son for her husband to lock himself into his study and only come out on an ambulance stretcher, pills filling his gut, freezer-burn covering his eyes, his fingers, the stench of death wafting off him like a curse. she closes watery eyes and listens to the ringing of her eardrums, listens to the pounding of her heart howling against her rib cage, listens to the tides beat themselves against the shoreline, rising up to meet the challenge of the moon, hidden behind thunder. rising up to meet the challenge of her own personal gravity, her own personal hell, hidden behind exhaustion.

when she exhales and falls from the rocks, her shoeless, coatless form cascading downwards into the drink like a curse, the cold winds kissing her limbs, wishing her farewell, she prays to the triune goddess, prays for death, prays for the crashing sounds of the sea to swallow her down, down, down, and the crashing sounds of mirrors breaking to crush her, deep, deep, deep, prays for just one more chance to see her son again.

and receives none of it.

the mirror glistens cold in the midnight air and finally, finally, this she knows for certain: she is all storm and howling, she is all thunder and power, nothing delicate framed in the cut of her young cheekbones, in the dark of her eyes, in the way her reflection glares back into her like an abyss she no longer fears. her hair a maelstrom havoc from nightmares spent in drenches of sweat and stress, her nightgown torn askew, her soul torn asunder, a stain of red in her wake in the way all women burn scarlet at this particular age, and she decides white is no longer her color, no longer the bliss and innocence she will hide behind, no longer the shade of ribbons her nanny is allowed to tie into her long, black locks.

barely eleven years old, the witchling steps across the shards of the mirror her newly-awakened powers have shattered across her bedroom floor, and in the pieces strewn about, she glimpses her future, she watches her past, she opens the doors to ruin and inevitability, penning the course of her life without truly meaning to. divination shines through her chest and she likens it to a birth, begins screaming, begins breaking, the stars high above her shuddering in reverberating echoes and instinctively she knows: this is the last night of her childhood. from now on, she will adopt the vague apathy of her mother, the grey distance of her father, the frozen poison of her grandmother, and come next morning, she’ll learn why.

she’s sure it’ll have something to do with seven years bad luck.

strong magic floods through her veins, a direct lineage to the ancient sorcerers of old, back when the world was half shadow, half spirit, back when human and dragon could be fused into one, and kana believes she is a dragon, believes she is half shadow, believes this is the only explanation as to why she burns deep within herself, why she enjoys selfish magic so much more than anything ivory. she grows in her abilities as she grows in age, surrounding herself with blackened tales, banned guides, abolished spells, memorizing what she can, lavishing in what she wants, her family’s wealth and prestige affording her access to whatever her heart may desire. she’s the singular daughter of one of japan’s forefront fashion and design brands, her parents inheriting a luxurious empire from her grandmother upon the old hag’s death, kana raised amidst these stages and diamonds, limousines and velvet carpets, her appearance and technical prowess in the business granting her plenty of attention herself.

she’d assumed, wrongly of course, that somehow her accomplishments in both the fine arts of music and poetry, as well as the physical exertions of martial arts and combat training, would prove her independence enough as a woman capable of ruling alone, capable of reaching through the clouds and swallowing the stars themselves, capable of breaking the earth’s crust in the gravity of her heels, but not to her mother. nothing is ever enough for her mother. at eighteen years old, kana is given in an arranged marriage to a man eleven years her senior, the heir to an even bigger technological conglomerate, a man forever scented in cigar smoke and ink, a man with tired eyes and small burn scars on his knuckles.

she asks him one night across the stretch of silk sheets, the dimmed glow hovering around their bodies, where he’d gotten the scars, and he tells her that he used to own a pair of tiny dragons who’d scorch him all the time when he fed them. just like her. she snorts and looks away, but it’s the first moment she doesn’t outright despise him.

she glows with promise in the heart of her coven, a star in her own right, a sun on the horizon of life, her mother-priestess and the high hand naming her the maiden archetype, granting her the possibility of tutelage, of eventually becoming a priestess herself. she impresses them with her hold over her own abilities, her potency, her knowledge, her skill, the way she masters the basic practices, the way she convinces the world that she is a hurricane made flesh, a dragon brought home in the center of her chest. she harnesses her craft through anger and clenched teeth, through red lipstick and curled knuckles, through the half-shadow she drags by its ankles, the curses she breathes and the fire she bleeds, and she can almost feel everything she’s ever wanted in her grasp, all the power a sharded young girl could ever need, could ever have been wrong about in the pieces of shattered reflections across her bedroom floor. she’d never had any reason to be so worried– it would all be fine.

mirror mirror on the wall….

it is exactly the equinox of the spell, the midway point when she realizes she has been tricked, she has been fooled, she has made the gravest error of her life– or more specifically, she has failed in her trick of the others, the pin-needles all shifting suddenly towards her, the sharpened sting of betrayal and white-hot understanding flooding through her, icing her blood in a way entirely foreign to her. she’s been young before, been inexperienced before, been wandering and stretching and hungry before, but fear? fear is a monster heavy on her lungs in this moment, claws and jaws digging in and robbing her of breath, of sight, of atmosphere. fear is her reaction to being out of control, and in these two very separate thousand-year-moments, two beats that will forever define her and deform her from now on, she has never been more out of control.

the first moment is given to when they take the only thing she’s ever loved before away from her; the young toddler’s face seeping down into the immutability of stone, forever silenced and choked away from her, life shifting to earth; his tiny, reaching hands, his wide, teary eyes, everything melting down too quickly into permanent solidification, just before she can touch him.

the second is given to when she disappears into the maelstrom of hatred and boiling, tumultuous fury, when she lets her restraint finally, finally become swallowed up by the flames of her internal wraith; the darkness howling up from the unfathomable ocean of her soul, the likes of which had never been seen by her coven before. and would never be seen by them again, not after she’s grinded their bones into the earth they love so damn much.

betrayal tastes bitter, but not as bitter as the dirt and dust she crushes all the bones in their bodies into– all twelve of them writhing and gasping in simultaneous horror.

when she bears a child, a boy, her firstborn, she comes to the belief that he is the truest form of the sun incarnate, the belief that he is all light and all laughter, tiny hands and toes and eyelashes even longer than hers, and he’s the first boy she’s ever loved quite so much in her entire life. she was raised from one nanny to the next, but she’ll be damned if she lets anyone else so much as touch him for any extended period of time, insisting on raising him herself, insisting on hoarding all his first giggles and first steps and first words, dazzling him with the magic she becomes more and more involved with.

he is every golden memory, every reason to fall in love with life itself, every belief in the cosmos she’d never truly had before. he’s perfect and she occasionally has a difficult time believing that he could have come from her.

when the men are finally able to revive her, rouse her from her drenched, unconscious state, she sputters awake like the lifting of a curse from her skin, coughing and hacking up mouthfuls of salt water, wheezing air into her lungs as though they’ve never felt so free before, as though she’s never felt so released before, her arms and fingers reaching and grasping onto anything sturdy enough to hold her. she is as wet as a fish, having been mistaken for a mermaid by a fishing crew and hauled up on deck in an effort to save her life, dressed in almost nothing, floating adrift in the middle of the sea currents that separate two countries from each other. she blinks at the faces of the men surrounding her limp, shivering frame, the sky as grey as she remembers it, and before one of them can manage to fetch her a towel or a blanket, she asks what’s happened.

“we found you in the water. you stopped breathing, we thought you were dead.” the man, presumably the captain, bellows in korean– which is all kana needs to know about where she is and where she’s heading.

“are we near a port?” she asks in perfect korean, having been trained in up to five different languages, beaten into her skillset until perfection.

“busan.”

busan. that’s it then. the veil of the world is drawn back for her in that instant, clarity finally descending upon her like a beam of light, a calling she cannot and must not ignore or refuse. the goddesses have seen fit to spare her life for a purpose and she knows what she must do, what she owes not just simply to them but also to the world at large– blood for blood. she has a debt now, a payment she must make in life for what she’s taken from it, for the havoc she’s wreaked, for the evil she’s lathered across her palms, spread over her flesh like ointment. the goddesses won’t allow her peace until she’s fulfilled her role, until she’s given back in the amount that she’s taken. balance.

busan.

#bio | you keep what you kill

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journalistgeocultures · 7 years

Text

Welcome to the first edition of the Geek Talk series. It should come as no surprise that today’s topic is related to Harry Potter…

Anyone who know me even a little is well aware that I’m a hardcore Harry Potter fan.

Harry Potter and I, We Go Way Back…

My first day in junior high school, I proudly walk into my class with my HP backpack, my HP school planner, my HP ruler and my HP pencil case. Of course, I was utterly unaware that my deep love for the Harry Potter saga could entice some mockery (read bulling) from my fellow students.

I was eleven, naive and very much in love with J.K Rowling’s universe. Suffice to say, I went through hell during that first year, and let me tell you, the level of cruelty kids can ditch out knows no bound. But even today, as I am past my mid-twenty, I can honestly say that I don’t regret any of it.

Credit and source: @hipster-vintage-and-indie.com

Like a surprisingly reduced part of the HP fandom, I discovered the books when the very first came out, in 1997. I was eight. From that moment and to this day, Harry Potter and every single characters of the wizarding world grew up with me, evolved as I evolved and followed me into adulthood. For the lonely kid that I was, it was like having fifty new family members, and some of them became my inspiration because their dreams and sufferings pushed me to try harder in life.

I could relate to most of the characters and I felt like I understood the strengths and weaknesses of Hogwarts’s four houses. I was enchanted by the magical world J.K Rowling depicted and overwhelmed by how much love and sadness a book series could make me feel.

Credits and source: @wetraveled.tumblr.com

Constantly reading the Harry Potter books while growing up was a great way to grow up right, grow up with a little light of happiness, especially when the rest of my days were so dark.

When you’re a child or a teenager, everything always feels so extreme. Everything is “all or nothing”, everything is drama. My view on the events happening in those books was no different during that time:

I hated the Dursleys.

I felt a lot of pity and affection for Hagrid.

The idea of four houses into a school always felt wrong to me. Divisive much?

I was flabbergasted by the injustice and the condescending treatment Harry had to endure from the adults around him.

I felt betrayed by Dumbledore when I realized Harry was an horcrux and he knew it.

I called bullshit about the reasons he gave for not telling Harry about the prophecy.

I was devastated by Sirius’s death.

My feelings for Snape were forever oscillating between an intense dislike and a crushing pity.

While I liked Ron, I never fully trusted him to stay completely loyal to Harry due to his jealousy, and I felt that way until the very end of the series.

Hermione Granger equally inspired me a great deal of admiration and exasperation.

I loved Fred and George.

I always thought Percy Weasley was treated unfairly. I’m not overly fond of the “black sheep of the family ” concept.

I hated Bellatrix.

I adored Luna Lovegood.

I wanted to see more characters’s developments among the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws students, not just the unnecessary crap about Cho Chang, Zacharias Smith and Justin Flinch Fetcher.

I did not like Remus Lupin. But I loved Tonks.

And finally,

I think that there is something deeply unrealistic and wrong about the way the Slytherin House (in general) and Draco Malfoy (in particular) were depicted and imagined.

Source: i-am-aesthetica.tumblr.com

So let’s dive into that.

— ⊗ Μ ⊗ —

Draco Malfoy, The (Almost) Perfect Poster boy For Evil Spawn…

Now, there is no mistaken the fact that Draco Malfoy was an awful little brat during the six first books of the series.

Only child of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, he was obviously spoiled by his parents, spoiled with everything he truly did not need. A lot of money, extravagant gifts, tooth-rotting sweets, expensive clothes… nothing material was out of reach for him.

His father gifted the Slytherin Quidditch team with brand new and expensive Nimbus brooms once Draco became their seeker. His mother send him sweets and chocolate via owl every week.

So, yes. Draco Malfoy was spoiled but it became very obvious in the Chamber of secrets book that he was not as loved or as cherished as he would have liked his fellow students to believe. The scene between father and son that takes place in Borgin and Burkes shows that not only Lucius is not proud of his son but their relationship seems to be cold as well.

In the books, it’s very obvious that Draco worships the ground his father walks on. In terms of an accomplished, respected and even feared wizard, Lucius was the perfect, the only example that Draco had. He was raised from the cradle by a blood purist man, he was taught to despise everyone and everything his parents told him were inferior to him and as a son, a child sheltered from everything that could alter this twisted view of the world, a son desperate to please his parents, Draco never questioned it.

As the result to this, of course, he lacked the empathy and the compassion that characterized Harry. Draco had not being raised to experiment his own sufferings and therefore had no idea how to relate to the sufferings of others. He only grew up feeling like a failure to his father’s eyes and he had to strive to fix it. This is why the relationship J.K Rowling created between Harry and Draco is so interesting and well-played: She made that feeling of being a failure, of being worthless grow every time Draco lost to Harry in the books.

Credits and Source: @thanatosdementor.tumblr.com

None of this excuse the fact that Draco was a bully, cruel to others, a blood purist, ignorant, intolerant and manipulative. His father’s son.

The thing is, even as people despised his character, they started to relate to him more than they did to characters like Harry, Hermione or Ron. Why?

Because at the beginning of the books, he was the lowest of the low, the snake, the bully, the proverbial school nemesis of Harry Potter, and inside this tailored box, he struggled to become more. He struggled to beat Harry Potter at Quidditch, he struggled to make his father proud, he struggled to beat muggles-born at exams. Despite his more than dubious intentions and his selfishness, he fought again and again. While he was sometimes described as cowardly and actually behaved like it, he never gave up trying to overcome his shortcomings.

And that is what people root for in someone. The drive. The ambition. The determination to never stay down, no matter how much humiliation you endure, no matter how much it hurts.

Draco Malfoy: The Bitchy Underdog

Which brings me to my second point: people loves underdogs. I’ve got to admit it, it’s a little astonishing that such an awful character managed to provoked so much sympathy and even pity which in time definitely transformed into fondness and love for some fans. J.K Rowling certainly did not expect or want that.

But it happened.

No matter how awful of a villain you creates, if you keep beating him up, metaphorically or otherwise, if you introduce to the audience his inner struggles, his deepest insecurities and his tortured psyche, people will humanize him enough to break that black and white straight jacket you planned to trap him into.

Credit and source: @foolforfelton.tumblr.com

However the most interesting (and worthy of notice) thing about Malfoy is not who and what he was. It’s what and who he became, it’s how he evolved.

We all remember how Draco’s world crumbled and shattered in the sixth and seventh books. With Voldemort living in his home and forcing him to tortured people as a punishment for his obvious lack of murdering tendencies, Draco suddenly learned in the worse way what it felt like to have everything taken from you, your safety, your sanity and your freedom.

And we learned a lot more about him in those two last books, didn’t we? Much more than in the five previous ones. Stripped of his bully mask and false pride, what truly characterized Draco Malfoy?

His fear and his love.

Between the lines and the glimpses of his anguish, it’s a beautiful, terrible thing, the way his love is described in those books. Without restraint, without boundaries, without moral. He opened Hogwarts to the devastation that was the Death Eaters and Greyback. He did it because it was somehow more bearable than to have his parents killed. His love for them is made of devotion and annihilation. It’s almost the love of a slave. Lucius is certainly undeserving of it. The jury is still out for Narcissa.

His fear for his family and for himself, his fear of the Dark Lord and to a certain extent of Dumbledore is what ironically kept him safe. He did as he what told to do, no matter how tainted his soul became, no matter how much he did not want to. He made the deliberate choice to do wrong because he could not stand the consequences of doing the right thing. It became clear at the middle and the end of the Half Blood Prince that Draco knew he was in the wrong. He held no more disillusion about Voldemort or his father. But he could not stop.

Already tainted with the Dark Mark on his arm, already used to cast “Crucio” on his victims, Draco finally became the son Lucius always wanted while we learn who Draco Malfoy truly was or rather who he wasn’t:

A murderer. A monster.

harry potter spells + meanings (3/3) Source: lillypotter.tumblr.com

Instead he became a victim and at that, one that inspired the most bittersweet pity.

Draco Malfoy: The Fated Loser

At the end of the series, most people just described Malfoy as a loser. After all that how J.K Rowling spent the last seven books describing him. He constantly lost to Harry, to Hermione, even to Ron. He failed at pleasing his father, he failed at pleasing Voldemort, he even failed at accepting the flimsy and half-ass attempts of protection Snape and Dumbledore awkwardly offered him.

On Pottermore, J.K. Rowling described the entire Malfoy family as always involved in some evil and nefarious deeds. Apparently even the Malfoys from several generations removed were evil doers, somehow forever involved or even responsible for some awful and devastating events in the wizard or even muggle history. They were never ones to help people, they were completely unrepentant.

Oh, how I loathe that.

Credits: @LADYMCBETHS-DEACTIVATED20161110

The idea of that someone can never change. The idea that they are doomed to follow a dark path and will automatically end up bad, or hurting people because it’s in their blood. I hate that idea so much, that black and white judgmental tunnel-vision crap. Worse, the idea of an entire family always and forever rotten to the core?

That leaves me nauseous. What the hell?

That is not the real world. That is not how people work. Of course doing the right thing is never the easiest road and very few take it, especially if their entourage is urging them to do bad… but I believe that most people fight to overcome their worst selves and go against the current and try to better themselves, especially if they have suffered. Most people change.

I think the way J.K Rowling depicted the Malfoy family’s background as inherently bad and always following a dark path is why she suffered so much backlash from some parts of the fandom. Nobody is born evil. Nobody is born bad.

Yes, it would be harder to grow into your heart and into your soul if you were raised in a family that lacks the fundamental empathy you need to properly love the world but it is certainly not impossible. Nobody is predisposed to failed.

House Slytherin – Credits and Source: aly-naith.tumblr.com

The idea of houses in Hogwart is extremely divisive. Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Slytherin… Why on earth can you not be Brave and Cunning? Why should you only be clever and not loyal? Why can’t you be both? Why can’t you be courageous and ambitious and smart and honest?

Nobody is solely one thing, and while I perfectly understand why J.K. Rowling chose to create those houses, how interesting it is plot wise, I always thought it was kind of horrifying… kids striving under a hierarchy slash rivalry and growing up with a mob-like mentality in addition to the permanent certitude that there is always a “them” and a “us”.

Credits and source: @cruciatuz.tumblr.com

That cliche mirror effect… Rich vs Poor, Dark Wizard vs Light Wizard, Villains vs Heroes, Malfoys vs Weasleys, Draco Malfoy vs Harry Potter… It definitely wasn’t to the taste of everybody and I think it definitely help building up the defense of Draco Malfoy and his evolution from poisonous brat to cinnamon bun in the last two decades.

I’d like to point out that I always find it sarcastically ridiculous when some overzealous fans conveniently forget that Draco was an awful little bully and does deserves some of the hardships that fell upon him. Why would you want to paint him as the white dove, the poor, sheltered little darling who didn’t know better? He did know better.

If you truly want to understand and therefore appreciate the character, you have to accept his flaws. Who he was is relevant but who he became is what truly matters. That’s what is worth reading, what is worth noticing and appreciating. I like a good character’s growth…. Don’t you?

Which brings us to the latest installment of the Harry Potter series: The Cursed Child.

Yes, It is Exceptionally Lonely, Being Draco Malfoy… But It’s OK Too.

I went to the UK, in June 2016 to see the play of Harry potter and the Cursed Child in London Palace Theater. It was with the first original set of actors ever playing those characters in theater. Draco Malfoy was brilliantly played by Alex Price and he managed to make it painfully obvious how far Draco went in terms of personal growth.

Most importantly, with this play, J.K Rowling finally listen to the unhappy fans and gave to Draco what he never had in the first seven books: A win.

I told you earlier that Draco was described and then tagged as a loser in the books; He never won against Harry and suffered many humiliating moments, some deserved, some not so much.

However, in the Cursed Child, there is one area where Draco is definitely better than Harry: Parenting.

Credit and source: @awanqi.tumblr.com

Despite the fact that he had Lucius as a father, Draco, while having a lot of trouble expressing his affections for his son, is definitely a better father than Harry is.

Granted, Scorpius is less of a pain in the ass than Albus, but the credit goes to his upbringing. Draco and Astoria did everything they could not to repeat the past. Harry unknowingly made Albus believe than nothing was more important than the past. Scorpius is nothing like Draco was at his age and while Harry is busy trying to relate to hi son and basically wants to control him, he just managed to make everything about himself, which is something Albus hates. Draco wants Scorpius to be leader, not a follower, like he was. He refuses to see his son influenced by others, which does create some father/son issues between them but ultimately, it’s very clear that what he wants the most is to see his son happy. He is determined to make sure Scorpius is happy.

Draco is a widower, he is forever under suspicion due to his past, there is no escaping it. he is heart-broken, he is lonely and yet when realizing that Scorpius made friends with the son of the person he loathes the most, he simply tries to keep them together when Harry is determined to separate them.

When confronted by the awful rumors that his late wife, the love of his life, might have had a child with Voldemort, Draco defended her honor and let’s face it, would have own Harry in that duel match if Ginny had not interrupted.

He doesn’t hold a prestigious position in the ministry like Harry, he is not the minister like Hermione, but he is definitely playing at their level magically and maybe even above since he studied and mastered basic alchemy, like Nicolas Flamel did before him.

He flirts with power but never cross the line. He grew up. He matured for the better and while it doesn’t sound like his life will ever be free of pain and sadness, while he will probably always somehow pay for his past sins, he had managed to let go of everything inside him that wants to hate and destroy, and he kept on loving and protecting.

Now… isn’t that the mantel of heroes?

Credit and source: @awanqi.tumblr.com

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why it’s OK to like Draco Malfoy.

— ⊗ Μ ⊗ —

I hope you enjoyed this first edition of my new series Geek Talks. Let me know what you think of Draco Malfoy and the Slytherin house, which house are you? Which house would you like to be?

I’ll see you’all soon for a new talk!

Stay excellent.

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Draco Malfoy: From Poisonous Brat to Cinnamon Bun – A Study | Geek talk Series Welcome to the first edition of the Geek Talk series. It should come as no surprise that today's topic is related to Harry Potter...

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