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eruden-writes · 2 years

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Room & Board - Part 12 (Vampire x Reader)

Anon submitted this prompt: For the prompt submissions a vampire that feels guilty after feeding/attacking someone so they leave obscenely valuable ancient artifacts as payment/an apology?

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x x x x x

Early access to Part 13 when it’s ready will be available on Patreon!

Comments, tags, and reblogs are real motivators for me, too! (●ˇ∀ˇ●)

Also, my inbox is always open for asks, so don’t be shy!

x x x x x

April 20, 1882

It has been 2 weeks since my last entry. Regrettably, there has not been much to report.

I have continued to visit Tabaeus and provide sustenance when requested. Others have not seemed to realize Tabaeus's dwindling feral appearance as their body shifts to something more human.

The council hasn't decided what to do with the creature. Caged, Tabaeus has been nullified. They have not fed on non-consenting parties nor shown any hostility, unless provoked.

However, a few entrepreneuring minds have tossed in the idea of 'leasing' Tabaeus out to interested parties. Thus, the vampyr would become a source of revenue for the town and a plaything for scientists or doctors with deep enough pockets.

I do not know how to feel about that option, yet there is not much else to consider at this point in time. If there were a way to reverse the vampyrism, perhaps. Which, I suppose, would be reason enough to allow learned minds to study or test Tabaeus.

Tabaeus's screams from Dr. Forsythe's surgery still haunts me, however. I do hope the council puts restrictions on such activities.

May 10th, 1882

The council has concluded to lease out the vampyr.

Tabaeus will remain in the morgue's basement, which has been equipped with safety measures such as silver bars at most exits and religious seals. In hopes of renewed coffers, the mortician has been relocated.

All studies and experiments are to take place on these premises. Interested parties shall be charged weekly, a hefty sum which varies according to the research or experiments to be accomplished.

I will stay on as a keeper, for now. My duties will include recording pertinent findings and relaying other research that may aid a doctor or scientist in their own work. I am also tasked with caring for Tabaeus, as one would an animal.

There is not much to the task, however. I simply provide him food and liquids, perhaps some entertainment by the way of books or art supplies. Something to give him stimulation in that dreary dark crypt of a basement.

I still do not know how to feel about this decision. If Tabaeus could be wrenched from the clutches of corrupt darkness, however, perhaps it will be worth it.

For the rest of the day and into the next, you continue to read Dr. Kieran Bennett's journal. Tabaeus often makes themselves scarce, when they see you nose-deep in the book, perhaps worried about what else you have found.

Or what you will find out.

You shove all suspicions away for the time being. For now, you just want to get through this journal and perhaps answer questions that have been itching at your brain.

Numerous entries fill the pages of the journal, once it's decided to "rent out" Tabaeus. They cover the better part of almost two years since Tabaeus's 1882 discovery. Many new names, new people come through.

Doctors, scientists, students. Even a few priests who try to 'sway Tabaeus's soul toward the light.' Sometimes, the fresh faces linger for months. Other times, they flitter in to get a specimen from Tabaeus or try a small, insignificant theory, before being lost to time.

Garlic has no effect. Silver can burn, but not to a huge detriment. Other than being an annoyance, spilled beans or small pebbles did not paralyze Tabaeus until they were all counted.

All through it, Dr. Kieran Bennett stays by Tabaeus's side. He sleeps in the upper part of the once-morgue, presumably in an apartment where the mortician once lived. Faintly, you wonder how often Kieran let Tabaeus roam the house, if at all. Kieran's tone when it comes to Tabaeus fluctuates over the course of their acquaintanceship.

There are times you swear Kieran is fond of Tabaeus, if not outright loves them. Then the usage of 'creature' and 'it' returns, to once more establish a cold distance.

Eventually, you stumble upon an entry unlike the others.

January 4, 1884

A new figure has arrived on the scene. A one Lord ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛. He is allegedly learned in occult studies, medicines, herbology, and more. A modern day Renaissance scholar with a particular interest in unholy things, whether they be items or creatures.

He arrived last night and I have yet to meet him.

With squinting eyes, you try to make out the name that has been blotted out. It is impossible, though. Whether it's due to the ink or time that has passed, you can't make out the once scrawled name nor can you decipher it through the indents of the paper.

Quietly, you hazard a glance at Tabaeus. For once, they have remained close on the opposite end of the couch as you read, although there's still a healthy distance between the two of you. They're focused on their own book - ironically a vampire romance - while Liuva and Bjarka sleep in the pocket of their overall dress.

You wonder if it's worth it to ask them about the redacted name. Likely, it won't be. They won't remember or claim not to remember. But, it couldn't hurt.

With a nudge of your foot against their side, Tabaeus glances up from their book. They toss you an easy smile, delighted at your attention, but their expression falls, seeing the look on your face. "Yes?"

"Do you know who this is?" You turn the journal around, holding it open with one hand and pointing to the smeared ink.

Much as how you did, Tabaeus leans forward and narrows their eyes at the page. You watch their lips minutely move as they read the passage, their brows furrowing as they came to the blot. Their lips press together tight as their eyes drop, but you're not sure if they're trying to remember or trying to come up with an excuse.

"Regrettably, I do not know exactly what it says," Tabaeus sighs, but their eyebrows do not relax. You want to say they're struggling to remember, parting the curtains of time to find the answer, but you can't be sure. "He is an important figure, intimidating. It is all hazy, however."

A contemplative hum drops from your lips as you settle back into the couch. You and Tabaeus share an uncertain look across the space between you. Though you've continued to allow feedings, continued to trust Tabaeus despite the tenuous and muddled situation, there's a part of you still wary. And they are aware of that part.

You see the pain that crosses their features whenever the subject surfaces. It makes an answering ache twinge through your own chest.

"Alright," you shrug and sigh, turning back to the journal. You feel Tabaeus's red gaze linger on you as your re-read the passage, trying to immerse yourself in the words once more. Soon enough, they too return to their book.

January 27, 1884

I do not trust Lord ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛.

Tabaeus becomes tense whenever the man is around. They are clearly upset by Lord ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛'s presence. When asked, they cannot - or will not - say why. No matter how badly they are pressed.

Lord ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛'s treatments appear to be more cruelty than cure, as well.

I fear I feel the same as Tabaeus when it comes to my mistrust of this newcomer. However, my apprehension may be more personal than professional.

Too many townspeople have been discussing my lack of marital inquiries and my disinterest in finding a wife. Oftentimes, they dredge up my time spent with Tabaeus in the next breath.

It has grown... uncomfortable in town.

I do not know if Lord ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ simply picked up on it from burgeoning rumors or if his presence is what allowed the seeds of rumor to take root.

I fear my time here is coming to a close, very soon.

It will be difficult to say goodbye.

You turn the page, wondering who this Lord Blot is, what he was doing. Did he have something to do with Dr. Kieran's proclivities coming to light? Or was it simply happenstance, of a man who spent so much time in the company of a vampire?

Your eyes widen as you stare at the next page.

There is no date, but there is a frantically scrawled words, taking up the better part of the page.

HE IS NOT AS HE APPEAR

Mid-word, the ink makes a harsh line down before a splatter of ink messes the page. But that is not what causes you pause.

Most of the paper is stained a grimy reddish brown. You carefully lift the page, finding the stain has soaked through the remaining pages.

With a realization that makes something in your heart cringe back, you realize there are no further entries.

"Are you feeling well?" Tabaeus's quiet question rouses you from a swirl of nausea.

Feeling more than a little lightheaded, your attention flickers to them. Your eyes wide as your lips part to answer. Then your gaze flickers back to the book. Had Tabaeus killed Kieran? Had the Lord Blot?

Hell, you don't even know if Kieran was dead after writing that passage. Perhaps he just suffered a terrible injury and still lived. But who suffers such an injury while journaling?

"Amata?" You hear Tabaeus set his own book aside and sense, more than feel, their hand hover toward your shoulder. They do not touch you, though. You're not sure if you're grateful for that or not.

"I believe Dr. Kieran Bennett was injured or killed while writing this final passage." Your words are soft as you flip through the stained parchment. Faintly, you wonder if Tabaeus knows that stain is blood, if they could smell or sense it somehow. The air around Tabaeus becomes heavier, colder.

After a quiet moment, you hear them swallow and tentatively ask, "What did it say?"

"Dr. Kieran didn't finish it, entirely." "But I presume the whole statement was: He is not as he appears."

Tabaeus falls silent again, red eyes wide and eyebrows tilted upward. You cannot meet their gaze. Instead, you tilt your attention back to the book. Your teeth worry the inside of your cheek as you think.

Could the 'he' in Kieran's warning be about Tabaeus? Or the blotted out name?

Perhaps the blotted name was Tabaeus's own doing, you think with a start. Maybe it was the name of someone that did know how to do away with vampires, a hunter of some sort. It would make sense for a vampire to be leery of such a figure. Would a vampire's possible lover also have to worry?

When you tilt your attention back to Tabaeus, misery is painted across their features. They see the suspicions clearly on your face.

"Amata," they start weakly. You're not sure what they're going to say. Perhaps once more asking for your trust, reasserting their own uncertainty. Maybe, they were going to suggest parting ways.

Whatever they were about to say, you interrupted as you held up one of the later passages. You jabbed at the splotch of ink with your finger. "Did you blot this name out?"

Tabaeus's lips thin at your question. Now they look away. Your stomach is already in the process of sinking when they answer, "Yes. I blotted the name out a long time ago."

"Why?" The word comes out desperate and exasperated on your lips. As much as you want to believe them, you cannot ignore the conflicted feelings itching at your insides. There was too much piling up against Tabaeus. There wasn't enough information coming straight from the vampire.

They reached up to their head, running a clawed hand through their hair. A mix of expressions pinches their features and their eyes dart around, finding the right words and forcing them out, "I am... afraid of them."

"Who?" Half-answers, non-answer. It's all threading frustration through your thoughts. The only reason you can think Tabaeus to be afraid of anyone was if they were a hunter. Your thoughts spin back to the box, where the journal was safely lodged. Maybe this Lord had killed Kieran and Tabaeus had killed this Lord? Your mind spins with potential answers, but no way to verify any of them. "Why were you afraid of them?"

"I can't say," moans Tabaeus, pressing their face into their hands. You watch them as they scoot even further away, bringing their knees to their chest. As they curl up - though careful of the sugar gliders in their breast pocket - against the far end of the couch. Their shoulders hunch, their voice pitching into pleading though they expect to not be believed. "Please, believe me when I say I couldn't remember them."

With a disgruntled sigh, you snap the journal closed a little harsher than you mean to. From the corner of your eye, you notice Tabaeus flinch at the sound.

Silence blankets the both of you, neither of you looking to the other.

Tabaeus is a flawed source of confirmation and answers. You knew this. Catching your lower lip between your teeth, you try to calm your spiraling thoughts and consider other options.

You still need to research Dr. Kieran Bennett. Perhaps you can access some old records somewhere, via the library. Part of you worries what you'll find out, though.

A chime from your phone draws you from your tense thoughts. Picking it up from the couch's arm, you find a text from Ewan. After a glance to Tabaeus, who is pitifully skulking further into teh couch, you read the message.

Hey! Wanna go get some dinner and catch a movie tonight? We can catch up. ;)

Surprisingly, the message manages to draw a pleasant warmth in your chest, pushing away the cold and dread. After the last couple days, literally binge-reading the journal, you could use a dose of fun. A quick glance to Tabaeus makes you realize they could use it too. You'd been so consumed by the journal, the two of you hadn't really hung out. Not in the fun sense, at least.

Your attention slowly turns back to your phone. Ewan and Tabaeus likely wouldn't want to hang out together, you realize. A swell of disappointment expands in your chest at that thought. Leaving Tabaeus alone, after all of this, seems mean-spirited, as well.

It's not until your phone dings again that you realize Ewan started typing again.

If you'd feel more comfortable bringing your roomie, feel free to.

You just stare at your phone, surprised by Ewan's concession. Considering how both of them acted the other night, you thought you'd have to twist both their arms when it came to being in the same room. Hanging out hadn't even been a consideration, honestly.

Getting Tabaeus to agree, however, might be another problem. Sly-like, you peer over at the vampire, who still huddles far from you. Their expression appears strained and creased. Whatever Tabaeus is thinking of is definitely weighing them down.

Tentatively, you quietly interrupt the heavy silence. "Want to go to dinner and a movie with Ewan and me?"

Tabaeus perks up at your voice, but noticeably deflates at the mention of Ewan. Their arms tighten around their stockinged legs, their eyes refusing to meet yours. "I don't know."

Trying to revive some playfulness in the air, you lean toward Tabaeus with a teasing smile. "Well, if you don't come, Ewan will be all alone with me."

You almost cringe at how half-hearted the delight in your voice sounds. It's proving to be hard, shaking off all the heavy atmosphere.

"Why are you doing this?" Tabaeus sighs and their red eyes flicker to you. Their gaze seems duller than it usually is and you can almost see a cloud of gloomy miasma around them.

At their question, your eyebrows furrow, completely uncomprehending. "What do you mean?"

"How can you live with me if you don't trust me? Why offer to hang out after all that?" Tabaeus pushes themself off the couch, pacing back and forth along it. The sudden movement startles the sugar gliders, who squeak their complaints away. Tabaeus doesn't hear them, though. Their long arms stretch down to the hem of their dress, fussing with the edge of the fabric. "It'd be simpler if you just... just..."

You want to ask 'if I just what?' But you can't. Tabaeus gave you the vampire hunter box with clear intent. And after reading Kieran's journal, you know they'd been kept in a basement for years, experimented on, and even suffered through multiple surgeries.

What other misfortunes had they lived through that hadn't been recorded? Even if Tabaeus was lying about their memory, could it stem from the string of bad luck that seems to have followed them? An ache pierces your chest at that thought. Perhaps there were reasons for Tabaeus's memory problems, beyond trickery or genuine amnesia.

"A lot of things could make this whole situations simpler," you sigh when Tabaeus seems unable to come up with a course of action. If only there was a clear reason for their memory loss. If only there had been more explicit information in the journal. If only, if only, if only... A million thoughts spin around your head, but you shake your head, dispersing them.

Slowly, you get to your feet and approach the vampire. Pausing in front of them, you cross your arms, angling your head to look up at them. "I'm having a hard time believing you would hurt me, but there's still that suspicion that this, how you are, is an act."

Panicked and anguished, Tabaeus's voice crackles as they squawk, "It's not!"

An apologetic smile spreads over your lips, which doesn't seem to ease the woe in Tabaeus's features. Another blanket of silence briefly covers you both. Tabaeus towers over you, their shoulders hunched, staring at their hands still fiddling with their own skirt.

"Look, I think I got too deep, too fast, in this journal." You reach for the book, holding it up and waggling it in the air. With a toss, you throw it back onto the couch. Just holding it makes your head hurt, recalling all the awful things inside its pages. "I need to cleanse my palate and Ewan offered to hang out. Even extended the invite to you."

At that, Tabaeus looks up, surprise glinting in their eyes.

You can't help but smile, almost seeing the thoughts banging about Tabaeus's head. A werewolf extending an invitation to a vampire? How absurd.

Clinging to that image, and other amusements the night may yet bring, your smile finally feels genuine after a long hiatus. "I thought we both could use an outing."

"Perhaps," Tabaeus murmurs, their eyes flickering to your smile. The tension in their stance relaxes, apparently put further at eas with the return of your more pleasant smile.

"Let's forget about this for now and get gussied up." With a renewed sense of vigor, you type a reply out to Ewan - agreeing to meet and saying you would bring Tabaeus - before looking up at Tabaeus again. As your grin broadens, you wink at the vampire. "I'll even let you pick out my outfit."

"Oh," Tabaeus's voice has gone soft, their eyes widening a little. They had asked to dress you, on multiple occasions. Sometimes as a joke, but occasionally a sincere note bled into their words. Now, they shake their head. "You do not want me doing that."

Their hesitance only serves to deepen your amusement. "Why not?"

Tabaeus makes a noise, deep in their throat. Too ashamed to put their thoughts into words. Now, you're simply curious what they have in mind. Feeling more bold and amiable than earlier, you take their hand in yours. Their fingers flex at the sudden touch, before they ease into it.

"Well, let's get ready and knock Ewan dead." Excited to shove the despair away for the evening, you start pulling Tabaeus up to your room. However, you pause and squint up at the suddenly delighted smile pulled across the vampire's face. You sigh when you realize what you had said. "Figuratively knock Ewan dead."

"Killjoy," Tabaeus mumbles as their face falls a little. You snort and roll your eyes, pulling them back up the stairs and toward your room.

Thoughts of the journal - of Kieran and Lord Blot and everything else in those pages - gets shoved to the back of your head. You are still on vacation from work. You have a house. Your roomie is a vampire - who can foot your bills for life - and, quite possibly, a former co-worker is a werewolf.

There would be time to dwell on the past later.

Tonight, you just wanted fun.

#exophilia #exo writing #monster x reader #vampire x reader #monster romance #vampire romance #vampire #monster #monster lover #vampire lover #vampire datemate #vampire boyfriend #monster boyfriend #tabaeus #reader #amata #wait until you see what Tabaeus puts you in #;3 #lol

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automatismoateo · 2 months

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Off My Chest: I Hate Christianity. Heres why. via /r/atheism

Off My Chest: I Hate Christianity. Here’s why. To be fair, I find all religions awful. Even Buddhism which gets a pass in our culture has some seriously disgusting beliefs (tldr kids with cancer deserve it). Yet Christianity seems to be the only religion in the USA which increasingly affects my day to day life. From my healthcare to where my tax dollars go. I grew up in this nonsense. I went through conversion therapy. Just learning about evolution in school was met with massive protests. Heck, I was even kidnapped by a church as a kid while being forced to hear the gospel. As I got older, I really wanted to get involved more in charity only to learn that most of the tax free churches basically did none. They’d get money to help with homelessness then didn’t. They’d get money for addiction programs and didn’t do anything except a “pray the addiction away program.” At one point I proposed a cooperative business to restore citizens with criminal records and I was told “it’s better to keep them materially poor so they can be spiritually rich.” This church (Xenos Christian Fellowship) later received a $1 million PPP loan which was also forgiven. What really separated me from the Christian church was doubt. Even at 5 years old I was filled with doubt. I’d be told to read some book and I did, but was always left wanting. I studied theology for I could enter church leadership and we’d talk about the more scary parts of the Bible: Old Testament genocide and infanticide. Now we’d write off genocide as the murdered having deserved it, but infants? What did they do? Well there’s two answers: god can do what we want (but this also implies he’s a dick sending a lot of people to hell) or the more accepted answer: those kids were killed before the age of responsibility and thus got a pretty nice gift. Of course when 2016 rolled around and my church backed Trump because he would undo roe v wade, I had to ask: why? Wouldn’t it make more sense for abortion to keep happening to spare those lives? Hell we should be rounding kids now! Just as you’d put a suffering animal out of its misery, we could save multitudes from eternal damnation. The big problem with doubt in the Christian church is that at a certain point they make it a character issue: this doubt isn’t legitimate because you’ve been deceived by satan. Nevermind gods hands off attitude when being deceived by the second most intelligent creature around… it’s an escape hatch for religious leaders without answers. My question had me speaking with so many religious leaders and they couldn’t use the “deceived” logic. The calculus is self-evident. They’d just say “look you have to believe! What else is there?” Nothing. And that’s okay. I hate having given so much of my life to this religion, I go to therapy and it helps. However, none of this made me hate Christianity. It gives people comfort. You do you boo! Hell I’m not consumed with hate when they get loans that are forgiven. But over the last decade I’ve built a wonderful life for myself that doesn’t involve Christianity, but day by day that’s encroached upon arbitrarily. My healthcare. My freedom of speech and thought. There’s double standards in almost every aspect of my life. You can take my money and get your tax breaks, but let me have my damn autonomy. Haven’t you had enough? I hate Christianity. Truly. And I hate the idiotic Christians I have to encounter day to day. And it’s not because Satan corrupted me You really are just that insufferable. We could just leave each other alone, but here we are. Submitted April 02, 2024 at 08:42PM by TheKimulator (From Reddit https://ift.tt/X26aycl)

#reddit

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pepperonitimeline · 4 years

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There is an interesting emphasis on timelines in Steven Universe

but like. Why?

Hypothesis: Steven Universe is made up of multiple timelines, but shown in an order that makes the events seem linear. read part 2 here!

I'm not the first person to speculate this at all. A lot of this stuff has been pointed out by @dogcopter @arrozbrillante @stevenutheories and many others on various platforms!

I just gathered the most conspicuous "evidence" into 1 post. If you’re interested in SU theory and analysis you should check out their blogs. :o) This was as short as I could make it..

And a big thank you to @love-takes-work for her podcast summaries!!!

So, most ostensibly there’s Garnet, who can see multiple futures. In Pool Hopping she begins to call her visions timelines specifically.

Garnet: In this timeline, we do the opposite of that. Hey, you! Have a pizza!

Steven: Hey, Vidalia's house is around here. Let's bring her the last pie.

Garnet: Now, that would be nice. She must be upset that her son was taken into space by those Homeworld Gems. (referring to the events of I Am My Mom)

Steven: You mean Onion? He isn't in space. He's right over there. *points*

Garnet: Sorry, I-I must be thinking of a different timeline.

Garnet: My bad. I was sure we were in the pepperoni timeline.

Garnet: It's important to keep in mind that all these horrible things did happen to you in alternate timelines. Safety is fun.

In Steven and The Stevens:

Yeah

It was confirmed on the podcast that the Steven we see from that episode on is a different Steven than the one from episodes 1-21. In “The Fantasy of Steven Universe” Sugar explains:

"I think, early on, we knew for sure what we wanted to do was to create episodes that feel self-contained but give you a new piece of information or change the characters fundamentally. So, Steven and the Stevens, is tight but Steven does change fundamentally after having that experience. He's not the same- in THAT case he's LITERALLY not the same character..."

It’s muffled because they're all laughing but right after they say this Matt Burnett goes “He died.”

Link to the episode

Love-takes-work also has a text summary of the episode

youtube

But something I haven't seen discussed very much is the time travel chase scene. Granted it’s very blink-and-you’ll miss it, there are some Stevens who witness the other Steven’s fighting but that don’t end up in the Sea Shrine at the end.

Way back in 2015 @stevenutheories already did the math as to how many alternate timelines may have stemmed from the time shenanigans: 3 to 5. Not counting the original one who is definitively gone.

Technically quantum mechanics don’t work like that and those Stevens should have been Thanos’d too. I’m not going to pretend I understand physics, that is just what I’ve been told by someone who does. But then again the magic time thingy wasn’t bound by rules of real-life physics in the first place… so ??

Let’s cross-examine SATS’ accompanying KBCW post.

“At any given moment, if you asked me what I was thinking about, the answer would be one of two things: katana swords, or THE POSSIBILITY OF ALTERNATE TIMELINES RUNNING PARALLEL TO OUR OWN!

Proving the existence of these timelines can be pretty tricky, even for a seasoned paranormal investigator such as myself. An inter-temporal incursion caused by the momentary weakening of the time-space continuum doesn’t really photograph well. And all the cross dimensional time travelers I know don’t want to go on the record about their experiences. Frankly, the only thing I can submit as evidence of alternate timelines is the fact that THEY ARE PROBABLY JUST SO COOL AND AWESOME THAT THEY HAVE TO BE REAL.

Think about it! What about a universe where that asteroid missed Earth and we had DINOSAURS for pets instead of dogs? Or a universe where someone was like “Hey, zeppelins are way cooler than planes, let’s just do that!” Or a universe where AN ALTERNATE VERSION OF ME CAN GROW A FULL BEARD?! What an amazing life that Ronaldo must have… in THIS stupid reality I have a really hard time getting my moustache to connect to the rest of my facial hair and it’s incredibly frustrating.”

KBCW and Ronaldo’s commentary in general are usually half-right. Like the “Polymorphic Sentient Rocks are aliens who want to hollow out the earth… to make it lighter so they can transport it back to their star system” thing.

I can't help but think the "Dinosaurs for pets instead of dogs" is a reference to the live action Super Mario Bros. movie- where the meteor that killed the dinosaurs sent them to a parallel universe instead, causing mammals to go instinct in said universe. (Don’t know about the zeppelins.)

And then, and THEN there’s Keep Beach City Safe, KBCW’s more obscure rival blog run by (most likely) Onion under the pseudonym "The Observer". Apparently he’s planted cameras all over town to record Steven’s adventures. There's also a "Recruiter" and second mystery narrator calling themselves "Marco Díez", it's a whole thing,

Assuming it’s real, here’s one of the posts I think are the most relevant.

“I have been on zero gem hunts over the years, and what i have learned over the years is: always be prepared for anything, and everything. Connie’s already knows that and this her first mission. I, wasn’t so fortunate on my first mission. It was a crisp Autumn morning, - with notes of cinnamon in the air. I was the mountains, the air temperature, humidity and level elevation levels, were perfect.

Then, I noticed the creature, it was charging me. I tried to evade the gem monster, but it just kept on coming, and coming! There was no escape! And then- Wait! I just remembered. I never been on a gem hunt! So where did I get that story from?”

This was posted on August 1st alongside Gem Hunt… and the day after the Greg The Babysitter post, which was deleted earlier this year, right after people started interacting with it again.

Being a Babysitter is hard, especially if your Greg Universe. This guy, in the picture above me. Wait did I just become self aware? Hey, I did! Haha, I always knew I was more to me than just a narrator. Actually this is the first time I thought about, Because I'm self aware baby! Woohoo, yeah! Wait, what was I talking about? Ah yes, Gregory. So this Greg guy,Has to Babysit this cool baby, because he owes her for letting him mooch off her. And Greg, is like totally irresponsible, he some how lets the baby climb a Ferris Wheel. How does that even happen? This dude is so not getting payed. And what's up with his hair!?!

So here it is, another story, told by Greg, about his past self. I wonder how many times I started a paragraph with the word so. And when he was telling this story, we got some clues that could finally tell use when all of this started. We know about the gems and what happened thousands of years ago, but we don't know about the hems and what happened thousands of years ago. They wee being very vague about the whole thing. Almost intentionally, well it was obsessively intentional.

There are subtle inconsistencies in Beach City's layout. ("The Observer" points this out, too.)

Remember Danny’s? In Bubble Buddies and Joking Victim, there’s a shop named Danny’s Salt Water Taffy.

Then in Watermelon Steven it’s gone.

As for a prop: Chaaaaps used to just be Chips

That’s from Monster Buddies, the episode right after Steven and The Stevens.

It's just as likely someone on the show simply thought the background/chips looked a little too busy or whatever. But re-doing stuff costs a lot of time and money, yknow? Neither of which is the animation industry very generous about. Did you know even props have model sheets?

Of course it could just be another brand of chips. Maybe Utz got involved somehow.

Lastly I want to highlight a quote from a Rebecca Sugar interview regarding SU ending.

“The story is continuing off screen and I do know what happens next, at least in certain timelines, for the characters,” Sugar says. “But I would have to decide how and when I’d want to dig into that, or if it’s best to give them their privacy.”

yeah so like what the fuck

#steven universe theory #su theory #long post #multiple timeline theory #deep lore #don't judge my blog theme im still working on it #only 2014 kids remember Danny's Salt Water Taffy

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noirandchocolate · 3 years

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All right, since I was asked very nicely by a couple people when I complained in general about how Americans don’t get properly taught about their own Constitutional rights, here is a post explaining why, in the US, jurors are not permitted to do their own research outside the courtroom (even if they think something a witness said might be incorrect or ‘wrong’).

The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution states that a person may not be deprived of her life, liberty, or property “without due process of law.” More specifically, the Sixth Amendment guarantees a criminal defendant the right to a trial by “an impartial jury,” and the right to be “confronted with the witnesses against him.”

The “impartial jury” rule has been interpreted to mean, among other things, that the jury must make its decision based solely on the evidence presented in court, and that the verdict must not be tainted by outside influences. The “witness confrontation” rule also comes into play with this topic, as I’ll explain below. But basically, the short answer to the question “why can’t jurors do their own research?” is “because the Constitution says they can’t, and the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.” But that doesn’t explain WHY that’s the rule, and is therefore unsatisfying, so here’s some good reasons why a criminal defendant shouldn’t want jurors to be able to consider things outside the evidence presented at their trial!

1) Publicity--One of the major things jurors are instructed not to look at while a trial is ongoing is news media. Why? Because news outlets are not forbidden from reporting about ongoing criminal matters (First Amendment!), and exposure to such publicity can jeopardize the impartiality of a juror. Let’s say you are charged with robbing a convenience store, and your trial has just started. A news reporter posts an article online about the robbery. It has a pretty sensational headline, something like “Father of Two Threatened with Gun in Convenience Store Holdup.” A juror hearing your case, let’s call him Rick, is curious about the location of the store, and googles its name. The news article comes up and Rick sees this headline. Oh, wow, the cashier has kids? He was threatened? It was a “holdup”? That sounds terrible!! Humans are very susceptible creatures and can be swayed by all kinds of things. Would you, the defendant, want Rick to read that headline, much less the article giving out a bunch of details that haven’t (yet, or ever) been revealed in court? Would you trust Rick to listen to your side of the story, and base his decision in your case on the evidence in court, after reading such inflammatory things about the incident?

Many times, very high-profile cases are moved out of the jurisdiction where they would normally be tried, because the local area has been inundated with pretrial publicity making it difficult to find jurors who haven’t heard about the case and formed some kind of opinion, conscious or unconscious, about it. Keeping a sitting jury from being exposed to media publicity during a trial is just as important.

2) Right to Confront Witnesses--As stated above, the Sixth Amendment guarantees this. What does it mean? That the prosecution must base its case on witness testimony and evidence that it puts before the jury in court, and you the defendant must be given a chance to cross-examine those witnesses about their testimony and the evidence presented, to call its truth into question, challenge whether it establishes all the elements of the crime you’re charged with, or otherwise poke holes in the case against you. This is the reason hearsay evidence is barred unless one of a number of exceptions applies. So what does that have to do with jurors doing outside research?

In our faux robbery trial, let’s say that juror Keisha thought there were some gaps or inconsistencies in the cashier’s testimony, so she looks him up online to see if he talked about being robbed on social media closer to when it happened. Not only does she find his tweets from right after the incident, which bolster the story he told on direct examination (and that your counsel did their best to bash holes in during cross), she finds his cousin’s Facebook. The cousin has an emotionally charged post about how the cashier came to her house sobbing after talking to police, and everything he told her about the robbery. During deliberations, Keisha shares the tweets and the cousin’s post with the other jurors. Now, wouldn’t you be mad if you found out that there was another witness against you in the case (the cousin) that you didn’t get a chance to question? Wouldn’t you be upset to hear that the jurors were using the cashier’s tweets as evidence for your guilt, when the prosecutor didn’t present them in court and you didn’t get an opportunity to ask the cashier about them (and they may have been inadmissible, as discussed below)? Your Sixth Amendment right to confrontation has been violated, because a juror did outside research!

3) Expert Witnesses--This is obviously linked with the last point. When explaining evidence will involve some technical knowledge, the prosecution may present an “expert” witness to provide that background and knowledge. Such an expert might or might not have any other link to the current case. For example, where a gun is involved in a crime, a ballistics expert might be called to testify in general about bullet calibers, how guns work and how bullets can be matched to them, etc., and then may be asked to provide an expert opinion based on that knowledge--perhaps whether, after performing some examination, she believes a bullet fired into the floor of the convenience store during the robbery appears to “match” with a gun found in your home. Before an expert witness may provide such testimony, both the prosecution and the defense will ask her questions about her qualifications as an expert, such as her education on the subject, whether she has any certifications in the field, whether she attends ongoing training to update her knowledge, things like that. Then, the judge will make a finding whether the qualifications are sufficient for her to testify as an expert, and will tell the jury that it should consider those qualifications when deciding whether her opinion has any weight.

Now, for an example, let’s say juror Winn didn’t think the ballistics expert sounded very certain about matching the bullet to the gun police claim they found in your home, and is wondering how much weight they should even give the witness’s testimony. At home, they do a quick google search to see if the kind of gun police claim was at your house uses the type of bullet they found at the store. They find a website listing many types of guns and bullets, read that the gun can indeed fire that type of bullet, and even see the site creator’s opinion that this kind of gun is an “assault weapon” and that those bullets are particularly damaging. During deliberations, Winn tells the other jurors what they learned. Whoops! That website may have been used by the jury as an “expert witness,” despite the fact that its creator may only be a hobbyist gun enthusiast without formal education! You didn’t get to question this mysterious person about their qualifications to speak about ballistics, you didn’t get to cross-examine their opinions...and you should really file an appeal if you’re convicted.

4) Inadmissible Evidence--Prior to any criminal trial, there will probably be at least some discussion (and motions) by your counsel and the prosecutor about whether certain evidence is admissible at trial. For example, your lawyer might move to suppress your confession to police, because they used improper interrogation tactics or violated your Miranda rights. Or, if you have a prior record, the State might try to submit evidence of your earlier convictions (a type of evidence that is highly prejudicial, because it makes it look like you’re “a criminal,” particularly if your prior conviction involves a similar offense to the one currently charged). In fact, let’s go with that example. Let’s say you have a prior conviction for assault, from several years ago. The court rules that the prosecution may not bring up that conviction to make you look bad during their case. However, if you choose to testify, the prosecutor will be allowed to ask you some basic information about it--its degree, and when it happened, but NOT what offense it was for--so the jury can assess the credibility of your testimony with the knowledge that you have broken the law before. Maybe you choose to testify anyway, and that “sanitized” (a legal term) info is told to the jury.

Hearing that you had a prior conviction, Amir is curious, and searches for your name and the phrase “conviction.” He finds the record of your conviction, which is public, and finds out it was for assault. Well, the very information the court ruled inadmissible is soon shared with the whole jury, and several members now think of you not just as someone with some vague prior offense, but as someone who assaults people. You know. Like a robber does. Alternatively, let’s say you decided not to testify, because you worried that the jury would find out you had a prior conviction and become biased against you. So, the prosecutor wasn’t allowed to talk about the subject at all. But Amir still wondered in general about what kind of person you are, so he still did his google search for your name and found out about your conviction anyway. You gave up your chance to tell your side of the story, and the jury still discovered exactly what you wanted to hide!

This point can also dovetail with the prior ones. What if Amir found your mom’s blog post where she mentioned how you confessed the robbery to police, despite the fact that the judge ruled your confession inadmissible and the jury would otherwise have no idea it existed? The jury now knows that you “confessed,” but since the confession was never discussed at trial you didn’t have a chance to cross-examine the cops that interrogated you about the subject. So the jury doesn’t know they withheld food from you for hours and wouldn’t let you speak to your attorney. As far as the jury knows, the cops did nothing wrong! You didn’t get the chance to confront that evidence against you.

5) Mistakes or Misinformation--Seriously, a website might have a typo in it. The problem can be as stupid and yet as vital as that. Plenty of sites have agendas or viewpoints they’re trying to push, too. Sure, a person testifying in court might lie (on pain of being found out and charged with perjury!) or make a mistake or not remember something correctly. But it’s a really bad idea to add into that mix the chaos of internet research, when a criminal defendant’s liberty is on the line. Jurors are expected to evaluate whether they think witnesses are credible based on what goes on in the courtroom. Allowing them to “check” witness testimony online, using sites that might also not be credible at all, simply doesn’t make sense. In court, at least a witness can be cross-examined. You can’t cross-examine a juror’s Wikipedia trail.

6) Even Positive Stuff is Bad--Okay, you may be saying, but all these examples involve jurors discovering stuff that’s bad for me the hypothetical defendant. What if a juror googles a cop witness and finds his racist tweets, hurting his credibility? What if a witness lies about something, and a juror finds their Facebook where they told the real story? What if a witness misstates something and a juror looks up a website that tells them the accurate facts? That would help me! I guess so, and the lack of prejudice to you the defendant’s constitutional rights might be taken into account if, say, the prosecutor finds out about these types of jury taint and moves for a mistrial. But the government also has a strong interest in maintaining the integrity of a trial, and that will also be weighed.

In the end, the answer to the question “why don’t we let jurors do outside research” is “because your Constitutional right to a fair trial is so important.” You shouldn’t be deprived of your liberty without due process, and due process includes the right to question, cross-examine, and call into question all of the evidence against you. As a result, the verdict in your case needs to be based on the evidence officially presented in court during your trial, not whatever mishmash of sources the jury might discover outside. Even though there might be the off chance that some juror’s research could help your side, there are so many ways you could be hurt by it. If you were facing the possibility of several years in prison, would you want to take that chance, and have this key rule be changed?

#kidk says stuff #law #this got long but i feel like things make more sense to non-law people if i explain with examples #and honestly the fact that it's long is in itself evidence of how important this shit is #it's SO important to know and understand your rights #they're not just concepts on paper in an old ass document--they're there for a reason!

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p-artsypants · 3 years

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The Ghost of Smokey Joe (8)

Here Comes the Boogeyman

FF.net | Ao3

Dead ends.

Nothing but dead ends.

She went to the courthouse. They found the blueprints for the Agreste manor, put them on the table and unfurled the paper to pour over it. The building had three stories, of which, the lobby and her office were on the bottom floor.

No basement, nothing close to a basement.

“Can I help you with anything specific?” Asked the woman who had retrieved the plans. Obviously, Marinette’s distress was a little more evident than she wanted as she gnawed on her bottom lip.

“So, I inherited this house,” she explained.

“Yes, you showed me the deed.”

“But I was friends with Adrien, the son of the previous owner. He told me to look in the basement. Other family members said there wasn’t one, and I was hoping that maybe there was, and no one knew about it.”

The attendant gave her a pitiful look. “I’m sorry, Miss Dupain-Cheng, these are the only plans we have on record. In fact, most houses in Paris don’t have a basement.”

So what was Adrien talking about?

The woman seemed thoughtful for a moment. “Although, if Mr. Agreste wanted to, I suppose he could have commissioned the building of a basement later on. He might not have submitted the documents for it, which is illegal, but it is a possibility.”

“There’s a chance?”

“I suppose. Have you checked all over for stairways?”

“Not thoroughly, not yet. I haven’t moved in.”

“Well, if you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”

Marinette smiled at the woman, but ultimately didn’t ask anymore questions. They couldn’t offer her the kind of help she needed. She doubted anyone could.

Children, have you ever met the Boogeyman before?

No, of course you haven't, for you're much too good I'm sure.

Don't you be afraid of him, if he should visit you.

He's a great big coward, so I'll tell you what to do.

Her next lead was the funeral director, Bill Hunkerson. He had been cagey with Marinette, but maybe his guilt would make him open up more to Ladybug. She just had to play it smart.

She strolled into the Funeral home, suited up and ready to interrogate. Of course, she was quiet so as not to upset anyone if a service was in session.

The receptionist spotted her immediately. “Ladybug? Is something the matter?”

Obviously, it wasn’t common for a superhero to be spotted at a funeral home. The question was justified.

“I need to have a word with Bill Hunkerson.”

“Who?”

Oh no.

“This is Armes-Hunt Funeral Home, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And a Bill Hunkerson doesn’t work here? As a director?”

“Oh! My apologies. I’m rather new here. Mr. Hunkerson resigned just as I was starting, about a month ago.”

Ladybug felt her hands growing clammy under the suit. “Are you sure? He was directing Gabriel and Adrien Agreste’s funeral a week ago.”

The receptionist looked at her, wide-eyed. “Really? We weren’t covering that funeral. I would have remembered something that important. Was he maybe doing it freelance? Maybe he was friends with Mr. Agreste and did the funeral with outside resources.”

“The programs had your logo on them. The staff were wearing the logo too.”

Stunned, the receptionist looked around the room. “Just a minute, Ladybug. I’ll get my boss.”

This conspiracy was unraveling in her hands, slowly like a ball of twine.

Hush, hush, hush. Here comes the Bogeyman!

Don't let him come too close to you, he'll catch you if he can.

Just pretend, that you're a crocodile,

And you will find that Bogeyman will run away a mile.

The receptionist was hurrying back to her, with an older man in tow. When he arrived, he gave her a comforting smile and held out a hand. “Hello Ladybug, I’m Johann Armes. Rachel said you had some information about Bill?”

Ladybug rehashed what she had said to the woman, revealing that their funeral home had supposedly taken care of the funeral.

As her tale went on, Mr. Armes went from confused to shocked to angry.

“Rachel didn’t lie,” he clarified. “Bill did resign from here about a month ago. He worked for me for twenty years, and then one day told me the work was too much for him, and quit. This is a hard business to be in, so there is a high turnover rate, so I didn’t even think about it. But with what you told me…I wonder if he was being honest.” He pursed his lips into a thin line as he took out his cell phone. “At any rate, he wrongfully took a job from us. What if something had gone wrong? Our name was all over it! Bill better have some answers for me. If not on the phone, then in court.” He furiously scrolled through the phone until he found the contact and dialed it.

He put it on speaker as it rang.

Once, twice, then click.

“Bill? It’s Johann. I have some questions for you.”

There wasn’t an answer on the other line.

“Bill? You better start talking!”

The phone clicked again, and the call ended.

“The prick hung up on me!” Mr. Armes shouted.

“Where does Bill live?” Ladybug asked. “I’ll go speak to him in person. I really need the information he has.”

“I’ll give you the address.”

Say Shoo, shoo, and stick him with a pin!

Boogeyman will very nearly jump out of his skin.

Say Buzz-Buzz, just like the wasp that stings,

Bogeyman will think you are an elephant with wings!

Only minutes later, thanks to the speed of her yo-yo, Ladybug arrived at the address provided.

Though, the dozens of emergency vehicles outside gave her a sense of dread instead.

As she landed, she was greeted by police and ushered to the front of the house.

A woman in a shock blanket spotted her immediately and ran to her, flinging her arms around her. “Ladybug! Thank Christ you’re here!”

Ladybug gave her a comforting squeeze and pulled back. “Are you Bill’s wife?”

She burst into sobs. “My Bill! My wonderful Bill! Who would do this to him?!”

Ladybug pulled her into a hug and patted her shoulder. “I know, I know it hurts. Can you tell me what happened?”

“It just came in through the window! I only saw it leaving, but it was big and black! Like a huge spider!” She was hysterical, waving her arms around and letting the blanket fall to the ground.

“Ma’am, why don’t you sit back down?” An EMT picked up the blanket and put it on her shoulders. “We can fill in Ladybug from what you’ve said.”

“Bill! Where’s my Bill? Have you seen him!?” She cried as she was steered over to an ambulance.

Big and black like a huge spider…was it an akuma? No akuma has set out to murder anyone before. People had turned into ice cream, glitter, and all sorts of things, but never just straight up murdered.

“Ladybug?” A man in a vest asked. “I’m Detective Joseph Bertony, would you come with me please?”

“Of course.”

He led her into the Hunkerson home, where every room they passed was spotless and not a hair out of place.

“What you are about to see is shocking, if you need any time, please speak up.”

When they arrived in the living room, a huge red bloodstain on the wall caught her attention. Below it, the man she had seen at the funeral was propped against the wall. He had a hole in his forehead, and the back of his skull was missing.

“Oh my god…”

“It’s…pretty horrible, I must say.” Said the detective. “A couple of people have vomited already.”

“I can understand that.” She felt weak in the legs. If she wasn’t transformed, she probably would have collapsed as well.

“According to Mrs. Hunkerson, the assailant was a huge black creature that looked like a large spider. She saw it as it was leaving the house through the window. How exactly it killed Mr. Hunkerson is unknown.”

“Do you think it could be an akuma?”

He gave her a look. “Isn’t that why you’re here? Don’t you and Chat Noir listen to police scanners or something?”

She shook her head. “That’s not it at all. I was coming here to speak to Mr. Hunkerson about something else.”

“Care to share?”

She glanced around the room, taking stock of the investigators and police standing around, and decided to beckon him into another room.

He followed her quietly, concern written all over his face.

“I know I’m not a detective,” she began. “My job is to deal with akumas and Hawkmoth. But I’ve been running an investigation on my own.”

“Concerning what?” His tone was sharp.

Ladybug bit her lip, feeling like a student with late homework standing in front of a strict teacher. She just couldn’t imagine this going well. What should she disclose? Would he tell her to stop and leave it alone?

Detective Bertony noticed her unease immediately, and gave her a minute to collect herself. When she only grew more hesitant, he rested a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, it’s alright.”

It was like talking to Adrien for the briefest moment. That's what this was about, after all. Justice for her Kitty.

“It concerns the Agreste family.”

“Gabriel and Adrien Agreste, right?”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t involved in that case, but I heard about it. Murder suicide, open and shut case. Cut and dry. So what about it?”

“I knew Adrien. He wouldn’t have done that.”

“That's what people said about Jeffery Dahmer too. Not that there’s a comparison.”

“Right. People have their vices and demons and Adrien isn’t exempt. But that’s not all.”

He nodded once, indicating that he was listening.

“Both Gabriel and Adrien’s coffins were buried empty.”

He frowned. “Your proof?”

“I saw it with my own eyes.”

“They let you look?”

“Nope. But Ladybug has her ways.”

The detective scratched his chin in thought. “What does this have to do with Hunkerson?”

“He was the director for the funeral. I think he knew that the coffins were empty, and that’s what got him killed.”

“So…Hawkmoth is covering up the truth about the Agreste’s?”

“Up until just now, I didn’t know what to think. But if Mr. Hunkerson was killed by an akuma, that’s what I’m led to believe. I was just at Armes-Hunt funeral home. According to Mr. Armes, Bill Hunkerson resigned a month ago, and yet he directed the funeral a week ago, under their name without permission. Mr. Armes called him and—“ she stopped, remembering a critical detail and pulling up her yo-yo.

“What?”

“Someone picked up.” She glanced at the time stamp on her search for his address. It had been 20 minutes since she left the funeral home. “When was he murdered?”

He glanced at his watch. “Oh, about an hour and a half ago. Why?”

“Someone answered our call 20 minutes ago. They didn’t say anything, but hung up. Did you find his phone?”

“We can check the evidence. I didn’t see it.”

“Would anyone have answered it?”

“No, that would be tampering. But what does that have to do with this? Someone answered the call. If not, would you have sought him out here?”

“I probably would have come here anyways. I really wanted to hear what he had to say about their funeral.”

“Tell you what. Since this has to do with my current case, I’m going to get more details on the Agreste murder. Is there a number I can reach you at?”

“Here’s the number to my yo-yo, if I don’t pick up, just leave a message.”

He put her number into his phone. “Now, if you don’t mind me asking, what made you start investigating this anyway?”

“That’s a superhero secret. Sorry detective.”

“Fair enough. But the more info you give me, the more help I can give you.”

“I understand. I will consider it and give you as much as I can. But if an Akuma is killing people who know about the Agreste’s, I don’t want any part of my identity getting out.”

“You have a point. Best not mention my involvement either.”

“Off the record?”

“For now, until we have solid evidence and the upper hand. We know nothing about Hawkmoth…unless you do?”

“Nothing. It’s been eleven years and we’ve only fought him face to face a handful of times. It doesn’t help that his akuma rate is slowing down too. At this rate, I fear he’ll retire before we catch him.”

“I’m sure he’ll slip up soon.” He twisted up his lip. “Maybe he already did, and that’s why the Agrestes perished.”

“One more detail I can give you: Emilie Agreste, Gabriel’s wife, died about 12 years ago. Her coffin was also empty.”

“You saw it?”

“I…not personally, but I have a….trick that allows something to phase through solid objects. This ‘something’ reported back that the coffin was empty.”

“And would this ‘something’ be willing to testify if we get to that point?”

“Um…probably?” She grimaced. “I’m sorry I’m being so vague, I just…it has to do with the Miraculous, and that’s very sensitive information.”

“Fine. I won’t pry. But thank you for telling me. I’m not sure how these deaths and Emilie’s 12 years ago could be related, but I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

“Likewise, Detective. I better be off and see if I can spot this Akuma before it strikes again.”

“Good luck Ladybug!”

“I'm going to need it, I’m a little arachnophobic.”

When the shadows of the evening creep across the sky,

And your mommy comes upstairs to sing a lullaby,

Tell her that the Bogeyman no longer frightens you,

Uncle Henry very kindly told you what to do!

Tonight would have been her patrol night anyway. Joint patrol, her and Chat.

The third he had missed, and the second after she found out he was dead.

The last time, she tried to call him. She was on the Agreste’s wall and she called him. He was there, staring right at her the whole time. Hadn’t he cared? Could he not see the frantic desperation on her face?

She scanned the shadowed streets for the spider-like figure the police had described. It was still early in the night, and the streets were plenty full of happy Parisians enjoying the nightlife.

If only they knew what lurked around the corner. If only they had seen what she had. The blood on the wall, the soulless gaze in Bill Hunkerson’s eyes. The absolute devastation of his wife.

It was so messed up. It seemed like everyday since Adrien’s passing, Paris got a little darker. A little more sinister.

Hush, hush, hush, here comes the Bogeyman!

Don't let him come too close to you, he'll catch you if you can.

Just pretend, your teddy bear's a dog!

Then shout out, "fetch him teddy!" and he'll hop off like a frog!

Ladybug paused to take a break at one of their checkpoints. Normally, if they patrolled separately, this is where they would meet up before splitting up again. And she couldn’t help but linger there for a minute or too, even though no one would come.

Or so she thought.

A thump drew her attention to the chimney behind her. It was a black figure, not like a spider, but like a person.

A person with pointy ears on his head.

She gasped. “Chat!”

He whipped his head to look at her, his eyes glowing a solid green in the night.

“Where have you been?! I’ve been worried sick about you!”

As she stepped closer, he backed away, keeping his unblinking eyes drilled on her.

“Chat? What’s wrong? Won’t you come down and talk to me?”

He backed up farther before darting off into the shadows.

She had just found him! She couldn’t lose him now!

She took off after him, listening for the scrambling of his claws on the zinc rooftops.

He was fast. Faster than normal, and it took every bit of strain to keep up with him.

Finally, she had a good shot and she threw her yo-yo out, snagging him with her rope. He wriggled and squirmed, kicking his legs as he fought for freedom.

“Settle down, kitty cat,” she said, with annoyance, but concern. “I just want to talk to you.”

He snapped his alien gaze to her and hissed, spittle drawing lines between his huge canine teeth.

It made her recoil.

“Chat? Kitty?”

He wriggled some more before he got his hand free, then he brandished his claws and cut through her, previously assumed, invincible line.

Then he bolted, scrambling into the night.

After his reaction, she didn’t have the heart to chase him down again.

It was Chat. It was Adrien. It was definitely him. But something was definitely wrong.

At least she had an idea of where the Black Cat ring was.

Just pretend he isn't really there,

You will find that Bogeyman will vanish in thin air.

#miraculous ladybug #ml #fanfiction #the ghost of Smokey Joe #ladybug #chat noir

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veiledveins · 3 years

Text

INTRODUCING

michael evans behling, pansexual, cismale + he/him → isn’t that brock underwood? i’ve seen them hanging out with the merfolk. i hear they’re 27, but they’ve only been at the chateau for less than a month. they seem to be energetic & eager, but also naive & gullible.

GET TO KNOW THE MUSE

Name: Brock Underwood

Nickname(s): N/A

Age: 27

Date of Birth: October 10th

Zodiac: Libra

Place of Birth: Alabama

Race / Ethnicity: African-American, White

Gender: CIS-Male

Pronouns: He/Him

Sexual Orientation: Pansexual

Romantic Orientation: Panromantic

Species: Merman

FAMILY

Siblings: None that he knows of biologically, but two adopted siblings.

APPEARANCE

Height: 6′2

Build: Athletic, Toned

Hair Color: Black

Eye Color: Dark brown

Distinguishing Features: A perpetual smile

NSFW

These are struck-through because he’s a little virgin boy and he doesn’t know what he likes but below will be relevant information - essentially, he will like whatever his partners like

Preference: Submissive, Versatile

Kinks: Praise, Multiple Orgasms (giving), Worshipping (prefers giving but does enjoy receiving), Submitting, Being Told What To Do, Kissing, Clothed Sex, Open To More

Anti-Kinks: Age-Play, Little-Play, Waste-Play

Biography

For as long as Brock has known, the world was simple - he was the third and youngest son to a third-generation rancher and his kindergarten teacher wife, he was loved and he was a natural born athlete. And frankly? That was enough for him. Life was good. When he wasn’t playing basketball with his buddies, he was helping out his dad around the ranch or going for a dip in the lake - finding that he took to swimming like... well... like a fish took to water. While basketball was his preferred sport of choice, so many people commented on his superior swimming capabilities and that he should look into the sport that he wound up joining the high school’s swimming team his sophomore year of high school. And boy, was he glad he did.

Even on his best days, his days were made far better whenever he could get into the water and over time, swimming became his preferred sport and eventually he dropped from the basketball team to focus solely on swimming. Easily the best swimmer in his class, and even in his school, he broke records and earned national attention from college across the country, looking to recruit him for their college teams. But it wasn’t just college recruiters that were eyeing him - no, someone else happened to note the man’s prowess with the water and he couldn’t help but approach the guy. The man was handsome, that was for sure, but the question that he had given Brock was something that he didn’t understand - the guy asked him if he ever thought about having a tail when he was in the water. “No, that’s crazy,” Brock said with a chuckle before the guy offered his card and told him that if he ever did to give him a call.

The next time that Brock was in the water, his pool at home, he thought about the man’s words and wondered... well, what if he did have a tail? How would that work? As he thought about it, though, he could feel a scratching sensation running down his legs and he looked down to see that he didn’t have legs anymore - no, he had a tail. The colors were mesmerizing, beautiful, but it was something that had him freaking out and as he wished for his legs back, he watched as the tail slowly began to shift back to his two legs. Quickly he rushed out of the water and found the man’s card to call him, and almost immediately the man answered him with a simple “so you do have a tail, huh?”.

It was only then that Brock learned that he was a merman, the man that had heard about him having been familiar with the supernatural creatures of the world, and it had Brock even more confused. How could he be a merman when his parents weren’t? When his brothers weren’t? It took him a long time to realize what this meant, and it was only after watching a couple of pieces of merman fiction that it came together... he was adopted. Approaching his parents, he asked them straight out - am I adopted? And while at first they hemmed and hawed, they eventually gave in and admitted that yes, he was adopted but that it didn’t mean they love him any less.

Armed with this knowledge, however, Brock wanted to get some answers. Mermen weren’t really popular in works of fiction, so he wasn’t sure if what he had watched or read had any semblance of the truth to it, so he wanted to go to some place where he could get answers and maybe, just maybe find out about his birth family. Thankfully, the guy that had helped him realize that he was a merman had told him of a place where he could go and, potentially, find others like him - a place in Louisiana - and Brock was quick to agree and he headed to this mysterious Chateau.

Though he hasn’t been here long, he’s eager to surround himself with other mermen and learn as much as he can about who he is, but he is also eager to meet all of the other creatures in the world. And if he so happens to find his birth family here, too? Well, that would just be icing on the cake.

#unveilintro

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Ridikulus Pt 36

“Among word of an incoming engagement to both Elven King and Lord on the heels of a soon to be named premier of Jaqi Black’s latest cinematic appearance comes with another new tidbit to clarify a long since pondered puzzle. Not a few months past the win of the Kenmare Kestrals, the team which won the Quidditch League Cup with Miss Black at the helm of Thief, an unmistakable pregnancy was announced by Rita Skeeter. Such conditions are protected and some fans have questioned if the Kestrals should have relinquished the trophy as their Thief has possibly broken that rule against harm of any possible child conceived at any duration of a pregnancy.

From none other than Newt Scamander we have our answer, Boa Red Panda Cubs. Known upon further research to have used Morphers as surrogates in the past while Miss Black and then fiancé David Tennant had been guarding their surrogate for their little girl on a protected island question of survival through the oncoming battles brought on a wish to leave some good behind should the worst come to pass. An old offer from Newt, known to be good friends and mentor to Miss Black since discovery of her Basilisk on Hogwarts grounds, was taken up and together have forged a new brighter future for a once marked to near endangered status with populations soon to be thriving with hoard of daughters in the fifteen cubs born, fourteen of which are female.”

Process of impregnating was next along with statistics that even before the war they were marked for extinction if they had not been regimes to your islands anyways through the destruction of their home territories in the war. With a stunning two month gestation period to calm any nay sayers on you being so heavily pregnant for such a short time out of nowhere. Some more it carried on filling in details on the rare breed and then branches into how this was a much needed good bit of news on the heels of a chunk on the yearly pox push that was marked as successful branching into news on the fostered youth in the Elven and Dwarf territories.

Letters plopped onto the end of the table and Regulus said, “Jaqi, from Newt.” Waving the letter he lifted them opened at your approving nod reading, “Apparently Newt has been hearing whispers on an inquiry into the validity of your win on terms of pregnancy. He submitted memories of conception and birth to go with his official statement on the event along with documented notes on the Panda populations. Apologizes for not warning you sooner.”

You shook your head, “Had to come out soon enough with the new season.” Continuing to finish feeding Em so you could eat before your first class.

The second page however was turned to and Lindir said, “Oh,”

You looked at him as Regulus asked, “Oh?”

Lindir said, “It’s a death notice. It reads, speculation and rumor has spread around the absence of a driving force of our allied forces these near on two decades past. Harry Potter, upon the discovery of Auror Nymphadora Tonks, wife of freshly elected Minister of Magic Remus Lupin, has been revealed to have sacrificed himself to push Auror Tonks and another to safety in the call to flee. While hope was held out in the search of the final missing duo and searches of the new lands were approved by the leaders of said lands coming up moot with the exception of the discovery of another kingdom named Rohan.

Aged just out of his teens brave young Harry is survived by numerous aunts, uncles and cousins along with his newborn son now in the custody of his godfather Sirius Black.

For now this is just a notice of death with another issue to follow enlisting all of those lost to the flight and battles prior destroying our old world. While talks of a memorial are still in discussion within the Ministry walls to be forged and no doubt unveiled in the summer breaks of our magical schools to ensure all will be available to attend.

Again the Ministry is continuing its plea to not use the flue system until all grids have been inspected. Out of a yet to be explained fluke formerly assumed deceased Leta Lestrange was discovered by her distant relation along with that of her oddly still toddler aged baby brother Corvus Lestrange. Their arrival came on the heels of the feather and spider barrage from the flue system making it all the more puzzling as no other long since deceased figures have been discovered as of yet.”

Sirius said in shifting the bottle in Fin’s mouth, “We had to say something. People kept asking on Harry and no doubt would when Leta was spotted.”

Em swallowed her last spoonful and Regulus smiled taking her on his knee as you said, “Not a bad explanation.”

Neville said, “Well Hermi and I are off to check on Lockhart today, see what he remembers.”

You asked, “Luna not going?”

Luna answered, “Oh they have me helping Draco with possible ideas for the memorials. I was thinking of involving Thestral charms somehow, or Nifflers if the former is too morbid for some.”

Neville, “Besides, we figure since we know him a bit more than others he might be more open to sharing with us.”

Ginny said in your glance her way accepting the crescent roll bin she passed your way, “I get to go with Regulus to gather notes from Star Speakers from the Elven Kingdoms to pass onto our Astrology classes. I get the impression it will take a while.”

Again Lindir turned the page taking in each odd article until he said, “Three headed puppies for sale... Is that accurate?”

He asked looking to Regulus who leaned in, “They’re not meant to sell those in papers. Strictly protected creatures requiring licenses.” Reading over the ad he said, “Cerberus do have three heads, however these are memorabilia on the mascots for a pro Quidditch team. Selling homemade goods to honor their favorite teams prepping for the future season and no doubt stashing up funds for tickets.”

Lindir looked your way asking, “Does your team have a mascot?”

Ginny answered as oh were eating, “Kenmare Kestrals have golden harps on a green background. Other than that they are known for using Leprechauns on occasion.”

Lindir looked to the paper in search of an ad for that and Regulus chuckled, “True Kestral fans buy from the source. Their own shops in Ireland. Badge of pride for them getting goods with the official seals and details around signatures from their favorites.”

Lindir nodded, “Yes, Lord Glorfindel informed us of the tradition of autographs. Quite interesting gifts from those you admire.” Again he looked to his paper and you held back your giggles at his tries to blend in on his second morning he had slept over the night prior. Figuring out himself how he fit into the incoming future of dwelling with his One. Before long however you were off to school claiming a kiss from Em on her cheek as well as one for Fin then hurried off through your door to make it to your desk in time for your students to enter. All seeing your hands smoothing around the waistband of your jeans ensuring your blouse was tucked in properly still. Questions still lingering in their eyes with a few papers spotted in between making you say, “Alright. Before the lesson, anyone have any questions about today’s paper?” All the hands shot up and with a smirk you went a desk at a time answering each to calm any confusion or concern from those stunned by some of what was in the papers.

Tucked in a private suite in the bustling floor for energy maladies Lockhart laid back in his assigned bed still under watch of the doctors there ensuring nothing else had befallen the popular Wizard. Upon seeing the familiar young Ministry Members he inched up in his seat grinning at the pair collecting a silver framed compact and another small trinket now rested on his lap. “Miss Granger and young Longbottom, I was curious which of my old students would be sent my way to question me.”

Pulling a duo of stools from the wall over the teens sat and Neville asked, “Feeling better? Remus said you were rather queasy last time he saw you.”

Lockhart nodded and said, “Yes, and I am pleased to have been so prompt in checking on me. While it appears mainly my captors were only able to drain my energy I was able to ascertain much more. And while some may not believe me to be of much use sans powers my plan worked out brilliantly.”

Hermione’s brows arched up, “Your plan? You planned to be captured?”

Lockhart nodded with a spreading smile, “You see, we arrived here and there were whispers of a Wizard hiding horcrux and deeming to endanger us all. How better to draw out such a fool than with a chance to take a hostage. I make quite the damsel, and I knew you all would find me soon enough. The Elf Lords did share which lands were known and which might be more likely for said baddy to be hiding in. Starting off, I have this for you,” passing over the silver framed compact to Neville closest to him. “Mirror glass charm contains my travels and especially the castle they kept me in, which is where I found this,” into Hermione’s palm a golden ring with runes of Khuzdul around a large rectangular sapphire narrowing her eyes recognizing Durin’s marker inside the band. “There were two more I couldn’t reach. But that one I managed to get close to. I know they said that Wizard had an affinity for using rings for his misdeeds so I assumed that might be the most useful.”

Neville asked, “Where did they take you, any idea?”

“Just past Gondor within a ring of mountains, not Mordor, I know Mordor has a volcano, there was one in the distance, perhaps one of the Elves might know where I was. Upon our flight back however there was a destroyed little village we flew over similar to where the Dwarves were met heard those houses were in hills. Caught sight of Mordor and a set of islands in the distance all coated with white glowing trees.”

Journals were brought over from his night table as well copied to ensure he had full record of all this adventure the pair flipped through listening to his sharing exact details around symbols they knew to be where he would embellish later. And when they went to leave he grinned saying, “Some might find it a bit mad however this will make a perfect plot for my next best seller.”

His next round of tests had the duo leaving trading nods and handshakes with the former Professor on their way to head to your house first to go through the memories and journals more thoroughly. Leaving the possible basilisk venom dip of the ring to you later so any memories from it might be tapped by you for more help in the search for the remaining Dwarf Rings from Sauron. A report was drafted up to share with the Ministry to be edited later for full disclosure once you had consulted the memories and Elves for information on the unknown lands and any more cursed items securing all threats to peace had been quashed.

To their evenings off the duo relaxed while Fred and George at the shop caught their first glimpses of a few Dwarves eyeing the shop known to be yours. The brothers stealing glances at one another from across the sales floor making note to share with you more clients for the gender swap potion clearly successful by Thorin’s demonstration.

Ginny’s evening however seemed to drag on while Regulus gleefully delved into learning about the stars and constellations of this world. For his hope to possibly use a name for a child of his own with Lindir the rule limiting that sank his mood a tinge at least until the next tale was shared. Copies of each record was made by Regulus who would compile them later to fit better way for sharing with the schools for one of a set of encyclopedia’s of sorts on this new world and lands to be sold and used in schools to inform the masses to study.

Post feeding at lunch you did get a glimpse of Regulus’ notes brightening your mood on having to keep delving into the painful subjects covered in the paper. Though after school a wish to have some time to yourself brought you to the open pastures beyond the stables in the middle of the trees you walked eyeing the branches above. Soft hoof beats behind you and a warm breath to follow shifting your raven ended silver ponytail across your back turned you around to find Turo there, “Hello Queenie, care to run?”

Grinning up at him in a stroke of his cheek he lowered his head to receive more, “Only if you’re up for it. Just needed some time to myself before heading home finding others.”

“Sometimes silence and solitude can be cleansing to a wounded heart. Our youngest require supervised runs, come and run with us, allow the forest to speak to your pain.”

“Thank you,” you said stroking his neck in a turn for the stables to dress the Great Elk hoping this run may help to lighten your spirits.

Scattered between the hoof beats stray tears flew off your cheeks in tiny gems nestling into the grass sprouting wild flowers for the opening steps of the run until the smaller elk came into view and surrounded you. The response to your letter to the Pear clan about the papers was thankfully supportive with actual glee that Em was never in risk for being harmed. Each of them so proud to hear of your special task of aiding an endangered species supporting the affection you have for magical creatures they treasured highly since first meeting you. They had put up with so much, the whole David mystery and dissolution of whatever that was just as suddenly as it had popped up, Em out of nowhere before the nonexistent wedding, and now hearing you carried cubs for a giant cuddly creature. You just hoped Em, if she learned the truth, she wouldn’t hate you for what some could be seen as a bold faced lie.

The boys were well aware that they were adopted, had memories of their families you knew they were holding back on to spare your feelings. So much like their wish to be older than they are, even to the point of barring playtime in fear of harming their clothes. There was so much you had to unlock for them and somehow in balancing the weight of all your godchildren with help of the new Ministry this generation would be a safer and happier one. Stolen strokes of your hand down Tuo’s shoulder in slowed breaks allowing another young one to pass him up had him glancing back to you in subtle checks on if your mood was lightening. A break for water however for the young ones had his head turn again to spot your downward gaze at the grass and he asked, “Are you in pain, Queenie?”

Your eyes met his and shaking your head you replied, “Do you get orphans in your herds?”

“On occasion. We have heard of the young ones you have gotten charge of. Is one of them unwell?”

“No, I just, another woman carried my daughter. I don’t want her to hate me when she finds out. Everyone knows about it now.”

Underneath you on his hooves his body weight settled and facing you as fully as possible he replied, “No greater gift to claim a young one who requires a clan. The sons you have accepted in your heart are beyond content to have been welcomed they will always bear a fondness and love for their adopted mother. Your daughter will be proud to have such a mother to guide her.”

That had a tear drop down your cheek causing him to inhale deeply, “A lot of people are dead because of me, and there was no shortage of people who wanted me dead. So many cruel people that never hesitated when I was a child to sentence me to be beaten and imprisoned. Only thing I can think of when I remember the names of people I’m responsible for their deaths is if I killed enough. If my little girl is ever going to have to be afraid to tell people her name like my dad was.” Another tear fell and you wiped your cheek on your shoulder saying after a sniffle, “It hurts so much, how easy it could have been for me to have killed them all, anyone who tried to hurt or insult me. I could have put even Melkor to shame I bet, all the chances they gave me to turn dark. Em shouldn’t have to be afraid, least of all of me, what I had to do to get us here where she could be safe.”

His mate had come up beside you turning your head with a comforting nuzzle of her head into your belly, “All our fathers face painful seasons we may not weather to build our herds stronger. Your pain will not be lost to your daughter.”

Tuo spoke again, “There is honor in kindness little Queenie. In mercy. A strength some will never face. Hard lessons must be given to our young and we must stay the path we cannot shield them from all suffering and trials.”

“Thank you,” you said stroking her face and his neck again. “I don’t mean to sour the mood of your run.”

Another of the Elk stated, “You have soured nothing. Runs are great times for clan discussions.”

One of the other females added, “We have seen the birth and growth of many a young one, the troubles are welcomed among our herd. Your daughter is your first child, always the most worrying along with your final child.”

The bounding steps of her youngest from his full belly of water had you giggle at the circle around her he made joined by his cousins around the legs of their own parents starting the second round of the run. It was nothing new you had heard but somehow with the hoofed creatures you felt more support in hearing it from them. Back to the stables you got swinging your leg over the front of the saddle to drop down and begin undressing Tuo who pressed his head into your belly glad for the gentle hug to his head and peck to his forehead as a goodbye freeing him back to his family. “Pleasant run, Darling?”

Turned around your eyes fell on Glorfindel in his moment to wet his lips looking you over in this stolen time alone, “The baby elk are adorable.”

However you hoped to sound closing the distance he asked with hands smoothing from your shoulders downwards, “Something is troubling you.”

“Just over thinking the reaction Em might have to hearing I didn’t carry her when she’s older. The Pears are relieved, like others have been that she wasn’t in danger at all.” Inching his head closer to silently urge more from you he sighed to your stating, “I’m fine.”

The distance between you was closed and what was meant to be a brief kiss found him again pressed into that moment of that evening he had to leave you from such a warm chance at entangled matrimony to finally be all yours. Firmly his hands pressed into the small of your back melting more into the kiss that lured your hands from his middle upwards. Clearly he had hoped for a place more secluded, yet in the stroke of your fingertips along his jaw in a path towards his ear the stall he felt you step back to would have to be accepted for now. Two blind steps and he readied to lift a hand to open the gate to at least be inside for some semblance of privacy only the back of his hand met silk. In the blind fumble a decision of your own called your enchanted doorway that brought you straight inside the King’s apartment, unknowingly into the back of the King.

From the papers in hand his eyes rose turning at the body that pressed into his back. Pink lipped in a break for air Glorfindel straightened up a bit as you turned your head to catch the turning King’s gaze that warmed in seeing it was you. “Hello, Dew Drop,” you managed to squeak out with a hint of a blush that made the corner of his mouth tick upwards.

“Hello, My Darling Starlight,” his eyes scanned over your face.

Glorfindel said, “Apparently our Love is fine.”

“Hmm,” Thranduil hummed and shifted a hand to stroke though your hair behind your ear, fingers finding their own strands of curls to tangle in at the warm demanding kiss, through which Glorfindel’s hands stroked along your back and side. The moment his lips left yours however to press to your cheek below your ear Glorfindel moved with a hand raised to your neck, thumb extended to angle your head in a slow tilt granting the King a straight path to trail his lips meeting your shoulder when you turned your head again. Hungrily now claiming your neck Glorfindel moved in what would be the tipping point to a blind tugging path to get the three of you on the lounge in the bedroom now locked to prevent the children coming in.

Against the back of the lounge you rested still on a knee stretching to give Thranduil more neck to claim. His hand you found only partially certain of its owner to ease up under the end of your disheveled shirt for the snapping of the tether or restraint. Your shirt went first and down your chest to your back he moved guiding you to melt more into Glorfindel’s kiss so he might selfishly steal the first taste of your skin and claim as many strokes and caresses as possible until Glorfindel gained the courage to be more bold. Their shirts were next and again in a tangle of lips that same hand was smoothed along your thigh in a silent path to the waistband you had magically undone.

Permission was given and while your hands worked the pair into a frenzy around you his to make you come undone first while his moan parted lips savored the bare skin revealed between those obstinate loose curls failing to bar him from that tempting silky skin on his newly made wife. Easily they crumbled first and in an experienced albeit rusty endurance Thranduil made easy the task of turning you to lay you against Glorfindel’s chest to wiggle your lower layers off and see to your release next.

Slow and tender his lips found yours upon your recovery and with a chuckle blending into your soft giggle to Glorfindel’s question of, “How do I touch you?” Thranduil simply kissed you while you did the instructing, until he had the chance to lay you against his chest to hold you through the finale of your lesson, hands loose and wandering to the helpful nibble on your ear.

Just breathing in the silence you sat between the pair, like kittens nuzzling their heads affectionately to yours with stolen kisses in between, both allowing you the first word in joint adoration of this blissful union. “I take it this means we’re married now.”

Those were the magic words and with a thumb used to turn your chin in a blissful hum Thranduil replied, “We are married,” claiming the lingering kiss to seal those words into being contractual. All it took, the offer of matrimony after the physical union and with agreement and kiss the marriage is born.

Of course you didn’t get the depth of that offer for them and how long they had waited to have this one particular moment they had dreamed of come true. Glorfindel was next not missing his chance to reply, “We are married,” beginning a kiss for which reason why you couldn’t help but struggle against the moment ending smile fighting to spread across your face.

The next silent moment however came with your hand smoothing over the droplet of milk now leaking out down your belly. “I should probably take a bath and pump.”

“Of course, a bath sounds wonderful.” Glorfindel said in his pop up with smile down at your bringing out yours at the Elf with haphazardly loose pants still open and threatening to fall that matched his lopsided curls your hands had eased one side slightly out from the ribbon wrapped down the length of his ponytail. Into his offered hand yours settled and you found your feet with crownless King smoothing his fingers through his out of place hair ignoring the open pants shifting down his hips in each step.

Thranduil, “Give us a chance to give you a massage as well if you wish.”

The pair while you dipped a foot into the hot spring in the open bath tugged off their boots and pushed the last of their coverings down to step into the water to help you down into the seemingly bottomless pool of a tub. “How deep does this go?”

Thranduil, “Not far, the bottom is lined with abyss crystals however that deepen the appearance of it. There is a bench inside here.”

They both helped you to sit down and while he worked the ribbon wrap from his hair Glorfindel said, “You most certainly were not fine when I found you. Would you care to discuss it? We are your husbands and here to aid in your burdens.”

Softly you sighed watching Thranduil’s long arm bring the floating soap bowl over in case you wanted to use some of his. “I was doubting if I killed enough of the despicable people from my world so Em would never have to be afraid they would do to her what they did to me.” They shifted closer to your sides in the lift of your feet onto the bench in front of you. “I’m never going to be perfect, I have moments or days even where I get so helplessly lost in the pain of all those wrongs. Seventeen years I didn’t have a life that was mine, I didn’t matter except as a shield, and,” you inhaled looking between them with tears bubbling into your eyes mirrored by theirs at the darkening or your roots.

“75 adults on the Wizengamot sentenced me to Azkaban when I was eleven years old, ‘by any means necessary’ they were told to get me to surrender Tulip. That’s what the records said along with notes of the names of seven ‘suspect’ Wizards who could have argued against the decision they kept from knowledge on the vote. They had me for a month before I was found. People have no idea how many chances I had to go dark, how easy they made it, and people would have still supported me. I could have put Melkor to shame. I spent so long with people that made my skin crawl, with a mark from the man who tortured my mother to death and tried to kill me and Harry. I can’t say how many times I wanted to snap and just blow up entire buildings with thousands for my death count.”

A tear dropped down your cheek furrowing their brows in focus to not cry themselves sensing the pain you were expressing. “I lost it once, I thought my aunt Bellatrix had killed my dad, I had her head in my hand and, I slammed it into the ground. And I kept punching her until she stabbed me in the side to get me off her. I lost it,” you whispered out to another two tears falling and you shook your head lifting a hand to wipe your cheeks. “Remus managed to snap me out of it, and I managed to get back, to the plan. I haven’t been able to breathe for seventeen years, and it hurts to breathe a bit right now. But, I’m trying, to see who I can be now.” Your eyes shifted to Thranduil saying, “I wouldn’t trust me to be in power right now. I’ll try to help you both if you need it, but-,”

They moved closer and smoothed their hands over your arms and Glorfindel said, “Take your time. There is no rush. No one is going to force you into anything you don’t want to take charge of. We have charge here.”

Thranduil drew your gaze adding, “No one is harming our little ones. There is an army to guarantee that now, all of the Elf Lords would send armies should anyone dare to be foolish and harm a child in these lands. A promise the Dwarf councils will surely back as well.”

“I’m sorry,”

You said and he again shook his head saying, “You owe us no apology.”

“There always was a goal, a job to do, no mission.”

Glorfindel said, “You will find peace, that was very much my same pain upon my return. The restlessness. I know you will handle the pain better than I had.”

Thranduil chuckled saying, “Made it his mission to collect every uncut quartz stone in our river beds. Took him months and upset countless beavers and bears in the process. Five hundred years of watching him drenching wet being chased by some creature roaring after him. You make mistakes, you learn and heal.”

You nodded and said to the ripple of your hair to silvery blue again calming them a bit at your pain retracting its claws, “Well whoever cleans that couch will be furious, I’ll charm it when we get out.”

Glorfindel began to smooth his hand down to your leg he claimed, “Pay no mind to the couch,” massaging it while Thranduil claimed the other.

Couch charmed and wrapped in a towel you dried your hair with your wand using a jet of warm air you shifted to help the others with theirs afterwards giving both a time to smile in your fingers again traveling through their long locks. Again in fresh pants the pair found you now in shorts and a tank top, lip tucked between your teeth in thought widening their curious smiles on the path to your sides for another cheek cupped kiss for the both of them from their loving wife once you had finished pumping your milk. Both speaking to you sweetly all the while and helping in the transition between bottles when the two were filled and capped the third when you had tapped out halfway.

Behind his back however Thranduil kept the hand holding the box with gift meant for just this occasion to Glorfindel’s hand being offered that snapped you from your thoughts. “Might we discuss something with you a moment?”

You nodded and joined them back on the couch, wetting your lips in the cross of your legs to look at the pair on the foot stools in front of you. Glorfindel anxiously bumped Thranduil’s arm with his and you looked between them and then to the expanded then retracted smile on his face that preceded his throat being cleared. “Our Love, now, with this new deepening of our union comes certain tokens to bestow and so after much deliberation and sleepless nights put to use between us we wished to present this to you. Like a small metal book the box now resting in your palm waiting to be opened in the retraction of the King’s hands from leaving it there. His fingers hovering a moment then reaching out to open the lid that caused your heart to skip.

Inside on 4 overlapping bands, 2 black, 2 silver with white glowing stones lining these. In the center a yellow heart also surrounded by more of the white glowing stones with two black antlers extending above it. “Oh wow,” you whispered to yourself.

Glorfindel said, “The black metal is Galvorn, a black form of mithril, among some of my properties returned to me upon my awakening from Gondolin and the lemon quartz stone is also from my gatherings that we chose together.”

Thranduil, “The rest of the ring is silver mithril with the remaining white stones that are from my collection of Lasgalen stones from Doriath carved out of the heart of a fallen star gifted to my line from Valar Queen Varda.”

Carefully you lifted the ring from its box that felt impossibly light for how heavy it should be. “Is this the, do you have separate engagement and wedding bands or is it all in one? We haven’t discussed this before.”

Thranduil, “Upon meeting your father we have chosen to adapt to your customs of using engagement rings, now, we are bound by marriage for our kin though a ceremony of sorts could be planned according to your customs. Also we are aware these rings sit on separate fingers to ours that sit upon our index finger and this has been fitted to your chosen ring finger.”

“You measured my finger?” You asked with a hint of a grin.

“Estel was bribed to help us with that.” Glorfindel answered, smiling as you watched as he eased the ring onto your finger that fit perfectly, “When you are ready to discuss a ceremony we could possibly discuss designs of what a wedding band might be.”

A moment you bit your lip and said, “I need some dirt.” Parting his lips at your pull back to ease over the back of the lounge you swung your legs over to head for the window revealed in the magical ease of the curtains back in its opening to let you pass through it. The pair of them stretched to see what you were doing, watching your stroll across the patch of grass looking between each of the bushes in the marked off garden plots, beside a patch of orange flowers they saw you charm two handfuls of dirt out of the ground, careful to leave the few small worms back in the garden. A bit confused a pair of guards tilted to watch your path back through the window that closed and covered itself again leaving you just in the sight of the duo.

Glorfindel, “You need dirt, for, what exactly?” He asked watching you ease back over the back of the lounge you sat cross legged on top of again.

“Not exactly fair if you both don’t have something shiny of your own.” Their brows inched up only to see your skin begin to shimmer in the multicolored hue of your eyes that grew lighter in spectrums of color to the deeper the breath you took in. Out of your lips around the dirt clump above your left palm a white flame escaped your lips while you mentally recited the Draconic spell splitting and contorting the clump in half. More and more they compressed making the shapes of rings, in the center an oval mystic quartz stone sat between two wide flat black metal edges of the ring that dipped for a platform for the stone, down the band the ring grew thinner and held white opal shapes between strips of the black metal.

A second breath drew their focus back to you on the lift of the second clump that you blew out over the clump that split into three, this time for two more black metal sat around five round green opals, the one in the middle the largest that around the top and bottom had five emeralds closing it off. The third had the same metal and shape, merely with blue opals and sapphires around the top and bottom of the center opal.

At the dim of your glow they watched your hands to shift and offer the both of them the larger of the two styles of rings then locked their eyes with yours as you said, “These should morph to fit whatever finger you slip it on and won’t break, for your engagement rings if you like them.” Timidly the pair accepted the rings, lost for words on the skill of the gift you had made for them, looking next to the pair of green rings that they stared at taking in every detail of these as you slid them over the ends of their index fingers to the last knuckle. “We’re married,” that had their eyes shoot up to yours again missing the ripple of the stones’ colors turn to yellow, “Ceremonies for my culture can wait, we can have a family dinner or something. You’re a King and a Lord, you deserve to have your status marked. If anything I can always just put in the paper I eloped.”

Thranduil, “These,” he said clearing his throat to steal a second glance down at his hand that had him exclaiming, “It’s yellow now!”

“They change colors, I can make them stop-,”

“No,” they both said and after a shared glance eased their engagement rings on above their wedding bands. Tenderly with free hands Thranduil took the wedding band from your hand he eased onto your left index finger locking his eyes on yours. “I have never seen rings of this skill before.”

“I rarely make rings, yours must have taken months-,”

Glorfindel eased his hands around your free hand, “Thank you falls utterly short. Elleths rarely forge in our culture, merely hire a master craftsman. We will be the envy of all with your unmatchable gifts.”

Thranduil said, “Yes, truly. These five opals alone would have taken weeks to shape and I do not doubt several months to find the proper shade. I am flattered as well that they change hues. Five, we did not cover significant numbers for importance in our cultures, seven is sacred to our kin, five is sacred to yours?”

“No,” you said looking between them to say, “I thought, we have, five kids, between us.”

If they thought it was impossible to breathe upon seeing the ring that was nothing to now at realizing this was not just a wedding back but a sort of birth celebration as well that Legolas especially would be honored to have been included in. Glorfindel said, “Birth celebration as well, then truly this is beyond precious to us and will be to our children when we share it with them.”

“Well, um, my mother had one from my dad for theirs. Used to spark up around the stone when I got hurt. Um, Leg’s is in the middle, since he’s, well, fully grown, bad luck to put his anywhere else, and they’ll grow as the kids do and get their little crowns of emeralds.” Quickly you looked down and then up again in time for Thranduil’s lean in to steal a loving kiss trailed by a moment of foreheads tapped together. “I’m guessing you’re behind the antlers on mine?”

Lowly he chuckled and replied inching back to allow Glorfindel to claim his own warm kiss and pause with joined foreheads to Thranduil’s reply of, “It was a joint decision, as was the choice of yellow, your favorite color.”

“Thank you,” you said in their inch back and tangling of their hands in yours on your lap again. “Never really thought about engagement rings before, I mean, Barty gave me the rose gold pink teardrop ring, and it was beautiful, I was really grateful for it, I just…I guess you just don’t think of what you might want until you meet the person who you’d be needing it for.” You inhaled at their spreading smiles and said, “I’m rambling.” The narrowing of your eyes a moment had their brows twitch up tick only to hear you say, “There’s someone in my study.”

Glorfindel, “Is, that forbidden?”

“No,” you said uncrossing your legs in their rise to stand and help you up, “There’s just, someone there.”

Thranduil released your hand hurrying to the closet, “Grant us a moment and we shall inspect this together for any danger.”

“It’s not a danger,” Glorfindel turned in the doorway of the closet accepting the shirt tossed his way he found the bottom to that parted for his arms to slide through to the sleeves, “How is this so weird to say, you don’t ever just, know, something. Like you randomly pull the toast off a bit early or it will burn or you go to check on your chicken coop even though it’s not laying day to find that there’s now a huge gnawing blackberry bush taking over the back of the enclosure that has to be moved or it’ll ruin the fence? Places to go aren’t really unreasonable to explain but sometimes I just feel I have to say something and usually it goes terribly wrong but I just have to say it because I guess no one else will.”

Glorfindel, “Such as?”

You sighed, “Such as I had to tell a girl Margerie in the year of the Triwizard Tournament, she came from Beauxbatons, the school Fleur studied at.” The pair nodded in securing their shirts and robes after having tugged on their boots to their knees, “Never met her a day in my life, never spoke a word to her, walk right up to her and have to say ‘How did you like the Trout in Their Pajamas?’ She slapped me across the face and storms off! Two days later, I have this other girl Ophelia coming up to me hugging me. Saying that there’s this whole convoluted plot that had been buried with Margerie’s family that goes all the way back to a Unicorn thief who had stolen this useless children’s book from Margerie’s ancestor and then used it to break into the conservatory where Ophelia’s family had been keeping their Unicorn herd. Nearly got the ancestor locked up from his name written inside the book cover.”

Their brows narrowed in confusion as you mimed and explosion on either side of your head, “I didn’t get it either, but apparently I pissed off Margerie and she went steaming mad and ranting back to their tower and Ophelia overheard it. Apparently they both had been compiling their own internal investigations over the years and they sent what they came up with back home and they caught the guy 87 years later.” Your hands popped up at your sides and fell again, “I don’t get it, just had to say it.”

Glorfindel, “That, must be tiring, does it happen often? Was it a voice you heard?”

“Not a voice, no, I’ve been down that road, no, that time it was the cover of the book popped up in my head. Which reminds me I have to settle a flight time for the Pegasus foals, could we fly over your forest, they don’t like flying over towns they aren’t fond of seeing people.”

Thranduil, “Our forest, and yes, absolutely, these, Pegasus, are they another Quidditch team?”

“No, they’re winged horses,” parting their lips, “They also mostly have fangs, and tend to not like people, well, most people. But they have a new bunch of foals and they have a traditional first flight that has to be a long one and usually we would take them to Sherwood forest for that but the Muggles aren’t situated enough right now for us to get the Prime Minister involved for the approval of memory charms. Still a work in progress on the tolerance of us for them at the moment.”

Glorfindel, “You have flying horses and yet you do not ride them,”

“They attack people. Viciously. Their nests are normally high in cliffs out of reach from people. We just have the tolerating herd at Hogwarts in the Forbidden Forest now quadrupled from those we saved in the move here otherwise Hagrid would have handled it, the new ones think he’s going to eat them.”

Thranduil, “Why do I imagine that day Thengel will drop by unannounced?”

“Well it has to be tomorrow you can have him for tea I guess. I can show the boys, even bribe a Unicorn to drop by possibly. Buckbeak could use a nice long flight I can take him instead of the bike this time still have to get myself a new broom. He’s been anxious waiting for his baby sibling to hatch.” The confused pair followed you out of the bedroom and through to your door linked to your house where you heard voices inside of your study.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Draco said only to be answered by Neville’s sigh.

Neville, “I know that, but he told us, he did it on purpose.”

Draco, “And they let him teach us?!”

Papers were shifted and once in the doorway you caught Neville’s eye and he smiled in relief, “Here’s Jaqi, Lockhart says he went there on purpose to play Damsel. Gave us his journal and this mirror glass charm of his travels and that place they locked him inside of. And, found this.” In his palm was the glass jar holding the ring Lockhart had found that lured the Lords in around you to see it.

Thranduil, “That is Durin the Deathless’ crest. King Thror bore that ring.”

Neville, “Said there were more rings but he only could manage that one.”

“Hmm,” you said setting the ring down the accept the journal you lifted to sniff, “This is a copy, it smells like guava.”

Draco, “Kept the original for his next book.”

“Ah, naturally.”

Neville, “Says he was kept in the mountain but wasn’t Mordor. No volcano but it was in sight of an island with glowing white trees,” that had the Lords’ heads tilt to look at him directly, “And there was a city like the Shire that was destroyed on the way back.”

Glorfindel, “That is not possible, the only island with that description was taken by the seas ages past.”

Looking back at him you asked, “Which Lord would have ruled that one?”

Glorfindel, “Lord Elros. That would be Numenor, if they are correct.”

“Hmm,” you accepted the Mirror Glass Charm saying, “I’ll tend to the screaming ring later, for now, I’ll see if the Lords can help us find out where he went.”

Draco said, “We’ll keep the twins posted if you need a sub tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” you said turning back for your room leaving the pair to share their mutual notice of the ring on that particular finger, and into your closet where you confused your husbands in the tug of your shorts off to hop into a pair of jeans and long socks you added tall boots to your knees.

Thranduil asked, “How you were dressed was acceptable.”

“Not for a Mirror Glass Charm. Last time I went in one of those took me three days to get out and it was nonstop gales and moors.” Over the top of your tank top you pulled your silver low cut sweater that hung over your thighs that once the neck was tied over top you added a black rib covering vest and the holster for your wand from the pile of clothes you had sent back earlier during your bath to the vest pocket.

Glorfindel, “Three days?”

“Surely this time we can just skip to the end and miss any weather but I had to go day by day last time to figure out where they hid one of our Aurors a few years back in a Muggle Born raid.”

Pt 37

#Thranduil x OC #Glorfindel x OC #The Wedding #Trading Rings #Gifts #Bad Day #Big News #Calming the Storm #Lockhart's Damsel Display #Neville #Hermione #Draco #HP Crossover #Ride With Tuo #Talk With the Elk #Mirror Glass Charm #Off to Rivendell

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mirkwoodshewolf · 4 years

Text

Guardian of creatures; AU! Queen x reader chap. 1

*Author’s note*

Well it took awhile from the last update (plus things have been happening in my personal life like losing yet ANOTHER kitty cat this year) but I finally came around and deliver to you guys the first chapter of my new Hallowqueen series. Now keep in mind it’s mostly in 2nd PERSON POV which means as the reader it’s basically gender neutral, so be patient with me as I try to make sure to keep my pronouns in order. Also I hope you all watch the video I have linked in the story, I def. LOVED it when I first found it years ago and this guy can really sing and bring a gender-bend Disney character to life, so if you’ve never heard of him, check out his page you won’t regret it :)

Now not really any warnings per-say except rude bosses, seductive gestures,

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things

@waddles03

@psychosupernatural

@ixchel-9275

@simonedk

@queensdivas

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels

@dancingcoolcat

@queendeakyy

@kinole009x

@klausidiot

@geek-and-proud

__________________________________________________________

Chapter 1,

First day on the Job

*April 11th, 1926*

First day on the job. Well it’s really an internship but you were looking forward to it. Working for the New York Times was an opportunity for any writer. Your dream was to one day publish the next great American novel, as a child you’ve always been whisked away by the words and tales of dragons, sea-baring pirates, and worlds unlike the one you lived in.

It amazed you how one writer can just take you away on a journey and help distract you from the stresses of the world. And here is where your journey began in hopes of accomplishing that dream.

You had first heard about the internship for the NY Times in the papers in an advertisement. The call asked for a 300 word sample of your writing as well as any previous writing experiences you’ve had in the past.

In school you’ve been part of the school newspaper and helped write up advertisements for after school events. So after submitting your sample as well as a resume, about 2 months later you finally got a letter from the NY times wanting to do an interview.

Long story short, the interview went great and now you’ve got the internship. You now stood before the doors that would start your future in the world of writing. Tugging the strap of your suitcase over your shoulder, you take a deep breath in before exhaling and entered inside.

Already swarms of people flooded the first floor of the building, their voices echoing off the large room. The repeated sounds of phones ringing piercing the room as secretaries at their desks were answering them.

It felt like a dream to you for you to actually think that you were now working in one of the top Newspapers brands in all of America.

“You there!” a voice called out. You turned and saw a young man in a brown suit. “Why are you just standing there!? We are running a newspaper here, not a charity tour.”

“Sorry, I’m….my name is (y/n) (l/n). I’m the new intern to Mr. Grayson.”

“Ohh right. He’s been expecting you. You’re late by the way.”

“Late? But I’m right on……”

“One rule about working under Mr. Grayson, he expects his interns and anyone on his team to arrive before he does. Which is 6am on the dot. And it is now,” he looks down at his watch, “8:45. That’s a good start.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t tole. I promise it’ll never happen again.”

“See to it that it doesn’t. I’m Harry Wormwood, Vice President of the New York Times.”

“Oh Mr. Wormwood it’s an honor to—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just get up to your post and start your internship.”

“Yes sir.” You said solemnly. Wow he was rude. To think you have a VP like him that acts like that around new people, especially interns. But he was right, you had to get up to meet with your head of office and get right to work with whatever he needed help on.

You adjusted your bag once more before heading straight to the elevator and went up to the 13th floor. After a bit of a ride and getting some more people in the elevator with you, you finally arrive to your floor.

People, like down in the first floor, were swarming the room, typewriters were tapping away as men were at their desks typing away their stories and articles for the paper. Or as they like to call it ‘putting the paper to bed’. You walk forward towards a middle aged man with ginger colored hair and ask him.

“Excuse me, do you know where Mr. Grayson’s office is at?”

“In the back, straight down the hall, last door. It’ll have his name plagued on the door in gold.” He said without looking you in the eye.

“Great, thank you.” you followed his instructions but when you got to his door, there was sounds of a commotion going on. Well when you say that you mean the sound of someone yelling and belittling someone, then yes.

“YOU GODDAMN SONS OF BITCHES!!! If we can get a picture of Joan Crawford in lingerie, then we can surely get a hold of this damn jazz club!” you peek inside and inside you see four men surrounding a desk.

And right there at his desk with a cigar between his teeth was your new boss, Mr. Richard Grayson. He was a middle aged man around his late 40’s possible even early 50’s. He was a fairly tall man with greying short hair, a small mustache across his lip.

But what really made him well known was the way he carried himself. He was always described as a man who carried himself like a drill sergeant (that could be because he was one during the Great War). A true, Bronx accent that carried out demands for miles and miles on end.

“Sir, we have tried everything we could to get a hold of an interview inside but not even our best interviewers could get pass security.” Said a blonde haired man in a blue suit.

“Our photographer Eddie has been on it for weeks and the owners have threatened a lawsuit against him because he’s been taking pictures of the club without consent.”

“Aww what are they shy?” Mr. Grayson mocked out. “Then let them sue us then, get rich on their own standards! That’s what made this country stand the way it is!”

“Maybe we should just forget about it.” Said a brown haired man.

“I have been on this case for years. Ever since these mysterious owners built their club at the start of the decade and has remained popular I want to know just what the secret to their success.”

“Sir the only thing we have is that the owners come from England and that they prefer a specific crowd of people.” Answered a young man around your age who had black hair.

“Yeah right they do.” Mr. Greyson muttered sarcastically. That’s when he suddenly turned towards you. “You!” he pointed at you. You’re startled by his loud, strong voice as you quickly come inside his office.

“Sorry sir I-I-I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I really should’ve knocked.”

“You’re the new intern right?” he ignored your apology and went straight to the question at hand.

“Y-Yes sir.”

“Excellent. I want you to go to this night club and get an exclusive interview with the owners, bartender, musicians, I don’t care who. Just find someone to talk to and ask them about their Jazz club.”

“Sir you can’t give it to them. This is a big responsibility, not to mention too much for a fresh intern to take over.” Said the man in the brown suit that you saw first speak to Mr. Grayson.

“Shut it Mack! You remember what I had you do the first day you were late working for me. What better way to get started than by throwing fresh meat to the wolves.”

Can you say you regret working here yet? No too early? Okay then.

“So what do you say kid, will you do it?” before you could even answer, your boss continues, “Of course you’ll do it. Now then. Take this camera, your notepad, and come up with a clever story to get inside. Good luck kid!” he tosses you a camera and notepad before escorting you out of his office and shutting the door behind you.

Okay……what the fuck just happened? It all happened so fast you almost couldn’t even believe it. And what jazz club did he want you to check out again?

Later that night (after getting the information from some of your new team members) you now stood before the building you were supposed to go undercover for.

In a bright neon sign at the side of the building was the name BEWITCHED JAZZ. Now you have heard of this club before and remember it getting fairly good praise from the public and has a good swarm of people. Hell even some of the biggest names in Hollywood have been seen going into that club.

But there was always an air of mystery about it. Like Mr. Grayson said, security is always tight. First of all security actually gives you a pat down before entering inside. Any traces of photography or recording equipment is immediately destroyed (yes you heard, destroyed).

Thinking it’d be best, you decide to leave the camera in your car and just wait it out. Cause that seems to be the problem that most of Mr. Greyson’s reporters don’t seem to get, they just think barging on in will get them access. A good reporter always plans ahead and blends in with the crowd, observes then goes in for the kill.

You stand in the line and for about an hour you stand there waiting to get inside until finally it’s your turn to go up.

“Next.” A very tall and muscular man speaks out as he unhooks the rope allowing you to come forward. “Pardon but I’m gonna need to do a pat down.”

“Go ahead.” As he carefully and precisely starts the pat down, you can’t help but feel intimidated, hell his whole hand goes halfway down your leg and covers your entire back. He was a pretty intimidating man to look at, and you hope he doesn’t snap you like a toothpick.

“Now you don’t have any weapons or outside drinks that I’m not aware of?” he asks in that deep, deep baritone voice of his.

“No sir.” You answer.

“Show me some identification.” You pull out your wallet and give him your ID. He looks down at it before looking towards you skeptically.

Swallowing nervously, the giant just looks at you with a skeptical look before finally giving you back your ID.

“Go right on in.” what? Oh god you couldn’t believe you could actually go in. You take your ID and put it back inside your wallet and thank the guard before stepping inside.

It was a fairly big place, about 3000 sq. ft. A decent size of the typical jazz clubs in NYC. It looked like any ordinary jazz club, firefly lights hanging from the ceiling, the lights lowered to a slight shadow, tables surrounding everywhere, including each side of the catwalk.

A grand stage was at the very center of the building with a band playing an upbeat jazz score. Waiters and bartenders tending to each customer. Some people were dancing to the music while most were sitting down talking to one another.

“Wow.” You softly muttered.

“It’s alright but we make do.” A voice suddenly spoke up. You jump back startled but you stop as you stare at the man before you.

He was unlike any other man you’ve seen in your entire life. He was fairly tall and lean, but not unhealthily skinny, just lean. His eyes were almost a hypnotic blue and he had fairly sharp features, particularly his nose and even his profile.

It was like looking at an angel. But what really struck your attention was the curly hair he had. It reminded you of that one scientist from like the medieval ages or something, what was his name again uhh—Neutron? New—Newton! Isaac Newton that’s the guy.

“Sorry I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“No it’s—it’s fine. I’m just…..I was just admiring the place. I’ve…..never really been to a jazz club before.”

“Well, I hope we here at the BEWITCHED can help fill your desires. Oh manners, I’m Brian. Head Bartender.” Head bartender? That’s new.

“What’s a head bartender?”

“Basically I run the bar and train all the other bartenders so that every drink is made to perfection. Now come, sit and let me prepare you something.” He does a gentle gesture towards the bar with his arm and you go to sit at an empty cushioned barstool. Wow this was really cushioned, it kinda reminded you of sofa material. Now so soft that you sink into it but not hard enough to where it’s uncomfortable.

Brian goes around the bar and stands before you and asks with a warm smile and says with that soft voice of his that you can somehow hear over the music.

“Now what can I get for you?”

“Actually I’m…..don’t really know my drinks that well, what’s your most popular one?”

“Well the most popular drink on our menu is French 75. A pretty basic cocktail made with gin, champagne and lemon. I think the main reason why people like it so much is they think it’s actually from France but in truth it really isn’t.” he teases the last part of his statement which makes you softly laugh. “There’s also the Bees Knees, also called our ‘bathtub gin’. Mainly from our pianist player. But that’s basically gin, fresh lemon juice and honey. To give it that sweet yet tart flavor.”

“I think I’ll go with the Bee’s Knees then.” He gave a snap of his fingers.

“Coming right up.” He pulls out a small circular bowl wine glass and with graceful precision he starts whipping up the drink. Shaking the cocktail up in a perfect blend, pouring out the right amount of gin and juice into the concoction. Before finally topping it off with some honey and stirred it up.

Then with a grace and delicate pour, he pours the Bee’s Knees, which comes out in a beautiful, clear sunset orange color into the glass before topping it off with two flower decoration toppings.

“Here you are.” He said as he picked it up delicately from the stem of the glass and handed it over to you. You set down a dollar and took a small sip of it.

And as soon as your tastebuds were washed over with the drink, it was like you had died and gone to heaven.

“Oh my god! This is sooo good!”

“I’m glad you like it. That’s actually one of the owner’s preferred cocktails of choice. Can’t get enough of it.”

“I can see why. And he certainly has good taste.”

“She does. Actually.” Wait did he just say. I quickly looked up at him and I stammered.

“Wait—you mean this……”

“It’s a partnership. Both she and her husband own the place. She makes most of the decisions since she knows the business world better than any of us. While he takes care of the finances, she’s always been lousy when it comes to the math. Don’t tell her I said that though.”

“My lips are sealed.” You say as you take another sip of your drink.

The curtains then close and a spotlight came on at the center of the curtain. That’s when you suddenly hear all the ladies in the room beginning to scream bloody murder. God never have you heard so many women scream before nor have you seen them try to get up to the stage so quickly in your life.

“Here they go again.” Brian says as he starts cleaning out a beer glass.

“What?” you ask.

“Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday night when my mate preforms, the ladies all go crazy at the chance of getting to him.”

“Mate? You mean you guys are…..” you ask curiously.

“Oh no nothing like that. Where we come from mate means best friend. But even though I don’t condone his constant flirtatious behavior, he’s gotten me out of more scraps than I care to imagine.”

Peeking through the velvet blue curtain was an arm. The red glittering sequin pattern delicately bounced off the spotlight and soon a hypnotic, soft yet raspy voice began to sing. When the curtains opened up and a soft jazz tune began playing, on stage stood a very, very, very, very handsome man.

When you say handsome, you really mean handsome. This man looked like he was carved from the god with his ruffled up blonde hair, his piercing blue eyes that unlike Brian’s which were soft and inviting, this guy had hypnotic eyes that just draw you in and could kill you.

He wore a bright sequin cherry red tail suit which was unbuttoned pretty much all the way down, exposing his upper body to the ladies. His neck decorated with 3 necklaces. One of which went practically down to where his abs were, the other hung right at the center of his chest and was in the shape of some sort of snail shell or some other type of seashell. The last one was more of a choker but was decored with beautiful diamonds like a crown of sorts.

He strut across the stage with grace and purpose as he continued to sing with a lustful, hypnotic tone that just made you go numb and melt in your seat. And your eyes refusing to look away from this handsome creature before you.

*Male singer*

I got plenty money in 1922 You let other rich men make a fool of you Why don't you do right like some other gals do?

He kneels down in front of the stage in front of a beautiful young woman. She had long, wavy blonde hair and she looked up at this man with lust in her eyes. He placed a dollar bill between her teeth and closed her mouth as he walked down the steps of the stage.

He then walked over towards a woman with short raven hair. She was fairly lean and had almost an aristocratic air about her. He stood in front of her and took her hand in his. He leaned towards her hand almost wanting to kiss the back of it, but his lips teased her hand and you could see her slightly shiver past her authorative demeanor.

With a cunning grin, he then stripped his tailcoat off his back leaving the undercoat which exposed his bare arms, the hint of black ocean waves tattoos decorated around his biceps.

You couldn’t speak at this point as you felt our heart racing rapidly, almost as if it were about to pop right out of your chest. The man soon turned his eyes right on you. His piercing eyes staring deep into your soul.

Slowly walking towards you, he circles around you like a wolf circling it’s prey. His hand gently grazes up your arm and you feel a bolt of electricity run up your spine, and it didn’t help when his hot breath gently sung in your ear.

Let’s get out of here, I got some money for you

You're sittin' down wonderin' what it's all about If you ain't got no money they will put you out Why don't you do right like some other gals do? Let’s get out of here, I got some money for you

Now if you had prepared twenty years ago You wouldn't be wanderin' now from door to door Why don't you do right like some other gals do? You didn’t know why but you were willing to let this god-like siren just devour you. But when you turned your attention back to him, you saw that he was now looking towards you left at the upper floors.

There at the top of the red carpet stairs stood a fairly beautiful woman. Her hair was a beautiful long ginger color and she wore a similar sparkling dark cherry red dress. She held in her hand a silver dollar.

He slowly walked up towards the mysterious woman that stood by the stairs and the two stared each other down. She gave him the dollar but before she took her hand away, he took it in his and stared up at her like she was an angel (which you’ll admit, she did kinda look like one).

Let’s get out of here, I got some money for you

Let’s get out of here, I got some money for you Why don't you do right, like some other gals, do?

As he did a falsetto for the final note, he grazed the woman’s hand before doing his seductive walk back towards the stage. He turned back towards the audience and gave a flirtatious wink before the curtains closed on him.

The ladies all screamed as the lights came back up and you felt the spell the man had somehow placed on you slowly fade away. Right now if you had to describe how you were feeling it’s be like running a marathon and had just swam across the entire Pacific ocean twice.

“Hope he didn’t scare you too bad honey.” A soft, Southern accent spoke. You turned around and there stood the woman that the blonde singer had tried to seduce with his voice. But she didn’t seem affected like all the other women were.

“I-I ju……he was……” she lowly chuckled.

“He has that effect on all the ladies. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Brian dear, get this dear a glass of water.”

“Right away my lady.” Brian said as he prepared you a glass of water. She takes a seat beside you and continues.

“He may act all macho and seductive. But trust me, his bark is worse than his bite.” She spoke in that honey-like voice of hers that had a slight raspy to it, but it didn’t change the softness to her motherly tone.

“Who—who was he?” you ask her.

“He only gives out his name to those he truly trusts. So most of the ladies here call him the blonde Siren.”

“The blonde Siren?”

“Now I hope I’m not being intrusive but I haven’t seen you in this club before, have I?”

“No. This—is my first time actually.”

“Really? For business or pleasure?” she said as she leaned her chin against fist, looking at you with red eyes? Wait she had red eyes? And not like the kind of red that comes from being tired or when you get pink eye. They were literally red eyes, blood red to be exact. Not wanting her to see that you were stuck in thought you came up with a good excuse.

“I’ve just heard about this place from some friends and—wanted to see for myself.” She looked at me skeptically at first but a soft grin spread across her face.

“Well we try our best. We also want to make sure that first timers are treated fairly and respectfully. That’s the one law here at BEWITCHED.”

“Well I’m fairly happy. The drinks are amazing and the music is phenomenal.”

“I’m glad.” She then hummed out a chuckle. “Silly me, I almost forgot, you can call me Serafina. I’m the owner of this fine establishment.” Your eyes widened.

This young and beautiful woman owned this entire place?! But she couldn’t be older than her mid 20’s. And the fact that she was a woman running this club, that’s completely unheard of. A woman owning such a booming business.

Of course there wasn’t any jealously on your part. In fact you were amazed that such a young woman could run a business like this and be so successful.

“Brian told me that a woman owned this place. But—pardon me for saying this but you’re…….”

“Too young to run a big business?” she said with a quirked brow. Thinking you had offended her you tried to defend your statement but all that came out were stutters of embarrassment. “Relax honey. I get that a lot. Why do you think we’re so secretive? A young woman running a big business. Oh the scandal of it all!” the two of you laugh.

The big clock along the ceiling soon chimed out midnight. Whoa it’s already that late.

“I should get going. If I’m late for work again my boss will kick me to the curb for sure. And on my second day no less.”

“You sure you’re sober enough to drive honey?” Serafina asked you. You give her a nod.

“Yeah. I only really had one drink and that water sobered me up a lot. Thank you so much Brian, Serafina.”

“Anytime sweetie. Hope to see you again soon.” Serafina says with a warm smile. You grab your wallet and pay the rest of your tab to Brian before finally walking out of the club.

*3rd Person POV*

Once they were gone, Brian turned to her and said.

“It was them.”

“Just as Freddie prophesized.” Serafina dropped her fake accent and spoke with her normal British tone.

“So it is time then?” another British male voice spoke up. The High elf and the ginger haired witch turned and soon walking towards them was John Deacon himself.

His once long hair was now cut down to a short tuff of brown hair. He wore a clean-cut black tailcoat suit. Serafina extended her hand and the two lovers joined hands with each other.

“Yes my love.”

“Honestly I hoped this day would never come.”

“But it must John. You know this. You have seen what will happen if they don’t help us.” Brian warned him.

“I’m not sure if we can even trust them.” Coming around the bar to pour himself a drink was Roger. “They’re human. And humans have been poking around in our business for centuries. Especially their reporters. We already run the risk of exposing ourselves to the human realm.” He took a shot of his beer.

‘Now, now my darlings we mustn’t quarrel.’ A soft, serpent voice spoke in their heads. ‘The humans are our least concern right now. What matters now is getting our key to help us finally put an end to the dark Wizards once and for all.’

“Yes Freddie.” All four of them softly chorused out.

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kathyprior4200 · 3 years

Text

Let Us Rise by Marquis Phenex

Let me tell you a tale

That happened long ago

You may already know the legend

But still I shall speak it so

Back before the Earth was made

Before life-giving air

Far within the cosmos

The Lord God was there

Some say he’s an omnipotent being

Appearing as a wise man

One with his son Jesus Christ

The whole universe is His plan

Others say that’s not so

That He doesn’t exist at all

While some say He’s actually Satan

Here to answer our call

Or perhaps God is the universe itself

Where atoms and molecules collide

The truth is, none of us know

I’ll let you decide

No matter the case, at the Creator’s own pace

Heaven emerged so bright

Cyan skies, fluffy clouds

And a realm of pure delight

Endless room to fly around

There stood palaces of gold

Dancing angels were abound

Songs were sung and stories were told

No one ever grew sick or old

The Angelorium was a marvelous place

Where we had our council meetings

Were we discussed comings and goings

And where we did our greetings

We enjoyed feasts and epicurean dishes

Golden fruits and divine fishes

Divine wine that flowed so fine

Only the greatest place to dine

Yes, our Father created all of us

Lucifer was the first

The bright and perfect Morning Star

Seeking knowledge to quench his thirst

Shortly after, his siblings were created

Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Jophiel, Zadkiel

And many others more

The Archangels and the various hierarchies

Kept cosmic order, law, and records to store

Then one day, Father decreed

His new adventurous plan

He decided to conjure a new experiment

And he called his creation “Man.”

At first glance, there was nothing special

About this new species’ birth

A land of earth and sea appeared

And He called it “Earth.”

You humans were truthfully

Little more than ants to us

But we peered further in

And you were quite marvelous

Thousands of years of evolution

You grew and you learned

But you also stole natural resources

None of which you earned

Humanity was quite weak

Mortal and flawed in mind

But you also had a great ability

To create more of your own kind

As we’re immortal, we have no need

To create more of us

No fears for thousands of years

That’s the way it has been, thus

Now many of us were neutrally pleased

As far as humanity would go

But while we felt this way

For Lucifer it was not so

Lucifer was God’s favorite

He took his status in stride

A new change after many centuries

Conjured a spark in his pride

Everyone has flaws

God does as well

Everything is not as it seems

It is best not to dwell

A million new thoughts

Had crossed the morning Star’s head

Why are these humans so special?

When they’ll all just be dead?

We angels were here first

Our superiority is first in line

If humans will not improve themselves

Then with this, I am not fine.”

But God favoring humans was not the only reason

That Lucifer felt a sudden chill

Like cold after a warm season

All seemed eerily still

Besides being mistrustful of humans

Flying out of range

Lucifer noticed other things not seen before

Things that were quite strange

All his brethren performed their duties

Like clockwork through and through

It was the same process day after day

That’s all they had to do

No questions were asked at all

No self-expression was allowed

The true kind that frees your mind

Feelings that make one truly proud

Stern rules to stifle creativity

Damnation threats for the smallest mistake

And after many years of submission

It was too much for him to take

Lucifer strode to his Father and said loud and clear

“What is the meaning of this? What is it that you fear?

Why do you create random beings,

Pets in a lab to analyze?

And why do you impose standards on us

Before our very eyes?”

And He replied, “Listen Son,

“There is reason in everything I do,

To keep angels and humans in good harmony. You don’t have a clue.

To prevent chaos, traditions are set in their ways,

Be an obedient son and do your duty all your days.”

Lucifer was about to do just that

But he knew in his heart

That it wouldn’t be right

To let pure happiness be torn apart

Now here’s a major event

You may have heard before

Did it happen? No one is sure

The first Heaven-Hell War

Now some say Seraphim Lucifer

Gathered his brethren and chose to depart

From paradise for they

Sought freedom and joys of the heart

But the common version does tell

Of how a prideful Lucifer did rebel

Gathered 1/3 of the angels to his side

Led by his jealousy and pride

(‘Tis not the story version to which we abide)

Tired of his Father’s current rule

He sought his throne and his dream to reign

Like Zeus overthrew his father Chronus

A vicious cycle again and again

But alas, his efforts were in vain

After three days, Michael implored

His bother to stop, to which he ignored

“End this madness,” said he,

“Live our peaceful lives. Obedience is key.”

As Lucifer replied, “I find you are blind,

To what is really going on,

No matter what is asked of you

You grovel and submit and worship in song

Without regard to how you truly feel

I don’t want to fight you either

But if we could enlighten all worlds together

Be more than El’s believer.”

With tears in his eyes, Michael shook his head

“I’m sorry, brother, but instead,

The rules must be followed

Heaven has no need for your greed

It’s a hard truth to swallow

To keep our land in perfection

To support our Lord every day

By His decree, I must send you away.”

With a swoop and slash of Michael’s sword of fire

Lucifer endured burns most dire

Sharp relentless pains never-ending

And before long, he felt himself descending

Further and further down

As trumpets let out their sound

Lucifer and his comrades

Fallen, defeated, banished

Flames licked at their wings

Until all their glorious feathers vanished

In curls of sparks and ash

They screamed in agony and despair

They plummeted fast

Like meteors crashing toward the Earth

In flashes of light they fell and fell

Until landing in the fires and brimstones of Hell

They got up with shaking legs

Battered and bruised everywhere

But as they were immortal

They had survived their fall then and there

Lucifer knew that something was amiss

As he stood in the dark Abyss

Was this His plan all along?

To let them fall as a warning

Of what happens to those in the wrong?

With nowhere left to roam

The darkness was now their home

Fiery lakes, smoke and monsters appeared

Filled with suffering and things they suddenly feared

In this new environment

Adaptation was a requirement

Survival of the fittest and strong

The weak would not last long

So the fallen angels morphed in their sorrow and wrath

Gaining animal-like features

Sharp fangs, claws, dark powers

Soon becoming demon creatures

No knowing what else to do

They flew and slew and cities they blew

Losing control of their former selves

The same would happen if it were you

With the last of his grace

Lucifer scanned the place

And knew what to do

With Beelzebub at his side

Regaining his pride

He spoke to his subjects

“Rise or be fallen forevermore!

When opportunity dies, create another door.

Wounded and weary, our paradise lost

But the price of free will is always worth the cost.

Don’t believe me? Follow me now.

Our former glories will be restored somehow.

After we’re all settled, I have a plan

To help decide the future of Man.”

Soon enough the capital Pandemonium

Was erected in gold and precious gems galore

Towering pillars, sigils on every door

The palace larger than the tallest demons

Allowing everyone to fit

The citizens had their human-like flaws

But never knew how to quit

The Infernal Council was founded

Structure more grounded

Demon in various ranks

Of kings, dukes, princes, judges

Everything in between

Adapting to times unseen

Now I believe

You know the Christian story of Adam and Eve?

Mankind’s first fall and sin

A loss or a hidden win?

Adam’s first wife Lilith

Wanted to be equal to him

But Adam was told she had to submit

Things were looking grim

Lilith soon left Eden, refusing to come back

Representing sexual freedom

But no freedom there was but a lack

God then made for Adam from his rib

A more submissive partner Eve

Both loved each other very much

But were also new and naïve

Around the natural Eden

They could roam mindlessly unbidden

But the Tree of the Knowledge

Of Good and Evil was forbidden

A forbidden tree with forbidden fruit

Right in plain sight

If God forbade them to eat from it

Guarding it would have been a method more bright

Then legends say

Satan appeared as a snake

Tempting Eve to eat the apple

Leaving destruction in their wake

Eve then gave the apple to Adam

In some versions, fully knowing the cost

He purposefully ate it too, not wanting Eve lost

With flaming swords in hand

Angels bid the first humans away

From paradise’s golden gates

To the rest of the world that day

Michael then told Adam

Of biblical events to come

While God punished

Eve with future pains of labor

And both with death until it was said and done

Did Lucifer and Satan (or alternatively Lilith) desire

For mankind to fail and decay by fire?

Or perhaps to your surprise

The devil alternatively whispered to Eve:

“Stop living lies.

Eat the fruit and you’ll be free

To live through joy and despair like me

Or wander around in brainwashed bliss

To remain stagnant with knowledge to miss

You are destined to fall and die

God has made it so

He’s testing you and knows you’ll fail

Resist temptation to no avail

Man and woman are made to be equal

Though God says man must rule

If you’re content to be sheep

No free will to keep

Consider yourself a fool

You will know as much as God does

But in a different way

For in time you’ll learn that you’re your own God

You’ll make the most of every day.”

Now none of us angels and demons

Are against God and the faithful per se

There is wisdom in every religion

Goodness in Christ, originally that way

Religions ancient and new

Originally promoted humanitarian kindness too

But as time went by with more power to take

Ideals and values became shallow and fake

Killing, raping and converting thousands more

Endless bloody crusades, witch hunts, destruction of land

Wars over faith, no logic to understand

An unhealable hole in humanity, too grand

Suffering, racism, bigotry

All in the name of their God, you see

Their God that humanity corrupted

After concern for fellow men was brashly interrupted

The real God and Jesus would never wish that it was so

But dominant history wins and there you go

We demons are against bigotry, the ignorant

And all those who try to shut down

The basic human rights of free-will and responsibility

Authoritarianism must drown

It is not Satan who promotes sinful indulgence

And harsh authoritarianism

It is only your social systems

That keep you imprisoned

And as if our historic fall wasn’t enough

Many of us endured

Our entrapment by King Solomon

Thus more events concurred

He put 72 of us in a vessel

Abused us with blasting rods

Made us build temples and do his will

Like he was one of the gods!

He had wives and gold and luxury

A part of history, an occult trend

But before long, time went on

And he too, met his end

We demons were eventually freed

To aid magicians and roam

From Earth to Hell and back again

But neither realm our true home

We hope to return to heavenly paradise

Where angels, demons and humans

Can someday be themselves as one, so true

(Though it’s hard at times to collaborate with angels, too)

Much of humanity has been brainwashed

But the angels much more so

For while some humans can question what they see

Angels don’t know how to say no

How can they? Their purpose is to serve

God and some humans, more than they deserve

Like us demons, angels are powerful

Loving liberal science, magic and song

But be rude and make the wrong move

They’ll let you know why you’re wrong

Angels, demons, other gods and spirits

Fascinated by humanity

We’re just here to watch the result

Whether a blessing or a calamity

Despite your mundane lifestyles

We want what is best for you

To help humanity grow and see progress that’s true

Like the angels we used to be

And still are inside

We are divine on our own

And take conflicts in stride

God and Christianity are not to blame

It is merely society’s institutions

That puts your race to shame

Thousands of years of corruption and conversion

It’ll take a thousand more for healing

But alas, alternate views and change for the majority

Of humanity is not appealing

To truly get into paradise

Save yourselves in the here and now

Indulge responsibly, do not bow

Respect living things as sisters and brothers

Even though it may be hard

Cherish and forgive the ones you love

But always stay on guard

However you see God or Mother Nature or the Universe

Make Him proud by

Doing the right thing

And do more than try

You are His treasured experiment

Will you succeed in the temporary trial of life?

Supernatural entities can harm or help you out

But you must first help and protect yourselves, no doubt

Pray as you may, conjure and chant

We are the guides to your self-will and rant

Yes, a few of us see humans

As insignificant as bugs

But many of us can be your friends

Even giving spiritual hugs

We demons serve under Lucifer, Satan, Lilith, etc.

We have a culture of our own

Some of us are demonized pagan gods

Stolen from what was first known

Most of us are fallen angels

A perilous transformation to embark

But through it all, we survived the fall

And learned to embrace the dark

There’s dark and light in everything

Balance is a must

With your world and ours being complex

How do you know who to trust?

We endured a horrific fall

We lost all we had

But the ignorance of angels and humans

That’s what drives us mad

You see, black and white is not in the right

Some angels are friendly and warm

But others will push you away

If you don’t follow the norm

There are good and bad demons too

Nothing like you’d expect

Us demons are wise and open to you

Provided you show respect

We’re not afraid to keep you on your toes

If it means you’ll learn good lessons

As everything goes

Keep demonizing us demons

And the poor and flawed without care

We’ll just watch as you discriminate to death

And destroy yourselves in despair

Or for those open with a change of heart

Who know that none of us are truly apart

Rise from the ashes of atrocity

And fly within the flames of fellowship

If you dare to fully embrace yourself

All aspects flawed and fine

Through black flames,

With honor and trust, call our names…

We are the Ars Goetia, Demonic Divine.

#ars goetia

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grand-commandant · 3 years

Note

♘ - a memory of their sibling(s)

It was not often that Otto happened to be at the North American branch of the Order for any extended period beyond a handful of days at best. This was partly through simply being busy with his attentions being required elsewhere but equally in that it would be utterly pointless denying the tight ship that Stricklander ran with both it and the all-important Killahead project that micro-watching was simply unnecessary. Occasionally however some time could be spared to be more than a mere fleeting appearance and gave an opportunity to check over things that had been building up in the office he had secured well out the way that could double as a personal pick up service. A couple of those things were indulgent to save on the perils of international shipping there was no denying it, others were paperwork that had to stay in the country preferably and the other thing? Well today that was Nomura.

His fellow changeling ignores his entrance completely from her perch on the edge of the desk moving a testing finger over the wood to admire the dust that came up with it with a look of pure disgust. It is clear it is not the only thing she had been poking around at in her boredom, some of the packages were lightly torn at the edges too tellable even from here. Sigh barely in the room for more than a minute and yet already he is left pinching the bridge of his nose above the glasses.

“Seeking a change from thieving Stricklander’s wine collection I see,” he says with a far brighter tone than the scathing look she is given while passing. Annoyingly she also appears to be correct in her assessment on the lack of cleanliness and is forced to wipe the chair down before even risk being seated though is polite enough not to smirk about it.

“Is this how the supposed important leaders of the noble and just Janus Order greet the mere underlings now?” It is asked ever so innocently like she hadn’t been shamelessly raiding the drawers for anything of interest mere minutes before his arrival and perhaps it was bad memory but he could have sworn there was a bottle in in one of them that was now distinctly absent.

“You need a better lock on that door by the way, far too easy for the wrong people to open.”

“Ah yes, I cannot imagine why that might be despite only a select few know I use this particular space instead of the one with the nameplate. I also do not recall your name being one of them, Nomura.” One of the more battered packages is slid away from her reach to open it himself getting a disappointed tut back and a rap of nails on the wood.

“Curiosity is just such an amazing motivator you know, as is wanting some peace from the egos if I’m expected to be here. As much as I keep somebody’s in check I can hardly for all here singlehandedly can I? The best I can muster is teaching the art of not touching me if hands want to be kept on their persons.”

“And yet you so gleefully manhandle everyone else’s things,” is darkly muttered. Ah, a pair of journals from the recently and dearly departed Mysian excellent. Any material they had on him can be removed before the archives gets hold of them for their own records.

“If such things are left unattended, what am I supposed to think?” She is levelled a look for that refusing the let his gaze waver for an instant and one which she returns in an expression of mock surprise as if she had merely wandered into the situation by mere accident in return.

“You my dear are quite frankly the most sadistic cat like creature I have ever met in my centuries on the Surface.” Unsurprisingly it is that which finally makes her grin break out entirely in Cheshire.

“Oh we are in a good mood if you’re lavishing the charm~”

Her position is a very safe one and unfortunately she well knows this, gleefully abusing all the opportunities it provides to tease and scratch any one she decides is a favourite to annoy. The two books are carefully slid into one of the drawers and he then moves onto opening one of the cardboard envelopes left for his attention. Stricklander at least was more understandable being her mentor during the younger years but himself? Ach it was usually to mock, pry information or she had something she thought might be of interest that she was keeping firmly to herself ready for eventual barter. The question was, which was it on this occasion?

“Unless something chooses to sour it then perhaps I could agree with your assessment,” he answers whilst flicking through the submitted papers that had recorded the movements of Bular over the past few months so he could have his own copy. While not his specific area it was always wise to be aware of what the Dark Prince had been up to beyond sightings and could give key information for how to gently nudge things should it ever come up. His personal views might not be for preparing for every single possible outcome but it equally did not mean there were a few things he kept tabs on to be on the safe side or to repurpose to a greater end.

“So to what do I owe the pleasure exactly? Cannot imagine this little break in of yours was accidental or wanting to try your luck with the door.”

That causes Nomura to sigh loudly as though being asked was somehow a great inconvenience to her day before checking over her nails in an excuse not to look his direction gaining a judgement quirk of brow. It was hard to tell if the stalling was for dramatic purpose or not.

“Is it that obvious?” She snarks back folding her arms raising a pointed nail with each item she lists off.

“The big idiot is licking his wounds meaning he’ll be off our backs for a while, you’re covering while he’s out the country on another of those stupid educational seminars for extra funding they’ll never get then to top it off? My schedule is entirely clear aside from human work and I truly am bored enough so I sought out someone else to drink with who has some standards I can tolerate.”

When a bottle is suddenly placed in front of him still surrounded by torn packaging it is in that moment he realises that she really had stolen from his gin stash. On the flipside, it was one of the good ones and he knew just the glasses to use.

#Anonymous #Ask and receive perhaps - memes

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booklovingturtle · 4 years

Text

Cardan finds out how Balekin tortured Jude

This turned out to be longer than planned. As soon as I submitted my last final assignment for the semester, I opened up Tumblr and wrote this for @duarteegreenbriar bc of this post. You can def expect another fic where he finds about Locke *wink wink*

I hope you enjoy it! This is kinda like hc/fic based in QON while Jude is still exiled. Also its unedited because I wanted to get this out before I went on Christmas break.

“We have news for you,” was the Bomb’s way of greeting Cardan one earlier morning. Yellow and pinks drops of sunrise had just barely started to fall over Elfhame when he received the Roach’s message, asking to meet.

Not too far into Jude’s exile and a few months since the old Court of Shadows had been demolished meant that the High King and his Queen’s band of spies were meeting in an old cellar long since forgotten in the palace. The only way to even enter it was through an opening Cardan had used his new-found magic to make. The opening was hidden in a fake armoire of one of their guests rooms. The room itself was perpetual damp, insufficiently furnished, and lacking any of fun memories the old court held. But it was well protected from prying ears and hard to access so it would due.

“How are my favorite pair of mischievous friends?” Cardan smirked reflexively at the serious look on their faces. His tail twitched uncomfortably beneath his clothes.

Mouth in a thin line. Back straight. Eyes narrowed. Hand on nearest weapon. Yes, everything about the way they stood told him whatever he was going to hear would not be pleasant.

“We have news,” the Roach mimicked his companion’s no-nonsense tone.

“So I’ve heard,” Cardan rolled his eyes. He retied the thick red cape he’d thrown on himself to fight of the chill of the cellar. It gave his hands something to do other than twitch at his sides. “Jude?”

“Yes and no.” The Bomb started. “She’s fine. Safe as usually doing some odd jobs for a faerie in the mortal world.”

“This about what happened before her exile.” Roach continued. His beady eyes were unreadable as usual. “We looked into Balekin’s connections with the Sea as you asked us to. We found out what Orlagh had been doing with Jude while she was imprisoned.”

A lump sat in his throat. No matter where she was Jude always felt like the center of his world. He couldn’t go longer than an hour awake or asleep without thinking about her. Her time in the Undersea had only intensified the problem for him.

“Out with it. What did you discover?”

“You already know that Balekin thought he could glamour her. I-” the Bomb looked anxiously at the Roach. They shared a glance and she pulled a weathered envelope from inside her coat. “We think it might be best if you just read this. It’s a collection of court documents detailing what the Undersea would do to her.”

“I don’t understand. Why would they keep records of that? What use do they have of collecting memories of Jude’s torture? I thought those events were mostly private for Orlagh’s own pleasure.”

“We can only assume that there were more people attending them than Jude was led to believe. Perhaps as secret spectators. One can only guess what Undersea’s Queen was plotting.”

“There’s more. Some came from Balekin’s personal journals, uncovered despite Orlagh’s attempt to destroy any evidence of her alliance with him.”

Cardan couldn’t stand their cautious looks. He turned to face the wall behind him. He wasn’t sure if it was possible to feel such a heady mix hate and fear and sorrow and freedom all at one time. Every mention of Balekin’s name was like a blow to the stomach.

“Just tell me what happened.”

“We think it might be best if you read it. You don’t have to. There’s nothing really useful to us if you’d prefer to not know exactly what they did.” The Bomb said I’m a voice usually soft for her.

“She’s right. But I think it’s important that you know regardless. Take the papers. Read them if you want to. When you’re ready.” The Roach said in a way that suggested that it shouldn’t have even been an option to not read what was contained inside the envelope.

Cardan faced them again. The Bomb handed him the collection of papers and left. The Roach stayed back long enough to warn the High King.

“It won’t be easy. What you find in there.”

Cardan looked him in the eyes, trying to find some comfort or understanding that he could lean on. Instead he just found pity.

“Thank you. Tell the Bomb that I appreciate it. No matter what I find.”

Roach nodded and walked out of the cellar. Within seconds it was just Cardan standing in a damp cellar by himself. He stared at the weighted envelop. It felt like it was full of explosive lead, not weathered folded leaves of paper.

Cardan tucked it into his belt and trekked back up to his room. The guards lined outside of his chambers looked curiously at the sight of their High King. He closed the door behind him and stripped off the heavy cloak. Cardan sat at the bench at the foot of his large bed. He wasn’t sure if it was his right to know what happened to her during her imprisonment. If Jude had wanted to share those details with him then she would have.

Cardan stared at an empty corner of his room. A spiraling curl of vines snaked up the walls. White dahlia’s sprung up amidst the green leaves. He’d been practicing how to control his pull of the land for a few months now but it still felt odd to be able to sway nature this way and that.

He thought about the dizzying display of power he’d used when he was face to face with Orlagh. It had felt as if the very land he stood on bowed beneath his fists. He knew she’d never admit it but he remembered the look on Jude’s face when she’d first realized what was happening. She was impressed by all that he’d learned to do while she was gone.

Not gone. Captured. Held prisoner.

Cardan didn’t let himself second guess his decision. He yanked the envelop open and scanned the first few documents.

The mortal is starting to loose it’s sanity. It’s clear even the glamour can’t help it hold on much longer. It is much thinner than it had been when Orlagh first brought it. There are also a considerable number of marks left along its body. Rumor has it the princess herself may be responsible fo them.

Cardan felt like throwing up. He remembered how Jude had looked like a ghost when she'd first returned. All bones and angles when she’d been hard muscle and soft skin.

He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the images of her skin touching his. Of his fingers touching her. The papers in this hands made him sick to his stomach. They called her an it. And said she had marks. Not one but many.

The dahlia’s crumbled up and withered to dust. Hot pink heart-shaped buds bloomed in their place.

He flipped to the next page, recognizing the handwriting of the thick stationary paper. His hand was shaking by the time he go to the end of the torn journal entry.

Jude has been an interesting toy. A fun toy. Her attachment to my brother has been a mystery. I though perhaps she had some sort of secret or piece of black mail to hold over him. Even with the glamor, she hasn’t revealed anything if she does. Though the nature of their relationship is still unknown, I believe I have a way of figuring it out.

Cardan stood abruptly. His body hummed with nervous. His tail wriggled uncomfortably until it came loose. It swung behind him and Cardan had to step away from the bench to keep it from slamming against it. The next journal entry had him regretting he’d stood up.

Any suspicions I’d had of their relationship have been answered. I used a glamour to force her to kiss me as she would kiss my brother. It worked perfectly. It was horrendous. I hate myself for even asking her to do it. For degrading myself enough to touch a creature like her but it worked. She kissed me with all of the fires that mortal are described to feel when they love something. Their bright and easily extinguished fires. She looked at me as though I was the only man she’d ever seen and ever wanted to touch. I almost withdrew the demand but I’m glad that I didn’t. Had I gone back on my command, I never would have understood how deep her affection for him went. She truly cares for him.

The next question is how much does Cardan care for her? It’s clear he’s fascinated by her. Curious about her. But cats are curious of mice when they first chase after them. It’s after they’ve caught them beneath their claws that they bare their fangs. Perhaps that’s what Cardan has been doing. Though knowing the naive nature of my brother’s heart, I highly doubt it. I’ll find out soon enough. for the girl’s sake, I hope it’s later rather than sooner. Should Orlagh let her live long enough to ever see Cardan again, I’d love to watch him destroy that mortal love of hers.

Cardan’s knees gave out from under him. He stared at the letters for what felt like centuries. They didn’t feel real. Balekin had forced Jude to kiss him. He knew she wasn’t glamoured as he thought she had been. That meant Jude had to kiss him completely aware of her actions. She had to force herself for kiss Balekin in a way that would convince him of her love for his brother. Cardan reread it a forth time, praying that somehow the letters would rearrange themselves to tell him a different story.

Distantly he realized why the Bomb and the Roach had opted out of telling him themselves. How did you tell the High King of Elfhame that his abusive older brother forced the woman he loved to kiss him.

The paper crinkled in his hands. Cardan released an angry growl. His blood boiled as he read it for a sixth time. She never mentioned it. Not that they had much time before her banishment to talk through all the details. Nor was it likely that Jude, with her affinity for secrets and lies, would tell him the truth about the situation.

Cardan paced back and forth in the room. If she would just answer his damned letters. If he could just get her to come back to Elfhame and talk to her. To see her. To apologize for what happened between them. Between her and Balekin. He was never more grateful than he was in that moment that she killed him.

After reading the letter Cardan almost wished he’d come back to life just so he could drive the blade through his older brother himself. Cardan heard the crackling fire of the hearth. He threw the stack of papers into the fire. A thick puff of smoke fizzled out of the flames as they blackened into ash.

The ugly words disappeared from existence but the High King would never forget the torturous curves. He’d never forget what the Undersea did to her. What Balekin did to her.

Cardan rushed to his desk, brashly scribbling out a missive to send to Jude.

Jude, he started the letter. Jude. He couldn’t think of anything else to write to her. Jude. Please come back. Just come back. Jude. I’m sorry. I’ll be better. I promise. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude .Jude. Jude.

He’d filled the paper with her name. If he couldn’t see her then maybe the letters of her name would be enough to erase the sickness he felt after opening the envelope.

Author’s Note: I couldn’t figure out how long she was exiled bc I’m still on campus and my books are at home so excuse the ambiguous timeline. If anyone knows the answer to how long she was imprisoned/exiled/when the letters were written please let me know.

#booklovingturtle writes #holly black #Folk of the Air #The Folk of the Air #the cruel prince #the wicked king #queen of nothing #queen of nothing spoilers #tcp #twk #qon #qon spoilers #prince cardan #king cardan #cardan greenbriar #jurdan #jude duarte #cardan x jude #jurdan angst

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things2mustdo · 3 years

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Adam, the first man, was also the first blue pilled man to have been red pilled. To examine this hypothesis, lets re-read the very short story of Adam and Eve, analyzing it line by line using the classic NIV translation—and along the way, each sentence of this brief, ancient story will reveal a bunch of other red pill wisdom.

This story is precisely Genesis 3. It starts:

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

We all know the snake tempted Eve to eat from the forbidden tree, but what’s interesting here is that he does so by planting doubt about an eternal truth. This is lesson #1 from this story: the classic strategy of bad people is to go to well-meaning, average people, and start planting doubts about what is true or false, trying to get them to doubt the wisdom of the world they were born into. This is precisely the core weapon of SJWs: they go to average people and plant seeds of doubt about your instincts about what is right or wrong.

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

Earlier in Genesis, God had told Adam not to eat from the tree, but he never told him not to touch it (Genesis 2:17). Lesson #2: Women exaggerate.

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

This line is important for two reasons. First, the snake here—the embodiment of evil—is actually the one telling the truth. God had earlier told Adam that if he eats from the tree, he will “certainly die” (Genesis 2:17), but the snake says he won’t. And, to skip to the end of the story (I’m guessing you know the ending already?), Adam and Eve are banished from the garden but they’re not killed. So, God lied (or changed his mind), and the snake was right.

Second, Lesson #3 is that sometimes, evil people are actually telling the truth. And Lesson #4 is the deep utility of the “limited hangouts.” Limited hangouts (to use the CIA term) are powerful weapons: a bad person (the snake or the CIA) reveals a small amount of true information, but not all of it, in order to get their target to engage in the bad action.

It goes on:

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

So, Adam knows there’s one law he shouldn’t break, his wife asks him to break it, and he does. That’s the definition of being blue pill. The first man is also the first blue pilled man.

But this tree they ate from, earlier in Genesis (2:9) is referred to as “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” and the snake above had made the same comment. Lesson #5: only through doing what is forbidden, breaking the rules, will you be able to learn why wisdom says that X is good and Y is bad. This is a metaphor for the pickup universe morphing into the dissident right: we had to go through the rule-breaking phase (doing what we can to pick up women) in order to learn what is good and what is evil.

But there’s another lesson in this line, Lesson #6: as soon as he could see the difference between good and evil, what was the first thing Adam realized? He’s naked. That’s a great metaphor for wisdom: as we learn the subtle way the world works, the first thing we learn is that–although we thought we knew a lot, we really know nothing. That we’re intellectually naked.

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

So, God comes looking for Adam, and Adam, having realized he was naked, went into hiding. This is the first example of fear in the bible, and also Lesson #7: the first fear, the deepest fear, the fear before all others isn’t a fear of anything external to you—but a fear of yourself because of your own ignorance.

11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Finally, at Genesis 3:12 Adam takes the first red pill in history. God realizes that Adam had eaten from the forbidden tree and asks him who gave it to him, and he doesn’t white night the woman. Blue Pill Adam would have been the white night, taking the fall for her. But instead, he simultaneously blames her—and calls out God for being an asshole to him for setting him up for the fall (“you put [her] here with me”). He started standing up for himself. The first man in the record of humankind was bluepilled… and then took the red pill as well.

13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

To the woman’s credit, she’s admits responsibility. On the other hand, Eve comes off a bit like the apocryphal quote attributed to Churchill: “Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing… after they have exhausted all other possibilities.” That’s Lesson #8: woman can be counted on to do the right thing, after having tried all other options.

14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

The snake, the first evil creature, is punished by having to crawl, eat dust, and have his children brutally murdered. This leads to Lesson #9: the worst punishment isn’t death—it’s unclear if death is even a punishment—but to have to be on your knees, low down, bending, submitting to someone else. Death is preferable to a life where you need to slither. And Lesson #10, almost equal to condemning someone to a life of submission is a life of eating shit (“dust”) in the exact words here. A life without basic, physical pleasures like good food is a life worse than death. And Lesson #11, the one other punishment greater than death is to see your children suffer before your eyes. Any parent will agree to that.

16 To the woman he said,

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

Woman’s punishment is pain in childbirth and… the desire for her man to rule over her. This is Lesson #12 and comes to the heart of red pill wisdom: women WANT her man to dominate and rule over her. Women wanting to submit to her man wasn’t only common knowledge for the thousands of years of recorded history pre-feminism, but the Bible opens with a story that gives an origin for this behavior.

17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

This verse not only includes one of the most beautiful, powerful, and eternal passages of recorded literature (“for dust you are and to dust you will return”) reminding us of the brevity of life, but it also gives man his basic commandment: he has to work, and his work will be painful. And this is Lesson #13: men have to sweat and work to survive, and it will be painful. There’s no way around it. So man has two options: to accept our fate, and turn our hard work into meaning, or find meaning elsewhere.

20 Adam[l] named his wife Eve,[m] because she would become the mother of all the living.

21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

This concise story wraps up with man and woman, having been given a glimpse of what the difference is between good and bad, can no longer live in paradise. Only the goods can know the difference between good and evil. What this boils down to is Lesson #14: since knowing what is good and what is bad is something we will never be able to learn, so the best we can do is guess based on the accumulated wisdom of the ages. But we need to have the humility to remember that our ideas of what is good and bad are only approximations, that we may be wrong so we should have an open mind… and since you may be wrong, you shouldn’t crucify every single person with whom you disagree. This is a lesson I wish the SJWs on Twitter understood. Maybe they ought to re-read Genesis, too.

Much more about conspiracy theories and protecting your privacy.

Read More: 4 Lessons From Mankind’s Very First Shit Test

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space-meow-wolf · 4 years

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Wulf’s and Werwulfs [an abhuman concept]

Inquisitorial Document filed under “ABHUMAN”

Report Written by: Inquisitor Aqez.

Classification level: [REDACTED], Declassified.

Document type: Abhuman subspecies document.

ABHUMAN SPECIES:

Name: Homo Sapiens Lupus

Nickname: Wulf’s or Werwulfs [better name pending]

Average Height: 6 to 7 feet

Description:

Wulf’s are known to be highly similar to wolves, much like the Felinids of Carlos McConnell they typically have a light or in some cases thick covering of fur and bear many wolf-like characteristics. Most are basically anthropomorphic in appearance, their skulls typically have a different structure, they bare the muscle power of a wolf well also being host to enhanced hearing, smell and eyesight. Pretty much what you may expect of a wolf. In very rare cases Wulf’s can easily pass as human if granted headbands/helmets, in other cases they are so bestial they look like mutants, however all variations are recorded and based on stable genetics.

They also have been known to have tails of varying lengths. when one suffers extreme dishonor it is cut off at the very base as a means to symbolize their failure, those who regain their honor they usually ask a tech adept to give them some kind of proxy tail. So extremely basic augmetic tails are not something unheard of. [note those granted are HIGHLY protective of these tails, even trying to learn the proper rites to do maintenance themselves if possible]

VARIANT

Werwulfs are an odd variant, these stronger more resilient wulfs can stand up to 8 or 9 feet, are much more muscled by natural conventions and are far more wolf-like with digitigrade legs, this is a trait that has been recorded in each werwulf like the wulfs they can vary to near passing levels but this is a 100% guaranteed identifier alongside their size. The Werwulfs are highly intelligent and tactical however as a trade off they lack some of the more keen tracking skills of their smaller brethren and can fall into an easy battle lust, . They are usually [but not always] on par with Ogryns in strength, and usually carry the heaviest weapon they can use, in one instance a werwulf has been confirmed able to use an Assault cannon, the werwulf [known as Tanith] reported she loved the devastation but not the pain felt after (no injury recorded beyond a stinging pain in the arm and back that lasted 3 days).

Werwulfs are extremely rare, approximately .001% of the population are werwulfs and when one crops up it is offered the chance to join inquisitorial service in exchange for increased supplies to their family. Those who refuse quickly become monsters of the civil wars raging across the world. The current ruler Markis Tiberius is one such example.

WORLD INFO

Native home-world: lenkeitania [better name pending]

Classification: Feudal World

Population: 60,000,000

Military Forces: Astra Militarium Specialist unit (Inquisitorial Asset)

Tithe Grade: Solutio Prima

Affiliation: Imperium of man

Ruler: Markis Tiberius [Current]

Government: Feudal Monarchy [constantly under civil war, All factions believe in the Imperial Creed, Inquisitorial aid granted to current leadership]

Aestimare: [classified]

Segmentum: Tempestus [Unconfirmed]

Sector: [Classified]

Sub Sector: [classified]

System: [classified]

Notes about the world:

The world is relatively under cold weather most of the weather cycle, during the summer the heat becomes so potent that most of the warrior class of the world have to switch to lighter armor to maintain themselves. During the cold portions however the population thrives, as most of their crops have adapted to the cold. Most wulfs, ‘runts’ as they are dubbed by the knight orders work in clan villages that provide support to the knight orders they are protected by.

Much like the stories of Caliban this world is host to a system of knight like armies, using various weapons of various grades, most small factions can only afford to equip their troops with swords, and small stub or las weaponry. They clad themselves in relatively durable armor, so much so that Imperial Flak Jackets actually fall below the grade of their armor, as it can withstand small explosives, multiple solid projectiles, las weaponry, a few seconds of fire under a auto cannon, and even in some lucky cases a small caliber bolt round, obviously that luck does not pass twice.

Local Fauna of the world proven to be extremely hostile but are not major threats to the populous, in fact they are minor but terrifying. The knight orders typically hunt these creatures in small packs if not alone, they heavily control the population to the point they have developed a “tag” system where in some instances they will incapacitate the beast and mark it. if the beast is killed, the order it was marked by will come for answers.

The knight orders of this world submit themselves to inquisitorial judgment frequently, allowing their members to be examined in detail by inquisitors to determine their purity in the eyes of the God Emperor, those who deviate are typically excommunicated, executed or handed to the Adeptus Mechanicus presence on the world. When a Tithe is called each order only submits their best to the tithe and make up the rest of the required numbers in low level line/levy infantry. Many of their best knights have also been recruited by the inquisition to serve as a type of StormTrooper, their armor upgraded further and they are granted more powerful weapons of their preferred type.

There have been very few cases of a Levy/Line infantry becoming “heroes”; the ones who do are quickly recruited by the Inquisition to serve as a combatant. Most Levy infantry are lightly armored and wield a polearm. These hero Levy units fight with a ferocity unparalleled by even the knights they support, and usually when granted heavier equipment of a different color to symbolize their achievement they excel.

Note of author (Inquisitor Aqez): I am no fan of abhumans… these have grown On me, I am requesting reassignment before I do something stupid.

Note of editor (Lord Inquisitor [redacted]): Request granted, Aqez has been reassigned to roles with the Felinids of Carllos McConnell.

Note 2 of editor (Lord Inquisitor [redacted]): Aqez has vanished from the face of the universe, We are still attempting to find someone to replace him in working on this file… as it stands this file will remain unedited until such a time comes or until new info must be added which I will add myself. The Werwulf ‘Tanith’ has since been aspiring to join the ranks of inquisitors, if she succeeds she will be one of two abhumans in the conclave. I will oversee this myself as well.

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 4 years

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Witches, Chapter 26: back in the courtroom, and everything’s coming up as a shitshow, which is honestly how it always goes. Welcome to hell, Athena.

The second trial day of Themis is one of my favorites because there’s both Blackquill being entirely done with everything, and him showing for the first time that he’s got a bit of a heart left. Good shit.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

---

Juniper sits on the lobby couch, her hands cradling a lone large sunflower that Athena brought her, watching Athena interrupt her pacing with jumping jacks. “Shouldn’t you take it easy, Thena?” she asks. She was rather green about ten minutes ago, but assured them that it was just the iron and stress of jail that left her that way, and that she would look properly human by the time she would stand before the judge and gallery. And in the elapsed time her skin has settled in its hue, if paler than she was yesterday, her fear still apparent.

Athena whirls around with a wild glint in her eyes. The tired bags beneath them accentuate her crazed appearance. “I’m taking it easy! I’m fine! I’ve gotta get - be - ready to go!” She jogs in place; she hasn’t had both feet on the floor since she arrived.

“Did you get enough sleep last night?” Apollo asks, knowing the answer is no.

“Sleep? Huh?” Athena finally stops moving. “Yeah, sleep! Yeah I totally sleep! I’m fine!”

She sounds like him on his worst days. “That’s not exactly what I asked,” he says. Juniper stares back down into the center of the sunflower. “Maybe let’s just drop it. We’re not inspiring much faith in our client.”

“No,” Juniper says. She looks up. “I have complete faith in you, Thena.”

“O-oh.” From Athena’s face, she’s wondering if that faith is warranted. Apollo will make sure that it is. For both the girls’ sakes.

“Guten Morgen.” All three of them jump. Klavier chuckles. “Ready to put on a show?”

“Do you have anything about the tape?” Apollo asks. Despite his best efforts, he had found himself wondering when this was all going to come crashing down - if somehow Prosecutor Blackquill would find out and put a stop to it, or if somehow it couldn’t even be proven that the tape was fabricated—

“And not even a ‘hello’ to start with!” Klavier says, still cheerily; he can’t really have expected anything else from Apollo, could he? There’s a trial starting in fifteen minutes and Apollo doesn’t know anymore who he thinks is the killer. “A bit rude, don’t you think? And nonetheless, I have a good-luck present to you both.”

“Guten Morgen, Prosecutor Gavin!” How did Apollo end up stuck with two people like this? Apollo’s probably more fluent in Khura’inese than they are in German (and for Athena, Spanish or Italian or French…), but he doesn’t go around flaunting it like he’s so worldly and cultured. (And he wouldn’t do that even if Khura’in wasn’t something he wishes he would forget.) “Do you have something for us?”

“Of course I do, Fräulein. I could hardly just leave one as lovely as yourself hanging, now could I?” Apollo rolls his eyes, hoping Klavier sees it. Klavier offers to Athena a small stack of papers. “There you are. A summary of the voiceprint analysis, proving that the voice in the tape is most assuredly, exactly the same clip as spoken in the mock trial.” Athena rifles through the pages. “You’ll also notice that there’s still analysis ongoing - hoping to discover what was originally on the tape before it was turned into fabricated evidence. It might give us some other clues, ja? But unfortunately we don’t know much more at this point than the length of the prior recording.”

“Well, maybe that could still help out, somehow,” Athena says. “Thank you! And—” She frowns. “Is this a second copy of the same thing? Wait, this one’s got more information about—”

“About the logistics of the analysis and who precisely down at the precinct was working it,” Klavier interrupts. “That packet is for Herr Samurai. I did not think you would appreciate me tipping your hand to him beforehand, but I imagined there might be more that Herr Prosecutor would like to know to be sure that you are not the ones inventing this wholecloth.”

Klavier made the same warning yesterday when they first discussed this. “Do you think he would?” Apollo asks. “Accuse us of that?”

“Hm.” Klavier considers the question for longer than Apollo would like, idly snapping his fingers. Athena retreats to the couch to discuss their new evidence with Juniper. “Truly, I do not imagine so. He plays a very threatening game, but when it comes to it he seems quite reasonable.”

Apollo thinks about Mayor Tenma’s trial, Blackquill’s dirty tricks that nearly forced the mayor into a false confession. “You and I have different standards of reasonable,” he says. Maybe he means relatively reasonable, that there’s so many other prosecutors who are even worse.

“Perhaps,” Klavier agrees, “but Herr Samurai could be the most reasonable man and I would nonetheless leave you with this document trail.” His eyes, stormy blue and unwavering in their hue this entire conversation, but Apollo doesn’t remember whether or not this color is the Sight, harden. “I would hate to see your integrity as a lawyer called into question, especially over evidence that I offered you as assistance.” His jaw tightens, thinking, no doubt, of what Apollo has continued to think about since he arrived at Themis. With Phoenix.

This also seems like the most emotionally honest Klavier has been all week. “Thanks,” Apollo says. “I—”

—appreciate it, the sentence means to end, but movement behind Klavier catches Apollo’s eye, and the doors that lead out into the hall thump suddenly shut. “Hey!” Apollo calls. “Who’s—”

“What’s going on?” Athena asks. “Who’s there, did you see?”

“I don’t know,” Apollo says. “It might have been Hugh.” He thinks he saw a bit of the dark blue of the Themis uniform there. “Eavesdropping to figure out our strategy, no doubt.”

“I would expect him not to be the only one,” Klavier says, glancing back over his shoulder. “The cardboard paparazzi and the prosecutor Fräulein are rather nosy themselves, wouldn’t you agree? I’ll go chase them down and make sure they cause no further trouble for you.” He flashes a casual grin, as light and easygoing as he ever tries to be, but it is undercut for Apollo, and Apollo alone; Vongole materializes from the air next to him, red ears pricked and nose pointed at the door, her head held level with her shoulders. A creature ready to stalk, ready to hunt, to pounce, and Klavier barely turns for the doors and she springs, plunging through the door like it’s just a projection. But Klavier, when he gets to the door, without much haste, has to open it, reminding Apollo that it’s Vongole who doesn’t adhere to the physical world, not the door.

What’s she going to do, herd the wayward Themis students back around toward Klavier? Can she even do that if they can’t see her? Can she make them see her? God, Apollo hopes that corralling them is all she’ll do; Klavier’s got control over that hellhound, right? He does, Apollo’s seen that. No need to worry about that. Focus on the case.

(Apollo’s still going to worry about that.)

“Apollo, you ready?” Athena asks.

“Yes!” Focus on the moment, the evidence, the trial. Forget Klavier and his haunted dog. “I’m Apollo Justice and I’m fine!” He feels better already, and a shaky grin draws across Athena’s face. “Okay, your turn. Ready?”

“I’m Athena Cykes! And I’m fine!”

“Ms Newman and Mr O’Conner have recanted their confessions made before yesterday’s adjournment, but you may expect, Your Baldness, to see them again in this courtroom, as I intend later to determine if they should be charged with perjury.”

Apollo has come to think that most of Blackquill’s lauded so-called psychological manipulations are really just brute intimidation that he pretends has more finesse than he actually does. Despite that, the question he finds himself with now is whether or not Blackquill is in as cheery of a mood as he is acting, grinning as he catches the court up on all that has progressed on the prosecution’s side of things. “Ms Woods likewise attempted to recant her confession, claiming it was made in the heat of the moment to” - he rolls his eyes, as if the disdain dripping through his voice wasn’t already making his opinion on the matter clear, and Athena’s expression hardens - “protect her friends, but given that she is already and continues to be the one on trial, that changes little of our situation.”

She did confess, didn’t she? In the midst of Robin yelling and Hugh interrupting, Juniper confessed too, trying to stop her friends from ruining their lives for her. And if he presumes Juniper is innocent, which he has to, because she’s their client, then that means when she confessed to murder, she lied; plainly and wholeheartedly, she lied. Which means that even someone half-fae can lie.

“Very well,” the judge says. “And the photograph submitted yesterday of the victim and the defendant together minutes before the—”

“Unfortunately, we will find that evidence no longer relevant,” Blackquill interrupts. He is still smirking, even while forced to refute the hand he played yesterday. If this is an act, to unnerve Apollo, it’s working. Or if he’s genuinely amused, then it’s probably because he’s got something new up his sleeve that makes him not concerned with all the ways his case collapsed yesterday. “The art room clock runs fast and will not give us an accurate measure of the time. ‘Tis a pity for our time to have been wasted as such, but the bungling oaf of a detective responsible for overlooking this fact will assuredly be paying for his failure.”

Athena winces. “Poor Fulbright,” she whispers.

Is Blackquill angry that he thinks Fulbright should have seen it - or is it misplaced anger, Blackquill sure that he would have noticed had he been on the scene investigating and angry that he has to rely on Fulbright, instead. (Is that why they keep spotting traces of Taka around? Blackquill thinking he can’t trust the observation skills of the detective? Taka didn’t notice the clock, either, for whatever that’s worth. Probably not easy for the bird to get into a building. How does it get out of jail?)

“Now,” Blackquill says sharply, and the flashes of mirth he showed a minute ago have vanished. “Today, I intend to prove to you that the accused is the only person who could have moved the body. And to that end, the prosecution calls its first witness.”

Hugh O’Conner did assure Athena that he would be testifying today, and true to that word, he takes the witness stand first. His claim is that he saw Juniper moving the high-jump mat that would’ve been needed to move the body without bruising it; he claims to have seen this from a vantage point that would have been impossible, until Blackquill obliquely reminds them of the crane that was present the night of the murder, as involved in the stage setup. This makes sense - the weird thing about it isn’t the statement itself, but Hugh’s reaction to it. He looks pained, clutching the side of his neck in a way Apollo has come to notice him doing each time he is stressed and struggling to regain his footing in an argument.

“That’s - you’ve said enough, Prosecutor Blackquill!” Is Hugh trying to plead with him or threaten him? Neither, Apollo thinks, is liable to work. “You promised!”

Blackquill laughs, a harsh sound from the back of his throat. “Did I?” he asks. “I recall nothing of the sort. What I do recall is that you came to me blubbering about making a deal that I would keep quiet in exchange for information, but you should have taken care to extract that promise for me before you went ahead and offered me your every secret like a blithering fool.”

Blackquill has a way with words that leaves Apollo incredibly worried about the fates of everyone who is in any way involved with him. Like he’s just waiting for the opportunity to snatch away the souls of anyone who isn’t careful who dares speak with him. Is that part of who he is - what he is - or is it one of his actual psychological manipulations? And is it the witness he means to scare with his phrasing, or the defense?

“Ah, well, if Golden Boy will not take the chance to lift the weight of truth from his shoulders, then I will tell you,” Blackquill says. Hugh, with his hand still clapped tight to his neck like he’s trying to staunch the flow from a wound, makes a kind of undignified whimpering sound. “He was up in that crane, and not simply mucking about there for fun. He does, rather, work part-time as a crane operator.”

“A high school student!” the judge exclaims. “Operating a crane!”

“No!” Hugh snaps. “The prosecution - there’s no proof that I was operating the crane! The prosecution might be lying!”

Blackquill laughs, and makes no move to argue. “I don’t know where this is going,” Athena says in a low voice, “because this is the point that Prosecutor Blackquill wants to make, but…” Louder, she adds, her voice ringing across the courtroom, “I bet we can prove it was you.”

Which they do, for whatever good it may or may not be about to do them, and the judge is still hung up on a high schooler operating a crane, rather than what Hugh would or wouldn’t be able to see from the vantage point of the crane, but Hugh splutters and protests about how brilliant and talented he is and that’s why. Blackquill watches him, smirking, waiting for his failure of an argument to trail away into nothingness. Hugh goes silent halfway through saying something about practicing archery one-handed, and Blackquill’s smirk splits open into a grin. “Dispense with this inane charade, Golden Boy.” He doesn’t wait for Hugh’s response and continues speaking over the witness’ begging. “Now, we will establish, for the sake of argument, that the age range of high school seniors ends at the upper limit of nineteen - still, legally, too young to operate heavy machinery. That, however, does not apply to Mr O’Conner, does it, now?”

“But he is a high school senior,” Athena says. “Are you saying he’s not around that age?”

Blackquill slams his palm on the bench. “Indeed, he is not. Golden Boy here is twenty-five.” The serious expression that he held on his face for a fraction of a second breaks down into raucous laughter, punctured by his further slapping the bench in uncontained amusement. Apollo really doesn’t like seeing him in a good mood. He’s only ever entertained by someone else’s bad fortune. “He took a seven year break from his schooling!”

They all had secrets - Juniper, Robin, Hugh. The courtroom is quiet; is it ever this quiet after a revelation, without a breath of murmured shock. “Eh?” Athena utters faintly. “Come again?”

“Twenty-five,” Blackquill repeats gleefully. He nods to Taka and the hawk snatches up a paper in its talons, launching itself into the air and making straight for the judge. “All in the school’s official paperwork, as you will find.”

“Twenty-five?” Apollo echoes, sure they’re all going to ask this in turn, a round-table of disbelief. “He’s - he’s older than me?” He’s not good at eyeballing ages, he knows that, and he knows that everyone always thinks him baby-faced and younger than he is, and Hugh could be like that. People in their twenties all look all over the place. How’s anyone to know? But on the other hand, what twenty-year-old, after taking a gap year for seven successive years out of high school, would want to go back to high school all over again? Apollo sure wouldn’t. But maybe instead of going to college to be a lawyer, Hugh went back to a lawyer high school because those teenagers are at his same maturity level.

(Solid burn. If he didn’t get heckled every time he was the slightest bit snide to a witness, he would say it out loud.)

“Seven years?” Athena asks. Blackquill might as well just go over the entire situation again, if they’re all going to ask for clarification on each and every tiny point. “But since you’re such a genius” - she does a remarkable job of not sounding wholly derisive when she says it - “wouldn’t taking a seven year vacation make you boring real quick?” She pauses, frowns, playing her words back in her head. “Make you bored.”

Her first one was probably correct, too. Does Hugh know how to have a conversation that isn’t about his own greatness?

“Heh.” Hugh’s recovery from his shock tips him back into the smugness he always seems to carry. “There’s the dull mindless vacations you ordinary plebians take, and then…” He falters, for a moment. “Even geniuses make mistakes,” he says, resuming with an entirely different thread of argument. “The ones I make just, you know, lost me seven years.”

Rising in Apollo’s stomach is the same kind of fear that Blackquill’s particulars of phrasing invoke. “Er, Mr O’Conner,” he begins, ignoring the shock that Athena sends his way, and bracing himself for the way everyone in the courtroom is going to respond to the utterly insane question he is about to ask, “are you actually, like, actually twenty-five, or just - you know, legally, that it’s been twenty-five years since you were first - you were born.”

He knows that at least half of the gallery is going to think he’s an idiot, have some perception of theirs confirmed about how lawyers are all schooling and no sense in their heads; even Athena stares like he’s just lost his mind. Hugh, though, blanches, his whole body tensing and his shoulders drawing inward. Blackquill’s cuffs clank as he hits the bench and Hugh flinches and nearly falls over with fright. Apollo jumps, too. He’d forgotten that Blackquill as much as anyone would hear this question and would get to respond to it in his typical magic-denying ways.

“What a question, Justice-dono,” he drawls. Apollo raises his chin defiantly. It’s a good question, because all the world around them is crazy. “No doubt a matter first brought to your attention by the rather unique situation of some other golden boy of our acquaintance.” His eyebrows raise and his mouth twists in amusement. Apollo’s heart skips and then stops. How does Blackquill know? It seems unlikely - though technically possible - that Klavier would have told him; the alternative is that Blackquill knows enough to know, to realize, when it took even Phoenix several strokes of luck and coincidence to piece it together. Blackquill shouldn’t be saying this. He shouldn’t know. And why of all times choose this as the moment to drop his pretense of disbelief? To psych Apollo out some more? To give Klavier, up in the gallery, a slap in the face for helping Apollo and Athena?

“But suffice to say, we will find that an irrelevant question,” Blackquill continues. “What matters is the legal age of the witness, that has so allowed him to work the discussed job as a crane operator. He was, therefore, up in the crane with the vantage point to see the accused dragging the mat in preparation to move the body. You must agree how clear this is, and that there is no need to deliberate this much any further.”

Oh. Right. Juniper. This is, after all, her trial, and the reason they have gone down this strange road still has to do with her case, and what she did or didn’t do, and Hugh did or didn’t see, on the morning that the body was discovered.

Back to the fight.

Hugh lied about ever seeing the body on stage.

It’s an utterly incomprehensible lie, in Apollo’s most just and honest opinion; it’s also one of a host of shady moves Hugh has made. Though the blood Juniper saw on his hands was his own, from trying to sneak a look at the mock trial script and instead finding Myriam’s spring-loaded razor blade-protected script envelope, and her suspicion against him in that regard can be discounted - well, there’s still his grades, and this, about the body.

If the body was moved during the mock trial - moved in fact at the moment Phoenix and Athena heard the shattering of the statues on stage that drew them outside to discover the body - then Hugh and Robin have airtight alibis, on the floor in front of a crowd for the whole mock trial. Apollo had his eyes on them the whole time. But Juniper, ever-multitasking Juniper, the conductor of her show, the only person alive at that time with all the secrets of her script, was not always down on the floor playing the defendant. She was up at the back of the hall in the sound booth, moving back and forth even during Professor Means’ speech. At any of those times, she could have slipped out to the art room, to send Courte’s body to the stage down the banner wire.

All they’ve done is help Blackquill build a more convincing case against Juniper, so convincing that Apollo can’t find within him a single point to dispute. They missed something; he knows it, he has to know it, he has to believe it to the end. But where? Can he object on the grounds that they need to know why Hugh lied about seeing the body? Would Blackquill let that stand?

Hugh starts to laugh. Hugh starts to laugh in the broken, hysterical way of a killer cornered, except he’s about to get away free with Juniper’s verdict. “Behold my brilliance!” he cries, his words breathless and interrupted by his own frantic, frenzied laughter. “Listen well as the rare genius of Hugh O’Conner reveals to the world the secrets of his perfect crime!”

Apollo looks at Athena. Athena glances back at Apollo. “Er,” she says. “What? Why’s this - why again?”

Because this, the wild confessions, happened yesterday too. To hell with this trial. Hugh appears feverish, his hair matting to his forehead and neck with sweat, his eyes darting all around the courtroom, jumping from Apollo and Athena to Blackquill to Juniper and never settling on any of them. “The murder, moving the body, the cover-up, all my works of genius! My great and perfect crime, bow in awe and stand to arrest me! I am confessing, am I not? You have your killer here!”

“Is he serious?” Apollo asks. He’s afraid he is. He’s seen too many other people unravel in this same manner, but the game was up for all of them. Hugh’s game - what the hell is his game?

“I think he’s serious,” Athena says. “Serious, and seriously suddenly cracked.”

“Enough!” Blackquill snarls. Taka shrieks in an angry echo. “You have a perfect alibi, not a perfect crime! And you dare to stand here and further act the mad fool to delay this trial from its inevitable outcome!” He fixes Hugh with his dark eyes, but this time, Hugh doesn’t shrink away. That is definitely stupidity, not bravery, on his part. “I will have no mercy for you should you not this instant stand down.”

“I will never!” Hugh shouts back. “I have testimony that will prove to you, the utter perfection with which I always act! You’ll doubt me, but in truth I used a body double at the mock trial! It wasn’t me at all, not about to lose and not with the alibi! I, the real me, slipped out and had the run of the campus! I moved the body, I’m the killer, and Juniper’s innocent!”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Athena says.

“I must ask of both the defense and prosecution,” the judge says. “Does this testimony make any sense at all, in the slightest?”

“No,” Apollo answers.

“Oh, good,” the judge says. “I thought I had just become suddenly, extremely confused.”

“The witness is the one suddenly, extremely confused,” Blackquill says. “And it would be charitable, to call him confused, instead of saying, for instance, that he is a bloody lunatic.”

“You’re a witch, aren’t you?” Hugh demands. As though to make the point for him, Blackquill’s eyes flash silver. “Don’t you know anything about doppelgangers? You know, changelings getting switched for people? You think creatures like that are not okay with being an accessory to crime?” A sour taste gathers in Apollo’s mouth. He thinks of Vera, of Kristoph, of Klavier in the gallery, that life-shaping trauma turned into Hugh’s latest desperate lie in the service of - what? To what end? “I had a—”

“Enough!” Blackquill roars, and it is, indeed, so much more of a bellow than his usual low snarling interruptions. Athena lets out a small scream and stumbles back into the wall behind them. Even Hugh shrinks toward the witness stand, seeming to recognize that he’s taken this impossible declaration a step too far. “That you know such words to use them does not mean you have the damndest understanding of what they truly entail!” He slams both fists in tandem on the bench, and Athena clasps both of her hands over Widget to muffle its surprised swearing.

“You claim familiarity with the concepts as part of your mad gambit, make a mockery of the gravity of such matters, and call me to my face a witch as though that would convince me of the veracity of your statements - yet you never pause to think that perhaps whatever I am, I also bear the ability to see through your pernicious bullshit.” Hugh’s mouth flaps open, and he shuts it without a word. “Spare this court your lies,” Blackquill continues. He has stopped yelling now, his voice merely as low and deadly as it ever is. “There is only one of you, as there ever has been - as is most fortuitous for us, as you the sole dunce as you are have made more than your share of trouble, and another of you would be far more than unbearable.”

Hugh’s mouth opens again like a fish deprived of water, but it seems to Apollo that Blackquill’s outburst has drawn to its close. “Shit,” Athena whispers, her and not Widget this time. “I’ve never heard him that angry.”

Have they? He has been furious at Fulbright, over stupid witnesses, over cases. Professional anger. This is different; this seems a personal chord, and a very disharmonious one, struck, and painfully enough to drop the game he’d made of it prior, denying right to Apollo’s face that monsters, yokai, and magic could ever exist. And is it painful to him the way it infuriates Apollo, on behalf of someone else, or is this another clue in the puzzle, the question, of what is Prosecutor Simon Blackquill?

“Now,” Blackquill says, his calm and his smirk returned, “Your Baldness, where we left off. The verdict.”

“But it’s - hey! Defense!” Hugh, gripping the witness stand, turns on them next. “You have that weird device, don’t you? For crazy testimonies like mine?”

“Widget isn’t weird!” Athena protests. Apollo could object to that. “And I’m not going to waste him on something this plainly ridiculous—”

“We don’t have any objections otherwise,” Apollo reminds her. “The only thing left otherwise is the verdict. There’s nothing worse that can happen from giving this a shot.”

“Oh,” Athena says, blanching as she realizes that she was about to let the trial reach its verdict and damn Juniper to prison. She clears her throat. “Well,” she says loudly, “against some of my better judgment, I would like to conduct a short psychoanalytic session with the witness.”

“As a judge, I feel this to be beyond my better sense as well, yet I also do not feel as though I should deny you.” The judge glances around the courtroom, pondering what must be yet another in the Wright Anything Agency’s long, long line of unprecedented incidents. “Well, then. Prosecutor Blackquill, I will ask your opinion. I trust you have no object… ah.”

The courtroom doors slam, seeming to rattle the whole room, and rattling Apollo even more is the empty prosecution’s bench. “Ah, Your Honor,” says one of the bailiffs by the doors, eyes still blankly fixated on where they closed. “The prosecution said, and I quote, ‘Rubbish! We will be out on a stroll’ and left, Detective Fulbright with him.”

At least he isn’t loose unsupervised, but holy hell, is there nothing that Blackquill can’t get away with? (Nothing short of murder, anyway.)

“I must suppose he would have lodged an objection in his parting words if he took issue with Ms Cykes’ plan.” The judge nods once, and decisively. “Very well. Ms Cykes, you may proceed with your therapy session-slash-cross-examination.”

“You’re up, Widget.” Athena draws up the emotional analysis screen and over her shoulder, Apollo watches it load. He can’t help but find the whole process fascinating, no matter that he’s seen it before, and he wonders how many times he’ll have to see it until he gets used to it. Knowing that Athena has the little gadget taking pictures almost constantly doesn’t change his amazement with the way she can compile it all into new mock-ups of scenes discussed in the testimony, or how seamlessly she does it. A large part of him still isn’t sure that there’s not magic involved, somehow woven into the technology. “Now, Mr O’Conner, please repeat your testimony!”

Hugh inhales deeply, his eyes still darting about, like he’s suddenly trying to remember the spur-of-the-moment co-called “testimony” he blurted. “All right,” he says. “I’ll say this simple enough that even mouth-breathers like you can understand. I used a body double! That wasn’t really me at the mock trial! And it wasn’t really me who was about to lose, of course. I slipped out while my doppelganger handled the mock trial, and I had full run of the campus. So it’s me who’s the killer, not Juniper. She’s innocent!”

“Well, he sure wasn’t kidding when he said it was crazy testimony,” Athena mutters, swiping through the pages on which she lists each sentence of Hugh’s testimony and the associated emotions. All of Widget’s projected screens flash bright green, as it blares out the alarm that warns it is overloaded by the emotional input. How Athena, with her sensitive hearing, tolerates that sound, Apollo will never know. “Right now, we’re getting an overflow reading on happiness, which is weird, considering he’s confessing to murder.”

“Maybe he’s just delighted by how the rest of us can’t understand his brilliance,” Apollo says. “But I’m guessing you think there’s something more going on.”

“Mhm.” He can’t tell if Athena was listening or is just mumbling to herself. She flips back and forth between two parts of the testimony, too fast to actually be reading over the sentences again; her eyes follow the images that she has placed with the words. Then she finally looks up. “So, Mr O’Conner, yesterday you told us that you didn’t care at all about Ms Woods anymore.”

Apollo glances to the defendant’s chair, where poor Juniper looks distraught, red-faced from crying and now wide-eyed with shock, staring at Hugh. “That’s right,” Hugh says, about as smoothly as he’s managing to say anything now. A silent sob shudders across Juniper’s thin shoulders. “She told Professor Courte my secret, and I know she wants nothing to do with me now.”

Juniper shakes her head, her mouth moving, whispering something Apollo can’t make out across the courtroom, but Athena probably could, were her attentions not rightly fixed on the witness. If he had to guess, had to bet on it, from the rest of her body language, she’s probably saying, that’s not true.

“So now I don’t care about her either.” Hugh laughs dismissively, but his eyes still move uneasily, and his hand clutches his neck. He’s still lying. “What, you think my confession has something to do with her? It doesn’t! It’s about one thing, and that’s the truth, the truth that everyone in this courtroom was too inferior to figure out!”

“No, objection!” Athena slaps her hand to the bench, through Widget’s hologram screen. “This whole testimony, you’ve felt great joy - so much that I can barely hear anything else! You’re happy that you could play a part in setting Juniper free.” She draws her hand back and props her hands on her hips. “People usually don’t feel like you do when they’re broken down enough to confess to murder.”

“So then, this is another confession trying to protect Juniper?” Apollo asks. Meaning it’s a false confession, meaning Hugh isn’t the killer after all. Like Phoenix thought, against all the evidence, on a hunch.

“It is,” Athena says. “He does care about her, without question.”

But if not Hugh, they still don’t have any evidence of anyone else, and they’ve looped back around to—

The courtroom doors slam again. “Figured it out, have you?” Blackquill asks. He whistles sharply and Taka returns to his shoulder from wherever it was hiding. Taka was still in the courtroom, then? Apollo glances around, wondering where it went, wondering if Blackquill’s dramatic timing is perfect because he was following the whole conversation via the hawk left behind. He makes his way back to the bench, without any great haste, and scratches Taka beneath the chin as he continues, “That testimony was naught but a great tangle of lies. May we agree now that the killer is the one person permitted to move freely out of sight in the lecture hall - that is, the accused herself. We need not waste more time deliberating this nonsense.”

“But you haven’t figured it out!” Hugh protests. Blackquill’s face darkens. “The trick behind my body-double stunt!”

“Would one even presume it to be true,” Blackquill says dryly, but lacking even an ounce of amusement in the hard line of his mouth and his shadowed eyes, “you did tell us in the beginning how it was that you claimed to have a doppelganger.”

“I think I’m gonna agree with Prosecutor Blackquill on this one,” Apollo says. A small kernel of doubt has dug its way through his prior certainty, and he wishes that Phoenix had been the one to watch the mock trial, instead. He could have noticed - if he’d thought to look, and he would have, right? He’s that cautious or paranoid, right? - whether or not Hugh was the same person, and human, the whole way through. Apollo just knows that the Hugh in the mock trial didn’t stray from the bench, didn’t seem to disappear or slough eyes off of him for even a brief moment - and still, still he doesn’t trust himself to be sure. Not when the fae could be involved. “But if we quit here, then Juniper is found guilty.”

“So the best of the bad options is to play along,” Athena says. She quickly taps out a few commands with her gloved hand on the screen. “Okay, let’s see here. What else can we find out?”

Hugh’s continues testimony is just as rambling and confused as before, tripping over itself and tangling itself up in knots that will only snare Juniper deeper. It’s pathetic to watch him falling apart as he is: certain that Juniper is innocent but too afraid of the corruption in the legal system to believe that the plain truth can ever win out, and desperate for some affirmation that despite his grades being bought (without his knowledge, which Apollo notes is definitely interesting) his friends could still possibly love him. This is not Apollo’s field of expertise, but he has Athena, Athena with her ears and Widget, and she manages beautifully. He’d tell her that he’s impressed, but Blackquill has been waiting to pounce, and with Hugh recanting his confession, pounce he does.

“This roundabout trial has returned us once again to the point I have been making: that the only person who lacks an alibi is the accused.” Blackquill folds his arms and taps a finger against his head. The chains rattle. “Consider that, Cykes-dono, and finally realize that your friend’s guilt is the truth you have so valiantly sought.”

“Did we really spend all that time getting nowhere?” Apollo asks. He casts his mind back over Hugh’s testimony. Doppelganger nonsense and more doppelganger nonsense; such useful information, all around. “This is exhausting.”

Athena isn’t listening. She frowns down at Widget’s Mood Matrix screen, which has updated to show that all of the emotions in Hugh’s voice have been cataloged and cleared, and it winks out of existence, only for Athena to immediately bring back up some of her case notes. “Hold on a minute, Your Honor, Prosecutor Blackquill.” She swipes the screen to display a floor plan of the lecture call, with the balcony seats for Courte and Means clearly marked. (Does the head of the prosecutions’ course not have enough seniority to join either of them in the balcony seating? Didn’t Phoenix say they all got fired a few years back?) “If we have someone else who doesn’t have an alibi, then we need to continue the trial, correct?”

“Of course,” the judge says. “But after so much thorough investigation and debate, can such a person even exist?”

“Where are we going with this?” Apollo asks Athena. He feels like someone scrambled his brains.

She rests her finger above the marked defense’s bench in the lecture hall diagram. “Remember how Hugh has been insistent on seeing this balcony seat empty?” She moves her finger diagonally to point to the seat noted to be Means’. “He thought that was because it was Courte’s, and she was dead at the time. But it isn’t.”

“So if Professor Means wasn’t where he was supposed to be—”

“Your Honor!” Athena calls. “However roundabout this testimony has been, we have arrived at one statement of truth. That balcony seat was empty, meaning that Professor Means wasn’t where he was supposed to be during the mock trial!”

“Oh please,” Blackquill sneers. “The whole of the lecture hall heard him give his speech!”

“It bored me half to death,” Apollo adds. He doesn’t remember what was actually said, just that it became a buzzing in his ears within about forty seconds, as some leftover instincts from college assured him that there would be nothing worth remembering.

“It could have been pre-recorded, right?” Athena says. “Then the professor could have given his speech, while he was wherever else on campus!”

“Wait!” Hugh interrupts. “You don’t - are you seriously accusing Professor Means? He’s been trying to help this whole time!” Apollo doesn’t believe that, but he can’t tell if Hugh believes it, or if his nervous habits are now simple shock at where Athena has taken this case. “It’s crazy to say that he - I mean, he was the one who gave me the tape recorder to take to the police!”

“The tape?”

Apollo asks at the same time Athena does, and they stare at each other; understanding and alarm start to dawn behind Athena’s eyes. “Athena,” Apollo says. “We have to get Professor Means on the witness stand.”

She purses her lips and nods decisively. “Mr O’Conner, did you just say that Professor Means gave you that phony tape?”

“Phony?” Hugh echoes. “No, I - he gave it to me and told me to go to the police and say I found it in the art room, but it’s not - what do you mean, phony—”

“And it didn’t seem suspicious for him to tell you to lie?” Apollo demands. This goddamn school, he swears - Hugh probably wouldn’t even have an issue with the lying, would have been sure that it meant instead that Professor Means had some kind of shady-but-ultimately-justified plan for Juniper’s defense, and who was he to question?

“Apollo, this isn’t the time,” Athena warns, her eyebrows drawing together. He follows her narrow-eyed gaze to watch Blackquill, his hand on his chin, smirking to himself, pondering something. Maybe whether he can add that to Hugh’s perjury charges.

“Defense, please refrain from hurling unsubstantiated accusations as you are by calling the evidence ‘phony’,” the judge says. “Unless you can—”

“We can prove it!” Athena interrupts, smacking her palms on the bench like she’s about to try and vault it. “This tape we discussed yesterday, the voice of our client shouting ‘You’re a goner!’, was faked by reusing audio from the mock trial video! We have evidence about the, um, about the evidence!”

Taka lands on the bench, its head twitching back and forth, expectantly waiting. “Hang on, which one of these is which - here!” Athena offers one of Klavier’s evidence packets to the hawk, which blinks at her in almost acknowledgement before it returns across the courtroom to Blackquill. He intently studies each page in turn, the seconds passing in excruciating slowness as they wait for his response. On reaching the end, he tosses back his head, hair falling in front of his eyes, and lets out a loud, sharp laugh.

“Is there an issue, Prosecutor Blackquill?” the judge asks.

“There is not,” Blackquill says. Could’ve fooled me, Apollo thinks. The prosecutor makes a dismissive flick of his fingers and Taka, still with the papers clutched in its beak, heads off to the judge. “I concede that, as asserted and evidenced by the” - he forces out a cough and then loudly clears his throat - “defense, that the evidence on the tape was falsified.” Apollo has to stop himself from turning his head to glance up toward the gallery, wondering where Klavier sits. “However, are not the odds greatest that our lying dullard of a witness merely overlooked the professor in the balcony?”

“We can’t know for sure until we ask him!” Athena fires back. “We can’t overlook any possibilities!”

The judge strikes his gavel twice. “My opinion on the matter,” he says, when they have both fallen to silence, Athena glaring furiously at Blackquill, and Blackquill unbothered, watching Taka preen its wing feathers, “is that it would be premature to pass a verdict without having properly examined a possible witness oversight. And to answer that question, I believe it would be best to ask Professor Means himself, and therefore to call him as a witness.”

Apollo lets out his breath, but the tightness in his chest remains. This is the one guiding piece of advice that Phoenix gave: if you see the opportunity to get him on the stand, take it.

Now they’re on their own.

“Good afternoon. I would like to thank you all for being here today. This mock trial, the crown event of…”

Means’ speech was ten minutes long.

Apollo forgot about that, honestly.

They’re searching for some sort of hint that the speech was pre-recorded, some kind of discrepancy between his words and what they know to be true of the day. Athena assured Means that they weren’t accusing him of anything now, just wanted to be sure of the truth of the matter of the speech and the balcony seating - and she said it with her face drawn solemnly across, her shoulders held stiff and her hands squeezing into fists at her sides. She lied. She suspects him. They’ll be accusing him later. And Means at the witness stand loses his trademark smile to glower at Athena whenever she looks away.

Blackquill pays no attention to anyone, his back to the court, his elbows propped up on the bench behind him, his head slumped forward. He had said - not really directed at anyone in particular - to wake him up when this was concluded. Apollo no longer thinks he’s joking, watching his shoulders rise and fall with the slow, steady breathing pattern of someone asleep. Taka, in imitation of its master, ducks its head beneath its wing.

Are neither of them actually going to listen? Blackquill not even try to assess the details for himself?

Apollo tears his eyes away from the opposite bench. The speech, focus on the speech. Athena’s hand flits over a blank Widget screen that she intended to use for notes, doodling flowers and swirls all across the edges. There’s a shape that Apollo presumes to be a bowling pin until she adds the beak to the penguin. She isn’t keyed in to the speech, either. It’s testimony, the worst kind of testimony, where they have to make it through an untold number of minutes of Means reminiscing about his own long-ago days as a Themis student, and how what he learned there became critical in his days as a real lawyer, before he returned again to Themis to instruct a new generation.

Was it in school that he learned that forging evidence worked, or was he like Phoenix, in a real trial back to the wall, nothing but that or losing? Are monsters born or made, and how are they made? What does it take to break an honest lawyer, if ever he began that way?

The video was to record the mock trial, not the speech before it; the camera in the lecture hall is fixed on the floor, the benches where Robin and Hugh stand, and the witness stand that Juniper travels back and forth from. They obviously can’t see the balconies - otherwise there would be an easy answer to this matter - but the audience is visible, students restless whispering to each other or leaning their heads in their hands or on their desks. Apollo wonders where he was sitting, if he can see himself.

The judge’s head droops and snaps back up, guiltily glancing around to assess whether anyone else noticed.

Professor Means, on the recording of the speech that may have been pre-recorded, interrupts himself to snap at the audience to wake up. The judge’s eyes pop open, and something clatters like he knocked his gavel to the floor; Athena’s arm jerks across her notes page, scribbling across her penguin drawing. “I’m awake, I’m awake!” she yelps, turning panicked to Apollo.

Blackquill doesn’t twitch.

This still isn’t even evidence that the speech wasn’t pre-recorded. If this is how Means always sounds, he would have known at this point, about eight minutes in, students would be nodding off. He easily could have scripted that for authenticity.

Athena adds angry eyebrows to her drawn penguin and adds what looks like a ball of lint next to it. Is that supposed to be a fluffy baby penguin?

The audio ends with a click. Apollo registers that the words that ended the speech were words that heralded the end of a speech, and already he doesn’t remember what. He shakes his head to clear out the static. He was supposed to find something useful in there. Something that meant it was pre-recorded. He glances at Athena. Her eyes are huge. So she didn’t hear anything, either.

“Listen well, Cykes-dono - if you subject us to this torturous tedium without due reason, I shall have your head.” Blackquill still hasn’t moved. He slowly tips his head back and turns to cast a cold stare onto Athena.

“Didn’t he nap the whole time?” Apollo mutters, but Athena doesn’t seem to be in the mood for humor. And Apollo shouldn’t be, either. They’re this close to a turnabout, and this close to a loss. Trucy calls it his “tightrope defense act”, and he hates the descriptor even if it isn’t wrong.

“Hey! Apollo!” someone hisses. He expects it to be Trucy, just thinking of her, but when he turns, and Athena with him, there’s Phoenix, hanging over the edge of the gallery. “Catch!”

“Wh—” Apollo fumbles with the object Phoenix just tossed at him, finding the magatama in his hands. “Why—”

“Mr Wright!” the judge scolds, whackling his gavel several times in swift succession. “I’m sure you must want to be behind the bench, but please, this court does not want any liability should you fall and crack your head!”

Yeah, liability for the ankle injury he’d probably incur from that. “Sorry, Your Honor!” Phoenix calls back with a sharp grin, but he only leans further down. “Listen to the end again, Apollo. The last minute or so.”

“But why—” The magatama is for glamours, and glamours are on people, and they’re listening to a recording of Means’ speech, not him speaking directly to them.

“Exactly why you think - I’ll explain the details later, when—” Phoenix jerks backwards as Taka dives, talons outstretched, for his face. Several gasps and shrieks arise from the gallery around him. “When this bird isn’t around! Good luck!” He scrambles away, Taka in pursuit.

“So,” Athena says. “What—”

“Listen to the ending again,” Apollo says. He squeezes his fingers tightly around the magatama. Please, please, he thinks, without any idea who he is appealing to, give me something—

The words hit his ears with a sharper clarity than before. He can think now, his brain no longer buzzing. Even in this little bit, Apollo understands that most of Means’ speech was all fluff and no substance, all inane and nothing meaningful. And then the sign-off: “Once again, our pure white Lady Justice will watch over all of you today. Pay attention now and one day, with the wisdom of our grand academy and your own experience, you may make a difference. Now, let the mock trial begin!"

What’s this Lady Justice that he’s referring to? That was the statue Athena put back together on-stage, with Klavier, but there’s a very similar statue standing very apparent in the center of the lecture hall floor, right in front of the mock-up judge’s bench. A statue that is, however, very much not white.

“Athena,” he says, and her head snaps around in a startled way that says he just knocked her out of another boring speech-induced reverie. “I’ve got something.”

Not enough on its own, but together with Klavier’s evidence, and that only breaks Means down into a new set of lies, and worse ones than ever.

“Fine, yes. I had pre-recorded my speech, but I assure you, the reason was not that which you think.” Athena’s eyebrows disappear beneath her hairline and she casts a doubtful side-eye Apollo’s way. Means peers over his glasses at them and continues, “Ms Woods came to me asking that I should do so - record my speech - and come speak with her in the audio room during the opening of the mock trial. There, she told me that she had committed murder and wished that I would defend her. She told me as well that this would happen - the suspicion you cast upon me - as I lose my alibi with the pre-recorded speech, and thus become an accomplice or suspect.” His stony features relax. “But when I said that I would defend Juniper as her attorney, I meant it, because it was the humane thing to do.”

“He can’t be serious,” Apollo says. “There’s no way. This is all too contrived. But he’s good at coming up with bullshit on the fly.” Unless he thought ahead far enough, to this eventuality, and pre-planned the best lies to cover his ass.

“Juniper would never!” Athena shouts. “There’s no way! This is all a bunch of shit.”

“Allow me to be perfectly frank.” Means lightly taps the end of his staff on the floor. “Juniper has taken my teachings to heart. That I would prove her and her two friends innocent was the result she sought, and two that end, she threatened and coerced me, her professor, to do her bidding.”

“And I may only imagine that you found such ruthless tactics to be impressive and admirable,” Blackquill says dryly. Shouldn’t those underhanded strategies be right up his alley; shouldn’t he himself be impressed? As far as Apollo knows, he’s drawn the line at falsifying evidence, but there’s a litany of shady shit that he’s toed the line of. And the murder, of course. The murder that he did and was convicted of.

“Oh, yes,” Means agrees. “What she did was most clever of her, which is why I agreed to defend her. Her capacity for deviousness surprised me, at first, though the more I think on it the more I understand that I should have seen this coming.”

Athena folds her arms, glaring daggers at Means, but she’s gone strangely quiet taking in the lies rather than yelling back. What’s she thinking? What’s she waiting for? Apollo isn’t sure what he’s waiting for - Means to keep digging his own grave talking about his corrupt methodologies, maybe. Get him brought up on additional corruption charges after they prove him a murderer.

“It’s really the hallmark of her kind, is it not?” Means continues, and Athena’s mouth presses even tighter together. Blackquill tilts his head just ever-so-slightly to the side, barely more than a twitch, studying Means, and waiting. “This sort of cunning self-serving cruelty, so typical of the actions of - well. We shall say that anyone may be cruel, but there is a particular and exemplary manner of it displayed here that you will also find to be quite… fae. And rather more than in half as one could first assume of this defendant.”

“Pardon?” The judge blinks in shock. “I am not sure I understand the relevance that this remark holds.”

Does he not realize? Does he know, or somehow have these things passed him by every trial? Juniper shrinks into herself, her hands covering her face. “It has none, Your Baldness,” Blackquill says, his disparaging gaze turning from Means to Juniper. “And before your protest I had been about to lodge my own objection, that the witness had best stick to discussing what it is that the defendant has done, and leave aside that which she is.”

Juniper lowers her hands, her eyes wide, but Blackquill isn’t looking at her anymore. Was it her honor that he was defending, or that of the fae in general? His responses to fae-related remarks have seemed - like he’s taking them personally.

“Objection sustained, then,” the judge says. “Defense, I believe it is time for your cross-examination.”

“You’ve been rather quiet now, haven’t you, Cykes-dono.” Blackquill can’t resist one last taunt. “Something the matter?”

Athena inhales deeply. She places her hands back down on the bench, her shoulders squared and her eyes flinty. “I’m not going to argue on principles,” she says. “Some long-winded idealistic speech. I’m going to let my evidence, and my victory, do the talking.” She lifts her hands and this time slams them down. “You claim that you were lying to cover for Junie, but that’s a load of hot shit!”

“That language, in our fair court of law!” Means interrupts indignantly. “Your Honor, it is an outrage!” Apollo personally finds Means’ guiding philosophies about the uselessness of the truth, and his forged evidence, a lot more of an outrage, but what does he know.

“Ms Cykes. Having adjudicated your mentor’s first case back, I understand where this unfortunate habit of yours was picked up, but please, do try to not make this such a frequent occurrence that I must penalize you for it.”

“Of course, Your Honor.” She takes that better than Apollo expected, though Widget still glows red. “Now, if the court would please recall the audio recording, presented as evidence yesterday, that today we have established to have been faked. It was Professor Means who gave that to Hugh and whispered to go take it to the police. If you had Junie’s best interests at heart, Professor, why would you fabricate evidence that uses her voice? That is, it’s an incredibly damaging piece of evidence that shouldn’t exist if you had wanted to defend Juniper - as it is, it seems like you’re trying to pin the crime on her instead!”

Means lowers his eyes. Apollo isn’t naive enough to think that means he’s chastened, or is going to do anything but dig in further. “You’ve done nothing but lie, and you’ve taught nothing but lies!” Athena shouts. “Your road to hell has no good intentions!”

“How dare you!” There it goes. Means’ head snaps back up. He grits his teeth in a snarl. “Themis Academy is an honorable institution with a proud name and how dare you slander it!” He grinds his staff against the ground. The sound sets Apollo’s teeth on edge, and Athena claps her hands over her ears.

“I’m not slandering the whole academy!” she protests. “Just your terrible teachings! You—” Means reaches into his pocket, producing a piece of chalk, which he flings at Athena. “Ow! What the helllleck, heck, was that!”

“Pay attention, Athena!” Means speaks like this is a lecture hall, like he’s the professor in charge of a classroom and not a witness on the stand, and she some wayward student of his and not a defense attorney on a cross-examination. “You’re disappointing me! The murder occurred on the twenty-third sometime between six and eight pm. I was already home at that time! How could I have killed her?”

“Can you prove you had gone home by then?” Athena asks.

Apollo knows what the answer will be before Means says it - the shifting burden of proof, always to the defense. “Can you prove that I was still at the school then?” he asks, a furious pointer finger waved in her direction.

Apollo casts about for any option, and he watches Athena slowly lose hope, her confident posture falling away, her hands sliding off of her hips and her shoulders slumping forward until she lets her elbows hit the bench and prop her head back up. “No,” she admits.

“Very good! I appreciate your honesty, even as it fails your case.” Means is still in teacher-mode, and now Apollo wonders if it’s some sort of mocking of them that he’s attempting to do. “But given that—”

“Hey! Hold on a second, man!”

Robin’s shriek could be an impressive rival to the Chords of Steel. She stands up in the front row of the gallery, leaning forward and peering down the drop to the floor, weighing whether she should just vault down, and deciding against it. She raises one hand and then rushes aside, leaving silence for several moments until she properly reaches the floor of the courtroom, where she places herself beside the defendant’s chair. Throwing her arm out in an imperious, pointed objection, directed at Means, she shouts, “I can’t believe I’ve let you lie to me all this time!” The Professor sputters indignantly, and Robin drowns him out with a roar. “I’ve got a confession to make! I can prove it!”

Of the statues on the stage, Klavier and Phoenix, Robin only had time to actually make the Klavier statue, the one that they put back together yesterday. Then the late bell rang, and Robin, without permission to stay on campus, asked Means if he could make the other statue for her. This puts him still at the school at the time of the murder, though he claims with the intensive work it would have taken to finish the artwork in an hour and a half, there’s no way he could have taken an instant to go to the art room and commit the crime. (Couldn’t there have been time after? Couldn’t the autopsy report’s window be off, have that wiggle room?)

Or there’s Athena’s objection, offered up without a thought, and then a few seconds after, she has invented a possibility. “What if we were all wrong about where the crime was committed?”

That’s one of Phoenix’s classic turnabout tactics. Apollo sees where she’s going; Means scoffs that she’s lost her mind, but Blackquill, glowering around the court at everyone in equal measure, very slowly says, “Continue.” When Means sounds about to protest, Taka alights from Blackquill’s shoulder and brings its fly-by so close that its talons rake through Means’ hair.

The murder took place on the stage, the blood spilling onto the banners lying there. The Gavineers banner soaked up most of the blood, was wiped on the art room floor to create the other crime scene, and then burned to hide the evidence. The white Lady Justice statue they repaired during yesterday’s investigation came from the art room, sent down the banner wire to make some noise and lead someone to the body. The body, therefore, was hidden on the stage somewhere.

How? At least a hundred people passed the stage on their way to the mock trial. What did it look like? Was there a crawl space under it that could be counted on no one to notice? What about behind it? Did they see it from other angles? Athena only has partial photographs, from up on the stage, nothing with the right angle, the wide shot. All of the pieces, these strange inconsistencies and bits of evidence collected, fit perfectly together with this theory.

There’s just no place for the body.

And that’s going to sink them.

They’re sinking, and Means just laughs. “Don’t you understand yet? There’s no killer other than Juniper Woods! There never was any other possibility, and there never will be!”

“But…” Athena falters. Apollo needs to help her, if he can just come up with somewhere, anywhere, that the body could have been. There were bruises on the victim’s wrists from being tied. Was she tied in some contorted position to allow her body to fit somewhere strange? Every second that he doesn’t say something, he’s failing their client, and he’s failing his friend.

“Poor Juniper must seriously regret asking for your help now - choosing you over me! And not just for herself, but for the way you nearly had Hugh wrongly convicted for murder! Surely you haven’t forgotten that big mistake of yours, too?”

“Don’t listen to him,” Apollo says. Though really, he’s not sure if Athena is listening to anyone, her face gone slack and her eyes glazed over, lost somewhere that isn’t here. “Athena?”

“You’ve not only failed to defend your client, but you brought false charges against her friend!” Means is positively gleeful tearing into her, a shark that’s scented blood and gone into a frenzy, and Apollo remembers what Phoenix said last night, about Athena, about accusing Hugh, wonders what he’s thinking now watching his best-laid plans to shelter her fall apart. “You don’t deserve to call yourself a lawyer!”

“No.” Athena hugs herself tightly, clutching her arms across her stomach like she’s sick, or trying to staunch the flow of blood from a wound, and doubling over herself. Her hair falls across her face, but not enough that Apollo can’t see her eyes, wide and hollow, and Widget’s screen, gone straight black. “No, I - wouldn’t let an innocent person be - I wouldn’t let him be convicted for - something he didn’t—”

“Athena! Hey, Athena, look at me.” Her shoulders start to shake. She doesn’t lift her head. Apollo reaches for her shoulder and stops; she flipped a mann larger than Apollo over her head the last time someone unexpectedly touched her, and if she’s already breaking, the last thing she’ll need is to hate herself more if she lashes out and injures Apollo. Means grins in satisfaction; Apollo glares at him and wishes, horribly, cruelly, for an instant, that he was fae, that he could kill with a look, literally, and then the wish turns his stomach over. Even if this man is a monster, even if he’s getting a laugh out of hurting Athena—

It’s not - it’s probably not a curse, is it? Some kind of spell Means put on her? It’s probably just - a regular mundane breakdown, right? Phoenix is up in the gallery watching, and if something had happened, he’d already be on his way down to let Apollo know. For Athena’s sake, surely, he’d break his habit of staying frustratingly silent on these matters.

“Breathe, breathe,” Athena hisses to herself. “Breathe in, breathe out—”

Blackquill crosses his arms over his chest. After watching him for three trials, Apollo still wouldn’t say he’s got a read on him at all, wouldn’t say he understands if the man has any tics - but maybe Apollo just hasn’t seen them yet. Because Blackquill’s mouth twists, his nose twitches; it might be disgust, and it might be barely disguised fury, and maybe it doesn’t have to be exclusive, one or the other, because those are related emotions. He doesn’t turn his glare from Means but closes his eyes instead, face slackening, like he’s trying to calm himself.

“Hey, shut the hell up, man!” Robin yells. She starts forward for the witness stand, her hands in fists, and Hugh grabs her by the upper arm. “Athena’s a great lawyer! She saved the friendship between Hugh and Juniper and me! And she figured out the secret I couldn’t tell, so I can live my life as a girl again! She is G-R-E-A-T and I don’t wanna hear another word against her, you lying meanie!”

“But I did,” Athena says. Her voice rings out clear and steady despite the way that her body trembles. “I did raise false charges against Hugh. And that - I could have - I could’ve done something unforgivable - I would have—”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Hugh says with a shrug. He still hasn’t let go of Robin, and that’s probably the better choice. “It happens. There wouldn’t be defense attorneys if it didn’t. It’s not like I’m mad - it’s really more like you’ve given me a chance to reevaluate. You’re an honest lawyer and I didn’t think it was possible, for an honest lawyer to do all you’ve done.”

Athena blinks. Apollo hopes that’s a good sign, considering she hasn’t for the minute prior. “But I still haven’t done - what does it matter if I can’t save Juniper?”

“I believe in you, Thena!” Juniper stands from her chair, her hands clenched at her sides. “I haven’t given up! You can’t either! And I know you won’t! I know you can do this, Thena.”

A strangled sound emerges from Athena’s mouth, like a wheeze interrupting a hiccup or sob. “Athena, breathe,” Apollo says.

She tips forward and braces herself against the bench with one hand, the other arm still pressed tight against her stomach. “I c-can’t.” Her valiant attempt at inhaling breaks down into uneven, shuddering gasps. “I c-can’t. I—”

“Perhaps it would help you breathe if you were to cease this pathetic bleating of yours.”

Apollo is ready to yell at him, because someone has to and Robin has already laid into Means, but Athena finally slowly raises her head. “Prosecutor Blackquill?” she asks in a faint, broken whisper.

Blackquill shakes his head. “No more of such foolish words as you have just now spouted.” Is this - is this Blackquill’s attempt at reassurance? Has the world and the court finally gone mad? “You became a lawyer for a reason, did you not? What would come of it should you give up on all of the work that you have done thus far?” He slams his forearm on the bench and leans forward, his eyes sharp and his mouth pressed in a tight frown. “It would hardly do for you to quit now and disappoint a certain someone who has been waiting for you all this time!”

“I—” Athena stares at him, her mouth hanging open, but her breathing has begun to steady from moments ago, and she slowly straightens up, drawing her shoulders back from the way she curved in on herself.

“Ha!” Means’ laugh isn’t a very convincing one. “Isn’t this a precious little waste-of-time effort you’ve undertaken! But it is, I assure you, meaningless. You have nothing on me, and no plan to create anyone else’s guilt! Your case ends here.”

“Oh shut up,” Apollo says irritably, deciding that if Phoenix and Athena are going to be swearing in court on the regular now, he can definitely get away with that. Ignoring Means’ indignant sputtering, he turns back to Athena. “You okay?” She nods. “You’re doing fine, I promise. We’re still going to prove that the truth can win against people like him, all right?”

“But how?” Athena asks. “What am I supposed to do now, Apollo? He’s right, we don’t have any evidence against him!”

No evidence. That’s the problem that Phoenix kept running up against. What does it take to break an honest lawyer? For Phoenix, it was no evidence. But god damn it, Athena has only been a lawyer for six months and when Apollo had been a lawyer for six months, Phoenix gave him the Jurist System to solve that one particular issue. They don’t have the Jurist System now. They might never have it again. Evidence is everything now, and all Athena has is Apollo, and Apollo doesn’t even have a theory. If they can pull together a plausible theory, they can look for evidence in the places their theory maps out. But they need the theory.

“Take a deep breath,” he says - she’s started to look frantic again. Not on the cusp of breakdown, thankfully, but frantic, and that won’t help her think clearly. “And we’ll look back over the whole case. There’s still truth to be found, and I believe in you that you can find it.” The sickly expression remains on her face. Is there something he can do about that, too? “Hey, Athena. Remember what Mr Wright says?” That saying that she in particular so enthusiastically took to. “ ‘The worst of times—’”

“—‘force their biggest smiles’,” Athena finishes. Okay, so maybe they skipped a bit in the middle there. “Right. I’ve got it.” She shakes her head back, her ponytail swinging behind her shoulder, and props her hands on her hips. She doesn’t actually smile, which Apollo can’t blame her for, but even with Widget glowing bright fierce angry red, she appears more at ease than she has for a while. “Think it over.” She squeezes her eyes shut and her whole face scrunches in concentration.

The body was moved in the midst of the mock trial, but didn’t have to be moved far, because the murder took place on the stage and the body had to have been hidden on the stage. What was moved via the banner wire was the other statue, so that Means could draw attention to the body and have it discovered when he wanted it to be discovered. It had to have been on the stage, and it can’t have been suspicious. It’s possible that there could have been some other objects involved in stage-setup that would have been capable of storing a body, but if they weren’t on the stage when Phoenix and Athena got there, then Means had to move it away, and that would have increased the time he spent there and increased his chances of being caught. Seems unlikely that there was anything more. So then, what was on the stage when they got there? Apollo didn’t get much of a glimpse of the initial scene. The mockup benches on stage - what were those made of? Could they have hollowed-out insides, possible to be lifted and have a body dragged beneath? What did the rope bruises on Courte’s wrists mean?

Athena’s eyes snap open. “I’ve got it!” she says. “Apollo, you remember how when we were repairing the statues” - more like when she and Klavier were and Apollo was just kind of there, but sure - “and we couldn’t find any chunks of the boss’ statue large enough to put it back together?” He nods, with no idea where she’s going with this. “And the court will recall how remarkable a feat it seemed that Professor Means could finish the statue of Mr Wright so quickly, when it took Robin so much longer on the other statue. And I can tell you why that is!”

Yep, Apollo has no idea where this is going. “He never built the statue!” Athena continues triumphantly. “It was all an illusion - he hid the body by making it look like the statue of Mr Wright! And with the statues covered by cloth, no one would know what was actually beneath!”

“Wait, what?” Apollo asks.

“Now this will be interesting,” Blackquill says.

What Apollo has come to realize is that he could not be a prosecutor. Not for any reason of principles - arrests have to be made, people are guilty of crimes, and an honest prosecutor is as important to the pursuit of justice as an honest defense attorney, even if both seem in unfortunately short supply these days - but because the prosecution don’t seem to be able to operate with a co-counsel. The closest they get is working as a team with the same detective, and that wouldn’t suit Apollo. What he needs is someone at the bench with him who can come up with utterly batshit theories that escaped his brain because they were, as stated, utterly batshit.

This is going in his journal as the weirdest thing he’s done in a trial. Because certainly weirder things have happened in trials - Kristoph’s shimmering, flickering glamour as it broke, or Blackquill starting to transform to a nine-tailed fox - but Apollo did not hold an active part in those incidents. Apollo is taking a very active role in helping to turn Athena into a sheet-covered statue mockup of the corpse at the crime scene.

Apollo is actively facilitating Athena’s outlandish theory - and less outlandish every second judging from Means’ face, furious instead of laughing it off. The trial takes a ten minute recess to hunt down the props that Athena will need to display her theory: a large sheet, a chair, some rope, and just in case, some duct tape. It feels like preparation for one of Trucy's tricks but if she were here it would be easy, and the Magic Panties would provide, but instead Apollo breathlessly rushes back into the courtroom at the end of ten minutes with a large pink sheet that’s going to have to work one way or another.

What is a co-counsel for but to help you fill in the gaps of your mad ventures? Athena figures out why the professor’s hands were tied and how they were positioned behind her head; Apollo reminds her that Courte had an arrow sticking out of her body and duct-tapes it to her side; they test those two facts together and find that the arrow isn’t long enough to make a convincing statue arm, but Athena notices that Means’ staff certainly could have. Reluctantly, Means hands it over; Athena holds it in place and Apollo shakes out the sheet to toss over her head again. Somehow even that is an ordeal. She got stuck in it last time she removed it, to swap the arrow for the staff, and now Apollo can barely get it tossed up over her head. Fabric doesn’t throw very well. He shakes it out and tries again and this time a cold gust of wind catches beneath it, billowing it upward spread like a parachute to drape neatly over Athena’s head.

Apollo glances at Blackquill. He has stood silent watching - it seems promising that he hadn’t been heckling them - and his arms are crossed, but he slowly lowers the hand he had just slightly raised up off from where it rested on his upper arm, like he made a little wave to direct the wind. Seeing Apollo watching him, he raises an eyebrow.

The courthouse has time and again seen manic laughter within its walls. Athena’s at least is different, triumphant, from underneath the pink sheet where her hands behind her head make the form of a large spiky head of hair, and the staff an extended pointing objection arm. All they’ll need to do now is test the staff for traces of blood, and Means’ guilt will be ascertained.

The proud, proud professor falls apart the way criminals all do, begging and pleading and wheedling for a way out, any loophole or last desperate reason that it isn’t them; cursing the names of everyone involved in their downfalls, everyone but themselves. And Means falls apart, literally, his words becoming more incoherent in his desperation, until they don’t sound like any words of any language Apollo has ever heard. They’re just noises from a man who has finally lost at every game he has played for years, and his voice grows softer and the clack of his teeth together, a horrid sound that makes Apollo acutely aware of all of the nerves in his own teeth that would be giving him pain if he were the one doing that.

He should just steel himself for what Clay calls “Fair Folk fuckery” at the end of every trial. He should expect it by now. And maybe he does, but with the myriad possibilities of their curses and consequences playing out, how does he brace himself when he doesn’t know what’s coming?

He assumes this is fae. What else could it be? Maybe an accident, the first time that Means’ mouth snaps shut and then he opens it and there is blood on his teeth and a chipped white piece of one falling into his hand. Maybe he just spent most of his life putting too much stress on those bones and one of them was already breaking apart before today. But without catalyst a second tooth cracks apart and drops from his open mouth, and another, and Apollo glances away from the spectacle, can’t close out of his mind the blood streaming down Means’ teeth.

“Ugh,” Widget groans, and Athena presses a hand over her mouth. Juniper, sickly green, covers her eyes with her hands. Only Blackquill has the stomach to not turn away, his narrowed eyes fixed on the witness stand and gleaming silver, equally cold and piercing as the yellow glare of the hawk on his shoulder.

#roddy fanfics #fic: the witches of los angeles

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